Hunting down DaTaln should have been placed upon none other than De'Tuula himself. The observing hunter was sure of it. There was a clear envy or shame he seemed to hide under his mask when the two newly acquainted brothers arrived with the hard meat. The clan leaders would leave it to the first team to find the bad bloods, and that would go to the Yautja in front of him, instead of the De'Tuula and his new team, composed of O'Garh'n and Ghl'ou, two brothers that lost one in their trial.

That was originally how he and his brother's trial had panned out. Losing his second eldest brother in the culling DaTaln had so unrighteously provoked. The festering legion he created. De'Tuula would go on to admire Salvak, cold, brutal, and ruthless. And like him, alone. the warrior couldn't help but feel pity for him, Although he couldn't see the yautja's eyes, he knew that the warrior harbored a deep sadness, though he hid it well.

Rumors spread clan wide when the yautja stepped on the ship after his Chiva, a lone survivor, drenched in the blood of his fallen brothers. Carrying the heads of several hardmeats. They had all crammed in the watchroom to watch and study the vods of his trial many times over—one of the most popular theories claimed that the lone survivor ripped a chunk of his brothers face off with his mandibles —Everyone in the room watched the screen eagerly to see the brute savage, take notes on his tactics.

It seemed that everyone reveled in the Blooded warriors triumphs, except for the Yautja responsible for it.

There was no excitement on the warrior's face upon walking out from his father's chambers

No happiness or even a sense of triumph.

Just anger. Resentment.

Unless one knew the yautja's personal history and relationships most clan mates couldn't have known why. But those who did, knew everything.

Death had surrounded him long before his trial.

He felt for Salvak. The sorrow turned rage festered inside both of them now like a dormant Volcano, ready to erupt at any given time. Only Paya knows when it will, turn everything around them into smoke and ashes.

Now the lone Survivor of his Chiva would be facing off against DaTaln, eldest son of Da'Chk'ah, Who was cunning and knew how to draw things out from deep within. De'Tuula had witnessed it himself on their trial when he watched him release and draw out the Queen from its chambers.

And try to kill it.

———

She hadn't noticed until now, but the outline of his neck reminded Cassandra of a jaguar's, or a lions as it snapped fast in the direction of the animalistic sound.

A creature with a powerful jaw

What the fuck was that?

Even she had to turn and look in the direction it came from. Actually, she wasn't sure. But he was, she thought.

where her head was pointed in the general direction of the noise, his— in the corner of her eye- was more foreword and direct.

He knew exactly what it was and where it was coming from.

Was there more of him? We're they coming this way?

She just as quickly turned back around to relocate him, almost for an answer. But the faint opaqueness of the beast, the creature, the man— had seemingly vanished.

The invisible outline of the form was nowhere to be found. No growling, or trilling, only forest. Cassandra had sworn her ears started to ring from the sudden lack of any apparent noise.

Maybe she just imagined that.

If she did— she'd need to check with her doctor when she got home..

If she didn't, she hoped she brought an extra change of underwear.

After a few moments of eerie silence she sat up onto her knees and craned her neck to look further around the trees, looking for any sign of life hidden in plain sight.

"Hello…?' Her voice almost seemed to echo now.

Nothing. Nothing in the forest had changed or move since it's disappeareance.

She was now truly alone. It felt different then it did before. No longer serene and peaceful. It was like being in a new environment all together.

Her mind instantly begun replaying the images, trying to rationalize what had just happened in front of her very own eyes

Seeing its legs, its chest….

Its eyes.

Its eyes…..

It didn't make sense, it shouldn't make sense.

A new fear had become apparent in the lack of his presence. There was some type of creature on the loose, so much so that even he seemed to back off at the sound of it. And yet here she was, alone and defenseless against anything that could come lurking.

A bear? Would there be mountain lions up here?

What an absolute idiot. Climbing all this way for a flower only to find cryptids and monsters.

"I should have told Patrick to fuck off and drew driftwood by the damn lake."

Maybe Pat won all along getting her worked up, making her climb all this way for a flower. Maybe he wanted her to get eaten by a bear or a mountain lion or whatever the fuck that giant armored green thing was.

She could have died.

"I could have died just now." She repeated out loud. Her hands on her temples as she rose to her feet, pacing in circles.

She wanted to regret coming up here, and partially she did.

But the part of her that lit up with wonder upon seeing him stayed and filled her chest with a weird sensation.

"But i didn't…?"

