She was here, Samus Aran had actually shown up, after two months of waiting, organizing these operations, she'd finally come out of hiding. The woman responsible for hijacking the station paced quickly up and down the control room, breathing heavily, it had all been well and good in theory, but now that she had actually shown up…the thought that the most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy was hunting her down was somewhat terrifying.

The security camera feeds informed her that Samus was currently investigating the ship those Federation marines had arrived in, not entirely surprising, it would make things even harder to explain though, she had tried to keep a bit of moral high ground by letting the civilians off the station, but soldiers weren't exactly the types who would turn and run just because you had a gun. That said, it wasn't like there was going to be much explaining, that wasn't why she had lured Samus here, there was a much more simple reason behind it all.

The woman stopped and took a deep breath before sighing heavily, closing her eyes and focusing on calming herself, at this stage it wouldn't be long before Samus showed up here, if she wasn't ready she'd end up dead, it was as simple as that. She knew full well that her Chozo Varia suit was powerful, the fight would be far from even, she only had one trump card, and if her mind wasn't in the right place, she'd miss her opportunity.

Pulling a large pistol from a holster on her thigh she examined the weapon, holding it carefully in her two gloved hands, whether or not this would actually work was something she honestly didn't know, but right now, it was her best shot. Flicking a switch on the side, the weapon began to hum gently as she let the hand holding it fall to her side while she made her way over to the control console, over which lay a bulky device, about the size of the gun she was holding, as well as a simple jacket, a uniform, seemingly 'borrowed' from one of the station's staff.

Stopping at the console, she reached down and picked up the device, quickly checking over it before attaching it to the barrel of her pistol, the hum of the weapon suddenly shifting to a slightly more aggressive tone as it did so, while it still wasn't particularly loud, if you could hear it, you certainly wouldn't want to get hit by it. With her weapon ready, she set it down for a few moments on the desk as she picked up the jacket and quickly put it on over the top of her full-body, gunmetal coloured jumpsuit before picking it up again and turning towards the door.

Her eyes turned to the illuminated Federation emblem above the door, she didn't really have anything against the Federation to be perfectly honest, she was only targeting them because she knew Samus had quite strong connections with them, even if they were pretty shaky at this point in time. But in the end, a target was a target, and she quickly snapped her weapon up and pulled the trigger, a large bolt of yellow energy, crackling with electricity shot out of the barrel and slammed into the very centre of the emblem, shattering the glass and quickly overloading the lights behind it, the whole thing sparking as the glass fell to the floor. The woman smiled with satisfaction as she looked down at her weapon, her aim was still perfect. Ultimately, all she needed was one shot anyway, the outcome of this encounter would be decided by whether or not she could keep Samus on the back foot, and this would give her a perfect opportunity to make the most of it.

Glancing over at the security feed again, she noted that Samus was making a beeline for the control room. It wasn't surprising, where else would she be on a station like this, but that was just what she wanted, everything was set up, all that was left was to execute it. As she watched Samus get closer and closer to where she was waiting her grip around her gun tightened…her brain was finally starting to process that the person she had been chasing after for over a decade was finally going to be in the same room as her…

"Samus…"

Her empty hand tightened into a fist, for all the nervousness she had felt before, now she was just angry, this woman had taken everything from her, and now it was time to share just a little of that despair.

Samus came to a halt outside the door that lead into the assembly hall, the one room lying between her and the control room, taking cover beside the round, blue-shielded door.

"Adam, you got anything?" Keeping her voice quiet as she reached her hand over to the control panel beside the door, she could have opened it quickly by firing, but it would be quieter to open it manually, and given she still didn't know exactly who she was dealing with, she'd take a bit of stealth if she could get it.

"There's a single life form in the control room, it seems to be human, you'll need to get closer if you want me to get you anything more detailed." The voice of her ship's AI came to her through her helmet as Samus nodded, that was all she needed to know. So it really had only been one person, and human, it really had been a good idea to keep careful, any human capable of single-handedly fighting off an entire squad of marines wasn't to be taken lightly, even by her.

