Matt smashed his fist into the cave wall, causing jagged chunks of rock to explode toward them. A hard kick through the air launched the boulders at the armored figure.

Well, that was certainly impressive. Maybe they weren't just humans.

Nevertheless, the unarmored male's reaction speed didn't hold a candle to hers. Even as Matt's fist smashed into the wall to jettison the rocks, orange light enveloped her arm cannon completely, then receded. The frame of the weapon jutted forward, and burning red light emanated from the gaps in the armor plating of the cannon. As the boy kicked them at her, she locked on and fired repeatedly.

With each shot, a stream of superheated ions streaked out of the barrel of her cannon, utterly destroying each rock before they could hit her. Now, her weapon was trained on Matt.

R.D. was in shock. This person had reaction speeds that he had rarely ever seen. "Matt, stand down," he said, looking over his shoulder. "I don't think we have the advantage here."

"Well, one of you knows when they're over their head," the figure said with a surprisingly feminine voice, surprising R.D.. Still, her weapon never deviated from where it was aimed at, that being Matt's highly unprotected face, and that voice held an air of no nonsense: it was cold and hardened and left no room for argument. "Stand down. You're human, from what I can tell, so I'll give you a chance to talk. If you continue fighting, I'll kill you."

Matt lowered his hands slowly, only to give way to a smirk. "I must say, I do have to respect a person that has a gun pointed at my face." It was a she, right? If so, she was damn fast. If he had to attack, might as well try to get her to lower her guard first.

"Who are you?" Hugo asked, his pickaxe only halfway foward due to the figure's sudden draw.

"My name is Samus Aran," the figure said. She kept her weapon trained on the group, even though R.D. was relaxing, having deactivated his arm cannon by now. Samus, as she called herself, lifted up her left hand, and pulled off her helmet. Blond hair came free as her face was exposed to them, and R.D. took note of the beautiful, but hard face, the cold blue eyes that belonged only on a warrior. Her face was flat, showing no emotion.

"One would have thought you'd have heard of me before," she said when the others here showed no reaction. She tucked her helmet under her arm, held against the side of her armor.

"We're not from around here," R.D. said, letting his visor retract back into the helmet, which he removed and and tucked under his right arm. "We're pretty ignorant about things when we travel."

"Being ignorant can get you killed," Samus said flatly. "The five of you may have special abilities and know how to fight, but this world is dangerous, and not everything on it is something you can fight against."

Yep. Female after all. "Look, we were taking it carefully when we got here," Matt said. "I may not look the part, but I'm experienced in this kind of thing."

"Are you the one who owns that orange spaceship?" Helena asked, keeping her place behind Matt.

"Yes," Samus said, noticing the child peeking out from behind the woman to stare at her. "It notified me the moment your group arrived in the area."

If it alerted her the moment they appeared, R.D. hated to think of what it could have done to them had they actually touched it.

"So, where's your ship?" she asked of them.

"We... don't have one," R.D. said slowly. Samus arched an eyebrow at them.

"Don't have one? Explain."

"It's a pretty long and boring story," Matt said.

"Is there even a point in trying to hide it, Matt?" Hugo asked, glancing up at him. "You just chucked a bunch of heavy rocks at her, I'm sure she can handle the truth."

Matt sighed. "Fair enough." He explained the tale so far. "But there's a bunch of radiation surrounding what we think is the Omega Essence is, and I'm not partial to getting space-nuked, you hear me?"

It was fairly hard to believe, Samus decided. But it was believable. Portals were nothing new in this universe, though entirely alternate dimensions were still theoretical and unproven. If what these kids said was true, then alternate dimensions existed. It would be the discovery of the millennium.

"So, you kids already located and detected the Phazon?" she asked, her arm cannon finally lowered.

"Phazon?" R.D. said, arching an eyebrow at the woman. "Is that what the radioactive material is?"

She nodded, and explained. "The Phazon is a foreign, highly radioactive substance and an extremely dangerous mutagen," she said. "It was introduced to Tallon IV's ecosystem by a meteor that impacted into the planet. The Space Pirates have been using it in experiments."

She went on to explain the Space Pirates and their operations on the planet, how they had found the Impact Crater and began mining the Phazon, using their experiments to bioengineer a new class of super-soldier to use against the Galactic Defense Federation. And she told them one other thing.

