"I have to agree with Applejack," Twilight pointed out. "With everything you've said about Metroids, I find it hard to believe that they could be dealt with so easily. It just...doesn't make sense."
Samus nodded. "While I understand what you mean, let me explain a few things." As everypony turned to her, Samus tapped a few commands on her power suit, displaying two very different images of Metroids side by side in a mid-air hologram. The hologram itself made Twilight gasp, eyes alight with questions. "Everything I've told you about Metroids up till this point has been regarding the Zebesian/SR388 variant, the original strain of Metroids. However, Metroids are in a continuous state of evolution, constantly adapting to their environments...much like the dragons of this world, it seems. Even in its own lifespan, a Metroid will go through multiple stages of growth that drastically alter the way it interacts with the world."
"Like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly?" Fluttershy asked.
"Very similar," Samus replied, "but even more extreme. At any rate, the Zebesian Metroids latch onto their prey with their outer pincers, while the inner pincers do the actual draining of energy. The Tallon variant I just described Spike eating, however, evolved differently. The four pincers latch onto the prey to anchor, while a mouth between them does the actual draining. This evolution is because most of the creatures of Tallon IV have a very strong external carapace, or some other defense that prevents the Metroid's pincers from digging into their flesh. The mouth contains numerous rows of microscopic teeth that grind away at the flesh of the victim until an opening presents itself to drain, and the energy thus drained is drawn directly into the Metroid's nucleus. Of course, this does also present a weakness...but it's not as glaring a one as you might think."
Using her hand, she rotated the hologram of the Tallon Metroid to display the mouth. "Because of the size and shape of the Metroid's mouth, you have to have the right shape weapon to inflict damage to its inside. In the manner described, the beak shaped mouth has to be long enough to reach inside the Metroid, but still short enough that the Metroid would target the face for attack. Space Pirate beaks are too short, while Ridley's crocodile shaped jaw is much too long.
"Not only that, but the opening to do such a thing is incredibly small...literally a split second." The hologram now included a representation of Spike's muzzle/beak at the time of the story. "An instant too early, and the Metroid has enough time to react and veer away...and Metroids learn quickly. Once a Metroid has escaped such a counter attack, they won't leave themselves open to it a second time." The hologram illustrated her point. "An instant too late, and the pressure of the Metroid's mouth around the jaw prevents it from opening. Either way, the assault fails, and leaves the one attempting it vulnerable."
Rainbow took a closer look at the hologram. "But once its latched on, couldn't Spike just snort some fire into its nucleus? I mean, his nostrils are inside its mouth."
Samus nodded. "That's exactly what he did when that happened, leaving the Metroid a cooked pile of goo."
"They don't taste good cooked," Spike muttered.
Samus nodded. "When he first tried it, he spat it out, claiming it 'tasted like Sweetie Belle's toast', before spending a half hour trying to get the taste out of his mouth." Noticing the gasps around the table, she shrugged. "Yeah, that was my first real clue he had memories of a past life before I'd hatched him. Unfortunately, by the time we had a quiet moment to talk about it, the recollection had faded...and nothing I said was going to get him to eat a cooked Metroid again to get the recollection back."
"Understandably so," Rarity pointed out, struggling not to gag. "While my sister is an absolute dear, is quite adorable, and has quite the wonderful singing voice...her cooking skills are, well, how shall I put this?"
"Optimistically awful?" Rainbow suggested.
"She couldn't toss a salad without setting it on fire and trying to put it out in the jug of drinking water...which somehow sets the jug on fire but not the water," Applejack stated.
Samus blinked for a time. "...wow," she stated bluntly. "No wonder he didn't want another taste. ...but still...toast?"
"Her 'toast' is a bowl of black, bubbling ooze that I at first mistook for a failed attempt at applesauce," Rarity pointed out.
"Moving right along!" Samus hastened, not wanting to think about a pony whose cooking skills were so bad she'd probably be declared a bio-weapon. "Any other questions regarding Spike and the Metroids?"
"If it's so difficult to manage that attack," Rainbow demanded, "how'd he manage it so perfectly?"
"Beginner's luck," Samus replied firmly. "After I acquired the Thermal Visor from deeper inside the facility, a power outage occurred that resulted in numerous Metroids breaking free of containment. Spike then got plenty of chances for practice, resulting in numerous opportunities to make the attempt and get all three possible results."
"The key was to watch the flexing tendons connecting from the nucleus to the mouth," Spike explained. "I had to open my mouth ever so slightly the instant I saw them starting to flex. And it only really worked if I was facing a single Metroid at a time. If several converged on me at once - and in their natural environment, Metroids are pack hunters - I'd get attacked from sides or back while trying to eat one."
