Introduced Predator

BtVS/Predator crossover. Something is killing predators on their homeworld. Something they can't see, much less fight. Something from Earth. Now, a predator matriarch turns to another kind of predator who can see, and kill, what they can't: Buffy Summers.

This story came to me when I watched the original Predator movie and then also watched BtVS once again with my wife, and a scene from Season 4 of BtVS suggested something. Namely, that a Buffyverse vampire would be a predator's worst nightmare, particularly a smart vampire. So, as one of the primary antagonists for this story, I have picked the creepiest vampire in the Buffyverse, the one vampire neither Buffy nor any other Buffyverse protagonist was able to destroy. Most BtVS fans should immediately know who I am talking about. If not, it will be obvious by the end of this chapter.

While this is primarily a BtVS/Predator crossover, this is in fact a pastiche that will include characters and references to at least two other franchises, Men in Black and Hellboy (the movies, not comic books).

Standard disclaimers:

Buffy and affiliated characters are the creation and intellectual property of Joss Whedon and associates at Mutant Enemy. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of 20th Century Fox.

Predators are the creation of Jim and John Thomas and were originally designed by Stan Winston. They are also owned by 20th Century Fox.

Hellboy and affiliated characters are the creations of Mike Mignola. Men in Black were created by Lowell Cunningham. I use none of these characters with permission, and I derive no profit from their use except my enjoyment and hopefully the enjoyment of others.

This story is set during season 5 of BtVS, and it does end up creating an alternate reality for the characters. Also, I do not reference nor will I be using any material from the expansion of the predator universe in either the comic books or the AvP movies. The only direct influences will be the movies Predator, Predator 2, and Predators. The rest is speculation.

Prologue

Los Angeles, 2001

To the predator, fear was an abstraction.

It was a set of observed physiological responses found in prey, either in response to predators or to other threats. Understanding the physiology of fear and its effect on behavior allowed for one to predict what prey might do, but the feeling itself was alien to the predator nature, a sensation to be observed and objectively understood, but not imagined, much less felt.

In his own fashion, the predator felt other emotions. He felt joy, grief, loyalty, anger, and pride. Especially pride. Perhaps the closest thing that he felt to fear was the excitement that came with earning pride. It was a feeling to be sought. Death was the ultimate result for all living things, but the avoidance of death for as long as possible was the ultimate accomplishment, and the more times death was challenged and defeated, the greater the accomplishment.

So, to a predator, death was a thing to be sought and teased. The greatest accomplishment for a male predator was to challenge death many times and live long enough to become old and weak. It was a rare accomplishment.

And so it was that he was on here on "Earth", a surprisingly tiny planet for a lush world with charismatic megafauna.

Ironically, on this world the most exotically dangerous game was a physical weakling among fauna already rendered fragile by reduced gravity. But these "humans" had developed crafty natures and deadly weapons of their own, and they had killed seven predators in the last 100 Earth years, more than any other Earth species.

But this predator, on his second human hunt, had discovered something exciting and new! Something called a "Fyarl demon". It was ponderous and slow, but it was far stronger than a Earth being its size should be, perhaps even as strong as an adult female predator (making it as strong as three males!). More excitedly, the Fyarl was accompanying four impressively armed humans. The humans and the Fyarl were on the hunt for something called "vampires", whatever they were. The predator didn't care. The armed humans and the Fyarl were already a sufficient combined prize. His pod mates would be jealous, and that was what mattered to him.

And so the predator, cloaked against the ultra-red frequencies that formed the basis of the human visual system, stalked his prey as they traveled in their "van" on the roads of Los Angeles. When his prey isolated themselves from other human witnesses, he would take them all.

As the predator followed the van, he once fancied he heard a light scrape, and later something else that sounded like a human sigh. But, as he paused, he heard nothing else, and saw nothing else.

Then, unambiguously, he heard the sound of human laughter, the sort that would have been called a giggle if he had had the vocabulary to distinguish between types of human laughter.

But there was nothing there, and there was no further sound.

Predators did not have a concept for ghosts or spirits. Instead, he wondered if he was having an auditory hallucination.

Then he heard his human prey screaming, and heard startled snarls from the Fyarl. He also heard the humans discharging their weapons.

Like a youngling, the predator had allowed himself to be distracted from his prey, and it took him a few moments to find them. The van had pulled off into an alleyway, a perfect killing ground, but something had gotten to his chosen prey first. The humans were dismembered, and the neck of the Fyarl had been broken.

Whatever had killed them (perhaps one of these "vampires"?) had made quick work of them. And it had gone as quickly as it had come.

The predator, feeling rage and disappointment, disregarded appropriate caution and dropped among the corpses of his intended prey.

"Bad space demon," said the human voice he had heard giggling before. The voice came from behind him. "Trying to take a turn in my game without so much as a may I please."

He whirled and fired his shoulder cannon. Bricks exploded out with the impact.

But there was nothing there.

He heard nothing, he saw nothing.

Not until he heard the voice again, moving around him with a quickness that greatly exceeded his own.

"I didn't take a drink, so Mr. Bad Space Demon Game Cheat is blinded by my virtue," it said. The voice was female.

If the predator had understood fear, he might have understood the understated terror of a ghost story with its quiet fleeting sounds.

He might even have lived to become old, weak, and proud.

As it was, the invisible owner of the voice was on him before he could do anything about it, tearing at him with a strength well beyond human conception.

...

The blood looked quite horrible, with its glowing bright green color and its watery mucous consistency.

But the scent of it was intoxicating, and as she drank it, she felt a strength flow through her that she had never felt before. She had to have more.

"What a sweet tea," she said to herself. "I must fetch Miss Edith for our tea party in the stars. But I do so hope we can find the right star, since they all have the same name."

May be awhile before I update.