June 1987:

Balancan, Canta Mana. June. Last time it rained until late September.

Early September 1987: Sudanese Embassy.

Major Alan 'Dutch' Schaefer's Special Forces team (Mac Eliot, Jorge ‘Poncho’ Ramirez, Rick Hawkins, Blain Cooper and Billy Sole) blew the entry points on three floors and neutralized seven terrorists in 10 seconds flat. The operation in the center of the city went unnoticed by the world's press as Schaefer's Special Forces team eliminated the terrorists before they even had a chance to call in their demands.

Late September 1987 (3 weeks later).

The Jungle Hunter scanned Earth from aboard its ship in orbit, surveying all of the species inhabiting the planet, finally studying an anatomical image of a human. Jungle Hunter's ship landed in a lakebed at the base of a jagged hill 5 miles from the Val Verde border.

With the guerrillas making a major push into neighboring Guatemala, the guerrillas reassigned Anna Gonsalves to a group operating in the jungles.

In Val Verde, Central America, unknown hostiles shot down one of General Phillip's choppers carrying CIA operatives. The pilot radioed from the ground that all hands were still alive. The transponder beacon aboard the downed chopper broadcasted their position.

The next day.

Jungle Hunter attacked Captain Jim Hopper and his team of Green Berets whilst moving towards the guerrilla camp in the jungle. Due to its Cloak, the humans, unable to determine the position of their enemy, desperately fired in all directions, but Jungle Hunter killed them all. Skinning and disemboweling Hopper and two of his men, Jungle Hunter hung them from the trees by their ankles for display.

18 hours later.

The CIA and General Phillip tasked Schaefer and his six-man team with spearheading the rescue of an official held hostage by insurgents in Val Verde. Despite Dutch's reservations, accompanying and supervising the team was CIA Agent Al Dillon - a former commando and an old friend of Dutch's. Several members of Dutch's team immediately took a dislike to Dillon, whom they apparently viewed as unworthy of commanding Dutch on the ground. Blain was very happy to make this dislike obvious.

Dillon told Dutch that it was a one-day operation: They pick up their trail at the chopper, run them down, grab the hostages and bounce back across the border before anybody knows they were there. 3 hours after debriefing, they began.

Pre-dawn.

A US Army UH-1H assault chopper, Redbird Two Two, arrives at night to a "fishing village". People began transferring equipment from the UH-1H into a pair of smaller assault helicopters at the clearing's edge. While technically in command, Dillon deferred to Dutch's leadership once the team hit the ground.

1.5 hours later.

They reached the downed UH-1H that had been carrying the captured cabinet ministers. Dillon went through the dead men's uniforms to get flight plans and records. Poncho climbed aboard, finding the pilot and co-pilot executed in their seats. In addition, a heat-seeker took down the chopper, and the insurgents stripped it. To Poncho, the chopper did not look like a surveillance chopper, but an assault chopper.

Billy picked up the trail of the guerrillas who had captured the hostages and began to follow them, also noting that a six-man team with American equipment had been pursuing the rebels ahead of them.

As the commandos moved north, Jungle Hunter studied them from afar.

It was the height of day before Billy "sensed" Jungle Hunter's presence, though he could not pinpoint the location. He did find the corpses of three prisoners - stripped of their flesh and all hanging from the trees, a sight that shocked and disgusted even the supposedly emotionless Billy. Dutch identified one of the corpses as Captain Jim Hopper. Dillon was unaware of any covert ops in the area.

Puzzled, Billy noticed there was a firefight, shooting in all directions (4-5000 rounds), yet no tracks at what they were shooting at. There was also no sign of the guerrillas or the politicians. Disgusted with how they had died, Mac lamented that a soldier deserved better.

Dutch's team marched on as Jungle Hunter watches.

Dutch and his squad soon come across the guerrilla camp, discovering it was not a makeshift one but a heavily defended rebel encampment. They find the UH1H 'copter's stripped equipment. A few of the men were Russian, and some may have been CIA. One of the prisoners, whipped and beaten, ran out of a hut. The guerrilla leader exited after him and killed the prisoner.

Jungle Hunter watched as the commandos crept toward the base, disarming a trip wire along the way. Billy killed a guard and the commandos crawled further into the camp, taking their positions. Poncho readied his grenade launcher. Dutch cut loose the belt-drive of a truck for distraction. It rolled down the hill, toward the main palapa.

