Hello, readers!

Past!Me has managed to offend me with how inept the yautja were in this stupid fic lmao. Like I said earlier, though, I kinda liked the xenomorphs better? A little bit, at least. I thought they were pretty cool. The yautja, of course, were really pretty sweet but I don't know! It probably wasn't until later in my life that I developed this weird fixation on big scary monsters paling around with a human girl for a friend. Whatever.

If you've made this far. . .good job! :D Hopefully your face isn't completely stuck in cringe mode. Drop some comments to let me know where you're at if you're reading this. I spent a lot of time internally screaming at myself while I got these ready to post. Don't be ashamed if you have to tap out. I almost tapped out several times and just decided not to do this at all but I AM A GLUTTON FOR PUNISHMENT.

~ Crayola

Chapter Four

The Last Stand

After turning to call the others over to him, Sissil turned his head back to look out the window at the next planet they would be landing on and infesting. The planet where they would re-build their forces.

Thissa was the first to Sissil's side and she peered out the window. Soon, the other serpents joined them and began hissing with well-placed excitement. This planet had so much water and land. There just had to be life. Life they could use.

When the ship finally landed, the serpents found themselves in a clearing in another forest. This one was very different from the last forest they had occupied. Silver leaves were replaced with different shades of green, brown, and orange. The dirt also was very different. This planet did not have the soft, black soil of the last one. It was host to dark brown, rocky dirt.

Such a strange, strange planet.

Sissil turned abruptly and chose a random serpent from behind him to go out and scout the forest for some reconnaissance. Timidly, it stepped from the commandeered ship and looked around before daring to go any farther into this unknown landscape. It took a little encouragement to get the drone to go. Sissil was sure this was no warrior serpent. A warrior would not have hesitated.

The others watched the serpent through a window as it went into a section of the un-tamed wilderness, returned to the ship and into another section then returned to the ship after several hours. It was taking too long.

It finally crawled into the ship and led the others, relieved at its return, outside, into the vast landscape they were now in. The serpent seemed very excited about some unknown thing. Questioning from its comrades did not promote any answers. It just climbed into a tree and motioned for the others to do the same.

They did not like surprises, but the drone was intent on keeping retaining the suspense.

As the very last serpent climbed up the tall oak tree, the serpent guided Sissil, Thissa, and all the others in one certain direction. They followed without questioning their fellow ophidian any further, accepting their brother's mysteriousness.

For hours on end the serpents leaped from branch from branch, tree to tree, until it finally called back happily to its hundreds of brethren, hissing, as if silence was imperative. They caught up with it and looked down where it was indicating with its swinging tail.

Sissil and Thissa leaped ahead in one tree and hissed out in soundless jubilance.

There was a large group of tents and, the cherry on top of the cake, living beings. Actual living beings. Their species had yet another chance.

These creatures were perfect. They walked upright, like their adversaries the hunters, but were not as big or as bulky, and had less armor and lacked masks covering their faces.

All of the serpents screeched joyfully, silence and stealth forgotten in their rejoice, and, like a waterfall cascading over rocks, they flowed out of their respectful trees and stampeded towards the small, temporary settlement full of sentient beings.

Alerted by their tied-up and yapping dogs, the creatures in the tents emerged from the impermanent dwellings, and the ones wondering around outside turned, un-advanced hand guns in their weak hands. If the serpents could laugh, they would have.

Sissil hissed in pleasure, tail lashing. Homo sapiens were inhabiting this planet and were all ripe for the picking. It helped that they all looked much weaker and more helpless than the humanoids had been.

This was almost going to be too easy.

The humans saw the oncoming hazard and cocked their arms, aimed, and fired. The serpent's head next to Thissa exploded, splattering acid-green acid blood all over her shoulder and head. Her acid-proof hide protected her from being burnt at all, though, so she just ignored it completely and continued charging towards the camp.

Although they had already lost one of their own to the humans' powerful weapons, the serpents continued to rush at them, tossing their heads and shrieking in anger and excitement. The humans fired round after round, but the line of aliens never faltered once.

The frontal assault was working well, even though it was not normal tactic for their kind. It felt wrong, but it was too late for them to go back and hide in the shadows. The humans would be on alert, and most likely leave. They had to finish what they started.

Thissa, being one of the fasted of them all, reached the humans first. She leaped at the nearest one she saw, a man, tackled him to the ground, and carried him off to the ship. Still the dogs growled, snarled, bared teeth, and barked away.

A serpent close to the dogs ended the barrage of noise from the four-legged mammals with a savage hiss. The dogs backs away, whining, their tails between their legs.

Serpent after serpent dragged their human quarry off towards their appropriated humanoid ship. Eventually, they had taken a good amount of humans away, and the only thing they needed was one more human, but a very special one.

