Well, I said that I would make the next chapter with the focus on Samus Aran, and that's what I've done. I also said in a previous chapter that I was saving the infected Nightmare for a special occasion. Why did I bring that up now?... No reason. *Evil laugh*
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the franchises in this story.
Samus Aran made her way through the Chozo Ruins on this unnamed world. All throughout her journey, she had been set upon by wave after wave of Flood pure and combat forms, all seeking to hinder her mission.
She dispatched them all with relative ease, but each attack caused a delay in her mission, one which could ensure the Flood's total defeat. Still, fighting through the Parasite was disconcerting enough, but her anxiety levels were even worse considering her current... 'companion'.
Her musings were interrupted when a pair of Ranged forms began bombarding her with spikes from the sides of the nearby walls. The damage they did to her suit was negligible, and her retalitation with her Plasma Beam burned them off the wall.
As another horde of Flood made their way through the ruins, they began firing on her with all the weapons they had. Fortunately, their aim was sloppy and the few hits she sustained were absorbed by the shielding in her armor. Aiming her arm cannon, she retaliated with an Ice Spreader blast, covering the ground and walls with ice, and encasing the Flood within it.
With the cluster of Flood forms frozen in their tracks, Samus responded by unleashing a Super Missile into the block of ice, shattering the formation into thousands of pieces. Another line of Flood rushed forward to take their place, but before Samus could fire, a massive beam of plasma swept by from overhead, reducing the Flood forms to ash.
The beam ceased to exist centimeters from the ex-bounty hunter's position, and Samus had to restrain herself from targeting the screeching roar that came from the shadow that flew overhead.
Ridley flew past with a shriek, breathing another jet of plasma at a swarm of Flood flyers that attempted to engage him. The cyborg Space Pirate general tore through the ranks of the Flood, then proceeded to drop explosives on the massing combat and Pure forms below.
Samus still couldn't believe that this was happening. When she had agreed with the Republic's agreement to help the Separatists, she couldn't imagine that her nemesis would be deployed to the same planet, let alone having to fight on his side.
Then again, considering that this war had been dragging on for four years already, and even the Republic and Separatists were being stretched thin. It didn't help that the Flood had the bodies of the entire Universal Union to throw at them (unknown to the rest of the IDA), and it was unlikely the Parasite would run out of bodies for a long time. They needed to find a way to end the war soon, or nothing would be left.
Shaking off those thoughts, the ex-Bounty Hunter charged a burst before firing her Zero Laser in a sweeping motion, carving through the next wave of Flood forms. Unfortunately, they kept coming, leaving her with no choice but to use her Power Bombs.
Activating her Morph Ball, the Flood horde was just on top of her when the Power Bomb detonated. The resulting explosion consumed every Flood form within the blast radius, leaving a large crater around Samus.
When she got out of her Morph Ball, she was unsurprised to see more of the Parasite charging towards her. Ridley's plasma breath began thinning out out the horde, before explosions and screeching drew her attention to the infected gunships firing on the Space Pirate General. As she put combat and pure forms down, she could hear a taunting voice coming from all of them.
"The Chozo Hatchling." The voice of the Gravemind spoke that title as an insult. "The last survivor of the once great race. You will fall as they did."
Samus ignored the Gravemind's taunts and activated her Speed Booster, sprinting through the hordes of Flood forms that got in her way. The high speeds and kinetic energy tore dozens of them to shreds.
She sprinted through the ruins until she found what she was looking for: The Chozo temple. Rushing inside, she quickly opened the door before sealing herself in. Inside, it was quiet as a tomb, a sharp contrast to the battle raging outside.
Walking into the temple, she saw her prize just sitting on a dais. Two Chozo statues watched over the dais, appearing to be simply decoration, but Samus knew that the statues would turn on anyone who dared to desecrate the temple. With her overview of the temple done, she walked up to the artifact itself.
It was a small device, in the shape of a blank stone pyramid with a small blue crystal at the top. Despite the stone carving, it had a metallic sheen to it, and was floating a couple inches off the pedestal.
Samus grabbed the device, the pyramidal shaped artifact easily fitting into the palm of her hand. It was hard to believe such a small thing could hold the power needed to end the Flood threat once and for all.
With a flash, her suit absorbed the artifact, converting it into energy to store it for safekeeping. Once that was done, Samus ran back out to the entrance where Ridley was holding an army of Flood at bay.
As the ex-Bounty Hunter joined up with her 'ally', she noticed that the number of Flood had gone up considerably in her absence. Ridley was being hard pressed to hold them off. As much as Samus wanted him to die, she didn't want to have to fight a Flood-infected Ridley.
With a sigh, she turned her Arm Cannon on the nearest Flood Pure form and fired, reducing it to ashes. On and on the slaughter went, as the dragon and the hunter tore their way through the Flood ranks. As the horde finally thinned out, a loud crackling noise drew their attention upwards.
