This chapter starts off with Samus and Wash going on their way to try and activate Generator A.

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 8: The Battle of Norion

"Watch your step."

"Right. It is pretty dark out here. Can barely even see where I'm going and the only light sources around here are pretty much both of our suits emitting light," Wash was feeling uneasy for the fact that everything inside the conduit area had a deathly silent air around them. "Damn! Should've checked every nook and cranny of that ship before coming here."

"Let's just get this over with before-" Samus was cut off by a loud mid-sized explosion from the other side where they were standing.

"Jesus! What the hell is going on?!" Wash was thrown off his feet by the shockwave of the explosion. As he got up, he tried to take a look at what was happening in front of them. There were a couple of marines yelling to fall back as they were slaughtered by what appeared to be a pair of Space Pirates, equipped with both beam and melee weaponry.

"Foolish humans!" Roared one of the Pirates. "No one will be able to stop us now that we're so close! For the new dark queen!"

"What?" Samus was shocked to hear the phrase, "new dark queen". She didn't know exactly who were they referring to, but whatever the case was, it wasn't for any good intentions for one thing. For now, all she was focused on was on their main objective. She was ready to strike at any moment possible.

"Listen, either get out of our way or share the same fate as your dead comrades!" Wash knew that the Pirates wouldn't care whether they die or not for a cause they deeply believe in. This only made the Pirates laugh maniacally as they charged at both the freelancer and bounty hunter.

"Very well. You have officially signed your death warrant," Samus taunted them before shooting a charged shot at one of them, quickly knocking them down temporarily, before they managed to get up just in time as Samus tried shooting them continuously with her power beam. The Pirate blocked most of her shots, but it wasn't long before Samus managed to pull off his shield with her grapple lasso and finished him off with a final blow towards his head with a cartwheel kick, cracking his skull instantly.

Wash quickly headed towards the other Pirate as he dodged every shot the Pirate tried throwing at him. As he drew closer to the Pirate, he began to wall-run towards him and right before making a final jump, he threw a knife directly towards his mouth, making him shriek in agony. The Pirate quickly drew his scythe in a desperate attempt to finish off Wash, but it wasn't long before Wash managed to pull the knife out of his mouth, spun towards the Pirate's left side, and stabbed him directly into his skull, piercing through the Pirate's light armor as the Pirate dropped dead afterward.

"You're good with that knife," commented Samus as she just finished off the Pirate that was next to them.

"Years of practice is all it takes," Wash replied, pulling out his knife from the dead Pirate's skull. "They are quite more fragile than I imagined though."

"Yeah, but I recommend not to underestimate them. They may seem fragile, but they can be a real pain when dealing with a whole group of them if you are not careful enough. Some may even be smarter than you think."

"Roger that," said Wash confidently.

There was another loud explosion, but this time, it felt more distant and it seemed like it was coming from the outside of the base. The ground didn't stop shaking for 10 seconds straight as if there was a small earthquake happening around them. Dust started falling off from the ceiling while cracks started forming all around the whole ceiling above them.

"We better keep moving. This place won't last forever if this keeps up," said Samus, readying up her arm cannon in case there are any Pirates hiding from above the small dark spaces leading to different large vents.

"Yeah. This place has already given me the chills anyway. Let's go!" Said Washington as he equipped his trusty magnum, along with his knife in his left hand.

Another explosion was felt, but this time, it caused some of the stuck debris on top to fall down behind them, shaking the ground that almost caused the pair to lose their balance once more.

"Damn! How long is this place going to hold?" Wash was starting to wonder whether they could get out the way they came or look for another way out after activating the Generator ahead of them.

"Not long enough if we stay here any longer. We should move on ahead while we still can," replied Samus as she hurried down ahead.

"Wait, but..." Wash saw something ahead of Samus until he came up with a quick conclusion that it was a proximity bomb. "Samus, STOP!"

Just when Samus was on the brink of stepping into the proximity bomb, it still activated in a quick session, but due to her fast reflexes, she managed to evade its shots that fired around it and detonated right after.

"Geez... that was a close one," said Samus as she backed up to see if there were any more ahead. "There's bound to be more around here somewhere. Watch your step."

"Watch my step? Girl, you almost got knocked out by that prox bomb down there," replied Wash.

"Well, it still counts to do so, right?"

"Yeah, whatever. Just try to be more careful this time around."

"Right."

