The Dark Ages [Dark Data]

[Samus Aran]

Samus is at 18/30 damage.

Okor was staying. That was clear and there was nothing they could do to convince the undead man otherwise.

Samus teetered between the two choices. She feared death, but not so much as to dissuade her from her mission. Seeing it logically … what was the better way to ensure the end of this Nebula verse?

She ran through the checklist.

If she stayed, they could perhaps kill the Black Knight before the rubble buried them all. But there was also the possibility that the Black Knight would escape regardless, and leave them to be buried. It didn’t seem the Black Knight’s style. A far more galling, and likely fate would be that he simply survived, through the sheer strength of Nebula’s ever-burgeoning corruption. And then there would be no-one left to stop him.

On the other hand, Okor was not leaving, and to leave him now would surely be to sign his death wish. Samus had seen the undead warrior’s strength first hand, but even Okor’s resilience had a limit. He was little more than a skeleton in a suit of armour now; his bravado didn’t change his mortality.

But certainly, that seemed to mean that the Black Knight would not be escaping. Okor would make sure of that. The Black Knight could still survive … but she would be outside to make sure he didn’t get far, if that was indeed the case.

Samus looked to Hiro, and his mind seemed to be made up also. She turned.

“Okor!” she called. “We’re going! We have to make sure this is his deathbed!”

“As do I!” He returned. “Now … go!”

Samus did not look back.

The suit was damaged badly, and transforming to its Predator state felt like a risk … but a worthwhile one for its speed. As she willed the bulky armor to fade, the HUD flashed up a number of errors, but after a few seconds, with a few clunks and clicks, the Predator armour emerged. She felt a little lighter on her feet now.

The building was already coming down. The dark flame was eating away at the structure far more aggressively than normal flame, and so the chunks that were falling down were practically atomised; beacons of black-purple that exploded into flame as they hit the ground. Samus had to activate her jet pack more than once to burst out of the way of incoming debris, and each time left her gasping for pain. Part of her had wanted to stay and die with Okor, rather than continue to endure as her life bled out. But that was not the path she’d chosen to walk. It was what made her different from the Chozo. They had accepted fate, died and left their creations to haunt the universe. Perhaps she was young and foolish, but without hope, there was nothing to move her.

Besides, she thought, one lip curling wryly despite herself. How many times have I escaped an exploding planet or facility before?