Author's Note: Sorry I haven't updated in awhile; there's been so much going on lately that I haven't had time for anything, but the story will go on. Sorry for the delay, and enjoy the story!

—Darkest Days—

by: Glass Angel

CHAPTER II

"Alive??" Samus glared at the fellow bounty hunter before her. "What do you mean, he's alive?"

"Exactly how it sounds," Talon replied matter-of-factly. "The guy I killed didn't tell me where he was exactly, though. He said that he was somewhere in this galaxy before I killed him."

"Then why didn't you get him to tell you where Ridley was before you blasted his head off?" Samus demanded. "If he's alive, he still has a high price on his head."

"First of all, I don't blast people's heads off," he said.

"That's beside the point!" Samus glared darkly at him. "I appreciate the information, but get the hell away from me. I'm tired of you trying to kiss up to me for some unknown reason. For God's sake, we just met." She turned to leave.

"Hold on a minute," Talon reached for her arm one more time, but Samus immediately whipped around, gun aimed and ready at him. He held his hands up. "Woah, calm down."

"Get lost." She pulled the safety catch.

"Hey, don't you think you've had to much to drink to handle a gun?" Talon smiled daringly.

"Don't you think you've bothered me enough get away with your life?" she shot back.

Talon chuckled good-naturedly. "Okay, I get it. I'll leave you alone." He turned and walked off. "See you later." He waved behind him.

Samus glared at his back, then put her gun back in it's holster. "Damn guy doesn't know when to quit." She continued her journey back to her apartment. "There's something strange about that guy," she said to herself. "He acts so. . .abnormal."

Samus opened the door of her apartment and went inside. "Maybe the liquor will help me forget about him," she muttered, undressing. "Or it'll just give me a really bad hangover. Either way, I won't have time to think about him." She fell onto the soft mattress on her bed and pulled the light sheets over her worn-out body.

"I just hope it'll get rid of these damn nightmares."

* * *

Samus crept over to a window on a large building and looked inside. Her prey—an infamous, successful trader and businessman—was inside somewhere. Sure, she knew he wouldn't earn her as much money as she would like, but she had to pay the bills somehow, and good bounties were scarce. She didn't even need to use her suit for this one.

Samus silently pulled out a glass-cutter from one of the many compartments on her belt and cut a tiny hole in the window near the bottom. She poked the glass onto the sill inside and slipped her fingers through it. She then cut a larger half-circle around her fingers and pulled the glass away with the grip she had made. Samus carefully laid the glass aside, slipped her hand through the hole in the window, and unlocked it. She quietly pushed the window open and slipped through.

Samus scanned the room. Just seemed like a big storage room. Nothing but scattered crates and cobwebs. Otherwise, it was empty. Nodding to herself, she landed silently on the ground and walked over to a door. The bounty hunter pressed her ear against the wooden door, expecting to hear murmurs of deals being struck and money being traded—but heard nothing.

"What?" Samus blinked, then turned the knob. The metal knob came off the door in her hand. She examined it and found a cut on the side of it. "Someone's been here," she murmured to herself, then pushed the door open.

Samus gasped. "You!"

The long black leather jacket that the dark-haired man was wearing rustled as he turned around.

Samus's gaze was met by a pair of strikingly yellow eyes.

"Oh, Samus." Talon smiled. "Didn't expect to see you here. I thought you only went after big fish, and, compared to Mother Brain, this one's more like a tadpole."

"I didn't expect to see you again." She glared at him. "Where's the bounty?"

"Hm?" Talon looked up. "Oh, him. He's behind me." He took a step to the side.

Samus stared.

Dangling from a long black metal cord was a bloodied, lifeless corpse. Scattered around it were a dozen or more crumpled bodies, free of their souls and bodily fluids.

"Well." She turned to Talon. "That's a rather interesting way to kill someone. I've never heard of hanging people nowadays."

"I'm not finished yet." Talon brushed past Samus, pulling out a long diamond knife. He leapt up and sliced the blade clean through the corpse's neck. Talon caught the bloody head as the body fell into a crumpled heap with the rest of the corpses, seeping fresh blood. Samus blinked as she realized a common trait among the bodies—they were all headless.

"Well, that's done," Talon said cheerfully, placing the blood-soaked head into a leather sack.

Samus stared back at him. "Did you do that to all of these people?"

"Yes." Talon nodded, tying the sack with a cord without looking up.

"Why didn't you just shoot them?" she questioned. "This must have taken a long time."

"Shooting someone is boring," he replied, wiping his gloves off with a rag. "This way is much more entertaining."

Samus eyed him. Apparently this man was a lot more morbid than she expected.

"You obviously think this is a game," she muttered.

