Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or Alien vs. Predator.

Chapter 3 – Into the Darkness

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"Come on!" Quinn hollered over the noise of gears whirring, as his men set to work preparing the shaft for the team's descent. "Guys, what's taking so long? There's a storm coming!"

Lex strolled through the chaos; she was followed by John Smith, who had been poking around Quinn's equipment until the roughneck had snapped at him and chased him off. Now his interest seemed to have shifted to Lex.

"So, you climbed Mount Everest how many times?" he inquired as they walked, his eyes wide in wonder.

Chuckling in amusement, Lex started to answer as she opened the door of one of the tracked vehicles, only to stop short when she discovered Charles Weyland seated inside, taking deep breaths from an oxygen tank. Startled by the interruption, he flinched, coughing repeatedly, before securing the oxygen tank and replacing it inside his winter jacket.

"Are you all right?" Smith asked anxiously. He reached up as if to examine the billionaire, but Weyland brushed his hand aside.

"I'm fine, thank you, Dr. Smith," Weyland replied hoarsely, coughing again.

Lex sighed. "There's no room for sick men on this expedition, Mr. Weyland," she said, as gently as she could.

Weyland shook his head. "My doctors tell me the worst is behind me," he claimed.

She smiled faintly. "You're not a very good liar. Stay on the ship; we'll update you at the top of every hour."

Weyland paused. "You know," he murmured, "when you get sick, you think about your life and how you're going to be remembered." He smirked ironically. "You know what I realized will happen when I go? Ten percent fall in share prices, maybe twelve. That's it."

"I've heard this speech before," Lex spoke up. She smiled, a bittersweet expression. "My dad broke his leg seven hundred feet from the summit of Mount Rainier. He was like you: he wouldn't go back or let us stop." She chuckled. "When we got to the top, he opened a bottle of champagne. I had my first drink with my dad at fourteen thousand, four hundred feet." Then her smile faded. "On the way down, he developed a blood clot in his leg that traveled to his lung. He suffered for four hours, before dying twenty minutes from the base."

John Smith stared at Lex in silence, with a sympathetic expression on his face. Weyland, however, responded after a moment of quiet. "Do you think that's the last thing your dad remembered?" he asked. "The pain? Or drinking champagne with his daughter fourteen thousand feet in the air?" He locked eyes with her. "I need this."

.

The team made their way slowly and carefully down the slanted shaft, their lights shining into the darkness below them. Each member of the descent team – including Lex, Weyland, John Smith, Sebastian, Miller, Maxwell Stafford, Thomas, Verheiden, and Rousseau – were secured to a metal cable, all of which attached to the rig that Quinn had set up for them. The rig descended slowly after them, ensuring that all of them had enough slack for the cables to catch them if they slipped.

"Well, this is fun," John Smith observed, nearly slipping and grabbing tightly onto his cable to secure himself. He grinned over at Lex, who chuckled back at him before refocusing on what lay ahead. She had to stay focused; even the slightest mishap could spell disaster.

And, sure enough, that potential disaster was quick to occur.

As they continued down the shaft, having been descending for about half an hour, a sudden tug on their cables stopped them all short. A moment later, a vibrating series of twangs echoed down the shaft as the rig suddenly stopped short and lurched, lashing the cables like bullwhips.

While most of the team members were able to brace themselves and withstand the jolt, Weyland was the unlucky one. His tether suddenly detached from his harness, causing him to lose his footing and fall, sliding helplessly down the shaft.

"Mr. Weyland!" Miller cried out in panic, too far away to reach him.

"Man down!" Maxwell Stafford yelled, alerting the others. Still, most of them weren't able to get out of the way or catch Weyland, and he slammed into their legs, knocking several people off their feet as he skidded headfirst down the shaft. John Smith lunged for Weyland, but missed by inches, the other man's arm just out of reach.

"Get him!" Adele Rousseau shouted. "Somebody get him!"

As the one farthest down the tunnel, Lex was the last person available to stop Weyland. Seeing him sliding rapidly towards her, she took careful aim, raised her ice pick, and slammed it down just as he passed her, piercing straight through the durable hood of his parka and into the ice. With a shout, Weyland was instantly yanked to a halt, spinning around and coming to rest on his back, facing back up the shaft. He looked up slowly, gasping and shivering, to see Lex standing over him, and nodded in thanks.

The Doctor, farther up the shaft, exhaled slowly in relief. "Well done there, Lex," he muttered to himself, with a smile.

.

On the surface, Quinn continued barking orders to his crew. "Move it! Now!" he hollered, struggling to be heard over the blasting katabatic winds.

As he turned, glancing around to see what else needed to be secured against the storm, the roughneck completely missed the enormous metal object that glided directly above him, silently cutting through the dense clouds. By the time he looked up, it was gone.

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The Ne'dtesei came in low and fast over Bouvetøya Island, concealed by the raging blizzard. As it passed the whaling station, a trio of thunderclaps heralded the launches of three large, torpedo-shaped pods from the port side of the vessel. As the ship veered off and disappeared, its cloaking mechanisms activating to render it invisible to any onlookers, the pods plummeted to the surface below, punching sizable impact craters into the ice.

