A/N: Man. There are probably still some critical changes I could make here, but I really don't care anymore. I just want the little monster up on the net so I can move on. Perhaps you'll enjoy it. :) I'm guessing, when/if I get up any original chapters, the style will be way different. We'll see...
Ch. 7: The Day the Hunter Fell
"WHAT!" Samus blanched. How could the pirates have found them already? What drove them to such lengths?
Why hadn't she seen anything?
Fox's eyes struggled to focus on Samus as he answered, "…like, lobsters, skinless lobsters with oily muscles— y 'know what I'm saying?"
"WHERE, MCLOUD!"
"EVER-y-where," Fox responded in a day dreamy voice, accentuating each syllable with a roll of his head, "Uhhhgg…"
Krystal's eyes darted back and forth from Fox to the surrounding peaks, fear exaggerating both the size of her eyeballs and the rock. She couldn't handle these creatures, cloaked or no. She hated them. "Fox?" When he didn't answer, she reached out and gripped his shoulders. "FOX!"
In response he gave a groan of pain, and then mumbled, "STOP…that dancing—you don't fit the can-can—"
Samus's metal hand caught Krystal. "Don't panic, yet," she hissed, "You're not helping anything, and you're making too much noise!"
Grimacing, Krystal said, "Samus, I really don't want to die here."
The hunter only nodded, letting her hand drop and turning her attention back to their surroundings. The light in the sky grew brighter by the moment. The rays seemed to seep into the stained atmosphere, refract, and give it the appearance of alien stained glass. Like a huge fungal colony, thick storm clouds collected to the southeast and crept towards their present location. The rock columns twisted into each other in sharp relief against the atmosphere and grew beards of hardy scrub plants. Nothing shifted amongst the precipices and small talus slopes except their hue and shade. The landscape seemed perfectly content to keep to itself and Samus could find no trace of the creatures Fox saw. "…I don't see anything. We're totally alone right now," she muttered as her hand slowly fell from the side of her helmet.
"But, Fox-"
"Is hallucinatory," he must be,"what he says can't be trusted," Samus said. "Listen to him, he thinks we're dancing."
"But-"
"Let's move." Samus wanted to leave as soon as possible, driven by a terrible sense of unease. Despite whatever trauma he may have suffered, Fox's description fit the pirate anatomy too perfectly.
Sighing, Krystal gave the rocks a scan herself using simply her ears, eyes, and vulpine nose. Samus had saved them, but that didn't mean she totally trusted her judgment or her technology. Hefting Fox and Falco in turn, they started down a path that would lead them to the Great Fox.
Krystal stopped at the beginning of the trail, blue ears swinging back.
Samus took a few strides more before noticing that Krystal hadn't moved. When she no longer heard the fox's light steps, she spun in exasperation. "What?"
The cerinian vulpine's dainty snout wrinkled like something left in a washer. "What's that smell?"
--------
'Captain…'
'Yes, Reyaer?' The two cloaked pirates were perched high on the fiery colored rocks. The long shadows of sunrise hid the only hint of their presence, a wavy distortion pattern that shimmered like a desert mirage. Except for the rare occasion when one of them shifted their weight, all was still.
Reyaer spoke. 'What are we waiting for, Morwn? The ship is right there...' Indeed, the Great Fox glistened in the light of dawn not a few meters away. The dorsal wing reached high into the air, challenging the stone spires around it— beckoning to Reyaer. And he wasn't allowed to snarl at it without his captain's orders. He could talk, he could suggest a strategy, but he couldn't budge unless given instruction. Impatience made his insides flutter like a swarm of rios, but he didn't mind enough to set them free and do as he wished. He could always trust his captain when the trail became rocky and uncertain.
'We must wait until the AAA units make their move. I'd like to keep this organized' the captain let out a hiss of air, the pirate equivalent of a sigh, 'An attack is most effective in waves; remember that. Each erodes a little bit of the enemy's power.' Morwn said in a voice both deep and scarred, like the sounds themselves were veterans of conflict.
