This story, I will not deny, is very much me dabbling in a franchise I have little knowledge of. I do apologize for any inconsistencies, errors, or questionable content. I have researched a few internet sources and watched clips from most of the Predator and Alien vs Predator movies. I have not read the comics nor the novels. In particular, the interactions between Scar and Lex in AvP were of interest to me. The plot of this story is not yet fixed and will evolve as I continue to write it. I'm still fleshing out the background and characters.

All feedback is welcome and I will attempt to answer any questions from reviews at the end of each chapter, but if this becomes a lengthy process it may be required that answers are PMed instead, in which case it will be impossible to respond to Guest reviews.

Updates will be sporadic, advanced apologies.

It was a fucking massacre.

"Bravo-4, level 3 all clear. Proceeding to level 4."

"Good copy, Bravo-4."

Grateful for her armor's integrated filtration system, Pheist panned across the expansive interior room. Nestled within the core of the ship for maximum safety, it hadn't done the occupants much good. Their vibrant, luminescent lifeblood smeared the perimeter and had gathered in pools beneath their corpses – some large, and some very small indeed.

"Command, we have contact outside the bridge. Standby for sit-rep."

"Standing by."

Closing the comm channel linked to her helmet to silence the ongoing chatter, Pheist focused on the scene before her. All around her, her comrades from the second wave of the boarding party strode amongst the dead Yautja, checking for any those who had preceded them had missed. Plasma blasts punctuated the blaring of the ship's security system when they found those unfortunate souls.

"Pups…"

"What's that?"

Head snapping towards the soldier addressing her, Pheist belatedly realized she'd said the word aloud. "I said they were just pups. Females and younglings. No Hunters." She glanced back to the carnage. "This must be some kind of nursery."

Wrenching his helmet off, Jones took a moment before hocking a glob of spit at her boots in obvious contempt. "Yeah? Tell that to Voit and Gottard and the eight other guys they tore to shreds."

"I thought this was supposed to be a cloaked hunting cruiser."

"You're not here to think, you're here to follow orders. Do your fucking job." He cocked his head. "Or d'you want another strike on your record? How many would that make it? You won't dodge the bullet on insubordination charges next time, Pheist."

"Didn't dodge anything, I was cleared."

Lifting his rifle, Jones flipped the laser sight on and centered the beam into her HUD, forcing Pheist to shift her head away as the visor auto-tinted to compensate. "Give me one good reason."

Thanks to the inhuman reaction time of the cybernetic arm which had replaced the very human one which had been mangled several years back, Pheist was able to pluck the weapon from his grasp almost as soon as the threat had left his mouth. She turned her head back towards him, watching the hideous purpling of his complexion as his shock melted away into rage.

Helmets were turning in their direction by this point as others took note of the exchange. Pheist only had a moment to speculate about how this was going to reflect on her before she was violently launched to the floor, Jones' rifle clattering out of her hand. A shudder coursed through the ship as she shoved herself back up onto all fours, twisting to discern what had happened. Her counterparts were rushing the doors which had already been breached when they'd entered and she scrambled up, expecting a retaliatory strike from the aliens. As she moved to follow a snarl caused her step to falter and she swung back around sharply, her own rifle up. The alarm continued to wail. Nothing was moving. But she'd heard it, no question. Toggling through the views on her HUD, she settled on electromagnetic radiation and waded forward into the mass of slaughtered Yautja. Beneath the body of one still female writhed a small skeleton.

"Son of a bitch…" Pheist hissed as she stepped over and around the deceased. She switched back to night vision mode as she knelt and levered the large female up enough to tug the wriggling pup out from underneath. Furious, the young Yautja spread its as yet unimpressive mandibles and growled at her. "I don't blame you, runt. I don't blame you." Eying up the thrashing bundle, she sighed. What now? No sooner had she gathered the little one up did the floor jerk beneath her again as another tremor wracked the alien vessel. "Fuck me."

The corridor leading back to their breach point was empty, which was just as well as juggling a squirming alien offspring and her rifle was proving challenging. Pheist followed the route she and the boarding party had on the way in, knowing at least the doorways which opened off of this hall had been cleared. She couldn't speak for the rest of the ship. It had sounded as though there were some difficulties being encountered in taking the bridge.

Comms.

Exasperated with herself, Pheist switched the channel open and was immediately bombarded with several voices barking orders at once. She kept going, vigilant as she attempted to decipher what was happening.

"Request for support teams-"

"Negative, fall back immediately."

