Metroid Fan Fiction ❯ Stumbling Toward Elysia ❯ Lux in Tenebris Lucet ( Chapter 9 )

Chapter 9: Lux in Tenebris Lucet

 

 

"Sir, all ships present and ready to proceed," the GFS Olympus' captain said, as the Federation flagship hovered behind the massive bulk of the Leviathan they'd captured.

 

"Good," Admiral Dane replied. "Leviathan Command, you are clear to fire the portal beam. Once the wormhole is open, order all ships to enter."

 

The wormhole transition, unlike the usual tearing boil of hyperspace transit, occurred suddenly and silently. In one second, Third Fleet hung just outside Urtragia's orbit; the next, they found themselves an equivalent distance from a world no human had ever laid eyes upon.

 

"God Almighty, look at that," one of the sensor technicians muttered, staring with goggle-eyed shock at his displays. "Nothing but Phazon, as far as anyone can see."

 

"As you were," the section chief grumbled, but he, too, studied the planet with rapt fascination.

 

Another operator frowned in concentration as a series of ghostlike energy signatures began tracing across her plot. A moment later, they resolved into dozens of discrete forms, and her jaw dropped as she realized the magnitude of what was bearing down upon them. "Chief, take a look at this...!"

 

The sensor chief glanced at the display and instantly reached the same conclusion his crewman had. "Conn, Sensors! Multiple hostile contacts bearing dead ahead!" he yelled.

 

"Sound Condition Red," the captain replied. "Your orders, sir?" he continued, turning to the admiral as the emergency horns began to blare throughout the ship.

 

"How many are there?" Admiral Dane queried, staring into the tactical plot.

 

"Twenty... no, thirty capital ships, and God only knows how many small craft. Five battleships, seven cruisers, the rest are destroyers and frigates. Range 11,000 kilometers and closing. Time to intercept... one minute forty-seven seconds, sir."

 

"All right, if they want a fight, they've got one," Admiral Dane mused. "Helm, make your course 330 mark 015, all ahead full. Weapons, you have guns free, but I want hard locks before you fire. Make each shot count. Pri-Fly, clear to launch all fighters and assault craft. Comms, signal to all ships 'Execute Tivus' and then leave the channel open."

 

The communications chief tapped a series of commands into his panel. Throughout each of the Federation ships, the allcall speakers whined, "Now hear this, now hear this. Stand by for a message from the Fleet Admiral." Thousands of men and women listened as Dane's voice crackled across the lines.

 

"All hands, this is Admiral Dane. We have transited through an artificial wormhole to the planet Phaaze, which we have identified as the source of all Phazon in the galaxy. As you may already know, the Space Pirates have gathered a large fleet here, with which they intend to make their last stand. I do not intend to leave them standing."

 

Nods, quiet agreements and ooh-rahs met the admiral's words as he continued speaking.

 

"While we engage the enemy fleet in orbit, one of our Special Forces units will proceed to the planet's surface and destroy their ground support. The battle we face will not be easy, but you are the finest fighting men and women the Federation - indeed, all of galactic civilization - has to offer. I have every confidence that each one of you will perform to the utmost of his or her ability. Let's give them hell. Dane, out."

 

As the admiral handed the headset back to the communications chief, he said, "Let her go."

 

"Aye, aye, sir," the man replied. Placing the headset back on his own head, he opened another channel, this one directed to a single ship. "Hunter III, this is Olympus. You are clear for insertion. We'll hold them off for as long as we can."

 

"Copy that," a familiar synthetic voice replied, as the brilliant orange gunship dropped out of the Olympus' sensor shadow and accelerated toward the planet.

 

"Godspeed, Samus. Olympus out."

 

The Pirate vessels, totally occupied with the oncoming Federation fleet, completely missed the gunship as she made her way toward Phaaze. Juking and diving to avoid the incidental fire from the Pirates, Samus didn't even bother establishing orbit, but punched the gunship straight down into the planet's gravity well. The shields strained to their utmost limits as the Hunter III arrowed toward the surface, and inside the cockpit, small items flew about willy-nilly as violent shockwaves from the high-speed descent rattled the ship like a child's toy.

