Content Warning: This chapter contains suicidal themes.

MISSION LOG 05: Burenia/Ghavoran

Kraid trudged through the underground jungle of Ghavoran. He could hear the sounds of rushing water up ahead and was slowly making his way toward what must have been a river. His presence was clearly startling the local fauna but most of the animals either adapted to his presence or ran off, so it didn't seem that he was going to have to worry about getting into another fight anytime soon. He was thankful for that as he wasn't sure that he had another fight left in him at this point.

After what felt like an agonizingly long time, Kraid squeezed his way under the branches of a large tree and the river finally came into view. Without hesitating, Kraid rushed the rest of the way and walked into the water. It was only deep enough to come up to his waist when he sat down but that was more than he could have hoped for. He let out a relaxed sigh as he let the cool, but not cold, flowing water ease his burns and took a drink to rehydrate himself. He could feel the parasites in his stomach struggle and squirm as the water flowed into his navels but their movements soon stopped. With luck, they had drowned and would be washed out before long.

He was beginning to feel better already. Now, if he could just find enough meat to fill his belly before he starved. Unfortunately, most of the local wildlife seemed too small for him to be able to fill up on. However, as he considered it, a pack of large, insectoid creatures approached the river from the opposite bank. Most of them were pink, fleshy beetle-like creatures with four pale blue eyes, a small set of horns and large, likely very strong hind legs, though the one that Kraid took to be the pack leader had rocky plating covering most of its body. These creatures were called muzbies, though Kraid didn't know that at the time. What he did know, though, was that they would make a perfect meal.

Kraid fired one of his organic, missile-like projectiles from his upper navel, which skewered a muzby and pinned it to a tree. The others panicked, most of them fleeing while the largest, armored one turned its back to Kraid and started rearing its hind legs threateningly. Kraid responded by approaching it and picking the alien bug up. It lashed out, kicking him in the sensitive stomach but he held on as tightly as he could as he thrust his soon-to-be meal under the water's surface. It lashed out even harder as he tried to drown it, eventually knocking itself out of his grasp. But it simply sunk in the water thanks to its heavy bulk and wasn't able to pull itself to the surface in time. Its movements grew sluggish before finally stopping altogether. Kraid fished the dead creature out of the river and began to crack open its carapace so that he could eat the fleshy bits. He basically had to force the food down his swollen gullet but he did the best he could before setting his sights on the first one he had killed.

Once he'd eaten, Kraid returned to the water and continued to soak. He wasn't sure what he was going to do next but for the time being he was just going to rest. With luck, he'd cross paths with the Hunter again soon and she would continue to help him get off of this forsaken planet. It occurred to him that this was the first time that he'd ever wanted to see the Hunter. It was a funny thought.

After a quick trip back through Dairon and yet another shuttle ride, Samus and Bailey finally made their way to Burenia. This area proved to be a large and spacious underwater laboratory, as befitting a marine research facility. Thanks to the map data that had been downloaded into Samus' suit while Quiet Robe had opened the gate for them, they even knew exactly where they were going for once, without having to find their way through trial and error. It seemed like things might be going their way for once. But of course, that was never a good sign.

"There's something… big, waiting for us up above." Bailey looked up at the ceiling, her hand twitching. "And I mean really big."

"Then I guess we'll just have to be ready for it." Samus marched forward, heading towards the gate, but stopped as she felt Bailey's hand tap her shoulderplate. "What?"

"What what?" Bailey asked, looking over from where she was still standing.

"Didn't you just…" Samus paused. "Wait, you're too far away to have-"

Something brushed up against her leg and Samus looked down just in time to see a fleshy pink and purple tentacle wrap around her ankle. Before she had time to react, it tightened its grip and pulled her down into a flooded corridor nearby. She started firing at it, the energy of her various beams unaffected by the water, and she even gave the tentacle a few good whacks but by the time it finally released its grip on her, she had already been pulled outside of the facility entirely and was now being carried off by an ocean current. Thinking fast, Samus launched her Grapple Beam at a hatch as she went by, tethering herself down before she could get carried too far away. With the aid of the underwater thruster of the Luminoth Gravity Boost she had back on Aether, she was able to pull herself over to the hatch, which was simple enough to open so that she could reenter Burenia. Now all she needed to do was figure out where she was and how to get back to where she wanted to be.

Bailey stared blankly at where Samus had just been standing. She wasn't sure if she should go after her or wait for Samus to come back. The latter seemed like a safer bet but there was no telling what could have happened to Samus after getting pulled away by that tentacle that Bailey was pretty sure was part of the creature she was sensing above.

