A vein throbbed on the forehead of a very ticked-off author as he navigated the many hidden corners and crevices that made up his phone's storage system. After checking everywhere for the thousandth time, he sighs and starts typing the beginning of his story again. "Guess the Gods weren't happy with the last Author's Note...it's not even important, just a little 'oh hey there, reader', a 'thanks for taking the time to read this, hope you enjoy!'. Most people just skip over them! But nooo, my author's notes have to be full-blown stories, practically part of the chapter themselves!", he ranted to himself, occasionally looking skyward in annoyance. "When I said I was bad at beginning a story, I expected a snarky comment written in leetspeak, not for Hermes to mess up my phone on purpose!", he seethed, then, "Or maybe it's Ghor, trying to dissuade me from writing this from Android Heaven! Well it ain't go'n work, Ghor!", he shouted to the ceiling, resuming his typing with new-found vigor. "I'll show him...", he muttered to himself evilly.
We were sitting in the living room, bored out of our minds. The TV was on, but nobody was watching. My sister was on her phone, my brother was on his tablet, and I was dozing off. Melissa sighed and put her phone into sleep mode, glancing in my direction. With a bored expression on her face, she started poking me. "I wanna go somewhere!", Arthur announced suddenly, getting to his feet and going to bug our Mom. After a second, Melissa mercifully ceased her poking, got to her feet, and proclaimed, "Me too.", going to stand beside Arthur. I shrugged, successfully awakened by the poking, and stood beside my siblings, commenting, "Yeah, I could go for a ride.". Mom regarded us warily before sighing and saying in a resigned tone, "Alright, let's go.", and my brother and sister cheered before rushing upstairs for socks. I chuckled and slipped my shoes on, checking my pocket for my phone. It was there. I opened the door to go to the car, then stopped as I suddenly shuddered, for some reason, in the middle of July. Why? I had a strange feeling that...something was going to go wrong. Something...big. I stood in the doorway for a moment, then quickly shot my hand out as my dog, Phoenix, tried to slip past me into the night. I gave him a biscuit and closed the door after my family. "Oh hey Dad. Did you decide to join us?", I asked him, mildly surprised, and received a nod in answer. I waved it off, as well as my earlier feeling. It was probably nothing...
"To ice cream we will go! To ice cream we will go! High ho the dairy-o, to ice cream we will go!", my family sang, and I added in a bored tone, "Jazz hands...". Melissa let out a 'pfft' noise and put her ear buds in, starting up some music. I began to doze again, kept awake only by Arthur's continued singing of, "To ice cream we will go...". I looked out the window lazily, flicking my gaze up at the stars to watch their slow pulsating light. So...soothing...so...hypnotic...so...Wait a minute. Pulsating? Stars don't pulsate. At least...I think they don't. One of them, slightly to the left in my field of vision, began to flash brighter, getting almost as bright as the moon before a shining beam shot out and connected to another star. I watched, wide-eyed, as the beam continued, joining star after star until a giant sideways eight hung in the sky. Infinity..., I thought in wonder as the star located at the crossing point began to contract into a single, almost blinding pinprick in the sky, the others getting dimmer. The Crossing Star continued growing brighter until, with a flash, it promptly exploded into a swirling purple vortex. From the mass of light barreled a fiery comet, followed by a red and yellow shape. My mouth fell open as the shape blurred into a red line, a line that sped toward Earth with remarkable speed, and as it came out of hyperspace I was able to recognize the now much closer object.
My Dad slammed on the brakes as Samus' Gunship landed in front us, two guns protruding from the wings folding down to act as stilts as the rear thrusters kept it from toppling over. "What is that thing!?", my Mom screamed, and it took me a few moments to answer, "It's...Samus Aran's gunship.", and as I said it I realized exactly what I just said. Samus. Aran's. Gunship. "Oh Gods...wow.", I muttered, slowly opening the door and ignoring my parents' angry and startled cries. I approached the Gunship slowly, suspicion stirring within me. Why hasn't she come out yet? Maybe the elevator's jammed? ...Or...maybe she's hurt! Maybe Space Pirates snuck onto her ship!, I thought-panicked, and ran up to the raised elevator platform.
A new problem then presented itself. How could I get in? From what I'd seen, this thing was super durable, and only Ghor's battlesuit had any hope of breaking into it without equipment. How was I, a battlesuit-depraved human child, supposed to break into this super hi-tech, heavily fortified gunshi- ...oh, there was a password.
