Author's Note

Got this one out quick too.

Or I would have, but I finished it a few weeks ago, and forgot to upload it. Uh, oops?

Uploaded

05/31/2023

But actually, it was

06/15/2023

LEGEND BELOW

"Chief, that's not a good idea..." = Normal speech.

''You're you, don't let it control you...'' = Normal thoughts/Receiving coms.

Chapter 21

A rescue mission

Rated-M

M rating for blood, and language.

Music of the day

Metroid Fusion - SRX

"Keep your eyes open, I've lost her signal again!" Exeter exclaimed over coms.

''Rodger, Commander!''

After they cleared the outer planetary boundary, they made a beeline for her while avoiding all other enemy air.

And there was a hell of a lot of enemy air.

There was two different sides planet-side warring against each other, and neither were Space Pirate nor Federation.

They had no unholy idea what was happening, and whose side, if any, they should be on.

They were here for one thing, and one thing only. And her signal was moving, vanishing and reappearing at random intervals, unexplainably.

Once they entered into that snowstorm, the frozen landscapes dotting the ground, they knew something was wrong.

They couldn't explain it, but it was just a feeling.

"Come on, give us a sign… We know you're here." Exeter muttered, trying to navigate the hell that was this unusual snowstorm. Her signature had vanished again, and now all he had to go off of was a vague direction.

"All fighters, searchlights up. We've got to be close! Samus, if you're out there, we're almost to you!" He called out over local coms. But with the weather, he doubted his message would carry very far, for this storm was entirely unnatural.

Then his sensors started going haywire, a massive radioactive energy spike firing off somewhere nearby.

''Commander, up ahead!'' Smythe's voice sounded off, his ship flying a short distance ahead of the Tyr. Far ahead, seen through the thick clouds was what could only be described as a tiny star, a massive localized explosion of exhilarating energy.

He'd seen that energy from before, firsthand too. "That was a Power Bomb detonation! All units, move for that light!" Exeter called out, throwing thrusters to max.

But the light died before they could find her, and he was forced to land if he was to spot her. So he got as close to where he thought the bomb had gone off, and initiated the landing sequence.

"Ground Recon, you're up! I'm landing her up ahead. It's up to you now! Find her and get her the hell out of here!"

Exeter's words echoed throughout the Tyr, the troopers prepared to drop and go any second. Yet at the front of them all was Anthony Higgs, the man armed to the teeth and ready to step in.

He supposed out of everyone there that day that owed the Hunter their lives, he wasn't at the top of the list. Even so, he wasn't about to stand by and lose her when he could do something about it.

That's why he was here today, because it was time to help the one that had been saving their asses for years now.

The Tyr shook as it landed dead center of the snowstorm, the bay doors opening up quickly.

"Let's move people! Ain't no one dying today, not on my watch!" Anthony hollered, jumping free from the ship, heavy gray metal boots crunching the snow beneath his feet. "You find her, you radio for evac immediately!" He shouted, before he ran off into the storm.

The rest of the ground forces split apart, spreading out to cover as much ground as possible.

''We've got the skies covered! If we see anything, ground forces will be the first to know!'' Smythe, who was still piloting a Stiletto Fighter radioed, flying slowly not fifty feet above Anthony, the fighter's searchlights scanning the ground below.

The snowstorm was intense, impairing both vision and visibility in the immediate vicinity. Spread too far out from another, and they could get lost from each other.

A few minutes passed in relative silence, everyone doing their best to find her.

If she was awake, if she was alive, she'd have joined them the moment they appeared on her radar.

So why hadn't she?

What had happened?

''Anthony, Sir, on your left!'' Grippe's voice came in through the radio, the man piloting a Stiletto fighter. ''I've… O-Oh hell! I've got her! Everyone, to my location!'' He exclaimed, distressed.

The troopers all turned, running for the fighter they could barely see hovering a hundred feet out.

Anthony's heart pounded in his ears as he ran, the snow making such a feat difficult.

Then he saw her, a shell of green surrounded by cooling lava and snow.

She was unmoving, not breathing, as still as a corpse.

''I'm getting no life signs, someone tell me what's going on down there!'' Exeter exclaimed from the control room of the ship, voice echoing across the coms.

But Anthony didn't seem to hear the man, too busy trying to keep his rapidly growing panic down.

Because…

What he was looking at…

What lay halfway submerged in a literal pool of lava…

Was the corpse of his close friend…

"Sh-… She still alive!" A trooper, Milligan exclaimed in surprise, sliding down to his knees beside her. "If she was dead.. her armor would be gone too! We still have time!" He shouted gruffly, firing out orders.

Yet, once they'd gotten close enough to look at her, they truly took in what it was they were looking at.