As the snow kicked up by the impacts settled down, seams along the sides of the pods became visible, all three of them opening like flowers to reveal glowing green interiors.

Abruptly, a clawed hand reached out and grasped the edge of one of the pods. With a growl, a massive humanoid figure emerged.

Nihkuo'te stepped out of the pod, rising to his feet and climbing out of the crater. He was thankful for his body armor, which protected him from the searing cold; maintaining their own internal temperature was essential to enable the yautja to fight at peak efficiency, which was why they usually chose to Hunt in tropical climates.

On either side, Ghardeh and Gkyaun also emerged from their pods. The three students gathered together, using Nihkuo'te's pod as a windbreak to allow them to hear each other more easily.

"Suggestions?" Gkyaun inquired, tapping at the computer on his wrist. A holographic display of the ooman settlement became visible, courtesy of the Ne'dtesei's sensors. "By my estimate, most of the armed Soft Meat are still on the surface." He tilted his head. "The Leader ordered us to make sure none of them escaped."

"Right," Ghardeh agreed. "And the real Hunt can't start until the Hard Meat have been spawned."

Nihkuo'te chittered. "Not a problem. Look." He nodded to Gkyaun, who zoomed out on the display; it now showed the pyramid, far below the ice, as well as the ooman village. Clearly visible were the heat signatures of at least a dozen Soft Meat, which had almost reached the bottom of the shaft.

"The Hard Meat will have their hosts soon," Gkyaun realized. He glanced to Nihkuo'te. "We should get down there quickly; the timing must be right. We have to get the burners before the Soft Meat are infected."

"And what about the pyode amedha on the surface?" Ghardeh asked, deferring to the two more experienced students.

Nihkuo'te nodded. "We will kill the oomans on the surface first, then follow the hosts down to the Hunting ground. By the time we've reached the burners, the Hard Meat eggs should be ready for the next phase." He waved his arm. "Let's move. Ki'cte!"

With eager snarls of assent, Ghardeh and Gkyaun followed him, all three yautja jogging easily across the ice towards the distant village.

.

Two thousand feet below the whaling station…

"I don't understand it," Weyland muttered, looking around the ice cave that was illuminated by the red glow of his handheld flare. "No equipment. No sign of another team."

"Well, that tunnel didn't dig itself," Lex replied.

The rest of the team set up lights around the area. "Connors, get those lights working," Stafford ordered.

"Right, boss." Making the last connections, Connors grinned. "We have power!" he announced, flipping a switch. The banks of floodlights blazed on, illuminating the cavern. Everyone else flinched away from the dazzling glow…

…and were left dumbstruck by what the lights revealed.

"Now, that is… definitely impressive," the Doctor remarked under his breath.

Sure enough, there it was, looming before them. A gigantic stone pyramid, nearly filling the immense cavern that housed it.

Lex fired a flare from her pistol, which ignited high above the pyramid, giving them a better sense of its structure and design. Sure enough, the Doctor immediately recognized designs from multiple ancient human cultures.

"Interesting…" he murmured, tapping his chin contemplatively.

"Congratulations, Mr. Weyland," Lex said. "Looks like you'll be leaving your mark after all."

Weyland looked awestruck. "Thank you," he rasped. "Thank you… thank you all for this." He exchanged a glance with Max Stafford. "Let's make history."

.

The team made their way up the ceremonial steps of the pyramid, towards the main entrance. About halfway up the steps, platforms on both sides of the walkway boasted a pair of twenty-foot-tall stone statues, depicting a pair of armored, helmeted warriors kneeling, holding spears in their hands. The Doctor frowned as he passed them, shining his light up at one of the towering figures; the helmet it wore seemed familiar to him, but for the life of him he couldn't remember from where. Shrugging and putting it out of his mind, he continued upwards.

As the group finally reached the entrance and walked into a cavernous hall, their flashlights flicked across the wall, picking out a thousand stone carvings. Lex raised an eyebrow as she found one that looked especially strange: a drawing of a strange creature, looking something like a cross between a lizard and a scorpion, rolled into a ball with its spiked tail curled up in front of its face.

The team continued moving farther into the structure. As they did, though, Connors, one of the last in line, stepped on a floor tile that shifted slightly under his foot. Not noticing, he carried on, just before the tile began to sink into the floor behind him, an almost undetectable trigger having been activated.

.

Far below the pyramid, in a huge room, a large, almost organic-looking machine hung attached to the stone ceiling. A series of barbed, razor-sharp metal chains extended downwards from it, vanishing through a large slit in the floor below.

Suddenly, though, a whirring, rumbling noise echoed through the room, as something began to move within the machine. The floor below abruptly split apart, the two halves beginning to move away from each other, the slit in the floor widening. Simultaneously, the chains clanked, pulled taut, and began to retract, hauling a huge, dark object upwards out of the frigid white mists below.

First to emerge was a huge, curved bony crest, resembling some kind of coral. The hard, hornlike projections emerging from it were pierced through by barbed metal hooks at the ends of some of the chains. An eyeless, elongated head extended outward below the crest, jaws filled with vicious, dagger-like teeth now crusted over with frost and frozen in a silent scream.

