(A/N: How is everyone liking this story so far? I hope everyone is and thinks it will be a great story in the end.
Warning: mild to moderately graphic description of flesh becoming stripped from the bone (I couldn't come up with a better way to describe it). I doubt it will be too gory, but of course anything is possible, so proceed with caution just to be safe.)
V-I-x-I-V-*o*-V-I-x-I-V
Metal grinded against bone as flesh and muscle was excoriated from a skull. The skull of a human being.
Held in the strangely human-like hand of a being with scaly yet smooth skin like that of a reptile for balance and observation, another hand used a sharp tool to remove the flesh. No spot was missed, every bit and piece of skin, muscle, and tissue was meticulously removed with taxidermic precision.
Once the skull was completely cleaned of flesh, it was put aside to be polished later. The scaled hand then picked up something else, this time a severed head with the flesh still intact.
One hand held the head, another gripped the top with black claws sunk into the skin. With one strong pull, the head was scalped and the bloody, naked skull was exposed to eyes the color of dry earth.
These skulls would make for pitiful trophies, the strange being growled as the eyes bore into the bloody, severed head. Why annihilating the people the heads were once attached to was somewhat of a mystery.
Using a small blade to cut through the cartilage that made up the nose, a sudden memory flooded the mind. It was a memory that was preferred to be left more or less forgotten.
Approached by an aging male with graying skin and tresses, an adolescent was presented with footage, another aging yet slightly younger male was standing close by. What they saw was both upsetting and enraging.
The adolescent could hardly contain his grief as the footage showed a heavily muscular human male and a male of their species, the Yautja, battling each other. A human should not be capable of standing their ground against a Yautja, and yet this human was. This human was methodical, planned the fight between them even before he knew they eventually would.
He led the Yautja to believe that he was trying to escape as he beat him. He led him to an enclosed circular area with a fire at the center and suddenly shouted for him to kill him. The Yautja, however, suspected a trap and instead climbed over a tree to get inside of the enclosure. As unbelievable as it seemed, the human suspected as much and triggered his trap himself.
What happened next, however, was unknown, the footage suddenly stopped. Why did it stop so abruptly? There had to be more!
The adolescent's head bowed, a sign of grief and mourning. The Yautja was a father, the father of the adolescent.
"My condolences," the aging male simply said before turning around, his tresses hitting the back of his caped shoulder. He was likely headed to inform the other spawn of the dead Yautja.
He left and the other male approached the adolescent, placing a hand on the right shoulder. He was the grandfather of the deceased and had been training his great-grandchild for years, just as he had done with all of his offspring and their offspring.
"Your father," he paused for a moment, his words almost choking him, "he was a good man, an honorable hunter." After he was given no response, he spoke again, "He would not want to see you as you are, my dear boy."
"Do not patronize me!" he seethed at the older male, the mandibles of his mouth flared slightly with anger.
If he wasn't a veteran hunter who knew how to keep his mind calm, he might have been angered by his hostility. Instead, he calmly told him, "Your father would not appreciate you behaving as an Un-Blooded."
"What do you know?!" he snapped at him, slapping away his hand.
The anger of the older male was raging inside of him, pleading to erupt like a swirling volcano, yet he kept it contained… for the most part. The palm of his hand made contact with the face of his great-grandson, the impact of the disciplining assault caused him to stumble and his senses became weakened for a brief moment.
The adolescent regained his senses and posture as his great-grandfather rumbled at him. He narrowed his eyes and arched his back as he flared his mandibles at him. He roared loudly as he lunged at him, but the older male had centuries of experience and easily subdued him by grabbing his wrist and twisting it behind his back. He forced him to the floor by pressing his forearm into the nape of his neck.
"Do not believe I do not understand how you feel," he hissed. "Vor'mekta-dto was my grandson, I cared for him and trained him as my own spawn, just as I do now for you."
He lifted himself off of his great-grandson and stood above him, as if waiting for him to stand. He did not, instead twisting his body so he was lying on his back instead of his stomach.
"Stand," he ordered him. Still, he did not, he continued to lay on the floor, staring up at him with almost listless eyes. This time, he yelled at him like a commander, "Stand up, now, dammit!"
Finally, he did so, he faced his great-grandfather, for only a couple of moments before he turned around, his back facing him. "I know you mean well, R'ka-guan, but I do not need your sympathy. We are Yautja, the death of someone should not make us weaker, it should strengthen us."
