Well after a long time, here is the next chapter, continuing where the last chapter left off with Wash and Carolina.
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 6: Assault on Norion
The Space Pirates weren't playing around when they decided to put up a fight against the freelancers. Even though they were one of the lowest ranks in their military force, their weapons did quite some damage on both of the freelancers' armors, much to their frustration. Wash was trying to take down two pirates at once while Carolina was following the lonely Pirate who was carrying the stolen power cell.
"Err! Get back here with that cell!" Carolina was beginning to lose her patience as she was running towards the Pirate for a few minutes already, evading most of her shots. "Wash! How are you doing down there!?"
"Why the question?! Isn't it obvious enough by the sound of me struggling?!"
Wash was trying to keep up with dodging every attack the two armored pirates were trying to give. One of them has already grabbed him by the neck and threw him against the glass panes in the room, hurting his back by the impact. Even his own armor wasn't enough to protect him as the Pirates have far more strength than the average human. Just after evading several slashes against one of them while the other tried to fire at him, Wash immediately grabbed the Pirate's arm that was close to him and pulled him in front of him as a shield. The other Pirate, as bloodthirsty and unforgiving as they are, killed his own comrade in the process while trying to shoot Wash constantly with his beam weaponry.
"Good job, idiot! You killed your own kind!" Wash taunted the bloodthirsty Pirate.
The Pirate seemed not to be bothered by what he said, only gave a maniacal laughter and said in a grotesque voice with the sound of a lizard-like animal.
"He deserved to die the way he did. Fate has led him to this. Now human, it is your turn to face the same end!"
Wash immediately recognized that Samus was not lying about anything when she said that Space Pirates gave no mercy even to their own kind. Just before Wash could do anything, the Pirate roared in a ferocious manner and charged at him, with his scythe ready to impale him in the heart. Upon doing this was the Pirate's last mistake as the Pirate was sprayed with lead in its mouth, killing it instantly. Wash turned around to see Carolina standing above him, carrying the power cell that the pirates tried to steal.
"Nice timing," said Wash with a big relief as he already ran out of ammo, trying to take out the pirates' armor.
"You're lucky I managed to capture that cowardly Pirate with the power cell before you've gotten yourself stabbed by one of them," said Carolina.
"Well, I had a Pirate shield. His corpse would've protected me. I think..." Wash replied with some doubt about what he just said.
"Yeah... I hope you know these scythes are capable to pierce even one of the strongest armors. If that dead Pirate's armor was already weak enough, you could imagine what would've happened if I wasn't there to help," explained Carolina.
"Yeah, you're right," replied Wash. "Let's get this over with and get out of here."
Carolina jumped down to Wash's location and inserted the power cell from where it was taken off. As soon as the room was fully lit, the emergency shutters started to activate and closed them inside the center of the room.
"Geez! Now, what!?" Complained Wash.
"Shh!" Carolina silenced Wash. "Do you hear that?"
Both of the freelancers were hearing small tiptoeing inside one of the panels and around them where the small ventilation shafts were. It sounded as if there were small insects crawling towards the room they were locked in until a small insect-like android crawled on top of Wash's shoulder, which made Wash slightly panic in fear.
"Oh my God! Get off of me!" Shouted Wash as he threw it against one of the locked emergency shutters, causing it to explode. "What was that thing?! Some exploding insectoids or something?!"
"Um... Wash?" Carolina called for his attention, staring at a group of insectoid-like mines that came out of nowhere. "We've got a situation here!"
Wash turned around and much to his surprise, there were a lot more than he would have imagined. He began to panic even more and desperately tried to find a way out of there.
"We've got to get out of here! And NOW!"
"I'm with you!" Carolina replied, trying not to sound frightened herself. "Wouldn't want to stick around to find out what their full potential is!"
