Lightning flashes, red electricity, and a thudding noise all resounded at once. Samus' world spiraled out of control for her as she thrashed on the floor, shrieking hysterically. Kreatz grunted as he tried to hold her in place but the human was so strong that her uncontrollable spasms were jerking his arms to the point where he had to let go.
"Mauk, help me!" he called to his friend. "Hold Samus down!"
Mauk raced over and grabbed at the human's arms, gently holding them behind her back as she continued to struggle. It was hard to tell what Samus was exactly yelling at, for her eyes were glazed, unfocused, and her head lolled to the side listlessly. Pyonchi squeaked and ran up to Samus, his face immediately looking crestfallen as he saw his friend in such pain.
"Kill me!" she continued to scream. "Kill me now! I can't face him! No one can! He will hunt us like animals, tear us apart with his teeth! We can't run from him, so just kill me before it's too late!"
"Calm down, Samus!" Mauk bellowed in her face, but Samus tilted her head back and proceeded on yelling. The big man vigorously shook Samus' shoulders as a last-ditch effort, but that only bobbed her head back and forth without any results.
Kreatz backed up, for once at a loss for words. Platinum Chest quickly shuffled over to him and gently placed a hand on the side of his arm. "Oh no," the Chozo gasped. "We never wanted this to happen. Not to her…she never deserved this."
Kreatz performed a double-take, first at the wailing Samus and back at Platinum Chest. "Wait, what are you talking about? What the hell happened here with Samus? Why is she like this?"
"It's her past," Platinum Chest explained. "Her memories have come back to haunt her."
"Memories? Memories of what, her family?"
"Yes," the Chozo nodded has he watched the sorry sight. "You most likely know that Samus was only a child when the Space Pirates killed her family on her birth planet. She saw things no child should ever see at her age. At the end of the slaughter, the most grievous blow that day was dealt when Ridley killed Samus' mother right in front of her. She was the last survivor of the attack on that planet and that is why we raised her, because she had no one else to go to."
"Ridley?" Kreatz tilted his head. "You mean that gigantic winged dragon-looking thing?"
"Ridley is a Space Pirate that inhabits the highest genetic rung of his species. He is a creature predestined to lead due to his biology. He instigated the attack on K-2L, Samus' colony. And his presence here most likely caused Samus to have a flashback, causing her to slip into this catatonic state."
Kreatz looked back over at Mauk, who had wrapped Samus in a gigantic bear hug by now, his large arms firmly hooked around the human's chest as he struggled to quell her violent thrashes. Samus was still begging for death, her mouth open as she howled for it all to end, her voice starting to become hoarse as her vocal cords became strained.
"Even now…after she's been fighting the Space Pirates for so long? All because of Ridley?"
"Most likely Samus had no idea this eventuality would occur and was thus unprepared for it," Platinum Chest sighed sadly. "Repressed fear has a tendency to grow inside a person with time. Depending on the type of trauma, this fear can be subconsciously noticed or altogether ignored. But it seems that Samus' final moments of her mother's death were too intense for her to overcome."
"Well, is she able to snap out of it?" Kreatz urged, watching Mauk now start to form a sweat in restraining Samus.
"She will be able to," the old Chozo said sagely. "But there's no telling how long that will take. Samus will have to find her way back to us in order to quell her fear fully."
"And how will she able to do that?"
The fire sprung up all around her, crackling as it blew toward her body. She threw up her hands and uttered a tiny shriek as the heat washed over her, causing her palms to feel blistered. She stumbled away from the blaze and blinked as she felt something lapping at her feet. It felt wet, like water.
She looked down at the ankle-deep liquid and tried to penetrate the dark surface as it obscured her feet, which she could see were bare for some reason. She lifted her foot up and found to her horror that it was colored red, staining her skin as it dripped off of her.
She then discovered that she was standing in a lake of blood.
The smell of iron now began to assault her nose, causing her to cover her face as the putrid stink wafted over to her. She stumbled through the deep pool of blood, avoiding the flames inexplicably hovering an inch over the liquid.
Abruptly, the inferno parted evenly, revealing a corridor through the lake, untouched by the licking strands of flame. Her breath sucked away from the heat, she panted as she headed in that direction, the only direction she could travel. She coughed, feeling faint, and rubbed at her stinging eyes.
Through the sheets of the blaze, she could see shadowy shapes parked beyond the border. They crouched down, angrily hissing, and she could see them clack their claws behind the protective glare, intent on hostile action.
