Chapter 13 - Infiltration

"Okay. Now, we don't have much time to do this. We have to destroy that ship, and kill off the Gorea clones. Plain and simple. But it won't be as simple as it sounds. There's still the matter of the Pirate troops who followed us here. And they definitely have guards and whatnot in the ship. There may be parts that we can use to build the weapon to wipe out the Goreas. So basically, we just head up to the ship, split into teams and search for important data and parts. Any questions?" Samus ordered demandingly.

The hunters were all in their ships, waiting for the order to leave Alinos. They simultaneously started up their weapons and engines. As soon as they saw Samus lift off the ground, they did the same and followed. They had to stop this cloning process before It was too late...

"Alright. We'll split into three teams. Noxus and Sylux are team one. Me, Trace, and Spire will be team two. Kanden and Weavel are team three. Any questions?" Samus ordered demandingly.

"I have a question. What the hell happened to Denkan and Kraid Two!" Trace yelled.

Samus was about to speak again, but off in the distance, she saw two specks coming towards them. All of a sudden a crash was heard! Something was attacking the hunters! But what...?

"What are those things!" Kanden screamed. But looking into the distance, he saw what they were. Two Goreas were coming closer. Denkan and Kraid Two had betrayed them...

"That... can't be... Why are they...?" Weavel tried to speak, but could not. Holding back tears, he went through the hatch to the top of his ship and set up his BattleHammer. He aimed directly at the Gorea clones.

"I'm sorry, Kraid Two," he said to himself. Then he immediately fired green energy shots at one of the Goreas, each one having a very large blast radius. He shot directly at the weak point. Weavel put down his gun, and saw one of the two clones floating in space. Walking back down the hatch, he had only one though. I just killed Kraid Two...

After the two Gorea clones were killed (with some regret), the hunters split into their teams and went to the ship. None of them knew about the Space Pirates on this ship. Who knows what could happen...?

"Okay. I used this strategy last time I was here, and it should work fine with your Shock Coil. I freeze any guards, you Coil them. Got it?" Noxus ordered. (Sylux was surprised at how much Noxus had changed.)

"Right. Simple enough," Sylux replied. They then ran straight into the ship and started to bust open doors, trying to find something that might help them.

"Try this door. I'll Shadow Freeze anyone that comes by. There's something in that room, I can sense it," Noxus whispered.

"...Shadow Freeze? What the hell is that?" Sylux asked, confused.

"When I fire a charged Judicator shot, the ice slides across any platform it comes in contact with. If I fire at the floor, the ice will slide toward wherever I'm facing. Freezes anything that it hits. Works almost instantly. Now open the freaking door!" Noxus was getting impatient. He knew that they had to hurry before the Pirates started to use Gorea clones elsewhere...

"Got it!" Sylux exclaimed. Noxus leaned his head over to see what was in there, but before he could see, Sylux quickly slammed the door in his face.

"What was that for!" Noxus screamed angrily.

"High Phazon levels. And there was definitely something breathing in there. I'm guessing Phazon-infused Elite Pirates. This ship is definitely used for more than Gorea clones, that's for sure. ARE YOU LISTENING!" Sylux turned around and saw Noxus scanning a computer. Apparently he hadn't heard a word Sylux said.

"I've got something. The next step in the Gorea cloning. I'll tell you it, but you won't like it," Noxus said gravely.

"Let me hear it. We have to know their every step so we can defeat them," Sylux ordered.

"Alright... It says here that they're almost done with perfecting the clones that are the same size as the original Gorea. Once that's done, they're gonna infuse them with Phazon. Eventually, once the clones are full size and as powerful as the original, the Phazon will make them... unstoppable..." Noxus finished explaining. " Sy, stop standing around and start running! We have to find the containment chamber where most of the cloning is taking place! You realize what could happen!"

"Oh my God... Phazon? I found a blue creature actually CONTROLLING Phazon somewhere on Tallon IV. That stuff was seriously the strongest substance I've ever seen. It turned a Zoomer into some kind of monster! So I have three words. Find that Gorea!" Sylux screamed. He heard guards running, but Noxus used his newly-discovered Shadow Freeze on them. They both immediately ran down the hallway, trying to find their way through all of the intersections. It may be hours before they found where the cloning took place...

"HOW MANY OF THESE THINGS ARE THERE!" Trace was screaming. While trying doors, Samus, Trace, and Spire had ended up in some kind of arena. By the looks of it, this is where they tested the power of different types of Gorea clones. There were stampedes of Space Pirate troopers running in!

Trace was working on close-range sniping, but there were too many to kill. Heads were flying everywhere, but it was no good. They just kept coming. Samus decided to run through with the Morph Ball, boosting through and laying bombs. She successfully cause a few to explode. She gave up on this and started firing missiles. Spire apparently was the strongest pf all three against these opponents. He was able to fire just one charged MagMaul shot, and set at least five troopers on fire. Despite their screams of agony, Spire repeatedly fired MagMaul shots, both charged and uncharged. Flaming Pirates were exploding everywhere you looked. Soon enough, they stopped running into the room. Apparently there were none left to send in.

"Hurry! They ran out of troopers! Just kill these ones! I'll go alert the others!" Samus ordered over the sounds of the guns and the screams. She quickly ran out of the room through the door they came in through.

"Sylux! Kanden! Bring your teams to these coordinates. I think we're getting closer!" Samus ordered confidently over her transmitter. They were closer than they would ever know...

