Samus Aran Biography: Part 2

Sometime after the end of the Bermuda Crisis, Metroids would once again become a major point of importance for the Galactic Federation and by proxy Samus. After the fall of Zebes and during the discovery and utilization of Phazon for military purposes on both sides in the fight Phazon Crisis’ sides, the Galactic Federation had been willing to look the away from SR388, the planet that Metroids were originally obtained from, but after the Galactic Federation Special Squadron was sent to check if there were any other Metroids left on the planet and they nor the following search and rescue party and special combat groups sent afterwards never returned, it was eventually decided that the Metroids had to be eradicated completely. Samus was thus sent to SR388 in order to accomplish this task, and accomplish it she did, using the upgrades that had been left on the planet by the Chozo for future explorers to destroy every single Alpha, Gamma, Zeta and Omega Metroid she came across, even going so far as to kill the Queen Metroid that had been spawning the majority of the Metroids she encountered. However, as Samus was leaving to exit the planet and report back to the Galactic Federation about the mission, she came across a single, unhatched Metroid Egg in the area behind the Queen Metroid’s chambers. The egg hatched right before Samus’ eyes, but as she readied herself to kill the Infant, she realized that it had no intention of harming her. Much as like any other infant would, the small creature had mistaken Samus for its mother, being the first thing it ever laid eyes upon. Feeling compassion for the harmless creature, Samus allowed the beast to return with her to her ship. This would prove to be an advantageous move for her, as she and the infant were ambushed by Proteus Ridley on their way out in an attempt to steal the last Metroid, and the infant was able to assist Samus in defeating her nemesis once more in his partially-regenerated state form the last time they fought. Shortly afterwards, Samus dropped off the Infant Metroid off at the Ceres Space Colony, where it could be studied and analyzed to see if it was possible for the human race to utilize their life-draining powers for the sake of good and not simply as a bioweapon. However, as soon as Samus left the station, she received a distress signal from the colony; the entire structure was being torn apart and attacked by Zebesian Space Pirates, who had been waiting for Samus to leave so they could take the Infant for themselves. Samus returned to the station too late to save any of its residents, and in the greatest shock of her life, Samus found that Ridley, now fully regenerated from his partially-mechanical Proteus state, was leading the charge. Samus did her best to stop the monster, but she was unable to save the Infant from Ridley and was forced to exit the station immediately after a chain of planted bombs started to detonate near and in the main reactor; with only a single minute to escape, Samus left the Ceres Space Colony behind, watching as it completely self-destructed behind her.

Samus pursued Ridley back to the surface of Zebes once more, where she found that the Zebesians had been rebuilding their base on the planet even larger and deeper than ever before, facing no opposition as the Galactic Federation had been extremely busy worrying more so about the planets Tallon IV and Aether and the ensuing Phazon Crisis. In the time following the end of the Phazon Crisis, the Zebesians had revitalized Kraid and Ridley as well as Mother Brain, who subsequently took full control over the Zebesians once more and brought in two more generals to occupy the planet, the crustacean monster Draygon of Maridia and the extradimensional entity of the Wrecked Ship known as Phantoon. Once more, Samus was forced to enter her childhood home and explored a much larger environment than what had been present before, finding many familiar weapons and a few new ones among the radically diverse environments on and contained within Zebes. Just like before, however, Samus was able to locate and fight off the forces of the Space Pirates and the native inhabitants of the planet, ultimately destroying Kraid, Phantoon, Draygon and finally Ridley once more, their deaths deactivating the Golden Statue in Crateria blocking access to Tourian, or more specifically a new Tourian that had been built away from the ruins of the original zone, deep down near the very core of the planet. Here, Samus once again faced a number of Metroids in the heart of the planet, created by forced cloning on the Infant Metroid via beta ray exposure. However, what really shocked Samus was to see that the Infant, due to an extremely rare genetic quirk, had not evolved into any of its normal life stages or even a Larval form, instead merely growing to an astronomical size and acquiring a life-draining power so immense that even Torizos and Blue Sidehoppers could not last long against its attack. The creature attacked Samus purely out of instinct, but just as it seemed like Samus would die at the fangs of the beast she had saved, the monster let go of her and started to float around her, crying out. At the last possible second, the Infant realized that the creature it had been attacking was its mother, and it floated away as it cried out, embarrassed that it had almost killed its own parent.

Finally, Samus was able to make her way into Mother Brain’s main chamber, as just as before, she destroyed the Control Capsule surrounding her and damaged her immensely, deactivating all of the weapons in Tourian and watching as the very tower Mother Brain had been built into self-destructed, leaving the ugly monster to flop onto the floor. Before Samus could celebrate the defeat of her nemesis, however, the floor beneath Mother Brain opened up and the brain connected itself to a titanic body, turning her from a supercomputer brain into the most powerful and deadly monster that Samus had ever faced before. In this new form, Mother Brain was still weak to damage from direct fire to her head, but this seems to do very little to actually slow her down, as she launched a barrage of energy-based attacks against Samus; this culminated with the use of her Laser Brain Attack, a super-concentrated beam of energy that took a while to power up, but when released fired a large, rainbow-colored beam from her eye that could deal such devastating damage that almost nothing was capable of withstanding the blow. She used this attack repeatedly on the bounty hunter, and aside from draining her energy at a very rapid pace, it severely damaged her suit and somehow drained much of her ammo reserves as well. After a short time, Samus was unable to get back up from the attack after the attack slammed her into the wall, and with one final charge prepared, it seemed that all hope was lost for Samus.

