-Metroid Fusion

--Blackdie

---Chapter 14: Means to an End

The Beluga's engine room was a suffocating place. It was located in the tail section, and it's four engines easily turned the three-story area into a sauna. There wasn't any air-conditioning for those who ventured inside, because computers operated all of Beluga's most important systems. The only time it needed to see organic hands was when it needed repair. Air-conditioning to the engine room was cut due to the massive power demanded to support the services geared toward the passengers. In other words, it was abandoned, but it was still kept under a watchful eye by the security room.

All Samus had to do to find it was following the maps posted in the areas dedicated to the crew. Still, she was on her guard. Tanner's men had been unusually helpful in pointing out his location. This was probably the end of the line. He was prepared to stop running, and frankly, Samus was prepared to stop chasing. The mission had wound up taking her to locations she would have rather stayed away from, such as the highly populated resort world Big Blue. Now it had all come down to a showdown in the engine room.

Samus readied her arm cannon and stepped through the hatch into mid section of the engine room. It was a wide place and poorly lit. But she couldn't be sure whether it was originally like that, or something Tanner had done when he arrived. There were two booming engines to her left and right, one on the lower floor, and one on the upper floor. Stairs were located on the furthest ends of the mid-section. All in-between these staircases were transformers, computers, and devices designed to maintain a constant output reasonable to the four-engine capacity.

Now she came to the railing of the mid section and looked down to the lower area of the engine room. It was nearly pitch black, except for the glowing monitors of some consoles. When she looked up, all she could see was the railing of the upper section, and the wide void between the top two engines. No sign of Tanner anywhere.

"It's a sad time when the galaxy's greatest warrior is someone who can be bought and the galaxy's greatest threat is a bunch of lowlife aliens with too much time on their hands."

She spun around to look around the computers and heavy machinery on the mid level. Unfortunately, it seemed like Tanner's voice came from everywhere.

"I think you'll be pleased to learn that the money from our auction was taken back."

"Then why are you keeping this up? What would you do with it anyway? It would be worthless once the Federation collapsed. Why side with the Vespula? Still looking for a payoff?"

Tanner grunted from somewhere above and Samus quickly pointed her arm cannon upwards. It sounded like he was lugging something very heavy around.

"My intention wasn't to get rich... my intention was to crush the Federation on two fronts. Black Hole and the Vespula. You see I was going to teach those bastards at HQ the value of other's life. I thought getting money would be to add insult to injury."

Samus was now slowly moving toward one of the access stairs to head upwards.

"They tried to bury us. They tried to treat us like weapons. They wanted us to sit on our asses until they felt like activating us. I am not a weapon! My men, my friends... they are not weapons! We have needs! A need for respect!"

There was a loud clank as something heavy hit the floor. Samus was now making her way up the stairs, still moving slowly, and checking every corner.

"But you Samus... you're a weapon." Tanner coughed. "You're the Chozo's most perfect weapon. And now, since your masters are all dead and gone. You start renting your services out to the Federation."

"Fighting the Space Pirates is no cheap venture. But I wouldn't expect you to understand." Samus responded.

Now Samus was on the upper level. But massive pipes sticking out of the top right engine obscured her view. She was forced to creep around them in order to find a way to get closer to Tanner's voice.

"Ha! People like you are bottom of the barrel. When the Galactic Army was downsized, a lot of guys I knew turned into mercenaries. Bottom feeders. You can't get respect like that. But I soon learned you couldn't get respect running an honest operation either."

Tanner's voice was very clear. She was getting close...

"The Vespula... they know the meaning of respect. They remember all their heroes. Those who gave their lives for the greater good of their queen. I'd rather die amongst a bunch of aliens than those scum suckers who think they reward loyalty by ignoring us. The army was different. You did your job, and you were saluted."

"A constant need for gratification... I don't think you were ready for an operation like Sand Trap." Samus said.

"Shut the hell up! If they think they can throw away over twenty dedicated people who want to amount to something... what do you think they will move onto next? No guesses? How about colonies? I heard the one you came from got scrapped. What was it? K2-L?"

