Thank you for your patience with this chapter! It took much longer to finish than I originally planned, but since this chapter is one of the most important in the story, I wanted to make sure it was up to par (and I wanted to make sure the chapter illustration was good too). This is one of those chapters that would probably function better as a comic book rather than a fanfiction, but this is meant to be the most intense chapter until the climax at the end of the story (chapter 10).
…
Aether's slate-blue atmosphere sparkled like a star as Kursed's fighter approached its surface. She appreciated the view at first, until the metallic color reminded her of her prosthetic arm. Her expression soured and she turned her attention back to the holographic map near her seat.
The Space Pirates gave her ample information on reaching Aether's Sanctuary Fortress. Their map of the stronghold showed that it was armed to the teeth with anti-air defenses; no wonder the Pirates were uninterested in a large frontal assault. As soon as she descended below the clouds, she dipped low below the fortress, hugging the lowest mountains to avoid the range of the fortress's defenses. She weaved around the lower peaks for a time until she found a small mountain alcove to park her ship in. She took a quick moment to stretch her arm as she exited, and soon she was hiking up the side of the mountain towards the imposing fortress above.
The Pirates had told her that the Luminoth's Sanctuary Fortress was an ancient structure that was built during a previous crisis many years ago, but it was still in immaculate condition. Even as she approached from below the fortress, she saw the same banners flying from the hologram the Pirates had shown her, and the castle's polygonal architecture reflected off Aether's natural light like a Cornerian skyscraper. Thinking about Corneria's buildings made her realize how far she was from any familiar place, but even if the fortress was well-fortified, she would take the well-kept, and well-lit stronghold over the dim scraps of Locust any day.
Her telepathy picked up the quiet hum of a robot approaching her from around the mountain. She cautiously hugged the wall and readied her blaster, but she was met by a large, bulbous robot with many arms that seemed to stare at her with its "eyes" but didn't mind her presence at all. "Must be a maintenance drone," she thought—a maintenance drone that was circling the mountain and ascending back up to the fortress. She jumped from the wall and landed on the side of the drone's round head, but it only paused for a moment before it continued its ascent, and it carried Kursed up to one of the fortress's lower balconies. She opened the nearest door with her blaster, and moments later she was inside.
The fortress's spacious halls were brighter than the exterior; even the walls were constantly moving with lights, and swarms of miniature bug-like drones scuttled on the floors and walls surrounding her, their metallic backs reflecting the natural light that came through the windows. Kursed felt like she was in a high-tech research lab, or in a top-secret base full of hyper developed technology, but it was far from the historical structures she remembered from Sauria. She cautiously stared at one of the bug-like drones as it bumped against her foot, but it simply corrected itself and continued on its way without a moment of hesitation. Before she could breathe a sigh of relief, she heard a sharper metallic noise behind her, and she spun on her heel to address it.
Another sharp noise rang out through the large corridor as a much larger robot rounded the corner. The robot's four sharp legs clacked against the metallic floor like a spider as it patrolled the hall, its bright red eye scanning the area for anything out of the ordinary. The unordinary vixen dove for a pile of crates near the corridor's entrance and huddled against them as the robot approached. The tall, four-legged guard paused for a moment to shine its red eye on the pile of crates, but it resumed its normal patrol shortly afterward. As it turned away, Kursed slowly emerged from her hiding spot to get a better look at it. Several weapons and what looked like a shielding device covered the head, while sharp edges and additional artillery covered the robot's four blade-like legs. "QUAD-MB" was printed on the legs. Fighting one of these "Quad" robots didn't seem too challenging; her experience fighting hordes of goons or even groups of Aparoids did not fail her, but she was nervous that one of the Quads would activate a security alarm and make her Metroid prize harder to obtain. The last thing she needed was for a blast door to impede her progress.
The Pirates' map of Aether's surface was detailed, but their map of the Sanctuary Fortress's interior was nothing to go by—apparently most of their operations on Aether had been in the planet's desert regions—and she doubted the Luminoth would leave a map hanging around their base like a touring brochure at a museum. The little drones bumping into her toes probably wouldn't offer directions, and she wasn't about to take a chance with the Quad robots either.