Massive portals opened in the sky, and incredibly large and sickly tentacles slithered out. Thousands of infected warships and other forms flew out between the tentacles, looking like tiny dots in orbit. One of those dots slowly grew larger and larger until it became a familiar shape.
A screeching noise mixed with the bloodcurdling howl of the Flood drew Samus' attention to the familiar shape flying through the air, only it was twisted beyond measure. It was an infected Nightmare, coated with the sickly green tentacles of the Flood. Gravity distorted even more than usual, forcing Samus' Gravity suit to compensate for the shifting. A shift in gravity sent Ridley sprawling into the ground, his cybernetic enhancements staving off the worst of Nightmare's effects.
The Flood twisted monstrosity had seemed to gain some new tricks of its own, as Samus leapt to the side, avoiding a wave of gravity that sent every loose object and piece of debris flying into the air before being slammed into the ground at crushing speed.
Samus avoided Nightmare's strikes again and again, while retaliating with her own combined beams. She didn't attempt to use her missiles, knowing that Nightmare would just cause them to go flying out of control as long as its gravity manipulator was operational.
Beams of energy struck out of Nightmare's arms, several of them impacting Samus, stunning her and draining one of her energy tanks. Nightmare was about to retaliate with a more destructive gravity wave when it was forced back by a beam of orange. Ridley had become airborne again and struck Nightmare with more attacks.
Shrieking and screeching from the two monsters competed for dominance as Ridley's bombs and missiles were harmlessly cast aside by Nightmare's gravity manipulations, while the dragon avoided several of Nightmare's blasts by twisting in midair.
While Ridley kept Nightmare occupied, Samus aimed her Arm Cannon at the infected bioweapon, firing off an enhanced Super Missile once she was sure it was more focused on Ridley than on her. She had targeted the gravity manipulater, but Nightmare must have realized what she was doing, as it spun around and redirected the Missile before it could connect.
Unfortunately for it, the missile was too close, and blew off Nightmare's mask revealing its infected face. It was even more disgusting than before: half it's eyes now had Flood tendrils leaking out, a trail of vomit, slithered out of its mouth, and its complexion was a bloated, with a much more sickly yellow color than green.
With a shrieking cry mixed with the howling of the Flood, Nightmare fired off an energy beam from its mouth, which Samus deftly somersaulted away from. The beam swept after her until explosives impacted the mutated bioweapon causing it to shriek and turn its beam towards Ridley, who rolled deftly through the air to avoid it.
Samus used Nightmare's distraction to fire another Super Missile at Nightmare's gravity manipulator, this time striking head on. A follow up barrage from her Plasma beam finally destroyed the manipulator, but it didn't seem to have any effect on the bioweapon's ability to manipulate gravity.
Even with the loss of its mask and main means of defense and offense, the infected Nightmare was damn near impossible to beat on her own. Taking a brief look at her nemesis, Samus knew what had to be done.
With barely contained anger, she sent a signal to Ridley's comms, who briefly turned to glare at her with resigned fury before giving a brief nod. The two of them launched explosives at the same time, both of which were deflected by Nightmare's gravity. This was all part of the plan, as the two of them needed a second's distraction to charge up their most powerful attacks. They released them at the same time.
With a combined strike of both the Zero Laser and Ridley's plasma breath, Nightmare was finally brought down for good as his body overloaded and exploded. However, that didn't stop the thousands of other Flood forms that began making their way towards the two unlikely companions in the aftermath of Nightmare's attack.
The two of them separated and ran (or flew, in Ridley's case), as inaccurate weapon fire chased the ex-Bounty Hunter and Space Pirate General as they made their escape from this world.
Activating her Command Visor, Samus summoned her gunship to her, leaping onto the top hatch as soon as it appeared over a nearby rise. Retreating inside, she set a course for Republic space as soon as she was in the cockpit.
Out in the upper atmosphere, she weaved through the infected fighters and ships, in some cases shooting them down with her ship's missiles as she flew through the Flood formations. She easily avoided the massive tentacles as she made into orbit.
On her sensor screen, she idly took note as Ridley flew through the clouds of Flood forms and made his way to his own ship. Just then, her computer alerted her that the necessary coordinates had been plotted.
Keying the controls, the gunship leapt into interdimensional space, leaving the planet behind as the Flood converted the world into another of their hives.
Well, that's the end of Nightmare... again. Seriously, how many times does Samus have to kill a boss in the Metroid series before it actually stays dead?! Still, I hope I did the battle justice.
Now, I'm going to talk about one aspect that I'm sure was a surprise; Samus working alongside Ridley. First off, I want to emphasize that this is not a normal occurence, and that the only reason this happened at all was because the war with the Flood had gotten that bad. They still want to kill each other, so don't expect something like this to ever happen again.
All that said, I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter and reviews are always welcome.