"How come they even had a critter like that in the first place?" Applejack demanded.
"Probably as a possible bio-weapon," Samus posited. "Pretty sure everything in there was meant to be a bio-weapon of one sort or another."
"Well, if that creature was controlling the lava, does that mean killing it made the lava tamer elsewhere?" Rainbow asked curiously.
"Indeed it did," Spike confirmed. "That allowed us to explore more of the Pyrosphere." He rolled his eyes to glare at Adam. "But before we managed to get very far at all, we got sent to Sector 2."
"I hadn't gotten a status report from my men in that Sector in a worrying amount of time," Adam replied. "You were the only ones I could contact immediately to send. Not to mention the men there were searching for survivors."
"Reasonable, if no less irritating," Samus admitted. "Even if it did give Ridley more time to regain strength."
"So what was Sector 2 like?" Twilight asked, hoping to defuse any argument or debate.
Spike shrugged. "Not sure what it was supposed to be, but an irregularity in the climate control system rendered the entire Sector frozen over, and all the creatures we encountered were adapted to the cold."
Velvet chuckled. "And thus, not to a fire breathing dragon," she teased her grandson. "Bet that made things easier."
"It certainly did, Grandma," Spike agreed. "Made a lot of it real smooth sailing. Even the larger animals went down quickly from a blast of my fire."
"Of course, then we found more augmented Zebesians," Samus grumbled. "These with reverse engineered and augmented Space Pirate battle tech. Not fun."
"Yeah," Spike grumbled. "It was like fighting Space Pirates all over again."
"You did rather well," Adam commented.
"Plenty of practice," Samus grumbled.
"And the impression wasn't helped when we found creature corpses that showed signs of Metroid predation in a super-cold segment," Spike continued. "Not a pleasant experience...especially when we later learned that it was Metroids genetically modified to stand cold."
"Given the situation, I authorized the use of Samus' Speed Booster," Adam explained. "Of the tech she had available, it had the highest versatility/signal ratio, making it the most logical choice to increase her options without putting her in excess danger from the killer android we now knew was after the whole team."
"I suppose it was helpful," Samus admitted.
"So...did you find the other troops?" Sweetie Belle asked curiously.
"Or survivors?" Apple Bloom added.
"Or the killer android?" Scootaloo squealed.
Samus and Spike fell silent. Spike was the first to speak up at long last. "Yes..."
"Unfortunately..." Samus added.
As Samus and Spike raced towards another facility deep in the snowdrifts, they skidded to a halt as they found the body of another of Adam's men. His body was severely chilled, looking to have been finished off with a freeze round. As they stared, they felt someone watching. Both of them spun towards the building, spotting a blonde haired woman in a lab coat staring at them through the window. When she caught them looking at her, she gasped and dashed away into the facility.
The pair immediately detoured into the facility, which turned out to be a materials storehouse filled with various containers. Samus moved amongst the maze of containers, following the woman as she caught sight of her. Spike made his way over the containers, ready to flank just in case this figure turned out to be the killer android that was taking out their allies.
As they got closer, the woman shouted out, "Don't come near me!"
Samus immediately stopped. This was either the killer android pretending to be a helpless scientist to lull her into a false sense of security, or one of scientists scared out of her wits. She decided that, either way, a cautious approach was warranted. She began to move forward slowly.
"I know why you're here!" the woman shouted again, anger mixed with fear.
"You're mistaken," Samus offered comfortingly. "I'm here to rescue you-"
"You're lying!" the woman shouted back. "I know the Galactic Federation wants to silence everyone who knows about our work here-YAH!"
Spike had taken the opportunity to drop down behind the woman. "Then it's a good thing we're freelance," he stated calmly. "The mission objective we were given was to secure the safety of any and all survivors."
The woman staggered backwards fearfully, but then tensed herself. "How can I trust you when your troops-"
"Are being killed off by a hunter-killer android disguised as a Federation Trooper sent along specifically because the Federation knew they couldn't flip anyone in the unit that was sent to respond to the distress signal?" Samus asked, catching up. "Yeah, I can see why you might have a problem taking our word for it."
The women staggered back worriedly.
At that moment, a large mecha - by appearance, likely designed for moving the crates around - activated and began to attack, sending one of the large crates tumbling straight towards the woman. Acting quickly, Spike grabbed her and leapt to the ceiling, taking her to a safe distance and leaving Samus to combat the mecha, and its unidentifiable pilot in what looked like the armor the Federation troops were wearing.
Samus tensed up as she saw this. Apparently, the Deleter android was making its move. Charging her arm cannon, Samus prepared for combat. "Spike!" she ordered. "Do not come to my assist! Protect the civilian!"
"Understood, Mom!" Spike replied quickly.
Dummest idea ever.
Oh boy, some early dialogue with MB (AKA Melissa Bergman).
