"Oh, good! You're awake, Hunter."
Samus' previously-limp body stiffened into a different kind of stillness, every fiber of muscle pulled tauter than suspension cables. Consciousness brought the unwelcome awareness of pain. The scent of blood inside her helmet was dizzying.
"I can hear your little heart hammering away inside that tin container of yours. No need to play the coy maid with your old friend Ridley. Or can't you talk?"
Ridley. She was fighting Ridley? No. Had been fighting Ridley. The mines were unstable. The floor had collapsed.
"Perhaps your frail, mammalian body was too damaged by the fall? That would be such a pity; I was so looking forward to a good conversation while I died for once."
She couldn't panic. That was key. Her suit was running on emergency power—life-support functions only. Right arm sore but serviceable. Weapons—damn it, offline. Left hand trapped beneath some great weight, likely more "mashed to a pulp" than merely "broken." As soon as she took note of it, her raw nerve endings suddenly sprang to life. The gasp was out before she even consciously recognized the pain.
To her left, Ridley released a very soggy chuckle.
"Ah, there you are! You almost had me going!" The massive reptile coughed, and the spasm set her decimated hand on fire. Her body seized in the middle like a jack-knife, and she yelped.
"Get your scaly, gargantuan ass off my hand!" she hissed through ground teeth.
"The shrinking violet speaks!" Though Ridley arched his back mere inches off the ground, it left enough space to pull her arm away. The mere thought of the pulpy mess it must've been made her gag briefly. She was momentarily glad for the blinding darkness obscuring her vision; her situation would hardly be improved by the stink of vomit mixing with blood behind her visor. Her unlikely companion cleared his throat beside her. "We'll be spending quite a bit of time together here, you know. You must have something to say."
Moving her legs proved no good; she hit rock after only a few inches. "I've never had anything to say to you," she spat. She could extend her arm cannon above her head into the darkness, but that only guaranteed about a meter of space. There was no telling how stable the rocks above them were.
Ridley seemed to think along the same lines. "A good try, space cadet, but it's no use. I barely have room to raise my head, and one wrong move could bring the whole thing down on top of us again. Why don't you just relax? Every time we see each other we're in such a rush. Now here we are with nothing to do but slowly bleed out or starve to death. Why waste such an opportunity?"
She couldn't sit up; something heavy clanged onto her armored stomach. The gentle taps that followed revealed it to be one of her companion's massive, clawed hands.
"You can stay down here and die for all I care, but I'd rather risk a cave in than lie around listening to your bullshit." She brought her cannon down on his hand as hard as she could in the limited space, but he merely laughed. Something that could only be blood splattered against the corner of her visor.
"I don't have much choice, I'm afraid. And that means you don't, either. Sorry, Hunter, but we're going together this time, the way we're meant to." The claw moved its way up to her helmet.
"What a romantic notion," she sneered. The light screech of his talons against metal made her hair stand on end, but as struggling would serve no real purpose, she remained in what she hoped seemed like a casual stillness. "Alright, what would you care to discuss? How about the many times I've left you a smoldering smear on the ground? Or maybe we could revisit all of your operations I've single-handedly brought down, and try to calculate how much of your resources I've blown away into nothing."
"Why not?" he returned easily, much to her annoyance. "A history as illustrious as ours should be celebrated! One day they'll sing songs about the great Commander Ridley, how he led the Space Pirates to countless victories, and how upon his final death he and his mortal enemy were interred together, locked in combat for all eternity. A glorious end for a worthy pair!" His nails ceased stroking her helmet as his palm settled against her crown. She had a sudden, horrible vision of his fingers constricting around her head, bursting her skull like an overripe fruit. "Mark my words, Hunter: they will hang us in the stars as constellations and remember our names long after our faces have faded," he whispered. Samus scoffed.
