I'm back, guys, and before you read, please listen to what I have to say.

Have we agreed? Then here we go.

Firstly, it has been, in actuality almost a year since I published my original manuscript for this story. Yes, the date this story shows is wrong - but why? Let me explain.

You see, when I first started Escape (or, back then, as Metroid Retribution), I couldn't have been more excited about this. Finally I was able to work on a Metroid fanfic. Then, disaster struck. My first reviews stated how good it was, and I thought, I'm doing pretty well for my third fic (although technically, I have been concentrating most of my time on this one, and I would consider this my first "serious, not fooling around" fic)!

But when I decided to inquire for a beta-reader, and G3Rain1 accepted my request, I was devastated by his review. It stated how my story was, more or less, crappy. Sure, my plot may have been good, among other things, but what made it horrible was how confusing my fic became. I became lazy and literally skipped scenes, only denoted by a large horizontal bar or otherwise. But, after some discussion with this highly-regarded writer (at least to me), I decided to redo the whole thing.

That's right. Tear it all down and begin anew. So I deleted my old one (explaining the "false date"). Of course, as some of you may know, the first chapters between the two versions are relatively similar, if not for a few conventional editing and scene additions, but, as for the rest of this story you see... it's abridged.

Needless to say, the reviews that were written, the traffic it had received, the alerts, the favorites; they were all gone. Despite this loss, I found the courage to PM the authors who had favorited or put this story on alert, and even the owner of a C2 who once had my story. And while you, as readers, may not know how difficult this is, I myself found it extremely hard to face the embarrasing fact that my story was so bad I had to start all over - and inform readers and writers of this esteemed fanfiction community.

Since then, this story has undergone some changes in titles and summaries, ranging from Metroid Retribution to Metroid Eradication, as have some of my chapter names. Until now, when I have settled it as Escape for part of an x-number of stories series, rightfully titled Metroid Retribution.

Once you have overcome this wave of nostalgia (including yours truly and, if you have been here since the beginning, you readers), please continue perusing this small narrative of my story's life.

Which brings us back to now, the present.

I must admit, after nearly four months of not updating this story, I feared I would lose most of my readers (except my brother), because I thought some of you may have wondered whether I scrapped this fic or just plain died. Well, I can happily say neither has happened! I have just been overwhelmed with enormous amounts of homework in my current freshman year (along with the introduction of a mandatory freshman graduation project) that I have not had enough time to sufficiently work on this. I also realize this is a poor excuse, and I make a formal apology to all who have awaited this chapter.

However, I finally have it done, and I believe that's what matters in the end. I truly and gratefully thank G3Rain1 for his gracious help in beta-reading this numerous times and going over the same sections on editing instead of skimming through when I accidentally forget to correct certain aspects of this installment. But please, I implore you to stick with me 'til the end, and to review and suggest to me as often as you think necessary.

I thank you, my readers, most of all, for even wasting time you will never recover to read this story. I cannot believe how hard it must be for you readers to have read the last three chapters, none of which have truly showcased my maturation in writing, be it academically or not (trust me, my school papers are much better than these fictional pieces).

I thank you for having responded to my requests for reviews and for reading it.

And now, as yet another favor, I urge you to read this fourth chapter.

Chapter IV: Demise

Surly from finding nearly nothing of use insofar as her expedition within the temple, Samus believed the small quest to be futile. For the past few minutes, she had been led down a winding tunnel, devoid of any life forms. During the lengthy walk, Samus had resolved to decipher the connotation of the temple's hieroglyphs (it was, when one realized the proclivity of her research, almost a perfunctory activity she did during the peaceful portions of many of her missions) as something other than mere detailed engravings by looking through past entries and memos she had made or saved, either for the Galactic Federation or herself; so far, though, she had made no progress whatsoever. That, in turn, had done nothing to ease Samus' truculent temper. However, she realized a few minutes later that, due to her myopic experience in history, her research had not been broad enough; rather than being the written equivalents of a spoken language, such symbols may well be part of a different dialect, one that only existed in a written form.

And as she came to this realization, Samus' search on her subject was more fruitful than before. She soon came upon an article that specified on the pure, original prose of the Chozo, before their writing became the legendary indecipherable language to humanity as it now is. She had saved a copy of this article into her files, originally intending to read this article for an assignment of her own two years ago, until the project was later scrapped when a top-priority mission regarding Space Pirates interrupted it; Samus never again found the time nor the desire to continue the project, but had not deleted the article from her memory files either.

