It Followed

Agile Blade crouched atop a branch, her knife dancing in her hand. In the distance, she spotted the human dropship. It wasn't anything special, rather small. When she saw it landing it had looked small enough, but up close it wasn't anything great. It looked like a dark grey polygon. Like Yautja ships, it looked like it used propulsers to take off and to fly in the air as well.

She barely remembered the ship she had traveled in with her father so long ago, and it looked nothing like this. Theirs had been sleek, spacious, and, in a way, beautiful. That giant hunk of metal reminded her of home. Made her wonder what became of her mother in all these years. She was probably long dead by now.

It's been years since Naithei had taken her in, raised her, trained her. She had no regrets over how her life turned out, but she at least wanted to know what happened to her world. She wished she could've seen her mother at least once more. Her raven-dark hair, bright blue eyes, her smile, hear her laugh. Her memories of her mother were so vivid, but her father's were faint. Was he blonde? Dark-haired like her mother? Did he have facial hair? Her memory couldn't answer any of these questions.

What was her human name again? She got so used to Agile Blade she couldn't recall. If she wasn't mistaken it started with a 'Z'. Perhaps a 'T'? It's been over a decade since she last used it.

Her body was still young to her. What the Yautja did to her worked a little too well. What they did wasn't known to her, she was put to sleep so they could get on with it. She did know it slowed her aging process by who knows how much. It made her stronger, faster. She moved as any young woman would even though she wasn't one. Agile Blade forgot her human age a long time ago, but she was sure her body didn't look its age. She couldn't care less about it anyway. As long as she was at her peak effectiveness it was enough.

The humans at the ship were setting up defenses around their landing area. Maybe what they saw wasn't anything dangerous and they're just being cautious. This planet was used to hunt several different species, it wouldn't surprise her if they had run into another alien. Maybe it wasn't a Yautja that had attacked them. That or something happened to their ship. If she were hunting them she'd either destroy whatever console was in there to fly it or make it so that it couldn't fly anymore -- and there was no visible damage. Or she just couldn't tell.

Agile Blade heard rustling around her. She switched to thermal on her bio-mask and looked around her. Nothing. She stopped twirling her knife and held it at the ready. Below her she saw the bushes moving. She stared for a good while until something poked its head out. A Hell-Hound. A canine-like beast with scales instead of fur. Bone spikes around its head and another few on its back. The situation was a lot worse than she had imagined. Yautja don't use Hell-Hounds. The heretic clan did.

---

"Follow my finger." Evelyn moved moved her hand back and forth and the Marcus' eyes followed. "He seems fine to me. No major injuries. Whatever happened to him was purely psychological."

She removed her gloves and threw them in the trashcan that Mason placed next her.

"What about the boss?" asked the foreigner.

"I've done what I can." She glanced at the man at the table, sound asleep after all the sedative they used. "If I want to treat him properly we have to take off immediately for the Stalwart."

"No we can't do that. My brother is still out there." said the other man.

"Your brother's dead, Corben. You told us what you saw. He didn't make it and you know it." Yeira said coldly.

"Guess we go out and kill the fucking thing that killed him." he said with a pure, raw rage.

"Evans, we still clear?" the foreigner spoke in his comms. She couldn't hear the woman's reply, but considering he didn't show any signs of being worried she assumed they still were.

"I'm going to send word to the Stalwart; we're going in with a casualty and we have one K.I.A." said Yeira. "Where can I do that from?" she asked.

"I'll take you there." said Evelyn.

"Shouldn't you stay here with your patients?" asked Corben.

"Marcus isn't in any danger and your boss is stable. Anything happens, Mason is here for them and he'll call in case it gets worse." she replied. "Let's go." she told Yeira.

Both women exited the room and started walking towards the cockpit of the ship. The atmosphere was tense. Evelyn had no clue what had happened. Whatever it was it had the mercenaries on edge and that wasn't good.

"Any clue as to what attacked?" she finally asked.

"Aliens. That's a given." replied Yeira.

