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Him and I fell for so long, it almost felt like flying. Work lights from miles-long maintenance tunnels and tubing that funnelled magma up from the core of the world surrounded us. Metal grates flew past and diced the lights into a kaleidoscope. Fire flew from his mouth, casting shadows in his wings, and caught on the steel girders lining the shaft. Embers and shards of glowing metal showered down, bouncing off our twisting bodies, each trying so hard to kill one another.

The cannon on my arm took aim and more light flew out. A few shots missed, a few shots hit. He recoiled, shrieked. My missile stores were emptied. My shields were on the point of failure. The structural integrity along my left leg and ribcage could barely stand a glancing swipe before rupturing. Every warning system in my suit screamed.

The temperature and pressure increased at drastic intervals each second we fell. My suit calculated time to failure if the situation continued as is, and the number ticking down on my visor's display did not look encouraging.

Even with blood pumping hard enough to almost burst my ears, I knew something was wrong. He had wings. He could fly, and leave me plummeting. Of course, he was too smart for that. If he'd back off for an instant I could devise some plan of escape.

He wanted to see me dead. Only fair, I suppose. I've seen him dead plenty of times. It's natural he'd want a turn.

How far back did we go, me and him? How long have we hated each other?

More fire came from his mouth, more fire came from the cannon on my arm

Lifetimes, I thought.

His tooth filled snout opened to roar. I triggered the boost system on my back to propel forward just enough to ram my cannon in his mouth.

I felt the rumble in his throat through the armor surrounding me. It was a race to see who'd get off a shot first. At this range I'd be ash, or he'd have a handsome hole through the back of his head.

Heat gathered at the tip of my cannon and I let it out. The points of his teeth glistened as he jerked back and sprayed bits of his insides and screamed. The echoes bounced all the way from the bottom to the top of the shaft.

I'd lie if I said I didn't smile, and I'd lie if I said that wasn't a stupid thing to do. In his flails, the sharp edge of his tail whipped and scraped my right ribs. My armor hissed as plating separated long enough to let the atmosphere in. My zero suit layer beneath boiled and my flesh beneath singed. The containment protocols on the suit kicked in and sealed the gap. Pain killers and disinfectants flooded the breached area, but my head still reeled.

We both tumbled backwards, hitting the grates of the shaft that flew past us faster than the F-racer cars do over the tracks on the final lap.

The armor is designed to take a beating, but inertia-dampers and impact gel can only do so much at those speeds. We fell head over feet. Dizzying doesn't begin to describe it. Up and down stopped existing. My eyes only saw grids of lights blocked out by his massive body and the word "warning" flashing over and over on my visor's display.

He was incapacitated, if only for a moment. I gathered enough focus to raise my left arm. A rope made of electricity shot out along my forearm and trailed along the grates, looking for something to hook on to.

The grapple beam had a generous elasticity, but catching something while falling at terminal velocity would lead to my arm popping out of my shoulder and shrinking in the distance as I fell.

The energy tether connected to the shaft. Just before gravity and raw momentum snapped my limb off, the inertia systems hissed once more, adding a slight swing to my fall. I broke the tether.

Then I pulled myself inwards, inwards, inwards even more until my body turned to light and my armor became spherical.

I was effectively a cannon ball, and launched right into the edge of the shaft. Reinforced steel plates broke, cabling snapped, and electrical tubes crackled as I shot through meters and meters before embedding into a walkway panel.

I thunked to the floor and uncurled.

The suit has a near miraculous medical suite, but no amount of drugs can completely dull the pain when you're surrounded by singed wiring, electrical fires, steaming pipes, and alarms pinging off in your ears.

I stood and pretending that shaking my head helped. Rerouteing power and shutting down a few unnecessary modules ensured my armor wouldn't fail on me. That grapple beam stunt fractured the collar bone. Accounting for that and the damage to my ribs, I stood a lot easier than I had any right to expect.

The bruises wouldn't look pretty, but I'm on a mission, not a paid vacation.

Considering the damage we've caused on the way down, my detour may be overlooked for the time being. This installation was bigger than anticipated, but once Space Pirates start digging, they don't stop.

They always go where the sun can't follow, compelled to go deep and hide. On this world named after a long string of numbers and dashes, they hid something terrible. The only name the Galactic Federation could gleam was "The Gift."

Someone sniffed out this hole and pointed me towards it. Gave me a lot of money and said bring it back or burn it down.

In truth, I'd do this even without the money.

I walk into the dens of monsters and leave only ash behind. I have to walk deep, but I always find what I need. The monsters try to stop me. Some of them are smart, brilliant, in fact. But monsters all the same.

