I haven't written in an eternity. Lazy old me... But now that I have free time -summer, baby!- I'm going to be updating more frequently. Anyhoo, enjoy!

U-Mos and Rundas kick butt! xD

U-Mos stood slowly, wincing as he got to his feet. "Do you have a radio connection to Samus? Maybe we could contact her."

I shrugged, motioning towards my body. "Do I look like I've got a radio on me? I'm not wearing anything but my non-high tech suit of armor."

The feathers on his head drooped. "I suppose we should commence with finding the Admiral without them?"

I shrugged again. "I guess. C'mon, I'll lead." I walked past him and he came after me softly.

"What exactly is the plan, Rundas? I am still unsure you thought this through..." he mumbled a few minutes later, as we walked down a disturbingly quiet hallway.

"I don't know, U-Mos. I'm still trying to think of one..." I replied, focusing on the burn streaks in the steel floor. I felt powerless for some reason, like I was useless and didn't amount to anything in this universe.

A tingling sensation swept my body.

"Unh..."

There was a thud, and I whipped around to find U-Mos on the floor, face down. He was utterly still, and appeared to not be breathing. I freaked out.

"U-Mos!" I cried, kneeling and examining him. He was freezing cold, and a deep, pulsed wave of Phazon glow was scooting gradually across his arms. I felt a shudder come over me, and the Phazon that was on my own leg prickled.

U-Mos jerked and arched his back, his abdominal muscles tightening as he threw up. Only it wasn't just Phazon he coughed, but actual, twisting tendrils that caused him to gasp for breath. There were four, about two inches thick, gleaming, and covered in tiny energy follicles.

U-Mos was struggling to breathe, and clutched his chest in panic as no air made its way into his mouth. His choking was frightening, and his body was in a spasm.

I didn't know what to do, except for slap his back sharply and hope for the best. His slurping breaths were cut short, and he sunk onto the ground and began to cough again, though he was inhaling and exhaling normally. I watched a cascade of Phazon begin to seep from under his stomach.

I threw the little tentacles across the hall, a splatter tainting the wall. From below me, U-Mos was panting hoarsely, and gulping in as much oxygen he could. Once he calmed down, I looked at him in complete horror. "What were those?"

He rolled onto his back, chest heaving for more air. "I do not know. I am guessing some sort of Phazon Worm strain." His words were hardly understandable.

I stared at the squish on the corridor's shiny wall. "And they're coming out of you?"

He nodded breathlessly. "I do not know how much longer I can postpone this corruption, Rundas..." he gasped and clutched his stomach, a gush of Phazon spilling through his fingers. "The parasite... is more prepared than you think..." He lolled his head onto the floor and closing his eyes and exhaling heavily.

I heard murmuring from down the hall. Halting, I listened to the thunking footfalls of several beings. Was it Samus and the others? I looked back, seeing the shadows marching across the metal and going immediately cold.

Pirates.

They spotted U-Mos and I, raising their guns and hissing. "How did they get on here?" one of them shrieked, while the other six started firing. "Shoot them!"

I wrenched U-Mos by his shoulder as the barrage rocketed at us. He was strangely light, so I tugged him behind me and I bolted down the hall as fast as I could. I felt his skin gush Phazon from my grip.

"Where are we going?" he asked as we sped away from the Pirates. "Do you know where the Admiral is?"

"No!" I screamed back, cringing as a rogue blast scorched my cheek. I glanced quickly at the crowd that was shooting and pursuing us, pushing my legs harder and putting on more speed. These Pirates were fast!

"Then how do you know where we are going?"

I stared at U-Mos's glimmering blue eyes, which were brimming with pain and fear. "I don't!"

His face flushed paler than before. "What?"

Suddenly I tripped over something hard. We both cried out, toppling over and rolling on the ground heavily. I heard the Space Pirates' feet stop pounding, and then opened my eyes to see a pair of brown irises that stared into mine.

I flinched and crawled back, scooting away from the corpse. I recognized the armored body of a Federation Marine, covered in blood and broken in several places; including the visor. I looked past him at the other bodies that littered the Command Deck, trying to catch my breath.

I twisted to U-Mos, who's eyes were rolling. He held his head and sat up slowly, oblivious to the Pirate that was aiming its gun at his temple. The barrel began to flare bright purple.

I bared my teeth, standing quickly and shooting frozen blasts at them. Only one noticed, giving a shout before it and its comrades were frozen solid. Once the chilling fog cleared, a mass of Space Pirate ice was in the middle of the empty doorway.

I walked over to them, prying a pipe off of the wall on my way, and swinging it straight into the slab. Cracks split the smooth surface, and soon the Pirates smashed into shards, strewn across the floor. I turned my back from the bloody ice.

"Did you just-" U-Mos panted.

"Yeah. I did. If Samus hates the Space Pirates, then I do too," I simply said, dropping the splintered conduit and coming to him. "You're okay?"

He nodded, swallowing. "Yes. I think I am fine, thank you." U-Mos was recovering from shock, most likely. "Now... where are we?"

"Command Deck," I looked at the cadavers and tightened my fists. Almost all of them were Federation. "And by the looks of things it's not in use anymore."

"Perhaps it is." U-Mos said, staggering to his feet and pointing up a ramp to one of the central computers on the upper floor. "That console seems to be still online." He glanced at me. "Shall we investigate?"

I shrugged. "Sure."

I led him up the walkway, stepping over carcasses and around abandoned weaponry. U-Mos followed my lead, making sure he didn't step on any deceased member of the Galactic Federation's decimated fleet. He looked like he was about to be sick.

I stepped up to the computer. "Okay... this is working..." I mumbled, clicking a few buttons and trying to make sense of what was displayed on the projected screen. "Maybe we could..." I trailed off.

