-Metroid Fusion
--Blackdie
---Chapter 11: Slaughterhouse
Samus was greeted with a massive fireball upon leaving the restricted section. She barely had time to leap up and out of the way as it slammed into the wall and created a molten impact zone. She landed on one of the catwalks and was stunned to see the spider Yakuza crawling along the ground. Its multi-sectioned mouth opened up and let loose another fireball to decimate another section of the hold. The attack brought a whole section of the catwalk system crashing to the ground and sent Samus rolling into a container. She jumped up in an acrobatic motion and opened fire, letting loose a barrage of missiles.
"I can see your nightmares!" Phantoon sang. "I can feel every single creature you ever slaughtered! It's such a vivid picture... I can make them come alive again, and I'll have Yakuza string you up the way he did those soldiers in the restricted section!"
Yakuza leapt up and tried to body slam the hunter. It was a quick springing motion that almost worked, except that Samus rolled out of the way in a Morph Ball form. The infected spider then leapt up onto a crate and opened his mouth to cough up another fireball. But it was met with an ice beam, which froze its mouth open. It shuffled around shaking its jaws angrily and soon smashed its head into the top of a crate to shatter the block. When it spun around to locate its target, it found itself staring down the barrel of Samus's arm cannon.
When it tried to jump out of the way, it was blasted into oblivion with another round of missiles. Its head was ejected from the main body and the whole creature disappeared in a plume of smoke.
"You don't like spiders, Samus? Ok, then let us move onto more familiar faces."
She turned around to see Crocomire appear before her. The large eight-eyed creature let out a distorted scream and launched a river of acid from his mouth. Samus ran from the deadly yellow substance as it went to work eating nearby containers. At that point, she wondered just how many creatures Phantoon could materialize at one time. Her question was soon answered as the heavy green shell of the Spore Spawn dropped from the ceiling and nearly crushed her. It opened up and spewed a cloud of spores that dug its way into anything it touched.
Crocomire was really moving, dragging his heavy body through the corridors created by the containers. He was good on keeping his mouth shut and merely growled at Samus when making eye contact. There was not much he had to worry about. Between his acid attacks and the wild Spore Spawn, Samus was forced to keep her mind on moving and not attacking. An explosion rang out as the acid penetrated something less than stable. Smoke began to fill the hold and Crocomire lost sight of his long time enemy.
Samus was busy finding cover from all the spores that rained down on the area. One by itself was nothing to worry about, but the sheer volume would take its toll over time if it touched her. She had taken up position in a corner of the hold, and had a good view of the Spore Spawn's long vine. It swung wildly like a ball and chain and would smack the walls of the hold and give it a good shake. She readied her Plasma and began to take potshots at the vine. Soon enough it caught on fire and detached from the ceiling.
This gave her position away to Crocomire, who had successfully clawed his way in her direction. She was keeping her distance, and also keeping a container in-between them. When the red scaled lizard grew tired of this, he took the container and shoved it toward a wall, hoping to crush the bounty hunter. He nudged his snout up over the container in order to get a good look and took a missile to the nose. It was enough to make him cry out in pain and before long, he had a mouthful of missiles. Super Missiles. Then he was no more, disappearing in the fashion Yakuza did. Up in smoke.
The hunter in the middle of it all was crouching on the container Crocomire had shoved out of position. She was wondering what could possibly be next and kept her sights on the move. Emergency systems had turned on, and a lot of the smoke was sucked up by ventilation systems. Now the hold had become dark and quiet. Just the way Phantoon would like it before tearing another bad memory from Samus's mind and turning it loose on the holds.
But it didn't stay quiet for long; the sound of whizzing missiles filled the air as two pairs came flying at Samus. It was too quick for her to dodge and she was tossed into the wall. Her mind rushed to think what kind of adversary used missiles. A metallic clank of madly moving limbs made her remember the rouge security robot on the B.S.L. She was exactly right as the B.O.X. Model leapt up onto the container with her and fired another round of missiles.
"Your memories are much more vivid than any human I've tortured before. It must be due to the Chozo's influence. What do you think?"
Samus fired away madly at the core of the security robot, causing the metal to buckle as it did so long ago. By the time the brain was exposed, it made its move and jumped on top of her. She squirmed to push it off of her as the legs tried to crush her skull, jutting up and then down in a rhythmic motion. The roof of container they were on soon collapsed and the both of them fell into a box full of electronic computers. From the outside, you could only hear Samus grunting and the robot crushing anything it could get its legs on. Then there was a flash, and the whole container was wiped out in an explosion.
The Power Bomb shattered the robots core and sent the legs flying. Once it shut down, it disappeared into a plume of red colored smoke. Samus rolled out, with her suit showing signs of wear and tear. There was no time to rest, not a second, as a rampaging Sheegoth steamrolled her. Phantoon could not help but cackle when watching the hunter slide dozens of feet across the floor, well after the beast had come to a stop.