But just as Samus was about to meet her end, the Infant Metroid appeared out of nowhere and latched itself onto Mother Brain’s head, absorbing the Laser Brain Attack and draining Mother Brain’s life energy in the process to the point of reducing her to a dusty husk that slowly fell onto the floor, seemingly dead. The Infant floated over to its surrogate mother and used the power it had taken from Mother Brain to restore Samus’ energy. However, what the Infant and Samus had not realized was that, while Mother Brain’s own life energy was gone, the body that she had built for herself was mechanical and capable of reviving her, and within moments of expiring, her new body energized her and brought her back to life. Instead of fleeing, the Infant held onto its mother and took the brunt of several attacks from Mother Brain’s energy pulse cannon. After it had finished giving Samus back all of the energy that she had lost in the fight, the Infant rose up and flew over to attack Mother Brain again…but it had been so severely weakened from the previous attacks that it only took one final strike for the Infant to destabilize on a cellular level and explode. The last Metroid in the universe had just saved Samus’ life, and now it was dead. But in its death, the particles of the Infant’s exploded body fell onto Samus and were absorbed, passing onto Samus something far more precious than just an energy boost: it passed on Mother Brain’s Laser Brain Attack in the form of the Hyper Beam (not to be confused with the Phazon Hyper Beam used by Samus during the Phazon Crisis). With this incredible power at her disposal, Samus stood up and fired repeatedly at Mother Brain with her own weapon. Though the monster tried to fight back, its vulnerable head could not withstand the sheer power of Samus’ new weapon, and with a final scream of pain, its body self-destructed. Mother Brain’s true body fell to the floor, and as the creature opened its mouth to let out one final scream, its life function ceased and the machine dissolved into dust. This was not the total end, however, as Mother Brain had made one final choice in her plan to make sure that she would take down her nemesis if she were to die. In a fit of panic and likely paranoia, Mother Brain hooked up her vital signs to the mainframe of Tourian and the entirety of Zebes’ core, and upon her death, she triggered a self-destruct countdown for a massive Time Bomb that would ensure that every single object in and on the planet would die in three minutes. Samus, with the help of her new Hyper Beam, broke through the maze of corridors beneath the planet’s surface and escaped the planet (with the Etecoons and Dachoras she had met before similarly leaving after she cleared a path for them while escaping), only to watch it explode. Zebes was gone forever, and in turn, the forces of the Zebesian Space Pirates and Metroids. After this defeat, Samus was taken in by the Galactic Federation and her suit cleaned so she would look presentable when she entered the Meeting Room and confirmed for the Galactic Federation Chairman and most other major political members of the organization that Mother Brain and the Metroids had indeed been destroyed completely.

It would not be until the year after that announcement, however, that Samus would come to realize that her statement, unbeknownst to her, was factually incorrect on at least one crucial point. While exploring Federation territory in Cosmos region A47 one day, Samus picked up on a distress signal known as the “Baby’s Cry”, a common but otherwise extreme distress signal for help. Samus followed the signal all the way to a seemingly-derelict space station that would eventually be identified as the BOTTLE SHIP. Upon landing and exploring the first few rooms of the station, Samus came into surprising contact with the Galactic Federation Army’s 07th Platoon, and among its members were Anthony Higgs, a good friend of Samus’ during her days in the Federation Army, and her former superior officer, Adam Malkovich, now in the promoted status of Commander Malkovich. Adam and most of the team was rather cold towards Samus, Adam in particular calling her an outsider, and refused to disclose the purpose of them being there, but he and the rest of the team was effectively forced into trusting her and relying on her power after she helped them defeat a Brug Mass in a way that would have otherwise impossible for them to execute on their own. Accepting of the need for Samus’ help, Adam assumed the unofficial position of her superior officer once more and commanded Samus, along with the rest of the platoon, to observe various areas of the facility in the search for a way to bring the station’s main power back online, search for data on what the facility was actually used for and check for any survivors. After restoring the power to the station and exploring the Biosphere, Samus and the most of the platoon found themselves in the Exam Center of Sector 1, where they were able to gather some data on the facility and its purpose. As it turned out, the facility was actually under Federation control and was being used for the production of bioweapons, an act considered completely and utterly illegal by Federation standards. It wasn’t too long before Samus and the others also discovered that the facility had been used to create cybernetically-enhanced Zebesians (which Samus ended up having to fight a few of in the deepest level of the building), but for what purpose was uncertain. After Samus finished fighting off of the monsters and gathering additional intelligence of her own, she ran outside to see that the platoon was under attack; upon exiting the building however, their target leaped right on top of her and started to attack her. This monster, known only as the Mysterious Creature, possessed a great deal of strength but was eventually chased off by Anthony and forced to retreat through into the holographic panels on the sides of the larger room the Exam Center was in, carving a pathway directly into Sector 3, the Pyrosphere. Shortly after that, Samus found the dead body of Lyle Smithosinian (one of the platoon members) and the empty husk of a creature Samus had found in the Biosphere that the researchers at the facility had called “Little Birdie”. It seemed that Lyle had been killed by another person before the little monster devoured a large portion of him, metamorphosing into the Mysterious Creature. After pursuing the monster through the Pyrosphere, Samus was ordered to take on a different directive and instead head for Sector 2, the Cryosphere, as Adam deduced that it was the most likely place to find survivors in.

