4:
Kiss Me or Kill Me Already!

Snake stared down the gaping hollow of Samus's arm cannon, his bottom lip practically sticking to the cold metal. He could already imagine the laser about to roar from the depths and obliterate his face. The soldier suddenly felt as though he should reiterate his situation.

"…Damn," he said again.

The metal monster then reached up and took off her helmet. Apparently the silent killer wanted to have a few words. Snake watched as Samus's slinky blonde hair slipped onto her shoulders, seeing her face for the second time. Her pool-colored eyes flickered.

"I'm pissed that you played EarthBound against us," she said. "They're our allies."

Snake frowned. "I thought that there were no allies here. It's a free-for-all. You can hire anybody."

Samus didn't reply. Her bottom lip jutted up, and her eyes narrowed into even thinner slits, if it were possible. Snake guessed that she didn't bullshit, just didn't answer until she had a good one.

"You're a mercenary?" she said.

"Ye—"

"Then you don't understand. You don't understand how hard I've worked to win the game here. You don't understand how I've dragged myself up from the bottom and made myself into an elite player above everyone else. You haven't played the game. You don't even know how."

Snake squirmed under the point of the cannon. "…So?"

"You've always had an organization to run to. Someone who's got your back if you mess up. Someone who can send you backup if you can't finish the task. I don't. I work alone. The only things I have to help me are a laser gun, my instinct—"

—and a fully-equipped power suit, Snake thought grimly.

"—and my own two feet. You don't know what it's like to have your whole life on the line and out in the open."

Snake shifted again, a smidge offended—that feeling was far from alien to him. "They're not all that different."

"Yes, they are." Bored, Samus picked up an antenna to a communication device Snake had been fiddling with and snapped it in half. Snake frowned. "That's why I don't like that EarthBound moved you pulled. That's is my whole reputation on the line here. This is all I have. I've worked for this. I'm not going to let some rookie who just wandered in and happened to get lucky stay alive for much longer."

Snake opened his mouth to protest that he was a bit more skilled than that, but another thought came to his mind. "Wait a second, you and Falcon work together—how is that working alone?"

Samus hesitated. Her lip pushed up again, but this time in a thoughtful manner. "Falcon and I work together strictly out of mutual benefit. If the time ever came for us to take opposite sides, though…he would die."

"So you admit you're better."

Samus raised her eyebrow. "Oh, I am better. He's too…" She shuddered, as if recalling a horrid thought. "…nice." The hunter then repositioned her gun, having fallen to her side in her pontification. "Sadly, I am not nice at all. Goodbye, Snake."

"Wait!"

Normally, Samus ignored the final plea and just pulled the trigger. But, she liked this man. He asked questions. He put up a good fight. Pity he had to go so soon; he may have even made a nice partner, should she bother to entertain the possibility. She cocked her eyebrow at him, inviting him to continue.

"Since you're going to kill me anyway…" There was a sparkle in Snake's green eyes Samus hadn't seen in one facing the arm cannon before. "…How about that kiss? A guy's last request, if you will."

Samus frowned. She had a policy against communing with her prey. Don't play with your food, and such. But a small attachment to him had formed, and she had wondered what it would be like to kiss him—or, someone, anyway…

Samus sighed, closed her eyes, and pursed her lips together. Snake blinked and did the same. He was surprised at his good luck and eager for an opportunity to grasp for an escape plan. Samus opened one eye. Once she saw his were closed, she smacked him across the face.

"You bigot! You'll never get that sort of thing out of me. Not that that information will help you now, anyway." She began to fire up her laser, that deathly sucking sound initiating. Ah, it was like music to her ears. So refreshing, like popping open a can of soda or starting up the cooling engines in her airship. She was sure it was the opposite for her opponents.

Snake eyed his desk frantically for his handgun—like he hadn't checked six million times already. He began grasping for straws as he struggled in his seat, if there was only something, anything that could cause a distraction—

"Hey, Snake!" Sonic strolled in, a cup of coffee in his hand. "Would ya mind putting the toilet seat down after you—" He saw Samus leaning over Snake, blaster gun at ready, and the cup of coffee in his hand catapulted over his head. "ARRG!" He dashed out of the room, thoroughly earning his nickname 'Blue Streak.'