The worst of the monsters, the Space Pirates -call me the Hunter. That's what I am. That's what I do. I find them and burn them.

Mapping data plotted a course to an elevator hub. Earlier I bore into their computer system, tearing things up, looking for what they wanted to keep for themselves. This installation was larger than expected, and whatever so-called gift kept locked up must be priceless to Pirate command.

He was here, after all.

Boots fell on the metal walkway like raindrops on aluminium He hurt me before, but never quite like that. Stabs of pain ran through my torso with each stride. Too close. Far too close.

I may have angered him more than usual. He felt that blast in his mouth, but it wouldn't put him down. By now he'd wipe the blood off his chin and come flying after me. Any moment a wall might crash down in a flurry of fire and claws. Every ding and rattle around me caught my attention.

The time for subtle infiltration had long expired. Radio chatter described several guard details running for me. I decided to make them work up a sweat. Thick doors flew off their hinges and blasted through thin walls. Automated security systems whirred to life and went up in flames within a breath.

As I ran, the little bugs I put in their databases whispered about exhaust ports this, faulty wall structures, failed reverse-engineering projects and so on.

Every bit of info was put to use. Every pirate on the planet knew I was here, and the expendable ones would come armed tooth and claw.

Except those guarding their special project. They'd stay put.

The little bugs told me about a group of Pirates in no rush. With my objective found, a course through the infrastructure plotted itself.

The visor highlighted what could be breached, what could be leapt across, and things to be ran through. Destruction is the only way to describe what I left behind. When the Galactic Federation contacts me, it's never for my subtlety.

Their prized treasure was held in a circular room some ways off from the core shaft where I fell. I arrived there without much trouble, but the reason became apparent. A ring of heightened security surrounded the chamber, accessible only through massive gates, each three-feet thick and kept closed with insidious locking mechanisms, barriers, and thorny firewalls.

Security drones, fixed turrets, and Pirate guards, the elite of the elite, swarmed when I pierced their last blockade. Superheated plasma lit the ring for minutes. Recording devices captured screeches of Pirates and energy shields deflecting shots until the batteries fried. The visor had trouble parsing the room through all the smoke.

Missiles exploded, metal rammed through armored flesh, and the walls were almost completely blackened from missed shots as I leaped across their defensive lines. The vents of my cannon wafted and shimmered, unable to completely expel the heat build-up from consecutive charged shots. My hand inside almost burned.

By the end, the shots died and I stood, pauldrons heaving with each breath. My heart hammered in my ears. Eyes stung from running sweat.

Armor integrity holding. Shielding low, but holding. Life-support reading steady. Steady. Radar detected no nearby life forms. Reinforcements wouldn't arrive for ten minutes.

Scouring what remained of the Pirates gave me enough of their access codes to the inner chamber. It still took two minutes to pry the doors open.

I stepped inside and froze. Seeing what they hid, it was a wonder every Pirate in the galaxy wasn't heading this way as quick as FTL would allow.

Past a low row of computers, past rings of waist-high rails, held on a platform three, maybe four feet high, a diamond of light shone. Inside that diamond a sphere of liquid floated, just big enough to fit in a palm.

It gave off its own light, blue and phosphorescent. From that distance I could almost see lightning coursing within it.

The visor relayed a word to me. Phazon.

Intel pulled itself from the data-banks in the room. My hand shook as text rolled in front of my eyes.

Log: 43-01-RThis is a day of pain and humiliation. The Dark Hunter has fallen. Our fortress world Urtraghus is under the heel of the Galactic Federation. Our brothers and I were weak and fell beneath the spell of the Dark Hunter and because of that, nearly brought us all to an end. The true Hunter has done us both kindness and cruelty. Although she is responsible for taking of one of our mightiest strongholds, no more of our kind shall become enslaved to the will of Phazon, for she has destroyed its source.

We are free once more. I am free.

However, in its death throes, Phaaze reclaimed all of its far-flung lifeblood. Across the reach of light-years, Phazon in all its forms withered and decayed. Our most promising research, and greatest of sins was thoroughly eradicated.

Log: 47:359-RWe recovered something.

A science vessel was in trans-warp during the destruction of Phaaze. Its destination was Urtraghus, however one last emergency broadcast steered it clear from arriving in the open arms of Federation dogs.

Among its cargo manifest was several ounces of Phazon. Active Phazon. Whatever scream Phaaze sent through the universe, it seemed to have fallen on deaf ears as this final batch travelled through warp-space unharmed. This is Phaaze's final legacy. A token of our greatest failure. But let it not be said we do not learn from our mistakes.

