Hey guys! Well, this is the penultimate chapter! Wow, I can't believe that I've made it this far. This is going to be my first completed story!

Ash's first instinct was to run. Just as it should be, considering the fact that a giant alien creature the size of a bus, or even bigger, was staring right at them. But then, he noticed that the Queen wasn't moving at all. It just stood there, hissing and snarling at them. It looked as if it was chained, or restricted somehow, by the egg sac and the resin around it.

"Why isn't it moving?" Ash asked, gun raised.

"Because it's immobile," Katya's voice came in, "The Queen cannot move while it is attached to its egg sac."

"Then let's hit her where it hurts!" Jack said, readying the assault rifle's under barrel pump-action grenade launcher. He then ran forwards, closer to the Queen in order to get a better, clearer shot on it. Ash ran after him, readying his own rifle to fire, but feeling reluctant do do so. However, they failed to acknowledge the large amount of unopened - and therefore dangerous - alien eggs that were scattered all around the large room where the Queen was stationed.

As they walked near some of them, several eggs opened up, opening up like leathery flowers in full bloom. The inside revealed a pale-colored, fleshy spider-like creature, a sheen of slimy fluids coating its body, fresh from its egg. They all leaped out of their receptacles, and began to scuttle towards the potential hosts. Said hosts stopped in their tracks, and turned as they noticed that the eggs had opened, and its contents were currently creeping towards them.

"It's me or them, it's me or them," Ash repeated to himself, as a volley of surprisingly well-placed bullets found their mark in one of the facehuggers' bodies. Behind him, Jack was shooting away at several facehuggers. They all walked backwards as they fired their weapons at the creatures. They were very tricky to hit, being so small and fast, they were able to maneuver surprisingly easily, and they darted from cover to cover, behind eggs, bent pieces of metal, and other things they could hide behind. The eggs were not ideal cover, since they could be shot, and the facehuggers seemed to know this, as it seemed to be used for cover only in the most desperate of situations.

Pikachu bounded this way and that, zapping whichever facehugger he saw. One of them leapt at him, but a Quick Attack knocked it out of the air, and a Thunderbolt finished it off, levying it a black charred corpse. Another face hugger fell to Ash's bullets. Just how many of these things could there be?

Looking at the Queen, his question was answered. The Queen lowered the tip of her egg sac, and the sac began to churn and shift. A bulge appeared at the tip, and the bulge moved until a shiny, leathery egg popped out partially. The egg was planted on the floor, and it stayed there. It opened itself up, and another facehugger came crawling towards them. The Queen simply shifted the position of her egg sac, and planted another, and another.

"Jack!" Ash yelled. "The Queen is making more of the eggs! If we don't stop her, then we'll be fighting these things forever!"

Jack risked a glance over to the Queen, and another facehugger jumped at his face, its legs spread out wide in an attempt to latch onto his face. Jack only managed to lift his gun in time to block the incoming creature. The creature angrily chittered, and its legs flailed around as its body attempted to grab onto a large enough solid surface to hold it, finding the gun to be too small for its body. Jack solved both their problems when he threw it off, and shot it to death.

"Ash, hold them off for a while!" Jack yelled. "I'm gonna stop the Queen!"

The Queen simply hissed as it observed the tiny humans fighting and killing its spawn. They were killing her children, her beloved children, and she would make sure that either they died, or they became parts of her army of children. One of the humans got closer to her, its facial expression set with determination. She smelled danger in this human, who was probably attempting to end her reign, and she would have none of it. She did not think these thoughts in language, for even Her mind could not comprehend the Human Language, but She well understood their concepts, such as determination and malevolence. She had plenty of both of those.

The Queen hissed at Jack as he neared, and Jack raised the gun. Her chitinous body was probably heavily armored, as the grenade that he fired exploded upon contact, but didn't penetrate very deeply at all, only evoking an annoyed snarl from Her. Switching up tactics, Jack then aimed at the first part of the body that he thought was most important to eliminate at the moment: the egg sac. He fired off one grenade launcher round to test the effect. The grenade shot out at a blinding speed, and penetrated the thin membrane of the sac, before exploding inside the sac. It caused the sac to partially rupture internally, and the Queen roared in pain. The roar reverberated throughout the room, and pierced Jack's ears, going into his bones as well. But it only fueled his determination and anger.

He pumped the grenade launcher, and fired off another one. A giant explosion inside another part of Her egg sac cued another pained roar. She flailed her arms around angrily, wanting to kill these invaders herself, but finding herself unable to do so. She was bound to her burden, to her burden of having to carry her children with her, and she was going to pay for it dearly. She roared again, despite not having been shot at. She was calling for her children to aid her.

