NationStates Jolt Archive

ooc: Okay, here is the sequel to the AVP. These are the people who can Rp:

Tarlachia
Squornshelous
Outer Heaven Mk II
Zakia
A Few Rich People
Valient
Assington
Gorgamin

Now that the Rp is up, it is now offically closed.

As stated above, AVP2 is rated R, for reason of Blood, Gore, and Language.

Here it is ALIEN VS PREDATOR 2

ic:

Crawford walked to the control panel for the cryogenic tube. Everyone had already set their tubes, and he did the same. He undressed, put his clothes in his locker, and put on a pair of long johns for the journey. Crawford climbed into his tube and pressed some buttons on a small control panel, the hatch slowly closed and there was a slight hiss as it sealed. He felt a slight rush of cold air in the tube and fell asleep.

In the control room a single terminal came to life. It began to beep and chirp as it ran over the health of the humans inside their sleeping chambers. It began to make a readout and as it printed, it halted half-way. The screen began to flash a bright red and the printing continued at a furious pace, a small knife moved across the printer and cleanly cut the sheet from the terminal.

As the readout fell to the floor, a rush of cold air from a floor vent sent it back into the air and it floated till it was hidden behind several more terminals.

The Odysseus peacefully continued on it’s course through the darkness of space.



Two Weeks Later


Beep…Beep….Beep…

Crawford’s eyes slowly opened as he heard the same annoying beeping sound. His whole body felt numb as he tried to get his fingers to move.

“Easy Captain, don’t strain yourself.” A soft female voice entered his mind.

Crawford finally got his eyes open and smiled weakly at the nurse over him. “Am I on Earth?”

“No, you’re on LV-274 Alan.”

Crawford turned to see a marine standing in the door. “My God Peter…”

Peter Jennings walked into the room, wearing the standard black and grey fatigues. “Nurse…we’d like to be alone.”

Jennings pulled up a chair and sat next to his friend’s bed. They had known each other since grade school, joined the Corps, but were assigned to different sectors, and rarely saw each other.

“How long have I been out Peter?”

“Your ship docked here two weeks ago Alan. Well, we actually found the Odysseus nearly out of power, so we towed you in. You’re the first to wake up, everyone else is alright, should be up anytime now.”

“Are…are there any Comp…”

“Weyland-Yutani? No…they’ve filed for Chapter 11.”

“What? Are you joking? Why?”

“I’m not, because most of the money they get is by funding from the government and military groups, their failure to get a xenomorph has resulted in their downfall. I’ve heard they’re going to be bought out by Wal-Mart in the near future. So, looks like no more xenomorph bug hunts courtesy of them. Rest up Alan, you need some rest.”

“See you Peter.”

Crawford watched his friend leave before looking out the window. He could see the most of the base from where he was. He counted about a dozen APCs sitting in a neat row and another two dozen Dropships. Crawford closed his eyes and fell back asleep.

Jennings walked outside into the heat; he put on his fatigue cap and climbed into a small 4x4. He drove across the massive base, passing multiple bunkers and buildings till he reached the dock. He stopped and looked at the upper half of the Odysseus, the rest of in the pit that served as the main ship dock.

He turned around and headed out the main gate and moved onto one of the dirt roads to check on the Lychos complex.


LV-843
Purpose: Weapons Testing and Storage Planet
Owner: Weyland-Yutani
Status: Unknown

The fires lit the nigh sky, several buildings burned hot from the battle which had engulfed the base. A man ran through the dark jungle, stumbling, looking for a way to escape the hell that was pursuing him. Everything had been fine, then some strange things began to happen, people were disappearing, and roars could be heard in the jungle. Now there were only a few dozen people left, and they had barricaded themselves in one of the underground storage facilities.

He stopped and fumbled with his pistol holster and extracted a mud caked Desert Eagle. He flicked on the green laser sight and watched as the beam shot into the dark.

“Ben***** Bennings are you there?” His radio crackled.

“Yes…get the fuck off the radio. The fucker can hear you.”

“Alright, keep moving you slow ass bastard.”

Bennings jammed the radio back into his pocket and looked into the darkness. The fires cast an eerie glow around the jungle. He turned and kept running. Something rustled the trees over head, the hand gun barked several times. Bennings stood there and moved a little farther.

Something shot out of the jungle, knocking him over, the pistol flying out of his hand. He groped desperately on the ground for it; his hand touched the cold metal. Something dripped on his nearly bald head, his hand touched his head and he turned on a flashlight and looked at his fingers…blood.

He looked up to see two metal blades above his head. Bennings had not time to scream before they came down; they drove into his brain, sending jets of dark blood onto the blades. More blood oozed out of his mouth before the blades came out and he fell into the moss.

Apache looked at his latest kill, the heat vision was acting up because of the nearby flames, and he looked at his wrist computer and quickly reset his vision, now only the human’s heat was viable. Turning the man over, he moved took off the man’s shirt. His large hand went into the man’s back, the fingers wrapped around the spinal column, with a hard yank, the entire column. Blood erupted from the long canyon in the headless corpses back.

The Predator moved back to his camp where the rest of his clan was. Their leader 232 turned to see him return from the hunt. Each of them were cleaning their weapons and skulls from recent kills. Apache removed his mask and flexed his mandibles. He spoke in a series of gurgles and chirps that was the Predator language.

“Yeyinde, Pydoe Amedha.”

232 nodded, there were still more humans to hunt. The Predators put their masks on, collected their weapons, and engaged their stealth camouflage.

The hunt was still on.

A slight noise, muffled, as if underwater, a fuzzy white light creeping into his vision. Zach Hunter slowly climbed up from the depths of unconciousness. He opened his eyes to see the white cieling of an antisepticly empty room. The only things present were the bed he lay in, a small nightstand, with a lamp and chronometer on it and a table with a set of fatigues and a large knife on it. "Hypersleep sucks ass man," he announced to no one in particular. Scarcely had he taken a second look around than a neatly dressed orderly walked in through the door with a small tray.
"Hello sir, how are you feeling?"
"Like shit, but I expect it'll pass."
This orderly had obviously had plenty of practical experience, Hunter's profanity didn't even cause her to blink.
"Would you like a glass of water sir?"
"If I could get up I'd hug you." Hunter reached up slowly and took the glass. He downed the contents in one gulp and put it back on the tray. "Where am I?"
"You are at the USCM base on LV-274, along with the rest of your companions from the Odysseus."
"Everyone made it through?"
"You were only out there for two weeks."
"Oh."
The orderly placed the tray, which also contained a large pitcher of water, on the nightstand. "I'll leave this here for you, just try to relax for now, you'll be back on your feet in a day or so."
With that, she turned and walked out of the room, leaving Hunter alone with his thoughts. "I better get one fat bonus for all the shit I go through in this job."

Hades watched carefully as the rest of the clan suited up and prepared to finish the hunt. He was one of the younger Predators within the clan and was always looking to prove himself to the others. He had already made several kills upon humans and other lesser creatures, but he was yet to encounter a formidable creature... an alien. Only then, when he killed one would Hades be a true warrior of the clan.

Putting on his mask, Hades picked up his combat staff and made sure all his gear was fixed on correctly. Now looking into the jungle through heat vision, it was time to finish the hunt. The young Pred moved off into the jungle night, searching for a target.

tag. post soon.

OOC: I'm at a friend's house, the only reason why I'm gonna be able to do this post. This may be my last one for a few days. GS has control of 232 for me in my absence while I wage war on the viruses on my computer...

IC:
232 watched with keen eyes as the members of his clan prepared themselves and donned their masks. Likewise, he did so as well, his mask the last to be placed on his body. It was now a rather ornate mask, one that was more fearsome to behold than his old one he had used on the last planet he had visited.

His mind flashed back to the laboratory. The inhumane genetic experiments he was forced through by the humans. "Controlling the enemy", they called it. Rather, they had created a new breed of Predator. Natural abilty to camouflage. Increased stamina, strength and decreased morals. He was the perfect killing machine, and his clan had seen that, and had opted to offer him the leadership of the clan.

Naturally, he had taken the command. It only seemed fitting to do so.

232 stood and adjusted his weapons, activating his mechanical camouflage and slipped silently into the jungle beyond...

Only the faint rustle of footsteps could discern his movements. He leapt upward into the nearest tree and continued his passage forward, launching himself from tree to tree as stealthily as possible. On his HUD inside his mask, he could discern the telltale heat of each of the predators as they took their own paths. The humans were foolish, but some had become smart quickly, and had begun to attempt to outsmart the predators.

232 had no intention of allowing this...

Jennings turned on the muddy road and spotted the Lychos complex. He put on sunglasses to protect his eyes from the glare off of the buildings and domes within it. He checked in with the guard and parked in an underground garage. He climbed out of his Jeep and took an elevator to the main floor.

The clean and sterile enviorment was vastly different from the dirty marine complex. He walked up to the reception desk, got the room he was looking for and headed up a flight of stairs. Without knocking he entered Dr. Kerri Adams' office. He smiled at her.

"Kerri, since we marines have not kept you up to date on what we have been doing...here it is. We got survivors from the Odysseus, they are doing nicely. Right...now your turn. What have you been up to?"


*****************************************

"Hunter."

The Marine turned to see Crawford sitting in an automatic wheelchair, and IV tube was stuck in him, and the stand sitting next to him. He moved on up next to Hunter's bed and shook the man's hand. Getting out of his bed had been a chore, but he felt it was his duty to check on his men.

"How are you feeling?"


*****************************************

Apache had been designated pointman and was crouched in a tree, overlooking the last human hideout. Nine shacks and other buildings, and a large concrete building that lead into the underground bunker. 232 and Hades, as well as the other two Predators from their clan moved forward.

232 did a quick scan, and found seven humans in a lone building on the east section of the base. He looked at Apache and Hades.

"Move in from the east. Flush them to us"

Apache and Hades both nodded, cloaked themselves and moved off. 232 and the others waited. When Apache and Hades were in position, Apache looked at the outline younger Predator and pointed to two men armed with smartguns.

"We attack them, without those big guns, they are doomed. Move to that tree over them, you will have a clearer shot. Attack on my signal...and not before."

Thump...thump...thump...thump........thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.....

"Uhhhh........"

A brown haired figure shifted and rolled under the covers of a hospital bed, groaning, trying to escape.

"Ohnononono....."

Trying to escape from the horror, trying to escape from the nightmare, trying to escape from the prison his mind made for him...

Oh god no...

Explosions ripping through the walls, soldiers and scientists ripped apart from the inside out, the scratching and screeching from the vents, the deafening crescendo of Pulse Rifles launching ly pieces of hard metal, the coating the walls, the darkened hallways, the invisable killer of the night, the psychotic black figure stalking you, the pain, the endless suffering, the acid , the Alien, the Predator, the horror, the panic, the , the screech from behind you, the dark figure greeting you in the lift doorway, the adrenaline, the whirring corridors, the diamond toothed mouths swallowing you into the sickening bowels of the complex, the sound of unsheathing blades behind you, the end looming ahead...

"NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MUTHA ER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Kartion shot out of his bed, aiming at a nurse in front of him, his finger tensing on an imaginary trigger. His breathing started to slow, his eyes, wide with , blinked, and scanned the room. He sighed.

It was over...

He looked at his hand, and opened it, the imaginary weapon he was holding dropped to the floor.

He then looked at the nurse.

"I need to see Hunter."

The nurse rose an eyebrow.

"Hunter?"

"Yeah, Corporal Hunter, he came in the Odysseus, along with me, Alan Crawford..."

"Sir, I'm afraid you can't see them you'r-"

"Now..."

The nurse bit her lip.

"Down the hall, to your left."

"Thank you..."

Kartion swivelled on the bed, and put his feet to the ground. He stood.

"Oh ..."

His legs collapsed under him. Grabbing onto the bed, he stabilised himself, and slowly rose.

"God forsaken hypersleep, why does this always happen to me?"

Standing, he stuck his foot out, and took a step. Confident, he repeated with the other. He nodded to the nurse.

"Thanks."

He then started to walk off at a slow, practiced pace. He reached the end of the hall, and turned left, and went through some double doors. There, to his right, was Hunter and Crawford. Kartion smiled.

"Sir, Corporal. Nice to see you're up and alive."

Hunter awoke from a troubled sleep to find Crawford sitting beside his bed. "Everything's still attatched in the right places." He turned again as the door burst open and a figure staggered in.
"Sir, Corporal. Nice to see you're up and alive."
"Kartion, it's good to see you alive man, although it's Sargeant Major Hunter now."
"Really?"
"Yeah, the captain here put me in for a teporary field promotion in his report and someone up the chain of command decided to make it permanent."
"Congrats man."
"Thanks."
After greetings were exchanged all around, Hunter turned back to Crawford.
"So what's the plan from here on out? Are we being transferred to the base here or sent somewhere else?"

Crawford looked at Hunter. He motioned for Kartion to sit and waited till he did.

"Weyland-Yutani has filed for Chapter 11."

Hunter and Kartion looked at each other, baffled. Before any of them could ask, Crawford held up his hand for silence.

"No, I am not shitting about that. Rumor is it is going to be bought out by Wal-Mart sometime in the near future. I have no idea what is to happen with us. Probably rest here for a while till Command figures out what to do with us bums. Odysseus needs some time for a refit, so enjoy this rest lads. My guess is we'll be heading Earthside with everyone else who made it out. Gomez, Fischer, Stillwater, and the three other marines are still out. Stillwater seems to be in a deep coma, but everyone else should be awake in a few hours."

Crawford looked at Kartion.

"Kartion, when I'm able to contact Command...I'll request you be promoted to Captain. Hunter got to be a Sargeant Major, you can be a Captain."

He leaned back in his chair and smiled at them.

"Well, it looks like we are going home in a few days."

Kartion smiled.

"Thanks sir...I d-" he paused.

"Sir, where are my belongings?"

Crawford leaned back a little further.

"Your equipment is fine Kartion, it's all bein-"

"No no sir, I'm not talking about my equipment, but in my trousers there's something extremely important that I need, something that you need to pass onto High Command..."

Crawford leaned back in his chair and looked at Kartion, then at Hunter. Both men seemed to be confused by what he meant. He adjusted himself, still tired and looked at Kartion.

"What is this thing I am suppose to send to High Command?"

*********************************************

One of the smartgunners looked nervously over his shoulder at his friends as they grabbed what weapons and explosives they could.

"Guys get the fuck moving, I don't like being out here."

"Shut the fuck up you prick. The mothers could hear you."

The man looked over at the other smartgunner, both men watched thier motion trackers built into the guns. He looked up into the darkness, sweat poured from his face. His right leg bounced nervously, they were out there..but where?

He turned his head to watch his friends getting the last of the satchel charges. He turned and his eyes bulged as he saw the flicker of light off the metel object moving towards him. The shuriken sliced deep into his neck and shoulders.

Blood rocketed from the massive ravine on his body and his mouth. He stumbled before falling on the ground. His friends stared in horror at the sight.

Apache caught the shuriken as it came back to him, with a flick of his wrist, the blades retracted. He jumped down on the ground and with power punch to the ribs, sent one of the humans flying. The others grabbed thier friend and ran like hell, right towards the other Predators. He turned to face the other smartgunner, who couldn't see him.

The man got a quick lock on Apache on his motiontracker and smiled. He didn't see Hades moving behind him...

Kartion bit his lip, and he knew he'd regret this down the time, but at least now they deserved to know.

"A disk..."

He looked Hunter and Crawford in the eyes, and then sighed.

"Guys, while I'm a part of your unit, I'm not actually a marine. I'm a mercenary. About...two months ago, I was offered a special contract by Colonial Marine High Command to do a Spec Ops mission,"

Kartion paused, and let it sink in before continuing.

"High Command suspected that the Weyland Yutani base on LV-467 was being used for xenomorph experimentation. However, they weren't sure of this. So, they signed me up to your unit, and sent me there. My mission, was to obtain a copy of the files on Adams' computer, and send it back to them ASAP. But, everything went to , and Command doesn't know I've done the job,"

"Alan, that disk is crutial to bringing down Weyland Yutani, and bringing hundreds of people to justice, who have sent good, hard working people, civilians even, just to try and get an xeno. That Alan, is what you need to send to High Command."

Kartion dropped his head, and then looked up, and smiled a little.

"Never thought I'd get that off my chest."

Crawford leaned back in his wheelchair. It was a known fact throughout the USCMC that Alan Crawford hated mercs more than he hated xenomorphs. But Kartion had been much different than the other mercs he had worked with, Karton had been reliable and had not run at the first sight of the Queen. He pressed a button on his chair, called for a nurse to bring Kartion's affects to them. Several mintues later, a nurse arrived holding a clear plastic case. Kartion went through it and found the disk.

Crawford took it and rolled over to a terminal in Hunter's room. He inserted it and loaded it. Crawford studied it for a few mintues, before ejecting the disk and turned back to Kartion. He tapped the disk against his hand for a few seconds before looking at him.

"Weyland-Yutani is sinking Kartion, it is going down like the Titanic. They still have more than enough power to bury this thing before it even reaches home. I do admit Adam's experiments were....way in the outfield to put it simply...."

He shifted in his chair and looked at Kartion.

"I have to say fine work, but don't expect this will help more than sting Weyland-Yutani, and hurt Wal-Mart for a few years. I will pass it on...but I don't believe anyone will reach court. I lost faith in our legal system years ago. But...you never know what might happen when this reaches Earth. An executive or two might have an accident on thier way to work."

OOC: Is it safe to assume that I am one of the Predators in the clan? Sorry for the quick change of thought, I recently found out I do have the time for this great RP.

IC: Old Tooth grinned at the marine pinned on the ground by the bulk of the invisible foot, the cloaking of Tooth's systems keeping him safe from prying eyes, no one would notice poor little human screaming, it writhed while his massive foot drove into his diaphragm now and again, Tooth found it amusing to see the air get driven out of the panicked marine, all the while the creature's spindly arms kept reaching for that pulse rifle that was just out of reach, Tooth grinned again while his combi stick opened up in a series of clicks and grinds. Tooth took one last look at the poor little wretch beneath his foot before he twirled his combi stick in a flourish of display which ended with the blade splintering bone and flesh with a sickening crack, piercing the heart and then only narrowly missing the spinal column.

I'd best not damage my trophy Old Tooth thought with a sly smile, his hands ripped open the man's flak jacket with ease, his hand then found a spot on the now-tender stomach, his small talons made a small hole in the vulnerable flesh and his paw slipped into the dead man's intestines, feeling his way through until he got a good grasp on the spinal column, then, in one spectacular display of dominance, he ripped the spinal column through the man's own stomach, a blood spattered skull following it's leash.

