Chapter 21: Relapse and Reprise

Two Hours Later

Zazin-Vor'mekta took very meticulous care in slowly, precisely polishing his Bio-Mask with an oiled cloth. He'd been at it on the mask for about ten units, now, and he was almost done. The oils in the cloth were to prevent any rusting of the metallic portions of the head-ware, as well as to maintain the weather-proofing on the electronics. Given that this mask was part of his Phoenix armor-set, he also had to go over the scale-hide portions of it with a particular kind of "paint" to keep the leather durable.
It was tedious work, but he found it relaxing.

He put aside the cloth, laying the Bio-Mask on his lap as he retrieved a brush from under the bed, unscrewing a small vial of liquid. He began to slowly apply the clear, bitter-smelling fluid onto the parts of the mask made of Vy'Drach skin— mainly, the "skull-cap" that covered the majority of the wearer's forehead, which sat upon the gunmetal-gray, metallic face-protection (now given a dull gleam by his work).
The visage reminded him of an oval-eyed, skull-esque gas-mask with small, downward spikes framing either side of the "chin"— a mesh of vertical slits forming something akin to a speaker over the mouth. The Vy'Drach hide, with tiny, sandpaper-esque scales, filled in the circular "hole" left in the forehead area— this particular patch of hide having been carved from a rare, crimson Vy'Drach.
Six, small, circular holes, arranged on the Vy'Drach skin like the sixth side of a die, for ventilation. All of these visible details were more or less entirely cosmetic, mind you, but you couldn't pay any good armor-smith enough money to eschew the traditional design.
They'd sooner spit in your face than dare to stray from the time-honored methods.

Zazin' had spent the past hour going through this process with every other portion of his Phoenix Armor— a process required roughly once an Earth month. He always saved the Bio-Mask for last.
He would have put on some music for this task, but Hult-nah'Mei-jadhi was here.

She was sitting in the chair, in the back-right corner of his quarters— a large, arm-chair made of something similar to whicker and covered in various furs. He glanced to his right from his seat on the bed, to look at her. She was using his wrist-projector— hunched over a hologram and staring at it, intently, as she tapped and scratched on the projector's buttons to change the display.
Her reward for her performance in the kehrite, as he'd declared, was for her to design her very own Bio-Mask using the software on his wrist-projector— which Zazin' would later have Vo'grat-Guan craft. He'd encouraged Hul'Mei to go as "crazy" with the design as she dared— told her not to worry about any features or applications. Vo'grat-Guan, in addition to being an adequate healer, was more than apt with a forge. Whatever she came up with, Vo-Gua would be able to make it.

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, while she was cycling between different shapes for eye-slots. As his eyes passed over her still-exposed midriff (as they hadn't yet changed out of their training-clothes), Zazin' found himself suddenly wondering deeply about her. He'd barely known her for more than three days. And yet... he was already doing favors. Training her in combat, ostensibly mentoring her in the finer points of relationships, promising her a custom Bio-Mask. He was already placing with her an amount of trust that he hadn't shown anyone but Vo'grat-Guan, in decades... not since She, the baneful witch.
Three days with her, and he was already more emotionally-invested in this than he had been in any other tryst in decades.
Was he making another mistake, here? Was he revealing, sharing, or trusting too much? Like before...?
He had put Vo'grat-Guan through the ringer for at least two weeks before letting his guard down half this much, around her...

Had he missed something? Was Hult-nah'Mei-jadhi being disingenuous or telling him what he wanted to hear? Was his judgement of her flawed? Was he walking into another bad day?

Hul'Mei abruptly looked up from her work, at him— as though having sensed his observation. Zazin' met her gaze for a moment or two, keeping himself neutral, before looking back down at his Bio-Mask and pretending to continue working.

The thought that he might be making the same mistake as last time — the thought that this would all end just as poorly as it did, last time — was enough to cause nausea... and the thought of Hul'Mei betraying him like She had was... surprisingly painful to consider. It produced a cold, stinging shortness-of-breath in his lungs— made his scalp itch and his throat seize up. He felt himself scowling and shook his head— dug the claws of his hand into his forehead to bring him back to lucidity. His breathing was getting haggard, and he found himself unable to concentrate...
So he stopped. He forced himself to focus on a single point— fixing his sight onto a particularly large fiber of the animal hair beneath him. He evened out his breathing. Got himself back into a stable headspace, and forcing his mandibles to uncurl— so strained in clenching up as they were.

I really do have issues, don't I? All from me entertaining a simple idea... probably not a healthy sign...

He took a deep breath... and asked himself if he truly had anything to fear. If he had any reason to doubt. Of the first, he was certain that there were a great any things he wanted to prevent from happening... but he couldn't be certain that any possibility seemed more likely than another. Of the second... he wasn't sure. Hult-nah'Mei-jadhi hadn't quite triggered any real red flags. And he had no reason to suspect that she'd ever lied or expressed a belief she didn't truly possess. He couldn't recall going out of his way to proselytize or pontificate about his views...
Is it that simple, then? Was he just fretting over a chipped tusk?

He frowned... and snarled to himself.

Zazin-Vor'mekta relived the events of the past three days— going over every interaction he'd ever shared with the woman. He mentally repeated every word and every sentence they'd exchanged, ten times over— trying to find any pattern of behavior or repeated occurrences. Anything at all that might have engendered suspicion. And when, on each revision, he found nothing of consequence other than good signs: he got more and more determined to find a red flag. He found himself refusing to think that it could possibly be that simple— there had to be something wrong! It couldn't be this open-and-shut!
There must have been something he'd missed— there must have been a sign that he should have picked up on...

It briefly occurred to him, of course, that his obsessive efforts to find something wrong with the situation likely said more about him than about anyone else. And the longer he went without any revelations, the more agitated he got. He began to entertain the notion that his desire to find fault with Hul'Mei might be a sign of his own zealotry... or bullheadedness.

"Are you okay?", Hul'Mei suddenly asked, suddenly.

He found himself on his bed, holding his Bio-Mask in one hand and an oil-brush in the other, staring at his own, crisscrossed feet. He blinked... and continued to paint the Bio-Mask with his brush. He forced his mandibles to relax and his brow to flatten, staring at his work with what he hoped came across as boredom— not looking up at her. He was trying to figure out how to respond— what to say to dismiss the matter, when she asked, again, prompting him, "Zazin'?".

Gods damn it...

He unconsciously sped up his work, focusing all of his effort on making himself look "fine", even if internally, he was somewhat panicking... to his own surprise. It was the sort of panic one feels upon being caught in something embarrassing, and the fact that he had the capacity to feel such a thing was met with reactionary spite, when he took the moment to examine himself.
There was a stiffness in his shoulders and a heat building in the back of his neck which didn't help him— added to by the fact that he heard Hul'Mei get up from her seat and slowly pad towards him. As he felt her presence get nearer, he felt a rising fight-or-flight impulse... and when he realized how ridiculous he was being, he sighed... and put away the brush and set aside the Bio-Mask.
Hul'Mei came up to his side and stood by the bed, facing the same direction as him— a Yautja proverb said that the best way to help a person was to avoid looking them in the eye. The side of her left knee touched his right shoulder, and his head came up to her waist where he was sitting. Initially, the contact made him bristle, but he suppressed the urge to push her away.

Her left hand came around to rest on his left shoulder, and she gave it a minute shake, squeezing. He felt himself relax... and closed his eyes, straightened himself up.

"Is something wrong, treasure?", she asked patiently. The use of the old-fashioned pet-name made him frown for an instant, before he realized that he didn't actually mind it.
The fact that she apparently felt comfortable using a term of endearment as deep as that did shock him, though. In her position, he couldn't imagine that he'd done much to earn that kind of good will— even with the admittedly quite deep conversations they'd had for the last three days. He chose to believe that she was simply testing the use of the word and how it felt to speak it.

The question, itself — "is something wrong" — was erroneous to the extreme, though she couldn't have understood just how much. Of course, something was wrong. There had always been something wrong with him— ever since birth, really, if you believed his relatives. The real question, rather, was which exact problem he was having... and whether he should speak of it.

Is there something wrong? Should I tell her something is wrong? Should I save it for Vo-Gua and R'ka-Thwei when we arrive at Yautja Prime?