Jack pumped the grenade launcher yet again, and fired the last grenade into her egg sac, completely rupturing the organ, and causing it to deflate. It ceased its pumping motions, and no more eggs spawned out of it. The Queen roared defiantly, and continued to try and spawn eggs, not understanding its crippled ability to reproduce.

"Okay! I've taken out her egg sac!" Jack yelled. "That should buy us some time, at least."

"Great, now how do we kill her?" Ash asked.

Katya's voice came in: "The Queen is located on top of the furnace in that room, just give me a moment and I shall try to activate the furnace. It will take a moment to warm up, so you will have to deal with the rest of the eggs in the meanwhile."

It seemed that Katya had things under control on her end. Now, all they had to do was watch out for the eggs. Prior to their entrance, the Queen had layed a staggering amount of eggs. They had plenty to keep them busy while Katya set work to warming up the furnace. Yet another egg opened up, and Ash shot it before it could scuttle out. The egg's fluids splashed all around as the bullets tore it apart, along with the facehugger. Ash heard his gun click when he pulled the trigger, and looked at the electronic LED ammo counter at the side. It read "0".

He pulled out the currently empty magazine, and grabbed for another one. He tried to copy Jack's movements, and pulled out a magazine. He fumbled with it for a moment before it clicked into place. He spun around to meet another facehugger, and pulled the trigger again, but only a clicking sound was heard, yet again. Ash didn't have time to react as the facehugger jumped at him, and Ash barely had time to lift his hands to catch it. It flailed its limbs wildly as it failed to latch onto his face, and Ash struggled to hold back the creature; it was much stronger than it looked, as Ash was currently experiencing its strength firsthand. The creature stuck out a strange tubelike organ from its center, which flopped around whilst dripping juices, and Ash threw it aside in disgust. A Thunderbolt ended its life when it hit the floor.

"It is almost done, get ready!" said Katya. She then began to count backwards from 5.

"Five…four…three…two…one! Now pull the lever at the base of her platform to activate the furnace!"

Ash looked towards the Queen, and the platform She was on, and saw that there was a lever that was positioned on the furnace, facing directly forwards. But he was too far, and there were still a few eggs between him and the lever. He looked towards Jack, and saw that he was even farther, and PIkachu was busy tending to his own opponents. Ash looked forwards, and shut his eyes. He would probably regret what he was going to do later.

He ran.

He ran forwards, past several eggs, which opened up at sensing his presence, but he dashed right past them. He didn't glance back once, didn't even ponder the possibility of one of them pouncing at him from behind, knocking him down, and impregnating him. Suddenly, he was at the lever, and heard a small chorus of snarling. It was then that he looked back. The cavalry had arrived, in the form of Warrior Xenomorphs. The warriors snarled, and leapt down from their respective wall perches, slowly walking towards them. By this point, all the eggs and the face huggers inside of them had been eliminated, but the warriors would prove to be more than enough of a replacement for them. Ash turned around, and pulled the lever down, to the maximum temperature.

Almost instantly, the flames inside the furnace blew up, and the temperature spiked incredibly. The furnace roared, and an eruption of flame shot up from the center of the furnace. The incredibly large wall of fire engulfed the Queen, who screamed in pain, louder than any other time before. Ash was sent walking backwards, both from the intense flames, and the piercing, nightmarish screech of the dying Queen. The flames roared like a volcano, with all the ferocity and rage of a dragon. The Queen could only scream in pain as the flames hungrily licked at her chitinous armor.

The other aliens immediately screeched, and charged at them. Ash turned around, and remembered to put a round into the chamber this time, before firing off his bullets. Adrenaline mixed with what little practice he had in firing a gun meant that his aiming was much better than normal, and that he was able to kill a warrior alien before it even got to jump off of its wall. But more came for him, easily replacing their fallen brother. Jack and Pikachu did their best to fight off the aliens, making sure to keep a good distance between themselves and their enemies.

The fire began to die down, Ash could tell from the considerable lack of heat he sensed behind him. He didn't hear anything from the Queen, meaning that she was dead. Despite this, the aliens were still attacking them, which only meant one thing: they had failed. They had killed the Queen, and eliminated the Hive Mind, yet the aliens were still coming at them. Jack's ultimate plan had ultimately failed.

"Jack! She's dead! But they're still coming!"

"Yeah, I see that!"

"Jack, we're going to die in here!"

"Don't you say that!"

Another couple of aliens fell by their attacks.

"We've gotten the attention of all the aliens in the Hive, there's no way we can survive!"

"Ash, stop talking like that, dammit! We are not going to die in here!"

