Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction / Other Fan Fiction / Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Fusion of Destinies ❯ Fire and Water ( Chapter 18 )
It's back to hunting X-Cores again. Oh joy.
Anime/Manga: Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction / Other Fan Fiction / Crossover Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Sci-fi / Fantasy / Action | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 02.17.2006 | Pages: 2 | Words: 7.7K | Visits: 436 | Status: Completed
a Harry Potter/Metroid crossover
Chapter 18: Fire and Water
2-17-2006
by Grey
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter series and all of its characters are the creation and property of J.K. Rowling. Samus Aran and the Metroid series are the creation and property of Nintendo, and was originally masterminded by Gunpei Yokoi (1941-1997) .
This fic is dedicated to Razor Knight and CubedCinder128, whose support gave me the confidence I needed to write this thing.
Harry stood on a tiny, rocky plateau that was barely wide enough to stand on, and it rose about a foot above the molten lava that filled the length of the horizontal corridor. A long ladder extended across the top of the entire length of the corridor, and along the sides of the walls were thick, metal girders installed to reinforce the sector's structure. Harry noticed that some parts of them were slowly melting due to the heat, and he wondered how the metal walls and the machines within them could withstand the extreme temperatures.
But Harry was more preoccupied with the three insectoid creatures coming for him. Three side-hoppers were moving in, jumping along the ceiling as if gravity worked in reverse for them. Harry breathed in deeply through his filter device, then charged a shot. He scored a direct hit on the nearest side-hopper, then repeated the process with another one. Harry quickly summoned the exposed parasites, but then, the final side-hopper had closed in and jumped down at him; it knocked him off his perch and he fell into the magma.
Harry didn't scream aloud, for the intense heat almost made him pass out. Samus had been right: even with his improved shielding, exposure to this sector's lava was not a good idea. Every square inch of his skin felt like it was being burned off....
After a few seconds, though, Harry managed to make a mighty double-jump upward and return to his rocky perch. The side-hopper was still on the ceiling, its sharp claws gripping the ladder. Before it could attack again, Harry aimed at it and screamed, "Petrificus Totalus!" Harry saw it tense up, and it released its grip and plunged into the molten lava.
Harry stood on his rocky platform and watched the creature burn away. He was breathing heavily, his filter cooling the superheated air so it didn't incinerate his lungs. Even with his shield's varia effect, it was insufferably hot for him, and thick sweat made his clothes cling to him like a second skin. And I wanted a sector with a warmer environment, Harry thought surlily. Careful what you wish for, Harry.
Sighing, Harry turned around and leaped, using the space jump to fly through the rest of the corridor, which was now free of any hostiles. He was starting to get a little impatient; he had spent over thirty minutes exploring the insufferably hot areas of sector 3. At first, the rooms were manageable; the ones near the entrance were merely corridors where the floors were littered with sand dunes, and powerful heat lamps in the ceiling irradiated everything. But once he got down to the lower bowels of sector 3, everything changed.
But he had found no traces of the X-Core lurking withing sector 3, and Harry desperately wanted to eliminate it so he could leave. Traversing volcanic environments was not his idea of a good time.
Soon he reached the hatch at the end of the corridor. After stepping through, he found himself in another long, vertical shaft with ladders lining both sides. There was a small ledge and a hatch directly across from him, and Harry deciding to see what was beyond it.
What awaited him was a modest chamber, no pools of lava or rocky walls. It looked like a chamber one would expect to find in a space station, with red metal plating lining the walls, with the occasional power conduit or readout screen here and there and a couple more support beams. The ceiling was about twenty feet high, and the chamber seemed to strecth on for hundreds of feet, like a long hallway.
And crawling along the floor, walls and ceiling were what looked like gigantic, slimy lobsters, over ten feet long, and occassionally a powerful burst of fire from one end propelled them forward.
"BLAST-ENDED SKREWTS?!" Harry cried in disbelief. But he didn't have time to ponder how the X had sampled Hagrid's bizarre creations. One was closing in, using its fiery emissions to launch itself at him, and its stinger was at the ready. Before the grotesque beast could get close enough to use it, however, Harry lashed out with a magical blast of water, stopping it in its tracks. Two charged beam blasts from Harry finished it off.
Harry immediately got to work wiping out the rest of the Blast-Ended Skrewts, deciding to use this chance to replenish his overly-taxed shields. A couple of times, the ones crawling along the ground almost grazed him with their stingers, but for the most part Harry had no trouble clearing the chamber.
