The two women faced each other down, one with her gun aimed in the face of the woman above her while the other had her claws raised for a killing blow which would come down even if she was shoot. The only reason they had paused in their fight was because there was no way either could continue without killing both of themselves, the young woman's gun threatened to go off sending a bullet into Gemini's head. A wound she wasn't entirely sure she would be able to recover from and was in no mood to test that theory. Gemini's own claws would come down by reflex anyway and so the two women froze in their position.
Their eyes searched each other's for the slightest sign of distraction or weakness, their resolves like iron, neither was willing to back down in this deadly game as the minutes slowly began to tick away. Hearts pounded with a deathly calm, neither afraid for their lives instead shrouded in a fearless peace.
Clicking from outside in the corridor caught their attention though neither was willing to move or back down, out of the corner of their eyes they saw a Xen creature emerge from the corridor though the door of the room. It was the size of a bear with a head that had several eyes and on the ends of each of its limbs were large 8 inch claws that clicked against the floor as the creature moved. Sensing prey the creature let out a ear bleeding screech before leaping at the two women, its claws intent on ripping them to bloody shreds, the woman beneath Gemini snapped her gun around with awesome speed as squeezed of a volley of four bullets straight into the creatures skull. Gemini stepped back and slashed at the creature with her claws deflecting the creature's body mid-air preventing it from landing on them with those dangerous claws.
The young woman pushed herself to her feet, she towered over Gemini like almost everyone else and she looked cautiously and warily at the hybrid who didn't seem to intent on killing her anymore despite the fact she was out of ammo. She winced at the pain across her stomach and in her shoulder, her injuries would need some medical attention and while not critical they did restrict her movement, a bad thing in a place gone to hell like this.
"You're not trying to kill me anymore?" She asked warily the curiosity getting the better of her.
Gemini turned to look at the young woman "Why?" she asked disinterestedly "You'd rather me try to?"
The young woman let out most unlady like snort "No.. but you did attack me first...why the sudden change in heart?" She asked.
"Actually.. you shot at me" Gemini pointed out calmly licking her claws clean of the creatures blood.
The other woman made a face of disgust "Well you didn't help!... And who the hell are you anyway?" She demanded
Gemini cocked her head and looked at the woman before her "Technically experiment XH-013.. but I'm not, I'm Gemini" She stated firmly "WHO are you?" She asked pointedly
The other woman looked uneasy "Karen" she answered
Gemini looked at 'Karen' curiously "Just Karen?" she asked, humans usually had surnames in her experience.
Karen let out a sigh "Look its all I know, Okay!" She snapped
Gemini hmph'd as she took in the information, the guards reactions, Karen's scent, speed and accuracy combined with her memory loss lead to only one conclusion. "You're the person from that other lab" Gemini said, her voice a statement not a question.
Karen looked up surprised and suspicious "yeah?"
"Thought so" confirmed Gemini "its why I stopped the guards from killing you, we're the same... well not the same but we're both experiments, we should stick together" She said simply
Karen paused and thought this over "Right... so your saying that I should join up with a bloodthirsty killer who slaughtered a bunch of security guards without blinking an eye" She asked incredulously.
Gemini nodded affirmative.
Karen sighed as she picked up a machine gun and a pistol from one of the dead security guards "why not?.."
Gemini waited for Karen to finish picking up weapons before walking out the door with Karen following behind her, they wandered for a few minutes through the corridors which were full of trolleys and spare computer equipment. The doors that lead off from the corridor went into identical looking offices and labs, none of which seemed to have anything of much interest in them.
"Any clue where we're going or what we're going to do?" Karen asked Gemini as they emerged into another corridor that looked identical to the last except for fewer trolleys and some disturbing blood marks across the floor. Usefully one of the few trolleys in the corridor seemed to contain medical supplies and Karen used to opportunity to begin bandaging her injuries, wrapping them around her stomach and shoulder after cleaning them out with disinfectant.
"Not really" Answered Gemini sniffing around in the air near the blood marks "I have some friends who are going up to the warehouses above. I'm also looking to find my siblings again besides that I'm making this up as I go along" Gemini knelt down next to the bloodstains and tapped her claws against them.