Samus was able to locate a survivor within the Materials Storehouse (after finding the deceased body of Maurice Favreau outside in the Experimental Floor) but was unable to interact with her too much before an unknown individual took control of an RB176 Ferrocrusher unit and tried to mow down Samus, but she was able to avoid its attacks and overloaded its energy cells to temporarily disable it; even so, though, the operator was able to wrench the controls around to make it move again only to crash into a number of shipping containers and flee the wreckage before Samus could get a good look at him. Samus was then instructed by Adam to investigate Sector 3, as the Mysterious Creature she had encountered before was hiding in the Sector and its cry was agitating the other monsters into a frenzy and thus needed to be eliminated immediately. On the way, though, Samus had to rescue Anthony from a Rhedogian, as his weapons were having little to no effect on the creature. Samus learned from Anthony that Adam had ordered all to come to Sector 3 and find a way to the Geothermal Power Plant in the back; it was the goal of the team to open the Magma Eruption Port in order to increase the flow of lava into the area to restore power to the Sector fully, but when no one else other than Anthony showed up, he decided to explore the area, which is what led to his confrontation with the Rhedogian. Eventually, Samus did make her way to the Magma Eruption Port and used a Super Missile in order to break it open, but Samus was not alone in that room. Upon arriving at the Geothermal Power Plant, Samus had discovered the corpse of the Mysteries Creature, split open just as Little Birdie had been when she discovered it. As she stood in the bowels of the facility, a targeting laser was trained in her direction, and when Samus heard the figure scream to duck, she did just that; the blast from a Plasma Gun was fired over her head and narrowly missed a much larger creature that had been lurking behind her. The new figure finally appeared before her, but the sight that she was greeted with was so devastating and traumatizing that it triggered another episode of PTSD within here; standing before her, in all of its glory, was the monster that had killed her parents and made her life a living hell ever since first confronting him on Zebes: Ridley. The Mysterious Creature was none other than the larval form of the enemy that Samus had been fighting for years, and though she had finally killed the monster on Zebes, here he was again right in front of her. In her stunned state, Samus could do very little, and the clone took advantage of this, grabbing Samus and scraping her along the walls of the Geothermal Power Plant to the point of nearly destroying her Power Suit. Anthony attempted to help out Samus with his Plasma Gun, but the weapon was too slow to charge and the Ridley clone was able to knock him off of the central platform in the plant with its tail, seemingly to his death in the lava below. With the death of Anthony on her hands, Samus snapped out of her PTSD episode and confronted the Ridley clone with the power of her Plasma Beam, managing to deal critical damage to the creature and forcing it to escape into the inner workings of the ship.

As Samus returned to the Main Sector, she followed what looked to a member of the 07th Platoon into Sector 1, thinking that it might be the “Deleter”. She followed him all the way to the Bioweapon Research Center and ran into the same women she had rescued back in Sector 2. The woman claimed that her name was Madeline Bergman, the head of the facility, and promptly explained that the people running the facility had been attempting to create a special-forces unit modeled after the Space Pirates, with their Cyborg and Super Zebesians acting as the core of the group. However, due to the presence of Ridley, even in a larval state where even the researchers did not know that it was Ridley, the creatures became ferocious and attacked the staff, leading to the disaster on the BOTTLE SHIP. The woman further told Samus about the fact that there as a restricted area near Sector 2 where the Federation was raising Metroids as bioweapons, and the only way for them to control them was using an entity that could communicate with them through telepathy; as such, the Federation decided that the only way to make this happen was to create an A.I. possessing the telepathy and therefore infrastructure of Mother Brain, calling the new creation MB. The woman showed that the Metroids were being contained in an area called Sector Zero, which had been modeled after Tourian in order to make the Metroids feel like they were in a natural habitat that the Infant at the very least was familiar with. With this information, Samus journeyed into Sector 2 and past the Nightmare to enter into Sector Zero, the engines on the ship unexpectedly turning on as she approached the Sector, and upon arriving there, it was not too long before she encountered an Infant Metroid, just minding its own business. Samus let down her guard against the small creature, but as she began to reach out towards it, she was hit in the back with a shot from a Freeze Gun, sending her to the floor and crippling her Power Suit to the point of deactivation. In her stunned state, Samus was vulnerable, and the small monster lunged out at her…only to be shot and killed by another blast from the same weapon. When Samus finally came to, she found herself at the side of Adam Malkovich; it had been him that fired the shots.

