MISSION LOG 01: ARTARIA
There was an old chozo saying that if you stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you. Samus practically lived in the abyss. The vast emptiness of space between inhabitable worlds was like a second home to her, in a way. Even at faster-than-light speeds, it would still take days, if not weeks, just to get from one place to the next. Most pilots chose to spend that time in an induced sleep, waking up only within hours of reaching their destination. Samus did too, for the most part, but she would often remain awake for longer parts of the voyage instead. She would generally spend that time reading stories or watching movies. Kids' stuff, mostly. She hadn't had much of a childhood and enjoyed the chance to connect with a part of herself that had otherwise died that day alongside her parents when the space pirates attacked her original home. The day she had witnessed the draconic bioweapon Ridley eat her mother in front of her, just to spite the little girl who naively thought she had made a new friend.
Ridley, whom she had once considered to be the very incarnation of evil itself and who served as the representation of everything she fought against in her quest for intergalactic peace. Ridley, whom she had fought and killed countless times only for him to always come back, seemingly out of pure spite and malice. Ridley, whom she had just left back on the peaceful little planet of SMB-985, where he had somehow managed to completely flip his life around and become a local hero.
She had done her best to hide it but that mission really messed with her head. She didn't know what to think anymore. If the most vile and monstrous being she'd ever faced was able to redeem himself, seemingly so easily, then what did that mean for everything else that she had fought, that she had killed? Could Rundas, Gandraya and Ghor have been saved from their Phazon corruption? Could the Omega Pirate have just been a helpless pawn controlled by its creators? How would MB have turned out if it weren't for the abuse she had received at the hands of the Federation? Apparently, Kraid had been a father and from the message she had received after dropping off her team back at Junk Quixote, it seemed Ridley was now working as a plumber.
She had never bothered to count how many lives she had taken and rarely hesitated to pull the trigger. Now she found herself questioning every action she'd ever taken. Pondering what might have been if she had acted just a little differently.
"We will soon be entering ZDR's atmosphere."
Samus was pulled from her thoughts as the F-Zero Grand Prix that she'd been idly watching disappeared from her viewscreen, to be replaced by a camera feed of the nearby planet. A planet which she had reason to believe harbored a surviving population of X Parasites. If there was one belief that Samus Aran still held firm to, it was that some species were just too dangerous to let live for the sake of all other life in the universe. And if there were one such species, it was the X Parasites. Nothing could shake her faith that finishing the job of eliminating them was the right thing to do. With the ability to absorb the DNA of any organic host and replicate their forms, and acting solely off of the biological drive to survive and reproduce, the gelatinous parasites were without a doubt the single most destructive lifeform Samus had ever encountered, with the possible exception of Phazon. Even the Metroids themselves did not pose as much threat as the species they were created to hunt. Metroids, a species that she had already hunted to extinction. Another potential mistake.
"Are you sure about this?" asked ADAM, the ship's AI navigator built from the digitized personality and memories of Commander Adam Malkovich, Samus' former CO from her days working for the Federation military.
"Of course I am," Samus replied, though the way she tightened her grip on the controls likely told a different story.
"I have intercepted reports that the Galactic Federation has already sent a scout team of E.M.M.I.-class research robots designed to capture live field samples and extract their DNA. They have yet to report any signs of X Parasites on the planet."
"You've scanned the footage we were sent and determined that it was not doctored," Samus pointed out. "You know as well as I do that there is at least one X-Parasite on that planet, and if there is one, then there will be hundreds."
"You could let the Federation handle it."
"Because that worked out oh so well the last time they got their hands on them." The bounty hunter shook her head. "You know as well as I do that the Federation managing to capture even one specimen of X-Parasite is the worst-case scenario."
"I know. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page on this," ADAM replied. "The records indicate that seven Extraplanetary Multiform Mobile Identifiers were sent to the planet. The Federation lost contact with all of them almost as soon as their ship reached planetfall. They may still be active on the planet, and if so, then as a wanted criminal by the Federation, they will likely target you on sight. They are large, encased in armored plating made from an alloy that even your strongest weapons will be unable to pierce and each model is designed to incorporate unique hardware reverse-engineered from your old weapons and suit upgrades. If you encounter one, the only option will be to run."
"Of course, wouldn't want this mission to be too easy." Samus gave a confident smirk, though her heart wasn't really in it.
"Very well, then your mission is to investigate the planet ZDR while avoiding the E.M.M.I. research robots, find any X Parasites located on the planet and eliminate them. Any objections, Lady?"
