For a moment, there was a pause. Samus stayed on the ground and absorbed what she had just heard, still clutching her sides from the pain and breathing heavily. Ridley didn't make his first move yet.
"If I am to follow the proper human etiquette, only females may attack first." The remark was dripping with mocking tones. Samus squeezed her eyes shut. This was Ridley? Her nemesis was a human? With these thoughts, she stood up with all the strength she could muster. Ridley's dragon grin was smugly crossing his face. "However," he added, stroking his chin, I'm not exactly a human, you know."
Samus' eyes snapped open with sudden clarity. She was only just able to dodge a burst of flame the erupted from Ridley's mouth. The hunter aimed her blaster at him, still not attacking.
"I liked you better as a dragon!" Samus shouted as Ridley lunged for her. Ridley sneered at her, taunting her.
"Hah! Of course you did. That's what you were expecting to see perched atop that rock."
Samus fired a wave beam at the dragon-man, missing by mere inches. Ridley shot more flames from his mouth, aiming for Samus' wounds.
"Ahhh!" Samus screamed as the fire glazed over her right side's wounds. Ridley cackled as she doubled over.
"You're not weak, eh?" he taunted loudly. "Show me your strength, you pathetic little girl! Show me how you really fight!"
Samus' anger boiled quickly to the top. She clenched her blaster and set it to "missile". While Ridley towered over her, Samus aimed a missile at his stomach and launched it. Ridley used an incredible amount of leg strength to jump over six feet into the air. He laughed again as Samus stood up shakily, like a newborn deer. Without a moment to spare, Ridley shot another burst of flame from his throat and hit the hunter directly in the abdomen. She was propelled backward to the floor. Samus' energy was dangerously low now, but she refused to lose to her enemy. Ridley came close to the hunter, about to speak. The hunter rolled over and into a morph ball and released a power bomb: a weapon that, when detonated, spreads a high-temperature heat wave across a large area. Ridley roared, unable to endure the heat produced by the bomb. Samus smiled with triumph.
"Even you can't handle the heat from a power bomb?" she said mockingly. Ridley, with anger, reached for her with human arms. He grabbed on to her neck and this time began to choke her.
"I will be immortal, you weakling," he whispered, bringing the hunter close to the edge of the cliff, where a lava pit rested below, "and you'll do nothing to stop it. Being a human won't last, but I'll practically be a god. I have unlimited power now, and this is only the beginning. You think you'll win by mere means of weaponry? Because I think differently." The dragon-man put emphasis on the word "differently", squeezing harder around Samus' neck. The hunter gagged. "And your original mission has failed as well," he added harshly. Samus remembered, widening her eyes: the metroids. Ridley pulled Samus more towards the pit of lava below. "You're nothing compared to my ultimate power," he continued hissing, "I'll be the one to destroy you."
Samus struggled to free herself, glancing over her shoulder to the bubbling magma below her. Ridley yanked the hunter's neck, causing it to crack slightly. Samus was slightly alarmed by the sound and lifted her blaster to face Ridley's bony neck. Enough was enough.
A screech was heard from aboveāa terrifyingly close and loud screech. The sound multiplied to a hundred screeching sounds. Ridley's face twisted into a horrible grin.
"Your mission has failed, bounty hunter," he said evilly. Samus looked up only to catch a glimpse of a flood of metroids pouring in from crevices in the ceiling. Ridley blew fire into the hunter's wounds again as she had her back turned, this time continuously and without stopping. Samus screamed, barely even hearing herself. The fire began to rip at the open flesh on the hunter. The wounds began to turn black as they charred, releasing the stench of burning skin.
Metroids began to surround the two humans, screeching noisily. Ridley stopped the flow of fire on Samus and snarled at them.
