LadyDeathStriker and Bloodharpy vs. Deathwraith and Deathdrop

Xeuss woke up to the silence of the shuttle small engines. It was an unconfortable change from the loud noises back on the ship. He checked the monitors... Apparently he had been cought in orbit around the natural satellite of what looked like a very uninhabitable planet. The satellite was clumsily terraformed and bore the mark of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation all over.
"Looks like i'm here..." he said, pushing a bunch of buttons on the control panel.

Xeuss was there to look for any useful leftovers. He didn't complain about having to search through another man's trash from time to time, in a pirate-mercenary kind of life you don't get to complain. Plus, he found it rather relaxing to be able get supplies without having to splatter some walls with someone's brains or start a Xenomorph revolution and compromise an entire colony. He didn't bother to cloak the shuttle as it landed, there was usually no one on these temporary worlds that humans would use for various ridiculous activities - once they were done with them, they'd just pack up and leave. But it was still amazing what things they could forget take sometimes. He sank back in his chair and waited for the bumpy entry into the atmosphere...

Harpy sighed in disgust when she saw the planet from the screen in the shuttle she piloted. She had picked up a signal a few days ago and her curiosity had gotten the best of her so she decided to check it out. She wondered if any humans were here since they had a habit of going to some of the worst places in the universe. She tapped her long sharp nails against the chair she sat in as she got closer to the planet, she waved her tail back and forth in anticipation of landing on this planet. She wondered if any humans were there though she didn't really feel like dealing with humans at the moment. Lately she found humans to be rather annoying despite being half-human herself she credited her intelligence, strength and agility to her Xenomorph DNA. A red light flashed across the computer board. Harpy typed on a few keys and was surprised to find that this new signal she had picked up was a satellite, she typed another key and when the image appeared she nearly snarled.

“Weyland/Yutani. Wonder what they were doing here.” She said sarcastically to no one in particular. Though it didn't seem like anyone was down there on this planet she figured she wouldn’t have to worry about killing an entire bio-lab staff or a bunch of marines on the Weyland/Yutani payroll. So she just sat back with her amrs folded behind her head and waited for the shuttle to hurry up and enter the atmosphere.

Kieran was having a bit of a problem, so far she had succeeded in steal a shuttle lucky for her not so lucky for the marine it belonged to who was missing a few intestines but oh well. The only problem was she didn't exactly know how to fly it. She had never piloted anything before her sister had but then she didn't know where Roni was. Well she didn't know if she went by Roni anymore last she heard her name was Harpy so a lot had changed since she last saw her as well as going through some changes herself. Kieran had decided to search for her sister after she escaped the lab she was being held in but so far hadn't found the older girl probably never would but oh well. She knew she should have paid attention to her sister the time their father taught her how to pilot a shuttle but she didn't and so now she was having problems.

"As long as I don't crash and kill myself. Or get killed again,” She thought morbidly to herself. Kieran had died before twice, once while having her DNA altered and then again after she ended up on some planet after she stowed away one a cargo ship. They guy who owned the ship wasn’t to happy and shot her in the chest with a pulse rifle which in turn killed her. So she ended up back at square one, another lab another cloning and of course another successful escape.

Though he found the concept of filming fake environments idiotic, Deathdrop had to admit a twinge of nostalgia whenever he passed through a replica he recognised.

Each setting was connected to a scar; the Indian Village he was currently passing through was inaccurate (the features of several different tribes had been mixed together), but close enough to remind him of the first human kill he'd ever made (and of the Tomahawk that had given him his facial scar)

Were it not for the quick burst of bizzare interference, he wouldn't have realised his mask's comlink had been left on.

Looking to the sky, he could have sworn he saw the light of a ship entering the atmosphere. The trail didn't look Yautja.

"Fucking apes follow me everywhere..."

It could have been a meteorite for all he knew, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Tapping a few buttons on his wristcomp, he entered stealth mode. He decided the replica Indian villaige did not give him a strategic advantage, and began moving towards the hill.

It was only at the top that he noticed the full-scale model of a 1930's New York city block.

"Melanie, this is Xeuss..."

...

"Melanie...?"

...

"Probably shut off communications..." he thought to himself. "That means either she's tired of talking to me, or there's someone else on this planet that could trace the chatter and pinpoint her location. I don't know what she's worried about anyway, noting smaller than a clanship could take her down... Sometimes it feels like she's my mom, not my ship. Least she's better than most of my xenomorph moms."

