The sound of metal striking metal was all she heard. She felt no pain. Samus' vision began to clear back up, confusing her. She looked up to see Mother Brain's claw hovering above her, trembling and straining as if something was holding it back. It made a sudden leap down, causing two footprints to be cratered into the metal floor. She stared at the craters, watching electrical energy surge over a figure standing between Mother Brain and the floor. The disrupted cloaking device fell away, revealing a fully armored Chozo holding up the claw.
"Hurry! Get out of here!" he yelled. Samus mustered what strength she had left and pushed herself away from the area, skidding across the battle scarred floor. She looked at the struggle between the two. Mother Brain roared in anger as she continued to try and crush the Chozo. Samus saw the energy surge through the Chozo's arms as he actually pushed Mother Brain's leg away and jumped up, charging energy into his claws. He rammed the charged orb directly into the fleshy eye, causing it to explode along with a considerable amount of the brain's structure.
Mother Brain groaned lowly as it stumbled back, blinded. She hit a control on the wall with a massive fist, causing the wall to split open. She stumbled through it and allowed it to close behind her. Samus could hear the distant groans of the damaged Mother Brain. The Chozo landed on the ground nimbly without the use of his back thrusters. He turned to Samus, his gravity suit scuffed and scorched with age. The reserve tanks were empty, the auto repair having used all the energy. Her suit wasn't completely functional but she managed to stand up. She was hunched over slightly as the Chozo approached her. He watched her as she struggled to look up at him. The blue visor on his helmet flipped up, revealing his face.
"Young Bird!" Samus managed to breathe out. Young Bird's eyes seemed glazed over, as if he was in the haze of a dream.
"Samus…" He shook himself, clearing his head and looking at his injured sister. "You're hurt." He placed his claws on the shoulder mounted generators of Samus' suit and began sending energy directly to them, quickly activating her auto repair and filling all of her tanks. The suit became completely functional, its full power flowing through Samus again.
She stood up straight, her body no longer weak. She immediately deactivated her helmet and stared at her once lost companion. Strangely, he embraced her, something that she thought years of hard training and war would have been rejected from the body's possible actions. Even stranger, she returned the embrace.
"I knew you were alive…" Young Bird only nodded, breaking their connection.
"There is much to do before we can rest. We must stop Mother Brain."
"None of my attacks can get through. And she's bound to be prepared to fight you off by now. How can we defeat her?"
"I have communed with the elders. You hold the key to the destruction of Mother Brain."
"What?"
"During my seclusion, I learned to communicate across the galaxy. Time taught me the way. The elders didn't get the chance to tell you what they had trusted you with before they went into hiding. They revealed what had happened on Zebes to me, and trusted me with the information about you."
"What information?"
"They saw much more in you than they saw in any of us. They saw the potential you carry, and the limitless trust they could put into you. Hidden throughout your entire suit's system, is a weapon of enormous power. They call it, Overdrive."
"Overdrive?" Samus looked down at her left hand, trying to understand.
"It's a state of almost pure, limitless energy. It gathers concentrated particles in the air and uses them to directly fuel every single function in your suit, boosting your abilities to a limitless capacity. In Overdrive, you are completely invincible, and you will be faster and more powerful than you have ever been before. The only downside is the rate of attack. You have to charge your arm cannon before each shot."
Samus could only stare at Young Bird, not believing that the power could exist, let alone that the elders would trust her with such a devastating ability.
"I know it's difficult to believe, but it is there within you, and it's the only thing that can stop Mother Brain."
"Why me? How could they trust me with that power?"
Young Bird looked directly into Samus' eyes, delivering the message straight to her soul.
"Because no one else had the restraint you had. You never did more than you had to in battle training. You never used an attack to kill an enemy ten times over. And according to what they saw in your possible future, you would always have the restraint and clear judgment to never abuse the Overdrive."
Samus looked down at her left hand again, the armor scuffed from her battle with the Space Pirates. The innumerable enemies she had ended all went the same way. With Samus' honorable regards. Young Bird watched her patiently. She closed her hand in a fist and stepped away from Young Bird.
