I've decided to make this the penultimate chapter, no reason why, just decided it would be. Hope you enjoy the chaos within this one R+R please

Chapter fifteen

An uninvited guest

The group stroll down the open ramp of the Celsius with Yuna and Rikku taking the lead and Tidus and Beclem bringing up the rear. They reach the bottom of the ramp, stop, and look around. To their surprise the hangar is deserted.

"Huh! Well don't everybody flock to see us at once," sulks Rikku.

Behind Tidus and Beclem, quiet as a church mouse, a long thick black tail descends behind them and then backs up close to the Celsius's hull and freezes. A moment of silence goes by as the others just stand there, unaware of the danger. Fast as a whip, the tail fires forward, sharp end first.

Beclem's chest erupts outwards and he gives a short sharp scream, everyone wheels around in shock, his voice trails off as blood streams out of his mouth. He is raised upwards to the horror of the rest of the group, whose eyes follow him upwards, and fall on the owner of the tail. She hisses at the fast dying Beclem and her huge second jaws shoot out, practically destroying Beclem's entire head. She holds onto his body and pulls out her tail and throws his corpse to one side. Dropping to the floor, she stands up to her full height and roars at those who destroyed her home and her children.

Rikku, unafraid, once again draws out her daggers and looks back at the others.

"We don't have a choice anymore guys! I'm going fight this thing, whether you like it or not! Besides it's about time I got even with this bitch. Go, get out of here!"

The rest of the group starts to run towards the door; they couldn't stay and fight, they were unarmed and wouldn't stand a chance. Rikku looks back at the queen, who is looking right at her.

"Rikku I'm gonna get reinforcements, stay alive you hear me!" calls out Elma.

"I hear you! Come on then you bitch, you want some of this? I'm ready for you!"

The Queen roars and runs at Rikku who dives to the side, narrowly avoiding her opponent's large, clawed feet. She gets up and the Queen spins around ready to charge again.

The door to the hangar suddenly opens up and a crowd of 6 marines, Elma included, run out, brandishing pulse rifles. The Queen turns to face them and lowers her head. She charges at the marines who open fire. To their horror the bullets ricochet off the crest harmlessly, they keep firing but watch, stunned, as she doesn't even slow down.

They start to retreat to the door behind them, but they're too late, the monstrosity manages to ram into Elma and another marine and she crushes them both between herself and the metal wall. She backs up and their lifeless bodies flop to the floor. She swings her tail at one of the marines running through the door, spears him, and brings him back out as the door is closed by the other three who managed to retreat in time. She drops the marine onto the floor and immediately turns her attention back to Rikku, but stops, bears her pointed teeth and hisses. Rikku, and now the Predator are standing there, daggers and spear in hand.

The Queen looks on at them, studying this new development, she is not as stupid as her warrior children. Indeed, she has an intelligence far superior to any fiend on Spira. Combine this with her unquenchable desire for survival and reproduction, and there really is very little to match how deadly she really is. But she could sense that these creatures standing before her; a human and a Yautja, possessed intelligence even greater than her own. This was going to be the final test for all of them; she advances on them slowly, watching them like a hawk for any trickery.

Rikku and the Predator look at each other, and then start to move around the Queen in opposite directions in a pincer movement. Once they stand opposite each other, with the irritated Queen in the middle, the Predator roars and Rikku screams and they both charge at the abomination. The Queen quickly looks in both of their directions and turns her attention to the Predator, at the same time swinging her tail at the approaching Rikku, who sees the tail coming just in time and commando rolls forward, the tail whooshes over her, missing by mere inches, she gets back up and jumps as the tail swings back, lower down this time. Due to the constant swishing of the tail Rikku can't close the gap, finding it tricky enough to dodge and duck the whip like tail, let alone advance on her quarry.

Whilst Rikku dodges and ducks, the Yautja attacks her majesty from the front, utilising a combination of slashes to her face and dodging the swipes of her huge clawed hands and the occasional shot of her secondary jaws. Unfortunately most of his own swipes with the spear either miss the queen or impact on her crest producing nothing but sparks.

He goes to slash her head but she catches the right side of the spear in her arm and then grabs the other end with her other arm. The two suddenly find themselves partaking in a wrestling match, each trying to wrench away the spear from each others grasp. The Queen pulls the Predator closer to her face and he watches as the Queen opens her mouth. The piston-like jaws fly out at his face, and he feints to his left side and watches, eyes wide in surprise, as the jaws fly past in front of his eyes and retreat back into the maw they came from.

