The pirate fell back on the ground, head reeling. A large black cloud seemed to emanate from his chest, frantically swarming away, trying to escape. The force of the concussion left the pirate on the ground, barely able to move; he could only watch the strange cloud as it fearfully made its way toward the sky.

A blast of hot light intercepted the swarm; there was a noise, a single high-pitched scream, and the cloud dissipated into the atmosphere.

The pirate looked down, and saw her. Her right arm, covered in the impressive cannon, was aimed up at where the cloud had been. The rest of her body was arranged for balance and stability; her legs were spread apart, one in front of the other, and her other arm was in a fist, held out to one side to counter the weight of her arm cannon.

Feeling began to return to the pirate's body, and, while Samus was preoccupied with scanning the skies, he slowly got up. He checked himself for injuries; there were a few scorch marks on his face, but aside from that, he seemed surprisingly intact. He turned to face her, and had to admit that she had an impressive form. She stood tall, looking up at the sky, lowering her arm and straightening her body. She was no longer checking to see if any remaining fragment of the Ing had escaped, but was instead looking at the sky of Aether. The pirate looked up as well, just in time to see the normally blue sky fade to a sickening dark violet. It was a disturbing reminder that Aether itself was in conflict; the two planets fought for dominance themselves even as their inhabitants struggled to survive.

The pirate looked down at Samus again, just as she too lowered her gaze and spotted him. "Shit!" she cried, whipping into a battle stance and aiming her arm cannon directly at his head. "I thought I killed you!"

The pirate shrugged, and sat down on a rock. "For a moment there, so did I," a deep, cool voice came from his misshapen throat. "And yet here I am."

Samus's eyes widened; pirates couldn't speak English. Sometimes, she wasn't even sure if they spoke Pirate. Was it possible that...

No. Her eyes narrowed again, and she began to charge a shot. "You're using a language filter," she growled. "To confuse me. Let me tell you, it won't help."

"I have no such filter," the pirate replied. "Command would never allow us to carry such a thing; they would rather the space and power needed for it be used for a slightly bigger gun." He shifted his position on the rock. "Also, it does seem to help. Under any other circumstances, you would have shot me by now."

"Shut up!" Samus shouted. "Turn your filter off, and I'll make this easy on you!"

The pirate stood up. "You don't believe me," he observed. "Then here. I'll prove it."

Before Samus could react, he pressed a small button hidden on his shoulder. There was a soft hissing noise, and then the pirate's armor fell off, leaving only his relatively weak exoskeleton.

The pirate cleared his throat, producing a strange, high-pitched sound as he did so. "There," he said. "And I'm still talking, so you can tell..."

Samus stepped closer, still pointing her blaster at the pirate's head—a move even more deadly now that he was unarmored. "Why did you do that?" she hissed.

"Well, for one I wanted to prove to you that I know English," the pirate said, not moving from his seat atop the rock. "For another... I owe you for removing the possessing Ing from my body. Making it easier to kill me is my repayment."

Samus shook her head. None of this made sense; first the space pirate knew English, and now he was making it easier for her to kill him as a favor? She glared up at him. "How the hell did you learn English? Talk fast!"

The pirate stood. "We have a large amount of data regarding human society that we stole from..." he trailed off. "...from K-2L, when we first attacked there. I am simply the first in a long time who has viewed enough of it."

Samus stopped in her tracks. "You mean," she said, her voice suddenly subdued, "you learned from... from the..."

The pirate lowered his head. "I'm sorry," he said. "I probably should not have told you that."

Samus gave a harsh laugh. "Sorry? You? What the hell do you mean?"

The pirate looked at her again. "Your parents died in that attack. You were only spared because you were too small to be considered a threat. I..." he shifted uncomfortably as he continued. "I can understand why you would be uncomfortable discussing it."

Samus's eyes narrowed even further as the pirate spoke. She took a step forward, extending her weapon a little. "You know, it does make me uncomfortable," she said, her voice low, cool, and dangerous. "And it pisses me off, that you, a pirate—a member of the group responsible—would have the gall to even try to talk to me about it."