All of the remaining humans were needlessly killed. There was no particular reason, except that the serpents were so hyped-up, they couldn't help themselves. They searched what tents they hadn't obliterated for any other survivors. Sissil found, in one of the few tents left standing, two more humans cowering in a corner, huddled to together and trembling.

Women.

Cautiously, he walked towards them, trying not to startle them too much. His attempts failed, and the two women screamed. Sissil shook his long head slightly and continued towards them and they kept up their screaming, backing into the tent walls and almost falling over in their attempts to escape the strange creature stalking towards them.

Before Sissil made it to the human females, however, one found her wits and jumped up, grabbing a nearby lantern sitting on the ground next to her and her friend. She held the lantern tight, as if it was her only means of survival.

Sissil hesitated for a moment, looking from the lantern to the girl holding it, to the huddling girl and back again a few times. He tilted his head slightly, then with a flick of his tail, he advanced further.

Sensing that this was a small opportunity, the lantern girl swung the lantern at Sissil with all her might, using it like a bludgeon She battered Sissil's head with it, causing his head to snap to the side.

It hadn't been a smart thing to do, since it only made him angry.

Instinctively, Sissil screeched in pain and leaped at the woman angrily, baring chrome fangs. She dropped her make-shift weapon in fear and surprise and dove out of the way. The other girl started her screaming again and crawled away towards the exit.

Thissa burst into the tent then, snarling, and the girl crawling away stopped dead and screamed, pressing her back against the vinyl wall again, not but three feet from the new alien. Thissa glanced at her, then assessed the situation. Sissil was trying to corner a woman in the large tent.

With a loud squeal, Thissa captured the woman's attention long enough to have Sissil bowl her over and pin her down, the blade part of his tail poised ominously over her. She struggled for a few seconds, then noticed the blade and stopped dead.

With slime dripping from his jaws, Sissil took his tail from her and she kicked and thrashed about some more, but it was futile. Sissil had her firmly held. He swung his head towards Thissa and snarled and hissed at her. Thissa nodded her black, glossy head and backed out of the tent, swaying slightly. Sissil, along with his fighting burden, followed her outside.

Even though the girl was struggling as hard as she could, Sissil made it to the ship. He boarded it, dragging her along the ground, and made his way towards the nest that a few drones had stayed behind to finish, rather than return to the scene of the seizure.

He crawled along the walls, the girl hanging, and easily found the location of the nest. He pressed her up against the slimy, dark-green wall and made a little cocoon for her. Leaving nothing uncovered but her head and made sure she would be semi- comfortable before he stuck her in it and sealed it tight.

She was not to escape.

Screaming and hollering, the girl thrashed and flailed around as best as she could, trying to free herself. Serpents crawled by and would often glance at her, tails lashing quizzically, puzzled as to why she was conscious. Protocol was knocking their victims out, so this was not needed agitation.

Meanwhile, Sissil sauntered up to each green egg that wasn't in use, sniffed it, then moved on to the next one. He did this for a while before he came to one specific egg. He spent a few minutes sniffing it and looking it over. He circled the fourth-to-last egg several times before carefully picking it up.

In the background he heard loud screams, then he would hear them cut off suddenly. He swung his tail in content and hurried off with the egg he had hand-picked and hobbled over to the woman.

When he finally reached the frustrated girl, he gently set the egg down in front of her and crawled away silently.

A few minutes later, he met with his friend Thissa at the mouth of the ship and they spoke briefly with each other before bounding silently off into the forest to explore the un-charted territory they had stumbled upon.

Thissa strutted bravely ahead of Sissil, while he strayed a few feet behind, checking out each new plant or rock he bumped into. He was more curious then the uninterested Thissa. So long as the place they were worked, she didn't matter what was in the place.

Sissil liked to know what things were.

Eventually, he looked up from a bright yellow flower to notice that Thissa had disappeared. He jogged forward past a tree, hissing her name. Sissil was wading up to his stomach in lake water before he realized he had even walked into a lake. He shook his head and swung his tail, sniffed the water's surface, then dove in.

Just as he had figured, Thissa was swimming amongst a large school of silver swimming creatures, weaving in and out of the large group, swallowing several at a time. The fish would part, then swim back together in reply to the large serpent.

Sissil joined her after watching for a few seconds. They didn't stop until they had finished off the whole school. This planet was full of delicious surprises. When it was completely desecrated, they surfaced and headed back to the ship to tell the others of all they had discovered.

But, Sissil left the briefing to Thissa and crawled along the ceiling towards the nest where sounds were no longer coming from now. The screaming had completely stopped. Even the woman was silent.

He made his way to where he had cocooned the girl and checked on her to see how everything was going. The egg in front of her had opened at the top and a yellowish- white spider-looking thing with a long, spine-like tail had her face covered, legs wrapped around the back of her head. Its tail was slightly wound around her throat. Every few second the tail would tighten a little bit.

