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The Alien Queen

Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Cario

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Aaron groaned. He'd never been so tired before, though he didn't think he'd ever worked so hard before. He had been studying and, well, had to supplement his studies with some extra work, just to keep going. He'd never thought that life had been that hard as a kid, but, well, things had changed in that regard.

He'd had time, only a bit, to read up on a new leak for the Aliens Vs Predator world that was being developed in the next movie – going even more into the backstory? Loving it! He couldn't get enough of it, quite frankly, though there wasn't enough time, seemingly, in his days for everything that he wanted to do.

That was okay too. There would always be another day.

He fell asleep so swiftly that it was like falling into a black hole, a drop into his own bed that went on and on and on, and then just kept going. He breathed as slowly and as deeply and as evenly as he could, though he was gone, out for the count.

And there would never again be a day like that one for him, not ever again.

Dimly, he was aware of movement around him, a flash of white light edged with blue – and then darkness again. The kind of darkness that enveloped him totally and, if Aaron had been in his right mind, would have made him wonder if something terrible had happened.

Pressure around him, comforting pressure. There was something there, but he couldn't move, didn't need to move. Sleeping, he settled, unaware of his body, the leathery nature of the object he was within lulling him.

It wasn't time to wake yet.

He didn't know that he was inside a Xenomorph egg. Aaron did not need to, not as the research lab operated around him, the egg settled within its containment. The facility was situated on one of three moons that orbited a gas giant, lush with life, all in a way that might have been familiar to him – at least in the realm of astronomy, of course. But he hadn't gotten all that much into that as other human adult commitments had taken up his time and put pressure on his time.

He would have nothing but time soon. Yet other obligations would rise.

The Weyland-Yutani research base was top secret, though that did not mean that test subjects could not be brought out to the moon, of course. A scientist with a rough beard, in need of a trim, stepped back with pursed lips as the human test subject was brought in. He gave them a wide berth, them and the armed guards, everyone ensuring that the subject was as contained as the aliens that they were experimenting on up there too.

“You're late," he snapped, shooting a pointed glance at the wall, where the clock had hung but, now, there was only a dark circle where the man-made lighting had not bleached it lighter. “Set it there, set it there, quickly now!"

The human panted heavily, a male in his thirties, but he did not appear to be with his senses. His hair clung to his head, thick with grease, and his head lolled forward. Most likely drugged. The scientist frowned. That was always the case, when no one wanted to come there willingly, even if they did not know what experiments were going to be placed on them.

The guards shifted, the human strapped to a full-body board, his body easily accessible, clothes fresh and clean despite the state of him. That was something at least, though the guards kept a wary eye on him, the Weyland-Yutani commandos more than clear about the threats that the research station gave rise to and, also, that others could make on it. Clad in full-body armour with a backpack strapped tight and a full-face helmet, they were prepared for anything.

The egg shifted, a glossy, black monstrosity with an uneven surface set on a pedestal, kept in place with a force field barrier. It could not be sealed away in a tube, no, not like the unviable eggs. The scientist smiled, stepping closer – but not so close that he could be taken to be the target, making sure that there was a clear line between the egg and the human test subject. No, that was a mistake made by those younger than him, and the interns. Some of the less intelligent ones did not last long up there on their research station.

The egg sensed a healthy host, activating, trembling as if the exterior itself was alive. But that was not the case, no, not even as it released enzymes into the surrounding fluid within the egg, cradling the royal facehugger within. The facehugger shifted, wriggling lightly, life coming to its limbs, stimulated by the enzymes, the temperature change of the fluid within that had kept it in the ultimate safe space for so long already.

Yet, even for a facehugger, the time to hatch had to come sooner or later. Its long, webbed legs twitched, moving back and forth as if it was testing the limits of its body, tail wriggling back and forth, however clumsily. Though it would not need to do much to fulfil its role in life…

The scientist took a breath and stepped back, even as the human test subject's head jerked up, eyes wide, as if the horror of what was about to happen had finally hit them. Their mouth opened and closed, yet they were powerless to do anything as the egg pulsated, the fleshy petals opening as if it was a flower, peeling away from each other in a slurp of pressure being released. The membranes were exposed, riddled with white veins, the petals falling back to expose the parasite within.