Samus learned that she had been lured into a trap, as the Metroids in Sector Zero had been genetically modified to be Unfreezable Metroids and therefore had been rendered nigh invincible against attack. In Adam’s mind, the only way to destroy the creatures was to jettison Sector Zero entirely from the station, and he chose to use himself as the operator for that disaster; by causing enough damage to the interior of the hidden Sector, Adam would be able to trigger the emergency failsafe in the ship to jettison the entire area from the station, effectively destroying it in the process. Samus begged for him not to do this, but Adam had no choice in his mind; Samus was the only human strong enough to handle Ridley, as he was still somewhere in the facility, and only she would be able to ensure the safety of the last survivor that Adam had detected in the Bioweapons Research Center. It was clear that whoever activated the thrusters on the ship was aiming to use the Metroids to launch an attack against the Galactic Federation, and there was little time to waste in the matter. With his final words, Adam ordered Samus to find a way to alter the trajectory of the ship to keep it away from Federation Headquarters and to investigate Room MW and find the last survivor he had detected on the ship and secure their safety. Samus was overwhelmed with emotion and could not bring herself to agree with Adam’s decision…but she understood what he had to do, and as he asked her one last time if she had any objections, all she could do was give him a thumbs-down.

With Adam gone from her life seemingly forever, Samus marched on and returned to the Bioweapon Research Center, exploring the full reach of the area and eventually making her way to Room MW (finding the life-drained corpse of the Ridley clone along the way), where she found the survivor Adam had been talking about; before she could get to her, however, Samus heard the sound of some monstrous beast in the room, and as she investigated, she found to her horror that inside the room was a full-size Queen Metroid, a monster more than powerful enough to destroy anything and everything it wished to and the likely cause behind the death of the Ridley clone. Samus fought hard against the beast and was nearly killed by the monster, but she caught a break when the engines of the ship stopped suddenly and flipped the beast onto its back, allowing Samus to damage its underbelly before using her Grapple Beam to force the creature into eating her as a Morph Ball and then vaporizing it by laying a Power Bomb inside of its sensitive stomach. Afterwards, Samus was able to coax the survivor out of a protected room and talked to her, only to find out that the survivor was the real Madeline Bergman. The woman that Samus had been speaking to before was not Madeline at all; it was MB. Madeline explained that in order to get the first Metroid hatchling to recognize MB as it mother, they needed to give her the form of a living creature, much like how Samus first came across the Infant from SR388. As such, they gave MB a gynoid body, and it seem that this was a great idea at the time, as her and Madeline formed such a strong bond together that Madeline came to call MB “Melissa Bergman” to make her feel more human and treated her like a mother would a daughter. However, in constantly interacting with the Metroids, MB started to develop powerful emotions just like the original Mother Brain and argued with her superiors and fellow researchers as they treated the creatures as weapons and not the living creatures they were. Eventually, the decision was made that MB has to be reprogrammed in order to ensure that her psychosis did not develop any further, but when MB was unable to get help from even Madeline (as she really had no say in the matter), she went berserk and mentally controlled the Zebesian forces under development to rebel, alongside every other creature in the facility; the ensuing bloodbath left only Madeleine alive on the ship, leading to the destruction and disrepair of the ship as it was when first investigated by Samus and the 07th Platoon.

MB appeared before the two and explained that the humans had to pay for what they were doing, unknowing that the group in charge of the facility was not in the slightest representative of the entire human race. It had been her plan to crash the BOTTLE SHIP into Galactic Federation Headquarters on Earth and unleash the monsters contained within onto the world as the ultimate act of revenge, but with the unexpected meddling of Samus and someone else that switched the engines off, her plan had been foiled. Using her psionic powers to blast off the special hairclip that had been given to her by Medline as a sign of love and care for her wellbeing, she attempted to bring the facility under control once more, but her actions were stopped temporarily by a shot from an Freeze Gun from a different soldier. While the ship had been approaching Federation Headquarters before being stopped in the middle of its flight by an unknown force, a new platoon had arrived and was attempting to take MB in. However, MB broke free of her icy restraint and summoned a number of powerful monsters from the ship to flood the room, including a group of monstrous Desbrachians. Samus attempted to fight the monsters off, but just as soon as she got a clear lock on MB, Madeline used the Freeze Gun that had been thrown towards her direction haphazardly by MB shortly before the fight to freeze MB once more. This time, the platoon was ready, and they opened fire on the frozen gynoid much to the horror of Madeline, effectively killing MB. In the end, it seemed that the Federation was going to be able to take Madeline into custody and make it seem like the experiments of the facility had never happened, but Samus and Madeline lucked out in that, hidden among the new platoon, Anthony had survived his fall from the Geothermal Power Plant and still had active orders from Commander Malkovich to secure and ensure the safety of all survivors, with the order being validated by the Chairman of the Galactic Federation and thus preventing the new platoon and their leader, the Colonel, from taking her away. As the three of them left the facility, Samus could only lament on the fate of MB and how she could have had the potential to be so much more than her predecessor…but due to human greed and disregard for life, she turned to the dark side and matched her predecessor in her hatred for humanity, even if she was thankfully never able to obtain the same amount of power before being terminated. In time, Samus would return to the BOTTLE SHIP in order to retrieve something special that had been left onboard, namely Adam’s helmet, and managed to acquire the object after fighting of her old enemy Phantoon again and evacuated the facility before it self-destructed, removing any and all traces of the Galactic Federation in the area for good.

