Hunter Hunted: Hybrid Wars

by Ghostnobody

This will be the tale of Clan Mason, from thier beginings through to thier rise as force for good in my AVP universe, new enemies will rise to join old ones, see how Jack Mason and Tik eleth will not only rise to meet them but bring the fight to them gathering with them new friends and allies in thier fight against the darkness. (Contains HumanXMultiple Alien species sex)

100. Holiday Special

All I Want For Freedom Day Is You.

The night was quiet and still, as Xiva Hookclaw and her pride began their long walk home from their long day shift at the guard post.

It had been a fairly busy day as the city was preparing for the Raptorian holiday of Winter Seed.

It was the time of year that all Raptorians got together to remember what was known in their culture as the long winter, a time in their history when they remembered the time of Great Sorrow when they were punished by the Great Tree when straying so far from her noble path.

The holiday itself was kinda bittersweet at its core because not only did they remember the lives lost during that time but they also gave thanks to the Great Tree for giving them the chance to repent and to change their ways.

In a way the holiday represented the rebirth of the new Raptorians, ones who embraced the true way of the Great Tree and strove to earn their pride's place within her Golden Garden where they would spend all of eternity happy warm and content in the loving arms of their pride male.

Except for Xiva and her pride, this time of year was always a reminder that their pride had no male to call their own, no beautiful boy to dote on, to care for or to lavish with as much love as their hearts could muster.

So as they patrolled the city of Lapis finding wayward children and directing shoppers while keeping a dutiful eye on all the prides around them as they scurried about doing their holiday shopping it brought a mixture of joy and heaviness to their hearts.

Seeing all the smiling and joyful prides walking through the streets carrying their bags of gifts and food that they would take home to prepare to add to the family feasts and celebrations was always heartwarming, but it was also a little depressing because seeing the smiling faces of their pride males surrounded by his protective females as they walked through the packed streets dressed in their best Winter Seed outfits always made them feel a little left out.

Their walk home took them past the local Clan Mason embassy as now there was one of these things in nearly every one of the major Raptorian cities and Xiva's pride still remembered when the friendly aliens had appeared on the scene during the war.

The images of an oddly handsome human male warrior of all things appeared on TV screens all across Raptoria, a male that swiftly became known as the Guardian of Males for his heroic defence of a group of males and their male children during a horrific Mimic attack in that city's recreation zone.

An attack that could have left multiple prides truly devastated at their loss of not only their pride male but of their beloved children and the future of Raptoria.

But seemingly out of no-where this heavily armed and armoured male warrior had come to their rescue and defended them, he had beaten back the vicious Mimic scourge and ensured that each of those males was delivered back into the loving arms of their pride where they belonged, a true miracle if there ever was one down here.

Then more of them started popping up as the war truly began to rage on the surface and stories the likes of which had never been seen before began to filter their way down thanks to the brave Pride Life Today news teams that had been attached to the Surface Stalker prides that were up there alongside Clan Mason fighting for Raptoria.

They had seen these beautiful and handsome warriors fighting for them, to protect them and free them from the certain tyranny that the Scalathor and Draconis had planned for them.

But not only that they had even delivered freed Scalathor males to their cities that their vile females had been keeping as comfort males in the bases that they'd set up on the surface.

Xiva sighed heavily and gave a bittersweet smile as she remembered the day that those boys had arrived here in Lapis.

The Chief of Guards had put every single Guard pride on high alert, the boys were being brought down to the city by a huge guard force of Surface Stalkers and Clan Mason and that had been Xiva and her pride's first chance to see the aliens up close.

She still remembered the warriors dressed in their brilliant gold and blue armours walking tall and proud as they stood in defence of those poor boys clustered at their centre, each of them looking to their guardians for reassurance.

She still remembered the rings of Surface Stalkers surrounding all of them at least six deep as the group walked through the city towards the hospital where they were to be handed over to the Guard prides and medical staff.

She also remembered the outpouring of pure horror and emotion from all the good prides of their fair city when it was made known what horrors had been enacted on those poor beautiful, innocent boys.

When the call came from the city command pride for volunteers to take in an orphaned Scalathor boy or a displaced adult the queues filled every single street of their fair city.

It took them a full six rotations to take every single pride name and that was with every single guard pride and admistrive pride called in to deal with the crowds.

But she also remembered with a joyful heart the joy of both those prides when they won the lottery to adopt or simply to be guardians of one of those males, she remembered clearly the love they showered those nervous and frightened males with as they were escorted from the hospital into the arms of their new pride under the watchful eyes of both the guards and even of some ambassadors of their new Clan Mason allies.

Now those Scalathor boys had become common sights within the city and even over the months since the conflict the change in them had been heartwarming, to say the least.

Gone were the fearful husks that were scared of even their own shadows in the lights of the city's beautiful lapis-coloured lamps that gave it its name.

Now replacing them were strong and confident males who walked with their heads held up high, with joy and curiosity burning bright in their beautiful eyes.

Quite a number of them had chosen to become married to their guardian prides though from what she understood before such a union could be undertaken an application to the High Priestess pride had to send and then they would travel to the temple where the males would meet with the High Priestess's to ensure that there was no duress involved, so far not a single case had been discovered, a fact that brought immense pride and joy to Xiva's heart.

The lesson of the time of Great Sorrow was never lost on the Raptorian people and was now hard-wired into their collective soul and being to the point where it could never be unwound, good Raptorian females, would always care for and defend their males, now and always, no matter the cost.

As their pride passed by the Clan Mason embassy Xiva and her sisters noticed that the people of Clan Mason seemed to be rather busy setting up their own decorations, though they looked quite different from their own.

She wondered if they were joining in the celebration of Winter Seed with them or whether they had their own holiday that they celebrated at this time of year?

That's when a quick-moving shadow caught her eye and as she ruffled her feathers in alert her whole pride very nearly drew their weapons until as one they all saw the source of the mystery.

It was simply one of the Clan's Seekers of Truth, though simple did not do these mysterious and enigmatic figures justice, to say the least.

Xiva still remembered seeing the vids taken by the Pride Life Today news teams of these incredible beings in action on the surface of Raptoria.

The way they moved and the things they could do seemed like they had come right out of a Scalywood sci-fi film.

Watching them dodge bullets and turn the predators of the surface against the Scalathor and Draconis, to watching them summon the very dead themselves to fight alongside their still living sisters.

These beings were highly celebrated on Raptoria and especially as Jack Mason the Grand Patriarch of Clan Mason was one himself and vids of his exploits had wowed crowds of prides on the huge screens that had been set up all over the city to show live updates of the war.

Though whether it was the things he could do or the way his bright blue eyes sparkled and his smile sent a shiver through the scales of every maleless red-blooded female who saw it was still currently up for debate, all anyone knew was woe betide the pride stupid enough to try and make a pass at him if the Grand Matriarch and breaker of chains were anywhere nearby.

Though thanks to their rarity seeing one of these beings up close was a supremely rare treat even for a guard pride like theirs who had more interaction with the Clan than the average Raptorian citizen.

As they watched, the figure kicked off several surfaces into a high arcing jump where they deposited what looked to be a large shining star atop of a very large tree that had been erected in the courtyard of the embassy and as if in poetic timing as they completed their arcing jump landing on the outer wall of said courtyard the whole tree lit up in a dazzling array of colours behind them.

The figure stood there for a moment looking out over the equally decorated city before seemingly noticing Xiva and her pride stood below them.

The armoured figure gave a cheery wave which they barely had time to return before the figure turned and hopped back down inside of the walls out of sight.

From both her left and her right Xiva heard her pride sisters sigh in unison.

She glanced at them curiously and both Xex and Bista ruffled their feathers as they stood staring at the spot where the human Seeker had been stood only moments before.

"You don't get to see that every day," Xex said in a wistful voice.

"Yeah, those human Seekers really are something else aren't they?" Bista said.

"How can you be sure it was even male, they were armoured from head to foot?" Xiva said as the pride began to walk again.

"Oh I'm sure, you know me I can spot a male at a hundred paces in a crowd a thousand prides strong!" Xex said confidently making her pride all giggle as they walked together.

"No but seriously how can you tell?" Xiva asked Xex smiled at her.

"Simple, their males are kinda obvious from their females when you know what to look for, here I'll give you an example, a male Yautja is smaller than a female Yautja much in the same way that it is for us right?" she said and Xiva nodded as she remembered her Clan species biology lessons.

"Well with humans it is the reverse, males are bigger and stronger than their females, and they have flat chests and narrow hips, now granted while at a glance I can't be one hundred per cent positive I am almost certain that was a male we saw unless they have a very flat chest because I've seen their armour up close and some of those girls are seriously lucky up there," she said gesturing to her own rather ample chest which while decently sized by Raptorian standards, were positively small by human standards and not much more than two peas on a plank by Yautja standards, making her pride sisters all chuckle in knowing.

"Then there's the sacred apple, of course, the gift from the Great Tree herself that only her beloved sons are permitted to carry," Vetra said from the far right of their little group.

