Sophie was running again, through the twisting and turning corridors of jagged rock, illuminated only by the tactical flashlight mounted on Royce's shotgun. With the crew, sprinting like their lives depended on speed.

At the moment, they did.

Footfalls smashed behind them. Royce and Nikolai, at the rear, laid cover fire. Muzzles flashing and slugs sparked and ricochet off stone. They ran some more. Spreading out and tighten up. Always in motion. Sophie knew that if any one of them stopped, they would die.

The walls glistened with condensation. Closing in.

So did the demon behind them.

To their surprise, Sophie spun around and began laying fire upon it with the AK. She heard a loud animalistic roar of pain in return. She must've nicked him with a few bullets. Enough to kill a man but only piss off a Predator.

The Predator was forced to stay behind the wall they were enclosed in. Step-by-step backwards, Sophie continued to unleash fire in order to delay it from reaching them longer. Ahead, there was another manhole in the wall. Only it was about seven feet up. Royce gave Isabelle a boost, then passage drops down into darkness.

"Come on, motherfucker!" Sophie screamed, completely overwhelmed with a valiant ferocity that the other group members lacked. "You want some?! Come and get it!"

Perhaps it was because she was frantic and hysterical again. It just didn't seem to matter anymore. Royce helped the very heavy Nikolai through the manhole, before pulling himself through. That was when he had momentarily forgotten about the shooter. Sophie.

He was surprised by how much Sophie was screaming and yelling at the alien creature. Completely unafraid. Maybe a little insane. But that only proved what Royce believed all along:

Sophie wanted to live. Otherwise, she would've put that gun down and merely accepted her fate. Yet, she was unafraid to die as much as she wanted to live.

"Hey kid, come on!" Royce hollered. "Let's go!"

It didn't appear that Sophie had heard him. How could she over the constant barrages of bullets she was unleashing. The high school girl kept her finger pulled on the AK's trigger. Until no more bullets came out. Sophie quickly tossed the gun and bolted across the hallway towards the hole. Using the momentum that running had provided her, Sophie jumped a few feet and caught onto Royce's hand. He pulled her up with his boot pressed to the wall. Though the kid weighed nothing.

She had fallen through the other side, however a scaled hand tightly wrapped itself around her ankle, jerking Sophie through the hole and throwing her across the rocky corridor like she weighed nothing in less than a couple of seconds. Sophie hit the ground with a grunt. She had also hit the bottom of her chin against the metal manhole, causing it to start bleeding.

"SOPHIE!" She heard Isabelle scream.

Sophie let out a painful groan, stumbling to her feet with a hand against the wall. She heard a couple of clicking noises from behind her. All breath ceased as Sophie stood up. It was too dimly lit for Sophie to make out where this Predator was. It was cloaked and ready to kill her.

Yet she was strangely calm. Not unlike the last time she came face to face with a Predator. The only thoughts running through her head were only those of her companions. Possibly the only friends Sophie ever had.

"Guys, run!" Sophie then hollered. "Forget about me!"

Sophie swiftly turned and ran back down the corridor she had just came out of, knowing that one of the Predators was following her in close pursuit. Sophie didn't know if it was Kvar'thwei and honestly didn't care. Just as long as her death would give them the time to escape.

But Isabelle was having none of that, she tried to climb back into the manhole to help Sophie. Only Royce restrained her. She began kicking the air in his arms. "No! NOOOO!" Isabelle screamed on the top of her lungs. "ROYCE, LET ME GO, YOU ASSHOLE!"

Royce slammed her against the rocky wall and hollered back into her face, "FORGET HER! SHE'S GONE!"

He shoved Isabelle forward, who glanced one more time at the manhole, knowing what awful fate awaited that poor young girl. Isabelle reluctantly accepted it and moved forward with the others. Only Nikolai stayed behind. Thoughts of the small girl running through his mind. They had all done terrible things. Not this girl. She should've been shopping at the mall, laughing and being with friends.

Not here.

And she willingly accepted death and threw it away. For what? Pieces of garbage like him? Her life suddenly meant more than his did. His face covered in sweat.

"Bloody hell," He cursed to himself, crawling back through the manhole.

"Nikolai!" Isabelle yelled at him. But he had already gone through it.

"Forget about me!" Nikolai hollered back, trudging as fast as he could with his chaingun. That seemed to come easily to the group, he reminisced.

Now, that was two team members that they had lost. Royce was extremely eager to leave. It irritated Isabelle how easily he accepted losing crew members. "Come on, come on, come on!" He said in a slightly frantic voice. "There's no time!"

It took another shove from Hanzo for Isabelle to start moving with the group again.

Bakuub couldn't believe that they lost visual over the game. His brother, Dachande, was a great hunter. Yet they just disappeared!

Kvar'thwei had thrown a fit over it. He had been watching the oomans ever since their arrival. Especially that one, yet they lost sight of them. Bakuub had been so excited to attack them at midnight. Only to find an empty camp. He tore up parts of his own camp out of complete rage. He had been denied his kill.

Then out of nowhere, there was a loud kaboom! only a few miles away. That was when he knew that the real kv'var had begun. The oomans pauked up and gave away their location like the predictable pyode amedha they were.

