Chapter 3:
Samus rushed down an unoccupied corridor as quickly as possible. She wanted to quickly deal with the Space Pirate leadership in the bowels of the base so she could rescue the captives taken from the Adventure in the Stars and get them back to the ship and off this planet before they were either killed, enslaved, or converted into Techno Soldiers by the Space Pirates. After traveling almost a hundred meters, she came across a door with a green blast shield. Remembering that green blast shields required Super Missiles to take down, she switched to her Power Beam and charged it. She proceeded to launch a missile and a large missile with a green-tipped warhead emerged from her arm cannon. The missile quickly sped to the door and detonated upon impact, instantly collapsing the blast shield. The door opened and Samus proceeded to enter a large, gray, dark, and seemingly empty room and quickly activated her Scan Visor, believing that this was a trap. Sure enough, her visor picked up several energy signatures, but they were difficult to spot. Switching to her X-Ray Visor, she quickly managed to identify the signatures as having belonged to Zebesian Space Pirates. Apparently, they thought that their cloaking devices would allow them to get a few free hits in on the Hunter. Samus quickly disavowed them of that notion by switching to her Plasma Beam and firing a series of uncharged shots at the Pirates. The orange blasts of plasma instantly burned through the weak armor of the Pirates and felled the quartet in rapid succession. As each of the Pirates were killed, they fell to the ground and decloaked, their cloaking devices having been destroyed by Samus's fire. After she finished off the Pirates, she switched back to her Combat Visor and charged her Plasma Beam. Several missiles that the dead Pirates had been carrying left their bodies and floated over to Samus, her Charged Plasma Beam pulling them towards her. Once the missiles made contact with her suit, they were instantly converted into energy and stored within Samus's suit, replenishing part of her missile supply. Once she had finished resupplying herself, she went over to the exit, blasted down the blue blast shield, and proceeded into the next corridor.
The next corridor appeared to be made out of gray stone and clay. There was also some soil on the ground, which allowed short, green grass to grow. Samus suspected that the grass was not photosynthetic since there was little to no light in this corridor. In fact, it was almost completely dark in this corridor. Samus quickly switched to her X-Ray Visor once more and continued to make her way down the corridor. She checked her sensors and found that there were no environmental hazards to speak of on this level, which surprised her a bit. Oftentimes, the Space Pirates chose underground bases that also had natural hazards like lava, acid, or extreme heat so as to make life difficult for an invading army that might try to come down to face them. This base, on the other hand, was quite different. In fact, this planet was much different from many of the Space Pirate main base worlds in how temperate it was and in how much life it supported.
The bounty hunter continued down the corridor until she saw a blur of motion in front of her. She quickly stopped and took cover behind a small outcropping of ivy, after scanning it to make sure that it was non-hostile. Sure enough, two Space Pirate Troopers appeared and were likely searching for her. Samus suppressed a grin. Two Space Pirate Troopers would not be sufficient to kill her. Charging her Plasma Beam, she emerged from her cover and locked onto the Pirate on the right of the two-man formation. She unleashed her Charged Plasma Blast on the Pirate and incinerated the Pirate with a single shot. The second Pirate, however, was not caught unawares. Immediately upon seeing his companion's demise, he unleashed a hail of energy fire upon Samus. The bounty hunter quickly dove behind the cover of the vines, only sustaining a single hit, which took off only a couple units of energy. The barrage of energy bolts followed her path and began pruning the vines that she was hiding behind. As the Pirate continued to fire, using his energy rifle to blow through the vines, miraculously missing Samus with each shot, Samus charged another plasma blast. After a second, it was fully charged and she dove from her cover, into another blast, which only took of a single unit of energy, and fired the charged blast at the Space Pirate. Despite the agility of the Space Pirate, he was unable to dodge the plasma blast that traveled at nearly the speed of light. The Space Pirate was reduced to a charred corpse and fell backwards as most of his torso was now missing. With the two Space Pirates having been dealt with, Samus continued on towards another blue blast shield. She knocked down the shield and proceeded to enter the next room.
