(Note: This chapter contains words and phrases written in Chozo. There is a translation guide at the bottom of the chapter.)

MISSION LOG 04: Ferenia

Samus Aran was three years old and she was alone. She was still far too young to fully understand and process at the time what had just happened. She had stumbled upon a large, scary-looking dragon sitting on a cliff overlooking the mines and, trying to be brave, reached out to make friends with the creature. It led her on, made her think that it was friendly. Then the monster tried to eat her. Her mother had come to her rescue just in time, pulling her away from its jaws while losing an arm in the process. Virginia Aran had screamed for her daughter to run as the monster grabbed her and tore the woman's head clean off with his teeth before devouring the rest of her with a smirk on his face. Samus was too stunned to move. Too scared to do anything but sit there and cry as Ridley crawled over to her.

Then the processing plant exploded, along with the space pirate ship docked there. Samus' father had ignited the afloraltite reserves in a last-ditch effort to destroy the space pirates before they could cause any more trouble for the rest of the galaxy. It was impossible to say for certain how much of a difference killing that specific pirate crew would make but at the very least, it inadvertently saved Samus' life. Ridley was outraged at what he viewed as a slight against himself and stormed off, flying through the vacuum of space into the unknown.

All Samus could do was cry and wander the wreckage of the only home that she'd ever known in the vain hope of finding her parents. That was how the chozo had found her when they returned in answer to the distress signal Rodney had sent out when the space pirates arrived. She had met their leader, Old Bird, during their brief visit earlier that day and he was the one who had taken her into his soft yet firm arms. She cried herself to sleep while burying her face in the old chozo's chest. By the time she woke up again, they had taken her back to the planet that she would soon call home, Zebes.

"What were you thinking, bringing the girl here?"

Samus' eyes flittered open at the sound of an unfamiliar voice shouting angrily in a language that she didn't know. She found herself resting on a weathered old bench in an old, cavern-like room. Two chozo were arguing at the other end. The shorter one was Old Bird, the one he had met earlier, but she had never seen the taller of the two before.

"Would you have preferred that we left her there to die?" Old Bird asked.

"No, I didn't mean it like that, but…"

"But what, Grey Voice?" Old Bird snapped. "There was nothing else that we could do."

"But a human child will not be able to adapt to Zebes' climate. The gravity here alone is over twice what she'd be used to, to say nothing of the low oxygen levels or the other extreme conditions. At best, she would have to be kept in just Brinstar and Crateria but even then it would be nearly impossible. We should contact the Federation, see if they can take her in."

Samus continued to lie there. She couldn't seem to bring herself to move, so she just continued to listen to the bird people who were too caught up in their argument to notice that she was awake.

"That will not be necessary." Another of the birdlike aliens, even taller than the others, strolled into the room.

"What are you doing here?" Grey Voice took a step back. Both he and Old Bird seemed startled by the newcomer's sudden entrance.

"I sent for him." A small, floating metal ball with a camera sticking out of it came in behind the third Chozo.

"Mother Brain?" Old Bird pointed at the ball. "What is the meaning of this?"

"The child is a security risk that endangers the safety and success of Project Metroid," a synthetic voice emitted from the orb but like the chozo, it was in that strange, alien language that Samus had yet to learn. "It should be disposed of at once."

Old Bird and Grey Voice were both taken aback by this.

"How could you even suggest such a thing?" Old Bird asked.

"We should send the child back to her kind," Grey Voice insisted.

"I am afraid that for once, I agree with the Thoha representatives," the third chozo said coolly as he turned to the flying drone. "You are perhaps too hasty in your conclusions, Mother Brain. Even if the child were able to survive on this planet, I do not believe that it would present a risk to our plans. In fact, I see an opportunity."

"What are you scheming, Raven Beak?" Grey Voice narrowed his eyes.

"Something that should appeal to us all." He flicked out his hand and a hologram materialized in the air, displaying a complex helix design. "This was taken from the scans that Mother Brain took upon the child's arrival. As I'm sure that you are aware, human DNA is much more malleable than our own, and the child is at a stage where it is still rapidly developing. If we act now, I believe that we may be able to modify its genetics by grafting our own onto it. My simulations predict that this will not only grant the child the physical durability required for life on this planet but also serve a role in Project Metroid. By using both Thoha and Mawkin DNA, the child may become an invaluable key to the success of our mission."

