"So, all your precious members are defeated!" Sylux boasted to the Dark Master, whose eyes gleamed with malice.

"I don't care...it surprised me, but ultimately, I'll win!" the master replied.

"You look too frail to beat us all!" Kanden commented.

"Appearances mean nothing! For all you know, this is naught but a disguise focused on catching the opponent off-guard!" the master retorted, standing and walking forward calmly.

"Then bring it on!" Noxus replied.

"Good to see such confident opponents, it makes for better sport." the master replied, vanishing and reappearing behind Noxus, seizing his arm and throwing him over his shoulder into the wall. At nearly the same time, the master reappeared behind Sylux, delivering a powerful kick to Sylux's chest, sending him soaring into the wall. Also during the instant after that, the master was in front of Spire, flicking him lightly with an armored finger, but Spire felt a great power emanate and was altogether unsurprised to be flying across the room into a wall.

Samus fired a missile, but the master caught the missile easily and threw it back, stunning her. In her moment of incapacitation, he flipped her over his shoulder like he had to Noxus. Weavel fired his Battlehammer, but his target vanished and struck him from the side, knocking him to the floor. Kanden fired a charged Volt Driver bolt, but the master reflected it with a wave of his hand, knocking Kanden aside, distorting his vision. Trace hesitated, knowing the Imperialist would be no good. Instead, Trace fired the Light Beam, but to his horror, the master blocked it, although he seemed unable to reflect it like he did the Volt Driver.

"Is that all you hunters have?" the master asked with a chuckle.

"No, we're still in this battle!" Spire replied.

"So you require another demonstration of my abilities?" the master hissed.

"Sure, bring on your abilities!" Weavel snapped.

"How ironic the one with the lowest strength left is the one who challenges me!" the master mused. Weavel snarled in reply, lunging toward the master blindly, but in an instant of time, the master lashed his foot out and sent Weavel rocketing towards the wall, where he collapsed in exhaustion.

"Come on fools, give me something to work with!" the master goaded.

"How's this?!" Drek shouted and a red beam hit the master, who grunted in shock.

"That armor doesn't seem very strong..." Drek pointed out.

"You filthy kriken piece of kriken filth!" the master spat furiously.

"Bit redundant there, aren't you?" Drek asked, grinning. Trace could swear that Drek lived for confrontations like this. The master snarled in reply, and Drek shrugged indifferently. Trace fired his Imperialist at the master, who dodged it without turning his attention from Drek. Noxus fired the Judicator, but the master vanished, reappearing behind Noxus an bringing an armored fist upon the Vhozon's head, knocking him to the ground.

Meanwhile, Drek had approached the center of the room, where the other hunters were temporarily gathered. The master seemed to relax a moment, his calm, and therefore creepy, demeanor was back in place.

"You're all too weak to beat me!" the master explained.

"Is that so?" Sylux asked, firing his Shock Coil, but the master seemed to absorb the energy with his hands before suddenly releasing the energy as his own weapon, the neutrinos surging through Sylux, who yelled in pain and fear, falling backwards, but managing to roll back to his feet, eager to complete the battle. Trace fired the Light Beam, but once again, the Dark Master repelled the beam away from him, neutralizing it. At the same time, the master easily knocked Noxus and Spire to the ground as they lunged to distract him.

Weavel's Battlehammer exploded nearby, but harmless to the master, who seemed able to predict every one of their tactics. However, another Imperialist from Drek struck him and the master bellowed in fury, conjuring a ball of flames, throwing it at the venom green kriken, who dodged with ease. The master looked startled.

"What's wrong, master?" Drek asked sarcastically. "Oh, could it be you can't read my thoughts, and therefore my tactics are completly unknown to you?" Drek continued, mockingly. Drek was doing strange, acrobatic swings and jumps between the two pillars in the room, which were at a distance of about 20 feet from each other, but Drek was leaping between them with ease, spinning to avoid the Dark Master's fireballs. Drek also managed to fake out the master, by pretending to be about to leap, but ultimately not jumping. The master snarled in fury and Drek laughed.

"Oh, is the great Dark Master, the leader of the Dark League getting confused by my simplest techniques?" Drek sneered. The master launched two energy bolts, shattering both pillars into rubble, but Drek had anticipated the move, leaping backwards off the pillar. The master scowled, vanishing and reappearing next to Spire, seizing the Diamont and throwing him effortlessly across the room at Drek, but Drek dodged the projectile.

Trace fired his Light Beam at the master, who seized Kanden's Stinglarva (which was sneaking up on him) and using the slug as a shield, injuring Kanden and defending himself. Samus fired her missiles, but the master caught each one easily, throwing them with perfect accuracy at other hunters faster than Samus could shoot them.

"STOP SHOOTING!" Sylux yelled after getting hit by redirected missiles for the 3rd time. "Oh, sorry..." Samus replied, seeing the targets the master had assigned her missiles too. Only Drek had been able to dodge them.

