Chapter Fifteen

The Breach

Scratch.

The record stopped.

And rewound. To the moment when the shards of glass fell. In that suspended time before the first sliver hit the ground.

In pixelated characters the words flickered in the corner of Eddy's visor:

Metroid Prime.

The glass met the ground like waves against a black shore.

Metroid Prime: mere words. They meant nothing and could help him understand nothing. Not understand:

a.) the carnage to which he was bearing witness

b.) what this creature was, this obsidian goliath with legs like spears, a carapace that flashed neon as the blasts from the Space Pirates' weapons went off and filled the chamber with noise

c.) why the bullets - those balls of energy and light - simply bounced off the creature's body like tennis balls

d.) how easily it could cut down the Pirates by the dozens with a swing of its speared leg

e.) why, when they were dying so rapidly, still more Pirates appeared in their fallen comrades' place

f.) why they would not run in terror

g.) why Eddy could not do the same

His eyes were wide, wide like Double Dee told him they should be when observing something new, so that he might understand, but Double Dee was dumb and wrong and Eddy could understand nothing. Only a hollow ringing where the roars of enraged or dying Space Pirates should have been, where the crash of the creature's crustacean limbs against the ground or through flesh should have been. Double Dee once described it as shock, Kevin as being "scared stupid." The creature's mouth opened - rather, a lid in the bottom of its body opened up and out came a torrent of fire or light or something that simply made the Pirates vanish into dust and ash - and Eddy felt stupider. All noise, garbled white sound.

Except for the laughter.

His mouth was open but no sound spilled forth. The laughter was not his. It came from behind some veil. A man behind some curtain, watching this as if this were a movie. He was laughing as the creature mopped up the rest of the Space Pirates, as the resistance died down. It seemed like hours had passed; the fact that "Metroid Prime" still remained etched on Eddy's visor suggested it had only been thirty seconds.

There were voices, among the laughter.

Before the creature rent the last of the hundred Space Pirates through, when it tore one more limb from limb in a second's flash, when it crashed through the stone wall to the east and burrowed like a train through the Tallon crust and into the dark, Eddy could hear the whispers clearly, in the red space behind his eyes:

Imagine what would have happened had you not run.

If you had grown a spine and fought.

Imagine what would have happened.

That's right.

You would be among the dead right now.

It came as his brother's voice. Eddy stood up to face a sibling that wasn't there, and found himself in a chamber made absent in moments. Legs trembling; surveying the lonely dark. Blink. Blink.

"Hey," he said. "That was easy." It took physical effort but he managed to convert his terror into a crooked smile. "I mean, hey! They're all gone, right?" He wrung joy from the horror like water from a rag. The creature, the Metroid Prime, had emitted a faint aura that allowed him to witness the carnage in brief flashes, but now he was left only with nothing. Nothing, until the one intact lightbulb dangling from the ceiling twitched and jerked into life and revealed to him the hundred Space Pirate corpses carpeting the cave floor.

Revealed to him their puce blood, the stench thereof. Showed him the shapes and colors of their organs, burst and wet, heads severed from spine, limbs crushed into mush and bone. The glint of eyeballs removed from sockets in the half-dark. Pounding of blood in his ears. You would be among the dead right now.

His smile didn't wilt; his spirit did. It was all a joke. A nasty dream. "Good stuff. See, that's what I'm talking about! Could use a big bug like that to get these losers out of my way-"

He pinched himself.

Not dreaming. His smile faltered in the wake of the punch of nausea in his gut.

"Hooo-kay!" he sang as he turned around. "Good times, but now I'm outta here-"

The staircase: demolished. A pile of scrap. The doorway taunted him from fifty feet up in the cavern wall.

"You've gotta be kidding me!" he raged, free hand gripping his head. "Of course the stupidest thing that could've happened actually happened! Stupid, idiot stairs! Where the heck is Ed when you need him?!"

He turned to the landfill of crushed Space Pirate remains, found he could not even look in that direction when he almost vomited at the sight of the scene. "Come on! I mean, look at that!" He removed his visor, shook it like a Polaroid. "You see this, Double Dee? Ed? Guys, do you see what I have to deal with?! Don't leave me hangin', here! What the heck am I supposed to do with this?!"

You're supposed to grow a spine, idiot.

Eddy's visor slipped from his hand and hit the dirt. Ka-clack.

"...Who just said that?"

Residual ash flaked down in the dark.

"Ed? D-Double Dee? Was that you just now?"

Who do you think it is.

Eyes shot open wide. The boy snatched his visor between trembling fingers, slapped them back onto his face. Fingerprints. "D-Double Dee? Ed?" He raised his arm cannon, found he couldn't hold it up straight. "Guys? Is that you?!"

Look at this meathead! Are you scared, you little weasel?

Eddy flailed his arm cannon northward. Nothing. South. Nothing. He backed away with no real direction in mind, toward the center of the chamber. "W-Who are you calling a meathead, meathead?! Knock it off with this junk! I'm warning you!"

Get a load of this guy. Thinks he's such a tough guy, swinging that thing around.

"Seriously, who's saying this stuff?!"

Watch your step.

