"Of course, even getting back to the regular station proved to be a pain and a half," Samus continued, not pausing for any reactions. Her quickness in continuing the story conveyed the urgency the group felt when the events had originally unfolded. "The other exit from the restricted sector led into an area that rather closely resembled Tourian in atmosphere and appearance. Exposed cold metal, maze-like corridors without path deviations, pools of acid..."
"And X imitating the Mochtroids from Zebes, somehow," Spike added. "That was frustrating, especially since they were more durable."
"Not to mention many other highly durable X forms," Samus continued. "Including the golden armored Space Pirates from Tourian that could only be damaged from behind. Apparently, Ridley wasn't the only cloned survivor of Zebes. Thankfully, the X mimicking them weren't as intelligent or fierce as the originals."
"Which didn't exactly fill us with confidence when we encountered another Eye Door..." Spike explained, his voice growing hard.
Spike and Samus dropped down into the large chamber, landing lightly on the floor...and finding themselves face to face with what looked like Ridley. Neither hesitated as they readied themselves for fierce battle. Before them, Ridley's eyes opened, glowing red...and his body warped.
The form before them became bulbous and twisted, like a mockery of the mighty beast they were so used to fighting. The tail retained its strong striking power, but the claws and fangs were dulled. The wings were too small for the massive form, holding itself aloft by other means despite the flapping. The scales covering the body glowed blue, and the roar it let out was a shrieking cacophony without meaning. The fireballs it unleashed from its jaw were a pale echo of what the true Ridley had been capable of.
In his mind, Spike refused to even give this mock up Ridley's name. Calling it the R-X, he lunged after it, attacking its wings with claws and fangs, driving it back towards the ground as Samus unleashed her missiles. Seeing it tried to use its tail to deflect the missiles, Spike caught it with his hind claws, holding it out of the way to let Samus fire away unabated.
As the pair unleashed their devastating onslaught against the R-X, its scales slowly dulled from blue towards a deep red, its screams of pain echoing as it was slowly being torn apart. It attempted to put up a fight, but every time it turned towards Spike, it flinched back from the raw, unfettered rage in his eyes.
Before long, the creature crumbled away, revealing the X Core inside. Like with all others, the membrane did not hold long before releasing the X. Samus quickly absorbed it, regaining her Screw Attack.
Samus and Spike both paused in their telling to take a drink. Rainbow suddenly grinned wickedly. "So Samus, how did it feel to get Screwed and have some of Ridley inside you?"
Samus and Spike both spit their drink all over the table as others gasped in shock, cried out in frustration, or burst into laughter as was their wont. Samus leveled flinty eyes at Rainbow and leapt across the table at her, hands outstretched angrily.
"Yikes!" Rainbow yelped out, taking off at high speeds with Samus hot on her heels. It looked like she'd get away...until the Speed Booster kicked in. "Twilight, help!"
Twilight scratched her chin for a time. "...she won't hurt you too much..." She glanced towards Spike. "Right?"
Spike coughed cider out of the wrong pipe for a while before speaking up. "Nah, at worst she'll get her in a headlock or something."
"Then I don't need to interfere," Twilight concluded. "So, until Samus gets back from making Rainbow say Uncle...there's one more thing I'd like to know. How come you were so angry about the X mimicking Ridley? I mean, I get there was some sort of...dragon respect thing going on or something? But..."
"It's more than that," Ember spoke up. "A big defining quality for dragons is pride. Like the Metroids, we exist with a purpose. That purpose is ingrained instinctively in the mind of every dragon...in a way none of us can explain." She stroked the Bloodstone Scepter. "I can only really explain it this much...because the Bloodstone Scepter is made from the Bloodstone of our first leader, the first dragon to embody that purpose, and carries the wisdom of every dragon to wield it since. I...can't really come up with words beyond that, I'm afraid..."
"Protect the planet..." Spike murmured softly. "I...I remember those words in my mind, when I first took up the Scepter. I think...I think dragons are supposed to protect the planet itself, somehow."
"But from what?" Ember asked curiously.
