A/N: Usually I wouldn't put this note at the top of the story, but I figure I should give a head's up here. This story is rated mostly for violent content, but there are a few fantasies with somewhat viscerally-sexual undertones. No, this is not smut (interesting challenge, but I am not taking it today!), and there is no sex contained herein, but the theme is there, and it is not difficult to notice. Also, it is rather squicky. Just be warned. Happy reading!

Heaven

Sometimes, he dreamed in death.

Well, perhaps 'dream' was not quite the correct word. And with no synapses firing in a dead mind, perhaps he was not really dead while it happened. There was no way to gauge the time. Possibly he dreamed as he incubated, or on the operating table, his restored brain cocooned mercifully in drugged unconsciousness, mind shielded from the maddening pain of life being forced into dead tissue.

But he was not yet aware, so he considered himself dead. And he dreamed. While he was dead, he dreamed of her.

A burning wind, the sky set afire with the light of a single, dying star, the ground seared and dusty and dead—the backdrop for their glory. He stood on his legs and stretched to his full, impressive height, dwarfing the tiny, golden creature glowing before him in the ethereal light. She did nothing but raise her gun arm in his direction, an acknowledgment as much as a threat, and he bowed to return the courtesy, jaws agape and plasma dripping from his mouth to further char the earth. He did not speak to her that first time, for he supposed he could not imagine what she would have said in reply. He did not know her then beyond the quickness of her movements and the deadly accuracy of her aim. And, really, what else mattered, even now? Their battle was fierce: ducking, swooping, striking, neither one touched by fatigue in this bizarre dream that, for all of its grandeur, was still not quite as good as the real thing. He felt no pain, not even hers when he finally ripped her arm from its socket and swallowed it down, armor and all. And she fought on despite it. Beautiful.

The first time he dreamed, he'd thought it was heaven.

When he had awoken in one of the frigate med labs, his claws achingly empty and his mind utterly disoriented, he had thrown a fit of truly epic proportions. Many medics crawled from the room in terror, oozing out of their cracked carapaces and chirruping in terror for soldiers to come restrain him. Some were unable to leave the room at all. He raged in complete confusion, destroying bodies and equipment with abandon as he searched for the Hunter, not understanding how she could disguise her golden hide well enough to disappear into nothing in such an austere room. It had taken twenty armored pirate guards to subdue him in a ridiculous, undignified dog pile long enough for someone to drill through his thick skin and sedate him.

Perhaps that was why they kept him drugged now, even after he opened his eyes of his own volition.

After so many times, the dreams began to war with his actual memories until he was unsure about what was reality and what was fantasy. Had he truly nearly swallowed her whole, only to choke her back out covered in bile, insides on fire from missiles launched directly down his throat? What of that one time, that almost funny time when he had speared her to the ground with his tail and she had shot him in the face with her grapple beam, and neither moved for a moment while waiting to see what the other would do until they both laughed and twisted their weapons in deeper? Had that really happened? She had taken his eye, he was fairly sure, but those are easy enough to replace, and with minimal scarring. Maybe he would ask her next time they met.

Then there were the things he knew had never happened. The dreams he hated to admit he anticipated and always left him feeling particularly agitated when he awoke.

Again—always?—that barren, wasted landscape with its burning, too-thin air. She could not survive there outside of her suit. That armor that he couldn't help but think of as her real skin, her beautiful scales, something he was disgusted to discover he admired. Knowing that she was little more than a mollusk—a slimy slug encased in a golden shell—did nothing to quell that admiration either, despite how disdainful he felt of her weak, tiny body. He so rarely saw or thought of the meat-creature that was the Hunter; he did not have to when she came to him prepared for battle. But sometimes he dreamed, and it became charged beyond the furious adrenaline of battle. He could breathe in the thin air, and sometimes he could inexplicably smell her, the mammalian stink of hair and meat, and saliva would sizzle with the fire in his mouth. Suddenly his belly would burn, as well.