 

Why do I think I'm headed for a world of hurt, Samus thought wryly, watching through the cockpit windows as the gunship began to decelerate in preparation for landing. True to its name, Phaaze consisted of nothing but Phazon - Phazon atmosphere, Phazon oceans, Phazon rock, Phazon life-forms. Cerenkov light pulsed into the radioactive skies, and a forest of giant pseudopods, each hundreds of meters tall, undulated to some mysterious rhythm.

 

The gunship sank a few centimeters into the soil as it touched down, only stabilizing with the deployment of the ventral hatch. Samus hesitated for just a second on the hatch cover, looking at the alien landscape with a certain sense of finality. After all, if the mission went to plan, she would be the first and the last to see it in person. Here goes--

 

As her boots touched the spongy material of the planet's surface, Phazon swirled all around her, sparking and slithering over her armor. Energy surged over her, her feet floating off the ground as the material's reaction rate rose steadily toward criticality, and nausea burned its way up the back of her throat as she felt the corruption within rising to welcome it. She reached for the PED's purge button, hoping to clear it out before it caused too much damage, but the system only beeped at her in denial, as a supremely unhelpful error message popped up in her HUD.

 

[Cannot cancel Hypermode.]

 

With an azure flash, the Phazon reached critical mass, and she began to convulse as Phazon poured into and through her body, metastasizing through heart, lungs, blood and bones. Agony slashed along every nerve, and she curled instinctively into a fetal position, her voice devolving into an endless, inhuman scream as blue tears dripped inside her helmet. Corruption hovered an instant away, ready to claim her.

 

Not yet, damn you. I have a promise to keep first.

 

Through sheer willpower alone, she forced a shaking hand up to her PED control panel. Her fingers skittered uselessly off the metal at first, but she forced them back down upon the purge button, holding it down to manually override the safety systems.

 

[ALERT: Emergency vent activated. Hypermode lock engaged.]

 

Her suit's energy storage systems dumped their charge in a rush of static electricity, and the pain receded like fog in the morning sunlight as sensation and control returned to her body.

 

As the energy tanks finished purging, her HUD reset itself, replacing the familiar tank graph with a yellow monitor bar. The planet's innate, intense levels of Phazon radiation had done exactly what AU 242 had predicted, back on Bryyo an eternity ago. She was permanently and completely corrupted, forced to vent Phazon every minute just to stay alive. However, the condition came with an unexpected benefit: a limitless supply of Phazon with which to power her Hypermode weaponry.

 

For what little time I'll get to use it, this could be fun.

 

Samus began to follow the winding maze of tunnels, leading her ever deeper into Phaaze's interior. Scores of Phazon Hoppers, Jelsacs and Phazon-altered metroids manifested with each turn, along with a few creatures hitherto unknown to any realm but that of nightmare: membranous carpets that snared and ate anything fool enough to step on them, snarling maws that snapped and slavered from the walls. They all died the same way, though, blown apart by the unending stream of Phazon from her weapons as she fought her way to the planet's inner sanctum.

 

The tunnels finally led into a crèche of sorts, swarming with metroids and seething with Phazon energy. From the ceiling hung an enormous chrysalis tens of meters across, and a discarded exoskeleton lay upon the bubbling, hissing floor beneath. That thing looks familiar, Samus thought, and a quick glance at her scan visor confirmed her suspicion. The carapace belonged to the same species of creature the Space Pirates had mis-identified as a "prime" metroid back on Tallon IV, which had metamorphosed and now slept within the cocoon.

 

Huh, so the Worm was really a baby Leviathan. I wish Grey Voice could have seen this.

 

Of course, as she pried the chrysalis open and began to fire upon the creature inside, she reflected that the Chozo scientist might have liked to see her slay the abomination as much as study it.

 

As the infant Leviathan finally died, its chrysalis exploded under the overload of Phazon, and the blast destabilized a chunk of the floor, revealing a massive cavern below. Carefully stepping to the edge, Samus stared into the chasm, watching intently as a few chunks of rock, knocked loose by her footsteps, tumbled soundlessly into the yawning darkness. The pit descended untold distances into the planet's depths, much too far for any chance of climbing, wall-jumping or speed-boosting out. Once she started down, there would be no returning.

