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AvP: Desiderata	By : Subtext Category: M through R > Predator Views: 2375 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Predator movie series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Desiderata

by

Quietharm

Chapter Three:

Excerpt from What Might Have Been

Sure I think about you now and then

But it's been a long long time

I've got a good life now I've moved on

So when you cross my mind

I try not to think about

What might have been

'Cause that was then

And we have taken different roads

We can't go back again

There's no use giving in

And there's no way to know

What might have been

-Little Texas

xXx

Time stood still for Machiko; she could not force herself to witness the massacre at her back. The only object of her attention was the great predator before her. They stared at one another as the seconds slipped by, he with his stony mirrored mask and she with brown eyes the size of saucers. Neither dared to move.
Something began to tingle at the back of Machiko�s throat, and it suddenly went dry. She tried to speak, but her jaw only moved soundlessly and she was left looking like a fish gaping out of water. Explosions echoed behind her, illuminating Broken Tusk�s mask and lighting up the dark visor where his eyes should have been. For a moment, he appeared like a gothic gargoyle come to annihilate her once and for all.
She could hear her own heartbeat in her ears now, and she had to force her parched throat to swallow in order to calm her own pulse. Warring emotions conflicted on her face in her inebriated state; she wanted to leap up and embrace Broken Tusk and she wanted to kill him for what she witnessed tonight. She could also cry, vomit, and lastly just curl up and fall asleep for a very long time.
She teetered on the tether to all of these needs, and could find no solace in choosing only one.
The blood continued to well up beneath the flat of her palms on the floor. It morbidly reminded her of the times at school where she would play with red finger-paint as a little girl - submerge her hands in it and then fling it across the canvas in front of her with so much force. She would then wipe her face with it and smear it everywhere. It was thick and sticky.
Broken Tusk cocked his head at her, and knelt before her. He slowly raised a clawed hand, as if that simple gesture was a sacrificial rite.

He�s still alive. He survived. He thinks I�m still Dahtoudi.

Dahtoudi allowed herself one surreal moment of returning to a time when they fought side by side, neither one able to communicate with the other. Beyond her own ability to fathom how, a respect formed beyond their differences and in the end she was fiercely proud to be his Dahtoudi.
�But now it was Noguchi Machiko in the white skirt and halter top spattered with the blood of others. It was Machiko who wore three inch stilettos that used to be black in a club that used to be called the Kamikaze. It was Machi-chan that had tried to mend ties with a childhood friend from long ago.
It was she, not Dahtoudi, who was trying to become human again.
She made her decision.

Dahtoudi is no more.

�I am Noguchi Machiko.� Her words sounded small and unrecognizable, even to herself. If it had not been for Dahtoudi, she wouldn�t be in this present bloodbath.

It�s all my fault. They came back for me, and they killed everyone to do it.

Broken Tusk growled, a low vibration that rattled the air and somehow prevailed over the tempo of the music and dismayed echoes in the room.
She didn�t know if he understood, and in some irrational part of her she didn�t care. An inhuman shriek blasted off a quarter turn to her right. In her alarm, she turned her head with the miniscule amount of effort it took to behold the last thing she would ever wish to observe.
The alcohol in her bloodstream dimmed her senses, but seeing Broken Tusk in the flesh was a refreshingly sober experience. With her adrenaline pumping through her veins, she could focus enough under the bouncing rainbow rays to see a predator with his spear held high in triumph.
Upon it was Kouhei�s dismembered head, staked up through the neck.
The multicolored lights bouncing across his cadaverous countenance made the spectacle even more macabre than it had to be. His body lay directly at the feet of his celebratory killer, and the anguish on Kouhei�s dead features were more than Machiko was able to comprehend.
In a move that was beyond conscious action and borne of mad grief, Machiko�s hand spontaneously flew to the weapon strapped to her thigh. Before leaving for the club, she had dressed into her current attire. The outfit was tight and a firearm would be easily outlined through the thin material, so she opted instead to secure the revolver to her thigh - just under the skirt.
The gun was out and she was sighting down the XT even before a primal cry escaped her voice box. She fired.
The sound of gunfire erupted above everything and resounded throughout the club like thunder. It filled the room until her ears were ringing of it and she couldn�t see what or where she was shooting anymore. Her own rage drove her on, and she found herself wanting to exterminate every last one of them for what they did. She was sure she hit the predator that had killed Kouhei the first time she pulled the trigger. Through the shifting lights she saw the hands holding the spear spasm before he dropped it altogether with a screech.

