Re: Metroid - {PRE-READERS REQUESTED}

[Rachel Ascot]

DUBLIN, EARTH
Chapter 12 – Ridley

Ridley didn’t quite know how to feel. Satisfied with his own power? Happy that he finally trounced the little girl who had humiliated him years ago. Disappointed that she was so weak and easy to beat? He felt a collection of these emotions, simply walking over to the metroid in the cage. He plucked it up in one clawed foot, spreading his wings.

“Too easy…” He murmured. He flapped his wings once in a great swooping motion, rising off the ground… only to be pulled back by his own tail. He stopped in midair and was thrown back by the force. He looked down. Samus had frozen his tail to the floor and was climbing him. He growled angrily at the golden warrior, before wagging his tail desperately, flinging her from side to side. Samus crashed into the wall as his tail slammed against it, but she still held on. Then she rose her gun again. Ridley smirked.

“Idiot. That thing didn’t even move me last time.” He explained. “What makes you think it’ll hurt me this ARGH!”

“Your eye! That’s what!”

It was true. Samus had chosen to send the ice beam straight into his eye wound, the black bulb where his right eye used to be. He was thrown back by the force and the pain, and didn’t notice Samus climb him that little more. She clambered up his tail, then onto his feet. She saw Hugo and plucked the little cage out of Ridley’s grasp. She threw it to the nearest wall and shot one beam of ice onto the cage, keeping it from falling. Hugo looked uncomfortable in the cold but was at least safe for now. Samus then looked to Ridley, who had stopped wailing, and his gaze turned to her, his red eye now popping with rage. He flapped his wings up, curling his body so that Samus faced the floor, then quickly pulled his wings in. The two dropped through the shaft, but Samus saw the danger and kicked off Ridley and landed safely on the floor before Ridley did. She raised her arm cannon, readying another point blank shot when Ridley stopped in midair. Samus fired the blast;

… and all around her became hell.

Ridley had seen her ready the gun, so he decided to breathe flame. A common trait of the Fladres, the air around Samus became yellow and orange as he burnt the floor. He stopped after a second or two, but for Samus it was eternity. The heat literally boiled her in her armoured suit. When Ridley stopped, it was black and steaming. Samus staggered weakly from left to right. Ridley looked back to Hugo. The ice holding him in place had melted and Hugo dropped like a stone. Ridley caught the dropping metroid in one hand, and looked to the roof, then back to Samus.

“Not enough room here, I’d say.” He said pleasantly, before his tone became a lot more menacing. “Let’s take to the roof!”

Samus was helpless to stop Ridley from grabbing her again, before he flew up, his tail now free of its icy prison. Samus’ eyes closed then opened. She could barely struggle, and then she looked up. The roof was getting closer and closer, and Samus realised that at this speed, Ridley could break through, but it was damage him greatly. His own hubris and confidence would out-do him, she thought. He would be dazed and…

BAM!

Ridley had broken through, but he had used Samus’ body as a battering ram. She shook violently with the force as the stone fell away from her. She could now see the stars of the night sky as the city dropped from her, but she felt weak, her head spinning and her body groaning under the pressure. Ridley stopped far, far higher than the highest skyscraper in Dublin.

“You dropped from Crateria to Brinstar no problem, right?” He asked Samus. No answer. “So this’ll be like a tiny step for you.” He then threw her up in the air weakly, before catching her with his feet and plummeting down. He flapped his wings once then curled them in so that he would drop faster. The clouds were passed, then the city lights crashed into them, then finally Ridley hit the hospital roof, Samus taking all the pressure. He smiled as he heard a great cracking sound. He rose one foot, inspecting Samus slightly. The armour she wore had a great gouge in it and it had torn inwards, stabbing her in the stomach. He grinned widely and began to jump up and down, slamming her into the floor again and again.

“SCREEEEE!” Hugo wailed in agony, as if feeling Samus’ anguish. Ridley ignored it, delighting in causing Samus’ wound to get worse, the armour breaking up more and more and curling in further and further.

“Enough!” Samus suddenly threw her hands on the floor. Ridley pushed down again, only to find that Samus didn’t move down. Then she rolled onto her feet, flinging Ridley off of her. He landed on his back, but the real pain came when Samus grabbed his tail. She lifted it up with strength that amazed Ridley, pulling his whole body with it. She spun around once and twice, then jumped up, throwing Ridley over her and onto his stomach. He crashed against the floor once, then she flung him again, cracking the stone under him, before he was thrown into the air. Samus aimed her cannon, firing five rounds into him, freezing each wing and leg and his stomach. She leapt up to his midair form, pulling him under her and then somersaulting. Her heel smashed onto Ridley’s spine and he plummeted to the floor, before Samus landed on him. He growled in pain, then he threw his tail at her. She caught the spiked end but it pushed her back far more than she had hoped. He stood up, shaking chunks of ice off his body, then the two glared at each other. Samus bled freely from the stomach and her armour was charred black, but she stood strongly, breathing slowly and calmly. Ridley spun his head around his neck once; the membrane’s cracking was loud enough to hear, before he spat some black blood in one globule onto the floor. He looked to Samus.

“Well, Samus Aran, you’ve made a good start.” He said. “You’ve already lasted longer than your parents and the best the Chozo had to offer.” Samus remained silent. The wind picked up strongly. Her fist clenched, her knuckles cracking under the metal. The blood from her belly dripped onto the floor quite loudly, staining the grey ground black. “I’m afraid, though, that this fight is over.”

“You’re right.” Samus spat, raising her arm cannon. “It is.” Ridley said nothing for a moment, before he began to smile, though black blood spilt through his smirk.

“Heh. Heh heh heh.” He began to chuckle slightly. “So this is what happens when someone presses your buttons? If you can’t control yourself, how can you hope to defeat me?”

Samus answered by stamping her foot down towards Ridley. He prepared for an attack by blocking but Samus had stopped, swinging back on her feet, before lunging with a fist into Ridley’s face. She jabbed him twice, before spinning on her left foot, kicking Ridley with her right heel. The beast was forced back slightly, but he blocked the next punch, kicking at Samus’ shins. She leapt back, but then noticed the mistake when Ridley’s tail smashed into her from the side, throwing her away. She rolled along the floor, then got to her knees. She looked up and gasped. She threw her hands up, only just catching the tail point in her grip. Both her arms and Ridley’s tail shook violently. Ridley placed all his strength into the tail, Samus held back with all her might. Neither moved, neither gave way.

“Give up!” Ridley snarled.

“Never!” Samus growled.

She threw her hands up, Ridley’s tail rising in the air. She rolled forward, going into a ball. She rolled one way and the other, only just missing the tail’s main body slammed across the floor. She came closer to Ridley, who got onto his hands and feet, stooped over like a scorpion. Samus came closer, but then moved back as the great arrow head of a tail jabbed the floor in front of her. Ridley kept up a fast pace with his attacks, sending Samus scrambling and desperate for safety. Left back right back left and suddenly she was hit by a strike. The tail’s tip crushed down on her but it was only on the side of her, just skimming her. She rolled to the right of the tip, then forward towards Ridley at an alarming rate. Ridley prepared his claws to grab her, but when he attacked she swerved to the left unexpectedly. She unfolded to his left. Her helmet was half shattered. Her left cheek had a huge gash in it, and she put her hand on it. Ridley smiled. That strike was deadly after all. Then she smirked back. Ridley immediately looked to his feet in panic.

“Klateresa.” He whispered, an unknown expletive to Samus but one that made her grin as the MDED grenades she had left in her wake all detonated, blasting Ridley off his feet and sending him rolling along the floor. He screeched to a halt, then rolled to the side, avoiding the blasts that Samus sent hurtling his way. The stone floor shimmered blue with ice as Ridley chuckled.

“So, who is this gesture for?” He asked. “Your parents? The Chozo? All those people downstairs?”

“Shut!” Samus raised her arm cannon. “Your goddamn!” The barrel glowed blue and shone dangerously. “Mouth!” She fired but Ridley simply rolled out of the way with ease.

“Or is it the metroid?” He said, a smile on his face. “It imprinted you, after all. All alone in the galaxy, you’re the only one ready to take care of the poor thing. You even named it! What a joke!” He dodged another blast, and then they began to spray wildly as Samus pumped more shots towards the rapidly moving form of Ridley.

“Hubert, wasn’t it?” He suddenly stopped in his tracks as he realised that he almost trod on the container containing Hugo. He smiled to Samus. “You’re angry now, but let’s kick things up a notch.” He raised his tail high, then he punched through the glass.

“SCREEEEE!” Came a wail, Ridley grinding the point into Hugo’s skin. It bled slightly with a small wound, but Ridley kept his eyes on Samus, who had frozen in her tracks.

“ARRRRGGGGHHHH!” She suddenly stooped over, dropping to her knees and weakly grabbing her arm. Ridley laughed callously.

“Awww, what’s the matter?” He cooed. “Your little pet’s screaming just too much for you?” He looked to Hugo, who was still screeching in agony. He smiled with a sadistic glee. “You’re really far more pathetic than I took you fo…”

SLAM!

Samus had immediately tackled Ridley with all the force of an atomic detonation. Ridley wasn’t prepared for the sheer force and was effortlessly flung back. The two slid together before Samus screeched them both to a halt. Ridley was on his back, Samus crawling over to his head. She raised one fist and brought it into Ridley, who suddenly barked in pain. She punched him again and again, all her thought processes drifting away like a house of sand in the wind. Black blood flew up in her face and across her charred armour as she laid into him. Ridley’s eye glimmered red slightly, staring at her face. Half of it hidden by her helmet, the other half contorted in ugly vehemence. She didn’t think or even feel anything other than crazed fury. Her frenzied fists pounded at Ridley’s face as he grunted and growled in pain unlike anything he had ever felt, before he finally screamed.

“AAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHH!” His scream was a high-pitched animal call, and finally his tail drove its tip into Samus. Samus didn’t see the blade coming and was launched into the air, before slamming onto the floor, arrowhead in her stomach. It dragged her along the floor, her already wounded belly now spilling blood across the hospital roof. The tail finally, weakly, stopped its march. Samus’ eyes closed in agony as she moaned. She remained on her back, too tired to move for a second. She then summoned the effort to look at her stomach wound. Her belly was now completely red with blood, a great and deep gash across it bleeding freely. She immediately pushed her hands on the wound, applying pressure to the wound, and simultaneously raising her spine, slowing the blood flow. She then turned her head to Ridley, whose head was in his hands as gore spilt through his fingers in an awful mess. He too moaned, but wiped off the blood with his hands and looked back to Samus. Her heart leapt to her throat. It was the monster from her childhood. The nightmare made flesh. Before, Ridley had terrified her; the child in her recognised and cowered from him but she had held back that fear, until now that the sight was once again fully realised. The blood. The rage. The undeniable evil in that blazing red eye. The only difference was that this time he could reach her. She couldn’t breathe as she watched Ridley’s tail scratch along the ground as he began to walk over to her, murderous intent in his gaze. Blood dripped from many nasty cuts on his forehead, but he shrugged that off. The scene was almost as if the world had gone into slow motion.

Thump, his foot hit the floor.

Thump, his foot hit the floor.

Thump thump thump, again and again, impending vengeance coming directly towards Samus.

Ridley stood over Samus after an eternity of walking. She raised her arm cannon weakly, pointing to his bleeding face. He clenched a fist and smacked the hand, disconnected the cannon and sending the weapon rolling across the floor. Samus stared painfully into Ridley’s eye. He was breathing heavily, gore dripping through his maw and from the many cuts on his face. He grabbed Samus with one hand and lifted her off the ground. She hung limply, unable to match Ridley’s glare. Eyes half closed, she turned her head, her eyes full of dread, sorrow and fear.

“Got anything to say now?” Ridley spat, hatred in his voice, all humour and frivolity gone. The darkest part of his soul boomed in his throat and called for blood. “Come on, another little threat. A funny little quip. Say something!” He suddenly slammed Samus onto the floor. She groaned quietly in pain as he raised his foot and brought it down onto her back. The golden armour cracked like an egg shell, and then he carried on. The shards of metal began to fall away as Ridley unleashed a slow, unending barrage. Finally, Samus’ broken armour fell off and she was completely unprotected. Ridley smiled evilly as her head turned to the right, blonde hair falling across her face as she looked back up at him, fear in her eyes. “See, this is what happens when we take your fancy weapons and glittering armour out of the equation. Underneath the metal, you’re just a little girl who’s in over her head.” He moved his neck from side to side confidently, the crackling of cartilage shaking the air. “I, on the other hand, am a Fladres pirate.”

CRACK!

Ridley’s head was thrown to the side by a yellow light. He didn’t move for a second, before inspecting the tiny cut that ran across his cheek. Then he looked over to the figure in armour who stood a long distance away.

“You can add her armour and weaponry back into the equation, Ridley!” Came a voice Samus began to recognise. Adam? “You’re coming with me!”

Samus had to turn her head to see it. The Varia Project. The armour was almost identical to her own besides in colour and minor changes. The red helmet remained, but the gold had been replaced with a deep orange. The general body was a lot more streamlined; the bulky red triangular-chest Samus had on hers was gone, instead with a smooth bulb instead. The shoulders had rounded bulbs on them; large enough to reach Adam’s head, and the head was a little more flat. The gun pulsating a harsh yellow from the barrel. Ridley growled in an animalistic matter, before breathing a huge fireball into Adam. The flame immediately engulfed him but then the shadow of Adam simply stepped through, unaffected. Ridley winked once.

“I see.” He murmured. Another blast came from Adam’s arm cannon, hitting Ridley in the shoulder. Ridley stepped off Samus, then smiled nastily.

“Give up the metroid and step away from the woman.” Adam called out. Then he was suddenly thrown back by Ridley’s tail. He rolled along the floor painfully but the armour held. He tried to get to his knees but Ridley was on top of him already, grabbing him in a strong coil with his tail.

“Correction; even with the armour you’re still useless.” He then flung Adam over his head and onto the floor, and proceeded to continue again and again. He walked as he did so, looking to Hugo in his cage. He plucked the cage up and looked to the sky. He gave a loud call, a signal to The Clan, and held Adam aloft with his tail. “Had enough?” He asked.

“A bit dizzy.” Adam replied calmly. Ridley suddenly snarled.

“Wrong!” He smashed Adam head-first onto the floor. “Answer!” He then delivered a dropkick to Adam, who grunted in pain.

“Get off him!”

All three of them; Ridley, Adam and Hugo, turned to see Samus standing up. She shook violently, her legs quivered, her left arm wrapped around her bloody wound that was still spilling gore across the floor, her right clenched in a fist of defiance.

“I’m the one you’re here for… Ridley… come and get me…” She took a step forward. Her eyes revealed her fear, but anger was creeping in, taking the cowardice and channeling it to a roaring rage.

“You’re kidding.” Ridley smirked widely as Samus took another step closer. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Samus began to break into a quick stumble, then a run that was uneasy and desperate. Ridley’s eye widened in shock and he began to laugh. “Oh-ho-ho-ho my god you’re not! HA!” He watched her come forward. He lifted Adam back up to show him Samus rushing towards them. “Here comes the cavalry!” He then swung a fist to Samus…

… only to hit thin air.

The motion was quick, but Samus rolled under the arm as Ridley’s body was pulled forward by the force. Then, as she reached his torso, she grabbed the outstretched arm and pulled it towards her as fast as she could. However, Ridley easily forced her back.

“Not happening!” He spun on his heel, crashing his elbow into Samus and knocking the woman back. He began to walk over to her body when a whoosh came over his head. “That’s my ship…” He whispered. He looked to Adam and threw him away, then turned back to Samus. He plucked her up in one hand. Her eyes were rapidly closing, but her face had a smile on it.

“You couldn’t finish it, could you?” She seethed. Ridley growled, before squeezing her. It required little effort on his part, but she moaned in pain, the smile gone. Ridley’s forehead suddenly smacked against her, forcing her to listen.

“You ever want to see Hubert again, come back home.” He whispered in her ear, before dropping her. She slumped down and, too weak to remain awake, flopped in unconsciousness. Hugo began to screech and scream, rattling the Perspex cage he was trapped in as Ridley bounded up into the air towards his vessel. The large purple block opened a small hatch that he leapt into. He let the doors close under him, and he was safe.

“Clan Leader Ridley!” Weeve shouted excitedly, saluting the sandy beast. Then her eyes caught sight of him. Kott and Srekkitt too came to see their leader, bloodied and beaten. He looked a mess; he placed his feet onto the ground. His knees wobbled weakly, then he fell forward onto them. “Ridley?”

“I’m fine!” He shouted, placing Hugo down on the floor and pushing himself onto his feet. “I’m fine.” He looked to a nearby draconian. “Bowl! Now!” The draconian rushed away. Ridley looked to his right arm and tried to move it, only to have it wrench in pain. He looked to his followers. “What are you staring at?”

“Sir, you…” Kott began. “May I be honest?” Ridley nodded slowly. “You’re a wreck.” She looked back to the scene as the clouds began to move past. “Sir! We’ve left behind Gyler and Hill!”

“They’ve been compromised.” Ridley said simply. He was given the bowl he requested, and he spat up a globule of blood into it. Another draconian offered a bottle of yellow liquid. “Just on my arm.” He offered the draconian his forearm, and she poured the yellow liquid on her hands and rubbed it into his scales. He looked back to Kott. “Hill’s been apprehended and Gyler’s dead. They weren’t good enough, so we leave them behind. As for myself, the beating was intentional.” He spat some more blood into the bowl as he shakily said this, hiding both his lies and his bruised ego. The only consolation was that this time Samus was worse off than him. The three remained Fladres pirates looked to each other worriedly.

“Intentional?” Srekkitt asked. Ridley nodded.

“… I had to make sure that Samus thinks she can beat me by herself.” He said after a moment’s hesitation, though his speech was slow, as if carefully choosing his words. “Too effortless, she brings an army. We have the bait and I gave her enough non-lethal wounds to consider me a true threat. That’s the heart of the matter.” He coughed and retched up another glob of blood, then looked to Weeve. “Tell Mother Brain that we have the metroid. Srekkitt, get us home. Kott, congratulations are in order; Gyler’s dead, making you my right-hand. Oversee the containment of the metroid.” All of them immediately saluted and resumed their new duties as Ridley sat down, his arm still being rubbed by the draconian. He clicked his fingers and a few more came, yellow liquid on their claws, and they began to rub his various wounds. Ridley’s mood quickly improved, and his ego swelled. He spat up one last splodge of black gore and smiled.

“After all…” He said to himself. “- you don’t become the strongest without a few knocks.”

[Rachel Ascot]

ARC III
REVENGE SHOULD HAVE NO BOUNDS

CRATERIA
- Samus Aran
- Come Back Home

BRINSTAR
- “My Regards to a Ruined Evening”
- A Bridge Too Far
- Kraid

NORFAIR
- The Sea of Fire
- The Black Cloud Ahead
- The First Failure
- The Fall of Samus Aran

[Rachel Ascot]

CRATERIA
Chapter 13 – Samus Aran

“This is quite the wreckage, Old Bird. I’m surprised none of us saw it.”

The aging bird-like figure nodded. His companion wasn’t wrong; the great metal capsule had collapsed into the earth and left a great black mark. It was steaming with heat and made Old Bird ruffle his feathers. He looked to the other chozo, half a dozen bird-like figures of varying size, age and gender.

“It would make sense for us to split up.” He explained. “Make sure not to touch anything with bare hands; it’ll still be hot, and we’ll need uncontaminated samples to research.”

They all set off. The Chozo had never been off this small moon but they were aware they were not alone in the galaxy. Their telescopes had observed vessels of made of unusual materials passing through the stars; like gold but white or black or grey. All attempts at transmission or interaction with these vessels had failed, but the chozo weren’t ones to worry. They guessed that one day the beings from above would contact them eventually. However, Old Bird had always assumed ‘eventually’ meant ‘a few generations from now’ and now he was the witness to a vessel crashing into the ground. He was worried though. It didn’t look intentional. He assumed that it was merely part of a vessel; maybe one was destroyed or had been damaged and a part had drifted away. He placed some transparent fibres across his feathers, blank and sterilised to keep the materials and himself safe. He went to the metal ball itself; it had cracked open like an egg but it had not fallen apart. Egg was the best way to describe the shape, but it was unlike anything Old Bird had seen before. He looked to the opening. It was a square opening. He frowned and looked back to another chozo.

“I believe this is a door.” He said. “This must be a miniature vessel, but I see no means for propulsion.” The chozo shrugged his shoulders.

“Is there anything inside?” He asked. Old Bird poked his head in. It was completely white inside with the exception of a black console on the side closest to the door. On the floor was what appeared to be a suit, but unlike any clothes he had seen in his life. He rapped his fingers on it once.

“Some armour, I believe.” He said. “This must be a container that broke away.” He walked in. The pod was large enough to hold him though only just. “This is most irregular. Why would one build such a large container for comparatively small armour…”

“… urgh.”

His head wheeled towards the armour. It didn’t look like anyone or anything was inside of it, but he immediately bent down to its level.

“We’ve got someone in here!” He shouted. “Everyone over here! Help me with this thing!” Old Bird then dragged the armour out of the pod so there was room to open it. Every chozo gathered around. They looked to the armour; a red and gold shape. One pointed to the red bulb at the top.

“A helmet, surely.” She said. Old Bird nodded.

“I’d agree, Calm Wings. Come on, let’s remove it.”

The mechanics of the helmet were impossible to comprehend from the outside; the chozo were forced to cut it apart from the main body with a saw. Old Bird immediately looked to the hole, looking down the orange tunnel. Two blue eyes blurrily looked back at him, the gaze weak and sad. He reached his hands in and pulled the creature out delicately.

“The pilot?” One asked.

“No, too small for the armour.” Another whispered. “A child.”

Tears formed in Old Bird’s eyes. The chozo were a people of calm joy, sadness and anger rarities, but the emotion in the child’s eyes was unbearable. A fatigued depression. Her eyes opened a bit more, then they widened as she observed the chozo, the feathered figures who surrounded her. She curled up in fear, though Old Bird noticed her fists clench; her arms raised slightly, ready to fight back to any threat. This child was a fighter, he supposed, or she had at the very least seen violence. He set her down onto the ground. She was very small, barely reaching Old Bird’s waist. Her gold hair was a messy bulb surrounding her round head. Her arms still raised to her chin, she stepped back slightly. Old Bird got down onto his knee.

“You’re safe.” He murmured as calmly as he could. The girl stopped in her tracks, though looked suspicious. Old Bird saw both sorrow and anger well in her eye slightly. “Do you understand me?” The fingers began to uncurl, the arms dropped an inch. The girl nodded. “Do you understand our language? Do you speak?” The alien’s gaze bore into his. She kept a firm look but he saw the fire locked behind the blue iris cool.

“Yes.” She answered finally. The voice was shaky, unsure and nervous. The other chozo looked to each other.

“Impossible. How can she speak chozo when she is extra-terrestrial?”

“Maybe she isn’t speaking chozo.” One said. “Her vocal cords may be developed similarly to us. Who’s to say language wouldn’t as well? She will use many words uncommon to us, and us to her, right Old Bird?” The chozo looked to the one on his knees, staring at the alien. “Old Bird?”

“What is your name?” He asked. The alien stood back, then her arms dropped to either side.

“Samus.” She answered. “Samus Aran.” Old Bird outstretched his hand to her.

“I am called Old Bird.” He said. “Are you alone?” He only realised it was the wrong thing to say when Samus turned her gaze to behind her.

“My… mummy was just…” She looked to the rest of the chozo. “My daddy and mummy… where are…” Her eyes fell to the ground beneath her feet. “… do you know where they…” Old Bird shifted forward to catch her in an embrace as Samus suddenly fell to her knees. She almost immediately returned the embrace, no longer hesitant or defensive but now just feeling weak and alone. In both of them, tears rushed to their eyes and sorrow through their bones. “… they’re gone.” She finally answered, allowing tears to run down her cheek. “They’re gone forever.”

*

“They’re gone. They’ll come back eventually, but only when the mother feels it’s safe.”

Samus looked back to Old Bird and smirked. She was ten now, and she had grown up a happy and independent child; more than able of entering the upper portions of Brinstar, a maze of blackness and rocks, and being completely fine. A harsh wind whipped across the pile of rocks that the two knelt on, watching a number of small feet rushing into the darkness of the crevasses and cracks that were open within the grand rubble. The expanses of the grey plains of Crateria lay before them with a frankness and grandeur, if only due to the size of the expanse. Samus looked back to the rock crack.

“Nervous?” She asked, peering into the blackness.

“The Tatori adults are incredibly tough and dangerous when provoked, but their children are mostly defenceless. The shells on their backs aren’t fully developed so they rely on the parents to tell them what’s safe and what is not. They have many predators and they need all the protection they can get.”

A pair of white eyes poked out of the darkness, staring back at Samus, before suddenly moving back. She reached a small hand out slowly, tentatively.

“Hey now.” She whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Old Bird watched as she patiently crouched by the rock face as a small yellow face began to emerge fearfully. It was round, not unlike a mole, then the yellow creature moved out a little more, revealing the dark grey shell upon its back. It looked up to Samus, who simply smiled and extended a small finger. “Now now.” The Tatori pup looked to the finger, then moved towards it. In a brisk motion Samus brought it along the Tatori’s head, then around and under its neck. The small creature let out what sounded like a sigh, and Old Bird’s brow rose a little in surprised happiness. Samus was passionate, certainly, but with this passion came a violent streak; when she was younger, being educated in the Chozo ways, any child who decided to torment her was forfeiting their well-being, much to the collective chagrin of the race that watched over her. It’s why Old Bird didn’t think she’d be so good with animals, but she made the nervous Tatori pup nuzzle her. He smiled, then looked somewhat to the distance ahead of him, and his brow furrowed.

“Samus, get back here.” He gently ordered. The human girl looked to him, then turned to see what he was looking at. A huge creature, taller than Samus at a full stand, with a central pod-like body standing upon two huge legs, the knees at right angles. The body had a jaw dangling out of the under-shell and two great eyes glaring at Samus. The feet were huge and sturdy, with spikes coating the lower parts. Samus didn’t move for a second.

“It’s a sidehopper.” Old Bird’s voice remained calm. “It’s a very dangerous predator, Samus; come back to where it’s safe.” Samus began to stand up, her eyes still glued to the sidehopper. She began to move away, then the sidehopper leapt forward. It landed not too far from Samus but ignored her, looking directly at the Tatori pup, it’s enquiring eyes looking to the prey. Samus stopped moving. “Samus, you can’t stay here.” Old Bird said, but Samus watched as the jaw opened above the Tatori, great talons protruding outwards as the sidehopper unleashed a horrible growl.

“You dare.” She growled, but the creature didn’t listen, choosing to attack the Tatori. The motion was swift, gripping it in its teeth and causing the Tatori to scream by squeezing hard. It was too much for Samus, who immediately charged forward and brought her fist into the hard upper shell of the sidehopper. The monster snarled, dropping the Tatori and looking to Samus. A great snarl from the open circle and spittle flying away. Samus raised her fist again and clashed it onto the soft lip of the beast, and it wailed harder, biting for her as she pulled her hand away. A tooth dragged along her retreating hand, but the girl’s fist slammed down onto the same spot, and the sidehopper screamed in pain before moving away slowly, cautiously, watching the blonde creature move forward once again. Finally, the backwards cautious stumble became a canter to a gallop, then the beast was gone.

Stillness prevailed for a moment.

“Samus… that was not a smart thing for you to do.” Old Bird finally said, though the voice was with humour and his face had a smile as he walked to her. He extended his feathery hand as she extended her own. He peered at the wound. “It’s avoided all veins, but it’ll have to be bandaged at the main city.” However, Samus looked back to the Tatori pup as it cowered before Samus. She moved her free hand to it, but it backed away nervously.

“Old Bird…” She began. “- why is it scared of me?”

“The answer is strength, Samus.” Came the reply as Old Bird watched the pup move away and back into the rock crack it had emerged from. “In the world of nature, the strongest is king, whether benevolent or not. It is never immediately apparent to an animal whether you mean it good or ill.”

“I… I just wanted to help.”

“And you did. Don’t be fooled by the Tatori’s fear.” Samus looked back to Old Bird as he smiled gently at her. “Fear is by no means a bad thing in small quantities, nor is it damage or pain; it warns us to danger. It helps as much as it harms. It may seem powerful, but only you can create, succumb to and defeat fear.” He let Samus move away as she looked back into the crack. The pup didn’t move, watching her as she extended her hand to it. The black-shelled creature edged forward, and then nuzzled her finger once before backing away again and disappearing forever. She smiled slightly, but she too turned away. Old Bird’s vision glazed over as he pondered. “This world is survival of the fittest, but there a great many people who think that that is the way it should be. That the only strong should prosper, that the weak must perish for the good of all, and that to help a weaker being that can’t help itself is to waste energy.” He smiled to Samus. “I’m glad to see that you agree with me, that it is less a worthless cause and more the worthiest of all.”

“Wise words, old man…” She said. “- though you’re going into a philosophical ramble again.” Old Bird chuckled at this.

“Maybe if you spent a few more minutes in a day listening to my so called ‘rambles’, you’ll be a little less eager to fight creatures larger than yourself.”

*

“Well, maybe if you weren’t so quick to waste all our fuel, we’d be off this godforsaken rock!”

Old Bird was told of their presence almost as soon as they had arrived. He had moved towards the landing site immediately, where the great metallic bird had gently but by no means quietly landed in a small bath of fire. The chozo weren’t really meant to have told Old Bird first; he was an elder of their race but he was by no means the most important or the most powerful. He was merely a teacher. His wisdom was valuable, but that was not the reason he had been asked to be the first to speak with the new visitors.

It was because of Samus, who was now coming back up from Brinstar and completely unaware that her race had finally caught up with her.

Of the three visitors, one of them looked similar to Samus, or at least her race. He stood on two long legs, the body not as round at the chozo’s. He had a little hair clutching the top of his head, a fierce red. The second visitor, the one he spoke to, sat inside of a glass box filled with water; it had neither arms or legs, just fins and a tail as it glared back at the human. The third visitor couldn’t be more different. A yellow overgrown cockroach peering around the world as he waited for the argument to end.

“Ain’t gonna do owt ‘bout it now, John.” He explained. “Rexy did what she ‘ad to; we’re lucky none of the debris contacted us, and I’d rather a ship without fuel on a planet we can breathe on than a ship wi’ ‘oles innit in outer space. I’m sure the reserve tank’s still got some welley, you contact t’ main fleet; tell ‘em that we’ll be a little bit late.” The human rolled his eyes as the cockroach began to scuttle away on six spiky legs, towards the back of the ship. The water being he had referred to as Rexy let her eyes idly wander as John seethed irritably. Old Bird looked to the two chozo who were to accompany him, and he nodded. It was time to make second contact. The three moved out of the hiding spot and into view of Rexy, whose eyes widened like globes when she saw them. The human, John, followed her gaze, and he too seemed shocked.

“Boss!” He shouted. “There’s life!”

“Wot? This close to Tann’auser? You’re pulling me legs!” Came the reply, but then the cockroach slithered into view, now covered in a thick black liquid. It, too, reacted with a surprised awe at the approaching chozo. “Nah way!” He half-chuckled, before standing on his two hind legs and raising his other four. He gestured to John. “Come on, universal sign of peace.” John too raised his hands.

“Avian in nature…” Rexy said within her water tank. “- try a Glargan language, maybe?”

“Greetings. I welcome you to Crateria. My name is Old Bird.” Old Bird said, breaking the silence of the chozo.

“Or not…” The aquatic creature murmured. The cockroach looked to John.

“Your humanoid languages are better t’ mine.” The human nodded in response then turned back to Old Bird.

“Greetings.” He replied. “We come in peace. Do you?” Old Bird nodded, and John lowered his hands. “Crateria… is this what you call this moon?”

“The outer shell of it. The moon itself we call Zebes.”

“We call it Tannhäuser Four, the fourth moon away from the planet Tannhäuser.” He looked to the cockroach. “When we contact command, I’ll tell them to change the name in our databases.”

“You… you knew of our existence?” Old Bird enquired, but the human shook his head.

“No, we didn’t. We often study and name planets simply for ease of navigation. How we managed to miss you lot for so long is beyond me.” He answered simply. Then Old Bird got a nasty feeling in his gut, and his eyes began to lower to the floor.

“Are… you here for her?” He asked. He hoped that the answer was a ‘no’; he loved Samus as if she was one of his own, and he didn’t want anyone to take her away, even if in his gut he knew it was probably for the best. To his surprise and both joy and fear, the three visitors looked to each other, confused. The cockroach stepped forward.

“Who is… ‘her’?”

*

Samus Aran’s hand slipped slightly against the rock face. Moss made her armoured hand slip away as her fingertips lost their grip. She had used the armour she had landed in as protection on her many ventures into the deepest depths of Brinstar, to protect herself from both large falls and dangerous beasts. She had to resize it multiple times, but luckily a friend of Old Bird’s was a skilled smith, and both she and this smith had modified this armour to fit her thirteen year old body. What she didn’t tell Old Bird is just how many fights she had gotten into with much larger creatures; while she knew that predators needed to eat, and to let one creature die was to let another live, she was disgusted by the particularly powerful, the particular lazy and the particularly cruel. She knew them well; her visits were frequent enough to recognise certain animals, and even now the creatures began to recognise her. She could never bring herself to kill another being but the fear that she instilled was slightly satisfying as the more intelligent residents of Brinstar began to understand her as one with the landscape, a menace and a saviour. She had taken on many animals, even herbivores that were too greedy to share with others, and she was almost part of the eco-structure; the predators knew to not act out of line in the times when the golden warrior ventured into their domain, and the prey knew that her time was their own, and was a time of safety.

She clambered up with aplomb, having done this many a time; this path was almost as familiar as Old Bird to her. The light graced her helmet as her eyes caught the brightest of the light. One last motion and she could see sky. She heard footsteps approaching and unfolded her armour, letting the metal collapse into the torc she wore around her shins.

“Old Bird? Is that you?” She asked, but the silence made her pause. An ominous feeling consumed her from within her stomach outward.

“Samus…” Came Old Bird’s voice. “- this is John Ravenscar.” Not a chozo name by any stretch of the imagination, Samus thought. It sounded too much like…
… like a human name.

“Samus Aran?” Came a new voice as Samus turned to observe. Her heart pounded at the sound as her body twisted around slowly. He was human, curiously peering at her. Her stare, though, was one of fear and amazement as she walked over to him.

“… you…” She started, unable to find words. “- are really there.” The man merely nodded, then crouched to her level and extended his hand openly to her. She didn’t take it for a moment, though, looking straight into his eyes. They didn’t show any kind of threat, but she wanted to be sure. “You aren’t working for… the black monster, are you?” The human’s face, and Old Bird’s, became confused; she was yet to tell him what had happened. Little did she know that she never would get the chance.

“I… don’t think…” The human began, but he was stopped when Samus suddenly pulled him into a hug.

“I just wanted to be sure.” She answered as tears formed in her eyes. “I don’t want what brought me here to destroy my family like he did my parents.” A whisper that she hoped Old Bird wouldn’t hear, though she retrospectively suspected that he did. Her eyes closed to push away some tears… and her eyes slowly but surely drifted open to see the hospital bed.

[Rachel Ascot]

CRATERIA
Chapter 14 – Come Back Home

She turned over in her sleep. She just couldn’t shake it - the rage that boiled in her stomach. Ridley’s red gleaming eye haunting her dreams relentlessly. She tried to think of the Chozo, and thought only of ash. She tried to dream of Veronica and her other friends on earth, and thought only of painful encounters. Where she was dreamt of life, death replaced it, the red eye smiling above as she curled her fingers into her blanket, threatening to tear it in two.

Finally, she could stand it no more, and simply let her eyes drift open by their own accord. Completely black; nothing unexpected in the truly vast darkness of space. The room had no windows, just an open door to the console. She looked over to the only source of light in the whole ship; it looked very different to her own spaceship, the only similarity being the size. The room was a little rounder, the whole shape of the ship being an almond with wings. The air was cool and crisp and stroked at her blanket, until she decided that if she couldn’t get to sleep, she might as well do something productive rather than vainly lying in the hammock waiting for something to happen.

She rolled out of the cocoon-like shape that held her and landed two feet on the floor. She stood easily. She took off the large shirt she wore and changed to a clean blue shirt and put on some gym shorts, before walking into the main console room. She refused to turn the lights on, hoping to train herself for the trails to come; Brinstar was a dark place, and she needed to get used to seeing without eyes.