"Back away, you pitiful freaks," he growled, letting out more spurts of flame towards the metroids. The squealing creatures retreated, scattering like a school of fish. Ridley bared his teeth, annoyed. Samus didn't waste any time to set her blaster to "super missile" and used her other arm to pull Ridley down by his long and greasy hair. He fell to the rocky ground with a thud. Samus jumped to the side, trying not to cry out in pain as her sides and legs bled through the charred skin. She aimed the missile at the startled dragon/human hybrid and fired. Ridley screamed as it struck his arm. Samus leaped out of the way as Ridley slashed in her direction. The dragon bellowed angrily as a metroid hooked on to his head. Samus used the distraction to kick the man down to the ground and shoot a charged beam at his chest. The metroid yelped in alarm and flew away, leaving Ridley with four bloody spots in his forehead and chin. Samus stepped on his head.
"Your ultimate power is turning against you," she said, gesturing to the fleet of metroids. Ridley's face twisted in anger and he swung his legs around, making Samus lose her footage and collapse to the ground. Ridley stood back up and grabbed Samus' neck again. While she couldn't move, Ridley ran his claws down Samus' suit.
"You know, I was beginning to think that you're pretending to be weak on purpose," Ridley said, clawing at Samus' wounds, "but it seems you're genuinely in pain." Samus grunted as she struggled to break Ridley's grip. Suddenly, a metroid swooped down, screeching as Ridley batted it away with his only free arm. Samus gave up her struggle, knowing that fighting the grip would be pointless. Ridley succeeded in burning the green creature to a crisp, blackening its skin and charring its insides. He turned back to Samus after a sigh of annoyance. Without saying anything, Ridley looked the hunter directly in the eye and smiled a psychotic smile. He moved his hand up from Samus' neck to her chin. With a flick of his wrist, Ridley had removed the hunter's helmet completely.
The red helmet tumbled to a stop near the swarm of metroids. Ridley laughed with triumph as Samus felt her face being burned slowly. Her long blond hair was beginning to singe and produce smoke because of the heat. The hunter's eyes watered profusely; she squeezed them shut.
"Don't cry, Samus," taunted the dragon man smoothly, "your suffering will soon come to an end."
Samus opened her eyes and kicked upward between Ridley's long legs. The dragon let out a sound that resembled a dragon's screech, clutching his groin in pain.
Bet he wasn't expecting that lovely feeling, Samus thought. She had no air to form the words, and hardly any time to. Samus stood up as quickly as she could and stumbled to the swarm of metroids. She frantically searched for her helmet by fishing around with her hands. The crowd of metroids had completely covered up the vital piece of the hunter's suit. Samus became aware of the skin on her face being scalded and turning dry, like a severe sunburn. She clenched her teeth and continued groping for her helmet.
The metroids began to realize that Samus was there and sensed her energy being radiated. They all started to surround the hunter and begin latching on to her suit. Samus attempted to repel them by using the wave beam and missiles on her blaster. As Samus shot at them, the metroids squealed and flew away, only to recover and then return. Samus could hear Ridley screech as he was also being swarmed by metroids. The hunter shut her watery red eyes again and tried to inhale through her nose. She caught the stench of burnt flesh and an abundance of smoke. The "sunburn" on her face was turning into a second-degree burn. She reached out in a desperate attempt to find her helmet with the green visor. A metroid grabbed her arm and punctured her suit sleeve in four spots. Samus cried in alarm, letting more heat into her mouth. She shook the creature off and, in doing so, felt the hard exterior of her red helmet.
Slipping on the helmet was a wonderfully relieving and cool feeling. Samus opened her red eyes after turning on her headgear and turned to Ridley, who plunged into a maze of swarming and scattering metroids. The green creatures all attacked the hunter again, coming in spurts of seven or eight at a time. She was too surrounded to even lift up her arm to shoot any more, so Samus rolled into a morph ball and let off a power bomb, causing every metroid to explode into a disturbing amount of little pieces of green and red film-like flesh. Her mission . . . was complete. Now just to take care of fire-breath . . .