"Yeah I'm good but I'm not that good, not even I can spot a sacred apple through their armour Vetra," Xex said making her sister grin at her.

"And you call yourself a male spotter," she shot back making her sisters laugh.

"Has anyone else noticed the rather large amount of deliveries the Clan embassy has been having over the last few weeks though?" Kest asked and they all turned to glance at her so she continued.

"When we were in the briefing at HQ the other week I noticed a delivery schedule of inbound freight from the Clan home world and it was way over their usual consignments, that's either one hell of a party they have planned or they had something else going on, plus what struck me as odd was the fact that pretty much all of it was under the diplomatic flag," she said.

"Huh that's odd the Clan never use the diplomatic flag status for stuff, they are always open about what they bring in, what do you think it could be?" Xex asked and Kest shrugged.

"No idea and that's what bothers me, I mean while we have no reason not to trust the Clan at all it struck me as seriously odd, I mean what the hell could they want to hide from us so bad and why so much of it?" she said.

"Think we should look into it?" Xiva asked and Kest shrugged.

"I don't know, I mean chances are its innocent but something just doesn't feel right," she said and with that odd feeling hanging in the air over them the pride finally made their way home for a well-earned rest but now Xiva couldn't shake the feeling that something was up.

During the night as her pride slept, Xiva heard a noise coming from their living room and she yawned as she rose to check it out, it was most likely their damn fridge acting up again, the thing needed a new fan system but they had been too busy to get around to sorting it.

As she lifted herself out of the pile her sisters had made around her she was careful to be gentle when dislodging the tangle of limbs from around herself so as to not wake them before making her way across the mattress and into the main living area.

In the darkness the coloured lights from their Winter Seed tree danced and cast oddly coloured shadows across the room, sparkling and reflecting off pieces of hanging foil that were meant to represent the frosts and ice that often covered the surface during this time of year but never made its way down to their magma heated homes.

But it was quite a trick to navigate a room lit only by these dancing coloured lights as the shifting shadows as certain lights lit up while others doused created a kind of slow-motion strobe effect that could throw your perception for a loop if you were not careful.

That was when she noticed something odd, one of her sisters had left one of the widows slightly ajar and the heavy curtains were slightly open.

Xiva scowled at it as other than Xex no-one tended to open the windows in the evening as the sounds from the tower tended to drown out the TV but during this time of year, her sister liked to sit and watch the young ones running around and hanging decorations across the spirals and over the lamps.

Lots of prides also tended to decorate their doorways with colourful winter plants so over the course of about a week or so the inside of the tower started to take on the look of a swirling rainbow that climbed into the sky.

As she went over to the window something shimmered to her right and she turned only to find...nothing.

Xiva scowled as she was sure she had seen something move but then with the damn dancing lights from the Winter Seed tree everything bloody moved.

So turning back to the window to close it she cursed her sister slightly under her breath before hopping up onto the couch and leaning forwards, only it wasn't the couch she landed on, it was someone's lap!

Now Raptorians are very good jumpers and their clawed feet are incredibly good at gripping, infact despite how small they are they like high places hence why their tower homes are shaped the way they are.

So even with the dancing lights throwing off her senses slightly, there was no way she would miscue the jump that badly but as she landed her feet rather than find the soft rear of the couch they were expecting hit metal instead.

This caused her to lose her footing and to drop straight down and land crotch first on something hard and smooth and she instantly felt something grab her by the waist.

That's when she saw it, a figure, there was an invisible figure sitting on the couch in their living room and now she was sitting on top of it!!

The figure was briefly made visible by both the contact she made with it and also the shifting light effect of the Winter Seed tree changing at exactly the right moment which meant that the cloaking tech they were using faltered as it attempted to reshroud the figure whose lap she was currently straddling.

For the briefest of moments, the two simply looked at one another in a frozen silence made of shock, with her hands resting on its shoulders while its hands rested on her waist.

That's when Xiva's mind snapped back like an elastic band, there was an intruder in her pride's home!!

No sooner had she opened her mouth and drawn in a massive breath to yell an alarm warning to her pride than the shadowy figure's mind seemed to snap back as well, with lightning speed and incredible strength the figure flicked her up and spun her round before clamping a hand over her mouth and grabbing her upper body which clamped her arms to her sides.

As she was able to release was a loud beep noise before it was cut off.

"I'm not going to hurt you, there seems to have been some kind of mistake," a figure said from behind her in perfect Raptorian but by the shape and size of the person they were most definitely not a Raptorian.

Xiva struggled to break free of their grasp but despite kicking out and thrashing her long thick tail around the figure's grip was too strong for her to hope to break free.

That's when a very sleepy-looking Xex walked into the room and saw her apparently floating in the air while being restrained.

"Xiva? What's going on, why are you flying?" Xex asked as her mind struggled to make sense of what she was seeing.

"Shit, sorry about this," the figure said and suddenly Xiva was falling, right through the window.

"Xiva!!!' Xex yelled in pure fear rushing to the window and Xiva saw her sister's terrified face appear out of it as she fell backwards but what was odd was that she still felt restrained, the figure was falling with her.

Suddenly the figure spun and she found herself looking now at the rapidly closing ground before with a rapid series of movements the figure released her mouth and fired something from its wrist into one of the walls.

There was a sharp jerking sensation as whatever it was went taught and pitched them at an angle like they were swinging on a vine from a tree.

Xiva screamed as she watched one of the railings coming right at them rapidly but the figure didn't seem intent on smashing them into it, instead, they flicked themselves into an angled kick which propelled them off the wall and back across the open space.

Xiva's brain was struggling to comprehend what in the name of hell was happening as she cartwheeled through the air under the grip of the invisible stranger.

No sooner had the stranger's boots made contact with the wall on the other side of the tower than they actually began to run vertically down one of the support columns and that's when it clicked in Xiva's mind, there were only one group of people who could move like this, Seekers of Truth!

By why in the name of the Great Tree had there been a Seeker in their apartment? And why had they kidnapped her?

What were their intentions and where were they taking her?

These and a million other questions spiralled through Xiva's mind like a maelstrom as they shot vertically down the tower at incredible speed until they hit the floor and shot right out of the door scattering a late-night party pride who were just returning from the late-closing clubs as they got bowled over by the figure.

As they carried her the figure moved with such incredible grace and speed that Xiva was left with her brain frazzled as she tried in vain to keep up with the series of movements they were making all she knew was they were jumping from building to building, but it was like being stuck inside a washing machine, just blurs of rapidly shifting colours and then brief moments of clarity as the figure paused to reorientate themselves before more blurs of colours.

But thankfully she didn't barf when the figure finally came to a halt and Xiva found herself atop one of the largest trees in the recreation zone looking down at the little white dots of a flock of cave geese far below who all seemed rather fascinated by the invisible thing that had just scaled a tree.

Suddenly Xiva found her voice from the fear-induced paralysis which had accompanied the high-speed jaunt across the entirety of the city in only a matter of seconds.

"My name is Xiva Hookclaw and my pride will be looking for me! They are a guard pride and they will find you so I demand that you release me at once!!" she demanded in as brave a voice as she could muster.

"I do apologise for the abrupt snatch and grab my good lady I err may have paniced slightly when you decided to jump into my lap back at your home and while I would comply with your reasonable request of course it umm might have dire consequences if I were to do so right now," the figure said once again in perfect Raptorian.

"It was not my intention to jump into your lap! I was trying to close the window and I couldn't see you due to your stealth armour, what the hell were you doing in my home, to begin with, and what do you mean dire consequences!!?" Xiva demanded.

"You may wish to look down," the figure said and Xiva did so to only realise that they were not on a branch of the tree but hanging on the side of it, if the figure let go of her she would plummet fifty plus feet straight down into the ground like a scaley lawn dart.

"Why the hell would you do this? Why abduct me from my home and my pride, I'm not of any importance, I'm merely a guard and Clan Mason are supposed to be our allies!?" Xiva yelled as a surge of fresh fear hit her at the precarious situation that she found herself in.

"Wait how did you...the armour," the figure said answering their own question as they tried to figure out how she knew who they were.

"Well, that and the running vertically down the fucking walls! Who the hell else can pull shit like that off?" Xiva demanded angrily as she continued to dangle from the figure's grasp.

The figure sighed heavily from behind her.

"I pauking told command to double check that bloody list, I fucking knew there were errors in it, look this has all been a big misunderstanding ok, look I'll climb down and then I'll try to explain all of this mess," the figure said.

"It's gonna have be a fucking good explanation for all this!!" Xiva yelled.

"You may wish to contact your pride so that they don't start a city-wide search or a diplomatic incident as well," the figure said as they began to climb down the tree.

"And how do you expect me to do that? Smoke signals? You snatched me out of my home!!" Xiva yelled as her anger overrode her fear now.

"Oh yeah, don't worry my wrist comp has communicator functions and can tap into your local cellular grid, you can use that when we get down," the figure said and with that, they leapt the remaining twenty feet or so down to the ground making Xiva cry out in alarm before realising she was fine.

The figure turned and placed her down on her feet before deactivating their cloaking systems and appearing before properly for the first time.

