Ridley stared up at the rickety old ceiling of the barracks he shared with his companions, half asleep. It was a cold night, as they had all been in the week since their capture. Ridley wasn't particularly bothered by the cold, though it would have been a bit more comfortable if he hadn't given his only blanket to the Hunter back on their first night there. Ridley still didn't understand why he had done so and when he mentioned it to Roshi the next day, the yellow Yoshi said mentioned something about 'compassion'. This was a concept that Ridley had yet to wrap his head around. At least he now finally knew the Hunter's weakness. She seemed to be far more vulnerable to the cold than Ridley ever would have guessed. It should have brought a smile to his face but for some reason seeing the Hunter shiver so much had made him feel… pity? That was another emotion he was not used to.

The morning daylight began to trickle in through the boarded-up window. Ridley glanced at his watch, which he had won from one of the guards in a poker game a few days earlier, then rolled out of bed. That probably wasn't the best decision considering that he was on the upper bunk. However, he was at the point where he no longer cared about hitting the floor in a huddled mess of limbs and wings. The sound of him crashing to the floor also worked as a particularly lazy wake-up call for the others.

Roshi was the first up, having been so startled by Ridley's fall that he had nearly fallen out of bed himself. Ridley was glad that he didn't, considering that Roshi had the bunk directly under his own, meaning that the heavy-set Yoshi would have collapsed directly on the space dragon if he had done so.

"Are you alright?" Roshi asked after his heart rate started to go back down.

"Mmph…" Ridley grunted a weak reply, trying and failing to gather the will to get up.

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen." Samus said half-heartedly as she sat up in bed.

"Speak for yourself." Ridley retorted the sickly-looking Hunter. She was bundled up in several of the plain gray scraps of cloth that somehow constituted blankets in the camp and wore a thick brown jacket over her zero suit, which was several sizes too small for her as it originally belonged to a Toad prisoner who… would no longer be needing it.

Luigi hopped out of bed and slipped his shoes on. He had grown accustomed to sleeping in his clothes for warmth, meaning that his shoes were the only thing he needed to put on in the morning to get ready for rollcall.

Speaking of rollcall, a shout could be heard from outside, signaling for them to get out there and line up with the others. Not wanting to face the Colonel's wrath, the four quickly headed out the door to wait in the early morning sun. Colonel Klang and Sergeant Guts walked up to them as they got into position.

"Aran, Samus!" The Colonel called out.

"Here." Samus replied weekly.

"Mario, Luigi!"

"I'm-a here." Luigi sighed.

"Mario, Ridley!"

"I keep telling you that my name is just Ridley." Ridley's response was met with a sharp glare from Klang. "But yes, I'm clearly here."

"Munchakoopas, Gregory Roshisaurus!" The Colonel read off the last name on his list.

"Here." Roshi replied.

"All prisoners present and accounted for, sir!" Sergeant Guts reported jovially.

"I know that, Guts. I just took role." Klang sighed, then directed his attention back to the inmates. "Now, I want you all on your best behavior today. We have a General arriving to inspect the camp today, and if any of you do anything to disrespect me, the camp, or the general, then you can all kiss your necks goodbye."

"Fine, we won't try anything." Ridley shrugged. "But I suggest you move out of the way before the General runs you over."

"What are you talking abou- Ah!" Klang barely had time to retract into his shell before a black car slammed into him, and he was sent flying into the barracks window as the car made a hard break.

"I am never letting you drive again." A large koopa with voluminous blue hair and a spikey stepped out of the car, clearly disoriented.

"Greetings, General Ludwig von Koopa!" Sergeant Guts stood at attention, looking the most professional that Ridley or the others had ever seen him. "Welcome to Camp Shell!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Ludwig waved him away.

"Hey, don't forget about me!" A cross-eyed Koopa with a multicolored mohawk, who was clearly too small to have been able to drive the large black car hopped out from the driver's seat.

"General Lemmy." Colonel Klang identified the small koopa as he climbed back out from the barracks. "We were not expecting you."

"He insisted on tagging along." Ludwig grumbled, then turned his attention to Luigi and Ridley. "Ah, the infamous Mario Brothers. I heard that we finally had you in custody, but I didn't think it could be true. Although, if the rumors are true, one of you is a fake."

"That would be me." Ridley took his hat off and gave an exaggerated bow. "Ridley, at your service."

"Ooh, a dragon!" Lemmy hopped up and down excitedly on a larger rubber ball that no one saw him pull out. "Are you magic? Do you grant wishes? Can you grant my wish? I want a pony! Can I have a pony?"

"No. No. Probably not. Maybe." Ridley answered the hyperactive koopa child's questions in order.

"Yipee! I'm going to call him Jehoshaphat and I'm going to teach him how to jump real good!"

"Please don't encourage him." Ludwig sighed and massaged his temples.

"I apologize for the behavior of our prisoner." Colonel Klang bowed. "He hasn't quite learned his place, yet."

"Well, he has plenty of time to learn." Ludwig regained his composure and chuckled. "They're all going to be here a very long time."

"Of a very short time, depending on how they behave." Klang added. "One wrong step and… wait, where is it?"

"What are you looking for?" Ludwig asked the colonel.

"The controller for the collars is missing!" Colonel Klang suddenly shouted in surprise.

"You mean this?" Ridley asked mockingly, holding up the small remote.

"How did you get that?" Klang demanded to know.

