//------------------------------//
// Chapter 44: The Generators And The Leviathan 
// Story: Harmony of Heroes: Ultimate Multiverse Explorers 
// by Lucar 
//------------------------------//

The coordinates given by the AU indicated that Sweetie Belle and Samus' objective was not far after the chasm with the streams of Fuel Gel they couldn't pass earlier. With every obstacles already dealt with, all they had to do was to return to the crashed ship where they got the map while fighting their way through the local fauna.

It only took a few minutes and they were back at the chasm. After dealing with the Gel Puffers, they then froze the streams of fuel and used them to cross the chasm.

Their path was however quickly blocked by an inactivated golem and a wall. Thankfully, it was still functional and had a slot for Samus' Morph Ball. So Samus entered it and used a bomb to not only activate it, but also to take control of it. She then used it to destroy the wall behind it, opening the way only to reveal a hole behind it. Still using the golem, Samus looked back at Sweetie Belle and pointed down at the hole. Understanding, Sweetie Belle gave a nod before she jumped on the golem's shoulder, and Samus jumped down into the hole. After landing, she left the golem and the filly jumped from its shoulder before applauding.

"That was impressive! It was like an armor! Too bad you can't keep it."

"It would be too much of a hindrance," Samus replied before she fired an ice missile at a White Blast Shield that blocked the exit door.

Before they left, Sweetie Belle grabbed a Missile Expansion she had spotted in an elevated alcove.

They then entered a big court with a huge restrained war golem currently inactivated. Some Fuel Gel was in the room and could probably be used to burn the vines restraining the golem like they did back in the fiery region, but the vines were out of its reach. They had to find another way.

Killing a couple of Warp Hounds activated a Morph Bomb slot in front of the golem which activated it. The activated golem attempted to advance only to fail because of the vines. Its movements still managed to rip off a plate at the origin of one of the vines, revealing a core supplying said vine with Fuel Gel. An explosive beam was all it took to make it explode and burn the vine.

Another core was found at the end of a small tunnel where they had to freeze a stream of Fuel Gel to reach it. A third vine was burn by igniting a small spout of Gel Fuel up in a wall, and the fourth vine had its core behind a weakened section of wall that was destroyed with a missile.

With the four vines destroyed, the golem was freed. A last bomb reactivated it, and Samus quickly had to leave the control unit as the golem grabbed it and inserted it in a wall behind it. The portion of wall then retracted to leave a U-shaped stonework while a hole with a tunnel to a door was left where the unit had been. The golem then placed itself against a wall at the left and permanently deactivated itself.

Sweetie Belle found it very sad.

Just as they reached the new door, Samus was contacted again by the AU who finally got information about Samus' conditions.

"It's as I thought. The Phazon in me overreacts after a few seconds of use with the PED," Samus told Sweetie Belle once the AU stopped the communication. With a shake of her head, she added, "I knew this was a bad idea... But the PED is apparently the only way to counter Dark Samus."

Sweetie Belle nodded. "If worst comes to worst and we need immediately to get rid of the seed in you, I can use Phazon. Still not sure how to safely destroy that seed in you however..."

She could feel it. She could feel its location inside Samus. She could destroy it. But the risk was to high and she was so inexperienced with that kind of stuff that she feared she would kill Samus if she tried anything. Since the fight with Rundas, she was trying to think of a way.

At least to save the other corrupted Hunters.

Samus gave Sweetie Belle a thankful nod at her words before they passed the door and entered a room with a large hole that was thankfully not deep. To reach the other side, they had to destroy some crystallised Fuel Gel, starting a chain of explosions on a golem that made its raised left arm to fall on an opposite golem. Said arm had a target for the grapple.

But before, Samus explored the hole and was able to find a hidden Energy Tank inside a broken golem arm.