Xiva's first instinct was to take a step back from them and to reach for her service weapon but it was only now that she realised that not only was she not carrying her weapon but she was dressed only in her thin nightdress, worse than that she realised she didn't even have any underwear on!

A bright hot flush ripped through her flesh and her scales as she realised that when she had drop-straddled the figure's lap her most intimate parts had directly collided with their suit and not only that but she was now over halfway across the city in such a state.

Meanwhile, the figure seemed to have not noticed as they were busily pulling a small spherical device from a port contained within an odd-looking computer system attached to their long forearm.

"Here you go this will allow you to call your pride, simply type the call destination or number in here," the figure said crouching down and offering their arm to her so she could see the screen.

As she recognised the logo on the screen of the one used by their regional communication network it appeared that Clan Mason was indeed capable of tapping into it whenever they needed, but then maybe they had some kind of diplomatic account with the provider or something?

Xiva reached out and while almost continually glancing at the figure's covered face as if she expected them to snatch their arm away and laugh manically like a villain from one of her shows she typed her home number into the display.

No sooner had she finished typing than the little sphere she was holding lit up and popped open to create a little floating holographic screen before her eyes.

It only had the chance to ring a single time before Xex's worried face appeared on the floating screen.

"Xiva is that you!!?" her pride sister exclaimed with a hard note of fear that was permeated by hope in her voice.

"Yeah it's me, listen I'm ok I'm in the recreation zone and I'm gonna need you guys to come down here and get me, oh and bring a change of clothes and some err underwear," Xiva said flushing as she said the last part and glancing at the stranger who seemed to be trying to give her some privacy by looking very intently at the tree they had been in but she had the feeling they heard every word.

Suddenly Xex vanished and was replaced by another of her sisters, it was Bista.

"Are you ok!? Are you unharmed!!?" she wailed and Xiva nodded.

"Yeah I'm okay, just get your tails down here pronto and do me a favour if you called control call it off," she said.

"We were about to call them but we were just getting ourselves dressed and geared up to start searching for you, stay right there, we'll be there soon," Bista said and with that Xiva closed the connection by pressing the icon on the holographic screen and held the sphere back to the stranger.

"Thank you, now start talking," she said as they took the sphere.

"Alright but first I think some introductions are in order just to show you that I truly have no nefarious purpose in mind here," the figure said and with that, they reached up and pressed a catch of some kind under their mask which caused it split apart with a hiss of escaping gas before the whole helmet simply collapsed down into the neck section revealing the most strikingly beautiful human male Xiva had ever seen in her life.

The male had pale snow-white skin that sparkled with a blue hue under the light of the colony lamps dotted around them, his eyes were light in colour but with the colour bias, it was difficult to tell if they were purple or blue.

Sat atop of his head was a shock of curly dark hair that looked like it was black but had highlights of what appeared to be silver running through it like an almost natural urban camouflage pattern, but the most prominent feature that Xiva's eyes instantly searched for and mercifully found was his sacred apple.

"My name is Victor Snow and I am a Seeker of Truth more accurately a Tamer of the Seekers of Truth of Clan Mason and I assure you my good lady you have nothing to fear from me, this is just one big mistake and a hell of a mess," he said giving her a rather polite bow.

Now Xiva had heard that there were differences among the Seekers but she'd never claimed to know or understand any of them, so to hear him call himself a Tamer as well as a Seeker kinda went over her head a bit but she had heard the stories of the incredible things these guys could do and seen the vids like everyone else so she knew caution was warranted but that was kinda difficult given that now his identity as a male had been confirmed, she was actively fighting against her instincts to comfort him in case he may be distressed by all of this.

"Well, then Victor maybe you care to start with why you were intruding in our apartment and why you abducted me from it?" Xiva demanded noticing that despite her attempt to sound angry and intimidating, her voice had automatically softened itself because she was speaking to a male.

Victor sighed heavily and nodded, "Well as for the abduction I err umm kinda panicked, when you dropped into my lap it took me by surprise, then when your pride-mate came in I panicked and simply did the first thing that came into my head which was to grab you and to make a run for it," he said sounding throurally embarrassed and highly apologetic.

"But why were you there in the first place?' she asked.

"I was umm taking a census," he said quietly as if the whole thing embarrassed him deeply.

"Taking a census?" she asked in surprise.

"Yes, we've found that Raptorian population records are well umm kinda slow to update and well sort of spotty to put it politely so the officer in charge decided to take a more accurate one on our own, I told command that there were far better ways to get the information than sending out the Seekers to do it," Victor said.

Xiva felt a flash of indignation at her people's bureaucracy being insulted by this alien but then she remembered what happened the last time she and her pride had tried to request new body armour and it wound up two cities over in the hands of a couple of male dancers at a club, though from what she had heard they did put it to good use so he may have a point, but that didn't make it any less infuriating.

"And why would our population numbers be of concern to you Seeker?' she spat fighting her instincts to lower her voice and to keep it soft.

"Yeah I knew that question was coming, look it's not nefarious I assure you but it would be easier for me to show you rather than to try and explain it, so how about this when the rest of your pride gets here I'll show you the whole thing, deal?" he said hopefully giving her a soft and hopeful smile that made her heart flutter as well as her tail swish which she quickly had to stop mid-swing as an alarm bell in her head reminded her that she was bare.

"Deal but you had better keep your word Seeker," she said pointing at him and while he did smile he also looked offended.

"My dear lady a Seeker of Truth always keeps their word! To break it is to break the trust of the Grand Patriarch himself!' he said defiantly.

So the pair of them stood waiting for her pride to arrive and she kept having to fight the urge to keep looking at him out of the corner of her eye as he stared off into the city.

"It's such a beautiful planet this world of yours, you can really feel the powerful ebb of nature wound into everything here, hell even the rocks seem to flow with it you can really feel the roots of the Great Tree here, it's wonderful," he said softly as he watched some glowing little lantern flies flashing their little glowing tails to one another as they danced through the branches of the trees.

"What do you know of the Great Tree?' she asked in a somewhat harsher voice than she had meant to use but the smile he gave her thankfully said he was not hurt by her tone but rather amused by it.

"Probably a great deal more than you do my good lady," he said reaching out a hand towards the lantern flies.

To Xiva's amazement, the little glowing flies rushed down from the branches of the trees to swirl around him causing his armour to pulse rythmically with their tails which they had somehow synchronised now as they spiralled around him.

"How...is this possible!?" Xiva exclaimed in pure wonder as she watched the little display.

"I'm a Tamer, which means I feel the very web of the roots of nature winding through all things and I can pluck them like the stings of a harp to make the tune nature plays change to my rhythm for a little while," he said like that was supposed to explain everything she was seeing here.

But before she could get him to explain further her pride arrived at a full-on sprint and before they could draw weapons on him she said the one word that would stay their hands in place, "Male!" she said.

This caused her whole pride to falter and freeze up like a computer that got caught in a boot loop and she could see their eyes shifting between the pair rapidly as they tried to decide what to do.

"It's alright guys he's not a threat and I'm ok I swear, did you bring the clothes?" Xiva said walking up to her pride to be enveloped in the pride hug that broke out.

"Y-Yeah, here you go," Xex said, her eyes never leaving Victor for a moment and Xiva instantly knew that her sister had been dumbstruck by the very same beauty that had short-circuited her brain a while ago as well.

"Thanks now give me a minute to get changed in the toilets there and then we can sort this mess out," Xiva said before heading into the toilets.

When she returned she could see her pride had formed a loose circle around Victor and she could see a mixture of emotions and feelings flowing across their scaley faces as they looked at him and one another.

On one hand, this was a male and their every instinct drove and compelled them to protect and care for him but on the other, this was the person who had abducted their pride sister from their home.

"Alright let's get this straightened out, Victor you promised to show us what is going on, so go ahead," Xiva said taking her place in the circle around him.

"Alright, follow me if you will please ladies," he said before heading back towards the city with the pride still around him.

As they walked he explained why he had taken Xiva and how it had been a ll a mistake and he also offered grevious apologies to both her and her pride for his actions which to be fair did go some way to soothe their anger which showed in the pride's body language as the circle began to tighten up on him as they walked.

Eventually, they came to a very familiar building in the form of the local Clan Mason embassy and when they reached the gates a deep resonating voice spoke.

"Halt, who goes there?" it said.

"It's alright Rasma it's me Victor," Victor said looking up just in time to see a massive figure decloak atop of the wall.

"Good evening Seeker Snow umm who might this be?" the large Yautja male asked as he dropped down from the wall and looked down at Xiva and her pride.

"They are my guests the Hookclaw pride, I am hoping they might be able to help us with Operation Sleighbells," Victor said and the parge Yautja nodded.

"Ahh very good Seeker Snow, one moment I'll sign them in and issue them guess credentials," the large male Yautja said and it was only now that Xiva recognised the badge of a Saviour on his broad chest that looked like it was big enough to quite comfortable sleep an entire pride of females upon it.

Rasma tapped a few buttons on his wrist comp and a little orb flew up and then scanned each of the pride in turn before returning to him.