Consume Apex

Now that was the one thing that she knew for certain was a bad idea. She'd already lost control yet again and consumed the quetzoa queen, or Escue as it was also known, after Samus had been thrown out of that tower. It may have been easier for her to pull back that time mentally, but she was beginning to lose her physical form and could tell that Samus was getting suspicious because of it. Her armor was growing to resemble the exoskeletons of her recent gene hosts and even her pigmentations were starting to shift. If she consumed again so soon, there was no telling what would happen to her.

Consume, become Apex

But the thing was so big and tantalizingly strong. Surely, she could afford just one more-

No, do not consume

She was already so tired of having this argument with herself. And even more tired of losing it.

Consume

No! What would gene host Samus Aran do?

Kill Apex

Well, that was slightly better, she supposed. If she could just manage to keep a hold of herself then she could slip up there and kill the Apex before it could cause any more problems. All she had to do was not lose control. Simple.

Samus jumped out of a flooded tunnel, a school of carnivorous, fishlike aliens hot on her heels. Sure, she could kill them all in seconds but she was also trying not to kill anything that she didn't have to. There was a doorway in front of her and, according to her map, the room on the other side would take her up to the next floor. So, she shot it open and walked in.

She was almost immediately greeted by a Chozo statue embedded with electric blue lights in strange geometric patterns along its surface, a small metal cube with similar white lights floating above its outstretched hand. She held her own hand out to the cube, which was absorbed into her suit like any other power-up.

'Aeion Ability Acquired: Flash Shift. Consumed Aeion to perform an instantaneous short-range dash, on the ground or in the air. Can be used up to three times in succession.'

That… was certainly a new one. Giving it a try, Samus suddenly found herself at the other end of the small room almost as soon as she thought about heading in that direction. The effects were nauseating that first try but something that she could get used to and the utility was invaluable. Even her Speed Booster didn't let her move that quickly and it needed time to build up. With this, she could dodge out of the way of enemy attacks or close in on an opponent in less than a matter of seconds. The only drawback, of course, was the energy cost.

Aeion. Samus didn't know much about the strange energy other than that it was only known to naturally occur on the planet SR388, home planet of the X and, subsequently, the Metroids. It seemed almost like some sort of 'soul energy' all natural or artificial lifeforms from the planet generated it. Samus' mission to exterminate the Metroid species had led to her discovering several abilities that used Aeion as a power source for various effects from charging her armor with electricity to outright slowing the flow of time in a concentrated area around her. She had needed to gather the energy externally, however, and with the planet's destruction, she had assumed that she'd never see or hear of it again. But this was now the second new Aeion ability she'd gained on this mission after the Phantom Cloak Bailey had lent her and, more importantly, her Metroid DNA meant that she now produced it herself naturally. Unfortunately, it took a while to build up enough to use any of these abilities again after each use. Still, this was quite the boon, even more so if she could condition herself to produce Aeion faster.

With a new tool under her belt, Samus went back to ascending the underwater laboratory. There was no telling what Bailey could be up to on her own and Samus' trust in her doppelganger was dwindling with each passing minute.

Perhaps fighting the Drogyga was not going to be as simple as Bailey thought. The massive cephalopod had managed to get itself stuck in one of the uppermost rooms of the marine lab, having grown too big to move its main body out of the proportionally small room. That didn't seem to be much of a hindrance to it, however, as its numerous tentacles formed a network that allowed it to pull prey or anything else that it wanted straight to its flower-like mouth.

Or to stop unwanted visitors from reaching it. Bailey was still trying to reach the inner chamber so that she could fight Drogyga directly. The only reason that she even knew what it looked like was thanks to her replica of gene host Samus' X-ray Visor.

"Move, slag it!" Bailey grunted as she pulled a purple tentacle out of her way. She'd had to shift her arm cannon into a second hand, again, with both of her arms swelled up in an imitation of gene host Corpius. She'd also sprouted a couple extra, smaller pairs of arms from her sides to help. Using all of her strength, Bailey finally managed to rip the tentacle off in a spray of blood. Drogyga roared and retracted the bloody stump, opening up the way for Bailey to climb down into the water filtration system's central room, where the alien was waiting for her.

Drogyga roared again as she sank to the floor, briefly exposing the sensory organ within its mouth that it used to detect vibrations in the water. She immediately pegged that as its weak point and mentally calculated how to get it to open its mouth. The scar visor indicated that its biology seemed to border between cephalopod and Droseraceae, not quite animal or plant. Regardless, it was dependent on water and conveniently trapped in a room designed to be drained at a moment's notice.

That gave her the advantage.

Bailey let out a roar that didn't quite sound like anything that any of her gene hosts would have been able to make on their own, then swam up to a large red button in one of the upper corners of the room. When she pressed it, the water level quickly subsided but not all of the way. She then flew, literally thanks to the two pairs of wings that sprouted from her back, to the other end of the room and pressed another button. This one drained the room entirely.