The pirate's claws clamped shut, clenching into his equivalent of fists. He shifted his gaze down to the barrel of the arm cannon, ready for whatever came out.

At last, Samus fired. The shot blasted by the pirate's head, leaving a faint scorch mark and dull feeling of pain on his hear.

"No pirate would have the audacity to talk to me," Samus said. She lowered her arm cannon. "So what the hell does that make you?"

The pirate didn't allow his body to relax; he looked back into Samus's eyes. "If I knew," he said, "I'd tell you."

Samus looked at him, then turned and began to walk away.

"Stop following me," she called. The passageways of the Temple Grounds were tight and dangerous enough without this strange pirate keeping only ten meters behind her at all times.

"If you want me gone," the pirate said, "why don't you shoot me? It would certainly solve your problem."

Samus whipped around, glaring at the pirate from under her visor. The way he had said it to her was infuriating, but not because it was sarcastic; because it was quite the opposite. He wasn't challenging her to shoot him, he was simply suggesting it.

"Do you want me to shoot you?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"No." Again, the way he said it was infuriating. It wasn't defensive, or defiant, or hasty, or anything Samus would have expected it to be; it was a simple, matter-of-fact statement.

"Why do you talk like that?" Samus grumbled, turning back and continuing on her way forward.

"Like what?" the pirate asked, following after her, staying exactly ten meters away.

"Like that," she sighed. "Without emotion. Just as if everything is the way it is, and you have no power to change it."

"What, exactly, do you mean?" the pirate asked again.

"Like when I was going to shoot you," Samus said, shooting a door open. "You didn't act like you thought you could do anything about it."

"Because I obviously couldn't," the pirate responded. "The few pirates that met you and lived were the ones smart enough to hide from you." He sighed. "Anyway, to answer your question, that's the way we're taught to think—the way we're conditioned to think from the day we are created. We accept orders and carry them out. We do not question, we do not tarry, we do not think for ourselves."

Samus glanced back at him. "I'm pretty sure that taking your armor off and speaking with the enemy instead of attacking her counts as thinking for yourself."

The pirate lowered his eyes. "I did not say that the conditioning process was perfect."

"So what does that make you?" Samus asked. They were only a few halls away from her destination now.

"A mutant," the pirate said. "A minor defect in my brain escaped notice while I was being created and trained. I myself am the only one who knows about it, and I keep it a secret."

"What sort of defect?" Samus asked.

"Curiosity," the trooper replied.

Samus stopped, and turned to look at him, prompting him to go on.

The pirate lowered his eyes. "You see," he said, "Troopers do have down time, but because of the way we are conditioned, we only use it to rest and prepare for more duties later. I, on the other hand, found myself wishing to learn something. Anything." He looked up at Samus. "And so I learned about you. I learned about the language you speak, the society you came from—the humans, I mean. We actually have very little data on the Chozo." He took a breath. "Regardless, we had a great deal of stolen human data from our raids on K-2L and Zebes. And so I studied it, and so here I am."

"Here you are," Samus agreed.

The pirate hesitated, then took a tentative step forward. "I... find myself wondering," he said, "as to why you haven't... shot me yet."

Samus bit her lip, then shrugged. "I can't honestly say I know myself," she said. "But if I had to guess, I'd say it's... it's because I'm..." she trailed off.

"Lonely?" the pirate suggested.

Samus only looked at him for a moment.

He turned his eyes away. "I apologize, Huntress. I didn't mean to...

"Wait, what?" Samus interrupted him. "What did you call me?"

"Huntress."

Samus furrowed her brow. "The pirates all call me the hunter."

"That is inappropriate," the pirate said. "You are a female, and should therefore be addressed as the feminine form of hunter, or Huntress."

Samus peered at him from behind her visor.

"Unless," the pirate added, "you prefer to be referred to as Hunter?"

Samus shook her head. "Tell you what. If you need to have a word for me, just say 'Miss Aran'."

The pirate nodded. "So be it, miss Aran."