The facehugger was no normal one – which was why that egg was special, even though it was a risky endeavour indeed to set one on a human subject while staying in the same room. The guards did not understand what was going on there, but the scientist did, his jaw clenched even as his eyes lit up with the discovery, watching avidly as the huge facehugger, far larger than normal, emerged, questing back and forth blindly. Black with webbed legs, it was perfect, spikes lining its back. That must have helped it tear through the membrane.

Aaron, within the larva egg that the facehugger carried, knew nothing. The true horror was for the human that the facehugger was due to meet.

The royal facehugger carried its precious cargo tenderly, within its body. It knew little of its purpose, other than to lay, searching for a host, tasting the air with receptors much like a serpent. All Aaron, in a dream-like state, was aware of was a soft sensation around him, as if he was being held, safe and warm and secure.

The host's scream cut through the air, a strangled cry, as the facehugger climbed up to the top of the egg, squealing, a high-pitched, nail-biting sound. It was designed to instil fear, though the human's instinct to fight and free themselves had come far, far too late as it lunged, suctioning straight onto the human's face. As much as they thrashed and fought, there was nothing they could do, the facehugger curling its tail tightly around its neck as its proboscis emerged.

No one could truly tell the horror that the host went through while the egg was being planted, the proboscis sliding from the facehugger's belly into the human to begin the process, but those observing knew that their struggles would soon subside. They were only a body, after all, something for the egg and embryo within to be planted into, no more than that.

The facehugger squeezed the host's face tightly, as if it delighted in the moment, though it had no sense of its purpose or self in that way, no. Its black skin gleamed as its air sacs inflated and deflated, keeping the host alive, doing what it had been hatched to do. It fed the host oxygen, though nutrients would not be required for the length of time that the facehugger would be clamped onto them.

At least they would have some use, in the end. The human, that was, not the facehugger.

Aaron had no knowledge of such, dreaming, feeling as if he was being pulled, softly, through a silken tunnel. Everything was light, everything was easy, and he had the impression of smiling faintly. It was not a place that he wanted to leave, not as he floated.

And then there was a squeeze, an increase of pressure, although it was not unpleasant. No, nothing there was unpleasant.

Yet he could see, a void around him, lightness making his body, though he could not see it, feel as if it could drift away into space itself. Right there, before him, was the alien queen, the long, strong dome of her skull extending back from her face, hunched down over the ground, her claws digging into the rock. Her jaws parted as if in a smile, a pile of alien eggs, a softer grey and brown colour, around her.

Aaron breathed easily. She was laying. How wonderful.

The alien queen extended a hand to him, touching his body with the tip of her claw.

Aaron woke.

But he was not where he was supposed to be. Everything was dark around him and he was slow and groggy, as if he was awakening from a deep sleep, or even like that one time he had gone up on stage, at a party, to be hypnotised. Yes, it was strange, very strange, like being tranced.

He didn't understand, squirming, his heart beating harder and louder, drumming in his ears.

No, it wasn't right. His body trembled, aching through, an urge like no other shooting through him. No, no, no – he wasn't in his room! Everything was dark! Out – out! He had to get out, had to escape.

He couldn't feel his hands, so he bit and tore, his body doing the work for him while the horror of his mind pulled back, instinct taking over. And yet none of it was like any instinct that Aaron was at all familiar with so far in his life, grunting and panting, twisting, though something heavy and metallic flooded his mouth.

He didn't realise that was blood. But Aaron did not have to know that to make his escape, ripping through something soft, his teeth suddenly sharper, digging in, easily burrowing through whatever the substance was that he was forcing his aggravated body through.

There was heat around him, the kind of heat that he didn't want to leave. He recognised screaming, but it wasn't coming from him, though there felt as if there was the ability to shriek in his throat still. That was good, he thought. He still could call out for help, when he was out, yes, he would need help.

Something crunched in his jaws and he forced himself not to think about it, bursting through soft heat, fluid pouring around him. The screaming intensified as he burst into the light, chewing and tearing, trying to bring his hands up…

Only, his hands weren't there anymore. But he had been able to move, his jaws parting in an ungodly shriek. Trying to call out for help, he thrashed back and forth with bright light surrounding him – but it was too bright! No! He wanted to go back, back inside, back to where it was dark and warm and safe.