Samus replied with a thumbs down, an old in-joke from her days as a soldier working under the original Adam.
"Entering atmosphere in 10… 9… 8…"
Samus stared through the ship's reinforced windshield, out at the planet in front of them as they drew closer. There was a bit of turbulence as they came in, but that was expected and a part of the routine that she had down pat. Her focus instead drew to the reflection on the transparent aluminum window. A face stared back at her, one that she still couldn't bring herself to recognize as her own. The cheeks were higher, the nose wasn't quite the same shape, the mole that should have been under the left corner of the mouth was gone. Countless subtle differences and little details added up to a completely different face. She absently reached to the side of her helmet, thinking of the thin scar running behind her left ear, one of several that had been left behind after the BSL scientists had tried putting her back together after having surgically removed the corrupted parts of her Power Suit. They had saved her life, in large part thanks to the Metroid vaccine they had made from the last remaining DNA sample of the hatchling, her baby, but she couldn't help but feel that an important part of her had died that day, regardless.
"3… 2… 1…"
She brought the ship in and landed without incident in a rocky clearing on the outskirts of what appeared to be some sort of ancient city. The architecture looked Chozodian, though Samus had never heard of a Chozo settlement on this planet before. Things just kept getting curiouser and curiouser. More pressing than that, however, was the white Hunter-Class Gunship already parked nearby.
"What can you tell me about that ship?" Samus asked as she jumped down from the exit hatch.
"Not much," ADAM replied. "It appears to have been built on the Aliehs III shipyard facility. This can't be right, these records claim that you were the one who designed it."
"That's right." Samus walked over to the unidentified ship and had to stop herself from running a hand along the familiar hull, a sense of nostalgia washing over her. "Made by integrating both Federation and Chozo technology. I had her custom-built and used her as my main ship for a while before she was destroyed on a mission and I had to go back to my older model for a while. You know what happened to that one. The paint job is completely different, though. The red highlights are the same but mine was primarily yellow, not a white cockpit with blue pylons. But other than that, this is a near-exact replica, even though the plans were supposed to have been destroyed specifically to prevent anyone from making a copy like this."
"Evidentally, the federation must have lied about deleting the files, to no surprise." ADAM paused for a moment. "The registration is filled out to one 'Justine Bailey' though I can't find any information on who that is, other than a recently filed bounty hunting license under the same name."
"That's a very interesting choice of name." Samus scanned the ship with her visor, to see if she could pick up on anything else.
"Why, does it have some significance to you?" ADAM asked.
"Maybe?" Satisfied that she wasn't going to learn anything else by standing around, she made her way to a nearby building that must have been where the other bounty hunter had gone. "I have a hunch but it might just be nothing. I'll let you know if anything comes up but for now, I'm just going to keep my eyes peeled for the pilot."
"Very well, but I advise caution," ADAM told her as the doors opened. "That elevator leads to the depths of an underground facility. Signal quality is likely to be low, which means that remote communication may pose a problem. Try to connect to the facility's network as soon as you can, so that we can remain in contact. Any objections, Lady?"
Samus held her thumb down again as the doors closed, presenting an air of confidence. As she made the long descent into the planet's depths, however, she allowed that face to break. It had been a while since she'd been this unsure about a mission. The X Parasites alone would have been enough to make her uneasy but now things were growing downright eerie. She'd dealt with stalkers before. She was a very prominent figure, some would go so far as to call her a hero of the federation before her fall from grace and, as some had put it, 'smoking hot'. But whoever had come here in that ship clearly knew more than a crazed fan or enemy would have.
"Justine Bailey?" Samus allowed the name to pass her lips. It had to have been a coincidence, right? There was no way it could have been otherwise. But still, she had to wonder. "Justin…"
It started as a normal summer morning on planet K-2L. The sky was dyed pink as the sun slowly rose over the horizon. For the adults of the mining colony, it wasn't anything worth noticing as they got ready for another grueling day in the mines. But Samus was three and for her, it was still the most beautiful thing in the world. She stood on the edge of her bed, which she wasn't supposed to do, so that she could stare in awe out the window as the painted skies shifted to violet, then blue, before settling on the bright cyan that would remain until it was time for mister sun to go to bed for the night and Samus would get to see the whole thing play out in reverse again. With her morning show complete, Samus crawled back down to the floor and got herself changed out of her pretty pink pajamas and into the white clothes that Momma had picked out for her that day, all by herself. Then her mom had to come in and fix her shirt so that it wasn't backward. Samus hadn't quite figured out the trick to that, but she knew that it was only a matter of time. Then they walked over to the dining room, where Daddy was waiting with breakfast on the table.