Carolina has spent the past 10 minutes looking for something useful, but it seemed as if someone has already picked everything clean around the area. It would explain why the only things that were standing around afterward were the Pirate drones. The Pirates never seem to let anything that may seem useful to them go to waste.

"Damn it! Why did I choose to stay behind looking for something I'll probably never be able to find around here. I'm just wasting time if anything," Carolina said to herself as she was desperately trying to search the dead Pirates and marines she could see, to no avail. "Looting dead corpses ain't my thing either. Disgusting..."

Just as she finished complaining about what she's been doing was turning out to be meaningless, she managed to find a worn-out torch gun out of a dead marine, laying near a dark ventilation shaft that the Pirates might've missed along the way. She hoped for the best if it still worked as she turned on the lighter for it. To her surprise, a small beam of fire lit up at the end of the small cylinder. "Yes!" She exclaimed to herself. "Finally! This might make things work a bit faster than I expected."

She hurried down to the door's circuit board and did some quick fixing with the torch gun as all it took was to connect some of the loose wires first and weld the broken slots back together. After she was done welding the circuit board, the door next to it powered up automatically. She felt relief for a moment, but at the same time, she felt uneasy as she didn't know who or what would be waiting for her on the other side. Whatever the case is, she knew she would have to be ready for anything if it meant to have those generators activated as soon as possible.

As she entered the room on the other side, her life support system was detecting traces of radiation from beyond. Her armor was enough to keep most radioactive substances away from her body, but she wasn't sure what type of radioactive substance was being detected as it was found to be from an unknown source. Could this be the radioactive material that their ship detected from those Pirate ships? Whatever it was, it still did not give her any reason not to press forward and so she went on.

As she arrived at Conduit B as written on her map, all she could see was her own suit lighting a small distance around her. One thing she did notice is that her suit wasn't the only thing glowing in the dark. Something else on the other end of the conduit was making its surroundings glow in blue. She pressed onwards and her suit was already giving a biohazard warning to her. Yes... she was right. The radioactive substance that's been detected all along was the same as the one detected by the Pirate missiles shot to their ship. It was a pool of a blueish, gel-like substance; the same properties that the radioactive substance those missiles had all over their warheads.

"What the hell is this?! I have never seen anything like it..." Carolina was shocked at the fact that such a radioactive substance even exist and for it to be emitting so much radiation and energy was unbelievable. Her suit was constantly beeping to get to a safe distance, but it didn't seem as if it was penetrating through her suit at dangerous levels, however.

At any rate, she decided it was best to leave it alone, but there were even more of those radioactive blue liquids. They were located on the ceiling, ground, pretty much anywhere you could go. There were signs of a massive fight or raid as most vents were all broken apart, debris scattered as giant confetti, cables around the conduit were ripped apart, and the ceiling was seemingly unstable as there were cracks covering more than half of it, but something strange caught her eyes. There were small organisms feeding on many of these dense blueish pools. as if it was the only food source available to them. It didn't look like they were being affected as bad as an ordinary organism would be from such an irradiated place. They kept feeding on them with a seemingly endless hunger and never bothered to run away whenever Carolina was passing by near the blue liquid pools.

Just as she turned to a corner in order to head outside towards the entrance of Generator B, something went crashing inside the base, which immediately made her lose her balance for a moment as the ground shook violently. The blueish pools that were left, had splattered almost everywhere among the debris. To her luck, there wasn't any on her, but whatever was left of the roof on this side of the base, it was gone for good. As she managed to get a hold of herself and scan her surroundings, there was a dark figure among the fallen debris and chunks of metal. She couldn't make out what it was, but it looked like a being made out of that substance she's been seeing all over the place. It gave an unsettling, macabre laughter before it disappeared out of thin air, leaving Carolina speechless and paralyzed out of shock. Never in her life has she felt frightened like that very moment when a demon-like being just appears in front of you, taunts you, and leaves you as frightened as a little child seeing something in the dark, watching your every move.

After a few moments, she began to feel like she could move again, but her stomach was still feeling as if it was turned upside down in a tight knot.

"What... the hell... was that?!"

After Wash and Samus went past the trouble of finally gaining access to the East Docking Area, they realize why it wouldn't have been easy to land their ships close by. The turrets installed on each side of the docking area were already broken apart, causing vulnerabilities from incoming aircraft attacks, Pirate crates that were mostly blocking their way were scattered everywhere, and there were at least eight Space Pirate guards, wandering like hungry predators lurking a for anything that can get their way. They quickly ran towards one of the giant crates in front of them before any of them noticed any movement from the pair and started spectating their surroundings. It almost didn't look like they could get into the Generator Access room at all due to the vast amount of Pirates searching for any possible intruders in the area.