Eat this, fuck face!

The air reeked of gunpowder, but she kept unloading clips until something slammed into her from behind. The gun was knocked from her grasp, and distantly she heard a loud gust of air and saw sparks in her eyes as she hit the floor rolling. The moment she could regain leverage from her tumble was the minute she was on her feet again, only one thought clear.

She had to get out of there now.
Something snapped below her, and she went sprawling onto the floor and landed hard on her right hip. An involuntary cry of pain escaped her lips, and she struggled to rise again. It proved to be too much of an effort, and her thigh screamed in pain with every motion. Jerking her head over her shoulder from her position stomach-first on the ground, she swore audibly.
�FUCK!� One of her heels had broken.
Gasping frantically, she used the gore spread across the dance floor to slide herself forward. It was a revolting slip-and-slide of blood and body parts. Her eyes scanned the mess and looked for Kouhei�s beheaded body. If she could attain the keys to the hovercar, she could remove herself from this nightmare.
Machiko fought the bile rising in the back of her throat as she passed what might have been a woman at one point in time. The hair and scalp on the head was entirely missing, and the glistening cap of her skull could be discerned under the hellish light of the dance floor. Ragged furrows ran along the corpse�s left cheek, and it appeared as if something sliced through her eye in the process. Thick globs of eyeball ran loose out of an empty, gaping eye socket.

Don�t throw up, don�t throw up, don�t throw up�

She forced herself to look away and forward to the next corpse. The woman waded through a steaming pile of viscera, dark and pungent with death. It was unexpectedly harder to breathe now, and for the first time she noticed that her lungs were laboring to draw in air. Smoke filled the club, originating from the spot where she had initially fired her automatic.
The gun must have gone off and ignited with the spilled alcohol. It was part of the pulpy liquid spread across the club - a mixture of body fluids and drinks.
It was distinct now that she listened for it. The loud pop and crack of flames shocked her system into dragging herself faster and ignoring the torment in her hip.

I�m gonna die.

There. A man�s body, minus the head. Her left hand reached for his closest appendage, and something got in her vision. She swiped at her face with the back of her hand and came away with something fluid and black. It hadn�t even occurred to her that she was crying. The tears that coursed down her cheeks were silent, blended with mascara and blood. Kouhei.
Using the man�s ankle as a means to pull herself aside his form, she began patting his closest pants� pocket. Nothing. Despairing, she reached across his waist and tried the other. When her arm was at some point midway across his body, she noticed a deep hole in her dead friend�s chest. Intestines and ribs shining like white exclamations shimmered with blood and thicker things.
This was familiar, but she was at a loss to identify how when her mind struggled to even control her own actions.
Breathing raggedly, she clutched at the pocket on the far side of Kouhei�s body. Something loud and chunky was stashed there, and it jingled as she bopped it with her hand. It was the most comforting thing she had ever heard in her life. Her hand clumsily descended into the pocket, extracting the keys. Her hands were shaking so badly that she dropped them twice, and on the third time she clutched them to her chest and began sorting through to find the correct one.
An arm slipped about her midsection and hauled her backwards. She fumbled with the keys, and they fell uselessly to the floor.
�No!� she shrieked, surging forward with all her weight.
It was ineffectual. There was a deafening roar in her ear, and she strained to liberate herself. Her body twisted violently in order to gain freedom, and the pain in her thigh was still ignored. She even kicked backwards in order to gain purchase, but it was in vain. She struck off kilter and the arm imprisoning her only constricted as a result. Her desperation reached new levels and she began convulsing with coughing fits as smoke filled her windpipe. Vertigo sank in, and her protests grew gradually weaker. There was the floating sensation of being held above the ground and moving away, but even that seemed hard to conceptualize.
�Key� Kou�� she choked, �Brok� ..tu��
Machiko swore she heard an answering snarl before she sank into blessed unconsciousness.