In a burst of adrenaline he wrenches and tears his spear away from the clutches of the Queen and jambs the handle of the spear into the Queens open mouth, preventing her from biting and firing those jaws, however she starts slashing at him with her claws, cutting into his tough leathery skin. He roars in pain as she repeatedly lacerates him. Unable to bear it he takes out the spear and jumps backwards to put some space between himself and her, his wounds stung and burnt and bled, but were not lethal.

She stops swinging her tail and runs at him; he crouches and at the last second propels himself into the air, far higher than any human could reach. The Queen reaches the point where he once stood and stops. In mid air he grabs onto the top of the Queens crest and holds on, but drops his spear in doing so. He instantly extends his wristblades, but keeps holding on as she writhes about trying to get this infernal creature off her head. For the Yautja it's like riding a bucking bronco, and he holds on for the sake of his own skin.

Rikku, now having been given the opportunity to collect herself runs to the side of the thrashing and bucking Queen, daggers at the ready and cuts off one of her smaller arms at the shoulder and quickly retreats as the acid spills onto the floor, rapidly melting it away. The livid animal turns to Rikku in agony and charges at her. Once again Rikku dives out of the way, but not so much this time, as the Queen's head passes by she could feel her warm breath.

She watches, surprised as the powerful right leg raises to step on her, she rolls right underneath the Queen, the leg missing her by a few millimetres. Rikku screams in rage and slashes at the Queen's tough ankle, cutting into it but not completely through it. She quickly gets up and jumps to one side as the queen howls, as her damaged ankle is no longer able to take her weight and snaps.

She collapses to the floor, knocking the Yautja along with her, who thumps to the floor.

For a moment none of the combatants move from the exertions of battle. The only audible noise is the Queen's heavy breathing and the occasional purring noise from the Predator. Rikku is the first to pull herself up to her feet. Daggers in hand she wipes the sweat from her forehead, the Yautja follows suit, blearily getting to his feet, shaking his head slowly. Rikku steps backwards to join him, constantly looking at the Queen, who looks straight back at her.

"That," she puffs, "Was intense. What now, how shall we kill her?"

He shrugs and walks over to his spear.

"Okay," murmurs Rikku, "Let's do it the old fashioned way."

She advances on the Queen, who watches her intently, teeth beard. As Rikku approaches her thick neck, the Queen suddenly springs to life. Pushing herself up with her three remaining arms, she head butts Rikku, sending the surprised Al Bhed flying. Unable to support herself on her hind legs she walks on all fours with a slight limp. She turns her attentions to the Elder who grasps his spear.

She runs at him with all her strength, preparing to ram him. He crouches and begins to jump into the air, but at the last second the queen stops, and watches the predator fly into the air. He looks straight back at her, knowing all too late that she wanted meant trick him and has succeeded. The pointed tail shoots through the air and pierces his right calf, making his mandibles flare in anguish, and he drops his spear.

He crashes to the floor, the tail still sunk in his muscular leg, preventing him from moving. The Queen looks at her prey and opens her mouth with a hiss, ready for the final strike. The red dagger spins through the air with unparalleled accuracy, and buries itself deep in the beast's throat. She recoils wildly, withdrawing her tail from the crippled Yautja and staggers around, her deadly blood spurting in all directions.

"You should have killed me when you had the chance, bitch," snarls Rikku, advancing on the struggling alien, her flailing slowing down as the wound begins to take its toll. Then Rikku flings her other dagger at the monster, which embeds itself into her thigh. Completely crippled now, she collapses to the floor, hissing and fuming.

The door of the hangar opens and Yuna, Paine Tidus, Nooj, Gippal and Baralai run in, they stare at the scene before them. The Queen's tail waves around slowly as she whines. The predator crawls to his spear, grabs it and slides it along the floor to Rikku, who picks it up.

"Finish her," he growls.

Rikku approaches the Queen who starts to thrash about in protest. Rikku walks around the side of the Queen, who is unable to follow her movements. She holds one end of the spear, and looks at the back of the queen's head.

"We lost so much because of you; this is for them!"

She screams and swings the spear round over her head, and brings it down onto the Queen's neck, the razor-sharp blade cuts clean through her and Rikku dives to the side as the acid sprays out of both ends and starts to melt away at the floor. The hulking animal stops thrashing and lays still, her head falling to one side. Silence suddenly envelops the room.

