After uploading a series of maps from the map station, I embarked on yet another exploration mission into the unknown. It reminded me of my exploration missions on my other exploits, such as the ones on Planet Zebes and Tallon IV. Although Adam and others would probably disagree, I'd have to say in retrospect, boredom was my biggest foe. Though my job required a lot of spunk and energy, that spunk and energy was only used during the few times I'd actually get into a fight. Usually, my time was spent killing everything in a room, which, in worst case scenarios, took about five minutes, and the next half an hour was spent on searching for weapons and suit upgrades in order to further my chances of survival. It was a very lonely and claustrophobic feeling being cast into the pits of Hell to fend for my own. Even though I explored the dark recesses of the nightmares of civilization, the ultimate irony of it was that I felt bored. As if there was anything more exciting than being the first human to step into Hell...
The ChozoTech Research station wasn't anything close to being Hell, though. It had all the signs of being a building constructed by a civilized species. It was like exploring inside a large-scale version of a shopping center. Like shopping, in a way. Unlike most females, though, I hated shopping. I was always more of a tomboy. So the feeling of being inside a massive and never-ending shopping center took me to the end of my wits at times. But I avoided going completely insane by thinking. Just thinking about nothing, really. Except this time, I was thinking about the Space Pirates. Mainly, about Ridley.
As I went from room to room trying to find some sort of hidden storage area that could supply me with something of use, I thought about Ridley. My history with Ridley stretches all the way back to the humble beginnings of my career, and even to the ancient guardians whom raised me, the Chozo race. Although we shared a heated rivalry, it was during this adventure on Forsythe where I began to think more critically about Ridley and his place within the universe. Me and Ridley had never been more than rivals, and although I have known him and fought against him since the humble beginnings of my career, I never really knew him to be more than a villainous, treacherous, ruthless scourge of civilization. But there had to be more to him than just being a warrior. If the pirates bothered to save his mind, he must have been highly intelligent. A highly intelligent creature has other ambitions other than just serving for the pack.
It was during my initial search through the utilities sector that I began to think there was something more to Ridley. He was smart enough that he didn't need to work for the pirates if he chose not too. Maybe he just got to that point in his life where he needed to choose a path and then, like so many others, chose the wrong path. Maybe he was like me, where he was forced into serving in this never-ending war. Maybe I am wrong all together about Ridley - maybe he really is nothing more than a creature that works without relent to further the cause of evil, with no frailties and no emotions other than hate. All I knew was that I had dangerous exchanges with Ridley which took both of us physically to the brink, and I never really knew what he was fighting for.
Then I needed to completely wipe out his mind, and I had no idea how I was going to go about doing that.
At the time, all I could hope to find out was who was behind ressurecting Ridley in the first place. There had to be an insider. A survivor from my second assault of Planet Zebes. Somebody who decided to ressurect Ridley in a new form. But mystery at the time was who could have had the power to re-organize the pirates back into the omniscent terror they once were? After the major influences and leaders within the pirates were all destroyed, I thought that the pirate network was, for the most part, detached from control or order. It had seized to be one powerful force, and had seperated into thousands of different principalities. In the years between the Planet Zebes incident and the X parasite incident, I had taken advantage of this disorganization of the pirates and managed to destroy any threat the pirates still held.
But they had re-organized again through the guiding hand of Ridley. And the question dominating my thoughts at the time - who brought Ridley back? He couldn't have brought himself back, and the manpower necessary to construct that new body of his certainly wasn't available. 99% of known living pirates were in jail or awaiting trial at the time. It had to be someone I missed. One of his cronies that took over after he and Mother Brain perished with everyone else on Planet Zebes. With a great deal of pirates escaped from prison, Ridley and the gang was back, using the iscolated and forgotten planet of Forsythe as a savehaven. They were preparing to deliver an attack to galactic civilization which would thrust them back into public life dramatically. And I needed to stop that from happening.
Finally, after searching for what seemed eons, I had found a supply room. All about the room were various crates of missiles and orbs of energy. In the center of the room stood a giant Chozo statue with it's arms extended, with a missile launcher floating in it's clutches. I paced up to the statue, with a solemn tone in my stride, and then lifted it slowly off the Chozo's hands and then applied it to my suit. It worked like a charm, and out of a mark of respect, I knelt before the statue and offered it a prayer of thanks. But as I was kneeling, I saw a small cracked orifice at the foot of the statue which was just the right size for me to fit through in ball mode. Curious, I shot the circular covering with a missile and sure enough, it crumbled to reveal a small entrance which could only be entered through ball mode. After again offering the statue a prayer of thanks, I rolled into the entrance. There, I was greeted with a series of pipes that twisted and turned in all sorts of directions until I rolled out below another statue pedistal entrance in another storage room.
