Discover the Darkness

Brutus descended to Aether's surface. It had been a couple of years since Samus's visit, and the Federation has again made its prescence known. Of course, Brutus isn't here on assignment, but he's a Bounty Hunter, so he can do pretty much as he pleases. He makes his way to his left after leaving the Legatus. He finds a mechanism that requires sunlight to work. Brutus decides to activate it the easy way. He finds a large piece of glass, and uses it to reflect sunlight into the device. It opens up a Dark Portal. Brutus, oblivious to the stares of the Federation Marines, steps through the Dark Portal. The Portal roars, then closes. When Brutus opens his eyes, he is standing inside of a protective shield of light. The surrounding atmosphere is completely Dark, poisonous except to the local inhabitants, the Ing. Brutus steps outside of the protective shield. The atmosphere does nothing to him. Brutus chuckles. One of the Hunter Ing watching gets curious. It speaks to him in the Luminoth toungue: "Why is the little humans not affected by our atmosphere?" "I have the Light of Aether!" Brutus replies, roaring with laughter. The Ing scatter, afraid of the Light Brutus holds. "Well, on to find those lousy Space Pirates... may as well find any new weaponry if I can as well..." Brutus mutters. He then steps through an arch in front of him and walks on.

Talon stood on a ledge outside of a light beacon, focusing on projecting a Phazon shield over his body to protect himself from the hazardous atmosphere. He wasn't sure if his powers would protect him anyway, but he wasn't stupid enough to try to find out.

I'm beginning to wonder why I didn't take a hazard shield. I miss my power suit.

He noticed the one coming through the portal and zoomed in using his HUD, which was projected over his eyes through a prototype neural interface he had taken from a Federation facility of which there are no survivors.

Looks like someone else came to die. That suit looks different from the other Feds, did they change their armor appearance since the last time they came through?.

He fired a charged nova beam shot without looking at a Warrior Ing as it jumped at him, using his pistol/sword, incinerating it instantly.

"At least try not being predictable," he said to them, not entirely sure why he just spoke to the apparently mindless creatures.

Brutus instantly froze at the sound of the nova beam being fired. He switched to his Scan Visor, scanning for anything unusual... and found nothing. He switched back and continued walking. "Man, I gotta get some new Visors..." he muttered. Then, he heard the echoes of a voice. It sounded like a Space Pirate. Brutus decided to investigate, circling ever so slowly around, while also approaching the soure of the noise.

A GFS ship landed in Agon wastes close to the primary space pirate base, A ramp descend from the exit doorway and a tall federation marine stood out followed by more marines, All of them walked onto the sand scorching their steel boots as they walked across it. The tall marine stared out along the horizon for any tell tale signs of leftover pirate activities. After thorough searching they found no traces of felony form the pirates.

The fed removed his helmet to reveal the look of a younger Sturnn. Because of his faith and service in humanity he was promoted to corporal and was put in charge of the fed expedition to Aether after the initial fed corps was lost against the Ing.

Another two Ing warriors jumped toward Talon.
"You guys seem to like me."
He fired a nova shot at one of their eyes, burning a large hole through its head as the other managed to impale him through the chest with its claw, missing his heart by a few inches. More accurately, it stabbed him; its claw didn't make it through the other side, as it was incinerated by the Phazon in his blood. The atmosphere didn't seem to harm him for some reason(Probably Phazon related), as he was easily able to fire back, finishing off the warrior. He sensed Brutus coming closer as he fired at the other Ing, killing it. Crouching down, he allowed himself to regenerate; the chest wound had already stopped bleeding.

Brutus knew his eyes were not deceiving him this time. He had indeed seen... something... kill those Ing... and with such relative ease too. "Hmph... reveal yourself, or I will use deadly force!" Brutus said in a loud voice, his Arm Cannon pointing directly at the figure. "And believe me, I hardly miss." Brutus added. He decided to switch to his Missiles to show he meant business... so he did.

"Even if you did hit me, I would probably survive. I have a habit of doing that," he replied, his wound almost fully healed.
Talon had his weapon aimed at Brutus at the exact same time Brutus aimed his weapon at him, ready to fire.
"What the hell are you doing here, anyway? This hellhole isn't exactly the best place to be."

