Four

No one was ever going to believe this. Of this, he was certain. Even with his mask recording the entire thing right in front of him, he still didn't believe he'd actually witnessed it. He was almost afraid to even report back on this most absurd sighting. He hadn't ventured out with the intent to find anything more unusual than what already lived on this planet, but the sight of a kiande amedha running loose in a nearly uninhabited terrain that allowed for full on combat was a jewel of a hunt he simply couldn't pass up. He gave chase, already enjoying the rush that the anticipation sent flooding through his system as he went into full hunting mode, all of his senses trained on his target as it moved swiftly through the dry, parched forest at the edge of the large desert. He had watched the black creature take out five human hunters, inexperienced civilians no doubt from the way they continued to miss their target with those primitive weapons they appeared to favor. He'd been hit by those before and while it stung and mildly annoyed him, those things they called 'bullets' were ultimately quite ineffective against the kiande amedha. Their hides were simply too tough for the little metallic orbs to pierce. The black creature's only true soft spots were the underside of the neck and the belly. Everything else was fairly well armored, making them perfect challenges. Their speed, moderate intellect, power, aggressiveness, and ferocity made them exceptional prey and a welcome challenge from the more or less boring scouting mission he'd been sent on. Yes, he was supposed to be monitoring this area on suspicion of the appearance of a Queen, but he hadn't seen anything much out of the ordinary thus far. He doubted he was going to, either.

That is, at least, until he saw something even he didn't fully believe.

Earlier in the evening, he'd dropped down into a shallow canyon to drink from a stream that flowed through it. When he'd taken his mask off, he noticed an ooman juvenile laying asleep beneath a rocky overhang several meters away. Initially, he found it a bit strange, since from his experience, juveniles rarely ventured from the close sight of their parents or family groups. To see one out alone in the wilderness was an oddity on its own. However, he dismissed it and, upon quenching his thirst, headed off deeper into the canyon, following the trail of the kiande amedha he'd seen duck in there earlier. Upon catching up to it and receiving a well-timed strike to the face from its claws, thankfully blocked by the mask, the creature had dodged him swiftly and taken off back through the canyon, leaving him there to vent his frustrations. It hadn't been hard to track it down again, since it had made his job easier by getting distracted by prey hiding in the foliage on the ridge above. Engaging it had been a pleasure, and it easily left its prey to escape as it turned its rage onto him. It took a few shots from the sivk'va-tai, which ended up blasting half of the cliff down into a dried up riverbed running down the mountain, but he'd successfully brought down the beast.

However, as he'd begun to inspect it for trophies to collect, that unmistakable shriek met his ears and he realized there was another one close by. He'd been a little bit irritated by that thought, and knew he had to take down this one too. He was starting to believe that the Queen had probably been killed long ago and these were rogue drones trying to eke out a living on this mountain. This new one sounded as if it had picked up something interesting. He descended the riverbed, weapons at the ready as he scanned the terrain for his prey. He found it easily enough, attacking something lodged between some rocks in the riverbed. Kneeling, he zoomed in on the creature, curious about what it was trying to catch.

Suddenly, a hand shot up from the crevice and plunged what appeared to be a blade of some kind into the soft flesh of the neck of the kiande amedha, making it screech in pain and stagger back away from the rock. Even from his distance, he could see the corrosive blood beginning to melt the blade. Weakened and severely wounded, the creature had darted off into the trees and he saw what had made such a devastating wound to such a powerful beast finally emerge from the hiding place.

He about lost his balance on his perch when that young ooman he'd seen earlier crawled out from the rocks, noticeably shaken and battered, but alive and victorious. Astounded, he zoomed in on her to see her better, changing the focus on his mask to make out her outline. However he was still too far away to get a clearer image. He could see that there was something odd about her though, and for such a youngling to injure one of the kiande amedha? He had to admit, his curiosity was piqued.

Activating the cloak, he vanished from obvious sight, moving steadily down the riverbed after the young female. He was far too curious now to just ignore her like before. Perhaps she'd do something else interesting.

He followed her from a cautious distance, keeping about twenty paces behind her at all times and taking care to walk quietly. However, as she paused to slump against a tree, he realized he needn't have bothered. The young female was extremely weak and quite pasty in color. His mask detected abnormally low levels of body heat radiating off of her. She was almost too cold to detect. He didn't need his mask to smell the blatant scent of blood coming from a wound in her leg. Even despite that and her obvious disadvantages, he found he was even more impressed by her accomplishment. Nearly every ooman he'd encountered had either cowered in fear at the sight of the kiande amedha, or else tried to fight and failed quite miserably. A few had managed some decent hits and one had even successfully killed one. He himself had only attained Blooded status about five seasons past, but he came to this place often to hunt the bipedal creatures, finding them to be entertaining prey. To see an ooman juvenile, and a female ooman juvenile no less, usually known for being weaker than their male counterparts, achieve such a skillful victory at so young an age was truly something special.