Once the chamber was cleared of Blast-Ended Skrewts, Harry ran to the far end, only to find a blank, solid wall. No, there's something more to this, I can tell, Harry thought, his instincts telling him something important was hidden in the chamber. Perhaps there were more magical batteries to be found, or the path leading to the X-Core was here?
Harry switched his visor's scan mode on, and immediately noticed that a small part of the walls was showing up as red, indicating something of interest. He scanned it, and learned that that portion of the walls was made up of metal blocks that would only give way to an object travelling at an extreme velocity. Oh great, another dead end! he thought dejectedly, realizing he had no way to break through the wall. He knew of no charm or curse that could make something travel at the needed speeds.
Swearing furiously, Harry went back and exited the long chamber. Then he dropped down the shaft, discovering that Blast-Ended Skrewts were prowling the walls in this room as well, crawling along the ladders. He simply swerved to the side as he fell, evading their deadly stingers. Soon he landed at the bottom, and seeing that there was another hatch, he went through it.
The next few minutes were spent traversing another series of corridors and caverns - both horizontal and vertical - with flowing pools of magma and very little soild ground to land on. Even with his space jump, it was hard to avoid falling into the lava, for more side-hoppers and Blast-Ended Skrewts, along with Space Pirates and ashwinders, dwelled in them. Any of their attacks would knock Harry out of his space jump and make him plunge into the lava. Harry did his best to eliminate all the troublesome X-hosts in his path, but he was more concerned with finding the X-Core.
Eventually, Harry cautiously walked out into another huge chamber like the one with the impassable wall. It did not strecth outward endlessly like a hallway, though. Instead, it seemed to Harry as if he was inside a giant cube, with walls that strecthed upward over a hundred and fifty feet, reaching a ceiling just as wide. Along the sides of the walls were several machines that looked like giant furnaces, and thick pipes attached to them seemed to spread out everywhere, like spider webs. They were also giving off a raucous pumping noise that filled the chamber.
Harry looked around, and noticed that directly across from him, there was another hatch. And along the wall to his left, there was a series of platforms interconnected by stairs, which led up to a hatch about fifty feet up from the floor....
And then he saw power being drained from those hatches, and they became locked shortly thereafter.
Alright, I found it! Harry thought exuberantly, raising his wand and looking all around. But for the moment, whatever had caused the hatches' power to drain away wasn't showing itself. He was locked inside this gigantic chamber with an X-Core, he was certain of it. But where was it? "Damnit, show yourself!" Harry cried out impatiently, as if he could command his unseen enemy to reveal itself.
After a few more seconds, it did. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw bright balls of flame coming down toward him. He made a spin-jump backward and landed in front of the hatch he had come through. He turned in the direction the fireballs had come from. Standing atop the topmost platform was what looked like a hippogriff, but its feathers were of a color Harry had never seen on a hippogriph before: a bright, fiery orange-red.
Harry fired a beam shot, but the hippogriph ducked aside. Then it launched itself off the platform, spread its wings, and dived at Harry. It came at him with a speed that was astonishing even for a hippogriph. Panic getting the better of him, Harry turned and ran, but a few seconds later he felt its talons rake across his shielded back, and he was knocked flat on his face.
He quickly got back to his feet and looked around nervously. He spotted the hippogriph standing about twenty feet away. Now that it was closer, Harry noticed it was a bit bigger than a normal hippogriph like Buckbeak, and the talons on its front feet seemed even longer and sharper. But Harry didn't have much time to take all that in, for the hippogriph flung its head forward, opened its beak, and let loose a volley of fireballs.
You have GOT to be kidding me...hippogriphs don't breathe FIRE!! Harry thought panickingly as he deftly strafed to the right, avoiding the fireballs. Then again, three-headed dogs like Fluffy don't shoot electricity from their mouths, but I saw that happen too.
As he was strafing, Harry charged up a blast, and released it once the hippogriph ceased its attack. The hippogriph spread its wings and flew upward, but Harry's shot tracked its movements and hit its underbelly. Electricity crackled all over its body, but it did not seem to feel it. It merely continued to hover about ten feet above the floor, then began spewing more fireballs at Harry.
Harry ran backward and to the side to avoid the fireballs, all the while keeping his wand aimed at the hippogriph. He tried using a Banishing Charm to send its own fireballs back at it, but it had no effect. So Harry then tried returning fire, sending out spazer-wave shots in rapid succession. But the hippogriph merely glided to the left or right, easily avoiding his beams; he only made two direct hits before the hippogriph changed its tactics.
