Chapter 2

Samus entered a large glass room. Suddenly a window broke above her. A large lizard creature with a huge tail appeared out of nowhere. Samus grabbed the tail and swung it around, throwing it against the wall. As the creature lay stunned, Samus finished it off with a charged Power Beam to the face. A second lizard appeared, but she pelted it with missiles until it dropped dead.

Sector 1 was a verdant place, simulated to look like the great outdoors. Samus passed thru with little effort until she came to a locked door. A loud scream drew her attention. Several strange rolling creatures rolled toward her. Samus laid bombs in their path to stun them, then flipped them over and blew their faces off.

With the door in front of her locked, Samus had to take the side door. A short hallway lead to a small room and a gruesome sight.

The large cagelike booth looked like something had been raised in it, and in one corner was the miserable form of a researcher's rotting corpse. This one hadn't sustained the same injuries as the others. The dead I'd seen had been torn apart by something large. This one had been attacked by a different type of creature. And as I studied the violence this creature had wrought, I felt something in the air. The presence of a dark intelligence.

Samus left the room and headed back to the locked door. As she moved toward it, she heard a noise and turned. A cute, fluffy white creature walked out of the bushes, rolling what looked like a big tomato. It bounced the food around, then paused and looked at her. Scowling, it ran off into the bushes.

Suddenly the door was unlocked and Adam said, "Samus, head thru the door I just unlocked. Your next destination is a little further ahead." Samus walked toward the door, then turned and froze.

The little white thing stood in the center of the road, staring at her with the most malevolent black eyes she had ever seen. A chill crept down Samus's back. Clearly it wasn't as cute and innocent as it wanted her to believe. Shuddering, Samus ran thru the door.

Samus later found a device she adapted to her arm cannon to make the Diffusion Beam, a sort of scattershot version of the Charge Beam. Even Samus had no idea just how useful this particular upgrade would be.

Eventually, Samus came to a huge room with a spiral ramp. At the top of the ramp was a hole. Samus jumped thru it and fell for a few seconds, landing in another room with a dirt floor. The first thing she noticed was that this was a Kihunter hive. There were Kihunters on the Bottle Ship. The larva screamed, and adult Kihunters flew down and attacked, their visors glowing menacingly.

That many Kihunters would've been a much greater threat if not for the Diffusion Beam. After the initial batch was destroyed, strange "flowers" opened up on the vines that held the hive to the ceiling. Samus fired a missile at several of them, severing the vines. Reinforcements arrived before she could finish, but they were easily disposed of. With all the vines severed, the hive fell from the ceiling and broke, revealing the core. Samus pelted it with missiles until there was nothing left of it.

With the core gone, the remaining Kihunters retreated. Even giant bugs weren't stupid. They knew when they couldn't win.

Samus was about to leave when she saw the same creepy white thing eating the slop from the hive and getting it all over himself. It looked at Samus for a moment and gave a hideous scream.

Some creatures use the power of others to capture their prey. Watching this disgusting beast, I felt as though it was feeding off my power as well. At the same time, a thought crossed my mind. That howl I heard earlier; could this creature have been the source?

"Samus, head to the Biosphere Test Area," said Adam. "The others are en route. Meet them there." Samus nodded and ran out of the room.

After arriving at the test area, Samus entered the main building and found a door that had been blown open. Entering it, she saw James Pierce sitting at the main computer. "Hey, Samus," he said. Everyone else rushed in. "Where's Lyle?" said James. "Look like he's late," said Anthony. Maurice sat down at the computer and said, "The CPU seems to have self-destructed. The central system is broken into parts, but… I think I might be able to restore it and recover some of the data."

"Like the CO said," said Anthony, "there might be crucial information here." He looked out the window. "Hey Samus, does this view bring back any memories? Yeah… looks like the training grounds of the Galactic Federation."

Samus searched the rest of the building. In one room, she heard a beeping noise that sounded like a bomb. Walking over to the nearby closet, she opened the door and jumped aside as the beeping stopped and something fell out.

"Adam are you seeing this?" she said. "It's a mechanical Space Pirate. What is this thing?" "I don't know," said Adam. "Everyone, gather round!"

"Alright," said Maurice. "I've managed to recover one piece of data." He read aloud. "This Bottle Ship is under management of the Galactic Federation. In these facilities, lifeforms from various planets have been raised and researched as possible bioweapons. Site manager and development director: Dr. Madeline Bergman."

Samus slammed her fist on the table. "Adam, was the Galactic Federation experimenting with bioweapons?" "Looks like it," he said. "Use of bioweapons is strictly prohibited! Who is Madeline Bergman?" "Looks like the person in charge of this place," said Adam.

I didn't need to press Adam about it any further. He was not only a strong opponent of bioweapons. He was against the use of living things for any unnecessary reasons period. Life, no matter what form it takes as it's born into this often cruel universe, should not be tampered with. That was his philosophy. In bringing the infant Metroid back I did something that I know would've gone against his standards. And, though I didn't give a rat's ass about that, was a clear and blatant violation of protocol. I wondered what Adam thought of me. Out of nowhere, I suddenly found myself concerned with his opinion again.

"I've almost gotten it completely restored," said Maurice. "But, I'll bet they've protected this thing with a firewall or something. If I can't get past it James, that'll be where you come in." "Sure thing. It shouldn't be too much of a problem to hack into this thing," he said. "I mean, it might tell us what exactly was going on here."

"Madeline might still be in this building," said Anthony. "We should look for her." Samus checked the few rooms she hadn't already. In the last room, she heard a noise and looked up. On the ceiling were several Space Pirates. Seeing her, they leapt down and attacked.

"I want everyone to evacuate this building," said Adam. "Samus, your orders are to take care of all enemy targets." "With pleasure."

Samus's bloodlust was never higher than when there were Pirates around, and these were even less experienced than usual. In just three minutes, all six of them were dead.

Samus ran back to the computer room. No one was there. Hearing gunfire outside, she saw everyone firing at a huge lizard with white hair on it's back. Samus jumped out the window, glass flying everywhere. The creature leapt on top of her. It's large tail hit her in the face. She struggled to break free, but could not. Suddenly, after several minutes of dodging it's tail, the creature reeled back as a green energy beam hit him squarely in the chest, burning a hole big enough to fit the Morph Ball.

The creature screamed in agony. It glared at Anthony, then retreated, smashing a hole in the side of the wall. "You okay, princess?" he said. "I wanted to give you some cover earlier, but this thing takes forever to charge." He motioned at his plasma cannon. "Hey, come over here," K.G. shouted. The two of them ran over. "What's up?" "Lyle's down," said James. "Looks like a pile of rags. What's gotta happen to a guy to make him look like that?"

Samus noticed a small ATV that Lyle had been driving. As she walked around it, she was shocked to see the little white thing, lying limp and motionless. She lifted it and turned it over. A huge, ripping slash opened it up from top to bottom. "An empty shell," said Samus. The lizard she had fought was the adult form of the white thing, which was the infant form of it's species. Lyle had run over the small creature in the ATV, and in the blink of an eye it had evolved from a small, weak animal into a powerful beast. The poor man didn't stand a chance.

"Looks like that chicken-turned-lizard infiltrated Sector 3," said Adam. "Samus, follow it." Samus left the test area and dropped down a large shaft to Sector 3: the Pyrosphere.

It was clear that the Federation was developing bioweapons on the Bottle Ship. To unravel the mystery, I knew I had to talk to the person in charge here: Madeline Bergman. Of course, she would have to be alive in order for me to do that.