Clash of the Smashers

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Ultimate…Something?

The Smashers were tense. Raichu was still shaking from his brutal encounter with Mewtwo, and Samus seemed to be very anxious about something. The others did not know what was going on, and with the exception of Diddy, who was trying to calm Raichu down, they were all making a big effort to not look at Samus.

After about twenty seconds, in which the elevator slowly moved down, and Samus violently attacked…uh…utilized her suit's scanning abilities, whirled around to face Bario, and choked out a word that was a mixture of anger and fear.

"Bario!"

Bario faced her, startled by the tone of her voice, and cautiously responded.

"Yes…? What is it?"

"Master Hand…is he powerful enough to bring back something from the dead?"
"Like what?"
"Like…an enemy," Samus said, being deliberately vague.

"Well…" Bario started, curious about Samus's lack of answers, "It depends on the strength of the enemy. The more powerful, the harder to bring back of course. With Crazy Hand helping him, and apparently Ganondorf, Bowser and Mewtwo…I would guess they could bring back anyone…or anything they wish. They just need to know about the thing they're bringing back to life."
"Great," Samus said bitterly, as the elevator came to a stop.

"Samus? Is something…?" Diddy asked.

"Get ready for a big fight guys…and whatever you do, don't touch the blue stuff. EVER." She said cryptically.

The doors opened. The Smashers poured out, rapidly readying their weapons and were confronted by a dim room that seemed to be only lit by the blue radioactive mineral…at least until they all stepped out. At that time, several things happened within the span of a few seconds of each other.

First, as soon as the elevator opened, and illuminated the passengers, Falco and Kirby noticed them and called out.

"Guys! Hey! You're here! Finally!"
Second, panels of light stationed around the rocky brown chamber lit up the entire room, revealing large patches of the blue mineral, and a strange protrusion on the ceiling, that looked almost like a dark, closed flower, although it was very large and colored like that of a ripe bruise.

Finally, Ridley and the Space Pirates, who were unaware of Falco and Kirby's presence, were immediately notified of it by the noise they made calling out to their companions. With the appearance of the lights, programmed to come on when that elevator opened, it took seconds for them to find Falco and Kirby…and attack.

While the other Smashers were frozen in shock from the multitude of things happening…blinding light, Falco and Kirby, Ridley and two dozen Space Pirates, Bario analyzed the situation…and acted.

"Attack the Pirates!" he yelled, before charging himself, closely followed by Mario and Meta.

This command was followed by another five seconds of multiple happenings.
First, Mario and Meta initiated the charge with Bario by shooting off a sizable amount of firebombs and energy balls, which made quick work of the unfortunate Pirates they hit.

Second, the Pirates and Ridley, noticing the Smashers by the door, were momentarily frozen by indecision. Falco and Kirby were closer…but there were more of them by the elevator. Meta and Mario's attacks made the decision for them. The Space Pirates continued on towards the now severely worried Falco and Kirby, while Ridley decided to take care of Samus and co.

At around this time, Samus somehow found the time to mentally analyze Ridley…or more accurately, Meta-Ridley, as his new appearance was decidedly metallic in nature.

He was still his same large self, but his entire body was covered, and supplemented by a silvery gray metal substance. His eyes were a glowing yellow, and his wings seemed even more bat-like, as the membranes were also the same yellow. There also seemed to be a slightly blue tinge to the whole being, but it was hard to see in the bright light.

Third, Samus, Link, Diddy and Raichu all took a little bit longer to react to Bario's command, but when they did they shot off a series of projectiles at Meta-Ridley…but they were too late. With something like a grin, Meta-Ridley opened his wings and took off into the air, and soon he was high above them, as the projectiles impacted harmlessly in the area he vacated.

Bario had gotten close enough to the Pirates to start slicing them up. Falco and Kirby were leaping into the fray with him, and in seconds Mario and Meta joined the melee. The pirates did the best they could, but they were caught off guard. A few slices and shots were all they managed to get off before the brawl was concluded, and the two dozen Space Pirates were considerably more Space Pirate Pieces.

"Thanks…for coming," Falco said to Bario, genuine gratitude evident in his voice.

"Anytime," Bario said with a grin.
Before they could relax Meta-Ridley shrieked and shot forth a large yellow laser from his mouth. He raked the beam across the ground, and would have hit Samus and Link if they weren't already moving. His attack caused the Smashers around Bario to look up, and although Meta-Ridley was the first thing that attracted their attention, they did notice that there was a lot more blue stuff in this room than it looked like there was before…and then Meta-Ridley fired again, and they had more important things to worry about.

