For those of you familiar with my Blended Family AU, welcome. Be aware, this is a completely new world, and is totally AU. If you are not a fan of Alternate Universes, then please find something else to read. Hopefully, this story will find as welcoming an audience as my previous stories have.

He sat silently, patiently, waiting for the appearance of his prey. The Traitor was here, he could feel his presence; all he had to do was wait for him to appear. When he did, the hunter would provide the justice the Traitor had brought upon himself; justice for his slain battle-kin, and for his master's people.

The young hunter, for all that he was a native of this small planet, was very atypical of the majority of its inhabitants. What he understood from the little his master had told him, his creation was the result of Terran reptile coming in contact with some sort of mutagenic compound. Of course, since he'd only been his master's pupil since the age of eight, the young hunter had no clue to his earliest years beyond a few vague memories. Those memories, hazy and indistinct though they might be, had gotten him through the arduous and agonizing process that had turned him into the warrior he was today. The warmth and security of those obscure memories offset the clinical cruelty at his master's hand during his training. It always made the youngster, in a bizarre way, relieved he lacked the ability to speak. He knew without being told his master couldn't know about the memories, or else he would methodically and cold heartedly force his pupil to expunge them from his mind.

A sudden sound abruptly drew the young hunter from his thoughts. Settling his mind, he began drawing his life force through the sigils and runes, or Spirit marks, which had been painfully and painstakingly tattooed on his skin. Although there were hundreds of (they literally covered him from head to toe), he was only calling on the power of two: enhanced sight and hearing. Once the senses were at their full strength, the turtle quickly looked around for the source of the disturbance. He wasn't expecting to find something that was going to change his life forever.