Her fingers quickly typing a quick security code, Samus opened the door and slipped into the assembly hall. The room itself was rather square and spacious, an open floor with the door to the rest of the station on the wall behind her and, on an elevated platform on the far wall lay the door to the control room, two sets of stairs branching out from either side of the platform led down to the floor. Each of the side walls was dominated by huge windows that looked out into space, automatically tinting to shield anyone within from the full light of the nearby star.

No sooner had Samus had a chance to check the room before she realized she wasn't alone, on the platform, having just come through the door herself, was another woman, she can't have been too different in age to Samus herself, given her appearance. She had long, raven-black hair, pale green eyes, sharp features and an overall athletic build, she wasn't quite as tall as Samus, but was still well above average, she was clothed in a standard Federation uniform, grey and blue, over the top of what seemed to be a metallic jumpsuit, something about that nagged Samus, but she ignored it. Of course, her appearance wasn't exactly what caught her attention, rather it was the large pistol she held that was aimed directly at the bounty hunter.

Not that Samus was particularly worried, her eyes glancing up at her suits energy reading, 99 units in the current tank with another dozen if that one failed, it wasn't physically possible for any weapon that size to be powerful enough to take her down in one hit, and if she opened fire first it would just give her an excuse to retaliate, although for now she'd try and avoid combat, she had questions.

"Can I guess you're the one who hijacked this station?" Lowering her arm cannon and striding into the centre of the room in a show of confidence, Samus posed the question, not exactly expecting an answer.

"Samus…" As the word came out of the woman's mouth, Samus immediately knew this was someone with a grudge, there was a hate in that voice, an anger she didn't quite understand. She couldn't remember ever having seen this woman before, but she supposed with her job, it was quite possible she'd still managed to do something worth hating her for.

"Why did you go so far to find me?" Stepping forward as she asked her second question, Samus kept her weapon lowered, both to show she wasn't about to start a fight, and to show she didn't fear her opponent. While the pistol did seem to be a somewhat familiar model, Samus couldn't quite put her finger on exactly where she'd seen it before though, but that was likely because it seemed to have a rather large modification to the barrel. If she fired at the minute, it would actually be a buff to Samus, she could check the level of damage it did, and if it didn't do much, which was likely, even with a modification like that, there were limits to how powerful a gun of that size could be, she could just stand there unfazed, which should work well as an intimidation tactic, if it was powerful enough to be a threat though, she'd still have an idea of how dangerous her opponent was.

"Why was it you…" The next words the woman spoke weren't exactly directed at Samus, but she heard them none the less and it somewhat stumbled her a bit? Why was it her? What did she mean by that, what had happened that…

Samus' thoughts were suddenly cut off as the woman pulled the trigger, a bolt of energy flying from the barrel of the pistol, even if she had been intending too, she had let herself get to distracted to dodge.

As the bolt hit, for a split second Samus was satisfied with the results, the moment the bolt hit, her suit noted that it only took twenty units of energy to absorb the blast, she could take that another dozen times and still have plenty of energy to fight on. However, that reassurance was short lived, as the power suit suddenly began to spasm, electrical currents running over it, different sections locking and unlocking, the visor flickering…this shouldn't be possible, there was nothing the Federation had designed that even came close to being able to stun Chozo tech.

Struggling against the involuntary movements of the suit, Samus looked back up at the woman just in time to see her holster her pistol away and quickly strip off the jacket, Samus' eyes widening as she did so, the bodysuit she was wearing underneath, except for the change in colour, gun-metal grey instead of blue, white instead of pink, was exactly the same as her own zero suit.

Samus' fears were confirmed as the woman raised one hand in front of her face as the emblem on the back of her suit flashed, the one on her left hand following suit as she brought her right hand to her wrist before jumping forward, using her left hand to vault over the rail as the emblem on her left breast flashed and her entire body was suddenly shrouded with a bright light.