Oh, a couple of things too: Lyle Smithsonian was killed in Sector 1 by our assassin. Here Maurice Favreau was shot in the back. He was the one earlier on who was able to decrypt the files in the training facility back in Sector 1. Dunno if you want to update this chapter and its appropriate predecessor with that information.
Odd place to stop.
7037984 Rule one, you don't make a living weapon you can't kill. Honestly, is this the Galactic Federation or the Umbrella Corp.?
7032945 Oh, hi there. I see you've revived my cold dead comment. It turns out crossovers aren't as bad as I thought, if you wanted to know.
7038015 Rule 1 of Sci-Fi Black-Box Projects: The (Illusive) Man at the top Doesn't care how unstable or uncontrollable the subjects may be. If there's even the Potential that something can be weaponized, There's a Secret Lab somewhere working on it.
Murphy's Law: If Something Can go wrong, It Will, usually at the Worst possible moment for it to do so...
What happens when you apply Murphy's Law to the First Rule of Sci-Fi Black-Box projects? From what I've read so far, both In story and in the Comments, what happened to the Bottle Ship doesn't even come Close to what could conceivably be considered a Worst Case Scenario. Sure, the Situation's bad and everything's gone/going to Hell in a Hand Basket, but when you REALLY think about it, things could still be much, Much worse than they are...
7038015
Just be glad they finally gave up on Zombie Viruses. Can you imagine an undead Metroid?!?
7038060 How about a magic-enhanced metroid? Since we are in crossover land.
7038088
Ya don't say?
7038112 Oh dear god.
7038112 I don't get it... Haven't read that one...
I was thinking more along the lines of this.
7038138
The linked story is about Fluttershy raising a Metroid from infancy that's adapted to Equis' high magic fields.
Is it wrong I want to see Spike no sell the Ferrocrusher by grabbing it and just tossing it over his shoulder with a single grunt that isn't so much effort as annoyance????
7038015 Where do you think the Federation draws it's idea people from????
Most likely.
Makes sense.
Ah, a Cryosphere?
Useful.
Considering they've damn near exterminated the Space Pirate race several times over, they have more practice than anyone.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THAT!? I mean, having a damn near unstoppable bioweapon is one thing, but, you removed it's ONE weakness, without thinking that if it turned on you, it'd be unstoppable?! WHAT KIND OF MORON WOULD DO THAT!? If you have a weapon, make sure you know how it works and make sure you can disable it if it goes rogue! Especially living weapons.
Oh dear.
Oh yeah, MB, that Mother Brain human clone thing.
Translation, even if someone was trying to silence you, it wouldn't be them. Plus, if they wanted you dead, you would already be dead.
Poor woman, this has gotta be hard for her.
So it seems the Deleter has made a move.
Ah, "Protect the X" missions, never fun.
hmm...wasn't MB given a sympathetic backstory in this?
also, lava fishing, did that happen?
7038309
Yes.
And not yet.
7038309
In baseline yes. Tats has another android running around as the Deleter. His reasoning is that because of Spike's involvement with Adam's team, the conspirators weren't able to turn anybody in the unit against Adam.
In baseline, it was shown that James was the Deleter, though that's never been confirmed. I only go by that because he was the only one outside of Adam that survived, and we know he wasn't involved. He despises bio-weaponry of any kind.
7038015 S.O.P. for any and all military and government programs! Book smart, STONE-ASS STUPID!!!!
7038138 One, the linked story has NOTHING to do with Samus, Metroids, or anything related to them.
Two, simply being a crossover doesn't make a story bad.
Three, read this, then go back and check out the author for the link you posted.
Four, the story Tats linked is an interlude/sequel to another Metroid/MLP cross, and honestly it's a better one IMO. Sorry Tats.
Five, Don't dis XCOM. Not all of us are Rookies that can't hit barn sized targets.
Vigilo Confido
7039256
That's okay. I'm in full agreement with you that Flammenwerfer's "Metroid: Equis" sequence is an objectively better story than this. Doesn't mean readers can't enjoy both.
7039372 And we do. NOW GET BACK TO WORK! I'm still waiting for WWW to catch up to the present!
7038088 Great. Now I imagene a metroid floating araund with a wizard hat plased on top of it.
7039256
Of that I am perfectly aware. I was talking about the magic enhanced aliens Arad wrote about, and how metroids wold be so op if they were also magically enhanced.
I didn't say crossovers were bad.
I think you're assuming a lot. I've read a lot of Arad's stuff—Stardust, Celestia, that one about Twilight post-Earth, and what's been written so far in Mente Materia. Bits of the other ones.
Nothing to say there. Not familiar with either of those other crosses, as I've said.
But I didn't dis XCOM...
7042325 Haha, that would be a sight to see.
7043940 /me needs to really stop posting at 5 in the morning. I just reread the comments and realized you're NOT the person complaining about crossovers earlier. I apologize.
7045235 Oh, I see. I was very confused at all those accusations. No worries.
7038088 Doesn't Spike count do to him and Squishy being fused.