Bare footstep after bare footstep got her to pace the room, her eyes resting upon a small iron wall that was greened slightly by the glow of the console. Her palms pressed against the warm metal, her fingers spreading slowly but greedily, before pushing on the wall. Slowly, inexorably, the wall leant back to her touch, then the panels began to push towards her, the drawer larger than her tall body. Inside was a grand metallic suit of armour, orange like the rising sun. A smooth red chest, a helmet that seemed to be built for her head. Shoulders protected by great bulbs, scars showing where she had edited it to fit her better. A work of art, certainly by the standards of armourers.

The Varia Suit.

*

Samus’ eyelids slowly parted. Her mouth had a distinct taste in it, one of foul-tasting chemicals and unnatural freshness. Her nose took a deep breath and she smelt the cleanliness in the air, one that was manufactured. It was in this instance she saw where she was. Her eyes opening fully, she didn’t move for a second in case she wasn’t meant to, before tentatively sitting upward. The white of the hospital was now a blazing gold, reflected off the morning sun, and it instantly reminded her of The Great Palace. Her gaze moved around the room, then turned to the doctor who stood beside her. A woman in her mid-fifties, quite round and with greying hairs. She had a stern gentleness in her eyes.

“My name is Doctor Holmes. I’m sure you have a great number of questions, though you must remain calm. You’ve been comatose for two days. It looked bad, but you pulled through on the first day, which is usually the hardest day. Your injuries were severe, but you should be able to walk again a day tomorrow at latest.”

Samus barely heard this. She barely heard, saw or felt anything. All of it paled into insignificance compared to the sharp stinging in her imprinted hand and a bubbling, subdued rage.

Hugo was gone.

That was the subject at hand. It was gone, taken by Ridley. Taken for god knows what purpose… experimentation? Captivity? Worse? Her hand boiled and screamed, and she knew that Hugo was in peril, afraid and alone. She couldn’t remain calm, regardless what the doctor said.

To answer the doctor’s statement, she immediately threw her legs along the bedside, before planting them onto the ground with an unprecedented amount of strength. The doctor blinked once, then sighed.

“You’re one of those patients.” She murmured to herself more than anyone, then turned back to Samus. “Please get into your bed, Miss Aran, or I’m calling security.”

“Go ahead.” Samus growled, looking to the bedside table and picking up her clothes. They were tattered and torn from the fight but they were all she had. She gathered them swiftly and walked out of the door, the doctor’s hand outstretched but too slow to stop her.

It must have been a strange sight to see, the interruption of the grandeur that comes with the Dublin morn. Towering glass buildings allowing the sun to shimmer off them gloriously, with humans walking through the ever-changing city in the company of many exotic an alien, the sounds of cars growling in traffic and stall-owners barking praises to their own products and the conversations that make and break the private lives of every person walking the street. Not a single one of these glorious sites could draw attention quite like a young blonde Amazon limping with increasing difficulty, her blues eyes burning with a fiery rage, her torn clothes revealing a huge scar across her stomach.

Her step was uneasy, as if her health was not enough to hold her and only rage kept her up. Rage enough, it seemed, for soon she was at the Galactic Information Bureau Headquarters. She noticed no one and let no one to stop her, passing through like a wind. She went to the lift and ascended to the highest floor, then limped to the furthest room, pushing the door aside. She was now at a fine office, the architecture emphasising metallic materials and curved shapes and circles. It made Samus stop as the white shimmering light stunned her.

“The builders took heavy influence from the Granatus peoples. It’s a little out of place compared to the other offices, but I like it.” Came Adam’s voice. He was sitting at the desk, his uniform hanging across his shoulders as he looked to Samus with an expression that told her what he was thinking; he knew she was coming. He looked disappointed with, of all people, himself. Samus’ rage dulled slightly.

“I didn’t have you fooled for a second, did I?” She asked. Adam simply nodded.

“A shorter while than most, I’d wager. We were already connected before I knew you as the Hunter, Samus Aran. Now, to business.” He explained, stopping to sigh. “I know what you’re here to ask me, and you already know my answer. I understand your plight, Samus; we have had similar…” The façade of professionalism remained intact, but Samus noted a small amount of hurt in the pause. “- damages, caused by Ridley, so you know how much it hurts me to say this, but look before you leap. Our operation will stop the pirates and kill Ridley. You mentioned that you had made a promise to someone not to go back to Zebes Four; if you break that promise it will be for nothing. You are in no fit state to go anywhere anyway, so don’t convince yourself that you can and should do anything when all you must do is rest, recover and watch the news. I’m not trying to compare the damage Ridley did to me to the damage he’s done to you, but we’re already after him; there’s no need to…”

“And Hugo?”

The interruption stopped Adam in his tracks. Samus’ voice wasn’t loud but it echoed across the office like a tiny drop booming across cavern walls. She stood still as Adam sighed.

“I see.” He said. “The imprinting…”

“No.” Samus once again interrupted him. “Imprinting nothing. It’s a child; a weak innocent caught in the crossfire.”

“You’ve confused a metroid; a predatory animal as strong as a bioweapon, for a child of your own.”

“So what if it was a human child?”

“… that’s a completely different matter.”

“Tell me how!” Samus’ voice became a bark, the bite mark in her arm pulsing strongly, almost flashing, and she continued to speak, not allowing Adam to answer. “What if it was Veronica? Or me? Or simply anyone in the street outside that window? Hell, let’s expand the net to aliens, how about Perlar? I know you would, and you know that too!”

“Samus, you are not well. I want you to…”

“Adam, I’m going to Zebes Four.” She said as a matter-of-factly. “I’m not here for permission, I’m here because I want my armour back.”

Silence.

“Samus Aran… I’m sorry.” Adam said, reaching to the bottom of the desk at which he sat. He rummaged for a second, then, with great difficult even with two hands, placed a metal box on the desk. Samus already knew the contents of the box before she opened it, but she had to anyway. Scrap metal. The armour had been an old friend, one that had stayed with her throughout the years and trials and tribulations she had endured, the dying gift of her parents to her, the coating that had saved her life time and time again; scrap metal. Her eyelids became heavy as a despondency froze her for a second. Then she shook her head defiantly, then she looked to Adam with a stern power.

“Doesn’t matter.” She said. “I need to do this.”

Nothing happened. For what seemed to be years, the two just looked to each other, their respective gazes puncturing the other, looking for some sign of wavering. Outside, the Dublin life continued, traffic bustling and people rustling, going about their lives unknowing of the duel of wills and wits going on above their heads.

Samus’ expression was unreadable, floating somewhere between anger she was too tired to maintain and sorrow she was too tense to feel. Adam’s cold, calculating eyes bored into hers, trying to pinpoint something, analyse something, decide something. Life ground to a halt as time trickled away, and all Samus felt was a painful sting in her arm. A tear collected in the corner in her eye.

Finally, after an eternity, Adam stood up.

“I will discuss this no longer.” He reached into his pocket and threw a small plastic card onto the table as he walked past. “That’s the key to the vessel holding the Varia Suit. It’s fast enough to get you to Zebes Four in five days. I want that still on the table when I get back, Miss Aran.” He stopped at the door; his expression still looked as stern as always. “I’m not letting you go to Zebes Four and that’s final.” Samus smiled back.

“You bastard.” She joked, and Adam cracked a smirk.

“Procedure procedure.” He murmured as he left the room. Samus’ smile disappeared quickly as pain rattled at her; her hand was consumed by agony, and she caught a flash of Hugo, in a glass jar in the dark, alone and whimpering, but when she got her balance back she allowed a toothy grin to reach from ear to ear as she held the card in her hand.

“I hope you can hear this, Ridley…” She whispered. “- because I’m coming!”

*

Five days ago. Five days of nothing but bouncing a ball off a wall, repose, and looking over the armour. She pushed the drawer back to look to the one below, retrieving the white stick, which looked much like a toothpaste tube, before drawing back the armour.

Luckily she and Adam were a fairly similar height and build, so the only tasks were making the legs and hips larger and the stomach smaller. The shoulder bulbs irritated her more than anything; they were quite clumsy, she thought, until she curled into a ball like the Chozo had taught her. Then she knew it; the bulbs had to stay. They curled around her and made her truly spherical, making rolling far easier and faster, and they also contained many smaller containers that made storing the MDEDs far more efficient. However, the fact that it was folded metal made the work far more delicate; a single chink would cause the thing to collapse. It was, after all, a prototype, while her now wrecked Power Suit was a finished product.

The end of the white stick glowed a fierce blue, and Samus placed it against the armour, illuminating the folds in the metal that otherwise looked like one solid piece. She checked each segment individually, each approximately the size of a five-pence piece. The scanning was relentless, but finally she was sure that everything was in order.

“Approaching Zebes Four, smallest moon of Planet Zebes. Entering atmosphere at eight-eight-nine seconds. Speed change to five-two-point-six-five kilometres per hour. Entering troposphere at eight-nine-one seconds. Speed change to point-two-oh-seven kilometres per hour. Contact with moon’s crust at nine-oh-four seconds.” Came the familiar tone that had started her adventure. Samus’ eyes widened by a fraction of a fraction of a millimetre, but it was enough a change to give her a look of energy. She pushed a small button on the side of the left shin, watching as the Varia suit very quickly folded itself into a small torc to go around her leg. She put it on but didn’t unfold the armour immediately, instead choosing to indulge in one last glass of red wine. She poured a glass from the bottle and sat on the drawer, nursing the drink in her hand and allowing thought to rule her mind.
She hadn’t lied to Adam. She was here to get Hugo back. Hugo was alone and scared, and the constant pain in Samus’ arm had only gotten worse over time. Maybe Adam was right and this was simply Hugo unwittingly manipulating her, maybe it was simply her own mind making up excuses to exact revenge on Ridley and Kraid and this mastermind ‘Mother Brain’, or maybe she was just letting fever and sickness control her. It didn’t matter to her. What mattered was that she was here.

The question of why buzzed in her head but even as she prepared to set foot onto Zebes Four once again, she still didn’t have an answer much longer than the one she had given Adam. The questions she was preparing for were ones from Old Bird if she saw him again. Twice she had broken her promises to the Chozo not to return, and she knew that she couldn’t face Old Bird without something to say.

No, she said to herself. This is no time for uncertainty. Old Bird is not important right now. Concentrate on the business of your mission. Taking a sip from her wine, Samus arose, walking to the console, the lights all shrouded by a browned piece of paper she had brought along. A map of Zebes Four, drawn to the best of her knowledge.

It had been drawn when she was a child, so obviously details of pirates were not present. Norfair was vague with details, the Chozo equivalent of a question mark scattered across the lower portions, showing the guesswork that Samus had placed as a child. She knew Brinstar well, though; it was above and beyond the darkest parts of Zebes Four, and Samus noted the irony of this being the place she knew the most of. The upper parts of Brinstar were a labyrinth of rock, moss and grass, but the deeper into the caves you went, the warmer it was. The lower parts of Brinstar were, curiously for winged and feathered creatures, the places many Chozo chose to live, with lift shafts having been built to reach Crateria, the other habitat for the Chozo, including Old Bird and, by extension, Samus, though she had visited Brinstar enough to know it inside and out. She knew that, to avoid suspicion, the pirates would avoid the surface where they could be seen and scanned for; this combined with the fact that the Chozo had built there, made her immediately know that, if there was a heart of the operation, it would be in Brinstar. The warm climate allowed the melting of ice and, therefore, the creation of rivers and the growth of tropical plants and animals, most of which were luminous; ideal conditions for a metroid, giving more credence to the theory.

But something niggled in the back of Samus’ mind as she looked over the map. The Clan. The Fladres were winged creatures who’d despise the enclosed labyrinths of rock that populated Brinstar. The heat of Norfair might send anyone insane; rivers of molten magma flowed throughout it, creating temperatures that would rival many stars, but Samus knew that this would be where Ridley was thanks to the open caverns and lakes of liquid death only traversable by air. Plus, the Chozo had on occasion built there, mostly mines and rigs for various materials; this gave the extra benefit of making an impregnable fortress, super-strong structures that had, as its greatest defence, lava, and it was easily adaptable for the sciences of animal breeding that the pirates seemed so eager to exploit. The military operation that Adam Malkovich would be heading might break the pirates on Crateria in less than a day of intense bombing, the Brinstar fortress less than two weeks thanks to the information provided by Perlar, maybe months otherwise, but Norfair? Ridley could simply sit tight and hold out for decades, elongating a guerrilla war and giving the pirates the time to continue the breeding of metroids long after the attack.
Samus now realised that she was probably the best hope of breaking the operation Adam had, if only with sabotage and assassination. Then something tingled in Samus’ back as she eyed a small cavern in Brinstar, literally under the surface of Crateria, and she gulped in trepidation. She had forgotten about Tourian; the Chozo word for Grand Shaft.

It was a fairly unassuming place, the cavern having no real noteworthy features besides The Shaft, but Samus had heard many legends of The Grand Shaft, and she knew what it was. A very sudden drop; it was meant to be extended into a lift shaft to Norfair, but somehow it was made to go even deeper, deeper and deeper in a very thin and very long stretch that flirted with the planet’s inner core. An ideal place to hold out too. But this was only speculation. Samus reminded herself to venture into this place, but only after she was sure that Brinstar and Norfair were cleared and any missing details plagued her. Finally, her eyes passed over a tiny detail. At an unseen corner of the map; a small picture, childish in quality and craftsmanship, but nonetheless struck Samus like a punch in the gut. It was a drawing she had done, years ago, of her and Old Bird together. It was faded with age, little more than stick figures, but Samus shed a tear at the sight. Her heart sank slightly, remembering the bitter loss she felt. Still, a smile cracked across her face as her mind drifted to her life on Zebes Four; Crateria and Brinstar her homes, the Chozo her peers.

BELL LEEP LEEP!
BELL LEEP LEEP!

A rumble as the ship landed onto the crust of Zebes. Samus anticipated the thump that would send her balance screaming, so she sat down on the drawer, downing the red wine in one gulp before it had chance to spill out of the glass. She pulled the map away from the console and stuffed it into a container on her shoulder bulb. This new ship didn’t have a drill on board, so she made sure to land exactly where she had landed first time around.

The ship’s door opened behind her, light spilling into the room. Samus walked out into the Crateria sun. The expanse was huge and unforgiving, but it seemed so familiar to Samus that even as the rain rumbled against her body it felt liberating. She still only wore gym shorts and a shirt that left a portion of her belly exposed, so plenty of her skin was refreshed by the cooling rain, before she pressed the torc on her shin. The armour began to unfold as she walked. It was her first time trying it on in its finished state, but she knew that it was a lot quicker in unfolding than her Power Suit. She came to a hole about the size of a small man; the hole she had originally created here. By it was a puddle in which she inspected herself.

The armour was a little more streamlined, the armour following the curves of her body a lot more closely, in particular the hips and legs. It gave her armour more flexibility, but she would’ve preferred a bit more room for the armour to crumple and soften force. While the red of the helmet and the now much smoother chest was retained, the gold and yellow portions of her armour were replaced with orange for the shoulders and legs, and her abdomen and hips a beige-like tone. The view, however, gave her confidence. It gave the air of absolute strength and an ability to conquer all challenges. She looked back to the hole. Her shoulders were now too big to fit through, so she would have to form the Morph Ball, her form when curled up. She slowly curled, grabbing her shins and pulling her body towards them, before slowly rocking herself towards the blackness, then, once again, dropping into the abyss, one last thought rushing through her mind before she braced for impact.

Hugo. Don’t worry. I’m coming for you. I promise.

[Rachel Ascot]

BRINSTAR
Chapter 15 – “… my regards to a ruined evening.”

Life had gotten pretty good for Skadril and Gre over the past few weeks.

“What, the bounty hunter? Nah, if we could deal with her, the Clan shouldn’t have too many issues.”

Once they had evaluated the security footage, they noticed that their encounter with Samus was concealed quite heavily. The audio was vague and choppy, and the encounter itself was off-screen, so Skadril and Gre saw the chance to add a few details to their story. A very close struggle, the two had managed to bravely fight off ‘The Hunter’ and, while the blast would’ve killed any other draconian, Gre managed to pull through by sheer willpower. Unlucky she got away, though they had looked beaten up. Your efforts will not go unrewarded, their superiors had said. A huge wage rise, soon followed by an offer for a minor promotion, which they gracefully turned down, knowing that a promotion would just make more work for themselves, and they could probably milk a bigger one out of the higher powers in time.

For such an opportunistic and improvisational gamble, they were methodical in their planning. Before they reported the incident, they spent a few minutes bashing their heads against various rocks to give plausibility to the story, and now they were heroes of Brinstar, and especially, to their delight, the women from the lower sections of Brinstar, who often brought them alcohol, expensive gifts and flirtatious offerings of ‘fun times’. Gre smirked to Skadril as he answered the question his female companion had asked him, her arms wrapped around him. He looked to his own companion.

“Here, Jena, be a darling and get a Styck for me.” The female giggled slightly at the thought; a hero of Brinstar, referring to her by name. She looked to the table and found a blue stick, much like a cigar, and bit onto one end of it, guiding it to Gre’s own mouth. He smirked lecherously as he bit onto the Styck, his eyes lighting slightly.

WHUMP!

Gre’s mouth drooped open, letting the Styck drop away. Fear clawed at his heart. His gaze shot to Skadril who smirked back.

“That make you jump?” He asked humourously. The two females laughed, but in Skadril’s eyes Gre saw only terror. Gre joined in the laughter, though his was uneasy and unreal.

“Do you want to… check it?” He nearly whispered the final words. He then decided to pass it off as a dismissal to his own question. “I mean, we don’t want to leave you two lovely ladies alone, do we?”

“Probably just a rock.” Skadril agreed, nodding furiously.

“I think it just moved.” Came the voice that made the two guards wince. The female draconians peered at the screen in awe more than terror. “You should go check it out.”

“I don’t think it moved! Did you see it move, Gre?”

“Nope! Just a rock dropping! It happens all the time down here!”

“No, no, it did!” Came Jena’s voice. The two females both turned to Skadril and Gre and smiled. “We’ll come with you…” One rubbed Skadril’s chest sensually, but all he was capable of feeling was terror. He and Gre looked to each other, and finally, inexorably, walked out of the dark booth they occupied, the females walking behind them in awe.

Gre nearly fainted when he saw The Hunter again. There were a few small differences, but it was impossible not to see that it was her, back again to wreak havoc. Skadril reached to the gun that sat on his belt and rose it tentatively.

“S-s-s-stop…”

The Hunter didn’t turn immediately. The green glow of the visor shone in the opposite direction, then calmly turned its gaze onto the four. It burned Gre and Skadril it seemed so fiery and venomous.

“… or I’ll…” Skadril spluttered out as The Hunter began to walk over. Without hesitation, she planted a foot into Skadril’s knee, forcing him to drop towards her, allowing her to grab his gun and pin his arm. Gre just stood there, watching in terrified awe.

“Come on, you’ve beaten her once.” Came Jena’s voice. To Gre, it sounded like a death sentence. He edged forward as the Hunter looked to him with an unwavering glare.

“Patrol routes and outposts. I want a full map with all of them noted.” The Hunter said, a mechanical growl, obviously caused by two small filters at the base of her helmet, black tubing flirting with her chin. Gre tried to be calm and rational, but instead panicked.

“I-I-I… I don’t…” He murmured. Skadril groaned.

“Third drawer down, black data disc… hurry…” Gre nodded and immediately complied. Then Jena opened her mouth.

“You’re in for it now!” She shouted to the Hunter. “Recognise these two? These are the guys who left you with a broken arm!”

“Jena, now’s not the time…” Skadril whispered. The helmet remained completely blank as the other female spoke up.

“Gre’s getting the biggest gun he can find, not that he needs it!” She proudly cheered, looking back as Gre shuffled back into The Hunter’s view. The draconians pushed Gre forward eagerly. “Kill her this time!”

It was like life itself had gone into rigor mortis; the air was as still as everyone, expectant of something tremendous. Sheepishly, Gre handed over a small black disc, the size of a thumbnail. The Hunter took it with eager impatience and simply threw Skadril into Gre. The two pathetically collapsed on the floor. The Hunter was still inspecting Skadril’s weapon in her hand, before clenching her fist and breaking it in one motion. Skadril whimpered at the sight.

“Your choice is better than whatever story you made up. Keep it up, and don’t follow me…” Came the mechanical growl. “- and my regards to a ruined evening.” She added, before turning on her heel and leaving the stunned draconians in her wake.

*

The five days of therapeutically massaging the oil into Ridley’s skin had already done its work. He was fit as a fiddle, sauntering into Brinstar with Hugo in hand. The creature was a little more tired than it was when they had initially left Earth. Every hour of every day, the metroid hatchling had rattled against its cage in a furious anger, or terror, or simply a will to be with its ‘mother’. It was difficult for Ridley, a being without any real empathy, to tell. If he was disinterested in the emotional state of Hugo, then Mother Brain may as well have not even known what feelings were in the first place.

The meeting between the three leaders was very quick, formal and efficient, which immediately told Ridley that something was wrong. Kraid was the kind to demand to put him in his place; his silence may as well have been a fixed toothy grin. It had begun as normal; Mother Brain wasn’t there immediately, but Ridley and Kraid watched the brain ascend from a huge hole in the centre of the ice-cold room, jar stained from condensation.

“Status, Ridley.”

“Ma’am, the mission achieved priority one; the safe retrieval of the metroid hatchling.”

“Clan numbers?” Came another inquiry from Mother Brain. It was less she cared; she just liked to know exact numbers.

“Four Fladres, included myself, and twenty two draconians.” Kraid smiled behind him, but said nothing. Ridley was unnerved when Mother Brain said nothing for a few seconds. Her questions were usually rapid-fire, but now she was silent. She was thinking. A portent of bad news for Ridley.

“Is there any anomaly I should be noted of?” Came Mother’s Brain monotone drone again, as if nothing had happened.

“The metroid has imprinted.” Ridley said.

Mother Brain didn’t react for a second. Kraid did, his smile becoming a toothy grin as he walked closer. Ridley looked back to him. “What are you smiling at?” He whispered to him.

“You wait and see.” Kraid replied.

“The imprinted metroid will go into experimentation…” Mother Brain began. Ridley smiled almost to the same extent as Kraid. Whatever Kraid seemed to think he’d benefit from, he’d take the metroid into Brinstar, the climate they preferred, and Samus would follow him and kill him.

“… in the laboratories of Norfair.”

Ridley’s brain stopped. It was like he had been winded with a punch to the gut.

“What?” He began. “But surely Brinstar would be a better place to…”

“Contain it? Certainly.” Mother Brain explained. “The creature’s purpose is not; containment. The creatures purpose is; research. The combined resources of Norfair and Tourian suit this experimentation at plus five oh per cent sufficiency.” Ridley’s eye bugged out. “Depart to your posts.” Ridley didn’t hear the last part, opting to march angrily out of Tourian’s entrance on his own accord and back into the rock column of Brinstar. His rage surged through his body, barely contained.

“See, Ridley…” Came a voice. Ridley whirled around; Kraid smiled nastily as he casually followed him. “- I knew that you had a plan to kill me and Mother Brain. After all, what was but one metroid hatchling? No, you wanted to use it as bait, and bring your little friend The Hunter back to do what you can’t. You thought that it’d be placed straight into my lap, and she’d attack me before she attacks you.” Ridley sneered.

“Because you haven’t pulled the betrayal stunt before? What’s your point?”

“The thing is, an imprinted metroid is a lot more powerful than one that isn’t imprinted, and they don’t seem to imprint draconians. Your friend? She was imprinted, for whatever reason. So Mother Brain gets it in her head that any imprinted metroids we find, we clone. Why do you think we’ve been looking for whole new eggs and already born larvae rather than just breeding our own? So now, The Hunter’s coming for you before she comes for me!”

“Idiot!” Ridley barked, poking Kraid in the stomach, sending the brown body tumbling over. Kraid didn’t seem bothered, however. “She has to get through Brinstar to get to Norfair! And, by extension, she has to get through you!”

“Oh, but that’s the beauty! You don’t go to Brinstar that often, do you? I know the only reason you haven’t tried to kill us yourself is that Brinstar’s a maze; hell, you can’t fit in most of the places we go through! You seriously think I’d plant myself in a nice comfortable room directly above Norfair’s entrance, offering myself on a plate for you to strangle? If she really wants to, The Hunter will simply pass me by! But, seeing as I don’t have the metroid, you’re the one she’ll go for first!”

“She has to go for you eventually, if she wants to get to Tourian. If just one of us is alive, no one gets in. We both die; it opens up for Mother Brain to escape. All you’ve done is…”

“- given you far less time to work out how you’re going to fake your own death and trick the system.” Kraid finished Ridley. “And me? Far more time. I’ve pulled this stunt before, like you’ve said. I’ve had my own plans, and I think I’ve worked out my own system.” Ridley ground his teeth.

“Well, then, I guess we’re both going to survive, and I will not hesitate to finish the job Samus starts when she gets here!”

“Ah, yes, ‘when’.” Kraid smiled as he watched Ridley’s reaction, his long snout curling in a scowl that stretched from eyeball to eye socket. Then Kraid stopped smiling as a clawed hand rushed through his blue head; shards of metal spun away and wires fizzled from the neck, disconnected from their brethren in the head. The body stood still for a second or two, then it slowly crossed its arms, the S.M.L.O.H logo on the inner wall of the metal gleaming brightly. “Temper, Ridley.” Came Kraid’s voice, though distorted as if he were talking through a broken radio as Ridley walked past to the head of ‘Kraid’, sitting with a smile frozen to it. “You see, it was such a good idea, your plan, I decided to not tell anyone that your friend was here; gives you less time, and gives her the strength to kill Mother Brain. No need to panic anyone, am I right?” Ridley began to squash the metal head in his hands.

“You… you…” He spat, then a glint in Kraid’s eye caught his own. He pulled the beady camera out of the socket as he began to smile slightly, his brain working out the details of a plan that begun to formulate in his head. “You know what? I’ll call you on that system of yours.” Kraid’s laugh echoed through the dying microphone, but now it was sweet music to Ridley’s ears; he really didn’t think Ridley had a clue.

“You can’t hope to survive this, Ridley!” Kraid shouted with glee in his voice, though it had already faded to a whisper. “There’s nothing you can do…” And the voice died with a crackle.

“Nothing I can do…” Ridley repeated, a wide grin reaching for his ears as he crushed the camera with one motion of his thumb. “- but like Samus, you’ve already done the work for me.”

*

Samus looked down the deep and dark chasm that lay at her feet, daring her to come down. Her visor flashed once as the night vision activated. The pit was a huge maw into hell, black as night, though occasional spires peeped their tips towards her. However, it was a large hole, so Samus evaluated the risk of jumping down. The distance wasn’t what frightened her. Her drop to Crateria had been in a tiny ball and she was more than fine; it was the stalagmites that worried her. The speed she would drop at would be unbelievable, and fatal if she collided with anything. No, it would have to be a slower process.

She sat on the edge of the drop and lowered her feet down, finding a good spot to clasp onto. Then, moving slowly, she slid the rest of her body down, moving her toes very quickly. The problem with climbing downwards is one of finding one’s footholds; the essential point to grip onto. Dropping down is almost always the better option, but the pit was sheer at this point; a right angle to the ground. The map she had received also revealed the unnerving truth that, while this was the main shaft to the lowest sections of Brinstar, it was heavily guarded at the bottom. It might have been the fastest way to Norfair, Samus’ chosen destination, but she valued subtlety over speed today. The previous time she came, not so much.

However, somewhere on this shaft she knew there was a chokepoint the pirates had failed to notice, a tiny tunnel she remembered crawling through a few times. It would lead to the largest of Brinstar’s lakes, and she could swim to the waterfall that would drop her near a small pirate outpost, probably barely armed considering how far away it was from the rest of the pirate operations, and near that Norfair’s entrance. It would take a bit longer than a day over all, but right now she…

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Samus clutched her left hand in pain. Hugo’s scream had only sounded in her head but it sounded as if he were right next to her. The agony burned her hand, then her eyes began to blur as her head started to ring.

A crumble! A creak! The rock under her feet fell away and she began to fall. A stalagmite rushed towards her, its sandy spearhead sharper than any sword. She threw her weight to the side as much as she could, trying to avoid the spike. She dodged the tip but the slant of the rock itself smashed into her, punishing the right side of her ribcage. Samus looked down. She couldn’t see anything as she sped up. Ten feet in a second. Twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundred.

Rocks rushed past her, all threatening her as she flung herself towards the edge of the pit. The tunnel began to slant. She was able to slide, but it did little to slow her down. She was at a mile a minute and wasn’t slowing down. She flung herself from side to side in a desperate attempt to avoid the stony claws that came one by one and two by two to destroy her. The noise of the wind’s whoosh as it punctured her eardrums was unbearable, then the pain of Hugo again. She could barely control herself, trying desperately to swing away from the rocks but slowly losing consciousness. Too fast to try to grip, but there was no other choice…

… Unless…

Samus pulled the trigger of her arm cannon and begun to create a wall ahead of her. It was tiny, only just freezing enough to hit her.

SMACK!

Pain and cold rattled through Samus’ body, like she had been hit by a truck. However, it had worked a little. Her body had slowed slightly. She created another wall.

SMACK!

She felt dazed, but she knew that she was slowing. Another wall of ice.

SMACK! Another. BUMPH! She didn’t break through immediately, though the ice cracked away and let her slip. However, the incline was getting steeper and she could feel herself speeding again. Her arm cannon was guided, the ice wall trying to encompass as much of the pit as she could manage. She hit it and it stopped her.

Crackle crack snap.

Samus was forced to stand by the steepness of the incline, and her head spun from dizziness and pain, but she refused to move. The ice cracked more and more. Samus shook her head vigorously. Pain shot her head, but she momentarily gained her senses.

In front of her! A stalagmite! She had to time this perfectly. One wrong step and she would drop all over again.

And now! She leapt as the ice fell away, and she wrapped her arms around the stalagmite. It was quite thick, so she gave herself about ten minutes to calm her brain and slow her senses. When she felt ready, she began her descent once more.
It took her two hours after this to get to the tunnel she wanted to get into. When she saw it, a small hole just big enough for a man to crawl through, Samus almost cheered for joy. She easily leapt to the hole and got into the dark hole. Then she curled her body into the Morph Ball and rolled forward. It was a maze. She took a left and a right and another right, but it became second nature. Her body did the work as she rolled her way through, the Varia Suit making her a perfect circle. The pain in her hand persisted, but she decided to ignore it for the time being. Hugo being in pain was not something she could do anything about now; all she could do is get to her destination.

Then, finally, she smelt water. Then came the dampness of the rocks around her. Then came the sound of spilling water. Her eyes peeked out of the ball, her visor pointing her gaze to the tiny wall of water ahead. It was a waterfall about the size of the tunnel, itself claustrophobically small, but Samus smiled. She was close to the lake. Her gut told her to rush forward and she complied, allowing the current to suck her in and push her to the sapphire coloured hole ahead. Then she noticed how fast she was going, but couldn’t slow. All she could do was go with the flow as the hole approached and finally came…

… and before her lay beauty itself.

Her night vision blinded her for a short second as she got out of the black tunnel, so she turned it off and saw why there was so much light. The moss around the cave walls had illuminated the walls with an amalgam of yellows, blues, greens and pinks. The wet rocks reflected the lights and brought rays of light upon the blue lake waters. However, it was the magnitude that struck Samus. Cavernous was the most appropriate word for it, a great smooth dome encompassing all. Small flying creatures, some insect-like and some avian, fluttered around the vast cave with no hindrance.

Samus fell for almost a minute before the water contacted her, and she plummeted through, nothing interrupting her drop into the freezing cold abyss of water. Finally, she saw some life. She recognised the oum, the snail-like shells protecting the green shrimps from danger, and the predatory spike-shaped skultera, and the endless stare of the molluscs called evir. She recognised all of these as she would good friends. Her eyes scanned the bottomless lake, her helmet containing oxygen for breath as she continued to sink at a slowing pace. She bit her lip in anticipation. Her armour was heavy; maybe too heavy to swim with?

The sinking continued as Samus began to breaststroke in the opposite direction of her fall. The life gathered around her curiously, observed her momentarily, then decided that she was neither food nor threat, and went their own way as she went hers, her tiring eyes kept awake by the cold. Her eyes then caught a fleeting glimpse of a huge shadow passing under her.

Her brow raised. She couldn’t remember anything of that magnitude living here in her childhood. Curious, she pulled herself down to investigate. Then the shadow came again. It didn’t look like a creature; its movement pattern was too straight, too co-ordinated. She finally came to the source of the shadow, and saw a great glass pipe. Her eyes widened. A transport system! Of course the pirates would know this lake existed, but now what could she do? This was essentially a warning. The pirates at the outpost she intended to reach might not be so poorly equipped if they required constant transport.

Then she heard the humming of the next transport. It was quiet, but loud enough for her to hear. Her mind screamed at her. Damn it! They could see me, and in an orange suit of armour I’m not exactly low-key!

Samus immediately shot upwards, but her ascent was slow. The armour, it was weighing her down, and suddenly, she noticed the shadow beneath crawl to a halt. A yellow light switched on, and her heart leapt to her throat. The worst luck! They must have seen the bubbles left as she had shot away, but the searchlight was slow. The crew wasn’t sure if it had seen anything or not.

She had to get away, but her speed was too slow and her amour too colourful. The searchlight came closer to her as she saw the light of the water’s surface. Her helmet crashed through and disturbed the surface, but she wasn’t out of danger yet, she knew. Taking a gamble, she curled into a ball. The light shone on her, and she hoped they would mistake her for a mollusc. The light rained on her for a second, then moved on by. The light kept searching for a minute, confirmed to Samus that they didn’t notice her. She moved quickly and smoothly, making as little disturbance in the water as possible, and saw the faint glimmer of the shadow pass her by. The current once again gripped her and moved her towards white surf, and Samus smiled as she felt the waterfall gently consume her and guide her. This drop was nothing compared to the one before, and landed her in a very warm pool of water.

She saw why it wasn’t overfilling. A large hole in the bottom sucked the water in, but was luckily too small to drag her. She swam strongly now, seeing the once blue and grey rocks turn to green as evidence of grass growing revealed itself to her, then she saw the small river end in front of her. A tiny cave within a tiny cave, plants of various sizes gathering over her. Samus stood in the now shallow river.

She suddenly felt a great exhaustion pass over her. She had travelled for five hours straight with no food or rest. She pulled herself onto the small shore and unfolded her armour. Her body was sticky from sweat and was glad to feel grass under it. She was shaking from the cold of earlier sections from Brinstar but already felt herself warm up.
Unable to resist, she simply curled up in a dark corner and her eyes shut.

[Rachel Ascot]

BRINSTAR
Chapter 16 – A Bridge Too Far

“N-n-n-no.” She murmured, then she looked back up. The night sky was filled with a singular, ginormous egg, rushing towards her. She peered at it curiously; it was freckled, it looked ill and pathetic. She leapt back in horror, her child legs scrambling for purchase as she fell. She hit a hard obelisk in the shape of a feather, which she looked up to. The rock held the egg in place for a second, but then began to shake and crack, unable to support the weight, and fell apart before her eyes. Samus screamed at the development, her sapphire eyes weeping in fear as the great weight slammed into her…

*

Samus threw herself up in horror at the nightmare. She felt the weight hit her; it was too real for her to comprehend. She calmed down quickly, however. Dreams couldn’t not hurt her, after all. She had been asleep for what she estimated to be a few hours. The smell was the first thing to hit her. It was a sticky smell, one of a tropic environment, and her eyes caught a glimpse of the deep blues and greens that surrounded her. The place was dark but she could see the abundant plants clearly, grass caressing her skin and huge leaves coyly dangling above her head. Flowers glowed their luminous light across the world, showing that she was in a secluded cove, the lagoon that led her here to her right, a waterfall dripping water next to her. It was a slice of paradise, but it only served to make Samus miserable. This was not the only place of its kind, but the pirates had sullied it with their foul repute; Samus would think of Zebes Four only as a station for pirates for many years after this.

However, she didn’t dwell on it. She had to make the best of this. She quickly observed the lagoon. It was a very warm river, shallow enough to stand in but deep enough to swim and well-populated. She heard a waterfall, and saw an ankle deep pool some half a kilometre away where it was. She took her clothes off but kept her torc holding the Varia Suit on her shin and got into the water, swimming to the waterfall. The water flowed around her skin and the motion of swimming freed up her joints, but the closer she got to the waterfall, the colder it got. Less fish swam here, so Samus made a note to get one on the way back. The waterfall itself was freezing, but it woke Samus up as she quickly showered in it. She decided to walk back, wanting to not undo the refreshing cool of the shower, and it gave her the element of surprise over the fish. She waited until she could see one large enough to eat. There! A small silver shape passing through the water. Her hand was quick, and it was in her hands in a flash, struggling in her grip. She smacked its head against a rock face, knocking it unconscious, before walking back to her sleeping place. Putting her clothes back on, she unfolded her armour and retrieved the arm cannon. With stun and ice off, the fish was quickly fried and available for eating. She ate it quickly, calming her rumbling stomach, then she walked on, her mind spinning with theories on how to go about the day’s business.

