Ridley and Luigi walked past the wreckage of what appeared to have once been a castle of some kind. Though now it was little more than a large pile of rubble. They could see the ocean off in the distance and as they walked they could see a wooden bridge that went across it over to a much larger body of land than the island they were currently on.

"That must be it." Ridley said they drew closer.

"We-a certainly made-a good time, didn't we Mario?" Luigi nearly tripped over a large chunk of stone. "It looks-a like we're-a even going to make it there-a before Yoshi!"

"Yes, well, he did say he was going to get his comrade or something." Ridley pointed out. "It makes sense that he would take a bit longer to get here."

"True." Luigi agreed.

It didn't take much longer for the two to reach the bridge where they were to wait for the talking green dinosaur. Fortunately, they didn't have to wait long before Yoshi emerged from the jungle to greet them.

"Hey, there!" Yoshi exclaimed as he walked up to the pair. "I hope we didn't keep you waiting too long."

"Where is-a your buddy?" Luigi asked, seeing that Yoshi appeared to be alone.

"Why, he's right behind me…" Yoshi turned around to see that there was no one there. "Er, he was."

"Wait up!" A voice called from the jungle.

A rather bulky yellow creature of the same species as Yoshi ran out of the bushes. The heavy-set dinosaur was breathing heavily and had to stop to catch his breath once he caught up to them.

"This is my cousin, Roshi." Yoshi said, gesturing to his cousin with one hand while placing the other over his eyes. "He, uh, needs to get out more."

"I haven't had to run like that in ages." Roshi said before finally looking up. "Oh, wow! You're the Mario! I'm such a huge fan."

Roshi walked up to Ridley and grabbed his taloned hand, shaking it vigorously.

"Uh, yes, yes I am." Ridley lied.

"And you must be his brother, Lugia!" Roshi turned to Luigi.

"It's-a Luigi, actually." The green-clad plumber corrected him.

"Oh, sorry."

"A~any way…" Yoshi tried to turn their attention back to himself. "Now that introductions have been made we should probably get going. Roshi and I will give you two a lift to Dinosaur Land to look for a boat, so hop on."

Yoshi squatted down for Ridley to climb onto his back. Ridley, however, chose to get onto Roshi's back instead, feeling his bulkier frame would make it easier for him to carry Ridley than it would be for Yoshi.

"Wait, you're riding him?" Yoshi asked with a hint of jealousy.

"Do you have a problem with that?" Ridley asked coldly.

"Um… no, I guess not." Yoshi looked like he had said something he didn't mean to say as Luigi took a seat on his saddle.

"Then I believe that means we should get going."

"R-right." Yoshi turned to the bridge and started running, making sure to go slow enough for his non-athletic cousin to keep up with him comfortably.

"I can't believe that I actually get to give the Mario a ride." Roshi practically giggled, his prior fatigue washed away by the excitement of being able to meet his hero.

So the two Yoshisaurs made their way across the bridge to Dinosaur Land. Fortunately, Yoshi's Island wasn't too far from the mainland and it didn't take too long before they were rushing through the open fields of Donut Plains. They made their way north as they passed through the grassy fields that made up the region.

After a while, they passed by a short hill, upon which stood a small orange reptilian creature wearing a shimmering red and yellow cape. The creature ran forward and leaped through the air, somehow flying straight towards Yoshi. Luigi jumped off of Yoshi's back and landed on the flying creature midair, knocking it into the ground so hard that a pale orange feather popped out of it. Luigi grabbed the feather, which vanished as a yellow cape suddenly appeared on Luigi's back. Cape Luigi was then able to glide back down onto Yoshi's back to continue riding the green dinosaur. Ridley had learned not to question things by this point.

The group eventually reached the northeastern edge of the plains without having seen any signs of even a single boat along the distant shoreline. As such, they decided to move on to some of the other areas of Dinosaur land. However, in order to progress any further, they would have to pass through Vanilla Dome.

Yoshi and Roshi ran up to a set of big, sky blue doors which marked the entrance leading inside the hollowed out mountain. Cape Luigi hopped off of Yoshi's back so Ridley followed his lead and climbed off Roshi's back. The chubby yellow dinosaur immediately sat down on the cool grass and began panting heavily.

