Alternative Stories

(They definitely aren't as smart as I expected them to be...) I muttered as I watched the group of hunters from afar.

[What's that supposed to mean?] Goldy asked, causing me to shrug slightly.

(I had expected them to move with more caution even after seeing Beta but I guess not.)

[I did say you were being far too paranoid.] He chuckled, unfortunately I was currently unable to rebuke that fact. [By the way, you named the Predalien Beta?]

Here his question I tilted my head slightly. (Yeah, why are you asking?)

[Don't you think that's a bit lazy?] 

(Go screw yourself...) I hissed while turning my attention away from him.

The Yautja were currently chasing after Beta who at this moment was leading them deeper and deeper into the city and towards their possible doom. Thankfully most of the hunters had lost their self-destruct devices already, however two of them still had theirs intact, a fact that I need to quickly rectify as soon as possible.

Talking about my Predalien, she was currently only in the drone stage of her evolution and as such she wasn't as strong as she probably could be. Despite this fact however, Beta had shown surprising combat proficiency and problem solving capabilities despite her young age. In fact even though she was just born not too long ago she was only slightly less intelligent then Alpha, something that honestly surprised me. 

Unfortunately though, Beta seems to have quite the personality for a Xenomorph, especially when compared to most of her siblings. She still listens to me when I speak to her of course, she also still follows my orders when I give them, however when I gave the mission to retreat and make the preds follow her she actually seemed to sulk a little at being denied the option to keep fighting.

As for the Yautja themselves, well, each one of them was wearing similar clothes and armour. This little fact would have made it hard to tell which one was which but thankfully they each had differently shaped masks, something that made it far easier to identify them each individually.

Starting from the one who appears to be their leader, his mask appeared to resemble some kind of alien hound that I've never seen before. The female with the four cuts across her torso had a much smoother looking version of the original mask, you know, the one from the first movie. Next, the one that ended up in a wrestling match with Beta had a mask that somewhat resembled a mixture between a japanese samurai as well as something like an oni or an orc.

The next set of hunters would be the male that Beta had tripped with her tail and the other female in the group. The male had a rather sharp looking mask that somewhat resembled the mask of Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The female had some kind of...bird? Snake maybe? It was hard to tell if I'm being honest. Anyway, the final male of the group had a mask that kind of looked like a draconic creature like a salamander or a wyvern.

Moving on from all of that however, things were heating up a bit back with the Yautja. I had a plan to not only deal with them but hopefully capture them alive, however before any of that I needed to remove those final two self-destruct devices they had.

Seeing that they were close I transferred my consciousness to another one of my children waiting on a nearby building that they were about to pass through. (Here we go then.) 

[Break a leg.] Goldy muttered causing me to roll my head at him.

(I don't know if you're being literal or metaphorical when you say that.) I admit and he simply chuckled.

[Can't it be both?]

Shaking my head in annoyance I launched myself downwards followed by two dozen of my children who had been waiting in ambush alongside me. Additionally as we jumped into battle Beta had long since stopped fleeing, in fact she quickly turned around and tackled the leader of their little group back into the building he had just come out of. The other Yautja were about to help when they finally noticed me and my offspring crawling down the building towards them.

Immediately five of my xenos were killed in an instant and another two of them were temporarily taken out of action for the rest of the fight. Two of them went down because of plasma blasts while another had a leg and arm torn off in one of the explosions that followed. Another was killed when it jumped at one of the preds only to be impaled on the bastard's wrist blades while the one just behind it was trapped against a wall by some kind of razor sharp net. Finally, two others were beheaded by one of those damn spinning disc things, I was really getting tired of those at this point.

As for myself, well, I crashed directly on top of the Yautja with the draconic looking mask who definitely didn't seem happy about me landing on him all of a sudden. In fact I would have liked to see what was going on around me but found that rather difficult with the pissed off pred thrashing around underneath me.

Thankfully he was one of the two that still had their self-destruct devices so he had my undivided attention as I snarled in his face and clawed at him as we began our little struggle. We rolled for a bit before he kicked me off of himself and into a wall. I quickly shook off the slight disorientation I felt just in time to move my head out of the way when he attempted to skewer me with his wrist blades.

Seeing an opening I bit into the device on his arm and ripped it off just as three of my children pounced on him from behind. He of course was rather quick to toss them aside and get back to his feet, however I was able to climb up the wall behind me and out of his reach for now.

(One left...) I muttered to myself.