Too late. Heel of his Space Jump Boot caught on something fleshy and Eddy tumbled back into something wet and dense. Freshly warm; he didn't even have to guess what was cushioning his fall. His vision swam - stars in the dark above.

It wasn't his brother speaking to him. Sounded like him, but not. A facsimile, a fraud.

And yet: familiar. Familiar like getting thrown into the trash after school because it was funny; like getting knocked unconscious with a well-placed basketball in the backyard because his head was "good target practice"; like "pipsqueak" and "short stuff" and "midget" and, and-

Sharp swatch of a door opening. Eddy's vision refocused, sharpened. He sat straight up, Space Pirate blood covering the back of his shirt. The adrenaline had him awake. He looked to the west, where a newly open door was. Fifty-something Space Pirates. Just a ballpark estimate - it looked like a lot, he guessed fifty. Crowd sizes: he was good at feeling them out on intuition alone. He looked to the east. Another door, far off in the distance. Waiting. Locked? Maybe. Worth trying?

He thought about it. But not for long.

Best run, pipsqueak. I'm not done with you yet.

"Can it, already, will ya?"

He sprinted for the light at the end of the dark, beneath a hail of fire. He vaulted over the Space Pirate remains scattered across the battlefield and only tripped twice, which was only two times more than he expected to, so not bad. The stench of the on-setting decay made his mind swirl like octopus soup and he collapsed onto the stairs at the eastern door, scraping his knees on the metallic corners. He clambered up as energy blasts ricocheted off the steel and he had no idea how he was so lucky, maybe it was because he was Eddy or a sci-fi movie protagonist like Ed, and Ed was a stupid idiot who felt no pain. He made his daring escape: he scrambled screaming through the open doorway and hollered like a monkey as he closed it shut behind him. He thought: where's the lock button, where's the lock button! Too easy: it was right on the side of the door, a flashing crimson triangle, which he slammed with his arm cannon so hard that the button itself broke. The door clicked locked and that was it. He collapsed in a heap onto his knees because his bones, they were jelly.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

"It never ends in this-"

A storm of bullets crashed against the doorway and he shrieked like a little girl. Audible kssssss of smoke. The portal held fast. Eddy quietly repositioned himself sixty feet down the hallway, just to be safe.

"Like I was SAYING!" he seethed, "It never ends in this place! There ain't no way those idiot Space Pirates are going to forget seeing me in there. All because of that stupid rotten spider thing! Oh, yeah, great going, humongous monster! Yeah, thanks for blowing my cover." He crossed his arms, fuming, smoke coming from his ears. "Where's Sockhead when you need him to explain this garbage? Not like it has anything to do with me, anyway."

It took only seconds for the silence to get to him. He cocked a mean glance toward the locked door down the hallway from which he'd come. They should've torn open the door by now and grilled him like a steak on the spot. The residual text blinking in the corner of his visor was like a fruit fly caught in his eyelashes. "That still there?" he grumbled. "I bet the stupid thing's broke."

Metroid Prime.

"Metroid Prime, Metroid Shrime. Hurrr, look at me, I'm a Metroid! Idiots." He squinted at the words, knowing that Sockhead would be chiding him to consider them carefully. "Feels like I've seen that before. 'Metroid Prime'. One of those, uh…those Test Subjects, right? Bigger specimint than Double Dee ever had in those stupid jars in his room back home."

Then again, not like Double Dee's specimens ever killed him.

A window opened up the complex to the Tallon sky to his right. He was no sentimentalist, but even seeing a trace of clouds was like coming up for air. He'd no idea to what depths he'd crawled by now, had no sense of scale of the place, or what it was even for. Still that same giant landmass floating above the crater by some unknown means. Magic, maybe. Hocus pocus. Rolf's kind of thing.

He looked at the gaping chasm again.

The crater.

That's where he was going, wasn't it?

He didn't know why it hadn't occurred to him until now. Down, down, into the earth, into the heart of something he could not even imagine. An instinct of his tugged him to go back, somehow knew that going further was a bad idea. He had no choice, knew it better than anyone. He fumed in silence.

The silence shattered in an instant. The room exploded with the sound of crashes against the locked door. Pieces of garbage had found a battering ram, he figured. "Oh, crud! Gotta hide!" The only way to go was forth - no way he'd get through the window without Ed's head as a power tool. Down the hallway leading into blackness, tinged with a feint azure glow. He ran that way, disappeared into that dark, not because he was courageous like Ed, nor curious like Edd, but because he was-

He realized he was thinking like that voice, and quickly shut up his mind's mouth.

He ran until the darkness became pitch-black, where light could not reach, and it was at that point that the air became not dank, as it was before, but sharp, stinging, like it was hostile to his nature as a human being and he was intruding upon some forbidden zone. When he emerged into another sheet of light, it was a sapphire glow, the air polluted. He stopped before he ran off the sudden end of the hallway, glared downward into the gaping chasm beneath, into something he had seen once in a movie, only in passing, out of the corner of his eye, but was now real. A spiraling descent of mushrooms, large enough to house a nuclear family.

He blinked.

"Bet this is what it looks like under Ed's house."

When he landed on the first mushroom, it sproing-oing-oinged under his boots.

"Ed, enough."

"But it's in the name of science, Double Dee!"

"What you are doing is in the name of suicide, Ed. Abstain, please!"