With reaching the other side of the room, Samus could climb on the first golem before using its lowered arm as a bridge. Some platforming later and they had to destroy a pillar by blasting more crystallised Fuel Gel to burn vines to explode more crystals. Samus then used the grapple target under the destroyed pillar to continue her path to the top of the room, Sweetie Belle flying around to take care of the Gragnols bothering them. After destroying some debris blocking the path, they then entered the Federation site, reaching some backup cache of Federation weaponry.

Finally, they entered their destination: the Federation landing site, which was a hangar bay where missile racks to upgrade gunships weaponry were present, part of a central structure. But first, they had to be retracted to allow the ship to land.

However, just as they were about to do so by activating the control terminal beside the landing pad, a security lock-down suddenly began, causing the hatches at the top of the room to close, and also the central structure and the terminal to retract. The reason was the sudden appearance of Reptilicus Hunters with their Warp Hounds.

First came the hounds who warped on the pad, two of them. Samus was the first to kill hers with some ice missiles which were their weakness, Sweetie Belle waited for hers to come close before she fired into its mouth a piercing beam that came out of its skull, killing it instantly.

Then came the Reptilicus Hunters who were four. Sweetie simply grabbed two of them and smashed them together, opening their skull, before she let the Hunter have her fun with the two remaining ones. Samus' combo ice missile plus charged beam revealed to be terribly effective against them, and the Reptilicus were dead before they knew it.

With the Reptilicus and their hounds dead, the security lock-down ended, letting the terminal rose back up, but the hatches were still closed.

There was an elevator that could be used to reach a pair of air conducts big enough for the Morph Ball to enter. However, they led to a control room with no way to open the hatches from here. Instead, Samus removed an energy cell, powering down a shield that blocked the access to an orange-shielded door.

"Let me guess. Orange means that you must use something hot to pass it," Sweetie guessed.

"You are right, but I currently have no such beam. Ghor... Ghor has a plasma beam from what I know," Samus said gloomily.

"Of course..."

Sweetie Belle hoped they will be able to get the upgrade without Ghor dying. Thankfully, he was on another planet so Sweetie still had time to think of a way to avoid the worst.

The switch to open the hatches was in another control room further up. They guessed that they could use the central structure, racks and all, as platforms to reach the control room, but instead of losing time, Sweetie Belle decided to just teleport in the control room to use the switch herself. With the hatches open, Samus could finally call her ship.

Once the ship was here, she then used the terminal to reveal the central structure and activate it to finally upgrade the ship with missiles.

At last, they could destroy the generator in the fiery region.

"Oh, this will be good!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed.



The passage in the fiery region was rather quick. While it was revealed that the transportation shaft didn't work from the hallway with the statues of the emperors, they still could use the shortcut with the broken pillar and the grapple targets to rapidly return to the generator. In their absence, the pirates placed troops to defend the place, and the girls had to fight their way through drones and troopers, but they barely slowed them down. It wasn't some sentinels that will scare them.

However, upon reaching the temple where they fought Rundas, they had the bad surprise of discovering that the pirates were building a cannon and had also built two jamming beacons to prevent remote control of ships. Thankfully, they arrived before the cannon could be finished, but the beacons were defended by some armored aerotroopers very annoying to target. Worst, they also placed a solid clamp that blocked the elevator to the generator.

Instead of directly fighting the annoying pirates, Samus and Sweetie Belle got the idea of deactivating the jamming beacons so Samus could call her ship and test her new toys. The ship came and fired its missiles at the pirates and everything they built, cannon, jamming beacon, and clamp, destroying and killing everything.

"Woooh!!! Take that you stupid pirates! You can't stop us!" Sweetie Belle shouted. "I wonder if I should also install missiles in my ship."

"You have a ship?" Samus asked in surprise.

"Yep! And a smart one! Not sapient, but it can take decisions, like it decided to make me its captain. A really great ship with space distortion so it is bigger inside than outside, so it can serve as a second home. Or a third home, I guess. I'm sure you will see it one day."