"Human, pretty recent too" Gemini said after a moments thought, "The predator that did this is most likely to still be around"
"Great" muttered Karen as she took the safety off the machine gun as she scanned the corridor for danger or movement either being valid reasons to start shooting at this point. "Not to sound offensive but what the hell are you exactly?" Karen asked her eyes still checking everything around them.
Gemini sniffed disdainfully "How is that not offensive? And I'm a hybrid... and you can stop giving me those looks, you are not exactly human either"
Karen scowled before walking ahead cautiously checking the path for danger and muttering mutinously about her half-breed companion turning a corner she spotted something that could definitely be classed as a problem. "Er...Hybrid Girl! you'd better take a look at this!"
Dr Matthews and Sherry were in a minor spot of bother, Dr Matthews dived behind a crate, ejecting the clip for her pistol before slamming a new clip in and turned to open fire on the soldiers which had managed to get them pinned yet again. She was developing a minor dislike for the US army in general as she gunned down another grunt who tried to make a dash for better cover, Sherry was managing quite well considering and had already killed two of the men which had attacked them. They did have a security guard with them for a while, a cute guy called Mark which Dr Matthews had been flirting with unfortunately he had decided to take the lead and was blown up by an unseen laser trip mine. 'Quite annoying really' thought Dr Matthews, how come all the cute men ended up being either gay, scientists or plastered across the walls, she was beginning to think her ex was right when he said she was a black widow.
Ducking to avoid a hail of bullets Dr Matthews took the time to glance over to Sherry to see how the girl was doing, she did have a minor limp from spraining her ankle earlier and it was limiting her moment a bit. Sherry was clutching an M40 and occasionally returning fire at two grunts in the far corner, they were behind cover and Sherry with no weapons training was proving less than successful at hitting them. Dr Matthews looked out from cover again and fired again catching one of the grunts in the shoulder causing him to fall back and curse in pain clutching the injury, not waiting around Dr Matthews shot at the next available target which happened to be the squad leader. Taking the squad leader out of action with a few bullets to the chest, Dr Matthews took the opportunity to dive from her cover to get over to Sherry who was not doing so well, cringing as bullets pinged mere inches away from her.
"I'm out of ammo" said Sherry desperately as Dr Matthews ducked down besides her, pointing to her M40 hopelessly to demonstrate her point, Dr Matthews gave the weapon a brief glance when something struck her interest.
"Is that a grenade launcher?" she asked rhetorically to the world, picking up the weapon and grinning. Waiting for a pause in the incoming fire, She poked out from behind cover and fired at the two grunts in the corner with the grenade launcher, the projectile exploded upon impact throwing the two grunts through the air. The room shook as secondary explosions rocked it as crates exploded causing the ceiling and walls to collapse inwards.
"Shit" Cursed Dr Matthews as she dropped the M40 and grabbed Sherry pulling her back away from the collapsing debris.
As the dust settled, Dr Matthews could hear rather loud and most violent swearing from the other side of the great pile of wreckage, obvious some of the soldiers had survived not that it mattered since about 20 tons of rumble separated them, Sherry looked wide-eyed at the destruction.
"A little more bang than I had been expecting" Said Dr Matthews wryly dusting herself off.
"Well we had best get going" Stated Dr Matthews as they walked on through the tunnel and carried on towards the main warehouses that were at the end of the tunnel, where hopefully they would meet up with Gemini again and then begin their escape from this damned facility.
"Well... this could be a complication" Stated Gemini staring at the giant tentacles that tapped against the walkways in the next section, the section looked like it had originally been a missile silo which had been converted and more recently had gained a unpleasant alien critter. The tentacle's seemed to emit a deep whale like noise from deeper down the silo, much deeper and this lead Gemini to the belief that what they were facing was just a small part of the creature, if you could call 60 ft clawed tentacles small. Hell those claws had to be 8 ft long, which caused Gemini to sigh in frustration; she did not want to have to get passed it if she could avoid it and it was looking increasingly likely that they would have to do exactly that.
"Any other way around?" Asked Karen as she too gazed at the giant green tentacles, her eyes widened as one of the tentacles smashed a metal crate into shards with a single hit.
