Author's Note

Thing's are heating up now. I seriously want to thank everyone who's followed up until now, Y'all inspired me to keep writing and continue to do so!

Uploaded

12/12/2024

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 50

Rated-M

M rating for blood, and language, and violence, and romance, and adult themes.

Music of the day

Metroid Prime - Metroid Prime battle

Location / Blackout facility / Requiem

Six months and one week since the Didact's defeat

Her head hit the ground hard, stars darting across her vision as everything momentarily went black. She yelped in surprised pain as her wings crunched underneath the weight of her armored body being lifted up suddenly only to be violently slammed back into the cold unrelenting metal floor below, a thick slimy tentacle wrapped firmly around her right ankle.

"Samus!!" Chief's voice echoed out behind her, his heavy footsteps slamming against the ground as he took off after her. Explosive bullets roared overhead, most missing their target as the tentacle raised her up to use her body as a shield.

"Stop! You're going to hit her!" Vespian hissed, the Spartans bullets exploding off the Metroid Queen's head as the fleshy arm used her body as a shield.

"Damn it!" The man snapped, thrusters exploding to life as he kicked off in a full speed sprint after her.

"Let her go!!" Vespian snarled, her bloodthirsty voice echoing down the halls as she flew after her, wings fluttering in chase. "You disgusting, vile, putrid waste of life! Unhand my Queen!!" The articulated bitter snarl could've melted stone, the fury radiating off the ferociously loyal alien palpable.

"Watch out!" Master Chief called out, too late as a second tentacle burst through the ceiling above, slapping the alien woman out of the way. The Zebesian coughed in pain as she was sent violently back from where she'd come from, wings crunching underneath her own weight as she landed painfully.

She cried out in pain, vision blurred as multiple Combat Forms encroached on her, ready to tear into her armored body. Like a cornered animal she snarled as she swept the legs of the space zombies, kicking off the ground to retreat as she swung her arm cannon forward, blowing them all apart with a barrage of missiles. Yet unsurprisingly more appeared to replace those that fell.

She felt her body lean forward as the Spartan blasted past her in full speed, the wind blowing past her. The man's heart was pounding in his ears as he charged after her, watching as her body was dragged further away from him. He felt a strange panic beginning to encroach upon his heart, the fear that something that was beyond him was here to take her away from him.

And he felt powerless to stop it.

He slung his rifle over his shoulder, left arm snapping forward to fire off his grapple shot. His strike struck true, stabbing into the fleshy arm that had secured itself around the alien queen's leg. The motors in the tool on his arm worked overtime to rapidly yank him right towards his destination, speedily approaching the downed woman. Out from his right arm came a stolen Promethean Knight's hard light blade, ready to cut the rotten appendage into pieces.

When a third tentacle came through the ceiling above he should've expected it, but it happened too fast, the attack too awkward to avoid. His body careened into it, grapple loosing its home as he fell and bounced across the ground like a discarded rolling tank, grunting in surprise.

Flood combat forms charged his downed form, cursing at him in their twisted mangled tongues as their tendrils reached out for him. He didn't even think, thrusters blasting him out of the way and back to his feet as he blew the bodies apart with a well placed grenade.

He immediately turned his attention back to Samus, watching with a sinking feeling in his stomach as she was dragged around a bend in the tunnels and out of sight. "After her!" He ordered gruffly as he took off after her once more, Vespian sprinting closely behind. "I'm declaring Emergency Contact Protocol Upsilon! Flood have been encountered!" His words echoed through everyone's comms, the dread that followed thereafter palpable.

Unbeknownst to him their scuffle had incurred the wrath of the Queen's most loyal subjects, half of the House of Aran appearing from down the halls in response to their most high's apparent distress.

They said nothing, but their boiling righteous anger was felt as they exploded into action, surging forward as they cut down anything and everything that stood between them and the safety of their esteemed leader.

But the distance between them and the half unconscious woman in question was too great, and the number of Flood combat forms too many to ignore as they found themselves tied up with something more then a little dangerous.

Samus tried to gain her bearings but it was fruitless as one moment she was being dragged forward only to be tossed left into another wall, body leaving an indent in the metal that shook her head inside her skull, then yanked hard to the right to repeat the motion all over again, throttled so hard that her armor broke the walls it came into contact with.

She couldn't make heads or tails of what was happening, head spinning as she was tossed about like a soulless corpse, body slamming violently into anything and everything around her as she was dragged deeper and deeper into the depths of the facility.

"Now the gate has been unlatched, headstones pushed aside; corpses shift and offer room, a fate you must abide. And now you will accompany me into the beyond, a fate that will consume..." She was vaguely aware of the voice reverberating throughout the tunnels around her, the warning lights on her heads up display jolting her back to her senses.

