The Hunter and The Beast

[Zara]

​

"Of all the people I could possibly be hired by, it had to be a damn hunter..."

Grumbling, a lone humanoid Android would slowly wake up from the slumber that her systems would consider as "Going Offline" during a chosen time of the night, her body slowly activating all of its programming and systems back online for another day of duty. Standing up from her bed, she would have the sudden reflex to stretch herself, then realize that she was not organic anymore and, therefore, this act of flexing was almost totally useless. Yes, she had an artificial vertebral column back there within her back, but.... it didn't need any flexing. It's not like it was suddenly going to damage itself over time like any kind of organic bone.

As she thought about that, Zara, for that was the metallic being's name, would realize how completely idiotic this way of thinking sounded and would simply shake her head in shame, sighing.

"Stop it, Zara. You're a Droid now. You're metal. You're not a Togruta anymore. You don't have skin, you don't have head tails, you don't have blood in your veins anymore.... Heck, you don't even have veins anymore, and let's not even talk about the...."

She would stumble within her self-discussion, then stare awkwardly at the walls surrounding her personal bedroom before facepalming.

"I'm such an idiot..."

Shaking her head once more, she would go out of her bedroom, then head towards the cockpit of her ship, her metallic feet leaving small sounds of steel banging against steel within her wake, and the LEDs that formed her eyes slowly brightening up the more her systems would go up, now at their normal white colored brightness. As she would start remembering about the deal she has made not long ago between herself and a remotely popular hunter that has now retired, but still keeps a quite profitable trade monopoly on very dangerous animals' skin and bones thanks to the Galactic black market, her heads-up display would pulse to life and start showing up the words that it had saved during her discussion between the old man and herself on the Galactic Holo-Net.

Plain and simple, really. The job was well described: go on Vendaxa, and hunt a very specific Acklay that has killed one of his closed ones on the hunt. Apparently, the damn thing was able to use the Force too, shooting lightning out of its mouth in some way or another. Thankfully, lightning wasn't a thing that she was weak against despite her electronic engineering. As long as this thing won't ever get its hands on EMP devices, she'll be perfectly fine.

Soon, behind the windshield of the cockpit of her ship, a B-7 Light Freighter that she had personally given the nickname of "Dust", she would finally set her eyes on the planet of Vendaxa, her arms crossed as she sat on the chair that was conveniently placed behind the commands of the ship.

"This should be fun."

Those words, although slightly sarcastic, was not foreshadowing a bad attitude that she had specifically given to this task. Actually, she was pretty excited; she had never hunted such a dangerous species before, and the satisfaction of killing such a great beast was truly something that she wanted to get a hold of.

As her ship would reach the orbit of the planet, the Droid would stand up from her chair, then head back towards the room as she put her full clothes on, then set her weapons in their respective holsters as she walked towards the exit of her ship, her eyes adjusting themselves to the darkness that would soon be revealed to her once the doors would open and the tracks released.

Five minutes later, she was finally setting her feet on this dark planet's ground with her weapons still holstered, seeming to be non-intimidated by this whole environment for the moment. Heading forward, her heads-up display would quickly adjust itself to the darkness and start scanning the area for any local natural activities, searching for any tracks or possible corpses lying around.

[member="The Tyrant"]

 

[The Tyrant]

The Tyrant.....it was a name all of Vendaxa knew and feared. Many tried to hunt this beast bull all have failed. The Acklay was busy doing what would be called it's daily schedule. Eat, kill poor hunters, eat some more, destroy some stuff, eat more, and eat a little bit more. Right now it would say it was on its second to last activity. Eating more. The thing about Acklays were that they had high metabolism, which caused them to eat often. Tyrant was tearing off the meat from Lemnai corpses, its main source of food. It was little to no challage to get food to maintain itself. It was the dominating creature on Vendaxa. Other Acklays would back off of their food if the Tyrant came, for even Acklays understood its dominance.

[member="Zara"]

 

[Zara]

As she walk forward on the surface of this relatively dangerous planet, Zara's heads-up display and system interface would show her the complete profile of the common Ackley along with the description and image that she has been given to by her client. The image that was shown for what the hunter called "The Tyrant" was distorted and even slightly blurry, but it was still clear enough to perceive the massive size of the damn thing and sparks of electricity coming out of its mouth.

So this thing really uses the Force as a weapon.... It wasn't just a ruse to attract hunters towards a death trap, like most Jedi and Republic soldiers tend to do nowadays towards dangerous criminals.

Now that she compared both profiles, it was clear that this beast was much more dangerous than she thought of it to be and, now, she was starting to slightly doubt whether or not she was getting out of this planet alive. Slightly, however, was maybe an over-statement, seeing that she was still much favorable towards the option to stay on Veranda's surface a little bit longer to see what was in store for her mostly because of how vacant and empty the whole area she was in was. Apart from the obvious gorgeous green-colored plant life, there was nothing that was much out of the ordinary and no animals seemed to roam the area.

