Just a heads up: I hate Other M. It's my least favourite game, and so if/when I get details incorrect, it's not that I didn't do the research (I didn't though), it's probably that I just don't care and like this better. If you did like it, I'm not going to try to bash the hell out of it (may come unintentionally through seeds of hatred), I'm just making things funny in a way that doesn't make me hurt myself.

One! One cameo! Ah-ah-ahh!

Published May 7, 2012

Number Two

Ridley's spacecraft floated a few hundred kilometres from the Bottle Ship (Kraid was very helpful in pointing out that it didn't look like a bottle or a ship), the technicians trying their hardest to tap into the radio signals. "I don't understand," one said. "It's like there aren't any signals at all. It's completely silent."

"Very strange," the space dragon said, stroking his chin. "Move in closer and increase scanning to level four."

As his orders were carried out, Ridley opened communications. "Do you remember what always happened in our Metroid labs before we learned how to properly contain them?"

"MICHIE UNONULOKKA CHERIA?" Mother Brain questioningly answered.

"Not usually everyone, but most of them died. As far as we know, this is the Federation's first attempt. I seriously doubt they've learned from our mistakes. If level seven scans don't get any results we'll be able to walk right in."

"I wanna walk in space too!" Kraid cheered, jumping up and down behind the High Commander.

"How about I push you, and you wave your legs feebly, okay? Now Brain, I think we should figure out what our main objectives will be once we gain access."

"MIN-" And the signal cut.

"What? Dammit Kraid, stop jumping already!"

"Okai!"

And the signal came back.

"KRAID?"

"Kraid."

"Sir, we've detected another object making contact with the target," a pirate reported.

Ridley groaned, already feeling a headache. "Don't say it's Samus..."

"As you wish."

"Damn."

-With Samus-

The bounty hunter hopped out of her ship, setting off down the hallway. "Sure is big in here. Sure is dark too." She switched on the thermal visor. "Much better. I can sense that today's going to be a good day."

-Back onboard the pirate ship-

"Level seven scans detect no more than a dozen humans. But I think something's wrong with the device. It's reading over a hundred pirates already there."

Ridley chuckled, leaning back and tenting his claws. "It looks like one of our oblivious raiding parties already took care of things. Perfect. Move in men, it's ripe for the picking."

"Breaking time!" Kraid cheered.

"Yes. Do you remember the plan, Kraid?"

"I go left, y'all you guys go right!"

Things were finally starting to go his way. "Yes. In addition, I want all of you to avoid Samus, and don't try to stop her from reaching the Metroids. She'll just kill them all for us, and it will probably take a lot of her trust away from her employers. Try to make contact with the raiders and find any other experiments I might deem interesting."

The ship entered the open docking bay, hovering to a landing platform and lowering without incident. With a thud the ramp fell, digging into the reinforced floor, and the pirates flowed out. "Victum, Chykka, come with me. Kraid, go do your thing. Brain, Jikarvl, hold the ship."

The technician sent a half-hearted salute, bringing up Tetris on the main monitor.

"Oh captain my captain! For pirate glory!" General Victum shot off, his blade raised and gun firing in random directions.

"At least he has spirit," Ridley grunted, spreading his wings and catching up.

-Back with Samus-

"So, Adam, how's it been?" Aran asked, looking down at her former CO.

"Samus, I don't want you to use any of your more devastating weapons without authorization from this point on," Adam stated professionally, always looking forward.

"Well that's a bit of a topic-hijack isn't- Wait, what?"

"You blew up a door with a super missile when we were all within arm's reach."

"I got a little excited. What of it?"

"James almost broke his wrist."

"Almost."

"Had he been a foot closer, we would have had to send him back to the ship and drug him to unconsciousness on pain killers for the entire mission."

"What a loss that would have been..."

-On a lower level-

Chykka smashed through another wall, letting them into some sort of green-room. It was filled to the brim with plants and their presence was almost certainly contaminating years of sensitive research, but that was half the fun.

"This is the part I like to call: smashing time." Ridley blasted another wall to bits with a barrage of missiles. "Who wants to go next?"

"FOR GLORY!" Victum activated his energy scythe and slashed a nearby pipe open. The gases inside reacted, a mild explosion travelling up the pipe and out of sight.

Then his communicator activated. "Uh, Ridley, the entire northeastern section just got blown to bits," Jikarvl hesitantly reported. "Do... you guys have anything to do with that?"

"...Yes. Okay, so, the General's in the lead with five thousand points. Chykka has twenty-five, and I currently have ten. Anyone else want to enter the game? Roerwell? Jeblyks?"

"No sir."

"I'm fine with watching, sir."

"To each his own I suppose." Ridley blasted down another wall, exposing the following chamber. As the smoke cleared they caught an adorable little white thing staring at the destruction in horror before running off as fast as its bony legs could carry it.

"HA! Look at it run!" Victum laughed, firing a few shots just over the creature's head as it fled into a bush.

The only one not sharing their laughter was their leader. Ridley's eyes were locked onto the bush, jaw hanging open a few inches. "Not a chance," he muttered incredulously. "How..."

"My captain?"

