Can't Beat 'Em - A Fanfic by SimonBob

         She stops off at a little out-of-the-way bar on one of the inner planets, parking inconspicuously between a few other bounty ships, not taking her suit off until the landing ramp is extended; she's made that mistake before. Once the door is open, however, she feels safe again. The streets here are full of sentient beings who can talk, breathe, and laugh as easily as she can. And law enforcers to keep the damn pirates out.

         Her usual spot at the end of the bar is free tonight. The bartender knows her by sight now; he shuffles over with a mug for her and makes small talk, avoiding the subject of her dangerous missions. He knows she comes here to forget about that. In fact, out of all the life-forms in the bar, only the two of them know that she's the great bounty hunter Samus Aran. She's never been photographed out of her armored suit. There's a persistent rumor that she is no "she" at all, but is actually a male of her species who plays the part to hide his identity.

         A large, dragon-like creature wanders in through the large-creature entrance. He sits down morosely and orders a triple shot of fireball spacerum. The sound of his scratchy voice causes Samus to freeze. She glances in his direction out of the corner of her eye. Her fears are confirmed; it's Ridley, the former leader of what used to be the largest gang of Space Pirates, who apparently has been resurrected again despite being killed for the fourth time. Every one of his deaths has ben caused by a barrage of missiles from Samus, but somehow, he just keeps coming back.

         She tries very hard to be inconspicuous, wishing she could blend into the wall, but he turns and sees her, recognizes her for who she is even without the suit. She braces ferself for an attack that could come from anywhere: his sharp claws, his swift tail, or even his flaming-hot breath.

         He waves at her.

         That's all.

         Samus slowly untenses as she realizes that Ridley is harmless here. Of course he is, she tells herself. The cops would aporize him before he so much as raised a claw. She's just begun to wonder why that hasn't happened already when the bartender sidles up to her again.

         "The gentleman who has caught your eye wonders if he may buy you a drink," he says, as though giant lizards hit on humanoids every day. In fact, it's usually the other way around, due to the profound effect of alcohol on mammals.

         Samus hesitates. What is he up to, she wonders. Usually the most subtlety Ridley can muster is to hide in the shadows of a room she already knows he'll be waiting in. She glances at him again, but his attention is diverted; he's studying the bartop with the intensity of a being who knows his life as he knew it will never be the same again. They get that sort all the time in the bars. He looks almost... sad.

         With great difficulty, Samus convinces her legs to move, to stand up and walk over to him. She turns back halfway, telling herself it's just because she forgot her beer, and not because she can't believe she's actually walking up to the alien who keeps trying to kill her. Despite the instincts telling her to run back to the ship, put on her suit, and destroy the entire city block before Ridley gets away, she finds herself sitting next to him. From this close, without her suit's air filters, she notices something new: she can smell him. He doesn't have the same dirty smell that the pirates and their ships tend to have. Instead, he has a distinct sulphurish scent that reminds her of a hot spring she used to visit in her childhood. This unpleasantly reminds her that the planet she grew up on was completely destroyed by the large-scale explosive setup that the pirates used as a last-ditch effort to kill her, but she puts this thought into the back of her mind. She can brood later. Right now she has to watch out for any sudden movements.

         They sit in silence, Samus nervously sipping her beer, Ridley just staring at his empty glass. After a minute, Samus remembers that Ridley offered to buy her another drink. What the hell, she thinks, I'm probably going to die soon anyway. She drains the last of her drink in one smooth motion. Ridley immediately calls for another round from the bartender. He puts back his beer quickly and then starts to speak.

         "So I hear the government is putting me out of a job now." Samus nods slowly; it's true that the government has been breeding Metroids, but Ridley may not know that Samus recently sabotagued them by crashing their research satellite into the side of a planet. "I guess that's not a bad idea. They probably know what they're doing. Now that Mother's gone, I feel so aimless. She was always the brains of our operation. I just sort of bossed people around. Anyone could've done that."

         Samus twitches at the feeling of pressure on her wrist, then relaxes when she realizes she's just squeezing herself. Her left hand has involuntarily tried to switch her over to missiles, which is useless when she doesn't even have her suit's gun. Ridley doesn't notice, he just keeps talking. "After you beat me for the second time on Zebes, the guys still revived me, but they'd lost Mother's genetic code in the big explosion. None of us had a clue what we were doing, all the smart guys were dead, so we disbanded. I figured I'd just slide around the galactic hub for a bit, maybe go back home and see what my folks were up to, but the coppers picked me up out by SR388. I wasn't even gonna visit, I just had to pass through there to reach my homeworld, but they didn't listen. And then I got infected by the X. Asexual reproduction is a bitch. Did you say something?"

         Samus hears herself say, "No," even though what she's thinking in her head is please die you scumsucking pirate bastard. Ridley nods and goes back to staring at the bar. Asexual reproduction explains why Ridley is here, even though Samus thought she finished him off back on the research station; it wasn't him, it was a clone. She knows a thing or two about clones herself.

         "I came to a decision," Ridley says after a bit. "I knew the X wasn't gonna let me be me for long. So I made a deal with the scientists. They injected me with the synthesized Metroid serum."

         "And now what?" Samus finds herself asking. "You're on probation?"

         "...Not exactly."

         Now her curiosity is getting the better of her. "Did they just let you off? Really, what happened?"

         Ridley turns his head, embarrased. "You see those two guys in the corner..." She follows his gaze and sees two men sitting at a booth. She's about to berate him for changing the subject, but doesn't get a chance when Ridley leaps off his stool and grabs one of the men, ripping away a facemask to reveal one of the Siee brothers, who are two of the more notorious figures on the Galactic Federation's wanted list. The second man tries to flee, but is run through by the end of Ridley's tail like a harpooned fish. A swiftly-applied claw reveals him to be the other Siee brother. The two men struggle, but Ridley defiantly marches across the bar with them, ignoring the puny knives they try to stab through his rough scales with. He turns to Samus before leaving. "Yeah, that's right. I'm a registered bounty hunter now."

         Samus shivers. The Siee brothers had been wanted for about ten years now, but Ridley handled them like a pair of amateurs. Before he had been her enemy, but now he's her newest competitor...

         She turns to the bartender and orders a shot of the spacerum.