Disclaimer: Basically the same drill. I do not own the Alien, Predator, or AVP franchises, just having a bit o' fun. Any resemblance to persons, yautjas,and xenomorphs, living or dead, is purely coincidental. No peanuts were harmed in the writing of this story.
Prologue
"But how did you catch it?" asked the tech.
"Through sheer dumb luck; it took a dozen of my men to subdue it, and even then it was a bitch of a job." Stan Murphy admired the creature in the armored crate. "Damn thing is going back to Vulcanville. The boys are going to have their entertainment after all."
If you survive the extraordinary things, it is often the little things that will kill you.
"Well Pete, aren't you going to ask me the question?"
Pete looked up and found himself staring at Captain Dora of the Jolly Cephalopod. She wore a lovely yellow wader, and she carried a mean looking spear gun.
"Uh, I thought you were on the bridge, getting ready to land and stuff." Pete scratched at his forehead with a butter knife.
"I thought you'd enjoy scrambled eggs for breakfast so I came up with a plate," replied Captain Dora.
Pete sighed and said, "What about the question you asked me before?"
"What question?"
"For goodness sakes, I'm trying to salvage what's left of my research! Why can't I have a peaceful and normal breakfast?" Pete slammed his butter knife down.
"That's a good boy!" Captain Dora looked pleased.
"What the---"
There was a scratching noise and Pete found himself shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth. They were the creamiest he ever had and he relished the slightly tangy taste of the rich eggs. His mind wandered, and he soon forgot his annoyance as he ate more of the eggs. Pete began to wonder why he was angry before when he spied a grinning Captain Dora out of the corner of his eye. He lowered his fork and looked at her. Pete didn't know why, but his gaze returned to the scrambled eggs before him. Slowly, he looked up at the captain.
"Captain Dora? I thought we ran out of powdered eggs shortly after we left Deneb Prime."
"Correctomundo, we actually did run out of powdered eggs!" cheerfully answered the captain as she sat across from Pete.
"Well, where did you get these?" Pete pointed at the plate before him. He noticed the scrambled eggs didn't look so appealing anymore. Normal powdered eggs should not look too leathery and gelatinous when reconstituted.
"Ah, well, you know? Waste not, want not."
"What do you mean? What's with the eggs?" screeched Pete all of a sudden. He tried to suppress another screech as he saw a facehugger appear out of nowhere, but it did not attempt to launch itself at his face. Instead, it started to dance the tarantella.
Nora grinned mischievously and said, "Remember those xenomorph eggs you had the Colonial Marines destroy? tip tappity tap tap tap…Well, I thought that they might be edible and since they were puréed and the acid neutralized…tip tap tappity tap…we could have them for for for...What's wrong, dear? Why are you trying to shove your finger down your throat?" tip tappity tap tap tap
Pete was having a strange internal experience. It felt as if his organs were on strike. He can feel something trying to claw its way out and as he gaped, he let out a burp of hurricane force that took off the wig that covered the top of Captain Dora's head. It revealed, in the blink of an eye, a shiny black exoskeleton that elongated into an all too familiar and most malignant xenomorph, the bane of humankind. Pete's eyes bulged as the alien thing that was once the brave captain hissed in rage.
Pete Loligo, xenobiologist, soon felt a squirming presence within him, and as he opened his mouth wide to emit a horrendous yell, a creature burst from his chest like a grisly jack in a box. Pete Loligo, now a rapidly dying human husk, was very much relieved when darkness fell and all he heard was the dwindling cacophony of screaming xenomorphs.
Pete woke up screaming. Damn, now that was one diabolical dream! If it were possible to film this nightmare, it would have been a straight-to-webcast horror flick thought Pete as he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. In his haste to get out of bed, he leapt from his bunk only to land barefooted on a spiny oyster carelessly left on the floor by his assistant Gus during his Terran mollusk collection inventory. The morning peace was broken by a shriek similar to one made by a hysterical soul given a second chance in the same body and upon returning to earth finding that body being used as a specimen for pre-med students.
"What's with all that screaming?" asked Captain Dora as she looked over the computer readouts.
"I don't know. It could be those hinges on the door to the head. Nobody's ever oiled them before and they sure do sound like somebody stepping on a Terran spiny oyster after jumping out of bed," answered a Marine.
"Oh, well, have them oiled. I thought we were keeping a clean ship here!"
"Aye, Captain! Hey, look at Doctor Pete! He's all gimpy. I wonder if he's the one who's been dancing all night to wake the dead!"
The captain turned and watched Pete limp towards her with a grin on his face and a maniacal gleam to his eyes.
"Hi Captain," said Pete shyly.
"Hi Doctor Pete," replied Captain Dora. "Did you by any chance hear the squeaky hinges this morning? They must have been loud enough to wake the dead. All that tortured screeching is enough to drive somebody mad."
"Uh, that was me, Nora. I stepped on something that wasn't meant to be stepped on."
Never be the first, never be the last, and never volunteer for anything.
The older warriors would say Dtai'kai'-dte sa-de nau'gkon dtain'aun bpi-de: The fight begun will not end until the end. It was always all about Dtai'kai'-dte sa-de nau'gkon dtain'aun bpi-de.
It was a saying drilled into Va'ar'ide ever since he started to train for The Hunt. He remembered his days as a young sucker, spending nearly every morning of every day along with his peers, writing that same tired old saying a thousand times in a row. They were chained to their desks until they were finished with that particular drill, but he couldn't find fault with writing exercises that strengthened his wrists.
This first Hunt was not the smashing success Va'ar'ide had hoped for. He managed to kill one kainde amedha drone during the Hunt, technically making him a Blooded hunter, but it was just that one drone. His reason for killing only one drone was due to his chance meeting with a tentacle-covered creature that wanted him for an afternoon snack. He finally killed the beast after a very long and uncomfortable wrestling match in the creature's noxious lair.
