MISSION LOG 03: Dairon
Samus waited as the suspension monorail shuttle rocketed along. Bailey had decided to sit down on one of the many seats that lined the opposite sides of the vehicle but Samus chose to remain standing alert, grabbing a support strap with her free hand to keep herself from swaying too much as the shuttle rocked along. It took several minutes for them to finally reach their destination but eventually, they slowed to a halt and the doors slid open.
It was obvious at a glance that something was wrong. The station outside was dark. Samus switched on her thermal visor and checked the area. Everything else seemed fine but the facility had been powered down. Perhaps it was just a broken generator but Samus knew to prepare for the worst. This could be a trap, one which she had no interest in walking into. But still, they had to proceed.
"You know, it's weird that this doesn't happen more often," Bailey commented as she walked up to the door leading into the Dairon Biologic Research Facility. "You'd think that when we're exploring old ruins, caves and abandoned ships, not having functioning power would be the norm."
"Making sure that their energy reserves will last through almost anything is one of the first things that most spacefaring races learn to perfect when traveling between worlds," Samus pointed out. "Losing power in the endless vacuum of space is quite literally a death sentence."
"Yeah, I know, but still."
"Plus, I get the feeling that it hasn't been that long since this place was abandoned. Junior being held here shows that the Chozo who lived in this colony must have been here until just recently."
"I guess we'll figure that out as we go." Bailey held up her left hand, which a bright yellow light washed over as the armor changed to add gray plating and a few extra light panels embedded in it. "Hm, I don't think that I've ever had to use this thing before, now that I think about it."
The X copy thrust her fist out towards the door's control panel and a whip-like beam of purple energy shot out from it, latching onto the panel's interface. Feeding energy through the Grapple Beam, Bailey was able to power the door so that it opened for them.
"I'd actually forgotten about the Grapple Voltage," Samus commented as she reactivated her own Grapple Beam and its associated upgrades while walking through the open door. She noticed that the normally gray attachment had turned white, in keeping with her suit's new aesthetics. "It feels good to have everything back."
"I know, right? So useful." Bailey followed close behind as they entered the darkened facility.
The rest of the lab was also without power but that wasn't much of an obstacle for either of them. Between using their Thermal Visors to see and being able to provide various doorways and other electronic devices with enough power to operate via the Grapple Voltage, they were able to move freely. They didn't even need to worry about avoiding network stations as those were also powered down. However, actually exploring such a large network of interconnected laboratories and other facilities would be time-consuming. They had no way of gaining map information through any method other than trial and error exploration and the whole place was like a labyrinth. If they wanted to make any real progress exploring this place then it was clear that they were going to have to split up, at least until they found a way to turn the power back on.
They made their way down an empty hallway when Samus stopped and motioned for Bailey to do so as well.
"You keep going," she said. "I'm going to try climbing up to see what I can find. We'll cover more ground this way."
"Are you sure?" Bailey asked. "We won't have a way to keep in contact if we split up again. We still can't send any messages or anything through the interference."
"Once one of us finds a way to reactivate power, we'll both meet up back at the shuttle station where we first arrived, then synch our map data and find the way to the next area together," Samus explained her plan.
Bailey shrugged. "Alright, if you say so. I just hope that I don't run into another one of those E.M.M.I.s again. I'm already getting tired of those things."
"We'll see." Samus ascended a vertical shaft leading to the next floor via her Space Jump ability. One annoying thing about Chozo architecture, which had been a constant thorn in her side since she was a child, was that they were always built under the assumption that the people using them could fly, or at the very least climb around with ease.
The whole place was full of security robots and other defense mechanisms designed to keep people in, or perhaps keep research specimens from getting out. Fortunately, those were all inert due to the lack of power which meant that all Samus had to worry about were the handful of wild creatures that were now calling this place home. She avoided most of those, of course, having already resolved to try and keep to a minimum of bloodshed for the time being. She did check to see if the X had breached the lab but still couldn't find any evidence of their presence. Eventually, she found herself standing before the entrance to another E.M.M.I. zone. She wasn't looking forward to having to deal with another one at the moment but she was going to have to pass through if she wanted to progress. So, she stepped through the gateway of shifting cubes.