 

Well, I always knew this would be a one-way ticket, she thought with morbid humor. Somehow, the realization of her own impending death didn't frighten her at all.

 

With a slow, sad smile, she closed her eyes and leaped off the edge.

 

Down, down, falling faster and faster, the spectral walls of the pit rushed past her as she plummeted into the abyss. A minute ticked past, then two, and yet she continued falling with no end in sight. The atmosphere began to thicken, gravity itself losing its grip, and as the bottom approached, she executed a series of mid-air flips, using the increasing drag on her body to slow herself to a survivable landing speed. Landing lightly on her feet, she raised her arm cannon and looked around, surveying the chamber with wary eyes. Come out, come out, wherever you are...

 

The floor irised open, revealing the very core of Phaaze below, molten Phazon pulsing and writhing in its depths. As she stared into it, fascinated, the dark hunter leaped out, coming to a stop a few centimeters above the floor as it slid shut once more. Crimson nuclei flickered behind its visor, and she could almost sense the creature's anticipation as Phazon energy began to coil along the contours of its weapon.

 

"All right, you bitch," she said, her voice frigid as she took aim. "This time, we play for keeps."

 

Laughter echoed off the walls as the dark hunter back-flipped away, gliding behind one of the half-dozen Phazon stalagmites that had erupted from the floor. Samus ran toward it, intending to blast it with a missile, but the creature threw up a thicket of Phazon spikes around its body, harmlessly intercepting the projectile and very nearly skewering the hunter in mid-step. Dodging to the side to avoid the spikes, Samus leaped as high in the air as she could, using her altitude advantage to launch another missile. This shot sliced over the top of the spikes, blasting the dark hunter out of its cover and sending it skidding a meter or so across the floor. It staggered to its feet amid a storm of charged beam fire, and it cried out in anger and frustration as the attacks began to eat into its protective armor.

 

Half a dozen renditions of the same dance later, the dark hunter glided to the center of the room. It split into three replicas of itself, each echo ensconcing itself in a massive bubble of Phazon as it attempted to restore the energy Samus' attacks had drained away. "Nice try, but no," Samus taunted the creatures, knocking each out of the air with the same long-duration charged beam blasts that had disabled the original so effectively. The dark hunter fell heavily back to the arena floor, but recovered, echoing itself again and gliding away behind a pillar.

 

Samus snarled in frustration as the echoes began working in concert, setting one echo out to be attacked while the other two concentrated their fire on her. With three of the immensely powerful creatures attacking her simultaneously, Samus was hard pressed to avoid their fire at all, let alone generate any of her own, and her internal Phazon levels were slowly rising under the constant fusillade of missiles, bombs and beams. Strangely, though, the creature broke off the tripartite attack after a few minutes, resuming its solo form and continuing to orbit the arena. Perhaps it couldn't maintain the stress of manifesting and controlling the echoes, or perhaps it had simply grown bored. Either way, Samus took full advantage of the reversion, keeping her distance and directing a steady stream of missiles at the dark hunter. Her HUD's tactical overlay flashed red with every shot, and she grinned as its energy reserves dropped lower and lower.

 

The dark hunter fell to one knee, shaking with either pain or exertion, as its body glowed from the barrage Samus had put it through. Before she could finish it off, though, it floated away, as the far wall collapsed to reveal the true master of Phaaze: AU 313, in all its corrupted glory.

 

"What is it with me and giant brains," Samus chuckled to herself. "Let's see if you can do any better than your prototype."

 

A camera flipped out from the AU's left temporal region, studying Samus briefly, and then a pair of tentacles emerged from the same area. She destroyed one instantly, but the second survived long enough to spit a blob of Phazon at her. The projectile splattered and soaked into her armor, spiking her Phazon levels, and she fired wildly at the brain to vent off the excess before it corrupted her fatally. A few shots landed in the holes left by the destroyed tentacles, though, and her tactical overlay blinked yellow - the rounds hadn't damaged the brain, but they had stunned it.

