Non sum qualis eram

"Adequate prey?" Her voice rose to a near-shriek. "That was a human being!"

"Pyode amedha", she corrected almost absently as she finished hooking the grisly trophy to her waist. "And," she continued, "barely adequate at that. For all his power, he was too much a coward to face his own prey directly." Satisfied that the head was secure, she stood, brushing the blood from her armor as she did so to send it spattering through the widening dark red puddle ruining the carpet.

Looking around, she debated if any of the other prey had been worthy of taking their heads, but decided against it. The only one that had come close to being a challenge was the last, the bald man who had managed to cut her. She felt the wound in her side, the dull heat from the blue paste encrusted over the cut he had given her numbing the pain to a half-felt residual.

She pointed towards his body, the reporter's gaze drawn reluctantly to the gaping hole where the man's chest and abdomen had been, now a caved-in ruin attaching legs to arms to head.

"That one was more worthy prey, but even so he acted without honor, hunting the weak. Ito's skull will adorn my vault, as will those of Wen and Issotti , not because they were challenges themselves, but because what they stood for was the challenge." She looked the reporter squarely in the eye.

"The question is, what of you? I warned you to pray I didn't notice you, yet here you are, hand in hand with these pyode amedha." Kylie snorted, tossing her head back and straightening up.

"You should kill me, bitch. Because if you don't, I'm going to plaster your face all over the news, I'll expose you for what you are – a psychopathic murderer!" She chuckled behind her mask.

"And who will believe you, when they know that you have been running with criminals? It would be hard to hide your lack of a finger." She shook her head. "No, you are no threat to us. The only reason you might have been worth hunting is because you ignored my warning, but you are truly not worth the effort." She made towards the doors to leave, but was surprised when the reporter reached a hand out, grabbing her by the arm as she went past. She looked down at the reporter's hand, then into her face, and the woman trembled before letting go as if scalded.

"I'm going to find you. I'll get you, one way or another, bitch" she mumbled. Cally laughed behind her mask.

"Not yet, girl. Not yet."

-

The Healer wasn't happy. His hunt had gotten off to a bad start, his Penetrator capsule hitting a particularly stubborn section of reinforced construction that had tilted it off course, causing it to topple and skid along the floor a few levels above ground, plowing through thinner interior walls and quite a few hapless pyode amedha unable to get out of the way in time, before coming to rest in a cloud of dust and debris. To add insult to this, it had come to a halt with the hatch partially underneath – he had tried to release the hatch but only the top had come free, forcing him to clamber out of the alien cocoon.

To make it all worse, along with his mood, the Penetrator's wild ride along the floor had emptied his arrival point of most all the pyode amedha there were for him to vent his frustrations on, leaving him with little alternative but to punch holes in inoffensive walls. Those few hapless humans unlucky enough to have survived the arrival of the capsule that hadn't already run for the stairwells were treated similarly, pummeled into bloody piles of torn flesh more than hunted.

He had found more luck a few levels up, running across a group of pyode amedha who had thought their barricaded area impregnable. With gleeful abandon only a Yautja could display, he had cut through the dozen or so humans behind it, before teasing the handful he left alive during his initial deadly assault by cloaking and uncloaking in different places, trying to find one that would challenge him the most.

He was so absorbed with toying with his prey that he didn't notice the shadow-within-the-shadows that watched him closely. The flash of weapons fire reflected dully from its shiny black skin and carapace, unseen to the combatants, as it observed and waited for its moment.

At the moment of its unholy birth, crashing through the chest of its unwilling host, it had cast its mind out, searching for its hive, its queen, but had heard nothing. The silence in its mind had tinged its birth cry of defiance with an indescribable loneliness. Its instincts drove it, now. It was alone, there was no hive. It needed to restrain its natural desire to hunt, instead waiting and biding its time for the change to come. It must survive to grow, metamorphose, and create a hive, as its queen. Then it would no longer be alone.

The creatures holding it captive had set it free to roam their nest, but it could sense clearly the chaos it had been released into the midst of. It could feel the death spasms of countless potential hosts, and realized that it was in terrible danger. It needed to leave here, find safety. It was the only one of its kind, it must survive, to create the hive.

It had paused however when it came across the creature it observed so carefully now. Deep within it, it could feel the stirrings of fear and hatred for this pale thing, although it did not know why. It instinctively knew however that the host creatures might pose no threat, but this one posed a very real threat. The feelings of hatred grew as it came to the conclusion that this thing before it must be the reason why it could not feel any of its brethren, the reason why it was alone.

The hatred warred within it with the need to run, hide, to create the hive. In the end, the instinct for the preservation of its species won out, but it marked well the appearance of this dangerous creature. It would remember.

