Author's note: Oh my gosh, this chapter... I had to stop writing part of the way through and take yesterday evening to emotionally recover from a particular scene. So I apologize in advance if I give anyone the sad feelings.

Heh, I guess I get a little too into this world sometimes.

Chapter 14: Walk Through the Fire

Elisa closed the back door on Hector and locked it before turning back to stare into her living space. This was the home she had built with Samus, where they had lived together for years. But her lover would never set foot in its threshold again, and now, more than likely, neither would she. When faced with a treason on this scale, there would be no way the Federation would simply be bringing her in for questioning to try to discern Samus's whereabouts; she would be treated as a traitor herself and subject to the harshest forms of interrogation their sick minds could think up.

She did not wait for Colonel Maroney and her lot to knock before she opened the door, having granted them access through the front of the force field. She knew hiding up in here would do no good, and they would bring down the shields eventually. What she did not expect, however, was for Colonel Maroney to be accompanied by none other than Secretary of Defense Harper herself.

An intimidating woman, Harper stood six and a half feet tall. She was dressed in the blue uniform of a four-star General, and her graying brown hair was pulled into a tight bun under her hat. She looked to be in her mid-fifties with high cheekbones and piercing green eyes that seemed to look right through Elisa as she strode into the house.

"Where is Aran?" Harper demanded without so much as an introduction as Colonel Maroney and about half a dozen troops pushed Elisa to the side to enter the house.

"My guess is as good as yours," Elisa said. "It's not like she called to tell me about any of this, but you probably tapped all the phone lines and know that already."

"Cute, Rodriguez." Harper glared at her. "But I should have figured Aran really was the type of person to just go on the lamb and leave her cute little wifey behind without an explanation."

Elisa didn't say anything, just staring blankly at Harper as a couple of soldiers ran up the stairs and began ransacking the bedrooms looking for clues. She knew they wouldn't find anything. Samus had been too thorough for that.

"Officer Elisa Rodriguez," Colonel Maroney said, coming up behind her and pulling Elisa's arms behind her back, "you are under arrest for treason against the Galactic Federation and for conspiring in acts of terrorism with the fugitive Sam—"

She was cut off suddenly as an animal's roar ripped through the room and something shot out of nowhere, throwing the Colonel to the ground. Maroney screamed as the massive brown dog pinned her and bit into her arm, shaking his head from side to side before finally letting go and striking once more, tearing out her throat as blood shot across the living room carpet.

A shot rang out as Harper drew her sidearm and shot the wolf-like beast in the hind leg. Archer yelped, but he turned with preternatural speed and lunged at Harper before she had a chance to fire off another round. The General's screams mixed with the dog's roar as he bit into her upper arm, tearing skin and muscle clean from the bone as the tall woman also toppled over with the dog continuing to slash at her with his fangs.

The attack was short-lived, however, as a rain of gunfire showered down from the staircase above. All at once, three soldiers took aim and shot at the animal, firing with deadly accuracy to avoid hitting the General in the process. Archer barely whimpered as his body fell limp, his jaws still around Harper's arm as his life left him. Two of the soldiers kicked the body of the dead dog out of the way as they rushed to Harper's aid.

Elisa gasped and staggered backward, adrenaline pumping through her so quickly she almost started to cry as she watched the macabre scene before her in disbelief. She heard one of the men yell as something struck her in her thigh, but several pairs of arms were around her before she could hit the ground, and before she knew it, her arms were cuffed behind her back as she was forcefully dragged out of what was once her and Samus's home.

Leaving Calline's room was a surprisingly difficult task considering how hard the girl had initially tried to keep her out, but Samus managed to pull herself away eventually. It wasn't that she wanted to leave the girl alone again, but there was something about her plight that struck a nerve with the bounty hunter, and listening to her story had been emotionally draining.

Samus got back to her room to find the etecoons and dachoras curled up on the bed once more, all looking up at her while she came in and took off her dress and boots. Throwing the clothes on the floor, she looked over to her desk to find Adam's compact and her earpiece right where she had left them. It was time to talk to him again, she figured, after having ignored him for so many hours. Reluctantly, the bounty hunter put on the earpiece and picked up the compact as she flopped onto the bed beside the etecoons and dachoras.

"Hey, Adam," she said, putting a hand behind her head as she lay staring up at the ceiling.

"Hello, Lady." His tone sounded irritated, but Samus ignored it.