"Possibly" Mused Gemini cocking her head to the side in thought "but this is the most direct route, more or less straight up"
"Great" Groaned Karen leaning against the wall in frustration "Think there is anyway of sneaking past it?"
Gemini gave the creature a look over, four great tentacles were visible tapping and moving at what seemed randomly around the silo hitting the walkway at random places and from what she could see they didn't seem to have any eyes or sensory equipment attached to them. Frowning thoughtfully Gemini picked up a piece of rubble at her feet and tossed it into the silo, it clattering as it bounced down the walkways. The massive green tentacles instantly swung round and began hitting the parts of the walkway where the rubble had bounced along.
Karen noted the movement of the tentacles with interest "motion sensitive?" She thought out aloud "Or maybe sound?"
Gemini looked at the tentacles and their reactions carefully, considering possibilities "Sound" She answered finally "We could sneak past it if we're quiet, hopefully it wont notice us if we cause enough of a distraction and are quite enough"
"Hopefully?" Karen snorted "I like that..." she murmured sarcastically, fidgeting with the machine gun in her hands while she'd be damned to admit it, green tentacle monsters capable of ripping her limb from limb in seconds made her slightly nervous... Make that a lot nervous.
Gemini was too busy picking up a hand full of the debris and rubbish that could be used to distract the creature to pay much attention to Karen's ramblings. Giving Karen a nod she threw a chunk of metal that clattered noisily down the walkways falling several levels attracting the creatures attention away from their immediate area. Straight away the two women moved silently and effortlessly around the silo walkways moving with unnatural stealth as they reached the first ladder which Gemini practically flew up while Karen took a while longer, climbing up the rungs of the ladder.
It was while they where crossing the second level above them that fated decided to poke its rather ugly and pointy nose in. Gemini suddenly saw a giant looming tentacle raise up alongside the walkway they where on before it came crashing forward, Gemini leapt forward easily avoiding the clawed tentacle while Karen barely managed to avoid being eviscerated and screamed as the walkway beneath her collapsed from the claws attack. Karen fell losing grip of her machine gun and managed to grasp the edge of the walkway below with the edge of her fingers and scrambled to pull herself back up. She screeched throwing herself to the side and keeping her hold on the walkway with a single hand as a tentacle smashed down in the space she had been occupying, Gemini rolled her eyes in disgust at Karen, the creatures hunted by sound and she was screaming her ass off.
Gemini supposed she might as well rescue her companion again, she hadn't gone through all the effort of rescuing her the first time to lose her less than an hour later although Karen was seriously going to owe her later for this.
"Oi! Ugly!!" Shouted Gemini down at the creature banging the walls at the same time and generally making a racket, the tentacles instantly turned to face her 'Huh... that actually worked' Mused Gemini before she had to dodge the oncoming clawed tentacle. Gemini ran, leapt and dodged for all her worth as the tentacles tried again and again to kill her to the best of their ability, Gemini left out a cry and then a hiss as one of the tentacles actually managed to hit its mark and hit her shoulder. She tripped and tried to roll to the best of her ability while ignoring the blinding pain that was now coming form her shoulder, sparing the injury a quick glance showed that her shoulder had been sliced right open and was hanging wrong, dislocated from the force of the blow.
Karen freed from the attentions of the evil green killer claw/tentacle things was now hauling herself back onto the walkway as quietly as she could, she didn't precisely want a repeat of that last piece of excitement again soon. Gemini had successfully distracted the tentacles from Karen but wasn't doing so well herself now, moving to help Gemini, Karen was thrown from her feet as explosions began rocking the silo, walkways collapsed and came crashing down as rubble fell from the walls and ceiling. The Leviathan tentacle monster was thrown into complete confusion at the noise and commotion with its tentacles lashing out in every direction as it's senses where bombard by sensory overload.
Gemini threw herself to the side to avoid the clawed tentacle from the wildly thrashing creature, green lightening crackled throughout the silo slamming into the walkways causing them to explode, showering the area in debris as they collapsed. Portals began popping into existence randomly as the strange green energy weakened the boundaries between dimensions causing hundreds of portals to wink in and out of existence, each existing for mere seconds before disappearing and taking anything unfortunate enough to be inside of it.
