Chapter 1

Samus found herself in a dark canyon. Next to her was a pole with a crystal on the end. This crystal projected a force field around her. Ahead of her was a wall covered with Phazon that Prime was sucking up. And on top of the wall, several strange and dark creatures stared at her. Each had a red eye in the center.

Suddenly Prime turned and fired at the crystal, destroying it. Then she left. The creatures clamored down from the wall and surrounded her. The force field vanished, and Samus's energy drained away as if the very air was damaging her. When it was all gone, the creatures jumped on her. Samus tried to fire, but they were on her before she could aim. At least forty of the vile things jumped on her, forcing her back into the portal from whence she came.

Samus woke up in the room she had started in. The portal was gone. Her energy was gone. A message appeared on her visor.

Chozo battlesuit Z954-3K62-4VMP Alert! Gear stolen by unknown creatures.

"Not again," Samus moaned. Space Jump Thrusters offline. Missile launcher offline. Morph Ball Bomb generator offline. Power Bomb module offline. Boost Ball offline. Spider Ball offline. Grapple Beam offline. All remaining systems: online and active.

"Wait a minute," said Samus. "That means I still have the Charge Beam... the Morph Ball... and the Varia Suit! Well, aren't I lucky! Not at all like the last time this happened. Let alone the time before that! I lost everything!"

With the missile launcher gone, Samus had to use the Charge Beam to kill the dark troopers in the next room. After going thru many rooms, Samus came to a narrow tunnel with a security gate. Samus reviewed the many lore entries from the troopers.

I think Haley's losing it. He talks to himself all the time and he won't sleep. He almost shot me on watch the other night. I think he thought I was one of those things. I talked to the doc about taking him off the line and he told me we need all the help we can get. That's true, but if he goes berserk and kills a bunch of us, that won't be very helpful.

Another one said:

We'll be making our stand here. The engineer told me there's no way we'll get the ship's engines online, and atmospheric interference is scrambling our distress signal. If anyone reads this, know that we did our duty and fought well.

Samus saw a panel with a dead trooper in the other part of the room that was divided by a metal grating. Samus rolled thru a hole with the morph ball and scanned the panel.

****

Angseth lay dying. The gate was still closed. The gate would remain closed for a very long time. No one would open a gate that served no purpose. She had done her job, and held her post. She had been told, if falsely, that if the gate was down, the base would be safe. She had closed this gate with her life and with any luck, her spirit would continue to haunt this plane until the end of time. She could have ensured that the gate would stay closed longer if she just had more bullets. Angseth had no desire to die on this planet, her body eaten by all these alien creatures. The last log in her data book, now that she had been going over it, seemed to be very childish. She threw a fit over not getting placed on the main entry team into the Splinters' lair. True, she could out-shoot everyone here, but only provided she had enough rounds. Perhaps Admiral Mizzen was right; if she would just stop talking about the Hunter long enough to train a little harder perhaps she wouldn't end up in this situation.

For as long as Angseth had been in the Marines, her mind had been filled with wonderful stories about a lone bounty hunter that often took on federation missions for a price. The bounty hunter's name was Samus Aran. Not very many people had any concrete information on Aran; even Aran's gender was in dispute. Angseth had collected as much information as she could in the four long years she had been a marine. Tales of the Hunters adventures had reached almost every mess hall in the federation, and the stories were swapped and traded like cards or talismans. For the most the stories served to entertain, but Angseth felt that she was one of the few who actually believed. The idea that a female bounty hunter could destroy an entire infestation of pirates was enough to keep Angseth at the shooting range long after everyone else had turned in for the night. The stories that Aran could solve and by pass intricate security systems of ancient civilizations encouraged Angseth to learn more about their own. When most of the members of her platoon were out drinking, Angseth had locked herself away in a library reading up on battle strategy.

A lot of good all that did now.

Baker had stopped crying about ten minutes ago. Angseth couldn't be sure because her armor had been compromised and her view screen had lost half its functions. One thing she was sure of, Baker had stopped moving. For the time being, the bugs had retreated into the walls, burrowing deeper into the solid rock around Angseths fellow marines. She had been told to close the gates, but the little critters didn't need gates. They simply dug through the walls. They came up from the floor, heck a few of the more dangerous ones pulled themselves out of thin air. The Splinters had been bad enough, they resembled oversized crickets that screamed and had the ability to chew through just about anything. On their own they weren't too hard to deal with, one or two shots and the majority of the colony would move on. Then the Purple Crap started coming. The term had been coined by Baker, who had been the first one to really get a good look at it. He had been standing near the main computer terminals when a gooey dark purple almost black mass came out of the crack in the wall next to him and began slithering across the floor. This caused Baker to exclaim, "What the heck is that Purple Crap?"

