Yang continued to lead the way through the dark corridors until they finally began to notice things brightening up. They all squinted and carefully made their way down a back exit of the pyramid. Yang tried her best to scan around the opening in the ice that they had shimmied down for the warriors who had attacked them earlier, but didn't see anyone.
As they neared the body of the scientist who was first to die almost everyone became nauseated. Something had happened, or someone had seriously shredded the body. There were also a few of the dead face huggers nearby.
Dr. Catalano just stared in disbelief. "Maybe those things lay eggs..." Blake began, but wasn't sure how to finish her sentence in an diplomatic way.
"Inside their victims?" Weiss asked.
"Yeah." Blake answered.
"We'd better keep going Yang prodded the group.
"We can't take him as is." Catalano began. "we'll have to come back when it's more safe, and we have a sleeping bag, or adequate container to put him in."
"I'll go up last, to cover y'all." Ruby volunteered, changing her scythe into it's rifle mode.
"Wait, where are the other two?" Catalano asked. "Mark and tonya."
"I don't know. Last time I saw them was when we fought that big ugly thing." Yang said.
"Should've stuck with the group." Ruby shrugged.
Yang was starting to look frustrated. "Yang, how about you escort Dr. Catalano up top, and Ruby, Blake and I can go round up Mark and Tonya?" Weiss suggested.
"Okay, but Ruby: you stay here to guard our 6 so nobody climbs up behind us unexpected."
"Sure thang."
Weiss and Blake hurried back towards the pyramid, beginning to grow sick of the infernal thing by now.
The two predators inside the sarcaphegus room were careful to study before reaching out to touch the intricately carved combination lock. The lid was much more than decoration. A clicking sound echoed through the room and a portion of the lid lit up as it began to slide away to reveal several blaster rifles inside.
A humming sound permeated throughout the pyramid as it seemed to come alive and then gradually subsided. Their were some dimly lit lights throughout the pyramid now, it seemed. The two predators growled triumphantly and raised their blasters in celebration.
Just then, their leader entered the room and joined them. "Hurry! You've just awoke the other one. We need to hit it hard before it can acclimate from the hyper sleep and then we can get back and recieve our honors." They shuffled from the room and began the hunt throughout the pyramid.
Having shed it's constraints, and the hypersleep chamber, the other alien queen emerged from it's prison. Fierce anger and violence ran through it's body. She could smell the blood of another alien queen wafting throughout the pyramid. Someone had killed another alien, and so she began to track her new enemy.
"It looks like more blood trails." Blake said, as she and Weiss made their way inside the pyramid again. "We'll hope for the best, but we need to follow it to see if if leads to the scientists." Weiss said. "I'll lead the way to cover you so you can focus on tracking... Just tell me if the trail turns a corner or something."
"Okay." Blake nodded, and they began. It wasn't long before they were led to the sarcaphegus room though.
"Oh $# ! What the-?" Blood and gore was everywhere. They weren't even recognizeable, so Blake and Weiss had to just assume the scientist's tattered clotheing meant that they were the gruesome victims lying before them.
Apparently, someone had opened the sarcaphegus, but to their surprise it didn't look anything like a person had been buried inside. There were some sort of equipment and rifles, but a few were missing. By now the entire pyramid felt like it was pulsing with energy and even heating up. Condensation dripped from the ceilings.
Ruby was still waiting at the bottom of the icey shaft, outside the pyramid, bored, and so had squatted down to rest while she waited for Yang and Dr. catalano to shimmy up the rappeling ropes. An angry shriek came from the pyramid entrance, and Ruby looked up to her horror to see an alien queen emerging, and rushing down the steps.
Had that alien she had killed come back to life? With no time to think, she fired a couple of hasty shots at the queen, and began to pull her way up the ropes.
The predators had heard the alien's war cry and ruhed out behind her. By this time she was almost at the shaft opening, and they fired their rifles at her. Laser beams flew through the freezing cold air, leaving trails of steam behind, one of them connected squarely in her back. "Rooaaarrrr!" The alien's voice echoed, seeming to fill the entire cavern. It wheeled around, and eyed the predators grinning with malice.