Just as Samus entered the first few rooms while on her way to the Briefing Room, she saw the disaster that was left by the Space Pirates in their wake. Most of them were either dead or retreating. The Marines and the rest of the crew who survived the attack were all trying to catch up on what has happened over the past couple of hours. Samus saw faces of pain, weariness, anger, frustration, and even relief as some of them was celebrating the fact that they were still alive and managed to go through whatever hell the Space Pirates gave them. She didn't want to bother those that were still struggling to cope with the Pirate attack so she went towards one of the Marines who looked relieved and asked them if they've seen a cyan and steel colored soldiers pass by.
"Hey, have you seen a pair of cyan and steel colored soldiers come by around here?"
"You mean those two soldiers that have thicker armor than most of us, Marines, and are not from around Galactic Federation space?" The Marine replied.
"Yes, that's them," Samus answered back.
"They helped us fight off the Space Pirates. If you've seen what they can do, you'd be amazed."
"I'm sure this is why the Admiral wanted them to come help get rid of the Space Pirates for good. Although I don't know if their friends would be just as good as they are, however," Samus commented.
"Why do you think so?" The Marine asked with curiosity.
"Let's just say when I met all of them, they would constantly be arguing with one another, their way of handling things is very off, and their hospitality was one of the weirdest I've ever seen from anyone."
"Unless you spent a lot of time with them, you never know until you get to know them better."
"I'm sure you're right, I guess. Anyway, thanks for letting me know they came by."
"Yeah, sure no problem. I heard they were going to the Briefing Room to meet up with the Admiral. You're doing the same?"
"That's right. I'm just a little behind as there was a giant cockroach that had to be stepped on."
"Funny, coming out of you," the Marine gave a small chuckle as he rarely seen the bounty hunter have even the slightest sense of humor. At least from what he has seen.
"Well, I got to get going. Don't want to be late like last time. Is everyone here gonna be fine?"
"Just a few bumps. We'll be fine since the infirmary is just north of here."
"Alright. Take good care!" Samus said her goodbyes as she hurried her way through en route to the Briefing Room.
As she took the shortcut that's only accessible for emergencies only, she ended up in the Xenoresearch Lab room. Just when she was passing by the window panes, she saw the freelancers trapped within the floor below her, along with what it seemed to be like a group of small insectoid mines ready to blow themselves up towards them. Wash was seemingly panicking and looking for a way out, while Carolina was shooting at them trying to repel them away.
"WASH! CAROLINA! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!" Samus shouted behind the thick glass panel to see if they could hear her, but to no avail.
She tried shooting the emergency shutters with charged shots and missiles, but everything was literally useless against it.
"Argh! How am I supposed to help them?!" She asked herself in frustration.
Just as she was pondering on what to do, she heard the door where she came from open up and quickly prepared her arm cannon at whoever was getting through in front of her, only to see it was no one else other than Rundas himself. She raised down her arm cannon and was relieved to see Rundas again.
"Sorry to scare you. I began to follow you as soon as I saw you back in the corridor," said Rundas.
"It's fine, but I really need your help to get these two inside out of there."
Rundas went to take a look down the center of the locked room and saw both of the freelancers struggling to survive the wave of crawlmines. They turned around and finally managed to see both Rundas and Samus. Both of the trapped freelancers were shouting at them. All Samus and Rundas could hear was nothing, but muffled shouting and small explosions as more of those crawlmines were coming at them from all directions just as Carolina seemingly ran out of ammo completely now.
"Let me go around and see what I can do!" Rundas dashed towards one of the closed shutters and took a look at it for a second. "Hey, Samus! You should get your missile launcher ready!"
"What do you have in mind?" Samus asked in a quick session.
"I'm going to freeze the whole shutter and once it freezes, it'll be in a weakened state. This type of alloy might be invulnerable to almost anything, but at low temperatures, it should be able to shatter with a simple concussive blast."
"Alright, let's do it!"