Samus turned and continued through the caves, thinking pensively. She had no idea what to think about the pirate; he had not attacked her. Then again, she hadn't attacked him; perhaps that had something to do with it. Samus usually didn't hurt creatures such as zoomers or kralees when she could avoid it, but pirates always died shortly after she spotted them. But for some reason, she thought of this pirate the same way she did geemers or gliders; she just wanted to live and let live. It didn't help that he was following her, but even so, she just didn't see a reason to kill him—and for her, that was reason enough not to.

The pirate followed after her, still maintaining his distance. Soon, however, he was distracted from Samus as they passed a large steel grating in one of the caves. He peered through the grating, and found himself looking at a young human—a female, as far as he could tell—clad in the armor of a Federation Marine and leaning against a rock wall next to a switch. Her helmet was cracked, and the angle she was lying at told the pirate that she was long dead.

The pirate turned and ran toward Samus, catching up to her as she opened the door out of the cave. "Where are we going?" he asked softly.

Samus only motioned outward. "See for yourself." She stepped forward out of the cave, allowing the pirate to see what lay in wait for them outside.

His eyes widened. It wasn't necessarily a large ship, but it was armed and armored to the point where it could have held its own against any true battleship. Even so, it was heavily damaged; components had been stripped, it had been subjected to repeated attacks, and a small area near the gaping hole in the side was on fire.

"The GFS Tyr," the pirate said, awed.

Samus only nodded.

"Her name was Angseth," Samus sighed, sitting against a rock.

"I beg your pardon?" the pirate said, looking around. The cliff that the Tyr had landed on was now strewn with death and destruction. The corpses of GF troopers lay everywhere. It was disturbing to think that these were once living human beings, eating at a table together, slapping each other on the backs as they laughed at each others' jokes—and now they were just so much dead matter. The trooper then thought of the pirates, and how, though they too were full of life at times, they were told that death was simply what came if one did not do his job correctly.

He shut his eyes and tried not to think about it.

"Angseth," Samus repeated. "The girl you saw in the cave back there. Specialist M. Angseth." She laughed weakly. "Never did find out what the damned M stood for."

The pirate sat down, leaning against a rock across from Samus. "Did you know her?"

"No," Samus said. "But she knew me. She—when I scanned her suit, I was able to retrieve some of her personal log. She complained about being stuck on monitor duty, and said I-" she laughed. "She said I would never be caught pushing buttons when there was more important work to be done." Samus sighed. "I guess the kid idolized me. It's weird, though. I never met her, and only after she's dead do I realize what she thought about me."

The trooper remained silent.

Samus pointed to another body, this one on a nearby ledge. "Him," she said. "His name was Crany. Angseth was the only one who knew I was responsible for the fall of Zebes, and when she tried to tell him, he wrote her off. Said he didn't believe in me, or Bigfoot, or Santa Claus." She laughed some more.

The pirate cocked his head. "What is Bigfoot?"

Samus stared at him for a moment, then shook her head. "I guess that the database you studied didn't have any stories like that in it."

"It did have some Earth stories," the pirate said. "Titles such as Goldilocks, Rumpelstiltskin, Little Red Riding Hood, Pinocchio." He thought for a moment, then spoke again, more softly. "I realize now that they were probably stories read to you by your parents."

Samus looked at him for a moment, then reached up and took off her helmet, laying it on the ground beside her. As the pirate looked into her clear blue eyes, he was surprised to see tears forming in them.

She turned away, and pointed toward another body, this one leaning against a console. "Him," she said. "Captain A. Exeter. When the Ing attacked their camp, he survived just long enough to record a message, and then fell, right where he is now." She looked over at the body. "I... I shut his eyes. But that's all. I couldn't bear to... to move any of them... to tamper with their final moments..."

The pirate looked around. "Why would you want to return here," he asked, "if it incites such negative emotions in you?"

