Marc Cerasini - AVP - Alien vs. Predator

The face hugger hissed at Sebastian, and suddenly a long, serpentlike appendage reached out of the creature’s belly and probed for an opening in Sebastian’s face. He raised his arm and slammed his elbow down on it.

Stunned, the face hugger plunged over the edge and into the pit.

Sebastian rolled onto the ledge, arms aching. He looked over to see the hugger scaling the wall parallel to Lex. Before he could warn her, Lex kicked the obscenity with all her might. Legs flailing helplessly, the creature tumbled end over end into the chasm.

“Hang on!” Sebastian cried, still clutching Lex’s hand.

As he pulled her toward the edge, Sebastian looked into her upturned face. Her eyes went wide as a shadow loomed over his shoulder.

“What?” he asked, turning.

Sebastian choked. With a look of stunned surprise, his arms flung back and he was ripped away from the ledge. Lex heard struggling, then a crash. She peered over the edge in time to see Sebastian yanked off his feet by a black, bestial figure. With a whipping sound its segmented tail lashed around Sebastian’s leg. Whether he was unconscious or dead was unclear, but the man was as limp as a rag doll when the Alien dragged him into a shadowy corridor. A moment later they were both gone.

As Lex clung to the ledge, something rolled past her shoulder—Sebastian’s vintage Pepsi cap. It tumbled end over end as it fell into the chasm.

Finally, Lex began to climb, hand over hand, until she reached the lip of the ledge. Pulling herself up onto it she looked around, finding the area around the shattered bridge and the corridor beyond it deserted. There was virtually no sign of Sebastian De Rosa.

Turning her back on the abyss, Lex moved into another corridor. As the beam of her flashlight dimmed, she realized that the battery was dying. Before it faded completely, however, she checked her compass to orient herself—only to discover that it had been shattered in the fall.

Lex cursed.

For the first time since she’d entered the pyramid, Lex felt despair. With no light, no compass, no companionship, and only deadly Aliens and savage, invisible Predators lurking about, she knew it was unlikely she would ever get out of this place alive.

Shadows loomed everywhere. Black doorways yawned forbiddingly. Corridors forked and twisted into more tunnels. Lex was hopelessly, irrevocably lost. Increasing her pace, she rounded a corner and ran into a dead end.

“Damn it.”

She turned to retrace her path—and stopped in her tracks when the massive silhouette of a Predator rose to block her.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend…. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Lex whispered Sebastian’s words like a mantra.

The Predator held a short metal tube in its hand, which he raised. Suddenly twin shafts telescoped out of either end to form a deadly spear. The creature puffed out its barrel chest, and when it did, a deep, undulating, clicking sound emerged from its bull-like throat.

Then the Predator swung its spear, gripped it with both hands and plunged it into the stone floor. The meaning was clear—it was time to fight.

Go ahead, make my day, Lex thought with a bravado she didn’t feel.

Motionless now, the Predator cocked its head. Its eyes glowed faintly in the oppressive gloom. Lex felt a strange electric warmth tingling her chest, her arms, her spine. She got the distinct impression that the creature had used some device to scan her.

Having determined his mark, the warrior raised the spear again, aimed its barbed tip at Lex’s heart, then froze, still poised to strike.

As if hypnotized by the grim tableau of her own doom, Lex stood erect and defiant, waiting for the fatal stab.

Slowly, without taking her eyes off the creature, she pulled off the pack that held the Predator’s gun and presented it. When he refused to take it, she set the pack on the floor and slid it toward him.

An endless moment passed. Then the Predator lowered its spear and scooped up the pack—just as the elongated head of an Alien warrior emerged from the shadows behind it.

Lex opened her mouth to cry a warning, but, sensing danger, the Predator whirled to strike before she could even utter a sound.

Swinging furiously, the Alien struck the spear from Scar’s fist. A second blow sent the Predator reeling to the ground. Even before the warrior’s back hit the cold stone, the snarling Alien was on him. Its tail lashed from side to side, its bony segments struck sparks on the walls and its claws shredded Scar’s armor.

The Predator tried vainly to dislodge the monster, but the Alien dug in harder, ripping gouts of flesh out from beneath the armor. Scar howled and jabbed. The Alien pulled back its head, opening its jaws to spray hot spittle on the Predator’s mask.

Scar’s fingers tore at the Alien’s hide until acid blood seeped from a dozen wounds. The Alien then leaned closer to Scar’s face. Its jaws opened as wide as a snake swallowing its prey. Its interior mouth moved forward, slathering over Scar’s flesh, its teeth gnashing grotesquely.

The Predator showed signs of weakness. Its struggles became less violent, and it seemed to Lex that the creature was as close to accepting its death as she had been just a few seconds before. Finally, Scar lay still, its sightless eye slits staring impassively at the fate looming above it.

The Alien hissed triumphantly, then tucked its head down to deliver the killing bite to Scar’s exposed throat.

Only then did the Predator strike. Using the Alien’s weight against it, Scar rolled backwards, throwing the Alien over its head in what looked to Lex like a kind of judo move. To her horror, the Alien had been tossed in her direction. Reaching down, she snatched the Predator’s spear from the ground and raised it with both hands.

The Alien bounced off the narrow walls of the tunnel and righted itself. But this time it was facing new prey—Lex.

Scar roared and turned to face its opponent just as a second Alien leaped out of the shadows—the alpha-Alien.

The large Alien, its body burned by a Predator net, threw itself at Scar with all its might. The Predator pressed its back to the wall and drew a throwing disk. The device unfolded with an electric hum, revealing ten-inch blades that projected from its edges.

But Scar never had a chance to use it.

Unleashing an unearthly screech, the alpha-Alien struck the Predator full on the chest, bringing him down. Locked in a deadly tango, Scar and the Alien rolled end over end as the Predator used its own claws to pound the monster’s black, ravaged hide.

Taking its cue from the alpha-Alien, the smaller creature facing Lex also charged, jaws snapping, teeth gnashing. The monster leaped in a high arc, intending to come down with its full weight on the frail human.

But that maneuver proved to be the Alien’s undoing. With calculated calm, Lex stepped back and propped the Predator spear against the hard stone floor. When the Alien completed its jump, it landed on the tip of the sharp spear, impaling itself.

With a dying shriek that shook dust off the walls, the Alien thrashed and bucked on the end of the shaft. Lex struggled to hold the spear steady, keeping the monster twisting on it at bay. Acid blood splashed the walls and coursed down the shaft, melting the metal. Still the screaming horror dangling on her spear refused to die. Risking chemical burns that would easily dissolve the flesh of her hands to the bone, Lex tilted the spear upward so that the Alien’s own struggles, its own weight would drive the spear deeper into its black body.

Meanwhile, Scar and the alpha-Alien were still locked in deadly combat. The Predator had rolled out from under its foe and had recovered its disk. Again and again, the Predator drove the long, gleaming blades into the monster’s thick hide. The Alien yowled and raked the Predator, even as great rivulets of burning acid flowed from multiple wounds, pitting Scar’s shattered armor and scorching his pale gray flesh.