"There we go, you may enter, welcome to Clan territory honoured guests," Rasma said and with that, the gates swung open and Victor led them inside.

The embassy itself was a hive of activity even at this hour, Xenomorphs were rushing around on practically every surface screeching at one another and for some reason they all seemed to be wearing red with white trim while having very odd little bell-covered hats stuck to their domed heads.

"Oh don't mind the Battle Angels, those girls always get over excited at this time of year, put it this way we all thank the Goddess of the Hunt for soundproofing every time this time of year comes around," Victor said as he ducked a Xeno that rushed around the corner a little too fast and shot over his head.

"Sorry Seeker!!' she called over her shoulder before vanishing into another brightly lit corridor.

"I've never seen inside the embassy before, this place is a madhouse!' Xex exclaimed as she dodged another Xeno that popped out of a vent in the floor before rapidly vanishing into another one directly above them.

"What can I say, the Clan takes holidays very seriously," Victor said laughing before he stopped at a set of large doors that kinda reminded Xiva of blast doors.

"Now what you are about to see beyond these doors is a state secret and I must ask you for your words absolute that you will not reveal any of what you see in here to anyone," Victor said with his voice turning stern which caused all of their feathers to rise up, they were seriously not used to a male using a harsh tone with them.

"We would never betray the trust placed in us!!" the entire pride said in unison and Victor nodded.

"Very well then, ladies may I present Operation Slieghbells," he said placing his hand on a palm reader on the wall and as the doors whooshed open the entire pride's mouths fell open as one.

Beyond the door was an entire assembly line which would have rivalled any mass production factory found on Raptoria, but rather than robotic arms building appliances while prides of engineers and technicians oversaw it, these lines were not actually anything, instead there was what looked to them to be an entire hive of Xenos all dressed in green and red, sat wrapping what looked to be toys and gifts!

There were, of course, all of the races of Clan Mason sat among them but the number of Xenos far outnumbered their counterparts by a good margin, but regardless of that, they all worked as well-oiled machines filling sacks with brightly coloured gifts of all shapes and sizes.

"W-W-What is this!?" Xiva exclaimed.

"Well the Grand Matriarch and Patriarch thought it would be a good idea if the Clan could celebrate our national holiday on every world we have a presence on, but more than that they wanted our friends to celebrate this holiday with us so that they can understand exactly how much their friendship means to us, so they launched Operation Freedom For All, this morphed into Operation Sleighbells here," Victor said gesturing to the room full of chattering and screeching Xenos all happily wrapping the multitude of gifts that rolled down the assembly lines.

"Yes but that doesn't explain much, what exactly is happening here?" Bista asked gesturing to the massive piles of sacks filled with gifts.

"Those are gifts for every single living Raptorian in this city from Clan Mason, there is one of these facilities in every single Clan Mason embassy across the planet, though given we don't have embassies in every city yet some of them are having to pull double loads, here let me show you," he said gesturing for them to follow him which they did.

He led the group up to the operation hub which was filled with Yautja who were busily working through mountains of paperwork as they assigned various loads to various areas and on the wall was a holohgraphic almost tactical map of the city.

As the pride looked at it a section of the map went green in the top left corner and from memory that was a residential block to the northeast.

"What's that about?" Nesstra asked pointing to it.

"The green sectors are the ones we've confirmed every living Raptorian in that area, old to newborn, the Grand Matriarch and Patriarch insisted on ensuring no one gets left out, not a one," Victor said.

"I can't believe you are running an operation this complex right under our snouts and no one had a single clue about it!" Xiva exclaimed glancing at the room filled with people all working like a well-oiled machine to account for everyone.

"Well Clan Mason does have an extensive military presence here and we are primarily trained in covert warfare so yeah it didn't take much to turn those skills into this if I'm honest," Victor said rubbing the back of his handsome head in obvious embarrassment.

"How on Raptoria do you plan on getting all of these gifts out in time?" Xex asked looking down at the room of Elf like Xenos beavering away at wrapping and labelling.

"Oh ironically that's the easy part," Victor said with a chuckle and the whole pride looked at him like he was crazy.

"That's the easy part!?" Nestra exclaimed and Victor nodded before pointing to the map again.

"See all those little yellow dots?" he asked and they all looked up.

"Yeah?" Xiva asked and as she watched all of them seemed to switch position in the blink of an eye.

"Each one is a Seeker like me, right now there are teams of us going from building to building checking lists and numbers as well as names from the census details we have," he said.

"But those details are out of date like every five minutes around here," Xiva said and Victor nodded.

"Exactly and given we wanted to keep this whole thing on the down low to make it a wonderful surprise for all of Raptoria, who having lived through this terrible war could really use a pick-me-up we're kinda stuck doing this the old-fashioned way but it is really setting us back and not to mention running risks of well having a pretty Raptorian girl who is trying to close a window you left open in your haste to keep moving as you have a massive list to work though sitting in your lap about to scream her feathery head off and blow the whole thing wide open," Victor said wit han embarrassed chuckle and a smile that made the whole pride ruffle.

Instantly Xiva saw all of her pride exchanging glances with one another before all looking at her but she was still standing there in shocked surprise that a gorgeous human Seeker had just referred to her as pretty.

When she finally realised that all of her pride were staring at her expectantly all giving her 'Get your fucking tail moving sister!' feather ruffles she snapped out of her daze and saw an instant opportunity here.

"And now you are hoping that since we have discovered your little secret we might be able to help you streamline this process somehow correct?" Xiva said trying to throw on her best confident alpha female guard pride voice.

"Well umm yeah kind-of, though if it's too much to ask or would get you in to trouble them please forget I said anything, all we can truly ask at this point is that you please keep our secret so as to not ruin the surprise for the people of Raptoria come Freedom Day morn," Victor said sounding a bit forlorn as if he fully expected them to reject his plea of aid.

"Well there is, in fact, a way that I may be able to assist you but our aid does not come cheap, as for our silence we will do as you ask, we would never ruin such a wonderful gesture of love and friendship for our people," Xiva said confidently striding across the room in front of Vitor and making sure to roll her hips and swish her long thick tail as she moved before hopping up onto an unoccupied desk to put herself at equal height to the tall human male.

"What kind of cost and what kind of help?" Victor asked both curiously and what sounded like a little nervously.

"Well you may not be aware of it as it isn't exactly public knowlage but directly after the war the command and governing prides had a quite the job of tracking down all th Surface Stalker prides that were lost in the conflict so that their bodies could be returned to their loved ones, a most regretable number will most likely remain 'Lost to the surface," forever, so in order to ensure that no poor pride male is ever left alone wondering if his pride will ever come home to him or not an inititive was enacted where every local government was given a system that lists and tracks every single Raptorian in its jurisdiction, now I'm not talking down to where they are and what they are doing levels of survelience, nothing sinister like that, merely are they in the city and are they alive, thats it, but it lists absolutly everyone from oldest to youngest and we just so happen to know where the core prossesor for this system is located and have access to it because of our clearence as a high level guard pride," Xiva said proudly.

Victor's handsome face lit up so brightly that Xxiva had to very nearly tread on her own tail to prevent it from swishing.

"That system would mean we could literally complete this list in a single night!" he exclaimed and Xiva nodded knowingly.

"Exactly but there's a condition, if you want our help with this there is going to be a cost," she said smiling at him.

"What kind of cost?" Victor asked nervously.

"A date," she said and Victor's mouth fell open.

"A date? With you?" he stammered slightly while both blushing and looking around at them all nervously.

"With all of us, if you have been on Raptoria this long you know how we do things by now and there is no way in hell a single pride like us is going to pass up the chance to a handsome human like you let alone a Seeker of Truth, this is the chance of a lifetime and pretty much every hot blooded alien loving pride would give their tails up for a chance like this one and we are no different, you are by far the most handsome human we have ever laid our eyes upon so unless you are about to pull a spanner to throw into the works out like already having a mate then that is our conditions, we help you and then you let us take you out for a Raptorian style date where there will be good food, dancing and handsome male pampering galore!" Xiva said to lots of approving nods from her pride.

Victor glanced around and seemed to notice that the whole room seemed to have ground to a halt and was now watching him awaiting his answer to them, every single set of eyes was locked onto the handsome human Seeker and he seemed to shrink a little under it but he finally drew himself up and puffed out his chest.

"I swore when I became a Seeker that I would uphold the principles of Clan Mason no matter where I was and I cannot ignore an honest heart plea like that, very well then if that is your price Xiva I accept," he said and her whole pride nearly exploded jumping around and hugging one another much to his actual surprise, hell even a round of applause broke out into the room from everyone in it which the Seeker quickly stifled with a scorned glance at them all.

Once Victor had spoken with one of the Clan's SIGINT's at the centre he gave him something and the pride led him back across the city to where the system was housed deep within the guard pride HQ.

"The system was originally designed to hold both financial and medical data in a form that could not be cloned or hacked into but after the war, the governing pride decided it would be wise to expand its use," Xiva and her pride explained as they walked.