As the chains continued to reel in, more and more of the creature became visible. The massive head was connected to a long, surprisingly graceful neck, corded with chitinous tubes and protected by a hard shell. The creature's huge, muscular torso tapered down to a slim, almost skeletal waist and pelvis, attached to a pair of powerful hind legs. It also had four arms, two large ones where a human's might be and two smaller ones attached to the chest, all of which were restrained by heavy metal clamps.

Finally, a long, spiked tail extended out behind the creature, above a huge, bloated, nearly translucent projection that extended from beneath the tail: the monster's egg sack. The tail and egg sack, however, were secured by a large mechanical apparatus, with curving metal arms that wound around the tail and egg sack, holding them firmly in place, as well as dozens of tubes and wires that extended from the machine and pierced the egg sack in numerous places, interfacing with the creature's biological systems.

Every one of the creature's appendages was thoroughly restrained by the chains, ensuring that it could not escape from this confinement. As the chains fully retracted, the creature's arms were pulled outwards so that its head was lifted up, arms spread wide as it hung suspended above the swirling vapors.

For a long moment, the Alien Queen hung motionless above the pool, like a dragon in flight. Icicles hung from her gaping jaws, dimly gleaming in the low light. Remaining in her artificial hibernation, she was silent and still.

That is, until crackling arcs of electricity danced from the huge machine tethered to her, snaking along the massive body and providing a jolt that stirred the dormant monster from its slumber.

With a violent shudder, the queen awakened, the ice that coated her exoskeleton shattering and falling away as she flexed her limbs. Her hands clenched, straining against her restraints. Her jaws opened, revealing multiple rows of vicious fangs, and she let out a shriek that echoed throughout the immense chamber.

.

Several hundred feet above that chamber, the human expedition continued to make their way deeper into the heart of the massive pyramid.

As he walked down the hall, Sebastian de Rosa found his attention drawn to a series of carvings covering one wall. "Thomas," he called, brushing aside a concealing veil of cobwebs and examining the symbols.

Thomas, Lex, Weyland and the Doctor all made their way over, joining Sebastian in his inspection. Thomas stepped up next to his mentor. "What is it?" he asked. "I recognize the Egyptian, but…"

"Hang on, Egyptian?" The Doctor frowned, leaning in and brushing some more cobwebs aside. "But that one there's definitely Aztec: I've seen stuff like that in their temples." He smiled for a moment. "Strange people, the Aztecs. Don't exactly agree with their whole 'human sacrifice' thing, but, well…" He shrugged.

"The second symbol is Aztec, yes," Sebastian confirmed, glancing strangely at the Doctor. "Pre-Conquest era." He grinned. "And the third is Cambodian."

"Then you were right," Weyland murmured thoughtfully. "This pyramid contains all three cultures."

Sebastian nodded. "That's what it looks like."

The Doctor frowned to himself. In all his long life, he couldn't recall encountering anything like this before, but this whole situation was beginning to sound vaguely familiar. He just couldn't figure out what it reminded him of.

A moment later, he was snapped out of his reverie, as Thomas began translating the symbols marked on the wall. "You may… choose… to enter," he recited. " 'Those who choose may enter.' "

Sebastian smirked. "Who taught you to translate?" he remarked sarcastically.

"Funny," Thomas quipped back, "he looked a lot like you."

Sebastian chuckled, but then grew serious again. "Well," he declared, "it's not choose. It's chosen." He nodded. " 'Only the chosen ones may enter.' "

For a moment, the Doctor swore he felt an ominous chill run down his back.

Then the moment passed, and Sebastian turned away, the rest of the group following his lead. The Doctor trailed just behind Lex and Weyland, glancing around nervously and fidgeting with the sonic screwdriver tucked into his pocket.

.

On the surface…

Quinn was examining the drilling rig to make sure everything was in order, when a scream cut through the storm. He whirled, eyes wide.

Inside a nearby building that was being used as a makeshift mess hall, three other men, private security hired by Weyland to protect the expedition, also froze in place, having heard the noise.

A moment later, the door to the outside slammed open, as a massive, shimmering figure, only visible as a distortion in the air, stepped inside. All three men jumped to their feet, drawing their guns; the laser sights from the pistols were warped as they passed through the patch of shimmering air.

They hesitated a second too long. A vicious blow sent one of them flying across the room like a rag doll, smashing through a shelf and crumpling to the floor.

The second man raised his gun, an instant before a pair of curved blades punched through his chest from behind. He was hoisted off his feet, gurgling as he choked on his own blood, and then flung away, knocking over another shelf.

The third man, to his credit, reacted quickly. He immediately raised the semiautomatic he was holding and opened fire, bullets flying everywhere and punching holes into the shelves and the far wall. A moment later, an unseen object struck him with a resounding thwack!, hurling him backwards into the far wall. Instead of falling to the floor, he inexplicably hung there in midair, his feet suspended off the floor. A moment later, however, the reason for this became clear, as a metal spear became visible with a crackle of electricity, having punched through his chest and into the wall behind him. He struggled for a moment, then went limp and slumped forward, dead.