She raised her hand to ward off these demons but was astonished to find that her arm cannon was missing, as was her Power Suit. She groped at herself in panic, quickly finding that she was only wearing a light tunic instead of the protective covering she had come to rely on for so long.
But something seemed off. This was different from what she was used to. The shadows were tall, much taller than her and a deep resounding fear panged through her. She opened her mouth to speak but was shocked when a tiny voice only mumbled a string of words unintelligibly. That was not her voice, at least it was not anymore. In that moment, Samus realized that the entire world around her had not gotten bigger; she had gotten smaller.
Trapped in her three-year old body, she pushed on through the blood, her white pants permanently stained red. It looked like she had wandered through a slaughterhouse, for she was so bloody that she could no longer smell the foul liquid on her anymore. She brushed at her short hair nervously, untangling a knot as she stood in the center of the lake, stranded.
A high-pitched roar caused her to jump in fright. A tall pillar quickly erupted from the pool in front of her and a large winged figure quickly touched down upon it. The beast's wings rose above the fire victoriously and the spiny head unleashed another triumphant bellow, smoke billowing out from its gut.
She could not see past the shadow of the inferno, but the outline of Ridley was immediately apparent to her, as were the objects he clutched in both hands. Ridley cackled sadistically as he spotted her small form below, raising his trophies high in victory so that she might have a better view.
"Step closer, human," Ridley whispered. "Step closer so that you may join your family in the afterlife!"
And she finally saw.
Two humanoid figures for two hands. One male, the other distinctively female. Their heads were both in the grasp of Ridley's claws, in the very clutches of the demon who had brought them to this hell.
"Papa…" she finally gasped. "Mama…"
The words barely escaped her mouth before the dragon squeezed his hands.
The cracking of the skulls echoed in her head for what seemed like an eternity. She could see the heads of her parents disappear under the brute force of the creature. A pulpy mass squished between the clawed fingers and spurted in every direction. Blood flew and rained down on the ground, merely another contribution to the lake.
She merely stood and let the drops hit her as she remained frozen in horror. It vaguely reminded her of a warm rain. As the blood dripped down her face, she could only stare ahead, traumatized.
When the realization hit her, she began to tremble.
"NOOO!" Samus cried as she bucked her hips savagely downward, gradually slipping herself out of Mauk's grasp. Her hands came up to her face and hid herself from the world. "Not…not again! Not them…not my parents!"
"Dammit, Samus!" Mauk roared, his patience exhausted. "Calm down! Just relax! No one's going to hurt you here!"
"Take me instead, you monster!" Samus lingered in speaking to her personal devils. "Not them! Take me…TAKE ME!"
Kreatz was about to shout his own words of exasperation at Samus but his sensitive ears quickly picked up a noise at his six. He turned around and his eyes widened as he saw a squad of Pirates hustle out, their claws already bared in preparation for battle.
"Mauk!" Kreatz warned as he dove behind an augmentation tank. The laser bolts from the Pirates melted holes in the glass above his head, shearing through tank after tank. The Chozo elders scurried for cover but Mauk continued to struggle with Samus out in the open.
Kreatz had his submachine guns out by now and was already peppering the Pirates with return fire. An alien fell to the ground, riddled with holes in his carapace. Another Pirate was too slow on the uptake and a bullet took its jaw off, leaving him to scramble around on the floor, its face dripping blood.
"We can't stay here, Mauk!" Kreatz screamed to his friend, continuing to fire even as more Pirate troops poured through the door. "We need to get the hell out of here now!"
"Samus can't be moved in this condition!" Mauk shouted back. "She's too messed up for me to string her along!"
He was about to say more but one of Samus' flailing elbows firmly caught Mauk in the gut, driving itself in hard. Mauk had not been expecting the blow and he doubled over, wheezing. Samus then shrugged out of the large man's grip and staggered over through the augmentation farm, not even noticing the beams whizzing by her head. Her shoulder impacted painfully on one of the tanks and Samus staggered, sinking down to the ground, her head positioned straight down, and her arms atop her head. In the middle of the chaotic room, Samus curled inward and shut everything else out.
Mauk had recovered by this time but elected not to pursue the human after he saw that she had gone to cover. Noting the now increased influx of Pirate forces, he quickly unslung his shotgun and fired a rocketing blast, shearing the leg off of a trooper and planting him straight on his back. Carefully avoiding the returning fire, Mauk ducked and fired intermittently as he proceeded towards the door, joining up with Kreatz as he helped draw the line between the two opposing sides.
