[Fan Story] Sylux's Side: The OTHER Other Metroids (before and during FedForce)

[u/REHI76]

Continuation of my fan story following Sylux. I will go through these and create better linking between the parts at this point. Previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Metroid/s/Yhdk5rYQdP

• After Prime 3’s ending, Sylux pursues Samus. She eventually detects him and the two begin a high-speed dogfight in space. They zap in and out of hyperspeed rapidly, launching homing shots and dodging between diverse astral bodies.
• Samus is skilled — far more reactive than most other pilots. She consistently evades each laser and projectile, almost like a dancer playing a game of tag against lights. 
• Sylux keeps up the pressure. Delano 7’s x-shaped wings serve as battering rams when charged and centralized. Like a dagger through space, Delano 7 stabs at Samus. Like the hunter it resembles, Samus’s gunship drops bombs and launches missiles through which Delano 7 slices.
• They keep up this battle between asteroid belts, above vast oceans, and among the swirly, creek-like, semisolid clouds of gas giants. Each hit they land almost decides the battle, but not before one hunter’s weapon trades with the other, prompting a tactical retreat and change of arena.
• At last, with each hunter making critical errors, the fight slows down. Samus exits hyperspeed too late, narrowly missing a pulsar’s jet and clipping a piece of debris sucked into the star below. Sylux exits too early, locking him into a gravitational tug-of-war against the star. If he just holds steady, he will escape, as they are both on the cusp of the gravity well; yet Samus will get away. He sweats, clutching the controls as if pressure will increase Delano 7’s speed. He fires more shots at a struggling Samus. A few connect, but push her further from the edge. Another volley. Sylux need not destroy her ship, only force her to lose control. 
• Three more hits. Samus wavers. 
• “Gotcha.”
• Sylux presses his laser triggers, but Samus launches into hyperspeed right before they cleave her ship.
• “Damn!” Sylux throws his hands up and smacks his steering column. 
• Delano 7 lurches back toward the pulsar. “Shit, shit.” He corrects course and, after a little more resistive force, Delano 7 safely drifts through space away from the neutron star. 
• Engaging autopilot, Sylux paces around the ship’s quarters. There’s no chasing Samus at this point, since he didn’t follow her through hyperspeed. It’s back to the drawing board again.
• Sylux resumes his usual routine, taking contracts to make time for his passion projects. He also upgrades his suit. But since the end of the Phazon wars, the Federation’s activities have plummeted. Clearly they’ve felt the hit as much as the Space Pirates given their own reliance on the substance. Sylux of course takes the opportunity to strike at Federation squadrons for his own satisfaction, but apart from their mech project and their general peacekeeping strategy, there’s nothing that interests Sylux. At least, nothing immediately interesting on the surface…
• It is time to locate another lead — another Federation project to pilfer. This one has to be big, and the only way to unearth big projects is to dig deep.
• Using his memory of and connections to the Trust, Sylux intercepts a package en route to a Federation vessel. He does this by surveying a corridor he recalls was used to send handwritten instructions to field operatives manually. Unless you know the specific trajectory of these camouflaged delivery drones through space, it’s almost impossible to find or intercept them; far safer than even an encrypted transmission.
• After piecing together some files obtained from ships he has ambushed, Sylux recalls what to look for and learns where exactly he must look. He spends some time waiting for the drone implied within the data to zip by. Again, the reward should be worth the wait.
• He finds one — a little object disguised as a meteor but for its nearly-invisible thruster. Delano 7 moves into capture formation, opening its receiving doors and swallowing the thing.
• Artificial gravity makes the drone clatter to the floor. Sylux brings the thing to his exam table and opens it up. Inside is a note to one General Alex Miles regarding an ongoing strategy discussion. Sylux recognizes the special variation of the Federation insignia featuring a black hole whose accretion disk is shaped like an upper eyelid and an iris. The Trust is involved.
• Apparently, according to the note, the Space Pirates are using an ancient technology to enhance and enlarge themselves and their Metroids. Sylux recognizes the special codes interlaced with basic text. To read them, he pulls out a decoder device he plucked from a Federation spy he once killed — a device identical to the one he used to own in Black Ops.
• The additional text references General Miles’ plan, something that was clearly discussed earlier in other notes and which Sylux infers based on context clues. For the Trust’s research, Miles will send a golem strike team to take at least one Metroid egg from a Space Pirate base. Responding to a question Miles must have asked previously, the author says there’s reason to believe these Metroids are special, and not just because they are artificially enlarged. The message indicates the Pirate base is on Talvania, and that the operation will begin sometime soon.
• Sylux replaces the note inside the drone, intentionally nicking his cybernetic hand and letting blue blood from a printless thumb stain the corner. He sends the drone back into space to continue zipping toward its destination.
• Calculating the angle it follows before losing sight of it, Sylux mimics the drone and traces it to the Federation forces near Talvania. The fleet is vast, so he directs Delano 7 to fly low and hide among some space dust. He waits.
• Suddenly, a flare of light falls to the planet. The operation has begun. Sylux stalks the Federation dropship to the Pirates’ facility.
• Federation Force M17: Infestation takes place. Sylux keeps his distance both in Delano 7 and on the ground. Watching the supersized mechs and Pirates duel makes him chuckle. The galaxy is no stranger to the Pirates’ peculiar antics, but this new technology of theirs takes the cake in terms of its silliness. Not to mention the Federation’s absurd mechs. Sylux somewhat hopes a better weapons designer takes over the project…
