Celestia glanced back and forth between Spike and Samus. "Somehow I get the feeling that...something rather untoward happens during this journey."
Samus was silent for a time. "Yeah. Something...rough happened. Towards the end, though."
"The Agon Wastes were actually rather enjoyable for me," Spike pointed out. "See, it was all desert and open skies." His eyes got somewhat dreamy. "The intense heat from the sky hitting the sand..."
"The thermals..." Rainbow breathed in awe. Scootaloo's wings buzzed just from the thought of riding them.
Grinning, Spike began to explain.
Stepping out into the Agon Wastes, Samus and Spike discovered that it lived up to the name. All sand and rock, high heat, and nearly all the biological life forms were either insectoid or sand diggers, long worms that burrowed through the sand.
Spike's first reaction upon reaching the wide open area that was the first hub of the desert area was to spread his wings wide. Grinning widely, he flapped into the air. "I'll scout out the path!" he called back to Samus.
"Keep me posted!" Samus called back.
"Will do," Spike replied over comms.
Samus chuckled. "Forgot you have a comm unit now," she joked.
With Spike in the air above, a quick path was easily plotted to the Agon Temple, their next destination. "Say, Mom?" Spike asked over the comms. "Couldn't I carry you? It'd be faster."
"No," Samus insisted. "You're still not fully recovered. Not only that, until you adjust to the armor, you're functioning at less than peak efficiency. What if we encounter a Pirate aerial vehicle while you're focusing on not dropping me?"
"...guess you're right..." Spike replied. "It just...it feels bad that I'm so maneuverable here, when you've lost most of your tech."
"I'll get it back," Samus promised.
As they continued, Spike sent a warning. "Watch out," he pointed out. "Pirate presence in the next area. Want me to provide aerial support?"
"Only if you can do it without getting in range of their attacks," Samus countered. "I don't want you taking too many hits just yet."
"Got it," Spike replied.
Spike's solution was surprisingly straightforward. For a dragon, medium sized rocks were quite light. When dropped from a great height, they were quite devastating to whatever they landed on, and Spike was good at plotting intercept courses for his rock bombs.
"You...hit them with rocks?" Discord asked, nonplussed.
"What can I say?" Spike replied with a shrug. "I was all out of razors and hot oil.(1)"
As Discord and Pinkie giggled, everyone else looked confused. Samus buried her face in her hands as she continued the story.
After defeating the Pirates, Samus continued onward, along with spotter updates from Spike.
"You're approaching an area that looks a lot like an arena," he pointed out. "...ten to one something big's going to attack you there."
"No bet," Samus replied. "Help if you can safely."
As Samus entered the open air arena-like area, she was sealed in. An Alpha Sandigger - a much larger version of the sand worm like creatures she'd been dealing with before - came out of the sand to attack her. After she'd fought it off for a time, an Ing came out of a rift in its gaseous form and possessed it.
"Mom!" Spike called out. "That Ing's got your Morph Ball Bombs!"
"Then we'll just have to take it back!" Samus pointed out, prepping her arm cannon.
Samus focused on shooting the two heads of the worm like Bomb Guardian, trying to keep it towards the middle of the arena. Every so often, however, Spike would dive down, seize the worm in his claws, and drop it to slam into the side of the arena as he swooped back into the air.
With the multi-pronged attack, it wasn't long before the beast was slain, and Samus reclaimed her Morph Ball Bombs, which let her escape the arena.
The Bombs also allowed Samus to interface with the seal on the Temple, allowing her and Spike access to the entrance. Within, an automated holographic message played for them.
A hologram of a nearby dead Luminoth spoke to them. "Welcome. I am I-Sha, Sentinel of the Agon Temple. This message survives my death, as guidance for one who would fight the Ing. A portal to Dark Aether lies nearby. With it, you can travel to this land's shadow. You must locate a Dark Temple, a twisted mockery of this sacred place. Inside, you will find the Energy Controller that you seek."
The hologram conjured an image of three keys. "The temple door is held fast by three locks. The keys for the locks are hidden throughout that dark land."
