Baaul: A Change of Heart

Chapter 14: Motive Revealed

Baaul stood over the body of the ooman female. She was face down, the blood in her body had all drained to to the ground, indicating that she had been dead for some time. Her arm had remained stretched out over her head, as if desperately reaching for something. He chittered as he looked toward the glass patio door, which was in the direction she head been reaching for. His mask scanned for prints and he was not surprised to find Yautja handprints.

He kneeled down next to her body, unbothered by the flies that swarmed her body to lay their eggs within her remains. Others having already found her before he had, had their larvae already squirming around on the carpet. His mask prevented him from smelling the odor of death, not that he was opposed to it. It was just how death was. He pulled out a small vial out of the pack on his hip and began the process of cutting a small incision into the woman to collect a sample of her blood. When he had enough, he ran his claws over his wrist device which opened up for him to pour it in.

It was quickly analyzed and told him what he had already suspected. The ooman had high dosages of a concoction in her blood stream. A lethal dose of the same trace elements of the herbs and such that he had found in the Yautja’s lair. This was the third ooman female in the city that he had found this week.

One thing that he couldn’t help but notice was that she had a bright artificial hair color, just like Renee. She even was about her same size. It was now clear that the Bad Blood had shifted his experiments and after the second ooman female that he had found, Baaul had an idea on the motives of the male. They had been linked, but it just didn’t occur to him how those mutalations could possibly be related to mating. He had an idea now that he seemed to be experimenting with an aphrodisiac  made specifically for oomans. He wanted to create a new species. He was going to be sorely disappointed if he ever learned about Rosealine, Xai’an’s hybrid daughter.

If she and her mate, Volok, hadn’t been so far from Earth, he would have asked her to join his hunt just to create the despair in the Bad Blood. He was feeling petty. No. He was feeling vindictive. Though he pretended to not know why, deep down he knew that it made him beyond desperate for violence at the knowledge that the Bad Blood was honing this drug  on other oomans to use on Renee to breed her.

Ever since he left her that day, he tried to pretend that her declaration of attraction to him disgusted him. He had been happy for the alarm trigger that had turned out to be nothing more than a misread movement of the tree. He had stayed away from her...yet his thoughts were constantly consumed of her. He could not forget the look of adoration on her face as she traced his mandibles and the smell of her slight sweet musk arousal that she probably wasn’t even aware that she was giving off.

He pretended that he wanted nothing to do with it, but the moment that he truly understood that this Bad Blood intended to force Renee into breeding with him lit a flaring fire of fury in his chest. He had let out the loudest, blood curdling roar of challenge, knowing that the Bad Blood would hear him even miles away. He would rip this Bad Blood apart, piece by piece, until nothing remained. He would not ever allow that filth to touch Renee with his vile hands.

Something metallic chimed together on the other side of a door. Baaul’s mask shuttered through filters until his thermal vision showed three ooman’s standing out there. They were trying to unlock the door to get inside and check on the ooman who was already beyond their help.

Already getting the information that he needed, he engaged his camouflage and gracefully moved out of the patio door. He made sure to scan the glass with his mask’s laser to destroy any evidence of the Bad Blood’s prints and lept up several stories onto the ooman building across the alley. He landed just as he heard the ooman screams of despair and grief.

It was then that the Earth’s sun started to peek over the horizon. Good. The ooman’s that moved artificially created substances had said they were going to track the Bad Blood. Once he realized that these ooman’s were hunting the Bad Blood as well, he figured it would be a good idea to keep track of their operations just in case they, with their sheer numbers, were able to locate the Bad Blood before him.

Baaul knelt down, using the ledge of the building as cover, and ran his claws over his wrist device. He pulled up the small tracking device that he had left on the ooman male he had deemed most likely to provide him with accurate information just a few days prior. The small laser diagram of the ooman city slowly narrowed in on a pulsing dot. It was moving too fast for the ooman to be on foot. He was heading toward the west side of the city, toward the forest.

Wanting to take advantage of what remaining darkness there was, Baaul launched into a sprint, leaping from rooftop to rooftop Though Yautja were naturally much faster than the most skilled ooman runners, Baaul was faster still. He could probably keep up with one of the ooman vehicles if he tried. It was a benefit of being much smaller than the others. What he lacked in power, he gained in speed and mobility.

Once he made it to the edge of the ooman city, he paused to double check and see what road the ooman’s were using into the forest. The ooman’s of this city rose at a faster rate than he anticipated so he had to wait for the right moment to make the journey off the last rooftop and across the vast expanse between the ooman city and the forest. Too many of them were about and the risk of them noticing him even with his camouflage was too great. If he still had the full cover of night, he wouldn’t have had to take as much caution, however, the Earth’s sun was now casting it’s full morning glow onto them.

By the time Baaul was able to make it into the safety of the trees, the oomans he was tracking had already made their way deep into the forest. He had lost precious hours, but it could not be helped.

He followed followed the direction of his wrist device, keeping to the trees. Soon, the dot stopped moving. It was in a location that Baaul had not been to yet, which was promising. The sound of gunfire in the distance was also promising. Even being disabled, a Yautja was not easy for ooman’s to kill so he wasn’t worried about the ooman’s killing the male before he reached them.

There was an explosion so fierce that it rocked the surrounding trees enough to force him to stop his pace to maintain balanced footing. Screams of animal protest sounded around him as they fled in fear and he saw tufts of smoke rising in the air some distance away.

He could hear ooman’s shouting at each other in the same direction as the smoke. Baaul's translator indicated they were instructing each other to move west and follow ‘the demon’. He understood ooman’s were a foolishly superstitious lot and a Yautja easily could be mistaken for one of their made up magical monsters.

Baaul caught movement in front of him and he immediately reached over his shoulder and grabbed one of his blades. He brought it down just as a bullet deflected away. He roared at the ooman that had spotted him and made his way over to him, firing his weapon.

The ooman was alerting his pack that there was another ‘demon’ in between reloading his weapon. Baaul leapt over him and landed on the ground behind him. He whirled, dipping low with his blade fanning out.

Mindless screams rang out as the ooman fell forward, kicking the bloody stumps where his feet had been. Without missing a beat, he lifted his arm and drove his blade into the ooman's chest, silencing his screams. The ‘pop’ of cartilage and bone was music to his ears. When He jerked the blade back, the ooman’s body jumped up with it and he had to stomp down on the chest to pull the blade free. With a flick of his wrist, he splat the blood over the ground.

There was another explosion and this time he heard the sound of glass shattering. He looked up and saw the ooman facility that Renee stayed in was damaged. He growled and instantly made his way in that direction. What in Paya’s name were these blasted oomans thinking? Then a thought came to him. Were they following the Bad Blood? And was he finally going after Renee?

Pauk!