Following this, however, came an adventure for Samus that not only changed her on a physical level, but emotionally as well and proved that the BOTTLE SHIP had not really been an isolated incident after all. The next year, Samus was enlisted by the research team of the Biologic Space Laboratories in order to acquire biota samples from the planet SR388 for research. The research facility that the organization had created inside of an asteroid hovering in orbit around the planet was attempting to create a research haven where different types of alien life from destroyed and otherwise abnormal worlds could be studied in artificial habitats to learn more about their biology and potentially help keep their populations alive in the case of creatures taken from Zebes. As they were exploring the surface of the planet, however, they came across a Hornoad that looked very strange and sickly. When the creature attacked the research team, Samus killed the beast with a Missile, only for it to revert into a gelatinous life form and bond with her suit. Samus did not know what to make of it, but she felt fine for a while and helped the team finished their job before getting back in her ship and beginning to travel off into space. However, while she was piloting her ship, something happened and she fell unconscious, entering a deep coma, and her emergency systems just barely managed to eject her before her Gunship struck an asteroid in the belt surrounding the planet and was destroyed. The B.S.L. team and the Galactic Federation were able to retrieve her body and brought her into a medical bay for emergency surgery to find out what had gone wrong. In examining her, they discovered the creature that had been absorbed into her body had infected and reproduced within her, and her body had been physically bonded to her suit. Large pieces of her organic Power Suit had to be removed to eliminate as much as the infection as possible, but they were unable to remove the creatures from her central nervous system (which is why she silently entered a coma) without harming her. She was given a small chance to survive until a vaccine was made using the tissue and DNA of the last Metroid from SR388, and upon injecting the serum into her body, it bonded with her own DNA and completely cured her of her infection. With her Legendary Power Suit in tatters, the Federation did the only thing they could and used Federation technology to fuse a new outer component to the suit, creating the aptly-named Fusion Suit.

Samus was not able to rest for long, however, as there had been an alert issued from the B.S.L. Research Station and no word had been received afterwards. With her new, severely weakened suit and both a new Gunship and a ‘helpful’ A.I. to guide her way, an entity that Samus came to call “Adam” after her former superior officer, she traveled to the station and learned of the chaos that had been let loose in the structure. The organisms, which were called X-Parasites, had taken over the entire facility and had copied and killed every single creature onboard (or so it seemed). The X-Parasites had the power to take over the body of any host and copy their genetic material in order to kill the host and take on its form, with most of its behavior and memories intact. Moreover, the cause the outbreak had been something so devastating that it filled Samus with great fear: the culprit of the outbreak was an X-copy of herself, titled the SA-X, that had bonded with the DNA in her removed Power Suit pieces and laid a Power Bomb in the Quarantine Bay, allowing all of the contained X-Parasites to freely travel through the facility. In her current state, Samus was only able to download physical weapons like Missiles and Bombs from Federation Data Rooms, but in fighting the X-Parasites, she discovered that her new genetic state gave her some interesting properties. On the downside, Samus had acquired the weakness to cold possessed by Metroids and required the acquisition of the Varia Suit in order to survive in both hot and cold environments, but even so she remained very vulnerable to the cold, which made trying to avoid the SA-X and its super-powered Ice Beam a severe threat. On the upside, however, Samus had the genetic structure needed now to absorb free-roaming X-Parasites and use them to replenish her own health and weapon ammunition, just like a Metroid would. As such, Samus was able to slowly absorb large Core-X specimens to restore much of her lost powers and upgrades, but every step into the Sectors and rooms of the facility only led to her facing increasingly-powerful monsters along the way. She did manage to rescue the Etecoons and Dachoras that had been locked away in the Habitation Deck so they could enter her ship and remain there safely away from the rest of the station, but aside from them, she was completely and utterly alone.