"That's the real thing that makes Metroids so dangerous," Samus explained. "One on one, anyone with the proper equipment - a high level concussion weapon with lock-on function like my Super Missile, or a cryogenic effect like my ice beam - could beat them easily. But Metroids hunt in packs, and large packs at that."
Several of the ponies shuddered at the mental image of a swarm of Metroids in pursuit of them, floating through the air in defiance of natural law as they hunted them.
"Thank you for that, Samus," Luna muttered drolly. "Patrolling nightmares has been so dull that I desperately needed a new vision of horror to be confronted with on my nightly patrols of the dreamscape."
Samus chuckled. "Sorry about that. But Metroids break very easily when frozen. That should help."
"Indeed," Luna agreed. "That will be most helpful."
Fluttershy was scratching her chin. "What's wrong, Fluttershy?" Samus asked.
Fluttershy let out a quiet 'Meep!' "Oh, it's nothing, really..."
Samus remained silent, watching her.
"Well, it's just..." Fluttershy began. "Well...up till now, everything you'd told us so far made Spike out to be this...unstoppable juggernaut, able to handle just about anything thrown at him. And...I liked that, since I know how gentle Spike really is, and how loyal he is to those he cares about. It felt...nice, knowing that nothing would be able to touch me if I was with him. But now...well..."
Samus chuckled. "I get what you mean. And I'm sorry if I've misled you about Spike. At present day, Spike's strong enough that - with his limiters off - there's very little that would prove a serious challenge to him." And I pray that those things that would never show up, she thought silently. "But when he was younger, he was far from that tough. It's just that most of what we faced at first was something he could handle easily. Thardus, however..."
"Thardus?" several of the mares asked curiously.
Samus smiled. "Well, it happened like this..."
After a long path - with Spike taking detours around the morph ball tunnels he was now too big to fit through - the pair entered a wide, circular chamber with a pile of boulders in the center. As they started to approach, however, Spike started to growl. "What's wrong?" Samus asked, raising her arm cannon.
"There's...something here..." Spike growled, his eyes locking on the pile of boulders.
Right before their eyes, the pile of boulders began to levitate, flying together to form a roughly humanoid rock monster. Samus' scans revealed that it was a creature called Thardus, made of living stone and Phazon. Switching to her Thermal Visor, Samus was able to discover that parts of the creature were weaker, structurally, than others, and she locked onto those one by one.
Spike attempted to fight Thardus, but his claws and teeth weren't able to do enough damage to the rock covering to reach the Phazon inside, and his fire breath flowed right off it without damage...except when it hit the structurally weak portion by chance, but even then the damage was minimal, mostly just heating the rock. Admittedly, when the heated rock made contact with the snow covered ground, it began to crack.
When the outer shell on one of the boulders broke off, revealing the Phazon underneath, Spike tried to take a bite out of it, only to be blasted backward by the energy charge running through the Phazon. After that, Spike decided to focus on what he could do well here...drawing Thardus attention to give Samus room to lock on and destroy it.
After a long struggle, Samus had managed to destroy enough of the Phazon holding Thardus together that it fell apart. Once that had happened, her suit gave her a status update.
Magnetic linkage of Phazon charged stones analyzed. Magnetic properties incorporated into Morph Ball module.
Spider Ball capacity unlocked. Morph Ball can now magnetically attach to magnetic rail tracks.
Seeing several magnetic rail tracks scattered around, Samus shrugged. "That's convenient," she muttered to herself.
Spike shook himself off, a little banged up but otherwise alright. "I hope we get back to Magmoor soon," he muttered. "I really wanna soak these bruises away in the lava..."
Samus smiled softly. "Spike wasn't always overpowering in battles, but he was always trying his best." Reaching over, she gently stroked a neck ridge. "Lucky for him, Magmoor did turn out to be our very next stop..."
FINALLY Spike gets brought down a little. Also your explanation about Spike eating the Metroid.... makes sense.
Yay spike isn't to OP
And that's bad very VERY bad
To sum up what most people are going to say: Yay, you fixed it!
Also, it seems Sweetie took Homer's cooking class:
saturnsocial.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/HOMER.gif.gif
The Eater of Worlds took some damage!
terrariaonline.com/attachments/eattt-jpg.16875/
Another enjoyable chapter. Good work.
6090129 HAH
It would be though not tough.
Nice chapter!
Rock on!
-ThePortalPonies
6090166
No, it was "that tough", as in how durable and capable he was.