"Yes, I'm certain our deaths by slow starvation and blood loss will be the stuff of legends. When your toadies dig us out in a few weeks and find us lying side-by-side shriveled up from hunger and infection, they'll probably just bury you again out of sheer embarrassment. On a related subject, how long do you suppose I'll have to endure your company before you finally drop dead? Hours? Dare I hope for minutes, even?"
"I knew keeping you alive was a good choice!" Dry laughter, followed closely by a pained hiss, and more invisible blood splattered her suit in the darkness. "Dying alone is so very dull, you know. I was thrilled to discover you weren't killed in the fall so that I might still have the unequivocal honor of crushing the life out of you." The sound of metal creaking echoed ominously in her ears as his massive hand tightened around her helmet, but Samus lay still, refusing to rise to his bait. After a few more seconds, he released her head with another chuckle, and she wasted no time rolling out of his arm's reach, clanking against the stones of their impromptu prison in the complete darkness. "Then I realized I'd likely survive down here for at least a few days, in which case even your company would be a terrible thing to waste."
"Fan-fucking-tastic," she muttered from somewhere near his feet, if her sense of direction wasn't misleading her. Sightless, she probed the darkness with her cannon. A free hand would have been nice in her situation, but there was nothing to be done about it for the moment. With any luck, Ridley would pass out from blood loss or some other physical trauma, and she could remove her armor and try to find a way out of their cozy, little tomb. She had no way to assess the extent of her injuries beyond the certain damage to her left hand—damn the size of that stupid lizard—though she had a sneaking suspicion that her shins may have received minor fractures when she hit the ground, and the metallic reek of blood in her helmet was less-than reassuring. Still, her mind seemed clear enough; as long as she could get out of the rubble and reach her ship, her chances for survival were relatively high.
Of course, survival remained contingent upon escaping the rubble, a fact of which her tomb-mate was all too aware.
"So what do you think will happen first? Bleed or starve to death?" she asked. Damn it all, her suit refused to divert any power to her visor attachments; if only she could look about for some small opening in the rocks, she might have a chance of getting out.
"Couldn't say. With any luck—in my case, that is—my soldiers will be able to excavate us before that time. If not, I suppose it'll be blood loss for you and starvation for me. Shit," he shifted, and Samus realized the "rock" she was leaning against must've been his leg, "this is going to be incredibly boring. If you had injured me more grievously before the floor gave way, this predicament wouldn't be nearly as bleak."
"You could have just swallowed the missiles," she muttered. Ridley laughed, and it sounded almost genuine.
"A joke? Never would've thought you had a sense of humor to look at you, difficult as that is through that metal shell you insist on hiding under, but I'll take it as a pleasant surprise."
Samus ignored him. If the Space Pirates dug them out, there was no hope for her. She would be executed on the spot, or captured and executed on their ship. She had to escape before they arrived, but how? Ridley was oddly placid for the moment, but she doubted his good will would last once she started to shift the rocks around. If only she could see; it was entirely possible that there might be some opening she could squeeze through without her power suit. Ridley was breathing heavily—there must be plenty of air. She did have an emergency pistol with a laser sight as well as a flashlight on top tucked away inside her armor, but to access it, she would have to remove her suit, and the idea of being that vulnerable around Ridley—amiable or concussed as he was—did not strike her as wise.
She glanced over toward his head; the only thing she could see in the pitch blackness were his eyes, glowing drops of plasma. They were narrowed to weary slits but looking right at her.
"You can see."
"That I can. If it's any consolation, there is nothing worth looking at in here except for me, and I've seen better days." The eyes shifted, and Samus heard him sniffing at the air. "As have you; I can smell your blood, Hunter."
"That's hardly surprising," she replied dryly. The yellow eyes bobbed in the darkness.
"True, but it gets me to thinking."
"Careful, Ridley; you're injured enough."
"Ha! But I might not be, if I made proper use of you. I've wondered before what you might taste like if I ever managed to get you between my jaws, though, to be honest, your blood smells less-than appetizing. Still, this will likely be the last chance I ever get..." The leg she was leaning against tensed suddenly, and Samus followed suit.