She snarled as she looked down to find the tentacles wrapped around her leg, pulling her into the darkness ahead. She swung her cannon forward, charging up a Plasma-Beam shot in preparation to incinerate the vile thing. Red hot plasma gathered at the end of her barrel, moments from firing.

But it wasn't alone as a second massive writhing length of flesh and rot came soaring out from the darkness to pin her right arm to the side at a brutal angle, the blast she'd fired obliterating a support structure instead.

"Do not be afraid. I am peace; I am salvation. The inevitable has come, and you have been chosen. Yessss, be not afraid of your demise…" It purred with the voices of a billion souls, uncaring as she used her still free left hand to try and frantically claw her cannon free. Her wings ached in agony as blades of metal and bone tore through them as she was so carelessly dragged into hell, bent into agonizing angles the longer this went on.

She'd managed to get her claws on her right arm, but once again she found herself thrown to the ceiling, face smashing into her visor with a grunt of surprise. Her eyes went wide as her vision was blurred by cold hard metal, her sense of up and down swapped as she was tossed back into the floor, the speed at which she was dragged into the underworld never slowing.

She found herself suddenly on her belly as she was unceremoniously dragged down, looking up to catch a glimpse of the man who was so desperately trying to reach her. "John!" She shouted as she tried to ground herself, slamming her claws into the floor below. Sparks lit up the tunnel as they scraped across the cold metal floors, barely managing to slow her movement.

"I am a timeless chorus. Join your voice with mine, and sing victory everlasting. Be not afraid of the darkness that approaches you, fear not the evolution that awaits…" The voice was accompanied by a third tentacle that appeared from the darkness, securing her left leg in place.

Her movements were nearly entirely restrained now, only her left arm free. She had to withhold a scream as the tunnel suddenly ended, a hard left turn sending her veering into a support structure. Seeing this as her chance to gain some ground she dug her claws as hard into the metal as she could, carving out gouges in the metal as she tried desperately to get a foothold onto something.

She stuck fast, momentarily stalling the monster from dragging her any further. It pulled hard, nearly pulling her shoulder from its socket as her grip around the Forerunner metal remained unchanged, her suit straining underneath the rapidly increasing tension on her limbs as it literally tried to tear her in two. "Let me go!" She snarled, throwing all caution to the wind as she charged up her Plasma-Beam, uncaring who or what might be in her way.

The fleshy arms tried to muffle her cannon, but the energy blast that exploded outwards vaporized anything it came into contact with, an attack that also set the appendage ablaze. She screamed as her tail came up at super sonic speeds, slicing the tentacles that had wrapped around her legs in half, pasting the walls with their vile residue.

She kicked in a panic to backpedal, boots scraping against the cold metal as she tried to stand up, her left arm hanging by her side, injured. Her headlamps blasted to life at full power, illuminating the beast that stood at the end of the hall. Massive rows of teeth lined a monstrously large jaw that seemingly served no other purpose than to rend flesh from bone, easily large enough to swallow her whole without a second thought.

"All consumption is death for the consumed. Yet all must eat, so we all bring damnation to one creature or another." It spoke in a ghostly tone, no eyes to speak of yet she knew it was staring her down like a particularly delicious morsel.

She snarled a feral sound, the tell tale sound of a Metroid's primal screeching echoing throughout the entire compound. Like a wounded animal she eyed the demon with glowing red eyes, blooded and bruised wings flaring out wide behind her.

"You will be food; nothing more..." It snarled in the face of her defiance.

"What the hell are you?" She growled, knees bending slightly in preparation to move.

It tilted its head to the side, gazing right through her. "I...? I... am a monument... to all your sins." Its words were the proverbial gunshot that instigated the fight as she snapped her right arm forward, blasting a shot of densely charged plasma. A wall of flesh seemed the sprout out from nowhere to stop her beam, but it did little in the way of defending against the flesh melting properties of her Chozo Plasma.

She leapt backwards to avoid two more tentacles that seemed intent on flattening her into the ground, thrusters flaring to life as she deftly dodged its attacks. She watched in disgust as the tentacles opened up and began to fire dense shards of ancient bone like spines at her with blistering speeds.

She needed to get out of there, knowing damn well that trapped miles beneath the surface was not the most ideal location to battle a gargantuan leviathan class monster.

She also knew that there was no chance in hell that it was going to allow that, and that her only option was to end it here and now.

Its mistake, however, was separating her from the rest of the platoon. For now she had no reason to withhold any of her latent abilities.

She took her aim as she landed, firing off another charged beam of plasma energy. Tens of tentacles came up to try and stop her, but they couldn't keep up. She swapped to her Super-Missiles, blowing through layer after layer of Forerunner metal and flesh and bone, burning all until there was nothing left.