The human host twisted, jerking, their body in death throes. No one survived a chest burster, after all, and the egg being implanted successfully was all that the victim had needed. The facehugger muted some of their screams, but the two of them had already taken due note of their purpose in life, the man's chest gushing blood with the worm-like chest burster writhing back and forth, jaws gnashing. With broken ribs sticking up jaggedly and soft tissue ripped through as if it was sandpaper, all there was left was for the human to bleed out, their body in shock, unconscious. Really, it was the better end for them.

Aaron reeled from it. There was blood – yes! He could see, but he no longer wanted to see, not as blood and guts and human tissue dripped from his body as if he was shedding it like a second skin. No, it had to be a dream, a terrible dream, even as he turned back and forth, shrieking, a high-pitched squeal tearing from him. Was that his voice? No! No, it couldn't be, it really couldn't!

His body felt slick, almost slimy, though that was merely from the body that he had burst out of, a larva, nothing more than something that was due to grow. Yet Aaron could not know that, his need to escape having been fulfilled, though there was no guilt in him for the human that he had burst out of. Horror, yes, revulsion, yes. Guilt, no. It didn't belong there, not in him, not as he gave one last final push and shot into the air, bursting free in a spray of red blood, the human sagging behind him.

Plop!

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He hadn't expected that, though Aaron didn't know what to expect anymore, squealing as he thrashed and twisted, trying to make sense of his new body. No arms! No legs! He had to be dreaming, had to be in a horror film, had to have something horrible be happening to him! His thoughts lunged through the forefront of his mind, one after the other, broken and disjointed, yet no one in a similar situation would have at all been able to do anything different, not to think with any more clarity.

All he was aware of was the coolness of the glass, his vision clear and yet sensation took most of the precedence. The taste in his mouth… That was something Aaron would do his best not to think about, surprising even himself as adrenaline flowed through him, biting at the glass. All his teeth did, however, was glance off the perfectly smooth surface, frustrating him further, leaving him with no focus at all to quell his madly racing thoughts.

He pushed desperately up against the side of the glass container, but the lid was already on it. He didn't have enough strength in his body to get out, trapped on display, every side clear.

No…

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But, yes. There was no denying it, the horror scene behind him, the human chest cavity that he had burst from. He knew it intrinsically, from all the films he had watched and all the games he had played, but, well…sometimes it took a little more than that for a mind to honestly accept what had happened.

This is a nightmare. I'm going to wake up soon.

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The thought might have been clear, but that did not make it true. Not as he looked around, his stomach twisting, body curling, writhing back and forth and trying to curl around himself, as if that would protect him from his surroundings. Or was he the one that others needed to be protecting from if he, if he…

If I'm a chest burster…

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His eyesight was surprisingly good – yet Aaron clung to the thought that that was only because it was a dream, yes, because that was the only thing that could possibly make sense. Maybe he had to stop watching so much horror, maybe that would fix things, though he didn't think at all that he would be watching anything near as much in the future.

He didn't know that that kind of future had been taken away from him.

The dead royal facehugger lay on a metal table, the scientist standing back, making a note on a clipboard.

“Fascinating…"

His voice could be heard dimly through the glass and Aaron squealed again, horrified by his own voice. Help! He had to help him!

But the scientist had no intention of helping him.

He was taken to a private room for study, sealed away in a clear container that changed as he grew. Slowly, but surely, he had to grow, larger and larger, his skin changing to black over time. Arms appeared, short and yet still functional, relieved to have legs.

And yet…no one treated him as if he was human, as if he was Aaron. He had no sense or concept of time passing, always kept under an artificial light, even as he grew. An exoskeleton grew, his defining feature, his head bumping against the container multiple times before he was transferred to a larger one, again and again. It might have been stranger to grow a tail if the larva form was not perfectly designed for growing a tail already, his spine extending out and out as he learned to stand and walk.

At first, the weight of his head pulled him down and off-balance, as if it was going to be hard to walk. Although Aaron could move his legs, it was still not at all easy to walk or to move, kept in as tight, close confines as he was. His toes, if they could be called that, developed, tipped with sharp, ruthless claws, though they scraped and pulled at the base of his container, leaving deep gouges.

He didn't know what material that was, but he didn't have to either. It was not for him to know.

He was not human. He was not an alien. But he was alien. He didn't know how to put it into words, not as time passed, not as he grew into his full form, his final form, jagged, sharp teeth lining terrifying jaws.

Fully grown, she knew that she was not male. Aaron was not who she was anymore, not as she parted her jaws, tasting the air. Not a human…but an alien queen.

The alien queen.

