Six years after abduction
'For three days I have been fighting these damnable Serpents.' An obviously weary and cold voice thought...
A lot had happened since his first hunt. The most notable thing being that Ichigo had grown considerably it the last three years, both physically and mentally.
He had hit and started going through puberty soon after killing that haired reptilian. Back then he was not but a few inches over 4 and a half feet, but now he was only a hair short of being a tall, yet comparatively short six feet. His long, bright orange hair was now done up in several dozen dense and smooth dreadlocks each held together tightly by a multitude of black rings, imitating the 'hair' of the hunters around him, albeit a completely different colour. His physique had also dramatically filled out as well. Instead of the small, toned muscles that was needed of a martial artist, he now had larger, power-orientated muscles, more suitable for that of a heavy weight kick boxer or a brawler.
Although he had great power behind his hits now he definitely was not lacking in speed. Unlike the body's of the Yautja, who's seemed to grow for the sole purpose of physical strength, leaving the gear and weapons to make up for the lack of real dexterity, Ichigo's was not. In fact, they had soon learned that he was becoming much faster than those who trained him, using his agility to get under their guard and land a few hard punches, which they easily shrugged off, as well as using his greater mobility and much lighter build to use their strikes to propel himself away and out of the fight, landing safely a fair distance from them.
But his strength was definitely not to be underestimated. The most notable displays of this strength are when he proves himself capable of throwing the several hundred pound Yautjas away from himself a few feet, as well as the ability to shatter rock and splinter trees with kicks that he seems to unconsciously empower with the extreme amounts of energy that he constantly emits.
When they had realised that he was essentially a walking power plant they took advantage of it. Usually the three Yautja that were housing him would use the ship's inbuilt solar-charged batteries to re-power some of the equipment they used, much like the Plasma-Caster.
But it was tedious, the power cells took weeks to recharge after being drained and that was if they were close enough to a large star, they also ran the risk of overworking the ships main power supply which would most likely cause it to float powerlessly in space until it had been fixed, which could took a few days. Also another drawback was that when out hunting, any game with a reasonable sense of self-preservation and instinct would flee the moment he came within a hundred yards of them.
But they soon started using him, or rather, his radiant energy to power their equipment. By simply holding their wrist computers near his body they were able to sap the energy that was present in the air that surrounded him. This did not in any way weaken him though. It seemed that the energy they took and used from him was merely his excess output and not the core of his power. Soon after finding this out they had also had soon found a solution to the hunting problem as well.
They had custom made Ichigo a set of armoured clothing, since he had well outgrown the pelt and leather suit that he wore a few years ago. His new gear was much the same as his fellow clan. Dark steel covering the upper left portion of his chest this included both his shoulders and upper arms. He wore thick metal greave on each shin over a simple steel boot and a line of over-lapping armour plates that covered the outside of his thighs. Around his waist was a belt that sported many clips and holsters for equipment and field gear, attached to this hung a knee length loin cloth made of plates of layered metal. All of this was put over a body suit of diamond patterned netting that clung tightly and moulded over every muscle on his body.
This however was not what kept his waves of energy from disturbing their hunts. It was the customised wrist computer that did it. They had managed to get the inbuilt active camouflage system to passively mask his energy's 'presence' and then have it filtered through the wrist computer and into a converted energy pack that would've been used to power some of his gear but instead shoots his power straight back into his body, creating a never ending cycle.
This came with both benefits and drawbacks. The rewards for such a system were: Being able to make his energy signature completely disappear along with an increase in his strength, endurance and speed. But the cost was great. Extended periods of time with the system fully suppressing the power he emitted would be detrimental to his health; he would suffer from cases of extreme bodily pain, where his flesh would start to tear itself apart, his bones would start to break and he would be unable to sleep with all the energy that his body was trying to contain. To fix this, they eventually put a release valve and a gauge of sorts on his filter system, that allowed him to change they degree and amount of power that was being suppressed or released at any given time. Slowly, he began to train his body to endure the extreme pain, gradually increasing the suppression levels over time.
Also the nagging feeling that he had felt many years ago seemed to grow and become a faint murmur in the back of his mind, like somebody was trying to talk to him, but couldn't because they were behind a soundproofed wall.
It was around four days ago that Ichigo had been told that he would be participating in a Rite of Passage along with two other youngbloods, on a long abandoned planet that had been overrun years ago by an infestation of Xenomorphs, or Serpents as the Yautja have come to calling them, they're a large insect-like species, most noticeable by their jet black carapace and long heads, they often take on characteristics of their hosts when they are growing inside of them, like bodily structure or unique features.
The population on the planet had seemed to begin to dwindle and had been chosen for eradication through combat, making this the objective of the Rite of Passage for Ichigo and the two other youngbloods, since he had been deemed old and now strong enough to participate.