It was a four digit password, the characters being symbols that looked vaguely like Chozo footprints to me. What could it be? Her birthday? No, too obvious. The number of times she's killed Ridley? No, she's only almost at double digits. The number of places she's blown up or destroyed? Again, almost at double digits. Her age followed by her weight? How off Earth would I know that, even if it was the password? I sighed and glanced behind me to see my parents gesturing furiously to come back here right now, young man! I smiled slightly, their antics almost distracting me from the problem at hand. Almost. I turned back to the panel, craning my neck to get a better look at the symbols, and saw something...odd. And worrying.
Her Phazon corruption must not have been purged yet. I could see faint glowing trail of fingerprints, and I say trail because they were smeared into a line. She must have been tired when she entered the password. Or...dizzy, from loss of blood, maybe? Or fighting hard against Dark Samus' control, or being chased by Pirates, or...calm down. She was probably just tired. I pressed lightly against the symbols in the order of the line, careful to avoid the blue glow. The panel flashed red and emitted a buzzer. I huffed and entered it again, this time the other way around. The panel chimed a confirmation, flashed green, and almost released the elevator onto my foot. I managed to twitch it out of the way in time, though.
I cautiously stepped onto the floor panel, and the platform shuddered as the mechanism pulled it into the ship. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I could see that the captain's chair was reclined in the cryo-sleep position and the instruments were dim. I stepped forward slowly, making my way around the chair's right side to see Samus' prone form. Gone were any traces of a Power Suit, revealing the Zero Suit underneath. I could see the Paralyzer strapped to her thigh, but I wasn't paying attention to that. I was looking at her glowing blue eyes, crackling with suppressed Phazon energy.
Not good., I thought decisively, turning slightly to press the Biohazard Scan button. I stepped to the left side of the chair as the Diagnosis Panel extended, reaching forward to twist the knob for the presumably-unconscious bounty hunter. The arrows lined up, the bars appeared, and the panel scanned the results before proclaiming, 'Status: Corrupted', switching shortly to, 'Corruption Level: 100%'. Then something new appeared, something I hadn't seen before: 'Attempt to siphon excess Phazon?', over a green and red button. Glancing at Samus, I tapped the green button.
The chair abruptly made itself vertical again as something that looked like an artificial Metroid lowered itself onto Samus' head. The fangs penetrated her skin, and the nuclei inside slowly lit up blue as, hopefully, the excess Phazon was drained from Samus' system. Her eyes did seem a little dimmer...My attention was brought back to the Diagnosis Panel as a new message flashed up, 'Phazon siphoning in progress. Estimated time of completion: One hour.'. I had to stay here for an hour? Wait...the ship had to stay here for an hour!? Nuh uh, that wasn't an option. The military was probably already on their way here to seize the thing, provided anybody called and they didn't think it was a joke. No, this ship had to move now, and I had no idea how to make it without Samus. I lifted her hand and placed it against the scanner, but nothing happened. She probably needed to be conscious, or maybe it didn't recognize her due to the Phazon. Either way, I was stuck. Unless...
I searched around on the instrument panel in front of me, and it didn't take long to find a flashing light with the word 'Message' on it. I quickly flipped the switch below it, and Aurora Unit 242 appeared in all her holographic glory. I knew it was a her even before she started talking because, apparently, they had given her hologram an upgrade. Instead of a giant floating brain, she was now a complete holographic person. She looked somewhat like Gandrayda, but had a billowy shawl wrapped around her shoulders and tights running down her legs. Also she had all her skin. Sort of a mix between Fi and Cortana, with Gandrayda's shade of purple. "Samus, where are you? You never came out the other...you aren't Samus Aran.", she stated plainly, and I agreed, "No, I'm not. I'm Jason Thrace, human, speaking to you from Samus' Gunship in the year 2013. It seems the Leviathan's, maybe because of a malfunction or maybe because of the code Samus entered, not only made a tunnel through space, but time as well. Anyways, that's not the reason I answered. As you no doubt know, military from this era have no clue about the galaxy, and our technology is primitive. It would be catastrophic if they found Samus' ship. Imagine it, humans given Chozo tech before they get farther than Mars. The damage to the time stream would be horrible!". The AU hummed in agreement before saying, "Alright, I see your point. Archaic cavemen finding Samus' gunship would be horrible, and my temporal scanners indicate you are telling the truth about Samus' time jump. I will activate a heading override the Galactic Federation built into the ship.". "I resent that caveman comment. And I can only imagine the words Samus would use if she found out about that heading override.", I told 242, and she nodded in agreement.