"Hmph..." Brutus muttered to himself. "Of course, you would be the one to ask that..." he replied. "But, that is information that you do not need." Brutus told Talon. "Exactly what are you, anyways? Space Pirate?" he then asked. Most likely his brain told him.

"Not biologically. Used to be human, not sure anymore. It's not as likely as you think," he said, his pistol still aimed at Brutus. Suddenly four more Warrior Ing and about seven Inglets appeared behind Talon.

"Looks like I pissed them off by killing their friends," he said.

"Another human not affected by atmosphere? Is it working?" one of the Ing Warriors asked Talon in a language(Luminoth) he couldn't understand.

Another reason I miss my Power Suit: The Translator.

Two of the other warriors jumped at Talon, who slashed one of them in half in a split second after switching his pistol to beam katana mode. The other one slammed into Talon, impaling its claws into the flesh of his left shoulder and torso and knocking him off the ledge.

"Damn it," he said in Space Pirate to himself, annoyed, as he punched the Ing in the face, his fist going through the back of its head as its claws were incinerated by his phazon. He then impacted the ground, standing back up as the other two Warrior Ing jumped down toward him. The Inglets fired chunks of dark matter at him, which he blocked with his beam katana, before they change into their blob form, sliding down the ledge.

"Now it gets interesting," he said as he held his blade in a backhand stance, ready for another to attack.

Sturrn put his helmet back on again as he felt the warmth of the sand singe the left side of his face and activated his thermal setting of his visor and also activated his new dark visor to search for elements of the dark world including a portal.

"Corporal we've just come across something that you may want to look at" Said one of the marines under his command. The rest of the marines held their weapons at a large flag in the middle of one of the sanddigger pits. The flag itself was covered in blood and innards of an unknown creature but it was the centre image that made Sturnn tremble. It was the skull of a human flattened against the fabric and above the image stood seven words in space pirate language.

Sturnn now intelligent enough to understand pirate dialect read the words and stepped back as a fed spoke the words, "We have lost... And so have you" The words read referring to both the pirates and them. Sturnn pointed the finger at the flag and the others opened fire sending the flag flying off its post. As they did so Sturnn looked up at one of the ledges and spotted a lone pirate standing motionless looking down at them.

Sturnn held his hand to signify the others to stop right where they are and climbed up to where the pirate was standing and checked behind.

Dead it appeared, Punched in the back of the head the hole was almost the size of a human fist. Sturnn stepped away from the pirate as it suddenly disintergrated ito blue flame. "Phazon" he muttered under his breath. Sturnn turned his dark visor back on, turned around and was almost startled as he saw two shadows on one side and several on the other.

Brutus, forgetting all else, destroyed one Warrior Ing that had knocked Talon down with a few well-placed Missiles. He then concentrated on the Inglets. When one came up, Brutus disposed of it with a Missile. After a few minutes, all of the remaining Inglets were gone. But, in the heat of the moment, Brutus had forgotten about the other Warrior Ing. It tried to take him over, only to be repulsed by the Light of Aether in his Suit. "Hmph... stupid Ing." Brutus said, leaping down to where Talon was, making sure he was alright, himself hurting quite a bit after the attemted take-over.

Talon deactivated his beam katana, sheathing it on his leg as his shoulder and torso healed. He looked around to make sure there were no more Ing around.
"So...They're called 'Ing'? Your suit makes you resistant to them or something?" he asked as he waited for his wounds to heal.

"Yeah, they are called the Ing. They were at war with the original inhabitants of this planet, called the Luminoth. Most of them are gone now... anyways, this is actually Dark Aether, the dark dimension of this planet. I entered from Light Aether, the original Aether." Brutus told him, explaining about the giant meteor that had crashed into Aether, splitting it into two dimensions. "The Ing," he continued his explanation, "are creatures made up of pure darkness. They only feel hate and nothing else. I don't know if you noticed, but the Ing can control just about anything... Space Pirates, Federation Soldiers, native bioforms from Light Aether. You were almost right when you guessed that my Power Suit protects me... my Power Suit, which I have named 'Legio', is imbued with the Light of Aether, the only thing the Ing truly fear." Brutus told him. "I see you have already figured out that one of their weaknesses is fire." "I also noticed that you looked a bit confused when one of the Warrior Ing spoke. The Ing like to speak in Luminoth. He asked if the atmosphere was working... I guess you're also immune." Brutus informed Talon.

