I was no different when I first met Jennifer.

As for my side of the story on how we first met... Unlike Jennifer or many of the other lackies and unprepared Task Force guys themselves I was prepared for an outbreak of the magnitude we faced that day to occur. And I know what you're thinking, "Kj, how could anybody expect something so sudden like this to happen," and to that I say you prepare for whenever it decides to happen while you can. That's exactly what I did. Hell it's how I passed the time when I wasn't an emotional train wreck, or fighting shadows.

"Be prepared," that's the Boy Scouts of America motto. If you don't know what the BSA or Boy Scouts of America is, it's something that you Oomans used to teach your male infants. It taught a lot of useful things about outdoor readiness, like basic navigation, how to start a fire, first aid, stuff like that. It started all the way back in the early 20th century, and there motto was ",Be Prepared." It's one of the best mottos any organization could live by. It's short, sweet simple, and gives a wise message that is to the fcking point. Merciful Master Jesus, I love that motto. Perfect I tell you, absolutely perfect.

Like I said before, I did physical training everyday for at least an hour, missions included, I did weapon modifications whenever I had time, and my imagination would come up with something. I would also clean and check for repairs after every mission to make sure they were all in perfect condition when I needed to use them again, and I practiced with them on a semi daily basis to make sure nothing was wrong with them. I also took the initiative to store guns, ammo caches, and supply bags in areas of convenience around the facility. I mostly did that at night when the facility was mostly inactive, especially when the Operatives and scientists were asleep, or enjoying the colonies' night life, that way none of them could spy on me. Although I should mention I wasn't always able to get the job done, sometimes I didn't even get the chance to start. I had to worry about tripping sensors, or looking out for watching cameras, or watching out for unsuspecting Oomans. It's amazing how there's always at least one person who's still awake in any room and can catch you if you're not careful enough.

There was one time where I did get caught. Spears got me when it happened. I wasn't embarrassed, nor was I scared. We had a brief chat, I told him he'd caught me doing something Weyland might not have found appropriate, but to my surprise he didn't rat me out. I never knew why he did that, but I sure as hell appreciative of it.

As for most of my primary weapons, like my machete, modified wristblade gauntlet, ST, and A'rgr-lo's smart disc, I keep those either on my person, or in the barracks, with plenty ammunition, and gasoline for the wristblades. Where I keep them I'm not going to tell.

I had just gotten back from a mission a couple days ago, wasn't anything big, barely even had to fire a shot out of ST. All I really needed to do was clean my machete and the wristblades. I should also mention I lost my other gauntlet saving a dumbass Task Force derelict. Little turd still owes me for that one. I was still doing good with just the one, and my trusty machete, so I didn't fuss to much about it.

I was sharpening the blade on my machete when the siren went off outside. I'd heard several of them go off before so I wasn't worried at all. Everybody immediately dropped what they were doing and went straight for their equipment, as did I. I grabbed my machete, I wristblades, ST, stuffed some extra magazines in my pants pockets, and affixed Taylor's necklace around my throat. I still have it now, and I've kept it ever since he gave it to me. We reacted calmly and rationally. I put on my armor, checked my weapons really quickly, double checked my ammo with me, and I readied up with the other Task Force grunts. Spears was away at the time, which unfortunately left Massey in charge. We were directed by Massey over our ear pieces, telling us to group up in the lab area. No doubt some of the shadows would enter through there in their attempt to escape. It wasn't of course until we'd gotten there that the alarm changed to a red alert. "Category 10 outbreak," I heard the robotic female voice say over the buildings intercom system. That could only mean one thing, the queen had escaped.

Most of the Task Force guys began turning white after they heard that cheerful bit of news, but to their credit they at least kept their pant wetting terror to themselves. Massey arrived shortly after and gave us one of his run down speeches, telling us news we already knew, and following it up with, what I call a "kiss your ass goodbye speech." It was meant to sort of pump the guys up, get them ready for the fight. Hadrick had given many of those kinds of speeches himself, although he was better at is since he knew when to piss around the bush and when not to, because just seconds later a small pack of shadows came bursting in. We managed to take them down pretty quickly though.

Suddenly a voice came over our earpieces. Another group of operatives, some derelicts that had been transferred to us recently were pinned down by a horde of shadows. While I don't care for the Task Force, I do have a soft area for the inexperienced runts, and I went to help them out. Massey tried forcing me to stay with the group in the lab, saying "we" had strict orders from Weyland to guard any and all exits accessible to the queen. I didn't listen to a single word about following orders, and continued forward. I passed one of my caches on the way by, which had a backpack full of extra ammo, rations and a homemade plasma caster. It also had some extra armor pieces, a bio-mask, net mesh, in case I needed to repair my armor, and a backup SW 4506, with plenty of ammo to go with it. I normally traveled light on weapons and ammo, but my six sense was telling me I'd need every bit of it.

I found three of the remaining derelicts on the second story lab area, where the testing chambers were. The grunts were up against a wall with a swarm of bugs pinning them down. I charged into the swarm unsheathed my machete, and began laying waste to the horde. Bits and pieces of black matter and acidic entrails splattered all over the place as I dismembered and decapitated every bug that I saw.

I forged my machete myself so I could get the appropriate size I needed for it. It's noticeably bigger than most machetes, and it may also be a little heavier, but compared to the combi-stick, it is much lighter, and way easier to wield, since you can use it with only one hand. The blade and handle I laminated with the bones of a shadow, before I sharpened it so the thing wouldn't dissolve in my hand. The thing also has a saw blade on it, that is perfect for sawing wood. And the best part about it is that I can't lose it or break it. This thing can cut through wood, and thin cement material. Jason made an excellent choice when it came to bladed weapons, cause this thing kicks ass!