Meta-Ridley paused for a minute between blasting, as he tried to plan…but it was a second too long, as all the Smashers except Bario and Kirby launched their ranged attacks at him. Meta-Ridley attempted to dodge, but between peanuts, electric balls, firebombs, energy balls, missiles, arrows and laser shots, he had no where to go, and was slammed…hard.

However he still managed to stay in the air, and seemed to shrug off the assault pretty quickly…he flew away from the Smashers, causing their second flurry of strikes to miss. However, if any of them thought he was giving up, they were very mistaken.

Meta-Ridley quickly spun around, and from his body small orange balls were falling, or rather flying, at the Smashers. They split up and the balls slammed into the ground where they were with considerable force before exploding into flames.

"Samus!" Bario called out, sheathing his swords so he could run better, "How do we kill this guy?"
"We have to hit the chest-plate! If my previous encounters with him hold true, it's his only real weak point!" Samus called back, punctuating the end of her sentence with a missile that hit Meta-Ridley's chest, causing him to let out a particularly high-pitched shriek.

"Bario!" Link called out, rolling away from another of Meta-Ridley's red lasers, "You should stay back. You don't have any long-range attacks. Let us protect you!"
If that came from anyone else, Bario would probably have listened. As it wasn't coming from anyone else, he could quite easily pick out Link's mocking tone.

"None huh?" Bario said to himself, as he raised his hand, "Then what's THIS?!" he yelled, as a dark purple blob appeared in his hand, about the size of one of Mario's original fireballs, but it had no real shape. Bario seemed to concentrate for a moment, and the object became more spherical…actually, it became a perfect roiling purple and black spherical mass.

Bario grinned, and just as Link turned to face Bario after he yelled, Bario launched the ball straight at Meta-Ridley. Meta-Ridley was already flying away when Bario threw it, but the ball swerved in midair and slammed into his chest plate, making a sound like a steel ball, before exploding into small purple fragments that rapidly disintegrated.

"What was THAT?!" Link asked angrily.

"That, was something I've been trying to do for a while. A projectile formed with my rudimentary magic skills," Bario said, quite pleased with himself.

"Alright Bario!" Raichu said, before shooting off some more his electrical attacks. Because Meta-Ridley was made of metal, Raichu's attacks slightly homed in, as the metal attracted the electricity, and conducted it, causing a fair amount of damage…but the damage was spread out, and not focused on the weak chest-plate.

Meta-Ridley gave his now annoying shriek, and opened up with another laser beam strafe. Kirby was hit by the tail end of it, but other than the searing pain of nearly being vaporized by a laser beam, he wasn't terribly hurt.

Link frowned; he was bothered by Bario's new attack, but he did not have time to dwell on it. Furrowing his brow in concentration he aimed his bow and fired a bomb arrow, something he was rapidly becoming quite good at. The arrow flew underneath Meta-Ridley's raised arm as he was spinning around for another attack, and slammed into his chest-plate. Before Meta-Ridley could react another of Bario's magic balls and three of Mario's firebombs crashed into that area as well.

Those firebombs certainly were interesting. Larger and considerably faster than the fireballs, Mario seemed to have no problem making them and shooting them off rapidly and with considerable accuracy. In 20+ years of adventuring though, it isn't really a surprise that the mustachioed plumber could do that…the guy has amazing stamina.

Meta-Ridley curled his wings around his front, folding his head down as well. Despite that, the metallic space dragon continued to stay in the air through unknown means, although he was no longer moving. A few more projectile attacks hit the wings, shredding them, but Meta-Ridley didn't seem to care. Meanwhile, Samus charged up her cannon…

"Samus…what's going on?" Link asked warily.

"Guys…I would recommend you move…NOW!" Samus yelled, punctuating her sentence by leaping to the right…just as Ridley opened his wings wide and twenty missiles, similar to Samus's poured out from protrusions on the metal body.

They flew rapidly and homed in quickly, about two or three missiles per Smasher. Fortunately, the Smashers were used to listening to each other, and since none of them harbored any ill will towards Samus, none of them had any problem moving when she said. The majority of the missiles missed, while those that didn't were deflected harmlessly.

