Covering the empty arm socket required all of the chitinite that remained in the medical travel pack. I secured the rivets in place and then stood, trying to ignore the pains that shot through my body when I unconsciously tried to move the missing arm. I felt no pain when I did not try to move it, but my weapon arm had contributed more to my sense of balance than I had realized. If I leaned too far to the other side, pain would shoot through my body as I attempted to use a nonexistent arm to right myself.

Still, this held me back very little. The Others are designed to be able to withstand great trauma and still continue fighting.

Samus still remained in her ship. I had told her that I would find more missiles after I repaired myself, as I wanted to face Metroid Prime with as much ammunition as possible. I could not risk the creature taking advantage of me the same way that Ridley had. This did not take very long; the Others left weapons caches hidden all around the planet, so that they had access to them if they were attacked without warning. Some of the caches were empty; I assumed Samus had already visited them.

When I returned, fully armed with missiles, Samus sat on top of her ship, waiting for me. "Are you ready?" she asked.

"Yes."

"You realize there's no backing out, once we go in the crater."

This seemed obvious to me. "I have no reason not to go. The Others will not accept me. If I must die, I would prefer to be with you than executed by them for following my I."

She paused. "Thank you, Dr. B."

"You are welcome." I would have to start learning hominid courtesy, or else I would probably miss an instance where I should use 'thank you'. It seemed to come up frequently.

We walked quickly back to the shrine, and entered the glowing pillar of light. This was Chozo technology, and I had never really seen it in action (other than Samus' suit), so I excitedly waited to see what would happen.

I did not feel myself moving at all, but the next thing I knew, we were both standing at what must have been the bottom of the crater. Its appearance startled me. With the reddish-black colors of the walls, and the tooth-like minerals jutting out of them, it looked like we had stepped into the maw of some enormous creature. I felt the slight burning sensation that came with exposure to a massive amount of Phazon. I hoped finding Metroid Prime would not take very long.

The first chamber had nothing in it but a swarm of small overworld creatures, a surprise nonetheless as I did not think such fragile animals could survive in such a harsh environment. The second chamber had an island in the middle of some volatile material, which bubbled and burned even though I did not touch it. I gingerly followed Samus as she jumped across the liquid to the island, and we had hardly taken more than a few steps when we heard the familiar hunting cry of Metroids.

"I'll handle this," said Samus. She fired a bullet of ice at it, but surprisingly, the creature merely shook it off with an irritated screech. Samus switched to missiles, and unloaded about ten of them before the Metroid finally burst.

Above us hovered the floating platforms that the Others used. They had likely been put in place by the units that had engaged Metroid Prime. Samus jumped from one to the next and I followed. She had only reached the third one when we heard a peculiar burbling sound…and another Metroid popped right out of the viscous liquid.

"You've got to be kidding me," Samus muttered, raising her weapon.

"We should try to outrun it instead," I called to her. "If you kill it, more will appear. Go forward! I will stun any that come near."

She took my advice and hurried up the platforms. I followed closely behind, firing my missiles at any that came close enough to grab hold. The missiles did little but annoy them, yet I managed to keep them away from us.

We jumped through the chamber door and found a yawning chasm between us and the next door. Samus fired a crackling straight-line beam at the ceiling and motioned to me. "Grab hold, Dr. B, and I'll swing us across."

She probably forgot that the Phazon covering her suit burned me. Regardless, I couldn't think of anything better, so I clung to her suit with one arm for the brief few seconds it took to cross the chasm. The Phazon did not hurt nearly as much as losing an arm, but I did worry slightly about what effect all this radiation would have on my body.

We ran through the final chamber door, to find…nothing. Or at least that was what it looked like at first glance. I stared about at the stones a bit, which were now black and crisscrossed with veins of bluish glowing Phazon.

"It's a cocoon with a face!" Samus exclaimed. I looked up to see what she was staring at. There did indeed appear to be strange markings on a cocoon-like structure, whitish circles and lines on a black surface that could pass as a crude representation of a face.

"If it is still in a pupa stage, perhaps we can destroy it without any problems," I suggested, though I couldn't remember anything like this described in the journals about Metroid Prime.

Samus raised her weapon arm, and suddenly the creature moved. Its structure split into six legs and a body, crooked and splayed like an enormous crab. The "face" had in fact been its back, and its true face snarled at us with a sound unlike I had ever heard before. Metroid Prime turned away from us and fled down a burrow behind it. Samus followed without hesitation.

I doubted that the creature fled from us out of fear. "Don't get too close!" I cautioned. "It has stolen numerous weapon capabilities from the Others. It may attempt to back you into a corner!"

"Yeah, okay, Dr. B. I've done this sort of thing before, you know," she shot back.

Metroid Prime lunged forward with its front legs, smashing large stones that stood between us. It fired a volley of energy balls not unlike the ones that Samus used as her base weapon. We both dodged them, and Samus returned fire in like kind.

After several minutes of this, the markings on the creature - which had changed from white to yellow - shifted again to a violent violet. Out of the creature's mandibles shot a purplish beam, which wrapped itself around Samus much as her wave bean had ensnared Ridley, and began pulling her toward it!

Samus fired upon it with everything in her arsenal, and I unleashed a series of missiles right into its face. Metroid Prime let go of Samus and backed up quickly, disappearing into yet another burrow, with both of us in hot pursuit.

We leaped down further into the warren, Metroid Prime shifting color yet again, an angry red. We both leaped as one to either side as it fired a massive beam of white-hot energy at us, singeing the very air around us and evaporating any moisture within it. Samus responded with her own red-hot beam, jumping nimbly aside as it fired upon her again and again.