After a brief pause, the computer spoke up. "Raven Beak is correct. I have just run the calculations myself. There is a small margin for error but the probability is high that the procedure would work."

Old Bird and Grey Voice shared a glance, their centuries-long partnership allowing them to understand each other's opinions on the matter without a word.

"Very well," Grey Voice nodded. "I will provide my DNA for the procedure."

"Excellent." Raven Beak dismissed the hologram. "And as the only Mawkin currently on planet, I will do the same. We shall prepare the procedure immediately."

"I have already given the order," Mother Brain said. "Our scientists are readying the equipment now."

Raven Beak and Mother Brain left the room as quickly as they had entered. Once they were gone, Old Bird and Grey Voice looked at each other uneasily before turning to Samus. Finally realizing that the girl was awake, Old Bird rushed to her side and knelt down. Before he could say anything, however, the young girl passed out again. Zebes really was a hostile place for a human.


Samus stepped out of the elevator and was immediately in awe of what she saw. Ferenia, it seemed, was an ancient Chozo temple. While Samus may have been human, it had been a long time since she'd truly felt as if she were one. The Chozo were her people and their culture was hers more than the Federation could ever be, yet she had rarely been able to experience much of it since leaving Zebes as a young woman. There were the ruins of Tallon IV and Elysia, which she had visited many times since finding them, but those had been rendered off-limits to her since she had been blacklisted by the Federation for her actions aboard the BSL station. She wasn't going to waste this rare opportunity.

"You go on without me," Samus said as she gazed up at a statue depicting an armored Chozo wielding an ornate sword. "I'll catch up."

"No, I'll stick with you." Bailey walked up to her.

Progress was slow, as Samus took the time to scan and save recordings of nearly everything that they came across, documenting it all for later. With her history, there was a reasonable chance that the entire planet was going to be gone by the time they left, so she wanted to preserve as much as possible. Sadly, though, it only took a few rooms before they found themselves entering another E.M.M.I. Zone.

"Well, that certainly didn't take long," Bailey said as they walked into it. "I'm already so tired of these things."

"I know but there isn't much that we can do about it other than to just try and get this over with quickly."

The chamber that they entered was almost a dead end, save for a damaged section of floor that broke away into a drop-off leading to a lower chamber. Samus and Bailey made the fall, landing in another open chamber. What set this one apart from the last, however, was the far wall from the door leading to the next room. Samus's attention was immediately drawn to the old fresco carved into it.

The images seemed to depict some sort of conflict between the Chozo tribes. On one side, an armored Chozo resembling the one that had attacked her led an army of soldiers. On the other, Chozo in ornate blue robes resembling those of the ones she grew up around were shown falling from a great height. There was Chozodian text inscribed between the figures but it was written in a dialect that Samus didn't recognize.

"Well, that seems ominous," Bailey said as she walked up beside Samus.

"Indeed," Samus replied, staring at the mysterious warrior as a sudden, intense surge of anger flashed through her. It was gone in an instant and Samus turned to see Bailey backed up against the wall, clearly in a panic. Before she could even question what had just happened, however, she was thrown back from the wall by a sudden blast of Wave Beam energy. She stood up again, readying her cannon as a purple E.M.M.I. smashed through the fresco, destroying it completely as it rushed towards her. Before she even had a chance to react, it had grabbed her by the torso and right arm.

She struggled against its grip but the robot was too strong. Bailey managed to regain her senses and grabbed the E.M.M.I. from behind with a pair of large, black arms that she certainly hadn't had a moment ago. While she managed to lift the robot up, it unfortunately wasn't enough to get it to relinquish its grip. Just as the E.M.M.I. was about to release its probe spike, however, it inexplicably powered down and Samus dropped back to the floor.

"Well, that was unexpected," Bailey noted as she lifted the inactive E.M.M.I. above her head.

