This chapter starts off with Samus' point of view.
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 10: The Battle of Norion Part III
Samus was still standing on her guard, even after taking out the drones as anything could still try to catch her off-guard. As she reached for the control panel and broke through the debris that was caused by external damage around the area, she proceeded to turn on the main power. A few moments later, the pillar at the center finished connecting to the lower portion of the ground and proceeded to ask Samus for authorization at the front door of the only exit out of there. She then proceeded with the authorization and Generator A was finally activated.
"Finally!" Exclaimed Samus as she felt a bit more of a relief that one problem was already out of the way.
Just as she was about to let her teammates know about the reactivation of Generator A, there was a call coming from the Admiral himself.
"Is anyone able to read me? Over."
"This is Samus Aran, what's up?" Samus replied.
"Something big is happening up here and I don't think there should be any normal turbulence around here in space when there's nothing that's attacking the Olympus at the mo—" There was a small pause, before Admiral Dane saw something huge, coming through what seemed to be a wormhole. "What in the name of...?"
"Admiral? Admiral!" Samus tried to get his attention, having a growing urge to know what is going on.
"Take a look at this!" The Admiral quickly connected his live footage of the Olympus' windows to Samus' visor.
What Samus saw made her eyes open wide in terror. There was a giant meteor that seemed to be headed straight to Norion, about a few kilometers in diameter. She immediately knew that the intention of the Pirates all along was to turn Norion into nothing more than a wasteland, similar to the wastelands she's seen back in Tallon IV and Aether.
"No... this... this can't be!" Samus gasped. "How— How did that thing manage to travel through a wormhole?"
"I am as clueless as you are. This is probably the reason why these Space Pirates wanted the defense system offline in order to smash this thing into Norion, but how is it possible that they managed to build a wormhole when that is even out of their stolen advanced-tech paygrade? At any rate, get that cannon back online or everyone down there is as good as dead!"
As the transmission ended, Samus was left in distraught about how could the Space Pirates have control over such thing like a giant meteor, especially one that came through a wormhole. There was nothing she could do to find answers but one thing she knew for sure is that she needed to move onwards and help get that cannon back online as soon as possible.
Samus' mind was filled with voices telling her to hurry up and get a move on for each step that she took. Adam Malkovich, Old Bird, and Gray Voice were among them. They were all in her mind telling her to move more quickly than ever.
"Any objections, lady?"
That's the final phrase she would hear at the end of every command inside her mind. Adam always wanted to denote trust at all times by using this phrase, yet it was also a form of joking with her in some way, much to her confusion in many cases.
The moment she stepped outside in the docking area was the moment she found out how much chaos was happening after her departure to the generator she has just activated. The Federation marines have been trying to delay an assault to the generator access room.
Much to her horror, the few Pirates that were left alive have already obliterated all, but one Federation marine. The marine didn't seem too beat down but rather feeling more anger than anything. There was a glowing blueish-like backpack that he was carrying, which grabbed Samus' full attention. He charged up his weapons as he infused them with phazon energy and immediately threw bursts of phazon-charged shots at the three pirates, killing them instantly. He powered down his backpack and turned to Samus as he turned on his radio to call in the Federation.
"All clear," he emphasized with a serious tone.
Samus moved up towards the marine and tried to see if he was doing any better after the spread of phazon energy through his armor. She knew about the special kind of phazon backpacks only exclusively used by marines or soldiers, equipped with PED suits and only those who were highly trained to use such equipment. What Samus didn't know, was that if they ever make the user feeling sick after extensive usage on the PED suits.
"Hey, how are you doing with that thing?" She asked.
"Fine, actually. Haven't had any trouble with it since I was first given the PED suit some weeks back," the marine replied.
"Has anyone fallen ill with phazon sickness because of it?"
"No," the marine replied discreetly. "There haven't been any such reports since the invention of the PED suit. Anyway, you should probably get going. I got this area covered for you, in case anything goes wrong. At least until the invasion is over or get new direct orders from the Admiral."
"Alright. I'll be on my way. Take care!" Samus said, trying to hope for the best on the lone wolf.
