Which way should she go this time, left, right, or straight?

Talk about confusion. She had been going straight for about ten minutes now. She didn't care about where she was, or even where she might be heading. She was just thankful that the predators where behind her, and now in her past…or so she hoped. She placed her hand over her eyes, she spun around three times, stopped, opened her eyes and looked to where she was pointing; the right.

The Predator banged on the wall in helpless rage. He even tried using his plasma blaster to try to break through the accursed barrier that blocked his path, but nothing worked. Numerous questions ran through his mind. Who could have hurt her? When could it have happened? Why had they done it? Why hadn't she at least complained or let them know that she was injured? Why hadn't they noticed those injuries before? Why, why, why, why? He was so focused on his thoughts and the effort of trying to get to the young pup that he didn't even notice that his brethren had pulled him away from the wall until a punch to his midsection snapped him back to the reality of the situation.

They didn't have to use words to say that they too were worried. It was evident their posture, bodily tension, and their very stance. As they stood staring at each other, they suddenly realized that they had no other choice. Their Chiva had to end, and they had to find the pup quickly, they had to contact the Elders to ask for help in finding the ooman pup. They knew that should anything happen to that pup that they would then be forever stripped of all honor for allowing a pup to come to harm.

She should have picked a different path, but how was she to know that a horde of aliens would be at the end of the tunnel instead of light. Her feet slapped the ground beneath her; her legs were starting to feel like jelly. She knew she had to keep running. She couldn't stop. A low rumbling grinding sound caught her attention. She hoped it was either the aliens behind her or her stomach.

So much for hope.

The temple started to shift around her. More passages were revealed, and a wall was coming up fast. Ether it was her imagination or it was moving towards her at a neck breaking speed. She ran into the nearest passage on her left and immediately saw that she had narrowly avoided being crushed by the closing passage. The last thing she heard was roaring and screeching coming from the outside.

A red light flashed as it signaled an incoming message.

He walked in silent powerful strides toward the bridge his long red cape flowed elegantly behind him, his mandibles twitched in annoyance. A door snapped open revealing a small screen. There was no one else in here, because it was his job to ensure that the Chiva went as planned. He pressed a small round button and three holographic figures popped up.

Something was terribly wrong.

She didn't mean to but she did it anyway. Her eyes slid closed, exhaustion coming over her like a dark gray cloud. She told herself time and time again as she rested to catch her breath, "Don't fall asleep. You have to move soon. You have to move."Every effort she made to keep her eyes open was useless. In spite of everything going on around her; in spite of the fact that she could quite easily be killed while dozing off, everything had finally caught up to her, and her eyes closed as she fell into slumber.

As he reviewed the message, he felt his blood run cold. 'What the pauk was apupdoing in the Chiva structure?' He thought angrily, as he ran full speed for the exit ramp. Placing his battle mask securely in place, he quickly made his way to the entrance that had been drilled deep into the ice. Knowing that there was no time to be wasted, he simply jumped into the drilled hole and braced his body so that he remained on his feet as he careened downwards. At first he gained speed during his slide, but that was to be expected. His body soon approached the terminal velocity of this particular planet. He knew that he wouldn't quite reach the full speed, because of the friction created by both the air, and the ice as well. Under any other circumstances he might have thoroughly enjoyed this particular stunt. After all, it wasn't often that one attained such speeds on their own feet, but as it was, there was too much responsibility resting on his shoulders for him to take any pleasure from this trip. As soon as the sensors in his mask told him that he was nearing the bottom, he extended the blades on his right wrist twice, and drove them deep into the ice behind him to slow his incredible rate of descent.

Instead of actually coming to a complete stop, he only slowed down enough that he was able to leap into a dead run once he reached the bottom of the ice tube. Strong powerful legs were pumping rapidly as he ran. Upon entering the actual pyramid, he immediately used restricted access codes to activate all of the sensors contained inside the structure. Instantly, he was able to see the exact location of a few oomans, quite a few hard meat drones, along with the three warriors who were taking their Chiva. He began the process of cycling through the various sensors with still living oomans in their immediate range and was quickly able to determine which was the ooman pup. With his targets location now known, he was able to start heading in that direction.

