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Bad Blood

Her first Hunt was easy.

Upon reaching her new homeworld, she selected a landing site with a hot but arid climate. The Yautja preferred hot, humid places, but Defiant Blade chose a barely-populated desert location even though the dry air and cooler winters would be slightly uncomfortable. Normal Yautja wore thermal netting to keep them warm in cold conditions, but Defiant Blade had been engineered not to need it.

If anyone was searching for her, they'd likely assume she'd seek out the same conditions they liked, and a little discomfort would be a small price to pay for remaining hidden.

She found a large, hollowed-out rock column, descended her ship into it, and set down. Then she launched a fleet of drones and sent them all over the world to tap into local communications and computer networks and monitor for the arrival of another Yautja. While waiting for the first to show up, she listened to broadcasts and watched visual transmissions while maintaining her weapons and practicing her fighting skills. She quickly learned several of the native languages and this planet's recent history and gradually picked up on the local culture.

And it was fucking weird … though kind of charming in some ways. These people were often cruel to one another, but at least they didn't do to each other what had been done to her. Not in the past few decades, anyway.

She would take damn near anything over the culture on the planet she'd escaped.

Once she'd become familiar enough with the local language and the area around her landing site, she learned its name was Monument Valley.

She found herself swept up in a handful of vid series because there was barely anything else to do when she wasn't training and learning new fighting styles. She became fascinated with several video game streamers while disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling her weapons for the hundredth time.

She later discovered a character named Malcolm Tucker while practicing one of the humans' martial arts. He was so wonderfully profane. More importantly, he demonstrated an ability to live in a constant rage that made her feel like he was a kindred spirit. That level of anger had fueled her rampage through the facility where she'd been created and her escape to this place. She quickly decided that Malcolm was her spirit animal. Her fuckin' spirit fuckin' animal, as he might've said.

Then, one day, one of her drones alerted her to a Yautja presence in a place named Miami. She sprang into action without a second thought, launching and activating her ship's stealth systems barely a minute after receiving the signal. She put on the military-grade armor she'd stolen along with the ship and her weapons, filled every slot in the armor with blades and grenades and a pair of handheld plasma casters, and was ready for battle long before the ship reached its destination.

She found an out-of-the-way place to leave the ship hovering in the air, activated her cloak, crouched inside the hatch, and jumped. Her genetically-engineered legs launched her well over half the length of a city block before she landed on a rooftop. She sprinted to the edge and leaped off -- with less force this time -- and hopped from one roof to another until she reached the area her drone had tagged. Once within range, she balanced on the edge of the roof and gave her environment a visual sweep.

Thirty human heat signatures were scattered around the streets in front of her -- and a single Yautja who wasn't even bothering to use his cloak. Defiant Blade switched to enhanced visible light and zoomed in on the humans. They were all armed and appeared to have been fighting each other earlier, judging by the bullet holes in the vehicles and walls around them.

After studying the colors of their clothing and the symbols they wore, it came to her -- they were gang members. Rival ones, probably. The violence here must've attracted the hunter.

Not too different from the Yautja, I suppose. They tended to customize their armor with tribal markings and ornamentation. She'd deliberately avoided that with her own armor, changing its color scheme to dull black. It was helpful for remaining concealed at night and wouldn't give away her position by reflecting light -- and even if it had no purpose at all, she had no intention of doing anything the way these so-called hunters did.

A sudden scream made her snap her eyes to the right, where she found one of the humans crouching over a decapitated body. He sucked in a deep breath, screamed again, and wept uncontrollably. Defiant Blade turned back to the Yautja and took a closer look. She found a head stuffed into the sack held in his left hand and didn't need her engineered intellect to put together what had just happened.

I'm too late. He had already claimed a trophy -- a puny creature who had no chance of fighting back with the primitive weapons at his disposal.

A primitive creature who had a family and friends, she realized suddenly. It had happened right in front of at least one of his loved ones and there had been nothing anyone here could've done to stop it. The Yautja probably didn't even think about it. Or, if they did, they didn't give a shit.

Hunters, my ass. They use technology centuries ahead of what the humans have, they're physically stronger than their prey, and most of the time the humans never see them coming -- yet they think they're fighting honorably. They think this makes them warriors or some shit. Motherfuckers.

Defiant Blade zoomed in on him and looked his armor over. What there was of it, anyhow. Bio-helmet, wrist gauntlet, a chest plate, loincloth, and shin guards. She plucked the Combistick from its slot in her armor.

