Mareoid Fusion

Chapter 2: Encounter

This story begins during the Neo-Ridley fight in Metroid Fusion. Metroid is owned by Nintendo and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is owned by Hasbro. Major thanks to Pissfer for amazing ideas, editing and awesome-ifying it. A/N: This story arc was changed due to the need for a quick resolution and that the other one I had created was entirely a non-option. I am sorry for essentially wasting a weeks time after writing a horrible chapter. Hopefully you can all enjoy this new (and fully planned out) story arc.

Silence reigned over the area. Silence itself wanted nothing but peace to hold, and kept its composure through a weightless feeling of ease. Anyone caught in this silence would adhere, for what reason did they have to destroy it? Calmness and tranquility came with silence, and continued to persist throughout this small section of castle. They cast their power over the inhabitants and willed them to be still and professional. The resounding clang of metal broke silence, but kept calm throughout the area. Silence began to return and restore what it had created, but broke again when the metal shriek returned.

“Enough,” Celestia ordered the doctors. They stood stock still when they heard the order, but the one with the hammer kept the object levitating in case he could continue his attempts. Celestia frowned at the strange creature that had appeared encased in this organic amor; she didn’t know whether this action could be harming it. Whatever the creature was, it had immediately started fighting its adversary upon arrival, and took part in the destruction of the entire ballroom and the great doors that separated it from the entrance to the castle. Celestia felt lost in trying to make sense of the situation, for all these years she hadn’t encountered something like this. The being seemed focused entirely on its own rage, and went on with reckless abandon as its enemy had apparently “ripped the golden alicorn statue off its pedestal and threw it at the metal creature”, as some ponies had reported. She didn’t forget the dragon-esque creature either, it had screeched like a rabid animal and looked ready to tear this being apart. She didn’t know what either was, but they didn’t seem the type to be allowed free roam in such a peaceful place as Equestria.

“Bring it to a cell for now; we do not want a repeat of the Ballroom throughout the rest of the castle.” The doctors nodded in reply and began setting up a stretcher of sorts to hold the metallic creature. Celestia pointed to her head captain who had arrived moments after Celestia drove off the screeching animal. The captain was clad in golden armor and held a stern look on his face. “I want you to begin a city wide sweep for the other creature, it is obviously dangerous and letting it terrorize my subjects is out of the question. But leave two here for protection’s sake.”

The guard struck his chest plate with a hoof to show he understood and walked away to rally his troop, “you all heard the princess, we sweep the city and find that monster. Sky Sweeper, Star Gazer; you stay here and protect them with your lives.”

“Yes sir,” was the unified response from the ponies as the rest of the guards galloped away.

Celestia looked back to the purple and blue being that lay upon the table. As far as they could discern, it was in a suit, but the suit wouldn’t come off. It weighed more than any other creature its size Celestia had ever seen, and one appendage ended in an arm and hand like a dragon yet it didn’t have sharp digits, and on the other was a massive pipe of some kind that just seemed to be semi-hollow. But she knew the strange limb was a weapon after seeing it expel some sort of explosive earlier. The creature just didn’t seem to make sense to Celestia, but she was hoping more tests in the near future could help her understanding.

The doctors began lifting Samus into the air with magic; this took the combined efforts of all the doctors present plus the unicorn guard left over. “Careful now, set it down nice and easy,” the doctor pony was attempting to ease the process so nothing would be damaged, but it was of no use. With the suit, Samus was slightly bigger than anything they had could easily handle, and when they set her down on the stretcher and released the magic, she fell through and hit the floor with a loud thud.

The HUD sparked to life as if sensing danger, and began to check Samus’ current status. The ponies on the outside winced at the noise but held their attention at the new occurrence. Red letters and symbols seemed to be flaring to life on the surface of what they had assumed was a helmet. Another picture flashed and it looked like an X-ray, which revealed many wounds and broken bones with red highlight before stopping and then flashing a final message. One pony was close enough to read the letters, but could only spell them back out in their backwards form, “what is a enilanerda gniretsinimda?”