"Forgive me for saying this but it seems a little dystopian to me, I mean being able to track your citizens all the time is a bit much," Victor said as they arrived at the massive guard pride HQ at the centre of the city which looked like a massive castle turret.

"We can understand how it could look that way to an outsider but after the war seeing all of those poor poor pride males coming into the guard pride HQ to file missing pride reports and to see if there was any news about their beloved ones was truly heartbreaking, there was no way for any of us to comfort them or to give them peace, so we had to act, now the system doesn't track your whereabouts to the meter or anything like that, it simply says what city you are in and if you are still alive, that's it," the pride explained and Victor nodded in understanding.

"Yeah seeing the coffins being lowered into the ground at Heroes Rest was bad enough, but not knowing if your loved ones were alive or dead, that would be rough," he said and they nodded in agreement.

"Plus like you said our paper-style census systems are shockingly bad so this was our solution to both problems, now at birth each Raptorian is fitted with an ID chip under the scales at the wrist it was simply a case of updating the software and the system to make use of an already existing technology, the thing was already nano-repaired constantly so our techs merely sent a program out to the nanites to add additional functionality and boom, done, plus no-one is the wiser," they said.

With that Victor cloaked so that they could sneak him into the highly controlled security area of the guard pride HQ, the foyer was filled with scanners and sensors to ensure that all those there were meant to be there but not one of them could see through Clan Mason cloaking tech, not that a Seeker needed it they moved so fast that they could simply shoot right past and no-one would be any the wiser of their presence.

"Thought you girls had clocked out for the day?" one of the desk prides said looking up from their monitors as they saw Xiva and her pride approaching to scan their chips to enter.

"We have but we're following up on a case we've been working on, somthing has been eating at us and we wanna make sure we didn't miss anything or it's gonna be our tails on the block if anything goes sideways," they replied.

"Great Tree ain't that the truth, command is always right up our tail holes at this time of year to make sure the crime numbers are finalized and the closed case numbers are better than last year, though since we have the Clan about now crime is at an all-time low, don't no-one want us to set one of those pretty Hunter boys on their tails for some reason," the desk pride said with a ruffle of feathers that passed from one to the next.

Xiva and her pride laughed and ruffled their own feathers, "Think we're on team Seeker but yeah I know what you mean," they replied all knowing that Victor could hear them loud and clear.

"Oh if only just but those boys are so far out of our leagues that they might as well have stayed on their home world, I mean what a torment, bringing gorgeous prideless super powered boys to our world and letting them run wild and free and we're not allowed to run after them and tackle them, the scandal we tell you, it's an outrage, so we'll stick to the boys we can chase down and have a chance of catching thanks," the desk pride said as Xiva and her pride passed through the rectangular scanners.

"It's all about having hope, the right strategy and a hell of a lot of luck," Xiva's pride said and the desk pride all laughed before sending them on their way with a wave.

Despite knowing he was there somewhere the pride couldn't actually tell where Vitor was located thanks to the very impressive cloaking tech that Clan Mason possessed, thanks to their being cameras everywhere he kept deployed at all times but they could sense him close by at times.

They made their way through the network of corridors that made up the Guard HQ until they came to the data centre which was essentially the beating heart of protecting the raptorian citizenry.

The room itself was a large semi-circle with a large control desk at its centre and rows upon rows of data terminals that grew longer the deeper into the room one ventured.

The pride made their way over to one of the data terminals and dropped into the circular dish-like booth seat that surrounded it.

Thankfully at this time of night, the room was all but deserted with only a few night-lizard prides doing some catching up on their paperwork and reports.

"Do you see that large central desk with the ring of monitors and the very focused pride sat before it?" Xiva asked in a very soft voice when she sensed that Victor was right next to them.

"I see it," he replied from directly behind her shoulder which almost caused her to jump out of her feathers and scales as she hadn't expected him to be so close to her.

"That's what you'll need to establish a connection to, all of these terminals are linked through that one and none of them have an external line directly, so if you attempt to create one through one of these terminals it will get picked up almost immediately," she hissed softly as the pride began to make a show of doing some actual work rather than just sitting there staring at a blank set of screens.

"What am I looking for exactly?" Victor asked.

"The system is called Pride-Guard, it will be under the safety subsystem, it looks like this," Xiva said pulling up an interlink to the system so he could see it.

"Gotcha, don't worry this won't take me long," he said and with that, the invisible human moved away from them.

"Think he can pull this off?" Xex asked sounding somewhat nervous.

"From what I heard Clan Mason's SIGINT section is some of the best in the entire galaxy and hell they are headed up by the Guardian of Males so they have to be good right?" Bistra said.

Only two minutes later a soft voice spoke from behind them again indicating that Victor had returned.

"We're in, the SIGINT's back at the embassy have confirmed that the data has been received and is being processed right now, we should get out of here," he said which shocked all of them at just how easily he had broken into one of their protected systems, they really were top notch at this kinda stuff.

The pride closed down their systems and nonchalantly made their way back out of the building sparing a wave for the desk pride as they passed by and exited the building.

As they moved further away from the building Victor appeared out of thin air next to them startling them but then their instincts kicked in and they surrounded him.

"So we up-held our part of the bargain now for yours!" the said as one and he nodded.

"Don't worry I am a man of my word girls, you'll get your dues but right now I am needed at the embassy as there is a hell of a lot of work to be done but I tell you what come by tomorrow night and you will see first hand the fruits of your labours here tonight and then after that is done I am all yours, ok?" he said and the pride looked at one another, it really was rather too late to do anything tonight anyway so they agreed before waving goodbye to their new friend and hopefully romantic prospect.

As the girls walked back to their home they all had a real spring and skip in their steps, the excitement of what they had done and achieved here tonight was really bubbling throughout the entire pride.

"I can't believe that actually worked! We've got ourselves a date with a Dream Warrior! An honest-to-goodness Seeker of Truth!!" Xex cried happily as she jumped up onto the but of a metal lampost and spun around it in joy.

"We are going to need to go shopping for some dresses, we can't wine and dine a male of his quality and calibre in just our comfy pride time clothes!" Nestra said with a sudden hard note of panic to her voice which instantly translated to panicked looks from all of her pride sisters.

"Don't worry we have tomorrow and the day after off remember. it's our long weekend for the holidays, so if we are quick we might even get some deals," Xiva said which seemed to ease her sister's fears but did nothing to temper their excitement which led to a rather sleepless night for them all.

First thing in the morning the pride joined the queue of other prides outside the department stores hoping to snag last minute deal before the holiday.

As they scanned the line they could see a great many prides with their males tucked safely at their centre dressed in their colourful winter attire and looking happy as they discussed the topics of the day with their loving prides.

A deep sigh passed through Xiva and her sisters but for the first time that any of them could remember it contained a ray of hope and the possibility of contentment, maybe soon they too would join the ranks of these happy prides and they too would stand proudly in their defensive ring surround their male, only if the Great Tree was willing and lent them her favour, their male would be a human and would stand tall and proud alongside them as one of the growing population of interspecies prides popping up around their beautiful city.

In fact, there was one of such prides present among the throng waiting to get into the store and Xiva's eyes fell upon them.

The male was another human as was one of the ebony-skinned ones, he was tall and broad with short fuzzy fur atop of his head that was a few shades darker than his skin, he also had deep hazel eyes that were looking at his pride with what could only be described as the deepest look of love Xiva had ever seen, oh how she loved how expressive human facial features and their eyes were.

"Hopefully that will be us soon," Nesta said and Xiva nodded as she turned back to the doors with determination, she was going to ensure that when that night came she and her pride were going to capture that beautiful male's loving and gentle heart and they were going to keep it for life!

They absolutely blew through that store like a Guard Pride SWAT team with a report of a male with male children under siege by a whole group of Mimics.

New dresses, check.

New sexy underwear, check.

New male attracting scale scents, check.

New claw colours and polish along with scale wax, check.

New feather colour enhancers, check.

They were ready to go, they were going to blow this human's mind and that was a fact.

Once they left the department store the pide made their way home to deposit the bags filled with their newly acquired male acquisition kit before they got dressed up in some fresh clothes to make their way to the Clan Mason embassy.

As they approached they once again saw a figure standing atop of the walls and this time they recognised the body shape, it was Victor.

"Ahh, there you girls are! I was beginning to worry that you weren't coming or were going to be late," he said as he landed in front of them after completing a particularly impressive leap from the high walls, it was really easy to forget how the nervous and softly spoken male was easily one of the most powerful beings currently alive on the planet.

"Like we were going to miss this!' the pride said as one and Victor gave them a brilliant smile that made their collective heart flutter like the wings of a sap-seeker bird.

"Come on I managed to pull in a favour to get you girls a front-row seat in the control room for this, trust me you are gonna love it," he said ushering them quickly inside the embassy once more.

Once inside the Operation Sleighbells control room, he planted the pride at a specially made-up table complete with Raptorian-friendly seating, he even got them some snacks and drinks to keep them hydrated and fed during the viewing.

Xiva could see all of her sisters glancing and smiling at one another, this male had all the hallmarks of a fantastic prideful male even if he didn't know it himself, it was obvious that he was instinctually driven to take care of his pride and to care for them.