The dark tropical greenery continued for most of the past. Grass and the roots of many plants coiled around and attempted to trap Samus’ feet. Animals of many colours, designs and sizes, began to emerge, though only if one was to glare into the darkness for them. Samus’ arm felt numb; Hugo wasn’t well, but at least there was no immediate danger to it. The Hunter moved with ease through the growth, her helm’s night vision extending her sight. She caught odd glimpse of a baseball sized flying insect humming towards and past her. Then another. Another. Another. Samus stopped in her tracks. A spawn of bugs, rushing by in fear. Something was coming. She immediately curled into the Morph Ball and fled into a small corner of plants a similar colour to her armour, then stopped. She looked to the source of the disturbance. The sight was quite unnerving; a husk of some odd two legged creature almost the size of Samus, but it was the dead brownness that startled Samus; it could only mean one thing.

“sssssssSSSSSCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

It became more of a growl than the usual screech she had heard from Hugo or the first metroid, but Samus knew only to watch overhead as the great hovering beast silently passed over her, even bigger than the first, the green skin and red nuclei ominously pulsing. Then her heart leapt to her throat as she remembered something Stantoronski had said in his lifetime.

“Uses electro-magnetic poolses to see; many feesh do zis.”

Sweat began to coat her brow as the metroid stopped in its tracks above her head. The disguising flowers would do nothing to shroud the metroid’s ability to see her. She began to uncurl, aiming her gun upwards.

“Hey big boy.” She whispered. The beast didn’t react, still hovering, deciding whether Samus was worth the trouble of attacking. Her voice remained calming and soothing. “I bet you’ve killed a lot of pirates in your time, even more animals.” The metroid edged closer as Samus began to step backwards. “Only, somehow, those draconians have restrained you. They’ve beaten you.”

“hurrRRRRRGGGGGGG….”

“Yes, yes, very impressive.” Samus remained calm in her voice though she felt like quaking in fear. She looked to her left, then the right. Her eye’s corner caught a fleeting glimpse of a wire fence, and a plan racked in her mind. She remembered where she was, and she looked back to the metroid. “But I’ve done one better. I’ve killed one of your kind.” Her voice became taunting as she smiled nastily under the scarlet helm. “I’ve been imprinted too. And I know your weakness. I have it in hand.” She raised the arm cannon towards the metroid, and she gripped onto the trigger. “Come get me, big boy.” Then she fired one burst. It was enough to cause the metroid to panic, its underbelly taking much of the painful force. It backed away, screeching and screaming, then got angry. It saw Samus running away, and snarled indignantly. Food was meant to die. It didn’t fight back. With a determined growl, the metroid forced itself forward with a newfound rage and vigour.

Samus bolted towards her destination. She kept her head forward. She didn’t want to know where the metroid was. To look was to slow and to slow was to die. Her feet took her faster and faster through the canopy of the Brinstar forest, but she knew she only had to do two things; find the pirate outpost and, somehow, entice the metroid into it, dealing for her both the problem of a hungry metroid and a lot of pirates. She kept her pace, the blackened trees guiding her and hopefully slowing the metroid…

“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

“Shite!” Samus barked in fear as she realised just how fast the metroid was. Less on her tail, more about to crush her back, Samus even began to feel hot breath caress her armour. In an instant, she leapt to the floor, allowing the metroid to clumsily pass over her head. Within the moment, she turned to her left, fleeing as the metroid turned in its tracks, a lot faster than she hoped. However, the trees began to thin. The plants became fewer in number and the world got darker. Samus smiled. Area cleared for the pirate outpost. She slammed through the last batch of leaves…

… and nearly fell off the cliff.

Her eyes scanned the bottomless chasm before her. Her toes hung off the edge, her heels entertaining the idea of throwing her away. She looked from left to right. A tiny bridge sat by her, thin as a cocktail stick. She edged over to it carefully. Her foot touched the stone, only for the space to crack and break away. It was held up solely on a prayer.

“UUUURRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!”

“It’ll have to do!” Samus shouted, before running along it. As she put a foot down it began to fall immediately, only to be lifted by the next. Footstep after footstep, faster and lighter than she could dare. The metroid was only just behind her, and the darkness seemed unending. Then, a blink of light. A metal glint. An open door! Samus pushed forward harder. It was hope. Then, to her delight, draconians began to curiously emerge. A grin broke onto her face as she waited for the last second. The draconians got out their weapons. The metroid hummed closer…

… and Samus stopped in her tracks.

She dropped like a stone, but the metroid didn’t. It passed harmlessly by, towards its frightened looking captors. Samus extended one hand to the stone wall and grasped at a protruding rock. She swung in the air and was crushed against the rock face, but she had stopped falling. Her feet touched the rock face delicately, looking for a crack or two, before planting them where they’d fit. She slowly began the climb up the cliff to the door, making sure that the metroid wasn’t looking for her. The screeches from above were loud and assorted, though they got quieter as she ascended. Suddenly, something whooshed by her head. She turned to look what had dropped. Three bodies in quick succession. Draconians. Samus paused to breathe, then continued. When she reached the platform holding the door, it was silence that accompanied her. She didn’t hesitate to move through the door, walking into a glare of light and pain. Her night vision shimmered off as she grunted, and she saw the outpost’s interior, now a shamble, as if a tank had rolled through it. Battered metal and crushed glass and draconian blood scattered across the floor. Samus kept a stern expression and feeling in her heart; she knew she should feel either sadistic glee at the demise of the horrific pirates who had killed and tortured countless peoples or pity at the more undeserving of their number, the ones hired by fear and brute force, but the mixture of the two truths dulled her reaction. There was evil in some hearts. There was simple fear. Samus could do nothing. The metroid had done its work quickly but by no means efficiently. The first body she saw, a grey draconian, had been clumsily bashed apart, left to be devoured when the metroid was sure nothing could stop it. The sight made her quite sick. Another, two reds, had their guns pointed outwards, but they were dead too. The bodies were few but bloody and messy.

It was then that Samus felt the pain in her arm shoot up once again, blinding her senses. She seethed in a horrible agony as her hand pulsed with fire. She dropped to her knees, clutching her hand, and heard the sound of screaming. Hugo’s screaming. She knew that if she lingered in full view, she would be found. Her body dragged itself to a nearby door, and her hand shakily caught the knob. Her hand crushed down and pulled the door too. A cupboard. Samus wearily crawled in, her eyes beginning to close as she jammed the door shut with her foot. She then laid down, her vision blurring from the tears. Then, she saw it. The Chozo Statue. Sitting, taunting her as she bit her lip. Taking its contents would be invaluable, but it was mean speaking to Old Bird, and she honestly couldn’t decide if she was ready or not.

No! No indecision! She thought to herself, but her hand refused to listen to her mind. She was the last of the chozo; this was the second time she had broken Old Bird’s promise, and for what? Old Bird was right; this wasn’t the Zebes she knew and loved; nothing was here for her other than pain and revenge. She didn’t want to fail him. Her hand uncurled itself, her fingers splayed to touch the ball it held, but it refused to move forward. A tear formed in her eye, then another pain in her left hand.

Hugo. I’m here for Hugo! Not revenge. Hugo. I can’t let it die. A newfound determination in her heart, she planted her hand on the orb in the Chozo’s grip, then fell forward again from the pain. The bulb in the statue’s hand flickered and groaned as it split, and revealed a small box, clips on either side, with a great protruding barrel extending out of it. And then Old Bird flickered into existence.

“This Grapple Hook, one hook and wire included, has a range of up to one hundred Galactic standard yards, and is…”

“Just…” Samus interrupted the broadcasted image, moaning in pain. “… tell me how it works.”

“Samus?” Old Bird said in horror, a horror that caused physical pain to Samus. “You promised you wouldn’t come here again!”

“Change of plans.” She managed to groan. “… grapple hook… I need to know…”

“You can attach it to your arm cannon but…” Before he could continue, she pulled the box in a weak grip and, trembling, she slid it onto her barrel-shaped arm cannon. It clicked on firmly as Samus’ hand shook with weakness. The pain that had rattled her arm stung heavily and she didn’t move or try to speak for a few seconds as Old Bird watched, his face conveying his broken heart. She couldn’t bear to look at the face of her mentor and foster parent disappointed in her. The two remained in silence, looking to anywhere but each other. The darkness of the cupboard was fittingly still.

“I know I shouldn’t be here…” Samus finally said, breaths frequent, painful, heavy. “… and I’m sorry… but things have been out of my hands for a while now.” She looked to her left hand, and caused the armour to fold away. A gasp from Old Bird. The imprinting mark had influenced the ugliness of the hand further. It was riddled with veins, a mucky dark green colour each, with the hand itself a sickly mint. The bite mark itself was a fiery red, not dying as the whole hand tensed with agony. “I was imprinted… by a…”

“… metroid.” Old Bird stopped her, whispering the word. Samus didn’t have the energy to react, so she let him carry on. “I have little experience with them. They are not native to Zebes Four, the invaders brought them. A few had escaped, a few were chained up. It was the chozo who gave them the name, the pirates started using it and it stuck.” Samus offered the hand for the hologram to inspect. His eyes dropped slightly. “… and I fear that you will not do what you came here to do.”

“I’m saving Hugo! And no one’s…” She spat back, then her eyes widened. “… Old Bird, I’m sorry…”

“That wrath the metroid gives you?” He said, waving away the minor outburst. “That is your greatest enemy. There are many enemies here who have hurt both you and it, and sadly, the imprinting is incredibly strong, stronger than I’ve ever seen. I hope you can concede that your temper is fiery at the best of circumstances. You will be tempted more and more to kill; I am not naïve enough to not assume that you’ve killed people and animals since you became a bounty hunter, and I am not to judge whether they were necessary or not, but you’ll go for the easier and more dangerous solutions to a problem each time, and you’ll eventually become no better than the Winged One. Finally, you will find something you cannot fight, cannot kill, and you’ll have forgotten how to not to. It will be the death of you, my…” A pause to wipe away a non-existent tear. “… my child. This quest bears you no good. Turn back, while you still can.”

“Old Bird… I need to do this.” She said. “Whether I fail or not, I have to try for its sake. Otherwise, I would’ve…” Samus looked to Old Bird, only to find the battery had died and he was gone. Her head straightened on her neck as the stinging kindness and sorrow in Old Bird’s voice hit her like a slow but tall sea wave. Her helmet unfolded into a huge brace around her neck as the vulnerability built, and she put her imprinted hand to her forehead as she allowed her tears to flow away.

*

The machine turned its head one way, then the next. Kraid’s robotic double, the head clumsily repaired, scars all across its neck, sat on the lift from Norfair, ascending to Brinstar once more. Red turned to black, black turned to blue, blue turned to green and the overgrown tropics replaced the metal of the machine.

“Any ideas of where to start?” Weeve looked to Ridley from the controls.

“He was lying. He said that he didn’t want to be above the entrance of Brinstar in case I attacked him, but he thinks that he could take me in a fight fine enough. No, he’s hiding near you, waiting for me to poke out my head for his fancy. Find his lair, then lead Samus towards him.” The female Fladres saluted to her leader, and she gripped the controls again.

The robotic Kraid cracked a mechanical shoulder, one then the other. Eyes gazed the small cavern. The controllers on the other end watched intently as it moved to its own left, staring at the wall. Behind it was the entrance to Brinstar proper, but Ridley was determined to find the real Kraid, so the robot glared to the stone face. The dead eyes assessed every nook and cranny of the wall, hoping for a sign of artifice. For five minutes, nothing but the dead of Brinstar.

And to this, Samus growled. The map she had obtained from the pirates had a large section missing from the one she had made herself. It detailed a massive cave was almost two hundred feet high. Curiosity pulled her towards it; whatever they were hiding there was big enough to warrant complete ignorance from the subordinates. For such a huge place, too? This was something the creator of this stony wall didn’t want anyone to see; friend or foe. And now Kraid stood in her way, or at least who she assumed to be Kraid. Her movements would have to be quick. Her arm cannon primed, she got to her toes, before suddenly wheeling around. The grapple hook slammed into the wall behind Kraid, whose eyes lifelessly turned towards her. However, they soon shot out of their metal sockets as the rock face fell onto the machine, bashing the machine and buckling it completely. Samus leapt back in horror, watching the machine crumble, followed by the wall. Before her eyes the corridor had been revealed. It wasn’t just dark; it was the colour black itself. Her night vision didn’t even see any kind of end to the darkness. Stepping forward lightly, nervously, she fired a single pulse into the black blot. It passed through with a whizzing sound, colliding with nothing. Samus didn’t hear the smash and shatter of ice, and walked into the square corridor.

*

On the operating end of the robot, down in Norfair, Weeve sat back in an indignant rage. “Sir, she…”

“I saw. Is the bot still functional?”

“Yes, sir, but it’s incredibly weak. Couldn’t possibly fight her…”

“I don’t want to fight her.” Ridley explained. “I want to watch, so we know when to give her…” A pause. He plucked the jar containing the frightened Hugo into his view and grinned into the glass. “- motivation.”

*

The corridor’s darkness only got more oppressive and ominous the further Samus went. A world away from the warm tropics of Brinstar, or even the rock filled caves, this was a box of iron and steel. She felt the corridor descend, and she moved into the swallowing darkness.

“YOU!”

Samus stopped still. This was no voice. It was an explosion of sound. Her ears rang with pain as the words vibrated across the walls and the floor. It actually stunned her, but she kept her footing and continued down the corridor.

“HOW IS IT THAT YOU ARE HERE?! HOW DID HE…”
The angry roar knocked Samus off her feet slowly, less a singular blast and more a slow oppression of a low and loud boom. The voice stopped midsentence to snarl to itself.

“THAT… THAT BASTARD!”

Samus pulled herself onto her feet, and began her journey again. One foot precariously after the other.

“Who are you?” She asked. “Can you hear me?”

“YOU SHOULD BE IN NORFAIR! TURN BACK NOW!”

“… you… you’re…” Samus paused repeatedly, shaken by the volume of the voice; it was unbearably loud. However, she persevered. “- you’re Kraid.” She finally uttered. A growl from the voice hit her like a cannonball as he began to continue again.

“I SAID TURN BACK!”

“Why?” She moaned slowly. “Scared of me?”

“YOU’RE HERE FOR RIDLEY! I CAN CRUSH YOU LIKE A BUG, BUT I AM WILLING TO SPARE YOUR LIFE IF YOU DESTROY HIM AND THEN LEAVE!”

“And let you get away with the destruction of my home? The imprisonment of the infant metroid?” Samus snarled back. “No deal.”

“THEN YOU ARE USELESS TO ME!” Kraid screamed, and then there was silence. Samus didn’t move for a second or two. Then about a metre to the front of her the corridor began to crumple in on itself. Samus watched the metal bend and twist like foil, before simply falling away, revealing a green claw, with three fingers each the size of her. She didn’t make a sound, but she knew that the next claw would be a lot closer when Kraid saw that he didn’t crush her. Sure enough, a cool wind rushed up the back of her spine, and the other claw was cracking the metal a mere inch away from her. The metal cage she was now in shook and disconnected, and Samus was in free fall. She felt the corridor part connect with a rock, then land on something hard. Samus leapt out as it did, the force crushing the box into a flat square. She looked around her. The room was, oddly enough, very well lit; great television screens, each three times her size, were scattered all over, engulfing the world in a white and silver light that almost blinded her. She looked to the pillar of rock she landed on. A few others like it were scattered around, but there was no sign of Kraid. Then a terrible dread sank into her stomach. It wasn’t a rock that the box had landed on.

It was Kraid. And he was right behind her.

The first thing she saw was a wall of yellowish green scales, each the size of her head. However, this only accounted for the stomach. The body was a very round shape, the size of a large building. Two grand knees were at either side; the legs were round like an animal’s hind legs, and they left their shins in front rather than underneath the thigh. Then Samus’ eyes travelled upward. She was barely at stomach height, Kraid’s chest and head looming over her. In the upper portions of his body the scales became a darker green. Two thin but long arms, like tree trunks, were clasping a huge pig-like head, a long snout protruding out of the clasp, black blood slowing dribbling away from the eyeballs. Then Kraid revealed his face. His eyes alone were each the size of Samus. He had three eyes in a triangle tightly together, or he would if the left one wasn’t now completely wrecked, bleeding profusely. His other two eyes bore into Samus with a deadly rage, and his teeth were revealed as he snarled to Samus. Kraid himself almost filled the cave. Samus guessed that he stood at some fifty metres, and he was probably even longer.

“I WILL CRUSH YOU INTO PASTE!” He screamed in rage, curling a green and bony fist, and throwing it into the pillar Samus stood on.

[Rachel Ascot]

BRINSTAR
Chapter 17 – Kraid

The rock beneath Samus fell away and shattered like glass beneath the colossal fist of Kraid. The golden bounty hunter was left afloat in the air for a few seconds, white light of the huge monitors glaring down onto her and Kraid, until her feet landed on another pillar of stone. She lifted her arm cannon and fired three sharp pulses at his face. The great snout was collided with, and blue ice shot across it in small spikes, but Kraid didn’t even seem bothered as his next claw slammed towards Samus, this time in a swatting motion. His fingers came down, crushing and dragging rock away, but Samus fed herself through the green claws and began to run across the arm.

He’s such a big target… he’s got to be slower than me! He has to be!
She was proven wrong when, like lightning, his hand crashed into the space where she was. Her body was planted against the green trunk-like arm and pain rattled through her body. The crushing was almost like she was under a boulder, and she became dizzy with the force.

“AAARRRGGGHHH!”

“NOT SO CONFIDENT NOW!” Kraid’s boom came, and Samus’ ears were punctured; it was like having an alarm going off in her head. Then his finger and thumb caught and held onto her legs. She was swung in an instant, and she collided with the cave wall at unthought-of speed. Her head spun and groaned, and her body begged for a relent to the aching. Her arm cannon raised, she suddenly thought of the grappling hook, firing it onto the corridor. The wire was tough but thin; too thin for Kraid to see. He threw Samus to the ground and raised his foot to stomp her to death. Samus had dropped some hundred feet in a second, but she could see the metal corridor she had come through smash and grind into Kraid’s skull as she pulled it down.

“AAARRRGGGHHH YOU INSOLENT BITCH!”

The volume froze her to the floor, but Samus grinned at the insult; Kraid’s head bled even worse now and his hands leapt to his face. Her body leapt up from the floor as a plan formulated in her head. She looked for the safest corner she could find, and rushed to the ground between Kraid’s legs. Kraid failed to see this, his hands firmly on his head. He fell back to the wall behind him, buckling and cracking the face behind him, causing rocks and boulders to drop away. Samus watched the rocks come, and suddenly she was confronted with a fast approaching avalanche of stone to contend with. She saw the first one coming in from her left and leapt to her right to dodge it. A small fist sized rock crashed into her belly, and it drew her attention to the fast approaching spear of stone coming to her. Her arm cannon froze the rock in place, but it shuddered forward slowly as more and more rocks piled behind it, forcing it towards Samus. She clambered up the newly made rock face, before suddenly a huge foot bashed and plummeted into the stone pile. Samus was shaken by the power of Kraid’s stomp as stones and pebbles flew up, and the force threw her too into the air. However, she saw her chance to gain the advantage on Kraid as she flew closer to his underbelly. Clasping her fingers in a chink of his scales, she held on like a small leech, as she felt the leg rise. Another stomp, this one trying to kill her, but she counted on the fact that he wouldn’t feel her on his scales.

She knew she had only one chance against the colossal Kraid. He was simply too big to hurt; she was but a human, while he was a giant amongst giants; she highly doubted that another being to match his size even existed. As for the speed, there was no way she could outrun his lightning-fast claws, striking as fast as a human fist with a thousand times the force and impact area. Her only chance came from, ironically, Kraid’s biggest strength; his bulk. Samus reasoned that if he was faster than her, then she would need to make sure that he couldn’t use that mobility to his advantage, and let his clumsiness do as much damage as it could. She knew that it wouldn’t defeat him, but it would give her at least a small advantage to call her own, and take another from Kraid.

The stumbling giant swung this way and that, desperately stomping around, hoping to crush Samus into pulp. Kraid’s eyes darted from corner of the floor to corner of the floor, only to find empty space. A thought struck his head. Samus was on his body somewhere. He looked to his own feet and legs, but there was nothing there. He checked his stomach and his chest, but the golden warrior had disappeared. Then he had an idea, and a nasty grin formed on his face as he wheeled around. His back to the many monitors he used to spy on the world, his shadow spilled across the wall in front of him; as to did Samus’. The inside of his left leg.

“YOU CAN’T HIDE FROM ME!” His claw crashed into the leg, and he snapped Samus up in a grip of iron. She groaned under the pressure as Kraid applied every bit of strength into crushing the woman flat. He lifted her to his remaining eyes and smiled a smile larger than her whole body. “WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO GO NOW?!”

“… I only…” Samus spat slowly, shifting and wiggling her arm. “- have to move…” Then, with one arm released, she showed the MDED detonator in her hand. “- my finger.”

Then the strap of grenades that were pinned onto Kraid’s leg exploded.
Pain and shock ran through his body as he stumbled onto his knee. It shot into the ground, weakening under the strain and causing a great gash to form in the leg. Kraid fell forward, the white light of the monitors showing him where he would fall, his clawed hands cracked the stone under them as he breathed in, a plan of his own forming. He looked to Samus confidently landing on one of five remaining rock pillars.

“What now, big guy?” She asked, aiming her cannon to strike him in the eye, but before she could his hands arose. The floor shook. The wind stopped.

And Samus watched the boulders stop in mid-air, and begin to drop.

Kraid let the rocks he had pulled up smash onto him, bouncing harmlessly off him like raindrops as he grinned, watching the Hunter fearfully back away from the approaching hail of boulders. They came lashing down with great force, fast than Samus could dodge. Rather than being one at a time like the majority of the rocks she had dodged on the floor, these came as one group, and Samus was thrown onto her hands and knees by the barrage, before Kraid picked up another handful of what to him were mere pebbles and flinging them childishly towards Samus. This he did once and twice and thrice and more and more, another handful, another scattering of pebbles, another lightning fast torrent of rocks. It required nothing on Kraid’s part, but Samus could barely keep an eye on the boulders coming her way before another set charged toward her. Agony swallowed her whole, but her brain formulated an idea that she hoped would tip the fight back in her favour as she readied her grapple hook. Another volley of stone approached her, and she aimed her gun. They crashed past and into her, knocking her back with a huge amount of painful force. The next wave came as she steadied her aim once more. These too crashed and bashed her, but her eyes had set themselves on the next and hopefully final wave. She fired her grappling hook, and let one of the rocks drag her away. Kraid didn’t expect this, and could only watch as she sped away. His hands leapt for her, but the pebble was too fast as she used it as a platform to propel herself away. She sent the now free hook of the grappling hook into the corridor she had come in through, and swung towards it. Kraid saw his chance to cut her mobility and clasped the corridor end, yanking the corridor out of its place in the room. Samus’ whole body jolted with the metal rectangle, and she was thrown onto a rock pillar, the corridor remains crashing into and bridging another two. She waited for Kraid’s next move as his hands both leapt to the tower on which she stood. Her feet guided her through the air as she threw herself away from the green claws. In mid-air she was not safe, though, as Kraid’s gnarled fingers still groped for her. She blasted the nearest claw with her arm cannon, freezing the tips of the fingers together in one lump, then landed on the corridor remains. The wire of her grappling hook still spun dangerously, spinning in a grand arc before smacking the oncoming Kraid in the snout. The hook buried into a scale on his body, and she used it to throw herself onto Kraid’s chest. The yellow belly’s surface was harsh and rocky, filled with gaps. In a few select cracks, she placed an MDED in each, as many as she could before she saw Kraid’s hand rush towards her. She leapt off, detonating the bombs and landing on the nearest pillar as the great creature was pushed back. Samus stayed on one knee as Kraid shuddered to a halt. The bombs has chipped a small section of scales away and the wound bled like a paper cut. Kraid smiled, however, grinning at Samus.

“HOW TIRED ARE YOU, HUNTER?” He boomed in his classic roar. Samus rose her arm to fire a shot, and suddenly Kraid’s fist punched her down into the pillar, forcing the rocks away. They drifted away from Samus as her body began to feel the agony, too dazed to feel it earlier. Kraid’s face extended a smile, his wounded eye opening weakly. “HOW MUCH DAMAGE HAVE YOU CAUSED TO ME? TWO SMALL CUTS AND A SCRATCHED EYE! A WORTHY REWARD FOR YOUR EFFORTS! HA!” His laugh was a singular boom as he watched Samus stagger desperately to get her balance back. In a two finger grip, he plucked Samus up and threw her in the air. He spun on the spot and leapt into the air, his foot suddenly crashing into her body. The Hunter flew away, smashing into one of the television monitors and shattering the glass away. Her body, aching and tired, flopped forward and limply laid on the counter before them, enveloped in the white light, only able to watch as Kraid stepped forward confidently. It was true, she knew it. This fight was not a matter of who would win, but how long Samus would last before Kraid flattened her like a bug. She was slower, smaller, weaker, more vulnerable and…

“… harder to see.” She whispered to herself. Kraid cracked his knuckles, and raised his fist again, but Samus turned to the screens behind her, raising her arm cannon. She fired a pulse into the one above her, before leaping to her left. Kraid’s hands danced around, slamming the counter over and over, unable to crush her as the room got dimmer and dimmer. However, Kraid was surprised that she wasn’t even shooting near him.

“WHAT ARE YOU SHOOTING…” Kraid looked to the monitor and finally the realisation hit him. Only one television remained, the dead centre one. “… AT…”

“Lights out, big guy.” Samus said one last time, then total darkness. Samus’ night vision did what Kraid’s eyes could not, as she watched him move from one end of the room to the next in an irritated state.

“YOU THINK THAT THIS IS ENOUGH?! YOU THINK THAT FIREPOWER IS HOPELESS IN THE FACE OF A SMALLER TARGET?!” He smirked, the green of Samus’ visor changing his colour little. “YOU HAVE NOTHING TO ANSWER ME WITH, SO YOU HIDE! YOU RUN! BUT I CAN AND WILL CATCH YOU! GO FIGHT RIDLEY, PRACTISE A LITTLE BEFORE YOU FACE ME…”[/n] He crouched to the floor, his clawed fingers pawing at the floor. Samus knew exactly what he was doing; checking for bombs. To make sure she wasn’t trying to blow him away. But on the floor? What was so significant about the floor that he wanted to make sure that the bombs, the comparatively tiny bombs, would do nothing to damage them? This thought left her confused, and she only felt the rushing wind coming towards her a split second before Kraid’s arm swept over her. It harmlessly rushed over but the force pulled Samus towards the arm in a fiery breath, threatening to bring her crashing into Kraid. She stood stock still, shaking from the might of the swing, not noticing Kraid smirking slightly.

[b]“SO YOU HAVEN’T LEFT YET…” He growled, a little quieter than usual though still loud enough to shock Samus. “- IT IS A MISTAKE!” Suddenly, his fist crashed as far across the table as he could bring it; his arm pushed into the counter, he now began to drag across the table in one great sweeping motion. Samus turned on her heel immediately, trying to get as much distance as she could muster. The rolling green limb came closer and closer. Twenty yards away, nineteen, eighteen. Samus sprinted with all she could give. Fourteen yards, ten, five. Her legs guided her as the rumbling behind her got louder and louder. She got to the edge of the counter. Two, a yard, a foot. She leapt as far as she could manage, drawing her energy into the leap…

… and Kraid’s other hand, waiting by the end of the table, swept her up in one gingerly motion.

“Damn it!” Samus yelped, and then Kraid squeezed onto her. “AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!” The pain was something unbelievable. Every bone, every organ, every muscle, every fibre of her body was being crushed in a simple curling of Kraid’s thumb.

“YOU MADE A BIG MISTAKE, COMING BACK!” The green beast barked. Samus’ brow began to sweat; she felt like she would burst open like an over filled balloon. Her head spun, her eyes closed as her body screamed for mercy. A great feeling of despondency descended onto her; she had failed. She had failed Old Bird. She had failed Hugo. She had failed Adam.

She had failed, and her eyes closed for the final time.

*

Samus’ thoughts, however, persisted. The room was dark, unbearably hot and completely devoid of life. Samus looked from left to right. Glass surrounded her. She bumped into it, dragging her body across it, hoping to break out. She felt… alone. All she could think of was that she wanted… her mother.

‘Why my mother?’ She thought. She had never felt this, but she just knew that if her mother was here, everything would be ok. The blackness of the room swallowed everything, leaving nothing safe from its cold and dark grip. However, soon a light came, but it was a light she feared more than ever. A singular red dot approaching. Another two smaller yellow dots hovered behind it.

“But, Clan Leader, what can we do?” Came a female voice, but Samus shuddered as the red light got so close as to glare into the glass and take up all she could see. It wasn’t a light. It was an eye. Ridley’s eye.

“Well, I can’t do anything. This little baby can, though.” Came the low colloquial drawl that Samus feared more than anything. If only mother was here, she thought. She’d save me. Then she realised what was happening.

She was in Hugo’s mind.

Ridley’s clawed hand grasped the top of the jar, and Samus looked up through Hugo’s eyes. Away came the lid, and Ridley’s iron-like tail hovered over her.

‘What are you doing to…” Samus asked, though she knew the answer. She just didn’t want it to be real. As if to spite her, Ridley’s tail jabbed straight into Hugo’s body, and both it and her screamed in collective pain.

“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU…”

The stabbing was at first simple but numerous jabs at Hugo’s body, causing hot plasma to leak out of its body. Samus, too, felt like she was bleeding. She felt like every part of her was being punctured.

“YOU WILL NOT SURVIVE TO SAVE…”

Then the tail, the punishing tail, stopped stabbing and poked the most sensitive part of Hugo’s body he could feel, the underbelly, and coiling slowly and inexorably into it. Samus wailed with pain in tune with Hugo, and her body went cold.

“… you…” She whispered to Kraid, slipping between states, unable to feel his crushing or hear his voice anymore. But what she felt most was her left arm flaring in pain, but it wasn’t like any pain she had felt before. It was a pain that gave her energy. “… are…” She didn’t open her eyes, but she felt the strength seeping back into her body and further.

She could not let this pain persist. She was letting Hugo go through this? This pain? “No,” she said. “I’m not letting anything doing this to Hugo and getting away with it… never!”

“… in!” She suddenly shouted, resisting Kraid’s squeezing now. Kraid’s reaction was to squeeze even tighter, crush even harder, but Samus didn’t even feel it. She only felt her left arm, the pain reminding her of Hugo’s plight. She had to stop Ridley, and anything that would stop her. “- my way!” Kraid grinned.

“AND WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU CAN DO…!” He barked, but then Samus extended her arms, and his fingers snapped apart. “AAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!!!” The wail was loud, but Samus didn’t hear, jumping onto his extended arm and beginning to run across it. The beast shook his arm violently, but Samus was running at a speed unlike anything she had achieved before, anger and agony fuelling her. Her rage blinded her to all as she leapt to Kraid’s head and gripped onto his snout. “GET OFF ME!” He slammed his two hands across her, but now they felt like light breezes. Samus didn’t even buckle under the strain, getting on top of the monster’s great snout and jumping once. When she landed, she heard the snapping of cartridge, and Kraid screamed once more. She rose her arm cannon and fired an icy shot into each of Kraid’s three eyeballs, which to this he wailed in pain.

“I WILL CRUSH YOU LIKE THE BUG YOU ARE!”

“Try.” Samus said coldly, dropping her arm and firing the grappling hook into the ground below. “If I may ask, why are you so scared of me breaking the floor?” Suddenly, she for the first time saw fear in Kraid’s eyes. The terrible fear of a proud and mighty beast discovering its true vulnerability.

“You…” It still shared volume with a loud shout to Samus, but she knew it was a whimper. “- you wouldn’t.” Samus shifted her arm, dragging a bit of the floor up with her. It was a small piece, but it was enough as the two heard the cracking of stone, ominously getting louder and spreading further across the room.

“Ever been to Norfair, Kraid?” She seethed, her eyes gleaming behind her visor with an enraged malice. “I doubt it; the lava pits are so numerous and you’re so huge, you couldn’t take a step without being burnt alive. And you just happened to build your lair directly above one.” The floor, thinned years ago by Kraid to give him room to live in Brinstar, finally snapped completely, and the two began to drift slowly in space. For Samus, it was forever. The distance was so great it was dizzying. She felt the wind rush past her, the steam flowing around her and swallowing her whole. For Kraid, it was merely a stumble, but his whole body became consumed with fire. His skin, his flesh, his bones; all of them burned and he felt a red hot agony. He screamed in horror at his fate, and pulled away from the lake of flame he had landed in. His chest slammed onto slate and flint, and he saw Samus land directly in front of him, cracking the rock beneath her. Kraid felt himself slipping backwards, back into the flame. He extended a claw, and saw that it resembled burning meat, black with charcoal and white with fat and bone.

“… hhhhhhhheeeelp…” He wheezed, quieter than a human whisper now as Samus watched on. “- pleeeeeaasee… hhhhhhh…” Samus simply watched the great beast now reduced to a pile of bones held together by a prayer bow to her.

“And how many times have you seen this happen to people?” She asked simply. Kraid stopped, sliding back even further. “How many times have you been where I’m standing and watched somebody die? You asked me to kill Ridley and spare you, and I’m going to tell you the same thing, for the same reasons as before.” Samus turned her back on Kraid, away from the dying monster. “No deal.” She knew her pacifist chozo upbringing should’ve kicked in and told her that leaving him to die was wrong, but she could only take little more than pleasure from the sight she saw as she looked back; a green arm, the last of Kraid’s body, sinking into the yellow water and a bubble from the lava; Kraid’s last scream. Samus walked to the closest rock, then exhaustion took her. She couldn’t even find a safe sleeping place before simply falling forward and collapsing on the rock.

*

The door out of Tourain alit one small blue light, and then the door to the rest of Zebes locked. A single eye peered at the light unthinkingly, no emotion, no thought. A computer to the side of the jar began to run a programme, processing the new information and snapping into function.

“Phase 3.05; death of subordinate leader Kraid, complete.” Came an utter from Mother Brain, a dead monotone to herself. “Phase four, begin. Phases currently in operation; Phase three point oh four; death of subordinate leader Ridley. Phase four point oh one; gather imprinted metroids.” Mother Brain blinked a small brink. None of the pirates knew what the real purpose of Mother Brain gathering the metroids was. They’d all be dead by Phase 5; purging and domination of the universe.

[Rachel Ascot]

NORFAIR
Chapter 18 – The Sea of Fire

Samus screamed at the development, her sapphire eyes weeping in fear as the great weight slammed into her. She was forced back onto the ground, before her head slowly turned, her eyes drifting to see the monster that the egg shell had held. She looked to it, and gasped.

It was a small, blonde child, weeping and crying out for mother. She had a bulb of golden hair shrouding her head from Samus’ view as she strained her eyes to look closer.

“Shush… it’s ok.” Samus Aran whispered to the girl, her pale fat hand extended to greet the girl. “My name’s Samus Aran. Are you ok?” The other girl didn’t turn around.

“… no… I want my mummy…” She whispered. Samus sighed slowly, then nodded.

“We all do.” She said. She walked slightly closer. She extended her hands. “I can help you, if you want.” The girl didn’t move for a second, but then she turned, and extended her hand.

Then, when the hands connected, both the girls bled crimson.

Samus screamed in horror as her hand shot with pain. The other girl looked in just as much horror, her agony ringing as blood seeped through her hand. Samus shook and tried to pull away, only to pull the girl closer and snap her into an excruciating hug of pain…

*

Samus awoke to the sound of bubbles bursting. Her eyelids slowly pulled each other apart, her head spinning from both pain and fatigue. She had woken up a few times already, only to fall back to sleep again, and still she couldn’t quite stay awake. But she still felt a great anxiety tug at her very soul.

That nightmare. She had it several times now, and the more she had it, the more real it felt, the more it hurt. She forced herself to stand up, and she took one look around and suddenly a great dread swallowed her whole.

This place was colossal.