He looked up at her from under his brow...

Or should I take a chance with her?

Zazin' exhaled, pointedly, and remarked, in response: "probably" in a sighing tone.

Absentmindedly, he lifted his right arm, cupping the inside of her exposed thigh and squeezing, met by her with little more than a small shiver. Her hand crept up his shoulder and neck to stroke between his plait-roots. She sighed aloud— probably a subtle message he should have picked up on. He was occupying himself with drawing his hand up and down the inside of her left leg.
After a moment, she asked, him "I don't suppose you'd like to share what it is?". He managed to reduce his frown to a slight squint, if only because he was fascinated with the firmness of her leg-muscles. It was a very... pointed question— a bit suspicious-sounding. Like a spy looking for weaknesses in a fortress...
Though, that might just be his paranoia, again.

Zazin' thought to himself a few seconds, enjoying the affection from her hand. He guessed that, assuming nothing ever went wrong and all ended well, he probably would let Hul'Mei in on the big taboo of his life. But, whether that was a certainty was a matter of prognostication, and though Zazin' was among the best of the Dark Blade Clan and would probably be remembered among their more notable paragons for generations: he could not claim to be psychic.
He answered, croakily, "I probably will, at some point. Though... not yet", leaving it open-ended.
He looked to the right and leaned backwards, slightly, to get an eyeful of her backside, his left hand sliding back across the bed— his legs uncrossing and stretching forward.

Hul'Mei chuffed, and asked, "would it be poor form to ask how I could convince you to tell me, now?". Her claws lightly scratched at his scalp, seeming to know exactly where to scrape to shake loose some tightened nerves.
Fair question... the type of question he would ask, actually...

He looked up at her from under his brow, making eye-contact with a surprisingly-nonplussed Yautja woman— eyes, sympathetic, and the lightest of smiles gracing her mandibles. Something about it told him that there was no ulterior motive, to be found, here.
... she had a habit of making no effort to hide her feelings. He knew, in that moment, that he could very easily come to love that about her.

"Probably", he said, eventually, giving a dry smile.
She chuckled at his response, rolling her eyes theatrically, and said, in a voice blatantly dripping in feigned melancholy, "I am disappointed... but also unsurprised".
"Ah, you're learning", he remarked, in equally-feigned astonishment.
"You're a very motivating instructor, in that regard," she said, abruptly turning on her heel— swinging her right leg over him and coming to straddle his lap. Caught off-guard by this, but entertaining it, he leaned forward to meet her as she draped her arms around his shoulders in an embrace, smiling at him.

"`Motivating`? All I ever do is give vague answers to straight-forward questions," he said dryly, hooking his lower-mandibles around hers and running his hands up and down her back. His legs drew up and bent at the knees such that his heels came together, forming a "bowl" which Hul'Mei effortlessly shifted to sit in while keeping their mandibles locked with his— her weight shifting onto her backside as her knees straightened out, with her calves going under his arms, resting on his thighs.

"That's part of why I find you so fascinating, Zazin'," she said, "and I'm very willing to learn...".

To what end, I wonder?...

"I can't imagine it's really all that enthusing— getting strung along by me and my vagaries. My aloofness," he suggested, putting on a coy smirk and fixing her with an unfailing stare. One she returned with a slight chuckle.
"I'm beginning to think that's your true appeal— the mystery of it", she said, "maybe I simply enjoy having a puzzle to solve. The thrill that I might someday know the secret...". Her gaze seemed to glaze over and look past him, even as she was focused on looking him in the eye.

He seized on the notion that this may be some variety of game, in her mind...

His mandibles tugged at hers, as he asked, "if you did learn the secret, and it turned out to be less than you expected... would you be put off by me? Having spent so many hours wondering what it was, only to find it droll or... trite, in the end?".
Her eyes refocused onto his, and as she considered the question, she frowned for a moment, before staring into the middle-distance, again. Long seconds dragged as she thought on it, and Zazin' attempted to keep it from being awkward by reaching up a hand and raking his claws up through her plait-roots.

"I...," she abruptly, "... I don't know". Her frown lessened a degree, as she hugged him closer and looked him the eye, telling him, "though... I haven't carried any grand expectations of you, thus far... and I'm aware that I am not a difficult person to please...". A sheepish grin accompanied that last confession.
This remark of hers surprised him, and his brow raised as she gave a genuine smile with a final comment, "so... I do not think you have much reason to worry. It may be the most mundane secret, possible, and... I would probably find some way to think well of you, for it."

This apparent introspection and the fact that she'd interpreted his question as a genuine worry of his, rather than just another hypothetical was... touching, if he were being honest. For the first time in a long while, he felt an affectionate smile stretch his face, completely bypassing his usually-ironclad self-control. Probably resulting in him looking rather oafish, in the process— immediately confirmed with her snorting and giggling at him.
He closed his eyes and frowned, trying to retain some dignity, but being unable to entirely remove the hint of an embarrassed grimace from his face. This made her croon sympathetically, as though he were a pup that had grown upset over having fallen over.
He shook his head with a snort and sighed ruefully at her.

They drew themselves closer, touching their foreheads together and closing their eyes— upper-mandibles joining in union, as their lower ones had. When they simultaneously began purring in contentment at this, she laughed to herself at the humor of it, met by a snort on his end. It was like a cliché verse from a passion-sonnet.
It wasn't long before the purring recommenced, though... and the two simply enjoyed one another's company for a while. Taking in each other's scents, listening to each other breathe, and simply touching each other wherever they wished— bonding the way that Yautja always had.

She smells nice... like cleaning powder... and a forest in autumn...

When they'd stayed like that long enough for their legs and backsides to start aching with stiffness, they deigned to disentangle from one another and simply lay side-by-side, on their backs. A comfortable silence hung for a short few minutes... abruptly broken by Zazin' asking, "how is your Bio-Mask going?"

She raised her left arm up and tapped her (his) wrist-projector, filling the air above them with an enlarged hologram of a Bio-Mask. A web of dimension-measurements and labels winked into existence alongside the image, lines pointing to different parts of the mask to indicate the location of certain circuits. As he gazed upon the display, he found that the description of the internal functions and circuits were much more detailed than the appearance of the mask, itself. Not to say that the design was bare-bones— it looked quite elegant, with sharp angles and angular curves. But the amount of detail on the functional components surprised him.
"Are you an engineer of some sort?" he asked, surprised.
"Yes," she replied, nonchalantly, "I focused my studies on circuitry and computing".

That made sense. Most Yautja would choose to be apprenticed in a certain trade, in order to make a living. Males weren't allowed to do so until after taking their Chiva, though they were often mentored in certain skillsets by their parents— females had no such restriction and could spend much longer stretches of time practicing a skill before (biological) adulthood. The result being that many of the more technical or "involved" fields of study (like neuroscience and medicine) were female-dominated, while males typically took on the less esoteric ones (like construction, landscaping, or maintenance). Zazin', himself, was a carpenter and leatherworker— the sole such tradesman in the area of his home-address.
Half the trick with learning such a trade was learning how to market one's abilities to the people around them. There was no such thing as a "white-collar" job, in Yautja society. You work from home and make connections via your neighbors and the local bazaar. Everyone's an entrepreneur and everyone's a salesman. Either that, or you work at the behest of a guild, under the direction of your Clan's Autarchs.

That Hul'Mei worked with circuitry and programming was a surprise to him.
"So, you could help make it, yourself," he suggested, gesturing at the image in front of them.
The hologram winked out of existence, "if I had the component parts on-hand", she said, cheerfully.

I don't know that much about her, do I? Only the parts she's ashamed of— none of her talents or interests..., he realized.

As though given an electric shock, Zazin' jolted up and turned onto his side to face her, propping himself up on his elbow. She didn't seem to notice immediately— still staring at the ceiling. He looked her over, up and down, trying to think of something to say. He lifted a hand, and lightly brushed his claws across her stomach. She lazily turned her head to acknowledge the touch after a moment or so, finding him lightly running his claws between the grooves of her abdominal muscles.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of her displaying pleasure at the contact— mandibles flaring in and outward in a rhythmic pattern. It wasn't long before she began purring, as his fingers ghosted over her obliques and core— appraising the toning of her muscles.