Now cut off from the water it required to function, Drogyga's flower-like head collapsed onto the floor exposing the sensitive organ within. Bailey dropped down and charged, hacking and slashing away with her claws, tearing up the vulnerable flesh. Heavily blooded, the creature let out a scream and swatted Bailey across the room with one of its tentacles. She slammed hard against the wall with enough force to break an ordinary human's back. But Bailey was neither ordinary nor human. The room began to fill with water again as Bailey dropped to the floor and picked herself up onto all fours.

"Is that all you've got?" she yelled, her growing bloodlust drowning out all other thoughts apart from the battle before her. "Bring it!"

As the water level reached the ceiling, Drogyga rose back to its original position, gathering more tentacles to itself to fight off its attacker. Meanwhile, Bailey began to let off a dark purple aura as her replicated Power Suit's Gravity Feature activated. The water pressure was functionally negated so that she could move around as if she were still in a 1G environment.

One of Drogyga's tentacles lashed out and Bailey countered by swatting it away with gene host Corpius' thick stinger tail. Another tentacle and Bailey effortlessly jumped out of the way with gene host Hornoad's powerful legs, flipping midair to bounce off the ceiling and slam into her prey. The force of impact split Drogyga's petals apart enough that she could reach into them and force its 'mouth' open. It tried grabbing her, but she used gene host Escue's shield-wings sprouting from her shoulders to prevent the tentacle from constricting too tightly as she grabbed the bloody sensory organ and dug her claws into it. If the plant-mollusk tried pulling her away then it would only end up hurting itself. With its senses scrambled thanks to the damage, however, it wasn't able to realize that and tried yanking Bailey away anyway.

The organ's stem tore with a sickening squelch as it was ripped apart from the rest of the body. Drogyga let out a pained roar of agony as it gradually bled out from the wound. It was already dead even if it would take a while to fully die.

Bailey stood there with the organ clenched tightly in her claws, still in a frenzy.

Consume

Bailey's face split open into a vertical mouth lined with rows of razor-sharp teeth and she devoured the mass of pink flesh in her hands in a single bite before turning to the dying corpse in front of her.

Consume

Her body melted away back to her blue Core and she oozed into Drogyga through the bloody stump she had made, dominating its genetic structure and adding its biological distinctiveness to her own growing catalog of Apex beings. Settling into her new form, Bailey's mind finally cleared of her battle-induced delirium and it slowly dawned on her what she had just done.

"Not again," Bailey muttered despondently after sprouting a copy of gene host Samus Aran's face from where Drogyga's sensory organ had been. Without realizing it, she started to cry. "Why? Why do I keep doing this? I just want to be me!"

Then her eyes widened. Gene host Samus was approached, fast. Too fast. Bailey folded her excess flesh into herself and quickly tried to regain her humanoid form. No time to bother with the suit.

Samus slid down a section of broken floor and dropped into the room below, the central chamber of the facility's water filtration system, if she wasn't mistaken. She was expecting a fight, whether with whatever creature had attacked her earlier, or the SA-X, she wasn't sure. What she wasn't expecting, was to find a little girl, no more than three, curled up in the fetal position in the corner, crying loudly and messily despite being underwater.

Even without scanning the 'girl', Samus knew it was Bailey. The distinctive green hair and the fact that the girl's face was clearly Samus' from when she was that age gave it away. She was wearing a miniaturized version of the pink and purple zero suit she had worn the previous times that Samus had seen her outside her Power Suit, though everything past her elbows and knees had turned black instead.

Her maternal side wanted to reach out and hug the crying girl, to tell her that everything was going to be alright. Her warrior side told her that the SA-X was a threat unlike anything the galaxy had ever faced and that she should shoot it before it could make a move against her. She compromised, activating the two mechanisms positioned on either side of the room that her Scan Visor told her would drain the water, then crouching to one knee while keeping her arm cannon at the ready.

"What's wrong?" Samus asked once the water was clear.

Bailey rocked back and forth, continuing to blubber loudly as tears ran down her cheeks. Samus wondered if that was what she had looked like after she lost her home and family.

"I-I-I-I l-lost c-con- I lost contr- control again," Bailey croaked, almost literally. "I-I- *hic* I don't- I don't-"

Bailey lost coherence again after that, so Samus held her hand out and tried to speak as softly as she could.

"It's alright. Take deep breaths."

"I-I don't buh-breathe," Bailey replied weekly, though the fact that she was hyperventilating said otherwise.

"Just try. Here, follow my lead."