Samus glanced at the ship. "Because they help me." She sighed heavily. "It's complicated, I guess, but..." She turned her eyes up toward the great temple. "The Emperor Ing is in the dark world version of that temple. He'll rally his forces and try to regain the energy I stole, unless I take him down and destroy Dark Aether altogether."

The pirate nodded slowly.

"So I need moral support," Samus sighed. "And being here reminds me of what these people did, what they died for. And... then I can fight for them." She nodded. "It does help. Really."

The pirate nodded. "I don't doubt it." He looked around the area once more. "You... you say the Ing did this?"

Samus nodded. "They possessed a hive of splinters—giant insects—and moved in on the base. The troopers fought well..."

"But not well enough," the pirate finished.

"I saw the whole thing on Captain Exeter's recording. There were just so many of them... the troopers fought hard, but were eventually overwhelmed."

The pirate nodded, but Samus realized he wasn't paying full attention; he was looking off into space, pensively. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"The Ing," he said. "If mere insects—albeit a swarm of them—could do this sort of damage under their influence, what must a dark pirate be like?"

Samus bit her lip. "The Ing can possess pirates easily, because they've been trained to unquestioningly follow orders—with, of course, some exceptions," she said, blinking at her companion. "And they augment the pirates' weapons with their own dark powers. They take a hell of a lot to drop and can hit you back—hard. I try to make battles with them quick and decisive."

The pirate took a breath and hesitated before speaking. "I... I am glad you we able to free me from them," he said.

Samus peered at him. "Actually, when I kill a dark pirate, or any darkling, both the host and Ing die. But when I fired a super missile into you, you survived—and the Ing came out. How could that have happened?"

The pirate shrugged. "As you said, the Ing can possess pirates so easily because they're conditioned to take orders. And as I said, the conditioning doesn't work every time."

"I see," Samus said. She remained silent for a moment, but then a thought crossed her mind. She looked up. "What were you doing around that area, anyway? I've rarely seen any pirates, normal or possessed, in most areas of the Temple Grounds."

The pirate looked down. "Actually... I've been meaning to talk to you about that..."

Samus sat up straight. "What do you mean?" she said, a little confused.

The pirate looked into her eyes. "I did possess a curiosity not typical of my species, and so I learned about human culture from the K-2L database. But more importantly, I stumbled across a few files I haven't yet told you about."

"What files?"

The pirate hesitated for a moment. "Perhap's it's best if I..."

"Please," Samus said. Part of her was certain that it was a trap; that the pirate was only stalling until his comrades could arrive, and she should just shoot him now while he was only lightly armed and completely unarmored. But the rest of her wanted to hear what the pirate had to say, and, more importantly, to say something as well. She knew that she couldn't afford to take any chances, and yet she was doing so anyway.

She didn't have a problem with it. Not this time.

The pirate took a slow breath before speaking. "Very well. I found a log—a diary, would be more accurate—kept by one Virginia Aran during her time on K-2L."

Samus's eyes widened, and she felt them beginning to water.

"It took me the longest time to link the little girl she described from day to day to the Hunter, the vicious soldier who mercilessly killed pirate after pirate out of vengeance. At first, I was unable to believe it. I always questioned what I was told, but even so, all I knew about you is that you killed pirates, you were damned good at it, and you enjoyed it. And then I heard Virginia describe you as a cute little girl, playing with your friends during the day or your father when he got off of work." He sighed. "Mrs. Aran wrote with extensive detail on your childhood. She was sure to record every major development in your growth—first step, first word, first time playing with friends.

"I couldn't believe it was you, however. I couldn't believe that this same young, playful girl now donned Chozo technology and hunted bounties for a living. But two things served to change my mind. First, the diary entries ended abruptly. I cross-checked the date of the final entry, and found that on the next day, Ridley attacked K-2L."

Tears began to trickle down Samus's face. She turned away, so that the pirate wouldn't see—and because there was something in his eyes that she just couldn't meet.

"And then I found your ship."

Samus sprung up, pointing her arm cannon at where the pirate sat. "You found my-?!"

The pirate held up his hand. "Please, Samus; hear me out. I initially thought to use the ship and any information it held against you, and so I climbed aboard and hacked your system."