Blood sprayed the cloaked Old Tooth, it looked amazing to any who could see, the dull crackle of flames illuminating a figure of pure glass marred by crimson.

Old Tooth held his trophy high up in the air and let out a mighty roar that echoed through the dark, dank jungle and drove the spear of terror even deeper into the humans' hearts.

OOC: Tag, will edit into post, will have char be just another face in security in base. But a heads up, will be gone a few days after next monday, so don't worry about any inactivity, and if need be GS, you got control those few days.

Hunter looked at Kartion as if he'd announced the second coming. "You sure had me fooled, you do your job well. Who knows, maybe the impossible will happen and your report will put Weyland-Yutani under for good."
He leaned back onto the wall behind the bed.
"It's gonna be good to see Earth again either way. You know, I haven't been there since basic."

In all the chaos of the situation, the human hadn't noticed Hades as he made his cloaked path towards the human manning one of the remaining smart guns. Now standing directly behind the human, Hades decloaked and let out a slight snarl. The human was frozen in place, unable to move due to the extreme amount of fear running through his mind.

Hades didn't waste any time and prompty lodged his muscular arm deep into the back of the human, taking hold of his spine. The human merely gurgled, wide eyed for a few seconds before he fell to the ground, dead. Hades stood with an arm raised above his head, blood dripping down off the spine and onto his mask. Another trophy.

Hades gave Apache a quick nod indicating they should continue before activating his cloak once again and moving in after the humans.

Crawford smiled at Hunter. It was at that time a nurse came in with a tray and some cups on it.

"Alright everyone, time for thier pills." She handed them out, plus an extra glass with water in it, and departed with a smile.

Crawford looked at cup with the pills in it and raised the other cup with the water in it.

"Gentlemen, a toast. To home, to Earth...and may Weyland-Yutani rot in the hell."

Kartion and Hunter raised their glasses too, and each tossed their pills into thier mouths and washed them down. Crawford cough and grimaced, his hand went to his chest.

"Take it from me lads, smoking is unhealthy...and it is hell when you come out of hypersleep. I should of quit sooner."

********************************************

As the humans ran, 232 and the other Predators were lying in wait. The man in the lead only took two more steps before something hard rammed into his chest. He was knocked to the ground, his chest and back exploded in a mist of blood.

232's combi-stick was firmly lodged in his chest, blood oozed out of his mouth before darkness covered his eyes. The other humans ran harder, Apache and Hades cut off thier escape. The Predators moved in with their wristblades and combi-sticks. Screams erupted from the humans as they were hacked to bits.

A lone bloodsoaked woman made it through the ring of hunters and she bolted for a door to the complex. A man appeared in the doorway, his face when white with horror at the sight of her. He slammed his fist on the close button.

"DAN! DON'T CLOSE THE FUCKING DOOR!" She screamed. It slide shut just as she reached it.

232 turned and spotted her, the woman turned and seeing the Predator, bolted into the jungle. 232 turned to Hades.

"Kill her."

Kartion and Hunter raised their glasses too, and each tossed their pills into thier mouths and washed them down. Crawford cough and grimaced, his hand went to his chest.

"Take it from me lads, smoking is unhealthy...and it is hell when you come out of hypersleep. I should of quit sooner."

OOC: Have a nice cup of foreshadowing!

Hades nods at 232's request and purposefully made his way toward the helpless woman. This would be a simple kill and yet another trophy, even if it wasn't much of one. The ring of extending wrist blades filled the air and was soon accompanied by the wailing of the woman, knowing she was about to die.

Standing easily over the blood soaked woman, Hades brought up his blade and wedged firmly within the woman's neck without any mercy. The blade severed her windpipe and resulted in a series of gurgling noises until he brought the blade around to the side, taking off the woman's head.

The Predator let out a slight grunt before picking up the head and place it upon his wrist blade. Another trophy...

"Hello all." Jennings said as he walked into the room. He had left the Lychos facility after getting his usual report from the scientist there.

"Hullo Peter, I need you to send this to command." Crawford handed him the disk Kartion had given him. "Information from crazy Dr. Adams obtained by Kartion here."

"Alright, well gentlemen when you all get better...there is going to be a party in celebration of Weyland-Yutani's downfall. So get better, make sure you can walk, and stomach barrels of ale."

"Also...send to Command a message from me that I am leaving. Retiring from the Corps."

"Alan...are you joking?"

"No, I'm not. I going to go home and manage my cousin's....used bookstore. So gentlemen, I might never see you again when we get to Earth."

********************************************

232 yanked the spine and head off his latest kill and began to clean and prepare it for mounting. Apache tied a thick cord around the ankles of the smartgunner he killed and tossed the other end over a branch of a tree. He grabbed the cord and hauled the body up till the corpse's outstretched hands were several feet above the ground.

Apache pulled out a small tool kit and began to skin his victim. Blood dripped down and pooled on the solid as he slowly exposed the muscle. He cut away a strip of blood covered skin and carefully placed it on a metal crate. When he had finished he jumped up on a tree and looked around.

Flipping through his vision modes he found who he was looking for. With his Pred Vision on he clearly saw the cloaked Old Tooth. Apache darted through the trees, leaving his victim to finish bleeding. Apache landed on the ground behind the older, and taller Predator. Though Old Tooth was older than him, Apache had been in control of the clan before given power to 232, and now was second in command; yet he always showed great respect to the hunter before him.

"Come on, there are still plenty of humans to hunt."

Hunter brightened at the mention of a party. "That's definitely cause for a big celebration." He could already imagine heaping plates of food and full mugs of beer. "Been a long time since my last real meal."

He then turned to look at Crawford with obvious surprise. His, "Are you serious?" mingled with Jennings' response.
"Wow, I'm sure I'll be saying this quite few times before then, but it's been an honor fighting with you sir."

Crawford looked at Hunter. He nodded slowly to the other marine.

"It has been an honor fighting with you Hunter..and you too Kartion. I am completely serious with leaving. I had already written a resignation letter to be sent after my seven month tour on LV-467, and we all know what happened there."

Crawford leaned back in his chair, his eyes suddenly became distant.

"I have seen too much death, destruction, and waste of human life. I'm going to leave, manage that used bookstore. Settle down...and who knows? Maybe start my own family."

Jennings stood there quiet, he put a cigarette in his mouth, but didn't light it. It hung there before he removed it and put it back in the box.

"Well, I'll go get the mess cracking on the feast. You got plently of time to look around before dinner. I'll send this off to Command. I guess you two would like some R and R on Earth. I'll do the best I can to swing a few weeks out of Command before they send you to some other planet."

Kartion smiled.

"Thank you sir, but...who will lead the unit?"

OOC: Sorry for the bad post, it's not in me today.

IC: Old Tooth heard his comrade land behind with a thud, the resourceful warrior that was Apache took his place next to Old Tooth, he had always been fond of the younger hunter, he had aquired skills beyond his age, the older predator uncloaked, he listened to Apache and then slammed a meaty fist to his chest.

"The hunt indeed continues young one, however, I do hope that we find more...formidable prey, I grow tired of hunting these sacks of flesh and bone, they break easily but before we resume the hunt, I'd like to clean my trophy"

Old Tooth held the blood spattered head in one hand, in the other was the spray that burnt away the excess, after a few bursts, the head was nothing more than a clean skull, blood and flesh gone. Old Tooth let out a burst of clicks and clipped the skull to his shoulder netting.

Old Tooth let out a roar.

"The hunt goes on!"

Crawford looked at Kartion and shrugged.

"The men don't need me. Leaders come and go, most of them have probably seen four or five different officers..leaves no room to get attached to your group. They will get a new Captain, and he will be with them for a year or two...or until he gets killed; then they get a new one. So, anybody could lead my company."

Jennings stood there, thinking about what his friend had said. He held the disc and went down the hall. He walked back outside into the heat and quickly jogged across the lawn to another building. He sat down in front of a terminal and inserted the disk. Lets see if this disk can work wonders in our justice system.

****************************************

Apache nodded and the two Predators quickly made thier way back to the site of the slaughter. 232 was finishing cleaning one of his kills when he saw the two approached. His clan was now back together, they could finish the humans here and move on to the next planet.

He bent down and ripped a map from one of corpses, he studied it for sevearl minutes before tossing it away.

"Time has come to finish the hunt. The prey will be trying to reach a landing pad several miles west of here. We will ambush thier transports and finish them."

There was a nod from the Predators as they cloaked themselves again and followed thier leader through the trees. They reached a well traveled dirt road, APC and vairous vehicle tracks left deep marks in the soft soil. Apache didn't see the transports, but he looked up the road and something.

He zoomed in and spotted a large blast door, hidden by massive amount of jungle brush. He looked at the young Predator, and quickly took a remote bomb from him. Apache got it ready and when the door opened he threw it will all his might, a small rocket on the back of the bomb pushed it inside.

Five trucks rolled out, makeshift armor plating welded on. 232 readied his plasma-caster and aimed at the first truck. The three laser dot sight went over the engine. A large blue orb shot out of the plasma caster and smacked into it. The truck exploded and crahsed into a tree. The rest swerved and tried to get around. Humans jumped out of several and opened fire into the trees. 232 stood and roared.

The final battle, was about to begin.

Hades nodded understanding and activated his cloak. It was about time they had some slightly challenging prey, even if they were still humans. Well hidden within the jungle, Hades crouched as he watched the transports move along the dirt road. He would wait until they drew closer and flank the vehicles, surprising the humans and giving the others an oppurtunity to attack.

Just as the convoy began to pass him, 232's plasma shot smashed into the first truck, rendering it immobile. This was perfect. The humans were all focusing their shorts towards the location of the plasma source and had no idea Hades was off to the side, ready to unleash chaos upon them.

Without warning, Hades unleashed his net and pinne two humans to the side of the first truck and watched as the pair immediately began to scream from the pain of the constricting net. Before the other surprised humans could react, two plasma caster shots were unleashed. One at the windscreen of engine of the second vehicle and the other at a group of shocked men.

The humans could do nothing as they were ripped to pieces by the force of the blast and launched several metres into the air. The second vehicle now out of commission, Hades readied his combi stick and prepared to launch once he located a new target.

232 was not where he had been when he had fired the shot. Now, he had moved up into the trees, leaping from tree to tree stealthily, silently. Only the slight rustle of branches indicated his movements, but if one looked, he was hardly in one spot for long enough to get a fix.

As the transport trucks were halted by the ambush, he watched as his clan fanned out, surrounding the humans. They would die, all of them. His clan would make sure of that.

He leapt down from the tree he was in and felt the crunching metal of the roof of the truck as he braced his descent and immediately went for the nearest human. He roared into the man's face, immediately throwing him to the ground and grinding his heel into the man's groin.

The resounding scream of agony blasted the forest only to be cut short by the combistick slashing the esophagus of the man. The artery was cut as well, and moments later, the man began to spasm as the blood flowed freely from his wound. Not long after that, he closed his eyes, giving up his fight for survival.

232 moved to the next man, and similarly murdered him as well. Blood splattered the ground, adding to the river of blood...

Apache jumped out of the trees, combi-stick in hand. A human tried to run past the Predator. Apache raised the stick like a javlin and threw it at the human's back. The man screamed as it split his spine in two and pinned him to a tree, his legs thrashed madly as he tried to get himself free.

Apache took his shuriken in his left hand and shot out his wristblades to thier fullest extent for his right hand. Another human tried to make a dash out of the carnage, only to have Apache's shuriken slice across his stomach. The man screamed and went on his knees, trying to put his insides back into his body. The Predator raised his wristblades and drove them into the man's skull, the body convulsed for several seconds before it went limp.

Apache yanked out his wristblades and scanned the field of death. Looking for a new victim.

As the conversation died away, Hunter turned and got up from the bed.
"I think I'm gonna take a little walk before the celebration tonight. I'll see you two later."
As he walked toward the door, he reflexively grabbed the belt hanging on one fo the bedposts. As he strapped it on, he looked down at the combat kinfe hanging on it in surprise, as if seeing it for the first time. He turned back toward Kartion and Crawford with a grin.
"Old habits die hard I guess."

Crawford nodded as Hunter left the room. He nodded to Kartion and made his way back to his own room. He took off the hospital gown and took a long hot shower. He dried himself of and cleaned himself up. He put on fresh fatigues and put on his pistol belt. He opened the holster to find his pistol missing. He went to the desk on the floor and after a while was able to get his Desert Eagle back.

Crawford walked outside into the sun, he shielded his eyes until they adjusted. He bent down and reached slowly out with his hand and touched the grass on the side of the path. Been so long since I've touched actual grass. He stood and headed down a sidestreet.

It took him nearly a half hour before he located the officers club. Crawford smiled and walked in. It was time to drink.

Hunter stood out in a large courtyard, where he could see out thorugh a gap in the buildings to the jungle beyond. The wind tugged at his clothes and hair as he watched the sun sinking towards the horizon. "Now what." He should be happy, Weyland-Yutani was going under, the xenomorphs were dead, but there was an emptiness he couldn't label. He'd just just been part of a group of peple who destroyed mankinds greatest enemy, what could he possibly move on to? There was nothing he could think of to do next, he'd og back to Earth for a while, then go back to soldiering, but there was nothing out there to guard against now, no need for soldiers anymore. The thing he was best at had become obsolete overnight it seemed.
"Oh shut up!"
He shook his head, all he needed to do was go enjoy himself at the feast and everything would just fall into place. He'd figure out his new life as he went.

Smiling slightly, and having made some temporary peace with himself, Hunter turned back toward the main compound.

It was time for Hades to join the battle in earnest now. Extending his wrist blades, the young predator leaped off the ground and launched himself toward the human convoy. With a dull thud, the predator landed atop an APC and howled a battle cry at the surprised humans.

As one of the human stepped out of the vehicile, Hades merely plunged his blade downward, puncturing the spine and severing it completely from the brain, causing the human to drop dead. Leaping off the APC, Hades then landed atop another man, crushing his skull.

One of the humans noticed the devestation behind him and took aim, attempting to rid their convoy of the young, menacing pred.

Hades howled in outrage as two slugs made contact, hitting him in the left shoulder. Glowing green blood sprayed over a nearby human that was quickly cut down. Looking for the source of his injury, Hades finally found the human taking aim once again. Faster than the human could move, Hades retracted his right blade and withdrew his combi stick, extending it to full length. Without another thought he launched it straight through the eye of the attacking human.

He fell to the ground and Hades unleashed a blood curdling raw of triumph.

Jennings walked down the medical wing hall and looked in one of the rooms. He found Kartion exersicing and knocked on the door. Kartion looked at him as walked in. Jennings smiled at him.

"I sent the data on the disc to High Command, they told me to tell you good work. And what you got might help permentaly bury Weyland-Yutani."

**********************************************

Apache yanked the head and spine clear out of his prey. Blood and meat splattered against his cloaked body, as more blood poured out of the stump where the head once was. The Predator looked around, no humans were left to hunt. With no immediate threat, the Predator uncloaked.

Apache snarled slightly and walked calmly back to each of his victims. He gathered thier bodies together, strung them up and began the grisly task of cleaning and prepearing his trophies. As he sliced open each body, the insides fell out and soon a smelly, bloody heap of human organs began to pile around the Predator's feet.

OOC: I'll be away from the 8th to the 18th/19th. GS has control of Hades until then.

Jennings walked down the medical wing hall and looked in one of the rooms. He found Kartion exersicing and knocked on the door. Kartion looked at him as walked in. Jennings smiled at him.

"I sent the data on the disc to High Command, they told me to tell you good work. And what you got might help permentaly bury Weyland-Yutani."

Kartion smiled at Jennings, and walked over to him.

"Thank god..."

He patted Jennings on the shoulder.

"Thanks for letting me know Jennings, and thanks for sending that off."

232 looked around at the different faces of his clan. He roared triumphantly, holding up the skeltons of his victims. His trophies.

In their native tongue, 232 spoke,

"It's time to go hunt some more. Let's find out where these humans came from..."

The predators all issued agreeing roars and raised their trophies high. Soon, they were on their way to the humans' transport ship and boarded it.

Within an hour, they had figured out the humans' alien technology and had begun ignition...

The forests around the ship suddenly trembled under the powerful waves of energy being issued from the engines as the ship slowly took off into the sky and into space...

Jennings smiled at Kartion.

"The least I could do, they also mentioned that you will be needed at a hearing in about five months to testify. The same goes for Alan and Hunter, find them and tel them please, I need to run an errand or two."

***************************************

Apache took the controls of the human vehicle, he pointed it to a seemly empty part of space when something materialized. A large ship, dwarfing the smaller human transport appeared suddenly. Apache looked at his wrist computer and typed out several commands. A door opened on the ship and Apache guided the human vessal into it.

When the Predators had disembarked the stolen ship with thier trophies, and they were out of the bay, Apache sent the human ship into space with a touch of a button.

The clan went to the weapons room, dozens of exotic weapons covered the walls and several special racks sat in the middle of it for thier masks. Apache removed his and flexed his mandibles, before putting his mask on it's rack. The rest of the clan shed thier armor, weapons, and masks; and took thier trophies to another room.

The walls were covered in skulls from human, most with the spines still attached, to xenomorph. The largest trophy sat in the middle of the room, the skull of the xenomorph Queen 232 had killed two weeks earlier. Apache placed his cleaned and ready trophies in their spot and headed to the control room.

He sat in front of a console and tapped the screen with his finger. A port appeared, he took a wire from his wrist computer and plugged it in. A quick second later, a holographic image of a planet appeared. He turned to see 232 enter the room.

"Sir, here is where the humans were from."

On the computer screen the name of the planet appeared.....LV-274.

Jennings smiled at Kartion.

"The least I could do, they also mentioned that you will be needed at a hearing in about five months to testify. The same goes for Alan and Hunter, find them and tell them please, I need to run an errand or two."

***************************************

Apache took the controls of the human vehicle, he pointed it to a seemly empty part of space when something materialized. A large ship, dwarfing the smaller human transport appeared suddenly. Apache looked at his wrist computer and typed out several commands. A door opened on the ship and Apache guided the human vessal into it.

When the Predators had disembarked the stolen ship with thier trophies, and they were out of the bay, Apache sent the human ship into space with a touch of a button.

The clan went to the weapons room, dozens of exotic weapons covered the walls and several special racks sat in the middle of it for thier masks. Apache removed his and flexed his mandibles, before putting his mask on it's rack. The rest of the clan shed thier armor, weapons, and masks; and took thier trophies to another room.

