The lava boiled as the group kept moving, with the heat licking against their suits. Samus' own energy started draining by a single point after several minutes of travel, as the heat roiled up.
"...So we have about fifteen minutes until we're dead?" Nova muttered.
"The door shouldn't be too far from here." Samus said, quickly. "Worst comes to worse, I will place you behind the first door so that the convection isn't as harmful."
"Thank
fuck." Sullivan murmured. "...I think I'm getting light-headed."
"You're an arm down." Higgs said. "I think you're kinda past the point of just being light-headed."
"We're also inside of our suits." Samus said. "I think you're getting psychologically fatigued." She frowned a little. "...I am sorry."
"No...no it's not that." Sullivan said. "...I just did something dumb and could have just shot him..." She said, quietly. "I lost m-my arm because I didn't shoot him when I should have."
Samus took a deep breath and looked away, and the rest of the team kept moving through the hallway.
Several seconds later, a person's body fell into the lava from a higher platform, and it immediately bubbled and boiled, sending bits of lava soaring up into the air as steam rose from the molten rock. It was followed quickly by a flurry of smaller creatures, all of them leaping up to gasp at the steam that was now rising from the corpse.
The group looked at the bubbles in the lava, before turning to look up at the platform. "...That's our way out." Samus said. "See that door?"
"Yeah. We do." Higgs murmured. "...We can't quite jump up there, though."
Samus looked confused. "You can't?"
"The suits have a maximum standard jumping height of five feet. Good for super-parkour, but...yeah, that kind of height is nuts." Charles said over the comm.
Samus blinked. "...You require assistance to jump with the suits?"
"The suits are fucking
heavy." Nova groaned. "Like, this shit?" She moved part of her armor's covering around to show off the joint. "I need to have this shit help me move it because of how goddamn heavy it is."
"To put it in a less vulgar way..." Higgs pushed Nova out of the way. "The suits act as motorized exoskeletons. If it ran out of power, it'd lock us down and basically turn us into paperweights."
Samus furrowed her eyebrows. "I had forgotten about that. Give me a moment." She turned away and did a soaring leap upwards. She jumped up to one platform, then another, and another, before she looked around with her scan visor. Immediately, she noticed a panel, and scanned it as quickly as she could. Within seconds, she was able to get the platforms to move slowly, just fast enough to let the group travel but slow enough that it was still manageable. "The platforms can now be traversed." She said. "Just travel up them. In the meantime..." She shot the door once. She seemed a bit annoyed at the appearance of yet more molten rock and machinery, but she didn't say anything. "...We have more of this specific location to scout."
"...Oh.
Great." Nova shouted up as the group's platform slowly slid upwards.
"I do wish our map station didn't take fifty billion years to get to." Higgs muttered as Sullivan followed close behind. Samus slid out through the door and out to the other side, before she fell twenty meters into a nearby pit. She blinked once in mild surprise, and landed on her feet perfectly as the ground beneath her feet stood firm.
This particular hole in the ground was large, and at the end of it was an enormous creature. The exoskeleton was a dark red, and its eight eyes all seemed closed.
Samus paused, before she held up her gun in preparation. She moved slowly towards it, cannon raised and arms locked. "...You look familiar." Samus muttered as she held her gun up. "Like something I killed just a few months ago..."
Just as she said that, it suddenly jerked its head to the side, and opened up a single eye. It glared at her once, as the others opened up with their own bioluminescent glows. The jaw dropped open as it let out a low whine, followed quickly by a much higher-pitched shriek. The jaw trembled as the scream echoed across the walls.
[=]
The others stood outside of the door, and immediately heard the scream from the other side. Sullivan's eyes widened, before she tapped the door once with a key and rushed in. Immediately, the group saw Samus, and right across from her was a bizarre, multi-limbed
monstrosity. Four legs unfolded from its underbelly, as two arms, heavily armored and lined with a red exoskeleton, dragged themselves across the ground. The creature shrieked again, as Samus prepared her ice beam.
[=]
A/N: fuckin' monsters n' shet.
