The Final Experiment (Chapter 8 Finale')

[mizolo]

Alright, this is indeed the end of this title, but not the end of the series.

Hopefully this chapter will make you feel emotion, hopefully like that of when your favorite character dies. Yes, that is a fore-shadow.



Let's see, where did we leave off? Ah, they get the info from the facility, come to the silo to de-activate and stumble upon the swarm and queen offers to be a diversion.


Alright, let us begin.



Chapter 8: What was within, is without, and within the hive of stability.




Abetha looked at the queen "You sure you want to do this?" She thought to her.

The queen looked back at her "Well, there's not much of a choice, they aren't immune to whatever this thing is, I am, and I can kill them pretty easily" the queen responded.


The entire group agreed, and her, that Abetha should stay far back and away from the fight and the silo, all the way to where they were going to land the dropship.


After dropping her off the designated 10 clicks away, they planned the assault.

The facility was mainly out in the open between 2 decent sized, but not very big, mountains in a valley. Somehow, it seemed a poor choice to put a missile facility there given the terrain it would encounter trying to shoot down crafts.

The queen was to be in the valley away from the facility and draw everything out. The squad would then infiltrate the facility and find the power switch, it was better to do that than just blow up the hidden silos.


The queen took position in the valley and the squad took position on the mountain sides, half the squad on each side. When they were all in position Abetha, who was given a radio, told the queen it was time.


The queen knew what to do, and roared as loudly as she could after coming up near the facility.

Instantly liquified human shrieks broke out across the compound, charging towards the queen.


When the queen led them all out of the open-aired compound, the squad moved in, and breached the doors to the facility.

Blackout started clearing rooms, and saw the engineering sign pointing them in the direction of the generator.


The queen was ferociously and methodically ripping apart and murdering the pale, white human that charged towards her, leaped, bit, and clawed at her.

She was on a rampage, throwing back and decapitating their heads as she flipped around her tail and used her armored head to smash and throw back ones who got too close.



Blackout got a ping from his suit, as did the others. They stopped and targeted the contact, open firing.

It was then that a xenomorph, unlike anything any of them had ever seen, charged out and lunged at break-necking speed. They opened fire and killed it. "What in the hell" Omni said through the frequency as he examined the body without touching it.

They all looked at the dead xenomorph. It was covered in crusty, moldy like patches of white, like that of the humans but only in certain areas.

They soon heard xenomorph screeches from everywhere around them. It was then that they started running towards the power room.



Outside, the queen was slashing, ripping, piercing, and tearing the humans to shreds. The queen felt exhilarated, fighting the humans and killing them at her will and leisure, and this bothered her.

"Queen" Abetha said through the little hivemind. The queen quickly responded "Yes" as she tore through another human's head with the pierce of her tail.

There was a disturbing silence in the hivemind, an uneasiness that the queen picked up from the young girl. The queen, still fighting but a little concerned asked "... Yes? What's wrong?"

"I'm afraid to move, or make a sound" She said through the hivemind. The queen almost faltered at the statement, in the middle of swiping her tail to kill a human, the swipe still connected and decapitated the weird human, but the queen's thoughts immediately searched Abetha's, and what she found was very unsettling.



Blackout ran into the power room, looking for the switch as gunfire was constant and erupting from behind them. No one had gotten slashed or bitten yet, but that might soon change as he saw that there were no exits from this room.

He quickly located the power-switch and flipped it, then said to the squad "Alright, let's get outta here" Through the frequency.

Volkov ... un-willingly, and un-knowingly ... just sentenced Abetha to death.



The queen was alarmed as she saw through the eyes of Abetha, a turned queen was right below her from the tree.

To the queen's horror, she heard the communications device, whatever it was called, suddenly say "Alright we've got the switch, we're getting out of here". Abetha looked down and screamed.

The turned queen slashed the tree, trying to climb up to get to Abetha. The tree fell and Abetha started running with incredible speed.

Unfortunately her speed was well out-matched for the turned queen's. The queen looked through Abetha's eyes as she was brutally mutilated, and murdered, by the turned queen.

Pain being shared emotionally and physically through the hive, the queen's attacks were suddenly a lot weaker, giving the turned humans the advantage and being able to get several bites and slashes off from their ... evolved? ... claws and sharp teeth.