He then started tracing over the fresh scars that now pockmarked her front— her small, little trophies from her first encounter with Kiande Admeha.
"How do you feel about these?" he asked.

"I am proud to have them", she said.

"Why?", he asked. He picked at an errant scab on her lower-most rib that hadn't yet fallen off.

"They... well, they are testament to the Hunt, of course, and I am proud of that", she said, before looking at him. "But I am also proud of them, because I wouldn't have them if not for you... they... make me look forward to your... Kaktal'tatu...". She said this last part with a noticeable amount of hesitance.

A Kaktal'tatu — a "lover's bite" — was an "official" declaration of courtship. Typically only seen on couples that planned on living or working together. Traditionally, lover's bites would be administered in the throes a mating pair's first copulation— usually on the shoulders or arms. A way to "christen" the relationship, going forward.
It was the type of custom that was seen as somewhat old-fashioned, from the days when pairings were expected to last for at least a year or two. He couldn't tell if her hesitation was from a worry of being presumptuous, or if she was worried he would judge her for being "passé" or "démodé".

He didn't mind the custom, and he still had the scars from Vo'grat-Guan's own Kaktal'tatu on his right shoulder.

He raised a brow, meaning to joke, "and you think it's a certainty that you'll receive it?".

His heart sank, a little, though, as she innocently replied, "is it not?". He had been meaning to perhaps make light of it, but it seemed that she had been entirely serious.

"Not...", he mumbled, "quite yet...".

He felt a certain kind of guilt creep into his gut— and when he saw her turn onto her side, facing away from him, he couldn't help but feel as though he'd failed a test of some sort. In a way, he supposed that he was failing to get over himself, but at the same time: he was still in the process of working out whether he should.

He watched her back as she seemed to exhale in a fashion that reminded him of a tired hound.
"Then I am still not quite adequate..." she said, detachedly. Something in her tone... it told him that there was a resigned bitterness to it, rather than mere frustration or shame. As though it were something she'd suspected, all along...

And that saddened him.

"No," he said, immediately, "it is not about you being adequate".

She turned back over, slowly, and looked up at him, brow furrowed, "... then... what?".

... I can't believe I'm about to say this, unironically...

"It is not you... it is me", he said, looking away from her to hide his failure at keeping a straight face. He allowed the cliché to hang there and waited. He felt the weight on the bed shift, before hearing her ask, "is it... that same problem?" He sat up and crossed his legs, facing away from her.
"Yes."

Silence... and then she came up behind him and hugged him around his neck— head resting on his right shoulder...
He gave a chuff to indicate acceptance, and turned his head to meet her, their mandibles briefly wrestling before they bumped heads to reconcile.
"Can you tell me if I'm doing everything right, at least?" she asked him, in a whisper.

... were it not for the context and her rueful tone, that phrase would have made for a very large warning-sign. But he knew what she meant, and knew that she needed a straight answer, so he responded, honestly, "you're doing better than I would have expected, Hul'Mei".

She rested her forehead on his back... sighed loudly... and whispered, "thank you, treasure".

He grunted, "in all honesty, I might have to say `yes`, when the time comes, by default, if nothing else. I haven't found fault with you, so far... it has been pleasant to get to know you..."

Likely remembering that their agreement had been slated to peak at the end of the Hunting Ship's expedition, Hul'Mei asked, "when does this vessel return to Yautja Prime?"

He frowned at that. He wasn't quite sure. The Hunt on Guardian had gone exceedingly well, and they'd already collected more Trophies than anyone on the ship had expected at the start of the expedition. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think that the ship would return to Yautja Prime within the next term. But Yak'a-Shen could easily direct the vessel to do the opposite. It would depend on how Yak'a felt about all of this...
"I don't know..." he said, cautiously, "the quota for this expedition has been more than met, already, but I'm not certain if the Elder in charge won't simply take the vessel in another direction and keep the Hunt going...". Hul'Mei had shifted to sit next to him, on his left, as he'd talked. He glanced at her and held open his left hand, which she quickly took in hers.

"If they do decide to end the expedition, now... then you'll make a decision when we arrive on Yautja Prime?," she asked. There was more dread in her tone than excitement, which he found odd.
"Probably," he shrugged, nonchalantly, "although... there is the matter of that Ooman vessel we Tagged...".

He saw her frown out of the corner of his eye. "Oh," she said, sounding disappointed, "... I forgot about that."

He nodded to himself, humming, "so did I. No way of knowing when that vessel will take flight and leave the planet... or if it will, anytime soon."
"And we don't know where it's going..." she said.
"Nope," he admitted.
"So, we'll have to pray that it doesn't go anywhere while we're on our way to Yautja Prime?"
"Yes."
"Or while we're on Yautja Prime?"
"Yes."
"... or while we're mating." He looked to her with a skeptical squint— one that carried an implied warning. At which, she quickly amended, "while you're deciding whether we'll mate."
He nodded, with a grunt.
"If we track the ship to wherever it's going, whether sooner or later, and find the merchants responsible for the Infestation... what will we do, exactly?" she asked.

"It's entirely unlikely we'll ever catch wind of the ones in charge," he said, matter-of-factly, "or the ones that specifically organized the Infestation on Guardian. Weiylahnd-Yootahnee's power comes from hordes of blind servants doing the bidding of masters that have masters, themselves, and masters above even that. It is a web of inscrutable hierarchies within hierarchies...". A Yautja would take one look at such an organization and criticize its members for being stupidly loyal to people that they never even see with their own eyes. A leader who does not lead by example, and whom would not do the things they order others to do, is one not worth following.
The Yautja had had their fair shake of shoddy leadership over the centuries, and one of the most common indicators of an imminent bad time was a leader that rarely showed themselves.

Faceless delegation breeds deceit, after all— or, so many would tell you.

Hult-nah'Mei-jadhi looked at him, frowning, prompting him to return her with his own attention. The tusks on her mandibles scraped together in a stiff manner as she squinted— confusion. She spoke, "if there's no chance of destroying these merchants, what would be the point in following the vessel?"
He responded, plainly, "oh, it's not about destroying them. You'd need a thousand years and ten-thousand warriors at your back to fully dismantle it. As I said, planet-side: our goal is to simply find out whatever they're doing and shut it down. Whatever deprives them of profit is usually a good thing".

She looked at him, thoughtfully, for a short while, as though to curate a piece of artwork; he returned the attention with his trademark patience, before she suddenly asked, "how did you first encounter them?"

Now, it was Zazin's' turn to frown... as he thought of how to go about telling that story...


Anteros didn't know how he'd ended up here. He had just off-loaded the first set of bags in the hangar, had been on his way back to the supermarket to come and get the second load...

But... this wasn't the supermarket. He struggled to remember how he'd come to be in this place— where "this place" even was. He specifically remembered planning out a route in his head to get to the market as quickly as possible, and he remembered taking note of which turns to take and which turns he had taken, but... then nothing. It was just a foggy haze, up until now... he must have zoned out. Why? How?

Anteros found himself in an abandoned machining area, what looked to be some form of "chop-shop". Large machines and sharp tools— half-soldered plates of metal and haphazardly-assembled sheets of alloy. Belt-fed conveyor-belts strewn with pieces of wiring and plastics... oil-stained stone floor... a half-assembled power-loader hanging from the ceiling by chains and carbon-wire. The scent of oil, flame, and grease on the air. Dark. Silent. Still. Frozen in time, from the instant that the workers who'd been laboring here dropped their tasks and left. Huh...

Anteros tried to figure out where exactly he was in relation to the rest of New Scena City. He felt familiar with this particular assembly-shop, but his sense of orientation was completely thrown off. He had a general idea of where this workplace sat in the fire-scorched, metallic halls of the Industrial District, but the exact minutiae of it all escaped him at that instant.

As he was turning about and scanning his surroundings, trying to reorient his sense of direction, he heard something. Far away, echoing through... something, from somewhere... the alarmed scream of a Hive-Ma—... of a Xenomorph. Quickly followed by several quieter ones answering the declaration. Upon hearing the sound, it was only then as Anteros felt a deep tugging within his gut that he realized what had happened. The Ancestral's recent whining and the phenomenon of the possibility of a new Queen... he must have zoned out and followed the call on autopilot. Like he might have done in the days before he'd absorbed Humanity into his psyche— before he became lucid...