In the next room, Samus found a sight that she did not expect at all, for inside this chamber was none other than a single jellyfish-like creature with a translucent green upper body, four bright red internal nuclei, and four claw-like mandibles, one pair was longer and designed for grabbing prey, while the shorter mandibles were used as a part of the creature's feeding process. It was a larval Metroid. At the sight of the creature, she stopped and stared at the creature. As if sensing her, the Metroid turned to face her, giving off a surprised chirp. The creature ceased what it was doing and floated over towards the bounty hunter. For a moment, Samus wondered if the Metroid had sensed the Metroid DNA still inside her, for while Samus's operation after her Metroid DNA had become destabilized had taken out much of the DNA, some of it still remained to act as a vaccine against any further X-Parasite infections, should there still be some of the parasites in other locations in the galaxy. Samus immediately lowered her arm cannon, though she also made certain to switch to her Ice Beam, just incase. She activated her Scan Visor and scanned the creature. The scan read, Morphology – Metroid. Metroids are energy-based predators. They will latch onto prey with their powerful pincers and proceed to drain it of its life energy, growing larger in the process. They are averse to extremely cold temperatures and their only known vulnerabilities are the Ice Beam. The only way to detach a Metroid is to enter Morph Ball mode and lay a Bomb.
Samus did not know what to do. The fact that she had Metroid DNA inside of her, as well as having had her life saved by a Metroid twice, made her hesitant to want to attack this creature. She knew the danger posed by feral Metroids, and it was tremendous, but she had also seen a softer and more compassionate side to the creatures as well, as evidenced by the Metroid Hatchling. As such, she merely waited to see what actions the Metroid would take. She would not initiate combat against the creature, but she would use whatever force was necessary to defend herself if it attacked. As the Metroid approached, Samus made no hostile movements and merely waited to see how the Metroid would respond to her presence. She soon received her answer as the Metroid's mouth sprang open, its mandibles spread out and it lunged towards the bounty hunter in an attempt to grab her and drain her of her life energy. However, Samus was faster on the draw. She quickly raised her arm cannon and fired a single blue pulse of freezing energy at the creature. The Ice Beam blast struck the Metroid and spread out from the point of impact in a wave of ice, encasing the creature. The frozen Metroid fell to the ground where it clattered and rolled a few feet before coming to a stop. A pang of sadness came over the bounty hunter as she pointed her arm cannon at the Metroid. "I'm sorry. You left me no choice," she told the frozen creature as she unleashed a single missile from her arm cannon. The missile rocketed towards the frozen Metroid and quickly struck the creature, detonating in a massive explosion and shattering the Metroid. While the Metroid was not stated in her scan to have been a Tallon Metroid, Samus could only wonder if it was since it only took a single missile to shatter it. In the end, she shook off the thought. Gray Voice and Admiral Dane had told her that her current suit's weapons were noticeably more powerful than any of her previous suit's weapons. It was just as likely that the missile was simply powerful enough to shatter the Metroid on its own, regardless of whether or not it was the weaker Tallon Metroid, or a Metroid cloned from the DNA of a SR388 Metroid.
Samus did not dwell on the Metroid's attack and demise any further as she proceeded to make her way through the room, shattering a gray metallic crate with a blast from her Charged Power Beam. Switching back to her Ice Beam, she charged it and drew in the pack of ten missiles as she made her way though the room. After she had drawn in the missiles, she unleashed the charged Ice Beam blast against the wall to her right. The blast of energy splashed across the wall and spread out, encasing it in ice. After the spread of ice had ceased, there was a circular formation of ice on the wall that extended from the floor all the way to the ceiling, with small bits and pieces of the floor and ceiling also being frozen. In addition, the blast also expanded out to the right a good ways as well, to a radius of about six meters or so. She soon came to the end of the room and fired a single blast at the blue blast shield, collapsing it and granting her entrance to the next corridor.
Samus made her way into the next corridor expecting to face down more Metroids. She was not disappointed as she came upon a staircase that led deeper into the base, and a Metroid came flying towards her. Wasting no time, she fired a single uncharged ice blast towards the Metroid and froze it solid. The Metroid promptly stopped in its tracks and fell to the ground, proceeding to roll down the staircase. Before it could reach the bottom, though, Samus fired a missile at the frozen predator. The missile promptly struck the creature and detonated, annihilating it. The bounty hunter then made her way down the stairs and once she reached the bottom, she turned around, seeing that there was no exit on the wall.
