//------------------------------// // Chapter 17 - Finding the Truth behind the Matter // Story: Metroid, Displaced in Equestria // by Theyellowninja13 //------------------------------// "IT'S RIDLEY!" I yelled to Connor, who while he looked terrified a minute ago, was no charging at the dragon, who simply screeched in response. While he was distracting Ridley, I was steeling my nerves. I pointed my arm cannon at the dragon, and unleashed several powerful hyper beams at him. Ridley, while mostly focused on Connor, still somehow managed to block all my beams. I noticed Connor jumped on top of Ridley, and a bright flash appeared in Connor's hand, as he brought down a sword onto Ridley's back. 'Is that the master sword?" 'It does look like it.' Ridley screeched in pain, as Connor stuck his sword into the dragon, who was now jerking violently, trying to get the teenage god off his back. "Sam! Wave beam!" Connor yelled, struggling to hold on to Ridley's back. Instantly understanding his plan, I charged and fired several wave beams towards Ridley, and they all curved upwards and converged on Connor, who was now sparking with electricity. Connor brought his hands down on the master sword, sending all the electricity into Ridley's body. Ridley's started spasming wildly, and he fell to the ground, struggling to gain control of his body again. Connor took advantage of this, and grabbed Ridley's neck, before flying into the air, and pulling his head back so Ridley's chest is open. 'Of course the kid can fly.' Seeing Ridley's weak point open, I charged forward, delivering hyper beam after hyper beam into his chest. Eventually Ridley somehow released a major power surge, sending both Connor, the master sword, and I flying back. I safely caught myself in midair, allowing me to quickly recover, but Connor wasn't so lucky. He got impaled on a metal pole sticking out of a wall. Connor pulled himself off the pole, and grasped his (lack of) chest as the gaping wound quickly regrew his heart and chest. 'Kid's been through a lot. It takes a harden veteran to not even care that they've been mortally wounded.' 'Yeah, you can see it in his eyes. He's been through worse than both of us combined have been through.' "Got any ideas?" Connor asked, snapping me out of my thoughts. We both stare at the upgraded Ridley who is also recovering from his wounds. "Well, he took several powerful shots to the chest, and is still moving and acting normal. So I'm gonna to say that we need to deal much more damage." "Well, doing that will be hard. I mean look at him!" Connor gestured to the dragon. "It's like he's a combination of regular Ridley, and Meta Ridley..." Connor started. "And Neo-Ridley..." I continued. "And Omega Ridley." Connor finished. "Plus he's got some abilities I'm pretty sure he didn't have in the games. It's like he's Ultimate Ridley or something." Connor's entire body flashed, as he appeared in his Cosmic Form. "Let's mess him up." We both charged forward, and while Connor was throwing powerful and fast punches at the dragons face, I was firing all my best weaponry at him. I got slammed back into another wall. When I got back on the ground, I watched as Connor got swatted away by Ridley's tail. 'Nothing we're doing is working on him!' In the past ten minutes, Ridley has swatted away each of my beams and missiles, even the cosmic beam had almost no effect on him. Ridley also seems to be learning, and is avoiding everything Connor is trying to do to get me a better shot. 'There is one beam we haven't tried yet.' 'Fine. Maybe Connor can cure me if I use it.' Taking a deep breath, I activated my hypermode, feeling the familiar feeling of Phazon pumping through my veins. "HEY RIDLEY!" I yelled, getting the dragon's attention. "TAKE THIS!" I yelled, as I fired the most powerful burst of Phazon I have ever fired. I watched, as the beam started tearing up Ridley. Ridley tried to protect himself using his arms and wings, but they got disintegrated. Eventually hypermode wore off, and Ridley was severely weakened and lacked both arms and wings. I was pretty exhausted, but I saw Connor run up to me. "You used hypermode did you?" Connor said, not really a question, but more like a statement. "Well, it doesn't matter much if Ridley kills everyone in town." Connor took a deep breath. "Now I'm gonna ask you a question. Do you want me to permanently kill Ridley?" Not really getting why he's asking this, I decided to relay the question to Samus. 'Should we?' 