Because now, she only vaguely resembled the Bounty Hunter they all knew. Gone was the Orange or even purple armor, in its place a Metroid colored green and black. Seen sprouting from her backside was a pair of wings Anthony was painstakingly familiar with, the wings belonging to the beast that killed Samus parents, and almost ended both her life and his own.

Never mind her missing arm…

"Damnit, get her out of the lava! She's going to burn to death!" Milligan exclaimed.

Anthony, who'd been standing by in shock, watching as the troopers gathered around her corpse, snapped back into reality as something that was said hit him.

His mind rapidly scanned the situation, figuring out what went wrong, what had happened before they arrived.

One. Samus was laying here dead with her face down in a snowy frozen sheet of ice. Frost had crawled up her body, even coating the armor.

Two, her legs were in lava, lava that had not killed her, but he could clearly see that she was immune too. Not only that, from the surrounding damage to the environment, he deduced that she'd blown her way out from an underground lava reservoir, only to land herself in this frozen wasteland where she'd collapsed from her wounds.

From what he knew of her suit, in its advanced stages, was impervious to lava.

That thought lead him to another, one he'd heard so many times in recent years.

"Metroids are extremely susceptible to cold, and cannot live in frozen environments…"

That statement had been shared between anyone that was responsible for dealing with a mission that could potentially place them against the life sucking parasites.

If she was still alive, if she even had a chance of surviving her situation, they needed to get her out of the storm immediately.

"Commander, get someone to prepare the medical station! We don't have any time to waste!" Anthony hollered over coms. He quickly bent down beside the freezing body of the woman he'd found his heart a little too intertwined with. "Come on Samus, let's get you out of here…" He said gently, that jovial tone he was known for, trying to cover up just how scared he was.

He was tall, far taller than her even in her super armor. He scooped her up, gentle to not damage her further. Yet even after she'd been pried off the ground, her arms nor any part of her body fell limp, frozen in place.

Even then, with lava dripping down her legs, he turned and quickly made his way back to the Tyr.

He knew Metroid dna, how it reacted to these temperatures. If she was in the terrible condition that he thought she was, her body could very well break into a thousand pieces if he wasn't gentle with her.

There was no recovering from that point, no Chozo magic could save her then.

He'd thought Metroids had been cured of their weaknesses upon the Bottle Ship, but he supposed that she was not privy to that single advantage.

She was still in one piece, her lower half having been preserved by the presence of the lava.

He was trying not to think about that, instead focusing on getting the hell out of the storm.

The bay doors to the ship opened, and the other Troopers helped him up, ushering him and the lifeless woman in his arms into the medical bay stationed in the rear of the vessel.

Once all the troops were back aboard, the doors were sealed shut, blocking out the freezing air.

With the help of a few of the nameless troopers there, they positioned her within the Save Station, the advanced system repair center using gravity assisted technology to hold her aloft as it began the repairs on her suit, and began recharging her empty energy tanks.

Once the machine had its hold of her, Anthony stepped back, hands dropping uselessly at his side.

Now all he had to do was wait, wait and prey, prey to God that she didn't give out.

She was a trooper, a warrior through and through. She was the toughest woman, human or not he'd ever known in his life. Hell, she was the toughest woman that the entire Galactic Federation had ever known.

The only thing that would truly put her in the grave would be nothing short of someone throwing the sun at her.

No…

She had to survive this…

"Come on… Don't you dare leave me. We didn't come all this way for you to die." He said, almost to himself.

The other Troopers, the ones she'd all saved once before stood around the machine and watched with bated breath.

Her suit was still there, still physical. If she'd died, it would've vanished.

So…

So she must've been alive in there, at least, some part of her…

It felt like hours had passed in silence, nothing but the cold emotionless silence to accompany them while they waited.

The big man bit his lips behind his helmet, the waiting killing him. He'd seen her power suit make quick use of a Save Station before, using the energy it supplied to heal her wounds and repair her suit within less then a minute…

But this time, the damage must've been far too severe to heal instantly, even for her.

At some point Commander Exeter decided to take off, repositioning the Tyr into a different location, retreating to a forested area they passed an hour prior. Once there, they were going to make a temporary base until they could decide what to do from there…

After all, unless someone knew a way back, they too, had become stranded in this new and unfamiliar world.

Because now, home was very, very far away…

The first thing she felt was the warmth of energy tickling her mind, pulling her from beyond the grave where she was sure she'd been taken.

Something was restoring her energy reserves, recharging her body, supplying it with all the energy it needed to revert the damage done.

It was slow, many of the cells in her upper body having had to be restored. As damaged as they were, they were still there, still repairable.

She wasn't sure how her body did so, how she was able to come back from beyond the brink.

But, she'd seen it happen before, after slaying her dark clone numerous times prior, she'd seen her come back again and again. She'd never thought such a tactic would be used in her life, but she was also aware that there was a dangerous amount of things she no longer understood about her own fleshy body. As she was, she was no mere human, having thrown that existence out many many years ago.