"There is a certain admiration I have for wild creatures. They are so simple and easy to manipulate. No grudges or emotions to get in the way. Just primal instinct."
Samus looked up, dazed from the impact to see Phantoon's three eyes watching intently. He was enjoying every minute of it. It didn't matter how many of his puppets died for the second time; just the whole scene was enough in itself. Samus could have run circles around a container as the Sheegoth chased her, and it would all be the same to Phantoon. In frustration, she fired upward towards the eyes. It was a direct hit, but it only caused the rest of his body to materialize. He rolled his eyes in random directions before laughing again.
"I wouldn't worry about me. I'd worry about the three-ton ice creature ready to stomp you into dust!"
The Sheegoth charged again, but stopped when someone shot it in the face. It reared back and roared as another shot rang out and then a whole barrage of shots. Before long it fell to its side, thoroughly riddled full of bullets. Both Samus and Phantoon looked toward the elevators to see two more squads of Black Hole soldiers arrived. The ten began to spread out as the squad leader looked about chaos.
"Whatever they are, kill them both!" The squad leader barked. "They're in the way!"
"No no no!" Phantoon stuttered upon seeing the new arrivals. "Go find your graves, I'll be with you shortly!"
Phantoon cracked his crooked tentacles and caused a wave of fire to head toward the group of soldiers. They scattered like bugs under a light. Some leapt down into the chaos of the wrecked containers, while some tried to navigate the twisted catwalks. None of them wasted any time opening fire on Phantoon, who was the largest target in the area. Shooting Phantoon only caused a retaliation that involved blue hot plasma, which set fire and melted anything it touched. When a Black Hole soldier was hit with this attack... they soon became melted beyond recognition.
Samus realized soon enough there was no negotiating with Black Hole, as they fired before she could even get off the ground. And as if there wasn't enough fire already, one let loose with a flamethrower sending red orange flames down the small space in-between the containers. And when that wouldn't suffice, the awful crack of their shotguns caused her to move as if she was trying to dance. Her reaction might have been different if Phantoon hadn't softened her up already.
"That humiliation was mine!" Phantoon cried before tearing a hole through one of the soldiers below with his tentacles.
Any shots that managed to hit Phantoon's three eyes only seemed to irritate them instead of doing any real damage. Still, it didn't discourage the Black Hole soldiers in the least, and they kept up their attack. The ones attacking Samus hadn't let up for a second, rattling off shotgun round after shotgun round. If she tried to turn around, they'd switch into full auto and fill the air with lead. Whatever system their gun arms ran on, it didn't seem like they had to reload any time soon.
"Where'd the orange one go?"
"There! There! Over there!"
One soldier up above switched targets and tried to shoot Samus as she ran toward him below. But he wasn't fast enough on the draw, and took an ice beam to the face. There was a pause, and then the soldier began to dance around shouting out curses.
"It's cold! Get it off of me! Cold, cold, cold, cold! Mother of Sturm! Get it off of me! It's cold!"
He stumbled backwards, and then fell off the catwalk. As soon as he hit the ground, his suit shattered and exposed him to the atmosphere of the Beluga. The scene was not unlike Phantoon's little experiment earlier, as the creature flopped around on the ground before expiring. The two that were chasing after Samus slit to a halt and exchanged uneasy glances.
"Ice? It has ice?" One realized.
"This isn't good..." The other whispered.
Samus took this moment to slide to a stop, and then turned around with her arm cannon charging. One soldier couldn't even turn around before getting nailed by an ice beam blast. The other one was quicker, able to dart behind a container to keep from becoming a Popsicle. Soon enough every soldier in the hold noticed the blue trails of Samus's ice beam, and none were too happy.
"Sir!" A soldier cried out. "Nothing is working on the three-eyed thing! And the other has ice based weaponry!"
"Grr... Retreat! We're not equipped to handle this! Fall back to the elevator! Let them finish each other off!"
The Black Hole soldiers darted back to the lift and barely got the doors closed before Phantoon launched a burst of plasma in their direction. Now the twisted ghost could turn his attention back towards Samus, who had her back to one of the containers, ready to spring out in a moments notice.
"Now, where were we? Oh yes... meeting up with old friends..."
A hideous roar erupted from Phantoon's direction as Kraid slowly faded into view. The massive green beast could hardly stand upright in the hold and was crouching the best it could. If he tried to move, the whole ceiling let out a metallic groan and shook. The fact of the matter was that Kraid couldn't take a step forward without bringing the whole ship down on top of him, but it hardly mattered. His arm span was large enough to reach into the darkest corners of the hold. When he took a swipe, he knocked away most of the cover Samus was using and brought her out into the open.