Yeah, they can control anything. Probably the second time I had to take out a whole squad of pirate commandos, Talon thought.
"Not really sure how I'm immune, but yeah," he replied.

"So, I'm guessing you've been here for a bit? I need to find some more powerups, if I can..." Brutus said.

"I've been here for a while, but I couldn't find any powerups," Talon replied.
The Hunter probably took them all while she was here...
"Though it could be because there's some areas I couldn't get to, like ones blocked by missile doors and stuff."

"Well, if you would be interested, I could help you get there... I'm not promising anything, but I do have Missiles." Brutus told him. "In return, anything else of value I'll let you keep. After all, you have to make a living too. I'll also help you keep the Ing at bay and translate any Luminoth we may encounter. Interested?" Brutus replied.

"Alright," Talon said, switching his weapon to pistol mode. "There's a missile door this way," he said as he walked toward a tunnel to the right of where they were. A dark pirate trooper suddenly appeared in Talon's way, which he eliminated with a shot to the face. The darkling fell to the ground with a burning hole in its head.

"Hmmm..." Brutus muttered. When the Dark Pirate Trooper had shown itself, Brutus had gotten a quick Scan and read the morphology while walking until he was bored with it. He then closed the program out and switched back to his Combat Visor.

Talon got near the missile door. "It's right here," he said as he was suddenly impaled through the back by a Dark Pirate Commando suddenly phased into existence. "This is happening too damn much," he muttered to himself as he grabbed the commando by the helmet and tried to crush its head against the wall. The commando phased out of existence right before contacting the wall, seeming to teleport toward Brutus as Talon regenerated.
That's probably the fourth time I've been impaled today...

Brutus got whacked on the back of the head by the Dark Pirate Commando. "I hate these guys." Brutus said, firing off a volley of missiles at it. Only one of the missiles hit the Commando before it phased back out of existence. "Jeez... and I only have the Scan and Combat Visors..." Brutus muttered, looking for anything that might be used to help combat the Commando.

The Commando phased back into existence near Talon and fired an EMP grenade at Brutus, slashing at Talon with its energy dagger. Talon sidestepped the slash and punched it in the face, causing it to recoil as it teleported behind him, trying to stab him. Talon sensed this and proceeded to smash into its torso with his elbow, cracking its armor as it phased out of existence again.
"This is getting annoying..." Talon said as he switched to sword mode and slashed in front of him, hitting the darkling as soon as it phased back, cutting it in half diagonally. "...and predictable," he added as he switched his weapon back to pistol mode.

Brutus yelped. He hadn't noticed the grenade, and now he was helpless... and then it was gone. "Is it dead yet?" Brutus asked, his arm cannon ready to let loose another rocket.

"Unless it can somehow reconnect its torso to its lower body, yeah," Talon answered as he backed away from the missile door, then he thought for a second and proceeded to switch his weapon to pistol mode and fire multiple shots into the corpse's head, completely incinerating it. "I could actually see that happening..."

Sturnn noticed that a Dark Pirate commando appeared from a portal and begun attacking both him and his soldiers. Most of them had ducked under grenade launcher fire while two of them were injured by it and begun to fire back at it. One of the soldiers machine gun rounds had tore a large flesh mark out of the commando. Sturnn looked up from the suppressive fire and noticed that the portal was still open and that the DP commando was still stood in front of it.

Before the pirate could phase jump to a different location Sturnn fired a grenade shot at it and tore a huge hole into its chest while firing another one that force pushed it back into its portal. The Ing knew that they were met with more force than Butus and Talon and sent some more of thier Ilk disguised as pirates onto light Aether and started a crossfire on the feds, "Typical Ing behaviour" Muttered Sturnn as he blasted another one with two grenades instead of one which subsequently incinerated it in white light.

However, with each one slain ten more had appeared while some had switched to their scythes and began attacking at random.