Eris stretched out as stepped out of the school front doors with other students that finished their st css of the day and the rain had stopped but the clouds were dark. Kat had to grab something from her locker and told Eris to go get her car ready. Rory chose to ride with Marigold today and it makes sense since his home was on the way to her route back to her family’s farm.

  Eris started to walk towards the parking lot and dig her keys out of her pocket. She stopped only a few feet away from her impa as she spotted three people standing in front of it and Eris knew two of them.

  The two dies in front of her impa were captains of soccer, Emily Brooks, and crosse, Jessie Hoppen, and Eris figured they were there to ambush her to join their team. The person she didn’t know was some guy she had never seen before and he was sitting on the front of her impa, which made Eris’ eye twitch.

  She could hear the girls snickering as if the guy said something funny and Eris walked up behind the girls. “What’s so funny?” Eris asked and the girls parted when they heard Eris’ voice.

  “I was just asking these lovely dies if they wanted to join me in my car ride in my ride.” The guy said and Eris looked him up and down quickly. He looked like your typical rich kid you see on tv and Eris could smell the cockiness off him.

  “Your ride?” Eris asked and in the corner of her eyes she could tell both captains were trying their best to not burst out ughing. The guy was about to say something but Eris double clicked her key fob to make it honk loudly under him and make him jump up.

  When jumped to his feet Eris grabbed the colr of his sweater and pulled him close to her now snarling face. “You shouldn’t touch something that doesn't belong to you and you for sure shouldn’t touch my impa.” Eris snarled and saw pure terror on the guy’s face. Eris pulled the guy away from her impa and let go of him so he stumbled past her.

  The guy turned around and looked completely embarrassed now as fixed his sweater. “Just wait, you hear from my father about this!” He said with a shaky voice before walking away with a huff.

  Eris snorted before looking at the dies, “I’m not in the mood dies, try to recruit me tomorrow.” Eris said and used her fob to unlock her impa this time.

  “Oh, no, I’m just waiting for Jessie as she’s my ride home today.” Emily said and nodded towards Jessie.

  Eris looked to Jessie with raised brow, “I’m here to deliver a message from my dad, Race Night this week is canceled due to weather.” Jessie said. Jessie’s father was one of the police officers that set up events for racing at the local race track and Eris always loves to join those events to show off her impa.

  “Ah, I figured that was going to happen, even then I would have missed that day anyways.” Eris smirked and Jessie raised a brow as she knew Eris rarely missed out Race Night.

  “The meteor shower is happening on the same night.” Kat’s voice said to make both dies jump but Eris had seen Kat walking up to them. “I hope the rain clears up by then.”

  “Sounds romantic,” Jessie said as Emily moved to stand beside her and Kat moved to stand beside Eris. “Anyways, ya Race Night is canceled this week and that's it. See ya ter, gals.”

  “Have a nice evening, dies.” Eris said as she waved goodbye with Kat and the dies waved back as they left. “Ready to leave?” Eris asked as opened the passenger door for Kat.

  “Yes, I am.” Kat said as slide into the passenger seat and let Eris close the door for her. Eris went around the front of her impa and got into the driver seat. Eris turned on the car after buckling up, “So were you the reason why I saw a freshman huffy and embarrassed.”

  Eris simply gave Kat a ‘Who, me?’ expression before giving her sheepish smile before driving the impa out of the parking lot and into traffic.

  Eris had got off the highway and onto back dirt roads to get out of the slow moving highway traffic. Eris hummed along with music she had bsting on impa’s stereo and Kat was typing away on her phone. “Your mom is getting a ride from my mother and picking up pizza on the way.” Kat informed Eris.

  “Well you kn-” Eris hit the brakes on her impa hard as a bst of psma nearly hit the front of the impa. Eris had just seen the bright bolt before it could hit and she was fast enough to react with the brakes.

  Eris quickly pressed a button on the console and silently the energy shield formed around the impa. One of many things she had installed into her impa, just in case this happened again, and looked to Kat.

  “I’m fine.” Kat said quickly before pausing and looking out the windshield. Eris followed her gaze and saw an armored humanoid standing in the middle of the dirt road. It looked to be the average height of male human and pointed a psma rifle at the impa.

  He was shouting in some form of alien nguage but Eris didn’t understand it and she also noticed a jetpack smoke trail to where he was. Eris gripped the wheel, “Hold on.” She hit the gas and showed that her modified impa can accelerate from zero to hundred in less than two seconds.

  Either this bounty hunter will be smart enough to dodge with his jetpack or dumb enough to shoot to try to stop the impa, unfortunately for him, he was dumb. The impa hit the hunter straight on and dragged them for a few feet on the hood before being pulled under the impa. Eris slowed down to stop and looked through the back window.