xXx
Her peace didn�t last long. She hadn�t been out long before a breath of wind brought her rudely to her senses. The sensation of being carried came next, and with this discovery she began struggling anew. This time she was rewarded with her exertions - something she didn�t expect.
The arm around her midriff released her unceremoniously and she hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. There was a grunt and a hiss - the sound of a collision.
�Ah!� she cried at the sudden loss of support, hitting the pavement hard. If she managed to survive the night at all, she was going to look like an angry spouse�s personal punching bag.
It took a minute to regain her bearings, but by then there was an unmistakable bellow of pain and a whir of clicks that reminded her of an old generator gearing to life. It was extremely dark save for the sallow light of a streetlamp nearby. Pale light glittered cruelly off a few dips in pavement where puddles lay, and Machiko made the wild guess that she was down some back alley between clubs.
Cursing her eyesight, she leapt to her feet. This proved to be a mistake, and her unequal heels sent her to her knees again. This jostled her hip rudely and she whimpered from a small stab of pain that arced down her right leg. Her mind found a new level of desperation as she twisted at the waist to yank fitfully at the remaining spike on her left heel.
The sounds of a confrontation were definite. A large burst of crackling blue energy exploded against the brick side of the building across from her, and she screamed.
Silence.
Two more wrenches and the spike came free. She held in so tightly in her right hand that the knuckles of her fist lost their color and ran white.
Something was tap-tapping her way. It came from the innermost part of the alley, and she found herself scuttling backwards on all fours towards the light spilling in from the street. There were two large dumpsters located side-by-side just before the sidewalk with a small space between them.
The ghostly cast of the streetlight made every moment a shutter-frame slideshow. A black appendage emerged from the penumbras and plunked itself forcibly into a puddle on the edge of the light. The uniform reflection of the pool shattered, sending spray flying into the air like broken glass.
A drawn out hiss, and then it charged.
No time to think. Her body moved of its own accord, and she pulled herself into the air pocket between the dumpsters. She didn�t cease her reversal until her bloodied back hit the hard wall behind her with a sickening slap.
She held her breath.
It stalked back and forth restlessly between the garbage containers, and then she could hear it prowl no longer. Had it left? What had happened to the one who brought her here?
Machiko remembered the origin of the ebony creature all too well. It was the nightmare come back to haunt her, and for one wild moment she wanted to do nothing but scream and scream and scream.
Above the silence was the sound of her rampaging heartbeat. She swallowed slowly, listening. Nothing ----

There.

It snapped viciously at her face from a foot away, having materialized instantaneously. Acrid spittle flew from its jaws, striking the metal sides of her prison and melting it. The woman allowed herself one scream as it shook the dumpsters in an effort to follow her into the crevice.
Jerking her head to the side and closing her eyes, Machiko raised the spike in her hand and thrust blindly.
A squealing, high-pitched sound cut through the alley and threatened to splice open her eardrums.
Opening her eyes, the terrified woman edged the limits of her vision out to the XT, which had recoiled violently enough to shaken the dumpsters on either side of her. She turned her head to face straight ahead, shocked. From her narrow line of sight she was able to ascertain that she had drove the spike of her heel up the thing�s second throat.
The alien was hemorrhaging acidic blood with both toothy maws wide open. From the large one the smaller worm-like mouth was extended, the spike imbedded deeply within.
The rise and fall of her chest dropped in speed somewhat, and she could only stare numbly as the onyx alien thrashed wildly, trying to get back on its feet. If it did, she was as good as gone. Her gun was still back in the Kamikaze and she carried no other weapon.
Pulling her knees to her chest, she wound her arms about them and dropped her head into her lap. Fresh tears bled down her face, and no amount of squeezing them back would hinder their progress. Something primitive thundered nearby, and it reverberated through Machiko�s senses. She raised her head again.
A shadow ambled across her blurred vision, and the sharp sound of metal against metal rang out. It was the first time she put a name to her kidnapper, but then again she should have known all along who it was.