Log: 63:980-RHigh Command debated endlessly on what to do with the legacy. Destroy it. Attempt to propagate it. Bury it in some far off star and never speak of it again. All valid options in their own fashion. All madness in another.

It was decided to make one final attempt to use Phazon. Not for our own ends. No. Truly, this last breath of Phaaze does not belong to us, but to the Hunter. She granted us liberation, painful as it was. She taught us the follies of hubris. Her way is that of metal and flame, and we burned, but as a whole, emerged the wiser for it.

So we decided to thank her.

Phazon. A twisting, imaginative substance. We whispered our intents, fed it our hopes and will, and it responded all to eagerly. Perhaps it remembers her.

We hope the Hunter appreciates our efforts.

Log: 79:2-0598 -RI see you, Hunter

He surprised me for the second time that day. The floor creaked then burst as the razor end of his tail flew upwards hard enough to shatter my shielding and cut into my ribcage one more time.

I yelled. He came up like the devil, fire and blood pouring from his mouth. Nerves lit along my body as I turned, bleeding on my armor.

Damn. A trap, I thought as I raised my arm cannon at him, shaking from the pain. What little power remained in my suit fought between feeding the charge, sealing the breach, and bringing my shields back online.

I chose to shoot him.

He was too smart for that, though. His massive body swerved away from the shot. I swore, then grunted as his claws wrapped around my body. Wild-eyed and hissing, he threw me.

I flew fast and hard, straight through the center of the room. The blinding light of the diamond hit my eyes and the sphere of Phazon splashed across my body and breached armor.

Lightning, blue as morning oceans, hot as the sun, leaped into my wound. I felt ill.

That dizzying high, that rush of power, that urge to fight and never stop, that fear that you might turn into something that just wasn't you. It all came back. I hoped to never know that corruption again, but before I hit the wall on the other side of the chamber, I felt Phazon rampaging through my veins once more.

I stood almost as soon as I landed. But the muscles tightened as if pulled by marionette strings rather than my own strength. Teeth clenched and it's a wonder I didn't bite my tongue off. I tried to remember how to channel the poison inside me. Channel it into a weapon to be used, but I no longer had the technology, and this Phazon did not respond to my commands like its previous ilk.

No, this breed dug deep into the bone, into the helix inside my blood and marrow. It found the human and Chozo genomes and ripped it apart.

The medical systems of my suit fought for me. Injections of antibiotics, disinfectants, pain-killers, and radiation doses coursed through me, but the poison shrugged everything off. My cannon trembled as it raised towards him. He approached, eyes narrowed and smiling, or as much as a demon born in the stars could smile.

I aimed right between his eyes. He didn't move. The tip of my cannon flickered. The generators inside wheezed and chuffed. System Failure. Armor Breach Detected. Invasive Substance Detected. Weapons Failure. Status Critical Status Critical Status Critical.

With the world telling me I couldn't do anything, I stepped forward, punched him in the jaw, then fell to the floor as the motor systems died.

The Varia armor is lighter than it looks, but six-plus-feet of weapons, life support systems, and shield generators feels heavy as hell when it all turns into dead weight.

The visor died and the inside of the helmet turned dark. But I didn't need a computer to tell me that something was horribly wrong. With the medical systems gone, nothing slowed down the poison inside me. I coughed up what tasted like blood. My limbs spasmed. If it wasn't for the impact gel, my bones would break, beating against that heavy, immobile armor, but bones breaking would seem a relief compared to what came.

The effects hit my spine first. A thousand needles pierced it from the inside-out. The spinal column shook under pressure, threatening to explode one vertebrate at a time..

Instead of exploding, they popped. I heard them, echoing inside my body and armor. Pop. Pop. Crack. I grit my teeth, trying not to panic. The Zero-Suit bulged over my spine and pressed against the armor.

The pain flowed from there, hitting my legs, my shoulder blades, arms and tip of my nose.

Poison clawed my throat. I screamed and the noise sounded angry in my ears. He fought dirty. He's not above tricks, but I never thought he'd resort to an underhanded bastard act like this. As I burned from the inside out, I felt foolish for assuming he carried too much pride not to face me in a knock-down drag-out fight.

I have to admit, I lost a bit of respect for him. Live and learn, live and die, I suppose.

But despite the pain in my body and blood coughing up my throat, I did not die.