"I wouldn't mind taking a look at it. Maybe I could take inspiration from it to improve my ship."

"Well, the cockpit definitively needs more space."

"I never needed more space. But that space distortion technology could be useful to add more systems without compromising the efficiency of its small size. Not even the Chozo had something like that."

"The civilization that built that ship was very, very, VERY advanced. We still have a hard time reverse engineering their stuff despite everything we have, and the only man who managed to do it sadly died taking with him everything he discovered."

Sweetie sounded very upset at this last part.

Samus decided to not press.

They took the elevator and, eventually, after dealing with more drones, reached the room letting them see the generator. And after killing the two pirates in it, Samus called her ship and made it bombard the generator, destroying it. The shield around the Leviathan flickered for a few seconds as a result, but it wasn't enough to put it down.

Still, one generator down, one left to go.

In the jungle.



The path back to the ship was uneventful. Only a well-armored pirate with a frontal handshield in the temple managed to resist more than ten seconds against them.

Samus flew her ship to the only accessible landing pad in the jungle which was like they saw from the cliffside region, a jungle of thorns with giant vines, the weirdest flora Sweetie ever saw until now, and also the most intimidating.

Barely they arrived and passed the first door that they were ambushed by a pirate entering Hypermode, rendering everything non-Phazon less effective.

Beheading it was still very effective.

Another pirate in Hypermode followed only to last just as long.

On the path, in the walls, there were some crystallised Fuel Gel that, detonated, destroyed the rock around them. One such crystal revealed a secret path to the Red Blast Shield that guarded a vault containing an Energy Tank for Samus.

Back in the main path, an energy shield blocked the exit. They had to destroy some crystals to reveal a secret tunnel entrance for the Morph Ball leading to the terminal that powered it. By the same occasion, through a red forcefield like the one back in the fiery region, they saw a jamming beacon at the other side of the door, guarded by some pirates.

Once the shield was down and they passed the door, the pirates didn't last long. They weren't even armored.

And sweetie Belle promptly destroyed the beacon, letting Samus call her ship to destroy a huge gate blocking the way. Three pirates came from behind the destroyed remains. One revealed to be resistant to beams, one to missiles, and there was a huge one heavily armored with Phazite plating.

Sweetie Belle left Samus taking care of the big one while she dealt with the small ones. The big one was pretty much invincible to everything excepted his own Phazon attacks that Samus had to fire at to send them back at him. He was a real beast, not hesitating to throw his own comrades at Samus with such forces that they exploded upon crashing. As the two first small ones were killed, one by Sweetie and one by the titan, more small, normal pirates came as reinforcement only to quickly be killed by the filly or to serve as projectile for the huge berserker. Eventually, the berserker's plating was destroyed, leaving him vulnerable to beams, and Samus was able to kill him.

"This. Is an example of how far the pirates are willing to go to reach their goals. They don't hesitate to turn themselves into near mindless beasts using anything they have, here being the Phazon," Samus explained to Sweetie Belle.

"Yike..."

"They are ruthless even to their own kind. Failure easily means death for them. They experiment without care, exterminate whole populations, take over planets and make them theirs by destroying all traces of previous civilizations they can find when they don't just steal their technology... They are powerful and can be very cunning, even giving the Federation trouble as you could see. They really are the worst scourge of the galaxy, although Dark Samus and the Phazon are getting pretty close. And you haven't met their leaders yet. Real monsters of the worst kind."

Sweetie Belle could only agree. She fought a lot of monsters that could be qualified as horrible, but none of them came close to what Samus was describing, excepted the Dark Matters but it was literally in their nature. And again, the Dark Matters didn't experiment on their own kind without care for their well being to reach their goal (unless that white one on Ripple Star was a result of such experiments? She wasn't sure) How could a whole species get that low?

Well, she couldn't complain. She expected to encounter horrors in her adventures. It came with the job of multiversal explorer.