Fingers clenched on their triggers, both men began yelling in rage, filling the air with noise not inhabited by the blasts of their guns, drowning out the screams of the dead and the dying.
As the room reverberated with war, the Chozo began congregating towards the cowed Samus.
"Samus."
She lifted her head up, finding that the lake of blood had dried up, the fires extinguished. The voice had been uttered so clearly, so peacefully, that it seemed like it had calmed the storm in her mind. The cursed voice of the dragon had disappeared and his shadow eradicated from this place.
She lifted herself up slightly, finding that she was back in her regular body. The blood had been washed off her clothes and she gasped gratefully as she ran a hand along her untarnished face. Leaning forward, her hands met cold stone and she lifted her head slowly, not stressing her neck any.
Before her stood all of the Chozo elders, each one approaching slowly. They spread their hands in a gesture of peace, a silent request to continue proceeding forth. Her lower lip quivered, her mind in a total lock. She did not know what to say and was unable to speak. Very gradually, she waited for her guardians to surround her.
The closest Chozo to her, Platinum Chest, slowly bent down so that her head was at the same height as him. The Chozo did not smile, but instead raised a hand, gently placing it upon the top of her head. She flinched at the touch, expecting pain, but eventually calmed down as the long fingers brushed her gently, grooming her.
"Samus," Platinum Chest whispered again. "My dear. Our child. Our light. It pains us to see you frightened so."
The hand firmly wrapped around her windpipe was lessening and she was finding it easier to breathe at the Chozo's words. She still rasped painfully, but the calming voice and the soothing touch was slowly alleviating the pain. Her eyes pled to Platinum Chest, eager for more.
"Oh, Samus, you must be in such pain. To relive something truly horrific like that, it would take even the best of us. We are sorry, so sorry that you had to go through this, our poor child. We know, Samus. We know your pain. We never wanted this for you. This is not meant to be your fate."
She slowly led her hands forward so that she was now on all fours. Her hair hung down in clumps, shaking as her head twitched faintly. She leaned into Platinum Chest's hand, wanting his gentle touch upon her more, needing it to exist instead of a blow, a smack, or a punch. She needed his guiding hand.
"We could not ask any more from you, Samus. We imposed such a burden upon you, a burden that would have broken any other mortal. But you, Samus, you have truly and earnestly exceeded our expectations. We can feel you hurting, child. We know how tired you are. You do not need to be fighting forever, Samus. Just clear your thoughts and let it all go."
Other hands began placing themselves on her head, her shoulders, her arms. Suddenly, all of the weight in the galaxy felt like it was projected on her neck, causing her to sink down lower. The elders surrounded her, murmuring their praises, and wrapped her in a warm blanket. She could sense the heat rising from her core, blossoming into a flower. A well buried deep within began to spring loose and a giant sensation felt like it was traveling upward towards her head.
"You've done all that we've asked for, child. We are here for you. We will always be here for you. You have no reason to be afraid any more, Samus. Do not hold it in any longer. Strike it from your heart, draw it out from your body."
Now, Platinum Chest removed his hand from her head and placed it upon her own hand. Gently patting her, the old Chozo finally gave a smile, one out of tenderness and love. She could feel her eyes start to water, a building rush forming from behind them. Any moment now the dam would burst and she would be left in tatters. She tried hard not to let it go, she clung to it, but it began to slip out of her grasp.
"Do not worry any longer, Samus. You can let it go. You may cry if you feel hurt. But do not despair. We…have always been proud of you…Samus. Now, come back to us, child. Come back to your family. We have missed you so."
She could not hold it back any longer. Her breathing was erratic, noticeably trembling. As soon as the first tear impacted on her cheek did she realize that it was too late to do anything about it. With a deep breath, she lowered her head and screamed out one final note of anguish.
She cried so loudly she thought she could split the sky in two, the noise surrounding her, coddling her. The howl soon dissolved into blind weeping and the tears finally flowed in earnest as she began to bawl helplessly. Her cheeks quickly became damp as she sobbed, her whole body shaking as she cried. The sensation of the tears on her lips gave way to a salty taste, and for a brief, blessed moment, she wondered just where she was.
Still she continued to cry, lost to the will of her unleashed emotions. She cried for her dead parents. She cried for her lost childhood. She cried for being so loved. It felt good to cry.