Samus made a show of inhaling, turning it into a full-body motion for the sake of demonstration. She held it in for a few seconds, then exhaled with the same exaggerated motion. Then she did it again, this time with Bailey mimicking her. After repeating those motions for another minute, Bailey finally calmed down enough to start talking.

"T-thanks." Bailey slowly stood, rapidly aging into Samus' teenage years. "I needed that."

"What happened?" Samus asked again.

"I… lost control," Bailey repeated. "I know I gave a whole speech about how I was changed, working towards becoming a new type of X and all that but I can't. No matter how much I try to be different, to be better, the old X always wins. I can't fight it no matter how much I try, and, and, and-"

She started crying again, this time falling into Samus' chest. Samus wrapped her arm around Bailey, pulling her into a comforting embrace. It was clear now that Bailey wasn't a threat for the moment, so she allowed her maternal instincts to guide her actions. Thought she did make sure to leave her suit on, just in case.

"I can't imagine what you're going through," Samus said.

"No, you can't," Bailey agreed sadly as she pulled away. "Because you're not an abomination like I am."

Bailey's right arm morphed into a cannon, which she pointed to her head as it charged. Samus reflexively tackled her to the ground, pinning her arms down.

"Just let me do it!" Bailey wailed, struggling against Samus' grip, though thankfully not putting any real effort into it. "Or finish me yourself, I don't care! I just can't do this anymore. There's no telling what I'll do next. I could go after you or someone else. I'm too dangerous to let live."

"If you had told me that before, I would have done it," Samus admitted. "But I don't believe it anymore."

"Why not?" Bailey argued. "I haven't given you any real reason to trust me. You know better than to take a monster like me at my word and I know your doubts about me have only grown the longer we've been together. Just kill me already!"

"The fact that you're asking me to do that is all the proof that I need!" Samus shot her down. Figuratively, of course. "If you were as bad as you seem to think you are, then we wouldn't be doing this right now."

"That's not true!" A pair of tentacles shot out of Bailey's torso, wrapping around Samus and holding her suspended in the air. "I might have moments of clarity but the moment that I'm confronted by another strong lifeform, I'm just going to snap! Again! It's already happened at least four times since I got here and it's just going to keep happening! Every! Single! Time!"

"Get a hold of yourself!" Samus snapped as she started firing at the tentacles to get Bailey to release her grip. It worked and Samus rolled to the side as she fell back to the ground, prepared for this to escalate into a full-fledged fight.

"I can't!" Bailey backflipped onto her feet and materialized a version of the Power Suit that had grown even more detached from its original design than before. It was now even more jagged and spiky than before, the red of her helmet and torso having turned black while the orange and yellow panels had turned teal and red. Both of her arms now had black versions of Samus' arm cannon and out of her back, a long, scorpion-like tail grew out and arced overhead. "That's the problem!"

That was when the fight broke out in earnest. Bailey began firing with a barrage of Dark and Light Beams, but in an instant, Samus was behind her opponent. Bailey reacted quickly, lashing out with her stinger, which Samus batted aside with her arm cannon while charging up her Ice Spreader. Bailey whipped around just in time to take an explosion of coolant to the face that completely froze her solid. Samus backed away as the ice chipped and cracked, making it to the other end of the room by the time Bailey broke free. Samus then fired a Super Missile which Bailey struck with her tail so that it detonated prematurely and she avoided taking the blast head-on. Both of her arm cannons changed configuration to the Annihilator Beam and charged up a blast. Fearing what was about to happen, Samus started firing rapidly at Bailey. She merely shrugged off the damage and fired a double Sonic Boom.

Already one of the strongest weapons in Samus' inventory, a single blast of the Sonic Boom was enough to distort the very fabric of the spacetime continuum itself. While Samus managed to avoid the attack with the aid of her new Flash Shift, two of them at once proved too much for Burenia itself to handle and the entire water filtration system shattered like someone had thrown a hammer at a mirror. Water came flooding in from the surrounding ocean and the sudden current proved to be too much for either Samus or Bailey to resist. Both were dragged away by the sudden influx of water.

Kraid leaned back against the muddy edge of the river. He'd managed to find an even deeper point and was now soaking up to his shoulders. It was calm, peaceful despite the sounds of the lively jungle around him and he found himself ready to take a nap. No sooner than he'd finally allowed himself to close his three eyes, though, a violent surge rippled from a nearby underwater geyser, one of many that seemed to feed this body of water, and something shot out of it like a cannon. Whatever it was arced through the air in a blur of purple and white before crashing into a fungus-covered tree. As Kraid focused his gaze, he finally realized that it was the Hunter.

