Survival of the Fittest

Chapter 3



The knot was undone, snapping off his wrists with a metallic twang. Gray-Hair sat up, ripping the cord that bound his clawed feet. His bare hide was slick with the rain. Each heavy drop pushed me into the ground, and I let it. Or I would have, had not a massive hand taken hold of my shoulder and held me upright.



There was a horrible snapping noise, and a horrible pain; I thought he’d ripped my arm clean off. What a way to say ‘thanks-for-letting-me-loose.’ However, I immediately realized he’d forced my dislocated limb into socket - - the pinching sensation disappeared, but my arm was still attached. Then I was on my feet and so was he. He was tall, very, very tall, two or three heads taller than I; I barely came to his pectorals. I mumbled as much and Gray-Hair trilled lowly.



Keeping on my feet was hard, my knees verged on buckling. His other hand grasped my swollen face as my eyes rolled into my skull. It wasn’t a light grasp, it felt like my grandmother was pinching my cheeks in reverse.



Gray-Hair’s three cracked tusks clacked together in contemplation, and his steely gold eyes captured mine. We had a non-verbal conversation, or, that’s what it felt like. I was tired, I wanted to go to sleep - - a sleep I wouldn’t wake up from. If Gray-Hair killed that monster, I could die in peace; I willed him to kill. But most of all, I let him see how much it killed me that I couldn’t do it myself. I wanted to wrap my hands around that Asshole’s slimy green heart and squeeze the life out, give him as much pain as he‘d given me.



Gray-Hair’s eyes said one thing back, and I focused on his gold orbs for they were the most human thing about his wholly alien face. There were no sentences, just a steely understanding. He understood that I needed revenge.



With that, his grip withdrew, and the mud flew up to greet me.



*



Ujik’va had not expected the ooman to fall. When the female didn’t move, the arbitrator hunched and turned her onto her back. She took labored breaths, the strange fleshy mouth parted widely. The mammal was dhi’ki-de, unconscious, near death. The cold rain interfered with his vision; if it weren’t for her fierce fever he would not be able to see her. Ujik’va smelled the sickly sweet aroma of infection and clacked his tusks irresolutely once again.



Help the ooman or hunt the bad-blood.



He had hunted the pyode amedha before, in his youth shortly after chiva. At that time they had been less advanced, unable to travel further than the fourth planet in their solar system. Surprising for any Prey. As a whole, the species was kwei, sly and tricky. Ujik’va wore the skull of one of their trickiest, a male who had proven himself honorable prey and had nearly took Ujik’va with him in death. Ujik’va had a gouging scar across his chest as proof. That was many years before becoming Arbitrator.



In contrast to the males, Ujik’va knew little of their females. He had seen them on his sojourn, frail looking things that painted their faces and bathed in potent fragrances that burned his olfactory tissues. Strangely enough, it seemed to attract their mates. From what he’d seen, the females were smaller than their male counterparts and took majority care of offspring. They were also less aggressive and thus he had not spent his time hunting them - - they were only violent when they were with child, and to hunt them then was to label one’s self as bad-blood.



Bad-blood had never entered Ujik’va’s lineage before; his sire a lone Warrior, his bearer High Matriarch of the Y‘tekujte: both were mighty. They upheld their honor, but now Ujik’va did not know where he stood. It made him uncertain, a rare and dangerous mood for the yautja. He had defiled the ooman and injured prey that was unable to fight. The Bad-Blood had done the same. He could feel Disgrace crushing into his chest; surely he had tainted his line as ve‘nde thwei. His own females would never look upon him with smiles again. There would be no more mating for the “dtai’pyode amedha pauk-de.” The arbitrator did not know how to judge himself.



Yet the ooman had helped him. Perhaps she knew not of honor, but she released him. Brave prey. It was not her fault that he had been weak. The female before him was strong. She had been honorable to him - - oomans were rarely honorable.



Ujik’va’s mandibles tightened in remembrance of terror on her ugly alien features. He carefully cradled the limp body, standing and moving out of the rain. The ooman shifted, digging blunt nails into his chest - - the sting was nothing.



Ujik’va would return her favor.



His drop-ship was a few hundred noks from the camp, and he called it by remote. The bad-blood had been overconfident, had not thought to the arbitrator getting loose, and had left Ujik’va’s awu’asa nearby, stripped of weapons but little else. The weapons were not a hard dealt loss - - there were plenty more on the ship. The bad-blood would pay for his foolishness; Honor called for nothing less than a painful death.



Inside the misty environ of his shuttle, Ujik’va laid the small body of the human on his metal work-table and set to with a med-comp. Blue-flame merged into cauterizing gel, and he took the metal scoop. Ooman women were fragile things. Pain from the medicine may have killed the Prey hadn’t she been dhi’ki-de.



