Slayer's Vengeance

by Jago-Dakari

A meeting between a yautja huntress and a human marine turned vengefull slayer will shake the very foundation of both races in this story of adventure, love and loss.

21. Chapter 20

Hey, my beloved fans!

if you thought this story was dead you're sadly mistaken. other things have been getting in the way, Rome Total War II for one (GO SPARTA!) and planetside 2 GO NC!) for another, and mustn't forget about working after all. but I have finally gotten this chapter out, and maintained my sanity on writing what needed to be written.

Anyway, we finally return to Alaric and what he has literally fallen into. and this is where things start to get weird as he delves into the ancient past, somewhat unintentionally.

ENJOY!

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Chapter 20- Visions of a lost age.

Alaric in the meantime, unbeknown to everyone's expectations or fears, had reached the bottom of his hellish descent and was laying half buried in a large mound of a past snowdrift, unconscious and battered. The fall down the abyss, and the falling brawl with the kill crazed hunter, had taken a toll on his already battle wounded body. The snow around his battered body was dyed a dark red from the blood that had seeped from his now sealed wounds, sealed by his body or by the freezing snow, from the Hish hunter.

Alaric's unnatural skill and stubbornness at avoiding death came through again.

His armour had taken the brunt of the fall, sparking from cracks and exposed power lines but precariously still attached to their over abused fittings. This, added with his enhanced endurance when in Rage, combined with the thick snow cover at the bottom of the fall had served to soften the impact so that his injuries on landing were minimal to an extent.

His hand axes were scattered to his sides at haphazard angles. It had been a miracle that he hadn't been insultingly killed by his own axes on landing. Alaric's plasma casters on the other hand were completely destroyed in the tumbling scuffle and were nothing more then sparking stumps, illuminating him in brief flickers of blue light. Razeal was a few feet from him at the bottom of the mound, the hand grip sticking out of the snow.

Alaric was deathly still and unmoving, appearing to be frozen from the cold. Then, after what seemed like hours since impact, he started to twitch as his mind came back to the present. Away from the dream cascading through his mind.

Alaric was floating in a cold dark void. His battered and ice encrusted form drifted along the dark currents, blood droplets and sparks from his armor drifting along behind him. He groggily opened his eyes, breaking the ice that had sealed them. He could see nothing but darkness, although his body was perfectly visible as he took in his battered form. He looked around, trying to find some semblance of direction. He couldn't find any. In this void, there was no direction and no semblance of environment or gravity. Only emptiness.

Where... where am I? He thought groggily.

He looked at his battered body, noting the damage his armor had taken and the frozen blood caked on the plating and his skin.

Well, he thought. I've seen better days.

It was at that point that Alaric heard a faint whispering coming from around him. It was indistinct at first but the voice sounded familiar. And when it was finally loud enough, Alaric recognized it.

Ja'anya? He thought with ominous surprise.

From the darkness, an apparition of Ja'anya appeared forth. She was dressed in her flowing gown that seemed almost ethereal against her dark body. She looked almost like a ghost. Her head was down cast, masking her face from view.

"Ja'anya?" Alaric asked. "How..."

Ja'anya looked up at Alaric and Alaric could see and feel the heartbreak that was now etched on Ja'anya's face and in her very soul.

You never came back." she spoke, emotion choking her. "You and Kra'vyx never came back."

Oh god, Alaric thought as he realized what was going on. Not another nightmare!

Glowing tears started to seep from her eyes and run down her cheeks.

"First Father... now you." Ja'anya grieved as tendrils of the void enveloped her.

"Ja'anya?!" Alaric yelled, reaching out to her.

The apparition of Ja'anya was consumed into the darkness. The tears broke apart, glinting like stars before they faded into the inky darkness.

Alaric held his head and clenched his eyes tight, trying to wake up from this nightmare.

For god sake, wake up, Alaric thought hard to himself. Wake up!

He could then a hear a faint cry coming from all around him which made him open his eyes. The cry of an infant child.

Alaric's first thought was that the cry was that of his son, but this didn't sound like Ares. It sounded more like a newborn. That was when he saw a dim light approaching him, ebbing along in the darkness. It slowly got brighter as it came closer and Alaric could make out the light as what looked like an orb. An orb that looked almost organic and the cries were coming from it.

Something about this orb for reasons unknown made him reach out for it.

Alaric reached out his hands and gently clasped the glowing form. The moment his fingers touched it, the shapeless orb slowly shifted into something else. A growing organism that was instantly familiar and filled Alaric with sadness and a trace of anger

It was the developing fetus of Alaric's second child.

Alaric watched as it slowly formed into a tiny infant, cradled in his hands, of undetermined gender, symbolizing it's empty identity. An identity cruelly stolen by the Marked.

Another son or perhaps a daughter?

Sadly, Alaric would never know.

Alaric brought the child up to his head, forehead to forehead and slowly shutting his eyes in heartfelt pain.

I'm... so sorry, Alaric wept in his mind.

But then he felt it slowly move away from him. Opening his eyes, he saw that the small bundle was starting to slip through his fingers, crumbling into sparkling dust that dispersed throughout the void, taking the place of stars before fading into nothingness.

He gave out a loud roar of pain and anger, holding his head and trying to wake up even harder.

He then heard something else echoing around him. At first, from the harshness and brutality, he thought it was the cruel laughter of the Marked. But it wasn't the sounds of cruel laughter. It was the sounds of combat. Of clashing blades and battle cries.

What is this?! He thought in agonized frustration. Stop torturing me!

That was when a burning pain rocked through out his body as if molten lava was pumping through his veins. And it was coming from his right arm. Straining against the pain, he looked to his arm as he raised it. The grudge runes tattooed on his arms, even the ones he had removed, were aflame with crimson fire. At that point, while desperately trying to pat out the flames, he could feel the tattoos tugging from his arm, trying to tear from his flesh. Each tug intensified the pain far beyond his tolerance, tearing into his very soul. After several, beyond excruciating tugs, the tattoos finally and explosively tore from him in arcs of flames, provoking a pained yell from him and leaving burnt ashen patches as they circled around his arm like planets orbiting a sun.

Expecting horrific smoking wounds on his arm, Alaric was surprised when he saw that when the ash fell, his arm was undamaged. It was like he had no tattoos there to start with.

Then as one, the runes impacted his arm in a fiery conflagration and merged into one large rune that encompassed his entire forearm. The flames then turned a glowing blue as the rune shifted into a more fluid shape rather than angular. And when the flames died, the rune continued to glow.

What the hell? Alaric thought, looking at his arm front to back.

Then all of the void evaporated like morning mist and in its place was a war, fought in a desolate snow wasteland in the middle of a snowstorm. Fighting was erupting between wisps of light, resembling humanoid figures wielding varying pole weapons or dual hand weapons. Fighting them were dark wisps in the form of the xenomorphs on this planet. The light was a resolute wall against the dark tide washing against it.

It was almost like angels from the heavens were battling the demons from hell.

Then from the light emerged a solitary figure.

One of the figures of light, burning as bright as a white sun, charged forth into the dark forms. Wielding a stave with a parallel curved blade on top, it tore its way through the vast numbers of the dark hordes, each shadow dispersing in waves when the weapon slashed through them. Each one gave out a loud screech as it vanished like dust scattering in the wind.

Then from out of the frozen wastes came a vast monolithic creature of darkness that obscured the whole field and dimmed the wall of light. But the lone figure remained ever bright. With a lunging throw, a bird shaped flare launched itself from the figures arm.

A loud avian shriek echoed in his mind as the bird of light blinded his vision as it struck the monolith of shadow.

Alaric awoke with a strained start, panting and coughing rapidly, the snow billowing around his mouth. His bloodshot eyes darted around as he struggled to see where he was. He could see nothing for the darkness was too much for his eyes to cope with. He then shivered as his body registered the severe drop in temperature. His armor's heating had been knocked out, likely from the impact. He quickly realized that he had landed in a large snow mound.

But knowing that he survived the fall did little to improve his mood after what he had witnessed in his mind.

"Damn these nightmares!" He cursed through gritted teeth. "They're getting more intense than before."

He could feel his whole body throb from the battering he had taken on the way down. He painfully moved his left arm, blotting out the newly registered pain from resultantly being twisted out of alignment, to see his wrist-comp and reactivate his armor's heating. However, by merely dragging his fingers over it, his felt that his wrist-comp had been completely ripped open by the fall. No doubt when he was being forced into the shaft's wall during the scuffle.

With that vital piece of gear gone, he could no longer keep himself warm. Then again, his armor was so badly damaged that the heating might not have worked in the first place. In fact, his fingers and toes were already numb.

"Shit." he muttered, flinching as he cracked his arm back in line. "Well, I'm at the bottom, finally." His eyes looked around. "Where did that feral bastard land?"

Alaric's eyes soon caught sight of the bastard in question. His insane Yautja foe had fortunately landed in a very bad place, as demonstrated from his rock impaled, battered corpse that was several meters from him. The large jagged spire of rock, measuring ten feet in height and one foot in width at the base protruding from his front where he hung dead in the middle and glowing blood pooling around the body, casting a dim green glow to the surroundings.

"Well, at least that's one problem solved." Alaric muttered. "Now, where the hell am I?"

He tried to pick himself up but he only succeeded in sliding down to the bottom of the mound, leaving a deep groove behind him as he slid. Alaric groaned in annoyance as his axes slid down after him, skidding aside his head before a light snowdrift obscured him.

"I'm in a frozen version of hell." he cursed before pausing. "Wait a second."

He thought he had heard something.

Alaric groggily lifted his head and listened. He could hear a rapping sound. It sounded like footsteps on stone. His eyes looked around, trying to locate the direction of those sound. But, how could that be? There was nothing but snow as far as he could tell or see.

But somehow, the steps were getting louder and louder into deafening beats. Blocking his ears with his hands proved futile as the steps became painful to hear. As if something was stomping around from within his head.