He opened the loading doors and stepped out of the shuttle. The air, the sunshine, the smell of grass and asphalt... Ah, he was used to all of it, but it did put a smile on his black face. Being the only thing that lacked color, he stood out quite easily among the many leather tents that were supposed to replicate some old human tribal... something. Xeuss wasn't quite sure what those tents were all about, he hadn't had much time to relearn human history, but right now it was pretty high on his list of to-do things once he got back on the ship. But first thing's first...

"WHATEVER ELSE IS AROUND HERE WOULDN'T HAPPEN TO BE YAUTJA, RIGHT?" he shouted in the Predator dialect that he knew best, without expecting to get an answer. "Oh well, it was worth the try..." he whispered to himslef after 20 seconds of silence. "Now to get scavenging, i only have about 6 months, wouldn't like the mothership to get worried and come pick me up... Hah, that's good -mothership-... Oh boy, i gotta make some friends or something, and stop talking to mys- Oh look, we could really use these lights on some of the new corridors..."

The shuttle closed and cloaked as Xeuss wondered off to inspect a fake campfire. But then, almost at the same time, two balls of fire appeared in the sky. One of them looked a bit more confused than the other. "Two shuttles, that's good, i can always use more of those." he said and dropped the lights, slowly walking foreward, with his eyes on one of the descending balls in the sky.

After she had entered the atmosphere Harpy decided to call her landing pretty uneventful, that is until she was almost literally sideswiped in mid-air by another shuttle she failed to notice. The shuttle shuddered, dipped, veered and went far off in the opposite direction though whoever was flying was doing a horrible job and would probably be dead soon anyway. Even Harpy had something to do with it or not.

“Who the hell taught that idiot how to fly? “ she muttered to herself, once she landed she hit a few keys and the ramp lowered. Harpy stood up and stretched her arms, grab the small sword she used most of the time and slipped into the holster she had on her left thigh then stepped outside but not before the ramp raised up and closed. She reminded herself to make sure it closed, the last time she left the ramp down on a strange planet she came back and found several strange rat looking creatures trying to nest. Harpy paused for a few seconds and looked over the terrain, flat save for a few hills, some buildings she recognized and a few scattered piece of equipment. Harpy drew in a deep and exhaled, she felt weird being outside most of the time since it reminded her of the very few memories she had but rarely mentioned to anyone she didn’t see the point why. She glanced back towards the direction the other shuttle had gone, still asking herself the same question. Shrugging it off Harpy walked around for a bit looking at some of the equipment that was around, a few empty boxes, a box with fake feathers in it, another box with fake guns and another box that had fake knives it much to her dismay seeing that she could use a few more of those but alas she would just have to keep searching until she found some real ones although with all the fake stuff around she really did have her hopes that high of finding any. By the looks of it whoever was here before they might have been filming a movie here.

“Figures why most of the weapons were fake, couldn’t they just use real ones for once?” she said out loud not hiding the fact that this was really annoying her. Harpy began to wonder if there was anything on this dust ball worth finding at all.

For Kieran things had gone for bad to disastrous in just a few minutes. She had almost hit another shuttle that she didn’t even see and on top of that once she thought she had the shuttle on course she crashed into the side of a hill and the shuttle rolled down the hills tossing her around like a rag doll. She hit her head hard enough on the ceiling it left a small but painful cut that had began to bleed a little. Once the shuttle stopped moving she stood up on her shaky legs and leaned against the wall, she was certain with her luck the shuttle was scrap now. Wire crackled and hung from various places, where she hit her head had melted off about a few inches of whatever was up there and to top it all the engines had gone out.

“Great now I’m stuck here.” she whined and paced around trying to figure out how to get out of the shuttle she considered the small window but the sheer thought of slipping an impaling herself on the jagged pieces of glass didn’t really help her out at all. Kieran sat down on the floor and tried to use what was left of her sanity to get out. She looked towards the window again and grinned. She could get out of the window all she had to do was just break the jagged pieces of glass that had her so fearful and make good on her escape. She silently berated herself for being such a wimp, jagged glass was the least of her problems and she had to many to keep track of right now.

“Why I didn’t think of that before I’ll never know. Guess I am going insane finally.” Kieran said out loud as she looked around for anything usable(which was close to impossible) before decided she would have to kick the glass out. Forgetting the original plan she just crawled up to the window and kicked at it a few times with all the strength she had to make a large enough opening to get out. So far the first kick had worked and the hole was now big enough for her to fit her head and chest through, the second kick to the glass didn’t work and the only thing it archived was sending a jolt of pain through Kieran’s right leg up to her knee. Gritting her teeth and hissing Kieran kicked the glass again this time successfully dislodging the piece of glass allowing her to shimmy out the window onto the ground a few feet below. She looked around but only saw the hill she had crashed into. She wonder if anyone was here and if so would they help of freak out and try to kill her when they saw the green reptilian eyes, long sharp tail and black nails.

