Prior to the successful resolution of the Aether Incident, Galactic Federation Intelligence picked up regular, but transient Phazon readings from an unknown planet just on the edge of Federation Space.
Further complicating matters, the remnants of two Space Pirate Armadas have all retreated to this same planet.
The Phazon readings have now spiked.
Intelligence does not believe this to be coincidence and suspects a mass harvesting of Phazon by the enemy has begun.
Your orders are to get yourself onto this planet and reconnoiter Space Pirate facilities completely undetected. Engage in sabotage where able but obtain as much data as possible in the form of computer logs, pictures, et cetera.
Mark the main facilities for strikes and assaults by Federation ground forces before extracting yourself fully.
At least the rain would always keep her company…
…because the mission brief sure as hell never did.
But then again, Samus did not exactly need to relish in anyone else’s company but her own. It had been that way since she left Zebes for the first time. By this point she had gotten used to it all.
The silence.
The loneliness.
But through it all, even on her lonesome for the last several years, one thing she always found solace in was the steady, white noise of a fresh water-based rain on an earth-like planet.
She sat atop her gunship... her form unrecognizable to the average being’s eye, had there been any around. Clad in her form-fitting, full-body Zero Suit, Samus Aran was effectively incognito to all but a very select few individuals she could count on one hand… in stark contrast to the fully powered battle armor of her Varia Suit.
Hiding her face behind the iconic, neon-green visor of her helmet made her much more notorious to the galaxy… and her enemies. The irony had never been lost on her.
A peaceful, if stoic aura graced her features as her deep-blue eyes stared forward into the depths of her forested hideout… where the foreign yet seemingly familiar flora appeared to grow endlessly around her. And yet, the natural canopy and camouflage was no shield from the overcast, borderline torrential rain that poured its fury onto the lush ground below.
…and over her.
Just as she enjoyed it.
Samus ran her fingers through her soaked blonde hair and tucked an errant lock behind her right ear.
Two prominent strands framed her face as she had always preferred it, though that was a little problematic considering the water matted it to her face. Still, it was a coolness that she had relished in since she was a teenager… when her second home of Zebes would get a thunderstorm once in a blue moon.
And it helped calm her nerves for what was to come.
The planet had been located. The Phazon readings were present. Now, she was just running out the clock—she afforded herself every last second of her mental vacation before the harsh return to the status quo. Every little bit was worth it… what with her plummeting morale.
At least the hazard pay was spectacular.
Through her dearth in speaking—even to herself—on her missions, Samus’ mind was still a swarm of competing, conflicting thoughts that were an amalgamation of her entire life’s experiences.
Zebes. Tallon IV. Aether…
Samus brought her right hand into view, and carefully studied her covered hand. Her Zero suit’s deep-blue color matched her eyes perfectly. Turning her palm over revealed the bright-pink accented runes of her personal Chozo insignia… an accent scheme that matched the other Chozo symbols on her Zero Suit—a uniform of sorts that had served her well for almost a decade.
Her former caretakers had done well to leave her behind all the tools they felt she would need, as well as bestow upon her the best education and training they could.
In their eyes, she was the ultimate warrior—the protector of the galaxy. Both her Zero Suit and her Varia Suit with all its previous augmentations had certainly reminded her of this.
And to Samus, every time she looked in a mirror… every time she donned her Chozo battle armor on another crusade against the terror of the Space Pirates, she was reminded of this title. It was a title she never felt she could ever live up to, no matter how hard she tried.
But also, in Samus’ eyes, her feelings did not exactly amount to much when lives were at stake.
The console on her right wrist vibrated.
Samus knowingly brought her wrist up to eye-level and used her thumb to wipe away some rainwater from the screen. There, she viewed a system notification that she had been expecting.
Commence Operation
“Showtime,” she said.
Samus stood up on her gunship and stretched herself out completely with arms over her head. She bathed in the last, final moments she afforded herself under the natural blanket of the comforting rainfall and the resulting water running down her face.
She closed her eyes and smiled at the thought.
At that same moment, she flipped a little mental switch deep in her mind… one which had the result of encasing her entire six-foot, three-inch form in an almost angelic, golden light. For the briefest parts of a second, she lit up her forest enclave.
Gone was the Zero Suit-clad woman, unknown to much of the galaxy. In her place was the armored warrior who could bring destruction to her enemies on a scale she herself could barely grasp.
Even so… under the iconic orange armor—save for her helmet and the top of her breastplate, which were blood-red—that matched the scheme of her gunship, she was still the same woman. Her blue eyes, which were veiled beneath her neon-green visor, still harbored the same emotions every time she started a new mission… all the way from her very first missions.