"Good morning, Sammy!" Daddy called out as she managed to clamber into her chair. She had always hated when he called her that, thought that it made her sound like a baby. She didn't know yet that it would be the last she heard him call her anything. "Sleep well?"
"Mornin' Daddy!" Samus called back, picking up her favorite spoon, the one with the handle that her parents kept insisting had flowers on it, but the pattern didn't look like any flowers that she'd ever seen at the colony. "Are you gonna be home today?"
"Ha, yep," Daddy chuckled. "My vacation doesn't end 'til tomorrow, which means that I get to spend the whole day with yah!"
"Yay!" Samus cheered, though her joy was about to be taken away as the transponder sitting on the counter began to ring.
"Really, you're supposed to be on vacation!" Momma sighed and rubbed her forehead, which Samus knew meant that she was disappointed about something. "What could be so important that they have to call you?"
"I'm sorry," Daddy rubbed the back of his head as he gave his 'I'm in trouble' smile. "I'm sure it's just some technical issue that they need advice on. I'll be back in a moment."
Samus watched her dad get up and answer the call, as she started to fiddle around with her food. Her mom told her to stop, so she slumped and started eating instead. After a few minutes, her dad yelled a naughty word before storming back to the table.
"Rodney, language!" Momma yelled at Daddy.
"Sorry, honey," Daddy slumped his shoulders. "Looks like I'm going to have to cut my vacation short."
That made Momma very angry.
"What could possibly be so important that they have to call you in today?" she yelled.
"Apparently, there's a Chozo ship requesting permission to dock," he explained.
The room grew quiet, except for Samus' messy eating. She didn't know what a 'Chozo' was but the adults never seemed to like talking about them for some reason. Samus decided that this required further investigation.
"We don't know what they want yet," he continued. "But the fact that they're making contact at all is cause for concern."
"Alright, but you better be getting paid overtime for this."
"Don't worry, I will." Daddy kissed Momma, gross, and began to walk out only for Momma to grab his arm.
"Not yet, we still have something important first."
Something about the way Samus' parents looked at each other caught her attention and she looked up from her peas. They would get to live another few minutes.
"Oh, that's right!" Daddy gave a big goofy grin as he wrapped his arms around Momma's shoulders and they both smiled down at her. "We have some exciting news!"
"What is it?" Samus demanded to know. She was not a patient child, and she only grew more curious as her parents both glanced down at Momma's tummy for some reason. Samus noted that Momma seemed to be putting on some extra pounds and decided to 'volunteer' to start eating some of her food to help her slim back down again.
"Your pa and I have some exciting news, Samus! You're going to be a big sister!" Momma said cheerily, and Samus dropped her spoon. "You're going to have a little brother soon!"
"Boys are smelly!" was all Samus could say to that. "I want a little sister instead."
Daddy laughed at that. "I'm afraid that we don't get to choose that part. It will only be a few more months until little Justin will be here. Well, I've gotta go. Have a good day!"
Daddy left after that. It would be the last time that she ever saw her father. Samus had a busy day of exploring the old woods ahead of her, so she finished her breakfast as quickly as she could and got ready to head out and play. Momma grabbed her by the shoulder before she could head out the door and pulled her back.
"Don't forget to pay your respects," she reminded her.
"Oh, alright." Samus pouted but stopped trying to leave. Instead, she walked over to where a pair of old framed photos were hanging on the wall. She clasped her hands as her parents had shown her and bowed before one of the photos, which showed Daddy's parents, Gramma and Grampa Aran. Then she did the same for the photo of Mommy's parents, Gramma and Grampa Bailey. Once she was done, she rushed out the door for an exciting day of adventure.
She would not be prepared for just how exciting an adventure that day would be.
Samus was jolted back to her senses as the elevator finally reached its destination. The doors opened in front of her and she stepped out onto a stone bridge opening out into a large, cavernous chamber. At the other end of the bridge a tall, armored figure stood waiting. Samus immediately assumed a combat stance and took a few cautious steps towards the stranger, who appeared to be a Chozo from the design of their armor. A quick scan confirmed that suspicion, which just made her more apprehensive. She was raised by the Chozo, she'd seen the last remnants of their people wiped out by the Space Pirates under Mother Brain's command.