He worked.



*



Hot, burning, oil, smoke. A sweltering atmosphere, I couldn’t breathe. There was a blackness, a blackness I associated with the void of space. It was cold there, deathly cold. Then stars filled the darkness, and I took a deep breath of that oily air. Clattering greeted me, a trill, and despite the warning in my head I reacted instantly. I struck out. That Asshole was out there, my tormenter, my rapist, that fucking killer of my crew!



Somehow I’d been freed from my pole, somehow, I’d been put on a ship. There was little light, an undulating orange-yellow glow and swirling mist. In retaliation to my punch, that Asshole grabbed me with a bark, and I snarled back as best I could, my best imitation of his “fuck off.” There was more rage than fear as I struggled against the massive form, more blood running in my veins than oxygen.



I thrashed half from where I lay before I heard the noise: deep, bass - - like the engine of a ship. Then my oxygen ran out and my vision darkened momentarily. I felt sore, heaving for breath that wouldn’t come, barely on my legs.



“Fuck you!” I called, jerking weakly against the massive biceps crushed around my torso, pinning my arms by my sides. I couldn’t claw, couldn’t fight. I was mashed against his front, slick with oily sweat. “Fuck you, fuck you! Fuck you!”



Let it be said that women bite. I bit so hard I tasted copper, not iron.



A startled howl escaped him, but he would not let go. His arms tightened and bulged and so did my teeth; more musky oil filled my nose with a sharp breath and my throaty scream. Then that purr jumped back, louder than before, rumbling through the leathery chest and into my not-so pearly whites.



It was a stalemate, and the bitter burn of tears filled my eyes as I clenched them tight. I couldn’t win, would never win. I relented my grip. The thrumming sound pressed into me until I quivered and slowly, cautiously, the beast drew back.



It wasn’t him. It wasn’t who I thought.



I shuddered on my precarious perch, unable to stop the shakes. It was as if my body had gone into shock, and my brain had yet to catch on.



Gray-Hair’s gold eyes were luminous in the dark, cat-like. His specie’s glowing blood trickled down his broad chest before he gruffly wiped it away. The massive humanoid towered and I shrank back as best I could, breath shuddering in my chest. The tusks clattered together, purr interrupted by clicks. Then the clawed hand landed on my shoulder. I was forgiven.



It was the strangest version of a bro-greeting I’d ever received, but I knew the motions well enough.



He shook me, although my tense body resisted the shove. Gray-Hair’s cracked tusks splayed, a language I couldn’t understand grinding from his chest and throat. The motion was repeated again, rougher, and my mind screamed. Fingers twitching, it took every ounce of will in my body to raise my hand, every ounce of effort to choke back on fear, and stretch my palm to his spiny shoulder. I could barely return the gesture I trembled so bad, but I did, and he trilled in alien pleasure.



The hand withdrew to pet my short mud-caked hair, then the alien turned, knocking precious bindings in his locks together. He left me stunned in the bowels of this strange alien ship.



I was alive, and I hurt, but I was alive. A sense of numbness, dark, warmth, nothing more.



A hiss escaped my clenched teeth when I flexed my limbs. I was naked, felt open and wrapped my arms around myself. My back burned, my feet burned, and my shoulder - - that was the improvement. I slid to the floor fog. It was hip high, swirling around my legs as I lurched forwards. The ship was small and its ramp was lowered; I made it to fresh air.



The camp sprawled before me, misty after rain. Rain clouds rolled away overhead, yet light peaked through the trees. How long had I been out? There was only one certainty, that that Asshole had gone, abandoned ship for better grounds.



A trill. Slowly I faced Gray-Hair. He surveyed me with those sharp gold eyes and his crab-like face stretched with another breath. His eyes forced conversation, but I did not know what more to say.



“My name is Gwyn Worthington,” the words escaped me, as if I were trying to convince myself as well as him. “Not s’yuit-de.” I mangled his language.



Gray-Hair’s disturbing tusks tapped together, and now I could see he had cauterized the broken mandible, stumpy in the light.



“Gwyn Worthington,” I said again, stronger despite my cracking voice. I pointed at myself, “Gwyn.”



“Kua-yn,” he rumbled, eyeing me. He splayed his taloned hand on his chest and said his own. “Ujik’va.”



“Oojick-vah,” I struggled.



Another stalemate. I shook faintly. My neck felt tense.



Then a light hit his eyes, deep and piercing. Gray-Hair motioned, bestowed me his own name. “Yeyinde,” he purred, sounding each syllable ,“Yey-in-day.”



