Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

No.

The elevator landed, and Samus took off. Ceres Station was a floating steel disc that held countless hallways and doors easily capable of confusing anyone who set foot here. But Samus, having toured the station mere hours before, knew exactly where to go.

No. No.

Her armored footsteps echoed as they pounded the empty metal floor. Fumes of smoke billowed everywhere. Low blue lights lit her way. Only auxiliary power kept the station in orbit. Torn cables and wires sparked erratically from a hole, which stood out like a fresh wound, ripped open by a monstrous creature with savage claws. A cold shudder passed through the Hunter, urging her to hurry.

No. No. No.

Her breathing was ragged as she leaped down the last flight of stairs and rushed through the gaping hole that remained of the chamber’s door, torn aside in the same savage manner.

No!

They were dead.

Every single one of them.

The room reeked of blood. Samus could smell it even through her helmet. Strewn about the room were the mangled bodies of the Ceres scientists. All of them bore huge, cruel gashes, their faces frozen in screams of agony.

I’m too late!

The Hunter couldn’t fight a crushing wave of grief. Just a few hours ago, she was conversing with some of the brightest minds in the galaxy about the future of the Galactic Federation. The whole station was alight with hope, swarming with activity and excitement like a beehive. Now it was a silent, shadowed tomb.

All she hoped was that they met death quickly, that their pain was not prolonged. Samus turned away, clenching her fist to keep it from trembling. There was nothing left here. No life, no hope, no—

The Baby!

Her eyes snapped to the large bio tank in the middle of the room. Its glass was shattered into a thousand pieces, and it was empty. The hatchling was gone. Anguish and fury churned her gut. Blood roared in her ears. Her vision went red.

What have I done?

I should have never left it behind!

How could they have known?

You should have known this would happen!

THEY’RE DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!

Uncontrollable rage exploded inside her and she slammed her fist into the wall. It did not hurt, but her anger immediately subsided.

It wasn’t…it wasn’t the Baby. It wasn’t. “It wasn’t,” she murmured to herself.

The moment she received the distress call, she instinctually assumed the Metroid hatchling was the cause. But the wanton destruction around her proved otherwise; though violent and dangerous, Metroids only attacked living things. They wouldn’t have gouged holes in the walls and ripped doors off their hinges. Least of all one as small and relatively weak as the larva.

And since none of the human scientists could do that… a single possibility of the attacker’s identity remained.

A small, high-pitched beeping caught her ear. The upper-left corner of her visor indicated the presence of a lifeform just ahead. Hope fluttered like a weak heartbeat.

The door leading out of the lab had also been ripped off, but not the one at the end of the hall. It was as though the attacker’s bloodlust had mellowed out, and he decided to use the door like a regular, sane person.

As she guessed, the door was fully functional and opened without her touch.

This room might have been a large storage area, but from what Samus could see, it was empty. Multiple auxiliary lights had fizzled out here, leaving the space half-hidden in shadow, too dark to even see the ceiling.

She inhaled sharply. Sitting at the edge of the shadow was the Baby Metroid, chirping and shrieking inside its glass blue container, exactly how she’d left it when she departed the station.

But why was it in here?

The attacker must have brought it.

But then, where was the attacker?

Cautiously, keeping her hand primed on her arm cannon, Samus approached the hatchling, kneeling down for a better look. The green alien’s chirping grew higher and more frantic at the sight of her. All three of its scarlet eyes trained upon her, and it pressed its whole body against the glass like it was trying to reach her.

The Hunter’s shoulders sagged with relief. It was completely unharmed. “C’mon, little guy. I’m getting you out of here.”

She reached for the container’s handle, only for an enormous clawed hand to grab it first.

Before her brain even registered it, Samus fired.

A glittering amber eye sliced through the darkness like a sword. With a roar, he slid out of the shadows.

Ridley. Alive and wholly restored. Not a trace of cybernetics on his body.

Samus somersaulted backwards, putting what little space she could between them. Unfortunately, this also meant separating herself from the hatchling.

“Surprised, Hunter?” the space pirate general hissed, his long jaws twisting in some sickening form of grin.

“No,” Samus answered honestly. “Our last fight wasn’t enough to kill you for good. I knew you’d be back, but I hoped it would take a few millennia first.”

“And here I am anyway. Here to take back what is mine!” He clutched the Metroid’s container so tightly the glass cracked. “What belongs to the Space Pirates!” Spreading his massive wings, he launched into the air.

“The Metroids never belonged to you!” Samus fired a volley of shots, which Ridley easily dodged despite the claustrophobic space. “They always belonged to the Chozo!”

“Idiots, the lot of ’em!” Round red fireballs erupted from the dragon’s mouth, raining down on Samus like bombs. “They could’ve taken over the entire galaxy, but they chose PEACE!” He spat the last word like it was poison, simultaneously stabbing at Samus with his spiked tail. “Wastes of space! Just like you!”

Narrowly dodging, she pinned the tail under her arm. Ridley wriggled free and swatted her aside, but not before Samus landed several hits. How she wished to use her Super Missiles, but she couldn’t risk hurting the Baby, or worse, blowing more holes in the station and getting sucked into space.

“You didn’t even want this puny parasite anyway!” He mockingly dangled the Metroid above her. Without warning, his tail shot out again, wrapping around her neck like a steel chain. “You went to SR388 to murder ’em all, didn’t ya? On the Fed’s orders?”

“The Metroids needed another chance,” Samus gasped as the tail squeezed tighter, crushing the light armor around her windpipe. Red alerts covered her HUD. A storm of desperate shots battered Ridley, but he wouldn’t let go. “The— the galaxy needed another chance.”

“Yeah, RIGHT!” He lifted her up and slammed her into the wall. Stars dotted Samus’ vision. Leaning in inches from her visor, he snarled, “YOU were just too cowardly to complete the JOB!” Suddenly his voice lowered, taking on an almost thoughtful tone as he examined the hatchling in his claws. “Or maybe… it’s because… you saw yourself in this precious little life-sucker? A survivor? …The last of its…kind?”

Even if she weren’t choking on her own spit, Samus wouldn’t have answered. Darkness invaded her sight until all she saw were his hellish glowing eyes. Her whole body seized up, and not just from the lack of oxygen.

“Oh,” Ridley purred, making Samus’ skin crawl. “I’m going to enjoy watching you burn, Hunter.” He ascended higher and higher, both his archenemy and his prize in his clutches. “How does it feel? Knowing your futile attempt at redemption will end in your death?”

As her Power Suit began to dissolve and her final breath climbed up her throat, Samus sent out a prayer to the universe. That prayer came in the form of a Super Missile.

It exploded on his shoulder. Ridley screeched like a demon and released her.

She plummeted to the ground like a sack of wet cement. Seconds passed before she remembered how to breathe, and gulped in air with even more agony. Her eyes opened, and she saw the message MISSILE MALFUNCTION displayed across her visor. She would have cursed, but uncontrollable coughing interrupted her speech. Though her limbs shook with exhaustion, she forced herself to rise.

Raising her head, she saw her nemesis swooping over her. An explosion of light and fire seared the room as a massive fireball blasted a hole through the wall to her right.

Pausing at his exit, Ridley glanced over his shoulder and grinned slyly. “At least I still get your protégé! I’ll turn it against you. Train it to hate you. I’ll make you regret the moment you decided to spare its life!”

“No!!” Samus thrust out her left hand. Miracle of miracles, the Grapple Beam still functioned. An electric whip shot out from her arm and latched onto the hatchling’s container. With all her might, Samus pulled back and yanked it free of Ridley’s grasp.

“Wha—?” He whirled around so fast it created wind. “You little—!”

Tucking the container in the crook of her arm, Samus bolted from the room.

For the first time in her life, her priority was not killing the terrifying space dragon who’d haunted her since age three.

Her priority was protecting an innocent creature from meeting a similar, terrible fate.

By every star in the galaxy, by the ancient Chozo elders watching over her, she would not repeat the Federation’s mistakes. She would not let the last Metroid fall into evil’s hands.

Ridley was not about to let this sudden reversal slide. Like a shark scenting blood, he tore after her.

An electronic voice boomed above, “THIS STATION WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IN 60 SECONDS.”

Tremors shook the station to its core. Emergency alarms blared. Plumes of pressurized steam and smoke burst from severed pipes. The floor creaked and groaned like titanic hands were pulling it apart.

“50 SECONDS.”

Samus ran like a demon. She hurdled over fallen equipment. Scaled entire flights of stairs in single bounds. Not once did she look back. There was no need to confirm what her ears heard: Ridley, clawing and crashing his way through the narrow halls, snapping at her heels.

“40 SECONDS.”

Behind her, an ear-splitting crash smothered the loudest of the sirens. Samus ignored it. The noise died down on the upper levels. That made the Hunter skid to a halt.

He was waiting for her, blocking her exit. She was heading straight for an ambush.

“30 SECONDS.”

Samus’ thoughts flew faster than her breathing. Doubling back, she found the gap Ridley had ripped through the ceiling. Much like his earlier work, it was crude, but it went straight through to the next floor. The uppermost level. Outside lay freedom.

But was he expecting her to use it? She couldn’t afford to be rash, but she couldn’t afford to hesitate, either.

There was no choice. Tensing her legs, she sprang up as high as possible, and touched down neatly on the upper level.

“20 SECONDS.”

The Baby shrieked an alarm. Samus whipped around to see Ridley, poised to attack.

“Nice try,” he snarled. Scores of white-hot fireballs exploded from his mouth. Samus pressed the hatchling’s container into her body and turned her back, shielding it from the full brunt of the flames.

VARIA SUIT MALFUNCTION, her visor read. POWER CONVERTED TO LIFE SUPPORT.

This just isn’t my day, Samus thought as she collapsed on the floor. A brilliant white flash briefly illuminated her vision. When it faded, she didn’t even need to look to know— only her basic Power Suit remained online.

“10 SECONDS.”

The Baby’s muffled cries grew increasingly frantic as it pounded against the glass. Samus opened her eyes and realized she was still holding onto it.

“9.”

She raised her head and saw Ridley, striding on all fours, moving to claim his stolen prize. She heard her suit’s low-power alarms whirring.

“8.”

She punched her arm cannon into the floor, pushing herself up, forcing herself to rise. Her eyes darted between her archenemy and the final stretch of staircases. The hatch to the outside seemed impossibly far.

“7.”

Ridley lunged the exact moment Samus dove for the stairs. He missed and hit the wall. Samus cleared the first set in one leap, then turned and jumped up to the next one. The actual steps may as well have not existed.

“6.”

The whole station lurched to the side as it fell out of orbit. The room tilted, threatening to slide the Hunter clean off the platform. But she kept her footing and, holding tight to the Baby, jumped up to the next one.

“5.”

Like a raptor diving for its prey, Ridley shot up and made a wild grab for her. Before he could either tear her to shreds or snatch the hatchling, Samus turned on a dime. Cocking back her arm cannon, she socked the space dragon in the face for all she was worth.

“4.”

Screaming with purest fury and hate, Ridley plummeted back to the floor. Samus didn’t check if he was getting up again. Clearing the last few platforms, she threw her entire weight against the hatch. With a groan, it opened.

“3.”

Samus leapt onto her gunship. Automatically, she was lowered into the cockpit.

“2.”

Hatchling in hand, the Hunter vaulted into her seat and floored it.

“1.”

The self-destruct bombs detonated. Samus and the Baby were safe, Ceres Station exploded into space debris, all traces of its inhabitants, technology, and promise wiped out. All that remained were the memories and hope of a brighter future, for both the Federation and the Metroids.

Samus didn’t slow down for hours. By that time, adrenaline had worn off, and, unsurprisingly, she felt completely drained.

Chirping sounds brought her attention back to the Baby for the first time since they’d fled Ceres. All she could do was stare at it. This tiny, deadly creature that everyone, good or evil, wanted to get their hands on. This mere infant that was only alive and present in this moment because of her. Twice.

She wondered if it was worth it. If it was truly necessary to keep the last Metroid alive. Her own words echoed in her mind: The Metroids needed another chance. The galaxy needed another chance.

It wasn’t the Metroids the galaxy needed to fear. It was the Space Pirates, sowing the seed of fear and panic, corrupting the peace behind smoke and shadow.

The Space Pirates, who captured and exploited the species for years.

The Space Pirates, who turned the Metroids into living weapons.

The Space Pirates, who had permanently stained one of the Chozo’s last standing legacies.

And she was the other. The last survivor, child, and warrior of her adopted family.

Samus twisted the container’s hatch open, allowing the hatchling to fly freely around the cockpit. The tiny larva regarded her, sharing a long look with the one it deemed its mother.

“I wish it was over,” Samus told it. Had it grown a bit? “I wish we could go somewhere you’d be safe from them. From all of them.”

Despite the Space Pirates’ history of abuse, the Baby would fare no better in Federation hands. Though their actions would be well-intentioned, the outcome would be unsatisfactory. The Baby would be captured, and Samus herself would be arrested for possessing it. She would be an idiot to trust them. Not now, not yet.

If the hatchling understood her words, it gave no sign. Instead, it plopped itself on her helmet, purring contentedly. Unable to suppress a small smile, she reached up and patted it.

“It’s time to end the Space Pirates’ reign of terror for good.” Samus adjusted the gunship’s position, aiming vaguely in the direction they’d come from. “Ridley couldn’t have restored himself without help. A lot of help. They must have rebuilt their base on Zebes.”

She pressed a few buttons on her computer. A familiar planet, her second homeworld and the one she remembered better, flickered onscreen. Even after she’d destroyed their base on her very first mission, it was the only pirate-infested planet too dangerous for the Federation to occupy. No other place existed for the scourge of the galaxy to cower and breed in the dark like the roaches they were.

Bringing the hatchling with her was beyond foolish, but it would be safest at her side, even if the word “safe” did not remotely apply to the situation in any way, shape, or form. She could never let it out of her sight. Never again.

As Zebes loomed in the distance, despite the long, perilous mission awaiting her, hope began to take root in Samus’ heart.

Maybe, just maybe, after the pirates were gone for good, the galaxy would begin to see the Metroids’ place within it.

A chance for redemption. A chance for renewal.

At long last, a chance for a true peace in space.

Chapter Text

On the barren surface of Zebes, the thunderclouds stretched miles high into the atmosphere, preventing all but the strongest light from reaching the rocky earth. The only things cutting through inky blackness were cloud-to-ground mega lightning bolts.

It wasn’t exactly a warm welcome, but that was to be expected. Zebes was no longer home. Hadn’t been for years. Nevertheless, it painted a grim picture of the Hunter’s newest mission. Samus hailed it as a sign of what was to come.

As the yellow gunship touched down, torrential rain battered it like thousands of tiny fists. With silent, intense curiosity, the Baby observed the sound, and Samus observed the Baby. It made short trilling noises as it floated closer to the windshield, only to screech and zip behind Samus as a bolt struck with an ear-splitting crack!

She glanced at it over her shoulder, watched it tremble with shock. This soul-sucking apex predator, who had faced the space dragon Ridley twice and survived the Ceres explosion, was scared of thunder? It just seemed so…ridiculous.

Patting it lightly, she moved under the ship’s hatch. “Stay put,” she ordered. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

A second bolt struck, followed instantly by thunder: BANG! The hatchling shot up so fast it bonked its head on the ceiling, and it let out a piercing shriek. It didn’t exactly have eyes or a face, but it somehow conveyed a pleading expression. Its whole body vibrated with fear, and it rocked back and forth, not knowing whether to retreat and hide or seek comfort from its mother.

“You’ll be fine,” Samus assured it. “It’s just thunder. It can’t hurt you.”

Despite her sternness, she felt sorry for it. Really, she did. But leaving it in the ship was far more preferable than bringing it to the heart of pirate-infested caverns.

A third bolt hit the ground outside, turning the world white. The accompanying crash was so horribly deafening, even Samus flinched.

Screeching, the Baby hurled itself at her. The Hunter instinctively raised her arm, and the Baby latched onto it. Her whole body stiffened in alarm, but there was no energy-sucking or even a twinge of pain. The hatchling simply clung to her like the galaxy’s stubbornest barnacle.

She tried to brush it off, but the larva only growled and tightened its grip.

Samus sighed, head in hand (the one with the Metroid). Against every shred of willpower, good judgement, and common sense she had, she muttered, “Okay, you can come.”

Cue a muffled squeak of relief from the Baby.

To Samus’ relief, the Baby let go once they found cover in the caves, well away from the open sky. Though the storm hadn’t let up in the slightest, the noise didn’t seem to bother it as much. Perhaps their new environment reminded it of SR388, however brief its memories were of its birth planet. Even though it sounded like rock giants were having fist fights overhead, the hatchling floated on, and was soon cheerfully investigating groups of little green insects clustered on the walls.

Samus, on the other hand, couldn’t feel more unsettled. Those bugs were the only signs of life on Zebes so far. Where were the Zoomers crawling on the ground? The Shriekbats watching from the ceiling, ready to drop on a dime?

Most importantly, where were the space pirates? She’d half-expected to be ambushed the second she landed, but neither sound nor sight of them existed. Even her radar revealed nothing.

She shook her head. The fight with Ridley on Ceres had disabled all but her most basic abilities, but the space pirates’ failure to show themselves gave her an advantage. They’d unwittingly given her time to explore. With luck, she’d soon recover some data capsules left behind by her Chozo ancestors. Although the pirates had successfully copied a few of her abilities in the past, they couldn’t interact with the Chozo relics directly. By chance, they’d found the Morph Ball data capsule on Tallon IV some time before her arrival, and she probably shouldn’t have found their subsequent log entries as morbidly funny as she did.

Point being, any remaining relics on Zebes were hers for the taking. Time to get going. She motioned to the hatchling, who returned to her side like a loyal puppy. It was surprisingly responsive to nonverbal communication, but like any puppy in training, it got easily distracted. While she walked straight ahead, the larva kept zipping up and chattering to anything that caught its eyes.

The green bugs posed absolutely no threat, but her eyes kept drifting toward them and the larva, making sure the latter was out of danger. She was so preoccupied with watching it, she didn’t see the door in the ground until she stepped on it. It didn’t give way, but the hollow tapping sound, as opposed to the solid crunch of rock, grabbed her attention.

This time, a whistle was necessary to call back the Baby. Double checking it was close, Samus shot open the door.

She fell about ten feet and landed on a small platform with a muffled thump. Dust choked the stale air of the new room, blotting out the scarce traces of light filtering through the open door. Without her suit’s protection, it would have been impossible to breathe. Then the door closed, extinguishing the light. All sounds of the outside storm were silenced.

A faint glow bobbed at the edge of her visor. It came from the larva. Samus nearly forgot Metroids were bioluminescent, though this ability became more subdued as they evolved, growing scales to cover their glaring weak spot. But the infant before her shone like a miniature low-watt lightbulb, and it appeared delighted with this knowledge.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to penetrate the dusty blackness. Samus tapped the side of her helmet, and bright light streamed from her visor. It cut a swathe through the shadows, revealing innumerable cracks and fissures in the steel walls and an inch of dust coating every surface and leaking through the ceiling, threatening to collapse. Vertically long and narrow, the room’s artificial structure struck a bizarre contrast between the natural scenery just above. As Samus began her descent, an inescapable sense of familiarity tingled in the back of her mind. Her suspicions were confirmed upon stepping into the next room.

Tourian.

The dust lay thickest here, and it mingled with a sea of ash. Fractured steel pillars, snapped wires, and the shattered glass that once housed Mother Brain stood as charred remnants of her first mission to Zebes. Now, there was no Mother Brain, no Zebetites, or even a drop of acid on the floor, hungry for intruding bounty hunters. All clear, but it didn’t make her any less uneasy.

With quick, short movements, she somersaulted across the platforms. Rather than taking a direct route, the Baby kept up by zigzagging around poles and twirling through gaps.