"How?!" Samus cried. "Everything was-"

"Very well protected," the pirate said. "Many external security systems had been disabled by your rough entry to the planet, but the internal systems, the computer's firewalls and encryptions, were very much intact—and very hard to hack. I was about to leave, for fear of you showing up and catching me in the act, when I finally broke through. And then I..." he shut his eyes. "I..."

Samus didn't move. Her eyes were wide, and her gun was pointed directly at his head. "What?" she demanded. "What did you-"

"I saw a few files," the pirate interrupted, "Files that made me leave to find you—although the Ing found me first—because they suddenly made me realized that everything I knew was wrong."

"What do you mean?" Samus said, still aiming her gun at him.

"There was a video," the pirate said. "A surveillance camera—probably part of a security system disabled in your crash here—recorded you approaching the ship, on Tallon IV, I believe. A zoomer suddenly scuttled across your path, knocking into you as it did so. You cursed aloud, and aimed at it... and then you put your gun down, grumbled, and returned to the ship."

Samus shook her head. "I don't under..."

"There was more," the pirate replied. "More videos, some taken by your ship, some stolen from our own security systems on various planets. There was one, for example; you were on board the Orpheon frigate, and you passed by a wounded pirate. You looked down at him, hesitated for a moment, and then shot him."

"What does that have to do with..."

"He was in pain," the pirate said. "You were faced with a choice: you could leave him to his fate—or, if you were exceptionally sadistic, torture him even more—or put him out of his misery. And you chose the higher path."

Samus turned away, lowering her gun as she did so. "He was a pirate. If he had lived, he would have shot at me. I killed him for that, not out of pity."

"The Chozo ghosts," the pirate said suddenly.

Samus looked back at him, her face devoid of expression—but white as a sheet. "What?"

"The Chozo ghosts of Tallon IV," the pirate repeated. "Souls bound to the planet by phazon—and driven mad by the same thing. They came after you, protecting the artifacts you needed to help protect them. You had no choice but to fight, and every time you returned to your ship after a battle with the ghosts, you were doing all you could not to cry."

Samus turned away, falling silent. She wasn't sure whether the pirate was completely off-base, or closer to the truth than either of them realized.

"...As I looked through your ship's archives," the pirate said, "I found too many examples for me to ignore. You weren't the vicious killing machine I expected you to be. You..." He hesitated. "I'm not really sure how to say it..."

Samus didn't respond.

"You respect life," he said at last. "The splinters who attacked the GF troopers, the Ing who attacked the Luminoth, the pirates who destroyed your friends and family—these things you kill because you perceive their disrespect for life, and you cannot allow them to cause any more destruction. You..." he paused again. "I'm not sure how to phrase this in words..."

Samus glanced back at him. "Well?" she prompted, softly.

"When Ridley killed Virginia Aran, and all the other colonists on K-2L, he looked upon a young girl, and flew away without touching her. He let her live." He paused for a moment, thinking hard but what to say next. "Decades later, a grown woman takes the galaxy by storm, going after the infamous space pirates; partly to protect the galaxy from them, partly because she's paid to, and partly for revenge. But," the pirate interjected, "when I saw the woman respect life, instead of merely destroying it, I had to ask..." He stood up, and took a tentative step toward Samus.

She looked into his eyes, finally able to return his gaze. "What?" she asked, softly.

"Is the young girl from K-2L..." he hesitated, swallowing a lump in his throat. "Is she still alive today?"

Samus lifted her eyebrows. "Of course. I'm standing right-"

"Miss Aran..." the pirate stopped, then took a breath. "Samus..." He took another step forward, bringing his body within an inch of hers. "The girl who, so long ago, played with her friends in the forest as her father worked and her mother watched protectively... are you her?"

Samus looked at him. She recognized that strange thing in his sight now, something that she and the pirate had in common. She thought of all the friends on K-2L, and the troopers that lay dead around her; of the Chozo that vanished from Zebes shortly after she left them, and those in the Federation who took her in instead. She had been trained for battle, sent to battle, and come back from battle. But who she was had not changed.