'I think we are a bit more like a chozo ghost; we must strike and be gone.' Reyaer answered as he fingered the unarmed explosive, clipped to his waist, with a claw.
'Exactly. But, I'd prefer to see the attack with my own eyes. We can't be caught off guard. Again.'
Reyaer nodded in response and turned his attention back to the Great Fox. It was a large ship of a class he couldn't identify. The hull was metallic white in color, made of a reinforced alloy. He noted that it would be very hard to breach, and that he would probably have to make his own entrance. The main body of the ship was fat, with four, long wings forming ventral angles to the side while the top tapered to the aforementioned dorsal wing. At the front the body tapered and rose up, then widened again into the main deck. He snorted as he realized that it looked like the head and neck of an animal. Below the neck, on the breast of the ship, were two large charge canons and a smaller one directly below the main deck. On the very back, below and behind the dorsal, was a flat space, on the end of which was a huge propulsion booster. The entrance to the hangar was closed, as was the landing ramp. How was he supposed to get in?
A quick flash and an ear-hammering sound shocked from deep in the maze, painting stark silhouettes on the ground and forcing out an expanding bubble of dusty debris and hot air. It passed over, peppering their exoskeletons with loose earth and hard bits of metal; proximity mine. Not a very strong one, but effective in its purpose. Their Captain had wanted one of the enemy alive after all. Morwn raised a clawed hand, stopping Reyaer's reactionary movement short. After a few gut wrenching minutes, the corridors funneled to them the emphatic report of gunfire and struggle. Reyaer thought he could even see a few dancing flashes sparking through faraway gaps in the rock, but it was difficult to tell whose they were. When he returned his attention to his captain, he could see them dimly reflected on the glassy optic tubes sprouting from the sides of the pirate's head.
Morwn muttered quietly, 'Go.'
And Reyaer leapt off, down the precipice and sliding down the wall.
Morwn watched him head towards the ship, then, 'Reyaer!'
His second in command slid to a stop and looked back. The tone in his captain's voice— he had never heard such an inflection before in his life, and its timbre confused him.
'Reyaer'the wizened pirate said, 'Be quick.'
While they were both still, looking at each other, an observer might have had the time to note the peculiar similarities between the two personas, similar features in the horrifying faces and carapaces. Carriage and structure.
When a new pirate is born, it has no notion of whom or what a parent is. Love is considered a waste of time in pirate society, so new pirates are either clones or the result of genetic information taken from two individuals of different sex. It is one chance in thousands that a newborn in the later case will ever be in the same squad or scientific team as its genetic sire.
Reyaer saluted his captain and slipped away.
Morwn watched him go. He felt anxious.
--------
Samus's breath caught in her throat as the sand around them erupted. The shockwave from the blast threw her towards the nearest wall of the bowl. She spun out of control through the air and hit it front first, visor shattering and armor ringing like a bell, stinging her skin.
As she fell out of her own imprint, Samus wondered if she had ever been in any other situation that had proved, in her opinion, worse than the present. A few rose from her memory; a time when she thought she was going to be killed by a giant Metroid, her own Hatchling; another where she barely avoided getting eaten by a giant mutant plant, several that encompassed escaping from maze-like facilities before they self destructed. The black-and-white difference between those times and now was that, back then, the only one she had to take care of was herself.
The scrape of rock on rock wove an ominous tapestry with the course language of pirate voices. She couldn't tell what frightened her more, the fact that the pirates had successfully created a cloak that defied her scanners, or the whirling dust that playfully obscured her vision, preventing her from forming a strategy.
Samus struggled to rise, putting a hand down, slipping, adding a foot and a knee. To her eyes, the blast had flung her opposite the trail they had taken, but that didn't give her many clues as to the location of her cohorts.
She COULD tell that her suit's energy level was dangerously low. She quickly eyed the dents in her armor, any holes that might be exposing her more vulnerable fusion suit layer, trying to assess whether or not any major systems were destroyed. If it got too low, it would reflect on her organic systems and she'd die.