"You try anything, and I'll shove my gun so far down your throat that you'll have missiles flying out your ass." A bold-faced lie; her cannon was completely nonfunctional, but he didn't need to know that.
Ridley's muscles relaxed. "Just making conversation. I'd sooner eat Zebesian than your mushy, human flesh, and you well know I'm acquainted with the taste of both. I can't see your injuries through that canister you insist on wearing, but I can sure as hell smell them—I would know the smell of your blood anywhere. Though I'm not sure you'll ever be able to call that stump you're sporting a hand again. Just how good are your Federation's medical facilities? Do you suppose they could save it if you somehow got out of here?" She almost laughed at the clumsy jab. His baiting actually seemed more obligatory than malicious. Silence reigned for a beat as she decided whether or not to reply.
He'd left her with a pretty obvious track for the conversation, but did she dare take it? It was difficult to read any emotion in the saurian eyes aside from a very obvious exhaustion. He was injured, badly at that. Perhaps parts of his massive body were pinned beneath the rubble, which would certainly keep him from following if she did manage to find a way out. Of course, whether or not she could do so depended largely on him; with her weapons and visors offline there was no way she could fend him off. She shifted suddenly, testing his mood; the glowing eyes did not even flinch at the movement. So he was either utterly unthreatened or at least mildly concussed, either of which could be beneficial or damning if it came down to reasoning with him.
"Yes, I think it could be saved," she said at length. What the hell, taking the risk of pissing him off to the point that he fried her was better than lingering on for days, trapped with her least-favorite sentient being in the universe. She knew Ridley had a nearly-ridiculous flair for the dramatic; he might be persuaded to let her go with the right appeal. "After all, I've got all of it here, poor condition or not. If you can come back from being a few smoking chunks, I'm sure something can be done for me—maybe something bionic like our old friend Ghor, something that would really hurt if I hit you in the face with it next time we fought. I would have to get out of here first, of course."
She wasn't expecting the burst of very wet laughter that dissolved into coughs so deep and wracking that Samus could feel them resonate within her own lungs, and she jumped. Flaming sparks (and sticky chunks of something, if her ears weren't deceiving her) flew sporadically out of his mouth, briefly casting a faint, strobe-like illumination around the enclosure that was more annoying than helpful, really. It did allow Samus visual confirmation that the pterosaur was trapped on his back, and that the structure she was huddled against was, indeed, a massive, purple thigh. The lighting was too chaotic to show his injuries in any great detail, but if the cough was any indication, his lungs had been punctured by his ridiculously-prominent ribs. If she was lucky, he'd drown in his own blood soon, and she could search for an exit freely.
His coughing died down eventually into a painful-sounding, wheezing chuckle that grated on her ears in the returned darkness. Not even his yellow eyes glowed. "Oh, Samus," he rasped, and the intimacy of her first name on his tongue made her feel ill, "you really are too easy! Escaping, indeed; the only way you're leaving here is in a body bag, probably thrown atop of mine! Were it only I could keep you, though… my own little sparring partner, entertainer, and trophy all-in-one! You could serve drinks to my guests, and scrub the scale rot out of the hard-to-reach places on my back. I could keep you like an animal in a little kennel next to my nest and never be bored again."
She fought hard to swallow down her anger and disgust in the darkness, but it was fruitless. Enraged, she lunged toward the source of his ragged breathing, stopping that disgusting laughter her only thought, just as his eyes snapped open. He snagged her neatly out of pitch-black air and pulled her down onto his emaciated chest, long claws effectively trapping her arms against her sides, her feet pinched between his thighs. Pinned beneath his thumb, her injured hand flashed white hot in agony. Immobile and infuriated, she screamed at him wordlessly, wondering whether she could at least cause a cave-in and pulp his doubtlessly-smirking face under tons and tons of rock.
