Here's yet another story from the depths of my mind. I was struck when I read the book "The Crystal Shard" by R.A. Salvatore, however it is related in no way to that book. I do NOT own the Predators, no matter how much I'd love to! Hope you like it. It's a bit short, but it's a Prologue. More to come soon!

Predator: The Crystal Shard

Prologue: The Riddle and the Runner

When the Universe was being born, a god of great power and wisdom looked down from the heavens and saw a warrior of equal honor, courage, and spirit. As a gift to this wise warrior, the god took a piece of crystal and into placed many of the god's powers. Sater Kreshebon, or the Crystal Shard as it was called, was gifted to the warrior from the god and the god told the warrior of three aspects of the Crystal Shard, but spoke in a riddle:

First of the traits of the glorious stone,

Many may use it, yet one alone,

They of courage, honor, and spirit,

The Shard only bonds to those found fit.

Second, its powers are great indeed,

And can be used for those in need,

For one with evil in their head,

The Shard insures they end up dead.

Third, no power can destroy this stone,

Only by my hands alone,

Though those who need a second, and try so hard,

Can make a child of the Shard…

Through many centuries, the race the warrior belonged to, took great pains to decipher the god's message. After many millennia, they managed to learn what all of the verses of the riddle meant; all, except the last…

The Yautja ran with all of his strength and speed, leaping from rooftop to rooftop to avoid the pursuing human ships and vehicles. All the odds were against him however; the humans knew all the terrain and could easily trap him. His cloaking devise had been destroyed earlier so using it to hide was not an option, not to mention the fact it was pouring down rain. He had hoped that the darkness of night would have hidden him, but the humans were tracking him with much more than their eyes,

He had the artifact. After so many years of searching, and finally locating the artifact, he had it; now all he had to do was escape the humans and rendezvous with his clan. Easier said that done.

As he raced into a less populated, run-down section of the human settlement, the Yautja heard human gunfire. They were getting more daring. He had already lost his disc by taking down one of the human flyers and his plasma caster had been damaged by the humans that were originally guarding the artifact. One of their skulls hung on his belt; he might as well scrape as much honor as possible from this mission.

The fire from human's weapons ricochet off the buildings all around him. It was only a matter of time, and then a few found their mark, tearing though his upper thigh. The Yautja stumbled, trying desperately to ignore the agony pounding in his leg. As he neared a separation between two buildings, he was not sure if he could make the jump injured.

He glanced at the artifact he held and remembered the Arbitrator's words, "If you cannot return it, make sure that it is not found by the humans." As the Yautja neared the jump, he knew the inevitable. He was losing too much blood from his leg and was quickly tiring; he was going to die.

He was at the jump. He gathered all of his strength and leap. By some miracle of the gods, the Yautja made the jump, but he had dropped the artifact. He wanted to retrieve the artifact but there would be no way that he could get it without the humans killing him before he found it. There were large piles of rubble between the buildings and it would take too long to find.

But, perhaps this seemingly bad stroke of luck was good. The human considering they were still chasing him, had not seen him drop the artifact. They had no idea that they were going in the wrong direction of the artifact. The Yautja continued on; even if the artifact was not in the Yautjas' possession, as long as the humans no longer had it, things were not as bad as they seemed.

As the buildings became more rundown and the warrior began to fall, he reached instinctively to his armband to activate his self-destruct devise.

"No," the warrior thought. He had to make sure the artifact was out of range of the blast. He could not risk destroying it, though the legends say it was impossible; that would be an even greater loss than if the humans found it. After a few more minutes of the desperate and painful chase, the Yautja knew the artifact was safe, and he was ready to die.

He collapsed onto one of the rooftops, but not before activating his self-destruct.

The men raced towards the creature knowing their orders. They needed to retrieve the artifact by any means necessary. That included blasting the alien to bits. The men approached the alien cautiously. The alien seemed to be emitting some sort of trilling cry.

As the men approached they realized the trill was not a cry, but a laugh. They saw exactly what the alien was laughing about when its' gauntlet exploded, creating a blast that wiped out the building they were on, a few around them and shook the foundations of the all of the buildings within the area.

About a two miles back, after the dust from the blast had settled, a small black box lay camouflaged in the rubble, hardly hinting at the trouble its contents would cause in the future.

I hoped you liked the Prologue. This story is going to have some fantasy in it just to tell you. Yes, I know the riddle was weird andif you didn't getit, don't worry about it. All will be explained in time.Please review!