The filters kicked in to compensate the lack of vision he was receiving. Most likely, the pyode amedha fired an explosive. Alas, vision returned to his dai-shi. Bakuub could resume hunting his prey. He was the first of his clan brothers to arrive upon hearing the loud noise, having been hunting in the forest at the time.

Now, he could pick and chose his prey from within the kv'var

Bakuub found it interesting that Kvar'thwei included a weak, pathetic lou-dte kale into the nain-de.

She was a tarei hsan, but lou-dte kalei had other uses as well. Especially the ooman females. They were timid and weak to their male counterparts, easy to dominate. They were the extreme counter to the females of his own species. It was nearly impossible to mate with a female Yautja, at least for him, not that the female ic'jits wouldn't want to mate with him.

Bakuub was just not one to be dominated, let alone by a female that was naturally aggressive and assertive, being much larger than the average male. They were the gamemakers when it came to initiating all sexual encounters, deciding which male was the best father for their future sucklings by way of hand-to-hand combat. The females easily knocked the c'jit out of the males, being much larger and stronger than them. But also having the same training that they did.

All of these tedious things just to be with a female frustrated him immensely. Maybe that was why Kvar'thwei placed this stupid looking ooman female into the crowd. Maybe he was going to pawk her to death. The idea sounded refreshing to him. Many of his species had mated with ooman females before albeit most of it through rape. And now Bakuub was curious about trying it himself.

Kvar'thwei gave specific instructions not to kill the loud-dte kale. That was 'his' kill, he said, something that irritated the c'jit out of Bakuub. If that stupid pauker wanted to kill the stupid female, Kvar'thwei would have to do it before he did. And he wouldn't have thrown her into the pauking kv'var! Yes it was fun to play with the prey, but that was too much of a risk for just a good pauk.

Yet Kvar'thwei was so fixated on this stupid piece of c'jit ooman that he seemed to forget what claiming a kill meant. He may have no shred of yin'tekai but that didn't mean Kvar'thwei could suddenly make up rules of his own. This universe could only exist without rules.

They do not sow.

He didn't care if Kvar'thwei would kill him for taking 'his' precious female all for himself. Bakuub wouldn't simply kill him before that ever happened. Bakuub trilled softly in laughter, imagining all the things he would do to this lou-dte kale. As well as the look on Kvar'thwei's face when he found out that he had taken 'his' kill. That made him trill with laughter.

Bakuub couldn't wait for that dtai'kai'-dte to happen.

Perhaps Kvar'thwei had been right to put the female ooman in after all. After he had chased after his prey in the kv'var, the moment he stepped out into the open, Bakuub felt a couple of bullets pelt him in the shoulder. He let out a loud-pitched squeal in pain. The female ooman that Kvar'thwei was obsessed about had shot him. Had pauking shot him!

At first, the very thought of that had enraged him. He almost leaped out into the gunfire to charge at the ooman c'jit. Then, it quickly melted away into amusement. The female ooman had shot him indeed. She continued to scream expletives at him in her own tongue while shooting. Maybe she provided a good kv'var after all.

And with Kvar'thwei not here, he could do whatever he pleased with the little lou-dte kale c'jit.

The continuous and almost endless rounds of fire prevented him from confronting the female pyode amedha directly. Bakuub wasn't very fluent in the pyode amedha's tongue, but the one insult he recognized was "Fuck you, asshole!", which the female ooman had screamed at him like she had gone hulij-bpe.

Fuck you, asshole? Oh, she was going to pay for that. Now that she mentioned it...he sure was going to give her a rough pauking once she ran out of ammo.

After what seemed like all eternity, she finally did.

Underneath his tusked dai-shi, Bakuub then smiled. He quickly camouflaged himself before reaching the female several feet away in a few swift strides. She was already through the hole in the wall, but just the tiniest glimpse of her foot was more than enough to get her. He wrapped his claws around her ankle and flung her from the hole. With just a pinch, Bakuub was sure he could've snapped her ankle bone.

No wonder they were called pyode amedha.

The young ooman suckling began shouting to her companions. Not calling for help, but in a voice that screamed for them to run. To leave her behind.

Oh, how cute, Bakuub thought to himself. The lou-dte kale had yin'tekai.

The code he detested and the code that his former clan held. It only breathed weakness. Yin'tekai were rules that only got you killed. Just like it was going to get this female killed. Though Bakuub supposed that calling for help wouldn't have done anything either. But she amused him nonetheless. Maybe she wasn't a tarei hsan after all.

Bakuub trilled with triumph as his prey ran back down the very corridor it had been fleeing from. A futile, but entertaining attempt nonetheless. He stalked after his very slow prey, itching to unsheathe the al'Nagara in his wrist device, as well as behind his lion cloth, and just run her through it.

Yautja terminology

hulij-bpe - Crazy

dtai'kai'-dte - Battle/Fight

c'jit - Shit

ic'jit - Bad Blood (Weirdly enough, it resemblse c'jit, the word for shit. Hmmmm)

yin'tekai - Honor

tarei hsan - Unworthy opponent/bug

al'Nagara - longsword