Chapter 5: Friends in High Places.
As she jumped from building to building she tried to keep her eyes on the hatchling that was running for its life between the buildings as it tried to evade the pursuing animal-humans. The growls and screeches that these creatures made were echoing off just about every surface which made it hard to pin point just how many of them there were, but from what she'd seen from atop the building before she'd started this pursuit it looked like thousands of them, she had to get that hatchling off the ground and fast.
Pretty soon the hatchling's luck ran out, it had been running through the twisting and turning alleyways in an attempt to throw off its pursuers, but all it had done was manage to funnel the animal-humans into the alleys three abreast around it as they scrambled to catch up with it and now it had run into a dead end.
The hatchling beat its fists against the wall in front of it in frustration and fear, it looked around in a desperate attempt to find a way out, it tried to pull bars from windows, it desperately tried electronically locked doors and it even tried to climb a fifteen-foot-high fence, but there was no escape from this, the horde scrambled and fought their way around the corner until they were stood blocking the only way out, the hatchling crouched down and hugged its knees and from where she was high above them she could hear it's sobs echoing up to her, she would have liked time to be able to do introductions properly so that she could have shown the hatchling that it didn't have to be scared of her, but there was no time left, it was time to act.
Jumping from the balcony of the building on which she was hanging she dropped straight down, she hit the ground in front of the hatchling with enough force to crack the floor, the hatchling jumped backwards and away from her pressing its back to the wall behind them, as she stood back up to her full height she released a full on battle cry in the direction of the crazed animal-humans and for a second the mighty roar caused them to halt their charge as they looked at the newcomer, but she knew from experience that these things were not even slightly scared of her or really anything to be fair, so quick as a flash while they were confused by what had just happened she whirled around on the spot and ran towards the cowering hatchling who was trying to make itself as small as possible as to evade detection, she grabbed it roughly and picked it up off the ground holding it dangling in front of her face, "Please don't kill me!" a distinctly feminine sounding voice sobbed from under the hood she was wearing, but there was no time here for proper introductions so she flicked her tail up and wrapped it tightly around the hatchling's waist so that her hands would be free, then as the animal-humans regained their senses and charged at her screeching again she was just able to leap clear and grip onto the wall high above their heads, her claws were dug into the wall giving plenty of leverage for her next jump which took her even higher above them, from below them she could hear the crazed howls of anger and frustration in being denied their prey, on top of the building she glanced down into the ally below but there were so many of them that it was more like a seething mass of ants than people.
From behind her she could hear sobbing coming from the hatchling that she was carrying wrapped in her tail, so slowly she turned and placed her down on the ground before releasing her from her coiled tail.
The hatchling quickly backed away from her holding out her hands in front of her protectively, slowly she lowered herself down so that she was at the same level as the hatchling and she gave a soft reassuring chirp in order to try and show her that she didn't mean her any harm, she even tried giving her a friendly hiss in order to make her feel more at ease, but it didn't work if anything it seemed to make her even more scared of her, if only she could communicate with the hatchling somehow, then it hit her, her royal jelly, she remembered overhearing some of the humans when they were talking about it, they were impressed by the healing properties of it when put up against a verity of wounds, they also said that it imbued the receiver with a whole host of abilities but they didn't discuss those, she also remembered that they had tested it on Tyler, maybe that was why he'd been the only one who had been able to communicate with her, it was worth a shot at the very least, though she didn't think that getting the hatchling to eat her royal jelly was going to be easy, but she did know one way she could do it, it would be rather unpleasant for the hatchling, but it would work and if it meant that afterwards they be able to communicate then it was worth the price she figured.
As she watched the hatchling still holding her hands up in defence she slowly took a step forwards and used her hand to reach for the hatchling's hood, with a quick flick she was able to make it fall around her shoulders revealing her face for the first time, to her surprise the hatchling was not human, but rather a feline.
She had fur as black as the night itself covering her whole body but the bluest eyes that she'd ever seen in her life, eyes that were filled with fear, "A-A-Are you going to eat me?" the hatchling asked in a trembling voice in perfect human, rather than answer she simply stroked the sides of her head with her long fingers, the hatchling's fur was remarkably soft and smooth, but this next part was not going to be pleasant for either of them, she gripped the sides of the hatchling's head with her hands tightly and the hatchling opened her mouth to scream in fear, but before she could the queen plunged her head forwards and gripped the sides of her face with her mandibles and plunged her inner mouth into the hatchling's mouth.