"All together now!" Spire yelled, and immediately all hunters, except Drek, who isn't a hunter, fired at the Dark Master. Drek groaned at his teammate's idiocy.

"He's not there anymore! He shadow teleported long before you guys started shooting! Don't you get his strategy yet?" Drek yelled in annoyance. Trace nodded, having been the only hunter to shoot at a different area than the others.

The Dark Master reappeared behind Trace, slamming his fist into Trace's back. At the same instant Drek fired his Imperialist, hitting the Dark Master's hand. The master yelled in pain, and the impact was weaker than intended, merely knocking Trace to the ground rather than a greater injury. Spire fired his Magmaul at the master, who caught the magma ball and threw it at Noxus, who neutralized it with the Judicator.

The battle was becoming more intense, as the master had regained his composure and was once again efficiently countering their moves. None of the hunters were giving up, although Drek was content with watching the battle more than actually fighting. Trace found this annoying, as Drek was the only one able to injure the Dark Master.

"There's more to this battle than you could ever know!" the master sneered, kicking Trace aside, seizing Noxus' arm and throwing him into Kanden. Samus' morph ball was zipping aorund the room, planting bombs as close as possible to the master, but was more often kicked aside by the skeletally thin armored figure, the morph ball often slamming into other hunters, knocking them to the ground. After a repeat performance in this manner for the third time, Samus returned to biped, to the elation of the unintentional victims of her rolling morph ball.

Drek narrowed his emerald green eye, watching the Dark Master carefully. The master's armor was one of the weakest armors he had ever seen, but the master was the most powerful member. Why would the strongest Dark League member use the weakest Dark Armor? The only solution that made sense was the master was stronger without the need of the armor, but that didn't make enough sense as the master relied on the armor's abilities, especially shadow teleport and energy conjuring.

Drek fired his Imperialist, hitting the Dark Master, who yelled in fury, stumling backwards. The distraction was sufficient, as the hunters pounced on the opportunity to finish the fight by firing all their weapons and firepower on the master, but Drek noticed the master's teleportation and turned around, firing the Imperialist, striking the master as he reappeared behind Drek.

"Getting slow!" Drek jeered. The Dark Master's face twisted into a dark scowl.

"You won't win, filth!" the master snapped. Suddenly there was a flash of energy, and Drek grinned as the master was launched off his feet, slamming into the wall, the armor cracking. Trace fired the Light Beam and the master howled in fury as the light energy spread through his body.

"That wasn't as hard as I thought it would be..." Samus said nervously. The master glared at them as his body seemed to melt into a puddle of goo, but then reform. Instead of a human-like figure, the new figure was completely shapeless, moving about freely.

"Shapeshifting powers..." Samus remembered quietly.

"Correct Miss Aran!" the master bellowed, forming the shape of a serpent.

"What is that thing?" Sylux asked nervously.

"Hehehe! The world will fall before the mighty Dark League!" the serpent hissed.

"The League's finished, get over it!" Spire snapped boldly. The serpent reformed into the humanoid master.

"Then perhaps the game should end now? Very well...learn the truth behind the Armor and then lose everything!" the master sneered.

"Um...ok?" Weavel replied.

"The Dark Armor isn't natural power, fools! In fact, its existence is perhaps the greatest mistake ever!" the master explained.

"What does that mean?" Noxus asked coldly. The master smiled cruelly.

"The Dark Armor is actually a Phazon infused parasite!" There was a silence.

"That's creepy." Kanden admitted.

"That's why the armor tries to envelop the host: It needs a host to survive. After a long time, neither can live without the other, and the extra abilities the parasite provides as a defense of its host is reason enough why the hosts wants to keep the armor! Of course, by that point, the host has been affected by Phazon, but not to the extent where its harmful, because the parasite needs the host. Enough to corrupt them, since aggression feeds the parasite! The League focused on replicating Dark Armor, and I discovered the simplest way: the Dark Metroid Hatchling!" the master explained.

"One problem...the hatchling was born infused with the armor, so it wasn't aggressive." Drek said coolly.

"Exactly, since the armor didn't need food, as it fed off the vital systems of the metroid. After a while, aggression is a negative effect, and the parasite instead tries to calm the host rather than increase the aggression. By that point, the parasite feeds from the vital systems, and aggression is bad for life if it goes on too long!" the master sneered.

"How was the metroid born with armor?" Samus asked softly.

"From the egg of the original Dark Metroid, which is a metroid infused with Dark Armor immediately after birth! Now witness the ultimate powers of the Dark League!" The master grinned and concentrated, the armor he wore faded away and a new creature seemed to appear. It was frightening to see, as Samus recognized the shape immediately.

The Dark Master was a Dark Metroid. An adult Dark Metroid.

TO BE CONTINUED...

I hope the chapter turned out good. It's pretty difficult to explain Dark Armor, but I knew I'd have to eventually.