Having gotten his Bio-Mask along with all this armour and other gear, he was now able to communicate with the Yautja he lived with. The guessing game he had played with them, which was, trying to figure out what he had been told, was now no longer an issue since the blank metal mask seemed to have a translation system built into it. He had found out from their clan leader that if he didn't have the Bio-Mask he would be unable to even participate in the ritual, since the atmosphere on the planet would kill him if he tried to breath it.
Also with the language barrier broken he had found out the clan names that they each had. Their leader was named Dark Knife and the two he was going with were Heartless and Warhorse. He was told he had been given the name Dead Eye. They said it was because of how his left eye didn't have any life in it whenever he wouldn't have his mask on. That. And whenever they used to hunt his whole expression seemed to be dead, like his concentration had killed him but his body kept moving.
But ever since the start of his Rite of Passage his chances of actually dying had risen tremendously.
At the start of his trail, three days ago, he was dropped on the stretch of earth and told to eliminate the last of the hive of Xenomorphs that had taken up residence on this part of the unknown planet. It started out as a simple sweep and clear and was rather easy for Ichigo and the two other youngbloods, simply going through various sandstone tunnels that were scattered across a seemingly endless amounts of arid sandy plains, clearing each of the three or four residents that it was harbouring and then moving onto the next, it soon got very monotonous and dull. It wasn't till the second day's rising sun that all hell broke loose.
They were camped on top of a enormous hill, one side of it was sheer cliff face, the other was a gradual slope. When they heard the distinct screeching of the Serpents they turned in its direction. All they saw was an ocean of black erupting from a large crevice and crack on hillside that led up to their current position.
How had they not picked up on the presence of this many Serpents?! How deep did the nest go? Had they been wrong and were those ones they had killed only been sentries or guardians for the greater hive of bees?
The Xenomorphs were numerous but they were small, much smaller than the ones that they were killing yesterday, but definitely just as dangerous and not to be underestimated at any cost.
All three hunters had since sprung into action after seeing the metaphorical eruption of shining black bodies flood out of the ground. Each took up their own personal weapons and got ready to fight for their lives. Even though they were severely out numbered and more than likely outmatched, they would not back down and they could not retreat, their honour wouldn't allow them to do such acts, to do such thing was cowardly and was shameful to the Yautja race.
All three fired off their charged up Plasma-Casters, discharged the super heated energy and with a large explosion, the fight for survival had begun...
Minutes felt like hours. Hours, like days and Days, weeks. It never seemed to stop. But in reality it had only been about a day and a half since the gates of hell opened up, it was agonisingly slow either way.
Warhorse had fallen. He had gotten overconfident in his own strength and abilities to eliminate the Xeno's with his Glaive, while the spear like weapon was incredibly efficient at cleaving through waves of the serpents at a medium range with only a single swing. It had a few fatal flaws. The main being that once they got within his swinging range and managed to survive the deadly arc of the bladed pole's swing, there was little he could do about it that was remotely efficient, lest he drop his glaive and fight with his fists and Wrist Blades. So once a few finally got under his swing and he tried to deal with them, everything went downhill.
He became distracted by the three Serpents that got under his guard, he had tried bringing his weapon around full circle and take them out by increasing the distance between them, as to get them at the end of his blade, but once his back was turned they had jumped, landing their five foot tall bodies on his much larger nine and a half foot frame, they instantly began driving their razor sharp claws along with the tips of their tails into the exposed sections of flesh, causing him to stop the wide swing of the glaive and focus on getting the pests off his body. That was the mistake that cost him his life.
The moment he had stopped his brutally efficient swings the rest of the Xenomorphs had charged launching themselves at his body, overpowering him, their weight to much to bear, he collapsed to the ground with a bestial roar and was then covered by the Serpents, as they started shredding him piece by piece, limb by limb, inevitably bringing his death.
Dead Eye and Heartless however were still alive and fairing a bit better than Warhorse had been as they had been working together in a weird sort of tandem.
Heartless, who had specialised in ranged combat more than anything, was supporting Ichigo from a short distance away, firing off well aimed shots with his duel Plasma-Casters, additionally throwing the hyper-deadly Smart-Disk, a discus like weapon with a bladed edge and capable of ripping through multiple personnel with a single throw, then return to its owner in a very boomerang like fashion, making it very efficient at cleaving through rings of the slowly decreasing number of Serpents.