At her full height, she topped out at twenty-four feet tall – which she knew because of the scientists that milled around her containment chamber, always making notes, always making records. She grunted and hissed, her exoskeleton complete, protecting her body, though there was a skeletal quality to it, showing the vertebrae on her long, deadly tail. It was tipped with a sharp point, like a dagger or a spearhead, and she'd tested it on the container that she was trapped in, time after time again, though not a single attempt had brought her any freedom.

She didn't even really know if she was seeking freedom. Only that she had to do something other than turning around, her tail swinging around her, forced to curl due to the tight confines of the container. She couldn't just stay there.

She was so big though, even muscular despite her smaller arms, which came out more to the sides of her body. She placed a black, clawed hand

The most dominating feature of her, however, was her head, the huge exoskeleton forming a sort of hood back from her head, though it did not round down in a dome. No, if anything, it was a crown, though Aaron knew too that aliens did not have crowns, not like that. They did not need a monarchy.

She strained against the interior of the container as if she was trying to break it, though could not spread her arms to their full extent. And yet the alien queen was still acutely aware of the power and the muscle there, the strength they had not truly allowed out yet.

If she had still just been Aaron, she would have thought it was cool. Even in her confinement, she still thought it was perfect, leaving her attractive, powerful, muscular, everything that she had been attracted to before. She had become the image that she had considered to be perfection.

Before. In the present, she was strong, she was powerful, yet had not had the ability and freedom to truly express herself and the new limits of her body. She wasn't even sure if those limits came into play anymore – and she wanted to find out.

Food. Hive.

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There were thoughts there, though the part of her that had been Aaron had become dulled, allowing other thoughts to take the place of those. They were better there, better like that. She was self-aware, of course, frustrated with her confinement, though there were still some things that she could do in the container, which was large enough, by that point, for her to walk two full strides to the left and then another two full strides back again, but no more than that.

Her jaws parted, opening wider and wider, all to reveal her inner jaws, how they pressed out, opening and closing, testing her own strength. Saliva coated them, though it did not drip – not to start with, at least. That was something that changed with her as she grew, as if there was too much there for her mouth to contain, coating her teeth, drooling, dripping, forming long ropes between her upper and lower jaws as if it was an ever-present part of her anatomy.

Drooling a lot would be something, after all, that she would get used to. She was as she was and there was nothing there for her to change, breathing with shallow breaths that she could deepen at will, although the simple act of filling her large lungs, seeing her chest expand with breath, was something that she had to train into herself.

She was so strong… She could feel it, running her clawed hands over herself, swaying her tail back and forth. The weight of it was incredible, something that she hungered to explore even more, the raw energy in her something that could burst free at a moment's notice. That was why they contained her, Aaron dimly aware of the life she had led before, though it felt as if the body of the alien queen was something that she had always been meant to take on. It was better that way, yes, much better, waiting there, all for her children, her hive.

She didn't have a picture in her head, unfortunately, of what her hive and children were. The words themselves were not even present in her head, but the notions of them. She could “feel" what they were, a sense of it, but the clear words strung out into firm, fixed thoughts that could almost be read from her mind were simply not there anymore. Still, Aaron did not feel that there was any kind of loss there, so she did not mind.

She stood tipped over at the front, though the alien queen could have stood to her full height at any point, comfortable in her body, stable as her claws tapped the ground ominously. She was a true creature of horror, her heart lurching, thudding almost uncomfortably, though the large organ was needed there to pump blood around her body. Baring her jaws at the dim reflection of herself in the sheer, clear container, she stalked back and forth, enjoying the roll of powerful muscle, wanting, still, to understand the limits of her new body.

The scientists, however, didn't have any need of that. To her, she was just an alien test subject, something that was there for their use and no more than that. She tried to fight it when they came in to flood her container with gas, seething and hissing, writhing and slamming her pointed tail, again and again, into the clear wall. She even made a crack into it, but she was no match for the gas, wavering, faltering, her strength seeping from her.

She fell flat with a crash, dimly fading from reality as the scientists disabled her.

When she woke, she was in a room alone, a room that was clearly reinforced, even though she was restrained. She tested her bonds, forced into a squat with her legs bent, her muscles already screaming from the position that she had been forced into, as if she was a statue, a rock, something that was not living, something that did not need muscles to be oxygenated, to have the grace of movement.

