Author's Note: Hey everybody! So unfortunately, this was supposed to go up this past Saturday, but some IRL stuff prevented me from getting this chapter out any sooner. Sorry about that.
With that out of the way, let's kick off the next arc!
Samus Aran of the Chozo
Threat Level: 5
Samus Aran is a powerful Chozo warrior and considered to be one of the strongest Smashers. The first thing to cover when discussing Samus is her power suit. The suit is armed with a powerful arm cannon armed with a vast arsenal that includes a variety of laser and elemental weaponry, a number of missiles and a compliment of bombs. Coupled with her precision marksmanship, this alone makes Samus an opponent to be feared. The armor itself is quite durable as well and has been seen protecting Samus from dangers like acidic environments, close proximity to lava and the frigid depths of hard vacuum in space. Furthermore, Samus's suit is equipped with a number of movement enhancing abilities, including a thruster pack, the ability to minimize itself into a ball, and of course is equipped with the Chozo's famed Spin Attack. Now to discuss the warrior under the suit. While significantly less threatening outside the suit, Samus is a top-notch martial artist and wields a whip variant of Paralyzer. She is also equipped with rocket boosters on her feet that allow her to fly short distances, even outside of the suit. They also pack a nasty punch when used with a kick. It should be noted that Samus is not one that is known for going all out in battle on a regular basis. This can be accounted for by the Chozo tenants of restraint and using exact amounts of force in battle. Nevertheless, if necessary, Samus will use everything at her disposal to down her enemies.
To fight Samus, it must be mentioned that any means of disabling her power suit, or more specifically, her arm cannon, is worthwhile. It is her only weapon on her suit, and without it, she's lost most of her ranged weaponry. Do not forget that even without her suit, she is dangerous martial artist, though she is much less menacing than with her arm cannon. Furthermore, though her armor is tough, it is not invincible, and it can be damaged with overwhelming firepower. One strategy that may be worth attempting is launching an all-out offensive against Samus at the beginning of a fight, due to her Chozo mentality of moderation, as she will never open with her most powerful weaponry. This strategy may be able to catch her by surprise and allow for one to seriously damage her armor or arm cannon early in the fight. A second strategy would be to surround Samus with a team, as Samus's weaponry is mostly lasers and missiles and she shoot in more than one direction at once. Remember, Samus is a potent fighter at both short and long ranges, and underestimating her at any range is folly at best.
Timberwolf Squad:
It is common knowledge that many consider Humans to be inferior in all aspects to many of the other species in the galaxy due to their lesser ability to improve their physical abilities then other species and lack of children born with special powers. However, a careful analysis of their methods of warfare reveals many interesting tactics and strategies never seen before in the galaxy at large that may be able to match or even surpass the gold standard of tactics as we previously knew it. As the four members of Timberwolf Squad are well versed in such strategies and tactics, they are not to be underestimated. As with the Pokemon Trainers, I will provide a general history and general counters here before providing specific information and specific counters for each member of the team. These Smashers include Packrat, Cordelia, Scrapper and Skylark.
I will first include a brief summary of relevant human history. It appears humans come from a homeworld known as Earth. At some point, they began to colonize inhabitable planets, using wormhole generators to get from planet to planet. Eventually, they colonized a stretch known as the "Far Arm". However, after some sort of disaster, the wormhole generator leading back to Earth was destroyed and the Far Arm colonies were cut off. After a rapid succession of catastrophic events and brutal civil wars, the Far Arm colonies were reduced to a single planet, Horizon. After a civil war of its own against a would-be dictator, the planet's political climate appears to have stabilized and the humans enjoy relative harmony. The four members of Timberwolf Squad all call this planet home.
Human soldiers utilize firearms and explosives near exclusively and are equipped with personal energy shields. This trend holds true for the members of Timberwolf Squad. This makes them very dangerous at medium, long and extreme combat distances. In this respect they are similar to the Cornerian Armed Forces, save for their near laser focus on ranged combat, and their highly intricate squad tactics. Each member of Timberwolf Squad additionally carries specialized weaponry that allows them to fill a specific role on the team. While equipped with melee weapons like knives, they have an extreme de-emphasis on melee combat and generally prefer ranged combat.
Timberwolf Squad, despite the name, was not originally a military unit. Instead it was a small salvaging company founded almost 5 years ago. Salvaging companies are enterprises that return to the abandoned human colonies and attempt to salvage and bring back useful things from the ruins of the former colonies. As there are a number of dangers associated with being a salvager, most salvagers are well versed in combat and many are former soldiers. The members of Timberwolf Squad are no exception to this rule and are quite dangerous opponents. They ran a successful operation until they were recruited by the Smashers. The circumstances of their recruitment have never been disclosed to the public.
