(A/N: We're in the fifth chapter, guys! I know it may not seem like such a big deal to you, but it is to me because Cora and Thite will be meeting in this chapter. I'm aware that it may seem like I'm rushing through this (especially after the second chapter, not my best work or my favorite), but take in mind that it took five chapters (that took place over the course of three days in the story) to make it to this point.
Say what you want, but I think it's going over well. Besides, there's still a hell of a lot more to come than in the future.)
Y-*X*-X~o~X-*X*-Y
Cora ran through the halls as quickly as she could, as fast as her feet could carry her. She knew she should have stopped and turned around to find her uncle, but she knew it was too late and she couldn't turn back the clock.
She heard more noises, much different from what she heard earlier and not nearly as loud. These sounded like someone was throwing items such as glass and containers of some kind, possibly out of anger or anxiety, sounds and emotions she knew well from both her time in the military and before.
Then, she stopped in her tracks when she saw a stain on the floor, one she recognized instantly. It was blood, a fairly large quantity of it, and it was fresh; dripping down a wall into a pool on the floor. She only needed to stare up the wall ever so slightly before she saw the source of the blood.
Wedged in between where the ceiling and wall met was a body. The body was a crime scene technician, based on the cap and jacket the victim was wearing. Impaled into the abdomen was a short metal staff that likely kept the body suspended as blood dripped from the injury.
She had seen many things during her time overseas… many bloody things. But what she was seeing before her eyes may have been the worst; the worst thing she had ever seen.
When you were one of the first to enter a building with a loaded weapon, the possibility of death was extremely high - higher than potentially any other time in the entire term of service - and if you were fortunate enough to survive, the psychological trauma could be too much. For her, she never felt that way and never understood why that was. She was numb from the start.
After seeing how a person could be so easily killed and seemingly hung or left in the place where they died like a morbid trophy…
'...it's like being back in the middle of a warzone,' she thought, her eyes wide with fear.
Then, she suddenly heard a ruckus coming from a room. She watched as plastic containers and glass vials were thrown out of the open door, the vials shattering against the blood stained wall.
She moved up against the wall, her line of sight directly aligned with the body on the adjacent wall. She moved to be just outside the door, she was so close to it that if she took one more step she would be able to see whoever was inside and whoever was inside would be able to see her.
This was exactly like being back in the middle of the line of gunfire. She lost a few friends and a couple of her own soldiers due to a shower of bullets raining down on them.
'Déjà vu,' she thought.
Suddenly, there was a loud crashing sound and a growl shortly afterwards. It became very quiet after, only a faint hissing sound emitted from inside.
She swallowed her fear and nervousness, she felt as though she was shaking, even though she wasn't. Taking in one last deep breath, she stepped out to confront the person inside of the room.
Thite followed the vehicle across the city, determined to find the fractured skulls and erase the evidence of his presence. He lost the vehicle a couple of times in the traffic, but he always found it again, and it led him to a building with the words 'Medical Examiner' on it.
He had no idea what a 'medical examiner' was or why the bones would have been brought to the building. He was given a partial answer when he saw a couple of humans taking dead bodies inside of large bags out of other vehicles and into the building, they had a few bodies with them.
He assumed that meant this building was where the bodies were taken to for scientific examination or possibly even preservation. Maybe the skulls were taken there for examination or potentially even identification? He didn't know nor did he care, the skulls would be history soon.
He changed the vision of his Bio-mask from infrared to X-ray in order to locate the fragments. If they were in the building, he would find them.
It was a very quick search, he found the broken skulls in a room in the center of the building. Now that he knew where they were, all he had to do was extinguish them.
He felt oddly reminded of his Chiva, he felt as though he was hunting a kainde amedha to become Blooded all over again. He believed humans called this feeling nostalgia; he certainly felt nostalgic.
He leapt down onto the top of the vehicle once he was certain the humans were gone, leaving a dent in the metal - human vehicles were pathetic in protecting the people inside from the outside. He scanned for any nearby humans before he made his way into the building.
He scanned each room, looking for the container of bones. He froze when he heard a clicking sound and something closing. He fled into a dark open room when he heard footsteps coming in his direction.
He watched as a human carrying a container walked by. The container had bones in it, he didn't think anything about it, however, because this was a place where dead bodies were taken. In addition, he was looking for bones that were broken, and the ones the human was carrying appeared to be intact.
Once he was certain the human was gone, he left the room to continue his search. He felt confident that he was nearing where the bones were taken to, he would find them no matter what.
Eventually, he discovered a room full of bones, and he could see what he believed to be skull fragments sitting on a counter. They were thin, indicative of coming from the top of the skull, which was strangely thinner than most of the cranium.
He had found what he was looking for, all he needed to do was to get to them. He wasn't used to the doors on Earth - gripping a knob or a handle and pulling it open was a strange concept on most planets. Instead, he did what he was most familiar with, he tore off the door with his bare hands and threw it to the side. He knew he must have made a lot of noise, but he would be gone soon.
There was a human in the room, wearing a strange and pathetic head covering and body protector over the arms and shoulders. Before they could react, he grabbed them and threw them out of the room, throwing a sharp-tipped rod that impaled them into the stomach and pinned the human to the wall.