Right as she turned around the corner, she got a glimpse of what would look like a giant vulture or dragon at a distance. At that instant, she knew exactly what it was.
"Ridley..."
She groaned in frustration by the fact that he didn't know when to give up.
"I'll make sure you stay in your rightful place this time!"
As she made her way through the conduit room that was already giving off electric discharges, there were more Pirates waiting for her inside but were all interrupted by one single PED marine. The marine managed to quickly dispatch every Pirate on his own, without needing Samus' help or anyone else for that matter.
"Wonder if us, bounty hunters, can get our hands with those suits someday," Samus said to herself.
She always thought that it was impossible for an average Federation marine to take out multiple Pirates on their own when surrounded, but it seems like the PED suits are making everything worthwhile.
"All clear here!" The marine in front of her said excitedly as though he had won the lottery recently.
Samus nodded at him, trying to let him know that she complied with what he said. As she pressed onwards, there were small crawlmines that both Wash and Carolina had to deal with back in Olympus. They started swarming in front of her, trying to block her way through. They weren't dangerous alone, but they could surely damage or even kill anyone if they end up within the vicinity of a big group of swarming crawlmines.
"Get out of my way!"
A little earlier...
The giant hive that was blocking the entrance through the access area to Generator B was blown up to pieces as its inhabitants were all gone for good, letting Wash, Carolina, and Rundas go through.
The trio then ventured forward, until they entered the room for Generator B.
"What the hell happened to this place?" Wash gasped, looking at the small but big horrors around the entire room of Gen B that was covered in small hives of crystallized and liquified phazon.
"The hopping metroids were busy making a home out of this place, but it seems like most of these hives are just destroyed empty shells," replied Rundas.
"The word 'most' wouldn't necessarily make anyone feel better about this place," said Carolina, nervously. "Just look at the amount of phazon that's covering the whole place near the energy cell at our twelve. How the hell are we suppose to go through without getting ourselves killed with the radioactive crap in the way?"
"Let me go take a closer look. You guys should guard the area here, in case anything wrong happens," said Rundas, walking through what seemed to be phazon that has been already hardened, rendering it somewhat harmless to anyone who passes by.
Each step that Rundas took made him nervous from the inside, even though he wasn't for one to show his emotional vulnerabilities when it comes to situations like this. The last step he took was the moment he realized that there was something inside, hiding beneath the pools of phazon in front of him. The only problem was that there was nothing hiding in beneath the pools of phazon, but the pools themselves were brought to life and gained a mind of their own.
"How the hell?" Rundas gasped, not haven't seen anything like it. "Hey! We got a situation here!"
The freelancers took a look at Rundas in the distance and saw what was ahead of them.
"What the-?!" Carolina gasped.
"How is that even physically possible?!" Exclaimed Wash immediately after.
"Whatever they are, just shoot those things!" Ordered Rundas as he tried throwing gases of ice to them, but to no avail. It seemed like they were immune to ice, at least in their liquid form.
The freelancers got closer with Rundas to help him out by shooting the pools of phazon floating around the grounds and walls as they spread for self-defense. In retaliation towards the trio, they began exposing their young to defend them in battle, as they were their main line of defense by making them shoot bursts of phazon energy towards them. For some time, they were able to learn their movements and patterns, quickly dispatching them off by shooting the phazon grubs as soon as they were exposed. One problem they had was that the more they killed, the more they spawned from the remnants of the empty phazon shells from the hopping metroids.
"There's just too many of them!" Shouted Carolina, trying not to do the same mistake she did when fighting the horde of creatures that attacked her just outside from where they were.
"Keep shooting and focus on them one by one! The things that appear from the inside are their weak spots. You kill those, you kill them!" Instructed Rundas as he kept shooting ice crystals at the phazon grubs that appeared inside the semi-sentient pools of phazon.
"Yeah, thanks for the info Mr. Captain Ice-King Obvious!" Carolina shot back.
"You know he's right!" Stated Wash as he merely dodged a phazon blast thrown at him. "You look like you're trying too hard not to get hit by these things and I get it, considering how you were close to death's door not too long ago, but all you gotta do is listen to his 'focus on one by one' instruction."
