Tanya's thrusters flared again as she dove straight at Samus, blade whistling through vacuum. Samus moved with frightening precision, shifting her Full Armor Gundam just a fraction to avoid the strike before retaliating with a cannon burst so fast it blurred across Tanya's sensors.
She twisted aside, the blast grazing her shoulder armor and sending a jolt through the frame.
"Mila! Ritcher! Push her left!" Tanya barked.
Mila slammed forward with her shield, drawing fire that chewed through its upper plating. Ritcher struck from the opposite angle, beam rifle flashing. Samus redirected a portion of her armor plates, absorbing the shots with reinforced composite panels.
No hesitation. No fear. Only lethal calm.
Tanya's eyes narrowed. "She's reading us."
Samus dashed in, crossing the battlefield with terrifying acceleration. Tanya barely raised her saber before Samus's armored knee smashed into her midsection, sending her Gelgoog spiraling back.
"Tanya!" Mila cried.
"Stay on formation!" Tanya snapped, regaining control. The pain in her ribs felt real even inside the simulation of her control harness. Samus was hitting harder than anything she'd ever fought.
Zhou Wei dove overhead, twin sabers carving a blazing X that forced Samus to halt her advance. Nyaan seized the instant, unleashing a high-angle blast of plasma artillery.
The explosion engulfed Samus.
For half a second, the Scarabs breathed.
Then the smoke parted.
Samus walked through it unharmed, armor glowing from the absorbed heat.
Nyaan hissed. "What is that armor made of?!"
Machu's voice cut across the channel as he crushed a Federation GM trying to flank their line. "Focus! Tanya's on point—we follow her!"
Tanya surged forward again, fury igniting her movements. She struck downward with a full-force overhead slash. Samus caught the blade on her forearm shield—caught it—and shoved her back with a single brutal thrust.
Tanya ground her teeth as warnings lit up across her HUD. "Damn it—stop treating me like an insect."
She kicked off a drifting slab of debris, firing her thrusters to curve around Samus's rear.
Samus rotated her torso a full ninety degrees without moving her legs, tracking Tanya with unnatural movement fluidity. Her back-mounted cannons auto-aimed.
Tanya realized too late.
"BREAK!"
Five beams fired.
Ritcher intercepted two, his Gelgoog screaming as armor vaporized. Mila body-checked Tanya out of the way of the third. Zhou Wei's left leg vanished to the fourth.
The fifth slammed into Nyaan's G-FRED, tearing off an entire wing.
"Damn—damn! I can still fight!" Nyaan shouted through static.
Samus adjusted her reticle calmly. "Eliminating high-value targets."
She dashed forward.
Straight for the most exposed Scarab—
Mila.
Tanya's vision sharpened to a pinpoint.
"No you don't!"
She fired everything—rifles, vulcans, thrusters blazing as she rammed Samus head-on. The Full Armor Gundam slid back only inches, but Tanya's strike broke the immediate kill-shot aimed at Mila.
Samus tilted her head slightly, almost… acknowledging the interference.
"You are persistent."
Tanya snarled. "You haven't seen persistent."
She jammed her saber toward Samus's visor.
Samus angled her head, the blade scraping across her helmet crest before Samus seized Tanya's wrist with shocking strength. In the next instant, Samus spun—swinging Tanya like a ragdoll—and hurled her straight into a floating battleship wreck.
The impact shorted half her cockpit displays.
"Tanya!" her squad shouted at once.
She coughed, spitting blood despite the safety buffers. "Still alive. Keep fighting…!"
But Samus was already on them.
Ritcher charged in with a roar, firing point-blank. Samus side-stepped, tore the rifle from his hands, smashed his cockpit with the butt of the weapon, and flung him away.
Zhou Wei slashed desperately, blades shrieking against Samus's armor before being crushed in her grip.
Nyaan's damaged G-FRED rammed in suicide formation, cannons firing wildly. Samus ducked beneath the barrage and fired a single concentrated shot, shredding his right arm and sending him spiraling out of control.
Machu leapt between Samus and the falling Scarabs, his massive G-QUUUUUX using raw bulk to shove Samus backward.
"Machu! Don't—"
"I'LL HOLD HER!" he roared, boosters exploding at full burn.
Samus expanded her stabilizers.
"Obstacle identified."
She hit him with both forearm cannons at point-blank range.
The explosion engulfed Machu's entire torso section and sent the titan suit crashing into an asteroid chunk.
The Vanguard Scarabs—Zeon's elite—were being dismantled one by one.
Tanya forced her battered Gelgoog upright.
Her visor locked on Samus.
Her heartbeat thundered with fury, exhaustion, and something close to awe.
"You…" she whispered, rising again. "You're not unbeatable. You're just one pilot. And I will break you."
Samus looked directly at her, visor gleaming.
"Come."