Instead, she closed her eyes and began to think carefully about her surroundings. Her telepathy picked up hundreds upon hundreds of different machines and processes, each with its own distinct robotic drawl, but she had trained herself to handle environments like this. Innocent Krystal would have been unable to handle all the different noises, and her mind would effectively shut off, but Kursed had come a long way since her last mission in the Lylat airspace, where her inability to focus had haunted her and motivated her to train. The machines in this fortress were spread out over a great distance, she didn't need to worry about the noises echoing in a smaller space constantly.
She expanded her thoughts to try and cover as much of the fortress as possible, but the sea of monotone machine hums persisted. The Pirates described the Luminoth as organic, and she doubted they were a hivemind like the Aparoids were, but she couldn't sense anything that would resemble Luminoth thoughts. At first there was a distinct lack of organic thoughts in the base, but eventually she picked up something different. She tuned out the machinery around her to focus on thought patterns that were more mature than any thoughts she had read in a while. It was the mind of a hunter, but it was far more focused than Leo's mind or any other hunter she had read on Locust. Kursed shuddered. She had a faint idea of whom the thoughts could belong to, but she didn't want to think about it. The Pirates had warned her that a certain other hunter would be after the Metroid also. Had the other hunter reached the Metroid already? Did the Metroid have thought patterns of its own? She took her mind away from the hunter's mind and focused for any more unusual thought patterns.
She picked up another series of thoughts far away from the hunter. They were at least organic, and they were much more erratic compared to the static noise from the robots, but they were garbled as if the thoughts were trying but failing to think of many things at once. Was it an Aparoid? Impossible—they were all wiped out with the queen's destruction, and these thought patterns seemed much simpler, almost juvenile. Simple words and phrases passed through this mind, such as "hungry" or "glass" but they were repeated so often that they seemed to echo. It was difficult for Kursed to concentrate on other things as she listened to it.
She quietly exited her hiding spot and made her way towards the source of the strange thought patterns. Quad robots and other turrets became more prominent as she delved deeper into the fortress, but avoiding security was as familiar to Kursed as beating up hapless ruffians. The Quads may have been intimidating, but their patrolling was hardly more advanced than the Aparoid turrets she recalled from the war.
Her pursuit of the thought patterns took her past a large spherical chamber with spinning dynamos and around the outskirts of a massive dome cluttered with unfinished robot parts. She encountered many doors and devices with locks she couldn't open, at least not without ample noise, but her litheness allowed her to navigate through small gaps that the Luminoth architects did not design for. Her metal arm was still unruly to use, but it only impeded her slightly as she crawled through air ducts and climbed over magnetic walls meant for more of the sanctuary's many drones.
After dropping down from a vent in the ceiling, she found herself in an uncharacteristically cramped and dim corridor, with a pair of metal doors at the end. Her telepathy confirmed that the strange thoughts' source was beyond the door, so she quickly "hacked" the door's locks by shooting at the nearby controls with a blaster shot.
The room beyond the doors was dark except for a series of small lights from various machinery. Computer displays and cords were scattered around the room, all focused on a small, glowing tube in the center. Inside the tube was a familiar, jellyfish-like creature. The Metroid! It continued its menacing sway back and forth even in the smaller confines of the tube, but it stopped swaying shortly after Kursed began to stare at it. It seemed to stare back at her, despite the apparent lack of eyes. It screeched occasionally, although the glass tube muffled most of its noise.
Now that she was right next to it, Kursed confirmed that the Metroid was the source of the strange patterns. She could read its "mind" clearer than ever now, and even though its thoughts were still garbled, she was able to pick apart bits and pieces of it: Bored. Confined. Hungry. The longer she stared, the slower the thoughts seemed to become, as if the Metroid was trying to communicate with her in its own way. It clicked its mandibles together and pressed against the glass, but somehow Kursed felt like it wasn't trying to take a bite out of her. Eventually she picked up a new word: Mama!
Kursed's eyes grew wide as the Metroid began to chirp and Mama! became the focus of its thoughts. "What? I'm—I'm not your mother!" she thought, as if trying to reason with it, but the Metroid didn't listen or couldn't listen; it only continued its muffled screeches and kept repeating the word in its juvenile mind. To Kursed, it was almost cute, if it weren't for the Metroid's unsettling appearance. She sighed. In a way, she felt bad for the creature. Despite its appearance, it was clearly an infant that was held against its will. She had half a mind to free it and find a safe place for it to live… Kursed shook her head. What in the world was she doing? This was an important mission! She'd earn enough money from this bounty to start a new life in seclusion, away from heartbreak. Why was she empathizing with a parasite? This was no time for compassion, she had a job to do!