"Woo, boy." Roshi said. "That was… the most exercise… I've had in… weeks…"

"Yeah, and who's fault is that?" Yoshi whispered while examining the heavy doors that blocked their path, quietly enough that Ridley was the only one to hear the remark.

Cape Luigi stretched his back and looked out over the sea. He could see Chocolate Island across the ocean, the barren brown landmass standing out heavily against the deep blue water. His attention was more drawn to a large and rather distinctive pile of rocks emerging from waves, a bit closer than the island. While it was not obvious from that angle, Cape Luigi knew that the rocks formed into the likeness of King Bowser.

"It looks like-a the entrance to the-a Valley of Bowser is-a still standing." Cape Luigi commented to Ridley. "I had-a hoped that it-a would have collapsed or-a something by now."

"Yes." Ridley nodded like he knew what Luigi was talking about.

"Are you guys going to help me get this thing open, or what?" Yoshi called out while trying to force one of the doors open. "I don't think that I can do this on my own."

"We'll-a be right there." Luigi turned and ran up beside Yoshi to help push.

Yoshi and Cape Luigi pushed against the door as hard as they could but it wouldn't budge. Ridley walked up to the other door and spotted a small handle on it, which he grabbed and began to pull on. Putting a fair amount of strength into it, Ridley was able to pull the door open wide enough for them to be able to go through, which caused Yoshi and Cape Luigi to both look embarrassed.

"Yeah, I guess it helps if you open it the right way." Yoshi scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

Roshi finally worked up enough strength to get back onto his feet and walked over to the others. Yoshi was the first to enter the Vanilla Dome, followed by Luigi and Roshi. Ridley took a step to walk in after them when he froze, looking up at the sky just around the side of the mountain.

"What's-a wrong, Mario?" Luigi asked him.

"Nothing." Ridley turned his attention back to the others and went in after them. "I just thought I saw something."

The inside of the mountain proved to be rather bright for a cave. Sunlight filtered down from a large hole in the ceiling up above and reflected off of the walls to illuminate the whole area. Yoshi led the others along a path that could either take them up to a tunnel that would lead them out of the cave or up to the very top of the cave, depending on which way they went. When they reached the fork in the road that would determine which way they would go, Yoshi turned right to head towards the tunnel. However, Ridley chose to stop for a moment.

"You go on ahead, I'll catch up." Ridley said.

"What's-a wrong?" Luigi asked him.

"Um…" Ridley tried to think of a believable excuse to leave the group for a while. "I must urinate."

"Oh, okay." Luigi wasn't sure how to respond to that.

Ridley ducked behind a rock and waited for the others to get back on their way. He didn't actually have to relieve himself, of course. Unlike most creatures he was able to use 100% of all biomass he consumed, meaning that he did not produce waste like other lifeforms. Once he was sure that the others were far enough away that they wouldn't spot him, Ridley rushed up to the cavern wall and climbed up the side of the cave as quickly as he could. When he reached the ceiling, he jumped off and flew up the hole that led outside. He landed on the ground on top of the mountain and looked around wildly. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary other than the wreckage of another fortress, sitting in the middle of a river that cascaded down the mountainside. Ridley continued to examine his surroundings closely until he was sure that there was nothing there. Whatever he thought he saw earlier must have just been a trick of the light or something. There was no way that it could have been what he thought he had seen.

He turned to head back down into the Vanilla Dome to catch up with the others when a small Hunter-class gunship flew up from behind the mountainside. It appeared to be of Federation design, though it clearly had a lot of non-regulation modifications made to it. The yellow and red paint job was scratched and chipped away in places which showed off hints of purple and gray underneath. Ridley had never seen this ship before but knew at once that there was only one being in the galaxy that it could have belonged to. Ridley had been dreading this moment for a while now, ever since he had recovered from his last defeat on Planet Zebes. The Hunter was here.

