Disclaimer: Not mine. The story plot is mostly mine. Not the whole concept.
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Before: Lex is dragged off by Grid and a bunch of Kainde Amedha to the Queen. Rave manages to track their movements to the Queen's large chamber without giving away his position. The Queen tries to intimidate Lex. The human holds her ground, though it isn't until she learns her doomed fate that she starts to break loose, separating herself from her humanity itself in order to ensure her survival. As the hard meats are taken off guard, an impressed and angry Rave joins the battle.
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Lex sat up with a strangled cry, fighting the unrelenting enemy that ensnared her.
It wasn't until she hit the floor that she realized a few things. One, there weren't any hard meats around her. Two, she wasn't fighting an enemy but rather a really hostile and large blanket. And three, she was in a medium sized room that looked VERY human.
No cold stones. No statues. No hard meats.
No danger.
Utterly confused, Lex lay where she had fallen, her breathing frantic and harsh.
The door to her room clanked open, drawing Lex's attention as she pushed herself upright, shoulder leaning against the bed frame for support. Her eyes found the form, outlined by light, standing in the doorway.
She was expecting a Yautja.
What she found was a human as she was.
"Are you all right, Ms. Woods?"
The Caucasian female, draped in a white coat, rushed forwards with hands held out. But in Lex's brain, it was triggered as an attack.
Backing away quickly, Lex didn't stop until the wall was against her back, effectively leaving only her front open to hostile actions. The nurse paused, her eyes wide as she took in her patient's reactions.
"What...?" Lex started to say, unable to even begin forming coherent sentences.
She was supposed to be fighting. She was SUPPOSED to be in the pyramid.
A jumbled assortment of images suddenly struck her, making her double over as if from a physical blow. A flash of hard meats. The Queen. Teeth. Pain. Blood. Screams.
"What-wha-WHAT THE FUCK!" Lex exclaimed, her brown eyes wide as she shot her gaze towards the equally panicked nurse, "What the hell am I DOING here! WHERE the hell! What the fuck HAPPENED!"
"Y-y-you need to c-calm down, Ms. Woods." The nurse stuttered in her frightened state, one hand clutching a clipboard and the other drifting out shakily in the brown woman's direction, "You h-have been through a difficult o-ordeal."
Like a startled horse, Lex stumbled away from the white female, her back pressed along the wall the whole way. This led to a lot of things clattering to the floor and a few broken glasses. Even as the nurse flinched with each sound of something shattering, Lex found she didn't care. She only wanted to get away. Stay safe.
That and figure what the hell happened.
That's when the dizziness struck. Disbelief mixing with confusion, Lex collapsed to the floor, finding the helping hands of the nurse guiding her back to the bed a moment later.
"It's all right. It's okay. That tunnel collapsed. You're the only one we found..." The nurse said soothingly as she placed the fallen sheets around the half-conscious black woman.
"Tunnel... collapsed...?" Lex muttered almost incoherently, her gaze un-focusing. The last she saw was the nurse's teal eyes before submerging into the dark depths of unconsciousness.
It wasn't until two days later than Lex found out where she was. She was on the Piper Maru, which was the huge tanker she had sailed in with at least a week before. The black woman had been silent for the most part, not speaking unless it was a question she needed answered. Though she finally managed to wrestle permission to walk on deck by her worried nurse.
Which is why she was leaning against the railing right now, a frown creasing her features that had nothing to do with the cold nipping at her bare face.
"Hypothermia, blood loss, and a slight concussion..." Lex's voice was carried off by a sudden harsh, biting breeze. The nurse had told Lex those were the major inflictions she had suffered from when she was brought on board. The blood loss was from multiple wounds, the scars of the deeper ones still lacerating her otherwise smooth skin on her limbs and torso. But, never one for outward beauty, Lex could care less. The only one that pained her still was the largest gash on her right shoulder. The nurse stated earlier they almost had to amputate it.
Shifting as she leaned slightly forward, Lex pressed her forehead against the freezing metal of the railing, her voice murmuring, "What happened...?"
As if in reply, the wind howled back at her.