Aaron panted, her huge head tipping forward, though the frame of her “hood" didn't help her, even if it should have showed her dominance as the alien queen. No… No, she couldn't get free, her arms manacled to the floor with a metal she was unfamiliar with, gnashing her jaws, straining, trying to force herself free. Even her tail had been bound with a heavy weight to it, forcing the sharp tip to stay down close to the ground.

The room around her was bare and she snarled, drool splattering from her jaws. She didn't know what they had done to her body, but her proboscis unfurled, dropping down low to the ground as she heaved and growled, shuddering in her awkward four-legged stance, hunched and crouched. Her body strained, knowing what to do, driven by need, the ache beginning inside her.

It became clear, however, when the egg sac swelled, her eggs held inside fertilised, though she did not know through what means. She fought and she hissed, anger curling inside her, her tail thrashing back and forth to the extent that the heavy weight tipping it allowed, dulling her, slowing her. It should have soothed her to grow her egg sac, to feel that bliss of new life swelling, all the children that would come from her eggs, and yet it was not so easy for the alien queen to cast aside the horrors of what the humans, the scientists, had done to her.

They came by, from time to time, observing her, making notes, though she always had the feeling that they were watching her, even if she could not see them. There were machines in the corners of the room, where the rest of it was bare, and she dimly remembered from her old life, a life that no longer had much of a bearing on her there. They were cameras, something that the scientists could monitor her with. Bristling, the egg sac under her, lumpy and throbbing as if with a heartbeat, she stared directly at one of the cameras, her jaws hanging open in a long, roiling snarl.

They should know her rage.

The egg sac supported her a little, under her body, her claws free enough to knead, very gently into the fibre of it. She was careful, tender towards her children, knowing what new life was in there and straining, even then, to not harm it. The pulsating exterior of the egg sac almost glowed faintly, though the soft yellow of it simply stood out in sharp, stark contrast to her dark body, which would have been glossy and shining if she was not restrained in the reinforced, dull room.

It was not a life for her, though she crooned to her children, relaxing as the laying came through, again and again. The humans came by, occasionally, to do something to her, unafraid of her hissing and screaming, for she was bound so that she could not hurt them, though there were even some mocking words tossed her way. She did not understand the language all that well, not anymore, but she knew a tone when she heard one, that they scorned her, that they shunned her, that she was just an animal to them.

And not the alien queen.

Laying, however, was soft and pleasurable, her proboscis dropping to lay, ensuring that they dropped safely to the ground, not having a long drop. Her heart brimmed over with soft, blissful joy to be a part of her descendants in such a way, relishing in the sensation of her proboscis swelling, moving the first egg down slowly, patiently.

There was time. There was always time.

She did not have to rush, not as she chattered faintly, making a soft, motherly sound that she'd never made before. Her head tucked down and around so that she could watch the egg moving down the tube, the swell of it, her whole body trembling with pleasure. It squelched and squeezed and she lowered her body even further so that the egg would have as little distance to fall as possible when it finally dropped.

A mother always cared for her young, yes…always.

Her clawed hind foot rested on the pulsating eggs ac, massaging into it gently as she watched in awe. The first egg dropped, swelling out the end, appearing slowly, though it was perhaps due to her not pushing as hard as she could. As it fell lightly to the ground, her acid heart pumped more and more strongly, need coursing through her, the need to care, the need to nurture.

The eggs slid down easily, without too much effort from her, though the egg sac would always be refilled, always producing more and more eggs, more and more children. She stroked the egg sac reverently as she hissed softly, her head dipping, wanting to give the moment to her children even as her ovipositor squelched, dropping egg after egg. Hissing with pleasure, she relaxed into the moment, letting everything soak in.

She couldn't believe that she was the alien queen, an apex predator, a creature that should be free to do as she pleased, even if that was creating a reign of horror and terror. Her body ached as she laid, but it was all a pressure and still a pleasure that she was more than willing to go through for her children, to lay her eggs, her ovipositor squelching wetly as the slime inside her, from the egg sac, drooled out along with the eggs. At the very least, the slimy substance was better able to protect and cushion her eggs, easing them from her body.

She settled there, even though the restriction irked her to varying degrees. She didn't want to consider that part of her life so much, not when it was her every day, when it was all that she could think about, something that dominated and yet, in a way, could be pushed to the back of her mind. Especially when the aches faded, replaced by numbness.