The hippogriph landed again, then darted toward Harry at top speed. It moved so blindingly fast, it took Harry completely by surprise and he barely had any time to evade it. He tried to step aside and swerve his body around as the hippogriph closed in, but its wing slammed into his arm, almost breaking it and knocking him down.
Harry sprang back onto his feet, nursing his aching arm while he looked around. The hippogriph was running away from him, but it was turning around and coming back for him, running even faster than before. This time, however, Harry was ready. He charged up a shot, and just when the hippogriph was about to ram him, he jumped up and fired his shot straight down. Harry heard his shot make a direct hit, but once again the hippogriph betrayed no signs of being in pain.
The hippogriph tried to bulldoze into Harry two more times, but he succeeded in both avoiding it again and landing a charged blast as it passed underneath him. But after that third failed attempt, the hippogriph evidently decided that it should switch its strategem again.
With one mighty leap, it rose into the air and spread its wings. Then, while flying around, it began launching more fireballs at Harry. This time, however, it did not remain in one spot, flying away only when Harry attacked. It remained on the move at all times, flying so fast that Harry's charged blasts couldn't track it. This is going to be harder than I thought, Harry mused, his hopes having been dampened; he had been counting on finding and absorbing the X-Core in a timely fashion.
The hippogriph was flying toward him again. Before it passed over him, it sent down another rain of fireballs, but Harry deftly took out all the incoming fire with a wide spray of water. But trying to stay one step ahead of the hippogriph was beginning to exhaust Harry, and he didn't turn around in time to stop the fireballs coming down from behind. By the time he did, they were too close to intercept, and no less than four fireballs struck his body.
Ugh, this thing'll whittle me down if I don't do something fast! Harry thought furiously as he fired another charged blast; miraculously, the hippogriph didn't fly away quickly enough to evade this one. But what can I do? It moves WAY too fast! Not to mention it can fly, and....
The word 'fly' echoed in Harry's mind like the tolling of a giant church bell. In all the confusion and adrenaline-induced excitement, he had completely forgotten that he could fly too, thanks to the space jump. But how can that be of any help? And can I possibly fly as well with the space jump as a hippogriph can with its wings?
As he was pondering this, he noticed the hippogriph was fluttering in one spot again, and its neck was arched back, as if to look upward. It was about sixty feet above the floor and fifty feet away, but Harry could still see that its beak was open, and a fierce, fiery glow was coming from it....as if it was charging a beam.
Harry had a feeling he knew what this meant, and decided to take a desperate chance. He jumped backward, and the instant he did, the hippogriph flung its head downward. A bright, orange, pulsating beam shot out of its mouth, and it struck the spot where Harry had been standing. Harry then made another jump forward in midair, and his space jump kicked in and his body curled up and started spinning. He bounded again and again up towards the hippogriph, which was still hovering in place and trying to aim its continuous beam at Harry. However, with an ease that surprised him, Harry avoided the deadly heat beam and eventually reached the hippogriph.
With one last midair bound, Harry soared over the hippogriph. Then he broke his space jump and dropped down, landing on the hippogriph's back. "Try breathing fire at me now!" Harry cried out smugly as he wrapped his arms around the hippogriph's neck. He did so just in time; a microsecond later, the hippogriph was thrashing about wildly, flailing about in all directions in an attempt to shake him off. It did not succeed.
Harry then put the last phase of his plan into action. Still clinging the hippogriph's neck desperately with both arms, he pointed his wand up at its head and charged a shot. Hearing this, the hippogriph shook about even more violently, but Harry held on and fired his blast at its head at point-blank range. Then he continuously fired beams at its head, occasionally letting loose with whatever unpleasant curse came to mind.
After about a minute, the hippogriph finally fell victim to Harry's close-range assault. Its wild bucking motions ceased, and Harry could feel the feathers, muscles and bones underneath him start to liquefy. I guess my plan worked, Harry thought pridefully as he jumped off the hippogriph's back and space jumped across the room, eventually landing atop the thin metal platform in front of one of the hatches.
Turning around, Harry saw the shelled X-Core slowly floating toward him, about thirty feet away. Like the X-Core left behind by Fluffy, a hole had formed in the front of this one, and Harry aimed a Reductor Curse into it. That familiar cracking sound filled the chamber, but another orange beam shot out of the hole. Harry hopped aside and the beam missed him, but it burned a hole through the thin platform he was standing on.