A staccato series of clicks echoed through the room, the hunter proclaiming its kills.

.

Quinn reached the mess hall to see the door open. He stepped into the doorway, and froze in horror as he saw one of the men who'd been inside being hoisted into the air feetfirst, using a wire that had been tied around his ankles.

He turned away from the corpse, just in time to see a massive, shimmering figure pivoting to face him; twin blades projected from the thing's right wrist, with blood still dripping from them onto the floor.

Quinn did the smart thing: he immediately scrambled back outside, grabbed the door, and heaved it shut. It was that move that saved his life, as a spear burst through the solid door in the next instant, slicing across his upper arm and opening a deep cut, before embedding itself in the cabin wall behind him. Letting out an involuntary scream of pain, he turned and ran.

.

From the top of a nearby building, a pair of cold, reptilian eyes gazed through the visor of a mask, watching as Quinn ran through the whaling station, away from the mess hall.

.

Stumbling through the snow, Quinn tripped and fell as he climbed up onto the platform next to the tunnel that ran down to the pyramid. Turning, he promptly recoiled, letting out a strangled gasp of shock. Before him were the bodies of at least four of his men, hanging by their feet from the wires overhead. All four were dead.

Hearing a sound from behind him, the roughneck rolled over and clambered to his feet, grabbing a fallen pistol that lay nearby. Spotting the patch of shimmering air atop the building in front of him, like a concentrated heat haze, he immediately raised the gun and fired.

The first two bullets missed; the third struck home, drawing a burst of sparks from the thing's left shoulder. Suddenly, with crackling arcs of electricity as its camouflage deactivated, a massive creature became visible, standing proudly on the roof.

The creature was at least seven feet tall, towering over Quinn. It wore a full-body suit of what looked like armor, and a demonic metal mask covered its face. Its shoulder-length hair was pleated into dreadlocks.

For a moment, they just stared at each other.

Then the thing let out a thunderous roar, and leapt at him.

.

Gkyaun landed lightly in front of the ooman, glaring down at it through his mask. While he could easily have simply killed it with a stab or slash of his bladed weapons, he was curious to see whether oomans were capable of posing a challenge in hand-to-hand combat, as opposed to simply relying on their burners.

It immediately became apparent that this was not the case. The ooman made a clumsy swing with one arm, which he caught easily; he then snapped the bone in its arm with a simple twist of his hand, before striking it in the chest and sending it crashing backwards through a small wooden structure.

.

Quinn screamed in pain as he hit the ground, clutching at his broken arm. Grabbing a wooden board as the creature heaved the rig out of the way, he turned and swung it with all of his strength.

The frozen wood shattered against the creature's armor, and it proceeded to kick Quinn in the side. The impact broke several of his ribs, and the force behind it launched him off the platform and into the gaping maw of the tunnel. He went spinning into the pit and down the seemingly endless tunnel, sliding helplessly down towards the cave far below.

As he fell, Quinn thought quickly. Grabbing at his belt with his good arm, he seized his ice pickaxe. Withdrawing it from his belt, he got a good grip on it and swung. The blade bit into the ice, showering him with bits of frost, but he still did not slow down.

.

As Gkyaun stepped up to the mouth of the tunnel, two more shimmering shapes emerged from the storm. With a blur of electric sparks, they resolved themselves into the familiar forms of Nihkuo'te and Ghardeh.

The three students regrouped at the entrance of the shaft, congratulating each other on their successful kills. They had faced the deadly oomans and come away unscathed, with at least a dozen kills in total. Not bad, considering that their real Hunt hadn't even started yet.

"Status of the oomans?" Nihkuo'te inquired.

Gkyaun tapped at his wrist computer, bringing up a holographic projection of the pyramid. "They are approaching the sacrificial chamber now," he reported, examining the projection closely. A yellow dot deep within the pyramid marked the current position of the rest of the oomans, the ones who would become hosts for the Hard Meat.

Ghardeh chuckled with a trilling sound. "Who knows, perhaps they do remember the customs," he suggested in amusement.

"It does not matter," Gkyaun replied flatly with his usual detachment. "All that matters is that they will do their part, willingly or not. We'll have Hard Meat to hunt soon enough."

"Indeed," Nihkuo'te rumbled. He nodded to the pit. "Let's get moving. The sooner we get those burners, the sooner the real Hunt can begin."

The other two growled and nodded in assent.

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Inside the pyramid…

After about half an hour of exploring the structure, the team entered a large, circular chamber. Their lights illuminated the room, revealing seven large stone slabs arranged in a semicircle. On each slab lay a perfectly preserved human skeleton.

"What is all this?" Weyland asked, glancing around in curiosity.

"This is the sacrificial chamber," Sebastian explained.

Thomas nodded. "Just like the Aztecs and the Egyptians, the people who built this pyramid believed in ritual sacrifice." He looked around the room. "This is where the chosen ones were offered to the gods."