  The moment she saw the hunter get back up she switched to reverse and hit the gas once more. The impa hit the hunter once more and once more the hunter was dragged a few feet on the rear before being pulled under the impa.

  Eris stopped once more and looked out the windshield, “I think you got him.” Kat said as looked to see the hunter’s body in the middle of the road.

  “The first hit was to stun and the second one was…” Eris paused as the hunter started to get up once more but slowly. “To get through the shielding of his armor.” Eris shifted to drive and gun it before the hunter could get up. Eris could hear the crunching sound of a hunter under her impa and Kat winced.

  “Third time’s a charm,” Kat said and Eris fully stopped the impa to park it. “I’ll call mom while you deal with the body.” Eris smirked as popped the trunk, got out of the impa and tossed her leather coat into the back seat. Kat was using the impa’s console to call her mother and Eris could hear the dial tone when she tossed her coat in the back seat.

  The body was still intact but their limbs were twisted in impossible angles for any normal living thing, including the head facing backwards. Eris grabbed the colr of the armor with one hand and the other hand grabbed the hunter’s belt. Eris didn’t have any trouble picking up the body and shoving it into the trunk.

  Eris looked over the body before locking on a metal patch emblem on the shoulder pad and she easily ripped it off due to damage the impa did. She smmed the truck before getting back in the driver seat and held it out for Kat to see. “Divgt’er Guild, they like to use clones as unethical bounty hunters.” Eris said before dropping the emblem into one of the cup holders.

  “And they don’t send just one, they work as a pack normally.” Chanda’s voice came over the console and Eris shifted into drive before punching the gas. “Get back home and y low until your mother and I get there. I’m also calling a FCP unit to meet us there.”

  Eris could hear loud insectoid hiss and some alien words, which could be mistaken for odd Spanish dialect, and Eris knew that was her mother, she was not saying anything pleasant and not worth repeating. “They are aiming for me, because psma weapons don’t work well against Vulkein. Also on his bullet belt were kinetic rounds for big game aliens.” Eris expined as she gripped the wheel and felt a shift in her form.

  “Alr-Amy, keep your form human, we are still in the public area.” Chanda hissed before the call was cut off. Kat looked at the console with worry but faded away as she realized it was her mother who cut off the call and not a jamming device cutting them off.

  “Hold tight, we’ll get to the house in seconds.” Eris said as pushed her foot down more and Kat gripped the roof handle out of instinct.

  Unit One joined up with Unit Two, Unit Three, and Unit Four after Commander Unit told them that Unit Five was taken down by their target. They had personal active camoufge currently active so they didn’t catch the attention of the local FCP and they could sneak up on their target, a juvenile Talmapeo.

  Any kind of Talmapeo head would be a hefty bounty and tely the Guild was having trouble finding any kind of Talmapeo to hunt. It was just luck that one of the Guild members got solid information about a Talmapeo and their Unit was near this mud hole of a pnet.

  “U-5’s body was taken by the target, possibly as a trophy or to inform the local FCP,” U-C said over a transmission to all Units. “Tracking U-5’s body and sending its location.”

  “Comfirm, U-C,” U-1 said and looked to other members around him. “Once we are at the location we will drop our cloaking, it’s useless against Talmapeo eyesight.”

  The other units nodded to U-1’s words, “I say good riddance to U-5, his build was screwy to begin with, had to prove he was better than us.” U-2 said and the others nodded with argument. “I mean we are all clones of the same guy, meaning we are all the same skill set.”

  “Enough chat, move out,” U-1 commanded and everyone straightened up to start marching towards their target.

  The group of hunters found themselves in front of a home surrounded forest area and they dropped the cloaking to save power for jetpacks usage. “Tracks of vehicles this way.” U-3 said and pointed to some kind of small stone road and he was right about the tracks.

  “Stay on high alert, they may use the vehicle as a weapon.” U-1 stated and made hand gestures to move forward. The others had their guns up as they followed the tracks and the tracks led to a red building with a rge door that was wide open.

  The building housed two primitive vehicles and several tools to work on said. “Odd, some of these tools are too advanced for these vehicles.” U-4 pointed out as he moved up to the smaller red vehicle that had its trunk open. “Found U-5’s body.”

  U-3 walked over and backed away for a moment, “Dam…that looked brutal…” U-3 trailed off and tilted his head. “You were right, U-1, they used this vehicle as a weapon.” He pointed to some green blood on the bumper of the vehicle.

  “Looks like they left out this back door,” U-2 said as stood at the back of the building by an open door. “They made muddy tracks into the forest.” U-1 walked over to see one set of shoe prints heading into the forest.

  “We can’t use thermal goggles, Talmapeo skin camoufge heat signatures." U-1 reminded the others and looked into the forest as rain started to come down. “Night vision is our best choice.”

