CHAPTER EIGHT
Prime Hunter
"Those two again?!" Chun-Li growled when she got the news about the train incident concerning Poison and Hugo over the phone. "Where do these guys keep coming from?!"
"Officer Xiang, we need you to look at something."
"I'll call you back."
Chun-Li hung up and motioned for the scientist to show her what he had. She'd already been a tad irritated after hearing that Dante got off scot-free without hearing about a train being sabotaged by members of Mad Gear, but at the same time, she couldn't help but be impressed by him. That, and he certainly had a way with words even though resisting the charms of people like him was part of her job. As the scientist led her away, though, all thoughts of Dante and the train hijackers vanished.
"So what's this all about?" she asked.
"It's concerning Subject GCN-64, the woman that was found lying out in the middle of a cornfield outside of that strange vessel."
"Okay. What about her?"
"As part of our regulations, we needed to take a blood sample of her and…well, we found something fairly interesting."
"What would 'interesting' be?"
"I…have no idea."
The scientist took out a vial of the subject's blood and placed a dash of it carefully on a slide before slipping it under a microscope. Chun-Li promptly looked through the eyepiece and saw something very odd among the cells.
"What's with all this silvery liquid in there?"
"Yeah, that's the 'I have no idea' part. Then we looked further."
A nearby computer scream lit up and displayed two colorful double-helix shapes next to each other.
"This," the scientist began, pointing to the one on the left. "…is a strand of normal human DNA. Typically our DNA is two biopolymers that are linked together by the nucelobases adenine, guanine, thymine, and cytosine."
Then he pointed at the other strand.
"This, on the other hand, is a sample of the DNA we found in GCN-64. Somehow, an element that we aren't familiar with was installed in her DNA and coated over the four nucleobases. In fact, it's even linked together with them and genetically enhanced her beyond anything we can comprehend."
"So…she's not human, then?"
"Oh, no. She is. It's just that she's been introduced to something that makes her better than the average human."
"Better how?"
"We haven't seen her in action, so there's no way we can know for sure. However, we did take her measurements, and she's over six feet in height. Not only that, but even though she doesn't look like it, she weighs almost two hundred pounds. Were she not enhanced with whatever this compound is, she'd likely only be about 5'9" or so and weight just over one hundred pounds."
"Hm…is she dangerous?"
"From what we can understand, no. She'll probably just wake up and wonder what the hell she's even doing here."
As if on cue, an alarm went off and a voice started blaring over the intercom.
"Red alert! All available personnel, proceed directly to hangar bay! Subject GCN-64 has escaped! Be advised! Subject is fast and deadly!"
"Well, that didn't take long…"
The people of Tokyo were stunned by the young Caucasian woman that had suddenly run out into the streets and was now taking off as fast as she could. For one, she was over six feet in height, and for another, she was wearing a skin-tight blue catsuit with red markings all over it. So really, to say they were stunned was an understatement.
Of course, Samus hardly noticed any of this. She was still trying to figure out what had just happened as she made her way back to the crash site. Why had those people placed her in a tank? Judging from the small mark on her arm, they had taken a sample of her blood. Why?
"Ah, forget it. I gotta get back to my…oh, crap!"
Several police cars had swerved around the corner, and their drivers quickly exited their vehicles and pointed their pistols at her. They began yelling at her in some foreign language that she couldn't understand, but all she cared about were the pistols. A threat on her life.
"Well, they would be threats if I wasn't me."
She made the first move, running at a breakneck speed. The officers fired, and Samus quickly front-flipped over their blockade and kept running.
"My God…" one of the officers muttered. "What is she, an Olympic athlete?"
Olympic athlete or not, Samus was too swift for them to catch up. Even when they jumped back into their police cruisers and chased after her, they had a hard time catching up when she nimbly began flipping onto street lights and eventually vaulting herself onto a rooftop.
"Eyes in the sky, you got a visual on that target?!" barked one of the officers into his radio.
"Affirmative!" responded another officer from a helicopter. "Deploying strike team."
Samus found herself surrounded by several officers with machine guns, all of whom wore body armour.
"Take it easy, miss." one of them said, raising his hand in warning. "We just wanna talk."
The officers all breathed sighs of relief when they saw that Samus was starting to calm down. One of the officers held out his hand to her, and she started to reach toward it before…
"What the hell is THAT?!" she said suddenly, staring behind the officer with wide eyes.
She had to try hard not to laugh when they all fell for the oldest trick in the book, and the pilot aboard the helicopter shining a spotlight on Samus was shocked to see her suddenly take down two of the officers. The others aimed their guns at her, only for her to nimbly twist and turn her body around the gunfire and take the remaining three officers down with a roundhouse kick, a suplex, and a karate chop to the side of the head. She demonstrated her superhuman abilities again by running headlong to the edge of the rooftop and long jumping all the way to the next one.