“HELLO?! IS ANYONE OUT HERE?!” she shouted but could only here her echo.

Well, he'd been right about the ships. 3 of the fuckers had come down, but Deathdrop couldn't see where they'd landed even from his vantage point on top of the hollow building. He could tell they were small, probably built for just one or two passengers each.

Only 5 or 6 total? And human? This WOULD be easy. He stood up and took a deep breath before roaring as loud and as long as he could.

He followed it up with a visual display, pointing his plasma caster toward the sky and firing a single bolt into the sky. The blueish-white bolt flew into the air for several seconds before dissipating about a mile up.

"That should get their attention."

He switched to thermal vision and made his way down the scafolding. With any luck, he'd get some fun out of this...

Harpy paused when she heard someone shout asking if anyone was here, she wondered if it could be the same person who almost sideswiped her. She didn’t answer the call and continued walking around looking for anything that wasn’t fake. She stopped again when she heard another sound, the all to familiar roar of a yautja and he was nearby to. Harpy looked up towards the sky when she the flame blue bolt of a plasma caster fire into the sky. She hissed and glared in the direction where the shout came from, not just an angry glare but an “I’m going to strangle you with your own intestines” glare. She turned and began to walk in the direction where she watched the other shuttle go down, her tail lashed like a poisonous snake behind her as if it was angered.

“Great now I have to deal with whatever big mouth just alerted the yautja here that he’s not alone here. Don’t they know not to scream like a damn banshee on an unknown planet? Glad I’m not stupid.” Harpy practically snarled under her breath now that she was in a bad mood. One thing about Harpy was it was her moods you had to watch out for. When she was in a good mood and killed someone it usually involved a throat being slit of getting stab in the back severing the spin. If she was in a bad mood then it was fair to say it sucked to be whoever she killed, because in this case it usually involved disemboweling or having your organs ripped out of you while you were still alive. Harpy paused again and smelled the air, she wasn’t really picking up anything save for the smell of burning plastic and metal. She looked around to make sure no one was following her and wary of any strange shapes in the horizon or even close up, so far the only thing she heard was the sound of her own breathing and her heart beating within her chest.

With a palm on his face, Xeuss watched the crashed shuttle from a distance. Such a waste of good resources... He turned tward where the other shuttle had hopefully landed safely. He wasn't going to waste time on this one, since it obviously wasn't going anywhere. He started running with one hand on the pulse rifle and the other on his knife. He was going to secure the shuttle as fast as possible and then decide what to do with whoever was in it. Just as he was about to enter something that resembled a European urban assembly from the famous period in human history known as the Dark Ages, he heard a distinct roar coming from the far side of the tent field he had just left, followed by a clear plasma bolt from top of a rather tall 20th century building.

The sight of it brought a few memories from one of his past lives, but he dismissed it quickly. Xeuss had long since accept that there was nothing left of his former human existence and was pretty content with his current situation as a mercenary leader with his own ridiculously advanced spaceship.

"So there really was a pred there..." he thought. "I sure hope he's not one of those stuck-up elite hunters who don't talk to anyone because they're so elite and whatnot. Since he revealed himself first, he probably doesn't know where i am. In any case, i'd better return the vafour." He raised the pulse rifle as high as he could and shot a grenade at about 85 degrees. It blew up about 50 meters above his head. If the sound wasn't enough to alert anyone in the area, the blast would do the job.

Deathdrop watched the new blast through flared mandibals.

"So that's the game, is it?"

He did a final inventory of his weapons:

Plasma caster, wristblades, spear, smart-disk. Yes, these would get the job done. He hoped it wouldn't be overkill for mere humans, but there was only one way to find out.

Remaining cloaked, he made his way out of the false city and toward the blast. He saw something that appeared medieval, and decided it would be a good idea to start there...

Kieran tensed up when she heard the intimidating roar of the yautja and at the sight of the blue-white blast from the plasma caster. Then when she saw the grenade explode in the sky and realized so far she was on a planet with at least two humans maybe and a lone yautja, she had learned to but tough and ruthless but this was more than she had ever faced. Besides offing a bunch of Weyland/Yutani employees was easy work. Kieran traced her fingers around her chest where the bullet fragments were lodged where she had been shot during her laboratory escape, she looked around and decided to check out the area she was in. Taking a deep breath she began to walk away from the ruined remains of the shuttle and hopefully find something better.

“Just keep looking you’ll find something put here worth the time.” Kieran said trying to reassure herself. A sly little smirk spread across her young face. Maybe the other shuttle that landed might be useable to some extent, after all whoever piloted the shuttle might be dead soon. Kieran changed directions and head towards the area she saw the other shuttle land.