She closed her eyes, searching deep within herself, and her suit, for the key. She felt the power slowly and gradually gathering to her. She let it continue, although she felt that the power was unnecessary. She tried to remember her battle just earlier, how she almost died, how she was in need of extra power. Her mental gates were opened and the gathering energy picked up speed. She could feel every individual plate of her armor receive the massive power, becoming stronger. She felt every particle of her being become super charged, containing the potential energy of her speed booster; potential energy that could be easily converted into kinetic energy with little to no effort on her part. She reached a certain capacity of her own mental limitations, even though she had a physically limitless capacity for the energy. She opened her eyes to see a completely blank HUD. Her energy indicator was replaced with a flashing word. "Overdrive." She looked around the battle arena, seeing it all with extreme detail, able to make out the patterns in the top corners of the room. Her gaze finally settled on Young Bird, who had lowered his visor back down. He stepped back and away from Samus, giving her room.
Samus aimed her cannon at the massive door Mother Brain had gone through; her entire suit glowing a bright gold, exactly like the kinetic energy that enveloped her when her speed booster was active. She began gathering energy to the tip of her cannon, a bright glowing orb forming. Young Bird watched silently as Samus released the powerful blast. The entire door crumbled and disintegrated, revealing an even larger room. Mother Brain was locked down by a few tubes that connected directly to her organic brain. The eye had completely healed, more blood shot than earlier. She roared at the sight of the two warriors, red slime pouring out of her mouth.
Samus kicked off from the ground, flying through the air at an even faster speed than her speed booster allowed. She got to mother brain and kicked her where Ridley was, causing the wall she was against to crack slightly. Samus pushed away from the giant figure and landed nimbly on the ground. Mother Brain's eye was wide and seemed to be oozing blood. The tubes detached and Mother Brain immediately tried to attack. Samus was already at her legs, completely detaching one. Mother Brain screeched and leaned one of her hands on the wall to keep from falling. Samus landed at the ground again and watched Mother Brain try to collect herself. The familiar vacuum sound began again, the Mother Brain taking in multicolored energy. Samus began charging her cannon and waited.
Mother Brain's hyper beam burst forward and hit Samus directly. She merely stood in the middle of it, focusing on Mother Brain's eye. Once her cannon was charged completely, she launched herself toward the eye, flying through the hyper beam's ray as if it weren't there. She thrust her cannon into the eye, the energy completely destroying the brain, most of its upper body exploding.
Ridley's screech could be heard as he reformed from the torso, caught up in the blast. Samus hit the ground again as soon as Mother Brain's body fell, more explosions from its internal system enveloping the screeching Ridley. Samus watched as the explosions settled and the great dragon stumbled away from the wreckage, falling face down on the floor. He stopped moving.
Warning sirens started going off in her helmet. Samus suddenly felt a great pain sear through her entire body, causing her to completely lose the feeling of power she previously had. A bolt of energy released itself from her suit, blasting her backwards. The bolt hit Ridley, causing all of the glyphs on his motionless body glow a bright gold. Samus dispelled her Overdrive, the pain stopping immediately. She stood up from where she landed, watching Ridley. The glyphs continued to glow, all the damaged and compromised areas of his body repairing themselves. The words "Gravity Suit malfunction. Speed Booster malfunction" scrolled across her visor. She looked down at her armor to see it had lost its purple tint, now the orange gold of her Varia Suit.
Ridley's eyes shot open as the gold glow settled to a dim blue. He got back up and roared at Samus before he was hit by a strong plasma blast that knocked him back down. Young Bird's hands were thrust in front of him, flaming plasma slowly leaking from his palms. Ridley roared again and jumped through a wall using his screw attack. The blast rocked the room for a moment, Ridley's screeching and roaring fading.
Young Bird ran to Samus, who was looking down at her suit again.
"What happened? Did Ridley absorb part of the Overdrive?"
"No. The technology is untested, there are bound to be many things we don't know about Overdrive. It seems your armor shorted out for a moment. It dispelled a piece of your equipment and it just happened to hit Ridley."
Samus looked at the hole Ridley had made. He was probably exiting the atmosphere by now. She then looked at the remains of Mother Brain's body.
"Where are the rest of the Chozo hiding?" Young Bird had deactivated his helmet, relaxing for possibly the first time in years.
"I do not know."
"Why not? You said you had communed with the elders."
"Before I could ask where they retreated to, the Mother Brain became active again. If I had continued communicating she would have found not only me, but the entire Chozo society. I couldn't risk it."