Broken Tusk.
The alien was still rolling to and fro, screeching and hissing furiously. The predator stood over it like a dark sentinel, doubled wrist blades extended on both forearms. The alien finally rolled over, stood ---
---launched---
---and met with the ragged grooves of Broken Tusk�s blades.
The creature yelped as it skewered itself. Its body weight drove it all the way down to the hilt of the blades, and for a moment Machiko watched in disbelief as they glared one another down. The lanky XT snarled ruthlessly down at the Dragon - Broken Tusk - and in turn he let loose another savage roar from behind his mask.
It would have perhaps died slowly, but the warrior seemed to have no such patience. He flung the large alien aside, and it smacked up against the slimy surface of the building opposite the one Machiko curled against. Before it even slid to the ground he was upon it. She heard him cut at the creature�s caustic exoskeleton with deft moves. The bug chattered in agony for a slip of seconds, and then she heard no more.
Noguchi Machiko�s breathing hitched in her throat when Broken Tusk slowly stood, turned, and looked directly into her hiding place.
For an impossible second she felt deeply ashamed at her cowardice, which still radiated from her. She knew he was aware of her. Willing her limbs to move, to stand, to do anything, was an impossible task. They refused to cooperate.
He was approaching her now, his gaze ever strident and his mask ever unforgiving.
Machiko could not stand. She was betrayed, confused, hurt, horrified - and she didn�t know if she could trust the one who had more than once saved her life once-upon-a-time.

He killed Kouhei. No, one of his buddies did. Is he here to kill me? Could he?

He knelt on one knee before the dumpsters and slowly held out one hand into the depths between. She fought the urge to grab it and never let go. Murderer! You left me. You left me only to come back and kill those I care about. You can�t be real�

�I watched you die.

He flexed his fingers, once. No other sound or motion was made.

Why did you leave me behind�?

The mark he had etched into her forehead seemed to burn like a fresh brand.
�Hold the fort. I�ll be back when I�m done.�
It was her voice.
Deep inside, something cracked apart and she was laid bare. That recorded voice - her voice - rose from him like a shard of the past and cut her world apart. She made a low, inhuman cry---
---took his hand---
---and squeezed it before feeling an answering pressure in return.
It was as if all the blocks swiftly tumbled back into place. He pulled her up, out of the unlit chasm and she was standing in illumination once more. In spite of everything he had done and what he represented, she felt a slow smile separate her face. It contained joy, familiarity, but also sorrow and mistrust.
She stood beside the bulk of a killer and dared to show her teeth.

Brave Dahtoudi.

xXx

They walked in silence from that place, side by side. She had so many questions, so many accusations to place upon him - but then he would have no way to explicitly answer them, either. Besides, it was rather difficult to concentrate on starting an interrogation when one walked right into the apocalypse.
From all directions car alarms were wailing, never to be consoled. The streets were lined with refuse and broken glass. It was as if I large mass of people had moved in a great migration towards an unknown destination. A copy of the Tokyo Times blew across her path, crinkling in the wind. Downtown Tokyo looked like a ghost town. Glancing to the east, she noted that the sun was beginning to rise. The gray sky was still dark, still dreary, but it lifted her spirits to see the shadows steal away with the advance of the sunrise.
�How did this happen?� she asked aloud. Her voice sounded high and keening with apprehension.
Broken Tusk still hadn�t removed his mask. He merely turned his head in her general direction, making a warbling grumble in reply. She glanced up to concentrate him as she passed a fire hydrant. She couldn�t bear to look at what might have been a dog at one point in time. What was left was steaming.
�How did you survive? Have you been following me?� she inquired suddenly.
He didn�t answer - he couldn�t. The predator just angled another emotionless gaze down at her blood-encrusted form as she hobbled along on one good leg.