Still dazed and trying not to lose it, Samus carefully crouched down next to the wall and considered her options, ignoring the scrapings of claws on stone that faded in and out all around, searching, taking their sweet time. She needed to find the others and get to the Great Fox— somehow. Falco had been cradled in her arms during the explosion, so he had to be nearby. She could only hope.
Samus began to crawl on her belly away from the wall to find him, cursing the dust clogged air, now gilded with diffused morning light. She might have found it beautiful at one time.
She wanted to laugh and cry. Where was the accursed wind that had helped form this damnable place? The stupid, howling wind that could blow all the dust away? She muttered epithets under her breath.
…As if in answer, there was a light breeze…
It started soft, as if in greeting, then slowly grew into the terrain tearing wind that it was truly known for. Samus balked, both at the timely appearance of the wind and the feel of it against her exposed face; the force felt cool, and the grains stung her eyes.
The clouds of earth began to blow easily away, windows of vision already materializing out of the gloom. Only half believing her good fortune, Samus continued to worm her way ahead, gasping in surprise and relief when she saw a mass of matted, dull blue feathers amongst the sand and debris.
With a burst of speed she began scrambling over to Falco on her hands and knees, slipping on the pebbles, hoping he had some breath left in his lungs.
With an equal suddenness that startled Samus, something smashed into her from the left like a speeding car and knocked her over. A nasty, unseen something snarled in triumph as its talloned foot squeezed the breath out of her chest and pinned her against the ground when she slid to a stop on her back, like an insect pegged on a collection board.
The pirate's breath made her gag as it leaned in close and hissed, spraying wet spittle at her unprotected face, then it straightened up and made a high pitched call. When the pirate uncloaked, she saw its massive frame, reddened as a by-product of some new alien technology. Shadows emerged all around as the rest of the pirates uncloaked and revealed themselves, drifting nearer like ghosts. For them, this moment would go down in the history books.
Samus gritted her teeth. There was no possible way she could take them all on. They'd gun her down and harvest her suit. Then they'd kill Falco where he lay, if he wasn't dead already, as well as Krystal and Fox. Being the inquisitive creatures that they were, the pirates would probably dissect them all.
She wondered briefly if she should go into morphing ball mode and activate a power bomb; it would probably kill both her and Falco, but at least it would save them from a fate possibly worse than death. Not to mention it would take down more than a few of the pirates.
As more and more pirates began to gather and jeer at her like she was some circus spectacle, she realized that that wasn't an option, and never would be. It never was.
Samus switched her canon to the plasma beam, eyes dead set on the pirate above her. It had a quizzical expression on its monstrous face; it wasn't paying her any mind.
Then the nearest pirates were hurled away in balls of flame.
After Samus peered from behind her shielding arms, blinking in confusion, a familiar face peered at her through the faded gloom like the fabled Cheshire Cat, and grinned. "Hey, Sammy, you weren't thinking of turning in were you?" Abruptly turning away, Captain Falcon sent a few more pirates to their fiery doom with a round of one-two punches as they instantly turned their attention from her to him and attacked with unwavering fury. They fought differently than normal pirates; using skilled, twisting scythe movements and attack patterns, moving with the precision of blood red cats.
Captain Falcon's fighting style, by contrast, was not so calculated. He dove into the thickest press of them, tossing them to and fro with a flurry of flaming punches and kicks. Like a street fighter, he threw as much energy behind each punch as he could muster; like a street fighter, he seemed to be relishing the thrill of the fight. "THAT ONE'S FOR MY MOTHER, whoever she was, AND THIS ONE'S FOR MY INANIMATE SHIP!" A few hits from the pirates connected, but Falcon didn't seem to care. He was moving too fast to receive any grievous damage, orange flames discharging from every hit he gave.
Shaking off her astonishment, Samus leapt to her feet with as much speed as she could muster, powering up her plasma beam. She let it charge until she could feel the heat radiating in waves and embers danced on the breeze, then fired at the nearest of the pirates, watching as it caught fire and shrieked in pain.
