Author's Notes: Metroid is my all-time favorite game series, and so I thought it would be fitting to write my first fan work on it. Now, this is not a romance story, and there's definitely no shipping. I have absolutely no interest in that side of fandom. This is a retelling of the story of Metroid. (Or more properly, Metroid: Zero Mission)
However, I'm also an avid reader of comic books, particularly classic superhero comics. One thing I've always loved about cape comics was multiverses. Sure, Rick and Morty recently re-popularized the concept, but the bastion for multiversal shenanigans was, and always has been Superhero comics, especially DC's stuff from the late 80s onward. DC had an Elseworld imprint where specific characters and their respective mythos would be transplanted into a wildly different setting or time period. Superman, but he landed in Russia, Batman but set in Victorian England, etc. etc.
Anyway, I wanted to give Metroid an "Elseworld" style twist. It's actually pretty simple to see the inspiration for this. Ridley and his alien buddies are already referred to as Space Pirates, so the change to a Pirates of the Caribbean-esque setting was a no-brainer. One of my favorite thought experiments has always been drawing parallels between fictional concepts and historical events/legends, and so I set to work translating Metroid from a story of a lone, hi-tech bounty hunter, into a story about high seas piracy, swashbuckling, and ancient, mesoamerican civilizations.
But enough with all of that. I hope this story makes it to you well, and I hope any other Metroid fan will appreciate the small details I've put into this, my first fan work!
It was still dark when the Orpheon dropped anchor. Normally, most of the crew would stay aboard the frigate while a looting party would come ashore in their rowboats, but their captain, Ridley, had made it clear that he intended to stay here for a long time. The night air was calm and clear, which was more than a little odd for this area of the Atlantic. The legends surrounding the small island were known to every pirate in the Americas, and when Ridley had claimed to know its obscure location, most of his crew had thought him a madman. The island was so obscure it was known only by the designation assigned to it by cartographers who had never even seen the isle: Sea Record number 388, or SR-388.
Ridley was once known across the high seas as "The Cunning God of Death" for his sheer ruthlessness and for the ludicrous amount of wealth he'd accrued. Yet now his men spoke in whispers, claiming he had changed for the worse. Ridley's madness had begun, one longtime crew member claimed, when he stumbled across an old Chozo relic in one of his many raids along the continental shore. The Chozo were just as shrouded in mystery and legend as the islands they once called home. The Chozo people themselves had vanished before any European set foot on American soil, and the local tribes told tales of winged men in shining armor who allegedly hailed from the remote islands far off the coast of South America. Any piece of their once great civilization was now a priceless treasure, and so when Ridley laid his hands upon the oddly-shaped hunk of stone and metal, he had sought to simply add it to his treasure hoards and nothing else. Instead, the disgruntled crewman posited, Ridley took to the queer, brain-shaped artifact with a focused mania that was entirely uncharacteristic of the pirate god. Other deckhands had heard tale of him whispering to the brain-stone, calling it "Mother" and assuring the thing that he would do as he was told.
It was not long after these strange occurrences that the change in Captain Ridley's demeanor became more apparent. He began to spend nearly all of his vast wealth seeking Chozo artifacts and scraping at hints of other Chozo settlements. The man sometimes went days without eating, and his men watched in horror as he grew more and more gaunt and hunched; his pallid, purplish skin now clinging to the bone. Months passed, but the captain did eventually proclaim that he knew precisely where the isle of SR-388 was.
Ridley's first mate, a nearly eight-foot-tall behemoth of a man known only as Kraid, was the only member of the Orpheon's crew that did not question his captain's orders. Some of the men argued that Kraid was too simple to go against his captain, but they never said this in his presence, for Kraid had killed men for far less.
When the Orpheon's crew finally reached the shore of the mythical island, they began to realize just why it was abandoned. Every building seemed to be overgrown with vegetation or filled with hideous crustaceans unlike any the crew had ever seen; It was no wonder the Chozo had left it to rot. Yet, there was a frantic determination about the captain. He pushed past his men, clutching the brain-stone close to his ear. Loyal Kraid followed close behind, and after hours of searching the two had uncovered the mouth of a tunnel. The crew was ordered to follow and to ready their weapons, for Ridley was assured of the potential danger that awaited them.
Within the grotto glowed a pool of phosphorescent seawater unlike anything the men had ever seen. The shimmering pool was surrounded on the edges by strange pieces of broken glass and machinery which baffled the pirates. It was filled with utterly innumerable and completely bizarre animals, and yet Ridley was undeterred. The scrawny pirate approached the water's edge and knelt down, his long tailcoat hanging ragged from his back like folded wings. Suddenly one of the crew demanded to know why they were here, in this god forsaken place.
Without standing, Captain Ridley looked back at the insubordinate pirate. He pointed a bony finger at one of the strange lifeforms floating in the eerily glowing pool. The thing was like an enormous jellyfish, but with multiple clusters of red globules inside its body and just four large tentacles which hung lazily beneath it. Ridley kept his focus on the rowdy crew member as he uttered one simple, strange word:
"Metroid."