I can update "soon" if soon is considered today. My intention is to update every Monday, but thank you for your reviews none the less.
Thank you very much for your review, alleycat1312; it is appreciated, and I hope that the story does not disappoint. Yes, I am far from done (in terms of updating).
Regarding biology: It would not have been possible for Tal to rip off his exoskeleton (and that would likely have made him die from hemorrhaging regardless). To answer another question, yes, Tal has the DNA from numerous alien species. The only real function of the Metroid DNA was to synthesize all the other traits.
Regarding Tal: No, you cannot vote to bring Tal back (I think there would be little contest). I had written every chapter of this story prior to updating the first chapter on CAA; the plot is set in stone regardless of what you say. After you read this chapter you can lament this if you truly wish to do so.
Chapter 23: Growing Pains
"-ed for increased taxes seven times in this past year. The Galactic public has just one question to ask itself: does it want a liberal tax and spend government? Every single fault that has ever been known to mankind is due to liberalism. Yes; all of them. Fascism? Yeah, that was liberals. The Moral Majority? Liberals. It's all their fault. So there.
"Stop their vicious smear campaign next election; make the right choice: vote for you... vote for Bill Ytpmuh."
"Bill Ytpmuh may claim to represented the common man. But he's actually a stupid rich fop who's just running a vicious smear campaign. He is bad. Bob Ytpmud is good. Bad is bad; good is good. Good, bad, bad, good. Bad, good, good, good, bad. Bad, bad. Good, bad, good. Repeat after us: Bob Ytpmud good, Bill Ytpmuh bad.
"Next election, make the right choice: vote for you... vote for Bob Ytpmud."
"Now, welcome back to the Nightly News at Nine! I'm Steve "Stevey" Stevenson, filling in for Johnny at Universal News. Make sure to stay tuned until 10:00, Terran Time, for our exclusive interview with the maker of the box office hit 'I Hate Everyone!' But now, the current news.
"We seem to be out of the frying pan and into fire! (laughter) The situation at the Bounty Hunter Headquarters, or 'HQ', has finally resolved, but things don't look any less tense. Meanwhile, the Galactic Council has still refused to make a statement and reports it is still in session. The Assembly, however, has raised the Galactic Alert Level to Plaid.
"The Board, a select group of bounty hunters, is now claiming that Galactic Council forces attacked without provocation. A counter statement is expected to be made later today. Whose fault is this mess? Why did it happen? Who is really at fault for these things? That's what we're here to tell you.
"This just in... a new report on galactic statistics reports that poverty rates in fourth world countries have risen dramatically. It is now estimated that millions of people die every year solely from starvation that could have been prevented by less than the equivalent of five credits in galactic currency. My heart goes out to all those poor people.
"When we return, we'll finally release the fifth portion of our five part super-documentary: 'Gilligan's Island: Is Mary Ann Really Prettier Than Ginger?' This is a multi-million credit production that you won't want to miss! See you there!"
"Status report."
"I... I don't want to say this, Mr. Divel."
"If you would be so kind," Mr. Divel said silkily, face set in a disturbing smile. It was quite clear he was not asking. Shifting back slightly, the aide did his best not to look intimidated. Even to be a lowly aide in this station meant that he had backstabbed, lied and bribed his way to the position... but anyone had reason to be nervous around the boss.
"Frankly, everything's coming down around us, sir. I don't think anyone is close enough to be able to reach the highest offices, or break through the guard, but this station is lost to us."
"Very well. Move to the secondary plan." Mr. Divel was already getting to his feet, calmly brushing a bit of lint off of his suit.
"It's too late for that, sir. The entire station, excepting highest security levels, is in a state of warfare. Our computer systems are damaged enough that we cannot contact all of the other high offices, much less everyone."
"Then don't contact everyone," Mr. Divel answered. "The important people will survive, and the rest will not. I'm committed to finishing what I started, and I will sacrifice whatever is necessary. We cannot back down now. Let the station be destroyed; there are other avenues that should be pursued. Let's roll."
Guards.
Rolling to the left, Samus narrowly avoided being seen. Putting her back up to a wall, Samus charged both weapons and then bolted in front of the doorway. Immediately the guards saw her, but they were already being fired upon heavily. Most of them were wearing heavy armor and survived the volley as well as the smoke that resulted.
Samus was already past the door, completely gone. The guards raised eyebrows... a hit and run? Just as they were about to chase her down, one of them noticed the mines blinking beside them on the floor. It was about then that the entire doorway was consumed in a raging inferno that left nothing but a gaping hole. Moving from her hiding place, Samus calmly walked through the newly renovated passage.
No guards.
Things hadn't been very difficult since she had reached the top of the stairs, though they were certainly more intense than before. The first level had been mostly unoccupied, but when she reached the highest level it had been far from it. There were guards all over the place here. Generally slightly better equipped, trained and experienced than those she was used to fighting. Still, not bounty hunter level.
