METROID: SHADOWS OF X

Over the molten rock fragments that were once SR388, a stone stood out clearly from the rest of the others. As it came closer to another fragment of the planet, it absorbed it, growing in mass in the process. An orange gelatinous fluid formed around it, and suddenly it was surrounded by an unprecedented amount more of the viscous gel-like substance. From every fragment of the planet within reach, the jelly emerged, joining the central mass. Suddenly it began to take shape, spreading out into a bipedal humanoid form. From then, it formed a black skeleton, pale gray muscle and snow white skin. Around the skin, an orange suit of armor began to form, first a thin plate of light armor, and then, as more of the gel merged with it, parts of the armor became thicker and bulkier, and turned an orange color. It had a head, and a face, though it wasn't really necessary, as the gel itself was its eyes and ears. Around its head were a helmet and a green visor protecting its face. The gel had formed it's version of a human, one that it had possessed not too long ago. It was all too familiar with this form, the way the fingers tensed up if it tightened the muscles in the arms, or the way the leg flexed forward and backward when it walked.

It looked over at its right arm and saw an unformed skeleton. Searching around for any remaining orange gel, its core essence, it came across a large asteroid floating slowly in space. Finally, as it approached the asteroid, a portion of the gel that it had previously not uncovered emerged. This gel however, was different. It felt wrong, and the dark violet color was strange; it was then that it realized that the gel was not a part of itself, and the dark energy coming off of it made it a threat to the pseudo human's survival. Suddenly, memories from its previous host began to emerge. It saw itself standing in a dark place, at the center of a room. From underneath the platform, a creature emerged without warning. It was like looking in a mirror: the creature had armor identical to the one the pseudo human wore, but at the same time it was different somehow. The color was wrong, a dark blue, turning into black when the light did not reflect from it. Two large orbs of energy shone on its shoulders and it leaked the same energy into its environment. Phazon. The concept of words that was once so complicated to it suddenly felt so simple, as the collective intelligence of every human host it had once possessed merged with the memories of its previous mind. Phazon, the dark element that corrupts life forms and turns them into something dark, evil and destructive. The memories of the word and the substance that it belonged to suddenly became clear to it.

With no means to defend itself, it chose to cannibalize part of the gel that made up the armor, and formed the right arm from there, along with the arm cannon which surrounded it. Without enough of its core material, it could not fully recreate it, but instead went for a simpler design, one that its former host used against it, although it only served one basic purpose – to protect the pseudo human. No, it thought. Not pseudo human, SA-X. The name that she called me, what… Samus, named me... The X fff, that is what I am, and I must survive – I live to feed, to absorb, to collect. I am all, and all will be me!

Wasting no time, it charged up, and released a blast of bright burning energy from the arm cannon and shot it at the phazon gel. The gel held strong to the asteroid which housed it. It absorbed the energy of the beam, and let out a blast of its own energy in a shotgun-like burst. The beam penetrated the SA-X's chest, and left it immobilized. The gel then entered the armor through the newly opened orifice, and began to spread along the body of its enemy. The dark energy emanating from it began to corrupt the SA-X, but as this unknown energy merged with it, it gave it something new: food. The energy that the phazon released fed it, and allowed it to grow. The SA-X spread from its original cells, and created a new body for itself. Perhaps this phazon isn't as bad as she thought, the SA-X thought.

The new core split from the portion that was still uncorrupted, and reformed itself in the shape of her old host, only this time, it chose to combine parts that it had seen in its memories. Its suit had turned white, and was more streamlined and rounded to its shape, like the light suit from Aether. The armor on its legs was light, like Samus' new armor, the chest armor was bulkier, like that of the dark suit that she once wore, and its arm cannon now housed a combined arsenal of super diffusion missiles, the Nova beam that could pierce the phazite armor of its foe, and an active Hyper mode, as its body now seemed to be producing an unsurpassable amount of energy. If it corrupted living matter so easily, what will it do with my body? The SA-X wondered, as the intense power that coursed through its body concentrated in its right arm, charging up an intense blast of green pulsing energy.

The merger of the two different beings however, served the phazon well. It soon began to produce its own dark energy from within the corrupted X . Using this energy, it corrupted the remaining fragments of the planet that remained into phazon, and began to gorge on the toxic element. As it did so, the color of its armor began to change into the dark violet color of phazon. Soon, it had restored itself to its former strength, and using the immense energy of the X- phazon, Dark Samus tapped into the genetic memory properties of the X . It realized that it too possessed such abilities: the power to create whatever creature it had once corrupted with phazon.

It formed several phazon creatures to practice it, and then absorbed them back into its body. Satisfied with its newfound powers, it created several metroid from the floating phazon dust in space, and commanded them to attack the SA-X. It then proceeded to release immense quantities of X- phazon, which the metroid immediately devoured. In doing so, they began to change in form. Their fangs began to become elongated, and the muscle that surrounded them stretched and became long legs. Their skin turned into a black shell and they began to grow uncontrollably. Once they had become twenty times their previous size, they changed form, going from their regular larval form into something that resembled their juvenile hopper metroid stage, finally turning into versions of the Metroid Prime that Dark Samus had once been. Then, the metroid left the larval Prime shell they were in, and developed into their Essence form.

