Well dudes and dudettes, here is chapter 3 of Asclepheus and let me tell you this one is a doozy, it's got plenty of bullets, blades, guts, blood, swearing….you know….the good stuff.

I have also left out the childhood of our main character in this chapter because I plan on using it later for future development.


Chapter 3: We are lions among men

Human year: 2199 AD

Location: Planet Hermes

"One shot, I bet you I can make it in one shot" said an African man with a Kenyan accent holding a pulse rifle

The man he was talking to simply squinted to look at the lit candle about 50 yards away and smiled

"What were the wagers again?" asked the man with a Russian accent

"If I get the shot you have to say 'nuclear vessels'"

"And if I get the shot?" the big Russian asked

"I don't know…you get to use me as a human punching bag" at this the Russian grinned ear to ear

"Alright…deal" the Russian said standing back as the African man leaned into his pulse rifle and waited, he checked for wind direction and temperature before taking his shot, but just before he pulled the trigger the Russian leaned into his ear and whispered sharply

"Don't flinch" this caused the African to pull the trigger too soon and miss the candle completely.

"Dam it! That doesn't count!" the African shouted as the Russian laughed and patted him on the back.

"My turn, you take a shot, now I take a shot" the Russian said as he went to pick up his weapon

"Oh now that's just cheating man!" the African said as the Russian hefted a rocket launcher onto his shoulder and took aim

"You never specified what we would shoot with" the Russian said he pulled the trigger, a rocket shot out of the launcher and headed toward the target only to explode halfway to the candle.

"What the?" the Russian asked as he and the African turned to see the culprit responsible for the early detonation.

There stood their commanding officer holding a pulse revolver, Major Erik Reaver of the Myrmidons. Erik by human standards was tall standing at 6 foot 5; he had short brown hair and striking blue eyes. At the moment he was wearing what was as close to casual wear he could get, a set of black fatigues and a black vest, myrmidons usually wore all black due to their 'relationship' with the Xenomorphs.

"Vlad, Baako, what are you two doing?" Erik asked with a British accent as he holstered his revolver.

"Baako wanted to prove he was the better shot sir, I wanted to prove otherwise" Vlad said, Vlad Gurasov was a very large Russian standing at 7 foot with big bulging muscles and a black Mane of hair, his arms were adorned with tattoos and the other myrmidons nickname for him was 'blood letter' marines would think this was because of his first name but the real reason for it was that he was a gore machine in battle with a taste in large full automatic weapons.

"What Dracula means is that we were just playing a little game, and he cheated by using a rocket launcher" Baako Okoye was around the same height as Erik and was a very close friend of his, he had chocolate coloured skin, black hair and a crescent scar under his left eye. His nickname by the other Myrmidons was 'Spectre' due to his great skills in stealth and espionage.

"Really, well both stories say one thing to me; you were up and were wasting ammunition in a stupid little game. Do you have any idea how childish that sounds?" Erik said with an angry tone before his stoic face turned into a smirk

"This is how you shoot a target" Erik said as he quickly drew his pulse revolver and shot the candle off in the distance causing it to burst into little pieces.

"Class dismissed" Erik grinned before walking off to his quarters, he and his team had a mission in the morning and he needed all the rest he could get.

"….go on say it" Baako asked Vlad, Vlad simply sighed and decided to at least humour him.

"Nuclear wessals" he said with his thick Russian accent causing Baako to laugh out loud at the mispronunciation of the word.


"COME ON LADIES GET YOUR GEAR ON!" Erik shouted to the other Myrmidons as they adorned their armour and equipment, the armour of a Myrmidon looked like a more advanced version of an ancient Greek hoplite, the Corinthian helms they wore had had shielded visors where the spaces would be, the spaces that would be unprotected in a hoplite's armour such as the thighs and bicep areas where covered in a bio-engineered latex material, they wore boots in place of sandals and gauntlets covering their hands and forearms, the armoured suits were entirely black while the visor's were red.

