Ezra Kioko woke up with a splitting headache.

The last thing he remembered for

sure was getting a drink with some of his workmates down at the lab before
heading home. Then someone had talked him up a bit, bought him another drink,
and now... now there was cold metal under his face. And it was faintly vibrating.
Slowly, he pulled himself up. He was still in his work clothes, including his white
lab coat. Was he... still in the lab somewhere? No, he couldn't be. Where was he,
anyway?

From the soft hum of machinery and the cramped arch of the bulkhead above him,
it seemed to be part of a ship--small, and definitely not of Federation make.
Interestingly, he seemed to be face-down in an eight-foot corridor connecting the
various chambers of the ship, rather than in any actual room. The only notable
feature was a glassteel cylinder embedded into the far end of the corridor, just
opposite the door that was likely the ship's helm. Inside was an imposing suit of
red and orange power armor, gazing down at him wordlessly.

Ezra yelped. He knew that cold, metallic face. Every citizen of the Federation
knew that face. A cold sweat ran down his spine as he stood, root in place by a
sense of bowel-clenching terror. Now that he knew he was on a ship, there was
only one conclusion he could make, as absurd as it sounded:

He had been abducted by the Federation's most wanted criminal, and the most
singularly terrifying sophont in the known universe.

Certainly she was by now, after having single-handedly disintegrated several of the
other most terrifying beings who might have rivaled that position. She was a force
of destruction on two legs, and with her recent clash against the Federation's goals,
it was clear that she served no master but herself.

The suit's visor gazed at him like a spectre of death, but it was thankfully empty.
The armor was missing its left gauntlet, however... and he felt its fingers clutch
around his shoulder from behind. "You're awake."
Ezra felt his blood freeze as he slowly turned around, and he saw that he was now
closer to Samus Aran than anyone with a lick of sense would care to be.
Even out of the armor, she was an imposing figure. Tall and impressively built,
with a gaze as cold and pitiless as a black hole.

"I... I..." stammered Ezra. He wanted to run but his feet wouldn't listen. "You...
you... you're..."

"The Hunter?" she asked, looking wearied by the moniker. "Try not to have a heart
attack. There's no bounty on you, Dr. Kioko. I have no intention of harming you,
unless by some miracle you prove yourself dangerous." She let him go, turning her
back on him as she stepped back to her seat at the helm. "The galley is to your left.
Drink some water, you've been out for hours. If you have any shakes, they'll fade
in an hour or so. It's a normal side effect of the stun beam."

"The... stun what?" he asked, blinking. "You... stunned me?" Slowly, not taking his
eyes off of her, he made his way to get some water and quickly drink it. His mouth
still felt dry. "You're Samus Aran," he said. "I've been kidnapped by Samus Aran.
Me. Kidnapped! By Samus Aran… kidnapped. Me. Samus... Aran."

Samus turned in her chair, arching a brow at her new passenger. Few in the galaxy
referred to her by name, and fewer still bothered to learn her last name. The family
it had once connected her to was long gone, after all; in some circles it was more
common to hear something like, 'Samus, of the Chozo,' or 'The bounty hunter,
Samus.'

"I am," she responded at last. "I suppose it would make sense that you've read a
little about me, more than the rumors say. Given your... history." This last word
was spoken with a faint hint of distaste.

"Heard of you?" said Ezra, as the shock finally wore off--replaced by maddening
disbelief. "Who HASN'T heard of you?! You killed the galaxy's most feared crime
lord! Twice! You blew up a planet! You destroyed BSL because the Federation
stiffed you!" Then he stopped, trailing off a bit. "I don't know what... history you're
talking about," he said, flatly.

"Let me paint you a picture," Samus sighed. She cast up her metal-clad left hand,
and the ship's computer responded. A holo-file appeared, displaying the cover page
of a lengthy scientific publication. "Several years ago, you created one of the first
in-depth analyses of the SR-388 lifeforms known as metroids. This work launched
your career, securing you funding and eventually paving the way to a cushy
position as a Federation-sponsored scientist." She leafed through the pages,
displaying detailed diagrams of anatomy, charts and tables measuring the creatures'
metabolic rates in response to varying forms of prey and ambient temperature. "It
was fine work, for its time. You weren't aware of the full spread of its life cycle
back then, but no one was. But what concerns me today is the conclusion."

She skipped to the final page, outlining one passage: "... the metroids present a
clear and present danger to all forms of sapient life."

Ezra paused. He didn't like to brag, but not for nothing was he one of the most
prominent up-and-comers in the xenobiology department. He'd had to defend his
work before, but that had mostly been to a panel of other scientists, not to a
fearsome living legend.

"Well... it seems like you would know that better than anyone," he said, trying to
compose himself. "Nobody is quite sure how to quantify the 'energy' that they feed
on. My leading theory is that they feed off of bioelectricity, but that wouldn't
account for--" He shook his head, thinking better of launching into a sudden
analytical debate. "In any case, why else would the Space Pirates have been so
keen to weaponize them? They're simple organisms. They feed. They reproduce.
And then they continue to feed. They do not seem to have the higher functions to
do much more than differentiate between food and not food."

"They do make effective weapons," Samus admitted, "but as a scientist, you should
know the dangers of mixing opinion and fact. Metroids did not choose to become
weaponized. But in any case, your position on the threat of their continued
existence was a large part of what drove the Federation to order their extinction."
She looked down at her right hand, ungloved, with an almost imperceptibly green
vein tracing down her wrist. "And as it turns out... there are things in this galaxy
worse than metroids. Things that reproduce explosively. Things that not only
consume, but infiltrate and copy all known higher forms of life. ​Things that
metroids eat.​ "

"What are you talking--" Ezra began, and then all at once, something clicked. The
exact details of what had gone down on BSL were hushed up with a speed that was
impressive even by Federation standards. The last he had heard, before everything
went radio-silent, was that some kind of outbreak had occurred, and they were
bringing in an outside contractor to contain it. And that contractor was standing
right in front of him.

"...What happened on BSL?" he whispered. After a brief pause, he amended his

statement to, "What ​really ​happened on BSL?"

She turned her chair, crossing one leg over the other as she considered him. It
wasn't surprising that they'd covered it up, she'd figured as much from the empty
reports of the station's destruction. What was surprising, however, was that his face
seemed earnestly (if nervously) curious. Cozy on Federation pay, she'd expected to
hear him quote the official 'news' back at her, to call her a terrorist, or worse. But it
was strange to think that one of the top xenobiologists in the field was never
brought into the loop at all.

"So they never told you about the X parasites?"

"X... parasites?" he repeated, cocking his head. Seeing her relax a bit put him at
ease, somewhat. Then, despite everything, he let out a laugh. "Is that really the best
name they could have come up with? I mean, seriously? X? Just... X?" Seeing
Samus's expression, he cleared his throat and re-composed himself. "Like I said,"
he continued. "All we heard was that someone picked up a contagion from SR-388
and it killed most of the staff and specimens."

"That's... ​almost a​ ccurate," she said with a smirk. "I gather the team there was more
interested in results than history. In any case, the specimens were many and
various, but they were all hosts to a parasite discovered on SR-388. This creature...
it has little shape of its own, but it can infiltrate a flesh-and-blood body in seconds,
corrupt it... and eventually, duplicate it. I was there." She grit her teeth,
remembering the hours of torment, fully awake in a sealed surgical theater. "By the
end of it, the station was infested. Scientists, specimens… everything was X."

Ezra had a keen mind, and it didn't take long for all of the horrifying possibilities
of what she had said to flash through his mind's eye. "Stars," he said, hand over his
heart. "That sort of parasite... it makes the metroids seem like a bedbug infestation
in comparison! That's... that's why you destroyed BSL?" He looked over Samus,
who was saying nothing, content to let him work through the chain of events
himself.

He took a breath. "As a scientist," he said, "I have to confess that my mind is
positively whirring at the possibilities of what could be learned from these
parasites. But as a person... I would have pushed the button FOR you. Some things
just... should not exist."

"That's your takeaway!?" she snarled, pounding a fist into the arm of her chair
before forcing a new composure over herself. "This mess all got started because we
messed around with what we don't understand! X parasites might have a place in
this galaxy too... but it wasn't wise to try to purposefully breed them. In any case,
I'm no longer in the business of genocide. Just the opposite, in fact." She stood,
crossing her arms. "I want your honest opinion. Is it possible to bring back
metroids from extinction? If not, what would it take?"

He flinched as the impact of Samus's fist seemingly shook the whole vessel. Or
maybe it just shook all of him. He nervously considered her new question. He had
always been accused of having more smarts than sense (high INT, low WIS, as his
hologaming group used to say), but he knew with absolute certainty that ‘Why
would you want to do that?’ was the wrong question to ask her.

"Well yes, in theory," he nodded. "I can only speculate, since I've never actually
had a live metroid to work with. I applied for a job on Ceres Station, but, well, I
suppose it's for the best that I didn't get it." He let out a humorless laugh. "Without
a live subject, we'd need a DNA sample. We could clone a few individuals, but that
wouldn't save the species. We know now that the process renders them sterile. No,
what we would need would be to engineer a new queen, and, well... are you
familiar with the theory of biotransmutation? It's something new, still kind of
gaining traction... well, actually, I'm waiting for a grant request to come back on
that regard, so--"

Samus walked past him, her hands on the small of her back, her head bent forward
in rueful thought. She'd lain awake a few nights thinking that it might come to this.
It frightened her, as few things did. She thought of how helpless she was on that
operating table, parasitic mass corrupting her skin and oozing out of her pores
while her beloved suit was cut off her a piece at a time. Giving up her body was
unthinkable, but so was what she'd done to the galaxy.

"I have a sample," she said evasively. "But it sounds like it's not as simple as
cultivating DNA in a jar. Suppose I had a compatible lifeform, something that
could bridge the gap and allow for some genetic variation. What then?"

"Well, you've seen splicers, right?" said Ezra, looking up. "People who use
gene-tweaking to give themselves animal ears or tails, or something like that? The
principle is broadly similar, but on a much more complete scale. The theory is
sound; granted, I've only tested it on insects so far. But you couldn't use just
anything. You'd need a lifeform that had some genetic similarities in common with
metroids, that also had the desirable traits that you would need in order to make a
viable queen. Despite being an asexual species, from what your reports on the
SR-388 incident said, the queen seemed to be able to self-fertilize. That's tricky."
While the Hunter was sure there were a few changes to her physical abilities and
processes she hadn't figured out yet, she was certain she would have noticed by
now if she had indeed picked up something like that. "True. But it sounds like
you're talking about a hybrid--couldn't it fertilize from whatever the non-metroid
host species is? Through... mating, or whatever reproductive process it would
normally use?"

"Let me now refer you to the time-honored scientist technique of throwing up our
hands and saying 'iunno, maybe'?" he offered, shrugging. "This is all purely
theoretical. My research hasn't come anywhere near this stage."

Samus paused, then called up another holo-file. This one looked like some kind of
employment contract. With a very, very large salary. "And what if I told you to
figure it out?"