As she briefly took her mind off the Metroid, she picked up the mind of a focused hunter, much closer than before. She needed to get out, and fast.
She noticed a handful of latches that kept the Metroid's tube attached to the central computer, but it was easy to remove. She figured that several Luminoth had already moved it around before, considering the scratches along the tube's bottom—hopefully the scratches weren't from a certain creature's mandibles. The tube detached itself with a satisfying click, as if she was dismantling a vacuum cleaner. The Metroid's chirps grew more excited as the tube was removed, but Kursed paid no attention. She had half a mind to try and reason with it more, but she doubted it would understand her. It seemed to have a connection with her, but she had no idea how. Now wasn't the time to concern herself with that, anyway. She felt the other mind getting closer.
She still had no map, but hopefully she could just retrace her steps and—
Suddenly, a muffled blast rang out from beyond the metal doors. Kursed's fur stood on end. The explosion sounded close. She dreaded to think that removing the Metroid's container would cause security to come after her, but she was worried that the explosion was from something else. She tucked the Metroid's container under her arm and ran for the doors.
As soon as Kursed began running, the automatic doors flung open, and a tall figure dressed in orange and red armor appeared. The armored warrior's right arm was accompanied by a large green arm cannon that was still emitting smoke. Kursed couldn't see the figure's face past the armor's green visor, but she could tell from the figure's posture that it was the source of the focused mind she picked up. She had encountered the bounty hunter Samus Aran, and in the worst possible place.
Kursed stopped short and took a step backwards. Up until now, all she had heard of Samus was stories, some more outlandish than others. Some suggested Samus could destroy whole planets and populations on her own, while some claimed she had saved the universe more often than even Star Fox had in their biggest years. She had seen pictures, but she was not expecting the armored hunter to be so tall and imposing. Samus's armor was much brighter than any armor Kursed had seen on other hunters, but the vixen suddenly felt very underdressed by comparison.
"Put the Metroid down."
Samus aimed her arm cannon straight at the blue huntress's head as the smoke receded, and bright energy particles began to form at the tip. Her voice was commanding, and her pose matched. Under normal circumstances, poor and frightened Krystal would have cowered away and listened to the hunter's demands, but Kursed was not one to be intimidated, especially when her future was at stake. She feigned lowering the Metroid's container while drawing her blaster with her free hand, but she barely had time to raise her blaster by the time Samus fired her first shot.
A lump of yellow energy rammed into the barrel of Kursed's stun gun, knocking it out of her hand and across the dark room. As Kursed recovered, a second shot flew past her face, grazing her cheek with heat. Samus was already charging a third blast as Kursed faced her again.
"Last chance." Samus said sternly. "Drop the Metroid. Now."
Kursed figured the first volley was just a warning, but the blasts had a distinct shape and speed compared to the blaster shots she was familiar with. Slower, too. She wasn't as well equipped as Samus, but she could use her lack of armor to her advantage. She steeled herself as she set the Metroid container down on the floor, but she reached for her staff on her back at the same time. Even if Samus' shots weren't any bigger or slower compared to the bullets she was used to, Samus was barring her only exit out of the room, and avoiding the hunter while carrying the Metroid's heavy container was out of the question. She spun her staff in her hand and dashed towards Samus with incredible speed.
Samus fired her third charged shot, but Kursed was ready. She dodged the blast as if it was a dodgeball and kept up her dash. The whiffed blast flew to the back of the room until it smashed into a mess of lab equipment, and the force caused the Metroid's tube to fall over and begin rolling around. Samus switched to rapid-fire shots as Kursed closed the gap between them, but Kursed weaved in and out of the blasts like a phantom. Constant training had allowed her to dodge blaster shots of all kinds, and Samus's bigger and slower shots were no more difficult to avoid.
