Alternative Stories

                     _ _Carmen pov_ _

[It would appear that she heard you.] 

(Yeah...I noticed.) 

About five hours ago I had managed to break through the mental barrier that separated Roseanne's mind from my own, to some extent anyway. It had been a long and frankly boring process that had taken me over a day or so, however the process was still ongoing even now.

I had at first tried slamming my mental strings against the barrier in an attempt to just straight up shatter it with my own will, however that didn't seem to work, not even close in fact. After many attempts and many, many failures I finally found that I could alter the strings to some extent by combining several strings together to create something new. After testing several things I was able to turn some of the mental strings into what could be described as a crude drill of sorts that I used to slowly break through the barrier.

Once through I found that another step was needed, a step I was currently in the process of doing. Said step was the agonizingly slow take over of my victim's mind, basically I took the mental strings and slowly began merging them with her "mind plane" as Goldy so elegantly called it. The mind plane was basically a spiritual representation of a person's mind, it held their memories, their dreams, their fears, as well as pretty much everything they've learnt in their life. To put it simply there was a lot of stuff and that meant a lot of boring work for me.

I had actually done a lot already, I was able to merge about a quarter of her mind plane with my mental strings. After doing this I began to hear her thoughts, they were fragmented and mumbled at first but slowly became more clear as time went on. Thankfully for my sanity however I was able to block them out with not all that much effort on my part. If I had actually been forced to constantly listen to everything that went through her mind I probably would have just killed myself out of irritation. 

Anyway, as I was listening in on her I wasn't expecting for my thoughts to also be able to transfer over so suddenly. Thankfully once again I was able to stop this from happening any further with minimal effort overall.

(I wonder what that asshole meant about putting me in a more "hostile environment"?) I hummed but already kind of knew the answer, after all it wasn't that hard to figure out.

I sighed as the very possible future scenario played on loop in my head. (If they're gonna start testing me against other xenos I should at least prepare a little.) 

[A good choice.]

(It's the only choice.) I muttered, I knew that if I turned out to be correct then I would at the very least need a better understanding of my own physiology. (I don't know one hundred percent what they are planning to do but I should get better acquainted with this body just in case. Even if I'm a deadly alien bio weapon I'm not unkillable, I can and will die if I'm careless.)

[A fair and correct assumption. "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles".]

(You know Sun Tzu?) I was a little surprised to be honest.

[Of course, we have had several delightful conversations over the years.] Now that was a surprise and a half.

(Sun Tzu is an Alternative?!)

If I could actually see him I'd imagine that he'd be nodding his head and smiling right now. [Indeed, several people you may know are Alternatives.]

(What about Stan Lee?) I asked without much thought, I wasn't expecting an answer though.

[Of course not! Chaos themself invited the man to become the Observer of the Marvel Universe!] He yelled, causing me to cringe at the sudden volume change. [He doesn't really do much though and spends most of his time traveling with his wife but that's fine.]

(Well...I don't know what to say to that...) I muttered a little stumped.

After a second of thinking who else could be an Alternative I shrugged. (Mind shattering revelations aside for now.) I was about to get started but stopped when a question popped into my head. (Before I get to work let me just ask you something first.)

[What is it? Also be aware that I am not allowed to give you some pieces of information, I may also not tell you simply because it would be entertaining to watch you figure it out on your own.] 

(Yeah yeah, whatever...) I sighed annoyed but continued anyway. (You know...some part of me thinks that's the only reason you're here.)

[I don't know what you mean?] He asked and something in the tone of his voice set me off.

(You're slacking off aren't you?! You don't need to be here, you're just using this as an excuse to get off work!) I proclaimed, causing him to cough in surprise.

Instead of even trying to defend himself he immediately tried to change the subject. [What was your question again?]

I smirked knowingly but asked nonetheless. (You said before that you are the one in charge of picking candidates to become Alternatives, correct?)

[Yes?]

(Why me? Why did you pick me?) I asked genuinely curious.

[If you think it's because you're special or something, you're an idiot. I was created by Chaos itself! I don't choose people because of some philosophical reason or because I believe they are the best for the job.]

(So what you're saying is that I was picked on a whim just because you thought I was a little interesting?)

[Pretty much, yeah.] I could practically feel him shrug at that. [Is that disappointing?]

(No, it's actually a relief.) I smiled intently, that was a weight off my shoulders at least. (Knowing that I wasn't chosen for some grand and elaborate destiny or some stupid shit like that is great, really  great even. Being some kind of chosen protagonist destined for greatness is just too much work in my opinion, I'd rather just continue being a background character who isn't chained down by the plot of those types of people or stories.)

He laughed, he laughed as if a dumb child had said something so stupid that it was just down right funny. [We are born of Chaos, molded and gifted by it, destiny, fate, ha! Don't be stupid, none of that crap has any effect on the likes of us.]

I was happy to hear that, maybe this Alternative thing wouldn't be so bad after all. (Anyways, let's try a few things shall we.)

And so a few days passed relatively uneventfully as I tried my best to act as inconspicuous as possible while getting used to my body and slowly assimilating myself into Roseanne's mind. It took me some time to adapt to my body fully, the most annoying thing to get used to however was not something like my inner jaw, no, the most annoying thing about this new form was my tail. I would learn how to use it eventually but the damn thing proved irritating to deal with to put it mildly, it was constantly getting in the way when I sat down and I even tripped over it once or twice.

Anyway, after a while something started to happen, I noticed that there was far more activity than the normal amount amongst the ranks of my jailers. It wasn't hard to figure out why.

[Something appears to be happening.] Goldy yawned, he had been quite bored the last few days, not that I actually cared but still.

I was currently watching the people in the observation room. (There are far more of them than usual.)

[Yeah! Finally something interesting is happening.] Goldy cheered happily.

(Roseanne is also here...) I muttered with a sigh.

[She appears rather distressed however.] That was true, apparently a side effect of my Gift was that those afflicted would slowly become obsessed with me as I merged more of my strings with their mind, a fact that made me very uncomfortable 

(And I think we know why.) I said as the south wall of my steel prison suddenly shifted, I could hear multiple mechanical clicks and whistles before the wall itself began to move.

Now xenomorph vision was weird, xenomorphs could see in a sense but they could also sense the location of other creatures in a way, even if said creatures were on the other side of a wall with no glass or see-through surfaces. Because of this little fact I wasn't really surprised with what happened next as I could sense what was waiting for me.

Anyway, the whole thing just began to slide downwards, the movement was smooth and the door fully lowered within a couple of seconds. What I saw behind it was a near identical room to my own but that didn't matter to me, what did matter was the xenomorph warrior that was standing there ominously, its full attention locked onto me.

[It appears that your assumption was correct...]

(It's do or die I guess.)