'Definitely. The universe will be a much better place without Ridley.' I nodded, which caused Connor to close his eyes, and he pointed his right hand at the body of Ridley, who was trying to not act scared at the fact that he's defenseless. "What are you going to do?" "An ability I don't usually use. I call it the Smite. It completely erases the target from the current universe." I was surprised at that. 'This kid has that kind of power?' I watched as Connor kept his hand pointing at Ridley, before he snapped, and Ridley blinked from existence. Connor immediately fell to his knees, breathing heavily. "Sorry about that. I'm not used to using that power, and it takes a lot out of me. I helped Connor back up, and the second Connor was standing again, a bright flash appeared where Ridley was a moment ago. "What the?" We both said at the same time, as we walked up to the identical floating containers. "Upgrades. Figures. You usually do get an upgrade from a boss." Connor remarked, as I just stood there scanning the upgrade. My visor didn't find any information about it, similar to when I found the cosmic beam. Getting curious, I reached out and grabbed the upgrade, which disappeared like the last one. But this one made my entire suit glow, as it disappeared, leaving me just in my zero suit. The glowing stopped a second later, with me not really feeling any different. "Whoa." Connor said, looking at me with wide eyes. "What? What is it?" I asked, and Connor handed me a mirror shard from nearby. When I looked in the shard, I nearly dropped it in disbelief. "Seriously!" I yelled when I got a good look at my face. My pupils were now slits and the rest of my eyes were orange and farther apart, which reminded me of only one thing. 'Dragon eyes.' I noticed my teeth were all sharper, each resembling canines, and my tongue was now much longer, and could retract back into my mouth which was now pulled out, giving my face an appearance very close to Ridley's face.. My skin felt harder, similar to scales, and all my senses were increased. My fingers and toes were more similar to claws now, and my body had a few ridges on it. "That's gotta suck." Connor said, cringing at the fact that I'm now part dragon as well as Metroid and Chozo. "Wait, can you activate your power suit? There might be some differences in it now." I gave him a glare, as I activated my suit. The second the light faded away, I looked in the glass shard again, to see all my changes. My power suit looked relatively normal, but the main differences were that I now had an armored tail, with a spike on the end, and I had two armored wings, similar to Meta Ridley's. But what bothered me the most, was that my helmet was very similar to what Ridley's head looked like. My helmet had a mouth that could open and close with my mouth and had a guard to prevent my open mouth from being attacked, and my visor was split up, one green lens in front of each eye. I let out a loud hiss, as I realized that I was now definitely part space dragon. "Why do I have to be part dragon?" "I don't know. But what I do know is how similar you are to a dragon now." Seeing my confused and angry look, he decided to continue. "You should already know that you have Metroid and Chozo DNA. Combined with your natural human DNA, and the recently gained space dragon DNA, I figured out each amount of DNA you have." He snapped his fingers, and a small pie graph was next to him, with small pictures of Ridley, me, a metroid, and a Chozo on it. "You have about 15% metroid DNA, and 15% Chozo DNA." As he said this, the part of the circle with the Chozo and metroid got bigger. "But you also now have 35% human DNA, and 35% Space Dragon DNA. Meaning, you are as much a dragon, as you are human." Another snap of his fingers and the graph was gone. "And if you notice closely, your reproductive system is also similar to a dragon." My eyes widened, as I looked down, and noticed the weird feeling down there. "You might want to stay away from other dragons though. Would be pretty creepy to be hit on by a similar race to the one that destroyed your kind. "Aren't you a bit too young to be talking about this to someone twice as old as you?" I said with a small smile, which Connor returned. "I didn't realize that you're 4218 years old." Connor replied. He turned to look at the other upgrade, which looked like the exact same upgrade I got. He picked it up, and it disappeared in a glow like mine did, but this time, only Connor's robotic arm glowed. When it stopped, Connor pressed a few buttons, that just happened to