We've got three intended cameos today, yaaaay! Now we're getting into the real meat of Super Metroid...

Published March 16, 2012

When Push Comes to Shove

"RIDLEY! GINI YOM ANGDA WANDOO."

Ridley trudged into the crowded room, taking a seat next to the giant brain. Most of the higher ups were gathered to discuss their second most valuable base's current state, namely the idiot ruining everything they ever seemed to do. "Yes, glad to see you too. Would anyone mind if I killed Kraid? And I mean it this time. I want him dead."

"BOL."

"Was that a yes or a no?" Crocomire asked.

"That was 'I don't think any of us can'," Draygon grunted.

"Whatever language that is, it's really condensed."

The crayfish glared at the brain, hatred evident. "It isn't a language. It's Mother Brain's garbled nonsense that we spent the better part of a year translating."

"We're getting off topic," Ridley said, interrupting their very important discussion on the origins of whatever it was Mother Brain was saying. "Kraid. We need to fix this problem before he breaks anything else of vital importance, like the very delicate Metroid cloning program we have going on in this base, the one where any contamination could mean disaster. We need a leash, but what will it be? What can it be?"

Crocomire put his hand up. "I know saying this will hurt you, but Ridley, you're the one he looks up to the most." Ridley was already pushing his face against the wall. "If there's someone who can stop his rampages, it's you."

"I hate you."

"Ridley, you need to stop Kraid," Phantoon said.

"Urge to kill: rising."

"MIONAKA VENDO SORYU FICK LA INDO WALLOL RIDLEY. KRAID, VIVA MEMEM, BITYO GUIND! FIJA LIAN JIJO FRAMPT ALA. PONKO KRAID GUIND, OWN IONASSA KIKIBAJ. PWEL! O FWAKA ILLON DEAJ, RIDLEY."

"I'm going to block your fan port."

"Do it or I'll hurt you," Draygon hissed.

"I'd like to see you try, jackass."

"I'll kick your ass to Earth and back!"

"I'll tear your face off and shove it up your ass!"

"How adorable. I'll enjoy feeding your broken remains to my children."

"Those ugly bastards-"

Crocomire smacked them both upside the head. "What did you say about staying on topic? Look, Ridley, this is just plan A. Let's follow through on it, and if it doesn't work we'll move on and I'll send someone to give you a back rub. Sound good?"

"I hate all of you. No matter how many times I try to make right what once went wrong, I can always count on the lot of you to put me in an extremely uncomfortable situation. And yet, you're the closest things to friends I have," the dragon grumbled, rubbing his sore skull. "You have no idea how depressed that makes me feel."

-In space-

"There's no way they set their base up right in the same place," Samus muttered, scanning the planet for space pirate signatures. Her ship picked up active, freshly used technology in the exact same place as last time. "Yup. Running away in a fight, going to an obvious hideout... Oh Ridley, I'm so disappointed in you today."

-Brinstar-

He was somewhat tentative about going into a one on one conversation with the stupidest alien monster to ever take too many missiles to the head, but someone did have to get this done. Besides, if he failed, he'd send Kraid after Draygon. That would put a smile on his face.

When Ridley finally found Kraid, he was lying on his back, eyes closed and snores erupting from his snout. The dragon kicked his head until the eyes opened.

"Eh? Oh, hai Ridley! Wow, you've never woken me up before!" Kraid jumped up and hugged him, the spikes on his chest stabbing at Ridley's face. The High Commander broke out, flying to the other side of the room.

"We're staying this far away from each other now. Kraid, we need to have an important talk."

"I like talking."

"I know you do. Oh, I know... I need you to stop breaking everything you touch. We can't keep replacing our equipment every time you get bored and choose to play some made up game that endangers the life of every man and woman working here. You seem to think you're in a reality where your actions have no active consequences on your cohorts. I wish that were so, that we could just ignore you with no harm done to our operations, but this is the real world. Everything you break, every bolt put out of place, sends us awry. You consider my opinion to be the most important, I see this, and I'm going to use it against you. I will greatly value it if you put your act together. Do this for me Kraid, please."

"Hey Ridley, look, I put my elbow in my ear!"

Ridley's expression became a void of emotion. Nothing could be shown on his face, no joy, no sadness, no rage, nothing. He closed his eyes, tilting back his head and letting out a deep breath. "Kraid..."

