A/N: Been a while hasn't it? Well wait no longer, here comes the next chapter installment on this matter, what will the future brings along these Linked Paths? Let's find out!

(End A/N)

Chapter IV: On the Trail of Evolution and Difficulty

As Samus's ship raced through warp space, she'd set it for Sector 497, in order to allow her some space for movement. It was easily a place to lose tails, by hiding amongst the riffraff on a space colony where the human life of Shuzyn had been notable at its peak. Without another thought, Samus's mind clicked as she asked her lover if he could be of help here. Though she had not looked back to see how he was doing, more because she hadn't wanted to fret over him until they landed. She hoped to find a quick landing spot as they arrived at the colony, granted that things might make for a simple case; even though she was counting on difficulty.

"Shu, any old connections still active, in the 497 Colony?"

"Yeah, just one, a cybernetics fiend, named Ith. He thinks he's a badass."

"Which side? We're going to be giving him company."

"Southeast part of the Colony, E-Side, 5th District."

As the conversation happende, Samus made sure to turn her ship to the west, before giving off a grumble as she had her ship computer send the docking information ahead. Though Samus tried not to worry herself too much about Shuzyn, still she was showing off her agitation through her rapid actions. Even the way she gripped the controls on her ship, listening to Sammy trying to get Shuzyn to answer some simple questions now that he was awake again. For a single moment, Samus cursed the damned GF Officer that tried to kill Shuzyn with Phazon. The substance granted immense power and certainly would've killed anyone else, but now it was a permanent scar on his person.

Still the situation managed to unfold itself in a positive light, he wasn't nearly as distressed as he had looked before the moment. Sammy felt that his heartbeat had slowed, she could sense that he was physiologically better to. Whatever attack was coming over him on the planet had been due to stress. It was no longer an issue by now, that serenity was something that she needed.

"You shouldn't struggle, Shu. If you're having trouble please tell me." Sammy hoped that he'd open up to her or Samus on this front. He tended to be secretive of issues that he may or may not have had.

"I wouldn't hide anything from you if it mattered, neither you or Samus." while feeling better, Shuzyn was making sure that he kept the feeling under wraps. The phazon was a thing that had repaired his body to great effect, patches of torn scales were enhanced, with some kind of phazon addition to the plating. Shu was keeping a close eye on the kind of changes that were underway.

"You'd better not or I'd make you regret it, Shu. I don't like to learn about trouble later on." Samus never looked up when she said this, it was just a fact for her.

Shuzyn let off a light laugh and stretched his arms overhead, figuring that he'd just tell everything that happened with him and clear the air. What his issues were before him and how they could be solved were a little more than he could guess for sure by now. As he felt the ship moving in for its landing, clearing the air dock and the pressurization quickly taking part; he'd shut his eyes to take a moment to relax himself further. While his eyes remained shut, he could feel a second set of eyes gazing upon him intently.

As if staring through his body and soul to witness how he stood, Samus seemed intent on watching for the slightest hint of trouble within him. Thoughts clouded her mind, since it was one of the worst things she'd seen, upon witnessing 3 other famous bounty hunters lose their minds to the corruption of the phazon madness. There were low odds of anyone actually remaining level headed with such a deadly power, even her will had begun to crack after longtime exposure to it. How would her lover respond? She knew he was on level with her as far as indomitable will stood, he'd been tortured violently before. Hanging over a vat of boiling bio fluids, having your fingernails plucked, acid injected into the blood, and then later surviving a transformation that had been intended to end his life.

"I know that look, its of concern...its understandable. But remember one thing, I have two anchors here and my want to stay in one piece. I am not leaving you easily if I ever do." Shuzyn could feel the shaky nature of the situation beneath him and chose to make no mistakes.

If he could expel the power at regular intervals, he could avoid buildup of something that was now a reproducing organ within his body. Whenever he had been employed by the federation, he took great care when pulling anything on the now 'extinct' phazon that he could learn. Even though he was never sure when, he had a feeling that such a potent power was probably still in the hands on the GF. He didn't ever believe that it was gone based off of what he'd read between the GF files and Samus as well. It was not to be underestimated in its threat level, he would assure himself of some means of getting it out of his system.