Anger boiled just beneath the surface. Anger always seemed to be near hand now, something the usually calm Lex still hadn't gotten used to. She had always trained herself to become calm in tense and dangerous situations. She had barely held her resolve as she had climbed back down the mountain with her father. Right before... right before the blood clot ended it all. As much as it had hurt, at least she REMEMBERED it. The hell with remaining calm. Right now she just wanted to vent.
Hands clenching the railing in a death grip, Lex pushed herself up to the bottom railing and shouted at the top of her lungs, "WHAT the HELL HAPPENED? WHAT THE FUCK! What the-" Lex pushed herself back from the railing, stumbling onto her backside as a sudden wave of tremors overran her body, "What the- what the hell..." She pulled her knees up to her, cocooning herself as she whispered the last part, "What the hell... what...?"
She didn't understand. She could hardly remember what happened in the pyramid.
Where was her team? What were those monsters?
A flash of a silver mask, one of those humanoid monsters, resurfaced in her mind for a brief second. Then it was gone.
"Fuck this." Lex ranted bitterly, pushing herself to her feet. The nurse said it would all come back in time. Lex only had to give it time, "Well... fuck THAT idea."
The black woman was as ready as ever to just slam her head against the metal hull, the door, ANYTHING to see if she could just physically reverse the trauma her mind had suffered. She wanted to remember. She NEEDED to remember.
Didn't she?
All she kept seeing were flashes of monsters. Of aliens. Of her teammates mixed with blood.
Did she really want to remember?
"Ms. Woods!" The nurse rushed out to her, kneeling next to her trembling form, "I should never have allowed you to travel out here. Look at you, you're shivering you poor thing."
Numbly, Lex allowed the nurse to bundle her up in a thicker coat before guiding them both back inside.
As they were walking through a silent corridor, the nurse focused her concerned teal eyes on Lex's brown ones, "They keep pressing me, you know. They keep telling me to ask you what happened down there."
"I can't remember." Lex muttered.
"I KNOW that, Ms. Woods. But they don't... well... they don't care. They can be heartless bastards." The nurse said with a sigh.
"All they care about is the Weyland Company." Lex cast a dark gaze at the nurse beside her.
With a miserable sigh, the nurse replied sadly, "I know."
-o-TWO DAYS EARLIER-o-
The room was in chaos. Acid blood was spewing everything, transforming much of the floor into a bubbling mess. It didn't help that two huge, lava-filled pits already graced the room with its presence.
The two berserk humanoids could care less.
Rave snapped the spine of a hard meat, not sparing it another glance as he reached back to bodily toss a second one off of his back. Lex, despite her small form, was managing to hold her own. Rave almost suspected her body count matched his.
And that was quite a feat indeed.
Snarling viciously, the Yautja and Ooman backed into one another, simultaneously whipping around to tear the other apart. It was all action and no thought. Rave's muscled arm, arm blade extended, swiped at her neck. Lex ducked with inhuman speed without hesitating, closing the distance between them as she took up the opening made from Rave's wide sweep. In half a breath Rave was knocked to the ground, his stolen dagger in Lex's hand, poised to plunge into his throat. But no matter how fast or agile the Ooman was, Rave was still stronger.
Sage green eyes widening in recognition, Rave caught her small wrists within his huge hands, growling, "We are Clan!"
He was answered by unintelligible and vicious snarls.
Sensing more than seeing a handful of hard meats springing in to attack, Rave gripped her harder as he rolled both of them out of immediate danger. When Lex attampted to chew through his wrist, Rave jerked his hand away, directing a short angry bark at her, "Hey. HEY. I need that!"
Lex used the opening to dislodge Rave and turn to attack the hard meats. Despite her determination to live, her instincts told her that the bigger threat was the swarm of hard meats around them. If it came down to it, she would kill the Yautja as well. But later.
With an exasperated sigh, the greenish-brown Yautja pushed himself to his feet, eyes narrowing as he focused on the glint of metal in her hand.
She had his dagger. HIS dagger.
Shaking his head, Rave plunged himself back eagerly in battle. If they were to battle together, at least she was now armed.