Over time, Samus continued to grow stronger as she continued to regain her powers, but unbeknownst to her, she was being carefully monitored by the Galactic Federation. The only weapon that would allow Samus to penetrate the thick armor of the SA-X was the Plasma Beam, and while the Federation had finally managed to properly reverse-engineer the weapon, they held it back for unknown reasons; it didn’t matter, though, as Samus was able to reacquire the powerful weapon system after defeating Nettori in the pits of Sector 2. Eventually, Samus made her way into Sector 6 and came across a strange area that had been completely sealed by a Shutter that could only be opened on the inaccessible side, though the acquisition of her Wave Beam again after the defeat of the infected B.O.X. Security Robot allowed her to enter the closed-off area. Here, she came across the Restricted Zone, and in it, the Restricted Laboratory, which provided the greatest shock to her yet on the station. In this secluded area, only attached to the very end of the research station, was a lab propagating Metroids. Not just larval Metroids, though; inside the lab were tubes containing an assortment of monsters including Alpha, Gamma and even Zeta Metroids. Samus was uncertain of what to even say, but it wasn’t too long after she entered the area that disaster struck. Samus had been warned prior to exploring Sector 6 again that an SA-X was actively targeting her, and as she had entered the Restricted Zone and left the gate to it open, the SA-X had followed her. Just as it did, however, the SA-X was stunned by the numerous Metroids in the area, and did they only thing it could instinctively: It used it firepower to break open numerous containers with Infant Metroids inside to kill them all and started a fire that activated the emergency failsafe emplaced in the area, giving Samus just a single minute to escape from the lab. The SA-X was smart enough to know that Metroids were weak to the cold and used its Ice Beam to try and slay them, but it lacked the intelligence and strategy of Samus and was quickly overwhelmed by Infant Metroids. Samus left the facility just in time, and she entered an airlock into the bottom of Sector 1, she watched as the Restricted Zone was jettisoned into space before self-destructing, taking the Metroids and the SA-X inside down with it.

Upon reaching another Navigation Room, Samus made it clear that she was furious over this. The Federation had been propagating Metroids once more, and although Adam insisted that it was done for the sake of research, Samus did not believe him. It was no longer a coincidence that Sector 1 of the station was modeled after the environmental conditions of SR388; it was there to help them rapidly propagate the creatures and accelerate their growth processes to create increasingly powerful organisms over a very short period of time. Eventually, Samus was able to make it back out of the Sector after destroying Neo-Ridley and regaining the use of her Screw Attack, but she was kept in hold in a Navigation Room by Adam and not allowed to progress any further. Adam revealed that a group of Galactic Federation agents were on their way to do the unthinkable: They were going to try and capture an SA-X for study. The Federation officials in charge of the facility and the Restricted Zone had become fascinated with the sheer power and adaptability of the X-Parasite, and they now wished to study it and its limitless applications. This was the reason behind why the Federation held back data they had prepared to finally restore the Plasma Beam to her systems (which she was able to acquire naturally on her own) and additionally why they chose not to tell her about the Diffusion Missiles they had ready for her, even though the final decision had been made after the data had already been sent; they wanted to make sure that she didn’t become too powerful and capable of confronting the SA-X directly. Samus could not contain her frustration, as she knew now that they stood no chance; if the SA-X killed them all and their bodies were possessed by other X-Parasites, they could use the ships to seek out new planets to conquer and become a galactic if not universal plague. In anger, Samus spoke to the computer directly and called it by the nickname she had given it. The machine questioned her as to the importance of that name, and while it seemed to fight against her at first, her words resulted in a very strange and unexpected reaction from the machine, as it started to agree with her and explained to her what the best course of action to take was. Samus’ original intention had been to activate the self-destruct systems put in place in the station to destroy it entirely before the Federation arrived, even if it meant going down with it, but Adam explained to her that doing so in high orbit would not eliminate the X-Parasites still living on SR388 and only serve to rob the galaxy of the sole life form capable of stopping them, Samus herself; instead, it would have been better to activate the explosives and direct the station directly towards the surface of the planet to vaporize both objects. Though it had been kept secret from all outsiders, it seems that the Federation had taken to regularly uploading the minds and memories of famous military minds to computers so they could be used later to supply experienced information on how to handle certain situations. The computer that Samus had been forcefully bound to, the one that she had come to all Adam from her thoughts of the times where she served under and with him, was in fact the downloaded mind of none other than Commander Adam Malkovich himself. With his support and direction, Samus sped off to the Operations Deck to alter the trajectory of the station so it would crash into SR388 as it detonated and hopefully destroy the planet and all of the X-Parasites that existed on its surface along with those in the station.