"You must remain okay, i don't...won't know what to do if you were gone." Sammy was close to breaking down, though she was hardened, having the same knowledge as her sister did, all of it had brought her great fear.

Unlike Samus, she was not so able bodied when it came to control of one's emotions. For her she had no opportunity to overcome her great fear easily. As if she sensed this weakness in her clone sister, Samus shook her gently and looked at her with firm, but reassuring eyes.

"We have to trust Shuzyn to the fact that it'll be okay, that's all we can do." Samus was certain that he wouldn't lie after his choice words, so she'd hold him to it.

"Don't make me regret it." was her last choice of words, as she reassumed control of her ship during the docking process, the moment all of the automatic side of it was done.

It was enough and the process itelf ended in around 10 minutes, her ship was registered and secure in Block-E, under another name and ship registry. Since she didn't want to advertise that she was here and make it too easy while they did their business on this colony. Once Sammy had adjusted her hair color and eye color, Samus had hidden her hair beneath something of a bad looking drape and Shuzyn was simply himself; they headed off with him in the shadows above. The colony was dark and had a lot of dark spaces above, it was almost perpetually night due to the effect of it. It would provide cover for Shu to remain out of sight.

Wasting no time at all, Shuzyn guided the pair of huntresses towards his old stomping grounds, this colony was a waste of space, but it seemed that his old base was still secure as he'd left it. The personal location shielding didn't appear tampered with and everything was on their auto-functionality. As he finished checking things from the outside, he folded his wings to his back and brought his tail to his side while turning to face the two of them.

"Just promise me one thing you two: no shooting anything. We already know how deadly you two are, leave anything in here to me. If I look uncomfortable, I'll deal with it, alright?" though the request seemed simple enough, neither huntress liked what they heard.

"What bothers you about it, Shu Shu?" Sammy asked him first, since she could sense some unease.

At first he didn't answer before moving in close to Sammy, so that he could mouth the words to her. As Sammy watched his lips, his lips read 'It's too clean, meaning whoever's inside knew how to infiltrate and leave little traces.'. It needed no more words before her, she just nodded and he'd turned back to the door while Sammy conferred this knowledge to Samus. After inputting his code, Shu moved at inhuman speeds and pushed the heavy metal door open and looked around once in the center of his home. It was clean, as the bots were programmed to keep it clean; but his tongue slipped around and tasted the air. He knew someone was still here, even though he couldn't see any infrared signs. So he laid out an ultimatum, having plans to blow this place to little pieces in order to flush whoever it was out.

"Whoever's in here has about 20 seconds, I'm going to blow this place's reactor by then. Either come out or die hidden, I don't give a damn." though he would have done this; he began looking for what he'd come in here for first. His private files had been gone through by someone, nothing was important in that anymore, but it still irritated him.

"W-Wait! It's just me, Ferol. Yo-you remember right, Zan-man?" he'd come out of hiding, from the backroom with both arms raised. The bellow had shocked him awake and immediately he emerged since he had not wanted to die.

Shuzyn recognized Ferol, this was the one man he trusted when he was still human. He was coverd in more cybernetics since then, some pricy ones at that. That made him suspicious, he'd broken in and had been living here to some end, waiting for him? No...that didn't make any sense, Shuzyn never had a need to return to this place. In an instant, Shu grabbed Ferol by his throat and hoisted him off of the ground, and while not squeezing, he still glared at him.

"Gagh! H-Hey, don't- urk..!" he felt his throat closing under his own pressure as he tried to say not to squeeze.

"One question to you, don't lie and you won't get hurt. Why are you here and how much did the Federation pay you?"

"I uh...had no home to go to, and the reason is complicated. The Feds paid me for knowledge on you, I told them what I knew of your activities as a human. All that I knew was useless to you, as you are now...nnh...right? I mean you were legit, a bounty hunter who took out the trash and you got killed for it."

He felt himself being raised higher and while he gagged, he reared a hand backwards and attempted a punch to the forearm. To his surprise, the cybernetic knuckles hit the scaled arm in the elbow joint perfectly. Though it had no effect, even a punch that was launched in some desperation had done nothing at all, he was in deep shit had he intended to fight him.

