[Intermission=”Recap”]
Jim bolted through the field. He’d absconded with the last of his energy and kept a little jar full of his sanity, just for good measure.
There were two Yautja and a Xenomorph Queen tailing after his ass, sweeping through the area like a goddamned rocket. They stopped after a while, though. The Yautja, not the Queen. Bloo’s strife was exuberantly demoniacal, gliding through the difference in distance between she and Jim like a goddamned… um, rocket.
Jim’s decided he has to come up with better metaphors.
Scrambling like this was second nature to him by now. What he
really focused on was why Bloo was so fascinated with the idea of capturing him. Was the big bitch so enamored with the thought of not failing that she began to chase him just for the sake of chasing him? Or did she just
really resent the thought of another younger Queen taking her place? Could Xenomorphs even feel emotion like this? How would one even begin to translate her thoughts to something a human mind could comprehend?
Jim’s decided that there are way too many fucking questions coming from the narrator.
”She’s like a tin foil rocket! Hoo hoo hoo!”
Her boney structure looked utterly, utterly fragile. The crystalline nature of her exoskeleton didn’t help debunk that notion much, if at all – it appeared as if she were about to shatter with every successive step taken. On top of all that, the gaping fractures that split the sides of her sapphire carapace gave way to a lucid sluice of steaming goop. Her blood, apparently. It showered the ground with an increasingly large stream of boiling mud. Jim was amazed. All the blood in the world came out of her – ALL the blood – and she was still rolling hot like salsa in a blender. He couldn’t turn back, he thought.
”I can’t turn back.”
It was almost as if this were the world’s way of telling Jim that he were passed the point of no return. He contacted Phone again. He asked why he called off his goons. What goons, he asked. Fuck, Jim says. Those two “Agents.” Ah, Phone replies, those. He didn’t call them off, apparently. He has no idea what they’re doing and why they’re being stupid assholes. Phone began sighing in their general direction. He then mentioned that they pulled out to find a more direct route toward The Doctor. Phone then hung up. Phone’s an asshole. Jim can agree with the narrator for once.
”Phone, you fucking asshole. At least say, ‘Over,’ over.”
-Jim, I am sighing hard in your general direction. Over.-
”Nice. Over.”
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Well, I’d say now is a good time for an intermission while we all set up for the next act. Here’s recap for your lovely eyes.
Bloo’s downward spiral began nearly 900 years ago when Kidd ‘killed’ her in “Ties That Bind,” the pre-prequel to “The Rain.” It was terrible. She (or he, as Bloo was a male at the time) was actually a very bumbly and naïve Xenomorph. Very childlike, very content with life. His/her mother, the original Red (the very same Red who would die at the end of
the last story), loved him/her very much. Of course, shit hit the fan and stuff happened. Who’s Kidd, you ask?
Fantastic question.
Anyway, the aforementioned shit of destiny happened all over the fan, and then “Litany of Fire” happened. Yes, these RPGs are linked somehow. Bloo became evil and got a sex change, Red died, DD’s father did some crazy drugs, Peterson (who is not in this story) killed FireHunter, etc. etc.
This brings us to “The Rain.” This story begins at night on the recently terraformed planet
Spart-3 near an abandoned human colony and an ancient pyramid that is probably evil (hint: it is). This planet was chosen by the Council of Elders to “celebrate” The Doctor and PREDATORv2’s 700-year-old accomplishment of capturing a living Xenomorph Empress for use in the previously mentioned pyramid. This captive Empress is actually Bloo, who’d
become the dominant Empress by killing the original Red in “Litany of Fire.”
This celebration of The Doctor and Pv2 would only be a front for the Elder Council’s actual plan to get them killed for opposing the new direction that the rest of the Elders were going in. They believed the old ways had become stale, or something like that. I don’t know much about old Predators and how they run their shit.
The plan was this: Allow Doctor to host a joint Hard Meat hunt with Hunter’s Moon in celebration of the captured Bloo. They would then have their Elite Aristocrat, Phone, join the hunt and sabotage the operation by doing a number of things: disable shock-absorption in Pv2’s landing pod (effectively killing him), kill The Doctor’s pregnant human, assassinate ConcreteHunter by hand, and cripple Deathdrop in order to stop him from taking his father’s meddlesome place within the Council.
