Four.

The hallway intersection was well barricaded. Shaped like a T, the intersection sat about thirty yards from the cafeteria entrance if she kept going straight. The corridor that ran away to the left had been completely blocked by a thick but hastily constructed wall, which consisted of the same utilitarian furniture that filled the entire facility. Three more barriers, the height of her waist, blocked the forward path. No one was in sight.

Samus had to tilt her lips in cool amusement at this. Sure, she could bull her way through, power dashing, but where would be the fun in that? If anyone deserved the full show, it was Justin Bailey.

Her side itched like fire burned, joined by its distant relative: stabbing pain. It was a good sign, her suit repairing the damage to her body just as it repaired itself. Days would pass before she could be whole, but the self-destruct protocol only gave her forty seven minutes before detonation.

Switching briefly to her X-ray visor, Samus counted the men waiting behind their makeshift bunker. Fifteen skeletons glowed ghost white, ethereal clouds of mist clinging to the bones—the way flesh appeared at this end of the electromagnetic spectrum.

No point in keeping them waiting. Samus launched herself into a great horizontal leap forward, rolling through the air with limbs tucked in. She traveled in a smooth upwards arc, as much as the ceiling would allow, reaching the apex just over the second barrier. The elites opened fire with their precision assault rifles. In a second her body was a swarm of bursting plasma ordinance, but none of that mattered for she had activated the screw attack, producing a field of electro magnetic energy that pushed her against gravity.

The hunter crashed down behind the third barrier, killing the soldier who was there to brake her fall. The men were the most numerous here, and Samus found herself almost knocked to her feet by the concentration of fire. She twisted in a circle, firing her small supply of rockets off with what she hoped would appear to be wild desperation. The severed wires that hung from her helmet whipped and coiled as she moved like gorgon's hair.

The elite Federation Army unit's power armor suits could take a lot of punishment. Three missiles to the chest, four charged spazer beam shots to the waist—she couldn't crack through their suits quickly enough. Head shots were out of the question amongst the thrashing and jostle of close quarters combat. Bailey's men, to their credit, moved quickly, giving each other several feet of space when they could spare it. They maintained a loose formation, many still firing from around cover, prevented explosions from harming more than one man at a time.

Then, when they expected her to be softened up, they closed. The innermost fighters ran circles around her, sidestepping her piercing green lasers that cut like knives of light, dodging the rockets that shattered their bones and scattered their flesh.

At last it grew too much. Samus fell to the floor, arms raised in a futile attempt to shield herself from the rain of plasma bullets. They had her trapped, the elites saw. They stopped their circle strafing. With all caution forgotten, they packed in, eager for the one kill that could make their lives. A few withdrew their high frequency combat knifes, eager to cut off a souvenir. The hunter realized that she had seen these gleaming, dancing blades of white somewhere before, in a dark place much like this one, whistling through the air, clenched in black fists.

A few of the knives began to strike her, metal screeching on metal. Only one slid through the armor, stabbing her right side. It didn't feel too deep—like all the other blows that fell on her now, it was a wild and furtive strike, too sloppy to do much real damage.

From somewhere a ways off the hunter heard Justin shouting at his men to finish the job. Samus retreated into the morph ball, her energy tanks half depleted, but the assault continued.

A frenzied shout of victory rushed from the throats of the soldiers as many of them dropped to a kneeling position and continued the hammer the deep red and purple ball that was Samus Aran.

She had had enough. As the taste of her blood sweetened in their mouths, Samus dropped the power bomb.

Only the elites closest to her saw what was coming. They shot to their feet, some shouting warnings, others scrambling past and over their brothers in arms. The bomb's primer ticked off its last measured second and exploded, filling the entire junction with yellow explosive power.

The men caught at ground zero disintegrated. The soldiers with power armor suits in pristine condition survived a second longer, only to feel their bodies vaporize to red steam inside their suits.

