Prologue

The malevolent entity known as Dark Samus floated in the vastness of space, its body half formed from the phazon particles it was born from. For more than ten years, it had been repairing itself slowly, painfully, enduring it all with the drive for revenge against its human foe. Their last battle was supposed to be its victory; it fused with the Aurora 313 supercomputer and became a monstrosity that should have defeated its elusive foe easily, but the human was still victorious. Now, with the galaxy's supply of phazon rendered inert, Dark Samus had to rely on its own dwindling composition of phazon to reconstruct itself. It may not be as powerful as it once was when it first came into existence, but it will find a way to become strong enough to defeat the human.

A year and a half later, its head had finally formed and immediately only one goal came to mind: Kill Samus Aran. But where was she now and how would Dark Samus begin to look for her? Phaaze was gone, as were the pirates it brainwashed, so it had no way of technologically tracking her. Perhaps it could track her energy signature. It was, after all, composed partly of her DNA as well as her phazon-powered suit, so finding her shouldn't be too much of a problem. But where to start looking? Maybe there is some remnant of her signature where Phaaze orbited. Slowly, laboriously, Dark Samus floated towards the area where the planet used to be.

After eleven and a half years since its destruction, there was almost nothing left of the planet except large chunks of rock and matter. The once phazon-rich planet was now one of the forgotten. Dark Samus floated from rock to rock, asteroid to asteroid, searching for anything that could help it on its search for its quarry. Reaching one large asteroid, it felt a signature that, although it was familiar to Dark Samus, it was not its foe. Perhaps it was one of the pirates it controlled. It moved on to the next asteroid, which was almost double the size of the previous one. Here, it walked around on the asteroid's surface, searching. It suddenly came across a familiar site, one that triggered recurrences in its fragmented memory. The remnants of the supercomputer it fused with was sprawled out in front of Dark Samus, its hull still showing the signs of the battle that lead to its defeat. The anger and humiliation Dark Samus felt for that loss erupted in it, as it threw its head back and let out a mighty roar. It blasted the hull with a large, powerful beam from its arm cannon, further reducing it to ruins. It dropped to one knee, panting from the exertion. It wasn't ready for its enemy just yet. Dark Samus must become stronger!

A sudden spike of energy alerted Dark Samus, and it quickly turned towards the direction. It seemed to be very far away from its position, somewhere across the galaxy, but Dark Samus felt it all the same. The energy felt like an explosion of some sort, and in the midst of the explosion Dark Samus felt three very strong energy signatures, two which were very familiar to it. The first was immediately noticed, as it was the subject of her revenge, the bounty hunter known as Samus Aran. The other was of the ever-annoying presence of that infernal organism known as a Metroid. It did not recognize the third signature, though it was as equally strong as the other two. No matter; she had her quarry locked on, and this time there would be no escape. With thoughts of revenge energizing it, Dark Samus summoned a portal that would take it close to the energy spike, as summoning one directly in the area would completely drain its power, and Dark Samus needed that power to fight.

Dark Samus arrived just outside the remains of a planet recently destroyed. The third signature it felt before was very imminent, and Dark Samus almost had a hard time concentrating on the signature of Samus. As it floated towards the area, it noticed that there were several mixtures of the same three signatures, which now included a fourth signature of a ship. Dark Samus could sense the heat trailing off in one direction, which included the signature of her foe and the Metroid mixed together. Thinking its enemy had gotten away again, Dark Samus was about to follow when Samus's signature alerted her again to the spot where the planet used to be. But that's impossible! How can she be in two places at once? It turned towards the planet remains to see a sight it wouldn't have expected.

There, in the midst of the planet debris was her quarry in all her armor, floating in the middle of space. Her body looked limp, as if unconscious, her arms slightly twitching. Dark Samus immediately noticed that there was something off about her. The third signature it didn't recognize was very dominant in her body, almost as if she was completely made from it. And being human, Dark Samus knew that she could not last very long in the vacuum of space, no matter what benefits her suit provided. Whatever the case was, Dark Samus dismissed any of it. Its enemy was right in front of it, and there would be no escape this time. Dark Samus had the advantage of moving about in space, something the human could not do unless she was on solid ground, so even with her power as low as it was, Dark Samus could easily defeat her.

Dark Samus began to move quickly towards Samus, but suddenly stopped. Something was definitely not right about its enemy. As Dark Samus looked on, Samus's body began to shift slightly, rather fluidly, then seemed to straighten itself up in a possessed like manner. Arm cannon poised, ready for anything, Dark Samus cautiously floated towards Samus hoping to catch her with the element of surprise, but suddenly she turned towards Dark Samus, something it knew she should not have been able to do in space. But that's when it noticed that this could not be her. Startled, Dark Samus found itself looking into the soulless, pupil-less eyes of some sort of copy of Samus, its shifty body mimicking the original almost perfectly. Somehow, this copy noticed Dark Samus creeping up and turned towards it. A look of recognition seemed to cross its otherwise neutral face hidden behind the helmet, and it quickly fired a triple ice beam shot at Dark Samus, who easily dodged it and countered with its own phazon powered beam, only to miss as the copy moved quickly out of the way.

