"Fear not!" Matt proclaimed, digging into their dimensional sack. "An ADVENTURER always comes prepared!" He whipped out thick, insulated jackets and gloves.

"Good," Samus said, ignoring the procured items. "Put them on and get ready. There's worse things in the Phendrana Drifts than just Space Pirates."

It'd better not be yetis. Matt hated yetis. He pulled on the jacket and watched Helena do the same. "I'm sorry, honey, but that does NOT compliment your figure."

"Shut up," she said.

"Exactly what I was thinking," said Hugo.

Once Ileyna had taken off her bolero and replaced it with her heavy jacket, R.D. increased the chill factor of the water and ice energy in the field he'd been maintaining so they didn't sweat to death between the cold-weather clothing and the Magmoor Caverns' intense heat. They piled onto the elevator and Samus activated it, launching them upwards through a tunnel. Shortly, they arrived in an open-ceiling cavern with ice-encrusted walls. Samus was right, R.D. noted, this place was freezing. He decided then to try and maintain a low-level heat field around them. Samus noted it instantly, turning towards him sharply.

"What?" R.D. said, when Samus said nothing at first.

"Don't set the heat field too high. And only keep it up when we're outdoors," she said. "The Space Pirates have stealth troopers deployed here, and they have thermal imaging gear equipped. If that field's up while we're in one of their research compounds, you'll instantly give away our location."

"A-alright," R.D. nearly stammered, nodding. "Don't worry about it. I'll keep it off when we're inside."

"Good," she said shortly, walking around them and the rocks behind the elevator. She pointed at the magnetic rail and the hole it lead up into. "There's not enough room to use your Chaos Control to get through there," she said, "But its wide enough for you to crawl through. I'll go first to open up the doorway."

"Okay," Ileyna said, looking up at the hole, which was little more than a meter-wide. She picked up Hugo and held him close to her body while she activated her powers. Samus entered her Morph Ball form and used the Spider Ball function to roll up the magnetic rail and enter the hole. Ileyna followed soon after, floating up before placing Hugo through the hole while Samus reverted and opened up the Ice Beam blast door and stepped through. Ileyna quickly crawled through the opening once it was clear and stood up, releasing her powers.

"Alright, Matt, how are we getting you and Helena up through there?" R.D. asked, looking at the hole, which was still higher than any of them were tall.

Edited by RisingDragon on January 13, 2009 at 20:20:39.

Flexing his arm, Matt stomped the ground, and beneath him and Helena, the ice rose upward in a pillar, bringing them up to the hole.

"It's kinda fun being inventive!" Matt chimed. He gestured at the hole. "You go first."

"All right." Dropping down, Helena squirmed through the hole, her chest rubbing against the cold ground. "Ow ow ow ow ow." On the other side she stood and wrapped her arms about her. "Stupid things."

R.D.'s boosters launched him up to the pillar, allowing him to stand on it as Matt was going through. Once he crawled through, they joined Samus, Hugo, and Ileyna outside just as Samus destroyed some sort of spherical energy creature with an electric-based beam weapon. Once it exploded, she centered her attention on the wall of transparent ice in the pathway, then blew it away with the Plasma Beam.

"So this is Phendrana?" R.D. asked, looking around at the falling snow as Samus entered the tunnel and picked up some sort of glowing canister before blasting out the ice wall on the other side.

"That's correct," she said curtly, motioning them to come to the other side. Nodding, they followed, and progressed through the Phendrana Drifts, starting with the Frozen Pike area, which was much like the Root Cave, where they were accosted by a pair of Aero-Troopers. At the bottom, Samus had to go on ahead underwater to the Hunter Cave, so that R.D. could warp the others via Chaos Control. There, they fought off a vicious Hunter Metroid. They once again split up, with Matt's group making their way down and across the deep cavern to the doorway on the cliffs opposite of them, while Samus returned to the Gravity Chamber to retrieve something. Once she returned, they continued through the tunnels to Phendrana's Edge, where Samus retrieved another one of the Cipher Artifacts, the Artifact of Spirit, and an expansion device.

