Metroid Saga: Mythos

by Mental Omega

A collection of stories set in a reimagining of Metroid; here we start with the beginnings of the universe's two greatest warriors; Samus and Sylux. The Hatchling and the Neophyte. Born of K-2L and Cylosis, and bound by fate to decide the destiny of the cosmos. Note that this project started long before Prime 4 came out.

17. Forlorn: Aggrievance (SA & AS)

Sanctorial, Yldamir, Zoran

The quartet had teleported as close as they were able, everyone quickly checking off their weapons before giving each other a quick nod. They had found themselves in a Faeran room, decorated with crystals and the elfin architecture of the fair ones. But already it was clearly twisted, repurposed in the more predatory manner of the Old Foe.

Samus could feel the tension in the fabric of the cosmos, like someone pressing far too hard on a plastic film. The world was on a knife's edge, and every step she took into the rather plain room she took with caution. Crackling distortions arced their way into the air as she felt as much as heard a low, slowly building up hum. Inside her bones was the feeling of something looming over her, a pulsating drone of dread, but she steeled herself. The clock was ticking down, and so many lives depended on her. It was intimidating; the thought of how her mistakes could doom so many lives made her almost sick. So she had to win, for everyone's sake.

Arne gulped. He knew there was something dreadful behind the door. He stilled the shaking he felt and breathed once again. He was able to do this; he had to be able to do this. Now was not the time for doubt, for indecision. If he couldn't do this, there was nobody else who could possibly move in time to save the people of the sector. A burning sensation in his throat told him he was nervous, and he sipped a bit on the sweet nectar-like liquid his suit offered him, a bit of a distraction to keep him from overthinking what he was about to throw himself into. They had a plan; their objectives were clear; they could win. They had to.

"Everyone ready to go? We're not stopping for anything once we're heading out." Spire said as he clicked his arm cannon. The look on his face was one of such pride, infectious and celebratory satisfaction that they had managed to come so far.

"We're ready." Samus said after confirming with Arne for only the briefest moment.

Armaud shot the door ahead of them to let the four dive into the fray, legs carrying them as fast as they could. As soon as they crossed through, the foe had beset them.

A swarm of serpentine machines, each the length of a truck and the height of a man disgorged themselves from hiding to strike down the four heroes. The Seklitoqs each sought to lash out with blackened rays of disintegrating energy that would break down the strong atomic force itself to reduce virtually all matter to quark-soup.

Spire smashed one to pieces with an accelerated punch from his orb hand after uncurling from the Dialanche, the reverberating blow making the whole ground seem to shake. His hulking frame was already moving, every step made with heavy purpose as he tackled the next Seklitoq and smashed it into the other with a swing, clearing a path for Samus.

Samus deflected a quintet of beams back into the nearest of her enemies with the shield she conjured from her left arm, her cannon shrieking to spit forth a blue-white ice spreader missile that engulfed the field in bitter anti-energy. A shoulder tackle shattered the frozen serpentine machine while she buzzed past another, letting her beam rake across its side.

Arne shouted as he used his grapple beam to yank himself towards the now weakened Seklitoq, crashing into it in a dropkick that would have been audible across a nation. Bouncing off with a single kick, he levelled his cannon. His shock coil stabbed into the enemy just long enough for him to shift his arm-sword into a conventional hilt grip and jab it into the hole opened in the shielding. Another motion and he had bisected the machine, ducking below Armaud as she launched herself at the next foe.

Armaud phased through the fire aimed in her direction, a ghostly wispy form passing through every incoming shot aimed their way before she became all too solid and real at the right moment. The buzzsaw of her green screw attack howled with angry, predatory energies into the shielding until it had shattered. Her cannon charged and then unleashed a roaring stream of green, corrosive power that ate into the snake-like machine with each successive blow until nothing was left but fizzling foam.

The hall was filled with dozens of these machines, soon joined by hawk-like Yurakts, roughly manlike Uthaklats, and feline Zakateks. The aspects of Death, Storm, Moon, and Sun embodied in each of the four varieties of machines. But though they were powerful foes, the four together were a whirlwind blaze as they cut through to the next room; smashing down a wall with a speed booster charge from the young Samus.

She felt the most incredible rush; the electric excitement of warfare and the furious tempo of battle made her heart almost seem to dance to the most intense music of her life. It was intoxicating, like a drug that made everything make sense. She almost feared losing herself to it, but she saw the objective as clearly as she saw the next Uthaklat swinging at her with a gravity maul. She was fighting to save people, and to show to herself that she could protect them the way she wasn't able to protect her mother. That gave her clarity.

She caught the humanoid drone's arm in her grip and pulled it into a headbutt before stopping time altogether long enough to strike it with a fully charged beam and a power missile.

Not enough of it was left even to notice what hadn't been destroyed. As the world began to move again, she was aware that she had a whole volley of trouble heading her way. Without missing so much as a single beat she phased through incoming blasts, moving with the practised ease of a dancer on a script.

"Arne, heads up." She said as Arne duelled with another Zakiriqt that had emerged from above. Arne, already somewhat forewarned by his psychic senses, turned to see a dozen hawkish drones divebomb towards him. His blink pack carried him behind them, a whistle from him getting Spire's attention.

"Good work with setting them against each other. Now knock them down." Spire said as the hawk drones slammed into their more scorpion-like counterpart, making it recoil long enough for Spire to tackle it off of its legs with an impact that sent a shockwave resounding through the room. His brute strength and power seemed at odds with his friendly, avuncular manner, but so much as a single glance could tell one that he was overjoyed to see his charges keep up with him.

"Samus, thermal shock!" Spire said as he stacked his thermal beams into the Magmaul, an arcing glob of ultraheated magma crashing into the machine just as Samus dived below the swing of another machine. Not even blinking as Armaud stoved in her prior opponent's head, she charged up a shot with a weapon she had designed just for herself; the Cryolyte.

Fusing her Ice Beam into it, the Cryolyte made ice form over her cannon just before it sent out a lance-like river of anti-energy infused cold plasma. The results of going from one extreme of the temperature scale to the next so viciously suddenly cracked open the Zakiriqt's shields and gave Arne a chance to soften it up with his positron beam infused shock coil.

He could see the clock continuing to tick downwards. The endless hordes of machines thrown their way were nowhere near as strong as the single Zakiriqt they had fought before, but they didn't have to be he realised. They just had to waste time. Give the real obstacle enough time to beget disaster upon trillions of lives. His suit cleaned off the sweat that formed on his brow at the thought of that. No room for mistakes.

"Armaud, Unferrite now! The anti-matter needs to bond with it to finish it off!" He shouted as the Zakiriqt started to turn towards him, his suit indicating he had taken a few hits from its hard light turrets. No time to worry about the shield loss he thought to himself.

"Spire, cover me." Armaud said, deploying a shield of her own to block the shots aimed towards her. A single step turning herself around to send forth a stream of corroding power in hose like ropes into her foe. She looked upon the child with satisfaction as he charged his shock coil, ramping it up and shouting as the Zakiriqt's body exploded into a cascade of electricity.

"Where did they even get all these robots?" Arne said, flinching only for the barest second before his temporal distort fired off to weave around what must have been a hundred lasers fired at him from all directions.

"I have no idea. They must have gotten access to some kind of production facility. Someone had to have given them access, no way they could crack into all this security." Spire responded. A shinespark later and he had crashed into a particularly large Serpentine robot, keeling it over while he shielded Arne from a quasar blast, grunting as it pushed him backwards, feet skidding across the floor.

Samus stepped in, using the shield to bounce the shot into the turret that had descended to strike them, severing it in half. "We're not going to get answers from any of these robots. We need to keep going. Not enough time to stand around and find out." Samus said.

"Usually when we get this much resistance down one path, we're heading down somewhere the person in charge doesn't want us to. So we're at least on the correct path. Downside is that they'll know we're coming." Armaud said, picking up a mantid like Uharkit by its neck and decapitating it with a squeeze, punting its body into the formation of jaguar like mechanoids seeking to pounce at the trio, an appreciative nod coming from Spire.

"There's just so many of them! How are we going to have enough time to beat the Sunstalker and Moonhunter and disarm the device at this rate?" Arne said. He knew someone would have an answer, but he just had to hear it. He was trying to run estimates, trying to crunch the numbers into a format he could wrap his head around. The figures didn't look amazing, it'd be a tight squeeze, but he was sure that they had a way to save at least a few seconds.

"Because the trap master's on our side." Spire said, pointing out to the stream of Guardian machines that started to flood into the battlespace. From behind the swarming robots came a panoply of all the guardian machine varieties the two had fought on the way here. A parade of mechanical power and an elating if brief and limited window into what the commonwealth might have once looked like when it combined its resources.

This was war, the last battle in a war that had ended nearly a hundred and twenty thousand years ago before man had ever realised that the stars were more than just lights in the night sky. A war fought with soldiers of metal and hearts of fire. A war that to the machines now waging it may as well have never been over as guardian and intruder clashed for supremacy.

Under the direction of the Palatine Mind, the air lit up with every colour and resonated with every energy. Though the Palatine Mind's soldiers were largely unfeeling, though the quartet fighting alongside them academically knew that they were expendable machines, they felt their battle rage all the same. Programmed anger and outrage at the violation of what was supposed to be a sacred test of the inheritors drummed at their empathic senses like a marching beat.

