As Pinkie Pie brought everyone some refreshments, Samus continued her tale of their explorations of Bryyo.
"On the way back to the ship to check out those new landing coordinates, I had to deal with some Alpha Hoppers," she explained. "The bulbous bastards were tough. I had to switch to Hypermode to take them down."
"Why not just call in Spike for an air strike?" Scootaloo asked curiously.
"It was on that ice bridge I mentioned earlier," Samus replied coolly. "I didn't want to risk it breaking from impact of flames."
"Valid point," Rainbow agreed. "You don't have wings."
Samus nodded, ignoring Gandrayda's chuckle. "At any rate, the first place we headed with the ship was the Fiery Airdock, in the Bryyo Fire region..."
The 'Bryyo Fire' region was aptly named. The entire region had a much higher temperature than elsewhere due to the high quantities of Fuel Gel that flowed freely throughout the region. In point of fact, most of the region was a factory designed to harvest the Fuel Gel, though Samus couldn't be entirely certain if it had been built by the Bryyonians, the Federation, or the Pirates. It showed signs of having been used by both of the latter, at any rate.
Spike's main concern at first, though, had been the discovery that the majority of the area was inside the factory, with very few points he could see where he could gain aerial access. This left him with a choice of being absent for most of the exploration or not flying. Grumbling to himself, he decided to opt for the latter, hoping he wouldn't have to deal with too many Morph Ball tunnels. After all, unlike Magmoor Caverns back on Tallon IV where he could swim in the lava, his hide was not immune to the caustic effects of Fuel Gel.
Another thing the pair noticed that drew their attention was Rundus' ship, which was also docked in midair on an ice platform nearby. "Rundus is here," Spike murmured. "Or at least, somewhere on the planet. He's as versatile as I am in the air."
"More so, since he can use smaller doors," Samus teased, earning her a halfhearted glare from her draconian son. Taking another look through her scanners, she frowned. "The engines are still warm."
"Then he's somewhere nearby," Spike replied, steeling himself for the worst he could imagine.
As they explored inside the facility, Spike's flame breath was both useful and dangerous. While it could ignite some streams of Fuel Gel in order to activate various devices, if he didn't aim carefully, he ran the risk of igniting pools of Fuel Gel with explosive results.
Unfortunately for Spike, a Morph Ball tunnel was almost immediately the only way forward, forcing him to backtrack and hope he could catch up with Samus sooner rather than later.
"This was rather unfortunate for me as well," Samus murmured. "If Spike had been able to be with me at a certain point, things might have gone much smoother."
"Sorry about that, Mom," Spike murmured softly.
"Not your fault," she hastened to reassure him. "Besides, it all worked out in the end."
"What happened?" Twilight asked worriedly.
Samus sighed. "...I found out what had happened to Rundus and the others..."
Finding more Phazon-based vines blocking her path at one point, Samus calmly switched to Hypermode and blasted them away with her Phazon Beam. However, just as the last Phazon node burst, her suit systems started going haywire, and she felt a sudden pain in her gut. The PED started overclocking, and her suit registered a Phazon Overcharge, as well as an emergency message to vent the Phazon via her Arm Cannon. Pumping out all the Phazon currently in the PED - difficult, since it was constantly replenishing - Samus managed to force herself out of Hypermode by triggering the PED's forced cooldown function.
She received an immediate message from the Aurora Unit that an abnormality in her suit's life support had been detected. Well, isn't that the understatement of the year? she thought grumpily as the message continued on, indicating that the data had been downloaded for analysis.
"I got the message about her suit, too," Spike spoke up. "If she hadn't immediately messaged me that she was fine, I'd have probably ripped the facility apart to get to her."
"I'd have paid to see that," Rundus joked.
Rolling her eyes as several ponies around the table giggled, Samus moved on. "At any rate, I was able to catch up to Spike later on..."
As Samus entered an open air area, Spike swooped down from above for landing. "You sure you're okay, Mom?" he asked worriedly.
Samus managed a shrug. "I'll live," she replied. "And I can keep going. Beyond that...let's wait and see what the Aurora Unit has to say."
Spike nodded slowly, plainly still worried. "Still going to stick close to you," he affirmed. "Just to be on the safe side."
Samus chuckled as she rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say," she replied jokingly.
Not long after that, the pair came to a rather large open air area...and immediately came under attack by Space Pirate bombardment. Spike immediately took to the air, taking out the Pirate assault before it could get too close to Samus, while Samus herself focused on whatever Pirate troops managed to get past Spike.