She took a few more steps and the stranger fired a massive energy blast from his arm cannon, far more powerful than anything her own could manage, and she reflexively dodged to the side. As she slid along the length of the bridge, her attacker lept into the air and stomped onto the ground in front of her, his ornate red cape billowing behind him. Samus reacted quickly, coming to a stop before she could crash into him. Time seemed to stand still as she stared up into the glowing red eyes of his silver and gray Power Suit. It didn't take long to determine that it must have been a much newer and more advanced model than her own, which had been retrieved from an ancient Zebesian temple during her first proper mission after her original armor had been lost. To say that wasn't a good sign would be an understatement.
The Chozo warrior kicked off from the ground with enough force to send the bridge crumbling into the abyssal chamber below and Samus used her Space Jump thrusters to follow him to stable ground. She then fired off a charged blast that merely reflected off of his armor as if it were nothing, the armor itself beginning to emit some sort of flaming aura that was likely what shielded him. She followed up with a series of rapid-fire blasts to test the effects as the unknown Chozo slowly approached. Nothing happened, other than that he rushed in for a melee strike which Samus managed to reflect. She was suddenly very glad that she'd been working on improving her close-quarters combat skills through her last few missions. There was no way she could have blocked that attack in her early years. The grace and power of this mysterious warrior's movements was far beyond even what Gray Voice would have been capable of and he was the most skilled Chozo warrior Samus had ever met. It was only through a lifetime of mental discipline that Samus was able to keep herself from panicking as she fired a Super Missile at his head.
She was almost surprised when the attack hit its mark, blowing a large crack out of the Chozo's helmet, like a scar running down the side of his face. Seeing her opening, Samus readied another missile.
In the blink of an eye, the bounty hunter was suddenly suspended in the air, the Chozo holding her by the neck in a death grip. She had forgotten how large in stature her adoptive species were, with her attacker standing at least twice her height. Samus tried to struggle free from his grip but to no avail. She was forced to watch as he charged his cannon, aimed directly at her helmeted face, as she gasped for air. Her lungs felt like they were on fire as his grip tightened, her windpipe constricting despite her armor. The world seemed to fall out of focus as the ominous red glow of the cannon grew ever brighter. She tried to struggle, but her body wouldn't listen. Her strength failed her, and everything went white. The Hunter's last thoughts were to the people she had left behind, and the people she was sure she was about to see again.
Only a few minutes had passed by the time Samus awoke again, which was good because even with her enhanced physiology, being unconscious for any longer than that could have caused permanent damage to her brain. Her lungs still burned and her body ached, but at least she was alive. She gave herself a once-over to make sure that everything was still intact and, luckily enough, she didn't seem to have taken any serious damage and her armor was still intact. Well, mostly intact.
"Belgium," Samus swore under her breath as she stared at the blue armor plating on her hand. She was so, so tired of losing her equipment on practically every major mission she went on and was seriously not in the mood for it to happen again, but here she was. "Alright, what's still working?"
After running a quick diagnostics check, Samus wasn't surprised by the results. Only standard armor with the bare minimum of energy, the basic Power Beam, and a handful of missiles. Getting everything back was going to be a pain as always, but at least she seemed to be in the ruins of an ancient Chozodian settlement, which meant that she would likely find plenty of equipment modules if she searched hard enough. Her priority, though, was to find a communications access point so that she could contact ADAM. The elevator that she had taken had been destroyed, likely by her attacker's initial charged shot, which meant that leaving that way wasn't an option. Not that she would have considered it in the first place, Samus was never one to abandon a mission, no matter how many complications arose.
Samus made her way through a tunnel, where she was quickly ambushed by a pair of hostile alien lifeforms. In the past, Samus would just fry them to a crisp and move on without a second thought. But now she realized that these were simply wild animals and she was the one who was invading their territory. On the other hand, the laws of survival in these kinds of worlds dictated that it was kill or be killed, and if ZDR truly was hiding X Parasites somewhere, then any lifeform she came across could be a threat. So, she did kill them as she would have, though the act weighed heavily on her, especially as their incinerated corpses revealed that they had not been infected after all. Seeing that this area was clear, she made the rest of her way avoiding combat as much as she could.
Eventually, she made her way to a room housing some sort of network station. The design was unfamiliar to Samus but the user interface was compatible with her suit. Plugging her arm cannon into the console, Samus activated the terminal and a large, domed screen turned on in front of her.
"So, you've accessed a network station," a familiar synthetic voice said through the terminal. "Well done, Samus. I have reviewed your vital signs and video log from the data you uploaded. I've run a full analysis and my readings indicate dramatic physical changes in you. Whatever caused these changes seems to have stripped you of most of your abilities. You might call it physical amnesia."