Samus gasped as she woke up and grabbed at the nearest object for stability. A pure adrenaline shot was a powerful way to jolt one awake, and right now she was in unknown territory after being knocked unconscious during the fight with Ridley. She quickly scanned her location and took account of the number of creatures that were surrounding her, found a weakness in their perimeter and quickly acted to take advantage of their mistake. The object she had grabbed onto was the creature reading her helmet a moment before, and Samus decided to use it as a launch pad. Jumping into a kneeling position, Samus then pushed off of the creature resulting in him slamming muzzle first into the ground while she was given a start in momentum.

Samus changed into her morph ball form, using the movement from the initial boost to begin rolling away from the beings encircling her. She reached the edge of the small room and returned to her standing form, arm cannon trained on the group of quadrupeds. She took the second of stillness that resulted from her action to actually look at the location she stood in. There were several structures that were equally separated in the fairly large space that she assumed were used as tables, near the table she was originally close to was a stand that held various different tools. One of these tools was a simple wooden handle hammer, which would shatter into hundreds of pieces before it even dented her armor. She glanced at the walls and noticed they were marble white, with a repeating heart symbol inscribed along the top. The entrance to the room was beyond the group of quadrupeds, at the right side of her vision. As her eyes swept the room, they met what looked to be beds, except each of them was about one and a half feet too small to fit a regular sized human. But that thought halted her wandering gaze and she snapped her head back towards the group of things she had escaped from.

Each one looked like a horse; except at the same time they were too small and some of them even had horns. One of the horned ponies was wearing gold armor plating and stood along a similarly dressed pony with wings. She thought for a moment before remembering that usually a smaller horse was called a “pony”… but then what were the ones with horns or wings called? Unicorns? Pegasi? The question seemed ridiculous, although, she had seen weirder things before and she had heard of creatures such as these in old myths. Her eyes focused on the tallest one which had both a horn and a pair of white wings. She began to falter as memories settled back into place from earlier and her eyes shot wide as recognition seeped in; this creature had used its power to drive off Ridley. She studied it for a moment while keeping her arm cannon trained on the group of smaller ponies before pointing her hand at it and attempting to speak.

Samus opened her mouth but was interrupted by a call from across the hallway, “Hello?” Samus flung her arm cannon towards the new sound and saw another pony, she steadied herself and made sure nothing else was hiding from her senses. The pony who had called out had green fur and a teal mane that contained both white streaks and a horn. This pony had a picture of a lyre on her flank, and was wearing what seemed like a dress.

Samus readied for any of the ponies in the room to attack; the armored and large ones in particular. The pony with the lyre on her flank started to ease her way forward slowly which caused Samus to tense and hold her stance. This action didn’t waver the pony’s movement if she had even noticed it, but the guards did seem to notice and took on an offensive posture. Samus looked back to the guards and took aim, resulting in the start of a fairly painful skirmish.

The guards began their attacks in unison. The unicorn guard’s horn erupted in a soft yellow light while the pegasus used a powerful stroke of his wings to surge towards Samus. Samus began her normal evasive actions, strafing quickly, almost dodging the pegasus’ charge, the impact of which was further buffered by her armor and only resulted in a sore pair of hooves for the pegasus. Samus found herself stumbling, however, during the middle of her strafe. She was able to keep her upright position, but found her movement significantly impaired as if rope was tightening around her arms and legs.

Samus quickly inspected herself and found that she was coated in a soft yellow light, but felt it was simply meant to reduce her mobility. She countered this through what seemed obvious at the moment. Samus converted into her morph ball and found that her countermeasure had worked as planned, as the restricting force disappeared. She used this opportunity to gain some distance from her assailants. She rolled away from both the group of ponies and guards which ended up bringing her closer to the green advancing pony that had entered the room before.

Samus transformed back into her standing form but didn’t count on this proceeding juke aggravating her already present injuries. The first time she had exited the morph ball she had not already strained her injuries through strafing, but now her body was throbbing in pain. She came back standing, but quickly dropped to one knee in front of the green unicorn, and could do nothing but gasp in pain while her HUD flared to life. Her helmet filled with red images and writing to confirm her concerns, an X-ray showing the many sprains and broken bones became the center of attention among the flashes.

The green pony was facing Samus when she stumbled upon the failed maneuver, and was able to hear her painful gasp. The pony was also able to see the many graphic images that filled the transparent visor on the helmet; mainly an image of what looked like an odd skeleton covered in injuries. She looked through the creature's visor to see its eyes and saw the deep pain and exhaustion expressed within the blue.