Then a second Hunter was also launched out of the geyser, this one black and green with a spiky tail sticking out from its back. The first Hunter, which Kraid took to be the real one, shook her head and slowly rose to her feet while the other one was skewered by a sharp rock. That barely seemed to phase it, though, and the second Hunter simply got up and looked around before training its gaze on Kraid. Its head opened up into a multifaceted mouth with a long, wriggling tongue sticking out.

"Apex," it hissed. "Consume!"

"No!" The true Hunter, Samus Aran, was suddenly in front of Kraid in a flash of blue. "Bailey, stop!"

"Consume!" was the creature's reply before it lunged forward like a wildcat.

Samus fired an icy blast at the bizarre alien, knocking it out of the air. The alien managed to land on its feet, though and began firing blasts of fire and purple electricity from the two cannons on its arms.

"Run!" Samus yelled at Kraid as she shot the blasts out of the air with her own. "I don't know how long I can hold her off!"

Not needing to be told twice, Kraid turned and rushed as fast as he could in his weakened state. Even in top health, he was rather slow due to his immense size, but he made up for that with a long stride. Soon, he was charging through the jungle like his life depended on it, which it likely did.

Things were escalating far too quickly for Samus' taste. It seemed like the moment that Bailey had noticed Kraid Junior, all of the restraint that she'd been showing in their earlier fight had evaporated. This must have been what she had been talking about before about losing control. Before her eyes, Samus saw Bailey nearly double her own body mass as her upper torso swelled up and two extra pairs of clawed arms grew out from her sides. At this point, she hardly looked anything like her normal appearance. Whatever simulated humanity she had left was simply gone, replaced with pure instinct and a drive to consume. Samus was starting to lose hope that she'd be able to get Bailey under control. Perhaps this would have to end with Samus putting her down after all.

Bailey roared and pounced, trying to give chase after Junior. Samus shot her down with a Plasma Beam. The SA-X tumbled into the muddy soil but rolled onto her feet, which she now had six of, and turned her focus on Samus.

"I know you're in there!" Samus cried desperately.

Bailey just hissed and fired at her from the mass of arm cannons that her right arm was now comprised of. Her form seemed to be growing more unstable and chaotic by the minute.

The conglomerate of various beam types struck where Samus had just been in a massive explosion of turbulent energies but she was already gone by the time it hit. She started jumping up from tree to tree and Bailey pursued by climbing up the largest tree like some sort of monstrous caterpillar.

Bailey, or at least what was left of her, continued to fire randomly in Samus' direction while she ascended higher and higher. It was clear to her by this point that any sort of direct confrontation between them was going to end badly for her so she decided that her best bet was to lure Bailey away from any other life forms in the hope that it would help calm her down. This jungle might have been teeming with life but if she could just get high enough, she could lure Bailey through one of those chasms in the cavern ceiling and onto the lifeless surface.

It was a challenge but eventually Samus managed to Space Jump her way up there and Bailey managed to follow her. Soon it was just the two of them. One woman and one giant mass of miscellaneous body parts that shouldn't have fit together the way that she did.

"Samus, report!" ADAM's voice sounded in her ear. It seemed that comms were working now that she was above ground. "What's happening?"

"Long story, where should I start?" Samus quipped, mostly just to try and stay focused. "Let's just say that I made a friend and things went poorly after that. Can I get an assist?"

"I would if you'd ever bothered to have Deisel install an autopilot in me," ADAM replied dryly.

"Guess I'll do that as soon as we get home." Samus jumped out of the way as a thing that she wasn't sure if she could call an arm smashed down where she had just been. As she considered her options, a thought occurred to her. "Hey, can you hack into Bailey's ship and switch its commands to my frequency?"

"Done."

Samus turned on her Command Visor and set Bailey as a target. A moment later, the white gunship flew by and started pelting her with missiles. The barrage didn't last long due to its limited compliment but it was enough to do some serious damage. Bailey started to shrink down again as she could no longer spare the energy to maintain her form. Not willing to let up, Samus switched back to the Combat Visor and set as many target locks as she could before firing off her Storm Missiles. Explosions of fiery death rained down upon her, with Samus eventually draining her entire missile reserve.

Bailey, now in an almost recognizable form, stumbled forward, arm cannon drawn. Then she collapsed and her physical form gave out completely. Samus watched the mass of blue-ish goo hover limply in the air.

A sudden surge of anger filled her and her free hand pulsed with red energy as she marched towards what was left of the SA-X, ready to absorb the X Parasite as she'd done to so may others before, including another SA-X. She reached her hand out to touch the X, to devour it, to…

What was she doing?

Samus screamed and fell to her knees, fighting against her every instinct to go through with what she was just about to do. This was wrong. She was about to fall into the same trap that Bailey had been struggling against so hard. She couldn't do that. She had to be better. Because if she couldn't then there was no hope for either of them.

