A streak of purple and green flew out of the Argent portal - Ridley, of Space Pirate High Command, and the Doom Slayer, relocated away from the Space Pirate colony Cerberus by the former. In truth, they'd gone further than that. The Slayer glanced past Ridley's sneering maw to see millions of stars lighting up the black void of space, and the beautiful blue, scarred Earth behind them. Several vacuum warnings lit up across his visor, and the cold sensation he felt around his neck and arms were sure to become a nuisance before long.
Ridley's flight was swift and precise through the cold nothing of space. His Argent wings soared through the void as though he were a starship himself. An ugly one, the Slayer thought.
"So you're the super badass hero that saved Earth from the clutches of Hell, eh?" Ridley asked, his foul, raspy voice coming clear over the speaker in the Slayer's helm. "That's right, I've read the stories. 'The Doom Slayer, the Unchained Predator, Hellwalker! That one's got a nice ring to it. I've got a nickname where I'm from too. Can you guess what they call me?"
Ridley grinned.
"The Cunning God of Death."
The Slayer snorted - the closest thing he could amount to a chuckle.
"I've killed bigger and worse than you."
He extended the Doomblade on his wrist, and stabbed it brutally into Ridley's arm. In his other hand, he conjured up the Combat Shotgun, and fired a sticky bomb to take the place of the meaningless words in Ridley's mouth. Ridley threw the Slayer away from him, and the bomb burst in his mouth, a frown and dispersing smoke to show for it. He glared at the Slayer's shrinking frame.
The Slayer spun and flew chaotically from the force of Ridley's throw. With the touch of his fingers to a specific spot on his shoulder, the Praetor Suit changed shape. Rubber and armor extended out to cover any and all exposed skin, sealing the suit airtight and regulating internal temperatures in seconds. The Slayer activated the jump jets built into his boots, and stabilized his movement. Attachments manifested onto the Praetor Suit as it reconfigured. A deep space rebreather upon his helm, a high-impact plate on the chest complete with a Zero-G thruster on the back. Bigger, bulkier shoulderpads, gauntlets and greaves - all designed to maximize the Slayer's mobility in a vacuum.
Ridley sized up his opponent as they stared eachother down, the Slayer cracking his knuckles and neck.
"I like you," Ridley said. "Let's go a few rounds."
"It should only take one."
"How RIGHT you are!"
At this distance, the Slayer got a good look at the weapon the dragon carried. Its silhouette was unmistakable, - it served him well on the Mars base not very long ago, now. He remembered exactly how well - enough to make him immediately ready the Ballista as soon as he saw the chamber widen on the Gauss Cannon. The Slayer shot directly upward - as upward as it got in space - and the incredible recoil of the weapon threw him out of the way of a Siege Mode ray. The bright blue laser cut clear across the darkness of the void, sailing across space at the speed of a comet, never to be seen again.
"He's using UAC technology…likely salvaged from Mars' remains," Samuel said to the Slayer, a bitter drone in his voice. "That's one more consequence of your recklessness."
"Not now," the Slayer growled.
Ridley aimed the Gauss Cannon behind him and fired, using the boost to close the distance between the two. The Slayer's jets flared to life, and he maneuvered out of Ridley's path as he readied the Paingiver. One quick lock later and a trio of rockets homed in on the soaring dragon, all three of which were destroyed mid air with a plasma beam from the beasts' maw. Ridley didn't lose a beat as he sailed upon his back. He kept the beam going, and adjusted his aim to carve into the Slayer. The marine quickly brought out the Chaingun's shield, and blocked the full force of the laser - the impact pushing him back at an incredible speed. He glanced behind him briefly to find that he was headed towards Earth in the distance - a re-entry wasn't something he was trying to accomplish in the middle of a fight. He brought out the Ballista, and shot to his left as his thrusters roared behind him. The maneuver was successful, correcting his course towards the ruins of Earth's moon - a remnant from one of many grand battles over the course of the demon invasion.
Ridley caught up to him, free arm outstretched to swipe the Slayer up again. This time, the Slayer readied a Blood Punch, and hit Ridley's arm back to where the bone snapped behind him. While Ridley was stunned, he readied another and gave the dragon a swift uppercut with his left, the force of which threatened to launch his adversary like a cannon. A thoughtful spread of his wings saved Ridley from such a fate, and he spun his body vertically to slice at the Slayer with his barbed tail. The Slayer boosted backward and grabbed a hold of the tail. He yanked Ridley off balance with both arms, and promptly swung him into one of many boulders that made up the chalky remains of the moon. Ridley crashed through it, spreading a cloud of white dust around him. The Slayer's Equipment Launcher had no need to adjust for gravity in the vacuum of space, which meant the grenade he shot from it went straight across toward his target. Ridley's tail smacked it away, letting it blow another rock into dust.
There was an Argent receptor built into his chest plate, same as the Slayer's. Ridley closed his eyes and grunted, and in seconds the snapped arm behind him healed good as new. When he opened his eyes again, for just a moment they glowed red with burning Hell, and a sick smile spread across his face.
"The Argent in his system seems to be supercharging a healing factor of some kind," Samuel observed.
