Author's Note
This chapter is probably not what people want after such a long wait, but it's important to explain characters appearing here, and to play a bit of catch-up for everyone, what with how long this story has been going on for.
Uploaded
07/09/2023
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 22
A surprising and welcome reunion
Rated-M
M rating for blood, and language.
Music of the day
Metroid Fusion - SRX
She stepped out from the back room, slowly surveying the ship before her. It was strange, she realized, that she was once again standing inside the deck of the Tyr, her crew scattered all about. Once more, she was going to gain all of their attention, and figure out a way out of the situation that they'd all found themselves in.
Only this time, she needed to bring them up to speed on what was really going on. She needed to tell them, not just about where they were, but what had happened, especially to herself.
There was indeed, a lot to talk about.
She approached the loading ramp of the ship, easily picking up the commander of the crew as he stood by the door, the man surveying his crew. He seemed to sense her approach, because he turned to face her.
"I'm… glad to see you standing, although I wish it was in one piece." Exeter greeted gruffly, gaze drifting down to inspect her missing arm. He let the air hang for a moment, before facing her, and asking the question that had been burning at the forefront of his mind for some time. "What happened…"
She sighed, shoulders slumping in exhaustion. It wasn't just a simple answer, something she could explain in a few words. More than that, she wanted to not have to explain herself more then once.
"I'll tell you everything, but I wish not to have to repeat myself." She spoke, hinting at what she wanted.
He nodded, gray armored fingers ghosting up to press a button on the side of his helmet. "All teams, regroup at the Tyr for a briefing." Exeter called out over local coms. "Samus will be taking over as acting commander for the duration of this mission."
Samus nodded in response to his direction to the team, and instead moved to sit on the boarding ramp of the ship. She could feel the eyes of the commander on her, as well as Anthony's. She knew that they were concerned, probably more for her than they were the situation they'd all found themselves in.
She didn't say anything, waiting patiently for everyone to gather around. It took a moment, but the troopers all gathered around.
Sitting there on the boarding ramp of the ship, she couldn't help but recall when such a moment akin to this happened years ago with the same people, all stranded on the desolate planet Aether. If it wasn't for her intervention, her presence there with them, and their eagerness to listen to her, they wouldn't have survived the situation.
And, once more they found themselves stranded on an unknown alien planet, surrounded in a war they had no reason to be involved in, with seemingly no way home.
The only difference this time?
She wasn't out of the loop as they were. She knew what was going on, what had happened to lead to her situation, and how they could get through it, together.
But that would require they stop and listen, and let her take the lead once more, something most in the Federation would be entirely against due to her status as an outsider and a Bounty Hunter.
To anyone else, an entire Federation battalion submitting leadership to a Bounty Hunter would seem extremely illogical, foolish, reckless and against all Federation principles.
However, they'd done so once before, if anything, due to the direness of the situation. Begrudgingly, Exeter had given up his leadership and had ordered his entire battalion to turn to her for orders.
Some had refused at first, thought against such an idea, and made the decision difficult to follow. She was one woman, one person, who was suddenly and unexpectedly supposed to not only take command, but single-handedly protect, care for, and save over forty troopers.
But, then she did just that, even when it came at the expense of her own sanity, safety, and almost even her very life. She'd given everything she had to save them, going above and beyond her role as a lone wolf Bounty Hunter.
She fought off aliens that bordered on monsters from hell, inter-dimensional creatures that threatened to infect their bodies and force them to betray one another, literal armies of parasitic aliens, and even the Space Pirates.
When they crashed upon the planet, were besieged at all sides from an endless army of creatures that could tear holes in their armor with one blow, parasitic entities that would reanimate the corpses of the dead to continue to try and bring them down day after day, night after night.
When they were pushed to the brink, and the only way out was death, she appeared and made a way out. But…
It wasn't easy…
And she would go days without sleep or rest of any kind, just to make sure that they made it out alive. Because she promised them, that so long as she continued to breathe, not a single one of them would die on that planet.
That being said, as she sat there recalling the events that transpired back then, she knew that she couldn't allow herself to call it that close ever again. Standing at the front of the crowd of troopers stood the one that wouldn't be standing here if she'd been even just a second slower to respond…
And she knew that the orange painted shoulder and green visor was something that had been changed on the other woman's armor out of respect for her.
"Datecycle 07.014.3 of the Cosmos… This is comms specialist Angseth of the GMFC Task Force Herakles." The camera spun to life, a twitchy video feed coming from a PDA she held aimed up to face her. Behind her was the mountainous crag that hung over the ledge where the Tyr had crashed. The sun still hung high in the sky, casting a large shadow behind her.