The Doctor shone his light across the chamber. To his distaste, one wall was entirely lined with human remains; skulls, minus their lower jaws, each still connected to a nearly complete spine. That image in particular struck a chord with him. "Oh, come on, I know this!" he muttered to himself. "Something old, something…"

"You all right?" a voice interrupted his internal monologue. He started, looking over to see Lex standing beside him.

"Hmm?" The Doctor blinked. "Oh, yes, sorry! Yeah, I'm fine. Just…" He glanced around. "Something does not feel right about this place."

Lex raised an eyebrow in curiosity, but her attention was diverted by Sebastian, who was examining a body on one of the altars. "Those that were chosen would lie here," he realized. "They weren't bound or tied in any way. They went to die willingly, men and women. It was considered an honor."

"Lucky them," Lex remarked sardonically. Sebastian chuckled softly, but his amusement evaporated as he gazed down at the body on the slab.

Thomas looked down at the hieroglyphs ringing one of the slabs, translating them as he recorded them with his handheld video camera. "They… gave their lives," he translated. "So the hunt… could begin."

The Doctor, on the other side of the chamber, whipped around. "Sorry, did you just say Hunt?" he queried.

Thomas nodded. "Ah… yes, that's what it says."

The Doctor hurried over, dropping to one knee and examining the hieroglyphs himself. "Hmmm…" he murmured. "Oh, come on, come on! Why can't I remember?" Jumping to his feet, he began pacing around the room, rubbing his temples as he strained his considerable intellect, trying to figure it out.

Thomas stared after him, confused, until Adele Rousseau's voice drew his attention. "What happened here?" she inquired, nodding to the corpse on the altar he'd been examining. There was a large hole in the corpse's torso, just below the rib cage.

"It was common in ritual sacrifice to take the heart of the victim," he explained.

Rousseau raised an eyebrow fractionally. "That's nice," she deadpanned, before looking back down at the corpse and frowning. "But that's not where your heart is. Besides, it looks like the bones are bent straight out." She looked up at him. "Something broke out of this body."

.

Far below, the Alien queen's body convulsed as she thrashed uselessly against her restraints, shrieking and snarling in a paroxysm of rage. The arcs of electricity continued to crackle over her body and the massive egg sack attached to her, long-dormant physical processes being brought back into action.

As the queen shrieked, the egg sack went to work. A long tube at the far end swelled, before depositing a fleshy, oval-shaped egg, about the size of a football, onto a conveyor belt that ran directly below. The belt activated as the first egg was laid, slowly rolling it out of the room through a side hatch in the wall.

Another egg was laid, and another, the faint whirring of the conveyor belt drowned out by the screeches of the enraged monster that had been turned into nothing more than an assembly line by the yautja. The queen's only purpose now was to produce eggs, eggs that would, very soon, hatch into creatures that were known throughout the universe as the ultimate killing machines.

Which, of course, made them the ultimate challenge for a species that lived only to hunt.

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In the sacrificial chamber, Lex was now thoroughly perplexed by John Smith's actions. First, he'd paced around the entire room about fifty times, muttering to himself. Next, he withdrew some kind of silver tool, something like a pen, from his pocket, and placed it against the wall, running it up and down over the stone blocks. As soon as he pressed a button on the side, it lit up with a blue light and promptly began producing a buzzing sound that echoed loudly through the cold air.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Sonic screwdriver," he replied absently, without looking at her.

She chuckled. "No, really, what is it?"

He looked up in surprise. "What? Oh, no, it actually is. Can also be used for carbon dating, among, well… a lot of things, now that I think about it. Apologies for the noise, but, you know, it's sonic; can't really be helped." He pulled it away from the wall, and the noise stopped as he examined it. "Hmmm… Well, according to this, this place has been here for…" His eyes widened. "Over ten thousand years? Can't be…"

"What?" Sebastian asked in disbelief. "That's impossible."

"Oh, trust me, the impossible is never quite as impossible as people think," Smith said cheerfully. He frowned. "Although, I will admit, this doesn't make any sense. And I still can't figure out what's so familiar about this!"

Before anyone could ask him what the hell he meant by that, they were distracted by Weyland. "What've you found, Max?" he asked, drawing their attention to the center of the room.

"It's a shaft to another level," Maxwell Stafford replied, kneeling over what seemed like a grate, set into a stone carving in the center of the room. Cracking a glowstick, he shook it until it began to glow brightly, and then dropped it into the hole in the floor. It fell for about fifty feet or so, before striking the floor of the next level and coming to a halt. "Looks like there's another room down there."

.

Quinn lay on the floor of the ice cave, just a few feet from the tunnel entrance. He'd finally reached the bottom, but had been knocked unconscious by the impact. Half-frozen and covered in frost, he lay motionless, slumped against the cave wall.

A noise, the crunching of ice under boots, roused him back to consciousness. Looking up, he saw two of the armored creatures striding towards him: the one that had attacked him on the surface, and a second one with longer, curved blades extending from its arms. The two of them approached him, and he squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for death. When nothing happened, however, he opened his eyes, and was surprised to see that the creatures were gone. Rolling over, he saw them walking away from him, making their way towards the pyramid in the larger cave beyond.