"What about now?"
"Now, they are too far away…"
Samus looked at Young Bird's sorrowful face. He was supposed to be with the rest of his people, helping in the reformation of the society. But now he was stuck, away from them.
"That is not why I feel sorrow."
Samus froze, staring at Young Bird. He could feel her emotions, like the elders did.
"I am sorrowful over the events that led to the retreat. If I could have stopped the Pirates here, maybe they would not have come to Zebes and commandeered the Mother Brain." They were both looking at the wreckage now. Pieces of organic matter clung to the metal components that served as a neck, all of it scorched and dead.
Samus looked around the room, finding a small control panel behind a blast shield. She hacked into it with her scan visor and opened it up. The controls were easy to get into, and once she activated them, the ceiling began to split, opening up to the sky. Water dripped down, having built up from the rain. The clouds were parted in a few places, the nearby star shining through them. Samus walked back to Young Bird, calling her ship. The sun shined off of his armor, even though it was scuffed and scorched from his ordeal. He looked just like he had so many years ago, fresh from training and ready to fight with the elites.
Samus' ship began to land near them, settling next to the dead Mother Brain. Samus jumped to the top of her ship and waited for Young Bird. She could see the smile in him as he jumped up next to her. Her suit began dematerializing as she lowered herself into the ship. Once Young Bird was in, Samus was in the pilot's seat, getting ready to leave the planet.
Her suit's diagnostics were displayed on a holo screen. Nothing had changed about it, other than the absence of her gravity suit and speed booster. Whatever the Overdrive was, it was so integrated into her suit, she wouldn't be able to find and remove it. But she had enough confidence that she would never lose enough control to accidently activate it. Only when it was absolutely necessary. Once Ridley made his appearance again, there might be a need for it. After Ridley is removed, the Overdrive would lose its purpose.
Samus closed the view screen. Young Bird was leaning against one of the walls of the ship, watching Samus work.
"Looks like you're stuck with me until you can contact the others."
"Not a very bad turn out, considering Mother Brain's plans for the unidentified intruder they never caught. And I believe we have some unfinished business to work out."
Samus had almost forgotten their plans to practice. Young Bird had returned, and they had their agreements to tend to.
"Maybe after some sleep. I'd imagine you hadn't slept at all through those years you were evading capture."
Young Bird nodded. The power suit could keep their bodies from falling apart when they were not able to sleep, the energy keeping their bodies refreshed. It was an uncomfortable way to live for so long.
Samus pressed a few buttons on the holo screens, the back door opening, a small stasis-tank-like pod sitting in the middle of it. Young Bird walked to it, deactivating his suit as he did so. He stepped into the tank, the glass shutting over him. Energy enveloped his body slightly as he was put into cryostasis. Samus turned away and began pulling up information, trying to see if Ridley had attacked any ships to commandeer.
Nothing turned up. Most likely he had sent a distress signal out to a nearby Pirate ship and boarded with them. Samus closed all the holo screens and sat back in the pilot's chair, her own cryostasis procedure activating.
***
Ridley boarded the Pirate Frigate Siriacus, heading straight for the bridge, actually killing the workers of the ship on the way. He was frustrated over the loss at MG-239, and at being bested once again by the Hunter. The frigate took more damage from him alone than its previous encounter with a GF battle cruiser. Once Ridley made it to the commanding bridge, he began scans of his body, curious about his revival in Mother Brain's chamber. He found nothing substantial other than the acquisition of a speed booster device. Something that wasn't compatible before.
"Lord Ridley! An unidentified gunship has hacked our net."
Ridley looked at a different view screen, seeing a black gunship speeding away from the frigate. He was too angry to waste energy going after a hacker.
"Leave it," he growled. Right as the Pirate turned away to go back to its station, Ridley's tail impaled it through the chest and flung it back against a wall.
He read through the report. The hacker had taken information concerning the hunter. For what reason, Ridley could only guess. He only hoped that the hacker would attempt to hinder the hunter so Ridley could finally finish what he failed to do on Zebes that very first invasion.
***
A/N: Well, that's it for this particular adventure. Yes, there are plans for a sequel of some kind. Any feedback I get from this story will be greatly appreciated. If you would like to read the next story in line then please say so. I hope you all enjoyed the story. See you next mission.
