Chapter Four

Metroid Dragons Inbound


Samus and Alex walked through the ruins, keeping alert for signs of trouble, their weapons primed and fully-loaded for battle. Samus focused on her environment, her eyes focused, and she didn't glance at Alex. As the saying went, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend', and Alex had been sincere when he said that he wasn't sent by the Federation to hunt her down.

So far, the intergalactic bounty hunter didn't detect any signals from potential incoming Federation ships. At this point, she could trust Alex until they had taken care of business and dealt with the potential Metroid threat on this planet.

Behind them, Alex's ship lay in ruin. Samus recalled her offer, she would let him ride in her ship when they departed, and perhaps the bounty hunter could help Alex find a new ship.

Her helmet's sensors beeped and vibrated as they scanned the environment, detecting strong signals. There were certainly more of those wolves that had attacked Samus and Alex, but they didn't seem to be coming their way at this time. However, she knew there was something more dangerous than the wolves.

Everywhere she went, she couldn't avoid facing them; The Metroids.

It seemed like, no matter how hard she worked, the Metroids would always crop back up. While Mother Brain was out of commission, the Metroids still kept operating in many dark places.

"Over there."

Alex pointed to a pair of towering rocks, just beyond the village ruins, he tapped his helmet. Undoubtedly, he was using technology similar to Samus', and he'd detected something. Samus walked with him towards the rocks, walking past what remained of an alien statue.

Samus studied the ground, checking for trip hazards. The surface was soft, but with all the rocks and ruin that lay around; you may never know what you'd might step on. She and Alex looked up at the sky, scanning the horizon just in case something came down from above. Both scans came up empty in a heartbeat, no signs of anything else coming from above.

Both heard howling in the distance, it sounded a lot like Xako wolves, but the howling was more frightening than the howl of a wolf.

Now, the ruins were behind Samus and Alex, they looked behind the rocks and scanned their surroundings, their scanners picking up a signal. Then, they looked down, and a great sense of dread filled their very veins.

She looked at Alex, Alex looked at her, and they stared back at what lay before them. Large opal-shaped eggs lay in pieces, tainted with slime. To judge by the size of those eggs, something massive had hatched out. One scan of these things, it was clear what type of egg the two of them had just found; Metroid eggs.

Samus could see claw marks in the rocks, indicating that Metroid Queens had just hatched. There were all kinds of Metroids, not just the regular ones.

"Damn, the smell is Metroid." Alex grunted, his nostrils twitching.

"Wherever the creatures that hatched are now..." Samus remarked, her helmet's sensors beeping, "...we'll be running into them very soon, and they aren't very far. But, no mistake, there are Metroids here. You can bet there might be Space Pirates too."

"No Space Pirates on radar, neither can I find a trace of Ridley. However, I'm picking up some blips just a good couple clicks from here. Looks Metroid."

"We're going in then."

Alex and Samus stepped away from the eggs and the rocks, walking through the terrain, up a nearby hill. They made their way around a boulder, and passed by a smoking crater. Samus stopped to look back at the ruins, scanning for hidden enemies, then she continued climbing over the mountains with Alex and following the signal.

Just then, they heard a loud shriek, and looked up, right as a pair of green-red creatures with wings were flying their way, snapping their fanged jaws while breathing green fire from their maws. A new type of Metroid had appeared; Metroid Dragons.

The dragon Metroids came towards Samus and Alex, their eyes fixed on them, flying in closer and closer until they were in range of their prey. Samus raised her weapon, and Alex prepped his.

A pair of jellyfish-looking creatures accompanied the dragons; the standard Metroids. The Metroids snarled and chittered, eying their would-be victims. Samus prepared herself, ready to take these foes down. The Metroid Dragons howled and swooped in, but Samus fired, blasting one in the wing, and Alex fired everything he had.

Metroids exploded in green ooze, and a dragon yelled as it was shot in the eye. Samus threw a power bomb into a Metroid Dragon's mouth, and the creature coughed as the bomb exploded inside, then it collapsed to the ground. Samus blasted the creature, finishing off the Metroid variant.

"SAMUS!"

She turned to see Metroids swarming Alex, trying to break into his suit. She opened fire, blasting as many of the creatures off of him as she could. The remaining Metroid Dragon swooped down with its claws, snarling viciously, but Samus shot its leg and blasted it off the dragon's socket. The winged Metroid fell, leaking profusely from the stump where its leg had been.

PYEW-PYEW! Samus fired off a charged shot, striking the Metroid Dragon in the head. The dragon roared one more time, and then, it collapsed and disintegrated. A few more Metroids swarmed Samus and Alex, who blasted them all.

One Metroid landed at Samus' feet, injured, but still alive. That didn't last long, however, as the bounty hunter stomped on it. She raised her foot, which had some Metroid goop on it, and observed the corpse of the squished alien organism.

"Bet they smelled us." Alex said.

"You alright?" Samus asked.

"Fine, thanks."

"We should keep moving, there might be more Metroids to take care of."

Just then, she and Alex heard a frightened scream. It sounded like someone was in trouble. They activated their scanners, scanning for the source of the scream, and they detected someone near their position, someone alive and human. It was time to help someone...