The hologram had more information for them, but it was all things they already knew from U-Mos. At the end, the hologram gave Samus and Spike's visors the capacity to interact with Amber holograms. They were then instructed to bring the energy from the Dark Temple back to the Light Temple immediately upon recovery.
It didn't take the pair long to find the portal in question, or to dispose of the Pirates that attacked them when they entered. This time, Spike used his flame breath in diving runs, since he was limited in how high he could get within the chamber. This proved especially difficult when the Pirates became possessed by Ing, becoming Dark Pirates. However, it turned out that Spike's flame breath had similar properties to the Light Energy the Luminoth had designed to battle the Ing, and was exceptionally effective.(2)
It took a bit of work to reactivate the portal device. Once it was active, however, Samus and Spike approached it.
"...time to see just how effective this armor is," Spike commented worriedly.
"Indeed," Samus agreed, just as worried.
"...well, if it's not effective enough, I can still help on this side," Spike commented. "I'm sure things will work out."
"...yeah..." Samus agreed.
The pair dove through the portal.
...
Once back in Dark Aether, Spike discovered that the energy shields of the armor were effective protection against the atmosphere itself, although they drained his energy quickly. Unfortunately, it wasn't very effective at protecting his mouth, so he had to keep his mask up, racing from safe zone to safe zone, using only his claws and tail to fight.
It wasn't long before they encountered another Ing possessing some of Samus' tech, this time the Jump Guardian, possessing her Space Jump Boots. To Spike's surprise, within a 'Safe Zone', he was still able to use his flame breath, which made defeating the Ing go quite fast, letting Samus recover her missing gear.
Finding no other safe path to explore from there in Dark Aether, the pair returned through the portal.
(1) I wanted to link the clip I was referencing from the episode of "Batman: The Animated Series" I was referencing (from the episode Trial), but I couldn't find it.
(2) This is in reference to how similar the Light Beam and the Plasma Beam of Prime functioned relative to each other.
SQUEE! First Dark Samus Fight coming soon!
Yeah, the Light Beam and Plasma were similar, just as the Dark Beam and Ice Beam were similar.
Speaking of which, I use the freezing effect of a full charged Dark Beam to freeze Dark Talon Metroids. Works better than Light Beam shots.
You're maintaining a really good balance on this fic. Metroid is one of my favorite game franchises, so I'd really be cheesed if it were bad. So far, you're doing a bang-up job.
Just don't plan anything around Metroid: Other M. I'm of two minds on that game. It fills in some of the holes in the story-line, but they kinda did a Bella Swan with Samus in that one. In fact, it got flak because of all the talky emotional crap Samus did in it. Made a good movie, and a fairly okay game. Better than Asura's Wrath though; best example of the worst way to use a game to tell a story I've ever seen. Only played it through once.
6288764
I do intend to cover the events of Other M.
I intend to use this story to fix it.
She's right, it's good to see a strategic Samus more than "Shoot till it's dead" Samus.
And hey, it works.
Then that's something to be fixed, innit?
Neat.
Aye.
Nice.
I loved the Prime games, My only regret is that I have never beaten Echos. it's always the last fight with Dark Samus that stops me from completing it.
were you looking for this clip? Though I think it's a bit longer than you'd want
PS I'm curious what effects eating the light crystals would have... assuming he could find one that isn't that important
Nice chapter, I'm glad to see Spike thinks outside the box and his method of dropping large rocks on things is great. Rocks fall, everyone dies! happening only to the baddies is a good thing!!
6288773 OH THANK GOD!!!!
6288773
Who dis Smaus you speak of?
6288821
No.
In the episode "Trial", the inmates of Arkham take over and put Batman on trial for creating them. Joker is the judge, and he refers to his 'impartial jury'.
I don't remember which to jurors yell, "Shave Him!" followed by, "Boil Him!", but Crock follows up by shouting, "Hit him with a rock!"
I have to admit, I thought the cover image was a purple dragon packing a hefty bra.
6288773
Oh. Come to think of it, you DID touch base on Other M in the very beginning.
