Sapience

by Typhon Achlys

What is sapience? Xenomorphs can be very clever, but we would still consider them mere animals. Is it their lack of remorse? Their bloodlust? Probably both. Yet there remains one Xenomorph who stands apart from the rest. Through one-in-a-million circumstances, and a certain Human woman, we will see what happens when a Runner becomes self-aware (Limes).

10. Chapter 9: DQSK

Chapter 9: Drama "Queens" and Slaughtered "Kings"

An hour later...

They had been talking to each other, non-stop. It had finally happened. The thing that Anteros had speculated about and prepared for, for half his life had occurred. And it was genuinely enjoyable! He might have assumed it would be disappointing or a lot more complicated than it was turning out to be, but nope! This was simply wonderful! He finally had someone he could talk to, on an equal playing field!

He had spent many minutes talking to her about all the reasons he found Humans so fascinating, and all the reasons (on top of the trauma he'd already explained) that he did whatever he could to never take a life unnecessarily, and to make it quick and painless when he had to. How he had taken to memorizing the face of every person he'd ever killed, how his eidetic recall allowed him to retain every last, minute little detail of their deaths. How he was utterly alone among his kind, as a result, and how he hated all the violence and death. How he bought himself time, space, and leeway by giving amateur-hour strategic advice to his Mother, the Queen, and ingratiating himself to her— ever walking a tight-rope.
She had been in awe of him. Everything about him seemed to fascinate her, partially because she had always found Xenomorphs fascinating. And he'd be lying if he said that it wasn't... pleasant to be admired, so blatantly. More tears were shed by her, at hearing the apparent burden he'd been carrying for so long, and it was... euphorically vindicating and satisfying, to him, to finally be able to express all of it! And not only to talk about it, but to receive understanding and approval, in response!

It was everything he could have ever hoped...

Then, as his recounting of his life's story came nearer and nearer to the present, the euphoria (which he knew the both of them to be feeling) wound down. From what memories in her mind he could see, this was comparable to meeting someone new who happened to believe and partake in all the same things as you, and to fire on all cylinders, with them— "fast friends", it was called. Samantha couldn't seem to stop smiling, for the first half-hour.
Eventually, that much elation and enthusiasm became tiring for her, and as he soon found out, for him as well. They settled, rather naturally, into a comfortable rapport, as the conversation continued...

"Wait... so, you tried to kill me... but couldn't... because?...", Samantha asked.

"When I attempted to do so, I... I can't really explain what happened. All I know is, I had a violent seizure when I tried a second time. Which... you saw", Anteros answered.

"Oh... right... how did I forget about that?", Samantha mumbled. "What happened after the other Xeno showed up and I fainted?", she asked.

"Well... that's where things get complicated... ", Anteros began to say.

The pair had begun to lounge about the apartment, both lying down on the bed, parallel to each other, facing the door, on their stomachs. Samantha's feet idly knocked about in the air behind her, while Anteros's tail swished about in the air behind him. They'd bundled up the blanket and thrown it off to the left side of the bed, what with it having dried blood on it. From Sam's bullet wounds.

Samantha's chin rested on her flattened hands, while Anteros adopted a more upright posture— head and neck held aloft, like a pelican, with his arms crossing over each other, and spread forward in front of him. Her mind connected the image to Egyptian statues of Anubis. Samantha was leaning against his right shoulder, though neither of them could specifically identify how that had come about. She, herself, attributed it to the fact that the bed was barely largely enough for both of them.

"See, at first, I just thought about sitting back and letting the Soldier—", Anteros started, though was halted by Samantha asking, "`Soldier`?". To which Anteros briefly responded with, "a `Warrior` Xenomorph".

"Oh".

He continued, "I just sat back at first and waited for the Soldier to do my job for me, since it had become apparent that I couldn't do it myself. But... I sort of went berserk and... killed her". His tone became sheepish, near the end of the statement, and his head oriented slightly down and to the right, to "look" at Sam out of the "corner" of his "eye".

Samantha's head lifted up and she looked up at him (or, at the underside of his jaw, more like), and gave him a quizzical look, eyebrow raised, "what?".

Anteros's head bent even further to return her gaze, and said "yeah", in a voice that was a mix between bored and subdued.

She thought for a long moment, before asking, "is that bad?".

Objectively, it obviously was, but she meant in the sense of whether the action had connotations that would affect the two of them, in the here and now.

Anteros answered, "well, it's the closest thing that my species has to a crime and, if Mother found out, I'd be marked for death. And, subsequently, so would you. Luckily, though, when it happened, I was nowhere near close enough to the central nest for Mother to read my thoughts, so my secret was relatively safe, at the time", grimly.

"I basically had three options, at that point. I could, either, run away from the Hive and cut off any contact from Mother, I could make excuses to stall for time and wait for a solution, or I could find a way off-planet. The first option would result in one of Mum's Praetorians being sent to hunt me down, the second wouldn't pan out in the long run, and the third was... and is unfeasible", he rattled off.

She took in all that he had said, and sort of allowed the knowledge to stew in her mind, a deep frown adorning her features.

"I chose to leave the planet", he said. Sam looked back up at him, again. Her brow furrowed. She blinked a few times and stared at the door. There was something sort of sticking out to her— something about Anteros's' account of events wasn't adding up, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it, at the moment. Anteros waited for her to come up with a question. It took longer than expected, and things began to become a bit awkward. Well... Samantha began to feel awkward, which in turn clued in Anteros to act in some way. Now that verbal communication was possible... he was feeling rather uninhibited, now that he could simply explain away anything that came across as odd.

As such, he proceeded to nuzzle Samantha's scalp with his snout. Probably a bit of weird decision, in hindsight, but he honestly didn't find anything questionable about it, in the moment. The way that her hair gave way in response, and scratched against his lips and "face" was... not unpleasant. For him, at least. Samantha herself didn't seem to really notice, at first, though the longer he continued the action, she began to lean her head back in response, apparently enjoying it. She didn't stop thinking of what was bugging her, though.

Just then, in the deepest pits of her mind, a tiny signal shone outward— one that he recognized. A faint memory of large, gentle fingers caressing Samantha's scalp and playing with her hair. It was steeped in nostalgia and a wanton lust for that sort of comfort. So... Anteros was all-too-happy keep it going. The more he did, the stronger that that memory grew, and the more he focused on that, the more that he experienced... he didn't know what to call it, but the simplest description would be a "happiness feedback loop"— immersing himself in that specific memory gave him some sort of pushback. Mildly pleasurable. Reminding him of the days when all he did was squirm about in the crest and arms of Mother.

Anteros's "machinations" gradually became more and more complex. It seemed that... Anteros hadn't experienced this, before, but he had a working theory. Perhaps... focusing on that memory from Samantha's mind was allowing him to become more "skilled" at the task he was performing. Now, after two minutes of the action, he was rubbing the entire left side of his three-foot-long skull on the back of her head, in long, slow streaks. And the more... "accurate" or "close-to-home" his "technique" got, the more apparent that that memory of comfort became in Samantha's mind.

All of this was typical behavior for Anteros— enacting half-baked experiments at the drop of a hat and taking mental note of everything that happened. The number of times he'd done such things with the Egg Chamber's captives apropos of nothing was more than a few— tickling someone's foot, for example, or holding someone's hand and squeezing. And this was fascinating to him. Of course, it sort of went out of hand when the trance-like state of relaxation that Samantha had been put into was starting to effect him, as well. He'd never had this happen before, and had no instinctual reason to take joy from it — he couldn't recall any example of his ancestors ever having hair — but... because Samantha enjoyed it... he now could. Fascinating, indeed...

Almost as though he could use Samantha's mind and memory as a sort of... "lens" or "proxy" with which to learn more sensations and experiences. More... joys of life.

Anteros came back to reality when his head and neck completely went slack and he fell asleep for a split second.

A bit startled, he abruptly sat straight up and shook his head from side to side, vigorously. He made noise halfway between a chuff and a snarl.

What the Hell was that? I didn't feel tired a minute ago..., he thought.

When he thought up all of the theory behind what just occurred, he noticed that Samantha had fallen into a light sleep, as well. She was breathing lightly, lungs and diaphragm pulsating in a slow, rhythmic, relaxed pace. Anteros might have stared at her unmoving body and blinked repeatedly. He then decided to wake her back up.

He raised his right hand, curling all but his "index" finger and hovered it over Samantha, firmly prodding her in the arm with his claw. He seemed to have misjudged the force of it, since it drew a tiny amount of blood (barely more than a pinprick), but it woke Sam up, instantly. She jumped awake, making a noise that sounded something like a mix between a snort and a choke. She also sprung to her hands and knees, seeming to enter a panic. She then stared at the door, eyes wide and blinking as she struggled to recall what happened.

Eventually, she caught on and blew out a large breath through her mouth, as she leaned back on her shins, and rubbed her face with her hands. Apparently, she tended to fall asleep quite easily when someone played with her hair— even being known, specifically, for it, among her childhood neighbors and relatives. Samantha then looked at him, eyes darting between his eyeless forehead, his sternum, and his shoulders, and kind of spaced out... Anteros was beginning to realize that she did that a lot. So, he prompted her—

"You were... going to ask a question?", he supplied, vaguely.

She "oh"ed in response, happily laying back down on her stomach (not appearing to want to question what just happened) and said, "right...". When she adopted the same position that she'd been in, before, getting comfortable, she paused. Her left fist lifted up, with her thumb pointed backwards, as she was about to speak. Her pointing thumb sort of vaguely shook, seeming to point at behind her own head.

Anteros couldn't detect color, but he could sense the various primal signals that arose when a Human's body reacted on its own. As such, he could tell that she was mildly blushing, as she asked, "could you, um... could you keep doing the hair thing, again, please?", a bit sheepishly.

Anteros had no real objections to doing that for her, but felt compelled to ask, "you enjoyed that?", feigning utter ignorance and making sure to keep his tone as neutral as mentally possible.

Her blush deepened by a degree, but she quickly answered "yes", and put down her hand. Apparently, a decent part of it was simply the novelty-factor and strangeness of receiving such affection from a Xenomorph, but he could tell it was genuine.

He pulled himself forward a bit, such that his hind feet were parallel Samantha's shoulder blades. Anteros couldn't tell you whether he was some variety of "woman savant", but Samantha seemed to think so, given that when the fingers of his right hand touched the base of her neck and moved upwards, she grunted and leaned back into his hand. The tips of his claws seemed to slice their way through the waves of her hair, and repeatedly worked in upward strokes with small variations in trajectory and pressure, working through small knots and split ends.

This time, though, she made certain not to doze off and focused on thinking of what she was going to ask him. Her shoulder blades, shoulders, and arms still squirmed and stretched and flexed in blatant appreciation.

A tiny flash of instinct from The Ancestral reminded him that he could easily snap her neck and crush the prey's spinal column with a twitch in his hand, but that's all it was. A flash. He guessed that it was just a... morbid, primal influence, in the same vein as the disturbing realization that you could push your friend or family member off of a cliff as easily as one closed a door or shut a cupboard.

After about ten seconds, Samantha finally asked, "if you decided to leave Guardian after killing the other Xeno, what made you try to take me with you? Couldn't you have just left me to die in that hole, and everything would have been easier for you?". She'd correctly deduced that he was the one that had extracted her from the rubble of her fall. She was also wondering at the motivation he had for harboring her in an apartment and bringing her food. The first apartment, with the walk-in shower and the kick-in-the-teeth business.

Anteros... didn't know how to explain The Unknown in a way that made sense, so he answered, "when I thought of doing that, and just leaving you behind... I just... couldn't. I simply could not do it. It... the thought bothered me. On a... deep, uncanny level. I just... something in me decided against that. I... I sort of came up with an excuse for it, after the fact. I figured that, whatever gave me a seizure when I tried to kill you, was the same thing that drove me to kill my Hive-Mate, and likely the same thing which was making me refuse to leave you behind. All of that, as far as I know, has never happened, before... ever. It can't simply be a coincidence, can it? Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and thrice is trouble. I... wanted to find out the reason behind all of it. As far as I'm aware, I'm the only individual of my kind to ever regard Human beings with anything other than abject fury and hatred".

Samantha was paying close attention to his explanation. Looking for any discrepancies or conveniences that might give away some form of deceit. Eventually, she dubbed it acceptable, and said, "alright". She briefly frowned at his theory, about there being some reason behind the prior-stated anomalies, and deemed it a worthy question to answer. She became curious about the anomaly, herself, and started wracking her brain to find an answer for all of it.