"Heh, not so easy is it? To fight off the hunger?"

Samus looked up to see Bailey, in humanoid form once again though she was clearly weak and pale. Apart from her golden eyes and green hair, she was the spitting image of what Samus had looked like as a young woman, signing up for the Federation Military all those years ago.

"Nope, not easy at all," Samus replied weakly before falling over, her strength finally failing after that intense battle.

"Hey now, don't give up on me now, Big Sis!" Bailey's voice seemed distant, like she was shouting from the other end of a tunnel. "Even you can't survive out here for long!"

Then everything went dark.

Samus woke up with a splitting headache in the cockpit of her old gunship, the one she had designed with an old Federation engineering buddy back in the good old days. Then her gaze settled on the Blue Falcon and White Cat models hanging from the overhead Transmission console. Those weren't hers. Neither were the various plushies and figurines propped up on the dashboard, even if she did recognize most of the series the characters were from.

Then she remembered that her ship had been destroyed, along with so many other things from her life. This was Bailey's replica.

With a groan, Samus sat up and stretched. She felt like crap, probably looked like it, too. But at least she was alive and seemed to be in one piece.

"Oh, you're finally awake!" a familiar, cheery voice called out from behind her.

"Well, it looks like we both survived, somehow." Samus turned the seat around to see Bailey sitting on the floor with her legs crossed.

"Yes, thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!" Bailey sprang to her feet and looked like she wanted to tackle Samus into a hug but somehow managed to restrain herself. "I thought… I thought for sure that I was gone. And then I thought you might be. But it looks like things've worked out for now."

"Yep, for now." Samus worked out the kink in her neck. "But what happens next?"

"That… is a good question." Bailey's cheery expression dissolved quickly. "I… still don't trust myself. Not after everything that's happened so far. I think that it's for the best that you go alone after this while I stay locked up in here. But on the plus side, I think I figured out where the other X are being locked up."

"Locked up?" Samus repeated as Bailey walked up beside her and started fiddling with the controls. Samus turned the chair back around to see that she was bringing up a map of the local area.

"Yeah, while I was… lost… I was more in tune with my X senses, for lack of a better term," Bailey explained as she zoomed over to a large domed structure on the other side of the abandoned city, "and I was able to sense a large concentration of other X Parasites in this facility. The only place I could sense any, in fact. I think it might be some sort of quarantine structure preventing them from overtaking the rest of the planet."

"That would explain why we haven't seen any others since arriving," Samus noted, scratching her chin. "Then I guess we just need to blow that up, then find the Itorash to confront Raven Beak."

"Yeah, this whole adventure is almost over at this point." Bailey sighed. "And it will probably be my last, only big mission."

"Who knows what the future holds." Samus looked around for something to change the subject to and settled on the models she had noticed earlier, holding her hand out to them.

"Oh, you like those?" Bailey perked up immediately. "I got 'em on sale a while back."

"Yeah, I guess it'd make sense you'd be an F-Zero fan, considering that I am," Samus noted. "And of course, the best of the best is Captain Falcon-"

"Jody Summers is just the coolest!"

The two women stared at each other in a moment of shared confusion.

"I mean, Summers is pretty cool, too, but-"

"-Falcon's good but isn't he kind of overrated?"

They both paused again after interrupting each other.

"Wait, does this mean that we have different opinions on things?" Bailey wondered aloud.

"I guess you really have grown into your own person." Samus nodded. "Good for you."

Then Samus's eyes widened as something dawned on her.

"Wait, this ship's paint job… you modeled it after the White Cat, didn't you?'

"Guilty as charged." Bailey smiled.

"How did I not see that earlier?" Samus shook her head, then smiled back. "You know, if we both make it back from this alive, I can probably get you Summers' autograph."

"You what?" Bailey's voice cracked.

"Maybe even set up a meeting," Samus added. "Wait, I never told you about me and Captain Falcon, did I?"

"Tell me what?" Bailey leaned forward excitedly. "What are you talking about?"

"Okay, so shortly after I got exiled from the Federation and I started taking smaller bounties to keep a low profile, I ended up bumping into the Captain on a mission and we hit it off. We actually dated for a little while." Samus smiled fondly. "Unfortunately, our careers got in the way. Or rather, his career and my having a bounty on my head. Shame it didn't work out, thinking back on it now he's probably the best romantic partner I've had."

"You dated Captain Falcon?" Bailey stared at Samus like she'd grown a second head. "Man, now I wish I had those memories. How about now?"

"Not really seeing anyone right now," Samus admitted. "I know Armstrong has a thing for me but I don't really see him that way. I did try asking out a doctor a while ago, Diana, but it turned out that she wasn't interested in women. Also, I'm mentoring her son, Joey, so that might have gotten weird if it did work out."