Samus looked back into the green ponies eyes as it stared deeply into hers. She saw confusion and sadness, as if it was wondering why she was in such pain. But the golden spheres slowly turned into warm understanding as it laid a gentle hoof on her shoulder and brought Samus’ kneeling form into a hug. Samus could only drop to both knees and lean in; accepting the first friendly gesture given in what she had presumed was a hostile planet. She dropped her weapon to her side and slowly pulled her hand around the ponies mid section to return this sign of acceptance, all the while the HUD glaring red as it flashed through report after report.

Charred wings of bone and skin beat across the night sky as the space pirate made his escape from the clutches of the new hostile power he had encountered. Injuries fresh and still bleeding, his body like a canvas, covered in the glistening blood. He continued pumping his battered wings as he sought to gain a comfortable distance from the powerful foe who had aided in the human abomination’s efforts against him, keeping a watchful eye out for any sort of shelter or prey to feast upon. He would eventually lose enough blood to severely weaken himself, but if he was able to consume flesh soon, they would heal and his strength would be regained.

He shot a look behind himself and saw that the structure he had escaped was a fair distance behind and decided to instead focus now on finding something to use as shelter. Although he doubted he could stay in this city for long, he had to find a spot to rest for the time being after using as much energy as he did in the fight with his archenemy; Samus Aran. Her name boiled his blood and filled his mind with primal rage. He was close on K-2L, she had been right there, a small child trying to befriend him... but that reckless waste of flesh of a mother had protected her. She had slipped through his claws that day, and he had barely survived the afloraltite explosion himself, only living by consuming the flesh of the fallen humans. Then time and time again she had shown herself as a worthy adversary, her training with the Chozo proving to be valuable through her ever-repeating triumphs over him. He had fought her many times on many planets, he cloned himself, he made mechanized upgrades, but after all that he still fell in defeat. Now here he was, a dead clone, only given life by the damned X parasite. But it was proving to be an asset so far, and it seemed to have evolved his body into a much more efficient state. He noticed his enlarged claws and strong wings along with much more powerful movement; if this upgrade didn’t kill the annoying spawn of metal and fire then he literally had nothing left.

He spotted movement below him in an empty street, snapping him out of his reverie. He quickly dove towards a nearby building to investigate. His wings spread out as he finished closing the distance to his soon-to-be prey, slowing his descent and then gently landing without noise lest he scare his probable dinner. He crouched low and spied on the lone creature; a single figure that resembled an equine, walking with his snout in the air and a suit complete with monocle and top hat. It practically personified the image of a snobby rich-man (as if the mark on its flank containing a pile of money wasn’t already a big enough hint). Ridley felt his mouth water and his claws clenched the side of the structure he occupied, leaving behind gashes in the woodwork. He looked for a secluded area along the supposed path of the self-entitled horse-thing and found an alley behind what appeared to be a closed shop, he acted quickly on this advantage and swooped over the street and inside the pitchblack crack between shops.

Waiting for the exact moment; Ridley didn’t move a muscle. His senses reached out for what he could not see and found the creature slowly making its way past the various buildings and towards the shop. He heard the gentle, rhythmic pattern of hooves upon ground and reveled in anticipation of the destined kill. Each hoof step striking the set stone brought it closer to aiding the pirate in his endeavour. He practically counted the number of drops. Closer... Closer... The equine stopped. The only sound present in the hollow streets ceasing and Ridley held still, hoping his presence had not been discerned. He did not fear his prey would get away, just that it would cause unneeded commotion. Relief flooded over him as the hoofsteps returned, increasing in volume and proximity. Until a flicker of movement at the alley entrance. He leapt.

The night was still young, barely hours old, as the white light of stars and moon alike shone down. Quite similar in color to a meatless pile of pony bones. Small rags of tattered clothing and hat helped indicate that this at least used to be a pony. Retching could be easily heard at the corner of the shop, and the results could easily be smelled at twice the distance. The two senior guardsponies looked at one another and nodded, each sporting a very grim mask; they were at least taking it better than their subordinate. Weak hoofsteps heralded the return of the private who had been brought along on this city sweep.