Now that the stark expanse seemed foreign to her, she looked through her dry sobs and willed her legs to move. Everything that she had learned, her training on Zebes, her experience in the Federation, told her to stand up. Tortured muscles aching, tears still dripping, cries still sounding, she called into being the very notion to move her limbs a fraction of an inch.
In that instant, the world opened up to Samus.
Smoke poured into the air, the heat shimmering in the glare of the sun. Ridley beat his wings quickly and shot through the overhanging shroud, creating small whirlpools of particulates in his wake. Frustrated, he scanned downward and grimaced at the level of destruction that had been caused to the facility, his mood souring more and more.
Fires had erupted in several different places from the detonations that had occured and the each site's damage had not been properly contained yet. Ridley could see several Pirates scramble to extinguish the blazes, but would later find out that all of their efforts would be for naught. The damage was just too severe.
His comm was so abuzz with noise that Ridley was almost considering shutting it off for the noise was annoying him so much. Frantic Pirates pleaded for instructions, for directions, but there were so many voices and all of them were panicked that Ridley had no hope of addressing each and every woe one at a time. Choosing to grit his teeth instead, he let the chatter go on, waiting for a lull in the endless noise so that he could finally command.
As he circled above the carnage, the news that Ridley received just became worse and worse as time went on. Apparently a pipeline in the Norfair sector had been breached by the seismic shockwaves and had been leaking flammable gas into the area and now several Pirates had pulled themselves off the front lines to run fire extinguishing duties. To make matters worse, the heavy traffic of the comms was overloading the entire system, causing interference to make the entire thing run at the brink of shutdown.
Ridley was about to bark into the comm in an attempt to override the squabbling in order to direct troops to fix the pipeline when a distant boom cut him off. Ridley glanced up as he soared through the lower atmosphere, sighing darkly as a new tower of smoke erupted out of the side of a nearby mountain. The shockwave quickly caught up to him, buffeting him around in the air but a few flaps of his wings corrected his orientation, adjusting his approach.
"Somebody give me a report on that last detonation," he growled into the now silent comm, now finding the quiet rather worrying.
Static was heard first for a split second and then a coughing voice scratched through the interference. "L-Lord Ridley!" the Pirate gagged. "That explosion came from Norfair! It…it was the gas, sir. It reached the flames and…and…"
"And it reacted rather harshly," Ridley grumbled, finishing the sentence. "Disregard Norfair, then. That sector is lost for all I care. Return to your posts and await further instructions." Without waiting for a reply, Ridley clacked his jaw and his communicator abruptly switched frequencies. "Recon party, have you located the source of the detonations?" Nothing but silence. "Recon team, report!"
Still there was silence on the line. So, that meant that there was currently no evidence that the human had brought along friends or that the patrol was all dead. Ridley did not know if the interference this time was brought along by the company's demise or the faulty communications. He wondered how a creature so small could do so much damage by herself. Running through all the frequencies, it was the same story for every unit. Pandemonium and chaos were running rampant amongst the troops, finding themselves saddled with duties that were unable to be performed. Everything was falling apart.
Something had to be done and Ridley knew the solution, but every instinct in his body told him not to defer his share of the leadership. Not at a critical time like this.
But there was no other choice. The troops needed to get in line and he was not going to be able to do that with just a wonky communicator. Knowing he might regret this decision very much, he flicked his jaw to the right and activated a private channel, one that was only shared with two others.
"Gray Voice…" Ridley called, his voice catching slightly in rage. "The troops are in disarray. I need you to allocate time towards rallying them to get outside and help with the damage this facility has sustained. Do you copy?"
Ridley shut his eyes, expecting the Chozo to respond smugly, or even worse, to have a completely neutral tone. But nothing came and Ridley's heart began to beat a little bit slower. Had that damnable Chozo not heard him? "Gray Voice, are you there?"
"I apologize, Ridley," Mother's smooth voice now broke in, startling him. "Gray Voice's transmitter seems to be deactivated at the moment."
"Why the hell did he do that?" Ridley asked, dumbstruck.
"I can only speculate that he was assured by your confidence that you were able to maintain control of the situation that he thought that such requests for assistance were a statistical impossibility."
Ridley snorted. In a way, the condescending tone of the AI was way worse than what the extent of Gray Voice's reaction would have been. "Well, apparently it wasn't!" he roared, not caring that he just spouted his incompetence for all to hear. "Just find that bastard and put him to work! Quickly, before another surprise springs up on us!"
"At once," Mother acknowledged before she cut the transmission.