"Ya?"

He said nothing. Instead, Ridley left the room without even looking at the giant. Two seconds later, an ear splitting scream echoed from the deepest caverns to the tips of the stratosphere, shaking all of Zebes.

Ridley calmly re-entered the room. "It seems I'll need to fall to your level. This will not be pretty, it will hurt in fact, but it needs to be done. Ahem. Kraid, if you stop breaking shit up I'll b... I'll beeehhheheheh... beehhhhh... I'll be... be your... your... be your... oh god... I'll be your best friend."

The reaction was instantaneous. Kraid started running across the room again and the space dragon braced himself for impact. Because of this, he was prepared when the lizard pulled him into a tight embrace, almost impaling him again. "YAY! We can be real best friends, and not the other type of not real best friends that we used to-"

"This is only if you don't break anything of ours anymore, got it?"

He nodded enthusiastically, letting go and giving the High Commander a salute. "Yes Ridleh!"

"This was a horrible mistake."

Kraid pulled a hairbrush out of thin air, smiling down at his new best friend. "Now let's groom each other!"

"I'm your be... You know what I am, and it's not your boyfriend. Go bug Crocomire. He has hair in his arm pits I bet."

"OKAI!" Kraid bounded through the wall, making a new passage in the caverns of Brinstar. Ridley's faith fell with each step.

-Tourian-

Even though Mother Brain was quite capable of protecting itself, it was decided that there would be at least one guard present just in case. As such, Victum stood silently next to the massive tank at that time, awkwardly shifting weight from one foot to the other. "So... how's being a brain?"

"WANNU MINYAL, KI."

"I see, I see... And the cloning?"

"YE, INK GALVE VENDO LILLIPUP."

"Ah, right, right. It's become giant you say?"

"CI. METROID FLACKLA FIRGE ONUI."

"A queen? I'll make sure to be off duty on that day, comrade."

-Brinstar-

Kraid broke through another wall, seeing a familiar face on the other side. "Hallo!"

Samus blinked. "Uh, hi Kraid."

"Have you seen Olvar anywhere? I gotta brush his arm pits!" As if to justify himself, Kraid held up the giant hairbrush and smiled goofily.

"I... don't... know who that is. Have you seen this Olvar anywhere?"

"Oh yeah, just a second ago! He told me he was this way though, so I went this way and here you are."

"Yes. I am here. And if I'm here, that means you aren't. So you should keep going."

"Okai!" Kraid ran back the way he came, much to Crocomire's horror. Her job done, Samus hopped into a nearby shaft and continued her search.

Crocomire ran from Kraid, slowly pulling himself further away from the mad monster. "I said I'm not here!" he cried, eyes jerking back and forth in search of an escape route.

"But the pretty lady was there so I wasn't. And now I'm here, and we can brush those pretty little arm pits!" Kraid was walking closer. Crocomire became desperate as he realized that there was no escape, the only exits being on Kraid other side. There was but one other option in such a situation.

The reptilian alien smashed the floor open, falling to the next level. He quickly descended from another nearby ledge, breaking one more hole in that level. This put him face to face with Samus.

"Ah, you must be Olvar," the huntress said, holding out a hand. Crocomire hesitantly shook it, stepping back.

"Crocomire, actually. Don't listen to Kraid."

"Ah, right. He tends to go overboard, doesn't he? I get the feeling you guys aren't so good at managing him, are you?"

"No. He just makes us angry or confused." Crocomire shook his head, sighing sadly. "I really wish we could deal with him like you do."

Samus tapped her chin idly, an idea slowly forming. "You know what I think you need? A nice life or death battle to get your mind off things. Hell, it might even get him away from you forever."

"That'd be nice."

The both took a few steps back, readying themselves for combat. Crocomire made the first move, blasting a half dozen fireballs from his mouth. Samus dodged the first few, but the last one smacked her in the shoulder. She retaliated with a blind fire barrage of missiles, the concussive weapons harmlessly exploding on his skin. "Well shit."

-Tourian-

"Then he ran through a wall and is probably scarring Crocomire right now." Ridley propped his elbows on a nearby machine, tail swishing irately behind him.

"I had hope," Phantoon said, sighing, "until the end there."

Draygon floated over to Ridley, circling around his head. "I never had any hope in you."

The dragon pushed him away. He looked over at the captive Metroid, his train of thought completely changing at its sight. "Is it just me, or has that thing grown?"