"I heard the Commander last night was all scared of something… What's new…?" The woman sighed, bringing her hand to her helmet covered face. She was one of the lucky ones, as many of her team had thrown themselves in harms way to protect her many a time.
Whether it was out of some manly form of mindset or their instincts to protect the only female of the entire platoon, she didn't know, but because of that her armor systems were completely untouched.
She was easily the youngest member of Task Force Herakles, and the smallest. Perhaps that had something to do with it.
The young woman sighed, turning her attention skyward. High above in the clouds of Aether the sky flashed a dark purple, lightning flashing across the skies. The storm that raged above now was the very same that took them down a month ago now.
Too bad that it seemed that this hell hole of a planet was the last she'd ever see…
"Y-You know, I joined the Federation Marines because I thought that maybe I-I could be like her some day…" Her voice cracked as she gazed upwards. "I realize now that if this is anything like what Samus has to go through every mission… Then I don't want to be a soldier anymore…" Her gaze finally tore away from the massive space storm, eyes drifting lifelessly across the cliffside, the ledge looking more and more promising as an escape every day that passed…
"Mom… If this ever finds its way back to you… I'm sorry I didn't listen to you.." Her voice went quiet, the girl struggling for words. "I'm sorry I joined the Federation Marines…."
"I thought that I'd be fighting those damn Space Pirates.. Not these… things.." She pulled her legs in close to herself, the metal of her power suit clicking with the movement. "Yesterday Vonda saved me from a huge beast, Commander is calling it a Grenchler… But now Vonda is stuck in bed on the Tyr. He's lost a lot of blood, and he can't move his legs…" She sounded defeated as she recounted the events of the day prior, voice choked up, tears clearly falling behind her visor. "If only I'd hav-"
Angseth stopped suddenly, her head snapped to the side. In the background was the sound of a blaring alarm. Other Troopers were already moving to investigate, grabbing their weapons along the way.
An explosion echoed out, shaking the ground. She dropped the PDA, the camera suddenly facing up towards the cliff side. Dark shadowy creatures could be seen rushing from the cliff, their numbers in the hundreds.
"Hey guys?! They're moving in fast!!" Someone from atop the Tyr screamed. "We need backup!" Hundreds of Dark Splinters poured out from the mountainside, rapidly rushing the Troopers in a suicidal charge. "We need backup!!" The distress in his voice was the sound of a man that knew his death was mere minutes away from occurring, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Within seconds, the entirety of the camp was overwhelmed with unending numbers of infected Splinters. Angseth felt her heart thrumming in her throat as she fired her weapon, pouring everything she had into the vile creatures.
But there was simply too many to stop.
"Oh god?!" Someone hit the ground, body covered in black stabbing limbs.
"Don't stop shooting!" Exeter shouted from somewhere.
"I-I'm dry! Someone get me some amm-" 1st Trooper Benet and Monz were swamped, the men getting pulled from their positions atop the Tyr.
"Commander! Behind you!"
"Get them off me! Someone save me!" There was a throat wrenching scream that echoed out as the first of her teammates ran out of ammo, a weakness that the beasts immediately capitalized on as he was taken down.
Angseth rushed her team, energy bayonet charged to rip straight through the head of a Splinter that pinned her teammate down. They pinned his arms down as they tried to stab him to death, sharp limbs piercing his armor.
"Get away from him!" Angseth screamed as she tore the beasts off.
The man scrambled backwards, one of his legs seemingly refusing to move. Blood leaked from his neck, a suit breach from an attack that just barely missed his artery.
Energy rounds echoed across the battlefield as the Commander himself came rushing to her aid, obliterating the creatures that had snuck around her.
Angseth hit the ground as five separate Splinters tackled her, biting and stabbing at her armored form. "G-Get off me!" Her eyes widened in horror as she was pinned to the ground by the screeching beasts, her suit cracking and crumbling underneath the heavy assault.
"Commander?! H-Help me!" She cried out, reaching her arm out as if to grasp his own.
Her ability to move was cut short when they stabbed her legs.
"Get away from her!" Weapon fire hailed death upon the creatures as Exeter rushed to her aid. But his help too proved useless as something swept his legs out from underneath him, face slamming into the dirt. He felt them pin him down, armor failing as they attempted to stab him to death.
More and more of the beasts poured out from the mountains, overwhelming the Troopers. For everyone that the soldiers attempted to save, more were injured or worse. The Splinters were too strong, their numbers too many.
Exeter screamed as he was pinned to the ground by razor sharp talons.
Somewhere in the background, coming from the direction of the base was a second explosion. The Troopers of Force Two poured out of the base, screaming in terror as some of them were flung through the air, landing with painful crunches.