An anger matched by the desperation of their foe, one that resonated with their makers' longing to open doors meant to be forever shut. There were no attempts by the Old Foe robots to preserve themselves, no attempt to withdraw to safety or extend their operational service. They were given the gift of a hunger to do their duty to the end. It was almost honourable, Arne thought, but alas it was a duty he could never allow them to fulfil.

The machines had given way just enough to allow them to enter a chamber full of humming crystals whose energies gave the room an eerie blue tint. Energies that interacted with the powers being summoned by the two old foes in a manner that was teasing open breaks and drifting tears in reality. A warmech that had approached too close to one of the breaks without proper protection was simply swallowed in half, its legs dropping to the ground after being neatly severed.

Samus flinched briefly at the sight but trusted in her armour to keep her safe. Even without the phantom suit, her armour and progenitor blood would always give her a chance at survival. With it, she dispelled all unease and started to push her way through.

The fighting was intense, but with creative usage of the environment, it was considerably less of a problem than it might have otherwise been. Callouts and signals were handed out as needed, attacks coordinated as had been practised; slipping into a natural pattern even with the additional partners.

Spire was the offence, providing his raw strength and firepower as was necessary. When he struck, his foe would fall and when he moved the path would clear. Armaud was the wall and shield, she would not be moved and could endure anything that was thrown in her direction as stoically as a mountain against the waves. Samus would control the engagement, freezing foes in place, preventing them from moving as they'd please or binding them with her many tools to prevent their action. Arne would provide support, using the energy he could siphon with his shock coil and redistributing it as needed to bolster their resilience or attacks while helping the others to focus down problematic foes.

It was an almost stunningly effective team, each of their abilities complementing with one another. For Arne, it felt like family. Everything felt like it was sliding into place, and it all felt clear for once. He felt like he belonged somewhere, and for that moment, the boy knew for certain what he was. He was Arne Skjoldr, and he was going to help save the sector.

He cut his way through what seemed like thousands of enemies, going from one hot spot to the next as they ducked through the increasingly unstable fields of reality. He, for a time, forgot that he was staring at the universe collapsing in the local area at the simple possibility of the device going off. He forgot that the obstacles he vaulted over were impossible things and fractal patterns wandering in from planes of existence whose dossiers read more like advisory warnings than articles.

Samus calling his attention back to the here and now got his focus back where it should be, directly ahead of him. He swung himself beneath the jabbing fractal spear of a humanoid Izakilt, the edge of the spear hissing with sundered particles and cleaved directions of space. He took the second spear from another drone of the same type on the shoulder, ignoring the impact to his defences and produced his sword.

The motion was quick, not easy. He encountered surprising resistance as his blade cut into overlapping and reinforced shielding. He felt himself briefly pushed back until he redoubled his momentum. Hundreds of the machines were trying to throw him back with a spearline, and the foe threatened to stop their progress. He saw the organisation and oneness with which they moved and he could feel his mind alight with an analysis. But he was overthinking and swinging too little, finding himself pressed backwards with every foe he felled being replaced almost as quickly.

"Hold on Arne, don't get too into it." Armaud said, looking with concern as Arne sought to engage the spear line himself even while a bedlam of robotic warfare raged around him. He was taking hits, his shielding was ticking downwards and his footing was starting to become loose.

She stepped in, body heavy with her mass and her shoulder crashing into dozens of foes. Her presence commanded attention, a gauntlet cast that the machines could not ignore as they sought to do battle with the living metal titanness. Her own shield, a metal construct emerged from her free arm to form an ovular shape that sparked with dozens of impacts.

Arne looked upon her with reverence and nodded, understanding that he still had things to learn as he joined her in the shield wall, lashing out with his weapons alongside her. The nod of approval that he got from her meant the world to him, and the feeling of having a chance to learn from such an elder made him inspired to do his best.

Like a rock, the waves of the foe broke around them, and like a ship they pushed through the waters of the enemy, a wake of corpses behind them. But with Spire busy clearing out a flank they were still fighting against the ocean no matter how much of the seemingly thousands deep phalanx they were cutting through. Arne had even stopped looking at his kill counter after it passed five digits in a matter of minutes. They needed to break open this formation if they wanted to get through.

But an orange flash of Samus sawing straight through one of the larger machines with the screw attack while Spire threw another into an opening tear gave him an idea.

"Samus, ice power bomb! I'll keep them busy." He said, getting a nod from her as she jumped off of a falling giant of a now decapitated machine. Ever graceful as she always was, Samus curled into her morph ball and fired off a boost charge to crash amidst the field like a comet.

What followed next was something she could never grow tired of. The sensation of unleashing such destruction simply because she willed it. Augmented by the energies of her charged ice beam, the cryo-blast expanded in a massive sphere around herself, set to ignore her allies while tearing through all obstacles.

Even the air solidified into a crystalline state as all energy present condensed into icy matter and anything that wasn't solid froze as hard as could ever be done. She looked on that work with pride, and Spire was soon there to follow up her work with a fiery pulse emitted from his collision with the ground to vaporise the frozen enemies. He was never one to pass up opportunities when they came by him after all, and so many statue still targets seemed incredibly tempting to him.

Standing himself out of his pose, Spire gave the other three a nod and a thumbs up formed out of his orb hand. "Excellent work there." He said, patting the two kids on the shoulder. The two responded positively, leaning a bit into the pats and glowing in the praise. It was nice to be so accepted by someone they looked up to.

As they started to get moving again, Samus spotted something unusual. The tears caught in the blast had been sealed completely shut. She stopped for only a second to look at the odd sight before turning her head back to the ground and passing on what she'd seen.

"Sounds like you've got a way to disarm the device I think." Arne said, giving her an eager nod after giving the information a roll around in his mind. This news made him feel more at ease, the worm of coiled tension easing its constriction slightly around him.

"Good job, but wait until we're in range before celebrating." Armaud said as she charged up a missile and smashed down the section of wall in front of them. It was time to finish this. Every step Armaud took reiterated that point, any further rounds she took were simply ignored. They couldn't threaten her and she would let no further opposition slow her down.

The streams of enemies began to thin at last, the Palatine Mind turning the entirety of the planet's production towards excising this cancer that had infested it for too long. The thickets of robots fighting around them were no longer particularly concerned with them, and the way ahead was clearer than it had ever been before.

"So do we have a plan for when we take them on?" Arne said, his eyes flicking over to the two elders as the hatchling and neophyte trailed behind the eruption and the citadel.

"I don't want either of you taking hits for us unless necessary. If you're forced out of your suits, pull back until you can resummon them. Don't take them lightly, not even for a second." Armaud said calmly as she approached one of the last barriers between them and their objective. A great wall shimmering with a complex web of energies and dimensional distortion fields meant to keep out most possible interlopers.

"That's not a plan." Samus said as she scanned at the barrier. It'd require a complex set of energies and pressures to break down, but a quick glance at everyone else's arsenals gave her an idea of how to breach it.

"In a fight like this, too much can happen to make detailed contingencies all that valuable. But stick together, and we can handle this." Spire said reassuringly as Arne gulped beneath his helmet. Spire pulled Arne in a bit close and looked down at him like a proud father.

"I mean...if you say so. I'm just...this is all pretty big for us no? I wasn't expecting something like this so soon." Arne said with a nervous laugh that Spire joined in with.

"Arne, it's better to get used to the big scale operations early on than be thrown into one without warning. You can do this, I know you'll make me proud." Spire said warmly, laying his hand on Arne's helmet and ruffling the hood a bit.

"Aren't you scared, even a little?" Samus asked, clenching her fist briefly.

"It wouldn't be a job that would need us to handle it if it didn't make us a little scared Samus. But if you want to be a hero, you have to learn to control that fear." Armaud said, getting an understanding nod out of the young girl.

"We'll need to use our augmented affinity weapons to crack that barrier. Once we're through well, we're ready for this fight aren't we?" Samus said, starting to charge up her Cryolyte, a nod coming from Arne as he charged up his shock coil, followed by Spire's Magmaul and Armaud's Toxolyst. White, Blue, Orange, and Green combined into one extravagant shot.

The energies twisted, tined and then fused into a combination of contradictions that proved more than the sum of its parts. The power shrieked and roared against the fluctuating barriers, striking it at multiple levels of existence. Defences that could have easily sat comfortably at the heart of a star began to crack and then fail. Too much to resist, too much to adapt to.

The barrier shattered like glass, a loud ping echoing across and making everyone who had to witness it briefly back off. They soon had their focus dead on ahead, the door that had sought to keep them away had now been broken open.

They gazed then, through the plasma fog that had boiled into the air in the wall that had been eradicated by the combined shot into the primary chamber where they finally caught sight of the winged frames of the two old foes.

The ancient enemies turned their heads around, one slightly felinid in the sense that a jaguar was catlike, the other ever so vaguely reminiscent of a wolf to Samus' eyes. Of course, this was all likely her eyes playing tricks on her, forming patterns of recognition where none existed. Both were utterly alien, their forms baring only the mildest resemblance to any animal she found familiar.

But something was indeed completely impossible to mistake. The sheer malice that they held for her. The anguish of being so close to their attempt to achieve their task only to be confronted with the four of them could be felt like a physical, palpable thing that she could touch. Anguish turned to anger, and anger translated into hostility as a roar like the results of dicing up the sounds of a jaguar, a blender, and metal knives on chalk let rip from the Sunstalker's helm.

