Hostile Takeover

"That's basically it. We have three grenades for each person, one hemostatic spray, one oral antidote, one bandage, and an amulet, Thanks to Zheng. These cost 100 points. We wouldn't have the points to exchange for them individually."

Zheng looked at his points with a bitter smile. He only had 10 points left. Tie Ta was the one who earned all of the real points last mission. But besides Lan, who visited his room every night, no one really spoke to Tie Ta.

Jie packed his stuff then put them in his pockets. "Even though it's only a few days but you've trained everything you should. Just remember one point: Everything can happen in movies, so you must be cautious. And try to help others if possible, but if they affect your safety, kill them."

Lan and Xiaoyi hesitated, but Zheng nodded. "How are we going to the next movie? Do we just disappear suddenly?"

Jie shook his head. "No. When it's time, there will be twenty beams just like when we were brought here. You just have to stand in one."

They sat on the floor on the platform as they talked.

"Hey, what about that CyberScythe? You think he will show up?" Xiaoyi asked.

"He has to. That guy is no slacker. He showed his skills in the last movie. So I'm sure he didn't waste the ten days given to him." Jie replied as he stared at the dungeon-style door.

"Oh, he's been working very hard..." Lan adds.

In Tie Ta's room, He was standing in the center of the room, dressed in black combat boots, combat pants, and a long sleeve shirt. He wore a black flack jacket with magazines at the ready and a tactical backpack on, holstering his Light Discs.

He wore two thigh holsters with DEM-13 pistols and a Tempered True Adamantine Mini Machete on his back waist, running parallel to his belt.

Next to him, Reika stood in similar attire with a Tempered True Adamante katana on her back and two DEM-13s. In her arms was a DE MHI Assualt Rifle with a slim red line along the center. And she was revved up with T-virus and Doom Mutation.

"Are you ready, Rei?" Tie Ta asked.

"As I'll ever be, Tie?" she replied.

"Remember, we stay tight and knock out the mission. Satsui No Hado costs serious points, and that's only one thing from a list of shit that I want. So it's time for us to earn all the points."

"Are you sure that I can join you?"

"We're about to find out."

Outside of Tie Ta's room, God became brighter and brighter. Then it shot twenty beams to the ground. A voice sounded inside their head.

"Enter the beam in thirty seconds. Target locked. Transportation to Alien."

'Alien?' thought Tie Ta, 'Support. Exchange for two communication headsets.'

Tie Ta was exchanging as he and Reika exited their room and moved towards the beams.

Tie Ta tossed a comms piece to Lan. Then he and Reika stood in two separate beams as they put them on. The beams then turned red.

"Error! Created Partners must share transportation with their creator," said God.

"You heard him, Rei."

When Reika stepped into Tie Ta's beam, the team entered an in-between state while transported to the movie Alien.

-----------------

Player: Tie Ta (24K CyberScythe)

Age: 19

Missions survived: 1

Exchangeable Points: 6628 Point ACCD Rewards

Upgrade 1/3

-Stats-

Intelligence: 406

Mental capacity: 410

Cell Vitality: 609

Reaction Speed: 530

Muscle Density: 510

Immunization: 755

-Exhangables-

Scifi Weapons: 2 Self-Made Light Disc, 2 DEM-13 Pistols(SM), Tempered True Adamantium 16" Mini Machete (SM)

Magical Weapons: None

Support: Advanced Qi, Stage 0 Tyrant Ghoul(T-virus and Ghoul Mutation), Speed Reading Spell, Enhanced Muscle Memory, Intermediate Telekinesis, Mental Palace, Total Recall, Mission Tactical Pack (SM), Communication headset

Entertainment: None

-----------------------------------

In the blink of an eye, his vision came back. The room that he appeared in wasn't too big, with the ceiling and walls made of steel. Various machines spread out in the room.

He looked to the side. Eleven newbies lay on the ground. Jie and the other three had woken up by now.

Jie immediately looked to the ground, and then his face turned pale. "This is bad, seventeen people. You won't get this difficulty in a sci-fi movie like Alien. God must have changed something."

"And Tie Ta had to bring an extra person," Lan added.

