The little hunter looked at him, curious. Though she could understand him perfectly, she was only just beginning to project her own thoughts, and they were quite weak. Still, he could make out the word-Why-
-Because he's an elder- he practically yelled. He was lucky she wasn't human, or she'd've asked why she couldn't kill old people. As it was, 'elder' was a thing that he thought of with great respect, so she easily recognized what 'elder' meant- a master fighter.
-I could defeat him easily.-
-But- but- you can't kill him! He's a leader of my people! An elite! Revered by all lesser then him-
-Oh. Is he the reason predator's are so mean- The predator groaned mentally, slapping a hand to his forehead. Oh great, he'd just made her want to kill the elder more. Then he came up with an idea. He hated the thought of pleading but... something about killing an elder still hit a sensitive vibe in his sense of right and wrong.
-Please, don't kill him. He's important to my people... I still hold the elder's in such high esteem...- She was silent a moment, regarding the elder the way she did all Yautja. Jauk'cha had come to the conclusion that she had an easy time reading thoughts. All thoughts. As long as she was concentrating on the task of reading them. So she read all a Yautja's thoughts, pondered a moment, and if there was doubt in her mind she'd let them live. If not, she'd pick them to hunt. This time she took a bit longer to decide, and Jauk'cha was silent as a fellow predator teetered between life and death.
-He is good- she pronounced at last. -At least, as good as a Predator can be in the environment they are raised in. He does not hunt maliciously.- Jauk'cha sighed inwardly. That aided his personal morals and values as well as saved the elder. He'd learned that the surplus of kills that the little hunter made was an illusion. She knew how to draw out the darkest egomaniacs of the predator race- that was why she had such a surplus of food. She was not of the opinion that the entire predator race needed to die horrible cruel deaths. And she was starting to become a bit more lenient the longer she stayed with Jauk'cha and learned exactly how predator mind-structure worked.
Then Jauk'cha twitched, rubbing his skin irritably. She'd made him bathe so many times before she let him out of the cave to hunt, his skin was starting to peel. Apparently she wanted to make sure his scent didn't give off her position. -So, what are you going to hunt- He inquired, now that her elder hunting plan was foiled. The Elder, on the other hand, starting to pick up on the subtle noises Jauk'cha was making, turned to look in their general direction. Instantly Jauk'cha went still as the elder eyed their direction. Then he seized a tree, and began to pull himself up high into the branches. This did not please the little hunter at all, and Jauk'cha received the telepathic equivalent of a glare.
Jauk'cha watched, motionless, as the Elder crept toward their position, cloaking. The Elder's spear shifted away some branches silently, but the little hunter was already invisible and creeping away from it. Jauk'cha remained perfectly still, not daring to breathe, and praying the foliage obscured his heat signature.
Somehow it worked. Jauk'cha was an overwhelmingly skilled hunter, but he wasn't THAT skilled. He could only figure the Elder had recognized the weak scent of a fellow predator, and moved on without a word.
Unfortunately the little hunter was not so instantly pleased. He was bombarded by instructions on how to keep perfectly silent for an entire week. By the time he was done he swore he could climb over dried leaves and no one could hear him. Unfortunately, as this was generally his thinking: "No one could possibly smell me, no one could possibly hear me, no one, no one, no one," he was forced to name the little hunter 'No one.' She was NEVER satisfied, and could ALWAYS hear him.
He grumbled about that. It bothered him to no end. He still had issues with fluffy white cats being able to beat the crap out of him. A Human might equate it to being pwned by a fluffy pink gerbil.
G'tuk sighed, glaring at the ever decreasing amount of steaks. Oh, he could use a steak right now… tender juicy lizard meat, right off the bone… seared on the outside to heat it to a desirable temperature… His mandibles tightened a bit, his brows lifting- the predator equivalent of a grin. The female, the little runt that had been just recently accepted into the training barracks was the last one to receive a steak- and she was sitting right in front of him. Oh, this was too easy. Predator society called for any children who could not even defend their meal from a single adversary, were weak and thus there was no reason to stop the thief. The stronger predator would get the most food- nourishing its strength even more. Who cared if the weaker predator died? It only strengthened the predator bloodlines.