After three more carefully aimed Reductor Curses, the membrame shattered, and a free-floating X-Core hovered about ten feet away from the platform (which was now riddled with burn holes) . And another one bites the dust, he thought with a grin as he leaped toward the giant parasitic blob. Once his spinning body flew into it, it was absorbed by his body, and that familiar energized feeling coursed through him.
Harry dropped down to the ground; despite falling almost fifty feet, he landed as gracefully as a cat. Harry wasn't taken aback by this, however. His attention was instead focused on the message flashing across his HUD.
PLASMA BEAM AND SPEED BOOSTER ACQUIRED
Another beam? thought Harry, perplexed. Deciding to try it out, Harry raised his wand again and willed it to fire. Just as before, three energy blasts shot out of his wand, two of them rotating about the center one as they travelled across the chamber. But there was an obvious difference. Instead of purple electricity, the three blasts were bright orange, and emitted blazing heat. When the blasts struck a nearby wall, Harry heard electricity crackle around it as usual, but deep burn marks were also left behind.
Harry stared down at his wand, which was giving off both fiery sparks and small crackles of purple electricity. I-I can combine heat and electricity, Harry thought, amazed at how how powerful his beam power had become. Wiping out all those X-hosts would be even easier now. And then, it gave me a second power, too, Harry realized, remembering what the rest of the message had said. Then he remembered hearing about the SA-X's brazen escapes from Hogwarts and the Handu Mountain Preserve, and it occured to him just how to use it. Harry quickly backtracked to the long hallway-like chamber, where the Blast-Ended Skrewts had respawned during his abscence. After wiping them out again, Harry stood at the front of the hatch, then broke out into a run. He didn't travel more than fifty feet before he felt something kick in. Energy seemed to radiate from his body, and he felt himself run even faster, his legs moving more and more rapidly. I must be running at more than a hundred miles per hour, Harry realized, marvelling at how fast he was running. Looking behind him, he saw four ghostly versions of himself trailing behind him, mimicking his every move.
He faced forward again, and saw that he was quickly approaching the wall. But Harry didn't slow down at all, and charged right for the spot where he knew the breakaway wall was. He ran full-speed into it, and the metal blocks melted away as he ran through them. The blocked tunnel must have extended over fifty feet, but Harry plowed through it in less than a second.
When he came out the other side, he found himself running through a narrow corridor. Up ahead, he saw that the corridor ended, but there was a small hole in the ceiling at the end, probably leading up to a vertical shaft. I think I know what to do here. Alright, how do Samus and the SA-X do it? Samus said she just crouches and then....
With a surpreme effort and a lot of difficulty, Harry ducked down and skidded to a halt a split second before he would have slammed into the wall. Harry felt his body become even more supercharged as he did this, and felt as if he could release it all in one tremendous burst. He then jumped upward, and his body shot straight up like a missile into the hole in the ceiling, and he felt his body plow through even more metal blocks. As he rocketed up through the small tunnel, he heard the distinctive hum of another battery at one point, and he briefly caught a glimpse of a hatch.
Eventually, his body exited the tunnel and hit the ceiling of a small, enclosed room. After touching down, Harry immediately pointed his wand down into the tunnel he emerged from and yelled, "Accio Crystal!" It took a few seconds, but the hidden crystal flew up through the tunnel and Harry's shield device absorbed it, granting him a seventh battery. Then he dropped down into the tunnel, falling until he found the hatch again. He then space jumped back up, opened the hatch and went through.
On the other side was a transport tube with glass walls on the sides. Harry immediately noticed that beyond the glass was the cold blackness of space, and for a brief instant this unnerved him. But he forced himself to calm down, realizing that he was in no danger so long as the glass remained in place.
He looked ahead, and saw that there was another hatch at the other end of the transport tube. In addition, right above that hatch, there was a blaring light shaped like the number 5.
Time to go for the other one, Harry thought as he ran toward the hatch, smiling. Wonder how Samus is doing. Knowing her, she probably already has the one in sector 4 under wraps.
Samus took a good look around her, allowing herself to take a few seconds and admire the beauty of the underwater area she was in. Sheafs of shale rock covered almost all the surfaces of the submerged chamber, and beautiful patterns of coral jutted out from several areas, as well as large patches of sea grass. There were several large, glass windows lining the chamber as well, letting one glimpse the massive, rocky underwater spires outside.