Without disturbing the combatants, it made its way deeper into the building, its instincts and senses guiding it to the lower levels, more shadows and darkness, a place to hide, to escape through. As the Healer finished off the last of the pyode amedha defenders by the barricade, he had no idea how close he had been to facing a kainde amedha, or the consequences his preoccupation with his prey would have.

-

She could tell the grin on her opponent's face was forced now. Confidence had begun to be replaced with desperation as he realized that he was losing, against an opponent he couldn't even see yet. She laughed, allowing her mask to amplify the sound and he spun towards her, a stream of bullets tumbling from the barrel of the weapon he held, but she ducked down and they passed harmlessly by once more, following the hundreds that had come before.

She hadn't been planning on playing with her prey, but when she'd made her way towards his chambers she'd walking in on a scene that made her blood boil. Wen had obviously either received bad news, or hadn't heard what he'd wanted to, and was busy pummeling a hapless mobster into a bloody mess, the goon unable to defend himself because his arms were pinned by his sides by two others.

She sprang forwards, extending the wristblades from both her forearms and impaling the captors at the same time, then had withdrawn, wrenching the jagged alien metal from the bodies as they had fallen to the ground. Faster than she had expected, Wen had reached behind him to produce a short barreled machine pistol and started spraying the room, narrowly missing her as he fired blindly, the bullets instead tearing through the hapless mobster's skull in a spray of blood and gray matter. Remembering her mistake from earlier that had revealed her even cloaked, she had made her way around the room, trying to avoid the blood, but somehow Wen had been able to nearly track her, coming close several times as he continued to fire, reloading now and again.

She watched as he made to reload again, and made her decision quickly. Pressing against the discolored panel in her armor, she allowed more of the fine cord to extrude out as she reached into a pouch at her waist. She tied the small metallic dart to the loose end just as Wen finished reloading, and as he brought the gun to bear once more she turned her cloak off.

The smile that began to spread across his face died as she straightened up and he saw the head mounted to her belt. His mouth opened and closed several times before his features hardened, but as he began to lift the weapon up to point at her she threw the dart with unerring accuracy towards him. He let out a shriek as the dart punched into his chest, rising in volume as she tugged on the cord pulling the dart back towards her, the barbs inside it springing out and catching in the bone of his sternum and pulling him off balance.

Each time he tried to regain his footing and bring the gun back up, she tugged on the cord, eliciting a cry of pain from the panicking mob boss as he was drawn inexorably closer to her. Each time he tried to reach for the barbed dart in his chest or the cord, she would give a stronger yank on the cord, bringing him to the ground.

Eventually he was directly in front of her, and as she reached across and took the now-forgotten gun from his hands he looked up at her, his face a mixture of fear, resignation, and anger. He spat up at her, blood and spittle mixing to spot the markings that covered one side of her mask but doing little to interfere with her vision. She shook her head slowly, amused at this final gesture of defiance, and pressed down on his shoulders until he was kneeling, before moving around behind him and crouching down.

She placed one hand around and under his chin, clenching the other into a fist, and as her blades extended she flexed her wrist so that they rotated to face upwards. With a grunt, she punched the blades into his back, either side of his spine, and as his body arched, she began to draw her arm upwards, the twinned razor-sharp serrated edges cutting through flesh and muscle either side of his spinal column. After a few inches she paused, reaching her hand into the bloody gashes that she had caused so far and wrapping it around the vertebrae at the small of his back, before continuing her devastating butchery of her prey, oblivious to the screams that were now coming out of his throat.

As the blades reached the ribs, she gave a jerk upwards, the keen metal parting through the bone without much effort, and the spine finally came away from his pelvis, his legs going limp as they were disconnected from his brain. She continued, the man's torso quivering as his cries quietened down into a breathy mewling, jerking her arm as the blades encountered each pair of ribs, slowly pulling his spine away from his back and leaving a bloody trench of flesh behind. In moments, she reached his shoulder blades, and she stopped then, pressing his torso forwards and releasing the cartilage-and-tissue coated spine.

She stood and took hold once more, bending slightly to get a good purchase, before lifting her arm at the same time as she gave an explosive heave upwards, straightening her legs and throwing her body weight backwards. The man's spine and head came free in a fountain of blood, and she stood there for a moment, her arm raised holding aloft the gore-dripping trophy before screaming her victory out loud.

After she recovered from the release of her emotions, she looked at the remains in her hand with that same curious detachment she had fought for so long to deny. She had retrieved a trophy even Yautja would be impressed with, the complete skull and spine of her prey. She grinned mirthlessly to herself behind her mask as she quickly cut through the cord attached to the dart in his sternum, and fashioned a loop around the base of the neck, and slung the whole assemblage over one shoulder to hang down and rest against her back, the head peeking out over her shoulder opposite her plasma cannon.