"Your resistance is but nothing in the face of the Flood. Your presence here is an offering that you cannot hope to stop." It mocked from within the walls, the world around her beginning to shift and change.

She finally let go of the attack, cannon smoking as it cooled off. Where previously the thing's head stood protruding from a hole in the wall now stood a giant empty chasm, a opening that lead deep underground into a massive open cavern.

She winced at the pain in her wings out otherwise paid it no mind as she rushed headfirst into the fray. She couldn't let this thing escape, not here, not now!

"Master Chief! Do you copy?" She called out, blasting forward into the cavern. "Order everyone to vacate the area, secure this site and alert high command immediately!" Her voice was distressed as she shouted over the comms line, rushing down the corpse littered halls to chase the snakelike abomination as it fled.

''Samus? What's your status, over?!'' The Spartan's voice snapped over the radio, static interfering with the audio quality.

"Don't worry about me! Get my Zebesians and your Spartans out of here! Get the blackout offline and warn the Infinity now, there's no time to waste." She ordered sharply, legs bending to absorb the shock as she fell hundreds of feet down into a newfound open chamber. "I've engaged the Gravemind! Acknowledge?" She stood to her feet, eyeing the demon as it stood coiled up at the far end of a tunnel hundreds of feet long. It laughed tauntingly towards her, hissing a low threatening sound.

Hundreds of armed bodies came pouring out from the walls, Covenant, Human, and pure Flood biomass abominations.

''Negative!'' The Spartan's distressed shout startled those around him, but he didn't care. ''Disengage immediately! That's an order!'' He exclaimed sharply, the sound so uncanny coming from him that it did well to express the severity of the situation.

"And let it get away?!" She snapped back, the world around her lighting up as she charged her weapon. There was no chance she was going to let this thing roam freely.

''Samus!'' He shouted, but realized that arguing with her when she got this way was futile. ''Damn it woman.'' He grunted lowly, before cutting off the line. He had a job to do.

She stood a little straighter as she eyed the cornered monster, watching as it poised itself tall and dangerous, looming over her like dark god from a million years past. Ten tentacles rose from its body, in its grasp the bodies of warrior Sentinels, their beams all aimed solely on her.

"Child of my enemy, why have you come? I offer no forgiveness, a father's sins, passed to his son." It echoed, voice ringing throughout the tunnel. "Or have you come seeking the truth? The knowledge of the gods of this universe?" Its head tilted to the side, judging her, tempting her.

"Truth I have, and truth I shall give. Submit to me and join us. Become one and conquer the universe. There shall be no more pain, no more suffering, nothing. You will all become one being." It loomed closer in response to her static nature.

But…

"I don't listen to false gods." She spoke lowly, eyes razor thin as she glared up at the dark god. She didn't say anything more as she took her aim, firing a blast right into its face.

""I... have beaten fleets of THOUSANDS! Consumed a galaxy of flesh and mind and bone!" It roared so loudly the tunnels began to shake, Sentinel beams charging up to cut her down. "One single soldier will not stand in the way of total consumption. Even you will fall." Its tone lowered into something more contrived, dark and sinister.

She leapt to the side to avoid the initial attack, arm cannon snapping forward to blow away a piece of its body. She hit the ground, sliding to avoid gargantuan fleshy arms that chased her down with minds of their own.

She hit the wall of the cave, sucking in a breath as tons of flesh threatened to flatten her ruthlessly. Yet in a flash of white she was twenty feet away, landing in a role as she took aim once more. The tip of her cannon began to glow white as she charged a seeker volley of Super-Missiles, pushing through the walls of death that stood before her with unrelenting explosive power.

Beams struck her body, but she paid them no mind, armor absorbing the blow as best it could. It hissed in anger at her attacks, reeling back once it realized it was cornered. The world shook around them as it slammed its gargantuan body into the walls, the cave collapsing to reveal even more underground tunnels.

She cut the attack off again once she learned that it dug deeper to escape her approach, a giant hole in the ground left in its wake. She felt a strange thrill of exhilaration at the prospect of having to chase another leviathan class abomination deeper into a planet, something she'd done on more than one occasion now.

"After it! This abomination's very existence threatens our children, our world, our people! Do not stop until it has been wiped from the face of this universe!" The Queen inside her roared in demand, the ex-Bounty Hunter's eyes bleeding into a vile red.

She leapt after it, wings flaring out wide to support her as she chased it down the underground canyon in a battlefield only she could maneuver. Beams of light came flying her way as it backpedaled, her shields flaring to deflect the blows.

She swerved in the air as she prepared to fire missile after missile, slowly but surely chipping away at its massive collection of biomass. Hundreds of Flood infection forms threw themselves at her in an attempt to slow her storm, but she stood unperturbed.

But it was fast, terrifyingly so as its limbs carried it deeper and deeper into the planet, rapidly advancing towards the hollow core. Gravity began to change the deeper she went, the air growing lighter and lighter.