It was an exact replica of the previous storage room, only the statue in the middle held what I initially came in search for - the charge beam. I eagerly walked up and yanked the charge beam augmentation from the statue, which upgraded my arm canon greatly. After testing it out against a wall, I learned that this charge beam, just like the missile launcher, was in prestine condition. But after I readily took the beam from the statue, I realized something - the hole in which I had entered had re-sealed itself with an impenetrable metal barring.
I frantically looked around the room, searching for another way out. Then, the eyes of the Chozo statue opened dramatically, bloodshot with fury. The statue's exterior slowly began to morph from stone to flesh. Soon, a thick, green puss glossed it's entire body. I could hear it's repulsive, weezing attempts at breathing for the first time in centuries. Soon, the head of the Chozo began to wilt and crumble forward, it's head now hunched forward staring me down. I knew what I had encountered. It was the same old foe I had encountered on Planet Zebes - a disguised Torizo!
I backed against the wall, extending my gun outwards, warning it to not proceed. But as I held my gun at it's head, ready to fire, it slowly had begun to rise from it's pedistal it had been resting on for nearly a millenium, with the intent to destroy me.
As I began charging up my first shot, it let out it's trademark menacing warcry which pierced through my nerves and made me shoot the beam pre-maturely into it's leg. The shot bounced off the Torizo's leg into the ceiling, causing debries to fall in front of where it stood. As I frantically tried to charge up another shot, the Torizo lifted his head into the air and let out another screeching, irritating warcry, followed by spraying a series of cluster bombs into the air where I stood. I dodged the brunt of the pellets, but many of them smacked up against my back as I rolled out of harms way. I began for the third time to fully charge my beam weapon, but this time, the Torizo responded with sharp gashes at the air around it, driving intense pulse rays into my suit, knocking me to the ground.
Desperately trying to crawl away from it's wrath, it was proving to be a formidable foe, and I came to realize that now was the time to use my newly aquired weapon systems. It stared down at me, glaring, ready to crush me once and for all. I fired several small shots at it's legs, which were swiftly repelled, but as a side affect, caused him to leap backwards in disarray, giving me valuble time. As I switched my gun from charge beam to missile, though, it leaped into the air suddenly and stomped on my back, severely damaging my suit. The low energy alarms began flashing and I knew I didn't have much time before I was to be destroyed by this thing. Taking a moment to calm my nerves, I rolled into ball mode, and quickly maneuvered into an air duct near the floor. The Torizo's talons reached in after me, followed by blowing several charges of it's acid spit into the vent, which narrowly missed me.
I waited for it to remove it's tallons from the vent. As the Torizo slowly began to pull it's hand out of the vent, I remained motionless inside, to try and convince the Torizo that I had somehow died when it shot that load of acid at me. After he fully removed his tallon, I could hear his menacing victory roar, giving me the indication he thought he had killed me. But then, as it began to pace away from the vent I had hid inside, I shot out of the vent in ball mode, rolled imbetween its legs, came out of ball mode and shot a missile square into the back of it's head. Shocked and visibly injured, the Torizo's natural reflexes caused it to turn around, which allowed me to deliver several blows square between the eyes with my remaining four missiles. The shrapnel from the blast temporarily blinded the Torizo, causing him to fall back into a wall roaring in pain, clutching his face with his tallon-like hands.
Now I was on the offensive. I charged up another beam, this time being able to get it to full charge. As the Torizo began to recover from the intense blast, it charged towards me enraged and furious. It threw it's arm at me, clawing for my face, which I swiftly ducked and evaded. Then, it began to raise its head into the air to once again fling acid into my suit. I aimed my fully charged beam at its mouth, and just before it got the chance to fling it's acid cluster bombs, I fired, causing them all to explode pre-maturely in its mouth. With that fatal shot, it's head exploded into flames, and it's corpse slowly slumped onto the floor, evaporating into several orbs of energy and missiles. After collecting all the energy orbs and missiles, two tanks appeared in front of me - an energy tank and a reserve tank! After picking them up, I was up to 200 health with 100 backup health.