After growling jubilantly, he left the nest to join the other serpents.

When he finally found them at the entrance of the ship, Thissa had just finished explaining to them about the fish-filled lake and little creatures that lived all over the forest. He hissed to them, exceptionally giddy, about the woman.

Thissa padded up to Sissil and hissed to him. He nodded slightly and, waving his tail, summoned four more serpents to join them. Sissil and the four serpents left, leaving Thissa behind, and entered the forest once again to map out the area a bit more. Learn better of the new, strange world.

With Sissil leading, the group traversed through the forest, using the trees to travel, stopping every so often to examine some sort of movement over there or under that rock. If Thissa had been in the lead, the little things would not have been noticed.

Eventually, they reached the very edge of the forest and they peered out into the open space.

They were shocked into total silence.

Before them was and advanced society full of human prey. A city. Although they weren't near as advanced as the humanoids had been, these creatures were still fairly advanced. They had vehicle travel and big buildings.

One of the serpents became so excited that he began to rush forward towards the civilization. Sissil immediately pounced on him to keep him back. He hissed and bared his fangs, as did the other serpent. There were too many out during the day. They wouldn't last very long. They would have to attack later, during the night, and with more warriors and drones.

As Sissil led the caravan to the ship, he picked out one serpent to recount their meeting with the human city. When they got back, the drone ran off into the dark ship and the others went their separate ways. Sissil, on the other hand, left to see the progress of the nest.

Half of the men that were stuck to the slimy wall were staring at the spider-things with a nauseated look on their faces. The spider-creatures were mostly lying on the ground below their host, dead.

Some of the men were screaming in pain and tossing their heads, pulling against the dried slime that glued them to the wall. Sissil walked over to the men and climbed onto the wall, blending in perfectly. Soon, he could hear the chest bones in the men cracking at grinding. Then, after a few seconds of this, a small serpent burst out of a man's chest and plopped on the ground. Sissil watched as the baby serpent writhed on the ground for a minute, then stood. It looked around, then the chestburster shot off

Thirty seconds later, the girl started screaming once again. This time it was in fear and anger as well as frustration. Sissil snapped his head in her direction and crawled along the wall toward her. A few men next to her turned towards her and spoke with her quietly. Sissil tilted his head slightly and drew his lips back, slimy saliva dripping off in globs. He couldn't quite understand the words, but the separate words were easier to distinguish than the humanoid's language had been.

"Sh-h! Be quiet. It's coming to you! Shut up, Erin!" the man on her right whispered, glancing at Sissil.

Still the girl screamed. And still, Sissil continued towards her. When Erin finally noticed him, he was a few feet away. She stopped screaming and glared at him defiantly, sweat beading her brow.

"What the hell do you want'?! Why me? What did you do to those men you ugly creature?!" Erin demanded, but what she got for an answer wasn't what she had intended. What she got was Sissil's second pair of jaws staring her down and snapping at her, saliva dripping and teeth closing slowly.

Erin screamed one short, sharp scream and was silent. She was not about to make another noise.

Sissil hissed at her and shook his head. He whipped around, whacking Erin with the side of his tail, and crept towards the exit. As soon as their Queen was born, their siege on the human planet would begin with that city.

Thissa sprinted into the nesting room, along with the three other serpent lieutenants. All four were very edgy. The one on Thissa's left screeched in finicky panic and the other two nodded vigorously in correspondence. Thissa hissed and the other three repeated it.

Immediately Sissil leaped in to action. He quickly ordered the three other lieutenants to guard the nest and then hurriedly followed Thissa into the forest. The sun had just begun to set below the horizon. It was already nightly dark underneath the cover of the trees.

As he left the ship, Sissil screeched into the night in blind fury. There were human men everywhere with their primitive guns. As Sissil looked around, his rage grew as he looked at all the casualties. Mostly all of them were serpents with a few humans sprawled around.

As more men noticed Thissa and Sissil, the more people turned their attention to them. They began to fire at them, but the two alien serpents were too fast to be locked onto properly. They moved in zigzags and bounced around from behind trees to the open, equally matching each other's pace.

They took out each man as they came to them, tails lashing and stabbing, claws tearing and ripping through soft human flesh, fangs snapping. Soon, more serpents arrived on the scene and Thissa and Sissil could fall back slightly.

Before they could reach the safety of the ship, though, one more shot was fired and the stray bullet met with smooth flesh. Thissa fell and Sissil skidded to a stop and turned to help her, The bullet had unfortunately pierced her left back leg. She struggled to her feet and looked at her leg. She had to get off the door before her acid blood ate through the hull.