However, Samus was now intrigued by the unique style of writing – and the chosen topic itself – and found a yearning to read it once more; and read she did, the research paper covering most of her heads-up display. It described, in meticulous detail, what resulted from the personal investigation of the article's author, and what he concluded of those data – mainly, what the author thought happened to the Chozo and how their language had evolved so fast, and why it contrasted so much from the origins of most human languages. The author – apparently a university student of Eastside, Tel-Vixto IV several decades ago – then speculated that Chozoan language had developed from an intrinsic dialect only consisting of inscribed characters, ones that were not entirely different from the Chinese culture. However, the history of this particular language was dissimilar to humanity's, as the Chozo actually invented a method of writing prior to speaking coherently.

Samus laughed inwardly at the author's conclusion despite herself, and, upon realizing her haughtiness, quieted. Although Samus had lived with the bird-like people for almost her whole childhood, she never learned of their history – either in their culture, civilization, or just basic facts. Startled at grasping this fact so long past the Chozo's disappearance from the universe, Samus almost missed seeing the moving dot on the radar of her helmet's HUD. Samus barely sidestepped from the shot as she closed the document and found herself using the combat visor; apparently, she had stepped into an antechamber unusually large in size, with two abnormally shaped turrets affixed to the ceiling fifty meters above.

There were short alcoves on the wall, approximately ten meters above the ground – a short hop would suffice, if one wished to be on them, Samus noted. There was a stone statue of – well, it seemed like a Chozo – in the top-right corner of Samus' vision, resting on in niche about five meters wide, maybe thirty meters above the ground; from what Samus observed, there was no possible way to get to the statue yet, with her limited equipment. That brought her attention back to the turrets, which she scanned quickly, revealing their stats: the Federation turrets, model GMX-04 Halberd-Class, were, upgraded versions of the old Growlers, and were capable of greater damage and faster shooting. As she continued to stare at the turrets, a large monotonous voice boomed from, seemingly, nowhere, and the thoughts of research fled from her mind.

"Identify yourself, unrecognizable entity. If you do not give a coherent reply in twenty seconds, we will desist with all peaceful negotiations and commence Phase One."

********************

"Sir, with all due respect, I can't comply with those orders gladly."

"Then, by all means, don't be glad."

The lieutenant barely suppressed a groan from surfacing, and took a breath – not too deep, but it was not light, either. "If I may speak freely…?"

"You already have, Davis."

"Commander LeTania is a pompous, obnoxious man who happens to have a record on disobeying commands and not following instructions specifically ordered by his superiors. His past records state-"

"I know what his past records say. What they don't say is that he's a good friend of your dear captain."

Valerie Davis blushed slightly, taken aback by Daniel's outright attitude, but remained quite unperturbed. "Are you playing favoritism?"

"With all due respect, are you playing favoritism, sir." Daniel could not help but correct his lieutenant; and his lieutenant could not help but be annoyed at him for that.

"With all due respect, are you playing favoritism, sir?"

The lieutenant's voice was straining, and he knew she knew he was enjoying this charade, but Daniel did nothing to ease her position. "No, I thought it was just worth stating. For future references, Davis, before you start slandering a peer's reputation."

"I wasn't-"

"Where were you trained for military action, lieutenant?"

"On Jovia XII, sir. But what-"

"On a planet of shape shifters? No wonder you don't have any manners."

"That is plain stereotyping, sir-"

"And apparently, you weren't listening to my statement." There was silence for a few moments, and Daniel observed his lieutenant's fazed manner. Her stance gave signs of unease, discomfort, and anger – all of which were not present at the beginning of the conversation, but obviously were provoked by the captain's stimulating arguments. "Listen, I've known all of you on my task force for about one decade now, and I speak to you now as a friend, as Daniel to Valerie, not Captain Exeter to Lieutenant Davis. I say: Sam is a good person; a joker, yes, and a callow troublemaker, but a decent soldier and ally all the same. He's loyal to the Galactic Federation no matter what – he only disobeys orders when he thinks it's in the Federation's best interest. Besides, you're everything he isn't. You'll complete him."

"Did that have a double meaning, sir?" Valerie's face was flushed red; Daniel thought her face would pop any second now.

Luckily for Daniel, Valerie did not notice it was time for her captain to be embarrassed. "I certainly hope not. Back to the main point, do you understand your orders, lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir. The Commander and I will make haste to come back here in seventy-two hours at the latest, with a full report completely covering the current details of Tivus."

"That's your secondary objective. Can you guess what your primary one is?"

"Get a cup of coffee for my captain."

"That's a good girl."

********************

"You have ten seconds left. Answer coherently in Standard or you will be terminated."