After turning, she found a pair of Metroids coming right towards her not far from the entrance to either the next room or corridor. She gave a melancholy sigh as she picked off each of the Metroids with a single Ice Beam shot, each. The two jellyfish-like creatures fell clattered on the ground and rolled to a halt as they were frozen by the Hunter. Samus then finished off the two Metroids with one missile, each. Once they had been taken care of, she blasted the door open and proceeded to make her way to the next room.
The next room was full of lava and was also superheated, according to her environmental sensors. However, the heat posed no threat to her new Power Suit, which already had the Varia Feature built into it. There were several metal platforms that provided a safe path over the lava for those without the protection of both a Varia and Gravity Suit or feature that simulated the effects of said suits. Since Samus's suit was equipped with both she merely continued to make her way through the room across the platforms until she came across another Metroid. She looked past the Metroid and found the desiccated husk of what had been a Zebesian Space Pirate. Apparently, the Metroid was still hungry, for upon sighting the oncoming warrior, the Metroid rushed towards Samus. The bounty hunter quickly neutralized the Metroid's threat with a single blast from her Ice Beam, followed up by a single missile. Once the Metroid had been dealt with, she made her way over to the exit to the room, and another Metroid. She dealt with this energy-based predator the same way she did the others. Once the Metroid was shattered into thousands of frozen fragments, she proceeded towards the door, which had a yellow blast shield erected over it. Knowing that only a Power Bomb would be able to breach this shield, Samus curled up into her Morph Ball mode and laid a Power Bomb at the base of the shield. She then backed away and waited for the Power Bomb to detonate. The bomb detonated in a massive sphere of energy and annihilated the shield. Samus made certain to be on the other side of the room when it detonated, for the Power Bomb was much like a tactical nuclear or matter-antimatter weapon that had initially been designed for massive demolition duty by the Chozo. Once the shield was collapsed, Samus ran back to the exit and made her way through the pentagonal door.
In the next corridor, she came across a long, winding staircase. Her HUD indicated the presence of several enemies in the room. She looked ahead and found more desiccated Space Pirate husks in the stairwell, obviously the signs of Metroid predation. As she continued down the staircase, she found the first of this stairwell's Metroids coming right at her. A quick Ice Beam shot and missile put down the Metroid, permanently neutralizing its threat. Making her way down the stairs, she quickly came upon two more Metroids. Two shots from her Ice Beam froze the creatures, causing them to fall to the ground. Two missiles later, the energy-based predators were nothing more than broken shards of ice.
Descending further down the stairs, she came across another pair of Metroids. Just like the others, upon sighting Samus, the predators charged towards her. Two Ice Beam shots and two missiles later, the Metroids were dead. After dealing with the second pair of Metroids, Samus reached the bottom of the stairwell. Once she reached the bottom, she came across three Metroids. These Metroids were significantly larger than the previous Metroids that she had encountered, but they were still not as large as the hatchling that she had spared had grown to become after devouring the life energy of so many Space Pirates and bioweapons on Zebes. Still, Samus decided to play it safe and charged her Ice Beam and proceeded to unleash a shot from her Ice Spreader. She knew that it would use ten missiles per use, but she believed that the cost was worth the reward of not having to deal with three large Metroids that might be able to thaw out quickly, forcing her to freezing and shattering one Metroid while the other two drained her and her suit of energy. She unleashed the Ice Spreader at the Metroids and the expanding wave of ice rushed towards the predatory creatures. In almost a second, the Ice Spreader shot struck the lead Metroid and instantly exploded, encasing it in ice. The icy explosion of the expanding wave of ice also managed to ensnare the other two Metroids in its blast radius as well, freezing all three Metroids in one solid block of ice. The bounty hunter then finished the job by unleashing a single missile at the block of ice. The missile leapt from her arm cannon and streaked towards the ice block, detonating upon impact. The explosion shattered the ice block, and the unfortunate Metroids inside as well. Once the Metroid threat had been dealt with, Samus went over to a door with a green blast shield. She grimaced, knowing that in order to breach the shield, she would need a Super Missile, and since she had used a noticeable number of missiles in the battles that brought her down to this area of the base, she wanted to make sure she had all the missiles that she could get a hold of for the later battles. She then stepped forward and charged a Super Missile. Once it was charged, she unleashed the missile at the shield and blew it off the door. Once the shield was gone, she fired a single shot from her Power Beam and collapsed the blue force field over the door. As she approached, the door then opened, granting her entry to what she hoped was the final stretch before reaching the Space Pirate leaders, and possibly Ridley. The bounty hunter then stepped through and into the next room.
