A/N: Well over a year passing will do a lot to a person, but I have not forgotten this story, in fact, I've plans to see it finished! So onward with the show, let's rock on!

(End A/N)

Chapter III: Hunt of the Galactic Federation

The sound of armored bodies clanking against sand was a sound that was unlike any other. Yet as the Queen of the Metroids dragged the two huntresses along the sandy beach, it was all that resonated within the ears of all present. While the dragging did minor damage, it had been physically a thing that was holding both of the two blonds from managing action against the Queen. Certainly she wasn't unstoppable, but she was by far stronger than Ridley, in any of the forms that Samus had dealt with in the past. While she'd felt the claw trying to burrow into her armor, she'd managed to kick the base of the chin of the Queen, though it barely moved her snout; it did earn a growl from the key.

"Pathetic, I'd come to expect more from you, Samus Aran."

"Then try this!"

The brave words from Sammy coming as she released a charged Ice beam blast into the Metroid Queen's face. Something that had drawn a loud snarl in response to the blast, as Ama-Lillith responded with a swift lash of her tail, something that with surprising speed had managed to snap across Sammy's armored flesh. As another blast was released into the Queen's back, this from Shu who had torn his claw along the ground in order to pick up and tackled the powerful Metroid Queen to the ground. If anyone could keep her pinned for a moment, it would be Shuzyn. At least it was the thought, something that while Ama-Lillith rolled over and held him down by his throat.

"Oh no! It will not matter if you're here, little King. You'll not escape the fate that was laid out before us."

The Queen's desperate maneuver had begun to show, she had imagined it would fall to 3 vs 1, but not this soon...parts of her had been prepared to kill Shuzyn or at least mortally wound him so that she could bring him back with her. And yet at this rate, that wouldn't be a fate that he'd have, so healthy as he was; she could feel he'd grown even stronger than he had from the last time they came into contact with one another. Her thought process was suddenly broken by the impact of a super missile into her side: a clear shot released from Samus, who had recovered from the earlier assault by Ama-Lillith upon her. The chance would not be removed from her, that loneliness would know its end and she would have buried her enemies. At least until the sound of roaring craft from above had caught the attention of several of those below.

"...Damn, they found us!" Shu's curse was half a grunt, due to the fact he was being strangled, as he struggled with Ama-Lillith's supreme strength.

"Does your precious Federation have an unlimited supply of toy soldiers, Aran? Because I will kill them all, I've come too far and survived this long to claim what was mine from the space station."

The X-Parasites were not her concern, those puny creatures had now been evaporated by the conditions of the planet that the station were sent to the other world, death by explosion, heat, and melting. She relished in knowing that they were probably destroyed, all but this creature that existed before her. This clone of her destroyer, adopted by this apex predator pair...it was a disgusting thing for her to see. When had the Huntress become this weak? Surely it was a thing that was proof unto itself that she was fated to destroy what had become of this union.

"!"

The very sudden shove from Shu became more aggressive and desperate in its own way, as he would manage to edge himself out of her grip; forcing her to loosen up before rolling out of the way of the barrage of random energy fire let off by the GF forces. They were coming in hard and hot it seemed unleashing heavy rain of laser fire from the base of a few of their ships. Some rapid strikes were being used in order to flush them out of hiding in the identical canopy of the trees this side of the planet. While the blasts would do major harm to either them or the ship, Samus realized they hadn't much time, they'd had to stop wasting effort on Ama-Lillith and to get on board quickly!

"Shu! Sammy!" the tone of the huntress was commanding, granting both direction and focus to her two charges while she figured another missile from her arm cannon, using her crack aim to catch Ama-Lillith in the chest.

The blast that hit the Metroid Queen was hardly enough to scratch her scales, but it did force her to stagger backwards slightly. But she was hardly finished with the battle at hand, she was so close to getting her sweet mate to come back to her...at least this was her focus until she'd felt a blast of maser cannon hit her shoulder, it seared her wing and had pierced some of the membrane. Folding the great wing close to the side of her body, she took to the woods, realizing that she shouldn't leave herself victim to the random fire of some desperate troops. They were unsure of her position, far as she imagined, they were laying fire to the area to try and force Samus or herself into the open. Shuzyn felt the phazon burning inside of his chest and it cut his flight partway, his wings folding in partway while Sammy had jumped into the ship's entry point and imagined Shu was right behind her.