"Damn it! What do we do?" Whispered Wash as he was trying not to make any noise with the crates making creaking noises behind their backs. The explosions and aircraft that were flying nearby were loud enough to cover their own noise, but Pirates that were nearby would still be able to hear anything fishy around them.

"Well, it won't be long before any of those Pirate aircraft spot us in the open here so I say we should just keep our cover and try calling for some backup. See if anyone that can help are near the vicinity."

Wash tried calling for anyone who was close by and started by calling out the names that popped up in his mind.

"Rundas. Gandrayda. Carolina. Come in! Are you able to hear me? Over."

Nothing. Wash tried again.

"Does anyone read me? Over." Nothing. "Jesus! There's not even a signal here."

Samus took a good look above the entrance to the access area with her scan visor and it detected a radio jammer installed by the Space Pirates, with shielding that prevents any form of conventional weaponry to penetrate it.

"There's a radio jammer up ahead. These Pirates must be trying to cut anyone off for those who get anywhere near the generators."

"Well, that's just great," frowned Wash.

"We can take them one by one, but being the two of us here might make it easier for them to spot us," said Samus as she turned to look at a pair of Space Pirates seemingly arguing about something.

"I told you! I'm the one who's gonna be killing The Hunter!" Exclaimed the first Pirate. "You should remember the reason we came here in the first place!"

"You're just as weak as the other Pirates! I shall have the honor to kill The Hunter and give our Dark Queen the head of our enemy!" Roared the second Pirate.

"All you care about is that 'Dark Queen' of yours since you left our homeworld and started harvesting phazon along with the other crew members, whom most disappeared without a trace. It shall be in my doubts that your queen wasn't the reason why almost half of the crew are gone! Not to mention how she's seen us, not as allies, but enemies. The Hunter had no business to be there after the Federation landed to steal our phazon and equipment so whatever happened to you and the others that came back is due to that creature you brainwashed-idiots call, 'Dark Queen'."

"How dare you to speak to our Queen with such mock!"

Both Pirates didn't stop arguing and Samus was still questioning who was this "Dark Queen" they kept arguing about. She feared for the worst, but could it possibly be...?

No!

It couldn't be since she saw a whole dimension fall, along with that malicious entity she once fought for the final time before she escaped. The only way out was that last portal she had access to before everything went dark, almost letting a whole group of ing escape with her. She turned back to Wash, who was still waiting for a signal, as she tried to erase her thoughts on one of the worst-case scenarios.

"Ok, I'll go and take out these two Pirates, while you take down that bigger Pirate on your left side. Got it?"

Wash groaned. "Ugh... why do I always have to deal with the bulky ones?"

"Hey, if you wanna take these two angry Pirates arguing, then you are more than welcome to deal with them."

"On second thought, I'll handle this one."

"That's what I thought. Now, I'll go first and as soon as the other bulky one notices anything, kill him, but do it as quietly as possible."

"I've done this before, you know?"

The two then began their separate ways.

When Samus struck at the right timing, the two Pirates were already too late to realize it was the same Hunter they were arguing about killing. The first Pirate swung his scythe but nearly gave a hit to Samus as she jumped over him and shot a charged beam towards his back, stunning him. This gave her enough time for Samus to strike for an attack towards the other Pirate, who had some shade of blue veins on parts of his exposed skin, including both of his eyes. This gave Samus chills and sent her in a quick variety of flashbacks when she first witnessed the Space Pirates's experimental creatures that were infused with phazon. Nevertheless, it didn't stop her from quickly getting rid of it, before he had any chance of hitting her with his phazon-covered scythe. Right afterward, the bigger Pirate started to take notice on Samus but before he could call on the others, Wash immediately hopped behind his back, covered his exposed lower mandibles to reduce any shouting or yelling for his comrades, and started stabbing him with his trusty knife in the back, chest, and face, as the Pirate fell to the ground, lifeless. The Pirate that Samus first stunned was already moving back on his feet again and started roaring at her before she finally put him out of his misery.

"I really hope that didn't get anyone's attention," said Samus to herself as she pressed onwards to the next crate in front of her.

