Sorry, it took months to finally upload something out of this story. I wasn't feeling in the mood or had enough motivation after so much struggle has been happening in my life. It seems like a repeated "story of my life" type of thing, but trust me, when you become a writer, it's always hard to come back and have all the motivation in the world to keep writing something you're initially excited about since your new to it. At least from my own personal experience anyway. But enough about me. Let's get digging into this chapter, shall we! ^^
Here comes the next chapter in where the adventures at Norion begin.
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 7: Shadows of the Past
As the three of them walked towards the entrance of the base, one of the marines guarding the area came to them and let them know of the current situation around them.
"Stand to for a moment," the Marine ordered. "Beyond this point, our situation isn't looking any better. The Pirate attack has knocked out all of our three generators and disabled the planetary-defense system. The cannon was our only weapon capable of taking out orbiting ships. We need you three and the other Hunters to get the generators back online and restore power to the cannon so we can repulse this assault and take out the pirates as quickly as possible. Here are the coordinates to the generators. Good hunting."
"Much appreciated," spoked Samus for the group as the other two freelancers nodded in response.
"So Generator A, B, C huh?" Commented Carolina as she was looking through the map on her visor.
"Like going back to Kindergarten," said Wash as he wandered off in his mind, thinking of the terrible time he had in his early years of school. "My first year of getting bullied and my family weren't really around to help me go through whatever I went through all those times."
"Sorry to hear such thing," sympathized Samus. "Are you gonna be ok though? Because we are going to need you all the way till this is over."
Wash came to as soon as he heard Samus finish off her last sentence. "I've been through worse. I'll be fine," he blurted.
Samus then went back to looking at her map and studied it for a while with the freelancers. After some time, she managed to make out a plan for the three of them.
"Alright I think I've got something," she spoke as she double checked on her map again. "Let's move forward and see if we can at least try going our separate ways when we get to one of the top floors inside the base. Once there, I'll start off with A. Carolina, you go turn up B, while Washington takes care of C. That's assuming we don't run into any heavy stragglers and have access to all of them from the Cargo Hub in all of these directions."
"It doesn't always go as planned, but we'll try making the best of it," said Carolina.
"Sounds like a good plan to me, but yeah. I'm with what Carolina said," Wash replied.
"Let's just get going. At least we have a start on what to do," Samus sighed, annoyed to hear how they are so negative about how their initial plan is going to work out.
As they went in, there were pirates already slaughtering multiple marines inside the base. There were also multiple crawltanks guarding the dark corners of the base, which started to infuriate the three of them as they tried pushing their way through. When they arrived at the Cargo Hub, there were bodies of both pirates and marines everywhere. No sign of life was detected from Samus' scan visor, but sentry drones from Space Pirates were the only ones left that were patrolling what was left of the area.
"These drones are starting to annoying the heck out of me already!" Wash complained as he already had enough of robotic things trying to kill him. Ever since he faced off Epsilon-Tex and her robotic clones, he was full of it.
After finishing them off with ease, they realized that access to all of the generators are blocked off. The pathway towards the other end of the Cargo Hub that leads to Generator A and the control tower is blocked off by fallen debris. The blast door that leads to Generator B is offline and there was no way of activating it back online from the side they were in while the door leading to Generator C has a damaged circuit board that runs through the door making it impossible to go through.
"The Pirates really don't want anyone to activate those generators, huh?" Stated Wash in annoyance after having dealt with the drones.
"You said it," replied Carolina.
"Should we try going back to our ships and just fly towards each generator and get them quickly activated?" Wash wondered.
"It's too risky," Samus shot back. "Who knows if there are pirates swarming about near each of the generators. Plus, you've seen all those pirate ships flying around. We don't wanna catch their attention and have them start an assault we won't be able to handle on our own. We were lucky enough to land here without attracting too much attention."
"Right," Wash complied. "Damn, nothing at all goes as easy as one would think, would it?"
"Like I said, even if we think everything through, there's always something that'll get in the way," Carolina reminded them, causing Samus to once again, get annoyed by her negative attitude.
Samus was beginning to lose some of her patience and said frustratingly, "At this rate, nothing will be achieved if you keep on being negative about it. I'm sure if you would quit saying so, maybe something good will come out during the process."
Carolina groaned in anger but calmed herself as she realized that Samus was right. Nothing good comes out if you get negative about everything around you, but then again, she was being realistic. She's made a lot of mistakes in the past and this time, she'll be making sure history doesn't repeat itself again.
Wash took a closer look at the debris blocking the path to the control tower and Generator A. He noticed that some of the debris are covering what seems like an opening through; enough to fit in while crawling.
"Hey, Samus? You might wanna give this a little scan if you can," suggested Wash as he wanted to confirm if what he's seeing is true.
"Sure, let me see," Samus complied.
Scanning... Scan Complete.
Debris is covering a passage.
These pieces can be pulled out of
the way with enough force.
"Just like you said, there is a small crawlspace in between the fallen debris. Here, let me try pulling some of it out of the way. Watch yourselves," Samus began using her grapple lasso towards it and pulled multiple pieces out of the way, enough to see a clear passage underneath. As she pulled the debris out of the way, the pieces of metal made a lot of noise; enough for anyone near the area to hear.