Samus jumped out from behind a corner and pointed her arm cannon in the direction of Tanner's voice. There he was, in the middle of a row of consoles. He was wearing a suit now. A black suit that covered every inch of his body. A helmet with a reflective visor hid his face. It covered every inch of his head and made him look faceless. However, that was the least of Samus's concern. There was something in his hands. Something that he held out in front of him with both hands grasping handles on top. Her pause prompted him to explain.

"It's the Zonagen Cannon. It was originally designed to be slapped to the wings of spaceships. However, we couldn't really test it in Sand Trap."

The Zonagen Cannon looked alive for the most part. The foot long barrel was slowly turning, and was unusually wide. The first handle was found where the barrel connected to the center section, and the center section had slits of exhaust ports that constantly opened and closed. Where the center section met the back was where the second handle and trigger could be found. Two large metal cylinders made up the rear of the weapon, and where Tanner balanced it up against his hip. Due to the sheer size of it, raising the weapon above waist height was impossible. Her scan indicated dangerous radiation levels. She could only begin to imagine what levels would be like if he fired it off.

"You see..." He coughed again. "It kept punching holes through the walls of the installation."

Samus dove to the side as Tanner shifted it towards her and pulled the trigger. A black beam came rocketing out of the front and reached across the engine room like a laser. Whatever the Zonagen Beam touched was cut through, nothing could stop it. It was like a surgical tool, and didn't effect areas that weren't in the line of fire. The sound it made was absolutely hideous, and could have probably been compared to nails on a chalkboard. The radiation levels in the engine room spiked, and the highest readings were found at the source. Tanner and his cannon.

The normal sounds of the engine room seemed like silence when Tanner ceased firing. Samus got to her feet and could hear the cannon whine in readying another discharge. She began to sprint towards the stairs. There was nothing she could hide behind when the cannon cut through everything. All Tanner had to do was simply turn, and the cannon did the rest, punching through any sources of cover. The top level was now in ruin, and Samus almost didn't dive down the stairs fast enough before the cannon blasted it.

He could hear her dive down the stairs and began to shuffle in her direction. His slow, heavy footsteps echoed throughout the entire room as he made his way to the stairs to chase after her. Samus thought about standing her ground, but soon realized Tanner could probably fire through the floor and hit her, so she went down the stairs again to the darkened lower levels. It was there she heard Tanner make his way to the mid level and open fire to destroy everything on the mid level. Warning sirens and emergency announcements began to ring out as the four engines were losing their regulators.

"Attention. Authorized emergency shutdown of central engine systems required. System Failure at sections A203, A204, A205, A206..." An electronic voice rang out.

The list went on as Tanner soon began to shuffle down the stairs to the lowest level. And that's when the Zonagen Cannon really lit up. In the darkness the purple exhaust made the cannon look like it had running lights, and the two cylinders were outlined with a green light that bled through the seams of their construction. Samus aimed carefully, for as soon as she fired, Tanner would know exactly where she was. He was stumbling around in the dark, trying to use the light from his cannon to see where he was walking. Finally Samus took her shot, and hit him dead on with an Ice Beam.

But the beam hardly lasted and was only successful in knocking Tanner back a couple of steps. The heat and radiation generated by the cannon was immense, and melted the ice almost instantly. Now he retaliated, and fired the cannon off towards her direction. Samus was in her Morph Ball form, rolling in the opposite direction of the beam. Her suit's systems flashed a warning as the Zonagen beam came in close proximity. It was enough to singe a part of her suit when she came out of it.

That encounter began to make her think. Radiation like that, Tanner's suit could only be lessening the pain, instead of stopping it outright.

"You're killing yourself." Samus realized.

The noise generated by the cannon eliminated any way of pinpointing Samus by her voice. Tanner could only yell back in a fury.

"I'd rather die with a weapon in my hand than waste away in a prison and sit through years of courtroom deliberation to decide stuff everyone knows I already did!"

Tanner fired again in the opposite direction of Samus. She peered around to the corner to see his back exposed and moved out to let loose a volley of missiles. The Zonagen Cannon's radiation interfered with some of the missiles tracking, and they went soaring off into the wall or a section of the engine room. A couple landed at Tanner's feet and almost knocked him to the floor. As slow as he was, the Cannon he was carrying nearly anchored him to the ground.

