Author'snote:I know ya'll want to know what's happening with Lex and the pup, but I have other plans ;P
Warning:There's a joke hidden in this chapter, if you spot it before I reveal it in the end note: Kudos.
Disclaimer:The only things that belong to me in this chapter are the OCs, Javelin especially.
Haven
Javelin knelt perfectly still on his perch, one of the natives of the planet stood an arms reach from him. The bipedal creature was aware of his presence, its ears swiveling around listening for him, and nostrils flaring for any sign of the threat, and its greenish-blue eyes wide with fear.
Had this creature been his quarry, Javelin would have put the creature out of its misery, but it was not. The creature, took the risk of dashing from the tree onto the ground. It looked back, eyes on the spot it had just been, and scanning for any sign of a pursuer. It turned away and ran off gracefully to find somewhere safe, its clan, perhaps?
Curiosity made Javelin want to follow the native, from the weapons it had strapped to it's back, and the way it used its senses to try to find him, he could the creature was a hunter like him, and had the potential of one day becoming the dominate species of its bright lush planted, and one day being worthy of a place on a Yautja trophy case. Yet for now, its kind were too primitive, a roar in the distance reminded Javelin of the prey he was really seeking.
He let out a low growl, one that only his fellow tribesman would hear, a signal. Crusade answered first, followed shortly by Wrath. The way was clear, but it was safer to stick to the trees than move to the ground. Javelin sniffed the air, his senses were not as keen as they once were, but even now they still did his blood pride. He quickly closed in on Wrath, Crusade not far behind.
"Thecavesaren'tthatfarahead." Crusade muttered.
"Andthebeastshouldbereturningsoon," Wrath continued, "Nowifthesmalleronesdon'tgetinthewayagain." He added with an irritated grumble.
Javelin put a hand on his friend's shoulder, they'd been tracking the large flying beast for several day and night shifts of this world, and taken a few more to learn its patterns. Their last attempt to take their prize had been foiled by another attack on the creature orchestrated by its smaller cousins.
Another roar sounded in the distance, the winged beast was coming back to roost.
Crusade nodded to his companions, who returned the gesture. They knew the plan. They backed from each other, moving into position. The beat of wings soon became audible, and the three hunters all tensed. The roar sounded again, much louder at this distance, and finally the owner of that roar appeared.
The creature was lizard-like, with large wings, in its mouth were large rows of teeth, and clutched between those teeth was a smaller creature, its latest meal. The creature shook it to make sure it was dead before it landed to crawl into its cavern home.
Too bad it would never get to enjoy that meal.
Javelin fired the first shot. A shot meant to miss. The mouth of the cave crumbled to pieces, there was still room for the creature to duck in and escape into the maze of tunnels, but as their studies of the creature proved correct, and it dropped its prey with a snarl, looking to see what had dared defile its home.
Wrath took the next shot, from a separate direction. Confused the creature whirled around, while Javelin snuck closer. Just as the winged giant got close enough that it could find Wrath, Crusade fired, causing the same confused whirl. The monster took two steps in Crusade's direction before Javelin threw his shuriken, catching it in the face. With a pained roar of fury it swung toward him, but Javelin had already vanished from his vantage point, to another spot where he caught his shuriken and threw it again, this time catching the beast across its throat.
With the flesh torn, blood seeped. The cut was deep and the creature roared with fury and pain, only causing the blood to spill faster. It wanted to fight, but knew it was done for. The more it struggled for life the faster it faced its death.
The three elders did not move until the creature's struggles ceased, and its eyes finally closed.
"I'llgettheskull." Wrath volunteered, "Youwatchfortrouble."
The others nodded. This creature was the biggest and most dangerous of this world's predators, but not the only one. Javelin remained invisible to the eye, but he found a cut on his finger from his shuriken which drip a thin stream of his blood. He snorted to himself. He really was getting old. Once he could have tossed his weapon all day long and never once injured himself.
Javelin grabbed a vile of medicine, not the gel that wasn't necessary, but a different healing mixture and applied it to the cut. He winced, but the pain was nothing compared to the other stuff. The liquid remedy hardened once exposed to his skin and open air. Javelin slipped the vile back into his tool belt just as he heard the snap of a twig.
He whipped around to see the two-legged creature from before. It stared wide-eyed at the dead creature from afar. The elder followed his gaze to Wrath who had uncloaked himself and was working on removing the creatures skull. The little two-legged native was frozen in fear of him, but his eyes expressed a silent outrage. Javelin shrugged it off. Primitive beings such as this were usually full of spirituous beliefs that all life was sacred, take only what you need, and give what you borrow back to the world, those sort of things.
Ridiculous. The Yautja had abandoned such nonsensical beliefs long ago.
Still, the fear in the creature's eyes was beginning to dissipate, the anger to grow. It might attack, and even though Wrath could handle it easily, they simply didn't have the time to waste on religious vigor. Javelin removed his helmet carefully, hit a button and uncloaked himself, snarling a warning as he did so.
The being jumped with a startled yelp, it raised a primitive spear. Javelin grabbed his Combistick and with a push of a button the compact weapon stretched to its full barbed and lethal length. Frightened further the creature backed away, Javelin snarled, flaring his mandibles to give it the final flush of terror to send it running.
Javelin gave an amused trill as the bipedal native fled. One day perhaps, those creatures could be the dominate life form on their little planet, and maybe worthy of the hunt, but for now Javelin turned his gaze back to the flying creature the team had killed. There were more interesting things to hunt.
At last Wrath had the head of the creature removed, and cleaned. The problem now was that it was too heavy to lift. Crusade volunteered to go get the ship while Javelin and Wrath guarded their prize. Javelin did not object, he wanted off this planet as soon as possible.
The longer he was gone the less chance he had at making things up to Xeira. And he had a bad feeling, one that told him that they would need her soon…
Author'sendnote:If you didn't get the joke, the elders are on Pandora from James Cameron's Avatar, they were hunting the leonptryx (Spelling?) or the Great Shadow or whatever the damn thing's called.
Also:I apologize for how long it took to update this, I simply never found the time to get it up ^^;