"I might, but I won't," Samus muttered under her breath.
"That brings me to your assailant," the voice continued. "I am checking the Federation database against your video log. It appears to have been a Chozo but the attacker's identity is not yet clear. I have determined that you are somewhere within the depths of ZDR. Your top priority should be to return to your ship on the surface. This situation is precarious but I trust your instincts as you navigate upward. This planet appears to consist of multiple areas. Shuttles, elevators and other modes of transport connect them. Keep an eye out for ways to reach the surface. One final thing. Underground interference is preventing radio transmissions. Check in with me at any network stations you find."
The transmission ended abruptly and Samus exited the room through a door opposite the one she had entered. As soon as she was outside the room, she ran another diagnostic check on her suit, searching for any viruses or unwanted tracking programs, and adjusted her suit's security systems to prevent automatic data transfers both to and from the suit. She did not know who had just contacted her through the Network Station but it sure as frak wasn't ADAM.
Once the results were in and Samus was satisfied that she hadn't been hacked, she continued her investigation, making sure to avoid any more Network Stations if possible. She navigated through a series of vertical shafts, ascending higher up the area that her map indicated was called Artaria.
Eventually, she found herself walking into a room that opened out into a lower floor and decided to slide down and investigate. She dropped down onto a wide catwalk in a room filled with steam. It seemed a perfect place to set up an ambush, so Samus kept alert and with her cannon ready to fire. She could hear footsteps, and soon a tall, lanky robot shuffled into view from the next room. Her scan visor indicated that the monocular gray robot was one of the E.M.M.I.s that ADAM had warned her about earlier, designation 01P. It was just her luck that she'd encounter one so soon and while she was depowered, to boot. Though the E.M.M.I.-01P itself had clearly just come out the worse for wear from a fight as well. Sections of its armor plating were missing or damaged and it was covered in scorch marks. Its left arm had even been torn off entirely.
The damage wasn't enough for Samus to be able to do anything it, however, as her power beam just reflected off and even her missiles didn't seem to phase the robot at all. E.M.M.I-01P quickly pinned Samus to the metal floor, holding her down as it brought its visual processor closer to her helmet. She managed to kick the robot off of her just as it launched a probe spike from its head, which would have punctured her armor and killed her instantly if she had acted even a split second too slow. Seeing that even the damaged E.M.M.I. was too much of a threat to properly deal with in her current state, Samus made a run for it in the direction that it had come from.
That led her to what seemed at first to be a dead end. Thankfully, the E.M.M.I-01P was slow enough that Samus had time to kick off the wall onto a raised platform, and from there she was able to jump to the next floor. With its missing arm, the E.M.M.I. wasn't able to climb up after her, though that didn't stop it from trying. With nowhere else to go, Samus turned around and headed into the next room.
She wasn't sure what she was expecting to find, but a miniaturized Aurora Unit wasn't it. The blue brain-like mass was partially covered in thick armor plating, yet the biological supercomputer was lying on the ground, nearly lifeless. The Unit, despite being smaller than the Federation's older models, was still slightly taller than Samus herself and her scans indicated that it must have been networked to the E.M.M.I-01P. However, it gave no indication of what had happened to it.
Placing her hand against the Federation computer's biomass, the last of its energy was transferred to her arm cannon. The cannon turned red and changed to a configuration that her suit identified as an 'Omega Cannon'. With the new upgrade, Samus returned to the previous room and charged up a shot while the E.M.M.I. was lined up in her sights, then fired a blast directly into its optical sensor. The attack completely overwhelmed the damaged research robot, blowing out its sensors as it fell, lifeless, to the ground. Unfortunately, the single blast had apparently also been enough to discharge the Omega Cannon completely and it deactivated itself, reverting back to her standard arm cannon.
Well, at least now she knew what to do when she encountered the other E.M.M.I.s later on. And she was sure that it was going to be a matter of when, not if.
With that taken care of, Samus went back to exploring the tunnels of Artaria, taking another route that led her further up. Eventually, she found herself approaching a strange doorway made of dark, shifting blocks. She walked up to it cautiously and, seeing that it didn't seem dangerous, stepped through. She found herself in a dimly lit facility of unknown origin. If she had to guess, it must have been built by the local Chozo, as everything else on this planet seemed to be, apart from the recent additions brought in by the E.M.M.I. expedition.
