"You have come back yet again to my abode? ….Hmmm, I suppose once more you have passed across the pages of history and made it through the third of six tales in that boy's long quest. If I must ask to those who returned from that tale, could you describe the last tale in a single adjective? …Is that so? A very interesting choice. In my compendium of tales that span across a thousand and more universes, there have been many adjectives used, some of which not even the human ears have yet to adapt into their vocabulary.

But for the sake of not ruining the flow of history, I will list off only those that you are familiar with. Dazzling, Spectacular, Whimsical, Epic, and Tragic are some of the many adjectives that can be used to describe the sights a Chronicler such as I has seen. Many adjectives of length have been used as well…A short end, a long beginning, an extended journey…I love each and every word the same, but of course its only to be expected after all that I have experienced. When you can do nothing but record the history of a thousand universes, you learn to appreciate every single word you write.

With the subject of length and description on the mind, it is time for yet another one of my tales from an alternate world. A short but simple tragedy, if you will. For a tale such as this does not need to require much of a stay. I can understand that you must want more to your tales, but there will be plenty of time for that soon enough…For now, let us return to the galaxy of the famed bounty hunter."

Clash of the Elements What-If Scenario (Part 4 Story 2):

Terminal Corruption

The final battle has begun in the core of the reborn planet Phaaze. Dark Samus, after revealing the side-effects of bonding itself to Samus' Phazon Suit, has engaged the bounty hunter and the teenage Overlord in mortal combat, declaring without prejudice that the two heroes would not only die on this planet, but the boy's corrupted body would be taken over. However, with everything Dark Samus has tossed at the heroes, the boy had plenty of time to learn the many tricks that he could utilize with the PED Suit attached to his body.

This meant that Dark Samus was not able to take full advantage of its own massive power supply, since Riku could deal with most attacks with the Phazon moves he had obtained. And with Samus in the mix striking her dark copy with missiles and beam attacks Dark Samus' life force was quickly whittling down bit by bit. Frustration was the main emotion the dark hunter felt welling up inside of its body as the battle progressed further, and it in turn began to loathe the fact that a person it knew nothing about was going to foil its plans.

Eventually the teenage Overlord and Samus combined their attacks to deal the final blow to Dark Samus, forcing the dark hunter to its knees in the very center of the room just like what happened once before. With its body degrading at a rapid pace, Dark Samus glances up at the two heroes, with Samus glancing over her left shoulder in disdain at the dark hunter while the teenage Overlord glances through his visor with an almost pitying glare.

Dark Samus hated this glare all too much, but as the teenage Overlord began to turn around the dark hunter noticed how the corruption inside of the boy's body was starting to take away his greater motor functions. The leg muscles in particular were weakened to the point that a single touch would cause the boy to collapse. Grinning as well it could under its helmet, the dark hunter quickly thrust its right arm forward once the boy turned around and began to follow Samus out of the planet's core.

With the limb's length extended in a single second, Dark Samus strikes the back of Riku's leg, applying enough force that a shockwave ricochets through the armor and gyrates the muscles to the point that the teenage Overlord quickly begins to tumble forward. Trying to catch himself on his left knee, Riku slams against the ground with a thud and fails to hear the cracking of his armor from the pressure of his fall as he grimaces in pain and turns his head over his left shoulder to look at the decaying Dark Samus, who widens its eyes in joy as its Phazon remnants began to form into the shape of liquid-like roots.

"If I cannot break your mind, then forced infiltration shall be a wonderful substitute!" Dark Samus wastes no time in thrusting these roots out after declaring his intentions to the teenage Overlord. Samus quickly flips around and watches as the roots pierce right through the middle segments of each of Riku's armored limbs, the tips digging right into the skin and causing the boy to lurch his chest forward and cock his head back in utter pain as Dark Samus forcibly pulls his arms out to the side and pumps his own decaying Phazon into the body to merge with the supply that Riku has been creating thanks to the spores on his heart.

Riku is rendered paralyzed, unable to do anything as Samus quickly whirrs her arm cannon to life and dashes off to the right, aiming her barrel at Dark Samus' rotting body and firing missile after missile in an attempt to break the monster's hold on the boy. But the dark hunter merely creeks its head at Samus as its helmet melts off, and tilts its head to the side with an eerie grin on its face as its body decays to the point that not even the roots connected to its limbs are alive anymore.