As if their situation at the ship couldn't possibly get any worse, two massive Grenchlers tore their way through the base, trampling any that got in their way.
Amid his attempts to prevent himself from being stabbed to death, Exeter realized that he was going to die.
Perhaps it was the excruciating pain radiating from his back, or the terrified shouts coming from his squad as they were beaten and played with by the hostile aliens.
But this was where he and his men would meet their end…
Angseth's bloody screams echoed across the mountainside. The Troopers that tried so desperately to help her having been pinned down and forced to watch as the Splinters stabbed her, keeping her still as the Grenchlers rushed towards her.
He closed his eyes, not wanting to see it happen. He tried to block out her screaming, but he couldn't. The image of her being eaten alive burned away at his mind.
…
…
…
There was a deafening crack that echoed throughout the cliffside. The Splinters that pinned the only female of the squad down erupted into a pool of blood and gore. Purple arches of energy jumped across the ground in a thick purple and blue beam, snapping to the creatures and ripping them apart.
The men that were pinned down were suddenly and unexpectedly freed as their attackers were literally vaporized.
But with the Splinters killed, Angseth could only watch, too injured to move as the giant maws of death approached her, ready to bite her in half.
Only…
An earthquake rattled the ground as the Grenchler nearest her stopped only mere inches from her face, an explosion near its feet stopping it. The beast seemed confused too, as it tried desperately to snap out at her. But its legs had been entirely encased in solid ice, preventing it from doing so.
She wasn't going to sit around and wait to be eaten alive.
She was going to live!
She wouldn't die here! Not to these beasts!
"Someone get her out of there!" Exeter, also having been freed by the strange multi colored beam, roared as he fired on the stunned beast.
Angseth desperately crawled away, her legs unable to hold her weight. However, more and more Dark Splinters rushed her position, ready to kill. The Troopers watched in horror as they assumed her death was at hand.
Only…
Another earthquake shook the ground as a powerful missile slammed into the group of dark beasts, turning all of them into nothing but a gathering of bloody limbs. Dust and blood shot into the air in equal measure.
The ground shook over and over, as explosion after explosion rocked the ground, groups of Splinter's dying by the tens with each missile barrage. Within moments the horde had been reduced to mere remnants of what once was an army of Dark Splinters.
The second Grenchler was also frozen in place as a second super missile slammed into its feet, preventing it from ripping a badly wounded Trooper in half.
With most of the Splinters having been reduced to ashes or sparking bloody limbs, the Troopers could focus on saving their allies from the remaining few.
Benet and Monz were seemingly unconscious only a few feet from the Grenchler twins. But the ice that held them in place was not strong enough to keep them forever, and they quickly brute forced their way free.
However, before they could tear the men apart, something from behind stopped them. A thick beam of energy shot out, grabbing onto one of their horns like a lasso. Before the Grenchler could move forward its head snapped backwards as the owner of the grapple beam pulled, hard.
A super missile slammed into its rear, sending its organs flying. It died a moment later.
"Angseth! No!" A scream belonging to the Commander echoed out as the woman was stomped on by the last remaining Grenchler. All remaining Troopers weapons stopped, ammo completely and utterly empty. Exeter rushed forward to attempt to stop the beast, but he wouldn't make it in time.
The woman's mouth opened in a silent scream as she was pinned to the ground, forced to watch as the beast toyed with her. And as it bent down to take a chunk out of her midsection, something with the weight of a train slammed into its side, knocking it over.
Angseth felt her heart skip a beat as a towering orange and yellow armored figure shoved the beast off of her with super human strength.
The entirety of the Troopers were left dumbfounded as someone in large and extremely powerful armor grabbed the same beast that could send them flying by the teeth, shoving their left hand up the roof of its mouth while their right foot slammed down on the bottom of its jaw, forcing its mouth wide open. The mysterious figure shoved their right weapon arm in the beast's mouth, and a moment later fired an earth shattering blast.
When the dust settled and the men attempted to regain their bearings, what met their tired and wounded gaze's might as well have been an angel that descended from the heavens, wearing the mightiest of all powered armor with ancient alien design. All that remained of the beast from before was its jaw, the rest reduced to a puddle of blood.
A sharp green gaze turned their way, the powerful image burned forever in their minds. The men stopped, staring in slack jawed awe at their savior, sunlight glinting off of her chozo battle armor.
Angseth turned her head to the side, eyeing the newcomer with tears pouring down her cheeks behind her helmet. She knew that silhouette anywhere, and as she cried out in relief, the rest of the men felt their fates take a turn for the better.
"I-It's you! Y-You're really here!"