It was with her sister within the pod quarters, the blond huntress boosted the ship for the troposphere, it was time to get the hell out of here. Shu, meanwhile was making tracks for the sky, beating his wings hard in order to catch the ship as it boosted off of the ground. He'd managed to leap onto the top of the roof and slipped himself inside, folding his wings against his back while the maser fire aimed for the ship. While Samus focused on trying to fly the three of them out safely, she'd cursed as she had to keep the ship within the atmosphere. The gravity was making steering a little bit of a problem, after all dodging enemy blaster fire wasn't an easy thing to do.

"Should I get out and distract them?"

"No Shu, sit down and strap in, this is going to get a bit bumpy, but we'll be fine. I haven't met any bunch of GF morons that I haven't been able to shake when I wanted to."

Her confidence was anything if not warranted, as due to Samus's skillful flying, they had taken little damage from the constant spread of laser fire upon their ship. The evasive skills of hers were about second to none, it was around their slow but steady rise into the lower troposphere that Samus decided to take a gamble. A sudden vertical boost from her engines might throw her trajectory off, but she couldn't afford to waste more fuel energy by evading the ships and their fighters. She knew better about the tactic, though her stubborn actions would actually pay off here.

The ship was still subject to enemy fire and took some hits, but it was not enough to stall the ship on its rise. As ridiculous as it turned out to be, they hit space and for what little battle on the planet had been worth: their side suffered little damage in comparison. If anything, Sammy was fretting over the scratches, tears, and wounds about Shuzyn's body. They were healing, but clearly his body was producing the deadly substance that caused numerous bounty hunters to fall to its taint. Sammy had the memories of her sister and knew them well.

"P-Phazon...Shu...is okay?" she feared the corruption...surely she couldn't lose Shu, right? There was a lot of tribulation that was lingering in the air seemed to fall away from her wits.

"I'm fine...just fine." Shu dismissed Sammy's concerns and gently placed a hand on her shoulder in an effort to reassure her.

The action seemed to work, though it did no less for Samus, who despite being a damn good pilot, hadn't shaken the entirety of the GF forces on her ship's back. As the ship rattled from the blast of a solar torpedo that had missed its mark, it meant that the Forces were acting on the lethal force order. That or willing to risk harming the ship's occupants. Briefly gritting her teeth, the seasoned huntress listened to the familiar sound of the warp engines coming online.

"Finally, hang on!"

Her words of warning seemed to be almost moot, for as she spoke the words, she was already pulling the handle. Sending the ship forward with an immense acceleration, one of such great force that it boosted her out of the range of the fighters and their weaponry. With such pace that their weapons appeared to be standing still, finally they were beyond range of the Galactic Federation ships. The next few space torpedoes found themselves falling short, as they struck the space where Samus Aran's ship had been projected to arrive. Every one fired had fallen dreadfully short, one of the finest in flight had shown her superiority in an instant.

-Back with the Metroid Queen-

While Ama-lillith had been subdued by Samus, the X-Parasite prey, and her future consort there was little damage actually done to her. Though the ice had been very unpleasant and damaged her in part. There was nothing that she wasn't prepared to do to hunt them down, she would have her revenge and see the rebirth done properly. Her prey escaped her, only realizing that they could run and scurry to their next hiding place. It didn't matter, the Metroid Queen tasted something in her mate, a flavor that her kind as of this generation had not tasted yet. While she thought of what it might be, she did realize that she had not found herself as she'd hoped. Her makeshift hiding space in the wooded area of the sandy island she was on did not suffice. As her sharp vision focused on the number of bodies she could see attempting to duck behind trees while moving in around her.

After a small assessment, she'd scoffed at the attempt by the GFMC on her, did they think one platoon could hold her down? It held no more than 20 soldiers at best. Even though she could see several of them dressed in heavier battle armor, she'd been able to see how many they sent to collect her.