Beyond lay an elevator in surprisingly excellent condition. It was shiny, whole, and fully operational. In other words, brand new. A first true sign of pirate reconstruction.

Whatever waited below would not be the same as before. She stepped on, and it smoothly coasted downward. Its hum was somewhat soothing— a lull in the tension. Even the Baby stopped chattering.

It set down in Brinstar, in a dim cave of blue stone. If possible, the hush settled even deeper. Though she knew Zebes inside and out, this particular cave bore fresher memories than most, for it was here her so-called “zero mission” began, many years ago.

Despite the elevator’s newness, this cave had managed to remain untouched. And if her memory served her right…

Bingo. Beneath a high ledge sat the unmistakable Morph Ball. True to form, the space pirates had left it alone — and untouched — on its original pedestal. She tensed to jump down, but hesitated at the last second. There was no way the pirates hadn’t already found this essential upgrade. After all, it was right out in the open. If you knew where to look, it was easy to find.

After their failed experiments with Tallon IV’s Morph Ball, the pirates chucked it into the first dusty cave they could find in the Chozo Ruins. But even then, they took precautions, even if it was as simple as placing it among a nest of Beetles…

Samus shook herself out of her thoughts. If she wanted to get anywhere on Zebes, she needed that Morph Ball, booby trapped or not. Warning the Baby to stay put, she jumped down. At her touch, the capsule lit up, then seamlessly dissolved and integrated with her Power Suit.

MORPH BALL OBTAINED.

A blinding light pierced her eyes. Turning immediately, she ducked and rolled through a short tunnel leading back to the larva. The light stayed trained upon her until it no longer spotted her. Samus unmorphed and, pressing her hand down on the larva to prevent it from approaching the light, cautiously peered over the ledge.

A single security camera. Charged with a simple task.

The walls trembled. Dust leaked from the cave roof. The Hunter heard a singular stampede gaining volume high above. The green bugs scattered at the emergence of a Shriekbat.

A subtle shift, but the message conveyed itself loud and clear.

Planet Zebes was awake.

Chapter Text

Samus waited, frozen in the dark, for the inevitable assault. Now that the space pirates had learned exactly where she was, they would come in droves and overwhelm her.

On one hand, she knew she could take them in a fight. Despite her weakened state, she had the element of skill on her side.

On the other hand, there was the element of Metroid. She would need to keep one eye on the Baby at all times. Knowing Ridley, he'd somehow survived Ceres and already informed the pirates that the larva was in her hands. It was what the pirates craved more than anything now, more than they wanted to see her, the dreaded Hunter, dead.

On top of everything else, teamwork was never her strongest skill. If she got too distracted fighting the pirates, the Baby could be snatched from right under her nose. A far worse outcome, she realized, than the Baby getting killed.

No use debating. When it boiled down to it, she had two choices: wait for their attack, or take the fight to them, and the latter felt like the only real choice.

But even as she re-entered the elevator, silence pressed in on her eardrums. A hollow silence, one that couldn't be muffled by the presence of others. Even the elevator's pleasant hum felt subdued. Even the Baby grew quiet and still as it sensed the tension in the air.

With every passing second, Samus's senses dialed up to eleven. She gestured for the larva to get behind her as she approached the door to Tourian. However, her radar revealed no life signs ahead. The pirates hadn't found them yet. Drawing a deep breath, she opened the door.

Scores of sharp eyes glowed yellow in the dark. Tourian's dustbowl of an atmosphere had concealed her enemies' presence. They swarmed, rushing her from above and below, crawling like clawed spiders on the walls and ceiling. They were everywhere at once, and Samus had her back to a wall.

Now, Samus didn't speak the pirates' language, but over the years of repeatedly kicking their butts, she'd picked up a few words. Mostly her name, "the Hunter," "Death to the Hunter," and a very rough equivalent of "I want my mommy". Aside from that last one, those phrases, curses, and incoherent screeching echoed from every angle in the claustrophobic chamber as the pirates poured every last drop of hatred and malice into their one combined attack on their greatest enemy.

Samus knew she was outnumbered and underpowered, with only her basic Power Beam online. But she was far from outmatched. Taking a stance, she shot rapid-fire at the accursed crab-handed roaches. Not a single shot missed. Every hit killed. And still they came, fierce and unstoppable like waves from a stormy sea.

The fiery aura of battle enveloped her. This aura was not her imagination. Sheer willpower and the determination to fight on increased her power exponentially. Her simple Power Beam tore through multiple foes at once. She began to push back against the waves, body slamming into pirates, seizing them, and throwing them away from her.

The Baby hovered a little ways above Samus, watching the battle with interest while dodging flying bodies tossed every which way. One still-living pirate sprang off a wall and made a desperate grab for the Baby, but the tiny larva simply moved aside, and the pirate careened into a broken Zebetite pole. Checking Samus wasn't looking, the Baby began edging toward the downed foe.

It wasn't until Samus reached the end of the room, every pirate roach exterminated, that she realized the larva wasn't behind her. A flash of panic broke her concentration. She fervently scanned the room, then caught sight of a bioluminescent bulb floating in the middle. The Baby had just dropped the dry corpse of the pirate and bobbed slowly over to Samus, chirping merrily in a carefree manner.

Stiffly, Samus gestured again for it to stay behind her. Even if her radar was useless down here, she could hear slithering sounds in the vertical shaft that could only belong to more pirates. Again, she drew a deep breath.

This would take a while.

She didn't pause until they'd broken back through to Crateria, and even after, she kept running, taking a different path underground.

This path also wound through crumbling ruins. Unlike Tourian, these ruins were made of carved stone rather than melded steel. Eons ago, this stone had been sculpted and shaped by Chozo hands. The pirates certainly had their way with drilling holes into it, marring the architecture's beauty and any nostalgia Samus might've felt.

More pirates sprang out of these holes, and they proved tougher than the ones in Tourian. Her Power Beam hardly scratched them, and they might have gotten the upper hand if not for the Baby. It latched onto the nearest pirate's head and sucked his energy dry, sending the others into a frenzied panic. Most fled, but one fired a shot at the larva, only for another to smack his hand away, causing it to miss. They garbled harshly at each other, shoving back and forth as they argued.

Samus watched, confounded. Never before had any pirate acted this way. In fact, their hive-mindedness was what had earned them their reputation as ruthless, cold-blooded slaughterers of the innocent. They never questioned, only obeyed, and obeyed to the fullest extent of their powers.

And now, before the galaxy's toughest bounty hunter, they were so absorbed in their little spat, they'd forgotten she was standing right there. This tiniest, minutest seed of discord sown before her eyes gave even her pause. The element of Metroid, it seemed, was far more disruptive than she anticipated.

It wasn't until the Baby dropped its second corpse with a loud thud that everyone snapped out of it. Slowly, the two pirates turned back to Samus, who lightly coughed and waved.

With a screech, the Baby lunged at them. This time, the pirates tried to flee, but the larva latched onto one, the pirate who tried to shoot it. Samus pursued the other and managed to tackle and pin him to the ground. Leveling her cannon under his chin, she made her message heard loud and clear: talk.

Between snarls mixed with every oath and curse word in the pirate's vocabulary, Samus pieced together a general idea of his words. Ordered to capture the Metroid, yes… alive and not dead, that she figured. She inclined her head toward the pirate's dead mate, dangling in the larva's clutches.

"Not orders," spat the pirate, still struggling to throw her off. "Not Mother's orders."

Samus almost lost her grip. Mother Brain…alive?

Given how many times she'd fought Ridley, she probably shouldn't have been shocked. But Mother Brain was a far more complex organism than Ridley. She had the combined intelligence of her Chozo engineers and the merciless, cold-hearted logic of the pirates, whom she'd joined forces with years ago. Her powerful psychic brain waves could control any lesser creature, and her central processing unit had direct ties with Zebes itself. Hence, Mother Brain could see anything and everything occurring on the planet at once, and thus knew exactly where to send her forces to ambush Samus.

That left two questions: if not Mother Brain, who had given orders to kill the Baby? Who was powerful enough to defy her psychic abilities and force members of her own army to disobey her?

"Whose?" Samus demanded the pirate, who had begun thrashing like a wounded serpent. "Ridley's?"

The pirate opened his mouth, perhaps to answer, curse her, or beg for his life. He never got a chance. His eyes burned blue, and he began to choke on thin air. Startled, Samus backed off. She watched as the pirate's body twisted and convulsed grotesquely, limbs folding in like a spider on its deathbed. At last, he lay still. He was dead.

The Hunter was struck by a horror she'd never felt before. Over the death of a space pirate, of all things. True, she would have finished him off anyway, but he had died so…unnaturally. Whatever second entity controlled the pirates had silenced him before he could spill its secrets.

Shakily, Samus rose. Out of the corner of her eye, the Baby swung around its third corpse by the arm, like a ball on a string, before finally releasing it. The shriveled husk hit the wall with a comedic squelch and fell with a dull splat.

Samus waved, and the larva zipped over at once, bobbing up and down in front of her helmet excitedly. It did not possess a face, but Samus thought it looked mightily pleased with itself.

This new entity could have its share of pirates, Samus decided as they continued down the tunnel. And if it wanted to kill them, the better for her. The only problem was, it wanted to kill the Baby, so she would have to hunt it down, alongside Ridley and, now, Mother Brain.

"What?"

The larva kept popping up in front of her visor, chirping at her incessantly. Finally understanding this to be a cry for attention, Samus halted in her tracks. Without warning, it latched onto her helmet, sending a bolt of panic down her spine.

Like before, there was no pain. But, this time, a peculiar sensation of both heat and cold flooded her entire nervous system, before converging in her arm cannon.

Samus opened her eyes to an alert on her HUD. MISSILE ABILITY OBTAINED.

Confusion swam through her mind. Slowly, Samus brought up her cannon, aimed at a wall, and fired. Sure enough, a missile burst out and shattered the stone, revealing a passage.

But Samus only stared at her cannon, then at the Baby, who chirped and literally glowed with apparent pride. Did you do that?

The element of Metroid, it seemed, was far more complex than she anticipated.

Chapter Text

The hidden passage led to a hidden door. The hidden door revealed a welcome sight— a Chozo statue crouching in a shadowed, musty room. Its long stone talons offered a dimly-glowing capsule, a worthy prize to whomever discovered this secret. Samus approached without hesitation.

Before her fingers so much as brushed the capsule, the talons closed over it in an unprecedented act of defiance.

Moving wasn't unusual for Chozo statues. Samus had seen them sitting, standing, and even walking as she grew up, and during her zero mission, many eagerly lifted helping hands to assist her. While they did not possess souls, their gentle, passive demeanors made them seem very much alive.

The ones that could walk were sentries who guarded, patrolled, and even fought on behalf of the Chozo and their secrets. With these duties came more aggressive personalities. After all, they were not merely sentient statues, but living machines. Warrior automatons.

Torizo.

A faint light radiated from its hands; the capsule lit up and dissolved. The statue had claimed the item's power for its own.

The hollow stone eyes burned with yellow fire as it roared to life. Shedding its ancient stone casing, the mechanical creature rose to full height. Easily twelve feet, it towered over the Hunter, who backed up slowly, training her cannon upon its face.

If it recognized her Chozo armor, it betrayed no sign of friendliness. In fact, the reverse seemed more fitting— it was prepared to kill, and to emphasize, the door locked behind Samus.

Fine. She would not have fled anyhow.

Just one problem— the Baby had been hovering outside the room, and now they were separated. It shrieked an alarm—Samus heard a weak, frantic thumping against the door— but nothing changed the situation. To reunite with it, she needed to slay this rogue automaton.

She unleashed her new missiles, pounding the Torizo's head and torso. Cracks formed in its face and chest, but it bore down on her with unwavering drive. Its long arms, reinforced with deadly talons, slashed with inhuman speed, leaving little room to dodge in the room's tight quarters.

A sharp blow connected with Samus's shoulder, slicing a chunk off her pauldron but leaving her otherwise unharmed. Gritting her teeth, she fired missile after missile into the beast, forcing it back.

Giving it distance turned out to be a terrible idea. Opening its beak wide, a slew of round projectiles launched everywhere into the air. Nowhere to dodge. Samus had no choice but to brace herself.

They rained down like meteors, exploding on contact with deafening BOOMS. The ringing in her ears and the blinding flashes flooded her senses, leaving her unable to distinguish her surroundings. With her disoriented, the Torizo charged, claws blazing with energy bright as sunlight.

She saw the attack just in time. A missile shattered its eye before it could strike. Smoke billowed and sparks popped erratically as its color dulled and faded into the blackness of its socket. Unbalanced, the Torizo staggered dangerously. Samus rolled between its legs before it toppled into the door.

The impact shook the room, blowing a hole through the wall, creating a storm of dust and debris in its wake— Samus jumped back as a boulder-sized chunk fell from the ceiling.

She couldn't see a thing— even her visor's light couldn't penetrate the opaque wall of dust— but she heard something. A high-pitched scree, careening toward her like a runaway freight train. Without warning, something smacked her in the face. It took a moment to recognize the larva's cry, desperate as it sought reunion with Samus. It clung dumbly to her visor so all she could see were its rows of tiny, partially-formed teeth. She gave it a pat to let it know it was safe; it released its grip and hovered beside her, still wary.

An unearthly roar at the opposite end snapped them back into focus. Samus still couldn't see, but she could hear the Torizo rising, armored claws scraping harshly against the floor. As the dust began to settle, the glow of its single remaining eye cut through like a searchlight. The light flickered and died, then returned blue. The same blue burning in the eyes of the pirate. The same blue seeking out the Baby's life.

Its talons scraped closer, closer, as it advanced on her. Samus fired into the cloud, aiming straight for where its head was, but missed. Confused— she was certain her aim was dead-on— she fired again, only to realize, upon coming into light, why it didn't work.

Half its face was blown off. A strange fluid leaked out of the hole as it swung around, trying to see its target with its one good eye. Out of control, the Torizo half-charged, half-stumbled, blind with rage, towards the Hunter, who deliberately placed herself between it and the Baby.

"No closer," she threatened in the tongue she knew it would recognize.

The Torizo faltered, even lowered its arm. But the blue fire burned with renewed intensity, coursing through not only its brain but its body. It charged again, and Samus dealt the final blow with one last missile to its central core. The remains crumbled to ash at her feet, while the capsule it absorbed hovered before her, as if waiting for her to claim ownership. Nothing stood in her way now. Yet, she got the distinct impression someone still watched her; she could still sense that blue eye's fire searing the back of her head.

No one's there. She shook her head and stretched out her hand.

MORPH BALL BOMB OBTAINED.

As the pair continued on, descending further and further underground, an odd, bitter sense of regret haunted the back of the Hunter's mind. Not of simply destroying the Torizo, but of how she spoke Chozodian to it, and how it listened, if only for the briefest moment, before she destroyed it. Of how many years had passed since she last spoke her second language to anybody who understood. Of how many years had come and gone without a hint of a living Chozo.

She glanced sideways at the Metroid larva floating cheerfully along as usual, not a care in the world. Were they really the last ones left?

Samus realized she didn't want an answer. She may be used to being alone, but for the first time in a long time, even with the larva beside her, she felt alone. And, unlike the Torizo, you couldn't just blast that feeling away.

Upon arriving at a new environment, those haunting notions wiped themselves from her mind. Her first thought was they'd somehow returned to the surface. The world around her brimmed with verdant overgrowth, with lush moss for grass and twisted, thorny vines weaving in and out of every surface. Despite being miles underground, the air smelled fresh and sweet, for flowers burst out of every corner in rainbows of red, violet, and white blooms.

Was this truly Brinstar? Never in Samus's memory had the flora been so abundant here, not even when she called this place home. Strangely as it struck her to think, it was beautiful. More than once, she had to hold the Baby back from smelling the flowers, because she remembered their pollen was poisonous, even though she herself was resisting temptation.

The single path sprawled and twisted into many branches, all leading deeper into the jungle. Trusting her instincts, Samus took off at a sprint. Maybe it was the clean air, or maybe the pollen had gone to her head after all, but running full-out was downright exhilarating. It felt so good to run without pursuing or being pursued, to leap over huge gaps that weren't bottomless pits or lava lakes. It was fun, and a welcome break from the stress of battle. She knew it wouldn't last, but hey, no sense in not making the most of it while it did.

Running from tangled barrages of thorny vines wasn't exactly how she envisioned it ending.

They came out of nowhere, exploding out of the walls like battering rams, attempting to crush her into a pancake. First they pursued from behind, but then they began cutting off branching paths, forcing her down a singular route. It was like they had minds of their own. The Reaper Vines of Tallon IV had them, but these were just…vines. Vines bent on her demise.

It came to a head when she reached— you guessed it— a pit with no bottom in sight. She skidded to a halt at the edge, only for the Baby to crash into her as it, too, had been fleeing at top speed. Samus frantically windmilled her arms in an attempt to regain balance, the Baby latched onto her back and pulled with all its might, and the vines ignored their feeble attempts and attacked with a vengeance. One last wallop and down they went.

Samus righted herself with a short boost from her thrusters and managed to stick the landing. The blow had stunned the Baby, preventing it from correcting itself, so Samus caught it in her arms before it hit the ground. It shook itself out, chirped its thanks, and turned its gaze skyward.

They'd fallen a long way. Samus couldn't see herself climbing out easily, but there weren't many other options. The pit's perimeter was sealed by the rampaging vines, who'd suddenly converted to pacifism and merely stood guard at the edges.

She blasted them over and over with everything she had, but they hardly reacted. In fact, they pressed together even more tightly, filling in the tiniest gaps in their defenses, and for good measure, released clouds of green spores in her face. Coughing, she took the hint and backed off.

Whoever or whatever controlled these things did so with an iron grip. The whole environment reminded her of sand traps some predators constructed. The prey would fall down a slippery slope they couldn't climb out of. The only way was down, down, into the jaws of whatever awaited at the bottom.

Clusters of spores wafted around her as she paced, ready to shoot at the predator's first sign of emergence from below.

"Get out of here," she told the Baby, jerking her chin up. "Fly high and stay out of reach while I deal with this." She stepped away, then added over her shoulder, "And don't touch that stuff."

Away it flew, higher and higher until it vanished into the dark shadows clouding the ceiling. Samus resumed focusing on the earth, ready for the slightest tremor shifting its crust.

A screech of terror split the silence. Samus cursed herself, for it rang out not from the earth but the sky. The Baby!

The darkness above swallowed its cry instantly, but it echoed in her ears and iced her blood.

No, no, no!

Like heavy snowfall, the spores littered the air now, and despite her suit's protection, they were starting to get to her. Her throat felt dry as sand and did nothing to hinder an outbreak of uncontrollable coughing; she could barely draw breath in-between.

To make matters worse, subverting the Hunter's expectations of an enemy below, the shadowed predator descended from above.

A hideous, wriggling, hulking mass of vomitous green, swaying under the weight of its own bulk, slid down into the pit at a crawl. The mass was the end of a chain of similar orbicular structures, acting as a neck of sorts for this thing to lower itself into its trap and feed on whatever poor creatures unfortunate enough to fall in.

Despite her familiarity with Zebes' creatures, she'd never seen anything like this. Only Mother Brain could have bioengineered such a sophisticated nightmare. Swathed in sharp spikes and stumpy tendrils, which released more potent, poisonous spores, it bore neither eyes nor mouth that Samus could see. Its bulk was no bluff, either. Like the vines, Samus's Power Beam failed to penetrate its thick shell. The shots bounced off like rubber balls and did nothing to slow its complacent, unhurried pace. Not a single meal had escaped its pit in its entire lifetime— why should this gaudy yellow insect turn out any differently?

Once, it paused its descent and thrashed about violently, banging against the vine walls, which layered over themselves to form some cushioning, but did not prevent the release of tens of thousands more spores.