His jaw dropped. That was... easily triple what he would have gotten from his
grant, and that was only if it had been approved in the first place. His mind raced.
On the one hand, if half the rumors about her were true, there was no doubt that he
was sitting before a very dangerous woman. On the other hand, if she'd wanted to
hurt him, she'd had ample opportunity to do so. And on a third, much, much bigger
hand, that was a LOT of credits!

"I'd say you've got yourself a scientist," he said, pressing his thumbprint into the
indicated space. “So where are we going, anyway?”

“Nowhere you’ll have heard of,” said Samus, turning away from him. “We’re a
few lightyears out from Federation space. I’ve located an uninhabited dwarf planet
with a similar climate to SR-388, and I’ve got a matter fabricator powerful enough
to put together just about any piece of equipment you might require.”

Ezra gave her a long look. She gave him a sardonic smile in return, but no further
explanations were forthcoming, it seemed.
“Get comfortable,” she said. “We’ll be touching down soon, and I’ll be putting you
to work right away.”

~*~

A few weeks passed. At first she seemed not to trust him, giving him access to only
sourceless samples of DNA and ordering him to work out a general theory for the
overall process, aided by computer simulation. He couldn't fault the workspace,
though. While the lodgings were suitably remote for a wanted woman, the
adjoining space was quickly filling up with top-of-the-line equipment, of whatever
specifications Ezra recommended. He still would've killed for a second or third set
of hands to handle the workload, but Samus was at least turning out to be a capable
assistant to run machines, move and label samples, and other gruntwork.

He didn't know where she was getting the samples, and he was getting paid not to
ask. And so, he worked tirelessly. The dwarf planet she had found had, as she had
promised, similar conditions to SR-388, though the atmosphere was a good bit
more hospitable to humans. In any case, it was completely uninhabited and so far
off the Federation's radar that he couldn't imagine they'd ever be found. And her
resources seemed to be never-ending. He'd known that the woman had claimed top
dollar on her bounties, always taking the most dangerous ones on the charts. Had
she never spent any of it in her life?

Despite what he'd heard about her, she was a most gracious host. Stern and stoic, to
be sure, but patient with him and quick to help him with whatever he needed. She
was, after all, a person, despite everything. She didn't like peppers, she sang to
herself while she exercised (albeit in a strange, chirpy language that Ezra couldn't
parse), and she tended to snort on the rare occasions where she laughed. She had
foibles, like anyone else. And if one of those foibles was talking to her computer
when she thought Ezra wasn't listening, well, that wasn't his business.
He waited for her to finish when he came to her with the latest samples. "This is, I
think, as far as I can go with what you've given me," he said. "I think I'm ready to
test it on a live subject."

She looked over his data, though he had to break it down for her as he would any
layperson. She had at least made the effort to memorize some of the more
common-yet-complex terms involved. "Seems promising," she shrugged. "Though
you're going to have to take one last sample, even if you do nothing with it. I want
there to be no doubt in your mind as to where it's all been coming from up till
now."

She gestured to a rack of needles that she knew the good doctor had sterilized
himself. Then she paused, looking almost... guilty, about something. Outside of
that power armor, and the blue skinsuit that showed off her muscled body, Samus
looked almost harmless in a lab coat, and the mild anguish on her face might even
inspire pity.

"I'm... sorry if I deceived you,” she said, hesitantly. “After the BSL incident, I'm
not even sure how many Federation scientists are left that have a record of what
happened to me." She rolled up her sleeve and held out her arm.

Ezra's mouth gaped as he saw her skin. It was... well, it still looked like a human’s
arm, but her veins stood out, and what's more, they were bright green (and, if Ezra
wasn't mistaken, faintly luminous). He'd never seen anything quite like it. No, that
was a lie... he had.

"...That's how they saved you," he said, as he put the pieces together. "They still
had... tissue samples or something from the last metroid, of course they wouldn't
keep all of them on Ceres! And they... what exactly did they do to you?"

"They fused the DNA with mine," she explained. "At first, I think they wanted to
use it as a kind of vaccine, driving out the parasite with regular injections, but X is
just too virulent. Only a permanent bond would ensure total death of the parasite."
She shook her head. "I'd be lying if I said I understood the science. To be frank, I
got the impression that they didn't fully know what they were doing--they got
lucky. Near as I can tell, the end result is a partial bond, though. My nervous
system, bones, and several other sources show now hints of metroid DNA. I think
it may be gradually progressing, but it could take years. I want you to accelerate
the process, if you can."

"This is... fascinating," he said, reaching out to touch her. At her slight nod, he did
so, running his fingers carefully along her arm. "If I can be frank, this should not
have worked. You should have just died, but you didn't. You're unique. Maybe it
has something to do with what the Chozo did to you, maybe something else." Then
he looked into her eyes. "...It's always been you, hasn't it?" he said. "You're...
you're going to make yourself into the Queen."

She nodded curtly, though she looked far from certain of her plan. "That's right. I...
I'm responsible for their genocide, really. I should be responsible for bringing them
back. Besides... maybe if the Queen has an actual mind, the species won't be so
blindly ravenous."

Ezra paused, staring goggle-eyed at her. Then he cleared his throat. "Let me
preface this by saying that this whole enterprise is completely ludicrous," he said.
"Are we good on that regard? Alright, so." He started to pace back and forth,
thinking. Then he stopped, stroked his chin a few times, and firmly nodded to
himself. With that, he cracked open a container and pulled out a green ampoule.
"I was going to see about getting some animals to test on, but sometimes even
scientists have to go with their gut. If I load this into the genetweaker, I think that...
something might happen. I can't say for sure what, but we'll have to see." He
looked up at her. "Samus... if this works, this will be the point of no return.
Whatever it does to you will be completely irreversible. Are you prepared for
that?"

"I understand. Trust me, I've tried to talk myself out of this countless times. But
something has to change... I have to change," she said with regret.
He took a deep breath, pulled off his own lab coat, bundled it up, and tossed it
aside. "If we're doing this, let's do this."

The genetweaker was an innocuous-looking machine, good for everything from

filtering out birth defects to giving people the cat ears they'd always dreamed of
having. But right now, it was going to do something a bit different. From the small
box were a number of colored wires with pads and bands attached. A band went
around each of Samus's wrists and ankles, followed by a pad on either of her
temples, one over her heart, one on her stomach, and one on the small of her back.
And into the box was placed the ampoule.

“Well," Ezra sighed, as everything was set up. "If this doesn't work, I'd just like
you to know that I'm taking your ship and your money and getting as far from here
as possible.” That seemed wise, especially considering she might very well become
a monster... but Samus tried not to think about that.

“But for what it's worth,” Ezra added, “I hope it works. Are you ready?" The look
she gave him indicated that she was. "Here goes science," he said, as he activated
the device.

For now, all that mattered was holding on to what was hers. Memories. Training. A
sense of purpose. There was no way to control what would happen to her body
now, regardless of her willpower, but she could do her damned best to keep hold of
her own soul.

The discomfort of a genetweaker rated anywhere from 'mild pain' to 'serious

nausea,' depending on the severity and location of changes one sought. But the
moment the machine switched on, Samus's mutant veins started to glow brightly,
and slowly they wound further along every bit of visible skin. She screamed.

The process was fast, and it wasn't long before the solution was distributed
throughout her system. Likewise, it wouldn't be long before any changes that were
due to happen would begin, so the moment the solution ran dry, Ezra quickly
started removing the pads. Samus was breathing heavily. "Samus, can you hear
me?" How are you feeling?" When Ezra brushed blonde hair from Samus’ eyes, he
recoiled. They had changed from their usual blue-green tint to a bright crimson.

"Move," she groaned, pushing him by his chest and falling forward out of the
chair. Her whole body bent, as if she were about to vomit, but instead Ezra found
her pawing and huddling against a patch of floor while she shivered, sweat running
down her face. "So cold," she gasped. It took a moment, but the sharp researcher
soon realized there must be a power conduit under the floor there.

She was starting to look different already. It was hard to tell, but she looked like
she had grown a few inches. The simple underwear she had been wearing was
starting to strain at the seams. "Stay calm," he said, kneeling down. "Listen to my
voice. Talk to me. Try to describe what you're feeling."

"It's... it's all cold," Samus said, though she could feel the warmth coming off the
biologist, urging her to huddle closer to him. As he watched, Ezra could see
patches of her skin going pallid... then translucent. From the rate of her breathing,
she was on the edge of shock. "It was the baby. I'm sorry. The baby died because
of me..." She wasn't making sense.

He didn't know what she was talking about, but he had to keep her calm. He took
her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "I'm right here, Samus, you're okay," he
said. She was still getting bigger, growing out and out, and, oddly enough, her hips
were starting to widen as well. Whatever was happening was proceeding faster
than he could have ever anticipated. She was still shivering. He looked out the
window of the shelter; it was still midday, and the sun was bright. "Come on," he
said, tugging on her. "Let's get you some fresh air."

She staggered more than walked, and something started to scrape the floor with
each of her weak steps. She leaned on him readily, despite her usual pride, though
the grip on his shoulder was painful. She thrust out a hand to the door, popping the
handle off as it snapped open with terrifying force.

As the warm sun hit her, she seemed to perk up immediately. She leaned against
the rocky wall of the cliffside that ensconced the shelter, as if she was trying to
suck the heat right out of the stone. She had grown by at least a foot, and her chest
and shoulders had broadened considerably; as well, her lower body was continuing
to swell, her hips and thighs bulging out... until suddenly, there was a sickening
squelch, followed by the sound of fabric tearing as her leggings and socks split
apart. Her legs took on a brand new shape, ending in enormous clawed feet. And it
didn't stop there; her backside almost looked like it was... elongating?

"Adam!" she cried, her eyes watering. Her fingers bent, and her darkening nails left
little marks in solid rock. She hunched, gasping with ugly breaths while she felt her
insides convulse in waves. Her spine burned and ached, and Ezra could see the
bony column flex in an uncomfortable S-shape before it lengthened, pushing out
the back of her body while the skin split and re-knit around each segment, again
and again. She continued to grow taller, her feet getting broader, the claws more
murderously sharp as they bit into the ground and kept her upright.

Ezra didn't know who she was talking to in her half-delusional state, but he wasn't
in the mood to start contradicting her. "Hang in there, Samus!" he said. "Keep
talking! Stay with me! You're still you!" He could see her torso growing longer and
longer, her shirt finally giving way as a second pair of legs burst out from beneath
the fabric. It was hard for Ezra not to feel a little self-conscious about the fact that
she was now technically naked in front of him. But she wasn't uncovered for long,
not in the strictest sense, as plates of green scales began to grow out over her skin.

Her skin... parts of it were wholly transparent now, aside from a green tint. In
particular, he could see the middle of her abdomen straight through from one side
to the other. He could watch in morbid fascination while every single one of her
life-essential organs compacted into an ominous red nucleus of some kind.
"Ez... ra?" she rattled, a claw poised over his head. Her teeth were bared like an
animal.

"Yes, that's me, Ezra!" he said. Though her face was still, broadly speaking,
human-esque, there was a definite feral gleam to her eyes. He watched as her new
body continued to grow out and thicken, forming into a fat lower torso with a long
tail. He remembered seeing the images she had taken of the metroid queen, and this
looked... similar. But where the Queen's head and neck would have been, Samus's
mostly-humanoid upper torso remained.