'Only 7 of them? I'm insulted...to think these puny humans think that I wouldn't find my own measure of worth while alive?'

It was the ultimate mistake of those fools on board the B.S.L. and she intended to show them what it would cost them. Her original plans to take over a planet by giving birth to the next generation had grown much further through her development. Her intentions were her secret alone, the men who dared to get in her way would simply perish. She had to track down her consort's trail and quickly if she were to have her plans see fruition. Something deep inside of her instinctual nature had nearly demanded it. As her thoughts were disrupted by another rapid movements by the troop formation, the Queen decided it was time to end this game with the Galactic Federation Marines. While she was considering the best form of attack, she'd find that the commander of the soldiers would make the most foolish error in her mind: giving her an ultimatum.

"Subject: R.E.Q. XVIV(Rapid Evolution Queen), you are to stand down and give us no resistance. You are being given this one chance before we rain frosty hell down upon you. This at the request of our orders, this is your first and last warning." Commander Lorne was a veteran of the GFMC, he'd seen many battles against the Space Pirates and was one of their finest soldiers. To date he hadn't seen one engagement that he'd never walked away from. In this case, this also wasn't the first project that he'd had to terminate. The Galactic Federation and their secret projects sure left a headache for real soldiers who were ordered to 'retrieve target or terminate', though uncommon they weren't new to him either.

The response from the Queen was quick and merciless, as her tail spear thrust clear through the bodies of two of the marines nearest her. The great length of her tail, no less than 8 feet at the moment. As the lifeless bodies of the two soldiers were tossed to the ground, the marines all fled the immediate area of her presence, as not two seconds later was a deadly ray of focused lightning plasma sweeping along a semi-arc in front of Ama-Lillith. The destruction was incredible to see, as the blast all but annihilated signs of the trees in front of her.

The Commander needed no more of a reason to respond with force, as he retreated, his arm cannon pointed in the direction of the Queen and the word came down as he unleashed his first volley, "Fire at will!"

Of the remaining 62 soldiers, each opened fire in a focused effort to destroy the Queen: the result of which was a well destroyed line of trees for the next 30 yards. The end result of this attempted annihilation would prove to be the perfect cover for Ama-Lillith to escape. There was only a single sign of her ever having been there and that was a large hole dug into the ground. During the rain of destructive energy, she had tunneled away during the barrage. Commander Lorne cursed and punched the stump of one of the downed trees, this wasn't just a little bad; this was the worst kind of scenario his could have imagined.

"Damn...get the word back to the ship, scan for that bitch and find her 10 minutes ago!" this meant that she was more resourceful than he'd given her credit for. He could only imagine how stupid those on the B.S.L. had to be to create such a monster. She had human intellect...potentially superior to that judging by her advanced tactics. She was using skills that no simple creature at her age should have possessed.

There was no small way to slice it: the kind of threat that she posed was higher than the authority that he had been granted thus far. There was little more than an instant that he'd offered a moment between acknowledging that he failed to stop this project weapon and admiring her tenacity. For a moment he could admit that she was not only a serious threat, but of a higher caliber than even the Space Pirates at this point.

As Ama-Lillith burrowed through the earth beneath the soliders, she made sure to move carefully without disrupting the soil above her too much. It wasn't much her preference to retreat, but she wasn't going to waste anytime facing off with the men sent to capture her. Since they were foolish enough to believe that they could gather her to begin with made them universal idiots. As her mind focused on the objective at hand, she focused harder and harder on the objective to keep.

'Patience...a virtue I'd rather not entreat, though it seems that I have no choice. I will have to bide my time and find a means off of this planet. I suppose stowing away is a possible way, but my timing will have to be exceptional.'

She need not only exercise her great strength to find a means to an end, the element of surprise and stealth were on her side. It was a thing that she intended to employ on her behalf. Lillith would hide out in one of the GFMC heavy crates and go into stasis for a time. As long as she wasn't disturbed, her recovery from the recent battle she'd had with the Huntresses and her future consort had been taxing. She had never been hurt that badly before, it made the group of them worthy prey. Her prey and no one else was worthy of stalking them, such 'others' included the very military she planned to take advantage of once again.