Meanwhile, deeper inside the base, Mother Brain and Ridley watched as Samus blasted through the Metroids that had unfortunately eaten the Space Pirate security teams that had been dispatched to deal with the Hunter. Mother Brain gave an audible sigh and said, "Unfortunate," as the Metroids were being destroyed. Ridley had stronger feelings.
"What do you mean 'unfortunate'?" the Space Dragon roared. "Those were the only Metroids that we managed to clone, and we used up all of the Metroid DNA that we managed to retrieve from the Galactic Federation's cell cultures of Samus's Metroid DNA! Not only that, but more of our troops have been lost, and not even due to Samus's actions! Your little pets decided that they wanted to have a snack and so they decided to feast on our own people!"
"A few Space Pirate Troopers, Zebesians and a Torizo are not significant losses," Mother Brain chided, prompting Ridley to growl as he turned to face her.
"Be careful, Mother," Ridley warned in a sinister tone. "You don't have access to that metallic monstrosity of a body just yet. If you pick a fight with me, I'll…"
"That's enough!" came a voice from behind Mother Brain. Emerging from the darkness were two Space Pirate Commanders. The one on the right, the one who had spoken, then said, "Both of you, cool it! We have more important matters to attend to at the moment." Ridley bowed to the two Commanders, who both gave a respectful bow in return. Looking over at Mother Brain, the Commander on the right asked, "Mother, what are the chances that Samus Aran will be able to defeat us as we are right now?"
"Calculations indicate that Samus, as of yet, has a sixty-six percent chance of defeating us should she reach this far down into the base, given that we have not managed to create any Techno Soldiers, or managed to equip our soldiers with any of the newly developed and/or captured weaponry," the brain replied. "The only thing that would increase our chances of survival would be if Samus fought us all at once. However, chances are that we would sustain terrible losses and there is still a thirty percent chance that even if we all faced Samus Aran together, that we would lose the fight."
"Then what do you suggest?" the second Pirate Commander asked.
"The course of action that has the best chance of success is for us to evacuate immediately. We will have to do so quickly, though, and may have to leave the captives from the star liner behind. Once we evacuate the base and lift off, we order the Siriacus to open fire on the surface and scuttle the base, hopefully eliminating all traces of Space Pirate activity on this world. In order to distract Samus until we are able to evacuate, we send one of our generals to keep her occupied; Phantoon would be the best bet. He is formidable on both defense and offense, and his loss would also not be nearly as damaging to the Space Pirates as a whole as the loss of myself, Ridley, or Kraid would be. He can keep Samus occupied and, with proper support from a Torizo or two, he might even have a chance at winning. In addition, since he is a ghost, Phantoon may be able to survive the destruction of the base, allowing us to return and reclaim him once Samus has left, or allow him to take over and capture a Galactic Federation or a Federation in Exile warship once they come to investigate."
The Space Pirate Commanders considered the plan. Eventually, they said, "Your plan has merit. We'll have to run it by the others first, but I think that it has a good chance of success. However, we won't allow the release of our few remaining Torizo and Golden Torizo to support Phantoon. Our Torizo and Golden Torizo are too valuable to lose especially in a sacrificial mission. If you want to send in backup for Phantoon, send in some basic Zebesians. They are troopers that we can afford to lose if we must."
"Understood, sirs," Mother Brain responded.
"Begin preparations for evacuation at once!" the Pirate Commanders commanded. "Send in all unengaged Zebesians that we can! Send word to Phantoon that he is to engage Samus Aran at once!"
"Yes sir," the Pirates, Mother Brain, and Ridley responded in unison. "Tell High Command that the plan gets my vote," Ridley declared.
As the Space Pirate Commanders went back to discuss the plan with the rest of High Command, Ridley looked over into the shadows and said, "You two come to me now and stay. We will be among the last to leave."