"As much as you hate the way the Federation run things. It's still the best system we have to depend on."

"That's why I wanted the Vespula and Black Hole to steamroll this crap heap! I wanted to show everyone just how pitiful the Space Pirates really are! You wanna see hostile alien species? Well I got all of them right here!"

Tanner spun around, out of breath, and fired again. Samus leapt over the beam and darted into another shadow. If this kept up, he'd be dead before Samus could lay a finger on him.

"You underestimate them. They're more resourceful than you'll ever know. And bringing the Federation more problems aren't going to make them go away."

"At least it would ruin you! You son of a bitch! The Federation couldn't come crawling to you to handle everything that ever happened. They've become spineless dogs! I wanted you to die!"

There was a new mechanical whirr that escaped the Zonagen Cannon. Samus couldn't see from her spot, but it didn't sound good. Tanner was laughing the best he could while sputtering coughs interrupting the whole way. Samus could see a beam heading her way, and she ducked... only to find another beam that was lower, threatening to cut her in half. She jumped up and was forced to dive to the ground as another beam swept by in the same pattern as the last two. It was a close call. She moved out from behind a pile of scrap to see Tanner had activated some function on the cannon. There was a device breaking the beam off into three separate directions. But it didn't last, and eventually the Zonagen beam destroyed the attachment.

Among the chaos of the engine room and the rampaging Tanner, Samus began to get a familiar feeling. Her muscles tensed up, her pulse began to pound even faster than before. It wasn't Tanner creating this effect. No, she could already see him tearing up everything in his proximity with the Zonagen Cannon. This was something else. She looked to see the balcony above and made out two slanted yellow eyes.

"No. It has to be the radiation..." She muttered.

But even looking away from the eyes didn't make the disappear. She followed the angle of the eyes to see them gazing right at Tanner as he shuffled his way around the lower section of the engine room. Then, as he got closest to the balcony...

"Tanner! Get away from there! Move!" Samus yelled.

"Screw you!" He barked.

Tanner spun around and was ready to empty a full blast right into Samus's chest cavity. He could see her, standing slightly in the light of a fire created by something he blew to hell with the Zonagen Cannon. But he could feel a plink as something dropped down onto his helmet. Now it was running down the front of his visor. It was saliva. And judging by the steam it gave off as it slid onto his suit. It was hot saliva. He forgot about pulling the trigger and looked upwards to the mid level railing above...

"Oh no."

Samus watched as a long spindly tail dropped down from above and wrapped around Tanner. It tightened so fast it caused him to drop the Zonagen Cannon and soon flung him into the air. A claw lashed out and caught him on the way up. He was trying to escape, but a quick squeeze by the claw holding him let him know it was futile. Another claw shot out and tore off Tanner's helmet. Then Ridley's head emerged from the darkness, glaring at the human in his hand viciously.

"Pitiful?" Ridley hissed, revealing every single one of his jagged, ruthless teeth.

Tanner was too choked up to talk. This couldn't have been happening. But the crack of his bones being crushed under Ridley's grip told him otherwise. Samus moved out from behind the wreckage of a transformer and watched helplessly as Ridley moved wrung Tanner like a wet rag. It was a disgusting sound and the bloodcurdling cry of pain died off before it could finish. Soon Ridley dropped Tanner to the ground, next to the Zonagen Cannon. Throughout the whole scene, Samus could almost hear Phantoon rolling over in his grave with insane laughter.

"You should have killed him when you had the chance." Ridley stated while gazing down as his victim. "Now he has all the time in the world to bleed out. A fitting, slow death."

"Ridley! Damn you!" Samus yelled, absolutely furious.

Ridley merely brought his teeth into view again. It looked like some twisted snarl, but Samus could tell it was the best grin Ridley could form with his long snout. Emergency lights flickered on and Samus could see Ridley's newest incarnation. Most of his body was as black as charcoal, but there were still a few sections still blue from what the X Parasites had done to his body. His tail also seemed to be longer, and the spade-shaped tip was sharper than ever. Aside from looks, Samus's scan was also bringing up two different temperature values for Ridley. One hot, one cold.