show up, on his arm and then his veins started glowing. When they stopped, Connor didn't look different at all. "Good. now I can turn into a dragon at will." We both heard a familiar sound, rapidly approaching, and we both jumped out of the way of a blast of lunar magic. "You may have defeated my dragon aliens, but now I will stop you from taking over this planet!" Luna yelled when she landed on the ground. She instantly charged at Connor, who dropped down, and started spinning, letting Luna jump over him. When Luna landed on the ground, she turned around, and was about to charge again, when she fell down, unable to get back up. "What dark magic did you cast on me alien!" "It wasn't dark magic. I tapped your pressure points at high speeds, causing your body to be in a state similar to paralysis." Connor walked up to Luna, who was struggling to get up. "You see, I think something is seriously wrong with you if you keep on trying to kill or harm innocents just to kill two people who you think are alien invaders." Connor crouched down in front of her, and put his hands on the sides of Luna's head, who was now snarling at Connor, and trying to cast magic in Connor's dampening field. "This won't hurt at all." Connor said, as his hands started glowing, and the glowing spread to Luna's head, where when they reached the back to Luna's brain, they all started to violently glow. "Okay, now this will hurt." Connor's right hand went ethereal, went inside Luna's head, and pulled out a small chip. Connor's left hand was glowing purple, as he was healing Luna's brain from the damage caused by the chip being placed and removed. Luna passed out, and Connor stood up, and brought the chip over to me. "So that's what made Luna go Donkey-Kong crap crazy?" I blinked at what I said. Connor just smiled. "I hate curse words. And yes, this is it. But what do you notice about it? Except for the fact that it's seriously primitive compared to the chips in my body." He held up the chip. "Manure!" 'Tabuu's off waves you Connor.' "It's Space Pirate technology." I said as I recognized the shape and color. "Yep. So it's safe to say that the Space Pirates were controlling Luna. And this type of device makes you perfectly aware of your actions."I heard a soft tapping on my leg. I looked down to see an incredibly scared Luna, who has clearly been crying. "I'm sorry." I barely heard Luna say anything, but my visor picked it up. "It's okay. You weren't in control." I replied. There was suddenly a bright flash, as Celestia appeared in front of us, her gaze clearly angry at what Luna has done. "Sister!" Celestia started. "I don't know why you followed this current path. But you have put many of our subjects in danger. For that, I must banish you to Tartarus." Celestia's horn started glowing, but Connor quickly stood in between the two princesses. "I wouldn't do that if I were you Celestia." Connor said in a harsh tone. "Get out of my way Cosmic King. I need to enforce justice in my kingdom." Celestia replied. Connor shook his head. "I can't let you do that. You see, Luna was being brainwashed, and was in no way in control of her actions, but was also forced to watch the crimes she committed. If you banish her, I would have to exact punishment on you." Celestia looked confused, and looked at me. "Sam, is he telling the truth?" I nodded. "Yes. We found a Space Pirate microchip in her brain. It was controlling her. I was planning on tracing the signal back to the base, and destroying all of them." Celestia looked relieved, and immediately flew to Luna, and they both wrapped each other in a tear filled hug. I walked over to Connor, who was just looking at the two with a small smile on his face. "You want to come along? I could use some back-up." "Yeah, that sounds good." We were in Sam's ship, getting ready to take off. While Sam was piloting, I was tracing the signal back. "Got it. Sending coordinates." I said when I found the location of the Space Pirate. I heard a beeping sound coming from the cockpit, as Sam received the coordinates. "Got it. Setting flight path and starting take-off. You might want to get yourself seated." Ignoring him, I walked up to behind his seat, and just altered reality around my body so I wouldn't be flung around. As we were leaving the atmosphere, I remembered something I heard back before I got my powers. With a smile on my face, I started singing. "In the suit and on the ship." "My iron fist making you zip." He said in such a normal tone, but I could tell it bugged him. "So, you