Two figures then silently emerged from the shadows and stood before the mighty Space Dragon. They were human: one a male in what appeared to be his late forties to early fifties at the oldest, with the female seeming to be the same age. Both humans were in their mid fifties, though. Both humans wore white shirts and pants, and had metallic emblems that read, K-2L on the upper left part of their chests. Both humans also wore gold rings with some sort of inscription on them on their ring fingers, indicating that they were married. The man had brown hair and gray eyes and stood at about six feet in height while the woman was about five foot ten and looked to be an older version of Samus. She had sandy blond hair that fell to just below her shoulders and blue eyes. Mother Brain saw the humans approach the Space Dragon and was obviously surprised, if the pulsating of her body was any indication. "What are you doing Ridley? The brainwashing isn't complete on them yet!"
"Quiet!" Ridley snapped. He then approached the brain and continued quietly, "It's sufficient for my purposes. Just make sure to remain here with me until the evacuation order is given. If Samus arrives sooner than expected, or Phantoon takes his sweet time getting here, we'll need to fight her."
"I'm not so sure about this," Mother Brain warned. "Humans can be remarkably strong-minded. And I doubt that they will be willing to fight their own daughter."
Ridley gave a smirk and turned to the two humans and commanded, "State your identification!"
"Techno Lord Blaster," the woman proclaimed in a clear, strong voice.
"Techno Lord Blade," the man declared in a loud, clear voice.
"Whom do you serve?"
"We serve the Space Pirates, under the command of Lord Ridley and Space Pirate High Command!" they responded in unison. This answer satisfied Ridley.
"See?" the Space Dragon asked as he turned to Mother Brain. The single eye of the organic supercomputer gave a tentative nod, indicating that she was partially satisfied by the demonstration. Ridley then turned back to his charges.
"An enemy is approaching wearing Chozo power armor," Ridley proclaimed. "You are to protect us and provide cover for us as we evacuate should she arrive before we expect her to until the arrival of Phantoon. Once Phantoon arrives, merely cover us and allow him to deal with Samus. Do you understand?"
"Yes, my lord!" they both responded loudly in unison.
They were about to transform into their armored forms when Ridley stopped them, saying, "Wait, don't transform yet. Wait until Samus arrives and has a chance to see you."
"Understood," they replied, bowing before Ridley, showing no signs of recognizing the name of Samus Aran, or that the mention of her name had any effect on them. Ridley grinned. They were the perfect weapons to use against Samus. He did not care if they were going to be sacrificed on this mission or not. All that mattered to the dragon was that Samus died. It would be especially sweet if especially if her parents also died again right in front of her eyes, preferably by her own hand just before Ridley killed her, or even better, they killed Samus, just before he ordered them to transform back to normal and killed them once more, himself.
Not too far away from the Pirate command center, Samus trudged through another room. This room was filled with Geemers and Alcoons, bipedal dragon-like allies of the Space Pirates that were originally native to the planet Zebes. They had crimson-orange and purple skin, small stubby wings, and a tail, and could shoot fire. Before the destruction of Zebes, some of them had been taken from Zebes to ships and other planets so that they could be cloned and made into a secondary cannon fodder force that were stronger than normal Zebesians, but not as powerful as the stronger Zebesians and the Urtragian Space Pirate Troopers. Samus slaughtered the Geemers as she passed them, but at certain points, the Alcoons would jump out of their hiding places and attack her by shooting fire her way. The bounty hunter was too quick for them, though, and she managed to dodge their fireballs. A single charged Plasma Beam blast was more than sufficient to take out each Alcoon.
Once she had cleared the room, Samus charged her Plasma Beam and drew all of the exposed missiles and energy orbs towards her. Once they made contact with her suit, they were integrated into her suit's systems and replenished her ammunition and shield energy. She then proceeded to make her way towards the exit. Once she arrived at the exit, a single shot was more than enough to take down the shield over the door and grant her access to the next room.