"Yes," Samus said at last, wiping a tear from her face. "She... I am she."

The pirate did his race's equivalent of smiling. "That is... good to hear," he said. "As I said, my discovery prompted me to search for you, but only to get that one question answered. I have an answer now." He paused for a moment before adding, "as do you."

Samus nodded.

"Perhaps, some day, what we spoke of here will be helpful to you," the pirate said. "Ponder on it. That's all I can say." He took several steps back, stopping on top of a large rock, and began pushing buttons on his weapon, built-in to his claw.

"What are you doing?" Samus asked, concerned.

"You have your duty to fulfill, and I have mine," the pirate answered. His weapon began to hum as it started charging. "It was very nice meeting you, miss Aran."

"You don't have to do this," Samus said.

"Please," the pirate said. A yellow warning light began flashing on his weapon; he ignored it. "It's difficult to put this in words, but... I feel that it must be this way."

Samus hesitated a long time before shaking her head. "No," she said. "No, I..." tears were forming in her eyes again, and she could barely speak for the lump in her throat. "I won't allow it."

"There is no other way," the pirate insisted. "I set out to find you today knowing it would be the last thing I did alive. The Ing might get me, or you might shoot me before I have a chance to speak, or I might be shot for betrayal once the others realize what I've been doing, or–" he glanced down at his weapon. "–or I can be killed by a weapon overload. All things considered, I would rather take my own life than let them wrench it from me."

The yellow light turned to red, and began flashing more rapidly. Samus was still shaking her head. "No," she repeated. She lifted her arm cannon and aimed at him. "I won't let you..."

The pirate's eyes widened. "So you will kill me yourself," he said. "Very well." He shut his eyes. "Do it. I am ready."

Samus didn't respond; all the pirate heard was her weapon firing. There was the sound of breaking metal, the crackle of electricity, a flash of heat near his hand and a painful sensation through his body—

And that was it. He opened his eyes, looked down; his weapon was destroyed, broken open by Samus's shot. The stored-up energy had run through his body and discharged harmlessly into the ground. It was painful to have that much charge running through his body. But it wasn't lethal. He had survived; Samus had saved him.

He looked at her with a look of surprise. "Why did you-?"

"You have to ask?" Samus said, lowering her arm cannon. "I told you twice that I wouldn't allow it."

"But-"

"You can't give me a lecture on the sanctity of life and then expect me to stand back and watch you kill yourself," Samus interrupted. She had fully regained her composure, and was looking him directly in the eye. "It doesn't work like that."

The pirate's eyes narrowed. "You fool," he hissed. "I have nowhere to go. If I return to the pirates, they'll eventually discover what I did and have me executed. And I can't even consider seeking help from the Federation—they'd shoot me as soon as they spotted me."

"Maybe," Samus said. "But isn't that what you thought I'd do when we first met?"

The pirate fell silent.

"Go to the temple," Samus commanded. "U-Mos—the sentinel—when he sees that you're unarmed and unarmored, and if you tell him that I sent you, he'll take care of you. Stay there until I've finished with Dark Samus, and then..." she trailed off.

The pirate looked at her expectantly.

"Well," Samus said, "You'll figure something out. Maybe you're right about the Federation shooting first and asking questions later." She shrugged. "But then again, that's what you thought I'd do when I first saw you."

The pirate arose slowly, studied her for a moment, and finally nodded. "All right," he said. "I'll... I'll see what I can do."

Samus let the faintest hint of a smile cross her face before putting her helmet back on. "Good luck, pirate," she said, her voice filtering out of the suit's external speakers as she turned to walk away.

"From the sound of things," the pirate answered, "You're going to need it more than I am."

Samus cast a backwards nod at him to indicate that she had heard. She fired at the door in front of her; it swished open, then shut, and she was gone.

Author's note: I couldn't really think of a better way to end this one, although I don't like the ending it has. Still, I hope you enjoyed the story.