Dead Eye, or rather, Ichigo, was in the thick of it all. Going tooth and nail against the Xenos with his fists, legs and blades. Said blades were the same elongated fillet knife he had used on his first hunt, he also used Wrist Blades, a pair of protruding, eight inch long blades that are connected to his right wrist bracer and are capable of retracting and extending back out at will. These, mixed with his enhanced strength and endurance made him an incredibly powerful warrior, but he could feel his bones creaking under the strain of his power, at roughly fifty percent being compressed the repercussions of such strenuous activity and for such an extended amount of time were beginning to arise and hinder Ichigo's performance. And though he had not suffered any real external injuries, the only thing that had seemed to be keeping him from being torn apart was his armour, which was slowly being dismantled and removed from his body by the Xenomorphs that would grab onto him hoping to bring him down, only to receive a blade to the face causing near instant death.
Ichigo's body itself seemed to be resisting their physical attacks. Their claws would not pierce his skin and the tails would bounce off his body when they tried to impale him. This had confused him at first but he noticed the veins around where he was being struck would always be inked and pulsating with power, so he figured that the amount of compression that his power was at gave him some kind of hyper-resilience. This had proven to be a life saver on many occasions, but it did nothing to protect him from the Xenomorphs acidic blood if any got on him and stayed on him.
He had learnt that the hard way after having half of this left hand buried inside the head of one Xeno from the powerful cross chop.
The whittling number of Serpents was looking to be a good sign for Ichigo, but he had noticed that the majority of them were changing their focus of attention onto Heartless.
He wasn't firing his shoulder mounts any more, so he had more than likely ran out of the energy that powered the Casters. So he was now reduced to holding his Smart-Disk and using it at as a melee weapon, plus his own Wrist Blades. But since he had specialised in ranged combat he had less hand to hand experience than the other two clan brothers that were with him. And it was slowly beginning to prove disastrous for him, as he had started taking heavy hits.
Not willing to die by the hands of the ravenous Serpents who have been deemed by the Yautja to not be a worthy hunt or foe in anyway due to them being seen as a pest in need of eradication. So he chose to die by the only form of honourable suicide that would provide adequate termination for not only his own body, so that it would not be recovered by anyone, but also the bodies of the surrounding Xenomorphs.
A built-in Self-Detonation device on his wrist computer.
"Dead Eye!" Heartless' harsh voice rang out.
Hearing his clan name be called, Ichigo turned briefly to see Heartless being overwhelmed by the Serpents and then heard the sound of a loud beeping coming from him.
"Run! Flee! Live to hunt another day! Bring us honour and survive the Rite of Passage!"
Dead Eye knew what he was doing, he had been told about the inbuilt self-destruct sequence that all Yautja had in their wrist computers incase they fail a hunt and couldn't let their technology fall into the wrong hands.
It was dishonourable to run from a hunt that you had started, but Ichigo recognised that it would've been far more dishonourable, possibly maim worthy of the Predator's name and memory, to kill another hunter that was still willing to fight, while ending his own.
Ichigo knew it wouldn't be possible to go through the waves of black bodies and over the slowly dissolving pits of acid-like blood without getting caught in the blast. So he looked towards his only other option. The cliff.
Slowly he began pacing backwards to the edge of the cliff, taking care to not fall down or trip over a carcass and condemn himself to death by the Serpents.
Once he got to the edge he prepared himself, the fall would not kill him if he landed right, so he took his time. But he did not have time to react however as a blinding flash enveloped the area, followed by the body of a Xeno colliding with his front, its claws digging deep into his chest and followed again by an explosion of epic proportions. Next thing Ichigo knew was the feeling of the concussive wave of the bomb's detonation smashing into him, being lifted off his feet and then the feeling of rushing air past his limp cadaver.
After several long moments, Ichigo felt his back collide with the solid earth and could not hold back a pained scream.
The agony of having multiple bones shatter and probably a couple of punctured organs had become only dull pain as his body and mind fought to keep his from blacking out from pain.
How had he survived all of that? Were Ichigo's main thoughts. He didn't know how or why, maybe his compressed energy saved him? Or the ambient power he had been producing into the air acted as a kind of buffer, along with the Serpent that had attached itself to him at the last second but was probably now nothing but a steaming pile of acidic slop.
Lifting his broken arms painfully to where he could see them, he opened his wrist computer and activated the homing beacon that it had set into it, to signal that they had finished the hunt that they were currently on.
He didn't know if that explosion had killed them all. Hell, it had almost killed him! But it was obvious that anything that was caught in that blast were dead and most likely incinerated, so he didn't have to worry about being chased down.
For the next hour he slipped in and out of consciousness while listening to the howling wind of the harsh desert-like planet and the sound of the blood pumping in his ears which had felt like they had burst from the explosion, but apparently hadn't. Lying there half dead on the hard ground he waited, only listening to the wind and the now faint voice in his head that felt strangely warm for a very odd reason. It was like the voice was comforting and praising him for his good work and assuring he would survive and that he just needs to hold on for a while longer. He couldn't truly hear the voice and what it was saying it was mainly just the emotions it conveyed, but maybe in time he would be able to.