"How about Phazon?" Gandrayda offered, causing every eye to swivel towards her. "I mean think about it. Phazon is lethal, not just to creatures but to planets as well, and it's been around for a long time, even if it's all gone now. And yet the dragons of this world can eat it without harm, and are built in such a way that it becomes an instinctive urge to hunt down and devour as much as they can out of a desire to get stronger? That doesn't sound like something that just happens. It...it sounds like somebody specifically designed the dragons to protect this world from Phazon...like the Chozo designed the Metroids to protect the universe from the X..."
"That...makes a frightening amount of sense," Samus spoke up as she walked back in, Rainbow trapped in a headlock in her elbow. "But there's never been a Chozo presence on this world, I checked. So the question becomes...who did that?"
Nobody noticed Discord hiding behind the tree chandelier, whistling innocently.
"Either way," Ember continued, "the idea of something pretending to be a dragon, and twisting that purpose...yeah, I can't really blame Spike for wanting to rip that thing to shreds."
Tats, you gotta know I love the amount of thought you put into your stories. Especially little pieces like this.
I read the description of the shriek and my ears started ringing......
Ehhh... DISCORD ???? REALLY ????
my guess is that discord did it, or he knows who did
A really neat idea. Good job.
My question now is how many chapters does it take Rainbow to slip loose??? And did she go to Rainboom speeds to escape Samus only to be Shine Sparked out of the air???
And good job Discord, even if you didn't mean to you've given this universe the means to defend itself and helped Samus out.
That was sick and wrong on so many levels Rainbow.
7381800 Somehow I don't think just watching an entire, promising world die or mutate severely from phazon explser would be all that fun for Discord.
not sure if should laugh or be disgusted
You know, now that I think about it I can't help but notice that Discord plays at least a relatively major role in a lot of the PWNY stories (or at the very least makes a major cameo). Not that I'm complaining, just making an observation.
Fortresshy - Was the one to form a portal to the TF2 world and help bring back Fluttershy
Dante's Apple Surprise - was presumably at least part of the reason Applejack got sent to the DMC world (an educated guess based on the ending bit with him and Sparda, but seems legit)
Batmare - The reason Rarity got sent to Gotham
Heart of the Dragon General - turns out to have ties to the Spirit World
There's Nopony I'd Rather Be Than Me - reunites Moony with Ralph and the rest
The Merc With the Moth - makes a brief cameo before saying "Nope, nope, all the nope" and getting out of there
And in this fic, he's apparently behind the design of Phazon-guzzling dragons. ...Which, admittedly, I could totally see him doing. You a fellow fan of him or something, Tats?
7381881
Honestly, I could see even pre-reform Discord bio-engineering the dragons to clean up Phazon. Mostly because Phazon killing the planet means he has nothing left to do but be bored, and that would not be something he would ignore, if nothing else because it interferes with his fun.
7381847
Also, he might have cleaned up the "Fossil Record", as it were. Helped the Space Birds get the Dragons set up, waved goodbye when they left, then physically swept all evidence of "First Contact" under an actual rug.
My Headcanon has always been that Discord is the MLP Universes Q, and that like the Federation from Star Trek, He's been testing the Ponies for their potential under the guise of a spirit of Chaos. Sure, he screws with them, plays them against himself and eachother, but if you Really think of it, He would have almost have had to LET the ponies beat him both times in the past, considering that he could have easily snapped his claw/paw and been somewhere else (if that even), and avoided the Rainbow Blast entirely.
But then there's the threats that the Ponies simply wouldn't be Ready to fight, no matter How much he might try to prepare them, and so rather than simply stepping in directly and ruining his carefully crafted persona as the Antagonist, he goes and does something sneaky behind the scenes to make sure they come through, if only barely, Space, Time and Causality be Ded...
I laughed when Samus began chasing Rainbow Dash Funny and adorable.
Discord's hiding something...
7381952 Or set something up so the threat wouldn't work in the first place, like the phazon-eating dragons.
Hee, I got a line that I think might be relevant for the current set.
"why do scientist keep messing with things they don't understand. "
" because they never want to admit that they don't understand anything. "
7381969 I understand that. Now to mess with it.
7381954
Yeah, Discord will spill the beans eventually!
...I just realized this is chapter 124...
