Disclaimer: I don't own the movie Pitch Black or any of its characters and creatures.

Many years ago, I wrote a fanfic called A New Type of Story, basically the Pitch Black movie told from the POV of one of the aliens. It was among the first fanfictions I ever submitted here. But it, along with a few others, I took down due to various reasons, mostly because I was unsatisfied by it and thought I can do better. Well now, after years of practicing and improving my writing style, I feel confident enough to rewrite and resubmit this story once more.

I'm not sure if any of you older Pitch Black fans remember this story, but in case there's a few that do, some things has been modified, but the basic plot is unchanged.

Without further ado, here's the opening prologue of my old, and yet new, fanfic! :D

Prologue

It's almost time.

Waking from one of his many frequent naps, the first thing he did was send out a series of high-pitched calls, the rough image of the rest of his colony painting itself in his mind. Most of them were sleeping, while a few were milling around restlessly. Their inner-clock was telling the same thing it was telling him: it was almost time. For the past 22 years, his colony has been restricted to the vast subterranean tunnels that expanded to the farthest reaches of their desert territory. For the past 22 years, they have been unable to take to the skies. For the past 22 years, they've had to live off the same exact food source every single day, which was only making things even worse...

Rising to his claws, tail swishing for balance, he stalked forward on another hunt for the only available prey. He ignored the outlines of his fellow adults and sought the scent of the much younger individuals. Many of the young ones have fled the tunnels in favor of safer havens above ground, but a lot more were still foolish enough to stick around with the adults. As far as he was concerned, one of them was about to pay the price. Slinking through one complex passage after another, he finally came across a small crèche. Echoes locked on, he began stalking forward when the Dominant Male and Female charged forward with loud snarls and hisses, baring their teeth at him.

Instinctively, he menaced them back, even as he moved backwards, body low in submission. He knew he had stumbled upon some of the Dominant Pair's brood, the only youngsters that were off-limits to the lower status Bioraptors. This ensured the survival of the colony, even as they cannibalized their offspring. The strongest, the ones belonging to the highest-ranking pair, would survive. The weaker ones, those belonging to the others, were to be singled out and preyed upon. Normally, this worked fine, even to the lower members of the group. Each female Bioraptor can produce hundreds of eggs in each clutch. Even if each generation was heavily preyed upon, many will make it to adulthood to supply even more food. It's a method that has served them well, ensuring that they were still one of the few animals still thriving in this harsh desert environment.

Retreating into another tunnel before harm could be inflicted on him, our Bioraptor sped into another chamber before pausing and turning back, making certain he wasn't being chased. Nothing. Grunting to himself with what could be described as relief, he turned back towards the room and sang out more sound. About five more adults were situated here and a couple hundred youngsters were dangling from the ceiling. Giving a growl, he lunged once more and this time, nobody stopped him. The flock of chicks scattered and flew down another tunnel, their predator in hot pursuit. In such cramped quarters, he was deprived of his ability to fly efficiently, but that didn't matter. Swiftly, he began to overtake the slower chicks and snapped at them. Mostly, his teeth just hit air, but on a few occasions, he felt flesh and heard the squeal of pain. When this happened, he would clamp tighter and swing his head back to throw the unfortunate chick behind him.

After a few seconds, he came to a stop and turned around, echo-vision locking on the panicked youngsters, scanning for the most injured one. Ah, one was fluttering about on the ground, wing snapped in two. Focusing all his attention on this chick, he stalked closer, taking in the delicious smell of blood. The chick froze, sending its own echoes back at its attacker. It took a moment for it to realize that it, out of all the other chicks, was the one in huge trouble. Screaming and snarling feebly, it gave up trying to take off from the ground and ran as quickly as it could in the opposite direction. Its predator immediately gave chase, easily starting to gain. The chick made its way into another chamber, its blood catching the attention of some other hungry adults. Only one hope...

Jumping the last few feet, it slides into one of the many shafts of light filtering in from the ventilation towers. It pursuer immediately grounded to a halt, growling heavily to himself. Receptors spread throughout his body had picked up the light energy and his echoes pinpointed the youngster as being within said light. He couldn't go for the kill, at least not while the chick stood where it was.