Upon entering the next chamber, Samus was confronted with a large group of Zebesians, Alcoons, and even a couple Space Pirate Troopers as well. The chamber was a large area with multiple levels and even some lava pits. Many of them already had Zebesians, Alcoons, Dragons, red skinned creatures that were similar in appearance to Alcoons, but resided in the magma pools and lacked legs that would allow them to walk on the ground. Immediately upon sighting the bounty hunter, they opened fire on her. A torrent of blue energy pulses and fireballs came Samus's way and there were far too many for her to be able to dodge completely. In order to try to limit the damage, though, she curled up into her Morph Ball mode and laid a Power Bomb on the ground. She remained in Morph Ball mode since, for reasons she did not know, she was protected by her Power Bomb's detonation in this form. Sure enough, the Power Bomb detonated and took out all of the enemies on the ground floor, and many of the enemies on the second and third tiers of the room as well. That did not stop the others from either shooting down towards Samus from their perches, or jumping down to join the fray.
Four Alcoons burst forth from the ground and proceeded to pepper Samus's Morph Ball form with fireballs and streams of fire. Samus uncurled herself and somersaulted towards them, plowing through them as she Screw Attacked into them, the energy field produced by the attack shredding any and all enemies she came into contact with. Still, while Samus was able to clear out the remaining enemies on the ground, as well as those who jumped down to take the fight to her, with ease, she still had the others above her to deal with, and she knew that she could not afford to let them keep nipping at her heels as she proceeded towards the Pirates' command center.
The armored warrior then turned her attention towards dealing with the Space Pirates and other enemies pelting her from above. As she dashed to and fro, avoiding staying in one spot for any length of time in order to make herself as difficult a target to hit as possible, she locked onto formations of enemies, Dragon, Alcoon, Zebesian Space Pirate, etcetera, and fired missiles at them. The missiles streaked from her arm cannon and struck at the heart of the ranks and squadrons of the Space Pirates, gouging massive holes in their ranks. Cries could be heard as the missiles exploded and killed numerous Space Pirates and sentient allies. Those that survived at first formed new squadrons and teams in order to better concentrate their fire on the Hunter. This proved to be a fatal mistake for many of them, for this merely made it easier for Samus to kill them with missile strikes. She sent another volley of missiles their way and more Pirates, Kihunters, and others were blown apart. That still left some Pirates, though, who were beginning to realize that they had a better chance survival apart than together. As such, they stayed away from each other as they pelted Samus with energy blasts and plasma missiles. Unfortunately, for them, this only extended their lifespans by ten seconds or so, for that was how long it took for Samus to draw individual beads on them and shoot them with her Plasma Beam. Once the battle was over, the bounty hunter casually made her way to the room's exit, shot the blast shield, and proceeded through the now open door that led to the corridor that led to the Pirate command center leaving a large force of dead Zebesians, Alcoons, and Kihunters in her wake.
The corridor that led to the Space Pirate command center was full of turrets and Rinka projectors. As soon as Samus set foot inside the corridor, red and green rings of energy emerged from the projectors and homed in on the bounty hunter. In addition to the Rinkas, the ceiling and floor were littered with countless energy and projectile turrets. The projectile turrets shot explosive rounds that would have been death to unarmored and lightly armored opponents, but the shields of Samus's Power Suit were more than strong enough to protect her from the solid projectile fire of the turrets. Her shields glowed electric blue as the explosive projectiles struck them but inflicted no damage. The energy turrets, however, fired far more dangerous energy projectiles that were capable of inflicting damage to Samus's shields. While the damage from an individual strike was not very severe, with only three units of energy being lost with each strike, each hit would add up.
Remembering from her previous battles that no more than one Rinka could be fired or active from a projector at any given time, she switched to her Ice Beam and targeted the red and green energy rings. Each ring was frozen by a single blast from the bounty hunter's Ice Beam. One by one, each Rinka was frozen in midair and, unlike Metroids or other flying enemies, they did not fall to the ground upon being frozen. After the final Rinka had been frozen, Samus targeted the energy turrets. Switching to her Plasma Beam, she targeted each turret and fired a single blast of plasma at each of them. The orange plasma burned through the metal turrets melting them instantly, leaving molten drops of metal falling. One by one, the bounty hunter destroyed the turrets, neutralizing the corridor's defenses. As she continued to make her way through the corridor, the bounty hunter annihilated turrets and froze Rinkas in rapid succession. In less than a minute, she had cleared the room, leaving nothing but the molten wreckage of turrets and frozen Rinkas behind her. At the end of the room, she approached the door and, after blasting the blue blast shield, she entered the Space Pirate command center.