Of course during the struggle I also got slashed back, because let's be real, no one is gonna just win a fight with any bladed object, and get out unscathed, that just doesn't happen. After a moment of hacking and slashing, the bugs began to retreat. Mommy was calling for them, and they obediently followed her commands. I threw my machete at one of the last retreating shadows and managed to hit it in the side. It tried crawling away, but just like in the Friday the 13th movies, that never works. I ripped the blade out of it's side and made a vertical strike to it's skull.

I told the noobs to regroup with Massey and his team down at the first floor research area. They'd need the help in case the queen decided to make a detour there. I continued bouncing around the facility slashing any shadow I saw. Unfortunately the queen escaped, thankfully though most of her subjects would follow so the carnage would be very low. She wasn't worried about destroying the facility and taking it over, all she wanted was to get out. She knew that, this place was to important to the Oomans, and more of them would come. Besides she didn't have the numbers to take on another tussle with the Oomans. Much of her brood had been killed just by attempting to escape. She had no choice but to run.

Massey was cursing me through my earpiece telling me to regroup with him. I'll be a little honest, maybe I should've regrouped with him and the rest of the Task Force rather than go running off on my own, since it was his team who tried to stop the queen and failed, but hey karma's a btch. Because of this I instinctively began to follow after it. Needless to say, if the queen was allowed to escape and reproduce an army that wasn't exterminated quickly, the planet would be screwed, fortunately though, the queen had a tracker on her, and although it would take time to catch up to her and kill her, reinforcements would come. Another good thing was that it would take time for her to find a new place to call home, and it would take more time for her to build that home. So that meant she would need to travel pretty far before she even had a fully developed hive.

Unfortunately, in my infinite wisdom, I did not grab a tracker on my way outside the facility, but I didn't need it. I'm a decent tracker, not exactly an expert, but I'd tracked shadows on my own before. At most the process of hunting them would just be time consuming. Although that didn't mean I could just meander about, because the more time I wasted looking for them the closer they came to establishing a hive. Thankfully though my bio-mask could detect any tracks they left behind temporarily, which made my job somewhat easier. At least it would have been had I not gotten side tracked, by a... well... a welcome distraction.

At first I thought it was a xenomorph, but as I switched through the vision modes, I saw it emitted a heat signature. Xenomorphs don't give of any body heat at all. I was a little confused by this discovery, and a little curious. I activated my cloaking camouflage, one of the few times I ever did, since a xenomorph can detect my pheromones anyway making it mostly useless against them, and began to give chase. As I got closer to the prey I saw that it wasn't a shadow at all, at least not entirely. It was a part Ooman shadow hybrid. I focused my bio-mask's vision to get a closer look and saw that this was Charles Weyland's daughter ,Jennifer. I remembered seeing her face on the news a couple years ago. I very rarely watched any T.V. back then, even when it came to the Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, or Friday the 13th, but the Agent-X story caught my attention. In the story it showed Jennifer Weyland, along with her father and some other girl. She looked just like she had before during that story, except she was a little older now, more mature looking, and honestly pretty damn cute.

She was being chased by a shadow. I saw her fall over, exhausted from all the running, and just laid there scared waiting for the monster to kill her.

I could've let it happen. I could've let the shadow take her, let Weyland feel the same kind of pain I felt after what he did to me and the other marines at Crimer's Ridge. I would've let him know that even though I didn't do anything to her, I didn't do anything to prevent it either. But also it wasn't her fault for what he did. She didn't know any better. I did the compassionate thing. I lined my bio-mask's targeting system up on the shadow, waited until it said I was locked on, then discharged a blast from my plasma caster. My aim was on point and the blue plasma ball hit the bug, causing it to erupt into pieces.

I then turned my attention to Jennifer. I hopped down from the tree I perched myself on to get a better look at the Ooman female. I turned my normal vision mode on so I could see her properly and in color. For some reason she was in her undies. I didn't see that when I first saw her since I was still observing her through the infrared setting. I didn't say anything and just tried to ignore it. She was beautiful, it wasn't exactly love at first sight, but she was a attractive specimen. Just like in the photo I saw of her years before, she had long, luscious, orange hair, dark gray skin that had a lively tint to it, and two, gorgeous, violet eyes. Before she was just a child, but now...

She just stood there speechless, I could tell she was scared, but at the same time I could tell she felt kind of curious. She'd just seen a hulking humanoid come out of nowhere and save her. What could she have thought I guess.

Another three shadows showed up out of nowhere and went straight after her. I was surprised they didn't notice me. I kicked one of them as it tried to pounce on her, and I quickly dispatched another driving the machete into it. I quickly took care of the one I kicked away, by decapitating it. I unknowingly walked through a small puddle of water, which caused my cloak to malfunction forcing me to turn it off. The last shadow definitely had seen me then. It pounced at me, but I dodged and swung my machete cutting the creature in half. I returned my attention to Jennifer, who after a moment of silence began to run away. I followed after her. I'd just went through the trouble of saving her, I wasn't going to let herself get killed. Naturally she got lost and ended up knocking herself unconscious on a rock.

Kj slaps his forehead.

You could pretty much tell what I was thinking. I remembered I still had a job to do, but my initiative compelled me not to leave her. So I ended up bringing her with me. I followed the xenomorphs tracks as far as I could until it began to get dark. I found a nice spot to set up camp. The backpacks are set up with standard camping equipment on them, tent, sleeping bags, even an inflatable pillow. Made things pretty quick to set up, and certainly came in handy since Jenny was with me. She could have the tent if she wanted, and I'd take a comfortable boulder. I didn't mind really. Was much better than laying down on the soggy ground. I like it like that.

"Class 5 Xenomorph infestation detected. All marines report to the hangar."

Let's rock Taylor.

He says as a small chain jingles in the background.