The Yautja flitted behind a building and made his way around to the right. The humans glanced around frantically and twitched their weapons back and forth. Blade caught a glimpse of the Yautja's targeting laser on one of their foreheads and launched off the roof, dropping straight toward him. She disengaged her cloak a split-second before she landed beside the target and shoved him out of the line of fire.

The Yautja fired his plasmacaster at the same moment and the bolt slammed into her left shoulder as the humans around her screamed and backed away while turning their guns toward her. She suddenly realized how small humans were. She wasn't quite as tall as the females of her species, but was the size of the average male, and even they were at least a head taller than most humans.

She held up her hand and took a step back so they'd know she wasn't a threat to them.

"Hide." She turned to find the Yautja standing in the open and staring at her. Good. If he keeps his eyes on me, he's not trying to target these people. She marched toward him, extended the blades from her Combistick, and cocked her hand back to throw it at him.

The plasmacaster mounted on his left shoulder tracked toward her.

"Bad Blood," he growled.

She let go of the spear, quick-drew both plasma guns, and fired before he finished snarling the insult. One bolt struck his plasmacaster and the other seared through his exposed abdomen. Blade holstered the pistols, grabbed the spear out of the air, and threw herself forward, closing the distance between them in a heartbeat. He jerked back from her and she laughed at her mental image of his eyes popping out in terror as she thrust the spear into the plasma wound.

"This 'Bad Blood' was made in a laboratory. Sound familiar?"

He coughed and stared at her again as the realization sank in. "Abomination!" The twin blades extended from his wrist gauntlet.

She yanked the spear out of him and he convulsed and clamped both hands over the wound. He managed to lift his arm into striking position again but she deflected the blow, extended her own wrist blades, and plunged them into his neck. She pulled the serrated blades out, ripping half of his neck out with them, and he collapsed with a gurgling howl. She drew the gun from her left hip and disabled his wristcomp before he could set its self-destruct sequence.

"Okay. Fuckity-bye." She pulled her sword out with her right hand, hauled him upright with her left, and chopped his goddamn head off. She glared at the body for a moment, then she tore his loincloth off and used it to wipe the blood from her blades. She threw the cloth down with a contemptuous flick of her arm and slotted her weapons back into her armor.

Then she turned around and discovered the humans staring at her. The one who'd been screaming was still on his knees beside the body. Defiant Blade wondered what to do next. From what she'd learned of the locals, he wouldn't want to see the deceased's severed head, but he also wouldn't want the body to be incomplete. Finally, she picked up the sack but didn't remove the head from it. She walked slowly over to the body and placed the sack beside it.

"I'm sorry." Moving slowly, she reached out to put her hand on the human's shoulder for a moment.

"Why …?" He sobbed and glanced over at the Yautja. "Why would he …?"

"Trophies."

"That's it?" More tears streamed down his face. "W … why did you stop him?"

"I hate them."

"Them," someone else whispered. "There are more?"

Defiant Blade patted his shoulder awkwardly, returned to the Yautja, and picked up his head.

"Jesus," a nearby human blurted. "Why are you taking …?"

"Trophies." She activated her cloak and crept away. Once she'd left them behind, she found the Yautja's ship, destroyed its tracking beacon and communications gear to prevent any others from finding it, and then raided it for supplies. She returned to her ship, wondering if she should've set its self-destruct first.

No. It's too close to this population center. Besides, the humans need to find Yautja tech sooner or later. Her life span would be just as long as any other Yautja -- probably even longer, thanks to her body being designed to outperform any normal Yautja -- but that wouldn't guarantee her survival. Her prey could always get off a lucky shot or she could make a mistake that would get her killed. They would need to know what they were up against before that happened, so she left the ship where it was.

She flew back to Monument Valley and waited for her next Hunt.

---

The next alert came a few hours after she discovered the astounding amount of porn circulating the global computer network. While searching for more information on some of the things she'd seen, she found a number of websites selling dildos.

Now, that's an amazing concept. How much better would the galaxy be if "my people" had their priorities as sorted-out as these primates instead of focusing so much on murdering people? She'd started formulating plans to get her hands on one -- if nothing else, it would be another way to avoid boredom between hunts -- when one of her drones sent the alert. The display on the probe console at the rear of the command deck pinpointed its location in a jungle halfway around the planet.

