Seeking Salvation

Chapter 13- Upon the Grand Design

Several hours had passed, and the day had been eventful- but it wasn't over. In the dark of the night, the xenomorph felt the shift of something else outside of the building it slept in. The move of its kin. Rapidly drawing closer to their location. Perhaps drawn by the White Woman or because it was just creeping around. Whatever it was, the xenomorph moved its head and nudged the White Woman awake until she sat up, leaning forward enough for the creature to get to it's feet and shake off it's own grogginess, "Child?" She questioned but the xenomorph moved it's head around to pinpoint its sibling's location, and tried to move out of the room- pausing for her to open the door, before it burst out and pointed to the end of the wall way- to the west. She looked around and the xenomorph moved out of the hallway and into a room with a window big enough for the xenomorph to leave through. "Are you sure you're able to move properly?" The White Woman whispered to the creature and it gurgled, testing its wounded leg which had healed, and she smiled, "Then let's go." The xenomorph hissed and moved towards the window, crawling out of it as she walked behind the creature and stopped at the open window frame, before it's long black tail slithered in and gently wrapped around her as a support while she climbed out of the window, before setting her on the roof of the building. However, the door opening had awoken Vinny who rushed out of his room where he and his sister slept, into the old study they had left out of, shoving his head out of the window,

"Hey, where you goin?!" Vinny asked and the White Woman paused, looking over the edge of the roof at him, her oily night-companion moving next to her, to slip it's tail around her midsection to ensure she didn't fall.

"One of them approaches; I must find them." The White Woman said, almost roboticaly, as she turned and looked away, "Your 'policemen' have done enough damage… I cannot lose them. We need them for the Trials." She pulled away from the edge of the rooftop, and walked behind the Xenomorph as it lurked to the other side of the rooftop- looking around for anyone dangerous. The White Woman, instead, looked around the city herself as the wind tossed about her long white hair. While she and the xenomorph determined which way the way-ward xenomorph was, Vinny was hurriedly pulling on a thin, baggy maroon pop-culture sweater on as he fumbled up the stairs to the rooftop. He pushed open the door and the Xenomorph near the White Woman snarled in his direction as he put a hand up, "You cannot make such actions."

"Sorry, but I want to go-" "No, you may not." Vinny twitched at her immediate shutdown without even hearing him out, before the xenomorph growled and looked towards another building and she looked as well, Vinny following their gazes-

And they watched as some part of the darkness and shadows on the far rooftop moved. And something much bigger than a dog or a cat- or a human- slithered into an open vent with a long tail flailing about before vanishing down the vent as well. "Why?" Vinny asked and she looked at him, "Why do you need to go?

"...Some journeys must be done by ourselves." The White Woman told him, "Your planet… has people who look like me. They speak as I speak, they move as I move; but where I have traveled from? There is only… me. I am the only one of my kind there." She explained,

"I have no history or origins that I know of; the place I came from is the only place I know… but when these Trials are over, I will need to return. I need these children for the Trials but for myself? I need to know if this place is where I belong; with these people who speak and walk as I do."

"You… don't have a family?" Vinny asked and the White Woman shook her head, "So… when the Trials you keep talking about are over… where will you go?"

"...I do not know, Vincent La Rue… " She said and as she spoke, two long limbs of the xenomorph lowered into the window, their bony phalanges empty and open like the sky; and she took hold of them firmly as she stepped upon the windowsill and allowed herself to be pulled out into the night. As she moved across the rooftops, her mind drifted to anything but the task at hand.

What would she do? She had known nothing else but caring for the Yautja in their time of need. As far back as she could remember, she could think of a singular and ragged cinema reel of a memory. Fuzzy and gray scale, she ran from a darkness as things fell around her, the briefest glimpse of her wearing some type of clothing as she ran among a primal fear and a primal urge for shelter and safety. A moment was all she spared once she found those things to look upon her frail hands and grab at the blue garb she wore. The feel of a thickly woven, unkind fabric that was just heavy enough to not flutter without motion and a unwelcoming shade of steel blue.