Ridley landed atop a particularly sizable chunk of the moon.
"You know," he sneered, eyeing the Slayer. "With those big new shoulder pads of yours…you look a lot like her. You two seem to be hitting it off, hero."
The Slayer landed some distance away from him on the same rock, staring him down as they sized one another up. His boots aligned themselves with the mass of the rock - meaning solid footing, at least temporarily.
"I wonder what all she's said about me in your time with her…" Ridley pondered aloud. The Slayer hated that he could still communicate within the vacuum. He had half the mind to cut comms altogether, but he needed the line to remain open so Samuel or Samus could update him on the progress of their mission.
Samus. Ridley was one character she'd seldom mentioned in her stories…but the words she used to refer to him were telling of their relationship. Blight. Monster. Ghoul. Her eyes would fill with a ghastly bitterness in the few times she had recounted his presence, but much of their history remained enigmatic to him. As the Space Pirates' apparent leader, however, he could imagine what her feelings might be. Which made him wonder why the lizard was still alive.
"I can only imagine the colorful names she's painted me with. Me and her go way back, you know. Back when she was but a lowly child…lost her mommy, and her daddy, and her poor, defenseless mining colony, oh boo-hoo…"
He made a mock show of drying tears from his eyes.
"Then when she was older, she lost her roast chicken excuse for an adopted family…poor girl couldn't catch a break. And don't you know, I was there with her every step of the way?"
The Slayer's glare intensified, and he began reloading shells into the Super Shotgun.
"When she was all alone, when everything was crumbling down around her in a burning wildfire, I was there. I'll always be there, no matter how desperately she tries to crawl away from me. And one day, as the last drops of blood leak from her butchered wounds, when her bones have been ground to dust and the final sliver of her spirit leaves with one final fruitless gasp for air, I will be there."
The dragon broke into a cackling fit that halfway through seemed fueled with desperate rage.
"You took everything from her," the Slayer said, approaching Ridley slowly in a gait filled with avenging malice. He understood where her hatred for the Pirates came from. This menace was the face of so much of her pain, and much like his eternal enemy, utterly refused to die - mocked her with his continued existence.
"It seems I haven't taken everything yet."
With a swift blast of the Gauss Cannon behind him, Ridley became a speeding bullet, the tips of his wings having become daggers to rend the soldier into splatter across the stars. He instead caught an Ice Bomb head-on. Frost coated his body in an instant, locking his wings in place. The Slayer caught his freezing body with the Meathook as it passed by. He rooted himself to the ground, and swung Ridley down into the chunk of the moon they'd been standing on. The impact shattered the ice that covered Ridley's body, and the hunk of rock he'd been slammed through.
Ridley retaliated with a beam of plasma from his mouth, one the Slayer maneuvered around with the jets on his back and greaves. Again he fired the Meathook as he flew, this time at another chunk of the moon floating around them. He used Lucifer's Bane as a flail, recalling his duel with the Gladiator on Sentinel Prime, and brought the boulder down upon Ridley's skull, smashing his mouth shut. When Ridley opened his eyes again, the Slayer was directly in front of him, fist pulled back and alight with fire. The dragon took a hard right hook, one that spun him around in place, and then took a shot from the Slayer's legendary Super Shotgun directly into the chest. He flew back, crashing against another chunk of the moon and damaging his wings, before the Slayer shattered the improvised flail against Ridley's chest plate, and sent him through the rock.
Ridley spread his wings to stabilize himself, and in the process caught the slug of a ballistic weapon right in the heavily beaten Argent receptor on his chest. The energy crackled with red lightning as power temporarily leaked from his armor, and a wide-eyed glance at the Slayer revealed that suddenly, Ridley no longer felt like continuing this scrap for long. The auto-repair function in his chest plate was still in beta, and at this rate wasn't going to keep up with the Slayer's onslaught. If he got seriously injured, he was going to need biomass - and there wasn't a scrap of it out here.
As Ridley re-evaluated his options, he found a horizontal beam nearly as wide as him approaching, crackling with sundering force. He covered his body with his wings - revealing them to be just as potent energy shields against the Destroyer Blade. He charged a painfully bright atomic fireball in his maw and spat it at the Slayer, the glare throwing off his aim with the Heavy Cannon and forcing him to block the attack with the Chaingun's shield. In that time, Ridley spread his wings again as missile launchers all around his armor opened up. They fired in a hellish barrage as Ridley cackled, arms spread wide as homing death swarmed all around him, leaving crackling Argent trails in their wake as they converged on the Slayer. He kicked his jets into high gear, and flew in between rocks and borderline asteroids as what was left of Earth's moon was further brought to ruin.
The Slayer turned back with fury in his eyes, and a very big gun in his arms. Ridley saw the green light erupt from where the Slayer had been, and saw said green light devour everything Ridley had fired. The big man rarely felt the need to bring out his ace in the hole…to some extent, Ridley felt honored. He'd have to take this fight further some other time…it was getting every ounce as exciting as his bouts with Aran, which also meant that it was time to go.