Once she was within range, Kursed slid underneath Samus' last shots and took a mighty upward swing with her staff, but Samus jumped over the swing and spun in the air, her body becoming encased in deadly sparks. Kursed hugged the floor as Samus passed overhead, but by the time Samus landed again, Kursed was already on top of her. The aggressive vixen stayed on the offensive as she unloaded the results from her Cerinian combat knowledge on Samus. Her staff swings were as quick as lightning but as precise as a mantis. The armored hunter kept up at first by using her arm cannon and free hand to deflect Kursed's attacks, but the vixen's constant barrage was forcing Samus to walk backwards slowly, even as she gradually formed another charged shot. Suddenly, Samus shifted out of the way of an overhead swing and fired a point blank charged shot at Kursed's head, but the vixen dove backwards and used the tip of her staff as a balance as she slammed her heel into Samus's stomach. Not fast enough. She thought. Engaging Samus like this was pumping her with wild adrenaline. The tip of her staff became encased in an electrical power as she changed its setting.
As Samus reeled back, Kursed jumped in the air and prepared to sink her electrified staff into Samus's neck like a javelin, but she was met with an electric grapple beam that grabbed at her legs and ruined her trajectory. Kursed fumbled with her staff and awkwardly landed as Samus landed a charged shot on the back of her shoulder. The force of the blast sent the shocked vixen flying until she landed near a mass of computer screens, and she laid motionless. The Metroid squealed as its container rolled into a wall.
Samus scanned the beaten vixen for a moment before turning her attention to the Metroid. It chirped and flexed its mandibles in response, as if it wanted to take a bite out of the hunter at any moment. But before Samus could pick up the Metroid's container, a bright flash of red energy slammed into her side. She stood up straight and faced Kursed just in time for another blast of fire to assault her helmet, and the fiery mist clouded her visor. Grunting, she fired a missile towards the fire's source, but the determined vixen was far past the missile as it tore through a series of machines with an audible explosion. Kursed kept her staff aimed at Samus and she bombarded the armored hunter with more fire blasts, each a direct hit. Samus tried to return fire, but her clouded vision restricted her to shoot in Kursed's general location, and Kursed was more than fast enough to dodge every volley. The walls of the room were lined with explosions and stray blasts as Kursed kept up her assault. Samus launched a super missile in frustration as her suit repelled the extreme heat and cleared her vision, but instead of hitting Kursed, it connected with one of Kursed's fire blasts instead. The resulting explosion leveled the room, knocking the two hunters to opposite walls and wrecking the rest of the lab equipment. The Metroid screamed as its unscathed container rolled around on the floor. The room was ablaze with fire now, and alarms were blaring.
INTRUDER ALERT. The robotic voice repeated over the speakers in the room and down the hallway.
The automatic doors opened again and two Quad robots stormed in, clearly unhappy to see intruders. One robot focused its laser sight on each hunter, and they aimed their weapons back in response. Suddenly, the hunters' tussle between each other seemed less important.
The robot targeting Samus began to unleash a flurry of bright energy as she shifted to dodge and return fire. Kursed's opponent fired a concentrated beam at her, but she had no issue dodging it after the volley she had endured just moments prior. She glanced over and saw that Samus was already preoccupied with the Quad targeting her. The Cerinian hunter dashed to the Metroid's container, scooped it up, and slid underneath the Quad's legs as fast she could.
"Wait!" Samus shouted, but once the robot lost sight of Kursed underneath, it focused its attention on Samus instead. Moments later, Kursed was out of the burning room with the Metroid in tow, where additional explosions were muffled by the distance. She wanted to stop to rest, but the sirens were still blaring overhead, and she was sure that more drones would arrive soon, and Samus wouldn't be preoccupied with the two Quads for long.
The vent she used earlier was too small for her to fit along with the Metroid's heavy container, so she closed her eyes tight and tried to focus to find an optimal escape route. For a while she only picked up Samus's intense focus and the Metroid's babbling, but suddenly, she picked up something else.
She balked. It felt like a mind that she had read countless times before. It was the mind of someone that she cared deeply for, or at least did at one time, but even if she had spent months trying to shut him out of her life, she still recognized Fox's familiar mind as soon as she sensed it. But how was that possible? Fox, here? It couldn't be. She was hundreds of thousands of lightyears away from any familiar person, why would she be sensing Fox's presence now? It had to be a trick. The Metroid's echoing thoughts must have been tampering with her concentration. Maybe the explosions were opening her mental scars. She couldn't bear to think about it. She ran for the nearest door and pried it open. She'd get out even without telepathy.