"Samus Aran?!"
The name echoed out like a gunshot, pulling each and every Trooper's attention. Her very presence demanded their full attention as she stood tall and proud, arm cannon smoking with the recently fired beam attacks that rendered the army of bugs nothing more than piles of corpses.
The woman of literally legendary status didn't speak, slowly scanning her surroundings. Each Trooper felt a tingle shoot up their spines as her gaze would pass over them, as if she was sizing them up. Her gaze stopped on the wounded Commander, gaze locking onto the man.
Exeter felt his heart freeze as she suddenly raised her arm cannon at him, and without saying a word fired a missile. The explosive soared right over his shoulder, slamming into the body of a Dark Splinter as it attempted to kill the man. With her last part done she confirmed the area was finally secure with a small nod to herself.
She turned on her armored heels, suit whirring and clicking lightly with each shift of movement as she moved for the downed woman. Angseth watched with baited breath as the legendary Bounty Hunter approached her. She bent down on one knee, staring lightly at the horribly wounded soldier. She still hadn't spoken a word, but there was a glow that suddenly surrounded her visor, and the woman got the distinct feeling that she was being scanned.
Finally Samus nodded, turning to stare directly in the other woman's eyes. "This will hurt." If Angseth was surprised by the voice that finally spoke to her, that surprise was washed away as her wounds lit up with a newfound burning pain. She screamed in horrible agonizing pain, thrashing underneath the Bounty Hunter's grasp as Samus held her down.
The Hunter's arm cannon had at some point shifted into a longer weapon, streaks of red hot plasma pulsing up the weapon.
"The hell are you doing to her!?" Samus paid little mind to the Commander as he came running to the younger woman's aid. But when he got close he saw it. Samus' Plasma Beam cauterized the woman's wounds, painfully but efficiently stopping her blood loss.
"Saving her life." The Hunter responded in a neutral tone, still not facing him. Angseth screamed and thrashed still, but slowed as Samus finally pulled away. Angseth cried, clutching at her chest in an attempt to block out the pain. "If I do not stop the bleeding now, she will die."
Once Samus finished she stood up, only stopping as the woman reached out to weakly grasp her savior's hand. She gently grasped her gray armor hand with her own, before Angseth promptly fainted, the experience and blood loss finally getting to her. It only took a couple seconds before the woman was swarmed by her caring companions, who wasted little time before carefully carrying her away to the safety of the Tyr.
Samus watched with a seemingly cold expression on her face, more and more Troopers appearing from the woodworks after all the threats were eliminated.
Many of them stopped to gawk or stare in poorly concealed awe, but were too surprised by her sudden appearance to speak up.
Many hushed whispers could be heard, but she paid them little mind. Without having said anything at all, she could feel the Federation Commander's gaze on her back, the man expressing more without speaking up then if he had done so.
It took a second to sink in as Exeter stood back, his wandering gaze drifting across the entirety of his Platoon. They were alive, every single one of them was alive. And as he turned back to the silent Bounty Hunter, he knew that he only had her to thank for his rescue.
He, alongside everyone of the GMFC Task Force Herakles had her to thank for their lives…
That day had been long, excruciating, exhausting, and tiresome. And, in the end, it was only the beginning of what would become their shared month of hell.
She still had nightmares of the time she spent on that planet, about what happened, how close she'd come to losing them all. So many mistakes had been made, so many things had fallen apart, situations that arose that threatened to wipe them all out.
It was more than a miracle that allowed her to get all of them off of that planet alive, and she'd lost years off of her life due to the stress it had put on her body.
But, by the end of that mission, the people that made up Task Force Herakles had almost become family to her.
So, when the opportunity again came to have her take the lead in the mission, she wasn't surprised when no one objected to her role as leader. Sitting there on the boarding ramp, she watched as the entire platoon stepped forward and stood proudly before her, all waiting to listen to the words she had to speak.
And she felt the stress placed upon her heart by the situation she'd been living through ever since her arrival upon ZDR till now, lessened somewhat.
Slowly, she cast her red eyed gaze across the people she'd grown relatively close to, taking note that all were there to listen to her.
Her newfound wings flapped in response to her stress, reminding all that they were indeed there.
"Troopers, I'm sure you're all filled with questions. Unlike the last time I sat with you all, I can tell you everything. So, if you're willing to let me take the reins once more, I'm going to get everyone out of here alive. But I'm going to need your help to do so." She spoke slowly, glancing at everyone before her.
Catching a few of their inquisitive gazes, she followed their eyes to her wings. "But, before that, I will do my best to bring everyone up to speed. A… lot has happened…"
She went on to explain the events that had transpired during her mission on ZDR, the Metroid dna inside of her that grew out of control and mutated her over the course of events that took place.