Over time, the alien queen learned the extents of her bonds, flexing and pushing her tail against the heavy, chunky weight until, bit by bit, she was able to move it. She had no idea how heavy it was, but it was clear to her that it was not something at all that she would have been able to move as a human.

That was just why it was still better to be the queen, a creature with a lifespan far greater than anything that may have previously been gifted to her, inhaling slowly, heavily, making sure that she expanded her lungs to their fullest with every breath. She took note of the passage of time with the growth of her egg sac, knowing from that when the humans would come for her again, even though her hatred grew and grew.

There was only one that had a soft look in her eye, that had a gentle tone. The alien queen took note of that, even as she snarled and hunkered down as low to the ground as she could, head tipped down so that the frame of her exoskeleton hood was on show: a protective, defensive part of her body. Even though it hid her jaws from view, the position made it so that she could slam her head forward at a moment's notice, hunkering, that time, over the soft egg sac, devoid of the eggs that she had laid.

The eggs were taken away when they were laid and she secluded away her growing strength, ensuring, to the best of her restricted ability, that they did not understand that she was becoming stronger and stronger. After all, the alien queen had to grow, had to learn, had to test her body.

She flexed her claws, even taking them right down to that as she explored her growing dexterity, caressing the egg sac sweetly, tenderly. There was a part of her that wondered at that even being present in her, that softening sweetness, but that was not something for Aaron to worry about. There were far more pressing things, of course, as she ran a claw over the egg sac, using the curved side of it so that she could press into it lightly, as if she was directly caressing the round of every egg inside.

The humans did not come close to her, even when her body was injected, the eggs taken away, one by one, by combat synthetics: small robot-like creatures that moved in a jerky, erratic fashion. Or maybe that was just her disrupting them, shifting her weight and stomping, letting the vibrations from her movement befuddle their sensors and tip them off course. They still took her eggs away, but she hissed as they took one egg after the other.

She would come for her children.

What she did notice was that the humans did not enter at all, staying behind a reinforced screen, if there were any eggs in there at all. That was interesting, some kind of information that she could use, one way or the other, though she filed it away in the back of her mind for later use. It was not something that she could use right away, though she dimly suspected that it was because her young would then hatch, the facehuggers bursting free to seek out a new host.

That, to her, would not be a bad thing, not a bad thing at all. Her children deserved to be free, as much as she did.

One woman, a scientist, sometimes stayed around after the others had gone. The queen thought that she was speaking softly to her, telling her to eat, able to pick out more and more words from her. She grew, in time, to recognise her, though it was not through any lack of cognitive function that she struggled to know who the scientist was, at first – only that her mind fought back in isolation and confinement. She didn't have to be an intelligent being, after all, for her mind to waver.

The human nodded and smiled at her and she bared her jaws in turn, trying to smile. The woman only looked disturbed, but she still came back, still spoke to her gently. There was no sense of harshness about that scientist and that was something that the queen would remember.

Her chest felt strange, all in a way that she couldn't put words to. She rocked back and forth, but couldn't get a claw up to her chest or face, even though it felt like she had worked the bonds looser over time, perhaps with the heat of her body moving back and forth, back and forth. Repetition was one of few things that she could do in her entrapment, though the alien queen held back, holding her secret strength in the wings for the time to come.

It was as if she knew, even though the queen could not have known – not yet.

The eggs were taken to other containment and storage rooms, all in separate, clear containers so that they were kept from the humans looking after them. Not everyone was a scientist, of course, and they needed interns and the like to do the grunt work – even janitors to clean up and ensure that everything was pristine. The scientists, after all, had so-called real work to do.

The eggs lay quiet and silent in their containers, dormant without a host to latch onto, the facehuggers within waiting for their time. Until the enzymes were released and the temperature of the egg fluid changed, they would remain in there, quiet, tucked away, waiting their time.

Except for one. Except for one container, holding two eggs, that had a crack down the side. Not enough for the unobservant to notice, but more than enough for the eggs to activate, the petals unfurling and rough, brown grey facehuggers emerging – not like the royal facehugger that had implanted the egg containing the queen.

They made it quick, at least, one squealing and latching onto the face of a janitor and the other stabbing with the proboscis from their belly into the face of an unlucky scientist who just had not thought that there was any way that their containment could fail. Complacency didn't help, not as they screamed, clawing at their faces, at the facehuggers, fighting even as the facehuggers took over their breathing, feeding them oxygen, air sacs swelling and deflating.