Without warning it charged forward, faster than either of us could dodge out of the way. Samus thought quicker than I, rolling into her Morph Ball form whereas I connected with one of Metroid Prime's legs. I flew through the air and landed hard on the ground, but as I picked myself up I could find no damage to my exoskeleton.

Metroid Prime turned yellow again, and Samus switched weapons to fire upon it. I noticed its back legs raise upward, and I watched with surprise and trepidation as it fired a pair of missiles from them. "Samus, look out! There are-"

"Kinda busy here, Dr. B," she snapped tersely, dodging its flailing leg and firing into its face.

I fired my own missiles at the flying projectiles, and to my relief that was enough to get rid of them. Unfortunately, Metroid Prime kept firing more, so I had my hands full covering Samus' back while she went on the offensive.

As the fight wore on, Metroid Prime switched colors faster and faster, sometimes switching from one to another without firing, throwing Samus and I off balance as we attempted to match its attacks. Several times it charged us, but both of us took refuge in the shallow ruts that the beast had likely scratched into the ground with its massive legs. Finally, we reached what must have been the creature's lair; there were no more burrows leading down.

Metroid Prime shrieked in pain and anger, its Phazon exoskeleton crumbling around it. Out of the rubble another creature emerged, looking much like the juvenile or 'hunter' metroids.

But this one had eyes.

They glowed, and they could see us. They glowered in anger and stared directly at us, watching us as we shifted our feet, ready to move at a millisecond's notice and planning our next move.

It struck out at us with long, flailing tentacles. Samus jumped back and landed on a bright patch of Phazon. When her weapon next fired, it burst forth with a whitish-blue flame and Metroid Prime cried out in pain. "What happened?" I asked.

"It's the Phazon! It's done something to the suit…strengthened its power!" I did not pretend to understand how this could work; Chozo technology was alien to me. But Samus had obviously obtained a powerful new weapon. She fired more shots, charging her cannon so as to unleash more upon it at once.

All of a sudden, it disappeared.

I scanned the chamber with both eyes. "It is not in the visible spectrum, and not in the infrared spectrum," I announced. We both knew it had to still be there, for we could hear its angry roars.

Samus glanced around, then aimed at a spot just above my head. I jumped back in surprise as she fired on something that shrieked and howled. "I've got it covered, Dr. B!"

I left this fight to her. She moved quickly, deftly, confident that she had her quarry close to its end. As she moved from patch to patch of Phazon, her suit lit up with an ethereal glow and impossibly bright energy fired from her cannon.

Finally, it was over. The creature made a ear-shattering burbling cry, and began to break down into its original form. But it still refused to accept defeat. It wrapped one long tentacle around Samus' body, attempting to pull her toward it, for what purpose I did not know. I grabbed one of her arms and ground my feet into the stone, pulling back as hard as I could.

In a turn of events I still do not understand, the Phazon covering stripped from Samus' body and the remains of Metroid Prime absorbed it into its body. The sudden influx of Phazon caused a massive explosion, and I could feel the entire chamber shake as small chunks of rock rained down on our heads.

"Hurry, Dr. B! The crater's going to collapse!" We both jumped, climbed, and ran back the way we came. As seemingly the entire planet shook around us, we charged back into the Chozo light-beam and returned to the surface. But even there we were not safe. The Chozo shrine shook and steamed as the wild energy from below fought its way upward, through the artifacts that had crisscrossed its heart and sealed Metroid Prime below.

As the ground cracked beneath us, Samus quickly pressed the buttons on her weapon arm and motioned for me to follow her. In just a few moments her ship appeared, and she jumped aboard. I followed, watching to see what she would do.

For a few minutes, she did nothing, but merely watched the shrine slowly collapse. She took off her helmet and her eyes searched the crater, looking from side to side for something that neither of us could see.

Her face held an emotion I had not yet seen; distress. "Is something the matter?"

"I…" She shook her head. "It's foolish, Dr. B. I thought that if I got rid of the Worm…I mean, Metroid Prime…the Chozo would return…"

I was surprised. "But the Chozo are extinct." I said nothing more, nothing about evidence of their extinction or the campaigns against them by the Others, since she seemed upset enough.

"Yeah, I know. I know, Dr. B." She closed her eyes for a moment, then spoke again. "C'mon, let's get out of here."

She entered her ship, clearly indicating for me to follow. I was not sure what to make of this at first; if touching the Hunter's ship had seemed forbidden before, going inside it seemed surreal. Although it was very small, there was more than enough room for the two of us. I figured she might have missions other than killing 'Space Pirates'; escorting important people, perhaps. For a while I amused myself by examining every button, screen, and element of design. I didn't even realize we had left the planet until it had already disappeared from view.

Samus wiped her hand across her face, then said to me in a strained but optimistic voice, "What will you do now, Dr. B?"

"Do?" I realized that I had left any remnants of my previous purpose behind. It was just me, Samus, and my I. "I'm not sure. What should I do?"

She gave me a small smile. "You're free now, Dr. B. You can do whatever you want to do."

I thought for a moment. "This freedom is puzzling. It makes me a little unsure."

She laughed. "Well, what do you like to do? What do you want to do?"

I thought more. "I like science. I like examining things, and finding new things, and discovering their purpose."

"All right then." She entered her coordinates into her ship's main computer. "I'm sure I can find something along those lines for you."

"Oh! Um…thank you?"

Her eyes shone. "You're welcome, Dr. B."

The End

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Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed my first Metroid story. There is already a sequel in the works, mostly centered around Dr. B but with plenty of Samus as well. It will mostly contain events from other games, though exactly which ones I'm not sure yet.