"Not as easy?" Twilight asked curiously.
"So more of a challenge?" Rainbow asked eagerly.
"No," Spike replied. "Just more frustration. Because of the anti-air turrets - able to track both the ship and me accurately - we had to go along the ground. Not only did that prove more difficult for me in the jungle, but we also began encountering Pirate Troops with Hyper Modes of their own."
"That meant I had to use my own Hyper Mode a lot more," Samus explained, "and Spike had to use his Fazite breath. Since both drained our energy rapidly, this was an...unpleasant journey."
"Especially for me," Spike pouted. "And the Pirates had scared off most of the local wildlife, so there wasn't even anything for me to eat!"
"Though the really dangerous thing for me were the Phazon-based weapons some of the Pirate Troops had," Samus explained. "They were like Phazon bombs, and if they went off near me, they put me instantly into Overload in Hyper Mode. I'd have to drain the Phazon quickly and without warning, after recovering from the hit." She smirked. "I did find a tricky way to use the Overload. Even when Overloaded, the PED would automatically shut down after 25 seconds if I was still functioning normally. If I carefully managed how fast I purged Phazon energy, I could keep the Overload powering the Hyper Mode for the full time, dealing much more damage than a single Energy Tank injected into the PED would normally allow me to do."
Rainbow grinned widely as she jotted that one down. "Gonna make a killing with this game," she muttered under her breath.
"Well, it is going to be a platforming shoot-em-up," Pinkie indicated logically.
"Do we get royalties for using our images?" Spike and Gandrayda asked simultaneously, making Samus and Ghor laugh.
"At any rate," Samus continued, "as I said, the enemies we encountered were getting tougher. We even encountered Berzerker Knights, scaled down versions of the Berzerker Lord we'd fought back on the Olympus. We found that both the Phazon Beam and Spike's Fazite breath were effective in stripping it of its Phazite armor."
"The first real challenge came not long later..." Spike explained.
The pair of Hunters entered a wide open area, flat ground with a couple of pools of fuel gel, surrounded on all sides by the spiky foliage of the area. As they entered, a gate behind them came alive, sealing them in with an energy field. Two Aerotroopers took to the air as a gate at the opposite side activated as well.
Samus and Spike each took one of the Aerotroopers. While Samus took hers on with Ice Missiles and charged beam attacks - the jetpacks were too hot to freeze - Spike leapt on his, dragging it to the ground and attacking it with claws and fangs.
At that point, a massive beast roared as it leapt into the glade. It had two legs, though the tusks at the front stretched out large enough to be mistaken as limbs. It had heavy natural armor - including Phazite armor on top of its head - a long whip-like tongue in a small, round mouth, and a short tail. On its back was a Pirate troop armed with a Phazon lance. Samus' scan visor identified it as a Korakk Beast. Spike's scanners identified it as lunch.
"They did not!" Spike snapped at Gandrayda as the rest of the table burst into laughter.
"Can you honestly tell me you didn't eat it?" she teased with a wide smirk.
Grumbling and muttering under his breath, Spike turned away in a huff. Once she got her laughter under control, Samus continued telling of the fight.
The first part of the fight was about getting the Pirate rider off the Korakk. With it in control, the beast was a lot more dangerous. Spike dealt with that by leaping to the beast's back, grabbing hold of the Pirate, yanking the lance out of its hand, eating the lance, and hurling the Pirate into the fuel gel.
As the Pirate screamed in death, the Korakk went mad and lunged for Samus. She managed to keep it at bay by shooting it in its open mouth a few times before rolling into Morph Ball. Since her scanners showed that it was vulnerable in its underbelly, she dropped a few bombs to injure it. Seeing an opportunity as she unrolled on the opposite side, she locked onto its tail with her Grapple Beam, yanking back.
As the beast reared up in pain, Spike lunged in, digging claws and teeth into the belly as he devoured the Phazon producing organism, leaving only the empty armored skin and the interior bones behind. Dropping the carcass, he belched loudly.
"Feeling better?" Samus asked, having noticed Spike getting more and more irritable from hunger since he'd gotten his Ice Breath.
"Much," he agreed.
Spike rolled his eyes as several members of his audience chuckled. "What? I was still growing!"
Gandrayda started to open her mouth, only to get Rarity's hoof shoved in and a glare from the white unicorn. This startled even more laughter from Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Cadence, and Rundus, but confusion from the Crusaders.
"So how'd it taste, Spike?" Pinkie asked. "You talked about how nearly everything else you ate tasted!"
"Well, it was rather tender and juicy," Spike explained. "But the glands that produced its Phazon were especially delicious, spicy and tangy."
"How was the Korakk producing Phazon, anyway?" Twilight asked. "That can't be natural."
"It's a native of the Space Pirate base in that region," Gandrayda explained. "Since that world had been heavily - and I do mean heavily - corrupted by its own Leviathan, all the creatures there had mutated for Phazon production. Which is a pity, really. The Korraks and their Hussars had a much healthier bond before they were corrupted by Phazon. The bond they shared before Phazon corruption was...the closest thing the Pirates ever experienced to love."
Spike glanced away, not knowing what to say, and feeling strangely...guilty.