"But it looks like my mom's spaghetti sauce! Just a taste? Aw, come onnn!"

No amount of pulling on Ed's Gravity Suit's jacket could stop the boy, and Edd would have been a fool to try. Appealing to Ed's sense of guilt was a surefire way to get him to stop in his tracks. He eyeballed the river of lava that Ed had been ogling. "Your mom's spaghetti sauce? Ed, that's lava. Surely you know the difference?"

Uh-uh! It looks just like it, smells like it, and it burns my face when I get close to it!"

"Right. Note to self: politely decline any invitations to dinner at Ed's house in the near future."

So familiar with the tunnel networks of Tallon IV Edd had become that he'd already mapped out the quickest route to the Chozo Ruins through Magmoor by the time he'd reunited with Ed. What he failed to consider, however, was Ed's weakness for shiny objects - and lava, evidently. What should have been an hour's trek from Phendrana to the Tallon Rainforest had instead just crossed the three-hour mark. A violent gurgle in Edd's stomach found itself drowned out by the crashing of lava against the molten shores in the distance. Not that Ed would have heard it anyway - the boy was galloping about the shoreline, soaking in his surroundings, his guffawing echoing off the cavern walls.

He smiled. That old feeling of keeping a wild dog on a leash had returned. Things seemed less insurmountable with a friend at his side. Their advantage was stronger. He knew it because they had not seen the Space Pirate ambush awaiting them when they first entered Magmoor as a duo. Had not anticipated their missiles strikes and gutteral roars, dripping with hate after the destruction of Glacier One. He knew it because his and Ed's victory was a foregone conclusion, because they were two. Ed and Edd versus all of the Space Pirates on Tallon IV seemed plausible to him now. His fear had abated.

And yet Ed's combat abilities were of a different stripe compared to the trances he'd experienced on the Orpheon, with which he had vanquished the Parasite Queen with ease. No, in this last fight he was attuned to the situation, no longer living the Space Outlaw dream but acting as if he were born one.

What happened to Ed in those Phendranan caverns? thought Edd as he followed Ed - followed, not forging his own way - through the Magmoor tunnels, along the path his visor dictated. What did he learn about his own limitations?

How the time passed now, now that he was not alone to his own thoughts.

"...And then ker-POW! The second Pirate went down like a bag of rice, Double Dee! Like this!" With a lightning-flash shot Ed's power beam blasted the fist-sized beetle that thought it could ambush them from beneath the ground, strewing green splatter across their feet. "Yup! The third backed down when he realized that I was none other than Ed! Space Pirate Hunter and Defender of...um..."

"Tallon IV, Ed. Do try to keep up, hmm?"

"Oh yeah! I forgot. Evil Space Pirates making mutants with alien planet-destroying juice, right, Double Dee?"

"Not a bad summary, Ed. You could do with an expanded lexicon..."

Ed glanced at his arm cannon with a frown. "Double Dee is scary when he uses big words, Russell."

The tunnels unfurled into the vast geothermal core, and within that chamber the very essence of Magmoor awaited them. Black steel pillars wound out of the lethal lava lake, the other side of which could scarcely be seen from their vantage point, reaching upward toward a ceiling that was also shrouded in black soot and shadow. Their visors' danger warnings shrieked and hollered; Edd turned the volume down on his; Ed mistook them for chickens hiding in his eyebrow and grabbed at them. Double Dee paid him no mind until he swore he saw a feather or two.

"Ed, pay attention, please. We've arrived at our destination."

"Whoa, way huge!" marveled Ed, his neck craned toward that far, far ceiling, never mind the expanse of lava that perhaps he wanted to lick, as well.

"I agree," Edd's voice carried only a slight tremble, but the immense scale of the chamber soon washed over him. His visor's diagnostics were on the mark. Here there was a Chozo-wrought device. One of the three his visor told them to seek out so that they may be fully prepared to search for Eddy. Their friend remained lost in the primary Space Pirate base; trying to repeat their successful pincer-breach of a smaller site such as Glacier One would be suicidal. And the Pirates would anticipate their arrival this time. Only a hunch.

"Is this where we'll find our galactic star-cruiser, Double Dee?"

"No star-cruiser here, Ed. Remember the munitions I told you about? One of them can be found up there." He pointed upward, toward the ceiling on the opposite end of the cavern. There, perched where the shadows were at their most dense, Edd perceived a small alcove and platform. "All we need to do is develop a means to reach that point. That shouldn't be too difficult if we put our minds to it, right?"

"You got it, Sockhead!"

"...Excuse me, Ed?"

"Bless you, Double Dee!

"Why thank you, Ed!" He blinked. "Wait, come again?"

"Do you think we need a ladder, Double Dee?"

"Were it so easy." He kept one eye on his companion to make sure he wouldn't try swan-diving into the lava, as was, apparently, his desire. Although Edd would not be surprised, as it would be a welcome reprieve from the frigid Phendrana in which he had been trapped for this past day. "Stay here, Ed," he said. With the help of his Space Jump Boots, Edd hovered above the lava lakes, taking in the wild dimensions of the geothermal core, the top of which remained their destination. How to reach the top without having the necessary propulsion, he wondered? Careful analysis of the three pillars revealed odd mechanisms within their trunks, into which they could conceivably insert bombs. A sound procedure, he mused, but to what effect? He returned to Ed's position on the east side of the lake, his step-by-step scheme sketched in the corner of his scan visor.