On the surface, the plan to defeat them is simple – all one needs is a fighter fast enough to dodge their weapon's fire and get into melee range. From there, the humans will be too slow to react and will be easy pickings. While this plan is good in principle, there are a few things that complicate matters. First are their energy shields, which are known for being able to eat many hits. Energy shields are capable of absorbing multiple lasers and even absorbing nearby explosions before breaking, so do not expect to be able to break it with a single punch. Second is their focus on teamwork. Often, they're seen taking support roles in combat with other Smashers, and it is very rare to see any of them fight alone. This means that they will often be surrounded by other fighters who are better suited to conventional combat. Finally, their focus on longer range combat may make it difficult to close the distance. Despite all of this, closing the distance and defeating them in hand to hand combat is the best strategy. Other strategies that may help include disarming them or disabling their power suits and shields with EMP.
Note 1: These four Smashers share many similar abilities and weapons. The weapons that I can confirm that all of them carry include a laser assault rifle, a laser pistol, and a combat knife. They also are armed with energy shielding. They also appear to use power suits that increase the wearers strength and durability. The power suits also include jetpacks, heavy energy shielding and arm cannons that seem to differ from Chozo designs. All of these arm cannons appear to have the ability to fire a laser LMG, rockets, grenades, and flamethrowers. Each member of Timberwolf Squad also appears to carry their own personal weapons – I'll discuss these in their personal bios.
Note 2: As humans as a species are very recent additions to the Galactic Assembly, knowledge on their martial arts is not widespread at the time of writing. As such, while the information here has been researched to the best of my ability, it is not complete, and some parts may be inaccurate.
Note 3: Each member of Timberwolf Squad appears to have had a background in a specific military unit. As little is known about each specific Smasher, my analysis will also cover the unit they correspond to so as to flesh out a profile for them. I apologize for the extra length in advance, as their unconventional methods of combat will require extra explanation.
Act 4: Samus
Chapter 1: Foundation
Samus watched the world pass by outside of her as she sat in the passenger seat of a large van. It was remarkable how peaceful it all was, here on Harmony. Just another highway on another day. Or so everybody thought. Hopefully it was going to stay that way.
Scrapper sat behind the wheel of the van, eyes intently on the road. Their vehicle was disguised as a power company van to avoid attracting attention. It would do no good to cause public panic by revealing that an unknown enemy force had set up a base on one of the safest planets in the galaxy, especially after what had happened yesterday. There had already been enough panic after yesterday's attack. The news stations had been all over it, and Roy's press conference had been very highly publicized. There was no need for any extra panic.
Samus sighed. She did not like this situation in the slightest. She was used to going alone or with a small team. All of these civilians and police officers around made her nervous. Everything should be just fine. But there was no guarantee that everything would go just fine. Samus had learned that the hard way before.
As Roy had mentioned, the base absolutely had to be well hidden, otherwise somebody would have picked up on something funny coming from the area. That meant an underground base. Which to be fair, she was very used to, having fought her way through Zebes, SR-388, and various scientific facilities. She'd taken this mission because of that experience. And she'd built her team around that.
Timberwolf Squad was the easy choice to bring with her. Each member of the squad was armed with a variety of weaponry and was familiar with fighting in close quarter environments against many different kinds of enemies. Even if some of their members had an aversion to close quarters combat. She flicked her eyes to Scrapper, who was still driving. He didn't look too nervous. Scrapper was always more effective with sky access and a lot of space, usually preferring to either rely on his sniper rifle or DMR or provide support from the sky from his dropship. Thankfully, he was an engineer and tinkerer first and a marksman second, so he was still comfortable with using closer range weapons, and his surveillance and intel gathering abilities were bar none except for possibly Indigo amongst the Smashers. This was balanced out by Cordelia, who preferred up close and personal battles with her machine pistols and power suit boosted martial arts, even if she also was generally more effective running and fighting at full speed over rooftops, uneven terrain, and cluttered landscapes where others could not. Packrat was probably the one who on paper was the best for this mission. His sentry guns would obliterate both small and large groups of enemies alike down long but confined corridors. The fact that he loved big weapons with high rates of fire and high ammo capacity didn't hurt either. Finally, Skylark was a flexible fighter and could chip in for just about any situation, and her medic skills were always handy. While less specialized then the others were combat wise, she always pulled her weight, no matter where she was. Individually, Timberwolf Squad made a formidable group, but their years of experience working with each other made them exponentially more effective as a team.
