Tichinde was an unblooded Yautja on Dachande's training hunt to Ryushi in the Aliens vs. Predator comic and in Steve Perry and Stephani Perry's novel Aliens vs. Predator: Prey. After the hunting ship crashed he seized command of the surviving young bloods, hunted Soft Meat instead of Hard Meat, and slaughtered colonists at Prosperity Wells, including a ranch family. Dachande woke in the med center, found human trophies on him, and drove a spear through his head, ending the bad blood who had broken the hunt.
Biography
Unblooded On The Ship
Tichinde boarded the hunting ship as one of fourteen unblooded students under Dachande, with blooded supervisors Skemte and Warkha in support. In the novel he talked louder than the rest of the class and kept his eyes on the Leader when others bowed. Dachande marked him early with short Mahnde and long-tressed Ghardeh as the students most likely to cause trouble before the drop on Ryushi.
In the kehrite Dachande ordered Tichinde into a bare-handed spar with Mahnde and watched him win the first fall too quickly. When Tichinde kicked the fallen opponent and shoved at his Leader, Dachande took the challenge himself, beat him down, and spared his life so the class would remember who commanded the hunt. That lesson held until the ship died over the desert.
Crash And Command
The hunting craft crashed hard near the human colony of Prosperity Wells, and Dachande was left broken among the wreckage. The surviving young bloods gathered around their fallen Leader, and Tichinde counted them, mocked the idea of treating him, and burned down the classmate 'Aseigan who argued against a Soft Meat hunt. He crushed a Hard Meat egg for show, claimed Leadership, and sent the others out under his voice.
With Dachande down and the supervisors gone, Tichinde treated the crash as an ooman attack and turned the training hunt into a revenge hunt on Soft Meat. The students followed him because he was the strongest among them after the wreck, even when that strength pointed them away from the Hard Meat they had come to blood against.
Family Attack
Cloaked hunters struck a ranch house outside town where eleven-year-old Bobby Sheldon lived with his parents and the dog Dax. Tichinde and his party killed the dog on a spear, killed Bob Sheldon on the porch, and tore open the mother's throat when she tried to get the boy out the back. Bobby escaped on a hover bike with a cut face while the hunters howled over two Soft Meat kills and treated the fleeing child as bait that would bring the rest of the colony into the open.
Attack On Prosperity Wells
At night Tichinde led the remaining students against the barricaded colonists, pulled back after early burner losses, then broke the west lock and cut down the Soft Meat inside. He took the head of administrator Hiroki Shimura on his spear and filled a mesh sack with human trophies while the colony burned around the holding pens and gates. Later he stalked a lone flyer to the medical lab, replayed copied Soft Meat speech at the door, and burst through the blue wall toward doctor Miriam Revna.
Inside that lab Dachande still lay strapped after human care, and Tichinde raised his bladed staff for a killing cut on the doctor who had tended the Leader. The crash through the wall and the scream of Soft Meat brought the wounded Leader awake into the same room as the student who had broken every rule of the hunt.
Clash With Dachande
Dachande snapped a strap, caught the descending staff, and shoved Tichinde back while Machiko Noguchi crashed a hover bike through the wall and Miriam Revna freed the Leader's last bond. Tichinde rose with wristblades out, and Dachande tore the mesh sack from him and saw Soft Meat skulls inside. The sight of those trophies turned the spar into an execution under the honor of the hunt, because an unblooded who hunted Soft Meat without leave had crossed past teaching.
Noguchi and Miriam fled while the two hunters traded kicks and blows through the wrecked lab, Tichinde slashing with his wristblades as Dachande closed on him. Dachande was still carrying the wounds Revna had treated and had come off the lab table without his gear, yet his close-quarters fighting still outmatched the unblooded student who had claimed Leadership only by burner and terror after the crash that left the party under a bad blood voice.
Death
When Tichinde tried to crawl away, Dachande took the student's own bladed staff and drove it through his head. In the comic the spear punches clean through the skull in a spray of green blood. In the novel the same staff sinks at the base of the upper spine, Dachande jerks it free, spits on the corpse, and strips the kwei's armor and recording loop before he steps back into the night.
That kill, made with Tichinde's own bladed spear, closed his claim on the hunt and left Dachande free to gather any remaining students and later fight beside Soft Meat against the Hard Meat hive. That alliance ended with Dachande marking Noguchi as a hunter in the blooding custom the student had skipped. The bad blood who had talked loudest on the ship ended as a body without honor on a Soft Meat floor.
Weapons And Armor
Tichinde fought with a bladed staff, twin wristblades, and a burner taken from the wreck, and he carried Soft Meat skulls in a mesh trophy bag on his belt. His bio-mask and plate armor matched the rest of Dachande's unblooded party, with dreadlock rings and gauntlets visible in the comic when he smashed into the lab and when he faced his Leader. After the kill Dachande took that armor and the empty burner for his own use.
Behind The Scenes
Tichinde first appears in Dark Horse's Aliens vs. Predator comic series from 1990, written by Randy Stradley with art by Phill Norwood and others across the early issues collected in Aliens vs. Predator Omnibus Volume 1. The 1994 Bantam Spectra novel Aliens vs. Predator: Prey by Steve Perry and Stephani Perry expands his kehrite challenge, the Sheldon ranch attack, the killing of 'Aseigan, and the med-center duel that ends with Dachande's staff. Both versions keep him as the loud unblooded who turns Soft Meat hunting into a bad blood sentence and dies on Dachande's spear.
Conclusion
Tichinde entered Dachande's Ryushi training hunt as an unblooded who already tested his Leader in the kehrite. After the crash he murdered a classmate who quoted the rules, led Soft Meat kills from a ranch house to the colony locks, and filled a trophy bag with human skulls. Dachande woke, saw those trophies, and ended him with a spear through the head, the clearest comic and novel case of a student who became a bad blood by hunting Soft Meat instead of Hard Meat.
Appearances
- Aliens vs. Predator (Dark Horse, 1990)
- Aliens vs. Predator: Prey (Steve Perry and Stephani Perry, Bantam Spectra, 1994)
Tag Categories: Individual Predators | Predators From The Comics | Predators From The Novels | Yautja Outcasts | Predator Lore
