I figured out how to get out of Ferenia. I went back through all the powers that I’ve acquired and tried each of them in turn, until I figured out that the speed run ability will let you get through the wind of the fan.
This irks me, because there should be multiple ways of getting past the fan. I should be able to destroy it with my weapons. I should be able to use the Flash Shift ability to dash further into the wind. I should be able to use the Grapple Beam to rip it apart, or to grab a part of the wall and pull myself forward. I should be able to use the Spider Magnet ability to cling to the floor and root myself in place. But no, none of these things work, there is one and only one solution. The idea that a fan would be able to generate that much wind that Samus would be unable to walk forward is a bit ridiculous. It is what it is, though.
Now that I’ve figured this out, I can make progress again. I continue forward and make my way back to Dairon and then I traverse the tunnels of Dairon to get to the train station that takes me to Burenia. Along the way, I pick up as many new power-ups as I can. I obtain another partial E-tank, and more missiles in a few spots. I also find places where I can open up new accessways that connect places I’ve already been through, using the grapple beam to pull out blocks, so I do so. You never know when it might be advantageous to take one of these routes, even though it doesn’t seem like it really opens up the map to new areas, necessarily. If anything it’ll make some new routes for shortcuts.
I do get to a point in Burenia where I’m able to make progress exploring areas that hadn’t been open to me before. I find the Map Room, and download the map. I also talk to ADAM at some point, and he confirms that now all the remaining EMMI were deactivated by Quiet Robe. I forget how many I’ve had to face — three? four? And I left the purple one frozen in Ferenia, so there’s at least one that’s intact and could be reactivated again, and then if there were seven altogether, that means there’s still potentially 2 or 3 others that I haven’t encountered. Hopefully, I won’t have to, but I expect at some point Raven Beak will reactivate them and I’ll have to take them on.
Exploring the new section of Burenia that opened up to me rewards me with several more missile pickups, including a Missile Container+, which brings my ammo capacity up to 95. There’s also a few new enemy creatures in this area, and they’re all fairly robust, taking multiple charge shot beams to bring down. Mostly it’s better t melee stun them and then you can take them out with a single regular shot from the arm cannon, and they drop a lot more life and ammo pickups that way. I’m getting comfortable enough with the melee counter move that I can pull it off regularly against the normal enemies. When I was new to the game, I almost never used this ability, it took too much time for me to think to use it before the opportunity was gone. But now I’ve been using it pretty much whenever I can.
The route is mostly upwards, and I eventually get to the next boss fight: I fall through the floor into a large chamber filled with water. There’s a tentacled, squid-like creature filling most of the room. There’s a cutscene that seems to indicate that I’m supposed to hit vulnerable spot in the mouth when it is open, but mostly the creature keeps its mouth closed. It jams a tentacle into the ceiling, which seems to be the only target I can damage with missiles. I hit it with a bunch of missiles, and eventually it lets go of the ceiling for a few seconds. To my left, there’s a glowing green piece of machinery built into the wall, which lights up and invites me to shoot it, which I do. This activates the machine, and lowers the water level, partially. There’s a magnetic ceiling tile that I can grapple beam up to, and then it slides across, taking me to the other side of the creature, where I find another piece of machinery that I can shoot at to activate. Doing this brings the water level down even further, leaving the squid-creature beached. Only then does it open its mouth, and give me a brief opportunity to hit it with some missiles. Unfortunately, by this time I’m already close to death, having been hit by energy balls that it shoots out, and its tentacle swipe, and I don’t live long enough to finish it off. I think I was close, though. All it should take is a bit of practice, and I’ll be able to win the battle.