The armour of a Myrmidon was specially designed so that it was immune to the acidic effects of the blood of a Xenomorph, of course only Myrmidons themselves could wear the armour as it was too heavy for any normal human to move around in, this didn't stop the Myrmidons however as they were too strong and fast to be weighed down by it. The special compound used to forge their armour was made from the same strange elements the yautja used in their weapons.

All the myrmidons had specially designed armour to fit their purposes, for instance Vlad's armour was a lot more bulky while Baako's was lightweight and offered more flexibility. The thing that set Erik's suit apart from the rest was the red headdress on his helm showing his authority to the other Myrmidons.

"Get your arses on that god dam shuttle you pansies!" Erik shouted at the top of his voice as he hefted his pulse rifle, the face plate of his helmet clamped down and the visor lit up red.

The members of the alpha squad were sat in the seats of the shuttle in two rows, on one row were sat; Hanzo Hayashi, a Japanese myrmidon of small stature, Hanzo was probably the most agile of the myrmidons in alpha squad and was a master swordsman in the style of the samurai, his nickname among the others was 'Ronin'. Ramirez Abrantes, the Spanish Myrmidon was probably the best sharpshooter in the squad and his nickname among the squad was 'Archer and the last person on said row was Sasha Azarov, the second Russian on the team was the best hand to hand combatant the team had and she didn't have a nickname due to only having been on the team for a few months.

On the opposite row were Baako, Vlad and the new guy to the team, Alpha squad had recently received a new member. Michael Stratford or the rookie as the team called him had recently joined a week ago, the American was to assist in their newest mission; the mission was a simple break in and not to mention it sounded like child's play. Apparently a few smugglers had managed to get their hands on a stash of Xenomorph eggs and it was Alpha team's job to get in and destroy the eggs.

"Care to give us the brief major?" Hanzo asked Erik who was pacing down the back of the shuttle; the helmets the Myrmidons wore made their voices sound synthetic.

"We got word from command that a group of smugglers has managed to get a hold of an unknown number of Xenomorph eggs and are holding these on the other side of the planet, the shuttle is on its way there now" Erik said in a loud and steady voice

"What are the smugglers packing sir?" Baako asked

"We believe they are relatively well armed, you know the standard pulse rifles, shotguns and maybe some heavy artillery if they are lucky" Erik replied

"Will their sensors pick us up on the way?" Michael asked, the other myrmidons laughed at this comment and Erik put a hand on his shoulder

"Rookie, if their sensors can pick us up, they deserve to catch us" Erik said with a grin behind his helm

Erik then went into the cockpit and leaned into the pilot's side

"Take us in fast and heavy, we want to initiate the rookie in the proper fashion" Erik said to the myrmidon pilot who grinned and kept flicking switches and operating the controls.

Erik then returned into the back of the shuttle and sat in his seat, the group all then began checking their weapons; Vlad had a large pulse minigun with a pair of hand axes holstered in his belt. Baako had a pulse rifle and a set of large serrated knives sheathed all across parts of his armour, Hanzo had a pulse rifle along with a Japanese Katana sword sheathed in his belt, Ramirez had a pulse sniper rifle and a Spanish Rapier, Sasha had a pulse shotgun and a Russian Shashka sword, Michael had a pulse rifle and a cutlass while finally Erik was sat with pulse rifle and a medieval style broadsword.

The Myrmidons weapons were also specially designed to be immune to the acidic effects of Xenomorph blood just like their armour.

"Lady and gentlemen, we are approaching the LZ so you had better get ready to jump" the pilot said over the intercom

"d-did he just say jump?" Michael stuttered

"Drop more like" Hanzo replied

The doors of the shuttle opened and all the myrmidons apart from Michael stood up, Vlad grabbed him by the back of his armour and hoisted him up on his feet.

"DIVE!" Erik shouted his orders to the other myrmidons who quickly obeyed and leapt out of the moving shuttle.

"Welcome to Alpha squad" Vlad whispered to Michael before pushing him out of the shuttle, Vlad followed suite quickly and leapt out after his teammates.

The Myrmidons crashed into the ground leaving small craters where they had landed, Vlad left a larger crater than the others while Michael fell flat on his face; the rookie was unharmed as the armour was built to lockup on impact from large heights.

