Wow, look at that! A short story!
So a while ago, this author named Zalgo's Jinchuriki called me up asking if I do requests. I had never really gotten a request before, so I decided why the hell not.
This is extremely AU.
The guidelines for this story involve Samus and human!Shadow as they go do stuff. There may or may not be implied romance. I'm shooting for a strong bromance here but we'll see what happens. Told in Samus' PoV.
Hope you like it, Zalgo!
XxXxXxXx
I received the mission at 0600 hours.
It was a strange request; really. But nonetheless Adam decided to let me take it, with the orders to see it complete. I gathered what I suspected I would need and headed to the small orange and yellow ship that was parked in the hanger bay.
I started the mission at 0630 hours.
The mission demands were…odd, to say the least. I replayed the message as I directed my ship further into space. It started with a burst of static, a voice gradually overriding the fuzzy sound.
"—I require specifically Samus Aran. They are to go to the planet Inzar; more specifically to the main outpost. Once there, they will receive additional orders."
The voice broke for a few seconds, the static threatening to overtake the transmission.
"Oh, and if they run into anyone there…kill them on sight. This is a top-secret mission and Inzar is a supposedly abandoned planet. There shouldn't be any trouble." With that, the message went silent.
It took me just under an hour to reach Inzar. The small planet was cast in a light shade of green, dark lines crisscrossing it at various points. I assumed these were rivers of some sort. My ship locked on the main outpost on the surface and I began to enter the thin atmosphere.
The outpost, I decided, was a lot bigger than I expected. It covered almost a fourth of the planet's east side. A hanger began to open and I directed my ship into it. I made it without any complications.
I activated my PowerSuit and stepped outside.
My footsteps echoed around the hanger as I made my way to the airlock. This place was incredibly large…just why was it abandoned? I remember reading about Inzar in the past, but in the databanks I had accessed there was not a direct cause for evacuation. So why was it completely empty?
The airlock opened on its own, allowing me access into a small chamber. When the outside toxins were eliminated, the wall slid to the left, allowing me access to the Inzar outpost.
Why were the airlocks still working? I thought this place had been evacuated for years. Was someone coming back to keep this place in shape? If so, who was it?
I turned and began walking down the left hallway. Various doors were spaced evenly along the steel hallway. Ashy residue covered the dulled steel and even the roof. The glass in the panes on the doors were shattered or cracked. One door was broken down completely. Had there been a fight? Did this happen during the evacuation so long ago?
The hallway I was following ended in a large observatory room. Various stations were set up along the walls, the computers that had once sat on them smashed and broken. The right wall was covered in a large pane of glass. Spiderweb cracks covered the entire thing, proving impossible to see what was beyond it.
"What happened here?" I wondered aloud. "And why did the request say to come to Inzar of all places?"
Finding no answer, I made to continue my exploration around the abandoned base. I stopped in my tracks as a notice popped up in my PowerSuit visor.
I was not alone.
Judging by the reading, someone—or something—was here with me. I spun around, directing my gaze at the rows of computers set up on the stations. Was someone hiding behind those?
"Chaos Control!"
I felt as though a battering ram had been jammed at the small of my back. My PowerSuit protected me against any serious damage, but it still hurt like hell. I was sent flying forward into a series of open desk drawers, singed papers and ash flying out of the storage spaces. I spun myself around and fired off two shots with my plasma cannon in the general direction of the attack. I saw something black and red jump out of the way.
I began to charge a shot as I stood. "Who are you?"
Standing at the other side of the room was a man. He was wearing some sort of black PowerSuit, slightly similar to mine. Although less bulky looking, it looked to be made of the same materials. He wasn't wearing a helmet; instead he had a white oxygen converter that sat over his shoulders and part of his chest. The mask was black, like his suit, and extended up to his nose and mouth, leaving the rest of his head uncovered.
"Identify yourself." I repeated. My charge beam was ready.
The man narrowed his piercing red eyes. His hair was as black as his suit and curled slightly upward, ruby red streaks along each curl. His skin was much darker than mine.
"I was told to complete my mission." His voice was deep.
I fired my charge beam. The energy shot from the cannon and struck him, smashing him back into the wall with an extremely loud bang. I blinked away the lingering spots in my eyes. He had vanished.
"Wha…?" That should have killed him! Where had he gone?
"Behind you."
…!
Before I had a chance to turn, something that I could only assume was his foot slammed into the side of my head. My visor's readings blinked off for a second before coming back online. I countered with my own attack; I dropped low to the ground and fired off a series of shots, successfully striking my attacker's arm and causing him to retreat slightly.
