//------------------------------//
// Aether: Throw it all Away 
// Story: Another Hatchling 
// by Tatsurou 
//------------------------------//

	For a long time, no one around the table spoke or even breathed.  They simply stared at Samus in disbelief.  At long last, Pinkie Pie burst into wailing tears as she threw herself at Spike, wrapping her forelegs around his neck as she wept into his shoulder.

"Oh, Spike!" she wailed.  "How c-c-could you?  You went and d-d-died a noble death, saving the universe and your Mom from a terrible threat!  Now we'll never get to see you again to know just how heroic you've b-b-become!"  She continued to cry for a time, Spike now having bent his neck to stare down at her, one eyebrow raised in consternation.  Eventually Pinkie paused in her crying, and glanced from Spike to Samus.  "...wait a minute..."

Samus and Discord both burst into laughter.  "Oh you should see your faces!" Discord cackled, flashing Samus a thumbs up.  "Very nice," he complimented.

Samus waved it off.  "I knew we could tell a good yarn...but he's sitting right here!"

The ponies managed a nervous chuckle, all looking more than a little bit sheepish.  "So how did you not die?" Luna asked curiously.

Spike scratched the back of his head.  "Actually...I think I might have."

The table fell silent again.  "But...b-but you're here!" Sweetie Belle pointed out.  "Are...are you a ghost?"

"Did interacting with Samus so frequently turn you part Chozo, able to physically manifest yourself from the ether of the spirit realm the way the Chozo Ghosts can, but more fully because you're a dragon?" Twilight guessed.

Spike shrugged his shoulders.  "Maybe?"

"Consarnit!" Applejack snapped.  "Let's stop guessing and just hear what happened?"

Samus chuckled as eyes once more turned to her.  "Well, U-Mos kept me from moving recklessly until he'd finished repairing the damage to my arm and ribs, which thankfully didn't take too long.  However, by that time I could see from the absence of distortion in the atmosphere that Dark Aether was no more.  I was...not exactly happy with that."





Samus sat back against the wall, staring blindly into the middle distance.  She saw everything around her, but none of it registered.  Spike, her son, was gone.  She didn't want to accept it, but she was too well trained by the Chozo to deny the obvious when it slammed her in the face.  But it just wasn't fair.  The Chozo gave Spike to her so she could have a child of her own, someone to love, cherish, and raise...how could they have let him be taken away like this?

As she stared, U-Mos approached her.  "Samus," he began softly, "I know your pain.  I have lost sons of my own to this war, witnessed the fall of my race, the near death of my world.  I had given up all hope when you and your dragon son arrived...but you both brought hope back to us.  I am sorry to disturb your grief now...but it is time to return the last of Aether's Light to the Energy Controller."

It took all of Samus' self control not to deck U-Mos in the face.  Her left hand actually clenched inside her Varia Suit in preparation...but she felt the crystal in her hand, and turned to stare at it.  It still was fully charged from when it had seen her safely back to Aether, and she'd heard a few of the Luminoth - now awakened from the deep sleep capsules they had sealed themselves in - speculating as to why.  The full story had been plucked from her suit's records, as she herself had been incoherent, so they knew it was biological in nature.  One of the scientists had sought to relieve her of it for study...but U-Mos had knocked him aside before Samus' fury could be unleashed.  All the Luminoth had kept their distance from her since.

Sighing, she pushed herself off from the wall, crystal still clutched in her hand.  Spike would want her to finish the mission.  She would have to do just that.  She turned to face the Energy Controller.

Since she lacked her Arm Cannon, she would have to enter the Light of Aether - the energy manipulated by the Controller - in order to release both the Energy Transfer Module and the energy stored within it.  Entering the light warper, she lifted into the energy, feeling it all flow out of her.

Landing outside the Controller, she turned to walk away, not even acknowledging the Luminoth bowing their gratitude around her.  She lifted her left hand...and stared at the empty space where the crystal had been.  "What?"

"Look!" one of the Luminoth called out, pointing upward.

Inside the Light of Aether, the crystal was visibly pulsing, energy and information swirling around it as the Energy Controller hummed.  A beam of energy shot down from the crystal, looking exactly like the light based teleportation system from the outside.  As the energy flowed down, a physical form took shape out of the light.  As the crystal crumbled into dust and the light faded, Spike lay there on the ground, unmoving, looking exactly like he had last time he had been in the Grand Temple.

"S-Spike?" Samus gasped out, disbelieving.  As she saw him starting to stir, she raced forward.  "Spike!"

As Spike lifted his head, Samus wrapped her arms around it, discarding her Varia Suit as she pulled his head against her chest, weeping as she held him close.  "M-Mom?" he gasped out, surprised.  "What happened?  Last thing I remember is...the Emperor Ing falling...and then pain..."

"Don't worry about it," Samus reassured him quickly.  "You're safe now, and the world's been saved.  That's all that matters."