The other members of Alpha gathered around the crater and looked at the rookie.

"I remember my first drop" Baako was recalling the time he landed on his face all those years ago

"Good times, good times" Ramirez commented

Vlad went into the crater and hoisted a giddy Michael up onto his feet and dusted him off.

"Ok enough fun, the smugglers hideout isn't that far off" Erik said to the other myrmidons as they began the short walk to their destination.


The group had finally made it to the base; they hid just far enough so the sentries couldn't see them, the darkness of night made it hard to spot them with their black armoured suits.

The base wasn't anything big, hell it didn't have a wall perimeter to keep intruders out 'smugglers are so full of themselves' Erik thought as he spied the limited amount of patrol guards and sentries on duty.

"Okay then guys here is the plan, Baako, Hanzo you two take out the sentries as quite as you can, Ramirez you take out the artillery operators at a distance, the rest of us take out the guards with extreme prejudice" Erik issued the orders to his troops.

"Sir does that mean me as well?" Michael asked

"You're part of Alpha squad now rookie, I believe in trail by combat, just try and keep up with the rest of us and you will be fine" Erik said reassuringly

"Well people you got your orders….now carry them out" Erik said as the myrmidons set off for their respective objectives while Ramirez set up his sniper rifle.


Two guards were walking side by side around the base wearing standard marine style armour, they were both holding pulse rifles and had pistols attached to their hips.

"You really think it's safe having those things in the base?" one guard said

"Yeah I do, do you know how much just one of those things is worth on the black market?" the other asked

"No…how much?"

"One egg is around 4 million large"

"Holy shit really?"

"Yeah, and that's just the black market, I'm willing to bet the company would pay a lot more" the guard said to the other, the guard then realized he was walking alone.

"What the…where did?" the guard began until an armoured hand wrapped around his mouth and a knife quickly sliced his throat letting him bleed all over the floor, the Myrmidon who cut his throat let his lifeless body fall to the floor.

"Too bad those eggs won't be around for much longer" Erik said as Vlad appeared from around the corner with the body of the first guard in his hands, Vlad had got a hold of the first guard and snapped his neck while the other was busy running his mouth.

"I wonder how the others are doing." Vlad said dropping the body on the floor, suddenly an alarm rang though the air and both Erik and Vlad groaned simultaneously.

"So much for stealth" Vlad said retrieving the minigun from his back and powering it up.

"To be honest the old ways are the best ways" Erik said cocking his pulse rifle as they prepared for a fight.


The guards and sentries were all on high alert as the troops came flooding out of all the base entrances.

Two such sentries were trying to get a beat on the attackers until a Myrmidon leapt onto the roof they were standing on and decapitated one and sliced the others legs off. The guards on the roof opened fire on the Myrmidon who returned fire with his pulse rifle, the guards kept firing but didn't notice the Myrmidon behind them who threw several knives at them, one was hit in the back of the head while another was hit in the shoulder and another in the back of the neck.

The one guard left on the roof was then swiftly decapitated by the first Myrmidon who nodded to the second as they set off on the job of taking out any other threats.

Erik and Vlad were busy mowing through troops on the floor level, well it was mostly Vlad as he was firing his minigun at full pelt turning what used to be men into piles of shredded meat. Erik was simply doing what any smart person would do and that was not to stand in his way and watch his back as he shredded through ranks of soldiers.

"Sasha come in, Sasha do you read?" Erik spoke into the radio in his helmet.

"This is Sasha I read" she replied as it sounded like she was engaging troops on her end.

"What's your position and do you have any idea what set off the alarm?" Erik asked

"The rookie and I are at the west end of the base and we are pinned down by artillery, the rookie was sloppy with his kills and the guards were alerted" Sasha sounded annoyed on her end.

"Alright, hold your position, I'll make my way over to you, Ramirez can you provide some cover fire?"

"Is that a trick question sir?" Ramirez chuckled over the radio as he shot a sniper round into a nearby gunner blowing his head clean off.

"Vlad I'm going to help Sasha and the rookie, are you okay by yourself?" Erik shouted over the minigun fire.

