達人專欄HUNT: THE FINAL REST
U’SL-KWE-DE CHIVA
EN Version
R.I.P. Scar
All should know what an amazing soul Ian Whyte gave to Scar.
Also, how good they both are.
Also, how good they both are.
Chapter 1
Beneath The Resting
The burning sensation in the darkness became clear.
The painful had traveled thousands of miles and it had taken a long and distant time to settle. The sharp pain of the erosion in his forehead burned the fighting spirit in his chest, and as the sharp mandibles tightened... he found himself regaining consciousness.
It was his First Kill (Jeh'twei), as he crouched on his knees and broke the end limb of his prey with one hand, using acid blood to burn a mark on his forehead to gain social status and get rid of the Young Blood class.
He is now a Blooded, will be considered an adult, and will be given a place in the clan...
But this has "already" happened.
On the ground lay the severed Serpent (Xenomorph) and the Facehugger split in two, the Shuriken that cut them open was collected at the waist, the bio-mask in the arm had burned a significance. But there was an unreal pain in the abdomen, as if the Antarctic Queen's tail spear was still in there, the cold wind and snow buried him.
The last of the prey's limb suddenly slipped from between his fingers, and Scar's thoughts slowed in time and space as the prey's limb fell to the stone floor of the pyramid. Suddenly, the hunter turned and rose quickly, his free hand raised to catch the incoming Facehugger.
—The second one.
Shame. A violent humiliation.
The feeling of shattered honor masked the pain of burning.
The aliens' mandibles and tubular mouthpieces threaten each other with clicking sounds and sticky noises from across the air.
The hunter kicks at the long tail of the dead Hard Meat and hits Facehugger, throwing a deadly tail spear high through it and pinning it deep into the stone wall. Facehugger kicks the spider-like foot a few times and dies.
—The second Facehugger's sneak attack was no different than the first, but he lost concentration momentarily due to the sharp pain that marked his forehead.
The last Serpent—a mixture of Yautja and Kiande Amedha (Hard Meat)—Scar had indeed been a breeding ground for Predalien, and its remains were likely returned to Mother Ship along with the evil seed in its chest.
He suffered the silence of self-recrimination in the deadly pyramid maze, so hateful he wanted to vomit.
Is this a nightmare? where Black Warrior Cetanu and Paya both spit on the disgraced man and abandon him to this hell of reliving shame?
After staring at the dead Facehugger for a while, making sure there was no third, he prepared to put the bio-mask back on, but stopped... The kill mark burned into the bio-mask changed.
If Scar had chosen the same meaning as his trainer, "First Kill on Ooman," he would have drawn Lightning. But he initially chose the "First Kill on Serpent" sketch with the two marks representing Hard Meat.
The mark now burned into the bio-mask is the lightning bolt from “First Kill of Ooman," representing a war god with a lightning bolt, whose statue Scar last saw on the Clan Mother ship.
Staring at the bio-mask won't solve the problem, the tubes are hissing and attached. He definitely won't be able to take the bio-mask off so easily, and as for the wrong significance, that's the smallest of the problems so far.
Scar turned on the wrist computer, and the used self-destruct device was still there. The address book should only have two brothers and the mothership, but Scar saw four hunters in the list.
Who are the two extra ones?
He typed a few messages and sent them. There was no reply, nothing, the brothers were either still dead or didn't exist. So were the two extra hunters.
Scar lowered his wrist, temporarily suppressing his doubts. Just because the second Facehugger is dead doesn't mean the grudge is gone. If this is another blood ritual, whether or not there is still a god who wants his company at the end, what needs to be done does not change.
—End the hunt.
"Keep it together, make it to the surface."
Suddenly a soft snowfall on the face, as illusory as a fatal wound in the abdomen. In the misty snow, a pair of caring farewell gazes emerged from memory...
Ooman!
Scar snapped his head to look at the observation hole in the next chamber and pressed himself against the wall to check. The next chamber was empty, as the two rooms had not been connected in the last pyramid set.
The two surviving Ooman were gone.
Yautja's bio-mask helps the hunters save all the scenes and recordings, and Scar checks the archive and plays it back. The distorted audio file bounces on the linear display and changes to Yautja's language.
" This pyramid. It's like a prison. We took the guards' guns and now the prisoners are running free. When the door opens, we're going to give that thing his gun back. "
"Are you crazy? You want a metaphor? During a big game hunt, the animals being hunted don't arm the hunters."
"They're not hunting us. we're in the middle of a war. it’s time to pick a side."
"The enemy of my enemy...is my friend."
"Let's go find our friend."
Scar turns to the fork in the pyramid a few minutes ago. Nothing can make the hunter's footsteps lighter than practice, but the male Ooman was still being dragged away by Hard Meat at the broken bridge.