Mild anxiousness.
Curiosity.
A deep knowing… knowing that things were not as they would seem. A knowing that the mission brief that she was always graciously provided by Galactic Federation High Command would only tell a tenth of the story at best. And ultimately, knowing that the plan would shift dramatically, yet still within the scope of her original mission.
It happened every time. Samus would never know when nor how, but no mission was ever as straight-forward as it was initially set out to be. How this mission would pivot is what led into her innate curiosity…
…and that in turn, fueled her anxiousness.
Still in the middle of her stretch, brought her armored arms down to level and gave herself a quick once-over.
Her entire suit was cleaned, buffed, and shined to perfection. Her spherical shoulder pauldrons—which housed critical system functions—remained one of the more identifiable features of her Varia Suit and were in the process of booting up all her systems. Her arm cannon--her multitool weapon that served her diligently for as long as she could remember--had been fully serviced and was ready for action.
She was ready.
Samus pivoted on her heels, facing the front of her gunship. There, she purposefully hunched low. With a mental and physical exertion that she had mastered since her first mission into the galaxy, she launched herself high into the air… trying her damndest to touch the forest canopy even though she knew well that was beyond her suit’s augmentations to her strength.
Exactly four somersaults later, and her heels impacted squarely into the wet, alien ground with a squelch that marred her once-clean, armored boots with mud. Hunched low to absorb the impact, Samus casually drew her vision--and her cannon--over her immediate surroundings.
Nary a peep from the forest. As with before rain was her only company. Her own calm collected breathing barely registered with her ears, either.
Samus stood up tall, fancied one last glance around her, and then tilted the side of her arm cannon towards her. A panel within one of the bulbous ‘hinges’ on either side flipped around, revealing her control center.
She used her index finger of her left, unarmored hand to press a sequence of three exact buttons. A powerful signal-cloaking had been activated for her ship.
And with one last deep breath, she sighed and steeled her gaze forward.
With her arm cannon at the low-ready, where she could just make out its barrel at the edge of her vision, Samus started forward in a brisk walk towards the edge of her forest enclave. Even as her journey had begun, she had to make sure a few last preparations were in order.
Cool. Now, let’s boot up the HUD…
And on cue, said heads-up display was willed into existence as an AR overlay on her visor. Her Varia Suit’s defensive energy shielding meter right at the top edge of her visor showed fully charged, as well as a one-hundred percent suit integrity.
Her motion tracker—a single circle with Samus as the center with sonar-like blips rippling outward—took prominence at the top left of her vision. No movement in the slightest was detected.
Conversely, a small snippet of the area map lay on the top right. Unexplored and with no map data available, her suit’s systems were generating cartographical approximations of the area in real time.
Her ‘warning meter’ and missile launcher ammunition count took the entire left and right sides of her visor respectively. With no threats—environmental or otherwise—detected nearby, said meter was not filled in the slightest. Her missile ammunition was replenished completely thanks to her gunship’s onboard ammo factory.
The bottom left of her visor was occupied by her visor-selection matrix, which afforded her a look at her entire visor-suite. Her default visor, the Combat Visor, was selected front and center.
And on the bottom right lay her beam-selection matrix, which gave her a quick gander at her currently selected and available beam weapons at her disposal… each one (if available) triggered by an extremely specific orientation of her right hand within her arm cannon. As she had expected, her trusty Power Beam was the default, currently armed, and ready for battle.
Samus brushed aside the first few, gigantic leaves of the local flora as she decided to run a quick diagnostic. She then watched the readout of the results scroll up her visor:
[Chozo Battle Suit Ver SA1-4468-VM6-P. Diagnostic scan initiated.]
[Vitals: Normal. No Injuries Detected. No Sickness Detected]
[Varia Suit: Online. Integrity: 100%]
[Visor Suite: Combat, Scan: Online]
[Beam Weapons: Power Beam: Online]
[Missile Launcher: Engaged]
[Shield Generator: Online. Energy: 100%. Fully Charged.]
[Speed Booster Engine: Online]
[Space Jump Boots: Online]
[Morph Ball: Online]
[Morph Ball Bomb: Online]
[Grapple Beam: Online]
[Diagnostic complete. All systems active and functioning normally.]
Nice.
Samus stopped her trek to fiddle with her arm cannon console so she could complete the diagnostic. Her finger accidentally slipped, and she pressed one button once too much.
She could feel her pupils shrinking.
FUCKIN’, NO—
[Advanced Diagnostic Tutorial initiated.]