Samus frowned after the retreating back. "Who was that?"

"My partner, Sonic," Snake replied dully, hoping Sonic knew enough to be calling for their backup now.

"Hm, Sonic…" Samus glanced up at the ceiling contemplatively. "Sonic the Hedgehog. Annoying little twat. Not well known around here. Interesting you picked him for a partner."

Snake's face was emotionless. "I didn't."

"Hm." She then shrugged and started her arm cannon again, this time aiming it right in the middle of his chest. Sweat began to pop out along Snake's forehead and his back; his heart began pounding. There was nothing he could use. His Nikita was leaning on the opposite wall, he could see it over Samus's shoulder. All his guns must be on the desk. He could punch or kick her, but then she would fire the laser and that was what he didn't want. There were nanoseconds remaining, less than nanoseconds remaining, and his hair was standing on end.

The only things nearby were Samus's breastplate and the fearsome charging sound of the blast about to annihilate him. He could only think of one thing. He yanked Samus forward—

And kissed her.

The bounty hunter threw herself back, sputtering and swearing. "What the—hell…"

Snake appeared incapacitated by his own action, wide-eyed and frozen to his seat. He didn't have time to savor the moment, though, as a laser came blazing from Samus's cannon, next to his right shoulder. Snake lunged and began crawling towards the other desk.

The blast from Samus's laser wove around the room like a lighthouse gone wrong. "I'll kill you," the assassin was chanting, her eyes as unforgiving as steel. "I'll murder you. Castration won't be enough to punish you. You're dead."

Snake dove towards the desk, grabbing something, anything, that was loaded and still strong enough to cause damage. Papers, pencils flying down on top of him, he unearthed a handgun and locked it, knowing it wasn't strong enough to do anything. He fired it, the bullet harmlessly bouncing off her leg and clinking to the floor.

Meanwhile, Snake's kiss seemed to be eliciting an interesting reaction in the menace of space. Samus swung her beam around in a rage that she had never allowed herself before, just hiding her burning red face behind her armor. Of all the…humiliating acts… …It was just so unexpected…

"Sonic!" Snake yelled, tossing the gun over his shoulder. "I could really use some backup now!…"

"Uh, they're coming, Snake!" Sonic called. He stuck his head through a hole Samus's laser had just cleared through the wall. "Uh, yeah!"

Snake dove behind his desk and shifted his leg just in time, as a blue laser disintegrated the side of the desk next to him, along with the wall behind it. Samus didn't seem to be aiming very well at the moment, but of course that didn't make her any less deadly. Half the room had been destroyed, and Snake was amazed he wasn't part of that half yet.

There was an opening for the door. Snake ran for it, but Samus came from the opposite side of the room and rammed it—splintered it—shut with her shoulder. For a second Snake insanely admired the way her blonde hair fell about her cheeks, her inexhaustible expression, but he shook himself as Samus swung her arm at him and buried it in the wall behind him.

Falling backwards, Snake finally managed to nab his Nikita. He locked it and fired it at her, and the missile exploded on her, barely making a smudge on the shiny armor.

"…Dammit." Should have known…

He rolled to the other side of her foot as it slammed down, and suddenly Snake was cornered, forced to move backwards on his elbows. He threw a chair at her. Samus batted it away like it was a fly, a leer on her face Snake very much suspected Death wore before he took his victims (perhaps he and Ms. Aran were one and the same). A dictionary. Nope. The pages fluttered about as Samus smacked it away. There was nothing left for him except to cozy up next to the wall and face her.

Samus gripped him by the collar, sure to hold him away from her face this time. She held her arm cannon up and began charging it for the final time. She smiled slightly, tiling her head to the side. This was going to be so satisfying. "Nothing will be able to stop me from causing you as much physical pain as possible." Snake watched as the blue light particles swarmed towards the opening like bees to honey.

"Hello, Aran."

Samus looked over her shoulder, and her eyes went wide.

The leader stepped forward—his tail twitching slightly. "It's been a while."

She dropped Snake, her heart thudding wildly. "Uhn—Star Fox!"