The surprise caused the hatchling to swallow the injection of royal jelly from the queen's inner mouth before she'd even realised what was happening, she only gave her a small amount as she had no idea what it would do to a member of her species, as she quickly released her the hatchling dropped to her knees and began to chough and retch as her body tried to get rid of the substance, but she was unable to expel the royal jelly as due to its nature it would be almost instantly absorbed into her blood stream through the walls of her oesophagus, instantly she collapsed onto her face and began to shake violently, "Oh shit I've killed her!" the queen yelled as she dropped to her knees and quickly cradled the feline hatchling in her long arms,
"Please don't die, I only wanted to be able to talk to you" she said quietly as she rocked the hatchling back and forth in her arms as she held her to her chest, but just as the panic began to set in the hatchling's breathing began to stabilize and she seemed to calm down, looking down at the young feline in her arms she saw that her big blue eyes were wide open and she was looking up at her.
"Oh thank goodness you're ok, I thought I'd killed you!" the queen exclaimed looking at the young hatchling in her arms,
"You mean you're not going kill me?" the hatchling asked, the queen's eyes nearly popped out of her head,
"Wait you heard me!?" she exclaimed moving the hatchling up so that they were face to face, she looked thoughtful for a moment,
"Yeah but it's not like talking, it's like I can hear you in my brain" she replied, the queen hugged her against her chest in triumph and happiness,
"It worked!" she said happily,
"What worked?" the confused sounding hatchling asked,
"My royal jelly! It's what's letting me speak to you" the queen replied,
"Oh so that's what the nasty stuff you shot down my throat is called" the hatchling said accusingly, the queen looked a little sheepish.
"Yeah sorry about that, but I couldn't think of another way to get you to eat it" she said,
"I'm not surprised no one wants to eat that stuff, it tastes real nasty and did you have to tongue kiss me?" the hatchling said wiping her mouth and tongue furiously on her sleeve,
"Kiss you?" the queen asked in surprise,
"Yeah the thing where you put your lips to mine and shoved your tongue in my mouth, which is real icky by the way, it's called kissing and my mother taught me that your only supposed to do it with someone you love!" the hatchling said in between tongue wipes, obviously still trying to get the taste out of her mouth.
"Kissing hmmmmm" the queen said thoughtfully and as she did some of Tyler's memories swam into her mind of the times he'd kissed his mate and she realised that the hatchling was right, if she could have blushed she'd have turned bright crimson right now.
"Well at least we can understand each other now, so I guess a quick kiss was worth it huh?" the queen asked hopefully looking at the hatchling who was still sat on her lap, come to think of it since she'd woken up from the shock that her body had gone into because of the royal jelly she hadn't even tried to move off her, nor did she smell of fear anymore, now it was the hatchling's turn to look thoughtful.
"Hmmmm I guess you're right, I mean you look all big and scary but you seem ok and I guess you did save me from the crazies, but please don't kiss me again I want to save them for the man I'll one-day love" she said looking the queen right in the eye,
"No more kisses I promise" the queen said smiling all over her face which the hatchling returned.
"So what are you anyway? I've never seen anything like you before and I've seen lots of races, my favourite is the Yaujta as they act like all big rough tough hunters but all the ones at my school are sweet really" the hatchling said looking up at the queen,
"Humans call my kind Xenomorphs" the queen said smiling at the hatchling,
"Xeno-Xeno-Xenomorph" the hatchling said in a kind of stammer as she tried to get it right, the queen nodded,
"Well I'm a Felenis and my name is Missiltine, but everyone just calls me Missy for some reason" Missiltine said smiling at her,
"Missy, I like it" the queen said smiling back at her, Missy cocked her head to one side with a look of curiosity on her face,
"You never did tell me your name" she said in a very matter of fact voice, suddenly it was the queen's turn to cock her head curiously,
"Well I don't know if it counts but a very dear friend of mine always used to call me Macha" the queen said, Missy rubbed her chin thoughtfully,
"Macha huh? Sounds exotic, I like it!" she said smiling,
"My friend said that it was the name of a Celtic goddess whatever that is" Macha said, Missy smiled again and offered her a hand,
"Well it's nice to meet you Macha and thanks for saving me from the crazies" she said, Macha looked at the young girl's hand in confusion unsure what she was supposed to do,
"You're supposed to shake it, it's a human thing but I kinda like it" Missy said prompting her when she saw her confusion, Macha reached down and took hold of her entire arm and shook it up and down a couple of times, Missy laughed in a rather sweet and innocent sounding voice,
"No silly just my hand not my entire arm" she said still giggling, Macha looked at her hand again and she imitated the way the youngster held hers out and as soon as she did Missy grabbed her hand and shook it a couple of times before letting go, "There we go now you know the human sign of greeting and of trust" she said smiling,
"Trust" Macha said slowly with a smile crossing her face, if the young hatchling called Missy trusted her now, could she be the first friend other than Tyler that she'd ever made? She really hoped so.