The walls were covered in skulls from human, most with the spines still attached, to xenomorph. The largest trophy sat in the middle of the room, the skull of the xenomorph Queen 232 had killed two weeks earlier. Apache placed his cleaned and ready trophies in their spot and headed to the control room.

He sat in front of a console and tapped the screen with his finger. A port appeared, he took a wire from his wrist computer and plugged it in. A quick second later, a holographic image of a planet appeared. He turned to see 232 enter the room.

"Sir, here is where the humans were from."

On the computer screen the name of the planet appeared.....LV-274.

Kartion smiled.

"Sure thing."

Patting Jennings on the back, Kartion took his shirt off a chair, put it on, and went out to look for Hunter...

232 looked at the uploaded hologram and studied it.

"Get me the planetary stats and habitat of LV-274. I want to know the dominant species of the planet, and anything else that will help us. Do it. Now."

232 turned and left Apache to the controls. It would be a while before they got to the planet, as it was halfway across the galaxy.

He made his way to the trophy and weapons room and stopped before the Queen trophy. It's stench was still noticeable but it was disappating slowly away.

He narrowed his eyes as he studied the skull's features...

Hades finished mounting his trophies and stared at the clan leader. It had just been over two weeks since Apache had handed control over to 232. He walked over and stared at the massive skull of the xenomorph; it's skull still bore the scars of the the duel between her and 232.

Before he could speak, Apache walked into the room. He opened his wrist computer so 232 and Hades could see it. A hologram of LV-274 projected a few inches above Apache's wrist. The Predator zoomed in, showing the detail of the planet.

"It is a jungle, full of mountains. It is a hard place to land the ship. Humans occupy several villages and two large bases."

The hologram zoomed in on the Marine base, then on the Lycos complex, and finally over the villages, stopping over one next to a large ocean.

"Here we can come down in our pods. A population of just over fifty, a fishing community."

The hologram suddenly switched to a decaying and mostly crumbled pyramid. The pyramid was a mixture of Egyptian, Cambodian, and Aztec. Apache's mandibles twitched.

"This planet was a great hunting ground for our fathers and ancestors. It would be an honor if we bring it back to it's glory."

232 grinned as only a predator could. His mandibles twitched as they did so. He looked around at the other predators who had gathered near.

"We shall bring greater honor and glory to the hunting than our forefathers, for now there is a more abundant source of prey!"

232 turned to Apache, "Get us there."

Apache nodded and left the room. He returned to the control room and began to set the course to LV-274. Hades turned to 232 and bowed his head slightly in respect.

"Sir, that planet was abandoned by our forefathers becuase they wiped out the Kainde Amedha. We don't have any eggs with us to produce more."

*******************************************

Jennings parked his jeep next to the Odyessus. Climbing out he walked over to a ramp leading inside and headed from the heat into the cool interior. He wanted the ship ready to take off as soon as possible, but with safety as always, number one on the list. He checked with the engine crew, most of the power cells had gone down to only thirty percent and need a lot of time to get back up again.

Jennings left and climbed back into his jeep. He turned around and headed off towards the officers club where he was sure he would find Crawford.

OOC: Shouldn't the banquet start soon?

IC:

Hunter walked back inside the building and began to stroll down a hallway, trying to get a feel for the place. He nodded to a few marines who passed going the other way. Everything here was clean, meticulously so. It was something he hadn't seen for a while; all the sand on LV-467 had made it impossible to keep anyting clean. He wandered back towards the hospital wing to visit the other survivors.

232 sighed slightly as he thought on Hades' words. To not have the eggs now would not be that much of a problem...after all they were after the humans. But after that...

232 made up his mind and nodded to Hades, his mandibles clicking slightly as he spoke, "After this mission, we're going to find some eggs, no matter where they may be in the universe. We will repopulate the planet with our prey, and we shall glorify the ancients like no one ever has before!"

Hades nodded to 232 statement, they would return the planet back to it's original purpose. Apache came back into the room.

"Sir, we are set and will arrive there in a few hours."

232 nodded and the clan went to another room in the ship. Seven veritcal tubes stood along the wall and each Predator climbed into one. The lids slide shut and hissed as they sealed shut. The Predators closed thier eyes and rested as thier ship barreled through space.

********************************

Jennings came out of the officer's club, Crawford over his shoulder. He had found his friend completely drunk and had to wrestle with him to get him outside. He put him in the back of the jeep and climbed in, he drove calmly and spotted Kartion. He parked next to him and picked him up.

Jennings drove over to a low single story building attached to the main complex and parked. He pulled Crawford out and handed him to Kartion.

"Take him inside, he gets a bit crazy when he wakes up after he has had a lot of booze, so watch it. Hunter is probably in the Medical Wing, a dropship pilot named Gomez from LV-467 is there, she should be up and about in an hour."

Jennings turned to a soldier who had come up behind him and talked with him for a few minutes. He turned back to Kartion.

"Well, seems they need me over at your ship...take Alan into the mess hall, and the party should start in about an hour when everyone gets there."

With that, Jennings climbed into the jeep and drove towards the Odysseus.

OOC: Just letting everyone know I'm back.

Crawford sat at one of several long tables in the mess hall, he was completely smashed. The party had started without Jennings and not many people noticed. Steak, roast, rolls, ribs dripping with BBQ sauce was just part of the food, and of course there was beer, lots, and lots of beer. Crawford chugged down his sixth beer, and tore into the ribs on his plate. He looked at Kartion sitting next to him.

"Ya..ya...haven a gut time Kartion?"

******************************************************

Jennings walked into the control room of the ship. He sat down in a chair and looked at the tape recorder. He reached forward and pressed PLAY, after several seconds Crawford's voice came over the speaker:

“In case the power gives out and we don't get home, at least this will be some kind of record on what occurred on LV-467. I landed on LV-467 with some replacement workers and I was to take over security from Captain Moose. I expected another boring assignment…..I was wrong as everything soon went to shit. Most of my old unit was there as part of the marine detachment…the head of Weyland-Yutani Security was Mac Stillwater. Originally part of my unit, till he murdered several of my men on LV-443, he denies it…but I know he did do it.

“A disturbance was detected about fifty miles from the base; it appeared to be some sort of craft crashing down. An investigation by Flight Officer Gomez and her navigator turned up nothing. What landed there was a Predator, different somehow……as though he was captured and genetically altered by man, no doubt by the Company or a group like them.
“The head scientist…a freak by the name of Adams…sent a message to me, asking for a team of marines to explore a cave a few miles away. The team was lead by Corporal Zach Hunter; they located a dead xenomorph hive…..with one egg still alive. They came back with a comrade facehugged by a superfacehugger. Adams and his corporate fuckers tried to save it.

“It was only then we noticed Adams was also doing experiments on Predators…his subject escape and tore the place up. What happened next was a blur, we attempted to hunt down the xenomorph Queen but failed and she escaped somehow. Several hours later….the first xenomorph arrived.

“From then on, xenomorphs and that Predator began to butcher my people. Not many survived. We took the offensive and attacked the hive. Suicide run….most of my people were killed, but the Predator moved in and attacked the Queen. By the time we got to the surface, the two were fighting and Moose and an evac group were at the colony.

“The Pred killed the Queen…..and several more showed up. I don’t know what was going on, but it was then we got a warning on the reactor…..somehow it was going to blow. Moose and his people didn’t get out, only me and the people with me got out. I don’t know about the Predators.

“I’ll finish my cigarette before turning in, it is gonna hurt like hell coming out, but it is worth it. I feel tired all of us do…we just want to sleep. We escaped the nightmare, but how can we escape it when it could be inside one of us? I’m tired….I hope that someone…anyone finds us. This is Captain Alan Crawford…7 Battalion 1st Division, United States Colonial Marine Corps….signing off.”

Jennings reversed the tape and listened again.

"...how can we escape it when it could be inside one of us?"

He listened to it again before letting the tape run it's course and stopping. Jennings saw something in the corner of his eye, he walked over to the corner and picked up a sheet of paper.

His eyes suddenly went wide as he read.

Crawford sat at one of several long tables in the mess hall, he was completely smashed. The party had started without Jennings and not many people noticed. Steak, roast, rolls, ribs dripping with BBQ sauce was just part of the food, and of course there was beer, lots, and lots of beer. Crawford chugged down his sixth beer, and tore into the ribs on his plate. He looked at Kartion sitting next to him.

"Ya..ya...haven a gut time Kartion?"

******************************************************

Jennings walked into the control room of the ship. He sat down in a chair and looked at the tape recorder. He reached forward and pressed PLAY, after several seconds Crawford's voice came over the speaker:

“In case the power gives out and we don't get home, at least this will be some kind of record on what occurred on LV-467. I landed on LV-467 with some replacement workers and I was to take over security from Captain Moose. I expected another boring assignment…..I was wrong as everything soon went to . Most of my old unit was there as part of the marine detachment…the head of Weyland-Yutani Security was Mac Stillwater. Originally part of my unit, till he ed several of my men on LV-443, he denies it…but I know he did do it.

“A disturbance was detected about fifty miles from the base; it appeared to be some sort of craft crashing down. An investigation by Flight Officer Gomez and her navigator turned up nothing. What landed there was a Predator, different somehow……as though he was captured and genetically altered by man, no doubt by the Company or a group like them.
“The head scientist…a freak by the name of Adams…sent a message to me, asking for a team of marines to explore a cave a few miles away. The team was lead by Corporal Zach Hunter; they located a xenomorph hive…..with one egg still alive. They came back with a comrade facehugged by a superfacehugger. Adams and his corporate ers tried to save it.

“It was only then we noticed Adams was also doing experiments on Predators…his subject escape and tore the place up. What happened next was a blur, we attempted to hunt down the xenomorph Queen but failed and she escaped somehow. Several hours later….the first xenomorph arrived.

“From then on, xenomorphs and that Predator began to butcher my people. Not many survived. We took the offensive and attacked the hive. run….most of my people were killed, but the Predator moved in and attacked the Queen. By the time we got to the surface, the two were fighting and Moose and an evac group were at the colony.

“The Pred killed the Queen…..and several more showed up. I don’t know what was going on, but it was then we got a warning on the reactor…..somehow it was going to blow. Moose and his people didn’t get out, only me and the people with me got out. I don’t know about the Predators.

“I’ll finish my cigarette before turning in, it is gonna hurt like hell coming out, but it is worth it. I feel tired all of us do…we just want to sleep. We escaped the nightmare, but how can we escape it when it could be inside one of us? I’m tired….I hope that someone…anyone finds us. This is Captain Alan Crawford…7 Battalion 1st Division, United States Colonial Marine Corps….signing off.”

Jennings reversed the tape and listened again.

"...how can we escape it when it could be inside one of us?"

He listened to it again before letting the tape run it's course and stopping. Jennings saw something in the corner of his eye, he walked over to the corner and picked up a sheet of paper.

His eyes suddenly went wide as he read.

Kartion grinned, drank the rest of the beer in his glass, and got his watch out.

"Erm...8:20PM Alan."

Patting Alan on the shoulder, Kartion got up, and went over to the buffet. Collecting a large amount of barbecue sauced cooked meat, and two beers, Kartion wallked back over to Alan, and set the food next to Alan. He picked up a rib, and started to eat it.

"So, tell me about your friend Jennings Alan."

At another section of the table, Hunter was noisily attacking a mountainous pile of ribs, while simultaneously laughing and joking with the other grunts who survived LV-467. He almost choked as Gomez the dropship pilot delivered the punchline of a joke she'd been telling. Pfc. Andrew Letowski, the only other survivor of Zach's original squad slowly slid under the table, firmly clutching a mug of beer. Zach leaned over and hauled him back upright. "That's the funniest shit I've ever heard," gasped Letowski through fits of laughter. Hunter paused for a minute, thinking, "This is the most fun I've had in a long time." He grinned and slapped Letwoski on the back, causing him to spill beer all over the table, sending everyone into hysterics.

Crawford drained another beer and tore into the ribs and french fries in front of him. He looked at Kartion and wipped his hands and mouth clean with napkin.

"I've known Peter for a long time. We were in grade school together, both of us decided to join the Corps together and were slipt up when I was sent off to do duty on the moon for a few months and he came here. Lost contact with him for a while, and this is the first time we have seen each other in a few years."

Crawford looked down the table to Hunter and the others as they cheered with everyone else. He stood, swaying slighlty, and raised his hand for silence. The room slowly fell silent and Crawford picked up his mug.

"Ladies, Gentlemen...and other carbon based lifeforms. We are here tonight to celebrate the downfall of Weyland-Yutani."

There was cheering and banging on the tables as the people agreed. They soon fell silent again.

"But we must also remember our comrades who have died over the years. So may we all stand and raise our glasses in a toast to our dead comrades. May they rest in peace..........and may Weyland-Yutani rot in hell."

Everyone nodded and drank.

***************************************

Apache woke as his tube opened. He climbed out and shook off the cold liquid droplets off him. He opened his wrist computer and typed out a few commands. The rest of the clan began to awaken and thier tubes began to open. Apache looked up from his computer.

"We are nearly at the planet."

232 was the last to awaken from his tube, and he stepped out of it to see his clan standing before him in a half circle, awaiting his command. He looked each in the eye.

"Get ready. The hunt commences in..."

232 paused to look over at Apache for the time estimate. "Three hours sir."

232 nodded, "Three hours. And be prepared for our prey to fight back..."

The Predators roared in encouragment, their spirits high. 232 grinned only as a Predator could. He stalked past them, heading to the main console and hit a few of the buttons. A hologram spun upward and focused into view.

His finger touched one of the buttons and zoomed into the archives. The mechanical voice spoke "What race?"

"Homo sapiens."

A whir and then a human form is shown.

"What name?"

"Weyland-Yutani"

Another series of clicks and slight sounds was heard as the central computer searched its archives for the company.

"Search indicates one result. Do you wish to review?"

232's finger pressed the holographic "yes" button.

"Weyland-Yutani, private commercial company of homo sapiens. It is believed to be the cause of the rise of the xenomorph population boom on LV-467. Nothing more is known at this time."

232 frowned. Surely his clan had collected more information about the company while on LV-467. Then again...with all the fear and fighting going on...it was quite possible they just couldn't do it in the short time allotted.

232 looked out the window at the distant planet in deep space. It seemed to only be a third of what was really there, the remaining two thirds was cast into darkness, for the light of the sun could not reach that part. He studied a massive storm system that seemed to be moving across the planet. He momentarily wondered if they were going to find themselves hunting while in that storm.

And he wondered if they would succeed in their goal...

Hunter cheered with the rest of the people in the hall. He turned his head as a lieutenant based on LV-274 stood further down the table and banged his mug on the table. The room gradually fell silent again.
"I'd like to raise another toast, to the survivors of LV-467. They went through hell, punched Satan in the mouth and walked out in one piece."
More cheers and backslaps for the survivors followed.

The Predators moved to the weapons room and began to don thier armor and weapons. Apache was the last to enter and stop, flipped open his wrist computer and growled angerliy.

"Heavy weather moving in sir...it will reach our hunting zone in five hours."

The Predator hit a few commands and a holographic image of thier intended hunting ground, near the Lycos and Marine complexes appeared.

"The rain will kill our stealth."

*******************************************

Crawford brought his mug to his lips and froze. His eyes suddenly cleared and his body jerked forward. He fell over, back on the table and began to convulse violently, the hall went quiet as people turned and stared. They thought he was suffering from a seisure, until he began to scream.

His chest began to move upwards, his legs and arms flew wildly in the air, hitting several men who tried to slit his throat, trying to give him a quicker death. Crawford continued to scream and thrash, plates, mugs, and silverware were flung to the ground as the creature inside of him tried to break free.

An audible snapping of the man's ribs and his coat becoming a dark red showed that the creature was almost free. A single green dot appeared on Crawford's head and a gunshot rang out in the hall. A bullet hole appeared in the side of his head, a jet of blood shooting out, more blood and brains casscadied out of the larger hole in the other side of his head. At the same time, his chest erupted like a volcano.

Blood, bones, and flesh burst out of Crawford's chest followed by a long grey, screeching creature. The Queen thrashed and screeched, the warm blood of her host coating her body in a thin film of red. She leapt out of the body and darted towards an air duct. Several marines jumped at her, trying to grab her, but were bitten in the hand or just missed her. The Queen entered the partily open air duct.

The marines in the hall turned to the shooter, Peter Jennings. He stood there, Desert Eagle in hand, his face pale. He lowered it and stood there as his men rushed past him.

The klaxon began to blare...

"Oh s**t!"

Kartion jumped up on the table. Sadly for him, he was 2nd in command.

"People! Listen up!"

When no-one responded, Kartion took the Desert Eagle off Jennings, and fired two shots in the air. Everyone turned towards him.

"Alright people! We have got an xeno running around the air vents! Gear up, and meet back here in ten! The base is now officially locked down! No-one is leaving or entering!" He shouted. Everyone acknowledged him.

Jumping back down from the table, Kartion gave Jennings his Desert Eagle back, and patted him on the shoulder.

F**k me...he's gone!

Finding the intercom, Kartion raised the Control Room to the base.

"Control Room, initiate lockdown procedures NOW! Close up every entrance and exit, and close up any open vents!"

After getting an acknowledgement, Kartion ran down to the armoury, and started to gear up.

232 frowned at the report. He knew that Apache was right. The others would not be able to use their mechanical stealth technology. Even he, himself, would be unable to use his natural stealth ability in the rain.

In other words, the invisible would become visible...

"So we don't have stealth. That means I want each of you to move faster. Use the terrain to your advantage. Last of all..."

232 paused to don his mask, "Strike without mercy."

Jennings woke from his blank stare at his dead friend. Blood flowed from the hole in Crawford's head. Jennings wiped the tears from his eyes and ran to his room. He slapped on armor and a magizine into his rifle. Grabbing a handful of other magizines and ramming his pistol back into it's holster; he rushed down to the armory to find Kartion and Hunter gather weapons and armor.

"Kartion, Hunter."

The two moved over to him as Marines poured out of the room, armed to the teeth and carrying motion trackers. He looked at them.

"Now, I need a none bullshit answer. Was there a time during the fight on LV-467 that Alan was alone? A facehugger could of ambushed him."

**********************************************

Apache finished putting on his armor and collecting his weapons. He put on his mask and locked it in place, there was a hiss as air rushed into it. It was dark for several seconds before he turned on the mask. The clan walked down the halls to another part of the ship as it decended into the sky above the jungle.