After all, that's the reason the female was here. Everyone knew females couldn't be Hunters. Granted, they were bigger, and stronger, and faster, but they didn't have the hunter/warrior instinct. They were often generals and instructors, but never hunters. And she was a runt on top of it. No, the only reason she was here was to die. No one else wanted her, so she had to be taken into the barracks. The barracks was her death sentence. No female so tiny could possibly outmatch a male in the hunter's game of survival. He reached over, roaring at her and snagging the steak from midair.
Alas, poor G'tuk was not prepared for what happened next. The tiny female, so quiet and reserved, exploded. She shrieked so loud every boy around them looked up to see which of their brethren had made such a profound battle cry. Before their heads were even up, she'd lunged onto the table and dive tackled the boy. She knocked him over his stool onto his back on the earth, and proceeded to hack open his face with her long finger talons, screaming. Every blow he tried to get at her she hacked away. He tried to kick her, throw her off, but she was a mad screaming ball of fury. Many of the boys there stood up, though none of them moved in to help. None of them really wanted to be the next to get hacked up. Controlling her temper after delivering G'tuk 2 successful rakes to the face, 6 to the chest, and many more to the arms, she planted her hands on his shoulders, and roared full blast right in his face.
How such a small, pathetic, half-human female could roar so loud, he'd never know. The female promptly stood up, took her portion of steak back, and then took his, and proceeded to hop back onto the table and into her seat, where she commenced eating. The boy next to her laughed lightly, possibly at G'tuk, but the female was already in a temper-mental mood. She turned on the male next to her, shrieking bloody fury in his face, her fingers splayed and ready to hack up something again. The boy quickly turned his gaze away. He knew he was not anywhere near the fighter G'tuk was. He didn't want identical hacked up marks. The female growled low for a moment, and then turned back to her food, eating like a feral animal.
It was unpleasant to watch the female eat, as her mouth was quite humanoid. She had normal predator mandibles, which covered her unsightly mouth most of the time, but on the inside of the mandibles, skin coverings known as 'lips' covered her teeth. These lips pulled back to expose her teeth, another byproduct from the human blood in her veins. Unlike the sharp teeth that lined a normal predator mouth, she had three sets of teeth, and they were more or less straight and orderly. The front four teeth on each jaw were razor-sharp incisors, used for tearing into meat or snipping off pieces of plant. The next two were long canines for puncturing, and behind that she had molars that curved up on the sides like fangs. As this was not the normal predator mouth set at all, most of the boys avoided looking at her. G'tuk, who was having his wounds burnt shut with blue plaster by a trainer, was too busy screaming his head off to glare at her. Thus, the rest of her meal was finished in peace, and with two pieces of meat, one delicate and the other rough, sitting inside her, she got up and walked to the gym.
The gym was, for lack of a better word, like a Roman arena. The floor was sand and it was large and open, with various training equipment around its sides.
Predators valued speed and skill more than brute strength, but those muscles had to come from somewhere. There was an assortment of weighted objects, mostly balls that could be tossed around or carried while doing something particularly strenuous. There was a rough equivalent of gymnastic bars as well as tree imitations. Hopefully they'd get to go outside soon and get some real experience. The arena was so boring. The female proceeded to go over to the gymnastic bars. She placed her hands on the ground and cart wheeled her feet straight into the air. Then she curled her legs around the bar above her, and proceeded to do vertical sit-ups on the bar, bored. Male youths began to enter the room, most engaging in practice unarmed combat matches. Some ran, others practiced with the weights, and some practiced their tree climbing. Trainers entered, ordering those who were lazy around, making sure order was kept, but mostly advising youths on their battling techniques.