Gemini cursed as the walkway beneath her gave way as a portal sliced through it and she went plummeting down two levels before landing heavily on the walkway below which incidentally was the same one as Karen. Gemini managed to smack her head into the hard unforgiving steel walkway in the process of landing heavily quite hard, leaving her dazed and stunned. Karen had managed to make some very unique comments about the tentacle monsters parentage as she reached Gemini's side, several very large slabs of concrete smashed down around the pair and only extreme luck or divine intervention was keeping them alive. Karen help Gemini struggle back to her feet despite the immense pain from her injured shoulder which was now bleeding quite profusely with the acidic blood easily burning a great hole in her top. Karen winced in pain as she made the mistake of touching Gemini's blood, which immediately began burning her hand horrifically. She bit her lip and fought tears from her eyes as she quickly tried to wipe as much of the acid blood off herself as quickly as possible but her hand was already badly burned.
The leviathan itself shrieked horribly making an ear bleeding noise as one of its massive clawed tentacles was sliced in half by the emergence of another alien portal, the air in the silo at this stage was cackling with unnatural energy as more and more of the alien portals opened. The effect becoming worse and worse until both Karen and Gemini realised that they had to get out before the anomaly hit critical mass and did whatever evil portal opening green energy anomalies did.
Karen gave the entire silo a quick glance taking in every detail even while the place fell apart around her ears, the majority of the walkways had either collapsed or were twisted beyond any recognition making it impossible for them to go either back the way they came. Going forward wasn't an option either because there was nowhere forward to go to and they definitely couldn't stay where they were. The leviathan was working itself into a crazed maddened frenzy, lashing out completely without any control at everything around it bring down huge chunks of the walls with each hit and it was going to bring the entire silo down with it if the energy didn't do that first. Needless to say, here was not a good place to be and catching sight of the portals Karen came to a decision, Gemini was still too far out of it to help so she decided to take the bloody chance that those portals lead anywhere.
So Karen grabbed the injured and worse for the wear Gemini, hauled her to her feet and pulled her along to the edge of the portal. "We've got to get out of here!" Karen shouted in explanation to her dazed and confused companion while she tried her best to steer them both towards the portal.
Gemini gaining enough coherency to take stack of the situation despite her haze of immense pain, blood loss and concussion, noted that there was nowhere else to go which was quite a feat in and of itself. She tried for a second incredible feat but all Gemini managed to croak out a pain filled "How?"
Karen didn't even bother to answer that instead dragged her towards the end of their current walkways and threw them both off and into one of the spherical portals before Gemini could shake her head and say that it was a bad, bad idea.
She moved with inhuman speed and grace, her tail swinging around behind her as it counterbalanced her weight as she took the corner at speeds most vehicles wouldn't consider. She leapt across the ceiling beams two or three at a time before coming to rest at the one nearest to the air vent, swinging her tail out behind her, she crouched down and peered through the grate at the room below. A darting black shadow emerged from the darkness to her right, leaping over her and landing besides her with the same inhuman grace as the first, its tail shifting and moving to keep its balance in an otherwise precarious situation.
They both hungered and their prey below was unfortunate enough to be the nearest living thing to their current location, leaping forwards they ran along the ceiling support beams until they came to another air vent going straight down which they both flew down one after the other. They both emerged into the darkened canteen, their usually playful natures suppressed as they channelled pure predatory instincts in their hunt for food, ironically their prey was in the canteen for the same promise of food but it seemed he would become the food.
Prowling through the shadows at the edge of the room the twins began circling their prey making absolute no sound to give away their location as they both creeped into position, using their telepathy to co-ordinate their efforts waiting until the perfect moment before striking in total unity.
James Markham had worked as a security guard at the Black Mesa complex for almost six months and more recently after the disaster that had struck the facility he had learnt that he had to be on this guard all the time. He personally had survived several of the worst attacks by the alien creatures and the military which was killing civilians for some reason. It was for these reasons he had offered to go when it was discovered that the Lambar complex didn't have enough supplies to survive for any period of time until a rescue operation could reach them. It was at this point, when he was looking at the brief flash of angry chitin and claws did he realise why you never volunteered to do anything, it was a pity he wouldn't live long enough to benefit from that little tidbit of wisdom.
