Next up is the fifth chapter, starting where the last chapter left off with Wash, Carolina, and Samus leaving to G.F.S. Olympus located near Norion.
P.S. I am in no way affiliated with both parties nor own anything from them. All rights for Red vs. Blue goes to Rooster Teeth and all rights for Metroid goes to Nintendo.
Chapter 5: The Tip of the Iceberg
The Pelican flew more intensely than what the freelancers expected. Just as Carolina was taking off, it was going just like any other Pelican both her and Wash have been into. After it had enough height to make it out of the moon's atmosphere, it immediately zapped quickly, as if they were breaking through space and time altogether, creating a dark blue circular motion around them. Carolina didn't know if the Pelican had automatic controls for anything like this, but the only thing she knew at that point was that they were both going to throw up after their trip was over.
"DOES THIS THING HAVE ANY ANTI-MOTION SICKNESS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT?!" Wash shouted from the back seat above Carolina. He couldn't even hear his own voice, due to the loud noise that the Pelican was making around them.
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU AT ALL BUT ALL I'M GONNA SAY IS TO HOLD ON!" Carolina shot back at him.
She knew that shouting wouldn't do much to communicate with each other. She couldn't even turn around to shout at him directly at Wash since she was feeling like some powerful invisible force was flattening her to her seat. All she was able to hear from Wash was a lot of yelling possibly out of anxiety or fear.
Just after a couple minutes or so, the Pelican stopped all of a sudden and Carolina's body soon felt like it was back in shape, but with her insides feeling all jagged up from the intense trip.
"Ugh!" She groaned. "I... WASH... ARE YOU OKAY BACK THERE!?" She didn't notice that she was still yelling, for the fact that her ears were still ringing out of the loud noise.
"W-w-WHAT!?" Wash shot back, not even noticing that he was yelling himself either. "I THINK I'M- WAIT!"
He quickly took off his own helmet, not even knowing if the Pelican had a life support system installed for interstellar space traveling and started throwing up into a plastic bag he found near his seat. Luckily for him, the life support system was activated just before the Pelican took off back from the moon's atmosphere.
Carolina was finally able to take out her safety belt and turn her head around towards Wash, only to feel lightheaded and dizzy soon after and quickly fainted. Just as Wash heard a thump and finished throwing up, he looked down and saw Carolina unconscious on the ground. He took off his safety belt and reached down towards the unconscious freelancer.
"Carolina! CAROLINA! Are you okay!?"
Wash's ringing ears were gone and he was now able to tell the difference between a loud or low volume of noise. Although he was still feeling lightheaded and felt like his insides were about to become grounded meat. It didn't matter now that he had Carolina to worry about than his own health. Again he tried getting an answer,
"C'mon! Are you able to hear me?!"
Nothing.
Just as Wash didn't know what else to do, he instinctively took off her helmet and checked for a pulse to see if she was still alive. He also managed to check for a breathing and both were on the green that indicated she was still alive but knocked out. He quickly went to the back of the Pelican and searched for anything to help her breathe or even just a small bottle of water to see if she was able to wake up with some fresh water. To his luck, there was only a small water bottle lying about but it was only half filled.
"Must've been either Sarge or Grif who used this before," He uttered to himself. "This has got to be the worst trip ever, of all time."
Wash quickly went to where Carolina was laying and threw some water on her helmetless face. Carolina soon moved her head and slapped Washington in the face, which managed to knock his whole head almost to his back.
"Ah! What was that for? I was only trying to help you out!" Wash didn't know why would it be her first instinct to do such thing after someone was only trying to save her life.
"That's for taking off my helmet without my consent," Carolina replied, still feeling a bit disoriented as she stood up and put her helmet back on.
"Really?!" Wash shot back as he was annoyed at the fact that Carolina didn't seem to be appreciative of what Wash was really trying to do.