More aliens poured out of the holes in the walls, all of them eager to sink their fangs into human flesh. Seeing all these aliens, being so outnumbered, Ash felt like giving up right there and then. His arms felt heavy, and his mind became blurred. His stomach had butterflies in them, ones of nervous anticipation of death. He would die here, and never be able to see his mother again, or his pokemon, or realize his dream of becoming Pokemon Master, or see Misty again… The last thought surprised him. He suddenly felt his facial expression turn into a scowl, and turn from fear to determination. He was not going to die in here. He just had to survive. Something inside of him refused to let him lay down and die. He wasn't sure whether it was self-preservation, pent-up anger, or something else, but he knew that he had to live.

He raised his gun, and fired off a burst of weapon fire, catching an alien in the head. He swirled around, and fired at another. It was far away, but he managed to get a bullet or two into it, just enough to slow it down so Jack could finish it off. He continued firing, and killing, still repeating "It's either me or them" to himself.

Jack fired left and right, killing as many of these things as he could, but he felt it wouldn't be enough. He ran out of ammo, and reloaded quickly, before firing again. Then, he heard a low, ominous hiss behind them.

Turning around, Jack saw that the Queen was hunched forwards, wounded, and in pain, but definitely still very much alive. It lifted its great head, and hissed at them. They had not failed just yet, if they could kill it.

"Ash, She's still not dead!" Jack said. "If we can kill her, then there's still a chance to win this!"

Ash's late reply came: "So how do we do it?"

"Katya, can you power up the furnace again?"

"I am sorry," her voice said, "but there is no more power for another blast."

Jack cursed, and shot another alien. He quickly looked around, scanning the surrounding area, as he should have done so earlier. It turned out that the room must have been where they developed their weapons, or the Xenomorph-related ones, explaining the need for a furnace. Several uncompleted products lay around on the tables, and on the floor, and on shelves and racks. He backed up into a section, and looked to see if he could find a suitable gun; there had to be at least one finished gun they left here before everything got taken over.

His eyes caught sight of a cabinet that had a warning label on it, warning him of a possibly explosive element with the cabinet. His attention was refocused as another alien jumped at him. He avoided it, and it reared up on its legs to bite at him with its inner maw. He struck it hard with his gun before it did so, however, and killed the alien where it stood. He then turned and made a mad dash towards the gun cabinet.

He was not as lucky as Ash, and ended up getting pounced on the back at the midpoint to the cabinet. A multitude of Quick Attacks from Pikachu caught its attention, and it got off of him to chase the yellow Pokemon. Pikachu was extremely fast and agile, but these things could easily match Pikachu's agility and speed. Pikachu caught the attention of several aliens at once, and got most of them to focus on him, distracting them from Jack. He took the opportunity to run to the cabinet, and open it. HIs eyes widened with surprise and joy as he pulled out the flamethrower from inside the cabinet.

Its ammunition came in a separate cabinet next to it, and he quickly and hastily loaded the device. This, however, also meant that he used up more time, time that could be used to burn aliens and save Pikachu. The little Pokemon was rounding up all the aliens to the best of his abilities, but he was quickly becoming worn out. Eventually, he ended up cornering himself, and the aliens all rushed at him. Pikachu used a Quick Attack to break the circle of aliens surrounding him, and they followed him. He ran straight to Jack, who was just finishing reloading the flamethrower. Pikachu reached Jack, and Jack pulled the trigger. A jet of fire flew out of the nozzle, and all the aliens immediately tried to evade the fire. A few of them were not lucky, and caught fire very easily. The flames hungrily licked at their skin, and the aliens died in agony, exploding. By this point, Jack had learned that the aliens exploded when killed either by fire, of by any other method of killing that induces extreme trauma. The aliens kept their distance, and tried to circle around to try and get Jack from behind, but Jack kept them at bay with the flames. Pikachu used his lightning strikes to stun them long enough for Jack to kill them, given that his lightning had little effect on the aliens other than being able to stun them for a while.

"Jack!" Ash yelled. "How do we kill her?"

"She must be weakened!" Jack yelled back, pulling the trigger again and setting another few aliens ablaze. "Try to use the grenade launcher!"

He had grenade launchers? Ash looked at his gun, and turned around to face the Queen. She weakly hissed at him, and then roared defiantly. Ash looked at his gun, and tried to find the activation for the grenades. He finally did find it, and set the gun to fire the grenades. He aimed at the Queen, and let a grenade loose. The gun rocked back from the force of the grenade leaving the gun, and Ash absorbed it with his body. The grenade exploded at her legs, and she roared in pain. Ash pumped the grenade launcher, expelling the shell, and took aim again, this time aiming higher. The grenade exploded on her chest, and she roared in pain. The smoke cleared, revealing that her chest-plate had cracked, revealing green flesh that dripped acidic blood onto the floor. Apparently, the fire had softened her shell, making her more vulnerable. The Queen roared again, and her head lowered for a moment. She slowly raised her head to look at him, and Ash pumped the gun once more. The Queen opened her mouth, and hissed at him. Then, it roared, and a wet snapping sound was heard. The Queen began to struggle, and the egg sac began to shift about. Then, there was a wet popping sound, and the sac suddenly fell apart, falling off her body. The Queen slowly, but surely, pulled herself out of the egg sac. A colossal tail emerged from within the sac, and it swung around like a giant whip behind her. The Queen was free.