"Two down, one to go. Here, kitty kitty kitty."

-

Issotti wasn't feeling like a cat right then – quite the opposite. In his terror and panic he had run, but every turn he had taken had taken him to a place where a Yautja could be found, cheerfully indulging themselves in their hunting of this prey-rich game preserve the crime lords had set up for them. Each time they had spotted him they had made as if to kill him, but once up close, they had looked at his face and skull and realized that this was one of the three pyode amedha the human huntress had laid prior claim on, and let him go.

Losing himself deeper in the building, and gradually deeper into madness, Issotti ran onwards, not understanding why he was being spared, not caring where he was running to. Isolated pockets of the men each of the three crime bosses had brought with them all rejected his pleas for help, his begging to be allowed entry to their barricaded false sanctuaries having no effect. Any shred of loyalty they might have once had were gone, it was every man for himself now.

The frequent piles of headless bloody corpses that he came across showed the futility of that approach. They had thought of this place of a fortress, believed it impregnable, but it was nothing more that a large killing ground, hunting grounds for the Yautja, and they were systematically wiping out the defenders. The humans had thought themselves the hunters, but the brutally efficient aliens were showing them how misguided they had been in their belief.

She caught up with him in one of the basements, catching sight of him from her perch crouched atop one of the emergency power generators. She watched with cold amusement as he scrambled through the cavernous chamber, stumbling over bodies and bouncing off the machinery and pipes that filled it. She magnified the view in her mask to get a close up of his face, the thermal view she used automatically without thinking highlighting the patterns of heat that showed him flushed and in terror.

She activated the target lock system slaved to the plasma weapon over her shoulder and waited for the three red bars to come down and flash over the image of Issotti, but he ducked into a side room before she could complete the lock on him and she cursed to herself. She vaulted down from the generator agilely, turning her cloak off as she did so, and stalked towards the doorway the mob boss had evaded her through, reaching down and removing the telescoping spear clipped to her thigh.

She stopped short as she reached the doorway, the sight inside making her blood run cold. Stacked from floor to ceiling were ammunition boxes, cases and large crates, her prey had managed to find himself an arms storage room. Cautiously she scanned the inside of the room, quickly locating the panic-stricken mob boss, but the scan showed he seemed to remain unarmed. Confused, she held back, analyzing the situation and looking for a trap. It took her a moment before she understood that Issotti was so far gone into his fear he probably didn't even realize the arsenal he had at his disposal at the moment.

As she considered the situation, Issotti caught sight of her outlined in the doorway and let out a gibbering cry, clutching the air either side of him as he backed away, babbling nonsensical noises. She stepped into the room, gripping the spear in her hand in that peculiar manner that caused it to extend to its full deadly length with a metallic shiing.

"Not quite so coky now, huh Issotti? Do you feel it, the fear you put in others?" she asked, her voice cold and metallic through her mask's amplifiers. His only response was to begin to whimper, fragments of pleading for mercy just distinguishable. She stepped forwards once more, deliberately and slow, and he cowered back more.

She paused as in his flailing one of his hands knocked into a partially opened crate. Frantically he grabbed inside, searching for whatever he could find, to be rewarded by bringing up a small spherical object. Grenade! She stood as he feverishly grasped at it and pulled the pin out before holding it aloft, seaty hands keeping the spoon depressed as he held it aloft.

"Stay away! I'll drop it, I will! This place will blow sky high!" he screeched, manic confidence returning as he tried to take control of the situation. She watched impassively as he continued to back away, deeper into the storage room, but tensed as she heard a familiar skittering.

"Issotti, stop where you are. There's a kainde amedha somewhere in here." He looked at her, doubt clouding his eyes for a moment.

"A what?"

"The alien that you were keeping and let loose. I can hear it." As she spoke she rapidly cycled through her mask's vision modes, trying to detect the signature of the alien. There! She caught a glimpse of the curved head of the black skinned alien through a gap between crates, perilously close to Issotti, and moving towards him. She wasn't the only one hunting the portly Italian.

"Come to me. I promise you I'll kill you quick and clean. If the alien gets hold of you, your death will be neither." She tried to reason with him, nervously eying the grenade he still held, but he was too far gone into his insanity, his overbearing bluster and confidence returning, buoyed by the explosives in his hand. She stepped backwards towards the doorway she had entered, and he took it as a sign that he had the upper hand, oblivious to the more pressing threat moving stealthily towards him.