"Tch. I told myself you wouldn't be able to get a shot on me. I've gotten clumsy." I could tell from the way his blood-red eyes were angled that he was smiling. "So how long have you been a bounty hunter?"
How…?!
"What are you doing here?" I answered instead. "The Inzar outpost has been abandoned for years."
"Unfortunately, that is... classified." The man smirked.
I fired off a volley of shots. As he worked around them with surprising grace, I took advantage of his distraction to activate the morph ball feature of my suit. I rolled toward him, hearing his laughter as I did so.
"Are you going to run me over?"
I quickly dropped off a series of bombs as he kicked me. I was sent flying backwards while the bombs, still under my rolling momentum, continued at him. I heard a loud shout as I uncurled from the morph ball, stopping my journey backwards just as I would have been slammed into the wall.
The man was slouching now, sparks flying from the left arm of his PowerSuit. He looked angry.
"You're lucky." He said.
"Why's that?" I responded, charging up another beam.
"I'm not here to kill you."
My beam was at full charge. Taking my silence as a cue to continue, he said, "I'm here to complete my mission."
"What would that be?"
"To find out who sent you here."
I knew he couldn't see my expression behind my PowerSuit's helmet, but I still narrowed my eyes anyway. "How do I know it wasn't you?"
"The voice on the transmission…did it sound anything like me?"
He had to be bluffing. There was no way he could know this.
The man straightened his composure and raised his hands in the universal surrender position. "The Inzar base was evacuated because of unstable conditions. Lethal gasses from the outside atmosphere were mixing in with the oxygen. The crew here had to leave or risk being poisoned. Once this base was empty, someone else found it."
I deactivated the charge beam but kept my weapon trained on him. "Go on."
"I was sent to find out who had taken claim over this outpost." The man said. "Whoever it is has been using this place as a battleground. They had been calling bounty hunters from all over the galaxy…calling them two at a time here to have them fight to the death."
So much for confidentiality. I suppose that would explain why the entire base was marked with signs of struggle.
"I need your help to stop the man in charge."
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Agent Shadow." He said. "You?"
"Samus."
XxXxXxXx
Shadow had pulled up two of the remaining chairs in the room and motioned for me to sit. He was fiddling with a blue card.
"I would doubt this madman has set up cameras around here. I suspect he only looks for the ship that flies off at the end of the battle." He muttered.
"You seem to think a lot like this man." I said.
"In order to capture the enemy, you have to think like them." Shadow said.
I cast a glance around the battle-damaged room. "If he was in the base, that could pose a threat to his life. But outside…he'd have to be relatively close to watch spacecraft land and depart."
"Exactly." Shadow said. "He's somewhere around here."
"Why not bombard the planet with torpedoes?"
"He no doubt has some sort of anti-spacecraft protection." Shadow handed me the digital card. "Listen to this. This is the call I received to summon me to this planet."
I pressed a small button on the underside of the card. Blue, holographic wavelengths danced in the air a few centimeters from the surface of the card as the transmission began in a burst of static.
"—I require specifically Agent Shadow. They are to go to the planet Inzar; more specifically to the main outpost. Once there, they will receive additional orders."
The voice broke for a few seconds, the static threatening to overtake the transmission.
"Oh, and if they run into anyone there…kill them on sight. This is a top-secret mission and Inzar is a supposedly abandoned planet. There shouldn't be any trouble."
"It's the same as mine." I said.
"No doubt he used the same message for everyone. The only difference is the name."
"What I don't understand is why he never directly addresses us." I frowned, even though Shadow couldn't see my expression. "It's as though he's telling someone else to pass on the message."
"I noticed that, too." Shadow took the card back from me. "And it makes me wonder…especially from all the static…"
"Are there any more outposts on Inzar?" I asked.
"There shouldn't be. If there are, it will make it all the more easy to locate our mysterious man." Shadow shrugged. "No doubt he's thought about that already."
"Why is he killing off all the bounty hunters?" I cast a glance around the room. "Is he hiding from someone? Is he trying to find a specific hunter?"
"Have you ever seen this man?" Shadow pulled another digital card, this one from the wrist on his PowerSuit, and handed it to me.
I activated it. This time, instead of a copy of the transmission, a 3D image of a man appeared. He was tall and very large. He was wearing black pants and a red coat with yellow cufflinks. He was bald and had a reddish-brown handlebar mustache. Black glasses obscured his eyes.
"No." I said. "Who is he?"
"Dr. Ivo Robotnik." Shadow responded. "We've run the transmission through various computers, and they always link to him. But there's only one problem."
"What is it?"
"Dr. Robotnik has been declared dead for ten years."
"What killed him?"