The Predator struggles to his feet and hobbles towards the Queen's head, picking it up with both hands he offers it to Rikku who takes it, but is unable to hold it up. She bows her head to her comrade who returns the gesture. Moving next to the Predator, she puts his arm over her shoulder to help him support himself and, with the head in her other hand, they trudge to the astonished group.

As they draw near, Tidus begins clapping, slowly at first and the rest start to follow suit, gradually speeding up the clapping the closer the pair get to them. As they stand toe to toe with the group they grab Rikku and lift her, leaving the poor predator to use the head as a support, they throw her up into the air and catch her repeatedly.

"Whoa guys, cool it, I don't want to land heavily on the floor or anything."

Carefully they set her down on the floor.

"Besides I had help."

She points to the Predator who stands alone a few metres away, he was quite a site, fluorescent green blood dripping down his leg and body, but he bowed graciously.

It's the first time that Nooj, Gippal and Baralai have seen the Predator close up, and they stare wide eyed, their mouths parted at the site of this incredibly ugly alien standing in front of them.

They speak unanimously, "You are one, ugly…"

"Yes, yes, yes we have long established that fact," interrupts Rikku.

He roars and clicks a few times. He drops the head in his right hand and presses a button on his wrist computer, which opens up; he presses a couple more buttons and the others watch in amazement as, to the left of the Celsius in the hangar, a small predator ship uncloaks, as always the air shimmers around it, before becoming still again.

"That was there the whole time and you guys didn't even notice?" asks Rikku.

"We never detected anything entering the hangar apart from the Celsius." Replies Nooj flabbergasted.

"You gotta have some crazy technology to get past our radar system," points out Gippal.

They watch a ramp descend from the side of the ship's hull and touch the floor. A lone predator walks down the ramp and towards the group. His unmasked face bears similar characteristics to the other Predator; he is another elder, who decided to sit out this hunt and take care of the ship. Unlike the hunter standing with the group he is wearing a long black cape with intricate red markings on both sides of the material and two circular silver clips attaching the cape to his shoulders and in his arms he holds some sort of folded up cloth. He reaches the other Predator and they bow heads to each other and exchange clicks and chirps, their mandibles moving as they speak.

The new arrival holds the cloth by two corners and lets the rest fall to the ground; it is another black cape, with the same red markings, only this one has golden circular clips to attach to shoulders. The cape-less Predator turns his back to the newer Predator who clips the cape to his bare shoulders; any pain that he felt was not displayed, as this is not the first time such a cape has been put on him. The other predator then stands next to his friend and looks at Rikku who is just barely propping up the Queen's head. The predator, having seen what she has just accomplished, bows his head to her. The injured Predator turns to his comrade and points to the open ramp of the Celsius, clicks and few times and the other predator walks to the ship. He disappears up the ramp momentarily and then returns, a Praetorian head in each hand, and then he turns towards his own ship.

The injured Predator also turns to leave, much to Rikku's bemusement, "Wait! Don't you need this?" she asks holding out the Yautja's spear.

He in turn shakes his head, "keep it," he rumbles, then turns back to the ship.

Rikku looks a little surprised at his willingness to just leave with no goodbyes.

"Wait. What's your name?" she asks.

He turns back to her again, thinking about her question.

"Daschande," he answers finally, "Goodbye Rikku," and with that, he turns back to his ship to follow his comrade, cape swaying in the slight breeze from the open hangar, this time without being interrupted.

Rikku gives a small wave, but he does not look back.

The ramp promptly closes after him and after a few moments the ship starts to make a slight rumbling noise and the sound of the ship powering up can be heard. It levitates off of the ground and reverses out of the hangar, turns away from the building and its engines fire, sending it shooting off into the sky, and into the unknown.

"Goodbye Daschande," mumbles Rikku, saddened at seeing the back of her new found friend.

The others start to look to each other, then to the dead body of the Queen.

"Lets get out of here everyone; we have a lot of things we need to sort out with regards to everything that has happened over the last 24 hours. Let's get inside. Uh Rikku I suggest you leave that head there and you can pick it up when you leave. Who knows how we're going to dispose of that body there," commands Nooj, and they all turn to the exit door and leave.

I promise you Ikon i take no pleasure in torturing you like this, i just don't really want to kill her. Sorry.