The spores had different functions, Samus realized as she fought back another hacking fit. Some, like the ones from the vines, were for defense and only mildly irritating. The predator possessed the truly dangerous varieties; spores to disable, to kill, and, most likely, to break down the prey for digestion once it died. If it weren't for the suit, she would've been long dead by now.

Even more interestingly, the monster's sickly green color had turned an even ghastlier shade after its odd fit. It recovered and resumed its steady pace towards Samus, only for another full-body spasm to seize it. Its thrashing was wilder, yet tapered off more quickly this time, tiring it out to a stand-still. Nearly all color was drained from its body.

Rushing to their parent's protection, scores upon scores of new vines shot up wherever the spores landed. Inheriting their elders' innate, hiveminded instinct for murder, they ensnared her legs, rooting her in place. No matter how many she blasted, hundreds more took their place.

This called for new strategy. Morphing, she easily slipped out and rolled to a new position, where new vines repeated the attack. It was an odd dance of sorts, constantly dodging, jumping, and rolling out of reach of an endless onslaught.

She could beat back the vines, but could not destroy them all any more than the monster. Nothing she threw at it hurt it, but something was killing it…

…from the inside.

The foolish mistake of sending the Baby away may very well have saved her life.

She stopped dodging the vines and stood upright. Even as they wrapped around her legs, she ignored them, focusing only on the monster, who recovered and, with reckless abandon, whipped back and forth in a furious frenzy. The last swing sailed mere feet over her head.

She'd only get one shot, but one shot was all she needed.

Come on! Come get me!

Its spikes skimmed the ground as it came level with her. One last pass and it would claim its next meal.

There! A split in the exact middle of its shell betrayed the tiniest flash of orange— a brain, sacs of digestive fluid, a cluster of nerves, or all of the above— entrenched in sinewy vines holding the body together. Morphing, Samus dove inside the gap.

To the orange core clung none other than the Baby, confirming that it was the one causing the monster's uncontrollable spasms. The monster had snapped it up, but the Baby had turned the tide in the blink of an eye, absorbing all the energy it could stomach. Samus joined in by laying bombs around the pulsating core. When they detonated, a rumbling, gruesome roar rocked the monster's body. Translucent fluid leaked from the inner walls. Teetering on the brink of death, the mouth began to close.

Samus unmorphed directly under the mouth, thrusting her shoulders against the upper piece. The pressure was unimaginable. Lazy as the monster was, its jaws equaled the power of a shark's bite. Opening its mouth took far more strength than shutting it. When it snapped closed, it would not reopen.

It took all Samus's concentration to force it open. She couldn't speak, let alone breathe. It felt like the weight of the world upon her shoulders. She managed to meet the larva's gaze, who backed up deliberately.

What…are you…doing?! Fragmented pieces of thought dripped down her brain, which felt like it was short-circuiting from the strain. "GO!!!" she bellowed.

It obeyed, but instead of passing her, it slammed into her gut with all its might, shoving her away from the monster. Where there was agony came instant, blissful numbness as she was released from its hold. She'd forgotten all feeling but pain in the last few moments.

She and the larva tumbled across the mossy ground as the monster's life finally gave out. As its mouth closed forever, the core's light faded. Flat on her back, Samus watched as the body and chain, instead of falling down, retracted upward into the ceiling like an anchor being pulled into a ship. Like ripples in a pond, beginning with the creature, all green life around them withered and died. An eerie hush settled over the pit, leaving Samus listening to the sound of herself breathing. And, of course, the Baby, chirping incessantly as it hovered over her like a concerned mother hen.

She tried to sit up, wincing as her shoulders throbbed in protest. She flopped back down; her energy was completely sapped. The Baby might as well have drained her instead of the monster. Luckily, she was otherwise unhurt.

Tiny pieces began breaking off the shriveled plant life, lightly dusting the air like dull, golden brown petals. Even without life, something still had to fall down here.

The Baby tentatively nudged her helmet, trilling softly. She patted it, then made another attempt to sit up. Her shoulders still ached, but she managed.

On her feet again, she easily blasted the skeletal husks of the vines out of her way, revealing a hole just big enough for her to roll through in the Morph Ball. And the Baby, smaller than the Ball, trailed behind her happily.

As lovely as the green side of Brinstar was, Samus was ready to leave it behind. Perhaps the hole would lead to a new environment, one the opposite of green. So much had changed in Brinstar alone, she was not sure where each path would lead.

This one, it turned out, led straight to the entrance of a pirate stronghold.

Chapter Text

“We’ll need to be stealthy about this,” Samus muttered as she peered over the cliff, where insect-sized pirates patrolled three hundred feet below.

In stark contrast to the lush, green jungle, aside from scattered, scrubby plants and colorless vermin, the cliff above the pirate stronghold overlooked a canyon colored a rusty, heat-baked red, from the smooth sandstone formations to the parched, hard-packed soil. The air, though stuffy, smelled drier than Brinstar’s jungle. The significant deficit in plant life meant a huge deficit in water, leaving the walking Cacatacs hoarding every drop they could hold, and everything else, including the space pirates, scrambling to claim the rest for themselves.

This wasn’t right. Brinstar had been starkly divided into two completely different worlds when flora and fauna had once been uniform across the board. One was rich in life and water, and the other deprived of both.

Half a mile above Samus, pockets of sunlight seeped down into the canyon, striking defined rays against the rocks. They did not stream from Zebes’ sun, but from artificial energy structures created by the Chozo in times past, providing not just light but warmth.

In a wise decision, the pirates elected to keep these structures running. Although endless geothermal heat circulated throughout the entire planet, should the structures fail, Brinstar was just far enough from the core to get cold. Not enough to freeze over— Zebes was far too warm to ever get snow— but enough to make those cold-blooded roaches sluggish and stupid. Well, stupider than usual.

“Now there’s an idea.” Samus addressed the Baby, who made a short, puzzled trill. “If we take out those energy suppliers, the pirates will be easier to beat. Ah, wait.” She snapped her fingers. “I forgot you’ll be cold, too.”

She leaned back as she reevaluated. “If we disable all of them, the pirates will get suspicious. But if we break a few, they’ll send someone to fix them, and we’ll sneak by in the dark.”

They got to work. In several targeted shots (SNAP! CRACK! BOOM!), the canyon plunged into shadow. Instead of widespread simulated sunlight, only a few bright spotlights shone down upon the rock faces.

A snarling cacophony of furious pirates echoed off the walls. In the midst of their confused ranting and raving, Samus saw them gesturing forcefully upward. She nodded at the Baby. “That’s our cue.”

Too busy shouting for their maintenance crew, the pirates failed to notice the lone figure clear the massive gap between the cliffs in a single bound. Sliding down the rock wall concealing the entrance, Samus discovered a small opening. Likely an air circulation vent, it made for the perfect spot to sneak in, and the Baby floated behind with ease.

As she hoped, about two scores of pirates were rushing outside, either to perform maintenance, or to demand to know what was going on. But many more remained inside. They passed over a classified computer operations room, where higher-ranking pirates were too engrossed in their logs to spot Public Enemies One and Two rolling through their translucent, Morph Ball-sized air ducts. She laughed quietly to herself — when would they learn? — and made a mental note to return later. Those top-secret logs were bound to be worth reading.

The duct split off, and Samus went right. This place was a definite step down from the pirates’ previous lairs. They never cared for artistic license, instead favoring a structured, industrial layout. But this new fortress was a dump even compared to their sites on Aether, or even their own homeworld. Although fortified with thick iron walls, rust and rot oozed through the most miniscule of cracks. Curtains of skinny, shriveled weeds smothered the walls, tangling up like thornbushes in the corners. When the duct dropped off in a dank, dusty room, Samus dropped down into a nest overflowing with them, landing with a muffled crunch.

The lights had broken, leaving the only sources of light her suit, the larva, and a luminous object buried beneath tangles of weeds.

She leaned over for a better look, hand reaching up to activate her visor’s light. At the last second, something compelled her to stop, for her ears detected the slightest rustle in the silence. They were not alone.

The Baby squeaked nervously. The rustling swelled into a hum, and the hum into a deafening buzz loud as a jet engine.

Dozens of green insects, each larger than a man, with four legs ending in curved scythes and a stinger long as her arm, emerged from burrows in the walls. Kihunters! They must have eaten their way through the stronghold’s rotting husk and built a hive of their own.

High-pitched beeping rang from her arm cannon. The Charge Beam had come back online! And not a moment too soon. Kihunters were savage predators known for carving up their prey into pieces, usually in a way that barely kept them alive until they were devoured. Coupled with ironclad scales, even with the right equipment, it would take an army to deal with an infestation this large.

A quick sweep of the room told Samus the pirates had attempted such an extermination to no avail. Fragments of their hollow exoskeletons lined the floors.

Gently, Samus pushed the Baby close to the floor. Yes, it was more than capable of fighting, but she needed it to be careful. Save for their weakness to cold, Metroids were incredibly resilient, but a Kihunter’s claw could slice the tiny larva like a sheet of paper.

She struck first, before any of them moved. Each charged blast felled a Kihunter, but they swarmed on all sides faster than she could charge another. Their stingers stabbed at her armor, threatening to pierce it. She grabbed one by the leg and slammed it against the wall, shooting another to pieces.

Meanwhile, the Baby obeyed her order to stay down, but it saw plain as day Samus was about to be overrun. She needed help, but how?

The soft emerald glow in the floor caught its eyes. Without hesitation, it dove into the tangled weeds, burrowing under them like a rabbit in soft earth. Seizing the light’s source in its tiny mandibles, it shot out the undergrowth like a rocket. All eyes snapped towards the Baby, who flung the light at Samus with surprising accuracy.

Catching it in her left hand, she instinctively held it aloft like a flare, drawing the Kihunters to her like moths to a flame. At first, her goal was to keep their eyes on her rather than the larva. For better or worse, that plan was an instant success. They advanced on her in a semicircle formation, flexing their claws and beating their wings in rhythm.

The light, Samus realized as soon as she’d touched it, projected outward from a solid object. It melded to her hand like a kinetic glove, flowing through her armor like water breaking over rocks before culminating in her cannon.

Then the glow faded, stranding the Hunter in the dark, a wall of killer insects separating her from the larva. Nothing could distract them from their prey now, and half of them had already converged on the smaller, weaker target. The larva cried out as a claw curled around its fragile body.

Then the ceiling exploded.

The rusted iron shattered like glass, bathing the hive in pale golden light. After lurking in the dark so long, any light would be blinding to the Kihunters. She stepped under the shaft of artificial sunlight, cannon aloft, daring the beasts to approach.

SUPER MISSILE OBTAINED.

They drew back as a unit, recalculating. Kihunters didn’t survive on brute strength alone, after all. With this new power, the armored one could decimate them all, far more quickly than she could mere moments ago. Could they subdue her and the puny one before they all died trying?

Leveling her cannon at the one clutching the Baby, Samus locked eyes with the swarm. Slowly, deliberately, she stepped away from the light. Not for an instant did her arm waver, did she blink or shift her gaze. Tall and rigid as a tree, she rooted herself, silently awaiting their answer.

In one fluid motion, they surged forward. Before she could fire, like floodwater funneling through a narrow channel, they flew up and out of the hole. Wind generated by their wings whipped over her, but not a single Kihunter touched her. The one holding the Baby dropped it, and Samus beckoned it over. Checking it wasn’t hurt, she leaped up after them.

The Kihunters swarmed over the canyon, fleeing westward towards the jungle. As Samus watched, one half split off and dove steeply downward. When they rose again, each one clutched a struggling pirate in its claws. Food for the journey, she supposed. She never liked Kihunters, but she couldn’t help wishing them luck on finding a new hive. Although Zebes had always been a harsh planet, survival seemed more challenging than ever, now.

Her thoughts turned again to the stark red environment. Zebes had an abundance of water, especially in Crateria, Brinstar, and… below. Yet, one side of Brinstar was being unnaturally favored over the other, and she wanted to learn why.

The other half of the swarm circled back, seeking out their share of food. Samus gave a sharp, ear-piercing whistle to grab their attention. They flew over, keeping a respectful distance of her and the larva, who growled threateningly and pressed closer to Samus.

Taking several long strides from the first hole in the roof, she blew open another one, exposing another section chock-full of pirates. Before anyone could raise the alarm, the Kihunters descended upon them, and the room dissolved into utter chaos. Any pirate who fought back was swiftly dispatched, and when others tried to run, the Kihunters pursued them down the hall.

Before long, the data room lay empty. The distraction had worked like a charm, but the others would get wind of it soon. Sealing the doors and destroying the locking mechanisms, Samus selected a computer and got started. Their logs were easy to decode as ever.

[31.919.4] Years of repeated humiliations by the accursed Hunter, Samus Aran, have reduced our supplies and troops to a shell of their former glory and strength. Yet, right under the Federation’s nose, we have rebuilt our base on Planet Zebes. We have fulfilled our first order to restore Central Command. Additional modifications are well under way, though these matters are kept secret from the rest of us.

Already, branches have been established in Brinstar and Norfair. Experiments with Gravity Suit technology have allowed a third branch to be established below Brinstar, though limited ammunition and troops are able to be supplied. Nevertheless, the work continues, and we shall prevail.

[32.167.1] Through careful division of Zebes’ water resources, we have dammed their largest fall and harnessed its power for our own. However, an unintentional side effect occurred: the land dried like a match to dead grass. Strict water rations have been imposed. Anyone attempting to steal more than their share will have their portion stripped for eight cycles.

They had caused Brinstar’s drought. The pirates had upset the delicate balance interlocking all life on the planet so suddenly, the entire ecosystem here was in upheaval. Clenching her fist to steady her breathing, she read another.

[32.225.7] By reviving and improving upon our old experiments from the failed Tallon IV operation, we have once again developed anti-Hunter weaponry. Once the anti-Power Beam armor proved successful, we quickly moved on to synthesizing defenses against her most powerful abilities, including the Wave Beam, Power Bomb, and the Screw Attack, though the latter has proven difficult. Any test subject who survives initial experimentation spontaneously combusts within three cycles. Maintenance Team refuses to clean up anymore remains. Development of anti-Screw Attack armor has wisely been postponed.

It was difficult to keep her snickering quiet, even as she scrolled to their more recent logs.

[32.401.2] At last, Lord Ridley has been restored to his full might. He has resumed his former position as Central Command’s top general. Central Command has already set him on the task of recovering the last Metroid from the Ceres colony. The Hunter foolishly abandoned it, and we shall eagerly exploit her error. Once the Metroid is in our hands, our return to power is assured. Glory to the Space Pirates!

The Baby, who’d been hovering beside the sealed door, chirped a warning. Samus raised her eyes, listening to the pirates fumbling with the control panel outside, trying to restore access. The time she’d bought with the Kihunters had run out. They needed to leave, but she bent her head to read one last entry, labeled “CRITICAL”.

[32.514.9] Lord Ridley failed. The Hunter has made landfall on Zebes, and we suspect the Metroid is by her side. But another threat has developed. Mass outbreaks of hallucinations are plaguing the troops. Those who haven’t fallen into a catatonic state babble incoherently, claiming to have seen the dead. Numerous soldiers have begun disappearing from our ranks. Security footage has shown them fleeing east. Others have turned on and killed their fellow soldiers. This is treason of the highest offense, and all traitors shall be dealt with accordingly.

East? But there—

Click! The doors slid open about a foot, then jammed. It was just wide enough for the pirates to fire through, but by then, Samus had grabbed the larva and escaped through an air vent. Getting into another shootout with those blundering idiots was a waste of her time; she had better things to do.

Blaring alarms rang out. They knew she was here now, but it didn’t matter. According to the logs, the pirates had dammed the falls. And she knew just where to go.

Traversing deeper and deeper into the fortress, Samus and the Baby discovered a comparatively modernized sector cobbled with cut jade. Stylized spikes curved from eaves framing the giant, blocky likeness of a red-eyed monster. A crude attempt at art, but it served as a marked gateway to the restricted sector, which was sealed off by a steel door with a complex locking mechanism.

Before the door lay a pair of monitors, their cables crisscrossing along the floor and up the walls. She hoped to find the controls to the dam itself, but instead used the computers to unlock the door. Upon disabling it, four rectangular bolts clicked and slid horizontally out of place, triggering another set of four to slide vertically, before a central square mechanism twisted and popped out. Finally, the door split apart in quarters. Samus started forward, but one last obstacle stood in her way: a spiky gray mass displaying a giant, pulsating eyeball. It merely regarded her— Samus could see her reflection in its golden iris— then she dispatched it with a single Super Missile. Motioning for the Baby to stick close, she finally passed through the opening unhindered.

They entered a wide clearing so vast, the opposite end was obscured by mist. Once a barren stone cavern, it had been refurbished by the pirates into a crucial industrial center. It, too, had been infiltrated by still more tangled weeds and green thorns. And where there was life, there was water. Crystal droplets dripped from stalactites on the ceiling, but far more important was the manually constructed canal flowed through the clearing, branching off into carved channels and collecting into mazes of pipes to be transported across the stronghold for various functions. Analysis suggested the pirates were pumping various chemical agents into the water to better serve their needs. No wonder only weeds and thorns grew here; they were the only plant life hardy enough to adapt to the fouled water.

Further in, she found the deep riverbed Brinstar’s largest waterfall once flowed into. The pirates had deliberately cut it off when they built the canal, leaving the once nutrient-rich mud caked and dusty. Samus absentmindedly scuffed the dirt. Years ago, she used to come here, usually to train, but sometimes to play. Her family always warned her not to stray too far down the river, or she could get swept away by the unforgiving current. There was real danger to back up their warning— the main flow of the falls spilled over the side of a sheer cliff, plunging miles down into a dark chasm. It was impossible to see where it ended, so of course, she asked where it did.

“Maridia,” answered Gray Voice. “Even if your training were complete, you would still be woefully unprepared for the dangers lying below.”

“More dangerous than Norfair?” she asked. Even Norfair was heavily restricted in her younger age, but that didn’t stop the idea of danger from sparking her imagination.

“In some ways.” In a measured voice, he added, “Even I would not deign to venture there unless absolutely necessary. The time will come for you to seek what lies below, but that day is not today. If you were to go as you are, you would surely die.”

She could tell he was dead serious (as always), and so didn’t test his claim. Even peering over the cliff now, an uneasy knot tugged at her gut. Although she had years of training and experience under her belt now, the reality that her arsenal was almost as limited as it was during her early years wasn’t lost on her. She shook her head. What did it matter? The task at hand lay here.

Striding across the clearing, it didn’t take long to spot the dam. The pirates had clearly thrown most of their budget into it— two hundred feet high, half as wide, and three central portholes jetting high-pressure water into the canal. Impressive work, she had to admit. Now, how to go about blowing it up?

The earth beneath her vibrated as she drew closer, likely due to the iron base under the soil amplifying the pounding of the waterfall. The vibrations were so great, they rang in her eardrums. The Baby halted in its tracks, letting itself hang back behind Samus. Noticing the sudden lack of companionship, Samus stopped, too. The larva growled and backed further away as she cocked her head, listening hard.

In a split second, Samus realized the danger. She dove headfirst at the Baby, grabbing it and throwing herself out of harm’s way as the earth was torn asunder. They tumbled across the ground, but she rolled back onto her feet.

A grisly, horned face full of crooked teeth jutting every which way emerged. Three beady scarlet eyes trained on her as the scaly green behemoth yanked its arms free, each hand ending in two cruel, curved talons as long as she was tall.

“Kraid.” Barely within arm’s reach of Mother Brain’s gargantuan top general, Samus folded her arms and stared him square in the eyes. “So, that was your face carved on the wall back there? Thought it was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen— didn’t expect it to be so true to the original.”