Despite moving as stealthily as she could, it only took a few minutes before she heard the distinctive metal clanking of an E.M.M.I. walking around on the metallic floor nearby. She didn't doubt that the research robot would be able to detect her in the dark at least as well as she could, so she curled up into her Morph Ball form and rolled around slowly. Hopefully, that would make her less conspicuous. Not long after, she rounded a corner into a hallway just as the E.M.M.I. stepped in from the other end. The soft blue spotlight emanating from its cycloptic optical sensor turned red as soon as its electronic gaze moved over her and the E.M.M.I. made to pursue. Samus quickly stood up and began running as quickly as she could. She couldn't scan this one to determine its designation as her Scan Visor wouldn't be able to detect anything in the dark any better than her standard Combat Visor could but that wasn't much of a concern right now. What was a concern was that this E.M.M.I. seemed to have a Speed Booster function, running down the hallway and considerably faster speeds than what the other models encountered so far were capable of. Thankfully she had her own Speed Booster that allowed her to run fast enough to avoid having it catch up to her almost instantly but trying to outmaneuver the robot was going to be an issue. She needed to find the Central Unit, fast.
The need to survive, grow and reproduce. All living things are controlled by basic, instinctual drives that control their actions and behaviors. The ability that sentient beings held over other creatures was that they could set these things aside. The chozo, for example, had eliminated their own libidos for the sake of scientific progress to the point where they had condemned themselves to a slow extinction before they realized their mistake. But even then, there was one drive that surpassed everything else.
Hunger.
Bailey was hungry. Not necessarily in the sense that most creatures would understand it. She had just had a particularly large meal in the form of that sclawk she had been eating when Samus found her earlier, after all. If she were a normal life form that would likely have been enough to sustain her for at least a day. But she was not a normal life form. She was X. Eating, in the biological sense, was just a way for her to try and stave off her true hunger.
Consume
Even now, she was absently chewing on a small hunk of hornoad meat that she had materialized in her mouth from her own essence. She wasn't getting any nutritional value from it or anything it did help push off her instincts, if only just a little bit.
Consume
She couldn't give in. If she did, if she let herself absorb, dominate and become other creatures then she would lose herself. It took concentration and effort to maintain a human mind. If she were to give in to her instincts then she would lose that. She would revert into little more than an animal. She would be no different than the rest of her kind. She would be X. She had to be more than that, to be better than that.
Consume
No, not again. She'd already lost control that day. Before she had encountered genetic host Samus Aran, while avoiding the first E.M.M.I. she had encountered. She had wandered into the wreckage of an old ship, which had crashed into the planet long ago while transporting a creature from the southern jungles of Leaquer-12 for the Chozo warriors here to hunt. The Corpius, a powerful and dangerous predator on its homeworld. Though its lower body had been completely torn off when the Chozo had defeated it, the Corpius had managed to survive, escaping from them by using its arms and exposed ribs to walk and absorbing the abilities of the Phantom Cloak so that it could hide. It had a strong life force and a determination to live that would far surpass most creatures. It was the type of lifeform that would turn an X into what the BSL scientists had dubbed a 'Core X'. The X themselves did not have a word for it as they did not communicate in such a manner. If she did have to translate how they thought of 'Cores' into a word, that would have to be apex. The highest form of being. The dominant existence.
Consume, become Apex
The temptation had been too much for her and she had let herself go, temporarily shedding her humanoid form to infect the Corpius, absorbing the essence of its being and adding its biological distinctiveness into herself. Coming back down from that had been hard but she had managed to remain Bailey. She wasn't sure that she would be able to handle that a second time so soon. Fortunately, all of the other life forms she had passed by since then were small, weak creatures. The only other apex lifeform she had encountered since then was Samus, who was already gene host. The temptation was still there but she should be fine as long as she didn't come across another-
Apex
It was ahead of her and she was drawing closer with every step, likely just a few rooms away. It was dead but still fresh. Still viable gene host. She could feel that it was similar to the Corpius. Perhaps a related species from the same planet? She couldn't quite tell but that didn't matter. What mattered was-
Consume
Bailey's long, black tail swayed through the air behind her, the hardened stinger softly brushing against the walls. When had she grown that back out? She quickly retracted the tail and resumed gene host Samus Aran's form. Gene host Samus wasn't nearby, she couldn't even feel her presence at the moment, but she still needed to remain safe. If gene host Samus thought that Bailey was losing control then that would be the end of her, and her quest to become more than she was would be at an end. Above all else, she needed to survive and carry X into a new age.
Consume, become apex
No, already apex
Not enough, consume apex
It was getting harder and harder to fight her instincts as she continued to approach whatever it was. She could feel herself grow three extra eyes and her toes had become webbed. She struggled to resume gene host Samus' form. Finally, she came to the last door between herself and the potential apex gene host. She could feel it so strongly now, the body being no more than a few meters away at this point. Instead of powering the door with her Grapple Voltage she grew her arms into those of the Corpius and pulled the metal door straight out of the wall, tossing it aside. Her tongue rolled out of her mouth, her face now being what should have been her armor's helmet, and practically reached her waist as she slowly walked up to the corpse before her.