The sound when she hit the ground was that of a heavy, metal object striking another, and sure enough, as the light faded, the woman was clad in a Chozo power suit. Immediately Samus was able to recognize that the suit wasn't exactly the same as her own, the flattened shoulder pads and the lighter armour informed her that her opponent was still using a basic power suit, she wouldn't have the extra shielding or environmental protection provided by the varia suit. The colour scheme was different though, where Samus' suit was a light orange, her's was the colour of dried blood, with the slightest tint of pink, and where Samus' was red, her's was a bright white, the colour of her visor and the lights on her suit were also a pale, sky blue rather than green.

The woman immediately took up a stance, legs ready to push her to either side should Samus start firing, body turned sideways to present less of a target, of course, arm cannon aimed directly at Samus, while her free hand was held up beside her face, almost pointing at Samus.

The overload of Samus' own suit quickly passed, but not before Samus received a few hits from the woman's power beam, not that she was at all worried, barely registering the single point of energy that each shot cost her. As soon as she had control over her arm, she immediately brought her hand to her visor again and activated it's scanner, her opponent noted what she was doing and started strafing, trying to keep Samus from locking on, but it was a futile task, Samus had dealt with much more nimble opponents in the past.

"Adam, I want to hear what you find the instant you get this data!" Samus growled into her helmet mic as she pressed the invisible button on the side of her helmet, beginning the scan. What was going on? Why was there someone else who could wear a Chozo power suit? This wasn't the first time she'd fought another power suit user, Metroid Prime had stolen the Phazon suit and some of the data of her power suit and used into to revive as Dark Samus, and the X parasite had mimicked her as well in her last mission for the federation. But this time was completely different, it wasn't a clone, even if he hadn't been sure, the life signs hadn't been exceptional enough for Adam to assume she was anything but human, and unlike the others, this one actually seemed to be using inferior equipment.

Forcing herself to hold fire, for now wanting answers, Samus kept on the defensive, easily dodging the rapid fire shots from her opponents weapon, although she had to acknowledge this woman's aim, but even the shots that got through were ineffective, a quick glance at her energy levels told Samus that even a thousand successful hits wouldn't be enough to bring her down.

"Samus, that's a fully authentic Chozo power suit, it matches the readings from your own almost perfectly, the only differences I can detect seem to be aesthetic. The user is human from what I can tell, although, like yourself, I'm detecting traces of Chozo, which explains her being able to use the suit."

There was another who had been infused with Chozo DNA? That worried Samus, how could something like that have gone unnoticed by her, not only was Chozo DNA extremely rare now that the species was extinct, but the whole process of modified a human like that took years and massive amounts of specialized equipment, how could something like this have gone on and her not pick up even a hint of it. More than that, unless it was done at a young age, before puberty, the procedure wouldn't work, so this had to have happened at least twenty years ago, around the same time as she did herself if Samus was right in guessing there wasn't much separating their age.

"Some good news though, that suit is basically all she has. I'm reading the power suit itself, the combat visor, the arm cannon, the power beam, and some junk data which, like I said, seems to deal with different aesthetics. She's got no missile launcher, morph ball, grapple, charge beam, varia feature, I'm not even detecting a scan visor or any additional energy tanks. With that said, I think I can bring you up a perfectly accurate energy readout for her, if you want her alive, I'd be careful, your weapons are far more powerful than her defences, if you don't want to kill her, you'll have to hold back."

A solid bar appeared beneath Samus' own energy display in her visor, the word 'Unknown' below it, calculating an opponent's durability was something her suit was more than capable of, but in this case, it was overly simplistic, it was simply using her own data and applying it. This imposter would only have 99 energy, so it wouldn't take much to bring her down, Samus still had full use of her equipment after all, this wasn't even a real fight, if the worst came to it, she could just drop a power bomb and be done with it, but for now…

Samus swiped her hand across her visor again, the screen flashing green as she brought back the combat display and immediately began charging her arm cannon, two or three charge beams should be more than enough to take care of this, and then they could sit down and have a nice long chat about just what was going on.

The instant the beam was charged, Samus spun around and fired, perfectly anticipating her opponents movements, the heavy burst of energy finding its target just below the imposter's right ribs, knocking her back a few feet and forcing her to her knees. Glancing at her visor's readout, Samus noted that the shot did roughly 30 units of damage, give or take, two more shots and this would be over.