"We're taking heavy fire, retreat not advisable at this tim-"

"-sustaining critical damage. I repeat, we have been engaged by second alien ship. Your orders are to fall back immediately. We are-"

A second alien ship? Where the hell had that come from?

Weapons fire lit the corridor ahead and she automatically tuned out the continued comm chatter. Ducking into what appeared to be a storage unit, Pheist divested herself of the still snarling pup, tucking him or her into a corner behind some shelving. "Hang tight, runt." She stalked back out into the hall, rifle up as she made her way towards the bend beyond which she could hear the sounds of battle.

Someone shouted a warning and Pheist pressed her back to the wall as another, albeit much smaller, explosion shook the floor paneling. Smoke billowed out from around the corner and she had just eased away from the wall to continue her approach when three armored figures bolted into sight.

"Pheist!" Jones nearly mowed her down as he and the other two pounded past. "My six! Now!"

As much as it vexed her, years of service had ingrained the chain of command into Pheist, and she spun away to carry up the rear. "How many of them?" she called ahead, assuming they were outnumbered. She wasn't sure what had happened to the rest of their boarding party either and experienced a surge of doubt over having not followed them earlier.

A ferocious roar momentarily drowned out even the blaring security system, and if Jones or either of the others answered, she definitely hadn't heard them over the deafening noise. To her dismay, Jones veered into the storage unit, and by the time she reached the doorway all three were crammed inside.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, her alarm at the risk of them finding the pup lending her voice a harshness she knew would not go over well.

"Where the fuck were you?" Jones rounded promptly, emphasizing his inability to learn from his mistakes in a timely fashion by shoving his rifle crosswise into her chest. "Hiding?"

Seeing as her breastplate had rendered the strike harmless, Pheist chose to ignore it, though she did shuffle sideways under the guise of being unbalanced in order to put herself between the others and the pup. "We need to fall back to the Gemini. It's under attack – there's a second Yautja ship out there."

"No shit – our shuttles are space frag, rest of the team's tango-uniform," one of the others supplied. Pheist didn't recognize him, but she immediately liked him more than Jones owing to the simple fact he was not Jones.

"Bravo's taking fire on the bridge, maybe we link up-," the third guy began, only to be cut short when a blade sprouted through the front of his visor.

Pheist jerked her rifle up and hit the trigger at the same moment as Jones, however their bolts streaked into the flaccid body of their dead comrade as the cloaked Yautja who had impaled him heaved him into them with a fierce growl. Jones cursed as he was knocked backwards while Pheist twisted enough to the side that only her shoulder was clipped.

By this time not-Jones had recovered from his stupor enough to fire on the alien, who was now unprotected by his human shield and bellowed in pain. Pheist saw his green phosphorescent blood splatter the hall and a moment later his active camouflage failed, only to reveal the arc of the extended combi-stick he was wielding as it swept in, slicing through not-Jones' gauntlet and severing both his rifle and the hand on the trigger. His scream rattled Pheist's eardrums nearly as badly as the Yautja had as he collapsed, clutching the spurting stump to his chest, but it also gave her an opening into which to launch another plasma bolt directly into the enemy's vulnerable abdomen.

The Hunter stumbled back and Pheist pressed forward, firing again, this time a prolonged blast which brought him to his knees as his entrails spilled forth. He continued to rumble menacingly even as he pitched to the floor, the spear rolling from his grip. Pheist checked the corridor for others, toggling hastily through all views on her HUD, but found it empty. She looked down to the Yautja still snarling at her feet as his blood leaked over the floor panels and bent down, mindful of his as yet dangerous talons. Drawing her standard issue bowie, she reached out to grip the underside of his bio-mask and rammed the blade hilt-deep beneath his mandibles, severing his spinal column. The tension left his muscles immediately. It was a far less prolonged death than the gut wound would have provided him.

Inside the storage unit not-Jones abruptly stopped shrieking and Pheist turned as she was wiping her knife on her boot, fearing another cloaked Yautja had gotten the drop on them while she'd been distracted. But it was Jones who stepped away from the injured man, readjusting his rifle as though he'd just used the butt to club the poor guy into silence. He stared at her, seemingly daring her to call him out on it. She was still half crouched, in an awkward and vulnerable position, and he knew it.

"What now?" Pheist asked, forcing a calmness she didn't feel just then into her voice. Hopefully deferring to his more senior ranking would soothe his ego. She watched as he continued to measure up the situation, weighing out his option, and released a quiet breath when he stepped out into the hall and jerked his chin to the left.

"Go see if there's an alternate route to the shuttle bay. We can take one of theirs."