As Samus approached the Operations Deck, however, she was confronted directly by an SA-X, and with nowhere to run, Samus was forced to fight the creature for the first and truly the last time. The monster still had access to her most powerful weapons like the Ice Beam, Super Missile, Screw Attack and Power Bomb (though that particular weapon was not used in the battle by the creature), but with the power of the Plasma Beam, Samus was able to deal critical damage to the creature and forced it to mutate into a hybrid of herself and the Hornoad it had originally taken the form of, creating an abomination that could do little more than hop around. As Samus finally defeated the creature, it reverted into a Beam Core-X and tried to finish her off with a super-powered Ice Beam, but she was able to destroy its shell and render it vulnerable, though it escaped before she could absorb it. After activating the propulsion systems of the station in the Operations Deck and priming the self-destruct explosives, Samus had just three minutes to get out of there before she went down with it, but upon arriving in the Docking Bays, she found that her Gunship was missing, and in its place was giant, overgrown Omega Metroid. The creature must have escaped from the Restricted Zone before it was jettisoned, and the environment of Sector 1 had caused it to grow tremendously in size and power. Samus tried to hurt the creature, but its body was no match for her weakened weapons, and with a single swipe, it reduced her to a single point of energy. As the monster began to approach to finish her off, the damaged SA-X reappeared and tried to attack the creature with its Ice Beam, seeing it as a far bigger threat to its existence than Samus ever could be. Unfortunately for the SA-X, its injuries were still extensive and it was defeated with a single swipe of the monster’s claws; thinking quickly, Samus leapt up and absorbed the X-Parasite into her body, restoring her DNA to its original state and not only granting her back access to her Ice Beam but also the unnamed Omega Suit, returning her to the state of power she once possessed in the past with the Legendary Power Suit. With her weapon systems restored, Samus fired at the creatures’ vulnerable belly with all the power available to her and eventually managed to kill it. Her Gunship arrived shortly after, piloted by the Etecoons and Dachoras in order to get out of the way of the Omega Metroid, and she and her Gunship’s crew were able to make it out of the station in time, watching as it collided with SR388 and subsequently detonated, destroying both itself and the planet in its entirety. The actions of Samus that day would be seen as controversial by most eyes, or at least that is what she felt. This was the last straw for her and effectively served to sever her ties with the Galactic Federation, but she had no choice; the BOTTLE SHIP has been a disaster to begin with, but to see them trying to do something similar again was simply too much anymore. They could not be trusted. As she, her friends and Adam flew off, Adam lent a comforting word to her in saying that someone would understand. Even if her actions in destroying SR388 were seen as a travesty to most, they had to hold out hope that someone would be able to see what had been done on the station and would understand why she had made her choice. With that, Samus flew off to parts unknown in the hopes that she would never have to face this sort of trial again…but she would find out soon enough that there was one last mission for her that would ultimately test her and her history with the Chozo, Metroids and the X all at once.

Not too long after the events at the B.S.L. Research Station, the Galactic Federation received a chilling and disturbing message from an unknown source. A video was transmitted to them from a previously-unknown planet, Planet ZDR…and the video showed evidence of an X-Parasite, somehow having survived through unknown means, raising immediate concerns about the status of the parasites. Looking to try and take a safe approach to this after the harrowing ordeal that Samus previously went through, the Federation sent in a series of E.M.M.I. robots designed for planetary exploration to try and examine the DNA of the native life forms of the planet and hunt to see if there was any credit to the video that had been transmitted to them. All seemed to be going well as the robots arrived on the planet, but not too long after arriving, the signal between the Federation and the E.M.M.I. robots was cut, all contact seemingly lost. With few other options left to them, the Federation had little choice bit to send Samus there with Adam to investigate what had happened to the robots. However, not too long after Samus arrived on the planet, she was confronted and attacked by an unknown creature in an advanced set of Chozo Battle Armor. She attacked the aggressive assailant and was able to damage part of their suit, but it was all for not, as the stranger attacked and beat Samus down so ferociously that, while she was mysteriously spared, her semi-organic suit was critically damaged, causing her to lose most of her physical abilities in the process via physical amnesia, given that the suit was effectively still an organic part of her.

While Samus was able to use communication stations within the planet in order to keep in contact with Adam, she was otherwise on her own, and it didn’t take long for her and Adam to discover the reason why the E.M.M.I. robots had lost contact: they’d been attacked and reprogrammed, and now seemingly were specifically hunting for Samus to extract her genetic material for unknown reasons. While the machines were seemingly invisible against her normal weapons, the Central Units controlling them gave Samsung the temporary power of the Omega Cannon and the weapons that came along with it, allowing her to start destroying the machines one by one to reclaim some of her lost powers. As she progressed further into the planet and came across its many deadly denizens, including a final confrontation with her old enemy Kraid, however, Samus was almost destroyed by an E.M.M.I. robot in the area called Ferenia…only for someone to deactivate it, saving her life. And that person was Quiet Robe, the last known surviving member of the Thoha tribe. Quiet Robe explained to Samus that her presence on ZDR was no accident, but a planned outing as a consequence of her past doings. He explained the identity of the Chozo that had attacked her before, Raven Beak, and in turn explained the history of his role in the creation of the Metroids, the reason why he was still alive but not the rest of his people, and the status of the X-Parasites on the planet, revealing that they were indeed here, but sealed away after having decimated Raven Beak’s forces before getting sealed up in quarantine. Raven Beak had hoped to use the Metroids to conquer the galaxy, but Samus’ work in destroying them all on SR388 left him in a bind…only to realize that luring Samus to ZDR would be just as effective, using the E.M.M.I. robots in the hopes of extracting the Metroid DNA inside of Samus to recreate an army or himself after losing all of his soldiers to the parasites. Samus assured Quiet Robe that she would handle this and end it once and for all. Confident in her abilities, Quiet Robe activated a gate in Burenia to allow Samus to progress on her journey…only for Quiet Robe to be assassinated right before her eyes by a Robot Chozo Soldier. Samus was able to destroy the machine, but sadly, it was too late; Quiet Robe’s life had been extinguished, and there was little that could be done about it aside from moving on.

