2 days after the meeting. Antarctica - Tunnel system.

Once again the clacking of armor and other equipment could be heard echoing through the icy hallways. This time Caleb wasn’t the only one with special armor. He had a whole team that was ready to teach that alien a lesson.

Caleb was secretly hoping that the alien had already devoured all of his prior comrades so he wouldn’t have to see their dead faces again. Even the thought of it caused an ache in his heart, but that’s how life in the OHP was. Losing good soldiers was a daily occurance. Humanity really had a decreasing chance of survival, unless they came up with something better and stronger.

“Are we there yet?”

One of the youngest team members, Mikey, complained as if they were all on some boring school trip. Some others growled in response.

“Hmm…”

Focused on their surroundings Caleb kneeled down to the ground. The old claw marks were still here, but he couldn’t seem to find any new ones. Was the creature still here or did it move on as he suspected?

“What is it, General?”, asked the female scientist. Her name was Harmony. A fitting name for such a calm and collected personality.

“I don’t see any new traces… let’s hope we’re alone.”

“Uh, wouldn’t that be bad for our mission?”, Mikey asked with a rising eyebrow.

“Probably…”

As Caleb sighed he went up on his feed.

“But it would be good for our survival.”, he muttered.

[...]

A few more steps ahead they had finally made it into the cave, the beast its lair.

Sadly the alien had not devoured all the corpses. Maybe three of them were missing, but the rest were still on the ground, frozen and preserved.

“Oh my-”

Arianna, one of the girls of the team, quickly raised her hand in front of her mouth in shock, almost dropping her weapon.

“Poor bastards.”, Mikey mumbled to himself.

Meanwhile the young male scientist, Noah, was playing around with a familiar device.

“I can’t track anything.”

“Don’t be fooled by that.”, Caleb intervened right away as he tried not to look at his old teammates too much.

“What do you mean, General?”

“The last time the tracking device gave us a wrong lead into the cocoon you see right ahead. But the stupid insect wasn’t there…”

“Huh?”

Noah looked at Caleb in surprise, but then he started thinking, narrowing his eyebrows. Of course as a scientist it was his highest priority to find out why that was the case before.

“So… it could still be here.”

“It could…”, Caleb repeated.

That fact had everyone become more cautious again as they scouted the cave more carefully.

“Ice is so beautiful… I miss enjoying the winter in our garden.”, Arianna muttered to herself with a sigh.

“I think we all do…”

“Why yes, ice is indeed beautiful.”

The voice that was unknown to almost everyone in the squad suddenly had them freeze for a moment. Just for a brief moment before everyone got their plasma weapons ready and activated their armor. They were truly trained to react fast and glanced right away into the direction where the voice had come from.

The sound of metal hitting and pulling over the icy floor was as clear as day. The tension was rising as the alien revealed itself, coming out of its hiding behind the cocoon.

“I was hoping you would return, my favorite prey. Welcome back, Caleb.”

“Holy shit! It does talk for real!”, Mikey gasped, expressing what everyone else was thinking at that moment.

“Wait-”

Caleb raised an arm in front of his team to make them go silent for a moment.

“How do you know my name? I never told you…”

The mouth of the alien started to form a wide grin as it casually leaned itself against the cocoon. It showed no signs of fear or intimidation. Instead it kept its taunting attitude.

“I found a little image of you in one of the soldiers’ stuff. On the back it said ‘Caleb’ with a little heart at the end.”

The armored beast snickered as it provokingly drew a heart in the air with one of its claws.

“Blonde female… she seemed to have a little crush on you.”

As this revelation sunk deeper into Caleb's mind, his eyes widened while his team tried to focus both their leader and the threat.

“Claire…”

“Yes! And she was soooo delicious!”

The alien started laughing, assuming this provocation wouldn’t miss its target.

“General… Caleb…”, Harmony spoke softly as she tried to approach her leader, who was now lowering his shoulders.

If their general would now lose his temper, it would be really bad, but to everyone’s surprise the man just sighed after a while.

“Hm? Hey… human! Are you defective or something?”

Number 3 growled as he came to realize that Caleb wouldn’t fall into a blind rage.

“No, but I’ll have time to grief later.”, Caleb now responded, raising his head again and confronting the enemy with a strong gaze.

The soldier then pulled his own plasma sword.

“You were trying to weaken my mind right now… so you do know about human emotions.”

“Perhaps… what is it to you?”

“Valid information.”, he responded as he then charged into the direction of the alien.

Said creature dodged the attack swiftly, but didn’t seem to fight back.

“Should we also engage, General?!”, Arianna shouted in their direction.

“No. For now just watch and have my ba-”

As Caleb swung the blade right towards the aliens head, he of course missed and instead stabbed into the icy wall, melting said ice, he noticed the alien’s strange behavior.

“Why are you not attacking me? More mind games..?”, he huffed briefly.

“...”

Number 3 didn’t respond at first, which confused Caleb even more, but he tried to keep his guard up.

“... I told you I wanna have more fun with you, Caleb. Can’t do that when you’re dead, right?”

The fact that this monster, who massacred his whole team before, now casually called him by his name, made his stomach a little upset, but at the same time… he suddenly found himself intrigued.

“Last time… you gave me an honest fight and let me live as well. Why not do that now?”

Of course Caleb had every reason to question this creature’s strange behavior whose new plan was still unknown to him.

Suddenly a hissing sound passed his ear and with it a glowing red arrow. While it had barely missed the soldier's face, it definitely hit and cut off a part of the alien's hair.

“Mikey!”

Already knowing who shot that arrow Caleb turned around to yell at his comrade. A mistake indeed. However the beast did not attack him from behind, but instead rushed around him and jumped at Mikey, pinning him to the ground.

Only milliseconds later everyone had them surrounded and the weapons directed towards the alien.

“F*ck! Get off, you abomination!”

The creature had its claws around Mikey's neck, ready to break it - for ruining its hair.

“Stop! Don’t hurt him!”, Caleb intervened, pushing himself past his team who looked at him in confusion. Was he for real with that request?

“Why would I listen to you..?”

“You wanna have fun with me, right?”

“And…? I can still do that when he’s dead.”

“If you kill him, I will kill myself.”

Everyone’s jaw dropped at that and Caleb seriously directed his own blade towards his chest.

“General, that-”

“Shh!”

Arianna tried to reason with her supervisor, but he shushed her fast. That man was crazy…

…

“... fine.”

And once again everyone’s jaw dropped as the creature suddenly got up from Mikey and instead walked towards Caleb again.

What was even going on?!

“Give me that!”

Number 3 pointed at Caleb’s sword.

“No, why should I…?”

“I gotta make sure you don’t kill yourself, human!”

Suddenly Caleb’s stern, serious face loosened and instead he showed that alien a confident grin.

“Nope. Not gonna happen. But maybe… we can make a deal and I’ll give it to you?”

“A deal…?”