Samus truly couldn’t remember Norfair being this vast and awe-inspiringly lonely. The skyline was made entirely of rock, save for the shattered gap where Kraid once lived. The brown and black stone surrounded a huge expanse of black and yellow; slate and flint ground, cracked and dried beyond any possibility of life, dotted with pits of a yellow liquid, thick as treacle; lava. Steam and smoke rose out of the ground and the rocks together and conjoined in the atmosphere, swirling around everything and creating a grey haze.

The heat resistance of the Varia Suit protected Samus from most of the heat, but the air was still stuffy and oppressive, and Samus felt groggy and weakened by the harsh Norfair air. The only sights she could see for miles around were mountainous rocks, some of which crawled up to the base of Brinstar and held the planet together, some only as large as a person and smaller, but the upper portions of Norfair were so empty and vast that there was nothing else to see. Samus, for the first time since she arrived on Zebes Four, felt completely lost. She knew that this would be Ridley’s domain, but where exactly was he? She was immediately unnerved by the hugeness of the place, too. If she wanted to fight Ridley, or any pirate she met, it would have to be on their terms; they’d probably be skulking in safe and enclosed spaces away from the white hot oceans of magma, so they’d see her coming long before she was aware of their presence.

Her gaze travelled around the landscape unsure of which way to go. She wasn’t far from the elevator up to Brinstar the chozo had built, so perhaps The Clan wouldn’t be too far from it? No, she re-evaluated the situation; there’s no way they’d be stupid enough to park themselves so close to Kraid’s forces. She finally turned to the west; if nowhere else, Samus at least knew where the Sea of Fire was; the largest of the lava pits in upper Norfair, at least that the chozo ever discovered. It probably wasn’t a better place to search, but it was a landmark she would know.

Samus wearily put one foot forward, then the next. Her pace remained laborious; the fight had drained her of all energy, and Norfair’s oppressive air seemed to only make it worse. That and she was yet to eat. She hadn’t eaten or drank anything since she had come out of Brinstar, and she was already beginning to feel the lack of energy take its toll. She readied her arm cannon, the freezing cold end primed to fire. She pulled the trigger as light as she dare. Her hand became consumed with a white and blue spike.

“Damn it.” She muttered, before removing her helmet. Suddenly, the heat and the mist swallowed her, and she felt both breathless and boiled, but she knew that without water she wouldn’t survive. She drank a mouthful of the melting ice, already beginning to melt, before biting away as big a chunk of ice she dare and putting it in her mouth. She closed the helmet; it helped, only slightly but enough. The ice in her mouth was now a joy to behold, and the previously oppressive air in the helmet felt a lot cooler and fresher by comparison. Her pace became slightly lighter and her steps had more life and strength. The speed, though, remained a slow, methodical slog. This was a place where using too much energy was suicide, and Samus wanted every bit she could muster, as she disappeared into the Norfair haze.

*

Steam billowed around the form of the Fladres pirate as an almost sensual joy engulfed Weeve. “Oooooo… don’t stop, just get it a little lower on the shoulder.” She whispered into the darkness. The draconian that manned the steam hose didn’t react outside of a small shift with his claw; Weeve’s wings snapped open at the development, but the draconian wasn’t fazed.

These were very different to the panicky rabble in Brinstar; fewer in number, almost by a hundred to one, but they held an amount of cold discipline that was unmatched in the pirate operation. This particular draconian thought of nothing but the pleasure of his master, splayed out and moaning sensually before him. In a few minutes, he would patrol the walls of the base and think of nothing but the security of the facility. So on and so on, a machine mind in an organic body. Another job in the day.
The blackened beads that served as eyes pierced the darkness as two sets of feet came closer. Another Fladres pirate, Srekkitt, and a female draconian. Weeve looked up and nodded. The draconian who escorted Srekkitt saluted, but the one manning the hose did not, his hands busy. Work before pleasantries and formalities. He kept the hose in place, kept his eyes to Weeve’s back as Srekkitt splayed across the table next to them. Weeve groaned slightly. “Mmmmm… go lower.”

“Weeve, we have to talk.” Srekkitt said. Weeve shook her head.

“Not now, not now, give it a few... ah!” Her abdomen came shrouded in steam and she gasped as the male draconian aimed with expert precision.

“It’s about the metroid… and Ridley…” Weeve rolled her eyes, sighing.

“F-fine.” She said, closing her eyes and wiggled pleasurably under the steam. “What’s your concern?”

“Well, the imprinted metroid is apparently a lot stronger than the average metroid, and we haven’t managed to get one to imprint a draconian, am I correct?”

“Go on… mmmm, that’s good.”

“Turns out I’m not.” Weeve’s eyes widened when Srekkitt said it. “When the Hunter smoked Kraid, I downloaded all the information he stored; he was the Watcher, after all. I looked at employment databases, camera feeds, journals, the lot. Every so often, Mother Brain’s asked for a metroid, at random it seems.”

“Yeah, to test on them.” Weeve said, forgetting the soothing massage. “What about it?”

“Every time she’s asked, every time, she’s also asked for whoever was manning them most recently to report to her. They’re never seen again. Now what makes draconians or Fladres so special that metroids won’t imprint on them. A human walks in, gets imprinted the first larvae she sees. Out of a random act of kindness and she’s imprinted.” Weeve’s eyes narrowed, her brain ticking.

“Have you told Ridley?” She asked, and Srekkitt looked to her left and her right.

“No.” She replied. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“… well, Gyler and Kott had no problems killing Hertz because she was terrible for the Clan; reduced the clan’s number to four.” Srekkitt explained. “And now look at us. Gyler and Hill, gone in one mission that Ridley laughably called a success. Did you see him after the fight?”

“He meant for that.” Weeve said, but she sounded calm. She looked to the two draconians. “You two dating?” The female draconian raised her head, and her eyes met the male’s as he put down the steam hose. The command was clear as she dragged the hose higher up Srekkitt’s shoulder, and the Fladres pirate thought nothing of it. A pleasurable numb surrounded her shoulders.

“Weeve, you haven’t worked with Ridley for nearly as long as I have; he might be a weak male, but he’s a backstabber, through and through. He killed Hertz with two motions, and he’ll kill you with less. He’s all about ego and money, and we’re taking money out of that pay check, and his ego isn’t going to make him warm to us.” The steam did its work, and she couldn’t feel the two claws of the male draconian rest on her upper shoulder. “Ever hear about his mother? She was exactly the same.” The female’s free claw planted itself on her neck gently, Srekkitt completely oblivious. “Hell, she was stronger than him by a long way; a legend amongst the Fladres in my sector, and she went missing. Ridley might sing the ‘I love my mother’ song, but I’ll bet you my life that when we open Ridley’s cupboard, we’ll find a skeleton in…”
Weeve smiled as Srekkitt realised what was happening.

“Tell me if you see her over there, then.” The younger one quipped as the draconians pulled together, snapping Srekkitt’s neck and killing her. She kept her gaze on the body as the two draconians shifted away. The stillness of death froze the horror onto her face quite well, and Weeve smirked. Then her body shuddered and her wings spread to their utmost, locking out in delight as two steam hoses coated nearly her whole body in a billowing white cloud, causing her to moan at near screaming volume.

The draconians didn’t react outside of a small shift with their claws, working together. Soon they’d dispose of the body. Another job in the day.

*

It was a swirling spiral of hot death. There was nothing more to say about it. The Sea of Fire was not named for a metaphor.

Samus raised her arm; the heat was only worse than before, but she was getting a lot of the energy she had lost back. Oddly enough, some creatures did call Norfair home. Crab-like Geruta hovered through the air on wings too fast to see, and Samus had taken the time to catch a few, though they now hung limply on a belt she wore around her armour. The odd insect scuttled across Norfair too, and stranger still, even rarer fish relished the feel of lava on them, but generally Norfair was devoid of life to a terrifying degree, but the Sea of Fire was something else. It was death incarnate. Nothing lived near or in it.

It was nerve-wrecking to look at, too. It wasn’t just colossal; it was fear-inducingly so. That something so large, so uncaring, so apathetic could exist; nothing walks that touched the white surface of still, treacle like magma. There were creatures that had evolved to not only survive but relish the lava pits in Norfair and they refused to come here. It lit the world around it, shrouding Samus in a warm, terrible light. Her hands trembled with discomfort at the heat. The lake bubbled and boiled across the smooth white surface as Samus sighed. She was here at the Sea of Fire, like she had intended to be. Now to find her way.

Her eyes travelled across the horizon, before her ears interrupted her observation. Marching. A clomp-clomp movement. A patrol! Samus looked to either side of her, before leaping to the nearest rock. Her form barely hid behind all of it, but she hoped it was enough as she curled up as much as she could and turned to observe four draconians marching her way. All of them were red, stony faced lobster-like creatures, holding a golden statuette that Samus gasped slightly at. Another weapon. Another confrontation with Old Bird.

“N-n-n-not now.” She whispered. “Not when I’m so tired.” Then something alarmed her even more. The patrol dropped the statuette, then left. No preparation. No hesitation. They just turned around and left.

Samus knew a trap when she saw one.

She watched the patrol leave. It was unnerving how professional they were about it. Not a step out of place or out of tune. A never ending ‘tromp tromp’ that failed to miss a beat. Samus made sure they were gone, before like a curious animal inspecting their gift. She placed her hand on the head of the chozo that sat before her, arms holding the ball that held Old Bird and the new item, and tore the head off. The stone came away with some difficulty, but Samus inspected within. No sign of foul play. She shook her head irritably. No. The statuette was foul play, she was sure of that now, but why? What was Ridley planning? She tentatively clutched the bulb that held her next weapon.

Nothing. It was empty.

“The reserve tank can be installed to any part of the body, and is able to give the user a surge of healing aspic and painkillers upon a near-fatal injury…”

“Old Bird!” Samus spun around in shock. The hand sized avatar looked up to her, and sighed.

“Every time I see you, I know you’re putting yourself in danger, but now you’re in Norfair.” He said, then he shuddered. “You’re approaching the Winged One.”

“Ridley, I know.” She said. “I don’t like it, but he’s got Hugo, I can’t let it…”

“Why? Why must you endanger yourself, the last of our heritage, for this?”

Samus didn’t answer Old Bird, just staring through her visor back at him. She didn’t answer for the longest time.

“… dad…” She finally said, and Old Bird’s eyes widened. She hadn’t called him ‘dad’ or ‘father’ since she was the youngest she had ever been. “… I can’t say.” Old Bird’s avatar stood still, his eyes peering into her own. He left the pause running for a while before he spoke again.

“I hear your voice, but all I see is rage.” He said. Samus sighed.

A black shadow passed over them.

Four eyes shot upward, watching the huge figure fly by. Samus watched the unmistakeable shape glide by with an almost lazy perfection, the massive wings beating in the air with a simplistic glide. The golden clad warrior watched the creature fly to a distant metallic structure, a small mining facility connected to a large mountain some two hours walk away at the rate she was going, on the opposite end of the sea. She could barely see it, but she knew who the creature was, why he flew over her, and why he didn’t attack her then and there. She stood up.

“Old Bird… I’m sorry.” She glared in the direction Ridley had went. “But I’ve got to do this.” She then took her first step towards the mining facility, deciding to purposely not hear Old Bird’s response.

[Rachel Ascot]

NORFAIR
Chapter 19 – The Black Cloud Ahead

The slate under her feet was burning to the touch, even within the heat-resistant casing of the Varia Suit. It cracked, the boots always sinking in slightly and raising dust and fragments of stone up, making a trail of footsteps behind her.

“… water…” Came a breathless splutter from Samus as she shot her hand with her arm cannon, a huge icicle forming around it. Her movements were slow, made painful to perform by the exhaustion and the heat. Her skin prickled and her head spun with dizziness, but she forced her hand behind her head to unfold the helmet, the scarlet bulb leaving her head unprotected. The hot climate was undiluted now and Samus felt like a towel had been wrapped around her head and pulled on until she choked. The smoke made her splutter painfully and the heat was unbearable. She seethed in pain, looking to her hand. The icicle was already melting, and she bit it easily away. The ice in her mouth cooled and hydrated her, but she didn’t feel much better; the heat was just too much to feel fine in, only accommodating displeasure and stuffiness. Norfair was, in every sense of the word, a furnace, and Samus was beginning to cook. She felt herself begin to sway with each step, her march becoming a wavy stagger. Her eyelids became heavier with every passing second and she felt weaker, as if great weights were on her shoulders and they only stacked on and on. Then, she stumbled from a sudden lurch. It was her stomach, a pain spiking out into her from it. She was starving.

“F-food…” Samus groaned in a zombie-like state. Her hand shook as it reached to the belt on her armour’s waist. From the same belt that her grenades hung from was a group of five or six winged crab-like creatures, Gerutas, held on by the claws and hanging limply. Her shaky hand took one, yanking it into her weak grip, before she staggered over to a large rock to smash off the carapace. The first hit was a pathetic bump, for Samus was too weak to hit with any sort of force. She tried again, once again failing, until a third strike brought the top of the Geruta’s shell off with an echoing ‘crack’. The meat was grey and unappealing, as if the flesh of a fish had been put through a wood chipper. Samus brought the creature towards her as her helmet unfolded. She immediately started to choke on the gases and smog of Norfair, unable to breathe, spluttering in agony, but she forced her dry mouth to the paste-like flesh. It was foul, and Samus already felt like spitting it out, but she forced herself to eat it; she refused to starve. It was at least a meal. It wasn’t long before she had finished, not even half a minute, before she discarded the empty shell. Samus’ helmet rolled back onto her head, allowing her to breathe once more, but she collapsed against a rock, unable to stand, her body aching and her head pounding.
Black blots danced across her hazy vision. Her mouth hung limply open as her eyelids clouded the world. Samus started to think of wine, her mind drifting to it for a reason she didn’t know. The Geruta was foul; she could do with a glass of a deep, red wine to wash it down. Something quite fruity, with a long aftertaste and enough alcohol to make her balk upon the first taste. A long, several course meal, too, she thought, her addled mind foggily leaping from topic to topic as she remained still, a strange laugh falling through her open, dry mouth. A rare steak, bloody and filling, a multitude of roasted vegetables lathered in cheese and dripping oil. And chocolate. A freezing cold chocolate dessert, the image so strong in her mind, so dark as to be black, maybe with ice cream to give a contrasting colour. Her hands fell forward as she tried to crawl forward on her hands and knees, her mind spinning with thoughts that she couldn’t recognise. She felt feverish, and began to giddily chuckle completely against her will. The heat pounded at her face, it was like she was in a dream. She couldn’t focus on her path, the rock under her swirling up in great dust clouds. Samus felt something snag on her throat, but she carried on. It felt metallic on her skin, like a chain, but she thought it was impossible; nothing was within her armour but herself and her clothes, none of which were around her neck or metal. She moved an inch forward, and felt the thing choke her.

“Can’t be.” Samus murmured to herself. Her hand pawed at her neck, trying to find the source of the snagging. A rusty metal collar tight around her armour, but squeezing through and grinding on her skin. A chain hung off it and led behind her. Samus couldn’t feel shock, her mind too far gone to acknowledge whether it was real or not. Her gaze slowly, agonisingly, followed the chain, seeing a familiar figure holding the chain in the distance, his shape obscured by mist but still impossible to mistake for anyone else.

“Samus. I can’t let you go on.” Old Bird whispered, but it was as loud as a shout to Samus, as if it was from within her head. Samus didn’t reply. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. There was no air in her lungs to make sound with. “That way only leads to suicide, Samus.” Old Bird whispered once more, before tugging onto the chain and forcing Samus painfully onto her back. She groaned as she fell, then lay on the ground. “You will do the worst you can do. You will destroy the Chozo’s legacy of peace. You will fail Hugo, you will fail me, and finally, you will fail yourself. Everything you fought for will be torn to shreds and you will descend into the darkness. You will beg for death, and it shall come to you. Turn back or you will suffer by your own doing.”

Samus didn’t feel like obeying or disobeying that demand. She couldn’t summon the energy to. She didn’t know what she was doing, lying still on the Norfair floor, letting the heat cook her.

“Why have you stopped?”

Samus’ eyes rolled forward, looking at the second figure that stood above her, the figure that had spoken with a young girl’s voice that seemed to choke with tears, forlorn and miserable. Her vision was completely foggy, only seeing colours. She tried to pull herself up to see the figure clearer, only for the chain to force her back to the ground with a harsh tug.

“Why aren’t you coming?”

Samus gasped suddenly as a spike of pain rushed into her hand, her imprinted mark feeling like a puncture wound. She shuddered in pain, rolling and clutching at it. She felt herself making a mark on the Norfair floor.

“Don’t you love me?”

Samus was in too much pain to answer the girl’s voice, the combination of the chain choking her and her imprinted hand flaring up making her buckle. She dizzily rolled, her head pressing against the sides of her helmet, trying to either soothe the pain or knock herself unconscious, even Samus herself didn’t know.

“Would killing him motivate you?”

“R… ridley?” Samus spoke, her mind finding focus. She turned onto her back. Her vision was so fuzzy that the entire world was a bizarre mash of red and black and brown, only the blonde hair of the figure breaking the pattern, and even then it was so fuzzy and impossible to distinguish.

“Only spilling his blood will save me, save this planet, and save you. It’s what you came here to do, isn’t it? You don’t care about me or Adam or the Chozo at all, so long as you kill him!”

“… but…” Samus began, unable to continue.

“Don’t you care?!” The voice was sad but angry, louder than ever now. “Why don’t you care about me?! Why can’t you do anything for me…” A pause to choke back a tear. “Why don’t you love me?” Samus heard the figure begin to weep, but no guilt passed through her mind. She remained on her side, lying there in a daze.

“Don’t do it, Samus.” Came Old Bird’s voice again, but Samus ignored him, sitting up. She looked up to the figure who began to walk into the distance. The warrior in the golden armour shakily put one foot onto the ground, forcing herself into a stand. She looked forward. The fogginess of her vision made it look like a black cloud surrounded it, but the great metallic structure she had seen Ridley fly to stood in the mountainside, almost like an aged castle with a tall spire rising from the ground; a perfect place for Ridley, so he could survey all. The yellow bulb of hair that was the figure disappeared into the black fog.

“Wait!” Samus shouted, forcing herself back onto two feet. She felt the chain simply fall away with no effort, but she didn’t look back to Old Bird. Instead, she forced herself onward, looking to where the figure had been and trying to follow, her mind becoming less clouded and her step becoming stronger. “I do care… I do!” Samus barked, telling herself more than telling the figure, and she marched forward, the heat not seeming to bother her anymore as she was swallowed by a passing smog cloud.

*

The rest of the journey both uncomfortable and long. The pace was aggravatingly slow, the Geruta flesh leaving an aftertaste too sour for her liking, the heat only getting more and more unbearable. Samus made sure to conserve her energy as much as possible, plodding forward lightly; after all, this was a second fight with Ridley. She thought about strategies. Possibilities of how to fight this time.

He growled angrily at the golden warrior, before wagging his tail desperately, flinging her from side to side. Samus crashed into the wall as his tail slammed against it, but she still held on. Then she rose her gun again. Ridley smirked.

“Idiot. That thing didn’t even move me last time.” He explained. “What makes you think it’ll hurt me this ARGH!”

“Your eye! That’s what!”

His eye was an obvious target. He had an emotional connection to it, as his grudge against her is over that eye. She momentarily let herself be disgusted by this. All of what he did; killing the chozo race, kidnapping Hugo, putting her through this mess… all over his eye. It was beyond evil; it was petty as well. Arbitrary. Pointless. She growled. Well, he had made it important now. She carried on thinking of how he fought in the fight previous.

“You dropped from Crateria to Brinstar no problem, right?” He asked Samus. No answer. “So this’ll be like a tiny step for you.”

He then threw her up in the air weakly, before catching her with his feet and plummeting down. He flapped his wings once then curled them in so that he would drop faster. The clouds were passed, then the city lights crashed into them, then finally Ridley hit the hospital roof, Samus taking all the pressure.

A no-brainer. Ridley may be bigger and bulkier, but with the power of flight he would be able to move a lot further and a lot faster. Samus was going to be the less mobile of the two, and she had to plan accordingly. Focus more on using her cannon.

Ridley said nothing for a moment, before he began to smile, though black blood spilt through his smirk.

“Heh. Heh heh heh.” He began to chuckle slightly. “So this is what happens when someone presses your buttons? If you can’t control yourself, how can you hope to defeat me?”[/]

She stopped still. She looked up to the structure; it now towered over her as she realised just how close it was. She could see up close that it was a mining facility, with great tankers and machines, all derelict, out of use and falling apart. It was like a fortress; huge, uncompromising and empty. Then she saw a figure on the very top of the building. The silhouette obscured him slightly, but the big red eye gave away the identity of the figure away. Ridley seemed to be smirking even now, and walked back inside. Samus gritted her teeth.

His flight wasn’t the strength over her; it was herself. His ability to get under her skin with seemingly no effort. She hated him. She wanted him dead, and he was using that to pull her on a cord over like he had told her to.

She looked up, and saw a large piece of piping with a ventilation grill underneath. She aimed her arm cannon high and fired her grappling hook. It flew up and connected with the grill, and she began to rise. As she hung, a sharp pain in her arm told her that Hugo was being hurt, and she spat angrily. Now Ridley was getting an infant involved in all of this.

“I’m here, Ridley.” Samus said out loud, and looked back up as she made contact with the metal tubing, before kicking it away angrily. “And you are[i]not getting away this time.”

[Rachel Ascot]

NORFAIR
Chapter 20 – The First Failure

Samus’ hand tentatively poked through the metal grating, and she saw the interior of the mining facility that was Ridley’s lair. Her visor scanned the corridor she had found herself in, and immediately was unnerved. It looked like it was falling apart; rust was the prevailing texture, the metal of the grates and slabs that formed the architecture about to fail and collapse. Echoes rang out of clanging noises and rumbles. The noises felt so close and so far away.

Samus pushed herself upward, into the corridor, and saw the prevailing loneliness of the corridor, and its dark glory. The lights were few in number and weak in efficiency, dimly casting a pathetic grey onto the brown and orange walls and floor. Samus then shivered; the Varia Suit was designed to protect her from heat, not from the cold. It was an artificial cool that weighed on her. She shuddered slightly in her armour, and looked to the left, before slowly stepping that way. Her foot fell through; the panel had collapsed. Samus pulled back, before looking down.

It was Norfair again; the enormity of just how high she was presented to her, and all she could think of was how entrapped she felt. The corridor was not big enough for her to stand fully, causing her to stoop as she walked. She moved away from the weak panel to the darker path. She walked down the steel path, the rust giving it a dead appearance. She turned to her left, and then her right. Another right turn followed after a singular, long gap. Two lefts. A singular right. Another left. A long walk forwards. Another left.

Every corridor was the same; a silent, metallic brown box. A small grated staircase presented itself to her, which she descended. Another right. A descending, large three-quarter-circle to the left, then a right, and a ladder upwards. Samus walked on and on, the night vision in her green visor illuminating all the emptiness. It was not a typical place for Ridley to preside in. Goosebumps rose on her arm as her suspicions rose. This could be a trap.

It was not long before she came to a dead end, on the same corridor as the ladder but a long way forward, too far for her to see anything. Samus inspected the wall ahead of her. It had a hatch on it, but her attempts to open it were fruitless. She pried at it with her fingers, then tried her arm cannon, then one of her MDED grenades. Nothing, each time. She turned around. Maybe she should try the other end.

Her foot shifted back, only for her to nearly slip forward. She caught herself, slamming her hands on either side of the corridor. Norfair was underneath. But, it shouldn’t have been. She had come up that way, and she heard no crumbling or clatter to suggest it had fallen. She had been on that space a mere second ago. Where did the corridor go to?

She turned back, and let out a gasp. The hatch was… wide open? Samus’ eyes narrowed, and she peered into the blackness. Nothing to be seen, but one longer tube that disappeared into darkness. She grabbed another MDED and rolled it into the hatch. She waited with a baited breath, listening for it to contact something. No sound came, and she knew it was safe to venture forth. She slid her legs in and turned her head back one last time. To her confusion, the corridor was back in place. As silent in its re-emergence as in its disappearance. Samus growled. It was an obvious trap.

… screeeeeee…

Samus’ heart leapt to her throat. Hugo! Her eyes steeled once more. What else could she do but move forward? She slid into the hole, and curled into a ball. The armour made her a singular smooth sphere, and she rolled onward. The hatch was long, very long. Hugo’s singular whimper had ended, but the moment Samus was on the other end she ran, the whimper motivating her further. Immediate right. Another right.

Then Samus heard something. A very quiet, very low growl. It didn’t sound alive, or mechanical. Like a broken radio in a cave. Its echo ran along the corridor. Samus, however, persevered. Left. A long hallway. The growl got slightly louder. Right. Straight. She passed a small bit of light, a panel in the flooring having fell, but she didn’t take much heed. A half circle, ascending, to her right. Some kind of shaft to the left, angled perfectly to slide down, which she did with gust. Left. Right. The growl was getting louder and louder. Samus knew in the pit of her heart that to let whatever was making that noise get closer was dangerous but she had no choice; she had to get to Hugo.

Right. Two lefts. Right. Left. Right. Down a small flight of stairs, right, down and right at once, the growling got a loud as a belly drum and just as ominous as the collective sound of an army’s boots, ladder to drop down at the right of this descent, a long corridor, at the end of it a hatch, through, right, right, left, right, unexpected bit of light…

… Samus stopped for a second. A bit of light? It made no sense. She heard the noise become louder, sounding less and less definable but becoming even more loud, before a sound that so Samus was terrifying to the core; footsteps. Gentle, but footsteps nonetheless. Something was approaching.. She pressed on. Right, slide down to the left, another left, what was that noise, why was it louder, right, right, left, left, right, left, down a small flight of stairs.

Samus stopped, a thought occurring to her. Her sense of direction, of all things, was the one screaming at her. This made no sense. Why would a mining facility be this labyrinthine?

She looked to her arm cannon, and pointed it to the wall, letting off a harsh fizzle of ice. A collection of icicles formed along the wall, and Samus dragged her arm behind her as she ran. Right. Left. Right. Down a ladder. Into a hatch. Right, right, left, right, right, left, left, right, the growling was unbearably loud now, and the footsteps closer though not picking up in speed, right, left, left, right, left, left, down a staircase and her fears were proven horribly true. A cast of blue ice.

She was, somehow, tricked into going in circles.

Samus turned around, and rose her arm cannon, her heart pounding in her ears. What was this creature stalking her? Was it a creature at all? For a second, her eyes glanced to the staircase, and then again. Nothing was behind it. She frantically ran to it, and grabbed the bottom step. It rose up. She quickly let herself behind the grated cage. Another corridor! She was finally making progress. She paused for a second, listening for the sound. It kept getting louder. She stayed, curious to see what the sound was. The footsteps got closer, as her pursuer turned the corner. The growling was louder than an aircraft taking off, and every footstep, casual as it sounded, was like an explosion of volume. She watched the steps…

… and saw nothing.

Then she gasped as she heard the footsteps carry on, the sound definitely coming from ahead of the footsteps, and walking on into the darkness. Her heart held in her throat, and it took a few minutes before she could bring herself the will to move again. When she did, she didn’t walk a few metres until…

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Monotony had forced her to become lazy and unsuspecting, and the steam that randomly jettisoned out of the wall shocked her to the very core of her being, the high pitched squeal sounding fear itself. Then she heard an odd sound. A groaning ‘blurrr’ kind of noise, not of any being organic or mechanical. She turned her head. It was coming from that direction, and she began to move the opposite way. The ‘blurrr’ got louder as she did, moaning into her subconscious as she walked away, then it suddenly stopped. That terrified her more than the noise itself. She turned around as it paused, then it began again, only this time, rumbling from the floor. Her eyes followed the corridor, until she saw a ruby eye staring back at her. She recognised the eye immediately, and froze for a second before firing a pulse at the eye. However, the air just before it cracked as if it had been frozen, and she walked up to it.

Ridley was instantly recognisable, but he was behind a window. Samus felt the glass, then hit it as hard as she could. It didn’t even shake. She was taken aback slightly, and then looked at Ridley’s face as he smiled slightly.

He was toying with her.

She growled beneath her helmet, but Ridley just pointed to his right. Samus looked, and saw the corridor lead along. She glared back at Ridley, knowing that he was letting her… live? No, he was leading her to her death, but not a trap. No, he wanted to fight her; he was just trying to get under her skin. It was the same story throughout Norfair.

It’s why the draconians never took a lethal shot when they approached her, just leaving her the statuette with Old Bird inside. The draconians weren’t trying to kill her, but mock her. Annoy her. Break her. This was Ridley’s sick idea of fun.

She growled indignantly, and decided to play along, walking away from the beaming pirate, who just watched her go with a grin. She moved briskly, impatient to get out of this mechanical nightmare. The rust coating the walls made the place eerie, as did the occasional mindless noises. Another rumble, this once like a muffled ‘clack’. Then, a door, one without handle but a button that Samus pressed. She stood back as the door suddenly collapsed towards her, clanging with an awful hiss as it hit the floor. Samus looked into the next room and gasped in horror.

It was a round room, with a huge bulb at the top lighting the featureless room, completely black besides the white of the light. It was very tall and very large, though mostly empty except for, in the centre of it, a skeleton hanging from a noose. A chozo skeleton. Samus looked at the scene, then growled.

“Is this your idea of a joke, Ridley?” She asked.

No answer, other than her booming echo.

Sighing irritably, she moved towards the skeleton, then past it, hoping for a way out. The skeleton was beginning to unnerve her. But nothing opposite. She scoured the walls with her hands; it was too dark to see the wall, and the light disturbed her night vision just enough that she couldn’t see anything. She patted desperately to feel something that would let her by.

Suddenly, a very loud creaking sound. Samus spun on her heel and pointed her arm cannon to the source. The skeleton’s noose had dropped slightly, and then the skeleton fell to the floor, shattering across it. Samus looked to the floor and saw the bone meal gather in the cracks on the floor; the floor was a door. She nervously walked over, and looked for a handle. Nothing. She looked up. There was nothing in this room but the noose; it was her only bet as she reached up, her fingertips teasing the rope before she got a grip and yanked upon it. The drop wasn’t sudden, but she felt the ground fall away from her feet as she began to descend. The hole was rust coloured like the rest, but something felt… wrong about it. It was the stench. It smelt wrong. It smelt of something dying. Samus then rethought her own evaluation. It didn’t smell of something dying. No. It smelt dead already.

These walls were different. They were coated in blood.

The dripping of gore spattered across the huge tunnel, echoing and pitter-pattering into her mind. She snarled. Ridley was ready to kill enough animals to coat a room with blood, just to frighten her. She felt her feet touch ground once more, and she released the rope as she marched towards a door. Hatred burned in every step. Then she realised something; the floor wasn’t metal. She closed her eyes, knowing what was underneath her. The cracking and clacking of bones under her feet was almost enough to make her break down, and she refused to look for the sake of her own sanity.

“Don’t bother not crying. Even under your armour I can read you like an open book,” came a voice. Ridley’s. “This room is my proudest trophy, Samus. Genocide. That is power; any idiot can pick up a gun and pull the trigger, but a master can build a column of bodies half a mile high.”

Samus didn’t reply. Ridley chuckled slightly. “Yet you cannot deny it is something. It is something I have created. I created these hallways. I created these scenes, these smells and sights you are experiencing right now, which is certainly a lot better than you’ve ever done.” Samus stopped in her tracks, confused by the statement. “You have done nothing but destroy and kill; you would make a marvellous Fladres. I would say you’re lacking in the subtlety, but then again you’ve met Hertz so you know it isn’t essential.”

“Hold on! What are you trying to do?” She barked, her voice full of indignant hatred. “Are you seriously trying to play mind games on me? You dare to think I’m anything like you?!”

A pause.

“Am I the one you’re asking?” Came the answer, then a buzzing. Samus was unnerved by it, once again. Her eyes then scanned the room. Two doors, side by side. Her arm suddenly pinched as she felt the imprinting Hugo had given her. It was in one of them. She forced herself closer. The right hand door clearly said “Metroid Containment.” Samus glared at the door.

“I know what you’re here to ask me, and you already know my answer. I understand your plight, Samus; we have had similar…” The façade of professionalism remained intact, but Samus noted a small amount of hurt in the pause. “- damages, caused by Ridley, so you know how much it hurts me to say this, but look before you leap. Our operation will stop the pirates and kill Ridley. You mentioned that you had made a promise to someone not to go back to Zebes Four; if you break that promise it will be for nothing. You are in no fit state to go anywhere anyway, so don’t convince yourself that you can and should do anything when all you must do is rest, recover and watch the news. I’m not trying to compare the damage Ridley did to me to the damage he’s done to you, but we’re already after him; there’s no need to…”

Adam’s voice rang in her head. She kept staring at the right hand door. It was here, Hugo was here.

But she couldn’t pull herself away from the left.

She pressed the button on the door, and it fell past her. She saw one last corridor, this time one big enough to fit a Fladres form. She growled, walking in, and walking down until she was forced to stop by one last door, this one a metallic slab that was golden, with a great many scratches. The Fladres language, telling some famous story of Ridley’s exploits, no doubt. It was too typically arrogant for it not to be his own handiwork.



The golden slab parted away from Samus, whose eyes glared directly in front of her. It was the darkest room in the whole facility so far; she was barely able to identify the form that was slouched in the throne in front of her. It was no lavish throne, looking to be made out of scrap metal, but it was enough to indulge Ridley’s ego. His blood-red eye seemed to light up the room, glaring to Samus as he lazily splayed across the black chair, the only other illumination coming from a small green light hanging above them. It flickered and died several times over.

“You’re not here for the metroid.” Came a low, colloquial rumble. Samus ground her teeth at his mistake. Ridley’s beady red eye glared out of the darkness at Samus as she stood still. “If you wanted him, he was right there for the taking, but here you are chasing after me, a rather insignificant hand in all of this.” The dragon-like pirate uncurled on the throne and placed his feet on the ground. Samus remained still, suddenly feeling colder than even the freezing lake in Brinstar. It was fear. The casual tone of Ridley burrowed deep into her brain, unnerving her. “And yet, you stand still. You probably know that I brought you here so you could kill Kraid for me. Now he’s gone, I don’t need you.” He walked over slowly, his one lonely eye on the golden warrior, who tried desperately to lift her arm to find that she couldn’t. A toothy grin revealed itself as Ridley stood under the flickering light and revealed himself. Samus’ heart leapt to her throat; he just felt larger than Kraid, even if he was but a fraction. He had gone soft on her on Earth, she told herself, her fear beginning to swallow her whole. Old Bird was right; this was madness. She shouldn’t, mustn’t, be here. It would be the end of her. He didn’t want her to fight anything here because he knew she wasn’t strong enough, and he was right. He was…

“… I can’t… Samus, I… can’t be… here… for you… anymore… I love you… keep running…”

“Exactly two hundred and four Chozo civilians got away to an undetermined destination… I was not amongst them.”

“Hush, Hugo, it’ll be fine.”

“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Samus’ heart steeled over at the voices in her head. Her mother’s. Old Bird’s. Her own. Hugo’s. This is what she was fighting for. Her eyes burned behind her visor, looking back up to Ridley.

“What? No answer?” He chuckled, his claw uncurling and shining in the light. “You’re as pathetic as the rest of those dumb birds.” His hand leapt to her, and hers leapt to him. Her palms clasped the claws in her hands before throwing Ridley to the side and sending a singular ice blast from her arm cannon into him. The pirate growled in anger, and Samus’ feet shifted into a fighting stance.

“You talk way too much.” She hissed. “You’ve been a bad boy. Mummy’s going to put you to bed.” Ridley’s scarlet eye widened at the very personal insult, before thinning slightly as he slipped into his own fighting stance.

[Rachel Ascot]

NORFAIR
Chapter 21 – The Fall of Samus Aran

The two stood completely still, waiting for the other to make the first move. Samus’ fingers curled into the palms of her hand, forming iron hard fists, while Ridley kept his open, baring the spear-point claws. The tension in the air was thick enough to smell in the air, before, finally, Ridley’s foot slipped forward slightly. Samus saw this, and spun away from the stabbing claw that rushed her way. No sooner had she that she saw Ridley’s tail flying towards her. She leapt as high into the air as she could, avoiding the black limb and landing neatly on her feet. Ridley kept spinning, his tail a mighty pendulum; Samus felt the whoosh of air coming from the spiralling tail once and twice and thrice as he spun faster and faster, before finally, on the fourth spin, she was hit. The scaled point of the tail resembled a spear for a reason; it was a spear, and Samus’ body was slammed with a colossal force not unlike a sledgehammer. Then Ridley leapt into the air and somersaulted onto the stunned Samus, crashing the spear point like a great axe onto her helmet, buckling her and forcing her to her knees. It remained, digging in, hoping to crush her under the pressure and weight, but Samus’ legs were forced straight. She lifted Ridley away, panting as she did. The energy was already slipping away from her. Her legs shook as she held up the tail with two hands. Ridley’s grin peered into her face.