Seemingly having been ignored, Quinn let out a sigh of relief. As he rolled back over, however, his eyes opened wide in horror. A third creature stood over him, blades drawn. Before the roughneck could even scream, the blades struck down.

Blood splattered the ice.

.

With a grunt of satisfaction, Nihkuo'te shook the blood of the latest ooman off his blades, and then turned to rejoin the others. The Hunt waited for no one, and he had little time to waste.

The three students continued onwards towards the pyramid, leaving the lifeless body of Quinn behind them.

.

"Let's move to that lower room, Max," Weyland ordered.

"We're moving on, everyone!" Stafford called out, rallying the team. His gaze sought out Lex. "Miss Woods?"

Nodding, she took the lead, Weyland following her. John Smith joined the group next, muttering to himself as he continued scanning the walls with his strange, buzzing device.

As Sebastian, Thomas and Rousseau reached him, though, Stafford shook his head. "You," he ordered Thomas, "stay here. Rousseau, stay with him. Keep a team with you. Catalogue everything." He nodded to Sebastian, indicating where the others had gone. "Professor?"

Sebastian and Thomas exchanged a glance, before Sebastian shrugged and headed off after Lex and the others. Max and several other men, including Miller, Verheiden, and Connors, followed them, leaving Thomas and Rousseau in the chamber with the rest of the team.

.

After spending some time navigating the confusing passageways of the pyramid, the group who'd gone down to the next level arrived at their destination. It was obvious that they'd found the right place, as the glowstick that Stafford had dropped from the sacrificial chamber was lying in the center of the room, on an elevated stone dais below a large, circular hole in the ceiling.

"This should be directly below the sacrificial chamber," Lex stated, checking her compass. She walked up the steps onto the dais, focusing on a large stone box, about the size of a couch. "Sebastian?"

Sebastian approached the altar. "It's a sarcophagus," he explained, blowing away the ice crystals that had gathered over the hieroglyphs carved into its surface. "It says 'the Long Count,'" he translated. "This is the Aztec calendar. And this…" He examined a strange, wheel-like carving, almost like a dial, which actually moved when he touched it, pivoting. "It's like some kind of combination lock." He shone his flashlight left, then right, showing that there were actually three circular carvings. "Days… months… years."

"Fascinating," the Doctor murmured, stepping up next to them and looking at the carvings.

"It's set for…" Sebastian checked the dials, then looked back up at them in surprise. "1904."

Lex's eyes widened. "Someone opened this a hundred years ago?"

"October tenth, 1904, to be exact," the Doctor muttered, glancing at the dials. He frowned, activating his sonic screwdriver and running it over the sarcophagus. "That's weird," he muttered. "I'm not getting any readings; it's like it's deadlocked or something." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Someone doesn't want anyone getting in there unless they've got the proper combination."

Sebastian considered for a moment. "What's today's date?"

"October…" Lex trailed off, looking at the Doctor. "October tenth, 2004."

"Exactly one hundred years ago…" the Doctor breathed, looking at the dials. Realization clicked, and he swung back around to Lex. "Hang on, what was it you said about that whaling station up there? All the people disappeared… when exactly was that?"

Lex frowned, and then her eyes widened. "1904," she answered. "The entire station was suddenly abandoned: nobody knows exactly what happened."

The Doctor's eyes darkened with foreboding. "I'm getting the feeling that all of this wasn't an accident," he muttered.

Sebastian, meanwhile, was focused on the stone dials. "Ten… ten… 2004," he said to himself, adjusting the dial on the left.

"You sure this is going to work?" Weyland asked him.

"I don't know." Sebastian turned the second dial, the one on the right. Next, he turned the third one, in the middle –

And, with a loud click, a rumbling of stone, and a hiss of escaping air, the lower section of the sarcophagus suddenly slid outward, almost like a drawer, and came to a stop, a cloud of steam escaping from the interior.

"Back up!" Lex cried. The team scrambled back, staring wide-eyed at the now-open sarcophagus.

After a long moment, Sebastian and the Doctor stepped forward slowly. They reached the edge, their flashlights shining down into the sarcophagus's interior.

The Doctor's eyes widened, a lump forming in his throat. Oh, I hate being right all the time, he thought.

"Oh, my god," Sebastian whispered. He looked back at the others. "Take a look at this."

The others walked forward, looking into the open sarcophagus. Their reactions were the same.

Lying inside the sarcophagus, balanced in metal frames, were three futuristic-looking metal artifacts that, even to the untrained eye, looked a lot like massive guns.

.

"Any idea what these are?" Miller asked Sebastian. He was bent over the open sarcophagus, examining one of the devices at close range.

"No," Sebastian admitted. "You?"

Miller shook his head. "No."

"It's a good thing we brought the experts," Max Stafford snarked.

"Yeah, it is a good thing," Miller shot back. "Because this is like finding Moses's DVD collection."

Brushing aside an irritated Connors, the Doctor activated his sonic screwdriver and ran it over the devices, examining it with a flick of his wrist. "Let's see… Design suggests some kind of advanced weaponry. Not projectile-based, probably uses some kind of laser or plasma energy. Earth-based composite reading indicates only two chemicals on record: tilanium and cadmium 240."