Something seemed off as Samus made her way through a series of labyrinthine hallways. It was quiet. Too quiet. That strange door she had walked through must have been to prevent the local wildlife from entering these ruins but she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else wrong. She wasn't alone.
As Samus walked along one corridor, she heard a faint clacking noise behind her and quickly turned around, cannon at the ready. A second E.M.M.I. was crawling along the ceiling, attempting to ambush her from behind. This one's white plating was still in pristine condition, complete with armor over its head that would likely prevent her from finishing it off as she had the other one, even if she still had an upgraded Omega Cannon. The robot, designation E.M.M.I.-02SM, climbed down onto the floor and slowly crept up to her, triggering Samus' fight-or-flight responses. Given her earlier encounter, Samus chose flight.
Samus ran as fast as her legs could carry her but the E.M.M.I.-02SM was able to effortlessly keep pace. She wasn't going to be able to get away from this thing unless she had a way to slow it down. She spotted an open air vent nearby, the kind that she would normally be able to use her Morph Ball transformation to slip through. She didn't have access to the Morph Ball, however, but thankfully her current suit was still much slimmer than its original form and she slid through the vent without issue into the next room. She paused just long enough to see that the E.M.M.I. was too big to crawl through after her. She was safe for now but it would likely only be a brief reprieve. It was hunting her now and it likely wouldn't be long until it found her again. She had to either get out of there or find another Central Unit to drain.
She explored the rest of the facility cautiously, doing her best to avoid another encounter with her predator. Unfortunately, her best was not good enough. After a few minutes, Samus found herself walking into a dead end, and as she turned to find another way, the E.M.M.I.-02SM crawled out from around a corner. She was trapped. The hallway was narrow but if she timed it right, she might be able to quickly get around it like she had the other one. Although she had a feeling that a fully functioning model would likely have even faster reaction times than the damaged one, which meant that it would be risky. Still, she had no other options.
"Hey, cyclops!"
Samus hesitated as soon as she started to move, as an all-too-familiar voice echoed from the other end of the hallway and a blast of energy fired into the E.M.M.I.-02SM's back. The robot leaned back to look behind it and shifted its limbs in a way that would have been impossible for any living creature, somehow having turned itself around to face its new attacker. Then, it was belted in the face, or what constituted the equivalent of one, by a stream of intense, rapid-fire blasts. The E.M.M.I. continued its approach regardless, but the constant barrage of focused attacks proved too much as its faceplate gradually overheated and eventually exploded. The robot was stunned as the attacks ceased but eventually continued its advance. Then a massive blast that Samus recognized as identical to the one she had destroyed the first E.M.M.I. with roared down the hallway, striking the E.M.M.I. straight in its eye. It collapsed to the ground, completely totaled by the attack.
"Hah, finally! Got you!"
Samus couldn't believe her eyes, as her apparent rescuer approached, clad in red and orange armor that she would have recognized anywhere. Whoever or whatever it was, it casually walked up to the fallen E.M.M.I. while its shiny red arm cannon began to glow, then reverted to the standard dull green.
"Huh? I guess that was just a one-off," Samus' latest doppelganger muttered, in her voice. "Shame, that upgrade would have been useful."
The armored figure placed its hand on the fallen E.M.M.I. and seemed to draw some form of energy from it. Shaking off her stunned confusion, Samus aimed her cannon at the stranger, ready for a fight. The other woman looked up and froze as if she had finally just noticed that Samus was there. A tense silence passed between them before the stranger finally acted.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" Samus' lookalike practically jumped back, raising both arms in a gesture to show that she meant no harm. It could have been a ruse though, and Samus didn't drop her guard. "W-what are you doing here? Wait, no, stupid question. You probably got the same video that I did."
"Who are you?" Samus demanded to know. She'd fought far too many copies of herself over her career and they were always bad news. "What are you doing here and where did you get that armor?"
"Yeah, that's going to be a bit of a long story and I don't think that you're going to like it. I'll tell you, but… please, just hear me out and don't shoot." The armor dissipated, leaving behind just its wearer, and Samus found herself staring into her own face. Not the face that greeted her in her reflection, but her face. From before the surgery. It was almost as if she were looking at a younger version of herself, plucked from the past and somehow brought here into the present, save for the green hair, the pink version of her normally-blue Zero Suit and, most strikingly of all, the bright yellow eyes that looked more like those of a hornoad than a human. It was those eyes that made her realize just what she was looking at.
"That's impossible," Samus muttered. "You should be dead."
