Kvar'thwei let out a deep growl, which sounded more like a rumble, upon seeing the other Predator crucified to the totem let loose. Royce could feel the glare behind his mask, but stepped aside when the Crucified Predator took a few steps in front of him—eyes only for Kvar'thwei—set on killing this i'cjit. A disgrace to his clan. The Crucified Predator let out a few growls as well, no where near as powerful as the vocals of his rival. Royce slowly slipped away towards the ship the Crucified Predator had reprogrammed while the two enemy Predators dealt with each other.

Kvar'thwei was infuriated that the pathetic ooman dared to free his wretched mei-jadhi. He had intended to make him suffer just like the lou-dte kale who wrong him all those years ago would. But, he didn't mind killing him in a vicious duel. The fact that it was his own brother from the same litter meant nothing to him. It wasn't like Kvar'thwei knew him too well. Kvar'thwei would show no h'chak to him.

Immediately, Kvar'thwei charged for his brother. Each stomp shaking the very ground. His brother ran at him with just as much audacity. They collided into each other like two avalanches. Being much older and stronger than his brother, Kvar'thwei tackled him to the ground, before landing a few punches to him.

His brother had recently become a blooded Warrior, but still a trainee nonetheless, and as most young, was trained in the modern methods. They depended too much on the cjit system of honor and fighting hand-to-hand. No plasma caster or wrist blades. Kvar'thwei would not lower himself to such disgraceful standards. Plus, his younger brother was smaller, as well as weakened and fatigued from having been beaten and crucified, with no food or water, and slowly suffocating without his dai-shui. He stood no chance against Kvar'thwei but fought anyway because it was the 'honorable' thing to do. That made Kvar'thwei sneer.

This fight was going to be a nain-desintje-de.

While Kvar'thwei continued punching him, his brother surprised him by kicking him off of himself, before quickly leaping to his feet and backhanding him across the face. Kvar'thwei fell backwards into a bunch of mud mixed with blood. He could feel the rage consume him from beneath. His weak, pathetic little brother managed to lay a blow on him.

Kvar'thwei let out a gargled, deep roar before ramming himself into his brother, crashing through a bunch of his trophies, and slamming him into the ground.

Despite being wounded and weakened, his little brother rolled out from underneath Kvar'thwei and ran. The plasmacaster resting on his left shoulder quickly began to rotate before firing a number of shots at his retreating brother. He managed to dodge them until one hit him on the back. Kvar'thwei marched over to the fallen tree that his pathetic brother had jumped over, only to find that he wasn't there.

A plasma bolt whipped by his shoulder.

Kvar'thwei instantly faded to invisibility, his triple targeting beams searching for the shooter. He spotted movement from the corner of the camp leading into the forest. Kvar'thwei completely unloaded his plasmacaster, tearing the jungle to pieces. Return fire scorched the ground, leaving Kvar'thwei's form bracketed by debris. His cloak was useless against another of his own.

Kvar'thwei reacted, firing fast,and running faster.

Above him, his brother—a blur—leaped from tree to tree, blasting back. Rounds collided, exploding in mid air. A fireworks show in the dim pre-dusk light. With Kvar'thwei, still in motion, as a form catapults out of the jungle toward him on an intercept course.

He let out a loud grunt as his little brother crashed into him, falling high from the sky like a meteor. This knocked the wind out of Kvar'thwei for a few seconds. Kvar'thwei quickly recovered and slammed close quarters into his brother, fighting hand to hand. The two of them no better than snarling pitbulls ripping each other apart.

His little brother knocked him back, the two of them catching their breathes and circling each other. Both each others prey.

Kvar'thwei sneered at him. "Perhaps I was wrong, you are worthy of a sain'ja." Ignoring the warnings from his dai-shui to move out of his brother's plasmacaster range, Kvar'thwei quickly focused on a plan. "But that won't be enough to beat me."