As she progressed further into the planet, Samus came upon the small region known as Elun, and while the entire place was seemingly secured tightly to prevent anyone from getting in or out, the doors to it all mysteriously opened for her, allowing her to discover the horrors inside. And that horror…was the X-Parasites. It was here that the whole of them had been contained by Raven Beak, with little more than organic life twisted to meet the parasites’ needs inside, and while this discovery was not as great of a shock as it could have been, the consequence of this was not accidental: Raven Beak had allowed Samus in so he could undo the quarantine, allowing the X-Parasites back into the entire planet and dooming all life on it to death and replacement, hoping that it would allow slow down or otherwise eliminate Samus as a threat in some fashion or another. This also enabled a parasite to infect the body of Quiet Robe, directing it to reactivate the E.M.M.I. robots to continue the pursuit of Samus and her genes. Despite all of this, Samus pressed forward, and was able to continue to best the machines and other creatures to reacquire not only old lost abilities, but also acquire new ones from Core-X specimens. However, sleeping within her, a new power was beginning to emerge, and as she was on the verge of being destroyed in the region of Hanubia near the surface of the planet, the constant threats to her life finally culminated in the awakening of a new ability. The Metroid instinct in her brought on by the fusion of their DNA to her own became an active part of Samus, allowing her to drain the life energy of machines and creatures like, including the last of the E.M.M.I. robots without needing the Omega Cannon to do so, as well as a few Chozo Soldiers that had long been infected by the X-Parasites. With this new, growing power, Samus made her way to Itorash, the ship of Raven Beak, ready for a final confrontation.

After arriving on the ship and using a Power Bomb to destroy a Zebetite-like barrier in the middle of it, Samus came upon what initially looked to be a Communication Room where Adam began to speak to her, telling her that her awakening powers were turning her into a Metroid…but his comments seemed off, telling her to submit to the Federation and to let her powers be used for their needs. Samus knew that this was not Adam in any way, and fired a Missile at the communication relay system…only for it all to peel away, revealing it all to be an illusion, as she was instead on the main control room of the ship…with Raven Beak. It was here that Samus discovered that her power was not the only reason why Raven Beak had spared her; he was also Samus’ surrogate father, as his genetics had been given to her to grant her the enhanced combat prowess and instinct that she had above other humans. A fierce fight ensued between the two, and while Samus was able to damage him, Raven Beak ultimately proved to be too much to handle as she was, and in the last throws of consciousness, he told her how he was going to use her to clone an army of Samus Metroids for him to use to conquer the galaxy. With little fight left in her and seemingly on the brink of the end…the Metroid power within her engaged into complete overdrive, granting her the Metroid Suit and the Hyper Beam, effectively turning her into a human Metroid. With this power flowing out of control in her, Samus severely damaged Raven Beak and absorbed all of the energy in Itorash, causing the ship to crash into the surface of Hanubia. She made her last stand there, as Raven Beak, now vulnerable, was attacked and taken over by an X-Parasite, transforming into an utter abomination…but with the power of the Hyper Beam, Samus was able to destroy him and the parasite itself, and made her way to escape the planet, as Raven Beak’s death had triggered a self-destruct mechanism in ZDR. While she was able to get into her ship with little issue, Adam warned her not to touch her ships’ controls, as in her current state, her Metroid powers would entirely drain the ship of its energy. As it stood, in her out-of-control form…Samus had no way to leave the planet and seemed to be doomed…until one final twist came upon her. Though it is not entirely certain how, the reanimated Quiet Robe had snuck aboard the ship, and rose behind her. She went to fire at the possessed corpse…only for it to bow its head and place its hand on its chest, a sign that, by some miracle, even when infected…the parasite that was mimicking Quiet Robe had taken on his memories and personality. Against all of its normal instincts, it reverted back to its normal parasite form, and forced itself to fuse with Samus; the infusion of Thoha DNA allowed her body to take control of the Metroid genes in her, returning her to normal and enabling her to pilot her ship off the planet as it exploded behind her, ending the legacy of the Chozo, the Metroids and the X-Parasites all at once.

Though she may still be a young woman by the standards of most, Samus Aran is without a doubt one of the most powerful and respected bounty hunters in the universe and proves that having few to little special powers in one’s base form takes nothing away from the sheer willpower and courage one might have to push them forward. Though she has lost her family on more than one occasion and is continuously thrown into isolation with every adventure she embarks upon, her resolve to get the job done in the face of overwhelming odds is a testament not only to the spirit to fight but the spirit to survive and cleanse the universe of corruption, no matter what form it may take. What Samus will do next given her altered powers and attributes is still uncertain, but it doubtful that she will simply fade away in time, for she is the last heir of the Chozo, and as long as she is around, it can be assured that the greatest evils of the universe will have to remain on vigilant watch constantly, lest they find themselves facing their last judgment at the end of her Arm Cannon.