Snarling in pain as the tongue was partially severed, the creature withdrew its appendage, growing rather vicious as it glared down at the female. Though, the shots she had fired off at it only struck harmlessly against the flesh-covered walls after the Harvester had moved with surprising speed, moving rapidly and extracting itself from danger.

The Hiver, on the other hand, was not as agile but rather cumbersome if it had to move with speed. Against the woman's blade, it had no defense capable of stopping the deadly weapon from slicing through its throat. All it could do was rear up to try and crush the woman into oblivion out of irrational anger. But as soon as it had reared up, the bloody appendage struck again from behind, at a much faster speed and wrapped around her ankle, pulling her out from under and up into the air, saving her life in the process as the Hiver's broke through the floor, wrecking the metal buried under the flesh.

The Hiver stared up at where the agent had gone, growling angrily, though it was muffled by the damaged vocal cords. The bleeding had stopped, however, as tentacles grew from the damaged area, as if the Harvesters were unable to maintain their forms, and grew unstable if they sustained wounds. It was, though, a gambit as some would grow weaker from it, while others developed unexpected strengths. If the more common Harvesters were the 'soldiers', then special ones such as these two were the 'generals' in battles, though they were more likely to grow territorial against other commanding Harvesters, as if they were trying to establish dominance over each others.

Nallia's face was impassive as she severed the throat and vocal chords of the Hiver, her pistol still tracking the spider-like hunter. She made no move to dodge the appendage, letting it grab her foot and pull her up into the air. Nallia was a foe like none of the harvesters had ever faced before, with far more battle instinct and experience than any of these xenos. She waited till the appendage had pulled her out of the way of the falling Hiver, and than her gun fired again, a razor sharp bolt aimed with uncanny accuracy at the base of the shaft, the tip of the bolt coated with a vicious poison, one even more exotic than what the harvesters used. No doubt they would gain a resistance to it if given the change to absorb and study it ... but for now it was completly forign to them, and Nallia expected it to have near lethal effect.

Just in case her blade lashed out again, cutting the appendage apart, slashes that moved at a pace that most human minds wouldn't even be able to keep up with, let alone bodies. The moment she was free her body twisted, the momentum of the appendage's grab still carrying her up until she landed against the roof. She let her legs coil beneath her and absorb the impact, and just before the momentum faded and she would fall she pushed off, accelerating with deadly precision towards the spider-hunter, her blade lashing out the moment it got within reach.

The blade, even when it had gotten within reach, was denied its prize as the Harvester was apparently pulled to the side, several tentacles appearing from behind its back and wrapping around pipes that were still visible, allowing the thing to pull itself out of danger. Blood suddenly splattered against the ground as the creature too drug its clawed hand into its own maw, tearing out the poisoned flesh as soon as it had sensed the danger to itself. A horrible tearing sound rang out soon after, as a fresh tongue shot out of its mouth, before retracting back.

The fallen Hiver, still trying to right itself, inexplicably went into panic as it thrashed around, almost as if it was now fearful. And the source of its fear was soon revealed as the floor tore from below, massive deadly mandibles tearing through flesh and steel alike and closing around the large Harvester, devouring it as it pulled the creature down into the next floor, nosily feasting upon the creature that it sensed to be wounded. And to the Thrashers, as it was what the thing was, wounds equated weakness. All weakness was to be purged before it infected the colony.

As it had been wounded as well, both by the agent and self-inflicted, the spider-like Harvester withdrew quickly, abandoning the hunt and seeking safety for itself. As far as it was concerned, survival won out against its need to please its mistress. The insolent female that had harmed it would face the Thrasher and die, of this it was sure. In the end, the colony would be protected.

Nallia was already bursting into movement as the Thrasher started to emerge, firing the last few bolts of her pistol at the retreating spider like harvester, her aim automatically factoring in it's great speed and predicting with uncanny accuracy how it would move to evade, even before the Hiver had started to be devoured. She was nothing like any human agent, her mind constantly analysing her foes, learning capabilities, limitations, and predicting patterns and thoughts. The Harvesters may be able to adapt their biology to overcome weaknesses, but each adaptation would have it's own disadvantage, and Nallia was one whose mind, rather than body, made her adaptable to her opponents. She would learn her foes capabilities far faster than they would understand hers, at least in the short term.

Her pistol clicked empty as she glanced down at the thrasher, devoured the wounded Hiver, and she jumped past it, her blade lashing out. For all it's deadly unstoppable bulk and armour, the thrasher was actually a worse match against Nallia than the spider like harvester. Raw strength and armour would provide little help against someone like Nallia, and soon the agent settled into a weave of movements, her blade lashing out over and over again. Armour that was built to make the Thrasher a living tank was sliced open as easily as the thrasher sliced open bare human skin, Nallia's alien forged Katana tearing gash after gash in the powerful muscles of the deadly harvester. Nallia backed away when needed, constantly moving, using her reaction speed to keep up her dance of slow painful death as she worked to weaken the Thrasher until she had a chance to deliver a killing blow.

Quite unaccustomed to face something that could actually fight back, the Thrasher kept up its actions, trying to crush the annoying and bothersome female. For the most part, it ignored what damage the female had dealt to it, though it was definitely feeling the pain of having its living armor being sliced through so easily, it endured the assault all the same. For, as it fought on, it was using its inner stores to replenish its armor, regenerating them and making them even tougher than they had been. No matter what sort of attacks it took, the Thrasher would take them all heads on and come out of it, stronger than ever.

