Samus woke up in the middle of the biosac, screaming, her instincts convinced she was drowning. But this time, before her fear could grow into a full-blown panic, two robotic arms quickly dragged her to the bottom of the sac and flushed her out via the exit tube. She found herself surrounded by air after what seemed like weeks, but was only days, in the biomechanical bubble. Two Chozo attended to her while she coughed out the liquid still in her throat and lungs. Her eyes felt painful in the dryness of the air, causing her to blink and squint often. Her attendants sponged the remaining liquid off her body and provided her with the clothes she had removed prior to entering the biosac. They fed her a watery soup which she practically inhaled from hunger.
An hour later, after recovering from the shock of 'rebirth' into the world, the two attendants carried the bounty hunter to meet with the Chozo elders, insisting that she shouldn't walk just yet. While winding around the mountainous corridors, Veaning caught up to them and was almost bouncing with joy at seeing her friend again.
"Samus! Samus! How are you feeling!" The Chozo slowed her run to a walk to keep pace with the litter Samus was being carried on.
"Oh, I'm feeling good." The bounty hunter took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. "It feels good to breathe again. I can actually smell things now. I'm also hungry, but they won't let me eat anything solid yet." She combed her fingers through her hair. "How long was I in there exactly?"
"You were in the biosac for almost 54 hours. The procedure went very quickly and very well." Veaning answered.
"So am I cured?" Samus leaned so far off the litter that she nearly sent herself tumbling to the ground.
Veaning cocked her head thoughtfully. "You will have to ask the elders."
"Hmm." The bounty hunter answered. "Say, what are you still doing here? I thought you would have returned to your Sheltering Tree already."
"Oh, my father keeps me busy with chores while I am here. My duties back home can wait."
"We have arrived at the Chamber of Sages." One of the attendants informed them. "You had best leave us now, Wind Daughter."
Veaning bowed in acknowledgement and disappeared down another corridor. Samus watched her go but then turned her attention to the exquisite chamber she was brought into. The first thing that caught her attention was the Chozo statue at the opposite end of the room, caressed by natural sunlight filtered in from windows dug out of the mountain. The figure's arms were outstretched as if trying to catch the light, giving it the appearance that its arms were a part of the artificial wings it wore. Its head was raised skyward, as if yearning to flap those wings and ascend to the heavens as Chozo of the past had done before they traded their wings for hands.
Sharp and the other planetary elder stood on a pedestal before the statue, almost like miniature versions of the stone figure. The rest of the elders and specialists formed a loose ring around the power suit which stood conspicuously at the center of the chamber. Samus's attendants lowered their burden in front of the suit.
"How do you feel, our Warrior?" Sharp asked kindly.
"Pretty good, now that I'm out of that bubble." Samus replied as she peeled back the skin hiding the opening to her suit. Will this be the last time her suit featured such an organic covering? "I'll feel much better once I know exactly what changes have been done to me."
"You realize that your time within the biosac was not meant to remove the metroid's DNA." The other planetary elder said. He was an extremely old Chozo, with whatever feathers remaining on his skin a faded grey. But as he talked, he stood up straight and powerful, unmoving save for his beak. His face was permanently severe, weathered by sun, snow, and space. "We successfully infused your genetic code with that of the Ultimate Warrior's so we could set some of the foreign genes as recessive. But we were unable to suppress them all in this fashion." For some reason, people didn't have a nickname for him. He was referred to by his given name, which was Aldornis.
"However, I believe you will find the results satisfactory, or at least tolerable." Sharp added. "Your ability to feed off a ghost's bonds will no longer be uncontrollable or even necessary. You may never use it again, or you might find it useful in some situations, especially when you are not wearing your suit."
"So I won't go crazy and accidentally eat someone again? And I won't become weak if I don't drain energy?" Previously, the Chozo had been bringing her small, live animals for her to drain so she wouldn't starve to death. Those animals would be put to sleep first, because it turned out that they would not feel the pain while they were asleep.
"That is correct." Aldornis said. "Your metroid-like behaviors are completely optional now."
Samus had a hard time tucking her hair into her suit without something to tie it up. She put on her helmet and still a few loose strands were caught on the outside. But as soon as she did, her suit began to transform before her very eyes. The elders murmured amongst themselves as they watched the amazing metamorphosis. The numerous archivists worked their holographic equipment. The changes did not occur suddenly, but fast enough for an almost fluid ripple to be seen over the suit's surface where something was about to grow or disappear.