[Actually zero left.] Goldy corrected as I glanced around. [One of your kids just dealt with it.]

(Great, now I can stop holding back!)

[This is gonna be fun.]

And so I gave the order, my voice echoing throughout my hive mind as I gave my commands. I was quickly met with thousands upon thousands of restless cries and screechs who seemed rather aggravated by the presence of our unwanted guests. And so finally, finally after getting rid of the only thing they had that could actually truly harm me in any meaningful way it was time to put an end to this, after all mother is waiting and I can't wait to shove my tail through her skull.

The Yautja were soon running for their lives when they noticed what exactly it was that I had sent their way. It had taken them a moment to notice what was coming, mostly because they were focused on Beta, who had been fighting both their leader as well as the female with the strange bird, or snake- like mask. Anyway, as soon as they noticed the massive wave of dark violet bodies pouring out from the distance and barreling towards them they were rather quick to turn and retreat, not before one of them tossed several explosive devices at Beta in hopes of distracting her for a second or two. Thousands of Xenomorphs were literally crawling over both each other and anything in their path as they advanced forward while creating one hell of a ruckus.

The hunters weren't stupid, they knew that they couldn't fight this horde charging towards them, not here anyway, not when they were surrounded by buildings on all sides. Unfortunately they would have to fight at some point, after all they couldn't run forever, however they needed to find a place where they could make a stand. Of course I had no intention of giving them that valiant last stand they wanted, in fact they were heading to just the very spot where I wanted them to be.

As they retreated however I sent out another signal through the hive mind, you see the hunters were now completely focused on the forces charging after them, this of course meant they forgot one of the most important rules of horror movies. Always look up. Sadly they didn't follow this golden rule, so when hundreds of Scavengers poured down from the clouds above they barely had time to even notice what was going on.

Their first indication that something was actually wrong was when the sky above suddenly darkened out of nowhere. Sadly for them however, one of their number was slightly slower to react then the others and as a result wasn't able to move out of the way when two of my Scavengers pulled him into the air. He of course attempted to fight back while his fellow hunters tried to help somewhat in any way they could but he was quickly swarmed and restrained. In the end his companions could only watch as he was dragged up into the air as more of my flying xenos flocked around him forming a wall that blocked any long range attacks meant to help or even mercy kill him.

[Welp, that guy is gone.] Goldy chuckled as I watched the remaining hunters fight their way through the three combined flocks of Scavengers, with each flock having around one hundred and fifty  members in it their hopes of surviving was dwindling rapidly.

Surprisingly though, despite the overwhelming force they were dealing with, the Yautjas were doing relatively well all things considered. I mean sure, they were having problems but for now they were holding their own, that's mostly because I didn't actually want to kill them but still, colour me impressed.

(I guess they didn't expect to be attacked from the air.) I hummed in response as I continued to just observe them from my vantage point.

[Still better than most public airlines.] 

(The fact that I agree with you is disturbing.) I grumbled in annoyance.

[Because you don't like airlines or because you don't like agreeing with me?] He asked, confused somewhat.

(Yes...)

Anyway, by this point things weren't getting any better for the group of hunters, mostly because by this point Beta had caught up with them. The Xenomorph in question was hidden from view thanks to the Scavengers that were flying all over the place, a fact that allowed her to quickly tackle one of the female hunters to the ground without the other Yautja even noticing what had happened. Rolling and struggling against each other for a moment the two of them were quickly overtaken by the wave of violet bodies that didn't slow down for them at all.

[They are almost there now.] Goldy mused when he noticed their current location.

(I guess it's time then.) I thought as I gave one final command through the hive mind.

[Boom? BOOM?!]

(Yes, boom...) I sighed with a shake of my head.

[Hell yes!] Goldy cheered just as the ground shook violently.

In that moment the ground behind their feet buckled before collapsing inwards, the Yautjas of course tried to move out of the way before they were swallowed by the dark abyss that had suddenly opened up below them. Unfortunately for the group things didn't go so well, two of them weren't quite fast enough and fell into the pit while the ones that were left didn't get far. This was mostly because they were either tackled into the hole by my horde of various types of Xenomorphs or quickly disabled by Beta who had finished knocking out the female a moment ago.

As for the ones that had fallen down, or tackled down, well, one of them was knocked out and rather seriously injured if the blood coming out from their head was anything to go by. The others were met by Alpha as well as my other Praetorians, and while they did put up one final desperate struggle they weren't exactly in the best of shapes at that moment.

(And that's checkmate.)