Through the Frost Cave they went, making their way towards the Frozen Pike again, where Samus said they would find the back entrance to the research labs of the Space Pirates' Phendrana base. Once they returned to the Frozen Pike, they were forced to fend off another pair of Aero-Troopers. Once the two aliens had been destroyed, Samus lead them up the Pike onto the root bridge leading to a Wave Beam door. Once Samus opened it, R.D. knew it was time to cut off the heat field--at the end of the short tunnel, the walls were made of metal, electronics hidden within them. They were at the Research labs of the Space Pirates.

"Be on your guard," Samus said curtly, making her way towards the Ice Beam door. "They've got the interior blacked out. R.D., Hugo, make sure you switch to thermal imaging gear. The rest of you, stay close. They might still have Metroids stored in the Research Core, and those things know how to break their containers."

"Right," R.D. said, switching to the Thermal Visor data Samus had updated his armor using her own.

Edited by RisingDragon on January 13, 2009 at 20:20:17.

"Ice Option." Hugo's pickaxe changed, allowing him to fire blasts of cold. Oh, yeah...Metroids were vulnerable to ice. Matt switched to the water elemental gem. Finally, more excuses to shoot icicles at things he didn't like!

"All right," he said, looking at Helena. "Ready?"

She opened her eyes. "Yeah."

"What's the matter?"

"I'm tired. I know I shouldn't be, but ever since we came in here, I've been getting a lot more tired."

"Well, don't slack off," Matt said. "We're entering dangerous territory again."

"You say that like we ever left it in the first place," R.D. said, rolling his eyes. He too switched to an ice element, readying the weaves for ice energy to use against any of the flying life-suckers. Samus aimed the Ice Beam at the door and fired, opening it up, and stepped into the room. Immediately, a missile turret across the tall, circular room activated and aimed at Samus, but her charged Ice Beam froze it in place. Before she could continue, another missile smashed into her side, exploding against her Gravity Suit's energy shielding. R.D. aimed his own arm cannon at the nearby missile turret and destroyed it with an icicle, while Samus aimed and destroyed a third one up on an upper floor.

Luckily, they could easily see with the Thermal gear they had equipped. The walkways were lit up on the thermal imaging, and in the containers built into the walls, Samus, R.D., and Hugo could see the Metroids floating about. Despite that, they made their way up the four stairs, destroying the Metroids with ice blasts and concussive missile weaponry whenever the parasitic creatures escaped their holdings. They also had to deal with more missile turrets, but they weren't that hard to deal with.

They progressed through a tunnel guarded by sentry drones, and delved further into the complex. Within the next room, they found stealth pirates--while Matt, Helena, and Ileyna couldn't see them, the others did. And they seemed surprised Samus was not alone. It wasn't long before they reached an elevator, though, and they were able to see daylight again. "There's another artifact nearby," Samus said. "I'm going after it. I'll need you to cover me while I do--there'll be more Aero Troopers outside."

"We can take them," R.D. said, switching back to more conventional energy weaponry.

"How're you doing?" Matt asked Helena. She gave a little nod in response. "Don't conk out on me, okay?"

"Ileyna," Hugo said. "Give me an update on the Essence."

Ileyna concentrated as they boarded the elevator. As it climbed the short way to the upper floor, she finally sighed and shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "The Phazon stuff is weirding me out."

"We'll worry about it after we get out of this region," R.D. said, as the elevator came to a stop. "Get ready."

Samus shot open the Wave Beam door and ran outside, with the others following. They came out into a rectangular platform with a number of stacked gray boxes of varying size, with a circular building opposite of them. R.D. caught sight of an Aero-Trooper in the upper floor of that building, which growled upon seeing them. R.D. took aim and fired several beam rounds from his arm cannon, but the alien was able to activate its jetpack and fly up out of harm's way before they could connect, flying out of the opening in the building's ceiling.

