Samus leant back into the pilot's chair of her ship and let out a deep, rasping breath. The smallest movement sent shards of pain searing across her nerves, attacking her inner body with pain she hadn't experienced in many years. She tried to close her eyes, tried to take a moment of respite, but this wasn't the time. She had left the station in pieces, having allowed it to smash onto the surface of the planet below. She had stopped the X parasite from spreading but at what cost?

She raised her hand and held it in front of her visor. She must have looked at it a thousand times since she had arrived at the station, but at the time she was too busy using said hand to climb, aim and work. She had been on top of the situation at the beginning. Some of her foes had been tough, certainly but the SA-X...

Samus shuddered. She remembered Dark Samus, a dangerous incarnation of herself but in its essence, it proved a cheep copy in the end. The SA-X had been different. The way it stalked her, the viciously intelligent ways in which it attacked her. The SA-X WAS her...

She shook her head, no time to get into this. She lowered her hand, still unused to the Fusion Suit that had changed her so rapidly, and set her ship to travel. She needed to confront the Galactic Federation. She needed to know about what they were doing on the station.

Samus crawled desperately through the vent, her powerball had deactivated. Her entire suit was shutting down, she couldn't understand it. She felt it fading away into nothing as she pressed on against the cold vent. She could hear some of the smaller infected creatures chasing after her, scrambling through the vent systems much faster than she was. But now all she was left in was her Zero Suit. She watched her heaving breath come up in icy mist before her.

"Just a little further"

This had been what she kept telling herself. But the end didn't seem to get any closer, she could see the other end of the vent, an empty room outside of it and...

Footfalls.

Slow.

Heavy.

Evil.

"This is Samus Aron, requesting permission to board Galactic Federation Cruiser Leviathan."

Samus sent out her request to dock and paused with baited breath whilst the request processed. Eventually, after what felt to her like an age, Samus watched the hanger doors opening. She did her best to land smoothly, but it wasn't her best work.

She pulled herself up, her Fusion Suit being the only thing keeping her from falling over. Whatever the Metroid vaccine had done to it, the suit had benefited. Almost as if...

"No. Shut up." She told herself as she made her way to the disc that would let her leave the ship. She held herself up against the support, every movement was slow and deliberate as she did her best to use the least physical effort possib-

"ARRRRGHHH!"

Samus howled in pain as she caught her foot on a cable that lay across the cabin floor. She stumbled forwards and attempted to catch herself on the wall, but her arms simply couldn't hold her up and she collided, hard, with the floor.

It was there, that she blacked out.

As she slept, she heard whispers in the dark. Voices of doctors, soldiers and... someone familiar.

"Will she be okay?"

She didn't hear the rest of the sentence. Everything faded into mumbles as, in her darkness, the light faded in, and in that light. She was running.

Samus wheeled around as she sprinted from the oncoming monster, she fired blast after blast, charged shots and rockets were sent into the SA-X, but nothing could stop it. It had an unnatural agility, allowing it to twist and duck and leap over every single shot and the few that actually made impact, barely slowed it down. She turned, there it was, an escape, a vent. She threw herself forwards, hitting the switch on her right arm to activate the Powerball... But nothing happened. It wasn't working.

Samus took a moment to realize this, and that moment cost her dearly. A charged blast from the SA-X's cannon, slammed into her back. She screamed out in pain, the world shaking around her, she had nothing else for it, she had to crawl into the vent. And so she did.

The voices came back and Samus heard them more clearly this time, she even saw a white room around her.

"That thing that attacked her on the station... It... changed her. The effect it had on her suit and... her body."

There was a pause.

"They both pale in comparison to what must be happening inside her mind."

She faded into black once more.

Samus paused, her breath held. The SA-X was waiting for her on the other side of the vent, and behind her she could hear the creatures charging loudly towards her. There was a vicious noise from one side and on the other, the more dangerous silence of her voiceless foe. Samus held her hand to her mouth, trying to quieten her breathing. And as she did, she felt something touch the top of her hand. She focused on this new sensation, wondering what it was. It had rolled down her face, wet and slow. She paused, removed her hand and tasted it... Salty.

She was crying.

"Come on Doc, you guys have patched her up before."

"I'm sorry but... I fear the weight of all her battles are finally collapsing on her. And... whatever happened in her last mission..."

There was a pause.

"If she survives this, there will be no more battles. She had been crippled, mentally and physically. She'll never bounce back from this."

Another pause.

"This is the end of Samus Aran."