.x.

For a long while I ran, slowing at intervals into a stumbling walk, glancing fearfully behind me and expecting to find Reed or something just as vile in hot pursuit. Luck, it seemed, was with me this once, and when my chest heaved with gasping breaths and my muscles burned, I deemed it safe enough finally for me to halt. Leaning heavily on the wall, shotgun resting against the floor, I closed my eyes and tried to gather all the thoughts roiling in frantic turmoil throughout my mind. What had begun as a dangerous expedition had become infinitely more deadly in the span of less than an hour and of the four of us to have entered these caves, the only one I knew for certain was alive was myself. Images of Scar battling the predalien, of the sound he made after Reed shot him replayed themselves over and over, and I tried hard to banish the heavy, oppressive sorrow that washed over me as I realized he may even now be dead. Worry about yourself, the cold, detached and clinical part of me said, worry about getting out of here alive

But even as I pushed myself away from the wall and began to walk forth once more, the sorrow lingered on the fringes of my mind, refusing to be kept at bay. I could no longer, it seemed, deny the fact that I had developed some sort of affection for Scar. Bothered to the extreme by this revelation I wandered then aimlessly, only vaguely aware of my environment, turning as my path dictated I should. I was fast becoming overwhelmed by all that was causing my life to spiral steadily out of control—the hunt we had embarked on that was fast becoming suicidal, I had lost track of all my comrades, Reed was in pursuit of any and all of us, and Scar could be dead or dying …

I shook my head then against the sudden pang I felt, gritted my teeth, and resolutely focused on my surroundings and only my surroundings. Time enough for regrets, for self-recriminations when I was free of this place. And so I continued onwards through a meandering tunnel that would widen and narrow at random, and tried not to think about what on earth I would do with my life once I escaped. When I rounded a bend and found myself facing the eight-foot massive frame of Tank, the first and only thing I could do was stare at him in sudden and absolute disbelief.

"You're not dead," I said dumbly after a moment. The hunter made an inquisitive noise, stepping closer and as he did so I was able to see the blue gel smeared in many places upon his body mingled with the vivid fluorescence of his blood. His cannon was still intact, lying inactive across his back, and both his large blades were lying dormant against his forearms. He grumbled at me again, clearly wondering what had happened to Scar, and I shook my head wondering how I'd explain all that had transpired in his absence.

"We were separated," I said, watching as he reached out to remove the shotgun from my grasp and lift it to eye level; he turned it from side to side, scrutinizing, and when he abruptly turned and hurled it into the tunnel's darkness from whence he had originated, I let out a furious cry.

"I need that!"

He silenced the rest of my protests with a loud snarl, holding one hand out before me in a gesture meant to silence and reaching with the other behind him to remove something that was attached to his back. What he held out to me then was a spear—the spear given to me by the hunter elder, the spear I had lost in the first cave-in after encountering the predalien. While I was somewhat mollified by the fact he'd returned it to me, I was a trifle pissed that he'd seen fit to toss the shotgun—a weapon I felt considerably more safer with than when wielding than the spear—away as though it were trash.

"Jerk," I muttered, which promptly earned me a light slap upside the head. Apparently he understood me well enough to know when he was being insulted. His reprimand was so reminiscent of something that Scar would do that I found myself once again besieged by despair and worry. Driven by this, I wondered immediately where Scale was, and if he'd survived, and so I gave voice to my question. "Were you separated from … Scale?"

I felt stupid using the name I'd given the other hunter, but what else was I to call him? Tank tilted his head for a moment, considering, before putting his two fists together side by side and then swiftly drawing them apart. He was telling me, I understood after a moment, that he and Scale had indeed been separated. He gestured to me and then thumbed himself on the chest before pointing to another passage entrance some hundred feet to the forward left of us, and his meaning was clear: together we would continue on, and search for the others we'd lost. I nodded once, grimly, studiously avoiding thinking about whether the two we would now look for were dead or alive.

With the slight flexing of a muscle, Tank caused his left arm blade to spring into its outright position, the process for all the world resembling that of a giant switchblade. He tapped the end of my spear with one thick finger, giving a meaningful growl, and I nodded again before hitting the indent that elongated my weapon into its true form. As he stepped past me to lead the way on our new path, I glanced longingly in the direction he had thrown the shotgun. Half turning and seeing the direction of my gaze, Tank gave a warning rumble, and with a resigned sigh I trudged after him.

.x.

For hours Tank and I walked, he in the lead and I in the rear. We maintained for the most part absolute silence, although from time to time the predator would emit a low trill or grunt that let me know he was thinking carefully. It was somewhat curious, I found myself thinking, that we hadn't yet encountered any more of the aliens, and then I began to try and calculate how many total I'd seen slain. There could only be so many in accordance with the number of human hosts they'd erupted from; my math was interrupted when suddenly Tank slowed to a halt in front of me, falling into a swift and graceful crouch that set his long, metal banded hair clattering back and forth. He began to examine something on the ground before him with intense scrutiny.

I eased around him, peering over his broad shoulder to see what it was that had caught his attention. There before him was a small puddle of neon green liquid—the blood of a fellow hunter. He dipped two fingers into and it and raised it up before his face, and the noise that left him then promised much in the way of pain to whatever hostile creatures we may encounter along our way. Wiping the blood free from his fingers along the stone of the corridor floor, he poked then at an almost similar green yet extremely viscous fluid pooled close to the blood. I had a sneaking suspicion as to what it was, and so when Tank beckoned to me to hand over my spear I did so without complaint. I watched as he scooped up some of the strange substance on the head of the weapon and brought it in close for inspection. I straightened and turned on the spot, scouting the area around us with sudden unease. Tank growled softly behind me, studying this newest evidence, and almost painfully alert now I left his side and began to walk further down the tunnel, scanning the floor for more blood. I wouldn't go far, I told myself, because bad things always happened when I did—

And then I took one step around a hairpin corner, and once again I found myself facing Reed over the barrel of yet another shotgun.