"To be honest with you, I actually felt like slapping someone, just to make myself feel better. Kinda actually worked out. Thanks by the way," said Carolina with a more appreciative tone than before as Wash was only staring at her with an annoyed expression look on his face.
"So this is what Sarge and Grif both felt when they were quickly phasing through random distances," commented Wash, looking around some of the things both Sarge and Grif left behind. "I'm surprised they're both still alive after having to do this like 3 times?"
"Well then I suppose we should keep it together to prepare for another trip back, cuz this ain't going to be the last thing we're gonna be dealing with," clarified Carolina.
As Carolina tried to get in contact with Samus or anyone else nearby, Wash grabbed his helmet and put it back on just as he started to gaze out the window in front of them to see where they were. Much to his surprise, there was a ship out of a whole crowd of them that was heading their way at a distance. It had an ominous look and it seemed like the ones that Samus has shown them back in the meeting room.
"Um... Carolina?"
Wash called out for her attention as she was busy trying to get in contact with Samus for a while, but no signal was coming in.
"What is it?" Queried Carolina, not noticing her annoyed tone of voice towards Wash.
"I think we have some more important things to worry about..."
"What do you m-"
Just after Carolina joined Wash, she managed to take a glance at the incoming ship and looked exactly like one of the ships Samus was warning them about to take a look out for. It would've been nothing other than a Space Pirate fighter ship, looking almost identical to that of the so-called Zebesian Pirate Ships.
"We gotta move!" Ordered Carolina. "Wash, go back to your position and use those controls in front of you to shoot them while I try getting us out of here! Go, GO!"
"Yes, ma'am!" Wash complied.
Wash quickly went back to where he first sat, activated the weapon controls, and was ready to take down the Pirates. Just as Wash was finished locking on them, Carolina switched the main pilot controls to manual and initiated the flying maneuvers. She didn't know where to go, but wherever they were, it was too dangerous to stay there any longer. She tried locating the G.F.S. Olympus, get in contact with anyone from the Federation, and tried getting in contact with Samus if she were to be around.
"Carolina!" Exclaimed Wash, with a worried tone. "There are more ships on our 3 and 9!"
"Don't you think I know that already?!" She remarked.
"I'm just saying!"
Just moments later, the control panels in front of Carolina started beeping and notifying that there were incoming missiles filled with an unknown highly radioactive substance. Could it be the same substance Samus talked about during her briefing? Whatever it was, there was no time to think about such thing and only try focusing on getting out of the mess they were in and get in contact with either the Federation or Samus as soon as possible.
"Wash! Try shooting them as much as you can! Things are gonna get a little bumpy! Hold on!" Notified Carolina as she was doing the best she could by evading those missiles. At this moment as much as she hated to admit it, she wished that their former pilot from Project Freelancer, Four Seven Niner, was here to pilot this Pelican as she would be doing a whole lot better than what Carolina was doing.
"I don't think our guns aren't doing much to them anyway. These ships are all covered with some weird plating armor that's protecting them from conventional weapons!" Replied Wash, just as he saw those missiles explode in mid-air with a blueish-like color.
"Well, then that'll make it even more interesting, right?!"
"What!?"
"Just try to keep them at bay! If it won't destroy them, at least you can try slowing them down!"
"This is by far the most stressful day of my life already! You know that right?!"
"We've been through a hell of a lot worse!"
Just as both finished their conversation, they managed to hear their radios coming back to life and a familiar voice was coming through.
"Washington! Carolina! Are you there!?"
"Samus! Where are you!" Questioned Wash as he was busy trying to repel the pirates away from them.
"The G.F.S. flagship is just around the corner of Norion's orbit. Head your way there and the Federation will try to cover you as you land in the docking area. It'll be the only one open as soon as the Federation has sights on your ship. You'll be able to see my ship there too so get a move on!" Explained Samus
"We see the planet you're talking about. We're on our way there! Over and out!" Clarified Carolina, just as she prepared to dodge more incoming nuclear-like missiles.