With Phazon fizzling out from the remainder of decay in the air, Samus quickly pulls back her arm cannon and turns towards Riku, who upon being released from the grip of Dark Samus immediately falls forward, his arms straightening out so he can slam his palms against the ground and stop himself from collapsing all the way. As Samus notices the boy quaking badly inside of his armor, she quickly says to him in a quiet if somewhat worried tone "Riku…What's going on?"

The teenage Overlord trembles coldly, with sweat of Phazon dripping out from the inside of his body he responds to Samus with a stuttering "I-I…Dark Samus is…is…RAAAUGGHH!"

Riku loses all feeling in his arms, his control over them robbed and causing them to be pulled back against their will. His body collapses along the ground, his armor breaking apart with light-blue cracks all along the surface as he groans in pain. Samus doesn't know what to do, her mind panicking at the very thought of yet another ally of hers succumbing to an impossible to cure corruption as she slowly raises her shaking arm cannon towards Riku on the off-chance that she would have to deal the killing shot.

The teenage Overlord, with what little control he had left over his body as his head throbbed in pain as he squirmed with each passing second, turned towards Samus and exclaimed to her without literally ANY hesitation "KILL ME NOW SAMUS! DON'T LET DARK SAMUS HAVE MY BODY!"

"I-I can't do it…Not again…No, not again!" Samus, conflicted beyond mental comprehension, shakes her head and begins to step back as if wanting to avoid the path that this mission has forced her to walk along. She knew the dangers of letting Dark Samus have Riku's body, but hesitated with the all too simple pull of the trigger because of the connection the two had formed over this mission.

Samus didn't want to go through this pain again, even if it meant letting the monster get its way. The teenage Overlord looks at Samus with as much disappointment as his pain would allow it, and with a terrible chill creeping through his entire body he clenches his eyelids shut and loses almost all feeling in his nerves. Then the boy stops moving, and everything falls into an ominous and terrible silence as the hunter snaps out of her conflicting emotions and looks down at the boy's body.

As harsh as it was, Samus hoped that the strain of fighting back Dark Samus' influence had broken Riku's body to the point of shutting it down entirely, just so she wouldn't have to watch the body twitch back to life.

The teenage Overlord started to awaken, but as he slowly rose off the ground without the use of his limbs his armor began to crack off from the rest of the body. As this metallic skin is shed, Samus notices how the boy's skin has become a pale blue, with the hair now a dark aquamarine shade and a pale light-blue aura surrounding his body. The teenage Overlord slowly turns his head towards Samus after he his body has risen upright, and with a tilt of his head the boy looks at the hunter with pupil-less light-blue eyes and cracks a frightening grin.

The hunter flinched in surprise, and said in a deflated tone "No…"

The teenage Overlord? looks at Samus and says to her as his body is slowly turned around and his arms are raised into the air beside himself "I have won at last. Finally I have shed the confines of your armor and acquired a body that is devoid of uncontrollable memories and emotions…"

Dark Samus had taken control of Riku's body, the words and tone of voice the boy spoke in confirming this gruesome fact to the hunter as she stands before him with arm cannon raised towards the boy. "You monster…Let go of him!" Samus exclaims in anger as she begins to charge up energy in her arm cannon as though expecting defiance from the dark hunter despite what she said.

"All this power…" Dark Samus…No, the entity now known as Dark Riku says to himself as he flexes his fingers in the air and stirs Phazon blue flames around his hands.

Dark Riku pulls his head back and looks towards the black blanketed atmosphere of Phaaze's core and leaves his mouth agape in joy as he continues to say "I feel so alive…So powerful…Like nothing could ever touch me again."

Samus glares angrily at Dark Riku and says quietly to him "So you wish…" As her arm cannon finishes charging and she fires a Super Missile straight towards the boy's possessed body. Thanks to the distance between both sides, the impact of the missile with Dark Riku causes a powerful explosion whose edge pushes the hunter back along the ground as she holds her arm cannon in front of her body to brace herself.