The pain drove the queen insane, making her more angry than she had ever felt.


It was then that she felt the last connection from Abetha ... a last word to her from a dying human ... "H-Help ... me".

The queen, so shaken from the emotional loss of yet another person she cared about and the pain of Abetha's cuts and gashes, along with her own, make her go absolutely.

and utterly ... pure mal-contented in sadness and anger.

The queen entered a rage of sadness, fury, loss, and pure anger she would never forget for as long as she lived.

Her xenomorph DNA, the DNA that lay in wait for so long, had finally been released.




Blackout fired precise, blistering shots at the turned xenomorphs as they came in swarms. They eventually pushed through and got out of the facility.

Buckshot was the first to break the silence when the gun-fire had stopped. "Guys ... I'm sorry ..." He said.

Everyone immediately stared at Buckshot, who was covered in slashes, acid-blood, and the strange white substance.

"It didn't pierce your suit ... did it?" Asked Ta and Sleepy at the same time, concern growing in their voices.

Buckshot just looked at Blackout, tears in his eyes looking at the only man he seemed to appreciate and like, and put his pistol up to his chin, and pulled the trigger.


Everyone stopped dead, staring at buckshot. Blackout scanned his suit, indeed, on buckshot's lower left leg, there was a breach in the suit, and his B+ blood leaking out from a deep pierce.

The squad looked at Blackout, as if looking for an explanation ... or an epitaph.


"... He ... he ... we'll have this later" Blackout said, voice shaking as Ta nodded and called down the drop-ship.




The queen was finished with her rampage. She looked through her sensory glands in her long, armored, elliptical forehead at all the white, gooey blood and carnage and found the squad.

One of them was on the ground.

She quickly met up with them at the hillside.




They saw the queen coming, covered in white blood and gore. They raised their rifles, but soon discovered it was her when she stopped.

The squad sighed together, and talked into the radio, "Abetha, we're on our way, sit tight, the dropship is on it's way."

No response.

The squad stared at the queen.

She didn't know what to do, or how to tell them. What she did know is that the landing site wouldn't be safe, as that turned queen was still there.


"Abetha? Hello?!?!? PLEASE RESPOND!" Blackout shouted into the radio, fearing that she was dead.

The queen looked away and slowly sat down, but not curling into a coil.

Blackout looked at the queen with anger. "WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?!?!?!" He shouted, but knew he wasn't going to get an answer from the queen in english.

"ABETHA!" He shouted into the radio again, hoping to god that she was alright or that the batteries were just out.


Volkov looked with pure anger on the queen, seemingly ready to kill her despite what the queen had done for the squad.

Sleepy attempted to calm Blackout down by resting her hand on his shoulder, but he immediately shoved Sleepy off of him. "GET THE FUCK OFF ME!" He shouted at Sleepy and his squad. The squad was immediately rustled, but silent at the sudden out-burst.

"YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS SHIT!!!" He shouted at the queen, "I WILL FUCKING GUT YOU, I HAVE LOST BUCKSHOT, AND NOW I HAVE FUCKING LOST ABETHA!!!" Volkov screamed at the queen.

The queen looked down with a bowed head, seemingly in shame. "THIS IS ALL BECAUSE OF YOU, DON'T YOU SEE THAT YOU FUCKING XENOMORPH!?!?!?!?" Blackout continued, "MY BEST FRIEND IS DEAD, ABETHA IS DEAD. HELL, THIS ENTIRE FUCKING TOWN OF INNOCENT PEOPLE IS DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!!!!!" Blackout screamed at the queen, pointing aggressively at her.

Blackout then sat down on the ground, crying.

For Buckshot.

For Abetha.

For everything that had happened on this stupid operation.



It was then, that the emotional barrier between the queen, and Blackout, was broken.


The queen roared and Blackout screamed as he fell to the ground, experiencing everything.

Blackout was in pure pain. Not just the physical pain of what the queen and Abetha experienced, but the combined emotional pain of him losing Abetha, as well as the queen's pain of losing her.

Blackout was gasping from the pain as his squad-mates rushed to his side, picking him up.

Blackout, along with the pain, felt guilt.


The guilt ... of in-directly sentencing Abetha to death.


Blackout looked at the queen, who was completely knocked out, and on the ground.



___________________________________________________________________________


The amount of pain she had just recieved from ... Volkov ... that was his real name, was un-bearable.