Shadow cast a glance around the room again, as though paranoid. "The oxygen conversion systems in this outpost."
XxXxXxXx
"Not much is known on the Doctor, except that he helped design the oxygen systems."
"Ironic." I muttered to myself as I activated my ship's entryway. The small elevator began to dip toward the ground. "Killed by his own creation."
Shadow shut his eyes and took a deep breath. "He wasn't well-known or especially well-liked, either. He had no trouble with the law. He had a particular interest in robotics. He never harmed anyone."
"What you're thinking is he faked his own death so he could restart somewhere?" I asked we we both stood on the tiny transport.
"Possibly."
I stepped into my ship and motioned for Shadow to sit in the passenger's seat. "But if we both leave the outpost, won't he know?"
"It's a risk we have to take."
I deactivated my PowerSuit and sat at the command chair, hastily flipping a series of switches and activating various shielding. "How many bounty hunters have been killed already?"
He didn't respond right away. I turned back to him, ready to repeat my question. "How…"
I trailed off. The way he was staring at me…I couldn't tell if I should be concerned or not. His eyes were fixated on my face, a look of shock plastered over what was not concealed by the oxygen mask.
"What is it?" I brushed a wisp of blonde hair away from my eyes. I was beginning to get angry.
"You…you look…like someone I used to know…" Shadow blinked. "I think she'd look like you if…if it never happened…"
"If what never happened?" I asked.
"If she hadn't died." Shadow tore his eyes away from me and directed them at the control panel. "Come on. We have to stop this man before it's too late."
I eased the ship up and off the ground of the hanger bay and out the way I had come. I could feel Shadow's eyes on me again. When I glanced back over at him he busied himself with removing the oxygen mask from his face.
We circled the outpost at a high altitude. I ran a scan on the surface, detecting nothing except the building we had recently left.
"There's nothing here." I sighed.
"Run a thermal scan."
I switched the scan over to heat detection, locating nothing except the planet's surface. But wait…
"There." I pointed to a splotch of intense red-white heat in the center of the outpost. "It's small, but there."
"Go back." Shadow said. "This could be a valuable clue."
I turned the ship back toward the hanger bay. Once properly docked, I donned my PowerSuit and Shadow pulled the oxygen mask back over his face. I loaded the location of the intense heat into my suit, providing a map for us to follow. We hurriedly ran into the airlock.
Once back into the outpost, I took the lead. "Look for any stairs. The readings say that the source is belowground."
We turned down the right hallway this time. We wound around three passageways until we stumbled upon a set of stairs, one leading up and the other down. We of course chose the down option.
"Where to now?" Shadow asked.
I waited for the readings to hone in on the source. "Straight ahead, I think."
We approached a door at the end of a short hallway. Unlike the other doors, this one was made of thick metal and welded shut. Where a doorknob may have been had been broken off and sealed with now hardened metal.
"The source of the heat is behind this." I said. "And it doesn't look like it will break easily."
"It shouldn't be too much of a problem." Shadow said.
"Yeah." I agreed. "One of my power bombs and it'll open."
"I was thinking a less dramatic entry." He pulled something that looked like a large, green jewel from a hip pouch. "I would stand back, if I were you."
"Why?"
Shadow laughed. "Watch."
Still holding the gem, a light red glow enveloped him. "Chaos Blast!"
My PowerSuit picked up a dramatic heat increase in the immediate area. I stepped back, watching as a powerful blast knocked the door off its welded hinges. We were staring into what looked like a broom closet.
A broom closet inhabited by a large assortment of computer monitors and wires. Each monitor displayed a different reading; but one caught my attention.
"Look." I pointed to a list of names. Most of them were written in red, but a few of them were a vibrant green. I found my name sandwiched between two red ones.
"Are these…the bounty hunters that are still alive?" Shadow asked.
"I think so." I was concerned about how little green there was remaining. "Is there a way to shut this computer down?"
"Let's see…" Shadow reached for the monitor, only to have it blink off. The others followed suit and a low humming sound started in the pit of the closet.
"What did you do?" I asked.
"Nothing."
Two of the monitors parted and something shout out between them, knocking the gem Shadow was still holding out of his hand. I barely had a chance to react as the remaining monitors flipped themselves over, revealing steel plating…Almost like armor. The masses of wires began to squeeze themselves together and inside the protective casing. An arm of steel with two jointed fingers shot at me, burying itself in the shoulder of my suit. Warnings popped up in my helmet, blaring, 'Low Power'…'Low Power'…
"Samus!"
I had no choice but to deactivate my PowerSuit. My exoskeleton gone for now, I retreated a short distance away from the strange contraption, reaching for the plasma rifle at my side. "I'm fine."
