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I've started writing Why Can't Metroid Crawl (Into My Heart?) ((again)) so maybe expect some updates for actually Valentine's day?
Maybe not. We'll see. By the whole thing (including all the alternate routes) will be posted to ao3 eventually.
Why Can't Metroid Crawl (Into My Heart)
Update the soft, of course
Update the soft, of course! What would they think if your suit had issues connecting to the Fed’s interface for data disclosure and other communications? Accepting the prompt you sit back in your beanbag chair and watch as the bar begins to crawl across the screen.
[00%]
[00.1%]
[00.4%]
[00.9%]
[01.2%]
[01.3%]
…Maybe you should’ve done this the night before. Either way, you’re sure that it will be complete by the time you arrive at the Olympus. In the meantime, you decide to get a few chores done around the ship. The dust geemers have been building up a battalion behind the cabinets.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Fuuuuuuucck! Fuck Fuck Fuck! The progress bar was still only at 89% like it had been for the past 20 minutes and you were docking with the Olympus NOW. You had to do something fast, otherwise you were going to have to show up to a meeting with the best of the S rank bounty hunters wearing only joggers and an anime t-shirt. You rush around your ship, your mind racing to come up with a solution.
Suddenly, you trip on something and fly face first into the console.
Shaking off the headache, you wipe a bit of blood off of your face and the console screen.
[100%] Process complete
Thanks to your mad skills as a techie, you just had to use your head. You tap away at the controls for a moment savoring the satisfying clicks of mechanical systems, not that holo-touch crap that a lot of ‘high end’ ships have. You would take mechanical redundancies over easy to break and/or miscalibrate trendy garbage. You press the last button to release the suit containment latches and they snap open with a satisfying snap-hissssss. The handle to the polycarbonate window is cool to the touch and you swing the door open with haste, quickly getting the suit to cover your form.
Your body relaxes into the comforting pressure of your suit. The wetware accepts the neural handshake as you let it boot up for a few moments. The lines of code flew past your vision as the systems check ran through its standard procedure. Finally you see the all green and step out of the suit storage and make for the cockpit. Your ship’s autopilot has successfully landed in bay five on the pad with a few other gunships that you vaguely recognize from their action figure counterparts that you may or may not have in your apartment. You decide to lock down your ship, only allowing access from the hatch to the cockpit until the ship picks up your biosign on board. You drop down the ladder and head to the chokepoint where Federation officers are waiting for you.
“Welcome aboard the GFS Olympus. The Admiral is waiting for you in the conference room just off the main bridge. Feel free to use the shooting gallery before you head up the ramp, too.”
You nod your thanks to the two troopers on duty and continue past them coming to the ramp that leads deeper into the Olympus, or the side hall that leads to the range.
Do you...
Head to the meeting. No sense making them wait for you.
Brushing up on your aim might not be a bad idea...
Metroid Dating Sim!
What if I did a bit of "choose your own adventure" style writing with Metroid bounty hunters? How many people would be interested in playing a voting based dating game?
I'm thinking of having Samus be the player character, but also I could have Samus act like the space cryptid I think she is and have her just appear in the background every so often or be a secret unlockable date with the right combination of choices.
Why Can't Metroid Crawl (Into My Heart)
Head to the meeting. No sense making them wait on you.
Head to the meeting. No sense making them wait on you. You may be slightly earlier than the appointed time, but it doesn’t look good to show up late to a meeting because you were trying to set a high score at the shooting range.
You walk up the ramp and hit the door switch to disarm the door shield. Some hunters liked to shoot them, but you thought that sounded pretty dumb because what if someone else shoots it from the other side right after you and you die? Clearly those people didn’t care about the well being of others. The door opens to the lower bridge, which seems like a very short walk for any invading force to reach the command center. Different levels of personnel perform various tasks to maintain.
You make your way through all of the security checks and scans, not seeing any of the other hunters. Maybe you're later than you thought… the doors to the meeting room hiss open, showing no one else was there. Only Admiral Dane and a holographic brain locked in a game of chess. The Admiral strokes his chin for a moment before reaching out to move a pawn.
Before he even sets the piece down, the brain says, “That move will result in a checkmate for me in seven moves.” He grunts and selects a different pawn, “That one will end the game in three.”