“Having trouble holding it up?” He whispered. “You’ve let yourself open to an attack by me…” Then Samus threw the tail at Ridley; the combined force Ridley was pushing onto her and her own strength bashed the monster’s snout, but Ridley didn’t seem annoyed. “Cute.” He murmured, brushing his tail. Samus snarled at the pirate’s casual attitude. She had done plenty of damage to him last time they had met; she could do it over again. She charged forward, her fist lashing out at him. The winged beast moved to the side, but Samus planned for his, planting ice cannon shots into him. Ridley’s head twisted at the force of the shots, but he didn’t seem hurt.

“Lethal shot on!” She screamed to her cannon, the barrel of her gun changing from the cold blue to the dangerous red. Ridley’s eye rolled in the socket, before he planted himself on all fours. A red burst plastered into the space where he used to be, and then he launched his tail to her. Her body threw itself back away from the point, dodging the scything menace, landing on her hands and back to her feet to leap forward, swinging her foot straight at Ridley’s face. He rushed forward, taking the full force of the kick and more, but it knocked Samus off her feet. She dropped to the floor when both his claws wrapped around her sides, crunching on the metal like jaws in their own right. Pain rocketed through her arms and stomach, the much larger beast able to simply overpower her with brute strength. His tail hovered over her head, ready to finish the fight, and her life. She couldn’t win through attacking alone, she realised, as a new idea formulated in her head.

“Amazed you can see me at all…” She groaned. Ridley’s tail stopped in midair. “… that eye of yours still looks as bad as it did when…” She didn’t get to finish the insult, but it was enough. Ridley’s claws sank in deeper, buckling the Varia Suit underneath it.

“You what?!” He screamed. His good eye popped as rage swallowed him whole. He had never felt rage like it. He was crushing Samus to death; he was crumbling her in his grasp. And she still mocked him. She still laughed in his face. His blood boiled like his body was a kettle. He flung her against his throne, the sake of his own pride and vanity, and it crumbled beneath the force as Samus fell straight through, letting the metallic seat fall apart beneath her. Samus smiled under the helm, however. Rattled with pain but she had given herself some room to escape. She looked back to Ridley and, after brief surprise, braced herself as Ridley let a gush of fire rush from his throat. Flame engulfed her. It coiled around her and let the heat do the work the licks and yellow air could not; it reached into her Varia Suit and cooked her. Even with the heat resistance of the Varia Suit, Samus felt like she was about to set aflame. She only felt it get hotter, and hotter, the pain more and more unbearable. The blanket of fire finally resided, and Samus found a great red eye glaring into her visor. Her eyes were forced open by a mixture of fear and curiosity as Ridley picked her off the floor again.

“You…” Came a quiet, low growl. “… are nothing!”

“Says the pirate who can’t kill an infant!” Samus screamed back, grabbing the arm Ridley held her with and twisting at it. Ridley’s arm struggled at the force, and he pulled away to avoid her breaking it. Free now, Samus slammed a thunderous boot into his stomach, throwing him back. Ridley’s legs parted involuntary, and he couldn’t react as Samus slid through the gap with ease. His tail clashed onto the floor behind him but missed. Metal shards were flung up in the air as a hole was formed, and Samus saw her chance to kill Ridley in one strike, curling into her Morph Ball and dropping into the hole.

“Right. Plant some bombs and blow him up before he can escape.” She said to herself, and she began to roll around, letting red bombs to drop away from her and rest as she spun this way and that. She tried to cover as much of the floor as possible, but the darkness was as big an obstruction as a saviour; it veiled her from Ridley, but also veiled the world. Her form rolled methodically around, her shape trying to remain between as fast as possible and stationary; she hoped to fool Ridley into striking in places he’d guess she’d be, considering he had seen her roll at full speed. All the while, bombs lay in her path like footsteps. She saw the tail point crash through the metal grate someway ahead of her, and she moved accordingly to account for the dodge. The bombs were laid with a planned and calm urgency, but then Samus began to see a pattern in Ridley’s strikes; they got closer and closer to the door she had entered from. If he really thought she was running away, she thought, he has another thing coming. She waited until the whole room was primed to explode, and a smirk planted on her face, until she realised that the strikes had stopped. They had stopped a while ago. Her eyes rolled upward, her ears scanning for any noise, when she suddenly realised what had happened.

Ridley had left the room.

As if on cue, two claws punched through the metal underneath her, clasping her in an iron grip that fitted perfectly around her. Samus tried to uncurl herself, but to no avail; the gnarled fingers wrapped around her and held firm, before she felt herself drop a little, as if Ridley was preparing to throw her. In fact, he was; the golden ball was hurled upward, crashing and cracking through the metal, revealing that the throne room was actually an overhang, jutting outwards from the mountainside into the Norfair sky, and both Samus and Ridley returned to the sweltering heat of Norfair. The dragon-like monster landed on the roof with a heavy thud. The overhanging mining facility shook, the weak foundations groaning under the strain. Samus struggled to escape her enemy’s two-handed grip, but then Ridley pulled his arm back and in one fiery swing cast her into the sky with a velocity great and dangerous. Samus floated through the air, still in a ball and the air painfully whistling against her ears, before she cracked into the top of Norfair and burst through the flint sky; and a torrent of water shot out of a Brinstar river and into Norfair, much of it evaporating on contact with the ground, forming a pillar of water.

Ridley shielded his face as the entire world became a clamp made of steam, wrapping around his throat and eye. He couldn’t see for the grey clouds, and it took a moment to force his eye open. As he did, he first saw the great pillar of water that beat on the lava below. Fire and water danced below in rage-filled motions. He scanned the mess for Samus’ body, but he saw nothing. He plummeted down to inspect closer, and Samus sighed in relief. Her hand fought for grip at the hole’s edge, the tsunami-esque forces striving to yank them away, but she still guessed that anything was preferable to fighting Ridley. Her left arm ached from holding her up with the amount of force throwing her away, and she lowered her right as much as she dare, her arm cannon alighting a calm blue. The ice beam collided with the water, freezing the torrent but only to melt away immediately. Then, a finger slipped. Samus gasped, her heart pounding in her throat, forcing the finger back onto the rock through the crushing pressure of the water, and fired the ice beam again. The platform was thicker, and stayed for a few seconds, but failed to stay, washed away by the torrent and melted by the heat. Samus dropped an inch, but the judder sent through her caused her eyes to widen in horror. The tips of her fingers fought for purchase they could not hope to maintain, and Samus tried one more time to form a platform. It was almost enough to stand on, and then it fell away again. Her hand, weary and unable to get a grip, let go of the ledge before it was engulfed in ice. Samus’ cannon was pointed straight back to her hand, freezing it enough to hold her in place as she thought of a plan. The water still forced the hand to begin to fall away, and she quickly planted her feet against the roof of Norfair and froze as much as she could before her hand inevitably fell away. Her body swung back with a violent force but the ice on her feet held. She hung upside down for a few seconds, cold, nauseous and dizzy. Her eyes drifted together slowly, exhaustion beginning to take hold.

No! Her own thoughts screamed. Focus, Samus, focus! Where’s Ridley?!

As if it were a morning, her eyes parted hazily, the wall of water taking up most of her vision. Her head rolled into her spine a little, glaring to the ground. Ridley’s throne room hung dangerously, ready at any moment to collapse and drop to the floor. Ridley himself hovered a little above ground, his eyes scanning the tower of water and around it, but he was barely a speck to Samus; she couldn’t see him turn his head upward and glare at the golden dot in the Norfair rock sky with a burning hatred.

“… you just don’t drop, do you?” He murmured, spreading his wings.

Samus’ eyes strained to see the oncoming Ridley; she guessed that soon enough he’d be after her, but just where was he? Norfair’s ground was black, brown and red, and Ridley was a sandy coloured beast; he’d fit right in with the volcanic desert. Samus bit her lip, then decided to look for movement instead of Ridley. After all, what here moves? A small speck of dust, shapes created by her own weariness and the water were all that moved however, until Samus’ eyes focused on the dot. Nearly impossible to see, but easy to identify. She pointed her arm cannon down and fired as big a shot as possible. A blue aura slammed towards the ground, and the dot moved to compensate. Samus gritted her teeth, then she aimed her cannon again, firing a single shot. She noted a small explosion a way ahead of the oncoming pirate; he was throwing fireballs at her. She shook one of her feet free of its icy protection. She growled in pain caused by hanging from just one limb, but didn’t let it stop her from smashing another fireball. Now, Ridley was only getting closer and faster. He seemed fully intent on crushing her into the rock face above them. Samus waited for a second, then released the other foot, spinning in mid-air and bringing the foot into Ridley’s head. The beast shuddered to a halt, before she jumped off him and kicked him once, forcing him into the waterfall as she landed on the roof of Ridley’s now half destroyed mining facility. She snarled as Ridley, firing the ice cannon; the dragon could do nothing to prevent himself being engulfed in an ice ball, thick and strong, hanging from the ceiling and simply growing downwards as Samus made sure the whole waterfall became a pillar of ice. She stood still.

Nothing happened for a minute or two.

Samus sighed in exhaustion; Ridley’s body was unable to be seen as he was stuck directly in the ice mountain’s centre. The cold would kill him. It had to. Samus shook on her legs, before she buckled to her knees on the hard metal roofing. Her head dropped to the floor, both gaze and skull as she collapsed forward. She breathed heavily. He was gone. The shadow, the killer, the monster from her dreams was gone. The pirate that had followed her through her past, destroying all she loved, extinguishing all fires of hope and happiness she had, was gone. She was free. She was…

EEEERRRREEEEEEERRRRRRREEEEEEEEE!

“ARGH!” Samus screamed in agony, the tone rushing through the air and threatening to shatter her ear drums. High pitched sirens bellowed their tune as if an air raid was about to strike. She shook in fright. What was the tone? What had she done? However, despite the blaring, hideous noise, she still heard a tiny voice. A chuckle.

“Heh… heh heh.” Samus’ eyes widened.

“… no.” She whispered; suddenly, she felt a lot smaller as the ice mountain that encased Ridley began to crack and crumble.

“Heh! Hee ha ha ha ha ha!” Water fell away from the blue spire as a black shape began to stir within it. The sirens died as the black shape turned orange, and then the ice shattered into a myriad of myriad pieces as Ridley burst out, a huge grin on his face. He shot to Samus and landed directly in front of her. Samus was on her knees from the force of the noise, but she now felt like melting into the floor. What hadn’t she done to kill him? Why was he getting back up? How was he getting back up?

… this is it. A stray thought popped up in her mind. She forced it out as she stood, though the very fact that Ridley didn’t bother stopping her unnerved her. In fact, he looked as if he hadn’t been fighting at all. His grin was very wide and smug, and his stance was almost stereotypically lazy. Samus tried to not agree with her last thought, but it was increasingly hard for her not to.

“And this is why you are nothing, Samus Aran.” Ridley calmly spoke but it was full of patronising, cynical malice that made Samus feel only even worse. “The last time you fought me, I was simply toying with you. I let you win. Now, though, you have to fight me for real.” He then snatched at the back of his leg. Samus saw a metal box with a tube connecting to the leg, in his hand as he crushed it with a mere motion of his thumb. Samus recognised it as the right shape to fit into the empty Chozo statuette she was presented with before.

So that’s what happened to the reserve tank, Samus thought.

“And now Mother Brain is ripe and ready for the killing, and this lump of rock is mine! The money that Kraid and Mother Brain have is mine! The army is mine! The metroids are mine!” He smirked to the motionless Samus, unable to react as she tried to think of something to do. “You defend the weak because you yourself are weak. Pathetic. A mere child who needs the weakness of others to reassure her of her own completely fictional strength; it’s why you like ‘Harold’ so much.” The sandy coloured beast beat his wings once, jumping over Samus. “And now I fight. For real. And you die. And that is strength.” With that, he planted both feet into the golden warrior, forcing her through the roof into the throne room where the fight started. She felt pain course through her body, then she heard the creaks and the snaps. The overhang was now dropping to the ground. The bombs she had scattered in this room shook all over the place as the whole metallic structure began to pull towards the ground. Samus felt a shudder, then she slid forward, no, down towards the wall as the whole structure plummeted. Her amour clashed with other metal and let a metallic hum rip through the world as she fell faster, and faster. She fought to get purchase on her feet; first, one weak foot, then the other to complete the grip, then she threw herself forward onto her knees; a laborious effort later and she had ascended to a shaky, stooped stand, but she knew it was a start. Her body looked to the top of the cup that she was contained in; the bombs fell past her, collecting around her feet as she leapt into the air. She failed to ascend but the room descended, and she once again saw the brightness of the Norfair world. Her eyes darted around, looking for Ridley. She started to drop again, but landed on the side of the crevasse into the room, feeling the plummet shake her around. Then she heard an ominous ‘whoosh’ and she spun around, arm cannon out. However, Ridley’s tail sliced into her hand, and the trusty weapon spun off. Samus made the motion to grab it, but Ridley’s claw grasped her hand. She felt a great force pull her backwards, as Ridley lifted her above his head with a huge grin on his long snout. He cast her back down into the metallic room that descended through the ether, into the blackness, before he placed either hand on the sides of the hole and tore with all his might. The room shuddered and cracked at the force and shattered like glass. Ridley could see the spinning golden form of Samus, and took the last two shards he held onto and flung them at her. One piece connected with Samus’ side and spun her into the other. She lost control of her own fall and was forced to go gravity’s way, and Ridley wanted to influence that to make the drop as painful and destructive as he could. He pulled his wings in, dropping like a stone and plummeting beneath Samus, before opening his jaw and clasping on the metallic armour with his teeth as she landed in his maw. His teeth gnawed, hoping to puncture through, before he shook his head and sent her to the ground. The whole rock face cracked as she landed, but that was not the only thing that did so; her armour cracked like a shell, and he smiled to see a trail of blonde hair as she rolled onto her stomach. He landed next to her, sneering as Samus got to her legs. She staggered back, then turned to Ridley, launching a fist straight into his face. The angered fist bounced off his hardened skin, before she punched again and again, swinging wild hook-punches to no avail. Ridley humoured her, allowing Samus to punch him once and twice, before retaliating with his own punch, hurling her back. The golden armoured warrior was thrown back, landing right next to a lava pit. She coughed painfully, spluttering and choking. The helmet’s filters protected her from the gases earlier, but now she was subject to her windpipe letting out a burning sensation. She opened her eyes enough to see the colossal pool of lava that stood next to her. Then a shadow cast from above her. She rolled, avoiding Ridley’s stomp, before charging to Ridley. He spun to meet her and she desperately tried to push him back, only for Ridley to push back too.

“I’ll kill you if it’s the last thing I’ll do!” Samus screamed. Ridley remained silent, concentrating on his claws as they locked with Samus’ hands. The two were locked together in a struggle of will and might, Samus’ brutish rage forcing Ridley towards the lava, Ridley’s sheer strength driving her back. Neither moved, their arms and hands shaking with equal difficulty, before Ridley’s tail lashed at Samus’ stomach, a loud ‘BOMPH!’ sound emanating from it. Samus staggered back, clutching her stomach as blood spilt onto her arms; her armour had been split, and Ridley saw his chance. He slashed at her with his claw, and ended up tearing though the armour like tissue paper. The golden and red plates that shielded her head and chest wear thrown off her, as she spun to the ground, blood searing and streaming out of every cut along her body, and they were already numerous. She attempted to stand, but Ridley grasped her feet and flung the rest of her armour off, before smiling nastily.

“Look at you.” He sneered. “Without that armour, Samus, you’re just a very scared, very stupid and very weak little girl.” She shuddered in pain. Without the Varia Suit, in only her gym shorts and shirt, she suddenly felt the musty, steamy and boiling furnace that was Norfair. She felt like she couldn’t breathe, but it was Ridley that caused the real pain. He watched her squirm, rolling and rocking in pain, searching for air, before he simply placed his foot on her back, pressing her into the ground. Samus’ body ached and begged for a relent. Tears filled her eyes. Tears of regret, sorrow, pain and fear. Her head dropped to the floor, skull burrowing into the dusty black rock as she collapsed forward. She gasped in agony. He had won. The shadow, the killer, the monster from her dreams had won. The pirate that had followed her through her past, destroying all she loved, extinguishing all fires of hope and happiness she had, had won. She was dead. Her eyes drifted, seeing the blackness consume her world, the redness of the grenades disappear, the yellow lava pools of Norfair…

… wait… grenades…

Her eyes widened, and her vision came back. There it was; one of the grenades she had laid earlier; they had all fallen when the overhang collapsed, and here was where they had landed. Ridley pushed even harder on her back with his mighty foot, but even in the hideous pain she couldn’t resist a smile; she knew how to kill him. She very suddenly rolled over, and Ridley stepped off her in shock, then it turned to rage.

“You just don’t…” Then his eyes darted around as his brain latched onto a suspicion. “What did you do?! What did you just do?!” Samus looked at the great sandy beast with a smirk on her face, before his vision turned to her. In one easy grip, he plucked her off the ground and flung her across the platform, sending her crashing into a rock. Her eyes dimly opened to see him rushing over to her, his claws clenched into fists. Samus offered him the cheek that hurt the least and he happily took the opportunity; a tooth was jarred and torn out of place in her mouth, and she was forced to spit it and the resulting blood out when a fist to the gut came. Every hit seemed to break a whole new bone, open a new wound, cause a new bruise to blacken her skin, but Samus took every hit, knowing that she’d just have to survive and hope that Ridley’s usual calm and taunting demeanour would crack long enough for her to trick him into setting off those bombs. Then she felt her legs being pulled off the ground, then her whole body. Ridley’s red eye took up her whole vision as he peered at her. His face was blank as he took a sharp intake of breath through his snout, then a grin came on his face.

“You, heh heh… you still think you can beat me?” He asked, chuckling slightly. Samus smiled and began to chuckle.

“Y-yeah, guess I did. Heh.” She laughed. “Heh heh!”

“HA!” Ridley nodded. “What gave you that idea?”

“Well, you’re standing on a pile of bombs, I’m sure that will do it.”

Ridley’s face froze as Samus kept chuckling, before her hands suddenly swung to his head, and she unprecedentedly slammed his snout into the ground. It buried in, and suddenly Ridley found that he couldn’t move. He shook with all his might, and his tail stabbed around, looking for Samus, before scraping her arm. The great spear launched itself in that direction, and Samus leapt out of the way, letting the tail slip by... right to where she stood over, Ridley’s neck. Suddenly, she heard a high pitched wail unlike anything she had ever heard before; it was an agonising screech, which was muffled when the bombs very suddenly detonated from the force. Samus stood still, shielding herself as the platform was consumed with fire and wind before her. The blast of the explosion forced Samus back, and the yellow and white scorch of lava flew through the air as she realised that the land itself had cracked. The dust cleared slowly, and she stood before a huge pool of magma. Her eyes drifted along the coast of the hole and she saw her arm cannon and the leftovers of her armour. Then she saw a claw and another rise out of the lava, and Ridley pulled himself to shore. He gasped for air, and then his own gaze looked to the approaching Samus. He raised one of his arms, but Samus clasped it in both of hers and viciously snapped it, breaking the bone. Her face wore a scowl but she relished the reaction as Ridley let out another animal screech, but his other hand clapped with her stomach and forced her to ball over. He stood up shakily, and she rose, smashing her fist into his chin, and then he released another cry of pain as her foot slammed into his ribs. His tail shot into the air in reaction, then crashed down on Samus causing her to stagger back in pain, then drop to her back. She couldn’t breathe, her exhaustion taking over, but her anger and determination picked up the pace. She rolled over and forced herself up, and looked to Ridley. Her eyes widened at the sight of the creature; what once was the colour of sand was now black as night as blood dripped all over him, but he didn’t make a move. He didn’t seem to have the energy to finish her off, nor did she. The two looked to each other, and Samus staggered closer, then raised her fist and crashed it into Ridley’s head. He fell to his hands and knees, but his tail bashed her, throwing her away. Her feet fought for purchase, and she stayed up as Ridley got back up too. The two were stooped over, scowling at each other. Fire started to seep through Ridley’s gritted teeth. His right arm was snapped the wrong way, and his left rose as Samus came back again. She stumbled forward and punched at the air. His claw caught her and threw her to the floor in front of him. He couldn’t move for exhaustion, but he watched Samus wriggle in pain. His wings then spread out, shrouding Samus in blackness. All she could see was his red eye popping out at her, then his talon-like foot curled around her and started to crush her from rib to rib. She felt a bone break, then another, and she screamed in agony, but the squeezing got weaker and weaker. She forced her arms out when she could, and spun the talon. She expected to throw him to the ground; he actually stood still as his foot broke. He wailed in pain, staggering back and falling down, unable to stand. Both of them lay down, panting, both inches from death.

Ten minutes of silence. Ten minutes that like a year of sweltering heat, agonising pain, bleeding and sweating. Ten minutes stuck in death’s embrace, both slipping in and out of hell itself. A wide-awake nightmare.

Samus was the first to get up. Her arm planted onto a metallic cylinder she recognised as her arm cannon, and she decided to end the fight forever. She shook, almost too tired to continue, and grabbed her arm cannon, fitting it to her arm. Then she looked back to Ridley…

… and he was still smiling.

“After all of this, you’re still grinning like an idiot…” She punched him in the cheek with her cannon, a wave of pain shooting through his face. “You think you’ve won?! You still think you can hurt anyone anymore?! Hurt me anymore?!” Her teeth gritted in rage, and tears flowed out of her eyes, unable to hold back the fire. “Don’t you regret destroying everything I know, everything I am, twice over now?!” Samus screamed to the shaking, stooped form of Ridley as he lay on the floor. Her hand gripped the trigger of her arm cannon, ready to deal the final blow.

“… is it easier… when…” A whisper. A broken, dead whisper, full to the brim with glee and cruel, cruel mirth. “… your little pet metroid is in pain?” Samus’ eyes widened as she felt whole new strength surge through her, and she pushed the barrel into his cheek, a loud snap as she knocked a tooth out of place. Ridley gagged, spitting this out with a glob of blood.

“Say that again!”

“Ha!” Ridley’s laugh caused him pain, but he still smiled. “… I’ll ask again… is it easier to kill, when your pet is forcing you to?” Samus’ arm shook, and Ridley chuckled. She was only getting angrier and angrier, unable to even see anything else in the world besides her arm cannon and Ridley.

“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!” Samus screamed.

And yet, she stood still.

Time stopped.

Bubbles popped across the lava, drops leaping up into the air and falling back into the great pools of yellow and black. The hot stench of blood and oil and smoke surrounded the two, the darkness of the Norfair sky only seeming to get darker as steam and smog rose to the great rocks above. Samus’ hand shook without end, unable to keep focused on Ridley or move away from him. He just lay there, watching her. The two bled freely from every cut on their bodies; Samus had two ribs jarred out of her stomach nastily, her forehead was a mess of gashes and rips, her clothes that were once blue were now black from the stains and ripped, hanging dead and limply on her in a manner that couldn’t be called decent, exposing every place Ridley’s cruel claws had slashed at her, and her opponent looked no better. He couldn’t even stand, or sit up straight. His arm was bent out of shape, his sandy coloured body was black from the blood and the bruises, and both of his wings were like tattered paper in the gentle wind. The two looked to each other, the only indication of a real winner being Ridley’s toothy, hideous grin.

Why can’t I pull the trigger? Samus asked herself. You killed Kraid fine enough! You killed him without a blink of mercy! Do the same to Ridley! But she couldn’t, for one reason. She wasn’t Kraid’s executioner.

Hugo gave Kraid no mercy, she realised. She had to be given a strength boost and a little bit of anger from Hugo before she could work up the courage to finish him off. Ridley knew this, Ridley saw this. Why should he think Samus would do the same to him now nothing was forcing her hand? Even with broken bones and black blood coating him, he smugly smiled back at her, and he watched the fear boil in her eyes as she looked back at him. Fear of him. Fear of herself. But most of all, of Hugo. Hugo made her kill more and more. She was being torn away from Old Bird’s teachings, and she was happily going, unable to resist.

She was a disappointment to Old Bird. Nothing better.

Her arm cannon slowly dropped, her body begging for relief as she looked back to Ridley, the being that had followed her for so long, caused her so much pain and misery. She began to cry before she could stop herself, tears trickling down her face, and then it became a downpour as she dropped forward to her knees.

“You monster!” She screamed at the bloodied beast, sorrow dripping from every decibel of her voice. Ridley just huffed irritably, as if disappointed, and peered into her very soul with his red gleaming ruby of an eye as he sat up.

“I knew it.” He drawled, backhanding Samus away. She didn’t even resist the hit, too tired and miserable to go on. “If I knew you were going to pull that trigger, I wouldn’t have even given you the chance to land on Crateria. So desperate not to upset your daddy, and this is what happens! The Clan has many eyes; I’ve seen the lost little girl underneath the armour, trying so hard to impress some old crow who couldn’t even stick around long enough to tell his little ‘daughter’ what a murderer she’s become! Talking to ghosts, madly rambling into the dark! You’re still the child I met at the Jones; now you’re just too big to crawl away.” He stood over her, his tail rising higher than ever. He rolled her onto her back, and she gasped slightly in pain. Her shirt was all but gone, and Ridley could see every inch of her torso; not a single point, not shoulder nor breast nor belly nor head was free of scars from the fight. Ridley smirked. “Pacifism! Ha! What a joke! This is where defending the weak gets you! Only the strong deserve to survive… only I deserve to survive! And you, as I said before, are weak.”

“… please…” Samus groaned. “… don’t… you don’t need to…”

“Do you really think that’ll work? After all this?” The cruel figure asked. “No, Samus Aran. It’s over. Goodbye.”

The spike of the tail-tip spun angrily.

It plummeted to the ground.

Samus Aran let her eyes shut once more.

“You killed all those people! Innocent… people! People who never fucking hurt you! And you killed them! For what?! To get me here?! I’m here now, and I’m going to make sure you pay for every one of those people! For my parents, for the chozo, for everything! You want me! Now come and get me!”

She didn’t quite know what happened. Her own words swirled in her head as she remembered the stench of dead bodies that followed her all the way through her life; her parents, the corpses in the hospital, the now desolate and ruined landscape of Zebes, the whispers of Old Bird, even Kraid and the pirates Samus herself had killed; all of them had been thrown her way for this. Ridley had built a staircase for her out of skeletons, and she was not letting all the deaths to go in vain, to climb to the top only to not go through with it. She just felt strong again, as Samus’ naked hand smacked straight into Ridley’s throat, his tail pounding into the ground where she used to be. His eye popped open in shock and rage, but then something unfamiliar swirled in it as Samus lifted the colossus off the ground, leaving his feet hanging an inch off the ground. The air got thinner as Samus crushed tighter.

“... w-w-what… Howard sneezed so you’re a psychopath now…” He tried to sneer, but his voice sounded alien to him. It was the same voice Hertz had in the hospital. All the people he had killed had screamed in this voice. It was fear. Suddenly, his breath died in his mouth, and his might fell away.

“No. This is all me. And the metroid’s name,” Samus seethed. “- is Hugo!” Ridley looked into the blue eyes of the human warrior, filled only with anger, hatred and disgust. He had seen these before, but coming from her made him feel something different to apathy. It filled his stomach with unknown weight. It caused his limbs to go numb. It caused his heart to wretch and coil at every beat.

Samus Aran terrified him.

He lifted his arms up weakly and tried to clasp at Samus’ arm and head and anything he could find, frantically scratching and clawing at any point he could grip, unable to hold on. Samus simply watched the anger and rage in Ridley’s eyes turn to fear. Then, the red suddenly curled upward, replaced with beige, and then he stopped struggling. Samus held on, more tears welling in her eye as she shook her grip and kept strangling the dead pirate. She dropped the creature purely by accident, the crushed neck passing through her coiled, and she shook violently, beginning to cry once more.

“WHAT HAVE I DONE?!” She screamed. Her knees buckled and took the weight of her feet as she fell forward, her eyes flowing with tears now. Too exhausted to hold herself up, or restrain herself, she simply fell forward and collapsed, tears falling away from her face as the nightmare she had endured since childhood lay motionless beside her.

[Rachel Ascot]

ARC IV
THE REST IS SILENCE

NORFAIR
- Reunion

TOURIAN
- Orphanage
- Mother Brain
- The Final Failure
- Burial of a Ghost
- The Nightmare Ends

CRATERIA
- The Knight and Dragon of Zebes

[Rachel Ascot]

NORFAIR
Chapter 22 – Reunion

She leapt back in horror, her child legs scrambling for purchase as she fell.

Every time it happened, her eyes were forced open, but she couldn’t keep them open.

Both their bodies stung, and then all was silenced by the distant call of a raven.

The nightmare was bad enough when she could remember it, understand it, comprehend it.

Fear boiled in her stomach at the sight of it.

Now it was just meaningless images in slow motion.

It was like a great looming tear drop in the sky; a crescent moon…

Her mind became more and more disjointed as a hand was pushed forward. It was her hand, but she didn’t even know she was pulling herself along the ground.

… the blades punching into her skin and slowly, execrably crushing her…

She felt scattered as her eyes opened again. Her mouth tasted foul, the foulness of a long, uneasy sleep.

It was a small, blonde child, weeping and crying out for mother.

She awoke to look to her stomach. She was still bleeding.

She looked to her pale arm, and quivered in fear.

How long had it been since she had fought Ridley?

She was forced back onto the ground, before her head slowly turned, her…

She awoke again, and her stomach had a bulge that meant only one thing; broken bones.

“… no… I want my mummy…” She whispered. Samus sighed slowly, then nodded.

“Damn it!” She hissed to herself. “Got to… keep… awake… got to stay…”

“My name’s Samus Aran. Are you ok?”

“Awake!” She screamed, staying on her back. She sighed, and looked around. The same scenery.

… a singular, ginormous egg, rushing towards her.

And again the same scene. At least she wasn’t moving. Her mind was detached from her body for now.

… golden hair shrouding her head from Samus’ view as she strained her eyes to…

Yet she felt as though she could do nothing, and she knew it to be true.

… then uncurl the nasty looking talons and swoop down.

“Ahhhh…” She gasped, her eyes still closed. Her head spun.

“Shush… it’s ok.”

She felt groggy. Somewhere between life and death.

Samus screamed in horror as her hand shot with pain.

Samus guessed that she was closer to death than life.

Then, when the hands connected, both the girls bled crimson.

This time, her ears rung as a wailing in her head begun to scream, causing agony like never before.

… were now imprisoned by two vice grips. She screamed as she was forced further…
She awoke to find that, though her ears still rung, the sound was gone, so it can’t have been long.

“N-n-n-no.”

“Got to m-m-move…” She hissed, for she realised that it was only a matter of time before one of the Clan came to look for Ridley, and found him dead and her alive. Though, she could tell that she wasn’t going to last long enough anyway.

Death.

*

“This world is survival of the fittest, but there a great many people who think that that is the way it should be. That the only strong should prosper, that the weak must perish for the good of all, and that to help a weaker being that can’t help itself is to waste energy.” He smiled to Samus. “I’m glad to see that you agree with me, that it is less a worthless cause and more the worthiest of all.”

“Wise words, old man…” She said. “- though you’re going into a philosophical ramble again.” Old Bird chuckled at this.

“Maybe if you spent a few more minutes in a day listening to my so called ‘rambles’, you’ll be a little less eager to fight creatures larger than yourself.”

Did she listen anymore? Was Ridley wrong? Was she not just a mindless killer? Did she defend the weak?

She couldn’t honestly answer ‘yes’ to any of those questions. Her head spun uncontrollably as she felt the pressing on her hips tighten…

… pressing on her hips…

… tighten…

… teeth.

Her elbow shot up immediately, smashing the metroid on its body, and the blue and green beast hovered away. Samus didn’t move for a second as it stood still. She couldn’t resist the exhaustion, and simply stared up at it. The fangs sinking into her belly woke her up, but the metroid was here to feast on helpless prey. She rolled onto her stomach and found her arm cannon by her side.

“SCREEEEEEE!” The hideous beast came down onto her back with full force, and Samus screamed in agony as the weight nearly crushed her. She did, however, force herself upward, throwing the creature off of her for a second as she managed to hold her stomach as it bled once more. She rolled so she was sitting and aimed the cannon, before firing an icy pulse. The metroid felt the chill and screamed in the greatest agony.

And Samus did too.

Her imprinted arm began to bleed. The green veins that ran across it suddenly swelled and pulsed, and Samus couldn’t keep the arm cannon aimed, dropping it to the ground as she inspected her sickly arm. It turned a frightful yellow as the bite mark itself began to spit blood like a small geyser, then the veins began to pop open. She couldn’t believe the pain. It wasn’t like fighting Ridley; this was somehow much, much worse. Every vein, every pore, every inch of the blackened green coils that surrounded her arm pulsated, and at the ends they burst, spitting and gushing a hideous, foul smelling yellow ooze, grimy and sick in nature. Samus wailed, then looked to her attacker.

It was doing the exact same. And her mind, though still scattershot, put the pieces together.

“H-h-hu… Hugo?” She asked. The creature was shaking on the ground violently, unable to control its pain. It was about the size of a round bed; Samus could’ve easily laid across it. But no, it couldn’t be Hugo. It was so huge, and when she had last saw him he wasn’t even the size of a basketball. Yet, she knew in her heart of hearts that Hugo was the creature before her. The green beast’s red nuclei pulsed a violent light as it bared its fangs again. It rushed to Samus, ready to kill her, but Samus didn’t do anything to defend herself other than throw her imprinted arm, in agony and oozing a yellow, grimy liquid. The two bodies connected…

… and Hugo stopped at the touch.

Neither moved for a few seconds. Samus could tell what was happening. Hugo was now realising its mistake. It shook in terror as Samus breathed heavily, attempting to stand. Her hand was in more agony as the rest of her; indeed it was in more agony than ever before. However, it was not as if she couldn’t notice the rest of her body’s pain as she suddenly winced, feeling her belly’s blood escaping her. She looked to the wound and then saw that it was, in fact, wounds, and it was no uncommon thing across her body. Every inch of her was crimson with blood, and she fell to her hands and knees. Hugo screeched a sad screech, then hovered over her, before placing its fangs around her, embracing her. She didn’t resist, not that she could, but her eyes were suspicious as the teeth began to tease her stomach wound. Then she felt it. The fangs slowly seep in, and she gasped. Her body shook with a cold pain, but then it turned to numb. She shook under the weight of the green blob on top of her, before she felt her stomach churn. Her brow raised, and she looked down to the wound.

“… impossible…” She whispered. The wound was gone, with only three large circles on her skin where the fangs had been. It was as if she had never fought Ridley at all. She felt Hugo hover off of her, and she stood up, feeling, oddly enough, revitalised. A tear rolled down her cheek. “Thank you…”

Samus decided not to set off for Crateria until she and Hugo were properly fed. She still had some of the gerutas she had harvested earlier in the day; well, possibly week, considering how long she must’ve been out. She also found her armour and decided to work on fixing the Varia Suit. The strength Hugo gave to her made it a quick task to weave the metallic shards together once again, even with bare hands, but it was much weaker for it. She wiped her brow; it would have to do on the journey out. The two then ate, the meat satisfying the ravenous Hugo, and Samus would not deny that it was a good meal considering the circumstances. She watched Hugo with a careful eye, though, unnerved by the prospect of it attacking her once again. She decided that the safest and quickest route out now would be through The Great Shaft, Tourian. Brinstar would not be abandoned, and she doubted that Kraid could be dead this long without someone noticing. Somewhat luckily, it was not far from their current location, a three hours journey. Samus walked in the direction she hoped it would be in, Hugo in cautious pursuit. For the entire journey, Samus expected the worst to pop out, the Clan taking revenge for their fallen leader, but no. She guessed that Ridley had won no love from the new leader; after all, Hertz was his predecessor and she despised him even before he mauled her. But nothing, not even a trap was laid. It was just her and Hugo, marching on the road back home through the image of hell. The world got lighter as they passed the Sea of Fire once more, but turned away from the main lift to Brinstar. No, Samus suspected that the Great Shaft would not be so gingerly and obviously placed, and finally, she saw a black column on the horizon. She smiled, only dirt in her way, and her and Hugo marched on.

“We’re going home.” She hummed to Hugo, smiling to it. Hugo just spun in joy, glad simply to be reunited with its saviour. Then, they were there. A small, cast iron door blocked the path, but Samus merely placed her hand on the door and pulled it away. Her brow was raised and her senses became more alert. This was too easy. She looked to Hugo. “Stay back, I need to check what’s in here.” She murmured, before she walked further into the blackness. Her night vision lit the world in a dull green hue, and she looked around. Nothing other than steam.