Before Meta-Ridley could follow up with another attack, Samus fired a Super Missile at him. He did not dodge it and it slammed into his chest-plate, knocking him from the sky and causing him to fall the forty feet to the ground, landing on his back with a resounding crash and causing a large quantity of dust to kick up which obscured his status.

"Is he dead?" Diddy asked, watching the dust cloud warily.

"No way. Everyone, get ready…he's going to be mad now," Samus said warningly.

The others nodded and prepared their weapons, and, having clustered together during the aerial battle, they spread out a bit, so that one attack couldn't hit them all. In addition to readying his sword, Meta-Knight also readied a snappy one-liner.
"In the grand scheme of things, squishies should never be squashed," he said, with a surprisingly serious tone.

A sudden sharp noise came from Meta-Ridley's position, as the space dragon leapt to his feet and whipped his massive wings out, sweeping away the dust. He looked for a moment at his shredded wings, and then folded them back…before charging for the Smashers.

"FIRE!" Bario, Samus and Link yell at the same time.

They fire, with all of the Smashers shoot their projectiles, including Bario's new magic balls, and Kirby's shockwave. The attacks didn't seem to slow Meta-Ridley down, as he slammed right into Samus and before Link could react, his metallic tail smashed into him, knocking both Samus and Link back a ways.

Meta-Ridley started to turn around, but Mario dove under his whip-like tail, and slammed his hammer into his weak chest-plate. Meta-Ridley shrieked and back-handed Mario with one of his powerful arms, sending the poor plumber flying.

Meta and Bario took advantage of Meta-Ridley's temporary pain, and the two swung their three blades at Meta-Ridley…and none of them connected. Meta-Ridley blocked both of Bario's with his arms, and Meta's was blocked by Meta-Ridley's tail. The two warriors struggled to overpower the massive creature, who merely looked bored.

Meta-Ridley soon made it obvious that his physical strength was far greater than Bario and Meta-Knight, as with barely any effort he pushed the two away. Glancing up, he saw Kirby, Falco, Diddy and Raichu starting to surround him, so he fired off a laser beam in their direction, forcing them to scatter.

The metallic villain seemed pretty content, and was quite sure of his eventual victory…until a screaming Link came at him from the right and stabbed at his chest. Meta-Ridley quickly moved his arm to intercept the blow…which allowed Bario to slip past his other arm and strike Meta-Ridley's weak spot with both of his swords. The force of the metal hitting metal knocked Bario back, and with a cry of anger and pain, Meta-Ridley slashed him with his left arm.

As Bario fell back, bleeding from the long, but shallow cut on his chest, Meta-Ridley started to turn his attention to Link, who had leapt back, and was starting to circle around him. Meta-Ridley shot his tail to the side, but Link flipped over it. Meta-Ridley snarled and slashed out with his right arm. Link moved his shield and deflected most of the blow, but the sheer power of the massive beast was enough for Link's arm to go almost numb. Plus, merely being close to Meta-Ridley made Link feel nauseous for some reason.

Meta-Ridley noticed Link's new weakness, and gleefully stomped towards him. Link backed away; barely able to hold up his shield…when Meta-Knight came from between Meta-Ridley's legs…and stabbed the chest-plate, while crying out.

"Emirp Diortem!"

Meta-Ridley shrieked and spun around, knocking Meta into Link with his folded wings…right into Samus's fully charged Super Missile. It hit home, exploding on the chest plate. Meta-Ridley flashed a hate-filled glare at Samus, and a quick laser beam which forced her to dash out of the way as he fell to the ground…and lay motionless.

There was a minute of stunned silence as all of the Smashers watched their fallen foe. A few twitches, and a slightly rising chest indicated that he was not playing dead, but that the chest-plate, which was probably guarding his heart and other vital organs was severely damaged. It appeared that the battle was over. However, Samus did not seem like she was ready to let down her guard.

"I guess we won!" Falco said, clearly very happy, and relieved with being rejoined with the others.

"It would seem," Samus said, while she charged up her cannon.

"Going to finish the guy off?" Link asked, while looking at the barely moving Meta-Ridley.

"Yep," Samus answered.

Meta-Ridley managed to twitch his head over and glare at them. He let out a short strangled screech, which died down soon, as though Meta-Ridley was too weak to sustain it.

"Let's hope this kills you…for good," Samus said, aiming her cannon at Meta-Ridley's face.