"I see you finally figured it out!" a voice echoed.
I blinked, staring back at the computerized contraption.
"Doctor Robotnik?" Shadow growled.
"Technically, yes. But this marvelous piece of machinery is ZALGO." The gruff voice said. "It has been uploaded with my voice files and has arranged them to see fit to answer you."
"Did you send out the request?" I asked. "To gather bounty hunters across the galaxy?"
"Yes." ZALGO delayed its answer for a few seconds, and when it spoke, its voice was mixed; partly the doctor's, and partly a flat tone. "I sent out the request."
"Why?"
"It is amusing, really." ZALGO said. "Watching mortal beings fight. You don't even have to give them a clear reason."
"Where is the doctor?" Shadow demanded.
"I imagine far away from here. I am simply a guard for this miserable excuse for a planet. Once you two began conversing, I had already sent the distress signal."
"But why is he gathering up the bounty hunters?" I demanded again.
"You'll have to ask him yourself." ZALGO said. "That is, if you can find him."
With that, three more metallic arms sprung from the protective shielding and grasped onto the ground, bending the metal of the outpost. With a groan of straining metal, ZALGO heaved itself from the closet-sized space. Something was forming on its back, something that looked suspiciously like—
"Get down!"
Shadow and I had both yelled at once and dived at the other, somehow still successfully dodging the barrage of bullets that shot out of ZALGO's weapon. I ducked around it and pulled out my plasma rifle, letting off two shots at the weapon it used to shoot at us. Shadow had dived back for the strange gem.
ZALGO, ignoring him for the time being, turned clumsily back to me. It was off balance, and its legs that were supporting it were straining to keep it upright. It wasn't meant for battle, and yet here it was, modified as a last-resort weapon. It shot at me again, but I quickly dodged around its range of fire and aimed a strong kick at one of its legs.
ZALGO, although much larger and clumsier than me, was a lot faster. The leg I was aiming to kick struck out at me first, striking me across my side and leaving a burning pain. I grit my teeth as adrenaline kicked into my system, struggling out of ZALGO's reaching distance.
"Chaos Spear!"
One of the armored monitors was knocked off of ZALGO's back. The computer turned around again, this time to face Shadow. I took advantage of its distraction to fire in the opening he had created in its armor. Wires sparked as my plasma rifle fired a volley of shots into it.
"Fine. I suppose I have underestimated you hunters. But then again, there are many of me scattered across the galaxy; all of us watching over a building similar to this. The hunters are still being killed, and there's no way you can stop us all." ZALGO quickly hunkered down to the steel floor, its arms retreating inside its protective cocoon. One of its monitors flipped, two digits displayed on its screen.
30
29
28
"We have to get out of here, now!" Shadow grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet.
"There's no way we can make it back to the hanger bay in time!" I protested.
24
23
22
"No problem." Shadow's eyes smiled, and he held the gem above our heads. "Chaos Control!"
It was a weird feeling…tingly, almost. My head was spinning and it took me a moment to realize we were standing in front of my ship. I activated the lift, keeping a mental image of the countdown in my mind.
15
14
13
"Hurry!" Shadow urged me.
I sat in the command chair and hastily brought the ship back to life, activating various safety and shielding measures as I lifted it off the bay floor.
6
5
4
We were outside of the hanger doors now, speeding up and away from the outpost. I held my breath, waiting for the imminent explosion.
2
1
0
With an incredible bang, the Inzar outpost was absorbed in a ball of flame. As far up and away as we were, my ship still took minor damage from the intense heat. Shadow heaved a sigh of relief and removed the oxygen mask from his face. "We did it."
"No, we didn't." I said. "ZALGO said that he was one of many."
"We survived." Shadow insisted. "I would think that counts as a victory."
"A minor one." I replied. "Do you really think that Doctor Robotnik is still alive?"
"If there are indeed more abandoned outposts used as slaughterhouses for these bounty hunters, yes." Shadow turned his gaze out at the atmosphere around us that was quickly giving way to the vastness of space. "What about you? Are you going to help me pursue this madman?"
I nodded. "I was told to report back when I can confidently announce that the mission was a success."
"I look forward to working with you, Samus."
"Same to you." I replied.
XxXxXxXx
…And they went on to have awesome grand adventures and stuff. Also they defeat every villain ever. The end.
I hope you like it, Zalgo! This would have come a lot sooner if I wasn't having a chronic nosebleed all over my living room, so I apologize about that. Winter is the best and worst season to me.
Anyway, if you enjoyed it (And even if you didn't) please leave a review!
Hasta la Vista, Readers!
Lordoftheghostking28