Tie Ta completely ignored them as he and Reika tried to map the ship based on their memories and the structure of the level they were on.

"I've never encountered this situation before." said Jie, "I heard from the veterans that God can change the plot and difficulty of a movie. It happens randomly and usually ends with the party getting wiped out. Of course, you also get a generous amount of rewards for finishing it. Look at your watch."

Zheng and the other two looked at their watches. It showed different data than during Resident Evil. There was no countdown. The only line it had was: 'Kill Aliens. Every member will be rewarded 1000 points and a rank D reward upon completion. 1 per 15 eggs. 500 points per Alien. 1000 per Queen. 1000 points for mission survival.'

Jie took out a cigarette. "Any of you still remember the plot?"

Zheng shook his head. "This movie is too old, even though it's a classic and I had seen it before. I forgot all the details already."

Xiaoyi shook his head also. "I only saw a few of the latest horror movies these few days. Didn't expect God to choose something like this."

Lan laughed. "You guys are unprofessional. Since our lives are on the line, then you should review even the oldest horror movies. Especially if this dimension existed since ancient times. I even looked through some horror stories. The plot of Alien…"

"Alien happened sometime in the future. Human technology was advanced enough to support planetary travel. They created colonies in a few galaxies, but unfortunately, humanity never found any extraterrestrial life until the start of Alien." A voice from a young man and stood up from the ground

He had a familiar face to Tie Ta and wore glasses, but his eyes looked unusually calm. He gave off a sense of wisdom.

Zheng was the first to react. "Zheng Zha, welcome." He held out his hand.

The man hesitated, then shook his hand. "Chu Xuan. If you don't mind, can you tell me what this place is?"

Zheng smiled bitterly. "It seems like you are familiar with the plot of Alien. Can you tell us the details first?"

Xuan sat on the floor, he adjusted his glasses. "If you insist. The plot starts on a commercial spacecraft."

"According to the law, anyone that encounters an unknown signal during space travel is obligated to investigate. Then determine if it's sent by an intelligent species. In the plot, a commercial spacecraft caught such an unknown signal, a frequency that doesn't belong to humans. It may come from extraterrestrial life. If they don't investigate it, they will be fined. People on the spacecraft were forced to land on the planet that sent the signal."

"Indeed, they found the source of the signal. A ruin that might be a spacecraft."

"It is a spacecraft." Tie Ta added. "None of you have seen Prometheus?"

Everyone looked at Tie Ta with blank faces, and he just sighed. "Of course, you didn't. In Prometheus, people find the original spaceship that was used to carry the engineers to earth. One of the engineers' sacrifices himself to give birth to all life on earth. A spaceship identical to the one found in this movie. Both ships had a nesting chamber. A chamber full of face-huggers because the engineers created the xenomorphs as well."

"What does that have to do with this movie?" Lan asked.

Reika laughed because no one had an ounce of inference. Though, they couldn't blame Xuan as it was his first time.

"A seventeen man mission. For even three drones or warrior class xenomorphs, the six of us can slaughter them if properly prepared. God knows Reika, and I are. No, There something special going on here, and it has something to do about what went down in that alien ship. For all we know, God could have changed the manifest just to provide warm bodies for those things. We could be facing an army. So fuck the original plot, read the watch! This is an extermination. That's my input for this mission. Use it wisely." Tie Ta turned and gave a node to Reika.

Reika turned and ripped a panel off the wall. She pulled out a small laptop and began to work on the configuration.

For some reason, Zheng and the group wanted to hear more of the original plot, so Xuan continued. During that time, Reika patched into the ship. Tie Ta remembered that the ship had a tracking system. It wasn't super-advanced, but it was enough to track life forms.

Tie Ta and Reika were pointing out the life forms, and for the most part, it seemed like the traffic flow was constant and steady.

"Check to see if a transport ship is gone," Tie Ta thought, and Reika listened.

Reika suddenly frowned, "It's inbound." she spoke directly into Tie Ta's mind.

"That's enough already, listening to your bullshit in the morning. What the fuck is this place?" A voice sounded in distress.

Everyone turned their heads away from their perspective conversations to that the newbies had awakened. They were looking around in confusion. Three of them, with hair dyed in bright colors, looked at the players impatiently.