Tia and Mia both fed from James's carcass until they were both satisfied then they tore of various organs and limbs off his body before taking them back with them into the ventilation system above the ceiling. It allowed them to avoid most of the hostile creature that existed in this place and was also full of these cute chirping creatures that they both loved to play with. It was a pity that the rest of their cousins weren't as nice as the little ones, they had fired horrible stinging insects at the twins before Aya had torn them apart. Naomi had said they were obsessed with genetic purity as she could tell from her memories and the thoughts she could catch from their minds, Tia Pouted, she thought it was mean of them really ... its not like she got to choose what she was.
Her twin nudged her mind pointing out even if they could have chosen what to be born as, they wouldn't want to change a thing, none of the others processed their same agility, grace and beauty as themselves as Mia so humbly pointed out swishing her tail happily and gratefully. 'The cousins could be damned', Tia thought she had the tail and claws of an Elite and flesh and intelligence of a Human, something she was proud about and she would fight any of the others whom had any problems with that, she would have missed their beautiful graceful tails.
It made hunting like they had just done that much easier, the reasons why they were hunting was not only because they were hungry but also because they were bringing back food for Naomi who was the oldest of them, she also suffered from various physiological problems. Naomi was sickly again, she very often became very sickly at times but back then one of the humans in coats would give her something after sedating them all, unfortunately they were now on their own and would have to find the medicines to help Naomi.
Aya was the one whom had actually gone out hunting for humans medicine stuffs, she had the human eye sight and could read the strange symbols that was their written language unlike the twins and their newest sister Gemini. Tia slumped a little thinking about their new sister, the human coat men had taken her away before the large explosions and now she was lost to them. Mia nudged her sister up a bit both physically and mentally stating that their newest sister was clever like Naomi and didn't get sickly either, Mia was certain that she was alive and well.
The twins reached the nest that the group had build in the air vents, they didn't like having to leave Naomi alone but they were getting hungry and Naomi herself would do better from eating something besides their was very little within the air vents that even Naomi couldn't handle. They both were relieved however when they looked into the nest and found Naomi still there and she had managed to fall asleep, letting out the occasional pain whimper and delirious mutterings in a wide range of languages. Without the medicines all they could do was wait for Naomi to either get better or die, dropping the food in the corner of the makeshift nest they curled up around Naomi and waited.
The Xen world was as completely alien as the Xen species were themselves, twin suns hung in the never ending sky the view only interrupted by the floating land masses that deified gravity and simply hovered in the air. Giant spires of what looked like bone grew up tall into the sky and unearthly creatures flew overhead letting out bizarre whale song sound noises as they flocked together flying towards the twin suns. It was this unique landscape that both Gemini and Karen found themselves in as the portal spat them both out and indulged them in a wonderful 5 ft drop that Gemini shoulder just delighted in.
Karen looked around in dismay and came to the conclusion that she was no longer in Kansas. "Where the hell are we now?" She demanded as she got back on her feet unsteadily as the unexpected drop had shaken her a little.
Gemini groaned, wincing at the pain caused by even the slightest movement of her now thoroughly abused shoulder, the injury was bleeding quite badly every time it had started to heal it had once again be agitated. The blood had managed to dissolve a rather large chunk of her top, leaving it little more than rags which barely covered her, she would have to get a new one once she was back in the human world, assuming they ever got back there. Shaking her head and remembering Karen's question she sat up and looked around in pain.
"We're in Xen" Gemini whispered half in awe and half in fear, one part of her nature found the familiar surroundings a great comfort as she knew which plants and animals were safe and which were hostile. The other part feared the alien landscape, a place where the once familiar laws of physics have been rewritten and also from the memory of the grunts, Gemini was worried about being in the homeland of the other Xen creatures which would not react positively to her presence. Karen was having similar feelings, looking around more carefully and feeling completely naked without any weapon more potent than her pistol to defend herself with.
"Well fuck" Was Karen's contribution to the conversation.
AND THAT'S ANOTHER CHAPTER OF ORIGINS COMPLETED. AGAIN PLEASE READ AND REVIEW, THANK YOU!