For possibly the first time in their lives the predators tasted the same fear that they had instilled in others. The show was on.
Once they had discovered that rescue was no longer an option for the scientists Blake and Weiss helped themselves to two of the rifles, and left, to catch back up with the others. "What the heck was that?!" Blake gasped, nervous from the alien screech.
They were just about to round the corner which they knew led to the entrance, but ducked back at the noise. Weiss peeked around the edge and saw the three predators firing rifles like the one's she and Blake now had. they must have been shooting at another alien, because it sounded an awful lot like the one they had fought earlier in the statue room. Blake peeked around too and raised her rifle to fire but Weiss stopped her. "Wait. Let them kill the big monster first."
Out on the steps, the alien was already more than halfway up, strafeing and dodging laser bolts from the rifles. A few had caught her a few times before she had gotten this far, but the predators were amazed at her resiliance. They instinctively split up. One ran down the stairs and away from the alien, while the other two stayed at the entrance but moved away from each other.
The alien just grimmaced evily and went for the bait anyway. First, she feinted moving up towards one near the entrance, but then wheeled around and used the stone steps to launch herself back down towards the lone predator who had ran down the pyramid. He had spun around just in time to realize she was flying through the air towards him, but didn't have enough time to raise his weapon.
"Wham!" Dust like snow puffed out around them as she slammed him to the ground. One down. The other two predators opened up, not fearing about accidentally hitting their comrade anymore. "Tshew-tchu-tchu-tssshuu!" The rifles sounded like a flock of angry birds.
Some of them connected, and the queen knew she was being weakened. However, she could still smell the blood of the other alien that had been killed on Ruby's weapon, and now the ice chute didn't seem like such a bad idea. At least she might be able to bring down the one who had killed another alien.
Meanwhile, the aching muscles of Ruby's arms were working furiously to pull her way up, her boots slipping akwardly as she tried everything she could to distance herself from the alien. For the first time since she had started climbing she afforded a glance backward. Just then the alien's head popped through the opening, and it began to climb up, sinking it's claws into the ice. It was bleeding profusely, but still managed to haul itself upwards. Ruby needed just a bit more time, so she switched her rifle into the scythe again and chunked it down at the alien's face. "Whop!"
"Wreaaaaakkk!" The alien screamed with fury and pain. It shook off the blow that had sliced it's face open only to see Ruby's boots climb over the opening and out of view. The alien redoubled it's efforts, it's strength motivated by anger. "yang!" Ruby yelled.
Yang and Dr. Catalano spun around. They looked surprised to see her already up so soon after them. "Alien..." Ruby gasped, barely able to breath from exaustion. "Alien!"
Yang rushed forward to help her, but Ruby turned back towards the opening and raised her Mp5k. The queen emerged, wrath and defiance in it's face.
Yang blasted her with her shotgun gauntlet, temporarily stunning the beast; and Ruby opened up on her chest pumping the full magazine into her. "Blam!" "Brr-rrrr-rrrrpppp!"
The alien seemed like it couldn't move, so Yang emptied two more shells into it, blowing it backwards. It disappeared from sight as it fell back down the shaft. "cool." Ruby was pretty sure she heard Dr. Catalano say.
Epilogue:
Back at Beacon Academy, Ruby thought of how quickly the events of the mission had transpired. They were all fortunate to be alive. Dr. Catalano was now a Facebook friend.
Once the two predators had saw the alien's body plummet back down the shaft, they were content to collect her tail claw as a trophy and didn't want to fight these exceptional humans anymore. The predator wounded by the shotgun has totally recovered from his injury and has now enrolled in a community college program and changed his hunting hobby to racketball.
The other predator did not return our messages, but team RWBY confirmed that he also became friends with them on Facebook.
The predator who died was identified and convicted postumously as the father of several alien children, and had conspired the hunt their aliean mother as a means to not pay child support... or so that's what the alien tabloids say.
THE END
Belated Happy Thanksgiving! Feel free to check out any more of my stories if you like. This one was partly an anime so had zany elements added for humor.