tls123

The first part of this chapter was supposed to be a simple meeting with the marines soon dispatched onto the planet for another extermination mission, but I got a little carried away and introduced an alternate explanation for the twin's evolutionary abilities.

The poll for the Yautja side story ended at a draw so instead of writing a side story, I will just write a few bonus chapters and will create another poll to decide its continuation at the end.

Thanks for reading.

USS Verruckt

"Why am I not surprised, Mr. Weyland."

The woman who spoke was Major Rose Williams, the leader of an elite fireteam whose job is to clean up after the Weyland-Yutani corp and their failed experiments. They're often tasked with extermination jobs, and this time wasn't any different.

"You know just as well as I do how difficult my job is. Trying to-"

Before Weyland could continue into the technicals of the experiments and his work, Major Rose cut him off with a wave of her hand as she smirked.

"Yes, Mr. Weyland. I know all too well. So, let's skip the unnecessary details of why you called us here and explain the mission details."

Weyland nodded with a grim look as he took Major Rose down a corridor, passing through several high-clearance level rooms and finally arriving at a laboratory currently undergoing an experiment. Surrounded by several scientists was a fleshly egg kept inside a container and operated on by precise machines handled by a lead scientist and surgeon.

"Before I explain to you what your mission is, it is best to first understand what it is you're about to get yourself and your team into. This isn't your normal extermination mission."

This time, Major Rose remained quiet as she glanced at Weyland with interest. Satisfied with her behaviour, Weyland continued as he motioned to the lab behind the floor-to-ceiling tempered glass window.

"You should already be familiar with the life cycle of the Xenomorphs; The Queen lays an egg-like capsule containing a Facehugger, the first stage in the life cycle of the Xenomorph XX121 species. When a potential host is detected by the Egg, the four petals at the top of said Egg will open up and the Facehugger within launches itself at the nearby victim.

"The Facehugger will then implant Xenomorph embryos inside the host victim's chest cavity and a few hours later upon maturing, a Chestburster will violently erupt from the host's chest, killing the host in the process of their birth."

"Where are you going with this Mr. Weyland?" Major Rose interrupted impatiently.

She then continued with a matter-of-factly tone, "Everyone in the Marine Corps is given a crash course of the life cycle of these little pets of yours. Sometimes, it is included in the debriefing before a bug hunt so that we all understand what we're getting ourselves into."

Weyland coughed to hide his embarrassment, "I'm getting there, Major. May I continue?"

Major Rose grunted in response, clearly losing interest now, but still paying some attention to Weyland and the scientists in the lab.

Weyland cleared his throat and then picked up where he left off.

"The majority of scientists working on the XX121 species know their unique ability to inherit certain characteristics of their host victims, a term we've named DNA reflex. The DNA reflex accounts for changes in the Xenomorph's basic form based on the genetic makeup of the host inside which it gestates. This process is intentional and helps the Xenomorph better adapt to the environment it would be born into. It is one of the many reasons why this particular species is called the Perfect Organism."

Noticing the Major's increasing boredom, Weyland shook his head and excitedly continued.

"Though Xenomorphs do show some signs of intelligence, specifically ones born from Human hosts, their intelligence is far from a Humans. Now, what we've managed to do is guide the development of the Xenomorph embryo to focus more on inheriting the intellectual aspect of its host. Of course, it was hard to determine the level of their intelligence, but what we did find out is that their DNA reflex remained active! This means that with more time and more DNA to assimilate, the Xenomorph can continue to inherit certain aspects of what it has eaten."

It took a moment for the Major to understand what that meant as horror soon became apparent on her face. Her arms instinctively reached out to firmly take hold of the madman called Weyland as she shrieked and shook him.

"WHAT?! Do you understand what that means? You've essentially made what was already a terrifying killing machine even more terrible! What was the point in doing what you did? To make it smarter? To allow it to adapt to its surroundings, to constantly evolve? What happens if they were to mature into a Queen and birth new eggs, new Facehuggers, and new Xenomorphs?!"

At first, Weyland was shocked by the Major's outburst and a little angered, but soon after hearing her words, he began to ponder carefully what she just said and realized that he had indeed fucked up. Cold sweat trickled down his forehead and back and he started to stutter incoherently. "T-they would also in-inherit the original Xenomorphs' abilities, a-and create a Hive of ever-evolving, ever-adapting aliens... oh, my god!"

"Congratulations, Weyland. You've just given steroids to a monster. Let's just pray that they haven't evolved to become too much of a problem..."