Midway through the assault, however, the Pirates came under attack from another source, as massive spires of ice erupted out of nowhere and rained down from the sky to tear them apart.
"Aw yeah!" Rainbow crowed, pumping her hoof. "And the ice dude saves the day!"
Rundus lowered his head. "Not...exactly..." When all eyes turned to him, he sighed. "At that point, I'd...all but lost the battle with the Phazon corruption in my body. I sought out Samus and Spike at that point...hoping they could stop me before I turned - or was turned - against innocents."
"You mean..." Twilight began in a horrified tone.
"You were there looking to be put down," Shining Armor stated in a flat tone, neither hostile nor compassionate...but still somehow understanding.
"Yes," Rundus agreed. "I...thought it was the only solution. Thankfully, Spike had come up with another."
Spike grinned as all eyes turned to him. "Remember what I said about having studied the Phazon infections in the others? Well, in Rundus' case, his physiology is a mix of flesh and living ice...and the Phazon Seed inside him had embedded itself in a large ice crystal near his heart. I'd reconfigured my scanners with that data, just in case we encountered Rundus on Bryyo...and my scans showed that, despite the Phazon Corruption having spread through most of his body, it was still sustained by the seed, in much the same way the Phazon of a planet was sustained by the Core inside the Leviathan. Remove the seed, the Phazon in the rest of the body dissipates. At least, that was the theory."
"And so you put the theory to the test?" Twilight inquired with a proud smile.
"Once we'd managed to get Rundus to hold still long enough," Spike replied. "With how close the ice crystal with the Phazon Seed was to his heart, I didn't want to miss..."
The first focus of the battle with Rundus for Samus and Spike was to do enough damage to him to daze him so his ice armor could be torn off. This was made somewhat difficult by the series of ice pillars he'd erected in the area, and the fact that he'd roofed the entire area in ice, seriously hampering both allied Hunters' maneuverability. Thankfully, Spike's flame breath under control was very effective at dazing Rundus, as his icy nature made him especially susceptible to the heat.
Once Rundus was dazed, Samus immediately leapt forward to tear the ice armor off with her Grapple Lasso. Rundus immediately snapped out of his daze and began attacking again while racing about. Samus continued her assault, while Spike pursued, trying to find his moment to strike.
His moment came as Rundus paused to reform his ice armor. Lunging forward, Spike plunged his claw into Rundus' chest. Relying on his sense of touch and awareness of Phazon, he managed to find the crystal with the Phazon Seed. Grasping it, he tore it from Rundus' torso. As Rundus fell backwards to the ground, his PED falling apart, Spike immediately swallowed the crystal to digest the Phazon Seed.
Samus stared in shock, then quickly switched to her scan visor. To her surprise, Spike's assault had, indeed, cleansed Rundus of all Phazon Corruption. However, he was now dying of the wound.
As she swung back to Spike, her scans displayed an alert.
New adaption detected in Spike's flame sac region. Analyzing...
Before the analysis had completed, Spike opened his mouth and exhaled. A blast of super-chilled air shot into the hole in Rundus' chest, sealing it in ice.
Analysis complete. Spike now has a gland amongst his flame sacs to generate and store freon and other similar gases in liquid form to generate a super cold breath weapon, capable of freezing the surroundings in a manner similar to Rundus' own abilities.
Spike has acquired Ice Breath.
Adaption has been analyzed and applied to your Missile system, as it is incompatible with your Beam Weapon in current suit configuration. Ice Missile acquired.
Samus leaned back, a proud smile on her face. "Well, that was unexpected," she murmured.
Rundus stared up at Spike as his hand went to the icy seal. "I'm...alive? And...uncorrupted?"
"Barely," Spike commented dryly. "I suggest you get back to your ship and hightail it for the Olympus for a more thorough medical checkup-" In the middle of his statement, Spike's head snapped up and he spun around.
A ghostly apparition of Dark Samus floated in the air as the ice dome faded away, seeming to snarl in rage at Spike.
Spike growled deep in his throat, opened his mouth wide, and released a Fazite blast. Dark Samus wasn't able to dodge all of it, as it hadn't expected an attack that could hurt it in that form, and was forced to flee.
Rundus stared up at what had just happened. "...I think I'll take your advice," he murmured. Managing to get himself to his feet, he placed his hand on Spike's shoulder. "I...won't forget this."
"And I didn't," Rundus concluded, raising his hand to where the ice patch remained as a seeming discoloration of his flesh. "Especially since, seeing how weak I was, Spike insisted on flying me back to my ship. Well, I wasn't exactly doing well in all that heat, anyway..."