"Uhh…are we really supposed to keep on her tail after she did THAT?!" the helicopter's co-pilot stammered.
"Yes. Quit being such a baby!" the pilot replied, tempted to reach over and smack his comrade over the head for being an idiot.
"You saw! We can't compete with that!"
"She's one woman. We'll be fine."
"Okay, if we'll be fine, then where'd she go?"
They lost Samus the second she had led them out of the city and into a nearby field filled with tall grass. The helicopter's spotlight scanned the entire area, and officers on the ground shifted through the grass with their flashlights. No matter how closely they looked, none of them could find Samus despite one of them being so close to her that she had to cup her hand over her mouth to keep him from hearing her breathing.
"Quite a slippery one, isn't she?" one of the ground officers muttered.
"No kiddin'." replied his comrade before he spoke into his walkie-talkie. "All units, suspect has escaped. Return to duty."
The field cleared out, and Samus breathed a sigh of relief.
"That was the absolute last thing I needed. Now, then, the ship shouldn't be too far away…"
She crept her way through the grass, still concerned that there might be more men out looking for her until she reached the crater. She got to her feet and quickly stepped down to her ship, now lying in ruins after slamming into the ground. As Samus quickly entered the ship and searched about the cockpit, she began to reminisce on how she had even crash-landed in the first place.
"I don't know…where in the world did that wormhole come from? …aha! Here it is!"
She seized the metallic plate and clipped it to her back right as she heard someone approaching. She ducked down again as Chun-Li stepped into view, looking all about until she cupped her hands over her mouth.
"Okay, lady. I know you're here. Come on out. I just wanna talk."
Chun-Li waited silently for a few moments before she heard a strange noise that sounded like a rushing wind before a sound similar to a gunshot followed it. Tracing the source right away, she vaulted out of the way just in time to see a small bolt of energy shoot over her head.
She focused on the hole in the strange ship, and sure enough, Samus stepped out, though looking completely different. She was now clad from head to toe in red, yellow, and orange armour with bulbous shoulders, a helmet with a green visor, what appeared to be small rocket thrusters on the back, and a massive green arm cannon that Samus was pointing directly at her pursuer.
"You picked the wrong day."
"Whoa, hold on!" Chun-Li half-shouted. "Just calm down, okay?"
"Why did you have me in a tank?! Where am I?!"
"Look, I know you must be a little confused…"
"Answer me!"
"Okay, okay. You're on Earth. We had you in that tank because we were thinking you might be an extra-terrestrial and we wanted to test your DNA. I need you to come back with me so we can finish the tests on you. You don't need to go back in the tank if you don't HOLY CRAP!"
Chun-Li just barely managed to flip out of the way as Samus fired at her again. She groaned in disgust, but cracked her neck and knuckles in preparation nonetheless.
"Alright. I guess we'll have to do this the hard way."
She sank into a fighting stance, fully prepared for any sudden movement Samus would make. Samus herself was not as impulsive as Chun-Li thought, however. She been trained better than to make the first move once a fight had been initiated. She was also trained not to underestimate her opponent, and though she didn't quite see how Chun-Li hoped to fight her in a heavy metal suit, she kept in mind that anything could happen. If Chun-Li wouldn't make the first move, then Samus would have to coax her into doing it, and she knew just the right method.
Chun-Li prepared to flip out of the way when she saw a buildup of energy coming from Samus' arm cannon, but flinched when Samus simply shot the dirt between them and launched up a cloud that hindered Chun-Li's vision.
"Can't fool me…" she growled, looking all about for any sign of movement.
She didn't notice the large green-and-orange sphere roll past her feet, but she did hear the metallic clank as Samus shifted out of this form and prepared to fire. All at once, Chun-Li stood on her hands.
"SPINNING BIRD KICK!"
The fact that Chun-Li had figured her out was enough to surprise Samus, but even after she had told herself to expect the unexpected, she was bewildered that she felt a throbbing pain every time Chun-Li's feet smashed into her, though not enough to keep her from retaliating by seizing her foot with one hand, heaving her up, and slamming her into the ground.
"Well, you did manage to hurt me. I'll give you that. Now get up."
She did, but not in the way Samus had been hoping. She got on her hands, spinning her body around like a top and slamming her feet against Samus' legs, crippling her long enough for Chun-Li to get up and deliver a sharp kick to the chest. Samus did little more than slide back a little way before firing numerous rounds of charged shots at her foe, who rolled and flipped away before crouching with her hands shoved forward.
"KIKOKEN!"