The scientists who were on the other side of the window inside the laboratory all froze at the words of the Major and hesitated whether to continue with the experiment. They looked to Weyland as he was their boss, to which he sighed and called off the experiment. The scientists also sighed with varying emotions, while one of them had a ruthless and cunning glint in his eyes.

Meanwhile, Major Rose stormed off to the Marines' quarters and sounded the emergency alarm.

In less than a minute, everyone on the team had arrived in the hall either in their pajamas or sportswear.

"Listen up, kids. Change of plans. The difficulty level of our extermination task has just gone up from a walk in the park to a walk in hell. However, there is a possibility that I may just be overacting and things haven't progressed to how I think they have."

Many of the Marines looked confused and one of them even spoke up, "So, it's not just another bug hunt?"

"Far from it. There are two aliens in there with capabilities far beyond what any of us have handled before." the Major spoke.

Another Marine raised her hand and asked, "What kind of capabilities would warrant such seriousness from you, Major?"

"The kind that would allow one to constantly evolve to become stronger and more resilient."

There were a few whispers here and there to which the Major interrupted and continued talking. She informed them of Weyland's and his company's experiments to create an alien that could actively evolve and their task to specifically target these two aliens and eliminate them at all costs.

 ...

Inside the Hive.

Juno was tasked with protecting the Predalien until it had matured to at least the Praetorian stage. Fortunately for her, the Predalien had an isolated nature and preferred to be alone, so she simply hid in the shadows and just followed the guy when he went out to infest some nearby prey.

Gradually, their numbers increased from the initial hundred to over six hundred. Their numbers grew exponentially every day with the Queen and Predalien working in tandem.

Jun on the other hand lived a rather boring life inside the Queen's chamber, looking after the eggs and the new hosts brought back by the warriors, to make sure everything was fine and patrolling the chamber.

Like so, the Hive constantly and rapidly expanded with two new chambers that adopted a unique variation to the Hive's structure, thanks to the new Xenomorph variants birthed from the mammalian and reptilian hosts; one looked very similar to a goat with a pair of large, curved horns and the other had an additional pair of arms below their main ones and a slender and long body.

The twins continued to talk to each other via telepathic communication.

『So, how's your training going?』 Jun asked his sister.

『Great. Recently, I've found a new application of my telepathic ability.』 Juno responded with excitement.

『Oh? What is it?』 (Jun)

『If I use the barrier on my mind, I can block mental commands or probing. I've been using it on the mental command left behind by the Queen to ignore her orders.』 (Juno)

『And? Does it work?』 (Jun)

『It does, but there's a limit to how long I can block her out of my mind. At most, I can ignore it for a few minutes, but after that, I become mentally exhausted and the Queen's command becomes stronger during this period. I also fall half-asleep and start acting on instinct.』 (Juno)

『Can you use the mental barrier on someone else?』 Jun questioned with interest.

『Yes, but the effect is less and it doesn't last as long.』 (Juno)

Juno went on to explain that she had tried it on the Predalien, and if just for a moment, it had faltered in its steps and looked a bit confused. It even freaked out and almost attacked her, but Juno was quick enough to remove the barrier as it returned to normal.

Jun was silent for a moment and began to ponder then suddenly thought about something, 『How about you try giving it a mental command, like the Queen's? Is that possible?』 (Jun)

『Let me try!』 (Juno)

On Juno's side, she followed quietly behind the Predalien who was currently implanting more embryos in a new host that resembled a macaque.

She turned her mental energy into a message, a command, and sent it to the Predalien. The exact command was to "stop what it was doing," but Juno felt a force resisting her. She watched as the Predalien paused briefly then ignored her command as it continued with what it was doing. However, that brief pause in its actions was enough to prove it had some effect. She reflected on why it didn't work and guessed it was most likely due to the commands conflicting nature with the Queen's, which was to infest potential hosts.

Juno tried again, but this time she waited until it was done with its job and sent a command, "Head north."

North was the direction to their right and was in the opposite direction of where their Hive was.

Since the command wasn't opposing the Queen's, the Predalien obeyed her and changed its direction as it started heading North.

『Jun, it worked!』 (Juno)

Now with confirmation that Juno could give additional mental commands to Predalien, it was safe to assume it could work on the other Xenomorphs, and perhaps to some degree, might affect the Queen. But that was unlikely.