"They're more of them in almost every direction!" Wash blurted as he saw more Pirate ships trying to surround them. "These Pirates just don't give up do they?!"
"If Samus was right about one thing is that these Pirates aren't the ones to give up easily on just about anything!"
"Watch out!" Shouted Wash just before they felt one missile hit the Pelican real hard.
"That's gonna scratch the paint," Carolina said to herself, still wishing Four Seven Niner was still here with them.
"I hope we don't die of radiation poisoning after this!"
After a few moments of surviving a wave of Pirate attacks, they finally arrived near the area where the Federation flagship was.
"This could be it!" Stated Carolina, with some relief behind her tone.
As soon as they arrived into the area, a lot of those Pirate ships were getting destroyed with the same type of weapon artillery they had, only these shots seemed to penetrate through the Pirate ships, destroying them completely. The Federation must have slightly more advanced weapons than that of the UNSC, but whatever the case was, both Wash and Carolina were feeling a lot better to finally have someone back them up. Soon after, the Pelican's radio system was activated when a signal was coming through and it seemed that it was coming from the flagship itself.
"Come in, unidentified vessel! Please confirm your identity at this moment for safety measures!" the voice demanded.
"This is Agent Carolina," she answered. "We are the Reds and Blues or in other words, freelancers, that your fellow bounty hunter, Samus Aran, has sent here. It is only me and my other partner, Agent Washington. No one else from the Red and Blue teams has come with us."
"Copy. This is Admiral Dane, the commander of the G.F.S. Olympus. Make sure to meet me in these coordinates. Get in your best hurry to arrive here before things get any worse out here. Signing out."
"Well, so much for getting involved, right?" Wash commented as he was already annoyed at the fact that they'll be dealing with more Space Pirates and this time, alien-like creatures.
"We are lucky to still be alive at this point," Carolina pointed out. "So long as we are doing something to prevent this from happening back at UNSC Space is going to be worthwhile."
"I guess you're right," replied Wash with some sound of confidence. "Let's go do something about it then."
Carolina silently complied with what Wash said and flew in towards the docking area of the flagship, Olympus. In there, they saw Samus' ship parked there and Carolina started landing the Pelican near her ship to the right as there were two more landing points in the area.
As soon as the freelancers got out, they saw a lot of chaos going on. Those Space Pirates looked a lot more terrifying than when shown in the hologram meeting room back on the moon. Some looked more like Junior, the alien creature Tucker gave birth to, only they had clear blue plating armor. Others who were seen with lighter grey armor, their heads looked a lot like fishes with mandibles that have needle-like teeth. And then they saw Samus, helping other Marines fighting off the ferocious Space Pirates.
That is when they first saw what Samus was capable of. Her arm cannon was able to shoot like a machine gun with shots that looked like small yellow-like spheres. In some occasions, she was able to pull off bigger shots as it seemed like she also had the ability to charge her weapon for better firepower. They were in total shock about what was happening around them, but they had no time to stare at what was going on and they knew for sure that something must be done to help prevent this mess they were seeing. As Samus finished off a couple of Space Pirates, she finally managed to look at both freelancers and shouted.
"Get over here! Some of the rooms on this ship are getting raided by Pirates! If you can, help along the way and get to the Briefing Room ASAP!"
Both freelancers nodded as they complied and just when they caught up with Samus, they saw a marine, collapsing towards the ground as he was thrown in mid-air through a window right in front of the docking area above them. The three of them looked helplessly as they saw a giant thing jumping right through the shattered window and landed in front of them, staring at them with dark colored eyes as it roared loudly. It looked a bit like the other Space Pirates, only this one looked mutated with blue veins covering part of his immense upper body. It seemed like these type of Pirates has survived some sort of effects of Phazon Corruption, as Samus highly suspected hence the knowledge she had about their biological experiments back on Tallon IV.