Samus pressed the same button firmly repeatedly about a dozen times, as if her irritation alone would stop the blasted machine’s execution of command. One day, she would learn to accept the futility of the fact that she would accidentally hit this button at some point during all her missions.
Today was not that day.
“UGH!”
Why the hell would they code dumb shit like this? They trained me, for fuck’s sake!
[Call up your map to see current objectives and local cartography of the area, where available.]
Samus let the information roll up her visor as she set off to continue her journey—she listened to the sound of the rain plinking against the top of her helmet and the slightly mechanical sound of her legs moving through the soppy, lush environment to help pass the ‘advanced diagnostic’ quicker.
But in an ironic turn of events, she did call up her map, and found that—based on the starting information that the Federation had provided her—as expected, her objective was straight ahead: an alleged Space Pirate enclave.
On the right track, I guess…
The Hunter dismissed her map (which zoomed out and returned to its cropped position on her HUD) and continued onward.
With a tentative hand on her arm cannon, she placed a greater emphasis on her hearing, and flicked her eyes from side-to-side while making sure to check behind every monolithic tree-trunk that she passed. The rain continued to keep her company, and no sounds of wildlife could be heard through the torrential curtain.
No wildlife could be seen either, as she continued her dutiful march… all likely nestled comfortably in their warrens by the time the storm had rolled in.
[Your Scan Visor can be used to search for clues, interact with electronics and machinery, translate text, and interface with the world around you.]
Samus rolled her eyes.
You don’t say?
Not that she would have forgotten—she had a habit of scanning anything and everything of interest around her. Her own logbook and database were one of the few things that could accurately make sense of her life. Samus even made some nice, extra cash on the side from selling some of her data to the Federation for research.
Samus brought her left hand to the left side of her visor. With her armored middle and index fingers, she switched over to her Scan Visor from her Combat Visor.
A magnified view overlaid her HUD, and she witnessed her environment’s color scheme switch to one much simpler, and one that she had been familiar with since her last firmware update back on Aether: objects glowing blue were scannable bits of interest. Objects luminously red were key objectives or objects of extremely high interest.
Everything else was simply dimmed out, taking its place as background noise. In its own way, the view oddly removed her worries in the moment.
In a—rather direct—way, it reminded her to focus on what was important.
As she had expected though, none of the flora had drawn her systems’ particular interests. The entire surrounding world was dimmed out, void of any life through the eyes of her visor…
…though the slightest gleam on the forest floor a hundred or so meters ahead and just off her path, stopped her right in her tracks.
Hmmm?
Left hand calmly yet purposefully placed on the top of her cannon, Samus waded carefully through the lush fauna towards her target. She continued to pay diligent attention to her motion tracker, as well as listen for anything out of the ordinary that cut through the white noise of a rainy forest—nothing of the sort made itself known to her.
What did make itself known to her was the identity of what her scan visors picked up: a reinforced transportation crate roughly the size of her torso. What made it instantly recognizable was the iconic Space Pirate insignia emblazoned on the side. But perhaps even more than that, Samus found the crate in less than perfect condition: it was obliterated on one side, and out that side poured a bright, blue luminescence that had haunted her last couple of missions.
And there it is.
She brought her left hand to the side of her helmet.
[Scanning…]
[Material analysis complete. Recorded to Logbook.]
[Morphology: Phazon. Volatile ore with biomutagenic properties. Origin point of Phazon unknown. First detection of element on planet Tallon IV, and again on planet Aether. Used by Space Pirates to produce vast levels of energy and for use in experimental weapons programs. Bioforms exposed to Phazon without proper shielding will eventually undergo radical, often horrific mutation.
Analysis places the purity of this sample at 99.963%. Extremely high purity suggests sophisticated use beyond what has been hitherto recorded.]
Hmmmm…
The purest Phazon samples came from the cores of the Phazon meteors that struck planets. This likely happened here as well, but with such pure samples, Samus began deducing that the Space Pirates were setting up shop right near the impact site…
…or even worse, right on top of it.
Samus—almost out of a feeling of obligatory nostalgia—reached forward with her armored, left hand towards the exposed Phazon pouring from the breached container. She noticed her warning meter spike up massively the closer her hand got to the substance.
Then, she touched it with the tip of her armored fingers.
Her systems immediately registered damage to her defensive shielding, and in retracting her hand back, Samus heard the distinctive sizzling… the radioactive burning of her shields. Any material on her hand quickly dissipated under its own half-lives and the pouring rain, though she lost a whole percentage point of her shield integrity.