Consume
It was a giant buglike creature, over twice the size that gene host Corpius had been, and sprawled out with the armored carapace of its back on the ground, its belly town open with a bunch of powered-down tools and probes stuck in the process of dissecting the creature. They must have been in the middle of the procedure when the power had been cut.
Consume, become Apex
No!
Bailey fell to the ground, using all of her strength to try and maintain her form. Even keeping herself in her current, monstrous state was growing taxing on her but she couldn't let herself go. She didn't know what would happen if she consumed again so soon after the last one. She needed to hold onto herself. To maintain her imitated humanity. She couldn't go back to being a mindless animal. She needed to maintain herself.
Consume!
No! Already apex!
Consume!
The hunger grew too strong. Bailey dematerialized into her true form of a floating, gelatinous blue glob of pure genetic essence, which hovered through the air and seeped into the dead creature's corpse, overtaking it and absorbing its DNA and essence. Every memory that the creature had flooded into her mind, became hers. It had been made from gene host Corpius's severed lower half, experimented on by Chozo scientists who had attempted to stimulate the creature's regenerative ability to see if they could regrow the missing upper half. The result was merely growing a new head from the bloody stump, and the new creature was not able to last long in that state. It was inferior to what it could have been, lacking necessary organs. That was not a problem for X.
The hardened shell retracted into its body, and the creature's six legs shifted into arm-like limbs that gathered near the front of its elongated body, from which spikes of bone shot out. Reaching out to its generic archives, X decided that its new form would be served well by gene host Corpius' stinger tail and gene host Hornoad's powerful legs. From gene host Samus Aran, it would…
From gene host Samus Aran, it would take…
Samus Aran…
She was not the creature. She was not a mindless X. She was Justine Bailey. She was herself.
Struggling, Bailey managed to get herself under control and slowly morphed back into gene host Samus Aran's copied form. It was a struggle but she managed to maintain human form. The Power Armor was more difficult, though. She kept turning it into a more organic-looking exoskeleton with the darker colors of her more recent gene hosts. After a few tries, though, she eventually managed to get it right and continued her exploration of the abandoned laboratory.
For now, she just had to hope that consuming two apex lifeforms in one day would be enough to satiate her hunger but she couldn't rely on that hope. She had been starving herself completely after deciding on her current course, after all. She was fighting every ingrained instinct she had and going against the very essence of what she was. But she was sentient now and the ability that sentient beings held over other creatures was that they could set those things aside.
Samus rocketed down a hallway until a wall broke her path and she slammed into it at full force. It seemed that she had managed to escape from the E.M.M.I. for now but it would likely catch up to her again soon so she wasted no time in continuing her search. After a while, she finally found her way to the Central Unit's room. The cloned biocomputer was fully encased in an armored shell, its eye staring directly at Samus as she entered. She immediately began bombarding it with Super Missiles until the armor plating broke off, then continued her assault. The Unit barely had time to begin a counter-assault before it fell limply to the ground. Samus walked over to the dead computer and pressed her hand against its bluish, glowing gray matter. The glow was absorbed into her arm cannon, which turned back into the red Omega Cannon as it had before. Now all that she had to do was hunt down the E.M.M.I.
Naturally, it didn't take long for the yellow-plated robot to track her down again once she had left the room and she immediately began firing once it came into view. The facial armor protecting its optical sensor began to glow white-hot before finally exploding, leaving its weak point exposed. Samus began charging her cannon but unfortunately, the E.M.M.I. still had its Speed Booster functionality, allowing it to close in far quicker than she anticipated. Samus was forced to dodge out of the way before it could catch her but that caused the Omega Cannon to lose its charge. It seemed that its extreme power was also a weakness as she couldn't charge the beam and move at the same time, and now she wouldn't be able to avoid the E.M.M.I. without staying on the move. This was going to be more of a challenge than she thought.
Kraid scratched his belly absently as the cargo elevator slowly carried him up to the surface. He was glad to have finally been freed from his confines, though he was also deeply confused about how it had happened. He never would have expected the Hunter of all people to come to his aid, his father's killer. Admittedly, he didn't particularly hold that against the Hunter. Every space pirate, or at least any decent pirate, knew the risks of the job. But it was still unexpected that his people's greatest enemy would save him instead of finishing him off. She had acted as if she were now on decent terms with Uncle Ridley, and even Kraid knew that the two considered each other mortal nemesises…nemesi? Whatever the plural of nemesis was. Language and grammar had never been Kraid's strong suits.