Dressed in hippie clothes, with piercings in his nose and lips, the newbie shouted, "Who the heck are you? I was gaming in an internet cafe; how the heck did I get here?"

Zheng knew this place took in all kinds of people. As long as you chose YES when asked the question, you would be transported here. Anyone was possible, and he wouldn't be surprised even if the President appeared in front of him.

Zheng ignored these three teenagers and shouted, "Everyone, calm down. We will explain the specifics later. For now, let Xuan tell us the details of Alien."

Tie Ta just shook his head and turned back to the laptop. But when he saw the laptop, it was blank.

"What the fuck happened?" he asked.

"What do you think, God. Just like the door, he closed this off too. But, Tie. There were a lot of fucking people out there." Reika wore a worried face.

"How many?" Tie Ta asked.

"Twelve. Not counting the transport ship. Then there's seventeen of us. If a queen is here..."

"I know..."

The entire time, Reika and Tie Ta were having a mental conversation to avoid certain ears. But the sound of a bullet being fired causes them to draw their weapons and aim at Jie.

"What fuck, Jie?" Tie Ta asked.

"He pissed me off." Jie sneered.

The other newbies started screaming. But Players noticed a few people remained calm. Tie Ta figured the newbies weren't too bad. At least these few were calm enough in a situation like this.

Xiaoyi went over to pick up the gun. "Jie, this is an imitation, not the real thing."

Jie nodded and put his gun back. Tie Ta and Reika then lowered their weapons. Nobody gave a shit about the newbie. "Stop his bleeding with the hemostatic spray, then bandage him up. Oh, and you newbies, listen up. Don't point a gun at me, or I will get stressed and do something out of panic." said Jie.

Zheng turned around. He took out a pack of cigarettes and handed one to Xuan. "Aren't you scared? That was a real gun."

Xuan rejected the cigarette. "I don't smoke. It will kill my brain cells. You still want me to continue with the plot details?"

Zheng smiled and lit his cigarette. "Yes, please."

Xuan then continued to speak:

"The Alien was beyond their imagination, and there were fewer and fewer people alive. But there's a bug in the movie and a contradiction to the plot. In the movie's plot, the main characters find out one of them was a robot sent to monitor them by the government. The robot's mission was to bring the Alien back to earth, even if it meant the lives of everyone in the spacecraft...

According to the robot, the government had already known about the Aliens in that ruin beforehand. Their plan was to sacrifice people on the spacecraft for an evolved one, but is this possible that the government sent a robot instead of scientists or soldiers? Furthermore, this robot wasn't the Leader of the spacecraft. So there was a very high chance of it failing to bring the Alien back. What if the staff only took a brief look at the ruin then left? The government wouldn't do something so stupid and chose a commercial spacecraft instead of the army."

Xuan adjusted his glasses and continued, "I'll use an analogy: A country finds out a hydrogen bomb is buried in the desert within its borders. Then will this country send an army to bring back the bomb or put a soldier within a group of traveling merchants to find out about the bomb by chance as they travel through the desert?"

Zheng and Jie looked at each other. They finally realized why God pulled in so many people. Because of the bug in this movie, God probably changed the plot and therefore increased its difficulty. They had lost their biggest defense in the movie and wouldn't be able to predict what happens next.

Tie Ta just shook his head as they finally understood why he told them that listening to the plot was a waste of time.

Xuan continued inspecting their expressions. "The remaining staff planned to destroy the spacecraft and escape through a survival pod. Then two more people died before reaching the pod. Only the main character got in successfully, but the Alien followed her in. Then she opened the door of the pod, and the Alien was sucked out into space. She was the only one that survived."

"Now that I'm finished, can you tell me some things? Like what is this place? If I am not mistaken, this is that spacecraft in Alien, right?"

When he saw the look of astonishment from everyone in Zheng's group, he smiled. "I was just testing, but now I am certain. Can you explain the situation? I can't imagine how I got here."

Jie and Lan were about to say something, but Zheng waved his hand and interrupted them. "When was the last time you saw this movie?"

Xuan adjusted his glasses. "About seven years ago. I can still remember something this recent quite vividly."

Everyone was shocked, remembering something from seven years like this. Then what were they? People without memories?

