Author's Note

Yep, another update, and in the same month.

Dunno what to say, I've been inspired.

I've updated the cover art, this is the last time I swear. I wasn't too fond of the cartoonish style of the previous one, so I threw together one that feels like it fits the mood of the story, and properly displays just how intimidating Samus is in the Metroid Suit. Yep, that's all, let me know what you think.

Uploaded

08/25/2023

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 26

Assault on the control room

Rated-M

M rating for blood, and language.

Music of the day

Metroid Prime 3 - Crisis

"Move your asses!" A Spartan shouted, ushering the others his way across the newly formed light-bridge. Hard light bullets sprayed him, razing his shields as he attempted to duck the attack, no cover available to defend him.

"Go, now!" The Master Chief exclaimed, providing covering fire with more than proficient use of his battle rifle. The man stood his ground as the hoards of Crawlers rushed their position, small hard light bullets slamming into his shields, quickly depleting them.

The soldiers all rushed across the bridge, quick to try and make it to the other side. There they'd at least be out of the way of constant fire.

"Chief, I'll hold them back! Get across that bridge." Samus called out, taking the brunt of the fire as she threw herself to the front of the main bridge, blocking the Crawlers from passing her. Her legs shook as she laid waste to the synthetic creatures, blowing them away with use of her missile launcher.

Their bullets didn't do much to her shields, but her suit wasn't invincible. Taking the brunt of the damage wasn't going to be something she could do forever.

But she still had energy to spare, the Spartans did not.

"Samus, I've got your back. Fall back to the other side!" Anthony called out, his voice echoing from the other side of the chamber. Following his exclamation, a beam of green plasma fired out, wiping out the remaining Crawlers. Beside the man stood Smythe, firing off his experimental arm cannon power beam to assist in cleanup work.

The man had been the one chosen to use a weapon modeled after the Bounty Hunter's main weapon. It was an experimental technology developed by HQ, and had only seen one other use before during their mission on Aether. Although vastly inferior to said Bounty Hunter's weapon, it did the job quite well.

The moment everyone else was across she took to the air, flying across the chasm with her wings.

She landed beside the others, sliding to a stop. As she turned around, she witnessed even more Promethean's appearing, Crawlers and some of the new variants, Soldiers.

Could their luck be any worse?

"Chief, we need to get this station offline!" Cortana barked in the back of the Spartan's head, ushering him and the others deeper into the facility.

"Let's move! We can't stick around." The man in green grunted, rushing down the halls. The other Spartans moved after him, only occasionally stopping to turn around and fire upon their pursuers.

But there were far too many to keep track of, like an endless supply of robotic creatures thrown at them until they died.

"Chief, you go on ahead, shut this station down. I'll hold them off, give you some time." Samus called out, stopping at the end of the hall.

There was a doorway between her and the rest of the soldiers now, the green Spartan stopping to stare at her. "No, don't you dare-" He tried to get out, knowing damn well what she was thinking, and what she'd likely already set her mind on.

Unfortunately for him, she did things her way, always. "Sorry John." She said, scanning the systems for the doors. Before the Spartan could hope to stop her, she manually shut the heavy Forerunner blast doors on the hall, preventing them from coming back.

"Samus!" Smythe shouted out in distress, but his voice was drowned out by the slamming of the heavy metal doors.

"Sorry, but I'm done playing by their rules." She whispered heatedly, hand dropping to her side as she disabled her scan visor.

Just then came their attacks, a hell stream of bullets coming her way. Her eyes narrowed dangerously as she dropped to the ground, palm to the floor before she kicked up into the air. She launched herself thirty feet up, dodging their attacks as she kept herself aloft with use of her wings. She took aim, zero hesitation to utilize a volley of super missiles to wipe out the area.

The facility seemed to shake upon the detonation of the warheads, the entire hallway turned into a damaged scrapyard of Promethean body parts.

But they weren't done. Not a few moments after she'd cleared out all hostiles, then came the Promethean Knights.

A lot of them two.

She was great at one on one battles, but she wasn't fond of engaging in a one on twenty.

It would've been one thing if it was an open battle, but in the relatively confined space of an underground facility wherein the Promethean's loved to make proficient use of their Incineration Cannons on her face, suffice it to say she wasn't going to like what came next.

With zero hesitation they began firing upon her with their deadly explosives, forcing her to dodge.

The entire end of the hallway was blocked by their presence, each one taking turns firing at her while their companions reloaded to fire again and again.

She hit the ground, taking aim as she charged up a Plasma beam shot. She managed to get one off before being forced to move again.

But she was cornered, as she'd also effectively sealed herself in by having shut the emergency doors behind her prior. And they were pushing up on her, pinning her in a corner.