When it was over, Samus emerged and rose to her feet. Little of the last minute fortifications remained. Charred suits of armor lay split open, sizzling and smoking all about her. She had seen troop carrier crashes that looked prettier than this.

Directed plasma bullets stitched across her back, spiraling her around in alarm. From the darkness of the hallway ahead of her, dark, bulky figures sprang, living shadows. Three men had survived, far back enough from the explosion's perimeter to have escaped with moderate damage.

All three launched another volley that staggered her, draining her suit's life. Samus fired her last missile. It caught the first solider square in the flexible connecting material that covered his neck. The explosion took off his head and left shoulder. The other two sped past his gushing corpse without stopping.

Samus fired again and again with the spazer, not bothering to charge her shots. The second man was caught in the legs, first stripping his knees of their armor, then removing the limbs altogether. The nameless elite dropped to the floor in an odd sideways twirl. He screamed and bled and still the last soldier rushed on.

She could see the white triangle patch of a lieutenant upon his chest. It was Bailey, come forward to fight now that all his underlings were slain. His war cry was hoarse but constant, his carbine spat fire without ceasing. The shots made a harsh sighing sound as they burned into her suit, creating wet ash-colored burn marks that joined the hundreds of others already in place. Samus returned fire with a charged shot to his chest. It looked as if he would stumble from the blow, but Justin retained his footing at the last second and continued his charge.

Bailey closed the distance, ten feet, five feet, two. Samus knew that in his mind he saw her not as she was now, but as she had been before: a gray and shriveled woman of eighty plus years, naked and cringing at his boots, long hair draped over her down turned face like a silver death shroud.

Justin raised the rifle over his head with both arms, close enough for Samus to see his eyes through his shaded visor. They were filled with savage glee. He brought the carbine down, the rifle butt aimed to go through her visor. Samus's left hand snapped up and caught it. The arm cannon pressed into his belly and fired a full spazer charge.

There came a wet splorch sound and Justin's eyes opened wider than Samus thought possible.

Bailey sank to his knees, then to the floor on his side. "Ehk…ehk…ehhhk…" was all that driveled from the helmet's speaker. Samus looked down and noted that his weakened armor had absorbed most of the point blank shot's force, letting just enough through to cut open his abdomen. Her armor, from her chest to her knees, was slick with blood. Coils of purplish blue rope slithered out from the ragged hole in his suit, followed by glistening pink sacks of tissue. The lieutenant's black-gloved hands weakly tried to push his lost organs back inside before his true green eyes rolled up into his head and he became still.

Samus checked and confirmed that the elite with the amputated legs had died of shock, then continued on her way to the cafeteria where the VIPs waited.

The blast door loomed twelve feet high in the dim backup lighting, sealing her once-captors in, away from escape. Her computer scanned the access panel to the right to give her clearance. The door, little more than a two-foot thick slab of metal, lifted back into the ceiling, unseen mechanisms creaking with disuse. The blast door remained open only long enough for her to slip through, before settling closed behind her with a resounding bang.

Rows of long tables lined with benches filled the cafeteria. The furnishings were uninspired and dull like the rest of Tearus Facility. Bunched in front of the blast door opposite of her, like one of Bailey's futile barriers, stood the men and women that had come to see her torn apart and killed for their cause.

The pitiful crowd turned as one, lights of hope brightening their eyes as they beheld the armored form staggering calmly towards them in the faded light. Then Samus drew close, stopping under one of the few light bulbs still working so that they could see her.

Upon spotting the red helmet set between the round shoulder mounted storage units, the metal skin that looked almost alive, the long green barrel of the cannon, the lights of hope extinguished from their eyes, their shouts of joy died in a whimper within their throats.

Samus counted to see that everyone was here. They were, minus Nuvwick. She aimed her cannon and began to fire.