"I know every corner of my tomb…" Its voice echoed from all around her, bouncing off the walls. It seemed to be the only warning she was going to receive as she chased it around another corner of the underground canyon, eyes widening when beams of high powered Promethean design shot right at her.

She avoided the first attack, deftly folding to the side as they flew overhead, narrowly missing her entirely. She attempted to slow her approach to avoid the second volley, yet they served their purpose perfectly, surgically cutting her left wing free from her body. Suddenly rendered flightless, she was sent careening into the underworld with a surprised shout, the ground opening up to the cryptum containment chamber.

The world opened up into a familiar tomb, the prison wherein the Didact had been held prisoner all those years. Orange light radiated throughout the entire underground world, the pulsing power of ancient Promethean energy coursing at the ready.

She hit the ground hard, bouncing off the rocks with little time to try and right her fall. But she was far from finished, using the momentum to kick back up to her feet as she slid to a stop. She hissed in pain, looking over her shoulder to find the corpse of her mangled ruined wings protruding from her backside, rendered completely and utterly useless, one missing entirely.

They would only get in her way from here on out…

Taking a page out of a certain thorn in her side from her past she reached up over her shoulder, taking hold of the mangled bony broken wing, before tearing it off. It turned to dust as it fell to the ground, her suit sealing up the gap where she'd once worn her extra appendages as if they'd never even been there.

"You mustn't underestimate this abomination. This pit will not be our grave, mine nor yours. Do not disappoint." The Metroid Queen growled lowly from the back of her mind, her third eye opening as she gained a proper look at the monster that stood between them and the destruction of the entire universe. Her tail snapped about behind her violently with a mind of its own, like a snake that stood poised and ready to strike.

She stared the monster down from across the divide, arm cannon charged up by her side as it coiled up tall to tower over her. It chuckled lowly at her, rows upon rows of teeth grinding together in preparation to rend flesh from bone.

"Foolish little creature. This tomb, is now yours." It taunted before it launched right after her…

"Go go go! Move your ass!" DeMarco's shout rang out down the frozen halls as he fired round after round past his retreating Spartans, explosive bullets colliding with the fleshy bodies of the things that at one point were Elites.

"Shit, these things just don't give up!" Hoya's voice was accentuated by the sound of his shotgun ringing out over and over, only to go silent for a moment as he reloaded the shells as fast as he could. "Damn it, where's the Chief?!" He pumped the weapon before pushing forward through the army of bodies.

"He's on his way! Clear the room, don't let them get out!" Grant's voice was tight as she aimed down her scope, putting heavy 7.62mm high explosive rounds through heads with terrifying accuracy. She took cover behind a support beam as some of the Combat Forma fired off plasma rounds right back at her, using the weapons of the consumed against them.

"The hell? These things know how to shoot?!" Madsen hissed, ducking as a Fuel Rod soared overhead, crashing into the wall behind him. Steadying himself he unloaded his entire mag of his assault rifle into the creature nearest him before slamming another mag.

"Grant, on your six!" Buck shouted, rushing in to blow away a Combat Form that had managed to sneak up on the other Spartan with a shotgun of his own. "There's too many of them, we have to fall back! We're going to die if we stay any longer!" He shouted, forced back as hundreds of combat forms and Infection Forms came crawling out of the walls.

"Fall back, fall back!" DeMarco shouted, steadily losing ground as he and the rest of his platoon struggled to hold their ground.

"What are these vile creatures?!" The Zebesian nearest to him hissed, her cannon firing at plasma down into the halls to try and slow the rapid spread of the corruption. Her wings flickered in disgust as she leapt backwards to avoid a rather violent explosion, landing beside the Spartan team leader. She hissed as plasma fire slammed into her, her shields falling as she retreated to safety.

"The blackout is still jamming our comms, Infinity can't be warned. Until Vespian can disable it we're all in the dark." It was that moment that saw the Master Chief climbing out from the destroyed elevator shaft, his armor scarred and burnt. "All teams fall back, that's an order." He grunted lowly, pushing through the line of Flood to rejoin the other soldiers.

"Chief? Where's Samus?" Paul grunted, falling back as he reloaded his weapon for the fifth time in the last two minutes.

"She's occupied." He muttered darkly, tone terse. Following his words they all heard a muffled yet massive explosion echoing from somewhere deep within the facility, a bright reddish orange light indicating the tell tale signs of Power Bomb detonations. The underground tunnels began to collapse from exposure to the massive yield explosions, the world around them shaking.

"Understood." The Majestic team leader responded grimly, falling into line as he made his retreat.

Everything had just gone from bad to worse, and he didn't know of any sort of protocol that was capable of preparing him or anyone there for the situation at hand…

Chapter

50

End