Xuan turned to the other newbies. "Everyone's probably seen the message, 'Want to know the meaning of life? Want to live… a real-life?', from the internet, right?"

People started to answer, and their answers all agreed with it. Furthermore, everyone chose YES.

"This message appeared when I was coding. The crucial part is my computer was not connected to the internet at the time. I was not aware of any virus that could break through the firewall I coded. So I immediately started to crack the origin and source code of this message. And guess what I found out?"

Xuan adjusted his glasses and continued calmly. "This message is not coded using 0 or 1's. The source code is not a computer program. It's created with characters and symbols. If memory serves me right, the characters are a combination of the oracle bone script, cuneiform script, and hieroglyphics. Three of the oldest forms of writing in the world. There are also numerous unexplainable symbols."

"I was curious. You have to know that artificial intelligence will develop when a computer breaks through the limit of 0s and 1s. Especially when this message was coded with so many characters. So I chose the option with the most characters and symbols, which happened to be YES. The outcome was miraculous. I ended up here. Even though I don't know what this place is, it should be far away from Beijing."

Zheng looked around at the stunned people. To be honest, he was shocked by it also. It seemed like the newbies were impressive this time. And who is this guy?

Zheng hesitated then asked, "Who are you? Why do you think this place is far away from Beijing?"

While Zheng and Xuan fell into another intensive conversation. Tie Ta zoned and waited for the doors to open. When they finally did, two middle-aged men walk outside.

Zheng was appalled and immediately yelled, "Don't go out carelessly. This is only your first movie. You're much weaker than us and in much more danger than us. Even if someone is to gather information, we should do it instead."

Tie Ta and Reika chuckled at the boy as they walked by to leave the room, "Catch you later, Zheng. Try not to die."

When Tie Ta looked back, Zheng and his group finally saw his blood-red eyes. Similar to a ghoul's but laking the black eyeball.

"What's with that guy?" asked Zero, one of the newbies.

"He's different. If you survive long enough, you see just how different." Jie replied.

"And the girl. The one that follows him. She seems strong." said Xuan.

"That's Reika Shimohira. Let's just say she has a mind for situations like this." Xiaoyi replied.

"Their weapons seemed pretty advanced. They must have cost a lot of points. How long have they been doing this?" Xuan asked.

"He appeared with us. He must have spent everything he had on those things," said Zheng.

If Tie Ta heard their nonsense, he would have laughed. Ten days in God's dimension, and they still knew little to nothing about the place. But he also would have known his plans were justified.

-------

Walking the ship, Tie Ta and Reika began to move towards the flight hanger.

"You smell that?" Reika asked as the couple moved closer to the flight hanger.

"Blood. A lot of it," he replied.

The scent only served to make the couple vigilant during their movement, forcing the xenomorph drones to keep a distance as they stalked their prey.

When Tie Ta arrived on the flight hanger, he and Reika found a man with a larger than average hole in his chest, laying the transport ship. Across the way were three more bodies torn to shred and eaten. But Tie Ta's senses ha long found his alien stalkers.

"I thought..."

"It has to be a queen. Most aliens come out as serpents, not her. When she explodes from the chest, she means business." Tie Ta interrupted.

"Full crew and a Queen. Two changes already. I wonder how many people were attacked by face huggers." said Reika

"Let's go find out."

Moving from the flight hanger, The couple took cautious steps as they explored. Unfortunately, the ship was empty for the most part. But they did find at least three bodies with exploded chests.

"That makes four... Maybe they already started a nest."

Tie Ta knew that whatever was happening was just the beginning phase. Xenomorphs need nutrition to grow. Facehuggers need faces. So instead of wasting time looking for information. He made a u-turn and went back to the flight hanger.

But two drones had other plans for the warm-bodied players. Out of the blue, a boney black tail came down on Reika's head with intent to bisect the poor girl. Tie Ta sensed the danger and let his instincts take over to save her, barely missing the xenomorph tail.

A pistol was drawn, Tie Ta pulled the trigger and blew the assassin's tail off. The xenomorph screeched in pain and its acidic blood ate through everything it touched.

"Holy shit. Did you see the way the tail exploded?! That's way better than a paper target." Reika exclaimed.