They began exchanging fire then, each shot either missing its target or connecting in mid-air. Asteroids were destroyed on impact. Large parts of what used to be a planet were further reduced to floating rubble. The area they fought in lit up in a myriad of blue, white, and orange colors as the two entities fought on. Copy-Samus fired several Super Missiles at Dark Samus, who surrounded itself in a phazon shield to protect itself. Due to its low phazon composition, the blows from the missiles began to crack the shield. Dark Samus quickly moved away from the barrage before its shield completely shattered, and returned phazon missiles in kind. Seeing that they were evenly matched in dodging and firing, the weird copy hurled itself at Dark Samus, its body somersaulting in a display of colors with electricity coursing around it. Dark Samus, recognizing the attack but unable to dodge it in time from its unexpected execution, was knocked backwards towards a hulking meteorite. Its body made an impressive crater in the middle as it made impact, arms and legs splayed out to the sides.

Dark Samus recovered quickly enough, but not as fast as it wanted. It looked up to see copy-Samus shooting towards it curling itself into the Screw Attack again. This time, Dark Samus was ready. Charging up a hyper phazon beam, it fired at the copy head on, interrupting the charge attack. Before the copy could recover, Dark Samus hurled itself at it with its own version of the Screw Attack, its body wrapped in a blue ball-like aura. It slammed into the copy with enough force to send it careening through two asteroids and slamming into a third, its body creating a crater just as Dark Samus had. Taking a moment to recover before attacking again as it lacked enough phazon to press any relentless offense, Dark Samus began to wonder what kind of being copies any form along with the subject's abilities, and how it could use such power to its own advantage.

A slow, familiar beeping drew Dark Samus's attention, which suddenly began to speed up as it looked down between its feet. Dark Samus barely had time to fly away before the Power Bomb exploded, the force sending it to slam hard against a piece of the planet. Somehow, during the attack, the copy managed to plant the bomb there as it was knocked away, and Dark Samus was none the wiser. Weakened by the explosion and dwindling phazon energy, Dark Samus barely moved an inch before copy-Samus was upon it, booted feet slamming hard into its back. Before Dark Samus could register the pain, the copy started firing everything in its arm cannon arsenal on top of it: Triple Ice Shot, Super Missiles, Plasma Shots, everything. Dark Samus's roars of pain filled the area. Bit by bit, its life force started slipping away as it felt the phazon separating from its body and dissipating. But Dark Samus was not one to die so easily, and it wasn't going to let a mere copy of its foe keep it from achieving its goal.

Summoning the rest of its energy, Dark Samus created an explosion field around its body, stopping the attack and flinging the copy off of its back. Before it could right itself, Dark Samus was already there, grabbing its helmet and flinging it head first into the planet, then slamming its foot into the copy's abdomen. Giving it no time to recover, Dark Samus began attacking with kicks, punches, phazon shots, phazon missiles, anything it could muster up in its depleting reserves. The copy tried to counter attack, but Dark Samus gave it no chance. It was angry now, from humiliation of being defeated more than once from the bounty hunter, and pain from fighting in such a weakened state, and it planned to take all of its frustration on this thing that mimicked its most hated foe, even if it died from the effort. Indeed, with every attack Dark Samus pressed, it felt itself getting weaker, but it wouldn't stop. Not until this thing was just a bloody smudge under its black boot or dead body, whichever came first.

A familiar slow beeping alerted Dark Samus, and it didn't take long to figure out what it was. Reacting quickly, Dark Samus snatched up the deployed Power Bomb and slammed it full force into the copy's helmet, smashing through the visor and plunging it into its face with a sickening squelch as its "face" shifted around the bomb like liquid. Dark Samus had no time to register astonishment about that as it tried to fly away before the bomb went off, but the copy was faster still. Grabbing Dark Samus's hand before it could move away, it held the entity firmly in place as the beeping sped up. Dark Samus would later wonder how it survived that explosion, even with its energy depleted as it was. It would also wonder how it would piece its half formed body back together, when it had no phazon to sustain it. Its right leg was a mess, the left was completely gone, and both its arms were completely disintegrated. Large holes adorned its body, and a corner of its helmet was gone, exposing its blue skull. Just ahead of it, looking no worse for wear, was the copy, its body far more deformed than Dark Samus, and its head split in many directions. Blue tendrils poked out of its body all over, moving about in a jerky fashion. Having no choice but to look on, Dark Samus watched as the copy shifted, its body taking on a liquefied state before reverting back into the headless copy, then it completely shifted into a large, oozy creature that had the same color as the phazon that comprised Dark Samus's body. At first, it thought that the blob creature was phazon, or at least some variant that survived somehow, but it didn't feel the signature that would indicate the coveted sustenance.

Unable to move, Dark Samus watched as the blob creature hovered in front of it. Then it slowly began to make its way towards Dark Samus, reaching out with its blue tendrils towards the dark entity. Dark Samus was helpless as the blob made contact with its body, spreading itself slowly onto its body. Dark Samus could feel the blob integrating itself into every fiber of its body, taking control of everything until only the head remained, which the blob began to slowly consume. Dark Samus allowed one final thought to go through its mind before being completely swallowed by the blob, the only thought that gave it purpose in its odd existence: Kill Samus Aran.

Then everything went black.

Me and my unfinished projects. I had this story in mind for a while, so I wanted to see how it would develop. Let me know what you all think.