Suddenly there was a loud angry screeching noise from their left, both of them turned to look just in time to see a window shatter outwards onto the roof they were currently on, a whole crowd of people spilled out onto the roof, most at the front fell forwards over the lip of the window and were instantly trampled under the feet of the ones behind them, Missy was up and on her feet in a heartbeat, "The crazies found us!" she said grabbing hold of Macha's arm and trying to pull her away, in an instant the crowd had locked on to the sound of the young girl's voice and a massive angry roar emanated from it as they began to charge right at them, Macha turned quickly and with her strong arms flipped Missy up and over her head, for a millisecond the confused looking upside down face of the young feline girl was right nose to nose with her own as she passed over her head, she landed on her back with an whoosh of escaping breath.
"Hold on Missy this will get rough" Macha said to the young girl, instantly she felt her grip hold of her shoulders and her dorsal spines with her hands and her little legs wrapped themselves around her back as best they could, the first of the crazed animal-humans reached them and was instantly sent flying backwards with enough force to cut a path right through the charging crowd, Macha flicked her tail in annoyance after the strike, "Come on you fuckers let's see what you got!" she roared at them, but to their uninitiated ears it probably just sounded like a rather loud screech, as it happened challenging them wasn't really necessary as even though one of their own had been turned into a human projectile the others never even broke their forward stride, Macha spun on the spot using her mighty tail as a whip to cleave right through their front two ranks as they got in range, the hardened tip cut right through their flesh like it was butter and combines with her strength and sheer weight it decimated their front ranks with one hit, from her right she caught a glimpse of an object going airborne and heading in their direction, with her high speed reflexes she was easily able to intercept the jumping human with her large hand grabbing it around the throat.
"Don't let them bite you or you'll turn into one of them!" Missy yelled from her back shouting to be heard over the crescendo of screeches and roars from the crowd, with a deft flick of her wrist Macha snapped the human's neck and threw the now immobilised but still alive human at the oncoming crowd, it took out at least twenty of them in another straight line, but as soon as the twenty fell another forty replaced them, there seemed to be no end to the oncoming mass of bodies rushing out of the broken windows right at them, "We have to get out of here or their going to surround us and turn us into them!" Missy yelled, Macha agreed with a nod of her large head and she quickly looked for an escape route off the roof, through one of the gaps she'd created she noticed an easy jump to the roof of the next building.
"Hold on tight Missy this is going to be a pretty rough ride" Macha said and instantly she felt the young hatchling grip hold of her back tighter, so leaning forwards and taking huge strides she took off at a run.
As she sprinted through the gap it was like a forest of arms reaching for them both on either side as the crazed animal-humans desperately tried to grab at them both, she thought about using either her claws or her tail to try and cleave their arms off but at the same time she realised that this would only slow her down, so focusing all of her energy into her speed she picked up her pace to maximum and she hit the ledge at full sprint, compressing her long powerful legs she pushed off into a powerful jump that sent them both sailing through the air, "Whooooooo!" Missy yelled as they were both airborne over the alleyway below them, they could both see the still seething masses below them as well so Macha know that this roof they were going to land on wasn't going to be safe either, she needed to get Missy out of the immediate area so that they lost their pursuers, the both slammed into the second white topped roof with enough force as to crack the cement, without even missing a beat Macha took off in a run now using all fours instead of just her powerful back legs, to her this was just as comfortable as being bipedal, above her Missy grabbed hold of her dorsal spines tighter and together with the young hatchling riding her back like a jockey she ran full tilt across this roof before going into another massive leap.
It took a total of fifteen rooftops before they were clear of the crowds below them, but finally they were able to get off the rooftops and down back onto the streets, fortunately the numbers here were next to none but there were enough of them that it meant that they still had to keep moving, suddenly Missy tapped her on the head and as she glanced up she could see the young hatchling pointing, "Head for the big red building over there, that's where I've been living, it's safe there as they can't get in there from the ground" she said, Macha followed where she was pointing and she immediately noticed a large red coloured building that looked like a giant brick, it was vastly different to the curved and smooth looking human architecture that was surrounding them on all sides, but this thing looked flat and blocky by comparison, but she trusted the young hatchling riding on her back as she knew far more about this human city than she did so if she said it was safe then she believed her, so changing course she headed off for the big large red brick in the distance.