Finally, Falcon acted as a much-needed source of extra power and a brute force answer to more conventional problems. It was always best to pair the specialized members of Timberwolf Squad with more conventional Smashers, like herself and Falcon. After all, they were humans, and didn't have the same strength, speed, durability and other physical attributes like every other species in the galaxy. For instance, humans couldn't just train a lot and be fast enough to dodge laser fire or lift rocks in excess of 500 pounds. Well, Samus was human too, but her Chozo DNA effectively put her on par with everybody else. But it wasn't worth pondering things that she already knew at this point. They had their mission. Samus had everything she needed to make this mission a success. All they had to do was carry it out.
The others were carrying on a conversation behind her.
"So, how's the F Zero life treating you, Falcon? Saw you won the Aquas Grand Prix a few weeks ago!" said Packrat.
"Yeah, that one was close. I was up against Samurai Goroh. You don't become my self-proclaimed rival and keep the title without being real good," said Captain Falcon. "He's persistent because he's never beat me, but it keeps me on my toes, that's for sure!"
"No doubt!" said Packrat.
"Well, if you wanted to stay on your toes, you could have driven us! We would have gotten there already!" said Skylark, poking the back of Scrapper's chair.
Scrapper did an exaggerated yawn and let his foot off the gas a little.
"Chop chop, slacker! We don't have all day!"
Scrapper just chuckled and decreased his speed a little more.
Skylark rolled her eyes impatiently.
"Actually, this is our exit, coming up," said Samus. "The cross streets we're going to are Sunflower and Highland."
"They have the exit blocked for us, right?" asked Scrapper.
"That's correct."
Scrapper pulled onto the off ramp, slowing as he rolled up to the barricade. Samus stuck her head out of the passenger window and waved. The police officers waved back and moved the barricade so they could get through. They made a left, and in a few minutes of driving through the empty roads, they arrived at a fairly large park. Scrapper pulled over next to the large array of police cars and stopped the car. As the others filed out, Scrapper locked the van and followed the others onto the sidewalk. Immediately upon stepping outside of the van, Samus activated her armor around herself. Packrat, Cordelia, Scrapper and Skylark pulled their various facemasks and eyewear over their faces. Apparently, it was a human convention for soldiers to cover their faces in battle. It was one of the interesting things that Samus had learned about her home species. She'd tried it herself for a little while, but she couldn't get used to any of masks she'd tried. It wasn't the end of the world, she was half Chozo as well, after all.
As she warmed up her arm cannon, the holographic outline of various weapons appeared in the hands of Packrat, Cordelia and Skylark as they deployed their weapons from their IDDs. After a few seconds the actual weapon appeared in their hands with a flash of light. Packrat slung his SAW onto his back, while Cordelia and Skylark both fiddled with their Assault Rifles for a moment, before following suit. Scrapper did the same, though instead of an assault rifle, his enhanced ballistic shield and a shotgun with an underbarrel shotgun appeared in his hands. He hoisted the shield onto his arm and slung the shotgun onto his back.
Samus never understood why they didn't just suit up with their powersuits at the beginning of missions. While not the same as her Chozo Powersuit, the powersuit worn by each member of Timberwolf Squad was a sophisticated piece of technology. Packrat had once tried to explain the powersuit's system to her. She wasn't as technically skilled as Packrat and Scrapper, the two inventors of the team, she did understand the gist of how the suit was controlled. Apparently, the helmet housed a modified VR headset of all things. As long as the wearer used clear, focused thoughts, the helmet could read the wearer's mind and make the suit do things without any other inputs from the user. Or something like that. Practically, it meant that the wearers could control their suit's functions with only their thoughts. In conjunction with the IDD system and the other abilities of the suits, it exponentially increased the capabilities of the wearer. In some ways, it seemed like an upgrade to her suit, which was controlled by tracking her eye movement on her HUD. Despite this, the Chozo elders seemed unwilling to let her make the upgrade as it was "not harmonious" or something like that. Bunch of stuffy old philosophers.
"Are we ready? Let's move!" said Samus.
They began walking towards the park. As they did, a policeman came up to them.
"Smashers! Glad you could make it. Chief Wilson is up ahead at the park!"
"Thanks officer. We'll follow you in," said Samus.
The Smashers followed the officer across the street and towards a pavilion that had a lot of police personnel milling around. As they came close, a Lylatian looked up.
Samus waved. "Chief Wilson! Good to see you!"
The chief smiled wryly. "It's good to see you, Samus. Wish it was under better circumstances. Are you ready to investigate the area?"