He hadn't called him by his name in a long time and it was certainly a bit of a surprise. He was even more surprised, however, by his use of words, they were very eloquent and unusual for a Yautja of his age, more akin to one closer to his own.
After a couple of moments, he heard his great-grandfather speak again, saying his name, "Thite." He looked back at him when he heard his name. "Do not let this loss dictate who you become."
He growled at him, he had already made it clear that he did not particularly enjoy being patronized. His great-grandfather was a great warrior in his prime, and he speaks to him like a diplomat - that was more of a sign of weakness than of wisdom.
"Who do you think I would become?" he hissed. Although he sounded quite angry, it sounded like a genuine question. "A Bad Blood? A rogue?"
A sudden snarl from the older male quieted him as he suddenly snapped, "No, dammit!" He inhaled and exhaled as he calmed himself, his eyes closed. When he opened them, he spoke in a much calmer demeanor, "No, that is not it. Listen," he placed his hand on his shoulder again, and he did not remove it, "I have been alive for a long time, and in my life I have seen horrific actions of pure evil. Good men, decent warriors, and even my own allies, brothers, and offspring who had become the embodiment of Cetanu. Do you know where I am leading you? I do not wish to see you become what they had."
"They had suffered tragedies as well, I assume?" he asked.
"Yes," he answered, "many of them had. They simply could not cope with their losses and they eventually lost touch with themselves. The Yautja are not perfect, we only believe we are. The Bad Bloods that are executed are the proof, however, no one will acknowledge how fragile we truly are."
He never thought about the possibility of their species having any weaknesses, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that it was something that no one truly acknowledged. Defects in Yautja, mental illness for example, were not unheard of, but definitely not something particularly discussed.
"Do you believe my father was… problematic?" he inquired, choosing his words somewhat carefully.
R'ka-guan was silent for a moment as thought about it. Finally, he gave an answer, "No one is perfect. However, that does not necessarily mean he was or was not flawed in his own way."
He was silent as he thought about his great-grandfather's words. He knew he was right, he always seemed to be whenever he asked a question or needed advice.
Still, he couldn't help but to ponder on the possibility that there might have been something about his father that perhaps contributed to his death. He had been a hunter for a long time before he died and perhaps that made him a bit arrogant.
Vanity in Yautja was definitely well known, it was something everyone had some degree of. However, they were trained at a young age, typically during their training as Un-Blooded, to not allow themselves to become too conceited. Although it was something they were taught, not everyone paid particularly close attention to it, many saw it as a redundant lesson.
But was that all? Was he only just a little arrogant? Or was there more to his father and who he was than just that?
"Sei-i… s' m-di," Thite muttered to himself as he began to clear his mind of the memories.
His mind had been occupied while he was working on the skull, fortunately, removing flesh was second nature for a Yautja. Now that the skulls were removed of their flesh, muscle, tissue, and even organs, he could get started on cleaning them of the blood.
Ordinarily, he would have used a chemical that killed everything but the hard bone, but it was on his ship and he did not have access to it. He could have easily taken the skulls back to his ship without being seen, but he enjoyed being outside, spending too much time inside made him feel very anxious - claustrophobia, he believed it was called.
Instead, he took out his Medicomp from next to his Plasmacaster and pressed it open. It consisted of multiple medical tools and antiseptics for treating injuries, both minor and major, and medical cloth in order to reduce the risk of infection until he could heal himself.
He took out a square shaped cloth and proceeded to clean off the blood. He would have to polish them later, but he could at least get the blood off.
As he cleaned them, he remembered how his father would clean and prepare the skull to be made into a trophy. He also remembered how his great-grandfather would as well.
His father would use his claws to tear out the facial organs and the sharpest of serrated knives to slice off the skin, often carelessly and leaving noticeable scrapes and cuts in the hard bone. His grandfather would first have the skulls scalped, typically with the use of a tool rather than his bare hands, then he would remove the organs before meticulously slicing off the flesh with surgical precision.
He used his great-grandfather's method of meticulous cleaning and careful precision instead of his father's brutal, careless technique. It was R'ka-guan who taught him how to clean skulls, not Vor'metka-dto.