Her eyes narrowed.

She was done playing by their rules.

If they wanted to play rough, she could play rough. With a snarl she activated her Lighting Armor, electricity wafting off of her in waves. She teleported forward in the blink of an eye, appearing right in front of the closest Knight with use of her Flash Shift. To the synthetic creature's surprise, she shoved her clawed hand straight into its chest, punching a hole right through it. It looked down at her in shock, before she grabbed and turned it to dusk, sucking it dry.

She licked her lips, turning to the one next to her. It ran to attempt to cut her down, but she merely grabbed its arm, pivoted her hips and tossed the machine over her head and into and through the other Knights. The resulting force ignited the cannons un-shot rounds in one of the Knights, resulting in a devastating explosion.

An explosion across her backside informed her that she'd not paid enough attention to the other Knights in the area as her shields flared to absorb the damage from their attack. She spun around, taking aim as she instead fired her grapple beam. The Knight was incapable of stopping her as she instead dragged it into its companions, violently, thrown around by her electric lasso.

She suddenly took to the air, wings flapping heavily as she kept herself afloat. She pulled the Knight high into the air, spinning it around before tossing it into its companion, knocking all of them off their feet.

She aimed her cannon forward, mercilessly firing a volley of green plasma. In a few moments, the Knights were no more.

She hit the ground a moment later, huffing lightly as she disabled her lightning armor. Suddenly the halls were quiet, no more footsteps echoing out.

She nodded to herself, opening the door she'd locked before, before locking it up once more.

She ran down the halls, now having to play catch-up.

Her footsteps echoed out in the lifeless halls of the ancient abandoned Forerunner facility, the halls seemingly stretching on for what felt like forever.

Eventually she came across a split in the pathway, the tunnels leading left and right.

Using her thermal visor, she'd picked up the minuscule amounts of thermal energy left behind from their suits, small footprints left on the ground. She took off, following them to an elevator system that lead deeper into the facility. Upon sliding to a stop at the edge where the elevator used to be, she peered down below.

She didn't like what she saw.

If it wasn't cold enough in the upper floors of the facility, then it got far worse the further in she went.

She could feel the Metroid in her dna crying in warning of the deeper parts of the facility, telling her to stay away. Unfortunately for it, she had a job to do.

She stepped back, before running forward leaping off the edge in free fall to the deeper parts of the facility. As she fell, her coms buzzed with a familiar voice…

"Come on, let's get out of here. She's not going to change her mind!" Smythe shouted, ushering the others down the hall.

"Damnit Princess…" Anthony sighed to himself, knowing that she'd pull a move like that. It's not that he didn't think she could handle herself, but he hated leaving her to fight these battles on her own. But he knew sitting around moping was not going to get anything done.

"…" The Chief didn't say anything, but he wasn't happy with her decision to take the fight on her own. Yet, at the same time he knew just how powerful she was, the difference between him and her far greater than people gave her credit for. "Let's move. She's buying us time, I'm not going to waste it." He instead decided on saying, turning to run down the hall.

"Cortana, give me a waypoint." The man said, boots thundering down the halls as he lead the platoon of super soldiers. His HUD glitched out momentarily, fazing blue and red.

"Y-Yes, on it!" She responded after a moment, lighting up a ping at the end of the hall. "It's just up ahead, on y-your right. There's an elevator that will take us deeper into the facility. T-The power controller is d-down t-t-there." She explained, voice glitching out.

"Cortana?" The man asked, worried.

"Not now, C-Chief. The mission c-comes first." She defended, vanishing to the back of his mind once more. He nodded, but he wasn't happy.

The run felt long, knowing she was fighting on her own back there, but it couldn't have been more they a twenty second long sprint. They reached the elevator, the doors to it already opened. Without thinking too much on it, the entire platoon moved inside.

The moment they were all on, it started to move downward. As they descended into the depths of the facility, the lights began going dark, the air cold enough to flash freeze a human within moment of direct exposure.

"Everyone, keep an eye on your shields." The Chief spoke lowly, voice grave.

He gained nods of confirmation, the platoon going silent as they approached the bottom floor. When the elevator slowed to a halt, they prepared for a battle upon the doors opening.

But there was nothing there.

"Cortana?" The man spoke up in question.

"This is the right p-place, Chief." She confirmed.

The platoon was careful, but quick. They pushed through the halls towards the control room. Eventually they found it, the place that would allow them to disable the power to the facility, bring down the artificial storm created outside, and disable the freezing environment.

But, more than that, it would finally allow the Infinity to warn earth of the Didact and prepare the correct countermeasures.