“Yey-in-deh,” an instinctive praise, a mockery of the other’s name s’yuit-de. I accepted it, and finally, after what felt like years, a touch of a smile lit my face. I gave Ujik’va his own. “Gray-Hair.”



I could not read his alien face well, but Gray-Hair’s upper mandibles spread in a imitation of my own expression and he shook my shoulder once again. “Yeyinde,” he clattered as I raised my own hand.



I returned the gesture, “Gray-Hair.” For better or for worse, we were together.



*



I cut Taylor down. His clothes had been ripped off before he‘d been skinned, and relatively clean besides a large splatter of blood down the front. Hopefully his death had been quick. I squeezed my hips into the trousers and buttoned what buttons remained on his shirt. Taylor’s funeral was quick at least; I pulled him over still hot coals and burned the body until only bones remained. Gray-Hair watched silently.



My bags were still intact and I tore into them with a ravenous hunger. Even soy-pro and dried bean curds, obstinately the worst of the worst food I had scavenged from the Betsy-Daisy a week before, was a feast.



Gray-Hair now prepared the ship, a work of art if I’d ever seen one. Like an oversized bug, the metal hull shined brightly in the afternoon sun with a slightly blue sheen that hinted at iridosmium ore. The backside had three thrusters built in a way I had never seen, advanced beyond my human knowledge. If the technology was anything, I would guess it flew faster than the Betsy-Daisy too, with far more maneuverability on terra.



The Company would kill to get their greedy paws on it. I hope they never did.



As the alien vessel roared into life, I only had the thought of revenge on my mind. Crashing, waking up to this horrifying world, and abandoned by my crew. Revenge was all I had left. I told myself that again and again, and it burned true in my gut and mind.



“Yeyinde,” Gray-Hair’s snarl reached over the roar of the ship, motioning inside with a claw. I turned towards him, taking a final hard look into the trees. He called for our lift off to hunt his own kind and I know not why he began.



I’d just stepped onto the ramp when I heard it - - no, heard them, crashing through the undergrowth! “Gwyn!? Wait Gwyn! Holy- Gwyn-! Look out!-”



-And Gray-Hair whirled away from the ship as a spray of bullets clattered against the hull, but did little damage. There was the engines and the roar of Gray-Hair, the sound of my crew yelling at me to get the fuck-away-from-that-ugly-mother-fuckin‘- bastard, and the void in my head that said it wasn’t real.



And then suddenly Gray-Hair was between them. Captain Mason and Duke were backhanded to the ground. A spray of red flew into the air. Gray-Hair’s free hand clamped tight around Doc’s sweaty, grimy neck, and drew him up - much like he had done with the alien dogs - an enraged roar escaping his lungs-



“Wait!” My crew, it was my crew! It wasn’t a dream! “Gray-Hair, wait! - lower your weapons!”



Doc had dropped his own gun in order to grasp Gray-Hair’s arm. Doc was a tall man, no doubt about that, but next to the eight foot humanoid he was a bug, a lady bug next to a grizzly. Mason and Duke found themselves, rolled and trained their barrels on my alien friend.



“Stand down!” I urged them, rushing between them and the Predator.



“Are you insane?!” -Mason- “That thing’s been attacking us-!”



“It wasn’t him! There’s another one, he- this one’s the good guy!”



“Well, fuck-you,” -Duke- “I’m gettin’-”



“Can you fly his ship?!” I burst, “because you know alien technology, don’t you?! I’m the mechanic, and I can barely understand right from left in the control module! Unless you want to wait for the Company Marines to show up months from now, this is your only ride! Betsy-Daisy‘s toast, there‘s no pods on her, but you knew that, right!?”



Tension, and the heat didn’t help. My crew were tired, dark circles under their eyes. Their fingers itched on the triggers, sweat dripped from their dirty brows. Gray-Hair was still, his ebony hide glossy-looking in the light. His fangs tapped against his inner teeth, yellow gaze furious on the rifle and smart-gun.



Captain Mason was no fool - - that was why I signed up with him. He lowered his weapon. “We thought you were dead, girl.” His stare was cautious with defeat.



Begrudgingly, Duke did the same. Doc slipped free from the claw and fell on his backside, coughing and gagging. Relieved, I tentatively placed myself at Gray-Hair’s side. The mandibles flared and my pulse raced.



I hesitated to reach his shoulder with my hand. I grasped the quilled flesh, and gripped tight. “Please…?” I did not know how far our alliance reached. My crew had fired on him, what seemed to be for my sake, but their first impressions were not good. I did not know if I could leave them behind. If I remained I would surely never have revenge - - a revenge to my knowledge.



