"Is there any point to this place?" Dust asked as he and Samus walked through an oddly empty hallway.
"Nope," Samus answered flatly.
At the end of the hall was a wide opening with a glowing object in the center of the floor. Samus motioned Dust into the room, and then went inside herself, stepping onto the glowing object as she did. Suddenly, the sound of machinery flooded the room as the floor revealed itself to be an elevator.
"Surely the halls must serve some purpose?" Ahrah questioned. "Having them for no reason would be a great waste of resources…"
"They have absolutely no point," Samus said as the elevator stopped at another floor and began to walk out. "There are no pressure plates, trip wires, or even sentry-"
ЗДРАВСТВУЙТЕ, ДРУГ.
A hail of gunfire came down against Samus, forcing her back inside the elevator shaft. Dust quickly took cover against a wall, and Samus did the same at the opposite end.
"I stand corrected…" she said.
Dust peeked around the corner and into the hall. Hanging from the ceiling was a large machine with a cylindrical object attached below, with a blinking red light on top of it.
ТАМ ВЫ.
The cylinder began to rotate, and several energy projectiles began to hurtle towards Dust. He barely had time to move his head out of the way before the beams zipped past him and partially melted the wall behind him.
"What the hell is that thing?!" Dust shouted.
"Sentry turret," Samus replied. "Though I've never seen one with such a powerful gun..."
"Is there anything you can do?" Dust asked hopefully.
Samus moved her hand out in front of the turret for and pulled it back in almost instantly, missing a barrage of energy projectiles by less than an inch. "It's too fast for me to do anything," she said. "Whatever happened to that little trick you did with Ahrah against my weapons?"
Dust bit his lip. "I… honestly forgot about that…"
Samus looked as though she wanted to strangle him. "For the love of… just destroy the damn turret…" she groaned.
Dust jumped out from his hiding place, rapidly spinning Ahrah to utilize the Dust Storm as the turret fired. Predictably, the beams immediately reflected back, completely destroying the turret.
"I should really use the Dust Storm more often," Dust said, triumphantly twirling Ahrah.
"… The 'Dust Storm'?" Samus asked dryly. "A bit narcissistic, don't you think?"
"I didn't name it!" Dust protested. "Ahrah did! Didn't you, Ahrah?"
The blade remained silent.
"… At least your self-esteem isn't in danger," Samus said, walking over to the remains of the turret.
Dust glared at Ahrah, but turned his attention to Samus instead of arguing with the blade. She was sorting through the turret's parts, seemingly enthralled by them. "What are you doing?" he asked.
"Looking for answers," she said.
"Answers to what, exactly?"
"How does this turret exist?"
"I don't understand…"
Samus picked up a small glass tube and showed it to him. "Do you recognize what's inside this?"
Dust noticed a light blue crystal inside the tube. "Is that… phazon?"
"It is, but it shouldn't be," Samus said, sounding deeply concerned. "It takes at least a few months to develop any turret. One as advanced as this probably took years…"
"I'm not sure I understand why this is relevant," Ahrah said.
"This turret was designed to run on this particular type of phazon. The problem is that this type of phazon first appeared only a few hours ago on this planet…"
"So this thing shouldn't exist at all…" Dust realized.
"That's what I don't understand… hell, I don't understand any of what's been going on…" Samus muttered almost inaudibly. "I'll have to dwell on that later; maybe the Space Pirates have plans for this model somewhere in their database..."
"'Space Pirates'?" Dust questioned.
"The creatures that attacked us earlier," Samus said simply. "I'd explain more, but believe me when I say it's a long story."
"I assume the Space Pirates built this vessel?" Ahrah asked. "Will we be encountering more of them?"
"Probably, but if we keep our guards up we'll be fine," Samus said. "It'll be the turrets we'll have to worry about. This ship likely has more guarding areas up ahead. If we're lucky, we may only have one or two to deal with. Just use the twirling sword… thing if we come across any more of them."
"It's called the Dust Storm," Dust corrected her.
"I'm not calling it that."
To both Dust and Samus' surprise, the next empty hall way contained nothing in the way of traps or guards.
"Despite the presence of highly advanced technology, I am beginning to doubt the intelligence of whatever built this place…" Ahrah said.
"I'm going to have to agree," Dust muttered. "They must be rather sure of themselves to have just one gun and no guards around here."
"Wait," Samus said, stopping Dust with her hand. "Look at the ceiling."
Dust looked up. Dozens of small metal domes not unlike the one the turret protruded from dotted the ceiling. "… Are they broken?" he asked, lowering his voice to a whisper.
