7.11.2009—fixed "Nelunna" to read "Kan-Lana."

Chapter 5

Unaii tread through the poorly lit corridors in the belly of the destroyer, flanked on all points of the compass by his escort—a rugged quartet of Zebesians who regarded him phlegmatically, though a few quizzical looks indicated that they had indeed recognized him but could not connect a name to his face. He scowled. Years of go, his face and his name had been plastered seamlessly together. How fast, he thought, a man can slip into anonymity, into nothingness, when absorbed by a single obsession. Indeed, the damage Samus Aran had done to his life had not ended those years ago. No, her touch was an injury not unlike a severed limb. He would carry this emptiness, be haunted by ghost pains for the rest of his life. He should have killed her when he had the chance, should have plummeted his ship right into the side of this destroyer, killing them both. It would have been poetic. His species would have lauded it as the ultimate act of bravery and patriotism, an appropriate vindication for the one Zebesian who had neglected them all for the sake of personal vendetta. But it was too late.

And now, he realized, Samus Aran would already be in the Apocalypse Room. Re-Kuluk was an imbecile. Samus would not understand the principles of the Apocalypse Room; she would not show reservation if Re-Kuluk yielded. Some god, he thought, pondering the foolishness of his own species.

--

It was beast versus beast in the Apocalypse Room.

Samus sent a missile squarely into the Space Pirate's chest plate before he, proceeding unfazed, rammed into her. Then, the creature was squirming on top of her, wrestling with her, battering her helmet, its mass disgustingly pressing down on her waist and chest.

Now, in a brief moment in space and time, being abused by this Space Pirate, a piece of herself suddenly eclipsed the hunter, a swelling of loneliness and doubt and weakness. She would die here, in this tiny, dark room that might as well be a dungeon. She wanted to die here. She wanted to shut out the screams, to forget it all, to suddenly become nothingness, existence was not worth the pain of this fight, of another kill she would be forced to make.

No. She would not die here. She would kill this new foe, no matter the pain. She was the Hunter, singular, complete, and this foe would learn the price of provoking the predator of predators. She clutched the Space Pirates thin throat with one hand, dislodged her arm cannon from his mass and shot him in the face. He sprung up and backpedalled, clutching his eyes, screaming. He was just an animal. Just a series of chemical reactions. That scream was not indicative of any real agony. It was only an evolutionary mechanism designed to promote survival.

She was up in a second, charged at the blinded Space Pirate, and barreled into his midsection. She was over him now, beating his face with the blunt surface of her arm cannon. She wanted to crush his skull. She was going to crush his skull.

But she did not crush his skull. Her arm fatigued. The arm cannon slowed, then stopped entirely. She rose from the ground, feeling noxious, the crumpled figure of the Space Pirate beneath her, disgustingly still. Blankly, she walked to the other side of the room and collapsed on herself. She watched herself as she let her power suit melt away. Saw a forearm covered in blue—her zero suit. Was there another suit beneath that, too? No, this was it. This was her entire wardrobe, the one that she carried with her always: one power suit for the Hunter, one zero suit for Samus Aran. No bright yellow dresses or pink skirts for the girl. No feathers or daisies in her hair. No talking about dresses with the other girls. No handsome date, holding her hand, holding her hips, kissing her softly, then holding her closely as they danced the last song. They were all dead—the friends that she never had, the date that she never kissed. That life had been murdered years ago, before it had even begun. And so there were no dresses.

She was felt pitiful, and felt pitiful for feeling so. Some part of her badgered her, told her to arise and finish the job that she had started. To get up and make her way back to the hangar of this damnable ship, murdering every living thing on her way. No, that would be unfair. Why should certain beings have to die just because they had the misfortune of running into her? No, she could make a stop at the warp bay, overload the superluminal core. She could hack into the computer and lock the hangar doors to ensure that only she would escape. That would be clean. That would be fair. That's how she had done it so far, it would be stupid to change now, it's good to keep life consistent. What was one more ship?

Her thoughts turned to Zebes. Always to Zebes. The planet where she had been raised by the Chozo, where she had returned to find only their ruins, a Space Pirate base sprouting on the same soil where they had taught her to lunge, to spring, to fight. They were like a cancer, a tumor, she had thought, and she had exterminated them with a surgeon's precision. Had she known? Had she known that destroying the Mother Brain would initiate the explosion that consumed that whole complex? Had Zebesian women and children died in that explosion? What if she had known? What most disturbed her, however, was not her uncertainty. It was her confidence that she would have done it anyway. She would have pulled the self-destruct switch herself if she had to.

But her thoughts disintegrated as she a claw gripped her throat and lifted her from the ground. She felt emptiness close on her vision as her throat was constricted. Her arms flailed helplessly around, beating on her assailant.

Then, they stopped. Because she did not care anymore. This would be her penance.

Then, just when the rim of darkness closed entirely around her vision and the dizziness overwhelmed her mind, she toppled to the floor.

"You live up to your name, Samus Aran," said the Re-Kuluk in his ominous Zebesian undertones.

She blacked out.

--

Unaii surveyed Re-Kuluk with a potentially offensive look of surprise.

"I am shocked to see you are still alive."

"Why do you say that? She is a fellow surzak. You know our ways."

Unaii scowled at the term. If Re-Kuluk had summoned him from his provided quarters to gloat, Unaii promised himself that he would be neither impressed nor vexed by this petty Zebesian. Besides, Re-Kuluk's survival in the Apocalypse Room had clearly passed by a thin margin. With blue bruises spotting the left side of his face and burns marking the right, he looked like he had just crossed paths with Ridley himself, and their meeting had not been cordial.

