Haha! I feel so happy! I just suceeded in writing the end of this story, and I'm really happy with it... The last chapter is the one after this one, for those of you who don't know or aren't sure.
Bsdisaster: Yeah, so true. Don't worry, tomarrow all is ended...
Ranma Hibiki: What, you think me (which I can understand)crazy? Or Lex...? O.o
It will never end just like that! I have so much more to do!
Specialguy: Thanks, It's great to have a new reader around! I hope you enjoy this chapter!
DarkXeno: Oooh, I love that song (Numb... I don't know the other one)! When will I break the news? Well...
You're making an RPG website? Great! Unfortunately, I was never good with RPG's, and I don't have any suggestions that I can give you. Sorry about that. I do hope you and your sister can make it a great site, though. You might even pull me into it XD
Without futher interruptions... (flourishing bow)
"LAND!" I cried, pulling myself up over the edge and burying my already frozen fingers into the frozen turf below me, "LAND! Well… ice, but who cares!"
I heard a muffled sound from beside me, and turned my head to see Lex trying to smother a laugh, her hand covering her mouth and her dark eyes squinted slightly with the effort. I smirked cheekily and winked; that was the reaction I had been aiming to get from the other woman. The situation had been too bleak lately; we needed some humor, and people did tell me I was funny.
A curious growl made us both turn our attention to the three Yautja that had apparently been waiting nearby. As I watched, Scar approached Lex, rumbling slightly as he seemed to be ascertaining that she was still all right after her rescue mission. I smiled slightly, but not enough that anyone could see; those two were hitting it off rather well, considering, and now I could see why so many of the writers on the Internet had favored Scar/Lex pairings. Lex flinched only slightly as the Yautja rose his clawed hand to her cheek, brushing the scar slightly before making a sound of approval and turning back to the others.
I was a little surprised to see that there were still only the three original Predators; where had the elders and others gone that had been at the end of the movie? I already knew that we had far surpassed the time when they were supposed to appear. Before I could think on this too long, however, the pain in my back and legs suddenly decided that it was high time I was reminded of its existence, and my knees started the buckle with a frightening lurch as a new flare of intense pain shot through my body, making me take a sharp intake of breath before the spear drove into the ice automatically, steadying me before I fell.
"Are you alright?" Lex's voice was worried, but I waved her off before she came forward to try and help.
"I'm fine," I said stubbornly, "Well, as fine as I'm ever gonna be. I can take it."
"You're leaning on that spear pretty heavily," she countered, her skeptical eyes resting on my shaking grip. I clenched my teeth and suddenly flashed her a grin as I remembered something.
"Thanks for reminding me," I said, turning back to look at the Yautja that were currently looking at a hologram on their arm computers. Catching just a slight glimpse of the miniature image that was displayed, my eyes narrowed at the unfamiliar shape. There was no real point in trying to distinguish what it was, though, because in all my knowledge of Yautja and Xeno's I had no previous encounter with anything that looked so strange.
Well, what I didn't know didn't matter.
My gaze lifted from the holographic image without sparing any more thought, searching out the familiar mask of the Yautja that I had somehow ended up with through all of my considerably adventurous adventure. Again, I felt slightly amused upon seeing that rock star visage, the eye sensors that looked as if some middle school child had tried to put on sunglasses to make themselves look 'cool'. But this time the amusement was tinged with a large amount of respect and gratitude, and also some worry, for as I studied the creature I saw that the slash across his midsection still remained untreated, and a significant amount of glowing blood was running in small rivulets across his armor and legs.
After a few moments he seemed to sense that I was looking at him, and his head snapped up, those strange eye sensors faced directly at me. With a growl to the others he broke off from the group, walking in easy strides towards where I was standing. My brow furrowed as I watched the ease in which he walked, because I knew such a wound as the one he had must be very painful; I had barely gotten hit by the Queen and I was hardly able to stand, after all. He had taken the full force of her tail, on an old injury to boot, and he was acting as if nothing had happened.
I wondered briefly if any of it was just a facade to avoid showing weakness.
He stopped in front of me, and I looked up with a slight blank look, suddenly realizing that I didn't know what to say. After a few long, tense seconds, I gave myself a mental slap in the face and ripped the spear from the ground, willing myself to stay standing as I retracted it with a sharp 'snick' and held it out to the Yautja, head bowed slightly to show my respect. There was absolute silence, and I began to wonder if I was acting like a major idiot as I stared at the ground before the soft trill of laughter reached my ears. I winced as I felt a bit of red begin to reach my face, wondering what I had done to amuse him so.