"No; they're just inactive." Samus put her hand to the side of helmet. "There's no alarm system in this room. They must have to be manually activated."
Dust eyed the domes nervously. "Let's just get out of here," he said. "We're tempting fate just standing around; these things could activate at any second."
"Good idea," Samus said. "Just half of these things firing together could kill us both in a matter of seconds."
Samus fired at the door at the end of the hall, opening it to reveal an enormous room with a giant tube fixed in the center. The tube appeared to be made of the same glowing glass that Dust's cell door was comprised of.
"I'm going to scout the area," Samus said. "Watch the door and make sure nothing was following us."
"Will do," Dust replied. Despite his best efforts to ignore it, however, this tube in the middle of the room demanded his attention. A small, winged creature somewhat obscured by the rippling glass hovered around inside, looking very much out of place inside its comparatively massive container. Something seemed somewhat familiar about it.
"Wait a minute…" Dust said to himself as he looked more closely at the creature. "Is that…?"
Ahrah almost seemed to sigh. "I do believe it is..."
I know this place, Samus thought. I recognize this room; the large containment cell, the energy shields, but from where…? At this point the familiarity was maddening. Everything she saw reminded her of something, but what exactly that was constantly eluded her.
On the other side of the room, a computer terminal was set in the wall. Samus wandered over and scanned it.
Scan complete.
Terminal controls the containment unit of the life form known as NB-001. The attached microphone can be used to speak with it.
Samus looked up at the tiny creature in the cell. It looked somewhat akin to a cat with bat wings; hardly threatening. She activated the microphone. "Can you understand me?" she asked.
"Nope!" came the playful, somewhat indignant reply from the creature.
Samus was a bit surprised by its attitude, considering it was a prisoner to a frigate full of highly competent Space Pirates. She continued. "Are you the life form known as 'NB-001'?"
The creature groaned. "Why does everyone keep calling me that? My name is Fidget. Can you say that? Want me to spell it out for you? F-I-D-G-"
"I get it," Samus said, gritting her teeth. "Are you allied with the Space Pirates?"
"The what, now?" It snickered.
"The Space Pirates," Samus repeated. "Your captors."
Fidget visibly stifled laughter. "'Space Pirates'? I've been calling them 'lobster people' but that's just perfect!"
Samus found herself nearly crushing the microphone in frustration. "Fidget, please concentrate," she said. "This is very important to the safety of every living thing in the universe! What have the Pirates been doing here?"
"I dunno," it said. "Feeding me marshmallows and peanut butter, I guess? I start talking, they give me peanut butter. I start eating faces, they give me marshmallows. Wonder what they'll feed me if I start drawing on the walls? Oh! Maybe I'll get ice cream! Or cake! Or-!"
Samus ripped the mic out of the console, snapped it in two, then threw it toward the back if the room. "That was more stressful than it needed to be," she said irritably. She noticed Fidget was glaring at her. "Be glad I didn't shove it down your esophagus, you little piece of s-"
"Samus!" Samus turned her head to find Dust running excitedly toward her. "I see you've met Fidget!"
"You… know this creature?" she inquired.
"Yeah, she's my best friend!" he said happily. He was look up at Fidget's container, where she was pressed firmly against the barrier, a wide smile on her face. "Can you let her out?"
Samus blinked. "You want me to let that thing out?" she asked in disbelief. "That thing eats faces and talks so much you would rather it eat your face then sit there and listen to its squeaky little voice! Why would you ever let it out of its sound proof containment unit?"
"Fidget isn't all that bad," Dust said. "Yeah, she can talk a lot, eat a lot, sleep a lot, and… err, the point is that she's my friend and a capable fighter too; she's probably as important of a weapon as Ahrah is."
"I assume she drives her victims to suicide?" Samus asked, earning her a nasty look from Dust.
"Samus, please let Fidget out," Ahrah implored. "You'd be surprised by just how useful she can be. She saved Dust's life many times with her abilities."
Samus sighed. "Fine," she said. "Tell her to keep it down, at least… Migraines tend to increase the chance of friendly fire, you know…"
Walking back over to the console, Samus hacked it to disable the force field. As the orange barrier disappeared, Fidget shot out like a rocket, making a beeline for Dust. She immediately latched onto him, squealing like a school girl as she shouted, "OMIGOSHDUSTIT'SSOGOODTOSEEYOUITHOUGHTYOUWEREDEADBUTNOWYOU'REHERERESCUEINGMEFROMLOBSTERPEOPLECALLEDSPACEPIRATESWITHSOMECRAZYLADY!"