But that soon came to light when something odd happened.

In a flash of white light, enough to temporally and painfully blind him, Alaric found himself in a hazy mist-like rendition of the area he was in, like he was in a dream. And there was no snow here. When he blinked his sight back, he saw that he was laying in a stone corridor, lined with ornate carvings. Yautja carvings. They looked very fresh, like they were freshly carved no more then a few weeks before.

But these carvings were not in the tribal fashion. They looked more enduring, geometrical, yet lifelike. And the left they portrayed humanoid warriors of some kind, wearing armor like he had never seen before, marching into a monolithic temple in the middle. On the right were the visages of a swarm of those Xenomorphs being forced into the temple by another group of warriors.

Looking up, he found that the shaft from which he fell wasn't there. There was just the flat, masterly worked roof of the tunnel.

What's going on? He hesitantly questioned in his mind as he propped himself onto his elbows to get a better look around him. Where the hell am I?

He then heard the same echoing footsteps coming from ahead of him.

Then he saw a figure or maybe a ghost materialize a short distance in front of him. It was a dark humanoid silhouette, one that he had seen many times in his dreams whenever he needed guidance. The silhouette of the first slayer as distinguished by the axes on him and the long mane of spiked hair flowing down his back.

Grimnir? He thought.

Then something happened that put his throbbing head into a spin. Grimnir's silhouette faded into view and Alaric saw that he had seamlessly changed from being a human. From what he could make out in his blurred vision, it looked like Grimnir transformed into a Yautja warrior but one who was completely different then any he had ever seen before. This hunter, whose heavily, almost armored, ornamented dreadlocks reached right down to the floor and curled around his feet, was clad an incredibly advanced looking fully enclosed armor suit and robes.

This armor frankly made all the other armor he had ever seen look crude and slapped together in comparison. For example, it was adorned with an ornate, archaic pattern of runic symbols and swirling lines either engraved, enameled, or etched on. Some patterns vaguely looked like sets of wings. Another was that the armor looked like it was perfectly formed to the warrior's body with no encumbrance or hindrance, despite the plating being of a reasonable thickness. It would seem that this armor was perfectly made to fit.

The plating was attached to an underlying padded suit of an almost cloth-like metallic material, which was formed around the Yautja's body perfectly like a second skin, showing off all the muscles beneath. The cloak and robes was also made of the same material, but in a much finer weave that was almost like silk.

The mask, or helmet to be more accurate, was more angular and geometric rather then fluid and tribal as most masks and was incredibly, ornately decorated but there was something odd about the design. It didn't slope over the head like the other masks he had seen, being more like a human mask. It also looked like it was made from two parts, the first was made of multiple plates and was covering the head and the second covering the face as the actual mask.

This Yautja must have a shorter crest, shorter then that insane hunter from before or might not have a crest at all. Ja'anya had told him about different Yautja sub types. Some had the more common large head crests with a few having shorter crests, at least on Lai'kairis anyway. In fact, were it not for the dreadlocks, he could pass off as an unusually tall human.

There was also a distinctive symbol located on the mask's forehead. Something that had caught Alaric's attention.

The rune or glyph was, as simply to describe it, like two fluid scythe-like symbols joined back to back, forming an elongated arrow. Below the bladed head was what looked like a geometrical inverted V. Combined, they looked very similar to Alaric's more angular family rune.

Then he saw something that really caught his attention. The figure was holding in it's hand an incredibly, masterly crafted, almost god-like scythe. The ornately engraved scythe head was very fluid and razor sharp like the beak of a hawk or falcon. The back of the blade was elongated over the circular disk base connected to the shaft as a sharp geometric spike and at the base of the ornate and intricate stave was a cleft headed retractable spear head.

This scythe, like the armor the Yautja was wearing, couldn't have been crafted by Yautja hands.

And to top all these things off, Alaric undeniably saw his own axes, looking completely out of place, holstered on the Yautja's back and hips.

Grimnir? He struggled to think in confusion. What in the...?

Alaric slowly began heaving himself up, getting up on his elbows before pausing when he saw a two more ghosts appear, walking into existence. These too were Yautja and they were clad in advanced armor too, though they were less ornate or advanced than the former which logically had to be their leader. But their armor was each different and Alaric saw that they each had the same configuration of weapon management, one double handed weapon on their back and two one handed weapons holstered on their hips.

The first, in a stark contrast, was a head taller and had what looked like heavily armored clawed gauntlets combined with a semi-circle shield, no doubt showing that this one preferred using his bare hands. His armor was thicker on his forearms and legs below the knee, essentially articulated slabs of metal, but less so everywhere else, instead having what was like swathes of the linen like material around him, evoking the look of a desert warrior or a warrior monk. His long and armored dreadlocks were rather oddly wrapped around his neck like a scarf. Likely this was to keep them from obstructing his movements

The second, slightly smaller than the others, had large bladed war picks on his hips and a double handed crow's beak, a weapon with a sharp curved spike on one side of the head and a hammer on the other, in his grasp. He was most heavily armored on his torso and had what looked like a large gorget, an enclosing armor piece designed to protect the neck, shielding his neck and lower face. Places that weren't as armored were covered by the same cloth material as the first, though not as robe-like as the first. His dreadlocks were arranged into three ponytails that reached to the back of his knees.

They too had the glyph on their masks.

Another pair of booted feet could be heard running down the tunnel behind him as Alaric turned his head and saw another figure but it was something that he did not expect to see. It was a human as far as he could tell. It was a male and was clad in an armor suit like the Yautja but it resembled the ancient Greek hoplite armor, specifically the distinctive linothorax, only much more efficient in design then by human hands, modularly formed and fully articulated instead of being like a tubular corset. The human had a 10ft long, slightly geometrical spear, a dory, and a large round shield, an aspis or hoplon, which also had that clan symbol on it. And the angular helmet, the front of it at any rate, was in the distinctive style, and somewhat intimidating visage, of a Corinthian helmet at the height of ancient Greek civilization, complete with a large horsehair-like crest. The human was also wearing a just as distinctive red cloak. And there was only one faction of Greek people who had ever worn red.

The Spartans.

Then that meant the inverted V symbol was actually the Greek letter 'Lambda', that stood for Lakedaimon. The Spartan's homeland in Greece.

Alaric's mind was completely blown away from what he was seeing, so much that he swore smoke was coming out of his ears. His ancestors, Spartans of the ancient world had fought beside ancient Yautja warriors on a remote planet?

What the fuck is going on?! He thought as he could feel his head straining from the mere sight.

The Spartan walked up to the lead Yautja, kneeled respectfully before him with his spear pointing high and, in another surprise, spoke to him in the slayer tongue.

"Lord Gri'nyr, the titan has been sighted." The Spartan said, gesturing with his shield down the tunnel. "It has been driven towards the prison."

The Yautja handled the scythe in his hands in thought, slowly wielding it through the air. The runes on the blade flickered with shimmering light.

"Enemy strength?" he questioned in the same tongue.

"A hundred guarding with possibly another two to four hundred hidden in reserve." the Spartan explained. "Scouts are already assessing the situation."

"Are all the tunnels locked down?" Gri'nyr inquired, gesturing to the Spartan to rise.

"Yes. My Spartan brothers are in position as we speak." the Spartan answered, standing up. "Our phalanxes have blocked off their escape. The Stone Kin are sealing the tunnels behind them and your brethren are pushing forward as we speak."

The Yautja planted the scythe down, it's cleft spear bottom rapping loudly on the stone below.

"Excellent." Gri'nyr praised mildly. "We have them all cornered. The plan worked."

The Yautja with the war picks stepped up to his leader.

"Brother, We don't have the numbers to take on that many, even with the Spartans." he cautioned. "Our numbers are low enough as it is. Most of our clan brothers are back on the homeworld recovering or have joined the ancestors."

Gri'nyr looked to his sibling. His body language indicated that of the elder lecturing the younger.

"If we let up now and lose the momentum, Tse'los, it will only give them time to devour another world and replenish their numbers." Gry'nyr stated. "And time is something that we cannot spare. Not when we are so close."

"I agree." the gauntleted Yautja said, walking up and adjusting his clawed gauntlets. "We delayed an assault against a young hive once, courtesy of the Council, and paid for it when their numbers swarmed because of the time they gained. Another race was consumed as a result."

"That's the Council for you, Kas'tigyr." Gri'nyr pointed out. "They're more concerned over pride for our race than those of others." he gestured towards the Spartan. "Unity is what's needed in these dark times."

Tse'los shook his head in denial at his brother's ideals.

"Many of the clans see it as weakness that we allow oomans into our clan and ally with non-Yautja races." he clarified. "That it does nothing to improve our relations with them."

"Relations?" Kas'tigyr scoffed. "Most view us in contempt out of jealousy, spite and all in between."

Gri'nyr snorted in contempt at the accusation.

"Those short sighted fools insist on racial purity at a time like this?" he queried with disgust as he cradled the scythe on his hands "Life itself is at stake with these abominations on the loose!"

He then reverently started to drag his fingers on the scythe's blade.

"We swore that we would defeat the primarchs, preserve what little life is left in this galaxy after the Ossian's arrogant pursuit for perfection and we will not dishonor ourselves by not even trying." Gri'nyr stated with duty lacing his voice. "It would be an insult to our progenitor and all he sacrificed." His tone then changed to one of comradeship as he mentioned a valued ally." Besides, most of them have never seen Spartans in battle. The oomans as a race have great potential within them."

The Spartan bowed his head in recognition of Gri'nyr's praise.

"The other clans see them as prey, nothing else, since the Incident that left a land frozen." Tse'los reminded.

"The oomans put up a fierce defense regardless." Kas'tigyr commended.

Gri'nyr turned to Tse'los.

"What word on support from Clan Xel'khala?" he asked.