She lifted off, geared up, and waited impatiently for the ship to take her to her hunting grounds. While en route, her drone sent more detailed data, revealing a whole hunting party -- an infestation -- five Yautja stalking an encampment of humans, some of whom appeared to be security guards. Likely military, judging by the guns they carried and the tactical gear they wore. She wondered why the unarmed ones were there.

More images sent from the drone clarified the situation a bit. Some of the unarmed humans appeared to be exploring ancient ruins and others were documenting the expedition with cameras. Blade wondered why the armed ones were there. Maybe the ruins they were exploring were in a war zone and that had attracted the hunting party.

She parked the ship high above the mesa looming over the ruins -- high enough that the Yautja couldn't reach it by jumping, but she could cover that distance easily. She double-checked her cloak to be sure it was active, then sprinted to the edge of the cliff and gave the encampment a visual sweep. The Yautja were scattered all around the encampment, approaching from all sides except the cliff it rested against, leaping through the trees as they stalked their prey.

Blade picked out the one on the far right, spaced a bit farther apart than the rest. She zoomed in on him and found him watching a trio of armed humans, two females and one male. The male seemed to notice the targeting laser on one of the women's foreheads and pushed her away.

"Contact front!"

Defiant Blade calculated the distance forward and down, extended her spear, and leaped. Her long braids flapped in the wind as she soared over the trees and dropped straight down on the Yautja while he attempted to lock on to one of the humans. Her spear went in just above his shoulder blades, pierced his spine, drilled through his heart, and exited through his crotch. Gravity and their combined mass did the rest, driving the spear into the ground and pinning him there, his arms dangling limp thanks to his severed spine.

All three humans gasped, backed away, and aimed their rifles at her. She held her hands up, then pointed at the coughing and sputtering Yautja.

"Four more are hunting you." She motioned around the encampment. "They hunt anyone carrying weapons. Disarm and evacuate. I'll handle them."

"The stories we've heard are true, then," one of the women mumbled. "Jesus Christ."

Blade crouched and stuck her face in front of the Yautja's to be sure he could see her.

"Bad Blood, motherfucker."

He coughed again, then suddenly vomited in his bio-helmet. She glared into his eyes until he drowned and the last embers of his life faded away.

"Y … you're here to stop them?" One of the civilians slumped against a tree trunk and let a long breath rush out. "I … how can we thank you?"

Hmm. I need to lure the rest of them away from these people. A particularly fucked-up idea came together and she cocked her head at them.

"Do you have some rope I could borrow?"

---

Her next target was farther away, between two others. Blade had selected her because she would run past the other two and draw them into the trap. When she caught up to the other female, she found her on the ground closing in for a kill.

With a high-tech bow and arrow.

Huh. That's new. Blade crept toward her as the Yautja crouched and stared at a pair of guards and a handful of unarmed men and women. The hunter wore no armor at all, just enough cloth to hide her bits. Blade wondered if it was overconfidence or just goddamn stupidity.

Once Blade was standing right behind her, she disengaged her cloak, reached around the Yautja, and honked her tits. The Yautja spun around with a startled grunt, alerting the nearby humans, and Blade cocked her fist back and punched her in the face. The force from her bioengineered muscles knocked her enemy off her feet and cartwheeled her backward, nearly doing a three-sixty before landing face-down on the ground. She picked herself up and let out an enraged roar as Blade laughed, turned, and bolted.

One of the humans panicked and opened fire. Blade glanced over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of the Yautja staggering under multiple bullet impacts but chasing after her despite the blood gushing from the wounds.

Blade led her past two more, a male and a female, and both of them followed her. She continued on to the place she'd strung up the first Yautja's corpse, a dead end formed by a wide crack in the cliff wall leading into a cave. The cave revealed by her scans a few minutes ago extended only about twenty feet into the mesa, making it a perfect killbox.

She stopped long enough to turn and wait for her pursuers. When they burst out of the trees and spotted her, she took a few steps toward the cave, activated her cloak, and jumped to a rock ledge a couple hundred feet above. She landed, dropped into a crouch, and peeked over the edge. The three hunters stopped and stared up at the body she'd left hanging from a nearby tree, swaying gently and dripping blood on the ground beneath it.

"Someone is toying with us," the female with the bow snarled.

"Bad Blood," the male grumbled before leading the others up to the cave entrance.

Goddamn right. Defiant Blade held in a laugh when they fired their plasmacasters into the cave. Just like so many of the video game streams I've watched. Nobody ever looks up.