But still, exterminating whole populations, meaning certainly whole planets, billions and billions of deaths...

She couldn't even start to process the full scale of the horror.

"You talked about Chozo survivors. Were they...?"

"Yes... The pirates exterminated them. Or at least, the ones that inhabited planet Zebes which was just a Chozo colony for researches. Only a few were able to escape, and Zebes became the pirates' main base of operation until I was able to neutralize them. I have no idea if there are other Chozo colonies still thriving. Each time that I find traces of Chozo civilization, I only find ruins. However, I don't know exactly where the Chozo survivors went. Even the ones who had been made prisoner on Zebes and that I rescued with two comrades went into hiding without telling anyone where they were going, wanting to keep the attention of everyone away from themselves. I heard however several reports of sightings."

"I would like to encounter one of these Chozo. You have no contact with any of them?"

Samus shook her head. "Not even with Old Bird, the one who raised me. I know he escaped Zebes, but I have no idea where he is. I hope to see him again someday before he dies of natural cause. He was very old last time I saw him."

"Maybe when the pirates will be gone for good."

"Yes, maybe..."

"Wait, you were raised by the Chozo? You were not just part of... like, some kind of program to create the ultimate warrior to face the pirates?"

This made Samus chuckle. "Yes and no. The Chozo raised me, and they took the occasion to make me, as you call it, "the ultimate warrior."" Her voice turned somber. "Because, despite the prosperity of the Milky Way Galactic Federation, violence and calamity continued to run rampant, and I knew that better than anyone."

...

"Your... home-people was also exterminated by the pirates? Your family? Your friends?" asked Sweetie Belle, understanding.

Samus remained silent, and it was all she needed to answer her question.

Wordlessly, the Hunter advanced, not minding the look of pity Sweetie Belle was now giving her.

Two homes. She had two homes, two peoples, and the pirates destroyed and took everything. And despite all this, she was still fighting. Sweetie Belle gained a lot of respect for Samus. The filly wasn't even sure what she would do if the same happened to her.

As she flew to grab a Missile Expansion she spotted, Sweetie Belle internally promised Samus to make the pirates regret even existing.



After traversing a walkway with some walking space pirate drones called Crawltanks, they entered a field with two falls of Fuel Gel where two aerotroopers attempted to stop them. While Samus attacked one with her ice missiles (which homed in the target making it easy despite the aerotrooper's speed), Sweetie Belle grabbed the other by his leg with her magic. The pirate attempted to escape by using all the power of his jetpack. Unknowingly, Sweetie Belle slowly turned him to he faced a wall before she suddenly released him, and the pirate ended up flying head first right into the wall, killing him right there.

Then, a huge insectoid creature with long back legs, blade-like and bent fore-limbs, a horn on the head, two other horns on the jaw, Phazite plating on the skull, and a pirate riding it came and attacked them. The pirate himself was armed with a spear that could fire continuous beams of Phazon energy.

The creature, called a Korakk Beast which served as cavalry for the pirates, quickly revealed to have a strong shell that protected it from beams and missiles, so this meant that Sweetie Belle had to use more powerful attacks than usual to hurt it. Her swords worked well, and she quickly killed the rider. Samus, meanwhile, targeted the mouth which was more vulnerable. When she had the occasion, she turned into a Morph Ball and rolled under the Korakk where she used bombs to attack its underbelly, which was its weakness. The Korakk was apparently mutated by the Phazon because it could use Phazon-based attacks that were, as a result, very dangerous. At a moment, it tried to wrap its tongue around Sweetie Belle, but the filly sliced it with one of her swords, making the bug screech in pain and leaving it open for more bombs from Samus. This time, it made him extend his tail which Samus pulled with the grapple to force the Korakk to rear onto its backlegs in pain, leaving its underbelly exposed. Sweetie Belle took the occasion to finish the beast with her some powerful beams of Phazon.