"Do what?" U-Mos was inspecting the screen as well, keeping a firm grip on the console so he didn't lose his balance.

"Bring up that map thing like you did on Colossus... Do you remember how to do that?" I asked him, moving out of the way and gesturing towards the keyboard.

"Um... I suppose I could. Here..." he placed his fingers gingerly on the board, clicking specific letters that I was guessing corresponded to the link he had made before. Once he recalled what to do, his fingers were darting across the keys, rapidly inserting the codes to array the map of Olympus.

The giant glass window above started to blink, and as I watched, the chart of the flagship's layout flashed before my eyes. I recognized the pair of speckles that marked where the Luminoth and I stood, in the Command Deck. Three dots were moving slowly across a hallway far to our left, and a single spot, which was surrounded by a plethora of other pixels were a few rooms away. I knew that the trio was Samus, Dray, and Ghor. The lone was Dane, and his incoming flock were most likely more Space Pirates.

I pointed at Dane's dot. "That's the Admiral. We've got to get to the third floor stat. C'mon, U-Mos-" I turned and was about to leave.

He didn't follow, but was glued to his spot, staring out of the window. I looked with him. "What is it?" Then I gawked at what he saw.

The enormous Space Pirate ship from our previous dart across the stars was hovering outside the glass. It was triple pronged, spiked, and covered in some patches of Phazon. I saw the Elite pilot in the windshield, and watched another one go to the gun system. The turrets that surrounded the threesome of spines began to glow, and the targeting alert on the computer flared.

"It's gonna blow us up!" I cried, searching for some means of retaliation. I hadn't fought back a gigantic warship before, and was frantically finding a way to do it.

The brightness from the guns was rising, and out of the corner of my eye, U-mos jumped over the second ledge's railing. I jerked over to see him disappear below the wall. "U-Mos! What are you doing?"

He didn't hear me over the whirring sound from the Space Pirate ship. The Luminoth jogged to the center of the Command Deck, breathing swiftly. I watched his shoulders rise and fall and his hands curl into fists.

Extremely afraid (though I was severely unsure as to why), I bolted down the catwalk and to his side. "Are you out of your mind? Do you want a front row seat of being disintegrated?"

He turned his sapphire gaze down to me, his face determined. "I am doing what every Leviathan in existence has done," U-Mos looked back at the charging cannons, the ship quivering in the power. I was mortified. "Corrupting."

I watched U-Mos's fingertips glow Phazon blue, the glimmer traveling up his hands and his wrists, his forearms and his shoulders. Then the Phazon appeared on his toes, crawling towards his chest like the other gleaming substance was doing on the rest of his limbs. I stepped back as he radiated Phazon, giving off brilliant effulgence and cold.

"What the..." I whispered to myself as U-Mos's eyes shone the same electrified blue. To my surprise, his wings fluttered, but not enough to get him off the ground. He rose from the floor of the Deck, glowing more brilliantly as each second passed.

Finally, U-Mos was about thirty feet above my head, and flashing completely ice-blue. His light was equivalent to the Pirate's guns, but his became brighter once he spread out his arms. "You have yet to see what the power of Phazon can do, Pirates!" he hollered, voice magnified and intimidating. "When it is in the hands of a Leviathan!"

Slowly, a jet of Phazon emerged from U-Mos's abdomen. It was ten times as bright as the Pirate's turrets, and after a few moments of all of us goggling it, the Phazon exploded in an outrageously massive beam. U-Mos expelled it in a mighty roar as he bent his spine back. With a deafening boom, it cracked through the Command Deck's overhead air, splitting the window.

I watched in amazement as the glass fragmented into billions of particles, but did not whoosh anywhere. The splintered shield hung in place, a great sheet of silver that was broken apart by only small holes made by the shattering.

The Phazon that U-Mos fired was hurtling towards the slivers, and blew them in opposite directions as it passed through. The stream crept over the Pirate's ship surface, eating away at the metal. U-Mos was still bellowing as if it hurt him, and continued to blast the Phazon at the Pirate's vessel. I was dumbfounded.

The mutagen reached the engines and thrusters, the Pirates onboard screaming and running about the main deck with terrorized faces. It was sudden that the ship erupted, causing a shock wave that catapulted me back from the ground and into the far wall. I hit the circular door, the shield rebounding me a few feet as I landed on the floor in a daze.

The crash was spectacular, blinding, and loud. I covered my ears and clamped my eyes shut, clenching my teeth and trying not to screech. Even though I had a right to freak.

As quick as it came, the thundering stopped, extreme thudding ending. I was gasping, and looked out the pieced window. The explosion had left no trace that the ship had even existed. I got up from the ground stiffly at the sight of U-Mos back on the ground, his silhouette pitch black against the still glowing glass.

I started to walk towards him, trying not to trip. My legs were shaky. "Whoa! That was wicked! U-Mos how did you-"

I cut off as he groaned and fell to his knees, arms wrapped around his stomach. I heard him begin to wretch again.

Zipping to his side, I got a good look at the Luminoth. He was still streaked with Phazon colored veins, and his skin was ghost grey. His body was shuddering and Phazon dripped from the corner of his mouth.

"The... paras-site..." he stuttered, voice throaty.

"What about the parasite?" I said in worry, gripping both sides of his head to get him to look at me. "What's wrong, U-Mos?"

"S-still here..."

My eyes widened. "What? Even after a performance like that?" He nodded feebly. "What can I do to help?"

Big mistake, me asking that.

U-Mos's stare was clouded with misery. He moved his arms from his stomach, using them to hold his weight on the floor. "Please, Rundas...

"Pull it out."