Seriously though, great job so far. I'm really loving the interplay between Rainbow, Scootaloo, Pinkie, and Discord. Epic there.
Course, it's Pinkie; outside of Cupcakes, she's often funny.
I DESPISE cupcakes as much as EvilTwilight.
For a dragons, medium sized rocks were
To Spike's surprise, withing a 'Safe Zone'
1. Dragon.
2. Within.
6288821
you mean this?
6288841 Hatter says "Hang him!" followed by Harley saying "Shoot him!" then Croc says "Hit him with a rock!"
Well, rocks fall, everyone dies is a valid attack. It also simplifies things when you have a spotter for your catapult.
6289142
The funny part is that it is Batman pretending to be Killer Crock so technically his story is the winner! Also that is the best episode of the series especially because of that twist near the end, man all those guys fail a spot check.
6288773 The only, and I repeat ONLY, thing that really I don't think needs fixing from that game? Ridley's boss fight. Not the cutscene, lord knows that needs fixing, but the fight itself. It was intense and made good use of the controls. I actually FELT like I was Samus fighting Ridley. Something that only happened one other time when I played Metroid Prime on my Wii.
6289304
Well then, kindly DON'T speak about him around me.
img15.deviantart.net/688f/i/2010/261/2/0/sandworms_by_pollux101-d2yybd8.jpg
Another enjoyable chapter. Good work.
6289309 So... you haven't read the manga have you? The official, canon one that released around the same time as Zero Mission that is.
Either that or you failed to realize that the ONLY time Ridley actually died was in Super Metroid, the game set mere weeks before the tutorial part of the game occurs.
6288764 I honestly never even bothered with using light/dark beams against the dark/normal metroids, preferring simply to smack them with a super missile, once acquired.
6290155 Uh dude yes I have. I also meant FIGHTING Ridley.... I never said KILL Ridley. READ IT AGAIN.
6290173 Was referring to your issue with the cutscene. If you've read the manga and noticed that the only time Ridley ever "dies" onscreen is in Super Metroid (they specifically scripted him to grab Samus before falling apart into little pieces) then you'd know that yes, Samus does have PTSD, and yes, it does make sense that she hadn't had a panic attack before this (every time before this one she knew he was still alive out there somewhere and thus was able to mentally prepare herself to face him. This time she KNEW he was dead so clone-Ridley caught her off-guard.)
6290203 Oh thank god. Honestly I only said that because so many other people have an issue with it and I didn't want to start anything. Figured it wasn't worth it you know?
6290231 Only people that have an issue with the cutscene (though even I admit it could have been done better) are posers who never bothered to pay attention to details and/or non-game canon content.
Am I the only one that wants, if not a NEW game, a "complete collection" Metroid game for the Wii U? With the amount of space available on a Wii U disc (~25GB, assuming a single-layer disc) they could easily fit Zero Mission, the Prime arc, Return of Samus, Super Metroid, Other M, and Fusion all on the same disc and still have room to spare (calculations made without Federation Force, though depending on it's size it may fit as well.) It'd even be easy to fit the official manga on the disc too. With the Wii U already having Virtual Console GC games, being natively compatible with Wii games, and even the Wii being able to run original DS games (based on having both the Phoenix Wright games and at least one Final Fantasy game using interfaces obviously intended for use on a DS) it should be a fairly simple task for them to put together a couple cutscenes to go between the games and some menus. I would want it to make all the games link together as a single game (though if FF is included they might have it be an optional bit) instead of the Prime Trilogy/Super Mario Allstars style multiple games on one disc/cartridge.
6290322 Yeah.
6290158
Well, yeah, that works. I think in my last play through I did the same. Thing is, I'm a miser when it comes to missiles. And that is ridiculous with the number of refills that pop up.
6290327 It's kinda funny, I used to almost NEVER use missiles, instead preferring the slower but stronger charged power beam
Then I started up a new file, pulled off a glitch that gave me 10 missiles where you first get the missiles again, and proceeded to spam them on the dark splinters.