She explained what happened to the rouge robots that were sent ahead of her, how Raven Beak, an ancient Chozo warrior had lured her to the planet to take her dna and create an army of Metroids. How she'd fallen in combat against him and how he'd tricked her into transforming into the ultimate warrior, the true Last Metroid in the universe, and how he'd tried to make her his weapon.
To no one's surprise, she explained how she subsequently took him down, and how her final battle with him had the unfortunate side effect of permanently turning her into what she was now, a human turned Metroid.
Following her battle with him, her monstrous transformation and out of control powers, she'd attempted to flee the exploding planet but was unfortunately tripped up by her powers, and her escape attempt was botched.
The resulting planetary destruction and the energy wave it caused threw her body through the slipstream she'd initiated, flying through as it collapsed. That tear in space lead her to the desolate frigate of the Forward Unto Dawn, where in she crash landed inside the ship, only barely clinging to life.
From there she was rescued and given enough energy to survive her mortal wounds by the Master Chief who'd also been stranded inside the wreckage of the ship. Together, she and the Spartan had attempted to survive in the hostile environment that they'd found themselves in, what with the dangers posed to them.
When questioned on specifics about said dangers, that's where she had to explain her current situation, one she was still struggling with to a degree.
"The dangers I spoke of were more towards the Master Chief, because I struggled and multiple times nearly lost the will to restrain my urges… I am a Metroid now, and I was terribly hungry." She spoke lowly, averting her gaze. She wasn't proud of it, but it was the truth.
She'd thought that a warrior and woman of her stature and power would be able to withstand simple urges given to her by her dna, but she had terribly misjudged just how unfathomably strong those urges to feed were.
"On more than one occasion… I'd nearly lost the inner battle. If it weren't for his immense physical strength and my frailty at the time, I fear I'd have gone through with it…" She explained.
She went on to explain who the Master Chief was, what side he was on and the universe he came from and the one they all found themselves in now. She spoke of the Covenant and the threat they posed, the Forerunners and their ancient presence in this universe, and everything that had happened after they crashed on this planet.
She also explained how the entire time she'd been by the Master Chief's side, she'd been growing progressively more pregnant, and extremely quickly too. And how not long before their arrival in this star system, how she'd given birth to three infant Metroids.
But, it was obvious that they were no longer by her side.
Although it was strange that she referred to the life sucking monsters as her children, the fact that she spoke so genuinely about them showed her attachment to them. It was obvious that she viewed them as her children, likely perhaps due to her biology as a Metroid Queen in human shaped form.
"Princess… What happened before we found you?" Anthony finally spoke up, drawing her attention towards him.
She turned to face him, voice tense. "I was on a mission with the Master Chief, and, we were separated. If he is still alive, my children will be with him, as we as my arm cannon." She explained tensely, gaze hardening.
"I was going to die, I'd lost my arm, separated from my children, and was under the threat of being crushed underneath the wreckage of a starship. In that moment, again underneath the threat of imminent death, by body underwent another evolution that allowed me to survive." She explained, sounding a bit unsure of it herself.
To display what she meant by another evolution, she stretched her wings out wide, flapping them lightly to make a point. "For some reason, in that moment my body drew from the endless stores of dna I'd absorbed from my mission aboard the BSL Station. And I grew these damnable wings from Ridley's dna, which allowed me to escape from the crash. From there I was sucked into an underground stream of lava…" She shook her head, remembering how close she'd come to dying…
How technically, she had died for a while…
"I remember climbing out of the lake, only to succumb to the cold… I do not remember anything beyond that point, until I awoke inside the Tyr." She finished. With that said, she'd brought them all up to speed with the situation at hand.
And now, now came the time to plan.
Now was the time to make a plan of action, and they were looking towards her for the answer.
She'd answered everything they asked her, and now came the time to stand up and take her place as commander once again.
She stood up, surveying her platoon. These men, and woman, all stood before her, ready to receive their new orders. They were ready to offer their help, to finally pay her back for saving their lives all that time ago.
And she wasn't planning on letting them down now.
"Princess, what's the plan?" Anthony asked, pulling her aside as the troopers all prepared for a battle. "What are you thinking?" He asked curiously, feeling as if fitting right back into that position he'd once held beside her all those years ago.
She glanced up to him, seeing as he towered over her smaller form. "I-…" She stopped herself. "We need to rejoin the UNSC Infinity. If we don't stop the Didact, I fear for more then just the fate of the Master Chief's people, but the Galactic Federation's as well…"
Chapter
22
End