As an added bonus, Phone would replace Bloo with a new Queen; Bloo’s capture was the entire reason behind this celebrated Hard Meat hunt, and so by replacing her with a new Queen, it would devalue The Doctor’s accomplishment.
However, what the Elders didn’t count on was the fact that Phone absolutely
hates them. Phone had his own quarrels with the four Predators he was meant to kill, but he never loathed them enough to warrant murder, and so by using this as an opportunity to oppose the Elders, Phone purposely botched each of his missions. Pv2 was still alive, the pregnant female was still in cryo-sleep, and ConcreteHunter and Deathdrop were simply left alone (for the time being).
Meanwhile, on the Xenomorph end of things, Bloo had just recentl y awoken from the bottom of the pyramid. Bloo had been held captive for 700 years by the end of “Litany of Fire,” though because she would always supply the Predators with more than enough eggs, she would only be brought up a total of 3 times. It just so happens that
this is the 3rd time she’s been brought up from the pyramid’s local prison known as the
Big Ass ‘Fridge, and she finally finds a way to break free.
At this point, Bloo now commands the remnants of the original Red’s old hive (simply known as The Hive) as well as her own group (The Shadow Serpents). Those from The Hive feel uneasy with their allegiance with Bloo, but after so long, most of them don’t remember why. DarkLioness was among those who were conflicted about her “loyalty” to Bloo. She would often “see” vague memories of the original Red and how Bloo had killed her so long ago. She would later convert to Red’s side when fully realizing just how evil Bloo was.
Each of the normal Xenomorphs (Badapple, Kirby-Cage, Tawganator, Gamefreak, and DarkLioness) awoke and immediately began to feed. FireHunter, a Predalien Praetorian and the Alpha Male of this hive, awoke outside in the jungle. FireHunter is fully aware of his history with each incarnation of Bloo, but at this point is hesitant to outright challenge her.
The Elder’s reasoning for wanting to cripple Deathdrop is to prevent him from following in the footsteps of his father. They already saw the same wild antics from him, having used another Elder’s son’s head to beat a Xenomorph to death on a previous hunt. Deathdrop was more like his father, Deathdrop, than he cared to admit. By the way: Yes, Deathdrop
does have the same name as his father, Deathdrop, who was a previous elder before being killed by a previous incarnation of FireHunter. No, I’m not making that up. FireHunter’s soul just really hate Deathdrop’s family.
To the Elder Council’s dismay, Deathdrop landed in his pod without injury. No broken legs. Such a shame.
Concrete Hunter, the newest Elder of Hunter’s Moon, would work closely together with Deathdrop Jr. on this hunt. Deathdrop respected Concrete Hunter, as he survived the event that killed his father. Both CH and DD were initially oblivious to the fact that this wasn’t a normal trophy hunt. Later, Phone would send the two of them to capture a notorious human roaming the jungle: Jim.
Jim is a man out of time, having been kidnapped by Weyland-Yutani for some evil shit, probably. He, along with five other nameless humans, were then captured
again by Phone to be used as hosts for the Elder Council’s new hive. Phone saw no problem with replacing Bloo, and so that was the only part of the original plan that he carried out correctly. Each of the humans were drugged by Phone and had a Facehugger planted onto each of their faces. Unfortunately for Jim,
his Facehugger was a gigantic SuperFacehugger that impregnated him with a Queen embryo. This Queen would become the new Red. Jim woke up in his drugged state and stuffed the now-hibernating Super Facehugger into his backpack, believing it to be friendly. Contrary to popular belief, he named it Hedy not because Facehuggers wrap around heads, but because he really enjoys the work of singer Hedy Lamarr.
Phone’s unnamed drug lasted in Jim’s system for nearly 24 hours. He spent most of that time wandering the pyramid believing he was a British tourist on vacation to Past Italy and that dinosaurs existed. Jim slowly regained stability and embraced his inner ghettoness.