He snarled to himself and lashed his tail. He'd let himself get carried along by the pull of instinct, and now he was lost— probably deeper in the Hive territory than he should have been. His only hope was that he wasn't too far in to not be able to get out and get back on-track. But as the presence of many Hive—... many Xenomorphs flashed into and out of existence, passing by at the very edges of his sphere-of-perception, he suddenly wondered to himself what exact instinct he'd been following...

He observed the brief, winking motes of energy around his perceptive-range as they passed by and disappeared in droves— dozens by the second... hundreds of Hive— of Xenomorphs, all passing by him... and all of them traveling in one direction. The whispers of their thoughts and consciousnesses teased at his mind from what seemed like a thousand miles away... all of them male... and all of them thinking of the same thing— must find the new Queen... find new Queen... find Queen...

At first, all he could think of was to run— to get out of dodge before he became trapped. They might not have been paying him any mind, but that could change very quickly. There was no telling how many others had heard of his treason from Mother, if any, and he wasn't keen on pushing his luck.
But... as he continued to watch the horde of his supposed siblings rushing by above, below, and on every side... he felt a rising urge to follow them. The impulse was powerful... enough that he had to crush the metal flooring beneath his hands to stop himself from pursuing it— a panel of stainless steel crumpling under his grip and being torn free of its bolts.
The Ancestral seethed, bucked, and begged— begged him to follow the call. It was more than rage or satisfaction that it sought... there was a hope in it. And hope was not something he'd ever seen the Ancestral express.

He lifted the sheet of metal and ripped it in two as he debated with himself.

If he left— ran to his real destination... coping with this new impulse would be much more difficult. It might cause issues— might jeopardize himself and Samantha's chances. It seemed frighteningly plausible that if he tried to kick this under the rug, he may find himself pulled under by its sway in Samantha's presence... and put her in danger. He'd already been lulled into it even in the course of trying to focus on his task. But if he followed the call, now— to try and get it over with or put a stop to it... there weren't many scenarios he could think of where he wouldn't die, in the process...
... but he might have been wrong.
The Ancestral had known since the start that being too near to the Hive would result in death— it knew that he was a traitor to the Hive, and it thus hadn't bothered urging him to obey Mother or return to the central nest.
But it was doing so, now— and in a way that it had never directed him, before. As though he were no more a traitor than Lich— as though there were some grand prize to find at the end of the tunnel. The Ancestral may have been bullish, irrational, and uncompromising... but it was rarely wrong. Even if he usually took pains to refuse it any obedience.

If he ignored it and went on his way, he'd be given trouble that he couldn't be certain he could protect Samantha from... but if he could perhaps indulge it and see what the fuss was about... he might belay any repercussions... and get some closure.
He'd have to return to the Hive. And see what in Hell this business about a new Queen was about.

Anteros slowly dropped scraps of metal from his hands, let them clatter to the ground. He scanned about himself once more, before calmly padding his way toward an open door on the far end of the assembly-house. As he moved through the opened door (a crumpled aluminum shutter that had been torn off its ceiling-mount), he found that the Ancestral fell remarkably silent. He walked out into a ruined hallway— acid-stains and blackened pits scattered across every surface. The entrance to an empty electronics station just across from the door to the assembly-shop. Likely all part of the same operation to build power-loaders.

He turned about himself, unconsciously hunching over as he looked at the paths of the many, many males around him. He was judging where exactly they could be heading, and was figuring out whether he should just follow them... when a life-sign popped into his vision, from behind him. He turned about to greet an approaching Soldier, running on all fours at full-speed toward him. Anteros was prepared to fight— he pressed his side against the wall and held his tail aloft to be used as a deterrent. But as the Soldier ran closer... he felt less and less threatened...
Something told him there was no need to fight... so he lowered his tail... listened for any ill-intent from the approaching male...
And when the Soldier ran straight past him and in the direction of everyone else... Anteros concluded that so long as he kept his distance, he could be safely ignored. It seemed everyone was much too preoccupied with finding their new mommy— the comedy in such a statement gave him little comfort. Anteros saw no better way to go about it... so he followed the male ahead of him— trotting at a brisk pace to keep up. Staying just far enough behind that he could veer off and run at any time, but close enough that he wouldn't lose sight of 'em.

Minutes passed. He followed the Soldier ahead of him for about a half-hour— through the dead, silent hallways of the Industrial District's metallic, dark-bronze halls. Hopping over pits of dried acid, avoiding projected flames spewed by broken heat pipes, weaving through electrified cables and wires hanging from the walls and ceilings. It was about forty minutes in that the lights of other Xenomorphs around him steadily grew closer— the grouping becoming tighter. When other Soldiers and Rangers and Workers started joining him and his "friend" in their hallway, Anteros did his best to keep himself calm.
As the other males became more numerous, the amount of free space slowly began to constrict. When it soon became the case that he had two or three Hive-Mates ahead and behind him permanently, not to mention dozens of others above, below, and to each side, in other halls and vents... he was surprised to see that the Ancestral and Unknown were barely making a peep. No fear, no concern, no worry...

I don't know if I like the sound of that...

Over time, as an hour-and-a-half had gone by... Anteros couldn't help but notice that he was beginning to feel a kinship with the males beside him. Like... like driving behind a particular car on a highway and... thinking of them as a friend, after a while. But it was... it was something the Ancestral urged on. And Anteros disliked that he could still feel this way about other Xenomorphs— Ebony Demons. Monsters. He'd never quite... traveled with other Hive-Mates, before— never really hung around any particular group for longer a few minutes, and even then, only in the course of pursuing a group of Marines or hunting down a particular human. Otherwise, he would have been trudging around on his own or sleeping in some forgotten corner of the Hive. This... this was new.
That he felt strangely at-home amongst them made him supremely uncomfortable. Which only worsened as the tightening crowd forced him to trot side-by-side with a Ranger...
It ignored him and he ignored it, totally, but... the growing sense of... brotherhood in his gut made him feel nauseous...
He occupied himself with calculating their destination...

Something he began to notice were... corpses. Xenomorph corpses— female by the smell of them. Lying at the bottoms of acid-pits, their limbs broken, appendages sliced off, jaws removed, skulls sliced open...
And... a lot of dorsal-tubes. Just... dorsal-tubes, torn-off at the bases... everywhere. More than could have come from just the corpses— maybe six or eight for every carcass... but the bodies, themselves very rarely had missing dorsal-tubes...
He could barely go two minutes without having to step over such corpses, acid-pits, and body-parts. He could only surmise that the Hive's females had indeed been killing each other, but why there seemed to be more dorsal-tube-quads than individuals escaped him— why any of their dorsal-tubes had been torn off, at all, escaped him...

Given that the space between each "pod" of Hive-Mates was getting smaller and smaller— many large "groups" like the one he'd found himself in could be seen at the edges of his perception... and given that the corpses and dismembered body-parts and acid-damage staining the walls and ceiling was getting more and more common... he was beginning to get the feeling that their destination was near.

How many times had he walked these same halls— traveled this very path on his way to and from the Hive? Even back then, it had never quite felt welcoming or comfortable. It had always just been another task.
Now, though, as Anteros retraced these long-resented footsteps, he felt only trepidation. He couldn't say he was glad to take this under-duress walk down memory-lane. The Ancestral's constant, seething desire to run ahead — toward some obfuscated prize in the far distance — only drove him to wonder what exactly could cause it to react that way. Things that the Ancestral wanted weren't usually good...
Anteros felt a tightening coldness in his chest— an increasing sense of entrapment, growing within the pits of his gut. The larger that the pod grew in number, the more that the vents and halls around it began to fill with Xenomorphs... Anteros could almost compare the sensation to a noose being tied around his neck. Mixed with the Ancestral's apparent jubilance, he found himself deeply unsettled, evermore. What was that old phrase? "The knife of sugar"? "A leash that gleams"? "Bow-tied razor-wire"?

He was probably just coming up with nonsense as a means to cope with the stress...

Just as two hours of walking were about to pass... their destination came into view, up ahead. And as Anteros gazed upon the sight before him, he found himself overcome with an awe he'd never before felt.