They crept forward and readied their weapons -- the male carrying a speargun, one female holding her bow and arrow, and the other female packing a burner. Defiant Blade waited for them to enter the cave, grabbed her smart fisc, and dropped to the ground behind them. They spun to face her as she threw the disc at the burner owner and aimed her targeting laser at the speargun carrier. The disc's nanovibronic edge slashed the first target's throat and zipped toward the second, following the laser, and sliced through his chest like a saw blade. The first staggered away, clutching at her throat but unable to stop the fountain of blood, and the second roared in rage and agony while still trying to aim his speargun.

He managed to get it pointed in Defiant Blade's general direction and pulled the trigger. She snapped her left arm to the side and deflected the spear into the cave wall. Her prey stared at her, very likely with an expression of anger and utter disbelief under his bio-helmet, and fell to his knees as the disc sliced his heart in half and carved through his torso and erupted from between his shoulder blades. The disc returned to her and she plucked it casually out of the air.

The remaining female tried to steady her aim but her arms shook too much. Blade couldn't tell if it was from rage or fear or both, but in the end it wouldn't matter. In the corner of her eye, the one with the slit throat fumbled with a health shard, trying to repair her wound, but bled out before she could even get started.

Blade focused on her remaining prey and watched her back away until she bumped into the rear wall. Blade studied her for a moment and noted her smaller size.

Looks like a Young Blood. At least a few years older than I am, but without the benefit of having knowledge programmed into her while growing. This might even be her first Hunt. Which might explain why it was so easy to sneak up on her and grope her titties. Blade wondered if she should show mercy. If the girl could be convinced to leave and never return, maybe even stop hunting altogether …

The girl sucked in several rapid breaths and drew the bowstring back. Defiant Blade shook her head slowly, but the girl released it before she could say anything. She flicked her left hand out and snatched the arrow out of the air while drawing her plasma gun with her other hand. She drilled three bolts through the Yautja's chest before she could even reach for another arrow.

Shit. She watched the girl collapse while staring back at her in shock. Blade walked over to her and removed the girl's bio-helmet.

"Why?" the Young Blood growled weakly.

"What you're doing is wrong." Defiant Blade confiscated the bow and arrows. The Young Blood didn't need them anymore.

The girl poked the controls on her wristcomp, trying to activate its self-destruct. Blade sighed and double-tapped her right in the face. After scanning her bio-signs to be sure she was dead, Blade walked out of the cave. There was still one more Yautja to deal with.

A massive arm came out of nowhere and slammed across her chest. She flipped over backward and crashed down on the back of her neck. Pain ripped through her whole body from head to foot and she convulsed.

"Fuckin' hell," she grunted as everything started to fade away.

Well, shit. Found him.

---

Consciousness returned and the first thing she became aware of was a breeze brushing across her exposed chest. She opened her eyes and found a much older Yautja standing over her with a glaive raised, a split-second from plunging it into her. She rolled to the left and the blade scraped her skin as it slid into the ground. She rolled back, her body knocking the weapon out of his hands, then she pulled her right leg back and planted a kick in the middle of his chest.

Her foot launched him into the cliff and the rock cracked under the impact. She leaped to her feet as he dropped and sent up a puff of dirt when he slammed into the ground. He pushed himself up, pulled a speargun out, and fired. The bolt punched into her belly and she doubled over as fire radiated outward.

No! Heart pounding, she turned and jumped a hundred feet into the air, catching a branch at the top of a nearby tree. She braced her feet on a thicker branch under her, turned, and gave the spear a gentle tug to be sure it wouldn't gut her when she removed it. It didn't seem to catch on anything, so she pulled it the rest of the way out and dropped it.

She reached for the medical kit on her belt and found it missing. She checked her weapon slots and realized all of them were empty. The bastard had taken all of her gear away before removing her chest plate and going for the kill.

Fuck. She reached for her wristcomp to activate her cloak and spotted him aiming his plasmacaster up at her. Fuck!

She jumped from the tree to another a split-second before the plasma bolt smashed into the trunk and lit the top of the tree on fire. Her arms caught a branch and she started to pull herself up -- but then the branch snapped off and she dropped. Another, thicker branch about midway down slammed across her chest and she roared at another shockwave of pain.

The world spun around her for another second or two and then she slammed into the ground -- landing chest-first. She fought through the pain, pushed herself back up, and glanced around frantically.

Caught the tree branch right across my tits, then landed on my tits again! She blinked and shook her head quickly. Fucking fuck me!