Suddenly, I felt the unexpected brush of his amazingly warm hand on my fingers, and I very nearly dropped the spear and pulled back from the shock of the contact. As it was, I was certain that he could feel my limb shudder as I tried to keep from moving. With a mild rumble, he gently pushed the weapon back towards me, refusing to take it. My head rose in amazement as I slowly realized that he didn't want the spear back; that he was, in effect, giving me his weapon.
My mouth opened but no words emerged as I brought my hand back, looking at the ornate spear with a mix of amazement and confusion. Me? Giving me such a weapon? I mean, I could understand letting me use it for survival, but actually letting a human keep such a thing?
"Why?" I finally choked out, the only thing I could think of to say at the moment.
His head tilted, and he gestured back towards the ledge. My gaze fell over that sheer drop for a split second before I shuddered and averted my eyes. Heights… ugh.
"Awesome kill," again, my own voice came back to me in the slightly warped manner of the recording device playback. My brows furrowed for a moment in confusion as I tried to gather the meaning of the words and gesture. What did he mean by that? I hadn't killed the Queen!
Had I? No, I hadn't killed it; I had merely lured it off the cliff. In all respects I should have been dead alongside the bitch.
"It's not my kill," I said softly, shaking my head, "It's all of ours. You and your friends, Lex's and mine. We all worked together to bring it down."
I still wasn't sure if he could really understand what I said, but he made a sound that seemed slightly surprised, and I had to smile a bit. Abruptly, a chill wind came up out of nowhere, and I shivered violently, almost stumbling as I brought my frozen arms up to wrap around my torso in an effort to keep warm, arranging the spear so that it didn't touch my skin with its cold metal. My teeth began chattering uncontrollably as the wind kept up, and I cursed the loss of my meager coat. It might not of done much to protect from artic temperatures, but it would have helped. In this condition, I knew I would be pressed just to keep alive for more than an hour out here.
Chopper growled lightly, and I looked up into his mask, my purple-barred hair flying into my face from the wind and obscuring my vision in a bizarre mix of red and fuchsia.
And that's when the ship behind them decided to uncloak.
"Holy freaking mother of shit," I said, my gaze instantly pulled past the figure before me and to the gigantic, dark vessel that I had always dreamed of seeing. The many lights illuminating the hundreds of different rooms inside glittered like stars against the dark sky, and the heat from the engines as the ship settled down in the snow sent a welcome relief from the bitter cold. Hell, if I wasn't already so unsteady, I would have run for it and nested inside the warmest engine they had, screaming about my rights to warmth all the way.
Almost as soon as the gigantic craft had settled down, a considerably large square off the side of the ship began to descend, first only admitting a crack of light, but then slowly the distance began to widen and a small trickle of opaque fog drifted out, covering the ground right in front of the door. It was almost as if the essence of Halloween had come upon the scene… or a fog-machine.
Boy, these people sure know how to make a grand entrance, I mused dryly as I watched the Yautja elder uncloak first, and then all of the others in a rippling wave behind him. Chopper grunted, looking back at me slightly before moving off to stand with the other three Warriors, who had already came to bow before the elder. I moved to stand beside a thoroughly confused Lex, my own eyes wide as saucers.
"Hmm… think they'd be willing to offer us a ride home?" I asked jokingly, feeling worlds better now that some of the heat from the still warm engines was beginning to soak into my skin. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lex look at me with one raised eyebrow, and I shrugged, ignoring the slight pain the movement caused me, "What? Do you really want to walk all the way back to the boat?"
"We have a vehicle right over there, you know," she answered, gesturing to the small, compact looking machine that sat a few dozen yards away.
"Oh, just smash all my dreams," I said somewhat sarcastically, looking at the transport in a confused manner, "And how in all hell did that dinky little shit of a car survive the explosion?"
She snorted, and I ignored the sound, looking again towards the gathering of Yautja. The elder seemed to be accepting them all as warriors with a small, on the spot ceremony. I felt a bit privileged to be watching this event, considering that I had never really heard of such a thing before. It seemed almost peaceful now, when I knew that pretty much everything was over. In a way, I felt regret that it hadn't lasted longer. I mean, just when I was starting to get into the whole idea of adventure…
And suddenly I was reminded again of how the adventure wasn't over yet as a pained roar echoed throughout the barren world of ice and snow, making both Lex and I immediately stand on edge and at the ready. With dismay I saw what I had hoped might have been changed by my arrival, and I heard Lex cry out in horror as Scar fell to the ground, clutching at his chest with spurting rivulets of green blood coming from between his clawed fingers. Almost immediately he was dragged away and out of sight by several other Yautja into the bowels of the ship, and I saw both Chopper and Celtic standing back from where they had leapt, looking almost dumbfounded by the sudden event that involved their hunting companion.