It was a breathtakingly serene sight to behold, and for a moment, Samus was able to forget that such beauty was merely a mask, covering up what was a hostile warzone. Those plants and coral were infected by X, and the whole area was still swarming with parasites.
Sighing, Samus got to work blasting away the coral, releasing the vile parasites they hosted. The more X that she and Harry got rid of, the better.
As Samus was exterminating the X, however, she noticed a few faint blips on her radar. That meant hostiles were very close by, but either very far above or below her. Looking around, Samus noticed that the end of the cavern sloped upward sharply, and she deduced that whatever her radar was picking up would be coming down from there. Samus effortlessly ran through the water and over to the end of the chamber, aiming her arm cannon upward, ready for anything.
Or so she thought, for as she stepped into the area directly below the vertical part of the cavern, weapons fire began raining down on her. What the...energy weapons? A turret? she thought as she backed up to a safer spot.
And then her attackers revealed themselves. The merpeople Harry had warned her about swiftly swam down into the horizontal portion of the cavern. There were four of them, their yellow eyes glaring at her maliciously and their long, green hair flowing wildly in the water. But what caught Samus's attention was that they were wielding the standard issue rifles used by Galactic Federation troopers, one in each hand.
All four of them opened fire on her again. Samus ran backward and tried to strafe to avoid their fire, but energy bolts seemed to come at her from all directions. Their weapons fire ricocheted noisily off her armor, and she could feel the impacts they made, not to mention how they steadily whittled away her energy.
Realizing she had to take them all out quickly, Samus began powering up an ice missile while continuing to dodge the merpeople's weapons fire. After a few seconds, Samus fired it at her attackers. They seemed to glide aside through the water, letting it zoom past. But once it detonated against the wall behind them, it released a cyclonic, freezing swirl of ice that froze all of them solid.
Samus then space jumped forward through the water, and once she reached the frozen merpeople, her screw attack shattered their bodies. After scooping up the exposed X, she bounded upwards until she found a single hatch to go through.
Now that she was no longer distracted by sector's beauty or attacking merpeople, Samus's troubled thoughts returned to Harry. Despite Adam's rationales and the fact that Harry had survived everything thrown at him so far, the knowledge that he was undertaking such a dangerous mission by himself troubled her to no end. And knowing that he was currently investigating a sector flowing with pools of molten rock did nothing to ease her worried mind.
Perhaps he should have come here instead and let me handle sector 3, she wondered as she opened the hatch. But she knew it was foolish to think that; she could freely move in water, whereas Harry could not. At least with the space jump and the varia effect added to his shield, he has a chance of coming out of there alive. He had better. He promised me.
Samus stepped out into another room, this one lined with narrow, branching corridors. Ugh, I'll never find the X-Core at this rate! she thought angrily as she arbitrarily chose one of the braching tunnels. It had been over twenty minutes since she had returned to the aquatic sector, and the X-Core was nowhere to be found in the topmost areas. So now she had to search the lower areas which were completely underwater, and were infested with hordes of skultera, Space Pirates, grindylows and now rifle-toting merpeople.
Samus reached the end of one of the tunnels, and let loose a charged blast at a giant skultera fish that was lurking there. It ripped through the spiky fish and opened a hatch behind it. Samus promptly darted forward, absorbed the exposed X, and ran into the hatch.
On the other side, there was what seemed like a long, spacious hallway. There was no shale rock or infected coral covering the green metal walls, nor were there any windows. The chamber was about fifty feet wide and it extended hundreds of feet. But there were no traces of any hostile X-hosts, and her radar was not detecting anything either. The abscence of any enemies made Samus nervous rather than relieve her. What's going on? she thought anxiously as she glanced all around. She positioned her left hand underneath her arm cannon, expecting a surprise attack at any moment.
Her instincts were proven correct yet again. A large metal plate in the ceiling came loose and slowly floated down to the floor. An instant later, a giant, purple horse-like head emerged from the exposed hole in the ceiling. It looked all around the expansive hallway, stopping only went it saw Samus. It opened its mouth slightly and bubbles billowed from it, and Samus guessed that it was roaring at her. And before Samus could open fire upon the new arrival, the creature's head lurched downward, exposing a long, scaly, snake-like body. It was a magical sea serpent, one that was over a hundred feet long.
Big deal, Samus thought disdainfully as the sea serpent began to slowly make its way toward her. If I could beat Botwoon, Serris and that basilisk, this'll be a snap. Another easy win.