"Yes, yes, I know," the SA-X flinched, a pained expression on her stolen face. "And I'm sure that you probably want to fix that mistake but please, just hear me out."
"You can talk," the real Samus observed. "That's new. Fine, I'll listen but if you so much as blink in a way I don't like, I'm vaporizing you on the spot."
It was a bluff, of course. If this SA-X was as strong as Samus remembered, then there was no way that she could take it on in a fight, but thankfully it didn't seem to realize that and she was going to press that advantage as long as she could.
"Okay, well, you already know how I came to be," the SA-X began. "An X Parasite infected your suit, took your form and you fought it a few times on the BSL Research Station. Before you blew up the station and took our SR388 with it, that original X Parasite had split off into about a dozen copies of itself and we would have all been destroyed in that blast. But we knew that was a possibility and so we had one of us, me, evacuate the station while you were distracted fighting the original. The plan was that I was going to split off into more copies once I'd managed to get my escape pod onto another planet or ship and we'd repopulate our species from there, starting the whole thing over. But, and this is the important part, I didn't do that. I haven't reproduced at all since then, and I even managed to sterilize myself using Theta-Rays to stop myself from even accidentally creating more of me."
"And you expect me to believe that?" Samus asked. "X Parasites are ruled only by their drive to consume and spread. Why would you go against that?"
"Very good question, with a complicated answer," the SA-X replied. "It would be more accurate to say that we're driven by survival instincts. Normally, we propagate our species as much as possible to ensure that even if something happens to an individual X, the species remains strong. But a big part of that is that we're influenced by the DNA of the species we infect, which under normal conditions means a variety of wild animals and the occasional sentient race that quickly gets subdued by more animals. However, I was stuck on that escape pod for so long that I wasn't able to absorb the DNA of any other lifeforms and thus ended up further integrating with your DNA. And not just your genetics but remnants of your mind and memory, as well. In essence, I became more like you, including your morals and your drive to protect the peace and life in the universe. So, I ended up shifting my priorities a bit with those survival instincts that I mentioned earlier. Instead of trying to propagate other X and having our species go back to the way things were before, which would either doom all life in the universe or lead to you, or someone like you, wiping us out into extinction. So, I decided that it would be better that the X live on through me, as an individual, and not as a wider species."
"So, you'd doom your own kind just so that you can live?" Samus cocked an eyebrow, not that it was visible under her helmet.
"Well, it sounds bad if you say it like that," the SA-X shrugged. "But you know what other X Parasites are like. This is a compromise. The only way the X can coexist with other lifeforms is if I am the only one. The chances of even a second X coming to this same conclusion, that we must live alongside others, is so minuscule that it's not even worth the risk of taking. That's why I'm here. If there's even a chance that another of my kind is on this planet, I must make sure that they are eliminated. As paradoxical as it seems, I must destroy my species to protect my species."
"You certainly tell an interesting tale," Samus admitted. "But that doesn't mean that I believe you."
"Of course not, I wouldn't expect you to. I certainly wouldn't, and I'm just an echo of you," the SA-X held out one of its hands, and what appeared to be some kind of memory card emerged from it. "Just give me a chance to prove myself on this mission. I'll even give you a token of goodwill. This contains the data for every one of your suit upgrades that I have, including a new Phatnom Cloak skill that I picked up here a little while ago and the Spider Magnet I just got from that robot thing. I'm going to set it down here. You can scan it and if you determine that it's safe, it's yours. Then, I hope that you can return the favor by allowing me to work alongside you so that I can prove myself."
She slowly set the card on the ground, beside the fallen E.M.M.I., and backed away. Samus scanned it as instructed and determined that it was no more or less than what the creature claimed it to be. Hesitantly, she approached and took the memory card, inserting it into a port on her arm cannon. There was a flash of light, and when it dissipated, she found that her armor had turned purple, a sign that her Gravity Suit functionality had been restored, and the armor had even grown back a little more, though it was still sleeker and with white plating in place of the old yellow. She assumed that it must have been permanent now, not that she particularly minded the new ascetics. She opened the diagnostics menu once again to double-check the results and was startled by what she saw. She was expecting… well, she didn't know exactly what she was expecting but assumed that the SA-X meant that it was giving her back the abilities that she had when her suit had been infected. Instead, it had restored nearly every upgrade and ability that she'd ever had with the suit.
"How?" Samus just stood there, stunned.
"As I said earlier, I was able to integrate more of your memories over time," the SA-X explained. "That included your suit's memories, and I was able to rebuild some of my… your old upgrades from them. I hope you don't mind."