The two reached the door and they hissed as they opened. Instead of going in herself she simply let Yeira go in by herself. The cockpit was a rather small area of the already small ship. It only fit the pilot and the copilot -- if they even had any of those. The ship was controlled by an automated navigational system so the cockpit was just a luxury.

"This is Yeira Aparicio hailing the colony ship 'Stalwart'. How copy?" she spoke into a headpiece that Evelyn didn't see her put on.

"This is Yeira Aparicio hailing the colony ship 'Stalwart', do you read?" she repeated.

"Stalwart, do you copy? Nyx." she was desperate now. "Fuck me." she complained.

"What happened?" asked Evelyn.

"Won't go through. Planet's atmosphere is probably messing with communications."

"Can that even happen?"

"Don't know." Yeira shrugged. "I'm just spouting nonsense."

"Can you fly the ship?"

"I only know how to pull a trigger. Piloting is beyond me."

"Why do you do that with your hand?"

Yeira looked down only now realizing she had been rubbing her fingers, or rather, a phantom rosary.

"It's a habit." she replied nervously.

"Does it have anything to do with the rosary you mentioned back at the Stalwart?" asked Evelyn.

"Surprised you remember that."

"Kind of hard to forget, you know that right?" she joked.

"Fair point. And yes, to your first question I mean."

"You a believer?"

"Nah. Gift from my old man from when I enlisted. 'For protection'." she chuckled as she quoted her father.

Somehow it barely struck her; she hadn't seen her family in ten years. Ten. Her younger brother was an adult by now. Her parents might even be in a retirement home already. Because of cryo she didn't look a day over 27. Technically she should be going through a mid-life crisis at this point in life.

"What about your parents?" she asked in order to avoid thinking about what she left behind.

"Technically I'm disowned."

"No shit." Yeira was genuinely interested in hearing this story. Unlike with Evans, she wasn't feigning the interest.

Just as it looked like she was going to continue talking, Evelyn instead was shocked. She walked slowly to the front of the cockpit to look out its windows. Yeira turned around and stared in disbelief.

"No. No. Tell me this ain't fuckin' happening." exclaimed Yeira.

The skies were ripped apart by a dense black cloud. It was as if it were about to start raining fire. But behind all those flames, all that smoke, was the Stalwart on a fiery descent onto the planet.

Both women rushed out of the cockpit and broke into a sprint inside its halls. They passed every room and everyone inside them turned and asked what was going on or why were they running. Neither of them answered their questions and instead the others ended up running behind them.

The sun shined in their faces and temporarily blinded them when they made it outside. Their visions cleared and were disappointed when they realized what they had seen was not a hallucination -- the Stalwart was on a slow descent onto the planet. Fan hadn't answered their transmission when they called and now they knew why.

"What the hell man? What the hell man?!" yelled someone behind them.

"Shit just when from bad to worse." said Evelyn.

"This fucking planet can't give us a break." said Yeira.

"Evans, you seeing this?" Evelyn heard the foreigner ask. "I want you to track its trajectory. I wanna know where the bloody thing is landing."

"Hey look. Look!" an Asian man yelled out and pointed at the skies.

Evelyn focused where he was pointing at. Escape pods. The small ships were coming out in droves from the Stalwart in random directions. Evelyn was glad to know that they made it in time. Fan probably woke everyone in a hurry and, knowing her, she probably carried everyone who couldn't walk yet.

"Fuck. Evans, track as many as you can. We'll try to save a few." ordered the foreigner.

"Try?" asked Kovacs who was barely catching up to them.

"We don't have the people to look for all of them. One of us is dead and another injured and I'm sure none of you have even lifted a gun in your life."

The man removed the clip for an ammo check and made sure if the safety was still on. Evelyn didn't recognize the gun he was using, probably a new model.

"Collins. We have to try and get in contact instead. For sure those pods have comms in them, all we gave to do is get a message out." said the Asian man. Evelyn eyed the tag on his armor, 'S. Aizawa'.