But they left you behind, my mind replied. You could do the same to them. Mason said they hadn’t known. They thought I was dead.



Gray-Hair snarled viciously, and I jerked away from his heaving body, his oily musk thick in the air. The beast turned and entered the ship, disappearing into the bowels. The platform did not raise, remaining open for us to follow.



“Looks like we have ourselves a ride. What a woman you are, Gwyn.” Doc’s hand touched my shoulder and I startled slightly, not expecting him so close.



I drew away. I felt happy and bitter all at once. I settled with a half frown, “don’t thank me,” I said, to make clear on my standing with the Big Guy in the ship. “Thank him.”



We filed in, and the ramp lifted behind us until an airtight seal was heard closing in. The air was still thick, a taste of methane in my lungs, but breathable. Immediately afterwards, the ship lurched to motion underfoot, causing stumbles all around, and bodies to brace against the walls. But the crew was exceedingly happy to get off that jungle-rock, to head back - where exactly, I didn’t know. Home? Home had been our ship.



Mason swore at the heat inside the vessel, and I agreed. But apparently Gray-Hair liked it hot.



“How did you get this ET?” Doc asked what burned in all their eyes. His caramel skin was the least sweat soaked. His hazel eyes flashed with curiosity. “That was the other ET’s camp back there, wasn’t it? What were you doing there? We had the place staked out - - we followed an old trail from the Betsy-Daisy.”



I felt instantly sick at the answer, and there was only the rocking of the ship as we climbed though atmosphere to freedom. The rise was steady and amazingly stable. The will to recount my horrors on the planet was replaced by the overwhelming urge to view the ship’s reactor and command.



“The other captured me when I went looking for you,” I admitted, working around the worst details. My voice quivered, but never broke, “Gray-Hair… we helped each other escape.” If they knew I had revealed less than the whole, but never asked, and for that I was grateful. “What happened to you?”



“Duke said you were dead,” Captain Mason threw a nasty look at the greasy pilot. “Said he couldn’t find you - then that other bastard hit us and we had to get out. Been running around the jungle since, trying to avoid his traps.”



I had been pinned in the middle of the hall - - Duke would have had to climb over me.



He left me there to die.



Duke cleared this throat. His narrow eyes met mine then turned away. “Doesn’t matter, does it? She’s right h-”



I slugged him - - his nose crunched under my fist. The blow fell him into the bulkhead of the ship with a nasty thunk. But I was on him before Mason’s hands were dragging me back.



“I was right there!” I shrieked, grabbing his jacket to deliver another blow. “You left me!”



I punched and punched, and Captain Mason was struggling to pull me away as Doc held back Duke. Blood ran from his broken nose, but all he did in reply was salute the bird. I didn’t have any tears left in me, there wasn’t time, and this definitely wasn’t the place. I was strong, Gwyn Worthington was strong, stronger than that ass-wipe. He’d left me alone, thinking I’d die and he wouldn‘t have to bother. Duke had left me and I’d been raped.



I howled and lunged again, but that time my howl was echoed back by a larger entity and our melee was torn full apart.



*



Ujik’va shoved the three males aside from the female with a sweep of his arm. Yeyinde wasn’t in the condition to fight, no matter her grudge against her own pack. He knew not what had changed in their relations, only that the small female’s anger was thick and the blood from the bull-male’s olfactory organ was caused by her fury. Ujik’va carefully restrained the woman as she lunged again for the male.



Gathering his willful charge back, Ujik’va gave an angry roar to cower the pack before separating the female. He was having second opinions about allowing them board the S’weise; kwei, those oomans, there was little they couldn’t cause trouble with.



She’d stopped to Challenge the male as he carefully nudged her further into the bowels of the ship. Clicking, Ujik’va pressed his wide hand against her small back. She hissed in pain, the patch job was still tender. The ooman bared her blunt teeth in aggression and the arbitrator flared his mandibles at her disrespect. Yeyinde jerked back, uncertain.



Ujik’va huffed, feeling his age upon him.



He lead her to the cockpit, and sat in his rightful chair; sitting Ujik’va was level with her face. The female glanced hesitantly out the viewport and into space. “We are following the Bad-Blood’s ion trail,” he told her with rasps and clicks, to distract her. He did his best to hand-sign, to make the ooman understand, “We are behind - - but the S’weise is fast.”



“When?” a ooman sound he knew, along with her attempt to make sure he knew it - - a shrug of the shoulders and a raising of the hands, palms skyward.



He did not know. Many of her ooman time measurements, many hours.



Yeyinde seemed to accept the answer and turned bow-side again.