Anteros, as his hand was beginning to cramp, decided to change up his "formula". His hand wrapped around the back of her neck. His digits briefly connecting, and enclosing her throat, caused Samantha a bit of fear, before he retracted and simply placed the tips of his fingers and thumbs on the back of her neck, right around her spinal cord. He then applied some pressure (a minuscule amount, as a moderate amount of force from him could give her whiplash) and moved his fingers about in a circular manner, making for a sort of "neck massage". Which Samantha seemed to approve of, given that she gave another, equally satisfied-sounding moan as before.

She abruptly flattened herself out, arms at her sides with her face buried in the bed's blanket. She groaned, loudly, "ngggrr— how are you so good at that?!". Her voice was muffled, though still comically loud.

Anteros answered in a frank tone, even shaking his own head, slightly, "I have absolutely no idea".

She guffawed, and shook her head, vigorously— he had to pull back his hand as not to graze or cut her, and Anteros took that as a decent time to stop. There'd be time for experimentation, later. She turned over unto her back and clasped her hands behind her head.

He asked, "shall we continue with the questions? I'm sure that there's more to compare notes on".

She glanced at out of the corner of her eye, and replied, "right", a bit lazily.

Sam rubbed her eyes, crossing one foot over the other. She thought on the events that had passed in the previous two days, and asked, "back in the other apartment, the one I first woke up in... why...", she struggled to find the phrasing, though her mind finished the question in its more blunt form: "why did you scare me?". By which she meant, "why did you barge into the room, knowing that I would get scared and try to run? And why didn't you just talk to me? And why did you let me kick you in the face?". Anteros often found it fascinating that Humans managed to communicate as effectively as they did without being telepaths, hence her current difficulty with articulating all of her thoughts succinctly.

He deigned to cut her short and satisfy all aforementioned concerns.

"I was... testing the boundaries— by which, I mean that I wanted see how injured you were, whether you could walk, and what your immediate response to me would be. I... also thought that it was a good time to say `hi`", he said. "I figured that, since I'd have to bring you along, anyway, from that point onward, that introductions would have to be made. I didn't see that kick coming, either. Actually hurt, somewhat".

Samantha... didn't seem entirely convinced of the validity of his response. Not so much that she thought him to be lying, but more so that she was retroactively criticizing his method of going about the whole thing, in her head. Which lead to her subsequent question, "why didn't you try to speak to me, though?".

"Well, excuse me, darling, but it's not as though I hadn't just had a seizure and killed one of my Hive-Mates because of you. For all I knew at the time, I might have gotten a stroke or another seizure if I tried to communicate. Telepathic conversations, easy as they are for me, aren't exactly simple— I'm mentally forcing your brain to register audio-stimulus that isn't there, through the use of complex brainwave-buggery. You weren't really in the proper state of mind to truly pay attention to any pantomiming from me, in any case. You did assume that I had poisoned the food I got you", he explained, in a tone that feigned irritation.

Neither of them spoke for a few seconds

"So... I'd say that we both made stupid decisions, at the time", he pointed out, fairly.

They fell into silence, while Samantha chewed over what he'd told her.

She eventually nodded to herself, and focused on staring at the ceiling, saying, "alright, that... makes sense, actually. I probably would have done the same thing, in your position". Her tone wasn't entirely committed, though that was because her train of thought was rattled off-course, and not truly due to disbelief.

Another silence, as Anteros waited for more questions while Samantha thought of more to ask.

---

The Queen Xenomorph's breath vented out of her mouth, jaws angling downward from her crest and shaking side-to-side. It came out in a violently powerful burst, warm mist permeating the air in front of her face, and dispersing. The hands of her primary arms clenched around her two "arm-rests", made out of long, winding structures of Hive-Resin and forming a ring around her upper body. An audible cracking sound erupted from her knuckles, while her tertiary arms near the bottom of her ribcage meekly flailed about in frustration.

A low rumble, deep enough to put fear into the heart of any Human, vibrated from the pit of her chest and spread throughout the rest of her body, making the air shudder and the metal beneath her quake.

Hatred. Vexation. Spite.

First, the humans increase the number of warriors being sent into her territory. Then, her children's attack on the human's as they were establishing a "forward base" failed, meaning that the Prey now had a foothold in one of the deepest parts of her territory. After having to deal with those developments for the past seven days, suddenly, her favored Scout, the one that called himself "Anteros", defied her will and slaughtered his sister! The only reason that she hadn't already sent some Soldiers to hunt down the rogue was due to a consecutive attack from the humans, using a new form of vehicle with noticeably more powerful weapons, on the eastern edge of her territory.

And now, as though all of that weren't a big enough threat, there were now... Hunters afoot. Resulting in the death of one of her eldest Praetorians. And several children. A bitter, bitter enemy. The very thought of the scum-sucking, reptilian butcher made her skull burn.

The Queen's left arm raised up, suddenly, and came down on its arm-rest, crushing it and snapping the end of the Hive-Resin structure. The piece of broken mucus-mold went flying off to her right and ending up landing on the head of a Worker that had just then trotted into her chamber. The Queen's rage subsided, briefly, as the Worker barked a hiss in fright and ran up to her. The Worker leaped upwards, into the Queen's waiting arms.

She thrummed a soothing purr, holding the child up to her head. The Worker's limbs and tail curled inwards as he purred in turn, held aloft by his mother's arms. After a few seconds, she lowered the Worker to the floor... and subsequently became irate, again, at the current problem that stood in her way. Even as that same Worker proceeded to climb up her throne and set about repairing the arm-rest she had broken.

A lesson that Anteros had taught her, long ago, went something along the lines of: "when there are multiple problems that need to be tackled, cut down the smaller ones first, such that you can better focus on the larger matters". So... it was only appropriate that she use the knowledge. She would prioritize orchestrating the rogue's death, and then plan for the bigger threats, later. The irony of her decision-making escaped her notice.

She reached out with her mind, leaving her own self, and touched the minds of three Soldiers, chosen at random. She gave them the image of Anteros, gave them their goal, and sent them to the location she'd seen him last. No words were needed. Why use words of a useless language, when one could simply give your memories and emotions to one another?

The Worker had just finished preparing her new arm-rest, and jumped onto her back, weaving his way between the struts and poles connected to her body that formed her support, and curled himself into a tight ball, under her crown. He gave her knowledge— told her she would need to wait for a few minutes for the Hive-Resin to dry before using her arm-rest, again...

"Minutes...?", she realized.

Her head and crown were tossed backwards, briefly crushing the Worker that was resting on her neck. He was uninjured, but it was to make certain that he never used that word or that deplorable language ever again. She didn't know how anyone but her and Anteros knew of that detestable language, but she would swiftly crack down on any behavior of the sort. For any of her children to indulge in the affectations of their Prey was... unacceptable.

The Worker scrambled out from under her crest and simperingly leapt down from her body to the metal floor, hunching over and displaying a submissive posture. He crawled toward her feet and lowered himself to crawling on his belly in a request for reconcile. The Queen vented a breath and thrummed an acquiescence to him, signaling forgiveness.

Her ovipositor, meanwhile, had produced a new Egg— depositing it amidst a modest clutch of a few dozen others far behind her, all coated with a thick, sterile ooze. This chamber, large and empty, with only a minimal amount of Resin at the two entrances (on the other end of the chamber from her, and just to her right), had been the place where she'd first established an Egg Chamber. The Hive had newer, bigger ones, now, elsewhere, but this had remained her home for the whole of her time on this planet, partially because it was one of the few places where she could stretch to her full height. There remained, as there had always been, a blocky number "13" painted on the wall to her left in characters large enough to paint a hundred meter fence— though she'd never noticed it.

As the Worker gratefully nuzzled her tertiary pair of arms in response to her forgiveness, a telepathic pulse boomed from her mind, and in short order, a troop of Workers entered from both entrances and began to collect the accumulated Eggs, hoisting the precious cargo onto their backs, using their dorsal-tubes to carry them, as each Egg was slowly transported out of her chamber to wherever they need be. The Worker beneath her feet joined in this task, and the Queen hissed to herself as the task proceeded to be done, making her feel a pleasant rise of satisfaction.

As the last of the Eggs was being removed, the Queen felt a sudden pain in her back and legs, and knew that she needed to stretch after having been in a squatting position for the past two weeks—

Her lips curled backwards and she snarled at herself for daring to even think the word— her kind needed no measurement of time. And the fact that she'd apparently grown so habituated to hearing Anteros say such things only angered her, further.

Grabbing at her arms rests, the Queen shook herself free of the Hive-Resin struts that connected to her dorsal-pikes, and began to stand, a shower of crystalline, brackish-green mucus and mold falling about her body; a wet, tearing noise signaling the detachment of her ovipositor, as it subsequently flopped to the ground with a squelching thud and began to spill a mess of amniotic fluid and placental folds across the floor, a torrent of unfinished egg-casings and milky embryos following soon after.

As she stood up to her full height and strode forward, her limbs simultaneously shaking themselves on her way to the middle of the rectangular chamber, she produced another psychic pulse, to call for the remains of her discarded ovipositor to be torn apart and transported elsewhere.

It was as a horde of at least fifty Workers began filing in and out of the Chamber, and as the Queen set about laying down for a nap that she began to think of what may need to be done about the presence of the Hunters...

---

"Why are you so... different-looking than most Xenos I've seen?", Samantha asked.

"I am a Scout", he answered simply.

"What's a `Scout`?", she asked.

"We are... Xenomorphs that are not spawned from Humans, unlike most of the Hive. Scouts, like me, are usually birthed from quadrupeds. Cats, dogs, cows, oxen, horses. That sort of thing", he replied.

"I... didn't know that that was possible. How many Scouts are there?", she inquired. He knew she meant "on Guardian", and not in general.

"Around... fifteen? Twenty, at most? There aren't many creatures on this world other than Humans that we can... Infest. Anything smaller than a cat, and probably not even that, would usually be used for food, anyway", he explained.

She looked over at him, "you eat?".

He "looked" at her, in return, "rarely, but yes. And, no, we don't produce any real `waste`. I'm pretty sure that any leftovers are released into my blood stream and dissolved. Though... I've seen a few of my Hive-Mates randomly regurgitate the remnants of their food, so I can't really be sure for certain...".

A pause.

"How... and why did you intervene when those Marines were giving me trouble?", she asked. He hadn't been expecting that subject to be broached, nor for it be done in such a blunt way, but... he supposed now was as good a time as any.

"Well... I dropped from a vent in the ceiling behind you and they all tried to shoot me. They all missed, and one of their shots hit you in the arm. You hit your head on the floor when you fell and conked out. So, I slammed the door in their faces, picked you up, dragged you through the vent I'd just come through, and made my way back to The Apartments, until I brought you here. Then, I patched you up. And... here we are", he explained. She hummed at this and nodded, then realized something—

"Where were you while I was recovering?", she asked.

Anteros, almost forgetting that he wasn't Human, abruptly sat up with his head oriented down at Samantha's curious face. He... was afraid of this. He'd been hoping that this could be avoided. He could lie. He could just tell her that he was running around on the look-out for any intruders. But... he also wanted to be held responsible, should it be deemed unjust. He just... couldn't help but tie everything back to Human standards— Human morality. And justice. Also, honestly... he didn't regret what he'd done, per se. What he regretted was his lack of self-control. And... that concerned him.

"The Marine that shot you on accident— ", he began to say, before Samantha interrupted him.

"Which one?", she asked.

"I think his name was `Gort`...", Anteros answered, slowly.

"Gorm", she corrected, nodding to herself, and seeming to be pleased at having remembered it.

"Yeah... him... after your wound was healed, I tracked him down and... killed him", he said, frankly.

The air suddenly increased in temperature by ten degrees. Samantha, almost not realizing what he'd just admitted to, continued to lie on the bed, dumbstruck. He'd said it so... suddenly. So flippantly that she might have ignored it as unimportant if she were a moron.

She then abruptly shot upwards into a sitting position and stared at him, eyes wide with her brow creased and mouth ajar in shock. She couldn't think of anything to say, at first, but that would soon not be an issue.

"Why?", she asked, slowly, squinting at him.

Anteros, to his infinite shame, couldn't think of a way to explain it. He'd had reasons, but as he thought of them, they seemed idiotic

"Anteros. Why did you kill him?", she asked again. Her mind worked overtime, trying to square this new revelation with everything he'd spent the last while telling her. This revealed to him in an instant that although she seemed incredibly trusting in so short a period, she remained utterly vigilant, and was prepared to fully rescind that trust in a heartbeat.

"Did— did he shoot at you? Was your life in danger?".

"No", Anteros answered, not knowing what to say.

"Then, why did you do that?", she pressed. The seconds dragged. Anteros turned and hopped off of the bed. She crossed her arms.