This was one of the defensive advantages of the young ones. Unlike the adults, they had a much higher tolerance for light energy and the explanation is actually quite simple: the chicks simply haven't cannibalized each other as much as their older counterparts. The more an individual Bioraptor cannibalizes, the more light-sensitive chemicals accumulate in its body. This phenomena has shaped the body-structure and lifestyle of the entire species. They were all originally aerial creatures adapted to soaring in the open air. As they fed on the other native animals, their success began driving others to extinction. Soon, the most common source of food was each other and that's exactly what happened. They survived when most other creatures didn't, but at a price. Now they were turning into subterranean creatures, shunning the light as it became more deadly. They lost their eyes, only retaining the life-saving ability to tell light from dark; they developed echolocation to guide them; they developed a more serpentine shape; even their wings began to shrink, little by little.

However, despite its natural advantage, the chick was not completely immune. Already, whimpers can be heard as the young one began fidgeting, the light slowly beginning to chip away at it. Instincts clashing, the chick was confused as to what to do. Stay here and it'll eventually roast alive. But leaving its only sanctuary would mean certain death at the claws of its own kind. Frozen where it was, the distressed chick kept its echoes on its hunter, snarling and hissing yet again in some pitiful attempt to intimidate the larger creature.

Tilting his head, our Bioraptor was taking note of the chick's dilemma and began to circle the shaft of light, snapping at any adults that were drawn to the scene. Luckily, not many of them were too keen on this one chick as there were plenty of other injured prey within the other passage. Inching as close as he could risk, the large predator lowered himself into a bow, positioned to react and cut the chick off at an instant's notice.

The chick won't last long, would be a good translation of his fleeting thoughts on the situation. It'll have to run. Feeling the thrill of the hunt, he tensed in anticipation. But before anyone could make any further moves, a rumble began building up and a jolt shook the underground complex violently. This startled the Bioraptor inhabitants and the tunnels were filled the bewildered echo-songs of the colony. The heavy tremors lasted a long moment before slowly beginning to calm down. Within another few tense seconds, the quake settled completely and silence fell once more. Our Bioraptor, like many others in his colony, was stock-still for a while, waiting to hear if anything else will happen, before relaxing enough to send out more cautious echo-songs.

That was beyond odd; he's never felt a tremor that powerful before. Luckily, it didn't seem to cause any real damage to their home and he shook off some of the light dirt that had showered him during the jolt. Pushing the incident to the back of his mind, he returned his focus to what he was doing beforehand. Ah, it seemed the tremor has clogged up the shaft of light, leaving the chick without its protective barrier. With little hesitation, he lunged forward and snatched the chick in his jaws, teeth impaling its struggling frame with no apparent effort. Giving a savage shake of his head, he silenced his prey before dropping its lifeless body, holding it down under his claws as he began feeding greedily.

Almost immediately, some other adults that still lingered around grew very interested in his kill. Although food was plentiful and hunting was easy, it was still more efficient to steal someone else's food than to get it yourself. Snarling at their approach, our Bioraptor tightened his hold on his prey, wings flaring threateningly as he stood. The other adults faltered for a second before inching closer, the smell of blood making them bolder. Seeing his threats ignored, he grabbed the body in his jaws, lowered his head, and charged forward. A loud impact resonated through the tunnels as he clashed head-to-head with another Bioraptor. A naturally aggressive species, this easily sparked a scuffle that the remaining adults eagerly partook in.

The fight was savage and shrieks filled the air as blood was spilt. The whole thing only lasted a few seconds before one of the participants took a lethal blow to the underbelly and fell dead to the ground, intestines pouring out onto the ground. This instantly got a swarming reaction from those nearby and the body disappeared under a pile of feeding carnivores. Our Bioraptor backed away from the group, chick still in his jaws. He was content with what he had and instinctively saw little reason to risk any more injury. Settling back down at a decent distance, he began eating once more, undisturbed until there was little left of the body.

Content, he lounged about the chamber for a good part of the day, the receptors on his body always keeping track of the light shafts and any sign they might be dimming. It was almost time, and he could hardly wait...

Yeah, I think this'll be one of my nameless main character stories; I don't really think those Bioraptors had names for themselves. The main character will just usually be referred to as 'our Bioraptor', 'he', or 'him' or the like! :) Anywho, this was just a short prologue to get things going and to explain some of my theories regarding these fascinating creatures. It's not perfect research, I'm sure, but I did put a lot of time and effort into figuring it out.

Anywho, the major plot of the story (yes, there will be a plot other than killing the humans) will probably be revealed in the next chapter. Thank you for taking time to read this and I hope you enjoyed this first chappy!