Samus also traced her eyes from the breach, down the tiny, neon-blue river that the radioactive poison created… and watched it disappear, diluted under the massive amount of rain drenching the earth.
Almost like the planet was trying to clean itself.
That was all well and good… but Samus was still perplexed by the random—Space Pirate ballistics resistant—crate lying around in a forest just outside their alleged base. She knew from her experience that the Pirates valued Phazon more than their own troops… she only remembered one time back on Tallon IV where they abandoned a crate of the substance.
Especially of Phazon this pure.
Samus knelt and ran her thumb once over the Pirate insignia before initiating another scan.
[Scanning…]
[Scan complete.]
[Space Pirate Crate. Ballistics-resistant crate used for transporting high-value materiel. Nearly impossible to crack from outside force just shy of artillery shells.
This crate’s destruction is consistent with a direct energy blast from an unknown source. Energy residue left behind at point of impact has no resemblance to any known direct energy weaponry. Whatever struck this crate was enormous in power.
Furthermore, haphazard discarding indicates a complete disregard for its contents.]
They were running… and fast. The plot thickens…
Samus switched back to her combat visor and fancied herself a quick look around, and again paid attention to her motion tracker. Barren, as expected.
But still, the Pirates were no stranger to subduing populations and ‘taming’ local fauna… or outright eliminating it—even the most aggressive species. Anything that would make even the most hardened troops of the Space Pirates flee at the drop of a hat was something worth keeping a mental note of.
Samus stood back up and looked down into the forest at where her map was pointing her to. After a quick sweep around the area, she was off once again.
Brushing aside massive tree leaves and other forest flora with both her hand and her cannon, she continued to monitor her surroundings. Her eyes continually flicked over towards her motion tracker every couple of seconds. Despite the rain plinking her armor, the most prominent noise she could hear was her own rhythmic, steady breathing.
Samus bounded over a downed tree trunk with a single jump, bursting through the veil of green in her path all the while. She came face to face with what appeared to be one of the edges of a natural forest plateau. Gazing upward, patchy, green moss dotted the edifice of the imposing obstacle, and crisscrossing vines wove perfectly into the rock face. Her eyes followed the face upward, the top of which disappeared in the veil of the rain—she estimated it was about a good thirty to forty feet.
Her map still kindly pointed her in the direction past this edifice.
[Your Power Grip allows you to grab onto ledges to ascend upward.]
Samus looked at her left hand and flexed her armored fingers. Deep memories were called forth regarding how she came into the possession of the Power Grip back on Zebes… and how much shit it had gotten her out of, since. A soft, fond smile etched its way under her climate-controlled visor—this simple upgrade had saved her life on way too many occasions.
Right.
She gazed up at the rock edifice and found a suitable nook created by two massive vines. Steeling herself, Samus hunched low, then leapt upward. Her hand met the nook she eyed and held on tightly. And despite the rain pummeling her now skyward-facing visor, her Suit’s environmental controllers did well to keep her vision clear while she successfully hung.
Hanging off about ten feet above the ground, she spied another inviting nook that was maybe a few feet higher and to her right… but that’s when Samus came visor-to-visor with a bit of a problem.
Hrmm…
She would have to jump up to grab it… but there was no opposite wall to bound off with her favorite wall-jumping technique. Nor was she confident in being able to launch herself that far, to be able to grab it with her left hand. Even more than that, she found out quickly that an attempt to clamor upward would result in a rather uncomfortable fall—she tried to dig her boots into the vine mess, but they slipped rather easily due to moss and rain.
Her arm cannon could not exactly be disengaged on its own without physically prying it off. There were no other footholds to be found, either.
Samus deadpanned. Her suit’s annoying tutorial mode promptly reminded her of the most viable alternative:
[You can disengage your Varia Suit to more easily scale walls and other climbable objects.]
Samus dropped back down to the ground, where her boots sank slightly into the grass and mud with a squelch.
“Guess there’s only one way up…”
With another flip of that mental switch, she disengaged her Varia Suit, leaving her to the elements once again in her Zero Suit. The cool wetness of the rain on her hair and face was short-lived in enjoyment, as she hunched low and launched herself back into the air. Eyeing the previous nook that she had caught before, she found it properly with her left hand and hung limply once more.
Finding her next grapple point, Samus used her now-free right hand and pulled herself up.
From then-on, her Chozo training from back on Zebes took complete control as she began scaling the forest plateau like clockwork. Her hands gravitated to any potential handhold within the vines and mossy rock, as did her boot-clad feet.