"That's right, sir."
"Good. I have a lot of complaints buzzing in my ear about the disruption this is causing. This had better be something big," said Chief Wilson.
"We are confident that it is," said Samus.
Chief Wilson nodded. "All right then. Better let you get to it then. Let one of my officers know if you need anything."
"Very well. We'll begin our investigation."
Samus nodded to the others. Scrapper and Skylark pulled out two scanners and began surveying the area.
"Go east," said Skylark after a few moments to inspect her scanner. "The signal's very strong here."
"Yeah," said Scrapper, in agreement. "We're close, that's for sure."
They kept walking, following the signal until they came up to the entrance of a large storm drain in the side of the park's retention pond.
Samus, followed by the others, followed Skylark up to the grate.
"Signal's strongest here. Do we want to go in there?" asked Skylark.
"Yeah. Everybody stand back for a second," said Samus.
Samus fiddled with her arm cannon's settings for a minute before firing a continuous beam of plasma at a few of the bars, cutting through them and allowing access through.
"All right, let's get in there."
Scrapper led the party, ballistic shield and handgun at the ready. Samus followed him, then Packrat, then Cordelia and Skylark, with Falcon leading up the rear. Scrapper stopped in his tracks.
"Look at this. The side's been caved in and there's a hatch here."
"How's the scanner looking?" asked Samus.
There was a pause, before Skylark said, "The R-47 readings are higher here. That's enough for me! This has got to be it."
They gathered around the hatch. It was a small, 1 person wide hatch that appeared to be more for a small secret bunker.
"Are you sure this is it?" asked Captain Falcon.
"I can also see the top floor of a structure under the hatch with my X-Ray visor. It looks like it could be the interior of a base. We should definitely investigate this," said Samus.
Walking up to the hatch, Samus noted that it was kept shut with a few basic locks. She blasted the locks with her Ice Beam, before punching them, shattering them into pieces. She unlatched the lid, flipped it open, and was about to go down the stairs, when Scrapper stopped her.
"Let me scout out the area. Make sure it's safe."
"Right."
A small square drone about the size of a dinner plate with four rotors and a small gun underneath appeared from Scrapper's IDD after a few seconds.
"All right, Firefly! Time to shine!" he muttered.
He crouched and tapped a small screen on his IDD gauntlet. The Firefly drone took off and stabilized itself before vanishing from sight as it moved over the hole. Samus rolled her eyes. Scrapper and his cloaking devices. The smashers waited as Scrapper continued to control drone from his gauntlet.
"So…..you think we'll run into those guys that Roy and the others fought?" asked Cordelia.
"No idea. I guess we'll find out when we get down there," said Samus.
"If we do, I want to face my clone. I want to see how he fights," said Captain Falcon.
"I don't blame you. If I had a clone of me, I'd want to fight them too," said Cordelia.
Falcon nodded, and the group fell into silence again. After another minute, Scrapper looked up and said, "Ok, looks like the base of the ladder is clear. Had to take out a camera, so they might get suspicious if anyone's watching the security feed."
Samus nodded and started climbing down the ladder. It was a bit awkward for her, with one of her arms taken up by her arm cannon, but she made it down without incident.
At the bottom of the ladder, she stood guard as the others climbed down the ladder. Next was Scrapper. As he stepped off of the ladder, he pulled his ballistic shield off of his back and crouched squarely in the doorway to the long hallway that stretched before them with his shield at the ready. Samus stood behind him, aiming over his head. As the rest reached the bottom, Scrapper knelt down in a corner, and sent Firefly down the hallway a decent distance.
"Nobody's there. It seems awful quiet too," said Scrapper.
"All right, they still don't see us," said Samus. "Let's keep moving."
They moved down the hallway quickly but quietly. At the end of the hallway, they came to an intersection in the hallway. Scrapper carefully sent his drone down each hallway, while the others stood on guard at the ready. After some time, the drone returned to him.
"All three hallways are clear. The one to the right is the only one that goes somewhere, though. But something's off. There's literally nobody here. I haven't seen a single guard."
"Have they abandoned this base already? That…..seems off," said Captain Falcon.
"Maybe the place is trapped?" wondered Scrapper. "Lemme scan the area real quick."
He tapped the side of his goggles, which lit up as he scanned the area.
"Nothing. No heat signatures, no electronics, no nothing. I'll keep scanning every now and again."
Samus stood up. "All right, if this base is abandoned, then we need to confirm that it is. Keep an eye out for ambushes or any presents they left behind."
"Rodger that!" said Skylark.