"Any luck with that file encryption while I was out?"

"Parts of it," the AI replied. "Apparently the reports my original created were about the dangers of crossbreeding species for weaponization purposes. In particular, he wrote about crossing strands of Metroid DNA with—"

"Xenomorph DNA," Samus finished for him.

"Um… yes. And a research team working under him had found that—"

"While xenomorphs and Metroids can't interbreed naturally, their genetic material is compatible through engineering, thus making it possible to create a viable organism that is part Metroid and part xenomorph."

Adam paused. "Yes… You seem to be slightly ahead of me here. How did you know those two were compatible?"

Samus laughed. "First off, hello! Metroid-xenomorph-human-Chozo hybrid freak right here. I think I would know if Metroid and xenomorph DNA were incompatible in the same organism. Secondly, that's what we found on that derelict space lab. 'Metro-morphs'… that's what Adam called them anyway. I personally always preferred 'xenotroids.'"

"So you've seen them?"

"Seen some. Killed some. They were a thing all right… not anymore though. Adam and I made sure of that."

"When you were telling me the story earlier… the one of how my original was killed… you mentioned that you heard a sort of shrieking sound coming from down one of the corridors? Was it one of the xenotroids?"

"Yeah… that was something I'll never forget."

"You began telling me the story of his death… of my death. I was wondering if you would not mind continuing? I know it's hard for you to talk about, Lady, but… I suppose a part of me just feels like I need to know what happened. As time goes on I feel more of a connection to Adam Malkovich, not just in his memories in thought processes but almost as… an identity? Of sorts?"

Samus sighed. "I'm not going to pretend I know what that means or what implications that has for what other artificial intelligences are capable of, but I guess I'll humor you. Besides, probably about damn time I tell someone other than Elisa what really happened up there instead of lying my ass off about it."

"I have a hard time believing Zero Host is as simple as a Metroid clone," Adam said as he and Samus stood in the corridor of the abandoned space lab.

The shrill screech sounded again in the distance as Adam and Samus turned to stare down the hall. At least they no longer needed to decide which way they would go next. The General could feel the anticipation radiating off of the mercenary as images came flooding back to her of her battles with a species she had long believed to be extinct. Without another word, they started in the direction of the shriek, Samus leading the way.

She kept her arm cannon raised and ready in front of her, the black armor of her power suit reflecting the soft green glow of its lights. Adam followed behind with his pulse rifle at the ready as the sounds of the Metroid-like screeches flooded the hall once more. They were coming up on a door to one of the labs, one protected with a simple blue force field. Samus took a deep breath as she shot through it, prepared to come face to face with her old nemesis on the other side, but that moment never came. Instead, she and Adam stepped into an abandoned laboratory. Shattered glassware littered the floor as fragmented computer monitors blinked in and out, the last of their power finally fading from them. While there was blood on much of the glass and even the occasional bloody handprint, Samus found it odd that there were no bodies.

She did not say anything to her companion as the boots of her powersuit crunched over the broken glass, and he followed her silently as she shot through another door and they proceeded through it.

Oddly enough, this door did not lead to another section of the lab but rather something that looked like a massive empty arena. The ceiling was at least thirty feet high, and it was so spacious a horde of aliens could easily have a melee in here, and horror struck her as she realized that was exactly what the room was for.

Samus turn to look as she saw the hatch close behind her and Adam as an impenetrable blast shield slid over it. She had been in these situations many times, and she knew they never led to anything good.

"Stay behind me, Adam," the bounty hunter said, stepping protectively in front of the General as she anticipated something to come out at them any moment.

"Samus," Adam said suddenly, a note of urgency in his voice, "you need to disarm all of your weapons systems immediately."

"What?" she asked, turning to glare at him. "Adam, are you crazy?"

"Look up there." He pointed to a series of pipes that ran around the perimeter of the ceiling. "This ship is powered with Typhlorian gas. There's a leak in one of those pipes up there. One spark and this entire room could go up like a match."

Samus looked up and used her scan visor to assess the damage to the pipes. Sure enough, he was right. It was leaking Typhlorian gas at an alarming rate, and it was slowly filling the room. With much hesitance, Samus finally did as the General said and disarmed her offensive weapons systems, everything from her beam weapons to the missiles and bombs. The only thing she kept online was the ice beam since it would not cause any kind of combustion with the gas.

"I kept the ice beam online," she said, "but we're in deep shit if we run into anything stronger than an Alpha Metroid."