The Predators climbed into several long pods. Each pod was marked in the Predator language and could hold only one of the hunters. When they were all in thier pods and secure, they closed. Several minutes later, they were shot down out of thier ship.

John Macready sat on the beach with several of his friends, enjoying the remaining amounts of sun before the clouds covered it up.

"Shit, looks like a storm."

"Yeah, lets go." One of his friends said.

They walked back towards the town and felt the ground tremble beneath thier feet. They paused and took off running, they neared a large crater in the sand, a large tan colored cloud hung in the air.

Macready left his friends and ran around the crater towards the communication shack. He found it in ruins, as though something smashed into it. He found several others helping out the injured communication officer. Macready walked forward to find a long, shiny, strange looking pod in the center.

"What the fuck?"

Several men, armed with pistols, moved forward and touched the cold metal. The pod hissed as gas escaped and it opened. Something jumped out of it and one of the armed men screamed, his hands at his neck, as blood shot out of it. Macready froze as he watched the invisble force kill his friends.

Apache turned and spotted the human through his thermal imagery. He growled and moved across the blood and gore covered shack towards Macready. The man turned and ran like hell towards the beach. He stopped at the crater and looked in, seeing five more of the pods, and his friends trying to open them.

"NO!"

He was too late, the pods flew open and he caught a glimpse of a Predator, before it cut off the head of his friend. Macready turned and ran into the jungle, the screams of his dying friends filling his ears. He didn't stop, he kept running.

Apache moved out of the communication shack and went over to the crater where 232, Hades, and the other clan members. He looked at the carnage below him and then looked at 232.

"The hunt begins."

Jennings woke from his blank stare at his friend. flowed from the hole in Crawford's head. Jennings wiped the tears from his eyes and ran to his room. He slapped on armor and a magizine into his rifle. Grabbing a handful of other magizines and ramming his pistol back into it's holster; he rushed down to the armory to find Kartion and Hunter gather weapons and armor.

"Kartion, Hunter."

The two moved over to him as Marines poured out of the room, armed to the teeth and carrying motion trackers. He looked at them.

"Now, I need a none answer. Was there a time during the fight on LV-467 that Alan was alone? A facehugger could of ambushed him."

Kartion nodded.

"There was. Although I was out for most of it. He went down alone into the depths of the base, to rescue a woman."

Hunter paused from stuffing pulse rifle clips into his pouch. "Yeah, there were a couple of times when he went off by himself," he stopped and looked down. "Shit! If we had just known we could've frozen him and had it removed and destroyed." He grabbed shin plates and began to strap them on. "If we didn't know Crawford had one, how do we know the rest of us are clean?"

232 looked at the dead bodies that lay near them. He picked up the nearest and proceeded to eject the spine and skull of one of the men. He looked up to the fading figure of the soldier.

"Let him go. He'll only stir their nest and bring more for us to kill. Let's go. Get yourselves off this beach."

232 took off into the forest, leaping high into the trees and grasping the trunk of the tree with his talons, his fingers digging into the wood. He settled upon a tree branch, and waited, watching as the man continued to run...

Hades waited patiently until the impact of landing rattled his pod. Judging upon their scan of the area, their presence should be detected by several nearby humans, allowing the hunt to begin as soon as they left their bods. Soon enough, Hades felt something tapping the pod from the outside. It was time.

Activating his cloak, Hades extended his wristblade and stepped forward as the door opened. Immediately searching around the area, heat vision picked up several humans near the other pods and one right next to him. There was no warning besides the horrible roar of some invisible foe to warn the ignorant human before Hades' wristblade passed straight through his throat. Retracting the blade, Hades allowed the human to die and his other companions to make their kills before decloaking.

Taking hold of his trophy, Hades followed 232 up into the trees and activated his cloak once again, awaiting his next prey.

"Well we don't know, I suppose I would be a suspect, I was out for a very long time during the crisis...but still, we don't know. But if anyone does start bursting, don't hesitate, blow the poor sod's chest up."

Hunter finished with his armor and equipment. He turned and looked Kartion straight in the eye. "You save a bullet for me and I'll save a bullet for you," he was deadly serious, "just in case."

Jennings thought over what Kartion and Hunter had said. Outside of killing them and preforming and autotopsy, he couldn't think of another way. Then something struck him that could work.

"Come on... Captain Biehn, get the patrols moving." Jennings barked at another officer.

He lead Kartion and Hunter to the medical wing, doctors and nurses were already preparing new beds and the doctors were checking to make sure thier pistols were loaded. Jennings talked with one of the doctors before leading the pair to another room. A large machine sat in the center.

"Okay, lets try an ultra-sound, it can detect babies, why not chestbursters?"

Kartion took off his gear and climbed on, Jennings pressed a few buttons and a small scanner appeared at Kartion's feet. A blue wall of light appeared and ran the course of his body, when it was finished, the process was repeated with Hunter. The machine clicked and buzzed as it went over the results, the screen soon filled up with numbers and descriptions.

"It looks like you both are clean. It was a rough scan, but it seems at the moment you are both fine."

********************************************

Macready slammed the wet and rotten door of the old church shut. He slide one of the pews to help block it, praying it would work. He walked deeper in to the church, the old floorboards groaning beneath him. It was then he saw something on his knee, three red laser dots. The fuck...

He looked up and screamed, stumbling backwards over a pew. Apache stood a few meters away, not ready to give up his chase. His wrist blades shot out to thier fullest extent, he moved slowly forward, the human scrambling backwards, trying to get away. Apache stopped and turned around, his vision modes flashed in front of him, he stopped at one and snarled.

Macready looked past the Predator's leg and saw something through the window in the trees, something large and black. Oh Jesus, oh Jesus.

Six feet long and seven foot high now, the Queen was growing quickly, the abundance of food aided in her growth. Her large head made it hard for her to move in the jungle, but when she saw the Predator, she couldn't let her enemy survive.

Apache moved out of the church as the Queen moved out of the jungle, the Predator had to take her alive at all cost. He would also need his clan's help. Apache let out a great roar that sent chills down Macready's spin as he cowered in the corner of the church.

To make sure his clan heard him, Apache roared again, this time, the Queen also roared...

232 heard the distinct roar of Apache and immediately exploded from his perch. His stealthed figure was stolen away by the falling rain, but nevertheless, it was a minor setback.

His vision switched randomly between all of the views and suddenly froze with one as he spied a creature he hadn't expected.

The queen stood before Apache, her size amazingly growing quickly as she roared at his fellow predator. 232 whipped out his combistick and thrust it rapidly through the air toward the queen's backside... His net was fired a half second later, it's spread opening wide, hungry for prey to capture...

He moved with startling speed from his position as he circled near the queen, waiting for his next opportune moment to strike with deadly intent...

Kartion sighed and nodded.

"Good. Hunter, you're with me. We're going to sweep the base's perimeter, just in case that god damn queen has made it out somehow..."

Kartion proceeded to put his gear on.

The Queen moved quickly, just barely dodging the deadly net, the sharp edges clipped her tail, the yellowish blood came out as the net hooked into the side of the church. She turned and now was faced by 232, Hades, Apache, and the three other Predator's of the clan appeared out of the jungle.

The Queen roared again and flicked her tail quickly at one of the younger Predators, sending a spray of acid blood at it. The humanoid jumped out of the way, avoiding the blood, as it turned to strike back, the Queen's stinger rammed into it's chest. A shower of florescent green blood shot out, splattering against Hades and 232.

Apache jumped at the Queen, the rain hammering against his mask, trying to get the Queen to move against him and release his comrade. The Queen swung her tail, tossing the bleeding and dying Predator into the church. The rotten wood broke easily and the body landed near Macready. The human scrambled into a corner, away from the creature.

The Queen knocked Apache aside with her tail, tossing the Predator into the mud. Apache stood and stared at the Queen, she would not be taken easily.

****************************************

Jennings looked at Kartion.

"Take a company with you and sweep the southern sector. We have a few dropships flying cover, so you can have some firepower brought down. I'm going to take a company and head west, towards the Lychos facility. We have another company heading east, and another heading north."

Jennings walked outside with Kartion and Hunter.

"These jungles are thick and hellish, watch out for any pits or holes, we had a guy break his leg a month ago when he fell down one. Keep in constant radio contact. Good luck."

With that, Jennings went to his men and headed west through the jungle. Several APCs headed down the roads, and dropships lifted off into the sky as the entire base went into alert.

Every person wanting the same thing, the death of the Queen.

Hunter jogged down a jungle path, alert for any movement. There was no trace of the queen at all: no footprints, no damaged vegitation, it was as if she'd flown away. Hunter glanced up instinctively at the sound of a pair of dropships droning by over the tree canopy. He turned at a rustling in the bushes and nearly blasted the crap out of a small deerlike animal, which turned and sprinted away from him. He took a deep breath to still his heart and looked back at the squad of marines following him. "Anyone have any bright ideas where she might be?"
A silent chorus of headshakes greeted his question, no one had any clue where the queen was.
"Alright, let's finish our sweep and report back to base"

The Queen roared and rushed the Predators, trying her best to break through. Apache fired a net at her feet, the same time her tail swung for Hades. The net wrapped around the Queen's legs, and the tail lashed back, narrowly missing Apache's head. The alien fell and struck the ground, 232 moved forward and struck the creature hard over the head with his combi-stick.

The Queen roared and tried to attack again, this time the Predator hit her harder, knocking her unconisous. The rain hammered the ground and her, washing off the slim that oozed from her mouth.

Apache ignored the rain and moved into the church, the body of his comrade lay on the floor, bright green blood covered several pews and much of the floor. The Predator growled as it saw the mask that his comrade wore was missing, the back door of the church was wide open. Apache moved to the back of the church and flipped through visions, he spotted Macready running through the jungle.

Snarling, he turned back and rejoined his clan. He looked at 232.

"We can now bring back the glory days and make this planet as it was before."

****************************************************

Jennings hated the rain, and now moving through the jungle in the rain he was even more miserable. He heard Hunter over the radio and sighed, the man was right. No one had any idea where the Queen was, as he stared at the ground, he stopped in his tracks.

"Hunter, Kartion....get your asses over here along with your men."

Jennings waited several minutes before Hunter appeared out of the jungle with his men, Kartion arrived shortly after. Jennings showed them what he found. He held what looked like a snake skin in his hand, but on closer inspection, the marines saw it was the Queen chestburster skin.

"The bitch has grown fast. In this weather we have little hope of finding her. We're keeping the dropships in the air, maybe they'll strike it lucky. Hunter, where was the Queen hiding on LV-467? It might help us narrow the search field."

After a few minutes, Hunter and his squad jogged up to Jennings, splashing mud from deep puddles caused by the downpour.
"I don't think I even need to tell you we found absolutely nothing."
Jennings let out an annoyed sigh, "There's no chance of stumbling over her in this weather."
Hunter nodded his agreement and spoke, "That makes me think, on LV-467, the Queen found her way back to the old xenomorph hive where we originally found the chestburster. If there's an old hive within say, 10-15 miles, it's a good bet she'll find here way there eventually."
He glanced around, "Right now the most important thing is to make sure she doesn't capture any hosts, it'll be hard enough dealing with her, we don't need a full xeno hive attacking us."

Hades stood by the other members of the clan, waiting for 232 to announce their next move. The Queen had finally been captured and and was under their control.

Holding onto his combi stick tightly, Hades watched the surrounding jungle, something told him they weren't quite alone.

OOC: Sorry for lack of posting...

232 smiled a wicked smile behind his mask. This queen handn't been that difficult to capture, not with his entire team there to assist. He nodded as he heard Apache's words.

"Yes..." he replied, looking down at the captured Queen, "The glory has already begun..."

He looked around at his clan and noted one was missing.

"We're missing one. Where is he?"

Apache lowered his head slightly, "Dead, sir. And the mask is gone."

232 closed his eyes and opened them several moments later. He looked over at Apache,

"Where did the mask go?"

Right after asking this, he commanded the team, "Get her to one of the breeding grounds of old. Keep her detained inside, and we'll supply her with hosts as soon as possible."

232 beckoned for Apache and Hades to follow him as he headed into the church, now lying in partial ruin from the fighting. He scanned the blood and the chaos and finally the open door that shone the daylight into the small room off to the side of the main altar. 232 narrowed his eyes at this.

"Apache...was there another here?"

Apache nodded to 232's question.

"There was another, a human who escaped me on the beach. He has fled, and most likely with out comrade's mask."

Apache opened his wrist computer and a holographic map appeared.

"There is a Marine base not far from here, a research facility nearby. There are many villages dotting the landscape, finding hosts will be easy. It will also be easy for the human to find help."

*****************************************

Jennings nodded, the weather was clearing up, but forecasts showed a larger front was going to hit them in a couple of hours. He remembered there were several possible places the Queen could hide, but if they took away hosts, she could not make a hive. Jennings keyed his mic and switched to the dropship frequency.

"I need all dropships to evac all civilians they can find to the base or to the Lycos complex. The Queen has evaded...."

Jennings stopped as nearby marine's motion tracker picked up movement.

"Something moving sir, forty meters ahead."

All guns were aimed at the spot as the ferns and leaves shuddered. Macready burst out of the foliage, his face red and his chest heaving. He had run non stop since he left the church, he had gone onto the main road, for a while before diving back into the jungle; hoping to evade those creatures.

The man slammed into Kartion, nearly knocking him over.

"Let me go! Let me go! Let.."

Macready's eyes bulged and his body tensed as he crumpled to the ground. Jennings knealt down and put his fingers to his neck then held the man's wrist, no pulse.

"The guy must of had a massive heart attack."

Jennings noticed something in the man's hands. It took several minutes before he was able to pry the object free.

"We got problems."

He held up the Predator mask.

Hunter's face fell when he saw the mask. "Shit," he frowned and looked down. "They'll be after us within the hour I expect," he kicked a small stone nad glanced up at the darkening sky, "Everybody pray for the biggest electrical storm the universe has ever seen. With a lot of luck, it might short out their cloaking devices."

wtf

Jennings nodded, he hated Predators. He looked up to see the sky clearing slightly, the rain began to fall less and less. Within a few hours, another, much larger storm would hit them. It might be thier only salvation.

"Pity this guy didn't live, he could of told us how many there are. It could be a loner, but then again....he could be part of a clan. Pull back to the base, we'll figure out what to do from there."

Jennings sent the word over the comm channel and the marines fell back to the base.

232 led Apache and Hades through the forest. His eyes were scanning the ground following the apparent path of the fleeing human. He saw through the trees far away the base where the fleeing human had run to.

"There's the humans' base. We shall take care of them later. First, let's get the queen some hosts."

232 followed another barely distinct trail away from the base. Soon, they emerged near a small town, its inhabitants secluded indoors from the rain.

"Get as many hosts as you can. The Queen will be held Northwest of here, about five clicks."

232 moved quickly into the town, bashing down the first door he came to and going inside. Screams were heard before they were viciously silenced by his hand smacking hard across the faces of the humans. The male gave some resistance, but was no match for the experienced leader of the Predators.

Several minutes later, the Predators left the town, quickly moving into the jungle carrying hosts for the Queen. They moved deep into the thick jungle before reaching a crumbled structure that appeared to resemble an ancient temple.

The Predators entered, following stone corridors covered in runes and drawings they reached a vast chamber where a dozen humans were already secured to the stone wall. Apache secured the hosts he had taken to the wall and turned to see the rest of the clan coming behind them.

"The Queen is ready." one of the young Predators said.

Apache nodded, the clan left the temple and headed into the jungle, ready for the prey that would come.

***************************************

Jennings stood with several of his officers, Kartion, and Hunter in the control room, a hot cup of coffee in his hands. He stared at the map of the base and surrounding area. He looked for any possible spots where the Predators could land, but that was quickly washed from his mind when it hit him.

"Fuck.....that is why they are here."

He looked up at the other men in the room.

"They are here to hunt the xenomorphs, beat ya fifty dollars they grabbed the Queen and have her pumping out eggs. We are going to go on the offensive, Hunter, Kartion....you will come with me. We need to find the hive. Any questions?"

***************************************

Nick Boyd woke up, he was attached to the stone wall of some room. He looked around and nearly screamed his head off. His friends and family were also attached to the wall with metal restraints, but they were all unconsious, he would quickly learn they were lucky.

Boyd struggled but to no avail. He turned his eyes to something moving towards him in the darkness. A pale colored egg moved towards him on something like a conveyor belt. He struggled harder and started to scream; he knew what was coming.

The egg stopped in front of him, the four sections of the top slowly peeled back. The fleshy, ooz covered creature inside began to squirm and it's long, bony fingers began to claw at the side of the egg as it slowly crawled out.

The nightmare had begun...

Hades stormed into one of the other huts and looked around at the cowering humans. The only male was a frail old man that simply glared at Hades from an old looking chair. Snarling back at the human, Hades picked up two females and slung them over each shoulder. Hades gave the human a final glance before storming out of the hut and followed the party back to the cave where they fixed up the humans for hosting.

True hunting would begin soon...

The APC moved slowly into the town. It stopped, the side door flung open, and the marines poured out into the deserted street. Jennings looked around, there was no one there, it was completely quiet. He flicked on the light and green laser on his pulse rifle and entered a house.

The house appeared like it had been hit by a tornado; furniture was tossed around, food covered the walls. He carefully walked though, nothing. Jennings exited the house as he saw Hunter and Kartion taking thier men on a sweep. He walked through the street, feeling like he was being watched.

*********************************************

Apache watched the humans from the trees. The rest of his clan was also waiting in the trees. 232 finally gave the signal, and the Predators moved quickly, and carefully in.

Private Jeunet, walking behind the rest of his comrades was the first to die. He suddenly screamed as blood rocketed from his stomach in two long jets. His body thrashed on the wristblades as the dark red liquid gushed out of his mouth. The corpse was thrown into a garbage can as the man's comrades spun and opened fire.

Two more men suddenly were torn from where they were standing as the Predator attack continued.

Private Alonso reloaded her pulse rifle as she backed towards an alley. She froze as something caught her eye.

A long, curved, shiny, slimy head slowly came out into the daylight from the alley. Slime dripped from the quivering lips, before the marine could react the xenomorph had tackled her. She tried to scream, but the gunfire drowned out her cries. The lips pulled back slowly, exposing rows of silver looking teeth, the mouth opened, the tounge flexed its own jaws before diving into the woman's head.

Apache spotted the alien kill the human, he spun and roared. The marines suddenly stopped firing as they took notice of the xenomorph.

Jennings picked up a motion tracker and scanned the jungle, dozens of things were coming towards the town.

"Fall back! Get into the APC!"