Whether Kraid was capable of speech or not was still a mystery to the Hunter, but she’d quickly learned during their first battle that he possessed the foulest temper in the galaxy. Any slight offense would set him off, and Samus’s insult ignited his rage like a spark to gasoline. Segmented jaws parted to reveal a bloodred maw, and he roared so loudly, the shockwaves sent the Baby flying.

Samus, however, didn’t even flinch. His rage gave her a clear shot to send a Super Missile straight into his mouth, which frothed and smoked like an engine. The earth around his middle loosened, allowing him to haul the rest of his body out of the earth. Seismic waves rippled the ground like water as Kraid towered to his full thirty-foot height. Much more mobile now, he stomped towards her, sending tremors through Samus’s body.

As if that weren’t bad enough, huge spikes shot out of his belly like cannonballs. She rolled to avoid being skewered. It was a familiar strategy— one she’d employed during their first battle years ago. The spikes were huge, but they could only fire in one direction: forward. He even flung his claws the same way, Samus noticed as she launched off a spike and lunged for his face. They were so easy to dodge. Almost too easy. Had Kraid finally lost his touch?

Then she got slammed from behind, and plummeted back to earth. The claws had rebounded! Like boomerangs, they swept through the room in wide arcs before flying back towards Kraid, giving him a double chance to strike his foe.

“Smart move,” she said as she rose out of the mud. “Gotta give you credit, Kraid. Never thought you had the brains to improve your technique.” She charged again, using his belly spikes as platforms to get on eye level with him, because he never once thought to cease firing them. Missile after missile struck his face, and each time, Kraid gave into his rage and opened wide.

Being a top-ranking pirate, Kraid certainly proved himself among the toughest. But even he could only eat so many explosives. His gait was visibly slowing. “I must admit, I was worried we’d be stuck doing that old song and dance. But—” She loaded up a Super Missile. “—I still get the feeling things are going to end as badly for you as before.”

As if he weren’t frenzied enough, Kraid went berserk. He went all-out on the offensive, firing off claws one after the next and the next. As soon as one claw detached, another rapidly, almost instantly, grew in its place. Due to Kraid’s inability to think straight, the claws weren’t rebounding properly, instead flying off at random angles. They proved difficult to dodge, especially when Samus tried to get up close. She soon found herself assaulted on all sides.

Somersaulting off another spike, she made one more attack on the green behemoth’s face. Kraid met her halfway, clamping his jaws down on her with horrific strength. Samus caught him by the upper jaw, holding his mouth open as she force-fed him several Super Missiles. Kraid sputtered and snarled, letting out a guttural scream. His whole body spasmed as it shut down, unable to suffer the damage any longer. As the gargantuan lizard sank forward, Samus leaped out of his jaws to safety.

Kraid’s impact carved a dangerous fissure that reached the canal. The earth heaved and pitched like the waves of the ocean. Samus could only try to keep her footing; Kraid’s back was now the most stable object to stand on as the entire fortress endured the loss of its general.

As a shower of loosened stalactites dropped like spears, movement in the upper reaches caught Samus’s eye. The Baby! She had been so distracted by Kraid, she failed to notice it hadn’t reappeared at her side. She cursed herself. This was exactly what she knew would happen when she took the Baby along. Why hadn’t she been more careful?

A booming CRACK drowned out the roar of the earthquake. Samus glanced back and saw the fissure spreading from the canal to the base of the dam.

“Come on!” she yelled at the larva. “We need to leave, now!”

But it wouldn’t budge from the corner, squeaking desperately with fear.

Why wouldn’t it come? Samus recalled how the sound of thunder had frightened it on Crateria. Perhaps Kraid’s roars and now, the earthquake, sounded similar.

“Hang on!” With no other options, she ran along Kraid’s back, heading for the hump near his neck. At the top, she took a flying leap straight for the larva, stretching out her hand.

Two things happened. Before her fingers touched the larva, two pirates emerged behind it. One dropped a steel crate over the Baby, trapping it. The other one fired two concussive blasts from its hands into Samus’s chest. Plummeting back onto Kraid’s body, she landed on her back. An involuntary choking gasp escaped her lungs as the wind was knocked out of them.

As she lay there, fighting for air, she saw the pirates escaping with the crate holding the Baby. One glanced back, sneering, and its eyes flashed sinister blue. Then it and its partner were gone.

The fissure reached the top of the dam.

The torrential explosion was nothing short of colossal. Geysers spouted sideways out of the cracks before the wall shattered like ice. The oncoming wake consumed everything. No doubt the entire fortress was about to be swept away until nothing remained.

Samus was no exception. Even the galaxy’s greatest bounty hunter was no match for the flood. Like a ravenous titan, Brinstar’s fury consumed everything. Stone, steel, and plant life all devoured with merciless brutality.

Her world become water. She lost her bearings of up and down. Helpless against the charging tide, she tumbled beneath the waves. Unable to surface, her hand grasped futilely against the loose mud at the bottom of the old river.

A chunk of rock slammed into her helmet. As her vision faded, Samus attempted one last time to grab onto something. Anything.

But there was nothing. Not even mud. It had disappeared altogether. Only a plunging sensation in her stomach told her which direction she was headed.

Samus Aran had awakened Brinstar’s falls. And she was going down with them.

Chapter Text

………

……Sa…mus……

Samus.

She opened her eyes. Or at least, she thought she did, for cold oblivion enveloped both her unconsciousness and the waking world. The void suffocated all sensation. Not the faintest green light emitted from her suit. Nor did the slightest shadow graze her hand, which still reached for something far beyond its grasp. And the soft whisper in her ear vanished like a bubble on a needle. It might not have existed in the first place.

I’m alive.

She’d been knocked senseless. As she revived, the weight of the world pressed mercilessly upon every inch of her body. Her slow heartbeat punctuated every ache and throb of her head. She struggled to get her bearings; of what was up or down. Was she up or down? Couldn’t tell. Her memory was sluggish as melting ice.

But like melting ice, memory trickled, drop by drop, back down into her mind.

Brinstar……Kraid……

The trickle became a stream, and the stream a river.

The dam…the falls…

And the river a raging flood.

It’s been taken.

It’s been taken.

It’s been taken.

In a snap second, the Power Suit rebooted. A green flash like lightning surrounded her, then faded. The flash did nothing to illuminate the all-encompassing void, but she could at least make sense of her body’s positioning. She indeed seemed to be upside-down, for her HUD indicated she was sinking rapidly.

…Sinking?

Her entire body jolted as if electrified, firing pins and needles through every single nerve. Firing her boosters, she quickly corrected her position.

Go up. Up.

The thrusters on her back were designed for relatively short bursts rather than lengthy usage, hence why she didn’t use them like a jetpack for flight. However, by firing them consistently, she began making gradual progress towards— what she hoped— safety. Here, she realized she hadn’t survived the fall unscathed— a large spiderweb crack had damaged one side of her visor, allowing water to slowly leak inside.

She needed to hurry, but taking her time was more crucial. Her HUD indicated she was at least three miles below sea level. Breathing was of no issue thanks to the apparatus covering her nose and mouth, but things would go sour rapidly if she rushed the ascent; her visor would shatter, leading to rapid decompression that would kill her with her basic Power Suit alone. She doubted even the Varia Suit could take the pressure for long. Only the Gravity Suit could properly adapt to such extreme conditions, but even if she had it, she wouldn’t come back here in a hurry.

Maridia. So, Brinstar’s falls indeed led down to Zebes’ one and only ocean. Although it covered a vast expanse of the planet, the majority lay deep underground, with only a handful of pockets exposed to the sun. As a result, an unnatural murkiness clouded the water; Samus tested her visor’s light and found it functioning, but it did nothing to penetrate the gloom. Neither sight nor sound of life existed.

Darkness did not frighten Samus Aran. Never had, even as a child. But unlike a child’s wild imagination, something real and tangible could lurk in those shadows…something truly monstrous.

………

……Sa…mus……

That faint whisper again… was she hearing things? Maybe her imagination was playing tricks on her.

Sa…mus……

Samus……

She jerked her head, tapping the side of her helmet to clear any static interference. Her eyes futilely scanned the waters; her radar revealed nothing.

…Samus…

No, a hallucination was out of the question. Her HUD recorded soundwaves each time she heard the whisper.

Come…come……

Who are you? Samus resisted the temptation to call out. Regardless, the whisper grew louder.

Come…Come……

Describing its voice was impossible. It sounded vaguely masculine, enticing yet hollow. It did not to come from one source but resonated all around. And its depth… She could not explain it, but it felt…evil.

COME.

Ugh! Samus doubled over in agony as the command exploded in her ears like a gunshot. Like an infernal heartbeat, the soundwaves pulsed against her body, like somebody throwing punches that phased through her skin and beat her organs instead. Though she instinctively pressed her hands as hard as she could to her head, she could not shut out the menacing voice.

COME.

Come where? Above? Below? The water inside her visor had already risen above her breathing apparatus. Salty droplets stung at her eyes, making her blink rapidly. A large shape flickered across her radar, but it blew out like a candle in the wind before she noticed.

COME!

Quicker than a striking serpent, something snaked around her leg and yanked her down. Her thrusters kicked in on instinct, pulling her in the opposite direction. Stuck in a deadlock, Samus fired down blindly. Miraculously, they hit, and the thing released her. Without hesitation, Samus boosted her thrusters to maximum power. Onward and upward, sparing no thought or backwards glance to the enemy below.

It wasn’t until the shadows of the waters slightly lightened that Samus checked to see if it was in pursuit. Nothing except the yawning abyss stared back, though that hardly brought comfort. She allowed her thrusters a brief rest before resuming the steady emissions. The Power Suit could perform countless functions, but it could not swim worth Zoomer droppings. She’d sink like a rock if she paused longer than a second.

“You…”

A familiar, sinister blue fireball manifested before her eyes. As she raised her cannon, the fire flickered, swelled, and transformed.

“YOU HAVE FAILED!”

A warped, twisted specter of a Chozo with wild, sightless eyes blazing like hellfire screamed in distorted Chozodian. The ghastly, ghoulish howl, magnified exponentially by the water, ripped through Samus’s mind, body, and soul. Static interference invaded her HUD. The Power Suit’s lights blinked and shut off. Like a creature possessed, the phantom flew at her, swiping with long, cruel talons outstretched like sickles.

“YOU HAVE FAILED US ALL!”

On sheer reflex, the Charge Shot she’d readied fired into the middle of the phantom’s distorted form. With one last horrific screech, it rippled, then dissipated like evaporating fog.

The Suit’s lights powered back on. Samus was alone. The water, though still murky, seemed mysteriously less so. She no longer detected the evil presence in any capacity; it had completely vanished from Maridia.

That Chozo ghost had only been an extension of the greater presence. A puppet. Of that, she was certain. She doubted it was even a Chozo at all— just a trick of the blue fire’s light, a cheap shot at scaring her.

She shrugged it off. Whatever this foul presence was trying, it wouldn’t work. They both knew it had the Baby, and if it thought a little smoke and noise would keep her from finding the hatchling, it had another thing coming.

Her HUD cleared up the static, though water now completely filled up her visor. The saltiness stung her eyes, but she maintained focus. Her thoughts led back to the pirate logs she read in Brinstar’s fortress. Mass outbreaks of hallucinations are plaguing the troops. They babble incoherently, claiming to have seen the dead. Security footage shows them fleeing east.

East of Brinstar…she knew that place. All evidence pointed to the ruins of an ancient Chozo starship. Even her family did not know for certain when the ship crashed on Zebes; its wrecked site had overlooked a deep lake on Crateria for millennia. Out of respect and a little caution, her family left it alone in peace. Samus, however, had explored a few times. Save for the fascinating, yet bizarre technology that once belonged to the ancestors of her tribe, nothing out of the ordinary stood out among the ruins. Nothing supernatural in the least.

Now, something had awakened in the silent hollows of the starship. Something evil, as archaic as the ship, and possibly the Chozo themselves. In her brief encounter, its voice alone nearly killed her. Its powers of possession were no joke if it could snatch pirates from under Mother Brain of all beings’ control. Finally, it possessed the ability to summon ghosts, but were they truly ghosts or mere illusions? Samus decided illusions. Any Chozo who died on Zebes had long since been laid to peaceful rest…she herself made sure of that.

Shaking her head, she checked her HUD. Readings indicated a mile and a half left until the surface. Her first objective was simply to head straight back up. Since her position in relevance to the Wrecked Ship could not be determined in the void of Maridia, she would surface first to regain her sense of direction. And to expel the saltwater from her helmet.

Resuming her journey upward, she noted how calm the black waters were. Maridia’s species likely congregated around solid ground, like coral reefs or the seafloor, rather than roaming the open ocean, where there was little prey to hunt. This also suggested the evil presence had not been physically present when it attacked Samus. Rather, it telepathically contacted her using powerful psychic waves.

Too much trouble to leave its shelter, she supposed. Coward. It went through all this trouble to try to frighten her when it wouldn’t dare face her itself.

Still, she got the impression what she experienced was merely a fraction of its true power. Well, weak or strong, it couldn’t hide forever, no matter how many so-called ghosts it threw at her.

But a little voice inside whispered: It looked like Gray Voice.

Samus realized her hands were trembling.

Chapter Text

After ascending to a depth light reached, a hairy skirmish with a school of spiny Skulteras, a bone-chilling backwards glance at the void below and a massive, hideous yellow eyeball blinking back, Samus finally, finally touched ground again. She might have been tempted to drop down and kiss it if her helmet weren’t full of saltwater.

Upper Maridia’s shallows spanned a minefield of tide pools, pits, and quicksand. Shifting brown dunes, groves of seaweed, and patchy, sandstone walls painted the landscape. While Samus was grateful to plant her feet, “solid” was hardly the correct word. The drab environment provided perfect camouflage for quicksand pockets.

Lack of access to the Gravity Suit impeded movement, but she made steady progress and soon found her head above the water. At last. As she knelt beside the shallows, the first thing she did was dematerialize her helmet. A ludicrous volume of water poured out. Including a tiny squid.

She remained kneeling, breathing in the salty air, marred somewhat by the dank odor of seaweed. Her fingers absently sifted the wet sand. Here, in-between abyssal Maridia and stormy Crateria, the world was…not peaceful, but quiet. Far less suffocating than the ocean’s black pit, and the wildlife conducted their own business instead of attacking her. She was alone. For better or worse, the quiet afforded her time to collect her thoughts.

You have failed.

She shifted her arm to restore her helmet, but found herself staring at her distorted reflection in the muddy water. Blank, bloodshot eyes stared back. Her hand would not, could not move. It remained half-buried in the sand, heavier than lead.

YOU HAVE FAILED US ALL!

Something deep inside flinched as she recalled the ghost’s bone-chilling scream. It exploded in her mind, disrupting all other thoughts.

YOU HAVE FAILED!

I haven’t.

…You’re afraid.

Ridiculous.

But the weary eyes in the water believed otherwise. They narrowed.

You HAVE failed…

…and THEY know it.

She jerked her head away and forced her hand up. Helmet donned, she noticed her cracked visor was only partially restored. She set off without a backwards glance.

The rain on Crateria abated, but the dense, swollen thunderclouds still loomed overhead. Distant rumbling echoed off the cliffsides, signaling the approach of another squall. Samus crouched low; she didn’t intend to linger on the clifftop when the lightning returned.

Eons ago, the downed vessel’s impact crater filled with water, forming a deep lake half the ship was buried under. The upper half rose above like an eerie, glowing tombstone. Indeed, a phosphorescent green aura tinged the walls so dim, if Samus blinked, it seemed to disappear.

Despite its name, the hull was largely intact. With some repairs, it could be restored. She figured its main issues lay inside. She couldn’t imagine the controls and circuitry in good shape after all this time.

The Pirates built scaffolding around its outside, providing a bridge to a single hatch some forty feet above the lake. Higher constructions acted as towers on which sentries perched like vultures. Samus counted six; even from her distance, she could see the vivid blue fire of their eyes.

The wind rose, whistling through the damaged portions like a chime of hollow bones. In the distance, the first bolt of lightning flashed behind the wreck, followed instantly by deafening thunder. Just as fleetingly, Samus thought of the Baby, and wondered if it could hear it. She tossed it aside. Being a prisoner is a bit more dangerous than a fear of thunder. Lightning flashed again. Then again, that fear is what got it captured.

And here again, she found herself in a similar situation as in Brinstar— overlooking a Pirate hive, watching them patrol, and pondering how to get inside. This time, she’d have to execute the plan solo, but that would actually come easier without a companion. What was different was that the Pirates’ master knew she was coming before she even fell into Maridia. And she’d bet the gunship it knew exactly where she was now.

Incoherent snarls and screeches rang out below. A second storm commenced in the form of lasers blasting up the cliff.

Gunship’s still mine.

Samus rapid-fired back, picking off four sentries in the span of two lightning strikes. She didn’t need to get knocked out by any more lucky shots.

A huge bolt struck behind her. The whole cliff quaked. She tried to take aim at the last two, when she detected a multitude of smaller vibrations beneath it. Red dots scored the bottom of her radar.

 A diversion!

She whipped around. A throng of blue-eyed Pirates swarmed the clifftop, charging with reckless abandon. Samus switched to Super Missiles. Its heavy blast sent several bodies flying, but the rest kept coming. A hideous cacophony of deranged gurgling and strangled shrieking buzzed in her ears. But none of it was standard Pirate, only garbled gibberish.

Something was wrong. These weren’t the malicious, grudge-filled screeches of her hated enemies. These were the guttural, tortured wails of the damned. Hollow, almost robotic, they seemed only half-directed at her, generated from somewhere other than their emotions. It grated on her, and she eagerly met their assault head on to shut them up.

Like a living whirlwind, Samus shredded their ranks with nothing but the Power Beam, a storm of missiles, and her own body, slamming Pirates left and right. She seized one and threw it into two others, shoulder-checking them off the cliff with an exoskeleton-breaking crunch before they could recover. Three huge splashes confirmed their deaths; Pirates were lousy swimmers without scuba equipment. Another took one look at her and decided to follow its mates.

And still they came. The usurper must have sent about every Pirate under its control. Four fresh troopers tackled her to the ground. She managed to roll back and kick two overboard, but the others managed to cling to her as several more dogpiled on. Taking a risk at such close range, Samus fired a Super Missile into the mass. The impact flung them in every direction and sent her skidding backward until her head dangled above the lake eighty feet below.

She got to her feet as the stragglers recovered. But the Super Missile did the ledge in. As the ground crumbled and split, Samus turned, ran, and took a flying leap into the air, narrowly avoiding one final lightning blast that destroyed the ledge. The last Pirates plummeted to their deaths, some still clinging vainly to the disintegrating rock and soil.

Her jump carried her clear across the lake. Taking the long fall with ease, she landed right atop the platform. To her surprise, the last two sentries turned tail and fled. They leaped to the outer hull, grappled on, and scuttled out of sight.

Now, the very last troopers rushed outside. But Samus was beyond caring. Charging straight for the hatch, she dove, morphed, and cannonballed between their outstretched claws. The instant she was inside, the hatch snapped shut and lost power, sealing her in.

Unmorphing, Samus stuck the landing at a crouch. Before she even rose, heavy pressure fell like lead upon her lungs. It could only be the usurper’s malevolent presence, identical to what she felt in Maridia. No doubt it had her right where it wanted.

Sa……m…u……s……

Even her visor’s brilliant reach was subdued. The ship’s layout was not unfamiliar. Its halls were laid out in orderly rows befitting a spaceship’s design, marred by collapse from the first impact and subsequent weakening over time. Samus could still mentally trace the path leading to the bridge above, as well as the cramped ducts sprawling down to the cargo hold.

If I’d captured a Metroid, I’d keep it there.

As soon as she began the descent, the pressure in her lungs increased. More than once, she laid bombs to clear a path through the damaged ducts. She noted a steady drop in temperature that increased with every step towards the hold. Perfect, she also noted, for subduing a Metroid.

