Chapter 4: Encounters part 2

For Payas sake this ooman was a curse! "What did I do to deserve this?" If she didn't stop that yammering soon, he was going to kill her just to save his sanity. He was just about to stop and do something to shut her up when he caught movement a bit further down the passage.

Putting a hand over her mouth to stop her from chattering, he growled silently as a warning to keep quiet. Two of the hard meats were slithering out of the walls. He muttered "Thank Paya" At least now he would have something to hit and get his frustration out. Killing the female would have been more satisfying, but he couldn't do that, she saved his life, and he wasn't going to risk becoming a bad blood because he couldn't exercise patience. Pushing the female back he moved a few paces forward, crouched into his fighting stance, opening his arms he let loose a battle cry that almost shook the ground.

Cat looked at him incredulously "Did he just say papaya?" She didn't even register when he pushed her back slightly. As he finished his roaring she yelled "How the hell can you be thinking of food at a time like this!"

He was just about to turn around to roar at her when one of the beasts charged him "C'jit" Taken by surprise her comment was dismissed as he did his best to veer them away from her so they wouldn't crush her. Using the momentum of the fall he bent his knees and his spine so he could roll on his back, taking the hard meat with him. Positioning his legs beneath its lower exoskeleton, he pushed and threw it over his head into the frame of the opening he and the ooman came from. The hard meat slammed its banana shaped head into the frame taking a chunk of stone with it, its body almost detaching. Jumping up quickly the hunter could see the hard meat was still moving, trying to get up, hissing and swinging its tail from side to side in agitation.

Cat didn't get the chance to see him fight. She figured he could probably take care of himself. She had her own problems. The other black thing was trying to sneak up on her from above. Using its tail to swipe at her she dodged it and moved away from the wall it was on. Inspecting it a bit closely, she crinkled her nose in disgust telling it "Eww…you're drooling slime all over the place" The thing hissed so she started grabbing at her leg holster searching to pull out her black knife. It was by no means a big knife, it was about 8inches, but it was ceramic, made from zirconium oxide, therefore it wouldn't melt when it touched the acid blood of this thing. She bought it a while back because the salesperson said she'd never have to sharpen it.

The beast didn't want to kill this being, as it would be used for seeding more of its kind. Turning its head to the side it could tell the other alien was losing. It needed to be quick. Screeching, it advanced trying to swipe her legs from under her with its spiked tail. Jumping back she slashed the tail with her knife cutting the speared tip off. The thing reared hissing from the pain. Now it didn't care if it killed her. Seeing the little damage she had done she thought "This is ridicules I can't hack at it piece by piece, one swipe from it and I'm dead" Cat quickly turned to climb on a large statue with the beast right on her tail yelling for all she was worth "Ke'varde!"

The hard meat Ke'varde threw charged again but this time it was slower because of its injuries. The hunter didn't hesitate to retrieve his shuriken. Snapping the blades open he threw it with deadly precision, cutting the hard meats head clean off finishing the job. Hearing the ooman scream his name he turned watching her climb a statue of the god Cetanu a hard meat close on her heels. For a few seconds he actually considered leaving her to it. Sighing he threw his shuriken again.

The beast could sense the Predator threw something at it, so it let itself drop a few feet. The shuriken imbedded itself in the stone just above its head. Looking down and seeing that the hunters disc didn't kill it, she searched frantically for something to jump too, when the vibrations started "What the hell!" wobbling precariously "Ooh!" she could see a ledge with an opening on her left, but it was too far for her to jump. Looking up she saw a large rusted ring in the ceiling. It was probably used for a pulley to erect the huge statues.

Ke'varde could see the female trying to keep her balance on the statue while the hard meat advanced. He didn't expect her to do what she did next. Instead of moving to help her, he decided to watch it play out. He was surprised when she loosened a whip from around her hips and wrapped one end of it to a ring in the ceiling. Giving him a glare for just standing there she jumped screaming "I hate heiiiiiiights" Watching her swing to the ledge, he had to give her credit for being resourceful. He even purred a little, catching himself he quickly growled instead.

Touching down on the ledge Cat sighed. She made it. Yanking a little too hard on the whip, it released with a snap, making her loose her balance. Panicking she flailed her arms around like crazy, but it didn't help, she ended up tumbling backwards through the opening behind her, skidding downhill fast "Shiiiiiiit… not agaiiiiiin."

