CHAPTER 8: WINGS OF THE FALLEN
Hunter
Log 3845
Why didn't the mochtroids attack
me? That's incredibly strange.
They actually helped me to defeat Draygon.
And what is the deal with the hole in the ship? I wonder what caused it.
Whatever it was, it must have been large to make a hole that big.
Time to explore.
Samus
out...
After watching the mochtroids
disappear over the edge of the trench, Samus turned and continued
toward the massive wrecked ship.
It had definitely seen better days. Barnacles had grown along the sides and rust deposits seemingly erupted from the joints of each metal plate. The once shiny silver hull was now a dingy blue-green and in some places, reddish-brown.
Samus looked up and noticed a latticework of catwalks above the surface of the water. Due to her depth, they appeared tiny, but in the grand scope, they were massive metal structures riveted to giant cables which connected to the titanic rock structures caused by the impact of the ship.
She continued on toward the wreckage.
After finally reaching the side of the ship, the hull breach was about five meters high. Samus disengaged her gravity adaptor and floated up near the hole. When she got close enough, she re-engaged it and drifted inside the ship.
Samus landed on a structure she couldn't see. Pulses still flickered here and there, but the emissions weren't bright enough to allow for vision of the environment.
Samus fired a single energy blast straight forward. As the blast traveled through the room, yellow light illuminated the surroundings.
Wreckage was piled along the floors, which were formerly walls. Massive metal crates created a jagged surface. As the blast splashed on the opposite wall, a door opened, and light shone into the room through it.
Small lizard-like creatures scurried into small nooks to escape the light as Samus proceeded toward the opening.
When she emerged through the hole, she was in a brightly lit room that extended upwards. The water surface was much lower in this room, easily five feet above Samus' head.
As she kept going, she made her way out of the water and onto a ledge. When she looked up, she noticed another door 15 feet above her. She began scaling upwards toward the door, but before she got there, the door was blown completely off of its frame and crashed against the opposing wall. The large metal plate fell toward Samus, but she managed to dodge it by clinging to the wall. It ricocheted off of a few ledges and splashed into the water.
Samus looked up to see another bounty hunter, similarly clad blasting away into the doorway, backing up. Shot after shot, the hunter unloaded into the tunnel, but before long, it turned and leapt away from the ledge. Before it got too far though, it was tackled by a swift moving beast...A METROID!
The metroid clutched onto the hunter with its claws and slammed him into a ledge. Samus heard the hunter screaming and yelling in pain. The metroid simply undulated and cooed in its chilling, yet baby-like call.
The screams gradually died down, eventually to a final breath. The metroid cooed again, and rose up, seemingly looking at Samus. It floated up and waited at the door, wanting her to follow it. Samus climbed up to the level where the dead hunter was. The suit leaked a dusty substance, the remains of the hunter inside. Samus checked his arm cannon and found a plasma adaptor cell. She inserted it into her arm cannon and made her way to the top ledge with the metroid.
The creature led her down a long corridor that ended with another door. It cooed at her as if trying to say, "Open the door."
Samus blasted the door once and it opened into a massive chamber. She could hardly believe her eyes.
Inside was the main reactor core for the ship...as well as metroids as far as the chamber would reach. Nests were constructed into the walls, as well as into the reactor itself. Samus also noticed metroids undergoing what looked to be mitosis. They were splitting into two identical bodies!
"How could such an ecosystem develop inside a reactor core?" Samus thought, "and how could they simply split into two?"
It was the reactor itself. The metroids weren't feeding off of only life energy; they had adapted to live off of energy in general! When the hunter had blasted the metroid, he had simply fed it more energy, making it more powerful.
Samus saw a winding staircase to her left that would take her to the top, formerly the back, of the reactor chamber. She hopped on it and began climbing upward. A trio of metroids floated behind her, curious.
Samus had still not become accustomed to non-hostile metroids. She had had too many bad experiences with them in the past.
She had finally made it to another door, which she opened in the normal fashion. Inside, a sign read "Escape Deck --- " and pointed up the shaft/hallway.
Samus entered, but the door caught on itself when trying to close, sticking in a position where it was 75 open.
She continued up the shaft, but the metroids stayed behind in the reactor room. Reaching the top, she found a delightfully archaic device: a door with a round screw lock system.
She turned the round handle five times to her left and it flung open toward her. She jumped inside the room and saw what was formerly the Escape Deck. Its observation windows had been shattered leaving it exposed to the elements of Planet Zebes. Small puddles of water were gathered against the walls, held there by gravity.
Samus began to hear something. It sounded like rhythmic wind...a very familiar sound...one that continued to grow louder...
Through the small window panel shot the head of a beast...
Samus recoiled, stunned, and looked back up. It was RIDLEY! He roared so loud that it shook the entire Escape Deck. His tail then whipped through and smashed Samus in her right knee.
She fell into the corridor once again, but shot a plasma blast back upward at Ridley, which struck him directly in the chest.
He screeched and disappeared from sight as Samus was still falling backwards down the tunnel. Another second went by, then black...
Samus had hit the back of her head against the partially open door to the reactor. Her unconscious body fell awkwardly for a while in the reactor chamber before being cushioned by a group of metroids. They guided her safely to the bottom of the chamber and lay her on the floor.
When she wakes up, there's gonna be hell to pay...