As the SA-X faced these enemies, its instincts told it to run. It smelled its natural predator right in front of it, and could now see it as well, due to its newly formed body. It released the Nova blast that it had been charging for the last few minutes at Dark Samus, but the Metroid Prime Essences it created blocked it. The SA-X's memories of Samus' fight with the original Metroid Prime Essence resurfaced, and it quickly absorbed the phazon dust floating around it and supercharged the beam. Then, entering Hyper Mode, it merged the Hyper Beam with the phazon dust, giving her a weapon more powerful than any of Samus'. It fired the Hyper Phazon Beam at the Metroid Prime Essences that protected Dark Samus, supercharging them with phazon and overloading them. Without a shell to pour the phazon into, the Metroid Prime Essences exploded, littering the gravity-less battlefield in phazon dust.

That was close. If I had let down my guard, they would have devoured me. But two can play at that game. If Dark Samus chooses to create these beasts instead of fighting me directly, then I shall just have to do the same, the SA-X though furiously. Suddenly, it created a smaller Core X from its own, and split it into many simultaneous ones from there. Thinking of a suitable creation, it remembered the bio machine that it had encountered. It then formed one of the cores into Nightmare, the creature that could manipulate gravity. Now the odds were in its favor.

The Nightmare created a gravity field where the two adversaries floated. The dust settled into a thin platform of phazon. The SA-X then charged up a diffusion missile, and blasted the toxic element, turning it into ice. Focusing a gravity field upon Dark Samus, the Nightmare tried to slow down the demonic enemy that its master faced. The SA-X cackled as it thought, Finally this battle will be over, and I shall move on to conquer the next world out there with no predators to stop me! Finding no humor in the situation, Dark Samus shot a phazon pebble at the Nightmare, embedding its corrupting powers into the creature. The Nightmare then changed the gravity into a different direction, on the SA-X itself. The SA-X then turned the remaining Core Xs into creatures to protect it from Dark Samus. One turned into Cerris, the other into Ridley X and the final one into the combined form of all of its hosts. Dark Samus then dissolved the Nightmare into a creature that would be more suitable against these enemies. From the dust of the Nightmare, it resurrected Omega Ridley, its once faithful servant, to protect his queen. With a twitch of its tail, it stabbed Cerris and consumed the Core X it released. Once it saw its X copy, Omega Ridley went into a fit of rage. It shot out blasts of energy from its mouth and destabilized the X copy's form, and then it incinerated its Core X. It stood no match however, against the combined X form, whose sheer power and uncontrolled instinct tore it to shreds as if it were paper. The combined X then grabbed Dark Samus and began to try to tear it apart. Dark Samus released a large amount of energy, until finally it overloaded the combined X and burnt it into ashes.

The two Samus doppelgangers stood on the icy platform, running out of energy. The SA-X had used up most of its energy in creating the X copies, while Dark Samus had burnt out most of its phazon in destroying them. It didn't have enough energy left to create more phazon, let alone find any remaining fragments of it floating in space. Suddenly, the SA-X charged towards Dark Samus, and, turning into its Core form, enveloped it within itself. It overwhelmed Dark Samus, who was helpless to defend itself at that point. As it absorbed the phazon energy left in Dark Samus, they began to mutate. As Dark Samus was the remnants of the Metroid Prime, the X was rejecting it, but the SA-X held on tightly to it. Managing to absorb every bit of its energy, the SA-X had killed the final metroid left. In doing so however, it too was dying. Before the metroid DNA killed it off completely, it split itself into two. As the old Core X died, a new one was released. The X was no longer gelatinous. It had acquired a solid shape after merging with its enemy, and what had once been Dark Samus' armor now housed the X nucleus. It maintained its humanoid form, but it could no longer mutate into the form of its former hosts. It managed to recover its genetic memory for skin and bones, organs and muscle, and it gave itself form within the tough phazon armor that now covered it. It flexed the fingers on its right hand. Just as i remember it, it thought. The arm cannon still covered its right arm, but it could feel the immense power that ran through it from a combination of its own weapons and Dark Samus' own deadly arsenal. "I….," it uttered in a low guttural voice, "I live!" We live, said a deeper, raspy voice inside of the SA-X's head. "Who are you?" the X asked aloud. I am the rightful owner of this body. I am the darkness that makes up the universe. I am the Metroid Prime, it responded. The SA-X looked around, shocked as it heard its former foe's voice for the first time. Realizing that it was inside of it, it created a wall of ice that reflected the light from the nearby star, creating a mirror. The SA-X saw itself for the first time: a black suit made of phazon covered it. In the portion of the suit where the soft armor was, a slight orange glow escaped from below the armor. The SA-X stopped as its gaze fell upon its chest, for it saw two thin slits that looked like malevolent looking eyes staring back at it. On its stomach, a clear portion of the armor revealed the Metroid Prime's nucleus, then suddenly the armor became black again, and the nucleus disappeared. X ray vision, the SA-X thought to itself, but to its surprise the Metroid Prime answered, yes the energy given off of the phazon allowed me to see through things. That way I could find the hidden veins of phazon in the worlds I visited. There is still a world out there filled with the X, and another filled with phazon. We must find them, and help your brethren to be like me. The SA-X contemplated the thought. If it worked together with its new host, it could find more X, and together they could take over the galaxy - the universe itself. And with the toxic world, the X could evolve, protect themselves from Samus. The SA-X raised its arm cannon in front of it, and a large spinning beam escaped from the barrel. In front of it, a wormhole materialized. Then, it asked the Metroid Prime, "What shall we call ourselves now?" We shall be, the Metroid Prime answered, the X Prime. They cackled madly, and moved towards the wormhole rotating in front of them, hoping to find Samus once again and destroy her once and for all.