After she was out of sight of the last of the crowd on the ground Macha slowed her pace and began to walk, she figured that stealth would be more of an ally here rather than speed as her running was rather noisy on all of these human surfaces, her claws made and awful clicking and clacking noise as she ran and she figured that even as they lost their pursuers they'd only gain new ones if they didn't move smart here, the road they were on was pretty wide and there abandoned human machines everywhere, mostly crashed into either buildings or each other and to heavily damaged to move, she remembered these things from her escape, they were human transport machines and she remembered happy looking humans whizzing about in them going to wherever it was they were headed, but now they were just sad crumpled remains of those once fantastical wonders of human technology.
Now they'd slowed down she was able to get a good look at their surroundings, they were walking along a black surfaced road of some kind with white lines every so many feet, apart from the various transport machines there was just rubbish and abandoned belongings everywhere, things like backpacks and cases that humans used to carry things around it were here and there, most of them seemed to be burst open spilling their contents around, probably the reason they got abandoned in the first place, as they passed by close to one little pink case with wheels on the bottom and a long white handle Macha noticed what looked like a miniature bear was stuck out of the top of it, for some reason that sight of the smiling little brown furred bear made her rather sad, the scent that clung faintly to it which with her rather powerful sense of smell she could detect even at a few feet was defiantly that of a human hatchling, she found herself wondering if they were alright.
Every building around them looked abandoned and totally devoid of life, but there was a distinct and very familiar smell that was in the air in every direction she looked, at first she thought it was the smell of death, but this was far more bitter than that, it was the smell that she'd first encountered when her Tyler had turned into one of these creatures, it seemed that they all reeked of this bile inducing piss smell.
A sudden thought struck her as they moved slowly and cautiously along the road, "Hey missy if there is now way in from the ground, how do we get into the red building?" she asked, Missy pointed above them to what looked like a set of long metal poles that wound away from them like to metal snakes side by side, "We use the monorail, don't worry it's not powered up anymore, since the lights when out it's been dead and good thing too, because it's the only way to get into the building, that's kinda why I chose it" she said, Macha looked at the thin looking rails that wound through the city and nodded, this hatchling was smart, so slowly she moved to a large metal pylon that supported the rail and cautiously she gripped it in her hands before trying to shake it, thankfully it didn't move so it would probably hold her weight.
The climb onto the rails was easier than moving along them, Missy had jumped off her back and onto the rails ahead of her, but unlike the young hatchling she couldn't happily skip along the thing metal rails, more like shuffle along on all fours while clinging on for dear life with all four of her claws.
After an hour and a half of swinging and shuffling they finally made it to the building just as the light began to fade and the sun began to drop, from the monorail there appeared to be a platform of some kind that connected the building to the monorail, as she saw it Macha increased her speed of shuffle, she just couldn't wait to get off these bloody rails.
Gleefully jumping from the rail to the platform Missy skipped down the jutting concrete path, Macha joined her and had never been so glad to be on solid ground in her life, "Come on slow poke, I'll show you where I live, it's pretty cool" she said skipping up to Macha and grabbing her hand in both of hers and pulling her towards a doorway.
As they reached it Macha noticed a large metal door that had been left open, "I'm pretty glad that this was open as the power went out or I'd have never managed to get in, there's no way I could have moved something that big on my own, tough you'd probably have had no problems, you look way stronger than me" she said pointing at the huge metal door, inside it led to a large lobby kinda like the one she remembered from the building that they'd kept her in while experimenting on her, but instead of white marble everywhere there was just flat metal bulkheads and plates, "It's some kinda warehouse for a company who make machines" Missy said pointing off into the dark distance but with her superior night vision darkness was no problems for her, beyond the lobby there was a large guard rail and a vast open space that must be the main interior of the building, Missy led her up to the rail and looking over it she could see huge lines around the massive room all filled with various machine parts, down to the right she noticed massive black and yellow blast style door,
"I thought you said there was no way into the building from the ground?" Macha said pointing at the door, Missy followed where she was pointing and her feline night vison easily picked out the door and she nodded,
"Oh yeah that thing, it's ok it's totally sealed and nothing is getting through that thing which I'm real glad of" she said, Macha cocked her head to one side curiously,
"Why what's on the other side of it?" she asked,
"It leads into the big train tunnels below the city, they probably used to use the massive trains down there to move the machines around to whoever had bought them, but the problems is those tunnels connect to the sewers at various points" Missy said,
"What's wrong with the sewers?" Macha asked and Missy shot her a looked that silently asked if she was crazy,
"They're crawling with really pissed off monsters that would probably even give you a run for your money, real nasty big black things that will tear every part of your body off and that's if they're in a good mood" she said in a very matter of fact tone, Macha looked back at the door and she could have sworn she heard a distant screech that was definitely not human, it seemed to echo directly underneath them and away into the distance, suddenly she was very glad that she was not in the sewers.