Chapter Twenty-Eight: Wolf
"Listen, X," Sam said. "I can understand you not wanting to tell Ozaki, but he's your brother. He'll find out sometime."
"I know," X muttered. "It's just… a touchy subject."
He felt Grover wiping off his soaking wet sleeves on his back. He whirled around quickly.
"STOP IT!"
"We could tell them I gave birth to him," Kendra suggested.
"No, they wouldn't work. You were never pregnant."
"Well, they'd never guess the truth!" Grover laughed.
"Shut up."
"How about I tell them that it was an egg that hatched early?" Sam suggested. "Then it'll seem less unusual."
"Ok, fine," X replied.
"Great," said Sam. "Now I've got 5,014 eggs to teleport to Planet X."
"Wait!" Grover said. "I just wanna take a few pictures of them. Then look at them when I'm feeling down and laugh to think those all came out of X."
"I hate you…" snarled X.
Once Grover was done with his photo shoot, he climbed to the roof. With a running start, he dove off of the building in a swan dive. In mid-air, he whistled loudly. Instantly, Mirza soared down and Grover landed on his back.
"Good boy! Now let's get home," Grover said to his banshee, connecting their neural queues. "I've got stuff on the computer to do."
Clouds had begun to roll in, darkening the sky. Grover and Mirza heard thundering in the distance. Mirza began to whimper slightly, clearly afraid.
"It's ok, boy. We'll be home soon."
Out of nowhere, torrents of rain began falling from the sky. Now Mirza wasn't used to flying in the rain.
"Not much further, Mirza. Hang in there," Grover told him.
He looked down at a rooftop and saw a dark figure standing on it. He couldn't tell at first what it was, but did notice a jet of blue light come flying at him. Mirza screeched and tried to dodge it. Grover was too panicked to relay directions to Mirza through their neural link. A second blue bolt came at them. It clipped Mirza's wing and he shrieked in pain. Mirza's cry drove Grover into a panic. Through their link, they both shared an equal amount of terror. Unable to think clearly, Grover and Mirza began hurtling toward the ground. Grover managed enough clear though to have Mirza crash land on the rooftop that the shadowy figure had been on. But they'd seemingly vanished now. Mirza skidded across the rooftop, coming to a stop on the opposite side of it.
"Mirza! You ok?" Grover asked frantically.
Mirza managed a faint grunt of affirmation. Grover looked at the opposite edge of the building where the shadowy figure had been. They were gone. He blinked and began to see something begin to materialize in front of him. It looked almost transparent. Then he came to the horrible conclusion. It was cloaked. The cloaking shield lowered and Grover found himself faced with something out of a nightmare. It was humanoid in appearance, but much bulkier than a human and its skin was clammy and scaly. It was heavily armored in armor that Grover had only seen in books. It wore a dark helmet, skull shaped in appearance. Hair-like appendages hung from the back of its head. Its helmet had two dark visors that resembled eyes. The creature looked down at Grover, emitting ominous clicking sounds. Grover was paralyzed with fear. Mirza was too weak to try and intimidate. The creature held out its wrist and a pair of blades extended from it. It pointed the blades at Grover. It pulled back its wrist and prepared to strike him.
Before the humanoid alien could impale Grover, a blast of blue energy struck it in the chest. It stumbled back, its armor protecting it. From behind Grover and Mirza, a second alien resembling Grover's assailant jumped out and tackled the assailant. Its helmet was grey and its armor looked more traditional. The two of them got up to face each other. They both extended blades from their wrists and began dueling with them. Sparks flew each time the blades connected. Grover's savior was faster but the assailant was stronger. The assailant roared ferociously and a small energy projector extracted from its shoulder. It began shooting bolts of blue energy at the savior. The savior began running across the rooftop as the assailant fired continuously at him. The savior drew from his arsenal a whip. He cracked the whip and lashed it at the assailant. It snagged the assailant by the leg and tripped him up. While it was down, the savior was upon him. He extended his wrist blades and impaled the assailant through the neck, spilling green blood. It let out a roar of anguish before, finally, going limp.
Less than a second after, a third alien burst from the shade at the savior. The savior drew a spear, which he extended with a flick of his wrist. The third alien attacked him viciously with its wrist blades, slicing and dicing at him rapidly. The savior's spear, however, was capable of blocking it. The savior, using expert precision, was able to maneuver his spear around the ferocious wrist blades. He struck the alien in the side then sweep kicked it, knocking it to its knees. Before the alien could get back up to fight, the savior swiftly yanked off his helmet, revealing his face. Grover was not surprised. He knew from the start what he was dealing with. The savior's eyes were dark black and arthropod-like mandibles protruded from his face. He roared at the alien, but it didn't sound like he was trying to intimidate him. Instead, it sounded like they were communicating. Once his roars ceased, the savior released the alien and put away his spear. The alien seemed to understand the savior completely, as he proceeded to walk away calmly before cloaking, vanishing entirely.
Grover stood up slowly as the savior, now donning his helmet once again, turned to face him.
"It's been a while since you've had to take on that form, Sam," Grover commented.
The savior stared at Grover for a second, before his helmet began to automatically peel back, seemingly retracting into the savior's back along with the rest of his armor and skin. When it had all gone, Sam Sendjin stood in its place.
"Well, thankfully there hasn't been a lot of call for it," Sam reminded Grover. "But I'm worried that there now is."
"You look a lot more threatening as a Predator, Sam," Grover interjected. "Why not stay like that all the time instead of as an aged human?"
"The proper name is Yautja, Grover," Sam corrected him. "And I only take it when I have to. It is an uncommon ability granted by Eywa that is not to be misused."
"Blah, blah, blah I get it," Grover said dully. "Anyway, thanks for the help. Any idea what those Pred-… Yautja guys were doing here?"
"Yes," Sam replied, before tossing Grover a Xilian salve and teleporting out of sight.
Grover paused, with a face that said, "Wait a second…" Ignoring it as he always did, Grover proceeded to apply the fast-acting salve to Mirza's wing.