With a barking screech, an Argent Portal opened up in front of Ridley, and swallowed the BFG shot whole - corrupting it with a searing red infusion of unstable Argent. Another portal opened at the Slayer's back, and for the first time, he felt what it was like on the receiving end of that nuke in a can. His body withstood the Argent tendrils that attacked him like lightning and attempted to boil him alive. The blast was the concerning part - as upon impact, most of the Praetor attachments the Slayer had developed were heavily damaged. Worse yet, he was now careening toward his adversary in an environment that was becoming increasingly annoying to maneuver.
Ridley was all too aware of the Slayer's predicament, and aware of the fact that his wings were giving out. At this rate, they'd both be screwed, and something told him his odds weren't as favorable anymore. He capitalized on the opportunity and swiped the Slayer up within his grasp yet again. He burned a trail across space as they entered Earth's gravity, one of his wings giving out as they were engulfed in a blaze of fire. They entered the sky and tore through the clouds, and the Slayer wasted no time in dealing as much damage to Ridley as possible. The Flame Belch activated, and stayed active as the Slayer routed the suit's power toward the Equipment Launcher. It burned with an unnatural, unholy fire that not even Ridley's incredibly thick hide was resistant to - especially not after the beating it had taken. His face was broiled, his flesh bubbling from his skull and melting down cybernetics and bone. Halfway into re-entry, Ridley finally had enough and opened another Argent portal, throwing the Slayer into it full-force as he crashed into the ocean.
. . .
The Doom Slayer incidentally liquified several imps and lesser demons as his momentum transferred horizontally from the portal he'd been spat out of. When he'd caught his footing, it was with his boot crushing a Hell Knight's neck, and as he slid to a halt, the demon's head was ground into a smearing waste. He looked up, and around him, quickly taking in his surroundings.
Dead center of an island, surrounded by lava on all sides. Temples dotting the land, and the unmistakable eyesore of that fiery blue hell crystal…this had to be Mt. Erebus.
The sky, however…he didn't remember being so blue.
"That…is not from our world," Hayden said gravely.
The monstrous celestial body of Phaaze hung like a tumor in Hell's endless skies above. Its abhorrent visage tainted everything around it, a sickly blue hue leaked from its atmosphere and spread across the plains. At intervals, the whole planet would lurch in the sky, and let loose gargantuan, living meteors across the infinite hellscape beneath it. The speed at which they reached their targets was incredibly concerning…even more so when the planet seemed to have taken notice of the Slayer's presence. He could feel it looking at him in a way completely alien to him. He knew what was coming next.
"I need out of here," the Slayer grumbled to Hayden. From his command station upon the Fortress of Doom, Hayden had been able to open gates at his position just as VEGA did, to keep him on the move.
"I can't get the portal to lock on - the radiation coming from that planet is interfering. You NEED to get to cover, quickly!"
The Slayer saw the devastation the other meteors wrought upon Hell's landscape - he wasn't about to avoid this. Phaaze shifted again, and sure enough, with a cold, sickly blue flash, a Leviathan was shot like a bullet straight at Mt. Erebus' peak. The Slayer booked it toward the centermost temple - the idea of a similar tomb being all too familiar to him….and then it hit.
. . .
The ocean practically erupted, a geyser of seawater giving way to brief rain as the astral body plunged beneath its depths.
The dragon hadn't the opportunity to correct his re-entry on account of the Slayer razing his flesh to gooey slag. He couldn't remember the last time he'd taken a landing as harsh. He wasn't going to remember much of anything if he didn't find a god damned meal.
At the seabed, there was plenty of fauna to gorge upon. Schools of fish that wandered too close to the borderline corpse. Sharks that picked fights they were certain they could win.
I am a god damned killer. There's no reason I should be scrounging for scraps at the bottom of the ocean.
He eyed a shadow cast overhead. It was a boat. Based on the shape and size…must've been transport. ARK, moving refugees and survivors.
That was more like it.
. . .
Mt. Erebus was gone.
The temples were gone.
All that remained was a seed…a disgusting infection even by Hell's standards, rapidly spreading throughout the crater it had left, and poisoning the land around it.
An arm punched through the mound of rubble that had been made of what resided there. It belonged to a hero. Incorruptible. Unyielding.
Beneath his skin, an intrusion danced with the Argent Energy in his bloodstream. A great poison attached itself to the man's lifeline…a host beyond any it had resided in before.
"You survived…" Samuel said, not entirely surprised…and yet there was worry in his voice.
"But there's something…irregular about your readings. You need to find a Slipgate and come back to Fortress. We need to find Aran."
The Doom Slayer dug himself out of the pit he'd been buried under, and glanced around the newly born impact crater. Hairs and tendrils grew out of the rapidly mutating land. The Geiger counter in his suit was going off. He took a cursory glance into what resembled a large, bulbous blue eye that had sprouted from one of the many biological growths spreading through the land. Its flesh was reflective.
The Argent receptor on his chest was a different color…an eerie, ghastly purple. The Praetor Suit felt different…the energy running through it no longer felt like Argent. At least…not just Argent. A glance down at his arm, and the faintly glowing veins underneath confirmed his suspicions.
Something from that planet was inside of him.