A quick scan revealed that - as Samus had guessed - its most vulnerable area was its head. So Samus locked onto its head and fired missile after missile, easily avoiding the serpent's clumsy attempts to ram and bite her.
But even after Samus unloaded more than thirty ice missiles at its head, the sea serpent showed no signs of being weakened, nor did it even slow down the slightest bit. On the contrary, Samus's relentless assault enraged it so much, it was spurred on to move faster.
The sea serpent lunged at her again, its powerful jaws opened wide. But Samus leaped up through the water out of harm's way, only this time it had been a very close call. While off the ground, Samus locked onto the creature's head again and continued to fire missiles. Come on, you can't take much more of....
Something massive and powerful slammed into Samus from behind, sending her soaring through the watery hallway. Eventually, she collided painfully with a wall. Ugh, forgot about its tail, Samus thought acidly as she slowly slid down the wall, front-first. She recovered quickly enough, however, and turned her head to see the serpent's head barreling toward her again. With one fluid motion, she kicked off the wall and came at the sea serpent with her screw attack. The serpent's head immediately veered upward, but Samus bounded up as well, slicing off its snout. Then she uncurled at fired more missiles at its injured head.
At last, her ice missiles felled the beast. An explosion seemed to go off within its maimed head, as if a balloon had expanded within it. Fleshy portions of its destroyed head scattered everywhere, floating weightlessly in the water. And then a sort of chain reaction began, travelling down the sea serpent's body, causing each affected portion to swell and burst.
When it was finished, all that remained of the sea serpent was hundreds of free-floating X parasites, suspended lazily in the water. But Samus immediately noticed something was wrong: there was no X-Core.
What...how can this be? Samus thought disbelievingly, feeling a mixture of confusion and anger. Something that huge surely must have been controlled by an X-Core!
But even as her mind tried to make sense of this impossibility, Samus immediately sprang back into action, charging her arm cannon to draw the hordes of parasites to her. However, she only managed to draw about a dozen of them to her. The rest had already began to take other forms. Now there were several evirs occupying the hallway along with her: gigantic, scaly beasts that vaguely resembled a cross between bloated, orange seahorses and gigantic shrimp.
Instead of all ganging up on her, however, the evirs turned and slowly swam toward the other end of the long, expansive hallway, as if Samus didn't mean a thing to them. For a few seconds, Samus stared at the retreating X-hosts, unsure of what to do. Well, I suppose I should follow them, she reasoned, seeing no other sensible course of action. Then she took off after them.
But she had hesitated for too long. The evirs had already made it to the other side, and the hatch was already open, allowing them to pass through. When the last evir entered the hatch, it abruptly shut itself, just as Samus ran up to it.
They're trying to lead me somewhere. Undoubtedly into a trap, Samus deduced as she reopened the hatch, which was devoid of any evirs. Samus noticed her rate of breathing was increasing, and some beads of sweat were forming on her forehead. The prospect of walking into an obvious trap was bound to make even a hardened bounty huntress like her a little apprehensive. But she entered the hatch, regardless. She had a job to do.
Upon exiting the hatch, she realized that this room, unlike the last one, was lined with shale rock and had several large windows, and extended upward over two hundred feet. The chamber had a cylindrical shape to it, having a diameter of over a hundred feet, and up above Samus, the evirs floated about, seemingly unaware of the new arrival.
Samus aimed up at them, but suddenly, the evirs reverted to the forms of free X parasites on their own. Scores of them now swirled about the watery chamber, as if caught in a waterspout. And then, Samus noticed something else float down from above: a glowing, writhing X-Core.
The smaller parasites converged upon it, and they all took form quickly. Within seconds, what was suspended a few dozen feet above Samus was yet another specter from her past.
It was Draygon, the Space Pirate guardian that lurked within the Maridia region of Zebes. It resembled a larger version of an evir; normals ones were a little taller than Samus, but Draygon was almost twenty feet in height. It had a somewhat cone-shaped, pointy head and a hexagonal mouth lined with jagged teeth. Its shell was a brilliant, bright green, protecting its backside like a thick layer of armor, but its underbelly, though bulging and exposed, looked incredibly resilient as well. Six long, spindly legs jutted out from its middle, and protruding from its bottom was a short tail with a long, thin, dangerous-looking spike.