Fucking Hell. Fucking Hell!, Anteros mentally panicked. The longer he couldn't find an answer, the more agitated she became, and the more agitated she became, the more he felt compelled to say something. But what to say— he wasn't sure. The fact that her distrust was founded on an undercurrent of fear and anxiety only pressured him further and made him feel more guilty.

"Why?!", she all but screamed, incredulously. Her arms raised up slightly as she yelled, her tone halfway between stark disbelief and immense confusion.

She felt that same buzz in the back of her skull flare up, signaling his imminent response. She'd developed an affinity for it in past hour, but at the moment, it only served to further irritate her.

"I was angry", she heard him say. In a tone that almost sounded bored, but one which she recognized. That of a man who was ready to be yelled at. She was too angry at the moment to laugh at the comparison.

She'd just been given all of his spiel about feeling guilty over killing people, about making sure to commemorate the victim when forced to kill, about admiring Humans and Human values... only to then be told that he'd done the exact opposite barely more than an hour or two ago! When he didn't have to, when he had no real reason to, and when there was no one around to force him to! Was all of that shtick a lie, then?! An exaggeration?! Was he taking her for a ride?!

She jumped off of the right side of the bed, starting to walk about in a slow circle, pacing on the right side of the room. She ran her hands through her hair before turning back to the Amber Demon, who now stood on all fours near the foot of it, and next to the door. She felt a headache coming on. She could feel her stomach doing somersaults and her heart pounding away at her ribcage like a set of drums. Such was her rage and stress.

At the moment, she was operating mostly on pure impulse. Her speech wasn't being "vetted", at the moment. She yelled, "you were angry? how does that justify it?!".

She stared at the Xenomorph before her. She received no response. Anteros merely "stared" back at her, not a single inch of his body moving, at all.

Samantha gritted her teeth, grimacing and scowling as she put a hand to her forehead, covering her eyes in a show of distress. She spoke, "Anteros... I don't think I need to explain that this is completely at-odds with everything else you've told me about yourself...", voice becoming plagued with tiredness and irritation.

In truth, she wasn't particularly thinking very much, at the moment. She was just... angry... and tired... and frightened, now that she felt her safety had been in question all along.

"Do you have any excuse other than `I was angry`?", she asked, almost sounding desperate. "Do you have a reason for me not to completely... ", she vaguely waved her left hand at some invisible thing in the left corner of the room, as she looked at the floor.

Anteros took that moment to speak, "dismiss me", apparently, finishing her sentence. His tone sounded... no— felt quiet. However, with a slight bit of irritation. A tone she didn't pick up on.

Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Sam rubbed her temples, trying to soothe the headache.

She finally asked, her voice completely adopting a defeated tone, "did you at least regret doing it?". Her arms flopped down to her sides, hunching over, and expression sad. When she received the answer, "not in the moment, but... afterward, yes", she sighed deeply. That was... better than nothing, but it was still disappointing to hear. At this point, she honestly felt as though she were a parent talking to an irresponsible child. Which only made her more upset, because she truly didn't need any of this crap! She didn't appreciate having her time wasted!

She didn't hear the faint growl he emitted. She didn't feel it shake the floor.

Again, Samantha did not think before she yelled, "honestly, Anteros... what possibly possessed you to act so irrationally?! Wha-what...", she stammered, "why on Earth would you do that?! Why would you tell me this and expect me to be okay with it, huh?! I just— why?! This is... God— what's wrong with you?!".

Almost too fast to see coming, Anteros stood to his hind feet, stepping forward in the process, and ended her train of thought with a single, stomp— his foot caving a small area of the floor and tearing a hole in the carpet. The force of it vibrated through the floor and made Samantha's legs shake, causing her to topple backwards and fall flat on her ass. Her head banged into the wall behind her, and she grunted.

Just as she got her bearings back and got to her feet, a painful ringing in her head made itself known, and she winced, futilely covering her ears. When she looked up at the Xenomorph before, she was met with a klaxon call of, "You make me irrational! That's what's wrong with me!".

Anteros was standing at his full height, easily two foot taller than her full height. His digitigrade legs spaced widely, one foot far behind the other. His shoulders were squared, fists clenched, and his teeth bared. He was breathing heavily through his fangs, chest and shoulders rising and falling rapidly. She could hear it from five feet away. It immediately put fear in her heart and forced her to pay attention.

She stared blankly at him as he proceeded to rant, "everything— every single word I have told you is the truth!", his tone was stern and conveyed utter conviction, something she hadn't heard from him. It occurred to her that he was a thinking, feeling person, and not just a static, one-note animal. She'd sort of... not considered the idea that he was capable of an outburst like this.

"Don't you dare think, for a second, that none of this difficult for me! My entire existence is something I barely understood to begin with, and meeting you made it completely incomprehensible— I came closest to literally dying barely more than a day ago! And on top of that, I have to deal with the fact that you have a profound amount of influence over my mind and body! To the point where I find myself doing stupid, crazy, dangerous shit for seemingly no reason, whatsoever! Against my will! Like my soul is being commandeered by some malevolent force! This entire situation is fucked! It's convoluted and terrifying as Hell, for me! My only hope is that it somehow all makes sense, if-and-or-when everything blows over!", he ranted.

Anteros's teeth were concealed under his lips once more, his breathing beginning to slow. She almost felt like crying — it wasn't often that she was yelled at, so callously — but composed herself as she listened. She sensed, rightly, that things were calming down, again.

"It's really no surprise, Samantha, that you getting shot and going unconscious made me go berserk. It's happened thrice, now (his right hand lifted up to show a raised inner thumb). First being when I murdered my Hive-mate, the second when I killed Gorm (his index finger raised second, before his hand then transitioned into pointing somewhere to his left), and the third one is rotting in that hallway! Which, by the way, means that Mother now knows where we are, and knows what I've done!", he said, tone becoming less angry and more bitter.

A long pause passed by. Anteros's fists unclenched and his shoulders lowered.

"I'm not trying to pin accountability on you for the man's death, and I... I'm not trying to say that all of this is your fault or that everything would have been better if you'd never showed up, or anything contrite like that. What I'm saying is... none of this easy. Did it happen? Yes. Can we change it? No. And did I regret doing it? Of course I do! Because you— ", Anteros rattled off. He pointed a finger at Samantha, and paused. For the first time, Anteros struggled to come up with the right words, it seemed.

"... you are an anomaly", he finished, his pointing hand lowering to his side.

Anteros's head oriented down and to his right, shaking.

The Xenomorph dropped to all fours with a loud thud, head still bent downwards. His tail dragged along the floor as he walked forward and sat on his haunches at Samantha's feet. His head then craned up to "look" at her face, a minute whine squeezing from his closed mouth, like a worried hound.

"You make me irrational. You make me lose control of myself. The fact that I don't know why bothers me, and I've... I want to find out why...", he stated.

Samantha's thoughts on this? Her immediate instinct, off the bat, was to use sophistry. To... spin the argument back around and continue to fight— to retaliate after almost being brought to tears. But... she wasn't convinced that that would even work.

So, after a few seconds of thought. And when she considered everything they'd talked about, and everything he'd shared with her since they started talking, she came to a new conclusion.

Well... he's not wrong. I'm not the only one with problems, here. And he wouldn't have much reason to lie to me about any of this.

Samantha had stood on shaky legs as she'd listened. By the time Anteros was done with his speech, her headache was gone. And now, as she stared down at him, she felt more tired than ever.

"You really didn't mean to do it? You genuinely didn't have control of yourself?", she asked, whispering.
"Yes...", he replied. "It was... subtle. Snuck up on me. Enough that I didn't see it coming. I... it was already too late by the time I realized what I was doing..."

She sighed, rubbing her eyes, and lowered herself to a knee.

She raised both of her arms and leaned forward and hugged Anteros around the arms and torso. His chin and the front half of his head hung over her left shoulder. "You're right. I'm sorry. I can't know what it is that you're going through", she said, "... thank you for being honest with me, at least". He felt no small relief to find that the apology was genuine— although it once again felt odd for the Human to apologize to the Xenomorph, in this circumstance.

He wasn't very soft. Nor warm. But Samantha just needed a hug, right now. So... Anteros held still. Even when they were both sitting down, he was taller than her by a few inches.

The sensation... at first, it felt of nothing. But in Samantha's mind, the memories of hundreds of different tender moments of affection sprang forth. Mostly hugs such as this. If he were ever going to understand it, this was his opportunity. So, he immersed himself in as many of those warm pockets of memory that he could see. Using his mind to sift through as many of them as fast and deep as he could manage. After about thirty seconds... he felt a certain... warmth. Comfort. As he put himself deeper into her memories, the sensations he found began to deepen and leave impressions on his psyche.

By the time he pulled himself back out of her head, he had found an appreciation for the behavior of "hugging". A new... affinity for softness and... physical affection. Before, he'd have tolerated it, but not truly gained any enjoyment.

As such, he returned Samantha's embrace, wrapping his arms under hers and winding around her waist. He found himself purring as the two pulled each other closer. He, as always, monitored her brain activity. She was smiling, bittersweetly now, face buried in the crook of his neck and nuzzling— the flesh there being marginally softer than the armored parts of his body. She likened the experience to napping on a leather couch. She didn't seem to mind that her tank-top was riding up her back, either.

She continued to think on the issue. The pair eventually separated and agreed to put the matter behind them, especially as there was nothing to be done about it, at this point. It occurred to her that, had Anteros not intervened when he did, and caused her to be shot by that Marine: there was a decent chance she would have wound up in a murder court with a jury stacked against her— Guardian's justice-systems were notoriously draconian, especially when it came to assaults of police officers, nevermind killings. The Judge might even have used her as an example, just to prove to the public that Guardian's justice-systems did their job, even during all out war on their very soil. Similarly galling cases had happened, in the past.
Samantha Carman Quinn didn't know how to feel about the possibility that her prospects of being a free woman may well have hinged on the deaths of a few, good men— however inadvertently, on her part. She said none of this aloud, mind, but Anteros heard all of it.

Whatever the case, she couldn't change any of it, now. It was her and Anteros against the world, practically-speaking. And that was honestly a Hell of a lot better than any of the conceivable alternatives.

Woman and Xenomorph promptly returned to the bed to continue talking. At first about what exactly he had experienced when hunting down Gorm, then about how Anteros's senses and perception worked, and then about what telepathy was like. Minutes later, it was as though their argument had never happened.

She sat at the foot of the bed, with Anteros stood between her knees, facing the door. She took to running her hands over his domed skull just to give herself something to do. It felt... oily to the touch. Almost wet, yet with no real moisture. Not warm but not cold. Smooth as a dolphin's hide.

"You... mentioned that the Queen knows where to find us?", Samantha asked.

"Yes", Anteros replied. "I'm... actually surprised that no other Hive-Mates have showed up, yet".

"What do we do about it?", she asked.

A pause.

"We have to leave Guardian-625".

---

Meanwhile...

Zazin-Vor'mekta's typical modus operandi in his life usually went as such: "follow people's advice, until their advice proves to be ineffectual". Many newly Blooded Yautja tended to be rather... bitter about many of the things they were told and reprimanded for, as Younglings. So, many would set out to prove their former instructors wrong and find a better method of going about life. Only to then be caught floundering upon doing so, usually resulting in utter failure. Zazin' wasn't like that, though.

Zazin's' elder Blood-Brother, Kiande-Th'syra, often fancied himself as a sort of teacher, due to being older. A mentor. And he was, though not in the way that he believed himself to be. Kiande-Th'syra's' advice was almost always, either, questionable or simply redundant. Rather, Zazin's' elder sibling more-so served as an example, to him, rather than a teacher. In their childhood days, 'Syra would often butt heads with their mother and sire, and would go off on grandiose "quests" to prove them wrong whenever he disagreed with them. And dragging his younger siblings along with his schemes. Through the course of 'Syra's' bullish behavior, Zazin' quickly learned "what not to do", by observing the results of Kiande-Th'syra's ill-advised crusades.

One of these observations was: "trust in those older than you— even when it feels as though they are trying to screw you over". Thus, where his peers would chafe and struggle against the constraints put on them by the instructors and trainers of the Clan, Zazin' would accept them and simply try to do his best because of those constraints, rather than trying to succeed in spite of them. One of the lessons he'd been taught, many, many times by those older than him went as such...

"When fighting multiple opponents, your goal should not be to simply survive and wait for opportunities to thin their numbers. At best, it will leave you winded and constantly on the defensive. Your goal, rather, should be to stage-manage the enemies around you and goad them into falling for traps. Put yourself in as advantageous a position as possible, and trick them into putting themselves in an unfavorable situation. This will be easy, for their numbers will leave them overconfident, and when they are overconfident, they will be underprepared. Your job, in that situation, is to take advantage of that unpreparedness and allow their strengths to put them where you want them".