"Phazon isn't the only thing that's in that Impact Crater," she said. "Something is alive down there, feeding on the Phazon. The Chozo called it the Worm, and they imprisoned it there. The Space Pirates found it, though, and they call it Metroid Prime. And through their own blasted stupidity, they inadvertently upgraded Metroid Prime when it started assimilating their own weapons. If I want to stop the Phazon from spreading, I have to kill it."

It sounded like they had stumbled into a battle in some weird galaxy far, far away, judging by Samus's story, but Matt was more concerned about the Phazon. "So," he said, "if the Omega Essence is in a bunch of Phazon, do you have any way we can move through it and pick it up without bodily harm?"

"Not really."

Short and to the point. R.D. got the feeling that Samus was a woman who wouldn't put up with Matt's antics.

"I can protect myself from the Phazon once I get close enough to some of it," R.D. said, "But I won't be able to touch the Omega Essence. I touched one piece once, and I don't feel like risking death this time around."

"What?" Samus said, arching an eyebrow back at R.D..

"I can replicate any kind of energy signature I've encountered. My armor doesn't have radiation shielding like yours, but if I get close enough to the Phazon, I'll be able to use its energy signature in a way that can ward it off," R.D. said. "Ileyna says she can keep the Phazon at bay, and she's proven she's capable, but she's not exactly in any position to walk into a combat zone."

"I see," she said.

"Look, it seems like you've got more experience with this place than we do," Hugo said. "Can you help us get where we need to go?"

"I work alone," Samus said flatly. "My job's easier to do when I don't have people I have to babysit."

"Yeah, well, we can take care of ourselves," R.D. countered. "And if something hostile on this planet's gotten a hold of the Essence and has absorbed it, you're gonna be in trouble and you'll need our help."

"You can't get the Essence out," Ileyna piped up. "That's something I can do, but no one else can."

Samus contemplated it for a moment. "Are you sure you can handle this?" she asked, looking at them. "There's places that I have to go where you're not physically able to go.

"Physically means nothing to us," R.D. said. "Matt and Ileyna can fly and I can use Chaos Control to teleport if its necessary."

"Fine then," Samus said. "But you need to keep up when we go. I don't wait around and I'm not babysitting the lot of you."

"Don't worry about us," Matt said. "Just worry about that Metroid Prime thing, because if he's already gotten to the Essence, then we'll have a problem."

"Just stay alert," Samus said, placing the helmet back over head. "You never know when you'll get attacked on Tallon IV."

As she spoke, she switched to the Scan Visor and scanned each of the people present, logging them in the armor's integrated database. It'd be best to know their capabilities before they had to fight together.

"So, you're heading to these Phazon Mines, right?" R.D. asked. Samus nodded.

"My ship's detected an unusual amount of Phazon present at the deepest part of the Mines," she explained. "I can't be sure, but I have a distinct feeling that its the 'Omega Pirate' that I learned of in the pirate data I've logged while down there last time."

"Sounds like you've got a rogue's gallery of guys to watch out for," Matt quipped. "I hope you get paid good for putting up with this kind of stuff."

"I don't kill Space Pirates for money," Samus said shortly, finishing up the scans of the five outsiders. "Let's go. We've wasted enough time."

Turning around, Samus marched out from the mouth of the cave. Looking back at the others, R.D. shrugged and made to follow her, arming his arm cannon again. Samus led them to the doorway on the other side of the landing site, up on a small rise. "What's up with these doors, anyway?" R.D. asked, looking at it as they approached.

"These days, door systems in the outdoors are fitted with blast shields," the bounty hunter said. She lifted up her arm cannon and fired another Plasma Beam at it. It struck the blue shield, and it faded, allowing the door to automatically opened, revealing some sort of cave. "Since most creatures don't have beam weaponry, they can't open them and mess with things."

"Alright, that sounds easy enough to deal with," R.D. said, looking at his right arm.

"What kind of creatures are on this planet, exactly?" Helena asked. Her eyes were glued wide ever since they got here. The old Helena sure was fascinated by space when they fought Greedy, Matt remembered. Made him wonder how often she got out when she was revived.

"Plenty," Samus said, stepping into the cavern, which had a sand-filled floor, and strange glowing mushrooms on one side of the room. As they stepped in, the ground rumbled, and with loud screeches, a pair of large, blue-carapaced beetles exploded from the sand, showering it everywhere. Ileyna shrieked in surprise, diving behind R.D.. Almost immediately, Samus and R.D. took aim and blasted them with their weapons, causing each one to explode violently as the attacks struck them.