Samus continued to ascend bit by bit, feeling the moist, colder air of the environment harshly cooling off her lungs as she breathed into her movements. The rain continued to not bother her in the slightest, and in fact, she welcomed the water flowing again over her face and down her hair, as it kept her cool during her exertion.
She slipped.
“SHIT!”
Samus gasped as the temporary handhold for her right hand was not as secure as she thought. The vine she chose to help her on her ascent tore in two, and her eyes widened as she was now bearing most of her weight on nothing at all. Samus clenched her left hand into its vine, saying a small Chozo prayer that it held… and that she would not be mildly inconvenienced with a fall back to the earth.
With a little pain in her shoulder (it bore the brunt of the slip-up) Samus quickly found another, much more secure handhold to haul herself further upward.
Fuck’s sake…
After repeating the same process several more times and ensuring that she was much more confident in her choice of grip, the top of this plateau appeared from beyond the veil.
Samus planted her right hand on the top while the rest of her body hung just beyond the edge. With a little extra finessing, she slapped her left hand up there to join her right and hoisted herself up completely—she then let her forearms and elbows bear her weight.
Her eyes suddenly met those of a Space Pirate.
Samus flinched, then shoved her right hand down to her hip and gripped the handle of her pistol. Adrenaline shot through her veins as her body prepared her for combat at an instant…
…until she understood those eyes staring back at her remained unblinking.
Lifeless.
As she calmed down, she noticed its entire, hulking body lying on its front. Its mouth was agape, and a pool of diluted blood collected in one of the larger crevices that naturally adorned the top of this mossy plateau. She judged by the lack of any continual trickle of blood from its mouth, as well as the unnaturally slackened, triple-hinged jaw, that this was not a recent kill.
Satisfied that no threat was posed, Samus finished hoisting herself up, and immediately re-equipped her Suit. During the equipping process, the golden beam of light that coursed over her had a warming effect as it harmlessly vaporized the water that collected on her person… and the blissfulness of what felt like a hot shower for the briefest of moments left as quickly as it came, much to the Hunter’s chagrin.
Through her visor, she gazed down at the dead Pirate Trooper and noted his position—right armored-up arm and assault cannon extended out in front… and his two legs completely straight behind. Samus then pressed the heel of her boot against his jutting-out armor plating.
Using little strength, Samus rolled him over.
Just from rolling him over, Samus could hazard a guess as to what felled the Trooper. Right in the center of his torso where the rest of his elaborate armor plating covering his vital organs would be… was just a crater twice the size of Samus’ fist.
Under normal circumstances, Samus would be content on leaving the dead Pirate where he lay and continuing on her merry way. But something just… seemed odd.
Which, in the end, really was not all that odd, considering ‘odd’ was par for the course in her adventures across the galaxy.
Nevertheless, she kneeled and placed her left hand right above the fatal wound to see if she could ascertain anything right off the bat.
Hmmm… whatever hit this guy just obliterated his chest. Sheesh…
She then brought her fingers up to her helmet and initiated a scan.
[Scanning…]
[Scan Complete.]
[Morphology: Space Pirate Trooper. Status: Terminated]
[Death caused by a direct, fatal hit of a concentrated, directed energy blast to the chest. Analysis of the wound and residue left behind, inconclusive—no matches to any known Federation, Pirate, nor Chozo weaponry.]
More unknown energy. Interesting…
Samus switched off her Scan Visor and was about to continue onward on the path her map had set out for her…
…but out of the corner of her eye, something glinted off the natural, ambient light in the rain.
Samus cocked an eyebrow.
Hmmm?
Turning back to face the deceased Space Pirate, she indeed found something, at first glance, ‘shiny’ resting right by its body. Taking a step closer and kneeling once again to get a better look, Samus scooped the object out from its puddle with her armored hand and brought it up to visor-level.
Her eyes fell on the flat, planar, medallion looking object that clearly bore a formal insignia of some kind… an insignia that she did not recognize in the least. In fact, it seemed rather strange when gazing at the object from all angles, rotating it in her armored grasp. It appeared to be made of fine metal—a mixture of gold and silver if she had to hazard a guess. But what was most interesting to her was the symbol harbored within: two…
…horses?
Indeed, two horse-seeming creatures circled one another on opposite ends of an imaginary circle. One white, and one navy blue. The respective backgrounds they lay embossed on formed sort of a ‘yin-yang’ symbolic orientation. On a second look… they appeared to have one horn each. And wings. Engraved on the edge of the medallion, there lay some inscriptions that Samus could not discern, and which she assumed was writing of sorts.
A pendant? Maybe?
She carefully lay it on her arm cannon, and initiated another scan:
[Scanning…]
[Scan Complete.]