“Damnit 242! You’re supposed to be taking it easy on me.”
“This is me taking it easy on you.” The holochess disappears, “It looks like the first of our hunters has arrived.” The Admiral notices you for the first time and approaches you with his hand out.
“Glad you could make it, I’m Fleet Admiral Dane.” You complete the handshake, though you’ve never understood the point in handshakes. If they’re meant to show that you’re unarmed, what about the beings that can cause harm using abilities that are non physical? Regardless, they’re standard greeting procedure for those in the Galactic Federation.
“It’s good to see that you’re a little more punctual than the other hunters, and I appreciate that.”
You wonder where the rest of the hunters are, since you were pretty confident that you were going to be late yourself.
This time the brain speaks, “They must’ve gotten distracted by the revamped shooting gallery. It’s been recently upgraded with new targets, challenges, and a high score leaderboard.”
Damn, I should’ve checked out the gallery. Could’ve met some of the hunters early. You think to yourself. Just then, the door opens again and a group of hunters stalk in the door. You quickly recognize Rundas and Ghor. The two were infamous for their part in the Phazon crisis, and how they had nearly been killed by the Federation’s mistakes with the PED devices. You really hope that this super top secret mission isn’t anything like that mission was. You think that it would be a bit above your skill level. You chat with the four hunters for a few minutes, learning a few things about their skill sets and past achievements while you wait for the remaining three to show up.
You already knew the basic spec on Rundas and Ghor, they were considered some of the most “good” hunters that went around the galaxy performing murders for money. There were other jobs that weren’t murder of course, but you know, murders made up a substantial amount of them. You did not recognize the other two on sight, but once they had introduced themselves, you remembered hearing about some of their high profile jobs. A lanky being that seems to absorb all the heat in the room is quietly chatting with Rundas about ice based weaponry. You know them to be Noxus. A member of a proud and secluded race that preached about truth and justice, you remember hearing that he could be “a pompous ass” sometimes. They are very picky about what jobs they take, although they didn’t seem to be aware of the concept of collateral damage, nor about any tarnishing of public opinion when bystanders were injured while completing a mission. The other is clad in boxy green armor with an opaque gold visor. He is notorious for having been a Space Pirate and a Galactic Federation officer, and was at some point exiled from both factions for unknown crimes. Now, he is considered one of the morally grey hunters, with no job too wretched or kind as long as the pay is satisfactory. You believe that he is probably one of the more sketchy characters to be around, but he is seriously skilled and never goes out of his way to harm anyone that isn’t explicitly labeled a target.
Do you talk to...
Ghor
Noxus
Rundas
Green-clad hunter
Why Can't Metroid Crawl (Into My Heart)
Prologue
You are a bounty hunter. You grew up during the age of exploration. When things were fun and exciting and new, and the Galactic Federation had just gotten together. Afloraltite was mined for fuel and the Elysians had just signed a treaty with the newly formed Galactic Federation. At the same time, the Space Pirates had been organizing to attack freighters carrying food, fuel, and anything they thought might be worth the taking.
You were born during this era, so you grew up when the Federation Police were still on the scene trying to organize the newly allied worlds into some semblance of unity and order. You remember you were born on a world that happened to be named a ‘core world’, so you grew up with the rapid advancement of technology. You remember how bounty hunters were hired in droves to protect its new citizens while the Federation was still putting together its army.
The hunters were icons. They could be rude as hell, greedy, and borderline evil, and they would still get merchandise made to honor their efforts in the skirmishes with the Space Pirate Confederation and the Kriken Empire. And then when Samus came on the scene… It was like a switch was flipped overnight. Everyone and anyone was trying to find out who or what was beneath that exotic armor and synthesized voice. No hunter had ever been such an unsolvable mystery. You decided to try your hand at the bounty hunting game along with everyone else that year. But unlike most, you stuck with it. Moonlighting at first, protecting your smallish city of only one million and taking on jobs to deliver items, protect clients, steal data, etc.
Now, nearly a standard decade after Samus first hit the scene, you are at the top of the galaxy’s A rank hunters. Apparently you were even good enough that the Federation had personally reached out to you to join the best hunters on a secret mission, so here you are. Time to begin the hunt.