"Nothing yet. We haven't received any word on them." Tse'los replied, with a shrug. "Then again, that clan especially would never walk shoulder to shoulder with oomans."

"Like in the Void we have!" Kas'tigyr chided. "They may have numbers on their side, evidenced by their overpopulated worlds, but they're spineless, every last one of them, just like their founder." He then grunted in displeasure. "Since when have any of them ever gone into a real battle. They only decided to assist us when the all the fighting is over. Scavengers every last one of them."

"Then we'll have to make do with what we have. As usual." Gri'nyr stated with barely disguised agreement. "And finish this before they arrive."

Kas'tigyr snickered at the prospect.

Alaric quickly surmised that the two clans were bitter rivals.

Gri'nyr raised a hand to his helmet, no doubt to activate a com-unit inside the armor.

"My sons, are you in position?" he voxxed.

"Yes, Father." came three voices that also spoke in the Slayer tongue but oddly didn't sound Yautja enough.

"Lead your clan brothers against the Patriarch's kin." Gri'nyr commanded. "Show no mercy to the beasts but don't waste your lives needlessly."

"Do we still have time, Father?" one of the voices asked.

"Time isn't important, son. Only life is important." Gri'nyr recited.

He lowered his hand, his coms shut down and turned to his brothers.

"Ready to finish what the Ossians foolishly started?" Gri'nyr asked them.

"If this is going to be the last time, I'm going to enjoy myself, while it lasts." Kas'tigyr said.

"For our progenitor." Tse'los declared.

Gri'nyr nodded to them and then turned to the Spartan.

"Lead on, Spartan." Gri'nyr commanded.

The Spartan bowed his head, the crest waving from the motion before he turned and jogged off down the tunnel at a steady pace, his boots thumping on the stone. Gri'nyr then cocked his head to the tunnel, pointed the scythe in that direction before he and his brothers promptly sped down the tunnel in a vanishing blur as they left Alaric's vision.

Alaric was still trying to process what he just witnessed when things changed once more.

The blinding flash of white light filled his vision and he was back in darkness, leaving him blinking. He didn't have any clue what he had just seen, maybe the cold was causing him to hallucinate, but at least he now had a vague idea of where he was. He was in the temple. And that meant those bugs were in here too.

He had literally fallen right into the nest.

I guess Mal'fax was right about this one, Alaric mused before holding his head. Oh, my head!

The migraine that Alaric was being subjected to was far more intense then any he ever felt. It felt like it was starting from deep within his mind, the source unknown and filling up every part of him.

He managed to force back the migraine after a few moments because he had a more pressing concern then a throbbing head. He knew he had to get out fast before the residents tracked him down. That is if the cold doesn't kill him first.

'Come on Alaric', he thought. 'Get up. Don't let everyone down.'

Alaric then groggily shifted and slowly got his knees under him. His whole body ached as he struggled for control. His hands now felt their way into the snow until they hit a hard surface, the stone floor of the tunnel. He slowly heaved himself up, his armor protecting his legs and arms falling apart as he did so. He could feel the cold encroaching on him now that the warmth of his armor was gone.

Using the dim light of the dead hunter's blood, glowing ever dimmer as it coagulated in the frozen environment Alaric recovered his gear.

'I gotta get going', he thought as he felt around and picked up his pistol. 'Gotta get back to the others.'

He unloaded and checked the magazine for Razeal and saw that he had only nine rounds left. Almost a full load out. He reloaded Razeal and quietly cocked it. He holstered his sidearm and recovered his hand axes. He felt inside his pack, that had somehow managed to survive the falling brawl and sure enough, he felt several flares and the flare gun inside.

He was tempted to let one off and gain some light and warmth but he tactfully decided against it.

'Can't let those bugs know I'm here', he thought as he sized up his options. 'Must be stealthy and one with the darkness.'

He took out the flare gun and holstered it in his belt for quick access should the need arise. He also took the spare flares and pocketed them.

He looked back at the impaled hunter.

Suppose I better see what he won't need any more, he thought.

He took a few brisk steps forwards when he suddenly tripped over something hidden under the snow and fell half buried into the snow again with a thud coming from below. He muttered in annoyance as he got to his knees and rubbed his head, having banged it against something hard hidden in the snow.

"Oh, blast it all!" he muttered, rubbing his head before pausing. "Wait a second."

There was an indented mark on his forehead and it felt instinctively familiar. It was an upwards pointing arrow and chevrons. Instantly, he rummaged about in the snow, scooping great handfuls away in the manner of a burrowing arctic rodent before his fingers touched chilled metal. He felt around more before he confirmed was he was seeking.

"There is a god!" he praised as he heaved up a revered object.

He had found his great axe. It wasn't as lost as he had feared before.

He hefted up his great axe with renewed vigor, brushing clumped snow off of it as he grabbed the haft, using it to support his weight. He shook himself, his cuiress' armor plating fell off into the snow in jagged fragments, leaving only the battered framework left. His now ragged jacket was doing little to shield him from the cold. He picked up Razeal in its holster, and clipped it to his belt before hobbling over to the dead hunter and went about ripping what salvageable fur he could get. He managed to get a fair amount of shreds and, after cleaning most of the blood off, stuffed his jacket with them.

'This should buy me some time', he thought in hope before looking at the stone that impaled the Hish. 'I guess this slab used to be part of the ceiling.'

Aside from the fur shreds, there was little salvage to be found. Most of the hunter's gear was completely wrecked from before he caught up to Alaric and company on the ice bridge or from the falling brawl and impact. The one thing that Alaric found to be of any of value was a small pendant.

And that made him remember something important as he quickly checked what pockets and pouches were still intact. It then dawned on him that he couldn't find what he was looking for.

"Fuck!" he cursed loudly before remembering to shut up.

His explicit shout echoed down the tunnel as if the planet itself cursed at him. And that was likely going to make any Xenomorph further down detect him. But he didn't care about that for the moment.

Frustratingly, he had lost Qul'dan's clan glyph, the one link that he had towards finding the rest of his family's murderers. It must have been knocked from his belt in the falling scuffle and it could have landed anywhere here. It could have even been snagged high up in the shaft he had plummeted down.

And Alaric couldn't afford to waste time digging through the snow or climbing for it.

Alaric gave the dead hunter's head an aerial roundhouse kick in frustration, snapping the already pulverized neck completely with a loud crack and the head went flying down the tunnel before landing in the snow with a dull poof.

Alaric looked at the pendant. This symbol was an identifying mark for a Hish. It was of a broken chain that symbolizes that the Hish could not be controlled when they go berserk.

Alaric pocketed the pendant for safe keeping. He'd never know when it would could come in handy. It could also serve as evidence should the need arise.

He looked onward into the dark and cold corridor before him. Further on would be the hive and with it, his chances of survival would plummet as fast the cold. But it was his only chance of getting out and back to the colony.

Well, he thought. Every journey begins with a single step.

He then walked steadily down the corridor, his eyes slowly adapting to the dark as he left the glowing blood of the dead hunter behind. He kept a hand on the nearest wall for support and guidance. His great axe was in the other, used to support him until he got his strength back to walk unaided.

He could hear his boots crunching the snow and the great axe's pommel rap the stone beneath him, giving him the impression that he had landed in the outskirts of the temple. Most likely, this was a tunnel entrance used as an alternate means of entering and leaving the tunnel. No doubt that the safer route was buried under the snowdrift he had landed.

And he soon found his first sign of the hive within.

He heard a more distinct crunch under his boots and paused. He carefully knelt down and felt around his feet. Sure enough, he could feel the tendrils of the hive, hidden under the snow.

"Right." he whispered to himself. "No going back now."

He rose back up and stoically walked on.

Alaric had no clue how far he was going or how long the tunnel was. He had lost all sense of time since he woke up. Had he been knocked out for hours or mere minutes? All he had to go on was the ghosts, if you could call them that, he had seen and from what he could tell, he was going to the temple.

Considering how he didn't freeze to death while unconscious, Alaric counted himself lucky.

He slipped on a slick piece of ice covering the floor, causing him to stumble against the wall for support, the area in which was covered in more slick ice. He slipped down the wall, landing on his knees and slipping prone on the floor face down in the snow. He grunted in frustration, blowing snow out of his face. He then stubbornly tried to get to his feet, using his axe to pull himself along until he got off the ice slick.

'Well', he thought as he cleared. 'This is going to cause problems.'

That was when he heard a soft sound. The flapping of wings. The same sound he had heard in the ice cavern. He lifted his head up, wiping snow from his eyes. He could see something in the darkness ahead of him. A hovering reflecting light coming towards him.

He thought that the cold was playing tricks on his mind again. That was until he felt a breeze on his face, and saw the billowing of the snow around him. The breeze made by flapping wings.

As Alaric's eye adjusted and the light got closer, Alaric could make out the shape of some kind of winged animal. As the light landed in front of his head, he could see that it was in fact a bird of some kind.

'What the?' Alaric thought. 'Something not a bug?'

This was completely the opposite of what he would except to see in a hive.

The bird, which appeared to be some variation a falcon or a hawk with a large crown-like crest on its head, had a rippling shimmering metallic sheen to its feathers as it lowered its crested head to Alaric. It looked as if it had been crafted from silvery metal or ceramic material, giving the impression that it was some kind of automaton. It walked closer to Alaric, lowering its head to his level. Alaric could see that its eyes were glowing with a white light like diamonds in the sun, and, much to Alaric's surprise, he could see glowing lines on the hawk that surged in pulses with glowing energy.

The hawk looked at Alaric, noting his bloodstained face, his ice encrusted hair and above all else his ruby eyes. In fact, it came very close to his eyes and saw that Alaric was not blinking at all.

Alaric then saw the birds eyes flicker a shimmering light blue, that than spread throughout its body like a ripple in water.

"Well, you're something I didn't expect to find in a hive." Alaric said, as the hawk took a step or two backwards.