It was... a wall of energy— a brilliant, flashing, wavering pool of bright power. Hundreds... thousands of Xenomorphs, all gathered in one spot— the immense body of living creatures extending far enough to the left and right to exceed his perceptive range, and tall and deep enough that almost everything in front of him was consumed by pulsing waves of cobalt. So many lights, so many hearts, so much movement, so much life... a grand cacophony of echoing calls and asynchronous screeches could be heard— so utterly loud... deafening, almost...
As the pod came closer, Anteros could barely comprehend what he was looking at— he'd never seen this many of his own kind gathered in one place. Maybe a few hundred at a time, but... never more than that. They were usually... always spread throughout the territory... this wasn't normal... nothing about this was normal.
The pod slowed to a walk as the Soldiers and Workers rose up onto their hind legs and trudged forward in relaxed slouches— the hall they'd been in had transitioned from the metallic bronze Industrial District to the blue-walled, linoleum-floored Commercial. Anteros found himself having to hop and side-step around the taller males as they walked past him. The Rangers who half-crawled-half-galloped like demonic monkeys or goblins shouldered past him, and Anteros found himself slowing to a stop and having to stand to one side of the hall to avoid bumping into any of them.
He couldn't bring himself to proceed forward, anyway— he was racking his brain trying to figure out how this could be possible. Where exactly this was in New Scena. How so many Xenomorphs could be in one spot... it reminded him of distant memories of stadiums or arenas.

When he thought of that... only one location came to mind...

One of the Primary Egg-Chambers, where much of the bulk of Hosts and Eggs were brought. Given the length to either side, Anteros guessed it was the southern-most Egg-Chamber. Two hangar-bays, not unlike the one Samantha was in, touching at the end of either of their lengths had been in the midst of the Hive's center-most territory, and as such, the wall separating the two was broken down by fist and acid. Combined into a single, giant space roughly the area and half the depth of a "football field". Or... "rugby field", as the case may be... he wasn't sure— that whole thing was screwy.
Anteros now had a better idea of where exactly on Guardian he was, and which direction he'd have to go in to return to Samantha, on a happier note.
On a less assuring one... Anteros couldn't ignore the feeling of completion— of satisfaction that the Ancestral kept giving him. This was the place— the destination where the "new Queen" allegedly was...

I shouldn't be happy about this... I should be scared for my life... I should be running away as fast as possible... so why do I feel so... at-peace?

As an increasingly large number of other males walked past him, Anteros could feel the Ancestral tugging at him. In his gut... he knew that he'd crossed the point of no return. If he tried to leave, now, he'd make it about half a mile before the tugging turned into a yank... and not much further than that before the yank became something worse... something harsher.
The Unknown was getting uncomfortable, rebelling against the notion of going forward— begging to go back to Samantha. Though the two forces weren't quite fighting one another... they weren't not cancelling each other out, somewhat. He wasn't keen on making them fight any more than they were...
His only option, now... was to grit his teeth and rip off the Band-Aid. Whatever awaited him up ahead... he would have to do whatever he could to keep himself safe.

The Ancestral... it burned at him with hope... and desperation. It had never done that, before— it had always been rage and bloodlust and want and satisfaction. He didn't know that things like "hope" were even in the Xenomorph lexicon of evolutionary-psychology. What it hoped for, what prize it believed he'd find: he wasn't sure. Whatever the presence of this "new Queen" meant to it: Anteros could only guess. But if he wanted to have any hope of walking away from all of this madness, once and for all... he'd have to soldier through it. Even if it meant wrestling with the Ancestral and Unknown in a potentially volatile situation. Even if it meant he had to reassert his loyalty to Samantha... and to Humanity... in the face of everything he'd ever hated about himself. He had to try...

... and if the only way to give myself the chance to do so is to revisit the past that I can't seem to leave behind, no matter how many times I throw it away... so be it.

It seemed that the Hive wasn't done with him, yet.

Even though he was one-hundred-and-ten percent done with it.

His only regret, going in? The fact that he'd neglected to let Samantha know that he might be gone longer usual...


"... and they didn't believe you?", Hult-nah'Mei-Jadhi asked him, incredulously.

"Nope," he said, "and when I pushed the issue, I was ordered to cease by the High Enclave's emissary".

He was lying on the bed in a sarcophagus-pose with his head laying in Hul'Mei's lap, as he'd told her the tale of his first run-in with Weyland-Yutani. They'd cracked out a few goblets of c'nitlip, earlier, as Zazin-Vor'mekta had given the excuse that remembering the event in-question required a loosened tongue. In reality, it was because he knew he'd give himself a headache from the frustration of reliving it, without some alcohol in his veins. There was also the fact that he was technically supposed to keep the story a secret (especially from a Bright Spear), but at this point in his life: he found it oh-so terribly difficult to give the slightest of a damn. Still, though... it would help to have some plausible deniability if and/or when he was caught for divulging it.

"What happened, after that? Did the Oomans retaliate? Did you ever find those artifacts they'd stolen?" she asked him, searchingly, looked down at him with face that looked equal parts desperate and annoyed.

"Well... the Scout-Ship returned to Yautja Prime, if the Oomans retaliated, I wouldn't know... and no... I did not find where those artifacts went," he said, deadpan and apathetic.

He was staring at the ceiling in reverie, not really paying attention to Hul'Mei the whole time. However, he didn't miss the look of immense confusion and incredulity that passed over her features. She gestured about herself, as though prepared to enter a rant, but couldn't seem to find the words for it. Eventually, she sort of just stared into the middle-distance as though it had said something so ridiculous to her as to be blatantly stupid.

Yep... that's how I felt.

Some quiet units later, she looked down at him and asked, "what came of it, then?"

Zazin' thought to himself a moment, before admitting, almost surprised at himself, "nothing in particular, now that I give thought to it. Though, it was the reason that the High Enclave later approached me about membership... and the reason I ultimately refused them".

A long, awkward, but not-unexpected silence followed as Hul'Mei appeared to do a double-take and reassess what she'd just heard.

"You... were a candidate for joining the Dark Blade Clan's High Enclave..." she said, sounding so shocked that it verged on the edge of being deadpan, "and you refused?" The look on her face adopted an air of utter fatigue along with the sheer disbelief that Zazin' had been offered such a position, and had had the gall to say "no". This newest revelation about him likely struck her as tiring more than it did shocking. He wondered if she'd ever get sick of his veritable Gordian Knot of secrets and convolutions. In which case, he'd probably need to come up with a new gimmick before things got stale between them.

He didn't respond to her presumably rhetorical question, and only gave her a completely serious look in response to the disbelieving one she gave him. On seeing his utter humorlessness, Hul'Mei only huffed and looked at the ceiling. Whether out of exasperation or something else: he couldn't say, but he could only snort to himself when he heard her mutter: "that explains a lot". She looked back down at him, thoughtfully, her hands idly tracing his mandibles and brow.
She said, off-handedly, "next you'll tell me you slew an Abomination with nothing but a dagger," before smiling at him, coyly.

He did not respond. Only suppressed a smile.

Upon seeing his apparent lack of reaction, Hul'Mei scowled violently for a good few moments in stark refusal to believe his implicit silence... before she abruptly snorted to herself and laughed into her hand, saying, "well, now I know that you're twisting my mandible!" She prodded him in his pectoral with a claw; prompting him to reach up and poke at her face; which then caused her to poke at his face; so he got up off her lap and the two of them started poking at each other, like pups, in swift escalation— soon turning into an impromptu wrestling match.
Mere units later, Zazin' found himself tumbling off the side of the bed and onto the floor— his mandibles mashed into his face against the metal. He quickly picked himself up off the floor and was ready to get back to it, only to find Hul'Mei lying on the bed, beside herself in quiet fits of giggling. He stopped and snorted at the sight, shaking his head and setting about picking up the tossed and disheveled swaths of leathers and furs thrown from the bed in their tumble.

He tossed them at Hul'Mei as soon as he picked them up, walking around the bed and retrieving them. As she ceased laughing and got to her knees to bat aside the projectiles, Zazin' remarked: "to be fair, I did once fight an Abomination...".

She did not catch the next swath of fur, and allowed the Kagou'ti hide to bounce off of her face and fall to the bed. She looked at him as though he'd done or said something intensely surprising... before she squinted at him, crossing her arms.