However, a bright blue pulsing light attracts her attention, and that of the other Smashers. Turning upwards, they see the blue stuff flashing brightly, especially around the weird protuberance on the ceiling.

"Samus…Can you tell us what that stuff is?!" Falco asked, starting to feel frightened…and slightly queasy.

"It's Phazon! It's extremely radioactive…don't touch it, don't even get near it!" Samus shouted, apparently having difficulty maintaining her calm.

"What?!" Bario said, "Phazon?! I thought you destroyed the source of that stuff!"

"I did! But I guess…wait…how'd you know that?" Samus asked, confused.

"Not the time to worry about that…something's happening!" Diddy said.

Indeed, something was happening. The protuberance on the ceiling, which just so happened to be directly over the beaten Meta-Ridley started to open up…the purplish "petals" of the mass opened up, and as something started to come out, the Smashers all backed off…as a literal river of Phazon fell forth and landed on Meta-Ridley.

Temporarily blinded by the bright blue liquid and feeling decidedly sick being near it, the Smashers start to run away from the radioactive mass that obscures there seemingly defeated foe. The Phazon waterfall soon stopped pouring and the Smashers squint, trying frantically to see what had become of their opponent.

There was a roar from Meta-Ridley, and the beast stood up, seemingly suffering from no pain, as a blue glow surrounded him. The last of the Phazon seemed to be sucked into his body, and he spread his yellow wings wide as he glared at the Smashers, and then fired a bluish beam at them.
The Smashers managed to avoid the attack, but the amount of damage it did to the flooring made it obvious that it was considerably more powerful than his previous beam attacks.

Despite the apparent boost in power, Meta-Ridley was still incapable of flight, and although he had not changed in size or appearance, the Phazon made him seem larger and more intimidating. However, while Meta-Ridley watched the Smashers struggle to organize themselves against him, blue Phazon armor appeared, looping over both of his large shoulders, and creating a large thick chunk of armor over his weak chest-plate, protecting him from further harm.

"Argh!" Samus said, firing a missile at Meta-Ridley that bounced off his new Phazon armor and exploded near the ground, "Not this crap again!"

"I'm going to take a guess and say you already fought this guy like this!" Link shouted, shooting a bomb arrow that Meta-Ridley dodged easily.

"Yeah…the only weak spot of this guy is the chest-plate," Samus said dodging a second laser beam from Meta-Ridley, "But that Phazon is protecting it. I don't have the equipment I need to destroy it now…I don't know what to do!"

Meta-Ridley did not seem like he was going to give them time to think about their situation…because he leaned low to the ground, and then dashed forward at a high speed, right at Link and Falco. The two managed to dodge the attack, and Meta-Ridley slammed into the wall behind them, face-first, and was temporarily stunned.

Meta-Ridley fell back, his head slightly askew as he tried to recover from his poorly executed attack.

"Hit the armor!" Samus said, trying to regain control of the situation, following her own advice with a trio of missiles that impacted the side of the Phazon armor.

The others followed her lead, and soon energy balls, electric balls, magic balls, bomb arrows, orange grenades, laser shots and firebombs were all flying at Meta-Ridley. Most of the damaging projectiles hit the armor near the center, and rest exploded or whizzed by, just missing their intended target.
Although the armor was incredibly durable, it started to crack under the barrage…but before the Smashers could finish the job, Meta-Ridley came to his senses and leapt away from the attackers, coming down hard about twenty feet away from their cluster, creating a bluish, almost electrical shockwave that spiraled out, knocking all of the Smashers over, except for Mario who leapt over it, and Meta who was flying.

Meta-Ridley did not give them another opportunity to damage him…he opened his mouth and released large orange balls of flame that slowly traveled to the Smashers who were struggling to get over the painful affects of the shockwave.

Samus noticed the balls flying towards her and the others, and as Mario and Meta both destroyed one, she and Link took aim and fired missiles/arrows at them, causing them to explode prematurely.
The prone Smashers than got to their feet with varying degrees of ease, and faced Meta-Ridley…who shot a burst of flame at Samus that caught her in the chest and sent her flying into the wall, where she slammed with a sickening crack and fell to the ground with a sharp thud.

"Samus!" Link shouted, with a strange pained crack in his voice, "ARGH!"

He turned towards Meta-Ridley and ran at him, his sword and shield raised.

"Link! NO!" Bario called, but Link ignored him.