Alaric at that point noticed a faint ragged mark on its breast that was a slight fraction duller then the rest of its plumage. A scar from which this bird had received a horrific wound. It spread from the base of its neck, down its breast to its thigh. A scar like this indicated that the hawk had been hit by something with exceptional, almost catastrophic, force behind it.

With a wound like that, how could this bird have survived?

"Well, looks we've both have seen better days." Alaric added.

The hawk tilted its head, like it was processing what Alaric said. It then emitted a quiet chirp that sounded almost metallic from its pitch.

Alaric for a reason he couldn't explain, had a vague understanding of what the hawk said.

"I suppose being in a hive of bugs is a lot worse than falling down an abyss with a feral hunter." he surmised.

The hawk then flapped its wings and hovered as Alaric heaved himself to his knees, propping his weight on his great axe's haft. The hawk waited until Alaric had got to his feet before it flew up higher. It hovered as Alaric looked up at it.

When Alaric regained his balance, the hawk flew further on down the tunnel before waiting for him again.

"It's like it wants me to follow it." he whispered to himself.

Alaric looked back behind him, seeing the darkness that he had left behind before looking toward the shining hawk. He made his decision. He heaved himself forward, his legs motioning to keep him steady and he carefully followed the hawk.

"Do you know the way out?" he whispered.

'Oh god', he thought. 'I'm asking a bird for the way out of a hive.'

The hawk didn't answer as it merely motioned him to continue following it. Alaric kept up with it, negotiating his way along the snow, ice and webbed floor.

'Well', he thought. 'If it can navigate a Xenomorph hive, then it can navigate it's way out.'

They eventually reached the end of the tunnel and, much to Alaric's annoyance, it came up to a flight of stone stairs. And how far the stairs went Alaric didn't know. In fact, he couldn't see any end to them in these dark conditions.

The hawk on the other hand flew up a dozen or so steps before perching on the stone and waiting for Alaric.

"Easy for you." Alaric said slightly vexed, holstering his great axe before walking up the steps, keeping to the wall for guidance. "You can fly."

The hawk merely gave another metallic chirp and flew further up. Alaric followed along, his boots crunching the snow and hive webbing beneath him.

'How hard can these steps be?' He thought as he easily past the tenth step.

After an unaccountable amount of time, Alaric eventually reached the top of the stairs, panting hard and feeling the burning sensation in his numbed legs, which was a good sign, and he was greeted to a dimly lit hall. It was about fifty meters in all directions and massive stone pillars were situated in the corners of the hall. Alaric slumped against the wall and slid down until his great axe's haft kept him up.

Alaric was now eating his words.

"Whoever built this temple had a serious climbing fetish." he muttered, wiping sweat and dried blood from his face. "How many stairs could a temple need?!"

He looked up and he saw that faint beams of light were shining down from the ceiling, providing a minimum level of light. Which was an achievement considering that there was hive webbing encroaching on the stone. From what Alaric could see, it would appear that he had finally entered the temple itself.

'Well', he thought. 'This must be the lobby, or what passes as one.'

The hawk walked up to him as he caught his breath.

"If you want to know how many steps there are, I lost count at two hundred." he panted.

The hawk cocked its head at his answer in the manner of mild amusement before it flapped its wings and hovered.

"Don't tell me you're not tired." Alaric added with a slight tone of disdain.

As soon as Alaric recovered from his climb, the hawk flew out into the hall, shining as a bright star.

Alaric heaved himself up and walked out into the hall where he saw the hawk hovering high above, watching him. He continued walking until he came to an abrupt stop. He bumped into what felt like a stone wall that had been set up rather out of place slap in the middle of the hall with a loud thud. He reached for an axe on his hip in surprise before gave the wall a tap with his boot.

"What the... what is a wall doing in the middle of a hall?" he said to himself, in annoyance. "Oh, probably a decorative piece about the gods or something."

He heard the hawk above and he looked up to see it perch on top of the wall.

"I hope this is the last time you lead me into a wall." he said, rubbing his head.

Alaric felt along the wall as he was about to walk around it and his fingers brushed over some indentations. He stopped suddenly when he realized what he was trailing over with confusion in his mind. He felt around some more and found that he was rubbing his fingers over carved glyphs or runes and what was confusing was that they felt oddly familiar.

'Wait a second', he thought as he felt some more. 'There's something else here.'

He turned to the wall and felt around. He could feel more of the indentations and something else as well when he reached higher up. He could feel something sculpted into the wall.

He risked the chance of detection as he reached for a flare but he had to be sure. Ripping the cap off, he was instantly illuminated in warm red light and what he saw was incredible. He was staring at a large carved mural, that took up the whole wall, half as high as the hall and somehow free of the hive, of a scene from ages past.

"By my ancestors!" he muttered.

It was of a scene of a battle between dozens of those Yautja warriors and formations of Spartans battling those Xenomorphs. The Yautja were depicted as solitary, or in small groups in stand off's, cutting down any Xenomorphs who stood in their way. The Spartans were in their characteristic phalanx formation and were standing firm and against the Xenomorphs, like a stone wall against the rain, marching over the bodies of the slain. Then there were also smaller humanoid forms that he couldn't make out. He could only assume that it must be some alien race.

In the centre of the mural was that Yautja, or maybe an unknown predecessor, who wielded the scythe, slaying one of the Xenomorphs in a heroic fashion. But what caught Alaric's full attention were the scriptures that were carved at the bottom of the mural.

Scriptures that, for reasons he could not comprehend, looked strangely familiar.

He looked at each in turn, taking each symbol's form carefully.

"Are these what I think they are?" he whispered

Doing a quick head check for passing Xenomorphs, he placed the flare on the ground and he pulled out his tome, remarkably undamaged for all the hell he had been through so far, and flicked to the first page. He felt the runes again as he read the runes in his book.

He could feel his head hurt again from what he was seeing, rubbing his temple in response.

'This... this can't be right', he thought, bordering on disbelief. 'They're almost one and the same?'

It was there that a thought popped in his head.

Alaric and Ja'anya were on her bed after a long day of training for the initiation hunt and the one sided intimate shower that followed it. After drying themselves, Alaric had Ja'anya laying across his lap as he gave her a massage on her bare and aching back. Ja'anya meanwhile was purring away loudly and flexing her fingers and toes, her eyes shut in bliss as she felt Alaric's fingers knead her aching muscles.

Alaric, towel wrapped around his waist, was diligently working away after he had unintentionally been a bit rougher then he usually was in his training regime and Ja'anya had struggled to keep up. The training ended when Ja'anya landed roughly and unsupported on her back. It was a good thing that Yautja physiology was stronger then a human's.

Alaric had his tome open next to him, simultaneously reading as he tended to Ja'anya and occasionally he would flick the next page over with one hand while continuing with the other.

Ja'anya stopped purring in annoyance when he did that for the fifth time, opening an eye.

"Alaric, don't you ever stop reading that tome of yours?" she questioned, resting up on her elbows.

"Nope." Alaric answered nonchalantly, continuing to massage her.

Ja'anya rested back down on her crossed arms and clicked her mandibles.

"You must've read that book a hundred times." she guessed, stroking a stray dreadlock before she let out a long purr as Alaric hit a soft spot at the base of her spine.

"Three hundred to be exact." Alaric corrected.

Ja'anya propped herself up again and looked at Alaric like he was clinically insane. Alaric was still fixed in his tome.

"You've read the same book three hundred times?" she said. "Why do you keep reading it?"

Alaric scratched his head as he looked to her.

"Well, there are some things in here that I don't understand." Alaric said.

Ja'anya tilted her head in question.

"You mean there are things you don't know." she asked.

"Well..." Alaric started, shifting his position so he was sitting cross legged. "More like gaps to be precise."

Ja'anya sat up, wrapping her towel around her waist as Alaric showed her the page in question. It was a lengthy section of writing and there were no illustrations describing what was going on. Ja'anya had no idea what the runes meant but Alaric gave her a brief explanation.

"On this page of my clan's later history, it's leading up to an event called The Betrayal." Alaric surmised. "It could be revolving around how Genghis Khan decimated Grimnir's family, maybe that they were sold out or something. But when I turn it over..." he flicked the page and the runes suddenly revealed an entirely different section to the one they just seen. "It just cuts off suddenly and there is no other mention anywhere. Like it's missing a page but I cant find any evidence of a page being there in the first place."

Ja'anya could feel a faint trace of annoyance emanating from Alaric as he spoke. She saw that Alaric had been wrestling with this conundrum for a long time with little or no clue as to what he could find.

"Why?" she asked.

Alaric shut the tome, and he placed it carefully on a pillow.

"I don't have any clue." he sighed. "I've spent many a night trying to figure it out, trying to find a hidden key. I can only think that maybe this is something my father would have told me about when I was old enough. Or maybe Razeal could have shed light on it." he sighed with slight exasperation. "Something I may never find out."

Ja'anya shuffled up next to Alaric and wrapped an arm around him, bringing him close to her. Alaric simply rested his head on her shoulder as she started stroking his hair comfortingly.

"I'm sure you will find out one day." Ja'anya assured him.

Alaric shrugged.

"Maybe." Alaric said. "Question is: Will I regret it when I do?"

"Well, we'll deal with it when you get there." she assured.

She then resumed what she was doing before hand.

"Now..." Ja'anya said, letting her towel slip down again, before she prostrated herself over Alaric's lap, her back to him. "Where were we?" she asked with a purr.

Alaric tilted his head in thought.

"I think I got to round about... here." Alaric stated, rubbing a hand down her lower back.

Ja'anya let a long purr as Alaric resumed his work.

The runes on the wall and the runes in his tome were almost identical.

Alaric reached for his ciurass frame . He pulled out a small tablet engraved with a message in Yautja glyphs, both modern and the ancient dialect used by the priestesses. It was a little charm that Ja'anya had given him for luck on is hunt.