"And what else? You are hiding something from that tale, why you have no place to stay, what didn't you tell them?"

"That...I had started tracking your new actions, I...I had to know that my old friend was still alive in there. I held back what you did after the fact you joined with Ms. Aran. I didn't spy on you anymore after that, anything I knew would come to bite me in the ass. Which was the result of my home getting blown to shit. Frankly, you being pissed at me is what scared me more." in his place, his voice was solemn, but strained from the grip.

After getting the whole story, Shuzyn let him down to the ground. The fact remained in his eyes, that he intended to give his old friend some trust, at least enough to let him live and see what he'd be doing next. Though he was prepared to tell him to leave, he decided to leave that to his company, who had been watching this unfold without a word.

"Uh...sorry about that, and I didn't know-"

"Keep quiet about this, that's all I prefer from you. Any peeping, i'll take a finger or your eyes." Samus wasn't going to tolerate anything, she didn't trust him even if Shuzyn did.

"Hah, that was her being nice, peep on her or the other young woman, chances are you might end up in worse shape than your in for repaired body parts." Shu seemed to step down a few notches after some moments, he was amused by the strictness of the threat.

With only a nod to go on, Samus, Sammy, and Shu set up shop in the main of the large workplace. They decided to leave the storage room to Ferol as he had been living in there, he wouldn't need to come out except for food since there was a shower in the bathroom over there. Ferol realized that they came here with a purpose, hiding out while they figured out some kind of arrangement? He wanted to help, even if just to prove that he was still Shuzyn's friend, and that his appearance would not frighten him off that easily.

-On the Nameless Planet-

Playing hide and go seek over the period of a few days seemed to run by fast. Ama-Lillith showed great perseverance by staying underground and not needing to surface. She had evaded ship scans by burrowing deeply, and for now had been in a catacomb. She wasted no excess energy by overexerting herself, nor did she need to eat for up to a week. Though she hated nod having a meal regularly, a small annoyance was easy to tolerate. There were only plans for her to board one of the ships that had been in the region. Though she considered her options of how to approach it, and had worked up a good plan of trekking to the top of some nearby mountains and bum rushing the ship and its defenses.

For the past 10 hours, she had been biding her time and made the move for the top of the mountain, simply running up on foot and choosing not to fly. The scans had not hit her, because the area had been thoroughly scanned and she evaded being sensed by making sure that she was deep enough. and under dense rock and metal ores likely. She had put thought into the fact that this planet was highly magnetic, that the ore was easily capable of screwing with some electronic systems. Ama-Lilith never would have imagined that she was being waited out even now. As her senses finally caught notice of movement, her hearing picked up the sound of shuffling behind a tree; and trusting those instincts she jumped backwards and avoided a plasma cannot shot aimed for her face.

"So you little insects was waiting for me..? Well damn, I guess I'll have to try harder then." though Ama-Lilith sounded amused, she was already pulling back to avoid another shot, which grazed her knee.

A second shot pierced her shoulder and she launched her tail through the man's chest, before yanking his body back to block three more shots aimed for her chest. Though the shots shattered the armor, it blocked the piercing. As she dropped to all four, and tossed the body forward to give the men something to shoot at, before taking to a tree; scaling it and quickly taking to leaping from treetop to treetop. The escape here wouldn't take too much effort on her part. It was just a measure of focus and keeping ahead of others while she moved, the men below had a lot more to do if they intended to catch her. The shots had picked up, even now as the ship overhead came into view. It opened up its hangar to let out several jet pack GF soldiers, this opportunity was exactly what Ama-Lilith was waiting for!

She could feel her body skimmed by shots, her tendril wings shredding under the long range shots being taken at her. This Commander was smarter than the last one she had killed personally, she surmised that he was at the very least a capable strategist, probably a strong-willed veteran who had more than a single minded objective to complete. Not that it mattered, but she could appreciate the ingenuity of someone of his caliber. Once she made it on board the ship, the hangar bay closed and the hangar lights turned on; revealing a large room full of men with their arm cannons aimed at her. They were the plasma variety, it meant they could do considerable damage to her. However, she smirked widely and had begun laughing.

