1 Born On A Planet That Feels Like An Oven--Is This Hell?

I was dead. Pretty easy deduction to make, honestly, when the last thing I remember is a eight-wheeler slamming into the side of my car - ran a red light, whoever was driving had. Probably a drunk driver. But my small hatchback? There's no way it wasn't squashed like a can of beans.

And I was the beans.

Probably exploded into a shower of gore. The type of shit you'd see on LiveLeak and go 'Goddamn, I'm glad that wasn't me'. But this time it was me.

So, here I was, floating in an endless space of warmth. I could feel my body, oddly enough, but it was sluggish and seemed to refuse my mental commands to move. My body tingle randomly and my feet kicked out or my arms twitched but other than that? I couldn't move. Which meant I just got to float there in the warmth.

Kinda calming, actually. When I first got here, I awoke with a jolt, my heart hammering like a jackhammer from the last memory I had. But the presence of this space was just so...serene. I felt safe, like I couldn't be hurt--I had the distinct thought of 'Is this Heaven?' when I first arrived.

But I pretty quickly shot that down. It may feel safe but it's a dark void of heat. There's no angels or silver city. No paradise. Just an endless darkness and peace. It was an afterlife, sure, but more like a dark room where you could sleep as much as you wanted than that of the eternal paradise Heaven was made out to be.

My thoughts were cut off when a tremor rocked it's way through the dark space, jostling me about in the process. Things around me stopped being comfortable as the walls of this place - I hadn't known there were any walls at all - pressed against me and moved me. The walls squeezed and my head hit some sort of opening which stretched in a painfully slow fashion to allow me to fit through. The warmth left and it was only then that I realised it was a liquid.

...No. No, I fucking refuse to believe fanfic authors on Webnovel got it right where thousands of years of philosophers got it wrong. I refuse with every fibre of my being. This isn't reincarnation. Just experiencing some weird shit in the afterlife. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I thought until I passed through the opening and into a squishy passage that seemed ill-fit for me to pass through. It contracted and pushed me along and each contraction sold home what was actually happening, even if I wanted to refuse it.

I was being born. That dark, warm place was a womb. I'd died and been reborn for fuck's sake.

I mean, I'm happy. Everyone wants a second chance but come on, a little heads-up wouldn't have hurt, would it? Wait, would it have hurt?...On second thought, I'm glad a God beyond my mortal understanding didn't fry my brain with his/her/it's appearance.

Kinda sucks I didn't get any wishes though. Is this one of those reincarnations where I'm just thrown in the deep-end with nothing to rely on? Man, that'd suck. Guess I'll have to wait and find out.

All in all, the birthing was extremely quick. Like, ten minutes of time and I was out into the humid air. Doubt that was a human that birthed me--So am I not human? Or is a human with superpowers and that just sped up the process? Jeez, this guessing game is annoying.

So I opened my eyes when I felt some rough hands pick me up. God, that was a fucking mistake.

I gurgled a scream, my arms lashing about in an uncoordinated manner as I tried to get away from the literal fucking alien holding me. But it was a fruitless endeavour. They held me tight and looked down at me with horrifically inhuman yellow eyes, their green and brown blotted skin making a contrast that really made the yellow pop. Like a predator's eyes through a bush. And boy oh boy how ironic was that last bit? Because ladies and gentleman, the alien holding me was a literal goddamn Yautja!

You know, the main antagonists from the Predator movies? The guys who sometimes help out in the AvP franchise? Killers of Xenomorphs? Lovers of the Hunt? Absolute fanboys for some code of honor?

Yeah, those fuckers. Which means...

I'm a fucking Yautja.

Welp, there goes my chances of losing my virginity to some hot woman. No human would ever want to bunker up with a Yautja's ugly mug.

But damn was this Yautja big. Must've been easily over 7 feet tall. Maybe even 8 feet tall? I don't know. I just know they were built like a brick shithouse and looked like they could bash through a metal door like a more homicidal version of the Kool-Aid man. Oddly enough, when I looked down, I could see why this Yautja was so big - it was a female Yautja. Looking further, I could see the big belly where I'd just been. So this was my mom.

Yikes. Hope I don't inherit her looks.

Her mandibles clicked as she looked down at me, a clawed finger coming to trace across my face. It was through that sensation that I realised I had a remarkably human face. It was also at that point that I realised I wasn't seeing in infrared. I could actually see colours. Am I part-Human or something? What unlucky bastard got dragged into a Yautja's bedroom? I'm praying for you, man. Death by snu-snu is the most likely result of whatever happened.