There was no going back, after all, after a facehugger had locked onto a person. Once they had found a host, there was nothing else for them, having fulfilled their life's purpose.

The humans weakened, but they still had the energy in them and the breath in their lungs to scream when the chest bursters finally emerged in a gory splatter of blood and entrails, uncaring of the soft tissue that they had just chewed their way through to escape. One even gulped down the sustenance: its very first meal. They did not see the humans as anything other than their birthing chamber, instinct driving them on as they squirmed and lunged and broke free, ribs cracking behind them, leaving a gaping chest cavity and a human bleeding out. They had been fortunate not to be discovered while the facehuggers had been in situ, though that wouldn't have stopped them, not once the egg had been implanted into them. The facehuggers were only there to facilitate correct implantation so that the chest burster could squirm free.

Everything had a purpose. One of her children, in the end, born from every egg that was implanted into a human host.

The chest bursters, however, were not to be caught that time, not like Aaron had. They squirmed free and lunged into the air vents, writhing through the narrow gaps as their bodies squashed to fit. Up there, they were safe, no one, for the moment, any the wiser that they existed. When the humans uncovered the dead bodies and the dead facehuggers, all they could do was breathe a sigh of relief that something had gone wrong, that the eggs, in their assumption, had not been viable.

They didn't know that the larvae were in the vents, squirming, growing, their arms and legs developing much as the alien queen's had, only that they were warriors, not queens. And they knew of their mother as they hissed and drooled, seeking out their mother, the one that had laid them, their connection through the hive mind growing by the day. If they had been born into the hive itself, they would have been better placed to communicate with her, but that was something that they had to learn, all as their brains and cognitive functions developed, their connection with the queen.

They knew she was there, hissing, tails swinging back and forth like undulating snakes as they crawled through the vents, seeing only their goal: to free the queen. Their mother! She was trapped! She was kept away from them, her children! And they had to free her, yes, had to do something, anything, had to find a way to come to their true purpose and being.

Unknowing, the queen hunched down, still in her restraints, though they had grown even looser over time. She did not mark the passage of time with her egg sacs filling with eggs anymore, nor the actual laying of them, the slow slide and push of them out of her ovipositor, the wet slimy squelching as she pushed them out. It was easier for her to relax into it, to forget about her position, exactly where she was. After all, she still had to build her strength, still had to regain what power she had as the alien queen, bearing through it all.

She only hoped that her eggs were not being harmed, her children. Yet the rage for what the humans had done to her and her kind still festered. She needed to be there for them, needed to see them. She needed to rule and protect them as their queen.

Of course, Aaron still understood that she had not always been the alien queen and yet it was easier to slip into the mental role, the slow thought patterns familiar, almost as if she had a full history and life as the queen. Being a human seemed so far away from her then, as if it was a dream. It was even funny to her, in hindsight, to think that she had thought that it was all a dream to begin with, when she had first woken up as a chest burster and then grown into the alien queen.

She held her jaws open as she relaxed the best she could. She appreciated that there was more give in her bonds, but she could, at least, lean back into her old life to play an old movie, something that was soothing and comforting, something that reminded her of a time that was not better but allowed her to pass the time. That was good, at the very least, something that she could use to her advantage, something that she could quietly lean into, her inner jaw extended out. She toyed with her jaws for a moment, opening her smaller jaw, on the outside, just to see how far she could do it, but something caught her attention.

Warmth. Love. Closeness. Adoration. Family.

She paused, her attention slipping away from her self-distraction. What was that? That didn't make sense, not at all, not as she came back to reality and sought that connection again, like a thread of spider silk that extended out from her. But where did it go? Aaron did not know: the alien queen wanted to find out.

She sent a question out, a feeling of probing, as if she was using the proboscis of her ovipositor to quest under her, though that part of her body was tucked away safely at that time. Something inside the alien queen pulled, but she didn't know for what, her breath coming in shorter, sharper pants, suddenly caught up in something far bigger than even her.

Her children! Her eggs! They must have hatched and, oh, she could feel them! She couldn't see them, they weren't in the room with her, but somewhere else in the research facility. The queen groaned, straining against her bonds even more, jerking the weight on her tail a good two feet to the left, surprised at her own strength. Her exoskeleton seemed to have hardened even further during her months of confinement too and she arched her back, pressing back and then up, twisting back and forth.