"Easy, space cadet." Ridley was laughing again, patting her mockingly on the back with a horrible clanking sound that made her suddenly realize she had a splitting headache. Still she raged, throwing every vile phrase she could think of—and she could think of many—in his direction. His lungs shuddered beneath her with every breath. The laughter died down slowly, and his voice was somber when he continued, speaking over her diatribe as if he didn't even hear it. "I could never see a fellow warrior like you chained, humiliated, and put down like some fucking human animal. That's why you must die here, don't you see? Proudly ensconced in your golden scales, not shivering in your pink, pathetic skin. I know your power is running on empty. I could shred your armor like tissue paper now and suck the meat out—it would be just like eating scisers—and perhaps gain enough strength to claw my way out of here, but to what end? This is our destiny, yours and mine; two perfect warriors, the only ones who could ever best the other, disappear from the universe together in a final stalemate."
"Very poetic, old monster," Samus whispered bitterly, her voice having given out halfway through his speech and joining Ridley and the rest of her injuries in the list of things that were currently pissing her off. "But you're wrong. This isn't a warrior's death. Where's the thrill? The exhilaration when every twitch of muscle and stretch of sinew could mean life or death? Where's the blood pounding in your ears and running into your eyes? There's no fury or fire or glory here; this is you and me, the 'greatest warriors in the universe,' huddled in some sad, little hovel, wasting away in the dark." She gritted her teeth as his fingers contracted around her briefly. "Pathetic. This is not our grand death. When you and I finally go out properly in the heat of battle, there should be nothing to mark it but a few splashes of blood and stardust."
Ridley's hold on her loosened by degrees until she was free to move, but she remained, letting the force of his heartbeat send little, reaffirming shudders of pain through her damaged body. He coughed for the umpteenth time, and ichor pattered upon her back like rain. "Pretty words," he murmured. "You don't speak often, do you, Samus? I doubt there are many who would understand."
She paused a moment, unsure how to proceed, before the words tumbled out of her mouth too quickly for her to stop them. "For as much of a worthless fuck that you are, Ridley, I will allow that you and I may share a trait or two." Laughter again. Fuck.
"Ham-handed, space cadet. Manipulation is definitely not your forte," Ridley chortled, and Samus banged her gun against his chest in frustration. She had been so damn close, she knew it. "But," he continued after a moment, "your argument still stands. Perhaps there is more for us yet than a slow death in the afterglow. So, you have an agenda; what do you suggest we do?"
She heaved herself up so that she straddled his ribs, her helmet scraping the ceiling of their prison, unable to resist a smirk when he let out a hiss of pain. "I suggest I find a way out of here. It's too risky for you to escape, too; there'd be a cave-in for sure. You'll just have to stay down here and die, I'm afraid."
"Hm… hardly seems fair."
"Bullshit. You'll be ambushing me on some other god-forsaken planet within the month. Dying, for you, is like breaking a toe for anyone else: just a minor inconvenience. That's why you've managed to be a pain in my ass for so long." When he didn't answer, she slipped off of his chest and landed on the floor, stumbling slightly at the pain in her shins. Definitely fractured. She cast a glance back in Ridley's direction and found the golden eyes looking way from her, up at the ceiling she couldn't see, or perhaps at nothing at all. She really didn't care; as long as he didn't try to stop her, he could do as he pleased.
Concentrating, she let her power suit disintegrate. The air in little chamber was so cold that it made her gasp in surprise, but she set immediately to work. Her left hand was utterly useless, so she held her flashlight in her mouth while she primed her pistol. Safety first, after all.
To her dismay, there didn't appear to be any obvious ways out; the boulders she could see were far too large to shift on her own, and even if they weren't, the structural integrity of the enclosure would definitely be compromised. She did a full circuit of the walls she could see—Ridley's massive frame was flush against the opposite wall, so no help there. They must have landed next to some structure, miraculously ending up in the shadow of the debris. At first she'd thought it was lucky, but now, in the face of her potential failure, she almost wished that she'd just been crushed to death and spared this whole ridiculous affair.