The group relaxed slightly, and began moving forward again, still with care. As they moved along, they came across what appeared to be the barracks for the base's garrison. It was totally empty. Nothing was left, only some garbage on the floor and heavy signs of wear from its occupants.
"What on earth? They really did a number on this place…" said Cordelia.
Skylark eyed the area critically. "They took everything from here…are they that short on supplies? You don't usually take every last thing with you if you're leaving in a hurry…well, unless you're Packrat."
"You know me! Waste not, want not!" said Packrat.
"It's Space Pirate mentality. Never leave anything behind," said Samus. "That's how you know the Space Pirates raided something. They take literally everything that's not bolted down and some of what is, depending on how much time they've had."
"Space Pirates….not the first time I've fought them and not gonna be the last time either," said Falcon grimly.
"That's a strange mentality to just take every last thing like that," said Skylark. "Surely you don't have to take everything with you."
"Hmm…it's not the worst mentaltily. If you're creative enough, it's surprising what you can make out of stuff you find lying around," said Scrapper. "Junk can have value, you know."
"Of course, you'd say that," said Skylark, rolling her eyes.
Cordelia just shrugged. "What else did you expect him to say?"
"Fair enough."
The Smashers continued forward, with Scrapper scanning for traps every now and again. They came across several other rooms. One appeared to be a security hub. All of the electronics and computers had been taken. Even the desks and chairs were no longer there. They discovered an area that appeared to resemble a cafeteria. As before, every single table, chair and appliance had been removed. Even the counters hadn't been left behind. A third area appeared to house a few offices, just beyond what looked to be a firing range.
Samus looked on this with a growing sense of dread. How had they not noticed all of this right underneath their noses? Had it been because they were careless? Had they not been looking hard enough for hidden enemies in a time of peace? But how could they have known? Nobody was looking for Subspace energy in the heart of the known galaxy.
They moved back into the hallway, after clearing what looked to be the former bathrooms. After moving down some distance they came to another room that looked like a meeting room.
"They have a meeting room?" asked Packrat in surprise. "How long were they here? This is the kind of thing they don't set up unless you're digging in for a while."
"Well, they had a firing range, proper barracks, and offices. I'd reckon they were here for at least 6 months, maybe longer," said Cordelia.
"What were they doing down here, though?" asked Packrat. "Can't be research and development, and its far too small to support a potential invasion force."
"A listening outpost?" asked Scrapper. "They could have set up a rig to keep an eye on communications. They would intercept information on what was going on here. It wouldn't have been that hard."
"But why reveal themselves now? Everything was going well," said Packrat.
Samus cleared her throat. "If we keep investigating, maybe we'll find out."
"Eh, fair enough. All right, let's keep going, unless there's anything to be seen here," said Skylark.
Scrapper did a quick scan of the room.
"I got nothing. Gonna drone ahead again."
Scrapper took a knee and reactivated Firefly. Samus stopped near the door and raised her arm cannon in readiness. It was still quiet. However, something seemed different here. Listening intently, Samus thought she heard some very faint noises. Something was moving, but some distance away. Her finger curled around the trigger of her arm cannon in anticipation.
Was it just the Space Pirates? Maybe they were accompanied by an army of Subspace monsters? The Subspace radiation was enough of a giveaway. What if there were more clones? Now that was a scary thought. They'd already seen four clones, who was to say that there weren't more? Who knew what else lay down the tunnels? More monsters? Hostile combat robots? Perhaps even a Lord of Subspace, like Tabuu?
Samus hissed under her breath as she quickly stopped her train of thought. She knew better then to do that. It had nearly been the death of her on Zebes and she'd made a point to never do it again. Baseless speculation got her nowhere and just ate at her resolve to complete the mission. She had to return her mind to the facts.
She had a team of powerful and competent Smashers backing her up. They were up against an unknown force that was at least partially comprised of Space Pirates. And since they were on Harmony and could call in a lot of other Smashers very quickly if needed. There was nothing to worry about. Only a mission to complete and bad guys to defeat.
Scrapper suddenly held up his hand.
"What is it?" whispered Samus.
"I've spotted them, up ahead. You were right, we've got Space Pirates."
Samus nodded to Scrapper in acknowledgement. A certain somebody who had a bad habit of coming back seemingly from the dead was pulling his usual tricks again. And she was going to make sure that he wasn't coming back after this mess was over.
Just a heads up – the character bio section might be a bit long next time. The OC bios will probably be a bit longer next time due to the nature of giving backstory on a totally new character. I'm thinking I'll do CF, Packrat and Cordelia next time and then do Scrapper and Skylark for the final chapter.