He compared it with the runes that he was seeing, dragging his fingers on each rune individually. He noted that each rune and their ancient/modern counterpart were only vaguely similar in style. Only barely.

"My runes are based on archaic Yautja glyphs?" he whispered, noting the difference between the Yautja glyphs. "And it's an extinct dialect."

'This may be odd', he thought. 'But at least I can read my way out of here.'

Alaric placed the charm back and quickly read the epitaph that was below the mural.

'This is the final battle of the dark times.' Alaric surmised in his head. 'Then this clan of Yautja imprisoned the Primarch, and they were aided by the Spartans and the... Stone-kin.'

Alaric at this point wondered who and what the Stone-kin were. They were mentioned a lot from when he was seeing those ghosts.

'They fought for centuries to stem the tide', Alaric continued in his head. 'This galaxy losing much of its life to the Primarchs, the Ossians horrific successors.'

That was another name that Alaric heard much about. Who were the Ossians? And what did they have to do with the Primarchs?

He then found a line at the end on the epitaph. One that he least expected to find in a place like this.

"Those who been joined by the Bond, aid the clan of the Black Warrior, Cetanu." Alaric translated. "Do not betray their trust. Break their trust and incur their progenitor's relentless wrath. For Death is as inevitable as Time."

The flare gave a last sputter of life and Alaric was once more plunged into darkness. Alaric muttered as his eyes adjusted to the dark.

'Clan of the Black Warrior?' He thought. 'As in their god of death?'

What could that mean? Was this clan related to a divine being? Or did they earn that title through some means?

He felt a breeze on him and he saw the hawk hovering by him, urging him. It would appear that it thought they had lingered long enough.

"Why have you brought me here?" he asked it as he put his tome away.

The hawk looked at him, slowly tilting its head at his question.

"Look, I need to find a way out. I don't want to stay in a hive longer than I need to." Alaric told the hawk. "My friends are in danger from those bugs and I need to get back to them."

The hawk's eyes flickered blue, in a manner that Alaric interpreted as understanding, before it turned and flew away, hovering as it waited for Alaric to follow. Alaric shrugged his shoulders and followed.

'So', he thought. 'My Spartan ancestors helped this clan of Yautja, supposedly descended from a god, to fight these bugs. Well, that's a distinction.'

He paused in mid step.

'Was this what the tome was missing?' He theorised. 'And when were my axes property of a hunter?'

A sharp breeze snapped him out of his thinking and he noticed the hawk impatiently getting his attention.

"All right, I'm coming." he told it as he resumed his trek.

Alaric watched it fly off a distance, to the adjacent archway that led deeper into the temple. He made his way to it, keeping a sharp eye out for any Xenomorphs, as it moved on ahead.

Alaric had a lot on his mind as he followed the hawk. First, he was wondering on why he had seen no Xenomorphs so far. Second, he was wondering how this hawk could have survived on this planet, let alone in this hive. Thirdly, where was the hawk leading him? And fourth but not least, what was going on with him?

First, Alaric had been seeing some weird visions about his Spartan ancestors aiding a group of incredibly advanced Yautja. And second, the runes in his tome were nearly identical to the glyphs he had seen on the mural.

He was starting to think he regretted wanting to find out the missing history of his clan. This was getting to be too strange for comfort.

The hawk on the other hand was diligently guiding Alaric through the dim stone corridors and the vast empty halls, occupied only by the Xenomorphs' hive. Alaric could only guess that it was fulfilling some purpose. Whether or not that meant leading him out to safety, he did not know. But he knew, deep down in his gut, that his best chance for survival was to follow the hawk.

After some time in the dark, Alaric soon arrived at an abyss-like room, so dark that he couldn't see what was inside. There was no light shining from the ceiling, meaning that the hive must have blocked it off. And he knew better then to go stumbling in the dark; otherwise, he could break his neck falling down stairs if there were any.

He saw the hawk flying over head like a shooting star through space. It flew around in a wide circle, likely keeping an eye out for danger.

'Not good', he thought as he waved a hand in front of his face. 'Can't see a bloody thing.'

He remembered that he still had the flare gun holstered in his belt He fumbled at his side, working solely by touch until he securely gripped the flare gun. He drew and aimed it high above him.

'Probably going to regret this', he thought.

The flare shot out of the barrel like a comet. And the sight he saw when it detonated in the air was enough to make his jaw drop.

It was a massive cyclopean hall that seemed to stretch up and out as far as the eye could see. Alaric was situated at the top of a massive flight of stairs, well over a hundred steps, that led down to the valley-like hall.

Good thing he decided not to take a step forward in the dark.

Looking up, Alaric could not see the ceiling of the hall. He postulated that this must be some sort of central room that linked the all the rest of the temple together. He could see bridges that spanned the void of the hall, linking the walls together in a crisscross pattern. From a quick calculation based on what he could see from the flare's light as it slowly drifted down, it had to be over a kilometer high at least.

'This place is more vast then we first thought', Alaric thought. 'Is this entire planet one big temple?'

At that point, the migraine had returned with a vengeance, pulsing into every inch of his head. Alaric clutched his head as he fell to his knees, crunching the ice encrusted webbing underneath him with his teeth clenched shut.

"Oh, shit!" he strained. "Not again!"

Another flash blinded him and, after his eyes recovered, he saw he was back in the haze and that Gri'nyr and his brothers were at the top of the stair case with him, their backs turned to him as they surveyed the scene. Gri'nyr had the scythe propped on his shoulder, the blade curving down. Kas'tigyr was leaning against one of the balustrades and Tse'los was sitting on the stairs, his crows beak on his lap.

Seeing them from the back also revealed another feature of their armor. From the gaps in their robes, as Alaric shifted his position for a better look, he saw twin modules of some kind situated where their shoulder blades are situated. They were sleek, almost hidden on the armor, and had segmented plating that was almost hidden on the upper casing.

Alaric postulated that these must be their version of the Yautja's characteristic plasmacaster. Very advanced from the look of it. If it was able to conform inside their armor.

The three brothers were watching a battle raging along at the bottom of the stairs. Alaric could definitely see and hear it.

Below them at the bottom of the stairs, groups of Yautja warriors and phalanxes of Spartans were engaging a swarm of the Xenomorphs. Or more accurately, they were finishing off a swarm. The Spartans, over five hundred strong, had formed into a large semi-circle, effectively boxing the Xenomorphs in while the Yautja warriors engaged the enemy, fighting with immense skill and maneuverability with either dual weapons or one double handed weapon of various types. The Spartans were bending as lone Xenomorphs broke past the Yautja and hammered at the phalanx, but they were not breaking. Even though they were marching over their wounded and fallen comrades.

But there were also smaller forms in the fight as well, nestled in the Spartan phalanx or hacking away with the Yautja. Alaric couldn't make out what they were though at this distance.

"The oomans have potential." Tse'los admitted. "I'll grant them that. Their formations are quite impenetrable, providing their flanks are protected."

"True, but when they're in a tunnel or narrow pass, you can't shift them." Kas'tigyr reminded before he snorted in disgust. "Unless a pathetic traitor shows the enemy a way around them."

"Maybe. But that last stand in the defense of their homeland had gone down in legend, never to be forgotten." Gri'nyr lectured. "No warrior could ask for a greater honor than that."

Alaric quickly realized that they were referencing the Spartan 300. Was that their motivation for allowing his ancestors to join them?

Tse'los turned to his brother.

"I noticed you've still got your axes with you, even though you're wielding our progenitor's relic." he pointed out.

Gri'nyr reached a hand down and clasped one of the hand axes with respect.

"They are a gift from our closest allies." he said. "They were the first race we encountered to actually hold back the Patriarchs. They honor their debt to us for freeing their homeworld and no one could asked for a greater friend than one of the Stone-kin."

"Speaking of which, here he comes." Kas'tigyr said, pointing an armored finger towards the steps

Alaric was about to see one of these 'Stone-kin' for himself as loud thumping footsteps were heard coming from the stairs

A squat humanoid came walking up into view, armored boots thumping more heavily on the stone. It measured roughly four to five feet in height and it was immensely broad with thick muscular limbs. It was clad in what would appear to be ridiculously heavy armor, essentially great geometrical slabs with intricate patterns inlaid or engraved on with precious metals. The pauldrons' arrangement in particular were so big that it gave the impression that the occupant's head was located in the upper chest. A large ornate double headed geometrical hammer was holstered on its back.

It had a rather intimidating helmet that showed a face of a grim and threatening disposition.

Despite the great weight that this armor must inflict upon its wearer, the humanoid didn't look encumbered in the slightest as it raised its helmet's visor.

Alaric's eyes went wide when he saw the Stone-kin's face.

The face was rather simply a long thick beard and moustache, reaching down to the stomach with a pair of shining eyes hidden beneath and a large chiseled but slightly bulbous nose poking out. The eyes were a penetrating granite grey as they met those of the Yautja.

Alaric was hit with another bout of stupefying surprise. Of all the strange things his head have been doing to him, this was taking the proverbial biscuit.

'Oh my god!' Alaric thought, holding his head as if it was going to crack open. 'Dwarves now!?'

"Eitri, my old friend." Gri'nyr greeted, kneeling down to the dwarf's height.

"Gri'nyr, you brother of the Stone." Eitri greeted back in a deep gravelly voice lowering his visor.

Alaric was even more stupefied when he actually understood the dwarf. It spoke in a different language than the slayer tongue but, for reason he couldn't comprehend, it was instantly recognizable.

Alaric was brought out of it when Gri'nyr and the dwarf then simultaneously butted heads with a loud clanking thud as their armored heads connected. Kas'tigyr laughed raucously while Tse'los subconsciously rubbed his head as he cringed from the sound. Gri'nyr looked slightly shaken from the impact but quickly shrugged it off.