With their attention on one drone, another darted at them from behind. But Tie Ta used his TK to unholster a light disc. The moment its edge glowed with red energy. It began to spin as it floated in the air.

The drone was coming with a crushing blow until the light disc made a sharp turn and was launched, cutting off the Alien's arm. Tie Ta's second light disc followed up and sliced the drone in half, from the top of its dome and out of its ass.

Reika and Tie Ta took the opportunity to move. In a full sprint, they stopped for nothing until they made it to the flight deck.

"Reika patch into the ship, we're going to the surface. Have it ready by the time I get back!" Tie Ta shouted.

Tie Ta looked behind himself to see a drone tumbling from the hallway. Tie Ta pulled his pistols eye level and began to fire. With every hit, a mini-explosion happened.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The drone was fast and agile as it dodged bullets with ease but couldn't escape the flying light discs that butchered the drone into four pieces.

"Reika! Be ready!" he shouted before running off.

The moment he ran off, Reika pulled out her DEM-13 as she got an image from the 'Alien' movie. When she saw what he was planning, she moved with great haste to get the ship ready.

------

When Tie Ta returned, he quickly closed the hatch behind him and took his seat in the transporter's co-pilot seat.

"Let's get out of here. My instincts were off the wall in there. I even had to blow a hole in another drone."

"Sit back and let me take it from here," said Reika.

A moment later, the transport shot out of the Nostromo and made the course to the last coordinates on LV-426.

"Do you think this is a good idea?" asked Reika.

"I do. Majority rules, remember? I do what I must for both of us. And at the end of the day. It's their fault for not taking this shit seriously."

"Why not do it now and just go back?"

"Because of the derelict ship. It has the bones of an engineer and all of their research. They created humans in this world. It's worth the interest."

The ride to the surface took all but five minutes. Buring the ride, Lan had reached out to Tie Ta. The group had gotten split up, and Xiaoyi had died. Things were getting bad on the starship, and Lan wanted help.

Tie Ta simply told her that he was trapped on the lower decks fighting drones with Reika. Such was the lie he told as he stepped off of the transport ship and made his way to the derelict ship.

The derelict is a large, asymmetrical, wishbone-shaped craft, with a thickened central section between two horns. The port prong measures 161.6 meters in length, and the starboard prong 174.3 meters. The craft is 116.6 meters wide and 61.0 meters wide between the starboard and port prongs.

Tie Ta almost went full-on fangirl but kept himself in check as he got closer and closer to the massive ship.

When Tie Ta and Reika entered the derelict, it was a surreal experience to find the interior resembled more a living organism than a spacegoing vessel, with walls and vaulted ceilings seemingly made of bone and many organic shapes and structures in its passageways.

"Tie Ta, we shouldn't be here..." Reika whispered.

"Don't worry, love. We'll be quick." he replied, "Just stay close."

The ship was cold and quiet, deadly silent, and death was felt in the air by both Tie Ta and Reika. It was this feeling that put Reika on edge. The T-virus had the building blocks to create espers, causing their mind to be in a constant sensitive state to enable evolution.

On some metaphysical level, Tie Ta and Reika could feel the sensation of fleeting life, massacre, and they could hear the pain and agony in the wails of the crew that once operated the ship.

Then a flash crossed Tie Ta's vision.

"Did you see that?" he asked.

"Yeah... Kind of that game assassin's creed." Reika replied.

An ethereal entity had once again crossed their vision.

"If the ghost of the past can show us the way, then we should follow them. We might even discover the source of this universe."

Reika giggled at her creator. " You amaze me at times... Do you have to understand the secrets of every universe?"

"I'm a truth seeker. It's in my genes. Come on, we have to hurry."

Together, the couple followed the spectators of the past and found the cargo hold that held the xenomorph eggs. The bay was warmer than the rest of the ship. Tie Ta speculated that the cargo bay had an extra membrane that kept it insolated.

Tie Ta's senses then flared with danger accompanied by the firing of the DE MHI Assualt Rifle.

"Got 'em!" Reika sounded.

Tie Ta walked to her side and looked down at a dead Royal Facehugger. "We should get out of here. This is kind of fucked up."

