Intruder

Ridley. That freak of nature. The only reason he got to lead the Pirates was his gross size and power. He couldn't think or plan like a real general. Not like me, Weavel thought to himself. He was storming down a corridor, fuming about his fellow leader. Ridley's word was the one they always had to follow. He always took the lead. Weavel had been a general longer than that monster had; he was definitely the more experienced. But still the dragon always got the gold and glory. It was unbelievable!

His thoughts were interrupted by an alarm, which began blaring throughout the dimly lit corridor.

"Intruder, on level 4. Intruder, on level 4."

What?! Who would dare invade a space pirate base? Weavel ran until he came to the end of the corridor, leading into a small observation room. There were several other pirates on duty, monitoring the movement of the invader. It was a strange being, wearing a golden armor suit. The helmet was a reddish color, with a green visor shielding the being's eyes. And on the right hand of the invader, there was a tremendous arm cannon.

Weavel watched the intruder as it moved along through the base. It didn't seem to be aware that it was being watched, but it also didn't seem to matter. An entire squad of pirates stood in front the being, all attacking it. But it was diving and rolling, blasting energy rockets and plasma shots into the crowd. Weavel stood in awe as the being managed to destroy all twelve of the soldiers it faced.

"Incredible", he muttered to himself. "How long has this thing been in the base?"

One of the techs quickly responded.

"General Weavel, we've been monitoring the intruder's progress for about 20 minutes. That's when the scanners first detected it. We have no idea how it managed to get so far into the base before Mother Brain sensed it."

"Interesting. Some sort of stealth warrior. I wonder what it could possibly think it will do here. It has no back up that has been detected, does it?"

"No General, nothing. It appears to be all alone."

Weavel's wicked mouth curled into an impressed smile. Whatever this being was, it had guts; that's for sure. To try to attack a pirate base was suicide; but to do it all alone? That was something that no one had ever even considered before. His thoughts where interrupted by one of the techs.

"General, the intruder is heading towards Mother Brain!"

Weavel looked at the image the tech was indicating. It showed a map of the entire facility, and the route the intruder was taking. It was leading to Mother Brain, but there was something in its way. It had to cross through Ridley's chamber, a special cage built especially for that monster. Weavel amused himself for a moment with the thought that the intruder would be able to get passed the dragon, maybe even wound it. That would bring great humiliation to it, maybe even allow him to finally overthrow that abomination.

"Sir, we've been running scans of that suit through our data base, and it didn't match with anything."

"So it's custom made?"

"Well, no. After our database didn't turn up anything, I sent the data to Mother Brain for complete analysis. It turned up a hit. The suit appears to be of Chozo origins, but fitted for a human. The Brain says there was only one of these ever made, and it was designed for a girl that the Chozo were raising.

"How does that thing know all of this?"

"Because sir, they were raising the girl here when we invaded. Mother Brain knows her."

"Unbelievable. Is it possible that this is the same girl, back for a revenge or some other such foolish notion?"

The tech began punching information into his computer, and then turned back with a response.

"Mother Brain says that the girl was never found. It's highly probable that she did manage to somehow escape, and that this is her."

"Angry prey is often times the most deadly, and may even end up hunting you."

"Sir?"

"What is it now?"

"You had better see this."

Weavel leaned over the tech's shoulder again, to view what it was he was pointing at. He was expecting the intruder to be destroying something, or maybe even getting killed, but nothing could have prepared him for what he was seeing now.

The intruder had made it to Ridley's chamber, and had woken the beast. However, he was flying around attempting to catch the avenger, but she was just too quick. She fired at the dragon again and again, sending plasma shots into the dragon's mouth every time it lunged at her; then diving out of the way just in time.

Finally, Ridley managed to grab her in his talons. The intruder still struggled, but it didn't matter. The fight was over now. Still, she had put up quite an impressive fight; Weavel was shocked that she had survived as long as she had. He was about to walk away from the vid feed, when suddenly Ridley let out a roar of pain, loud enough that Weavel could almost hear it right through the walls of the base.

The beast was writhing around, clutching the hand that had been grasping the intruder. As for her, somehow, she had managed to curl up into a tiny ball, and apparently did something that had severely hurt the bigger beast's hands. Then the ball began to roll away from the wounded dragon, then uncurled and stood up again. The dragon came back to its senses after a moment, and saw the intruder standing defiantly in front of it. Ridley let out a tremendous roar; then lunged once more at her. She stood still, till the space dragon was nearly on top of her, and then she raised her arm. There was a pulsing glow at the tip of the cannon. Ridley roared one more time, this time with surprise, as the overcharged energy rocket blasted into his mouth, down his throat and deep into his body. His hard scales where enough to contain the tremendous blast, but it shredded his insides. The dragon looked over at the woman, who was now standing next to him with another overcharged rocket ready. The beast didn't do anything else; it couldn't even breathe without its lungs anymore.

...

The techs didn't even notice that Weavel had left the room. He was now tearing down the halls of the fortress as fast as he could. He still couldn't believe what he had seen. The great space dragon was dead!

This had all kinds of repercussions for him. He would now be the top general. He would now have the responsibilities. Which meant if this being managed to escape, he would take the blame.

"Great," he mumbled to himself. "What a time to take over the dragon's job".

Weavel rounded another corner; then went still. He was close to Mother Brain now. The computer didn't mean anything to him; but high command wouldn't be too pleased if it was destroyed. Plus, this was the perfect place for an ambush.

He didn't have to wait long. The mysterious warrior came in after about five minutes. Weavel was waiting behind a stack of crates, using the wicked blade on his arm as a mirror to watch the intruder. She was coming closer and closer to his location.

Just another foot, he thought to himself. There! He took the intruder completely by surprise. His blade met hard steel as he tried to go for a quick decapitation, but missed. The warrior was surprised for less than a second, and had moved to take the attack on her shoulder armor. She then brought her arm cannon up into Weavel's stomach and let out a burst of plasma. It sent the general stumbling back, but he managed to get control of his feet, and dove behind one of the crates that were sitting in the hall.

Weavel quickly assessed the wound in his gut. It was radiating pain, but it wasn't fatal, so he still had a chance. The intruder was firing plasma rounds into the wall over his head, showering him with fiery sparks. He waited a moment to fully power up his own plasma rifle, cursing himself for not doing it earlier instead of waiting for a blade kill. This was NOT the time to worry about gaining honor, this was survival.

He leapt out from the crate, firing his gun towards the warrior. She dove herself to avoid the fire, but kept up her own barrage. As she hit the ground, she seemed to curl up into a ball, but it was obviously armored and gave her extreme mobility. Weavel fired again and again trying to hit her, but she was rolling around too fast for him. She came extremely close to the general, but quickly veered away as he began pouring fire into her.

He didn't even notice the small blue sphere next to him until it was too late. She had stood back up, but didn't turn to fire at him, just turned and looked right into his eyes through that cold green visor. Weavel was unnerved by this for only a second, quickly raising his arm to fire the killing shot. But that's when the force of the blast hit him, and the fire that followed as the blast hit the crates, igniting their fragile contents. Over and over the general tumbled, the pain was now gone, he couldn't feel anything. His world, was now black.

...

Light was now returning, but what was that standing over him? Where was he? His memory was as blurry as his vision. He finally realized that it was a space pirate hovering over him.

"The general lives!" it hissed.

Weavel couldn't feel the hands that reached down and lifted him unceremoniously, but he knew that he wasn't dead yet. Not yet.