Two-Stripes was a Yautja young blood who tried to cheat his way through a blooding in Aliens vs. Predator: Blood Time, the 1994 Dark Horse story by Randy Stradley. On an unnamed swamp world he hunted with nine other initiates under the veteran Top-Knot, knocked Light-Stepper aside to claim a find, and later stole the head of an adult Xenomorph Light-Stepper had killed. He burned his own armor with acid and clawed fake wounds into his plates before he presented the trophy. When Light-Stepper came back alive, Top-Knot stripped him of gear, tied him to a tree, and left him for the creatures as the ship lifted off, marking him as a bad blood.
Biography
The Swamp Trial
Two-Stripes was one of ten young bloods that the veteran Top-Knot led into an unnamed swamp for their initiation hunt. The prey on that ground was the most dangerous their tribe had found, and a single kill there was worth more than twenty lesser trophies. Failure on that hunt almost always meant death. After two days of wading through the marsh, Two-Stripes grew impatient and believed that their guide had lost the trail. The anticipation of the hunt had outweighed the action, and he wanted a find that would raise his standing in the tribe.
Light-Stepper heard a clicking in the growth ahead and proved that the trail lay right in front of them. The party pushed on through tangled roots and shallow water under an orange sky while flying reptiles crossed the marsh. Two-Stripes stayed close to Light-Stepper instead of breaking off on his own line. He meant to take honor from whatever the more careful hunter found first.
Claiming The Find
The first sign of the prey was a torn flying reptile under the trees, with a broken spear and a burn from Xenomorph acid beside it. Light-Stepper reached the carcass first, but Two-Stripes knocked him aside and claimed the discovery for himself. Top-Knot let the claim stand, and the discovery of the first sign promised much honor to whoever held it. Two-Stripes stood over the find with his spear while Light-Stepper yielded the ground, then the Xenomorphs came out of the trees and struck the hunting party.
Light-Stepper fought at the front of that clash. He leaped with his spear raised, drove it into one of the creatures, and the two of them came crashing down into the water together. Two-Stripes shadowed him through the fight instead of taking a kill of his own. He waited for the moment when the true hunter could no longer defend the trophy.
The Stolen Head
The spear snapped under their weight, and acid from the dying creature sprayed over Light-Stepper as its jaws hung over his face. The acid ate into his right arm and dissolved his hand while he lay pinned in the shallows, which made him one of the Predators who lost limbs. He had killed the Xenomorph, and the kill was his. Two-Stripes knew what had to be done, and time was short. He stood over the fallen hunter, took the head of the dead creature, and left Light-Stepper in the water.
Alone in the marsh, Two-Stripes pressed Xenomorph acid against his own armor until it hissed and smoked, then clawed fresh cuts into his chest plate with his own blades so the plates would look fought over. He carried the head back through the shallows on his spear toward the hunting party and kept the trophy raised as proof of a kill that was never his. He meant those scars and that head to win a blooding mark and honor that twenty lesser trophies could not match.
Facing Top-Knot
Two-Stripes presented the Xenomorph head to the clan as his own kill and waited for the rise in standing that a successful hunt on that ground promised. The other hunters then brought Light-Stepper back alive, held up between two of them with acid dripping from his ruined arm, and the truth of the fight came out in front of the party. Light-Stepper had made the kill in the shallows, and the head Two-Stripes held belonged to that fight rather than to any strike of his own.
Top-Knot, a veteran of many hunts whose word was law, rejected the false claim when the wounded hunter stood before him. Two-Stripes faced the leader with the stolen trophy still in hand while the clan learned what he had done at the water's edge. The blooding he wanted was denied on the spot, and the sentence that followed stripped him of standing in the hunt.
Exile At The Tree
The party stripped Two-Stripes of his armor and weapons, left his mask in the shallows, and bound him to a thick tree in the swamp. Failure on that hunt almost always meant death, and Top-Knot's sentence matched that rule without delay once the false claim had fallen. The clan took every piece of gear that had marked him as a hunter on that trial before they turned for the ship.
The clan walked up the ramp of their ship and lifted off while Two-Stripes hung against the wood with no mask, no plates, and no blade. Xenomorph dorsal tubes rose from the blue water around the roots as the craft faded into the sky. He was left for the creatures as an outcast who had broken the honor of the hunt, and he is remembered as one of the most incompetent Predators for the cheat that ended in exile rather than a blooding.
Weapons And Armor
Two-Stripes carried a bladed spear and a handheld speargun on the swamp trial, and he used wristblades to cut fake damage into his own plates after he took the head. His bio-mask bore a high forehead crest and red eye slits, and his plate armor read magenta or deep pink under the marsh light, with mesh beneath the plates and a small skull trophy on his kit. When the clan condemned him, they took every piece of that gear and left the mask in the water at the foot of the tree.
Behind The Scenes
Two-Stripes appears only in Aliens vs. Predator: Blood Time, an eight-page color story in Dark Horse Comics #25 dated September 1, 1994. Randy Stradley wrote the tale, Phill Norwood drew it, and Frank Lopez colored the swamp pages where Two-Stripes and Light-Stepper first meet. The story introduces Light-Stepper's lost hand and Two-Stripes' exile in the same short hunt, and Light-Stepper returns in later Dark Horse AvP issues while Two-Stripes does not.
Conclusion
Two-Stripes entered Top-Knot's swamp trial as an unblooded hunter who wanted honor faster than the hunt would give it. He shoved Light-Stepper off a carcass find, stole the head of the Xenomorph Light-Stepper killed, and faked acid scars on his own armor before he presented the trophy. When Light-Stepper lived to name the cheat, Top-Knot stripped Two-Stripes and left him tied to a tree for the creatures as the ship departed. He remains the clear comic case of a young blood who became a bad blood by cheating the hunt itself.
Appearances
- Aliens vs. Predator: Blood Time (Dark Horse, Dark Horse Comics #25, 1994)
Tag Categories: Individual Predators | Predators From The Comics | Yautja Outcasts | Predator Lore