"That's right Kraid, crush her. Crush her into a flat Metroid pancake. I want to see her, everywhere!"
Something occurred to Samus just then. Being around Kraid was the same as being around Ridley during the semi chase. It seemed like there was a void where something didn't belong, and her instinct couldn't decide what to make of it.
"No." Samus said suddenly, and deactivated her missile launcher.
"What... what are you doing? Reactivate your launcher! Or Kraid will make mincemeat out of you! I will see to it!"
"I don't intend to continue this charade anymore." Samus said strongly. "I don't have time for this."
Phantoon closed his mouth and moved it back and forth. Even Kraid halted his attack and began to growl.
"What are you talking about? You have no choice! You will fight, or die!"
"The Space Pirates aren't here are they? They're just your imagination, living in the past. It's your justification for being here. It's your justification for all of this."
This caused the ghost to freeze. Kraid began to stir uncomfortably and let out a roar of impatience. Soon the great green beast disappeared with a flicker, as if an old television was finally giving out and shutting off.
"Why did you say that? It doesn't work if you don't believe in them..." Phantoon whispered in a pitiful tone. "You're supposed to kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill..."
"Something felt wrong about Ridley on the semi. Just like what I felt about Kraid a couple moments ago. Ridley looked exactly like he did when I visited Zebes the second time, and now I know why. He was your fantasy. He was what you saw him when you were part of the Space Pirates. Do you how many changes Ridley has gone through since then? Your image of him is hardly accurate."
There was a long pause as Phantoon opened his mouth again and began to endlessly stare directly at Samus.
"By the time I found the Space Pirates again... Mother Brain was nowhere to be found... No longer could I feel her brainwaves as I once did. Why... if I can't enjoy her beloved thoughts... then what is the point of being around? I need an anchor... I thought about you... but your brainwaves are so... puny compared to hers."
"Out of panic, you made your own Mother Brain." Samus continued. "You made your own Space Pirates so you could feel at home and belong like you once did. The only problem is... you already knew the reality of it. Your fantasy was just a band-aid for a gaping wound. How long have you been on the way out Phantoon?"
Phantoon began to flicker. It seemed that something died away within him.
"Oh... Days now. And that's the reality of it. You killed her! You killed Mother Brain in her prime! Where could I go from there? You didn't save me after destroying Zebes, you invited me into a second life of torture!"
The light in the room began to die as if someone was sucking it out.
"I'm going to make you tear your eyes out!"
A circle of flames erupted from the center of Phantoon's eyes and went flying out towards Samus. They lit up the area for a quick moment before extinguishing on contact with the ground. It was constant now, wave after wave after wave. Phantoon was relentless. Something had changed, he was no longer enjoying it. The chaos no longer seemed appealing to him. It all seemed so empty.
With that, Samus tried one last time and sent a missile flying into Phantoon's head. It blew up and sent a large chunk flying off into somewhere. There was now a sizable hole going right through Phantoon's forehead. His eyes rolled upwards to look at it, and then bulged wide as if someone had stabbed him.
"Did you just... wound me?"
He paused, and then let loose a horrible otherworldly screech that even managed to make Samus flinch. The ghost had nothing left to feed off of. Even the torture and pain he inflicted no longer caused any sensation. His tentacles swung up as if to try and cover the hole caused by the missile. Meanwhile, Samus was fighting to aim and fire again. The screech had become maddening, and she would hear it even if her suits audio systems weren't working. It was that loud.
Somehow she found the strength to fire again and blew off Phantoon's right tentacles. The countless squirming mass flopped around all the way to the ground. Now a trail of smoke escaped from the new wounds the ghost had sustained. Then he began to make a blind rush toward the hunter with his remaining tentacles flailing. His mouth was wide open, and his eyes were trained directly on her. The two were about to make contact when Samus fired again, and hit him dead center in the mouth.
"To think I could still be so vulnerable..." Phantoon whispered. "But there is one thing... I have the satisfaction of knowing that..."
There was a pause as his tentacles stopped moving, and his diseased skin began to drop to the floor in large slivers. He was dissolving.
"...no matter what you do you'll never eliminate the things you hate most. You just keep pushing them back into the shadows. Again and again. That's the wonderful part, they'll keep coming back out. Welcome to your life Samus Aran! A vicious pitiful circle!"
"Move on Phantoon. You're way past your due." Samus said in an exhausted tone, after realizing it was over.
The ghost "winked" before finally fading out of existence and disappearing into nothing, just like the creatures he had brought back earlier. A pile of slime had gathered on the ground from Phantoon's disintegration and moved like jello. Samus took a quick look over the trashed hold of the Beluga and headed toward the lift.
-To be continued...
--Next Chapter: Auction Day