He had been thinking about what he'd just witnessed, when he heard a soft noise like something falling down. He glanced over at the young female and was only slightly surprised to see she'd collapsed from exhaustion on a cracked and broken road outside of a small ooman village. If he was going to be honest, he had expected her to go down at some point. He approached cautiously in case she should awaken, but he could see she was going to be unconscious for quite some time after all of this. He knelt beside her, inspecting her up close. He removed his mask, disconnecting the hoses to the side and holding it in one hand as he studied her.

His eyes widened. Those appendages on her back resembled those of the feathered flying animals he often saw on this planet. They resembled creatures of other planets he'd visited at different times as well. He'd heard oomans call the Earthen creatures 'birds'. He raised a clawed hand and slowly reached out to nudge one of the appendages folded limply at her back, covered in inky black, soft feathers. He fondled one of the feathers delicately, cocking his head to the side. He'd never seen anything like this up close. Actually, now that he thought about it, he'd never seen an ooman with appendages like these before, either. He had to admit, he liked the texture of the feathers. They were soft, but clearly strong. If those wings were a little bigger, he had no doubt she could probably use them for functioning flight as the birds did.

The more he studied her, the more surprised he became. Her hands weren't like normal ooman hands; they were clawed, just like his. The claws were tiny, but then she was only a youngling. She had strange feet, too. They were long, thin, covered in gray scales and had only three toes, also clawed and also resembling a bird's feet. She had a fourth toe further up around her ankles, close to where the kiande amedha had taken a bite out of her leg. He could see the wound was finally beginning to clot and close. He raised the comp attached to his wrist and fiddled with it for a few minutes, typing in some keys in his native language. He waited while it searched its databanks, keeping his peripheral eye on the street and forest just in case.

Finally, he got his answer; class, family, and phenotype of this particular creature, as described by notable characteristics and observations revealed...nothing. He had no information on winged oomans. He tried again with different combinations of keywords and still nothing. The databanks had no information on a creature like the young female lying out cold in front of him. He grunted in annoyance and refocused his gaze on the young female. His eyes narrowed when he realized he might be dealing with a new species, or else a mutation of some kind. His curiosity was now fully piqued. He had several days before he had to submit a return report, but he had a little time to spare to explore a bit. This new creature was fascinating; so powerful at such a young age. He decided he wanted to observe her a little longer. Perhaps she'd make a decent trophy to add to his collection. There was normally a set of guidelines he and his kind followed regarding their kills. It was more or less unspoken and unwritten, but followed diligently by many of the warriors; do not kill anything that couldn't or wouldn't fight back or was unarmed, do not kill younglings, and do not kill any females with child. Even with those limitations, there was still plenty of prey left for them to choose from. In the case of this new creature, he had to wonder why the computer had no data on them. He didn't think it should be hard to track down information on a winged ooman with claws and bird feet. He'd certainly never seen anything like that on any of the planets he'd been to.

It hit him then, another option. He mentally cursed this one, as this was yet another guideline his people followed, but one that didn't appear frequently enough to cross their minds a lot of the time. He huffed a heavy sigh; it was always a possibility that this creature's population was too low to be noticed, making her a heavily endangered creature. Another unspoken rule; don't hunt anything on the verge of extinction. This one was more common sense than anything resembling a rule. After all, if you hunted something to extinction, then you lost the thrill of hunting it. This created a very selective list for his kind in regards to their prey.

He focused on her again. He'd have to see with this one. If she was a youngling, then no doubt she had family somewhere. This meant that a population existed. If she proved interesting enough, he might still have the opportunity to hunt her. He judged from her size that she was about midway to adulthood, not to mention she clearly had the raw skill and determination to defend herself. He'd simply observe her for a day or so, see what she did, if anything. Injuring that kiande amedha, and such a grave injury at that, one that might ultimately kill it in the short run, had already heavily impressed him. He'd already dedicated half a rotation to this young female, so he felt compelled to find out more.