…
Wrecking an Arwing was never a situation that Fox enjoyed, but it was at least something he had encountered before. His fight with the Aparoids led to the destruction of many of his personal craft, and even if the Sanctuary Fortress had torn his ship apart faster than any Venomian threat could, Fox was still unscathed as he landed on one of the peaks surrounding the castle.
Sirens were already going off by the time Fox climbed up to a disclike platform near the fortress outskirts. Was the fortress already aware of his presence? No—hopefully it was due to a bounty hunter intrusion. He drew his blaster and opened the nearest door to the fortress, while running to the sirens as fast as possible. If Tricky was right, and Krystal was really a bounty hunter, then he hoped she was the reason for the sirens. And if not, hopefully it would be a hunter that would get him closer to her.
The corridors were spacious but there was no one else around except for an occasional worker drone as Fox ran. He wondered if the station's whole staff was wrapped up in the explosions. He tried to keep his thoughts focused, but as the explosions grew louder, he began to feel a strange presence in his head, as if someone familiar to him was nearby. Was it really Krystal? Was it just a false hope? He found himself thinking about her, back when they fought the Aparoids together on Sauria. Then the ugly memory of their separation entered his mind. Oh, how could he have been so stupid?
The distant sounds became less frequent, but Fox only ran faster. He rounded a corner and found himself in a series of hallways lined with Luminoth banners and weaponry on display. He dashed past the columns overhead and glimpsed at the combat gear and some of the defunct robots, but he stopped short as he faced forward again. There, on the other end of the chamber, was a familiar vixen. Even at the end of the hall, her cerulean fur was unmistakable.
Krystal!
Fox could barely control his thoughts. His blaster clattered to the floor as he stepped back. This couldn't be real, could it? He was silently hoping she would be on the station, but he was not actually expecting it. But there she was, only a hallway's length away from him, as real as she could be. Her outfit was different, her hair was longer, she seemed thinner, she had more scars… she still had the same mechanical arm. Her expression seemed rougher than it used to be, and her beautiful emerald eyes seemed less innocent than before, but she was still Krystal. Her face contorted to an equally shocked expression as Fox stared at her. They stared in silence for a moment, broken only by the occasional quiet screeches from Kursed's captive Metroid.
"Kuh… Krystal!" Fox stammered, his voice cracking and his eyes becoming moist. He had no spare energy to dedicate to controlling his senses, but he was so overwhelmed with emotion that he didn't know what to say next. He had so many things he wanted to say. To ask. Why was she here? He was so sorry! Where did all those scars come from? What was that parasite/jellyfish thing she was holding on to?
"I finally found you!" Fox finally said. He stepped cautiously towards her, worried that he might scare her away. She only stared back.
"Krystal, I'm so sorry! I should have never kicked you off the team. I miss you so much. Please come back." Fox spoke again but his speech was so rapid that he didn't even stop to think of what he was saying. As he got closer to her, his gaze began to fixate on her scars. They were a sickly red, a stark contrast to the white and blue of the rest of her fur. She looked like she was in constant pain. "Krystal, I'm so sorry. Your scars… What happened to you?"
"I…" Kursed tried to speak, but before she could, a bright flash of light erupted behind her. She shouted and fell to her knees, even more dazed than before. Behind her, a towering soldier dressed in pristine white armor lowered its smoking arm cannon. The soldier looked at Kursed briefly before scooping her up and the cylindrical container she was carrying.
"KRYSTAL?!" Fox shouted so loud that he thought his voice would give out, but he didn't care. He immediately grabbed his blaster from the floor and rushed towards Kursed while aiming his blaster at the armored assailant, but before he could reach them, a large metal blast door suddenly slammed shut in front of him. His charged shot smashed into the doors but left nothing but a few sparks as it dissipated.
"NO!" Fox roared as he pounded a fist on the impenetrable wall. Krystal was so close to him now: just on the other side of the door. He glanced at the blast door's central unit to the side. His blaster wasn't strong enough to destroy it, and he swore off grenades ever since Krystal's accident.
