I am Iron Man

by Colin Cook

  cockpit and see the damage for themselves.

  "Roger that Bravo-9, what do you see?" a female voice responded through the Turian's headset. Leaning forward in their seats, the two pilots gazed out at the gaping

  rectangular with suspicious eyes, now realizing that the warning received by the Defense Headquarters had not been because of some faulty maintenance.

  "It's a large opening about eight feet tall and four feet across. It's positioned just high enough to remain within the lower levels of the atmosphere bubble, and from the

  looks of it I'd say it was sliced out by some kind of high intensity cutting tool. Whatever happened here was definitely not an accident, someone did this deliberately," the

  Turian explained as his gaze roamed over the melted metal edges where the Sardaukars' Lasguns had burned through the wall.

  What the pilots of the Mantises weren't able to see however was the large shadowy figure couching near the end of the corridor they were all looking into. A figure with

  long thick dreadlocks hanging around his shoulders, who at this very moment was also gazing over the open exit left behind by the strike-team's departure.

  The Predator, the original Predator who had first arrived on the Citadel hours earlier due to the mystical powers of Axel's mysterious ring, shifted his weight on the large

  metal air duct he was using to stay up out of the bright rays of silvery light that flooded into the corridor.

  Though deeply battered and bruised after his near death experience during the spinning crash of Echo 2, the Hunter was still very much alive and hell-bent to solve the

  riddle of Axel's journey in this increasingly bizarre universe.

  (Rejoice my people! For He has returned!)

  Many pieces of his armour were rent or dented after his sudden uncontrollable departure from the Military Docks, and even though he had come away from the ordeal

  without any major bodily harm he had still received several nicks and scratches across his frame, all of which had trickled out small amounts of the Yautja's florescent

  green blood from time to time.

  Thankfully his active camouflage had been able to conceal his blood's natural bioluminescence. Unfortunately though it was only able to conceal the blood that stayed on

  his person, and not the steady stream of drops that had fallen from his body whenever he moved.

  That fact had been especially annoying during the moments after his break from Axel and Alec.

  While the Mantis had been spinning out of control down toward the sprawling mass of apartment complexes many feet below the Docks, the Hunter had withdrawn his

  dagger from its hull and taken a massive blind leap away from the careering vessel. Consequently this made him briefly soar through the air before violently smashing

  down into one of the upper rooves of the nearest complex-building. His heavy bulk was able to easily splinter through a random apartment's ceiling before he came

  crashing onto a dark carpeted floor within a luckily abandoned room, landing in a painful heap amongst a huge pile of jagged debris which left him with several of the nasty

  gashes he now carried.

  Though immediately after this loud entrance a startled feminine shout had emanated a short distance away from him, proving that the room was not as abandoned as he

  had initially thought.

  Snapping his head up through the dust-hazy debris pile with his red tri-lasers and Plasma Caster activated, the Predator had been greeted to the sight of a beautiful seablue

  skinned Asari standing before him, an Asari who had only just stepped out of an adjoining steam-filled bathroom.

  Unfortunately for her she had been completely naked at the time, save for a short form-fitting towel that she hastily tried wrapping around her glistening torso!

  The Predator could only rear back in surprise when he saw her, the dots from his lasers briefly resting on the nape of her neck before shutting down when he realized she

  didn't present a threat.

  While the terrified Asari had held her towel close to her chest with both hands and stepped back a few paces, the Predator had simply cocked his head in curiousity, taking

  his time looking up and down her attractive figure through his bio-filters.

  Then, after satisfying his interest and with a flaring of the mandibles within his mask, the Hunter had lunged forward on all fours and given a snarling growl!

  In response the Asari had screamed in hysteria before dropping her towel, which briefly gave the Yautja a nice view of her assets, followed by her dashing back into the

  bathroom and forcefully shutting its door; all of this being done while shouting something about monsters.

  At the time the Predator had only been able to shake his head while chuckling deeply in his native language.

  Whenever he wasn't actively killing sentient beings he always loved using his menacing presence to toy with them. It provided him no end of amusement watching their

  reactions, especially when they ran squealing like frightened children!

  Milliseconds after this interesting encounter however, Echo 2 itself would cause a gut wrenching quake to run throughout the entire area by crashing not far from the

  Hunter's location; it's remaining pilot managing to break the ship out of its wild rotations just long enough to put it into a rough emergency landing within one of the wider

  walk-streets running in-between the rows of buildings.

  Though despite the pilot's timed steering the wings and repulsors of the craft would smash against the walls of the nearby units, its belly scraping into the metal of the

  laneway and carving a deep rugged track-mark all the way down until it came to a harsh abrupt stop.

  As it turned out the thing that actually did stop the runaway ship had been the wall of another apartment building built into a second street that ran perpendicular to the

  one it had screeched down, with the Mantis having smashed headfirst into it.