 

That's an interesting idea, Samus thought, as a plan took shape in her mind. When the AU next deployed its tentacles, she blasted one away, but instead of immediately switching her fire to the others, she continued attacking the amputated tentacle's root, dodging the shots lobbed at her from the other three. The concentrated dose of Phazon energy overloaded the AU's control centers, and it slumped to the ground, allowing her to grapple open its frontal armor and unload the remainder of her Phazon overburden into its exposed cerebral cortex. That attack chewed away a massive amount of energy from the AU's reserves, and Samus regarded the brain with a feral grin. "What's wrong, got a headache?"

 

The AU groaned as it rose back into the air, and its exterior plating began to spark, as a node of purple energy formed in the center of its frontal lobe. A moment later, a beam of supercharged Phazon energy lanced out from the node, leaving meter-deep scars in the floor as it locked on and swung toward its target. Oh, hell, Samus thought, frantically leaping away as the beam sliced toward her. She'd seen what the AU's low-level Phazon bursts would do; she had no delusions about her survival odds if she let that beam weapon hit her.

 

Samus tried to hit the AU with a charged shot, hoping to make it break off its attack, but the blast flew wide as she tripped on the ruined floor. The Phazon beam caught Samus' left thigh and seared a path all the way down her leg, cartwheeling her into the wall. She tried to stand, but the leg promptly gave out beneath her, bolts of pain shooting up the limb as she collapsed face-first onto the arena floor.

 

That's it, then, she thought, with a sad snort of a laugh. With one leg out of commission, she could do very little other than wait for the beast to finish her off. Gandrayda, I'm sorry... it looks like I'll have to break my promise to you after all.

 

Strangely, though, the AU hung motionless, and Samus studied it with consternation. Why wasn't it attacking?

 

You can't defeat me, the dark hunter whispered from the depths of her subconscious. Why do you continue to struggle, when you could join me? I know the deepest desire of your heart, and I can grant it to you.

 

"You lie," Samus said, gritting her teeth against the agony in her leg and the pain of her ever-rising corruption. "I saw what you did to my friends. They never wanted your poison... and sure as hell they didn't want to die of it."

 

They were but weak tools, that heard my words and accepted my gift, but did not believe in my vision. You, though, I will exalt above all my other disciples, and grant you power beyond all imagination. You shall be an example to all the galaxy of what I will do for the one whose faith in me remains true.

 

"Why? What's in it for you?"

 

You of all people should know that. You and I have a special bond, more than any of my other disciples. How could we not, when you gave me life?

 

"No, you stole it from me, just like you've stolen everything else," Samus shot back. "My weapons, my armor, my DNA, my name... those things are mine. You had no right to take them."

 

But I use them for a greater purpose than you ever dreamed of, the dark hunter replied, as one of its echoes materialized from within the AU and floated toward her. You fight for money and injustice. I fight for peace and freedom. As all things are made perfect in this holy substance, so your purpose is made perfect in me.

 

Weakly, she tried to roll away from the approaching creature, but only succeeded in flopping onto her back. "No, you're wrong," she ground out. "Your perfection is death, your peace is corruption... and that's just slavery by another name."

 

The echo stood over her, almost as though gloating, as it waved a sparkling hand in the air. You seem to have confused me with the masters you now serve. They rape entire planets and take the last sparks of energy from the people to feed their own greed. Their petty wars and foolish laws have caused more destruction than I ever have. You know this, and you know it to be wrong even as you fight to defend it. But if you join me, you could put an end to all that. I am a kind mistress, who only seeks to bring peace to the galaxy. You will be my greatest apostle, hailed as the hero who saved all of civilization from an eternity of suffering. All I ask is that you give yourself to me.

 

Wounded, sick, dying, Samus stared up at the echo. She makes it sound so easy, she thought. Give up, let her win - she's right, I can't fight any further. Maybe it would be for the best. No more wars, no more crime - would it really be so bad?

 

"You have many roads ahead of you, Hatchling, and it's up to you to choose the one you will travel. Be the true defender of the galaxy."

 

"We each had a hook... something we wanted more than anything. That's what she promised us."

 

"Hey, we're the good guys! Justice will prevail and all that - right, Samus?"