Unfortunately, the creature didn't have a skull to take as a trophy and bringing in something soft and flaccid wouldn't go down too well with his Leader and peers; there might be a microscopic chance of grudging praise from the Leader, but probably ridicule and scorn from the more experienced Blooded warriors traveling with them. He saw his chance to acquire at least one more trophy when the Leader asked a volunteer to hunt down the last hard meat. It was only one more trophy, but the prestige of ending the Hunt would give him some points in the status game.
Va'ar'ide had to beat up a few of his fellow yautjas for the volunteer position. He was looking forward to the assignment and when the Leader told him that the hunt will not be on the planet they were on now, but on another planet populated by oomans, Va'ar'ide could feel his excitement building up. It was soon apparent that Va'ar'ide's task was only to hunt down and kill the drone. Oomans were an unknown quantity and might be too much for a Youngblood to handle, so he had to avoid the oomans as much as possible (yeah, right, it was more likely that the little shits would go after him anyways just for pauking curiosity's sake.) That lessened his excitement somewhat, but he was going to gain another trophy after all.
Curious to know how a hard meat drone managed to leave the planet without anyone's knowledge, Va'ar'ide asked the Leader, Yaun'thei-de. Strangely, he received an enigmatic reply.
"If you drop a Blooded yautja in full hunter's gear on a planet in the middle of nowhere with a ship in good working order, you tell him not to touch the sole ooman living on the planet. When you return half a cycle later, you will find the yautja dead, the planet covered in kainde amedha, the ship smashed to pieces, the ooman trying to leave with you, and all because oomans gotta pauk with shit!"
Va'ar'ide was still puzzled and cocked his head quizzically until Yaun'thei-de further explained the situation.
"A bunch of pauk-de oomans walked in while we were supervising you and your fellow suckers. Those little turds were fast and before we knew what was going on, they flew off with one of the hard meat drones. G'kounte should have been watching for intruders, but he was too busy fending off the amorous advances of the herpetoid species that inhabit this planet."
"Oh, I see," nodded Va'ar'ide as he noticed poor G'kounte trying to disentangle himself from the love struck serpent coiling around his waist.
"For Cetanu's sake, why don't you just kill the thing!" yelled an older warrior.
"I can't! It's female and unarmed…See! No legs…no arms…ugh, get off!" roared G'kounte.
"Now let's find someone to accompany you on your little jaunt." Yaun'thei-de called the older Blooded hunters to him, except for G'kounte, and taking up a bunch of hard meat claws, he took one and snapped it in half, making it shorter than the rest. The experienced yautjas then took one claw. Yaun'thei-de then asked which one had the short claw. As the other hunters started to clatter and gurgle with laughter, one yautja raised his taloned hand.
The yautja who picked the short claw had his back turned to Va'ar'ide, making it hard for him to see who it was. He was hoping it was the hulij-bpe hunter Va'ar'ide's fellow students talked about all the time. Sure enough, it turned out to be that particular one.
To say that Ny'ra'dur was strange in the brain would be an understatement. A warrior who walked a fine line between audacity and sheer lunacy, it was said that when he was called out to a Death-Challenge by another yautja demanding satisfaction, Ny'ra'dur showed up completely naked with only a ki'cti-pa as his choice of weapon. The befuddled challenger did not know whether to fight or be embarrassed by the whole thing, so Ny'ra'dur dispatched the unfortunate fellow.
Ny'ra'dur was also one of those rare individuals whose luck appeared to never run out. The females on the Homeworld adored him, and there were many songs sung about his feats. Trophies, both strange and ordinary, covered his dwelling. Being the recipient of the Wer'da'pauk'arwi Award nine cycles in a row was due to Ny'ra'dur's uncanny gift of finding the most unusual hunting worlds and hunting the most belligerent apex predators each world had to offer. Ardent conservationists credited and condemned him for causing the extinction of one predatory species because it turned out the individual he bagged was the last of its kind.
What can one say to a hunter whose answer to every question asked about his trophies was 'Everything tastes like hard meat'?
Va'ar'ide had the warm feeling that this would be a very eventful hunt and that having Ny'ra'dur supervising him would be an honor, hulij-bpe aside.
The Youngblood's warm feeling soon evaporated and was replaced by the strange feeling of insecurity when Ny'ra'dur walked up to him, slammed his hand onto his shoulder, and shook him hard enough to muss up his dreadlocks.
As jolly as can be, Ny'ra'dur leaned in and said, "Trained hard and still had a difficult time on The Hunt, Youngblood? There's nothing wrong with your skills or equipment. The gods just don't like you."
Glossary of Selected Yautja Terms
Kainde amedha Literally 'hard meat'; xenomorphs; the exoskeleton hard asses that refuses to die when you want them to, plus they have the tendency of taking you along with them to be infested by their toothy maggots.
Hulij-bpe Crazy; a skull short of a trophy wall, a spearhead short of a spear, etc.
Pauk -de, -ing Similar to the human expletive F! Often used in conjunction with the word ooman, esp. in this story.
Ki'cti-pa The wrist gauntlet with the lethal double blades of varying length; used for slicing, dicing, and gutting of various prey.
Cetanu A yautja deity of death.
Yautja What they (the Predators) call themselves.
Ooman or Pyode amedha What they (the Predators) call us; at times used in a derogatory fashion; literally 'soft meat.'
Wer'da'pauk'arwi An award given to the yautja who finds the most unusual hunting grounds; it is also a club with different chapters throughout the universe; similar to the human's Werdafukarwi Club, which gave Vulcanville 3 stars for having the most illegal entertainments.