"Not another one!!" gasped Samus, momentarily rooted to the spot due to the frightful memories that the sight of Draygon evoked. Draygon made the first move. It came at her at top speed, soaring effortlessly through the water, and reared back its spiked tail. The sight of Draygon coming her way snapped Samus out of her torpor and she rolled aside just as the menacing spike would have impaled her. She turned to face Draygon and powered up a missile, but she did not attack, and she wouldn't bother until it turned around. She already knew it was useless to try and attack Draygon's shelled back.
It wasn't long until Draygon did turn around to try and impale her again, and when it did, Samus fired her diffusion missile at its underbelly, then followed up with more ice missiles. Draygon's eyes narrowed and its maw expanded, but otherwise, it showed no signs of injury and did not slow down the least bit.
Just lovely, Samus thought irritably as she dodge another attempt by Draygon to impale her. But she felt more worried than irritated, seeing just how tough even Draygon's weak point was. And there was no firing-the-grapple-beam-in-the-power-coupling-while-Draygon-held-her trick to save her this time!
Draygon turned and swam upward before it would have crashed into the shale-covered wall. Samus fired a charged blast at its underbelly, then began firing more missiles. But she fired off only three more before Draygon made another move. It swooped down again, but its tail made no motion to skewer her. Instead as it soared over Samus, it spewed out white blobs of gluey material. Samus didn't move fast enough, and became covered in the sticky mass and was rooted to the spot.
Damnit! I forgot about that! Samus thought, enraged at herself for not remembering this crucial detail about Draygon. She tried valiantly to pull herself free, but even her strength couldn't snap the gluey strands that bound her. Turning around, she saw Draygon getting ready to swoop down and run her through....
Uh-oh, thought Samus as Draygon bolted forward. However, she forced her not to panic and think. At last, the solution came to her. She bent downward and curled up, and then went into a screw roll. Her energized, spinning body instantly sliced through the gluey substance, and she sped out of harm's way.
She unrolled directly underneath Draygon and aimed up. She fired missile after missile, and apparently she caught Draygon by surprise because few a few seconds he made no effort to avoid them. However, Draygon soon regathered his wits and dropped straight down, as if to crush Samus. Samus simply jumped away, but then Draygon lurched forward and grabbed hold of her, the tips of its legs pressing against her sides.
Oh NO!!! Samus thought, her mind reeling as Draygon floated upward, roaring happily now that she was its prisoner. It pressed her up against its underbelly, as if to ensure she didn't slip away. Samus's mind was reeling; Draygon had her just where it wanted her. It could strike her with its spiked tail with wild abandon and she had no way of breaking free. And there was no exposed power coupling to fire her grapple beam into like before....
Draygon finally began thrashing its tail upward at Samus, the pointy spike grazing across her armor. Every impact shook her to the bone, and she could feel where the spike was starting to make gashes in her suit. If this kept up, Draygon would penetrate her armor within a few more seconds.
Think, Samus, THINK!! she mentally screamed to herself as Draygon's spiked tail smashed into her yet again. Glancing at her HUD data, she saw that half her energy was gone. At this rate, Draygon would soon drain it completely. I can't aim my arm cannon back at it, but I've GOT to force it to release me! But how?!
Then, as she felt Draygon's legs press into her sides even tighter as she struggled, an idea came to her. With the way it's holding me...maybe, just maybe....
Just as Draygon was about to strike yet again, Samus bent forward as best she could and tried to will her body to go into a screw roll. Her efforts immediately bore fruit, and her body began spinning while Draygon held her. For Samus, it reminded her of spinning in morph ball mode with the boost ball while in a spinner slot. She felt her rotating body scrape against Draygon's underbelly, digging into its exposed flesh. Not only that, Draygon hadn't been able to stop itself from lashing upward with its tail, and her screw roll sliced off its deadly spike.
After a few seconds, Draygon had the sense to release her. After touching down on the cavern's floor, she turned around to see her fortunes had reversed. The tips of Draygon's legs seemed to have been melted off, and the spike on the tip of its tail was gone. But what struck Samus as the most significant was how her screw roll had left a long, deep ugly-looking gash across part of Draygon's underbelly.
Of course, the screw attack does the most damage! Samus realized. She had forgotten that when she fought the original Draygon, she hadn't had the screw attack at the time, and it hadn't occured to her to try it. Until now.
Should've thought of it earlier, Samus thought, thoroughly annoyed with herself. Oh well, at least I have Draygon now! She charged up a shot and aimed for the injured part of its underbelly. This time, Draygon let out a howl that reverberated throughout the water. Samus began firing more missiles as she edged closer to the colossal water beast, then she jumped up and tore into its underbelly with her screw attack.