With the room now empty, he could finally complete the task he set himself to accomplish. He stepped into the room and gathered together all of the bone pieces, placing them all into the container they were transferred in.
He took out a small vial of a blue fluid and removed the top. He poured the liquid into the container and watched as the fragments dissolved into nothing. Soon, all that would be left of them would be nothing more than a puddle.
Suddenly, he heard a gasp from the doorway and a female voice utter, "What the fuck?"
Thite snapped his head in the direction of the voice, his tresses swaying and lightly slapping his neck with the sudden movement. He saw the human female who stood in the doorway, she was nearly as frozen as a statue.
He believed that she was stiff with fear, but a closer look at her face with his Bio-mask revealed a very inquisitive expression. As though she was trying to analyze the situation she was viewing.
At first, he was not concerned by her sudden presence because of his camouflage, which - although not perfect - would assist in keeping him hidden. He expected her to eventually leave, but she didn't, she still stood there as she looked into the room, seemingly looking directly at him. When she didn't leave, he was compelled to look down at himself, and that was when he saw why she hadn't yet left, he was not camouflaged.
When Cora finally decided to look into the room to see what was happening inside, she was the last thing she expected to see. She had no idea how to describe it, other than it looked humanoid but was not human.
What she saw was a tall and extremely muscular being wearing some type of armor. The armor only covered certain areas of the body, including the head, arms, and ankles, but what she did see was very telling.
She saw green skin that was reptilian in appearance yet oddly quite clear and smooth, with the exception of blotching along the arms and a bit on the chest and sides of the waist as well. The blotches were a slightly darker shade of green with hints of brown in some areas. She could also see what she believed to be small dark spikes wherever there was blotching, and in other areas as well.
She also saw black appendages growing from the head, beginning under the mask the being wore and ending at the shoulders. The appendages were similar visually to dreadlocks, causing her to believe they were hair, but she saw the slight sheen they gave off under the lighting of the room and concluded that they were actually flesh. They were fleshy growths of some kind and she briefly wondered if they had a purpose.
Around the pelvis was some kind of clothing made of fur. The furs were dull in color, consisting of grey, brown, black, and white. There was a small bit of cloth protruding slightly from under it, which she thought to most likely be a loincloth or similar garment.
What stood out to her, however, was the weapon mounted on top of the right shoulder. It looked like a vintage gun or miniature cannon, despite the small size she had few doubts of it not being potentially very deadly.
She was so taken by the appearance of the being before her that she almost failed to notice that it was coming directly towards her. It held its arm up to push her away and she almost had no time to avoid it. The arm made contact with her for only a brief moment as she instinctively leaned back to avoid a possible attack. She accidentally leaned too far back and found herself landing hard on the blood-stained floor.
Stunned by everything she saw, she only watched as it ran down the hallway and disappeared in a spark of blue light. She had no idea what happened or what she had seen, she honestly felt as though she was in the middle of a science fiction movie.
Thite was frozen as the human female in the doorway stared at him, he had no idea why his cloaking device suddenly stopped working - or if he had activated it at all. His first instinct was to kill her to eliminate any witnesses, just as he had done before, but she was only standing in place and staring at him, analyzing him with her eyes.
He scanned her with his Bio-mask, she was young for a human and she was unarmed. He scanned her thoroughly several times over, looking at every part of her, praying for a reason to kill her. There was nothing, she was completely healthy with nothing about her that was an immediate threat to him.
His only option was to activate the self-destruction device in his gauntlet. If he did that, his entire journey to Earth and self-motivated operation would be completely for not. Not to mention that it would draw a lot of unwanted attention to the area with the crater it would create, in addition to the high levels of radiation that would be left.
He felt stuck and out of options, he wasn't thinking as he held his arm out as he rushed towards her. She leaned backwards to avoid him and ended up falling onto the hard floor, but he had no time to worry about her.
He held up his gauntlet and hurried to reactivate the cloaking device. Once he was certain that it was, he ran out as quickly as he could, not even sure if he had fully completed what he had gone into the building for.
Y-*X*-X~o~X-*X*-Y
(A/N: Sorry this took me a long time to finish writing. I swear I had the majority of this chapter done and what do you know? I got writer's block and put it off for over a month while I work on other stuff. Terrific, right?
I know it's a shorter chapter and, trust me, I tried to make it longer and, believe me, I thought it would be (in my head at least). I'll try my best to make the next chapter longer and I'll really, really try not to take too long to get it done, but I can't make any promises. I always say I can, but I really can't; it's just human nature to say that you can when you really can't.
Yautja Language Translation(s):
1. Chiva - A type of trial hunt every young Yautja must go through.
2. Kainde amedha - Hard Meat (Yautja name for Xenomorphs)
Thite and Cora have minimal interaction in this chapter (that takes over a very small amount of time), but they will have a lot more later on. Eventually, they're going to have more chapters just like this one, with a lot more of them interacting with each other. I won't say what will happen between them though, I'm willing to tell you guys a lot of things, but mild spoilers are my limit.
Well, I think I've taken up enough of everybody's time. I'll see all of you guys in the next chapter, see you soon!)