“Do you remember me, Samus?” said Ezra. “More importantly, do you remember
that I’m not food?”

"F... food?" she looked horrified, shaking her head. "I... no, why would I...?" she
took a step back, then another--but with a separate set of legs. She stumbled
off-course, and a bladed tail lashed out to help her keep balance. Slowly the
off-putting churns of inner flesh and the crunch of growing chitin quieted, and the
changes began to slow to a standstill. There was barely anything left of Samus
Aran... except what mattered most. "W-what have I done to myself...?" she
quivered, unable to even bury her face in her hands for fear of the strange claws
she now bore. Little patches of green splotched her face, and the edges of her jaw
and brow were framed in plates. Thick green veins of bony material weaved
around her torso like an external ribcage of a sort, and the transparent membrane
replaced the skin from her hips to the midpoint of her breasts. Her hair had grown
into a veritable mane in terms of thickness and length, devouring the unfortunate
tie she'd used to maintain a ponytail.

Her voice was louder, owing to her size, but otherwise unchanged from the person
Ezra knew, still inside the strange hybrid. Her head had the fewest changes of
anywhere on her body--had her brain escaped intact?

Slowly, he approached her, looking her new form over. She was, in many ways, a
monstrous sight to behold... but in others, she was strangely beautiful. Xenobiology
had been Ezra's field of choice because Ezra had taken a look at the diversity of life
forms in the galaxy, in all its myriad shapes and sizes, and found that, where many
humans felt distaste or aversion, a strange sort of appreciation. After all, as he was
fond of saying, how strange must we look to an avian species, or a gelatinous
lifeform?

He shook his head, picking his jaw up off the ground, and slowly approached her.
"Uh, hi there," he said, giving her a wave. "Remember me?"

Samus nodded, looking at him as though ashamed of herself. "Y-yes. I remember...

I remember you turning on the machine. Then pain. Then... this?" She looked as if
she didn't fully understand what 'this' was, specifically. "Did it... work? I can't
tell..."

Ezra blinked. Then, taking several prudent steps back, he gestured for Samus to
look behind herself.
Samus glanced, then closed her eyes in revulsion. "N-no. I feel THAT, doctor," she
said with a shiver. "I mean... in your opinion... did I go far enough to... continue
the experiment? Or... is this perhaps TOO far...?" Ah, so it was a question of
scientific possibility, rather than basic results.

"We're in uncharted waters here, Samus," he said, approaching her, running a hand
over some parts of her body. The thick scales on her back, her softer underbelly,
her thick legs... "You seem, inasmuch as I can tell, healthy. I'd like to take some
tests to be sure, but yeah. Beyond that, we don't know much about metroid
physiology. I think from here on out, we just... wing it."

~*~

Not long after the transformation, Samus had curled up on the rocky ground and
gone right to sleep. Ezra decided to follow suit. He was ready to collapse out of
secondhand exhaustion. But as soon as he got up, the first thing he did was go see
how she was doing. Judging by the sound of heavy footfalls pacing about, she was
awake.

At least, they'd sounded like footfalls at first. Now it sounded like something being
dragged across the gravel outside. When he emerged from the drab grey building
they'd converted into a laboratory, he was mystified to see a nearly man-height
sphere of green scales rolling around. The 'catches' of its ridged scales allowed it to
roll even uphill on the steep crags under its own power.

Ezra backpedaled as the shape unfurled into the new metroid queen, and she was
just as much of a sight to behold as she had been the night before, though she was
still getting used to her new body, as well as her two additional limbs. (Or three,
maybe? Did a tail count as a limb? He felt like that was the sort of thing he should
know, considering his field of expertise.)

"Good morning," she said, putting an effort into speaking more quietly today to
counter her new body's volume. One claw self-consciously ran down the plates on
her opposite arm. "Sorry, I was just... experimenting. It's a mobility technique I
learned from the Chozo. I didn't mean to spook you."

"No, it's fine," said Ezra, sipping his morning coffee. The lab had been stocked
with a top-of-the-line food printer, and it made a reasonable enough cup. Ezra
wasn't the sort of person who drank coffee for the taste, anyway. "How are you
feeling? Anything new or -- though this term may be a bit loaded -- unusual?"

"I wasn't aware I'd need to write an essay," Samus said wryly. "There's... a lot. I've
just been trying to get used to the kinesthetics of this body for now but also... erm."
She stood up straight, a mild flush to her cheeks. Ezra had never seen someone
look embarrassed and yet so unerringly professional. "I thought I remembered
sweating out a lot of my body's moisture during the change. I've had water last
night and this morning. I think I can conclude that metroids don't... use the
bathroom."
"That's... interesting," said Ezra, making some notes on his tablet. "But it makes a
certain degree of sense. Metroids don't seem to subsist on solid food, only energy."
He paused for a moment. "Have you, um, for want of a better word, eaten
anything?"

"No," she shook her head. "I do feel something LIKE hunger, though--it's not a
typical hunger 'pang,' if that makes sense. It's rather a sense of lethargy--ah," she
pointed down at his mug. "Like before the first coffee of the day. Standing in
sunlight seems to help, but I suspect it's a case of diminishing returns. I feel as
though it takes more energy to move myself than I can take in just by sun
exposure."

"I think it may be in your best interest to try and get some sustenance, somehow,"
he said, looking around. The planet did have quite a bit of native fauna, most
notably some large feathered reptiles that roved about, scavengers. "I'm not sure
how, exactly, it's supposed to work. Where a metroid's mouth would be, you
appear to have your... um, self." It was still so strange, the way she was shaped, the
large humanoid torso growing out from the thick, sturdy body. She looked like she
had put on some weight, too.

Though a researcher and a consummate professional, he was also a ​guy​. So he'd

silently taken note of her new... assets. Samus wore no clothes over the engorged
organs on her chest, both for a lack of sized garments and the fact that they only
bore a surface-level resemblance to human mammaries. From their midpoint on
down, they were translucent like the rest of her midsection below, showing off
more bulbous nuclei at their cores.

It took him a moment for him to see her flexing her fingers at him and realize that
she had been speaking. "... like the mandibles. Don't you think?"

"...They are, a bit," he said, quickly clearing his throat and looking down at his
tablet. "So I think the first order of business today should be to secure some
breakfast. I'll take notes--from a safe distance, if it's all the same to you."
Sure enough, there was a watering hole not far from the lab, and a couple of the
reptiles were idly drinking. "Do you want me to get your stun gun?" said Ezra. "Or
should I just--"

Samus stood at the edge of a ridge looking down over the creatures. Part of her felt
guilty about the thought of feeding from them... there had always been something
innately horrifying about the way metroids ate, and that remained true even if she
acknowledged their place in the galaxy as a species. "It's... normal, right? If I were
crashed here, I wouldn't think twice about cooking them for my survival."

"Everything needs to eat," said Ezra, nodding. "That's life. Don't feel bad about it.
You may have to do this quite a bit, you know."

Despite her misgivings, there was some new part of Samus, some deep instinct,
that was ​hungry​. Even from this distance, she swore she could feel the warmth
radiating off of the reptiles. It was enticing. Like the aroma of a freshly-baked pie,
except rather than smelling it, it was teasing a sense that she'd never had before,
one she couldn't even put into words. It was hard not to notice that Ezra was giving
her that same feeling. But thankfully, the thought of eating him was just as
revolting to her as it would have been before. She hoped it was a new
development, one that would fade as she got used to the... scent? Sense? Whatever
this signal that creatures gave off could be called.

Samus crept down the slope, keeping to the taller grass and moving on her
haunches, head down. Still, some of the fauna stirred and vacated the area, but the
larger reptiles, assured of their safety at the top of the food chain, remained. Samus
rushed toward them, her right hand out, instinctively. Her target met her with a
snarl and a maw of teeth, but failed to bite her enough to hurt--in an instant, it was
pinned to the rocky sand, thrashing madly.

Now that she could touch it, the feeling was even more intense. Throbbing,
pulsing, vibrant ​life.​ Her newfound instincts took over, and she sank her claws into
the beast's hide, piercing it with only the slightest effort, and as soon as she made
contact, she could feel it. And she began to feed.

She groaned in relief, the revulsion of the process pushed to the back of her mind
as she watched ribbons of light flow up the muscles in her arm and coalesce in her
middle. Her body felt painfully empty, and this energy filled her, made her feel less
tired and weak. Her other hand came up, closing over her prey's snarling face,
piercing its throat.

Ezra couldn't look away. The process was captivating. The beast had stopped
thrashing almost the very instant Samus's claws had dug in. Some kind of paralytic
property, perhaps? And as she drained it dry, she looked more and more vibrant by
the second, the nuclei within her glowing crimson as the color drained from her
prey. Less than a minute later, it was over. She withdrew, and the beast fell to the
ground, its form crumbling into ash and blowing away.

Samus shivered, gritting her teeth and looking aside. But as she wrapped her arms
around herself and breathed, she could focus on the good that came out of it.
"That's... better," she affirmed, before standing and flexing her limbs anew. "I just
wish they didn't have to be alive for this."

"I suspect that it won't work any other way," said Ezra, putting in a few more
notes. "This 'energy', unquantifiable as it may be, seems to be some sort of vital
force. But for all we know, you may be good for some time. We have no data on
how frequently metroids need to feed in the wild." He looked down again. He
wasn't looking forward to this part, but it had to be done. "And speaking of which...
if it's alright with you, I'd like to try and give you, well... a physical. Of sorts."

"Oh?" she smiled, one taloned hand on her humanoid hip. "I wasn't aware you'd set
up an obstacle course around here. It might be fun," she mused. Ah yes; Samus
was ​ex-military. She had a very different idea of what a 'physical test' was likely to
include.
Ezra couldn't help himself. He laughed. "I mean," he said, "in the medical sense. I
want to examine your body." He paused for a moment, and added, "I imagine I'm
the first person to ever say that to you without getting vaporized where they stood."

"Please. I'm a bounty hunter... er, was,” she said, mixed emotions flashing across
her face. “The authorities tend not to pay out if you're wanted for assault with a
deadly weapon. Though I have been known to disarm a few power bombs, if you
get my drift," she said, walking back toward the lab.

It took some doing to get her back inside of it. It had high ceilings, fortunately, but
the door proved to be problematic. This problem was solved by Samus
demolishing the wall with her tail. They could fabricate a new one easily enough,
but this did for now.

"Just to be clear, I'm not this ​kind o​ f doctor," he said. "So pardon me if I go about
this like you're more of a... specimen, than a person. Xenobiologists aren't known
for their bedside manner."

Samus frowned at this news, but said nothing in the way of complaint. "I'll tell you
if you're overstepping your bounds. For a first session, do you think you can leave
out any clamps, prods, or other metal bits?" She'd seen him poke at a few
specimens in his free time. "And I'm going to assume you're more gentle with
living specimens, anyway--"

"Give me a little bit of credit!" he interjected. "No clamps. No tools but my hands,
I promise. But I will have to get pretty close. I'll try to be as clinical as possible.
Let's start with up top." He got closer to her, looking over her torso, running a hand
over her arm. Her body’s consistency was inhuman, but still humanoid in shape.
Her shoulders had broadened and her arms had elongated, terminating in those
sharp claws, and much of it was covered in green scales. "The scaly parts are
smoother than I would have expected," he said. "More like a snake than a larger
reptile." Then he placed a hand on her semi-translucent belly. "This part,
meanwhile, feels more rubbery, and very warm to the touch." He looked up a bit
further. Well, there was no getting around it. "Despite the fact that you appear to
no longer be a mammal, you still have, well, these," he gestured to her ersatz
bosom.