Samus wondered if her suit would return to what it used to look like before the X infection, but that was unlikely due to the large portions of it that were simply removed. And it would still remain somewhat more organic, with the metroid blood controlled, but still free within her blood. The first changes were subtle, such as the shape of her visor widening slightly to give her a better range of vision. What seemed like orange metallic plates formed over the suit's shoulders and back, returning its appearance back into something more mechanical, yet evolutionarily elegant. She regained the spiked knees she once had. The arm blades remained on her left arm and her helmet still had the mandibles, although they were now segmented to allow for more movement. An armored chest-plate regrew over Samus's upper torso, leaving her waist less protected but with greater flexibility.
Samus rotated her shoulders and shook out her arms and legs, finding that the interlocking plates did not interfere with her movement at the joints. She rolled into a morph ball and found those plates covering her ball as well. She wondered how much defense those additions provided. It was almost without doubt that the metal plates were a legacy of her old power suit, as well as coming under the influence of the armor of evolved metroids.
"How does it feel, Warrior?" Sharp asked.
"It feels..." The Warrior coiled her legs and bounded into the air, somersaulting into an impressive screw attack before landing. "Efficient. These plates don't seem to make the suit any heavier."
"They might be, but your suit will automatically adjust your gravity so it does not seem so to you." Aldornis replied. "Are you satisfied with the results?"
"Yes. Yes, I think so."
A general murmur of approval rose from the other Chozo, with especially satisfied voices coming from those who performed the grunt work of adjusting Samus's suit and DNA. Aldornis tapped his cane and they all fell silent. "Then let me ask you a question, Hatchling." He said. "I understand that you were brought to this planet by the Dachoras and Etecoons because of your power suit malfunction. But now that you are healed, many paths lie open to your future. What do you intend to do now?"
A wry grin of confidence appeared on the bounty hunter's face. She took off her helmet. "I intend to go immediately to the remains of SR388, or what you call Troidemis. They say that the Eaters might have survived. I intend to do something about that."
Wind Elder, standing in the crowd, nodded his head in approval. Sharp smiled. "We had been hoping you would say that. Because, regretfully, we have a favor to ask of you, which only you can accomplish." She said. "Are you willing to do this for us, Warrior?"
"Yes." Samus immediately replied. "Anything." Debts must be repaid.
Aldornis spoke in his statuesque manner, his tone neutral. "You may have wondered why so many elders have gathered to oversee your recovery when it is mostly the biologists and technicians who specialize in the alterations of your suit and genetics. The truth is, we have gathered not only to resolve the problem of your suit, but also to discuss what should be done in response to some of your actions. You see, you are our Defender, but the results of some of your actions troubles us Chozo."
Samus opened her mouth to say something in her defense, but the elder held up a hand for silence. "Do not worry. We will not ask you to apologize, nor explain the reasons behind what you have done in the past. We know your intentions are nothing but good. However, we ask that you do what you can in order to fix the problem you have created. And that is the nature of the favor we are asking of you."
"Of course." Samus said. She wondered what she had done to gain the Chozo's disapproval. Was it the destruction of Zebes? Perhaps. She would be just devastated if they thought badly of her. But hell, she had a whole list of questionable things she had done in the past. If there was something she could do to regain her image, "Just tell me what I need to do."
The crowd of Chozo parted for Wind Elder, who came forward with something held delicately in his claws. "Ah, Hatchling. We have but one simple request. This is something we have poured our efforts into while you were in the biosac. We need you to deliver this to SR388." He placed the grapefruit-sized orb in Samus's hands and closed her fingers around it. The object was warm and softly glowing. "To you we entrust our hope for the future. Care for it well." She held it for a moment, uncomprehending, before she realized what the thing was. Her eyes widened and she backed away, nearly dropping the object if not for Wind Elder's hands still wrapped around her own.
"My God. Oh my God."
It was a metroid egg.
............
Like an ugly scar formed over pristine snow, the Space Pirates have built their research laboratories in the heart of Phendrana Drifts. What they were researching on, I had little idea, although I had a hunch. They kept on refering to their experiments as xenomes and numbers. The holograms on the wall appeared both familiar and foreign to me at the same time. It filled me with a dark sense of foreboding which I couldn't quite place a finger on nor dismiss. I felt like I was missing something.