Although for a while I would've preferred it. Hate and pain built up inside me. My face swelled. I expected my skull to burst and turn the inside of my helmet into a red slurry that he'd sip from. Instead my head pushed against the helmet, pushing, pushing. Not like a balloon, but more like a glacier. Slow, but unstoppable. Where my bones should've shattered, my helmet instead cracked. Fractures crept along the visor, letting light in from the lab. I heard him breathing, deep and cavernous.

He didn't intend to stomp me flat, he wanted to see the fruit of this installation's labours. He seemed to enjoy my grunts and nowhere coherent groans of swears. I kept my mouth closed as much as I could, but damn did it burn.

My helmet broke off like pieces of eggshell. Threads of blond hair fell over my face, but my eyes did not recognize what I saw. My skin took on a shade of blue. At first I thought it was bruising -burst blood vessels and the like, but it looked too uniform and the texture seemed wrong.

The nose structure...the cheek bones...it looked longer. Looked less like skin, and more like hide. Scales.

I had an inkling of what the Phazon was doing to me and in that second of realization, the final link between my mind and my armor vanished.

Orange and red metal fell away in sweeps of dust and mirage. I felt lighter and breathed a little easier, although that wasn't saying much. The pain and fear inside me twisted into rage.

A long time ago I was gifted the armor and weapons of a race I can never fully repay. I took their teachings to heart and never abandoned their trust and strove to walk their path, even as they ascended to a place I cannot go. I was corrupted once before, and even in the most hopeless depth of that corruption, my armor never abandoned me. I was never deemed me unworthy in the eyes of my mothers and fathers. The adornments of their faith remained.

But huddled beneath countless tons of tectonic plates and ore, he infected me with something that took it all away. His shadow fell over me. I looked up with discolored eyes. Even as my joints rebelled, I stood once more, intent on doing him harm. Maybe lodge my arm in his throat and hope he'd choke to death.

He caught my right wrist as it swung and I saw what the armor hid. Blackened claws attached to knobby, blue fingers, pierced through the Zero-Suit. I inhaled sharply, eyes widened. I looked down to my feet and they jutted out of ruined boots. Shreds of blue latex-like material crossed around my heel and threaded through through bulging blue toes ending in black nails.

My heart skipped a beat and a thought occurred. If I had, claws, I figured...

I kicked him in the stomach. To my surprise, the claws on my foot pierced him.

He screeched and pushed me away. He almost roasted me to death right there, but instead his wings flapped and mouth glowered, snapping in rapid succession. Laughing, maybe.

He enjoyed this.

My back arched. Muscles twitched up and down my body, turning into bulging, shifting worms beneath the thin layer of my suit.

I groaned. My hands and feet continued to swell, fingers and toes turning long and primal. The body-hugging material of the suit snapped and popped along my arms and legs, exposing toughened blue skin.

The worst pain ran through my back. I'll never forget that sensation, like my shoulder blades wanted to stand on end, and in a way, they did. Two ridges raised on my back, it's a horrible thing to realize when you can feel it, but not see. They cracked, but with the wet, hard crack of oars hitting the surface of still water.

I worked my way to my bare knees. Deforming hands clenched in front of me as the things on my back twitched and slapped against my body. The Zero-Suit tore and the tight edges snapped against skin, leaving my back bare.

The things growing out of my shoulders cast shadows. Bleary eyes caught twitching blue wings. Yellow webbing stretched and retracted, glistening.

I shuddered. I knew what the poison was doing to me.

It was making me like him.

What felt like an aneurysm drove me to the ground, claws grasping at my mouth. I spat out a tooth. Should've aimed it at his eye. More teeth and saliva followed.

The blue skin of my face stretched forwards. Bone became malleable, but not fluid, and pushed forward against its will. My neck pressed forward as well, as if throttled into a longer form. A tongue slithered over teeth growing out of black gums. My voice burst from grunts of pain to roars and screeches. I closed my eyes, feeling them change. Pupils and whites disappeared, replaced by something bright and green.

When they opened again, I saw a long blue snout and heard hisses that sounded nothing like me.

He sat hunched over like a gargoyle, like a great predatory bird waiting for a rat to die. I didn't enjoy that look. I saw hunger in his eyes. I'd rather him laughing like before.

My chest pressed forward. The last strands of my Zero-Suit snapped off my torso, exposing my breasts to the cold air. They shook against the hard ground, and gradually hardened themselves, turning blue and shrinking into swirling blue ridges as my sternum pointed.

Time blurred. I'm not sure how long I laid there, shaking and screaming, him staring at my naked body as it hardened and grew, slowly encircled by a long tail, tipped with knives that glittered like polished crystal.