“What could do this to another living being captain? What animal could-” Deep breaths replaced his speech as he attempted to calm himself. After a moment he had recovered his composure, “What animal could possibly do this?”

Captain Goldenclad swept his appraising eyes over the pile of white marrow and shook his head. Letting out a heavy sigh, he gave his honest report, “I wish I knew, Private. That thing that Celestia drove out of the castle... it’s truly a monster.” His better-kept Lieutenant gave a nod at this and turned away from the shallow grave; they couldn’t have ever been ready for this. “This is out of our league, we need to issue a city wide alert immediately. Private!”

Still pale faced, the private stood at attention as best he could. “Yes, sir!”

“You will be going back and alerting the princess of this... event. Tell her a city wide alert is my suggested course of action. We need to drive this thing out of our home.”

“Yes, sir!” After a few faltering hoofsteps, the private found enough strength to set off to complete his orders.

The captain watched him leave and sighed again. He forced another look at the final resting place of the poor soul, his frown cemented to his face. “We may not be ready,” he looked towards his Lieutenant, “but that creature the doctors were tinkering with probably is. Lets hope the princess can get it on our side.” The Lieutenant gave another solemn nod before speaking.

“Golden, I’ll go find the other groups and relay the information. I’m sure they’ll help start the alert.”

“You do that Spear, I’ll go warn the guards at the entrance and wall keeps. If we’re lucky, we can find this beast before more ponies are hurt...” He paused and gulped. A second passed and he noticed the Lieutenant staring at him with his usual calm demeanour. “Aren’t you supposed to be doing something Spear?” A final nod and surge of wings signaled the leaving of another comrade; leaving the captain plus one.

“Clear!” A surge of electricity passed through the organic suit, but passed unnoticed by the construct and its occupant. The doctor pony looked back to the princess and raised an eyebrow, “are you sure we should continue this? What if it is harmful?”

Celestia kept a stern look about her face, but felt comforted by having her sister by her side in this time of crisis. “Desperate times, doctor. It brought a creature of terrible power along with it and destroyed much of our property in the process; a jolt awake is one of the better ways we can deal with this.”

The doctor resumed his work with an electrical charge created in his horn, “I’ll up the power... Clear!” This bolt of energy shot through the systems and awakened the suit and hunter alike.

Samus awoke with a jolt for the second time in as many hours, her back arched as her muscles tensed and her HUD began analysis immediately. She hated the glaring red lights that seemed to occupy the helmet as of late. This time though, she decided to get a hold on her surroundings and slowly come to terms with what was transpiring, rather than act as though danger was immediate. She found the same group of ponies from before, all dressed in what appeared to be doctor uniforms. She also saw the large pony with both wings and horn accompanied by a similar pony that was a dark blue, along with the two armor clad ponies who had attacked her sometime before. One of the ponies in the group looked as though he had been through something strenuous; she suspected it had to do with the extra electricity that the AI detected coursing through her suit a moment before.

Before she could continue her take on the present, the HUD flashed red again, agitating her eyes and causing her to wince at the sight. The tired pony near her craned his head to get a better look at her visor. She didn’t know if they could read her language, but she didn’t contain the energy to bother denying him. She shifted her body and attempted to push herself into a sitting position, but immediately felt a resistance impeding her way; it felt more like a sludge than a wall. She moved her arm and felt towards where she thought the resistance was, but felt nothing, yet at the same time she wasn’t able to lift her body forward.

She twisted her head to find the source of this blocking and saw the larger, white pony charging her horn with energy; this action didn’t seem to affect her in the slightest, even though if fully constricted the hunter.

The large one was the first to speak. “Greetings, being. I am Princess Celestia. We have met before, but it seems to have been in bad terms. I would like to extend a proposition of peace, as it seems there is a threat that we have mutual interests in.” The regal pony extended her hoof. Samus looked to it for a moment and considered this newfound proposal; she could accept the help from the local demi-god, or attempt hostile actions again. She returned her gaze to the pony’s eyes and didn’t see the kind of sly that hinted towards betrayal, so she decided that hostile actions weren’t going to help anyone, least of all herself.

She brought her hand up and took the hoof within it, “Deal.”