Samus then glances past her arm cannon and waits for the smoke from the blast to die out. But as the hunter hears the crackling of flames she knew that he efforts were in vain. Dark Riku emerges from the smoke surrounding by a shield of fire that protected him entirely from the missile's blast. Dark Riku looks down at the hunter and says to her with a smile on his face "How cute. But such things won't work on me anymore…"

Dark Riku dispels his barrier of fire and immediately swings his right hand in front of his body while taking the dispersing flames and charging up a sphere of fire in front of his palm. The planet's core trembles in the wake of the being's power as he also wiggles his left fingers beside his body and summons forth a large series of Phazon vines through the ground to wrap around Samus' limbs. With the earlier shock from her failure to deal damage to the boy's possessed body weighing on her mind, the hunter doesn't turn into a Morph Ball in time and finds herself quickly pulled towards the ground as the vines wrap around all parts of her body.

The hunter's arms are dragged backwards to prevent her from firing upon the boy again, while the vines pull on the midsections of her legs and drag her onto her knees with relative ease. "You are nothing to me anymore, Samus Aran. You are but a hunter, and I am the god who turns even the bravest of hunters into the simplest of prey…"

Samus looks up at Dark Riku and scowls as she tries to pull on her arm cannon as much as possible, tugging so hard that the tendons in her arm muscles begin to tear from the built up resistance the vines are applying to her body. "I enjoyed our conflict…But one side eventually has to…to…"

Dark Riku's body begins to freeze up before he can finish his sentence, and the flames in his right palm start to fizzle out of existence. This confuses the one possessing the body, as he suddenly notices the vines surrounding the right side of Samus' body retracting into the ground against his wishes. Dark Riku's body is frozen in place, minus his left hand which starts wiggling around to take care of the vines around the hunter's armor. With no control given to anything in his body, Dark Riku watches as his mouth starts moving and the normal voice of its inhabitant starts to emerge.

"S-Samus…You need to attack me now…" Riku's voice says to the hunter as he mentally binds Dark Riku's body in place. The hunter looks at the floating boy as she rises to her feet, saying to him quietly "R-Riku?"

"There's no time to explain…I only have control for just a few moments…Dark Samus took over too much of my body, leaving me little to work with here…I lowered my body's defenses, made myself entirely mortal…Now its up to you to deliver the final blow before its too late…" Riku quietly pleads to the hunter, giving little regard for his own life as his body trembles to signify that Dark Samus is trying to fully regain control by fighting back the boy's consciousness.

"R-Riku…I can't lose another person to Phazon! There has to be another way to do this, please!" Samus cries out to the boy, begging him not to surrender his life so easily.

"Heh…I know this is going to be hard for you, but please…Would you prefer it if Dark Samus were allowed to kill everyone else you knew? ….It was fun being with you Samus, and I have no regrets dying here now if you survive this." Those would be Riku's final words, for he had to exert all further effort into stopping Dark Samus from regaining control of his body.

The hunter, after taking his words into consideration, falls into silence and nods her head, her trembling right arm clenching up as she raises her arm cannon towards the boy and starts charging up energy again, saying to him quietly "…You should have at least had some regrets…"

Saying nothing else out of respect, Samus wastes no time in firing out another Super Missile at the boy as Dark Samus only is able to let out a defeated scream of "NOOO-" as the weapon collides with the body he possessed. With no durability to his name, Riku's body explodes instantly once the missile collides, leaving not even a single bit of flesh or blood in the air as the concentration of heat shrivels both up into nothingness. Samus takes a momentary pause as silence drops over the planet, honoring the boy's memory with a single teardrop from her right eye before without warning Phaaze begins to quake.

Without Dark Samus' presence in the universe, Phazon had reached its curtain call, and thus this planet was rapidly destabilizing. Samus quickly made her way for the tunnel that she had entered the core through and ran as fast as her Speed Booster would allow, and upon reaching her ship she leaped in and got to the cockpit. Activating the engines, the hunter quickly made her way out of the collapsing world and into the depths of space, watching from afar as Phaaze exploded…

"And thus history went through an all too similar course of events. While Dark Samus was defeated and Phazon was left to perish in the depths of space for all of time, Samus was left without any hope that Riku would have survived the events of this battle, for this time he truly had died. But while the threat of Dark Samus had ended with Riku's demise, the fact that the boy did not live would ripple across the universe as time continued to pass…Eventually, a threat would arise that would leave all worlds and their heroes in ruin without the teenage Overlord to protect them…But that is a story, for another time…"

What-If 4.2.1...The End.