The shield blocking the exit deactivated, and two more pirates came only to quickly die.

"You know, if I had been bigger, you could have climbed on my back and we would have turned this fight into a joust," Sweetie  Belle joked, wanting to lighten the mood after the earlier discussion.

"I would have missed a lance."

"I could easily create you one. And now that I think of this, I can grow in size."

"Is there anything you can't do?"

"good question."

Samus chuckled. "I will think about this next time we encounter a Korakk."

At this, they passed the exit door and entered a walkway that served as a junction between the field they just left, a station like in the fiery region where Samus could recharge energy and ammunition, and the room where the second shield generator apparently awaited them.

So, after dealing with some flying drones and using the station, they passed the door to the generator room which looked very similar to its counterpart from the fiery region, excepted that there was one of these walls with numerous targets like they encountered once behind which was hidden another mural that recounted how the Primals seemingly won the war and hunted the Lords of Science until only one of them survived. The last Lord of Science, the one who created this mural and all the previous ones, then finally took the old advice of the Chozo and allied Magic and Science (old and new) to create some mighty special-Mogenars (Mogenar being apparently the name of the various golems they encountered) to protect himself. The mural depicted the silhouette of one such golem.

In front of the mural, there was also a Missile Expansion that Samus took.

However, as they advanced to finally see the second generator, they discovered a bad news: the generator was protected by two cannons that stopped any attempt to destroy it with Samus' ship. And of course, the Aurora Unit decided to call to state the obvious: the cannons needed to be destroyed so the ship could have a clear shot on the generator.

"Thank you Captain Obvious," sweetie Belle muttered.

However, the paths to the two cannons, at the left and at the right, were blocked by closed hatches.

Thinking that they needed to backtrack to find a way to open them, Sweetie Belle and Samus were about to leave when an Invincible Blast Shield blocked the exit, and the hatches opened to let enter two armored pirate troopers that were promptly killed.

The hatches remained open.

The pirate troopers weren't smart at all, uh? They could have just left the hatches closed to make the cannons impossible to reach.

"Should we separate so we each destroy a cannon?" Sweetie Belle proposed.

"Do as you want."

"Alright, then I take the left path and you take the right."

Samus accepted and moved to the right door while the filly went to the left one.

It turned out that the left path would have been a dead end for Samus. The room had two levels, and the second level was too high to reach with a jump and had no access to it. But it was no problem for Sweetie Belle who simply flew while dealing with a drone and a pirate present here. In a conduit, she spotted a Missile Expansion for Samus that she took before she passed the exit door which was of a different design, certainly space pirate.

Walking down a hallway with a short elevator, she reached the cannon. An aerotrooper spotted her and shouted to another who was pulling a lever, "It's the Hunter's pet!" The other finished to pull the lever, activating a clamp to lock a cylinder under the cannon, and went to pull another only for Sweetie Belle to fire at his jetpack. The jetpack exploded with the pirate as a result, but more aerotroopers came to finish the job and pull the remaining levers while the one who first spotted her attacked her directly to serve as a distraction.

A distraction that didn't last long.

But it was enough time gained for the pirates to pull the levers and activate two more clamps on the cylinder, making it a total of three clamps. Done with their task to protect the cannon's weakness, the pirates all began to fire at her.

No matter how many she killed, more came, the pirates NOT wanting her to destroy the cannon. Rolling her eyes, Sweetie belle decided to stop playing around and simply pulled the three levers at once with her magic, deactivating the three clamps and retracting the cylinder, exposing another clamp under the cannon that could be pulled. Once pulled, the clamp made three tanks of Fuel Gel come out of the base of the cannon.

It wasn't hard to make them explode, short-circuiting the cannon's system and making it explode as a result.

Seeing that they failed, the remaining aerotroopers attempted to fly away, but Sweetie Belle stopped them with her magic, leaving them no chance.