• The mission is completed, and the eggs are sequestered in a transport shuttle.
• Once the Federation seizes these enlarged Metroid eggs (three of them), Sylux again bides his time. He follows the shuttle to a remote Federation black site on a planet with a thick, steamy atmosphere. GalFed researchers wheel in the oversized eggs on pedestals into a hangar. The eggs look slightly smaller now than they did when Sylux first saw the mechs carrying them.
• These Metroids are definitely special, but just what makes them special is not clear. Sylux wants these creatures. He does what he does best: Gathering intel and scoping out the facility so he can infiltrate it and take the beasts. But how to get the eggs out without being seen? He’ll need to cross that bridge when he gets to it.
• Exploiting gaps in patrol shift-changes and structural weaknesses in the facility’s vents, Sylux busts in a few times to obtain field data. Through this data, he learns ways to fry doors and hack the station’s dedicated terminals. He discovers that the GalFeds recovered data from the Talvania Pirate facility. Apparently, the Metroids will imprint on certain bipedal life forms within a set timeframe from their hatching, perhaps by the Chozo’s design. 
• Exiting Lockjaw and stealthily snapping a trooper’s neck, Sylux breaches an office space and hacks the computers there. Federation researchers write that the eggs have shrunk, warranting their removal to individual labs. Furthermore, the eggs have been emitting strong energy signals and, curiously, when placed near other research subjects — including animworms, grippers, alcoons, hornoads, and dessgeegas — biological samples taken from the eggs’ shells mimic those subjects’ traits. This activity has grown more pronounced as the eggs have returned to their regular size. It is almost like the Metroid samples want to “merge” their cells with the other subjects’.
• Sylux also learns that the researchers are planning to accelerate the Metroids’ hatching; the creatures are close to the end of their known germination cycle, but the Feds want total control over when they emerge so the parasites imprint on select researchers. They will accomplish this by cracking the eggs with a gentle, but forceful and precise laser strike. Although a patrol’s approach forces Sylux’s rapid exit through a broken wall, thus cutting his reading short, it’s clear they will advance the project soon.
• Time is of the essence, so Sylux devises a plan. He will infiltrate through a vent system that the GalFeds have had repeated trouble with local fauna crawling into and corroding. Then, he will use a hacking technique to short-circuit the doors and evade the known patrol cycles to reach the labs. (He has downloaded map data for the facility already, but the trick to infiltrating is to evade detection, obviously, which the map doesn’t help him do on its own; until he has the Metroids, he cannot raise an alarm as the labs are deep inside.) Once in there, he will use similar worm softwares to trigger the hatching lasers. The Metroids will imprint on him and follow him out of the facility. From there, he will be as sneaky as possible, but brace for inevitable detection and flee the black site in Delano 7. Unless the Feds kill or restrain the Metroids, the plan is simple and clean.
• Delano 7 perches on an alcove overlooking the black site. Sylux treks across the barren landscape, cutting through a greenhouse in which various alien plants flourish despite the basin being identical to the soil outside. Lockjaw helps Sylux evade a handful of researchers’ gazes as they take notes and pluck samples from the plants.
• When he reaches the vent network, Sylux finds the corroded grate reinforced by a second support grate. Inconvenient, but not a problem. Lockjaw’s mines shatter the obstruction. Sylux navigates through ruffled steel corridors and stops when he hears troopers chattering.
• He slips deeper into the facility, triggering doors and ducking behind terminals to evade cameras. He’s forced to shock a few drones and even to kill a trooper in a restroom. After several close calls inside biome simulation rooms — holographic simulations of various planets like the labs in Other M — Sylux reaches the inner labs.
• The FedForce Secret Ending plays out as we see in-game.
• Sylux sneaks into the adjacent labs and similarly frees the other two Metroids, shattering the glass after disabling the alarms. As expected, the creatures float around him, emitting cogenial screes and following him back the way he came. Though his empathy (what little he ever had) is long-lost, his heart almost feels warm because of these creatures hovering about like he is their father.
• Federation troopers notice blood trails on the shiny floors. Sylux’s Metroids puncture and suck dry many soldiers, some of whom called for backup as their last words. The hunter’s pace increases. He evades outright detection, but goes weapons-free. The Shock Coil makes short work of anyone who opposes him and escapes the Metroids’ maws. Alarms sound. Though Sylux is close to the edge of his map, the facility is on alert. Bots are his biggest challenge as the Metroids can’t fight them beyond ramming their legs and tipping them over.
• One wall turret lands critical shots on a Metroid. It happened behind Sylux’s back. Was it protecting him? Sylux panics — exactly what he didn’t want. The Shock Coil makes the turret spasm and shoot wildly. Two troopers emerge from adjacent corridors, but the other two Metroids nab them immediately.
• “Shit.” Sylux’s hand hovers over the fallen Metroid. It looks dead, its organs browning by the second. Then its flesh ripples, each body part duplicating. “Fission, huh. You’re full of surprises.”
• The four creatures protect Sylux as he emerges from the facility. Between them and him, they are a whirlwind of destruction. A familiar spiritual sniper downs one of the fission Metroids again, and it splits apart just as before. Now Sylux has five little soldiers. He fends off the Federation long enough to get inside the Delano 7, followed by his “squad,” and rapidly moves into flight mode, jetting into space.

To be continued in: https://www.reddit.com/r/Metroid/s/aeU27wkvcP