Samus……

She stopped dead. Despite the wind howling like a banshee against the hull, she heard the whisper clear as day in her ear. A cold claw grazed her right shoulder whose bone-deep chill penetrated straight through her pauldron. She froze for a half-second before twisting away, swinging her cannon at the source. Nothing was there.

Focus.

She jumped down the next few flights of stairs, ignoring the invisible blue eye burning into the back of her skull.

The darkness grew oppressive as she reached the lower levels. Her light’s reach dwindled to little more than arm’s length. But about fifteen feet below, a single hatch shone green. The only working one she’d ever seen in all her times exploring this vessel. It, too, glowed like a dead eye, waiting, beckoning her to approach.

Samus……

Again, she felt the chilled touch on her shoulder. She spun and came face-to-face with the white, haggard ghost of a Chozo. Those same sightless eyes, pale fire tinged with a lick of blue, pierced her soul, threatening to freeze her in place.

She knew it was a trick, but she instinctively addressed it in Chozodian. “Stand aside.”

The ghost regarded her, hunched like a rabid animal, its long translucent arms grazing the floor. It did not speak.

She readied a Charge Shot and hissed through gritted teeth. “Last warning.”

The ghost lunged, and Samus fired. Like in Maridia, its form faded to mist. But a second, misshapen form lingered in its wake. She fired again, but the shape vanished, too. She’d only caught a glimpse, but it was far from humanoid.

Clenching her fist to steady it, she leaped off the stairs and let gravity carry her to the green hatch. She landed with a heavy thud, and rose with slight difficulty. Seemed like gravity had kicked up a notch. That could pose a problem, she mused as she blasted open the hatch with a Super Missile.

As soon as she jumped down, the hatch slid shut and died. She could no longer hear the storm. This room was long and low, with another dead door to the west and a partially collapsed wall to the east. The walls bent away from the floor and grew more disorienting the more she looked. With slow, cautious steps, Samus moved to investigate the collapsed wall.

There was a small opening at the bottom. As she crouched down to see if it was a tunnel, the ghost appeared right on top of her in a phosphorescent flash. She rolled aside, putting some distance between them.

The gravitational distortion revealed the ghost’s true form: a melted amalgamation of deformed skulls. Some looked human, others Pirate, and some Chozo. Profound revulsion seized her gut. All she could do was stare at this disgusting abomination only the foulest mind alive would dream.

Even Mother Brain wouldn’t create something like this.

Over the years, she’d seen many unimaginable creatures, but this one left her speechless. This thing— Samus didn’t even know what to name it— bobbed up and down in the air. The bottomless pits swirling in every black socket pulled at her mind, sucking her in. This wasn’t natural. Like the Tallon IV ghosts. Like Dark Aether. Like that poisoned shadow worming its claws into her brain.

Come. The dark voice thrummed from deep within the mass of skulls. Come.

Far away in the distance, an unearthly roar shook the earth. And then, slowly, a single, bloodstained talon stretched out from one of the sockets. She stood, frozen, as it reached for her face. “Failure.”

Wordlessly, Samus shook her head. A red glow ignited in the socket’s depths. The talon pointed between her eyes, phasing through her visor like it wasn’t there. The sheer cold of its touch was unbearable, but she could not move.

A blizzard engulfed her senses. Faces, stars, and formless shapes spiraled around her like an unraveling tapestry. She heard a tempest of roars, screeches, and true speech, each their own thread flying past on their own time. The voice and eyes of her archenemy snaked through her brain like a viper. Then his face melted, his scream twisting into the hollow thrum of Old Bird. Then a spear of ice shattered his visage, and there stood a fallen hunter and two others behind. A multitude of red eyes, and the all-seeing one of Mother Brain. Trapped behind its lens watched Platinum Chest, Gray Voice, and everyone. Her family. So close, yet impossibly far. She stretched out her hand, and Gray Voice met her eyes with a stare of…contempt? Scorn? No. That…wasn’t right. It couldn’t be.

And she plunged through his gaze, where a million comets streaked through the infinite cosmos. Here again, the threads wove together. A tapestry of stars formed the image of a Chozo statue. The light of twin suns burned in its eyes, and it raised its hands in offering to her still outstretched one. They lay empty, but something inside Samus was desperate to reach them all the same. She strained her arm as far as she possibly could. Just a little more…

A deafening crack tore space and time apart. The beautiful star statue fragmented and shattered. And from the dead void beyond it, a nameless, blue-eyed shadow lunged. “FAILURE!”

NO!

The room heaved and spun as Samus jolted back to reality. Nothing looked real anymore.

Not real—

Stand.

Gray Voice—

Stand!

Raising her eyes, Samus refocused on the ghost. No talons, glowing eyes, or menacing voice. It acted as it had before— harmlessly floating in the air.

With a glare that could poison the lake, she pulled the trigger. With a silent cry, the skulls shattered into a puddle of ectoplasm. Then it, too, faded.

“Failure, indeed.” The unnaturally deep voice, invisible, laughed at her, sending ripples through the distorted walls. “You’ve come all this way for nothing, Hunter,” it said. “It’s not here.”

Chapter Text

“If you think I’ll play your game, you’re mistaken.” Samus gripped her cannon. “Two choices. You tell me where it is, or I blast it out of you.”

“Think again, Hunter,” said the usurper, its abyssal voice booming everywhere at once. “Things are set in motion you cannot undo. The hatchling belongs to me. My word keeps it hidden, and my word alone will release it.”

The walls rippled, and eyes of blue fire appeared in the midst, mirage-like as they crossed over. Samus figured its true form was shrouded somewhere in this room, but how to discover it? With its ability to make her see ghosts, perhaps it was one itself. And without the X-ray Visor, seeing it would be near-impossible.

“I am not a ghost, Hunter,” the voice answered her thoughts. “I am not of the dead. Thousands of years in this rotting husk have only sharpened my power. Eons of waiting have not dulled my desire.”

Something clicked in Samus’s mind. “You. You caused this starship to crash on Zebes.”

“Correct. When I stowed away, I was but a small parasite. Invisible under their beaks. I had only enough strength to cause an engine malfunction. When I watched them crawl out of the wreckage, I knew I must wait. I could have taken this planet over eons before you were born, if they hadn’t taken so long to die.”

As she listened, Samus studied the walls, trying to figure out where the gravitational waves originated. “A thriving civilization threw a wrench in your plans, did it?”

“Quite the opposite. Although I was at first too weak to seize control, I knew if I watched and waited, they would give me everything I wanted. Power.” The walls rippled again. “Energy.” The eyes pulsed with light. “And your unwitting ancestors, in all their intellectual prowess, gave me all I asked for and more. Their greatest technological achievement was the key to their downfall and my ascension.”

A terrible chill ran through Samus. “Mother Brain,” she said, aghast. “But you couldn’t control her. If you were as weak as you said, you had no chance of stealing even an ounce of her power.” She was not speaking highly of the deranged computer, only the truth. Only her Chozo creators had the intelligence to access her.

“Correct again. Mother Brain made the mistake of letting me live. She saw me as puny, insignificant, and I would have remained in that state if she allowed. But my long-awaited rise to power was not brought by her hand.” It laughed again, boring Samus’s insides like a drill. “It was yours!”

The walls kaleidoscoped, folding in on themselves over and over infinitely. They pressed in around her, simultaneously pulling further and further away. The pit in her stomach told her she was falling, but her eyes saw the ceiling grow inexorably closer. She threw herself back to avoid being crushed and felt a solid thump behind her. But when she reached back, the wall became a dark veil. A ring of blue fireballs burst through, scorching her armor and threatening to burn even deeper.

“When you destroyed Mother Brain, the psychic backlash was catastrophic, as you likely remember well. The enormous shockwaves reached even this lake. I absorbed it all. It was all that I needed and more to finally awaken!”

Samus caught herself on one knee. “What have you done with the hatchling?”

The ceiling darkened. Blue fire rained down from above. She dove, morphed, and rolled, avoiding the supernatural barrage.

“Already, my forces have harnessed its power. And with the many out of one, I will escape this rotting planet once and for all. I will set my sights on the cosmos— the light of this very galaxy.” And for the first time, a huge, skull-shaped apparition flickered into view.

It was crossing over. From where it conjured its fire, from where it had watched her all this time. The center of the room darkened, and from the midnight blue swirls of the portal, the apparition solidified. A huge, bulbous head —and only a head— with two trailing tentacles encircled with spines, and a fanged mouth where the face should have been. What should have been its neck also ended in a gaping, tooth-filled maw. Samus steeled herself as she beheld the usurper, foe of Mother Brain and the Hunter alike.

“This planet is dying, Samus Aran. Can’t you feel it?” It sounded like it was speaking out of both mouths at once, but neither one moved. The very air shook in its presence, pressing down on her as the atmospheric pressure doubled. It was all Samus could do to stay crouched, to not give in and fall. And still, as the crack in her visor doubled in length, she managed to raise her head in defiance.

“Mehen mir kuni ata eshdor, Hunter. Yes, even your energy has been a great source of strength since you arrived. And rest assured, you can add Zebes and the hatchling to your list of failures. You failed to save them, your allies, and your beloved Chozo.”

Its deadly voice swelled, plunging into her bones, threatening to reach her heart. She glared up at it with equal ferocity.

“How they must look down upon you. Struggling to become what even they could never be: the galaxy’s true protector! Perish now, knowing they have failed once and for all to prevent this universe’s destruction. And that I, Phantoon, Master of Ghosts, will wipe their existence from memory!”

“No.” Trembling as she fought gravity’s crushing weight, Samus rose to her feet. Her cannon shone, doubled in brilliance. “My ancestors shall not become nameless. Not here. Not now. Ulu ashka ana man sarin.”

The room shuddered and swayed. Despite the absence of energy, the air crackled like the raging storm outside. The ceiling turned black again as Samus’s Power Beam charged up like a beacon. She thought she imagined the distant scree of the hatchling.

Hold on, little guy. I’m coming for you.

As the silence rang in her ears, the Hunter faced her foe.

Gray Voice, guide my hand.

Blue fire surged from above like falling stones. Samus deftly wove between them and closed the distance, firing clean up its neck-mouth. But it phased right through. Without a face, Phantoon made no expression, but she could hear it laughing. No matter how many times she heard its voice, it never hurt any less.

Fireballs dripped from its front mouth. They took a life of their own, hovering and bouncing around the room. They were easy to dispel with her Power Beam, but more kept coming. Despite this, the temperature dropped further and further.

Then the mouth opened, revealing not a throat or tongue, but a sickly yellow eye. A ring of fire swirled from it, blasting the chill from the room, but it returned just as quickly. Phantoon was absorbing even what little warmth remained in the air. Then the teeth closed over the eye, and Phantoon vanished.

Samus quickly reconfigured her cannon. When its eye opened, she saw its ghostly form solidify. There lay her opening.

Phantoon reappeared, fire streaming from its teeth. It was trying to corner her, but Samus’s Beam cut through every flame. Again, the walls stretched and folded over themselves. The ghost’s head rippled, and slowly, its eye began to open. It glowed like molten rock, and a massive shadow spread over the floor. Samus backflipped away, trying to take aim at its face, when an enormous black object rose like a city spire in front of her, followed by three more of roughly equal size.

Horror seized her. They were long, pointed fingers, and embedded in the palm was another hideous eye. Piece by piece, Phantoon was pulling its gigantic body from its world— wherever that was— into hers. She pressed her back into the wall to avoid its transparent grasp. She was running out of time— and space— to defeat this creature.

But the hand wasn’t solid yet. Through one of the claws, Samus could see Phantoon’s main eye stretched wide as it focused all its energy into pulling its hand through. She did not hesitate. The Super Missile sailed through the black tower and sunk deep into its mark. For how long it had observed her family, Samus guessed it had never gotten an up-close look at their weaponry.

Phantoon roared, an unearthly note so deep her ears bled. Its hand flickered and started sinking into the floor. Spirals of fire erupted from the eye, which, despite dripping pitch blue, still summoned them in droves. Samus charged another shot and somersaulted through the gaps. Again, and again. But Phantoon’s eye remained squeezed shut, and she could not close the distance.

It roared again, and gravity tripled, sending Samus crashing to the ground. Phantoon’s tentacle snaked around her waist and flung her against the walls and ceiling. Over and again until her weakened visor shattered completely. With one last bellow, it threw her down so hard the floor dented.

She landed on her side. Bracing her fractured cannon on the floor, she struggled to rise. The pressure was too much. She couldn’t speak, let alone gasp for air. Phantoon hovered over her, its dark blood spattering her armor as her own dripped into her eyes.

“Foolish. Weak! Did you truly believe a single strike would kill me?” It leaned closer, baring its teeth to reveal the bloody, slimy socket. “Did you think I needed this eye to summon my body?”

The steel floor dissolved into darkness beneath her, and the huge black claws wrapped around her body. The Power Suit’s lights blinked and died as their energy, too, went to Phantoon.

“Farewell, Samus Aran.”

With the very last of her strength, Samus activated the Morph Ball. A sphere could withstand high pressure better than any other shape. Right now, it was her only hope. She could feel the cold black hand gripping her, the Power Suit and her own body breaking under the weight. As the hand dragged her down, complete darkness enveloped her. The vessel that brought her family to their home would send her to her grave.

Gray Voice. Old Bird. Little one.

I’m sorry.

I’m so sorry.

………

No. This can’t…

…This can’t be the end.

………

Light.

Indescribable, dazzling light broke the shadows cloaking her.

Two hands grasped her. An immense power tugged her free of Phantoon. A silver figure moved, wraith-like, carrying her up out of the darkness on invisible wings. The Morph Ball fit perfectly in its palms.

As they rose, it turned its burning gaze down on her, one of brilliant gold. The light of twin suns. All this time, a Chozo statue had lain in wait, enduring darkness and decay until the day it was called. Now, in its steadfast hands, a new light enveloped Samus. She instinctively unmorphed. Her bones mended; her wounds closed. The Power Suit was draped in violet light, not merely restoring it, but transforming it.

Her back thrusters kicked on. The statue released her, letting her ascend on her own as it fell behind. Their eyes met, and with a blink, its light died, and it crumbled to dust in the void.

But Samus kept rising. The violet light overflowed through her, through the void. Gravity’s weight meant nothing to her now. The image of Phantoon looming overhead rushed at her, and she reentered the Wrecked Ship. She hovered in the air, her thrusters giving one last boost, and then landed, one knee and one fist pounding the ground.

GRAVITY SUIT OBTAINED.

Gravity was no less intense. The steel walls had bent like rubber; the whole room teetered on the brink of collapse. Yet, like the statue’s eyes, Samus’s renewed green visor shone as she stood tall, unbroken in the face of her enemy.

“Impossible.” Phantoon swelled up in rage. The entire room blackened as if under an eclipse. “Impossible!”

“The Chozo’s legacy won’t end by my hand,” she said, voice magnified by echoes that weren’t her own. “Yours will.”

Geysers of blue flame exploded from every surface. Phantoon roared, pummeling her with every ounce of hatred and malice it possessed. As the floor twisted and turned inside out, Samus ran unimpeded, jumping and ducking past every pillar. One spouted right in front of her. Heart pounding, cannon overflowing with unrestrained energy, she somersaulted straight through it, the flames breaking harmlessly over the Charge Shot.

Phantoon refused to back down. With a dozen brilliant flashes, a horde of skull amalgamations flooded toward her, each one taking the shape of a deformed Chozo. Her Power Beam ripped them apart, and their remains disintegrated into mist when she dashed through them. Samus did not spare them a glance, for her eyes were solely on their master. Several magnified Charge Shots tore holes through his shell.

Phantoon began to close his mouth, trying to protect what remained of his eye. Samus reached him first. Seizing a tentacle, she swung up and jammed her cannon between his teeth in the nick of time. No ghosts remained. The fire geysers sputtered and went out. “The hatchling,” she said.

“You are too late. My project is complete.” It convulsed, trying to dislodge her “And when you kill me, they will regain their senses. They will deliver it to Mother Brain, and you won’t reach it in time. You, Hunter, will still fail.”

She paused to consider this, weighing the situation carefully. Finally, she nodded slowly. The mouth of her cannon opened wide. “I’ll take that chance.”

The Super Missile ripped clean through. Instead of scattering over the ground, Phantoon’s remains stretched into increasingly distorted wavelengths, until it vanished entirely. The only physical evidence of its presence left behind was the room, warped beyond recognition. Samus did not look back.

As she reentered the main hall, the Wrecked Ship shuddered; in the distance, ancient circuits creaked and groaned as all but the most damaged hatches revived. As she climbed several flights of stairs in search of the exit, lights that had been denied power for centuries returned to life as though it had only been a day. Exposed wires and cables sparked with thousands of volts of electricity. And, amazingly, several spherical Atomics emerged from their circuit domes, floating freely through the air.

The energy Phantoon spent thousands of years gathering had not perished with it. No Chozo spirits emerged from hiding, putting to rest the idea they were ever there in the first place. The cradle of her ancestors’ civilization was finally restored.

But the scales were still out of balance. She had one last wrong under Phantoon to put right. Now, more than ever, she needed to find the Baby before Mother Brain could tip things too far in her favor. And if she were to heed Phantoon’s final words, time was already running out.

Lightning flashed as Samus opened the hatch. As she prepared to step out into the downpour once again, she glanced back. No ghosts, but she could almost imagine a warm hand on her shoulder. Just as quickly, it drifted away like vapor.

I’ve laid you to rest. I’ve done all I can to make you proud.

Two red dots blipped on the edge of her radar, bound west and moving out of range fast. Looking ahead once again, she charged into the storm.

I hope it’s been enough.

Chapter Text

Just her luck.

Samus had chased the pair of pirates back across Crateria, back through Brinstar, and down into Norfair, only to lose them in a series of sprawling caverns that offered twisting paths in every possible direction.

The first path she took led to a Chozo statue and an unclaimed capsule. Remembering the statue on the Wrecked Ship, she dipped her head in acknowledgement before taking its offering.

HIGH-JUMP BOOTS OBTAINED.

A welcome find indeed, but she had to turn back.

The second path dropped a solid steel gate before she took more than a step towards it. Not even a Super Missile scratched it. The whole walkway was of clear Pirate make, with no way around. Not even a Morph Ball-sized hole. She whistled softly. The Pirates actually built something that kept her out. What in the world were they keeping back there?

What if it’s where…?

She stiffened. Norfair’s defenses were far more heavily fortified than Brinstar’s. The Baby could very well be imprisoned back there. She placed her hand against the gate. Could she really be so close, and yet so far from it?

If it’s hurt, I’ll—

No time for this. Think.

Phantoon knew exactly where the larva was. With the ghost general dead, it was up to her to find it. She’d bet she could recover it before Mother Brain and was racing against time itself. Now, that time— and her chances— were running out. The last Metroid was too important to let it fall into the hands of the Space Pirates again. She would find it. As much as Phantoon had tried to convince her otherwise, she would not fail.

Focus.

Nothing on the radar. No deliberate movement, as opposed to the random patterns of animals. No pirates. She turned away from the gate. Standing here would not help anything. She would have to enter through another way.

Many of Norfair’s caverns were dark, lit only by the glow of magma pools or rivers flowing throughout. The aggressive local fauna did not help matters. Pink Gerutas with massive claws swooped from the ceiling, flaming Sovas crawled on the walls and floor, and Dragons rose out of the magma to spit fireballs at her as she leaped over their heads.

None of these creatures were big threats, but they hindered her already slow pace. Not to mention their radar interference, which prevented her from recovering her lock on the two pirates. They were too far out of range now.

On a positive note, the Gravity Suit provided perfect shielding from Norfair’s volcanic temperatures. Always a welcome addition to her arsenal, it made trekking through magma viable when the craggy rock paths grew too crowded or unstable. The violet plating glowed as if lit by a forge, but she did not feel a thing.