"Can't risk that. Locals might be able to track it." he said. "Evans, anything yet?"

"Hey." Yeira was tugging on Evelyn's shirt and was handing her a pistol -- an M4.

"What's it for?" she asked as she took it.

"Can't have the locals killing our doctor." she said and smirked. "You gotta--"

Yeira stopped speaking when Evelyn started to fiddle with the gun. She removed the clip and inserted it again and checked the chamber to see if it was loaded, she pulled and pushed the hammer and clicked the safety on and off. Yeira was dumbfounded.

"Army brat. Born and raised." said Evelyn.

"I'll bet."

"Okay. Evans said the closest pod is gonna land about three hours on foot." said Evans.

"That's the closest?" asked one of the other mercs.

"Makes you wonder which one's the farthest." said Yeira.

Evelyn smiled as her sight drifted to the one they called Collins. Her smile slowly went away as she started to follow some dots on the man's body, six in total. They were small and red in the form of a triangle. He had them on either side of his body as they slowly made their way up and finally stopped on opposite sides of his face.

"The hell is..?" she began to ask. She never got to finish her question because of the sudden blast of blood coming from what used to be Collins' head.

"What the fuck?! What the fuck?!" yelled Yeira in fear.

"In the ship. Everyone in the ship!" ordered Aizawa.

The mercs, Evelyn, and Kovacs rushed back up the ramp of the ship.

"Close the damn thing." It was Aizawa again who assumed the place of Collins.

"What the hell was that thing? Where the shit was his head man?!" asked Corben in a panic.

"There's more than one." Evelyn muttered to herself and no one seemed to hear her.

"What do we do now?" asked Kovacs.

"You guys? Sit and hide. Me? My job."

Everyone turned around to see the man coming out of the halls. The same man that had been in a critical condition not even two hours ago.

"How are you..?" Kovacs began to ask.

"Where's Mason?" Evelyn asked.

"Knocked out. Panicked when he saw me stand up." the man said with a thick accent.

"Well you basically did just come back from the dead." said Evelyn, just as surprised as everyone else, but the man simply grunted.

"Okay." began Kovacs. "Clearly you know what's going on here. Care to explain?"

The giant man approached the small window at one of the sides of the ship and stared intensely into the distance.

"We're in their turf now."

---

As soon as the skies cracked, the hound was distracted. It too noticed the giant mass of smoke descending from the heavens. That brief moment gave her the opening to jump off the branch and gut it before it could call out to its owner. She pulled its heavy body into nearby foliage, hopefully it would take them time to find it.

In the distance the humans were rushing out of their ship and looking up at their ship. Agile Blade glanced it as well. It weirdly made her feel nostalgic. The colony ship she had been in was most likely rusted and broken down. The local wildlife had probably made a home of it just as she did long ago.

Agile Blade looked back down at the humans, just in time to see those blue streaks closing in on them. Two, from either side of the jungle. A human body fell, a geyser of blood pertruding from where his head once was. Two streaks. Two projectiles. Two plasma casters. One was of the heretic clan, that she was sure of. The hound confirmed that for her. But why was there a second projectile?

The humans made it to their dropship in a hurry and securing themselves inside. Two. Two of them. She was still thinking. The Young Bloods weren't given a plasma caster until after they were blooded so the others were ruled out easily.

Her thoughts drifted to the Yautja home planet, just before the departure. Naithei told her that there was going to be a "special" prey for the her and the other unblooded warriors. Two plasma casters. Even the heretics worked together, if one went for the kill the others would let their partner be. Clearly that didn't happen with the recently killed human. She deduced it came from a Bad Blood. The "special" prey was a Bad Blood. Agile Blade smiled under her mask, a smile of delightness. She lost the r'ka, but the Bad Blood opened a new opportunity.

She did question why there were four Young Bloods on this hunt when there was usually a party of three. Now she knew why. The reason for her smile; four Young Bloods were to be blooded, one was to become an Enforcer, a Bad Blood hunter.