After so many times, he became adept at recognizing the dream, and he found he could influence little things. A rock appearing out of nowhere in her path, her graceful dodge terminating with a misstep and a metallic 'thud' as she crashed to the ground. He was on her in an instant, flexible saurian body arched impossibly to mammalian eyes so that he could pin her down with his feet and still press his giant face against her tiny visor and stare into her determined eyes, her odor so strong that he actually drooled onto her lovely scales.

Somehow, the armor gave beneath his claws, and he peeled it off slowly, layer by layer, still looking into her eyes and nearly overwhelmed with the intimacy of it all. She always struggled, but her face never changed. Once pierced, the change in atmosphere would redden her skin into what he liked to think looked like a maidenly blush, though he had only ever heard the term before; mammalian expression was so very alien to him. Her shape beneath the scales, too, was alien; far too soft and rounded, weak and pitiful. He bent down and ran his pointed tongue over the widest part of her belly, and it gave beneath the slight pressure while the Hunter gasped for breath. The gasps stopped all together when he thrust his tongue into her, piercing the suit and skin easily and leaving his mouth awash in so many flavors. Now her eyes screwed shut, and she choked back a scream, bucking and twisting against the tongue that moved in and out of her, lapping at her blood and bones and organs almost lovingly. He matched his head with her movements, twisting his tongue until her shouts crescendoed to deafening heights until she collapsed onto the harsh dirt with him remaining inside of her, trembling.

These dreams were the worst from which to awaken, both because they forced him to acknowledge some kind of unconscious depravity that never crossed his mind in life—not even in normal, actual dreams—and also because he usually awoke to some smug little fucker making some kind of stupid joke like, "Well, looks like all bodily operations are up and running, as it were." Biting their heads off usually made him feel better, if he wasn't so groggy that he missed, and allowed him to replace the worrisome lust of the dream with the safer, more familiar blood-variety.

Now, he crawled pitifully in the direction of his ship and some quiet, safe corner he could curl into to die after he set a course for his fleet. His gargantuan size—of which he was usually vastly proud—suddenly seemed damned inconvenient for his torn muscles and broken bones, but his body pushed on even as it bled out on the dull, gray rocks. This recent battle had been intense, pure and uncorrupted by anything but the thrill of a good fight with an adversary he knew through and through. She had bested him again, though he knew he had damaged her suit to the point that the little body within had suffered its own grievous wounds, and perhaps he might have taken her down if she hadn't knocked him into that damn chasm with wings too charred to fly. He wasn't angry, though; there would always be a next time. Besides, his ship was in sight now; soon he could fall into that blessed oblivion. And maybe, in death, he would dream again. The first time, he had thought it was heaven.

He was not entirely convinced it wasn't.

A/N: Two notes, ugh, so tacky! For some reason, though I always feel like I've got some s'plainin' to do, so I'll get to it. Recently I posted a Metroid short called "Buried," and I honestly thought I wouldn't write another Metroid story. Ever. Clearly I was wrong, though, as the way I had envisioned the characters of Samus and Ridley for that short kind of stuck with me for awhile afterward, and I got to thinking about our scaly friend, all of his multiple deaths, and the sort of bizarre (and often inappropriate) things the chemicals in our bodies do to us in intense situations, and the monstrosity you just finished reading spilled out of me fueled by a baaaaaad hangover (I only left my couch to go buy milk. Sooooo lazy).

So, am I going to write anymore Metroid after this? Probably not. I am not much of an epic writer, and this particular universe tends to inspire the epic in me, despite my two rather maudlin tales. I've browsed the archives and found some very awesome adventures that I know I cannot hope to match, and we don't need my lazy attempts at action in here, muddling up peoples' fanfic enjoyment.

So I hope you enjoyed the story (presumably you did if you didn't click 'Back' before you got to the end) and your mind was pleasantly stimulated and/or disturbed. Critiques and comments are welcome; there is plenty of room for improvement.

Thanks for reading!