The powerful roaring of engines brought him out of his musings, followed by metal against metal and then voices. Dark Knife was here. He would live...
His body being lift was the last thing he felt before passing out.
A Few days later.
Ichigo was surprised when he woke up with only a dull ache in his bones and not the agonising pain that he was expecting to be in. Instantly remembering that Dark Knife had found him and had probably started healing his wounds.
But why could he feel liquid everywhere? And why could he feel, what could only be, a tube going down his throat?
Slowly prying open his eyes they stung at coming into contact with whatever fluid seemed to be surrounding his body, but slowly he adjusted. All he could see was the faint glow of green lights and the blurry movements of flowing water. Reaching out to see if he could feel anything, his left hand touch something in front of him. He ran his fingers along it, he recognised its smooth texture as glass. So was he in some kind of tank? Maybe it's something medical? But the small ship he had been on for the past six years had nothing like this, so was he on a different one?
When multiple things moved in his vision beyond the glass his hand was pressed against it confirmed his theory, there had only been three other Yautja on that ship and two of them were now dead. But since he was now suspended in a what he thought was a liquid healing tank or something of the likes and could see multiple, very big, distinct shapes moving in his vision he knew he was no longer on that hellish planet or on the ship that he had nearly spent half his life in.
He heard some loud beeping from just outside the thing that he was in and the currents in the water around him started to gradually slow, until they finally stopped and the liquid became stagnant. Finally able to properly see he noticed that he had a large respiratory mask attached to his face, that explained the tube going into his lungs.
He was also stripped bare again, like that mattered at all, he had stopped caring what state of dress he was in when around others a long time ago, he hunted practically half naked anyway, so he didn't see any problem with being fully exposed. His hair had also been undone from its tight dreadlocks apparently, as he observed the mass of strawberry-blonde hair floating around his head.
He saw things move in his vision again. Looking back out of the chamber he noticed there were three Yautja just outside the tank he was floating in. Two he didn't recognise, but the third one he knew instantly from having memorised the skin colour and patches of scales that mottled his face. It was Dark Knife.
Ichigo watched as the tallest of the three walked up to the glass and stood there. He could see the features far more clearly than the others now that the Yautja was up close. His own eyes widened quite a bit.
Was this a female? It must've been. He had talked to the other huntsmen while on the first ship about them and how to identify them amongst the males of their race.
Larger physique? Check.
Softer facial features? Check.
More vibrant and ornate colour range? Check.
She was definitely female.
They had also told him about how they were much less numerous than the males. Meaning that should he meet one, they should be treated with incredible amounts of respect, since the survival of their race is almost dependant on them being the only one capable of reproducing and birthing offspring.
So not wishing to disrespect her by staring at her like an endangered animal, he lowered his gaze to his feet and avoided eye contact.
He heard a something being pressed against the glass of the tank he was in but dared not look up in case he do something that may upset the female. A minute later he heard a quick tap on the glass, she wanted his attention. He warily brought his gaze up, she was still standing there but he kept going and kept lifting his view until he was looking straight at her. She was slightly closer to the glass and she had her right hand, -which only had four fingers, most likely lost the fifth some time ago by the looks of the space between her pinky and middle finger- pressed up against the outside surface of the glass pane.
Looking at the hand for a moment, then to her briefly. He hesitantly brought up his left. Not seeing her take her own hand away, he placed it against the glass right where hers was.
It was massive compared to his own, and he noted that he now also was missing a digit. His entire little finger was gone, as well as the part of the palm where the rest of the bones for that finger would be. Around the missing segment of his palm was heavy scarring where it had healed over what hadn't dissolved. He saw this but showed little reaction to it.
He instead had moved his eyes back to the female Yautja and their gaze met. Those eyes! They seemed so full of apparent kindness and care. They brought back painful but at the same time, such beautiful memories... Of his mother and how she would show that kind of affection to him and his sister... sisters?
His own eyes seemed to lose their life, as he realised he was forgetting the life he once had... he had long forgotten his sibling(s?) faces and the face of their ever-cheerful father... The only face he remembered was the one of his mother and the look on her decapitated head as it stared blank at him from the ground, silently mocking him, as his nine year old brain realised he couldn't protect the one thing he had sworn to protect.
He had eventually learnt to not mourn her death though. And slowly the pain eased... But the memory would always be something that would stay and haunt him forever.
Looking up back into the female's eyes they stayed like that for a brief period of time.
Finally breaking the eye contact. She gave him the equivalent of a smile and he, as best he could with a respirator on his face, returned it in full to the woman he would from now on call his second mother.