Some stood and meet their fate, flat eyed and unflinching, and some grew angry, screaming curses and threatening punishment they could not deliver, and some got on their knees and begged, crying, or displayed pictures of children and grandchildren. A few even rushed her as Bailey had done, ready to pound her Chozo armor with flabby, well manicured fists. Each one she cut down with the cold steady hand of an expert craftsman applying years of experience. She cycled through each of her beams as she finished things, save for the ice beam. That one she withheld for later.

The Hunter did not speak to them as she worked. Nerves fried, bones were crushed, skin and fat melted to slough off the bone. She had learned long ago that as a bounty hunter, one had to be thorough.

Then it was over. Her body was numb, even her mangled sides. As numb as her heart. That was best, she thought, for this was no time for feeling.

Drooga waited for her in the eaves of the arboretum—a grand domed indoor garden set just beside the spaceport, a richly pleasant area that would form for visitors a favorable first impression of Tearus Facility. Enormous trees from several star systems grew in a rough circle at the center of the dome, rooted in a floor of dirt where moss, various ferns, and shrubs grew into a carpet of green life. Everything worked to give the chamber the feeling of a shrine to nature. Tree branches spread to conceal the ceiling and the rafters that that lined it, from which hung great sunlamps that bathed the trees with life giving light.

While the hunter stood in the perpetual shade the many trees cast onto the ground, the space dragon dived. Samus was ready for this, morphing into a ball and rolling out of the way.

Coming out of it, the hunter looked up to see Drooga across the central clearing, resting light on a large branch halfway up the biggest tree. His sulfur eyes glistened wetly with menace as he spoke in his grating voice. "It would have been easier for you to die in the labs, O my sister. Now I'll be forced to shred you from toe to chin."

"You're only protecting Nuvwick? Don't you care about all the others?" she asked, buying time. The fight hadn't even begun yet, and already she felt exhausted. Had she always tired so rapidly?

Drooga chuckled. "They don't pay me a royal sum as my dear senator does to keep me at his side. Besides, you've seen to it that their accounts are settled, haven't you now?"

The clock was ticking down, less than thirty minutes until detonation. Looking at the space dragon now, perched on his branch, smiling with his flesh eater teeth, she could see no wounds remaining from their last tryst. With total energy reserves less than forty percent, she knew this fight must end quickly if she had any chance to escape. The last question begged of her: how?

"I'm tired of talking with an over-grown maggot," she said, angling her gun arm to point at the dragon. "Come down here and die finishing what you started."

"As you wish, gray Chozo worm!" Drooga descended on pulsing wings, arms outstretched and tail pointed. Samus jumped up to meet him, firing a charged power beam into his torso. At the last second her grappling beam snaked out from her left wrist and caught hold of a low branch. Drooga reached for empty air as Samus swung away to the side.

Switching off the grappling beam, the hunter turned in mid air and launched one of the super missiles she had been saving just for the dragon. Her aim was for the bones that supported his wings. If she could blast them off, or at least make them sore, Drooga would be forced into a ground battle. There was no time to plan anything beyond that.

The missile hit, causing Drooga to shrill in pain. They fell into the same dance they had danced in the spaceport on Neotamnna, except this time she had things to swing from and cover to take behind the tree trunks. Samus kept constantly on the move, stopping briefly to aim and fire only when her foe had lost sight of her. Drooga grew more and more enraged, breathing fire until even the most stalwart tree bark was ablaze.

It was her sixth super missile that did the trick, launched as she leaned out from a hallow in the trunk of the smallest tree. The green tipped ordinance struck the thick bone that lanced through the top of his right wing. There came a great snap as the wing bent into an odd angle. Drooga slammed onto the cultivated forest floor, shrieking and frothing at the mouth, his eyes rolling in his skull. Samus swung out to meet him.

From here on in things would happen on the ground. It would be quick and dirty, as all fights to the death tended to be. Samus was in poor shape, all the swinging and quick movements had opened the wounds in her sides further. Blood pooled in the bottom of her boots. Fatigue gnawed at her muscles, her heart rattled like a living thing caged within her chest.