In my thoughts, I hadn't realised that the Yautja who seemed to be my mother had brought me to her breast and my lips had attached themselves to her teat. Ah, just the first of betrayals my infantile body will make.

I head some hissing and more rapid clicks but I ignored 'em, suddenly feeling immensely tired. So, I fell asleep while drinking some Xenos milk. The Imperium of Man would be very disappointed no doubt.

. . .

{POV Switch - 3rd Person, Hashori}

(A/n - Just a heads up, when I say one of the Yautja grins, sighs, scoffs or whatever, I obviously mean the Yautja equivalent of that action.)

She looked down at her newest pup, a new child among the many she'd had over her centuries of life. The pup was obviously different and she knew why - he showed Human traits. The fact she even knew his gender as soon as he was born was a telltale sign he had inherited more Human DNA than most of her clan had. The quills on her forehead bristled at the thought.

Humans. The primitive apes of the universe, barely able to leave their own planet and get to the moon orbiting it. But she'd had run-ins with them before, just like many Hunters had, and she respected them as worthy prey. What a human lacked in physical prowess and martial ability they more than made up for in cunning and craftiness. It was why one of her ancestors had mated with a human long ago - the human was apparently a great warrior, unmatched among his own kind and even able to give a Blooded Yautja a good fight.

The very thought nearly made her scoff but she held it down, years of being a Matriarch giving her an impeccable control over her expressions. No matter the validity of the story, Human DNA was a part of her genome and her clan's genome. The superior genetic strength of Yautja DNA kept Human DNA suppressed for the most part but all members of her clan had the same cunning and craftiness Humans seemed to naturally possess. Her newest pup had inherited more than just that, it would seem.

She looked down to the pup she was holding and saw his unique appearance - human-like but with the skin of a Yautja but with the hair of a human. It was unusual but not horrific to look at as she'd have expected. At least he seemed big, even for Yautja standards.

He'd make for a strong Hunter.

Yellow eyes looked back at Hashori and small arms flailed as if to escape, causing an odd surge of maternal instincts in her chest as she clicked her mandibles together in light laughter. She held him tight and brought him to her breast, looking up to the male not four feet away from her.

His quills bristled, his postured tensed and ready to strike. The only thing stopping him being his Code of Honour and the fact he knew that to attack Hashori would mean his end. Either at her hands or the Enforcers soon after. Hashori locked eyes with him and spoke, "Why are you still here, I'ta? Leave me with my child."

"I cannot let you keep this...this abomination," he hissed, taking a step forward as if to snatch the young pup from her grasp. Hashori grasped the child in her arms a little tighter before wondering why she was feeling so attached to a child she'd just had? Unlike Humans who were ever so enthralled with their offspring, Hashori knew Yautja weren't the same. From a biology point of view and experience of having pups before. Yautja didn't feel protective over their young to the same extent as Humans.

Either the pup was strong enough to survive or they weren't. No Clan Leader or Matriarch cared for the ones who died because they were obviously too weak to best the Black Warrior.

And yet right now, Hashori felt like she'd fight the Black Warrior herself, unarmed and undressed as she was, just to keep this pup in her arms alive. It was simultaneously an infuriating and curious feeling.

Keeping a neutral face, she looked down at the shorter I'ta and gave a challenging look, "He is healthy and big. He isn't malformed and seems to have no disorders. A healthy pup will not be sent to the recycler."

"He's too much like a Human!" he hissed again but nevertheless took a few steps back under the pressure of her gaze, "He may grow up like them--weak, feeble, timid! He's already an aberration! If he were to grow up like a human, he would be a disgrace to our Clan, to the Yautja race!" he continued arguing pitifully and yet Hashori already knew why he was pushing so hard for the pup to be discarded.

This was the result of his seed. His child. What would the other Blooded think if his seed produced a pup that looked more Human than any others of the Des'teka Clan had ever been before? They would call him weak. Call his seed weak. Mock him.

He cared not for the Honour of the Clan like he was saying. He cared about his own Honour.

"You are a weak man," she simply said, clicking her mandibles in disappointment before turning back to her bed, "Leave before you bring yourself more dishonour than you already have."

She went to walk to her bed for rest when she felt him move. A few quick steps toward her, his anger overriding his higher thinking, as it was known to do for male Yautja. Hashori growled and span back around, one of her arms held out as it slammed into I'ta with a force that knocked him back and away into a far off metal wall, crumbling and cracking it around him. Blood spurted from his move at the sudden acceleration and deceleration, the hide on his cheek already turning a darker green as it bruised, "Leave," Hashori hissed, louder than before, the pup in her embrace jostling back and forth at the sudden movement and noise. "He will bring the Clan no disgrace. I will make sure of that. He will grow to become the finest Hunter of our Clan. I will make sure of that. Do you understand, I'ta?" her hissing statement quickly became one of growls, grunts and roars.