"I don't know how you Stone-Kin can do that." Tse'los said, lowering his hand.

Eitri gave out a deep, rumbling laugh.

"It takes true children of the stone to do that." Eitri revealed, flicking his visor up. "One of the Spartans gave it a go. Left him unconscious for a week. Commendable that his skull didn't crack."

"Well, you Stone-kin can crack rocks with your head." Kas'tigyr remarked.

Gri'nyr stood back up, giving his head a little shake to throw off what's left of the impact.

"How are things, my old friend?" he asked.

"This fight is brilliant." Eitri answered, waving an arm at the spectacle and reaching for something on his belt. "I lost count of how many spawn I crushed." he gestured to his hammer, from which a faint trace of smoke was seeping from it as he pulled up a long smoking pipe. "Look, it's still smoldering from their ichor."

Alaric could see below that the dwarves were nestled between the Spartan spears, brandishing large headed axes, maces, and hammers. Pole arms that the occasional dwarf wielded consisted of primarily large bladed, geometrical halberds and spears. Each dwarf also had a large rectangular tower shield that acted as a mobile barricade when linked together like the Spartan's phalanx.

They filled in a crucial niche that a Phalanx lacked. And that was dealing with foes who got past the spears.

"And here comes our support." Eitri applauded, pointing to the western corridor. "You're going to love this." he told Gri'nyr, sitting on the steps as he struck a match on his armor and lit his pipe.

From a distance away, Alaric could see more Spartans and dwarves, numbering around thirty each, equipped with ranged weaponry, running into view. The Spartans easily outran the dwarves, who were marching along at a solid, unrelenting pace. The group assembled themselves on elevated positions assembled behind the phalanx, made up of dead Xenomorphs. The dwarves took the higher ground while the Spartans ran up to the phalanx directly.

The Spartans, wearing a lighter variant armor suit covered with a long chiton tunic and upholding their up close nature; were hurling glowing javelins from a large holster on their backs. Their casts went over the phalanx in streaming arcs that erupted in to a blast of lightning upon impact with the ground or impaling a Xenomorph. They were picking their targets for maximum damage on the hoard, causing groups of bunched up Xenomorphs to fry from the lightning and causing them to loose their grouping, allowing the Yautja hunters and dwarves to cut them down.

It looked as if they were throwing lightning bolts like Zeus himself.

The dwarves on the other hand were wielding what would look like modern, though somewhat bulky, firearms. Magazine fed assault rifles, long barreled scoped rifles, support weapons that were like a backpack belt fed smartgun in the way it was handled and shoulder fired cannons like missile launchers or recoilless rifles.

Alaric would have guessed that they would be using conventional weapons. That was until he saw that they were anything but conventional. When several Xenomorphs broke free from the Yautja warriors and charged at the phalanx, with the intent of smashing right through the forest of spears, the dwarves fired. The rifles let out a sharp crack of power, a blue static muzzle flash and white bolts of energy shot from the rifles faster than Alaric could track. The machine guns shot out a blistering hails of projectiles with the same static muzzle flash and eye defying speed. The cannons on the other hand let out a deep throaty roar and bigger projectiles were shot from it.

The Xenomorphs didn't stand much of a chance as the projectiles impacted them. The long rifle rounds blasted huge holes in their carapace as the sheer number of rounds from the support weapons halted the charge, tearing chunks from their carapace protected flesh. The cannons rounds on the other hand tore the Xenomorphs apart into gory glowing chunks, showering the phalanx in their sizzling remains.

The Spartans' armor protected them from the acidic downpour, fizzing upon impacting the plating. The acid didn't have any effect on the dwarves either.

"You people's enthusiasm for kinetic weaponry never ceases to amaze." Kas'tigyr said in respect.

Eitri smiled under his beard as a large plume of smoke escaped from his mouth, seeping through his beard.

"Stick with what works, that's what we say." Eitri beamed, puffing away. "Why use fickle energy weapons when a good hard round from a kinetic gauss rifle does the job well."

Alaric's mind exploded when the weapon's name was revealed

'Dwarves use railguns as firearms?!' Alaric exclaimed in his head. 'That's ship based ordnance they're using!'

Railguns and other magnetic weaponry, as current technology would permit, are used primarily for starship armament and for certain military and industrial uses that could manage them. But never in a manner like this. The power requirements, even in this day and age, are still far too high for mainstream use. The bolt-guns the miners use, not designed for combat in mind, could only just punch through those Xenomorphs carapace and the closest Alaric had ever seen to what the dwarves did was seeing a Conestoga-class troop carrier use them against a xeno extremist ship, knocking out vital defense systems before boarding parties launched.

The amount of energy and advanced materials required to produce a weapon with that much power, in a compact and manageable form, was beyond what humanity could produce safely, in this day and age.

Alaric had to conclude that the dwarves' understanding of the tech was generations ahead of anything that humanity could make today.

"On the topic of what works, is this prison up to the Stone-kin's exacting standards?" Gri'nyr asked, leaning on the scythe.

Eitri gave the question some thought, blowing smoke out of his nose as he puffed his pipe. It would appear that the dwarf was used to more splendid sights.

"Your masons are almost getting as good as my people." he admitted, running a hand on the stone steps and feeling how smooth it was. "Finally starting to follow the stone along the grain. I reckon in a few more generations, it'll be good enough for us." He then saw the axes holstered on Gi'nyr. "Still got the axes that our smiths and I forged for you?"

"Of course, my friend. But the Patriarch requires something a little more... deadly." Gri'nyr stated, thumbing the scythe's blade to emphasize his point.

Eitri watched as the scythe's runes glowed as Gri'nyr's fingers brushed the metal, following his movements.

Alaric was starting so suspect that there was something unusual about the scythe from the way it was reacting to Gri'nyr's ministrations. It looked as if it was anticipating his movements. Like it was alive.

"Ah, your ancestor's fabled scythe." Eitri said. "I remember when I saw you use it against a whole swarm when we first met back on my homeworld."

Kas'tigyr chuckled as he remembered that day.

"I lost count of how many of the spawn he killed that day." he remarked. "Too many flying limbs in the way for a proper count."

"And on account that he dived head first into them, without us." Tse'los added.

"Though I tell you something." Eitri said, resuming his pipe blowing. "Our smiths had been trying to replicate your scythe and nothing we made could even come close to it. Damn fine craftsmanship, one of a kind."

Gri'nyr reverently held the scythe to himself.

"It is the only one of it's kind." Gri'nyr clarified. "Like our progenitor."

Gri'nyr held a hand to his helmet. He had obviously received a notification on his suit's coms.

"Report." Gri'nyr spoke into his coms.

He nodded his head when he heard the news. He lowered his hand and turned to his brothers.

"The Stone has made planet-fall." he informed everyone. "Now, the Primarch has no escape."

Eitri was taken aback from the news, sputtering on his pipe and choking with smoke puffing out of his mouth and nose. Kas'tigyr and Tse'los on the other hand were dutifully silent.

"The Stone?" Eitri asked with a slight tone of shock. "Now that's one thing we cannot even start to understand."

"Only to those not of our progenitor's blood." Tse'los reminded.

"Then he must have had a morbid personality." Eitri concluded, blowing his pipe out. That stone, it's... I can't even describe it's power." he shuddered. "It's... death."

"Which is suitable for our needs." Gri'nyr clarified. "Ensures that the Primarchs cannot return through the hive mind." he clenched his scythe, his knuckles cracking. "But first, we need to make sure we slay every last of the Primarch's kin before hand."

"Let's get busy then." Kas'tigyr said, cracking his knuckles and the ley-lines in his gauntlets glowed. "The sooner we kill the beasts, the sooner we go home."

The Phalanx by had now hemmed the Xenomorphs to the tunnel from which they were still pouring from. The phalanx was bending even more but it would not break. The Yautja warriors were busy holding them back and also evacuating their wounded comrades.

"Still plenty for all of us." Eitri added, pocketing his pipe and hefting his hammer. "May the best fighter win."

On that cue, Gri'nyr and his brothers readied their weapons. Gri'nyr held his scythe diagonally across his chest, the blade curving down. Kas'tigyr clenched his fists and Tse'los held his crow's beak high, spike first. They braced their legs and Alaric saw their boots glow with energy from their ley-lines ornamentations, the wing like patterns shining brightly. They then leaped hard from the top of the stairs, their boots discharging a flash of power their armor leaving a glowing streak behind them as they sailed through the air. The distance they jumped made Alaric's eyes go wide.

Eitri looked at them with wide eyes as they landed right in the middle of the phalanx ring, right on top of the Xenomorphs, crushing those that they landed on. And he saw limbs were starting to fly as the brothers got to work. Alaric could tell from the dwarf's body language that he was annoyed by that spectacle.

"Not fair!" he shouted as he stormed loudly down the stairs after them.

Moving up close to the stairs for a better look, Alaric was amazed by what he was seeing. Gri'nyr and his brothers were, as simply as can be described, tearing the Xenomorphs apart the moment they landed inside the phalanx perimeter. Gri'nyr effortlessly wielded the scythe around him in a whirling motion, juggling the weapon between his hands, the glowing blade slicing cleanly through Xenomorphs like tissue paper. Kas'tigyr was a blur of punches and kicks and brutal grapples, breaking xenomorph carapace with every blow and pulling off serious acrobatic moves in the process. Tse'los attacked using both ends of his crows beak, using the spike to impale xenomorphs, wrench them down and deftly using the hammer to crush them when they are exposed.

But before Alaric could see anything else, the white flash blinded him again. And he found himself once again in darkness. The flare had died out. Alaric rubbed his eyes and forced the migraine back into the depths.

"Again?!" he exclaimed quietly. "Can't I even use a flare every now and then without seeing ghosts?"

He then thought about the last thing that he saw. Something that really sent his head into a spin

"Their armor has jump jets in their boots." he recalled. "So they're wielding Iron Man style armor, with jump jets in their boots?!" he scoffed. "Yet another thing we can't replicate in this day and age."