"Yes, that w-"

Samus immediately turned her attention, and her arm cannon, to the gate behind her as something walked through it. To her surprise, it was a Chozo. Alive, well and wearing an ornate golden mantle over a set of blue robes. The Chozo stood there in silence before bowing and Samus finally lowered her cannon. The unexpected visitor then made a beckoning motion as he turned and walked back out through the gate. Samus turned to Bailey.

"I… guess you should follow him?" Bailey said, clearly unsure. "I'll stay here and see if I can find a way to destroy this thing before it gets a chance to reactivate."

Samus nodded and gave a thumbs-down before rushing after the mysterious Chozo. This could have been a trap but she was willing to take that risk. She found him waiting for her in front of a large holographic terminal in a room just down the hall from where they had been.

"I am Henki Maradis, a scientist of the Thoha hasana," the Chozo, Quite Robe, finally introduced himself in Chozodian, a language that Samus had become as fluent in as Galactic Basic. "The Chozo who attacked you is called Ashkar Behek, the leader of the Mawkin hasana."

Samus nodded to show that she understood. The Thoha were the tribe that had raised her, scientists and scholars. Old Bird and Grey Voice, her surrogate fathers, were both members of that tribe and she considered herself one as well because of that connection. Considering that her Chozo DNA had been provided by Grey Voice, a fact she hadn't learned until after she had left them, her membership may be seen as more than just honorary. And while she had not been told much about the other tribes, she had heard reference to the Mawkin as warriors who held close to the old ways, from before the Enlightenment. Supposedly they were meant as soldiers, as a precaution in case the galaxy was ever swept up into a second Great War. But from the way that the elders described them, it sounded like they were little more than violent thugs, no better than the space pirates. Finding out that her attacker, Raven Beak, was one of them did not come as much of a surprise.

"After the Metroids of Ili Agar Nalima began to run rampant, we reached out to the Mawkin to contain them. We wished to eradicate the Metroids as they had grown more dangerous than ever before and we believed that the task of eradicating the Eris was complete. However, we had not realized just how far into madness Ashkar Behek and his followers had fallen. From the beginning, his plans for the Metroids never stopped at the Eris. He had used us, manipulated us, to create an army at his command and he was not going to let us take them away from him. He planned to take the Metroids back to Ili Tarin Nalima to use as a bioweapon, to control the galaxy. To accomplish this, he needed the Thoha, as we possess the ability to control the Metroids. For that purpose, I alone was spared."

Quite Robe cast his gaze aside, a pained look in his golden eyes that Samus knew all too well.

"You're saying that he slaughtered our hasana?" Samus couldn't help but clench her fists at the thought.

He nodded in confirmation as he turned around. "Ashkar Behek and the Mawkin hasana took me back here to their homeworld, Ili Tarin Nalima, in order to continue their preparations for gathering Metroids. However, they ran into unforeseen difficulties and were forced to put their plan on hold. One of the soldiers who returned from Ili Agar Nalima was actually an Eris in disguise. Ili Tarin Nalima descended into chaos. All of their soldiers on the planet's surface were infected by the Eris. Yet somehow, Ashkar Behek narrowly managed to contain them while the survivors remained aboard his ship, the Itorash. He then turned his thoughts to resuming his plan but the Metroids on Ili Agar Nalima had already been eradicated by your hand. With the Metroids extinct, I believed that Ashkar Behek's plans would have lain in ruin. Yes, lain in ruin… if not for you."

Quiet Robe turned back to Samus. "The emmai are being used by Ashkar Behek. Tamas Arlan, listen well. He has commanded them to extract the Metroid dim from within your body."

That explained a lot. She had assumed that the E.M.M.I. had only been after her because she was a wanted criminal by the Galactic Federation but if they were being controlled by Raven Beak to collect her Metroid DNA, then that would better explain their behavior. More importantly, she now knew who Raven Beak was and why she was going to kill him.

"Kinu ulu turuta. Ana maril sanul. Aimar hem gal om," Samus told him, 'Do not worry. I will end this. Once and for all.'

Quiet Robe nodded in satisfaction at that, a smile forming on his soft beak as she turned to the interface beside him.

