Metroid

CHAPTER 1 - The Comedown

It was done.

Samus had escaped from planet ZDR, destroying Ravenbeak and all his research on her way out.

Now the only metroid DNA in the entire galaxy… was in Samus herself.

Adam had betrayed her to the Galactic Commission, bringing about the ironic twist of fate of a bounty hunter now turned prey. For her DNA, her continued existence itself posed a risk to the stability of the entire galactic civilization.

Samus stood up and kicked her control chair hard. She pulled off her helmet and cast it into a corner, her long, golden hair cascading down, shimmering eerily in the green light of the control console.

A strained sob escaped her as she stood behind the chair, and she slammed her fist on the headrest. She ripped off her gauntlet and arm cannon and with the same reckless abandon, cast them into a pile in the corner. Then, piece by piece, she removed her armor until she was in the vivid blue second skin she called her Zero Suit.

She found the three pentagons on the neck of the suit with the fingers of her left hand, which caused it to retract like a rubbery liquid, then condense into a hand-held pod, which she placed carefully on the nightstand next to her cot, and made her way to the head.

Closing the curved door of the head to reveal the full-length mirror on the back of it, she gazed at herself for a long while.

Visually, she was no different than before this awakening of the metroid DNA in her. Long, golden hair, eyes as vividly blue as her Zero Suit, and skin as fair as porcelain. But the mission had left her gaunt, with muscles bulging from beneath her skin with no feminine veneer to soften it.

And she was an orphan. Again.

Emaciated and alone, a genetic experiment on the run from civilization. She realized she was squatting, crying.

Some bounty hunter.


She hated this part of the job. The comedown. She had never handled it well, and it certainly wouldn’t end well this time. She spent the next days and weeks in her ship naked, wandering aimlessly, staring out the front screen, brushing her hair, reading a book in her cot, waiting for some kind of horrible change to take over her body.

Waiting to sprout fangs, or turn into gelatin, or suck all the energy out of the ship the next time her hand touched it.

But nothing happened. The tall, athletic blonde in the mirror stayed a tall, athletic blonde, though constant mindless snacking and overindulging at the food replicator had softened the hard lines of her body that she had hated so much.

She supposed she had the sacrifice of the Chozo-turned-X, whom she had absorbed before taking off, to thank for stabilizing her genes. Slowly, the pressing anxieties of transformation and the underlying sense of illness that her gaunt body had given her faded away, and she was able to consider her position. Her long-term position.

She was an outlaw. Once the galaxy’s most heralded defender, now she was the object of a bounty, dead or alive. Suddenly, she remembered something. A once-hated enemy. A group of fellow outlaws.

The space pirates.

Would they be able to put aside their differences (she had killed quite a few of them, and ruined all their research efforts as well)? There was no use hiding who she was, she was notorious and she would have to offer them her skills anyway. Her suit still lay in a pile by the command chair. She looked at it, munching thoughtfully on another carrot cake cupcake in one hand, and a chocolate donut in the other.

She couldn’t stay on the ship forever. Eventually she would have to land and refuel, resupply the raw materials for the replicator. She took a few large gulps of a dark, heavy pilsner and took another bite of donut. That last thought was motivation enough.

She got up from the couch that her cot converted into during waking hours, and sat down in the command chair for the first time since escaping the planet. Space pirates hideouts were, by their nature, not common knowledge, but as a bounty hunter, she kept a vast stock of data on all criminal activity. After poring over the most recent data readouts from before her network access had been cut off, she punched in some coordinates that seemed likely, and programmed the ship to reroute. About a month out at light speed.

Then she ordered a big basket of crispy French fries and another pilsner from the replicator, and resumed her position on the couch, and focused all her energies on enjoying her last action-free month.