 

"Take the bitch down. You have to. You're the only one who can."

 

Samus nodded once, letting out a pained sigh. "You're right..."

 

I am glad you see the truth, the dark hunter whispered. Your power will become mine, and--

 

"NNNAAAAAAHH!"

 

Surging up from the floor on one leg, Samus blasted the echo into bits with a missile, and then began to fire at the AU's vertebral supports as fast her her finger would pull the cannon's trigger. The onslaught of Phazon ripped the structures apart, and the detached cerebrum swerved, sagged and hung drunkenly in midair, allowing Samus a clear line of fire to its vulnerable hindbrain.

 

"This is for Rundas," she snarled, firing a missile into the AU's cerebellum. "This is for Ghor," came a follow-up charged beam into the medulla. "This is for Gandrayda," she continued as she threw a grapple into the remains of the spinal nerves and dumped as much energy as she could stand down the line. "For the Chozo... for the Luminoth... for the planets you've destroyed... for every sailor, Marine and civilian you've slaughtered... AND THIS IS FOR ME!"

 

AU 313, pushed beyond every design limit and utterly overloaded with Phazon, simply detonated.

 

The force of the explosion shattered the walls and threw Samus across the remains of the chamber, slamming her into the floor like a rag doll. From within the ruins of the AU, the dark hunter emerged, shrieking in anger and agony as it, too, finally succumbed. With the last remains of its power, it floated skyward, trying to regenerate itself as it had done so many times, but the effort failed - the damage was just too catastrophic. Emitting one final howl, the dark creature blew apart in a storm of Phazon particles, and Samus let out her own scream as the world dissolved into blue oblivion.

 

It might have been seconds or hours before she came to, but as she opened her eyes, she realized that the crippling nausea she'd felt ever since the onset of the corruption was gone - in fact, she felt completely normal. When she tried to look around, though, she noticed that her helmet didn't move with her head, and no HUD was visible in her visor. What the? she thought, trying to sit up and failing as her back, abdomen and hips refused to bend. The armor had completely shut down - only her limbs could move, and that was limited at best without the armor's actuators to power the heavy, vacuum-sealed joints.

 

Great safety feature there, Samus thought wryly. The armor was designed to lock out movement in the neck and torso joints under certain failure modes, thereby reducing the risk of a potentially fatal head or spine injury. The lockout had likely saved her life, preventing her from breaking her neck in the explosion and her subsequent seizure, but it had also deprived her of any means of escape. Unless she could power the suit back up again, she would be doomed to die along with everything else that lived in the bowels of the planet. I just hope to heavens this thing still comes back on startup...

 

Struggling against the recalcitrant joints, she raised her left arm to the auxiliary controls on the side of her cannon, pressed the first and third buttons and clenched her right hand. The beep and whir that echoed in her helmet just might have been the sweetest sound she'd ever heard, as the familiar boot messages began scrolling down her HUD.

 

[Chozo Battle Suit]

[Ver. SA1-4468-VM6-P]

[System check initiated...]

[ALERT: One or more system files damaged or corrupted. Restoring last known stable configuration...]

[ALERT: The following system files have been removed.]

[./sys/armr/ped.cfg]

[./sys/mobl/hball.cfg]

[./sys/etc/hgrap.cfg]

[./sys/weps/hbeam.cfg]

[./sys/weps/hmiss.cfg]

[System Diagnostics: OK]

 

Sitting upright, Samus tested her remaining limbs for range of motion. The suit responded like an old friend, its familiar yellow and orange contours flexing with her movement--

 

Wait a minute. Orange?

 

A closer inspection revealed that her armor had regained all its past characteristics, even down to its color. The PED control panel sat inert on her chest plate, useless with no source of Phazon to power it. The corruption was gone.

 

With an effort, she levered herself to one knee and then to a standing position, balancing as much of her weight as possible on her right leg. All around her, the cavern quaked and began to crumble as Phaaze itself entered its final throes, driven by the cascading destruction of the Phazon that held it together. One particularly violent explosion blew the roof off the cavern, and stars twinkled through the dust.