The only memory she could first recall before more came of a older woman with jet black hair, or the darkest chocolate brown. A sort of predatory, shiny sheen to the woman's teeth when she gave a loving smile. Where was she? Had she been caretaking or birth-giver?

Queen.

The word echoed in her mind as if spoken by several other voices, and the White Woman stopped to look around amidst the feeling of another Xenomorph near her. They stood upon a roof top- her and her companion had stopped and the Xenomorph looked at her. "Did you say that?"

Yes. It was not particularly a voice, but a feeling of an answer; We are one. We see what you show us.

The White Woman looked around the rooftop slowly to see an area where the Xenomorph had bent and dented an exhaust output to get into the building. Shameless. "...Am I doing the right thing?" She asked the Xenomorph as it looked at her, on all fours, "Am I… doing anything right? Bringing you here? Doing these Trials? Being on the side of the Yautja? I am… am I not one of these people here on this planet? Should I not be helping them?"

We do not speak to you…. You speak to us… YOU guide… we follow. The feeling responded and she closed her eyes, You think. Do you think you have done wrong?

She thought about it and thought of the Yautja once more, on their planet where she had been, and the first time that she had helped one of them.

He had laid upon the river bed and she crept up close to kneel close to him. He looked at her and she looked at him. He couldn't speak and she couldn't talk to him if she wanted to… but in his eyes. In his small eyes and his face as he sheathed his mandrills and came to terms with his fate; there was fire. He had not resigned, he was a warrior; fire and ferocity and shame burned in his eyes. His culture said this was the way; but it was not his way. The White Woman had slowly and gradually moved closer while the Yautja watched and she put her hand on his chest. She watched her hand rise and lower with his rugged breathing and she felt the thrum of his heart and soul. He was particularly young… he had much left to offer but now he was docile and wounded and a shadow of the warrior that he might have been before this riverside. Something called to her as she sat there with him. Something in the wind spoke to her. Something in the rambling babbling of the waters. He stared at her and she looked back at him, as if this world and it's forces were speaking that his story had many more chapters. So the White Woman did the best she could and mended him, then gave him her lap to rest, and was there when he awoke next and he sat up. Once more they looked at each other and she thought that in this moment, her story would end and her chapter finished; but he put his forehead to hers for a long moment and left.

Then he returned the next day and every day after that- and spoke to her. She didn't understand a damn word, but she smiled when he made motions with his arms and he became passionate about whatever he was talking about; and she realized that he was only a singular digit of his people and he stood for them. His passion and excitement, and his moods changing; just because they were different did not discredit the fact that they were the same.

They both laughed. They both cried. They both held passion and excitement. They both struggled. Their anatomy was different and so was their chemistry, but they were so similar.

Yet here she was on this planet for the trials and- she didn't have to struggle to grasp at words. She wasn't thirsty for language like a man lost in a desert. Had she been wrong? "Let us go." She said definitively, and the creature slipped down the pipe before she followed it. Once more the Xenomorph ensured her safety and lowered her to the floor of some place dark with skylights and- strange metal and glass rooms. "What…. Is this place?"

"It's called a mall." A voice came from behind her and she gasped as she turned around- Vincent La Rue and his sister coming out from a door down a narrow hallway, "We...uh… disabled the alarm." As he spoke, the darkness moved above him and another Xenomorph slowly lowered towards them before she snapped at it,

"You will not touch them." The White Woman spoke and the two screamed, spooking the Xenomorph and making it jump down to the floor and whip around to face the two humans and stand between the White Woman and them, hissing. "Stop, you're scaring them." The newest addition to her small party stopped and stood down as she looked at the two humans, "Did you… follow me?"

"Well… yeah…" Vincent admitted before explaining, "The news said there was some type of explosion at the Zoo and we saw a bunch of cop cars heading down the street when you left. So we followed you but you went a block up here to the mall and well… you're not at the Zoo. We just wanted to make sure you were ok." The White Woman was vastly confused by the measurements and held up a hand to interrupt him,

"Wait, wait… what is a 'zoo' and a 'block'? Are they measures of distance?" The White Woman asked and began looking around, "And is this 'mall' some type of… tight housing community?"