The moonhunter let out an awful howl, one that made her feel like ear drums were being drilled into, her teeth grinding against each other out of irritation as the sound passed into pitches no normal human could ever hear but ones she heard as clear as day. But this was no empty challenge, it was a declaration of intent to strike down the interlopers who would seek to stop them when they were so close.

She was shaking, this was it. A fight with the two at long last. She checked the timer. They had been forced to waste seven minutes already, and less than a half-hour remained for them to put a foe like this down. Hopefully it would be plenty of time. She didn't want to think about what would happen if it wasn't.

Armaud rested a hand on her shoulder, getting a nod out of her to reassure her. At first, she thought it was as if the N'Kren could sense her doubts and worries, but then she realised that was exactly it. "We're all in this together. Don't hold back now." She said. Stress melted off of Samus' shoulders, not all of it, but enough for her to let out a cool exhale and reopen her eyes with her foe in mind.

And despite herself, she found her hand briefly squeezing Arne's own, having not even been aware she had reached out to him until he glanced towards her. He was scared too. Anyone sane would be scared of facing the two juggernauts in front of them. But fear can be an ally as much as it can be a foe. Contempt for an enemy was never a good thing.

The two Old Foes seemed to be almost as conflicted as they were, almost as if they doubted their chances of success. They were discovered, they were known. Their attempts at sealing off communications had failed and now the universe would be coming down on them. But they were cornered with no other recourse, and the Sunstalker started to open its portals once again.

Killer light emerged from the portal, dodged around even as it formed into almost florid patterns of unleashed solar flares concentrated into beam form. The fight was on now.

Each solar lance roared out of its gate with the quartet's danger sense just about screaming at them to get out of the way. Sun-yellow lances of fusion ejecta streamed out a hair's breadth under light speed, twisting and turning from the portals they were summoned from as their gates rotated to try and strike down their foes.

The four scattered in an instant to avoid presenting an easy target to the storm of solar ejecta as its counterpart leapt into action, claws extended from its combat arms.

Samus sensed the stabbing sensation of immediate danger and phased through the floor just in time to avoid the crackling sizzle of its fractal edged claws. A snarl reverberated through her as she felt the sheer white-hot fury of the vaguely lupine Old Foe, its secondary arms trying to reach for her through the floor before she fired off the blink pack to get behind.

Spire jumped into the fray, rolling into his Dialanche and sending forth his rocky exterior around his crystalline core to shred into the Moonhunter. Joining in with an ice spreader missile straight into the Moonhunter, she smirked at the sight of Spire sending explosive currents of heat energy into his orb hand and throwing a volcanic punch that made the enemy hit the ceiling. It would have continued higher, but it shifted gravity once more and landed down, slamming its hands down and releasing a shockwave.

As Armaud bulldozed through the Solar flares spat into her, she saw Arne shouting with determination as he launched himself in screw attack form at the back of the Sunstalker. A smile formed on her metallic face as she started to glow with the energy she had absorbed from her enemy.

At the exact moment Arne had jumped back and released a power pulse in his alt-mode, enveloping the Stalker in its destructive radiance, she funnelled the absorbed energy into her cannon and let rip. The Sunstalker growled in outrage as it was thrown back by its own energies, flashing its wings forward to absorb the impact.

With its wings blazing, the Sunstalker took on a form of light and rammed into Armaud hard enough to take even her off of her feet; Arne's shout of alarm being followed by him sprinting in their direction.

He ducked beneath a swing of the horizon blade of the Moonhunter as it clashed with Samus' own arm-sword, making her buckle beneath the overwhelming pressure right up until she shot into its face with a power missile from her extended cannon.

He spun on his feet, slowing down time to leech energy from the monstrosity with his shock coil and then feed Spire with he could take just as the Diamont started to stand up from having been smashed through the floor. That should help him get onto his feet.

Right as Armaud was once again locking arms with the Sunstalker, he skidded into a boosted slide and smashed into its leg with a nimbus of red energy around himself. An impact that would have broken a mountain got the Stalker to simply lose its footing for a moment, and he rolled beneath its Sunaxe as it came chopping down towards him. More than a little too close he thought, staring at the burning yellow energy.

"Having a bit of trouble there?" Armaud said as her sickle-blade lashed out with a quick uppercutting motion, a howl emerging from the monster right before the Moon Hunter was sent crashing into it from behind, thrown off its feet by Samus and then catapulted by Spire. The impact reverberated around the room and pushed the Sunstalker onto its knees while the four surrounded them, opening fire as they pleased.

Portals opened once again, sucking in the incoming shots and then giving way to the pillars of light of its preferred weapon. Samus took one head on and crossed her arms to take the impact, her shielding protesting from the impact briefly before she rolled her head. The full force of the Solar flare wasn't a pleasant impact, but she'd live and her eyes set themselves on the Moonhunter. Firing away at it with missile fire to catch its attention while it bent space to send a storm of relativistic projectiles at Arne to throw him aside. She needed to get the two to separate.

Her grapple beam lashed out, her teeth gritted and she strained to try and get the thing to move. Tectonic force made the ground tremble beneath her boots as she resolidified. But the Moonhunter would not shift even as the earth rumbled, turning towards her entirely of its own volition.

She felt that sharp tinge of worry as the Moonhunter grabbed at the grapple tendril to pull her towards it. She moved towards the machine, flying off of her feet while her cannon charged by reflex. She grunted as the Moonhunter grabbed her by the throat with its secondary arms and felt herself shake as it started to squeeze. Okay, this was not the best plan she's ever had.

Her shielding started to drain as the secondary arm clenched itself, the other three busy with the Sunstalker behind it. its glowing eyes peered into hers, hatred evident even in the featureless lights that glared into her. Unflinching as the pale glow of the moon, as blinding as an arsenal of spotlights. She tried to break open the grasp, but found the grip as solid as its atom crunching pressure.

She focused and shot herself behind the Moonhunter with her own teleportation system, wrist gun raking its backside with cryonic weapons followed by a barrage from her munitions launcher. Finally, a charged shot stabbed from her cannon. The foe was frozen briefly, covered in a thick layer of anti-energy produced ice, but it broke out just as suddenly while her thrusters fired up to get her some distance.

Damn, she thought. This was going to be quite a lot of work.

She felt a tether of grapple energy latch onto her back, and smiled to see her energy counter ticking over with refilling energy tanks. "Thanks Arne!" She said as the boy tried to slash at the Moonhunter's legs with his blade, making it flinch at the impact before she followed up with a rapid-fire staccato of super missiles that even the Moonhunter had to back away from. Okay, if they could just keep that pressure up...

"Sorry, got a bit distracted." Arne said before throwing out a temporal stop bubble at the Moonhunter. It'd only hold them briefly, but it was just enough, he felt to get a proper barrage of shots streaming out towards it. The pair lit up the edges of the bubble with thousands of shots that stopped just at the edge of the transluscent blue skin before jumping out of the way as normal time resumed for the Hunter, knocking it clear across the room.

The Old Foe picked itself off the ground in its crumpled position and flexed its wings. Children would not best it, it would not allow this to be the end. The two's eyes widened with surprise as its clawed hand extended and then crunched inwards; collapsing nearby matter into a short-lived black hole with its powers over gravity. Tossing it like a softball, it did not aim the raging singularity at them; their gravity boosts would have negated its effects. It was instead aimed behind them, drawing in nearby objects at incredible speeds to bombard them with projectiles.

The vortex expanded and drank in matter in an attempt to live, all things falling into its blinding event horizon that briefly singed Arne's shielding before he pulled out of the immediate danger zone. Already his cannon at the ready as he tried to avoid peeling floor tiles, the feedback from the near encounter with the vortex drawing a grunt from him. Samus was struck by a series of rubble flung at her at relativistic speeds, the impact making her crumple downwards briefly before she decided that she might as well get close.

Smashing into the moon hunter with a shinespark tackle, she shouted an old Chozo war cry "KE-MAT SAKH!" as she slammed into her foe. But just before it could catch her in a handclap, she stopped time herself and teleported behind, flipping herself around and hammering into its back with carefully aimed imperialist lasers, stabbing into the shielding just over its wings.

Time resumed and the crimson light slammed into it, staggering it just enough for Armaud to pull its face in with her own grapple tether into a devastating knee that felt like a seismically significant event. Okay, Samus thought as Armaud uppercutted into her far larger opponent's neck with her other hand and then lifted it over head. "That's incredible." Samus muttered before Armaud piledrove its head into the floor.

The Sunstalker was not even close to finished however, and with a telekinetic tug; yanked its sibling out of the ground. It gargled something in its nearly incomprehensible language before its wings arched and then flapped forward to send blazing orange spheres of supercritical energy. The first exploded just as she was trying to avoid laser beams of lunar white light shot out of every crevice of the Moonhunter's wings, its energy washing over her and getting a pained groan out of her just as she managed to phase out. She saw for a moment, nothing but white light as her armour's shielding protested from the miniature supernova reaction that had just gone off in her face, but she persevered, panting slightly.

Arne bowled over, strobing bolts of yellow energy riddling his armour as he was sent into a roll and wearily picked himself up. Not enough time to avoid an incoming Nova sphere that smashed him clean out of the battlespace entirely, her alarm made audible as her eyes went wide. "Arne! No!" She shouted, teleporting after him to find him wearily flipping onto his stomach.

"Are you alright Arne?" She said, shoving off some debris that had fallen on him that weighed more than a tank with the ease of snapping her fingers. She knelt down to him and offered her his hand, her scan visor frantically going over his state. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that he was fine, just slightly disoriented.