She knew that letting them escape was a bad idea. They would just come back another time or go to do untold horrors on another world. Space pirates had to be permanently neutralized at the first occasion given.

Once she dealt with them, she wondered what to do next. She could return to the generator room, but she could see another path that she could explore, and Samus wasn't done with her cannon yet.

She decided to explore the unknown path, discovering fungus of Phazon that spread the corruption ever more.

She destroyed them.

She then passed a door and followed the path, destroying shielded drones. At a moment, she discovered a Reptilicus corpse embedded with shrapnel not far of a round device on the ground. Firing a beam at it revealed that it was a pirate proximity mine, the first one she ever saw although she heard of such weapons from Susie.

Just after she destroyed the mine and just as she fought more shielded drones, she heard a big explosion from the direction of the second cannon, indicating that Samus was finally done. So Sweetie Belle quickly destroyed the remaining drones and flew to join her friend.

She reached her just as she finished a last armored pirate trooper beside the remains of the second cannon.

By the same occasion, she saw that the path she had been exploring was leading to a small building behind the generator, and a similar path started from the second cannon, so if Sweetie had continued to explore, she would have still eventually joined Samus.

"Hey, Samus!" the filly began as she landed beside the Hunter. "This path over here leads to a building, and then loops back to the generator room passing by the cannon I destroyed. I haven't explored the building yet, so we should do it and see if there's something interesting for you before we destroy the generator. Also, here's a Missile Expansion for you."

"Thanks, and I agree."

The building revealed to contain a expansion for the ship's missiles, meaning that Samus will be able to call the ship for bombing more without having to recharge its ammunition.

While returning to the generator room, as they passed by the remains of the cannon that Sweetie destroyed, Samus pointed at a generator at the Northeastern part of the area and said, "There's a secret path in this way which is the path that would lead back to the cliffside region. But it seems that we will need to move that generator."

"How?"

"Not sure, but we will certainly find a way."

At this, they finally returned to the generator room and Samus was able to call her ship, destroying their target and taking with it the shield protecting the Leviathan.

At last, the path to the Leviathan was open, as the Aurora Unit stated in her following communication.

So they returned to the ship back at the landing pad, having to fight their way through more pirate troopers and drones, including the surviving crew of a small crashed ship that had apparently been caught in the explosion of the shield generator, and they took off, direction the Leviathan.



From up close, the Leviathan was truly huge, but without the shield, they had no problem entering it.

Sweetie Belle could feel the powerful energy of Phazon everywhere around her. It was almost overwhelming.

"Here we go, the first Leviathan," she said.

"Prepare yourself. There will probably be a powerful guardian protecting the core," Samus warned.

"Of course there will be one," Sweetie Belle replied with a roll of her head. It would have been to easy too have directly access to the core.

Samus was able to find a place to land her ship, and they started their exploration of the depth of the Leviathan, starting by jumping on a series of organic structures that they used as platforms to reach a ledge, without minding the giant parasitic fungus using the Seed for sustenance, the many Scorchbugs (insects feeding on Fuel Gel that exploded when shot) that crawled around, and the big glands that generated Phazon.

The core was the only thing that mattered to them.

They reached an organic door made of bone plates that was able to generate a blue shield like normal doors. How it was possible, they weren't sure, but it looked like Dark Samus - if she's at the origin of these Leviathans - ensured that the Leviathans could naturally copy some technologies.

Passing the door, they entered a narrow passageway partially made up of an almost transparent material made of Phazon that let them see more of the inside of the Seed. The passage itself had some organic masses blocking the way, which the girls had to fire at the core to destroy them.

They then passed a last door and entered the room of the core.

And immediately spotted the huge golem at the center, bathing in a fall of liquid Phazon. The fall was coming from the Seed's core itself, just above.