"That's it bitch, you ain't that hot!" he crowed, but she paid him scant attention, watching behind him as she backed further towards the doorway. No matter what she did, there was no way to take the crazed mob boss out without him dropping the grenade, risking a chain reaction with all the ammunition and explosives crammed into the room. Likewise, she had nothing she could use against the kainde amedha that didn't risk the same results. She needed to withdraw to safety, this was going to be a mess whatever happened and her only option was self-preservation.

She was still inside the room when it came into full view, glistening head emerging from behind a stack of crates ominously close to the oblivious crime lord. It let out a low hiss, and he stopped his advance, turning slowly and looking up as the alien raised itself up tall, tail poised behind and above. He let out a whimpered "Mommy!" as the alien struck, darting forwards and impaling its inner jaws deep into the mobster's skull. As she saw the grenade fall from the man's spasming hand, she could hear the distinct ping! of the spoon releasing, and she turned and dived through the doorway.

She rolled to one side and got to her feet, sprinting towards the generator she had used as her perch earlier. As she rounded it's looming bulk, her world went red and white in a flash, the concussion wave following a moment later throwing her to the ground like a broken doll.

Dust and debris swirled around her, and she cried out as fragments of wall and ammunition crashed by her, punching into her armor as she tried to crawl further behind the machinery for safety. With dizzying speed, her world flipped upside down and went black.

She opened her eyes then closed them again as the light being shone into them pierced through, reminiscent of the pain the destruct device mounted in her closet had caused the first time she had looked into it. She waved her hands feebly, before realizing that her mask was missing. Her hands made contact with the warm leathery skin of an alien, and she relaxed, recognizing it as Yautja. Tentatively she opened her eyes again a fraction, then wider as she made sure the light was no longer being shone into them, and was greeted with a familiar sight – the healer bent over her.

She glanced around and saw the healer wasn't alone, the rest of the Yautja hunting party surrounded her, crouched down and watching. She coughed as a swirl of dust passed by, and gratefully took a sip of fluid the healer pressed against her lips. Gingerly she sat up and looked around.

The generator had saved her life, without it's massive metal bulk there was no way she could have survived the blast. The basement had been trashed completely, and several of the walls showed huge holes and signs of imminent collapse. She peered around the side of the generator towards the storage room, growning in pain as her abused body complained that it wasn't ready to move, but all she could see was a mound of concrete brought down in the blast. She turned and looked towards the Elder in concern.

"There was a kainde amedha in there just before the explosion, it killed the last of my prey. The Elder's head turned quickly as she spoke, the Second standing and moving swiftly towards the rubble. She didn't need the translator in her mask to understand the Second's eventual evaluation.

"The room is completely destroyed, solid debris and damage fill it. The explosion brought down a large section of building into the room. It is unlikely anything could have survived the explosion or the collapse." The Elder growled an acknowledgment, and as the Second returned to the group he looked towards her. She grinned at him warmly.

"I think we made a mess here."

-


-

The time for her to make her decision was closer, too close. Almost every waking moment she thought about it, torn in two directions. The Yautja could sense the conflict within her, and wisely kept their distance as her temper became shorter.

The ship was repaired, another hunting party had picked up the signal from the beacon launched days ago and swung past the planet to hand over the replacement parts needed for the deep space drive, the originals on board her ship having been destroyed when the kainde amedha had attacked weeks ago.

It hadn't been difficult for the Yautja to find new prey to hunt – it had only been a few days since the battle at the pyode amedha bad blood's fortress before more came into the area to take it over, recreating the supply of illegal goods and services once controlled by the most powerful criminal figures in the city. Their position and power had done them no good, the skulls of two sat presented proudly within her trophy vault, the blank empty eye sockets staring silently into her chamber each time she opened the protective shield that kept the trophies safe, to look on them, or to add to their number. The third had been lost in the fiery destruction he himself had unleashed.

Things were coming to a head, she knew. The Elder, through the Second, had been dropping more unsubtle hints that she needed to make her mind up quickly as time went on. The Second, understanding perhaps better than anyone the dilemma she faced, tried unsuccessfully to draw her into conversation about it, to help her talk through the decision. Each time he left with the Yautja equivalent of exasperation, but he would not force the issue, none of them would. This was a decision she had to make on her own.

Should she stay, or should she leave along with the others on the ship?

To have been invited to leave with them to begin with had been a shock to her – Yautja deemed her worthy of joining them, and the ship, as a hunter. As a species, the proud and harsh aliens were not prone to making such offers casually, and she knew that it was possibly the highest compliment she could ever be paid.