"I've had...worse...honest." Arne said, wincing and huffing before pushing himself up. The two looked towards the battlezone and saw the Elders in their deadly dance with the two Old Foes, trading blow after blow. They were going nowhere fast, shielding was regenerating, armour was nowhere close to being breached. The foe was fighting them to a standstill, which meant that they were failing; the clock ticking downwards ever more ominously. Arne exhaled at that thought, looking downwards.

"There needs to be something more that can be done...we need...we need more firepower, a weakness, something to take advantage of or...I don't know, reinforcements? We're just pounding each other in the face and getting nowhere." Arne said rubbing at the facemask of his helmet and closing his eyes as he strained to think for a few seconds. Seconds that felt like an eternity; the amount of gear he had on him was incredible, more than he ever had and probably more than he'd be bringing to most missions. But yet despite everything he had on him he couldn't think of any one thing that would help them out.

"Maybe if we could get enough of the drones to pull away from the rest of the fighting we could make a dent? Or call on some help from the surface? I'm sure with communications restored we could get in touch with someone." Samus said, pursing her lips and pondering things as she urged Arne back towards the fight, offering him her hand once again and smirking when he squeezed it.

"Involving lower-grade combatants seems like a bad idea, they'd just get killed in something like this. The drones might be worth it, though." He said with an agreeing nod.

"Who says they'd need to stay lower grade?" She said with raised eyebrows beneath her helmet.

"Are you sugg-...oh man we are going to get into so much trouble." Arne said as he realized what she was suggesting and just imagining the grin beneath her helmet.

Grey Voice's Chamber, Chozodia, Zebes

A connection made with technology, magic, and psionics in equal measure formed across the gulf of time and space, across galaxies and into the very heart of Zebes where Grey Voice was busily fine-tuning a device with his gauntleted fingers. Somek-Ka's eyes narrowed somewhat as he felt the signal, and he turned to the direction Samus would have been if she were there in person. There he saw a projection of her, translucent and morphable, an image conjured by his mind to make the conversation a bit more natural.

"-You must be desperate Aira. It's rare for you to speak to me directly.-" Grey Voice said without skipping a beat as he twisted in the last components and looked at his work with pride. Letting the machine he had created go free and nodding as its repulsors came to life, he almost seemed to study her across the distance, tilting his head a bit.

"-Somek, the Old Foe is here! They're preparing a device to break open the seal. But it won't work, it'll just destroy everything in a hundred-parsec radius. But we don't have enough firepower to put them down.-" Samus said, getting Grey Voice to snap his head towards her as if she had slapped him.

"-Why was I not informed of this? I had already dispatched Ghor to your aid when communications were lost, what exactly is going on?-" He said, his voice hard as diamonds and as cold as her ice beam. She could sense his anger, a cold, wintery thing. A tempered rage rather than something hot and fiery like hers.

"-This data packet should explain everything. We've not got a lot of time. We need to just...would it be possible to loan some artifacts to some Federation Marines and a Freelancer here?-" She asked, trying her best to get to the point. "-If we had more time I'd have asked papa first to convince you, but I'm in a rush right now so please, please tell me you can make this exception just once!-" Samus pleaded, her spiritual contact form clasping its hands together .

"-Do Spire and Armaud agree?-" Grey Voice asked before Arne's astral form flickered in front of him, getting a raised brow from the Chozo. It was rare for the Neophyte to speak to him of all Chozo, given that the boy always found him to be a bit intimidating. His stare made him uncomfortable, and he briefly flinched when he saw the Chozo's hard gaze focused squarely on him.

"-Yeah, I just spoke to them, but we're kind of in the middle of a fight right now. Focusing on this conversation and the fight is a little rough.-" Arne said with a bit of a desperate edge to his voice.

"-It must truly be dire if you are taking enough time away from trying to sneak away with Aira when you're supposed to be training to engage in "youthful indiscretion" to speak with me.-" Somek said with a tone that made Arne profoundly unsure of whether or not he was being serious or simply having a bit of fun at his expense. He felt his cheeks go hot as Samus tried to avert her eyes and cleared her throat.

"-Could we please not do this here and now? There are plenty of other times for you to be upset about our relationship. And we really, really don't have the time for this.-" Arne said, wincing as his form flickered a bit from taking a hit in the physical world before he shook his head and groaned.

"-Yeah this is...absolutely not the right moment to have this conversation. So can we please get back on topic?-" Samus said, harrumphing to make her intentions clear.

"-You did not let me finish speaking.-" Grey voice said, extending a hand to signal the two of them to stop talking.

"-I know you to be many things Sarxyl,-" He said coldly in a way that made Arne gulp hard as he felt a chill down his back even as he tensed a bit with displeasure and restrained anger at the usage of his Alimbic name. "-But a liar has never been one of them. So be it.-" He said as part of his mind was already working on sending the necessary summons.

"-Then we have only the Alimbics to seek the approval of. One moment please.-" Grey Voice said before the translucent purple form of Deglos manifested almost immediately. Her bright yellow eye and her paladin armour looked intimidating to Arne even in this ghostly form; rounded pauldrons guarding her shoulders and a triple-bladed war-crest on her head.

"-So, you have encountered the Old Foe for the first, and hopefully last time then?-" She said, clearly already in the know from Grey Voice's summons for her. Arne gave a nod, followed by Samus. Deglos was hard on him most of the time, strict and always with high expectations, yet always fair. He just hoped the old Paladin would grant him this at least.

"-Based on the data you've given us, you are right. There isn't much time. Yet there are rules for a good reason, children.-" She said, looking towards Grey Voice and then towards the two human hybrids.

"-If we give them a taste of progenitor technology they will want more. Word of Zoran will spread, and the scavengers will never leave it alone.-" She said, folding her arms and giving a hard look towards Grey Voice.

"-You are of course, correct Paladin Deglos. There are drawbacks to this plan.-" Grey voice said, hiding his hands into the sleeves of the robes he wore over his armour.

Samus' blood started to boil while Arne began to feel sick. Samus clenched her fist and Arne choked back a remark. They weren't happy to hear that by any means.

"-The promise of its technology would be far too much for them to resist. Protocol would more than allow for the sacrifice of the sector to maintain overall universal peace.-" Deglos said, a horrified gasp coming from Arne followed by an outraged scream from Samus.

"-Are you...serious? We can't just let these people die! We can't just abandon the sector to its fate! You told me there would be no more Cylosises!"- Arne stammered, feeling that nauseating unease start to boil over into genuine anger. He didn't raise his voice too much for fear of Deglos' stare, but he made sure he was heard. Not so much for Samus.

"-I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU! HUNDREDS OF TRILLIONS OF PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DIE AND YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT PROTOCOL!?-" She screamed in a way that made even the ancient Veteran pause her train of thought. "-YOU UNBELIEVABLE BASTARD! YOU GUTLESS COWARD! YOU HONOURLESS IDIOT!-" She shouted, getting Deglos to do a double-take at the girl as anger curled off of her like tongues of fire.

She could keep going with the insults all day, and would in fact, do so. That much was immediately obvious to Somek-Ka who decided to preempt the inevitable barrage of increasingly heated language by raising his hand.

"-She has a point. As much as protocol matters, we also have a duty of care. We can intercede to stop this reckless destruction by fellow progenitors who meddle with things they cannot master. Thus, we must.-" Somek-Ka said, glancing briefly at Samus to make sure she calmed down slightly and feeling the cooling sensation of relief when he saw her inhaling and puffing out her cheeks rather than belting out another shout.

"-And what will we do with the inevitable treasure seekers? Do we just mindwipe the ones who were not supposed to be there?-" Deglos said, loosening her arms and letting them fall to her sides as her neckless head turned back towards Grey Voice.

"-No! No mind wipes! You are not messing with peoples memories over something they can't control! Or so help me I am going to kick your floating head off!-" Samus interjected, lurching forward and giving Deglos her hardest, most intimidating stare possible.

"-She's right. It's not fair to mess with their memories just because they were pulled in here by the Old Foes' dimensional tests. We can move the planet right?-" Arne said, opening his arms a bit.

"-Yes, that would be a logical resolution. We will of course, purge their computers of any recorded data regarding the integration of our artifice once the emergency passes. But it would be a simple matter to relocate Zoran's star system to a different, less travelled galaxy.-" Somek-Ka said, rubbing his beak in thought briefly and giving a gracious nod.

"-You're...agreeing with me?-" Arne said, almost in disbelief, lowering his shoulders and raising an eyebrow just as Samus did a double-take between the two of them.

"-Yeah that's, pretty rare actually!-" Samus said, tilting her head at Grey Voice who waved their confusion off and looked directly between the two of them without staring at either one in particular.

"-My disapproval of your romantic distractions from your duties does not mean I find you inherently disagreeable, Sarxyl. I simply think you're too young to be opening your heart so thoroughly when you still have much to learn.-" Grey Voice said, shaking his head.

"-And as for you Aira. While I might not approve of all of your decisions, you are still ultimately your own person. I cannot stop you from chasing what you desire, merely push you towards righteous paths. You're starting to be just a child no longer, I shan't be too strict.-" He said calmly, closing his eyes beneath his helm and giving a serene nod.