"I did notice," she laughed awkwardly--a talon twirled a bit of hair around her
digit, and Ezra took note when the sharp claw failed to cut through the golden
strands. "I... guess they could just be a holdover, right? Only they've gotten...
bigger." She hefted them for emphasis, giving the poor doctor an eyeful. "Any
ideas?" Samus herself couldn't see the 'secondary nuclei' inside them--the top of
her hemispherical chest pillows were still adorned with vaguely human skin.

"No way to tell at this point," he admitted, giving one of them a gentle prod.
Despite the strange texture of the skin, they were just as yielding to the touch as he
would have expected (or perhaps, hoped). "They may serve a purpose, or they may
just be vestigial. Likewise..." He ran a hand through her hair. "Soft… but more
fibrous than human hair. I'll try cutting off and analyzing a few strands later."

He paced alongside the length of Samus’s lower body, running a hand down her
legs, knocking on the hard plates that covered her back, giving her underbelly a
quick examination. It all seemed to be in line with the sparse information that was
already known about metroid queens. His initial suspicion was confirmed; she had
filled out a bit more since yesterday. Perhaps further, now that she had fed. But
there was one important part left to observe. He took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, Samus," he said. "But, considering the purpose of your mission here,
this next part is unavoidable. I am... going to need to examine your genitalia."

"Oh," she said blankly, as if he had informed her of some casual inconvenience,
like a power outage in her quarters. "I... suppose it can't be helped. Only..." She
turned away, her lethal-looking hands gently massaging along the base of her
humanoid body. It looked rather suggestive.

"There's... nothing here."

This time, Ezra kept himself from laughing. "Um, considering your new shape," he
said, walking toward her tail. "It's probably back here somewhere. Lift your tail,
please?"

Grumbling a bit in annoyance, Samus did so. Trying very hard to think of her as
just any other specimen, Ezra knelt down behind her. "Now, everything we know
seems to indicate that metroids reproduce asexually," he said, as patted her
backside. "But you can't make something from nothing. There has to be some kind
of biological mechanism by which--oh!" He paused as he felt a slit, right between
her tail and her translucent underbelly. "Please let me know if anything I'm doing
feels uncomfortable," he said, as he started to gently rub at the passage, trying to
coax it open.

"Uh...?" What was she to say to that? Of course it was going to be uncomfortable,
but it had to be done. She was reminded of some of the less talented gynecologists
on-base during her brief stint in the military--but at least his hands weren't cold,
and they felt downright tiny compared to... stars, she was just ​huge ​now, wasn't
she?

Her tail draped over his shoulder, muscular tremors constantly reminding him of
the punishment that waited if he got too casual with her. The translucent labia
resembled no sort of metroid orifice he'd seen, and it was only distantly similar to a
human woman's genitalia. For one, he could see with his penlight under her skin
the opening led to a large cavity on the underside of the torso, protected on both
sides by heavy plating. It was ​probably a​ womb? Though it was amorphous in
shape, and there were no accompanying ovaries in sight.

He opened her up a little deeper, allowing his fingers access. It was wet inside, wet
and very slick. Hating to get so invasive but understanding its necessity, he felt
around, being as gentle as he could, and he discovered something fleshy. He gave
the gentlest of squeezes, and he felt a reaction, an involuntary twitch that went
through her. He felt something pressing back against his hand. As he withdrew,
something began to protrude from between those alien lips.

"Interesting," he said, after a moment's pause. "It’s more like a cloaca than a vulva.
And you appear to have what could be an ovipositor of some sort."

"Hnnnghh~," she growled, and he couldn't quite decide if the vocalization

belonged to a human longing for contact, or an animal about to rip his poor head
off. He would've jumped three feet back when he heard the accompanying sound of
her bladed tail punching through the concrete behind him, but the limb kept him on
his knees in the moment. "I have... a what?" she asked blankly. It was a bulbous,
cherry-red stalk, pushing just a few inches from her folds as if it had followed his
retreating hand with a note of interest.

Ezra took a moment to compose himself before responding. "It's an appendage

found in some oviparous species," said Ezra, as he ran his hands over it. It was, as
was everything up there, quite wet and slick. "Mostly insects and lizards. If you
start... laying eggs, they should come out through here." The tip, he noticed, was
starting to drip something onto the floor. He rubbed it between his fingers. "It’s
also secreting some kind of fluid. A lubricant? A nesting material, perhaps?" It had
a vaguely sweet scent. Not sugary, but more of a natural or plantlike odor. Between
that and the glistening goo, it was hard not to compare it to the insides of a Terran
cactus.

Samus bit her lip; her teeth had stayed human in structure. "That feels nice--In...
the interest of scientific disclosure!" she blurted.

Ezra couldn't help himself. Yes, she was a specimen, and a fascinating one. But she
was also a person, and he was fondling her most intimate place. And it sounded
like she was enjoying it. And, if he was pressed, he'd have to say that he was too.
But he had to stay focused!
"The fact that you're still capable of feeling that sort of... pleasure, is worth
noting," he added. "We should try and get a sample of this fluid for analysis." And
with that, as gently as could be, he started to stroke the ovipositor back and forth.

"Right... um..." Samus started to shift her four feet, getting more comfortable--then
she glanced to his worktable. "Ezra? You should... maybe grab a flask or
something first?" She blushed, realizing the scientist had gotten ahead of himself
for reasons that were starting to become obvious.

"Oh, right," Ezra replied, feeling his cheeks burn. "Silly of me. Absent-minded and
all that." He cleared his throat, scuttling off to grab a specimen jar before returning
to his position. "Again, please try to... keep me apprised of any feelings you may
be having anywhere." And so, he set the jar into place and resumed his task,
grasping and stroking her.

The altered Hunter draped her tail over his shoulder again, though this time it was
less stiff and threatening--more like a hand coaxing him to stay in place, silently
approving of his presence and actions. "It's... hnnngh~," she nearly purred. "Feels
so wet... is that ​all​ me?" she asked. "And your hands... warm~. I must be
cold-blooded or something, because you feel like you're fresh from a sauna. It's
nice."

"You do seem to be producing quite a lot of this fluid," he said, feeling the organ
engorge in his hand... or rather, hands. One was no longer sufficient. The slimy,
green-tinged fluid was continuing to be produced, coming out in little pulses rather
than a steady drip. And that wasn't the only part of her reaction. The light in her
belly was starting to throb.

The stance of her back legs widened, taloned feet pointing inwards as her curious
organ emerged. It pointed downward, naturally; were she to stand, it would
probably run more or less parallel to the underside of her tauric body. Her
jellyfish-like flesh was even softer along its length, but underneath the outer
membrane was something... bony? It kept the organ’s fluted shape intact even
when he squeezed with both hands. The floor was covered in a meter-wide puddle
now, and the flask was well overflown, but she was clearly keen on him
continuing.

Ezra's professionalism had very well lapsed by this point. Samus was clearly
enjoying herself and didn't want him to stop, and he found, to his surprise, he didn't
want to either! He squeezed a little bit harder as he continued to stroke, resulting in
more and more fluid with every motion. The pulsing within her belly was growing
stronger as well, but he was beyond wondering what it could mean. But things
became clearer as he saw it tense up hard.

"​Fuck!​" she belted in a strangled yowl, every inch of her hips freezing. Ezra
couldn't help but be reminded of the moment before her hungry pounce, earlier this
morning... but now, something wholly different was happening. First came a
veritable torrent of that slime, so deeply green it was almost luminous. It fired
down directly into the flask, knocking it aside and covering the front of Ezra's coat
with an artful spatter-pattern. Then a glowing ball started to push into view, slowly
squeezing into the cramped base of her ovipositor, making its red membrane glow
the color of blood. "E-ezra it hurts~? But... don't stop...?" she whined, uncertain.

Ezra recoiled as he was splattered, but only hesitated for a moment. Once he had
ascertained that he wasn't suffering any adverse effects from the stuff, he quickly
pulled off the coat, balled it up and tossed it aside. He got closer, running a hand
over the lump in her ovipositor. "Can you feel that?" he said. "Are you feeling any
urges?"

"Gahh~!?" Her whole back half convulsed, and the lump retreated into her body
for a second, its light indistinct and vague before relaxation nudged it back into
place. "W-warn me next time you touch that... th-thing!" she pleaded, hugging
herself to try to cope with the alarmingly intense sensations it brought on. "I can
feel it. I can feel it ​too much,​ " she explained. "It's not the worst feeling, but... it's
tight. A little painful? But also... good?" she shook her head. "But it feels like it's
not supposed to be there. It's... stuck. I want to push it."

Ezra nodded. He had an inkling at this point. "I don't want you to get too excited
now," he said. "There's still a lot we don't know. But I think you're trying to lay an
egg." He started to stroke her again, going at a slower pace then he had before.
"You've clearly got new instincts now, so I want you to try to listen to them. When
you feel those urges, give in to them. And if you can still think straight, try and
describe the process to me."

"It's... foggy," she admitted, "but nothing's as bad as it was during the change. So
let me try to push... ahhn~." The goo was drizzling slower now. The egg had
plugged her, but it wasn't a perfect seal. More interestingly, the bony
understructure of her ovipositor flexed and bloomed apart under her translucent
flesh, allowing the egg to enter a space otherwise too small for it. "Ohhhh yeah...
that's good. Hurts, but... mmf." She laughed. "This'll make you cringe, but... it's a
little like getting drunk and pulling something out of a stab wound. Only... the
not-awful equivalent. Dammit, that still doesn't make sense."

"...You've led an interesting life, Samus," said Ezra, shaking his head. He
continued his ministrations, stroking her as, slowly, with each straining effort, the
egg moved a little bit further down the tube, and he watched its progress closely.
"Whatever you're doing, keep doing it," he said, nodding eagerly. "Keep on
pushing. Lay that egg."

Samus worked, being perhaps more cautious than she needed to be. A half-hour
wound by while the thing slowly descended, but neither of them seemed to mind
how long it took. "Make a ring with your hands?" she quietly requested. "Then
stroke... nice and tight, behind it."

"Whatever you say, your highness," said Ezra, smirking a bit as he did as he was
told. He stroked slowly and firmly, feeling the organ pulsate as he worked, and
little by little, the egg began to descend, getting closer to freedom... and indeed, her
ovipositor started to bloom open as it drew near, almost like an exotic flower. The
shell was a deep, reptilian green, much the same texture and density as her
scales--but molded into a seamless, ovid shape. "Ahhh--!" Samus' voice rose in a
mild panic; her progress stalled with the tip of her egg only a third of the way out.
"It f-feels weird, hanging out of me...! It's not right. Cup your hands, quick!!"