Bailey smiled absently, staring off into space. "You know, a part of me wishes that I could have that. A relationship, I mean."

"Well, maybe someday you'll meet the right person," Samus reassured her.

Bailey chuckled and replied by having her hands melt into goo. "You're joking, right? With what I am? It would take a miracle to make it so that I can even be in the same room as another living creature beside you without risking their lives."

"No, I guess not." Samus sighed. "It seems like that would take some kind of magic…"

Samus' eyes suddenly shot open.

"That's it! Magic!" Samus reached forward and grabbed the ship's helm controls, turning on the engines and setting it on a course just outside of the planet's atmosphere.

"Whoah, what are you doing?" Bailey lurched to the side as the ship took off and tried to steady herself back to where she'd been leaning against the side console. "We can't leave now, we're in the middle of a mission!"

"I just have to make a quick call," Samus said as she raced up through the stormy skies.

"Who could you possibly need to call right now?" Bailey asked.

"Just hang on a moment." Once they were outside of the planet's interference, she opened the ship's communicator and punched in the most recent number in her contact list.

After a few rings, someone finally picked up on the other end of the call.

"This is Super Mario Brothers Plumbing, where plumbing's our game. We're not like the others, who get all the game. If your sink is in trouble, you can call us on the double. We're faster than the others, you'll be hooked on the brothers!" a familiar voice sang, to the complete befuddlement of both Samus and Bailey. "This is Ridley speaking, how may we help you?"

"That was… certainly something." Samus tried but failed not to crack up at the absurdity of what she'd just heard.

"Wait, is this the Hunt- er, Samus?" Ridley asked questioningly. "Samus, why are you calling me? We don't do service outside of SMB-985 and Earth."

"I thought you were joking about the whole 'Ridley becoming a plumber' thing, but that's real?" Bailey asked in utter astonishment. "Also, Earth? I thought that planet was just an old legend?"

"A question for another time," Samus replied, though she found herself curious about that little tidbit as well. "We have more pressing concerns right now."

"Wait, are there two of you?" Ridley sounded panicked. "WHY ARE THERE TWO OF YOU! PLEASE TELL ME YOU JUST FOUND A DOUBLE CHERRY OR SOMETHING!"

"Oh, this is Bailey," Samus explained. "She's, um…"

"Her younger sister," Bailey said, prompting a glare from Samus.

"Younger sister?" Ridley repeated. "But didn't I… You know what, forget it. I'm just to pretend that makes sense. So what do you want? I'm kind of busy helping Luigi clean up his old house. Speaking of, where is Luigi right now?"

"Look, I need to talk to Rosalina about something but I don't have her number," Samus explained.

"And what makes you think that I would have that witch's number?" Ridley asked defensively.

"I don't know, you seemed kind of close," Samus shrugged. "But also you're the only person on that planet whose number I did get before leaving."

"She's not from this planet," Ridley pointed out. "I think. Anyway, I don't know how to contact her."

"Oh," Samus blushed, mildly embarrassed that this whole excursion turned out to be for nothing. "Um, nevermind, then. I guess we'll have to work something else out."

"Wait, actually, I want to try something out," Ridley said before going silent for a moment. When he spoke up again, his voice was slightly muffled, as if he'd set down his communicator. "Rosalina! Rosalina! Rosalina!"

There were a few seconds of awkward silence, which was then interrupted by a loud crash and then a woman's voice shouting angrily on the other end of the line.

"What do you want?"

"Holy quiznak, I didn't think that was actually going to work," Ridley replied. "I just did that as a joke. Did I just summon you? Am I a wizard now?"

"No, and never do that again. I'm leaving now."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Ridley shouted. "Samus wanted to talk to you about something. Here."

"Where did you even get a phone?" There was a muffled noise as Ridley apparently handed his communicator over to her. "Hello, this is Rosalina."

"Oh, hey, this is Samus," she replied. "Sorry to bother you but I was wondering if you could do me a favor. I've got a problem that I think you might be able to help with."

"Yeah, sure, I'll be right there," Rosalina said, a mild hint of sarcasm in her voice. "Not like I got anything better to do right now, being a busy single mother and all."

There was a loud click as the call was abruptly ended, leaving Samus and Bailey alone in the ship.

"Who was that?" Bailey asked. "What's going on?"

"Okay, so you remember when I was talking to you earlier about-"

Samus' explanation was cut short by a knock on the transparent aluminum widnshield in front of them, and she looked up to see a very tall, rather annoyed woman in a flowing blue dress floating in the vacuum of space above the ship, one eye covered by platinum blonde bangs.

"What is it?"