A primitive combustion-based engine laboured to work the elevator I was using to reach the control tower. It was Pirate in design, which meant its technology was stolen, patched, and stripped of all beauty until it was sheer practicality. The machine's harsh rumbling contrasted sharply with the sleek efficiency of my varia suit, built by Chozo, whose technology surpassed those of any known civilization's.
The elevator finally jolted to a stop at the top of the control tower and I let myself out of the hatch. Surprised by the sudden brightness of the open sky, I put a hand over my eyes and squinted. Moisture-laden clouds gathered close to the distant snow-covered mountains in an impenetrable mist, so that it was near impossible to distinguish sky from land. The Tallon sun stained part of the atmosphere rust yellow and orange, while the lava pits of Magmoor Carverns burned red in the distance, forming crimson clouds of their own. Indigenous birds flickered across that mosaic of sky, endlessly trilling their joy in flight. Gorgeous. I could just sit here and watch all day.
Without warning, the birds screeched in alarm and scattered in all directions. I tensed up, charging my wave beam. Sure enough, three Flying Pirates appeared in the sky out of nowhere, hissing and growling to each other in their guttural language.
"Come down where I can reach you, bastards!" I screamed up at them, even though they couldn't understand.
Flying Pirates were almost laughable up close, for they were some of the smallest and most fragile subspecies of Pirates. Their thin frame had very little muscle and their exoskeletons would collapse in the heat of close combat. But all of those were sacrifices for making them light enough to fly. They were support and reconnaissance troops, armed with projectile weapons so they would never have to face close combat.
The three Pirates tried to surround me. I put my back to a wall and shot the nearest attacker, stunning it temporarily. I jumped behind one of the many storage crates and morphed into the maru mari, quickly rolling out of the way. The Pirates were confused by my sudden change into a morph ball, and I took the opportunity to blast open one of the crates full of explosives. A nearby Pirate was instantly blown out of the sky. It roared as it fell, abruptly falling silent when it crashed into the rock cliffs below.
The remaining two showered me with missiles and lasers, some of which hit but didn't cause much damage to my suit. I used my power beam to return their fire, since it fired faster than the wave beam. One Pirate couldn't take anymore, and tried to take me down with it in a suicidal dive. I threw myself out of its way, and its jetpack exploded in a display of fire and broken limbs.
The final Flying Pirate hesitated, its pale eyes uncertain. I guessed that it was torn between self-preservation and the instinct to fight for its race. Surely it knew that I had survived Pirate attacks much more vicious than three meager Flyers. It had no chance against me. Yet, to run away was to commit treason, and treason was punishable by death.
Whatever conclusion the Pirate arrived at, it was never acted upon. One of my missiles connected with its head and the rest of its body fell uselessly to the ground, twitching in its death throes. I grinned in fierce satisfaction, pleased with my handiwork. I shook my beam cannon free of smoke and stepped over the Pirate carcasses without looking at them. There was no point in collect their claws now; I was already storing as many as my suit could handle at one time. I entered another elevator that would take me deeper into the Pirate establishment, to Research Labs Aether.
I sauntered rather casually through the entrance to the laboratory, not really caring if anything would hear me. I'm not too big on stealth, and I would rather have my victims hear me and experience a moment's fear before I'd attack. But I was careless. I walked right past a bio containment tube, which I assumed was empty like all the others. Then something inside it squealed.
I stopped.
I focused all my attention on the tube, and watched the creature contained inside float lazily up to my eye level, as if it was somehow observing me as well. It certainly sensed me in some way. A faint purple phazon glow marked the path of the energy it expelled. Two pairs of mandibles clicked impatiently, and it nudged the sides of the tube as if testing its strength.
"Holy shit." I gasped. It all made sense now. The tight-lipped secrecy of the Pirates, their obsession with infusing phazon with various creatures, and their choice of the frozen Phendrana region to build their lab. They were studying metroids. It was undeniable.
I'm sure my mouth was hanging wide open in shock. I had hoped I'd seen the last of those energy-draining parasites back on Zebes, where the Pirates were creating an army of them. They were utilized with such efficiency that no Federation ships could get near Zebes at all. That was why I was hired to do what a hundred men could not. With my power suit, I could at least escape from the grasp of a metroid. But it didn't make them any less deadly, nor painful.
