This is a short little story I wrote as an "explanation" of all the random powerups scattered around the various planets in Metroid games. I have to say, I wouldn't discount it entirely as the real reason those pickups are where they are...

The story begins many years ago, when the Chozo were just little chicklets in the nests of giant prehistoric birds...

Let me set the scene: hot iron pours down into sizzling smelting pits. Steam rises from an endless, spiderwebbing network of conveyer belts and lifts that churn and clank and turn endlessly. This is the Galactic Weapons Manufacturing main plant, where armaments of all kinds are created and then packaged-with lots of bubble wrap-for shipping across the star systems. Enter one plant manager, Mr. K.G. Igarashi.

Igarashi, to a worker: What is this? What is this? We're two days behind schedule on the order for the Federation systems!

Worker: We're working as fast as we can! But the creature—

Igarashi, throwing up his palms: Don't! Don't breathe another word! I don't want you bringing that misfortune on us!

Igarashi stalks away to get on another worker's case, and the man shakes his head, wondering how talking about the monster could somehow cause it to appear. That's ridiculous, he thought to himself as he returned to his task. There's no way that could happen.

Yet, against all odds, it happened.

They'd heard it before; knew it all too well. That low moan, swelling from the distance as if descending from the brilliant moon visible past the factory's open top. The workers stiffened, looking skyward in terror. Igarashi stopped in the act of dramatically drawing his hand across his neck in a ghhhck sort of motion indicating what would happen should they be any later on the Federation contract, and swallowed nervously.

Igarashi, sweating; his voice almost breaking: Why have you all stopped! Get back to work!

A roar now; unmistakable, pronounced. A ghastly sound, like lost souls calling back from the grave, groaning to the living for reasons unknown and terrifying. It was inevitable that panic would break out; it always did, despite Igarashi's protests-they all knew what was coming. Men began to edge from their stations.

Igarashi: No, no, no! It is nothing! The wind! Stay where you are! Get back to w—

The wall immediately behind Igarashi was decimated as something large imposed its presence on the factory with great force, and the manager was lost in a flare of rubble. Moments before a heavy block of debris landed on him, unbeknownst to anyone—they were all fleeing—the man thought crossly to himself, There goes the Federation contract.

One of the workers screamed over the cacophony of wailing alarms as he ran. "Crocomire!"

The great red beast howled as it slouched through the giant hole it had punched in the thick stone wall and toward the pools of molten metal that bubbled and hissed as if leery themselves of his approach. The workers shoved and trampled each other in their wild hurry to escape the monster that had began tormenting their refinery for years—never before had it entered the building itself—and more than one unfortunate man was fed to the smelting containers. Only one of them had the wits to hit the large red button labeled (of course) DO NOT PRESS and activate the emergency materials ejection. The factory combined the intense heat of molten metal work with actual caches of the very, very explosive weapons it manufactured from that metal; were a fire—or even a significant amount of heat—to spread to the wrong area, a miles-wide area would become a large charred circle of ruins. This, while it certainly would have rid them of Crocomire, would also ensure they were all burned, liquefied, and dried to dust by the enormous and possibly partially nuclear and/or plasma-based blast. Then the lawsuits would begin.

The emergency protocol consisted of loading every last gun, bomb, missile, and bullet into a giant unmanned freighter which would ship off into space to a predetermined company location. Everything was going great until Crocomire decided to grab hold of one of the craft's wings in a passing fancy. Moments later, the monster found himself exiting the atmosphere, dangling from the ship as it rocketed away from the factory and the workers, many of whom would require long-term therapy to regain full control of their trembling limbs.

Blurgh? he queried, reasonably, as a light tickling of roaring flames spilled out around him.

Minutes into hyperspace, the wing tore off completely; with a somewhat exasperated Bluuuuuurrrrrrgh, Crocomire disappeared into the reaches of space, drifting, perhaps towards a certain planet where a few birds had just learned to stand on two legs...

The shuttle faired much worse. With one wing gone and nothing to seal the gap where it had been attached, hundreds upon hundreds of armaments spilled out of the freighter and into the vacuum—Missile Tanks, Bomb Containers, Beams, Suits… Igarashi might have sobbed.

Years later, Samus Aran first found a Long Beam upgrade held—against all odds—in the hands of a Chozo statue.

A/N: A high-five to anyone who gets the pun/reference in the plant manager's name. I'll be updating this fic whenever I write another story that fits in it, which, given my general reluctance to focus for an extended period of time on my more-major wiritng projects, probably won't be long.

Before that, though, feel free to drop off your review...