Ridley bent his wings back and plummeted toward the ground, spiraling so fast that his eyes hurt from the wind. At the very last moment, he spread his membranes out wide and caught the air which snapped him back it almost strained his joints. Searching for at least a contingent to order around, Ridley was preparing to descend even further when he received an urgent request on the local band.
"Err…Lord Ridley…" the hapless Pirate stammered. "There's some news that you might find…troubling."
"Spit it out!" Ridley screeched into his communicator. "I doubt it could be worse than the travesties that have been vexing us for the last fifteen minutes. What is it?!"
"Um…" the Pirate's voice sounded like he was going to be executed across the radio feed, despite him being safely away from his leader's wrath. "The prisoners…"
"What about them?"
"They've all escaped."
Ridley wheeled about in midair, his jaw agape as the smoke spread all around him. Speechless for a silent, somber moment, Ridley could only widen his eyes.
"WHAT!?"
The narrow canyon did not allow for much room to maneuver about, but that was more a problem for the forces opposing the natives at the moment. Kreatz and Mauk had taken cover behind a pair of boulders while the elders and Samus kept their distance around the corner, closer to the hatch they walked out of. The two were hosing down the Pirates stupid enough to try and force their way through the canyon with their guns, providing perfect cover fire whenever one of them needed to reload.
Kreatz set his submachine gun on the rock in front of him and squeezed the trigger, only needing to force the gun firmly down onto the boulder in order to not let the recoil affect his aim. Space Pirates fell as the bullets shredded their torsos and soon two dozen bodies lay before them, sprawled out in the open.
"I'll scout ahead," Kreatz said to Mauk as he slipped on a pair of protective goggles. "You provide cover for the others."
"Got it," his friend grinned. "Go."
Kreatz stood up and nimbly hopped up onto the adjacent ledge, crouching along the lip. Mauk watched him depart and craned his neck behind him as soon as Kreatz was out of sight.
"All clear!" he shot back. "Move up!"
"Come, my child," Platinum Chest gestured to Samus, who was now able to stand. She dimly nodded and dutifully followed the Chozo's guiding hand as they brought up the rear. Her eyes were still raw, red from crying for such a long time. Platinum Chest glanced over and quickly dabbed at the corner of her eye, mopping up a tear that had been threatening to spill. "There, there," he soothed. "It won't be much longer now. Just a short walk to go."
Even above the whistling wind in the gorge, Platinum Chest heard a faint, "Thank you."
Meanwhile, Kreatz shuffled along the edge of the canyon, carefully eying the floor a story below him until he heard someone talking to his immediate left. He plastered his body to the wall and cautiously peeked out, in case this particular person was looking in his direction.
Fortunately, they were not, as the Space Pirate was too busy hunched over a communications console to even notice the din approaching this way. More than likely he did not even know how close he was to getting his call cut short.
"That's affirmative!" the Pirate was nearly screaming into his transmitter. "We have a visual on the ground, my lord! The Federation woman did bring backup! They're here in force and their last reported direction of travel seems to be placing them at the port. We have no accurate head count as of yet, but I'll get back to you within ten-"
A cough emitted from Kreatz's silenced weapon and the bullet caught the Pirate in the neck. The alien immediately dropped his transmitter and wheezed as blood began to pour out of the opening, gushing in time to his breathing. Kreatz shot out of cover and put another round in the back of the Pirate's head, quashing its feeble gurgles. Sensing an opportunity, he grinned and reached for the transmitter, already hearing the extremely annoyed individual rage on the other side.
"Well?" the voice roared. "Ten what, you idiot?! Do I need to get over to your position and perform your job myself? Answer, damn you!"
Kreatz began panting into the transmitter, simulating exhaustion. "We…uhh…" he mumbled into the small port, his voice rough and slightly deeper as he attempted to mimic the vocal style of a Space Pirate. "I…I have an accurate head count, my lord…lord…" he struggled to remember the individual's name. "Ridley! Yes, my lord Ridley! The aggressors appear to be a…a fully equipped task force. About twenty to thirty well-armed soldiers and they're all headed for the caves!"
The person on the other end paused a beat. "Is this the same individual I was speaking to just moments ago?"