While it was appreciated, one little thing bothered her. When the Space Pirates collected Chozo artifacts, they liked to display them in or near their bases, either as trophies or objects of scientific experimentation. Thinking back to Brinstar’s lab, she’d found the Super Missile capsule in the Kihunters’ nest, but surely Kraid would have kept another, more valuable capsule close to him? If so, unless it had been kept well away from the dam, the recent flood would have washed it into Maridia. The thing was probably sitting at the bottom of the ocean, like she had nearly wound up.

She would have to count it as lost. Unfortunate, but Norfair being a hive of Pirate activity meant a host of other abilities were waiting to be discovered. The High-Jump was only the first.

Patches of green-rimmed, black glass bubbles integrating with the rock told her she was getting deeper into Norfair. Yet, once again, her thoughts turned back to the Wrecked Ship, to Phantoon. Just what exactly had it wanted from the Baby in the first place? Piece by piece, she began to recall its words…

My project is complete.

When she entered a natural, open chamber composed entirely of the green obsidian, a hatch on the eastern wall caught her eye. It was too high out of reach, even with the High Jump. But the ground beneath her offered a different path. A series of metal ducts poked through the purple stone at her feet, perfectly sized for pirates to crawl through. They hadn’t Hunter-proofed this part yet, and that was good enough for her.

They will deliver it to Mother Brain.

Upon rolling through, a split path offered two doors— one in front, and the other in the floor. On a hunch, she picked the floor. She dropped into another cavern, but this place, a room of pure violet stone, was familiar. The stone’s capacity to store and reflect heat would make it a valuable resource had it been easier to mine. As such, it belonged to the Chozo, and now, unfortunately, the Space Pirates. Already, bare patches like ugly sores exposed where they had begun chipping away at the glowing ore.

With the many out of one, I will escape once and for all.

Further east, things were even worse. The cavern walls were completely stripped; the Pirates' reckless drilling had allowed magma and living lava monsters, Magdollites, to invade. They hurled and spat lava globs at her as she passed. She paid them no mind, easily leaping over one’s head as it reached up to grab her.

This planet is dying, Samus Aran. Can’t you feel it?

As she zigzagged up a long shaft, several draconic Alcoons leaped out of their rocky burrows to attack. They were taller than she was and spat fire like their legless cousins, but missiles rendered them nothing more than a memory.

You, Hunter, will still fail.

Not yet, you cowardly old squid, she thought spitefully.

Well, it was a bit of a detour, but she was where she wanted to be. She blasted the green hatch open and proceeded inside. After leaping up one more obsidian pillar, she entered a long, sloping tunnel with an end she couldn’t see. Still no sign of the pirates. This area was so remote, it didn’t seem like they had worked on it. Quite the opposite— the ancient stone bridges chipped and threatened to crumble with every step she took. Could anything of value still be here?

The project is complete…

Indeed, there was. At the very end of the tunnel lay another Chozo statue, talons outstretched in offering. It, too, looked on the verge of collapse. Its capsule, on the other hand, glimmered as if freshly polished in the magma’s light.

With the many out of one…

She stretched out her hand and touched it.

The many out of one…

Many…out of one.

Her eyes widened. Clones.

Metroid clones.

Her armor glowed as new power dispersed throughout her body. It was different, yet… familiar. Something she hadn’t felt in a long time.

SPEED BOOSTER OBTAINED.

The entire tunnel rumbled. The Chozo statue turned into rubble. Glancing down, where the tremors felt strongest, Samus saw the magma level rising higher and higher.

Gravity Suit or no Gravity Suit, no way was she sticking around. She sprinted back up the tunnel at all-out speed, the bridges giving in the moment she passed.

Her thoughts flew even faster. Clones. Just like Mother Brain. Phantoon could only conjure illusions. It needed a lab to clone the larva. One Mother Brain couldn’t easily take back.

Her thrusters kickstarted. Brinstar’s lab was destroyed.

The force pushed at her back. Inexorable. Faster. Stronger than ever before. Ridley and the pirates have Norfair.

Brinstar’s logs. A third base. The entire Suit burned neon blue. Maridia.

It had to be Maridia.

Lightning coursed through her veins as the Speed Booster kicked into gear. It was a straight shot uphill. Magma lapped at her heels. No room to hesitate. No second guessing. She bolted through, onward and upward until she burst through the hatch to safety.

Her eyes registered obsidian bubbles. Her body registered it faster. She tore straight through. Streaked like a comet through the chamber. Plowed through a tunnel of solid rock. Grew aware she had reentered the main elevator cavern, realized she needed to hit the brakes, and slammed face-first into the wall.

Staggering back, Samus shook herself out and reexamined the cavern. At first, her eyes went to the elevator. She knew the way to Maridia; she could head there immediately. Unfortunately, the ocean was incredibly vast. If she wanted to find the Baby faster, she first needed to learn exactly where this third lab was.

Rolling her shoulders and tapping her boots, she thought hard. Norfair was a primary hub of activity for the Pirates. Knowing them as she did, they must have a communications tower built somewhere.

Her eyes retraced up towards the path with the steel gate. An idea struck her. It would shut the instant the sensors detected her, but…

She tensed and sprang up. The instant she touched down, she bolted down the path. Sure enough, she heard the sensors whirring, but the Speed Booster activated and she passed under the gate right as it lowered.

A second one lowered as well. It was already halfway down. This one she left a helmet-shaped hole in at the bottom.

Another hatch. In she went, only to be greeted by a giant fireball. Samus ducked by morphing, sprang sideways, and aimed at its source: a gigantic, eyeless worm. A Fune, stretched halfway out of its burrow in hopes of barbequing a meal. She kept her cannon trained on it as she strafed around and leaped onto a platform out of its reach.

Now, what her radar showed earlier here made sense. A Pirate-made structure without pirates inside. It appeared to be a processing center for the purple ore, but the Funes had tunneled in and driven the pirates out. But once again, they more than likely left something behind.

It took a lot of fireball dodging and a well-trained eye, but she spotted a small opening leading into yet another hidden chamber. Chilled air blasted her the moment she entered. It emanated from another capsule, which Samus touched without hesitation. This power she knew well. No weapon was better suited for this mission.

ICE BEAM OBTAINED.

Leaping back down the chamber, Samus froze the massive Fune solid with a single charged blast and rolled inside its tunnel. A small maze stretched around her, but she found a path leading in the right direction: down.

She glanced back up toward Maridia. Just a bit longer.

Onward.

Something screeched an alarm. That same something exploded all over her.

Based on the life-sized serving of goo, Samus surmised it was a pirate. “Was” being the operating word here. Right now, any pirate roach in her path was a fly to her Mach speed windshield. These ones’ crimson exoskeletons barely stood out from the red-hot caverns down here. She, on the other hand, was a blue blur of death. She tore down a steep incline, obliterating everything unfortunate enough to be in her path.

As one more pirate splattered, two others dove out of the way. Wait— they were green! She’d caught up to the pirates she’d pursued from Crateria!

The path leveled out as she tried to hit the brakes, kicking up sparks as she skidded across the rough terrain. She had just enough time to wonder if she would again hit the wall first. Then gravity saved her the pain by dropping her down a hole instead.

Solid rock made a hard landing, but she stuck it. Her speed now gone, Samus could take in the sights. She stood on a rocky island too narrow to move any direction but forward or backward. Behind her loomed a wall of deadly spikes, no doubt of Pirate make. To make escape even more unlikely, she was surrounded by what she thought was magma, but on quick inspection was concentrated, boiling acid. The Gravity Suit would let her run through it, but wouldn’t keep her from dissolving into atoms.

She looked up in time to see the hole seal shut. Faint, triumphant snarls scored through the ceiling. The two stragglers had managed to get the upper hand. By all accounts, she was trapped. And the sound of heavy stomping told her she was not here alone.

Right now, the only sight that mattered stood roughly twenty feet in front of her.

A massive, six-legged, eight-eyed red beast. It roared at her, raising two of its arms and revealing a sulfur-colored tongue.

Samus sized it up. It was nearly as wide as this strip of land, and despite its wedge-shaped head, its tiny, pointed teeth hardly seemed suited for tearing huge chunks of flesh. Was this thing the pirates’ pet? A guard dog? Surely, it couldn’t have been born here. Its own skin was melting like wax in the oppressive heat.

Eight eyes blinked at her in rapid succession. It was probably deciding how easy she’d be to kill. It roared again, that ugly yellow tongue wagging like a bullseye among all the red.

Just like Kraid. Samus took the chance to send a Charge Shot straight down its throat.

It stepped back, but it recovered and advanced on her with another roar. Another Charge Shot in the face and it retreated again.

Samus glanced back at the spike wall, then at the beast. Only one of them was getting out of here alive. And it wasn’t the one turning into slush.

Shot by shot, step by step, Samus drove it back. It would roar and spew fireballs everywhere, but the Ice Beam evaporated them on the fly. And the more it tried to recover ground, the faster she fired.

Back! Get back!

The sheer size of this thing made it nearly impossible to see around, but Samus glimpsed a bridge directly behind it. Perhaps it was her ticket out of here. But right as its tail hovered over the edge, it suddenly gathered strength and charged. Samus leaped back to give herself enough space. Loading a Super Missile, it went straight down the gullet an instant before she was flattened.

The beast recoiled. Incredible— no matter how many shots it took, it still appeared unscathed. But the Super Missile wasn’t enough. At the edge of the bridge, it dug in its hind legs and prepared to charge again.

Not so fast!

Firing one more shot to keep it at bay, Samus took several paces back, then sprinted at it. The instant her armor turned blue, she somersaulted off the ground and rammed into its head. It was the final push she needed to send it skidding onto the bridge. It fought to keep its grip, claws scraping on the rock. No use. The bridge cracked and disintegrated under its bulk, dropping it straight into the acid.

A horrific, rending screech filled the cavern. Samus could only watch as its waxy flesh bubbled and melted off its bones. The acid devoured it all. And still the creature fought to keep its head above the surface. Still it bellowed, its cries gurgling as it lost its tongue. Its skull with eight empty sockets bobbed up once more before finally sinking into the sulfuric depths, leaving only the sound of acid fizzing.

Samus stared across the lake. She hadn’t anticipated the bridge being taken out. Well, there went her exit. Perhaps now that her attention wasn’t divided, she could open the trapdoor from below.

As she picked her way back to where she’d fallen in, her thoughts drifted of all places to SR388, and the hulking migraine of a mining robot she’d encountered there. Diggernaut. Who knew bolts and circuits could be so bent on murder? Though, thinking back, she was the one who’d pointed her cannon at it first. In all likelihood, she was to blame for that fight. In fairness, though, it was the one who refused to let it go and proceeded to chase her down until she’d finally turned on it and reduced it to scrap metal. No regrets there.

Point being, the fight with this red monster probably could have been avoided. It hadn’t attacked until she had. But she’d seen no other way around, either. A tough call. No point in dwelling on it, but perhaps there was a lesson in there about being too trigger-happy. Then again, her instincts usually served her right.

The sound of bubbling acid got her attention. She whipped around and saw the air bubbles circling the platform. Did a larger, stronger creature make its home here? Realizing she had nowhere to run, she braced herself for another fight.

Seemed her instincts were right after all. It busted down the spike wall in a shower of acid. Samus braced her arms in front of her face against the worst of the spray. Through it, she saw the monster rear its ugly head and raise its arm…

…Only to collapse like a tower of cards. Samus lowered her arms. It was the same creature, its remains crumbled in a pathetic, now unmoving heap. Baffled, she tapped the skull with her cannon. Zero traces of muscle tissue left. How…?

Rubbing the side of her helmet, she decided to think about something else. Something that made sense. Like the fact that the wall was gone, and she could see a hatch leading outside. Beyond lay the path to the one creature her instincts told her to protect. Indirect, but a path, nonetheless.

Her thoughts once again went to Maridia. So close.

Yet so very, very far.

One flying leap over an acid-filled chasm later, Samus arrived at last. The Pirates’ communications tower. Constructed over what was once a vast ruin, its open-air steel shell allowed the heat to flow through and Samus to see pirates roving about inside, logging, sending, and receiving information. Others patrolled the upper reaches and on the ground. Security cameras hung in the eaves as well.

As she drew closer, the usual grunts and growls of Pirate language filled her ears, along with the electronic hum of their equipment.

But it wasn’t until she slipped inside— bypassing their defenses was the least of her problems —that she heard the words clearly.

“A message.”

“A message.”

The words slithered up the tower like snakes. Aside from a central support pillar, even the middles of the floors were left open to better amplify sounds. There was no need for the original carriers to repeat their message; the tower itself carried it to every ear.

“The Metroid. A message.”

Samus’s blood ran cold as she spotted the green pair among their red brethren. They were the only survivors of Phantoon’s influence, and they would be the first to report what they knew about the Metroid. Soon, they would reach the very top. They would use the radio to broadcast it to every pirate on Zebes. Any slim chance of recovering the Baby would be lost.

Fear flashed in Samus’s heart. I can’t let this happen.

A quick scan indicated a control panel at the central pillar’s base. Samus pried it open and found a host of cables and wires. An Ice Charge Shot severed their connection. Once it melted, the water would further ruin them.

With a low, mechanical drone, the tower powered down. As the auxiliary lights kicked on, the pirates snapped at one another to fix the problem.

In response to the power loss, a panel at the base of the pillar slid back. Samus jumped down, expecting a crawlspace, and was instead greeted by another Chozo Statue. The pirates had turned this one into a generator; all cords and cables running up and down the tower were strung through its eyes, chest, and back.

But it wasn’t just the statue generating all this power. Tucked away in its chest cavity was another glowing capsule.

Remove it, and the tower’s function would cripple. Shooting the wires that held it in place, she took hold of it. Both her Suit and her cannon crackled with electricity before absorbing it completely.

GRAPPLE BEAM OBTAINED.

Oh, how she missed this one.

The snarls grew louder and sharper. Sounded like they’d narrowed down her position.

A patrol of six surrounded the grate. Only the yellow glow of their eyes gave their numbers away. In unison, they opened fire around the pillar, blasting with everything they had. Finally, their leader called them off. Another chorus of angry snarls broke out.

“She’s not here!”

“Find her!”

Someone cleared their throat. Twelve eyes turned toward the source.

Samus stood behind the formation, visible only by her Suit lights and visor.

Right here.

Before they could react, a fully charged Ice Shot engulfed them.

Samus didn’t waste another second. She was off the ground before she realized it. White light overflowed from her cannon as the Ice Beam devastated everything it touched. Pirates, cameras, equipment. All frozen solid and shattered with Super Missiles without a second thought. Everything, everyone, on every level, was wiped out with overwhelming power.

When she at last reached the roof, she came face-to-face with the two green pirates and three more red ones. Even with the magma’s red glow reflecting off the cavern walls, there was still precious little light. Just enough for Samus to see the raw hatred on her enemies’ faces, and for them to shrink back at her menacing silhouette.

Her eyes flashed first to the green pair. One was frantically pressing buttons, trying to restore the comms. The other moved to join its comrades.

Here, she couldn’t be reckless. She needed this area’s equipment intact so she could check the transmissions from Maridia.

Two stood back and fired laser beams while the others charged her head on. Samus shot at the narrow gap between them. They easily sprang apart, but she wasn’t aiming for them. The first green pirate fell across the desktop like a toppled statue. With the pair now divided, she dodged the barrage of lasers and fired the Grapple Beam at the one to her left.

The electric whip snagged it by the claw. She lifted high, then flung it into the pirate behind it. Over the edge they went.

Several blasts stung her in the back and shoulders. Rounding on the last two, she rushed in close. The green one continued to fire. Its buddy met her head-on and jump attacked. But Samus’s Ice Charge collided with it midair, and she caught it with the Grapple Beam before it hit the ground. The green pirate’s own shots shattered it for her. Through the shower of icy remains, Samus gave one last ice blast, then shoulder checked it clear off the roof.

All clear. Samus hurried to the comms. Still deader than Kraid, but she found a power node and shot the Grapple Beam into it. Slowly, the tower’s lights flickered back on. The machinery started back up with a whir. As she stood back up and prepared to review the transmissions logs, she heard the buzz of static.

“…s…there…? U…e…r…tow…r…come…”

It came from under the still-frozen green pirate. He was lying over the speaker. Samus hauled him off the dash and bent closer to listen. The Grapple Beam hadn’t perfectly restored functions and, combined with her lack of fluency with the Space Pirate language, made understanding the speaker even harder.

She tried to adjust this by increasing the Grapple Beam’s voltage. It worked. Now she could make out whole words. But the pirate on the other end was talking so fast, it hardly made a difference.

“…Come in… Upper Tower! …is Ocean Lab. Ans…wer!”

Samus froze. A message from Maridia! She glanced at the screen beside the speaker, still fuzzy with static but functioning. If this pirate would keep talking, she could get a read on his location.

“I repeat, this is …cean Lab! Urgent…! Respond at…!”

Samus adjusted the knobs as fast as she could, trying to boost the signal.

“Urgent message! Who is there?”

…Was she actually supposed to respond? Samus may have known some of the words, but she’d never attempted to speak the language. What could she possibly say?

She leaned back as she thought. Ancestors, help me.

“Answer at once!” the pirate repeated, both furious and desperate. “I repeat, who is out there?”

Clearing her throat, she pressed the responder button and said the words she knew best: “Samus Aran.”

Dead silence. Had it ceased transmissions?

Instead, its voice barked back angrier than ever. “Idiot! I’ll have your head for joking around! We have a red-level situation down here! Mass breakouts in the lab! Inform Central Command at once!”

Breakout?

She glanced back at the screen, where a blinking dot appeared on a map grid. At last! The location of the Maridia Lab!

“Where’d you go, worm? Answer me! Answer—!”

Samus retracted the Grapple Beam. The transmission— and the station —went dead instantly. An eerie hush settled over the cavern as the tower now stood empty in the dim of Norfair.

While Samus took the elevator out of Norfair, a fresh shift arrived and restored partial function to the tower.

“The Hunter was here,” one growled as it closed the rooftop control panel.

“Yes, but what was she after?” another asked, glaring in disgust at the remains of its failed comrades.

A third gestured to the comms desk. “Perhaps the last logs will give us a clue.”

As they powered it on and began scrolling through the list of transmissions, the first pirate checked each frequency in case another branch was trying to communicate.

A loud cry cut through the static, sharp and piercing. All three pirates paused at the frantic noise.

“Who speaks?” barked the pirate. “State your location!”

“Lower Brinstar,” the speaker gasped. He was choking on his own spit in his haste to get the words out. “It’s…Lord Ridley! He has returned at last!”

The pirates on the tower broke out cheering. The second pirate fired several shots at the ceiling. “At last!” the first pirate said. “This is most excellent news. Now, the cursed Hunter shall pay!”

“Indeed,” agreed the Brinstar pirate. “We shall—”

The three pirates stopped celebrating as his voice cut off. When he spoke again, it was shrill and tight.

“Lord Ridley! Lord Ridley, wait—!”

The transmission cut short with a horrid wet squelch.

The pirates glanced at each other, unsure of what to make of this unexpected turn. Then, they heard it. The sound of air whistling through enormous, shredded wings. A faraway screech echoed off the cavern walls.

Closer, closer it came. The pirates now heard a ragged, gurgling panting that raced towards them at breakneck speed. An immense winged shadow spread across the tower walls.

Two of the pirates fell back, stumbling and shoving each other in their rush to get away. The last could only watch as the skeletal, wraith-like demon swooped towards them like a burning meteor. With blood of indiscernible color dripping from his jaws, he screeched once more and opened wide.