A shadow fell across her and she spun around to find the Yautja slashing at her with an enormous shuriken. She jumped back and the blades hissed through the air a fraction of an inch from her exposed skin. Her foot bumped into a metal object on the ground but she didn't dare glance down and draw her enemy's attention to it.

Instead, she made the only move she could think of. She stared past him and flinched as if seeing something terrifying. He spun around and raised the blades, clearly expecting something was about to jump him.

Holy shit, he actually bought it? Blade looked down, spotted one of her plasma pistols, scooped it up, and jammed it against the back of his neck. She angled it upward slightly and pulled the trigger before he could even twitch, sending the plasma bolt through the front half of his brain and out through his forehead. His bio-helmet popped off like a cork and his body toppled over.

"Stupid cunt," she growled before turning slowly to search for her medical supplies. She finally found her gear piled up at the cave entrance, dug her medikit out of it, scanned her wound to be sure no shrapnel had been left in it, then patched it up. The serums and solvents she used to treat the wound sent a whole new level of pain through her guts, but somehow she managed to hold in another agonized roar. If the humans hadn't finished evacuating yet, they'd probably been freaked-out enough by the sounds of the battle.

She slumped forward and braced her palms on the ground until the pain faded and she could breathe again. She pushed herself back to her feet and set about collecting her gear as well as the stuff her prey had brought with them. Before she headed off to find their ship and loot it, she grabbed the last Yautja's trophy bag, took their heads, and stuffed them into it.

Looking forward to flaying them and adding the skulls to her collection with a little more spite than usual, she disabled their ship's communications and tracking gear before hiking back to the cliff. Just as she was about to start climbing, she sensed a presence and glanced over her shoulder.

Several armed humans and civilians stood a short distance away, surveying the carnage and turning to stare at her. She recognized a couple of them. She waved, trying to appear friendly. She wasn't in the mood for another fight, especially with someone she'd just saved from a horrible death.

"You're safe."

"Their heads …" One of them grimaced at the bodies.

Blade nodded at the bag slung over her shoulder. "Trophies."

The man's face lost some of its color. "Is … is that what they were going to do to us?"

"Yes. I showed them how it feels."

He nodded slowly, trembling slightly. One of the women walked forward, moving cautiously, and held her hand out.

"Thank you."

Blade clasped her hand and shook it gently. The woman smiled and a realization seemed to hit her.

"Wow. Uh … you really are an alien?"

"Yep. So were these assholes. They land on your planet every now and then to hunt you. I'm here to hunt them, but you should be prepared in case I fail."

The woman nodded and seemed to realize she was still shaking Blade's hand. She released it and laughed softly.

"I hope we meet again."

"I'd like that." The reflexive admission surprised her, but then she realized that she would be alone her whole life if she didn't make some connections. Not knowing what else to say, she nodded at them again and climbed to the top of the mesa and leaped up to her ship.

She set the autopilot to return home and slouched in her seat. Her wound ached and she grunted and rested her hand on it. Only then did she notice her hands shaking and her heart racing. She pondered it for a long moment before she figured out what it was.

She was scared. That was a new sensation. It hadn't happened even when she stormed through the facility she was created in. She'd been so driven by purpose on that day, it hadn't even occurred to her to be afraid. Her first Hunt had been so easy, and this one hadn't presented much of a challenge until her final opponent.

I got a little overconfident. Just like the Young Blood I fought. She took a few ragged breaths and stared out at the sunset until her heartbeat slowed back to normal. I fucked up and it almost got me killed. I won't be able to continue hunting the Yautja if I'm dead. Won't be able to keep these people safe from them.

But there was more to it than that. She realized suddenly that the idea of dying frightened her. The idea of no longer existing … she couldn't quite get her mind around it. All the things she would miss even though she wouldn't be aware of any of it. Even worse … if she formed any friendships on this planet, her death would likely devastate them. She'd learned that well enough from the vids she'd been watching to pass the time.

I'll have to be more careful from now on. Can't get overconfident again. Can't underestimate my prey. She watched the sunset for a few more minutes, then stood and walked into the medical bay. She removed her armor and prepped the auto-surgeon without bothering to put anything else on. Probably should get started on it now, but I want to be on the ground first.

She returned to the command deck and leaned on the back of the pilot's chair until the familiar rock formations of Monument Valley came into view. She noticed her fear had subsided and she felt almost normal again. Felt safe. She let a slow breath out.

It's nice to be home.