Author's Note: I do hope you all enjoy this. And unlike the many fictions between these two on here, I won't be abandoning or forgetting it. I hardly forget any of the stories I've written. It won't be a short story either, this will traverse the entire game of Metroid Prime: Corruption, yet with the slight alteration that is, the star pairing. The rating is mainly for violence, language, and gore, so if you're squimish, turn back. There will be romantic scenes in far later chapters, but none that come across as pornographic or otherwise entirely innapropriate.

Thanks!

"That was a little too hot for my liking... Well done Samus, but, now you owe me one."

The words stung at the back of Samus' consciousness like the toxic knife-sharp tail end of a War Wasp. Was this how she'd really repay him? By ending his life?

Even as she rushed his dazed and wobbling form now... Cannon-arm extended and hand pressed against the hot metal... Her beam at the ready... For every time her boot slammed the metal platform the two battled upon... She could feel the overwhelming sense of wanting to simple halt right there and let him recover. Yet what good would it do? She'd only repeat what she'd been doing so many a time now; to yell at him to fight the control of the entity with any ounce of might he had left within him.
He'd battered her due the hesitance and mercy she bestowed him earlier, and it was then she realized that any hope she had of controlling the dark beast within him was impossible. He was waging two wars. One with her, right then and there, and within his very essence at precisely the same time. She could tell through every unintelligible roar, snarl, and garble he gave her. The sounds he made were filled with rage and endless agony, but she felt they weren't directed at her nor her attempts to hinder him. They were cries for her to help stop this conceited punishment, cries for her to stop him at all costs.

Samus ripped off the layer of frozen and jagged armor for what felt like the umpteenth time, simultaneously feeling a swelling heat in her heart like it'd burst for her fellow Bounty Hunter as he tumbled from his icy perch and to the decorative platform below. She dropped her cannon to approach her fallen comrade, chest heaving and mouth dry within the sticky confines of her helmet. Threads of golden hair stuck to her forehead beneath it, making it itch and burn mildly but she paid it little heed.
He seemed to recover and a shocking rate as she decended upon him, the spell that foreshadowed him seemingly broken. Samus held a soft, hopeful smile beneath her helmet when he turned his helmeted head in her direction. Groans of pain mixed with exhaustion rattled his absurbly short yet stout frame. From a crack in his faceplate dribble a clear jelateneous fluid, and as Aran neared she could see the pattern of hardy shimmered scales between folds of pale skin.

Without a word, his burning green eyes lifted to look her right in the face and up lifted his quivering hand out to her. To get him back on his feet, that's what a friend was for, what she was for. Aran moved for it almost on impulse, and even as she reached for it she could've sworn he rasped her name in a begging manner but it was hardly discernable through the vocal synthisizer his suit bore, and the depressurizing gas from inside his helmet.

From beneath their feet a seismic rumble stopped the two, and either looked about wildly in an attempt to locate it's source. Around them, sections of the arena crumbled or cracked apart, the metal flooring groaned as it flexed with the activity. The behemoth statues roared almost in testimony to their existance being trembled to pieces by the shifting grounds. Shards of ice darted from between Aran's boots like a pair of white snakes, to which she gave a surprised gasp and back-peddled before she was pierced by the trail of spiny elongated spines they left behind. Ocean blue eyes widened from beneath her visor as the glowing crystals grew in mass while they traveled at an alarming rate towards the recovering Phygrisian Hunter. He wheezed, attempting to throw himself out of the way but finding he hardly had energy to even roll onto his side.

"Rundas!" She shrieked, having suddenly found her voice and the will to move, hurtling herself between the slithering shards of fozen water. Her strides at full extension to outrun the shrill booms of the ice spires that raced for her comrade. She gave a shout of determination, lowering her shoulder in a sportsman's tackle to send the much larger Hunter rolling across the ground. Despite his great size, he sailed a considerable distance from the danger zone with the aid of her enhancements, leaving the Huntress to collapse to her knees in a violent trip as she tried to halt her inertia to keep from running him over and injurying him considerably more.
Rundas watched on from his resting place, having slid to an abrupt halt from hooking his elongated center claw to the floor, obsorbing the impact of her rounded armor shoulderplate. His vision blurred and swirled, but he remained able to discern what went on around him. Much to his grief, the Huntress stood hunched and stilled to lock eyes with him while the trails of his own power collided beneath her. The impact sent a towering shard through the metal beneath her feet, ripping her through the left shoulder and shattering her Chozo-made armor like it was made of rotted wood. Her screams remained contained within her helmet and the defeaning rumble of the crystals rubbing together and imerging.

A pedestal of ice broke into a bloom like a malevolent flower at the base of the rising spire, mounting the Huntress on some sickening display. One that Rundas screamed at.