seen that video?" I asked, as we were flying off the to Space Pirate base. "Metroid fan, remember. I have a question for you. What's your favorite Nintendo franchise?" "Pokemon. Hands down. Metroid was pretty high up there though. I only beat two Metroid games in my life. Corruption, and Prime one. Could never get a copy of the first two. Got stuck during the huge wall jumping part in Super. Got bored of Echoes. Hunters was boring. Was close to finishing Zero Mission, but I missed a few upgrades, and then stopped playing when I got bored. Had to return my brother's copy of fusion before I could finish it. Never got Other M. People say it's a terrible game, but I'd prefer to make my own opinion of it." I answered. Before Sam could respond, we were already at our destination. We stopped the ship right next to the Space Pirates ship. Sam got up from his chair, and I grabbed his power suit's shoulder, and teleported us inside. As I took a breather (For me, close range teleportation is still pretty tough), Sam was surveying the area. "They don't know we're here yet. Your cloaking system worked." "It should. It's 51st century Lakarvarian. They make some of the best modern technology is most universes. And they weren't wiped out millennia ago." I stood back up, and we started running. As we were running through the halls, killing any space pirates that we see, we enter a large room. This large room just happened to be full of at least 250 space pirates. Sam and I shared a look, and both ran into the battle, expertly killing Space Pirates. I charged forward, plowing through a few of them, and instantly disintegrating the ones I ran through. I eventually stopped, and jumped on one's head, snapping his neck, before taking out the staff I keep in my arm, and start killing Space Pirate after Space Pirate. 100 dead Space Pirates later, I whacked one over to Sam, who flung it into a wall with his tail, before spearing another with it. Getting a bit bored, I decided to do a combo. "SAM! COMBO!" I ran over to him, jumping on his back, as he flew into the air. As we were in the air, Sam started spinning, and I formed a small energy barrier around as, as we both fired some of our strongest attacks at the barrier (which was also spinning) and causing the energy to spin around us as well. "NOW!" Sam yelled, and I snapped my fingers, sending the barrier, and all the energy in it outward, destroying the rest of the Space Pirates. Sam landed, and I jumped off his back, before giving him a high-five. "That was pretty cool." "Yeah. You knew what I was planning the second I started running at you." I replied. We both started moving, running down a long corridor. "Yeah, I think this dragon form has some advantages. I can charge a mouth beam without worrying about being attack there, and the tail and wings are useful. Although I don't quite like looking like this. I was able to sense your movements, and figure out what you were about to do." Sam answered. After running for about a minute, a glass wall came down in front of us and behind us, causing us to stop. When we did, a Space Pirate wearing a lab coat walked out of a room, and over to a control panel in the wall. He pushed a few buttons, before turning to us and speaking. Well, he was speaking in Space Pirate language, which I was able to understand due to having the languages of every creature in the multiverse seared into my brain. Except French. I don't think the cosmic community ever considered the French to be creatures. Well, in their defense, they went to France on a national mime day, where everyone had to act like mimes. No race in the entire multiverse has mimes, except for France. Needless to say, it kinda freaked the cosmic community out. "We have you now Hunter, and other creature." The Space Pirate said. Let's see how you like Phazon!" He pulled a lever, and pushed a few more buttons, causing the floor to disappear, and the gravity to increase heavily, causing us to plummet into the large Phazon pool. As my body was rapidly transforming because of the Phazon, I faintly heard the Space Pirate's laughs, and faintly saw Sam's suit change to the PED suit (with dragon attachments). Then, everything went black. I climbed out of the Phazon pool, and turned around, hoping to see Connor. When I saw his left hand sticking out of the Phazon, I thought he was going to be okay, but when the hand started glowing a tint of blue, and blue veins appeared on it, I hightailed it out of the chamber, not wanting to fight a corrupted Connor.