"-He does have a point. You are both of you, starting the transition to adulthood. Part of adulthood's gift is the gift of choice. Zurvduat might disagree, but I believe that you need to forge your own identity. I will just help you on that path.-" Deglos said, her voice becoming surprisingly soft as she mellowed her tone to something a bit less reminiscent of the hardened Paladin she was normally thought of as being.

"-Tell me, Sarxyl, Aira, do you truly believe that the people of this sector are worth it? Will you speak before Zurvduat about it?-" Deglos asked, looking with concern at Samus groaning from another hit in the physical world, her image flickering a bit from the distraction as she fought her foe.

The decision wasn't a hard one, but came with a pause. The thought of justifying himself before Zurvduat made him choke on his words, causing his first attempt at speaking to die in his throat. But he remembered for a moment, the terror of being swept up in things he couldn't stop, and the bell-like cackle of that monster flashed in his memory and made that choice for him.

"-I...yes. If we don't make a choice to save these people, what good are we? Why even give us these powers, these relics if we can't use them to save this many people?-" Arne said, standing prouder and bolder than before, he still feared the idea of justifying this to Zurvduat, but he had made up his mind.

Samus had her own hard memories. Fire, heat, wings of purple and guttural roars by marauding armies. She recalled that fall from heaven, and the ash and dust all around her. She remembered calling out for help only for no one to come for so long. Nobody should suffer like that. Not when she now had the ability to do something about it.

"-You want us to save the universe right? To make it a better place? If we just pull back, let this happen because of protocol and regulation; what kind of heroes would we even be? I know the rules, but right now, I just don't care.-" Samus said, standing up to Arne's side and stepping closer to Somek-Ka and Deglos' psicomm avatars as the two ancients looked towards one another and nodded.

"-It is agreed, we will inform the Palatine Mind of Zoran of this straight away. Then we will find why the security feeds aren't showing us this conflict. Someone will need to give us answers.-" Grey Voice said, making a mystic gesticulation to send his word of approval from his location all the way to Zoran.

"-And the two of you, one last thing before you go.-" Deglos said, looking down at the pair.

"-Yes?-" Arne asked.

"-Arne, come on, we need to get back into it!-" Samus said, already turning away.

"-Give the Old Foe a taste of the New Fire.-" She said with a small hint of pride.

Sysathi Hangar, Zoran

"Okay, people let's get moving, injured first." Lieutenant Lyraman shouted over the din of armoured boots walking towards the safety of the Hangar, Stygak looking over the procession while Mendelle sat and began panting. Lyraman eyed the canine-like animal as she turned her head over and woofed briefly, then looked back at a wounded soldier stumbling forward, hand over a rent in his suit over the shoulder that the nanosalve had barely patched up.

"Easy there trooper you just got your arse kicked ten ways a million ways down the cycle." She said, helping him onto his feet and onto a stretcher provided by one of the medics.

Removing her helmet and sighing, the dark-skinned woman sat down on a nearby bench as she turned her gaze skywards, the ceiling seemed so distant from her head for a place that was so empty. It almost felt like a waste.

Almost. Save for those four gunships parked in a section of the hangar.

The Diamont and N'Kren gunships were familiar to her. They were owned by Spire and Armaud. Such powerful instruments of aerospace warfare were something she'd never really gotten to see up close before. A sight that got a little bit of an awed gasp from her, being so close to something she'd only seen online in such reverential tones got her thinking.

The other two though, she didn't recognise, save for that the red one was of Chozo design and the other one was of...Alimbic origin.

"So what's a brand new ship made by a species that's been dead for ten thousand years doing here anyway?" One of the Marines, healthy enough to be still standing, said. Her horizontal, saurian posture holding her body over her sickle toe-claws as they tapped against the floor.

"I dunno Sekelesh, might be a drone ship? Old Alimbic space is crawling with mechanoids." The other said, this one an Aelva with his helmet removed, pointed ears twitching slightly once they were free of his helm and a gauntleted hand running through his blue hair before he shrugged.

"Can't be, that thing's made to be manned. It's got a cockpit and everything with a seat." Sekelesh said, shaking her head at his words.

"I mean, whatever it is, we're supposed to gather near it for a bit. Not sure how long we'll have to wait until we get a pick-up." Lyraman said, sighing while Mendelle tilted her head at her in confusion and let out a small whine. Unable to resist, Lyraman patted the furry thing on the head and got an excited pant in response.

"Might not be too long actually, we're getting a signal approaching fast. It's G-" Corporal Aisha managed before a large metallic shape swept into the room through the open hangar door, stubby wings and a somewhat pod-like form indicating it was a gunship, albeit a small one. Then she got a closer look at it and saw that it had legs folded into it and that the chrome body was righting itself rapidly to extend what were not landing gears, but hooved feet before the whole thing met the ground with a heavy thud.

"...Ghor." Lyraman said as she stammered at the thought of being within touching distance of such a living legend. The Cyborg's mechanical battlemech glowed lightly in runic patterns with a series of unusual augments, Chozo gifts she figured. She felt a bit envious, the green monster making itself known as she wistfully wondered what it would be like to hold that much power. Intoxicating, no doubt.

"That would be me alright. You all will need to clear out as soon as possible, this business is out of your paygrade I'm afraid." Ghor said, eyeing Stygak briefly and nodding his head in the recess he hooked himself into his mech through.

"You're quite far from your usual stomping grounds, aren't you? Got lost?" Ghor said, his aggressive, baritone voice almost menacing. Definitely snarky, there was a hard edge to the second sentence that made Stygak snort through his nostrils.

"I suppose so. This is all a bit beyond me. Haven't got the firepower for this kind of fight, as much as I don't like to say it." Stygak growled before a hovering Alimbic eye drone floated in front of the menagerie of people gathered.

"Hello, I am Palatine Mind designated Quizalas. I am authorised to inform you that I am able to help with your firepower situation for a temporary duration." The Drone said, translating the Palatine Mind's signals through its speakers in a friendly, gender-neutral voice that had a slight digital echo to itself.

"As your systems were not designed to be compatible with the equipment I am about to provide, you will not be able to retain them once I disable compatibility mode. However, given the present circumstances, your assistance is required." The Drone said, hovering in front of Stygak and then Lyraman and the other marines, zipping between objects of interest with ease.

There was a sudden wave of murmuring throughout the gathered marines as they spoke excitedly amongst themselves. Even a brief opportunity to make use of progenitor technology? Here? Now? What in the name of the founders could they need people like them for? Why was an Alimbic palatine mind recruiting them? All these questions and more passed through the thousand or so troopers remaining.

"And why do you need our help?" Lyraman asked.

"The entities that attacked you are attempting to breach a transversal seal meant to isolate a pocket reality from all other possible existences." The Palatine Mind reported blankly in a friendly manner that seemed entirely at odds with Lyraman's ideas of what a standard sentence should ever be like. She stared hard and blinked as if that would dispel what she was hearing before realising it was all too real.

"They will not succeed, but their attempt will result in a moderate scale dimensional crash event that will instantly annihilate all unprotected matter and energy within a hundred parsec radius within twenty-three minutes. After the initial event, the area of influence will expand to a final radius of a thousand parsecs." At least one person in the middle of having a drink ended up spitting it out in surprise while Lyraman's heart felt like it had stopped and Stygak almost bit down on his own tongue in shock.

"Though the slowdown of the second expanding wave should fortunately provide you with time to evacuate after the initial event, reducing the likely casualties to a total of ninety six trillion, four hundred and seventy one bill-." The Synthetic Consciousness started before Ghor waved them off. Every number Quizalas rattled off seemed to deaden the mood of the room a bit more, and Ghor's harrumphing came like the mercy of the angels.

"Perhaps let's not worry them too much with the details, yes?" Ghor said with a growl that the Drone clearly understood as a sign to shut up as quickly as possible. He had already run the numbers and had no need of being told how much was at stake.

"Okay hold on, so those two things have the kind of tech where just two people can make a device with the juice to frag an entire sector by accident?" Lyraman said, shaking her head and standing up to make herself heard to the Drone. Even before she finished that sentence though, the machine rotated to face her as if it knew she was going to speak. A single breath later, it was already in her face, studying her with its monocular gaze as if it had teleported from its position.

"That would be correct. I am also authorised to treat your wounded and repair damaged equipment immediately, should you be so inclined as to accept this offer. Please do understand that time is of the essence." Quizalas said through its avatar, hovering slightly back away from her to give her some breathing space. Exhaling in relief, she straightened herself and loosened some of the tension in her muscles.

"I...okay how fast can we suit up?" Lyraman said, getting an intensified glow in her face in response that felt as warm as daylight that prompted her to slide her helmet back on as soon as possible.

"Now!" She got in response as a nimbus of light flowed through the room out of every corner and crevice. Injuries as severe as missing limbs or brain death were repaired by a stream of nanites dispensed by the caretaker drones that had flown inside.

Dancing like pixies, the orbs of lift circled every individual and vehicle they could find before flowing inside with what almost sounded like excited giggling. Her armour began to glow and her fingers straightened out as she looked at her hand in awe, her HUD giving her a lengthy readout of excited data-chatter.

She herself gasped in surprise as the armour began to transform, her body alive with electric sensation as a warmth suffused her. Her movements felt more comfortable, more fluid; more robust. The details on the surface of the floor were crisp to the point where she could make out the smallest motes of dust at full zoom. The shielding shimmered around her, lattices of power and dimensional warps binding around her and spider-webbing into something more powerful yet invisible.