"I know!" Carolina felt overwhelmed, but one thing for sure was that she did need to focus one at a time, which is something that she initially tried to do before, but went berserk when there were too many to count back when she fought the mutated metroids.
"I just... have to focus..." she said to herself.
Just then, she followed exactly what Rundas and Wash told her to do. Shooting them with her battle rifle onto the grubs one at a time was working out. The ones that got too close to her in order to infect her with phazon, were exterminated first, then the ones that were further away, shooting multiple blasts of phazon at the trio.
Wash had little to no issues dealing with the semi-sentient beings himself and was more focused on trying to keep an eye out on Carolina, just to make sure she wouldn't do anything dumb. Rundas, on the other hand, was more occupied in keeping Wash out of harm's way since he too, wasn't paying much attention to his surroundings as he insisted on keeping an eye out on Carolina. He didn't mind protecting the pair as he felt like it was his job to protect anyone who he was going to be working with. Plus, he felt pity for Wash from having to have suffered enough loss, according to what he has said about himself in the past.
In the middle of the whole fight against the pools of phazon, their radios were receiving a transmission from the Admiral. Samus was heard in the background replying back and soon found out that there was a giant meteor heading directly to Norion, confirming an imminent impact within a limited time-frame.
"What?!" Gasped Wash. "First, we had to save a world from regular human Space Pirates from taking it over, now this?! I don't even know which days are the worst days of my life at this point!"
After the last grub was gotten rid of, they finally had some peace and quiet to give themselves a small rest as Rundas went ahead to put back the energy cell into its place, turning on the main power, and authorizing the reactivation of Generator B.
"So a meteor that came out of nowhere and is headed directly towards this planet? Well isn't that just the best news I've ever heard in a long time?" Carolina pointed out the obvious.
Rundas was feeling uneasy as he gazed upon the air, thinking about the possibility of the meteor being something more than just your ordinary space rocks floating around.
"If it is what I think it is, we have to help get the other last generator back online ASAP or else..."
"What is it exactly that you think it is, besides a meteor?" Questioned Wash, confused as to what Rundas is really thinking about.
"It may not be just any ordinary meteor that the Pirates intend to destroy Norion with. Why would it just come out of nowhere through a wormhole when they could've used conventional means of redirecting a space rock nearby towards the planet when there are thousands, if not, millions of them orbiting nearby? I'm sure the thing that's going to hit the planet soon enough is something far more dangerous than we think."
"Like what?!"
"I got no clue, but let's keep moving before things get a lot worse."
Just as the trio took a step outside of the generator access area, they were met with an army of Space Pirates that were waiting for them, but they weren't your ordinary Pirates, however. These ones had glowing blue eyes and armors that were glowing with blue auras. They were armed with plasma pistols that were seemingly charged with phazon and most of them seemed bulkier than others. The trio prepared themselves, not trying to underestimate what these type of phazon-infected Pirates were capable of doing.
"I think we may have over-stayed our welcome for far too long..."
Sometime earlier...
For the smallest moment that Gandrayda had to take a closer look at the Pirate, it didn't look like he was just a regular Pirate like the others, especially with the yellowish-type of armor that rarely any Pirate even wears. He seemed big and built for a Pirate, but he didn't have the blue eyes that Gandrayda had seen on most of them that have been raiding the planet for these past hours.
"Sorry, but you're not my-"
The Pirate shot again with his plasma weapon, but this time, missing a few inches away from her right ear.
"Next shot will be straight in between your eyes if you don't do as I say and tell me what have you been doing here, Gandrayda!" Commanded the Pirate with a more furious tone.
The Pirate knew her name, much to Gandrayda's surprise, but she knew how to control and hide her emotions and reactions in situations like this where another would try to read her body language or facial expressions to purge out the truth that she might be hiding.
"Hmph... Well played," she replied with a smile. "Since you already know my name, let me try to guess yours; the name's Orion, right?"