Samus stomped her foot and swore softly at the pain in her shin, banishing the brief attack of self-pity. Maybe she could focus the energy of her pistol into some kind of rudimentary torch and melt her way out? It was a stupid idea, but it was the only one that came to her. Backing up slightly, she shone her light at the walls, looking for the best place to—
"Son of a bitch!" She was flying through the air, wrapped up in one of Ridley's massive claws, before smacking almost painfully into his chest. Without her power suit, she could feel every scar and scale as surely as if it were her naked skin against his. He stank overpoweringly of blood and smoke, an odor she had long since come to associate with battling him. The scent of it set her heart racing and adrenaline flowing into her limbs. The coldness of the air disappeared in the heat of conflict. "I knew it was too good to be true, you miserable bastard."
She struck out at him with her injured hand, the only limb she had free, though it bounced uselessly off of scales strong enough to weather missile blasts. She tried again, hoping to spear one of his eyes on the jagged bones of her ruined fingers, but he shifted his thumb and trapped the arm against her side. Her pistol discharged uselessly into his stomach, unable to pierce his thick hide even at point-blank range, and the headbutt she attempted only served to make her dizzy and reopen a wound somewhere on her face.
"So it is still you, brave, little warrior, not just a coward running from death." The bass of his voice rumbled through her body and echoed dizzily in her ears as she fought for composure. If he was going to eat her, she was determined to be the most unpleasant meal he'd ever had. "You know, you're almost beautiful in your armor, covered in all those bright, golden scales. That this soft, frail, little thing is at the center almost disappoints me." He inhaled deeply, almost as if he were smelling her. His tongue snaked out then, and he lapped at the blood trickling down her cheek. She gagged.
"What—" she began, trying not to retch at the carrion stench that washed over her and nearly failing a dozen times in the space of a few seconds. Mercifully, his tongue disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.
"Yes, as disgusting as I imagined." His voice was quiet and disappointed. "Oh well. You'd best be off, then, little woman."
Her feet touched the ground on his opposite side, her body barely fitting in the space between his emaciated belly and the smooth wall. She was confused for several seconds, shining the shaking beam of her flashlight towards his smirking maw. "Why didn't… aren't you—" She felt a frigid breeze against her calves and glanced down. There was some kind of vent by her feet! So that was where the air in the chamber was coming from! Her hand steadied, and she looked back at Ridley, still with that disgusting grin. His eyes glittered at her.
"I can't have my final memory of you, my finest adversary, looking like this. Next time we meet it will be at the top of our strength, hard, shining steel and scales, with the fury of battle singing through our veins and spilling out on the rocks." He lay back and closed his eyes. "Go now, Samus, before I change my mind."
She was in the vent in a flash, crawling away as quickly as she could manage. She paused once when she heard the high-pitched whine of his plasma breath followed by the sound of collapsing rubble, and she waited for just one quiet moment before continuing on. There was no need to look back; she was fairly certain she could see light at the end of this tunnel.
Note: this is a little plotbunny I've had bouncing around in my head since I revisited MP3 over the summer. I wrote the first three pages and lost interest, but with the release of Other M, the idea rekindled and I came back, revamping the beginning and adding the majority over the slow course of a few weeks. I won't go into my feelings on M:OM here; you can glean what you like from this story, if anything stands out at you. Suffice it to say this is set sometime before then and Fusion, a random encounter outside of any glorious epic. Basically, I wanted to write these two trapped in a conversation, so I did the best I could with two largely-speechless (in gameverse) characters and a few rather cliché plot devices. The result is underdeveloped, dialogue-heavy, and amateur, but I got it out, and I feel purged and clean once again. If you enjoyed it, all the better! If not, whoops! Sorry you wasted your time. This is not remotely my best work, and I should definitely have gone over it some more, but comments and critiques are always welcome!
Thank you for reading!