As the sounds of the victim and Hard Meat's distant struggle faded, the female, hanging like a rodent wet with rain at the broken bridge, finally climbed up in terror, her eyes wandering through the silent darkness, picking up the remains of her companion and mourning.
With her elbows on one knee, Scar crouches in the shadow of a high point and watches her lost, abandoned flashlight battery, cursing her broken watch.
The hunter now has two choices: One, return to the surface to complete the consecration ceremony.
—He's finished Blooded, and if he doesn't want to add to the trophy and extend the hunt, he can give up the weapons the Ooman's took, go up to the clan before the Queen breaks free, get a place and a room, and learn if there's a god waiting there, or if it's all a last-minute fantasy. The story is a fantasy in the midst of death.
Two...
Scar's dreadlocks were combed by the wind, and his sturdy body leapt silently over the broken bridge.
Ooman wandered through the darkness and silence of the tomb, following the ancient dried bodies inlaid into the walls to a dead end. She was the last Ooman to survive, except for the male, who had just been dragged back to his nest.
If Yautja's vocabulary was as rich as their battle experience, Scar wanted to complicate the full description of how this reunion made him feel, but he simply came up behind Ooman as he had the last time, blocking the way out, and quietly revisited her infrared heat profile.
Scar took her in, outfitted her with emergency gear, and even planned to give the newly minted hunter the right to kill himself (though not in time) as a testament to the end of his efforts to remedy the situation—his only remaining honor.
Though the second Facehugger failed this time, he will still take the soft meat in.
Tiny, fierce, brave soft meat (Pyode Amedha).
Finally, she senses his arrival and turns very slowly, radiating the fear of prey.
Scar cocked his head and pressed the handle of combistick to pop the sharp edge of the , sending a wavering click from his chest.
Of course, he wasn't going to use it, just to make sure the female remembered something, like the ones that hadn't happened yet, or if she'd gone to hell with him... Hopefully not, but safely back in the Ooman pack and not dying of cold or other accidents.
Scar waits for a hint of reunion, but she is still shaking like a wet rodent. If Yautja could see the mental temperature, Scar would say she was cold from head to toe—she "doesn't remember".
The hunter is a little disappointed and discouraged. The combistick is inserted into the slab, but this is like a declaration of war for the female. She tries to calm herself with her breathing, speaking softly and quickly to herself as if chanting a mantra: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend... The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Ahh. ”My friend". The fangs under the bio-mask trembled and struck each other in silence, and if the Plasmacaster hadn't returned it yet, he might have accidentally fired a shot. Though he sensed something was wrong...
Scar found himself hoping more than to change the outcome of this trial that this thing would not go wrong. This—everything but This—Ooman's Blood Trial he did not want to change. He would respect this sister hunter, regardless of whether this was reality or not.
According to the latest development, waiting behind the ambush of Hard Meat sneak attack, throw the spear and attacker to her, then loaded with Plasmacaster blasted away a few Hard Meat, he can dismantle the prey for her to do the equipment.
The hunter repeats his previous gesture of using the spear, while using a bio-scan to examine Ooman. not to confirm that she is a valid prey target, but just to see that she is not injured or similar to his last experience. There was some damage to her abdomen, a minor injury of little consequence to Yautja, but otherwise she was fine.
The female was aware of the scanned temperature and thought Scar was about to attack. Perhaps fear had fucked up this Ooman, and she reacted by facing her hunter almost provocatively, showing a courage that Yautja would have admired. Without averting her gaze, she slowly unzipped her pack and pulled out the gun.
Scar froze. It wasn't supposed to be like this.
The female was saying, "Wait, wait! And raised her hands. She was afraid, and instead of accepting her fate, she slowly got down on the ground and pushed her backpack right at him.
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" was also said at this time and not at the beginning.
A strange burning sensation rolled through Scar's chest and brain. Was this how it was supposed to be? Should he feel more frustrated than a failed hunt for an important ally who had been changed by the gods?
Or should his actions towards women never have happened? Because he was just a Young Blood, a more arrogant and ruthless version of an Un-Blood, just a foolish cub in the eyes of the gods, in the eyes of other Yautja...
No.
Scar would rather keep the pride of making this decision at that time, the beast within him does not choose like other Yautja. Not even the gods can veto him, not even death. Whatever the purpose of this reality, he will hunt with his partner, return to the surface, and then restore his honor.
The female seemed to think Scar refused to accept the return and slid her backpack and gun to the ground.
Ooman suddenly opens her mouth wide and tries to shout something, but Scar, sensing the danger, turns instantly and the second his fist makes contact with the attack, the combistick in his hand is knocked away by the first blow of the Hard Meat tail spear.
PUNK.
He lost his weapon. Again.
Novel's English correction accept, welcome to point out mistakes or provide constructive suggestions. But I will revise it after a while to avoid several different suggestions.