Reika nodded her head then pulled Tie Ta along before he decided to grab a specimen.

A few moments later, One engineer - an ancient humanoid extraterrestrial race of unknown origin that engineered human life in the alien universe, was running at high speed.

Tie Ta and Reika followed him to a core chamber that served as the command and control center. It was everything Tie Ta had expected it to be and more.

Across the room was a massive Sarcophagi for the engineer they had followed.

"We missed something," said Tie Ta.

"Yeah, he was by the door, and then he was by the chamber thing. It had to be before the ship landed. "

Tie Ta racked his brain then had a burst of enlightenment. "Look for a flute."

"Flute?" Reika asked.

"Just do it."

Together they searched, but the room came up empty. Tie Ta sighed and abandoned all hope of collecting alien knowledge. In Alien Lore, the engineer's flute is how the android David was able to activate the derelict ship.

"Wait. They're holograms," said Tie Ta. he then moved around began to push buttons on the central control panel.

He had no idea what he was doing, but eventually, a button worked. And the image of an engineer appeared playing a flute-like instrument. Tie Ta watched its finger placements and committed them to memory.

"Reika, check that sarcophagus." Tie Ta gestured.

After a few moments, Reika tossed him a skeleton flute. Tie Ta put it to his lips and played an extraterrestrial tone that lit the ship up with power.

Tie Ta laughed as he watched the lights come on along with the subtle hum of energy coursing through the ship.

With Tie Ta's Light Disc, Reika moved to store the information from the derelict ship but found it difficult to do as the language was beyond anything she could understand.

Tie Ta was digging through sarcophagi for bones with marrow left behind. There wasn't much, but he found a few that he packed up. He then looked to Reika and asked if she was ready.

"I can't understand any of this, Tie." said Reika, "We should leave it and come back another time."

Tie walked to her side and began to read the prompt. He, too, found it difficult to decipher. His brain turned, and he tried his most damn to figure it out to no avail.

"I have an idea. But you're right. We have to come back another time." said Tie Ta.

He then put his communication headset on and began to call for Lan. His voice echoed through the ship speakers.

"T-Tie Ta?" she asked as she pressed the button on the speaker built into the ship's wall.

"Yes, where are you?" Tie Ta asked in turn.

"Trapped. Zheng, Xuan, Jie, and Zero are here. Were trying to find a way to kill the Queen."

"What if the other Xenos?"

" Most are dead. We managed to get weapons from the ship's armory," Lan explained.

Tie Ta looked at Reika, and she just shrugged her shoulders.

"How about the newbies. Besides Xuan and Zero, who made it?"

"Just us. We're on the fourth deck right now. Xuan asked if you could make it to us. With your weapons, we might have a chance to survive..."

Tie Ta didn't reply. He merely grabbed one of his light discs and pushed a sequence of buttons.

"Hello?! Tie Ta!? Tie Ta, are you there?!" Lan's voice went over the speaker.

"Are you sure about this?" asked Reika.

Tie Ta pursed his lips and then pressed the final button. " Now Jie has two more people. I'm outnumbered, Reika. And I need a team that embraces this opportunity that 'God' or whatever it is is giving us. I need to make this team in my image, and once I become Leader, who knows what that 'God' will reveal to me."

At the same time, One of Tie Ta's Directed Energy Manta-13 Pistols was glowing red on the Nostromo near the fusion core, releasing electromagnetic pulses with greater and greater intensity. The pulses then stopped, the fusion chamber went quiet, then the pistol exploded with a full magazine of combustible ammunition.

From LV-426, Reika and Tie Ta were put into an in-between state and taken back to God's dimension.

--------------------------

Player: Tie Ta (24K CyberScythe)

Age: 19

Missions survived: 2

Exchangeable Points: 6628 Points ACCD Rewards

Upgrade 1/3

-Mission Rewards-

Mission Success: 1000p + D-rank Reward

Basic Mission Survival: 1000p

Queen: 1000p

Xenomorphs: 4500p

Eggs (1 per 15): 6.6p

Kill a newbie: -2000p

Total Mission Rewards: 5506.6p + D-rank Reward + Bones of an Engineer & Engineer's Flute.