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 large 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 camouflage 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 flanking 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 explain it as cold sweat dripped down his cheek and he gripped his plasma 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 clawed digitigrade foot prints.

“Isn’t Talmapeo a two cla-” U-4’s voice cut off by a large 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 flash 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 explains the size difference and three toe claws.” 

“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 relaxed 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 large 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 landed 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 plasma 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 place when thick liquid dripped his visor, U-1 recognized it was blood. Before he knew it a body landed 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 black.

Chanda pulled up the farmhouse with three other black 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 place 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 clawed. 

Chanda always found it odd that Eris’ true form didn’t have breasts, and she learnt that Talmapeo race was closer related to reptiles but at same time not related to them. She noticed that Eris’ jeans had turned into jean shorts from her shifting her legs into three toe clawed 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 plasma 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 landing.” 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 playfully 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 glanced out at the FCP officers. “The crew should be finished…though the last 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 glanced 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 glanced 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 lazily 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 available, 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 Klagrey clones, humanoid plant 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.