"And you are worthy of the title ic'jit, mei'hswei," His brother answered him, before laughing a few times. "I would hide my face forever too if my clan discovered that I lost to a ooman lou-dte kale. S'yuit-de."

It was the last word that caused Kvar'thwei let out a roar in outrage at his brother's taunt. Gauntlets smashed into one another as it was armored fist against armored fist. Light green blood splattered. He tossed his defiant brother against an empty cage, the steel buckling. Kvar'thwei's chaingun whipped-drawing itself—locking onto—his brother, as he leaped, pushing the weapon upward.

It fired aimlessly, shooting lines of violet-colored beams into the dark sky. He then sliced into Kvar'thwei's shoulder with his wrist blades, causing him to roar in agony.

"Here, let me give you a boost." Isabelle quickly stated, crouching down so Sophie could climb onto her shoulders, before using both hands to push the bottoms of her feet up—allowing Sophie to make it to the top of the pit. The walls and ground were shaking, both with the fury of the battle nearby and the rising roar of the engines.

Sophie quickly extended her hand out to Isabelle, who refused and instead insisted upon helping Edwin up. Reluctantly, Sophie did so, pulling Edwin to the top with the help of Isabelle. He nodded to her, grateful. Her body was still throbbing with pain and soreness from the severe beating she recieved from Kvar'thwei earlier.

Sophie looked back towards the fray. The two Predators were locked in combat. A contest of strength, neither one willing to back down until—

WHAM!—Kvar'thwei delivered three vicious headbutts that cratered the Crucified Predator's mask. He staggered onto his knees, his silver mask slowly peeling off to reveal his green, bloodied forehead.

He wasn't going to make it, she quickly realized. That Predator was their last hope in killing Kvar'thwei, especially now that Royce wasn't here.

"Edwin, help Sophie out, I'll be right back!" Sophie ordered him. She quickly dashed off before either of them could protest. There was only determination in her sprint.

She had an idea, it was stupid, but it could work.

Kvar'thwei grabbed his insolent brother by the throat, his green blood trickling down his face. Boosters fired, incinerating the ground below as his ship lifted off. Now noticing that his little brother had reprogrammed his ship, he began pushing at the buttons on his device to override it. Kvar'thwei couldn't. The ship was staring to sail into space, carrying that ooman no doubt. It wasn't working and he could hear his brother laughing through the choking hold he had on him.
With a frustrated growl, Kvar'thwei finally just pushed the self-destruct button on his wrist device. He could only watched as the ship tore itself apart and was blown to bits.

All of his trophies, all of his possessions. Gone just like that.

"You will pay for that, you insolent bug," Kvar'thwei hissed into his brother's naked face. "Your skull will be my first trophy in my new collection."

In either case, Kvar'thwei had still won. His opponent was beaten and about to become just another trophy. There was nothing more fitting than having his brother's own skull.

"I have won the battle, mei'hswei," he clicked with glee, in their own language. "You chose to fight me in such a weakened, pathetic state. Such honor dictates defeat."

He waited for some pseudo-clever or cheeky response from his brother but received none. So, Kvar'thwei took off his dai-shui and roared to try and strike fear into his opponent, but his little brother was unfazed by this and merely growled back. Waiting for his older brother to finish him off with the final blow. As Kvar'thwei slowly raised his left arm, that was when he saw something in his little brother's eyes. Something that changed. A rapid clicking within his mandibles as his small mouth smiled.

"Does your own death amuse you?" Kvar'thwei asked him, playing along with how pitiful his little brother's attempt at laughing before his death was.

"Not as much as yours will," he answered with only delight. "By the spear of a ooman lou-dte kale no less."

Kvar'thwei didn't understand what his brother meant—until he felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder—he let out a loud, tormented roar of agony. When he looked to his shoulder—a spear end of a ki'cti-pa was stabbed right through his shoulder. The blade was quickly withdrawn and Kvar'thwei turned around to see her.