Rosalina the… well, Samus wasn't quite sure what Rosalina was. Ridley called her a space witch but she had no idea if that was accurate or not. Certainly sounded right, though. Regardless, Rosalina paced back and forth in front of Samus and Bailey after they'd filled her in on the story so far back on the planet's surface. Paced might not have been the right word though, given that she was floating six inches above the ground.

"So, I was wondering if you could use your magic or something to help Bailey out, so that she can remain in control of herself," Samus wrapped up.

"Hmm…" Rosalina looked Bailey over with a discerning eye, hovering a circle around her before nodding. "That is certainly the conundrum and I can sympathize with your plight. Losing control of oneself is no laughing matter. Fortunately for you, I've been researching a lot of dark and arcane magics recently and I think I may have something."

With a wave of her wand, a large, leather-bound book with what looked like human eyes embedded in its cover and covered in old chains appeared in the air in front of Rosalina, and flipped open to the page she wanted. Because magic.

"Ah, yes, here we go," Rosalina nodded in satisfaction as the book floated to the side and she drew a complicated-looking magical circle in the air with her wand. "A spirit transfiguration spell. Essentially what I'm going to do is turn your soul into that of a human. Your body will remain the same, so you will remain an… X Parasite, you said? However, your mind will more-or-less be that of a normal human, which should remove these urges you were talking about."

"I have no idea what's going on but I want that," Bailey stared blankly at the witch. "I want that bad."

"Very well." Rosalina nodded, and her eyes glowed brightly as she raised her wand. "Here we go!"

Samus wasn't able to keep up with all of the magic stuff that happened after that but after a few minutes, she seemed to be done.

"There you go, you're a real girl now," Rosalina said as she lowered her wand. "How does it feel?"

"I don't feel any different," Bailey said, staring at her hand. One turned into a tentacle.

"Well, as I said, your body hasn't changed," Rosalina pointed out. "You might not have as much power, so to speak, but all of your shapechanging and whatever other abilities you had should still be available to you. Here, let's try this."

Rosalina waved her wand again and Kraid Junior suddenly flew up from underground, landing on the ground beside them. He looked as confused as Samus felt by this point.

"Feel anything?" Rosalina asked.

"No," Bailey said, staring up at Junior. "I mean, my ability to sense nearby lifeforms is still working and I can feel his presence there, but the voice in my head telling me to consume… it isn't there."

"So you don't want to eat this thing?" Rosalina raised an eyebrow.

"No." Bailey smiled and turned back to her. "No, I don't! Thank you! Thank you so much! What could I possibly do to repay this?"

"Eh, it's nothing." Rosalina shrugged and winked at Samus. Or blinked, it was hard to tell when she only had one visible eye. "Just a favor for a friend, though I suppose you could try babysitting for me sometime. Now that that's done, I'm going home. It's just about dinner time and my children can get quite cranky when they haven't eaten."

With a flourish and a spin, Rosalina disappeared as suddenly as she had arrived.

"I have… so many questions." Bailey turned to Samus.

"And I don't have any answers." Samus shook her head and looked up to Junior "How are you doing, big guy? You're definitely looking better than last time."

Junior gave a soft growl in response.

"He said that he's feeling better," Bailey translated.

"That's good to hear," Samus said. "Let's go see if the E.M.M.I. ship has any medical equipment that we can use to help you."

Raven Beak stared ahead. Everything seemed like it was getting back on track. The Last Metroid and the Variable were fighting, the Last Metroid was losing control and finally embracing its instincts. His plan seemed like it was finally about to come to fruition. But then they just stopped, completely. The Variable took the Last Metroid back to its ship where they remained for some time before blasting off and leaving the planet's atmosphere entirely and then… nothing. All of his feeds, all of them, went dead. Nothing but static on every frequency, every channel, every source. Only now did he finally have a signal again, now that whatever must have just happened was already over. There was no way for him to know what it was. He had no idea what was going on. For the very first time in his very, very long life, Raven Beak was scared.

Author's Notes: I had very solid plans for both the Burenia and Ghavoran chapters but despite that neither really felt long enough to be their own individual chapters, so I ended up merging them together into one and things ended up flowing much better. In fact, the chapter ended up kind of getting away from me after that in a way that even I wasn't expecting.

I wasn't planning on having Rosalina step in and 'fix' Bailey until the opening of Super Ridley Bros. 2, but the mental image popped into my head of Samus just calling Ridley, who in turn manages to accidentally summon Rosalina like a demon and the whole thing just felt too funny not to use, so I ended up incorporating that into here. I guess that means I need to recategorize this into a crossover now, but it was worth it. What's the point of writing in a crossover setting if you're not going to utilize the crossover, after all?