Sebastian frowned, perplexed. "Never heard of them."

"I have, actually," Miller spoke up. "They're found in meteorites."

"Plus, ergonomics are all wrong for human design. I mean, they're clearly not meant for humans to use: they're way too big. A human would need to mount one of those things on something to use it properly, and I'm pretty sure those are handheld guns." The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Which brings us to one conclusion: whatever those things were, they weren't made here. "

Weyland turned to him, confused. "And by 'here', you mean…"

"Oh, I mean Earth." The Doctor grinned. "Oh, right! I just realized, I completely forgot to properly introduce myself." He smiled, shaking Weyland's hand. "Hello. I'm the Doctor. Lovely to meet you, Mr. Weyland."

Lex stared at him for a moment. "Uh… Mr. Smith, no offense, but what the hell are you talking about?"

"Huh?" The Doctor turned. "Oh, right, forgot, I haven't actually explained anything yet. Well, my name's not actually John Smith, if you must know: it's just the Doctor."

"The Doctor?" Miller stared at him in confusion. "Doctor… who, exactly?"

Without actually answering the question, the Doctor continued, pacing back and forth. "Now, let's think. Ancient pyramid under the ice, fires up all of a sudden for no apparent reason; the heat bloom brought all of us here. When we got here, we found a giant shaft blasted through the ice, straight down to the pyramid – only there was no one down here yet. Which means whoever did that wanted us to get here first. And now we are down here, all of us inside this great big pyramid under the ice, and what do we find? Weapons, which are clearly not designed for humans, so I don't think we were supposed to find these things. But we know somebody was supposed to find them, otherwise there wouldn't be the whole big deal with the combination lock. Right? Makes sense?" He addressed Sebastian with this one, and the scientist nodded slowly.

"Right! So, what're we left to conclude?" The Doctor looked around the room. "We've all been led down here for some reason. And I feel like I should know why, but I don't. I can't figure it out. And that bothers me, because if I can't figure out why something feels bad, it's usually really bad. And what was that bit upstairs about a hunt, any–" He froze. "Hang on…" Turning, he hurried down off the dais and turned, examining the two large stone statues that stood on either side of it, appearing to represent armored, helmeted warriors carrying spears.

As the Doctor broke off his lecture, Charles Weyland turned away, coughing and taking several deep breaths from his oxygen tank.

"Weyland?" Lex asked anxiously, moving to his side.

Weyland waved it off, gasping for air. "Little too much excitement," he explained.

Lex thought for a moment, and then turned back to face the others, a serious expression on her face. "Okay, I'm not exactly sure what's going on down here, but we've been out long enough for today. We'll set up base camp tonight at the whaling station and get back at it first thing tomorrow morning."

"Well, you can go back to the base camp, Ms. Woods," Max Stafford replied, "but we're staying here."

Her expression was unmoved. "No."

Stafford looked at her, momentarily surprised.

"You wanted to leave without proper prep, we did. You wanted to be the first ones here, we are. You've claimed the find, it's yours." Her eyes narrowed. "Now, we move as a team, and we're done for today."

Stafford looked to Weyland, who nodded. "You heard her," the billionaire rasped.

.

The Doctor stepped forward, gazing more closely at one of the statues. At this size, its helmeted head seemed more familiar than ever, particularly the combination of the mask and the strange, shoulder-length dreadlocks extending from the back of its head.

He glanced at the left shoulder, which appeared to have some kind of socket built into the shoulder plate of the armor. Almost as if something was meant to be attached to it…

His eyes widened, as he looked back towards the sarcophagus, and the trio of futuristic alien blasters within it.

"Wait…" His voice was a whisper, his mind racing madly.

Armored alien warriors, who've apparently been visiting this planet for at least ten thousand years. Spears. Scary-looking war helmets. Hair in dreadlocks. Shoulder-mounted plasma blasters. A cycle of humans going missing from this location, repeating every hundred years. Human skulls and spines removed whole, as trophies. And something about a hunt…

The Doctor staggered as the realization of who'd built this pyramid, who must have triggered that homing beacon, hit him like a body blow. He backed away from the statues, his wide-eyed gaze flicking frantically from one to the other.

How could he have missed it?! Now that he'd realized it, the memories came rushing back: screaming, explosions, gunfire, the sounds of blades slicing into human flesh, and the bestial roar of an otherworldly monster with an insatiable hunger for blood and glory. A species he'd hoped never to see again.

"No," he whispered. "No, no, no, no!"

Turning, he dashed back up to the sarcophagus, grabbing Weyland and Lex and pulling them around to face him. "I've figured it out," he explained, his words coming in a rush. "I know why this place became visible, I know who built it, and I know why those weapons are here. And I am sorry, I am so sorry I didn't figure it out sooner, but what matters right now is that we are all in terrible danger." He stared intensely at them both, his gaze burning into theirs. "We have to get out of here. Now."