He gave her a dry look, and asked, tiredly, "I'm going to have to tell you that story now, aren't I?".

She simply nodded, slowly, and grinned at him.


This place hasn't changed a bit, Anteros thought.

This Egg Chamber, having been built within two hangars, had had quite a bit of work done on it. The primary feature of which being the fact that the Hive had constructed six platforms made of Hive-Resin that encompassed the entire circumference of the massive space— more or less resulting in the massive room having a dozen or so artificial "floors". Each floor being situated about four and a half feet above the other— occasional "pillars" connecting each massive platform to support all of that weight.
Enough space for a Xenomorph to crawl comfortably, yet tight enough that it made the most of the available surface-area. Of course, the entire middle of the giant space was left empty— a giant hole stretching through the length of the space, such that each artificial "floor" had a massive, obvious exit-slash-entrance toward the center of the room. The point of that being: all of the Eggs were stockpiled in the center of the space, down on the "ground floor", and could thus be taken up to any "floor" needed.

From down in the center of the chamber, in the middle-area, one would be greeted with the sight of immense balconies running the length of the entire space's circumference, one atop the other. Each "balcony" seeming to hang over the empty "field" with an increasing tightness of the "oval" the higher up one went. The bottom and top floors having the largest floor-space, so to speak.

All of the Hosts would be up against furthest the walls and never anywhere near the edges of any floor's balcony, deep in the very corners— like pieces of lint stuffed under and into the midst of a stack of rugs. Tied to the floors and allowed to contribute their decaying bones to the mass of mucus; on the ceilings and becoming little more than fleshy ornaments to brush past and ignore; on the walls... pockmarked across every available surface— made easy by the low ceilings. The only light any of the Hosts could see from their positions was a faint, distant glow— from a pair of relatively small, unobscured lights in the center of the room's true ceiling. The only light-source for miles around.

It was certainly a functional design, at the very least. And it accommodated for the crowds of Xenomorphs present, well enough.

Upon entering the lion's den, Anteros was met with a wall of cacophonous noise... and bodies. An ocean of other male Xenomorphs. Thousands of them, taking up every square meter of space— brushing shoulders and dorsal-tubes with Hive-Mates to either side and above their heads. More still were hanging from the true ceiling, high above. Whatever Hosts were still around, they were completely concealed beneath a sea of chitin and bone.
Anteros had to literally climb on top of and clamber over all of the Hive-Mates in his path, also having to squeeze under the Hive-Mates hanging from the ceiling. Not pleasant— and not just because the constant, omni-present hisses, grunts, snarls, and barks were almost debilitating in their volume. The Xenomorphs he had to climb over and pass under all ignored him, but Anteros still felt compelled to get away from them as quickly as possible— like he were avoiding their leprosy.

Anteros tried to make his way to the nearest unoccupied space. And judging by how packed every given square-meter was, on this floor, Anteros would have to make his way down to the true floor— down to "ground level" where the chamber's true floor was. Anteros could see beyond the walls of bodies and noise, and while what he saw happening down below was the core point of interest, he found himself utterly unable to focus on it until he could find enough space to stand up straight and spread his arms.
He made his way through the ocean of Xenomorphs, having to practically use his "siblings" as a cramped, horror-film jungle-gym as he made way straight inward, toward the balcony. Once he squeezed out into open air, the males beneath him gave way and allowed him some space to between them, letting him finally make contact with the Hive-Resin flooring he'd been unable to touch. Clambering down, Anteros let himself drop down to the next "rung", where the males below absentmindedly shifted aside to let him climb down. He'd entered the Egg Chamber through an entrance on the fourth "terrace" up from lowest floor, so it was a process.

A long process that he found himself becoming supremely uncomfortable with as the seconds dragged on. Especially considering the main event taking center-stage less than forty meters away, below him...

After having gotten to the bottom floor, Anteros found it almost completely deserted, and so he quickly scrambled under the shade of the second floor, putting himself right up against the true wall and running to the far corner of what used to be the hangar.
The reason for the ground-level's near-complete desertion made itself apparent to him once he gathered his senses and examined the few Xenomorphs here that he'd just joined.
They were all female... and Anteros got the distinct impression that that was a crucial piece to this puzzle.

The females amongst him were all curled in on themselves, into balls... lying on the floor and staying utterly still. They were missing their dorsal tubes— only left with leaking, bloody stumps sprouting from their chitin... Each wounded appendage would occasionally sputter with still-flowing blood in the course of respiration... and from the force of said sputtering (producing ragged blowing and sucking noises that were unusually loud) Anteros guessed that the female Xenomorphs around him were focusing all of their concentration on simply projecting pheromones.
From them, he caught the scent of something... rare. A very particular pheromone that he'd seldom encountered before— one that, on some level, caused him to feel... contempt. It was the scent of submission— a chemical signal that all of the females around him were emitting, near-constantly, as they made themselves look as small as possible. Essentially signaling: "am small. am harmless. no hurt. am weak. am servile".

These were the only female Xenomorphs he'd run into, so far, that weren't dead... and he could only assume that the reason for that was right in front of him.

In the space usually reserved for stockpiling unused Eggs, in the center of the bottom floor and more or less in full view of the floors, above... was what Anteros could only describe as a battleground. The entire veritable field that wasn't over-shadowed by a Hive-Resin ceiling was pockmarked with the broken, shredded corpses of female Xenomorphs, as well as enough dorsal-tubes to make fifteen thatch-roofs out of— covering the ground like leaf-litter on a forest floor. Acid-stains galore on every square-meter, with deep blackened pits wherever gaps in Hive-Resin had left the metal flooring beneath exposed. The carnage of chitin and caustic, crusty crevices ran thick across the ground for more or less the entire length of the hockey-field's worth of space...
The arena was the grave of females of all castes— Workers, Soldiers, Rangers, and Lurkers... including one Praetorian. A dead, female Praetorian. Arms broken, dorsal-spikes snapped off at the bases, tail dismembered, skull crushed like a watermelon...

But that wasn't the least of it. There were two females still standing, in the ring... both of them Praetorians, and both of them were facing off. Pacing around one another— posturing, snarling at each other like cats in a turf-war.

Anteros sought the meaning to all of this within himself— asking what in Hell was going on. He'd never known that female Praetorians were a thing, much less why two of them were apparently fighting. And why one was already dead. Why were there so many dead females, yet also so many cowed and submissive ones?...
As much as Anteros knew all of this should have confused him, he found himself strangely clear-of-mind and completely composed... and that bothered almost as much everything else did.
The reason for that, no doubt, was the Ancestral— it was eagerly feeding him information about what all of this meant, and why all of it was happening. More forthcoming than it had ever really been, before, actually...

Given the Ancestral's incessant ravings, the well-established dissolving of the Hive-Mind, the evidence he'd seen so far, and the rumors from Deutereux... Anteros came to some form of plot-synopsis on what the fuck was going on.
When Mother died, her disappearance from the Hive-Mind must have triggered some kind of response in the female population. The females, all across the Hive Territory, started killing one another. When and if these fights produced a clear winner and loser, the losers of each bout would be forced to submit to the winner's dominance— apparently exemplified by one female tearing off the dorsal-tubes of another. A day and a half of this and increasing isolation would cause remote females to molt into Praetorians, at which point said Praetorians would race back to the central Hive in a bid to solidify their claims to Queenhood. The Praetorians would inevitably fight one another, and whomever was left standing would become the Queen, and the new leader of the Hive.

And now... he was just in time to witness the two finalists... presumably all according to the Ancestral's desires. It was at this point that Anteros finally understood why it had pushed this issue so hard... and why it felt, apparently, "hopeful" that he could rejoin the Hive. With Mother dead, it was entirely possible that the new Queen wouldn't know Anteros was ever traitor, or would potentially grant him amnesty.
But... there was more to it— Anteros could sense as much. There was something more— some... obscure prize that the Ancestral urged him to seek, even still. Something that would come after a new Queen had claimed her throne. It was like a word being on the tip of his tongue— Anteros couldn't quite put his finger on what this "prize" supposedly was.

