A/N: This story follows the plot of hayj's "Only fools are enslaved by space and time" and my own collection of one-shots, "Sanctuary". It deals with the lives of the settlers on the Game Planet and those of their children. The story will be focused mainly on the Riddicks and their brood (Jack, Marcus, Richie B. and Zoey) and the Royces (Carolyn Two, Mason and Arianna), but characters introduced either by me or hayj will also be making appearances. This project is something I've been meaning to get to for some time and, as hayj can attest, I'm quite excited about it. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I'm enjoying myself writing it!

DISCLAIMER: Predators / Pitch Black AU, which means I own nothing, except what hayj graciously lets me play with.

The Rapture

- a prologue -

Afterwards, Carolyn could remember everything with striking clarity. It had been a nice warm day, cool enough to have lunch outside, something that didn't happen often in the blistering heat of a Sanctuary mid-day. They'd all been home, Riddick and their kids, ribbing good-naturedly in her yard. But it was Jack who reacted first. She'd been stepping outside, arms laden with food, when he charged for her. For a moment she'd been reminded of a much younger Jack, when it had been just them and his chubby hands around her knees.

Later, she could vividly remember all their faces too. Jack's anguished cry and Riddick's cold stare, a half apology in his silvery eyes as he turned from her and dove for Marcus and Zoey. She could remember Richie B.'s unsmiling face as she waited for Jack's arms to hug her tight and make everything better. But they never came. What did come was a blinding light and in a flash, all her children were gone.

Isabelle had been arguing with Royce, hating him for not giving up, loving him for not giving up on them, when there was no more them. Just Bob outside the window, his head canted low, a stunned Ari in his too tight grip. Her daughter had looked so small and frightened and the last thing Isabelle heard was glass splintering as Royce flew through the window with a growl, before the light came and the pain and then the nothingness of absence.

Ramona Vargas had her knife between her father's legs and her gun pressed snugly to his temple and was whispering softly to him "If you ever look at me the wrong way again,…" when the world blacked out and then exploded in a million shards of light. Before falling on his considerably shitty ass, Pedro's last coherent thought for the longest time was that he'd been getting too attached to her anyway.

He'd been arguing with Willie again, when it happened. Out on the cattle field, where grazing three legged beasts were trudging their heavy udders or brandishing their sharp horns to the sun and broken stars of Sanctuary.

"A lame horse is a dead horse, boy, and there's no two way 'bout it!" Willie was spittin' in kinda hard, but Mace paid him no mind, intent as he was on the task Willie found so pointless.

When he straightening himself out, unfurling his staggering height – thank you, Dad – Mason Royce looked like the good Lord's Angel of Vengeance walking this unholy Earth, but the boy had a heart made of sugar and brain made of fluff, Willie had always thought. Which amused Mace. He'd learned early on it was always the quiet ones who made it to the end of the game. People like Willie, with his loud prison tats, and loud mouth and loud personality, they didn't stick around for very long. Monsters in Sanctuary had bigger appetites that the ones lurking in the jungle out there.

"This ain't a horse, Willie, and it ain't dead yet!" Mace remembered having said. The animal in question had nuzzled his hand, and hobbled off, a bright gauze wrapped around one of its hind legs.

"Should be as good as new in a couple of days."

But Mace wouldn't know that. Because as soon as he said it, the light came and took him away.

Children of the first settlers went missing all over Sanctuary. Bob was gone. And the force field that had kept the jungle at bay for almost twenty years was now the wall enraged parents were banging their fists against.

No one was going anywhere. The trap had been neat and tidy and long in coming.

So long that they had forgotten.

Forgotten that the Hunters always watched.

Always learned.

And came back better for it.