"I grabbed it off you with my tail while you were distracted by that hyperactive Geemer over there." Ridley replied, waving said appendage in front of his face. "Now, how do you turn these things off? Oh, here we go."

Ridley pressed a button, rendering the explosive charges contained within the collars inert. Another button press later and the collars automatically released, falling to the ground.

"Hm, that was actually easier than I was expecting." Ridley noted. "I can't believe it took me this long to try that."

"Call the guards!" Ludwig ordered Klang.

"Call the guards!" Klang ordered Guts.

"Call the guards!" Guts ordered a non-existent soldier before realizing his mistake. "Guards! Stop the prisoners from escaping!"

"What, you don't think that you can take us on your own?" Ridley asked sarcastically. "I suppose you're probably right on that. I believe that normally this would be the point where I skewer you with my tail and begin devouring you before your bodies have the chance to realize what's happened. But I'm on a strict no-killing restriction right now, so I think I'll settle for just beating you unconscious. I can't say the same for the Hunter here, though."

"I'm going to enjoy this, probably more than I should." Samus held her arm out in front of herself and was enveloped in a bright orange glow. The light subsided as quickly as it came to reveal that she was now once again clad in her orange and yellow Fusion Suit. "Now, who's first?"

Colonel Klang yelped and dove behind Sergeant Guts for protection. This proved to be a tactical error as Guts then lost his footing and fell on top of the Colonel. The weight of the oversized Goomba caused Klang to shoot out from under him towards the two generals. Ludwig was knocked flat onto his spikey back while Lemmy hopped off his ball and rode the runaway Koopa off into the distance.

"Somehow I was expecting this to be harder." Ridley remarked slyly, watching as Ludwig tried in vain to roll back to his feet. "Not much harder, mind you."

"Maybe the guards will put up more of a fight." Samus smirked, not that anyone could tell with her helmet on, as the group was surrounded.

The guards consisted of a few dozen Koopas clad in spikey armor, Goombas wearing spiked helmets and more Koopas lacked spikes but were armed with hammers instead. To a denizen of the Mushroom Kingdom, they would have made a formidable force. Ridley and Samus were not from the Mushroom Kingdom, however, and regularly faced much larger threats with ease.

The guards charged in from all sides, attempting to overwhelm Ridley and the others. The plan failed, however, when Samus immediately fired her Ice Beam and froze several of them in their tracks. The remaining guards began to slow down as Ridley rushed forward and began savagely beating everyone he could get his claws on in a rabid frenzy. Even Luigi and Roshi were able to get a few hits in against the enemies as their numbers quickly began to dwindle. Before long, not a single Koopa or Goomba was left standing.

"Mama mia, even Mario would have-a had trouble against that many enemies at once." Luigi commented once he realized they had won the fight.

"Even Space Pirates could put up more of a fight than that." Samus laughed. "I can't believe they managed to keep us here this long."

"You're a lot stronger than I would have guessed." Ludwig von Koopa admitted as he finally managed to get himself upright again. "But you haven't escaped yet!"

The blue-haired Koopa pulled a magic wand out of his shell and held it in the air, releasing a spray of technicolor sparks flying everywhere. At first, nothing more happened. After a few seconds, however, Ludwig began to grow, expanding larger and larger with each passing second.

"Does that happen a lot?" Roshi asked, pointing up at the now-gargantuan spiky Koopa.

"That's a new one for me but I've seen weirder." Samus shrugged.

"Actually, you would-a be surprised how often Bowser and-a his minions use-a this trick." Luigi noted.

"At least this one won't explode if we try to hit it too hard." Samus turned to Luigi. "Will it?"

"No, we-a should be fine." Luigi assured the bounty hunter.

"Alright, this'll be a piece of cake, then." The bounty hunter fired a shot from her Ice Beam that she had been charging up during the conversation.

Ludwig's left leg was fully encased in a thick layer of ice to his knee, preventing the giant Koopa from moving. Enraged, he prepared to fire a blast of fire breath at his enemies, only to be met with an Ice Missile exploding against his mouth, freezing it wide open. The Hunter followed up the second attack by running up to the giant and slammed into his unfrozen knee with a Screw Attack. Ludwig's eyes began to well up from the pain before Samus rapidly fired a barrage of icy blasts at his chest, causing the colossal turtle to fall onto his back, one leg still stuck in place.

"Down already?" Samus asked mockingly. "That was actually a bit disappointing."

"The inhabitants of this planet don't seem to be able to offer much of a challenge most of the time." Ridley smirked. "If I were back to normal, I would have already saved that princess and razed the kingdom by now."

"Wait, do you-a mean Darkland or the Mushroom Kingdom?" Luigi asked, concerned.

"Yes." Ridley spotted movement out of the corner of his eye and looked up at the sky to see what appeared to be a shooting star falling towards them. "Should we be concerned about that?"

"What is it?" Roshi wondered aloud.

"I don't know, but we're about to find out." Samus readied her arm cannon again, preparing for another fight.

The mysterious streak of light hurtles towards them at incredible speeds as everyone braced themselves. Within seconds, it crashed down beside the fallen Ludwig, pulverizing the ground so hard it left a small crater where it hit. A single blue eye pierced through the resultant cloud of dirt as it dissipated, revealing who was now standing before them.

"Oh, hey, it's-a just Rosalina." Luigi pointed out, relieved to see a friendly face for once.

"What have you guys been doing?" The space witch shouted angrily at them. "I've been searching everywhere for you!"