It retaliated with beam fire from its own weaponry, sending a series of hot green bolts at R.D.. He raised up his shield to block the attack, then countered while a second one flew up out of the building they came out of. Samus took aim and destroyed it instantly with the Plasma Beam, causing it to scream as it was incinerated. She jumped up onto the ledge above the door and entered the building through the open window.

The first pirate steadied its flight and lifted its arms to its sides, readying its missile weapons and locking on to the group down below.

With a shout, Matt raised his right arm. A ball of electricity materialized over the Aero-Trooper, discharging a burst of lightning at it.

The burst of lightning caught the pirate by surprise, tearing through its jetpack. The creature spiraled out of control and smashed against some sort of device stacked on some of the crates, causing the jetpack to ignite and all of the crates to explode violently. The force of the explosion caused R.D. to duck slightly.

He heard the telltale sounds of incoming jetpacks, and sure enough, two more Aero-Troopers appeared, flying up from the sides of the walls on either side of them. "Shit, look out!" R.D. said, laying down some cover fire. One moved in closer, but suddenly an explosion rocked the bridge beside them, and the towering structure on the left side shifted with a flurry of snow. It teetered over and collapsed, smashing into one of the new Space Pirates and killing it instantly as its jetpack detonated. The tower smashed through the wall and broke open a hole in the floor.

Missiles flew in at R.D. and Matt, and R.D. flung himself to the side. Coming out of his roll behind a stack of crates, R.D. pivoted out and laid down some suppressive fire against the remaining Space Pirate, which weaved its way out of the shots, distracting it.

Helena let out a scream as the missile impacted, disrupting Matt's reflexive dodge roll. He landed behind cover and charged electricity, leaning out to fire a Thundering Star toward the Space Pirate, followed suit by Hugo's frozen bursts.

The Thundering Star electrocuted the Aero-Trooper, causing it to spasm uncontrollably, preventing it from dodging the incoming attacks. Hugo's shots quickly froze the alien, and R.D. grabbed the edge of the crate he hid behind and threw himself upwards into the air over it, at the frozen, hovering Space Pirate. His hand ignited in the bluish-white flames of Godhand, and he swung out, smashing the alien into pieces with it.

Luckily, it was the last of the creatures. Samus appeared, jumping out of the tower and entering the Morph Ball function of her armor before she even landed. She rolled over to the fractured wall and floor and dropped through the hole, coming out behind the wall. There was the Artifact of Elder, the blue and orange holographic pieces floating about in a circle next to the base of the fallen tower. She quickly collected it and returned using the side of the fallen tower.

"How many artifacts does that make now?" R.D. asked the bounty hunter upon her return.

"Eight artifacts," Samus said briefly. "There's only four more left to collect. Some of them will likely be in the Phazon Mines."

"Let's just hope we can find the Essence quickly," Matt said, dusting his hands. "I don't got time to jump around searching for artifacts."

Bryant jumped when the warmachine landed, shaking the earth as much as the Brute. Bryant sighed in relief and grabbed a hold of Brandon as the turret on top continued to create a very very big mess on the ground. Bryant tugged Brandon as best he could as some horde members were able to break from the fire of the turret. Bryant gave them some shots to the head and continued his slow venture to the tank. He slid the door open as a horrible scream sounded through the air. Bryant looked up as a pouncing creature lunged at him. Bryant reeled back his fist and threw it forward, hearing a loud snap as the nose of the creature broke. Bryant through Brandon in the tank as the creature lunged again. Bryant brought a pistol to its head and splattered its brains along some trees. The turret above had stopped firing, only spinning uselessly as the ammo grew dry. It would take only five seconds for the horde to charge. It took two.