Steam that didn’t smell of steam.

Samus didn’t have time to cover the filters on her helmet before the gas consumed her, and then she shook, before falling backwards and collapsing into a deep and unwanted sleep.

*

Samus screamed in horror as her hand shot with pain. The other girl looked in just as much horror, her agony ringing as blood seeped through her hand. Samus shook and tried to pull away, only to pull the girl closer and snap her into an excruciating hug of pain. Both their bodies stung, and then all was silenced by the distant call of a raven. Samus looked up, her body coated with blood now, to see the giant black bird unfold its wings, then uncurl the nasty looking talons and swoop down. Samus immediately tried to run, only to be clamped in place. She looked to either side; both her and the girl were now imprisoned by two vice grips. She screamed as she was forced further onto the girl, decaying more, until the bird finally swooped down and plunged its talons into both of them, the blades punching into her skin and slowly, execrably crushing her to death.

*

Her eyes shot open at the dream, a pounding headache crushing her. Samus clutched her red helmet, curling in pain as her brain hammered against the bone around it in an attempt to escape the horrible nightmare she found herself in.

“The intruder’s reactions to the noxious fumes are; minimal.” Came a sudden, dead voice. Samus’ head wheeled around, looking up. There was no light to be seen. She was in a world of black, where even darkness was absent. Misery and dread hung in the air, if there was any. Samus couldn’t tell; it was so cold, so lifeless, so alien in this black.

“… w-who are you?” She asked. “Where am I?!” She raised her ice cannon. She was certain she was back in the dream; nowhere was completely black. She couldn’t even see her hand raised up in defiance of the unseen enemy.

“My identification is; Mother Brain, Muv, Err, Brain. Your current location is; Tourian, Zebes Four, fourth moon of planet Zebes, Tannhauser Outer Orbit. Identify yourself.” Samus didn’t move for a second, realising that she had all but forgotten about the pirates besides Ridley and Kraid; Mother Brain, their commander. The Mother. The leader. The one who sat in her base on Zebes Four while those two did her dirty work, if Old Bird’s retelling was accurate. Samus growled.

“Samus Aran!” She shouted back. “The one who’s going to end…” Suddenly, her arm shot with pain. Her imprinted arm. Hugo was in trouble. She staggered from left to right, and she regained her bearings. Hugo was gone. “… what have you done with Hugo?!”

“Logic dictates ‘Hugo’ hue, goh, is the metroid that imprinted…”

“Where is it?!” She screamed in rage.

Silence.

“I find no useful purpose in telling you.”

The hairs on Samus’ arms stood up, and she raised her arm cannon. The barrel shone a pale blue light as the air around it chilled. Samus teased the trigger so the blast was ready to come out, but it was held back. The result was a strong light; one with a very thin field of vision, but Samus was not picky. She pointed her cannon up. The darkness continued, however. That meant that, while the room she was in was very tall, at least it was empty. Then she moved her arm from side to side, and gulped at just how thin the whole structure was. It was barely enough to fit her, and she shuddered at the possible purpose of this place. Tentatively, she placed one foot on the wall by her, then the next on the opposite side, before she began to climb.

“So why answer any of my questions?” She asked. Her feet shifted an inch upwards, and she placed her arm cannon on her back, giving her a fourth limb as she planted both her hands on the walls of the funnel, giving her more purchase.

“Enlightenment on specific subjects affected you; Samus Aran, samn, us, ah, ran. Observations upon your interactions with Ridley, rid, lee, show that you are susceptible to the moral quandaries, contradictions and meaning of your own existence.”

Samus took another step up the cold, narrow hall and another. “Well, look how that worked out for him…” She spat.

“Missing information. Irrelevant.”

“I killed him, and I’ll kill you the same way. Besides, if you could see those, why didn’t you see Ridley’s betrayal coming?” Then Samus suddenly felt her arm swell in its metal casing in pain, and she was thrown to the floor as she lost her own grip.

“I am a god here, Samus Aran.” Came the reply. The monotone remained, but somehow Samus could feel the taunting. “I have let Ridley conspire against me, because he was but a nano-angstrom of a nano-angstrom, and you are smaller than even that, compared to the light-years of the totality that is my existence. He was merely an identity; a name for the powers I needed to acquire the metroids. I have them now, and he is worthless.” Samus growled, and then decided to try climbing again. The darkness saw this, and her hand became agony itself when she tried.

“AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!” She screamed, her back slamming against the metallic tubing that was her cage. “Coward!”

“The insult is mutual.” Came the monotone, dead dismissal. “Samus Aran, you are weak in perseverance and mind. You are a… disappointment.”
Samus didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

“That wrath the metroid gives you? That is your greatest enemy. There are many enemies here who have hurt both you and it, and sadly, the imprinting is incredibly strong, stronger than I’ve ever seen. I hope you can concede that your temper is fiery at the best of circumstances. You will be tempted more and more to kill; I am not naïve enough to not assume that you’ve killed people and animals since you became a bounty hunter, and I am not to judge whether they were necessary or not, but you’ll go for the easier and more dangerous solutions to a problem each time, and you’ll eventually become no better than the Winged One. Finally, you will find something you cannot fight, cannot kill, and you’ll have forgotten how to not to. It will be the death of you, my…” A pause to wipe away a non-existent tear. “… my child. This quest bears you no good.”

“YOU’RE WRONG!” She screamed, pointing her arm up and firing her grapple hook from her arm cannon. She didn’t even knew if there was a roof it would reach. It just flew higher and higher into the unseen abyss until the wire became taut. Samus breathed heavily though her nose as Mother Brain proceeded to pry.

“Incorrect. Your assertion of your own skills, morality, and the trust the Chozo put into you is a fallacy.” Samus tried to ignore the voice as she placed one foot onto the metal, then another, ascending slowly. She got so far, when Mother Brain hurt Hugo again, causing Samus to wail, but this time her progress was not being impeded, causing her to smirk up to the black sky. She rose her alighted arm cannon’s barrel, and saw the roof.

“Oh you…” Samus seethed, then she planted an MDED bomb under her, before letting herself drop a short amount. She detonated the bomb and stopped her falling, then peered into the blackened hall she had created. The funnel was actually just one long tower, and she gulped as she saw the black empty canvas ahead of her, telling her just how large this room was, before she heard clack after clack. Her eye was drawn to a part of the movement, and saw a gun barrel aiming at her. Then another. And another and another until she saw that the room was teeming with guns.

“Remove trespasser procedure 2.3, initiate.” Came Mother Brain’s voice once more.

[Rachel Ascot]

TOURIAN
Chapter 23 – Orphanage

Samus’ feet pushed her out of the hole as the first shots were fired. The fall was large and gaping, but nothing she hasn’t dropped before. Her Varia Suit took all the force out of the impact as she hit the ground. She lingered for a split-second, letting the turrets lock onto her position, before she rolled forward and turned her movement into a sprint. It was dangerous; some turrets aimed for where she was, some where she would be, and she was constantly dodging and jumping from side to side and backwards and forwards.

The turrets were the only light source, their projectiles with a weak light but one that was of many. Tiny approaching stars that illuminated the vastness of the empty room, the tubes surrounding her like pillars, all of them an icy cold grey, as was the ground and the air itself; a chilling atmosphere. Samus remained on the move, every projectile getting closer and closer, as her visor cast its gaze in many places, looking for an end to the booming, lifeless arena. Her eyes locked onto a particular turret; above it, a shaft of some kind! Probably for repairs; perfect. Her grappling hook snapped to it, and she threw herself against a towering tank, before kicking off it and leaping to the next.

She bounced between the two, and then suddenly slipped. She looked up. The turret had turned, aiming for the wire that connected warrior to hook, and had inadvertently coiled it around. Samus gasped. Mother Brain was trying to cut the connection. Samus leapt as high as she could; to miss was to drop, this time with nothing to escape.

Her hands spread, looking for something to latch onto. They grasped at the circular turret, and pulled; Samus punched her way through the hatch and crawled into the cramped space. She curled into a ball, armour smoothing her form, and she rolled forward. She heard the rattling of the projectiles colliding with metal, and Samus growled. Mother Brain was still attempting to kill her, but Samus was safe for now. She rolled forward, her pace a little more calm, now there was nothing to hurt her. The hatch was long; extremely long. She briefly pondered the purpose of such a place, but decided that she wasn’t keen on knowing. She didn’t notice that the turrets had paused their barrage until she heard a voice. Mother Brain’s voice.

“Continuation is; unwise.” Came the monotone echo; a perversion of a real voice, cold, dead and robotic. “There is no success in your path; you will fail and die.” Samus kept rolling forward, but her mind stirred an idea. If she could get Mother Brain to keep talking, she could get some answers, and possibly clues on how to defeat her.

“Are you still trying to provoke me?” She asked.

“It’s very easy.”

“You think so?”

“Affirmative.”

Samus was about to reply, but then her imprinted arm shot into life and gave out an agonising bolt of pain through Samus’ whole body. She seethed through clenched teeth, trying to hide her reaction, though she felt a runny liquid, not blood but something more foul, seep away from the veins that had coated her skin. She didn’t move, paralyzed by the pain as it consumed her, but she didn’t let herself move. Finally, the pain eased, and she was left shaking. Tears collected in her eyes, the sting remaining for a few seconds longer before fading. When she recovered her senses, she growled audibly, causing the sound of a metallic rumbling snarl to pass through her helmet’s filters.

“… you fucking bitch…” She seethed.

“You are very easy to get a reaction out of, make no mistake, Samus Aran.” Mother Brain replied, her voice a never-ending and never-beginning bombard of a lacking of emotion. Samus snarled. She just felt what Hugo was going through, and she didn’t want to let it go on any longer.

“Why are you even doing this?!” She shouted. “What is the point to all of this?! What is your endgame?!” Samus shuddered in pain, then started to roll forward again as an answer processed and was prepared.

“You would have no understanding.” Came the answer. “The chozo race that raised you thought that weakness was tolerable. Because of this, you will not understand why I have decided that the ‘endgame’, both the ideal and inevitable result, is the eradication of all imperfect and weak beings in the entire universe.” Samus would’ve laughed if it was a real, human or even an alien voice saying it, but the computerised, dead tone suggested that Mother Brain was being deadly serious. Something was not right.

“… how?” Samus asked. “Even considering how ridiculous and pointless that is, that’s impossible!”

“Incorrect. Both your assumptions are fallacies. My motivations are not ridiculous nor are my goals impossible. Quite the opposite, it’s a calculated certainty with flawless logical reasoning fuelling it.” Mother Brain chanted. “Evolution is a process in which the weak are cancelled out by the passage of time, and only the strong remain to feed off of them; the universe is at its strongest when its inhabitants are at its strongest, and in mere moments I will become the single strongest being in the universe; ergo, all other creatures are imperfect and must be destroyed.”

Samus actually had to stop for a moment. She couldn’t actually believe she was hearing this. She wanted to shout that Mother Brain was insane, but she knew what the reply would be; Hugo’s pain. She didn’t want Mother Brain to hurt him again.
So, she kept rolling, and indulged in hearing Mother Brain’s plan. “So I have acquired metroids. This was under the pretence that the pirates could weaponize them and use them to wage a war, but I have actually used them for a better service. The imprinted metroids, as I am sure you are aware, have strength giving properties. I need only enough metroids to power my body, to make me strong and keep me alive, and then I will be the strongest being in the known universe. As I will stay alive forever, even failure cannot stop me from simply disappearing, recouping my strength and coming back until I succeed, which is a frank inevitability.” Samus was disgusted. This is the voice that commanded that the chozo die. This insane lunatic following an impossible dream.

“What shite!” She spat, and continued onward, but then she felt a tremor, and a panel fell beneath her. Samus was powerless to stop herself from falling, but her feet caught the ground as she unfolded. Her eyes were pinned to the floor but rose as she saw the first light she had seen in an age. It was a huge tanker, with a watery jar on top, some fifty feet off of the ground. And in the jar, piercing Samus with a wide-open eye, was a brain with a single eye on the front. Samus looked up in shock. Mother Brain.

“You have progressed too far.” Came a voice all around the room, but Samus was already prepared, firing a single shot to the glass. The tube shattered and glass fell to the ground, followed by a liquid. Probably the very essence giving Mother Brain life. Samus snarled, then heard a clang of metal. She looked behind her. A new wall had collapsed in behind her, forming a huge circle that the two now were trapped in. Samus looked to Mother Brain with suspicion, who didn’t react for a moment. “I will crush you now.” Samus’ mouth began to fall open.

“You’re dead!” She shouted, aiming her next shot. “Strongest being in the universe my arse! You’re a brain in a…”

Suddenly, she collapsed.

It was Hugo’s pain, but it was worse. A scream into the void was released from Samus’ mouth as she rolled on the floor, gripping her imprinted hand. She unfolded the armour around it to inspect and soothe it, and the sight made her sick. Every vein was pulsating, the green now turning to a hideous yellow, and some bizarre puss-like slime burst out of the weaker parts, the pressure unable to be restrained. The wound itself bled freely as if she had only just been bit, and the pain was unbearable. There was nothing that felt like this. Time dragged on and on as the pain continued.

Finally, it stopped, and Samus’ eyes could focus. On the ground, she saw an odd sight. Four skeletons, long dead. She narrowed her eyes and tried not to show sign of fear, but the fact that the skeletons all wore some shattered armour proved to Samus that her opponent had in fact been in exactly this position four times over, and she was still around. Then Samus turned around as a whole new shadow loomed over her.

The metallic cylinder lowered itself, but the brain did not, revealing a neck. This neck was thin and bizarrely contorted at bizarre angles across its brown form. Bone grey arms revealed themselves next, attached to a thin pair of shoulders. Her body was brown, and was shaped like a beaker; a thin bottleneck for the torso on an abdomen that was as round as it was colossal. The whole brown body was coated in grey rivet-like things, and stood upon proud, thick legs of the same grey. It was, frankly, nightmarish, as the brain seemed to grow jaw that bore teeth that were stuck in a rictus and emotionless grin. Mother Brain was connected to the ceiling by tubes that she threw off, letting some treacle-like liquid pour out of. The whole thing looked like a dead body, rotting meat propped onto a metallic puppet and told to walk. Mother Brain’s eye glared at Samus as she rose on of the grey arms.

“Escape is; impossible, Samus Aran.” She said without moving her mouth. “Prepare to die.”

[Rachel Ascot]

TOURIAN
Chapter 24 – Mother Brain

Mother Brain was the first to move as her arm very suddenly slashed to Samus. The golden warrior leapt up, throwing her legs over her head and landing on the offending arm, before raising her cannon.

“Letha sh-ARGH!” Samus’ command was interrupted as Mother Brain spun her wrist, throwing Samus off balance. Her palm leapt for Samus, who avoided the attack, and rushing past her. It was an easy dodge; Mother Brain was, unlike Kraid, as slow as she looked, and Samus took full advantage of it, leaping off of her and landing on the ground, before raising her arm and firing round after round, hoping to damage something. Ice collected around Mother Brain’s neck, the great monstrosity moving its eye to observe. Samus then ran along the arm and leapt for the white ball ahead of her. The eyelids slammed together, a shield to Samus’ kick. The golden warrior brought her cannon down and fired an icy shot, a wall of ice forming around the bulb. The brain slowly moved from side to side, trying to keep its eye clear. Then Samus saw a shadow engulf her, and leapt backwards to evade the oncoming attack. A great paw shifted past her, but Mother Brain’s arm had moved, and Samus fell to the ground. The monster loomed over her, the ice falling away as her eye opened once more. Samus stopped for a second as Mother Brain did also. The golden warrior’s eye scanned her opponent. Why was she moving so lazily? Not slowly, but lazily.

Samus had no time to analyse further, as a foot rose to crush her. Samus rolled out of the way, then suddenly heard the cracking and bending of metal. Her eyes turned. Mother Brain’s foot had submerged into the metal. Samus gasped, and then saw a hand come her way. Her feet pushed her, and desperately ran. The force Mother Brain was exerting was so lazy because she didn’t need to exert herself. That strength! All she needed to do was get one firm grip and Samus was done for. The golden warrior’s arm cannon turned to face the slowly turning beast and fired rapidly. Progress unimpeded, the hand came closer, the hips slowly turning her to face Samus. She hissed in anger then saw an opportunity. The legs! Samus changed direction and ran straight for Mother Brain. The monster’s hand clawed for her and engulfed Samus, but the warrior leapt into the air and curled as much as she dared, seeing a gap in the fingers ahead. She sped through, and was now behind the creature. Her back turned, Mother Brain began to turn, but both she and Samus knew it was too late as the golden warrior leapt onto the wall and back to Mother Brain, her hand clinging to the pink flesh that hung around the body. Her fingers dug in, she swung her feet forward, and connected. Her arm cannon’s barrel was pressed against the flesh and she pulled the trigger – gas spurted out of either side, then a circle of ice began to form around it. Samus smiled, though her grip was thrown off as the monster shuddered down. Samus nearly fell off, then Mother Brain shook again, attempting to throw her off. Samus’ fingers were plucked away one by one by the force, and finally she was thrown to the ground. She gasped, then immediately rolled forward, narrowly avoiding Mother Brain’s foot as she stepped backward. Samus spun, her cannon now aiming for the eye. But too late, a singular finger, a digit, made contact with Samus and slowly pushed down. Samus felt the force holding her and attempted to stand, only to find her joints wouldn’t move. Suddenly, the weight increased, slowly but inexorably. Samus fell to one knee, the burden of Atlas upon her shoulders, and then more, her whole body straining in agony, the effort required holding the weight up taking every bit of energy out of her.

“Confrontation is a futility.” Came the monotone. “Of the six-oh-two thousand, eight hundred and three muscles in my body, you are currently exerting seventeen.” More pressure, and Samus dropped forward, her hands slamming on her floor. “Eighteen.”

“AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!” Samus screamed in agony, her limbs shaking, unable to resist.

“Your strength relative to mine is; ratio one to two hundred and ninety seven exactly. It is wise for you to give in.”

“Shut up!” Samus barked back, before she rolled to the side, letting Mother Brain’s finger smash into the floor. The blonde warrior felt her body ache as she scrambled for grip, getting up. Mother Brain watched her stand, its long neck swaying side to side as her eye was contemplating her. Samus staggered up and threw her arm cannon out. “I’m done with this shite! I’ve been to the brink of death and back! What makes you any different?! Lethal shot on!” Suddenly, the blue end of the barrel turned red and burst out a red ball of light. Mother Brain was hit with the bulb, but her reaction was minimal.

“You overestimate yourself.”

“Like-fucking-wise!” The attacks from Samus came with more energy and fervour now, as her arm cannon fired shot after shot to Mother Brain, who staggered back slowly. Her eye in the centre of her head blinked, then narrowed slightly as a hand swung for Samus again. The golden warrior’s boot collided, leaping off the monster’s body and into the air. Mother Brain watched the warrior spin in the air, then a red light engulfed her eye. Mother Brain’s head swung away, and Samus smiled gleefully. Finally! A crack in the endless monotone! The beast swung her arm out, narrowly missing Samus, but the warrior smiled. Things were finally looking better. She was dwarfed in size and strength, certainly, but she had the speed and now she had made an impact on the brain-like monster. Her feet carried her without her thoughts needing to plan her route previous, going through the motion, making sure she could attack Mother Brain at every angle and avoid her own. Light after light shot forth, the pulling of the trigger now a frantic and desperate motion. Red lights were hurled into Mother Brain’s head, hoping to do some damage. Now the beast was forced to keep her eye shrouded, and didn’t attempt to attack Samus, the golden warrior trying to force an opportunity out of her. Mother Brain remained still; the attacks revealed direction but not distance or location, so it was best to be blind and protected.

“Location; altitude two-oh-four-three.” She stated, and Samus’ feet very suddenly shuddered.

“What did you do?!” She barked, then the room began to revolve, the walls spinning around her. “What’s at that location?”

“I find no useful purpose in telling you.” Came the answer as the shuddering room began to rise. Samus tried to keep firing, but felt her body push into the floor as gravity forced its very majesty upon her. Samus was pushed lower and lower, and then she began to slide against her will. Metal slid along metal, sparks flying away from her armour as she was unable to resist the force. She looked up from her position on the floor. Mother Brain’s hands remained on her eye, hoping to keep her one weakness away from her, but Samus’ eyes widened in concern as the head of the monster began to glow an odd colour; a curious yellow. Whatever it was, Samus surmised, it was not good. Her arm cannon was slowly forced off the floor, hoping to strike the creature and interrupt her.

WHUMPH!

Samus’ body was thrown into the air as the rising ended, and the golden warrior was in free-fall. Her eyes immediately scanned the black area, and heard the familiar clacking of gun barrels turning to her.

Damn it! She can’t fight back, so she’s letting her turrets do the dirty work! Then, as she began to slow and fall back, her eyes looked away from the black, and saw eight great towering tubes, each the diameter of a large bed, but colossal in height. However, it was the contents of each one that astounded her.

Metroids. These were the metroids that Mother Brain had used to become this monstrosity. And amongst them, an energetic creature that slammed against the glass.

“Hugo!” Samus screamed, forgetting about the turrets and Mother Brain and even the approaching floor beneath her. Her left hand flared with a numbing pleasure, one of safety, reassurance. Hugo was in sight once more.

“Hugo’s input into the current circumstances are; minimal.” Came the monotone as Samus suddenly sensed the floor under her, and threw her legs around. The feet caught the floor, then Samus smirked, hearing the flames rocket towards her. She spun around, her hand pumping the trigger as she did, and all the pulses of energy from the turrets burnt into the ground in front of her. She faced Mother Brain, and all the turrets behind her exploded.

“I beg to differ.” Samus answered, before punctuating it. “Bitch.” More cracking of turrets, preparing to send another volley to Samus, but she danced away, the red rage of her arm cannon flying away. To the left and to the right, to the left and to the right, her shots were guided, her dodges were immaculate. The turrets fired only to have their lifespan ended, unable to land a strike, but Samus began to feel a tremendous unease.

Metroids give strength and healing but… not whole bodies. She felt only more suspicious of Mother Brain with every passing moment. … no, from the way the tube collapsed, she could’ve hidden a whole neck in there. She’s been on those legs for a lot longer than five minutes. Suddenly, the yellow flashing of Mother Brain’s head. She knew that Samus could easily defeat some turrets! She already had! And why to the place Hugo resided? There were probably loads of turrets on other levels. It was a distraction, from the moment she was thrown into the air. If Mother Brain didn’t take the power from the metroids to make a body for herself, what then? Her body swung and fired one shot to the glowing head of Mother Brain, now impossible to see in the beaming light, bright as a sun within a sun. However, the attack just fizzled. It didn’t even make Mother Brain flinch as the creature stood to full height, its head towering on a grand neck. Samus’ eyes widened as she prepared herself to dodge.

“You will not avoid me.” Mother Brain said, but it was almost unrecognisable. It wasn’t the robotic monotone of before. It was a shaky and nervous voice, almost unlike anything she had said before. It was holding something within her, desperately holding back. “Y-you have m-met your end.” It was holding a restraint, desperate not to let the power within loose. Samus couldn’t even see the head anymore, but she decided now was the best time to fire, and she rose her cannon as Mother Brain opened her eye. A great light shot out, crashing through the floor it was directed to, before Mother Brain turned her gaze to her, and the world turned white.

Only, it didn’t. For white is only a colour, and there is no room for anything more for Samus to sense beyond agony.

It was a chill that burnt her every ounce of her. A great thrust that sapped every bit of strength. It was like nothing she had ever felt. She couldn’t imagine equal pain if every bone in her body was broken and she was forced to stand. It was like agony had become a substance that lived within her. Time slowed to a limp, then a crawl, and then simply stopped. Samus’ eyes were wide open throughout but she only saw light. She shuddered uncontrollably, and finally the world turned black. But she wasn’t dead. She forced her eyelids to stay apart, growing used to the darkness. She saw her hands on the floor ahead of her, holding her up. She saw the Varia Suit; it had been penetrated by the attack, with parts of it missing, clearly where the agony on her body stemmed from. Where the armour remained it was blackened as if it had been scorched. The waves of pain washing over her as she shuddered, and her head began to strain, rising to observe her opponent. Mother Brain was still there, her head beginning to glow once more. The creature turned to Samus, her eye piercing the green visor with a punishingly uninterested gaze.

“The intruder’s reaction to the attack is; below average. Collapse, shock, nausea, pain, but survival.” Her head glowed brighter. “Secondary attack required.” Samus tried to move to avoid the next strike, but her hands wouldn’t budge, nor her legs, nor her head as it dropped forward.

It was over.

It felt wrong, but she knew that it was all over. After all she had been through; fighting the first metroid she had ever seen, defeating the single largest creature she thought to exist, snuffing the flame that was her eternal tormenter. And she was about to die on the way home. She could do no more, her exhaustion forcing her to the ground as Mother Brain opened her eye once more.

Samus’ imprinted arm stung.

[Rachel Ascot]

TOURIAN
Chapter 25 – The Final Failure

It was like a great looming tear drop in the sky; a crescent moon that Samus looked up to, her eye’s scanning it with suspicion. Fear boiled in her stomach at the sight of it. Something about the moon seemed to unnerve Samus; it was so large this night, much larger than she ever remembered it, and it began to swell, as if it was coming nearer. Then, her eyes widened. It really was coming nearer, and she hadn’t seen it. How could she have been such a fool to have not seen it? She rose her hand to hold it back, only to see a child’s arm in her place. She looked to her pale arm, and quivered in fear.

“N-n-n-no.” She murmured, then she looked back up. The night sky was filled with a singular, ginormous egg, rushing towards her. She peered at it curiously; it was freckled, it looked ill and pathetic. She leapt back in horror, her child legs scrambling for purchase as she fell. She hit a hard obelisk in the shape of a feather, which she looked up to. The rock held the egg in place for a second, but then began to shake and crack, unable to support the weight, and fell apart before her eyes. Samus screamed at the development, her sapphire eyes weeping in fear as the great weight slammed into her. She was forced back onto the ground, before her head slowly turned, her eyes drifting to see the monster that the egg shell had held. She looked to it, and gasped.

It was a small, blonde child, weeping and crying out for mother. She had a bulb of golden hair shrouding her head from Samus’ view as she strained her eyes to look closer.

“Shush… it’s ok.” Samus Aran whispered to the girl, her pale fat hand extended to greet the girl. “My name’s Samus Aran. Are you ok?” The other girl didn’t turn around.

“… no… I want my mummy…” She whispered. Samus sighed slowly, then nodded.

“We all do.” She said. She walked slightly closer. She extended her hands. “I can help you, if you want.” The girl didn’t move for a second, but then she turned, and extended her hand.

Then, when the hands connected, both the girls bled crimson.

Samus screamed in horror as her hand shot with pain. The other girl looked in just as much horror, her agony ringing as blood seeped through her hand. Samus shook and tried to pull away, only to pull the girl closer and snap her into an excruciating hug of pain. Both their bodies stung, and then all was silenced by the distant call of a raven. Samus looked up, her body coated with blood now, to see the giant black bird unfold its wings, then uncurl the nasty looking talons and swoop down. Samus immediately tried to run, only to be clamped in place. She looked to either side; both her and the girl were now imprisoned by two vice grips. She screamed as she was forced further onto the girl, decaying more, until the bird finally swooped down and plunged its talons into both of them, the blades punching into her skin and slowly, execrably crushing her to death.

*

Mother Brain’s eye opened. The attack had drained her of energy. It was so powerful. She would require more strength from the metroids to remain. Earlier tests with the attack had a similar effect on her, but not to this degree. Battle exhaustion was the hypothesis. But the target, amazingly, wasn’t dead. Her armour had been penetrated by the attack, with parts of it missing. Where the armour remained it was blackened as if it had been scorched. The target was clearly in pain, and Mother Brain decided that one more blast would be a good test of its true potential, her head beginning to glow once more. The creature turned to Samus, her eye piercing the green visor with a punishingly uninterested gaze.

“The intruder’s reaction to the attack is; below average. Collapse, shock, nausea, pain, but survival.” Her head glowed brighter. “Secondary attack required.” Samus tried to move to avoid the next strike, but her hands wouldn’t budge, nor her legs, nor her head as it dropped forward.

It was over…

… until something expectedly latched itself onto her head.

Mother Brain immediately identified it as the metroid called Hugo, but everything else was scrambled. She had concentrated everything on the attack, so her analytical demeanour, the one of the computer, vanished as she let out an animal roar of pain and rage. The attack, much like a lazer in nature, a pulse of energy simultaneously kinetic, heat and light, had nowhere to go, so simply went nowhere, languishing in and around her own head, causing the agony that Mother Brain had inflicted upon all the test subjects she used, and indeed her current opponent. The scream was a series of short rumbles from her lowest bowels in a terrible fit of rage. Metallic claws reached up and grabbed the infant metroid, which wrapped its hideous teeth around her and used them to penetrate her brain, her greatest strength! She screamed in rage, trying to tear the monster off, but felt her own strength being sapped away. The brain began to drain in colour, slowly turning grey, the grip on her attacker getting weaker, unable to hold, and slowly but surely, dropping to the floor.
Hugo pulled off the beast that had attacked its ‘mother’. Rage and pain shook it. It couldn’t quite process anything; the attack did nothing to it, but the beasts claws digging into its flesh was painful enough, and it could barely feel anything more than anger at everything. It sensed its ‘mother’ behind it, still on the ground, about to die, but Hugo hesitated. The last time she was approached, she had attacked for some reason. He couldn’t contemplate her not recognising him, so suspicion paused it in mid-air, before it slowly approached its ‘mother’ and carefully clamped her in a vice grip. No fighting back. She was still, and Hugo was glad. It sank its teeth in, and begged for life.

Samus’ eyes shot awake at the sensation of being bit, but recognised it. She couldn’t move if she wanted to. She was just too weak to fight, allowing Hugo to coat her and sink his fangs in. The sting was quickly numbed and became a very slow coolness, like a life giving IV feed. Only her imprinted arm stung, but Samus was on edge, her teeth gritting in fear. What of Mother Brain? Her eyes looked ahead. A dead body, grey, drained of life, ahead of her. But she couldn’t even breathe a sigh of relief when she saw an errant twitch, and decided something was wrong.

“Hugo, get off me.” She hissed, a pit of dread expanding in her stomach. The metroid refused to move, however, enraptured in saving her, but Samus’ paranoia screamed in her mind. “Hugo! Move!” But no, Hugo wouldn’t. And then, she saw the foot of the beast that had destroyed Zebes Four lurch forward, gaining more space. Samus gasped in horror. “Hugo, fly away for god’s sake!” But the creature wouldn’t budge as Mother Brain pulled herself up slowly, unbeknownst to Hugo, alive and well. A grand and great scowl emanated from the throat of the Brain, and Samus shook, before forcing one of her arms forward and pointing up. “Sorry, Hugo, but I’ve got to…” She teased the ice cannon slightly, a shot of cold running through the cannon, but Hugo understood, or so it thought, leaping off. Samus got to a stand, but suddenly a sharp pain forced her back to her knees. It was in her imprinted hand.

“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” Came Hugo’s enraged wail. Its fears had been confirmed – its ‘mother’ was going to attack it. Betrayal rocked Hugo to the core, watching as its own pain flowed into Samus, but this rage made her weaker and weaker, lessening her ability to do harm. Samus shuddered, collapsing forward.

“Hugo, just go!” She screamed, forcing herself back to a stand and raising her arm cannon back up. Hugo snarled in a blind rage, and charged to Samus. However, its ‘mother’ pulled off the shot, and missed. Hugo sensed the blast go by…

… and then it sensed the claw that the blast hit.

Mother Brain wasn’t stopped by the attack, but Hugo sensed just in time to try to move. The claw punctured its side with a non-lethal attack, and the flying beast was sent rocking and reeling towards the ground. Samus leapt towards Mother Brain.
“No!” She screamed, her desperation taking over as she tried to stop the beast. Mother Brain saw this, her claw very quickly batting her away and sending her rolling towards the hole she had accidentally made in the floor. Samus felt dazed, dragged along the floor by mere motion, and then felt her body go over the edge. Her legs dropped, and she fought for purchase with her hand. Her vision went blurry, but she was able to see Mother Brain slowly approach Hugo. A newfound anger and speed was in the lumbering giant. It was not exerting any energy it didn’t need to earlier, in the fight with Samus, but now survival was threatened, she wanted to end it immediately.

“Not on my watch!” Samus screamed, her hand pulling the trigger frantically on her arm cannon, the lethal shot setting on as she hoped to simply give Hugo a chance. But Mother Brain didn’t pay attention as her foot clamped down on the green form.

“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…”

And what started as a mighty, defiant roar became a whimper of pain. Samus watched as Hugo somehow got back into the air, though now green goo flowed out of it, and the pain in her arm got worse and worse. Samus refused to let go, but she froze in place, watching as Mother Brain batted the slower, deflating Hugo out of the air and down to the ground. Samus could see her imprinted arm, exposed by the cracking of her armour, bleeding and looking weak, reflecting Hugo. Mother Brain kicked the dying creature Samus’ way, and knocked the bounty hunter’s grip away, letting her slip into darkness. She dropped, the visor of her helmet catching her tears as she dropped, one last sight visible through the shrinking hole she had fallen through; Hugo, trying to escape, but being caught and taken in a two handed grip, and ripped apart like wet paper, Samus herself being watched by a cold, emotionless, distant gaze. Her hand drifted around, firing the grapple hook and catching her in the wall, stopping her fall, but her mind was still in free fall, not noticing her own body had done this. She slammed into the wall, her feet trailing along the very close floor, the pinprick of a hole shining a miserable light on her as she sat dazed.

“… Hugo…” She whispered, and she felt her cheeks become a flood of tears.

[Rachel Ascot]

TOURIAN
Chapter 26 – Burial of a Ghost

Her feet carried her in a direction she didn’t even recognise. Just away. She wanted nothing else but to get away from the universe and have a moment to herself. Her gait became a weighed, weary stagger, every step sapping her strength. Her arms hung limply, heavily by her sides. Her eyes watered and reddened, her cracked visor matching the state of her body, her armour and her heart. Her left hand, the one that had been imprinted, bled openly and freely. Her lazily hanging hand let blood collect and spill around it as she walked with no sense of feeling or energy. The emphasised veins that she had, once an unhealthy dark green, were now a shade of pink which was even sicklier than the green. She kept moving, trying to get away, even if she knew it was pointless. She just had to hold back the tears and get as far away as she could. The texture beneath her feet changed from smooth metal to an uneasy collection of pipes. One of these pipes caught her foot and was torn from place as she simply collapsed forward, the pipe gushing liquid across the room away from Samus. She refused to stand up, lying there.

“… SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT TO DO!” She screamed pathetically. No answer came, and she began to weep.

Time stood still for a short while. The spraying of the water kept up the pace, filling the small nooks and crannies with water, making the room shine a dead blue and silver amongst the black and the grey of the pipes. Samus laid bleeding and crying, refusing to come to terms with anything. She had had enough, and now she just wanted some peace. Her ears only picked up the shriek of the liberated water as it escaped its cylindrical prison, and her heavy and constrained breathing. Her brain stopped. Her limbs stopped. Her mouth and heart stopped. She slowly wept her worries away, only for them to arise and be wept out all over again. Slowly, her weeping became a whimper, then a dying sigh.

“Hugo… Hugo, I’m sorry.” She said, despair coldly crushing her heart. Saying it only brought back more tears as she continued to weep.

It was over. She had failed.

She had failed Hugo. She had failed her parents. She had failed Old Bird and the legacy of the Chozo. She had failed Zebes Four, the planet itself and its heritage and its current inhabitants. She had failed those who would now fall under Mother Brain’s gaze. She had failed Adam Malkovich and Perlar and Galactic Federation. But more than anyone else, she had failed herself.

“Ridley… was right all along.” She moaned. “I’m a weak failure. I’m a murderer and a shambles, and if I had just thought for a minute…” Samus looked up to the blackness and back to her knees. She rocked forward, and landed on the pipe-laden ground. Her whole body simply eased into place, stuck in a hatefully uncomfortable position amongst the pipes that Samus could find no energy to move out of. Her heartbeat became a weary thud, her breathing became a choke. She smelt and tasted tears as they rolled down her cheeks in a downpour, unable to hold back the tide. She felt, more than ever before, truly lost, wretched and alone, shifting her arm cannon to point back towards her head.