Twilight wiped her eyes as Samus finished that part of her story.  From the sudden propensity of hankies, she knew she wasn't the only one touched by hearing that part.  It reminded her a little too much of her own initial reunion with Spike, just...was it really only four days ago?

"So...how'd it happen?" Rainbow asked suddenly.  As some turned towards her, she held up her hooves defensively.  "Look, I'm just as happy it worked and Spike pulled through okay with all that mushy stuff as the rest of you...but I can't be the only one wanting to know how!"

Samus shrugged her shoulders.  "To be perfectly honest, we don't know.  The Luminoth discussed it for a long while and eventually reached a conclusion they seemed to feel was the most likely...but I didn't bother to listen.  Once I had Spike back, I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth."  Noticing the stares, she chuckled.  "It's a figure of speech.  It basically means Don't question a miracle."

Twilight scratched her chin for a time.  "Actually...I think I might have a few ideas.  Would you say Luminoth tech used crystal computers instead of microchips?"

Thinking back, Samus nodded.  "Yeah, sounds about right.  ...why?"

"Well, the crystal grew out of Spike's body," she explained.  "Logically, it would have all the same genetic material in any leftover cells as any other part of him that broke off.  So when you took it into the Light Based Teleportation System, it read the data of his genetic code as a second passenger passing through.  And if he'd used the main system previously, it would have used the backup of his last passage as the template to restore him with the energy from the crystal.  The only question would be how it managed to incorporate his mind...and soul.  That's...going into aspects of cloning that is why duplication magic is strictly regulated."

"I said I was sorry!" Pinkie Pie snapped out, causing several giggles.

"Considering how heavily spiritual both the Luminoth and the Chozo are," Celestia spoke up, "I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of their ghosts guided Spike's soul back into his new body after Dark Aether's destruction..."





On Aether, immediately after Samus fired the Super Sunburst...

The Emperor Ing let out a shriek of agony as the supercharged light energies attacked his anchors in his new host.  He struggled desperately to hold on.  He would not fall now!

As he struggled, he felt the etheral grip of ten Luminoth take hold of his spiritual being, ripping him out of his host.  He screamed his curses as his essence was torn into nothing, the last fragments of his being cast into the dimensional void, to eventually be scattered, unless he found something new to anchor himself to somewhere in time.

The ten Luminoth Warrior Spirits - the Keybearer squadron, who had been sent to gather the Sky Temple Keys - infused their essence into the dragon they had helped to free.

"Rest now, young warrior," one spake.

"You are weary," another added.

"Let us guide you from here," continued a third.

"We will guide you safely home," a fourth concluded.

The ten spirits settled into the form as it adapted to their power, guiding it as it sought the way back to Aether.  However, it soon became apparent that they would not make it back.  They felt the dragon's soul accept this outcome.

"No," a fifth spirit denied.  "You will not die here young warrior."

"This is our battle," a sixth proclaimed.  "You must live to fight another day."

"You and your mother have more to save than just our world," an eighth reassured.

"Let us do our part for you," a ninth stated.

Taking a crystal from the beast's back, they infused it with his mind, his soul, and his light, that the Light of Aether would give him a new form in which to continue his journey.  With that, they hurled the pair in their care through the portal, destroying it behind them.

Rounding on the assaulting Ing, the tenth roared out their challenge.  "Come Dark Ones!  Dance into oblivion with us!  We shall drag you beyond and into the Abyss, until the last of our souls burns in defiance of thee!  Come!"





Spike shrugged his shoulders at Celestia's conclusion.  "No idea," he replied.  "I don't even remember it...other than a few voices in dreams.  I can never remember what they said when I wake up, though."

Celestia chuckled.  "In that case, I think for now we should all seek our beds."  Turning, she lowered the sun as Luna raised the moon.  "There will be plenty of time for more of the story...the day after tomorrow."

"Agreed," Luna stated.  "Tomorrow we should all see to whatever duties we have, to ensure no interruptions."

Sharing smiles and yawns, the group around the table began making their way to their beds.





The Emperor Ing snarled in frustration.  It had just barely escaped its destruction in the Void before finding its way to this magical world.  The magic of the world had restored it, and it had even found the perfect host to possess so it could move about in the light.  A King that was curious about darkness had fallen to the Emperor, and it had soon had an Empire working towards the restoration of the Ing...

But then two Princesses had struck him down, and then a third had all but destroyed his vessel.  Now, he was left, once more barely a fragment of himself, clinging to a piece of horn to avoid dissolution.

And now a dragon had picked it up, obviously mistaking it for a gem.  The Emperor Ing roared his frustration, screaming vile curses on the warriors of Light who had cast him down...Samus Aran and Spike the Dragon!

The dragon hesitated as the Emperor's last essence was halfway to his mouth.  The mouth closed, and the horn base was pressed to the dragon's forehead.

As the Emperor Ing worked to fuse the horn to the new vessel, he found a deep rage and darkness equaling his own awaiting him.  The voice of the dragon was as grim as the Emperor's own.

"Tell me more," Ridley asked the phantom he'd taken into his own body.