That was what worried her more. Sooner or later she was going to run into other bounty hunters, and that would slow her down immensely. There appeared to be battles already going on at this level of the station, because there were a fair number of corpses that she hadn't made. Bounty hunters, too. It must be vicious up here.
Dropping low to the ground swiftly, Samus glanced to her right. Fighting. So far she had been one party in each battle, but this one appeared to be going on by itself. There was a fair amount of gunfire. That was probably her next threat, then, unless she could avoid them entirely.
Catching something on the edge of her sensors, Samus whirled to glance toward her left. Beyond a massive doorway there lurked a fairly large group of soldiers. Coming in her direction and broadcasting energy generally associated with bio suits. Not good. They weren't high level bio suits, but she still didn't want to deal with any bounty hunters. There was always an outside chance they were soldiers in bio suits, but it wasn't a chance she wanted to take.
Slipping around the large door, Samus glanced forward into the corridor. A single, massive hallway went for quite some distance before turning a corner... and the bounty hunters were about to turn that corner. Slamming the controls and barely hitting the closing button, Samus began the long process of closing the blast doors. Several thick layers began to slide into place... good.
Shots rained down on her from the opposite side of the corridor, in addition to a few missiles. Avoiding the former and shooting down the latter, Samus returned fire. All the bounty hunters dodged her attack, but it barely slipped through the remaining crack in the door. A resounding crash signaled the closing of the door.
Almost immediately after, Samus began to hear a continuing whine. So they were going to slice a hole through the door. It wouldn't hold them too long... but she'd be long gone by the time they got to this side of it. Turning, Samus moved to continue on.
Claws whistled just above her head as she ducked, only barely avoiding the slash. Great; this one was extremely fast as well as sneaky. Continuing to drop to the ground, Samus whirled, trying to sweep her attacker's legs out from under it. The exoskeleton dodged and was already striking at her again.
Back flipping swiftly, Samus narrowly evaded the claws that buried themselves in the floor where she had crouched. Her hand was already up, firing a bolt of plasma at the creature's head. Seeing her gun arm move up, the creature jerked its head to the side just before she fired, dodging the attack. Both of them moved the next instant, other arms flying to strike. Samus' gun touched the creature just over the heart; the creature's claws justly barely reached her forehead.
"Samus?"
"Tal?" It was actually him. His shade of exoskeleton; his voice; his claws about to make a good effort to impale her brain. Then again, she still did have her gun pointed directly at his heart. As one they retracted their weapons. Tal offered Samus a hand up that she didn't need but took anyway.
"Imagine meeting you here," Tal muttered, scratching the back of his head. Samus just nodded. The shock of seeing him alive had been mostly depleted by the fake Tal... but she still wasn't completely caught up with it. She was almost completely certain he was real this time, but checked Darklight mode anyway. Now he was glowing far more brightly than before, whitely luminous in his black and green surroundings.
"The question is how you're alive," Samus pointed out. Tal nodded absentmindedly, the way he always had. She almost hadn't noticed when he'd retracted the exoskeleton around his head. For the sake of similarity, she unfused her helmet and just held it in one hand.
"The acid very nearly killed me, but I survived for reasons I'm not entirely certain about as of yet. My genetics aren't completely carbon based, for one. But they've also been tampered with and made to be quite elastic. Junk DNA to the second power, you might say. My current best guess is that my body was able to absorb the violent changes the acid was trying to cause.
"Of course, it still knocked me out for a few hours. If I needed to breathe, I would have drowned long ago. Anyway, once I got past the pain and the changes, I searched the station and discovered that you had left or were at least hiding well. However, I did find a ship that was preparing to go to this station. I snuck aboard and I've been here ever since."
"Stop. Back up. Pain?"
"The acid business brought on another level of my genetic modifications. Whenever new ones appear they don't feel exactly comfortable, especially not when they manifest themselves so unnaturally like that. In this case they matured instantly and more swiftly than they were supposed to, and that slowed me down because they require a lot of retraining to handle."
There had long been no movement in the room, the air barely shifting. The smell of scorched flesh and metal pervaded the room; the very air was heavily ionized. Bodies were littered over the surface, technical equipment shattered, walls broken. Several pools of acid lay completely still near the center of the floor.
A long claw shot up from one of the pools, burying itself in the metal. Moments later, another claw emerged from the now turbulent pool. The thing that shakily pulled itself out of the pool barely resembled a human.
Skin was only partially hanging on the body, in some places gone entirely and showing dark exoskeleton beneath. It was covered by acid and sopping wet scraps of clothes that were no more than partially dissolved threads. Spikes and metallic claws emerged from all over its body, blood trickling down from the holes they had ripped.
It crawled a short distance from the pool, still on its knees. Energy radiated from it almost visibly as nega photons were sent flying across the room. In moments Tal was dry, though still wrecked and bloodstained.
Wincing from the pain, he drew his hands up to his face to stare at them. From the center of each finger a long, thin blade had emerged, splitting through the skin. The shock from the pain was making his hands tremble... he couldn't stop them.. At that moment he desperately wanted to be able to stop them, would have given almost anything to do so, but they just kept trembling.