Bryant jumped into the tank as the horde began climbing in. Grabbing a local autoshotty he began blasting their brains. Veronica had jumped down and began firing into the crowd with an AK-74u that was in the tank. The horde would not break enough for the door to close. Bryant and Veronica glanced at eachother. Bryant felt something wet and slimy around his shoulders and torso. He was suddenly yanked away, shooting still. Veronica yelled his name as the horde quickly crowded around the helpless Bryant. Veronica shot the tongue creature and Bryant landed on his back, shotgun empty. He was able to get a shell inside the gun before the horde attempted to rip him apart. In a panic, Bryant began simply waving his gun around, trying to fend them off. Most lost their balance and fell like blood thirsty dominoes. Veronica was still in the tank providing covering fire. Brandon seemed to have come to his senses and began firing with a couple of pistols.

"Bryant, get in!" Veronica screamed as the horde only grew around them. For each one they killed, it seemed like ten more appeared in its place. Bryant pushed and shoved his way to the Tank. He got a foot onto the tank before being yanked back by his shirt. With a roar, Bryant's shirt was torn away and he fell into the tank. Veronica kicked a climbing zombie off the tank and slid the door shut. There was a click above, the turret had reloaded itself. Bryant looked up at the seat and scrambled up the ladder, armed the turret.

"Get us the fuck out of here!" Bryant yelled from above as he began firing a path of escape. The horde were persistant however and attempted to block them and gain entry to their delicious brains.

"Now!" Bryant yelled again as the tired screeched and rammed through the horde. Bryant watched as the horde began to follow, but were mowed down by his gun. It seemed like they would escape...when suddenly they stopped. Bryant looked down and saw that horrible lolling tongue again. There was another Brute.

"If the Essence is with Metroid Prime, Matt," R.D. said, "Then we have no choice but to collect all the artifacts."

"You don't have much else to do until the girl finds the Essence anyways," Samus said shortly as she armed her Wave Beam and aimed it at the other door opposite of the one they came in from. "So you might as well make yourselves useful to me in the meantime. Now, hurry it up. We need to keep moving."

Their journey continued, as they entered a room practically identical to the one they were in before the bridge. Samus, R.D., and Hugo reverted back to their thermal imaging gear and took point. After a brief venture through a dark hallway, they came to the large Observatory, the expansive room with various platforms on its walls surrounding a massive holographic display of several planets, including Zebes and Tallon IV. They made their way down to the ground floor while dealing with a pair of Space Pirates guarding the room, and progressed on deeper into the research labs.

It was in a room with holding tanks for Metroids, guarded by stealth troopers, that Samus made them stop.

"What's wrong?" Ileyna asked, cocking her head to the side and causing her beret to slip. She pushed it back up.

"One of the terminals in here is registering new data on it," Samus said, walking up to one of them while switching to her Scan Visor. "Let me see what it says. I don't want any strange surprises down the line."

===Japan===

Alasea grabbed hold of the side of the tank and vaulted herself up on top of it after having fought her way through the horde. This was exactly why she sealed them up in the first place... she'll have to do something drastic to clean up this mess.

While the Megami Tsurugi was teeming with light energy, her free left hand was swathed in dark energy, remembering how R.D. had used such energy to cause paralyzing attacks. It had proved to be effective on these guys so far. So, as the Tank of a monster pulled Bryant off of the Earthquake, she aimed her hand at it and let fly with an Entangler shot at its tongue-filled face. The creature staggered back as black energy exploded all around it, but the dark matter was unable to cling to it and hold it in place.

She leaped off of the tank as it sped off, coming to Bryant's aid. "Watch out!" she said, gripping her sword with her free hand.

Inadvertently, she triggered something awe-inspiring and terrible. Even as her blade swung down at the monster, the ground rumbled. The skies overhead began to darken as clouds rolled in. Several yards away, three of the zombie-like creatures screamed out as suddenly, a beam of blinding blue-white energy screamed down through the clouds, smashing into the earth and vaporizing them. Elsewhere, another beam crashed into the horde, and elsewhere still, a pillar of black, vile energy erupted from the ground, piercing up through the darkened clouds.