The marines quickly retreated and piled in. The APC pulled back and took off down the road, only to be witness by nearly thirty xenomorphs who took off after it.

************************************************

Apache uncloaked and faced his prey. The alien moved on all fours towards the Predator, its tail flickering angerily behind it. The Predator extended his wristblades to thier fullest extent and got into his fighting stance.

As the other clan members moved into the center of town to see Apache about to square off against the Alien, nearly fifty Aliens were moving through the jungle towards them.

232 snarled when he saw the xeno stalking toward Apache. He roared in response to the menacing xeno, and then spoke to Apache, "Fight well, enjoy the fight..."

His monitor beeped and he looked at it. In the tongue of predators, he cursed.

"Look alive...our true hunt has begun..." he commanded, moving to the rooftop of a nearby building. He looked toward the treeline in the distance, and watched as hordes of the prey swarmed forth.

(ooc: how many predators are in the clan right now? I can't remember...)

As the APC sped away, Hunter climbed up and took control of the top mounted turret. He turned it's high powered armor piercing shells against the column of xenos chasing them. He didn't bother to aim, as the aliens covered the narrow road. Soon, trees and bushes and the ground itself melted away in their wake as they were showered with blood from the creatures unlucky enoughto be in Hunter's sights.

Hades gave Apache a quick nod before moving back onto a building, giving the Predator plenty of room to combat the alien whilst he kept a watch out for other aliens. They were coming in strong numbers and this was a good oppurtunity for Hades to prove himself.

Readying his plasma caster and net gun, Hades roared a challenge to the incoming aliens.

Jennings swung the APC into the jungle. The massive vehicle tore through the foliage, trees, leaves, and unfortuane animals were crushed under it's massive wheels. The aliens began to swarm around the vehicle, digging thier claws and tails into the armored giant.

Jennings kept swinging the vehicle, hoping to throw some of the incests on top off. Suddenly a large alien mouth appeared in front of the windshield and smashed through. The drooling mouth and nashing teeth were just inches from his face. Jennings leaned back as far as he could, trying to mantain control over the APC.

"Kartion! Get this fucker off me!"

*********************************************

Apache and the Alien rolled in the mud, both creatures snarling, trying to get the upper hand. The Predator kicked the Alien off him, sending the smaller creature crashing into a house. The Predator leapt to his feet and fired his plasma caster into the house. There was a screech as the alien took the full brunt of the attack.

He spung, shuriken in hand and threw it. The blades sliced through the chest of a leaping alien, a spray of the yellow acidic blood shot out of the wound and the alien was cut in half. He avoided the spray, but just barely. The top of his mask was lightly misted, distorting the shape.

The Predator pulled out his combi stick and braced himself for another attack as more aliens charged him.

******************************************

As 232 prepared himself for the wave of aliens, something larger appeared behind him. The Predator leapt out of the way as a large stinger hit the roof. The stinger pulled back before he got a chance to cut it off. He turned around to see what had attacked him.

Three massive aliens stood before him, twice the size of the warriors. They appeared to be small Queens, but they were not. They were the elite of the alien hive, the Praetorian Guard...

******************************************

A single alien answered Hades's challenge and leapt in front of him. The alien's tail flickered as it jumped at the Predator, it's jaws open wide...

232 snarled in the presence of the Praetorian Guards. He drew his combistick and held it at the ready as he glared between each of the aliens. He turned slightly and fired the plasma caster at the nearest guard, blasting him in the face. The guard stumbled backward slightly, long enough to cause the other two to charge toward 232...

232 roared as he spun into action, slashing the combistick and engaging with the two. Moments later, the third jumped into the fray, adding stress to 232's skilled combat. He roared in response to a hit delivered to his arm, and narrowly missed a tail slashing toward his chest...

Up inside the armored turret, Hunter heard Jennings yelling but there was far too much noise between the guns and the screaming xenos for him to make it out. He was litterally firing at point-blank range, shooting aliens crawling onto the turret. Suddenly, the small glass viewport shattered as an alien claw pushed through. Hunter was hit in the head and recieved a nasty looking cut, but insticively tightened his hands on the trigger, blasting off the xeno's leg. The wounded animal pulled back and fell off the APC when Jennings hit an especially large bump. Now Hunter geld the turret controls in one hand and blasted aliens through the broken viewport with a pistol held in his other hand.
Between attacks through the window, he could see puddles of xeno blood slowly eating through the roof of the APC. He turned for a moment and shouted down into the cabin. "Heads up down there, the roof's not gonna hold!" He looked up into the mouth of a xenomorph whose tongue was inches away from his face. He fired the main gun and was rewarded by a squeal, but not from the xeno in his face. He shielded himself as best he could and fired into its face. A fine spray of acid misted through the turret causing a mild burning on his skin, but he kept his eyes and mouth closed and held his breath, so he was okay. When he dared to open his eyes though, he saw what else the blood had done. As he watched, blood poured from the creatures mouth, and the control panel for the gun melted away. The turret froze up and another xeno quickly pulled the dead one out of the way and reached in to slash at Hunter, but the marine shot it before it could do any damage. He then dropped down through the hatch to the cabin below, sealing it as he landed. "Turret's out of commission."

Jennings swung the APC into the jungle. The massive vehicle tore through the foliage, trees, leaves, and unfortuane animals were crushed under it's massive wheels. The aliens began to swarm around the vehicle, digging thier claws and tails into the armored giant.

Jennings kept swinging the vehicle, hoping to throw some of the incests on top off. Suddenly a large alien mouth appeared in front of the windshield and smashed through. The drooling mouth and nashing teeth were just inches from his face. Jennings leaned back as far as he could, trying to mantain control over the APC.

"Kartion! Get this er off me!"

*********************************************

Apache and the Alien rolled in the mud, both creatures snarling, trying to get the upper hand. The Predator kicked the Alien off him, sending the smaller creature crashing into a house. The Predator leapt to his feet and fired his plasma caster into the house. There was a screech as the alien took the full brunt of the attack.

He spung, shuriken in hand and threw it. The blades sliced through the chest of a leaping alien, a spray of the yellow acidic shot out of the wound and the alien was cut in half. He avoided the spray, but just barely. The top of his mask was lightly misted, distorting the shape.

The Predator pulled out his combi stick and braced himself for another attack as more aliens charged him.

******************************************

As 232 prepared himself for the wave of aliens, something larger appeared behind him. The Predator leapt out of the way as a large stinger hit the roof. The stinger pulled back before he got a chance to cut it off. He turned around to see what had attacked him.

Three massive aliens stood before him, twice the size of the warriors. They appeared to be small Queens, but they were not. They were the elite of the alien hive, the Praetorian Guard...

******************************************

A single alien answered Hades's challenge and leapt in front of him. The alien's tail flickered as it jumped at the Predator, it's jaws open wide...

"Oh sh*t ..."

Unholstering a Katana, Kartion ran to the front of the APC, but kept quiet, to not alert the Alien. He thumbed the door, and it opened to reveal the Alien, with it's mouth opening in front of Jennings.

"Oh. Easy."

Suddenly, Kartion propelled himself and skidded across the floor. Mustering all his strength, he swung upward...

...And sliced through the Alien's head. The Alien held it's posistion for a few seconds, before the head fell off onto the floor. Kartion kicked the remains of the Alien out of the cabin, and the APC bumped slightly as it ran over the Alien.

Kartion turned to Jennings, and put a hand on his shoulder.

"You alright mate?" He asked.

Jennings didn't have time to thank Kartion, he simply nodded he was alright. The same didn't go for the controls, many had had at least a drop of the xenomorph's blood land on it and it was enough to fry several of the controls. His flesh had thankfully escaped being hit at all by the deadly blood.

He heard Hunter report the loss of the turret on the roof. Jennings cursed as the APC bulldozed through the jungle. He looked on ahead and spotted the ground suddenly stop.

"Oh shit. HOLD ONTO SOMETHING!"

The APC's momentum was too great to stop. Before Jennings could apply the brakes, the several ton armored vehicle launched off the cliff and plunged thirty feet towards the green waters of a lake below.

The APC hit hard, tossing everyone and everything inside around. Huge columns of water rocketed into the air, it floundered for several seconds before plunging down. Jennings and Kartion scrambled out of the driver's area and Jennings sealed the door, slowing down the flooding.

Several seconds later, the APC hit the bottom of the lake before everything seemed to calm down. Some water dripped down from the roof where alien blood had hit, but thankfully there was no more leaking.

"Dutton, take a look at Hunter."

A medic walked up to the marine, sat him down, pulled out his med kit and began to help his injured comrade.

"Well, I think you should all know this, we are about fifteen to twenty five feet under water. Kartion, Hunter...you guys know how to swim?"

*******************************************

The Praetorian trio continued to spear, slash, and bite at 232. The Predator continued to fight valiently, trying to hold off the massive creatures. A tail swung at 232's feet, knocking him over. A Praetorian raised his stinger high, ready to finish off the clan leader.

The stinger smashed into the soft ground a mere inch from 232's head. The large alien stumbled as another plasma round smashed into its side. The alien fell on it's side, not dead, but temporaly out of commision.

Apache's plasma caster cooled off after his two shots at the massive beast. He pulled out his net gun, fired, a leaping alien fell to the net. Apache quickly plunged his combit stick into the alien's head, killing it instantly. He pulled out one of his shuriken and hurled it at another attacking alien, severing it's head.

The Predator watched as the rest of his clan fought off dozens of the dark horde, he knew they could win, but if the battle turned in favor of the aliens; each Predator could destory itself, and everything in a several mile radius.

Apache went back on the defensive as he was assaulted by more aliens...


The two remaining Praetorians went back on the attack against 232 as they saw more of thier smaller brothers attacked Apache...

Hunter wiped blood out of his left eye. He'd caused quite a commotion among the marines when he dropped down from the turret with blood streaming down his face.
He turned and blinked at the medic approaching him. "It's not as bad as it looks, simple cut on my forehead."
Dutton pulled out some gauze pads and tape and quickly had a bandage over the gash. He pulled out a syringe and gave Hunter a quick shot of blood to replace what was now mixing into the water on the floor, giving it a rusty tint.
Hunter stood up and looked at Jennings. "Swimmings one thing, swimming up 25 feet carrying weapons and gear is another. We're gonna have to lighten our loads." He stopped for a second as another thought hit him. "And as far as we know the water's full of Xeno's."
He held up his personal handgun, and looked around. "Does anyone else have a weapon they can fire underwater?"

A single alien answered Hades's challenge and leapt in front of him. The alien's tail flickered as it jumped at the Predator, it's jaws open wide...

Hades' quick reaction saved his life as the younger Predator fell back onto his rear end as he extended a combi stick, planting one end firmly in the ground and rolling out of the way as the Alien landed on the other end, quickly sliding down the metallic shaft.

The Alien hissed and attempted to swipe at Hades yet he was smart enough to know not to get near the acidic blood. Withdrawing a shuriken, Hades promptly detatched the Alien's head and salvaged what was left of his combi stick.

The youth rawed, his first Alien kill for the night.

Jennings shook his head.

"Outside of the pistols, none of our weapons shoot underwater. The United Systems Military's Lacrima 99 can though. Right, gather what weapons that you can carry while still swimming, we are gonna have to risk going out there. We gotta ditch our armor though."

With that, Jennings shed his battle armor and began to collect some weapons.

*********************************

The aliens began to roar in unison and ran back into the jungle. The three Praetorians ran after thier bretheren, one limping behind. The clan slowly came back together, all forming around Hades. Apache gave the young one a slap on the back as he looked at the alien corpse.

"You have now completed the Kainde Amedha Chiva young one."

The clan began to congradulate Hades on his first alien kill, they didn't noticed one of thier kind was missing...


ooc: Kainde Amedha Chiva means 'hard meat trial' aka xenomorph hunt

232 walked up from outside the circle that had surrounded Hades. As he approached, the clan split apart to allow him access to Hades. He stopped, peering down into Hades' eyes, silence filling the group. No opinion mattered more than 232's at the moment, and they all waited to see what he would say. Finally, at long last, he grinned and held Hades' shoulder with one of his hands,

"You have done well Hades..."

He turned away and knelt down to the corpse of the Alien that Hades had killed only minutes before. He took hold of its hand and snapped a finger cleanly off with a brutal strength. Standing, he turned and went back to Hades, handing him the finger that oozed alien blood off the end.

"You have earned your mark of passage. Mark your forehead and your mask's forehead, and the passage shall be complete!"

Hades nodded at Apache as he recieved congratulations. It was a sign of honour to have veterans such as him approve of his actions.

"Thankyou Apache, I have learned well from those around me."

Silence filled the air as 232 approached, looking down at the young Predator. Hades kept 232's stare, yet remained respectful to the clan leader. Finally the leader offered his own praise and Hades offered a few words of thanks before taking off his mask.

232 approached Hades once again with the Alien finger and pressed it into his hand. Knowing what to do next, Hades took the finger and placed the bloodied end against his forehead, tracing out well known symbols of the kill. The acidic blood burned into his flesh, creating an obvious tattoo. He then repeated the process upon his mask.

With the ritual complete, Hades raoared into the night sky as he flexed mandiblades, happy to finally of made his first Alien kill.

Apache felt a rush of pride flow through his body as he watched Hades mark himself. He remembered when the Predator had first joined the clan when he was in command. The Predator looked around, he noticed one of thier members was missing.

Apache moved off from the group, flipped through his visions before reaching the spot where he last saw the Predator. He knealt on the ground, his fingers digging into the mud he found what he was looking for. He pulled out the muddy hunting mask and looked off into the jungle. The Predator roared angerily and moved back to the rest of the clan.

"The insects have taken one of our numbers."

232's face changed from that of a proud leader to one of a very angry leader. His eyes blazed as he glared at Apache.

"We're going after him. Now. None are to rest until our comrade is either back with us, or his body with us. Understood?!"

The roars of agreement penetrated the air around them as they took off into the forest, following the numerous trails of the aliens...

Jennings surfaced from the water, gasping for air. Other heads began to appear nearby and he smiled as he counted all were here. The marines swam to the edge of the lake and climbed out, weapons at the ready. Many had shed thier armor so they could get to the surface easier, Jennings only wore his fatigues, boots, and carried a Desert Eagle and incinerator.

He flipped the starter flame at the end of the incinerator on and lead his group single file into the jungle.

**********************************************

Apache tore through the jungle with his clan. The group was moving fast, trying to catch up to the aliens. The group didn't pause or stop for anything, they were deterimend to get their comrade back. Apache felt for several seconds that the hunt was cursed for some reason, maybe the Gods were not pleased with the clan; yet they seemed to favor them for Hades was able to make his first alien kill.

The clan continued to move through the thick foiliage before stopping, they had found thier clan mate; at least it appeared to be the Predator. Bright green blood was splattered over the surrounding trees and ferns, strips of Predator skin hung limply from branches, and Apache bent down to find several fingers.

It didn't take long for the clan to find the remains of the legs and arms. The Predator's wristblades and wrist computer were the only parts that were intact.

Apache roared in anger, the aliens would pay for this.

**********************************************

Just over a mile away, one of the aliens lifted its head as it heard Apache's roar. The alien's claws were drenched in green blood, as was it's mouth. The alien watched the tails of the other aliens in his pack moved swiftly through the jungle, between them they carried the armless and legless Predator...

Hunter walked through the jungle almost silently, leaning forward and holding his handgun at the ready. Like Jennings he had ditched his armor and pulse rifle but he still had his alloy steel knife, which was resistant to xenomorph blood, and a bandolier of grenades across his chest. Without warning, a blood chilling roar echoed through the trees. All the marines immediately tensed up, but it was ecident that the roar had come from a ways off. They continued to make their way following Jennings back towards the base. Walking near the middle of the line, Hunter silently counted the marines in front and behind him. It was startling to learn that out of the force sent out, only 16 marines were left.

Hades followed the remainder of his clan as they charged into the jungle, in pursuit of the Aliens that had taken one of their comrades. Upon hearind Apache's roar, Hades made his way to the source of the sound to find green blood splattered everywhere.

Further investigation revealed all four limbs and some of the Predator's equipment. There was nothing more they could do for their comrade, he was as good as dead.

Of course, they would avenge his loss...

Jennings paused and crouched low in the ferns. He looked behind him and motioned for Hunter to get next to him. Jennings looked at Hunter when the man got up to him.

"Okay, I want you to take half the men. Keep going straight and get back to base. I'll lead the other half back, but by a different route. Get moving."

********************************************

Apache had seen the humans, though they were far off, he began to quickly make his way over to them. He hadn't checked if the clan was following him. Now, hiding several meters above thier heads in a tree, the cloaked Predator watched two humans talking together; obviously they were the leaders.

Apache readied himself, there were no aliens at the moment, so the humans would have to do for now.

He scanned the group slowly before chosing his target, the marine called Hunter.

Hunter continued along with seven other marines, walking as much in a straight line as he could manage. He tried to take bearings on the sun when he could see it through the dense trees. Once, while glancing up through a gap, he thought he saw a shadow moving, but when he stopped and searched the canopy with his eyes, there was nothing. Probably just a monkey, he thought, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching him. The hand gripping his pistol tightened a bit with each noise of movement. He reached up with his left hand to and ran it over the grenades on his chest, like a child reaching for a favorite teddy bear. During brief water break, Hunter saw a flicker of something in the trees again. This time he was sure it wasno monkey. He told the other marines with him what he'd seen and they all continued on, instinctively checking theri weapons, making sure they were primed to fire at any moment.

Hades sat within the dense canopy above the soldiers, opposite to Apache. Below them were a squad of humans, all looking particularly tense. Hades wasn't sure if the humans knew they were being watched, but by the way they patted their weapons and looked around warily, they probably knew something was out there.

Hades flicked open his wrist pad and began keying in a few instructions. Within seconds his plasma caster sprung to life and followed the triangle of dots used to aquire targets. With the stroke of a finger, Hades fired upon one of the humans...

232 lay low in the bushes off to the side of the human group making their way forward on their path. He glanced up to where Hades and Apache were perched in the trees and watched as a single plasma shot was fired rapidly unto the humans. At that very moment, he leapt out of the foliage and moved rapidly.

Seconds later, as he swept past the man, the man at the end of the line collapsed to the ground, dead. The man died unable to utter a single sound. His gun fell away into the undergrowth, hidden from sight.

If any were to look behind them, they would not have seen 232, for he was back into hiding, tracking...waiting. Moments later, he exploded from his position and took down another unsuspecting man at the end of the line...