With the death of the Torizo hunter, the metal barring evaporated, allowing me to roll back inside the room I was once in. I quickly dashed back to the NaviCom, so Adam could reverse the lockdown and allow me to enter the other areas of the facility. With the missile launcher and the charge beam, I had the weapons necessary to successfully fight the pirates within ChozoTech Research. Little did I know how truly unprepared I really was...
The ChozoTech Research station wasn't anything close to being Hell, though. It had all the signs of being a building constructed by a civilized species. It was like exploring inside a large-scale version of a shopping center. Like shopping, in a way. Unlike most females, though, I hated shopping. I was always more of a tomboy. So the feeling of being inside a massive and never-ending shopping center took me to the end of my wits at times. But I avoided going completely insane by thinking. Just thinking about nothing, really. Except this time, I was thinking about the Space Pirates. Mainly, about Ridley.
As I went from room to room trying to find some sort of hidden storage area that could supply me with something of use, I thought about Ridley. My history with Ridley stretches all the way back to the humble beginnings of my career, and even to the ancient guardians whom raised me, the Chozo race. Although we shared a heated rivalry, it was during this adventure on Forsythe where I began to think more critically about Ridley and his place within the universe. Me and Ridley had never been more than rivals, and although I have known him and fought against him since the humble beginnings of my career, I never really knew him to be more than a villainous, treacherous, ruthless scourge of civilization. But there had to be more to him than just being a warrior. If the pirates bothered to save his mind, he must have been highly intelligent. A highly intelligent creature has other ambitions other than just serving for the pack.
It was during my initial search through the utilities sector that I began to think there was something more to Ridley. He was smart enough that he didn't need to work for the pirates if he chose not too. Maybe he just got to that point in his life where he needed to choose a path and then, like so many others, chose the wrong path. Maybe he was like me, where he was forced into serving in this never-ending war. Maybe I am wrong all together about Ridley - maybe he really is nothing more than a creature that works without relent to further the cause of evil, with no frailties and no emotions other than hate. All I knew was that I had dangerous exchanges with Ridley which took both of us physically to the brink, and I never really knew what he was fighting for.
Then I needed to completely wipe out his mind, and I had no idea how I was going to go about doing that.
At the time, all I could hope to find out was who was behind ressurecting Ridley in the first place. There had to be an insider. A survivor from my second assault of Planet Zebes. Somebody who decided to ressurect Ridley in a new form. But mystery at the time was who could have had the power to re-organize the pirates back into the omniscent terror they once were? After the major influences and leaders within the pirates were all destroyed, I thought that the pirate network was, for the most part, detached from control or order. It had seized to be one powerful force, and had seperated into thousands of different principalities. In the years between the Planet Zebes incident and the X parasite incident, I had taken advantage of this disorganization of the pirates and managed to destroy any threat the pirates still held.
But they had re-organized again through the guiding hand of Ridley. And the question dominating my thoughts at the time - who brought Ridley back? He couldn't have brought himself back, and the manpower necessary to construct that new body of his certainly wasn't available. 99% of known living pirates were in jail or awaiting trial at the time. It had to be someone I missed. One of his cronies that took over after he and Mother Brain perished with everyone else on Planet Zebes. With a great deal of pirates escaped from prison, Ridley and the gang was back, using the iscolated and forgotten planet of Forsythe as a savehaven. They were preparing to deliver an attack to galactic civilization which would thrust them back into public life dramatically. And I needed to stop that from happening.
Finally, after searching for what seemed eons, I had found a supply room. All about the room were various crates of missiles and orbs of energy. In the center of the room stood a giant Chozo statue with it's arms extended, with a missile launcher floating in it's clutches. I paced up to the statue, with a solemn tone in my stride, and then lifted it slowly off the Chozo's hands and then applied it to my suit. It worked like a charm, and out of a mark of respect, I knelt before the statue and offered it a prayer of thanks. But as I was kneeling, I saw a small cracked orifice at the foot of the statue which was just the right size for me to fit through in ball mode. Curious, I shot the circular covering with a missile and sure enough, it crumbled to reveal a small entrance which could only be entered through ball mode. After again offering the statue a prayer of thanks, I rolled into the entrance. There, I was greeted with a series of pipes that twisted and turned in all sorts of directions until I rolled out below another statue pedistal entrance in another storage room.
