[Yautja] 5 – Next Stage of Training

As we gathered before our Mother clan Teacher with our Weapons Master by her side, I looked around at my group, noticing that we had lost a few Brothers over the course of the past few years of our training. I wasn’t surprised, of course, due to how dangerous the life of a Yautja was. However, I was disappointed. The way they tried to train us wasted our potential. If we each had a master's or individual training where we didn't endlessly spar against each other with little advice, forcing us to either improve or fall behind the others, the life expectancy of the Yautja children would likely skyrocket, not to mention it would also greatly improve the skill of every Yautja.

Sadly, I doubted my Father clan would do such a thing, believing more in tradition like most other Yautja.

I say most because of Bad Blood Clans. Bad Bloods are those who broke the Honor Code, intentionally or not. Bad Bloods are to be killed on sight, and depending on their crimes, a special Hunter is sent to track these Bad Bloods down to exterminate them. There exist many Bad Blood Clans across the Galaxy and individual Bad Bloods. 

Snapped out of my thoughts, our Weapons Master began to talk, "It is time. Your Creche and the other creches of our clans and the Creches of other clans will be sent to the Jungles of our world. You will then have to survive against both the dangers of the Jungle and each other. Only the fittest will survive, so fight honorably and to the best of your abilities. You can take two weapons: your skin mesh and your helmet. Anything else will be taken from you."

I see. So it is to weed out those who are too weak or scared of the younglings. Two weapons...I'll take my combi-stick and bow. I looked over to Yo, and he looked back. Good. It seems we were in agreement. This couldn't have come at a better time. What we needed was a situation where we could whet our teamwork as if it were a stone in need of sharpening. At the moment, we only had a single target to focus our teamwork on, the Weapon Master, who kicked our asses easily every time and easily overpowered or avoided any tricks we used, but this? This would give us the experience we needed to work effectively as a team.

"You will learn to survive, or you will die. You will spend three months in the Jungle trying to survive. Many of you will die, but those who survive will have proven themselves worthy." 

Worthy? Worthy of what? Life? To be taught? 

"Prepare yourselves. Your creche leaves in an hour," The Mother Clan Teacher warned us, causing many of us to hastily make whatever preparations we could, not that there was any need for rush due to the limited amount of things we could take with us.

However, I walked to our quarters and grabbed my bow along with its quiver, then grabbed my collapsed kombi stick. I already had on my mask just to see more. Speaking of the vision Yautja had, I was not a big fan, as everything was in a red hue without the mask. Yautja saw mostly in Infrared. Thankfully, our bio-masks helped us see more, such as Thermal, Ultraviolet, X-ray, and the last, specifically designed to see our ultimate prey, Xenomoprhs, or 'Hard Meat.'

Returning to the room where our teachers were waiting, I noticed Ro had grabbed his Schimitar and smart disc. At least he grabbed something he could use from afar. He was certainly smarter than most of my brothers in the room, that's for sure, as most had only melee weapons to fight close up and personal. 

Many of them would not survive.

...

As they led us out of the spire, they led us onto a rather large ship alongside a dozen other Creches like ours. There were so many of us that I was surprised to see so many Yautja in one place. From what little media I consumed of the AVP universe, I didn't think Yautja existed in such a large number. Just how many of us would die? 

I was growing worried, but I calmed myself quickly. I had to think about this rationally. Whatever lurks in the Jungle will not be the only danger. I will have to worry about my fellow Yautja as well.

I even noticed a few groups of older creches also being led onto this ship. Were older creches also participating in this...survival test? Was it a yearly thing to keep us on our toes and eliminate the weak? Those older creches numbered so few in number that I even saw one where only one Yautja remained.

Once they loaded us on the ship, I noticed that it was rather dark inside, lacking many lights outside of ominous red lights. There were few windows, too, but I did get a good look at the many spires that lurked around and in the far distance, going as far as the eye could see.

The more I saw, the more I wanted one for myself.

From there, we were each led to pods as the ship took off. In but a few minutes, I jumped as the pod I was in shook and fell, locking me within the metal casket as it fell to the ground.

The pod opened when it struck the ground, showing the thick foliage of the Jungle around me.

Stepping outside of the pod, I was briefly surprised when I saw the tip of the pod glow before flying back up to the ship above. I saw many pods like mine being launched and retrieved repeatedly as the ship crossed the sky above the Jungle. Not wasting any time, I leaped for a nearby tree and began climbing as fast as I could, soon reaching the highest branch thicker than any tree I knew of from Earth.

Kneeling on the branch, I could see pods falling in the distance in the Jungle, and I knew that there was little chance I was going to find Yo when there were so many Yautja that would be stalking the Jungle. At the moment, my survival came first. While it was a part of the Honor Code that we could not kill a 'Brother' or 'Sister' of our race, I had no doubt that there would be some potential Bad Bloods roaming this Jungle with us and that there were Younglings running around that would want to challenge whoever they found to a duel to the death.

While I knew that there would be few cases where I'd encounter other younglings if I were careful, I was half tempted to seek them out and observe. Learn from their mistakes and their techniques, but I was distracted from my thoughts as I heard the sound of screeching before something sharp grabbed a hold of my arm.

Roaring in pain, I extended my Kombi stick and thrust it into whatever tore into my arm. I found it to be a rather large bird with a sharp beak, small eyes, large wings, and incredibly sharp claws. Snapping its beak at me, I managed to make it miss by swinging the arm that it was latched to before thrusting my spear directly into its chest, surprising me when it went all the way through.

That didn't stop its struggle as its talons dug deeper into my arm, splashing me and the bird in my green blood. That's when it lunged forward with its beak, latching onto my shoulder with its razor-sharp teeth.

Pulling my spear out from its chest, I grabbed hold of its beak and ripped it off of me, throwing it down to the Jungle below.

Silently cursing from the burning and throbbing pain in my arm and shoulder, I quickly climbed down from the tree and searched for the bird's body.

There's no reason to waste a good meal, and I'd need to find something I could use to stop the bleeding.