Ujik’va allowed himself a moment to survey his strange female. She looked sick, gaunt, even in his natural infrared spectrum. While strange, ugly, he could not deny that the angles of her face were pleasing in shape; her skull would be rounder than the male’s he wore - strapped just under his ribs - yet with strong planes. Had the Hunt interested him, the arbiter considered that he might have taken hers… under different circumstances.



Those circumstances drew his small eyes to her wide, suckling bearing hips. She had been tight, he remembered, warm against his aching loins - - passage smoothed over by blood. Had the ooman been yautja, she would have been a prized female. But she wasn’t yautja. Yeyinde wasn’t his kind. And he’d damaged her - Ujik’va’s tusks rattled incessantly against each other - a damage he couldn’t repair. Perhaps a healer on the clan ship…



She was no longer a lou-dte kalei, “child maker,” he’d seen it through biological scanning.



As if sensing his immense sorrow, the female turned towards him. Yeyinde’s stance was shaky, and Ujik’va couldn’t tell her mood, but reached to run his claws through her soft looking tresses.



Dried mud flaked roughly. The arbitrator made a noise and expression that at least made his female laugh, a tinkering half-felt sound.



“I’m dirty, I know,” she said and gingerly grasped his wrist to pull his hand away. Her hands were small compared to his, with useless claws and supple skin. Yeyinde nervously released his arm, “Do, do you have somewhere I can fix that?”



He clicked and stood, certain that the S’weise would alert him when the long-range scanners picked up sight of the Bad-Blood’s ship.



Now was not the time to dwell on what could have been



* * *



Translations



Awu’asa: full body-armour.

Chiva: right of passage; the un-blooded become blooded warriors.

Dhi’ki-de: unconscious / state before death.

Dtai’pyode amedha pauk-de: “the soft meat fucker.”

Kwei: sly and tricky.

Lou-dte kalei: child-maker.

Nok: measurement; aprox. 13 inches.

Ooman: human (slang)

Pyode Amedha: soft meat/humans.

Suckling: Yautja term for a baby.

S’weise: Ujik’va’s ship; “Twice-Strike.”

S’yuit-de: coward, insult

Ujik’va: “Cut-Claw.”

Ve’nde thwei: bad-blood.

Yautja: the Predator race.

Yeyinde: “Brave one.”

Y’tekujte: Gray-Hair‘s clan.



I really updated my yautja language with this one didn’t I? There are a few non-cannon words involved, but that’s part of the fun with Predator verse. I’ll start by saying that this chapter was hard to write, because it was partly in Gray-Hair’s point of view, and I had to come up with a believable reason as to why he’d take Gwyn with. I hope I did my Preddy good. Secondly, I’d also like to say that I completed my collection of Predator antiquities by buying the AVP books. For those who’ve read them, you may notice some differences in later chapters when it pertains to the yautja, but I’ll do my best to explain why I didn’t go along with the books. This one was filler and didn’t have sex, but the next chapter will, because like my profile says: I think everything I write needs ungodly amounts of xxx smut. Me not putting smut in something means hell has frozen over. (And talking about those books, why was it whenever the yautja thought about making sucklings, they died? I personally think Machiko should have jumped Shorty and had wild hate-sex with him.)



Predator biology is hard to come up with. I’m going to say the oxygen carrier in their blood is copper because when it’s oxidized it’s a nice green sheen (thus their blood when it’s spilled) and when copper is polished it has a nice red/orange hue, which can help with the browner Predators. I honestly don’t know if their ship is made of iridosmium ore, but the element osmium is slightly blue and strong, so… that sounds like their ship to me. That’s enough notes for now!



I may not update as readily after this because college is starting up again, so “yey!” I am also considering changing the entire story to 3rd person to keep it even, what do you think? I’d like to give thanks for all the reviews and rates! Keep it up!!!



PewPew: The issue pans out with smut of course XD Thanks :) And of course Bad-Blood is going to get beat up. He really deserves it!



Ryin-te: But that’s why you love me, hun. XD



callmeBaby08: Good thing I posted that of ff.net then, huh? XD It’s a whole n’uther world over here. But the dark side is good, you’ll love it.



bloodravyn: she’ll get by, no worries!



cricket: I’m happy it’s intense for you!



Dark: Thanks! :D



Kia: I’m not too proud of the rape either, but it makes it intense! I’m not abandoning this baby in a long shot!



Death God Dist: Hopefully I continue to keep you on the edge of your seat XD Poor Gwyn, I’ll have to make it up to her with some smut…



Fire Phoenix: I will! :D



Caz: You win. His name is now Asshole :D I’ll make sure they get punches in on “Asshole” for you! XD XD XD