Ash panicked, and began to walk backwards, away from the Queen. The Queen roared, and began to run at him on two legs. She moved incredibly fast for her size, it was unbelievable! Ash screamed, and dove just in time to avoid a giant claw smash the floor. He got up, and ran, gun still in hand. The Queen lashed out at him with her tail, but he was already out of range. He turned to her, and raised his gun once more. She charged at him, running faster than he ever could on two legs, and opened her mouth to roar. Ash heard Jack call his name, but he couldn't do anything for him. This was his moment, and his own fate would be decided by himself. He fired the grenade, aiming high at her head.

The grenade flew forwards, at an almost blinding speed, and went right into her mouth. Inside her open, roaring mouth, the grenade exploded. The explosion was enormous, and the frontal section of the Queen's face was blown out by the force of the grenade. Bits of her skull flew everywhere, the green flesh splashing acid bloom on the walls, the floor, and on Ash's chest plate. The Queen didn't even roar in pain this time. She stood there for maybe one more second, possibly two, it didn't matter, it seemed like eons, before she slowly began to fall over on one side. Her body collided with a heavy thud against the floor. There she lay, lifeless, limp, dead. Ash stared in awe at his doing, before noticing the sizzling on his armor. Ash screamed when he saw the acid blood on his chest plate, and dropped his gun in a panic, trying to remove the metal armor. The acid was biting right through the metal like fire to paper! Jack was at his side in an instant, and helped Ash remove the armor. Ash began to cry in pain as the acid burned deeper. The metal chest plating finally flew to one side, a large acid-induced hole burning all the way through its center.

Ash still had tears in his eyes, and looked at his chest. The acid had managed to burn his clothes, but not eat at his skin, luckily. Only a burned hole was on his shirt now. They were all alerted to the conjoined chorus of alien screeches and squeals. They looked at all the aliens in amazement. All the aliens were writhing and thrashing about on the floor, all of them obviously in some sort of pain or shock. They began to curl up into themselves, into a fetal-position like pose, their tails between their legs. They had killed the Queen, therefore destroying the Hive Mind, and now they were all in mental shock.

"Come on, let's get out of here!" Jack said, picking up and handing Ash's gun back to him. Ash grabbed his gun, and they all began to run away from the aliens in the room, all of them weakened and in-shock.

They all ran and ran, running right past the bodies of more in-shock aliens. The effects that killing the Queen had on these things was astounding. It was definitely a major blow to the Xenomorphs, meaning that they had one less problem to worry about at the moment.

"I can't believe it actually worked!" Ash said.

"Why would you doubt me? Have I let you down before?" Jack replied, stepping around another alien, who was softly squealing.

Then, Jack activated his headset, and talked to Katya: "We've done it. The Queen is dead."

"The Queen? She's dead? You killed her? How did you survive? I am surprised, but pleasantly so," she said.

Jack chuckled, and replied, "I don't think you'd believe it, but Ashy boy here killed the Big Bitch." He shook Ash's shoulder. "Now, all the xenos seem to be in some sort of pain. I think we've done our jobs."

"Indeed. Now, you must quickly leave the Hive, and come here."

They all continued walking, and reached another room. This one stank of death and decay, and several bodies were all piled along the floor, mostly eaten or decayed. It was another facehugging room, with several opened eggs inside. They paid no attention to any of the bodies, except Jack. What he saw made him stop right there and then. Ash stopped, and turned around, looking at Jack, who was staring intently at the bodies.

"Jack?" Ash asked.

Jack didn't respond. Instead, he dropped his weapon, and scrambled towards the bodies, getting on his hands and knees. He began to overturn the bodies, as if looking for something in them. Finally, he stopped, and began to intently stare at one body in particular.

"Jack, what is it? What's going on?" Ash asked. Jack didn't respond again, but kept staring at the body, unmoving.

"These…are my friends."

Ash looked at him, puzzled. He walked over to Jack's side, and looked at the corpse. The person was dressed in body armor, and had a gun strapped to his hip. Several pockets full of ammunition could be seen, but the thing that Jack was staring at was at the uniform's emblem. It matched the one on Jack's uniform. These were his squad-mates, or the ones that got taken away. Jack looked them over. The faces of these people were barely recognizable, but he knew that these had to be his squad-mates. He closed his eyes, and began to pull off their dog tags. Just then, his eyes caught sight of one soldier with an object a few inches away from his limp hand. Jack went over to it, and investigated it. His eyes widened in realization.