She felt herself in the air, her body weightless and the light glowing until her armour seemed like the sun in the sky. Yet she wasn't blinded; she felt like she could tectonic plates, her mind raced with expanding boundaries of data and awareness. Things she had to focus on were now merely in the back of her mind, waiting to be accessed. Then the light stopped, and she was dropped to the ground harmlessly, a clank and a minor jolt confirming that she was once again on firm soil.

The diagnostic readouts of her armour rattled off many abilities that had been added, and brief memory flashes of how to use them surged into her mind. Everything seemed so much more natural, and fluid than what the marine armour should be capable of, and even the plating seemed more seamless and flexible than it was before.

She looked around and saw everyone else gazing upon themselves in awe, vehicles transformed and altered; the recoverable dead back on their feet, the wounded back in fighting condition.

Stygak gave his gun a look and a spin of its rotary barrels and grinned beneath his helmet as he saw its chambers open up with new types of energy at its command. He let out a bit of a laugh and lurched his head back and belted out a roar of triumph.

"Now we can fight!" He said with triumph while Ghor nodded sagely.

"And fight we will. We're going to need to cut through a thicket of enemy mechanoids and turn those bots into scrap. And let me make this clear; there's going to be no salvage collection. We're here to save the sector, not play with fire." Ghor said, rolling ahead of the pack while the Palatine Mind's observer drone raced ahead and flew in front of him.

"And what is it that you want?" The Cyborg said, clasping his mechanical lower mandibles together and studying them with his orange optics. The irritation in his voice was evident; he didn't want to be delayed any further.

"Oh, I just have one more thing to inform you of." They said helpfully, orbiting around Ghor like a planet until he grabbed at the avatar with a pincer arm and forced it to stay in front of him.

"Please release me."

"No." He said bluntly.

"Very well, I am also to inform you that once this task is complete, we will be relocating this star system. Please do not force me to have to move it again by trying to rediscover its location. It would be terribly inconvenient to have to pick out a new location once again. So many gravitational variables to consider, I'm sure you understand." Quizalas said before Ghor let out a long sigh.

"Trust me; I don't think anyone here is particularly eager to be returning to this death trap planet. Now, if you don't have any more insight to offer, I suggest you teleport us as close to the action as possible." Ghor said.

He released the Drone which hovered back into its preferred position, almost appearing to give a nod right before it turned around to assess the group as they were in the midst of checking each other out and passing celebratory gestures like high fives.

"Of course, do be mindful that time is running out, you have twenty minutes to resolve this crisis. You will not have terribly much time to plan your entry." Quizalas reported.

Lyraman gave that a thought. She didn't spend too much time on thinking up her response. The timer ticked with ill intent at the top of her HUD and made her break out into a sweat; every second rolling closer to doomsday, making her feel like she'd been punched in the gut. But she gave it thought all the same.

"Can you give us a sitrep and three minutes?" Lyraman said, stepping to the plate.

"I would be happy to." They said in response, the necessary data flowing into their systems all at once. Lyraman may not have been used to battalion level command, and most of the units here were broken and depleted, but she saw what needed to be done all the same.

"Alright, guys...here's what we're going to do." She said, turning around and clicking her fingers to get people's attention.

Old Foe Chamber, Zoran.

Samus slid between the legs of the Moonhunter, missiles streaming upwards into its waist region to pull its attention away just long enough for Spire to rush in and box it a few times in the head. Each thundercrack inducing punch, giving her a jolt of excitement before that was crushed by seeing Arne grabbed by the Hunter's primary hand with a snapping gesture as he flew and slammed into the ground.

He grunted and tried to pry some of the creature's fingers off of him, groaning as his shielding protested from the crushing force. The sound of his impact to the ground punched her in the heart. Fiery anger inflamed her throat, and she could feel her teeth gritting as her fist clenched. He tried to keep himself in the fight with the Shock Coil while the Sunstalker; holding off Spire and Armaud with its wings, spun around to try and stomp on his head.

"Arne, out of the way!" She said, the boy turning to her and nodding as he phased through the floor.

She steeled herself, froze time, and tackled the foe with her shinespark, letting herself impact the Moonhunter with her gravity boost set to massively increase her weight for maximum impact force. The surge of the impact made her reel briefly, but she pushed onwards as she struck into its chest like a meteor.

The blow bowled over her opponent, sending it onto its back and flipping end over end with repeated crashes that made her grin. "Come on, get back up. I'm not done hitting you." She said with an almost feral, belligerent edge.

Arne pulled himself out of the ground and shook his head, turning the monocular lens of his helmet towards her. "You good to go?" He asked, panting slightly.

"Always." She said as the two lashed out at the back of the Sunstalker while it spun to keep its weapons facing all four of its enemies at once.

The Sunstalker reached for its companion and let out a seemingly mournful tone as it the Moonhunter pushed itself to its feet. Another squeeze of its hands and a new black hole came into being; sucking in a volley of incoming shots from the elders. The stabbing sensation of danger warned the four of something big and dangerous coming just before it drew in the other black hole and slammed them in together.

Time and space stretched and distorted, their temporal distorts, and gravity boosts acting to counteract the worst effects. The singularities began to fall into one another, making a deadly dance as they swirled around for dominance; letting the accretion form into a fatal quasar jet that it swept around the room. Adding spin to its singularities, it allowed the white-hot jets scorch anything it touched.

Already trying to avoid a barrage of nova spheres from the Sunstalker, Samus and Arne were caught by the quasar blasts and thrown across the room; energy dropping quickly from the intense energies. The feedback was dull at first, but began to build as the Sunstalker started to feed the black holes with solar flare blasts; incandescent maelstroms of energy around the growing event horizon and intensifying the quasar blast.

Arne responded first; stopping time and bringing his shield out in front, straining against what felt like pushing against the gods themselves until he got his foot onto the ground and let his blue energy shield rise. As intensely powerful as the Quasar jet was, it began to reflect, and he felt pride in himself as he calculated the right angle to lead the blast straight back to its sender through the complicated gravitational lensing of space in his head in a split second.

As time resumed and Samus phased through the wall, the quasar jet struck the Sunstalker in the face and bulldozed it over just as Spire and Armaud dragged the Moonhunter into close combat, smashing its face in with a shockwave inducing punch and a roar of fury from Armaud followed by Spire's hammerfists and fatherly outrage.

"GET AWAY FROM THOSE KIDS!" Armaud roared as she rained impact after impact onto the Moonhunter, making it groan with weariness from a blitz of ranged and melee attacks. Armaud's serpentine alt-mode, the Cariotek, lashed around its leg and pulled it off of its feet before jabbing fangs into its shielded leg, eliciting another howl of outrage.

Just as Samus and Arne had managed to rejoin the two; latching onto their opponent to leech energy from them; Samus felt that pinprick sensation of danger from her side once more. Eyes widening, she grabbed Arne and shoved Spire down. "Look out!" She shouted as the Sunstalker teleported itself back into the fray after having been sent clear out of the battlespace.

Bringing out her sword to parry its solar axe, her body felt like it was about to buckle beneath the opponent's strength and size. Grunting with the strains of do or die effort, she realised she couldn't overpower the Sunstalker, but looked behind her and grinned when she realised she didn't have to. Feeling safe in her back up, she stepped back and let Armaud jump off her shoulders for a bit of a boost to tackle into the Old Foe's face.

The Moonhunter's foot came down, Spire's arms reached out and stopped it from landing, falling onto one knee and letting Arne grab at Samus and swing her into the lunar menace; her Screw attack roaring to life. The sensation of knowing something behind him alerted him to his need to change direction, the sick feeling in his gut and flashes of visions getting him to kickflip around the wings of the Stalker. Working on autopilot, he aimed his hands in different directions; shock coil and grapple beam draining energy from the Stalker and feeding it into Armaud respectively.

They traded blows like this for many minutes more, continually alternating between targets, swapping between partners and coming up with a constant barrage of new attacks and counterattacks. But the timer was ticking down constantly, and still, the two were no closer to falling as their shielding regenerated once more.

Samus refused the sensation of defeatism, smacking away the creature of doubt lurking in her mind. She couldn't let herself give up; she couldn't let any of them give up.

The tears in reality were getting worse all around them, Samus already having to clear out a few that were blocking their way with her ice beam. But with only seven minutes left, she was starting to focus less and less on them; more determined to get at least some lasting injury out of her two enemies.

Arne fell onto a knee, panting after pulling himself up from a hard blow. He didn't want to give in, but he kept running the numbers. What were they supposed to do? They'd been going back and forth like this constantly with no progress. Even clearing out some of the machines outside to let the drones reinforce them had not given them enough progress.

He had tried coordinating the guardian machines for maximum effect, aiming their attacks and helping them move out of the way. But he was frustrated to see how slowly they had chipped away at the vitae bars his helmet readout for him. He wanted to cry, coming so far only to be met with an obstacle he couldn't overcome. Maybe Zurvduat was right about him being soft.

"Ready for round twenty-six?" Spire said, rolling his shoulders.

The Sunstalker slammed its primary hands together to hold the Solar axe in both hands and raised them overhead, angling to chop into its opponents with an executioner's swing. This was going to be it.

"Always," Samus said as the Stalker began to roar out right before it took a massive plasma beam straight to the chest. The Red and Orange ray shoved it clear off of its feet and tossed it into the same hole in the ceiling Arne had reflected it into before, and bursts of power missiles arced around to avoid the gravity wells of the Moonhunter and toss it towards its own singularities.