Samus had never been this aggravated before; yet she tried remaining sanguine even against the odds. No matter where she moved, no matter how innocuous her actions gave the impression of being, the turrets would swivel around as fast as she stirred. If she shot at the turrets, they no doubt would lose against her in a firefight… but that would only apply for the first phase. From Samus' scans of the turrets, their third phase was ultimately deadly to enemies, overpowering them in a single shot, and that was undesirable to the huntress

To Samus' utter frustration, the robotic tone spoke once again. "You have five seconds left; four, three, two, one… Commencing Phase One." The dual Halberd-Class guns extended about a-fifth of a meter out and shot slowly, alternating blasts at Samus. Caught by surprise by the shot's speed, although she had done her best to steel herself for the shooting, Samus was grazed on the left ankle by one of the shots – it took off a single energy segment as a result. Then, Samus hopped off to her right side, dodging the next few power blasts. Samus, aggravated that this would eventually lead to nothing but her demise if nothing were done, returned fire.

"Stand down, unknown figure." Samus felt the need to comply with the order, given its demanding and intimidating tone, but did not cease fire. "You have been warned, unidentified figure. Commencing Phase Two."

The turrets suddenly increased their rate of fire, continually aiming at Samus. They missed, then got a few shots in, and bombarded Samus, efficiently taking off a whole energy tank in a matter of seconds. Samus returned fire even faster, attempting to duplicate the turrets' rate of fire, desperately jumping around the small anteroom to try avoiding the turrets' shots.

"Stand down, unknown figure," the mechanical sound repeated, but Samus did nothing this time, either. "You had been forewarned twice, and disobeyed orders. Commencing Phase Three-"

With a sizzle, sparks flashed out of the turrets' moving joints, and the turrets themselves popped off the metal attachments and fell to the ground with a ping, effectively rendered useless. And as she allowed herself a small kvelling within, the truth hit her: these turrets had been reinforced with armor that should have made them less vulnerable to her Power Beam, so the only way to tear them off the fixtures they had been attached to would be to either do it manually (and one would have to be excessively physically strong to do so) or cause a self-destruct within. There were no apparent signs of a control panel of sorts, nor was there a doorway, which meant the turrets had to be controlled externally if they were done manually – and that would be where the saboteur had to be. A sound of metal-against-metal from above her – seemingly above the ceiling – confirmed her suspicions, and Samus pointed her gun fruitlessly at the ceiling. Then the Chozo statue in the top corner of the room burst into pieces as a black-and-purple stranger wearing various bits of armor and an energy blade on its wrist flew – no, was hurled – through it.

A Space Pirate.

**********--x--**********

Noxus had no qualms about tracking his target on a planet he had no clearance to; as a Vhozon warrior, he justified it and the eradication of felons with the simple reasoning that the Vhozon held this responsibility since apparently no other species had taken the mantle of peacekeepers of the galaxy and the time to eliminate all criminals. Noxus was comfortable capturing his prey no matter the location; what he was uneasy about was the nature of the colony itself – if "colony" could even correctly define the settlements, that is. The gauche structures that constituted much of the buildings portrayed many eldritch outlets on the construction superficies, scattered evenly atop the rim of the buildings. These outlets, upon initial observation by Noxus, each had a single steel pole resting in it stretching across to the adjacent hole on the other side of the triangular structures. The shafts extended even further out, and one would reach a palpable logical reasoning that such rods were constructed to suspend something.

Among the assortments of buildings habiting the area were iron conical pillars protruding from the ground, in the general shape of stalagmites. They seemed entirely to be architectural toys, made for the pure fancy of the builders out of enjoyment or displaying; yet, more fascinating about these were the manifestation of minute spikes poking out the surface of the cone near the top, right above a small bowl-like apparatus. From what Noxus could see, it seemed like a centrifuge of sorts, although he could not tell – from the design or material – how old this model was; if, indeed, Noxus had been correct in his deduction. After several more glances at the odd structures, Noxus' interest in them waned; conversely, Spire could scarcely discontinue his incessant stare at the misshapen stalagmites.

"Is that a communications tower?"

Startled at Noxus' inquiry, Spire raised his head just high enough to spot a dismal-appearing stone temple, perhaps a pantheon or shrine for a worshipped God. "The temple? That's nothing like a comm. tower, you idiot. Are you sure the Covee didn't take away some of your intelligence too?"

"If you're implying I'm being dense, Diamont," Noxus bristled warningly at his partner, "you'll be invited to a fight with me. Otherwise, no, the Corrue virus did not. In fact, I was pointing towards the object about a kilometer away, three degrees left of that temple."

Spire shifted slightly to his left and his gaze fell upon a metal dilapidated tower with G.F. printed on its facade. Its blue-white paint had worn off, giving the construct a desolate, broken guise. Useless wires hung from the front also, the tendrils sticking out and clinging the building much like dried octopuses' tentacles losing their hold on a precious item. The sleek design of the tower added to the impression of a professional, new-generation building with futuristic designs and defense system. But what caught Spire's eyes was a humongous, sectioned cable that uniformly snaked its way around the top of the building, curved downwards, met the ground, and continued out of sight. By exterior viewing, there were no openings on the building for the huge cable to connect.