Gritting his teeth and narrowing his eyes, he focused on his hands as hard as he possibly could. Slowly his claws retracted, painfully sliding back into his skin, over burned and cut flesh. Glancing over his shoulder, Tal shuddered with the pain as he drew the spikes coming out of his back into his body once more. One by one the unnatural protrusions were drawn back into his body... and they found places in which to safely remain. The newly shaped flesh was painfully raw and tender.
Keep it under control, Tal told himself, closing his eyes and concentrating, keep it under- augh! The pain made him nearly fall to the ground where he caught himself on one hand. His vision blurred... and so did his focus. He let out a series of painful near-screams as blades began to shoot back out of his body again, breaking newly forming skin.
No. He wouldn't give up. Not now. Locking his teeth together and almost growling, Tal began to move forward, leaving a bloody trail behind him.
"But I'd rather not talk about myself," Tal finished after a slight, unfocused pause. "What about you? Have you been doing alright?"
"Other than assuming you were dead-"
"Sorry. Honestly."
"-I've been fine. After a while at the HQ I discovered this location, broke into my ship and flew here. I haven't had too much of a problem."
"Good. Do you still have the files?"
"Yeah." Samus let herself smile slightly. "After we're done here, we have an air-tight case against everyone involved in Project Darklight. It's most of the government, too; we're going to stick it to the man."
"There are about eight copies of most of the information in existence," Tal informed her. "I made sure that this knowledge can't die with us. Not that I have any intention of dying."
"Right."
"That whine..." Tal looked to the side, where the bounty hunters were breaking through the door. "Bounty hunters trying to carve their way through heavy blast doors? How long do they have?"
"Not long. But first we have to plan."
"Ah. Are you coming up here to find the people in charge of this too?"
"Exactly." Samus moved some distance along the wall toward the first general computer terminal and uploaded her bio suit's map to the screen. Tal followed noiselessly and examined the screen carefully. "This is the last normal floor of the station," she explained. "After that there is only a spire that holds the highest offices. There are two separate paths in the spire. I'm pretty sure I know which one has our target in it, but since there are two of us we can be certain anyway."
"Where's your ship?"
"Further down on the opposite side." Samus scrolled the map so that the location was visible. "So far it seems to be safe. The battle outside the station is still raging, though the real Galactic Council seems to be winning, and won't reach that hanger for some time."
"So the plan is this," Tal summarized. "We take out these bounty hunters, then each take one side of the spire. After killing Mr. Divel or whoever else is responsible, we both use these alternate passages and rendezvous at your ship."
"You know about Mr. Divel?"
"In this station I've been over a lot of information, yeah. Probably the same stuff that you went over... most of the Galactic Council responsible and the like?"
"Good; I didn't want to waste time explaining things to you. Your plan is fine. We have about thirty seconds before they break through that door."
"Ah." Tal paused, glancing down at the floor, not meeting her gaze. "Samus, I... I'm not sure how to put this, and this really might be a bad time. But when I was nearly dead in the acid, I realized something. It's... it's just..."
He was effectively silenced the next moment when Samus kissed him. There was a second of confusion before he responded. It was a bit uncomfortable, given that both were so heavily armored, but that really wasn't the point. With little time, they parted quickly.
"Was that what you wanted to say?" Samus asked him.
"Well... um, yeah. Thanks." Both of them glanced toward the door at the same instant as a hot circle of red began to form in the door. The next moment Samus was replacing her helmet and Tal bringing out his full exoskeleton.
"If the acid took you to a new level, do you have any impressive new powers?" Samus asked, glancing at him sideways through her visor. His blue eyes almost glowed within his exoskeleton, making him seem totally alien, but he scratched the back of his head in a distinctly human manner.
"Well, I don't know if you'd exactly call them impressive, but I learned some new practical uses for nega photons. It's interesting, you can speed up the movement of atoms and spark a chemical rea- never mind, they'll be coming through in just a sec."
"They're all yours," Samus said, stepping away from the door. "I want to see this."
The red circle in the thick metal door was glowing intensely now, and as Tal stood calmly in front of it, the entire mass began melting. Metal away fell in red clumps, revealing a small group of bounty hunters in the hallway behind it. Seeing a target so immediately, the bounty hunters pulled their weapons into firing position...
Tal blew, and his breath streamed forward in a blue streak. A short distance from his face the blue stream burst into flames that quickly built into a raging blaze. As Tal continued to blow out the stream of blue, the column of flame built, eventually eclipsing the hole entirely and creating an inferno in the corridor beyond. When he cut off the stream, all that remained in the corridor were melted bio suits lying on scorched metal.
Holy cr- "Eh, that was close enough to impressive," Samus commented. Both of them blew down the corridor the next second, heading for the entrance to the spire. The hallways split almost immediately, and they cut down opposite sides, losing each other in the corridors...