The leader of the men, one of the Unit Commanders under Lorne, glared at her and barked out angrily, "What the hell are you laughing at Lizard bitch? You're outgunned! If you do anything other than surrender, we're taking a hole ridden carcass in for study."

"What's funny..? Well simply put: you are all fish in a barrel, making yourselves so vulnerable, I pity your ignorance." Ama-Lilith responded smugly, as her chest was gathering a strong static electric charge.

"Fiiire!" the man had let off a degree of a curse, squeezing the trigger of his plasma cannon arm. He'd been one of the first who let the blast fire off, aiming in part to try and finish this all in one concentrated effort.

The shots that were fired only picked up, as Ama-Lilith threw herself backwards and unleashed the discharge through the ground. She'd flooded a violent lightning plasma through the metal floor and she had growled, ignoring the pain of the sudden surge she released. It was over in an instant, as the insulated armored suits of the marines had begun to glow with weakened panels. Her 'wings' dispersed into tendrils into order to allow her to lower her mass as she threw herself to the floor. Her body was riddled with numerous shots, most were hits in her stomach and lower chest area. To her fortunate, any vitals were far better protected by her natural structure. Though wounded, she would heal and the pain was nothing compared to what she'd suffered escaping the B.S.L.; it was another thing to ignore in the end.

Most of the soldiers had been subdued, if not incapacitated by her choice action. Seeing this as her chance to get rid of the soldiers, she'd opened the hangar bay with her spear tail tip smacking the edge of the open button. Due to their high altitude, the air was immediately sucked out of the pressurized ship and with little warning, the men began to get sucked out of the ship. Uncaring of the fates of the men, Ama-Lilith rose and with her claws, used the grated floor to make her way towards the hangar's entrance to the ship. She had to kill the crew now, and take over the ship. It was time to get the hell off of this rock. She'd been far enough away from her lover that it would take some time to track him down.

-On the Ground-

"No...no! I can't believe that you all failed! We knew she'd try this, damn it! God Damn it, get into the other ships pronto! We'll take care of the men." he'd grumbled and had moved off to make sure that the soldiers who fell from the trap ship were recovered. Most of them would survive this, though the battle was proving to be something ugly, he'd thought.

How smart was she? Commander Lorne knew that he was going to have to make sure that he stopped this Queen at all costs. How could the Galactic Federation condone this? He had so many questions and was no better off with what he knew from the scraps of data that hadn't been deleted. Enough data was gathered that he'd had the right idea about the experiments, the Federation's dark side had made sure to finish cloning Metroids and the fools had gone and created something beyond their control. As usual it was the folly of man to try and control something that was easily beyond the grade of understanding of the men who were trying to improve the living weapon.

The whole thing told him that it was going to only get worse as this continued, he hadn't made a big question of what it was building up inside of them. Making sure to coordinate the efforts quickly, as he never left a man down. It was why his men knew they could count on him and the same reason that the Queen was going to escape. As he watched the trap ship moving in a wonky fashion, he realized that this meant his men were struggling to keep the Queen out of the main room and controls. He hoped to make sure that she stayed grounded, but the plans folded in on themselves as she broke through their defenses.

"We're going to have to step this up, or this evil rag is going to win. I don't let Lizards walk away on my watch." He summarily declared with his knuckles clenching, he had some moves to make.

As this time, the ball was rolling as the matters began to unravel, it was a desperate moment for the Federation to clean up all angles of their difficult. Commander Lorne led the effort of cover and silence willingly, if only to force out the darkness in the organization that he loved with his life.

(End Chapter)

Forced into hiding out, Samus and co. are going to stay out of sight until they can figure out how the Phazon's affecting Shuzyn. What does this mean for Sammy? Is she physically impacted after also being shot? No signs have been noted yet, no mutation visible. But with an X/Hybrid Space Aluasian/Human hybrid, what more will come of it? A great tale emerges, let's see how it plays out!

Until next time, I bid you adieu

-Quentix