"You must proceed through the marine research facility, Burenia," he told her as he slid his taloned finger along the controls. "I have unlocked the gate. I am counting on you, Tamas."

He nodded to her and she returned the gesture, glad to have another ally on her side. Especially another chozo, who she had thought to be extinct. But the moment was immediately interrupted by the sound of blaster fire and Quiet Robe fell to the ground with a shocked expression as the life quickly drained from his eyes. A robotic chozo soldier stood behind where he had just been, smoke rising from its cannon.

"Ulu!" Samus screamed, 'No!"

The battle erupted at once, Samus firing at the hulking mass of metal as it tried to close in the distance to swing at her with the energy blade set into its left arm. She jumped out of the way and shot it in the back with a Super Missile. The robot turned around just in time to take an Ice Spreader blast to the face, completely freezing it before she unleashed a steady stream of her Flamethrower until the mechanical assassin was nothing more than a smoking pile of slag.

The door opened and Samus turned, ready to keep fighting. But it was just Bailey, who quickly held her arms up to show that she meant no harm. It took a few deep breaths for Samus to calm down but she lowered her cannon.

"What happened?" Bailey asked, taking in the scene before her.

Samus sat down on the steps leading up to the console that Quiet Robe had used, placing her left hand against the visor of her helmet. She was tempted to take off her armor for a moment but couldn't risk it in case of another ambush. Bailey took a seat beside her as Samus reluctantly filled her in on what had just happened.

"That's… a lot," Bailey finally said after hearing the whole story. "I guess now we've got even more reason to take down this Raven Beak guy."

"Yes, we do." Samus looked down at Quite Robe's rapidly cooling body, a sense of hatred towards the Mawkin's leader filling her. "Yes, I do."

Samus stood up again and Bailey followed suit. There was no point in just standing around when there was work to be done.

"By the way, I managed to take out the E.M.M.I." Bailey said as they made their way to the door leading further into the temple.

"You did?" Samus turned to her copy, genuinely surprised. "How?"

"Brute force." Bailey shrugged. "I managed to rip the armor off its face and then tear the optical sensor out. It took a lot of strength, though, and there's no way that I'd be able to do that with one that's still active."

"At least now we don't have to worry about that one," Samus said as she reached the door. "But for now we need to find our way to Burenia."

"Yeah." Bailey nodded, then paused. "But you know, if you still want to check out the rest of the temple, we should do that first. We… you might not get another chance."

Samus stared at her for a moment, then glanced back to where they had left Quiet Robe's body before looking around at the rest of the temple around them.

"Yes, I think I'd like that."


Sitting aboard his command chair in the Itorash, Raven Beak continued to monitor the video feed. The armored fingers of his left hand drummed absently along the armrest as he pondered. Quiet Robe's death had not been part of the plan but his Thoha pet had forced his hand. That particular combat drone had been programmed to prevent Quiet Robe from leaking too much information to the Last Metroid and it fulfilled its objective perfectly before its destruction. He could not say the same for the ones he had sent to put down the megasaur, however, and the beast was now making its home in the Ghavoran jungle. That was unexpected but acceptable. Perhaps when it crossed the Last Metroid's path again, it would not be so 'generous' as before.

What was not acceptable, however, was the Variable. They had more than enough proof now that their scans were not wrong before. The thing was an X Parasite. Yet its behavior was completely antithetical to its species' known behavior patterns and priorities, and, even more concerning, it was somehow working alongside the Last Metroid instead of simply being devoured by it. They needed more information. Thankfully, he now had a way to retrieve that information.

"Stone Wing, Falling Spear."

"Yes, my leader," Stone Wing replied as the two armored warriors knelt beside him. "What is your command?"

"The Last Metroid and the Variable were able to defeat E.M.M.I.-06WB without destroying its Central Unit. The two of you are to return to the surface and extract all of the Central Unit's files. Make haste and do not get caught."

"Yes, my leader!" Falling Spear soluted as he stood up, before turning to leave. Stone Wing did the same.