Thank god, I thought I was gonna borrow the Almighty Nerf Hammer (patent pending) from Riot and whack spike with it a few times. Spike too OP, need Nerf plz.
"Spider Ball restored"?
Uh...not even in Zero Mission does that exist, so how was it restored when I think the only non-Prime game with it is Metroid 2?
Just a nerdy nitpick is all.
And wow, way to address the OP potential in a quick, yet organized manner. I mean, I didn't think he was THAT powerful anyway since Samus doesn't have too much trouble for most of Prime 1.
6090218
...oops.
6090146 is that... Terraria fanart? Gimme more!
In regards to chapter, I restate my previous opinion. I hope we move past some of the exposition soon and give us another few SoL's with Spike and the mares.
I'm glad Spike can't just beat everything, that takes most of the fun out of the story if it's basically "Spike eats everything" I can't wait to see them face Ridley. And since the Crusaders have been mentioned, can they come by for story time? I can just picture them climbing up on Spike's back to listen and later begging him with the Big Filly Eyes technique to let them try to be CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS DRAGON RIDERS! At the very least, he should take Scootaloo up and give her a stable launch platform. Or maybe the Space Jump would let her fly on her own?????
In my opinion, Thardus was a bitch. I hated fighting him whenever I played Metroid Prime (I played and beat it several times on my game cube. That's how awesome it is to me). I was legitimately wondering when he'd come up in this though.
Can't wait for Metroid Fusion to come up.
Alright, so we're here again, and now we have that classic scene to please people that don't like OP ponies.
Alright, so maybe Ridley will prove to be a bigger challenge... But hear me now! I still am betting, at the very worst, that Spike is going to narrowly defeat him! I know it!
Also, Sweetie Belle's cooking is so bad it managed to stick as a memory in his head? Is this perhaps confirmed Sweetie/Spike shipping if he actually took the time to EAT her 'toast'?
WHY HAVEN'T WE HAS A CMC/NEW SPIKE MEETING YET!?
6090182 I did consider that it just seemed out of place.
-ThePortalPonies
6092158
Well, in that case, I'll do just that!
Detective mode, activate
6090255 I don't think Tatsurou wants me to start posting art which won't be relevant to comments regarding the story.
6092975 then send me a link to the page where you found it.
6093316 Just google Terraria Eater of Worlds on google images.
6091308 I think the CMC ship as gone and suck in this fic. Spike's 18 or older at this point way to old for the cmc. I would like to see them freaking over how cool Spike looks.
6093615
Uh, I didn't say anything about shipping, only that I want them to meet.
What's this about shipping?
6093699 Sorry I thought the CMC/Spike was a ship thing my bad.
6093722
It's alright...
If Pinkie tells them to say 'woof', I'll flip.
6093732 I just thought of Pinkie be arrest for pimping Spike out to minors.
6094969
Ohhhhh.... That's pretty cool, actually.
And, um, I haven't played the Metroid games, so I don't really know anything about Samus or her background. (Just as a warning.)
Great chapter! can't wait for more!
6094973
Hmm, somebody that hasn't played Metroid? You really should correct that, cause the Metroid franchise is almost as old as I am...
I just called myself old...
6090205 Because Valve has no need for such a hideous device.
6091388 It would make more sense only if there was a comma. If there's no comma, there's no pause. I really hate it when people don't use commas, and assume that everyone will place the pauses there automatically, without any afterword context. It ruins the flow of stories, and Tats here wouldn't do that to us.I can tell you would, though.*
*Please ignore, personal grumbling
Spike: the all powerful dragon, was beaten by a pile of rocks
YIkes.
Makes sense.
Exactl.
If it helps, an Ice Beam and a Super Missile combo usually kill them speedyquick.
Makes sense.
Nice.
Very.
I think it might e something of a Confused Magic Disorder, there. That her (eventual) talent is at such a strength that it overloads an aspect of her life, namely, her cooking.
6340019 hmm. . . That would explain it.
6094973 Don't feel bad, Ive only played Fusion and Zero Mission, and that was after I read Flammenwerfer's brilliant fic Metroid: Equis.
How to take over Equestria: threaten to force-feed everyone Sweetie-Belle's cooking.
You win.
yt3.ggpht.com/-48qNbBMll0A/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/bph0cm_Gy7k/s100-c-k-no-rj-c0xffffff/photo.jpg
7305428 ...that is just pure evil...taking advantage of a little filly like that...
Yeah she is not a good cook.
6165892
Fricken Ewoks!!
You missed a thing.(about 7:00)
https://m.