"Ash," Jack said. "I think we may have just gotten ourselves out of this mess!"

"What do you mean?" Ash asked. His facial expression mirrored Jack's expression of surprise and realization when Jack showed to him the radio he had in his hands.

"Is that…?"

"Yep, sure as hell is," Jack said, his face morphed into a grin, "it's a radio." He began to look over the radio, inspecting it for any damages done to it. It was surprisingly unharmed, having survived the rough handling of the aliens, and the soldier's impregnation. "It's not broken, it still works! We can call for help, and get off this island!" Jack said, excitement in his voice. He got up, still smiling at his marvelous find. None of them could hardly believe it; they had managed to salvage a working radio from a dead soldier's body, and now they could finally get off the island and go home! Ash didn't know any other point in his life when he was more excited and happy to see a radio. Jack put the radio away, and turned to Ash, before activating his communications unit once more.

"Katya," he said, "you're not gonna believe this, but we just found a radio."

"A working radio? Does it work? Can we use to call the mainland?" she asked.

None of them noticed the facehugger egg opening up behind them.

'I'm pretty sure it can," he said. "We're coming back ASAP, so we can finally get off this island. Are you ready to leave?"

The facehugger was crawling out of the egg. Its little legs scuttled forwards, and it stood at the edge of the egg. It detected Jack, Ash, and Pikachu standing with their backs to it. It leaped to a wall, and began to soundlessly crawl along it, inching towards the three.

"Yes, I have everything I need. We shall leave immediately."

"Perfect. We'll see you at the la-"

The forced pressure on his face from the body of the facehugger prevented him from completing his sentence.

"JACK!" Ash shouted. Jack grabbed at the creature on his face, and tried to pull it off, but it would not budge. Its fingerlike appendages were clamped around his face, and its tail was wrapped around his neck, cutting off air to his lungs further. Jack stumbled around, tripping over his own feet and falling to the floor. He thrashed as hard as he could, trying to get this thing off his head. His hands left the facehugger and went for his hip, to his pistol. He put the pistol to his head, and aimed so that it wouldn't hit him instead. However, when he pulled the trigger, only a clicking sound came out. He had no more ammunition for the pistol. Jack kept thrashing about, pounding at the creature as hard as he could do so, but the lack of a flow of oxygen to his brain was making him dizzy. He still went on and continued to beat and pull at the thing, while Ash and Pikachu could only watch in horror. Finally, the lack of oxygen took its toll on Jack, and his wild thrashing began to cease, until he lay motionless on the floor.

"Jack! Jack, wake up!" Ash yelled. He didn't dare go near the thing, in fear that it would hurt him, or that he would hurt Jack. He looked in horror at his friend, being impregnated as he watched. He looked around feverishly for something to help him with, a weapon, anything. He didn't see anything of use, and began to shake Jack's shoulders in an attempt to revive him, which ultimately failed. Ash looked at his friend, tears beginning to form in his eyes. Jack was dead. Technically, he wasn't dead yet, but he may as well be dead already. There was no way of removing a facehugger that he knew of, and Katya had no more supplies for another embryo removal. Tears slowly trickled down his cheeks as he looked at Jack. Ash wiped them away, and stood up.

He began to walk away, but then he started to think: should he kill him? Should he do something? Ash looked back at Jack's body. There was no way that he could bring himself to kill Jack, it simply wasn't something he would do. Ash looked back to the exit, then back to Jack. Finally, he walked back over to Jack's body. He looked him over, and then grabbed his arm. He then got a good grip, and began to pull. Jack was heavy, being weighed down by his ammo and armor, and his raw weight alone, but Ash wouldn't give up. He couldn't just leave Jack here like this, on the floor, incapacitated. Pikachu grabbed Jack's other arm, and helped pull the face hugged soldier to Katya.

…

Katya was readying everything for their departure. Supplies, the last of their spare ammunition, and other things were put into a duffel bag. She worked as fast as she could, trying to get out of here as soon as possible. Just then, she heard the door open, and she looked to see Ash, Jack, and Pikachu come in. But there was something odd going on; Jack looked pale, and he was limping, apparently to the point of needing assistance to walk properly, as he was leaning against Ash's shoulder for support. They hobbled inside, and Ash set Jack down on a chair. He laid back, and sighed, before violently coughing into his fist. His face was a deathly pale, as if he had all his blood drained. Katya walked up to them, fearing for Jack's life.

"What happened to him? Why is he like this?" she asked. Jack coughed again into his fist, once.

"I got jumped by one of those creepy crawling bastards," he said, settling down again. "The little bugger fell off my face, but he did his job, alright. I can already feel it moving inside of me," he said, putting his hand to his chest an groaning afterwards.