Samus did a double-take and looked behind herself, feeling the ground tremble slightly beneath her feet at the tread of something big.

And there was Ghor, augmented with Chozo tech on a temporary basis to lend support; and he had brought back up, lots of it. More drones and enhanced marines swarmed into the fray while Ghor slammed his pincer cannons into one another.

"I'd say its past time for you two to clear out. You're trespassing on sacred ground, and I've got a mind for holy retribution." Ghor growled as Spire let out a snorting laugh.

"You got lost or something Ghor?" He said joyously.

"Ghor doesn't get lost Spire. He just needs to rest his back sometimes." Armaud said wryly as her optics flicked towards Ghor and nodded.

"Pleasure to see you again too Spire. I see Armaud's also in one piece too; but then I suppose not even the heat death of the universe would put you down." Ghor retorted.

"Ghor! Come on; we need to kick these guy's metal hides in!" Samus shouted excitedly, internally shrieking with joy between her giggles of excitement.

"Oh uh...hey Ghor? I'd say we saved them for you but well; I'd be lying." Arne said, coughing slightly at the end, a touch awkwardly while Ghor laughed.

"Won't be a problem, kids. Now, let's see if the two of you can do me proud. Everyone, take those two to the scrapyard." Ghor said, pointing his pincer arm at the Moonhunter and the returning Sunstalker. The two were taken aback by the sight facing them, but quickly recovered their composure and flexed their wings outwards in challenge.

Forced to explode its black holes to maintain its line of sight; accelerating hawking radiation until they had decayed away; the Moonhunter shot its hands out in either direction to unleash rays of pale lunar laser light. Bouncing off the walls and refracting in all directions, they turned the field into a deadly game of tripwire dodge, funnelling in enemies towards the stellar cone of plasma fire conjured by the Sunstalker.

This effort was however, too little, too late. From every side came more and more weapons that could actually chip at their shielding. They turned to one direction to deal with one threat, they opened themselves up to a new one. Howls of angry protest tore from whatever equivalent of throats they had as they stumbled over and flailed in an attempt to deal with being swarmed all at once.

Samus went about freezing another dimensional rift shut and sealing one of the Sunstalker's rifts before it could vent a solar flare at a tank that emptied a shell into the Moonhunter's side. A moment later she froze its feet to the ground and showered it in super missiles that brought it to a knee right before she rolled onto it in morph ball mode, power bombs repeatedly dropped to weaken it. Every hit felt powerful; every blow felt closer to victory; she was doing it; they were doing it.

Sensing it had started to try and reach for her, she fired off her boost ball so that Spire's magma cannon was free to explode against it like a dying star and froze one of its arms to the ground as it rolled. Getting a nod and a pat on the back by a nearby trooper who seemed to figure she was a child based on their way of addressing her, she blushed slightly at the compliment before rejoining the fray.

Arne had pulled a marine out of the way of a black hole sweep by the Moonhunter and catching the Sunstalker in a positronic power-bomb pulse that tore a decent chunk of its shield vitality away in a cascading blue detonation. He unfurled from his alt mode and looked at the Sunstalker fall onto its hands, combined beam fire from Spire, Armaud, Ghor, and Stygak exploding in their midst and making the two start to spark.

He yanked himself into the Sunstalker, no longer afraid or doubting, smashing into it with a kick and knocking it over altogether. Armaud jumped in front of him, taking the Moonhunter's Horizon blade to her chin and smashing its leg out from under it to let it feel the fury of progenitor boosted missiles headed straight towards it. All while Arne was busily smashing his fist repeatedly into the face of the Sunstalker, feeling oddly satisfied as the enemy rumbled in worry and tried to shield its head.

"Give! Up! Already!" He shouted between his blows even though he wasn't particularly sure if the Old Foe even understood his language. He vaulted off and let Stygak's hammer bowl it over into a roll for Samus to grab with her grapple tether and slam it into its sibling, crumpling them onto the ground.

"We've got them on the run!" One of the troopers shouted, dodging out of the way of the killer Solar flares that consumed a Werizo in its fires until a Golden Torizo had dropped into the fray and grabbed onto the Sunstalker as it tried to fly away.

With a spinning motion, the Chozo guardian dunked the Sunstalker onto its sibling, dodging out of the way of return fire with movement that seemed utterly at odds with its statue-like appearance.

Ghor was not one to waste opportunities, letting his plasma cannon shriek to life once more and drive the pair closer to their machine. Spire's cannon let out its own eruption blast, a pyroclastic tsunami accompanying the heatwave behind it and scourging the pair while Armaud grabbed their heads and smashed them into the ground.

Unable to focus on any particular threat, the Old Foes had backed into a path that intersected Arne and Samus.

"+Hey Arne, you know what happens when two speedboosted entities collide while shinesparking right?+" Samus said,

"+Massive kinetic energy nova event. Are you sure you want to do this?" He said.

"+Absolutely. You've set the new guys to friendly right?+" She said as she got into a stance prepared to sprint.

"+Well yeah, why wouldn't I?+" He said.

"+Just making sure Arne. Alright, ready?+"

"+Bring it.+" He said as they sprinted towards each other and then shot off towards each other at speeds that would have made railgun slugs blush. A jump and a quick tuck into their alt modes and a charge of their boost-spheres later and the two slammed into each other like a biblical event locking horns with astronomical phenomenon.

The energies of the competing accelerations began to fold into each other before rippling outwards in a detonation that had the facility not contained in a forcefield would have likely continued outwards well over the horizon. Everyone involved looked away, and after having been beaten so severely, the two old foes were in no shape to dodge out of the way as they tried to defend against the lashing touch of raw motion.

At last, the last layer of their shielding broke and their armour singed from continued impacts. They stood themselves up and tried to press against the blast wave with their wings, only to stumble once more before the shockwave had entirely subsided with its crimson light.

They could take more of a pounding still, much more, but these shots were genuinely hitting them now. Impact sparks skidded off of them as they tried to pick themselves up, taking blow after blow before they decided not to stick around long enough for their suits to be breached. With a howl of outrage, the Sunstalker grabbed its sibling and tore open another circle before throwing the Moonhunter in and stumbling through with pained howling.

Though many were already cheering, Samus had already turned away from the action, racing towards the riftmaker. She resealed an obstacle course's worth of tears in existence, and her left hand quickly touched the console as she analysed the schematics in a moment. Her brain worked overtime to piece together the data, seeing where the energy was flowing from and how.

"Samus, they got away." Arne said, catching up to her and offering another arm lock and headbutt gesture that Samus took only a moment to reciprocate before tearing herself away back to work.

"No time for that, we've got minutes before this thing blows." She said, feeling her mind racing as she concentrated. Doomsday was approaching quickly, and she had to figure out how a species she'd never seen the technology of could rig up such a device in less time than it took to microwave a meal with an old Earth device.

"We can't just blow it up, or it'll go off prematurely." Arne said, taking a look at how the device was fitted together himself. Too much pressure on its components and it would start to crumble into the rift at the centre. Which of course, would cause the very thing they were trying to avoid.

"Right, the bomb's got a vortex at the centre. Pseudo-singularity, like a hole, cut out of spacetime. My cryo-weapons' anti-energy would negate it. But I need neutrinos to jar it open without setting it off." Samus said, looking to him and smiling.

"Together then?" Arne said, getting a nod out of her. He felt proud of himself, what was supposed to be a routine training exercise to determine their passage into adolescence had instead become a grand old adventure, and here he was about to save the day for the first time. He muttered a prayer of thanks to his parents and his deities as Samus recited a litany to the spirits she revered.

His Shock Coil sang as it lashed into the machine, its components folding open and exposing the howling hole in existence that had been cut open by the Old Foe. Samus' Cryolyte charged up and then surged forward, the anti-energy latching onto the powers used to keep the hole open and cancelling them out, forming frigid water in its place.

At last, the overwhelming sense of imminent apocalyptic danger passed as the hole froze over completely and the machine powered down; a sigh of relief coming from Arne and Samus before Spire tackled the two of them and hoisted them onto his shoulders.

"YOU'VE DONE IT!" He said with a boisterous cheer as celebrations rang out.

"That'll do kids...That'll do." Armaud nodded while the two inheritors looked to each other and grinned from ear to ear.

---

Consolidated Logbook Entries

N'Kren Logs: The Oath of Guardians.

We who remain hereby swear this Oath to ensure that though we rest in search of better days, those of us who choose to remain will use our power to do harm only in the pursuit of justice and the common good. We who take on the Oath of the Guardian will retain the long vigil as our brethren retreat into the ever-dream shall scour the stars in search of evil and seek to smite it before it may fester. We who swear this Oath will seek an end to all wickedness we encounter, physical or social and shall forever seek to guide those who come after on the paths that are righteous. We who swear this Oath recognise that the burden of immortality is the wisdom of the ages and that this wisdom must be used with the utmost caution lest it be twisted.

We who swear this Oath, go into eternity as its guardians.

Samus' Notes:

This must be the Oath that Armaud Svihaly took. I wonder how long she's actually been awake, all alone in the universe? I hope more of the N'kren awaken at some point, at least for her sake.

Arne's Notes:

Dating says that this Oath was made about 8,000 Earth years ago as the N'Kren began resting in their Morphomundi. Relatively recent by progenitor standards, but I'm guessing the Alimbics disappearing had something to do with it.