"Okay. We'll be over as soon as possible! Weavel, over here! Enough with the doors, we gotta go! Team Two is probably extremely close to the main controls for the cloning process!" Kanden exclaimed. They immediately started running to the other side of the ship.

"STOP! There's a guard! ElectroLob him!" Weavel ordered in a hoarse whisper. He and Kanden started a rapid barrage of BattleHammer and Volt Driver shots, imitating a prototype weapon called the ElectroLob. The guard quickly turned around, but then fell to the ground with a sickening thud.

"Now hurry!" Kanden ordered. They ran as fast as they could to the other side of the ship, following Samus's coordinates.

"Just get in there! Trace and Spire can't do this alone!" Samus ordered. Noxus, Weavel, Sylux, and Kanden all ran straight into the arena. Trace sniped the last trooper as soon as they came in. He jumped to the ground with ease in front of the others.

"Sorry. Me and Spire took out the rest of em. Maybe we should be a team or something. I'm thinking Team HeatSho- what was that?" Trace stopped talking when a giant thud came out of nowhere. All of the hunters soon looked at the other side of the arena. There were more noises like the previous one, and they seemed to be coming closer. Then with an ear-shattering crash, the entire wall across from them collapsed! And behind it... three Omega Pirates...

"WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE!" Noxus screamed. The gargantuan Pirates, infused with Phazon, slowly walked over to the hunters, each releasing a threatening roar that shook the entire arena. The whole room was lit by a dim blue light, emanating from the creatures.

"The Omega Pirate can become invisible to normal sight. It is vulnerable when cloaked, as all energy is drawn from defense systems. By exposing itself to Phazon, it can regenerate damaged tissue and organs. Considered the pinnacle of the Elite Pirate program, this enemy should be handled with extreme caution and maximum firepower," Samus read from her log book. "But there's one thing I don't understand. These Pirates are invisible to the naked eye unless they are in a quantity of Phazon. But the only Phazon in here is inside them. How are they visible?"

"I scanned a computer on the way here," Kanden explained. "It said they gave the Omega Pirates some new technology to go invisible at will. Pretty useful, actually. They could intimidate foes like this. But now's not the time. We gotta kill them before they kill us!"

"Alright. Now, everyone set up the MagMaul. I'll use Plasma Beam, as I did last time I fought one of these. See the bluer areas? Those areas are where most of the Phazon is. Fire any sort of heat-based weaponry there, meaning the MagMaul. We should use the Judicator and Ice Beam on those spots first, then the heat weapons. Then once that's done, everyone set up the Imperialist and fire at the head! Got it! Now let's go kick ass!" Samus explained. They split up and ran towards the Pirates. This may be their last battle... these Pirates are stronger than they look.

"One thing!" Samus yelled while firing the MagMaul. She just hoped the others could hear her over the roars of the Pirates and their own yells. "When they go invisible, you without thermal visors go fight the visible Pirates, or run to the back and wait! Me, Sylux, and Weavel will continue fighting!" She fired an Imperialist-like Plasma shot at the Pirate across the room. "Now just keep fighting!"

Seven simultaneous Imperialist lasers shot directly at the face of one of the Omega Pirates. With one last scream, the Pirate exploded, blood and Phazon spewing everywhere! (But there was already so much blood in this room from the Troopers that they couldn't even tell there was more). The other Pirates could not care less, and were still trying to kill the hunters.

"One down, two to go!" Spire exclaimed triumphantly. Noxus ran straight by him with a charged Judicator shot, and ran straight for another Pirate. He jumped as high as he could, grabbed a support beam, and flung himself on top of it.

"SURPRISE!" Noxus yelled, and then he jumped off the beam, flying right next to the Pirate's shoulder, and fired his gun. With a deafening scream of revenge and fury, the Omega Pirate swatted Noxus away, sending him sliding across the floor!

"NOXUS!" Samus screamed. She ignored the battle and ran over to Noxus, who was unable to move. His entire body was covered in blood. Samus couldn't be sure if he would survive this time.

"I'll be alright," Noxus said, trying to catch his breath. "Just go take care of those Pirates and finish the mission. If I don't make it, you can count on me watching out for you guys. For the mean time, I'll try to recover."

"No. I'll try to heal you. The others can take care of the fight for now," Samus said to Noxus. She was just hoping that Noxus would survive.

"Alright, one more!" Trace yelled to the others over the scream of the falling Pirate. He set up the Judicator, as did the other hunters (except Samus and Noxus), and started to fire at separate parts. The Pirate tried to defend itself, but its attempts were useless. All of its Phazon-infused areas were frozen, and the hunters started firing MagMaul shots at them.

"We finally got this down! Now just fire Imperiliast shots at the head and we'll move on to the search for the leader!" Kanden said proudly. The head of the Omega Pirate exploded, spewing blood everywhere. The body fell to the ground with a thundering crash, and this battle was over. The roars and screams had stopped. Samus and Noxus walked over, seeing what had happened.

"Well done. I healed Noxus, but he might not be at full strength just yet. Anyway, now we can go find the captain of this ship and give him a piece of our minds. The cloning is also somewhere near here. But if we can eliminate the leader of these Space Pirates, we can decrease the speed of the cloning. So go find them, stat!" Samus ordered.

"That won't be necessary..." A shadow-like figure entered the room from the other end of the room.

"Who the hell is that!" Trace screamed.

"I am Berng Surdreck. CAPTAIN Berng Surdreck. Your mission ends here..."