Chapter 3: "My Memories"

Samus left Houston's apartment early. She saw that Houston still asleep,

even after cleaning off the floor, and left. She looked around for if

anyone was present, then went to her apartment and put on her Power Suit.

Just as she walked out of the apartment door, she saw a disturbance outside

through the windows of the apartment hallway.

"Oh, shit. Not now. Not while I'm on probation." Samus dashes to the

stairwell and hurries to get outside. "I'm not supposed to handle this

without Schneider or some other bounty hunter near me...and I'm not about

to wake up Houston, either." Samus thinks for a moment. 'Handle it, I

shall, though. It is my duty, given by the Chozo.' She arrives outside

in the parking lot and continues to run at the now apparent fight. It was

that big red dragon again, and he just swiped the three MiB's he was up

against savagely. He looked different, he seemed consumed by fury, and

his eyes glowed a bright, golden yellow.

"Y...you! Do you have any idea how much damage you caused? How many

lives were lost?!" The dragon just roared and charged at her. She leapt

to the side and fired several blasts of energy at him. Her cannon missed

most of the blasts, though, because of a little range issue. "Dammit, why

did Gul'Gen give me a slap-dashed piece of crap Power Suit?! Aah!" She

jumps away from Ridley's tail, which he used to stab at Samus, approaching

her with every attack. She leaps onto a balcony, and Ridley looks up.

A hail of energy blasts falls toward him, only one or two glancing off of

his beak, nearly blinding him and irritating him without the psychic

assistance of Mother Brain's mental alterations. He roared and let out

a blast of fire at Samus, who leapt onto a balcony across. Ridley turned

his head while still breathing fire. The flames slowly closed in on the

balcony Samus was standing on.

'What the hell is he doing? Buying me time? Is he really holding back?'

Samus looks around quickly for another way to defeat, or at least escape

Ridley. She spots something glowing up on Houston's balcony, two floors

above. She watches the fire catch the balcony and leaps up to the next

floor. She looks back down at Ridley and watches as he stops his fire-

breathing and leaps onto the wall, grabbing it with his talons.

"Shit!" She leaps up onto the next floor balcony as Ridley tries to pounce

Samus, and she touches a Missile Tank when grabbing onto the ledge. The

balcony crashes under Ridley's feet and falls to the burning one underneath,

but he is still up in the air. Samus continues to look down at Ridley, and

notices a small vertical bar appear on the left side of her visor, also seeing

that Ridley was flying. "I thought that those wings were for show! Man, it

looks like it's time to clip 'em!" Samus switches her cannon to Missile mode

and fires all five rounds into Ridley's face, just before he flies up to bite

Samus on the heels. Ridley screeches and falls to the ground, on top of the

wooden planks that burned. His skin was used to heat, but wasn't burn-proof,

and the fires painfully seared into his wings. He screeched again and rolled

off of the burning remnants, looking at his wings, with holes burned into the

membranes of skin. Samus took the opportunity to charge at him while he

roared again, this time, instead of breathing fire he had Samus' cannon inside

of his mouth. "Don't force me to have to pump your guts full of plasma."

Ridley backed away slowly. To Samus' surprise, he began to laugh. His eyes,

the harsh glowing quit, and they looked almost human.

"It is just as I thought...you CAN equal me. Even with that crummy, low-end

Power Suit. You probably could have done so without it, too. Too bad that

your brother couldn't watch. I must say, for the time that Mother Brain was

controlling me, it was a spectacle. Marduk's men are nothing on you."

Samus looked at him through the helmet. He felt so familiar, it was no

surprise to her that he said she had a brother. She couldn't remember it all,

just the pirates' attack and the Chozo saving her, raising her, teaching her

forbidden Torizo fighting methods. (Forbidden, at least, for the Chozo to

use, as they couldn't kill.) "How would you like to know that...I knew your

parents...hm? I had only just met them that day. Now I remember your name.

Say it to me, so that I can assure myself of being right."

Samus was glaring at him with contempt, but that changed when he said he had

known her name. Her expression changed to fear, a cold, nameless fear that

she felt...like it was an awful memory waiting to awaken. "S-Samus. Samus

Leah Aran." Ridley let out a loud 'HA!' at that.

"So I was right. You...have become quite different from the scared little

girl who hid when the Gammans attacked." Samus looked at Ridley quizziacally.