Eventually, though, the larger creature reared backward, moving away from the Agent until it had put some distance between them. With that, the Harvester began closing its deadly mouth down on the living flesh that surrounded them all, consuming further biomass in order to strength itself further. And to make matter worse, one of the walls burst apart as a second Thrasher appeared, not as red-tinted as the Thrasher the woman had fought, but no less imposing. Unlike the other Harvester, this Thrasher appeared to be somewhat different, almost as if it had more than just instincts, as if it was driven by intelligence.

<sorry for delay. Almost finished this post once and than it got deleted and got all grumpy and didn't try again till now X_X >

Nallia didn’t make a sound as she fought with the massive Thrasher, her Katana cutting through it’s armour over and over again. No matter how it adapted and strengthened the armour plating, Nallia’s Katana would slice through it as if it wasn’t even there. But even though she could hurt the xenos, she quickly realised her Katana couldn’t actually injure it. It was just too large a being and it’s regeneration could handle such small scale attacks.

As the second one burst into the corridor Nallia did a quick double take, her mind racing as she processed the new arrival, as well as studied the map she had of the ship. She studied the new arrival, noteing the lack of the red tint … but not really understanding just what had caused it. She turned and fled, her eyes blinking four times in rapid succession behind the visor as she did so.

Almost instantly she felt a headache start, her mind complaining at what she had just ordered her visor to do. She had turned every possible sense up to maximum, and the information flood threatened to overload even her brain. Most other species, human or not, would have been reduced to a quivering mess from what was flooding into her brain. Visual input, audio enhancements, echo patterns, scent levels and fluctuations. All of this, and hundreds of other minute details that even the sharpest eyes and senses would miss, rushed directly into Nallia’s brain as the non-human agent fled away from the thrashers, checking her speed carefully to try and lead the Thrashers on as she searched for somewhere she could fight them. A hanger with direct access to space would be best, but she would also settle for any large room that bordered the empty vacuum of space, separated only by the thick hull and living biomass of the space ship.

It would not be easy finding such things, not when any sufficiently large room would converted into living flesh and filled with Harvesters, and when almost every path was filled with Harvesters of all sorts. Harder still with two rampaging Thrashers hard on the Agent's heels. It was not as if the Harvesters were an enemy force that had overtaken the ship and were using it as a crew. They were, in essence, a virus that made use of what was at hand while doing away with that which got in the way.

Apart from the much larger creatures such as the Thrashers, there were not very many life forms aboard that needed to take advantage of large corridors, thus apart from those that were in use, others had been shut off by being filled almost entirely with biomass or even configured into something else, such as breeding pits from where larval forms were procured and raised. Even the less seen parts of the ship would be made use of, housing something that supported the nest or provided what the nest required. The ship was no longer a ship. It was now the sum of all its parts, a living being with various attending systems.

And the Harvesters themselves were just the guarding antibodies, seeking out interlopers as if they were pathogens themselves. Biology at its finest, their creators would have exclaimed. Leave it to those who wanted to play God to create such a hell. Of course, things did not go all that badly for Nallia as instinct eventually worked against the ultra-violent Thrashers, setting the red-tinted one onto its normal counterpart in a terrifying feeding frenzy, allowing the agent a chance to escape now...

As the two thrashers attacked each other Nallia's speed took a drastic change. Her visor was still set to it's maximum setting, and she could see everything that had a direct line of sight to in near perfect detail. She could only manage this level of sensory overload for ten minutes or so before even her mind would black out from it, but she would leave it on for one more minute as she moved at full speed, using her innate sense of direction, and the map inside her visor, to track her progress. The thrashers had proven that this wasn't something her blade could kill, which left the message that, as far as Nallia knew, Minerva had died sending out. She hadn't yet encountered what the Harvesters did to captured females, and even if she could smell the pheromones would have no effect at all on her unique alien biology.

Nallia held her blade in a single hand as she slowed down, well on her way towards what had once been the climate control system, hoping that there was enough there still using machinery rather than living biomass that she could turn off the life support for the ship, dooming everything aboard to a slow cold death. At least that was the best case scenario. But as long as there was some way she could start lowering the temperature of the ship she would be content.

There came no further trouble from the Thrasher, which had presumably abandoned the chase to feed on the dead carcass of the other creature, devouring raw genetic material and a multitude of other proteins, chemicals, and tissue. By the time it had finished devouring the dead Thrasher and undergone enough time to assimilate the consumed flesh, the Thrasher would emerge, greater and more terrible than ever. Though, 'word' of the dead Thrasher and the second one's actions would filter back to the colony, and to the doctor, through pheromones in the air.

On the other hand, there would be plenty of other opportunities for the Agent to come across Harvesters. Raiders and Warriors being the norm, but with Hivers, Shriekers, and of course, the one that had fled. Not to mention, there could be even more life forms yet to be seen lurking around. No doubt about it, there was sure to be more conflict ahead, unless stealth and subterfuge was used. It was only fortunate that while the path to the room in charge of atmospheric control would be fraught with dangers, the distance was mercifully not too far.

Nallia was taking a risk in the name of speed, and using the fact that she didn't think any of the harvesters alive had any idea about her cloaking capability. She moved on cloaked, visor scanning for the subtle hints of pheramone variations that would give away an ambush. Even with the air as loaded as it was with harvester pheramones the very thing they used to communicate covertly with each other would shine out like a beacon to the technology of the hunter's visor, a device that was millenia in front of any other species technology.

She moved along with her pistol, watching and waiting for the inevitable attempt at ambush. She had no idea how smart these xenos were, or that they had a hive mind. The thrasher had last seen her heading in this direction, and so she moved carefully and silently in the hope that they had no idea what she was planning.