A sphere of blue energy launched from her hands and flew at high speed, but Samus shocked Chun-Li yet again when her suit contorted into its Morph Ball form again and began glowing before suddenly shooting forward and dropping a blinking object right at Chun-Li's feet. The Chinese fighter realized too late that the object was a pulse bomb as it detonated and launched her several feet in the air, culminating with Samus leaping up with her cannon aimed right at her opponent's head. As Samus fired the shot, though, Chun-Li twisted her body at all sorts of angles and successfully dodged, launching another Kikoken that slammed full force into Samus' chest. As Chun-Li gracefully landed on her feet in a crouching position, Samus clattered onto the ground on her back barely having any clue what just happened
"You're just making more work for yourself, sister." Chun-Li said with a furrowed brow. "Now stop acting like a total maniac and…"
"'Total maniac' this!"
Chun-Li had only a split second to get out of the way before Samus launched a small missile from her arm cannon, but literally the second she'd escaped the missile's range, Samus fired an electrical-looking beam from another gun on the underside of her left arm which painlessly attached itself to Chun-Li's collar.
"GET OVER HERE!" Samus hollered, yanking the Grapple Beam back and pulling Chun-Li along with it.
"Gladly. TENSHO KICK!"
Chun-Li's left foot hit Samus in the chest, forcing all the air out of her lungs and her body up off the ground, and her right foot hit her in the chin, flipping her head over heels until she landed right-side up a good distance, lunging at her opponent again and swinging her fist as hard as she could. Chun-Li blocked the blow with her forearms, though felt the unnerving sensation of her bones rattling as Samus struck them. Nevertheless, she retaliated with a high kick which was also blocked and used as a window of oppourtunity for Samus to palm strike her inner thigh.
Much to Samus' surprise, Chun-Li barely flinched and sweep-kicked at her legs. Samus flipped backward.
"Activate Ice Beam!"
The grooves in Samus' arm cannon turned a bright white colour and she fired at Chun-Li's feet, the latter being shocked when she realized that her feet now had buildups of ice keeping her frozen to the ground and being completely defenseless to Samus rushing forward and slamming her shoulders into her. Using her backwards momentum to the best of her ability, Chun-Li flipped over Samus' grounded ship and landed on the other side before crumpling to her knees and heavily panting.
"Damn, this woman's good. No way is she human with moves like that…"
She heard the metallic clank of Samus landing on top of the ship and rolled forward as she felt the heat of a charged shot land unnervingly close to her. Looking back, she saw that the grooves on Samus' arm cannon were now glowing red.
"You're one crazy bitch, you know that?" Chun-Li growled.
"At least I'm not the one who put someone in a tank full of water like some sick science experiment!"
"Goddammit, don't you understand that we did that to keep your vitals stable?! You would have died if we hadn't done something!"
"You underestimate me, lady. Really."
Then she said something that could only equal trouble.
"Activate Zero Laser!"
The arm cannon split in several places and proceeded to generate a massive buildup of energy. It didn't take a rocket scientist to guess what would happen next, and thus, Chun-Li did the only thing she could as the giant laser began to fire. She formed several signs with her hands before rising into a crane stance and finally slamming her fists into the ground.
"KIKOUSHOU!"
Her internal energy blasted out in a massive sphere, preventing the laser from touching her but also making her want to drop from exhaustion. She couldn't stop now, though. She had to win this fight, and it looked like the odds had tilted back into her favour a little bit when the Zero Laser and Kikoushou barrier dissipated. Samus fell to her knees as every little piece of her suit dropped off of her into a large metal mess, revealing the vulnerable human woman inside…or at least, Chun-Li would have thought that if not for the fact that Samus towered over her even without the suit.
"Hm…well, this is a little inconvienient for you, isn't it?" the Chinese agent said with a smirk nonetheless.
To her confusion, Samus smirked in return.
"There you go underestimating me again. You oughta make a business out of that."
Chun-Li shot forward with her Spinning Bird Kick attack, only for Samus to cartwheel to the side and jump at least five feet into the air, coming down with a flying kick and foot-stooling off Chun-Li's back.
"Goddammit, I thought I learned from Crimson Viper…" Chun-Li groaned.
She got back to her feet just to have Samus' foot smack against the side of her face and send her reeling backward. The second she recovered, she clenched her teeth and fists and flared her nostrils.
"Alright, that's it! It's war now!"
The two charged headlong at each other and swung, punching each other in the cheek. They swung again, Samus hitting Chun-Li's chest and Chun-Li hitting Samus' stomach. Then they entered a clash of constant attacks, blocks, and counterattacks, faking each other out every once in a while before Chun-Li balanced on her right foot and started lashing her left foot out over and over again at lightning speed. Samus managed to block each one, but dropped her guard at the wrong time and ended up on the receiving end of one final and very brutal kick to the face. She stumbled backward and expected Chun-Li to rush forward again and finish the job, but no. The two stood a few feet apart, both slumped over breathing heavily. They were both exhausted. So exhausted that they barely had the strength to slowly step toward one another and extend their hands.
