"So, Samus, haven't seen you in a while. You feel like a sparring match?" Samus looked up and saw Taklon, the sun glinting off his beak.
"Taklon, I thought I'd never see you again!"
"Well, I'm right here. I see you've been doing well considering your circumstances."
"Not really. I was chased by the federation for two years straight."
"That's what I meant.", said Taklon with a chuckle, "I see you're still strong. Of course I am still stronger."
"Oh, well, I'm up for a match. Just like the old days. Wow, I sound old."
"Well, you've been through more hardship in your 18 years than most people go through in their lives."
"Samus!"
Samus was awakened from her daydream by James's shouting. This upset her. It was such a nice daydream. It wasn't filled with the usual deaths of everyone she knew. Samus and the rest of the beta squad were on their ship headed for a planet called Altus. Altus was known for being where many of the illegal drugs in the region were grown. It had been a long trip. They had been in space for three days now.
"Samus. We've arrived."
"I know. I know." Samus stood up and flexed her cannon arm. She followed the grey haired man out into another room. The others had put away the pizza they were eating and donned their armor.
"I take it everyone remembers their part?" asked James.
"Uh, can we go over it again?", replied Tamluk-xan, laughing. James glared at him.
"Just kidding."
"Let's move."
Samus and the others filed out of the ship and into a forest. They nodded and then split up. Their mission was to cripple a farm used for growing illegal substances. The third largest on the planet. Samus was to help Mambosa and Tamluk-xan destroy the main warehouse where the drugs were stockpiled. The warehouse was expected to be well guarded.
Samus and the other two in her group crouched and made their way through the forest. There were some strange multicolored flowers growing under a tree. Mambosa moved to pick one.
"Don't", warned Tamluk.
"Oh, are they bad?"
"Very."
They soon came to where the forest abruptly halted and turned into a field of blue colored stalks. In the distance a large structure sprayed with grafiti could be seen.
Mambosa started to say something to Samus.
"Sh, we don't want to blow our cover just yet.", said Tamluk, quieting Mambosa. Samus watched as Tamluk set up his sniper rifle and aimed at some guards in front of the warehouse. The rifle made a noise resembling a fart and then a thin blue beam shot out into the distance. With three quick shots Tamluk took out the guards. Most of the field workers scattered in every direction.
"Now.", commanded Tamluk. The three then ran out into the blue field. Samus ran, charging her beam, the stalks whipping against her. She quickly ran into trouble. She dove out into a path in the field. Right there was standing three armed men. They all shot at her.
Samus managed to dodge the first shot but the other two hit her and knocked her backward. The men began to descend upon Samus. She rolled out of the way and Swept her feet under two of them knocking them over. She leapt back to her feet and shot them before they could stand. The third man shot her in the back of the head.
She cried out and spun. She let loose a missile. The man dodged the deadly projectile and dove into the field. Samus felt a rumbling behind her. She leapt up ward and splatted against a twenty foot tall tractor moving at a hundred miles an hour. At least she didn't get run over. She grabbed onto the grilling on the front and stopped herself from falling off. Samus straightened her back and it popped painfully. She looked ahead of her and saw that the tractor was approaching a large tree fast. She would be flattened like a pancake! She swore in the chozo language and propelled herself up the front of the tractor using her hands.
Samus pulled herself up on top of the hood, to the surprise of the people inside the tractor. A bearded man pointed at her and the driver, a strange being with spikes on it's arms and a shell on it's back stepped on the brake pedal. It was too late and the tractor collided with the tree. The first tree wasn't enough to stop it and the hulking vehicle plowed through five more trees. The rapid decrease in speed sent Samus hurtling through the air.
She flew right into a large tree leaving a human shaped imprint then sliding down the side of the tree. Samus stood up and came to her senses just in time. She narrowly ducked to avoid a rocket which went on to obliterate a shack. A posse was emerging from the fields and by the looks on their faces and the sharp implements they carried they meant to kill Samus.
Samus unloaded her missiles into the crowd. She smiled when the first twenty people of the posse exploded. She aimed to fire more missiles and to her dismay none came out. There was only a clicking noise. Another of the beings with a shell on its back took this opportunity to strike. It let out a squealing noise and launched a rocket at Samus. She didn't have time to dodge it. Right before the rocket was about to impact her abdomen it exploded sending hot shards of metal into Samus's suit. Samus was thrown backward back into the field. She crawled some distance and then rolled into a morphball. It was hard to stay rolled up in a ball like that when she hurt so much. Her entire body ached. She was sure at least several of her bones were cracked. She moved away from the approaching voices.
Samus quieted her heavy breathing as the posse came closer. She couldn't see them through the tall plants. She knew they were nearby. She rapidly shot her beam into the direction she heard the voices from. This mowed down the plants in the area. Several people screamed as they were hit. Samus could see the area around her. There was one man left. He lifted his rifle to fire but Samus was too quick for him. She threw her grapple beam and it latched onto the man's head, the static force shocking him. He yelled and tried to run away but Samus didn't let him. She yanked her left arm to the side and the man's neck snapped with a sick noise. He slumped over dead.
Samus let out a maniacal cackle. She then put her hand over her mouth. She was disgusted with herself.
