Light-Stepper (also known as One Hand) is a skilled Predator prominently featured in the comics series Aliens vs. Predator: Duel and other comics.
Biography
Blood Time Hunt
When Light Stepper and a group of nine Young Bloods were on a rite-of-passage hunt on a swamplike planet, he came into conflict with another young hunter called Two-Stripes over a Xenomorph tail and had to be restrained by their leader, Top-Knot.
Light-Stepper was allowed to track the creature only to be ambushed and attacked. He managed to kill the Xenomorph only to have his hand burnt off by its acid in its death-throes.
Two-Stripes came across the aftermath of the battle and stole the trophies believing Light-Stepper to be dead. After faking some battle injuries, he returned to Top-Knot only to see Light-Stepper being carried back to the elder at that very moment.
For his crime Two-Stripes was left unarmed, naked and defenseless to the horde of approaching Xenomorphs.
Ryushi Hunt
Some time Later an older wiser Light-Stepper was part of a hunting party who set down on Ryushi to see what happened to a prior hunting party led by Dachande. After some unknown event caused their ship to stall, the Hunters left their vessel and its captive Xenomorph Queen.
When a Marine rescue party arrived planet side they entered the Yautja ship and took the body of an infected Yautja. Light-Stepper and the others tried to prevent the Marines from taking the body. However, after a three-way battle with the Marines and a horde of Xenomorphs, the hunters let the Marines escape.
When the Marines made a makeshift encampment the hunters tried to attack, however the Marines' captain, known as Glass, had set explosives around the perimeter and killed all the Yautja but Light-Stepper.
At that moment a fully grown Predalien that had been hiding in the undercarriage of their APC attacked. It stalked and killed all the Marines barring Glass. Eventually, Glass was chased by the Predalien, only to be confronted by Light-Stepper.
In a split-second decision both human and hunter joined forces to kill the savage Predalien. After a brutal battle, they slayed the creature leaving both Yautja and Marine too exhausted to fight.
Sitting side by side in front of a makeshift fire they would wait to see whose people got there first...
Build up to Bunda
Sometime shortly thereafter, in the build up to the massive Predator hunt on the planet Bunda which marked the defection of human Yautja Machiko Noguchi from Top-Knot's clan, Light-Stepper was seen returning triumphantly to the clan ship, adorning the Marine flag worn as a bandana by Glass over the stump of his missing hand, thus signalling the final outcome of the events on Ryushi.
Noguchi's strong reaction to seeing this symbol of humanity so tarnished, and the violent reception she got from Light-Stepper in exchange for her questions about it, were key in causing her to reassess her decision to live amongst the hunters.
See also
Trivia
- Light-Stepper is one of the few noble Hunters who have fought alongside a human to live at the end of the hunt.
- He is also one of the few—perhaps the only—Predator to re-appear in multiple in-universe stories.
- Light-Stepper was originally created by writer Randy Stradley and artist Phil Norwood.