Part 7
The story will continue in first-person present-tense for a while. I'm more comfortable writing that way. I may switch tense and perspective when I feel it's called for.
This would probably be so much easier if I could just project corrosion effects whenever I want. I wouldn't even need a Hymmnos Word for almost anything. But no, that function of my mental model is also restricted behind "rules of engagement". If these functions are all locked specifically to make me learn Hymmnos Words, I'm going to sing a song that drives my creator insane when I find them.
That should show them all I've learned.
If I have a Cosmosphere, it's probably full of some very disturbing things by now... I
really hope I don't have a Cosmosphere.
But that's not important right now, because I'm huntin' me some space leeches. It's currently... 40 minutes after what I measure as nightfall, and there's no sign of them. They usually come out within a few minutes of stardown. The nights are so short they really don't have much time to waste before they start hunting.
I sit, and wait... and wait... and wait...
The sun rises. The metroids never come out. This isn't right. They've come out at precisely the same time every night without fail. There's still plenty of prey out here for them to choose from, so they definitely aren't waiting for game to repopulate the area.
What the actual... wait. The larva have been getting bigger every time I've seen them come out. Now they're nearly as big as the giant baby from Super Metroid.
And now suddenly they've stopped coming out to hunt.
I am so stupid.
I don't know how I didn't see this coming.
I've found them, all bunched up inside an underground chamber rather close to where I first ran into them weeks ago. All the laser bugs are gone, nothing but dried up husks and bits of exoskeleton laying about. The larva are going through metamorphosis. Clearly the point when they are most vulnerable, the chamber is being watched by the Omega laying on the floor nearby. And yeah, it's the same Omega I've been faced with since the beginning. There haven't been any others this whole time.
I wonder why I haven't seen any of the intermediate stages between Larva and Omega yet... I have no idea where the Queen for this colony is either, but I can find out later.
Okay, this isn't all bad. Sure I can't pick them off out in the open like I could if they'd come to the surface, but if I do this quick enough then it's just the Omega I have to fight before killing the maturing larva in their cocoons. Question is, how to go about it? Once I start singing the Omega is going to know where I am. I won't be able to form spur of the moment ploys because all of my emotions will be put into the song. It's going to take 25 seconds to charge it... that's 25 seconds I have to not be killed by a giant armored magic space leech.
Wait... I think I know what to do. Unless I have severely misjudged the way animals in general behave, this should work.
Still in my stealth form, I carefully float myself into the cluster of cocooned larva and wedge myself between several of them. I'm very small and thin, so it's easy for me to slide right in. Fortunately the larva don't seem to have any sense of touch for the surface of their cocoons, and they don't react... I probably should have thought of that
before I did this. Whatever, I'm in too deep to turn back now.
Okay, breath. Technically I do need to breath now, since I have to sing... it's a weird feeling, needing to breath in some form. It makes me feel more human than I have in years. The fear does that too...
I need to beat that fear.
My Klein Field lashes out, striking the ceiling above the Omega and causing rocks to fall on it. The beast roars and claws at its head, momentarily confused by the sudden minor cave-in. I take the distraction to shift into my full combat form, abandoning all concern for stealth, and immediately get singing.
This Hymmnos Word is bizarrely calming and ethereal, using chimes and winds with a piano to evoke the sense of being out in the snow and ice under a moonlit sky. The words, however, don't match up with the sound. There is a deliberate dissonance between the intent and the sound. The song's purpose is to bring me peace from what afflicts me by thrusting my hate and fear at my enemy.
"Rrha ki ga drone guatrz en chsee viega/."
(With extreme concentration, I absorb my hate into a blade.)
With great anger, I demand the end of my torment.
The Omega rears up and locks its eyes onto me, as it did before. I absorb myself in the song, ignoring the memories of how I felt helpless when it first appeared.
Though fear fills me, I am not blinded by terror. Though hate consumes me, I will not succumb to rage. The clarity of ice will quiet my thoughts and focus my will.
The metroid leaps at me, pulls back its claws, and hesitates. It can't fit its big meaty talons into the gap I've crawled into, and it won't risk injuring the larva. This is exactly what I was hoping for.
I am resolved to endure ten-thousand torments to halt my suffering. I will trudge through endless desolation to deliver myself from this misery.
The Omega decides to fix its problem by grabbing cocooned larva and rolling them out of the way. It moves frighteningly quickly, clearly judging that the risk of injuring the larva is preferable to me killing them if it doesn't stop me. My hiding spot quickly becomes too dangerous as judged by my other thought threads and I jump out. The huge predator's swing scrapes my barrier, sending me spinning through the air as I try to bleed off the momentum it transferred to my Wave Armor. I don't stop singing as I flip upside-down and stand on the ceiling. My combat program has judged that a direct hit won't breach my Klein Field, and I stand firm as it flies up at me.
The powerful claws smash into the field, hitting with more power than the Photon Cannons of a destroyer. Saturation rises by 10%. 20%. 30%. It keeps going up. This is... this is
ridiculous! It's hitting me with more force than the speed and mass of its arms should impart, as if it's creating energy from nowhere when it hits! That strange radiation from the superbugs... it's also producing it, and with a much greater output. It's swinging so fast it will breach my field in only a couple more seconds.
The chill of winter will consume my fears and hesitations, and release them from my soul.
But I've finished my song.
I've had enough of being afraid.
EXEC_HYMME_COLGA=QUESA
The lance of blue energy thrusts down with a blinding flash. The Omega barely has enough time to shriek before it's impaled on a great spike of ice so cold that it creates carbon dioxide snow. Thorns of ice rapidly expand within its body until they breach its armor from the inside, turning it into a huge frozen pincushion.
It would probably be appropriate to call this Gae Bolg, now that I think of it. Only the file names of spells are in Hymmnos while the given names are in the common language, so it's not like I would be breaking any rules.
Without all of my emotions being poured into the song, I feel a lot of relief... and I'm shaking. I'm not supposed to be shaking. I'm not human. I don't need to shake after doing something stressful. Dammit.
With one last look at the ice-riddled corpse, I get to work making sure none of its kin will grow into that monster. As soon as I've split the first one in half with a blade formed from my coat, I can't help but keep wondering where all the intermediate metroids are. I haven't seen a single Alpha, Gamma or Zeta.
Whatever. Just focus on killing these things. I split another, and another, noting with a morbid fascination how the metroids seem to just evaporate within seconds of being killed. Then I hear a crunching noise. I quickly turn my eyes to the source of it. It's a cocoon in the back of the cluster. It's suddenly moving around a lot, like something is trying to break out.
I try to grab it and pull it to me with my Klein Field, but then it suddenly expands to several times its previous size and the shell explodes.
Leaving a fully-formed Omega Metroid staring down at me.
Not distracted. Aware I'm here. And with me not prepared to sing.
"Ohhhh... shit."
More cocoons start shaking.