Chapter Text

A lone figure in violet armor strode through the ruins of Kraid’s Lair. She waded through the fast-flowing river with ease, spared only a glance at an empty pedestal she knew once held a Chozo artifact, and paused near the remains of the behemoth lizard.

It was not his corpse the Hunter took interest in. Everywhere she looked, pools of Space Pirate blood stained the ground. Pools that had only recently dried, yet not a single pirate corpse was to be seen. A pit of dread settled in her gut. Whatever massacre had occurred here, she’d missed it by mere hours. Perhaps even less.

But right now, there were far more important matters to attend to.

She stepped onto the edge of a stone precipice overlooking the black abyss, gazing once again into the gateway to Maridia.

She had not returned for a lost capsule, or to battle Mother Brain’s forces.

She took a several paces back.

She had returned for the Metroid.

She ran forward, somersaulted, and dove.

And Heaven help anyone who stood in her way.

Falling, but not like before. She plunged into the pitch-black waters headfirst, wide awake, and thrusters pulsing.

Coordinates set. Radar sharp and clear. The heavy waters streamed over the Gravity Suit with minimal friction. Deeper and deeper, she dove; yet, the descent’s smoothness felt akin to flying.

Soon, high, rocky reefs loomed into view. Far in the distance, she spotted the outlines of ancient, broken columns, likely thousands of years old. They were no doubt of Chozo origin, but the idea of the bird-like Chozo building underwater settlements was…strange. They must have thought it was strange, too, since Samus had never seen another one.

Now, only the sea life used them. Orange, crab-like Scisers scuttled up and down them, generally not minding her presence. The skeletal Skulteras, on the other hand, darted around and tried to bite off chunks of her armor. Thanks to the low light levels and sparse patches of seagrass to hide in, both kinds of animals sported excellent night vision and tough, spiny defenses.

Thanks to the Ice Beam, both made highly convenient platforms.

Onward.

Now, the reefs wound upward, and it wasn’t long before the first Pirate-made structures appeared through the gloom. Pinkish-violet steel supports thick as Kraid’s spikes hoisted up what Samus guessed was merely a tiny portion of the Maridia Lab. It was so massive, she couldn’t see around it, let alone guess its shape.

So, this was where Norfair’s ore had gone. Its heat-storing properties were perfect for maintaining the Lab’s temperature in the midst of the cold ocean.

Drawing nearer, she spotted a series of magnetic points placed strategically around the perimeter. Perhaps meant to deter larger predators, Samus used them to swing across the gaps with the Grapple Beam.

She hadn’t taken proper notice in Norfair, but this model of the Grapple Beam was different. The old one attached to her left arm, while the new one fired straight from the cannon. While this limited her combat options, it also had a much stronger current in terms of raw power.

Inside the Lab, blackouts and flooding had crippled visibility, but thanks to the Gravity Suit's abilities, she could see just fine.

A soft whistle escaped her mouth. When the pirate who radioed the Norfair tower screamed about a “mass breakout,” that was the understatement of the cosmic century.

Explosions had blown whole walls apart, leaving some areas wide open and others buried under rubble. Several levels were completely underwater. All around, networks of ore-laced steel pipes were bent and twisted like paper straws. In the lowest areas, streams of quicksand had pushed up through the cracked floors, forcing use of the Speed Booster to cross.

Despite all these setbacks, life had found a way. Likely swept in with the water, sea snails called Yards crawled all over the broken pipes and floors and seemed very confused as to how they got there in the first place. But, getting kicked around like empty tin cans when Samus blew past them didn’t bother them a whit.

Then there were the pirates. She crouched behind a line of shattered bio tanks to keep out of sight as a patrol passed by. Their exoskeletons were pink, and they were chasing after…something. A horde of somethings. From her position, she couldn’t get a good look.

Once she was sure they’d passed, she rose and made to move on when one of the bio tank’s flickering lights caught her eye. A shiny, viscous substance clung to some of the jagged glass shards. Running her hand over it and holding it up, she narrowed her eyes.

Memories of no less than fifty battles on SR388 told her exactly what had secreted this slime.

Another sweep of the line of tanks revealed they were all coated with it. However, only the first tank’s glass was completely shattered; the rest looked like holes had been punched through from the outside. Curious, but it all meant two things.

Phantoon’s project was indeed complete, and a whole lot of Metroids were no longer in captivity.

Suddenly, the radius and severity of the damage made a lot more sense. Unless its growth had been unnaturally accelerated in such a short span of time, the hatchling was still too weak to have caused it by itself. She looked back at the first tank and tilted her head. The catalyst, perhaps?

That idea, too, made sense. Samus thought all the way back from her Zero Mission to Tallon IV, Aether, and Elysia. All of these missions involved incidents of Metroids breaking loose and wreaking havoc in their respective labs, save for her Zero Mission. Mother Brain hadn’t confined them; she merely kept them within Tourian’s limits, not just for her own ease of controlling them, but because she of all beings knew.

Of course the Baby had broken free. Metroids never did well in captivity.

For some inexplicable reason, for the first time in her life, out of all these harrowing missions… Instead of dread, Samus felt a small, unmistakable surge of pride for that little larva.

There had to be hope. She had to be close. She turned in the direction the pirates had run in. Whatever they were chasing after…that was her best bet.

As the underwater zones grew deeper and darker, Samus remained vigilant, straining her eyes and ears for any more signs of pirates, escaped lab life, and most importantly, the Metroid. So far, the only sights were more decimated walls and equipment, and the only sound was a faint, hissing stream of bubbles.

It was not unlike the sound of her breathing.

A long shape glided to the left of the radar’s inner circle. She glanced that way, but there was only a brick wall. As she pressed forward, it followed along out of sight, the hissing punctuating her stride now and again. Sometimes it grew louder in areas where the walls were weaker, and sometimes it grew soft. But it never disappeared altogether.

It was tracking her.

In an area wrecked beyond repair, the loudest hiss of all came from behind. She spun around and came face to face with a scaly, orange snout poking out of a gap in the wall.

A sea serpent, whose head alone was half her length, each dagger-like tooth as long as her hand. A wicked light flickered in its unnaturally large green eyes. Evidently, it took joy in ambushing unsuspecting prey. Jaw unhinging, fangs like lightning, it lunged.

But Samus was far from unsuspecting. She bent backward right as its mouth snapped shut, missing her chest by an inch. Taking the fall, she morphed and rolled as it spiraled into another hole.

Unmorphing, she readied a Charge Shot. Countless were the gaps it could hide behind, meaning it could attack from any angle. Effectively, she was exposed no matter which way she turned.

There— the flash of its eyes, the gleam of its teeth. She ducked as it sprayed equally vivid, green venom over her before vanishing again.

Another menacing hiss. It bounced off the hollow pipes on every corner of the room. With one eye on her radar, Samus steadied her hand not on her cannon, but near her visor.

The current shifted to her left. Out whirled the serpent like a living twister, jaws parting. Spinning to face it, she switched on the visor’s light.

There was an agonized hiss, almost like a roar, as the dazzling white light blasted it full in the face. Blinded, it writhed away, seeking another hole to hide in, but not before she loosed the Charge Shot on it for good measure.

Samus stepped back, eyes darting back and forth between the radar and the holes. It was circling back.

For a moment, she shut her eyes in frustration. For once, just this once, she wanted to leave the fight. She was so close. So close to the Metroid. She’d already lost so much time finding the Lab. How much longer could the Baby hold out?

Again, she glanced at the holes in the wall. They were big enough to slip through in the Morph Ball. Could she—?

She blinked. Either her light had lost some power, or the water seemed awfully hazy. Sure enough, clouds of dust and tiny pieces of debris had filtered in. She glanced at her radar. Interference. The serpent had whipped up the dust to cloak itself and blind her.

Returning the favor, eh?

She couldn’t leave now; if it grabbed her in the Morph Ball, she’d be at a tremendous disadvantage. It was close by, circling. She could still hear it.

So, she stilled herself. She waited and listened. And when it struck again from behind, dust billowing in its wake, Samus, without even turning, snared her left arm around its neck.

How it thrashed! It rolled, twisted, and bucked, trying with all its might to throw her off. It spiraled upside-down, hoping to shake her into its hungry maw.

But Samus clung on, riding it and firing Missile after Missile into its face. Being up close and personal gave her no reserves about using them in the enclosed environment.

Its flared, finned tail curled in and swatted her off. The serpent rounded, frenzied by frustration, scales red-hot with rage. Foregoing all tricks, it charged— one final blow— a head on, full-bodied skull bash.

Samus simply fired a Super Missile into its mouth and ducked into the Morph Ball.

It sailed over her head and crashed into a wall. Already weakened, the wall broke on impact. As did the serpent’s body. Samus watched the huge bricks pile over the scattered segments, burying it as quickly as it had died. Now, beyond the wall, a new path was revealed.

Onward. Samus vaulted over the debris.

It was strange, she thought as she ran. All this time, all she could think about was reaching Maridia. Reaching this place. Reaching the Baby.

And yet, for one, brief, dreadful moment, as she ran through the dilapidated Lab, all she could see were the ravaged steel halls of Ceres. She could almost hear a tiny, distant scree.

Too late, that little voice taunted. Too late.

No. Not again. Never again.

But even in her memories of the space station, the ghost of Phantoon overshadowed them. Ancestors, help her. Could she ever forget?

And another thing— why?

Why had she spoken Chozodian to Phantoon?

Why had she obliged its taunt, when the language sounded utterly tainted coming from its foul brain? The first words of her family’s tongue out of her mouth in years, and she wasted them on that abomination?

Maybe the Ghost General had gotten deeper under her skin than she thought.

…Maybe she missed them more than she thought.

…

…Onward.

She lifted her eyes. The steel halls were now bricks, pipework, and dark water.

Onward.

In yet another ruined sector, Samus had her first skirmish with the Maridian pirate forces. Some pushed the toppled bio tanks together to use as barriers, but they hardly needed them. Thanks to their pink scuba armor, her strongest shots did little more than annoy them. She narrowed her eyes. Gravity Suit technology present— but was that all they were using?

Regardless, their desperation to contain the Lab and, now, battle the Hunter left the pirates scrambling. They couldn’t even enjoy their advantage over their most hated enemy— something Samus took satisfaction in.

One shot at the ceiling. It collapsed, creating a barrier between them. Samus made to leap over, when—

Metroids!

Several sickly green jellyfish descended like War Wasps upon the pirates. Their ranks dissolved into chaos as they fired back wildly. Three others went straight for Samus.

It was like the Ice Beam backfired. The fight against sheer instinct, the ingrained urge to shoot for fear it was the Baby, froze her on the spot.

The Metroids had no such hesitation.

One latched onto her head. The other two drove their long mandibles into her neck armor.

Samus staggered as she recovered her wits. A stream of curses entered her mind. She felt the first drop of her life being siphoned.

Instinct kicked back in. All she could think was—

Morph Ball! Bombs!

Bomb after bomb after bomb. The Metroids’ grips vanished. She thrust herself away as fast as she could. She unmorphed, rolled, charged the Ice Beam, and—

They were gone.

Blood pumping, hands shaking, Samus scoured the air, the shadows, any place they could have retreated to.

Her eyes flashed forward. She saw the pirates frantically beating back their foes.

The pirates were beating back the Metroids.

Something told Samus to look down.

Her armor was coated in green slime.

Raising her head, she took a good, hard look at the Metroids.

A single red nucleus. Weak mandibles. Killed by something as weak as Bombs.

It hit her like the Diggernaut’s giant drill.

Those aren’t Metroids.

Numb with shock, she watched them charge the pirates over and over to no avail. There existed absolutely no cunning or ruthlessness that she had witnessed in the real thing. Just brute, dumb determination and the basic instinct to feed.

This was Phantoon’s project? After all its taunting and gloating, this was its big success? Pathetic. Utterly pathetic. These creatures were pale imitations, mockeries of the real thing— Mochtroids, she thought dryly. She almost wanted to laugh.

If they had anything in common with their cousins, however, it was that same stubborn streak. Even now, as she watched, they regrouped and doubled their attack on the pirates.

Samus let them have at it, taking the opportunity to slip away through an open pipe. No use waiting for the outcome; she had places to be.

That swarm of Mochtroids was only the first. They were everywhere, bobbing in and out of the water, weaving around broken supports, and charging at her the moment she was spotted. Like real Metroids, the Ice Beam easily ripped through them— in two shots, no less. No need for Super Missiles.

In a vast chamber underscored by quicksand and held up by cracked magnetic pillars, using the Grapple Beam proved the easiest way to cross. And, as she figured, it was stronger. Much stronger. Not only could she swing across gaps, but its current was also powerful enough to let her cling to the pillars as she leapt from one to the next, sometimes grappling the same one multiple times to climb it.

It was not unlike wall jumping, she realized. She’d trained with that technique before, but she’d always struggled to make multiple jumps off a single wall. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t wall jumped properly in a long time.

Not to worry— the Mochtroids ensured she got plenty of practice.

They kept bumping into the pillars and each other as they tried to grab her. Samus tried to ignore them and grapple onto the next pillar, but one intercepted the current and was instantly vaporized.

Huh. She blinked, watching the little drops of slime scatter through the air. Noted.

After that, Phantoon’s mighty clone army was reduced to a bunch of little pests.

I’ve faced Zoomers more intimidating, she thought as she touched down on the other side of the chamber, frying one on her right without even looking.

Even in the next room, faint screes rang out. How many more of these things were there? Enough was enough.

One zipped over her head, leading a charge of about half a dozen Mochtroids. It was fast, much faster than the rest, but she got a lock on it. The mouth of her cannon crackled as she readied the Grapple Beam.

Wai—! She barely clocked it— she yanked her cannon aside. The Beam missed by a mile, fizzling out with a slight pop.

Even as she watched it, as she processed it, as the sheer relief roared through her heart like Brinstar's falls were waking all over again…

For the briefest and longest of moments, she could not believe her eyes.

She whistled sharply.

The lead Mochtroid turned on a dime, letting the others fly ahead. Four nuclei, tough mandibles, and a brighter glow than the rest. Not a Mochtroid— the Metroid. Her Metroid.

Screeching again, it divebombed her, aiming right for her face. Without shifting her stance in the slightest, she held her cannon sideways to intercept. It barreled into it like a cannonball, tiny teeth latching onto the metal like a starving little leech.

The Hunter stared down at it, first in disbelief, then plain exasperation. She planted her hand on her hip. “Honestly. After everything I went through to come get you, this is how you greet me?”

A muffled growl.

“I know. Still a long time.” She rotated the cannon to check it over. “They hurt you?”

A pointless question. Of course they had. The Mochtroids alone answered that.

Resilient as Metroids were, and despite the lack of visible injuries, she knew the damage had been done. Its time in the Lab had allowed its primal instincts to emerge in full force, not to mention it had grown a little larger. Had it fully reached its larval stage, simply blocking with her cannon wouldn’t have stopped it. Who knew what would have happened if Mother Brain had gotten to it first, like Ridley planned?

Something else tingled in the back of her mind— an odd, overwhelming urge to speak to it again, in the language she somehow knew it would understand, despite having never heard a word in all of its short life. Here, now, she could ensure the last words she spoke in her family's tongue weren’t to an enemy. Now, she could try to embrace this small member of her new one.

But the memory’s stain left too bitter a taste in her mouth.

Cautiously, Samus reached over and patted it. Its grip relaxed slightly. Did it remember the gentle touch?

After several heartbeats, it released its grip. It bobbed up in front of her face, giving a low, sullen chirp and nudging her visor.

She smiled softly. “I missed you, too. One question.” She inclined her head to the rest of the Lab sprawling behind them. “Up for taking this place down?”

A high-pitched chirp. That cheered it up. It chirped again, zipping around her in circles. Then, without warning, it latched onto her helmet, making Samus flinch as she once again forced back the instinct to Morph and bomb her little charge into a little slime puddle. Seriously, some kind of warning would be nice.

No pain, just that bizarre hot and cold sensation flooding her system. Opening her eyes, she saw the Baby had communicated its resolve loud and clear.

POWER BOMB OBTAINED.

It floated back in front her, letting out a pleased chirp. If it had a chest, it would be puffed up with pride.

Samus nodded back. “Let’s go!”

Chapter Text

A long, bright beam trailed over the dark wreck like a searchlight. It swept over once-towering metal beams, broken and scattered across the seafloor like toppled toy blocks. Hundreds of pieces of tech were dust and rubble. It was an eerie mirror of the remains of Kraid’s Lair. But neither a flood nor an earthquake had done this. It was something else— a living shadow, unseen and unknown, lurking in the shell of the Maridia Lab.

Save for the errant sparking of snapped cables and severed wires, only two figures brought light to the pitch-black waters— the neon green of a Chozo Power Suit and the dimmer bioluminescence of a little Metroid, traveling side-by-side.

“Stay close,” the Hunter murmured. “They’re nearby.”

The Baby, who had flown ahead of her a good ten yards, returned to her side at once. It peered hawkishly at the wreckage around them, but when several seconds passed and no one came out swinging, it gave Samus a questioning stare.

“Call it a sixth sense,” she explained, then tapped the left corner of her visor. “And radar. Patrols concentrated in three sectors ahead. Want to bet they’re looking for you and their lost pet?”

The Baby tilted to one side, then chirped affirmatively.

“Any idea what we’re up against?”

Two quick chirps.

“Just a thought.” She shrugged, absently scanning an unstable portion of the ceiling while keeping the larva in her eye’s periphery. Was it her imagination, or did a shiver run through its tiny body?

She checked the clustered dots on the radar again. No sign of the shadow. No sign of the Mochtroids, either. Without the Metroid leading them, they’d flown off after the first shiny thing to catch their nonexistent eyes and were long out of sight.

No matter. Samus raised her cannon, which flashed yellow. “What say you to a little test run of your latest gift?”

An enthusiastic scree. They took off.

Unbelievable.

If someone had bet Samus Aran she’d use “Power Bombs” and “completely useless” in the same sentence, she’d have laughed and jokingly wagered her armor against it.

Well, downgrade me to the Zero Suit and stick me back in Chozodia, she thought, because when the eye-searing, ear-shattering, and atomizing shockwave faded, instead of little piles of burnt black dust, the Hunter stood in an utterly flattened ring with five very whole, very unimpressed, pink-armored pirates, who sneered and opened fire.

Cursing, she threw up her arms to block, then dropped, swept out her leg, and knocked down the closest two as a big, brutish one leapt over them and tackled her to the ground. His weight crushed her. Samus tried to raise her cannon to strike him, but it was pinned under the mouth of his left claw while his right one punched her helmet over and over. As she struggled, the other pirates surrounded her like an execution squad. Static and lasers filled her vision.

ALERT! ALERT! ENERGY LEVELS CRITICAL!

There was a hateful screech that seemed to shake Maridia. All at once, the weight and lasers vanished. Samus rolled to the side, quickly getting to her feet. She still could not see, but the screams…the screams told her everything.

To escape the Power Bomb’s range, the Baby had hidden behind a fallen pillar a fair distance back. Evidently, it noticed things had gone sour and rushed to Samus’s defense. For all their bravado against the fearsome Hunter, they were utterly helpless against the tiny Metroid. Their cries were horrific— panicked and agonized, like their very atoms were disintegrating. When her HUD finally cleared, the first thing she saw was the Metroid’s mandibles buried deep into the brutish pirate’s skull. As he withered to a husk, the Baby shook the corpse until its dust clouded the water. The remaining pirates fled for their lives.

It was a savagery Samus had never witnessed in a Metroid, let alone a larval one. Considering their track record with experimenting on innocent life, she had no problem watching the pirates reap what they sowed, but this behavior was a bit disturbing.

She blinked. Courtesy of the Baby, her energy levels were refilled. Not a moment too soon. The pirates returned, wielding bladed stun wands that crackled dangerously at the tips. Completely heedless, the Baby screeched and charged like a bull. The pirates raised them and—

Stop!

