Of Sentience and Predator

A1: And Then There Were 20

"What in the world..." Gwen muttered to herself before going to see the contents of the orb. Inside it was a watch of sorts, glowing a tame green. The watch was an odd grey color with white markings. Its faceplate seemed to have some sort of hourglass symbol with the hourglass itself being green while the rest of the space in the circle was a deep grey color. For once, she let curiosity get the better of her and she reached out for it.

The watch then promptly jumped at her, making itself attach to her left wrist.

She let out a screech before yelling, "Get off, get off, get off!" She tried shaking the watch off, but when that clearly didn't work, she tried pulling at it. When that didn't work, Gwen called out, "Grandpa!" before climbing out of the crater and towards the campsite.

-()-

Ben groaned before pushing himself up, bringing himself to his knees before rubbing his head with a bloody hand. He saw the blood, looking at the small wound before pushing himself up fully. "What in the world was that?" Ben questioned before turning to the crater.

He went into it, seeing an orb just sitting there.

"Alien dodgeball?" Ben snickered before touching the orb with his wounded hand. At the touch, the orb reacted, opening up. Ben flinched his hand away, but couldn't help but see the watch inside of it.

The faceplate sat on a black wristband, the faceplate itself having a red background with teeth in the foreground.

"Cool..." Ben muttered, staring at the watch. He reached out for it. It decided to jump on his wrist as well, but Ben only stepped back slightly from it doing so. "So... I guess you chose me or something?" Ben speculated before messing a bit with it.

Very quickly, however, he pressed a hidden button on the side of the faceplate and a light came from the watch. The teeth seemed to open up a bit more as a hologram appeared from the watch. The hologram glowed red and showed in a red hologram of a humanoid thing with wing flaps and a vampiric vipe.

His eyes widened at the hologram before putting his hand on the faceplate. From feeling it, Ben realized the faceplate had somehow popped up. He pressed down.

-()-

"Grandpa!" Gwen yelled as she came into the camp.

Grandpa Max quickly noticed her and asked, "What is it Gwen?"

"There were two shooting stars, then one went right at me, then this thing jumped onto my wrist," Gwen said between breaths, lifting up the wrist with the device on it.

"Calm down, it's alright," Max said, putting a hand on Gwen's shoulder as she dropped the wrist with the watch on. He looked around before asking, "Do you know where Ben went?"

"Kinda in the opposite direction but not exactly?" Gwen tried to remember, looking behind her.

They got their answer when something flew into the air, scaring away a flock of birds. The thing that flew up looked humanoid in shape, but also seemed like it had horns.

"What is that?!" Gwen yelled, dashing away from her grandfather's touch and backing away towards the Rustbucket. Max didn't get a chance to reply before it seemingly saw them and flew towards them.

Max went into a defensive position as Gwen pressed her back against the Rustbucket. The figure landed in front of Max, letting them get a good view of it. It wore some kind of dark red mask that looked like bat wings with a black cloth covering the rest of the face save for the eyes and mouth area. The eyes were a piercing magenta and its skin was a pale blue. Around its neck and wrists were metal bits, connected to the black cloth. The cloth covered its arms and hands, just leaving the fingers and odd wing flaps uncovered. Around its shoulders was a red design that started from the shoulders, went across the chest, thinned to the metal belt, then expanded to form a robe of sorts. The rest of the suit was black and on the metal piece around its neck was a near circle with a symbol that looked like teeth with a red background.