"The B.S.L. taught me a number of things." Ridley interrupted. "It is not always wise to charge in without evaluating the situation. I figured it easier for you to deal with the black-clad outsiders and the Vespula. Not to mention Phantoon, that treacherous ghost. That way, we wouldn't run into unforeseen problems, like that with the X Parasites. And so I was right."

"So you're after the Zonagen..."

"The plan had always been to hijack the ship carrying it of the planet... It was our forte. We wouldn't have to wade through the countless other creatures like you did. And you interfered, forcing my appearance... Always getting in the way..." Ridley seethed, causing saliva to fly out of his mouth.

The two rivals paused in a stare, and then pounced upon one another. Ridley dove head first down towards Samus while she fired her ice beam. The space dragon took the blast to the face but shook it off, keeping his claws forward to tear Samus apart if he grasped her. She jumped over him as he charged by, but was soon knocked flat by his long tail. It began to wrap around her, but soon lost grip when she used the Morph Ball to slip through. The darkness wouldn't help her now; Ridley had adapted to the dark caverns of Norfair and could see fine without the presence of light. When he turned around, he could spot her in the corners of the lower level, coming out of the ball form.

Samus began to detect Ridley's body temperature plunge. She couldn't make sense of it since the space dragon had adapted to the depths of Norfair. Normally, Ridley liked temperatures that would melt most creatures. Now he registered with something that was almost below freezing. It would all make sense soon enough as she tried to fire a missile at him. He cocked his head back and opened his mouth to spew forth a wave of sub-zero mist. It froze the missile on its way to its target, and when it did make contact with Ridley's body it merely shattered on impact.

Ridley let out a roar and then spat something across the room. Samus dove away as it slammed into the wall and began to spread ice in all directions. Her suit flashed a desperate warning. However compatible her suit was with the ice beam, her half-Metroid body still couldn't take a direct blast without taking serious damage.

"So... that's what getting infected in sub-zero containment does to you..." Samus muttered.

When the space dragon couldn't get a clear shot of Samus, he charged and tried to use the piles of scrap as something to pin her with. She kept on the move, and fired missiles in bursts. She detected his temperature rise, and he proceeded to shoot her missiles down with fireballs. He leapt forward and tore blindly at Samus with his claws. The move was too reckless to do any good, and she took a perfect shot at his head with a charged ice beam. The pain caused Ridley to spin around and brought his tail sweeping through the air like an ax.

Ridley cocked his crooked neck to peer over his shoulder. He watched as his tail swung back and forth, attempting to sever a limb or something from the hunter's body. She ducked and hopped and rolled and did anything to stay out of his tail's way. When she made a jump to avoid a low sweep, he spun around and lunged forward. He grabbed her arm with the cannon and her helmet and proceeded to slam her up against the wall. Samus was pinned, and that's when Ridley began to squeeze. To keep her failing legs to the wall, he froze them with his arctic breath.

There wasn't much Samus could do except move her free hand. She fired off her arm cannon in a couple attempts to shake Ridley's claw free, but it was useless. Her body began to shiver as he was breathing in her face with the cold mist. His eyes were locked on her helmet, ready to see it collapse and crush her skull. She could hear the groan of her suit under Ridley's grasp and could only think of one thing. Slowly, she put her hand on Ridley's claw and closed her eyes.

For a second, Ridley thought she was submitting and began to apply more pressure, not wanting to waste the chance. Then he realized he couldn't, in fact, he was losing his grip on her. His eyes began to blur and the ice around Samus's legs had begun to melt. It was too late when he realized he was getting weaker, and that Samus was draining his energy. He let out a terrible roar and wrenched his claws free. But there was Samus still clinging to his claw, refusing to let go. He tried to thrash about to throw her free of his body, but he was too weak.

The bounty hunter sucking Ridley's energy away opened her eyes, desperately trying to control her Metroid instincts. She watched as Ridley made a slight hesitation, and then began to bite at his arm. Soon he brought his tail into the task, and before long, he cut off his right claw and leapt back away from Samus. There was no way he was going to win a fight now, especially with Samus getting back on her feet.