He couldn't believe it! She fell into an airshaft! Chittering with laughter, he was soon reminded by a sound to his right that he still had a hard meat to take care of before he could move on. "I will most likely find the female Cat later… if she doesn't get herself killed" . Frowning at the last part of his thought, he realized he didn't want her to die. Flexing his shoulders in irritation "It is probably because I wish to end her existence myself" Satisfied by that reasoning he turned to the hard meat and extended his combistick.

"Mina we've been walking around for half an hour already, where's the damn treasure?" Gabe asked irritated. He didn't like how everything was becoming complicated. Everyone was dead and there were all these things crawling around. They were lucky not to have encountered anything for the time being.

Mina stopped their progress putting a hand on his chest, rubbing seductively "Don't worry your pretty little head hon. We'll find the great chamber soon enough. After we find the treasure some old musty ruler was buried in, then we can get out of here"

Liking the sound of that Gabe patted her behind and kissed her. But a thought intruded "What are we gonna do if more of those things show up Mina?" Looking at him in disgust she said "Don't get freaked now. We still have the ammo we took from the others and if anything moves we shoot it." She would not let anything get in her way this time. Looking at her companion with cold blue eyes she thought "not even you hon." while checking her clip.

An invisible shape was watching the two humans interacting. The male was obviously aroused by the female and what she was doing. She on the other hand didn't seem to be feeling anything close to arousal. Her temperature stayed normal and her heart rate didn't stir one bit. Suddenly the female snapped her head up from examining her burner. Ek'tan leaned forward to see what she was looking at. It was one of the hard meats. It came from a hole in the floor running down the corridor at the two oomans. Crouching and clicking in curiosity he watched.

Mina cocked her head to the side as she saw the black thing running at them. Raising her gun she fired one shot directly into its torso. The thing didn't even slow down! Both of them started shooting at the thing trying to hit it as much as possible. The thing then jumped to a wall and kept going, every once in a while jumping from one wall to the other to avoid as many bullets as possible.

Both oomans started backing up as they were firing "This isn't working Mina! I can barely keep track of it!" The bullets did have an affect with quantity though, making holes so the thing would bleed out eventually, but they weren't enough to kill it instantly. "Keep shooting! It's bleeding already!"

The problem with guns is that you eventually had to reload them. The alien jumped at the first being that stopped firing at it. Gabe screamed as the beast sliced his chest with its claws dropping his guns. The other being was still firing at it, so it swiped it tail and slammed it into it.

Mina never saw the tail coming. It knocked her into the opposite wall so hard she could feel her bones rattle. Groaning she got up. Watching the beast grab Gabe and start dragging him seemingly into the wall, she had a choice to make. She could play hero and risk her life for him, or… Smirking she already knew her choice "More for me then"

Ek'tan growled viciously as he saw the female turn from her mate. The male was trying to fight the hard meat off when he saw that the female was leaving him to the monster he screamed at her "Mina! Help me!" The female turned and smiled evilly at the male "No hun. I need you to keep this one busy with your carcass, while I go looking for MY treasure"

Raging at her the male tried going for the female "You fucking bitch! I'm gonna kill you!" the hard meat took full advantage of the opportunity and stabbed the male in the shoulder with its tail. The male was dragged away to the hard meat nest cursing and screaming. The female just turned away and started walking in a different direction.

The Yautja was repulsed by the behavior of this ooman "She has no honor" Honor and respect were key characteristics of his society. Once you lost your honor you were deemed a bad blood and hunted by the arbitrators until your last breath either by their hand or someone else's. No clan was accepting of a bad blood in their midst. A Yautja would fall on his own spear, rather than lose his or her honor. It was unthinkable. Maybe he would hunt down the ooman bad blood before he went after the queen.

Being the youngest on this hunt at a little more than 100 cycles, if he could bring back a worthy trophy his new status as honored warrior would be firmly cemented. But for that nothing less than the scull of the queen would do. He purred thinking of the glory of having a rare queen scull in his trophy room.

Looking at his wrist computer for the location to the queens nest. After a minute he left the same way the bad blood ooman female went.

Falling out of the vent on a dead body was not Cat's definition of a fun adventure "Why couldn't I land on something nice for a change? Like clean water or something…oh gross" gagging she scrambled away from the dead body on her hands and knees bumping into something hard. Swiveling her head to the side she saw a hunter like Ke'varde lying face down next to one of those black things. Creeping over to him she could see he was light green with dark green spots and some of his dreads were gray. Leaning closer to get a better look at him she could see his back armor had a hole in it and blood was crusted around it.

Thinking he was dead she got the fright of her life when she heard him growl slightly. Jumping up she shrieked with excitement "You're alive! Don't worry I'll help you!" frowning a little she couldn't help thinking "And how the hell are you gonna do that genius?"