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With a two day walk ahead of us, Alcatraz and I started forward. The silence of the jungle seemed to only worsen the further we walked, eventually even the wind stopped. There were no growls or rumbles from the carnivorous trees that made up the entire forest, their vines hung limp with their mouths open, dead from incompatibility with the Agent 41 Virus. Alcatraz and I watched our step, making sure we left the trees and the many dead animals that were strung around and half eaten undisturbed, respect mostly. Now, I'd seen dead bodies before, this was nothing new. I was very, very hardened to death, suffering, etc. I had personally come to the point where I could look Satan himself in the eyes and not flinch. Now that being said, I don't care how badass you are or think you are. You can be doing 54 life sentences in prison and killed two million people, when you lay eyes on the sheer amount of carnage, blood and death in this jungle, your stomach is going to turn, your eyes are going to look away, weather you want to or not, you are going to want to puke and go the other way as quickly as possible and you are certainly not going to be the same after a hike through it. The carnage, though somewhat scattered, was still dense enough that you could step over a long and put your foot into a mush that used to be large intestine. The scary part was that I saw no sign whatsoever of scavengers, no buzzards, flies, maggots, not shit. I would be surprised if even Primal Xenomorphs would touch this. The dead animals and plants were so heavily contaminated that all my internal warning systems were going crazy and giving me a headache.

On top of the constant buzzing in my head, the sun had given Alcatraz and I the middle finger and decided it wanted to be EXTRA hot today. It had gotten so hot that Alcatraz had stripped off his T-Shirt, tank top and the armor pieces on his arms, now just wearing the armor pieces on the front and back of his Exo, while I had taken off my jacket and my T-shirt, down down to a tank top myself. The humidity was also fucking horrible. I had water condensing on my exo and Alcatraz was complaining about water and sweat dripping down in between the connection points and skin.

"Suck it up Al", I said climbing over a log, taking care to avoid a pile of meat on the other side.

"Well forgive me for not wanting metal that is wrapped around my bones to rust and make me sick", Alcatraz said.

"Don't they seal it up?", I asked.

"They don't if your skin is sensitive to it", Alcatraz said joining me on the jungle floor, he'd been using his Exo's ability to navigate steep surfaces to it's full extent to keep me in the know about what was ahead, as well as stay out of the gore, so far it had been working, "hows your head by the way?"

"Still pounding fucking crazy", I said, "the morphine isn't helping."

"Crikey", Alcatraz said, 'Morphine? Is it really that bad?"

"You have no idea", I commented, "what's up ahead?"

"Same old", Alcatraz answered, "dead shit, more dirt and trees."

"How much distance have we covered?", I asked looking at the sky, I could just barely see the position of the sun in the sky, telling me it was around 2 in the afternoon, sunset wasn't till 9 according to Alcatraz, we still had a long way to go.

"About 8 miles", Alcatraz said.

I sighed, "long ways to go."

We kept going. About an hour or so later we stopped in a large clearing that had good shade and what looked to be a home made by an indigenous person. The hut had been long abandoned, as was evidenced by the broken pottery pieces and single, broken metal sword and stone pickax.

"Hey check this out", Alcatraz said picking up the two pieces of the blade, "wonder how old this thing must be? It's made of bronze, hasn't been used on this planet in some 20 thousand years."

"20 thousand years", I said pulling out my own blade, I sighed, 'why the fuck did Martin drag us all the way out here?"

"To kill us?", Alcatraz asked.

"Then why did he spare me?", I asked, "and apparently you as well?"

Alcatraz looked at me, "spare you?"

I nodded, "I got into a fight with him. I almost had him but I got cocky when my primal side came out a little bit. I wanted to see him die a painful death, so I was going to use the Hornets. He turned the tables on me with an incendiary Gene mod and then told me that he wouldn't kill me...just yet."

Alcatraz looked at his Exo, then at his stowed 20mm, which he had set down to rest, "he left us with our equipment as well."

"It seems to me if that crazy bitch intended to kill us, he would have when we were buried under that rubble after fighting the drill", I sighed.

'So", Alcatraz said, "if he's not going to kill us, what is he intending to do?"

"Fuck if I know", I said dropping my pack and taking off my vest, "we'll have to figure it out sooner or later though. For now, let's get something in our stomachs and keep on hiking.

"Sounds like a plan to me", Alcatraz said.

I pulled my MSR rocket stove and Jet Boil cup out of my pack and set it up in what used to be a campfire, the stones almost completely covered by 20k years of weather. I dug around my bag, eventually finding my MRE's hiding in the bottom. I pulled out my Chicken Noddle soup one and started getting it ready while I handed Alcatraz a can of Spaghetti O's because he said he didn't feel like waiting. By the time I finished stetting up the MRE, the water was boiling. I pulled the boil cup off the stove and poured it into the MRE pouch, letting it sit. After a five minute wait, I checked it, it was done.