Ezra did as he was told, letting go and shifting positions so that he was right in
front of it. "It's right here, Samus," he said. "Push it really hard!"

She grunted, angling her hips down until the shell actually made contact with his
palms. Only then did she seem to overcome whatever mental block was holding
herself back. She drew her hips up while she pushed, her membrane gliding back
over the fat end of her egg until the heavy thing rested in Ezra's hands all on its
own--aside from a generous coating of slime clear down to his elbows.
"Haaahhh~... I needed that."

Ezra examined the egg in his hands. It was heavy, with a thick, leathery shell, and
not much larger than a melon. It seemed unusually small, considering Samus's
description of the metroid egg she had found all those years ago. He got up, careful
not to slip, and deposited the slimy ovoid into a scanning device.

"How are you feeling now?" he said, looking back up at her. He hadn't been able to
see her face while he had worked, but now it had a languid, satisfied look on it.

"So... good," she crooned. Though she looked a little dazed, the dreamy expression
was waning. "I haven't felt anything like that, not since that one shore leave over a
decade ago." She rolled her shoulders, grunting in satisfaction as the joints popped.
All those endorphins were loosening the merc's tongue, it seemed.

"Good, because if all goes as planned, you will be doing a lot of that," said Ezra,
toweling himself off while waiting for the scanner to do its work. There was a ping
as a readout spilled onto the screen, and Ezra's face fell. "...I'm sorry, Samus," he
said, shaking his head. "It's a dud. Completely infertile."
"What?" she blinked, shuffling over to the console with some difficulty. "That can't
be right. I'm metroid where it counts, and I'm making the eggs all on my own... are
you sure this thing's calibrated?" she asked, squinting. Though not all of the
readings made sense to her, Ezra could tell that the egg was comprised of certain
hardened and calcified organic (but technically dead) structures. The 'yolk' or
'slime,' or whatever was inside it held a great many metroid DNA fragments, much
like similar substrates seen in Terran lifeforms, but there were no cohesive strands
detected, and that meant no embryo--not even a microscopic one. There was also
no metabolic activity inside the egg, making it unlikely one would form from the
fragments, if that were even possible.

Ezra looked up at her and took her hand-claw (carefully), giving it a squeeze. "If
you always got the results you wanted on the first try, a lot more people would be
scientists," he said. "We'll figure this out, one way or another. Hang in there."

Samus looked pissed at the setback, but that was better than despairing. She paced
as she thought over the problem. "Great... so I'm an infertile Queen. So... what?
IVF? Do I even have the right cells for that?"

"No. Now we get to the heart and soul of science," said Ezra, smirking at her.
"Trying things over and over again until something works." As he met her eyes, he
felt himself blush again. "I'm, er... sorry if I got a little bit unprofessional there."

Samus blinked, frowning in confusion at first... then the full implication of the
'exam' hit her like a train. "Well... that's... bound to happen," she shrugged.
"Anyway. No harm done, I suppose...?" One massive clawed foot twisted against
the ground. "I didn't... take advantage, right?"

"Oh, no, it's... fine," he said, sheepishly running a hand over his head and laughing.
"But, uh, I suppose we'll have to get used to working in such, um, ​proximity i​ f I'm
going to figure this out."
"Right," she nodded quickly. "In any case, the laying is... intense. I don't think I
want to try doing it on my own, privacy concerns aside. Especially if we're going
to be changing variables to try to 'move things along,' so to speak."

"Well, I'm all for the name of going on as we have been," he said, responding in
kind. "In the name of scientific vigor."

~*~

By Ezra's reckoning, it had been about 31 Terran days since his last breakthrough.
Samus had gotten more-or-less used to her new body, and it wasn't uncommon to
see her outside stretching her legs. She tried to be productive, as best she could.
Resting inside the lab was no longer an option, and so she had used her powerful
foot-claws to carve out a 'den' of sorts in the rocky wall of the cliff. Ezra,
meanwhile, was devoting all of his waking hours to solving their latest problem.
He looked down at the specimen jar containing his latest sample; a smallish,
slightly misshapen egg, just as infertile as the last. He sighed, picking it up and
placing it with the rest.

In the back room there were now many such jars, each of them containing another
dud egg, and no two were exactly alike. Some were larger or smaller than others.
Some came out in odd shapes, more oblong than others. One was blue, for some
reason. He still couldn't figure THAT one out.

Though wholly inert, the eggs had value as samples--particularly since there was
no other way to get a hold of metroid eggs. Each one helped him to form a better
working theory of how best to incubate them once Samus started laying fertilized
versions, and they formed a concrete data set of what had ​not w ​ orked so far. The
last month had yielded one egg per day like clockwork, aside from an interesting
hormonal signal he'd used last week that caused her to lay twice--increasing his
collection to 32, as of yesterday. With all other variables staying the same, she was
due to lay again in the next few hours.
Though... something else was worthy of note in the researcher's private journal: the
larger the ovoid collection became, the more time Samus spent hovering around it.
She stared when she thought she was alone. Sometimes she paced in front of it, or
closely examined or touched a few at random. Invariably she'd hustle off after a
handful of minutes and he'd find her digging out the den a little deeper than before.

If any barriers between Ezra and Samus had remained after that first exam, they
were gone by now. There was no embarrassment to be had in any of the acts that
she performed in front of him; any sense of modesty that either of them had was
subsumed by the desire for results.

Feeling that he could get nothing else out of staring at numbers for now, Ezra left
the lab and made his way out to the den. The ground shifted from rough stone to a
smooth, resin-like surface. That had been the result of another discovery. It was
somethin that Samus had theorized: metroids could indeed suck the energy out of
things, but they could also transfer it elsewhere. After some trial and error, she
demonstrated by giving Ezra a small electrical jolt with her claws. (Upon his
asking how she came to this conclusion, she had quickly changed the subject).
This, in turn, led to discovering that when a charge was applied to the fluids that
she produced, they quickly congealed into a more solid form.

So it wasn't uncommon for Ezra to walk in on Samus in a similar position to the

one that she currently was in: crouched down with her tail held high and her legs
spread apart as she generated additional 'building material' for herself. Her head
perked up as she caught the sound of his footfalls. She didn't turn around, but also
showed little in the way of reservation as her mammoth slit continued to flex open
in pulses, oozing out more of the cloudy slime into a growing mound on the floor.
Each thick wave of it was announced by a groan from the ex-mercenary; to Ezra's
ears it sounded like simple exercise, rather than the strain she went through when
laying.

Every half-minute or so, her tail would swipe through the gunk, paint it onto the
wall or ceiling, then flash with a strange energy that would cement it into place. He
watched her for a few moments. It was bizarre, yes, but there was also something
strangely captivating about watching her work. This new form of hers was a month
old, and now she piloted it like she had done so all her life.

He cleared his throat politely to get her attention. "Don't stop on my account," he
insisted, with a playfulness that belied the increased level of comfort they had
developed with each other. "How are you feeling today?"

"Mm," she vaguely acknowledged, waiting for one last pass with her tail to seal a
dry patch of rock wall before she took a break. "Restless, Ezra. The last time I was
in one place for a full month, it was in a hospital." Her tail slapped against the
ground with an air of annoyance. "I'm sure it sounds strange to you... but my life
up to now has been very active. The feedings help, but frankly the game here is
slow and dull, compared to most xenofauna I’ve fought. I need an outlet."

"Yeah, I can see how that might be a problem," said Ezra. "I suppose engagement
isn't the sort of thing that a natural-born queen metroid would have on her mind.
The perils of the human imagination, I suppose." He looked around the den, and
gave a little chuckle. "Have you considered taking up sculpture?"

"Funny," she muttered, poking him in the chest with the blunt side of her claw.
"Though I haven't made anything tough enough yet that I can't shatter apart, so
beating up on resin-dummies is out. How goes the baby-making?"

He sighed, leaning into a glossy wall. "Second verse, same as the first. There's just
something ​missing, something I can't quite put my finger on. Right now I would
give any number of body parts just to be in a room for three minutes with a real
live metroid. I just ​know t​ hat the solution is staring me in the face. I'm lacking the
one piece of the puzzle that makes the whole thing come together in a glorious
explosion of eureka." He groaned, looking back up to her. "I don't suppose that any
more deep-seated instincts have awakened? Maybe a little voice in your head
saying 'oh, yes, that's what you're missing, my bad, have a nice day now'?"
"Aside from nesting?" she asked, touching two talons together in a gesture that
made her look incongruously cute. "You know how I said earlier that in the first
week of the change you seemed like... food? Well, that's gone now. Instead there's
a new sort of draw, something familiar. Though, it's not an urge I acted on all that
often. Frankly, I don't know how rational or possible it is now," she mumbled,
dancing around the subject. "Hell," she shook her head. "I want to ​fuck​, Ezra.
Though it seems a bit insensitive--it may just be boredom, and I didn't want to use
you, especially since... well, look at me."

Ezra slipped at the mention of the word and landed on his ass. And he’d started to
think that there was nothing that could make him blush anymore!

Then he burst out laughing on the floor. "...You want to hear something stupid?" he
said, as he pulled himself upright again. "I decided to become a xenobiologist
because I was fascinated by the seemingly-infinite shapes that intelligent life could
take in the galaxy. We're all so different, and yet at the same time, so many of us
are alike. I was the only Terran in my doctorate program, and I learned a lot from
my classmates."

He looked back up at her. "And you... there's nobody in the galaxy like you.”

Samus gave him an unfriendly sneer, even shoving his shoulder. "Stop messing
with me. You--"

“I'm not being wistful,” he insisted, “there is literally no other lifeform in the
known universe exactly like you. It's ​amazing​! Sometimes I have to stop myself
from staring at you.”

The more Ezra spoke, the less it seemed to Samus as if he were lying, or even
pleasantly ​exaggerating​.
“And after spending all this time getting close to you, exploring your body..." He
took a deep breath and looked down at his feet. "...I'd be lying if I said my interest
was purely academic anymore."

As a bounty hunter, Samus had no shortage of practice dealing with deceit, and
after a month with the practical-minded Ezra, she was nearly convinced that he was
incapable of obscuring his own view of the truth.

"You... really?" she asked. "Really?" she followed afterward, mildly confused and
cynical. "... Really..." once more, now soft and thoughtful. There was a pause, then
she took the end of his coat and started to drag him deeper into the dim green
depths of her new lair.

He let out a choked noise of surprise as he was pulled through a tunnel. He hadn't
seen much more than the ‘foyer’ before now; she built this as her own private
space, and he wanted to respect that privacy. He hadn't thought to ask, up until this
point, how deep she was actually digging! As the tunnel suddenly opened up, his
eyes went wide and bright.

The foyer was nothing compared to this new chamber. She'd burrowed her way
into some kind of hot spring; the steamy water covering the far end of the
hangar-sized room made it oppressively warm, compared to the chilly mountain air
outside. The walls were ribbed in texture, but the floor was smooth, aside from a
few molded bowl-like attempts at furniture for Samus' bulky body. Most
interesting however, were the dozens or hundreds of alcoves built into the walls,
not unlike his own preservation shelves for her dormant eggs.