Raven Beak sat in silence as his soldiers marched to the space elevator which would bring them down to the planet's surface. Sending any of his surviving forces planetside was always a risk but it was one that he had to take. It was too delicate of a mission to leave in the talons of mere combat robots.

"Hadar sen olmen," he muttered to himself as he continued to watch the video feeds, repeating the phrase that had once been his tribe's guiding principle: 'Power is everything."


Exploring the rest of the temple was naturally a somber experience after what had happened. Samus continued to record and document as much as she could but her heart wasn't in it at the moment. Part of her just wanted to move on but she knew that she would regret it if she didn't try to preserve as much information about this rare find as she could.

As they made their way into a side tower, however, Bailey began to grow agitated. Her movements were growing erratic and her hand seemed to twitch. It even seemed like the color of her armor was subtly shifting and growing darker.

"What's wrong?" Samus asked, concerned and wary.

"N-nothing," Bailey tried to dismiss the question. "It's just… I sense a strong lifeform nearby. Be on guard."

Samus distinctly heard her companion mutter something about an 'apex' but didn't have time to question it before a loud rumble shook the tower. With her X-ray Visor, Samus spotted a large, insectoid alien ramming the outer wall nearby, flanked by smaller members of its kind. As the creature continued to assault the tower, the stonework began to crack and crumble around them.

"Run!" Samus yelled as she practically jumped down a set of stairs.

"R-right!" Bailey hesitated but followed.

They ended up quickly running into a dead end, however. The path they had been on led into a large, open chamber with a display of five large statues of armored Chozo soldiers. It would have been fascinating under calmer circumstances but as things stood, not only were they under attack but this room itself had apparently been turned into the alien bug's nest. Pulsating egg clusters and shed carapaces lined the walls and floor, creating an unsettling atmosphere.

More importantly than that, however, were the large open windows that lined the far wall, through which the alien bugs flew in to confront them. The scan visor identified these creatures as quetzoa, with the larger one naturally being their queen. Now that Samus could get a better look at them, she could see that they were green and yellow, beetle-like bugs that could fly with two pairs of wings kept behind them while a third set of armored wings were held overhead as some sort of natural shield.

"Looks like we're fighting our way out of this one," Samus said, expecting Bailey to make a quip about how they always ended up fighting their way out. Instead, the SA-X remained silent, her arms trembling. "Hey, are you sure that you're okay?"

"N-never better," Bailey replied shakily.

Samus opened her mouth to say something else but two of the quetzoa's charged. Samus dove out of the way of the one that targeted her while Bailey simply smacked hers with her arm cannon, sending it off course. The two then fired their Plasma Beams at their respective bugs, melting them from the inside. The Queen Quetzoa roared, and four more of the comparatively smaller beetles flew in, ready to fight. Samus and Bailey continued to make short work of them until eventually, the queen itself decided to enter the battle while Samus was distracted. It tackled her from behind and picked her up with its forelegs, tossing her out the window before she had a chance to break free of its grip. She would have simply Space Jumped back in but was immediately attacked by a swarm of more quetzoas.

As she tumbled through the air, she continued firing blast after blast, missing plenty of shots but also quickly thinning the swarm. She found herself overwhelmed, though, as the bugs continued to ram into her, using their armored wings as a battering ram. Eventually, she had to change tactics by activating her Screw Attack. Weaponizing her own kinetic energy, she emitted a potent charge as she somersaulted further down, which utterly annihilated any of the quetzoas foolish enough to continue trying to tackle her. The survivors quickly realized how foolish of an idea it was to try and make physical contact with Samus in her current state and backed off. That didn't save them, however, as she pulled out of the attack and began firing at them again.

By the time Samus reached the ground, she'd exterminated the entire swarm. She'd taken quite the beating along the way but it wasn't anything that her suit wouldn't be able to repair. She was about to make her way back up, when she spotted a chozo statue sitting on a small altar nearby, a glowing item sphere clutched in its hands.

She walked up to the statue and fired at the sphere once with her cannon, destroying the outer casing to reveal the upgrade held within, before touching it with her hand. In a pulse of light, the upgrade was absorbed into her suit and a message popped up on her visor.