Harpy looked up towards the sky again when she saw another burst, a grenade by the looks of it. So this planet wasn’t so empty after all. So far one stranded human, possibly, whoever fired off that grenade and a lone yautja things on the empty planet just got a whole lot more interesting. So everyone was drawing attention to one another, the big mouth, who fired the grenade and the yautja.

“I’m the only silent one so far. I’ll reveal myself in due time, all in due time.” Harpy smiled and continued on her way not bothering to run since she had a feeling she was going to need her strength and energy if she encountered the yautja. Once she got to where the other shuttle was she raised a brow, it did crash after all and for whoever was in there it wasn’t very pleasant. The shuttle was banged up pretty bad so whatever equipment was in here I couldn’t be used so really it was a lost cause but something drew her closer to it. Walking around it Harpy looked at the front where she small window was, it was broken up and jagged pieces of glass gapped at the opening there like a pair of sharp teeth. She noticed however a little bit of cloth in the glass and drag marks in the ground where whoever escaped the wreck had pulled the remainder of their body out though the glass, she got down on her hand sand knee’s and peered closer at one jagged piece of glass for one reason: it had blood on it and had be partially melted as a result. She hissed in surprise this could only mean there was another hybrid around here somewhere going on the size of the drag marks it was smaller than her maybe even younger, she couldn’t really tell. Standing back up glanced around making sure she wasn’t being watched then left. After walking around for awhile Harpy made it back to where she had left the otherwise useless boxes of fake weapons, leaning against one particularly large box she thought about the currant situation. Should she reveal herself now or wait until something great than a few blasts in the sky and whoever the crash site hybrid was to occur? Or just risk it all and shriek like a banshee? Harpy went with the more rational approach and decided to give it a few minutes though that was really saying something since she was really the patient type. Harpy was more impatient than she was moody.

"Hmmm," Xeuss thought, "things seem to be going pretty slow around here, that shuttle hasn't left yet, so it either can't or doesn't want to." He took his knife out of its sheath and started scratching into the think cardboard walls of an 8th century building. He had actually planned to stay on that small moon for the whole time that the atmosphere would still last, or at least until Melanie would have come to pick him up. He leaned against the wall and waited for something to happen.

Soon enough, through the clear light of the far away huge star that the planet was orbiting, a distinct shape started to form from place to place. To an unexpecting, untrained eye, invisible from a distance and terrifying from up close - but for Xeuss it was a clear sign of a Predator in motion. He stood straight, sheathed the knife and raised his fist in the air as a greeting.

It looked human, but the features were all wrong. What was more, it'd didn't show up properly in thermal or xenovision. Or in ANY of the vison modes, really.

It's features suggested a hybrid of some sort.

He'd heard talk of such things in the dark corners of the clanship, but assumed it to be nonsense. This creature made him re-evaluate his views.

It could SEE Deathdrop despite the cloak. That meant it either had some sort of 6th sense, or that it had encountered Yautja regularly enough to spot them cloaked.

Strangest of all was that the hybrid raised his fist in greeting. It was capable if fighting him, yet risked itself to show it wasn't hostile.

He'd heard this clan of hyrbids wasn't loyal to Earth. Some of the other Yautja hated hybrids. Deathdrop didn't give a shit.

He walked toward the hybrid, de-activated his cloak, and half-heartedly returned the greeting.

"What's your buisness here?"

Civil enocunters with Predators were rare, even more so for a leader of bad bloods such as himself. With a faint smile on his face, he answered:

"I am Xeuss, of the Dark Blood Organization, i am simply here to collect scrap. You see, my guys and i, we do jobs for the highest bidder, but jobs are pretty rare and sometimes we have to make due. You can't ever have too many new things, though, am i right?"

He paused for a second, listening to the passive clicking sound coming from behind the Yautja's mask, then continued:

"Regardless, a more interesting question would be, of course, what is a hunter doing on a barren planet? Or should i say... previously barren... do the two shuttles that just landed have anything to do with you? Because i was going to just take them."

He stopped and looked pensively in the direction of the crashed shuttle. A few moments earlier he had heard a hiss from that direction. His ears were as good as any human's, but something inside him picked up a xenomorph's expressions from a great distance. He wonderd if that was why the shuttle had crashed. If some stray xenomorphs were there and the Yautja was supposed to clean up. If that was true, then he would have a hard choice before him. But it was strange, it was too silent for xenomorphs to be there. It was impossible for them to have been hurt and died, they would have made a lot of noise.