"All Seekers to your positions we are about to start the countdown," a voice came over the tannoy speakers hidden in the ceiling.

"Well that's me, I'm up, you ladies stay here and enjoy the show, I'll see you soon," he said and with that, he vanished out of the doors again.

"Ahh, so you are the girls that Vicotr won't shut up about," a deep growly voice said from their left and the pride all leaned out to see a truly massive Yautja female leaning against a cabinet and also managing to dwarf it at the same time.

By her armour, she was also a Seeker of Truth and truly an intimidating specimen of Yautja femininity, to say the least as when she detached herself from the cabinet and walked up to the pride she dwarfed all of them to the point where even if they had all stood on each other's shoulders they probably would have struggled to see eye to eye with her.

"Umm, I guess so," Xiva said as the large Yautja leaned down to examine them closely.

Xiva swore she felt an ethereal presence wash through her mind and it caused her feathers to flutter.

Suddenly the large Yautja female's mandibles broke into a warm smile and she nodded her head.

"You are worthy of him, you take good care of that boy as he is truly one of the Clan's greatest treasures, there are females of my kind all over my homeworld who would give up the right to hunt for life just to spend a single night with him let alone a lifetime, hurt him or break his heart and I swear you will answer to every single one of them," she growled at them and as one the entire pride leapt to their clawed feet defiantly.

"We would never to do such a thing to one of our own let alone to an alien beauty such as he!!" they all roared in defiance as one.

The big Yautja growled softly and clicked her mandibles before smiling once more and nodding approvingly.

"The spirits are never wrong and they told me you were worthy and that you had the heart fire hot enough to win him, always trust the spirits young ones, they are never wrong," the big Yautja said and with that she followed Victor out of the door leaving the pride stood in absolute confusion.

"Oh don't mind Kessle, she's like a big overprotective hive queen but ya know, a Yautja, she protective of all of the Seekers under her," a much softer voice said from the pride's right and they all turned to see a Xeno sat at one of the many terminals of the room.

'What's her problem!?" the pride demanded as they all took their seats again but kept their eyes on the Xeno girl.

"Oh she doesn't have a problem, trust me you'd know if she did because no offence here, she'd have stuffed each and every one of you through the mail slot of the embassy before you could even blink, she's one of the most powerful Soul Knights on the planet," the Xeno said with a soft hiss.

All of the pride glanced nervously at one another but then turned back to the Xeno girl.

"But then while would she say such a vile thing as to accuse us of being male heartbreakers!!?" Xex exclaimed.

"Oh she wasn't, she was saying the opposite, you see young Victor has been raving about you lot ever since he got back here yesterday, saying all sorts of things like calling you the scaley saviours of Freedom Day, it was obvious to every girl with half a brain that you really made an impression on him and that's not an easy thing to do with a Seeker, they see through people like the rest of us see through clear glass, so for him to be so gushy made Kessle curious and when Kessle is curious she kinda goes into momma bear mode, she just wanted to make sure you were all worthy of him and you passed the test or trust me you'd have all been out of here faster than you could have blinked," the young Xeno said.

As one the pride seemed to all deflate and relax as the threat of having their date scuppered before it had even happened vanished.

"By why didn't she just say that then, why the riddles?" Bista asked and the Xeno chuckled.

"Oh that's Dream Warriors in a nutshell ladies, if you wanna love one of them you're gonna have to get used to that kinda stuff," she said but before the girls could ask another question a klaxon began to sound.

"All Seekers get ready, ten seconds, ten...nine...eight...seven...six...five...four...three...two...one...go go go!! Operation Sleighbells is a go!" a voice yelled and like a million lights all blinking on at once the massive hologrpahic screen blinked into life with multiple camera feeds from the Seeker's suit cams as they rushed out of the embassy and into the city.

The girls watched in absolute stunned, open silence as they watched each and every Seeker the Clan currently had stationed in the city rushing from home to home carrying massive sacks strapped to their backs.

Each of the sacks contained the very gifts they had seen the Xeno army wrapping the day before.

Now these gifts were being deposited into the homes of each and every Raptorian in the city, the Clan was bringing love and friendship to every Raptorian and they were using their most powerful warriors to do it.

As the girls swept through the feeds they found Victor's and they all stared at it in open-mouthed awe as they saw the speed he moved at as he jumped from building to building, entering homes silently and depositing brightly wrapped gifts of joy under the pride's Winter Seed tree.

That's when they noticed a very familiar home in his feed, theirs.

"He's in our house!!" the pride exclaimed as one and the Xeno chuckled again.

"Well he did say they we are giving gifts to EVERY Raptorian, last time you girls checked you are Raptorians right?' she said and they all glanced at her and then joined her in laughing but honestly for the pride the best gift of all were not the ones under the tree, it was the beautiful human delivering them.

It took the Seekers hours to complete their monumental mission but complete it they did, with the determination of seasoned warriors, they fought through fatigue and any pains they may have suffered from the prolonged use of their draining gifts and thanks to this determination every single gift was delivered and not a single Raptorian was missed.

As the last of the Seekers came back into the warehouse below them a loud cheer and clapping rose up from every Clan member present as they were handed a large energy drink, they had done it, and Freedom Day had been delivered to the Raptorian people.

Xiva and her pride rushed their way down to the warehouse floor where they found Victor sitting among his fellow Seekers as they all panted and rehydrated themselves after their gruelling run.

As he saw the pride appear and approach he smiled before taking a large swig from his large blue bottle.

"In just a couple of hours prides will be waking up to find gifts of friendship from Clan Mason waiting for them and their children, when I think of all the little cubs playing with their new toys I can't but help but smile, trust me, girls if you saw a Freedom Day on my homeworld you'd understand our drive to bring it to all we meet," he said in a panting voice.

"I think we already do, seeing all that you did just to make this happen, to give beautiful and wonderful things to people for nothing more than to make them happy and to fill their day with joy makes us feel humble, we were very lucky to find friends such as you guys in the great ocean of black," they said as one.

"And now you understand, oh don't worry come tonight I'll be back to form for our date, as I said I am a man of my word and I will be at my best for you all, after the risk you all took for us it's the very least I can do, though I do wonder where we are going given everywhere will be closed," he replied curiously while smiling.

Xiva winked at him as swished her tail happily.

"Well that is going to have to be a secret for now beautiful Seeker, but trust us we know you will love it," she said and with that, she and her pride left the Seekers to rest and headed back home.

The next morning was absolute chaos, the people of Raptoria awoke to find that they had been paid a nighttime visit by the benevolent blue-suited elves of Clan Mason who had come in the middle of the night bearing gifts of friendship and it brought joy to the entire city just as the Clan had intended it to.

xiva and her pride all sat by the window of their apartment watching proud parents playing with their children as they rushed about showing one another the new toys they had gotten from the Clan the night before and even Pride Life Today News did a piece on it, hell even the pretty boys of Loose Males were buzzing about it with the boys showing off the clothes that the Clan had given them.

It seemed that not only had the Clan gifted something to every living Raptorian that they could find but they had gone out of their way to try and suit the gift to its recipient as well.

Something that Xiva couldn't help but both smile about and blush about at the same time, as she was in possibly the only Raptorian pride to receive two gifts each from the Clan, a new upgraded set of armour for her to use in her Guard work that was of far higher quality than the stuff they were issued as standard and a new nighty that came with a note that read, 'Sorry for ruining your other one.'

As the celebrations began to wind down and the tower began to quieten as prides retired back inside to relax after a somewhat stressful day of chasing their young around where undoubtedly exhausted fathers were being pampered by their loving wives, Xiva and her pride were putting the finishing touches to both their outfits and their surprise date plans.

Finally, it was time for the big off and both anxiety and excitement grew thicker and thicker with every step they took towards the embassy.

It was wonderful for Xiva to see her pride sisters so happy and excited, finally they were getting the chance to possibly add a male to their pride and to love and take care of him, which after all the years of watching their friends find males and settle down while they were left alone and ever hopeful felt like the Great Tree had finally taken pity on them.

but not only had the Great Tree taken pity on them, but she had also concluded with the Eternal Huntress of Clan Mason to bless them and put a beautiful human Dream Warrior in their path, now it was up to them to prove that they were worthy of such a wonderful gift.

As they drew near to the embassy they instantly saw Victor waiting for them and what they saw instantly took their collective breath away.

He was dressed in what they knew to be traditional human clothing that they called a suit, now while unlike traditional male raptorian wear which showed off a male's natural curves and charms, human traditional wear kinda hid it but at the same time tantalised by making the viewers mind fill in the blanks as to the joys that were hidden underneath the layers of luxurious fabrics.

It was almost like humans had the best idea ever, that their males were gifts to their females, gifts covered in wrappings that just begged to be peeled away to reveal the beauty within.

But not only that it was obvious that he'd gone to great lengths to style and fix his head fur into a style that revealed his face more by giving it a wind sweat kind of look that made it flow down the back of his neck like a layer of ink black feathers, which gave him a familiar but exotic look all at the same time.