The downed male wiped the blood trickling from him mouth and pulled himself free of the wall that had closed around him from the force of the hit. He dropped to a knee and held a fist to his chest, "Yes, Matriarch," he grumbled out before getting up and leaving post-haste.

With that done, Hashori turned back to her bed and lay down on it. The bottom part was covered in fluid from the birthing but she found little in her to care - the servants could clean it after she'd slept, or even while she slept. She hadn't a care for that. She looked down to the pup still suckling at her chest and grinned to herself as she thought about the years she'd spent studying Humans before she came back to Yautja Prime to take up the mantle left to her by her own mother.

Humans felt love. Humans protected their young. Most Humans, to Hashori's knowledge, took care of even their most broken young. And if they didn't? They had other people to take care of them. She was beginning to think the Human part of her Clan's genetics had bestowed something more to her than cunning, both in combat and the political sense. She was starting to think it had given her the ability to love - a very non-Yautja thing to do.

She hadn't felt this for her other young. Never. They weren't special enough for it, she could only ever see Yautja's in them. Which should've been a good thing. And yet now, with a pup that seemed the perfect balance between two species - the humans guile and the Yautja's superior physicality - she was finally aware that she could love her child like the Human mothers she'd seen before.

Her newest pup was special and that earned him Hashori's love.

"I will make you the strongest warrior, pup," she whispered to him, clawed hand softly tracing his facial features once more, enjoying the feel of his skin which seemed the perfect balance of a Yautja's hide and a Human's softness. Durable yet also flexible. Hashori knew her pup was special as soon as she laid her eyes on him, when she'd seen him wiggle and struggle to try and escape her grasp...she just had to make him live up to his potential, "The strongest hunter to bring the most Honour to our clan. To the Yautja as a whole. I will make sure of it."

Tiredness hit Hashori soon after she finished speaking and she closed her eyes, still holding her pup close. And she dreamed. She dreamed about him battling the Serpents, rending their exoskeletons apart and slaying their Queens and their Guards. She dreamed of all the skulls he would bring back from hunts for the Clan. A unrelenting Hunter, the best in the Universe.

And she would make it so.

. . .

"Again," mother clicked at me, the Yautja language just as harsh and bestial as it had been the first time I'd heard it ten years ago.

And what a decade it'd been.

As I'd thought, I was on Yautja Prime. I was a Yautja...and yet I had Human traits. Mother explained that to me - something about a human ancestor, recessive genes, etc, etc. Basically, I have the best of both worlds. A Yautja's physical stature and prowess but with a Human's creative mind and natural inclination for craftiness and surviving through any means necessary.

My first conscious thought after waking up, had been how to escape. How to get back to Earth, or at least how to get away from the gigantic, reptilian-mammals that seemed to be everywhere. Yet over the years, that desire had slipped away.

Why? Because the Yautja lifestyle appealed to me on a base level. It's simplicity was just...brilliant. You didn't have to worry about what you'd do with your life, because you'd become a Hunter if you were male and a politician/ruler if you were female. I was a male, so my path in life was set and I didn't need to feel that anxious indecisiveness all people feel when they wonder 'What am I gonna do with my life?'.

Being a Hunter basically meant I had two things to do over the last decade. Train and train more.

I honestly suspect some genetic foul play because I know I shouldn't be so okay with that. I should complain or refuse or continue planning to run away. But training to become a Hunter felt almost...too natural. Too good.

It doesn't hurt that being a Yautja means I recover quick no matter how hard I train. Even if mother or the trainers she brought in beat me black and blue, after a few hours of rest I'd be as right as rain. I will admit that for the first few years, I was always worrying, always thinking and feeling anxious over this drastic change to my mentality...but as time went by, I grew to accept it. To love it. Life was just so simple now.

Felt like being an Ork from 40k, honestly. I'd left behind a solid amount of the normal worries a human would have and embraced the life of a pup or a suckling, as some Yautja call me.

Though far be it from me to not add that my life so far is far from the norm. Yautja pups usually aren't trained. They're usually either playing about or sucking on a tit, hence the name suckling. It's only when they become a Youngling at the age of 10 or 11 that they begin any sort of training. I'd learnt all this off of a tutor because my mother thought that a Hunter can't be a good one unless they're as sharp mentally as their wristblades. I agreed with the sentiment fully and wholeheartedly.