Though I couldn't see his expression for the shadows engulfing him, I was almost certain he was smiling that smug, condescending smile of his. From what I could make out in the lack of light, the wrist I'd broken was set in some manner of temporary splint/cast that I had seen before in first aid kits. Apparently, he'd found his team again because he held his weapon in one hand and had set the barrel across the length of his injured arm for leverage. I wasn't naive enough to think that his broken wrist made him any less deadly, and I was both utterly dismayed and unsurprised to see him here now; someone this loathsome and persistent would of course manage to survive being buried under tons of rockfall which was, in my humble opinion, a death too good for him. No, it wasn't in any manner surprising he had survived to further plague my life, but it didn't change the fact that I wished he'd suffered a gruesome and torturously slow death.

When he spoke, his droll and subtly malicious tone hinted at the fact that he knew exactly what I was thinking. "I'm harder to kill than you think," he said, advancing. The barrel of the gun dug into my breastbone, forcing me back. He moved out of the shadows, mock hurt showing on his face. "You didn't even ask if I was all right. I'm crushed." He smirked, then, as if aware of the irony in his last statement.

With the rock wall of the passage at my back I could go no further. Wondering frantically how I was going to escape this mess I became aware that the steady, consistent rumbling of Tank in the chamber only a few feet behind me had ceased. Feeling a rush of hope because I had an ally Reed knew nothing about, I wrapped the fingers of one hand around the gun barrel and was about to shove it aside when he spoke again.

"I am growing very tired of chasing you around, Lex. Honestly, one would think you didn't like me." He chuckled. "You know what I find absolutely fascinating?"

"No," I replied flatly, pushing the barrel away. He let me. "But I'm sure you're going to tell me."

He merely stood there. I was expecting him to make a move, but he just looked at me. "The fact that we are down here, in the middle of an underground maze filled with all kinds of violent, terrible aliens, and yet I am the thing you seem most afraid of." He sounded pleased. "You have no idea what that does for my ego."

I almost laughed at that. Almost. "You're not the only thing I'm afraid of, Reed. But you are the thing I hate most."

He stalked forward. "Such honesty. And that is why I haven't killed you already," he murmured, "Lex."

There he was again, blatantly invading my personal space. I wondered somewhat desperately where Tank was, and if he was even aware the situation I was now in. I made to step away from the wall, but Reed shoved me roughly back with the barrel of his shotgun. "Back off," I snarled, attempting to shove him, to try and strike his injured wrist. My efforts earned me a sharp jab in my ribs with the gun, and at the sharp flare of pain I almost doubled over. Clutching my side, I glared up at him with eyes that threatened to water and silently beseeched the predator I knew was somewhere in the vicinity to come to my aid fast.

"You don't seem to be at your best," said Reed with that false concern I'd grown to loathe. At this distance, I could tell he wasn't at a hundred percent himself, but somehow the rockslide earlier had merely trapped him without injuring him beyond surface scrapes. Damn him for being lucky. "Anything I can do to help?"

"You dropping dead would make me feel better," I snapped, straightening and realizing that perhaps it hadn't been prudent earlier to not go after the shotgun Tank had discarded. My spear was still with said hunter, and as I cursed him in that instant I caught a glimpse of something rippling, something convoluting the scenery behind off to the right of where we stood, and the rush of relief I felt then was almost staggering. I kept my eyes trained on the man before me. I would not reveal Tank's presence to him, and so I said with as much venom as I could muster, "Pity the cave-in didn't finish you off."

"It will take much more than that to kill me." He leaned in again, like a villain in an old movie who's trapped the ingenue. "Much more."

"Whatever it takes," I whispered, trying not to pull away from his nearness, from his breath so hot against my own face, "I hope it hurts like hell."

He ignored me. "You'll have to learn your proper place," he said almost tenderly, stroking my cheek, my mark, with the back of his swathed hand. I choked at the feeling of his mouth on mine, his hand under my chin, the barrel of the gun digging into my ribs.

I knew what was happening even before I could see it. Tank let loose a fearsome snarl, and quite suddenly Reed was ripped from me and hurled by the fluidic, invisible form of the predator. Before striding forth to confront Reed, Tank tossed me my spear. I caught it one handed and leapt forward, intent on impaling the sick son of a bitch that I positively hated more than almost anything in the world. Reed had gotten unsteadily to one knee and he pulled the trigger and the wall behind and to the side of me exploded in a shower of rocks and dust. I dropped to a crouch, but Tank, now uncloaked, was undeterred. As Reed took somewhat rushed and fumbling aim, sighting on the hunter, Tank brought his arm blade down in a savage arc and it sliced cleanly through the barrel of the shotgun, rendering it quite suddenly useless.

As Tank struck out again Reed was on his feet, ruined weapon falling away, dodging the strike with a litheness I had to give him credit for, and then he was running hell bent down the passage, away from the hunter and I. I made to rush after him, but Tank hauled me back with a hand on the shoulder. As I spun around, angry, he sliced a hand horizontally in front of me, nixing the idea of pursuit. He turned a thumb to himself and then a forefinger to me, indicating again that we were searching for comrades lost, and my rage faded. He was right, I knew. There would be a time and a place to kill Reed, and I was beginning to realize that almost certainly, it would be by either my hand or that of a hunter that he met his final and justified end.

And as Tank began to walk again, heading in the direction of the man I loathed, I knew that no matter how he died, I was going to take great satisfaction in witnessing it.

.x.