That was enough of a cue for a break. "Who wants somethin' to eat?" Matt asked, digging into the dimensional sack.

"Pass me one of those roast beef sandwiches we packed," Helena said.

"It'll be cold."

"I don't care. I'm hungry."

He figured as much. He tossed her a sandwich and she went to town. "Anyone else?"

As the lights and darkness twisted and destroyed all around Bryant, as he hung on the side of the tank he could only think: "They found us. Oh shit, the nine found us. We're screwed. We're so screwed." Bryant flung himself up as the brute roared at Alasea then was suddenly gone. His eyes widened as the massacre, neigh, genocide of the zombies continued through out the land. They dissapeared, one by one. Dear God Bryant thought. For the first time in a very long time, Bryant wanted to run, selfishly run away and never look back. Bryant could have never been so wrong to be so scared.

Ileyna asked for one as Samus continued the scan. It completed soon, and she read through the information. "R.D., use your scanner to read through this information," she commanded. R.D. nodded and turned on his own scanner, locking onto the computer Samus indicated.

A few moments passed before it completed.

Space Pirate encrypted data encoded.

Log 10.613.3

Mining operations near the crater has uncovered another startling discovery. One team discovered a strange gemstone within a vein of Phazon, matching in the color of the Phazon. Despite this, this gemstone does not appear to exhibit any properties of Phazon. Instead, this gemstone features a different kind of energy signature. Initial studies point to the possibility that this was created as a different strain of Phazon. Science Team has authorized research to begin combat applications for the Elite Pirates concerning this stone.

There was an image of the "Phazon stone" included with the transmission. R.D. gulped.

"Um, Matt?" he said. "I think we have a problem."

===Japan===

Alasea looked about in shock and horror, trying to figure out what was going on. Nearby, a blue and a black pillar smashed into each other, causing a tremendous explosion, rocking the ground. Chaos reigned on the battlefield; the creatures were no longer concerned with them. "What did I do?" she gasped in a horrified whisper.

She looked around wildly, until she realized something. The energy released by the various beams bursting up around them were gathering into a single spot. Above them, a sphere of stygian blackness was manifesting, surrounding in a gleaming white aura of light. It was growing steadily bigger as more beams struck the ground or burst through it, or clashed against one another.

"Bryant, run!" she screamed, taking hold of the Megami Tsurugi in hand. "Get out of here, we need to get away!"

She bolted.

"Hmmm?" Matt was currently biting into a sandwich of his own.

"It seems the Space Pirates found something in the Phazon recently," R.D. explained, letting the visor retract into his helmet. "And from what I can tell, it looks like its a Chaos Emerald."

"The fuck is a Chaos Emerald doing here?" Matt asked, walking over to the computer, though he couldn't possibly read it.

"We'd better pick it up," Hugo said. "We don't need Space Pirates tampering with that kind of power."

R.D. nodded in agreement. "Last thing we need is teleporting Space Pirates," he said.

"If its only been recently found, it should still be in the Phazon Mines," Samus noted. "Let's go. You've given me one more reason to hurry."

R.D. was right after all; the last thing she needed were her enemies gaining the ability to teleport to any location at will.

Samus lead them out of the room through a tunnel and into the actual entryway of the labs. They were assaulted by more stealth troopers, but they were easily dispatched. Once they did, Samus signaled for R.D. and Hugo to return to normal vision, as the room, while cold and misty, retained enough light for them to see normally. With this, she lead them out of the labs and back into the Phendrana Drifts, where R.D. once again reinstated the heat field around them. They made the jump onto the platform in the middle of the expansive area and descended into old Chozo ruins, where they came into contact with a Sheegoth--the creature Samus had been thinking of when she said that worse things than Pirates were in the Phendrana Drifts.

