Xenomorphic

Chapter 32: One to Call Mother

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She stared into those pupilless yellow eyes, assessing the creature before her, safely bound inside a divine holding cell. He was sitting on the floor, cross-legged, back straight, arms folded across his chest—much like that of a proud Native American chief—and his tail lay on the floor, loosely wrapping around him.

He stared back at her, staring deep into her own slitted, poisonous green eyes.

Even though Asteria knew what he was, she did not know what he was to her. Obviously, he was her clone, created by the school using her pre-transformation DNA, and the DNA of a creature Asteria didn't know was possible: a hybrid between Xenomorph and Yautja, a Predalien, as it were.

Where the School got such a creature, whether it was still alive, where it was being held, and how it came to be in the first place were all questions Asteria knew would forever go unanswered, unless she actively sought out a facility and combed through their records for any inkling of such a project, but her curiosity with such a subject was not great enough to kick start such an endeavor.

No, instead her curiosity wanted to satisfy other questions, like were there more clones of her, where were they at, were they also hybrids of alien life, or just common recombinants like so many other experiments?

But before any of those questions could be thought about answering, Asteria couldn't help but...study...Cain. Evaluate him. Marvel at him.

He was a full foot taller than she was, and was packed with muscle. More than likely, he was stronger than she was, but more to a comparison of physical stats, she was most likely faster and more agile than he was. His body was like hers, with the black, exoskeletal armor, the dorsal tubes, the extra sensory abilities, the tail, the claws, the acidic blood, the interior acid sacs that replaced all internal organs, the spewing mechanism at the back of his throat, his translucent teeth, his fangs, his super human abilities...so much was identical.

His face was exactly like hers. Take away the splayed Yautja mandibles and corresponding exposed tendons, bones, and muscles that stood out from his cheeks, and you had the perfect visage of Asteria's brother. Granted, he was a male, and his face had the appropriate traits of a male, but if you had the two hybrids stand next to each other, they would be so identical it wouldn't matter.

Speaking of traits, Asteria took special note of Cain's armaments.

He had a tail, like hers, one that was spinal like, long, segmented, with cords of muscle in between each segment that could extend for dozens of meters, and it could secrete acid. However, there was a great difference between Aster's tail and Cain's, and that was the tip. Aster's tail ended in a sleek blade, perfect for piercing, stabbing, and impaling, but Cain's tail ended in a thick club, one adorned with ferocious spikes, perfect for crushing, breaking, and shattering.

She was finesse, he was brutality.

Then there were their arms. The only similarity was that they could both fire their claws as projectiles, and then watch as new claws calmly slid into place. Beyond that, everything was different. Asteria's arms were typical of a girls', slender, lithe, but with enough muscle to not be considered dainty, but Cain's were ripped, packed with big muscles, and looked capable of crushing rocks—which, all things considered, was a very real possibility—and to top everything off, was the cancerous growths on his forearms.

One could've been forgiven for thinking of them as tumors, but that was far from the case. No, what adorned Cain's arms were sheaths for his own personal wrist blades. With the right flexing of his wrist, he could trigger a nerve that would trigger muscles in those growths to cause his blade to pop out, ready for battle. Those growths also doubled as cleaning stations and forges. When inside, the bones that were the blades underwent a chemical process that repaired damage and removed dirt.