What could a new Queen possibly offer hi—

... the image of a Praetorian popped into his mind. An image of him. Standing tall, beside a Queen— roaring his dominance over the rest of the Hive...

... oh. So that's what this is about...

A promotion.

The two combatants facing off in the Egg Chamber's hockey-field-sized arena were both female Praetorians, but that was where the similarities ended. They were equally imposing, though.
In one corner, standing at eleven feet tall and probably weighing somewhere in the neighborhood of a small pick-up truck: a Ranger (known to Humans as "Spitters"). Its off-black, glossy-sheen carapace, blade-like hooks on either side of the jaw, bright, glowing sacks of acid lining the edges of its crest, and axe-like tail-blade having been retained in the transition to royal guard. On the Ranger-Praetorian's face were a trio of claw-marks framing its mouth and multiple cracks in its armor could be seen all about its armored chest.

In the other corner, standing at thirteen feet tall and likely weighing something similar to an ice-cream-truck: a Sentry (known to Humans as "Lurkers"). It's shield-shaped crest was almost entirely a smooth, uniform surface, unlike most Praetorians; the competitor also retained its semi-translucent outer-chitin— a trait that absorbed shining light, minimized reflection, and helped to break up an individual's silhouette against the dark Hive-Resin surroundings: making Sentries the most apt for stealth among all Xenomorphs. As such, and being somewhat typical among its caste, the bigger Praetorian had a distorted human-skull showing through its opaque, armored head; a motif that found itself most commonly expressed in Sentries. The Sentry-Praetorian also had larger, more powerful legs, denoting to its previous life of being the Hive's most talented jumpers and acrobats— relatively speaking.

The two were hunched over, stalking around each other in a circle. They were making threat-displays and throwing their weight around, trying to make themselves appear as intimidating as possible. Tails lashing around, feet stomping with each step, fists and claws brandished at the forefront, and teeth bared. They snarled, hissed, and barked at each other— trying to out-macho the other "woman", it seemed.
Anteros had to wonder why. If both competitors had the ability to become Queens, and if there could only be one, then it seemed to him that the only path forward was for one to kill the other and get on with it. Why they were wasting time making threat-displays, as though it were even possible that one could shout down the other and force the loser into obedience, escaped him. Then again, he wasn't quite in the habit of assuming his species' behavior to be at all "rational".

If he were honest with himself, though, he'd been surprised by his species more than once, today; if it turned out that there was more than one way this could end, Anteros wouldn't exactly be gobsmacked.

Anteros had more or less determined the real mystery, here— he had no reason to stick around. He'd figured out every reason for the recent phenomena, and there was no reason he could think of for him to stay in the Hive. However, when he considered the idea of leaving, the Ancestral refused outright, and he was struck with a sudden, unprecedented debilitating sense of vertigo. The kind usually restricted to extreme lightheadedness... such that he had to stumble and catch himself before he lost his balance.

He waited, regained his footing... and tried to move— tried to lift himself up and make his way out of the Hive. But the moment he lifted his arm, his limbs became overcome with the feeling of being turned into lead, and the lightheaded returned full force— like the debilitating, cold headache of standing up from a chair too fast. Anteros tried at least three more times in quick succession to bring himself to leave this place... but each time the Ancestral's pull caused him to fail at the outset. He found himself on his back, eventually— his energy sapped.
And he didn't understand how.

Why?! I've humored this nonsense long enough! It's time to put the toys away and get back to work!, he told himself, managing to heft himself back onto his feet by sheer force of irritation. I've seen what the fuss is about, I know what's at stake. The longer I stay here: the more danger I'm in! To stay here would be idiotic, ill-advised, and vehemently irresponsible... I owe nothing to the Hive and everything to Samantha— detouring as much as I have is probably the biggest breach of trust I can get away with! I shouldn't be here, I don't want to be here, and there's nothing to gain by sticking around...

... So why aren't I leaving?! Why am I letting the Ancestral have its way?!

The image of a Bronze-clad Praetorian flashed into his brain-pan, once more... and Anteros found himself seriously considering whether Hive truly had nothing to give him. When he thought of it— of being that big and strong, and of the chance at being able to mate, specifically... a deep... wanton sense of longing filled his chest. It was... it was like he'd lost something precious to him and was only now the verge getting it back. The longer he dwelled on that feeling, the more that it began to resemble grief... a deep, hollow, aching in his soul. But... that made no sense! You can't feel grief over something you never had...

The memory of Lich's death begged to differ on that front... and Anteros found himself questioning even that much. And as that particular admittance crossed his mind, he almost instantly experienced a visceral reaction.

In an abrupt cascade of emotion and impulse, Anteros felt the Ancestral begin to push harder— it fed him images of himself as a Praetorian, of him mating with a Queen, of the Hive being made strong with his prodigious intellect and (apparently) superior genes. It appealed to him with promises of endless power and prolific progeny... and it catered to a sense of... ego that Anteros didn't know he had. When, however, Anteros found himself humoring the idea— of becoming a Candidate, defeating his competitors, and making a permanent mark on the future of the Hive as one of its leaders... what had been pure confusion and uneasiness rapidly became disgust. And hatred. As though whipped into an impulsive reaction, Anteros felt an intense welling of anger within him— one that he instantly adopted.
No... no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no... I can't... I cannot seriously be having this conversation with myself, right now!

Anteros snarled to himself, clenched his fists, and struck the ceiling with his tail. He forced himself to breathe more raggedly, forced himself to recall a slew of the Hive's countless victims, and focused all of his mental acuity on the task of doing his utmost to dredge up every conceivable ounce of anger and hatred in his heart. The hate he felt for his own wretched existence.
Every time he'd been forced to watch people die. Every time he'd been witness to the birth of another sibling. Every time he'd been forced to kill a person. Every anguished plea on desperate whispers, every unrequited prayer for merciful salvation— every delusional wish for the comfort and safety of long-gone memories and long-lost loves. Anteros called to mind each and every atrocity he'd ever been witness to— dug deep within the seldom-visited corners of his memories to call forth any and all shards of the past that he'd ever been ashamed to know; he called upon them to serve his need, in this moment. A desperate, feverish need for raw, unfettered, hate.

Before him stood the very real possibility of reconciling with the Hive and putting himself in a position of considerable power. The Ancestral liked that idea very much— it wanted what it felt was best for him. Best for the Hive.
And when Anteros caught himself seriously considering the idea, he had to put his foot down. He could feel his baser urges pushing him toward taking the "deal", and he knew for a fact that he found it very tempting on a deep, primal level. Whether it was the promise of sex or the potential gains in sheer power: Anteros was indeed allured by the concept.

And that was exactly the problem.

So, as though by sheer instinct in itself, Anteros dredged up every single thing he'd ever hated about the Hive and his time there— he called it to memory like a gunslinger draws their pistol. The crimes against nature, the death, the misery, the loneliness— all of it! He forced himself to remember every tragic moment and every bad day; every dead child and every violated corpse— simply to get himself angry! To use that anger to purge the sickening, untenable prospect of rejoining with the very thing that had caused every iota of his pain and suffering!
He did not spend those hours and days comforting the victims of the Egg Chambers just to go to ahead and sentence more people to death with his own genetic material as fuel for the flame!
He did not put up with Mother's orders for six fucking months, just to put himself in the yoke of another tyrant, mere days after he was free of the last one!
He did not risk life and limb to keep Samantha safe only to turn his back on her at the last minute! He would not let the deaths of Gorm and Pereskova's friends be for nothing, dammit! The blood on his hands, however circumstantial, would not go without atonement! Too much already had...

Anteros snarled, bared his teeth, dug his claws into his palms; his tail struck gouges into the Resin above his head, and his breathing became more ragged. The females around him were unable to ignore the aggression he was radiating and took it as a threat— all of them crawling, backing away from him and redoubling their efforts to appear submissive and nonthreatening. This was lost on him, however, as he was far too trapped in his own thoughts to care.