She'd become more and more mutated the longer she lived, until she was what she was now. It was how she'd survived so much physical trauma, something that far surpassed a typical human.

Like how she'd survived the nigh death of her upper half, how practically everything, every part of her human-like body was ravaged by the environment, and frozen solid.

And yet, yet even in death, she survived her own demise.

For after she'd died, after what made up Samus Aran, was slain from the repeated damage and cell destruction from exposure to sub zero temperatures, the part of her that had remained remained had been turned into raw energy.

And with most of her body decayed and destroyed from the cold, that energy that contained her essence, her soul or what have you, had fled to the only part of her body that had remained unscathed.

Her lower half that had survived, remaining submerged in the lava, was still alive. In her thighs was housed a large collection of nuclei, the heart of a Metroid. It was partially why her thighs had grown so significantly after her final transformation into a Metroid, as they now housed much of her own internal energy stores.

And when her upper body was destroyed, all that was her had fled there for safety, even if in the end it would only extend her existence for a short period.

It was all she could do to survive, and survival was all important.

Her mind, her consciousness had shut down after that, the minuscule amount of energy she had remaining held her entire essence in a state of suspended animation, unable to do anything more.

Her existence had become frozen in time, until what remained of her gained sufficient energy to restart her body and restore her upper half to a usable form.

She was like a ghost during that time, the feeling akin to hiding away with a dark corner of your own body, locked away until someone came along and rescued her.

In that moment, Samus Aran was a spec of energy swirling around itself, hidden away within a dying human-like body, protected by an alien hyper advanced suit that had run out of power.

She could not move, could not escape, could do nothing but hover inside the darkness of her psyche in wait.

Then came the energy, so much, so vast, it almost overwhelmed her.

The tiny spec of soul that was her being latched onto that newfound energy, rapidly absorbing it into herself. She kept taking, taking and taking and taking, taking until she'd taken enough.

Her soul grew white hot with energy, and from there spent it repairing her physical body, restoring the frozen ashen-like shell that had decayed from the sub-zero temperatures.

It was a slow agonizing process, and every ounce of energy she gained was spent on repairing her connection to the physical world. During that process, her body was slowly restored to normal, yet it came back different, stronger. The weakness in her dna, the loose links that gave her such vulnerability to cold, were fixed.

She wondered in those moments, was this what the Chozo of Tallon IV had felt? Is this what they experienced as they were tainted and killed, turned into ghosts that lingered in the physical world only by a thread, driven insane from the phazon exposure?

It must've been…

There wasn't anything else she could attribute the sensation to.

She was unaware of the outside world, what was happening to her body, or where she'd been taken. Everything was foggy, blurred.

But finally, her body was in useable shape once more, life restored in some fashion.

And then, she opened her eyes, and took in her first breath…

The first breath in hours, the oxygen filling her recently restored lungs.

The color gray assaulted her newly restored vision, grays and blues she'd become intimately familiar with over the many years she'd spent as a freelance bounty hunter.

It was the colors employed by the Galactic Federation.

At first, it took everything that she had to use her eyes, unable to do more then breathe and see out of her body.

But as she continued to be fed energy from the Save Station that held her body aloft, she slowly regained control of her body as it was repaired further and further.

She regained motor controls, muscle strength, and was finally able to turn her head to inspect her surroundings.

And then she regained her voice, her vocal cords repairing themselves last.

And when she turned, having previously thought herself in an empty room, she found the one man she'd been oh so desperate to see again.

Raw and scratchy from having returned from death, she spoke the words she been desperately wishing she could for so long.

"A-Anthony…?" It was broken, scratchy, scarred. But it was undeniably her.

It had to be him, the big black man sitting across from her, passed out against a metal bench. Her vision was blurry, but she knew that face anywhere, even though he now wore different armor.

Slowly, yet growing stronger, she called out to him again. "Anthony…"

This time he stirred, eyes blinking awake at the sound of someone calling out to him. His eyes opened, immediately going to see if her condition had changed in any way.

And that's when he noticed her staring at him, her baleful red eyes visible through her clear visor.

He reacted as if he'd been shot, jolting to his feet. "S-Samus-?! Oh God, you're awake!" He jumped up, the commotion gaining the attention of those outside the room.

He ran to her, towering over her even though she was held hovering off the ground via the machines that restored her.

She reached out to grab him with her dominant arm, but she realized that she still lacked her right arm, everything below her right bicep missing.

So she opted to use her other arm, her sharp claws reaching out to grab him. The big man couldn't contain himself, quickly but gently wrapping his arms around her in a hug. She returned it eagerly, yet awkwardly as she only had one arm.

