The Predator goes to the gas station
The newly victorious Yuatja Warrior marched through the passageways of his dimly lit ship, his footsteps clanging upon the cold metal of his taloned feet. After entering through a mechanized door, the Predator saunters over to the helm of his ship. Mechanisms of his helmet hiss as he slowly removes it, revealing a cuttlefish like face with fanged mandibles clicking with contentment. The Predator admired the freshly harvested skulls it adorned above his recreational fireplace, chuffling pleasingly as its clawed hand feels the exterior of the freshly peeled skull, still wet from the acidic processes it underwent within the hunterâs mechanisms, the former navy captainâs skull grinned, an opposite to the expression he held as he was decapitated only hours ago. As the Predator sat himself at the cockpit of his ship, he stops to examine the glowing gauges and switches that made up the shipâs dashboard before he takes off, it is adorned with the scrawl-like symbols of the Yuatja language, indecipherable to the human eye.
The warrior halts, noticing the scarcity of fuel as indicated by glowing green gauge which he eyed with an expression of annoyance. It huffs as it stomped over to the mainframe at the rightmost section of the glowing panel, and hurriedly ran a search for the nearest receptacle for fossil fuels (the Predator is not eco-friendly). The mainframe presented nearby coordinates, the Warrior promptly tapped away on underlying keyboard and the ship makes an automated heading, as it re-enters the Earthâs atmosphere itâs dark metallic color fades away to match the night sky. The Predator calculated as he viewed the re-entry from his viewport, he considered doing what most came naturally to him and simply snatch the fuel from the receptacle while cloaked and under cover of darkness from the humans but was interrupted in its train of thought.
Its eyes narrow upon sight of the bright orange curved symbol which sat atop the large pole above the receptacle. His eyes then travel downwards below the pole to the vehicles which were parked next to the fuel receptacles. The opening in between were too narrow for his ship to fit, he thought of cloaking and taking the fuel that way, but it would certainly raise suspicions among the prey to see the mechanical repository be operated seemingly by itself, so he quickly dismissed that idea as well.
The warrior was briefly dissuaded from his task but, like a true hunter, he saw opportunity where many would see failure, for as skilled as the warrior was at stalking unseen, he was out-of-practice when it came to truly adapting to his environment, without the use of his cloaking equipment. This had recently claimed the lives of one of his fellow hunters in a jungle at the very planet he currently looked down upon. It was also an opportunity for the Predator to achieve some understanding of his prey, for to understand the human he must become the human! Cleverly, the Predator fashioned himself with some of hides he had just collected, confident that with the proper strategy he would perfectly adapt to the species and leave without causing any insurrection.
As the predator strolled between vehicles, his hands clasped and march of utter determination exuding from him, he failed to notice the faces from cars next to him, with expressions of utter confusion, shock, and/or fear. The door dinged, alerting the clerk to the entrance of a potential costumer, he quickly straightens and says ins a customer-service voice: âHi welcome to sev-â. His words are quickly trapped within his throat as he gazes upon the green, mandibled face of the Yuatja warrior, giving no attention to his outfit which barely concealed his alien face. The Predator was wearing a large (for a person) trench coat, a loosely fitting pair of sunglasses applied with tape, a fedora, and flowery shawl. The warrior was pleased with this result, reasoning that his disguise must be working as the slave had suddenly gone silent with respect, after all he had ripped the hid that he wore from what he assumed to be a person of great importance within the human hierarchy. Afterall it was this prey that barked orders to his underlings as the warrior had razed the tanker of all life, his pleasing scream echoing with the thunder and waves as the Predator stabbed his heart.
The clerkâs face, still white with fear gazed at the Predatorâs face, which he now realized expected something from him, he manages to groan out âgas?â while pointing at the gasoline pumps not daring to take his sight away from the creature. He Predator says not a word, makes not a sound, as he reached into his pocket, fishing his hand around it until he thrusts his hand towards the clerk, he flinches. The clerk opens his eyes after hearing the clatter of coins on his desk, along with some crumpled up dollar bills, it is not nearly enough to cover the cost of the gas, but he decided his life is worth more than $18.07, and neurotically punches numbers at his register.
From his peripheral the Predator notices a miniature human, gazing upon him with wide horrified eyes her hand clasping that of a larger human, gazing with the same expression holding a small polka-dotted box; seeing his chance to truly assimilate and produces a toothy grin, or at least the closest thing he could produce his moth structure. The little girl cries. The mother cries. The clerk lets out a stifled sob. The Predator does not understand the concept of crying but presumes it to be a positive reaction as they are not immediately attacking him in his place. The clerk sheepishly hands him a receipt and a red container, and the Predator marches from the station, with the same conviction as when he walked in, and retrieves his fuel. For the Predator this was nothing but a minor inconvenience, a steppingstone on his journey to capture or defeat the most ruthless game, but to the gas station attendee, a recently traumatized little girl, and her mother, it would be a night they would never forget. Â