Samus did her best to swallow the rising fear that her body would give out when she needed it the most. That was the fear of old women, she chided herself, and she was above such as they and their ordinary fears. The hunter bit her lip and pressed the attack.

Upon seeing her appear on the ground before him, Drooga came forth across the clearing with the ease of a single motion, the speed of a basic reflex. Samus unloaded two more super missiles into his chest. In return Drooga bathed her in fire, and then their hard bodies met with a resounding smack.

They went down together in a blurring whirlwind of thrashing, twisting limbs. Above them the fires set by Drooga's breath had spread to the top of every tree, creating a halo of flame. Burning leaves fell, twirling and winking through the air like fireflies. Several sunlamps cracked from the intense heat, going out one by one, leaving the blaze to illuminate the darkened arboretum with a blood red glow.

They rolled, struggling, until Drooga pinned Samus under his body. The Hunter's arm cannon pumped wave beam shots into the space dragon's shredded mass with the smooth rhythm of a piston. Drooga dipped his long snout down to clamp his jaws around her helmet but at the last minute the hunter jerked to the side. The fangs sunk into the suit's metal shoulder, pierced it, and sunk into the flesh below. Samus gave a cry of pain.

Drooga withdrew his mouth to attempt another bite when she feebly raised her gun arm and caught Drooga's left eye with a super missile. The yellow eyeball was gone, the eye socket collapsed into a mass of splintered bone and skin.

The space dragon reared back, roaring loud enough to shake the scorched limbs of the burning trees. "My eye! May the stars damn you, my EYE!"

Samus attempted to get to her feet but was knocked down by Drooga's claws. A swipe across the chest, his talons carved grooves into the Chozo armor. Her suit screamed in pain and Samus's body screamed with it. Her head swam so much that she could do nothing as the dragon's tail wrapped around her right leg and lifted her from the earthen floor. The feeling of suspension was enough to warn her of what came next. Samus let her body go limp.

Drooga slammed the metal clad woman over his head and into the ground behind him. Not letting go, he picked her up by his tail again and dashed her into the nearest tree trunk, savoring the wooden thud before throwing his entire body into a third swing. This time he let her go, noting how her limbs dangled limp, as if boneless.

Samus hit the ground hard enough, face first, to make a man-shaped dent in the soil three inches deep.

"Have the decency to die," Drooga croaked as he cupped the ruin of his crushed eye socket.

The space dragon lumbered towards her still body. Once again Samus allowed herself a small smirk. Here Drooga was, seconds away from victory and still making the same dumb mistakes.

Being flung about by his tail might have rattled a few teeth loose, but it also worked to clear her head marvelously, so that when Drooga flipped her over this time she was ready.

Drooga turned Samus over onto her back, expecting her unconscious, or dead, and found the green cannon pointed right for his head. He let out an involuntary gasp of surprise, his second mistake. Her last super missile flew straight and true into his maw and exploded there, coating the back of his throat with fire. Sensitive membranes flew apart and blood poured down his jaw, out between his needle teeth into countless streams. And still he came on.

Before Samus had a chance to force her body into motion, Drooga held her in his claws. Mad with pain and fury he placed her sideways into his jaws and bit down as hard as he could. A few teeth broke, making small, fragile sounds. The rest stabbed through, the armor too low on power to resist them now. Samus felt herself run through by countless teeth, and screamed to keep the rising black waters at bay.

The upper jaw moved away for the next chomp. Samus saw her own blood on his teeth. He's going to eat me. He's really going to win by eating me! she thought when the idea struck her. An idea as wonderful as it was clear in her mind. She laughed out loud, but Drooga did not hear. He took a second bite and tasted nothing by air. He also found himself unable to fully shut his mouth.

Changed into the morph ball, the maru mari as it was truly named, she slid down his snout like a pinball in its track and buried herself into his throat.

