Frigid huntings

The day was peaceful, the sun was high in the sky, rolling rays of gentle light onto the dancing grass below. Many animals frolicked about in the meadow, all peacefully at tune with nature. Up in the skies, many birds flew aligned together, cheerfully singing a beautiful tune. To Rainbow Dash, this was a perfect day to fly.

She stood on a hill located relatively close to the meadow, the gentle grass tickling her hooves. Gracefully, she stretched her wings and took flight. She flew at a slow, but steady pace, letting the cool breeze wash over her body as she flew. It was a rare sight for the cerulean blur to be flying at a pace like this, but all things considered, it was easy to explain why. The animals gazed up at the Cyan Pegasus, watching in awe and wonder as she did a few spins and twists. It was like an aerial Ballet, each spin and twist being equally as graceful.

The Pegasus turned her body upwards, flying straight up into the sky. The animals all watched in wonder as she came to a halt. She looked down, getting a devilish grin on her face as she rocketed downwards. She sped down, rapidly gaining speed as she descended. A small cone was beginning to form around her. The air whipped away at her face making her eyes water.

The animals slowly backed away while the cone grew in size. The Pegasus gained a large grin as the cone reached it's apex. She could feel it, she'd break the sound barrier. Suddenly she halted, her forward momentum coming to a complete halt. She looked around puzzled as she realized what this meant. She immediately felt the resistance of the cone, struggling to whip her back. She was sent flying from the backlash, soaring uncontrollably into the nearby forest of Everfree. Down below the animals watched puzzlingly, then three pulled out a small piece of paper with a Nine-point-five on it, and held it up.

Rainbow Dash yelled in fright as she saw she was hurtling towards the Everfree forest, an abomination of nature, filled to the brim with monsters and evils. The very laws of nature itself were shattered by this mysterious land. She braced herself as she drew closer to the ground, and before long, she crashed down into the tree canopy. She bounced of a few branches as she continued her plummet and finally hit the ground, landing face first into a puddle of mud. She lay there for a minute, everything hurt. Rainbow Dash slowly shambled to her hooves and looked herself over. She seemed fine, so she stretched her wings and prepared to take flight, when a jet of pain rocketed through her. Rainbow looked at her wings, they weren't broken, so she figured she simply dislocated her wing.

"Great." She huffed. "I was gonna break the sound barrier, and what happened? It broke me." Rainbow looked at her surroundings, trying to see if she could tell where she was. The only thing she saw was an odd rock formation. At least she thought, it was hard to tell in the darkness of the forest. One thing that caught her eye was a blue slug-like object on the pile. Curiosity got the better of her as she walked closer to the rocks. As she drew closer, she saw the pile took a somewhat humanoid shape. Rainbow Dash came to a halt in front of the rocks, seeing that it wasn't rocks, but a creature of some sort.

"What the hay..." She said to no-one in particular. She covered her mouth with a hoof, noticing the creature stir as she spoke. Twilight should see this... Rainbow through to herself. She turned to leave and slowly trotted off, careful not to awaken the creature. She gave a last glance towards it, then continued on her way. The creature stirred again after she left, as is it was having a nightmare.

"Samus...No..." It said.

Rundas fired an onslaught of ice shards at a figure in front of him. In his head, he was screaming at his body to cooperate, but a dark figure had overtaken complete control over his form. He watched helplessly as a stray shard of ice impaled the figure through the shoulder. SAMUS! He yelled at himself.

It was painful for Rundas, he'd been closer to Samus than either Ghor or Gandrayda, and now he was trying to kill her against his will.

Samus ducked behind one of the many pillars of ice surrounding the area. Noticing this, Rundas helplessly flew towards her using his ice as some sort of surf-board. He closed the distance easily as Samus leaped out from behind the pillar and fired a slew of missile fire at Rundas, each one striking him square in the chest.

Rundas was staggered by the concussive shots. Samus fired three more, each one hitting him with enough force to send into a dazed state. He was glad that his possessed form had at least created a shield of ice armor to protect himself, otherwise he would have died then and there.

His hopes were quickly snuffed when Samus latched onto him using her grappling beam. A quick tug was all it took and the armor was torn clean off of him. Rundas's hopes for survival dwindled as Samus's powersuit began to glow a deep azure blue. Glowing tendrils sprouted from her armor, the cannon on her arm opened into a full configuration. The icicle embedded in her arm melted quickly as the Phazon energy rushed through Samus's veins, instantly regenerating the puncture.

Samus fired a salvo of Phazon-enhanced particle beams at Rundas, who had recovered just in time to dodge the blasts. He retaliated by blasting shards of ice at her, each one shattering harmlessly against her empowered form. He ducked and ran as she fired another missile, this one engulfing the ground it struck and anything withing two meters with a Phazon powered explosion.

Rundas deployed his Ice-board again and began to fly around the arena they fought in, landing atop one of the large ice columns after dodging another salvo of Phazon.

Rundas's mind was reeling now. Never in all his life has he fought like this. He had to say, even if he wasn't under his own control, he did feel somewhat proud. Dammit, what am I thinking!? Rundas internally yelled.

He couldn't dwell on it, as he began to unwillingly create a large ice pillar in front of himself. The large pylon gained mass until it was nothing more than I giant shard with enough force to crush anything caught under it.

That's when Rundas began to twirl it about, preparing it as if it was some sort of sling. Then he let it go, sending flying across the arena and towards Samus, who fired hopelessly a the large pillar.

It crashed into the wall, smashing Samus along with it. Both a wave of relief and horror washed over Rundas. Relief that he was alive, but horror at what he had done.

"Sa...Muss...." Rundas struggled to say. Though he could not cry because he had no eyes, Rundas was completely overcome with grief. He had just killed the only person he had ever willingly worked with, but also killed the closest thing he had to a friend.

That's when Rundas heard a sizzling sound. He glanced up to the ice spire, which had a circular hole being melted through it. Steam filled the air, obscuring Rundas's view. Something blue glowed inside the steam, before Rundas could react, a bright blue laser beam soared through the air and struck him dead in the chest.

The blast knocked Rundas off of his perch and he fell, landing hard on the grated floor. Rundas rolled over, seeing that he was now at Samus's mercy.

Rundas realized that he was now able to control his body somewhat. Not enough to run or speak, but he could still manipulate his ice.

"Samus...Run..." He managed to say. In an attempt to keep himself from doing anymore harm, Rundas summoned large spikes of ice from the ground below him, each one impaling him through the chest. He sat there in great pain as he saw the form of Dark Samus appear above him. He knew this was the end...

Rundas was jolted awake by the dream. He looked around himself, noticing he was in some sort of swamp. He stammered to his feet, and noticed almost immediately that his P.E.D. was gone. He breathed a sigh of relief, not having to worry about being corrupted again. He took a deep breath then looked around himself one again. He took a better analysis of the area this time, writing down every detail about the area as he looked. He was in a swamp, one very reminiscent of the jungles of Tallon IV.

He could see the sun sitting high in the sky, but the forest was somehow dark enough that he could barely see. He took a few steps forward and stretched himself out, taking more notes about the residual area. One thing he knew for sure, he wasn't on Bryyo anymore. Out of the bottom of his vision, he saw what appeared to be tracks, horseshoe tracks if he wasn't mistaken. He followed the trail with his eyes and saw a small light at the end of the trail.

"Might as well start here." Rundas muttered under his breath. He then set out towards the edge of the forest, hoping to find why exactly he was here.