"I haven't called in for support, but they probably won't be very believing. Hopefully, they're gonna be sending some guys down here. We've got-" he coughed again, his body lurching forwards once violently, before settling down. "We've got to get to the beaches, to where they can see us."

Katya looked at him, and put her hands behind her back, and in a soft voice, said, "I'm sorry, Jack. I cannot help you. You are essentially…doomed to die."

Jack simply laughed at her, and slapped his knee. He sat up straight, and said, Of course I am. But, I can't help it. I'm a soldier, it's an occupational hazard."

Katya merely looked at him, and Misty came by, and saw Jack in his state.

She gasped, before running over to Jack, and saying, "Jack, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine, " he said, standing up from his chair. "Until the fucker decides to burst out of my chest, then I won't be okay."

Misty's eyes widened in realization and horror, but she didn't say anything. There was nothing to say. Jack was going to die before he got off this island, that much was certain. Ash had always high hopes of leaving the island, but he never though about the losses that would accompany their victory. Of course, their luck had to run out at some point; they had rescued Misty, gotten to the research lab, killed a Predator, ventured deep into the Hive, killed the Queen and her guards…they were extremely lucky to have gotten this far to begin with. Jack pulled out the radio, and placed it on the table next to him. He adjusted the frequencies, going over each one, listening in as well as he could for radio chatter. He got to the appropriate channel, and cleared his throat.

"Overlord, this is Blue Eagle. I repeat, this is Blue Eagle, over."

There was a moment of silence, and no sound came out of the radio.

"Reaffirm, did you say 'Blue Eagle', over?"

"Yes, this is Blue Eagle," Jack said, "do you copy, over?"

"Blue Eagle, acknowledged. Please state your name, and rank, over."

"Overlord, this is Corporal Mundy, over."

"Corporal? I thought your team was wiped out!" The man on the radio seemed surprised, and possibly knew Jack himself.

"Overlord, I am still very much alive. Over."

"Blue Eagle, where's the rest of your squad? Let me speak with the Lieutanant. Over."

" Overlord, the Lieutenant's dead. I'm the last one left. Over."

There was a silence.

"Blue Eagle, roger."

"Overlord, this is Red Eagle, sitrep, over."

"Command send."

Then, Jack grabbed a nearby map, and looked it over. He then began to spit out a bunch of different grid points and coordinates.

"…We are currently inside a large building, hard to miss, in the island. Requesting Helo Extraction. Will begin to move to beaches for maximum visibility, grid B6 K8," Jack said. "LZ will be green, approach form North. How copy?"

"Overlord copies all. Dust-off in 20 seconds, be there Blue Eagle. Out."

The transmission was cut, and the room was left in silence. Jack had managed to persuade the man to send a transport, which meant that they were finally going to get off the island. It was only too bad that Jack couldn't live long enough to see home again.

"Well," Jack said, grabbing his ever-trusty gun, 'we're not going to get out of here by standin' around, let's go!"

The soldier began to walk out, and the rest of them followed him. Ash's friends looked at him, confused. It wasn't normal for someone who's been doomed to death to be so…not unhappy. It just wasn't natural. But Jack, as they had learned, is not a normal man. A normal man would have given up and died by now, which Jack had not done. They walked out of the Research Lab, and began their walk into the jungle. Jack led them up a steep slope, full of lots of rocks, and they stopped following him.

"Jack, the beaches are closer this way! Over there!"

"Yeah, but a jeep goes faster than we can walk, right?" he replied, still climbing.

They had forgotten all about the Jeep, except that it had run out of gas.

"But wait, I thought it ran out of gas!"

Jack halted in his movements, then sighed.

"Yeah, I forgot about that…damn," he said, climbing back down. But then, in mid climb, he stopped. Ash looked around, and he saw Jack who was tilting his head around, as if trying to hear something. Ash could only hear a faint ping ping pinging sound.

"What is it?"

"The motion tracker," Jack said, jumping down from the rocks. He looked at his motion tracker, and his eyes widened. "There's a whole bunch of guys comin' right at us! We gotta move, now!" he said, breaking out into a jog into the opposite direction. Ash and his friends barely had time to look anywhere, whether it be the surrounding jungle to see the hostiles, to each other, giving themselves puzzled looks, or their motion trackers, to see if their sensors also detected movement, before they chased after Jack. They went into the Jungle, and began to break into a slow run. Their ammo and equipment bounced as they ran, and the dirt soundlessly parted as their boots stomped on it. Ash looked around; surely, there were no more aliens, right? Was the effect of the death of the Queen as staggering as they thought? Or was it actually only temporary? He hoped to not find out.

"Katya, are we going the right way?" Jack asked. Katya had brought, among the many things, a map of the island on a sort of device.

