"We have arrived."
"Thanks for the lift, Enu." I hummed as I hopped out of the cloaked Yautja transport ship, it looked like a smaller version of their main spacecraft, in fact they had two more of these smaller ships stored away in the previously mentioned larger spacecraft.
"Are you sure you'll be fine on your own?" She asked sounding somewhat concerned
"Yeah, don't worry." I said with a firm nod. "Just wait here for when I get back."
(It's nice to have people worry about you.) I thought before feeling a pang of guilt. (It's less nice when you remember that the only reason she's saying that is because I forced her into the hive mind...)
"Very well clan chief, I wish you luck on your hunt." She hummed, pulling me back to reality.
Shaking those depressing thoughts away for now I sighed before looking back at her. "I wouldn't really call it a hunt but thanks anyway." I said before leaving.
Normally I'd be a bit more cautious about this kind of thing, in fact the instincts from my xenomorph queen side were not happy about it at all but I had somewhat learnt to block them out at this point. Anyway, I wouldn't be doing this on my own if I wasn't completely confident in my success, even if I was still a little nervous about it.
Thankfully I had something that might help somewhat, you see the pathogen that Energyne created causes heightened and uncontrollable aggression in those afflicted by it. Thankfully though there was actually a cure for this little side effect, one that Connor had already sent to me. Unfortunately however, it would only remove the artificial aggression created by the pathogen, it would not have any effect on their normal aggressive instincts.
(Time to tame a terrifying giant mutated wolf.) I hummed internally as I focused on the task at hand. (Why do I suddenly have second thoughts about this...)
"Welp, no turning back now." I sighed as I got a move on.
It didn't take long for me to find the target that I was looking for, I mean how the hell could you miss a wolf that stood at roughly four fucking storeys tall. The surrounding woodlands did hide the big guy from my view somewhat but still, his footsteps and growls were a dead give away and that's not even taking my Electrical Impulse Detection and Pheromonal Detection Traits into account.
Moving on though, the massive doggo looks mostly like a normal wolf, if you ignore his size that is. The only thing that really stood out were the scattered porcupine quills that ran down his back and along his thin tail. Of course I knew that there was more to him than just that, like the fact that he could glide short distances thanks to the flying squirrel like patagium he had.
Around the creature's body were dozens of almost glass or crystal like chains, even though they were stunningly beautiful just looking at them made my skin crawl, even the Essence Of Change within me seemed to boil in rage and disgust at the sight of them. Oddly though, despite being wrapped around his limbs they showed no signs of restricting the giant canines movements, in fact Ralph didn't even seem to know they were there to begin with.
Anyway, these chains were glistening with various images, images that displayed fragmented glimpses of future events. If you hadn't figured it out by now, these were obviously the Chains Of The World that represented his fate and destiny. The fact that there were cracks that had already begun to appear across their surface was a good thing for me and him, it meant that my presence in this world was causing ripples, ripples that were somewhat weakening his chains.
(And yet...despite the damage to the chains he was still very much fated to die the same way.) I say as I observe the images flashing across the chains.
I could only sigh when I saw the moment of his death, which was far more brutal then in real life when compared to what had happened in the film. "Poor guy..."
Originally Ralph was supposed to have been bitten in half by Lizzy, the giant crocodile, and if I didn't intervene that's exactly how it would end no matter what changes those cracks on his chains ended up causing. Honestly...when I had first become an Alternative I hadn't fully grasped the idea of fate and destiny, and now that I did understand it more clearly? Well, knowing that everything in my past life, every choice that I have made, every path that I had walked, knowing that all of it except for the very last few seconds of it was probably set in stone since my birth...it...well, it disturbed me to put it mildly.
(Let's see if we can't change your future big fella.) I hummed as I stayed just out of view as I made my way closer.
It took a second and a few close calls but eventually I found myself sanding on a thick tree branch several meters off the ground. (Now I just need to get his attention.)
"Hey, big guy!" I yelled rather abruptly causing his head to snap in my direction. "Nice day for it huh?"
Steeling my resolve, the vile containing the cure in hand, I continued. "The name's Carmen, nice to meet ya." I said with as much bravado as I could muster when face to face with a maw of massive jagged teeth.
"I'd ask you to cooperate but you don't seem like the "cooperative" type." I said before quickly jumping out of the way just as the previously mentioned maw dived forward and chomped down on where I had been just a second ago.
Ralph had instantly torn the branch in half, his jaws ripping through the tough wood with ease, although he apparently didn't appreciate the mouthful of splinters if his pissed off growls were anything to go by. Fortunately though, that wasn't the only thing he had taken into his mouth at that moment, in fact the moment I moved out of the way I had tossed the antidote into his open gullet. Of course the cure wouldn't take instant effect, but hopefully it would help with what I was going to do next.
(Here we go then...)
Even before that thought had filled my mind I was moving, kicking off the branch I landed on the very pissed off Ralph, more specifically I landed on his back while barely avoiding being impaled on his sharp spines. Surprisingly he didn't seem to appreciate this situation however, I mean who would have guessed that jumping on him like this would only end up making him even more aggressive, truly a shocker that no one could have seen coming.