[Object unknown. Resemblance found in Military Insignias and National Medals. Composition: Gold, Silver, Moonstone, Dumortierite. Inscriptions bear no resemblance to known languages in Galactic Repository.]
Hmph. Maybe there IS civilization here?
Samus dismissed her Scan Visor and gently placed the pendant back where she found it. She then stood upright and turned toward her objective once more. And as she stepped away, she made sure to make a mental note to keep a lookout for areas… or evidence… of civilization.
That little tidbit was starting to bother her, though. Samus used the full weight of her ship’s abilities—augmented with Federation tech—to scan for any signs of intelligent life. If there was intelligent life, then the Space Pirates were either subjugating the population, or were taking a stealthier approach in obtaining their Phazon, much like on Aether with the Luminoth.
But as Samus continued to diligently march through the tall grass of the forest floor, and the rest of the flora in her path… that little medal continued to occupy valuable space in her mind.
There were no signs returned of intelligent civilization on the planet—this planet was completely ‘dark,’ telling her that the worst she could expect was natural fauna.
And that in turn had a few potential ramifications. It either meant:
Her systems were wrong. Or…
The Space Pirates had already—completely and utterly—eliminated all intelligent populations on the planet. Or…
This Space Pirate brought a souvenir along from another unknown planet. Or…
Any civilization here was already gone, or in such a state of decline from some outside event (like a Phazon strike) that it could not be picked up by her sensors.
During her travels and missions thus far, Samus had encountered every single one of those scenarios in some context. But somehow… for some reason, she could not shake the feeling that she already knew which one of those possibilities was the most likely case. And it further solidified her theory that this ‘recon’ mission would be anything but a simple ‘get in, get out,’ cut-and-dry operation.
These feelings of pseudo-knowing continued to occupy her mind and heart as she approached what looked like the edge of the forest. It did not help that the further she inched forward, the more frequently she found strewn Pirate bodies in various states of telltale combat mutilation…
…and some in rather uncharacteristic mutilation. She just passed a Pirate Commando corpse that was horrendously torn in three. Another Trooper was completely decapitated with no sign of its head, along with three massive holes in its chest and stomach.
Something else was here. That much she knew. And her intuition told her that it was not just some aggressive wildlife.
Pushing said thoughts as far back as she could, the Hunter scurried off into the deeper cover of the foliage as she advanced further. Hunkered down low, arm cannon at the low ready, Samus continued to follow the guide of her map, which diligently pointed her straight ahead.
The rainfall, despite still being under forest cover, was suddenly much more powerful, and her visibility ahead dropped precipitously.
Wait a sec…
She glanced upward, and through the ripples of the raindrops that struck her visor, she blinked hard at the discovery: the tops of the massive trees had been completely seared off—skeletons of where further foliage should have been were now barren for her to see even on the ground. But after a second of mental processing, this made perfect sense, because to her, that meant…
The impact crater is close… really close.
As Samus moved up even more, her suspicions were further confirmed when more and more of the soppy ground beneath her was devoid of any flora—it was completely charred. Seared. The blast from the Phazon meteor strike had obliterated this portion of the forest. Further confirming things, she found the entire ground pockmarked with even smaller, micro-craters.
But it was always good to be sure, and Samus took a quick scan of a dead tree:
[Scanning…]
[Scan Complete.]
[Radioactive atoms detected within tree bark and surrounding soil, consistent with Phazon-charged kinetic blast of incredible force.]
Samus dismissed her visor.
As expected. The edges of the impact blast incinerated the area… Gotta be right up ahead.
Sure enough, as Samus advanced a little more slowly due to a dearth of flora to use as cover, the ‘new edge’ of the forest gave way to desert-like ground… an upward angled ejecta blanket of no-man’s land that led straight into the towering, plateau-like raised rim of the impact crater.
Samus hunkered down low behind what remaining cover the scarred trees and rain offered her. She took a few moments to just… observe the monolithic structure which seemed to extend horizontally as far as her eyes could see either direction. Samus’ mind wandered away from the mission momentarily. Her gaze angled up towards the top of the outer rim.
Good lord… this meteor had to have been as large as the one that decimated Aether. Maybe bigger…
God, I hope there’s no Ing equivalent…
Samus had made sure to double-check for inter-dimensional flux, and she had found none… but again, anything was possible in her line of work.
Bringing herself back to the present, Samus gazed for the easiest route over the crater’s outer rim, as her map was still pointing her directly ahead. However, as she further scanned the rim of the crater, she noticed that this section was… noticeably shorter than the rest of the crater wall. Furthermore, she could have sworn she saw something moving in the haze of the rain.