Anyway, she'd said that Uncle Ridley had left the space pirates to settle down on some planet that he'd never heard of. He didn't know what to make of that. She could have been lying. In fact, it seemed probable that she was. But on the other hand, why would she? There was no point in trying to lure him into a trap when she could have killed him easily or even just left him there to die. He'd have to think about that more later, though. For now, he had more pressing issues on his mind.
Everything hurt. His wrists were chaffed, his belly ached as parasites wormed their way through his flesh, his lower body was covered in deep burns and his throat had gotten so swollen that he could barely breathe. He hadn't had any food or water in weeks. To call the treatment that he'd received torture would be an understatement. Almost any other creature would have died under those conditions, to say nothing of having been dangelled in lava the whole time.
He let out an involuntary cough, spitting up globs of the flammable bile he produced for his fire breath and making his throat hurt even more. He needed to find water, at the very least. Even he was nearing his breaking point.
The elevator suddenly came to a screeching halt and the lights flickered for a moment. Kraid was nearly thrown off his feet but managed to steady himself before he could fall over. Not that there was enough room for him to fall.
Two small objects dropped down beside him. He had to strain to look down to see what they were and started to panic once he did.
There were two of them, silver in color and with beak-like heads. Chozo combat robots, the kind that had been used to imprison him down in that lake of lava after the flesh and blood soldiers had captured him and brought him to this forsaken planet. They were armed with energy blades set into their arms and looked poised to attack. Kraid was in no condition to fight but he had no other choice.
One of the robots charged forward and slashed across his foot, causing Kraid to let out a whimper and stumble back a step. The other started climbing up his leg. Kraid tried to shake it off but it just dug in deep with its sword to hold on, cutting into his flesh in the process. Kraid tried to spit some fireballs at him but wasn't able to ignite the spittle, sending globs of infected mucus out instead, which didn't even manage to hit either of them. The first robot continued to assault his poor toes while the second quickly reached his central navel and began hacking away at it. The flesh in that area was weak and sensitive at the moment, shooting pain throughout his entire body. Kraid let out a horrendous roar.
One good thing did come out of that, though. The sudden attack seemed to draw the attention of the parasites that had made their home in his stomach and they surfaced, attacking the hostile machine. The robot began killing the creatures, finishing off a fair number of them before they managed to overwhelm it and send the robot falling, taking even more parasites down with it. With that, Kraid managed to find the strength to quickly turn around, smashing the other robot into the wall with his tail, then stepped on the one that had fallen, putting all of his weight into the blow. He couldn't feel it because of the nerve damage but he was sure it would be crushed by his considerable weight.
That just left the one remaining robot, which got back up despite being visibly damaged and prepared to strike again. It dashed forward, blades slashing through the air. Kraid kicked and the combat robot was sent flying back into the wall again. It fell to the ground and started to stand up yet again before the lights of its eyes flickered off and the sword blades dissipated. It collapsed in a heap and Kraid made sure to stomp on it just to make sure it wouldn't be able to reactivate. He also did his best to kill the parasites that had fallen out from his belly, more for the satisfaction of revenge than anything else.
That left him alone in the now inoperable cargo elevator, which clearly wasn't going to be moving again anytime soon. He knew that he couldn't just stand around and wait but there was no way that he would be able to try climbing up the rest of the shaft. So, he bent down as far as he could and pried the shutter door open with his clawed hands. He had been worried that he'd be met with just a stretch of wall but to his relief, he'd been stopped close enough to an exit that he could just barely climb out.
He thought for a moment that he had reached the surface after all before realizing that it was an underground jungle. Light filtered in from crevasses in the cavern ceiling, allowing for the growth of massive trees, flowers and other plants packed densely together. And if there were plants here, then that must mean water and hopefully animal life that he could hunt and feed on. Kraid's luck was finally starting to turn around.
Bailey had found the deactivated generator shortly after her… incident… and had been able to turn it back on without any trouble. Getting back to the shuttle bay had been a bit more challenging, as the various sentry drones and security measures had been reactivated with the power. It still wasn't that much trouble for someone of her ability, though. The main issue was that Samus had yet to arrive. Bailey had been waiting there for a while before she finally gave up and decided to search for her gene host herself. If Samus of all people hadn't been able to make her way back already, then there must have been something wrong.
She really wished that they had working comms, as she retraced the path they had taken earlier before splitting up, then went the way that Samus had gone, up until the point where they'd gone too far apart to sense her. Her total recall and ability to sense nearby life forces were serving her well. Eventually, though, she reached the end of the trail. That was where having Samus as gene host became useful, allowing her to think as Samus would and hopefully make the same, or at least close enough, decisions on where to go from there.