"We'll call it a draw." Samus panted as the two hands clasped one another.
"Agreed…" replied Chun-Li. "Good God, are you strong."
"And good God, are you fast…Samus Aran."
"Xiang Chun-Li."
The two sat down beside one another and let their backs lean up against Samus' ship while they caught their breath, and once they found the strength to stand, Chun-Li began the interrogation.
"So…where did you come from?"
"Do you mean where I live or where I was born? I'm a bounty hunter. I don't live anywhere."
"Oh. How did you get here?"
"Honestly, I have no idea. This wormhole just showed up out of nowhere while I was out scouting and I got sucked inside."
"But you are a human, right?"
"Sort of."
"What's 'sort of' mean?"
Samus bit her lip, an obvious sign that what she was about to say would be hard to believe. Nevertheless, hiding it from Chun-Li would gain her nothing.
"My home planet was raided by a group of intergalactic terrorists called the Space Pirates when I was a little girl. My parents were both murdered in the invasion and I was adopted by a race known as the Chozo. They designed that spiffy suit you saw me wearing a few minutes ago."
"And am I to assume that they implanted you with some of their DNA and that's how you can move like that?"
"Exactly. So by 'sort of', I mean I'm a bit more than human."
"So as a bounty hunter, you'll serve any type of justice as long as you get paid?"
Samus sighed.
"Let me guess: you need my help with something?"
"Yes. We at Interpol are having our own problems with terrorists, more specifically a group called S.I.N."
"Huh. Real creative name. What are they up to?"
"From what I've been told, they've been kidnapping young women all over Japan and we have no idea why. I've been assigned to look into but I'm not really in the kind of position to do it by myself. Can you help me?"
"I…"
Samus seemed to freeze in place for a moment with a sad expression and sighed again.
"I guess so."
"Thank you…but what was that all about?"
"I guess I'm just worried. Me getting warped here right when there's a terrorist threat going on can't be a coincidence."
"There's more than that. I'm a cop, Samus. I get paid to notice these things."
"I'm worried about getting close to anyone on this planet…more specifically you now."
Chun-Li raised her brow.
"Why's that?"
"Because every single person I've ever cared has ended up dying right in front of me…it's like my eternal curse."
Any words Chun-Li had left were thrown out. As she proceeded to lead Samus back to the police station, she had a strange mixture of relief and dread. Relief that she wasn't alone in the quest to figure out what S.I.N. was up to, but dread that Samus may have had a greater point in saying that than she thought, and she didn't have the nerve to talk Samus out of this emotional slum.
"Guess there's no dwelling on it. Just gotta look ahead and keep on fighting for what we believe in."
She smirked, mainly because those weren't her words she had thought. They were the words of someone who she cared deeply about. Someone who lived by those words and couldn't be stopped by anyone. Someone who could easily substitute with Samus in this situation of policing, but there were two problems with that. The first was that she had no idea where he was since he was constantly going wherever he pleased, and the second was…
"Ryu's the kind of guy that'll just punch his way through any situation…but I guess that always works out for him."
Let me just state that I thought Metroid: Other M was a good game, though I don't think it's nearly as good as Prime. Just putting it out there...wow, seems I really like games that get such a huge amount of hate. I mean, there's Other M, then there's DmC: Devil May Cry and Resident Evil 6. The list goes on and on.
Also, it may interest fans of my Star Fox stories that I've come up with a new idea that stemmed from an idea suggested by Razorblade88 (who previously went by ianagainstcliffhangers). This isn't the new story that's going to come out after this one, but a brand new story involving Jack and Veronica who you guys might remember from the end of Subspecies.
Speaking of the previously announced story, has anyone figured out what it is yet?
SOUNDTRACK SO FAR
Saya, Ness, and Lucas- "Pollyanna" from Earthbound (SSBM)
Marth to the rescue- "Together We Ride" from Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (SSBM)
X and Zero versus Kirby and Meta Knight- "Meta Knight's Revenge" from Kirby Super Star (SSBB)
Link versus Morrigan- Morrigan's theme from Marvel versus Capcom 3
Link versus Dante- "Never Surrender" from DmC: Devil May Cry
Krystal and Trish versus the Moblin horde- "Lock and Load" from Devil May Cry 1
Krystal versus Mewtwo- "Poké Floats" from Super Smash Bros. Melee
Saya versus Ghirahim- Ghirahim's battle theme from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Frank versus Ghirahim- "On a Mission" from Dead Rising
Courthouse caving in- "No Redemption" from DmC: Devil May Cry
Samus escapes- Metroid Prime main theme
Chun-Li versus Samus- Chun-Li's theme from Street Fighter IV