“Lethal shot on.” She choked on the last word, the blue light in the barrel turning red. Born out of misery. Born out of solitude. Born out of death. Now it bookended her life. A tragically fitting fate for Samus to resign herself to. She couldn’t summon the energy to close her eyes as the tears blurred her vision, and she prepared to pull the trigger.

“Samus, you should not have come back.”

The once great warrior took a sharp intake of breath upon hearing the voice, her eyes wincing in pain. “Old Bird, please don’t do this.”

“But it is something you must hear.” The transmission continued, a distant chozo statue flickering to life. It was a great towering figure, standing at eight feet tall and made of a long dulled metal, and Old Bird stood in upon the statue’s palm, sad eyes gazing at the motionless, lying form of Samus. His voice was but a low hum to Samus, existing to exacerbate her misery. “Maybe a part of your heart will always be black, but it seems I didn’t do enough to subdue it.” The woman in broken armour stirred, tears rolling down her cheeks and her teeth digging into her bottom lip.

“I… I just…” She repeatedly choked on her words, and Old Bird took this opportunity to continue.

“The metroid’s imprinting would always be your downfall. It has driven you to this madness.” Samus’ head rolled upward, her gaze finally looking to Old Bird. He looked as if he was holding back a tide of anger, betrayal giving a harsh sting to all of his words. “You’ve gone against everything the Chozo stood for, and now you’ve destroyed us.”

“I couldn’t do anything else, though,” Samus let out a low whisper, crawling closer to the statue, her body painfully sliding across the pipes. “I just couldn’t.”

“Why not?” Old Bird asked, now his voice raising. Samus cowered a little, this tone alien when coming from Old Bird. “Because you could not control yourself! Because you value a killing machine over your own kin! No chozo would do any of that!” The disgust on his face was as hurtful to Samus as any one of Mother Brain’s strikes.

“Old Bird, please…” She began to beg, but Old Bird silenced her with a hand gesture.

“You were supposed to carry the chozo within you.” He said coldly. “And now you abandon it, chasing a metroid that tricked you into thinking it as your own.”

Samus’ mouth fell open at this, her breathing becoming a panting too painful to bear. Her heart ached, as if it was coiling, trying to undo her own wrongs through her death. The Hunter bowed her head to turn away, both fearful and miserable. A great weight fell upon her shoulders, forcing her down into the ground, back to her own suicidal depths. She had completely betrayed her heritage, her own family, her…

… she paused as a thought occurred to her.

“What did you just say?” She asked aloud. The small hologram in the palms of the chozo statue sneered as it recoiled, shocked at her question.

“Samus, I don’t think I understand where you are going with this.” Old Bird said. Samus turned her gaze to him, and rose to a stand.

“I just want to hear it again; what did you say?” She asked again. Old Bird did not respond, simply peering directly at her. Samus’ ears pounded, her cheeks wet, her every breath bringing a rumble. But while her sunken heart remained in a desolate state, emotions weighing down its shattered pieces, her mind was telling her to stand. Something, she felt, was very wrong.

“Fine.” She said finally, her voice sterner, stronger. “I’ll ask you something else. About seven or so years after I landed on Zebes 4, the original Old Bird said something very important to me. It was the most important thing to him. Do you know what that was?” The hologram seemed perplex, the flickering image of Old Bird stepping back.

“I recall no such…” The hologram stopped, and looked back to Samus, suspicious of her tone and her choice of words. “The original… Old Bird?”

“Yes. The original.” Samus clarified, crossing her arms. Her brow furrowed as the rightmost corner of her lip raised in a barely contained fury. “The chozo who raised me. The chozo who took me in as his own. The one you’re ostensibly based on.” The hologram bristled, now anger seeping into it too.

“I don’t appreciate the comparison you are making, Samus!” He said, his beak curling in an anger to match. “I did not raise you to…”

“You did not raise me at all!” Samus suddenly screamed, and the hologram was taken aback. Samus’ teeth were bared, gritted together, her breathing the only sound that could be heard. Now the warrior’s heart beat once again. The sadness from Hugo’s death was not gone, but now her heartbeat was loud, every beat like a drum, echoing a terrible indignant anger that rumbled through every bone of her body. “You have done nothing but confuse and distract me every step of the way! You have repeatedly told me not to save Hugo from Ridley, and what happened? I abandoned it! I marched into Ridley’s room, to take revenge! For what he did to me, to the chozo, to you!” She pointed accusingly at the silent figure standing at her neck height. A tear rolled down her cheek.

“I almost wanted to believe it, that I was a chozo myself and that it was my duty to keep on the life, but Old Bird never taught me that! I thought I needed you, when you’ve been the problem from the very start! If I hadn’t come back, then Hugo would be dead anyway, as would the prisoners I first saved! At least I tried! I tried, and I could’ve made a fucking difference, and you helped to squander all chance of that! I was no longer Samus Aran to you, I was your little pod to carry on the chozo, and you kept telling me to turn back, for your sake rather than what was really important!” The warrior had to stop to catch her breath, her words echoing through the halls of Tourian, her tears flowing at full force once more like rivers charging down her stained cheeks. Her breathing was heavy, her eyes punching through the hologram, the chozo statue towering above her as the small figure of Old Bird stood before her, shocked to speechlessness.

“Oh, and I’ll tell you what the original Old Bird said, seeing as you can’t recall.” Samus began once more, the hologram stepping forward a little. Her voice was more hushed but no less powerful. “He told me that to try and save the weak and the helpless was the noblest cause of all. It’s why he took me in and loved me as if I was his own child. It’s why I took in Hugo as my own, as he did for me. And it’s why, in my position, he would’ve gladly gone into Norfair and died looking for Hugo, imprinting or not!” She paused once more, collecting herself. She could not will herself to calm down, her heart ramming into her ribcage, nostrils flared, eyes stinging. She seethed with the fury of a caged animal, her heavy breathing the only sound. Old Bird stood stock still, an indiscernible emotion on his face. Finally, his eyes narrowed harshly.

“Samus, you need to stop and think.” He said. “You’re imagining what you want to hear because you cannot accept your place as…”

“I HAVE NO PLACE!”

Even from a hologram, a gasp could be heard as Old Bird recoiled in vain, Samus’ fist crashing into the statue. She pounced onto the statue like a tiger, fists slamming into the metallic bird. Every hit was punctuated with the statue shuddering and rumbling as another glaring white scratch scarred the dull, grey metal. Old Bird’s image flickered with every punch.

“Don’t do this, Samus!”

Samus completely ignored his orders, instead ripping into the statue like her life depended on it. She felt as if it did. Every ounce of emotion was turned to rage, and turned towards the single-minded goal of destroying this statue. Of silencing the computer code that pretended to be her foster father. Now the hits began to violently buckle the hollow statue, the metal being unable to take any more punishment and simply bending to Samus’ will. Old Bird became ever hazier and hazier.

“You need me!” He shouted in a desperate plea, but it was in vain. Samus kept pummelling at the now disfigured statue, now dropping to be smaller than her. Her arms swung with focus, though the rage behind them was animal. Her tears fell through the air with every motion. She was no longer conscious of what was around her, just the statue. Old Bird disappeared, but Samus carried on punching long after she stopped hearing his voice. She kept punching until her arms could no longer do so, when they begged for relent. She finally managed to step back, and look at the scene. What once stood at eight feet tall now was crumbled and had collapsed in on itself. Samus looked at the buckled beak, the feathers forced into one another, the twisted arms and, most eye-catching, the two palms, still together, a flickering blue bulb in the centre. It was as if they were begging for her. Begging for mercy or death, she could not immediately tell. She got closer, down onto one knee, and placed her two hands under the metal palms. A blink, a gulp.

“If I do this, there will be no more chozo presence on Zebes 4.” She said aloud, more for her own sake. So she knew the exact implications before she made her decision.

“You could’ve…” Came words through what sounded like a dying radio. The feedback ebbed in time with the voice. Samus looked straight at the glowing bulb, the light already beginning to die. “… been… chozo… you… abandon…” Samus scowled.

“I guess you were right.” She said, making her decision. “This really isn’t my home anymore.” With that, she raised her hands, curling the chozo statue’s palms in on themselves. She didn’t stop until she heard the glass of the bulb shatter, and now she was in a cold embrace of pitch blackness. Alone in the silent dark once more.

Samus closed her eyes, her heartbeat slowing once more. Her breathing slowed too, becoming more subdued. The anger now disappeared, and all that was left was a sombre exhaustion. She could not even summon up the energy to weep anymore, for all her tears were spent. The weight of all that had happened to her was on her shoulders once again; she had cut off all ties to the chozo now, but even that did not distract from Hugo’s death. Samus rocked backwards, sitting down with her legs crossed, her weary gaze fixed upon the shards of metal. It was a sight that reflected how she felt; her shattered heart and broken body begging for relief, for a respite from all the pain. One palm fed into the other unconsciously, and Samus only noticed that she was doing it when a frightful sting shot up her arm. She instinctively looked to the imprinted hand. It was still bleeding. The sight, the gruesome reminder, made Samus bring it to her chest as if it was a child. She shuddered, sorrow controlling her actions. She could feel her breath quicken as she tried to hold back the tears.

I need to collect my thoughts, she thought, looking for a hidden corner where she would not be disturbed. She edged herself towards the nearest wall of pipes and placed her back against it, before she wrapped her hands around her feet, holding herself still. I need to know what to do next.

With that, she forced herself into a dream state.

*

When her eyes pulled open, she recognised the night, and realised what was happening. “This damn dream.” She whispered. She looked up to what she knew would be there. It was like a great looming tear drop in the sky; a crescent moon that Samus looked up to, her eye’s scanning it with suspicion. Trepidation boiled in her stomach at the sight of it. She knew that it would begin to move. She looked to her hands; the hands of a child once again, but she clenched the soft fists and looked back up, as the moon finally began to swell and come closer. She frowned determinedly and looked back up.

“I’m not… I wasn’t ready.” She whispered. She turned to where the feather shaped obelisk would always be, but she knew that, this time, it wouldn’t be there to support her. “That’s fine.” She answered. “I need to do this alone anyway. I’ve been relying on your provision for far too long. You’re a guide, a role model and… and my father. But you’re not a shadow I must wallow in, nor a stone to hide behind. Thank you, but you’re not here anymore.” She looked back up, seeing the egg in mid-air swallow the sky, and then the weight hit her. She was forced back onto the ground, before her head slowly turned, her eyes drifting to see the monster that the egg shell had held. She looked to it, and sighed in sorrow. It was a small, blonde child, weeping and crying out for mother. She had a bulb of golden hair shrouding her head from Samus’ view as she strained her eyes to look closer.

“Shush… it’s ok.” Samus Aran whispered to the girl, her pale fat hand extended to greet the girl. “My name’s Samus Aran. Are you ok?” The other girl didn’t turn around.

“… no… I want my mummy…” She whispered. Samus sighed slowly, then nodded.

“We all do…” She said. She walked slightly closer. “- and I’m sorry; I’m not your mother. At least, I wasn’t a very good one.” The girl’s body stiffened. She stood up, not turning to Samus.

“W-w-what?” She asked nervously. Samus felt the weight continue to pile onto her shoulders as she was forced to her knees; she bowed her head to the girl and became to weep.

“I… I was weak. I couldn’t save you. I had to be saved. By you.” She couldn’t bear to look up to the girl, and tears escaped her sapphire eyes. “That’s why it hurts whenever I try to hold you. B-because I didn’t want you in the first place, and when I had you, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how I could save you from my past… my future… my life. I couldn’t save you from the dangers I would bring back every time I came home… and I hated you.” She looked back up the child, who was now crying too; she was yet to turn around.

“I hated you because I felt that you were taking me away from what I knew; the chozo pacifism. I thought I had to be the chozo, so when you gave me rage and strength, I panicked. I felt your rage, and your hate, and I became angrier and angrier, and I couldn’t control it. I lashed out on everything around me, including you. I was angry at you, I was angry at myself, and I let you down when it came down to the crunch. I even abandoned you when I had to choose between you and Ridley. I chased my pointless revenge because it was so much easier than making that choice, even though the answer was obvious.” She wept openly now, unable and unwilling to hold back her true feelings. “And that’s why you panicked and wouldn’t listen to me. Because you thought that I was no better than Ridley or Mother Brain. I was angry and miserable, and you drove me into action because you feared that I didn’t care for you… but I did. Otherwise… I wouldn’t have come back to Zebes Four. I couldn’t say it, but I wanted to protect you, and my fear and anger got in the way. And there was nothing I could do…”

“N-n-no.” The girl finally answered. “It wasn’t entirely your fault...”

“Maybe it was.” Samus interrupted her, then her eyebrows rutted once more and she rose to match the fellow infant girl’s height. “Maybe it wasn’t. That doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is what happens now.”

Silence.

“And… what does happen now?” She asked, and Samus remained in place. She knew this question would come, and she still wasn’t sure of an answer. But she continued anyway. She had to be strong, and she had a new goal.

“If I end it here, then all of this would’ve been a waste. I can’t leave this unfinished. I felt the pain you went through when Mother Brain transformed. I went through the pain you endured when Ridley held you. I can’t knowingly let any being go through that as well, and it’ll only get worse if she gets what she wants. For the metroids and the rest of the galaxy. I’m going to stop Mother Brain, and release the other metroids.” The girl shook in fear at the development, finally turning to her, revealing an identical face to Samus’ own.

“B-b-but they’ll kill you!” She said in horror. “They don’t know you like I do!” She finally turned to Samus, who chuckled slightly.

“The doctor was right after all. I should’ve gone with a genderless name.” She then walked closer to the girl, who stood back.

“No, mummy! It hurts you when we…” Then Samus placed her hand on the girl’s cheek.

Nothing happened. No pain. No blood. Nothing.

Samus gently kissed the girl on her forehead, then locked her eyes onto the girl’s own as she stared back in shock. “I’ve got to. They need help, like you did, and I’m not refuse to make the same mistake twice. I’ve come so far now, and now I’m the last person who can stop Mother Brain. If the metroids kill me, at least they’re safe, as is the universe at large.” Samus explained. The girl had tears in her eyes. “You trusted me, and I let you down. But can you put your faith in me again? I need your strength to help me defeat her and save the others.” The girl didn’t answer for a minute.
Then, slowly, a curl formed in her lips, and it got larger and larger as a smile came to her face.

“… I should’ve known.” She said. “I didn’t need to imprint you at all.” She hugged Samus with a strong force, who, for once, hugged back, no pain coming. “I love you, mummy.” A tear rolled down Samus’ cheek as she closed her eyes. As far as she was concerned, that moment could’ve lasted forever. She willed it to be that way, but the fact that she knew it must end made it all the sweeter for her.

“I love you too. And I’m sorry.”

But the mood was destroyed as a great caw rang throughout the world. A screech of a bird. Samus scowled as she opened her eyes. The girl was gone, but she felt stronger now as she looked back up to the circling bird. She didn’t even notice the metallic clamps slam onto either side of her, and as they touched her they cracked and collapsed around her as she flexed her arms.

“… and you’re him.” She spat. The bird didn’t reply, circling above her and screeching over and over. Samus clenched her childish fists and smirked. “And yet, you’re not. Because you’re still here.” She watched the bird plummet towards her. “You’re what he made me. What he left behind in me. My hate, my and violent rage.” The talons stretched out, shining like knifes. “I realise now what I did, and I will have to do again. I’m not proud of what I did to stop him...” She kept looking up as the bird suddenly vanished and black feathers rained down on top of her. She sighed. “– but in the end, so long as I keep control, I’ve got nothing to fear.”

She felt a tear she had cried earlier still on her cheek, and she plucked it off with her finger. She looked to the glass-like bead that sat on her hand, before flicking it away. Then in a blink she closed her eyes and opened then once more, back in Tourian. Her eyes drifted around, before she felt something she hadn’t felt in an age. A numbness. Particularly, in her left arm. She looked to the original bite mark that had started it all. The imprinting. The greening of her hand was gone, as were the emphasised veins. Now, there was simply a singular mark in the middle of her palm. In an odd way, it was almost shaped like a heart. Samus’ lips came to a brief smile, one of peace, before she looked above her. Back to the hole that she had dropped through. The way back to fight Mother Brain. It had gotten taller. Mother Brain must have chosen to retreat, with the metroids most likely in tow. She fired her grapple hook upwards into the darkness, her heart beating ever stronger.

“It’s time to end this nightmare.”

[Rachel Ascot]

TOURIAN
Chapter 27 – The Nightmare Ends

The ascent of Tourian looks no different to the lowliest floor. All of the iron shaded rooms looked the same. The only difference this time was the tubing that held the last metroids. Mother Brain looked over this. Her eye and her mouth was incapable of smiling, though a grim satisfaction pooled over her and she saw the fruits of her labour.

The metroids, some shuddering, some asleep, their wide-awake nightmare of their strength sapped every hour continuing. Mother Brain, however, looked over them with a hard, dead glare. A subroutine of a subroutine became a cavalcade of operations, and the metroids all awoke and screamed in shrill, agonising unison, and Mother Brain felt stronger. She felt the blood of life run through her veins as she calculated and recalculated and thrice recalculated the situation.

A young but powerful metroid had almost killed her. Why? Its mother figure was threatened, why, because she was attacking the mother figure, why, because the mother figure had attacked her. Mother Brain remained standing, and looked to the hole that the mother figure, Samus Aran, had fallen down.

Why had the mother figure attacked her, because she held the metroid prisoner, why had the mother figure attacked her, because she held the metroid prisoner, why had the mother figure attacked why had the mother figure attacked her…

“Insufficient data.” Mother Brain announced out loud, somewhat of a revelation passing through her mind. A different question came to fruition. Not why had the mother figure attacked her, but why was the mother figure here? Because the mother figure was here for the metroid, how did the metroid get here, Ridley brought it from… Earth… Mother Brain’s thoughts ran through the data again. Ridley had brought her here, she knew now. But he can’t have known that she could do this. But he knew she would’ve put up some kind of defence to ward off an attack, so he would only have brought her if he thought she had a chance of beating Mother Brain, and from that the conclusion that must come forward is…

Mother Brain slowly turned back to the hole she had blasted into the floor, the hole that Samus had fell from. The hole the warrior now rose out of, from the blackest pit into the light of the battleground.

“You have returned.” Mother Brain droned in the same monotone. “I did not calculate this. Obstruction of reasoning was; time. Reason for your return; Ridley, rid, lee, assumed you were able to defeat me. He knows that if you survived a fight you would come back, a possibility I have now calculated to be a certainty in the event of an impossibility.” Samus didn’t answer, but remained still. Mother Brain shifted her weight into the middle of the room. “The impossibility being your second survival. You are outclassed from multiple and simultaneous perspectives, including in no particular order; mathematical perspective, logical perspective, perspectives of size, weight, strength and intelligence.” The brain-like head began to glow the same ominous gold and yellow as before. “I have the strength of seven metroids plus my own personal strength which by itself exceeds yours. I have defeated you in our last encounter and am superior to the few you have managed to defeat yourself. I am larger, I am heavier, I am stronger and I am a being of unmatched reasoning capacity. You cannot destroy me.”

The head became a sun in the middle of the room as Samus shielded her eyes. “While I have the capability to destroy you, and ergo you will never achieve victory.” And thus, once more she unleashed the attack. The great light shuddered and cracked the air around it, a fizzling crackle emanating and giving support to the high pitched drone that accompanied it. It was white one moment and green the next, to blue to red to pink to black. It was, as Mother Brain had calculated, perfection. Not a beam of light out of place, not a wave of heat in the incorrect direction, not an ounce of energy in the wrong space. Mathematically anticipated to be the catalyst for the destruction of the imperfect and the impure in this universe and any other. Mother Brain felt her body tire from the energy used to bring this attack, and she relented for her own satisfaction. No chances of Samus Aran surviving; an interrupting blip in an otherwise completely smooth plan. A momentary dip in an upwards climb to victory.

A chill passed on her face.

Mother Brain’s eye wrenched open in shock as she glared at the very much alive Samus Aran. She stood proudly, the barrel of her arm cannon shining a glorious blue. Her body armour was not in an intact state; her helmet was not the red helm it used to be, but a ring of metal around her neck, a protruding shard covering her cheek leaving one half of a cracked visor there. Her chest was fully exposed and her leg armour resembled a collection of tin cans, only the shoulders and one arm remained a whole. Her clothes had a similar fate, only her shorts remaining. And yet, for all this, the woman appeared unhurt. Her body was coated in white lines where scratches and scars once were, and her hair was a mess worse than before, but the woman stood with a stance of power, her eyes burning into Mother Brain’s singular eye. Her expression was a determined, driven glare, as Mother Brain’s changed to match.

“I have to stop you!” Samus barked. “It’s why I’m still here!”

Mother Brain struck first, her open palm jutting forwards violently to collide with Samus, who retaliated with a great leap, allowing her to sail over the monstrous claw. A singular boot spun in mid-air and landed on Mother Brain’s wrist. A sharp crack was let out to Mother Brain’s horror, and then she sent another palm with the consistency of a machine. Samus was thrown back; without the armour to protect her from the full force she made an indent in the metallic wall, but her knees leapt up so her feet could catch another incoming punch.

The fist bent the metal even more as it struck, and Samus’ feet shook and ached from the strain of holding the crushing force at bay, but fight back she did. Her hands stroked at the bent metal, and then she felt something on her hip. Mud. Her eyes were distracted for a second. The ground… this wasn’t the part of Tourian that hung in the hollowness of whatever was below Norfair’s bowels. No, this was Brinstar, and already a plan formed in her mind. An insane gamble.

She looked back to the grey fist trying to force her further back, and straightened her legs, forcing Mother Brain’s hand to stagger back slowly. Samus gave a sharp output of force, then immediately leapt from the hole she had made to escape another strike. Her eyes darted to the metroids as she kept running, hoping Mother Brain wouldn’t catch up. Just outside the circle that was Mother Brain’s personal lift. Perfect.

She turned to Mother Brain and dug her hand into the bulb of armour on her shoulder. From it she summoned an MDED, her bombs, and flung it to the roof. It cracked the metal and stayed in place, but Samus didn’t see Mother Brain’s foot until the shadow of it passed over her. She dodged to the side frantically, flinging up another bomb. Mother Brain didn’t react, but stopped, looking to Samus thoughtfully. Was she figuring out Samus’ plan? Samus refused to let that happen and searched her brain for a way to stop it, then thought of something. Was Mother Brain… faster? She glared at Mother Brain, and scowled. She decided to buy some time; why not give Mother Brain time to gloat and less time to consider what Samus’ plan was.

“You were saving energy in our last fight.” She stated. Mother Brain didn’t react for a moment.

“Affirmative. About seventy, seven-oh exact, per cent. Speed nor power was not deemed necessary for such a weak and small opponent.” Came the cold reply. “Reconsidering this decision.” Mother Brain was suddenly thrown back, her face coated in light blue. She pulled the ice off her face to see the smirking Samus. Mother Brain let out an uncharacteristic growl, then very suddenly brought her hand forward again. It was like a bullet, but Samus leapt backwards. The beast scrambled forward, her other hand trying to catch the runaway opponent as she danced away.
Then Samus spun on the spot, dodging to the left of a huge foot that seemingly out of nowhere slammed towards her. Samus ran towards the side of the room with the metroids, but then Mother Brain leapt over to that end of the room and slammed directly in front of Samus, making the blonde warrior reconsider her plan somewhat. Mother Brain didn’t want her to get to the metroids, and there was the problem that Mother Brain hadn’t shown her true strength.

Samus’ face became stern but hopeful. She had her plan now, hurling another MDED to the ceiling. Enacting it was the difficult part. She backed away from the fast approaching Mother Brain, whose claws steadily became faster and faster. Every hit seemed to come sooner and sooner. There’s some of that extra speed. Samus thought to herself. Another bomb to the roof.

Suddenly, Samus was thrown back by an almighty attack. She was rammed back into the wall behind her, agony running through her body. She held the urge to scream, and saw Mother Brain spin in mid-air, her foot picking up enough momentum to be a tornado, before rushing towards Samus. The blonde warrior’s eyes widened, before leaning forward just in time. The metal cracked and shattered like glass, flying out as the foot ran along. Samus remained in air but didn’t force her body to drop, so she didn’t fall as quickly as Mother Brain had expected. When the strike came, the claw meant to kill her only slammed her legs and sent her spinning.

Samus was sent sailing over Mother Brain’s head, and saw her last chance. She knew that she couldn’t win this fight simply because Mother Brain would inevitably outlast her; there were only so many mistakes she would make, and she would never tire. So Samus released the contents of her shoulder bulbs of armour, and every bomb she had flew into the air. She caught the last seven in her hand and gave the detonator the directive to detonate every bomb behind it, ignoring the seven in her hands.
Mother Brain only saw the explosion above her when it was too late.

The blast forced the beast to the ground, but even the fifty or so bombs were not enough to hurt her. She grunted slightly as she hit the floor, but her long neck twisted to view Samus, “A pathetic attempt, and you have not struck the floor and let me drop as you should’ve, not that it would’ve helped you.”

Samus stood still, but pointed upward, which Mother Brain did so only to see the rush of rock, rubble, soil and metal drop onto her, with no roof to stop the tide coming in. It was almost as if the crust of the entire planet fought to crush the body of the beast. Samus looked as the pile grew higher and higher, but could not give herself a moment of rest before her titanic opponent rose again. Even the planet itself could not destroy it, it seemed. The brain-like head, however, snarled. It visibly hurt, blood dripping from several cuts on the brain, but sadly the creature survived.

“ANOTHER WASTE!” She very suddenly screamed. The logical brain tried to be considered about its approach and never allow any emotion to stir but for one second her emotions were heard and the beast’s mind agreed; don’t worry about expending excess amounts of energy, just kill her. The beast finally stood at full height, a slow trail of slobber emerging at the end of her mouth, a bi-product of the wild rage she barely restrained. Samus simply stayed put, in front of the metroid tanks.

“Release the metroids, Mother Brain.” Samus said. “Or I do.” It took a second for Mother Brain to analyse the data that was the sight, but she saw a small red dot on each tube containing a metroid, identical to the shower she saw before the explosion.

“Seven metroids; a weakening of my own force, and a collection of the deadliest predators in the known universe. Chances of survival minimal.” Mother Brain said aloud. “Explosion was not meant to kill, nor was collapse. Distraction. Allowing access to metroids without obstruction.” She coldly said, then glared at Samus. The taunting; it worked before. It had to work again. The creature stood back slowly and tried a sneer to match Ridley’s. “You would not kill me. Hugo’s, hue, goh, zzz, imprinting gave you motivation to kill. Hugo is dead.” She said. “Chozo, choh, zoh, were pacifists. You would be a; disappointment, to them.” Samus didn’t reply for a second, then looked back at Mother Brain.

“That’s what the chance to surrender’s for.” She stated, then raised her detonator to show Mother Brain. The beast didn’t react. New data, needed analysing. Samus Aran was highly motivated, most put-downs wouldn’t work, speed insufficient to kill before she sets off the bombs. Last resort; rely on fear for the flesh. Mother Brain stood back slowly to give herself room to attack if the metroids were released.

“You would also die.” She stated.

Now it was Samus’ turn to be silent. Am I ready to do this? She asked herself. Am I ready to kill myself to release seven monsters that would kill me as a thank you? A stalemate occurred as she kept thinking, but one image kept coming back to her head over and over again. Because, even though she was frightened of death, she already knew what she was going to do.

*

The pirate she would later know as Perlar staggered weakly behind, holding up the human that had been knocked out by Samus. The octopus-like creature hung on her shoulder lazily. And ahead of all three, Samus Aran. She checked every corner she could, and no one approached. However, she saw a sight. Two draconians were having fun playing football with a jar, and Samus saw what was in the jar. It was identical to the creature that she had just killed, just been attacked by… a ferocious, dangerous metroid. Only, it wasn’t. It was small and weak. Pathetic. Lost. In pain.

“That’s four to me.” One taunted. “I am way better than you!”

“Lucky! The goal’s just too wide, is all. I’ll shorten it while I’m here.”

“Allow me.”

The two stopped, turning to the bounty hunter who said it. The battle scars were unmistakeable; she had fought a metroid. And the fact that she was still walking meant she had won. One looked to the other. Suddenly, Ridley’s plan sounded a million times more dangerous to them.

“… screeee…” Came a whimper from the metroid, held by the pirate nearest the goal held. Samus looked to it. The cry was weak; weaker than anything she had ever heard. She then averted her gaze back to the draconians and snarled.

“Get away from that, you sick sons of bitches!” She spat. The one holding the metroid dropped it simply as he backed away. The other looked to him.

“Run!” He shouted, and the two broke into a desperate sprint. Samus watched them go, her face contorted in rage, and then she saw the metroid rise up out of the broken jar, shaking off broken glass. She studied it and readied her gun. Then it charged to her. She pointed her gun in a panic, but it was already to her left arm. It readied a fang and sank it into her left hand.

“Oww!” She barked, and shook painfully. She watched the metroid back away and hover there. She pointed a gun at it. Her fingers curled around the trigger.
And she couldn’t do it.

“What are you waiting for?” Came the human prisoner’s bark, but she shook her head.

“I can’t.” She explained. “It doesn’t seem to be a threat.” She looked back to the people she was escorting. “I’m bringing it with us. I’ll give it to the Information Bureau for research.” This reason wasn’t untrue, but it wasn’t her main reason. She didn’t spare the metroid because it was valuable. She spared it because it was helpless. She spared it because it was simply a newborn. She spared it because it was lost and alone.

She spared it because it was just like her when she had landed on Zebes Four.

*

As she remembered this, she sighed, her heart letting go of the fear.

“Mother Brain… you’re right.” She said. “If I blow up these tubes, these prisons, then there’s little chance of me walking about of this room alive.” Mother Brain stayed back, suspicious of where Samus was going. “And you’re so smart you’ve probably got an exact probability for me.” Then her expression became a soft smile. “It’s a shame I’m not as smart as you.”

BLAM!

It began with the glass crackling, and the metroids were awoken by the explosions on the outside of their prisons. The whole of Tourian seemed to shake as they saw the weakness in the material they were stuck in and charged through it towards their captor.

Samus kept watching, and was somewhat surprised by Mother Brain’s reaction. She did not meet them either as a titan or a weakling, with neither a pessimistic fear nor a defiant anger. More so, she was efficient. Maybe her logic dictated that she couldn’t win. Maybe she had concluded that it was impossible to fight back with effectiveness and fervour necessary to win. Maybe she was just tired from having all her strength sapped in one go. But the fact remained that Samus saw a pile of green collapse in on head and body, and only one claw remained, defiantly jarred out towards Samus. The blonde warrior watched the skin begin to grey as the monster’s energy was sapped, more and more, until it sagged. For real this time, the beast was dead.

The metroids dwelled a little, but when Samus turned to escape she saw that the door was simply jarred shut. She couldn’t hope to break out. Her gaze shifted back as the green monsters rose once again, and she conceded. She couldn’t kill that many if she tried with a full suit of armour, never mind without.

“I’m so tired.” She hummed to herself, a feeling conclusive exhaustion sweeping over her. She closed her eyes and spread her arms open, catching one last glimpse of a metroid rushing towards her.

And the nightmare came to a close.

[Rachel Ascot]

CRATERIA
Chapter 28 – The Knight and Dragon of Zebes

“It’s your ship alright, so she got here, but no trace of her.”

The post mortem was a curious affair. The draconian grunts of Brinstar were astounded not only to find out that their leader Kraid was long, long dead, but that the elite of the group, the Clan, had completely vanished. Then they looked to their databases. Mother Brain, the leader of all of them, the one who led them here on promises of big things, telling them to get the metroids to research weaponizing them, hadn’t said a peep from Tourian. But the grunts weren’t worried about the internal politics or what their leaders were planning, or even their fates. It was the money that they were worried about.

It was all gone. Not even enough for fuel to get past the Tannhäuser Gate.

They were practically giving themselves up for arrest when the Galactic Federation marines arrived. At least it was a ride off of this dangerous metroid-infested rock. They marched in line into the mobile prison ship so they could be charged on their home planets or the Federation courts. The grey of Crateria was coated in an equally grey fog, reflecting the canopy of the grey sky as if it were a mirror. Rain began to drop on the marching, obedient line of pirates, and a cold rush of wind consumed the planet’s surface. The golden, metallic bird that sat still was like a great v shape, with a green visor stretching along its front. It remained still, even under scrutiny as a stern eyed man in a blue and white uniform frowned at it.

“I’m sorry to say, sir…” The worker came out of the door at the bottom; a cockroach like creature that sighed. “- but I think the Hunter’s dead.”

“No.” Adam Malkovich said. “The leaders didn’t just vanish. She did what she came to do.” He turned and looked to the warren-sized hole from which Samus had begun her journey. He bent down to inspect the hole further. “She’s down here. Alive.” His eyes remained stern and strong, but a claw touched his shoulder, and he didn’t feel like brushing it away as he usually would’ve.

“She’s got to be…” Perlar said. He looked back to the grey scaled woman, her triangular body a little thinner and smoother than the male draconians he was used to seeing. As the sky darkened, it began to match her shade, before the rain began to fall tremendously, the harshness pummeling the two as Perlar looked back to the hole. Her own eyes began to tear up; she couldn’t quite feel the same optimism Adam had exhibited earlier, but his optimism was a cold, dead one; one based in fact, but he didn’t know Kraid and Ridley like she did. Perlar shook slightly, and Adam frowned. It was wrong to feel so sorry for someone who was technically still their prisoner, even if it was a hollow title now considering the help she had given them and the freedom she had. The young woman fell to her knees. Adam tried to think it was childish for Perlar to be so emotionally invested in the life of a human she barely knew, but deep down he understood. Even though the Hunter’s window into her life was brief, it had changed it for the better without dispute. Samus Aran had done so much for her, and indeed the infant metroid. She had become a champion of the weak; to lose her was a great blow to Perlar and, admittedly, himself. He didn’t move for a few seconds, then turned around to her and slowly pulled her into a hug, allowing himself the weakness to comfort her. His eyes closed as she began to weep, trying to stop himself from weeping too, but his eyes inevitably drifted open, the water slamming to them from above, and he was too late to stop himself from gasping.

A figure rose from the ground.

*

Her hand slipped slightly against the rock face. Moss made her bare hand slip away as her fingertips lost their grip. The armour hung around her elbow, her other hand fully protected, but it was like this all over her body; pieces of metal coated her with the pattern of scratch marks. The whole thing was as black as the Brinstar world, soot and burn marks coating it. The only light was the burden on her back, a watery bubble that she knew to be the infant she had let down, but she still smiled; she could at least give it this, a glimpse of the sun. She had taken on too many challenges for one lifetime, and it was barely a week now, but she felt a little happier now, for this was a time of safety. She clambered up weakly, but she knew that she had done it. Hell itself had greeted her, thrown everything at her and had her down, but she had conquered both it and herself. The light graced a red plate of metal that hung around her neck and left cheek, the remains of her once proud helm, as her eyes caught the brightest of the daylight. One last motion and she could see sky. She heard nothing but rain, and felt water pushing down onto her as she crawled on her hands and knees, shivering with cold. However, her lip curled as her forehead touched the soft soil of Crateria.

Finality was what Samus Aran felt the most.

She put one hand in front of the next, then straightened her arms, her legs shivering as she pulled herself to a stooped stand, before she threw the armour off of her, what little there was. It looked more like a collection of scrap tins than a suit of armour. A puddle in front of her gave her the first view of herself in weeks, and she gasped slightly. She didn’t expect to look so bad; her shorts remained and that was about it, and even then they were almost shredded to pieces. She pouted at the sight of her scarred head and her unprotected torso, ripping off a strip off the top of her shorts and wrapping it around her chest for decency’s sake. It would have to suffice until she got back to her ship, she supposed. The cuts weren’t as bad as she thought they would be, but she did have help in healing them. She then straightened her back as the main cave to Brinstar hung behind her, and she felt the rushing wind of something approaching fast. One hand on her shoulder, gripping onto the lifeless body of Hugo like a bag, she lifted her head and closed her eyes, extending her other arm and feeling the rain splash onto her skin, then the wind passed her as she saw metroids rush past her. The predators hovered still for a minute, comprehending their surroundings, before they began to explore the world, spinning as if they were dancing in midair. Samus smiled; she was so tired, and Hugo’s body remained on her back, but she couldn’t help but laugh at the dancing beasts. Almost like children. She wouldn’t be surprised if they were. A quiet joy flowed through her. She felt the rain come harder as she sighed heavily, feeling a weight fall of her shoulders, falling back on to rest on the rock behind her as she watched the metroids wander and rave in their new environment with a joy to match the motions they made. It took an age before a voice broke the blissful peace.