Kinda funny how they were so damned hard to kill with charge shots, but once I started missile spamming, they went down in about a minute
6290351
I think that comes from Super Metroid. In that one, you have to be conservative of missiles; there's not as many ways to resupply, and you really can't afford to wait around if you're after the best ending.
But yeah, the Charge Beam is okay for weaker enemies, but for the stronger or REALLY annoying ones, it's better to just use a couple of well-placed missiles.
Damn, talking about Echoes like this is making me wanna play it; I'm going to here soon. Kinda in the middle of Skyward Sword atm though.
6290519 that's some serious irony, I just started it up on my GC
Super missiles in the prime series have always been one of the most powerful attacks you can have, so I almost never use other charge combos, except the sonic boom in prime 2
6290613
I have the trilogy for the Wii. Actually, that game is the reason I have a Wii.
Put it this way; if you wanna get a used GC game, either get it through Amazon, or GameTap. Never go through GameStop.
I did, for the first and second Prime games. Got one replacement after the first one didn't work. Got overcharged for another replacement that didn't work.
Basically, I haven't shopped GameStop since. And I never will again, unless I go direct to a store. Even for regular games. Either they don't check like they should, or they package the stuff poorly.
Seriously, what kind of imbecile packages a Minidisk-style game in a sleeve designed for a standard DVD?!
Yes, that's how they packaged it.
Metroid Prime worked; after a fashion that is. You know one of the first Energy Tanks you can get, the one in the Chozo Ruins that you have to use the multiple bomb slots for? It froze in the tunnel leading to that tank every time I played. That's the most specific game-crash freeze I've ever seen.
So no, I don't buy from GameStop anymore. At least not on-line. And since I have no driver's license, I can't easily get to an outlet.
Not that I want to; that experience left me with a bad taste in my mouth to this day. That kind of crap is one of the fastest ways to lose me as a customer. The only faster way is being a jerk to customers and employees.
Anyone else here hate the weapon system of the second Prime? If you are too lazy too comment, like if you hate it, dislike if you do not.
Getting hit by simple rocks and getting hit by giant rocks are two different things, ol' Discord. And from a good height, too.
I'm sorry if this is a little pushy, but please don't fix Other: M too much. I have little to no issue with that game myself, other than its shortness, and I think most of it is fine as it is.
6290712 Cant say I hated it, because it was luminoth tech, not chozo, so of course it would have a limited energy supply, it wasnt designed with the varia suit in mind.
The ammo wasn't something I really enjoyed, but I appreciated the effort of adding a bit of realism.
In short, I didn't like it, but I didn't hate it either.
6291786 True, but still. They seem just as advanced as the Chozo, so why would they use inferior technology?
6291894 I'm not saying it's inferior, I'm saying because it was barely compatible, it was forced to have a limited capacity.
6290710 I got my GC/GC games from gamers
6290712 I didn't hate the weapon system so much as I hated the "run between safe zones or die".
I loved Prime. Prime 2 I never finished cause it was annoying the hell outta me.
6295855
The Dark Suit made that part much easier.
6295855 Yeah, that part sucked ass too. But, I liked the challenge of those bits, so it wasn't so bad for me.
6292807 Eh.
6289267
Even funnier is that killer croc doesn't actually act like that. Croc is actually very intelligent but the other villains THINK he is a big buffoon so Batman played the part.
6288773 Considering how much that waste of disc space sucks...good fucking luck with that.
First game I ever demanded my money back due to being intolerably bad, and supremely disrespectful towards the franchise.
I've been playing games long enough to remember Atari 2600 games before they were "retro." My first computer was a Commodore 64. I even played the infamous E.T. game and it didn't infuriate me anywhere near as much as Other M.
Duke Nukem Forever is a better game!
Another good chapter!
6290095
FCK!!!
6288773
Fix it? Sunbutt be praised! Now I can gleefully ignore the headscrathers and bad characterizations of canon and bask in the light brought by our glorious crossoverlord.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5647m8_batman-the-animated-series-68-trial_fun here is the whole episode.
7944346 Good guy Greg! How you been doing, man?
I don't get it.