"Oh God! What the hell is this thing!" Carolina never saw anything like this in her whole entire military career. She would prefer to have a normal human enemy or even face her main competitor in Project Freelancer, Tex, or the psychotic mercenaries, Felix and Locus anytime soon.
"Oh c'mon! And this is our welcoming party now?!" Wash commented in horror as he saw the Berserker Lord coming at them, ready to attack.
"Leave it to me!" Samus walked in front of them, readying her arm cannon towards it. "I'll catch up with you guys later just get to the Briefing Room and let the Admiral know I'll be there as soon as I've taken care of this thing!"
"Are you sure you're gonna be alri-"
"Just GO!"
Samus cut off Wash before he could finish his last word. Both of the freelancers left the area as soon as Samus ordered them to leave for the final time. It was at this moment that everything they've seen by now has been almost exactly what Samus has described before. They were no longer looking for a way to see the truth behind Samus as they've seen enough to know that if this were to happen on UNSC Space, where Pirates could raid every ship and area they could find, it would end up badly.
As they traversed through various rooms, they saw death everywhere. There were corpses here and there, both being from Pirates and humans. It was pretty bad to see even through the eyes of a kid. They were seeing turrets shooting at Pirates, while Marines were trying to get the upper hand, in which some managed, but the rest tried to no avail, much of the freelancers' frustration. However, the moment they stepped into the Xenoresearch Lab, they saw an injured Marine, blindly shooting at the Pirates behind a crate, not being able to concentrate on his gunfire due to his injuries. They helped the Marine fight off the Pirates shooting at him. At that moment, much to their surprise, they felt it was somehow easier to handle Pirates than the human counterparts that they used to fight before. They were still more frightening, but their appearance was the least of their worries.
"You alright?" Asked Wash, concerned about what was happening around them.
"Yeah, thanks. I thought I was a goner for a moment," the Marine said with slight relief. The Marine took a look at both Wash and Carolina, noticing that they weren't from around here since their armor and appearance look a lot different than what he has seen before. "Who are you guys exactly? I don't suppose you both are from around here unless you guys are a pair of bounty hunters."
"We aren't exactly bounty hunters. We are part of another space region under the auspices of the UNSC," Carolina explained.
"I heard about that before... The AU mentioned something like that in one of its announcements the previous day or so. Something about granting some sort of Red and Blue soldiers from the UNSC Space access to the ship or whatever. ...Ugh!"
The Marine started to groan as he was holding his hip. He had a large scratch mark that penetrated through his armor. The wound didn't seem life-threatening, but it seemed like one of those Pirates managed to puncture him pretty good with one of their scythe weaponry they had seen.
"Are you able to walk?" Wash inquired the Marine as he saw the poor guy struggle in standing up.
"I'll be fine," the Marine shot back. "The medical room shouldn't be too far from here. You guys do what you need to do. I'm sure the Admiral is waiting on you and the other hunters so don't waste time."
As soon as the Marine left the room, they turned around towards the ground floor as they heard a lot of banging noise and soon they realized that the whole power in the room went off. There were three Pirates, 2 of them with slight-looking heavier armor than the other lone one with light-armor at the ground level as one of them had a glowing green-like energy cell that seemed like the source of what was keeping the room lit with the main power.
The three Pirates then headed their separate ways, each of them taunting at both of the freelancers of the fact they weren't going to escape the room alive. Much to Carolina's annoyance, she shouted at them, readying her dual SMGs as Wash soon followed along.
"Wanna play, huh? All right. Ready or not, here we come!"
Meanwhile...
"Give it all you've got you Phazon-cultured freak!"
Samus didn't hesitate at gunning down the mutated bioweapon as she had a lot of experience doing so back on Tallon IV. As she scanned the creature for more information, her scan revealed that no standard weapon fire could hurt the Berserker, but only its unprotected shoulders. Even so, it wouldn't be enough, unless she could somehow, exploit her way through using Phazon to her advantage against this creature. She didn't have a Phazon-based weapon or anything else to penetrate through the head's armor, but what she could remember since her last encounter with Dark Samus is that throwing the Phazon-based projectiles it fires back at the target was an effective way of taking out enemies with their own weaponry.