Not hesitating to begin charging her beam, Samus was almost disappointed when she saw her opponent's reaction, as soon as the imposter stood up she charged straight towards Samus, firing desperately with the power beam…what was she really hoping to achieve? Just because the arm cannon was her main weapon didn't mean she was only skilled in ranged combat.

Just as Samus prepared to counter, a flurry of sparks appeared around the imposter's armoured hand, the one held close to her visor, before a moment later, claws of blue energy formed at the end of each of her fingers. Rotating her body, thrusting her new claws forwards, Samus was too slow to react, not expecting this, Adam hadn't gotten a read on this, and it wasn't an upgrade she had ever obtained, she simply wasn't prepared, the best she could do was dodge it enough that the claws at least wouldn't hit her actual body, but they still hit the large shoulder pad on her right, the glowing blades sinking deep into the metal.

It was then Samus became extremely worried, a moment after those claws came into contact with her suit, her suit's alerts went off, an alarm ringing in her ears, warning her that her suit was suffering massive damage, that modules data was being disrupted. Not that she needed any of the alerts to know what was going on was dangerous, the fact that her energy levels were dropping rapidly, even Metroids gave her more time to think, was enough to throw her ideas of keeping this woman alive out the window.

Without a moment's hesitation, Samus brought her fully charged arm cannon right to the centre of the imposter's chest, the end of the barrel splitting into four segments as she did so, the energy gathered around the weapon being absorbed within, it would probably hurt herself to do this at point blank range, but at this rate, it was better than the alternative. With a resounding explosion and a cloud of black smoke, Samus pulled the trigger and fired a super missile, knocking both her and the imposter to opposite sides of the room.

Samus landed on her back and lay there for few moments, trying to get her bearings, her suit was complaining, informing her of various system malfunctions…it was just like the Orpheon again, most of her modules had been damaged, she at least still had a few energy tanks and her missile launcher though, even if she didn't have any ammo and her energy was flashing red, warning her that she only had 43 units left.

Knowing she shouldn't just lay about though, Samus pushed herself to her feet, noticed as she stood up that she had lost her varia suit as well…this was just perfect. As she straightened, she heard a noise from the other side of the room and turned to the rapidly dissipating cloud of smoke between her and the imposter to see the other woman pushing herself to her own feet, although she seemed to be worse off than Samus, that super missile had completely drained her suits energy, if they were to continue, she wouldn't stand a chance, not with just a zero suit.

"I guess…I should have…expected as much." The woman spoke out between coughs as she turned to Samus, at the same time holding up her left hand, revealing a small, black device with a single red button, that her thumb was firmly pressed down on. "In ten minutes this…station will be completely destroyed…if you want to know why…I'm here, you'd better check the control room…while there's time."

Samus had immediately brought up her arm cannon when she noticed what was obviously a detonator, but quickly lowered it when she realized it was too late to do anything. "Adam…what do you think?" Whispering into her mic so that the imposter wouldn't hear, she decided to check with Adam, he should be able to give a bit of advice on whether or not she was bluffing.

"In both previous instances the stations were indeed destroyed, although the size of bomb required to do so…I should be able to detect it, but there's nothing there. That detonator definitely sent out a signal though, and given that this isn't the first time this has happened, I would assume she's being serious. That said, if she's given us ten minutes, that should be more enough time for me to copy the data, if you think you can subdue her quickly enough, we can get both."

Samus nodded subtly before raising her arm cannon again and taking aim, "Sorry, but I can work a little quicker than you give me credit for."

The other woman seemed unfazed by this, and in a swift movement drew a second detonator from her belt and pressed the button, "Well, now you have five minutes."

"Samus, that's a problem, I may be an AI, but there are still limits to how quickly I can transfer data, you'll have to choose one or the other, and quickly." Samus scowled under her helmet as Adam informed her of the problem which she had already guessed at, but it didn't matter, they didn't need all the information, if she just got Adam to copy anything high priority, that would give her enough to work with. But before she could the woman drew her pistol, which Samus now recognized as a paralyzer, just like her own, but with an attachment that allowed it to fire instant charged shots, as well as a third detonator.