The Space Pirate command center was a large, circular room full of computers and various consoles. The room was dark, though, indicating that the room had since been abandoned. The fact that the defenses seemed to be rather sparse, with only four Space Pirate Troopers being visible to the bounty hunter, seemed to support the notion that the Pirates were evacuating once more. This caused Samus to worry about the captives that were going to try to retake the Adventure in the Stars. The Space Pirate Troopers quickly sighted Samus and began opening fire on her, crying, "It's the Hunter! She's here!" Their fire was wild and Samus had no difficulty making her way behind an unoccupied console to use for cover without taking a single hit. This forced Samus to focus on them, rather than where the rest of the surviving Space Pirate leadership had gone.
Not wanting to waste any missiles on a quartet of basic troopers, Samus switched to her Plasma Beam and charged it. Once it was charged, she scanned the area for a Space Pirate that had not taken cover. She found one who was a little too adventurous for his own good as he emerged from behind a large computer console to take a shot at the bounty hunter. The Hunter got her shot off first, though, and before the Space Pirate Trooper could fire his energy rifle, he was blown apart by the shot from Samus's Plasma Beam. The Pirate's entire torso disappeared upon impact with the beam, leaving nothing but smoking and burning arms, legs, and the upper half of a head. Samus quickly ducked behind her console as a few blue pulses of energy sailed past her, with the rest of them striking the console in an attempt to inflict some sort of damage on the bounty hunter. Samus quickly charged another plasma blast and emerged from cover to take down another Space Pirate Trooper. This blast annihilated the unfortunate Pirate's head and upper torso, leaving the rest of the body to fall over backwards. The bounty hunter quickly ducked behind the console once more to avoid the volley of return fire from the Space Pirates. She repeated the process two more times and with the final plasma shot, she felled the final Space Pirate Trooper.
Once she felled the Space Pirate Troopers, she approached the center of the room some of the lights activated. As she approached, she noticed the outline of a large pterodactyl-like creature in the shadows. The creature soon stepped forward, revealing himself to be Samus's nemesis: Ridley. The two scowled at each other as each sighted the other.
"I must say, Samus, I'm surprised that you managed to reach here so quickly," Ridley said in a sinister tone. The lights soon activated and the entire room was illuminated. Behind Ridley was the massive multi-story high form of Kraid, and an organic brain sitting inside a stasis tank that Samus recognized all too well as being Mother Brain, or at the very least a clone of her. "But this is where your adventure ends." Ridley turned to the massive Kraid, and told him, "Kraid, take Mother Brain and get her to the heavy freighter. We've already modified it to carry beings like us. I'll take care of the Hunter."
Kraid, a three-eyed green reptilian bipedal beast with two arms and three dagger-like claws that emerged from his stomach and could be launched at enemies, grabbed Mother Brain's stasis tube and began to take her into a corridor behind the command center. Ridley glanced behind him and, after making sure that Kraid and Mother Brain would not be involved in the fighting, began his fight with Samus by unleashing a wave of plasma towards the bounty hunter. Samus dove out of the way of the stream of plasma and charged a Super Missile. Once the missile was charged, she unleashed the Super Missile towards the massive Space Dragon. However, before the missile managed to strike the dragon, an energy blast intercepted the missile and detonated it prematurely. Samus's eyes went wide with shock at the sight, and a feeling of anxiety entered her heart as she saw Ridley grin as he took a couple steps backwards.
Samus grimaced and switched to her Wave Beam. She charged her Wave Beam in preparation to use her Wavebuster when two human figures quickly stepped out in front of Ridley and held their arms out, shielding the massive Space Dragon. Samus recoiled in surprise and promptly powered down her Wave Beam as she saw that the humans that were defending her nemesis were none other than her own parents. Samus took a hesitant step backwards, her eyes wide with confusion and shock. This could not be. Her parents were Techno Lords under the command of the N'Kren and the Ylla. The only organization that might control them would be the Galactic Federation, which hated the Space Pirates. There was no way that they would willingly serve the Space Pirates, even if they found out about Cyrus's dark secrets. "Mother, Father," she said faintly towards the two humans shielding Ridley as the dragon laughed.