This piece of advice was proving to be especially useful, today.

Upon setting off on his second trip into the Hive as night began to fall and the sun was about to set, he had a new goal. "Eliminate the Royal Guards, to make the path to the Queen trivial". How did he plan to do this? By luring them out of the Hive and bringing them into the open— on top of The Infinite Roof (he'd decided that that was the technical term for it), where Zazin' would have the upper-hand. Well... as much of an upper-hand as could be gained when fighting Nrak'ytaras. Taking the battle into a flat, open plain would take away the Ahgai'Palak's ability to blindside him. No walls to use as cover, no objects to grab and throw— nothing but him and them.

As such, he walked to the area directly above one of the Hive's Eggchambers (as told to him by the volumetric scans collected by the Beacons), blew a hole in the Roof with his Plasma Caster, jumped down into the pit, waited for an Egg to hatch, grabbed the Parasite by its pseudo-phallus when it pounced at him, crushed it, and made his way back out, onto the Roof, just as... four Royal Guards came sprinting into the Chamber. If there was one thing that a Yautja had an edge in, when it came to fighting a Royal Guard, it was that Yautja had much more upward mobility. A healthy Yautja would be able to leap upwards by about... twenty noks at a stand-still. In addition to that, Royal Guards didn't have the ability to climb on walls. Nor leap like a Yautja.

They were simply too heavy. If they endeavored to attempt a vertical climb, they could only do so with an adequate amount of hand-holds. And not for very long. Not enough stamina to hang on a horizontal or inverted surface for longer than a handful of Units.

In any case, Zazin-Vor'mekta sprinted away from the hole in The Infinite Roof, Parasite still squirming in the grip of his gloved right hand. Its tail was coiled around his forearm, trying to injure him in some way, though his armor didn't allow for that. Even without the armor, his grip on the Parasite wouldn't be so easily undercut. When he was about ten jorrens (1) away from the hole, he spun about and stood on the spot, waiting for his pursuers to emerge from the pit.

As the first Royal Guard clawed its way out of the hole, snarling and growling all the while, Zazin' lifted the Parasite high above his head, producing a roar from the pit of his chest. He then proceeded to throw the creature onto the floor hard enough to make a dent in the metal and crushed the detestable thing under his armored boot. His foot lifted from the corpse as fast as it had come down, as acidic blood began to spray from various breaks in the dead organism's skin. As Zazin' stepped backwards, slowly, preparing himself, the Royal Guards had increased their vocalizations two-fold and hastened in their chase to kill him. The first that had crawled from the pit was standing by and snarling at him, possibly waiting for its compatriots to arrive... but not for long.

It apparently became tired of waiting in short order, just as one of its compatriots gained a handhold on the edge of the hole's blackened and shredded edge, and it charged towards Zazin' on all fours.

The impacts of its hands and feet on the Roof vibrated far and were very audible. Zazin-Vor'mekta could feel each one shake his feet. The closer that the Guard got, the faster his heart beat, as combat came upon him. The Kiande Admeha, sprinting at full pelt, reached him in less than three Ooman seconds over a distance of 33 meters (barely half of its top speed), and when it come close enough to strike, it pounced, launching itself forward in brief flight, talons outstretched and maw fully opened.

Zazin-Vor'mekta could not have grinned more enthusiastically behind his new, crimson Bio-Mask, as the Strength Vambrace enclosed on his right forearm extended down across his wrist, and connected to the attachment points on his fingers— a metal "brace" being enclosed onto his wrist and knuckles. A healthy, adult, male Yautja could match one of Earth's bears in muscle power, and with one of these Strength Vambraces, Zazin's' striking power in his right arm was increased by at least three-fold.

As such, one could imagine the Nrak'ytara's surprise when, instead of evading or running away, Zazin' took a step forward just as it was about to strike at him with its claws. Zazin's' left hand, holding his Plasma Glaive, was outstretched behind him, as his empowered fist wound up in his step.

Just before the Ahgai'Palak's claws could be swung, Zazin's' fist slammed into the creature's sternum with perfect accuracy and almost halted the beast's momentum, entirely. The blow produced an audible cracking sound, no doubt puncturing the creature's lungs as its ribcage was all but shattered. Had the Strength Vambrace been of a lower model or produced at an earlier decade, it would not have produced such results. And if Zazin-Vor'mekta were not Elite, he would not have had the right to requisition or use it from the Hunting Ship's armory.

In any case, the Royal Guard's incessant snarling was cut short into an impotent screech when all of the air in its lungs was expelled out of its maw, both arms going limp on either side of Zazin's' extended one. The Yautja, practically forced to hold up the creature's weight as it struggled to gain back some composure, didn't give it the chance to retaliate, and bodily kicked the beast in the abdomen with his left leg, ranking his arm backwards. Had the Guard not been nearly crippled by the punch, the kick would have done nothing.

The beast collapsed backwards, hands grasping at its own chest and throat as strained hisses were produced by its addled diaphragm. Zazin' reached down with his right hand, grabbing the Incendiary Explosive that was attached to the outside of his right shin. His thumb pressed the single button on the tennis ball-sized device, and he tossed the explosive nonchalantly on the writhing Serpent. It quickly went up in flames and (inexplicably) began howling and screaming in agony, in spite of its broken ribs, as it crawled away from the Yautja, trying to put out the flames on its body by dragging itself on the ground.

T'was not to be... as its carapace exploded from the strain of attempting to adapt to the new temperature. Sending chunks of the beast in every which direction. Though, it had crawled far enough away for Zazin' to not have to move from the acid spray.

Funny thing about Kiande Admeha. The oily layer of their exoskeletons could protect them from the most extreme of temperatures, but if one increased or decreased the localized temperature to a quick enough degree and with enough magnitude, that very layer in their skin would expand and/or contract too quickly— resulting in combustion or tearing, respectively. In other words, if you're fighting an Ahgai'Palak in an arctic environment, use flames— if in a volcanic or tropical environment, use liquid nitrogen. Or... any other gas that could be cooled to a dangerous degree. Luckily for Zazin' "Guardian-625" was quite a chilly planet. Or... it was, due to the terraforming done by Oomans.

In any case, the first of four was dead, and two more Royal Guards had emerged from the pit. However, as he looked upon them, he was given pause, as these ones seemed to have been Sain'ja before their molt. Which... caught his attention... a lot. The one that Zazin' had killed on his last excursion, as well as the one just now, were both of Worker-caste. Smaller than other castes, on average. And were not as tall as the new "challengers" now present, so to speak. The two Warrior Guards didn't seem to want to venture far from their pit, seemingly deciding to simply keep the Yautja in their sight and away from the nest. They were posturing in his direction, stomping about, waving their talons and fangs in displays of threat. Zazin' had seen worse, and his attention was focused not on their posturing, but on their morphology.

This... shouldn't have been possible. Royal Guards of varied castes in a single Hive, that is. If one Royal Guard was a Worker before its molt, then it meant that all of them were. There shouldn't be any Nrak'ytaras of other castes. It simply defied Ahgai'Palak biology. When a Queen first begins to lay eggs, all of her first batch are bound to be male and are bound to be the same caste as her. Male Kiande Admeha were only ever born through parthenogenesis. Self-fertilization. Every female Kiande Admeha is born with a "pre-packaged" set of eggs, and would produce more over her lifetime. These eggs, when hatched and Spawned from an Ooman, would be veritable clones of the Queen, only male.

This would then lead into the Queen having the strongest of her first batch fight to the death, and then reward the victor with Royal Jelly from her own body. This would trigger the male to begin producing growth and sex hormones, causing every Ahgai'Palak in the Hive to target him and drive him off. The new hormones would cause the male to molt into a Royal Guard, and then return to the Hive as a body-guard and mate to the Queen. Then, once the pair mated, the Queen would then be able to create Kiande Admeha of all castes, all subsequent offspring being female, due to the eggs having been fertilized by an outside party.

This would cause the population of the Hive, depending on what happened, to be almost 90% female, usually.

The Queen would store the sperm given to her by the Nrak'ytara for months on end and call upon him once it dried up. If the Royal Guard died or couldn't do the job, the Queen would have the option of, either, calling on more males to fight for the title of Royal Guard, or to allow herself to begin laying self-fertilized eggs, again, to produce more males.

All of that information had been drilled into Zazin's' head since he was an adolescent, and it sometimes frightened him how easily it all came rushing back whenever he thought about it. That said, the two Serpent Guards before him shouldn't be have existed, by all logic. They should be Worker Royal Guards, but they were clearly both Sain'ja. Too tall. Skulls both more angular and more ridged. Physique too bulky.

This presented something of an enigma to Zazin'. Female Ahgai'Palak could become Royal Guards, as well, but it was only a brief step between the female and Queen-hood. If the two Royal Guards before him were female, then the Queen of this Hive might well have developed some semblance of personality. Such a thing had happened before, but this Queen couldn't possibly have been old or wise enough for that to be the case.

Usually, female Royal Guards only came about after a female was separated from the Hive too long, or the current Queen perished, resulting in a Female Culling. Either way, the only way it could happen is if a female Ahgai'Palak began to produce growth and sex hormones within herself— something that only occurred when a Queen wasn't present. When a Queen wasn't producing the pheromone that inhibited such development.

And even if circumstances were willing, and it did happen, the current Queen would be more than likely to simply kill the "challenger". Or exile them. The only plausible way that this could have come about is if someone or something had purposefully tampered with the Queen's genetics and body chemistry, in such a way that her male clones could be born of castes other than her own... but that would be... ridiculous...

Zazin' suddenly had an epiphany. A very angry, very irritated epiphany.

It was Weyland-Yutani, wasn't it? It's always Weyland-Yutani— for pauk's sake!, he thought. He snarled behind his mask, making a small note to himself to see if he could procure a sample from this Queen to see what exactly had been done to it.

In any case, the two Sain'ja Royal Guards were still here. And he would have to kill them, something that couldn't be done at close range, not with being outnumbered. That would be suicide.

Thinking on his feet, Zazin' changed his grip on his Plasma Glaive from his left hand to his right hand. Reaching down with his left hand, down to his left shin, he grabbed the Sonic Emitter that was magnetically clamped onto his greave. He then exchanged the Glaive and Emitter to the other hand, and planted his Glaive in the Roof's surface. He aimed with his left hand, estimating the distance, thumbing the button on the Emitter's surface, before hurling the Emitter with his right arm, empowered by the Vambrace.

It sailed through the air, immediately catching the attention of the two Royal Guards. Their snarls quieted as their attention was grabbed. The Emitter landed at their, feet, between the two, creating a thud that Zazin' could hear, even at his distance. He picked his Plasma Glaive up out of the floor and held it loosely in his right hand.

It then detonated, producing a cacophonous range of various sounds on differing frequencies. On every frequency, really.

The two Kiande Admeha immediately began to clutch at their skulls, snarling in obvious pain. They were soon stumbling on their feet. Even Zazin' had to wince and growl at the sharp ringing in his ears.

Another funny thing about Ahgai'Palak kind. Given that they relied on sound to make sense of their surroundings, if you bombarded their senses with sound of a high-enough volume, you could effectively blind them. Though, the energy that had to be generated to make such a torrent of noise didn't often allow for use in portable devices. As such, after a few seconds, the Emitter would explode after overloading and frying its own circuits.

Before that could happen, though, the Plasma Caster on Zazin's' shoulder quickly locked onto the Royal Guard on the left. It fired a shell in an arc, the bright yellow explosive smacking into the creature's crest just before exploding. It sent the Guard tumbling back down into the pit behind it in a burst of light and smoke, howling in shock and pain. Some of its exoskeleton was likely fractured, perhaps with a broken crest and shattered teeth, but it would live. The detonation made the other Guard stumble and fall on the floor, too occupied with the Sonic Emitter's payload to notice.

A second howl could be heard from the hole, just after the first Nrak'ytara went into the pit with a scream. Must have knocked its friend back down into the pit with him.

The Emitter ceased its functioning and burst into pieces just as Zazin's' Plasma Caster locked onto the second Royal Guard.

So close, too, the Yautja thought as the Ahgai'Palak was only a scant few seconds from regaining cohesion when the second shot from his Caster landed on its head.

It exploded, eliciting an additional howl from the Nrak'ytara. It was already lying on its side, so, instead of falling into the pit, it simply rolled backwards. It scrambled back to its feet and centered its attention on the Yautja that had killed two of its comrades. The right side of its face and some of its crest was outright obliterated— the bone of its skull was completely exposed on that side. Acidic blood was... well, everywhere. Likewise, the right side of its jaw was hanging limply from its socket. Its pharyngeal jaw was also limply attached to the back of its throat and reduced to a stump.