She was once happy, laughing, playing, and she'd had friends, but all that had changed on the day her father lost his job and went into bankruptcy. She was the one to blame for all of it.

A belt came flying at her, hard and fast as it smashed into her face sending her falling into the door. "Look at this. Look! You cost us $484,286.92. Do you have any idea how much money we could have saved if you weren't born? Do you?" The paper flew in and out of her face. Tears slid from her eyes. Her father had never once hit her or even yelled at her before.

"I'm sorry." Her voice was barely above a whisper. Her father's face had turned into something unimaginable as it was twisted by the hate that she could now see there. His voice held more venom than rattlesnake's fangs.

"Sorry, you're sorry. Sorry doesn't pay the bills; sorry doesn't put food in my mouth; sorry is a worthless excuse of what you are! A worthless mistake!" His words hit her even harder than his belt.

With a scowl on his face he grabbed a fist full of her hair and dragged her down the hall into the kitchen, opened the basement door and threw her in. She hit every stair going down. It was a wonder no bones were broken. She sobbed as she stared up at her father with a mix of confusion and pain.

"You will stay down there where all worthless, bad, selfish, bastard mistake kids go for the rest of their lives… including yours!" Her father yelled at her before he slammed the door shut leaving her alone in the dark.

She had never realized how cold it was down here and her skirt and tank top did little to help her against it. She scuttled over to the water heater to absorb the slight warmth it was giving off. She was down there for a two whole days with no food and no water then on the third day the door opened. It was her mother she wanted to run into her arms and absorb all the comfort she had to give.

Her mother approached her with a smile playing on her lips. Lilith stood.

"Strip!"

The command confused her.

"I said strip!" Her mother's right hand made solid contact with the soft flesh of her left cheek. Not wanting to anger her mother any more than she had, she quickly did as she was told, before turning to face her mother while standing there fully naked.

Her mother threw her against the wall and began removing her belt. Lilith looked back with pure terror in her eyes. She ran. She ran up the basement stairs and into the house only to be caught by her father and dragged back down with her kicking and screaming.

"Shut up!" She didn't. She couldn't! She somehow knew what was about to happen, and it terrified her more than anything she'd ever experienced.

"Shut up!" Her father screamed as he slammed her head into the wall dazing her. She didn't even notice that she was down the stairs again being held by two strong hands holding her up right, but she did notice the searing burn in her back. She screamed.

"Oh dear, do you think we should gag her." Her mom sounded positively thrilled. She couldn't comprehend anything. Not even when a small red ball was forced in her mouth and tied in the back of her head.

"That should keep you quiet."

The burning sensation was back and now she knew what it was; the belt.

"You have cost us a grand total of $484,286.92! You're going to get the same amount… plus double!" He father yelled in rage as he kept swinging the belt with every bit of strength he had. The pain was too much. Her skin felt raw after the twentieth hit, by the fiftieth she had passed out.

Deep ocean blue eyes snapped opened. She remembered that horrible day all too clearly. She remembered the living nightmare of waking up in a sticky pool of her own drying blood. They had obviously kept beating her even after she had passed out.

Getting to her feet she strolled aimlessly through the tunnel.

"Maybe it would be best to simply die. Why should I try to stay alive, when I have nothing to live for anyway?"That was the last thought in her mind as something black and deadly attacked her from above. Perhaps the worst part of the attack was that she didn't even bother, or care enough, to scream.

He navigated the ever changing corridors, rooms, and tunnels of the temple as fast as he possibly could. Time seemed to drag out forever, and each step he took seemed to last a lifetime. A cold deadly rage began to burn its way through every fiber of his being as one instant was drug ever so slowly into the next. Then an unearthly roar of pure fury left his throat when the temple's sensors showed that one of the drones now had the pup in its possession. A rage with an intensity that he'd never experienced before allowed him to push his body to even greater limits as he actually increased his speed.

The myriad sensors hidden within the temple showed him that the ooman pup was still alive for now, and he could only hope that such would still be the case when he finally caught up to the pair. With his attention divided between where he actually was, where he needed to go, the map on his HUD, and the sensor feed on his HUD; it would have been nothing for him to have missed seeing the two silent forms as they slid out of the darkness in front of him. The surprising thing was that in spite of dividing his attention in several directions at once, he was far too experienced to make such an amateur mistake as to fail to pay attention to what was around him.

