_ _ _ _Carmen pov_ _ _ _
"God damn... I probably should have stayed in my shrunken form until I got there," I thought, grumbling as I pulled myself forward as quickly as possible.
I had to be careful to keep myself as low as possible so I wouldn't accidentally damage the glass above me. (Still, it's not as tight a fit as I was expecting.)
I was in my full form, my body barely fitting within the bridge that linked two of Rapture's tunnels together. Hundreds of xenomorphs were following behind me, hundreds more stampeding through the other intact connection pathways I could see past the glass. By the time I made it to the other side of the submerged tunnel, closing in on the other end, the door that would have been blocking me was fully out. However, something was definitely wrong...
"Fuck!" A sharp hiss of pain came from up ahead, something that instantly got my attention.
(Well, that didn't sound good.)
Just on the other side of the door, back pressed against the console, was Connor. Blood poured from a bullet wound in his shoulder. Four splicers were charging him while laughing and babbling incoherently; their laughter was cut short temporarily however as Connor blew the head off one of them.
"Damn pricks! I may not be a marine, but I'm still more than enough to kill you freaks," he hissed, firing again and again, this time ripping a hole through the leg of one of them, and from the amount of blood pouring out of it, well, it was rather clear that the projectile had probably gone right through the femoral artery.
The two splicers that were still standing quickly snapped out of their daze and continued to sprint forward. Connor didn't stop shooting; he ended up emptying his entire clip in fact. This time most of the shots missed, but he was able to kill another one, three of his bullets tearing through the splicer's chest. The final one though, scrambled across the ground on all fours before leaping forward like some kind of rabid animal.
Despite being out of ammo now, the engineer wouldn't go without a struggle. "Come on then, I'm gonna shove this fucking thing down your throat!"
Thankfully, just as the splicer was about to reach him, a massive clawed hand snatched them out of the air. My hand, to be exact. I didn't even give them a moment to realize what had happened; I just tightened my grip until their body burst under the pressure. I then tossed the corpse away without a care, turning my attention to my wounded subordinate, who was looking up at me as xenomorphs poured out from around my form.
"I didn't... didn't expect you to show up here yourself... m-my queen," he muttered, blood continuing to pour from the wound.
I just shook my head at that before focusing on his injury. "You all right, Connor? It looks like you've lost a lot of blood."
"I'll live... probably." He shrugged as one of the xenomorphs moved next to him, acting as support so he could stand. "But... are you sure you should be here? Not to sound rude, my queen, but you could be harmed if you stay."
"I'll be fine. You should worry about yourself; after all, I can't afford to lose my favourite engineer." I chuckled calmly.
"Now get to cover and have a medic check on you," I ordered after a second, before turning to look toward the carnage. "And keep your head down. Things are about to get far more hectic."
"Understood..." I heard him say as my thoughts became far more focused.
(Now then, time to deal with this damn mess.)
_ _ _ _Eleanor Lamb pov_ _ _ _
"Things are getting out of hand over there," a man in a white lab coat said to another.
"What the hell even are those things?" The taller of the two muttered under his breath, a look of fear in his eyes. "I mean seriously, I didn't believe the reports until some managed to bring back pictures of them."
"Maybe some kind of bioengineered creature? I mean, those people with them seemed to have weapons and gear that don't match anything the surface world should have access to." The shorter one shook his head with a complicated look on his face.
He went on, saying, "Whatever they are, our forces can't deal with them. Additionally, we have completely lost control of the systems in that area, so we can't even support them."
Both men, though, were completely unaware that their conversation was being spied on. (Seems that... that things are getting more heated than I thought...)
I was currently looking through the eyes and senses of various Little Sisters to spy on my wardens. It was the ADAM that gave me this power; I could tap into the collective consciousness of the Little Sisters to manipulate their sensory input. This allowed me to not only see and hear what they did but also to control them when needed. This ability of mine was useful, to say the least, made even more useful by the fact that Mother hadn't realised the full extent of my powers just yet.
Anyway, from what I had gathered it seemed that something big was going down on the outskirts of Rapture, something that only seemed to be escalating with every passing moment. It would appear that Mother had sent a large number of the Family to investigate what exactly was going on out there; however, it seemed that things had exploded out of control. A full-blown war had apparently broken out. Whether or not this was what Mother had wanted I didn't know; however, considering that more forces were being funnelled in that direction, I'm assuming she had decided to take advantage of it.
I still didn't know who or what these newcomers were, but it was pretty clear Mother wanted them gone. Sadly for Mother, and possibly fortunately for me, the Family weren't winning; in fact, despite initial success, reports were now coming in that they were being pushed back. It seems the Family had stuck their hands into a meat grinder and were now facing the consequences.
(I wonder who they are... maybe it would be best to...) I trailed off at that part, my mind returning to my true self.
My body, lying across the sheets of my bed, remained completely still as I thought to myself. (It's hard... hard to think properly...) That's true; Mother had been injecting me with large amounts of ADAM, something that made it incredibly hard for me to focus properly sometimes. (Still... I need to do something... I need to capitalize on this...)
(It's hard to think... I should contact Tenenbaum... she'll help me figure out what to do...)
And so I did. Getting into contact with Brigid Tenenbaum was easy; I just needed to possess a Little Sister currently with her or have one of them talk for me. I chose the former, and yes, I knew that Tenenbaum didn't exactly like it all that much when I possessed her little ones, but right now we needed to have a proper conversation.
The place I found myself was a sealed-off section of Rapture, one filled with several rusted bunk beds and colourful chalk drawings covering the ground and walls. This was the hideaway that Tenenbaum had been using to shelter the Little Sisters I'd been helping her save; in fact, there were a few just sitting around playing with various toys they had found around Rapture. As for the person I was here to see, well, she was sitting at a table in an adjacent room looking at some kind of map.
"Hey, sorry to interrupt, but we need to talk," I mused as I approached her.
My sudden words seemed to startle her, but she quickly realised what was going on and turned to me. "Eleanor?" she asked with slightly narrowed eyes, and I nodded. "What is it? The fact that you're using this method means it's something important."
"Skipping straight to the point, huh?" I hummed as I took a seat across from her.
"You clearly didn't come here for small talk," she pointed out, and I had to admit that was fair.
"Right..."
I then began telling her everything I had picked up so far and how the violence on the edge of the city was accelerating rapidly. It wasn't long before Tenenbaum was completely up to speed with what exactly was going on. Not that I knew the full scope of it all myself, but it was enough to start making assumptions. And yes, while there wasn't much we'd probably be able to do in response to all of this, we still needed to formulate some kind of plan.
"So then..." Tenenbaum breathed out after I finished explaining. "What is it you suggest we do?"
For a moment I didn't answer, mainly because I didn't know how to actually answer that question. But eventually I muttered the idea that had been lingering in the back of my mind. "Maybe... maybe we should contact them?"
"Really? You want to get in contact with people we know nothing about? People that work side by side with strange creatures of unknown origin I might add." She asked, although she didn't outright reject the idea.
She didn't stop at just that, though. "And what about our original plan? What about Delta?"
"The main plan hasn't changed. Father is still our best option... my best option," I answered calmly. "However, these newcomers clearly have no intention of allying with the Family... which... which on its own is already to our advantage."
"Additionally, if we can find out what they want, why they're here, and if it doesn't conflict with our goals, then would it not be best to try and form some kind of alliance with them?"
"And how do you expect we get in contact with them? I hope you don't intend to use the little ones." She hissed, and I could only shake my head.
"That... that is what we will need to figure out..."