"Not at all," Samus shook her head. If someone had told her before her last mission that an X Parasite of all things would turn good, she would have laughed. Now, it seemed like anything was possible. She might as well give it a chance. And if it was lying, she could end it easily now. Although, maybe not so easily if it had her memories and abilities now, too. "Well, you've held up your end of the bargain. I suppose that it's only fair that I keep mine. We can work together on this."
"Thank you." The SA-X nodded and reformed its copy of Samus' suit around itself. "I won't let you down."
The two turned and walked side by side as they continued to explore the facility they were in.
"I take it that the ship I found on the surface was yours," Samus said as they walked.
"Oh, um, yes," the SA-X confirmed. "I reused the schematics from one of our… your old ships."
"Justine Bailey?"
"... I needed something to call myself. I usually just go by Bailey, which of course was Mama's maiden name. And Justine is a tribute to Justin, our- your little brother who never got the chance to live thanks to that petaQ Ridley."
Samus twitched at that. She may have made up with the former space pirate, but she didn't think that there was anything that he could do to fully make up for taking her family away. Still, it was complicated. "I'm going to have to fill you in on a lot that's happened."
"I've been having my own adventures as well," the SA-X… Bailey… replied.
"Probably not as crazy as mine." Samus found herself smiling as they finally found an exit and made their way back into the outer tunnel system of Artaria. "By the way, were you the one that damaged that first E.M.M.I. I fought?"
"First E.M.M.I.?" Bailey repeated, turning to face Samus. "Wait, you mean there's more than one of those things?"
"I'm going to take that as a no, then." Samus shook her head. So much for that theory.
Samus proceeded to fill in her counterpart as they explored the rest of the area, about her adventures since the BSL Station, her mission to SMB-985 where she worked alongside Ridley and his new allies on a quest to rescue a captured princess, and everything that had happened to her since landing on this planet. It was a long story and by the end of it, they'd finally managed to find an elevator leading up to the next area, Cataris.
"So, something's contacting you pretending to be your ship?" Bailey asked as they stepped onto the platform. "What do you think the odds are that it's the mysterious Chozo who attacked you?"
"Pretty high," Samus replied as they began their ascent.
"We should probably make sure that he doesn't find out about me," Bailey suggested. "That way, he'll only be expecting one of you when you inevitably confront him again."
"Sounds like a plan." Samus crossed her arms as they waited. "By the way, why the green hair?"
Bailey just shrugged in response.
END OF LOG
Author's Notes: Here we are, with the first chapter of the Super Ridley 'verse's second series: Dread Reckoning! Back when I started the original series, Metroid Dread hadn't been announced yet and it seemed like we'd never get a follow-up to Fusion's ending, so I wrote the Metroid half of the crossover based on my headcanon of what would have happened after that game, with Samus being a wanted fugitive continuing her bounty hunting career outside of Federation-controlled space, and mixed in elements of various non-canon spin-off material, mostly the Samus and Joey manga (though not the sequel Metroid EX, the events of which may or may not be incorporated into a later entry of this series). While I did have plans for a Samus-focused spin-off at that time, "Let's Go! Samus" would have looked nothing like the story you're reading, instead focusing on Samus getting marooned in the Pokémon world by an angry Rayquaza, getting a Pikachu and becoming a Pokémon Trainer while tracking down the intergalactic criminal she had been chasing. But eventually, I lost interest in that story idea and, more importantly, Nintendo finally unveiled an official Metroid 5, which turned out to easily be one of the best games in the series so far! However, its version of what happens after the events of Fusion was so radically different from what I had presented that it seemed like there was no way to reconcile the two. But, the one advantage of my slow updates on Super Ridley Bros. ended up being that I had plenty of time to think it over and figure out how to make it work, and even added a few twists and turns along the way. The biggest, of course, is Samus encountering a surviving SA-X who, much like Ridley, has unexpectedly turned to the side of good. Plus, Samus' encounter with Kraid later on will of course turn out very different thanks to her experiences with Ridley in the first story. How different, though, you'll have to wait and see.
I hope you like this first chapter and look forward to more! If you're reading this chapter when it first comes out, then keep and eye for this story's sister series, Symphony of Luigi, which I had been planning on posting the first chapter of in two weeks but I've decided to bump that up to this Friday. My current plan is to release chapters of both stories every other week and hopefully I can keep up with that.
And of course, if you want to discuss this story, or any of my others, then you can check out my Discord server with the invite code pUVpqVEp5V.