A flood of pain and adrenaline shot through Samus's body, but she welcomed it with open arms as it brought an invigorating effect over her mind. -But that didn't prevent her from letting out a deafening scream that seemed to pierce the air like the very piece jagged metal that pierced her leg. As she recovered from the pain, Samus wrenched her attention back to the avalanche of falling debris just in time to narrowly roll out of the way of a large piece of clay-colored metal. As soon as she was clear of it, she found herself barreling toward the front of building just feet away from her ship. "Oh give me a fucking break!" She yelled severely irritated. She swerved to avoid it but still clipped the edge of the building with the side of her ship, sending her ship into an erratic spin. She yanked at the steering controls in a frantic attempt to right herself. Though she knew if she didn't succeed in getting back control of her ship she was good as dead, she began to smile; for as her ship spun, the rotation gave her ample chance to see what was behind her. Even with the smoke and falling debris she could make out that the Hell Fire laser had finally died out. That was the good news. The bad news was that the Hell Fire's shockwave had not yet stopped -and, due to Samus's spinning maneuver, was now moving much, much faster than the small battered ship that was cascading awkwardly through a still collapsing city. In other words, Samus's odds for survival just went from about a billion in one, to somewhere around 462 million in one –which may not seem worth celebrating, but for Samus, this put her back on track with her day-to-day chances for survival. Unfortunately, this sense of relative relief was short lived: out of the edge of her ships view, Samus could make out a ship –the ship that had been trying to kill her from earlier. "Good to see my assassin made it out unscathed; I was getting short on things trying kill to me." She said spitting up blood. The thoroughly worn bounty hunter got control of her ship as the shockwave closed in on being just a mile away from Samus's ship. "Alright Assassin, let's see how you do without your stupid cloaking!" Samus roared. She tilted the ship toward the sky and shot straight up; making sure the underside of her ship was facing directly away from the shock wave, she prepped an energy shift of 90% of the ships remaining power. After swiftly dodging the falling ruble, her red and orange spaceship shot out from the collapsing buildings in a dramatic display of flying; mere moments after she emerged she cut the rear engines, then without missing a beat, transferred the majority of the ships power to the underside engines and stalled them. She waited until her ships momentum evened out with gravity, prepped half the power she had redirected, and released the power all in one quick burst. Her ship shot backwards just as the shockwave impacted, creating a sound similar to that of a car being flattened. The top of her ship bent slightly inward and her windshield cracked, but it held together and kept moving past the shockwave. The assassin held course as he prepared to deal the final blow to the falling ship. Samus diverted part of the 10% of her remaining power she wasn't still reserving into her weapons system, prepped the missiles, and turned on her targeting systems. "Shit." Samus stated as 'targeting system offline' scrolled across her screen. She fired anyway. The missiles flew straight towards the assassin's ship, leaving trails of smoke behind them as they went. The assassin was forced to roll out of the way, but unharmed, prepared to come back around. Samus used all the remaining power to slow her fall as much as possible to dampen the impact with the collapsed city below –it did less good than Samus hoped for. The engines gave out with a soft bang and her ship impacted hard with the ground. It bounced once, flipped over, and sat in landing position; its nose angled ever so slightly upward. Samus sat motionless as blood ran down the corners of her mouth. With both her will and her ribs broken, she watched the assassin approach wearing a defeated expression and waited for the end. The assassin closed in slowly, guaranteeing no chance of missing. A silver-grey blur, a fast crunching sound, and an explosive thud; and the assassin and his ship lay in a smoking heap. Without even getting the chance to look surprised, Samus's expression changed from despair to pure horror. "No…" She choked in a low trembling whisper. From the crash-site rose the unmistakable shape, of Meta-Ridley. He stretched out a pair of wings –a new addition from the original Meta-Ridley. "If I'm going to die like this, I will take you with me." She said coughing up blood. With a single leap, Ridley landed on Samus's Ship. "That's you fucker, give me a shot at point blank." She spat weakly as she lifted her trembling hand hit the fire missile button. Nothing happened, the ship was finally dead, and in a few moments, she would be too. "Damn you!" she screamed "how many times do I have to kill you before you stay dead?" Ridley began ripping into the ship, slowly opening it like can, but Samus hadn't the strength to move anymore. She said: "Mom, Dad, I'm sorry –I couldn't avenge you after all" and promptly blacked out. Ridley finished ripping the roof off of Samus's ship, screeched triumphantly, and looked down at his prize.