"He's gorgeous," the whole pride breathed in unison.

The final hundred or so meters to the gates of the embassy where Victor watched patiently for them was more an exercise in pure willpower to not break into a full-on spint and pride pile him before tearing layers of that fabric off to get at the silky soft human skin that it hid.

They had spoken to a few of the prides they knew had humans as their pride males and asked them what to expect from a human and they had universally said the same thing when you touch a human's skin for the first time you'll never want to touch or look at a male Raptorian ever again and that's not a slight on our boys but it's just that they are so soft and warm that even the most highly waxed and polished scales can't compare.

"Sorry we didn't keep you waiting did we?" pride said together as they purposely emerged from the shadows right next to him ensuring that he didn't get a sneak preview until they were right on top of him.

To their delight, Victor's face lit up into a beautiful smile of joy and wonderment at seeing them.

As they watched, his eyes darted from one to the next to the next, taking in each and every one of them which proved to them that humans were easily capable of seeing a pride as a whole, which was exactly the way Raptorians did things, accept me accept my pride sisters.

"N-No I was just kinda early is all, I'm always over-anxious about missing deadlines so I tend to wind up being majorly early for things, you all look incredible," he said and Xiva fixed him with a warm smile.

"You stole our line," she said making a show of looking him up and down.

"Ahh this is just a suit and some hair gel, but you guys, just wow," he said as his eyes fixed onto hers.

"I'm glad you approve, we weren't sure what would appeal to a human the most so we went with some of the latest female fashions," the pride said all striking a different pose each and kinda of winding up looking like the heroic guard pride from that tv show with the crime-solving male and his kick tail guard pride.

"Well it's safe to say I'm impressed and you succeeded with your aim," he said with a grin.

"Alright then come on let's get going, we have a surprise for you and you are gonna like it, trust us," Xiva said solo and Victor nodded as the pride surrounded him to begin their walk.

It took them about half an hour to reach the place but the expression on Victor's face when he saw it was worth the effort to get here.

"Holy shit this is incredible! How did you find out about this place!?" he exclaimed as he looked down over the city that was currently covered in a rainbow of different colours.

"We found it about two years ago when we were part of a massive search effort for a wayward male child, he broke away from his dad while he was momentarily distracted at the recreation zone, the poor male was absolutely distraught when he burst into the local guard pride station and pretty soon we had half the city's guard prides out looking for him, this is where we found him, we left a trail of marks in the cave walls that led up here and we found him sat right there under that tree looking out onto the city, it was one of the most beautiful sights we had ever seen right up until we saw you for the first time," the pride said together.

Victor blushed which even all the way up here was very obvious thanks to the light of the little lantern flies that lived in the tree and illuminated the area in their soft warm glow.

The plateau they were currently on was high up in the wall of the cavern that held their city and it was like a miniature recreation zone in itself.

It had trees, it had soft lush grass and it even had a little pond but what it didn't have was other people, right now they had this beautiful human all to themselves.

That's when Xex pulled out the hamper and blankets that they'd run up here earlier and stashed ready for their picnic date.

"Somehow you didn't strike us as a sit in a packed restraint surrounded by other people kind of male, more a sit out in the open in the lights of the lantern flies in amongst nature kind of boy," the pride said as they gently guided him over to the spot they'd picked out under the tree where the view was spectacular.

"Fair play you deduced correctly, I can see why you're a guard pride now, you cracked this case that's for sure, all Tamers feel a natural affinity for nature and it kinda makes us anxious and wary when we're removed from it for too long," he said as they guided him to sit down upon the large soft pillows they'd brought along with the large warm blanket they'd spread out.

That's when Victor decided to absolutely amaze them, he looked up at the little lantern flies in the tree and stretched out his hand to them, without a second thought the little flies swarmed down and began to circle him all flashing their little lights in sequence and causing the entire area to flash with a warm yellow glow like they were sat under a crackling fire.

"Tamers understand the flow of nature like no others, we see how it weaves its web through every living being and how all interconnected we all truly are, no being is truly all that different from one another, we all have our place in the great chain of life and we truly see it with no mask to hide it we see their wants, their needs, their desires as clear as day, it makes one truly understand that no matter the differences in the looks, underneath we are all the same," he said softly as the little flies took it in turns to land on him before taking off and continuing their little orbiting dance.

"Does that mean you can see us like this too?" Xiva asked as they all sat down around him in a circle watching the lantern flies in absolute stunned amazement as he made them dance.

Victor turned to look at her and a warm soft smile lit his face and he nodded.

"We may be sentient beings but we are no different from these little lantern flies really, just bigger and with more complex lives, but underneath we all want the same thing, for our lives to feel complete," he said softly.

Xiva felt his words echoing through her mind as they began their meal, with all of the girls preparing one of the dishes each before sharing them around equally.

They had opted for a traditional Raptorian cold picnic meal, lots of breads, cold meats, cheeses and sauces with sweet rolls and traditional fruit jam for dessert, but when Xiva looked into the smiling face of the handsome human male in their midst as he laughed and joked with her sisters as they teased him and he teased them right back, she knew that the true desert was yet to come.

After they packed away the dishes and remnants of their meal back into the hamper, all of the pride closed in on Victor and sat closely all around him while watching him intently, but rather than being distressed by the situation he seemed relaxed and at peace with it and with them, which made Xiva's heart flutter and leap in her chest, which is when she saw the look he gave her, a look that told her he knew what she was thinking and what she was hoping for.

There was a softness to the way his eyes sparkled in the lantern fly light and his white skin carried an almost ethereal glow to it that simply begged her to explore it and before she knew what she was doing she had shuffled her way right up to him and without ever breaking eye contact she shifted her self up onto his lap, letting her weight settle on his thighs and pelvis while laying her long tail down his legs, much to the surprise of her sisters.

"Seems we're destined to end up in this position given that's how we first met and now here we are again," Victor said, his eyes never leaving hers.

"What can I say, some things are meant to be and I truly am hoping that this is one of them," she said softly reaching up with a clawed hand to gently brush a wayward lock of his soft curly head fur back behind his ear.

Thats when she felt it, all those prides that she had spoken to had been spot on, his skin was like warm silk as her fingertips glided over it and the smile never left his face, his soft lips revealing these flat wide teeth that also seemed to shine and sparkle just like his eyes, she had seen a vid on the intranet of how humans show affection to the ones they loved and before she knew what was happening her fingers gripped his hair gently and she used the leverage to pull his lips to hers.

As her scales found his soft but incredibly warm skin, Xiva felt sparkles of energy crackling between the pair of them.

The feel and texture of his lips were absolutely sublime, the way his soft flesh glided over her scales as his lips moulded to hers nearly overwhelmed her.

But the biggest shock was one that she was completely unaware of, as she deepened the kiss all of the little lanterns flies that had been lighting their picnic were now cricling them in a little spiral shape casting a soft golden shaft of light down onto the pair.

Xiva felt his hands slip up onto her back and pull her closer to him, their bodies entwining in the most natural of positions as their kiss deepened.

The taste of his mouth positively sparkled on her tongue, it was like she slipped it into a bag of that new popping candy that Clan Mason had introduced to them and was currently driving their kids nuts because it popped like crazy when you put it in your mouth.

She explored his wide flat teeth as well as his massive tongue which was easily two or three times wider than her own but a good deal shorter, but that didn't stop him from pushing it all the way into her mouth in a display of male passion that she was unprepared for but welcomed all the same.

As they parted Xiva panted and gazed into his eyes after they opened and revealed to her that there was now an actual glow to them, not simply an imagined one but he was lit with an inner light now.

As Xiva and the whole pride looked at him in awe he simply smiled at them all, "Well I think it's safe to say that my Star Hunt is complete," he said softly and Xiva cocked her head curiously.

"Star Hunt?" she asked and he chuckled softly and nodded before proceeding to explain a Clan Mason tradition known as the mate hunt to them all, which did kinda shock them at first as the thought of an innocent male being hunted down like an animal set all of their feathers on edge, until he explained both the rules and the outcome.

"...so there is a clause that if an active member of the Clan posted to space or a different world stumbles across a member of another species, falls in love with them and they with them it is called the Star Hunt because the chances of two hearts meeting across the ocean of black like that are astronomical, it is said that the Eternal Huntress set you onto the path to find your love outside of the Clan with another that you may show the joys and happiness of the Clan to with your love for them, so Star Hunted," he said softly.

"So you accept us!?" Xex exclaimed happily and he chuckled and turned to look at her excitable pride sister.

"I would have thought the kiss proved that much but just to be sure..." he said before leaning over gripping hold of Xex's head and kissing her just as deep as he had Xiva, he then proceeded to do the same to each and every one of them.

When he was done kissing them the entire pride sat there with the lantern flies now orbiting all of them like a pride of protective females orbiting their pride male.

"I think that made my intentions and heart clear," he said softly and they all nodded before looking at one another, the nod and feather ruffle they all shared spoke volumes.