"Good to know you're still yourself," Dust said, hugging her back.
"Heartwarming," Samus said dryly. "Hate to break this up, but I'd rather get back to investigating this frigate before Space Pirates find out we're here and activate another goddamn self-destruct sequence." She stared at Fidget. "I'm Samus, by the way. Dust and I are working together to save the universe. Behave and I won't kill you."
Ignoring the look of utter bafflement on Fidget's face, Samus turned around, sat at a computer terminal, and began hacking into the Space Pirate database.
"So, who exactly is this chick?" Fidget asked. "Seems like a psycho to me…"
"You don't know the half of it…" Dust said. He quickly explained the events up to then, being sure to make special mention of each of Samus' morally questionable actions.
"Okay… lady is a psycho," Fidget concluded.
"Maybe you two should not talk about the 'psycho' when your necks are within grabbing distance," Samus said, her gaze never diverting from the monitor in front of her.
After taking a few steps back, Dust asked, "What exactly are you looking at anyhow?"
"This ship's information," she said simply. "I know this frigate from somewhere, but I haven't been able to recall why. I'm hoping if I get construction dates, maybe even the vessel's name, I might remem…" Samus paused for a moment. "No… no, that's not possible…" she breathed.
"What's wrong?" Dust asked. "What does it say?"
"It was destroyed…" Samus said, seemingly ignoring him. "I saw it! I explored its wreckage on Talin IV!"
"Samus?" Fidget asked, somewhat intimidated by her agitation. "Are you alright? Please don't strangle us…"
"This place shouldn't exist…" she said softly. "But it does… everything matches up…"
"Samus, what do you mean by that?" Ahrah asked. "Explain what has you so upset!"
"This is Frigate Orpheon…"
Dust and Fidget were understandably confused at the mention of Orpheon. "Orpheon is the name of this frigate," she began. "But I destroyed it years ago; it's ruins are still on a planet light-years away from here! How is this possible?"
"Is it possible that they simply rebuilt the vessel?" Ahrah asked. "Perhaps they simply named this one after Orpheon?"
"No, everything's documented and recorded," Samus said. "Everything matches up, except for its destruction on Talin IV…" She paused. "Maybe if I look at the ship's logs I can get some answers…"
Pirate database accessed.
Talin IV Expedition logs accessed.
Log 11.799.4
Samus has infiltrated Frigate Orpheon. With most of our soldiers dead from the containment breach, the frigate is defenseless against attempts to acquire our confidential information. We must prevent the Hunter from relaying said information to the Galactic Federation. We have been ordered to force her out of the frigate by – 011010000110000101111000
Connection to Pirate database interrupted.
Наша темно-королева не покажет никакой пощады для другого Самусь!
"What the-?!"
Alarms blared and emergency lights came on. Suddenly, and to her utter frustration, Samus' suit produced a phrase she had grown all-too familiar with over the years.
TIME BOMB SET. GET OUT FAST!
Obligatory self-destruct sequence #1! Yay!
Why does everything Samus interact with blow up? In the 2D Metroid games, even the freaking animals seem like they're pumped full of gasoline and TNT. Not even Michael Bay could come up with something like that.
Anyway, it's been a while since a new chapter, eh? This one in particular I re-wrote probably 50 times over, 49 due to being unsatisfied with the writing itself, 1 because I decided to make a joke about Fidget being 'examined' by a Space Pirate. The decision was followed by immediate regret, and a vow to never sniff markers ever again.
Now that the obligatory author comment is done with, it's time for the obligatory review-begging.
LordMcGrammar: Ever read a fan fiction and think, "This sucks worse than insert your least favorite publication/product here!"?
Random Reader: Yeah! I'm tired of seeing stories worse than insert your least favorite publication/product here on this site!
LordMcGrammar: Then you need to know about the magic of: CRITICAL REVIEWS!
Random Reader: Gee, how do those work?
LordMcGrammar: Well you see, you scroll down to the bottom of a story after reading it and in the little box… TYPE WHAT THE AUTHOR DID WRONG! Your review will magically make the next chapter have a chance to be slightly better than the previous one, if they actually update at all!
Random Reader: Oh golly gee willikers! That sounds amazing! How many reviews will it take for this story not to suck?
LordMcGrammar: That's easy! It'll take (5*3.14159+(13/42)-(69*(1337+2.718/0)0.57721)+4.6692/666- 1.6180339887) reviews to make 'From Dust' the best fan fiction to ever exist! So get to reviewin' loyal reader! We have progress to make!