"Da Major, I can hold these rats off by myself" Vlad chuckled as he mowed through the troops.

Erik then broke into a sprint across through the base, due to the enhancements project Ares gave him, he was running just as fast as an Olympic sprinter and wasn't even tiring, many sentries would have got a shot at him if Ramirez hadn't shot them first, Ramirez's near superhuman reactions coupled with his great eyesight and Aim meant he could kill twice as many men any expert sniper could in half the time.

Erik finally got to Sasha's location and saw that she and the rookie were indeed pinned down and under heavy fire. There were two guys in particular who had military issue smart guns and were unloading on the piece of cover the two myrmidons had taken.

Erik reloaded his pulse rifle and one handed it in his left hand while he unsheathed his broadsword with his right hand and ran into action, two troops saw this and tried to fire at him but their reactions were two slow and by the time they pulled the triggers he had decapitated one and sliced the other in half below the waist, he pulled the trigger of his pulse rifle and shot a sniper who was taking pot shots at Sasha in the head.

Ramirez was taking shots at the troops who had spotted Erik and needless to say they fell easily with a bullet in the head or crotch, now the pressure had been taken off of Sasha she leapt over the cover she was at and ran at a group of soldiers whom were about to open fire on Erik, she fired a shot with her shotgun blowing a hole in one of their chests, the others turned but were too late as she was too close for them to do any damage in close range. She grabbed one's head and gave it a violent twist breaking his neck, she ploughed her fist into the other ones face breaking through his skull, she then swept the legs from under the last guy and curb stomped his face in.

Erik made his way to the Smart gunners and holstered his pulse rifle and wielded his broadsword in both hands for maximum efficiency, the first gunner turned just in time to point his smart gun at Erik who swiped his sword at the gun and sliced the upper segment off of it, he then drove his sword into the gunners gut and used him as a shield against the other gunner who unloaded his clip into the back of his ally.

"And here I was thinking you blokes would be smarter than this" Erik said as the gunner ran out of ammo, Erik took his sword out of the other gunners gut and threw him to the ground. Erik then slowly made his way over to the other smart gunner and held his broadsword in both hands in front of his face (Aragorn style).

"You know what the worst thing about a smart gun is?" Erik asked as the gunner was trying to load another clip into the smart gun only to have the clip get jammed.

"The worst thing…is the fact that the loading mechanism jams when you are in a hurry" Erik said as he swung his sword decapitating the Gunner in a clean swipe.

"Heads up" Erik said

"Booooo" Sasha called at her commander's awful pun

Michael emerged from cover with his head held low; he was ashamed that he managed to blow the operation with his incompetence.

"YOU! IT'S YOUR FAULT WE'RE IN THIS MESS! YOU ALMOST GOT US KILLED!" Sasha shouted at Michael, Erik then put a hand on her shoulder.

"Calm down Sasha" Erik said

"CALM DOWN?! WE ALMOST DIED BECAUSE OF THIS ASSHOLE!" Sasha continued to bellow

"It's not his fault, it's his first mission so he is bound to make some mistakes" Erik reasoned with her

"I never made a mistake like that on my first mission with you, he has no excuse" Sasha said with a lower yet still aggressive tone.

"Do I have to pull rank on you lieutenant? He made a mistake and we found a way through it, and that's the end of it" Erik said a little bit of force in his voice.

Sasha realized that the Major knew best in this matter; after all he was the commanding officer and had never once led alpha squad astray, it was best to let Erik call the shots.

"Yes sir" Sasha said after a long sigh

"Good now let's see how the others are doing on their end" Erik said as both him the rookie and Sasha began making their way back to the group.


Baako had just finished gutting a group of troops and came to see Vlad standing still looking up at one particular building with soldiers firing down on him and missing terribly.

Baako stopped by his side and saw blood trickling down Vlad's arm.

"Son of a bitch is dug in like a tick" Vlad said with his eyes fixed upwards.

"You're bleeding Vlad" Baako alerted his teammate who didn't break his gaze

"I don't have time to bleed" Vlad said

"Ok then" Baako said as he unclipped a grenade from his belt and hurled it upwards, Baako then got his back up against the wall.

