Authors Note:
Hey guys like always thanks for all the reviews! Without you guys I don't know where I'd be. I certainly wouldn't be continuing this story and I probably would have ended it around Chapter Three. I believe that this the farthest I've ever gone with one fan fiction, and I really do owe it to your support, so thank you all so much. Please, enjoy the chapter; this is the 'promised one' I've been talking about- the one where the action begins to pick up again.

Also- yelouge: I'm just going to defend myself a little by saying that I doubt Lex knew everything about Aliens from her experience in the temple. She knew there was a queen, but she had no idea if there were others that could breed, or if the others grew into Queens. I'll fix the first chapter in a re-rewrite once I've gotten the whole story done. Thanks for your input.


Warrior

Chapter Seven: Trouble in the Vents.

I was shook awake by Lucy, sometime in the middle of the night. I awoke immediately, with her hand over my mouth. Groggy and disoriented, the first thing that came to mind was fighting for survival. Her hand was suffocating me, having been placed over my mouth and nose, severely depleting my ability to breath. I kicked frantically, and tried to scream, although muffled. I couldn't get to my weapon, as I was laying on half of it. With one final burst of energy I managed to knock Lucy away just long enough to be able to pull my weapon out of its holster and release the blades, keeping my attacker away from me. "What the hell are you doing?" I cried out, taking in a deep breath.

"What am I doing?" Lucy asked, clutching her stomach where I'd knocked her back. "You attacked me!" She shouted at me, and then looked around the room as if rethinking her decision to be so loud. I could tell that she was frightened, (or at least conscious,) of something, by the way that her eyes darted around the room, from the ceiling to the walls, and the door. "Be quiet." She told me suddenly, stepping towards the door. When I made to speak again, she held up a hand to silence me. "There's something going on outside." She told me, pressing her ear against the door, trying to listen for something.

"What did you hear?" I asked her after a few moments had passed. Nothing had happened so far while I had been awake, and I was beginning to wonder if this was just another of Lucy's crazed ramblings. Maybe she had fallen asleep, and dreamed of the fight we both knew would be coming. And when she finally awoke, she had accidentally mixed fantasy with reality. Either way, I was beginning to doubt that she'd really heard anything at all.

"I don't know for sure." She replied, and gave up trying to hear anything else at all through the doorway. "But it sounded bad. We have to find a way to get out of this room, now." Lucy said, staring at me. I could tell she was serious, utterly and completely. She began to search the room, looking for something, and immediately moved past me when she finally found it.

Pressing the button on my weapon, the blades retracted back to safe mode, just as Lucy stepped up onto the bed beside me, reaching upwards to a vent at the top of the wall, pressed against the ceiling. The vent was the last place I wanted to go at the moment, and I was tempted to send Lucy to come back for me whenever she managed to find her way back into the hallway to unlock the door for me. Until, she asked for my help boosting her up. I couldn't very well have her go before me, thinking that I was there to back her up when I had stayed behind. 'Damn Morals.' I thought angrily, as I heaved myself upwards and into the vent behind her.

Inside the vent, there was absolutely no light, or heat. Darkness surrounded me as I followed close behind Lucy's feet, trying to keep her within my line of sight, and not be kicked at the same time. I was reminded of how eerily similar these moments in the vent were to my dream; where I had been encased in darkness on all sides, but still felt like something was watching me. I half expected something to be there- waiting around the next bend to rip Lucy away from me- and leave me stranded in the darkness. I doubted that I'd be able to maneuver my weapon around to save my self in a situation like this, without seriously harming myself in the process anyway.

I couldn't hear the Predators below us, (wherever we were now,) but I could hear fans. Somewhere in the vents, I could hear fans powering up and spinning for a few minutes at a time, until stopping suddenly and surrounding us in silence again. "What the hell are wrong with those fans?" I groaned out to Lucy as we scuttled along the vents towards our destiny. I would rather hear some noise, then nothing at all, and every time they ceased to work, I could feel the tension mounting. I half expected another noise to take its place entirely, as we were found by something more horrible then our captors.

"How would I know, exactly?" She asked me sarcastically, as she rounded a corner and her feet slid out of view to the right. I followed quickly, and found myself bumping against her feet directly around the corner. Something had stopped her in her tracks, and she refused to go any further ahead until she was sure it was safe. The noise of the fans was much louder here, and I was sure that they were right head of us down the vents; I just couldn't see them over Lucy's body in the way. "Back up." She told me suddenly, and immediately began kicking at me with her feet, trying to move backwards.

We did a tango of movement. I moved back into the way we had come, while Lucy continued moving backwards; down an opposite way by herself. When I was about to ask her where she was going alone, she interrupted and nodded to me, telling me to check out what she had just seen. As I crawled forward, and down the ventilation shaft to the right, I could feel cold air being blown onto my face from the fans, which were directly ahead of me. A very dim light came from behind it, issuing from some unseen force, and for a few moments, nothing seemed wrong with the situation.