"I've come up with a strategy, Ed," he said, deactivating his arm cannon and wiping his hands together.

"Read 'em and weep, boss!" cried Ed with a soldier's salute.

"Please, pay attention. This will require some dexterity on your part. Now, I can understand if you are not used to the Space Jump Boots' propulsion mechanics, so before we begin, let us start off with some basic breathing exercises. Are you ready, Ed?"

The boy stared at him, or else into space. He blinked once.

"Good!" Edd closed his eyes and stretched out his arms. "Now, inhale...and exha-"

A crushing grip seized Edd's left arm.

His eyes flew open. "Um, Ed?"

"No time for breathing, Double Dee! Eddy is a damsel in distress! And he is WAITING FOR HIS RESCUERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRS!"

"Ed, hold on, at least tell me what you're about to-"

Edd was cut off by his own scream. Ed was shooting skyward and he brought Edd along with him, his Space Jump Boots spewing white fire like a space shuttle taking off from Earth. Ed did not scream, only smiled. Space Outlaws had no reason not to beam in the face of glory and certain death. In that one leap they bypassed the black pillars, flung themselves high above the lava lake so that it became a dim crimson glow far beneath them. Ed was freaking exultant, a nutjob. "TALLY HOOOO!" he hollered. His blue tongue was flapping in the Magmoor wind. "True Space Outlaws need no puzzles, Double Dee, for we have...uh!"

Through the black haze, Ed saw the door they needed to enter quickly approaching, and the ledge upon which it sat. And he saw exactly how far off-target he had launched himself.

"WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HOUSTON-"

Ed and Edd slammed mouth-first into the sheer granite wall, fifteen feet southwest of their target. The grainy taste of cave wall resembled that of one Jawbreaker they had tried two years ago. Could do with a hint of lemon flavor, Ed believed.

"Ha ha! Not a bad shot, if I do say so, myself!" said Ed as he popped his face out of the wall. He flicked pebbles out from between the gaps in his teeth. He found his face imprinted in the sheer rock, smiling back at him. "Oh, hello! My name is Ed."

"So much for the scientific process..." Edd coughed, his body driven a few inches into the wall. He spat out a rock wedged nicely between his gap and hacked dust like a cat horking up a hairball. From his vantage point he looked upward, saw the door for which they were destined. "Hmph. A bit uncouth, Ed, but you certainly did get us up here with, um...some expediency."

"Yup! I am pretty expendable, Double Dee."

"Not true, Ed. But then, this does pose a bit of a predicament..." As the words escaped his lips, a loud crack rippled through the air. Followed by another. Then two. Then four.

Then forty.

"Down, Double Dee!" cried Ed in joy as the cave wall crumbled beneath them, as they immediately plummeted toward the lava lake far below. "Down, DOWN! Like Grobar in Space Spectacle IX: My Dog Has Canines for Teeth!"

"ED! SPIDER MAGNETISM! USE YOUR GLOVES!"

"Use my gloves?" he replied, mid-fall.

"WIGGLE YOUR FINGERRRRRS!"

And as he did, Ed found his hands and boots immediately drawn to the surface hidden beneath the shattered cave wall: indeed, an entire tract of magnetic rail stopped both his and Edd's falls and zzzzzonk-ed them flat up against the wall again.

"Cool wall!"

"An astute observation," said Edd, hanging on for dear life and trying to quell another urge to faint for the umpteenth time that day. "But please, no more spontaneous flight."

"Awww..."

"Don't you give me those eyes, Ed!"

"I could not remove them even if I tried, Double Dee," Ed deadpanned.

Edd shuddered. "Let's just...uh...shimmy our way to that door. Follow my lead, if you will."

As they crawled their way along the magnetic wall, Edd found himself growing more concerned, a strange sensation, when previously he felt more confident than ever before. It's provided us with amazing results, to be sure, but Ed's foolhardiness may bring about greater dangers on the road ahead... I will need to teach him some restraint, especially if we are to successfully infiltrate these so-called Phazon Mines...

And as they reached the top of the ledge, the rest of Magmoor disappeared, and it was just Ed and Edd, Earthlings, passing through a door beyond which resided a treasure waiting, perhaps, for them. When the smoke settled in the chamber beyond, they found the gleaming prize, sat upon a pedestal surrounded by a pool of lava. The artifact's radiance outshone that of the surrounding crimson glow. It made Edd's eyes water. With a wave of his hand Edd beckoned Ed to follow him across the grated floor. They leapt over the pool of lava - a trivial distance - and came face-to-face with their prize. Upon Ed's face was that tell-tale look of wonder.

"Is this the artifact, Double Dee?" he said, awed.

Edd adjusted his visor, squinted at the words printed in the corner. "Hm. Perhaps we should let the object itself do the talking. How about it, Ed?"

The two of them touched the artifact simultaneously, and in an instant, it vanished into white particles, which coalesced around both of their arm cannons. Ed held his weapon aloft in amazement as their cannons beamed white-hot for a few moments, then returned to their normal steely sheen.

