The kickass heroine from Nintendo's classic Metroid game series surely deserves a full biography on E2, so that's what I'm gonna give her. Be sure to read cberube's excellent writeup on Metroid before you delve into this one, because I'll be picking up the story partway through.
Space Pirates captured a mysterious lifeform from Planet SR388. The Galactic Federation found out that all life on the planet had been wiped out, most likely by this unidentified lifeform that they call "Metroid". One of the few things they did know about Metroids are that they can be brought out of their suspended animation by exposure to beta rays (for 24 hours). Unfortunately, the Space Pirates had the lifeform now and were looking to destroy life all across the universe with them.
The pirates were hidden in Zebes and the Galactic Federation Police was unable to penetrate their hideout. They turned to the best bounty hunter of the time - Samus Aran.
Little was known about Samus - no one has seen the face of the now-legendary warrior. All they had seen is an enigmatic, armored space hunter. Samus had completed missions no one would have dreamed of doing, with abilities bordering on the superhuman. A few whispered that Samus was a cyborg, strengthened by a mysterious technology no one knows much about. Samus had been seen to shoot lasers and plant bombs and the space hunter's armor was known to absorb some of its enemy's powers.
Samus engaged the enemy, infiltrating the base and finally defeating Mother Brain and its allies, Kraid and Ridley. Samus then revealed the person behind the armor - the legendary bounty hunter was actually a woman. (Personal note: this is, of course, one of the biggest surprises people have had in video game history to date - at the time, there were almost no female characters outside of RPGs and I can't even think of a female protagonist).
Samus's job wasn't finished, however. She next travelled to SR388 - it was essential to destroy all Metroids before they got in the wrong hands again. While in SR388, Samus made a stunning discovery - the Metroids she fought on Zebes were only a very specific variety (called the Alpha Metroids). There were dozens and dozens of Metroid types. After a gruesome battle with the Queen Metroid, Samus once again managed to save the universe. As she was about to leave the planet, she found an egg on the ground. As she was about to destroy it, it hatched and the baby Metroid inside went to Samus, thinking that she was its mother. Realizing that this baby would not harm anyone, Samus took it to a lab on Ceres.
The scientists were fascinated by the Metroid; Aran left them to report back to Earth... but then she received a distress beacon from Ceres. As she returned, she found that nearly everyone was dead - and, horrifically, Ridley was taking away the baby Metroid. If Ridley lived, was Mother Brain still alive somehow? She followed Ridley back to the now-scarred Zebes, only to discover that the subterrannean level had been rebuilt. After fighting through scores of enemies brought by Mother Brain from all across the universe, Samus encountered a monstrous Metroid that nearly consumed her - until the creature recognized her as the very woman who saved her on SR388.
Samus fought the Mother Brain once again, but this time the Space Pirate leader was too powerful for her. Just in time, the now-grown baby Metroid came to her aid and resurrected her with a special power that the Ceres scientists claimed the Metroids possessed. As the Metroid was doing that, Mother Brain destroyed it (thus killing the last of its kind). Samus had recovered and her armor had a strange energy in it. In a flash of rage, the bounty hunter unleashed all her energy on Mother Brain and destroyed her. As the creature lay dead, Samus realized she had to get off before the planet self-destructed.
Observers only saw the enormous explosion. Neither Samus nor Samus's ship were found; they were assumed to have been caught in the explosion, but no one knows for sure.
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