"That could possibly be one," Spire shamelessly replied to Noxus, nonchalant of his previous misassumption. "We should probably check it out. There could be equipment we can use to find exactly where Viper went, along with readings and records of any unregistered G.F. ships to have entered or exited atmosphere in the last few weeks. We can also download a map of this entire planet and check nearby space stations for any suspicious activity."

"And I thought you knew for sure where the space scum fled," Noxus rudely commented. You sound just like a Federation officer, too. Sickened by Spire's apathetic concern for the possible presence of enemies – or even the lack of deducing such a possibility may exist – the cold Vhozon brushed past him, and went straight for the Galactic Federation tower. Regardless of there being floods of soldiers awaiting him, Noxus knew he would not hasten to kill them were it necessary to bounty the Space Pirate Viper.

"Hey, wait for me!" the Diamont childishly proclaimed as he realized Noxus was to leave him here with no regards to his safety. Well, what did I expect, for him to be truly grateful I was there when he was poisoned? Spire huffed exhaustedly, tiring of the distinguished Vhozon's accompaniment. "I take it you plan on going to the comm. tower?" A nod from Noxus. "I'm coming too. Don't forget, we're in this together," Spire muttered under his breath, and promptly fell behind Noxus.

Upon reaching the huge pillar, Spire noticed the more prominent and distinguishing features of it. The metal appeared to be die-cast, and the matching plates of the tower exterior seemed to be assembled in an assorted and careless fashion; the irregular tips jutted from the sides, and there were webs within the gaps where the plating had folded out to make said tips. The blocky G.F. letters Spire had seen from a distance were much less neat from this closer view, adding to its new yet old, ugly yet beautiful deceptive design. The overall design of the building was certainly futuristic, if not drab in its external features; yet the dilapidated look contrasted with this feeling, leading the viewer to believe it was accident resulting in such a unique look.

Spire took a step toward it and breathed exasperatedly, "You coming?"

The Galactic Federation prides itself on the quality of their equipment, their strict training regiment and schedule, the benefits those trainers receive, the brutal laws it enforces upon the common people, trainees, and fugitives, and the extensively lengthy trials lawbreakers receive as a pitiful token of democracy. What it does not pride itself on are the soldiers it trains.

This much was evident to Noxus, whose Judicator relentlessly pushed the flood of troops back as if he were a Juggernaut from Hell; as far as it concerned the troopers, Noxus was one. Spire, on the other hand, was the little devil that watches gleefully as the ambassador of death pummels innocent people, and when things went awry, lent an occasional hand of destruction to aid it.

Soon after the entrance of Noxus and Spire through the 300-foot tower's door, the two bounty hunters were the only remaining survivors of the violent slaughter that had occurred not but a few minutes ago. After the tense struggle, the overwhelming calm of peace and quiet that followed from no enemies left were unsettling, and the duo chose to compensate for this feeling by surveying their surroundings. The inside of the comm. tower was just as drab and dull as the exterior, and stained chairs rested lazily on the ground. Aside from these, there were no other features except the dead men on the floor.

"Come on, let's go." Spire restlessly gasped, not bothering to check Noxus' expression at the place. He turned on his heels to leave, and was suddenly faced with a perplexing enigma. There were two paths ahead, one curving up on wire stairs to a possible control room of the entire tower containing records galore of this planet, and another that seemed to be made of the same material as the cable Spire saw outside, leading deviously downward to an unknown destination.

Without waiting for Spire's consent or agreement, Noxus headed down.

As the two ventured farther below the ground, no comments were exchanged between them; they instead concentrating on observing for anything extraordinary.

Upon reaching the end, they noticed a room constructed of steel. There were prominent computers to the sides, and windows above them. The most prominent attribute of the room was the Space Pirate burying its face into a monitor, intently perusing the information posted on the screen. Beside it, at its feet, were less than a dozen men killed.

Upon hearing Noxus and Spire the pirate turned around, and Noxus tensed upon confirmation of the pirate being Viper, crouching in a battle-ready position. Spire did the same beside him.

Eyeing the violet figure, the pirate sneered in a raspy tone, "Well, if it isn't the two useless hunters who've come to capture me. Severing your heads will make a fine trophy when I get back home." With that said, Viper lashed out at the two bounty hunters with a violent hack of an energy saber that had materialized as he spoke.

I hope my readers have all enjoyed this chapter. For those of you who are perhaps curious as to when I plan to update this story yet again, I must say that I do not know. I also suffer from chronic Real Life Syndrome (Kefka Floyd owns this, by the way) as do some of my favorite Metroid writers, and I apologize for having a life.

However, I hope to finish writing at least half of chapter five by 2009, and the whole chapter if it is decided to be a short one.

But if not, I wish you all a Merry Christmas this coming December 25.