"Done," said Edd with a smile.

"What did it do, Double Dee?" said Ed, wide eyes upon his weapon.

"Let me explain, Ed. When we touched the artifact, it-"

KSSSSSSSSSSSZT.

A stream of crimson light burst from Ed's arm cannon and struck the granite wall in a flash. The residual energy left by the blast smoldered, embers spewing forth from the hole it had created.

"It's a fire gun, Double Dee!" cried Ed with glee.

Edd sighed. "Would you please let me speak without interrupting for once?" He shook his head. "Forgive me. But yes, our arm cannons have been upgraded with plasma-thermal capabilities. In layman's terms, we now have access to a 'Plasma Beam' of sorts."

"The Pasta Beam!" shouted Ed, holding his arm cannon aloft. "The power of Mom's spaghetti sauce at our fingertips, Double Dee!"

Image of Ed's dining room table; a plate of spaghetti, slathered in lava; Ed's mom imploring him to eat up. Must not be rude.

Must not be rude.

Edd shivered. "Let's get a move on, shall we, Ed?"

Ed turned to his companion, an ear-to-ear grin on his face. "The Space Pirate fools won't know what hit 'em, Double Dee! We will have Eddy safe and sound in a cardboard box. Point us the way to the next thing, and Space Outlaw Ed will see that it is retrieved!"

Edd was already mapping out the route in his visor's map system during Ed's spiel. Even then, he already knew that answer intrinsically. It somewhat scared him to realize that he did not need a map to know where to find the next artifact. "Ed," said Double Dee as they overlooked the geothermal core, their brand-new Plasma Beams shimmering in the fire's din. "There's a place I'd like to show you. Something that you need to see before we move on and search for Eddy. It's a place that I must return to, as well."

Far from here, they would find the ruins of the city, swept in the sand of ages. As a duo they resumed the molten trail through the caverns, to where the ruins of eons past awaited.

"Went mad and got blown to smithereens in the mushroom world."

That's how Eddy imagined his obituary would begin. Here, in these azure corridors of mushrooms and disgusting blue glowing gunk smattering the walls, his vision was hazy with exhaustion and delirium. He was talking to himself under his breath, but he liked to think he was in fact just trying to communicate with Ed and Edd. They had spoken to him before, it must have been so easy to do so, why couldn't they talk to him now, get him out of this mess, or else wake him up from this nightmare. Maybe he could eat the mushrooms and grow big, like a giant, and stomp his way through the caverns and hit blocks and collect quarters and get extra lives so that he wouldn't have to be afraid of dying due to one stupid, idiot mistake.

Time machine. Time machine.

He swallowed. His throat was sandpaper, he had swallowed so much of his own spit.

"Okay, okay..." he muttered to himself, voice cracked. The air hung still in the blue dark. Could hear a drop of his own sweat hit the ground.

Plack.

"Now!"

He sprung from cover. Red laser beams stung at his feet as he bolted from his cubbyhole in flight from the twenty Space Pirates that he simply could not lose. Whining sirens blared from all directions; holograms with Eddy's .JPEG face materialized along the walls, Space Pirates captions likely reading INTRUDER or KILL ON SIGHT. He whirred around the corner, ducked beneath the next barrier, vaulted over storage boxes, hoping to shake his pursuers. The corridors, the rooms, the hallways, the chambers, they all blended together into pastiches of steel and mushroom and blue gunk and holograms. Holograms! It had become a black and grey hell, a twisted wonderland, and he could no longer make sense of anything. All he could see now were crevices, holes, alcoves and hallways, places into which he could find his next escape. Every ten seconds he would grasp for a lifeline, some miraculous way out, and he would, somehow, find it. He knew his luck would run out any second.

How could one go from a fly on the wall to the most wanted living being in the entire facility in just a few seconds?

Metroid Prime.

He gritted his teeth. Those words. They made him so angry. Made the veins pop out in his head.

Something stirs within this one. Weakness shedding its skin.

He stopped in his tracks. Cocked his arm cannon. Didn't matter - arm cannons did not need to be cocked, idiot - but it helped put him into that defiant mood. "Oh man, just GIVE IT UP ALREADY!" he growled as he stood fast and returned fire on the Pirates. Adorned in purple armor, they were invulnerable to his measly Power Beam shots. They bounced off like tennis balls. He could have sworn he heard them laugh at him. They taunted him in alien tongues and even let him get a headstart when he began running again. Eddy bolted around the corner, resigned to flight. And fear.

powerless powerless powerless

"There's no end to them!" The corridors would end, he knew. He knew that he would eventually reach the deepest pit in the mines and there would be no more flight, just a hailstorm of bullets and the end of some earthling's measly existence. It would be an easy way out.

But what would Ed and Edd think when they found his corpse?

Uh-uh! No way! he thought. Not gonna kick the bucket in this garbage dump!

He was so lost in his own daydream that he didn't anticipate the wall of pure glass before him. And he didn't even think twice before jumping through it, arm cannon shielding his face. He landed amidst shards of glass and only continued running, toward the cold. Covered in cuts, he noticed. He put a finger to his forehead. Blood. What a dunce.

Run, Eddy.

"Not you again!"

Flee. It's what you're good at. I know it.