He released a primal howl to express the ache he felt for failing to protect her as she fell limp against the pillar, her body contorted at a horrific angle from the injury. A black wispy orb that formed from behind her - seemingly out of nowhere - cut his feelings short to one of shock with morbid curiousity. Shakily, he forced himself to stand and glare spears at the creature he recognized to be the one who had delved the past two months of his life into hell and darkness. Without hesitation, he raised a shielded hand, stirring the creature who observed it's catch with twisted amusement. It acted as if he wasn't there. Fluidly, it dodged the stream of chilled energy he sprayed in it's direction, screeching at him in furious retort yet unable to get a counter in from his persistance. He attempted to give chase as it had begun to withdraw from the airspace where Samus was suspended, yet he felt himself instantly drained and dizzy, his knees buckling with the sounds of his armor's warning systems blaring into his ear. They sounded louder than usual. He raised his gaze up at the black creature that had taken a now shrouded and less solid form, surrounded by an eerie blue sparkle and seeps of black gas. It seemed satisfied with it's work, casting a taunting glare from it's frosted visor down at the weakened Hunter, before it laughed. It was warped, raspy, and sounded distinctly female despite the deep metallic ring behind it.

"Get away from her..." He moaned angrily, forcing himself to lean back and watch as the creature seemed to do as he demanded, albiet being obnoxious about it.

She seemed to give him a mock-courtesy bow before ascending into the sky, her projected form dissipating by some unknown means for the logic that Rundas didn't care for at the moment. It wasn't long after the evil being's departure that the spire in which Samus was pierced on had started on it's way back into the bubbling magma-looking fuel below. A thin coat of ice from Rundas' naturally endowed weaponry prevented her from sinking into the mess with it. He sat back on his hocks, watching her with stuffed aches and whimpers and for once feeling more exposed than he'd ever been. He'd only felt this helpless once, and that was when he was a child. it was coming back now, just as strong as it was then. Seeing her laying there had drawn the graveness of their situation to him in a thick smog, and he unwillingly sponged it up.

"Come on, Rundas..." He willed to himself quietly. "You needto get up. She needs your help." He felt as if he was going to hurl his most recent meal each time he moved, being struck with a wave of nausea since his adrenaline had started to wear off. Over and over he'd taken it upon himself to come to her aid, ever since they met at the Metalis Cafe - a popular meeting ground among interstellar Bounty Hunters - two weeks before boarding the Space Command's ship to address the situation they'd been gathered together to assess. First that bar brawl that was started by two Grengals, then Ridley, now this...

His throat burned, luckily the last he ate luckily his own rations aboard his ship, and not that of the Space Pirate "underlings" he recalled vaguely obeying him. Should that dark entity be tied with them, it was a sure thing that word would spread fast that he'd overcome her grasp on his mind, and would soon be deemed a target of elimination. Seeing her chest rise and fall steadily confirmed that she was still alive, which urged him forward more. His toes spread to grasp the metal decorative floor beneath him, and he forced himself to stand steady, taking each step one at time with a sturdy slap to the ground. It felt like miles before he reached her, and despite the bile that curtled in the back of his throat, he bent down to gather her without examining the extent of her wounds. He didn't have time. He didn't have the strength. What he had was wittling away at a frightening rate, and hidden fear that he'd faint before getting her to safety sent him into overdrive. What mattered was getting the woman to safety, and the distant howls of Warp Hounds told him that he didn't have long to get that done. Rather than risking the deaths of them both to the indigenous species of Bryyo, he called for his ship to arrive to their location.

With one of his cannons shakily aimed at the only known source of entry to the silent arena floor, it was only a few minutes later that he heard the distinct roar of his ship's propultion systems. The bulbous bald-white aircraft raced through the cloudy sky and circled the battle-zone before it pin pointed a location of landing, proceeding to follow suit afterward. A little slower than Rundas had liked, but as long as it got there before the demension-bending beasts did, that's all that mattered. Without him really knowing it, he turned to walk for the blinding glow of the gravitational lift that materialized under the belly of the ship once it landed a few yards away, suddenly finding Samus was heavier than ever. That or he'd become unreasonably weak.
The interior of his ship was certainly fridged, and he suddenly wondered if it was a good idea for her to be inside at these tempatures. With no doubt the icey interior would quell any swelling she had in a matter of minutes, but the hole in her shoulder that was exposed had torn flesh and open veins that explused blood which could freeze deep into her body like a chain reaction. And eventually, stop her heart.

"Lapsi- open medical bay one, adjust core tempature to sixty-six degrees. And retreat to previous coordinates... T-the Olympus base." He groaned heavily, slumping against the bulkhead.

"Yes, Hunter Rundas." Replied the male A.I in the Phygrisian language. "Medical bay 01 under preparation, reinstating previous destination coordinates."The ship quaked as it's engines whirled in a fury of golden energy, shooting it for the stars.

The last place Rundas wanted to be right at that moment was planet side, for worry that the dark figure that was toying with Samus' disabled body was still in the vicinity. The sooner he got her to medical help, the better.