"Ironic on how everything based on Phazon is its own weakness to itself."
Just as she was caught off-guard, the Berserker took advantage of this moment and tried slamming Samus with its powerful arms. Much to Samus' quick reaction time, she managed to barely evade its attack and shot her Power Beam continuously to its right shoulder, until it cracked open. It bled small amounts of blue blood, possibly due to the fact that when infected with Phazon, a creature's blood turns to a blueish-like color. The Berserker started groaning in pain and roared towards Samus in rage.
"That hurt, huh? That's only the beginning," taunted Samus at the creature.
The Berserker was then crouching on its knees and hoped to catch Samus in a huge stream of Phazon coming out of its mouth. Samus got hit by it, but due to the stream of Phazon being a less concentrated version than that found in other places, it didn't deal heavy damage to her suit, but enough to drain a quarter of her suit's energy.
"You wanna play rough? Fine. I'll tag along."
Samus was sidestepping her way around it, shooting its other shoulder with the few missiles she had at a minimum capacity. It was enough to stall it in its place. As she was taking a small deep breath, the monster lunged projectiles, filled with Phazon energy towards her. This was her chance to use its own power against it. She began to shoot these orbs as soon as she saw them coming out of it, cracking the Berserker's head armor. It wasn't enough as the monster stood up and began to regenerate its wounded shoulders and roared even louder than before, filled with extreme rage.
The monster began to go berserk as if its name wasn't enough to describe him as one. It tried running towards Samus, swing its arms around as he would be throwing punches to the ground, creating a shockwave of electricity powered by Phazon. It was hard enough for Samus to keep up at this moment, but just like any other time facing creatures like this, she was able to evade every attack it tried to do against her, only having missed one attack from it. The bioweapon managed to throw in a good punch on Samus, knocking her all the way back against a group of heavy-duty crates.
"Ugh... that kinda hurt a bit," commented Samus, trying to stand back up.
The Berserker roared at her, enraged to still see her alive and ran towards Samus, only to miss by a few inches just after Samus managed to evade it once more. This was her chance again as the monster stunned itself against the wall. Samus spammed everything she could against it on its shoulders, wounding it once more. In its defensive action, it tried regenerating once again while throwing orbs of Phazon energy at her.
"No more regenerating for you, freak!" Samus said with satisfaction as she shot the orbs back at the creature, causing its phazite armor to crack open. Once again, she spammed everything she could against it, this time, on its exposed head. The Berserker groaned in pain and in a desperate attempt to save itself from getting killed in its last moments, it tried grabbing Samus in order to throw her out in space, but because it was disoriented, it fell in front of the dock entrance's electrocution failsafe, killing it in an instant. Its corpse then managed to float out in space, until Samus witnessed a Pirate ship crashing into it, turning it into nothing but ashes.
"Glad that's over," Samus said with a deep sigh. Just after taking a small break from the recent battle, she followed after the freelancers and hoped they have already arrived at the Briefing Room safely.
[To be continued...]
Sorry, this took long enough. I'm trying to keep up with this and my busy schedule so bear with me as I go along. As you can see, I made this part of Prime 3 to be slightly reversed and changed so that I could be able to write an original story, while still combing both the universes of Red vs. Blue and Metroid altogether using as much of the canon plots as possible from their respective parts. I took long enough to actually try to bring in some original story on my part and not copy off the whole entire plot of Prime 3, because then most people who already played or seen Prime 3 will easily be able to predict just about everything I would have in store for them so do expect some slight changes to the plot. Next chapter will be up in the near future so stay tuned! And PLEASE! Leave a review! For those who have left a review, thank you so much! It helps me get motivated too whether its positive, negative, critical, or non-critical.