"Not at all, my dear." He smiled warmly at her. "I just enjoy the moment of death. It's so . . . invigorating to watch someone's life get taken away." He slung the sack over his shoulder and nodded to her. "Good day to you. Don't worry about these men—they aren't worth anything." He winked at her. "Maybe I'll see you at the next target. Until then." He turned and exited the building.

Samus stared after him. She never would have expected that the kind and rather annoying gentleman she had me the previous night would have turned out to be an expert bounty hunter with an obsession for death.

"I'm going to have to watch him," she said to herself, "and make sure that I get to the bounties before he does. I have to earn money somehow." She pulled out a scrap of paper from her jacket pocket and examined the list of names. "The next-highest bounty is a bar owner across town. At least it's not the one I was at last night." Samus returned the scrap to her pocket and left the old building. She walked a block or two away and found her parked motorcycle.

"I should get going," she muttered, "if I want this next bounty." She climbed onto the motorcycle, revved it up, and sped down the street.

"I wonder where that Talon guy came from in the first place," Samus wondered. "He doesn't look like any of the other residents around here. He could be a traveling bounty hunter like I am, but why is he the only one that I've seen?"

She turned a corner. "Apparently he likes to play around with his bounties before he kills them. He doesn't seem to care much about the profit. He probably took up bounty hunting so he could kill without running the risk of going to jail more easily if he was just a murderer. But he seems too soft to be a killer to me, at least in appearance. He's a very strange man, and disturbed, too."

Samus braked in front of the bar and gazed up at it. "It looks undisturbed. I guess I beat him to it; there are still customers in there." She parked the motorcycle and stepped inside.

"Give me a shot," she said, sitting down at the counter. A young man with shocking red hair looked up at the sound of her voice from a booth across the bar. The bar hostess noticed her and gave her a shot glass full of liquor. Samus took a sip and turned her nose at it. "You call this good liquor?" she demanded, thrusting the glass at the bar hostess's face.

The bar hostess blinked, surprised. "Do you want a more expensive brand?"

Samus rolled her eyes. "I've had better liquor than this for a cheaper price. What kind of service is this? I demand to see the owner of this bar."

"Right away." The hostess disappeared into a backroom, then soon returned with a burly middle-aged man.

"Are you the owner?" Samus questioned, casually reaching to her belt.

"What's the problem?" The man demanded gruffly, obviously disturbed that he had to be dragged away from whatever he was doing.

Samus smiled, pulling the safety catch on her gun. "You."

She immediately pulled out the gun and shot a bullet into each light in the ceiling. Glass from the bulbs exploded into thousands of pieces and scattered everywhere. Samus smiled as she heard people screaming and chairs being overturned as customers tried desperately to exit the building.

During the commotion, Samus fired another bullet across the counter. She heard a scream from the bar owner and a thud. The bounty hunter leapt over the counter and searched through the man's pockets.

"There it is." She pulled out a Resident ID card and slipped it into her jacket pocket. She turned and faced the panicked crowd. "My job is done here." She smiled. She fired a bullet through a window, leapt through it, and climbed onto her motorcycle.

Despite the great crowd running blindly before him, the red-haired man didn't bother to get up.

He only smirked.

* * *

Samus entered the bar she had visited the previous night and sat at the counter. She signaled to the bar tender.

"Give me a shot," she said to him.

"So, you're back," he said as he handed her a glass. "Glad to see you're not dead."

"Same to you." She smiled dryly and drank some of the liquor. "I won't be here for very long this time," she said. "I just need to have a word with someone." For some reason, Samus had an urge to see Talon again; she didn't quite know why, but she felt she needed to inform him of her victory.

Just as she had expected, the door opened, and the dark-haired bounty hunter entered the bar.

Talon sat down beside her. "I see you've beaten me to the punch," he said, nodding to the television reporting about the bar incident.

"We're even," she said, finishing the shot. She stood up. "I just wanted to let you know that I haven't lost my touch since Zebes," she pulled out the ID card and showed it to him.

"Just as I thought," Talon replied. "I guess if you don't have the head, you'll need some sort of proof that you killed him. I don't waste my time with Resident ID's, though." He accepted a shot from the bar tender. "Lopping off a head is more amusing."

"You're a very disturbing man," Samus replied, returning the ID to her jacket pocket.

"Thank you." He smiled cheerfully to her and finished his shot.

Samus tossed two dell to the bar tender and turned to Talon. "I'm going home," she stated. "I don't want you following me again. I will shoot you this time."

Talon laughed. "Don't worry. I'm about ready to turn in myself. However, I am surprised you let all those witnesses go at the bar."

"I'm not afraid of commoners," Samus replied, making her way to the door.

"You never know who's a commoner and who's not," Talon said, returning to his glass. "Take care." Samus exited the bar without a word.