  “Agreed,” The others said and pressed a button that switched on night vision in their helmets. U-1 moved to the front of the group with U-2 fnking on his left, U-3 on his right and in the back to cover them was U-4.

  As they entered the forest a chill ran down U-1 spine and he couldn’t help his breathing getting heavier. This wasn’t his first time hunting a Talmapeo and not the first hunting in their prey’s territory but he never felt this feeling in those hunts, a deep dreaded feeling. He couldn’t expin it as cold sweat dripped down his cheek and he gripped his psma rifle tighter as if his only life line.

  U-1 stopped and the signal to others stopped then pointed to what he spotted. What he spotted was a pair of boots and ripped clothing. U-1 bent down to check the ripped pieces of clothing, it was a small amount and the helmet told him it was twill weave with dark blue dye.

  “Tracks changed,” U-2 commented and U-1 spotted what his team member was talking about. The shoe prints became humanoid foot prints before turning into three toe cwed digitigrade foot prints.

  “Isn’t Talmapeo a two c-” U-4’s voice cut off by a rge white blur and without thinking everyone started to fire where the blur went. Whatever grabbed U-4 vanished with him into the bushes and trees before any of the other units got a good look at it.

  “HOLD YOUR FIRE!” U-1 called out as he stopped firing and others stopped along with him. He looked at them and could see they were just as spooky as him. “Regroup.”

  “Fuck, did any of you catch what took U-4?” U-2 asked as they got closer grouping. “U-C did you catch anything on camera view?” There was static over the radio before a fsh of lighting and making the men move to be back to back with each other.

  “Looks like this storm is interfering with communication with Command.” U-3 said as he checked his kinetic rifle and reloaded it once he noticed he needed to. “That thing was big, it was bigger than an adult Talmapeo.”

  “Variant Talmapeo, this must be a variant.” U-1 said as he checked his own rifle and the charge was back to full already. “It expins the size difference and three toe cws.”

  “Ag-” U-2 stopped from the sound of rustling of bushes and U-1 followed with pointed weapons to the sound. U-1 held his breath as they waited, which was feeling like hours, and let out a breath as local fauna came out of the bushes. U-2 rexed his shoulders seeing the creature, “I believe that is what is called a Deer, right U-3?”

  There was no answer from U-3 and both looked to see that U-3 was no longer there. “Shit” U-1 could only muster from the missing of U-3 and U-2 stiffen up once more.

  “This isn’t how Talmapeo hunt…hell they really don’t hunt at all.” U-2 muttered and he was right that Talmapeo didn't hunt. The Talmapeo normally feed off rge animals and drain little energy from them as micropredators or ectoparasites.

  “This hunting style is more like an Aensi…” U-1 finally said and both of them looked at each other before booking it towards the forest line. They had been programmed to run away from an Aensi hunt and U-1 was blindly running until he tripped on some roots.

  He had nded face first into the mud and he was panting heavily as he rushed to get back onto his feet. He cleaned off his helmet visor and finally noticed he was all alone. U-1 started to spin around with his psma rifle raised up and could only hear his heart beats in his ear and heavy breathing.

  He kept spinning around at any movement and froze in pce when thick liquid dripped his visor, U-1 recognized it was blood. Before he knew it a body nded in front of him and it was missing its head. The body was U-2’s body and it was still twitching, telling U-1 it was a fresh kill. U-1 slowly looked up into the trees and his blood ran cold as he saw a pair of unnatural glowing purple eyes looking down at him before everything went bck.

  Chanda pulled up the farmhouse with three other bck SUVs filled with fully geared FCP officers. Chanda was worried for the girls but also worried about Amy losing it as she had shifted her lower half of her face.

  Amy’s lower face now had four insectoid mandibles with long purple fangs on them and she was making loud hissing and clicking sounds the whole way. Chanda could feel Amy was holding on thread from completely shifting and Amy burst out the vehicle before Chanda could fully stop when they were in front of the farmhouse.

  Chanda got out of the vehicle once parked and rushed out to follow, only to spot Kat coming out of the main farmhouse onto the roofed porch. “SHE LURED THEM OUT INTO THE FOREST!” Kat yelled over the rain the best she could and Amy’s eyes moved towards the forest.

  “I told both of you to hide!” Chanda yelled as she climbed the stairs to the roofed porch. Chanda grabbed her daughter’s face and Kat didn’t fight as her mother checked her over. The FCP officers were getting ready to go into the forest but stopped as someone came out of the forest, it was Eris in her true form, and covered in dark green blood.

  Eris’ true form was pale white skin, with purple freckles in the same pce as her human form had and her hair was still a strong maroon red tone. She had white curved horns like a ram on her head, and face had no features besides the pair of glowing purple eyes. Her hands had two thumbs and three fingers and all them were cwed.