After vanquishing the creature, they made their way into the Phendrana Shorelines. Samus acquired a few more expansion devices for her armor, and then they made their way to another set of ruins, where they acquired another Artifact, the Artifact of Sun--three more to go. Another search into ruins netted more expansion devices--Samus seemed eager to get them. The defenses at the Phazon Mines must be rather great, R.D. figured. They then backtracked towards the research labs, but took a different route, to a large cavern. Samus said that here, she fought one of the Space Pirates' more deadlier experiments, a living rock creature called Thardus. This time, however, they only encountered another Sheegoth.

"Jesus," he swore as Samus once again split off to retrieve something in a nearby room, leaving them to wait. "So Phazon's able to make rocks live? What kind of crap have these pirates gotten themselves into!?"

"This place is too weird," Helena said. "I can't wait until we're done here. Maybe after that we could go somewhere a bit more normal."

"Good luck finding that kind of place, sweetheart," Matt remarked with a flippant whish of his hand. "You've signed up for one crazy haul."

"What, you don't visit any dimensions that resemble Earth at all?"

"Oh, we do," Matt said. "We just learn not to enjoy them."

"My world resembles... well, resembled Earth," R.D. said. "I think Matt hates it the most of all. We were under attack there on a daily basis, and the trips there always took forever."

Matt scoffed. "God knows."

"I'm not up to being attacked all the time, you know," Helena said.

Matt glanced over his glasses at her. "Well, you're the one that wanted to come along. You've got no one to blame but yourself."

"I know that." Helena sighed. "I'm starting to wonder if it was a good idea."

"Do you think I'd be doing this too if I didn't have a reason?" Hugo said. "You said it yourself. You wanted to discover what you are. Are you going to back out now?"

"Well, no."

The Mettaur jabbed with his pickaxe. "Then suck it up. Complaining won't do you any good."

"He's right, you know," Matt said. "I complain all the time and it doesn't do anything for me. Oh, sure, it's fun, but that's all, really."

"Hopefully your complaining won't compromise our location once we're in the Phazon Mines," Samus said from behind them, causing them to whirl around in surprise. The snow must've softened the noise of her landing from the ledge. "Let's get going. We're done here, its time to return."

"Alright," R.D. said. "How far from here is the exit?"

"This cavern is practically next to the elevator we came here with," she said. "Let's get moving."

And with that, they returned to the Magmoor Caverns, with Samus pausing only long enough for them to change out of their winter gear and for R.D. to reinstate his cool temperature shield. They backtracked through the Magmoor Caverns to the Workstation, and from there, Samus lead them to another nearby elevator.

"Where will this take us to?" Ileyna asked, innocently enough.

"The Phazon Mines," Samus said shortly. The usual steel in her voice was almost gone.

Bryant banged on the side of the tank.

"About face, full speed ahead!" Bryant commanded as the tank did a half doughnut and charged down the beach, away from the chaos. Bryant looked back, holding on as the tank flew across the terrain. What in hell was happening now?

Destruction continued to rain down on the battlefield, destroying the zombie-like creatures as they came into contact with the lethal beams of light and dark, like Heaven and Hell deadlocked in a vicious battle. The speed at which the the central sphere was growing was steadily increasing as more and more of the beams struck each other and exploded. Something flared behind Alasea, and she knew things had gone critical.

As the Earthquake vehicle sped closer to her, she stopped and jumped, grabbing a hold of the side of it. She was picked up off her feet and felt as if her arm was wrenched out of its socket, but she struggled and pulled herself aboard. Light flared again, and the entire sphere exploded violently, obscuring everything with an intense, bright light. The roar of the ensuing destruction obliterated sound, but Alasea still tried to scream when the shockwave struck the Earthquake and flung it through the air like a ragdoll. Desperately, she reached out with the power to try and lessen the damage of the fall, and prayed that they didn't die.

Once the smoke cleared, there was only a field of devastation where the horde of undead had once seethed.