"Gammans?" Ridley nods.

"You call them 'Space Pirates'. I work for their leader, Mother Brain."

Samus felt a flood of...something rushing into her head. She couldn't

believe what she saw. Looking through her eyes as when she was a child.

It was...that day that the Pirates attacked.

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"You propose that we do work for you and your leader if we're going to live

in Gamma Sector? Out of the question. I was burned once before, and I will

not turn my back on who I now support: The Federation." Samus walks up to

the man that was talking to Ridley. He looked like a rugged marine, back

from a fierce war that took place recently. He wore a silver-colored Power

Suit, Varia-type was her guess, that was really grungy and dirty. He must

have got back from a big battle.

'This man...he was my father.' (SO...IT IS TRUE. AN ARAN STILL LIVES.

THEN WE MUST BE CAUTIOUS. ARAN IS DANGEROUS. THEY ALL WERE.) Samus

looked around for that echoing, cybernetic voice that sounded inside of

her mind. She felt an odd haunting, like this was a part of her that

she wasn't supposed to know. She tried to shut it out, but the more

she fought, the clearer she remembered.

'NO! STOP IT! PLEASE! I DON'T WANT TO SEE THIS!' (BUT YOU MUST. YOU

ARE AN ARAN. YOU MUST KNOW WHAT YOU FACE. WE MUST KNOW WHY YOU FIGHT.

WHAT YOU FIGHT FOR. WHAT YOUR ENEMY IS. YOU MUST KNOW...) Samus continued

to look around. Visions of every memory she had between that day and now

flashed around her, and she walked forward, closer to a large glass

containment that was partially illuminated by the rapidly flashing visions.

'What are you?!' (WE ARE GAMMANS...M...O...T...H...E...R...B...R...A...I...N.

WE ARE SPEAK TO YO-OU NOW. UNDERSTAND...T...H...A...T...WE DO NOT WISH HARM

TO...A...NY...WHO IS AFRAID OF US.)

"The Federation is scared of you! Why attack any of them?!"

(WE ARE KNOWING WHAT FEARS US...THEY DO NOT! THEY ARE CON-N-N-N-FIDENT...THAT

THEY WILL WIN AGAINST US. YOU FEAR-S-S-S US. WE WILL ATTACK, IF YOU ARE NOT

AFRAID. WE HAVE HONOR OF ONE'S-S-S-S-S FEAR. WE CAN...HELP!--OVERCOME THAT

FEAR. TAKE OURS GUIDANCE, AN-N-D BE AFRAID NO MORE.)

"I won't submit to you! I WON'T SERVE PIRATES!" Samus screams as lights

appear around the containment, revealing a grotesquely large brain on a

female-looking head. The eyes and mouth were covered by a weird mask with

a breathing filter, and tubes extend from plugs inside of the brain's

medulla. The eye slits glow red.

(PIRATES!! HOW DARE YOU CALL GAMMANS PIRATES-S-S!!! WE GET WHAT WE WANT, AND

THAT IS...ALL!!!) Samus snaps out of the vision and feels a rumbling beneath

her. The concrete from under her soars up and then turns around, and rushes

back down to the ground, flattening Samus under man-made mortar chunks. She

looks at the energy gauge on her visor.

"Damn...only 3 Energy left..." She continues to lie low, knowing that Ridley

was still there.

(RIDLEY...FINISH THE LAST ARAN.) Ridley cocked his head up to Houston's

balcony. He shook his head.

"No. I won't do it right now. It was too easy to beat her for you. Your

powers are beyond awesome. And besides...I owe debts. Debts that require

them both alive."

(BOTH? DO YOU MEAN THAT SOLOMON WOULD FIGHT US?) Ridley turns around.

"Possibly. After all...he does work for the Bounty Hunters." Mother Brain's

high-pitched robotic voice makes a laughing noise. Ridley began to walk away.

(YOU WERE A FOOL TO SAVE HIM...RIDLEY.) Ridley looked back at the rubble and

building.

"They can change their minds someday. You don't need to do a thing."

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(My best fight scene that I have ever made, and I really like the way that

I brought in Mother Brain. The only thing that I don't like, was how short

I made this chapter, and how much shorter the memory scene was than the

conversation with Mother Brain.)