"No, um, a Zoo is like a… collection of animals in their natural habitats so that people can see them." Vincent said as she looked around in the windows of the closed little shops. "A block is a measurement of...uh… sections of streets that people live on. This mall is a collection of little shops that sell different things like clothing and trinkets and beauty stuff...AND-" Vincent smirked at her while he held up a few little metal lock picking rods, "I have the keys to the kingdom to show you around. You can take what you want!"

"OH, no I can't take. We are allowed to be given things but we do not take." The White Woman clarified but she walked closer to one of the shops- a clothing store- and looked into the window. "...These are very… impractical for fighting… but they look nice." Vincent and his sister pulled close to her and one of them pointed out a long red, sheath dress and commented how nice she would look in it. "...There is no use for things like this, where I am from…"

"Well, your clothes are a bit… tattered." Vincent's sister pointed out and she looked down at her clothes and the various holes in her bodysuit. They weren't wrong but… it would probably be hard to fight in a piece of fabric like this, wouldn't it? "It would be nice for you to get some clothes on that aren't ripped. Don't you have stuff that you need?" She thought about it and then touched her chest. "Maybe panties? Are you going commando?"

"...Panties? "Commando"?" The White Woman asked quietly and looked at the sister, "I um… I don't know…" Vincent was shoved towards the door of the shop by his sister and he went in but the White Woman walked around. There was a shop for the type of weapons the cops had and other varieties, and there were cut outs in the floor with metal railings that showed the floor elow and potted plants. Stores with make up, stores with clothing. The Xenomorphs weren't entirely interested but she was. But then she stopped and felt the hot and cold presences of a Xenomorph and a Yautja. The first to arrive was the last Xenomorph- the Female. The Female came close to her and the voice resonated within her again,

I have done as you have asked of me. "Are you well?" I…yes. We are well. "Did you see the outcome?" The Hunters were finishing the last couple off when I left… they did not follow.

The White Woman gave pause as she felt the presence get closer. If the ones who came with her were not close… then who was the Yautja closing in? She moved back and the Xenomorphs felt it to and scattered like leaves in the wind. "Hey, what size are you? You have a great ass, what are you, like a large?" Vincent asked from the store and the White Woman cut him off,

"You need to leave." She voiced and Vincent and his sister, arms full of various items, stepped into the light of the skylight as the White Woman tensed, "Quickly. There is a Hunter here, you must leave."

"Wait, I thought you said they were with you?" Vincent asked before an unfamiliar voice shouted at them from behind them and a beam of light began to bounce around. An overweight security guard was huffing and puffing to a stop in his run towards them, and stopped about 6 or 7 feet away. He shouted that they needed to leave or something along those lines- but from the darkness ahead of them, 50 feet or so, a blast of compressed energy roared forth and past both the White Woman and the two humans to slam into the security guard. He exploded in a flash and the three looked back at the origin of the blast as a hiss of mechanical energy gave away the position of the Yautja who had entered the scene.

"This one is not with me." The White Woman clarified as the light illuminated an armored Yautja; but his armor was not that of his homeland. "Vincent La Rue, take your sister and leave, quickly." She said sternly as she watched the Yautja; the Xenomorphs close at hand. One behind the Yautja, one to her left flank and one upon the ceiling, "Go now."

"N-n-n-no, We'll help you-" Vincent said and his Sister began to slowly put more things into the duffel bag she had brought with her. "Can you handle him?"

"...No… I cannot." The White Woman said and took a deep breath before exhaling, "But I can hold him off for you two to get to safety." She said slowly, the Xenomorph above her and to her left moved to block the two humans off from the Yautja's line of sight, "Go on."

"Wait- If you can't win, why are you going to fight him?" Vincent asked and she let out another deep breathe,

"Because, Vincent La Rue, I am to blame for him being here." The White Woman said as the Yautja stepped into the light further, wearing a mask that was modeled after his original one but not quite.

"I knew we would meet again… Child-Bearer." A variety of clicks and growls amounted to, before the Yautja clenched his fist and from a foreign but reminiscent glove- two long metal blades hissed out, "You got me exiled." There was a deep growl, "You and I have a few things to settle."