"That's none of your business!" The Pirate growled in frustration. "I know you've been working for the Federation! You're one of those bounty hunters sent by them! I have done enough research of my own to be able to know each and every one of you. Now, if you want to keep your miserable life, give me a perfect reason. Otherwise, I'll be forced to serve your head to my superiors!"
"What superiors?" She inquired, knowing that he's lying about having any, considering he's now a freelance Pirate. "You have the 'Dark Hunter' or should I say, the dark clone of 'The Hunter', leading your ranks alongside your former leader, which I believe would be Ridley, right?"
The Pirate had a blank expression on his face.
"Yes, I came by to look for more information about what's been happening around this region, until I stumbled upon a particular file, containing some information about you going on a rampage against your own kind," Gandrayda took a closer look at the Pirate, in which he seemed like he was hesitating whether to put her out of her misery or not. "And if you were any of those merciless Pirates I've come to known, you would have already pulled the trigger on me when you had the chance or at least tried taking me into custody for your own dirty little biological experiments."
Orion was staring at her with an angry look, yet he had a growing expression of uneasiness.
"Listen," he replied with a deep lizard-like voice and a threatening tone. "How about this; walk away like this never happened, or as I said before, I'll end you right here, right now."
Gandrayda wanted to get this over with and just finish him off as she has done with any other Pirate, but what if what she's seen about him was true? What if they could work together and prevent this whole attack from getting worse than it already is? She didn't relish the idea about working with a Pirate, but if there's a chance to save Norion with his help, she's gonna have to take that chance. The more help, the better. If he starts to get restless, she would have no problem taking him out. If Samus would be able to do it, so could she. Either way, she could just use him and then get rid of him for good after they're done fighting off the invasion.
The alarms of the whole Pirate ship went off and the room was filled with red lighting from all over directions. Gandrayda didn't have the slightest idea of what was going on; whether she was caught in the ship, the ship getting raided by one of her teammates, or something else entirely. Her radio soon came back to life.
"Is anyone able to read me? Over."
It was Admiral Dane. He sounded desperate for anyone to answer him, but Orion still had his aim on Gandrayda and gave her a warning sign that if she were to answer the radio at any moment, he would immediately kill her. Gandrayda knew that he wasn't going to kill her, but in order to let him know that they were on the same side, she would have to heed to his warning and not answer her radio at all.
Samus was heard replying to the Admiral in the background and was informed about a giant meteor that came out of nowhere from space and was heading directly towards Norion. As they heard the transmission end, Gandrayda finally understood what Orion meant in his journal by The Dark Hunter spreading corruption to wherever she went. She was most likely already here and sent this meteor that's probably filled with phazon to destroy anything in her way. Gandrayda had so much valuable information at hand that she wanted to give out on the radio, but couldn't.
She walked closer to Orion, one step at a time, trying to convince him that they could work together; something that he implied to do so, according to what he has written on his personal journal.
"You said in that journal that you wanted to redeem yourself to your ancestors, right? You want to make amends for what your kind has done through the blind power of that evil entity your species are worshipping?"
Orion was on the verge of pulling the trigger for each step that she took, but couldn't bring himself to do it when his opportunities were flying towards his face.
Gandrayda continued. "Don't you know that the galaxy or even the universe as we know it, can fall under the hands of such corruption that no one, including your kind, could ever take control over anything anymore? Is that the kind of power you want; the kind of place you want to live without having any kind of free will? It's not gonna be just your enemies that will fall under this category, but you and your own Pirate species as well," She stood right in front of his plasma gun, putting herself in a position where he could easily shoot her in the head. "Make your choice."
There was a long pause. The alarm was the only thing that was blaring in between them as Orion was having random thoughts all over his mind; whether to kill her now and not blow his cover as a traitor or team up with his old enemies and worry about the bigger threat that can obliterate everything as they know it. Killing Gandrayda would surely make him feel better, but in order to fulfill his own objectives, he's gonna need some outside help and killing her would destroy any opportunity of gaining any sort of trust from the Federation or even The Hunter herself.
He lowered his gun.