Oh yes… she was bored… Her red eyes closed to slits and she grumbled to herself. She was jerked back to reality as a Trainer delivered a blow to her head, causing her to fall and go flying into a stack of weights. That… hurt…
The female's head throbbed as the Trainer muttered something about 'child-makers' and 'lazy.'
The female was not a rational creature. She was fortunate she was not a weak one either. Her full-fledged tackle was halted by the trainer giving her a massive kick to the stomach. Rather than being winded she latched onto the leg itself, biting into the flesh beneath the armor in a feral way, hacking it up with her claws. His wrist blades hacked down at her but she dodged them, slipping between his legs and ripping open his back.
She ended up spending a week in the infirmary once the whole incident had played out. As a credit to her strength, the trainer was out two days, and was demoted upon the basis that one of his fellows had needed to step in to keep the female from gouging his eyes out, for he'd been humiliatingly unsuccessful in stopping the girl's attacks and punishing her.
As soon as she was free from the infirmary, she was back in the barracks, hissing at anyone who dared get within 10 feet of her. At mealtimes she was the last in, ate quickly, and was out before the trainers could yell at her for being late. Her left arm was still weak, coated with blue healing paste and causing her to nurse it carefully. She waited patiently in this manner until her arm was back to full strength, using only exercises that involved her legs.
The boys saw it as weakness. One injury and the female was spazzing out at anyone who walked by and nursing her army like a pup. What it was, was instinct. At night she moved the arm around in painful positions, slowly getting it accustomed to moving properly again. During the day, she let it recover and heal. After all, if she exercised there was always the chance someone would pick on her, and that her arm would get hurt again.
If that happened, the arm might become permanently shriveled and weak. Everything she did ran on a basis of instinct.
"You," a voice snapped above her. The female predator looked up quickly, red eyes boring into those of the trainer who stood above her. Him. He was the one who had pulled her off the trainer she'd attacked all those weeks ago. She dropped the weighed balls she was carrying in each hand, and had been using to pull her arms back into shape. Her fingers splayed out, fingers slightly curved, the position she assumed when she was ready to put up a fight.
The trainer clicked his mandibles together disapprovingly at her insubordination. "What is your name?" He demanded. The female peered up at him silently and then made a face. His yellow eyes flamed at this, but nothing in his body betrayed his anger. "Your name, female? Or shall I call you something less plesant?"
"Mox," she said, her voice so gravely and growl-tainted that it sounded like a hiss more than any name.
He grumbled to himself. A Human name, it seemed. It was certainly not Yautja. "You enjoy combat, Mox?" She sneered at him, as if asking if he were stupid or something. This time not even his eyes showed anger. He molded his words carefully. "If you want, I can make sure that next time you fight a battle like that, you win." She eyed him distrustfully.
"You pulled me away from him."
"Because it is not proper to fight one's trainer."
"He kicked me in the head." The trainer was silent a moment, phrasing his words.
"He had the right to kick you because of your rank. You did not have the right to hurt him." Mox instantly scowled. "But, if you become a better fighter, if you learn to respect rank, then you can gain a higher rank, so that next time you will be right, and your opponent will be wrong." She mused over this to herself.
"How?"
"I can train you." She glared darkly at him, as if he were a worm trying to instruct a bird on how to fly more effectively.
"How I know you're better than me?" she asked with a slow smile. The trainer lifted a brow, thinking to himself.
"You'll be able to find out without being hospitalized for a week or hacking anything to pieces." Mox eyed him a long moment and then she placed her hands on the ground and stood up.
"Teach me, if you are so great."
She was going to need better manners. If she talked to an elder that way, it was going to get her killed.
"Try some respect first, Unblooded."
"Earn some respect first, Trainer." He looked down at the tiny female, at her miniscule 5'7 frame, eyeing her critically. He had the feeling he was going to regret this whole thing…
Mox, on the other hand, sat back down and proceeded to preen herself. This required the use of her 'tongue,' another human mouth part, and included licking dried blood from her wounds and skin.