"She may be a surzak, but she is also a human," Unaii said, as if reminding a toddler of a basic fact. "You and I may know our ways, but she does not. She would have killed you. I'm surprised she didn't."

"You insult my prowess," Re-Kuluk growled.

"I insult your perceptiveness."

"You insult both. And watch your audacity aboard my ship. I may remember you, but that is all you are now—a memory."

Ah, here it was.

"If you speak of my former status, I fail to care," said Unaii with as much coolness as he could muster. "I'd rather be a anonymous sage than an infamous fool."

"We both know that's not true. And, even so, are you the anonymous sage that you seem to imply? Going back and forth between each corner of the galaxy, a oujak, a Zebesian without an overlord, hunting another surzak in hopes of mutating an immutable past."

Unaii tried to hide his scowl. "I did it for the good of our—"

"You did it for the good of your grudge," Re-Kuluk said flatly.

"I hope you came here with more than these petty criticisms."

"No, I may be a surzak, but, unlike Ridley," he said, beaming at his own comparison, "I have some sense of mercy. Be grateful that I found you, because he would have murdered you, though I should probably do the same. After all, your ideologies are responsible for the sad state of our people today."

Unaii sensed Re-Kuluk's anger. He was trying to hold in his hatred. And he was failing. Perplexingly, Unaii realized that he enjoyed Re-Kuluk's petty attempts at stoicism.

"Ah," said Unaii, tinting his voice with a sarcastic nostalgia, "what happened to the Re-Kuluk I once knew? Sad state of our people, you say? You may not have the temperament of Ridley, but you once had his sense of pride and honor."

Re-Kuluk's fingers tightened into a fist, and Unaii knew his comment had driven home.

"How can I have pride when our people stand side-by-side with such cosmic garbage as the human race? How can any of us have honor when most of us have been enslaved by the ideas of a foolish visionary?"

"Are you saying that I'm responsible for this Republic, this concoction?"

"Yes. You are, oujak."

"I had nothing to do with it. You pointed it out yourself. I've spent the last three years engrossed in a personal vendetta, as you say."

"Your absence is not a vindication. It was your ideas that spawned this twisted alliance between Zebesians and humans."

"My ideas were taken and distorted. They're not my own anymore."

Re-Kuluk's eyes lit up, as if he had been expecting that response. "Then you will help me end this."

Unaii nodded to himself. Finally, the real purpose of this conference.

"If you help me kill Samus Aran," he said.

"No. I need her."

Unaii was not sure if he heard correctly. "What?"

"I need her."

"Need her for what? She's a dishonorable killer, Re-Kuluk! She's massacred our people!"

"She is a surzak."

"Our fear, not our respect, gave her that title."

"Aren't they one and the same? She has power, Unaii. Potential. She can be used for a purpose."

"She doesn't even understand us. You speak of an alliance with a creature who does not even speak our language."

"Barriers that have thought to be impenetrable have been crossed before."

"And some barriers may never may cross. Don't smash yourself into stone thinking it's water."

Unaii's own words resonated through his mind. Years ago, somebody had told him something similar once. Yes, the memory rolled through his mind. He had said something like--

"That's a vast oversimplification," chided Re-Kuluk. "These matters are neither absolute nor static, and failure to adapt means failure to survive. Samus Aran is now the enemy of our enemy—and, by traditional war thought, is therefore our friend."

Unaii was not listening, though he knew the words of this conversation. He was trying to remember a feeling that he used to have. Part of him had believed it would return now that he was once again among his people. But instead there was only hatred, powered by one name, by a singular, powerful memory.

Kan-Lana.

"You are mistaken," he said, speaking as if in a trance. "She is an enemy of us, of our very existence. Her hate for us is as great as mine for her, her obsession twofold. She would never comply." Then, his eyes refocused, his mind once again turned to the room in which he sat. "Do you honestly believe you can turn her against her own kind, have her help the one species she has devoted her life to destroying?"

"When she sees the state of her own kind, she may reconsider."

"You don't know that." He sprung from his seat, tightening his fists. "Re-Kuluk, this is our chance. She is in our hands!"

"Stop pleading with me, will you? You are pathetic, Unaii. For a visionary, you have very little vision."

"I'll not stop hunting her. As long as she lives, as long as she breathes—"

"We can do this without you."

"You would turn away your own kind--what's more, your own kin--to associate with this—this monster!"

"I personally don't care if you agree to my conditions or not. But be warned. If you kill Samus Aran, she will care."

Shivers jolted up Unaii's narrow spine. His eyes flitted to the red Phazon globe gleaming at the heart of Re-Kuluk's armor, then to the blur of stars outside the window. "Dark Samus," he breathed. "That doesn't make any sense. The animosity between them is unbreakable."

"Do not question the power of the Prophet! She is the surzak of the surzak. Even Ridley bends to her higher will. In these confused times, she is our only hope. Unlike you, she is willing to neglect her animosities for the sake of her goals, for the sake of our people."

"Have you caught phazon madness from your pretty armor? You are insane, Re-Kuluk!"

"They said the same of Ridley when he united our people. She will not only bring us together; she will help us dominate this region of space. She will help us wipe out these petty humans."

"She will bring doom upon us all. Zebesian and human alike."

Re-Kuluk was silent. Unaii, wordlessly rose from his seat and strode indignantly from the room, feeling the irony burning into him like a pulse from Samus Aran's arm cannon. Re-Kuluk, speaking of cooperation? Speaking of adaption? And Unaii himself demanding the death of the Hunter? When had they traded places?

No, he knew when. He knew exactly when. And it had been for good reason. He had been a fool before then, just as Re-Kuluk was a fool now.

Kan-Lana...

He would kill Samus Aran. To hell with the rest of this nonsense.