"Step one complete, step tw-HOLY SHIT!" I yelped as I was nearly flung from him as the big guy smashed through a tree while shaking violently to get me off.
Honestly I was barely able to stop myself from falling off as I clung on with all my might, something that became harder and harder to do the more time passed. You may be wondering why I didn't just grow to my full size, it would for sure make holding on to him far, far easier for me in the long term, however it would also put him in danger.
I wasn't trying to kill or hurt him, right now he couldn't reach me with his jaws but if I was in my full size? Well, he may be able to turn his head and bite into me, a fact that was bad considering my very deadly acidic blood.
I had thought about using the Detonators for this, using their hardening spit to restrain him in place but I wasn't able to find a way to remove said spit safely without blowing it up. I also thought about using a crap ton of tranquilizer but I had no idea how that would affect him and his mutated anatomy, if it had any affect on him to begin with, after all he definitely wasn't what I would consider a normal animal that's for sure.
Anyway, back to the task at hand, I was currently trying to split my concentration between clinging on for dear life and connecting my mental strings to his mind. It was hard as hell considering the fact that I was currently in the middle of a rodeo but instead of an enraged bull I'm riding a massive genetically enhanced wolf that desperately wants nothing more than to rip me in half.
Thankfully his mind was still that of an animal, something that meant that adding him to the hive mind was far less time consuming then trying to indoctrinate a sentient being. It would still take a hot minute mind you but it was far quicker than that time I had to add the Yautja to my hive mind.
It probably would have gone a lot faster though if he hadn't started rolling over in hopes of crushing me to death beneath his weight. Honestly, I don't know how much he weighs exactly but it was enough to crack my exoskeleton in several places and break several of my bones. I'm just glad I don't need to breathe or I would have suffocated to death under him, the fact that I had a much higher pain tolerance compared to humans was also a great help as well.
Still though, despite being easier then adding a human or Yautja to the hive mind it still took time, one and a half hours to be exact, it was an exhausting process considering he was trying to kill me that whole time. He even ended up getting even more pissed off when I started spreading my influence through his mind scape or whatever you want to call it, I was trying to be as quick as I could and that probably caused him quite the painful headache to say the least.
Moving on though, I eventually did succeed in my task, even if my body hurt like hell afterwards. Now that I think about it, this was the first time I had voluntarily put myself in a life or death situation for quite some time, after all I could only use Hive Dominance with my real body.
(That...that was...) I breathed as I tumbled off his back while panting heavily. (I'm never...never doing that again...)
For a moment I just laid there, completely unmoving, at least until something soft nudged me. "Huh, stop that..." Turning my head in annoyance I saw that the large wolf who had been desperately trying to eat me not even a few seconds ago was now looking at me like an oversized puppy.
"Oh don't do that, you can't play the adorable doggo card after what just happened." I groaned, causing him to whimper.
"N-no, puppy dog eyes will not work on me mister." I tried to resist, I really did...unfortunately I only lasted about five seconds before it broke me. "OKAY FINE! You're cute you giant fucking bastard!" I said as I reached out and rubbed the big guy's snoot.
The fact that he started wagging his tail definitely didn't make my heart melt, nope, I most definitely kept my cool the whole time. (I must remain strong...no matter how adorable he may be...)
Unfortunately I wasn't expecting what came next. <
<
<
<> Suddenly dozens of voices, including Mel and many others, all echoed in my head one after the other.
<
<
Immediately, and somewhat frantically, I cut the links connecting me to all of them as I tried to suppress my growing embarrassment. (Note to self, find a way to block my internal feelings from passively leaking into the hive mind.)
After a second of flustered muttering I let out a sigh as I got up. "There goes my cool mysterious persona..." I groaned before realizing something. "Have they been able to feel my emotions this whole time without me consciously willing it to happen?"
(Let's not think about that shall we...)
"At least you look happy with yourself." I muttered softly as I turned back to Ralph who was currently looking at me with his tongue hanging out happily. "I'll finish breaking those chains for you now."
Just as I was about to do that however, his head abruptly jerked to look off in the distance. "Hummm?"
"What's up?" I asked as he let out a long, low and clearly hostile growl, it took me a quick second but eventually I realized what was going on. "Well...shit."
I had expected to arrive and be finished before this happened, however I guess I took a little too long after all. Energyne's goon squad had arrived and were on their way here, they had probably been attracted by the sound of our little scuffle. I heard them before I saw them mind you, they weren't exactly being quiet after all, however when they came into view they froze as they spotted the two of us.
For a moment they just stared at me somewhat dumbfounded by the current situation before them, not that I could really blame the group of very armed men for that. I mean seriously, how the fuck would you react if you saw a small bio organic insect like alien creature patting the head of a giant pupper.
"Is...is that a xenomorph?"
"Like from the movie?"
"Who gives a shit?!" A man who seemed like the trigger happy type yelled as he pointed his gun at us. "Let's just shoot already them and get this over with."
"We'll let the eggheads figure out what it is when we bring back its body for them to mess around with."
(Yeah, no, that's not happening.) I sighed with a shake of my head before giving a simple command.
"Sic 'em..."