Not that it would have mattered. Sissil didn't think they would need to go back into space, but there was that off chance that they would exhaust this planet's life, they might have to go to another planet.

Sissil screeched with the pain of leaving his friend behind, but still he helped to push Thissa off the door and onto the hard-packed earth. With his tail, his picked out stray drops of blood from a small whole it had made already.

Thissa nodded in approval and limped back into the ongoing battle. She would go down a warrior. Sissil uncertainly headed back towards the nest to help the others guard it. He could not hear the girl hollering in pain, but at least one man was.

When he reached her, the three lieutenants and two new serpents, one of which Sissil recognized from the man several minutes before, were all huddled around the woman and watching with interest.

Erin had finally started screaming in pain as her body involuntarily convulsed. She writhed in pain and tugged at her slime cocoon. The man on her right was no longer alive, a small serpent at his dangling feet.

With one last pain-filled cry, Erin's ribcage cracked and split and a small serpent Queen feel from her open, bleeding chest.

All of the serpents present cried out gleefully. They screeched and hissed for a while before Sissil silenced them and sent the two new serpents into battle. He hid among the walls, perfectly camouflaged and waited for the Queen to come to power. The other three serpents rushed off to join the battle too.

To Sissil's horror, he heard footsteps. Not serpent footsteps. Not one of his men's human footsteps. He braced himself for battle for his vulnerable Queen's safety as two armed men trudged into the seemingly serpent-free nest. Sissil silently slunk into the shadows even more.

"What in the name in God is this place?" one man asked, leaning towards his partner so he wouldn't have to talk loud and alert anything nearby.

"How the Hell am I supposed to know? I'm not some alien expert! You expect far too much from me, Aaron." the other replied, coking his rifle.

Aaron glanced around the nest a few times and said with disgust, "My God, look at these poor men! By the looks of it some have had something removed. Like a sacrificing or something."

"No, no! Leave! Leave now! Leave us here! If you rescue us, you will all die! We're dead anyway. We each have one of those creatures living inside of us. Growing. Kill that one. The one in front of the girl! They Worship it or something. Please, do as I say!" a man on the opposite end of the nest pleaded, no hop left in his fear-filled eyes. He had been impregnated last of all.

The two men glanced at each other, then at the man, then at the helpless Queen under the dead woman. They both took aim at her and placed their fingers on the triggers.

That was when Sissil decided he should act. He leaped from the wall and fell on the first man, Aaron. Sensing danger nearby, the Queen scuttled off to hide.

Satisfied that his Queen was no longer in danger, he screeched loud and clear, then killed Aaron, who was pinned, and turned on the second man. The frightened man swung his gun around to shoot Sissil, but he swatted the gun from his hands with the blade of his tail.

Sissil began to lunge on the man, but faltered when pain shot through his shoulder. Someone had shot him from behind. When he whipped around to see who the culprit was, he found the assailant was the girl who had been with Erin when Sissil had drug her away. He bared his teeth and lashed his tail.

"That was for my sister. This is for my husband, who you killed, you monster!" She fired again, hitting him in the leg. "This is for everyone else who you mercilessly murdered!"

She began shooting round after round. Sissil screeched and charged through the onslaught of bullets towards her, but never actually made it. Most of the projectiles hit their mark. and unfortunately, one had pierced through his skull.

Sissil stopped short, and with one last shrill cry, whipped his tail towards the girl, catching the muzzle of the gun and her middle. The last thing he saw was the girl fall to her knees and her torso slide off of her hips before his vision blurred and everything went dark as his heart stopped beating.

*:･ﾟ✧

I sadly tore my gaze away from the dirty window of my parents' car. I found it sort of hard to take the end of my day dream, but it had to end sometime. Otherwise it would have gone on forever.

That didn't make it any better.

I hadn't wished it end that way, nor had I ever thought that it would have ended that way. I thought I had more control of day dreams like mine, but I guess I was wrong.

Or maybe it was what my subconscious wanted the most. What kind of daydream would it be if the xenomorphs had won? The humans would have all been killed and the planet would have been dead.

Not that I had seen the battle end at all. The xenomorphs, nor the humans, had won yet. Maybe there was more to it,

But Sissil was dead. The anti-hero of my day-dream. Surely that meant it was over. Surely that meant the xenomorphs had finally had their reign of terror ended without their fearless warrior.

"What's wrong, Kayla?" my mom asked, looking at me through her rear-view mirror.

I forced a smile. "Nothing Just, thinking I guess."

Hello again, readers!

I'm still bashing my head against my desk over this. My soul died with each chapter I had to skim through to fix conversion errors. The only thing that kept me going was knowing that my friends and I had gotten a lot of enjoyment out of this...knowing that I can look back and laugh at this because I've improved so much since I'd written this.

.-. Godspeed, readers...godspeed.

~ Crayola