Draygon desperately tried to back away, but Samus kept jumping up into its underbelly, determined to bore her way through. She felt her spinning, blazing body go in deeper, sinking further and further into its innards. Eventually, however, Samus veered off and touched down again, confident she had done enough damage.
Looking up, she saw she was right. Draygon's armored shell was falling off in segments, and the fleshy remains of its body were reforming into a membrane-encased X-Core.
Samus immediately got to work, sending out a missile at the approaching X-Core. Even in the water, the loud cracking sound of the missile impact could be heard. Amazing how I haven't been in danger of running out of these yet, Samus mused as she fired another missile, noticing she still had over a hundred left in her stock.
In no time at all, Samus's missiles breached the membrane, and Draygon's X-Core was exposed, ready to be absorbed. And Samus did so, space jumping up through the water to reach it.
After it was consumed by her body and suit's systems, she slowly dropped back down the bottom of the cavern. She silently wondered what sort of new ability this X-Core could possibly grant her; to her, it seemed that she already had every weapon and ability she would ever need. But within seconds, once the X-Core's energy and biomass had been fully absorbed by her suit, another message spread across her HUD.
FIN SLASHER ACQUIRED
'Fin slasher'? Samus repeated in her mind, not sure what the message meant. She was about to look into her database for new entries, but then, she thought about the possible significance of the word 'fin'.
She looked down at her left arm, at the three small, sharp-looking fins underneath her forearm. She brought her forearm up to examine them more closely, and for a few moments she stared at them intently. Ever since she gained the fusion suit after receiving the Metroid vaccine, she had never given the fins under her arm much thought; she had always dismissed them as a trivial, insignificant new feature of her altered suit. But now, could she have absorbed an ability that affected them?
As she was examining them, something happened. The three fins slowly started to lengthen, and somehow looked even sharper. Samus's eyes were wide with shock as she watch the fins continue to grow. After a few seconds, they had elongated to a length of over two feet. It was now as if she had three curved, ultra-sharp swords underneath her forearm.
Another close-range weapon, Samus mused as she continued to stare at the elongated fins. She then clenched her fist and made several swift slashing movements with her forearm through the water. First the wisp whip, now this 'fin slasher'. I suppose it's a good thing to have all these new close-range weapons.
She looked down at her forearm again and concentrated on the fins, trying to will them to shrink back down to normal size. A moment later, they began to steadily shorten, and soon enough they were just as they were before.
Deciding it was time to move on, Samus started walking back toward the hatch. But after a moment, she stopped, and turned back to look up into the cavern. There must be something else in here, she thought as she switched on her x-ray visor. Sure enough, along one side of the cavern, about fifty feet upward, there was a portion of the wall that looked differently when viewed through the x-ray spectrum.
Samus space jumped up through the submerged chamber toward that spot. Once her body made contact with it, her screw attack sliced through the shale and the metal wall behind it, exposing a small niche with another hatch. When she went into it and the door slid shut, the water began to drain out of the hatch, which meant whatever was on the other side was not underwater.
On the other side was another transport tube. This one led to sector 2, which housed lush, tropical environments. Samus looked through the glass on one side of the tube, seeing the hundreds and hundreds of distant stars that dotted what was essentially empty space. She quickly glanced behind her, remembering what happened last time she went through a transport tube. But Samus forced herself to calm down, reason taking over. Yeah, the SA-X must've recovered by now; she probably can heal herself with a power bomb too. But without her helmet, she can't breathe underwater. She couldn't have followed me.
And so, Samus ran through the transport tube which would lead her to the tropical sector. I could use a change of scenery, she thought. After fighting Draygon again, I think I've had enough of water.
As she opened the hatch leading to sector 2, Samus realized how that sector would've evoked troublesome memories for Harry as well. I remember...that second task in that tournament. He said he had to travel underwater with those merpeople, and rescue Ron.... It was another example of how Harry's life was as chaotic as hers....
Well, that makes a grand total of eighteen chapters so far, yet another new record for me. None of my other stories were over sixteen chapters. I think this story will set every personal record of mine for years to come: the most words, the most chapters, the most nudity scenes.... The only record that hasn't been broken yet is the amount of reviews I've gotten for single story. Care to help out with that?
Just joking around, people. Anyway, if any of you are getting tired of the Metroid-y approach to the recent chapters, fear not. As you all might've figured out already, the next one will be the last one that does that. Then it's finally time to begin wrapping everything up....
So long,
Grey