"I think we got the best Freedom Day gift of all this year, long have we waited to have a male to call out own, to love and to care for and now we have a beautiful human warrior who fights not only in the flesh but in dreams as well, so given you have made your intentions clear I do believe it's our turn now," Xiva said and with that, she hopped back off his legs and stood up to join her pride as he watched them curiously.

In the years the girls had searched for their male they had studied the ways of their sister species to see how they attracted a male and while they despised how the Scalathor and Draconis did things, they positively fell in love with the Heart Dance that the Serpentinus did.

So with that in mind, they had devised their own heart dance, a dance that would show any male in no uncertain terms how they felt about him and what they offered him.

So now here, under the light of the lantern flies in the mild air of a plateau high above the city they began to perform that perfectly choreographed dance.

They had even chosen a song for it and Ironically it was one that was sung by one of Clan Mason's own Raptorians, Remal Rainbowscale.

Hell, the song could not have been more of an amalgamation of Raptorian and CLan Mason cultures if it had tried.

It was a love ballad about a male who fought for his pride and stood tall and proud for them while they stood at his sides and supported him, how they all loved one another with a love so powerful and strong that nothing could break them apart, not even death as even when that came they simply walked through the gates of the Golden Garden together as they had lived, one loving whole.

The music that backed the track was performed by Clan Mason's own grand Patriarch, Matriarch and their two cubs Sela eleth Mason and Ryan Mason and was a perfect blend of power chords and long riffs that were performed by Jack Mason himself.

But it was obvious from his expression that the part that Victor had not seen coming was the part where as they moved the person behind him shed an item of clothing out of his sight until his brain seemed to catch up with the fact that he now had six very naked Raptorian girls dancing around him in an ever-tightening circle that drew him to his feet at its centre.

The dance continued as they moved and gyrated together each of the girls took it, in turn, to remove an item of clothing from him, turning him and propping him as their sisters worked to disrobe him until finally, he was as naked and exposed as they were, one naked, loving, whole.

When the song ended the whole pride closed in on Victor and hugged him from all sides and none of the girls could tear their eyes from his beautiful naked body which while smooth also displayed numerous scars that wove the tales of his experiences in combat.

But their eyes were not the only ones that wandered, as she looked up Xiva could see him glancing at exposed tails, rear ends peaking out from under said tails, a breast here a belly there and she smiled, for a singular male human a naked pride must be like being at an all you can eat buffet, the only question was where to start?

So as any good pride should, they helped him to make that choice, Xiva stepped forward and began to trail kisses up his exposed stomach, relishing the slightly salty and spicy flavour of his skin that sparkled across her tongue as she drew little lines in the velleys and grooves between his solid muscles.

but there was one muscle that stood out far more than the others and it kept drawing both her eyes and the eyes of her sisters, his beautiful manhood.

It was about seven inches long, veiny and white like snow but the heat flowing from it definitely was un snow-like.

It seemed that such a beautiful symbol of masculinity was too much for both Xex and for Nestra as both of them reached for it and began to very gently stroke and tease it with their fingers, which very quickly morphed into their tounges as their own instincts to taste him like their sister took over.

But her other three sisters were not to be outdone either as their own instincts took over and very swiftly their beautiful human pride male found himself being kissed and licked from every possible direction all at once.

The sensations were overwhelming even for one as powerful as he and the pleasure of six sets of scaly lips and tounges being dragged over his exposed sensitive flesh brought him swiftly down to his knees.

The girls were on him the moment he was felled, like a pride of hunters they swiftly worked to overwhelm their prey, but not with violence but with love and passion.

Victor was swallowed up in a mass of squirming scaly bodies that sought out every unkissed or unlicked spot of human flesh that had not played host to a female tongue yet, but it also seemed that the human Dream Warrior was not as down and out as they had initially thought, it seemed that Clan members were taught to fight to their final breath.

So as he was dragged down to his back on the soft nest of pillows atop the warm blanket Victor's hands shot out of the squirming mass of scales and sized hold of Xiva by the hips.

As he fell backwards he hoisted the surprised Raptorian into the air and spun her like a top on his hands so she was now facing the city.

The surprise of the lift and spin caught her so off guard that she lifted her tail in alarm but that was to be her downfall as she very swiftly learned you never show your weak spots to a Seeker of Truth.

Faster than she could have believed possible Victor moved and he managed to wedge his face into the safety of the underside of her tail before she could lower it, she made a loud beep of alarm but it seemed that despite her alarm call her sisters could not save her.

Before her mind even had the ability to quantify what was happening to her she felt some very hot, very soft human lips lock onto her own lower ones parting them as they did, she squealed and squirmed but Vitor's grip was like the grip of death itself, he held fast and it was too late, that sublime wide, flat human tongue breached her gates.

Xiva's alarm called morphed into a loud long drawn out moan of purest pleasure as she felt his tongue dragging across her burning loins, parting her flesh like a cleaver through the tenderest meat, she knew exactly where it was headed but she had not the strength or will to be able to prevent its invasion, then just like that it was inside her.

Xiva had never even dared to imagine such pleasure could exist this side of the Golden Gardens mighty walls, but here it was, in human form, a male from across the stars, an alien to their world and its people but as in love with them as they were with him.

Xiva cried out in purest ecstasy as she felt his tongue squirm and writhe within her sacred tunnel, tasting her very insides and making them contract as they tried in vain to grip it and drag it deeper to her innermost sanctum.

It drove Xiva crazy and she could not resist any longer, with one last show of pure strength she pulled herself free and spun herself around using her sisters as leverage before diving back into the throng of writing Raptorian scales to grab her human's face and pepper it with kisses.

"Please! I can't take it any more! Let me show you how much we love you, let me make love to you please!!" she begged she she looked into his glowing eyes.

"If you want me my little loves then take me, I'm yours for tonight and every night after," Vitor replied softly.

As one the whole pride squealed loudly and then the kissing and licking continued with even more fervor but for Xiva and Vitor it was like time had gone into slow motion, they looked at one another and as she watched he reached down to her hips and gently lifted her with one hand, before reaching underneath her and catching hold of his besiged manhood as it sprung free as the mass of scales, her sisters parted as they watched in awe as he aligned the large pulsing purple head with her opening and then slowly and oh so gently he began to impale her with it.

The alien organ was absolutely massive and Xiva's flesh struggled to accommodate him at first but then it was like something inside her simply gave way, but oddly there was no pain, it felt like there should have been but it was like something intercepted it and took it away from her, instead only letting the pleasure of their union pass through like a shield wall blocking the bad and letting in only the good.

Xiva cried out in purest pleasure as she felt inch after throbbing inch of his humanity vanish into her depths until like two pieces of a puzzle they simply clicked together in a perfect fit.

She had waited her whole life for this moment, to claim a male for her pride, to bring him into their arms and their hearts, to show him in no uncertain terms that they were the pride for him, that they would love him and care for him for life and it seemed that he was waiting for them to come to him because now they were here he held nothing back from them, he gave his all to them and only to them.

Despite the size difference, Xiva's instincts drove her onwards and she began to move, her loins sucking at his human flesh trying to resist her efforts to remove him from her body until it won the fight as only his tip remained within her and she crashed back down onto his pelvis with a wet slap of scales on flesh, a slap that would make up the soundtrack of the grove for the foreseeable future because thanks to Victor's stamina, it wasn't only Xiva that would taste of him that night.

One after the other Victor made love with each of his pride in turn until there were none left and all were laid in a sweat and essence-soaked heap, each of the girls giggling and writhing at the pleasure of being filled with human flesh followed by the injection of human seed that now sought to find purchase in the fertile lands of their wombs.

At the centre of the pile lay their beautiful human, totally wrung out and exhausted, but surrounded by love as each of them clung to a different part of him and held on tight.

"It seems I got my freedom Day's wish this year," he panted as he looked down at Xiva who was resting her head on his warm chest and she looked up at him questioningly.

"What wish?" she asked softly.

"Each and every year I would always ask the Goddess to help me find my love, to show me the one meant for me, I never could have imagined that she put my call on hold so that it would be picked up by the Great Tree instead, but here you all are, my little Freedom Day miracles made scale, flesh and pure love," he said and Xiva smiled softly.

"My pride and I made the same wish on Winter's Seed to the Great Tree every year, please oh Great Tree bring us a male to love, let him see us for who we are and see that our pride will love and protect him for life, that we will bear him fruit and we will bring joy to your garden, looks like the Great Tree heard us both," she said softly.

"It seems all we ever wanted for both Winter Seed and Freedom Day was each other and now we have just that, a true Freedom Day miracle," Victor sighed happily and contentedly as he lay back and looked up at the little lantern flies which had now gone back to their home in the branches and mere once again making it look like a little star-filled galaxy.

"Since our wish came true I think next year I'm gonna wish for a tail warmer, think I'm gonna need it if our pride male keeps lifting it like that," Xex said and the whole pride dissolved into fits of giggles, Victor included, then together as one the whole new pride let sleep creep in and claim them, one after the other until peace and love settled into the grove once more, for you see at this magical time of year it doesn't matter who you are or where you are from, miracles can happen, all you have to do is believe.

The End.