Wash joined up with her and as soon as they both peered above the small-sized crates, they saw one Pirate seemingly taking a call from someone. It seemed like their jammers didn't affect their way of communicating with the outside, considering how both of them weren't able to get a hold of anyone on the radio. It didn't take long before he started out ordering everyone to search the grounds as there were intruders spotted in the area from a Pirate ship that spotted three dead bodies.

"I knew we should've gotten rid of the bodies," said Wash

"Too late now," replied Samus as she stood up and started firing at the Space Pirates in front of them.

"This is gonna get a little bit dicey," Wash said to himself as he grabbed his dual SMGs and started running to the right side as he was firing his weapons, catching most of the Space Pirates off-guard.

Samus began to unload everything she had as soon as she saw Wash flanking them on their side. Everything around them began to be chaotic as the whole fight was loud enough that it got at least three Pirate ships' attention. More Pirate troopers were getting deployed, while ships across the bridge were aiming their sights on both Samus and Wash.

"Damn! These Pirates never give up their persistence, do they?!" Samus pointed out.

"You're asking me?!" Wash yelled back as there were two more Pirates with scythes that looked quite similar to Tucker's alien-like sword, but with a blueish-like hue infused with some rare substance, coming to his direction. "And what the hell are their weapons even made of?! Geez, these guys really suck!"

"As far as I can tell, they are infused with phazon, a radioactive substance you might wanna look out for!" Shouted Samus finished off killing three Pirates at once, using their own weapons against them with her grapple lasso.

"Infused with face-on what!?"

Wash got distracted by another incoming Pirate from behind him. He just managed to dodge him and shoot him continuously as Wash got closer until he took out his knife and ended up giving him a death blow.

"Look, I'll tell you everything about it once everything is over!" Samus hollered back as she tried her best in avoiding most shots coming from all directions. Even with enough struggle, she still managed to take down one ship with a couple of scratches on her.

"Is this what you always have to face in your daily life?! A living hell with these Pirates?!" Asked Wash as many more were coming towards him, destroying the last of the crates that were blocking their path.

"You haven't seen the worst of it!" Samus shot back as a couple of more Pirates tried to take advantage of her small distractions, swinging their phazon-infused scythes to her. One of them got a hit on her, but it wasn't enough to put down the bounty hunter as she got rid of both of them with a single blow to both of their heads with missiles.

One of the Pirates going after Wash, got close enough to get a hit on his left arm. When he took the hit, it began to burn him as he felt the extreme heat that the scythe left on his armor.

"Agh! That burns like hell!" Wash groaned in pain.

"Their hits are not fatal, but they can get the best of you if your armor isn't well protected enough from this type of weaponry!" Explained Samus as she struggled slightly with the hits she's gotten herself.

As more and more were coming to their location, there were aerotroopers appearing from their sides.

"Really?! Not this again!" Complained Samus, loudly enough for Wash to even hear at a great distance.

"Not again?! Yeah, you're gonna have to tell me more than you're letting on back at our meeting on the moon about these type of monsters like them!" Said Wash as he began to have a hard time aiming at the aerotroopers above them. There have been doubts in his mind, telling him not to fully trust Samus about what she hasn't been letting on more than she already has, but right now it wasn't the time to think about doubts and trust issues.

"Remind me later then!" Samus shot back, simply trying to ignore anything that Wash might be telling her at this point in time.

With enough struggle, they managed to kill every last Pirate, along with the other two ships that were nearby. After a few moments of catching their breath, another Pirate ship showed up, one after another. It went from one... two... four... five... they began to lose count.

Samus began to groan in frustration, thinking how to even get rid of all of their ships at once, but it would be all in vain. Even if they take down at least one of their ships, they would be gone from existence, but Samus thought that even while fighting until the end, it would be worthwhile and so she began to aim her arm cannon at the first ship she saw in front of her.

Wash was in total shock. He didn't know what to do or where to start to begin with. Wash's feelings of hopelessness grew and nothing could pop up in his mind about how to deal with so many of these ships, except waves of memories coming back to him that had been burned into his mind long ago. Back in his time at Project Freelancer, he never had to fight against such amount of Insurrectionist ships or even alien-like creatures with radioactive weapons that could burn you from time to time, worse than Tucker's alien-like sword. Fighting Locus, Felix, and their useless mercenaries weren't even half as bad and he was starting to regret about joining up with Samus and her dangerous mission of eradicating such species that have almost more powerful weapons than they did.