The deafening roar from 232 finally shattered the silence of the forest, and the entire clan exploded from the forest, all eyes filled with deadly intent as they brought out their weapons to bear...

The whole line of Marines was stunned into motionlessness for a moment when the first soldier took a plasma shot through the chest. Then they were scrambling for cover. Hunter's head whirled as the two men at the end of the line were cut down by something moving too fast to make out clearly. In a matter of seconds, his 8 marine patrol had been reduced to 5. As the entire predator clan moved out of the trees into plain view, surrounding the marines. One soldier, acting quicker than anyone else, raisd his handgun to fire, but was cut down by a shuriken before he could get a shot off. Hunter and the other three survivors crouched back to back.
Hunter stared into the eyes of the mask nearest to him. "Some fucking hunt," he shouted, "All of you with your fancy shit against marines with knives and handguns." He pulled out his knife and switched his gun to his left hand. "You think you're so fucking smart," Hunter threw his gun at the feet of the Predator. "The bugs'll get your ass too."
The Pred glanced down at the gun while keeping a firm grip on his combistick. The plasma cannon followed his head downward. "Go ahead," Hunter kept yelling, "kill me." He held his hands out to his sides and let the knife dangle from his fingers. As the pred's head came back up, a trio of red dots danced over Hunter's chest. "I'll be laughing when they seal you in with that egg."

Apache stared at the human telling him to kill him. The Predator started to laugh as it zeroed in on Hunter. Hunter looked through the cloaked Predator to see a blurry figure emerge, Jennings.

Jennings fired a jet of flame from his incinterator at Apache, the Predator roared and fired its plasma shot over Hunter's head and striking a branch. Apache jumped up into the trees, part of his armor was burning and giving away his position.

The rest of the marines came out of the jungle, firing thier weapons into the trees and into the brush, trying to force the Predators back. Jennings kept sending sheets of fire into the jungle, some began to catch and the marine relized he had started a forest fire. No matter, it would rain soon and put out much of it.

"Hunter! Get your ass moving!"

Hunter lead his remaining marines over to Jennings and the group began to retreat, using thier motion trackers to help with thier fire.

**************************

Apache growled and looked at the growing fire beneath him, he knew they had pull back. He looked over at 232 who was in another tree.

"We must pull back and tend to our wounds. There will be another time to hunt."

Zach reached up and felt singed hair where the plasma blast had passed over his head. It was unreal, he had come within 2 inches of instant death, and here he was, still alive.
"Hunter, get your ass moving!"
With a jerk, he responded to Jennings command and ran forward, scooping up his handgun as he went. Later, as the marines jogged into the clearing outside their base, Hunter walked up to Jennings. "Umm, I don't want this to sound awkward but, thanks for the save back there," he paused uncomfortably, "If you hadn't gotten there right then. . . ." Hunter trailed off.
"You owe me one Kid." Jennings grinned as he walked through the gate.
"Don't worry," Hunter muttered, "I'm sure I'll have an opportunity to pay you back."

"Find a place safe for us. We will draw up a new attack plan when we get there."

232 headed off through the forest, keeping all senses alert and scanning carefully around himself with his different visuals.

Jennings nodded to Hunter as the marines slowly made thier way back into the base. The marines walked into the command center, several men walked forward and gave them hot mugs of fresh coffee. Jennings drained half of it in a few short seconds and he quickly refilled his mug. He drank more and turned to Hunter.

"Right, we got a whole planet of those insect fuckers...we are strandedm, and we got Predators to deal with. They seem to be in the middle of a war and we are sadly stuck in the middle. Now, the ship needs a bit more time for repair and we are safe here in the base. We have several options open to us...dump every bit of napalm we have around this base and clear the area of those things. Next is to do patrols. But, that would waste life. You have any ideas in that melon of yours?"

******************************************

Apache lead the clan to a cave ten miles away from the marine base. They put up several compact sensors to watch the entrance as they went deeper into the cool darkness. They stopped, the cave clear of any hostiles.

Apache lit a small fire and removed his mask and armor. He looked over the damage, nothing he could fix later. The Predator flexed his mandibles and looked at 232.

"After we rest and feed, shall we chase the humans or the aliens?"

"That napalm idea sounds good to me," Zach reached up and ran his fingers over the new scar forming on his forehead. "Quick and clean, even if it doesn't kill em all, it should buy us enough time to finish repairs, and then we can just nuke the whole area from orbit." He took a gulp of coffee, "I've spent enough time playin hide and seek with xenos to not wanna ever do that again." He drained his mug and wandered off towards the mess hall, where he could be heard arguing with the food preperation machines. "You're not brewin it strong enough, put three times as many grounds into it." Th machine beeped, whirred and finally deposited a steaming mug of coffee that people could smell from across the room. Zach sniffed in the steam and took a sip, "Now that is coffee."

232 took out his own medical kit and opened it, addressing his wounds. Upon Apache's question, he spoke,

"Let's take a vote. Those in favor of the humans, raise your hands. Those in favor of the xenos, keep your hands down."

Hades kept his hand down as he believed avenging their fallen comrade was more important. They could always pursue the humans later and exact their own vengence.

The Predator examined his gear and checked for injuries as he waited for the impending decision.

Jennings smiled and nodded to Hunter's agreement. As he issued the order, his nose twitched. He went over and found Hunter drinking his coffee. Jennings looked at the dark liquid in his cup and poured it into the trash. He did what the other marine had done and took a sip.

"Oh shit...that is good fucking stuff. Now, those Predators. From what Crawford's tape said the leader was different...almost liked it was changed. Now, what can you tell me about it...if anything. Strength, speed...and other stuff."

Outside, they heard a rumbling.

************************************************

None of the Predators rose thier hands and they tended to thier wounds, recharged thier stealth and engery weapons. It was clear, they would attack the Aliens, then deal with the humans. Apache got up and moved to the entrance of the cave as a dropship roared past and dropped several large bombs.

The explosions tore away the rich jungle as dozens of trees and foliage was uprooted. Several more dropships joined, this time they began to deposit practically every bomb they had in the jungle surrounding the base.

The rampaging fire from the napalm soon began to consume the surrounding forest. Apache watched from the cave as large clouds of smoke began to obscure the human habitation.

He turned and headed back into the cave.

"We shall be in luck if our prey attacks the humans, they are destorying the forest...and creating a blanket of smoke. Perfect cover."

"I don't know much about it, I just know that it took down a xeno queen single handed." Hunter paused to sip his coffee. "Apparantly it was genetically altered by company scientists, I don't know what they did to it but they pumped it up even more than those things are in the first place." He shuddered, "It's not something you wanna come across in a dark alley, know what I mean?"

Jennings thought as he heard what Hunter was saying about this Predator. A cook walked into the room and put a plate of doughnuts on the table as several more marines walked in and began to fill thier stomachs. Jennings picked up a bear claw and started to munch on it.

"We're in the middle of a god damn war. Hunter...we have several hundred marines vs possibly several thousand aliens. There are about a half dozen Predators out there. Maybe I am getting nutty or maybe we got a good chance at surving."

Jennings took another bit of the bear claw and looked at Hunter.

"We make the Predators, our allies."

OOC:In honor of this RP, I have made this little pic. And don't bash me for it, this is my first one!
http://img228.exs.cx/img228/4820/hvp8kt.png (http://www.imageshack.us)
Perhaps I'll read up on this RP later, but I'm keeping busy with HvP.

232 stood at the entrance and peered out into the downpouring rain at the billows of smoke that were in the distance.

"Stay here. I'm going to check out what's happening." he commanded and took off into the forest below...

Sgt. Hopkins studied his motion sensors outside of the base. The recent air assault had confused the sensors and he now worked to try and get them back to normal. His sector was quiet, until something entered his region.

He switched to video feed and soon he saw a blury shape moving through the clouds of smoke. He gluped down his coffee as his fingers flew over the keyboard. He hoped the first line of defenses would bring the Predator down.

****************************************

232 soon left the lush forest for a field of grey and black ash. Burnt out trees dotted the wasteland. His foot crushed the bones of a small animal, nothing had survived. Off to his left he spotted burnt corpses of several xenomorphs. He walked over to the creatures and looked down into a wide river bed, it was littered with carcasses. Some had been burnt from thier black color to an almost white color.

He turned from the sight and continued through the smoky terrain, unaware of he was about to walk into a trap.

The Predator unknownly stepped on a small mine. Instead of blowing 232's foot off, it sent a message to a smal weapon concealed in a fake tree stump. A small gun rose and fired a dart attached back to the gun by a small wire.

The dart smacked into a the Predator's exposed flesh between his armor plates and sent a massive 15,000 volt of electircty through the creature. 232 roared in anger for several seconds before he felt another jolt, slighlty smaller this time. The Predator finally crumpled to the ground and his world went black.

****************************************

Jennings turned as the sound of pounding feet reached him. Hopkins smiled.

"We got the bastard sir, in the lab."

Jennings looked at Hunter and the trio ran down the hall towards the labatory.

Inside the white labatory was a large apparently glass containment pen. The walls reached the ceiling with was nearly fourty feet high, too high for the Predator to jump. Jennings walked to the first of four seperate layers of the clear barrier and stared at the form inside.

Devoid of his armor and all his weapons and gear, 232 was naked spare for something that resembled a loin cloth around its waist.

Jennings turned and looked at a scientist named Flanagan.

"Can it get out?"

"No, not unless it has a plasma cannon, which it does not...or alien blood to melt through. It cannot escape. We have all the weapons over here."

Flanagan showed the marines a long table with 232's weapons and gear. Jennings was pleased that the wrist computer that housed the self-destruction device was off the creature, the same with the wristblades. He picked up the mask and looked at it.

Jennings walked back to the outer barrier wall and stared through four more clear layer barriers before his eyes fell on the form several meters away.

Jennings looked at the Predator.

"What the hell are you?"

"What the hell are you?"

The voice came through the multi-layered panels as distorted slightly. 232 snapped his mandibles at the man on the other side, his eyes full of hate. He hated the laboratory back when he had been experimented on, and this place looked all too similar.

He spoke in his alien tongue, indistinguishable to the humans that now stood on the other end of the glass, safely, yet visibly hiding from him.

"You will die for this!" he said, locking his eyes with Jennings.

Jennings stared at the Predator and began to shed his armor. He took off all his weapons, making sure that everything was gone. With no weapons or armor, Jennings walked up to the first barrier.

"Open it."

"Sir? I..." Flanagan started.

"Do it."

The scintist gave a nod and a section of the wall slid up. Jennings walked through and the wall closed behind him with a hiss. The human stared at the Predator and slowly started walking back and forth between the narrow corridor between the first and second barrier. The Predator's eyes followed him and Jennings finally stopped and stared back.

"You have no idea what I am saying, I have no idea what you are saying...but I think we can agree on the common enemy. Xenomorphs....uh...big black insects. One killed one of your clan, the Queen I presume."

Both stared at each other. Jennings nodded. "Nod...do what I do if you understand."

232 remained where he stood, his large muscular form still imposing psychologically, even without his armor. He listened as Jennings spoke and began to translate the meanings of the human's words.

"You...I...common enemy...xenomorphs...Queen..."

232 growled lowly as he began to understand the human's speech. His mandibles clicked quietly, yet dangerously.

He nodded.

Jennings smiled slightly, it appeared the Predator had some understanding English. He turned back to the door and it slid open and he stepped out into the more open lab area. He turned to Hunter.

"Looks like we have a friend...question is, can we trust him. What do you think?"

All the other scientists had turned thier backs to the barrier, all absorbed in the Predator's exotic weapons.

Hunter rubbed his chin where stubble was beginning to grow, "That's the billion dollar queation isn't it." He turned to look through the glass at the Predator which stared back at him, unblinking. "On the one hand, we have to assume it's smart enough to realize the xeno's are a geniune threat, and that we can kill them by working together. But on the other hand, we've captured him, stripped him of all his gear and stuck him in a glass cage, If I was him, I'd do whatever I thought would get you to let me out." He ran his hand over the new scar on his forehead, "I think we can trust him for now, but what happens after we beat the xeno's?" Hunter turned to look at Jennings again. "After the "common enemy" is gone, we're just another hunting trophy." He downed what was left of his coffe and turned back toward 232. "You really are one ugly son of a bitch."

Jennings nodded and looked at the caged Predator before turning back to Hunter.

"Agreed, but...at the moment we are going to try and talk with him. Try to work out a possible way to work with it. Will it turn against us after the battle? I dunno...maybe it will..maybe it won't. His speices likes bravery and victory..like the bedous. So..shall we go meet our new friend?"

**************************************

Apache stood at the mouth of the cave before heading back in to the rest of his clan. He looked at Hades.

"Our leader has taken too long, we must go search for him."

Hades nodded at Apache, grabbing his gear and fitting to himself once again. Sure that everything was in place, Hades replaced his mask and turned to Apache.

"Let us investigate what has happened?"

"Might as well." Hunter turned as Jennings opened the first of the five barriers and stepped through. "Just a sec," Hunter reached down and removed his handgun from his belt. He then reached up and unstrapped the bandolier of grenades, leaving only the knife hanging on his hip. "Who knows," he said to Jennings, "it might influence things, it might not." He stepped inside the barrier and it closed behind them. The two marines patiently worked their way through until they stood in front of the last door. "I think we're about to find out if we can trust him." The door slid open and Hunter instinctively took in a breath of air as the Predator stood a few feet away.

232's eyes were sharp and powerful in their gaze as he watched the humans make their way through the different layers. He noted that they closed the layers behind them. (OOC: I'm having a deja-vu feeling...I think I had this as a dream long ago...) He did not attack as they approached, for they came armed not at all, or only one item or two.

Finally, they ventured through the last door and stood in the doorway. 232's breathing could be heard for it echoed in the small containment room. He studied the men, some he recognized from planet where he had killed the Queen, others he did not. Those that had met him before, or had been on the last planet, he found to be courageous to even dare to come near the well known brutal Predator, perhaps the most deadly Predator to live, thanks to his enhancements.

232 waited completely still, his arms at his sides, his mandible no longer clicking together, but locked into place. He blinked, and stared directly at Jennings.

The humans and the Predator stared at each other for several minutes. Jennings began to size up the Predator as best he could. He knew the creature was a hunter, skilled at killing, and very skilled with hand to hand combat. He finally drew a deep breath before speaking.

"Members...of your clan...where are they?"

Jennings knew he needed to know where the other Predators were. He didn't want them knocking on his door with plasma casters.

***********************************************

Apache and Hades left the cave, leaving the other members of thier clan to wait for thier return. The pair cloaked themselves and moved down through the jungle and quickly arrived at the border between the lush jungle and the wasteland.

Apache lead Hades down to the riverbed and the pair quickly passed the pile of xenomorph corpses. The pair moved past the pile and stopped, moved to the edge of the bed and looked over.

Apache made several scans of the buildings, trying to pick up 232. He only found a faint trail. The Predator snarled.

"They have our leader, are you ready to free him?"

The metallic chime of Hades' combi stick extending was plenty answer for Apache. Crouching next to his companion, Hades watched the buildings through his mask as well, making out the faint trace of their leader.

"Of course I am ready. Glory to our clan and death to the humans!"

232 heard Jenning's response, but took his time to analyze what was said before finally replying.

"Clan. Near. Far." he replied, as his mandibles attempted to speak the English language. He wasn't used to it, preferring to remain with the language of Predators. Nevertheless, communication was working...

232 thought to himself after replying, thinking about several things at once.

Jennings stood in silence, the damn things just spoke English. He had heard of rumors and just thought they were rumors. Jesus, what happened to this thing?

Before Jennings could respond a franic man ran into the lab.

"Major Jennings! The Preds are on the attack! The fuckers have already crippled the Odysseus's engines with plasma casters."

"Alright, get the men inside."

Jennings walked out of the pen where 232 was, walked over to the table and returned. Jennings tossed 232 his gear.

"We need you to get your clan to stop attacking. Can you do that?"


*******************************************

Outside, Apache plunged his combi stick into a female marine's chest. Blood erupted from her mouth like a gyser before coming back down and turning her face red. The Predator jumped on top of a crate as another marine opened fire at his cloaked form with his rifle.

Apache snarled and hurlted his spear at the man. The marine screamed as the force of the spear carried him into the wall of a building. He kicked and screamed, blood flowing freely from his mouth. He finally stopped moving and went limp.

Apache fired another three plasma shots at the human ship. Hades and him had already sent several volleys into it, and now the Predator was happy the humans were not getting off the planet.

Apache pulled out his shuriken and continued the slaughter.

As soon as the words were out of the scientist's mouth, Hunter moved quickly to a table and picked up the weapons and armor he had set aside. As he strepped on the last bit of armor and picked up his pulse rifle he glanced up and saw 232 finishing putting on his own equipment. The predator looked at Hunter for a moment, his face hidden behind the mask. Hunter pulled on his helmet and grinned at the predator.
"You know, it's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I don't entirely trust you." Finished with his contradiction, Hunter motioned towards the door. "Go outside, talk with your people, or whatever you call them." He became very concious that he was pointing the muzzle of his pulse rifle at 232 and quickly directed it towards the floor. He didn't want to threaten 232, but he wasn't about to go anywhere without his weapons.
He glanced at Jennings, the thing seemed to understand him, and the blank look Hunter was getting didn't seem very promising.

232 looked at Jennings and donned his armor. The armor alone seemed to enhance his fearsome appearance by tenfold, enough to make even the hardiest of men think about having to control their bladders.

He strode past and made his way toward the commotion. Jennings and the other humans followed at a distance, still wary of the Predator.

He came around a corner, just as a man was thrown to a nearby wall and died with a combistick deep in his torso.

He spoke in his native tongue, "Cease your fighting. We have a new situation."

Hades picked up an unsuspecting human by the neck and launched him across the room, the snapping of his neck echoing around the room. Yanking his combi stick out of another dead marine, he moved forward, gracefully bring the stick around to slice and dice through the humans.

The cloaked Predator was about to unleash several plasma shots into a group of humans when 232 appeared and commanded the Predators to stop. Complying with his leader, Hades diactivated his cloak, appearing behind several marines, startling them off their feet.

232 watched as Apache finished off a final human and then obeyed his command. He turned his head to greet each of the Predators that appeared from their locations, their cloaking devices disengaging. Once they were there, he spoke,

"The humans wish to survive against the Aliens, who have been giving them grief. Normally, I'd let them die, and continue hunting. However, we are only a small clan, and there are hundreds of them out there. The humans will benefit us as allies. We shall collect our trophies as usual, but you are not to harm the humans, except in situations that they attack you."

