//------------------------------//
// Zebes: Maridia 
// Story: Another Hatchling 
// by Tatsurou 
//------------------------------//

	"Did you encounter any new creatures in Maridia?" Fluttershy asked eagerly as the group once more took their seats around the table in the Crystal Castle.

"A few," Samus admitted.  Since Spike had decided to make everyone some snacks, she'd taken over telling the story until he returned to the kitchen.  "Unfortunately, we didn't get much more than a few glimpses here and there.  Even though he couldn't use his breath attacks underwater, with rare exception anything smaller than Spike ran and hid as soon as they felt his approach.  The more concerning enemies were the Space Pirates we encountered.  Their new underwater armor was resistant to all the weapons I had at my disposal at that time, and Spike's melee strikes were only able to inflict so much damage."

"How were they that big a threat?" Rainbow demanded angrily.  "I mean, you'd been kicking their flanks from here to Manehatten until now.  What changed?"

"They successfully reverse engineered my Gravity Suit," Samus explained.  "Not only did it give them unmatched maneuverability in an aquatic environment, the pressurized suit made them immune to beams and missiles, and the high heat explosions of my Power Bombs just weren't effective underwater."

"Wow..." Rainbow murmured, stunned.  "That...that sucks."

"If it was that tough, how come all the troops weren't wearing it?" Scootaloo demanded.

"Probably too expensive to produce for all of them," Twilight offered.  "Whether time, scarcity of the required materials, or simple cost of programming all the circuitry."

"That, and it wasn't that unstoppable," Spike added as he brought in some snacks for everyone.  "There was a weapon Mom got later that let her deal with them more easily.  But in the meantime, we mostly just avoided them."

"The one enemy we encountered frequently in Maridia that was a real concern were the Mochtroids," Samus continued, shivering slightly.  "They were less complex, failed clones of little Squishy.  They could drain energy like Metroids...but couldn't maintain a grip, and were much less sturdy."

"We think the Pirates were trying to find multiple ways to mass produce Metroids," Spike offered, "but gave up that method because they deemed the result useless.  I can understand why, I guess.  I mean, they died from a shot of Mom's grapple beam... or one punch from me."

"Those poor creatures," Fluttershy murmured sadly.

Samus waited until Fluttershy seemed a bit more at peace with that before continuing.  "Not long after first encountering the Mochtroids, we came across a large, brown sea serpent that hid in tunnels inside the walls before swimming out to try and attack us.  Looking it up later, I learned it was called a Botwoon."

"How'd that fight go?" Gandrayda asked curiously.

Samus snorted in amusement.  "Fight?" she replied jokingly, turning to give Spike a playful glare.  Spike merely smiled innocently, licking his lips, much to the amusement of those around them.

"So what was next in your quest for equipment to take Ridley down?" Shining Armor asked curiously.  "That new weapon you mentioned?"

"Nope," Samus countered.  "My Space Jump.  As this was the original Chozo construction, it was much more effective, letting me jump continuously in the air, getting an immense amount of height if I timed the jumps right."

"Of course to get that, we needed to fight the Draygon," Spike explained.  "It was a massive green creature that swam in the depths of Maridia..."





As Samus and Spike entered the massive underwater chamber, a massive creature swooped down on them.  It had a dark green carapace over its back with a greenish-yellow underbelly, a large sting for a tail, and numerous pincer-like arms.  Its eyes locked on the pair with baleful fire as it rocketed at them, trying to pierce them with its stinger.

Spike quickly swam to the top of the chamber, trying to both get a strike at its head and divide its attention.  Samus stayed low to the ground, trying to find a weak point.  After a few dives, the creature came in slower, spitting globs of gunk from its mouth.  As Samus came in to try and get a good shot, she wound up stuck in the gray goop, and grabbed by the creature.

Snarling in rage, Spike dove in, trying to make the creature let her go, but only succeeded in driving the creature closer to the walls and breaking the covers off several power couplings, revealing their sparking circuitry.  Seeing this, Samus got an idea.  Switching to her grapple beam, she locked onto the circuitry.

She clenched her teeth as the electricity raced through her suit and body, but could hear the screams of pain from the creature.  With its claws stuck in the goo, it couldn't release her to escape the damage.  Before long, the goo burst apart, and the creature fell to the sandy bottom, barely alive.

As Spike swam over to Samus, much smaller versions of the creature - smaller than Samus herself - swam up to it, gently pulling it into the sand while hissing at Samus, trying to stay between her and the large creature.





"The only reason it attacked us," Samus began sadly, "was because the Space Jump power up we were after was in its nest.  It saw us as a threat to its young..."

"It was...sobering..." Spike murmured softly, trying not to see the shocked faces of those listening.

Everyone remained silent for a time, not sure what to say.  Eventually, Spike spoke up again.  "The rest of Maridia wasn't as fun after that," he admitted.  "The only things of note were when we collected Mom's Spring Ball upgrade - which let her jump in Morph Ball mode - and the other weapon we mentioned, the Plasma Beam."

"Unlike on Tallon IV," Samus explained, "this Plasma Beam was a different mode for my normal beam, which could be alternated with the Spazer function.  Instead of three equidistant beams, it launched two beams that swirled around each other...and penetrated through creatures as easily as the Wave beam function did walls."

"After that..."  Spike paused to take a deep breath before continuing, his eyes flinty with rage at what he was remembering.  "After that, we went after Ridley..."