Kreatz nodded in appreciation. The dragon was not as dumb as he looked. "Ah…affirmative, my lord. I was just a little shaken…is all. They've destroyed everything in the area and they're pursuing me at the moment. We're all evacuating back to the ships and-"
"NO ONE GAVE YOU THE ORDER TO EVACUATE!" Ridley screamed so loudly Kreatz thought the transmitter might shatter from the sheer volume. "Only I get to make that decision! I demand to know your horde and individual number right now so that you can save me the trouble of having to skin your worthless hide in front of your peers!"
"Oh…uh…" Kreatz balked. "I…I forgot. Sorry about that, sir."
"'MY LORD!'" Ridley corrected forcefully. "Are you deliberately trying to evade your execution? Who do you think you are, soldier?!"
"Just a guy who seems to enjoy being in trouble a lot," Kreatz chuckled, now dropping the charade. "By the way, I'd steer clear of the enemy force if I was you. They've got a badass on their side and her name is Samus Aran."
"A…a WHAT?! WHO-"
"Well, that certainly was an enlightening conversation," Kreatz muttered to himself as he smashed the transmitter on the ground, crunching its components into the dirt. He looked down and spotted Mauk below him, leading the group of elders out of the canyon. Kreatz hopped over a small ledge and threw all of his weight behind him as he traversed the steep slope back down to the ground level. Pebbles crumbled around his feet as he traveled, kicking up clouds of dust.
"Anything up there?" Mauk called out as Kreatz traveled towards him.
"Just a loudmouth that tried to give away our position," Kreatz said with a shrug. "I think I might have subverted any efforts to contain us, but I can't be sure. That dragon certainly knows that we've escaped by now."
"You didn't taunt him, did you?"
"I might have. Why?"
"You're completely impossible, do you know that?"
"I've been told that from time to time," Kreatz said sheepishly. "I just couldn't resist this one-"
Kreatz broke off as a shadow flickered across his face for a split second. He looked up at the tip of the canyon wall where a figure had just momentarily broken the sun as it moved along the edge. With a well-placed propulsion, a singular Space Pirate sailed through the air and landed directly behind the group, its claws already splayed out in preparation to fire.
Both Mauk and Kreatz tracked the enemy with their guns, both horrified that the Pirate had gotten the drop on them. The elders too turned at the sound of the footsteps behind them, too slowly to react properly. Still within the canyon, there was nowhere for them to go as the Pirate readied its lasers at point-blank range.
Mauk and Kreatz had not chance of firing, not with the crowd of Chozo standing between them and the Pirate. Mauk tried to get his shotgun above the heads of the elders but the angle was too shallow to make out the Space Pirate properly. All he could see was the claws of the alien begin to wisp as it prepared to eject its natural plasma, the horrified gasps of the Chozo as they realized what was going to happen, and the long, blond hair of Samus as she obliviously kept her back to the Pirate, too vulnerable to even react properly.
"NO!" Mauk roared, as if that would stop the Pirate from attacking. He was about to push his way through the Chozo and dive upon the Pirate when a distinct blast rocketed through the canyon. He froze in mid-stride in horror, anticipating seeing his friend lying on the ground in a pool of her own blood. He could not see Samus beyond the sea of robes and he called out, "S-Samus?"
Almost reverently, the Chozo parted to let him through and Mauk blinked as, instead of seeing Samus dead on the ground, he saw the exact opposite. The Space Pirate was lying on the ground having been blown completely in half, the smell of charred flesh coming to him from the cauterized wounds. The two halves of the alien twitched as its brain tried to comprehend what had just happened, as if it was unwilling to accept that this is what its destiny amounted to.
Now looking more in front of him as he comprehended the sight of the dead aggressor, Mauk finally saw her.
"Oh, wow," he heard Kreatz behind him whisper in awe.
Where a helpless human had been standing mere moments before, a crouching warrior had taken her place. Enveloped once again in the red and yellow embrace of the Power Suit, Samus ground her feet into the dirt and did not move her arm cannon, which was still pointing at the dead Space Pirate, having fired milliseconds before the alien did. Gentle waves of heat floated into the air from the muzzle and all sound seemed to be muted as the towering soldier slowly got out of her crouch, the armor making heavy noises as it stomped on the ground.
Behind the electric blue visor, Samus' eyes sparked in determination. "My duty is to protect my family," she said clearly as she stood menacingly. "I am a Protector, and I must protect the people I care about."
A/N: Now we've gotten into some of the really dark territory and there's plenty more yet to come. Heh...heh...you'll see.
LawrenceSnake: Well, I did leave that extra "L" in there...because the word 'Kill' requires two 'L's to be a proper word (can't really have it as "Kil," now can I?)