You'd honestly be surprised how intelligent Yautja are. Put that together with Humanity's inclination to intelligence and I learn stuff at a blistering speed.

But enough with the monologue and back to the obstacle course.

I nodded to my mother and walked to the back of the course. It was multiple vertical stone columns of differing lengths and sizes, some barely big enough for a single foot and others with only enough room for the ball of my foot and my toes. The goal was to jump between them fifteen or so times, from one end to another, without taking the same path or even touching the same column. It was a training game, as she called it, that is sometimes used for the stronger, more agile Younglings. It's all about overall athleticism/agility, balance and memorisation. Not to mention split-second thinking because you can't stay on any of the columns for longer than a second.

At first I'd struggled with it, barely completing a single length across the fifty-ish meters of columns. Now, I could do it with my eyes closed. This wasn't training, though. This was a test from my mother, a taskmaster that would match Batman, before I went on to join the Younglings in their training.

I'd turned ten a few days ago, meaning I'd officially ascended the rank of pup and become a youngling. Not much had changed physically, besides me getting to around five or so feet tall and putting on some muscle, but my status in the Clan had gone up. Which is a good thing and a bad thing.

Good, because I can finally start training with weapons. Even mother didn't try teaching that to me because it went so against Clan rules to give a weapon to a pup. But it's also a bad thing because...well, no one's allowed to hurt a pup. You can't smack them or beat them--you can't even physically touch a pup that isn't your own. But once a pup becomes a youngling, well shit, you can do whatever you want except for killing them.

Wouldn't be much of a problem if I wasn't considered an affront to the natural order by most Yautja. I just know one fucker is gonna try and beat me - and that'd be my father, I'ta. I'd seen him around. He was a Blooded Yautja ever so close to becoming an Elite. And he hated my fucking guts.

The thoughts ran through my head as I jumped up onto one of the columns, kept my balance and jumped up to a taller but thinner one. I crouched to lower my center of gravity and pushed off the pillar like a spring, shooting to a further column. Best way to pass this game? Use as little of the columns as possible. If you only use a handful per go, you won't find yourself reusing any paths/pillars you'd already used and getting punished for it.

I'd learnt that the hard way. Fucking Yautja exercises are like an unholy combination between weightlifting, calisthenics and yoga. And mother's exercises are a step above the normal ones in brutality, as if that were possible.

I jumped from column to column, keeping my balance and sometimes using my hands on passing columns to aid my momentum and keep my balance mid-air. And when I dropped down to the finish line, I did it again. And then I did it again. And again. And again. It was as much a test of endurance as it was agility and balance.

Luckily, even by Yautja standards, I'm extremely athletic. And Yautja are waaay stronger and more agile than I'd thought they'd be. Like a race of homicidal Spider-Man clones if they were spliced with Killer Croc. And then they took it upon themselves to workout with space steroids.

My heightened physical abilities are probably the result of whatever genetic mutation that brought my human features to the forefront and kept me from being too ugly.

By the end of my seventeen runs through the course, I was slightly sweating and my body was a little tired but that'd soon pass and I ran my clawed hand through my dreads. I'd originally had hair but around the time I was four or five, my hair started locking itself together into those signature dreads all Yautja have. Except mine actually look like normal dreads and not fleshly facsimiles of them. Don't know why they did that but I'm glad I didn't have to go through the process the normal way - apparently that shit hurts something fierce.

"Good," mother said, towering over me with her 8'8" frame, arms crossed below her chest and mandibles clicking in a tone I knew was meant as pride, "You have completed a course even Younglings a decade your elders would struggle with. You're ready to go meet your Youngling Pack, Deken'de. Go get ready and a servant will escort you."

I nodded, bowing ever so slightly, "Yes, mother."

I respected this new mother of mine and even felt love for her, and she did to me too. Even if she had an odd way of showing it. But I remember how she'd been was I was barely out of the womb and she'd constantly be fretting over me. Never letting anyone touch me--beyond even that of the social norms and laws that forbade it, she was so vehemently against it she'd almost decapitated a Blooded Yautja when he tried to prod my face in curiosity. That poor dude got a broken arm for his curiosity.

As time passed and my independence grew, however, she put up an indifferent front so I could grow beyond her and her fretting. She loved me, I knew that, but she was still, at the end of the day, a Yautja. And they didn't really do touchy-feely love like Humans did.

And I was fine with that. I didn't need a new mother who'd mollycoddle me. Hashori, my new mother, was perfect for a reincarnated dude like me.

With that out of the way, I turned and walked off to the nearby bathing area. Then it was time to meet my new Youngling Pack, one I'd be training with for the foreseeable future.