-With Commander Lorne-

Once the small group of three marine ships had proceeded on their scanning venture to track down the project's present location, Commander Lorne had gone about the unhappy task of informing his mission command of the failure to capture or neutralize Samus Aran and her group. Though personally doubting that Samus was responsible for some great evil by destroying the B.S.L. station, Lorne was able to consider that she probably kept a worse danger than he might imagine. Soldiers weren't supposed to think, they were supposed to follow orders; at least it sounded good in word and on paper. Greenhorns into any branch of the military service might be into it and some spent their whole lives following it to the letter. Lorne personally knew better from experience, life itself was far more complex than just following the word of another.

"...And so there you have it sir, while engaging both the Bounty Hunter Samus Aran and the Subject: R.E.Q. simultaneously, we missed a key opportunity to focus on the capture of solely one of the targets one at a time."

"Keep your commentary to yourself, Commander, I'm not interested in your opinions, professional or otherwise. All I have to go on from this would-be report is that you've failed both mission objectives completely. Well, no excuses Marine, recover both the Bounty Hunter's group and the Subject, dead or alive!"

"Yes sir."

There was no wish to give anymore of a response to this bureaucrat and no need to. The Commander was here to get a job done, even if it was next to impossible by the sheer nature of it. He considered why he was given the job and that the sheer size of his command now far outweighed any other he'd held before. With one question he really had for the entirety of the outcome was clear to him: Would it be worth it?

'Tch...another set of orders from some bureaucrat who doesn't know north from south. Seems like its gonna be my way once again.'

The very thought of running his own investigation on site made him grin, such little reminding him of why he was still only a Commander and nothing higher than that on rank. It was a degree of getting in trouble from taking matters into his own hands that both earned him the respect of some and the ire of others. This mission was one big mystery all itself: with no background on how the subject R.E.Q. was a living humanoid Metroid who was not only sentient, but outright intelligent in high degrees. Then the orders to bring in Samus Aran, the Federation's most dependable assets that was not permanently on their payroll. She did things her own way and had saved the universe from various threats at her own perils. It was hard to see her labeled as an enemy without just reason.

This 'alert' as it were, seemed to be a ploy by someone within the government of the Galactic Federation which chose to act for its own benefit. It was someone who knew full well how to manipulate the inner circle of the governmental processes. He'd risk the trouble to find out what reason he was fighting so hard for, what pushed this bureaucrat into showing his hand this soon? There were no words that he'd had in mind, nothing that he could slate with proof solid. Thus the search would begin right here and now, even should he start extracting his first bits of the truth from the Subject R.E.Q. herself. Commander Lorne was motivated for a search into the long run and he intended to make it count.

"Corporal, start looking into all available data on the destruction of the Biologic Space Labs Research Station. We're going to start from square one and bring this little secret to light. Even if we have to do so kicking and screaming from its hiding spot."

The fight was on now to make something more of what the two great forces had started: the light side of the Federation trying to make good parliamentary law and this dark force looking to do whatever this want at whatever time. Lorne was fine with trouble since it always brought trouble. He'd play the bloodhound on Samus's trail, he'd done worse jobs that he'd despised. Doing this would allow him the best access to the no so quiet investigation he'd decided to run. He honestly hoped some of the other higher ups noticed all the information he was looking into and that it might spark curiosity.

One way or another, this game was afoot and the players would see what they thought of one another's plans. Was what Lorne privy to relevant to this independent force's actions or perhaps it was already planned for? Time would soon tell that as everyone made their moves. To Ama-Lillith this opportunity was going to be a test of her diligence and wits, as she could ill afford to destroy the only means of escaping the planet she now inhabited. While for Samus, the means of escaping the Federation fighters had only been partially success as with a damaged ship to worry about fixing, it meant finding a good port. While Shuzyn attempted to keep his phazon issues from becoming of concern, the reproduction of something thought destroyed years ago had frightening potential.

(End Chapter)

Bringing the next chapter out took some doing, since real life tossed me a joker a while back, but to those who waited, here is the next installment, with the following chapter soon to be underway. I hope this was good to the readers, enjoy!

Till next time, adieu

-Quentix