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You find yourself in a place.

This place, in fact, is somehow, inexplicably, a reflection of your own mind.

There are a few doors scattered around. They don't belong—they are styled to belong to other places. Stepping through the doors lets you visit the places like this that belong to the people you know.

What do you do?

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It's very quiet. As if the wildlife's been frightened. It's peaceful, but also eerie.

There's the strangest sense that somebody's... here, though.

That someone is watching her.

Samus senses that. She turns her head, looking into the brush besides her. She thinks someone's there, but they aren't coming out. ~~Samus cheats and~~ On goes the helmet, on goes thermal vision. She sees you three kids waiting there.

They don't know she can see them. They're still, spread around Samus and surrounding her but clearly hesitating. She might notice that they've chosen positions where they can see each other and are exchanging quick glances. Tiny movements. A twitch of a finger, a slight tilt of a head.

They're "talking" about her.

Samus places a hand on her hip. She's waiting, very clearly looking at each of the three. While she admires their attempts at remaining stealthy, she wonders how long it will take for one of them to do something, though.

The kids are quiet still, but they seem to come to a decision.

A fourth that Samus may not have noticed juuuuust crosses her field of vision, bolting off into the trees. She's fast.

"Authorization?"

A voice.

One of them's coming out.

He's a serious-looking kid with dark hair. He's very wary, but clearly not carrying a real firearm while Samus is decked out in an unfamiliar suit of powered armor.

Kid's got guts.

The other two are waiting in the wings, coiled like springs.

Oh, damn. She missed one. Sad.

At least one's coming out now. He does have guts. Not that Samus would ever hurt any of them. She's got such a soft spot for kids, she can't even pretend that she's trying to scare them. However, she cannot control what they may assume she would do because of her armor.

"None," as an answer to his question. Sorry, is that a problem?

The kid narrows his eyes.

"Then leave. This is a restricted area and you're interrupting a training exercise."

Guts. Definitely guts.

"How old are you?"

Paintball guns just aren't that threatening.

"That's classified."

Fred knows that's not going to help, but he also knows that any attempt at lying would be obvious.

He can't make Samus leave. But if they wait, someone will come back with Kelly.

Someone with more authority to do so.

"Hmn. Little young for the military."

Except that it's not. Samus knew that well, but her own experiences didn't stop her from thinking that no one else should have to go through what she did so young.

"Not really," says the boy coolly. Fred doesn't have a snappy comeback Samus, sorry.

It's about then when two kids come into view. The girl Samus caught running off, slim built and quick, and another boy.

Samus will recognize them. They're carrying far fewer years and scars, but they're them.

The Chief and Kelly.

Fred salutes John, stepping back. John acknowledges and eyes Samus warily.

"You came through the door," he says calmly, watching her with the same uneasy, cautious look the others have all been giving her.

And there they were. ~~It's about time.~~

"I did."

"What do you want?"

Because obviously if Fred told her to go away and she didn't listen, he's not going to make a lot of difference.

"I was curious."

She really was.

"There's nothing to see here."

"I disagree."

"Then tell me what you want. So we can get it to you and you can leave."

Little John is about as friendly as Big John, Samus.

"We could start off with what this training exercise entails. I'm curious to what you kids are doing."

"We're not kids, Ma'am."

Oh hey, Samus. Have another Spartan. Sam's done hanging back in the woods.

"And it's paintball."

John looks at him, Sam looks back, John lets it stand and just nods curtly.

Samus could argue that fact, but she knew it was kind of useless. It'd be like trying to convince her own 14 year old self that she was still a kid, and, well, that'd definitely be an accomplishment. There was no changing their minds once they decided on how to identify themselves even if they were still just powerful children.

"Paintball, hmm. We never got to do that in my training exercises. I distinctly remember hordes of robots and energy guns. No paint." Ah, nostalgia.

"We play paintball when we have some downtime."

That's John again. He folds his arms. He's looking forward to when Chief shows up and they can get back to the game. He wanted to win!

"I see. Well, it's nice to have fun I suppose."

Her downtime was spent doing space pirate observations. Totally not bitter about that, nope.

Chief arrives about now.

The young Spartans all step back a little bit as he comes in.

"Samus," he says.

"She's trespassing, sir," his younger self reports.

"Noted."

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