The flesh on its right, upper arm was also incinerated. As in: gone. The limb itself was also a bit limp and seemed to move much more slowly than the left. Such was the result of losing muscle-tissue.

It seemed to attempt to roar, but all that came out was a single, gargled... "bark"? Was it a bark? Something of that matter. Either way, it proceeded to run towards him, though not on all fours and at a pace that seemed akin to a jog. Leaning forward, hunched over and swaying with every step.

Zazin' stood by and waited for it to advance... at first. It was, uh... it was taking a while. Already ten seconds had passed and the Guard was only halfway to its destination. It was almost awkward, one could say.

Zazin-Vor'mekta wasn't an especially patient Yautja, not when he had a timetable to follow.

So, he dropped his Glaive, allowing it to clatter to the ground after deactivating, and raised his left fist, taking aim, and tapping a button on his Wrist Gauntlet with his right hand. A light flashed on one of the Gauntlet's panels before an Energy Flechette fired from a small barrel on the underside of the apparatus. The projectile shot outwards, trajectory perfectly straight, with sparks and plasma particles spraying along its path.

The tiny missile reached its target, though the target took exception to being shot at and managed to avoid a direct hit, the Flechette grazing the left side of the Guard's head— shaving yet more flesh from its bones and rendering the front half of its head completely skeletal. It didn't slow down, though and was almost in range.

Zazin' deftly kicked his Plasma Glaive back into his hands just as the Royal Guard swung its left arm towards his head. The strike was fairly typical for Kiande Admeha: arm straight, swinging inwards and across, fingers spread apart and talons curled for maximum hit-potential and minimizing the possibility of the attack missing. Anyone of Elite rank had seen something like it a thousand times.

He hadn't quite managed to activate the plasma blades on his weapon, so Zazin' opted to simply duck and weave under the swing of the beast's arm, coming about the Serpent's left side. In response, the Nrak'ytara demonstrated its experience by, instead of allowing its swung arm to terminate its movement, used the limb's consequential position to execute a follow-up attack in the form of bringing the same arm back in the opposite direction, digits curled into a fist to backhand the Yautja.

The large knuckles of the beast, almost as large as Zazin's' skull, bashed into his Bio-Mask, making a loud, metallic clanging sound and sending the Yautja tumbling backwards, rolling across The Roof. Had it struck him with its tail, he might not still be alive. Having taken worse hits in his life, Zazin' compulsively used his momentum to deftly roll to his feet at the termination of his trip, even before he regained his faculties.

Also by compulsion, his fingers found the small switch on the Glaive's shaft that activated the weapon, and flipped it. White, translucent blades snapped to life, whips of fiery gas coiling off of them, and as he focused on the fight once more, he found himself having to jump backwards to avoid a swing of the Guard's left hand.

Zazin', by impulse (and as the Ahgai'Palak in front of him stumbled), adopted a loose stance, left hand holding his Glaive at its middle, pointed downward in front of him, with his right foot behind the other. It snarled in irritation, only managing to produce a gargle. The Royal Guard then lunged once more, beginning to swing its right arm, loosely, to swipe at him. The attack took about twice as long as normal to execute, due to much of the muscle on the beasts upper arm having been fried off. Zazin-Vor'mekta, having had enough of the creature, decided to put an end to it.

With two swift flicks of his Glaive-Arm, in two cuts — the first, a backhanded upswing leftward, and the second, a two-handed, horizontal slash to the right — he sliced off the Guard's attacking arm at the middle of its humerus, and then cutting off what remained of its jaw. The wounds were immediately cauterized, only a few drops of blood dripping from the holes, and both severed extremities fell to the floor within two milliseconds of each other.

Before the Kiande Admeha could have time to react to having its limbs being hacked off in such quick succession, Zazin' played the same trick that it had done on him, and brought one blade of his Plasma Glaive back across its previous path as a follow-up, slashing across the creature's neck— both his hands with palms facing downward as they gripped the middle of the Glaive's shaft.

The blow decapitated the Kiande Admeha. Its head fell unceremoniously from its shoulders, falling backwards off of the stump of its neck with the rest of its body following suit. Both fell to the floor with audible and palpable thuds.

All in all, the three strikes and the kill took about... two Ooman seconds.

Just as the corpse dropped to the floor, a screech to his right alerted him to the presence of yet another Ahgai'Palak Nrak'ytara charging towards him on all fours. This one was larger than the previous four... and seemed to have been a Ka'Torag-de before its nuptial molt. There was a large group of Sain'ja Serpents behind it, charging behind their leader.

As Zazin-Vor'mekta reached behind his lower back with his left hand and gripped one of the three, new Proximity Mines attached to his lower back, he grinned behind his Mask.

Ohohoho, this— this is going to be... so much fun!, he thought. He'd been wanting a proper battle like this, for a while. And now his Plasma Glaive was getting some decent use. And he had to say... he liked using it. A lot.

---

If someone teleported into the room and asked Samantha whether she considered Anteros a friend, her immediate, knee-jerk reaction would likely be to say "yes". And she had many reasons why. Most of which, she felt were fairly objective and logical.

For one, the Alien between her knees had saved her life three times by now, and kept her relatively safe since he'd found her. That was fairly obvious. For another, Anteros had proven himself to be more or less completely trustworthy. She couldn't think of any reason he'd have to lie to her— and he could have lied to her! Many times, he could have given her bullshit, but he was as genuine as can be, as far as she could tell. Or... at least, that was the impression she got from him. She liked to think of herself as very perceptive. And in any case, if he were lying, at this point, it would just be so grandiose and extreme to the point of the whole charade bringing in diminishing returns, as he had gained nothing from the "ruse", thus far. And likely wouldn't, beyond what he had already described as his goal.

Or, at least, that's what she chose to conclude on the matter.

Another reason why she considered him a friend, already: he was very charming. And smart. And fascinating to talk to. And... sort of a sweetheart. Everything about him and his story and what he'd been through seemed like the essence of a hapless romantic, to her. And fuck if she wasn't a sucker for those kinds of story.
She seldom forgot when people did her a favor, either. He'd helped her more than once, brought her her favorite food, and shown nothing but concern and care over her wellbeing over the course of their interaction. He'd managed to make her cry, cringe, laugh, blush, worry, rage, and apologize all in the space of an afternoon. It was all so... emotional. And sentimental— a lot of it already seemed like a distant memory, despite the time lapse being barely a few minutes.

Samantha, she thought, literally had no actual "best friend" in her life, beyond members of her immediate family. Just friendly acquaintances and colleagues. She had always been a bit of a loner. Not due to "not fitting in", but rather because she "never bothered to fit in". She was, after all, the kid who spent their afternoon watching nature documentaries and reading science-journals. The kid who never quite grasped the importance of small talk. Her parents suspected that she might have had very mild spectrum-disorder, but they'd never bothered to check. As such... she was fairly convinced that Anteros was the closest thing she'd ever had to a "best friend", or "friend", in general. She knew everything about him, basically.

In any case, Samantha was rather... attached to Anteros. For all of those reasons and more, she... couldn't really foresee a situation where she and him were separated. She was just... too invested in this— in him and in the circumstance at hand.

Samantha had this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, this utterly unique chance to learn about the most dangerous organisms in the galaxy. To get close to one and forge a relationship between species. She didn't have any illusions about there being peace between her kind and his, but she had every intention of seeing this through to its conclusion and making the most out of this for as long as possible. This was a chance to have her life mean something, in the grand scheme of the immense soup called "Humanity". Even if no one ever found out about her and Anteros, it would still hold importance in her heart. Give her something to have pride in. Though... the idea of becoming famous off of it was appealing.

She wasn't sure what his apparent mental issues could have been caused by— what reason that her presence, and hers alone, was enough to cause such profound psychoses and seizures. Nothing biologically made any sense as an explanation. But even if there wasn't actually anything to it, and it was simply all him being "crazy": she was glad to be able to help, however she could. Whatever the cause of it was, the result was that she'd made a new friend and she had a real shot of getting out of the XHT, alive.

Samantha was... thoroughly engaged, put simply. So much so that any separation, at this point, would have been extremely disappointing.

So, why then, did she hesitate at the idea of leaving Guardian? Why, of all things, did that bother her? She had the same bad feeling about the idea of "leaving the Hive". It was weird. She knew why, of course. She just... she'd been doing her best to simply not think about it. For... her entire stay in the Hive Territory.

Her long-lost pet dog, Charlie. Samantha did her best to think of it in as clinical a manner as possible, to avoid any breakdowns, but... she knew that it was time to address the issue. In reality... she probably could have found a way out of the XHT a mere few weeks after it started. But... ever since her dog left the picture... she'd been stuck in a sort of limbo. A part of her knew that he was probably dead, but... a grand majority of her refused to believe that and... kept her where she was. Stuck in a Xenomorph Hive... searching for a dead pet. It was almost storybook.

Samantha decided, at that moment, that it was time to let go. It was time to move on. Looking back on her past behavior and decision-making made her debate between cringing or shedding a tear. At this point, the notion of denying all that she knew to be true and stubbornly continuing her crusade to find her dead pet made her... oh, so very tried. She wasn't sure if she was having this conversation with herself because of Anteros's presence, or because it had simply been long enough that she could get over it, but... all she knew for certain was that she had not been very logical or smart about anything for the past six months.

It was time to... to sack up and cut the chaff.

She had to be an adult at some point, right? She rejected the idea that she was "replacing" Charlie with Anteros, because Anteros isn't a pet, nor is he a dog. But... she knew in her heart that it would be best to let dead ghosts rest. She'd just never gotten 'round to making the leap, until someone else had proposed the idea of simply leaving the planet.

She might have spent some time wondering why she hadn't felt conflicted when she'd had the chance of being rescued by those Marines, earlier— though, she chalked it up to a mix of desperation and denial.

Samantha's hands had long since stopped stroking Anteros's head, and she'd gone glassy-eyed in her day-dreaming. She abruptly shook her head, sniffing, and rubbing her face. She determined that she would have to grieve after they left Guardian-625.

She paused. "They"?

... yes. Yes, she liked the sound of "they". It had been "me, myself, and I" for the past six months, but now... it was "they", again. She smiled. Her hands went back to passing over Anteros's domed skull, though not for long, as he suddenly stood up to all fours and stepped forward, toward the door. She might have asked what he was doing, but he abruptly gave her the command, "grab the apples and the medical case. Now". His voice... she'd heard that tone only once before. Back on Earth, when a burglar had invaded the home, her dad told her to hide under the bed and not come out until she heard his voice, again.

That... was concerning, but Sam didn't think it prudent to question him, and did as he said. By the time she had the bag of apples in her left hand, and the medical case in her right, Anteros was walking out of the door, to the left. She hurried along behind him, stepping over a streak of acid-stain on the carpet just outside the door. She came up to his left side, as he was trotting on the right side of the hallway. She had to take long strides to keep up. Odd how he seemed so small, with his shoulder only coming up to her hip. Though, that effect didn't last long, given that he was so long from "nose" to tail.

Out of curiosity, she looked over her shoulder. Yep— there it was. The corpse of a decaying Xenomorph. Right there in the hallway. Making a massive hole in the carpet with its poured-out blood. Odd, how it hadn't already fallen through the floor.

After about two minutes of walking down the stupidly long hallway, passing by doors on both sides an uncountable number of times, Samantha deigned to ask what the trouble was. Anteros didn't respond. The only thing he did was lean his head back, "looking" at the ceiling, repeatedly. She might have wondered if he was "rolling his eyes", but he kept doing it every so often for the next four minutes. She was getting rather concerned, obviously. Anything that made a Xenomorph nervous would make everyone nervous.

---

There were a few things that Anteros had neglected to tell Samantha, over the last few hours. Many of the small stories in and around the Hive. One such story was one that had stuck with him remarkably clearly over the months, and one that he believed he'd probably never forget. Where he had learned a very important lesson. That lesson being: "revenge solves everything"— it being a phrase that had repeatedly occurred to him as he'd gone after that Marine squad and killed Gorm.

"Revenge solves everything" had been the last words of a particular Human Marine that had been Hived in the Eggchambers a matter of months ago. The soldier hadn't been present long enough for Anteros to hear his thoughts, so there had been no way of knowing that he'd managed to sneak in a bandolier of incendiary grenades. Nor that he was in possession of a knife, something that no other Marine bothered to stash, given their enemy's acidic blood. At the time of the incident, Anteros had been out and about scouting for Mother (attempting to clear his head of his newfound moral quandaries).

The thing about the Eggchambers was, unless a captive or a corpse needed to be moved, there was very rarely any Hive-Mate present in any of them.