"I can't believe I did that. I was taught better than this. And that man didn't deserve that.", Samus thought to herself. She pushed her reflections to the back of her mind and ran once she heard more people approaching. She bent her right arm behind her and fired as she went.
Samus slowly outran and lost the pursuers and came upon the warehouse. She could hear Mambosa and Tamluk involved in a fight inside. Her eyes fell on a rack pushed up against a wall containing at least 20 GF helmets. The words, "Feds, go home" was spray-painted above the rack in pink letters.
Without warning a swarm of birds erupted through the door from the warehouse. Samus ducked. She realized that these weren't normal birds. They were over two feet across and carried weapons in their tallons. Samus shot a the flock and several of the birds exploded. Samus was pelted with bloody feathers. Samus wasn't able to dodge the birds as they swooped at her. Some shot her with lasers. Others flew into her carrying spears. If Samus didn't act quickly the birds would finish her.
She didn't like doing this but she had no options left.
Out loud she uttered the chozo word for overload, "Tathodol". This set her arm cannon to discharge an insane amount of energy at once. As she uttered the word she ducked and slid under the flock of birds and then fired.
A brilliant golden light erupted from her arm and would have blinded her if her visor didn't automatically darken. The brilliant light erupted upward and engulfed everything above her. The light faded and the white ashes of the birds floated down on top of Samus. The light even destroyed some branches of a tree hanging above her. Samus let out a sigh of relief. Unfortunately this attack overloaded and overheated the arm cannon. It wouldn't be operational for at least two hours while the suit's nanomachines repaired it.
Samus sat up but immediately fell back to the concrete floor from an intense pain in her abdomen. Samus lifted her head and saw a spear stuck in her upper stomach through the armor. To her surprise and discomfort she noticed another pair of spears stuck in her right leg above the knee. The only way they could have been stuck through her armor like that was if her shields were down. She looked at the hud on her visor and this was confirmed. This wasn't good. If she took much more damage her suit could shut down and become a dead weight or explode.
Samus slowly sat back up and clenched her teeth to keep from screaming. She grabbed the wooden shaft of the spear in her stomache and quickly yanked it out with a grunt. It wasn't in far enough to hit any organs but it still hurt like hell. She did the same with the two spears in her leg and tossed them aside. She leapt to her feet and shook off her dizziness. She stuck a finger in her wounded stomach and winced. She looked at her finger and saw it covered in crimson blood.
All this time there was still the fight inside the warehouse. She had to help. Samus walked along the porch and peeked left into the door. She could See Tamluk and Mambosa pinned down behind a steel box by laser fire. She ran in and narrowly avoided several shots. She flattened herself down behind a box. She couldn't use her cannon or her missiles so she looked about for a weapon. There was a dead man with black laser marks over his body slumped down next to her. She pulled on the rifle in his hand but it didn't move. She pulled harder and it slid out of his fingers.
Glad that was over with Samus turned her head away from the corpse. The other two had seen her now and shouted over the laser fire from behind their box which had leaves poking out from under its lid.
"Hey Samus, took you long enough! We sure could use your help.", hollered Tamluk in a slightly angry voice before adjusting his gas mask."
"Sorry I ran into problems."
"Well, now that you're here and behind a separate box we can take turns shooting back and drawing their fire."
Samus nodded. It was a good thing they're enemies were too far away to hear what was being said. Samus peaked her head around the left side of the box and holding her new gun shot down two warehouse guards. They turned and fired but she ducked back down behind her box. While they were focused on her Tamluk and Mambosa leapt out and fired at the other guards taking down five more. The remaining guards hid behind a forklift machine. Mambosa charged and hurled a grenade. The grenade explode and took out those who were hiding. Samus charged out as well and wasn't fired upon. She searched behind various objects but it seemed that they had cleared out the area.
Mambosa threw Samus a small black cylinder. She recognized this as the bomb.
"May you do the honors."
"I'm proud to.", replied Samus jokingly. She observed a particularly large box next to one of the central pillars in the building. She placed the bomb on it and it's magnets activated allowing it to stick to the box. Samus pressed a few keys and set the bomb to detonate in 60 seconds.
Tamluk said, "Uh, running time." They all ran out the large door and were heading through the field.
It felt like they were running too long. The bomb should have gone off by now. Samus was wondering whether it would really go off when she heard the deafening explosion. They were all knocked over by the shockwave and a rusted I-beam landed dangerously close behind Samus. They all got back to their feet and noticed that the fields were beginning to catch fire so they began to run again.
It was getting hard to see through all the smoke and Samus was separated from the others. Samus squinted and saw several figures ahead. She expected them to fire on her but they just stood their laughing about pretty colors. The smoke from the plants was making them high! Samus continued running but noticed herself slowing down. Everything also seemed to be kind of off-color. To her horror she realized the smoke was seeping in throught the holes in her suit caused by the spears. She had to get out of there fast. This much smoke from the plants could be deadly.
She entered morphball mode and rolled the rest of the way. This kept any more of the smoke from entering her suit. Within five minutes Samus could see the camoflauge painted ship. She unrolled and walked into the ship, collapsing onto a couch. She received strange looks from everyone else. She was the last one in. She glared at them through her helmet and they looked away. Mambosa continued staring at her.
"What do you want?", shouted Samus. Mambosa almost jumped and then looked at a barren section of wall. Samus was in a sour mood from almost dying.