"Agreed," he replied.

But no sooner had the words left his mouth than a hatch at the opposite end of the arena opened. Samus's breath caught in her throat as a serious of the most horrendous looking creatures she had ever seen came through it all at once.

Three of them resembled the xenomorphs she had faced on LV-426, but the resemblance ended at their body structures and long, eyeless heads. At the center of their chests were nuclei like those of an Omega Metroid. Their arms resembled those of the mature Metroids as well, with their claws similar to the talons with which Metroids held onto their prey in order to leech the life energy out of them.

The fourth creature that entered the room could only be described as the equivalent of the Queen of this hybrid species. It walked on all fours like a Metroid Queen, but it had the long limps of a xenomorph. Its massive head looked like it could swallow Samus whole, a combination of a Queen Metroid's head with the high crown of a Queen Xenomorph. It's long sharp tail whipped around behind it as the Queen and the Omegas charged at Samus and Adam.

Realizing that her partner had no viable means of attack, Samus held her ground in front of him, shielding him from the oncoming hybrid creatures. She fired ice beam shots at each of the three Omegas and one charged ice shot at the Queen, but all four of the enemies seemed unfazed by her attacks. It was only a matter of seconds before they reached her and Adam, and while her first instinct was to dodge the incoming attack, she knew she had to protect the defenseless General.

Throwing herself in front of him, Samus took the full brunt of two heavy slash attacks from the Omegas and was thrown several meters across the room. Managing to right herself midair, she landed on all fours and rushed at the Omegas who were starting to converge on the General. Firing off several ice beam shots as she ran, Samus leapt into the air and landed full force on the shoulders of one of the Omegas, jerking its head backward with her free hand and thrusting her arm cannon into its mouth as she fired off a charged ice shot.

The creature staggered backward as she jumped off its shoulders and delivered a flying roundhouse kick to the head of another Omega that was closing in on Adam. As it staggered backwards, she shot a charged ice shot straight into the nuclei on its chest as the creature screamed in pain. She was about to strike it again when something bit down hard on her right thigh, lifting her up in the air and smashing her body into a wall. Samus gasped, and within moments, the beast that held her leg in its vice-like jaws slammed her down into the ground. It continued the pattern, throwing Samus around like a dog killing a rodent while the disoriented hunter was unable to get a good shot in with her ice beam.

Samus could not see what was going on around her as she was smashed repeatedly into the wall and the ground, but she knew the creature responsible was none other than the Queen hybrid. Her energy tanks were dropping rapidly, and she was concerned that the armor on her leg would soon be compromised, but she did not know what to do. The ice beam was completely ineffective against this creature, but any other weapon she might use would trigger an explosion of the Typhlorian gas that was filling the room. Finally, she realized that she only had one option left.

Instead of fighting the Queen's grip, she leaned into it, rolling into her morphball form and entering the beast's mouth. It seemed confused at first, but it quickly swallowed her, just as Samus had hoped it would. As she rolled deep into the belly of the beast, she hoped that the Queen's hearty insides would be enough to contain the blast as she laid a power bomb in its stomach.

As the bomb went off, the Queen screamed its death cry. Chunks of its innards exploded, even blasting holes in it to the outside, but its thick body was enough to suppress the blast and stop it from igniting the combustible gas outside.

Samus staggered out of the creature's corpse, taking a moment to fall to her knees and catch her breath as she assessed the rest of the battle going on around her. But to her surprise, there was no sign of anyone or anything. All three of the Omegas and Adam had disappeared. The General had been taken while she was preoccupied with the Queen, and a chill ran down her back as she realized for the first time why there were no bodies in the lab.

Xenomorphs did not always kill their human prey. Instead, they frequently took them back to their nest where they would be cocooned in a gooey wall until their eggs hatched. Crab-like creatures would come out of the eggs and latch onto the faces of the human victims, essentially impregnating them with a xenomorph spawn that would incubate until it burst from the chest of the host organism. Samus had a terrible sinking feeling in her stomach as she imagined that happening to Adam. She had been a victim of forced xenomorph impregnation herself years ago, but rather than kill her, it had been what had caused her to absorb the creature's traits, including its acidic blood.

She wasted no time in jumping to her feet and running full speed down the corridor from which the xenotroids had entered. There was no way she was losing Adam like that, and even if she could only use her ice beam, she would find a way to fight and bring him back.