The Grapple Beam whipped out and snagged the larva, stopping it cold. It shrieked in protest as she yanked it back to her side and trapped it under her arm. Using the smoke of several missiles for cover, she boosted backwards until they were behind the same fallen pillar the Baby had used. Only then did she release it. The Baby writhed in the air, gathering itself up to charge again, when she grabbed it with her hand.

“Get a grip! You keep charging headfirst into battle, you’ll end up dead,” she grunted. Even with her Power Grip, she could feel its newfound strength as it struggled. “Don’t give in to rage. It blinds you. Makes you easy to kill.”

It didn’t seem to hear her; it only fought harder. No amount of talking would dissuade it, and the sound of the pirates’ voices wasn’t helping. They were drawing louder, closer— that smokescreen had bought alarmingly little time.

Think! I understand its rage, but it’ll do it no good if it gets killed!

The Metroid shrieked again, earning a victorious cry from the pirates. They’d be on them in moments.

Need to keep it under control!

No— I need to help it.

…Help it? How?

…Teach it?

Ridiculous. Teach a Metroid not to attack on sight? Teach a living weapon to go against its nature? Teach…at all, when she’d never done so all her life? And, yet—

It wouldn’t hurt me. Metroids don’t attack their mother. Somewhere in that savage brain is the capacity to refrain. To hold back. To control.

She raised her head slightly above the pillar. The red dots on the radar were closing in; the yellow of their eyes pierced the water’s murk. Their dark silhouettes were barely visible, but it wasn’t them she was looking for. Somewhere, an answer lay around her. Perhaps not in front of her face, but… Yes, there it was. Above them.

She smiled slightly. Lesson one.

“Hey.” She rotated her wrist to make the Baby face her. “Watch me.”

Puzzled, it stopped struggling, letting her loosen her grip. Good. She had its attention, but its tiny mandibles twitched like it might fly off any second. Better move fast.

She stood up. Immediately, the storm of lasers pelted every inch of armor as the pirates raced at her with outstretched claws. Samus did not budge, opting instead to fire several Ice Shots at them. They did absolutely nothing. The Baby shrieked in alarm— what was she thinking?

“I learned this trick on Tallon IV.” Fixing her gaze on the it, she inclined her head at her true target: an overhanging steel precipice, dangling precariously like a giant icicle. “You have only one attack, but you don’t always have to go straight for the kill,” she said as she charged up another shot.

The Baby tilted to the side, its confusion mounting. Nothing she tried on them had worked; what difference would this make?

In answer, the Ice Beam hit the precipice dead-on. Frost blanketed its weak point.

“It’s not about your arsenal.” Her next missile cleanly severed the slab. It plummeted, landing squarely on the pirates and blowing a shockwave of mud over them. The Baby was almost swept away, but Samus steadied it. As the dust cleared, her mirrored visor reflected the larva back at itself. “It’s about how you use it.”

It stared at her, tilting again as it contemplated her words. Privately, Samus wondered if it really understood.

Samus ducked as several bluish searchlights swept over her head. No matter how far into the Lab they ventured, the pirates were never far behind. Motioning to the Baby, they flashed out from their cover and ran until they were far out of their range. After double checking her radar to ensure the coast was clear, she switched on her own light.

The white ray trailed over what was once a two-tiered room that had been literally torn in half. On the second floor, where they stood, more biotanks, crushed and shattered, littered their path with thousands of jagged glass shards. Mangled corpses of the dead bobbed about, shedding tiny pieces at the smallest disturbance as they passed. Some of them were Maridian experiments. Others were still more pirates, but it was a strange shine at the far end of the room that caught her eye.

More slime, like she’d seen earlier. But these weren’t mere traces; heaps and gobs of the stuff coated every surface, like a hulking ogre had lumbered through and sneezed all over the place. It was also horribly sticky— Samus had to shoot around her hand to free it— and, peering down the empty rift that was once the middle of the room, more ooze gleamed faintly under the visor’s light until it trailed off into the darkness.

“See that?” She nodded at the Baby, who hovered just above her shoulder. “Your surroundings can tell you everything. The pirates’ little pet went that way.” She made to leap down, when the Baby growled and scooted back.

Samus instantly raised her cannon, scanning the lab, the chasm, her radar, everywhere for enemies…but for once, shockingly, came up empty. Lowering her arm, she tilted her head slightly at the larva, who squeaked and retreated behind a broken tank. She stalked towards it, only for it to shriek and dart to the other side, like a disobedient child. Any other time, it might have been cute, but Samus was in no mood for games.

Come on, come on, she thought, firing the Grapple Beam in attempt to wrangle it. But the Baby dodged every single electric beam before zipping into a little tunnel formed by a couple of toppled tanks leaning against a wall.

Sighing, Samus walked over and positioned herself at one end. Before the Baby could escape, she fired the Grapple Beam again, this time latching onto a toppled desk and pulling it against the opposite end. An angry little squeak. It turned and tried to dart out Samus’s side, only for her to drop to her knee in front of it, stopping it dead in its tracks. “Hey,” she said in a low, firm voice. “This may not be as fun to you as hunting pirates, but finding this thing is top priority.”

A feeble squeak of protest.

“Look around you. If the pirates manage to get it back under control and ship it off to some other planet they wish to conquer, the destruction will be the same as here, if not worse. We have to end it now. Underst—?” Samus broke off.

Being jellyfish-like creatures, young Metroids had a soft, flexible membrane rather than tough skin or a hard shell. As such, when the Metroid moved, its whole body would bounce and quiver along. But the Baby was literally trembling before her eyes. Its tiny mandibles curled inward, like it was trying with all its might to shrink.

It was afraid, but…why? Why now?

Something flashed in the corner of her eye. Before she could move, the searchlight fell upon her corner, piercing her eyes.

“Over there!”

“The Hunter!”

“After her! Capture the Metroid at all costs!”

How do they keep finding us? Samus wondered. In a blink, she snatched up the larva, leaped down into the chasm, and took off. For once, the ground was flat enough for the Speed Booster to kick on, and she streaked through the darkness like a purple comet until the pirates lost all trace of her.

They ran until they reached a door— a massive, reinforced one with a huge crater denting the center. Whatever had rammed it had been unsuccessful, judging by the trail of slime leading away from it, but something about it piqued Samus’s curiosity. If it could withstand a blow from Maridia’s monster, what on Zebes was it protecting?

The locking mechanism was destroyed, but plenty of structural weaknesses meant plenty of options. Choosing a small section that seemed least likely to collapse, Samus made her opening with a well-placed bomb. She rolled inside, and, after hesitating a moment, the Baby followed quietly.

Due to its foundations being sunken in quicksand, the entire room was noticeably tilted. However, by some miracle, it was only partially flooded. Fortunate, indeed— this was a data center, the primary hub in which the pirates stored their research logs. All she had to do now was find a working computer.

Samus picked her way through, using crates or platforms still screwed in place to explore the far reaches of the room. She needed to focus, to look where she leaped, but she kept glancing back at the larva. It trailed behind, flinching every time the room creaked or groaned. Loud noises scared it, yes, but this was different. Unfortunately, there was no real way to ask it why.

She inclined her head towards the upper end of the room. (Or was it across the floor?) The larva followed her gaze, but remained jittery and silent. When Samus offered her hand, it backed away.

Suit yourself. Samus shrugged and turned away, leaping up onto a long platform. Navigating around at least a dozen toppled monitors, her eyes fell at last upon a single, flickering screen. A crack ran through one corner, but the rest seemed intact. Using an available power node and the Grapple Beam, Samus restored the computer to full power. The screen flickered rapidly, then booted up, enveloping her in a cool blue light.

Jackpot. Hundreds of logs scrolled automatically before her eyes. Double checking on the larva— it was an enclosed space, so it couldn’t wander far— she bent her head over the monitor. The file labeled “TOP SECRET” seemed a good place to start.

[Log 08.619.6] Five cycles ago, construction of the Maridian Lab reached completion, and experiments on the native sea life began immediately. Results were highly promising. Though none can match the unlimited power of the Metroids, one subject stood above the rest. Science Team has received approval for the commencement of ‘Project Draygon,’ and it is poised to be one of the greatest bioweapons ever conceived.

[Log 09.487.9] Under Central Command’s eye, Draygon’s mass and power continue to increase exponentially. Current tests indicate it has retained reproductive abilities, which will prove valuable when replicating experiments. The only drawback is, as it grows, so does its aggression. If not for our leader’s influence, it would have devoured half its handlers by now. Even so, Level Four security measures have been implemented and are holding.

Project Draygon… Samus thought. Finally, a name to put to all this; yet, it did nothing to settle the pit in her stomach.

[Log 10.139.2] Just when we thought we were free from all possible meddling, a plague has fallen upon Maridia. It is alive and bent on our demise. Our security teams detected no foreign personnel trespassing, yet it somehow slipped in, spreading over us like a shadowy hand, consuming every mind it touches. One by one, either into death or madness, our ranks fall. It is only a matter of time before we all succumb. Even Mother cannot reach us now.

[Log 10.501.3] The blue fire from beyond has illuminated our minds. Loyalty to Mother is little more than ash. The voice of the master, our true leader, calls to us, its obedient servants, and we will use all our power to carry out its wishes.

Our first test of loyalty was to terminate all specimens engineered by Mother. Troopers who refused were met with rather…“twisted” fates. The rest of us carried out the order without hesitation. However, subject Draygon alone put up such a fierce resistance, our leader was impressed and spared it. We lowly soldiers can only guess what Master has planned for it.

Samus’s hand twitched despite herself. Phantoon… Now, she was getting somewhere.

[Log 11.368.7] Master’s reach has spread across Zebes. Converted forces from the upper bases relayed a planet-wide alert— the Hunter and the last Metroid were sighted in Brinstar. Master ordered a small force to intercept and terminate them at once. Blending in with Mother’s forces will be easy, for Aran’s death remains a common goal.

A little ways off, the Baby was slowly circling the massive door, examining the tiny gaps that allowed water to leak inside. As it peeped through one, it spotted a tiny pinprick of light in the far distance.

[Log 11.974.1] Failure. Pathetic, wretched failure, thanks to the blasted Hunter. She and the Metroid still live. Worse, Aran now suspects Master’s existence. At this news, many tried to flee, but Phantoon incinerated them beyond ashes. Serves them right for their cowardice.

There is, however, a shred of hope. Like Draygon, Master believes the Metroid’s powers could serve our purposes. Two agents were dispatched at once. We will claim it at any cost!

The Baby kept watching the light. It chirped curiously, tilting to one side. No doubt about it, it was getting bigger. Should it tell Samus? It chirped again, louder, but she was too deeply absorbed.

[Log 12.422.5] Glorious victory at last! The Metroid is ours! What’s more, our agents brought news of Aran’s fate. She has fallen into Maridia, and without the Gravity Suit, her chance of escape is null. Truly, we live in glorious times!

To prepare its DNA for integration, it was brought to Draygon’s containment zone at once. Once the infusion is complete, Draygon will be released to both test its abilities and search for the Hunter’s body.

Meanwhile, to ensure she perishes in her watery grave, Master has decided to pay its respects. It is not enough for her to suffer mere defeat after defying us for so long. She must break.

Enough.

The lights on Samus’s armor began to pulse like simmering flames. Her heart thundered in her chest as her whole body went rigid. The only audible sound came from her fist, clenched so tightly its armor squeaked.

Metroid DNA! Fusion!

What have they done?!

The Mochtroids were only the first!

What have I done?

WHAT HAVE I DONE?

The Baby screed right in her ear, snapping her out of it. Before she could turn her head towards it, the searchlights blinded her. They filled the room, pouring into every tiny crack, every last nook and cranny, leaving no place to hide.

I should’ve known.

Even as she backed away, Samus knew it was useless, for the lights shone straight through the solid steel door.

X-rays.

The bottom of the door exploded. Seawater and pirates poured in through the hole, forming a line at the base. As the water rose higher, all eyes, lights, and weapons trained upon Samus and the Baby. One, the leader, raised his sparking baton and pointed it at them. “The Hunter can’t hurt you,” he crowed. “Dispose of her. Only the Metroid matters!”

There were roars of approval, already smug with victory. Yellow eyes glittered with glee. All at once, they surged forward.

Yet, for a heartbeat that seemed to last an eon, all Samus did was stare, first at them, then the larva, as guilt heavier than the weight of the ocean pressed on her.

This is all my fault.

The floodwater swallowed the heavy thump of her boots as she strode to the ledge, ensuring she was the only thing standing between the pirates and the Metroid. The lights of her visor and armor burned like lava as her cannon opened wide.

I let this happen.

A volley of Super Missiles exploded from her cannon, hammering into the pirates and driving them back. All it did was slow them down. They recovered and advanced, snapping their claws and hurling curses that would make a Federation marine blush. The leader signaled to attack, and they unleashed swarms of lasers thicker than the storms on Crateria. Samus planted her feet, squared her shoulders, and took every single blast.

All because I got distracted.

The Baby screeched in rage. Before Samus could react, it charged past her and barreled at the leader’s face. They tumbled through the water, the Baby clinging to his face like a rabid squirrel as he thrashed and fought with everything he had.

Because I couldn’t protect it.

Samus’s hand twitched again. At the last moment, the pirate raised his baton and stabbed it. There was a huge spark, and the larva shrieked.

Because I failed.

Even from the black hole it called an afterlife, the Ghost General was laughing at her.

The Hunter roared in defiance. The mouth of her cannon blazed with icy fire. The Charge Shot swelled like a concentrated tidal wave as she barreled through the line of fire and flipped. The beam’s energy enveloped her like a force field, and the moment it touched the troopers in the center, they froze and shattered like glass. She ignored the survivors and kept running.

The cannon charged up as she rushed the leader. “Let go!!” she shouted.

It was more for the Baby than the pirate— it dropped him and backed off right as Samus took another flying leap into the air. The pirate’s life had just enough time to flash before his eyes before it was ripped to pieces.

She touched down beside the larva and spun to face the remaining pirates, who regrouped and prepared to return fire.

Samus glanced quickly at the Baby. Firstly— it didn’t seem outwardly injured, but it hovered back, twitching as it tried to shake off the blow.

The next thing she noticed was that it was watching the roof.

That was when she heard it. An abyssally deep, bone-grinding groan, like an Olympus-class ship being dragged across the seafloor.

The whole room went silent. Even the pirates lowered their arms.

It came again. Closer. Louder. The steel walls echoed, and the floor quaked under their feet. The pirates’ eyes grew round with fear. “No,” one whispered in a strangled voice, and began backing up. Ordinarily, this would have been immediate grounds for execution, but none of the others moved a muscle.

It couldn’t be…

On instinct, Samus checked her radar. A huge, red shape was entering range at the bottom.

It could only be…

The Baby let out a thin, terrified wail, and something dawned on Samus— that it didn’t need to see the creature.

It already knew.

“Draygon!” the pirates screamed, but their voices were immediately drowned by the overpowering crash of the roof blowing off. They broke ranks, shoving each other and fleeing in every direction as the steel structures fractured and toppled like building blocks on top of them.

The monster was immense. It eclipsed the entire structure, thrusting the already dark waters into something even deeper. As she dodged a chunk of the ceiling and took aim, Samus glimpsed a spiked, layered shell like plated armor, claws long enough to skewer three pirates at once, and a rolling yellow eye— one she’d seen before.

Whether or not it was aware of her and the pirates, it didn’t matter. She’d make it notice. It was time to end this.

She rapid-fired off several Charge Shots. Some hit falling debris, but a few made it through and struck its shell. They didn’t hurt, but they sure got its attention. It rounded about like a battle cruiser, fixed her in its hideous gaze, and roared, sending shockwaves through the lab.

Samus stood her ground. Her cannon opened wide as she prepared to fire back, when—

A desperate squeak from behind caused her to whip around.

No!

The Baby cowered behind the remains of a broken crate, frozen with fear at the sight and sound of Maridia’s monster.

Samus’s own heart seized with desperation. It was like Kraid’s Lair all over again. Nothing she said or did would make it move. She had to get to it, but—

Her head swung back to Draygon, who swooped closer and closer with blind, unrelenting fury, unfeeling, uncaring, its only instinct being to destroy everything in its path—

The Super Missile slid into place. But her eyes returned to the Baby, still petrified and squeaking.

Last time, between protecting it and battling Kraid, she’d chosen Kraid.

And she had paid dearly for her negligence.

Draygon closed in. All she glimpsed was a wide maw ringed with pointed teeth before—

She pivoted sharply, using her thrusters to launch herself away from the monster, away from the battle, and towards the larva. The moment she touched it, she curled her entire body around it, tumbling over and over as Draygon bulldozed the rest of the structure.

They rolled into something hard that stopped them cold. Samus hunkered down. For once, she was barely aware of the destruction around them. As the water filled with dust and muck, as surviving pirates were buried under the rubble, as steel and rock and earth from Maridia itself rained over them, Samus kept her eyes firmly on the Baby, the last Metroid on whom she’d staked this entire mission. Its whole body pressed into her, a tiny comfort as she endured the terrible wake.

Eventually, the roaring ceased, and the muddy dust settled somewhat. The entire area was leveled— the only remainders of the data center were the odd pillars and broken servers that stuck out of the uneven ground like crooked tombstones.

Samus loosened up to a crouching position, causing debris to slide off her back. She was still holding the Baby. On instinct, she raised her head and scanned the area. No more pirates, and Draygon was long gone. If they acted quickly, they could pick up its trail, but…

The larva still clung to her arm like it was a life preserver. It wouldn’t, no, couldn’t, stop shaking. She gazed at it, guilt washing over her. She understood. But she was at a loss of what to do, what to say.

“They kept you caged near that thing, didn’t they?” she murmured. “That’s why you were acting weird. And, since it’s got your DNA, you could sense when it was nearby.”

The Baby only wormed deeper into her arms.

“It’s all right.” Samus closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she wrestled with her words. “You must be anxious… It’s understandable. You went through so much by yourself, and…” She huffed a dry laugh. “…It’s my fault. From the moment you hatched, I dragged you into this…into my battle. For that… I’m truly sorry.”

It shifted slightly, but made no sound.

“…It’s my duty to finish this. I can’t promise to keep you safe— I’ve already failed that beyond forgiveness. But this, I will swear.” Lifting her arm gently, she held the larva in front of her face. It could not see behind her visor, let alone look into her eyes, but if it could, it might have thought they looked…sad. “I will not take the next step until you are ready.”

Minutes passed. The Baby remained attached to her arm; she felt it quivering even beneath the armor. Not a sound passed between them as Samus waited, stiller than a statue and patient as time itself.

Eventually, the larva’s shivering ceased. It released her arm and hovered before her. The two regarded each other, but Samus remained crouched.

Only her head moved as she watched it hover back a few paces. It twirled slowly in place, taking in the ruins around them, before stopping at a section with a clearer path— the direction Draygon had swum in. Turning back to Samus, it let out a small, quiet chirp.

The Hunter rose in one graceful motion and rejoined it. They started down the trail, when her left foot kicked something hard. A pirate’s claw— the rest of him was buried under a mound of rubble. Something inside it gleamed under her visor, and she bent again to investigate.

It was a triangular capsule with a translucent bulb, clearly designed to be removable, based on how easily she was able to pry it off. It fit in the palm of her hand, and she studied it for a moment. The shape may have been new, but she knew the tech. This would be very useful. In a soft flash of blue, it integrated into her Suit, her visor glowing the same color.

X-RAY SCOPE OBTAINED.

Her now-blue searchlight streamed over the ocean floor, revealing paths through the debris field. Facing the Baby, Samus stretched out her hand, palm up. It hesitated for only a moment, then hovered to it. They exchanged a nod.

Now, they could turn the tables on the pirates. Now, they would track down and destroy Maridia’s monster once and for all. Side-by-side.