"Good choice," Gandrayda stated, feeling a bit of a relief herself that she managed to convince a Pirate to be on her side on a life or death situation.
"This does not mean that we will work together after this whole mess. Once we are finished, dealing with you and the others will be my next priority," Orion put his plasma gun away with a menacing look on his face.
"I guess we have something in common now," said Gandrayda as she gave a small wink to the Pirate before turning away towards the only window in the room. She sighed, "So... what do we do now? I'm sure the rest of your ugly friends will eventually know what you're up to. That's if they still do not know what you're actually up against. The Federation and my other teammates will surely despise the idea of working alongside a Pirate like you so that officially makes us partners in crime, right? Not to mention we are probably gonna pull guns on each other after everything is over."
"Don't get too comfortable," Orion stated with his lizard-like deep voice, giving Gandrayda a dead stare after she turned around to face him.
"And you think I'm comfortable enough to work with you?" She inquired. "I had to think twice after reading everything you had on that terminal. I don't like the idea either, but we've got no other choice now."
"Maybe you shouldn't have stuck your nose where you shouldn't have," Orion shot back, having a furious look on his face. At the same time, he felt like it was somehow, necessary for someone like her to read his personal notes about what his objectives were.
"That's how I get paid the big bucks; sneaking around and infiltrating areas where I shouldn't be," Gandrayda gave a small smirk. "By the way, about that meteor, how the heck was Dark Samus able to send it through a wormhole?"
"No clue here," he replied. "Not one uninfected Pirated knows about this type of technology. Only those who serve under the leadership of The Dark Hunter would know and they wouldn't give out any information to any of us unless we accepted them and transform into phazon beings like her."
He frowned and started to look depressed.
"Most of our kind around this region have fallen under her corruption and we all have lost contact from the outside colonies. Some of us have gone here undercover, while others have directly accepted their doings, but never took the corruption into their bodies."
Gandrayda didn't know what to feel; whether to feel happy, sympathetic or anything else entirely. For one side, she felt like the Pirates deserve what's happening to them, but for the other, she couldn't bear the idea to put herself in his position and know what it feels like to have lost almost everything around you under the hands of such corruption.
"We should probably head back outside and if your goal is to get rid of the dark corruption that your kind is trying to spread, then help us out by activating one of those generators below. I'll just try to talk my way through everyone else once they see you and me working together," Gandrayda couldn't believe she was saying this over the protection of a Space Pirate. She thought it was only a matter of time before she became completely out of her mind.
"Then let's stop wasting time. Let me do the talking with the Pirates, while you do your part with the humans and other bounty hunters working alongside with you."
"Yeah, whatever. Let's just get this over with, shall we?"
Meanwhile...
"Two down, one more to go!"
Samus kept on telling herself the same phrase repeatedly. All they needed to do now was to activate Generator C, get the cannon defense system going, and deal with whatever is left of the invasion before getting another mission update. Not that Samus was annoyed, except for the fact that Ridley was still alive after his last downfall back at Tallon IV, but it would be naive of her to think that Ridley will ever give up, no matter how many times she will have to keep dealing with him.
After heading back to where they all came from since they first started going their separate ways, the gateway to Generator C was still locked and secure, until a giant explosion crumbled it into pieces as two giant creatures were fighting to their death. Only one managed to survive as the Berserker Knight was stabbed in the chest and finally taking a blow towards the head while the giant machine remained victorious.
The giant machine was none other than Ghor himself.
As he emerged out of his suit, he began to do some quick maintenance work on it before letting Samus know that he has taken care of the other Berserker Knights that have been deployed by the Space Pirates themselves.
"Go on ahead, Samus. I'll stay here and protect the gate to the elevator," he reassured her as he finished up fixing his suit quickly. "The others should probably be on their way here. I'll let them know you'll be getting this one yourself and the more people I get here, the better chances we have at putting up a defensive position against these invading critters."
"Alright," Samus complied. "I'll see you soon."
Ghor then immediately got on his suit, dramatically changing from a light-hearted tone to a more dark and serious one.
"Proceed quickly and hurry back here before we ARE ALL VAPORIZED!"