"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. What are you gonna do now, Hunter?" Ridley mocked. "You can't get at me without going through your own parents. However, I can merely do this!" And as soon as Ridley had finished, he unleashed a massive stream of plasma towards Samus.
"No!" Samus cried as he unleashed his attack, fearing that he would incinerate her parents in an attempt to damage her. Much to her dread, the plasma did wash over her parents as Ridley attempted to kill Samus with a single attack. The shock of seeing Ridley attack her parents like that caused her to freeze for a moment, allowing Ridley to focus the full brunt of his plasma breath onto the bounty hunter. Samus took the full force of the attack and lost half of an Energy Tank from the attack. Her shields glowed as they strained under the assault, but they managed to hold. Once the attack stopped, Samus looked at the location where her parents once stood and found two armored figures, one wearing gold armor and equipped with multiple bladed weapons, and the other with silver armor and equipped with what looked to be multiple cannons and energy projectors. Samus breathed a sigh of relief as she saw that her parents had managed to transform into Techno Lords before Ridley's plasma breath had incinerated them. The Space Dragon grimaced. "Damn," he swore, angry that the Hunter's parents had managed to transform before his attack had struck. He then began to grin as he told the Techno Lords, "Fine, if you are so eager to fight, then fight! Kill Samus Aran!"
However, the Techno Lords did not budge. They merely stood in front of Ridley as if they were metallic statues. Ridley's eyes went wide with shock and anger. "What the hell are you metal idiots doing? Kill her!"
Still, the two Techno Lords did not make a move. It was obvious to Samus that they were fighting whatever force was controlling them. This only fueled Ridley's rage. "Come on! Move your butts and attack!"
"No," came the response from Blaster.
"What?" Ridley roared. "You dare to defy me?"
Blaster shook her head. "No, my lord." She then paused for a moment before looking upwards. "Phantoon has arrived. As per our orders, we must retreat with the rest of High Command and abandon this world at once," she told him, as if she were a messenger for High Command.
Ridley grimaced. The two Techno Lords then approached the Space Dragon. "My lord," Blade began, "we must leave now. Phantoon can deal with the Hunter."
Ridley looked back at Samus, who still did not dare to unleash an attack towards the Space Dragon as long as the two Techno Lords were near, for she did not know how useful her improved weaponry would be against the armor of the Techno Lords and she did not want to risk accidentally killing her parents. Eventually, Ridley saw the wisdom of the orders of the Techno Lords and stepped back with them. But he would not leave before giving Samus his parting words. "Looks like our battle will have to wait, Samus. But don't worry. Should you somehow survive all of this, I'll be waiting. And you'll even get to see your parents again before you, and they, die." With that, the Space Dragon retreated through an opening that led to another section of the base. She then saw Ridley begin to fly upwards, followed quickly by her parents, who were obviously under some form of brainwashing.
Samus made ready to follow them when a black force field appeared over the opening to the corridor. Samus quickly stopped and went to check her HUD, since the appearance of a force field was often a prelude to the appearance of an enemy. She soon saw a large red blip appear on her HUD indicating that the enemy was appearing in the center of the room. Looking into the center of the room, she found a massive being materializing in front of her. A being that somewhat resembled a giant squid, only with just two tentacles, two massive jaws, one of them covering a massive yellow eye, and another on the bottom of the beast. Samus instantly recognized the beast as being Phantoon. However, this Phantoon was much larger than the previous one that she had battled. She activated her Scan Visor and scanned the creature. The scan read, Morphology – Phantoon. This spectral being can phase into and out of reality. Its attacks consist of summoning ghostly hands called Rage Hands to attack Samus, as well as creating Phantom Eyes, eyes that are covered in a supernatural blue flame and home in on Samus. Phantoon is only vulnerable to attack when its eyes is open and it is de-phased. Scan indicates that Phantoon is a genetically enhanced clone of the original Phantoon which perished on Zebes.
Samus did not know how it was possible to clone a ghost, and she did not care. She knew that she had no choice but to take care of Phantoon. She proceeded to charge her Wave Beam and went to take the fight to the ghost.