"Well, that's one way to do it," Wash commented. "Ladies first."
As Wash let Samus go in first, she activated her morph ball, much to the freelancers' astonishment.
"How the hell!? What!?" Both freelancers blurted simultaneously as Samus in her morph ball form went through the passage without much effort. Their faces were wide open of surprise on their looks as they just witnessed Samus literally turn into a ball that could easily break a normal human being without protection or proper use.
"Oh, right! I forgot to tell you both that I can turn into a metal ball using one of my suit's features called Morph Ball. It's something the Chozo gave me to assist in any type of stealth missions from back in the days," explained Samus as the pair of freelancers were crawling through the crawlspace.
"I'm starting to feel like this Chozo alien species were thousands of years ahead of us technological-wise," said Wash realizing he was now sounding like Simmons for a moment.
"You could say that,"
"Just be glad Charon Industries never found out about this particular stuff that Samus has," said Carolina as she then turned towards Samus. "I'm surprised you don't even need a full AI to run all of your suit enhancements."
"Nope. Not at all," replied Samus as she just remembered that their own enhancements from Project Freelancer don't always work out without a proper AI along with them.
As they reached the other end of the Cargo Hub, they saw the control tower from where they'll be needing to go in order to activate the cannon. There were three panels that all described each generator being offline. Until they were on, there wouldn't be any type of access to the elevator leading to the cannon controls.
"If we want this mission to go any faster, I might suggest you both to go ahead while I stay here and see if there's anything I can find or use to fix that broken circuit board," Carolina suggested.
"You sure?" Samus asked.
"I'll be able to handle myself. Don't worry about me," Carolina reassured her. She then turns to face Wash. "York taught me a thing or two about fixing circuit boards related to the problem we have here."
"He sure was one hell of a fighter, but a terrible master of unlocking. Never thought he was also an engineer," Wash replied.
"Well he was also a terrible engineer, but that didn't stop him from being the person he was."
For a moment, Carolina lost herself in the thought of having to see York one final time. She would do anything for just one small moment with him and tell him how sorry she was in the way she rejected him all because of her own obsession with trying to beat Tex at all costs. She would tell him how much she misses him. She wouldn't beg for forgiveness, but only want to let him know that she now knows and understands the mistakes she has done that led to his depression and eventual death. Just let him know the guilt that has haunted her after Church showed him York's recorded logs about himself and his feelings for Carolina. If only York was here, she could just let go of everything weighing on her shoulders about such thing.
After a brief silence and watching Carolina staring blankly at the air around her, Wash walked towards her and said softly, "Are you okay?"
Carolina snapped out of it and frowned at him. "I don't know," she replied. "We haven't done much and I'm already having flashbacks from the past. It's like my past is coming back to haunt me and I just can't help, but to try and think about our comrades... our comrades from Project Freelancer. All of this is basically like back in the days and I'm glad we are here to help prevent something that might affect us back home and all, but... I just... I don't want to lose anyone else," she looked at Wash in the eyes, ready to drop into tears. "Including you... Wash. I can't bear the fact of losing you like I lost York. Not again!"
It didn't take long before Carolina started to shed some tears and Wash, not knowing what to say to her, came to her aid and hugged her as she let her inner struggles go.
Samus was only standing still, motionless. She personally knew how a person can be affected by a tragic past, much like her own mother getting killed in front of her by the hands of Ridley and seeing a whole civilization who saved her, disappear out of thin air. It seemed like this York guy they were talking about was a person very close to them, especially to Carolina. She wasn't the type of person to try and comfort people in their grief, but she tried her best to do so either way.
"Look, I know how it feels like to lose people close to you. Trust me, this happened to me when I was only about 3 years old as I've told you about what happened to the colony I was from," Samus tried to keep her cool and not let her emotions get the best of her as she continued, "Try not to let your past get in the way and think about it not as memories, but as a force that pushes and steers your way through the present and into the future. It's what still keeps me going after all this time."
A moment after Samus finished her last word, the pair finished hugging and Carolina felt relieved with Wash's hug and with what Samus has told her.
"Thank you. Both of you. It really helped," she said as she tried getting some air after crying with her head resting on Wash's right shoulder.
"That's what friends are for," said Wash with a soft tone.
"Just don't beat yourself up anymore," Samus said calmly. "If anything, be glad you still got each other and if you all survived a recent worldwide war against a powerful corporation, I'm sure you are more than capable at dealing with this type of situation."
Carolina cracked a small laughter, making Wash feel better seeing her like this.
"Ok well let's not waste any more time," Carolina turned around to head back and tilted her head to the left, partially facing the other two. "I'll go check and see if there's anything around here that I can salvage and use for our circuit problem." As Carolina was feeling a lot better, she was now able to concentrate on her objective. The other two nodded at her as they made their way to Generator A.
"Is she going to be alright?" Samus asked Wash with a slightly concerned look on her face.
"She's one of the best soldiers I've ever known. I trust that she'll be able to handle herself just fine."
I hope you had fun riding the emotional rollercoaster because I did hahaha. As always, please leave a review. It would gladly improve my motivation to keep writing so if you wanna keep this story up and running, reviews would actually help. For those who already did in the past, thank you! You're one of the reasons why I gained motivation and gotten in the mood to continue doing this after quite a long time. ^^