Taking up a defensive position over Falco, Samus continued to send out the biting arcs of plasma, trying to cover herself and Captain Falcon the best that she could. A large group of pirates broke off from the ones attacking Falcon and focused their efforts on her, quickly regretting the maneuver when she turned on her flamethrower, ducked a scythe at the same time, keeping her balance with her other hand. Rather than focus on the offensive, Samus left that to Falcon and played king of the hill, avoiding a melee battle as much as possible and keeping the pirates at bay with her beam weaponry.
But they couldn't keep this up forever. She only had so many missiles to fuel her flame thrower and other more powerful weapons with, not to mention that Falcon was beginning to slow down, each punch weaker than the next. Whatever energy that fed his flame based tactics and superhuman speed was beginning to wane. A pirate that lay burning on the ground reached weakly for her foot and she kicked it away, shooting another that was upright.
"FALCON!"
A flurry of pirates flew into the air in answer. "WHAT?"
"WE NEED TO FIND MY FRIENDS AND GET OUT OF HERE, QUICK!"
"HOW? IT'S LIKE THERE'S A NEVERENDING SUPPLY OF 'EM!" His words were accentuated by a yell as one of the pirates' scythes caught him in the side. He quickly swept it off its feet and kicked it into a boulder, clutching his new cut.
"I'LL USE MY ICE SPREADER TO SLOW THEM DOWN! GET OUT OF THE WAY!"
"WHAT?"
Samus wasn't listening for a reply, she was busy powering up her ice-beam. She whispered something that may have been a prayer before taking careful aim, releasing the shot into the thick of the pirate melee, barely missing Falcon as he dashed out of the line of fire. The recoil knocked her off balance.
A normal, charged ice beam shot when fired upon an enemy will immediately immobilize it in a shell of ice. When coupled with a missile, the ice spreads and expands with the added energy, like a super crystal, from the detonation point, imprisoning anything within radius. The pirates had no time to react when the ice missile screamed into their midst and interrupted their thoughts in a flash of white and subzero temperature, the ice crystal expanding at a rate too rapid for them to avoid.
Samus got shakily to her feet as Captain Falcon tapped his own image, reflected in the glimmering ice crystal that had stopped its expansion inches from his face.
After finishing off the few pirates that were free-moving, Falcon hobbled up to Samus, apparently having caught a wound in the leg. He slowly whistled in admiration, catching his breath. "Now that's impressive!"
Samus's only reply was her thoughtful silence.
"…don't mind me or anything.." Falcon muttered, annoyed at being ignored. All that undeniable rescuing and not even a thank you… The stinging cuts didn't help either, who knew what those scythes were laced with?
He was caught off guard when a dirty blue bundle was thrust into his arms. "What the--!"
"Quickly! I need you to take him—" Samus gestured to the bundle in his arms which, on closer inspection, turned out to be some sort of humanoid bird, "to his ship. He needs medical attention right away. I don't know how they'll welcome you, but do it anyway. I'm going to stay here and look for the others." With that, she ran off into the rubble. "Follow the path that starts with the hulking crater, and if that doesn't work, just…LOOK FOR A BIG SHIP!"
Falcon was once again left speechless in a pile of rubble.
But the groan from the bird knocked him out of it.
"I guess I'm a nurse now...dang! Who does she think she is? Some sort of general? Wonder woman maybe? Aw, wait, she is. I forgot," the racer muttered as he flew down the path, skipping over pirate bodies and rocks, ignoring the wound in his leg.
Samus was amazed at how hard it was to cope without her visor; if it were working she could have found the foxes in two seconds flat, but without it... She was walking on thin ice looking for them alone, and it was beginning to crack, literally. She raced around the bowl, looking for any sign of them; a hair or maybe one of their weapons sticking up out of the rubble. The sun was shining directly into the bowl now and catching sight of something metallic wouldn't be hard.
The ice encapsulating the pirates glittered in the sun, little drips began to run down in rivulets.