She set him down in one of those alien lounge-chairs, chuckling as he rolled
head-over-heels to the center. "Strip," she said. "If I do it for you, you'll never wear
the rags again."
"Stars, Samus," said Ezra, eyes darting all around even as he started pulling his
clothes off. "This is... this is amazing! How much fluid have you been producing?
Do you ever seem to run out of it? Does making so much tire you out?"

"Questions, questions," she laughed, tail waving around like a cat's while she
watched him disrobe. "I drink a lot of water, these days," she answered, nodding
back to the spring. "Other than that... no. It just keeps building up, so I keep
making extensions and additions down here. Hmph... and something about your
specimen wall always gets me dripping."

"Fascinating," said Ezra, as he wriggled out of his pants. "Some kind of brooding
instinct, perhaps? Maybe if we--" As he finished tugging his pants off, she gave
him an amused look, and he felt a wave of sheepishness pass over him. "The
observations can wait," he conceded. He stood before her, now just as nude as she
was. He had the body of... well, a ​scientist​. He clearly took steps to take care of
himself and not let his form fall into total disrepair, but pretty much everything
about him was as average as could be.

Samus hardly seemed to mind. After dealing with the aberrant nature of her own
anatomy for a month, an average male body made her heart pound. She could see
the awkward look on his face though, so she hastened to get him feeling a little
more confident~.

"Mmh," she moaned, her claws nearly scooping him up as she sunk her head in his
lap, her glossy mouth moving lovingly over his skin. Her red eyes gazed up at him
with a quiet affection, promising him more.

Ezra let out a contented sigh as he ran a hand through her hair. "You're...
gorgeous," he said. "I've been wanting to touch you, really touch you, for some
time now." He looked into those eyes and gave her a smile. "So tell me... what
feels good? What would you like me to touch?"
Samus felt her heart thump again--alright, technically it was the left nucleus in her
chest, but that terminology still felt foreign to her. "Everything," she confessed,
slipping away with a sigh. "Mmm... but honestly, your hands on me when I lay is...
the best~. I think it's high time you explored me to your heart's content."

"I would like nothing more," he said. He made his way to her backside where, sure
enough, she was already dripping slime. More than usual. As she raised her tail to
give him better access, he began to let his hands wander, spreading the gooey slit
apart. Some part of him suddenly regretted not checking to see if any of her
secretions would be potentially harmful to him if ingested... but sometimes, the
best discoveries were hands on, so he lunged forward and gave the slit a long,
loving lick around its outer edge.

“Ahhnnh~" Samus blurted, her tail slamming into the ceiling hard enough to knock
a few chunks of resin loose. "E-Ezra~... you're a bolder soul than I thought," the
Hunter quivered, clutching a molded railing to better steel herself for the next few
laps of his tongue. "Ahhh staahhrs~..."

It tasted much like it smelled; judging from the efficient energy use of metroid
physiology, the doctor doubted there was much of anything in it. No toxins,
byproducts, nor even calories. Likely it was just full of lipids, or whatever other
molecular structures were needed for it to change consistency so rapidly. Her
membranes glistened, clean for the space of a moment before she started to ooze
again.

The slit was big enough for him to jam his entire head inside of it, but he wasn't
quite THAT bold. Running his hands through the slimy fluid to make sure they
were very well lubricated, he braced himself against her body and pushed one hand
inside, pumping his fist into and out of it, producing a chorus of wet noises.

"Unnnnghhff..." Samus groaned, eyes rolling back, claws leaving trails in the wall.
"Yes. YES. Nice and deeeep. Stars, I can't reach back there at ALL anymore, Ezra.
Hh~. Is that your whole arm? Mm, somehow it just makes me want more."
"Not yet," he said, as he wriggled his wrist around. She didn't seem to be hurting
for room back there, so he did as she suggested, and in one motion, buried himself
into her as deep as he could go.

The sound she made was inhuman, but Ezra found it to his liking. Her whole
channel pulsed and ​gulped​, mashing the side of his face against her gooey
labia-like folds. "Ahhghh~. This body is getting tamed by your touch, Ezra~."

He couldn't help himself. He let out a delighted laugh, which was cut off as he
found his face pressed against her with a wet ​squish​. "I didn't know you had it in
you to be so poetic," he said, as he felt around inside, flexing his arm and searching
for her most sensitive places... and then he found something familiar: the internal
'sheath' that contained her ovipositor. Curious, he gently squeezed it.

"Fuck, ​fuuuuck!​" she squealed, pounding a taloned fist into the floor. Ezra had to
imagine that some of this intensity was there long before her transformation... and
now with her size and strength, she was positively ​dangerous a​ s a sexual partner. It
was all she could do not to smash him into paste! The little sheath wiggled and
tensed while she wailed like an overwhelmed virgin. "W-what are you doing?
Hnnnhh~...!"

"The right thing, apparently," said Ezra, as he began to gently massage the little
nub, encouraging it to grow bigger and bigger until it emerged from the oozing slit,
its head cradled in Ezra's hand. "It appears that this organ is especially sensitive,"
he observed. "This merits further testing." And with that, he raised it up to his
mouth and began to plant kisses along the pulsating length, making his way up to
the head, which was gently flexing open. Though the organ was broadly phallic in
form, its cross-shaped opening was superficially similar to a vulva. And so, while
he could not take the oversized shape inside him by any means, an alternative idea
presented itself. He pressed his mouth against the opening and let his tongue slip
inside.
"Hahh~." After all the violent outbursts, he could've hardly expected this new
result. Her voice dropped off suddenly and her hips went totally limp. Perhaps
some sort of evolved response to prevent harm to a suitable mate? No, that didn't
make sense, metroids were asexual...

Whatever the case, she was suddenly very much like putty in his hands. Even her
armored plates quivered on her membranous body while he let his tongue squeeze
through the opening and lap around the slick interior. "Hoohh. OOOoooHh..."

Pleased by the response he was getting, Ezra continued his onslaught, running his
hands all along the length while his tongue danced around inside Samus. He could
feel her organ continuing to ooze slime, slightly thinner than the sort that she used
for nesting (Were they produced by different glands? He made a mental note to
compare chemical compositions later); it ran down his face and chest. He was
slightly ashamed at how much he relished the thought of being utterly covered in
her fluids.

The next step, of course, was obvious. It was just a matter of finding the right way
to put it into motion. "Samus?" he said, wiping his mouth and catching his breath.
"Can you lay on your side?"

"Yeah~," she said dreamily, dragging herself atop her self-made lounger, finding
comfort despite the fact her feral outbursts had crumbled some of its structure. Her
tail slid aside and her leg gently raised, inviting him without hesitation. "Nnnh...
you know this body better than I do. Ezra... I've never felt anything like this. You
must have been thinking about how to please it for quite some time, hm~? I think...
this is the outlet I want. I'll gladly return the favor how you like, if you play with
my ovipositor every day~."

"Favor? Stars, Samus, it would be a privilege," he claimed as she settled into place.
The new position gave him much better access to her ovipositor. He gripped it,
gave it a playful squeeze, and then, as carefully as he could, lined it up with his
cock, which had been hard and begging for attention ever since she'd first
propositioned him. Without further hesitation, he slipped it inside.

Samus groaned, tossing her hair back. The new shape inside of her wasn't as
dextrous or adept at teasing her sensitive spots as Ezra's tongue... but it was
comfortingly thick, spreading her tip just a little, enough to comfortably squeeze
around the prodding thing without the strain of a full egg's width. "Hnnh~. Is
this...? Ooo." She looked over herself, watching her new mate's expression while
she slowly milked him with her birthing muscles.

The scientist felt himself stiffen as he entered her fully. It wasn't the tightest
passage he'd ever felt, but the inside was amazingly textured, warm, and slick in
the best possible way. Her internal muscles rippled and undulated almost
constantly, sucking him in deeper. He wanted to say something, but words failed
him.

Samus breathed steadily, the rise and fall of her chest asymmetrically paired to the
heart-like pulse of her lower abdomen. It felt so strange... taking a lover inside her
this way, with a part of her body that extruded outward from herself. But the
pleasurable tenseness and pressure inside her ovipositor bloomed up into the rest of
her nerves with every little motion. She shot Ezra a smile as she clamped down a
bit firmer, drawing him closer while her organ's tip met his hips.

Ezra's analytical brain made note of how precise her muscle control was, and
marveled at how well she'd adapted to her new body. But most of that was taking a
backseat to the more primal part of his brain, which was currently being
overwhelmed with bliss. He used one hand to brace himself and lightly gripped her
member with the other, squeezing as he thrust into it. As he worked, he could feel
more and more of her slime running out of her, clinging to his skin, and the strange
sensation only heightened his pleasure.

He noted that he could only withdraw from her so far; past a certain point, her
translucent embrace snared him tightly. He couldn't help but be reminded of the
death-grip with which metroids adhered to their prey, though honestly this was too
carnally fulfilling to register any amount of concern, now.

Samus groaned hotly, flexing in a slow-rippling pattern under his hand and around
his shaft. Slime ran down his thighs in a lazy oozing gush while she whispered, red
eyes half-lidded in lust. "I... want it~."

He had been briefly entertaining the idea of pulling out, until now. There was no
telling what the mingling of their bodily fluids would do to her, after all! But now,
even if he had wanted to, it was no longer an option. She was gripping him tight,
and he wouldn't have had it any other way. "S-Samus!" he moaned. "I'm... nngh...
I'm...!" That was all he could manage to get out as she clamped down firmly, and
he let out a gasp as he came, shooting deep into her as she massaged him with a
sucking motion, milking him dry. Just as he had finished climaxing, in the haze of
post-coital euphoria, he saw something happening out of the corner of his eye. The
nucleus in Samus’ underbelly began to pulse softly, the omnipresent glow within
intensifying.

Heaving out a long, breathy growl, the ex-hunter's arms slid out from under her,
and she writhed on her side while her body went abuzz with pleasure, wholly
focused on drinking Ezra's seed into her body. She continued to pulse and stroke
him inside her for more than a minute before having the presence of mind to
release his utterly spent shaft. "Nnf. Stars, that was good..." she purred, running her
claws through her hair, seemingly oblivious to the glow inside her.

Ezra let out a grunt, falling back onto the slimy ground as she released him and
turning his attention to Samus's body. "Samus... are you feeling okay?" he asked.
The pulse was continuing to brighten, little by little. Suddenly, the surface of her
pale underbelly rippled slightly... and moments later, it began to expand outward.

The new hybrid frowned in confusion, rolling halfway to her feet before groaning
to a stop. "I feel... eggy?" she questioned, uncertain how else to describe it. "Oof...
sometimes in the morning, I can feel the presence of a new egg inside me, before
it's time to l-lay...? Ungh, this is different, though..." There was soft, fluidic 'squish'
coming from within her, and Ezra watched as several buds of organic material
started to bloom off the glowing nucleus.

"S-something's happening!" he blurted, snapping out of his afterglow and

immediately going into a fully analytical mindset. He ran his hands over her
swollen belly, pressing on the surface gently. Underneath the translucent skin,
something inside of her was shifting about. "It feels warmer than usual," he
remarked. "How does it feel? Are you in any pain?"