"Secure that door." The green Spartan ordered, pointing at the doorway they'd all passed through as he ran for the control terminal.

Anthony and Smythe covered the doorway, with the other Spartans prepared for anything to come their way.

If they were lucky, the only thing that would be passing through there would be Samus herself.

"I'm going to make sure this facility won't be able to turn back on." Cortana stated sharply, bringing up the control schematics for the building.

Multiple warnings alerted her against such a plan, built in subsystems in the facility trying to block her out. Unfortunately for them, she knew her way around Forerunner systems by now.

If she wasn't in a rush, she could likely make it so only the communications blackout systems shut down, but there was no time to waste.

Everything had to be shut off, they couldn't afford to stand around while she hacked into the system. The Didact could be out there trying to leave the planet right now.

She had no choice.

The facility's lights flashed, fluttering as all power was diverted away from the facility.

There was a loud whirring sound that suddenly echoed throughout the entire facility, the sensation of a deep dread settling in over the mixed platoon.

"O-Okay Chief, playtime's over. Let's get out of here." Cortana muttered, worried for some reason she didn't understand.

Their mission was a success.

Now they just had to get back to the ships in one piece.

"Lights on." The Chief grunted to the others.

With the entire facility now down, even small things like the lights were out. Oxygen, ventilation, life support systems and all had ceased station wide.

"Samus, do you copy?" The Spartan called out on local coms.

Now that the blackout was gone, radio contact should be functioning properly again.

''Chief? You get the facility offline?'' Samus's voice pierced the silence of the dead rooms.

"Affirmative. Captain Del Rio has likely already noticed the change, but we have no way to contact them from down here. Meet us at the elevator. We're leaving." He responded, huffing lightly as he ran.

''On my way. I'll see you soon.'' She responded lowly, voice sounding as if blurred by the sounds of wind.

The team quickly made their way back through the dark halls of the facility, finding the elevator once more. Just as they arrived, they looked up to find the Bounty Hunter herself in free fall. She flared her wings out as she approached, slowing her fall as she landed on her feet.

"Good, you made it out in one piece." The Master Chief grunted, clearly upset at her lone wolf mentality.

She put a hand on her hip, shifting her weight to one side as if to say something sharply in reply. "Have some faith in me." She said, eyebrow raised at the green Spartan.

"Next time, we go together." Chief said, tone making it seem like she had no choice in the matter. "I thought I told you no more lone wolf stuff? What was that?" He asked gruffly, stepping towards her.

Her eyes widened slightly at his authoritative tone towards her, feeling uncertain and angry as he approached her. This close to her, she noticed the distinct height advantage he had over her, a foot taller than her. "I had it under control." She responded sharply after a moment, confident.

"That's not the problem. The problem is you acting as if you're disposable." He grunted, tone angry.

Her eyes widened, never before having seen him this angry at her. "Excuse you? What do-?"

"You act as if you are the only one that can handle themselves, treating others around you as civilians." He stated sharply.

She seemingly recoiled at his words, eyes narrowing. "I've never done that." She defended hotly.

But he wasn't standing down, not now, not after what she did. "You have done it. You keep doing it, separating yourself to take on any threat, big or small on your own to prevent us from having to deal with it ourselves." He said. Her eyes widened, but he continued. "You did it back in the desert facility, ordering us to go on ahead while to took on the Elite platoon by yourself. You almost died because of that stunt." He grunted heatedly.

"I saved your lives! What would have happened if the assassins caught up with you? Would you have-?" She defended hotly, stepping up to him, breast-plate pressed against his chest-plate.

He suddenly reached out, grabbing her by her biceps as if trying to shaking his intentions into her physically.

"Fought them together, as a team." He cut her off sharply, not hearing it. "I've seen too many die because they thought they could handle the situation on their own, protect their team. This war already has too many dead heroes, I'm not going to stand idly by and watch as you become another one…" He trailed off, voice grim.

Her eyes widened in shock up at him, the rebuttal she had prepared dying on her tongue before she could even utter the first syllable. She searched his blank golden visor for what felt like hours, before, to the surprise of everyone watching, stood down. She averted her gaze, seemingly shrinking underneath the intensity of his presence. In that moment, she felt so small compared to him.

A moment later the Spartan released her, realizing what he'd done. He stepped back, turning inwards to speak with Cortana privately.

"Is there something I should know?" Anthony asked jokingly, leaning over to Smythe as he spoke quietly. The other Federation Trooper shook his head as if to say, 'stay out of it'. Anthony just smiled behind his visor, easily picking up on the physical responses the two green super soldiers had towards each other, and subsequently how neither of them seemed aware of it themselves.