He had the rare privilege of knowing who his sire was and being raised by one of his family members. Unlike some of his father's other offspring, who were conceived with his various mates, his mother was a random female, who met him during the breeding season. He believed humans called the day he was conceived a "one-night stand".
Despite that, he wasn't sure if he would consider it much of a privilege. He had only met his father a handful of times before he died, meeting him for the first time as an Un-Blooded, and he seemed to have more time for his other offspring than he did for him.
Nevertheless, he still cared for his father, as any child did, and knew he must have cared for him. It was oftentimes considered impolite for a child conceived with a female that was not one of the male's current mates to have even the name of their sire.
But his father must have cared for him, otherwise, why would he have even been told that he had died? What was the purpose of being on Earth?
He was on Earth to find the human that killed his father. Everyone on the home planet knew of the human, but none knew who he was, but he did. It required some persuasion, but he eventually got what he needed.
But then what would he do? Defy the words and wishes of his great-grandfather? Become the very thing that he told him not to be?
"H'ko!" he growled angrily.
In his rage, he clenched his fist and brought it down forcefully next to him. At the sound of something dense breaking on concrete, he looked beside him and saw the other skull, the uncleaned, bloody one. The cranium, or top of the skull, was completely destroyed and the jagged pieces were scattered on the concrete or had fallen into it.
He picked up the broken skull and discovered that the face had many deep cracks in it due to the force of his fist; small fragments of bone were even missing. He roughly set it down, it was completely ruined and too fragile for it to be a trophy. If his father saw what he had done, he would be very ashamed of him.
He flared his mandibles and unconsciously dug his sharp claws into the skull in his hand. His lethal nails sunk deeply into the hard bone and they only seemed to bury into it deeper the angrier he was.
"Ell-osde' pauk-de s'yuit-de!" he roared.
Blinded by the anger he felt for no one but himself, he stood up and threw the skull he was cleaning as hard as he could. His chest heaved as he inhaled and exhaled deeply as he tried to calm himself.
Eventually he did and realized what he had done. He quickly picked up his Bio-mask and put it on his face, beginning to search for the skull. The Bio-mask had previously been taken off because it made him feel slightly anxious after wearing it for a while.
He eventually found it, approximately five to six hundred meters away in an alleyway, or what was left of it. It had gone through an opening between two buildings and collided with the hard brick wall of another, shattering into hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces; some pieces were barely the size of a grain of sand.
His clenched fist made contact with a vented metal box, leaving a deep dent in it. He hit it again and again, each time he left another dent in the metal.
When his rage eventually subsided, he saw what he had done to the metal box and his own hand. His knuckles were raw from all of the trauma and glowing where he had torn his own skin, his fluorescent blood.
His Medicomp was still out and he took out a small triangular tube from it. He squeezed out an opaque gel from the tube onto his knuckles. The gel dried quickly, stopping the bleeding and causing a tingling feeling on his raw skin. He put the tube back in his Medicomp and put the medical kit back where it goes, on his back.
He knew the damage he did to the metal box was extensive and someone had likely heard him, and he knew that staying in one area for two long was dangerous. He decided it was time for him to leave, to return to his ship if he could.
He held up his wrist gauntlet and in a second he was transparent, but he wasn't safe from being seen yet. Anyone who came up to the roof while he was still there could easily make out the shape of his body; he was transparent, not invisible, he looked like the distorted surface of water.
He leapt to the top of a concrete encasing over a door, then jumped down to the roof of a shorter building. He jumped from building to building, each one a different size, as he travelled through the large city to his ship. He was moving quickly, but even he could not move fast enough to not be seen by human eyes.
In an apartment of one of the buildings he passed, a woman noticed his distorted figure as he left. She only caught a passing glimpse of him, but she knew she saw something.
"What was that?" she asked herself as she tucked a strand of her short dark blonde hair behind her ear.
V-I-x-I-V-*o*-V-I-x-I-V
(A/N: How did you guys like the new chapter? I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I'm sorry it took me a while to finish it, I had a pretty bad case of writer's block again.
Yautja language translations:
1. Sei-i... s' m-di. - Yes... and no.
2. H'ko! - No!
3. Ell-osde' pauk-de s'yuit-de! - You fucking idiot!
So with that out of the way, I think I'm going to let you guys go and get back to reading. I'll see you guys next time and hopefully I'll get over my writer's block by then.)