Prologue - The Wish Upon a Star
A Ravager was the incarnation of a Hive's power with no opposition on the battlefield. The process for embodying this war machine was fatal, even for a Hive's most powerful warriors. But I was strong. I survived. I became my Hive's fury.
I became the apex predator.
- Diaries of the Xenomporh
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When one looks at the vastness of space, one wonders if there is life other than their own. Perhaps there's an alien race out there that we have yet to make contact with, or maybe we are truly alone in this universe. These thoughts ran through Izuku Midoriya's head as he stared at the night sky from a desolate playground. Bruises littered his body, which he tried to hide behind his scorched and tattered clothes. His feet barely touched the ground from the swing he was sitting on as a light breeze gently swayed him.
The creak of the swing next to him caused the green-haired child to look at the empty seat. His eyes were fighting back a few tears until he quickly wiped them away and continued to look at the beautiful night sky. It was then he saw something burning bright zoom across the darkness. 'A shooting star?' the child thought. His eyes widened in pure wonder at the natural phenomenon before he quickly realized he needed to make a wish.
Was it going to work? Maybe not, but he was still going to try.
'I wish to get my Quirk and become the number one hero in the whole world! But if that's too much, then a best friend will be just as good.'
Izuku figured it was best not to push his luck, so he settled for asking for a friend. Unbeknownst to the child, his desire for a loyal companion was granted, but not in the way he might think.
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Unknown planet
20 minutes prior
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Sounds of battle and death echoed throughout a ruined planet. What was ensuing was an ongoing hunt by the galaxy's greatest warriors. Their targets were a parasitic race of aliens known as Xenomorphs who had established a Hive deep beneath the planet's crust. These beasts are aggressive and surprisingly cunning, making them the perfect game for the battle-hungry Yautja.
Many Xenomorphs lay dead in the vast caverns of their home, but so too were many hunters. Their advanced weapons made quick work of the Hive's drones sent to intercept them, but resistance was stiff the deeper into the labyrinth they went. There were far too many passages in the dark cave to know where its Queen resided, so they split off into smaller hunting parties.
A group of four hunters were finishing up clearing one of the numerous chambers in the Xenomorph Hive. As one of them retrieved their spear from a dead alien's skull, they could feel the ground beneath them shake. Looking towards a large tunnel leading into the chamber, the four Yautja readied their weapons as they stared down the dark corridor. The loud rumbling and violent shaking made it feel like a train was thundering toward them, and they were in its way. That was when they saw it.
Two large serrated blades the size of trucks entered the room first covered in a sticky green viscous, followed by the nightmarish creature they were attached to. The amount of saliva dripping from the enormous maw of the beast made the four Yautja step back out of disgust. What stood before them was a rare prey that few in their clan had the pleasure of hunting—a Ravager.
The large abomination let out a bellowing roar that only seemed to amplify within the confines of the tunnels like a siren sounding off in a small room. The loud noise was too much for one Yautja to bear as he dropped to one knee, clutching his head while the rest staggered, trying to remain standing as the noise pounded against their skulls. The Ravager burst forward, taking advantage of the invaders' sudden weakness. The large-bladed hands of the Ravager can cut through the flesh and armor of creatures its own size. But they worked just as well with crowds of smaller creatures, as demonstrated by it wildly slicing through two of the hunters, thrashing its own body around to flatten any that managed to evade him, attacking with rage rather than a strategy. The small chamber worked to the Ravager's advantage as it crushed them against the walls and floor with its grotesque body. What pain it might've felt was ignored for the desire to see its enemies eviscerated.
Like grapes, the Yautja were crushed and flattened by the abominable creature painting the chamber and its body in their green guts. A guttural roar left its maw as if crying out in victory as it scraped the remains of a Yautja off its foot. Before the Ravager could continue its rampage, a voice wormed its way into his brain, echoing with the power of its Queen.
"My children, return to me. The royal chambers are under threat by the hunters."
The voice of its Queen MMother echoed not only through his mind but through those of its siblings scattered throughout the Hive, compelling them to obey. The Ravager grunted as it struggled to turn its large body around in the small confines of the chamber before running down the corridor he had just come from. Bending and twisting down path after path of the Hive, the Ravager passed the mutilated bodies of hunter and kin alike, left to rot as the battle for the Hive's survival continued.
The Ravager never stopped moving as it trampled all in his way, forcing narrow tunnels to accommodate his immense size with the sole mission given to him by his Queen continuously echoing in his mind, refusing to let him forget, 'Get to the royal chambers!' His kin began to muster behind him as he thundered through their home. At first it was ten, then fifty, then two hundred. The others couldn't help but naturally want to follow their eldest sibling, and soon, a vast horde of the remaining xenomorphs moved as one, guided by the Ravager.
The royal chambers were just in front of them.
But several booming explosions rocked the Hive as tunnels and chambers collided around them. The Ravager roared as it ground to a halt. Stone slammed against his back and blocked the way as a torrent of rock and stone buried him and the horde. A cave-in would not be enough to kill them, but the rubble trapped many, with few managing to pull themselves out of the sea of rock and thrashing bodies.
"My children, the invaders have-"
The Queen's message was interrupted as she bellowed out an anguished roar that spurred the fury of her children. The invaders were attacking their mother in the chamber before them, but the stone held the furious horde in place, preventing them from unleashing their wrath. The Ravager growled as it tried to force its body through the collapsed tunnel, making more debris shift and fall on his back. Becoming enraged at being confined and spurred on by the cries of his mother, the Ravager began to gather a vast amount of bile in his giant maw. The Ravager released a cascade of pungent acid in a torrent of intense neon green.