Samus knew that his suit made him more like a completely different person, but deep down, she knew that Ghor really cares for his team, regardless of having his personality altered by his suit or not. She ventured forward without looking back.
Throughout her journey towards Generator C, more Space Pirates, both infected and uninfected by phazon, kept trying to push her back while Marines came to her aid in order to distract them from keeping Samus at bay. Crawlmines were becoming a nuisance and debris that came falling down on every corner of the facility, due to the vast explosions in the outer locations of the area, were sometimes either a big help or the complete opposite.
Once she arrived at Cargo Dock C, there was nothing but pipes hanging around the place. Samus had no other choice but to continue her journey via morph ball mode. Even though she was quite good at infiltrating areas in small spaces, she didn't always feel too comfortable in doing so, especially when she would become most vulnerable towards even the smallest attacks from small predators. Inside her morph ball, she was able to rotate her view wherever she liked and stayed in the same position so that it wouldn't make her motion sick while moving around.
After a brief moment of traveling through the pipes, there was a roar in the background and immediately slammed through the pipes, trying to get a grip on her, but easily managed to evade its claws until it finally gave up and went away. Once she went to the other side of the dock area, she stood out of her morph ball and took a glance at what it actually was. It was none other than Ridley himself, who tried getting rid of Samus in order to prevent her from getting closer to the generator.
"Wonder what are you up to now?" Samus told herself. "You better hope you don't get to come back here and face me again in my normal form."
As Samus reached Generator C, she found herself in an ambush from Space Pirates, expecting her to arrive any time soon. She charged up her arm cannon ready to strike at any moment given as the Pirates gave a dead stare at her with their weapons ready before one of them started to betray the others. Samus was confused even more at the fact that another Pirate, not in the type of armor she would ever come into contact with a Pirate, was helping the other lone wolf to become another traitor, much as if they were a couple of criminals within their ranks. Even she saw most of the Pirates in the whole group, confused and angered about their own kind turning on against them.
Samus wondered if it was due to them not being infected with phazon or that they just despised the whole group that they were involved with and get Samus as a prize of their own; something that their high command would probably be pleased, much like from what she has read in the past about the Pirates from Zebes and their leaders, Mother Brain and Ridley.
After both of the Pirates managed to kill every other Pirate in the room, one of them transformed back into their original self that was none other than Gandrayda herself.
"I'm never gonna get used to Space Pirate gray," Gandrayda giggled.
Samus turned her gaze towards the other Pirate, who seemingly looked like he wasn't changing at all and didn't look like he was bloodthirsty to serve Samus' head as a trophy for their kind, much like every other Space Pirate she's seen so far.
"So are you both working together?" Samus asked bluntly, while still aiming her arm cannon at the Space Pirate in yellow armor.
"I mean to do no harm," Orion replied hesitantly with his usual lizard-like voice. He felt different seeing The Hunter in person as he didn't expect to feel anxiety or even fear when confronting the archenemy of the Space Pirate species as a whole. "Consider it to be a long story."
"Don't take it all the wrong way, Sammy," stated Gandrayda with a smirk on her face. "Once we get everything working again and get rid of that thing falling above us in the sky, I can do the explaining to everyone working for the Federation." She looked down as she gave a slight sigh and then told Samus in a lowered voice, "Dark Samus is still alive..."
"What!?" Samus gasped. "But I thought... I..."
"I know," she replied. "But it makes sense as to why everything that's happening right now is all because of that dark twin sister of yours. That's why after learning about who Orion really is and what he's really up against, there's no doubt that your dark doppelganger is still alive somewhere. Just watch your back if you see anything strange going on and about. We'll leave you to activate this Generator and return back to where the entrance of the control tower is on the double."
"Fine," Samus complied. "Ghor is already waiting there. Help him put up a defensive position against anyone who tries to get through." She then pointed at Orion. "And make sure he doesn't do anything clever or else—"
"Hey it's me we are talking about," replied Gandrayda. "We've already gone through those terms. He seems to get it, but you never know. They're Pirates after all." Orion looked at her, offended by what she's said about him and his other fellow Pirates, but Gandrayda continued to ignore him as she walked past Samus. "Anyway, have fun Sammy!"