After a while of exploring, Bailey entered what was likely the area where the local E.M.M.I was patrolling and she quickly picked up on a life force that couldn't have been anything other than Samus and she picked up her pace.
"Stay still, you slaggin' piece of scrap metal!"
That was definitely her voice. Bailey was about to turn a corner when Samus suddenly bolted out in front of her at top speed, causing Bailey to fall over backward. The E.M.M.I. followed shortly after, at speeds that would have been unthinkable for the previous models she'd fought. The robot skid to a halt shortly after passing her by, though, and seemed to lock on to the X before charging her down.
Apparently, these things considered Bailey to be a higher-profile target than Samus. She supposed that made sense since they were specifically there to track down her species, after all.
Bailey barely had time to run before the E.M.M.I. caught up to her and it was all that Bailey could do to stay out of its reach. After turning a few corners, she found herself running alongside her gene host.
"About time you got here," Samus said, and Bailey noticed the red coloring of her arm cannon. "I need to shoot this thing but I can't get it to slow down long enough for me to charge a shot. Think you can keep it distracted for a few seconds before luring it into my way?"
"If I have to!" Bailey replied.
Samus ducked into a side hall then stepped back out once the E.M.M.I. had passed, taking a stance and charging up the Omega Cannon. Bailey kept running for a while, then jumped off a wall, combing her Spider Ball and Speed Booster to dash along the ceiling the way she had come. The E.M.M.I. crawled up behind her, maintaining its pace. Once they'd gotten close enough, Bailey dropped down just in time to avoid the massive blast of red energy fired where she had just been. The E.M.M.I. didn't have time to dodge out of the way, its head exploding as it was struck. The limp hunk of yellow metal fell to the floor as Bailey stood back up.
"Not a big fan of that plan," Bailey muttered, walking up to gene host Samus.
"It worked," Samus shrugged. "I see that you found the generator. Find anything else?"
Bailey hesitated. "No, you?"
"Just that thing." Samus kicked the destroyed robot. "Guess all that's left is to find the way to the next area."
The two continued their exploration of the area, nothing else of note crossing their way as they ascended the lab's many floors until eventually, they managed to find their way to an elevator room. The sign next to the doors read 'Ferenia' in Chozodian script.
"Looks like this is it," Samus said as the doors opened and they stood inside. "What do you think this place is going to be?"
"Who knows?" Bailey shrugged. "I just hope that it'll be less eventful than this place."
"I thought you said that you didn't find anything here?" Samus reminded her.
"Right, I, um, was talking about the E.M.M.I.," Bailey said, though she didn't sound very convincing. "I meant that I hope we get a break from fighting those things. Also, the power outage was a bit inconvenient."
"I guess." Samus shrugged but cast a wary eye in Bailey's direction from behind her helmet's visor. She was starting to think that her doppelganger was hiding something and to say that was a concern would be an understatement. It seemed that she was going to have to keep her guard up, not that she had dropped it since encountering the surviving SA-X. "But I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you."
"Actually, you could," Bailey argued. "I don't technically need to breathe."
"Not relevant." Samus shook her head. She could tell that this was going to be a long ride.
END OF LOG
Author's Notes: I went into this chapter realizing that I had no actual plans for what to do. Using a one-chapter per area format was, in retrospect, not a great idea. I kind of wish that I had stuck to my original plan of not doing that but I don't want to go back and change what I've already done, so I'm sticking to it. Chapter 1 would have been called Planetfall, incidentally, but I hadn't come up with names for any of the other chapters yet.
Anyway, after writing the opening scene here I came up with the idea of focusing on Bailey's POV for the chapter and everything else kind of flowed naturally from there. This ended up a lot darker than I was intending this story to get but hopefully, I didn't go too far in that direction. I have a habit of toning myself down as I write, for example, the part where Bailey's chewing on a piece of meat almost ended up being her biting off her own tongue to chew on (she would have instantly regrown another one, of course) but thought that might have been a bit too gross. I don't want the tone to be too far off from Super Ridley Bros, even if this was always meant to be more serious than SRB.
I find it interesting how I was originally going to have this whole story written from Samus' perspective, as shown in the first chapter, but now I feel like I'm having more fun writing from everyone else's POVs instead. It's making for an interesting challenge for me as a writer, as every character in this story comes from a completely different background and perspective, making them much more varied than I'm used to writing. I'm hoping that the practice here will help me work on being able to branch out into different 'voices' when writing other works in the future, as I feel like that's something that I've been having trouble with lately. I'd love to hear your thoughts on whether or not I'm doing a good job of making each character feel unique so please let me know, if you feel so inclined. I always love to hear constructive criticism of my work.