AVP © 20th Century Fox

Chapter 16 - Sad Goodbyes

Clay and Ae-nix ran for a good 11 miles before the ground behind them finally stopped disintegrating. They came to a stop in an alleyway between two ugly brick apartment buildings.

"I thought you said the bomb was set on low." Ae-nix dropped Brandy like she was nothing, letting her land hard on the chest.

"I said, I set it as low as it would go." Clay answered Ae-nix as he lightly put Mandy and Tausha down. "That explosion wasn't very big."

Brandy got up off the ground and glared at Ae-nix. "How dare you drop me like that, you're a huge jerk you know that." She dusted herself off and walked over to stand next to Mandy and Tausha.

Ae-nix watched Brandy as she walked towards her friends. "Brother, why would you choose an ooman as a life mate? Their so weak, and ugly." Ae-nix had turned his gaze towards Clay.

"Beauty rests in the eye of the beholder, and oomans are stronger than you give them credit for. I chose Tausha as my mate because when I'm around her I feel good, she makes me feel stronger." Clay looked over at Tausha, "Looks don't matter when your in love, someday you'll understand that."

Tausha noticed Clay was looking at her, so she went to his side, "What are you two saying?" Tausha tilted her head to one side, "And who is this guy?"

Clay wrapped his arm around Tausha, resting his hand on her hip as he pulled her closer to his side. "This is Ae-nix, one of my young brothers. He just wanted to know why I chose you as my life mate."

"Ae-nix?" Tausha smiled and looked at Ae-nix, "So why does he want to kill me?"

"Ae-nix just doesn't like that I chose an ooman as my life mate, he thinks you are unworthy to be with a yautja." Clay ran his fingers through Tausha's hair, "But I don't care what he says, he doesn't understand what love really means."

Tausha ran her fingers gently across Clay's bare chest, lightly tracing around his new scar. She slowly leaned her head against his chest, closing her eyes to listen to his strong heartbeat. "I'm glad you're not as shallow as your brother."

Ae-nix turned his head in disgust, "That's just sick, you disgust me brother." He laughed, "Although I must say, the look on fathers face will be priceless when he sees your mate. Maybe you can lie to him and say she's just a pet!" He laughed even harder.

Clay let out an angry growl, "Watch your tongues!" He was going to continue with a threat, but was cut off by Brandy scolding Tausha.

"Life Mate! Are you crazy! You can't seriously be in love with that…..that thing!" Brandy grabbed Tausha's arm to pull her away from Clay. "There's something seriously wrong with you, and I'm gunna get you some serious help."

Tausha pulled away from Brandy, "There's nothing wrong with being in love with someone that's different."

"Different? He's a whole different species, Tausha you can't mate with him, you don't even know if you two are compatible." Brandy was trying to reason with her the best she could.

"Oh, we can mate, believe me, I've seen his…..package….and besides, it's not always about sex! I'm in love with Clay. You should be happy for me." Tausha couldn't believe how Brandy was acting.

"Tausha! He's not human!" Brandy tried her best to explain to her, but Mandy stopped her.

Mandy lightly patted Brandy's back, "We will be happy for Tausha" She turned and looked at Tausha, "No matter how strange your love might be." She forced herself to smile, "So what's gunna happen now?"

Clay stepped forward and pulled Tausha to his side again, "I will take Tausha to meet my father, the High Elder of our clan. She will live very happy at my side."

Tausha hugged Clay and snuggled up against him. "I'll always be happy as long as I'm with you."

Brandy glared at Tausha, "That's so wrong." She closed her eyes and almost started to cry, "Tausha, I don't want you to go, I've known you since grade school. We've been best friends forever, you can't just leave, especially to a whole different planet."

Mandy almost started crying also, "We're going to miss you." She stepped forward and extended her arms, waiting to receive a hug.

Tausha started having second thoughts about leaving her friends, she'd known them for so long, and now she was just going to leave them. But she loved Clay, and she couldn't change her mind now. "I'm sorry guys. I'm really going to miss you too." She stepped away from Clay and gave each of her friends a goodbye hug. "You two better stay out of trouble, please tell Mac I said bye, and...I'll try really hard to visit, so take care of all my stuff." She smiled as Clay swooped her off her feet and cradled her in his arms.

Clay nodded at the two girls, "It was...nice to meet with you." He turned his back to them and took off running, it was time to get back to his ship and leave this planet. "Ae-nix! Lets go!"

Ae-nix stood and starred at Mandy and Brandy. He walked up to Brandy and gave her a couple hard pats on the back, almost knocking her over, then he nodded at Mandy. It felt strange to him to just leave these two oomans alive, but he decided to just leave them alone and follow after Clay. "Clay? Are you sure we should just leave those two? Aren't they worthy kills?"

Clay looked at Ae-nix, "My mates friends will not be harmed, and don't worry, they won't tell anyone about us."

Brandy and Mandy watched as Clay carried Tausha away, they figured they'd never get to see her again, but at least she would be happy. They never looked back as they began their long walk home, remembering all the fun times they used to have with their best friend.

Tausha almost started crying, "I'm gunna miss them so much."

"Don't worry, you will get to visit them, I will not keep you from them." Clay was very reassuring.

Tausha wrapped her arms around Clay's neck as he pulled her closer to his chest. "Thank you Clay, that means a lot to me."

Ae-nix growled at Clay, "Would you please not love on her when I'm around, it's disgusting."