She stood, accidentally bumping him before restlessly pacing the chamber with
Ezra scurrying along beside to watch and feel. "No, not really...? Ghh. I wouldn't
say it's altogether *pleasant*, but it's mostly pressure... and a touch of nausea. It
makes me feel antsy." Her motions got slower as her belly filled out, getting closer
and closer to sliding along the resin-smooth floor. "The hell...? Weight can't just
*appear* like this!"

Something was definitely happening. The way her body spasmed reminded him of
when she had first gotten out of the genetweaker, but surely nothing like that could
be happening? His first impulse was to run back to the lab and fetch a few pieces
of testing equipment, but he didn't want to leave her side when she was in such a
state. The choice was clear. "Do whatever you've got to do to feel comfortable," he
said. "I'll be with you as long as you need."

Samus waded into the natural spring at one end of her dugout chamber, and the
room immediately grew brighter as the light in her body refracted through the
whole pool. Continuing to watch by ducking his head under the water at certain
intervals, Ezra soon saw one of the nucleus buds break off from the main mass,
darkening in hue as fluidic pulses passed it down toward her slit. "Unf... I think all
that activity spurred something," she said, a faint smile on her lips.

"Are you going to lay soon?" asked Ezra. They had, more or less, worked out a
routine for this. Though she didn't need any help in the procedure by now, she
definitely appreciated attention. He returned her smile. "I suppose it's about that
time. We'll get your egg taken care of and then run you back to the lab for some
tests."

"Yeah, just... help it along, would you?" she panted, perhaps a bit worn out from
earlier. Presently, the base of her ovipositor bulged anew, though this time... the
egg was softly glowing.

"Straighten up. You know it helps things along," he said, as he once again began to
stroke her. He could see her tense up, hear those familiar-by-now grunts, see her
muscles tighten with the effort, and... nothing. The egg hadn't moved an inch.

"Yeah yeah," she grunted in annoyance, fixing her posture with the help of
buoyancy. She bore down, drooling slime onto the surface of the water: the stuff
was so thick it floated rather than mixed. Though quite adept at the oft-repeated
ritual by now, the egg did little more than bulge out the bottom of her ovipositor
before squishing back into her hips. "Fuck. What is the matter with me today...?"

"This is... unusual," said Ezra, leaning in closer. "Get out of the water for a second,
would you? I want to take a closer look." She grumbled as she did so, and Ezra
took up his familiar perch beneath her tail. Carefully, he slipped his hand past her
ovipositor and into her slit, feeling around inside for anything unusual, and it didn't
take him long to find something. He could just about make out the shape of the
egg, and it was enormous. Easily twice the size of the biggest duds, if not bigger!
"Something is very strange about this one," he said. "Does it feel any different?"

"Yeah," she nodded, taking a few deep breaths as she let her body lax from the
instinct of pushing for a bit longer. "It feels bigger... It's also hot?" She shook her
head. "No, that's not all of it. It's more like... I can sense it's giving off energy—the
same way I can feel it inside of prey, and the power conduits back in the lab. I
guess that would explain why I feel drained, if my body's feeding energy to the
eggs for some reason."
Ezra quirked his head as he thought that through. He had studied each and every
one one of her eggs in depth, not skimping on any detail, and he'd never come
across anything like this before. He continued to feel around inside of her (made
difficult by the fact that she appeared to be producing slime at an increased rate)
until he just about got his hands on the base of the egg again. It *was* a lot warmer
than any of the duds were. His mind began to race with possibilities. A good
scientist never jumped to conclusions, but sometimes, the occasional wild
conjecture was needed. "Samus... I don't want you to freak out," he said, as slowly
and carefully as he could. "But I think this one might be alive."

"What...?" she gaped, staring back over her shoulder, though little of Ezra was
visible, hunched down behind her body. "H-how?? All we did different today
was--oh stars. It's not... YOURS somehow, is it?"

"That's DEFINITELY not how genetics work," said Ezra, as he withdrew and
started to pat his way down her side. "We're not even close to genetically
compatible. No, something happened after I, um, finished... but I don't know how
to—" his features suddenly went slack. "...Female," he said, softly. "You're...
female."

Samus shot him an annoyed look. “You only ​just​ noticed that?”

"We assumed all this time that metroids reproduce asexually, but what if that's not
the case?" said Ezra. "What if... what if the queens can self-fertilize somehow?
Two sets of internal sex organs! True hermaphrodites!"

"I still don't get it... it's not MY genes interacting with my--whatever. So how
would... unngh~!" Something pulsed in her hips, urging her to bear down again.
This time it made her groan with pain, equally as unproductive. "The Y
chromosome... metroids must have something like that, right? They're such tiny
chromosomes, they don't contain much information... a-and if I'm a hybrid, maybe
the difference in genetic information is enough to be overcome...?"
"This is just conjecture at this point," Ezra maintained, walking back around. "But
yes. Maybe my... erm... 'input' was enough for your genetics to fill in the blanks?"
He heard her cry out in pain as she fruitlessly bore down again, and took a deep
breath. "All of this is moot right now," he said. "The important thing, one way or
the other, is to lay that egg."

"Ghh... how do metroid queens do this without splitting apart?" she growled, her
hips restlessly rocking as if the egg would somehow work itself loose... through a
space simply too tight for it to enter. Slime was starting to pile up on the water’s
surface.

"Practice?" he suggested. Cracking his knuckles, he began to gently massage her

ovipositor again, like he'd done so many times before, but somehow, it didn't seem
like it was enough. She would need more help than this. He looked down into the
slimy pool he was standing in, and a thought occurred to him. "This may be a bit
uncomfortable," he said. "I'm sorry."

With that, he knelt down and picked up a double-handful of the stuff, letting it coat
his hands completely. Then, as carefully as he could, he opened her up with one
hand and slowly started to work the other inside of her ovipositor.

"Ezz... raahhh..." she groaned, her organ flexing around his skin once again. His
arm wasn't as thick as a dud-egg, but the length and motion of it was more than
anything she'd dealt with thus far. The blunt, bony limb didn't stimulate her
pleasure centers much at all, but the stretching around him made her teeth clench.
It felt painful, but also relieving... like a rough backrub after a long day hunched
before a control console. "Auuughhh~."

He didn't think he could reach in far enough to touch the egg, but he was hoping he
might be able to at least jostle something loose. He worked himself as far inward as
he dared, wriggling around gently. "Come on, Samus," he said. "Push nice and
hard! You can do it!"
"... Spread your fingers," she grunted, willing her muscular tube to widen further as
Ezra helped her begin. The egg descended a few inches at her next urging, along
with nearly a gallon of slime that spurted over the scientist's shoulder and chin.

Ezra recoiled as the wave of fluids erupted over him, but followed her instructions
to the best of his ability, opening his hand and wriggling it around. He could hear
the straining sounds she was making, see the egg bulge as her muscles squeezed it,
and saw that it was beginning to slowly descend. "That's it, good work," he said,
urging her on. "Show me what sort of queen you are!"

Samus felt the heat in her cheeks. "I am..." she groaned, the scale-plates on the rear
of her body parting and lifting as her hips bulged with the mass of her egg. Her
ovipositor stretched, turning more and more invisible as its membrane grew thinner
and tighter. Something fluttered and *moved* inside the egg, the source of its inner
glow.

Ezra grinned. It was fun to tease her. It kept her spirits up. And normally, she just
laughed and brushed him off, occasionally punctuated with a playful swat from her
tail. Right now, a little unorthodox encouragement would do her some good.
"You're going to be an *amazing* queen," he said, as she slowly bore down. "This
is going to just be the first of many, yes?"

The hunter swallowed. That had been the goal, wasn't it? Not just to make a
metroid, or prove it was possible... but to repopulate the species, at least far enough
that they could survive on their own. And that meant... hundreds. Maybe
thousands? "Yes," she hissed, starting to accept the strain in her ovipositor,
pushing down, feeling the resistance as an affirmation of her success. "So very
many... my babies..."

Ezra could see the egg making progress, and he began to withdraw his hand. It was
even bigger than he had initially surmised, and she must have been in an immense
amount of discomfort. No doubt she would grow used to it in time, but for now, he
needed to keep helping. "A beautiful, queen," he said. "Mother of so many,
beloved by all of her children!" He realized after he'd said it that he may have been
laying it on a little thick (drawing a bit too much on his love of high fantasy
holovids during his youth, perhaps), but it seemed to be having the intended effect.

"And you as my subject?" she laughed, a little hoarse in the face of her arduous
efforts. "Surrounded by my hungry children once they start to hatch from the eggs
you’ll be watching over." Some dark little piece of her psyche started to emerge:
the same malicious glee she felt when laying waste to an alien monster that
absolutely had it coming. "You won't come to harm, Ezra... but you're going to
give me all the hormones and treatments I need to keep my body fertile, and my
children strong."

Ezra hesitated for a moment. That certainly took a turn. If letting himself get drawn
into this fantasy helped her, then of course he'd play into it, but... was he actually
giving that some consideration? The plan had always been for him to take the
money and run once she was settled… A fresh spurt of fluid drew him back to
reality, and he focused on the task at hand. "Of course... my queen," he said. "I'll be
your loyal retainer, right by your side as you lay egg after egg after egg, always
birthing new children..."

"You'll be UNDER me," she quietly growled, and a sudden clench of her body sent
the egg against his open palm, his arm only half withdrawn. "Yes... the babies are
drawn to your life force. You're making it easier just by being near~. You're
practically a warm nest for them, Ezra..."

Ezra felt himself flinch. There was definitely something different about her now,
an edge to her voice that hadn't been there before. She'd always been sharp, but
now there was something deeper, something primal. Were her instincts overtaking
her? He withdrew his hand slowly as the egg-bulge continued to travel down,
getting closer to freedom with every effort effort she made. He saw her stance
shift, her strong back legs bracing against the ground and her tail held high as she
lowered her crouch.
"W-whatever you say, my queen," he said, as he shakily stroked her member. "I'll
be right here to see each and every one of your children be born..."

She bent her back knees, and the tip of her bloated organ prodded hard into his
chest, forcing him down until he sat heavily on the goo-softened bottom of the
pool. Inhuman trills and coos polluted her natural voice as she kept pushing,
emptying slime onto him while the membranous tip of her egg bloomed open the
end of her alien member. Catching her egg in his hands was one thing, but now her
massive living egg was going to settle directly in his naked lap…

He was unable to look away as she bloomed open, like he'd watch her do so many
times before, her petals stretching apart as the egg opened her wider and wider.
Soon, gravity took over; with an ecstatic sigh, the enormous ovoid was deposited
right onto him.

It was, as he had already noted, warm. He ran a hand over its wet, leathery surface,
and he could feel something within. Almost like a pulse. Faint, but there.

"Good boy," the queen purred, turning at length and petting through Ezra's slimy
hair. "Look at it. It really is alive, isn't it...? And I couldn't have made it without
you."

"I'll have to run some tests on it to be sure," he said, holding it aloft to get a better
look at it. "But... yeah, I think you just made a baby. Congratulations." He looked
up and gave her a wide smile. "Should I start calling you 'mom'?"

"Majesty," she corrected with a wry smile. "Now carry that up to the incubator."