"You know what? Who are you, anyway! This isn't funny!"

Bide your time, you idiot.

"You think I have time?!"

It's all about the scam. You should know this already. Lure them into your trap, and squeeze the life out of 'em! You try to fight these guys and you'll get cremated. That's not your style.

But, and this is important, so listen up:

It's what makes you the best.

Better than the rest of 'em.

You just don't know it yet.

He burst through the door, shooting it to pieces. He emerged on the other side and stopped in his tracks.

A hallway of cavern, pure black, like the one which contained the Metroid Prime. Lined with mushrooms and fungus larger than any car he had ever seen. And blue veins, sprawling across the floor, into twisting distance. Phazon. His visor's danger-sensors went crazy.

And went ballistic as the Pirates continued their frenzied pursuit.

"Okay, Eddy," he gulped, looking this way and that for a third option even he knew did not exist. "It's either go toe-to-toe with goons straight outta Ed's comic books, or go all Tarzan on this death-trap."

His body made the decision for him. It took him by surprise. His Grapple Beam was already latched onto a jutting rock in the ceiling, and he was Tarzan reborn. Not something he even considered doing. Some animal instinct had taken over in that second, had taken the wheel. He remembered how his brother once told him their dad was helping him practice for his driver's ed course - his brother had screwed up somewhere and his dad got so furious that he took the wheel himself. Saved the both of them from an accident, something lethal. That's what it felt like now, except while his brother never got another chance, Eddy did, kept getting second chances, kept buying time he didn't know what to do with. It wasn't something he was proud of. When his body took over for him, when his mind couldn't keep up, he didn't feel superhuman. He felt like a loser.

He landed on the other side, botched the landing, scraped his knees on the grated floor. The Space Pirates were nowhere to be found. He was alone.

His eyes were wide open. Humidity crept along the borders of his visor.

He waited for the voice to say something.

He kept waiting.

The sand found its way into the nostrils of exactly two earthlings. Only one of them sneezed. The elevator came to a halt in a circle of wind-worn statues. The sky was receding into evening colors. Like the last time. It almost looked like Earth.

"Hmm," mused Ed as he rubbed his nose. "Scritchy."

"One would think that our ubiquitous visors would be able shield us from dust," said Edd. Water brimmed in his eyes as he fought off another resurgent sneeze. "In any case, welcome, Ed, to the ruins of the Chozo." Only silence greeted them, the mummified repose of an ancient people. It haunted Edd, still, to imagine that he was walking upon the husk of something that was once vital, vibrant. Alive. The stench of the Flaahgra's poison was absent here. A small courtesy he had done. Had it been worth it, with nobody else around to commend his efforts?

Ed tapped the spot where his chin would be. "Spooky ancient alien city. I've seen this before, Double Dee." Edd sighed, beckoned his companion to follow him out of the elevator chamber along the route he had predetermined. His absence of objection gave Ed reason to continue. "Hmm. Which one was it? Galfax from Zector Elephant? Or Beezo: Car Mechanics from the Galactic Center?"

The mechanical door opened at Edd's prompting; the boys entered the vast Sun Tower beyond and found themselves at the base of that long tower Edd had descended upon purging the ruins of the Flaahgra. A magnetic rail lay conveniently before them, running up the height of the tower. Just as he had planned. Edd allowed himself a satisfied grin. "Were you saying something, Ed?"

"Oh, right! Anyway, the heroes found themselves wandering the ruins of an ancient race of soul-sucking anthropoids. The ruins were silent - silent as the living room when Sarah told my dad I broke the television! - but little did the heroes know that there were specters looming beyond the veil-"

"A-hem." Edd motioned to the magnetic rail and mustered the most polite smile he could. "Sorry to interrupt, Ed, but I must ask a favor of you."

"STORY ON HOLD." Ed's eyes went blank for a split second and all emotion seeped from his face. A moment later he snapped back into the world of the living. "What needs it you need what's you need to be done, Double Doctor Dee?"

"Um. Do you see those constructs on the walls, Ed? There are two of them, you'll find." He motioned toward the decorative emblems flanking the two of them, each on opposite sides of the room from each other. "It appears that the way up the tower is blocked further along the rail. We need to scan the sigils connected to them, and these constructs are in the way."

Ed blinked. Edd was certain he retained none of it. Still, a nice feeling to talk to someone other than oneself for change.

"Super missile, Ed. Please break the constructs, if you would?"

"Oh, that I understand, Double Dee! Two boom rockets, coming right up!" He pointed his arm cannon at Edd's face and blasted a super missile toward his nose.

Edd's heart stopped and he collapsed backward, back hitting the floor and knocking the wind out of him. The super missile sailed past him and curved upward at the last second, hitting the sigil spot-on and shattering it. Without missing a beat, Ed pointed his arm cannon behind him without even looking and blasted another super missile. Second sigil, shattered. "Bingo was his name-o! How's that for service, Double Dee?"

Edd swallowed the screamed words that were bubbling up in his throat and smiled serenely. "Ed. Might I make a suggestion? Just because super missiles have homing capabilities..."

Couldn't help himself.

"DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD SHOOT THEM AT ME."