And then, she would hear many beeps coming from her interface as her systems would detect multiple corpses around the area she was standing on. The plates of metal over her bright eyes would arch downward, seeming to form a frown on the Android's face before she would start heading towards her right, where she would find the corpse of a fallen Lemnai along with another one that was laying against the trunk of a tree that seemed to have been completely torn to shreds. Both of the corpses were mangled, and most of their skin was missing along with muscles and even bones. What a disgusting view....

"Hmmhm..."

Zara would hum, then head ahead towards another party of corpses that were laying against the ground not far from her position. This time around, those were hunters, or, at the least, their skeletal remains. They have been completely eaten by something to the point that only the bones remained, and it clearly seemed like they were fighting for their lives before doing in such a horrible way. Needless to say, the Android expected this thanks to her client's report and, therefore, was not alarmed by any of this.

However, she did start to get some precautions, slowly taking her pair of DL-7H blaster pistols out of their holsters as she would head on further into the jungles ahead.

[member="The Tyrant"]

 

[The Tyrant]

Tyrant continued to eat the flesh off of the Lemnai corpses. Their were plenty of them to occupy his time. He didn't really have any worry anything would come, he was the dominant creature after all. Besides what would something do if it did find him? Likely run, he was larger than most Acklays. So he was very distinguishable among his kind.

[member="Zara"]

 

[Zara]

In the meantime of the Tyrant's little meal, Zara, her, have since slowed her speed down, now slowly going ahead as her systems detected much more corpses around the area along with footprints engraved within the earth underneath her feet. As she would take a look at them, she would task her systems to analyze them by comparing to the image that was taken by the now-dead hunter, now pretty sure that she was getting close. By herself, the Android could already conclude that these footprints' owner was an Acklay, but the sheer size of it was definitely giving it out that it was the famous Tyrant's.

That was bad. Horribly bad.

It meant that the beast was close, which also meant that she had to make herself as stealthy as possible or else that thing might spot her from miles away. Now serious, she would put her blaster up, then start her Assassination-based programs as, instantly, her movements would change and the sounds of her footsteps, minimized. Her eyes would go dark without making the robot lose her ability to see clearer in the dark herself, and her stance would become slightly crouched, seeming to favor stealth and speed over anything else.

She would then start to run forward silently, following the trail of Lemnai corpses as she would slowly get closer and closer to her position. She doubted that the beast would be able to see her, seeing as, being a droid, she wasn't letting any thermal signature whatsoever at the moment, and.... well, she didn't smell anything. At least, she was certain that she didn't smell anything, apart from metal.

You better hold still when I see you.

[member="The Tyrant"]

 

[The Tyrant]

[member="Zara"]

The tyrant got up from where he was and stared to look around. He though he saw....something. His night vision allowed him to see in the dark but nothing clear was around him and anything to far was blurry due to it being near sighted. Seeing nothing but blurs it made its way through the trees. Most trees just collaped due to the sheer force being put on it but the Tyrant gave no sign of effort. It was like he was doing this accidently.

 

[Zara]

As she would get closer and closer to the famed Tyrant of Vendaxa, Zara, in her stealthy wake, would start noticing that there were fallen trees around the Acklay and that, just like she had predicted, it was eating off the remaining meat that was still standing put on the surrounding Lemnai corpses lying against the ground, all bloodied and mangled by the teeth of the large monster of an alien animal the Tyrant. Already, the Android was considering herself pretty lucky to have not been spotted yet seeing as this thing probably had night vision, else she would have probably been rushed upon in a whim.

Hiding behind one of the trees that were still fortunately standing, Zara would put both of her blasters close to her face then stand there, completely immobile as she analyzed the situation. This thing.... was huge. Downright immense. She had never seen such a big Acklay before, and that was a certainty despite the fact that Acklays were already pretty big in the first place. She obviously couldn't try shooting it to the head, seeing as she already knew that Acklays had strong protective natural body armor.... so she will have to try to shoot it to where it will be hurt the most: the stomach, where only soft, smooth skin was located.

But the question was how she was actually going to shoot it towards there without grabbing its attention. Right now, it was staring around, sure, but, if she ever starts to peek, it'll probably notice her and, if it does, things might not go very well after that, most specifically towards her part, actually. She'll have to wait for the perfect shot for the moment. Thankfully, that bloody thing wasn't going to detect her any time soon, seeing as, even if it has its night vision abilities, enhanced smell and was able to use the Force, a Droid was fortunately not really easily detectable without anything that mimicked the systems of metal detectors.

Oh, she hated those things so much....

[member="The Tyrant"]