"Yes, the signaled beach area is this way, " she said, pointing to the direction they were heading. "Supposedly, that is where the helicopter shall land to pick us up."

"Great, we should be off this-" Jack began, but he cried in pain, and grabbed his chest. He fell forwards, right onto the dirt floor. Ash and his friends went over to him in an instant.

"Jack, Jack! Are you alright?" Brock asked. Jack only groaned in pain, and held his chest. He was obviously in a lot of pain. He was starting to sweat, and his breathing had become more erratic. It was such a terrible feeling, seeing someone in pain, and not being able to do anything about it.

"Come on, Jack, you need to get up!" Misty said. She tried to pull him up, but he was too heavy for her. "We need to keep moving, those guys back there are gonna catch up with us!"

"Too late."

Upon hearing the voice, everyone's heads whirled around, seeing an android holding a gun. He was armored, and had a mask on his face. The gun he had was pointed at them. Ash and Brock raised their guns, and Pikachu got into a battle position. Misty and Katya helped Jack onto his feet. Jack then turned to look at the android. At this range, even Ash and Brock couldn't miss the man. It was three against one, but the one was a synthetic being who had no vital areas to speak of. However, the odds suddenly turned against them when several more androids popped out from the thick jungles. They all filed up, and surrounded them instantly. They all had guns pointed at them, from several different angles, with different kinds of weapons. This was not just a patrol, this was a strike team. To eliminate them.

Jack bent down and grabbed his gun, then raised it in a flash. The androids pointed their guns at him, and Jack dared not to fire. It was useless anyways, they were outnumbered by a good amount.

"Hold your fire," said the first android, putting his hand into a fist and raising it. The other androids lowered their weapons. The commander stepped forwards, and walked closer, to Jack.

"Identify yourself."

Jack growled, and said, "Fuck you."

The man lowered his head, and began to chuckle. Out of all things, it laughed, and that in itself was a surprise, not from laughing in the face of a living death threat, but because androids felt no emotion. Jack was caught off-guard with this, and his eyes widened with surprise. His weapon, however, did not fall.

"That is no way to speak to a friend."

"You are NOT my friend," Jack hissed, aiming his gun at the man. "Nobody that tried to kill me and my friends is a friend of mine."

"Come on, now,did you already forget about me?" the man asked.

Jack would have asked him something, or said some snide remark, but the android began to take off his mask. Jack cocked an eyebrow, and the mask fell off. Jack's eyebrows both shot up all the way, and his mouth went agape. He was visibly shocked to see the man, as was Ash and his friends. The face behind the mask was not synthetic, but a real, organic, human's face.

"No…it- you… you're not…"

"Oh, but I am, Jack."

The man walked right up to Jack, and put his hand on the gun. He got a firm grasp, and yanked the gun out of Jack's grasp. Jack didn't even try to get it back, he was too busy staring at the man, not believing what he was seeing. This couldn't be happening, this was too surreal to be true.

"Jack, what are you doing?" Ash asked. What had caused the normally even-headed man to be so out of it all of a sudden?

"Ash," Jack said, quietly, "I know this man."

"That's right," the man said, grinning in a manner that made Ash become unsettled.

"It's me, Tony."

Ash looked back at the man. He had black hair, and icy blue eyes. He had a small, faded scar on his left cheek, but the rest of his face was devoid of any imperfections. A thin black mustache curved around his smiling mouth and connected at the beard on his chin. There was an air of superiority around him, a certain quality in him that demonstrated that he had been through some of the toughest situations and gotten out of them, along with a sense of strength, both physical and moral, and a steely determination that couldn't be broken by the strongest of hammers. All the makings of a good soldier.

"I…I can't..I mean, how-?" Jack said, obviously surprised to a very, very large extent.

"Let me explain myself," the man said. He turned around, and faced the island jungle.

"As you may know, me and Jack have been very good friends, and I hope that he still is," said Tony. "We had gone through the toughest situations, through thick and thin, and were top-notch in our teams. Well," the man said, "except that I was better than Jack."

"Still the cocky bastard I know…" Jack mumbled, and Tony smirked.

"Cocky with a right to be so," Tony said. This man made jokes, yet there was still something about him that screamed "dangerous".

"As I was saying," he continued, "we were sent with an elite team of soldiers to this island to identify and eliminate the hostile forces. Unfortunately, our whole team was killed off, and the transport chopper we came in got blown up. We had gotten into a shelter, and one lone alien attacked us. It almost killed Jack, but I managed to draw its attention away. Unfortunately, I ended up getting knocked out and carried away."

"Tony, I tried to help, but there was nothing I could do! My arm-"

"Be quiet, and let me talk." Tony's voice was strong, and commanding. Jack instantly shut up, a very surprising move on his part.