He paused for a moment, then spoke once more, "In that case, we'll kill them and collect more trophies from them as well."

232's eyes gave a wicked look, as only could be found in the eyes of a Predator. However, because of his mask, his eyes were seen by no one.

Dozens of marines suddenly surrounded the Predators. Jennings quickly ran forward and blocked their line of fire.

"No shooting. These are our allies."

Many of the marines lowered thier weapons quickly, several it took several seconds for his command to register before they lowered thier guns. Jennings sighed and turned back to 232.

"Queen...where is she?"

232 turned and looked at the terrain, before pointing to the Northwest.

"Queen. Far."

He watched the marines out of the side of his eye. He noticed that several of the Predators had moved to a defensive stance, but relaxed slightly as the marines did so. He turned to Jennings,

"Man have weapons?" he asked.

After coming outside, Hunter had moved to the marines lying on the ground, to see if any were only wounded. He didn't find any, the Preds had done a pretty thorough job. "Man have weapons," he muttered, "what the fuck does he think this is?" Hunter glanced at a marine next to him and slapped his pulse rifle.
As Jennings and 232 struggled to communicate, Hunter looked around at the other predators, noticing how they seemed to have no casualties at all, compared with the two dozen or so marines lying on the ground.

Jennings looked at Hunter and shrugged.

"We do our best with what we got. At least he understands some of our lingo."

The human turned back to the Predator, his head angled slightly up so he could see the mask.

"We..have weapons. Can...you....show us...where the....Queen is?"

**************************************

Approaching through the jungle at a rapid pace, the whole floor of the jungle was a sea of black xenomorph bodies...

Hades remained still as 232 and the human leader attempted to communicate. He didn't particularly like this situation, but he would obey the orders of his clan leader.

Some of the humans continued to look at the younger Predator, causing Hades to return with a low growl.

Hunter turned his head to look at Hades, "Yeah, I don't really like you either." He didn't particularly like the situation, but he would follow Jennings's orders. "That's one to watch," he muttered to the private next to him, "If one of them's gonna turn, it'll be him."

232 turned his head sharply as he felt the trembling of the earth, as slight as it was. He snarled and spoke, "Warriors come. War come. Honor hunt."

He naturally changed his camoflague and moved to a higher location, to scout out the main mass of the aliens moving in. He glanced back to see the other Predators moving into position. The humans, naturally did their best to prepare.

If they died, he did not care, but if they survived, they would gain a slight bit of respect from him. Survival against the prey was a difficult thing, especially for the humans.

Hades had yet to learn the human tongue and had couldn't understand what Hunter was saying, yet he gathered it wasn't anything good judging by the look on Hunter's face.

Ignoring the human, Hades reacted to 232's orders and activated his cloak, disappearing into the shadows once again. With all weapons ready, Hades anticipated the battle to come and the glory to be won.

The humans began to run to the roofs, behind walls, and APCs were brought up. Jennings ran behind a concrete wall as sentry guns on the peirmeter began to spring into life. He didn't see anything at first, all he heard was the roar of the guns and the screeches of the aliens.

He made sure his armor was tight on his body and brought his pulse-rifle to his shoulder and aimed at the slight rise in front of the fence that surrounded the base. Jennings took careful aim as the first of the black creatures appeared.

At that moment, hundreds of aliens came into the open, having gone through the sentry guns.

Jennings, along with the marines, opened fire.

**********************************************

Apache pulled out a shuriken and hurtled it at an alien as more came around the side of the base. The sharp blades cut through the creature's body, cutting it completely in half.

The Predator's wristblades shot out to thier full extent as a dozen aliens jumped onto the roof it was on. It was now not a battle for trophies, it was a battle to survive.

Hunter stood behind a low concrete barrier, firing grenades at the aliens. It seemed to him that he should use them before the bugs closed in, making it hard to fire safely. He smiled, thinking of the shot to kill ratio he was putting up, since each of his shots killed about three xenos. He looked around at all the marines shooting alongside the predators, many of who were using their plasma casters on the advancing horde. Even with all this firepower working together, he thought, they would still have to be damn lucky for anyone to live through this.

Hades stood upon one of the defensive walls, launching plasma bolts towards the horde of approaching Aliens. The young Predator had to admit that being allied with the humans gave them the advantage of a solid defensive position against such an overwhelming army.

Leaping onto the roof with Apache, Hades extended his own wristblades and joined the rooftop fray for honour.

As the aliens closed in, Hunter switched from grenades to normal fire mode. He kept moving constantly, running sideways with his rifle at his hip, wary of xenos' habit to sneak up from behind. As the marines began to take casualties, he occasionally had to avoid smoking carcasses eating holes into the pavement. He did his best to save ammo, using a minimum of shots to kill each alien.

A shadow appeared above Hunter and the alien leapted down just as the man turned. The tail swung around and knocked the rifle out of the man's hand and to the ground. The alien that stood before him was very different than the other warrirors.

It was slightly taller and noticably muscular, it was also a greenish color. The tail had large black stinger like the other aliens, but the skull was the most different. The usual enlongated skull was shorter and instead of having a regular vampire mouth, it had mandibles. The four Predator like mandibles opened and the creautre let loose a great roar, a small tounge like a regular alien moved inside the animal's mouth.

The Pred-Alien snarled at the human, ready to pounce.

Hunter rolled to the side just as the alien's tail came down, glancing off his helmet to strike deep into the concrete. As the xeno tried to pull its tail free from the ground, Hunter pulled out his knife and handgun. He simultaneously slashed at the tail, just above the stinger, and fired the gun as fast as he could pull the trigger, aiming into the creature's snarling mouth. There was a quick tearing noise, as the alien's tail came loose from the ground, minus the last 8 inches or so. The Pred-alien overbalanced for a moment, and lurched backward, causing Hunter's shots to miss. Screeching loudly, the alien struck Hunter in the chest with its powerful arm, sending him flying about ten feet to crash into a pile of plastic crates, and leaving three bleeding gashes. Hunter began to stagger to his feet, and found that miraculously, he had landed next to his pulse rifle, but as he reached for it, the Pred-alien charged him.

The Pred-Alien stared at the human on the ground for only a few seconds before it rushed him. It would tear the human limb from limb and feat upon his flesh. As the creature neared Hunter, it's head suddenly slide in half. A greenish, mushy brain fell to the ground along with the acidic blood, burning away at the concrete.

Apache jumped down from the roof above Hunter and caught his shuriken as hit spun back to him. The Predator looked down at the human, sizing up the soft skinned creature. It gave a quick nod, reached down, grabbed the human by his armor and hauled him up to his feet. The Predator turned and headed back into the fray.


Jennings ran up to Hunter, a half used pulse-rifle in his hands, his armor was cracked and he had a small scar on his face. He looked down at the mangled corpse of the Pred-Alien.

"What the fuck happened?

Hunter shook his head. "I misjudged our friends a bit." He nodded in the direction of Apache. "I was about to be bug food here and he just sliced the bastard open like a hot knife through butter." Hunter took a second to retrieve all of his weapons before continuing the battle.

Jennings smiled, fighting side by side with the Predators had been benifical. Now, once they beat off the aliens he would get his men near the ship, repair it quickly, and take off.

Everyone in the compound felt a rumbling beneath thier feet. The battle seemed to stop as the rumbling got fiearcier and an explosion followed. Jennings was knocked to his feet as he felt the shockwave hit him. Looking up from the ground he saw a blast of light from the docks.

Screeching from hundreds of aliens filled the air as they fled back into the jungle. Jennings stood and ran over to the docks where many of the marines had run to with extingushiers. The massive marine transport ship lay in ruin. The whole stern where the engines were was torn away from the rest of the hull and it was englufed in a massive fire.

"Fuck...fuck."

The alien attack succeded in isolating them, without the ship they were doomed. Jennings looked around and spotted Hades on a rooftop. He ran up the fire escape and approached the Predator.

"Leader...where...your leader."

Hades roared in triumph as the Aliens fled, his combi stick placed in the ground next to him with a large Alien head atop. The massive explosion came as a shock, almost knocking the young Predator down.

Raising the combi stick to signify his victory, Hades looked down to a human that appeared to be addressing him. He couldn't quite understand what the human was saying, but you recognsied the human word for leader. After glaring at the human for several moments, he pointed towards 232.

232 heard the human's voice talking to Hades, trying to elict information. He turned to gaze upon the man, just as Hades pointed him out. Moving with great strength, he leapt across the alley's gap and landed in front of Jennings.

"You talk me?" he asked in broken English, while keeping a surveying eye upon the surrounding environment.

Jennings turned to 232, he took a step back so he wouldn't have to look straight up at the Predator.

"Our ship...kaput...gone..destroyed. Do you..have a ship?"


Apache cleaned the head of one of his aliens kills and looked from 232 over to Hades.

"The softskins fight well for themselves, yet they are still our prey. Shall we take them now or later?"

Hunter stood on platform above the ruied ship, watching the smoke billow past him into the wind. "Fuck," he said quietly. He could see holes in it that had obviously been made by xenomorphs being shot open and bleeding all over the hull, but there was other damage too, that looked like it was cause by giant cutting lasers. It wasn't hard to make the connection to the plasma casters on the Predators' shoulders. "Well we're prety fucked over here," he spit into the burning hulk.

err, bump

Jennings walked up next to Hunter and stared at the hulk. He spat on it and watched the spit sizzle as soon as it hit the metal hull.

"Well, there goes our ticket out of here."

Jennings thought as he rooted through his pockets. "Hunter, take a few men with extinguishers and other fire shit...and see what you can salvage. Radio, good parts, anything. And...do you have a smoke on you?"

Hunter shook his head, "Nah, I've never been real big on smoking, they hit me in grade school with all those pictures of fucked up people." He turned and walked off toward a small knot of soldiers who were unlucky in that they were standing near a rack of firefighting equipment. "Guess what! You lucky motherfuckers get to come salvage the ship!" Hunter's big grin and cheerful tone of voice contrasted oddly with his launguage. "Grab yourselves some fire shit and follow me."
He turned and grabbed a fire extinguisher and gas mask, then climbed down a set of stairs to an access hatch on the ship that seemed intact. He reached out to punch in the entry code, but the panel was melted away by xeno blood, so Hunter kicked in the door, which promptly fell off its weakened hinges onto the floor. "Great," he muttered to himself, then raised his voice to the small team following him. "Get your asses in gear and keep your heads up, there could be xenos hiding in here. Grab anything that's useful and we'll sort through it later. Search by two's and everyone meet topside in 30 minutes."

There was a loud thump behind Hunter, the marines spun to find Apache standing there. The Predator had been watching the humans and decided to investigate the insides of one of thier ships. The marines looked up as the tall creature hunched over the human sized entry, before standing erect in the taller hall.

Apache looked down at Hunter and spoke in broken, almost unadible English.

"Yew...look...what?"

Hunter almost laughed at Apache's primitive grammar. It just didn't seem right hearing the strained english from such an intimidating creature. He thought for a moment and formulated a reply, using simple words and gestures to get his meaning across.
"We," he moved his arms to indicate the marines, "look for weapons," he pointed to his pulse rifle and grenades, "radio, food, other stuff." Each word was accomplanied by a gesture explaining it.
Hunter's team began to disperse throughout the ship, with pairs heading to the medlab, galley, armory and storage rooms. Hunter and another marine were left with Apache. "We go, bridge," Hunter made two fingers walk on his palm. "You come?"

Apache turned and marched ahead of the marines, quickly flipping through his scans to look for any sign of a xenomorph. The Predator ducked through every door he came to as he helped his temporary allies with finding thier equipment.

Hunter then heard Jennings voice over his headset.

"Hunter, you find anything? And, you know where the other Predator is? I think he went after you."

Hunter put a hand to his radio. "Were finding some little stuff, extra weapons, ammo and armor, that sort of thing. That's about it though, and yeah, there is a pred in here with us. I think he's mostly curious and wants to see the inside of the ship."
Hunter, Apache and the other marine with them arrived on the bridge, which was undamaged. Hunter immediately stepped to a computer terminal and brought up the ship's emergency power generators. "That'll last for a little while."
He began a transmission to transfer all of the usefull information from the ship's computer to the base's mainframe. He also ran a diagnostic to see if any of the ship's external weapons were salvagable.
Apache came up and looked over the marine's shoulder, and while Hunter easily explained what the computer terminal was, he was unable to tell the predator what he was doing with it. The best he could come up with was, "Computer look for things."

OOC: Where the hell is everyone else?

OOC: Sorry for the delay...lots of RL issues souring my life.

IC:
232 finally understood what the humans were seeking as he saw them poking around their ship. He turned to their leader. "Ship. Work. Follow." he said, with a slight gesture of a clawed hand.

He called in his native tongue to the other Predators and informed them of their plans.

They would take the humans to their ship that lay a good hike away, and thus, they would begin their hunt for the xenos.

Finally happy to be doing something after standing around for a while, Hades promptly followed 232 and the humans, leading them towards their own ship. He didn't like the idea of taking the humans to their ship, showing them their own technology. Hade didn't like humans, but he must admit that they were intelligent creatures, capable of many things. That's what made them a half decent hunt, their toys, not their strength.

Growling softly from behind his mask, Hades passed a few humans and took place slightly behind his leader.

Jennings followed 232, slightly nervous about moving with the Predator. The man stopped and knealt on the charred and blackened earth. The footprints of hundreds of aliens were intermingled with the corpses of dozens more. Pulling out a pair of binoculars, he stared out across the jungle. Something stood out, a small square shaped object.

His mouth went dry as he relised what it was. Top of a god damn temple. Jennings keyed his mike.

"Hunter, fuck searching the ship, grab what weapons and ammo you can, get the men and the APCs. Come to me...we're going after those insects."

The human ran after the Predators. He stopped 232.

"Aliens...there...temple...we go and...bang bang. Kill them."

Hunter knew better than to ask questions, he tapped his headset inmmediately, "We're on our way."
He turned to Apache and spoke quickly, "We go, fight, kill, you come." He mimed shooting and did his best impression of a xenomorph before walking quickly out of the bridge, motioning for Apache to follow.
"Hunter to team, meet me topside five minutes ago, if something's too heavy ditch it, we need to be gone."
He emerged into the sunlight and soon the team was boarding an APC. "Let's go people, ya'll don't want to miss the party do you?" He pointed at the APC, then at Apache, and then off in the direction of Jennings and the rest of the marines and predators. "We go." Then he hopped into the APc and settled into the driver's seat. The minute the door was closed, he took off through the dense jungle.

OOC:
TGS, I'll let you decide whether Apache htiches a ride or gets there on his own.

Apache gave off a harsh cackle that seemed like a laugh as Hunter tried to do a xenomorph impression. He followed the humans out of the ship and jumped on the top turret of the APC to hitch a ride. His claws gripped one of the barrels tightly as Hunter sent the vehicle barreling towards Jennings.

Jennings turned as he saw the APC come tearing towards him. He moved out of the way as it bounced up next to him. The door slide open and he moved into the drivers compartment. He looked at Hunter.

"One thing I must know before you take off again...do you have a drivers license?"

*********************************

Apache jumped off the APC and moved to 232.

"The humans have located the temple...shall we go with them to wipe out the aliens?"

232 nodded in agreement, moving silently like a wraith would. They would hunt, and they would kill the xenos.

"We go hunting." he declared in his native tongue, before translating to the human tongue for any of them that were nearby.

Hunter grinned recklessly and said, "Fasten your seatbelt Major." before pressing down on the gas pedal again, causing the APC's tires to squeal in protest. In a short time he pulled up next to the temple entrance Jennings had spotted. It appeared to be wide enough for the APC to enter, although sharp corners and U-turns would be impossible once inside.
"So do we play it safe and sneak inside or go in with all guns blazing?"

Jennings grasped desperately onto one of the seats as Hunter swung the vehicle with reckless abandon. Jesus Christ, I feel sorry for his driving instructor. He looked at the other marines in the APC, all had the harnesses on and were holding on for dear life. When Hunter was finally slowing down, the marines removed the harness and prepped the weapons.

"Hunter...we don't go in quiet. We could have if you hadn't caused such a racket with your driving though. Still..." A smile cracked across his lips. "Guns blazing is so much more fun."

***********************************

Apache nodded and followed 232 as they followed the humans through the jungle. Traveling in the treetops, Apache saw a tiny trail of acidic blood and crumpled plant life that the humans hadn't seen. The xenomorphs had come this way. The Predator landed and pulled out his combi-stick.

***********************************

Deep in the bowels of the temple, the Queen sensed the arrival of her childern. Many were hurt and many more were missing. They were licking thier wounds and setting up fresh hosts when the commotion above ground reached them.

Enraged, the Queen unleashed a massive roar.

Dirt and gravel flew thorugh the air as the APC barrelled through the tunnels of the hive, careening off walls and crushing small obstacles in its path. Hunter shouted as he spotted a large chamber ahead. "Get ready, we're goin in hot!" A marine manning the turret on top got ready to lay down a covering fire so the marines could exit. The APC jolted, and flew off an embankment, soaring into the air over the heads of the entire alien colony. While still in the air, Hunter put the metal monster into reverse, and slammed down the accelerator. As the vehicle came down, it crushed a dozen or so aliens, and continued to run over others as it slid forward. The front bumped against the far wall of the chamber and everyone quickly got up and unstrapped themselves. Every weapon in the vehicle was pointed at the door as two marines yanked it open.



OOC: I would pay anything to see them do this scene in a movie. :D

Jennings's knuckles were whiter than ghosts as he gripped onto a seat for dear life. Jesus fucking Christ, Hunter is a mad man. He raised an eyebrow as he felt the APC go up a slight rise and he felt like his stomach had emptied.

"Hold on! Hunter you crazy fucking...!"

He never got to finish as he was tossed from his seat by the impact of the massive metal monster. Jennings wasted no time getting back up and flicking off the saftey of his rifle. The sencond the doors opened Jennings, flanked by two smartgunners, burst through firing away into the hive. Screeching tore at his ear drums as xenomorphs were being torn apart by the gunfire.

Jennings noted with a slight moan the walls were shivering with hundreds of xenomorphs who were now coming to life to defend thier hive.

*********************************

Apache jumped down into the hive and threw a shuriken into a mass of aliens. The multi-bladed device sliced through the seething black mass like a knife through butter. Yellow-green blood splattered to the ground, quickly melting the ancient stones. The shuriken passed through tweleve aliens before burying itself into a thirteenth.

The Predator roar and shot out its wristblades and pulled out its combi-stick for the final showdown.