Angseth still had no idea what the Purple Crap was. At first they assumed that it was a kind of fast moving fungus, or perhaps a plankton-like plant colony, or some other natural explanation. The Purple Crap had sniffed around the main computer terminals, the walls, past the feet of a few marines before disappearing back into another crack. This subterranean base was just full of surprises. A few days later they witnessed something else remarkably odd. They had been passing the time, watching a few Splinters duke it out for mating rights, when the Purple Crap oozed out of another crack and slithered up the fighting pair of bugs. That was when they learned that the Purple Crap had extremely strong mutative qualities. It engulfed the Splinters and began altering their physical structure. The end result was something out of a nightmare. The new creatures pounced upon the few marines posted there and killed two of them before alarm had been raised. Angseth remembered firmly that it took twenty rounds each to kill the newly mutated Splinters. Twenty rounds were too much ammo to waste on one fast moving creature. Within twenty four hours their entire base had been overcome by these mutated creatures, but it didn't stop there. The Purple Crap had even engulfed both the living and dead bodies of the Marines fighting it. Angseth would never forget the pain that moved through the platoon when they had to take down one of their own.

Now here she was, the last wave had all but annihilated her squad. If there was anyone left alive she hoped that they had made it to the signal beacon. The signal beacon had been damaged upon atmospheric entry, and didn't have enough juice to put out a strong enough signal. At least that was what her CO had said.

Angseth had been around long enough to know when someone was lying through their teeth.

She could feel her blood pooling in her armor. She had never wanted a slow death, if anything, all she prayed for was to go out in a blaze of glory, just like in the movies or the comics. Thankfully she had been injured enough that the pain she was in didn't matter any more. The gate was closed.

Angseth could hear something in the hall. Another Marine? Rocks slipping from the wall? Maybe a Splinter looking for a meal? Plenty to be found here. Please wait until after I die before you start munching okay?

No, footsteps. Had to be footsteps. There was too much rhythm to be anything else. The footsteps came closer. Had help finally arrived? She would remember the sound of an incoming marine vessel, especially if it had as rough a landing as they had. The Atmosphere on Aether was thick with electrical and radioactive phenomena. Even as they had landed and looked up at the new sky in this world, they could see what had looked like some god had tried to over lap two completely different sections of sky. It was simultaneously stormy and sunny. At first you looked, there were clouds, the next time you looked, bright purple. The sky changed so much, no wonder their ship took a pounding on the way in.

The sound stopped outside the gate. A thought crossed her mind that perhaps it was one of their zombie buddies searching for leftovers. Angseth had never wanted to be dead so much in her life. Zombies eat the brains of the living don't they? The most frustrating part was Angseth couldn't turn her head to look at the gate. She could see the bottom of Bakers shoe just fine but she lacked the strength and ability to turn.

The gate rattled. Angseth had already been laying still but now she was seriously playing dead. The gate was firm thing, it didn't rattle. The gate was made from the finest alloys; it would take something very strong to rattle it. No, no human would be getting in here. A human would be welcome, or any one of the hundreds of sentient races that called the Federation home. Anyone but those possessed Splinters. The gate rattled once more, bolts creaking in their sockets, but holding. One long moment passed, and Angseth became aware of another sound. It was something mechanical, something that whirred and hummed like a spent holoprojector. She could now feel a vague rumble move through her body, like getting too close to a generator. There was a tunnel to her right, one of those Splinters had dug it, the one that got the drop on her, the one that had run up her body and imbedded its claws into her chest and legs, screaming and fighting the entire time. Angseth had grabbed it and slammed its body into the ground, then clubbed it to death with her fists and rifle. Five more of its friends then jumped her.

The entrance to the tunnel was just outside of her line of sight, but if she could manage to move her head just slightly, she could see what new torture was coming her way. Angseth felt that it almost took an act of God, but she managed to budge her head the inch or so to bring the tunnel into view.

