This was written for All The World in One Girl: A 35th Anniversary Metroid Zine! You can download it for free on their twitter, dotzines.
She should be dead.
First, she feels pain. Blistering heat leaves her feeling like she's been ripped apart and stretched thin. A pounding in her head rattles her to the bones. She feels torrid in her suit, her gloved hand gripping and pulling at the material to no effect.
Then, there's a soothing cool like she's being mended. Carefully folded and put back together as things slowly shift back into focus.
Samus's mind is muddled, her world rocked and confused. She remembers Mother Brain ending it; the burn of laser fire searing through her bones, the blistering white cold that replaced the red-hot blood that flowed through her veins. It'd been the end for her. Samus knows it.
"Why am I still alive?" It's a soft murmur to herself, even though she knows there isn't anyone else there. There can't be, won't be. She'd come to Tourian alone to handle this quest, a true testament of her solitary nature.
Samus is a lone wolf. Always has been and always will be. There are some things that you can't change in a person, things that are coded straight into their DNA. Samus is a reclusive sort, her only companion her Beam.
With one exception, of course. But that's a time come and gone, retired to the past. Nothing but a fleeting memory now.
Mother Brain is strangely quiet, tucked into the corner of the room as a looming, gray husk. It feels wrong, here, but Samus can't find the energy to move and investigate. Instead, she kneels there, breathing heavily, her legs leaden.
Everything's labored and distorted. Her brain, her body, the room around her. A shadow crests over her, hovering just above. Samus grunts as her eyes narrow and blurred vision clearing, because it can't be, it can't be-
It is.
The Metroid. She instantly knows it is, the kind recognition born of fond remembrance. The once-hatchling still brings forth warm memories within her heart, soothing over her as she utters a pitiful half-sob of disjointed pain.
Nothing makes sense. Samus blinks as though she isn't seeing correctly. Her helmet must be malfunctioning, her vision flickering slightly in its display. But then it rights itself, the fuzzy picture refining like a fog's been lifted.
The Metroid swoops in closer, lovingly, still like a child.
It followed her around like one, as though she were its mother. Mother Brain was unsuccessful in cultivating that same feeling.
Were Samus feeling better, she might laugh at the absurdity of it all. She thinks back to the events that led up until now. Finding the hatchling and then losing it. Ridding Ridley of his earthly coil only to find the hatchling's capsule long broken and empty.
The desperation that filled her, followed by the dread of the unknown. Samus wasn't the motherly sort, still isn't. Until she was for a brief moment in her life.
Then she first arrived here in Tourian and it attacked her, a hatchling no more. A Metroid instead, fully formed and utterly dangerous. Breathtaking in its powerful, realized glory. Samus felt a smidge of pride even when she defended herself.
But then it stopped the moment it realized who it was it held within its grasp, who it was that it sucked the life from. It'd healed her and ran away, shamed by the embarrassment of not recognizing her. Its would-be mother were this a less cruel world.
At least, that's what Samus assumes. Impossible to tell when it comes to a Metroid, she supposes, even ones you've grown accustomed to. But, actions speak volumes and since the hatchling's birth, it's only proven to be her friend.
She hasn't seen it since, assumed it'd fled, lost to the aether. Lost to space.
Or not.
Samus's head pounds, her heart pounds, everything pounds. She feels like she's been crushed into dust and rearranged. She'd give anything to take the damn suit off. And have a good meal and massage, working out the sore kinks in her muscles and spine.
The hatchling has to be a figment of her pain-addled mind.
Only it isn't.
The Metroid moves, hovering closer, caressing her with a sharp pincer that screeches across her shoulder. She can't feel it through the suit, but she can imagine it, a smooth gesture that speaks volumes. Affection, it breeds, even now.
Then the creature takes hold.
Samus has felt this before, she thinks, as it latches onto her. The cold-fire burn of the energy transfer. Only this time, it's different, the Metroid feeding her as Samus slowly regains strength.
In the background, Mother Brain twitches. Samus sees it in her peripheral, fingers itching to ready herself. She can't find the strength, still too tired and weak to move.
But she's on the mend. Mother Brain shrieks in rage as she moves once more, slowly pulling herself upright. Samus doesn't panic, not yet, but she will soon. She's breathing better, with smooth inhalations as her suit begins to function properly once more.
Not fast enough, she thinks.
The Metroid's grip on her is stifling but harmless. It doesn't seem to see that Mother Brain's on the move again, slowly lumbering over to where they are. Samus tries to pull away, no longer haggard and spent, but the Metroid hangs on, determined to give her all that it can.
It's already too late to warn it. Mother Brain's power comes down full force as she attacks.
Everything happens in slow motion. Samus doesn't move. Neither does the Metroid, holding firm as it transfers everything that it has. Mother Brain rains down fire, screaming into the void.
The Metroid falls to the ground, dead.
Samus stares, her eyes wide and uncomprehending at first. Then she feels the power that now pulses through her suit. Not just healed anew, but something else entirely.
Something that belongs to someone else, given to her when Samus thought all hope was lost.
In her youth, Samus fought to avenge her mother. Then she fought to save the world. And now, at this moment, Samus knows only one thing: the hatchling sacrificed itself to save her and gift her this last thing. The selfless kind of act that can only end with another.
She looks at Mother Brain opposite her, the creature loosing a piercing cry of terror as she rises and readies her attack. Time to return fire, exactly what Mother Brain calls her own.
Samus raises her Beam and takes aim.