Indeed, the little monstrosity was at least twice the size it should have been. It didn't seem to mind, happily bobbing away in its container.

"It's been absorbing a lot of the energy from the cloning procedure," Phantoon said. "I had to double the output, but we're starting to run low. I need to go back to my ship soon and snatch the main generator if we want to stay in operation."

"More problems... at least Samus hasn't been sighted yet."

A pirate ran in. "Aran has been sighted!"

Ridley slammed his foot into a nearby gadget, snarling. "Find her! Phantoon, go get that generator before she becomes a problem there. Brain, double the cloning output and put half of them in the back tanks. She'll start killing them if she gets here and we don't want to run out again. Draygon, take your bastard children and go to Maridia. I'll take to Norfair and prepare our forces."

The crayfish smirked, slowly drifting toward the door. "Well Ridley, you better hope she decides to go swimming soon. I know your track record hasn't been that great, and I'd hate to see it have an abrupt end."

"Bite me."

-Back at the fight-

Crocomire flinched, stepping back as a super missile detonated in his eye. He swiped at the hunter, clipping her cannon and forcing her to move back.

In the midst of the combat, his radio flared to life. "Crocomire, are you there?" Draygon asked, his signal muffled by the hundreds of layers of thick mineral above them.

"I'm a bit busy!" He took another explosion to the face, stepping back again.

"Well stop for a moment and listen. Aran's infiltrated the base, and you're being drafted to handle Brinstar."

"She's here!"

"Yes, I just said she's here. And if you see Kraid-"

"No, she's right here! I'm fighting her!"

Samus stopped shooting, holding her gun vertically. "Is that Ridley?"

"No, it's Draygon."

"Oh. Nope, don't know him. Carry on."

Nodding, Crocomire turned away to focus on the conversation. "We're kind of in the middle of a life or death battle. Could I call you back?"

"You're already doing what I wanted originally, so I don't see a reason to," Draygon said. "Carry on."

"Yes sir. And if I die, everything goes to Phantoon. Crocomire out." He clicked the radio off, returning his attention to Samus. "Shall we proceed?"

"Of course." She shot him in the eye with one more super missile, staggering him enough to bring the reptile to a ledge. He staggered, waving his arms in a vain attempt at steadying, but ultimately fell into the acid below.

-Surface of Zebes-

Phantoon's radio began to beep, signalling an incoming call. He smacked away one of the local pests, answering. "This is General Phantoon, speak."

"Uh, hi, this is Crocomire, um, rank unknown."

"Hello. What can I do for you?"

"Well, um, I'm kind of burning in acid right now. The skin melting kind, actually."

"Ouch. Is that the only weakness you have that Ridley was talking about?"

"No, he was talking about my fatal allergy to raisins. I didn't even know acid would do the trick, but it's killing me quite effectively."

"Can you get out at all?"

"Let's try. Aran, could you- yes, that. All right, let's try... urgh... Nope, I'm stuck. And there goes my eyes. Yes, I'm rather disappointed that we didn't get to fight more as well, but there's not much we can do about it now. Blame Kraid."

"Well, since this is going to be your last communication with us, anything you want to say?" Phantoon asked, resting his body on a nicely shaped rock.

"Yes actually. Draygon's a rude prick, so screw him. You get all of my stuff. Kraid... just tell him Olvar went to the farm. I don't want him to try to resurrect me and have things go horribly wrong. Ridley's great, but he's getting way too obsessed over Aran and needs real vacation. And tell Mother Brain to please learn English. Wait, I think there might be a way out down there. Just need to hold my breath and..."

Fifteen seconds later, Crocomire seemed to re-emerge. "I'm out!"

"Oh, that's fantastic! I guess we can completely forget about that morbid conversation."

"Nnnno. You see, I'm just a skeleton at this point. And there's nothing holding me together."

"Oh. Sucks."

"Yup."

-To end on a much lighter note-

Victum and Mother Brain stood in silence again, the pirate tapping his foot absentmindedly. "So... cloning, eh?"

"HM? WAH, KA, OMNO WAN."

"Really? That's cool. I've always wondered what it would be like to have an identical clone of me. Maybe there is one out there. Who knows?"

"MITA."

"I really doubt you know that for sure, comrade."

"WANDOO."

"Of course you do."