Marc Cerasini - AVP - Alien vs. Predator

Powerless in its grip, she refused to struggle any longer, or to look away. Death held no terror for Alexa Woods. She would face it squarely, eyes open.

The woman’s fearlessness disconcerted the Predator. The creature actually hesitated for a moment—long enough for a black shape to drop from the ceiling and for its razor-sharp tail to plunge through the Predator’s reptilian flesh.

Suddenly the hand that held Lex convulsed. Then the fingers parted, releasing her. She stepped back as bright fingers of raw energy crackled across the Predator’s torso. The monster twitched and flung its arms wide.

Flattening herself against the wall, Lex heard the crunch of snapping bone and a wet gurgle. Then a black, barbed spike burst through the Predator’s chest in a torrent of phosphorescent gore.

Lex whimpered as the hot, steaming liquid spattered across her cheek, but still she could not turn away.

Unbelievably, the Predator was now helpless in the grip of a destructive force more savage than itself. Limbs flailing, wailing madly, the hunter was hauled upward, disappearing in the shadows.

Lex heard bestial sounds, and the ripping of meat and bone. Sparks rained from above, followed by a deluge of gore. In the intermittent flashes Lex observed a black, insectlike shape curling in the arches, its long, clawed arms tearing at the beleaguered Predator.

With a final crunch of bone, the Predator died, its corpse dangling limply on the barbed tip of its killer’s tail. Gouts of flesh and streams of reptilian blood plopped onto the flagstones, steaming in the frigid air.

The second Predator spied the black obscenity as it dropped to the ground and crouched on two spindly legs. Tossing Sebastian aside, the Predator assumed a fighting stance, an undulating rumble gurgling in its throat.

The Alien whipped its bony tail around, dislodging the dead warrior and hurling its battered carcass into a dank corner. Legs spread wide, clawed arms raised, the Alien kicked Max Stafford’s bundled corpse aside as if it were clearing the arena. Slime oozing from its lipless mouth, the Alien bobbed its shiny, elongated head and thrashed its tail from side to side as it issued a sibilant challenge. Finally, its toothy mouth opened and the black beast spit at the Predator in angry defiance.

Only dimly, Sebastian had felt the crushing grip relent, and he’d slid down the wall. He would have remained there, too, except for the strong hands that encircled his waist and hauled him to safety.

Sebastian looked up to see Lex standing over him, her face stained with an eerie green phosphorescence, like some strange, futuristic war paint. Then he heard hissing and an angry roar. Rolling onto his side, Sebastian watched two demons out of hell squaring off for a duel.

The tittering obscenity and the reptilian humanoid slammed together with a shuddering impact that sent both creatures reeling. Howls and thrashes accompanied their charge.

The Predator lashed out, striking a backhanded blow against the Alien’s gnashing jaw. The Alien staggered. Then, in a scorpionlike motion, the black monster attacked with a flash of its spiked tail. Springing back, the Predator used its wrist blades to counter the strike—and in a quick twist, it severed the Alien’s tail.

Yowling, the Alien whirled, spraying deadly venom from its bloody stump. Whatever the steaming droplets touched burned, sizzled and pitted.

The Predator pulled back its arm to thrust again but discovered that its wrist blades had been reduced to smoldering, molten stubs by the Alien’s acidic blood. Snarling, the Predator leaped at the Alien and brought it down. As they grappled, sparks—struck from solid stone or from the Predator’s shredded armor—created distorted shadows that writhed on the walls, floor and ceiling.

“We have to move!” Lex cried, tugging Sebastian’s coat.

He nodded and stumbled to his knees, grabbing a flashlight that had rolled to his side. Sebastian looked up to see Lex haul Weyland to his feet. The man sobbed and held his useless hands palms up, their fingers encased in congealing black blood.

Sebastian grabbed Weyland’s arm, and together they carried him toward the far end of the corridor, into the darkness. Behind them, the two unearthly creatures grappled on the stained flagstones as the savage battle raged on.

Bodies intertwined as one, the thrashing creatures rolled end over end, kicking and clawing, their wails of rage and pain echoing throughout the tunnel. Gaining the upper hand, the Alien hovered over the humanoid, and its black maw opened. A second set of jaws burst forth from the first—stopping mere inches from the Predator’s battle-damaged face mask.

With an echoing roar, the Predator heaved the black, yammering creature aside and sprang to its feet. Whirling to face the Alien, the warrior raised his wrist and aimed the net gun—

The Alien, its gangly black arms flung wide, launched itself into the air in a powerful bounding leap—

And the Predator fired—

A metal net enveloped the creature in midleap, forcing the kicking, mewing Alien to the floor. The Alien’s exoskeleton clattered on the flagstones as the net pulled tight, crushing it.

The Predator, unsteady and bleeding from its wounds, grunted with satisfaction as the mesh closed on its enemy, piercing through the Alien’s chitinous hide.

Blood and gore spurt from a hundred places, spraying the flagstones and the walls and burning holes wherever it splashed. Unfortunately for the Predator, the acid also burned the net, and in a few brief seconds the mesh melted enough for the Alien to break free.

Spitting angrily, the Alien clambered to its feet and faced the battered Predator. Its black, misshapen body smoked and sizzled where the razor net had cut it. The Alien was determined not to be dominated. Its segmented tail-stump flailed from side to side, beating the stone walls.

The humanoid was clearly overmatched, for the Alien was far more powerful and formidable than the Predator had thought possible. Now there was little to do but face death with honor—and die fighting.

The Predator threw back its arms, extended its chest, and roared in the face of doom.

With a final spitting hiss, the Alien was on him, driving the humanoid to the ground and crushing him under its weight. The Predator struggled against the onslaught, but there was no defense. Clawed hands grasped the Predator’s dreadlocks, holding its head fast.

Then the Alien’s inner mouth punched through the broken faceplate to smash the Predator’s flesh and bony skull beneath. A fountain of gore erupted from the shattered head, spraying the walls and flagstones with clotting brain matter and a steaming green fluid that glowed with a sickly radiance.

Abruptly, Lex and Sebastian—with Weyland draped limply between them—staggered out of the labyrinth and into a vast chamber lined with stout, rough-hewn stone pillars. The room was a maze of pitch-black shadows, but a dim illumination radiated from an unseen source, though it was still difficult to penetrate the darkness for more than a few yards.

Lex was starting to think like the survivors she’d lived amongst—the Sherpas of the Himalayas and the subsistence hunters of Alaska. She knew that anything could be hiding in this forest of carved stone cenotaphs. For the first time in her life, she wished she had a weapon.

They found a wide stone staircase lined with ornate square pillars. After climbing several steps, Lex and Sebastian slowed and released Weyland. He leaned against the wall, avoiding their eyes.

“What was that thing?” Sebastian croaked, rubbing his bruised throat.

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.”