Drooga reached a new level insanity, this time fueled by terror. He clawed his at his neck, slammed his head against anything nearby, and still he could not dislodge the cold ball from his throat. Snug inside, Samus could feel Drooga's fear in his blood as it pulsed in the veins all about her. Silently, she armed the power bomb and released it just behind the place were his jaw hinged on his skull.

The bomb stayed glued to where it had been set, then exploded a few seconds later.

When the fireworks were over Samus rolled away from Drooga's beheaded body, which thrashed its limbs and whipped its tail in brainless effort. The Hunter came to her feet next to his jawbone, considered taking it for a prize, and then thought better of it. The top half of his skull was nowhere to be seen, shattered into a million pieces around the great dome.

Samus looked down upon herself and saw that she wasn't in much better shape. The bite wound in her gun arm's shoulder bled freely, as did the two rows of teeth holes across her abdomen. Burns and claw marks marred the armor's once spotless skin.

More than anything she wanted to lie down, to sleep. The black sea beyond waking life was calling to her, its waters cold yet strangely relaxing as it lapped against her ankles.

She took a step forward.

Then another. And another.

Over and over she told herself that she would not die, could not die. Not when there was so much left to do. As she walked towards the spaceport, the ebony waters receded little by little until they were gone.

The spaceport was a dark cavern bored into solid ice and supported by metal beams. The port sat empty, except for a few random crates and drums. It didn't take her long to find him.

"Come out, senator Nuvwick," Samus said. "I can see in thermal, remember?"

The pudgy man strode out of the gloom, wearing his practiced air of confident serenity like an old shoe, a feat under these circumstances. The hole in his right cheek spread out like a red starfish. His robes sighed as they dragged along the smooth floor. They must not have been very warm, for the senator shivered at regular intervals. His face was as placid as a pond on a planet with no wind. Seeing this almost made Samus feel something. Just what, she could not say.

"Then Drooga is dead," he stated, stopping ten feet from her. "What of Justin?"

Samus dragged her fingers across her gore splattered armor and held the bloodied fingers out. "I believe some of this is his, if you would like to take a sample."

Nuvwick's stonewall face broke suddenly, his lips began to shake and his eyes watered. "He was as a son to me. I need not ask of what befell the others, do I, foul murderess?"

Samus brought her cannon to bear. "There's been only one murder here, the rest fallen prey. I've one more to catch. Then this hunt will be finished."

"You are mad!" the senator spat. He waved one arm at the empty expanse around them. "You have sent away our one ship, killing us both! It'll be weeks before a deep space patrol responds to the distress signal sent out by the self destruct protocol."

Samus didn't respond in words. Rather, she began to charge a shot. Nuvwick sank to his knees, but regained his peaceful exterior so fast it made her skin crawl.

"Give me a moment. There's nothing to be gained from killing me now," he pleaded with a solemn tone, hands raised palms up.

"I disagree."

"Listen. You have a plan to survive this catastrophe, I know you do. I can see that your injuries are grave. Yes. Let us help each other survive until a ship arrives. Then you can kill me if you wish."

Samus said nothing. The gathering sphere of yellow energy dissipated from the cannon's barrel. Nuvwick was visibly encouraged by this.

"Or, if you let me live…I can find many ways to reward you."

Samus's voice was flat. "You can't pay me enough to buy your life back, Nuvwick. It's far too late for that."

The senator grew a shade paler. Despite the chill in the air, he began to sweat. Outside, the winds of Tearus 8 howled around them, the sound filtering through the walls in a constant drone.

"Still sore over Biner's death are you? I can see your point. But there's more than just money I can place into your hands. How about an official pardon from the Federation? You could be famous again, a hero! Or you can remain officially dead, free to seek a new life in anonymity. Whichever you want, you can have." And now he lowered his voice to a whisper, as if afraid some eavesdropper would hear. "There's something that is better than all of this, too. Yes. Something most precious to you above all else. You see, not all the Chozo are dead."

The hunter strode forward, almost running, grabbed Nuvwick by his collar and lifted his terrified face to her visor. "What?"