The rough walls of the tunnel were nothing new, chipped and scrapped into existence by many little clawed feet. There was a light, a soft glow that had some kind of thickness to it. Much like a holoscreen, as if you could pick it up and work it to your will. The rumble was still mild. The light grew brighter, and Angseth felt much confusion mixed with fear at the sight of her own reflection cast upon a smooth sphere-like surface. The sphere had a seam down the middle, where the light was spilling forth, humming with the power within. The sphere was goldish orange in color, and while it had a near-mirror finish, it wasn't without flaws, slight scuff and drag marks marked the surface, distorting Angseth's reflection. Next to this work of art Angseth felt tiny and useless. Fear had settled to the back of her mind and curiosity took the fore. She hoped that this wouldn't be some new threat. Was the Purple Crap just a method of clearing out the trash so this thing could move in?

The sphere rolled by and stopped almost dead center of the room. Angseth watched as cracks began to appear in its surface, and joints began pulling apart letting the light within spill out into the room. The sphere pulled apart in what looked like a duck-and roll maneuver, it emptied a fully armored person into the room. The individual gained their feet, and began looking around. Angseth stared at this person, caught somewhere between delight and dismay.

She had died.

And Samus Aran was here to lead her into the afterlife.

****

Samus saw another dead trooper and scanned it.

This is ridiculous. I can outshoot half the men here and I'm stuck on monitor duty. I didn't join up to stare at a holoscreen! This wouldn't happen to Samus Aran. She'd be out there taking care of business, not pushing buttons and sending reports.

But the visor picked up something else up too. This trooper was still alive!

Samus acted quickly. She tore apart her armor, then used psychic healing powers her Chozo blood had given her. After restoring Angseth to moderately good health, she calmed her down and talked to her. After swapping a few short stories, the two headed out and found the GFS Tyre. All the marines were dead. Horribly dead.

But not all. The captain and another were still alive. After reviving the captain, Samus revived the other trooper, reading his diary while doing so.

Last night at chow, Angseth starts talking about some bounty hunter and how she blew up a planet full of space pirates. I told her I didn't believe in fairy tales like that and she took it personal. I just find it hard to believe that one person took out an entire space pirate base, that's all. But if she wants to believe in this Samus, or Bigfoot, or Santa Claus, she can.

"Who are you?" said the marine after regaining consciousness. "Samus Aran," Samus replied. "Angseth here tells me you don't believe in me."

PFC Ivan Crany looked uncomfortable. "Er... well... I just had a hard time believing you could destroy a whole Pirate base so easily. Although, now that I've seen your suit, I'm beginning to think twice." "It's not always easy," Samus told him. "The Power Suit is an incredible device. But it's not as good as it was a few minutes ago."

Samus explained how she had lost her upgrades, then the captain, Andrew Exeter, told how he and his men had ended up on Aether. "While on patrol in the Dasha system, we engaged an unknown Space Pirate frigate," he explained. "The enemy frigate was crippled, and it crash landed on Aether. We followed the pirates, but our ship was damaged in a storm as we entered Aether's atmosphere." "As was mine," said Samus.

"Heavy magnetic activity during the storm disabled our comm. systems," the captain said. "Upon landing, we split into two units: one to set up an ops base and the other to repair the ship. Each unit was doing fine, no problems... until they appeared. These Dark Splinters."

Samus decided that they should continue to explore Aether and promised that she would protect them. "There may be a way for us to help you as well," said Exeter. "In that yellow crate there there's a standard missile launcher we use. It's probably pathetic compared to the one you lost, but..." Samus fired a charged shot at the crate, blowing it to pieces. "It'll do," she said.

The moment Samus grabbed the Missile Launcher, five Dark Splinters appeared. Samus scanned the critters and blasted them. "Back off! This is a foe beyond any of you! All you'll do is get in the way!"

For 20 furious seconds, the slack jawed troopers witnessed the most stunning display of combat power they had ever seen in their lives. With five missiles and charged shots Samus decimated the creatures. Every four seconds a Dark Splinter exploded in a cloud of purple guts. Finally, it was over.

Samus turned to the flabbergasted marines. "Any questions?" she said, and Crany knew she was talking to him. "No, Samus," he said. "You and all the stories about you are real." "What about you, captain?" "No questions," said Exeter, nodding at the remains of the Dark Splinters. "They got what they deserved." "What about you, Angseth? Is there anything in today's lesson that you find unpleasant?" "No Samus," she said. "You are the Hunter."

After promising to repair the GFS Tyre once her mission was complete, Samus led the three troopers to the next area. There they found a fourth survivor, who was playing dead after being attacked by war wasps. Together the five adventurers went thru a door to find an elevator. Samus scanned the panel to activate it, and the five people boarded the elevator and blasted off (it was a rocked propelled elevator) to the Great Temple.