  Ignoring the throbbing flare of his injuries the Predator had silently pulled himself from the junk pile he'd created, climbing out of the Asari's apartment through its new

  'sun-roof' and leaping down into the fiery debris-strewn street remodeled by the Mantis's passage.

  Running over to its wreckage as fast as he could, the Yautja had climbed up the side of its scratched hull and ripped open the canopy of the cockpit with his bare hands.

  After leaning inside he had found the gunship's pilots slumped limply over their controls. Both of them had been covered in streams of blood trickling out of several deep

  cuts they'd received from their rough landing but were otherwise still alive and breathing shallowly.

  Activating the X-Ray vision in his Bio-mask, the Predator had quickly rummaged through the cockpit looking for any medical supplies that would help him tend to his own

  bleeding injuries, unceremoniously shoving over the sleeping pilots while he searched through their stations.

  Normally the Predator would have been able to treat his injuries using his own specialized medical gear. However at that moment he had needed to improvise, since Axel's

  ring had somehow been able to separate him from his personal Medical Kit and other field treatments when it had brought him to this universe.

  After a few tense moments passed with growing C-Sec sirens echoing in the distance, he eventually found a small unused First-Aid kit which he quickly grabbed before

  jumping from the smoking Mantis and dashing off into the shadows of a nearby alleyway.

  Activating his camouflage along the way, the Hunter had been able to seamlessly blend in with the darkness just as a crowd of concerned citizens began pouring out of the

  various apartments in response to the mayhem caused by the crash.

  Without hesitation he had immediately set out toward the large section of hull that loomed over the sprawl of complexes. In the beginning the Hunter had been adamant

/>   in simply climbing back up to the Docking platforms and continuing his pursuit of the strange terrorists and his stolen Combi-Stick.

  But before he'd been able to even attempt scaling the towering wall of metal and machinery, erratic reports and weapons' fire would begin screaming through the stolen

  C-Sec earpiece he still had on him.

  According to the hectic array of shouting coming from the voices of numerous Citadel agents, the Blonde Duo had joined forces with a horde of unknown mechanized

  creatures that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere!

  While the Predator stealthily made his way through the shadows and deep back-ways running throughout the sprawl, searching for a quicker way from which to re-enter

  the Docks unseen, he had continued to eavesdrop on the widespread transmissions broadcasting the progress of C-Sec's increasingly dogged pursuit.

  And a dogged one it was.

  From what the reports had given, within a time span of less than twenty minutes the terrorists and their newfound synthetic allies went from: locking themselves inside a

  military warehouse, to creating numerous holographic copies of Axel and engaging the C-Sec forces in hand-to-hand combat, before finally escaping in a blazing show of

  fire with Axel manning an advanced war-suit of some kind while Alec air-surfed on the back of a giant flying spider!

  By that time as these events were called out one after the other the moment each occurred, the Predator had finally found a suitable area from which to begin climbing

  and had already managed to free-scale halfway up the mountainous wall toward the Docking Platform where all this was taking place.

  With his dagger in one hand, stabbing periodically into the Citadel's hull to give himself better leverage, and his other hand hooking his reptilian claws into whatever nooks

  or spaces he could find between the thousands of interlocking plates that made up the wall, the Hunter had ascended gracefully higher and higher like a serpent casually

  making its way up an incline.

  The wind from the Presidium's atmosphere bubble would eventually start making his dreadlocks and pieces of leather that adorned his body flutter loosely around him, the

  more altitude he gained the more harder he had to concentrate to keep from losing his grip.

  Soon however, all of that climbing became for naught.

  For upon hearing of Axel's dramatic flight across the Citadel and the massive squadron of C-Sec vehicles giving chase, the Hunter had ceased in his steep ascent and given

  a low growl, remaining clung to his vantage point for a moment before viciously driving his fist into one of the hull-plates.

  (Apparently that little outburst managed to leave behind a detailed impression of his knuckles in the metal. Its probably still up there right now.)

  Even with his technology and tracking skills, there was no way he would've been able to catch up to the elusive duo on foot!

  For the second time this day his chance to restore his lost honour, and at the same time get some damn answers about this entire fiasco, had slipped through his fingers.

  With a steely determination the Predator had activated his grappling hook and stabbed its sharpened head into the purple hull, leaping away from the mass of wall and

  letting gravity bring him back down to the apartment sprawl far below him.

  As he had fallen the silver cord connected to the hook had reeled out from the gauntlet he held above himself, allowing him to safely drop before the line ran out and

  became taut, leaving him dangling in the air not far above the ground.

  With the press of a button the hook had detached from the wall and the Hunter had plummeted the last thirty feet, slamming down behind a cluster of buildings in a

  dramatic crouch, with the cord and hook retracting back into his gauntlet a second later.

  Knowing that his goal of catching up to Axel was virtually un-attainable at that point, the Predator had let his annoyance fade before re-gathering his wits and setting off at

  a steady pace back in the general direction of the Market District.