Mechanoids: Old Foe: Infantry: Combat-Capable: Seklitoq

Seklitoqs are autonomous combatants designed in the visage of the Old Foe Serpentine Death God Kzarn. The Death Rays they fire can nullify both the strong atomic force binding most forms of baryonic matter together as well as Vitae, striking directly at the life force of their enemies. Seklitoqs are also capable melee combatants, and being struck by the bites of either their primary or secondary heads will inflict the death touch effect as surely as being impacted by their beam weapon fire. However, Seklitoqs have limited aerial manoeuvrability and can struggle to deal with enemies with superior vertical movement capability.

Samus' Notes:

I'm interested in why the Seklitoqs resemble old earth snakes. Though it might just be a coincidence, there's only so many ways one can design a body for a long, limbless creature. On more combat-related stuff, alt-moding will always break their constriction attempts.

Arne's Notes:

These Seklitoqs can't be at Forbidden War levels of technology, but the material analysis shows they were definitely built with local materials. I'm not sure how they did it, but I'm suspecting someone may have given the two access by mistake.

Mechanoids: Old Foe: Infantry: Flying: Combat-Capable: Yukat

Designed in the countenance of the Storm Deity Zokat, the Yukats serve as an expendable mass aerial combat form of mechanoid. Though of low quality by Old Foe standards, the Yukats are always in plentiful supply and can easily be upgraded as the situation requires. In devotion to the storm deity, the Yukats will seek to swarm around opponents and strike at them with high energy electromagnetic discharges and systems able to manipulate the temperature and velocity of gaseous materials. Yukats were infamous for their ability to tear targets apart with the air inside of their respiratory system. While armour and shielding, as well as your progenitor blood, will prevent this fate from happening to you, Yukats are still capable of incredible maneuvres due to their technology and seeking weapons are recommended.

Samus' Notes:

The electromagnetic interference can get annoying sometimes but I think I could design something that would help counteract it. I'd just need a bit of time to work on the armour.

Arne's Notes:

They are their own ECM systems so you're going to need to use non-electromagnetic tracking systems to make sure your missiles will track properly. Luckily that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Mechanoids: Old Foe: Infantry: Combat-Capable: Uthaklat

Uthaklats are a mass-produced form of heavy infantry combat drone used by the Old Foe derived from the form of the Moon Deity Xax. Built in devotion to the lunar lord of the Old Foe, the Uthaklats possess ample amounts of brute force and power as well as a large number of systems meant to control gravity and the flow of space. These systems also allow them to teleport virtually at will to any location they have sufficient data about so long as no force is anchoring them to prevent such forms of movement. It also allows them a form of flight and incredible leaping capability even given their already incredible strength. Against enemies who lack gravity manipulation devices of their own, it will allow them to cripple their mobility or turn them into targets for objects "falling" towards them.

Samus' Notes:

They can't directly affect us with their gravity abilities with the gravity boost. But they can designate areas around us to send projectiles our way, and they can still affect themselves. It's a bit annoying, but you do need to put a bit more into a hit to knock them off their feet.

Arne's Notes:

The Uthaklats are a bit telegraphed on the swing, if you can predict the gravimetric alteration you're likely to be able to dodge their hammers every time. Especially if they can't target you directly with the gravity field meant to increase the hammer's swing force.

Mechanoids: Old Foe: Infantry: Quadrepedal: Combat-Capable: Zakateks

Zakateks are designed to honour the solar deity of the Old Foe; Zilax. Zakateks are agile ambush drones that are also capable of long distance pursuit; as relentless in their chase of prey as the heat of the sun itself. The Zakateks will typically prefer melee combat over all other options, striking with solar claws and biting attacks as well as their stabbing tails, but can make use of many ranged based weapons before closing in, particularly their optic beams. Zakateks however do have some weaknesses in that their underbellies, more vulnerable than the rest of their chassis; are vulnerable to attack in their standard pouncing manoeuvre.

Samus' Notes:

I'm admittedly not the biggest cat person in the universe. The tail's pretty grabbable though, if you sidestep the pounce you can grab it and swing them around pretty hard.

Arne's Notes:

I really should bring Geri and Freki with me on these sorts of missions, I bet they'd turn these things into scrap metal. Just...probably not near Hugin and Munin.

Mechanoids: Old Foe: Infantry: Combat-Capable: Izakilt

Izakilts are a highly expendable and easily modified form of infantry combat drone used in large numbers by the Old Foe devoted to no deity in particular. While extremely variable in quality depending on the grade deemed necessary for any given engagement, they are never seen without the strength of numbers. Furthermore, they are typically fitted with additional equipment that allow them to mix up their tactics, often carrying implements such as melee instruments, shield screens, or added armour. This can lead some to assume that Uthaklats are living infantry erroneously. Izakilts do not typically possess any particular resistances or weaknesses, but with their numbers; area of effect weapons are recommended against them.

Samus' Notes:

Izakilts will often form into phalanxes in confined spaces where they can't be flanked, but they're easy enough to clear out with power bombs as long as someone else is keeping their attention above ground level.

Arne's Notes:

The Screw Attack and Speed Booster are immensely helpful when you need to break into their formations. They're not very good fighters against someone on our level one on one, but when they can cooperate together is when they can cause some real hurt.

Upgrades: Sub-Weapons: Beam: Chozo Created*: Cryolyte

Designed by Samus Aran based on the ice beam and loosely inspired by old designs on Zebes, the Cryolyte is a powerful weapon that releases a stream of superchilled plasma combined with anti-energy in a long semi-continuous beam. Capable of rapid-fire albeit having somewhat limited range, the Cryolyte is able to freeze multiple targets at a time; penetrating through nearly any obstacles to the extent of its range while generating enormous amounts of frozen matter. The Cryolyte can also be charged to fire the Cryospite; an enlarged blast that will create a wall of cover in addition to freezing anything it comes into contact with. While the Chozo of Zebes and the Alimbics of Sentus Primaris have copied it, Samus' variation has longer range and a wider area of effect as well as a more intense freezing effect that will continue to damage affected enemies while frozen due to her continued refinements.

Samus' Notes:

Working on this made for an incredibly fun afternoon! I'll try to improve the range as I continue to work on it, but I have a good feeling that this one's going to be a keeper. I've got some ideas for some more variations of it that I've been cooking up.

Arne's Notes:

Hrm, I should probably start refining my Shock Coil too. I'm definitely getting some ideas for more Neutrino and Electrical based weapons too. Some sort of Tesla beam based on somewhat similar principles maybe? I should ask Samus for her opinion next time we workshop together.

Upgrades: Sub-Weapons: Stream: N'Kren Created: Toxolyst

The Toxolyst is a N'Kren made weapon that continuously fires corrosive disintegration streams. The energies that go into the Toxolyst will alter the bindings of most forms of matter not treated to be resistant to its effects and rapidly cause most substances to corrode into a soup of quarks. Entities that rely heavily on complex chemical reactions to sustain themselves will be significantly adversely affected as it breaks down their chemistry and replicates the effects of virtually every conventional strain of poison at once. The Toxolyst can also be charged to release a hellgout that will travel farther and has a larger cloud. Svihaly's true N'Kren created Toxolyst will leave a long lingering cloud behind, harmless to designated friendlies but leaving areas temporarily impassible; and enemies slain by it will explode into more Toxolyst gas.

Samus' Notes:

It's honestly a really gross weapon, and I don't think I'd enjoy using it on most targets. But I suppose if the situation calls for it I'd be willing to make use of it. It shouldn't be too hard to modify the formula to not linger as long in the environment too. At least it kills too quickly to leave people in pain.

Arne's Notes:

I know a lot of places outright ban this weapon, but like with the Neutrino weapon ban; I don't see how this is an exceptionally more horrible way to kill something than setting it on fire? The standards of a lot of international law on which weapons are "good" or not seem pretty dumb; war itself is a horrible thing.

Devices: Old Foe: Dimensional Travel: Riftmaker

The Riftmaker is designed to try and forge a connection to the completely isolated and barricaded prison universe where the Old Foe was sealed into at the close of the Forbidden Wars. This device will not succeed at its task due to lacking the power necessary to accomplish such a feat. However, despite only possessing an infinitesimal fraction of the power needed to achieve its task as well as numerous fatal design flaws, it will be more than sufficient to annihilate all non-protected objects within a two hundred parsec diameter and the blast will propagate out to a total of two thousand parsecs. The blast will collapse multiple coextant forms of reality atop of each other in a manner that few will be able to withstand. While the user has the equipment and abilities to survive, more than ninety six trillion known sophont individuals are within the immediate blast radius and will perish if allowed to detonate. Analysis indicates that the device has a dimensional tear at its centre that serves as the riftmaker's core; sealing the rift will disarm the Riftmaker. The structure of the riftmaker is also easily disrupted by concentrated Neutrino flow.

Samus' Notes:

This device was made so desperately and shoddily I'm starting to have questions as to how the two Old Foes managed to build everything else. They had to have known that this device was nowhere near functional right? But I think I can close this up.

Arne's Notes:

I could probably design a better version of this in a day with the right parts. But right now it's a very dangerous live bomb and I have to think of it that way. No time to figure out how to disarm it via reprogramming sadly, I'd have liked the challenge of squaring up against the Synthetic Consciousness managing it.

---

*Invented by Samus Aran

Author's Note: I'd like to put in a thank you to the people of the Super Smash Prose discord server as well as those of my own discord server for helping to motivate me to finish this chapter. You guys are great!