Ridley was already digging into one of his storage chambers, clawing through years of unsorted trash until he retrieved a small booklet. "Did that... look like this, or was it just me?" He showed a picture identical to the little guy.

"A perfect match! Have you too hunted such things?"

"These are my baby pictures. Why the hell was that thing me as a baby?"

"You were a little furry thing?"

"What, did you think we just popped out of our mothers as fully grown dragons?"

"At least in miniature, yes."

"Well... no. For a day or two we look like that, then we shed it and become miniature dragons." In one step, he tore apart the bush the baby dragon had run into. To his anger, it was long gone. "Find that thing! It's our top priority as of this moment, understood?"

"Oh captain my captain!"

A few rooms over, Samus Aran happened to catch the same small dragon as it came out of a bush, tripping over its own legs. It didn't take long for her cuteness sensors to activate. "AWWWW, aren't you the most adorable little whatever you are?" she cooed, quickly walking toward it.

The dragon ran away.

"I need to get me one of those." The hunter pressed on, opening the next door and stepping through the threshold.

Before it closed, she looked back in the hopes of seeing the little guy again. It was there. It was staring at her, unmoving, with the darkest, most soulless eyes any living being could produce. The door closed.

"That was weird. Moving on."

Ridley tore apart most of the ecosphere in his search, building up several hundred points in collateral as countless walls fell before him. Things began to look suspicious as soon as he noticed that almost everything in the station had been located in the same space as the former planet of Zebes at some point. "There's no way in hell that this is a coincidence. We've got a mystery on our hands, team. Let's find one of those dozen or so life forms, shall we?"

-A distance away-

In the midst of this, Kraid was having a merry time by engaging in the simplest of life's pleasures: mindless destruction.

"Pop goes the weasel!" He squeezed another tree, shouting in joy as the top and bottom exploded in splinters. "I need to have Ridley bring me on more tacticianal espionage missions."

"Fat chance," the space dragon radioed in. "And stop leaving your comm. link on all the time. Its battery isn't unlimited."

"Actually, I saw on the teleprompter the other day that they had a hamster in a wheel and it kept on running and it made a laser beam shoot out and kill a guy, so what if we put hamsters in wheels in all of our electrical thingies, then everything we have will be able to shoot lasers and kill people!"

Instead of a direct response, Kraid was treated to a nice amount of feedback and a round of cursing. "Um, hello?" a timid voice said. "This is, uh, Private Roerwell, and I'm told that I'm the official 'Guy Who Puts Up With Kraid's Shit' I think it was."

"Silly Ronald, I don't want to put shit up on my walls. That would be gross."

"He says he doesn't want to put shit on his walls."

"I said only the important things!" Ridley shouted from far off. "That means nothing, so just listen to him and stay quiet!"

A nearby door slid open and several unarmed, naked Zebesian space pirates wandered into Kraid's current residence, cautiously observing the giant. They hissed to each other in their native language, pointing up at the idiot every so often.

"Hi guys!" Kraid shouted, waving enthusiastically. "Sorry, but I can't play Power Rangers with you today. Ridley says that you aren't dolls and he won't be my friend anymore if I don't stop playing with you, so I can't play Power Rangers today. Ooo, I know! Let's play Super Sentei!"

The largest pirate gestured for the others to step back. It went closer to Kraid, flexing its claws and hissing in a threatening manner.

"Kraid!" Ridley was back on. "Did you find the raiders? Patch them into my frequency and don't say a word on anything else!"

"Uh, they don't have radios Ridley. They're all nude right now. Want me to give them mine?"

"Nude...? Er, yes, give it to them right away."

Kraid plucked the receiver off his ear, bending over and holding it out to the lead pirate. "Here ya go! But be careful, it's a birthday present from Phillip."

The pirate tentatively took the radio, holding it at arm's length. It turned it over as to fully inspect the device as it hissed to the others.

"This is High Commander Ridley," Ridley said in response to the distant hissing, cranking the volume on his own radio. "Who am I speaking to?"

"Sssskrrkssksksssk!"

"...Could you repeat that?"

'"SKAAAAAAAAAAARK!"

"OW! Dammit, don't scream into this thing! Are you an idiot? Even Kraid knows how to work a radio! Wait..." The pieces began to fall into place. The Metroid clones, the species native to Zebes, the ecosystem very close to the underground jungle, and now savage pirates... and the baby dragon... "This entire facility is full of clones! Shit, Kraid, if you can hear me shouting then take back your radio! KRAID!"

At the faintest sound of his name, the lizard swiped the radio out of the pirate clone's claws. "Ya?"

"I know I said not to play with our troops, but those guys are... special. I want you to play the longest game you can with them-"

"YAY! Time for hop scotch!"

"NO, no, not something that involves you moving and jumping around. And how is that long... Ugh. Just keep them there, and DON'T kill a single one! Got it?"

"Can do, besty!"

"Ugh... Ridley out." He switched over to another channel. "Jikarvl, rescan the facility but search individual life forms. I want a list of anything that might match any current or former members of our forces. Call me when you're done."

The dragon turned to his men, arms crossed. "We have a new mission."

"Even me?" Roerwell meekly asked.

"No. You're stuck talking to Kraid."