She squinted her eyes and had her visor zoom in a couple times.
Well, well, well…
Right at the rim, she could see the hallmarks of trench parapets, as well as the barrels of Pirate Heavy Turrets and machine guns pointed outside of the crater perimeter. She also spied a few lone Pirate Troopers strolling along the edge, conversing with each other, and doing… pretty much what a soldier does on a manned trench line.
Drawing her zoomed-in gaze further down the sloped ejecta blanket, she found it pockmarked with foxholes, as well as a few isolated squads with their own heavy weapons…
…all aimed towards the forest.
This was not abnormal in and of itself… but the sheer number of heavy guns concerned her. The Federation clearly were not here—that was the whole reason she was sent as a lone-wolf recon force, after all.
What were the Space Pirates defending against?
Samus started snapping pictures of the defense from her remaining cover of the forest, which began immediately transmitting back to her ship’s databanks. That was all she could do for now… until she could figure out a way to ascend the ejecta blanket without getting herself spotted and shelled. With the sheer amount of firepower facing her, that was a tall order, even for the firepower she herself commanded.
A chorus of horrific, blood-curdling, inhuman, hellish screams sounded from the forest depths behind her, cutting a swathe through the natural ambiance.
Once getting over the small shiver that ran up her spine at the sound, her mind shot into overdrive as she flicked her eyes to her motion tracker. Unknown blips—too many to count—were showing up at her eight o’clock and advancing straight…
…straight towards the crater.
The Space Pirates reacted immediately, and a chorus of their own voices were picked up by Samus’ translators:
“Defend this section!”
“They’re coming again! They’ll only find death!”
“High Command wills it!”
Any further thoughts she had on the matter were dissipated when the Space Pirate defenders started opening fire on a specific section of forest. Those… screams continued and intensified to the point where the sonic dampeners of her suit were starting to take effect. From the distance away, to the sheer volume of machine gun, blaster, and accelerator cannon fire the Pirates were spitting into the forest… on top of the rain picking up, she was not able to get any sight on the newcomers.
She could see… something in the forest all the way down there, though the rain and the remaining trees prevented any positive identification from this distance.
The only other thing Samus could discern about the attackers in her stealthy state was that they just… kept coming. Expanding out her motion tracker revealed a sea of red blips advancing forward at frightening speed.
But… perhaps this presented an opportunity for her.
Samus shot her gaze up towards the slope of the ejecta blanket she would have to ford. The crater was massive, but the Pirates had constructed their defensive works in such a way that the ejecta blanket itself was much smaller than it should have been… which meant less of a struggle to climb up, on top of an artificially reduced crater wall.
The question was… how to scale to the edge of the crater without being seen? She felt confident enough in her abilities to just simply storm the defenses if she needed to. But this was a recon mission. The moment the Pirates knew the Hunter, who had decimated at least three forward bases of varying sizes and strengths so far, was now on this planet… they would likely pack up shop instantly and the mission would be a failure.
Samus quickly drummed up her thoughts while keeping an eye on her motion tracker.
Scaling this slope undetected is almost impossible with the defenses facing the forest edge…
…unless they’re occupied.
The rain had picked up too. Samus furrowed her brow, and she knew the best move she could make was being presented on a silver platter right in front of her.
But then came more blips on her motion tracker.
New contacts, advancing from all around her. The Space Pirates apparently detected these as well, as reinforcements were being brought up and shifted to the crater brim right in front of her. Samus knew she was not seen—the Pirates had not opened fire yet. They were waiting for… whatever was about to crawl up her ass if she remained where she was.
Throughout her extensive career, Samus had learned one skill which was most valuable if she wanted to survive: pick your battles if you can.
And in this case, she most certainly had a choice. The Pirates could deal with this threat themselves.
Nope! I’ll try again at night.
Samus turned away from the frontline and hung a wide arc around the incoming hostiles to make sure she did not run into any trouble. The last thing she needed was to get into a firefight so close to the Pirate lines, lest she be detected.
Samus seemed to successfully evade battle, and the forest was once again quieter when she was able to return to her previous path outlined by her map.
Well, at least until she had to peek over her shoulder when she heard some loud, resonating ‘booms’ from what sounded like an artillery strike. Samus’ eyes widened a bit at the thought… it must’ve been a gnarly battle, and more than a threat and a half to give the Pirates this much grief. She shrugged at her thoughts when she stepped back onto the edge of the forest plateau, right where she had her previous ‘meeting’ with a dead Pirate Trooper.
Guess I made the right call!