For Sweetie Belle, the golem was easily the size of a building, and it had a reptilian appearance (like all the golems). Its body was constituted of several plates between which they could see Phazon energy. From where they were, facing the front of the golem, they could see three round slots, one on each shoulders and one on the belly. Finally, the last remarkable feature was that this golem possessed three eyes.

Sweetie Belle and Samus jumped down from the ledge they were which triggered the golem's activation to defend the core. At the same time, four red orbs appeared on pedestals all around the room, and the golem projected immaterial green hands to grab them and place them into the slots. Seeing there were four orbs but only three visible slots, it probably meant that there was another slot at the back of the golem which reminded Sweetie of Void's titanic form.

In its movements, the golem really seemed sentient. It even roared.

Samus scanned it, but it wasn't hard to guess what this golem was.

It was one of these special-Mogenar golems that the last Lord of Science created using magic and technology to protect himself from the Primals.

Twilight would go nuts at such a marvel, too bad Sweetie and Samus had to destroy it.

Samus' scan revealed, although it could have easily been guessed, that the red orbs were energy sources, and thus, were the golem's weakness. However, the scan revealed that, where the orbs' outer shells could be destroyed normally, the insides made of Phazon energy were invincible to everything but Phazon, so Samus will have to enter Hypermode to destroy them.

The slots closed as the Mogenar jumped, creating a shockwave of Phazon upon landing that Sweetie Belle and Samus had to avoid by jumping. The slots opened just at it landed, only to close again as the golem then raised a foot, gathered energy, and stomped the ground, sending Phazon in a straight line which was avoided with a side jump. Again, the slots opened just after its stomp (and it even laughed at them!).

"The slots close when it is attacking," Samus concluded.

"Then we wait for it to finish its attacks and fire at the orbs."

Easier said than done. The golem attacked very often, leaving rather short openings for the girls to fire at the orbs. It loved jumping to create shockwaves, and to their surprise, it could even switch the front orbs between the slots (indicated by green energies departing from the slots and entering other slots). But still, between the two of them, it wasn't long before the first orb's shell was destroyed. Samus then passed into Hypermode and the two fired Phazon beams to destroy it for good.

This turned the golem serious as it then created Phazon crystals on its feet which generated some shield all over its body. These platings revealed to be only vulnerable to things like Samus' Morph Bombs. Thankfully, these shield-generative crystals seemed to limit the golem's attacks only to its jumping one and to a ramming charge. Waiting for it to charge was the best way to have a clear shot at the crystals (if they first dodged, of course), and before long, they were destroyed, and the girls resumed firing at the orbs.

They took a little more time destroying the Phazon energy of the second orb, and after a few jumps and a stomp, the golem sent its immaterial hands to grab two new orbs from the pedestals. Since the slot of the first orb was on fire and certainly unusable as a result, it was probably to regenerate the damaged one, so Sweetie and Samus fired at them. The new orbs were easily destroyed as they only had the red shell, and the damaged orb quickly followed. Again, the golem created Phazon crystals at its feet for protection, but like before, they were rapidly destroyed although the golem jumped more often.

The third orb was much harder to destroy. The golem used new attacks, starting by violently punching the ground in front of it to make Phazon rocks fall all over the room, the rocks creating small shockwaves upon impact. Sweetie Belle immediately took to destroy them with Phazon beam before they could crash, making it easier for them. After this, it began to send the green energy that it used previously to make its immaterial hands, probably the Primals' magic, as energy balls or as hands to attack them. They could be destroyed, so Sweetie Belle took this job so Samus could focus on targeting the last frontal orb. However, the slot closed more often, even when the golem wasn't attacking, which made the whole process even longer. At least, when they had the occasion, they also attacked the orb at the back.

But then, the golem fired from its mouth a laser of Phazon. Samus saw a chance and fired an ice missile at it, frozing the mouth, stunning the Mogenar, and leaving the orb vulnerable. They both took the occasion to finally destroy the red shell, and once only the Phazon energy remained, Sweetie Belle immediately began to fire Phazon beams at it before the slot closed.