"Like those beetles," Samus continued, turning to the side and walking past as if what happened was a common, everyday occurrence, and continued into a small tunnel nestled into the wall. "Others include Zoomers and Geemers, Shriekbats, Bloodflowers... most of them have been affected in some way by the Phazon."

"Those names sound like a third grader named them," Matt said. He jumped as Hugo smacked him on the leg, hard. "Well, they ARE!"

"I don't care what they're called," Hugo said. "If I can kill 'em, that's good enough for me."

But Helena was looking around, not only to take in all of the detail, but to probably watch for any sudden attacks. "I just hope we don't encounter any more."

"They're not that hard to kill," Samus said, opening up a blue blast door. "There's worse things that you have to look out for. But where we're headed, we'll find nothing native, and nothing friendly."

"That's reassuring," R.D. muttered as he followed her out. As he looked around at the new area, Ileyna went and took Helena by the hand, likely for reassurance. They were back outside now, in some sort of canyon. A small river with a tree in it to their left, fed by a small waterfall flowing into it from their right, flowed to a pool in its center, where ledges sticking out made crude stepping stones up to an overhang up above. Underneath and past the ledge was an unnaturally smooth half-pipe structure, and another blast door. It was still raining.

Samus ignored the half-pipe, and instead made her way to the ledges leading up to the overhang. Spherical, spike-covered creatures wandered aimlessly on the ledges, where other small waterfalls fell down, running off of them into the pool. One of the creatures was red, and constantly jutting out and retracting spikes as it moved.

"Zoomers, and a Geemer," Samus said before they could ask. "Also easy kills. Stay away from those mushrooms, though."

R.D. saw the mushrooms that Samus was talking about. They were growing out of the pool, and occasionally, they'd rustle on their own.

"What do they do?" R.D. asked as Samus blasted away the Zoomers and the Geemer with her Plasma Beam.

"They explode, and the spores they emit are highly toxic to exposed skin. They can do some damage to shielding and armor, too."

"Right," R.D. said, deciding to stay the hell away from them, hopping up onto the ledges after her as she opened up a door next to the overhang, spiraling around onto a bridge of woven tree branches, which also looked unnatural. Stepping past the waterfall, he entered the door and went into the tunnel past it, just as a large plant spat something at the bounty hunter.

She aimed at the projectile and fired, detonating the spore--the pollen released condensed a bit and flew back, bursting as it came into contact with the Bloodflower. The toxins it released onto it splashed upwards onto the glowing sacs on the tree roots within, and they exploded violently, tearing the Bloodflower apart. As Samus fired, the wiggling grass on the ground retracted into the soil.

"Is this entire planet out to kill everything, or what?" R.D. said, slightly disturbed at the violence displayed by the indigenous life of Tallon IV.

"That's evolution for you," Samus said shortly, walking along the side path and the roots to get to the door on the other side. "The Phazon only made everything more vicious than it already was."

To navigate over the more treacherous obstacles, Helena took Hugo in her arms and allowed herself to be guided by Matt, who kept himself busy immolating any jerks that got in his way. Beyond a close call with a mushroom, their progress was safe and steady. "After this I'm going to be so thankful that my planet doesn't include ridiculously killer mushrooms," Matt remarked.

Ileyna simply flew up to the doorway using her manifested powers, settling down on the ground in front of it before Matt, Helena, and Hugo reached it. Once inside and out of the rain, the group followed Samus to the other end of the chamber and out the door that she shot open. The bounty hunter stepped out onto the end of a large ledge, giving them all room to step out into the room, which was large and mostly circular, the top open to allow rain to pour in. Other ledges were above and below them, covered in thick tree roots. A pair of stone pillars with indented centers collecting water lead a path down to a bridge of roots that obscured a sand-covered mound on the ground floor.

Samus, however, was looking upwards. "Wait here for a moment," she said, motioning for them to stay.

"What's wrong?" R.D. said, raising an eyebrow at her.

"We need to go down to continue, but there's something up top I need to get first. Just stay here, try not to do anything stupid."

"Right," R.D. said, turning back to Matt as Samus aimed her left arm out at some device fixed to the ledge above them, and fired some sort of energy grapple beam at it. "You heard the lady."

Ileyna giggled as Samus swung over to a far ledge, killed a Geemer and continued up the path, killing another Bloodflower and a Zoomer in the process. She jumped towards nothing... and yet landed on something solid. R.D. looked back just in time to see it.