"I-I said not all Chozo are dead. We have a few, yes, very few but alive in another abandoned facility like this one, on another planet. The last! We've kept them there for research purposes, but otherwise unharmed. Even now they sit in their metal cells, waiting for their savior, you, to deliver them! A chance to recover your—"

Samus threw him back to the ground and walked a few steps away. She stood with her back turned to the senator, her shoulders rising and falling with her labored breathing. Nuvwick did not dare to move from where she had left him, frozen in terror. He had misspoke somehow, said something he shouldn't. A buzz hummed in the air, pricking his skin and nostrils, causing the hairs on the back of his neck to rise. It was the kind of atmospheric change that signaled a storm's coming.

When at last Samus Aran spoke, her voice broke with emotion. "All that can be done for those poor souls I have done," she said, and pointed back towards the way she had arrived. Back towards a mountain of cooling corpses and ash. Below them the ground rumbled. The fusion cores below had begun their final cascade towards critical mass, the death rattles of Tearus Facility.

The Hunter wheeled to face Nuvwick once more, arm cannon charging. The senator's eyes widened, much like Bailey's had at the end. His hands came up, fingers splayed, to shield his gaping mouth and sloping chest. She knew. He didn't know or care how, but she knew!

"Please! I don't want to die! Just let me go and I'll make everything all right!" he squealed.

From somewhere inside the arm cannon an unseen gear shifted with a dry click. Sections of the cannon separated from the rest, expanding outwards while others settled in. The energy collected at the cannon's tip changed from yellow to icy blue, a cold light that gleamed deep in the suit's expressionless visor.

A dark pool of moisture spread on the front of Nuvwick's robes. Spittle and mucus trailed in thick streamers from his quaking mouth and nose. "No, please, no nononoooo!"

"Yes."

Samus fired.

The ice beam hit his knees, spreading to his groin and legs first, then swallowing his bowels. The all-consuming cold ripped his life heat away, bursting tissue as water within crystallized and expanded into ice. Nuvwick shrieked and shrieked, hands clawing at his eyes, drawing blood, trying to escape the agony.

The ice stopped halfway up his rib cage. It took a minute for him to die. Samus stood, unmoving, and watched his face until it was over.

Then everything roared as the fusion cores below went up in a nuclear explosion. Every structure in the facility seemed to buckle and tear itself apart at once. To Samus it sounded like thunder.

She couldn't remember when she started running—only that now she ran at top speed for the staging exit. The whole world went white.

Samus opened her eyes to a world of ice and rock, worn smooth by ceaseless winds. Where Drooga had opened her suit the cold seeped in to burn her. Nothing burns like the cold, after all. The sky was clear and full of stars shining without warmth.

Turning herself over revealed new worlds of pain. It was hard to move. Her body was a sock filled with shards of glass. She set her back against the sheer wall of a stone cliff, the one that must have stopped her flight. Many yards away, below her a crater filled with twisted metal and fire spread out for what must have been a mile. It looked as if some mythical god had carved out a brazier in Tearus eight and set it ablaze in his honor.

The Hunter watched until every flame died in the sunken bowl of earth and then she watched the stars.

Her eyelids grew heavier than boulders of lead. She thought it might be a good idea to take a nap at last. Sleep would do her the greatest good.

Samus didn't feel hungry, and she didn't feel much pain anymore, or much of her body at that.

That left the cold to worry about. What if she froze? But what did a metroid care about cold? she reminded herself. Sure it hurt, sure it felt awful, but it didn't kill. It made one sleep.

She decided. She would sleep in the cold, and when a ship came along to investigate they would find her lying here and would take her onboard and thaw her out. And then…there was no point in thinking that far ahead.

Samus gave over to the pleasure of not-moving, not-thinking. The surrender was sweet. And just before her eyes closed for good, she could spot her people, the Chozo, and the shaman with eyes of liquid tar, walking over the horizon to greet her as their own.

The End.