"Do you have time to duck?" Baako asked as the Russian got beside him, an explosion from the grenade caused small pieces of rock and flesh to fall on the two of them.

"Show off" Vlad commented causing Baako to chuckle.


The Myrmidons had now managed to clear out the majority of the forces with minimal injuries and relative ease, Vlad had taken great joy in using his minigun to its full extent and Hanzo rarely got the chance to show off his sword skills this much.

They had managed to kill off all but three of the smugglers, as it seemed that guarding the chamber holding the eggs was a large vault door that seemed like it needed an access code to open. That is precisely the reason why the three surviving smugglers were tied up in chairs beside each other.

"Now how are we going to handle this?" Ramirez said leaning his hands on his rifle.

"I got an idea" Erik said as he pulled up a chair in front of the first smuggler and sat down.

"Now I got a proposal in mind for you three, you give us the access code and we won't kill you like we did your scumbag friends"

"You must think we're fucking retards if you think we're going to give you that code" the first smuggler with a bloody nose said

"The money we get for those things will set us up for life" the second one said

"Good luck spending that money without a head" Hanzo spoke up gripping the hilt of his katana.

"Sorry about this…Vlad try your technique" Erik told the big Russian

Vlad sat in Erik's place and took one of the smugglers hands in his armoured hands.

"Oh what? You're going to hold my hand, I'm really fucking scared" the smuggler said

Vlad then took one of the smugglers fingers and snapped it sharply in the opposite direction of where it should have been pointing.

"AAAGAHGAHGH! YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! AAAAAGH" the smuggler screamed as his finger was now showing bone.

"Feel like talking?" Vlad asked with his deep synthetic voice

"Nnngg…go to hell Shitface!" the smuggler managed to get out

"Alright then, thumbs next" the Russian myrmidons grabbed the smugglers thumb and twisted it around; with a sickening CRACK he had obviously broken the smugglers thumb causing him to scream.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAGHGHGH! ILL FUCKING KILL YOU, YOU SON OF A BITCH!" the smuggler shouted at the top of his lungs.

"I'll tell you the code, just don't kill me" the third smuggler spoke up

"What the hell are you doing you fucking coward?!" the second smuggler asked with gritted teeth

"I don't want to get my fingers torn off you crazy son of a bitch!" the smuggler shouted back

Erik got right in front of the third smugglers face and stared at him through his red visor.

"I knew that at least one of you would co-operate" Erik said in a synthetic voice

"The code is 7660325" the smuggler said, Erik turned to Baako who began typing in the code to the door. The door then began to slide across and it was revealed that the door was at least 7feet thick and no amount of explosives the team had would have been able to open it, once the door opened they saw what they had come looking for.

"I think we hit the jackpot" Hanzo said as the team saw a whole room that was wall to wall with Xenomorph eggs, there were at least a hundred of them, more than enough to be a threat to the human race, even one Xenomorph egg could start a chain reaction causing the death of a planet.

"You boys have been naughty, where did you get this many?" Sasha asked the smuggler who was less tight mouthed than the others.

"We didn't find them"

"Bullshit, you can't just buy them at a store" Baako said

"I'm not lying; some guy gave them to us"

"Really...what did he look like?" this got Erik's attention

"I don't know, he wore a lot of black and kept his face covered"

"Did he now...i don't buy it, he must have had some identifiable qualities" Erik asked

"Well now that you mention it, he was pretty tall, at the very least 7 foot 5"

"Thank you for your co-operation" Vlad said before knocking the smugglers out by landing a forceful blow to the backs of their heads.

The myrmidons spent the next few minutes setting explosive charges in the egg room, they made sure to be careful not to wake any of the eggs up, the small veins that were on the bases acted as sensors to tell if a host was in close proximity.

All the charges were set and the door was once again closed, the myrmidons took off their helmets, Baako had the detonator in hand and seemed to have an itchy trigger finger at this point, Erik was quick to intercept though.

"Baako, I think the rookie should have the honours of first detonation" Erik said to Baako who smiled and handed the detonator to the rookie.