Meta-Ridley breathed another stream of fire, but Link ran through it, using his shield as a battering ram to avoid the majority of the attack. Link moved so quickly that his shield slammed into Meta-Ridley's jaws before he had a chance to close them. Meta-Ridley recoiled in pain as Link stabbed the Master Sword at the crack in the armor, the power behind his rage-driven blow widening the crack.

He struck multiple times, heedless of the of the other Smashers firing their projectiles, or of Kirby running towards him, his only thought was of killing this thing…this monster that had killed-

"AGH!" Link shouted as Meta-Ridley whipped his long tail around, catching the powerful Hyrulian swordsman in the midsection and flinging him away with an almost casual strength.
Meta-Ridley turned his malevolent attention towards the other Smashers who regarded him warily. Despite the fact that his reptilian face was incapable of facial expressions, he seemed to produce an evil grin…that quickly ended when the sneaky Kirby ran up and slammed his wooded hammer into Meta-Ridley's cracked and weakened armor.

Screeching in pain and fear, Meta-Ridley grabbed Kirby and threw him at Falco and Diddy, who both tried to catch the airborne puffball, and all three ended up in a tangle on the ground. Bario, Meta and Raichu pummeled Meta-Ridley with their respective projectiles, and more flames flew from his mouth as he tried to stop them…just as a second hammer hit his Phazon armor…causing the weakened material to shatter.

Meta-Ridley froze, shocked, as Mario slammed him in the face with enough force for him to step back, stunned. Mario moved forward to complete the job, but like Link, he missed Meta-Ridley's tail, which whipped out of nowhere, catching the heroic plumber by the legs, and sending him tumbling away.

Meta-Ridley than created two large blue orbs in his hands and raised them up, as if gathering energy. The standing Smashers threw their projectiles at his chest-plate, but the Phazon had appeared to have reinforced that section, as while Meta-Ridley winced from the attacks, he didn't seem to feel the same amount of pain…that, or he was just tougher.

After a few seconds, he seemed to have determined that the energy balls were charged and shoved them down to the floor, where they created several small fast-moving pillars of energy. The Smashers mostly managed to avoid it, although Raichu suffered a glancing blow and Bario was skimmed by one of them. After a few more seconds, the pillars dissipated and Meta-Ridley started to prepare his next attack.

He was stopped however, when Link, still lying mostly on the ground from where he was thrown, shot his Hookshot out. The attachment buried itself in the chest-plate, and with a mighty yank, the Hookshot pried apart the two sections of it…exposing Meta-Ridley's large red oval like heart.

Before anyone could react to this…a large yellow and fast moving Super Missile flew forward and exploded directly on Meta-Ridley's heart, vaporizing it. Meta-Ridley struggled to breath, but not even an ocean of Phazon could keep his damaged body alive. He let out one last strangled gasp, before exploding into the pink dust that healed everyone, and also seemed to halt the growth of the Phazon, that was now covering most of the ceiling, and was starting to move towards the walls.

"Samus?" Link said in shock as he sheathed his weapons.

"What? You didn't that that could finish me off did you? I told you, I fought this guy before, and beat him, and that was by myself. With all of you guys here, it was easy," Samus said, trying to make it seem light, as the others started to gather near the door out of the room.

The Smashers chuckled a bit. While not their most difficult fight, none of them would describe it as easy. They stopped laughing though, when Samus started mumbling and tapping her visor. She kept that up for several seconds before turning her attention back to the others, who were looking at her with puzzled expressions.

"What?" she asked.

"What were you just doing?" Diddy asked.

"I was just checking something…turns out that my ship is close enough for me to contact it. I was just directing it to head over to this planet, in case we need it."
"Your ship?" Link asked.

"Yeah…the one I travel in. I used it to pilot to a portal to get to the Mushroom Kingdom."
"Hey guys…that Phazon stuff is moving again!" Raichu said.

He was correct. Whatever the pink dust had done, its affect had worn off. Samus shot open the door to the elevator, and the Smashers hurried inside. Samus was the last one in, and as she did, she turned to look at the strange object on the ceiling where all the Phazon had come out of, as if expecting to see something…but nothing happened, and soon the elevators started moving.

The Smashers were in higher spirits now that Ridley/ Meta-Ridley had been destroyed, and they had been reunited with Falco and Kirby…but now Bario had questions to answer from both Link and Samus…