Wake Up
You wake up to the standard alarm on your Device, a soothing melody plays on some kind of old earth instrument that involves hitting pieces of wooden bars of different lengths. It is annoying and you keep forgetting to change the damn thing. You roll out of your hammock, yawn, and stretch all of your limbs in every direction possible from your purple yoga mat. Another human thing that was supposed to help your body become more stretchy or something? Either way, it’s softer than the metal alloy of your ship’s floors. You meander to the cockpit and flip a few switches, disabling the blast shutters, turning on the nav system, and starting the kettle for a hot cup of your morning Red Starburst leaf tea. ‘Ahhh, that hits the spot,’ you think to yourself.
Now that you’ve had your drink and stretches, you feel ready to face the day! And what an exciting day it is, your ship is on course to dock with the GFS Olympus in a little bit so you can join with a small group of hunters that the Galactic Federation has hired for a top secret mission. It’s up to you (and like 7 others) to work in pairs and defeat the galaxy’s next greatest threat after the Space Pirate forces were scattered years ago by the legendary hunter, Samus.
You leave the cockpit and head to the armory of your small ship, checking on the charge status of your Powered Suit. There behind the polycarbonate window lies your livelihood, your second skin, your soulmate. A suit of polygonal armor that you yourself designed and assembled from scraps and alien schematics over the course of a few years working late nights at a bar on your homeworld. One of your human friends compared the shape of your suit to ancient “origami” one time, and while you’re still not sure how it relates to the climax of a sexual encounter, you take pride that someone was able to achieve such a heightened emotional response from it (even if you were hoping for intimidation).
[99%] Charge Completed
The monitor displays that your suit’s energy levels are at maximum, but looking closer, you notice that it also has an update available to your suit’s interface software. You have been ignoring that for a while now.
Do you...
Update the soft, of course.
Best leave it for now, stick to what you know.
...It sure does look like it could use a good bath.
I did a quick art on my friend's iPad
Oh no... Samus... Rough night home
I did a little writing thing just now. Felt like sharing it. It's an in-universe joke about the Varia Suit name.
Samus crawled out of the crater that was the grave of Kraid. The bastard reptile had been stronger than she expected, and had done drastic damage to the power suit. Her visor was badly cracked and she was pretty sure her left arm was broken in multiple places, not to mention all the chips and cracks along the rest of her body. Climbing into Kraid's mouth and pumping him full of every missile she had, had worked, but the resulting explosion had also damaged the room she was in. There didn't seem to be any proper way out anymore.
Samus paced around the room looking for a way to get herself unstuck, but with a broken arm and severely limited visibility and no spare energy tanks it wasn't looking good. She had locked out the motion of the arm so it wouldn't get any worse, which left only her cannon arm to dig with. Pulling a claw off the corpse, she slowly used it to carve out a small tunnel to, according to her map, the closest room.
Hours of slow digging went by as Samus made consistent progress, but she was getting exhausted and this was the last intact claw she could use to scrap away at the soil of Brinstar. With the claw tucked under her right arm, she continued to scrape away at the small tunnel.
. . . Crack
The last claw sheared in two causing Samus to bonk her head against the wall. She just stared a moment before a string of curses that would make Grey Voice very upset spilled from her lips. She kicked the pieces of claw as hard as she could, and watched and it punched a hole right through the spot she had been digging.
Pausing for a moment to assess the situation, she reached out and found that her eyes weren't lying, she had made it through. A few powerful kicks later and there was a vaguely Samus shaped hole in the wall. Stepping through and Samus found herself next to an item statue. This one looked very old, heavily weathered, and covered in flora. The Chozo's head looked extremely flat, compared to most that she had encountered before, exceeding only Old Birds flat headedness.
Pulling up the scan visor, Samus attempted to read about who the Chozo was and what item they held. But the cracks in her visor made it hard to read the translated words. It was something like Quiet Robe or Flat Egg, the words kept flickering and couldn't make up their mind. And the item seemed to be a suit upgrade. Whatever a Varia was, it had to be better than the wreck of a suit she was wearing now.
The golden light of the upgrade process disappeared and Samus checked her logs again.
Oh. It was the barrier suit. Samus shrugged and headed out of the room.
"I suppose 'Varia' does have a nice ring to it."