Behind Fox, one robot began to vibrate and roar to life, much unlike the others on display. It tore its huge arms from their charging ports, and it stomped out from its display area while powering up the cannon on its left shoulder. Its three laser eyes focused on Fox as he turned, and it slammed its huge fists together. "INGSMASHER ONLINE," the foreboding robotic voice boomed.
"I don't have time for this!" Fox groaned as he faced the Ingsmasher, which was already raising its massive fists over its head. A great energy field spread from the Ingmasher's fists as it pounded the floor, but Fox jumped and used the Ingmasher's cannon as a mount to reach the upper floor's balcony. He backflipped to the ground level while avoiding a concussive blast from the Ingmasher's shoulder cannon, but an axe kick to the robot's head did little more than force the Ingmasher to counterattack with a right hook. Fox ducked the swing, just in time for the robot's fist to slam into the wires on the wall and create a divot of newly-scrapped metal.
Fox's adrenaline was reaching a boiling point. "Come on!" he shouted as he beckoned the Ingsmasher to try again. The wily vulpine stood in front of the Ingsmasher's range, but before it could connect with another hook with its left arm, Fox dashed away as a trail of blue illusions followed him. The Ingsmasher furiously stomped after Fox and continuously swung its fists at him, but each time Fox was just out of range. Finally, Fox was cornered up against the same blast door that prevented him from reaching Krystal. He tried a kick against the robot's chest, and it reacted with a jab with its right hand. The Ingmasher's fist rushed forward like a torpedo, barely missing Fox's arm and instead connecting with the blast door's circuitry on the wall. Suddenly, the robot was ablaze with electric sparks, and the blast door began to raise slightly. On instinct, Fox slipped underneath the narrow space, rolled, and got back to his feet in a quick motion. He heard the Ingsmasher short-circuit and fall over as the blast door readjusted and closed behind him. More turrets threatened to slow him down as he rushed by, but he was too fast for normal turret fire to track, and his reflector device made quick work of any heat-seeking projectiles.
He smashed through a window leading into an outdoor area, complete with a huge suspension bridge that connected the main fortress to the rest of the mountains. At the other end of the bridge, he spotted the same armored soldier from before, and Krystal's limp body being loaded onto a transport ship.
"Stop!" Fox shouted as he sprinted across the bridge, but he only made it about halfway across by the time the transport ship rose above the bridge towards the silver sky above.
Fox was so close. He had seen her! The ship was already gaining distance from the bridge, but his wild adrenaline demanded he follow. He took a running leap off the bridge and dashed forward in midair with his illusions. So close, he was only meters away. He had one more trick left. Ensuring his reflector device was secure on his waist, he activated a device on his wrist and clenched his fists. Together with the power of his reflector, he became encased in an intense wave of thermal energy. Heat radiated from him until fire formed around the tips of his boots and his tail. He shouted and rocketed himself forward in a burst of flame, rapidly closing the rest of the gap between him and the ship.
As his flame-powered burst receded, he desperately reached out his hand towards the ship's closing latch, but he did not reach it. Everything seemed to slow to a crawl for a moment, but Fox's blazing determination took a sudden halt as he realized where he was. The transport ship was far out of his reach now, and the bridge was far from him. He gasped as he began to plummet towards the city thousands of meters below. He tried to activate the thermal device on his wrist again, but it needed to recharge.
Suddenly, an electric beam snagged Fox's heel and jerked him back, and moments later he instinctively grabbed the ledge of the bridge. A warrior clad in red and orange armor sheathed her grapple beam back into her wrist as she offered her hand to Fox.
"Thanks," Fox gasped as he climbed onto the bridge and sat down.
…
Thanks a ton for reading, I hope you enjoyed the action in this chapter. The Samus in this story is from the Prime games (especially Prime 2), and there are several enemies in those games, such as Space Pirates, that are fast and can dodge out of the way of some of Samus's beam weapons. If Kursed is faster than Space Pirates (and a much smaller target) then I think it makes logical sense that she can dodge Samus's attacks effectively.
This effectively marks the end of the first Act of the story. Several new characters and returning faces will appear in the second Act, and I'm hoping that those chapters will come out much sooner also. Thank you so much for your interest!