That's some very interesting pride/respect integrated into their systems.
7382023
That's...A very true thought.
When the hell did THIS happen?
Makes sense that Discord would be the one to create dragons, actually. It gets more and more interesting the closer we get to the end.
7381959
7381854 How about spit take and just let Tats do his thing?
x100 OH MY GOD!! i cannot believe she just said that!! water just came out my nose and now it hurts. but it was worth it.
7382084 You know this goes right alongside Discord betraying the Mane 6 right after giving Twilight the key to beating Tirek. Think about that that for a moment.
7382268 How is this betraying them? If anything, this shows that Discord had the foresight intention to keep Equestrian safe from Phazon for, if no other reason, making sure the world he wanted to play with wouldn't be destroyed. If anything, this is like the Plunderseeds again, except this is positive.
That would have been interesting in the game. I suspect they can because since the Mochtroids are failed versions of real Metroids, they don't have what makes the real Metroids immune to the X.
Ah yes. Despite being bigger than Ridley, it's nowhere as tough as the Super Metroid version, that Ridley is smart, this one is just a mindless beast who can be taken out easily by spamming Ice Missiles and dodginh.
Oh boy!
And seeing that fake mockery of a real dragon, monstrous or not is probbaly enraging.
My guess, things like Phazon, since most creatures are either killed or horribly mutated by it while dragons can ingest it fairly safely.
Excellent question.
That, actually makes sense for someone as chaotic as Discord, he wouldn't want the planet to be ravaged by Phazon, back then, he viewed it no doubt as his toybox and didn't want anything ruining his fun and now, he has friends he wants to protect.
7382362
The 'X imitating Mochtroids' is straight out of the game. There's a room filled with X enemies as little blue and green gelatinous spheres that drain your health on contact, and fuse into bigger ones.
7382378
Oh right, those things.
7382337 That's my point. The more I look at Discord's betrayal back in Twilight's Kingdom, the more I realize that he didn't actually betray them. He joined Tirek to keep the centaur in check while Twilight used the Journal to figure out how to beat him. How else do you explain him betraying them right after giving Twilight the Journal?
The reason I connect it to this is that this chapter highlights the fact that Discord is just as big a protector of the planet as the Alicorns are. His methods are just more subtle, and keeps him free to enjoy some chaos on the side.
It's always been a theory of mine that Discord was never actually evil, and the reason he did his whole Chaos Capital of the World thing was to flush out criminals. If ponies were being nice and kind while they were under his Discordifying effect, well... what's that say about how they normally are? I wouldn't be surprised at all if Celestia and Luna capitalized on that revelation and imprisoned them depending on the severity of their maliciousness after Discord's sealing.
Truly, this guy is like Batman... but less Action Hero and more Backstage Technician. If that makes sense.
Ridley-X and Meta-Ridley tie for my favorite versions of his battle music.
What Could 7his Version Of Discord Be Planning/Have Planned For A Radically Long 7ime
7382406 Myself I'd actually describe him as being like Zero AKA LeLouch vi Britannia since they both play for "the long game" and hide their long term genius behind a mask of short term madness.
another great chapter keep up the good work
7382406 your headcanon is quite interesting
Who could it be? Another strange mistery of the universe...
Also, it make me think, if Discord created the dragons, could he re-create the metroids?
7382884 Probably not, it wouldn't make sense if he had all that much direct control over his magic, what with it being chaos magic.
7384782 Yeah... Control... Like when it make rain Chocolate Milk or eat the glass and throw the milk making it explode... That is not control.
7385714 I like Shirotora's explanation for Chaos magic and how it behaves. It's sentient. Unless what you're trying to do is to its liking, it won't listen.
7386507 And the chaos magic 'liked' to create dragons but not 'liked' to create more metroids?
7386695 We don't know if re-creating metroids was attempted or not, but I don't see why it wouldn't agree with that. Was just saying I liked Shiro's explanation because it'd make sense why control is lacking when chaos magic is involved.
7385714 Direct control. He could have just sort of "asked" his magic to spice things up, not specifying how.
7381844 Sick and wrong but oh so funny.
7381844
Yes It is !
Of course it was Discord
that figures