PROLOGUE
Gunnison, Colorado
October 18, 2004
6:09 a.m.
Pain. It was all the Yautja have known in their existences. Pain, Death, and above all, Honor. Regardless, this was excruciating. And it was the very first thing Anon felt when he regained consciousness. He opened his good eye to experience sheer darkness. A brief moment of panic rippled through him as he feared the worst. He had gone completely blind…but searching, he found a ray of light. His eyesight was saved, and he mentally accosted himself for assuming. Growling deeply, he flexed his muscles. He was weak, severely weak. Loss of blood would be the probable cause. He tried to raise his left arm, and encountered a solid form. Two solid forms, actually. One was obviously inorganic, perhaps rubble from the humans' building. The other was tough, but of a living organism. Anon coughed deeply, and heard his breath rattle. Then remembered he had been impaled by…something. He'd come to earth to wipe out a Serpent infestation. But there was something special, something horrid. An affront to the Yautja culture.
THE ABOMINATION.
He'd fought the vile creature in a one-on-one duel that ended in a stalemate. Tensing the muscles in his right forearm, an action that brought forth indescribable agony, he retracted his wristblades from the Abomination's head. He grabbed the Serpent's tail blade that jutted from his chest, barely missing his heart, and pushed down as he raised his body upwards. More torment followed, along with his fresh life blood. He had to be cautious. Anon couldn't afford to lose much more of it. Putting his right hand around the creature's tail, he yanked out the remainder, and then collapsed. Anon chose to rest for a moment. A quarter of an hour later, he flexed his left forearm, and his power glove formed around his fist. Rearing back, his arm launched forward, and in an explosive display of power, blew a massive chunk of debris away. He flexed, and the glove disassembled back into its compact form around his wrist console. Anon rose to his feet, steadily, and after breathing in the inferior human air, observed his wounds.
There was a considerable sized hole in his torso, but it was not fatal. Just another battle scar. His right hand, however…it was charred to the bone. In a rash moment of separation, he had impaled the Abomination through the head with his wristblades. The acidic blood poured from its head, all over his hand and the ground. Anon put what little power he had in his deformed hand to use, and activated his wrist console. His ship had been destroyed hours ago, so he sent a homing beacon for a replacement to come. It would be here within half an hour. Anon turned back to the temporary tomb. After a moment's pause, he climbed back in, and grabbed the corpse of the Half-Breed. As he dragged it out, he saw a faint glimmer of red. Peering closer, he saw his mask, covered in ash, but otherwise unharmed. He grabbed it, and put it on. The refreshing burst of his native air reinvigorated him, and with a newfound burst of energy, jumped out of the pit, carrying the 1000+ lb creature on his back. He landed, and scanned the area…or rather, lack of one. The humans had callously dropped a nuclear weapon upon their own people, wiping away any existence of life. Dropping the corpse on the charred ground, he used his wrist console to scan for life within a 50 mile radius. Next to the occasional bit of local wildlife that inhabited the surviving forestry, he was the only thing with a pulse. Satisfied, he turned to the corpse.
Taking out an ancient ceremonial dagger attached to his left calf, he grabbed the Abomination by the tendrils jutting from underneath its crest. He lifted, so that its head rose up with the back of its neck exposed, and struck down. In a clean stroke, he lopped the creature's head off. Minimal blood flow came from the neck stump as the body thudded against the ground. With the creature's head in his left hand, he raised it to the sky and bellowed in victory. He hooked the tendrils to his belt, and continued his work. Anon snapped off one of the fingers from the creature, and put this through a loop in his belt. Scanning it, he saw nothing left worthy of a trophy…except its tail. With the ease and precision of a master butcher, he cleaved the blade from the rest of the appendage, and likewise kept this on his belt. Then, he knelt in reflection by the disembodied corpse. This was likely to be kept for study by the humans…so, with his ship lowering in to the atmosphere, he pulled out his last vial of dissolvent, and poured it onto the Abomination's remains. The last bit of it faded, and Anon walked into his ship. First…he needed to tend his wounds. Dropping off his trophies in the trophy room, and setting the ship on route to Yautja Prime, he walked into the infirmary. Lying upon the evaluation table, the automated med-unit went to work. It disinfected the wound, stapled it shut, and cauterized it. Then, scanning his right hand, the med-unit stated that the best course of action would be to replace the ruined appendage with a cybernetic replacement. Technology made it so he could completely control the limb, and even feel with it via artificial nerves. Growling with displeasure, Anon relented. Almost immediately, clamps held his arm still as a nanovibronic buzz saw sliced through his wrist. Anon roared in fury and anguish, as the med-unit killed every nerve in his wrist stump. Then, it built the new limb piece by piece. After 10 minutes, the med-unit reactivated his nerves. It felt as if the limb had never been gone. Surgery complete, Anon got up, and walked to the pilot chair. Suddenly exhausted, he collapsed into the chair, growling softly, almost purring. Being delivered into Cetanu's grasp, then escaping the Black Warrior's clutches drained you of energy. So, it was not long before Anon fell into a deep sleep. Yautja Prime awaited…