Samus thought she heard something for a moment, but it was just the wind singing a tuneless song. She began to digging around a pile of rocks, pushing the bigger ones out of the way. When that became hopeless she moved on to another. What if she didn't find them in time? Was she wasting hers?
The song had become louder.
Samus stopped in her tracks. Someone was singing! No. KRYSTAL was singing; unbelievable. She began turning in circles, trying to find the source of the song. The ice was riddled with cracks by now and a few small pieces slid off and hit the ground with light, wet slaps.
The odd music was stronger now. She followed it to a pathetic pile of stone on top of a larger slab. How could they be under there? But it was definitely issuing from the rocks..
Another voice joined in, this one disjointed and just as tuneless.
The air was rent by a sharp crack and jointing began to branch off and encircle the iceberg.
No time for doubts. Samus began frantically pushing back the stones. "KRYSTAL! MCLOUD! ARE YOU IN THERE!" The singing stopped: Samus paused in her digging.
"SAA-AA-AMUS! SAMUS! GET US THE HECK OUT OF HERE!" That was definitely Krystal. "WE'RE STUCK IN A TUNNEL!" It seemed Fox was conscious, as he yelped in an undignified way.
"I'm working on it!" Samus dug down to the slab itself and laboriously pushed it out of the way, the friction humming down into the grotto. Eerie blue light issued from it, radiating from Krystal's staff. The two foxes stared up at Samus. Mcloud seemed alert, and they were leaning against each other for support. "How did you guys get all the way down there?"
Fox seemed about to say something buy Krystal cut him off, "I don't know, the blast threw us here and the ground caved in, what was that thing?"
"It doesn't matter right now, we just need to get out of here…wait one sec and I'll be right down."
"Down?"
Samus wasn't certain her jump jets still worked, nor whether or not she could carry someone while leaping, but she could still jump normally. Besides, there wasn't anymore time. The ice was beginning to slide off in larger pieces and she could see the pirates struggling slightly, eager to be free of their prison and wreak vengeance on their jailer--
She jumped back as something launched out of the grotto and landed beside her; it was Fox and Krystal, holding tightly to each other-- and the staff, though obviously not THAT tight because Krystal immediately fell over.
As Fox helped her up, Samus gaped. "How-?"
"Magic!" said Fox cheerily, patting the staff. His cheeriness immediately faded upon the sight of the mass of iced pirates. One lay free, gasping on the ground. It turned and roared at them, struggling to get up but slipping in the puddle of water.
"Holy-!" Fox fumbled for his blaster, almost dropping it and Krystal until Samus turned them both forcefully around and pushed them towards the path.
"RUUN!" Samus took the initiative and sprinted down the path herself, the two dazed foxes close behind, adrenaline fueling their hobbling. Following their departure was a mayhem of shattering ice and snarling. Samus slowed down and let Fox and Krystal catch up, keeping an eye on their backs.
"We're almost there!" Krystal gasped, dragging the staff at her side. Fox chanced a glance back, regretting it when he saw the pirates surge down the path like a river of blood. Samus continued to fire her plasma beam right behind them into the oncoming hoard, making some of the pirates trip and fall over their burning comrades while others leapt them like hurdles.
Like a breath of fresh air, the path in from of them slowly opened up into a massive bowl, housing the Great Fox in all its metallic glory. The sunlight glared off of the wings and the main view port like a beacon. As they struggled towards it, Samus saw Captain Falcon waving from the main deck, accompanied by a gray, humanoid rabbit. The landing ramp unfolded in welcome as they sped towards it and closed just as quickly as they hauled themselves up. But not before they heard the Great Fox's main gun fire upon the pirates, the reverberation following them into the ship's belly.
Samus tripped at the top of the landing ramp, the air rushing out of her lungs as she went crashing unceremoniously onto her face, Fox and Krystal joining her soon after on the grating.
--------
A/N: Wow. I made more editions before actually uploading, so I do feel a bit better. Thanks again to all my reviewers, and I'll try to take into account all that ya'll are suggesting when I edit and come up with something new. Thanks again!
Next... Ch. 9: High Command