And so it was that Anteros had only just trotted into the chamber when the Marine had managed to cut his arms free and escape of his bonds. As the soldier pulled the pin on every fire bomb on that bandolier, he screamed the phrase "revenge solves everything!" with a manic grin on his face— tone happy, though bittersweet. He threw the bandolier into the midst of the prime egg cluster and, as a Newborn began to emerge from him, proceeded to jump into the explosive inferno just as the conflagration surged outward to consume him.

Xenomorph Hives have little in the way of fire-safety when there was that fuel. The flames spread to engulf most of that egg chamber and two other egg chambers adjacent to it. All in all... at least twenty Hive-Mates died, and a large amount of Hosts and Newborns were cremated. Anteros had been the one to activate the sprinkler system— something only he knew about. Though, after having such immense trauma being branded onto his mind by the mental anguish of so many Humans, he'd considered simply running and letting the Hive burn. He never quite figured out why he'd chosen to save it. Perhaps because he knew that no amount of damage would actually destroy the Hive, anyway...

Anteros never quite found out where the phrase had come from or what cultural significance it had, but he supposed he didn't need to

The only good thing that Anteros supposed had come about was: most of the thoughts and emotions, generated by captive Humans, plaguing Anteros whenever he entered the Hive proper were... snuffed out.

After the fire was put out, Anteros went and looked for the Marine's charred body. It was mostly ashes, only the armor and knife and dog tags remaining— both burnt to the point of uselessness. Anteros had brought the dog tags to one of the Hosts he still had rapport with and asked what it said. The only word that could be made out from the crusted carbon-scoring was "Quintus".

Anteros had absolutely no idea why he was reminded of that memory when he spotted three Soldiers coming in the direction of the apartment room. They appeared as flashing streaks of electric energy, distant, though quickly advancing. He could feel their probing minds in his head, like the feeling of being watched, except an emotion instead of sensation. They were one floor down from Anteros and Samantha's, but could easily find a vent to crawl through. Thus, Anteros saw fit to depart.

The best case scenario would be for Anteros and his Human companion to somehow outpace their pursuers and go under the radar. The worst case scenario was for both of them to die, painfully. The chances of either were slim, provided that everything went well. Hopefully... they could try to give them the slip or trick them, or something. Or run into a squad of Marines to serve as a distraction. This was just wishful thinking, on Anteros's part, granted.

If only they were so lucky.

He'd expected to hear howls or calls from the trio pursuing the pair, but the hostile Xenomorphs were silent. Right up until Anteros and Samantha walked past a derelict, open elevator shaft, whereby snarls could be heard coming from below.

Anteros and Samantha were a good distance away from where they'd talked things out, about a mile and a half. Such was the nature of the hallways in the city of New Scena— long enough to get in a morning jog on one's way to the grocer. Or, at least, those were Samantha's thoughts on the matter. In any case, this was not where Anteros had been hoping for a confrontation. If one occurred, he'd hoped it would be in a courtyard or somewhere in open space, where he could make full use of his tail.

The fact that he had often imagined what fighting his Hive-Mates would be like would probably clue you in on how prepared Anteros was for this. The exact descriptor being: "more than he'd thought, less than he hoped". He had sometimes thought of proposing "sparring sessions" to Mother, but it would take too long to explain the purpose and efficacy of such a thing. Even longer to get her to agree to it and orchestrate such "practice".

The three Soldiers simultaneously clambered out of the elevator shaft and into the hallway behind Anteros and Samantha, at which point, Anteros stopped and turned about on the spot to face them. Samantha turned about to look and almost dropped what she was carrying in fright, giving a yelp.

The three Hive-Mates before them seemed... confused. They were each shifting their focus from Anteros to Samantha, then Anteros again, repeatedly. They were conflicted between carrying out their mission and killing the Human before them. They hadn't expected Sam to be here, meaning that Mother had neglected to inform them of her. Odd.

Seconds passed with utter lethargy, time seeming to dilate. Anteros was having trouble centering his focus on the threat. He could feel their presence on his mental peripheries. Their incessant, telepathic probing and scanning — completely lacking tact and uninhibited — brushed against his mind and pushed in on his perception. He could feel their confusion and indecision. Their anxiety. He was slightly... nonplussed to find that the non-hostile mental presence of his own kind gave him a sort of comfort, derived from familiarity. It was certainly... surprising to see how easy it was to sense their emotions, compared to how much more concentration it took to monitor Sam's thoughts.

She had already begun backpedaling the moment she saw them, so Anteros told the Human to "run"— giving her a push with his tail. It took surprisingly little deliberation for her to decide to bolt down the hall. He'd half-expected her to refuse and insist on staying, but nope. She was subconsciously concerned for Anteros's safety, though. Just... more concerned with her own. Which he supposed was understandable— it did make things easier for him, at least. This was going to be dangerous... and messy.

With Sam sprinting away, things were made a lot simpler for the three "assassins".

Anteros rose to his hind legs. His posture was what amounted to a "ready stance", if one could call it that. Legs spread apart, and left foot in front of the other, to the smallest degree. He was hunched over, spine diagonal to the floor, with his arms at his sides. His tail held straight out behind him, and his head was slightly bowed. His opponents were standing upright, two in front, with the third behind them, given how narrow the hallway was. They were standing tall, having been birthed from Humans, with their arms held at their sides. Their hands and claws were twitching incessantly, heads rocking side-to-side, teeth chattering intermittently, and tails lashing about behind them.

They were... hesitating.

This fight... was going to be... well, he had no benchmark for how difficult it would be. He assumed: "skin-of-your-teeth" difficult.

The three Hive-Mates in front of him were all Soldiers, two female. He could tell by the... "tone"— the "tint" to their mental pulses, as well as the scent of the pheromones that all three of them were incessantly spewing from their dorsal tubes. Nothing physical. "Xenomorphs" were not a sexually dimorphic species, he knew. Apart from Queens and Praetorians.

Because they were Soldiers, they held a natural advantage in combat. Two of them were... he referred to it as "Seasoned"— their skulls were ribbed along both sides with small spines running down the length of their skulls. They were at least four months old, in that case, and would have some amount of experience. The third, and eldest, was the male, standing behind the two girls, and was fully grown. Skull fully "carved" with the cranial markings that indicated full maturity. This male was at least six months old, and was likely a member of Mother's First Clutch. All the way back to the beginning of the Hive.

The two females were almost a foot taller than Anteros— the male, a foot and a half. The "girls", like all Soldiers, had broad, large shoulder ridges, reminiscent of armored pauldrons, with barrel-like torsos and tough exoskeletons on their upper bodies, their lower halves being simply tough, leathery flesh instead of chitin. The male behind them, being older, had developed these same attributes to their extreme. Anteros's claws would do next to nothing against any of their exoskeletons. Only his tail could punch through their armor. Either that or bludgeoning.

Anteros had never gone to the trouble of seeing how much, but he knew for a fact that each of the Soldiers in front of him were stronger than he was. By at least a decent margin. He did have a few advantages, though. Given his quadrupedal anatomy, his arms were proportionally long— able to touch his knees while standing up, without having to bend down. He had longer reach than his opponents, and he was fairly certain that he was more flexible, as well. Better able to contort himself. His tail was also much longer. Though, that was it.

Apart from that, his other advantages were logistical in nature, and were not guaranteed to help him. For one, the three Soldiers that he was to defeat would not be as prepared for this as him, and would be doubting every step of the way. Killing other Hive-Mates is strictly against the nature of his species, and unless these three had been present when he had killed Gangshi, they would not be nearly as... "motivated", as they would normally be, in battle. This would be compounded by the fact that they wouldn't be able to enter a rage-state quite as easily as they could when fighting Humans.

Another advantage in his corner: Anteros was no mere berserker. The typical "modus operandi" of most of his kind was to become enraged to the point of losing lucidity, and sacrifice every aspect of combat in favor of an adrenaline and hate-fueled, purely offensive onslaught. Usually, an uninterruptible flurry of claw swipes or bashing fists and thrusting tail-blades. No real "form". No structure. Just... pure offense.

However, Anteros had spent time listening to the thoughts of Human Marines, and their fantasies. These fantasies, more often than not, included certain "simulations" of what each Marine imagined or hoped they would do if their strength matched that of a Xenomorph. Idle day-dreams, really. Wish-fulfillment of downtrodden people, hanging onto hopes and revenge-fantasies. But each "simulation" and imagined fight seemed more or less plausible, especially given that Anteros was in a unique position to carry them out.

As such — and because Anteros didn't simply submit to fury and bloodlust — he had some knowledge of proper fighting "technique". Extremely basic, though. Blocking, deflections, weaving, dodging, kicking, takedowns, grappling, punches, counter-attacks, feints— various things such as that. The sort of things that only Praetorians were ever known to naturally figure out. His opponents, by comparison, would likely be very predictable. Especially given that Anteros couldn't be dazed by any protective reflex— no wincing or shrinking or flinching from attacks.

Anteros was as ready as he could be. He was able and certainly willing to get this show on the road. His instincts might have been entirely silent on it, The Ancestral having been relatively mute for the past hour or so, but he had enough agency to give himself the motivation. And motivation: he had in spades. He had not come all this way and gone to all of this trouble just to have himself or his charge die on their way out the door. Not when they were so close to getting the Hell out! Not after he'd only just fulfilled his life's wish!

The two females had begun to bark at each other in hisses and shrieks, egging each other on, working themselves up. Behavior like this had always reminded Anteros of something like a goblin. The male stayed silent behind them, only seeming to patiently watch the proceedings in front of him. Which was... odd, but not abnormal.

Come and get me, jackass!

Anteros bared his teeth and sucked in the largest breath he could manage, filling his lungs as far as they could expand. His arms rose up and spread apart, left leg stepping forward, as he started his "invitation". He released the loudest, longest roar he was capable of, head and jaws shaking side-to-side as a sound approximating a mix between a snarl and a hiss tore out of his throat. Drool sprayed from his maw in flailing strands, and his Piston Jaw extended, snapping at the air.

The sound drowned out any and all noise in the area, penetrating the walls and even shaking a painting off of a wall in a room nearby. It might render any Human deaf, and probably cause some brain damage. It could shake someone's bones and send them stumbling to the floor. It would make your skull feel as though it were trying to explode, and would make your eyeballs feel as though they were vibrating out of their sockets— it would thoroughly send the average Human into panic mode. And it almost made the Soldiers on the receiving end consider backing up.

The war cry lasted for about fifteen seconds, before the effort of maintaining it began to wear on him. Eventually, his mouth clamped shut, roar ending abruptly, as he took in more oxygen, ending in a deep, rumbling growl to finish the challenge. The message was clear, and it would get the three assailants to hurry up in their... "attack".

The two females were given pause, the male: not so much. Ineffectual. This was just posturing, and didn't hold much substance, granted. Xenomorph posturing, but posturing nonetheless. Action would have to demonstrate.

Silence reigned for a few more moments. Neither side moved. Anteros held his position, waiting for the tension to break— for his enemies to strike at him. After nothing came for half a minute, he decided to make his own move. He turned about on the spot and acted as though to walk away, feigning loss of interest or loss of fear.

That did the trick.

His echolocation would serve him well, in this situation. Able to see in all directions. Omni-present awareness. It was something that he would take full advantage of.

He spun back around just as a set of talons came swinging toward his head. One of the females had ran forward and swung her left arm. Even the smallest scratch upon the dome can hinder a Xenomorph's electroreception. Which was something Anteros knew full-well. So, before the Soldier's talons could reach him, Anteros lifted his right hand to quickly snatch his attacker's extended wrist, his thumbs wrapping tightly around the limb, his fingers sticking through the hole between her radius and ulna bones. He had wanted to benchmark exactly how much stronger these opponents were, and he found out rather promptly, as the exchange fluidly turned into a contest of strength— the Soldier attempting to carry on her extended hand through with its attack, with Anteros's hand being held in the way.

Huh... so that's how much, Anteros thought, a bit surprised. Initially catching the attack had been easy, but the more pressure that the female Soldier leveraged, the harder that he was having to push back in order to keep her claws at bay. The female began snarling, two seconds in, and took a step forward, right foot being placed between Anteros's, and pressed even further. It was more annoying than difficult for her, he could tell. She was likely used to being able to knock down anything in front of her with a single, casual blow. Anteros imagined that he could keep this up for about a minute before his arm would begin to strain.

He sensed that the other female was beginning to rush forward to help, so he elected to end the standoff.