Juno then proceeded to give various commands to the Predalien, some conflicted with the Queen's command to varying degrees, and every time the Predalien would resist depending on the severity of the command in conflict with the Queen's own. After discovering this fact, Juno started adding several mental commands to the Predalien, subtly changing its behavior so that it would favor her. Eventually, Juno was able to overpower the Queen's command, but to keep the Queen from finding out, she chose not to remove it.

Perhaps because she strained her mind so much, but Juno abruptly recalled the time she fell unconscious and the Void Gate that was responsible for it. Because so much happened at that time, she had forgotten all about it and thought it useless up until now.

『Jun, I suddenly remembered something... something about a gate.』 (Juno)

『What gate?』 Jun asked, but his sister remained silent.

The more Juno focused on it, the more confused she became when suddenly, her mind was taken to a familiar empty black space. A few seconds later, color and light brightened the world and projected in front of Juno like a video. In this video, Juno bore witness to something completely out of her expectations; she saw a beautiful woman wearing a dress made of stars, eyes deep like the abyss, and a face both familiar and unfamiliar to her.

This woman looked a lot like the girl in her dreams, Juno thought, which also meant that she should be her?

Juno shook her head and watched as the woman alongside a tall and handsome man stood before an open, empty space. The man raised his hand and soon, a very familiar silver gate appeared out of nowhere. This was precisely the Void Gate Juno saw and touched.

After the gate was created, the woman walked toward it and placed her hand atop its cold, sleek surface, and closed her eyes.

Juno felt the mental force the woman used to connect with the gate and instinctively copied her, moving her mental energy the same way and following in the woman's footsteps when suddenly, the woman stopped what she was doing and raised her head, turning around and directly looking at Juno.

Juno was stunned when she saw the woman turn and smile at her and was soon overwhelmed by information, information that was more of a construction manual and guide for the creation and operation of the gate. When this information was fully incorporated into her memory, Juno felt her consciousness return to her body, but as she was leaving that black space she saw the woman mouth a few words... have fun?

It took some time for Juno to calm down and sort through her thoughts as she finally replied to Jun.

『The Void Gate, when I touched it I fell unconscious... we fell unconscious and had that dream.』 Juno said and began to recount what she just experienced in that strange black space.

『Could they have been our past selves?』 Jun questioned with interest.

『That... should be the case.』 (Juno)

Juno also informed Jun about the information she received about the gate. Although she did receive it when she touched the gate initially, it was all encrypted, which she couldn't understand at all. It only made sense after she used her mental force in a specific way that it made sense.

Basically, the material of the gate was made of Hive resin and was created by a Hive Node. Hive Nodes were stationary organisms secreted by Drones. These Hive Nodes would use their acid-secreting roots and tendrils to burrow into the surrounding earth, draining it of its nutrients. Normally, they were used as beacons for Xenormoprhs to recover from injuries no matter the severity, as they carried large, dense storages of energy and nutrients drained from the surrounding area.

However, by giving it a mental command, these Hive Nodes can be used to construct a gate. The gate uses the mental energy from the collective consciousness of the Hive to establish a connection with the void, which is how they are able to traverse the cosmos in an instant. The problem is, this kind of transportation method was a one-way trip and required the Hive to construct a second gate to connect the two. Another problem is that gates required a minimum of 500 members in their Hive to create a stable gate.

As the twins digested this information and were lost in their own thoughts, Juno was startled by a loud noise coming from the skies as a ship descended and landed in the far distance. Juno was alarmed and chose to scout what this new ship was here for with the Predalien in tow.

After a few minutes of rushing into the forest, a clearing was presented before her with a fence surrounding a facility and deactivated or unmanned turrets. The front gate was destroyed and torn open by the Queen in her escape with the aliens.

『You, stay here and keep yourself hidden. If someone approaches, kill or capture them.』 (Juno)

The Predalien, like a dumb puppy, tilted its head for a moment as it took some time to register her words. Juno sighed as she thought its intelligence was closer to a dog than a human child, so she sent a command instead which it quickly understood and obeyed.

Juno then entered the facility grounds through the front gate and stuck to the shadows, making her way through the various corridors and vents. Soon, she managed to find what she was looking for and saw a group of armed soldiers, Marines, disembarking from the spaceship as they expertly made their way to the control room of the facility.

『Brother, there's a slight problem.』 (Juno)

『What?』 (Jun)

『Marines. What should I do? What should we do?』 (Juno)

Jun was silent as thoughts occupied his mind, thoughts about rebellion, thoughts about fighting, and thoughts about running away.

『Quickly return to the Hive and we will decide from there... be prepared, we might have to start a rebellion.』 (Jun)