Powered armor was a hotly needed thing for humanity's armed forces to enable them to stand toe-to-toe with Xenomorphs and Yautja. So far, the closest realized gear available was militarized powerloaders used as mobile heavy weapon platforms, far from the highly mobile suits that have been portrayed many times in science fiction in the past. What they lacked in maneuverability, they more than made up for in heavy fire power.

And the fact that attaching jets powerful enough for flight to powerloaders was highly dangerous and downright stupid. The last attempt on a backwater planet called Solano's, moon, a live test of an experimental suit for combating Xenomorphs equipped with particle plasma projectors and protection against their acid blood, backfired so horribly that only one of the escorting marines managed to escape.

He heard the hawk land next to him, leaning its head towards him and watching. It appeared to be waiting for Alaric to recover from his plight.

"Did you see that?" Alaric asked it. "Did you see what I just saw?"

The hawk simply cocked its head at his question. Alaric had a slight understanding that the hawk didn't see what he saw. But than again, Alaric also had a faint suspicion that it might have known.

"Great, so I think being nearly frozen has screwed my head even more." he muttered.

He picked himself up, brushing the snow and webbing off, and the hawk hovered up to him. It then motioned him towards the steps before it hovered over the steps waiting for him to follow. Alaric was hesitant to proceed, considering the lack of light.

"No chance you could brighten up more?" he asked. "I want to be able to see where I'm going."

The hawk did indeed glow brighter in a literal flash, making Alaric blink from the increase exposure to light. The steps were now plainly in view, or as much as they could being covered in hive webbing and snow.

"Thanks." Alaric thanked, rubbing his eyes and keeping a hand up to make sure the hawk didn't continue to blind him of his night vision.

He looked at the steps.

"Well, gotta keep moving." he said, taking the first few steps down the flight.

The hawk guided Alaric down the stairs.

Alaric was being led deep and deeper into the temple. And so far, there had been no sign of the Xenomorphs that supposedly lurked here. That wasn't a good sign, though. Alaric didn't know if there were any Xenomorphs on patrol who just hadn't caught up with him yet or if they were trying to clear the tunnel after Alaric sealed it. He had to assume that they could possibly be doing both.

He managed to reach the bottom in relatively quick time, nearly slipping on hidden slicks of ice several times, and the hawk wasted no time in showing where to go. Alaric could see that the hawk was guiding him to the corridor to where the Xenomorphs were being hemmed in by the Yautja, Spartans, and dwarves. Leading ever deeper into the hive.

They moved across the hall, Alaric keeping an eye out for danger as they crossed. Alaric had an ominous feeling about the route the hawk was taking him.

Alaric cautiously approached the archway that the hawk was leading him to. He looked up and around, noting that through clear patches from the hive webbing, he could make out marks from fighting. Chipping, deep scrapes and ragged bullet holes from the projectiles weapons of the dwarves.

"Must have been hell of a fight." he whispered, tracing his hands over the damage.

Alaric, much to his discomfort, felt the migraine erupt once more. He clasped his head, stumbling to his knees again. The pain was getting more intense than the last time, pulsing into every inch in his head and Alaric was getting both frustrated and downright annoyed by it.

"Hey, I didn't use a flare!" he ground out in a strained voice as the blinding flash blinded him once more.

He opened an eye and he was greeted to the rearing, roaring form of a Xenomorph right in front of him. He scrambled back in shock, tripping hard onto the floor and reaching for an axe. At that point, he saw the scythe's glowing blade swipe down and impale the Xenomorph in the head, driving right down to the tang in a spurt of acid blood.

'Another vision!' Alaric exclaimed in his head.

Gri'nyr came into view, wrangling the Xenomorph as it tried to wrench free. Gri'nyr's response was to raise a hand and bring it hard and fast onto the scythe's stave. The scythe, erupting in a bright flash of power, then sliced right through the Xenomorph, cutting it clean in half and both halves tipped over to their respective sides, sending its insides spewing out into a fizzing, steaming gory mess.

Alaric was speechless when he saw how effortlessly the scythe had dissected the Xenomorph. And he was more speechless when Gri'nyr suddenly flourished the scythe in a blurring fashion all around him. And the severed remains of several Xenomorphs cascaded around him into steaming heaps

Gri'nyr rested the scythe on his shoulder as the acid left on the blade fizzed into nothingness.

"Casualty report!" Grinyr commanded, turning back out to the hall.

Alaric's eyes followed Gri'nyr out to the hall and he could see a scene of carnage. Xenomorphs and pieces of Xenomorphs were piled high into ungodly corpse mountains as Yautja, Spartan and dwarf alike were clearing up. A mass of wounded warriors were being tended to and withdrawn. And a line of the dead were being recorded and archived before being transported respectfully away. Kas'tigyr was heaving dead Xenomorphs onto one of the piles, snapping the necks of each one in turn before chucking them onto the pile.

Tse'los came walking up, cleaning the blade on his crows beak.

"Four of our clan walking wounded, twenty incapacitated and, regrettably, six now with the ancestors." he explained.

"The Spartans?" Gri'nyr asked next, lightly unaffected by the grim body count.

"Twenty dead, thirty or so critically wounded, and many more wounded to some degree but they're insisting on staying till the end."

"Commendable." Gri'nyr said with honor. "And the Eitri's folk?

"Only five dead, the rest are being tended to as we speak." Tse'los accounted. "That is if you call heavy drinking tending to." he added pointing with his crows beak's shaft.

Alaric followed Tse'los' gestured and, sure enough, he could see the dwarves drinking in celebration, or numbing out the pain, from huge metal tankards. Words couldn't describe how the dwarves drank, heads tilted right back, gulping, what he guessed would be ale of some sort, loudly and giving off a loud belch after downing the whole tankard in short time.

It was a spitting image of how the stereotypical dwarves in fantasy worlds would drink.

"That's one way of recuperating." Gri'nyr said with a chuckle.

Yells were heard as a Spartan went flying through the air, hitting the ground hard in a shower of sparks. Gri'nyr and his brothers turned to the uproar and they saw that from under one of the piles, a Xenomorph had burst free and had caught several Spartans and a dwarf off guard. Another Spartan was caught in its claws, defiantly lashing out with his spear, catching it in the mouth. The Xenomorph hurled the Spartan into his comrades in retaliation, who had just joined shields, causing them to buckle into a heap from the impact.

Kas'tigyr stepped forth, rolling his robe's sleeves up for emphasis.

"I got this one." he assured them.

He charged at the Xenomorph, his boots stomping on the stone floor and robes billowing behind him.

"Make sure it's dead!" Gri'nyr shouted.

The dwarf was left standing alone against the Xenomorph, defiantly raising his axe and bringing his tower shield up. The Xenomorph, tearing the spear from its maw, roared loudly as the dwarf banged his shield with his axe as a sign of challenge.

The Xenomorph charged at the dwarf, intending to crush the stalwart fighter into the stone floor. Kastigyr leapt out, a fist pulled back as the Xenomorph got within mauling distance and he punched the Xenomorph right in the mouth, smashing several sharp fangs out with a loud crunch.

The Xenomorph recoiled from the impact as the dwarf pulled back and Kas'tigyr attacked again the moment his feet touched the floor. He delivered a punishing regime of sweeping punches and momentous kicks from his glowing gauntlets and boots, leaving bright trails behind them. Each impact cause massive fractures to erupt on the Xenomorphs carapace and chips to fly.

The Xenomorph lashed out with its tail but Kas'tigyr caught it in his arms, chitin cracking from his grip. Kas'tigyr gave a mighty heave, sweeping the Xenomorph high into the air by its tail before slamming it hard into the stone floor; face first, with a loud crunch. He then jumped and landed hard onto the prone Xenomorphs back, snapping it in half from the impact, before grabbing it by the head and pulled.

Kas'tigyr's armor glowed once again as the sound of crunching muscles was heard coming from the Xenomorph's neck.

Kas'tigyr wrenched the Xenomorph's head clean off with a loud snap. He then promptly hurled it up into the air, watched it come down before, in a manner that Alaric had not seen, gestured his hand to it. His gauntlet, to Alaric's puzzlement, projected a symbol in front of his hand, something that Alaric thought bore a resemblance to wind. The head came down to Kas'tigyr's level and he pushed with his hand. The head was pushed hard and fast by a wave of air pressure emanating from his hand and was sent flying into the nearest pillar where it ruptured into a pulpy mass and then slid slowly down the pillar, smoke trailing behind it.

Alaric was stunned once again from what he saw that his jaw dropped

'I don't know how much more I can take', he thought as he rubbed his temple. 'Now they have magic powers?!'

"Now it's dead." Kas'tigyr said, dusting his hands with pride before grabbing the battered corpse by the tail. "Things are getting harder to kill with every battle." he commented, dragging the corpse back on the pile as the dwarf walked up to him

"At least decapitation still works against them." the dwarf said. "But, they're now regenerating at an incredible rate and their carapace is getting tougher and tougher."

"Damn things are adapting well to our combined efforts." Kas'tigyr said walking back to his brothers as the dwarf walked of to his fellows. "You've got to admit it, they adapt well."

Tse'los wasn't as enthusiastic as his brother as Kas'tigyr walked up. He appeared to be more sympathetic.

"You can't help but pity them." Tse'los admitted. "What they used to be before the Patriarchs took them, I mean."

"They're not who they were any more." Gri'nyr reminded. "Any trace of their former selves are gone. Consumed by the Primarch."

Kas'tigyr at that point looked around for something. He looked up and around, expecting to see something swoop down.

"Where's your pet?" he asked his brother. "Haven't seen him since we touched down and you set him off?"

Gri'nyr chuckled.

"He's probably watching us right now." Gri'nyr said, looking up and around. "Keeping an eye out for danger."