Weyland and Lex both seemed confused, but, after a moment, the billionaire nodded. "Very well… Doctor." He turned back to the others. "Pack up your gear: we're heading back to the surface."

"What do you want to do with these, Mr. Weyland?" Stafford asked, indicating the alien weapons.

"Take them," Weyland replied. "We'll run further tests on the surface."

Stafford nodded; Connors and Verheiden pulled two of the blasters out of the sarcophagus with metallic clicks. Stafford himself took hold of the third one.

"No! No! Don't touch them!" Sebastian cried, just as the Doctor realized what was going on and yelled "No!", his eyes wide in panic.

It was too late; Stafford yanked the last blaster out of the sarcophagus. Immediately, there was a third click, followed by a loud ka-chunk, and the pointed metal arcs that the blasters had been resting on folded upwards, locking together.

Then there was a thunderous rumbling, and the room around them began to shift. Several stone panels in the walls suddenly slid aside or lifted up to reveal new exits from the chamber: at the same time, huge stone slabs descended from the ceiling, blocking off the way they'd come from.

"Look out!" Lex cried.

"The doors!" Sebastian exclaimed, but it was too late. There was nothing they could do.

In the sacrificial chamber above, Thomas, Adele Rousseau, and four others who'd stayed behind to catalogue the room were trapped when more massive stone slabs either dropped from the ceiling or rose from the floor, sealing off all the exits from the room.

.

Just as the three yautja arrived at the entrance to the pyramid, a blaring alarm echoed from all three of their wrist computers.

"What is that?" Ghardeh exclaimed.

Nihkuo'te watched as Gkyaun brought up the holographic display of the pyramid. Immediately, his eyes widened in horror. While there were six oomans in the sacrificial chamber, as planned, there were another nine of the Soft Meat in the chamber below it: the chamber where their burners were waiting for them.

And, if this readout was to be believed, the oomans had just removed the burners from the sarcophagus.

Nihkuo'te roared in fury, his fists clenching. The Soft Meat had stolen their weapons! Not only did this mean that the pyramid had activated ahead of schedule – the Hunt was not meant to begin until the students had obtained their burners, so that they would have an easier fight against the Hard Meat – but they would have to contend with armed oomans as well as the drones that would now be active within hours.

There was only one course of action to be taken: the students would have to hunt down the oomans, kill them, and recover the burners, before the kainde amedha were ready. The students would be outnumbered at least two to one once the drones reached maturity, something that would happen very quickly. If they had burners, it would be easy to destroy that many Hard Meat, given their training. But without burners, and outnumbered two to one… he did not fancy their odds in that situation. It was said that Vk'leita, the Leader of the Ne'dtesei, could easily kill Hard Meat drones with just talons and blade, but he was an experienced warrior: no students were ever expected to replicate such a feat, although they would certainly be congratulated for it.

"We must find the pyode amedha and get the burners back, before the Hard Meat are fully grown." Gkyaun looked to Nihkuo'te. "Agreed?"

"Agreed," Nihkuo'te growled back. "The Soft Meat will pay for this in blood. But we must be quick; we need those burners before we face the kainde amedha, or we may be the ones who die today." He raised an arm. "With me!"

Gkyaun and Ghardeh snarled in assent, and the students raced into the pyramid. As they ran, they activated their shiftsuits, phasing out of view and becoming nothing more than shimmering patches of air as they vanished into the shadows.

.

A/N: Hey there, everyone! See, I told you I'd get the next chapter up a lot sooner! Sorry there wasn't too much action in this one, but I assure you, the next one will be where sh*t starts getting real!

So, in case you haven't figured it out from this chapter: yes, in my headcanon for this story, the Doctor has encountered both the Aliens and the Predators before, but he didn't realize that the Predators were the ones behind this until just now, since the last time he encountered them was under very different circumstances. And yes, I will explain what those "other circumstances" were, later on in the story.

Thanks to Warlord of the Wind and Guest for reviewing: you guys are awesome!

As always, if you guys have any questions or comments regarding anything in this chapter, please review!

Next chapter, things inside the pyramid really start getting crazy, and the Aliens enter the mix as well… stay tuned!

See you all next time!

Review Q&A:

Q: SO EXCITED that this FINALLY got a new chapter updated! :D I love the point of view that you're giving from the Yautja's, it's awesome! Can I fathom a guess here that Nihkuo'te is not the main Predator that we know from AVP, but is instead the second one that died fighting against the scarred Xeno and that Gkyaun is the main Predator?

I'm seriously so excited. I can't wait to see how the Doctor will react when shit goes down in the pyramid and the Xenos and Yautjas show themselves. I'm giddy with anticipation! Good luck with the next chapter and keep up the great work!

A: Well, thanks: I'm glad you enjoyed it! Be sure to let me know what you thought of this one! :)

As for the Predators' identities… well, this isn't too much of a spoiler, but Nihkuo'te is actually the main Predator, known as "Scar" in the movie; Gkyaun is the one who uses the net-gun and fights Quinn, both in the movie and here; and Ghardeh is the one with the big arm-swords. Hopefully that makes sense.

Q: I am so happy this updated, this is great!

A: Thanks!