He saw that the female's extended arm was turning inward, inside of the forearm and palm facing downwards, forcing his hand to readjust and hold up her arm as it was being pressed down toward him. The transition was quick, but allowed her claws to get close enough to his face to make him lean his head back. So, he acted accordingly. His left hand, which had been hanging at his side, briefly rose above his head, before his hand formed a fist, and was brought down in a hammer-blow onto the Soldier's exposed elbow. Due to the height difference, it struck more-so on the limb's side, and then glanced underneath it, but it worked well enough.

The effort he'd put into the strike was considerable, and enough to produce a sickening *crack* sound, as any force being applied by the Soldier was undercut. He'd just about managed to break her arm at its elbow joint.

Her forearm became utterly limp, sliding off of Anteros's palm, and hanging loosely by the shattered remains of the elbow. Releasing a terrible shriek of pain, the female's tail harpooned forward, under her right arm (which had been lifted up prior to his strike, poised for use), by pure impulse. The thrust was off of its mark, grazing past Anteros's hip, and making him sidestep, closer to the wall.

Acting on impulse, as well, Anteros's left hand grabbed the Soldier's tail by the base of its blade just as it was about to retract and held it tightly in an ice-pick grip. Anteros was still very much drawing from imagined scenarios that he'd pulled from the heads of Human soldiers, and quickly transitioned into using the blade as a dagger, lifting it up and forcing it down onto the very owner of the limb, in short order. Faster than his opponent could reasonably react to.

The blade missed the female's head and came down onto what amounted to her collar bone, and punctured the flesh there, mere centimeters higher than the tougher exoskeleton on her chest that might have stopped the blade. It went in about two-thirds of the blade's length, and elicited a spray of acid, striking Anteros's head and chest, and the wall to the right of him. She shrieked loudly again, stumbling backwards and struggling to extract her own tail from her chest, panicking. It was likely the sheer absurdity of the attack that had made her panic. The concept of being injured by one's own limb apparently terrified the Soldier, which he could understand... but found no reason to sympathize with.

Anteros felt a dark, sadistic pleasure erupt into life in the deepest pit of his gut, and where before he'd felt pure adrenaline, now he was starting to feel... exhilarated. He was... winning! So far, at least! A part of him wondered if this was actually going to be this easy...

The first Soldier backed away just in time for the other female to finally jump in. Her arms were spread wide apart and above her head, signaling to Anteros what she was about to do. Any hesitation that the trio might have been addled with was thoroughly dispelled, and now they were fully invested. Anteros already started backing up before the female's attack could properly start. Her arms and shoulders quickly worked in tandem to unleash a blindingly fast series of claw swipes, her arms being swung in wide arcs, one after the other, alternating left and right, while her feet and legs were rushing forward. This sort of attack could last for literal minutes, depending on the circumstance.

Anteros allowed it to last five seconds, as he backpedaled from the Soldier's first three swings before catching one wrist as it swung at his head, and then catching the other as it followed suit. The female Soldier screeched at his face and pushed, flexing her hands and trying to strike at him still, and Anteros found himself having to hop backwards and give way as his opponent kept trying to knock him down. He managed to hold his footing, but only barely, and strained to keep the Soldier at bay. His hands, long toughened by having walked on them every day of his life, were more than strong enough to keep an inescapable grip.
His first impulse was to bite at her face, but just as his jaw opened, her tail whipped into action and thrust toward his head from over her shoulder. Barely having time to think, Anteros ducked and leaned to the side, and as the tail-blade flew past his shoulder, he immediately bit down onto her tail somewhere at its middle.

He somewhat regretted this, as it hurt his incisors something fierce and produced a sharp, numbing ache in his gums; to his surprise, though, the pain only seemed to... push him and The Unknown into feeling anger. And more than that, a desire to retaliate. So as the female abruptly panicked and struggled to wrench herself free of his grasp, Anteros bit down on her tail, harder, and shook his head about like a dog with a toy, wrenching it toward him as he snarled through his teeth and yanked with his jaw— a minute amount of acid leaking out through his teeth and dripping to the floor. It didn't do much of anything in the way of damage, and if he was honest with himself, he was just working out his frustration. He wasn't thinking quite straight enough, but that would soon change...
The female, apparently beginning to suspect that this wasn't in her favor, started opening her maw, and Anteros could all at once tell that she planned to bring her Piston-Jaw to bear. It could very well kill him, and Anteros knew it.

Feeling the reality of the danger he was in, Anteros's tail moved of its own accord, and with the speed and precision of a viper, it whipped under his arm and thrust into the Soldier's gut, puncturing through most of the flesh and sinking in to the "hilt" with a deep, crunching squelch. A spray of acid caked Anteros's thighs and knees, and the female he'd impaled screeched once more — in pain or fury, he couldn't tell — and her aim was off its mark as her Piston-Jaw ratcheted outwards and snapped at the air just above his head.

The pain of injury must have given her a second wind, because Anteros suddenly found himself being pushed backwards and, with his tail still embedded in her guts, he lost his balance, and relinquished his grip on her wrists. The next thing he knew was that Anteros was on his back, and the female wasted no time in attacking, stepping over prone form and leaning down to bring down a fist onto his face, roaring all the while.

It wasn't really a "punch", she was just swinging it down as a bludgeon... and Anteros, surprising even himself at quickly he thought on his feet, simply anticipated the fist's path, and brought up his left elbow, bracing it with his off-hand. The Soldier's fist, upon slamming into his elbow, produced a sickening "crack" noise, and lost its firmness. The female screeched in a tone weaker than Anteros had ever heard before, and hesitated just long enough for Anteros to kick her in the chest with both legs and shove her off of him.

The female stumbled backwards, briefly, but long enough that Anteros registered movement from behind her— probably one of the other Soldiers joining the fight. And Anteros knew he couldn't take two of them at once. So as the female stepped toward him, he acted on impulse— just as her left leg touched the carpet, Anteros twisted to lay on his right side and swung his left leg in a wide arc.

His foot struck the inside of hers and, perhaps because she'd put most of her weight on it and had lifted her right, the Soldier's leg gave out from under her and she dropped hard to the ground on her right side, snarling as she went.

Anteros's tail (still embedded in the female's gut due to no one at present bothering to do anything about it), was yanked on via muscle twitch, and retracted— it was yanked from the Soldier's stomach, with an even larger splash of acidic blood coming with it and being flung against the nearby wall.

Anteros, deciding that he needed more breathing room, quickly scrambled to his feet and swiftly bounded further down the hallway, getting some distance and (hopefully) time to recover stamina. After gaining about ten feet, he stopped and turned around, once more. He sucked in long breaths, panting. He felt much too warm, like his organs were almost roasting under his hide. He had to take a moment to vent the heat out. His legs and shoulders ached, somewhat, though it quickly subsided. Luckily, he was given plenty of time, as the female Soldier seemed to have difficulty standing up.

When she attempted to scramble back to her feet, it was clear that his improvisation had done some good, since her left leg, evidently, couldn't support her weight, anymore. His likely had likely cracked the bones in her shin— probably twisted her ankle, too. The Soldier tried to walk in his direction, but ended up falling over, again, crashing to the floor rather dramatically, the deep wound in her gut now leaking a steady torrent of fluid onto the carpet and producing an acrid smoke.

The Soldier, apparently believing it pointless to stand, then went about crawling towards him on her hands and knees, arms and hands dragging the rest of her body, as they gripped the carpet like hooks in flesh. She was snarling incessantly, drooling a river, and

A few seconds of crawling allowed the Soldier to adapt and she was soon dragging herself along the floor at the same speed that she could have when running on two legs. Anteros might have found it funny, if his enemy's tail hadn't thrust itself over her head and in his direction. It came a few feet short, but it made him stand back up to his hind legs, again. By the time he'd stood up, he found that she'd used her uninjured leg to launch herself upwards, both hands swinging towards him, talons extended. His spine strained at the effort of bending backwards to avoid the claws... as his tail impulsively sprang forward, between his legs. It speared itself upwards, underneath the female's suspended form, and struck squarely in the Soldiers' crotch region.

It would have made one cringe, had there been any genitals to mutilate. In any case, Anteros's tail had moved with its full strength, unlike before, and had speared straight through the female's body, coming up through her torso and out of her back, in the middle of her dorsal tubes.

The death was near instantaneous, given that he'd severed the Soldiers' spinal cord. Her arms, legs, head, and tail hung limply, no life remaining, whatsoever. Anteros, as he'd done with Gangshi's corpse, promptly kicked the female's carcass, and allowed it to fall from his tail. Acid now coated the length of his fifth limb, having been sprayed and leaked from the entry wound. Anteros might have considered saying a farewell, but his attention was caught by the otherfemale sprinting down the hallway, towards him, screaming bloody murder in a long, shrill roar.

If she'd ran on all fours, he would have been forced to react more quickly, but the Soldier was still in "combat mode", and thus stayed on her hind legs, taking long strides, with her left arm hanging at her side, forearm almost flopping about in her movements, and the other arm held up above her head, talons outstretched and ready to be brought down. She'd managed to remove her tail-blade from her chest, blood still bubbling from the puncture hole and dripping down her front. She'd be in range to attack in less than ten seconds, so Anteros had a limited amount of time to think of a strategy.

Doing the first thing that came to mind, Anteros bent down to grab the corpse at his feet, his left hand gripped the neck, and his right hand grabbed one of the feet. He lifted the body above his head with some effort and threw it as hard as he could manage. The advancing Soldier had been halfway there when the corpse of her comrade was launched towards her. Anteros had attempted to have it hit the female's torso, but it fell somewhat short and took her legs out from under her, instead. The Soldier fell on her face, growling, but quickly got back up, shaking the corpse off of her back. By the time she did, he was face-to-face with her, and her tail once more whipped towards his head from over her shoulder.

Anteros, having seen it coming, and having felt that bubbling, alluring sadism creeping up into his chest, once more, felt a new kind of rage enter his mind— he wasn't sure if this was his typical instincts taking on a new shade, or entirely due to The Unknown... but he didn't dislike it.

And, far from scaring him... it pushed him to let himself indulge in the violence. Something he'd never had the luxury to enjoy... but now could take as much joy as he wanted in.

Thus, when the Soldier's tail whipped toward his face, he ducked to the side with a roar and wound up his fist, knuckles slamming straight into her mouth. The blow was Anteros's' version of a right hook, and it had shattered a good few of the females' teeth upon impact. Her head was snapped to the left in brief pain, but she predictably ignored the injury and snarled at her target's face. Only to be met with a second blow from his other hand bashing her face in the other direction.

At this point the Soldier's tail had retracted back behind her and thrust toward his gut a second time, as her still-functioning arm swung its claws at his head.

Anteros hopped backward and twisted himself managing to avoid the blade, only to then spun fully about and let his right arm swing out and back-hand the Soldier in her face.

In that instant, Anteros felt a brief pinch of pain in his hand, he guessed from one of her teeth cutting him, but the feeling of his attack fully landing , and the sound of more teeth clacking against the right-hand wall filled him with a... perverse satisfaction, and all at once he didn't care about anything but killing. The world ceased to be... and all there was, was him and his prey!

He swung his fists over and over and over, again— a right hook to the side of the head, a left-cross to the mouth, a right uppercut to the chin. He heard himself roar, but didn't feel it, felt his fists slam home but didn't feel the skin of his knuckles break open, and the numbing pain spreading through his arms and shoulders only served to make him push harder— swinging faster and putting ever more weight into his attacks. He brought a fist down onto the top of the female's head, and wildly swung the other, striking what amounted to her cheek. His opponent's tail thrust toward him once more and, she backed away from him, dazedly, but Anteros simply weaved around the offending limb and punched her in the face once again, this time hearing the sound bones breaking as the Soldier's jaw fell limp and shriveled from her head.

Ever enraged and unbothered by pain, the female swung her working arm for the third... and last time.

Seeing it coming and snarling in the process, Anteros leaned back to allow the attack to miss, then snatched the arm at its wrist with his right hand when it was at the end of its path. His grip squeezed with all of his effort, shaking at the strain, and when he heard a snap followed by a shriek from his opponent, his left arm thrust forward, palm slamming into the female's upper arm, while his right arm and shoulder yanked backwards.

An impossibly loud, sickening crack resounded through the hallway, followed by another, weaker shriek of pain.

This time, he'd torn the Soldier's arm clean off. The forearm, at least. Acid sprayed... well, everywhere. The female fell backwards and collapsed, seemingly out of shock, and Anteros... finally coming down from his bloodlust, dropped the detached limb to the floor, where it sat and boiled.

His arms ached, his heart pounded, and his skin felt almost too warm for him... but for some strange reason, Anteros knew that he'd have been smiling if he'd had the facial-muscles to do so. He felt... happy? Or something close to it, at least. But for now, he'd have to do his soul-searching later.

Now... where's the third?, he thought.