 

She couldn't help it; she began to laugh, quietly at first and then with more enthusiasm. Somehow, against all odds, the planet itself had provided her a way out.

 

Thousands of meters above her head, the cavern began to rumble anew, as the Hunter III maneuvered its way down the shaft. Samus half-hopped, half-crawled to the hatch as it slid open, hauling herself up and into the cockpit with the last remains of her energy.

 

[ALERT: Planetary collapse imminent. Evacuate immediately.]

 

"You've got no argument from me," Samus murmured, leaning back in the pilot's seat. "Let's get out of here."

 

*****

 

Epilogue - Three Weeks Later

 

The fading sun washed the spires and spheres of Skytown in its golden glow, and a light breeze whistled through the wires linking the ancient platforms together. Off in the distance, a flock of mechanical flyers swooped and dived through the clouds. Only one living creature saw the spectacle.

 

Alone on the westernmost of the airdock platforms, Samus stared out at the sunset. The stone head of a Chozo Defender jutted from the doorway's lintel, guarding the entrance. It was a fitting place for a war memorial.

 

The previous three weeks had passed in a blur - for the first six days, a literal blur, as she'd been bundled into a cryostasis pod and immediately shipped to the intensive care unit at GFB Norion's on-base hospital. Corruption notwithstanding, she had absorbed a near-fatal dose of radiation in the pit while waiting for her ship to arrive, and there had also been the matter of repairing her leg, which had been lacerated from thigh to ankle and grossly irradiated by AU 313's Phazon beam attack. She still limped a bit from the wound, but the Federation medical staff had assured her of a complete recovery, given time.

 

The mental injuries from her adventures proved a bit tougher to repair, though, as night after night, she would awaken screaming as memories of the incident haunted her dreams. Since she had refused the doctors' offers of medication and psychotherapy in specific, colorful terms, the base psychologist had suggested that she take up either writing or art as a more individual means of dealing with the trauma. Initially she had undertaken his recommendation out of sheer perversity - the look on the man's face when she had requested fifty kilograms of clay and a set of sculptor's tools had been well worth the price of admission - but to her surprise, she had indeed found a kind of catharsis in the work, as her project took on a life of its own. Two of the results stood on Phrygis and on Wotan VII; the third rested in the Hunter III's equipment bay, and it was there that she now headed, removing the piece from its wrappings and setting it carefully on the airdock platform.

 

A ray of sunlight illuminated the interior of her helmet, and for a moment, she saw her own face reflected in the green glass-like material of its visor. It was the same face she'd seen in the mirror every day of her adult life; no Phazon scars marred her features, her eyes were the same sky blue they'd been before the corruption. Unbidden, her memory drifted back over the events of the crisis, the evil that had claimed so many of her friends, to which she herself had so nearly fallen victim.

 

Her fingers reached for the release mechanism concealed under the helmet's chin, and with a jerk, she pulled it off, taking in a deep breath of the rarefied Elysian air.

 

Walking across the platform with slow, measured steps, she stopped and stood before the entry to the rest of the complex. With the same careful movements, she placed a small sculpture, about a meter tall and executed in ceramic, beside the doorway. Although she was no Chozo artisan, the subject of the piece was clearly recognizable: a slender female humanoid, her short hair styled in waves, one hand holding a chakram. A wide smile adorned her features, and her free hand was raised to her mouth as though laughing.

 

We all find our own Elysian fields, wherever it is that we go behind the veil of the universe, Samus thought, a faint smile curving her lips even as tears prickled behind her eyelids. And maybe someday, I'll see you in mine.

 

 

 

Author's Notes: That's it!

 

"What is it with me and giant brains" - we all know what Samus is referring to here. :-) AU 313 apparently cribbed its Phazon laser attack from Mother Brain's "brain blast" in Zero Mission and later in Super Metroid, as it's generated in much the same fashion and inflicts a similarly preposterous amount of damage.

 

The reboot sequence is taken from MP2. The -nix operating system layout is my own invention.

 

Many, MANY thanks to everyone who read and reviewed this story. For whatever reasons anyone might write, it is the reader who makes the effort worthwhile. Thank you all for doing so for me.