Tanya launched herself forward, saber blazing, thrusters erupting—
The instant before their blades connected again, Samus whispered:
"Target locked."
The clash lit the battlefield brighter than the fortress guns behind them.
The space between Tanya and Samus collapsed into pure violence.
Samus drove forward first, Full Armor Gundam's shoulder cannons glowing with storm-light, plasma charging in a low, ominous hum. Tanya met her instantly, Gelgoog boosters screaming as she forced them far past redline, sparks casting frantic shadows inside her cockpit.
"Scarabs! Keep pressure on her!" Tanya barked. "Don't let that monster stabilize!"
Zhou Wei and Ritcher flanked aggressively. Mila blocked a cannon shot that nearly disintegrated her entire shield. Nyaan's G-FRED strafed wide, cannons firing at full spread.
Samus neutralized everything.
She swatted Zhou Wei away with a single armored forearm, redirected Ritcher's thrust with inhuman precision, and blasted Nyaan's barrage aside with perfectly timed counterfire.
Tanya vaulted in again, beam naginata slashing down—
Samus caught it.
Caught the blade with her armored hand.
I-Field crackling like emerald lightning.
Tanya's breath hitched.
Then it hit her.
A pulse.
A shock.
A brutal Newtype surge exploding inside her skull.
Her world stretched open.
Beams slowed.
Trajectories unfolded.
Movement patterns snapped into clarity before they were even made.
And at the center—
Samus Aran.
She wasn't a void.
She was a gravity well of pure killing focus.
Tanya's eyes widened. "You're—"
The resonance blasted across Solomon like a psychic thunderclap.
Every Newtype felt it.
Char, deep inside the Great Zeong's throne-like cockpit, sat upright.
"What…? That pressure—Tanya? Tanya is resonating this strongly?!"
His machine shuddered, psycho-frame relays spiking.
General Griveous, floating inside the Elmeth, dozens of remote bits circling him like metal vultures, froze mid-command.
"Fascinating…" he hissed, mechanical lungs clicking. "A Newtype awakening… Zeon produces yet another weapon."
Amuro gasped as the Alex jolted. "That's power!? That intensity—the pilot'll tear herself apart!"
Dozle, raging inside the Big Zam, felt something in his stomach twist.
"What now!? Why is everything shaking!?"
But the one watching her most closely… stirred.
Being X whispered across the metaphysical plane:
"So. She awakens too early. Interesting."
Tanya felt none of them.
She only felt Samus shifting—her awareness sharpening, adjusting to Tanya's new rhythm like a predator tasting fresh prey.
Samus released the beam naginata and threw a punch.
Tanya didn't dodge by reflex.
She dodged because she saw it coming before Samus moved.
Her Gelgoog spiraled backward in a corkscrew impossible for a normal pilot to survive.
Samus fired all three chest cannons.
Tanya slid between the beams like water, twisting through gaps less than a meter wide.
Ritcher's voice cracked. "Commander—HOW did you just—!?"
"I DON'T KNOW!" Tanya shouted, eyes glowing, pupils razor sharp. "Just keep fighting!"
She surged forward, slashing at angles that broke physics, guided by instinct and precognition.
Samus blocked with hardened armor, sparks erupting in breathtaking arcs. Their weapons locked, pressure building like colliding stars. Tanya felt Samus's mind for a fraction of a second—
And recoiled.
"There's nothing in there…" Tanya breathed. "You're so cold."
Samus's voice was flat, emotionless:
"You are a high-threat anomaly. Eliminating you will accelerate the fall of Solomon."
Tanya snarled.
"Oh, go to hell."
She launched.
Samus launched.
Their clash sent a psychic shockwave across the battlefield.
Griveous staggered back in the Elmeth.
Char gripped his controls, sweating, Great Zeong trembling.
Amuro nearly blacked out from the pressure.
Every Newtype was slammed by the collision of two burning wills.
Mila, Zhou Wei, and Ritcher tried to flank—Samus blasted them all away.
Nyaan fired a full barrage—Samus redirected the debris into his sensors.
Machu attempted to intercept—Samus shattered G-QUUUUUUX's shoulder with a single knee strike.
But Tanya refused to break.
She pressed harder, faster, deeper—her movements guided by violent clarity, her mind burning with newfound power. Samus adapted instantly, her hunter instinct rising to match.
Tanya's blade cut an arc through space—
Samus countered with a cannon blast—
Tanya dodged before the cannon even fired—
Samus predicted her dodge and shifted aim mid-shot—
Tanya twisted into a blind angle no human could calculate—
Their final charge lit the battlefield in a corona of psychic fire.
Every pilot felt it.
Every ship shuddered.
Even the fortress walls trembled.
Two killers.
Two prodigies.
Two destinies smashing together.
And as their blades collided with a thunder that shook Solomon—
The real duel began.