It all stopped, eventually. The pain died off and I lay there, strange hands and feet flexing unfamiliar digits. Air moved differently through the elongated snout. Was that Phazon still inside me? It had to be. Where was I? What was I a doing here?

He moved. One clawed foot hit the ground, talon clacking on the floor, considering. He took another step. His long tail swayed behind him, his wings folded across his back like a cloak.

He lowered his head, black snout huffing over long, sharpened teeth, still red with blood from earlier.

The snout tilted against my neck and he took a long, deep breath. He made a noise that almost sounded like purring.

That was his mistake.

With one great, strong arm, I pushed off the ground and into his chest. My increased bulk sent him tumbling to the ground. I stood to full height, which looked truly impressive.

He lied there stunned on the ground. My powerful legs leaped into him. My teeth dug into his throat. Claws tore at his chest. My tail swiped and stabbed. He tried to push me away, but my grasp was too strong, and it became apparent he wasn't used to close-quarters combat with something equal to him in size. We tumbled through that lab, crashing through computers, railings, and delicate equipment.

What remained of the recording devices captured an unholy cacophony.

I slapped him across the jaw and nearly ripped off the top of his snout. He was crumpled, half twisted into a wall, bleeding and wheezing. I approached him, standing like he never stood.

I took a second longer to kill him than I normally do. There was something in his eyes that I never saw before. There was hate, yes. Hate that I put him down like an animal one more time. Anger that even with all his strength and wiles, he never could manage to stop me, in the end.

But there was something else. A burning, ugly desire. Standing before him, tall, scarred, and winged like that, did I look desirable to him? I hissed. He growled.

Have we fought for so long that his hate twisted into a thorned kind of wanting more poisonous than the Phazon inside me? His yellow eyes smouldered like dying embers.

For as long as we've known each other, we've never spoken. Even then, his growls and hisses sounded no less like a beast's. He's intelligent. I know this. But despite his intellect, I don't believe he has the soul to recognize beauty or a heart that can love.

His jaw snapped and hacked. Laughing.

I have a heart, and it told me to do one thing.

I opened my jaws and a river of fire flowed out.

He thrashed as the joints of his hide fused and the wall melted onto him. The glare of molten steel and flame stung my new eyes. I roared and streamed more flame onto him until the shrieks and movement stopped. The acrid smell of heated metal and burned flesh stung my nostrils. I took a deep breath and poured the fire on even more.

He may have angered me more than usual.

Eventually the fires stopped. I stood there, arms and wings dangling at my side, heaving. I charred him almost down to the bone. He'd come back, though. He always does.

My long neck twisted around the room and the mission looked accomplished. I'd need to locate where the Pirates relayed interstellar communications and send a message to the Federation. Debriefing would be interesting. I had a feeling the remaining Pirates would give me plenty of breathing room. However far my fire could reach, at least.

I looked down and examined what he did to my body. The claws I stood on shone, curved and wicked. The ridges of my arms flexed and my hands run along my thigh and generous waist. Overall, I appeared more graceful than him, or so it seemed when I found a mirror big enough to look at. Long wings and slender tail. Less brutish, made of razor edges and just as dangerous.

With a curving black talon, I touched the bladed edge of my tail. So strange.

The bare, scaled fingers on my right arm flexed. The cold air made me shiver. My humanity may have been snatched away, but can I ever win back the trust of my people? The uncertainty troubled me more than the wings. I felt a sadness deep inside my stomach, but stored it away until I could look at it in a place less dangerous.

Looking at his blackened body in the corner, I wondered how he expected this to turn out. Perhaps he thought my resolve would break beneath the poison and the pain, but pain is nothing to me. He hurt me in the worst way possible a long, long time ago, and I brought that poison to an end.

I suppose he wanted someone under his thrall. Me specifically.

Imagine, the greatest single threat to him and the Space Pirates brought into their fold. What an asset. What a trophy. What better expression of gratitude than to break bread with their nemesis and usher in a glorious Space Pirate age.

That had to be his logic.

Faulty logic, evidently. Space Pirates often did have vapour for brains.

I looked at that charred corpse, the end result of his tremendous combination of greed, hatred, and loneliness. Pity almost flickered, but hushed into nothing.

Smoke billowed as I accepted my new body and power. Something inside said I'd never be flesh-bound again.

A few hours and dead Pirates later, I found the communications hub. It took a while to work it without my suit's software, but I left one Pirate alive who was eager to cooperate. I sent one message to the Galactic Federation, and one message to Pirate High Command to thank them for their gift.

It may come across a bit taciturn, but our relationship was never a talkative one.I will pay back your generosity a thousand fold. The Hunter.