232 released a powerful roar as he met the challenge of the Queen almost instantly. He fired his shuriken toward her, and leaped with powerful speed toward her, his combistick also in hand as he swung viciously, swatting, slicing the xenomorphs that leapt at him in defense of their queen.

He roared out to the other Predators, "Kill the Queen!"

Hunter leaped out of the APC and climbed on top, a pulse rifle in each hand and another one strapped across his back. He also had not one but two bandoliers of grenades, as well as his handgun and knife. Grinning insanely, he opened up, raking fire over the walls of the chamber. Within seconds, xenomorphs began dropping off the walls, oozing acid. Some of them were dead, but many were simply crippled, and their screams added to the noise of the battle.
Soon, Hunters magazines were empty, but at that moment the queen came into view, snarling at 232. He cursed and threw down one of his pulse rifles on the roof of the APC. He switched the other one to grenades and began launching them at the queen. Although the distance spoiled his aim somewhat, a few of the struck on her skull crest and body. Without warning, he was knocked over by a powerful blow from behind, and quickly rolled over to find an alien warrior's tail burried in the steel where he had just been. He pulled out his handgun and blasted the xeno's snarling face, but another one jumped off the wall to land behind where he was sitting.
Hunter spun in time to see the front of the alien's head drop off as a predator shuriken flew by. He scrambled to his feet, and quickly reloaded both rifles. "That's two I owe the bastards," he remarked to himself, as he resumed shooting at the walls and even the cieling of the chamber, keeping aliens from dropping down inside the circle of marines around the APC.

Jennings held down the trigger on his rifle, something he had been taught not to do in basic. Still, with hundreds of aliens swarming the group, it was hard not to miss. Screams of xenomorphs filled the air as the 10mm shells punched through the tough exo-skeleton of the large insects.

**********************************************

Apache was having the time of his life. His combi stick made quick, graceful arcs in the air before cutting down into the heads of alien warriors. Firing three plasma shots from his caster, blasting away several aliens attempting to sneak up on 232.

The Predator paused as it heard the Queen's angry roar.

**********************************************

The Queen had broken free as Hunter's grenades smacked into her armored body. Small squirts of her greenish blood covered the top part of her crest as she advanced out into the killing field.

The humans had formed a tight circle around thier APC, while the Predators were fighting by themselves or with another; carving large paths through her children. She looked down at the slaughter before setting her sights on the man that injured her. Her lips curled back, revealing razor sharp, bananna sized teeth covered in ooze.

The Queen roar and rushed Hunter, taking massive strides she would be on top of the human in seconds...

232 moved quickly, activating his camo-skin and leaped toward the Queen as she charged toward Hunter. The wrist blades snapped to their fullest length and were momentarily plunged into the backside of the Queen, coinciding with the ferocious roar that mocked the Queen's own...

Over and over, the wrist blades buried themselves, tearing and shredding the flesh of the Queen.

The Queen bellowed in pain and her tail lashed backwards, knocking 232 off her. The armored animal roared angerily and swung her massive tail, knocking the Predator further back. She would deal with the Predator later, if her children had not killed it.

The Queen turned back to Hunter and shot her long stinger straight for him...

As the queen turned, she was at the wrong end of a series of grenades he'd launched while she was fighting off 232. Four of them struck her in the face and head, knocking her off balance and causing her tail to miss Hunter by a comfortable margin. He ducked slightly as it whistled overhead and threw away the now empty rifle and pulled a new one from behind his back. He also had his VP-70 handgun out for close range work.
Alternately firing bursts at the queen and shooting warriors with the pistol, he took a little time to glance around at the situation. Gradually, the marines and predators working together were chipping away at the horde of xenomorphs, but it had taken a huge toll on them. Only 6 marines were left alive, and there was evidence that even one of the preds had been killed. Hunter turned and emptied his pistol into the face of an alien trying to climb the APC and threw it away, no time to reload. He took the rifle in both hands and began to fire grenades. He had seen a glimpse of hope that it might be possible to win. He grinned as dozens of xenos were blasted off the walls by his shots.

The Queen's tail lashed around, knocking the APC over. The massive machine began to tumble towards Hunter when the man felt someone knock him over. Jennings grunted as he lay next to Hunter in a small depression as the APC tumbled over them. The APC kept tumbling, knocking over dozens of aliens, killing many.

Jennings leaped to his feet and felt the Queen's tail go under his feet and knock him over. The Queen lashed out again, sending Jennings tumbling deeper into the hive. The alien mother reached down with her tail and wrapped it around Hunter's leg and hauled the man up. As the man tried to fire at her, she swatted his weapons away. The Queen tossed the man, not using the force to kill him, but enough to stun him as he smacked into the underbelly of the APC.

**********************************

Apache jumped in front of the downed Hunter, swinging his combi-stick, braining several warriors. The Predator kicked a half empty pulse rifle back to the human and bellowed something in its language to him. The Predator fired several plasma shots over its shoulder, killing a pair of aliens sitting on top of the APC.

Apache turned to Hunter and was able to form some English.

"Gesh klicking."

Hunter staggered to his feet, trying to figure out what the Predator had said, he picked up the pulse rifle and found that, miraculously, nothing seemed borken. He would have one hell of a bruise on his back, which had smacke into the APC, but no bones were damaged. He also found, to his surprise that his knife was still attatched to his thigh. He shook his head to clear it and began firing again, being careful not to step in any recently killed xenomorphs.

The Queen scanned the battlefield, she finally spotted her prey. The massive alien charged 232, swinging her tail and knocking over the Predator. The alien was fueled by rage and revenge, she had a score to settle with the creature that had taken her prisoner. The Queen whipped her tail around and wrapped it around the Predator.

The Queen opened her mouth, flexing the jaws on her tounge as she brought the Predator closer.

Hunter watched as the queen picked up 232, raising him slowly towards her jaws. He kicked an alien that had been climbing up on the rocks he was standing on and jumped over it. He ran across the cavern and took a flying leap onto the queen's back, knocking over a pair of xenomorphs on the way. He climbed up, hanging onto the ridges of he spine, and fired his pulse rifle into her right shoulder.
She immediately shifted around and Hunter lost his grip, falling to the floor. He rolled to dodge one of her feet and narrowly missed being disembowled by her flailing left hand. He fired his rifle into her chest, and dodged again as she swung at him with both hands, waving her tail with 232 still gripped in it around in the air. Hunter fired another few shots into one of her legs and she finally dropped 232. Hunter dodged another swipe from her hand but the queen swet her tail across and Hunter was knocked off balance. She grabbe him by one of his legs and threw him across the room.

"I'm free!"

Jennings reappeared through a hole in the hive . The tumble had sent him deep down, laden with weapons and explosives. When he came back, all he had was his armor and a Desert Eagle. He looked up to see a figure flying towards him.

"Oh shit."

Hunter smacked into Jennings and both hit the ground hard. The officer looked down at the other marine before turning and firing several shots at a charging warrior. The alien's head was torn to bits and the greenish-yellow blood flowed freely on the surface.

Jennings looked at Hunter. "Hunter, get the men...back to the APC and the Preds. This place is gonna go down in like ten minutes."

232 lay on the ground momentarily gasping for breath. The Queen had gotten him by surprise, but never again. As she threw aside Hunter, who had been protecting him, trying to keep him alive, 232 felt the primal rage begin to boil over. With a ferocious roar to combat the Queen's own, he suddenly lunged upward and buried both wristblades into the Queen's throat, slashing violently and with a vicious passion. Blood sprayed everywhere as he tore like a rabid creature into the Queen's flesh.

The Queen roared and knocked the Predator off her, her blood poured from her throat. A small bit landed on some of 232's armor, forcing the Predator to rip it off, but not before a few drops began to burn its flesh. The Queen spun, slashed, and roared angerily, her blood falling in showers on her young. They simply stared up at their injured mother and made a surge for 232.

Jennings appeared at the Predator's side with Hunter. He picked up an incinerator off the ground and sent a sheet of fire against them, the creatures wavered and fell back, regrouped and tried again. They were forced back again by the weapon.

Jennings looked at 232. "Your clan...get them...we must go..this place go boom in a few minutes."

232 gave Jennings a nod to indicate his understanding then gave a series of commands in his native tongue to the rest of the Predators. He aimed his gun at the Queen and fired off several more shots at her, before turning and leaving the caves.

Jennings lead the marines and Predators out of the temple. The Queen, with one missing arm charged after them. At that moment, a low tremble was felt that grew and grew. The far back of the hive began to collaspe, taking with it hundreds of warriors. When the group reached a stairs, Jennings saw light at the top. Already the temple was collapsing.

The group tore for the surface. The Queen smashed her massive head into the narrow passage, trying to force her way in. A large slab fell and crushed her skull, killing the beast.

Jennings was the last through the corridor into the jungle. He turned to see the temple slowly crumpled into the earth admist dust and dirt.


Apache looked at 232 and spoke in thier native tounge. "Shall we destory the humans?"

OOC: Just got back from two weeks vacation in France, sorry about my abscence.

IC:
Hunter sat on a rock, gasping for breath after the dash out of the tunnel. He looked around at what was left and got a nasty shock. Out of the entire command, only he, Jennings and four other marines had made it out alive. Not all of the predators had gotten out either, with only a few standing and talking amongst themselves. "Nice going with the charges Major," he said between breaths. "We never woulda beat em' without that."

Jennings sat next to Hunter and pulled out a flask. He took a tiny sip and gave it to Hunter.

"Drink up mate."

Jennings took off his helmet and licked his lips, tasting the saltiness of his sweat.

"Too many died son...too many. Radio in a dropship to pick us up...my radio ain't working. Best keep an eye on the Preds too."

232 looked around, scanning the area for aliens. He replied in his native tongue to Apache.

"No. They are still wary. I have a better idea. The aliens were simple trophies, but to engage in a hunt against these humans, creatures capable of combative thinking, is a true hunt as we've been seeking for all time. No, we will not kill them now. We shall become their 'friends', and then kill them after we've learned all we can about them. I know much about humans already, thanks to the experiments in my younger years..."

He fell silent, refusing to finish the story.

"It will give them a chance to learn what they can about us. Then, we shall hunt, and they shall too."

He turned to look over at some of the humans. He continued to speak in his native tongue, "And then we shall hunt, predator versus predator..."

Hunter took a sip from the flask and wiped sweat from his forehead. "That's good stuff." He pulled out his long range radio from his pack. "I think we're outta headset range. I'll see if I can get through on this."
After messing with the antenna and frequency settings for a minute or two, Hunter was able to get a connection with the base. A few minutes later he put away the radio and turned to Jennings.
"They kept a ship flight ready for us, Gomez is taking off to come get us. She should be here in 10 or 15 minutes."

Jennings nodded as he placed a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. He drew heavily and smiled as he let out the cloud of smoke. He heard the soft whine of the dropship as it got closer; he opened his eyes and smiled as Gomez brought the ship genlty down on the rubble.

"Alright, lets go Hunter."

Jennings stood, made a slight bow to the Predators and the marines began moving to the dropship, marines inside kept an eye on the Preds and Jennings kept facing them.

Apache nodded to his leader and waited as the humans made thier way to the dropship.

"When shall we strike?"

232 replied with only one word, "Soon."

He beckoned for the other predators to follow the humans to the dropship. They would all travel together, and 232 would make sure none of the humans were hurt.

At least, not now...

Jennings went to the cockpit and placed a hand on Gomez's arm. The pilot placed her VP 70 back into the holster as the Predators climbed on. The dropship lifted off into the sky and headed back to the base.

"Hunter, come here."

Jennings waited till the marine was in the cramped cockpit before speaking.

"You smell anything fishy with the Preds? They are acting...out of character you might say."

"Yeah, I'm getting a funny feeling about 'em. They're too quiet." Hunter shot a quick look toward 232. "And every few seconds one of them says something to the leader. They're up to something."

Jennings nodded, something wasn't feeling right to him. The Predators could have killed them all without hassle back at the temple ruins, but they did not. A cold shiver went up his spine. He looked out front and saw the base up ahead.

"Hunter, when we touch down I want you to go inside and have some smartgunners ready just in case things get hot. We will need the motion trackers on the puppies. Keep the gunners hidden too."

Jennings felt the ship tremble as the landing struts came down and the ship kissed the earth.

"Yes sir," Hunter pause halfway down the exit ramp. "Watch yourself Major, and remember, they're hunters."

Hunter jogged across the tarmac and ran inside. "I need 6 smartgunners up here ASAP, stay hidden and keep an eye on the preds." He paused to think for a few moments. "Also set up 6 sentry gun units at major corridor intersections, leave them off for now but set them for remote activation to fire on anything not wearing a marker."

Within a few minutes everything he had ordered was complete, the base was now ready for anything that might happen.

Jennings nodded to Hunter as he went off. To say he nervous could be placed in the archives of the greatest understandments in human history. Jennings would not let his fear show as he walked slowly down the ramp of the dropship. He knew it had to go right if the Preds were up to something, all Jennings had to do was dive to the right and roll under the ramp.


Apache checked his wrist computer as the Predators moved to disembark. He then looked up at Jennings. The Predator looked at 232.

"Sir, I can have our ship here in less than fifteen minutes. The humans are planning something if we move on them sir."

232 growled lowly before looking about at the other Predators. He glanced over to where a few of the men stood quite a distance away. He watched them, saw their fidgeting.

They fought well. Killed a few of the hunted as well...

He turned to the other Predators and spoke, "We shall not attack them like unworthy opponents. No...we shall give them an opportunity to partake in something more grand."

Turning, he planted his combistick into the earth and watched the men.

"We shall offer them a battle for the title of elite predator. It shall not be a war, but a challenge, a contest to pit the best of them against the best of us."

Turning to Apache, he spoke, "Prepare the challenge relic. I will personally deliver it."

Hunter strolled back outside, trying to look as casual as possible, which is hard to do while carrying a pulse rifle. "The welcoming party's all set up sir." He glanced at the predators and then looked back at Jennings. "Now what?"

Hades remained silent as his leader declared what they were to do. He couldn't help but smile under his mask at mention of combatting the humans. He was surprised so many of them survived and admitted he had underestimated their warrior skills. Of course, now that he had witnessed such, there would be no underestimating.

He would be vicotrious.

Apache nodded and suddenly jumped on a building and took off into the jungle towards the Predator ship. Jennings and Hunter watched him go, the major was edgy. Where would the Pred be going? The minutes ticked by before Apache reppeared. The Predator was carrying something.

Jennings watched as 232, Hades and another Predator moved forward. The trio stopped and Apache moved slowly forward. The Predator knelt and opened a box and offered the object inside to 232. What lay inside was a knife, the hilt was made of some animal bone and the blade was made of some highly polished metal. Different symbols adorned the blade and hilt, it would make little sense to a human, but it all made perfect sense to the Predators.


Jennings looked at Hunter.

"The hell are they doing?"

232's fingers grasped the knife, holding it up vertically to his gaze. It was a finely crafted knife, and was only made for the simple, but important purpose of announcing a challenge. Stepping forth from the trio, 232 removed his mask, the hiss of gas audible.

232 studied the humans, watching them as he held the knife in his grasp. At last, he raised his arm to face palm up with the knife balanced on top. The humans could see the carved designs on the bone handle, and with a little bit of intelligence work, they would see that the designs were pictographs of a challenge to an honorable combat. The pictographs started at the base of the hilt, and rose toward the blade. The first pictograph was of a situation much similar to the current situation they all found themselves in. The last, the one closest to the sharp blade, was of a mysterious shape, undefined as either party holding a spear above its head victoriously. All it took was a little bit of intelligence to realize the importance of such an item.

He held the knife out to Jennings in a non threatening manner, the blade not pointed to either of them, but to the side. Jennings reluctantly stepped forward, keeping his eyes locked with 232's own. He accepted the knife, unsure of its purpose. When he looked up again, he was surprised to see the Predators leaving, returning to their ship elsewhere.

Jennings scratched his head and stared down at the knife...

Hunter stared after the predators, and then looked at the knife in Jennings hand. "What's this all about?" He thought for a moment. "Maybe it's a going away present."
"I don't know," replied Jennings, "look at these carvings."
Hunter and Jennings looked more closely at the intricate work that covered the knife, and the more they inspected it, the more worried it made them. "Look at this," said Hunter, "Right here the Pred is giving away the knife, and then over here," he pointed to another picture further down the blade, "They're trying to kill each other." He stood back with a slightly sick erxpression on his face. "I think they just challenged us, specificly you and me."

Jennings looked at Hunter, deep down he knew the NCO was right. The Predators for some reason had deemed them worthy of a battle. Jennings was about to speak when a mechanical roar blasted through his ears. He looked up to watch the large Predator ship lumber overhead before rising into the white clouds above. He turned to a private who was looking up at the disappearing ship as he walked towards them.

"Major Jennings...we finally got the transmitter back up and running. We got in contact with command and they are sending the Orion with a battalion of men to relieve us. Should be here in a day or two."

"Thank you Private Weaver."

Private Weaver saluted and walked back to the radio tower. Jennings took another look at the knife, knowning that some day he would meet the Predators again. That was for later.

Jennings turned to Hunter.

"I think the canteen is still functioning. Care for a drink? Booze is on me."

************************************************

Apache found his leader in the trophy room, staring at the massive skull of the Alien Queen. The skull had lost its reek, the slime was gone, though it was only the head; it was still an imposing sight. The Predators had removed all thier weapons, cleaned and put thier trophies in the room. Apache bowed his head slightly.

"Sir, we have set a course for a new hunting ground. We shall be there in four weeks. We should retire to our chambers."


ooc:

Okay, this is my last post. You guys can do your ending posts to help wrap this up. We had our problems, but overall I enjoyed it. Thank you all.

"Sure."

As Hunter turned and walked back inside with Jennings, he suddenly felt the fatigue that the last several hours had left on him. It seemed like a huge effort just to put one foot in front of the other. As they walked in through the main entrance, he seemed to be watching himself from somewhere else, giving the orders to pack up the smartguns through someone elses mouth. Somehow he had lived through it again. When almost all of his friends were dead, somehow he was still there. He looked around at the faces of the marines around him. Some were confused, others were happy. He felt the tug of the crowd pulling him toward the mess hall and canteen, where they would all consume massive amounts of alchohol.
Hunter continued to look, reaching for the familiar faces he'd known. Where had they all gone? Where was Crawford? Where was Kartion? Where were Sanchez and Letowski and everyone else he'd known on LV-467? The only ones left were himself and Gomez the pilot. There'll be a lot of ghosts drinking with us tonight.