Without a single falter or pause in his run, he swerved to his right and slammed into the first of the two deadly drones with a roar that seemed to shake the corridor as he double extended the claws on his right gauntlet. The drone caught in the body slam was forced back to stagger into the second creature. The Elder wasted no time in using that to his advantage as he drove the twin blades of his claws into the chest of the second beast, while using sheer momentum to spin past both creatures. As he turned one hundred and eighty degrees, he triggered the combi-stick in his left hand to full extension, and grunted in satisfaction as the spear head on the end, plunged into the neck and spine of the first drone which was still trying to regain its balance after being body slammed.

The Elder was no young warrior. He knew that both creatures would be dead in mere seconds, and though they would each have made fine trophies; there was no time for such things. Abandoning the two drones to die, he prepared to continue without a second thought about them. The only regret in his mind was the fact that these drones had caused him to slow down, and waste precious time. Completing his spin, he resumed his mad dash through the temple as he sought to intercept the drone that now had the ooman pup in its clutches. One corridor after another, right, then left, he ran with all the fury of the Dark Hunter himself, as he got closer to what he sought.

There wasn't a single thought of even trying to resist as the sleek black drone snatched her from the floor. As the creature began to cart her off somewhere like she was nothing more than a sack of potatoes, the only thing in her mind was an eerie sense of relief that it would all soon be over. She would soon be dead, and then, she wouldn't feel any more pain. There wouldn't be any more beatings, no more cuts, no more burns, no more spankings, no more anything. There would only be the welcome end to her suffering, and to her worthlessness. The strange feeling of relief and sense of sudden freedom was so strong that it was overwhelming in its intensity, and Lilith knew that soon, it would all be over at last. She was disappointed that the creature hadn't killed her right away, because she did want her suffering to stop one way, or another, and dying was the only thing she knew of that would stop it. Then she was looking around in confusion as the creature dragging her came to an abrupt halt, with a loud, and deadly shriek.

Something was in front of them or some things were, because it sounded like a pair of the same of shrieks that alien who was carrying her would let out.

She was shocked and confused as the alien shoved her into a small room with no exits. Turning around she saw the two alien creatures attack the one that was carrying her. Well if they were going to fight instead of killing her, then she might as well get the job done right, and kill herself. Drawing her knife she made two cuts, one on each of her wrists. She gave a light smile of satisfaction as she saw that these were the deepest ones yet.

The Elder watched his HUD in horror. He had seen what had happened when the drone had put the ooman pup into that room. He could neither believe, nor understand why the ooman pup had deliberately cut herself. A glance at the readouts from the sensors in the temple showed him that her life force was fading. Slowly but surely, she would die within the hour. Forcing his legs faster he turned down a corridor and barely managed to avoid becoming a pancake by a passing wall. He just prayed to Paya that he would make it in time.

She slumped against the wall allowing her life blood to flow freely around her. She watched the fight that lasted for a grand total of four seconds. The alien carrying her prevailed. It would leap up using the wall for its momentum and use it used its tail to decapitate both of the opposing drones in a single swift move. They had no time to act. What she had just noticed though was it was the alien with the grid pattern on its head.

'Grid.'Was the last thought in her mind as she slipped into unconsciousness.

No! It couldn't be! He had to make it; he had to get there in time.

The ooman pup's life force was barely there. He willed himself even faster. He took every route he could, and never bothered to give any of the drones he passed a second glance even as they chased him. Thanks to the sheer speed with which he was running, he lost them easily enough.

Taking one last turn he saw the pair he was after. The drone was crouching over her, with drool falling from its fangs that were curled into a snarl. Its tail thrashed furiously. It was going to finish what she had begun.

He wouldn't allow it. Thrusting forwards he knocked the drone off balance and away from the pup. Before he could even drive his combi-stick into its skull, the drone attacked.

They watched their HUD as they saw the Elder emerge from the tunnel of ice. Pushing forward they ran to catch up. What was suspicious to them was that there were no drones in sight. Taking the same corridors the Elder took they found his kills. He was one of the strongest, most honorable, respected Yautja in their clan. It had taken them ten minutes to reach their destination and what they saw made their blood run cold.