Michael took the detonator with a smile; the other Myrmidons had smiles on their faces except for Sasha who still hadn't forgotten the mess he got them into earlier. Michael had finally got a good look at some of the others faces, Hanzo had black hair in a traditional Japanese top knot, and he also had a finely trimmed goatee. Ramirez had light short greyish hair and a finely trimmed grey goatee and Sasha had shoulder length blonde hair with bright blue eyes.

Michael was already familiar with what Baako, Vlad and the Major looked like as they were the ones who had welcomed him to the team. He held the detonator in his hands and pushed the button, from behind the door came a very loud and very sudden sound of the charges going off followed by the distinct sound of hissing, apparently the acidic blood of the face huggers was eating away at the door but not enough to get all the way through.

Baako slapped the rookie on the back and said while chuckling "consider that your first kill my friend"

"Oh come on Baako that doesn't count, the first kill has to be an actual Xeno" Ramirez said

Baako and Ramirez began arguing over the technicalities of a first kill while Michael went up to Erik.

"Uum sir?"

"What is it rookie?"

"I'm sorry for screwing up the mission"

"Don't worry about it; everyone makes mistakes on their first ride"

"But Sasha said that…"

"Don't mind her, Sasha has the biggest temper of all of us, plus I remember on several occasions she screwed up on a mission"

"Really?"

"Yeah, we have all screwed up at least once on a mission, even yours truly"

"YOU screwed up once sir?"

"Yeah so don't beat yourself up about it, we may be super soldiers but no one is perfect"

The team then proceeded to clean up their mess before departing to the pickup zone, the mission had gone off without a hitch, more or less, but now came the thing Erik hated the most about his job….the report.


"How did the mission go major?" asked the general of the myrmidon military division by holograph.

"It went as well as it could have gone sir" Erik said

"What do you mean by that major?" the general asked

"It has to do with the rookie, Michael Stratford; he set off an alarm during the stealth section of the mission, may I ask what division developed his enhancements sir?"

"I thought this may be an issue, private Stratford's enhancements were performed by Weyland-Yutani, and apparently they did this as a gesture of good faith"

"Weyland - Yutani? Since when did they play friendly with us?"

"Mr Weyland came to me in person and told me they had developed a new myrmidon strain, one that produced much better results than the one we use now, he also said that there may be problems on the first few missions, but after the strains user has adapted to it, it would certainly work wonders"

"Well that remains to be seen yet sir, what am I supposed to do about the rookie?"

"Keep a close eye on him major; see how his performance changes, if you spot anything irregular about him report back to me, is that understood?"

"Sir Yes sir" Erik saluted the large hologram as it faded out.

Erik sat in his quarters and poured himself a glass of whiskey.

"I can tell that he is going to be a joy to work with" Erik sighed as he raised the glass to his lips and took a sip.


Michael was wearing his casual wear and was feeling pretty good about himself as he walked down the hallway of the barracks, suddenly someone pinned him against the wall and had their forearm against his throat. It was Sasha and she had a furious look in her eyes that put a chill down Michael's spine.

"You may have everyone else fooled, but not me, I don't care who you were back in the world. But if you put us in a situation like that again, ill bleed you, real quiet and leave you there…..you got that?!" Sasha whispered menacingly, Michael couldn't speak due to the large woman's forearm pressed against his throat so all he could do as nod.

Sasha then let go of him and stared down at him as he spluttered on the floor

"I'll be watching you" Sasha said with venom in her voice before walking away to her quarters.

Things had just gotten interesting for Alpha team, and believe it or not, things were going to get stranger…way stranger.


WOOOOOOOOOOOO there we go people only one more introduction chapter to go, and yeah there were a hell of a lot of references in this chapter that I just couldn't resist to put in.

Just to make it clear for people who read this and can't figure it out, the main character I introduced was Erik and not Michael.

Tell me what you guys thought

Who was your favourite Myrmidon?

What did you like about this chapter?

What will it take for some of you to leave a review?

Please leave a review or maybe a few comments about what you thought, and just a fair warning it may take me longer to get the next chapter up as I will be working on catching up on my Marvel fanfic

Next time – Chapter 4: A Huntress in the Night