'Missile Upgrade Acquired: Storm Missile. Lock on up to five targets and launch a barrage of standard missiles at each.'

That would be handy. Essentially a more powerful form of her Seeker Missiles. She was looking forward to trying this out on the remaining quetzoas and their queen once she got back to Bailey.

She didn't get that chance, however. As she jumped back into the room she had been thrown out of, Bailey was sitting alone in front of the central statue. Splattered bug guts and fragments of exoskeleton were everywhere but there was no trace of the Queen Quetzoa. It must have been vaporized in the battle, which wasn't all that surprising. What was surprising, however, was the way that Bailey was curled up and seemed to be rocking back and forth. She was muttering something that Samus couldn't make out from that distance, so she tried to sneak up behind the X.

"I'm fine!" Bailey suddenly jolted up to her feet as Samus approached, turning to face her. "I'm fine!"

"You don't look fine," Samus replied skeptically. "What's going on?"

"Nothing!" Bailey insisted. "Let's just get going already. I don't feel like standing around here all day."

Bailey marched back out the door as Samus kept a wary eye on her. Samus noted that Bailey's armor had changed. It was no longer an exact replica of what her Varia Suit used to look like. The metallic sheen had dulled and the colors were slightly off, plus the armored sections and plates had become rougher and more jagged. Her mind flashed back to the SA-X she had fought just before the destruction of the BSL research station, which had mutated into a horrific monstrosity of Hornoad and Power Suit, with gnarled, tumorous flesh and miscellaneous body parts growing out, seemingly at random. A wall of bulbous eyes above what could generously be called a face, a dozen arm cannons sprouting out of its arm, toes made up of smaller feet and a fractured second head growing out of its shoulder. She couldn't help but think that the thing calling itself Bailey was now undergoing a similar transformation, on a much slower scale.

She had honestly believed the SA-X when it had told her of its desire for change. But now, Samus prepared herself for battle. She was going to have to put 'Bailey' down before it could cause too much trouble. The fate of the galaxy could potentially be at stake.

Of course, Samus remained completely unaware of how much Bailey was specifically trying to fight against that exact scenario.

"Can't lose control," Bailey muttered to herself as she made her way back up the tower. "Must remain self. Can't lose control."


Translation Guide:

Henki Maradis: Quite Robe

Hasana: Tribe

Ashkar Behek: Raven Beak

Ili Agar Nalima: Planet SR388

Metroid: Ultimate Warrior

Eris: X Parasite

Ili Tarin Nalima: Planet ZDR

Emmai: E.M.M.I.

Tamas Arlan: Samus Aran

Dim: DNA

Kinu ulu turuta: Do not worry

Ana maril sanul: I will end this

Aimar hem gal om: Once and for all

Ulu: No

Hadar sen olmen: Power is everything


Author's Notes: I found a guide on the Chozo language on Metroid Wiki while writing this chapter and decided to throw some in here for flavor while writing Samus' conversation with Quiet Robe. Hopefully, what they were saying should have been clear from context but just in case, I put the translations up above so that you don't have to look it up yourself. In case you're wondering, the conversation in the opening flashback is also being said in Chozo, so Samus couldn't understand it at the time, but I didn't write it out that way for a couple of reasons. One: I figured that I'd probably mess up a lot if I tried to write full sentences in the language. Two, we don't know all of the words that would have been necessary for the dialogue and I didn't want to make any up. If you want, you can read that scene as Bailey accessing Samus' memory through her total recall, being able to perfectly remember what the Chozo said and translate it herself.

Other than that, I don't think that I have much more to say about this chapter. It was definitely a big one, with a lot of internal reveals and set-up for what happens later. I'm curious to hear how you all think this is going to go.

Also, I want to remind you all that this story has a sister series, Symphony of Luigi, which hasn't been getting as many readers. While I will be including brief summaries of the stories so far as the beginning of Super Ridley Bros. 2, I'd still recommend reading them both. While Dread Reckoning and Symphony of Luigi might not be necessary to understand Super Ridley Bros 2 when it comes out, characters and plot elements from these stories will featured in it to various extents.