The more that Anteros fomented himself on the college-textbook's-worth of reasons he hated his own existence, the Ancestral's pushing and prodding began to become quieter. It was working! He started to feel that old, familiar magma in the back of his head— only, now it was present at his behest, and not the Ancestral's!
In the throes of rage and resentment, Anteros (for the first time in his life) felt a real sense of control over that Ancestral flame— the chemical steroid that had hounded him since the day of his birth. But it was doing as he wanted, now! Rage was finally his bitch!
A new tinge of euphoria at this breakthrough was added to the whirling storm of hatred and regret within him. A migraine pounded at the walls of his mind, the heat in his skull was building to a fever-pitch, drool cascaded from his maw... and he was only one more push from shutting the Ancestral up altogether and putting all of this to bed!

Unbeknownst to him... the Praetorians had ceased fighting... and almost everything in the Egg Chamber had gone utterly silent. Though he had no clue... he was putting on quite the show...
And Xenomorphs are nothing if not observant.

Anteros felt himself very much on the edge— mentally and physically. Of what, he couldn't say, but he knew that the sooner he could throw himself off of it: the sooner he could leave this place forever and return to Samantha, for good. The fact that his mind happened to be an open book to any that happened to be listening, in the process, barely occurred to him... and so it was with one last thought that Anteros severed his ties with the Hive once and for all.
The Hive has nothing of value to give me anymore!

I've known that since before I met Samantha! I've known it since I learned my first words! I've always known it to be true. Nothing has changed— I haven't changed, the Hive hasn't changed, and nothing about any of this makes any difference! The Hive was, is, and always shall be a cesspool of hatred, barbarism, and foulness— a warcrime against all the laws of nature and an affront to everything pure and righteous in this universe! To ignore all of that, and throw my lot back in with these monsters for what I can only assume is solely the chance at a Queen's minge, is to spit in the face of everything I've ever stood for!

A future with the Hive is no future, at all— especially given the fact that THIS ENTIRE CITY IS GOING TO BE OBLITERATED BY A NUCLEAR EXPLOSION WITHIN THE WEEK! THIS PLACE, THIS HIVE— IT HAS NO FUTURE! I DO! I will not throw... that... away...

Anteros would have kept ranting internally, if the image of an immense mushroom cloud in his brain-pan didn't suddenly and unexpectedly wash away and dispel any and all of the Ancestral's latent hold on him. That idea... that notion of everything on this side of the continent being vaporized in a radioactive pressure-wave was, for some reason, enough to completely restore his self-control to him. And that confused him...
All at once, his built up rage and frustration was utterly smothered and quashed. As he crouched there, head pounding and searing from the chemical light-show within, maw overflowing with drool, and limbs cramped up from having been held under tension for minutes, on-end... he realized, painfully, why the Ancestral had so abruptly retreated into his psyche.

And he started to seriously regret coming here...

All around and above him, each and every Xenomorph within the conceivable radius of a mile was utterly silent and still. And though most of them were not within a direct line-of-sight to him, their heads were all turned in his direction. Like an outburst at the back of a crowd during a silent interval, Anteros had become the undisputed center of attention. No sound whatsoever, and no movement beyond the constant thumping of each creature's heartbeat. They were paying him rapturous attention, and Anteros could feel a subtle rippling across his skin— no doubt the echolocation of his "siblings" being focused onto him.
The female Praetorians naught but fifty feet away had utterly ceased all acrimony... and had turned away from each other to "stare" at him.
Even the defeated females near to him had apparently gotten up off the ground and were paying him the same attention as everyone else. Anteros cautiously flexed his tail and scanned about himself, turning in a circle, and unconsciously slouching— he... he was... surprised at how deeply uncomfortable it felt to be caught in the headlights and at the notice of so many pairs of "eyes"… and it caused the sinking feeling in his gut to deepen.

It wouldn't have taken very many braincells to determine what had caused so many of the Hive's children to focus on him. And Anteros knew that it wasn't good.

They were listening to me the whole time, weren't they...?, he thought, guiltily. He didn't quite know what that truly meant… until he listened to the whispers of the minds surrounding him. And as the seconds passed, and as the silent cacophony of feelings and thoughts continued to build and synchronize, coming to a single conclusion... Anteros felt a dagger of ice sink into his heart... and a overwhelming sense of dread. Not because the fact of the matter was so disturbing... but because it meant he was likely entirely exposed...
Why? Because he had just put the approaching doom of New Scena on full blast... for all of them to hear.

They know that the Hive is going to get nuked. They know they will all die if they stay here... and I'm the one that told them...

A sudden shift in the psychic makeup of the Hive-Mind caught his attention, and Anteros took notice of the two Praetorians. They were facing each other, once again, but they were not fighting. They seemed, outwardly, to be staring at each other... but Anteros could faintly hear them exchanging... something. The sheer volume of voices and emotions all raving about the imminent doom of the Hive was difficult to parse through, but Anteros... could have sworn that the two females were... bargaining? Eventually, the larger Sentry hissed low, and bared her teeth— a threat... but a passive one. The Ranger was silent and still for a few moments, before she bowed her head... evidently in submission.
To Anteros's horror, the Praetorians turned away from one another— the Ranger turning to face in his direction but doing nothing, for some reason. The Sentry, meanwhile, took in a breath, and promptly unleashed an ear-shattering roar to the sky— a message to all Hive-Mates present. Anteros understood it from within his bones— it was a command to evacuate, seldom used, even across untold centuries, except in dire circumstances. The images of a set of halls and pathways, leading to a particular horizon, flashed throughout what was left of the Hive-Mind... and in a turn of events that crippled Anteros's understanding of his own species: every single other Xenomorph present promptly began moving— leaving the area... and all heading in the same direction. The masses slowly funneling toward an exit at the far end of the Egg Chamber that he couldn't see. Even the submissive females, on the ground floor, were scrambling to their feet and moving to heed the warning... leaving him standing there... watching the mess he'd made.

They... they can just do that?! They can put a fight-to-the-death on hold for the sake of preserving the Hive's safety?! And all the mooks will listen, and obey?! Where the Hell was this sort of common-sense the whole time I was here?!

If Anteros were physically able to gape in disbelief: his jaw would be soundly glued to the floor, right now...

The Sentry-Praetorian trudged forward a ways, crouching and hopping up to the Hive-Resin rung just above its head— climbing upward about three "floors" before crawling onto the correct one and moving in the same direction as its smaller siblings. It eventually disappeared among the sea of chitin and bone. Anteros found himself the only one staying still, while everyone else was getting out of dodge... and as the minutes wore on, and as more and more of the Hive's remaining populace moved out of sight: Anteros was left there... in the corner... face-to-face with the Ranger-Praetorian.

She stood there, obviously staring at him. He couldn't quite parse what the female was thinking, or what she planned... but the longer that she stayed there and observed, and the fewer Xenomorphs remained in the chamber... the more that that sinking feeling in his gut began to turn into fear. She was staying here for a reason, and the only one in sight was to deal with him. The only reason Anteros wasn't already sprinting away... was because a tiny, optimistic part of him wanted to think that, perhaps somehow: his Hive-Mates were capable of thinking rationally about things, and... maybe showing mercy for a family-member.
And also because he wasn't sure he could make enough distance to escape before she caught him...

The Praetorian was still and silent for a long while, simply keeping focused on him. However... when the last remaining Xenomorphs had left, and the surrounding area was barren of all other life... the large female stirred— lips twitching and peeling back to reveal drool-slathered fangs. A long, low hiss rumbled through the floor, into Anteros's hands and feet, and he cautiously backed away a few more paces, despite the distance between them already being more than six meters. The majority of the Hive-Mind having moved somewhere else: the Praetorian's thoughts were much easier to pick up on.
Anteros got the sense that the female had been thinking about, or at least stewing on whatever amount of information he had just been blasting into the psychic network naught but fifteen minutes ago. And now that all other Hive-Mates had left, it was time for her task to be done.

Of course: Anteros was marked for death— by the Queen's last order, and by the disastrous light-show of angst he'd just projected. That much was entirely apparent to Anteros, now that there were no pretenses. However... there was something that this Ranger wanted, first...?

It... probably shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did when the Praetorian before him lashed its tail indignantly... and psychically projected the English word: "traitor", at him. Impossibly, mind-numbingly loud, at that.
What wasn't a surprise... was the Praetorian launching itself toward him and charging on all fours...

As Anteros threw himself to one side and started sprinting, full-pelt toward the nearest ground-level exit... the only thought that came to his mind was...

I should apologize to Sam when I get back...