She immediately passed out from the experience of just 3 seconds in Volkov's memories.



She saw from when he was a child, filled with anger, and went further back to see the horrors of his parent's murder.

Blackout's family had been murdered practically right in front of him when he was just 6. She smelled the gas that he smelled as he ran out of the house, and the ear-ringing as he barely made it out of the house and onto his snow-crusted lawn before his house ... and his parents ... were blown up to kingdom come.


She saw the trail, the corrupt russian government throwing out his testimony. Him becoming pure angry at anyone who dared call him a russian, or UPP when he joined the marines.

She saw the trail of the mixed blood of humans and xenomorphs alike on LV-426 in the after-math of dead marines on the ground, 3 of which were his friends, and the xenomorphs he began to hate so desperately and with a carnal hate that only xenomorphs can begin to compare to.

She saw the formation of his squad, chosen from the best, yet he thought they all hated him with a passion.

She felt the physical pain of him receiving his proto-type arm, feeling the maximum pain a human can feel as they connected his nervous system to the new arm.


She saw him and his crashing on the planet she currently stood, or slept on. She saw the planet and it's experience through the eyes of a human who had been through complete, and utter, hell.

She saw his perspective of Abetha, and his best friend being killed by a turned one of 'her kind' of species as he pulled the trigger on himself.


The last thing she saw, and felt, was the guilt that Blackout felt of in-directly sentencing Abetha to death.


It was then that the queen woke up ... alone ... in the forest where Buckshot had been killed, laying just 30 feet from her.

She got up, and headed towards the dropship, picking up Buckshot on her back.





Blackout stopped mid-tracks as he was walking towards the point. "Guys, stop, let the queen catch up" He said.

Everyone stopped, but stared at him, "Didn't you say you hate her? ..." Ta spoke up "... and that you wanted nothing to do with her?"

Blackout didn't dare say that he now had a neural link with the queen, for fear of his judgment being questioned. "If everything happened here because of her, then it's best we take her." Blackout said.


A minute later the queen came, and looked at Blackout. "Let's go" He said to his squad.

"You might want to leave this to just us" The queen said to him over the hivemind. Blackout, without turning rolled his eyes. "Why?" He thought back to her.

The queen, revealing more information regarding the death of Abetha, and making Volkov wince a little, revealed that a turned queen was at the landing platform.


Blackout almost froze in his tracks at receiving the turned queen, along with Abetha's death replaying in his mind.

"Guys ..." Blackout said. Everyone turned to him. "I am now tele-pathically linked to the queen" He said a little solemnly and bitterly.

His squad, to his surprise, just nodded and started to walk again. "There's a turned queen up ahead" Blackout said.


Everyone stopped, looking at Blackout. "How do you know that?" Asked Omni.

Volkov's eyes welled up a little and said, "Because ..." He paused, trembling a little and voice breaking "Because that's ... how Abetha died." He finally got out.

Everyone looked at him. Blackout looked down in what he felt as shame.


He looked up, but saw that everyone was closer to him, and was giving him looks of sympathy rather than contempt or dis-trust.

"We ... may come across ..." Blackout started, but didn't finish as the squad slowly nodded, understanding what must be done if Abetha was turned or dead.




The fight with the turned queen was actually pretty one-sided. The queen with the squad took all of the beating and hits as they pushed against each other.

The squad quickly downed the queen with their special armor-piercing bullets.


They found Abetha, mutilated and broken next to the fallen tree, just 50 meters away from the dropship, though she never would have survived long enough to get to it. Fortunately, in a sense, her limbs were still on her and her face was largely un-touched, but her body was sliced and pierced in so many places that they had no hope, even if they were there at the time of death, to save her.

Her radio that they had given her was still in her hand, though pierced and sliced as Abetha tried to use it as a shield of some sort.

They all loaded what was left of Abetha, and the body of Buckshot onto the dropship, and took off towards their ship.


Leaving the cold, un-forgiving, life-less planet full of horrid meta-creatures behind.














Hopefully this chapter gave you some feelings, that was my intent of this chapter.


This is indeed the END of the title, it is not however, the end of the series.

I hope you enjoyed this title, I have worked hard on it.

[Energysurg]

A good read. I look forward to reading more from you and seeing how you grow as a writer.