It wasn't until the fans had shut down again, and I was only ten feet before them that I realized something was horribly wrong. My left hand settled down into something slimy. I pulled it away quickly, as if it had been scalded and stared at the clear saliva that was stuck to it, trailing from my hand to the floor. I tried to snake around the small puddle, to get a closer look beyond while the fans were stopped- and moved forward again.

It became harder and harder to avoid whatever it was that I'd placed my hand in, because the further I moved, the more I could feel, coating the floors, and eventually the walls also. I was reminded eerily of the moments in the Pyramid, when I had found the bodies of Miller, and Verheiden, and eventually shot and killed Sebastian to save him from a much more painful death. The rooms there had been coated with a very similar fluid, which had solidified and molded to the walls. I was sure it was only a matter of time before it happened again here too.

I was almost at the fans now, and I figured I still had a good couple of minutes left before I had to move again, to get back away from them. My eyes struggled to find the source of the problem, the reason why the fans weren't working correctly, and I found it in the bottom right corner. A piece of flesh, colored a yellowish-green was lodged in the corner, and the blade of the fan had been caught in it. 'Hah.' My mind laughed. 'Serves those bastards right.' I couldn't help but think as I gazed at the mangled flesh.

But my attention was caught once again- by what existed beyond the fan. I could hear something; something breathing, slow and steadily. A growl broke the repetitious noise, very similar to the noises the Predators made. I inched myself closer, and struggled to look downwards, where the light was coming from, and I found that if I placed myself closer to the blades, I could peer down the shaft.

"Lex, what is it?" Lucy asked suddenly, and I gasped, jumping and turning to glance back at her from an empty space between my arm and chest. She was a good deal further behind me, waiting for me to return. I found myself slightly annoyed with her; so instead of verbally answering, I held up and hand and waved it, palm out, signaling for her to stay quiet.

Trying again, I edged closer, and peered downwards. In the semi-darkness below I could see something. I could tell that the vents opened into the room below, and that the screen had been broken inwards, from the pieces of metal pointed upwards. Through the hole, and father downwards into the darkness, I could see it. A huge mass of yellow, green, and black skin, heaving with each breath it took. I could only see it's back- but I could tell it was humongous. If only I could get a closer-

I screamed loudly as the fans kicked back in, almost slicing off my face at the same time. The piece of flesh which had so long, held out, had split in two and the half on the other side had fallen back down the shaft. The fan was working properly again. I gasped as I slid backwards, realizing just how close I had come to losing my life, when I heard the screech. It was defiantly a Xenomorph; maybe more then one. The noise shook me and I began backing upwards down the shaft, as quickly as I could. I could hear them climbing the walls now. The metal scraping as they fought their way to the ventilation shaft.

"Lex, what is it?" Lucy was asking me, from behind me, and she started to follow me up the shaft.

I continued moving as I screamed down at her. "Don't stop, go down the other shaft! Now!" I shouted at her, urgency in my voice. "Don't stop until you find away out!" I cried out, in fear, glancing backwards and forwards to the fans. I could hear another one screeching. It was getting closer. The way the metal from the shaft was creaking I just knew that it was climbing upwards. Struggling to fit itself through the hole and up to fans, until I could see it.

The blades were slicing the air so quickly, that I could only see it's coloring- dark and foul. It hissed at me from across the shaft, but didn't dare to try and get through the fans without serious injury to itself.

I have no idea how I got out of there. The fear and panic of the moment bubbled to the surface as I only fought to find a way out of the shaft. For a time, I was traveling backwards, my feet hitting the walls as I went. At some point I managed to turn around, using another shaft to back into. Lucy was somewhere ahead of me, calling out to me every few seconds, letting me know what direction she was going. Left, Right, Left again. The directions meshed together as we struggled to pull as far away from the danger as we could; our flight response in full 'go' mode.

Eventually though, I came to a part of the vent that Lucy had kicked in, and most likely jumped down through. With no other thought then to follow her, I backed my legs into the tunnel and dropped down, crashing down on the floor below, my legs splaying painfully out below me. Before I could get up myself, I felt strong pairs of hands on my arms, lifting me upwards- and I found myself facing across the hallway I was in, Lucy was looking back at me, a Yautja's hands grasped tightly around each of our own arms.

I didn't need to understand their language, as they growled and clicked to each other anxiously, that we were in serious trouble.


Authors Note: I'm much prouder of this chapter then the last two. I finally got to write something a little bit more fun then just conversation. I have so much planned for this story again, and my Muses have returned again in full force. Let me know how you like it!

By the way: I am dedicating this chapter to both Solain Rhyo and Scarlet-Moonlight. Two of my reviewers who have been here to let me know exactly what they think about my fic the whole way along. You guys definitly deserve recognition as two outstanding and friendly members of FFNet. Thanks to both, (and all the rest,) of you.