I sat down on the floor of the ship as we lifted off, pulling out my phone and calling my parents. "What's happening!? That ship is leaving with you!", my Mom screamed, and I told her soothingly, "Calm down Mum, it's not going anywhere. It just has to move so the military doesn't find it.", and she screeched, "THAT'S NOT 'NOT GOING ANYWHERE!'". I sighed and said, "Look, I have to turn my phone off so the military or police or...whoever can't track it. I'll come back when I can.". "Don't you dare hang up on me young man!", she screeched, and I was forced to resort to saying, "Oh, the ship'ssshhhhh...uments are...shhhhhh...fering with the sigshhhhhh...", before I turned the device off and pulling the battery out. I sighed in relief and turned to 242 to ask, "So where are we going?". "A small, uncharted island off the coast of your current landmass.", she answered, and I supplied helpfully, "Canada.", then gazed thoughtfully at the organic construct as something occured to me. "Hey, 242? What happened to the Leviathan?", I asked, and the ship almost fell out of the sky. "Scanners on Samus' gunship indicate that the Leviathan is currently heading toward your planet at an alarming rate.", the construct said shakily, and I responded with a, "WHAT!?". I rushed over to Samus, checking the Diagnostic Panel. 'Estimated time to completion: 45 Earth minutes', it said, and I quickly asked 242, "How long until planetary impact?", waiting barely a second before receiving, "Half an Earth hour.", as an answer. I let out a strangled noise before asking, "Any way to speed up the Phazon leeching process?".
"Well, if you activated Hypermode manually and made her shoot her cannon, the excess Phazon would be drained, but...", she started before I cut her off with, "But she put herself in stasis so Dark Samus couldn't control her, I know.". She looked affronted, and made to ask another question but thought better of it. "Well what do you suggest?", she asked instead, and I thought about it for a second before offering, "Reroute the siphon's power to the ship's thrusters and have her power them?", and 242 scoffed. "That's the stupidest idea I've ever...wait, that could actually work.", she amended in a surprised tone. "What, prepared to write off anything an archaic caveman could come up with as useless?", I said, repeating her earlier words as the ship's displays turned bright blue. She had the decency to look sheepish. The time on the Diagnostic Panel turned into a spinning Screw Attack before displaying '5 minutes'. I sighed in relief as Samus' eyes dimmed much more quickly, and soon her normal eyes stared out the viewport vacantly. We touched down on the island, and as I gazed out at it from the ship I commented, "Never noticed this place before...".
Then Samus rocketed to her feet as her suit formed around her and pointed her cannon at me, the casing bulging to show it was set to the Plasma Beam. "Who are you? How did you get in here?", she demanded, and I gently turned the weapon away from me with a fingertip. Once the business end of the superheated Chozo tech was safely away from my face I said, "I'm Jason. You went through a time warp along with the Leviathan, and are now in the past. I got in here with the password, which was smeared with Phazon fingerprints. 242 rerouted the Phazon to the thrusters to drain the mutagen in your system much more quickly than Mr. Metroid over there. And before you ask how I know what Phazon and Metroids are, don'tcha think you should take care of that Leviathan hurtling toward Earth?".
The woman blinked from behind her visor before saying quickly, "Yes. Don't go anywhere though, I want to talk to you.". As I moved to the elevator platform I said sarcastically, "We're on an island, dear. What am I gonna do, swim to shore? This is the twenty-first century, a primitive time when not everyone is privileged enough to have a faceship.", and the elevator lowered. "Faceship?", I heard her mutter to herself before the gap closed. I stepped off the platform and regarded my surroundings as Samus took off, bound for the Leviathan. There wasn't much that I could see, owing to the fact that there was a dense forest covering much of the island. I tilted my head and stared at the forest, then looked up at the glowing dot in the sky that was Samus' ship. I looked back at the forest, shrugged, and started walking. I hope there aren't any Space Pirates in here., I thought to myself, stepping over roots and pushing leaves out of the way. My foot squelched, and I had to force myself to not look down and simply wipe it on some grass. Thoroughly. I kept walking, quickly getting bored as I discovered nothi - OH MY FUCKING GOD, A CHOZO GHOST!
It was true. Flitting in between the trees was one of the pale apparitions usually found on Tallon IV. What the HELL is it doing here!?, I thought to myself, dodging a freezing cold blast of energy, And what does it want from me!?. I decided to voice the question, yelling out, "What do you want from me!?", as I rolled to avoid another blast. And it stopped. Stopped flying around, stopped blasting me, didn't even go invisible. Just stopped. Then it flew at me, far faster than I could run, and as it touched me, I looked into it's eyes. All I saw there was cold, insanity, and death.
The author sighs in content, letting his phone fall from his hands as he cracks his neck. "There.", he says to himself, "My greatest, most serious fic to date. Well, the first chapter, anyways. I wonder, should there be a second?".
(If that hint just kinda...soared over your head, I was asking you all if I should continue. I'm also wondering if there's anything I could do to make it better. Tell me in your reviews! ...Please.)