The Mogenar suddenly jumped toward them. Sweetie Belle had to teleport while Samus used her Morph Ball to rapidly move out of the way before she morphed back to normal and jumped to avoid the shockwave. The Hunter then had to do a backflip to avoid the golem's fist as it tried to punch her while it sent several magic balls at Sweetie Belle. When the slot opened after that series of attacks, Samus turned into Hypermode again and destroyed the third orb, only leaving the fourth one at the back.

After another phase where they had to destroy Phazon crystals at the feet, the girls then proceeded to destroy the back orb which they had already damaged. By now, the Mogenar seemed to have lost so much energy that it could now mostly attack only with charges and jumps, but it still could use the other attacks from time to time, but not as often as before. Thanks to this, the fourth orb was rapidly destroyed, red shell and Phazon energy.

The Mogenar almost immediately began to glow blue, its body breaking down and the Phazon escaping, before it began to explode. This expelled a huge quantity of Phazon, some of which ended up absorbed by Sweetie Belle and Samus. While this did nothing to Sweetie Belle who immediately got rid of it and any bad effect it caused on her, Samus didn't have that chance. Samus began to glow blue, and Sweetie Belle could feel the Seed within her grow a little. When the glow faded as the Mogenar finally exploded, Samus' Suit had changed a bit, its orange parts taking a darker shade, its visor turning blue while keeping some green, and glowing veins of Phazon with Phazon energy coursing them appeared in the joints.

Samus fell on her knees and Sweetie Belle ran to her screaming, "Samus! Are you alright? Are you still yourself? Do you need me to destroy the Seed in you?"

Samus silenced her with a stopping sign with her hand before she made the helmet of her Suit disappear, revealing her face, her long blond hair held in a ponytail excepted for two fringes at the sides and her blue eyes, to the filly for the first time. Then, after taking some big breathes, she vomited some Phazon. Even knowing that it would do nothing because of the Suit, Sweetie Belle put a hoof on her back as a show of support as she waited.

When she stopped throwing up, Samus took some more big breathes before she looked at the filly. Seeing her worried expression, she gave a reassuring smile and said, "Don't worry, I'm alright."

"Are you sure?"

"I will need to run a diagnostic once I return to my ship, but despite everything, I don't feel any effect of Phazon poisoning or corruption. I'm still myself. I don't think that the destruction of the Seed in me is needed yet."

"If you say so..." Sweetie Belle wasn't entirely convinced, wanting to wait for this diagnostic to settle her worry.

Samus gave the filly a pat before she put back her helmet and turned to look at a new upgrade that the Mogenar left behind after it exploded, one for the Morph Ball apparently and that concerned the Hypermode. A scan of it called it the Hyper Ball.

She took it.

Samus immediately demonstrated what it did as little growths sprouted a little everywhere on the ground, Sweetie Belle flying away to avoid being hit. The Hyper Ball caused Samus to release Phazon as arcs of electricity that seeked targets at a small distance around her. All it took her was to roll around a bit and all the growths were destroyed.

The growths apparently served as locks that caused the appearance of a stream of Phazon that gushed into the Phazon core in the ceiling, summoning the creature that was the Phazon core itself out of it. It was nothing more than an insectoid-looking grey mass with mandibles around the mouth, a single big blue eye, feelers beside said eye, blotches of Phazon here and there on its body, and two antennae which, along with a large tube, went into the hole out of which it came.

"Ugh... That thing wins the prize of ugliest thing ever," Sweetie Belle commented.

Still in Hypermode, Samus began to float before she released to the core all the extra Phazon energy inside her. This overloaded the core, and as Samus began to leave, followed by Sweetie Belle who continued to watch, the core fell lifelessly to the ground before exploding.

They returned to the ship and flew away, letting the corpse of the Leviathan explode and collapse behind them as they left Bryyo.

First part of the mission completed.