"Get used to it, she's my life mate, and I will never hide my affection towards her." Clay snapped back, "Where did you land your ship anyways? I want to make sure you get back to it safely since I know how much of a careless idiot you are."

Ae-nix clicked his mandibles in frustration, "I'm not an idiot, I landed near your ship, so you don't need to take any detours."

"Good, you finally did something smart." Clay laughed.

Tausha watched as Ae-nix pulled up a holographic map on his left wrist gadget, "Wow! I didn't know they could do that!" Ae-nix just grunted at her.

Ae-nix noticed that their ships weren't too far ahead, he looked up and could already see the edge of the huge 9th Street crater. His gaze turned to Clay, "How did you know this was the right direction?"

"I've been to this city many times, I know the streets and buildings very well."

Ae-nix just snarled, "I should have known, you're so pathetic."

They made it to the edge of the crater and slid down, that's when they heard a loud shriek that definitely wasn't human.

Ae-nix shot a glance at Clay, "That's a hard meat queen."

"Yeah, but why is it here?" Clay looked at Tausha as he lightly put her down, "Why is there a hard meat queen here?"

"I'm guessing she must have survived the blast from earlier, but I had no idea they could be that strong." Tausha didn't know what else it could possibly be. "Do you think any of the smaller bugs survived the blast?"

"No, we would have been attacked by now." There was another loud shriek, Clay looked in the direction of the ear piercing sound, "We can't leave until she's dead, it will be a great honor to claim her head as a trophy."

Ae-nix seemed excited, "Lets go kill her brother, this kill will bring even more honor to our clan. But you should probably leave your little ooman whore here so she doesn't get in our way." Ae-nix laughed.

Clay smacked Ae-nix hard across the back of his head, "She is no whore! And she will not get in our way, if anything she'll be a great help. So lets go."

Ae-nix rubbed the back of his head and grunted in anger, he wanted to hit Clay back, but figured he didn't really want to get his ass kicked right before taking on an alien queen. So he took the lead while Clay made sure that Tausha could keep up as they ran in the direction of the queen.

x X x

Sumiko and Ryann cringed the first and second time they heard the alien queen let out her shrill screams. The creature had already laid at least fifteen eggs.

"What is she, some kind of machine?" Sumiko was getting a little freaked out, "Doesn't she ever stop?"

Ryann noticed immediately when one of the eggs began to open like a blossoming flower. "One of them's hatching!" There was obvious terror in her voice.

Sumiko looked and watched as a pale greenish-yellow scorpion like creature lunged out of the egg and began to scramble towards her and Ryann. "Shit! What is that thing!" Sumiko began to struggle as hard as she could, trying to get out of the casing that held her to the wall, but it was too thick, she could barely move.

The small creature leaped at Sumiko as she screamed in terror, but in mid air it was sliced in half by a thrown shuriken. The blood from the face hugger splattered everywhere, some of it landing on the casing that was plastering Sumiko and Ryann to the wall. The girls were amazed that none had splattered on them. Sumiko quickly looked down to make sure her camera was alright, but some of the acid blood had landed on it and was already eating through it. "No! That was my favorite camera."

Ryann jumped as the shuriken flew back past her, then she glared at Sumiko, "Just be happy you're alive."

Ae-nix got the shuriken as it came back to him, he couldn't believe he had just saved another ooman, it didn't matter though, the queen needed to be taken care of. He ran forward to face the alien queen, Clay ran right beside him.

Tausha took off towards Sumiko and Ryann, "I'll take care of these two, you guys start working on big mama!"

Clay's mandibles clicked with excitement as he aimed his shoulder cannon and shot the queen, nailing her right in the upper chest. She let out a loud shriek of pain. Clay aimed again and took another shot, nailing her in the same place, she was an easy target with her huge sac holding her down.

Tausha pulled out her sword as she drew closer to Sumiko and Ryann. The minute she got close enough she began hacking at the thick coating that secured the girls to the wall.

"Hey! Watch where you swing that thing, I want my legs when I get out of this." Sumiko was glaring at Tausha.

"Sumiko! Shut up! She's saving us." Ryann snapped at her, but Sumiko could hear some weakness in her voice, something was definitely wrong.

Tausha broke away one last piece, then Sumiko and Ryann tumbled off the wall. Sumiko was able to quickly stand up, but Ryann stayed down, her shoulder wound immediately began to bleed again. Tausha put her sword away then noticed the blood as it began to pour out of Ryann's body, "You're wounded!" She quickly knelt beside Ryann and applied pressure to the gapping hole in her shoulder, but then realized that the wound went completely through. "I can't stop your bleeding……you need to get to the hospital immediately." Tausha knew that Ryann was a goner, but she looked at Sumiko anyways, "Help her out of here the best you can, get her to a hospital. The only thing I can recommend is to use your shirt to help slow down some of her blood flow, hers is already soaked." Tausha turned her back on Sumiko and Ryann, then headed towards the alien queen to help Clay and Ae-nix claim their trophy.

Sumiko went to take off her shirt, but realized that Ryann looked extremely pale, she knelt beside her and felt her pulse, then tears began to slide down her cheeks. There was no hope for Ryann, she was already dead. Sumiko stood up and glared at the alien queen, "I hope you burn in Hell." She turned and ran, she wouldn't be able to tell anyone about what happened, no one would believe her since she had no proof. Sumiko would have nightmares about that alien creature for the rest of her life, but she prayed that Ryann's death would be avenged. She would never forget Ryann's words, "Just be happy you're alive."

End of Chapter 16

By Tausha Monroe - Dahdtoudi