She wanted to cry, to have him hold her. She wanted to fall in his embrace and never let go…

She'd already lost so many, just the idea of it hurt to dwell on…

Oh…

She could stay there with him forever…

Something she so greedily wanted…

But knew she of all people could never have…

"W-Where am I?" She breathed out weakly, tone shaking. Yet with every passing moment, he grew stronger. Her suit energy reserves were charged decently now, but the energy she continued to receive went to restoring her body to its peak. "What's going on?"

The man stepped back, unable to keep that large stupid smile off of his face.

Not that she minded…

"We rescued you from the storm. You were halfway submerged in lava, your upper body frozen on the shoreline… W-We… I thought you were dead…" He explained, sighing loudly.

At that point others began swarming in, surprise radiating off of their bodies.

"Holy shit.."

"You're alive…"

"G-Glad to have you back, Ma'am."

Her eyes widened behind her visor, recognizing those voices from anywhere.

"Haley, Brode, Milligan?" She spoke, surprised.

Of course she recognized them. They'd all been stranded on Aether those years ago. She'd spent days with them fighting and bleeding to protect them from the Ing invasion.

It had just been some time since she'd spoken to them.

But she most certainly remembered them.

"I-It's… Its good to see you alive, Ma'am." Haley spoke, sighing deeply. She turned her attention to the Hunter's missing arm. "I just wish it could've been a better reunion…" She added dryly.

There were so many questions, so many things that ran through the trooper's head, same as Anthony's.

What had happened?

Why was she missing her arm?

Why the hell did she have wings?

Why did she look like a Metroid?

Where were they?

All those questions and more were shared by the crew, and they all wanted answers. But, in her condition, they weren't going to hassle her for answers.

"I'll… answer your questions… Just give me some time…" Samus spoke, still recovering.

"Of course, Ma'am!" They saluted, before leaving the room. They were sure to spread the news…

Samus was alive.

An hour passed with the door to the medical bay shut, only Anthony and Samus inside. It wasn't long before she was strong enough to move freely about once more.

Something she was eager to do once she was capable.

The gravitational support system released her, the Hunter landing on her feet, boots echoing out as she did. She stood tall, stretching her body, feeling it out as if it were brand new.

She stretched her one arm out, clenching and unclenching her claws. Her wings spread out wide behind her, also having been restored.

Just thinking about that sentence alone gave her a headache.

She was half inclined to rip the damn things off, in no way shape or form wishing to have a constant reminder of the one who'd ruined her life tenfold growing out from her back.

But she didn't.

After all, having wings, especially in her situation, was incredibly useful.

And, if she was being honest with herself, there was a small amount of spite in keeping them, knowing that even after his death, Ridley was helping her continue living. She was sure that he was rolling around in hell about it.

She flapped them lightly, finding it strikingly easy to figure out how they worked, and what they felt like.

It was like suddenly growing a tail, and knowing exactly how to use it at the same time. It was both unnerving and exhilarating at the same time.

While she stood stretching, messing around with her wings, Anthony stood by the wayside in awe.

He hadn't seen her in some time, and to find her looking like this after all this time was messing with his head.

He supposed she'd never stop surprising him in the end.

"So…?" He spoke up, motioning to her. If it were anyone else, she'd get upset over the bogus question that would've left anyone else questioning what it was they were asking about, but in this context it was obvious. More than that, she wasn't sure she could get mad at him.

"It… It is a long story… So much has happened…" She sighed, shaking her head.

"I've got time." He said in response.

But, that seemed to trigger her, make her remember something.

Time…

She was out of time…

She couldn't be standing around here, she needed to find the Master Chief. Her children must've been with him. She needed to join their side again, finish off the Didact before he grew too powerful to be stopped safely.

"I-I'm sorry! I need to go!" She exclaimed suddenly, moving for the door.

So surprised by her sudden shift, he almost didn't stop her before she could leave the room. He grabbed her by her good arm before she could leave, finding it difficult to keep her in place.

"Hold on! Go where? In your condition? Who the hell are you going to be fighting?" He asked suddenly.

She turned to him, angry that he'd even ask such a redundant question, before she realized that he had no idea what was going on.

"In fact, where are we? What is this place, this planet? Who's out there fighting? Whose side are we on? Is it the Space Pirates?" He spit the questions rapidly, trying to stop her from leaving.

Then she stopped, and she took a second to breathe.

She wanted to run back to John's side, rejoin with the Infinity and her children, but flying off the handle wouldn't be a good idea.

So she stopped, and took the time to explain what the hell was happening.

She was going to tell him everything, from the moment she landed on ZDR, to the moment she was forcefully separated from the Master Chief.

And he was going to stand there and listen.

But she supposed it would be better to let the others in on this conversation, she was sure Exeter would appreciate it.

She moved past Anthony, and out into the rest of the ship, her footfalls echoing out. Troopers were out and about, but when they saw her, she drew all of their attention.

Her presence tended to have that sort of effect.

Chapter

21

End