And it seemed as if some of the infusion experiments were becoming successful. I realized that those uncannily familiar holograms on the walls depicted metroids mutated into new and perhaps more effective forms. My thoughts turned to the Parasite Queen back on Frigate Orpheon, where the Pirates were able to create an uncontrollable behemoth from near-harmless parasites. What kind of horrific creation will they make of the metroids?
The metroid before me was expelling wisps of phazon. I scanned it, hoping my suit would provide me with some information on what kinds of mutations were taking place. Before I was even able to read the scanned data, there was a deafening shatter of glass, and a piercing shriek. In the amount of time it took me to focus my eyes, the metroid rammed into me with force enough to push back my upper torso. Its lower fangs dug into the sides of my helmet, its body beginning to glow with energy acquired. And that's when I started screaming.
............
Samus took the metroid egg back with her to her home atop the Sheltering Tree. The whole journey from the mountains and up the Tree barely registered in the bounty hunter's rapidly churning mind. She never took her eyes off the egg. It was almost hypnotic the way she stared at it. She placed the egg on a shelf in her house and sat on the bed, staring numbly at the precious bundle in front of her, lost in thought. It didn't exactly resemble a real metroid egg, of course. The shell was made of a transparent plastic and wrapped in a sticky coating to help insulation. Faint outlines of the metroid fangs and nuclei could already be seen. Occasionally, the embryo would shudder within its shell, proof of the tiny life developing inside.
Samus couldn't stop staring at the egg. In some strange twist of fate, she might be able to consider herself the metroid's real mother. She had learned that its genetic material was extracted from her own blood without her knowledge while she was inside the biosac. And in addition, the metroid would be identical to her previous child, Hatchling. Samus received the metroid vaccine from the Federation who had collected it from Hatchling back on Ceres.
The Chozo wanted her to repopulate SR388 with metroids to control the X infestation. The whole situation was just dripping with irony. First Samus killed metroids, then she raised the last metroid, then she partially became a metroid, then she killed off all the metroids again, and now she inadvertently breathed life into the last remaining member of the species with which her life had been so intertwined. It seemed as if the fates had been keeping the metroids within the bounty hunter's life ever since her genocide mission on SR388.
"Okay, I get your point!" She yelled out loud to whatever divinities were listening. And she knew there had to be some within earshot. "I will take care of the last metroid!" Her house was probably choked with Chozo Ghosts right now, watching both their Defender as well as their precious metroid legacy. The number of holy sites on this planet certainly didn't help reduce the ghost population.
Samus breathed in deeply and exhaled the air through her clenched teeth. She felt angry. Angry and violated that the Chozo would take the metroid DNA from her blood without her permission. And how they acted so casual about her situation, pretending that her role in it was to simply deliver the egg to its natural planet. A simple courier mission. She could stay detached if she wanted to, leaving the newly hatched larvae to fend for itself once she completed her mission. But she felt the burden of responsibility like a world on her shoulders, and the Chozo knew she could not turn a blind eye to the metroid's fate. After all, who would defend it from opportunists like the Space Pirates and the Galactic Federation? She was obliged to protect the metroid from triggering another potential disaster.
But Samus knew her forgiveness of the Chozo would come quick. She could not stay mad at the race who had raised her, and to whom she would forever feel indebted to. They always had a good reason for everything they did, even if the reason was obscure or far-reaching. But there was something the Chozo probably didn't know about her. They didn't know she would care for the egg simply out of love. Or maybe they did know. Maybe they presented her with this egg not as a curse or a mockery, but as a genuine gift of hope. After all, here she's being given another chance to raise this infant despite her failure in her previous attempt. Already she felt herself growing attached to the not-yet-hatched metroid, and knew that nothing, no one shall ever take her child away from her again. She knew this silently, instinctively, within her heart.
She had lost one child already. It didn't matter if the child wasn't biologically hers or even of the same species. The pain of loss was still there; she sometimes felt as if she could tear herself apart from the anguish. She thought nothing would ever placate her after Hatchling's death.
Samus picked up the egg and held it close to her. She could feel her heart beating against the shell, or was it the metroid's heart? Do metroids even have a heart? Probably not physically, but metaphorically, yes. This she knew personally, as a fact. She settled herself for sleep, with her arms curled around the metroid egg. It felt warm against her flesh. She could have sworn she had heard a faint 'squee' from within the shell and felt a surge of joy unlike any she experienced before. The tears welled in her eyes, but she fought them back. If she was the kind of woman who made it a habit of crying, then she would have done so already.