"I'm going to leave, if you don't let me, the timer will go down to one minute, and I'll go down fighting, if you really think that you can apprehend me and get off this station in less than sixty seconds, be my guest." As she spoke, the woman began stepping towards the door that led back into the main station, in just a few steps she'd be there, Samus had to think fast.

But really, there wasn't a choice, Samus knew she had good aim, enough that it wouldn't be a quick fight, even if she was unarmoured, and while she likely didn't know, her own suit didn't have enough energy to take many hits from that, especially as it would immobilize her for a few seconds with each hit.

With that in mind, Samus could do nothing but watch as she arrived at the door and opened it, taking one step through it before kneeling down and sliding the final detonator across the floor towards Samus. "You'd better work fast, we need to settle this another day." With that said, she immediately started sprinting down towards the hangers, leaving Samus alone in the sudden silence of the station.

"Damn it."

Turning towards the stairs, Samus ran up towards the control room and immediately over to the main console where, with a few simple commands, linked the stations databanks to her gunship and, by extension, Adam.

"Adam, get as much information as you can from these databanks, prioritize classified or encoded files, especially looking for any other installations that aren't publically known." Samus sat down at the console as Adam wordless got to work, a quick tap of a button on the side of her helmet caused it to glow briefly before fading away. Bringing a hand to her head, she closed her eyes and tried to gather her thoughts…who was that woman? Why had gone so far to lure her out here? Why could she equip a Chozo power suit? What was that weapon she had used? And why, after everything, had she just fled? It didn't make any sense to her, she didn't have any idea who this was, and if she had any connection to someone who could use a Chozo power suit, she would definitely know about it. Just what grudge did this person have against her?

"Samus! We've got 40 seconds left!" Adam's voice suddenly pulled Samus from her thoughts, had it already been that long? Not that they had had much time anyway. "I've piloted the ship outside the station and disabled the shielding and bulkheads on the right hand window in the assembly hall, break it and I'll intercept you, there's not enough time for you to get to the hanger, disconnecting from the station now."

No sooner had Adam told Samus the plan than she stood up, restoring her helmet and sealing her suit for a vacuum before running towards the door, firing at the blue shield, making use of the emergency opening system. When she entered the hall, she didn't bother with the stairs, immediately jumping off the platform as she turned and opened fire on the window. Without it's additional shielding and bulkheads online it was nothing more than a thick panel of glass and quickly shattered after just a single shot from the military-grade weapon. The sudden venting of the room pulled Samus out and into the void, an orange glint beneath her letting her know that Adam was already there. Landing neatly on the hatch on the top of her ship, her magnetic boots anchoring her firmly to the vessel, Samus craned her neck back to watch the station as Adam made some distance before, exactly five minutes after that woman had pressed the detonator, a series of explosions, dozens of them, rocked the station, each on strategically placed to cause massive structural failure. That woman really had been smart, Adam hadn't been able to detect the bomb because it was part of the station, she had somehow hacked into the station's scuttling charges and linked them to her own timers and detonators. Taking only a few moments to watch as the station came apart, Samus soon pressed a single button on her arm cannon and she was carried down into the ship, the hatch closing behind her. This wasn't over, she would find that woman again, and next time she would make sure she found out just where she came from and why she could use Chozo equipment, she had been wondering why she came back, and now she had a reason.

Author's Note: And here's the introduction of one of the main character's you'll meet in Metroid Savior, I won't divulge her full story, but as the story progresses, you can learn more about her by reading 'Tale of a Savior' which is a fanfic that accompanies this one, it's not vital to read it to understand this one, but if you like more exposition and backstory on original characters, you might find it worth reading, I will be updating it next, so chapter five of History will be a little late but it will be out before Christmas. Thank you for reading, if you have anything to say, positive or negative, please leave a review and I'll do my best to take any advice you might have on board.