Ed shrugged as Edd staggered to his feet. "Tell it to Russell, Double Dee! He does not yet fully grasp the extent of his own power. Right, Russell?"

Edd regarded the arm cannon, opened his mouth to dispense with a lecture. He bit his tongue. "Stay calm, Eddward. Don't stoop so low as to lecture an inanimate object. Leave that to Johnny." He left Ed to debate the finer points of strategy with his own arm cannon (which consisted of Ed bonking himself on the head with said cannon and chortling) while he scanned the revealed sigils. Two more sigils remained hidden at the top of the pillars surrounding the lower part of the tower - once he scanned these, the grate blocking the path up the tower opened. "We're in the clear, Ed. Shall we mosey on upward?"

Ed seized Edd's arm with a grip so tight it almost broke his radius. "TALLY-"

"Ed, wait!" To Edd's shock, Ed faltered. "Don't you think we've had enough tally-ho for one day? Let's just do this the normal way, just this once." He smiled widely, imploring with his eyes. "Please?"

Ed shifted his grip to Edd's wrist, and slammed Edd's hand upon the magnetic rail. "You got it, Double Dee! Up and up we go! You first!"

Edd winced. "Thank you, Ed." The two boys began their magnetic ascent, crawling upward along the rail into the expanse of the tower. Substantially easier than one would imagine - the magnetism did all the physical work, no pulling or lifting one's body required. "Now, um, were you saying something about ancient ruins and, um... Car Mechanics from the Galactic Center?"

"RESUMING STORY." A pause; Edd did not look down. "Even though the ancient aliens were long gone from their home planet, their still lingered REMNANTS from the GREAT BEYOND."

"Remnants, Ed?" Magnetic climbing, to Edd's relief, was also inexplicably quick. Their ascent had passed the halfway point in half the time he'd imagined it would take. "Are you talking about ghosts?"

"Ghosts! Poltergeists! Spooky white sheets, Double Dee! The heroes knew not their true names, but they were no longer the ancient aliens they once were. They saw the heroes trespassing upon their holy grounds, and they descended upon them like Rolf upon Eddy when he tried to sell Wilfred's udders for cash!"

"I was trying to forget that episode, Ed. Thanks." Edd clambered onto the top of the tower, and offered Ed a hand up. With a final pull, they had both surmounted the Tower of the Sun in mere minutes. Sunglare blinded Edd momentarily when he looked to the south. "Luckily for us, Ed, there is no need to fear ghosts of any kind here. My thorough investigation of these ruins yielded no trace of any sort of paranormal activity."

Ed threw Edd a stern look, unibrow furrowed. "That is exactly what the brainy hero said before getting his tonsils ripped out, Double Dee."

"...Come again?"

Ed seized Edd, pulled him close, and put his mouth to his ear. Into it he whispered:

"Guard your tonsils well, Double Dee."

He relinquished his friend. Edd swallowed and swore he could feel his tonsils when he did so. He grabbed his throat in fear. "Right. Noted, Ed. L-Let's just sally forth, shall we?" He turned about and opened the mechanical door, beckoned Ed to follow him into the dark tunnel that lay beyond. His Space Jump Boot crossed the threshold.

Flash of pale white.

Edd blinked. Humanoid figure.

It fled.

Edd froze in his tracks. "Ed. Did you see that?"

Ed pushed Edd out of the way, his arm cannon thrust forward down the winding path. "We are not alone, Double Dee." He looked over his shoulder at his friend, his face pallid with equal parts fear and determination. "We are in the presence of the Car Mechanics from the Galactic Center, or I am not a Space Outlaw."

It was unimaginably stupid, yet Edd could not stop himself from shaking. He knew he'd seen something, and Ed's corroboration did not quell his fears. "That's preposterous. More likely it was a Space Pirate using a cloaking device. You know, the ones they employed in Glacier One?" He cupped his own chin in thought. "Come to think of it, they did possess data entries detailing plans to erect a secondary base in the Chozo Ruins..."

When he looked up, Ed was already halfway down the path, in hot pursuit of the elusive figure. The wild dog was tugging its minder along, and Edd found himself running, too, running down the corridor dark. Ed was fast, too fast, especially when the gears were turning in his head, and the boy was already through the doorway at the end of the hallway by the time Edd reached the path's midpoint. Beyond: the Sunchamber, the lair of the late Flaahgra. Ed's form was silhouetted in the descending sunlight, rays of light glancing off the edges of his Gravity Suit, blinding Edd, filling his vision with black spots. The air in the chamber was cold when he emerged alongside Ed, and the sun hung low in the Tallon sky.

The Flaahgra's flower spilled forth pure waters still, but there was nothing holy, nothing pristine here. Edd could feel it. The hair poking out of his beanie stood on end. A darker influence had taken hold. Phazon? No. Not directly. His teeth chattered. Could Ed have been right?

"Ed-"

Ed shushed him. "Look."

Night descended in an instant.

The sun hung in the sky, but it no longer had influence. The sky was an eyelid closing, and the shadows emerged from the vestibules and corners in which they made their domains. Edd could scarcely see his own fingers in front of his eyes. He switched on his thermal visor and found nothing but purple black. With the dark came a funereal chill. And from the flower in the center of the Sunchamber, there came something else. Three orbs of ghostly light, like balls of spider silk, evanescent, bloomed from the center of the flower and hung in the air. They appeared like dandelion seeds, stayed suspended above the chamber, then descended to the ground. No sound but the running water, and yet-

Voices.