"You..." Ridley howled clutching his wounded arm, and then fled.

Samus fought to regain control of her senses and eventually let go of Ridley's severed claw. She listened intently to see if the space dragon had really left, and then turned toward Tanner. He was on his back in the middle of the lower section of the engine room, with the Zonagen Cannon next to him.

"God damn..." Tanner moaned. "To be done in by a Space Pirate... I'll never forgive myself..."

He looked toward Samus as she scanned him for his injuries. Ridley had done a number on his entire body. There was no way he'd pull through.

"You're a lot of trouble Tanner." Samus said while kneeling down. "Two planets? Three alien species? I bet you were something in the Galactic Army. But now, it's over. Where is the Zonagen?"

"Heh, did I put on that good of a show? It's all still at the Dolphinhead Warehouse." He paused to resist a spasm of pain. "I just wanted... respect... Some sort of... recognition."

"You had respect, until you decided to betray everything and everyone you've ever known."

For once, there was regret in Tanner's eyes.

"Victoria... oh my god... I hope... at least she'll forgive me..."

"I don't think she can make that choice anymore. You left her to the mercy of Phantoon."

"What?" Tanner choked out. "You're one cold fish to tell me that. While I'm dying'."

"Just want to make you aware of what you've done. Because in the end, you have to deal with it."

"What I've done? Yeah... what I've done..."

Tanner nodded off and Samus stood up. She looked at his body one last time and left the engine room.

General Graves sat in the Commander's Room of the Reverov. It was made with a great deal of wood, including the walls and floor. Rare nowadays, but not so much during the time of the Galactic Army. Medals and pictures and old ceremonial weapons could be found covering every inch of the walls. The desk in the center was mostly bare except for a tiny model of the Reverov and his hat. Then there was the monitor he was looking at.

He was reading over the details the Federation Police collected while investigating the occurrences on the Beluga. Samus was half the report, having experienced all of it first hand. Ridley was nowhere to be found after the Beluga docked and the ship was searched from head to toe. The Vespula were evicted from Federation space, and restricted from entering again after everyone learned of their involvement. Then he reached the end. The part about Tanner. Deceased.

"Is that a good read?"

Graves looked up to see Samus in the doorway, arm cannon over her shoulder. He stood up and put on his hat.

"Humph. I thought he'd be dead by the end of this. And you can still boast 100 completion."

"If you read further, you'll see Ridley carried out the sentence. Not me."

"It hardly matters. The Federation just wants to put this behind us as soon as possible."

"I imagine. What do you plan to do with the Zonagen?"

"We're moving it to a secure location where we can further improve upon Sand Trap's work. As for the installation. We're closing it down. For good."

Samus didn't say anything. Adam taught her a long time ago. When something like "secure location" came up in a conversation, that was code for a warehouse where it would never be found again. It was easy to see the Federation never cared about Zonagen until it was threatened to be dumped the hands of the enemy. A project scrapped a long time ago.

"So, are you sure about this?" Graves began. "You want your payment to go toward a new ship?"

"That's all I need right now. Don't forget Adam either. This mission is complete."

Graves nodded and watched as Samus turned around to leave. But she didn't, not right away. Instead she looked over her shoulder.

"I have one question. How many other installations like Sand Trap do you have in the galaxy?"

"Sand Trap was the last of it's kind." Graves answered quickly.

"Uh huh." Samus said, hardly convinced.

With that the bounty hunter was gone. Graves went back to his desk and started a private transmission.

"This is Graves. I want a thorough psychological check for all personnel running A Class science installations. Yes. Yes. Even the Metroid Farms. Especially the Metroid Farms..."

-The End

--Thanks for Reading

---Author's Note:

Well, that's Blackdie in a nutshell. I hope I managed to make an a-typical Metroid Story without straying too far from the path. Since there's so much unknown about the stuff after Fusion, I guess I had to make one. But anyway, thanks again to all those readers who went from chapter 1 - 14. This would have to be my longest story to date. So, I can only hope you enjoyed it as much I did writing it.