But if she left, that would mean abandoning her promises and purposes to be prey fitting for her trainer. He had invested over twenty years of his time, their time, in getting her close to the stage where he would consider her worthy to hunt. If she left, what would that mean for him? Her mind kept flashing back to two conversations she had been part of, with two people now dead.

The first was with Marisa, who had pointed out that all she needed to do to avoid being hunted was to not improve, not get "better". She had explained to her closest friend that she couldn't do that, but hadn't been able to explain why. The truth of the matter was, she knew in her heart that to try to avoid the consequences would be a failure all of itself.

The second was with Blade, the ship's weaponsmaster who had been killed fighting the kainde amedha on board the ship. She had promised him she would be the best prey she could be.

The decision would have been easy for a Yautja, or for a pyode amedha, although they would have taken different courses. Her place, in her heart, made the choice harder. She straddled the two worlds – Yautja and human – and it was tearing her moral compass to shreds.

The near-Yautja side of her said to stay behind, fulfill the destiny and complete the path she had set for herself decades ago. The near-pyode amedha side said to run, stay with the Yautja and travel the universe, let something else further on be the one to claim her as its kill.

Two choices, two outcomes, two versions of her life warring to exist.

She sat on the edge of her bed, surrounded by the multicolored furs of nameless alien creatures that were her bedding, looking at her trophies on the wall. The dead eyes of the two crime lords stared back at her, offering no counsel.

Sleep wasn't easy for her that night. But she found it eventually, and in the morning woke with her decision at last.

-

They stood outside the ship, heat shimmers rising from the ground as the air was warmed by the thruster openings in the underside, the ship powering up for its departure.

"We will keep your trophies for you, young blood. When we next return, we look forwards to you reclaiming them, or remembering you through them." The Elder's voice held a strong note of pride, and she inclined her head. The Second placed a claw on her shoulder as the Elder stepped back.

"You are certain of your path?" She growled in assent.

"I have to stay. If I were to leave with you, it would be turning my back on him. There's nothing to say that he'll think I'm ready before you guys come again anyhow. And" she grinned mischievously, "look at it this way. If he does and I win the hunt, you'll be able to decide who gets to challenge me next!". They all laughed at that, but the Second's reply was sombre.

"I think that I would rather hunt beside you than hunt you, young blood. You may not be Yautja, but I am not certain that you are entirely prey any more." To their surprise, the Elder growled his agreement with the Second, and tears sprang unbidden to her eyes. Impulsively she reached around, forgetting protocol, and hugged the Second, then after a moment's hesitation, did the same for the Elder. Both Yautja understood the sign of affection, the Elder even trying to return it, awkwardly, but then they froze.

"Cally." Her own voice, a loop recording. She turned slowly, and as the others stepped back respectfully she found herself looking into her trainer's naked face. He purred with pleasure, raising one clawed hand and putting it on her shoulder firmly. She hesitantly returned the gesture, and the two of them stood there facing each other for a long moment.

He growled something to her, and she raised the mask to her face, pressing against it with her free hand to activate the system and the translator.

"Honored prey, young blood. You have gone far beyond my training, or of these others. I questioned if it was possible for a pyode amedha to reach the standards of Yautja, but you have shown that it is possible." He paused and growled a Yautja equivalent of a chuckle. "In very isolated instances, at least." The Yautja behind her clicked soft laughter, and the Elder stepped forwards until he stood beside her, the Second taking up station on the other side.

"She is ready?" the Second asked, quietly. She tried to restrain the trembling that threatened to overcome her as her trainer looked at her, then growled an assent, but held up one clawed hand.

"She is ready, yes, and because of that I give her the choice. She may leave with your ship, with my blessings." She gasped, the sound amplified by her mask and echoing around them. Her trainer looked at her and clicked in amusement before continuing. "Or she may stay behind, and complete the task she set for herself so long ago. She has earned the right to make this choice, as a blooded hunter."

Her head swam as she tried to process this. He was giving her the chance to leave with the Elder and Second? She thought quickly before answering.

"I'd be happy to hunt with the Elder and his ship." She paused as she watched them all incline their heads, before she held her own hand up. "In time. But that time is not yet." They stood there stunned, before her trainer began to laugh, an eerie echo of a human laugh, deep and grating. The Elder and Second both joined in, and she smiled then, behind her mask. She had chosen her path.

She raised her head up proudly and stepped forwards. Her trainer made to leave, but before she followed she turned to face the Elder and Second, then inclined her head, her wrists crossed in front of her chest, before straightening up to their growls of acknowledgment. With a spring to her step, she jogged to catch up with her trainer, and the last sight the two Yautja had of them was as both figures wavered and vanished into the darkness as they activated their cloaks.