Chapter 10: The Queen
The queen screamed, her xenomorph servants exiting the hive, preparing to overwhelm the enemies. As a final act as Queen, as she knew, she tore herself from the egg-laying sack. She ran out of the hive, following the other xenomorphs on the rampage across the calm lands. She squalled as they ran toward the humans. Due to her towering height, she could see them turning to see the approaching onslaught. Instead of scattering and trying to outrun the creatures, they turned around and drew weapons.
Trish, Dante, Roland and Yuna drew their handguns and spread out, taking aim at strategic targets. Seig, Victor, Jool Noret, Rikku, Lucia, and Tidus drew swords of some sort. Lenne prepared to heal any of them. The xenomorphs stopped short and stood, watching the humans, prepared for action. The humans noted the hulking one in the rear of the column. Jool screamed, raising his blade; the Gunslinger and other ranged weapon wielders fired a volley straight for the front row. Acid splattered, and the casualty counted was started and doubled in an instant. The xenomorphs charged.
Seig summoned his Guilt legion, his most powerful, seeing as Thanatos hadn't fully grown yet. Trish fired round after round, stripping skin off of the xenomorphs' bodies. Dante drew both Ifrit and the twins, Agni and Rudra, and charged forward. Yuna fired her guns until they were empty, holstered them, and summoned Ixion, the lightning unicorn aeon. She jumped astride its back and charged at the creatures. Tidus Lunged at a xenomorph, and another one tackles him midair, pins him, and began to slash at his arms and chest. In desperate rage, he stabbed upward with Brotherhood, his blade, and twisted it once it slid between the ribcage. Yuna yelled, "Shit!" as she saw the predicament that Tidus was in. She then got an idea, and whispered a prayer to Yevon.
The xenomorph that was straddling Tidus froze, and began to glow. Yuna yelled, "Get away from it, I am sealing its soul. It will become an aeon." Tidus understood and removed his blade from the creature's side. Tidus got out from under it and ran to Lenne where she healed him and he stayed with her to protect her. Dante, of course, was dealing immense amounts of damage to the group of xenomorphs. Trish holstered her guns and drew… nothing! What the hell? She thought as she remembered Dante keeping Sparda after the sparring match. "SHIT!" she yelled. Oh…. She thought as she double jumped over a charging xenomorph. She Devil Triggered and threw multiple Divine Beams across the battlefield. The xenomorph the 'Beams touched disintegrated, no matter how much they touched them. She changed back to a human and fell to the ground, pistols blazing.
The battle dragged on for twenty minutes before the queen was close enough to fight. By that time she had only three warriors left, and they were guards meant to defend her, not fight humans that outnumbered them on an open plain. Dante kept his weapons out, wanting to prove himself. Yuna dismissed Ixion and pulled back to the area that Tidus and Lenne had been the entire fight. Trish and Lucia ran up until they were on either side of Dante and said, "You will need us." Dante look at one and then the other and then forward at the oncoming queen. He nodded and sighed. He plunged Agni into the ground and pulled Sparda off of his back. "Here" he said, giving Trish the sword that had saved humanity. He lifted Agni and grinned the fireman's grin, the grin of seeing too many battles. Guy Montag would know this grin well, for he wore it to his death.
The queen cried out and six gunshots rang out. The .45s struck home, launched from the trusty age-old guns. Revolvers with sandalwood grips. The revolvers, already smoking, were only half empty. The queen was looking at him, and he gave the three enough time to get a volley of slashes in before he emptied the revolvers on it. Then, they were on their own.
The queen reared back and the three combatants rushed it, blades drawn. They DTed and began to slash. Acid splattered everywhere, but they were immune to it in their Devil Trigger state. After the queen regained her balance she swung her tail at the three in a not-so-feeble attempt. Trish and Dante jumped over and began to attack again as it collided with Lucia. It hit her with a sickening sound thump that launched her forty feet, where she came in contact with the canyon wall. Yuna can't heal a crushed skull, and she was never going to survive this. Not that anyone had time to help her. Dante backed away from the thing as Trish distracted it. He ran to where they were camping for the time being. Trish's DT ran out, yet she wielded Sparda as vigorously as ever. Dante reached his bedroll and pulled out a gun that none of them had ever seen before. He took aim… and fired a huge shell from Spiral, the huge rifle that he had found while in pursuit of his brother Virgil. Of course, Virgil had slipped through his fingers, but he had gotten a few weapons out of it.
The shell moved at super sonic speeds, and Trish had just enough time to accidentally get in the way. The queen had begun a thrust with her tail, and she would have missed, had Trish not moved into the line of both weapons. The bullet and tail struck at the same time, and they cut an enormous hole through her torso. She gasped, spittle dripping down her chin, as the two projectiles hit each other, in a chain reaction detonating the creature's tail as it exited through Trish's back. Trish fell to the ground and the Queen fell backwards, as astonished as the rest of them. Dante took another shot, and took off the creature's head. The creatures twitched for about three minutes before settling into its final resting place.