~*~

Over the next few days, Samus and Ezra watched over the incubator like a hawk.
Neither of them had any frame of reference for what the expected gestation time of
a metroid was, unfortunately, but as far as they could tell, its vital signs were good.
Samus could 'sense' the larva within, the same way she could sense the energy of
any living thing. Ezra trusted that more than he trusted any of his instrumentation.

Most equipment was a bust--the various forms of energy given off by even an
infant metroid interfered with most sensory equipment. The best strategy, it turned
out, was to just observe the glowing ovoid from behind a lens that filtered out most
of the unearthly light, revealing the silhouette of the lifeform within.

This was all groundbreaking stuff--no one had ever recorded this stage of their
development before! And indeed, they were larval. The unborn metroid fattened
and lengthened with each passing day, growing nub-like teeth at one end while the
other plumped and rounded, stretching to the point of translucency and showing off
its strange organelles. "Fascinating..." Samus whispered, her tail swishing in
subdued fashion. She'd learned to rein herself in for the sake of the breakable lab.

Ezra, for his part, kept extensive notes... not that anyone but him or Samus would
ever see them, in all likelihood. The galaxy at large had proved time and time again
that a little knowledge can be dangerous in the wrong hands. But he still felt like it
should be recorded for posterity.

It had been about ten days since the fertile egg was laid, by Ezra's count, when
things started to get really interesting. The egg began to pulse faintly and glow
from within. "Samus...?"

She stirred in her resin nest, opening one eye. Curiously, over the last week, her
sclera had turned midnight-black, and her irises started to glow with the typical
pulse of metroid energy. Some final part of the transformation, it seemed... or
perhaps a hormonal shift, following the birth of a fertilized egg. She perked up,
catching a tiny shift of movement from the previously immobile lump in the
incubator. She padded over, claws receded, moving like an enormous cat. "Is it...
Ezra, is it time? What are the readings?"
"You tell me," he said, looking to her. "The energy readings are intense, but I have
no idea how to interpret—oh!" The egg started to wobble from side to side for a
moment, until, finally, it split open, spilling fluorescent green ooze as a tiny form
burst free of it.

There was no mistaking it. Hovering before them, no bigger than Ezra's head, was
the familiar shape of an infant metroid. It let out a high-pitched chirp as it bobbed
up and down, sizing up its surroundings.

Then it stretched out its tiny mandibles and promptly lunged for Ezra.

"W-wait!" Samus yelped, her mercenary instincts kicking in. Some civilians
thought the world slowed down when adrenaline hit, but it was just the opposite.
Things sped up, and so did you. Everything was over in less than a second, but
Samus still found enough time to feel a reflex in her cannon-less right arm to shoot
the poor creature, experience a crushing wave of guilt, AND to jump in front of its
lunge, likely saving Ezra's life. The scientist only caught the last part of this,
shoved to the floor as a gasping Samus suddenly found a tiny metroid latched onto
her right breast. "Ungh~... w-what...?"

Ezra blinked a few times as his life stopped flashing before his eyes. Then he
looked up at Samus. The newborn was clinging to her, and the nucleus visible
within her torso began to glow softly. The newborn metroid chirped again, muffled
now as its mouth suctioned onto its mother. Ezra knew, as a scientist, the dangers
of anthropomorphizing a subject, but he couldn't help but think that it sounded
happy.

Samus had, perhaps more than any other still-living being, experienced the feeding
of a metroid firsthand. This was different. Her vision wasn't dimming, her muscles
weren't on fire. "I'm... okay," she said aloud, to settle both herself and her observer.
She took a breath and pressed her hands into the small of her back. "It's feeding
but... I can barely tell. It's less like a vampire and more like a mosquito, if that
makes sense."
Ezra approached mother and child, examining them closely. "We already know
that you can dispense energy as well as drain it," he said. He reached out and
touched the dome of the metroid, as gently as he could. Its consistency reminded
him of nothing so much as the gelatin served in many spaceport cafeterias. He
decided not to put that into his notes.

"Ah... maybe I need to help this process along?" she blinked, looking down at the
little lifeform, squeezing her impatiently. She concentrated, and the glow of energy
started to slowly pulse from her nucleus to the newborn.

It let out another chirp, its own nuclei starting to glow more vibrantly. It fed off her
for about a minute before detaching. It then proceeded to make several orbits
around her head before perching, content, upon her shoulder.

"... We did it," she whispered quietly. "W... we recreated metroids without a single
living specimen..."

Ezra stood and stared at the baby, goggle-eyed. Then he threw up his hands and let
out an uncharacteristic whoop of excitement. Samus blinked, laughing to see the
so-serious scientist celebrating like this.

"I had a supervisor that used to constantly brag about getting a genome named after
her," he said, catching his breath, "I know I'll never be able to tell anyone about
this, but part of me wants to go back and tell her that I just brought an entire
species back from extinction. See what she thinks about that!"

Samus giggled. "Well... you'll stay my hero, Ezra. Even if nobody else knows," she
promised, pulling him in for a long, squishy hug.

He let out a yelp as she pulled him close, and felt himself blushing. "The pleasure
was mine," he said. "For the first time, I felt like I was a part of something really
meaningful." As she set him down, he brushed himself off. Something was
looming between them. He decided to be the first one to say it.

"I guess this means my part here is over, huh?"

"I... suppose," Samus admitted, glancing over the lab around her. Now that she
knew how her body worked and the incubation process, she could run the
repopulation effort on her own, for as long as it took to reach a stable population.
Or longer, if she chose. "But... since you're not exactly running off to publish this...
I mean... you ​could​ stay. With me."

Ezra let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "I was hoping you would
say that," he said, smiling brightly. "I mean... what are my options here? Live the
rest of my life looking over my shoulder, knowing that the Federation would just
love to hear what I've been doing? Or stay here and continue to observe the most
fascinating subjects I've ever seen in my life?"

Samus' tail curled around behind him as she pulled him in for a deep, wanton kiss.
Ezra found he didn't mind the slimy new state of her saliva, or the long, sinuous
tongue exploring his mouth. He let out a breath when the two of them parted, and
looked into her alien eyes. There was no need to elaborate further. What they were
feeling for each other wasn't romance, not in the traditional sense. There was
something there like mutual respect and admiration, which, incidentally, allowed
for the occasional indulgence of something a bit more primal.

"There's always room for further experimentation," he said, flashing her a clumsy
wink. As the two of them laughed, they were interrupted by a faint gurgle, and it
occurred to the both of them that Samus had been refraining from laying any
further eggs while this latest one had been incubating. "Besides," he added. "I have
a feeling that you might appreciate having an extra pair of hands around."
"Wrapped around my ovipositor?" she winked. "Probably. Now how about you get
to work?" she asked, turning around and lifting her tail.

~*~

The shuttle landed on the uncharted world without any sort of fanfare, and two
figures in environment suits stepped out of it. Both were humanoid; the first was
mammalian, while the other was larger and bulkier, with insectoid features.

"Oh wow," said the first. "I thought those readings had to be a mistake, but look!
This place is gorgeous!"

And indeed, it was. They stood at the base of a lush mountain range, teeming with
alien flora and fauna. Most of the planets in this region had only sparse, simple life
forms when they landed to survey them. This one was an outlier.

"It doesn't make any sense," said the other researcher, mandibles clicking idly as
she consulted her holotablet. "This place looks like it's been terraformed, but that's
impossible. None of the member species of the Pan-Galactic Alliance have come
out this far before. This is highly anomalous."

"Well, we’re here to learn more about it, right? Now, why don't you get out the—"
The two of them suddenly froze as an earsplitting shriek pierced the air.
A monster burst through the treeline, nightmarish glowing flesh wrapped behind
dense layers of chitinous armor. Its eyes reeled with lights, and mandibles like
hull-denting harpoons curled from its open maw. There was no warning or
territorial growl before it roared, rushing them with murderous intent.

"Down, Primus."

The words were spoken with a sharp tone, laced with an outdated Terran accent. A
second figure stepped from the treeline—even larger, with claws that could tear
open the side of a warship... but in place of some predator's armored head, there
instead rose the body of a humanoid woman, her skin green and translucent, her
arms crossed. She looked down at them with suspicion. "State your business here."

The two figures shared a glance. Neither of them could ever have dreamed of
encountering a sapient lifeform here, much less one as imposing as this. A brief,
silent argument took place before the taller figure stepped forward.

"Um... we come in peace?" she said, holding out her hands to show she was
unarmed. "We're part of a survey crew, sent by the Pan-Galactic Alliance in order
to—"

"The what?" the alien hissed. "You mean the Federation?"

There was an awkward silence. Another glance was exchanged. The smaller
researcher cleared his throat. "Uh, the Galactic Federation was dissolved almost
fifty standards ago," he said. "After the exposure of widespread corruption in its
upper echelons, there was a series of—"

"Enough." She waved her hand, the omega metroid at her side rumbling a clear
warning to not test this woman's patience. "This Alliance: do they not see fit to
attempt comms with a planet before landing? Just because there are no cities
doesn't mean there are no receivers."

"All of the planets in this system were supposed to be uninhabited!" the taller
figure quickly said, voice tinged with panic. She looked around, and saw, emerging
from the surrounding landscape, lifeforms of various sizes, but all with a similar
basic shape. Inasmuch as lifeforms without clear facial features could emote, they
seemed... curious.
"We were just going to take a few samples and then leave!" said the other
researcher. "We don't want any trouble!"
"No samples," she growled. "Mark this place down as uninhabitable. I'm training
my little ones to not eat people, but it's going to take another few generations to
wean them out of it entirely."

The two of them looked around, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. And edible.

"For what it's worth," said a new voice, "It has been awhile. I suppose it was only a
matter of time before someone came knocking." Another figure stepped up, taking
its place by the side of the... queen? This one was more-or-less shaped like a
Terran male, but with mottled green skin and red eyes.

The queen pinched the bridge of her nose. "Yes, I know. They're not progressing as
fast as I'd like... which might have something to do with the fact that we can't really
use ​you ​to train them anymore."

"Who... who are you people?" asked the insectoid researcher. "​What​ are you?"

She turned to the newcomers. "We are… ​were​ human. And the creatures you see
here are metroids. Someday, maybe soon, they will be more. But they won't be a
threat to the galaxy again, nor will they ever be slaves kept in tubes."

"Metroids?" said the first researcher, looking around as one of the small,
jellyfish-like ones perched on the shuttle. It let out a chirp. "T-that can't be!
Metroids have been extinct for..."

The insectoid scientist’s eyes widened as they took in the features of the alien
queen.

“Ch'xla, what's wrong?” asked her colleague, but she did not answer. Despite the
now-obvious metroid features of the queen’s anatomy, there was a familiarity. In
the way that she held herself with such confidence, the way she regarded them with
steely determination, and in that sharp, hawklike visage, framed by golden strands
of hair-like fibers.
"It can't be," Ch'xla said, mandibles chattering. "...Arvin, we should leave. And we
should definitely mark this planet down as uninhabitable."

Arvin took a few steps back toward the ship, unnerved by the sudden appearance
of a grin on the queen before him. They lifted off a half-minute later, neither of
them noticing the crude symbol the young metroid had doodled onto their hull with
its teeth: a circle, split with a lightning bolt that bent into an 'S.'