The Queen was watching this with growing irritation. WHERE had that YAUTJA come from? And WHY were her children not taking care of this situation? Had she spawned a clutch of WEAKLINGS!?
They were winning. Taking a rare moment to look around at the battle scene, the big Yautja noticed there did not seem to be as many living hard meats as there had been before. And since the Queen wasn't even doing anyth-
The ground shook with thunderous foot steps.
Within his mask, Rave's eyes widened immensely. A larger than average tail crushed his torso as the Yautja found himself being lifted and bodily thrown against the wall. Before he could even think about getting up, the Queen was there again, her talons raking across netting, skin, and armor as she kicked him into the wall. Spots came across his vision and before his head could clear, Rave whipped out two Discs and hurled them blindly. One sliced a hard meat bystander through the chest while the other barely missed the Queen and struck a wall. The Queen shrieked her fury. For a moment, all Rave could see was a large hand coming towards him. A split second later, he was slammed into the ceiling four stories up, his numb and unconscious body slumping on one of the top ledges.
Having momentarily taken care of one menace, the Queen whipped her large cranium and centered in on the small figure fighting her children. Charging, the large black form barely gave her clutchlings warning before she plowed through them and pile drove into the soft meat. Dust rained down as a teeth-quaking crash resounded through the room.
Silence governed the room as the hard meats, frozen in place, looked on.
The Queen flicked her enormous tail, one hand outstretched and half-buried into the wall. As the dust slowly cleared, it became clear that the hard meat's hand was smothering something in her grasp. Between the constricting cage of the Queen's fingers and the unyielding wall, Lex found herself still alive... barely.
If she was still governed by her human mind, she would have wondered why she felt wet warmth gushing down one side. Would have wondered how much longer she had to live. Wonder what had happened to the Yautja. But being driven by a more base state of mind, Lex only noted the claw puncturing straight through her shoulder and the trapped position she was in.
Heaving for breath, the Ooman drew out an angered shout and attempted to lash out. But the Queen had her pinned. And the hard meat knew it.
'YOU...' The Queen hissed in thought-speech, directing it to the Ooman so she could actually understand, '...you not worth all this trouble.'
Lex read death in the hard meats expression. Death and pain.
With much relish, the Queen forced her imbedded talon deeper into the soft meat's shoulder.
Lex screamed.
-o-o-o-
The darkness was there. Cool. Calm. Slowly draining his life away.
But out of the darkness blossomed a surge of pain.
PAIN? What is this feeling?
Then again, why question it? Accept it and move on. Move on to the darkness. Forget the light.
-o-o-o-
Rave was slowly groaning atop his hidden ledge. Every molecule of his being ached. There was something that was happening.
Something was wrong.
Then what had startled him awake happened again.
The sound of the Ooman's pained scream cut straight through Rave's heart. THIS is why female Yautja do not fight alongside males. The effect of their pain was maddening.
The sound of a female's tormented cry was enough to freeze a male Yautja to the core. Very few could shake off such a feeling and come to her aide.
Very few could. And with his wounds as bad as they were, Rave would be lucky to run much less fight off the Queen and her horde.
There was not much hope that he could save her.
Just then, her scream shattered the cold air once more.
-o-o-o-
Three times now! He winced. Three times such tremendous pain ripped viciously through him.
But how could this be? There was only darkness.
Only darkness, nothingness, and the cold embrace of oblivion.
With what could he feel pain? How could nothingness feel pain?
Then all of a sudden, the fourth scream pierced the darkness. Scar felt as if he could see once more. He knew who he was. He knew his past.
But he was focused on the NOW more than anything.
Her scream. It had been the Ooman's scream. It all came to Scar in an assortment of images he couldn't have possibly seen. He had not been there, but he still saw Rave, struggling to get up. He saw the room full of Kainde Amedha. But most of all, he saw what the large Queen was currently tormenting in her hand.
Suddenly, Scar's vision was not so clear anymore.
Suddenly, all he wanted to see was blood and more blood.
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-gasps- Scar, revived? Who woulda' seen that comin'? -smirks- Truth be told, I thought I'd get a LOT more angry ppl. Ah well...
