Chapter 12- Dark Nightmare
Samus looked at the hole. Having become accustomed to the odd things that had gone on over the past few hours, it came as no surprise that the hole had not been opened by explosives. It looked as if some huge... CREATURE... had simply torn open the hole... but she hadn't seen any other similar sized holes on the way down, and any on higher decks would've set off alarms until they were sealed. Then why...?
Whatever the reason, Samus' curiosity overcame her and she floated into the hole.
Without the gravity adjustment controllers that were usually along the entrance doors, Samus dropped to the deck like a rock the second she was inside. Getting up, she looked around. She was in a large, nondescript room... nondescript, aside from the huge gashes in the wall, the mutilated space pirates, and the other wonderful examples of ruined-space-station- decor. The corpses looked like they had been chewed on, stepped on, or thrown into walls. Burn marks from Galvanic Cannon blasts practically covered every inch of the walls, and some of the space pirates looked like they had been shot also.
The oddest thing was a strange, light blue, sticky fluid that was scattered on the floor. Something about it was bothering Samus. It seemed oddly familiar...
Samus checked it; the fluid was almost completely inert and reactionless, but was also slightly radioactive. Her suit's sensors informed her it had been a highly radioactive liquid, but it decayed extremely quickly and became nonradioactive in about a week, unless in certain conditions which would make it radioactive for about 5 years. It caused random mutations and burns...
Samus remembered. It was phazon, or some form of it.
Samus remembered reading about how most of the pirate's phazon degraded quickly after she killed Metroid Prime. Apparently, the pirates had "freezed" a good deal of it, and this had been let out of containment recently. But why? Phazon, in its purest form, was radioactive enough to cause cancer in a matter of seconds on unprotected creatures, and this was sprayed across the floor. No space pirate would be stupid enough to do that.
There was nothing more in the room to see, so Samus went into the hallway next to it. The hallway was pretty large, and more of the phazon was scattered along it, but in increasingly larger puddles. The space pirate corpses in the hallway looked like they had been incinerated by some ultra- high energy weapon now. Only some of them looked this way; the rest seemed to have been killed in the same manner as the others.
The hallway ended, and Samus stepped into the next room.
And stopped.
The room was ringed by computer consoles, most of which were flashing red with alarm symbols. Those that were working, that is. Most were disabled. Space pirate corpses were sprayed liberally across the room, and for some odd reason all had been killed by galvanic cannons- none by being mutilated, like those in the previous rooms.
But Samus was paying more attention to the center of the room.
In the center of the room was a large cyndrilical tank, which looked like some odd hybrid of a cloning tank and a stasis tank. It was intact, and unlike the rest of the room, completely unharmed. And what was inside...
Samus had seen it before. Three times. She had seen it once on Zebes, floating in a tank. The second time, it had almost killed her. The third time was more like what she was seeing here, but only a picture.
Mother Brain.
The Dark Nightmare.
In some form of a perverse blessing, the tank seemed active, and it wasn't moving. Samus studied it for a few seconds.
The Dark nightmare was about the same size as mother brain as it had been the second time. It had a modified form of the suit Mother Brain had been using, and was more streamlined and biological. The head was the same, except a black color and veins of phazon were pulsing on it. It was "facing" her, so she couldn't see from her angle whether it did or did not have wings, as the computer file said it did. Samus moved closer so she could see it better.
It twitched.
Samus didn't notice this for a second. But she realized: If the tank was active, it wouldn't be moving...
Samus jumped backwards as it burst out of the tank.
ARKAN SAYS: This chapter is one of my favorites. If you've been paying attention to the 'fic and a lot of the small details, you'll notice a lot more stuff in this chapter than what I typed.
Samus looked at the hole. Having become accustomed to the odd things that had gone on over the past few hours, it came as no surprise that the hole had not been opened by explosives. It looked as if some huge... CREATURE... had simply torn open the hole... but she hadn't seen any other similar sized holes on the way down, and any on higher decks would've set off alarms until they were sealed. Then why...?
Whatever the reason, Samus' curiosity overcame her and she floated into the hole.
Without the gravity adjustment controllers that were usually along the entrance doors, Samus dropped to the deck like a rock the second she was inside. Getting up, she looked around. She was in a large, nondescript room... nondescript, aside from the huge gashes in the wall, the mutilated space pirates, and the other wonderful examples of ruined-space-station- decor. The corpses looked like they had been chewed on, stepped on, or thrown into walls. Burn marks from Galvanic Cannon blasts practically covered every inch of the walls, and some of the space pirates looked like they had been shot also.
The oddest thing was a strange, light blue, sticky fluid that was scattered on the floor. Something about it was bothering Samus. It seemed oddly familiar...
Samus checked it; the fluid was almost completely inert and reactionless, but was also slightly radioactive. Her suit's sensors informed her it had been a highly radioactive liquid, but it decayed extremely quickly and became nonradioactive in about a week, unless in certain conditions which would make it radioactive for about 5 years. It caused random mutations and burns...
Samus remembered. It was phazon, or some form of it.
Samus remembered reading about how most of the pirate's phazon degraded quickly after she killed Metroid Prime. Apparently, the pirates had "freezed" a good deal of it, and this had been let out of containment recently. But why? Phazon, in its purest form, was radioactive enough to cause cancer in a matter of seconds on unprotected creatures, and this was sprayed across the floor. No space pirate would be stupid enough to do that.
There was nothing more in the room to see, so Samus went into the hallway next to it. The hallway was pretty large, and more of the phazon was scattered along it, but in increasingly larger puddles. The space pirate corpses in the hallway looked like they had been incinerated by some ultra- high energy weapon now. Only some of them looked this way; the rest seemed to have been killed in the same manner as the others.
The hallway ended, and Samus stepped into the next room.
And stopped.
The room was ringed by computer consoles, most of which were flashing red with alarm symbols. Those that were working, that is. Most were disabled. Space pirate corpses were sprayed liberally across the room, and for some odd reason all had been killed by galvanic cannons- none by being mutilated, like those in the previous rooms.
But Samus was paying more attention to the center of the room.
In the center of the room was a large cyndrilical tank, which looked like some odd hybrid of a cloning tank and a stasis tank. It was intact, and unlike the rest of the room, completely unharmed. And what was inside...
Samus had seen it before. Three times. She had seen it once on Zebes, floating in a tank. The second time, it had almost killed her. The third time was more like what she was seeing here, but only a picture.
Mother Brain.
The Dark Nightmare.
In some form of a perverse blessing, the tank seemed active, and it wasn't moving. Samus studied it for a few seconds.
The Dark nightmare was about the same size as mother brain as it had been the second time. It had a modified form of the suit Mother Brain had been using, and was more streamlined and biological. The head was the same, except a black color and veins of phazon were pulsing on it. It was "facing" her, so she couldn't see from her angle whether it did or did not have wings, as the computer file said it did. Samus moved closer so she could see it better.
It twitched.
Samus didn't notice this for a second. But she realized: If the tank was active, it wouldn't be moving...
Samus jumped backwards as it burst out of the tank.
ARKAN SAYS: This chapter is one of my favorites. If you've been paying attention to the 'fic and a lot of the small details, you'll notice a lot more stuff in this chapter than what I typed.