Does that mean that thing wasn't a threat?

It was tall, even if she were standing during their encounter it would tower over her by several feet. Even taller than Shana and Patrick. From what she saw from the small glimpses of the skin behind its blending in with the environment, its sheer muscle mass was very apparent. Then there was the metal all over its body.

More akin to an animal or a god than a man…

She tried to shake the image of him out of her head so she could focus

But she couldn't. Its eyes were ingrained in her memory.

Its eyes looked so deadly, so dangerous—and yet, unexplainably beautiful.

"Why didn't that thing hurt me?"

Rushing water, birds in the distance. Sounds that were supposed to be there but weren't were finally came back to her.

The sounds of the rushing waterfall in the distance diminishing the Eerie silence. In that same moment her senses came back to her.

It was getting chilly, and the sun would be setting soon.

More importantly—Dinner. It was getting to be dinner time right about now. What if she missed it? She missed Trysander and Alderez grilling it up for the students and ultimately missed out on seeing the young professors' corny apron in action.

She jumped to her feet and shoved her pencils, sketch pad and charcoal back into her art bag.

She scanned the area one last time, as if he would come back around and manifest out of thin air. But there was nothing

Hopefully she would remember where the trails were.

————

'Try him again on comms.'

Salvak seemed to step louder than normal, now just slightly audible as opposed to their usual trained and ingrained silence.

X'ol looked over to his teammate, who was suddenly grumpy after his stare-off with the Traitor's Kin. He flipped over his comm. He couldn't tell if his sudden agitation was due to their current situation, or from seeing the blood brother of DaTaln.

He was intrigued by how the two mirrored each other. Both now—by death and Yautja code—brotherless.

His appraisal echoed in both their heads, in one more than the other.

Salvak clicked his mandibles profusely, not uttering speech, just reacting. Making noise and whipping his dreads about more than what felt necessary to his pack brother. As if he was back on the ship watching him having an argument with himself over a vod in the clan watchroom, on the screen would be Salvak presumably screaming obscenities and threats, but X'ol would imagine the vod muted or corrupted, leaving what was actually going on in the brutes mind an utter mystery.

No speech

Just anger.

X'ol's stare of amusement was hidden well beneath his mask.

Curious…

———————

Roxanne had been trying to reach out to the other stations for the past hour, according to Timothy, her fellow co-worker, there were off-road explosions that occurred by route 507.

She hadn't heard anything but it must have been true

All their communications had been severed, she couldn't even reach the emergency channels.

She had never seen a situation where all the local stations had been jammed like this. Sure, she barely had a signal on her phone but she could always reach each tower from 1 to 10 with no problem. Even in a wind or rainstorm.

Tower 7 was silent, after a while she had turned the radio off, what was the point when the lines were severed?

The room felt awfully empty.

She almost missed Guillard, the old fart he is. Especially with the silence of the room. Timothy had left on foot to try to find the root of the issue.

"Dammit. What the hell is going on!?!"

Maybe karma had gotten the best of Roxy and her greyhound of a sugar daddy took a tumble down the mountain. Or had been blown to bits.

"Or maybe everything is fine and he just came to his senses and decided that his wife is more than enough for him" she muttered to herself.

Every option she could think of still was bad news for Roxanne Carter. She had been looking for some much-needed retail therapy. A trip to Disneyland wasn't too far away if she worked him right. Now she would be reduced to…

She gulped and shuddered.

Getting a second job.

After the hiking season was over, the impending winter would be the end of her 17.50 an hour until next spring.

Some hiking areas stayed open year-round, but the steepness of the mountain made it too dangerous. The only people who came out here during the winter months was the cleanup crew to get the towers cleaned up and cleared for the camp workers to come back, people coming in to fix or update any gear that broke during the hiking season. Besides that, the trails would become a ghost town.

That's where guillard came in.

Business trips disguised as trips to Paris, New York, Dubai. All for a small piece of herself that she didn't mind giving in an exchange for an easy life.

Maybe it would be if life hadn't set her up to be the way she was.

She had a few slimy family members to thank for that.

Thankfully she had moved far away from, well, all her family members.

Even though the few Uncles she had to thank for her learned behaviors had both landed in jail, —Good riddance— she couldn't dare go back to her family that knew and enabled it in the first place.

She had grown a lot since that happened. It's been nearly a decade since she had last seen any of them.