As the Pirate followed after Gandrayda, he stopped and turned to Samus a bit nervously. He began telling her what he wanted to tell her, before leaving the room and following Gandrayda.
"If you wanna know more about your parents when you were a kid, I can give you some footages that I managed to recover from the stolen Federation databases that the Space Pirates have gained access to. You would never find it elsewhere since they were all erased from Federation history since the invasion of Earth colony, K-2L."
Samus gave a wide expression look on her face. Her parents? Footages? What could he possibly have anything to say or show her about since her early life at K-2L? It could all be just a lie or maybe he was trying to make up for what his own kind has done to her homeplanet. At any rate, she had more stuff to worry about than her own past, so she tried to wash away all of those thoughts and move on to activating the last generator they needed.
As Orion gave a last look on Samus before leaving right away, she stopped him on his tracks.
"Wait!" She said as the freelanced Pirate stopped silently without looking back at her. "Are we— am I... able to trust you?" Samus didn't know why she asked this, especially when she deeply has a hatred for Space Pirate kind. She'll never forget the fact that it's the Space Pirate's fault for her becoming an orphan and growing up without her parents, who were killed during the invasion of her homeplanet.
Orion tilted his fishlike-head slightly to his right and replied before leaving the area for good, "That... is for you to decide, Hunter."
"Wait, but I really need to know if—"
It was already too late. The Pirate left the room just as she wanted to ask him something in particular. She cleared her mind for a moment before heading back to activating Gen. C.
After scanning the whole room with her scan visor, she learned that either Gandrayda or Orion did some handiwork behind the Pirates' back as the codes for activating the backup power for the pipelines to connect all the way on top of the giant conduit, was already put in on the terminal and all it needed was confirmation, in order to reach the final bomb slot all the way on top of the large cylinder that activates the main power of the generator. As she confirmed it, the maintenance shafts around the room began to activate and connected their way up on top of the oversized conduit for a bomb slot reactivation.
"Right," she said to herself. "Now all I need is to just reach on top, activate the main power, then authorize the reactivation of the generator, and back to the control tower."
Samus put herself in morph ball mode and began to do her usual work like always. Reaching all the way on top wasn't hard, but required a lot of patience when the machinery around the room was getting in her way inside the pipelines. Not like she wasn't used to things like that, but it did annoy her every time when infiltrating tight spaces in her morph ball form. After reaching all the way on top and activating the main power, she finally let out a sigh of relief when her patience was about to spill to the ground.
"Finally! Now, to get this over with and then head back with the others."
There was a loud thud on top of the dark ceiling.
She couldn't see what caused it since it was dark and her scan visor didn't detect anything unusual in the darkness. She thought it was all in her head due to so many things in her mind.
Another loud thud came to life.
This time, she was, sure enough, it wasn't all in her mind. A thermal or dark visor would've been perfect for this type of situation to look through the dark, but sadly enough, she dropped all of her past upgrades either because Metroid Prime's dying essence core absorbed most of her upgrades, left most of them behind during her time at the distant Tetra Galaxy, or she gave them away to their respective owners, the Luminoth. Looking closer at the dark ceiling was a silhouette of something familiar, but terrifying. Once it began to growl and scream at her, it then started to breathe fire, lighting up the whole area around him.
"RIDLEY!" She yelled in full of anger and frustration.
She fired as many shots as she could, not stopping at anything, until Ridley immediately went flying towards her with full potential, breaking through the giant structure and falling down into the depths of darkness, taking Samus with him. At that moment, Samus didn't care about anything but wanting to get rid of him once and for all before either of them winds up dead upon impact towards the core of the generator.
And... that's it for this chapter!
As a first-time fanfiction/crossover writer, I very much appreciate the amount of people that are reading my fanfic, if not, at least skimming through what you would like to read or look forward to in the future. And thank you for all the follows and favorites! Again, sorry for the large gap within the uploading process. Next chapter is currently being written and probably have it posted before Christmas, if not, before New Year's!