Now to the matter of the present. He stood up, scanning the street for heat signatures. He'd visited this general area before when the kiande amedha had first started appearing. During his first visit, his mission had been to confirm the theories and bring back proof. He'd quite enjoyed that mission. But if his extensive memory served him correctly, he remembered this ooman settlement to be much livelier than this. He remembered more light for one thing. The sheer lack of light and heat signatures was a little disconcerting. He wondered if the population of kiande amedha living here was larger than he'd expected. That was a distinct possibility considering he'd already run into two during a single rotation. And with that many running around, if a Queen didn't exist currently, it would before too long. One of the drones would eventually morph into a Queen and begin producing eggs. But even with his kind's advancement and prowess, there was still no way to predict which drone would evolve into a Queen. In the meantime, more and more living organisms would become food for the kiande amedha still running around. But even considering the possibility of an outbreak happening again, something still wasn't right. If the entire population of this settlement had fallen prey, there should be many more of those beasts running about. In fact, he and the young female should already have been ambushed by this point. This thought made him replace his mask to his face, foregoing the air hoses. He began to scan the forest behind him with a different setting in case those creatures were planning such an assault. He saw nothing. He removed his mask again and looked up at the sky. The atmosphere of this planet was rapidly becoming very unstable. It was always a possibility that the kiande amedha living here would have become sickened or perhaps even mutated in this deteriorating atmosphere. If the latter happened, only Paya knew what sort of biological changes they were experiencing in their daily existences. The oomans living on this planet had proven over the years to be capable of enduring insurmountable changes and likely didn't notice the changes on their world. But otherworldly creatures certainly would.

Glancing down at the young female, he rumbled in thought, the sound reverberating through his chest. He looked around again. He was reluctant to leave her there, for a multitude of reasons, all of them included her being hunted by something else. He didn't need to return to the ship for a while yet, so there was no danger of missing his scheduled return time (not that they'd leave without him of course)

This planet's star wouldn't rise for some time, yet. He stood a silent, motionless vigil for a while, scanning the empty settlement every now and then for moving heat signatures. The entire region had been segregated for monitoring for the presence of a Queen. At the very least, he needed to confirm the absence of life in the area.

He turned suddenly, the bristles on his forehead standing on end. His mask was picking up an approaching heat signature, and by the appearance of it, it was bipedal. It could only be an ooman; the kiande amedha didn't give off signatures. He cloaked himself quickly and stepped back several feet, watching to see the normal ooman's reaction to the winged female on the ground.

A small female ooman came around the corner, picking her way along the broken and cracked street with a twisted branch she'd picked up in the forest. She had her mane of long yellow hair tied back out of her face, a thick piece of cloth wrapped around her neck against the night chill. It was very dark and she didn't seem too curious about the pathway leading to the edge of the trees. He couldn't stay here for much longer; he had to run a sweep of the area to check for more kiande amedha. Watching her, he chuffed once, just loud enough to catch her attention toward that direction. He stepped back even further, the cloak hiding him from her view. She looked around warily, her eyes wide with caution, "W-Who's there?" she stammered.

His mask picked up her words and recorded them, translating them roughly for him. She was sending an inquiry to his presence. He couldn't very well answer her, now could he? He remained in the shadows, not moving an inch as she drew nearer to the winged female on the ground.

"What's this?" she whispered, her eyes catching sight of the young female on the ground. He drew back even further as she knelt down before her. He watched her eyes grow even wider at the sight of the wings, her hand flying to her mouth as she staggered back in terror. His eyes narrowed watching this. Clearly, this wasn't normal to the oomans either. He wondered vaguely if she would kill the young female, and wondered even more vaguely if he should intervene in such a circumstance.

However, the older female seemed to get over her fear and approached again, kneeling down and gently touching the soft wings. She examined the creature carefully and seemed to make up her mind. He watched as she pulled the young female closer, lifting her limp form into her arms and straightening up. Glancing around again, as if checking to see if she were being watched and finding nothing, the older female moved off down the street, into the darkness. He watched her leave, tempted to see where she would go. But he ignored this impulse, instead moving off into the trees. He'd track down the young female later for further observation and possibly to hunt. In the meantime, he had work to do.

Terminology:

kiande amedha: hard meat

ooman: human

sivk'va-tai: plasma caster

Very short chapter this time indeed, yes. However I wanted to get it out as a Halloween present for my lovely readers. So yes, four chapters in and the Predators finally make their appearance. Now, I did want to point out that while this is a crossover series, the crossover hasn't actually started yet. Avocet is a creature of my own creation. Considering I'm doing fairly well in terms of progress, I may begin to update more frequently. But good reviews certainly keep my morale boosted and my ambition to write flowing. I'd also like to recommend another book series, one that I'm actually editing. 'The Hunt Begins' by Inkaholic4U. Very good alternate telling of the first AvP movie. Comes highly recommended. So, until the next update, my lovelies!

~Luna