Guillard had saved her, well she saved herself, by using him. And was able to move out. He offered a way out, and she took it. With him, she secured herself an escape and eventually, after a few miserable 7.15 an hour retail jobs with nice mall discounts, she even found a job at his favorite hiking trail. And she's grown to love it here. Even though it's stupid, and Tim is annoying. She loved him too and Vennessa and Chastity in tower 3, Emily and Lucas in tower 4, Nicole and Jason in tower 5, Casey and Antony in tower 6.

They had become her new family over the years.

The cabins had become her primary home.

She worked her ass off to get to sit here all day and be bored out of her mind, waiting to sneak off with guillard and have Tim take over.

And he would, because he's too nice.

Why was it suddenly all going wrong?

Roxanne had stood in front of the radio, still switching between channels in hopes someone somewhere would finally answer.

but its been hours now.

The different stations of each watchtower were reduced to a dull static. She sighed and set the radio back on its hook and resorted to chewing on her acrylic nails.

She worried for Timothy now. Who knew what he could have run into?

Maybe she should have gone with him? That way she would know for sure that he was okay.

but she had to stay here, as soon as the signal went back on she needed to contact camp security and even the state troopers to call in for help.

One person had to be here to hold down the fort.

but she hoped he wouldn't be gone long.

It gets creepy around here when it gets dark.

———-

Her feet ached, flipping back and forth in her Sparkly-no-more slides and dirt stained socks. There was definitely no arch support on these, and she wouldn't dare trek barefoot and hit yet another rock. It was bad enough hitting them with shoes on. Tomorrow first thing she'd go down to the camp store and buy shoes and warm clothes in colors that wouldn't be easily stained by dirt, or coke or whatever the forest dared bring her way.

She visibly cringed as she walked through the forrest, if she could remember correctly this was the way she went to get here and the key to get back onto the trails.

The camp clothes would be much warmer and safer against the elements- like these godforssaken rocks!- but ugh, why did it have to be dull colors? Dull colors made her feel so ugly.

Browns, greys, black—okay black makes everyone look good— dull greens. And who knew what kind of attrocities they would have for shoes.

Cassandra was a colorful person, and she needed to wear that color or else she'd puke.

However puking was the least of her problems with loose roots of trees sticking up from the ground and the rising fear or splitting a toenail.

The trees thinned out, she knew she was getting closer. she had to be. But the increasing fear that she was lost was also there. This was clearly why they say to stay on the trails. What if she walked off the cliff without realizing. Most of the streams and waterfalls weren't that deep. If she went overboard she likely wouldn't e coming up for air anytime soon, maybe her body would surface weeks later with horrible disfigurement

like Jason voorhees.

She walked as fast as possible while checking her surroundings. Constantly.

——

"L——-end——-brthr——slavk—" the soft hum of his coms rang out from the malfunctioned helmet that was attached to his hip, in the same spot the severed head once was.

He sighed in annoyance and punched it

'Leader brother, come in leader brother, X'ol requesting your whereabouts.'

He placed the malfunctioning helmet back on his face growling back his coordinates to his teammates

'The second bad blood is nearby. Did you return the hard meat to the ship?'

'Yes,' X'ol chided. 'it is being guarded by the two teams, they'll be awaiting us as soon as we finish the job and escort us to the mother ship to receive our rewards for winning the elder's game.'

'Or send out a new team if we fail,' Salvak adds bluntly, his attitude not stale enough from their meeting to be undetectable by his leading pack brother.

'These two traitors are nothing, we will wipe them out in no time.'

The leader-brother worked quickly to divert the entirety of communications to the gauntlet. Once done he placed it back on his hip and began to scale a tree while he awaited his brothers to plan their next move.

'There is something I want to add, leader brother.' X'ol chides

'What are your concerns?'

'The hatchlings' pheromones have completely disappeared from the forest's vicinity.'

'What does this mean?' He knew very well what it meant,

'They're relocating whatever plans they intend to make here. The trackers on the crates have completely disappeared from the forest.'

'They have someone aiding them.' Salvak growls.

"More Bad bloods? Could they have been hiding more on Earth?"

'If they are, they aren't from our clan, there were no other reports." X'ol growled

'Sounds Dangerous,' Salvak purrs and rolls his neck in circles before violently cracking it from each side (any harder he might break something) shaking his dreads and twitching his mandibles in excitement.

'Should we notify the elders?' X'ol opened his wrist gauntlet, ready to call to the mothership if need be.

"Not yet," Their pack leader growled through the coms. "We need to confirm that there are more bad bloods here on earth first, aside from DaTaln's pack."