It was an exact replica of the previous storage room, only the statue in the middle held what I initially came in search for - the charge beam. I eagerly walked up and yanked the charge beam augmentation from the statue, which upgraded my arm canon greatly. After testing it out against a wall, I learned that this charge beam, just like the missile launcher, was in prestine condition. But after I readily took the beam from the statue, I realized something - the hole in which I had entered had re-sealed itself with an impenetrable metal barring.
I frantically looked around the room, searching for another way out. Then, the eyes of the Chozo statue opened dramatically, bloodshot with fury. The statue's exterior slowly began to morph from stone to flesh. Soon, a thick, green puss glossed it's entire body. I could hear it's repulsive, weezing attempts at breathing for the first time in centuries. Soon, the head of the Chozo began to wilt and crumble forward, it's head now hunched forward staring me down. I knew what I had encountered. It was the same old foe I had encountered on Planet Zebes - a disguised Torizo!
I backed against the wall, extending my gun outwards, warning it to not proceed. But as I held my gun at it's head, ready to fire, it slowly had begun to rise from it's pedistal it had been resting on for nearly a millenium, with the intent to destroy me.
As I began charging up my first shot, it let out it's trademark menacing warcry which pierced through my nerves and made me shoot the beam pre-maturely into it's leg. The shot bounced off the Torizo's leg into the ceiling, causing debries to fall in front of where it stood. As I frantically tried to charge up another shot, the Torizo lifted his head into the air and let out another screeching, irritating warcry, followed by spraying a series of cluster bombs into the air where I stood. I dodged the brunt of the pellets, but many of them smacked up against my back as I rolled out of harms way. I began for the third time to fully charge my beam weapon, but this time, the Torizo responded with sharp gashes at the air around it, driving intense pulse rays into my suit, knocking me to the ground.
Desperately trying to crawl away from it's wrath, it was proving to be a formidable foe, and I came to realize that now was the time to use my newly aquired weapon systems. It stared down at me, glaring, ready to crush me once and for all. I fired several small shots at it's legs, which were swiftly repelled, but as a side affect, caused him to leap backwards in disarray, giving me valuble time. As I switched my gun from charge beam to missile, though, it leaped into the air suddenly and stomped on my back, severely damaging my suit. The low energy alarms began flashing and I knew I didn't have much time before I was to be destroyed by this thing. Taking a moment to calm my nerves, I rolled into ball mode, and quickly maneuvered into an air duct near the floor. The Torizo's talons reached in after me, followed by blowing several charges of it's acid spit into the vent, which narrowly missed me.
I waited for it to remove it's tallons from the vent. As the Torizo slowly began to pull it's hand out of the vent, I remained motionless inside, to try and convince the Torizo that I had somehow died when it shot that load of acid at me. After he fully removed his tallon, I could hear his menacing victory roar, giving me the indication he thought he had killed me. But then, as it began to pace away from the vent I had hid inside, I shot out of the vent in ball mode, rolled imbetween its legs, came out of ball mode and shot a missile square into the back of it's head. Shocked and visibly injured, the Torizo's natural reflexes caused it to turn around, which allowed me to deliver several blows square between the eyes with my remaining four missiles. The shrapnel from the blast temporarily blinded the Torizo, causing him to fall back into a wall roaring in pain, clutching his face with his tallon-like hands.
Now I was on the offensive. I charged up another beam, this time being able to get it to full charge. As the Torizo began to recover from the intense blast, it charged towards me enraged and furious. It threw it's arm at me, clawing for my face, which I swiftly ducked and evaded. Then, it began to raise its head into the air to once again fling acid into my suit. I aimed my fully charged beam at its mouth, and just before it got the chance to fling it's acid cluster bombs, I fired, causing them all to explode pre-maturely in its mouth. With that fatal shot, it's head exploded into flames, and it's corpse slowly slumped onto the floor, evaporating into several orbs of energy and missiles. After collecting all the energy orbs and missiles, two tanks appeared in front of me - an energy tank and a reserve tank! After picking them up, I was up to 200 health with 100 backup health.
With the death of the Torizo hunter, the metal barring evaporated, allowing me to roll back inside the room I was once in. I quickly dashed back to the NaviCom, so Adam could reverse the lockdown and allow me to enter the other areas of the facility. With the missile launcher and the charge beam, I had the weapons necessary to successfully fight the pirates within ChozoTech Research. Little did I know how truly unprepared I really was...