He looked up at the stairs and he suddenly stood to attention sharply.

"Here she comes." he warned, indicating to his brothers towards the steps. "Attention!" he called.

Immediately, everyone in the hall stood to attention, forming neat lines as an expected visitor and an entourage arrived.

Alaric, as soon as he focused on what everyone was focused on, saw what was probably the most majestic, possibly royal, female Yautja he had seen by far walking down the steps. She was around seven feet tall, had the lack of a head crest as the other Yautja and she was clad in a very elegant armored suit and robes. Whereas the other suits were covered in solid armor plating, hers was more of a body suit that accented her form well. She was clad in long robes, envisioning the look of an ancient oracle, that trailed behind her. Her dreadlocks were equally long and exquisitely decorated with ornamentations. She was holding an ornate interlocking metal box in her hands, no doubt holding a scared relic of some kind. Her ornate mask, which seemed more life-like in construction, also had the clan glyph on it, and was decorated with arcane symbols of some kind.

She had to have fulfilled the role of a high priestess and possibly the matriarch from her style of dress.

Yautja, Spartans and dwarves alike knelt down before her, in respect and reverence, as she reached the bottom of the steps and passed them with her entourage of body guards who were also female Yautja. And they were dressed in the same style, but not nearly as majestic as she was. Each was armed with what looked like ornate metal staffs that was of a different style to other weapons that were seen. The staffs were more flowing than geometrical as the other weapons he had seen they were also inlaid with many precious looking stones, capped with a sharp leaf shaped diamond and fine tree root-like engravings.

Alaric had a strange feeling that these females didn't fight through physical means.

Gri'nyr and his brothers stood to attention before her as she approached. She stopped in front of Gri'nyr, who was looking somewhat tense from her presence.

"Gri'nyr." She greeted him in a rather formal manner. "Has the Primarch been contained?"

"Yes..." Gri'nyr started before he was interrupted.

"Then we can proceed." she continued. "Finish what the Ossians so arrogantly started."

She than walked past him in a manner that showed her lack of feelings towards him. Like they had an argument or falling out and she was still reeling from it.

Gri'nyr sighed as her bodyguards walked past, silently following their leader. The warriors in the hall resumed what they were doing, be it tending to their armor, their wounded or their grumbling stomachs.

"She's still upset about it. Even after all these cycles now." Gri'nyr whispered to himself, with a hint of empathy towards her.

Kas'tigyr and Tse'los shot him a look behind their masks as he turned to them. Gri'nyr's tone changed when he interpreted their body language.

"I never meant to hurt her." he clarified, with a hint of annoyance. "It wouldn't have worked anyway."

Gri'nyr walked off an annoyed sigh, resting his scythe on his shoulder blade down. He was going to check on his fellow clan brothers. Kas'tigyr and Tse'los shook their heads as their brother left them.

"Her heart never healed when Gri'nyr didn't choose her." Kas'tigyr said, sadly. "His heart belonged to another."

"And his sons only amplified it." Tse'los added. "She felt cheated."

Their attention was brought back to Gri'nyr as he rallied the troops.

"Brothers." he called out, gaining the attention of all in the hall as Kas'tigyr and Tse'los approached from behind him.

The warriors in the hall looked to him, ceasing their attention to their armor and weapons. The laying wounded raised onto their elbows, regardless of the pain it caused them. The dwarves were busy smoking their pipes and holding their tankards. The Spartans were polishing their shields and the Yautja were in the middle of meditating.

"Our mission is almost complete." Gri'nyr told them. "The Primarchss have been slain or imprisoned, freeing this galaxy's life from their corruption. Their spawn have all been slain, ensuring that they cannot return. With the death of this Patriarch, our duty will finally be fulfilled."

Murmurs of agreement were heard coming from the masses. All of them heartily agreed with Gri'nyr. And few sounded like they had been there since the beginning.

"Now, we have all lost much during these dark times. I won't lie about that." Gri'nyr stated. "Even my race, pride to blame, have lost much of our former power from refusing to fight them." He admitted before he gestured to the Spartans. "The oomans of Gaia were almost robbed of their right to forge their own path to the stars." He said before he gestured to the dwarves. "And the Stone-kin's culture was on the verge of annihilation, yet, like their mountain homelands, they did not break." he then bowed his head. "And, sadly, there are so many that had been consumed by the Patriarchs' hunger." he raised his head. "If no one stepped forward to fight, this galaxy would be devoid of life, only the hive mind would be left. The Ossians' greatest success and their greatest failure."

The dwarves yelled in agreement for the last part while some of the Spartans raised their spears in acknowledgement.

"There are many who gave their lives to ensure that we would survive." he reminded in a reverently and with respect. "Fathers. Brothers. Cousins. Sons. Many who died valiantly and some who just didn't have the luck. But their sacrifices were not forgotten."

Some of the masses bowed their heads. Most likely those who had lost said people during this battle or in a past battle.

"But, whatever happens after this day." Gri'nyr orated. "When you go back to your worlds, back to your loved ones that you defended far beyond your limits to protect, it will always be known that you stood against the darkness and never turned away. That you stood when others fled. And that, even when you pass on to join the ancestors and the memories of these times stale, it will always be remembered that you were a part of our clan. Part of the defiant few." he raised his scythe, the blade shining and runes glowing. "And a part of our Bloodline!"

The Yautja, Spartans, and dwarves let out a loud cheer, raising their weapons into the air as well with their leader. Gri'nyr's brothers simply stood silently but they nodded along with the masses.

The flash erupted once again, the cheers echoing loudly, and Alaric was once more in darkness, blinking from the change in light. Alaric felt around and he felt his way back up to the wall as the cheers died out. He subconsciously cleaned out his ears comically, feigning deafness.

"These visions are starting to get both strange, annoying and loud." he muttered, rubbing his head. "Still, an inspiring speech that was."

He looked around him. He couldn't see the shining hawk anywhere.

"And my guide has gone off somewhere." he added. "Brilliant."

He heaved himself up, back against the wall as the migraine seeped from his head. He shivered before rubbing his arms for warmth.

'How long have I been here now?' He thought, rubbing his eyes. 'A few hours? A day?'

This was one thing that was gnawing at Alaric's mind. He had no way of knowing how long he had been stuck in this hive. Or what time of the day that it was since there was no sun to give any clue.

And he could only guess what was happening at the colony. What might be happening to the initiates. And that only made him want to get back to them even more.

Alaric heard flapping wings as the hawk fluttered down to him, landing at his feet and looking up at him. He looked down.

"There you are." he said. "Been scouting ahead while I was have having a seizure?"

The hawk cocked its head as it processed Alaric's pun. And from the way it looked at Alaric, it wasn't amused with his joke

"Just trying to brighten the mood." Alaric muttered.

The hawk merely gestured down the tunnel, signaling Alaric to continue following it. Alaric followed with a shrug.

Alaric noticed after five minutes of walking that the hive was getting more and more difficult to navigate. This was on account that the tunnel was now being obstructed by tendrils of hive webbing that stretched from wall to wall, floor to ceiling in various angles. Alaric saw them as the hawk illuminated the surroundings and was perplexed by this layout

Alaric quickly guessed that this must be a tactical addition that these Xenomorphs implemented to easily defend the hive. Serving to slow down and obstruct invaders so the defenders can butcher them as they struggle.

Alaric hoped to avoid that fate.

However, he tripped over a snow hidden strand that he failed to notice and he fell hard into another strand, bouncing off as it cracked and landing on his back with a loud crunch of hive webbing. He immediately reached for a hand axe, expecting a Xenomorph to pounce out at him. Fortunately, no such thing happened.

"Fucking great." he muttered. "As if progress wasn't slow enough."

Alaric felt a sharp breeze sting his face and the hawk hovered up to him, getting his attention.

"All right, I'm coming." Alaric said, heaving himself up. "The sooner I'm out of here, the better." he rubbed his temple. "I don't need any more vision inducing migraines today."

After he got to his feet, he followed the hawk as it flew up ahead. Alaric followed suit, mindfully checking his every step. This slowed his progress down, but he thought it to be the best choice.

They soon arrived, with Alaric trudging along at a steady pace and having tripped again at the end, at a small hall junction with three other tunnels leading out. The hawk landed on a plinth on the central pillar of the hall. There was not so many of the obstructing strands here, only in the corners of the junction, so Alaric took the moment to stretch his limbs and get some warmth back into his body.

The hawk watched him as he stretched and did some attack maneuvers through the air. It looked like it was gauging Alaric's fighting ability. It wasn't as impressed as Alaric might have thought, but it noted that Alaric had good form and adaptability.

Alaric also noted that it was looking somewhat obsessively at his axes.

"Got a question about my axes?" he asked it.

It cocked its head at his question. Alaric was more then ready to illustrate his ownership of his precious heirlooms.

"I don't care if these axes once belonged to a Yautja, made by a dwarf or whatever." Alaric stated. "These axes belong to me."

The hawk than made a gesture that seemed like a shrug, like it didn't care what Alaric was saying. Like it knew something Alaric didn't about his axes.

"Look, if at some point my ancestors were gifted these axes from that Yautja Gri'nyr, okay. If it makes you happy." Alaric said, making something up just to placate the hawk.

The hawk merely tilted its head as the mention of the Yautja's name. It looked as if the hypothesis had touched a sensitive issue.

Alaric noticed the hawk's change in stature.

"Is that what happened?" he asked, hesitantly.

The hawk simply lowered its head, eyes down. It then flapped its wings and hovered in the air. It then flew off, Alaric watching it as it move to the adjacent corridor, where it nestled on the archway, waiting for him.

'It knows something', Alaric surmised in his head. 'Something about my axes?'

He intended to find out the truth when the opportunity arises.

"Where are you taking me now?" he asked the hawk, stretching his arms as he walked towards the hawk.

That was when Alaric heard something.