“Be careful, men!” Came a familiar voice Samus didn’t expect to hear. She turned her gaze to the military body assembling, their weapons pointed to the metroids. No anger pulsed through her like it would once though, as she smiled gently to the leader.

“Adam, don’t worry. They’re with me.” She explained. Adam Malkovich looked thoughtful for a moment, before turning to his men.

“Stand down, men. Be mindful if they come too close, but I trust her judgment.” The soldiers behind looked tentatively to each other, and stood to attention. Adam looked back to Samus and noticed her weight on her back. “I… am sorry, Miss Aran.” Samus looked to the blue blob too; it was like a deflated balloon, and even though she smiled, tears still formed in her eyes.

“I am too, Malkovich. But it… no, she… she saw her mother before her end. It’s something, at least; she didn’t survive but I know she’s at peace.” She said. Adam raised an eyebrow.

“She? I thought it was genderless. Besides, you called it ‘Hugo’, right?” Samus chuckled at this.

“It’s a little complex.” She answered. “But she still trusts me, in a way. I’m sorry, but things kind of went nuts down there. I need a bit of time to work out what happened to me in full.” Adam frowned, and looked to the metroids.

“It may be cold of me to ask, but did this help anyone?” He asked. “You came here because Hugo would’ve been killed as an enemy if my company got here first, but now you have… her on your back.”

“Well, you didn’t see what Mother Brain was doing. If you came here now, she would already have won. And it did help some people. Look at how few casualties there are. I’d estimate no more than ten dead. Not even the grand war the Federation expected. What, would thousands have died? And see how much money you’ve saved without the…”

“You know what I meant.” Adam said once more. “… if you knew how this would’ve turned out, would you have gone anyway? Are you any better off for this? Would the Chozo be proud of this?”

Samus didn’t respond for what was an eon.

Her mind wandered on its own way, reflecting on the journey she had. Her failures as much as her successes. She thought of her first meeting with Hugo, how the metroid had latched onto her almost immediately, and they bonded over a mutual understanding of what it meant to have nothing to go to. She thought of the feeling of impending doom back in the safety of Dublin, like a shadow of a blackbird had been overcast across the city. She thought of how the peace was shattered by one swipe of a claw and Ridley making his presence known to her. She shuddered as a chill which may or may not have been her imagination’s creation ran down her spine at that thought. She thought of the dark rocks and tropical abyss of Brinstar, and her run-in with a beast beyond all size and comprehension. She thought of the march through the furnace, the imitator of hell known simply as Norfair. Her eyes glazed over in horror as she remembered the final battle with Ridley, and memories of herself shuddering for what could’ve been hours or even days in death’s arms, then a simple joy at reuniting with Hugo. Her mood changed again and her eyes darkened; Hugo snatched from her, and a most hateful monotone taunt. The size and strength of the beast Mother Brain, and the fierce attack she had unleashed onto her.

Hugo’s sacrifice.

Samus pressed her eyelids together to dispel tears. She had lost as much as she had gained. The sights and sounds of Zebes Four returned to her. She could breathe in and smell the experience once again. Almost without thought, as if it was an automatic function like breathing, she looked to the imprinted mark. Gone, but for a bright pink scar in the centre of her palm. A weight fell away from her shoulders at the sight, allowing her weary heart to lift as she decided upon a reply.

“The answers changed while I was here.” She finally said. Adam crooked an eyebrow. “I lied to you; I wanted to find Hugo, I really did, but I think you knew that it wasn’t why I really came back. I came here for revenge. I didn’t have any plan other than kill Ridley and anyone who stood in-between, find Hugo and leave. Had I not met Kraid earlier, I probably would’ve left him for you lot. As you can guess, it went from disaster after disaster. I become confused about why I was there, the voices of the Chozo tried to make me turn back and abandon Hugo, and when I didn’t know what to do I just focused more on revenge because it was easy. My own guilt was driving me crazy. Even when he died, I think Ridley won, on some level. He really did win our battle of wits. I never saw his body, and the Clan’s still out there. No, had I known just how badly it would go, I wouldn’t have come here.” She smiled, looking back up to the green and blue metroids that danced above them, scattering rays of coloured light across her.

“But that was a different, angrier woman than I am now. The Chozo and I are not one and the same; I was at my strongest when I wasn’t fighting for death, but for life. When I was defending the weak and defenseless from the brutish and the merciless. And I’ve become a better person for it. Revenge brought me nothing, but I didn’t just get revenge while I was here. I gained my own independence. I don’t need Hugo’s influence to force myself into action anymore, nor do I need the Chozo to motivate my good causes anymore. I seriously wondered if my heritage was the only reason that I defended the weak, or even if I was achieving that, but now I don’t need to worry. And my goals changed; even when Hugo was dead, Mother Brain was planning to do all kinds of experiments on these metroids, and she was growing stronger with every day. She may well have taken over the universe as she had planned. The metroids were suffering for it. So, right now, if I was forced back and asked to do this again… I’d do it in a heartbeat.” She looked back to Adam. “How’s that for an answer?” Adam didn’t respond, but finally a smirk came to his lips.

“Would you want it to be so difficult?” He said. Samus smiled.

“I could’ve done with a meal or two more.” The two shared a small chuckle, but Adam saw that, though her chuckle was light and quiet, Samus’ passion and goodness was louder than a lion’s roar. She was a changed woman, a world away from the miserable and angry warrior she was in Dublin. He turned as she did.

“I shall negotiate the treatment of the metroids here.” He explained. “I cannot promise anything, but I shall fight for their freedom. They are dangerous, yes, but looking at them right now I think something of you is rubbing off them.” Samus smiled at this.

“I’d like that.” She looked ahead, and then she smiled at another familiar face. “Perlar.” She hummed as the draconian stood, her eyes wet with tears and rain. The ex-pirate shook, then leapt forward to hug her. Samus looked surprised at first, before she pulled her close and held her in place. Adam remained silent as Samus placed Perlar’s head on her shoulders. “Perlar, its fine, I’m not dead, unless that’s what you’re upset about.” They parted, and the grey female wiped her face with her claw.

“Y-y-yeah, but...” She started. “- you saved my life. You give yourself so willingly to lost causes. I’d be a cold one to not be upset by your death. I feared the worst.” Samus nodded, then looked ahead. It was Adam’s ship, and she smiled slightly, walking ahead of the two.

“Adam, the Varia Suit is probably impossible to repair, but I’m sure you can make another if you made that one in three days.” She said. The man nodded as she smiled, before she looked to the hole where she had started the journey, and kicked some dirt down it. “Then I’d like to place an order for a new suit of armour. Deliver it to Flat 38 of Brandywine Building. And give my compliments to Nostromo, the landlord’s cat. And maybe some beef; I’d suggest ‘lights’ but they stink out the place.” More dirt went down the hole, and Samus finally got her arm cannon from her back, sitting underneath Hugo, and she fired down the hole to create a whole new surface. The hole began to fill as Samus took Hugo’s limp, flat body in hand and began to fold it like a quilt.

“Why?” Adam asked. “What do you plan to do?” Samus shrugged her shoulders.

“I plan to keep going.” She replied. “Hugo is not the only weak being in the universe. Maybe, for those, I can save them before it’s too late like it was for her.” She folded Hugo to a satisfactory size and placed it into the icy grave. “I’ll take more jobs, and I might just give a few check-ins on places I’ve never been to, to places where there’s suffering and pain, to wherever the pursuit of pain takes me. I’ll dismantle crime rings, I’ll tackle great dictators, I’ll deliver food and aid; anything that is needed of me will be done, whether I benefit from it or not.”

“But why?” Perlar asked. “A-a-and where will you start?” Samus took the remains of the Varia Suit in her hand and took the largest piece, before jamming it hard into the ground like a tombstone. Then she thought of her words, and her mind was cast back to the sidehopper all those years ago.

“This world is survival of the fittest, but there a great many people who think that that is the way it should be. That only the strong should prosper, that the weak must perish for the good of all, and that to help a weaker being that can’t help itself is to waste energy.” She smiled to Adam and Perlar. “I like to think that it is less a worthless cause and more the worthiest of all. As for where I start, I’ll turn to the second star on the right, go straight on until morning.” She sighed slightly. “Now, if I may spend the last moments on this planet alone? I’m not coming back, for real this time, and I’d like to pay my respects to Hugo.” Her two companions looked to each other, then her, and then they headed their own ways as Samus leant forward and pushed her head onto the metal plate.

A sombre peace washed over her. Not so much contemplation or regret, but a blank feeling of peace. Samus was determined more than ever to do what she had begun with on the plains of Crateria. She wanted to punch the sidehopper again. She wanted to make the universe a better place to live in, but she allowed herself this moment of rest as the rain fell across her body. Her eyes began to tear up, and warm water dribbled across her cheek and fell onto the dirt Hugo was now under, but Samus wore a smile.

“N-n-no.” The girl finally answered. “It wasn’t your fault...”

“Maybe it was.” Samus interrupted her, then her eyebrows jutted once more and she rose to match the fellow infant girl’s height. “Maybe it wasn’t. What matters is what happens now.”

Samus breathed out of her nostrils as they flared, sniffing up as more tears fell away. She could prevent this from happening to others, but not just the metroids; now she could turn her head to the wide universe above her. Even as the sadness held her down and the happiness lifted her up at once, she felt a warm compassion seeping through her veins for the first time. She had doubted her own kindness, her own empathy, her own love for so long, the revenge she had sought casting a doubt over her, over Hugo, over Old Bird. And now she knew her own place.

“… I should’ve known.” She said. “I didn’t need to imprint you at all.” She hugged Samus with a strong force, who, for once, hugged back, no pain coming. “I love you, mummy.”

“I love you too, Hugo.” Samus whispered, pulling herself away from the metal shard that was the metroid’s headstone. “I didn’t mean to let you down.” She stood up slowly, tears still in her eyes, but she wiped them away. “Never again.” She looked back up to the metallic v that was Adam’s ship, and looked around to see if anyone was watching, before she stepped in with plans to take it on her journey. However, as she stepped in, she saw something on the hull. A tiny black box. She plucked it off gingerly and inspected it closer, then frightfully gasped. The black box cast a looming doubt on Samus once more where a truth had been before. However, she frowned as she pushed the doubt into the back of her mind as she crushed the box in her palm. The doubt would have to wait.

The box was a camera.

*

“Interesting.” Weeve mumbled, the brightness of the video screen glaring into the dark grey of the Clan spaceship bridge, the white noise taking over as Samus crushed the camera in her hand. The screen contrasted the bright, grey, cold feel of the rest of the ship; it was swelteringly hot and dark, and Weeve smiled. She liked it in here; it was like a bed. However, she knew that these circumstances were for function, not her own pleasantries. She looked back to Kott and the two draconians standing either side of her. Her masseuses, the female with the table at the ready and the male with the steam billowing hoses. However, all their attention was diverted to a metallic box. A claw weakly rose out of it and the third draconian in a white coat caught it, forcing it back in.

“The hand isn’t setting, no matter what I do.” She said coldly, and the claw popped out. She huffed in exhaustion, pushing at it. “Clan Leader Ridley’s strength is still there.” She drove her shoulder into it and the blackened claw retracted.

“Well, that was a disaster.” Kott spat. “A complete disaster.” She cracked her knuckles and rose up. “Our leader and three more of our glorious organisation are dead, and we’ve lost a good base. But we’ve come back from worse.” She smiled to Weeve, who nodded to her.

“Yeah, well, Mother Brain and Kraid’s finances needed to go… somewhere.” She reminded her superior in age, height and, so far as Kott thought, rank.

“Yes, well, I won’t deny the money is certainly good, but Ridley’s focus was on power.” She replied, then she thought of something. “Just… how much money was it?” Weeve smiled nastily.

“Nine billion credits, in total.”

“Nine… billion…” Kott stuttered. Her mood did more than a 180; it soared through the sky. “Nine billion? But, the richest man in the universe has…”

“Six and a half.” Weeve finished her. “And here we are, sitting on nine billion. Of course, we have to consider the cost of the next move… that leaves us at just seven.”

“What next move?” The purple Fladres pirate peered at Weeve, turning angry once more. “You think you’re in charge now? You might’ve worshiped Ridley more than I did, but I was next in line; now I’m in charge! We bury Ridley’s body, then we disappear. And what was your plan that would cost two billion credits? May I add that most people never see a thousand credits in their lifeti-”

“X.”

“… what?”

Weeve reached to a console and clasped a glass vial, each end wrapped in metal, and she showed her superior a thick golden liquid like honey.

“This is X. A parasitic bacterium that mutates its targets hideously and turns them into part of a terrible hive mind.” Kott peered at the liquid. “Researching it will be expensive, but after a year, I’m sure we can weaponize it and sell to the highest bidder.” Kott peered cynically at it. “And all we need is a body. A strong body that can take a lot of punishment, resilient and strong…”

“… like a Fladres.” Kott smiled nastily as she turned her head to the metallic box. The front of it was shaved off, and it looked like a coffin, holding a bundle of bandages with straps on it, a green light blaring out of it. Only a black claw poked out, and a red eye in a gap on the head. Ridley’s bandaged body. Kott grinned. “You’re a genius, Weeve.” She walked over, past Weeve’s masseuses. Had she known they had killed Srekkitt at Weeve’s command, she wouldn’t have let them into the room, but they were to be her undoing as the purple beast smiled. “Yeah, I like this idea.” She smiled to Weeve. “Getting the money out of Mother Brain and Kraid’s accounts to us and finding this ‘X’ stuff, wherever you got it…”

“Oh, Ridley got it, he just couldn’t use it.” Weeve said.

“- whatever.” Kott waved her hand dismissively. “The point is that you’re a genius. I can see why Ridley liked you so much.”

“Pardon me, my ladies.” Came the voice of the white coated draconian again. Kott looked to her as the draconian peered at the corpse of Ridley. In fact, her head got too close for comfort, practically cheek to cheek. The white coated draconian nodded once and twice, then looked to Kott and Weeve, then back to the bandaged figure. “The process is ready to start.” Kott’s eyebrow crooked.

“P-process?” She asked, then the whole room whirred dangerously. Machines buzzed and hummed with a subtle horror, and the bandages began to fall away. Kott nodded confidently.

“Yeah, this is where we test ‘X’, right?” She said.

“… in a way. Say, are you two dating?”

The voice echoed into the noisy, near black room, but to Kott all was silent. She stared into space for a few seconds, then turned around. The masseuses suddenly grabbed her by the arms; she wiggled for freedom, but the female brought her foot into the back of her knee joint, and the male brought his claw to the back of her neck, and she was forced to her knees with her arms and wings locked out involuntarily. She looked back up to the bandaged body. The red eye under the bandages rolled to her, a dead expression within, then widened, filling with emotion. Another bandage across Ridley’s snout fell away, and a wide grin was revealed.

“Sorry, Kott.” Came a croak, but it was unmistakable. The whole body was charred and when he stepped out of the coffin he shook in agony, but his smile, his eye, and the cruelty written into his face was like an old friend, or rather, a familiar nightmare. “I didn’t hope it would come to this, but pride doesn’t make me an idiot; I prepare for the worst as well as the best, and The Clan was never going to serve you.” He shrugged his shoulders. “The ‘X’ comes from the same place we found a lot of the metroids; a little planet called SR388. It was prey to the metroids; well, everything was, but these little X in particular. Now that the last metroids in the galaxy consider a dead rock their new home, there’s nothing stopping these babies, but did you think weaponizing them would cost two billion credits? No; restoring me costs two billion credits; the cost of the X research and weaponization is about one whole Fladres pirate.”

“B-b-but Weeve said that…” Kott started, then the realisation struck her. A Fladres. A strong Fladres. Her. “NO!” She screamed, struggling in vain, then she burst out of her captors’ grip and towards Ridley. “I WILL MURDER YOU!” Her claws leaped to the corpse like figure, then her hands snapped backwards. She wailed in pain, and a tail punched into her stomach. She looked into Ridley’s eye as he held her hands back with her own. He smirked calmly up to her; she was almost double his height, she was at the peak of health, he was nothing but a charred skeleton, but he smiled back hideously and gleefully without effort.

“Samus Aran, the champion and saviour of three whole races, including the strongest of all, destroyed me completely, and here I am ready for more; what chance do you have?” He asked her with a grin on his face, before throwing her down to the ground. She remained on the floor, and looked up to him as he clicked his fingers. More draconians, nearly all twenty two under his employment, marched in. “Take her to the testing ground. Weeve will deal with her later.” Four of them saluted, and walked away, dragging the screaming Kott with them. The rest looked to their leader as his legs suddenly wobbled, and he fell forward, the white coated draconian catching him. She supported him as he swung limply on her, as if he had died all over again.

“Clan Leader Ridley, don’t strain yourself.” She set him back into the coffin. He laid back, his head resting against the soft, hot green. He sighed in exhaustion, and saw the tools above him. It was alarming to say the least; there were circular saws, spikes, drills, metallic talons and all a manner of sharp objects. The white coated draconian smiled pleasantly. “Sir, relax. This process will, to you, feel like nothing; a second will go by, but when you open your eyes, it will be a year later at least.” Then her eyes darkened. “And you’ll no longer be Ridley. Some of your body will remain, but you will be much more of a machine than beast.” Ridley looked to his claw, possibly for the last time, and smiled.

“Metal’s sharper than bone.” He clenched his fist and leaned back. “You don’t become the strongest without a few knocks, anyway. Do it.” The draconian nodded, and the box reared backwards. It tipped slowly and Ridley was looking to the sky. He turned his head and saw Weeve lying parallel, albeit on her stomach. Her masseuses and assassins stood by her, coating her in steam, which caused her to moan.

“Do nothing to draw attention to us.” He ordered her, and she nodded. “You’ve got more than enough for two whole planets to survive on. Twenty two of you should last. We have to conserve our strength.” Weeve raised an eyebrow.

“For what?” She asked. Ridley looked back up to the tools that would recreate him. He thought of his mother’s last words to him, the last words she ever spoke, words he forced out of her mouth as his claw bashed her head against a rock again and again, his mother saying anything she could to dissuade his anger and attain mercy.

“Your eyes hold everything key to our race, Ridley. The wisdom of eons, the cunning of the animal, the strength of the Fladres. Your eyes will gleam on long after the rest of the fladres are dead, because you are the strongest. And I will watch on even in death, out of love and admiration for you. You will make yourself worthy of the fear of all races across the galaxy, Ridley. Your eyes will see you conquer races, gain riches, defeat all your foes and sway the fate of the galaxy as it enters a new era, where your eyes see all and conquer all.”

His mother’s words rang in his head, and he tapped where his eye used to be before a blonde infant blasted it out. He scowled, and looked back up. They’d meet again, he knew. And he knew it wouldn’t be over a petty theft like last time; the kidnapping of a jellyfish. No, it would be the fate of the universe. He would rule, or he would fall.

No. No ‘or’ about it. He said to himself, grinning again. Next time, I’ll win. No alternative. And the grand prize will be mine. I’ve got the money, I’ve got the time, I’ve got the strength, and I’ve got the weapon. That was merely a warm up, and now for a rest, and I’ll be back.

“The universe.” He said as the draconian in white put a mask over his face. He felt a chill over his huge snout as it spoke for a final time. “I will be… no… I am the strongest. And when I wake up, Samus Aran’s days are as good as over.”

Then his eyes closed, and he fell into a deep sleep.

THE END

[Rachel Ascot]

TRIVIA, REFERENCES AND CHANGES FROM ORIGINAL GAMES

• The names of the four plot arcs all reference Hamlet, a play that, like this book, addresses revenge and the damage it can cause to one’s psyche. The first arc’s namesake is the ghost of Hamlet’s father revealing his identity; “I am thy father’s spirit.” It corresponds to Samus meeting the AI programme that is based on Old Bird, her father figure. The second takes its name from the scene when Hamlet devotes himself to revenge, as Samus also does at the end of this arc; “My thoughts be bloody or nothing worth.” The third arc’s title quotes King Claudius to Laertes, saying ‘Revenge should have no bounds’ to persuade him to kill Hamlet, which is also reflected in Ridley repeatedly taunting Samus and appealing to her murderous tendencies. The fourth and final arc takes its namesake from the dying words of Hamlet. “The rest is silence.” This is the end of the story, and it also reflects in that Samus begins at the arc on the verge of death.

• The plot of the book is actually an amalgamation of the plots of the first three games. The second game, Metroid 2, has Samus find and adopt the metroid larvae in the ending. The third game, Super Metroid, has the metroid stolen by Ridley and taken to Zebes and has the metroid larva sacrifice itself to save Samus from Mother Brain at the ending of the game. Otherwise, the first game, Metroid, has a very similar plot to both Super Metroid and this book. Each plot’s ending is based in order of favouritism as well as for narrative purposes; Metroid 2’s ending is mirrored early on in the book, signifying that is of poorer quality than the other two games the book was based on, the original Metroid’s plot is mirrored in the beginning and the middle of the book and the overall plot along with Super Metroid, signifying that it is the next favourite. Super Metroid ends in a very similar way as this book, signifying that it is Rob’s favourite game of the series.

• Samus’ backstory in this book has several changes from other media. While the three games the author based this book on don’t explain her backstory, it is often considered that she was a special operations solider before becoming a bounty hunter, while in this book she becomes a bounty hunter immediately. Also, while the mining is referenced here, in other media Samus’ parents are killed at a mining facility, not on a spaceship. This was changed to fit with the idea that the Chozo haven’t travelled off their own planet yet. Her life on Zebes is heavily simplified, with many details being taken out for the purpose of streamlining the story and preventing the backstory interrupting the main events.

• Samus’ backstory is not the only one to have been changed. In an e-manga that is often considered in canon with the games, Mother Brain was on the planet long before Samus had even arrived, and was a defective security system. This was changed to make sense of the reasoning behind Ridley and Kraid obeying her. Another change in her backstory is that it is often implied, particularly in the Metroid Prime trilogy, that Mother Brain is neither the only nor the highest ranking leader of Space Pirates; this hasn’t exactly been changed. If the author does decide to write a sequel to this book, then other leaders of the Space Pirates may be introduced. The metroids themselves have different backstories. In later games of the series, it is revealed that metroids were actually created by the Chozo who intended for them to kill a parasite called X. In this book, they are simply creatures that happen to cope well with the Zebes Four climate.

• While in the games her nationality is never specified, in this book Samus Aran is considered to be Irish because of the similarity to the Irish name ‘Shamus’. The name ‘Shamus’ is a male name, a reference to the first Metroid game. The manual included with the game said that Samus was a man, with the fact that she was actually a woman being a major plot twist, aided by the fact that she never spoke in the first game and the player only saw her out of her armour after the game was completed. This is also why several characters throughout the book express surprise at Samus’ gender.

• Ridley in this book is a sand coloured creature that resembles a dragon or a pterodactyl, but he hasn’t always been so in the games. In the original Metroid, he resembles a bright purple insect more than anything. This was the only time he looked like an insect, but his purple colour scheme has often been repeated in media other than the games. In the games themselves, Ridley’s been yellow, grey, orange, blue, bright red, green and just about any other colour. Also, in the games both his eyes are intact, while in the book he is blind in one eye.

• Two chapters share unofficial names with various parts of the levels in the Metroid games that take place on Zebes (Metroid, Super Metroid and Zero Mission); ‘A Bridge Too Far’ and ‘The Sea of Fire’

• In the book, Zebes is a moon separated into four parts; Crateria, Brinstar, Norfair and Tourian. In the games, Zebes is a planet with six parts, the two not mentioned in this book being Maridia and The Wrecked Ship. However, the colour schemes in the book for each area are heavily influenced by the games; the Brinstar in the first game emphasised black, green and blue. In all the games featuring this area, Norfair is defined by the colours red and orange. In Metroid Zero Mission, Crateria is given the colours grey and gold, which is why the author made Zebes a fairly barren place while the Great Palace is a golden structure. The only area that is not directly influenced by a Metroid game is Ridley’s lair, which takes heavy influences from the various areas of horror game series Silent Hill.

• The journey that Samus takes from Chapter 14 – Come Back Home onward to the end of the book references Inferno in The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri; specifically in the theme of descent and ascent. As Samus is forced to confront her own failings she must descend, and only ascends when she has reached her epiphany. Also, while Norfair is described as a fiery place, Tourian, the last and deepest area she visits, is extremely cold and lifeless. In Inferno, the ninth and final circle of hell is an icy wasteland that contrasts the heat of the preceding circles.

• None of The Clan are in the game series, nor is any of Ridley’s race besides Ridley himself.

• A lot of the character’s names are references to the 1979 film Alien, which was one of the main inspirations for the game. Ridley was named after Ridley Scott, the director. Ridley is the leader of The Clan, as Ridley Scott was the director of Alien. All of The Clan were references to various people who worked on Alien; Gyler (David Giler, producer, hence making her Ridley’s second in command in the book), Weeve (Sigourney Weaver, played Ripley who was the only human character to survive at the end of the film, hence making her the only Fladres pirate to survive or not be captured besides Ridley), Kott (Yaphet Kotto, another actor in the film. Kotto had also played the James Bond villain Mr Big in the film Live or Let Die. In the book, Mr Big is described as to have grey skin, as does Kott in this book), Hill (Walter Hill, another producer), Srekkitt (Tom Skerrit, who played Captain Dallas, with his leadership in the film referenced by the fact that in the book Srekkitt is the largest of The Clan) and Hertz (John Hurt, another actor. His character was the first to die in the film, so in the book Hertz is the first of The Clan to be killed). The Clan were not the only names to be references to Alien. Stantoronski is a reference to Harry Dean Stanton. His character Brett was the second character to be killed. Stantoronski’s death was caused by following Hugo to keep him calm before being ambushed by Ridley in a large room. This mirrors Brett’s death in the film, as he was killed while following the ship’s cat. The cat was called Jones, which is the name of the ship Samus’ parents were killed on. Hugo, the baby metroid Samus adopts, is a reference to the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, which the film Alien won. The Clan are attempting to, and succeed in, capturing Hugo. Stantoronski’s daughter, Samus’ friend, is called Veronica, a reference to Veronica Cartwright, who played the only female character in the film besides Ripley. The block of flats that Samus lives in is called ‘The Brandywine Building’. Brandywine was the name of the studio that made Alien. The landlord’s cat is called Nostromo, named after the ship that Alien takes place on. Bannon, the bartender at Club Kano that Samus talks to, takes his name from Dan O’Bannon, another screenwriter of Alien. Ian Holms is referenced twice; the doctor at the hospital Samus wakes up in is called Holmes (Holms’ character was an android and the medical officer for the Nostromo) and Kraid’s double is recognised to be an S.M.L.O.H brand robot.

• Samus at the beginning mentions in a log that she had only been in six missions before the one on Planet Zebes. At time of writing, there are only six games in the main Metroid series, with five in a spin-off series called Metroid Prime.

• The Draconians in this game share their name with a species in Dragonlance series of books. The reason for this is that, in the games, the Space Pirates are never given a specific name for their species, only being called ‘Pirates’. While a specific species of pirate is called a ‘Zebesian’, these creatures may have created inconsistencies with the book’s backstory (being that the pirates only took over Zebes Four fairly recently, and also that the chozo were the main inhabitants of the planet) so they were not mentioned.

• The HMRSS Jones was destroyed as it passed by the Tannhäuser Gate. The Tannhäuser Gate is a fictional section of space mentioned by Rutger Hueur’s character Roy Batty in Blade Runner, another Ridley Scott film. Tannhäuser Gate is a name often used in science fiction as a place in space, including in Soldier, Gunbuster, the Heavy Gear series and the video game Homeworld. The Tannhäuser Gate itself varies from text to text, as Blade Runner never specifies just what the Tannhäuser Gate actually is.

• Hertz’ name was originally going to be ‘Scotts’, as she once was Ridley’s leader; ‘Ridley Scott’ as it were.

• The font for the Fladres pirate language is actually based on the language of the dragons in the Elder Scrolls series of video games, also known as the Dova language. You see the text in three places in the story, and actually gives away upcoming plot twists about each of the pirate leaders;

- found in an electronic screen Samus finds in Chapter 5) translates to THE WATCHER IS NOT WHO YOU SEE, which foreshadows that the real Kraid is not the blue robotic double seen in the majority of the book.

- written in Hertz’ blood in Chapter 10, and translates to THE BRAIN HAS A BODY, foreshadowing Mother Brain’s transformation.

- The final message, on Ridley’s door in Chapter 20, actually foreshadows the twist ending extremely blatently;
THE WINGED ONE SURVIVES

• Samus’ mentor was Old Bird, and she mentions knowing two more Chozo called Grey Voice and Calm Wings. In 2003, an e-manga based on the Metroid games was released; Old Bird and Grey Voice were in this, with only Calm Wings being an invention of the author. In the book, Old Bird is Samus’ father figure, but in the e-manga it is Grey Voice and (later in the e-manga and suggested in later games) Adam Malkovich who are Samus’ father figures, though in both this book and the e-manga it is Old Bird who finds Samus.

• When Samus finds Hugo, he is being used as a football by two draconian guards. She sees them and says “Get away from it, you sick sons of bitches!” This is a reference to Sigourney Weaver’s famous line in the film Aliens; “Get away from her, you bitch!” She says this when she confronts the Alien Queen in the film as she saves Newt, a young girl that she becomes a surrogate mother for. In the book, Samus becomes a surrogate mother for Hugo. This is also a reference to Samus Aran herself, who was heavily inspired by the character Ellen Ripley, who Weaver played, and the game series Metroid itself, which was also heavily inspired by the Alien series of films.

• Hugo often revolves around Samus rather than staying still. This is what the infant metroid Samus adopts in Metroid 2 does.

• Perlar takes her name from Michelle Perl, a semi-famous cosplayer who most often cosplays as Samus, who appeared in Nintendo Power, a gaming magazine, describing how inspiration from Samus got her through dark times in her life. In this book, the character Perlar is saved from a metroid by Samus and often expresses her gratitude as a reference of this.

• Eki Ninjetta, and her race the Kinne, take their names from the game Super House of Dead Ninjas.

• Adam Malkovich mentions that his brother died on the HMRSS Jones. This is a reference to Metroid Other M, in which during a flashback Adam’s brother Ian dies, though in differing circumstances.

• Ironically enough, the names Jones and Nostromo are reversed from the film Alien to this book; Jones was the ship’s cat of the Nostromo in Alien, while the ship that Samus’ parents were killed on is called Jones and Samus’ landlord has a cat called Nostromo.

• Samus’ apartment at Brandywine Building is 38. The release date of the original Metroid game was the 6th of August 1986. 6 + 8 + 1 + 9 + 8 + 6 = 38.

• Samus mentions her birthday is on a Wednesday. Wednesday was the weekday the original Metroid was released.

• Club Kano is named after Makoto Kano, the video game designer credited as the original creator of Samus Aran. It takes aesthetic influence from the level ‘New Alexandria’ in the video game Halo Reach, particularly the section in Club Errera.

• A drink that Samus drinks in Club Kano is called Talizorah. Tali’Zorah is a character in the video game series Mass Effect.

• During the first fight with Ridley that Samus has, she curls into a ball and avoids Ridley slamming his tail down. The pattern she moves in is ‘Left, back, right, back, left’ then she is hit by Ridley, before she escapes, going ‘Right, forward, left’. In the original Metroid video game, the fastest way to get to Ridley from the entrance of his lair is to go to the left, then down a shaft, then right and down the next shaft, then to the left. This is where Ridley is. After you beat him, the fastest way out of his lair is to go far to the right, then up a shaft as far as you can go, then to the left and completing a large circle.

• Kraid’s robotic body-double is actually in the first Metroid game. In this the double and Kraid are both the same size as each other, but in the book they are radically larger. This is because while in the original Metroid game Kraid was only about as tall as Samus, the subsequent games have him almost twenty times her size and often the largest character in the game. The robotic double appears in two of the three games Kraid is in, but only in the first game is he a different colour to the real Kraid.

• Mother Brain is another reference to Alien. ‘Mother’ is what the crew of the Nostromo nicknamed their computer. In fact, Kraid is the only one of the three pirate leaders to not be a direct reference to Alien.

• Mother Brain’s design in the final fight is changed slightly; in the game Super Metroid, it’s obvious she’s more of a machine than a living being, while in this book it is left ambiguous.

• One of the possible events that was left out of this book was the revelation that the visions of Old Bird were hallucinations brought on by Samus’ guilt.

• While not specifically naming anything, the final nightmare reveals what the various symbols in the nightmare represent. For those who have not discerned it, here is a list of the symbols and what they each mean.
- The crescent moon: often considered a symbol for mothers and motherhood. Samus is scared of it because, upon receiving Hugo, she is scared of the responsibilities of motherhood and the risk of failure. When the moon turns into an egg as it bears down on her, it represents this also, just as an egg often represents a woman’s womb and birth.
- The stone feather-shaped obelisk: the Chozo were avian in nature, and the obelisk is a phallic symbol, suggesting a male. It holds up the incoming egg that was about to crush Samus. This is because the obelisk feather actually represents Old Bird and how Samus used him and the Chozo to stop her being overwhelmed by the world’s problems. It was because of this that she had dependency issues. When the obelisk crumbles away, it represents two things; it firstly shows that Old Bird isn’t there for Samus anymore, and the fact that it is crushed under the ‘egg of motherhood’ represents that the ideals that the Chozo taught her are in direct contradiction to the urges that Hugo has forced into her with the imprinting; the rage and violence against the stoic peacefulness. This is another reason for Samus to fear Hugo; by giving in to her urges of violence and rage, she feels she is failing the pacifistic Old Bird. It is only in finding a balance between the peace and the violence that Samus finds that she doesn’t need the obelisk anymore, so when she turns around in the final nightmare, it isn’t there anymore.
- The little girl who hatched from the egg: The girl hatching from the egg is symbolic of birth, as the egg often represents a womb. The fact that the girl herself looks like Samus as a child, with a round cut of blonde hair, is because this is what Samus initially saw in Hugo; a reflection of herself at her weakest moment, when she landed on Zebes for the first time. The girl, in essence, is both Samus and Hugo at once, at least in the first few nightmares. Whenever Samus touches the girl, both of them bleed and are in agony, because this is what Samus feared the most; that she’d fail Hugo, in essence ‘killing’ it, and Hugo itself was driving her away from the Chozo ideals of pacifism, ‘killing’ her. Both were destroying each other by being close. However, when Samus finally accepts Hugo’s sacrifice for her, she understands that, while she is in part at fault, she must set things right and make sure the sacrifice is not in vain. The girl, in this scene, is detached from Samus; while she still looks like Samus at her weakest, Hugo finally realises that forcing Samus to protect it was unnecessary, saying “I didn’t need to imprint you at all.” This proves to both her and Samus that she would’ve tried to save it anyway. It’s also why, when she wakes up, the imprinting is gone; Samus doesn’t need Hugo to motivate her into action anymore, and Hugo is letting her be her own person. It also confirms to Samus that she is not stepping away from the Chozo teachings of compassion after all, but rather going about a defence of the weak in a different way.
- The gigantic bird: the black bird at first seems to represent Ridley, as it specifically apes Ridley’s form, and the large wings and the talons as it towers over Samus are very similar to Ridley. She becomes entrapped in two vice clamps because that is how she first encountered Ridley; she was hiding in her armour and couldn’t escape, surrounded by metal. However, it actually represents her violent tendencies. It apes Ridley because it’s what, in Samus’s words, “- made me into.” Ridley tempted her to kill him, and is the one responsible for making her kill everyone else she killed on her journey. Old Bird even mentions that “- part of [her] heart will always be black…” She’s seen too much violence to not resort to it. She can only defeat it by controlling the urges rather than fighting them.

• In the final fight between Mother Brain and Samus, Mother Brain says that the ratio of Samus’ strength to her own is 1:297. 297 is the exact amount of damage inflicted to Samus by her strongest attack in the final boss battle of Super Metroid.

• Tourian is supposed to be the lowest point of Zebes both in the games and this book. However, the coding and the nature of the creation of the games actually make Tourian the highest point of the map excluding Crateria.

• Samus, in her final words with Adam and Perlar, says “As for where I start, I’ll turn to the second star on the right, go straight on until morning.” This is a reference to Peter Pan; specifically, it is the directions from Earth to Never-land.

• In the final chapter of this book, Ridley is still alive and is about to have surgery to save his life by replacing many parts of his body with machinery. This is both a reference to the Metroid games and other media. In Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 3, there is a boss called ‘Meta-Ridley’, who strongly resembles Ridley but has metallic body parts. It is never explained how or why this happens. The transformation itself is inspired by the scene of building Darth Vader in Star Wars Episode 3, and the draconian doctor even says “…more of a machine than beast…” which is how Obi-Wan describes Darth Vader to Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi.

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