Chapter 2 - Hospital

"This changes nothing between us." Ridley said, out of the blue.

"That's my line, you walking tumbleweed." Samus snarked back, earning a low growl from the former dragon's sneer. "Stop with that. Humans don't do that." Ridley scoffed, folding his arms over his chest and leaning back in his ER waiting room chair,

"Well I'm not human, now am I?" He asked proudly.

"No, you're not. At this point, you're nothing more than an insect, insignificant compared to a human." Samus' answer caused the former space pirate to turn red in the face, and he stood up in anger.

"What did you say to me?!" His voice rose, attracting the attention of the many nurses flitting about the ER. None of them stopped what they were doing for more than a few seconds, as even that could be deadly to some of the patients.

"If you have personal problems, please take them outside the hospital or wait until you leave," the voice of an older man tore Ridley from his targeted vocal aggression, "there are quite a few breakable machines and volatile chemicals in this hospital. I'd hate it if someone died thanks to me letting you rampage freely." The man stood before Ridley. Despite Ridley's history of fearlessness, the aging man intimidated him purely by the difference in height. Being versed in the strategic anything-but-art, Ridley backed down and took his seat next to Samus once again. Both took a closer look at the man. He was tall, with light skin and a grey goatee hiding his chin. His eyes were brown, and he was balding at the top of his head. One would guess him to be in his 70s.

"So what's the verdict?" Samus asked, adding a 'She dead yet?' to her input, but in her mind only. The man brought a clipboard up to chest height and examined it.

"Your friend is fine. She was simply suffering symptoms of withdrawal, but we can't determine what from. Typically, when a patient suffers withdrawal symptoms from some sort of drug, we can tell what the drug was by either their symptoms or checking for traces of it in their bloodstream. Unfortunately, there aren't enough definitive symptoms to pinpoint with, and there are no traces of a drug within her bloodstream." The doctor explained. Samus understood perfectly, as she had been in medical care a few times herself, but Ridley looked stumped. Generally, his forces would either die on a battlefield, in a lab, or by his tail. And his rebirth as Meta Ridley on the Orpheon had no "drugs" involved, which had been his own personal hell for a while.

"So she's alive and recovering?" He asked, at a loss for anything else to say.

"Actually, she's recovered at an alarming rate. She's already awake and walking about, destroying some expensive equipment, so if you'd retrieve her, I'd be grateful." The man walked away, curing under his breath. Samus blinked at the back of the man's lab coat, watching him until he disappeared around a corner. She and Ridley then stood up, both agreeing to a temporary truce by nodding at each other.

"Let's go find her and stop her from bringing the place down." Samus sighed. Her back ached a bit. She'd been through a day to forget in what seemed like three hours.

"Agreed…" Ridley voiced. He was still unsteady, but his walking upright was improving. "Hey, did he say exactly WHERE she is?" He asked, cocking an eyebrow in curiosity. Samus stopped walking and balled her hands into fists.

"Son of a-!"

Following an eventful search, Samus opened a hospital door and immediately ducked, with wide eyes, as an IV stand went soaring over her head and finding a new home on Ridley's, knocking him to the floor. A nurse who watched the scene screamed briefly as she watched Ridley collapse, with the IV landing on his stomach before finally falling over. The nurse stood with her hands cupped over her mouth, eyes wide and dumbfounded. Samus looked down at the seemingly unconscious space pirate, then to the nurse. The blonde smiled and waved the nurse off.

"Don't worry about him. Despite his looks, he's a tough guy, he's fine." Samus followed up with a pseudo-giggle. The nurse nodded, but stuck around.

"Should I get him an ice pack…?" She asked, still in shock.

"She said I'm fine, woman, do you honestly need a second opinion?!" the hunk of meat on the floor snapped his jaws at the nurse, who then ran off, pretending to mind her own business. Samus stood in an akimbo, giving an impressed whistle as the lady walked away.

"Wow. I admit, you can land a punchline and offend someone, AND scare them off in one sentence. You get props on this one." She looked down at Ridley on the floor as he lifted the IV off of himself and stood up, a welt forming on his head from the initial impact. He was about to respond, before rage incarnate jumped into the conversation.

"WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP TALKING AS IF I'M NOT HERE?!"

"It said please, that's a start." Samus snarked, looking over her now-totally-human clone. She may not be a being of Phazon anymore, but she certainly retained her attitude problems.

"Address me properly, why don't you?" Her voice calmed down, becoming more dejected than angry. "C'mon. I already dealt with you beating me incoherent, having my arm cannon restructured into a normal arm, and Phazon withdrawal. Can't you give me a rest for a bit? I'm tired and there's a dull pain right here…" She set her left hand over her stomach. Samus' eyebrows rose, and she pursed her lips. Not only was this a complete turnaround in energy and emotion, but also personality and as it seems, physiology.

'Right… these two need food,' the blonde thought, looking at her black-haired clone and the brunet pirate. "Let's get out of here and figure something out…" This drew Dark Samus' attention, and her expression twisted into anger once more.

"I'm not going anywhere with you!" She snapped.

"You don't have a choice!" Samus countered. "Not only will they not let you leave the hospital without us, but nor will you have any idea what to do! For all I know, you'll either be picked up by the law for attacking people, or worse, you'll be taken by other criminals! And all that aside, I need to keep an eye on both of you. Our lives up until now and what they're about to become are two very different things. I'm the only one experienced with human society here, so maybe I can drop you two beneath the radar of suspicion. Admittedly, I'm going to need to adjust too, since the technology here is much less advanced. " Samus took in a few deep breaths, having been talking faster than she'd have liked.

"…Fine." Dark Samus conceded, after some consideration. "But first, what is this pain inside my abdomen?" The black-haired woman asked, hunching over with tears forming in the corners of her light blue eyes.

"Palm, meet face…" Ridley said, performing the action with a sigh. Samus smiled a bit.

"Now we're getting somewhere." She said.

Dinner that night was at a place with a green label that read 'Souplantation.'

Sorry for the short and poorly-written chapter today. I pretty much write this between classes since I have some considerable down time between each. Thing is, when I'm on a schedule, my creativity is not exactly batting a thousand, so yeah...

In any case, I finally got this updated and I'm not exactly happy with it, but it's better than just leaving it to rot for months on end and only writing two words into the new chapter every few weeks (this is a reference to my Wattpad situation...)

I may rewrite or revise this chapter in some ideal future... Who knows?