The sudden grenade explosions temporarily blinded Jungle Hunter's sensors.

Billy cleared out the main palapa, but a grenade shrapnel injured Blain's shoulder. Jungle Hunter got closer to the fray, but the battle was over.

Dutch realizes the camp was an invasion army, and Phillip's mission to rescue three politicians was a rouse from the beginning. Dillon's objective had simply been to neutralize the rebels, but the interlopers captured the agents while reconnoitering for an attack. After Hopper's team vanished while attempting to rescue them, Dillon created the cabinet minister story to manipulate Dutch into destroying the guerrillas. Dutch and his men were expendable assets.

Hawkins learned over the radio that a much larger rebel force was closing in on their position, forcing the team to exfiltrate on foot. Infuriated that Dillon had betrayed him, Dutch and his men left for their extraction point.

Dillon discovered the ID of the female guerrilla - Anna Gonsalves, whom Dillon insisted they take prisoner - she might have info he needed. Hawkins informed them that there was movement towards them from all sides. There were choppers 10 miles away, across the border, unable to pick them up from their current location.

While evacuating, Billy again sensed Jungle Hunter's presence. Jungle Hunter, however, went to investigate the carnage the humans left behind, playing back a recording - Mac's voice. Then Jungle Hunter began actively stalking the humans.

Anna attempted to escape from Dillon, but Poncho stopped her.

Further on, Billy sensed Jungle Hunter, even entered a trance to learn more about the creature, yet learned nothing.

Anna attempted another escape, from Poncho. Jungle Hunter watched as Hawkins chased after her. Just when he caught her, Jungle Hunter killed him, taking the body but leaving the unarmed Anna alone in her fear. Meanwhile, Billy told Dutch in his belief that a creature was hunting them.

Dutch gave the order to move out as Poncho rejoined them. They headed to Hawkins' last known location. They found only Anna, still in shock. They searched the area and found Hawkins's body, appearing just as Hooper had. Though Dutch and Billy believed Jungle Hunter did it, the others believed it was the rebels.

After initially missing with its Speargun, grazing Blain's shoulder, the Jungle Hunter finished him off with its Plasmacaster, blowing a hole clean through Blain's chest.

Mac heard Blain scream and raced to save him, only to see Jungle Hunter taking off. He open-fired, and when the others got there, Poncho threw a few grenades. The white flash short-circuited Jungle Hunter's heat-seeking vision.

Dutch set up camp for the night. Anna discovered Jungle Hunter's green blood, but was too freaked to do anything about it.

It was night before Jungle Hunter's vision returned to him. In his ship, he removed Hawkins's head and spinal cord as his trophy.

Dillon tried to radio the choppers just over the border for backup, but the choppers denied his request. He again tried to learn the identity of the attacker from Anna, but got nowhere. Billy admitted to Poncho he was scared - something he has never said before.

The team made camp for the night, setting traps in all directions. Mac thought Jungle Hunter was attacking the Commando camp. Mac immediately opened fire, eventually using Blain's Minigun in an attempt to kill the Jungle Hunter. However, Mac succeeded in grazing the Jungle Hunter's left leg, using up the weapon's ammunition supply and chopping down a swath of rain forest in the process. Following the incident, Mac struggled to explain what he had seen to the rest of the team, convinced the entity had not been human.

Mac: Those eyes, they... they disappeared. Predator. 20^th Century Fox, 1987. Movie.

Something triggered the booby traps the next morning. Mac, now delirious with fear and rage, recklessly took off in pursuit of the escaping hunter. However, it turned out to be just a wild boar.

In the distraction, Anna grabbed a MP-5 gun as Billy discovered Blain's body has been taken discreetly from their midst, despite their supposedly impenetrable defenses. Jungle Hunter had bypassed all their trip-wires. Finally, Anna tells them about Jungle Hunter blood she found earlier, and revealed this hunter has apparently become a local legend for hunting humans as trophies.

Anna: When I was little, we found a man. He looked like... butchered. The old women in the village crossed themselves... and whispered crazy things, strange things. 'El Diablo cazador de hombres.' Only in the hottest years, this happens. And this year, it grows hot. We begin finding our men. We found them sometimes without their skins... and sometimes much, much worse. 'El que hace trofeos de los hombres' means the demon who makes trophies of men. Predator. 20^th Century Fox, 1987. Movie.

This act of abducting the body was the first indication to the survivors that something was hunted them, rather than simply eliminating them outright.