  Chanda always found it odd that Eris’ true form didn’t have breasts, and she learnt that Talmapeo race was closer reted to reptiles but at same time not reted to them. She noticed that Eris’ jeans had turned into jean shorts from her shifting her legs into three toe cwed digitigrade feet, and which made her stand at six feet and two inches tall now.

  Amy rushed over to Eris and just like Chanda started to look over her daughter. Eris removed her grey shirt, which was filled with bullet and psma bolt holes in it, and spread out her arms to give her mother a better look. Amy’s face returned to her normal beautiful human features once done and started to scold Eris in her native tongue.

  “Are you going to scold me, even though I hide?” Kat asked and Chanda just sighed before hugging her daughter.

  “No but next time, try to get Eris to follow you in hiding instead.” Chanda said and patted the top of Kat’s head. Chanda saw her men return to their suvs to switch up their gear to clean up gear.

  “Madman, Clean Crew Two found their ship and captured their Commander Unit.” One of the men reported and Chanda let go of her daughter to shift into work mode. “We also blocked any uploads from their ship, so their guild wasn’t updated about events that happened today.”

  “Good work, Captain, clean up the forest and I hope we have the equipment to tow their ship?” Chanda asked. “Or did they use a Zam-28 model too?”

  “No, Madam, it’s standard Riza-13 and recent damage on haul suggests they used the recent meteor shower to hide their nding.” The Captain said and Chanda nodded before waving them off. The salute before heading to the forest to join his men in the clean up.

  Kat hovered a bit and Chanda gave her daughter an raised eyebrow, “Sooo…did you pick up the pizzas before getting here?” Kat asked and Chanda snorted before ruffling her daughter’s hair.

  “Brat,” Chanda pyfully scoffed and Kat just giggled from her mother’s ruffling. Chanda stopped as Amy and Eris joined them on the porch and Eris let out a loud sigh, which Chanda didn’t know how she did it with no mouth or nose.

  “We didn’t get the order in before you called, so while Eris showers, I will make that pizza order and get it delivered.” Amy said as gnced out at the FCP officers. “The crew should be finished…though the st one you just had to ‘goomba’ stomp?”

  Eris looked away from her mother’s words and Chanda gave the young Talmapeo a raised brow. Chanda couldn’t read Eris’ face when it was in its true form and she gnced down to truly understand why Eris’ legs were covered in green blood.

  “I’m going to have that shower now.” Eris said as walked into her home and Chanda gnced at Amy, who was holding back a snicker. Kat followed Eris into the house and Chanda looked out to the forest, where her men were working, and Amy let out a sigh before entering her home to make a call for pizza.

  The FCP officers had left before the pizza guy came and now everyone was in the living room with pizza boxes on the coffee table. Eris and Kat were snuggled up on the love seat and Eris had returned to her human form so she could eat pizza. Chanda found herself in a recliner chair and Amy was zily lying on the couch.

  “You said they were clones, right?” Kat asked as grabbed another piece of pizza from one of the boxes and Chanda nodded to her daughter’s question. “If cloning is avaible, why can’t the Talmapeo race use it?”

  “Complex races like Talmapeo or Aensi or even humans, can’t be cloned.” Amy sat up to grab another piece of pizza. “They don’t come out right or just come out as a meat pile.”

  Kat grimaced at the thought, “The less complex the race the better the cloning works. These guys were Kgrey clones, humanoid pnt people like Gorpsia but less complex and no stronger than the average human.” Chanda said before biting into her pizza piece.

  “Some could say they are dumber than humans but those clones must have been programmed to be smarter.” Eris said and paused to think of something. “Well most of them were. That first one seemed to be a bit…short sighted.”

  “You were able to run him over…three times and he had a jetpack.” Kat said and Eris smirked. “I think he didn’t get the brain cells.”

  “Well, they seemed to be missing some kind brain cell because they all had jet packs and none of them used them to escape.” Chanda pointed out and Amy let out a scuffing sound.

  “When prey is hunted they panic and forget things like that.” Amy said as she licked her lips. “I have seen Jy’ler run off a cliff and die when I was chasing him, and they have wings to fly.”

  “That is true and it has been recorded to happen to humans too.” Chanda admitted and let out a sigh. “I’ve seen it happen as well…”

  “Was it when you picked up a wooden spoon?” Kat teased and Chanda looked at her daughter before smirking.

  “Yes, enough talk about this, what are we watching tonight?” Chanda asked and waved her hand as if to swat this conversion away.

  “I was thinking about that and I think ‘Predator’ is the right movie for our mood.” Amy said in a serious tone and everyone just chuckled at the suggestion.