The hiss itself had been irrational, incoherent. There was only one explanation.

"There may be more of me here." he said to the Yautja, with a serious face.

More like him? More hybrids? Shit! Deathdrop had no experience with such creatures. What was worse, each of them was different; some had acidic blood, others had the strength of a Yautja. It was impossible to tell what you were fighting until you engaged it.

Deathdrop's standing in the clan would not increase by itself. He was only sober a year, hardly enough time to get his old edge back. Were there only one hyrbid it would be different, but there could be as many as 4...

No other choice. He leaned in.

"Here's how it's going to be, hybrid. You help me kill whatever else is on this planet. I get the heads; you can help yourself to their equipment plus whatever scrap you find. We both keep our mouths shut about it. Deal?"

Kieran had been wondering around for awhile now and had come across some random area that had some boxes, she stopped and tensed up again when she noticed they had been moved around. Recently by the looks of it she could here something close by. Was it the wind? Nope it wasn’t wind not out here and she was certain shuttle didn’t make the noise she was hearing. Whoever and whatever it was they were breathing, slowly, quietly but not quietly enough. Kneeling down on one knee Kieran pulled her butterfly knife out of her left boot and flipped the blade out with a sharp “click”. Kieran smirked as her tail raised up and swished around like it had a mind of it’s own, like a cobra watching it’s prey. Waiting to strike at the right moment. She slowly began to walk forward making sure she didn’t make to much noise, she wanted to know exactly who was hiding around here and she wanted to know now. Not later. She paused when she heard something dull slightly hollow, the sound of skin sliding against skin or in this case exoskeleton sliding against skin. She almost gasped in surprise, another hybrid was here and was right in front of her. This was getting better and better by the minute she twirled the blade around in her hand a few times as she got closer.

“I’m really going to enjoy this.” Kieran thought to herself. She just didn’t anticipate the hybrid she was attempting to sneak up on knew she was there the whole time.

Harpy decided to make herself known to the hybrid sneaking up on her, she began to question this one‘s intelligence, she thought back the sound of the voice she‘s heard. Sounded female younger that herself but female. She could here the sound for the blade coming out, she could hear her breathing and she could here her walking.

“You’re aware I can here you right?” Harpy asked stepping for behind the box and into view of the hybrid who seemed surprised, scared and perplexed. Harpy looked he rover, she looked scrawny, had a tail like herself only shorter, dark hair, dark skin and was dressed in black. One thing bothered her though this kid looked familiar like she had seen her somewhere before, they way she stood, her feature though altered looked familiar. Smirking she took a few steps towards the girl, who was growing more and more nervous by the second before speaking again. Without warning Harpy lashed her tail forward like a whip smacking the girl in the chest and knocking her back onto the ground, Harpy hissed angrily and then swung her tail up and brought into down into the ground only a few inches away from the girls head.

“Do yourself a favor runt next time you steal a shuttle make sure you can pilot it first! Got that?” she asked and the girl only nodded, yanking her tail out of dirt allowing the girl to stand up.

“Good now what the hell are you doing here and who the taught you how to fly? You better answer fast because when I get impatient people tend to die around me.” Harpy asked folding her arms across her chest, her tail swishing back and fort in the same way a cat would move it’s tail.

The attack came so fast she didn’t have time to react, the last thing Kieran saw was the sharp tail of the other hybrid inches from her head. She felt embarrassed she had allowed herself to be attacked but grateful because the other hybrid acted like she really wanted to kill her but changed her mind instead giving her a warning. Standing up Kieran clutched her hand up to her chest and coughed a few times before glancing up at the attacker.

“I would have learned but when I had the chance I wasn’t really paying attention. So your were in the other shuttle huh? I guess my skills aren’t as great as I though they were.” she muttered looking the other hybrid over. She was taller, looked faster, stronger and a little more experience. She had on black pants and a black jacket which really had the Kieran confused and curious. What bothered her was the girl had a longer tail than herself and the female looked familiar, a little too familiar. It didn’t matter everyone she knew once before was either dead or missing so what did she care?

“So I reckon you mad because I called out to see if anyone else was around because I alerted a nearby yautja right?” Kieran smirked and nearly laughed at the hybrid’s irritated hiss, well she was stuck here so she had to make the best of it. She saluted the other hybrid and walked off.

“Well I’m gonna see if I can find anything worth using around here seeing that some things are fake. So see ya.” Kieran Add calling back to the hybrid who was still standing there. A faint smile spread across her face, she hoped she would run into that same hybrid again. There was something about her that Kieran liked beside that they had the same ruthless attitudes, something Kieran herself respected in the very few she had encountered and let live.