She ran for what felt like hours but was not nearly as long in reality. The ship was like a labyrinth with different sectors that were built to house different organisms. Like the B.S.L., it was a Bottle Ship, a space station carefully built with different sectors housing completely different ecosystems. The pieces were brought in one by one but did not bloom into full-fledged biospheres until they were all pieced together inside. It's fragile but complex nature and unique method of creation had earned it a name reminiscent of the old ship-in-a-bottle models Earth humans had once been fond of building.

Samus used her scan visor to follow the trail the xenotroids had left and found that it ended in the hatch that led to a sector known as the croysphere, a super-heated area where only the heartiest hot-weather organisms could survive. Without hesitation, Samus shot through the door and ran into the sector.

But what she had not anticipated was the way her visor blurred out and went into full static. She gasped as she couldn't breathe in her suit and a warning appeared before her eyes that something was causing her life support systems to fail. In a panic, Samus deactivated the suit, exposing her body to the extreme heat of the pyrosphere. The bounty hunter gasped in the suffocating hot air, but it was still better than being in her failing powersuit had been. Looking around, she realized the cause of the static and electromagnetic interference.

All around her were electrical beings similar to the scatter bombus she had faced on Tallon IV. However, these creatures were absolutely massive. They had green and blue nuclei with long electrical beams extending from them like spider legs as they crawled along the walls and ceilings. Samus had never seen anything like them in her life and realized they must have been some type of new genetically engineered species. Without the used of her scan visor, there was no way to know.

The air scorched her lungs as she stared off down the long path through the pyrosphere, lava lining both sides of the room. She could not survive long in this temperature, and she was already beginning to feel its effects as sweat beads rolled down her face, but she knew she had to rescue Adam. If the only way to do that was to run through the super-heated pyrosphere without her armor, that was what she had to do. With a deep breath, she took off at a sprint, hoping that her strength would hold up until she could make it to the other side.

But the run was exhausting and she could feel her strength draining as she went. By the time she reached the hatch to the next area, she was staggering and panting, sweat soaking her hair and body under her jumpsuit. Her vision blurred as she could barely see the control pad to input the code to make it into the next room, and she all but fell over as the hatch opened and she staggered inside.

This area was also particularly hot but not as oppressive as the one before it. Still, dehydrated and disoriented, Samus proceeded with difficulty, noticing more of the enhanced bombus crawling across the ceiling. Luck finally came through for her when she proceeded through yet another hatch and noticed the cache of leathery eggs.

The stench of rotting human remains filled her nostrils, threatening to make her sick as the heat only exacerbated the effects. Along the wall, she could see the xenomorphs' gooey cocoon structures filled with human bodies in various stages of decomposition. On the far wall, however, she found the one she was looking for.

Adam was still alive and still in his armor as he looked up at her, but he was trapped in the wall, just as the corpses were, and there was a leathery egg before him. Slowly, its shell was starting to peel back, and Samus ran at it as fast as her exhausted body would allow her. She could not get to the egg before the hybrid facehugger jumped out of it straight for Adam's helmet, but she threw herself between the beast and her best friend as it latched onto her instead.

The creature's tail wrapped around Samus's neck as its long crab-like legs encased her head, but she got ahold of it before it could insert itself into her mouth. With her enhanced strength, she ripped the facehugger from her head, tearing off its tail in the process so that it fell limp and released her neck. With a frightening ferocity, she tore, the crab-like creature in half and discarded the pieces as its acidic blood burned a hole in the ground.

"We have to get you out of here," she said, turning to Adam and using all the strength she could muster to tear apart the cocoon and set him free.

"Samus," he said, at a loss for words as she freed him. "You came for me… Where is your suit? What happened?"

"No time for that," she choked out as she took his hand and led him back toward the pyrosphere. "We need to get out of here."

He followed silently behind her as she ran, pausing only when she opened the hatch to super-heated area as an alarm on his HUD went off that the temperatures were too high for his armor to handle. Hearing the warning, Samus turned to her friend and lifted him up without warning.

"Samus!" he called as she carried him and began to sprint through the super-heated area unprotected. "Samus, the temperature in here will kill you without your Varia Suit! Put me down and activate your armor!"

But she ignored him as she ran, pumping every last ounce of her strength into her legs to keep them going even as her vision became cloudy and her head began to spin. As she fell and hit the ground, she could swear the room was tilting and tumbling around her as the last of her visual field went dark.