"Okay, what the hell?" he muttered as she jumped up and landed on yet another invisible platform and then onto a ledge above them. Once more, she jumped onto another invisible platform and then into vine-covered cave, then back out and onto the invisible platform before making a double-jump over to another ledge.

"Okay, Hugo? You see anything that we can't?" R.D. asked as they all looked up in dumbfounded amazement.

Edited by RisingDragon on December 29, 2008 at 19:11:21.

"Hold on." The Mettaur narrowed his eyes. A purple film glossed over his eyes as his X-ray vision activated. The invisible platforms that Samus had used became defined in a bright glow. "Invisible platforms all right."

"Sweet!" Matt said, bending down to leap on them.

"She said not to move, Matt," Hugo said. "But knowing you, you'll probably do it anyway."

"You are well-versed in my actions." He remembered one of the steps Samus had took, and leapt up, balancing himself on the same spot Samus had used. "Sweet!"

"Be careful, Matt!" Helena said. "You don't know where the others are!"

"I'm not going to comically fall over, Helena," Matt said. "Don't think I'm THAT dense."

Something hard and heavy landed onto the platform next to Matt, and Samus stood back up from the jump, looking down at him with a flat look, though he'd have a really hard time seeing it through her visor. "I told you not to follow me," she said. "Now get down."

R.D. sighed and shook his head, having seen Samus return to the ledge and jump off of it, aiming for the invisible platform closest to the bottom instead of the one nearest to her. Apparently her armor allowed her to ignore the severe heights of this place.

"Make your way to the ground level, and be careful," she called out to the others on the ledge. "There's more beetles incubating in the mound below."

"Gotcha!" R.D. said, collecting Ileyna in his arms and jumping down the two stone pillars and onto the bridge of roots next to it, following it down to the stone walkway leading towards the mound, which had some sort of fumes wafting up from it due to the movement beneath. As he set Ileyna down on the bridge, Samus plummeted down onto the bridge behind them, landing with ease.

"All right, come on," Matt said to Helena, lowering his arms. "Jump up."

"What?" she asked. "You want to carry me or something?"

"Can you fly down by yourself?"

Helena frowned. "You know I can't."

"Then you gotta hold onto me or something, I gotta take us all down there."

"Well, okay." Helena wrapped her arm around Matt's waist, and gripped Hugo tightly in her other arm. "Ready."

"Don't let go," Hugo warned.

"I won't."

"Okay!" Matt said. He bent down, gathering courage, and took a great leap, down the pillars, and over toward the bridge. "WHOOOOOO!"

But the sudden movement was enough to disrupt Helena's hold, and the Mettaur in her arms slipped and fell. "Hugo!" she shouted.

"Shit! Grapple Option!" Snaring the bridge, Hugo swung himself back up, and Matt leapt foward to catch him.

"Let's go," Samus said, walking past the group and down the pathway, and as she neared the bottom, the ground began to rumble. As she had said, seven beetles erupted from the dirt, and skittered towards them. The group quickly opened fire, tearing them apart in seconds. With that accomplished, they made their way to the door, which Samus shot open using the Plasma Beam. Beyond it, they found another tunnel, a few Zoomers crawling about in it. In its center, a rocky bridge jutted over a small sand pit--more fumes were wafting up from it, and as the smells hit their noses, they wrinkled in disgust as the smell of rotten eggs hit.

"Sulfur?" R.D. said, letting the visor close up around his face. Ileyna nearly gagged at the smell, lifting one hand up to pinch her nose shut while she gripped Helena's hand with the other. "We near a volcano?" he asked.

"We're close to the Magmoor Caverns," Samus responded, walking over the bridge. "Plenty of lava down there. You two know elemental powers, so I'm guessing you can do something about the heat? Its not safe for humans down there."

"Matt can't burn his elemental powers indefinitely, they'll give out before then," R.D. said. "But I don't have such limitations. I'll be able to figure something out."

"Good," Samus said, shooting open another door, revealing a wide, moss-covered stone room. In its center was a circular platform with an orange hologram floating above it, and in front of the platform, off to the side, a stone statue of a bird's head with a blue holographic projection on it. "All of you, onto the elevator. Don't touch the hologram."

Helena studied the hologram. "What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing," Samus said, after the rest of them had gotten onto the elevator. She herself stepped on, and walked right into the hologram. It faded from view, and the platform began to move downwards at a steady, fast pace down a smooth stone tube. "It activates it, that's all, and its too fast for people to jump on it once it activates."