"Yess", I said to myself as I started eating. It had been a while since I'd had chicken soup and I had almost forgotten how much I loved the stuff. I figured I was about seventy five percent done with my soup when the ground started to rumble.

"What the hell?", Alcatraz asked.

"Tremor?", I asked setting my soup down.

"Maybe", he answered setting his food down.

Over a span of about two minutes, the rumbling and shaking got much, much worse, enough so that it got to the point that weak branches were falling off their trees.

"Earthquake!?", I shouted.

There was a loud roar.

"I don't think so!", Alcatraz shouted as a chunks of dirt were tossed into the air mere feet from where we were sitting.

I threw my cup away an snatched up my vest and my FAL as a giant, Xenomorphic styled creature plowed it's way up out of the ground, hissing and roaring at us, making the ground shake with every step it took.

"What the fuck is that!?", I yelped.

"RHINO!", Alcatraz shouted, frantically trying to put his 20mm together, "cover me while I put the big gun together!"

I growled at myself and unleashed a swarm of hornets on the creature, who didn't seem to be the least bit phased by them. The Rhino snorted at me and charged with his armored head lowered. I managed to get out of the way of the on coming train just in time, only to see it collide with one of the giant trees with a trunk that was about 20 feet thick and completely uproot it. The giant tree fell a few feet before coming to rest on another one. This was bad news, if this thing could uproot a Jafu tree, then I didn't want to know what would happen if I was too slow to get out of it's way. The Rhino turned around and reared up in the air, using his back legs to push himself forward and slam down on the ground in front of me, leaving a decent sized crater and knocking me off my feet. Before I could get up, the mutated Rhino reared up in the air and tried to slam down on me with his full weight. I managed to get out of the way just in time and get my claws underneath his armor plate. The Rhino, not liking it too much, body slammed me off of him, sending me flying about 20 feet.

"Alcatraz", I groaned as I stood up, seeing my Fal laying about 40 feet away, "I'm not exactly armed right now, hurry up with that 20mm."

"I'm working on it!", he shouted.

Sighing and turning my attention back to the Rhino, I summoned my Telekinetic ability to try and halt the runaway freight train. Somehow, my ability was strong enough to halt the monster, but the monster was just as strong. It was managing to push through my field, every inch it moved sent a shock wave through my body so strong that if I broke focus for a second, I would lose it.

"I can't hold this fucker for very long!", I said through gritted teeth, "hurry up!"

"I lost the fucking firing pin!", Alcatraz shouted.

Growling at myself, I kept focusing on the Rhino, trying to fight the surges of pain that were sent through my body with every step the beast took while under my influence. Normally, a K-Class has such a strong telekinetic ability that anyone caught in his or her grasp is rendered utterly helpless, but when the target is string enough to resist, it triggers a sort of "Back Loop", as Dad always called it. I remember learning in school that a Back Loop is the telekinesis feeding back into your body when it's supposed to be a one way trip. Every wave that gets fed back to you is like a dead short in an electrical circuit, the more it goes around, the more dangerous it gets. If I held it for to long, not only could I fry my telekinetic organ and lose my ability, I could potentially kill myself.

The Rhino closed the distance on me, inch by inch. The closer it got, the worse the feed back got. It to to the point where it was so bad that I could no longer stand up. The rhino, now pretty much on top of me, reared up on his hind legs. I couldn't hold him any more, I hurt to much and my vision was fuzzy from the headache. I thought I was done for as I fell to my back, then I heard Alcatraz shout.

"Hey ugly!"

The Rhino turned around, stepping slightly to the side as he did, allowing me to see Alcatraz standing by the hut, looking through the scope of his 20mm.

"Smile!"

The following gunshot was so loud it put a ring in my ears. The Rhino's frontal armor cracked with an almost equally loud sound as Alcatraz worked his weapon's massive bolt and sent a bronze shell flying across the clearing. The Rhino roared at him and charged, Alcatraz didn't fire, he waited. And waited. The Rhino was rearing up to crush him when Alcatraz pulled the trigger for a second time, dump-trucking the Rhino with the 20mm's 16 tons of muzzle velocity, splitting the thing in half.

"Rest in pieces", Alcatraz said discarding his weapon's empty magazine and placing in a fresh one.

With a bit of effort, I managed to sit up as Alcatraz came running over to me.

"That", I said between heavy breaths, "is one loud rifle."

Alcatraz smiled at me, "you okay brother?"

"I've got a headache and I'm feeling tapped out", I said, "I can only hold a Telekinetic field on that strong a target for so long.

With help from Al, I managed to pull myself to my feet. I walked over to the dead Rhino and inspected it. It looked so much like a Primal Xenomorph that saying it was infected with Martin's little drug would be stating the obvious.

"Agent 41", Alcatraz sighed.

"Almost certainly", I sighed picking up my somehow undamaged stove and jet boil cup, "come on, we still have a long way to go.