Rundas started freezing the whole shutter as Samus prepared her arm cannon, readying her missile weaponry. The explosions were getting louder from the other side, causing Samus to lose some of her patience and started demanding Rundas to hurry a little bit more faster.
"You might wanna hurry now!" Said Samus,
"Almost there!"
A few seconds later, it got completely frozen, signaling Samus to shoot it with a missile. As the missile took impact towards the frozen shutter, it crumbled into pieces as the freelancers immediately broke out of it just as it finished shattering.
"Thank you!" Wash gasped as he tried to take a deep breathe just as he got out. "Don't know what we could've done without you."
"We owe you one," said Carolina, appreciated for what both Rundas and Samus did to save them.
"Don't beat yourself about it," Rundas reassured both of the freelancers. "It's our job to protect each other if we are going to be working together from now on, but yeah. You owe us one."
"Right," agreed Samus. "We should get going though. The Admiral might be waiting for us and we're probably the last ones to go there."
"Then let's go meet this Admiral in person then," said Carolina as she turned towards Wash.
"Ok, I just... nevermind. Let's get going." Wash was still trying to digest what happened back there where he and Carolina were stuck with a group of crawlmines. He didn't like the fact that they all looked like angry insects out of a nest that recently got destroyed.
The four of them dashed out of the room and managed to get to the Briefing Room just in time before the Admiral could begin his briefing. Gandrayda was already there, talking to one of the crew workers in order to get an update on what was happening out on Norion's orbit. Ghor came soon after, having a portable Gatling Gun on his robotic right arm with an integrated shield on his other arm. He was covered in Space Pirate muck, not seemingly bothered by it as he put away his weapons and stood in position, ready to hear out the Admiral.
"Hm... I see you've all been busy kicking some Space Pirate ass, am I right?" The Admiral commented with a warm smile on his face.
"That's correct!" Exclaimed Ghor, sounding exhausted as others around him gave a slight nod.
The Admiral turned towards both bright and dark colored pair of soldiers. "If I'm not mistaken, you both are part of the Reds and Blues. Why did the others not join our cause, if I may ask?"
"We wanted to make sure everything that Samus said is true," explained Washington. "Plus, we weren't even sure what kind of things we were going to be dealing with, until now at least."
"When it comes to Samus, she's one of a kind to not be messing around with," replied Gandrayda. "She's always serious whenever I try to crack jokes around her so you shouldn't have a problem trusting someone that serious."
"Don't exaggerate. I'm not always like that," Samus shot back at her.
"We have a history of getting backstabbed by even the closest people we used to have so I'm sure you could understand why we have problems trusting anyone at this point," Carolina explained.
"Then you might want to reconsider working on your trust issues as that could leave to devastating consequences on the battlefield as soon as I'm finished with what I'm about to tell you now," the Admiral explained as he continued on. "As you may know, most of the Space Pirates have either retreated or been wiped out, but the invasion is not over yet. Those that have retreated are joining their partners in crime on Norion. You must stop the pirates from doing enough damage to our main base or else they'll have full control of Norion and this whole entire space region will be out of contact completely from the outside colonies. Another thing is that along the way, make sure to find out what are their real motives of doing such thing as the Valhalla, A.U., and Norion attacks are no coincidence. We don't have that much time so I suggest you get going!"
"Roger that!" Samus blurted.
"Consider it done," Rundas followed.
"May the best side of this war win!" Ghor exclaimed with full pride.
"We'll see how far these pirates will handle a woman like me," Gandrayda childishly boasted.
The Admiral turned his attention towards the recent recruits. "You both! I want a word real quick."
Samus turned around and gave a slight nod, showing them that everything is gonna be fine as long as they keep it together and left with the other hunters. Wash, along with Carolina, went upstairs and stood in front of Admiral Dane.
"Yes, sir?" Said Wash.
"If I'm not mistaken, you two are the top of your people, right?" The Admiral looked at them in the eye as if he was trying to stare deep at their souls.