  He may have been unable to stop his little group of renegades from getting away from him, which most likely meant that they would later elude him further and escape

  from the Citadel into the far reaches of space. In the event that that happened the Predator took solace in the fact that they would at least still be alive and free for him to

  chase after once he managed to pick up their trail again.

  Despite these recent setbacks the Predator was still as determined to finish this incredible new Hunt that he had been unwittingly forced into. Even after everything that

  had been thrown in his way he would still achieve his goal, no matter the obstacle.

  He would run Axel and his cohorts down to the very ends of this new galaxy to recover his stolen property and receive the answers to the questions he sought, even if

  that meant needing to hijack an entire Council Dreadnought in order to do it!

  However, for the time being there was still one other matter he had to deal with before he could devote all of his efforts into catching back up with the Blonde Duo.

  A matter involving claws, acid, and an unquenchable appetite for anything and everyone on this station.

  And now here he was hours later, in the dingy belly of the Market District with bandages and gauzes from the stolen First-Aid kit patched over his bleeding cuts.

  As he'd feared Axel had indeed managed to escape in the time it had taken him to traverse across the Presidium, with reports of the terrorists' unorthodox evasion of the

  Destiny Ascension having blared into his ear the moment he'd set foot within the District's territory.

  It couldn't be helped now, what was done had been done. Though his misgivings about the state of things were strong, the Hunter was able to quickly see that his desire

  for answers was actually a secondary objective. There would be time to deal with Axel later.

  The Xenomorph was his true priority; there could be no exception to the containment of the Great Serpents.

  It was definitely going to set him back by a few days, weeks maybe if their group got lucky, but eventually he would pick up their scent again and follow them across the

  stars to the source.

  Meanwhile concerning his hunt for the Alien.

  In the beginning he'd been able to easily infiltrate the now heavily guarded District and quietly re-enter the destroyed Corridor where he had first lost sight of the creature

  during the battle. From there the Predator had been able to use his skills and bio-technology to pick up the faint trail of pheromones and periodic burn marks where acid

  blood had been left behind by the surviving Xenomorph's battered body, allowing him to patiently track the Serpent to its lair far down toward the very bottom of the

  Citadel.

  Except now the situation had taken a very odd turn. The problem of containing the Xenomorph's existence had morphed into an utter catastrophe!

  Even as the Hunter crouched on his air-duct within the darkness of the corridor he could still barely believe what had happened.

  The Xenomorph had been stolen right out from under him, kidnapped by an incredible group of assassins for some unknown purpose.

  He had even witnessed the last half of the abduction as it had transpired, having arrived at the Alien's junction lair just as the group was preparing to leave with his prey.

  Thanks to Echo 2's First Aid kit the blood from his wounds had been sufficiently contained by then and was no longer able to fall from his body so as to give away his

  position. This, coupled with his camouflage, had allowed him to silently slither up into the pitch-black of the corridor's collection of air ducts and follow behind the exiting

  group unseen.

  Minutes later after having stealthily crept behind the moving group one duct length at a time, they had come to a stop at the
very spot where the Hunter was now

  presently overlooking.

  At the time the Predator had been deeply considering assaulting the group to keep them from making off with the mysteriously mutated Xenomorph. Whatever had

  caused the troubling changes to the Alien's physical makeup was obviously what this diverse cast of characters had come for, and it was a conundrum that the Hunter felt

  obligated to stop them from solving.

  Only he couldn't. Not just because he was outnumbered and didn't know any of the assassins' prowess in battle, but because of the one creature in particular who was

  bearing the Alien over its shoulder.

  The Predator scowled in disgust as he remembered looking upon the taller Super-Predator only moments ago; how he had been able to easily pick out all of the different

  weapons and pieces of armour adorning its body that it had obviously pilfered from the corpses of other Hunters.

  It was a subtly gruesome sight that had been powerful enough to make his blood nearly boil and his right hand clench in readiness with the intent of activating his wrist

  blades.

  The sudden hatred he now bore for this Yautja was not only a personal response that he had mentally created and engrained in himself over the span of his long life, but it

  was also a very instinctual one that had developed within the mindset of his people since before he had even been born.

  For centuries now a deep-rooted blood feud had existed between his people and a growing sub-species of Yautja to which this Killer in particular belonged to. There was

  no real name for their kind in the Predator language, but there was a title, a label of distain given to any who willfully betrayed the laws of the Hunt and slew their own kin.

  In the Predator's eyes, this abomination, this Predator-Hunter, was an Ic'jit.

  A Bad Blood.

  Just the thought of that word made the Hunter growl lowly with fury.

  It had been decades since he'd seen a Bad Blood in the flesh, the last time having been during a deadly encounter that had quickly turned into a harrowing experience; one

  which had left its mark upon him both mentally…and physically.

  As he thought back to that unpleasant memory from so many years ago, the Predator absently raised a hand and brushed his scaled fingers over the three shallow clawmarks