He'd come to the realization that a lot had happened since he'd been gone, and Samus had been through the wringer and then some.

He was just happy that it seemed like she'd finally opened up again…

After…

Well…

After losing Rundas in the war against her dark clone, she'd grown cold, distant from nearly everyone. Not many knew of their relationship together before their last mission together, but…

Once it was finally over…

Once the Phazon crisis had finally been cleared away once and for all…

She closed herself off from the galaxy, a galaxy that, in her own words, had done nothing but take from her for the entirety of her life.

She'd learned that she wasn't allowed to have a family, killed by the Space Pirates. She wasn't allowed to have a father figure, taken away from her by his duty to his people and his duty to protect her life over his own. She wasn't allowed to have a relationship with anyone, the only person she'd ever cared for that way having lost himself to the mutagenic madness, and she'd no other option but to put him out of his misery.

She'd been betrayed by the same Federation that she'd served before on multiple occasions, and although those secs of the Federation had been found and rooted out, the damage done to her trust of them was permanent.

For all intents and purposes, she'd been a quiet cold hearted hunter after losing everything she'd ever cared for. That cold hand had even been extended to him…

But…

Seeing her here now, he realized that she'd changed. Something about her journey here or the missions she'd been on since had made her open up, if only just a bit. Because he knew that if she hadn't, she would not allow anyone to talk to her the way The Master Chief had just then.

The fact that she stood down, listened to him and let him tell her off told him all he needed to hear. She found someone hat cared for her, whether either of them knew it quite yet was unclear, but he knew.

Nevertheless, it would have to wait, because they needed to find a way out.

And as it stands, Cortana had cut the power, including the power to the elevator.

"Alright, how's about we go on and get the hell out of here? It's freezing." Anthony joked, butting his way into the conversation. "Samus, can you power the lift?" He asked, trying to get the ball rolling.

She seemed confused for a moment, before she clicked into action. "Yes…"

She took a few steps away from the Spartan, bending down to place her palm to the floor of the elevator. She reversed her energy into the machines that ran the elevator, and a moment later saw the entire platform beginning to rise back up the shaft.

The ride was slower than it was initially, but it got them moving.

However, as the elevator rose, the sounds of some kind of wriggling, almost faint, reached the advanced audio sensors in the Master Chief's suit. The sound, however subtle, made the aged Spartan's stomach sink like it was suddenly made of lead. But he wasn't sure why, mind distracted and focused on escaping the facility.

Nevertheless, the elevator finally reached the main floor once more. As the platform slowed to a stop, the sound of it stopping echoed like a gunshot, the noise bouncing off the walls of the building like an abandoned burial grounds.

"Let's move." The Chief ordered, voice sounding distant as he took off. Everyone moved after him, eventually returning to the main terminal station. Once more, Samus reversed her energy through the local systems, temporarily activating the hard light bridges, allowing them all to cross.

"There you guys are…" The first Spartan guarding the entrance sighed in relief.

"We'd heard a battle going on, but had no idea what happened. Is the situation handled?" The other asked, before shaking his head. "Well, it doesn't matter. Whatever you guys did turned off the storm outside…" The man explained, pointing over his shoulder at the expanse outside the facility.

True to his word, the entire artificially crafted storm had suddenly and inexplicably ceased, leaving a snowy expanse without a cloud in sight.

Now they could easily pick up the multitude of particle cannons within the area, all having been previously hidden by the storm.

"How do you suppose we get past those?" Anthony prodded curiously.

Unfortunately, The Chief knew the answer to that question. Samus would distract them, because she was the fastest one there. He just hated that this time, that was the only answer.

As if thinking the same line of thought, the Bounty Hunter in question turned to face the Chief. He glanced at her, before nodding silently in approval.

Her eyes narrowed. "I'll handle the cannons. Once I've pulled their attention, I want everyone to make a run for the ships. I'll meet you once you've escaped the kill zone."

She stepped back, bending down in a mock runner's stance. Her thrusters on her backside powered on, rapidly growing in power and velocity as she kept herself grounded. The power grew and grew, before she launched forward at a hundred miles an hour, rapidly increasing in speed as she tore off from the facility in a blinding flash.

"Holy shit…" Smythe grunted.

"Oh… You've never seen the Speed Booster before?" Anthony laughed, patting the other Federation Trooper on the back.

Smythe would've responded, but the sounds of multiple particle cannons firing in the distance cut him off, the vaporizing lasers scarring the land as they attempted, and failed to hit their targets.

"That's our cue! Let's move!" Anthony exclaimed as he took off running.

Soon enough this entire mission would be a thing of the past, and they'd all be relaxing somewhere far, far away from here.

If only they were so lucky…

Chapter

26

End