Pheist straightened up, her movements unhurried still. "That needs to be cauterized or he'll bleed out," she said with a nod to the now unconscious not-Jones.

With his helmet on, she couldn't see what colour his skin was, but judging by the constipated tone of his response she imagined something magenta hued. "Find me a fucking shuttle before I blow off your other arm and shove it down your god damn throat!"

This was of course the moment the pup chose to let loose another terrier-esque snarl, which coincided perfectly with the lull between the siren's wails.

Jones' head snapped towards the storage unit and he moved into the doorway, scanning the space. She could see the moment he spotted the little Yautja and raised his rifle.

"No!" Pheist launched herself into his shoulder, slamming him into the doorframe. A stray bolt smashed into the shelving unit, sending debris flying, but she hoped the pup had been sheltered at least.

With a shout of fury, Jones threw his elbow backwards, grazing Pheist's side as she sidestepped to avoid the maneuver. She cracked the handle of her bowie against the back of his helmet, knowing it wouldn't do any real damage but might momentarily faze him. He was far larger than her and while she didn't want to have to hurt him, she knew he had no such qualms about injuring her if his treatment of not-Jones was any indication.

Evidently knocking him in the head only served to infuriate him further, however, as he got his arms up and shoved himself back from the doorframe, battering her into the opposing wall. While her armor protected her, the force of the impact still dazed as her head bounced off the unforgiving metal panel behind her. She barely had time to throw up a block as he whirled on her, swinging his rifle like a club. It jarred her flesh and bone forearm badly and the bowie slipped from her fingers as pins and needles shot through them. Aiming a kick into his side, Pheist attempted to drive him back and give herself some room, but his arm clamped down to trap her foot before she could pull back. She staggered as he spun and used his momentum to hurl her into wall again.

All of the air was driven from her lungs as she dropped to the ground. Warnings of damage to her armor flashed across her HUD. She rolled before a plasma bolt could connect, an act based purely on intuition and the knowledge Jones would not have any moral dilemma over shooting her while she was down. Her foot shot out blindly, crunching into his shin and taking him off balance. She heard him stagger. It gave a precious fraction of a second. Drawing a ragged breath of air in, Pheist's focus zeroed in on the combi-stick and she snatched it up as she twisted away from a second plasma bolt, one knee planted as she pivoted on it. The blast caught her hip as she did so and white, hot pain seared her side as further alerts of compromised armor integrity bombarded her HUD.

Whipping the combi-stick up in desperation, Pheist was almost caught off guard to feel the weapon make contact, not expecting to have the reach to actually trouble Jones with the attack. She'd been hoping to startle him into a backwards step. Hoping not to die right then. But as she stared up at him, Jones dropped his rifle and groped the alien spear, his hands clenching around the shaft spasmodically. He made a noise caught somewhere between a growl and a gurgle and his weight suddenly bore down on the end of the combi-stick, wrenching it from her grasp as he collapsed into a heap before her.

Pheist sucked in lungfuls of air as she struggled up to her feet. Leaning back against the wall, she silenced the suit's warnings and glanced down to her side. Bio-foam dribbled down her thigh from the integrated survival kit, coating the melted rent in her armor and tinged pink with her blood. It, fortunately, had numbing properties built into it and the burning eased ever so slightly as she stood regaining her breath. The ship's security alarm cut off mid-blare and despite the fact she didn't believe it boded well, she couldn't help being relieved the noise had stopped. Her gaze travelled over to Jones and back up the length of the combi-stick. It was longer now than it had been when she'd grabbed it, she realized. Which meant it had extended mid strike. She pushed away from the wall and took ahold of it, jerking it free of Jones' chest.

Three sharp clicks made her aware she was no longer alone in the hall. The Yautja materialized only a few feet from Jones' body, drawing his clawed hand back from his wrist device. He'd disengaged his active camouflage and stood facing her silently.

Pheist eyed the plasmacaster mounted above his left shoulder ominously. At this range, she'd be a steaming splatter of gore on the floor if he chose to use it.

The Hunter, however, flexed his talons instead and his wristblades snapped out.

"Right." So this was supposed to be a fair fight.

Carefully reaching up, Pheist's hand closed around the stock of her rifle.

The Yautja snarled and took a step forward before Pheist yanked the strap over her helmet and tossed the weapon behind her. This stilled his approach.

As she shifted her stance and brought the combi-stick up in a defensive posture, a deep rumble left his chest. She hoped it was approval. And that she wasn't about to wet herself.