As she moved to hurl herself off the edge and get back to the lower levels of this forest, one small… teeny, tiny detail stopped her in her tracks. The body of the Space Pirate trooper was gone.
Samus’ mind went back into overdrive, and she flicked her eyes between her motion tracker, and the greater environment. Everything seemed… quiet. Though to her, this time it was much too quiet to be natural, even through the white noise of the torrential downpour. She could hear her own breathing much more clearly, but the rain further veiled off her surroundings from her.
She was being watched. And the pit of her stomach told her that it most certainly was not the Space Pirates.
Mkay then…
Samus figured that she was deep enough in the forest that if she ended up having to get into a fight with something, the Space Pirates would be blissfully unaware. That was all well and good, but she also knew that a firefight on the edge of a drop was not a good idea, so, first thing was first:
After quickly drawing her barrel over her field of vision, she launched herself off the forest plateau, somersaulted a few times, and then landed in a proper combat roll before she got back to her feet.
Jogging back whence she came, she kept her arm cannon leveled towards her rear for a moment… then after bounding over a familiar tree-trunk, Samus came face-to-face, again, with the destroyed Space Pirate crate that was trickling ultra-pure Phazon onto the forest floor.
What should have been a rather standard, uneventful reunion with a pseudo-landmark stopped her dead once more:
The crate had been mauled and mangled even further since she saw it last… and the Phazon that lay nestled within was no longer present.
It was completely empty.
What really bothered Samus about the scene was that it did not look like it had been tipped over into another crate and hauled off… no, it was not neat in the slightest. The splatters of some of the residual, neon-blue poison over the soppy ground were a telltale sign to the contrary.
It had been… consumed.
And the realization on top of the still omnipresent feeling of being monitored made Samus’ skin crawl.
What the hell is going on here…?
Another, lone blip on her motion tracker to her right.
In one smooth motion, Samus turned to face the threat, knelt on one knee, and properly aimed with her arm cannon. Her charge beam was active, illuminating her visor further and swelling her weapon to the point where it appeared it would burst at its seams. The charged, luminously gold power beam round hummed almost peacefully at the end of her barrel like a miniature sun and was ready to be fired off into whoever—or whatever—would dare challenge her.
Whoever had been stalking her… if they wanted a fight, she would gladly oblige.
The unknown blip appeared to draw ever closer, and through the darkness of the background forest plus the veil of the rain, Samus thought she could make out a silhouette… one that was becoming clearer and clearer as the long seconds passed.
Training her eyes as best as she could, Samus began studying the figure as it gradually made itself known. A little over half her height, four legs, sharp ears standing straight up…
Wait… are those… hooves?
Four hooves. Long muzzle. Massive eyes… equine?
It stopped ten feet in front of her, and Samus took the rather pregnant pause to lower her cannon just a smidge to get a better look. Her charge beam remained fully powered though… just in case.
Focusing fully on the unknown, it indeed looked equine in nature… but… gaunt. She could see its ribs and other bones embossed against its sickly, seemingly charred skin. Small patches of what coat remained were matted to the figure. It twitched, gurgled, and whined… almost like it was in the process of dying a miserable death. Furthermore, she could see plates of what appeared to be the remnants of armor…
…with a couple eerily familiar medallions hanging off one of said plates.
And despite the appearance of death incarnate, it breathed in front of her. What stood out most were the hairlike, neon-blue vessels that spiderwebbed over its body and seemed to ‘pulse’ rapidly with the beat of its heart—a telltale sign of Phazon corruption and mutation… on top of the sporadic, bulbous tumors.
Where some of these poisoned blood-vessels lead on the newcomer also drew Samus’ immediate attention.
Wait… is that a… horn?
A unicorn?! What the hell?
Those eyes… those abyssal, pure-black, soulless eyes seemed to immediately lock onto hers through her visor.
And then Samus noticed the two mouths, one right on top of the other, where the mandible of the top mouth formed the maxilla of the bottom. The top one had flat teeth as she would expect of a horse… the bottom…
…razor sharp. Jagged.
For fractions of a second, Samus thought she could see emotion… its ragged, stringy remnants of its mane covering part of its face. Its hollow eyes seemed to convey a nameless fear that touched Samus in her heart, and for a moment, she considered lowering her weapon further.
A sickening, unnatural twitch in its head, and what sounded like the sharp cracking of bones dispersed this feeling at an instant, followed up by that same, blood-curdling, deafening screech and roar.
Samus’ eyes widened as its horn began to draw in light, gradually becoming as bright as her arm cannon…
…and then with rocket-like velocity, it launched itself at her.