In seconds, the enormous barrier of rock and stone withered away, leaving only a faint odor in the air. The horde took this chance to push forward all at once, trampling over each other as they broke into the royal chambers to assist their Queen Mother.
But they saw no Queen.
Upon spewing into the chamber, the Xenomorphs saw the site of destroyed egg clutches and the lifeless bodies of five dead Praetorians. Praetorians, known as the Royal Guard, were explicitly bred to guard the Queen and act as generals in her army. The Ravager was a variant of these mighty creatures that utilized its might purely offensively.
The Ravager stomped forward and began inspecting the vast cavern. He sniffed at the body of one of his fallen siblings, who had several spears lodged in its massive skull, before hissing and lumbering past the carcass.
Weak.
That is the one word he kept repeating to himself as he looked over the dead Royal Guard. They were weak, too weak to protect their Queen Mother, too weak to protect the eggs, and too weak to be called Royal Guards. Drones scoured the destroyed egg hutches in a vain attempt to find any surviving eggs; without them and the Queen Mother lost, the future of the Hive looked bleak. The Ravager began sniffing the ground, catching the scent of their Queen. He started following the comforting scent with his head, slowly craning his neck upwards to see a massive hole in the roof of the Hive that led to the very surface of the planet they called home. The beast inhaled his mother's scent deeply before letting out a bellowing roar that rallied his younger siblings.
In a massive swarm, the Xenomorphs began scaling the walls of the Hive and rapidly climbing up the hole. The Ravager snarled as it looked upon his siblings climbing up the walls. He crouched slowly, trying to gather as much power into his legs as possible. In a great leap, the Ravager jumped up, and his body slammed violently against the wall, crushing a few unfortunate siblings as he hurriedly impaled his blades into the wall, and his feet kicked and scraped against the stone to halt his rapid descent. He was too large and heavy even to be trying to climb, yet this slow, grueling climb would be much faster than him trying to navigate the collapsed tunnels of the Hive back to the surface.
The horde scuttled around their eldest sibling, not wanting to be kicked off the wall as they screeched and growled. As the first wave of them finally reached the surface, the sound of laser fire filled the air, along with the screams of the Xenomorphs. With the Queen's voice silenced and the other five eldest children killed, command of the Hive fell to the Ravager, and he kept relaying the same order to the horde: charge.
As the last horde members clambered out of the hole, the Ravager's large blades emerged and sank into the earth before pulling up the great beast with a mighty roar. If his maw would let him, the Ravager would've grinned sadistically at the sight before him. The hunters were being swarmed on all sides by the furious horde in a chaotic battle between two of the galaxy's greatest killers. But his grin would've been wiped away at the sight of his Queen Mother ensnared and dragged into one of their ships. Feeling its bloodlust grow again, the Ravager charged, quickly catching up to the horde.
The main swarm was trying to reach the large ship the hunters dragged their Queen into, which left them vulnerable to a coordinated strafing run by several of the smaller Yautja vessels. The hunters knew they could not keep the horde back, so their ships focused fire on the Xenos at the front of the mob. The large craft holding the Queen soon began to lift off the ground as some Xenos tried to jump up to the vessel, only to be gunned back to the ground by the ship's heavy guns.
With a mighty roar, the Ravager began to sprint faster, charging through the horde for the departing vessel and shaking the ground with each thunderous step. A few of his siblings jumped and latched onto his body when he passed by, holding on tight as the war machine leaped up the Yautja ship. The sudden weight caused the vessel to rock violently as the Ravager pulled himself onto the rising ship. The other vessels in the sky immediately fired upon him with their small cannons, killing some of the Xenos latched onto his body but having minimal effect on him.
The horde on the planet below growled and snarled as they witnessed the few surviving hunters' ships take off high in the sky, taking their eldest sibling with them. In seconds, the vessels had already left the hellish planet's atmosphere and entered the bleak black galaxy. At this point, the other ships stopped firing at the stowaway alien out of fear of bringing down their vessel and with the belief that once they began to travel, it would hurl off the Ravager. But the moment of respite they allowed the beast gave it the chance to plunge its blades repeatedly into the hull of the ship it was on, trying to bring it down. After the brutal onslaught of swipes, the Ravager tore a hole large enough for his smaller siblings to crawl into, and soon, they were wreaking havoc within the ship.
The Yautja vessel tried to shake off the Ravager, but he remained firmly planted and continued slicing vast chunks of armor off the ship. After a moment, it began to smoke and spark. Whether it was from his attacks or those of his siblings within, the Yautja ship began to pulse with blue energy, and soon, the Ravager found himself holding on for dear life as a dazzling ray of color whisked him and the vessel away.
The Ravager could feel immense pressure encompass his entire body as they traveled at a speed his kind was never made to experience. Whether as a last act of defiance or desperation, the Ravager raised one of its blades against the powerful vacuum and slammed it down into the ship. The attack knocked the entire vessel out of whatever wormhole they were traveling through, bringing it to a sudden halt above an unfamiliar planet. Several areas of the ship began to explode and break off, unable to endure the onslaught the Xenomporhs put it through any longer. As one final explosion catapulted the weakened Ravager and remnants of the broken ship down to the planet below, the mighty creature felt satisfied with itself. Feeling a pleasant warmth caress his body, the Ravager let himself sleep blissfully one final time, trying to let his final thoughts be of his Queen Mother.
At least he had avenged his mother...
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Down below in a desolate playground, a small green-haired child looked up high to see a shooting star streak across the darkness. Ignoring his aching body, a gentle smile formed on his face as he hoped and prayed with all his might for the one thing he truly longed for.
A friend.
Word Count: 2440
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