But something unexpected happened.

There were shots being fired to at least three ships at once from behind them, immediately making them crash one after another. Then another couple of shots were fired at another group of Pirate ships, destroying nearly all of them at once. The next moment, they were met with someone gliding over a trail of ice they were making above them, just as they were about to finish up the last couple of ships that focused their sights on the unknown being. But even as they did, the ships were retreating at the same time, knowing they wouldn't be able to handle such cold-based shots on their ships that could potentially freeze and overheat their engines, until it was too late for them. They immediately got rid of the last ships standing and glided towards the pair on the dock, potentially scaring Wash for a second. The person that was helping both Samus and Wash was none, other than Rundas himself.

"Sorry I was a bit late to the party," he said as he was giving out a small stretch. "These Pirates are pretty more fragile than they appear, so don't get too weary on them."

"With enough of them surrounding you, it's pretty hard to even think about how to deal with them," said Wash, feeling so much relief that Rundas came to their rescue, moments before they were obliterated into nothing. "By the way, thank you for your help. I don't know what we would've done if..."

"Yeah, thank you," said Samus. "And that's saying something since I rarely need any outside help during these type of situations. Like Wash said, I don't know how we would've ended up if you never showed up in time."

"Hey don't sweat it," Rundas reassured them. "I was just helping out Ghor take over some of those motherships way back near the mountain range across from here, until I saw some ATC ships coming this way, along with chaotic explosives happening down here. So I figured."

"We tried contacting you or anyone who could've helped us, but the damn jammer over there has been blocking our signal," Wash pointed to where the jammer was.

"Yeah. There have been other jammers similar to that one on other parts of the base. Ghor told me that he's working on deactivating all of them as he already took over one of their motherships so it wouldn't be long that-" There was a small noise coming from the jammer itself. The only thing that meant by now, is that Ghor may have already hacked his way through and turned them off completely. "Well, there goes my last part of the sentence."

"Then it should be easier to get ahold of anyone from now on," said Samus. She then turned to Wash, "Weren't you wanting to call your girlfriend?"

"Girlfriend?" Wash didn't know what Samus was talking about initially. He came to realize that she wouldn't know anyone other than Carolina whom she would be referring to. "She's not my girlfriend. Only a really great friend of mine."

"I saw the way you eyed at her before we left," Samus teased him.

"Oh come on! She's not really-"

Then Wash came to a stop. He didn't wanna say anything more embarrassing than he's already said. He turned to Rundas as he tried changing the subject just as he felt mixed feelings about the conversation.

"So what now?"

"I just got word from the Federation that they are allowing us to use our ship-command devices. You do have one don't you, Mr. Washington?"

"Call me, Wash. I'm used to people calling me that way. And no... my ship doesn't work that way. It would require an AI to make my ship automated, in which I wouldn't look forward to at any given time anyway."

"Suit yourself," replied Rundas. He then turned to Samus "By the way Samus, don't forget to perform suit maintenance and data back up by the time you command your ship to this docking area if you need."

"You don't have to tell me twice," said Samus, slightly annoyed with hearing reminders of such a basic thing.

"Just letting you know. Also, if you guys are going to activate this generator up ahead, I'll go to the Westside and activate that one there. Between the three of us, this should be a breeze."

"Carolina should be on her way there, if not, then-"

Wash was interrupted by a radio transmission. It was coming through all of their radios at once. It sounded like a familiar voice; a voice Wash immediately came to recognize. It was none other than Carolina herself, yelling bloody murder behind the radio.

"Anyone come in! I need back up! There are some weird spider-like creatures coming at me from every direction! They seem to be infected by something radioactive! If there's anyone out there-!"

The transmission ended in mid-sentence.

Wash felt as if something hit him in the guts really hard. Spider-like creatures? What could Carolina have possibly encountered after they left her behind?

"Carolina! Come in! CAROLINA!"

And... yup! Cliffhanger! :) I know that nobody likes cliffhangers (including me) but for some reason, as a writer, it's quite satisfying in a way xD. This part of the story is broken up into 2 (or 3) parts so expect these parts in a span of at least a week apart. I don't feel like losing my ideas for this story again so that part of my motivation for writing this story is still going. As always, leave a review! It would help me a lot! Stay tuned for the next chapter, if you've made it this far with your unimaginable patience, that is.