Of course, idiot. He can�t understand you. This is so.. so.. frustrating!

Frustrating reminded her of her mother. Her mother reminded her of her father, and the fact that both of them were at the Uchida house reminded her of Kouhei.
�Shit!�
The hunter stopped, and a pained look passed over her face. �I need.. I need to get back.. to�� She gestured frantically to the north before limping as quickly as possible in that direction.
A hand on her shoulder stopped her. Her head darted over her shoulder, red-rimmed eyes wide. �What?!� She hadn�t been aware of where he was leading her since the skirmish with the alien in the alley. It seemed more advantageous to tag along with the predator than take on the walk home by herself. Her mind was still strained to its limit, and she didn�t fully trust Broken Tusk anymore. Perhaps the mark he gave her all those months ago kept her from an imminent death at his hands - she couldn�t say for sure. The one thing she did understand was that Kouhei was dead and the predators were to blame.

He and his goddamn race.

They had brought the aliens to Earth, she was sure of it. If it wasn�t for their fucking need to hunt those damn bugs she wouldn�t be in this position. She would have still carried out her duties as a corporate figurehead many time promoted by now, living a life uncomplicated.
Casting a judgmental concentration up at the hunter again, she felt her eyebrows knit and she scowled. Her emotions warred with one another. He had been a life-saver, protector, friend� as well as a hunter, killer, and traitor. For all she knew, the aliens were first on the menu and then humans next. Why did they kill those innocent people in the Kamikaze? What did they do to warrant that? They weren�t even fucking armed!

Only she had pulled the gun. Only she had survived.

How!?

She had no answer, but he did. He just wasn�t talking.
Broken Tusk had long ago thrown his focus on the wrist gadget he wore. He was tapping at it with one claw, making soft clicks at certain points. Machiko was close to throwing up her hands and taking a chance on her own when he produced a holographic image that ballooned forth from the device.
One dark eyebrow rocketed upwards. God, she needed a cigarette.
It was a diagram of a building. Not just any building, but Chigusa Corp. Machiko would recognize it anywhere; she was supposed to be there this morning. She began to worry her lower lip with her upper set of teeth as she stared transfixed at the holo.

How am I going to explain this to my boss? Does surviving a massacre doled out by XT�s in a nightclub count towards sick time?

She almost laughed at herself. Almost.
Broken Tusk made an impatient noise deep in his throat and she once more found her attention riveted to him. Once he was satisfied with her compliance, he pointed at the base of the 3-D image. He was indicating the front door to Chisuga.
�No, you can�t come to work with me.�
He just snarled and jabbed his claw at the front door with more emphasis before running it up the length of the holo. Was he indicating they enter the building together and move to the top floor? She had no idea, and it unnerved her.
Holding her ground she shook her head and pointed north once more. Her lips thinned out and she stamped her foot once for extra effect. She felt like a mime. �No. I need to get home.� Machiko needed to see her parents and the Uchidas were alive, she had to tell them about Kouhei.
One look down at herself only added to her list. She grimaced. I need a shower.

The warrior was quiet for a full minute. In a move that made her jump, he touched a button on his wrist again and the holo crackled once before disappearing altogether.
He gave a resigned grunt and nodded.
Nodding in return, Noguchi Machiko turned north in a stiff fashion that bespoke of both physical and emotional wounds. Some were only skin deep, others slashed at her very soul. From time to time she would glance over her shoulder to see if Broken Tusk was following. He was always there, always a presence at her back - but there had been a time when he wasn�t. Where he had gone and what he did she did not know, but somehow she had to understand. There were necessary things that needed to be done at the present time, but their talk would come later. Language barrier or no, she would find a way.

God help me.
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AvP: Desiderata