Meanwhile, PREDATORv2 dropped down to the jungle in his drop pod. Phone
had indeed siphoned a lot of fuel from the stabilizing thrusters, but only enough to cause Pv2 slight worry. However, he underestimated just how badly he messed with the pod’s systems, and Pv2 would pass out in the ensuing crash.
Pv2’s pod was one of the last to come crashing down. The loud boom of this particular crash alerted the Xenomorphs, causing them to scramble. Badapple, Tawganator and Darklioness cornered a younger Predator, devouring him alive. DarkLioness would especially enjoy keeping him alive while maiming his body. Gamefreak would get stuck in the pyramid for the next 7 pages. Those pyramid fluctuations are a tricky bastard.
Concrete Hunter was the first to make it to the pyramid. The Doctor contrastingly was still on the mother ship, contemplating the current situation with the Elder Council and the pregnant human. The Doctor would find personal logs from Pv2. He would later realize the rest of the Elder Council’s plot to kill them – thus, the plans for the pregnant human needed to be set into motion. SuperSonicMan would stay on the ship with The Doctor, taking time to heal.
Near the pyramid, Concrete Hunter would begin his fight with FireHunter, effectively demonstrating how babies are made. Their battle would devastate the surrounding vegetation, painting the planet’s surface with blood from both bodies. At the same time, Deathdrop was headed for FireHunter as well, unaware that Concrete Hunter was already locked in combat with him. They eventually crossed paths and took FireHunter down together. Of course, this victory wouldn’t last: FireHunter would be reborn within the next 12 hours.
Speaking of Xenomorphs being born, Red was now nearly fully developed within Jim’s chest. Jim had been chasing Bloo to follow her to The Doctor’s ship. Jim knows about The Doctor because he had been in contact with Phone. Phone acted as his ally, but secretly wanted Jim to fall into Predator captivity so that Red may be born under controlled circumstances. Jim finds out and decides to run from Bloo, who begins to chase Jim to kill Red. Bloo and Jim eventually cross paths with DarkLioness and Red’s Alpha Male, Reeza, a monstrous Warrior. They fight until Badapple and Tawganator show up, and then the entire thing turns into a free-for-all. Tawganator is confused and attacks both sides.
Things seems to be going badly for The Hive until the newly reborn FireHunter shows up. He kills Reeza in order to establish dominance, and then he and DarkLioness briefly battle Bloo, causing a large wound on her side. Tawganator realizes his mistake and rejoins The Hive. DarkLioness is thrilled and chases after Bloo with Tawganator while FireHunter chases after Badapple, who is now only on Bloo’s side, The Shadow Serpents. Kirby shows up and helps Badapple defend against FireHunter. DarkLioness causes further damage to Bloo’s side, bringing Bloo to her boiling point.
Jim is still running away from Bloo and toward The Doctor’s ship. Pv2’s whereabouts are unknown. CH and DD follow Jim for a short time on Phone’s orders, but then they stop and decided to question Phone about what exactly is going on and why they need to capture Jim. At this point, Red’s Praetorian Guard (A Praetorian, a Spitter and a Crusher) show up and chase CH and DD, who are on their way to The Doctor to question
him as well. It is now where the Endgame has begun.
Jim is passed the point of no return and Phone is about to be questioned by ConcreteHunter and Deathdrop. Red’s Praetorian Guard has just begun following them. Let’s not forget to mention the last of The Hive’s warriors facing off against the last of the Shadow Serpents. Or so I assume. I’m not an omniscient narrator, and I’m not omnipotent as well. I just write things. In fact, you may very well disregard the last few things I said. But it IS indeed the Endgame, and something I
am sure of is that The Doctor and PREDATORv2 have been secretly putting their plans regarding the pregnant human in motion. They’re about to be confronted by ConcreteHunter and Deathdrop because everyone (including the audience) wants some answers, and because they literally have not been active
since page 4.
Bloo is, of course, following Jim through the
other route toward The Doctor. Perhaps FireHunter is following, too? I don’t know, man. Regardless, this is very exciting indeed.
[/Intermission]