The commandos and Anna secured the area. Dutch made one contraption, hoping that at least Jungle Hunter did not see it. After waiting, Jungle Hunter finally reappeared, but sets off the trip wire. Poncho quickly freed himself. However, the escaping Jungle Hunter unintentionally blasted a nearby tree with its Plasmacaster, dislodging a huge branch that then swung down and stuck Poncho in the chest, hitting him with enough force to fling him off his feet. Despite his shattered ribs and severe internal injuries, Poncho insisted that he could make it to the extraction site.

Mac, in a frenzy, raced after it. Dillon elected to chase after Mac as Dutch, Anna, Billy, and Poncho raced to get to the choppers.

Dillon reached Mac, but decided to attack Jungle Hunter together. While attempting to flush it out, it slashed open Mac's throat, and then went after Dillon. Hurling its spear, it severed Dillon's arm just above the elbow, then it sliced open his chest, killing Dillon.

Elsewhere, the troop heard Dillon die. All but Billy picked up the pace. Billy, instead, stood still in a trance. Billy silently discarded his weapons and drew his machete, apparently deciding to face the Jungle Hunter alone in hand-to-hand combat.

As the troop cleared a hill, they heard Billy die, too.

Jungle Hunter threw its spear at Poncho, pinning him down. Realizing the creature only targets armed and hostile prey, a wounded Dutch sends Anna, alone and unarmed, to the extraction point while he drew their attacker off. The Yautja threw its spear at Dutch, but only destroyed his gun. As Jungle Hunter backed away to return to Billy's body, Dutch realizes hid injured shoulder, but did not register it.

Jungle Hunter began stalking Dutch anew, but Dutch slipped down a cliff, through a few canopies, and into the river. As the river carried Dutch away, Jungle Hunter jumped down after him, and nearly lost him. It caught up with Dutch further down the river, where Dutch nearly fainted with exhaustion and pain, and thoroughly covered in mud.

Jungle Hunter's cloaking device malfunctions in the water, allowing Dutch finally to see his hidden enemy. Jungle Hunter, though standing a few feet from Dutch, did not see him. Its optics could not see his heat source through the mud, so Jungle Hunter moved on. Dutch realized that the mud covering him was acting as camouflage by cooling his skin and blocking his body's heat signature from the alien's thermal sensor.

Just as Jungle Hunter left to find its prey elsewhere, the US Army helicopters swooped by. Not finding any of the troops, they flew off to search elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Anna raced for her life through the jungle, away from Jungle Hunter as Dutch prepared for another fight. Despite having lost most of his weapons, Dutch decided to confront the creature one last time to avenge his fallen men, using the mud as camouflage and a number of improvised weapons and traps to kill it. He lit a large fire and screams into the jungle to announce his challenge to his opponent - which Jungle Hunter heard and accepted.

When Jungle Hunter came to Dutch, Dutch fired a poisonous arrow at where he heard Jungle Hunter land because of a tree branch, but missed by inches. Jungle Hunter retaliated instinctively, but likewise missed.

In a display of chivalry, the creature removed its advanced weaponry and mask, unveiling its monstrous face, before challenging Dutch to a final duel in hand-to-hand combat. Dutch was no match for the alien and received a brutal beating. Cornered and with the warrior recognizing and avoiding his main trap, Dutch triggers the final trap himself, causing the log counterweight to drop onto the creature, crushing it. When Jungle Hunter is lying there bleeding from the tree trunk, Dutch raises a big rock and gets ready to finish the job. But Dutchhesitates and puts down the rock. Standing over the mortally wounded alien, Dutch demanded to know what it is.

It is at this point that Jungle Hunter realizes that his opponent may be about to rob him of his earned honor by having mercy and sparing him. This is when he decides to resort to suicide by explosive charge. But doing so with the touch of a button would kill Dutch as well, which wouldn't be acceptable to this Jungle Hunter because he would be dying as a "sore loser".

So, Jungle Hunter eerily mimicked his question in garbled English, and then activated a countdown code for the self-destruct device on its wrist device while laughing tautingly using Billy's voice. Jungle Hunter knew that Dutch would correctly assume that it's a self-destruct device and run to get clear.

Dutch ran for cover as the massive explosion ignited the jungle. The following day, Anna returned aboard a rescue helicopter to find Dutch had barely survived the blast. They picked him up and returned to the base.