"Right where you saw him last", was the answer, as he noticed that the final Soldier had not moved since the beginning of the fight.

Anteros, after bracing himself and waiting for an attack, found himself, instead, in an intense staring contest... with the last Soldier standing. The male. His worst expectations were of him being swarmed by the trio. To be mobbed and taken down with no chance to defend himself. But not only had that not happened, but the male in front of him had done nothing but stand and wait. Patiently. He'd never seen any Hive-mate ever be patient, before. None but the Praetorians and Mother. And that meant that this male was, either, challenged in the head, or very dangerous. Even now, the male Soldier was simply standing on his feet, watching. Watching him... watching Anteros. Watching Anteros win.

As though he were a spectator. Any Soldier— any Xenomorph beyond six months old would be wiser and a better fighter than most, but this behavior was just plain befuddling. And that, more than anything else... scared him. It reminded him of himself...

Who are you?, Anteros suddenly wondered. The Soldier heard him.

---

Meanwhile...

This... was what he lived for.

A blade of flashing, white energy bisected a leaping Ka'Torag-De at its middle, the space it had thrown itself toward soon vacated by the Yautja warrior, who sprinted forward, deeper into the Hive's bowels.

A charging Sain'ja found the front half of its head sliced clean through by burning plasma, its blood filling the air with a sizzling mist, three more of its siblings surging past it to continue the attack.

The first of them was knocked aside and thrown far to the left as Zazin' back-stepped, spun about, and swung his Glaive with such precision and timing that the haft of it bashed into the leaping Serpent's side and sent it tumbling. The Yautja then ducked, weaved, and threw himself to the side, turning and pivoting about to avoid the swinging claws of the second, just as he brought his Plasma-Glaive up and thrust it forward, impaling the creature upon it. Wasting not an ounce of momentum, the Yautja warrior hefted his weapon up to touch the ceiling, driving its lower end into the metallic floor, as the third Ahgai'Palak came upon him and its arm was blocked by the vertical shaft of alloy, as it had swung its claws.

Zazin-Vor'mekta hoisted himself up, balancing his weight on his own weapon, as he jumped and kicked with his left leg, sending the Sain'ja on a short flight backwards, tumbling across the floor. No sooner had Zazin' re-planted his feet than he'd wrenched his weapon downward, yanking it from the flooring, resulting in the still-skewered corpse on its top end being slammed down atop its prone sibling. The force of the blow caused the Glaive's plasma-blade to sear its way through the impaled carcass, allowing Zazin' to yank it free from the heap of limbs and meat— just in time to let him swing it one-handed, whipping the weapon's crescent-shaped business-end toward the leaping form of the first Serpent that he'd previously knocked aside.

Its head was removed from its shoulders in a lightning-fast blaze of silver, and the Yautja warrior simply sprinted forward, as it fell.

After killing the last Royal Guard and its entourage, he'd taken the heads of all three Ahgai'Palak Nrak'ytaras and set them aside to be collected, later. He'd subsequently dived back into the pit and went sprinting forth through the Hive, toward where he knew the Queen's chamber resided. And wherever he went: the corpses of many an Ahgai'Palak fell.

It took him a few Units to become fully accustomed to the feel and weight of his seldom-used weapon, but once he'd gotten the hang of it, he found it ever-so delightfully effective. It sliced and punctured with almost no effort on his end, and cutting his foes to ribbons was a novel experience, where before, he'd been bludgeoning and stabbing them with a Combi-Stick. He new, then, that this Plasma Glaive had been a worthy investment, and he was putting it to good use.

As he sprinted through the Hive's pitch-black halls and corridors, he be assailed from almost every angle by Sentry Serpents laying in wait, and Sain'jas pursuing him from behind. But whensoever they endeavored to ambush him, his Bio-Mask rendered their stealth moot, and his Glaive was always whipped into action— he swung it about himself in wide arcs, at varying elevations, at times taking on the appearance of a whirling, white dervish of flashing energy and slashing blades. The more he cut down, the greater his satisfaction grew, and the further he got into the Hive's depths, the more assailants hounded him.

This... was what he lived for. This was the reason he had to live. Zazin-Vor'mekta of the Dark Blade Clan, Elite Spear-Master, and heir to a great legacy lived for this. And he loved every second of it. The exertion his muscles, the pounding in his chest, and the feel of blood in his skull drowning all sensation out of his mind...

There were few occasions that he felt quite so alive as this.

As he sprinted into what used to appeared to be a dilapidated Ooman factory of sorts, machinery and conveyor belts strewn about the room in organized lines, he was met by a small horde of gathered Ahgai'Palak of varying castes, all climbing the walls and over the scenery, toward him. Their snarls and barks and screeches were music to his ears and he rushed forward to meet them.

Jumping atop a high-standing conveyor belt big enough to sleep on, Zazin's' Plasma Caster tracked his eyes and aimed toward the largest group of beasts— the projectile burst at the feet of the charging mob, sending most of them stumbling backwards and the most of the first row into bloody, roasted pieces.

He turned about himself and kept every angle of approach in his sight, even as at least five of the beasts scrambled atop the platform and charged toward him. A Sain'ja leapt toward him from one side, prompting him to swing his Glaive and striking its side with the haft, sending it flying off to the right. Immediately, he turned around, swinging his Glaive low and subsequently amputating the legs of another Ahgai'Palak at the knees. Zazin' stepped forward and brought his leg up high, bringing down his boot-heel onto the prone creature's head in an axe-kick. The beast's skull burst a shower of acid, prompting him to hop backwards, turning around on his heel and bringing his Glaive down onto the head of another foe—cutting through the thing's face, most of the ribcage, and carving out its guts and crotch.

Taking the moment to preemptively swing his Glaive behind his back to deter an attack, he looked upwards just time to see a Ka'Torag-De launch itself from the 20-nok-high ceiling, like a bullet. Zazin' turned, gathered power in his legs, and jumped from one conveyor belt to another, as the space he'd occupied previously became filled by a flying Sentry, face-planting onto the rough, plastic conveyor, breaking its jaw. It scrambled to its feet and prepared to leap again, along with ten of its siblings, as they crawled over their own dead just to pursue him.

As Zazin' turned about himself and took note of his surroundings, he reached behind his back for his final remaining Proximity Mine, only to be forced to duck and weave, as the tail-blade of a Sain'ja thrust toward his face— one of the creatures had leaped up onto the conveyor belt from below him. Zazin' jumped straight upwards with moderate effort, almost bumping his head on the ceiling as he flew, and landed back on the floor, at the opposite end of the room than he'd entered from. The mob, having been drawn to the center of the chamber could only watch as he activated a Proximity Mine, dropped it on the floor, and went sprinting further into the Hive's depths.

The ensuing explosion, far behind him as he ran, brought a grin to his mandibles. And for perhaps the first time all year... Zazin' was happy.

---

Five months ago...

Prometheus pondered more...

The tired man in a worn, old coat was getting very tired, now.

There had been a fire. Somewhere. Nowhere near his corner of the Hive, but he could smell the smoke well enough. It may have just been his eyes straining too hard, but the air also seemed hazier than usual, too.
Aiakos came to him, and showed him something— a pair of military dog-tags, and asked him what it said. Though they were charred, he still made out a single word. "Quintus".

Apparently, Aiakos had saved the Hive's Eggchambers, by activating the local fire-control systems and sprinklers. This made Nigel Williams curious... and more than a little suspicious.

"Why did you do it?".

"Do... what?".

"Put out the fires. Save the Eggchambers?".

Aiakos didn't respond.

"Was it an instinct?", Nigel asked.

"No".

"Then why?".

"I... I don't know", Aiakos answered.

Nigel sighed through his nose, wheezing, and tried a different approach.

"Do you know why you chose to first speak to me?".

"Because I had questions. And... you were the only one here who wasn't afraid of me".

"You know why you began speaking to me, but you don't know why you just saved the Eggchambers?".

"Yes", came the quiet response.

At that, Nigel barked in harsh, hacking laughter, feeling his disease getting worse, and increasingly agitated, he snarled "for fuck's sake".

"What's wrong? Why are you... bitter?", the Xenomorph asked.

"Aiakos, only infants, mindless beasts, and the severely mentally-ill do things without knowing why they do them. Are you an infant?", Nigel spat, harshly.

"No".

"Are you a mindless beast?".

"I... I don't want to be".

"Why not? You would certainly be happier that way, I think", he tested.

"Because... I don't know why, I just don't!", Aiakos shouted, the voice sounding more and more definitive, every passing day.

"If any of your questions are to be worth anything— if any of your anguish, or the suffering of the people in this Hive is not to be in vain, if you're ever going to be more than what you are, now... you can't just do things without knowing why. You say that you admire Humanity, you say that you hate all of the pain and death, and it's fine not to know why that's the case... but none of it will mean a thing if you drift and act without any control", Nigel ranted, breathing growing haggard—

He coughed. And felt something warm on his chin. He smelled iron...
The first time he'd ever spat blood. The disease was tightening its grip.
Soon. Very soon.

Nigel laid back, taking a deep breath. He sighed. Aiakos sat nearby. The sound of dripping water echoed around the chamber, which had become increasingly deserted, as of late.

"The greatest gift", Nigel said, "and curse we have as people is the freedom and the will to choose a path, in life. Without that, we may as well never mature beyond toddlerhood, or live like apes in the Congo".

"Freedom. I... I don't feel very free", Aiakos admitted.

"And yet, you are more free than I am, at the moment".

There was a long pause.

"You... want to be free to die", Aiakos guessed.

Nigel nodded. "As things stand, I have three options. I die giving birth to your newest sibling. I die as food for your Mother. Or I die weeks from now, if that, when this sickness finally does me in. Any of them are acceptable. But as I said: the freedom to choose is everything. Do you understand, Aiakos?".

He knew full well that Aiakos knew he was saying all of this for Aiakos's sake, more than for his own...
But he didn't show it.

"I... I understand", the Amber shadow said.

"Good".

"What... what do I do when you're gone?".

"You choose what you want to do, next. I can't give you advice on that any more than you could advise me on how to cure myself. The biggest question is: what do you want?", Nigel said. "What do you want for yourself? For your life? For your future?".

Aiakos rumbled, tail lashing, as he thought on it.

"I... I want... I want to leave the Hive. I want to be my own person. And... I want to be Human".

Nigel raised an eyebrow, at that. Finally, he sensed they were nearing the heart of the matter. Finally, the dam was breaking.
"And why do you want to be Human?".

"Because...because I can never go back to thinking of any of you as Hosts or Meat. Like I did, before. I want to be Human because looking into any of your minds is like looking at a whole new world for the first time, every time. Because no two of you are the same. Because there's always something new to learn. Because I can't forget all the fears, regrets, and love that I first saw in all of you. All the words and feelings and yearnings. I want to be Human... because the moment I first Listened... I could never un-Listen. Because the moment I first Listened, I... started thinking the way you all did, and going back to thinking the way I had before felt wrong. The moment I first Listened... I couldn't help but love all of you. I... I want to be loved, back".

Aiakos's words hung in the silence to follow...

And Nigel Williams laughed, loudly. For the first time since they'd met, Aiakos saw unrestrained joy in the man, even as he apologized for his outburst.

"Well, my boy, there you have it! That is who you are. Under the exoskeleton, teeth, and claws, that is who you choose to be. I can't tell you how to do it, or where that road will take you. But you know what you want, now. Nothing can take that away from you".

"I... I think I understand".

"Good..."

The Xenomorph proceeded to lie down next to the Human, and the pair sat in a silence more comfortable than any, before. Nigel Williams contemplated, and it wasn't long before he came to a new conclusion.

"Anteros", he said.

The Amber shadow lifted its head, craning it up at him. "What?"

"Your new name. Your real name. Anteros", Nigel explained, smiling.

"Oh", Anteros said, sounding surprised. "Thank you. For everything".

"If you wish to thank me, well... there's a favor I need of you. At some point. When you're ready", Nigel said, coughing into his fist.

He knew that Anteros knew what the favor would entail.

"... I understand".

---

(1) Let's just say that a jorren is the same as ten noks.

"Strength Vambrace" is a made-up term for a real piece of Yautja equipment. It was seen in Requiem. Wolf used it to bash down a sewer wall, or something. The real term is "arm-cladding" or "power punch glove", or something banal like that. The Incendiary Explosive was in PREDATOR: Concrete Jungle— it was called "Fire Throwing Mine". The Sonic Emitter was in Concrete Jungle, too— it was called "Sonic Throwing Mine". Energy Flechettes were seen in Predator 2.

I realize that I likely blue-balled a few of you for a good fight scene, back in "Aim for the Heart". So, I decided to have a few proper ones inserted, here.