Ridley barely had time to react before a barrage of heavy missiles was fired at him. He was just able to dodge them before they pelted the mountainside. He knew that the concussive blasts would have sent huge tremors running through the cave below. If he didn't find a way to either end the fight quickly or move it away from here, the others would be in trouble. Ridley did not know why that was his primary concern at the moment when his own life was in danger, particularly while he was in his current diminutive state. For all Ridley knew, his regenerative ability wouldn't work properly if he was injured while in this shrunken down form, meaning that if the Hunter managed to finish him off now, it was possible he could be gone for good.

Fortunately, rather than fire another barrage of missiles at him, the gunship flew off out of sight. However, this must have meant that the ship was meant to act as nothing more than a decoy. Ridley quickly jumped to the side, narrowly dodging an Ice Beam fired at him from behind. As Ridley rolled back onto his feet, he turned around to face his attacker. A roughly humanoid figure jumped out from the ruined fortress and landed on the ground a few yards away from Ridley. The design of the Hunter's armor was different than Ridley remembered, appearing as if the bulkier sections of the armor had been removed and replaced with a more streamlined and organic-looking shell. If Ridley had to guess, he would say that this new armor was weaker than the Hunter's previous Power Suit but offered more in the way of agility and speed. Considering what Ridley new of the Hunter's combat ability and fighting style, these changes could potentially make the Hunter even deadlier than ever before. Especially considering Ridley's current, weakened condition.

"You've changed." The only thing Ridley could do was to try and act smug in order to make it seem like he wasn't at as much of a disadvantage as he really was.

"I could say the same about you." The Hunter replied. "I remember you being a lot bigger than that. And what's with the hat?"

"It's a long story." Ridley shrugged. "Much like the one behind your new suit, I would imagine."

"You know, when I got the call saying you were here, I was really hoping it was fake. I thought for sure I had finally seen the last of you after blowing up your X-infected corpse on the BSL Research Station."

"My what on the what?" Ridley had no idea what the Hunter was talking about. "The last time we fought was right before you blew up Zebes."

"I didn't blow up Zebes!" The Hunter snapped. "Zebes was destroyed by Mother Brain's self-destruct sequence!"

"Which wouldn't have gone off if you hadn't killed her." Ridley pointed out.

"I suppose the remains on the BSL Station could have been from your clone that I killed on the Bottle Ship." The Hunter remarked, ignoring Ridley's comment.

"What clone?" Ridley has even more confused now.

"It's a long story that I'd rather not talk about. The Federation collected various DNA samples off of my suit without my knowledge after Zebes and they used it in order to bring back the various creatures of Zebes. Unfortunately, you were among the things they cloned. I suppose it was kind of fun seeing what you looked like as a baby, though, 'Little Birdie'."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Ridley said blankly.

"Yeah, I suppose it wasn't really that important." The Hunter shrugged. "Wait, why am I even explaining any of this to you? I should just finish you off and be done with this."

The Hunter fired several Ice Beam blasts from her arm cannon. Ridley was able to avoid most of them but took a direct shot to his left wing, freezing it and making him unable to fly away.

"You think that will be enough to stop me." Ridley taunted.

"Of course not." The Hunter replied. "But you know, you were right when you said that I've changed. You were talking about my armor, but that isn't the only thing. You see, I don't work alone anymore. Now!"

The Hunter's gunship suddenly flew by overhead, releasing something directly over Ridley. Ridley jumped out of the way of the object before he could tell what it was but was sent flying back by a mighty shockwave that was released as whatever it was crashed into the ground. When Ridley stood back up he was surprised to see that the thing that had dropped was a dark-haired human boy in a green outfit. Before he had time to react to that, however, a charged Plasma Beam was fired in his direction, blowing a hole through his right wing. Ridley let out a howling roar of pain as someone else walked into view wearing heavy blue armor, similar in design to the armor that the Hunter used to wear, though slightly bulkier and more archaic looking. The Hunter and this new blue-armored warrior both pointed their arm cannons at Ridley as they walked up beside the boy in green, who bumped his fists together to create a protective barrier around them using the strange gloves he wore, which were connected to some kind of device mounted on his back. The gunship flew by again and hovered in the air directly above them, all its weapons systems aimed directly at Ridley.

"This time I'm making sure that there won't be even a single cell left of you to come back from." The Hunter declared.

"Well, blitznack." Ridley could see no possible way to get out of this situation. He was doomed.