'How must one discover such a thing when the pheromones of the hatchlings have all but disappeared?'

'We have no choice but to go up and strike up a conversation' Salvak purred in a hungry delight.

-———

Every few minutes she would switch the art bag over to the opposite shoulder. Its cheap straps bearing down hard on her shoulder the weight of all her books and pencils and her phone. She hadn't checked it since the encounter with the monster but she was sure it was in there. She shoved everything back in her bag when she initially made a break for it.

In the distance there was a noise and the forrest sounds had dulled in reaction.

Her Carmel cheeks paled.

has it come back? Was it looking for her?

she heard the sound again. It sounded like a scream, a glutoral cry of some kind. But it was too far into the distance to understand just what it was.

she had a choice now. She could run in the opposite direction or head towards it.

she remembered the beast snapping its neck to a sound in the distance and then it fled immediately afterwards. Should she do the same?

for a moment she stood in place, listening for the sound again.

if only she could hear it better, so she could know for sure what it was.

but now there was only silence. Not as eerie as before, but nowhere near comforting.

"I wanna go home." She huffed under her breath.

A sound echoed through the forest once more. She looked up, she heard it clearer now.

It sounded human.

she decided to answer it.

"Hello?" She cupped her hands and called out loudly

there was another sound, louder now.

She began to move quickly towards the sound.

"hello?" She called again.

it called back and she started running towards the sound

After a few moments she could see the trails a few feet away. Walking up was a tall blonde girl with long legs.

"Shana?" Cassandra called hopefully.

the girl in the distance turned around and stopped in their tracks, calling back.

"Cassandra!" She heard her friend call out

"shana!" She called, sprinting. Her eyes blurring with tears of relief

Finally, a way out.

A way back to her friend. to a familiar face.

She was ready to ask her what she was doing all the way up here.

but as she got closer, she watched the blonde girl in the distance turn around and scream.

—————-

The sun had fallen, leaving the forest with a graying sky.

A plan was forming in the nameless Yautja's head. Now the stakes had been raised and the mission would now get significantly more interesting. He was excited about the traitors' numbers being higher than expected. If his team is to defeat them, or do so with as little help as possible, he could see their merits and rewards increasing.

He would be that much closer to being the lone hunter he had become after his chiva.

Being alone is something that he craved as much as killing

Whether it be bad blood or serpents.

It would only be a matter of time now for him to be at peace with his interests.

X'ol had given him their meeting coordinates. They had kept an eye out for the traitors but they have gone off radar yet again.

Hiding like the cowards they were.

He knew he had irritated one with his trap, based on the scream it sent out upon presumably finding his trap. He would not go back to claim his trophy yet, not that this got so much more riskier he couldn't afford to do something stupid and disregard his team. They were in this together and like he told them at the start.

There would be plenty an hour for trophies.

Without thinking he had made his way back to where he had seen the Ooman.

The spot was vacant, but smelled still faintly of it. The grass where it had been had been imprinted slightly with their mass (though the thing weighs practically nothing when compared to a yautja or hard meat.)

He began to ponder.

Twice a coincidence, three times fate.

He would make his meeting with her useful.

A glint of light shone far below him. On the ground was a small rectangular device.

The device lights up with a silent ping before fading back to darkness a moment later.

Ooman technology.

What are the odds that it belongs to his new plaything?

As he picked up the tiny thing gently with the tips of his claws (human technology is usually very pathetic and fragile.) A new idea had struck him.

The hard meats and bad blooded would surely hide from him and his team.

But would they cower from a tiny helpless Ooman?

His tusks clicked in satisfaction, turning his new 'trophy' over in his paw to examine it.

Purring, he wondered.

if only there were a way to make her come to him.

———-

A/N

betcha didn't expect to see this huh?

A new chapter, written by author-chan? In the flesh?

I've been thinking about this story a lot over the years. And I still have so much planned, the only thing is to execute those plans and stories. I don't expect the story to gain much traction as I continue it years later into the future, but who knows? Regardless if anyone is still curious about the story, I'm still invested in my characters and would like to give them a proper adventure.

more than just this one too.

if you are from the beginning, wanting more from the story or a newcomer who has decided to give this story a try. Thank you.

If you'd like to show your support for the story feel free to favorite or tell me

what your favorite character so far is, and why?

If you'll excuse me, I've got some Preddy-themed chaos to cause.

xoxo

-Author Chan