"But while I was being pinned to a wall in an alien territory, a group of soldiers came by and killed them off. They rescued me, and took me to the man that owns this island facility: Karl Weyland."

Weyland. That name made Jack's blood boil. He absolutely hated that man, but it was shadowed by the relief that came with finding Tony, and the shock of what he was learning of him.

"So that's it, then?" Jack asked. "You're working for him now? For Weyland?"

"Jack," Tony began, "he saved me. He took me in, and took care of me. He taught me about the Xenomorphs, and his plans. He is a good man, Jack, admirable in almost every trait. At first, I wasn't sure, but he's let me see his way. I know what he knows, and everything's been revealed to me."

"Tony, Weyland's making you his bitch," he snarled. "Whatever he taught to you about the Xenomorphs, his plans, they're all insane! This man is insane!"

"No, this man is a genius. He knows how to control the xenomorphs, and he plans to use it to the best of his abilities. They're very admirable creatures, really."

"What could you possibly admire about these creatures?"

"I admire its purity," Tony said. "It's a survivor, like me, Jack. Like us. We are still so much alike than you think, old friend."

"I am nothing like you, you son of a-"

Jack clutched his chest in pain. High stress levels will only aggravate the parasite, he remembered. Then, he got an idea.

"Now, now, Jack," Tony said, wagging his finger. "Don't get too worked up, now."

Jack didn't say anything, but instead, reached into his pocket, and pulled out the dog tags of his past squad-mates. He then reached to his own neck, and pulled off his own tags, and handed them to Ash. Ash accepted them, but before the Pokemon trainer could ask anything, Jack said, "Take 'em. You'll know what to do with 'em."

Then, Jack walked forwards, closer to Tony. He looked him in the eye, giving him a scrutinizing glare, and Tony only smiled at him.

"Madman," Jack said. "You're a madman, a monster. You're nothing like the Tony I knew," he said, his chest feeling in much more pain. He ignored the pain as well as he could.

"What are you saying? I am the real Tony," Tony said. "The Tony you knew was uneducated, unenlightened. That Tony died, along with the rest of our squad. No, this Tony, this Tony, is the one that you should get to know better. "

"I don't want to be friends with a killer," Jack said. He barely suppressed a yelp of pain from the organism inside of him.

"Jack," Katya whispered, "stop getting stressed-out. It will only aggravate the-"

"Shut. Up." Jack hissed through his teeth, turning his head. Katya looked at him, surprised, but didn't utter another word. Jack looked back at Tony.

"You son of a bitch. You're nothing but a grunt, a pawn, in his mind. He's only using you for his own personal gain."

"I am fine with that, because his personal gains match with his company gains: to make us superior," Tony said. He began to pace around, walking circles around the not-moving Jack. "We're living in the dark ages here, buddy! We can't keep dwelling in the past, because it's the now and here that matters, and if we don't change, then we'll never be ready for the future. Humans have depended on Pokemon for long enough. They've been hindering us, keeping us from reaching our real potential!" Tony looked at Pikachu, disgusted. "They're pathetic, and weak, and flawed in so many ways…we'll never get further with them. We - our species - are ready for a new kind of unification. We're here, living divided amongst ourselves. But these Xenomorphs provide the perfect means of uniting everyone under one rule, one flag. Think about it: Humans finally having world peace, no more conflict. And even better, we secure humanity the position of the ultimate species. No other group will be able to best us, we would be better than anyone else!"

Tony was extremely emotional about what he was saying, and Jack knew that he was firmly believing what Weyland was telling him. Jack knew in his heart that he could never hope to convince him to leave Weyland's side, or to abandon his beliefs. He didn't have a choice here.

"I'm pretty sure humanity doesn't need the help of a couple of freaks of nature to do well. We're doing just fine, and these Pokemon do anything but hinder us. They help us!" Jack said. "You blind idiot, can't you see? This plan of yours is doomed to fail! Everyone's going to pay the price in the end!"

Jack stepped closer to Tony, his chest feeling extremely painful. He gave a small grunt of pain, but held onto his stomach instead. Tony gave him a look, but didn't say anything.

"Jack, you're so…different from when I first met you. You were outgoing, happy, and even joking. Look at you now! You're uneducated, you have yet to be enlightened. But I promise, that everything will be the same as before," Tony asked, extending his hand, "If you joined Weyland's team. I'll be sure to give you a good spot on his list."

Jack looked at the hand, and then back at Tony. Everything could be back to before?

Ash watched in horror as Jack accepted the handshake, saying "Okay…okay, you got it, buddy.

Well, I hope you enjoyed. Keep an eye on those alert boxes, because I'm going to finish this up as soon as possible! And I hope you also take time to review, it really makes my day just to get 1 review. Okay, later!