As it lowered, they began to feel heat. Recognizing it as the heat that Samus warned them about earlier, R.D. seized Lumiya's powers and wove flows of elemental water and ice energy around them in a wide area, chilling them. It got rather cold quickly, and Ileyna shivered a bit. Soon, it warming up slightly as they neared the bottom, and they found themselves at a comfortable temperature.

"Nice trick," Samus commented as the platform found itself out of the tube and going down four rails, settling down into a cavern with two doorways on either side. She stepped off and moved down towards the left doorway. "There's no actual path ahead, so you'll need to use that Chaos Control you mentioned earlier."

"Right," R.D. said, following. "Just get to a decent spread of land so I can lock onto you."

They entered the next room as Samus opened it. Immediately, they came to an expansive, hall-like room filled with lava. As Samus said, there was no path, but there was some sort of magnetic rail system up on power cables overhead, part of which was embedded into a hole in the wall, with another meter-high hole set on the ground underneath it.

"So how do you get across, anyway?" R.D. said, looking at the lava warily.

"With the Morph Ball," Samus said. She seemed to curl in on herself to roll as energy coalesced on her armor, and she transformed. In Samus' place was large, violet-blue metal sphere surrounding a core of energy, with greenish-blue translucent panels set on either side of it.

"Neat trick," R.D. commented as the Morph Ball rolled up into the hole, and activated a magnetic energy grapple and rolled up onto the magnetic rail, soon rolling overhead and down the hallway.

Edited by RisingDragon on December 30, 2008 at 18:10:18.

"I can do that too," Matt said. "I'm just not very flexible."

"I'd like to see you try and cram yourself into that hole," Hugo said.

After a moment, R.D. acquired a lock on his scanner, noting that Samus had reached the other side. Judging the distance, he nodded and took out a Chaos Emerald, the white one Alasea had given him. "Alright, guys, stick close to me."

On the other side, Samus switched to her Ice Beam, causing the weapon to retract into itself and the orange light to sheathe her weapon before receding. The top portion of the weapon expanded upwards, revealing icy-white energy between the plates and expelling an extremely frigid mist. She took aim at the blue doorway and fired, causing it to open once the cold energy shot struck it, forming a chunk of ice that quickly burst before the extreme heat of the Magmoor Caverns could melt it.

Turning, she was just in time to see the flare of green light and energy that was Chaos Control, causing her to lift her left hand up to block out the light in surprise. Once it cleared, she saw the others--R.D., Matt, and Hugo were unaffected by the warp, but a disoriented Ileyna stumbled backwards a bit in Helena's direction.

"So, that's Chaos Control," Samus noted as R.D. put the gemstone back into the pocket dimension that contained his belongings while he wore the Dragon King Armor. He nodded.

"Its pretty disorienting for people who haven't experienced its effects," he said. "Me and Matt are used to it. The girls aren't."

"Well, get a hold of yourselves, we need to move," Samus said, turning back around and striding through the doorway, firing her Ice Beam at flame jets set into the right wall and the ceiling within the Twin Fires room. R.D. nodded and motioned for them to follow the armor-clad woman, and they began their perilous trek through the Magmoor Caverns. Numerous times they were forced to cross large pools of lava, with R.D. and Matt ferrying Helena over while Ileyna flew over with Hugo in her arms, while Samus easily crossed the pools using her Grapple Beam and the Space Jump function in her armor, all the while dealing with the poisonous scavenger creatures called Puffers. And once they reached the outdoor Workstation area, the interdimensional travelers made their first contact with Samus' mortal enemies, the Space Pirates--a trio of jetpack-equipped Aero Troopers assaulted them the moment they entered the area, forcing them to retaliate with a hail of energy gunfire--until Samus' charged Plasma Beam brought them to a swift end, that is.

"Ugly-looking bastards," R.D. muttered out of earshot of Ileyna once they were finished. "So, those were the Space Pirates you were talking about?"

"Yes," Samus said, making her way over to a series of grated platforms set into the wall, leading up to a ledge and a doorway. "We'll face more before we're through."

"Lovely," he said, following her up the platforms and into the flame jet-filled hallway. Samus cleared the pathway using her Ice Beam, and they found themselves in another elevator room.

She turned to them. "Before we continue, do you have clothing to keep yourselves warm?" she asked, looking at Matt, Helena, and Ileyna. "I need to head into the Phendrana Drifts to get an Artifact or two and make sure the Pirates can no longer use the research stations there. But the place is covered in snow and ice and I'm not bringing you three with me if you aren't dressed for it."