When the orbs touched the ground, they changed their shapes. Like butterflies from the chrysalis they became translucent humanoid figures, limbs elongated, bodies hunched, not unlike the Space Pirates. Gaunt, lanky, their faces avian. Bird people. Or perhaps-

Edd gasped and his heart sank as the figures faced the Eds. There was no sense of welcome in this place, nor in the black spaces where he imagined their eyes should have been. Or once were.

"It can't be," he stammered, eyes wide in the dark behind his visor. "The Chozo?!"

Crunch of Ed stepping forward upon the sand-swept platform upon which they stood. "Car Mechanics from the Galactic Center, Double Dee." He looked back at his friend, grinned. There was something in his eyes, Edd noticed. Something primordial, unknowable. Oh dear lord, he realized. The trance that had slain the Parasite Queen.

"Ed? What's gotten into you?"

But Ed's smirk only grew wider. "Never fear, Double Dee. For Space Outlaw Ed...

He faced the ghosts of the Chozo, arm cannon brandished.

"...will protect your tonsils!"

Two ways this could go:

1. Die instantly

2. Die in pain

Eddy peered down the Phazon-enlaced chasm in search of a third option. He'd doubled back, looked around, found no alternative. This was the only path forward. Down this cylindrical chute, far, far down, he could spy a perch untouched by the corrosive blue substance, and upon the ground he saw the familiar sky-blue glow of what must have been a mechanical door nearby. His Space Jump Boots would help him stick the landing, but if he was just an inch imprecise in his leap…

He gulped.

"Come on, Eddy," he whispered to himself, teeth clattering together. The air was warm, the caverns were humid and he was drenched in his own sweat, but he was freezing, freezing with fear. "You gotta do this, okay? No going back, y'hear?"

He was lying stomach-down on the ground, peering into the chasm. The fingers of his free hand played with the dirt, scratched at it - he watched the pebbles and granite fall into the chasm. The particles that touched the Phazon winked out of existence in the manner of flies touching a bug zapper. Nausea swam in his innards. The Pirates had neglected to chase him into the Phazon-filled caverns. That's where the Metroids had been. Eddy hadn't planned on it, but they were a nice diversion. What was it the voice had said? Misdirection. Confusion. The scam.

It made him better than the rest. But did it?

"Wish I knew what that creeper meant," he growled. He shook his head. "Gah! What am I even doing. Focus, Eddy. Focus. You gotta get this over with, already!"

As much as he hated to admit it, a part of him yearned to hear that voice again. That voice that sounded so much like his brother's, or rather, like his own. As if he was hearing a radio transmission from some other galaxy. It was stupid, something Ed would come up with. But still. He wouldn't mind if it talked to him again, told him what to do. It wasn't here, though. It had gone on ahead, was waiting for him to arrive. Maybe.

Only one way to be sure.

"'Not finished with you yet,' huh?" he said to himself as he rose, as he stood upon the precipice of the chasm. "Same goes for you, buddy."

Hesitation. Hesitation.

Enough of that, already.

Eddy leapt, and vanished into the vortex of blue. Like the time he swan-dove into the waters of the cove outside Peach Creek, he expected to feel the crash of the water upon his body. He braced for it with eyes closed.

And waited.

Disturbing.

Commander kal-Brashka flung aside the KIA report on Commander ash-Simgaar. He wondered, in that vestibule where the screens flickered like so many firelights in the darkness, how two renegade bounty hunters could topple Glacier One so easily with a single flanking maneuver. One from the back door, one from the front. It was brilliant. Not even ash-Simgaar, Blood Brother and veteran of the incident at Zebes, had been prepared for that exploitation, nor their ingenuity.

And they would try it again, those renegades. Or perhaps they weren't renegades. They were likely Federation, soon to be dead regardless. Their short companion's face had been captured in Research Quarry One and was now displayed on every single monitor in his security chamber. With a swipe of the keyboard he sent the image - along with the command to kill this gnat on sight - to every single terminal in the Phazon Mines, and from there, to every single Pirate terminal on Tallon IV.

Question:

How did this rat infiltrate their base so easily?

If the hunter's death report didn't come in the next few hours, he would notify Ridley. And then High Command would follow.

He watched the still footage of the gunship sequestered in the Tallon Rainforest. They had seen the black-capped hunter wiggle his way out of there not so long ago, alone. That had been when they had drawn their light infantry away from the Chozo Ruins, afraid that he signaled the Federation's arrival. That these hunters had chosen to split up before planetfall showed that they were cunning beyond measure. These were Aran-level tactics.

kal-Brashka told his ever-present lieutenant that they would not see the mines become another Glacier One.

He asked where this so-called Ed Hunter was headed.

The lieutenant spoke not. Instead he grazed his fingers along the holographic terminal, flicking through maps of the facility, of the Chozo Ruins they had attempted to seize before the Orpheon's fall, of the dread Magmoor, of the impact crater.

The map system centered on Omega Research.

Vertigo.

kal-Brashka rose from his seat and left to see to this particular insect personally.