Sophie Pace.

Holding his own slain master's ki'cti-pa.

Sophie was met with two fiery red eyes filled only with rage. Upon hearing that deep, prolonged cry of agony, that was when Sophie retracted the spear and repeatedly began stabbing Kvar'thwei in the side. He let out more shrill screams, before grabbing the spear and easily ripping it out of her both her frail hands with his muscled. Sophie cursed, knowing how much shit she was in.

She turned to run but Kvar'thwei had already punctured her in the thigh with the spear. The blade went right through the back of her thigh, barely missing the bone. Sharp, sharp, pain erupted through Sophie's thigh, as she immediately screeched in the worst suffering and discomfort imaginable. Those few seconds where Kvar'thwei left the spearblade in felt like an eternity before promptly withdrawing it.

Sophie collapsed backwards into the dirt and bark, clutching her now profusely bleeding thigh. Not a care in the world that she was about to be killed by an overpowered alien. There was too much pain for her to do anything now.

She was grabbed by Edwin's red jacket she was wearing and lifted a few feet into the air. There were more angry sounding clicks coming from behind the black mask with the feral jaw. She should've been terrified, but Sophie merely hung there like a piece of meat. She knew that she would soon be hung alongside the other flayed corpses surrounding her. Becoming one of them.

"That's payback for what you did to me four years ago," Sophie yelled, as if her pain was screaming louder than herself.

She then closed her eyes. She thought only of her parents and her five-year old brother Jacob, as well as her only friend Bryson. I'm not going to die a coward, she told herself. All of this I did for you.

Now this ooman child-bearer was really beginning to piss him off. How could something so frail and so tiny be this annoying. Kvar'thwei glanced over the multiple stab wounds he received from her. If that ooman had aimed any lower, she would've stabbed me right in the pauking heart, Kvar'thwei noted, his fury growing with every minute. And now the look that Sophie Pace was giving him was pissing him off even more.

It was the same look his insolent brother gave him moments before Kvar'thwei was going to slice his head clean from his shoulders.

Defiance.

Nothing enraged him more than defiance, even when he had his prey around the neck on the verge of death.

He had allowed this ooman too much freedom and it almost cost him. But almost wasn't close enough, Kvar'thwei reassured himself. He could kill the ooman right now. But where was the fun in that? All that effort he put into bringing her here would've gone to waste. He was determined to make her pay even more for the wounds he had just sustained from her just now. For sure, Kvar'thwei was going to slowly torture and torment the loud-dte kale for years and years and only when he had exhausted every amount of pain and pleasure from her would he finally give her the gift of death.

Kvar'thwei growled, before dropping the silly ooman back on the ground. She wasn't going anywhere with that stab wound now, that combined with the light beating he gave her earlier should incapacitate her. There was no way someone elite of his kind could die to a ooman girl. She was his to torture. Death would be too great a kindness. He couldn't say the same for her companions though.

Or his insolent brother.

From the corner of his dai-shui, he spotted motion from behind some rocks. Orange heat signature of a figure, moving low and fast, skirting the edge of the camp. Making a circle around them. Kvar'thwei had his targeting systems lock on and about to fire-suddenly, the heat signature disappeared. That was because-a wall of fire spread out in both directions. In seconds,the dead brush surrounding the camp was burning.

Heat on heat.

Effectively depriving Kvar'thwei's mask of its thermal vision.

Inside his mask. Nothing. He began shifting modes until finding the appropriate one. Smoke and ash obscured motion sensors, hot wind washed away the scent, and the sound of crackling wood obscured sound.

Amidst all this, a figure stood tall, backlit by the flames, staring at the confused creature. When Sophie did open her eyes, they widened with relief. A slight smile formed on her lips despite the pain.

It was Royce.

Yautja terminology

ki'cti-pa - Combistick

dai-shui - Bio-mask

tarei hsan - unworthy opponent

mei'hswei - brother