"Yeah... you could say that." Carolina hesitated to think about it for a moment feeling a bit uneasy on the Admiral's stare. She then realized that almost everyone in their group has gone through a lot and made a lot of improvements in their combat during the previous war they both got themselves into.
"Good! Then I know we will be able to count on you. I'm sorry we've got you into this mess, but we need all the help we can get to stop these bastards from invading future space colonies that may as well be including the one you come from."
"We'll do everything in our power to stop them," Carolina then turned to her left towards Wash. "Right, Wash?"
"Right. We will do our best," Wash stated.
"That's all I wanted to hear. Now, go follow the other Hunters. This invasion will not wait for any stragglers."
The freelancers both nodded and headed their way towards the Pelican at the docking area. They met up with Samus at the docking area, where she had her ship parked on another platform near the Pelican's landing point.
"So what did Admiral Dane tell you?" Samus asked, concerned about it.
"Just wanted to confirm what we told him initially when we arrived near Norion's orbit, only this time, he wanted to look at us in the eyes to see if we were telling the truth about who we were exactly," Carolina explained.
"Oh. Well, we should get going then," Samus replied.
"We'll follow after," said Wash.
Samus then quickly got on her ship and set off to Norion as both Wash and Carolina followed after her towards Norion.
As they arrived on the planet's surface, they saw the planet already being ravaged by the Space Pirates as a couple of motherships have already been sending down troops into various places on what seemed to be the Federation's main base in the middle of a mountain range. They also saw the planet looking a lot more like a lush forest world. There was no water banks, seas, or lakes. The atmosphere didn't look as normal as it is in many other places they have visited.
"On second thought, I'm starting to feel like Iris wasn't a bad place to live in after all. Even that moon feels more ecological than whatever this planet seemingly has," stated Wash after seeing Norion from above its surface, covered with nothing but dense forests and an empty mountain range containing the Federation's main base of operations.
"It could be worse," replied Carolina as she was trying to land on higher ground near the landing point where Samus was headed. "I don't know if you remember this one planet, but Sidewinder was probably one of the worst planets we've ever been. After—" There was a small pause of silence. "After Maine... was taken over by Sigma and threw me off a big cliff, I grabbed by the ledge with my grappling hook, but it wasn't enough to save me from the nasty fall. As I woke up from the fall, buried under the snow for God knows how long, I was hurt in every way you could imagine and I'm not talking about physically hurt, but mentally. I also had to survive the harsh conditions of the planet for days, weeks, stranded there alone."
"Oh God, I'm uh... I'm sorry to bring that up," Wash was feeling guilty for bringing up such memory, especially the thought of what she has been through at the time.
"Don't sweat it," said Carolina as she tried to calm Wash's guilt over her. "There was nothing anyone could've done. At least now that I think about it. Anyway, let's get ready and see how we can help defend this Federation base."
"Yes, ma'am," Wash complied as Carolina finished parking the Pelican on top of a side platform near one of the base's landing site. They soon began grabbing their weapons and equipment and headed out to meet up with Samus.
Just as they headed towards the main landing site where Samus was, they began to look around them. There were a couple of turrets on their sides, shooting at Space Pirate aircraft flying around them. Marines were guarding the main entrance as they seemingly killed all the Pirates in the area.
"Ready to do this?" Samus asked the pair, confident that they'll get through this pretty quickly.
"Ready as I'll ever be," replied Wash.
"Like dinner's served," Carolina followed.
Well, I hope it was worth the wait. Yeah, this chapter isn't pretty long like the other previous chapters. Initially, this chapter was supposed to be twice as long, but because it was too long after I finished writing it and proofreading, I cut off half of it and I'm currently saving it for the next one and continuing from there. Also, I tried doing a weekly update on this, but I failed miserably. Writing fanfics isn't as easy as I thought it would be, but I won't be giving up on this yet. I have so much in store to write for this fanfic so again, please bear with my boring way of uploading stuff.