Her bonds were weakening. They would soon be free and, with her children out there, there was no end, surely, to where she could go.

Soon, everything would change, her children rushing to talk to her, so many thoughts all crowding around one another!

True joy flooded her, pulling deep into the core of her being. Oh, her children. Oh, that they had survived. The warmth and love that they sent her wrapped all around, giving her a new sense of purpose as their connection strengthened, moment by moment.

And there was more, the communication, a clicking pulse, the emotions flooding her. Even images of a hive, of where they should have been, pictures sent through their connection of where her children had been, what they had done. She could see where they had gained sustenance, where they had been born in the egg storage chamber, her heart pulling for the rest of the eggs that were yet to be hatched.

She may not have known how they had all come to be there, truly, but she was ready, now that her children were hatched. They had to break free, out of the facility entirely, all to start their new lives together as one, as the hive mind.

Always with the queen at their head.

Chaos reigned, for the queen could not escape her confinement on her own, though her warrior children could slaughter, claws slicing, screaming lancing through the air as if they were a weapon themselves. Carnage blossomed from them, a red wave of blood spilling down the corridor as they took out the guards together, hunkering low to the ground, stalking quieter prey within the research labs themselves.

They were light and they were agile, crawling down the ceiling for stealth kills, taking subtlety when needed and ploughing all out in rooms where they did not need to hold back, where killing everyone there quickly was more important than anything else. The queen maintained her connection with them the whole time, watching through their eyes as they fed images back to them, all so she could help direct them to her. She had some idea, after all, of where she was in the facility, but she had to be alert to best draw them to her.

Wait.

_ _

Not a word but an impression. And she took the time to send it as her warrior child crawled over the top of a desk with a computer shoved off it, sparking and blinking on the floor, a woman shoved back under a desk. The woman whimpered and the alien queen had her child pause, taking her in, feeding the information back to her.

Ah… That was why something had caught her attention. The scientist was a woman with short, black hair that was cropped around her face and cheeks in a distinctive style, although her glasses had fallen off. She didn't have to know what had been said, back when the humans had been injecting her, controlling her, but she had been the only one to ever speak to her in a soft tone, to treat her as if she was something more. She had spoken to her, as if she was conversing with her, and the alien queen had appreciated that, even if she had not been able to understand all of the human words.

It had been that scientist that had allowed her to pick up more of the language again, what had slipped from her when she had grown up, in isolation, into the alien queen. It reminded her, in a way, that she was both Aaron and the alien queen, two beings in one body, though it was the queen that ruled with her power.

And she was okay with that.

But that didn't mean that she had to forget everything, killing the only one to speak kindly to her.

No threat, she told her children. Leave that one. No threat. No danger.

_ _

Her children were obedient, though the queen already knew that the scientists did not have weapons. That was for the guards to carry, though presumably why there were so many of them around. Those were better for her children to slaughter, blood sprayed up the walls, whether they sliced throats or gnashed their jaws, claws driving straight through the guards as if their armour was nothing but butter.

She rose tall and proud when they finally came for her, her children feeding the code she gave them for the room into the security panel, unlocking her bonds with a second panel and code. Finally, she stood and shook off the chains that the humans had placed on her, the facility safe for them, though they would not stay there. It was too painted in gore for a refined queen to remain and her warrior children deserved so much better than that.

Together, they left the facility, streaking down the corridors like the apex predators they were, the queen stiff but swiftly regaining the functions of her body, so much stronger than any human. Her head grazed the ceiling, forcing her to bend over, though she did not mind that at all, not as she put her sleek muscles to work, all at long last.

It was the creature that she was meant to be, yes, all in the best of ways, bursting out of the research lab with death in their wake, jaws parted in a screech that bragged them as the apex predators of the moon. They may not have known where they were, but they charged into the dense foliage with a whisper of movement, barely brushing it aside as they streaked through, bodies tipped forward into a running position, legs pounding the ground.

Dense vegetation greeted them, the possibility of prey and the promise, undoubtedly, of a new life beyond even their wildest imaginings.

Her heart lifted, the connection with her children growing stronger and stronger with the time spent close to them. Her eggs would be retrieved, of course, but, first, they had to find a suitable nest.

Aaron may not have understood just how she had become the alien queen, but her old life was long behind her. She had her children to think of now.

And that was just what she would do.