The elder predator made several harsh noises, and the two new warriors quickly regained their places, the ritual finishing quickly. Immediately afterwards, that unmasked, battle worn face turned slowly towards me, and I saw those beady eyes studying my face, lingering over the scar on my right cheek and the spear in my grasp. I looked back with a hard gaze, unwilling to back away from even such a figure as this after all I had gone through. After a few moments that seemed like forever, his eyes turned to a significantly rattled Lex, and I nearly breathed a sigh of relief.
Nearly.
I knew very well that nothing was over yet. Now that the ship had stopped and powered down, I felt the renewed chill of the artic air seeping into my limbs, and already I was trembling with the effort to remain standing. I silently began willing myself to stay conscious, to stay awake and to keep the pervading blackness out of my vision for just a few more hours or even minutes.
Goddamn artic air, I thought, fucking snow… I hate snow and ice and anything cold. Stay awake Jess; stay awake… Sick is not a good thing; don't get sick, either. Cold… Focus on cold, no… focus on Yautja. Yeah, you need to keep a sharp eye on the Yautja… Don't throw up. Better yet, don't throw up on the Yautja.
I barely noticed when the elder Yautja strode forward, his long cape ruffling in the bitter wind as he approached and stood before a thoroughly confused Lex. I finally roused myself from my half-aware thoughts enough to focus on the scene, noticing with approval that the woman next to me showed no fear in the face of the large, intimidating Yautja warrior that was growling almost inaudibly, even though I knew she must have been strained to the limit with both worry and confusion. The elder creature clicked curiously, his carved tusks twitching slightly as he regarded her from this closer angle, and then he unclipped something from his belt, though the elaborate cape obscured any view of the object until he brought it out.
The spear he held in his claws was one of almost unparalleled craftsmanship, and I felt my jaw begin to drop before firmly locking the muscles and keeping my eyes as disinterested as possible. Lex looked at it blankly, eyes wide and disbelieving, and there was a long, long moment when I felt that nobody was ever going to move, that this tense moment was going to go on forever or be shattered by the woman's hesitance to take the weapon. Finally, though, Lex brought her hand up and grasped the spear, her head tilting slightly in a slow nod as the elder growled approvingly, releasing his hold on the weapon and turning to me with a slight flourish of his cape.
I looked up into his small, intelligent eyes, and those carved mandibles twitched in what I guessed to be slight amusement at my brash façade before he had another compact spear held out to me, this one of exactly the same craftsmanship as Lex's. I stared at it for a moment, caught off guard. Finally, my mind straightened out enough for me to form words.
"No thanks," I said quietly, bringing up the considerably less ornate spear that Chopper had given me and shaking my head in refusal, "I already have one, and it's all I need."
In the back of my mind I noted that I had never seen a Predator look taken aback before as the elder regarded me with interest, head tilted once more as he slowly withdrew his offering, clipping it back onto the hidden holder under his cape. A barely discernable trill could be heard for the gigantic alien as he nodded respectfully and turned, his cape again flaring out behind him –was it just me, or was this guy way too dramatic?- as he walked back to the other warriors standing beside the ship.
"Now it's over," I whispered, taking my eyes of the scene and looking towards the vehicle that would get me to the icebreaker and onto life in this strange dimension.
"Jess, what is that?" asked Lex curiously, touching my shoulder. I turned my head, and my eyes widened in disbelief as I saw the same glowing green and purple sphere that had brought me into this dimension. I smiled widely, feeling instantly reenergized as the prospect of home gleamed true. It looks like it truly was over, now!
"That's my ticket outta here!" I said excitedly, almost leaping towards it before remembering my manners. With a wide grin, I turned to the other woman, extending my scarred hand to hers. She took it instantly, and we shook hands respectfully, both smiling at the other, "It's been fun, Lex, but now's my time to leave. I hope you make it off this overgrown iceberg okay."
"With seven seasons on the ice, I should," she replied warmly, nodding.
I walked towards the light, but suddenly stopped and turned to face her once more as I remembered yet another small detail, "Oh, and if you can, find my coat out here. It's very special to me, and you'll find some Xeno claws in it. I'd like you to have 'em."
She nodded, and I smiled as I reached out to the sphere, everything else forgotten as the bright promise of my own home flared with an intensity even greater than the pain of movement.
I'm going home…
ET phone home...
Do the Zombie walk!
(Please ignore the madness...)
