Chapter 35: A Space Pirate Ambush
"You mean to tell me that there is some sort of metal interdimensional goop down there taking over the minds of my friends? And you brought me all the way back here instead of letting me help them?"
Pit stood in the middle of Palutena's temple, high in the upper altitudes of his homeworld. Hades and Viridi each stood to one side of him as Palutena herself stood at the head of the chamber. The goddess of light was tall and stately, with pure white robes and long, flowing green hair. She looked down at Pit with a sympathetic look on her face. "I'm sorry, Pit," she said, "I did what I had to do to get you out of there. This is an enemy far more dangerous than anything any of us have seen before."
"It's an abomination against nature, that's what it is," Viridi griped, "It's completely unnatural. It must be stopped."
"I agree with Granola Girl," Hades said, "It is stopping dead souls from moving on to my kingdom. We can't have than now, can we? That whole circle of life thing the three of you were lecturing me about all game? Remember that?"
Palutena looked at her fellow deities. "It's a threat to all of us, Pit. We have to come up with a plan to stop it."
"So, what? Are we just going to leave my friends down there to die while we screw around up here, trying to come up with something?" Pit demanded.
"Hey, we're working on it!" Viridi snapped back. "As we speak, I'm trying to design a reset bomb that will affect only the metal stuff. It's not as easy as it looks, you know."
"The sooner we find a solution, the sooner we can offer any kind of help to your friends, Pit," Palutena said calmly.
"Can't I at least warn them about the danger?"
Hades chuckled. "Go ahead, send little Pitty down there," he told his fellow deities. "I always wondered what metal chicken would taste like."
Palutena gave Hades a sharp look. She looked back at Pit. "Alright," she said, "It's against my better judgment though. I want you to take the three sacred treasures with you, not those copies I let you use for the tournament. And I don't want you going alone."
Pit looked around. He couldn't imagine any of the three gods around him accompanying him. "Who do you suggest?"
Palutena smirked.
Samus fired off three charge shots at Ridley, hitting him square in the chest. The dragon responded with some fireballs of his own. Samus dodged, jumping up onto one of the stage's platforms. A part of the nearby stage had been blackened and burned by Ridley's earlier fire blasts, but the flames had since been put out by a sweep of his wings. Samus jumped to be right over Ridley's head, curled into a ball, and dropped a pair of small bombs that detonated with a sharp flash near his right eye. The dragon growled in irritation and snapped his jaw at her as she fell, but she was too fast for him. She hit the ground only to be knocked over by his large claw.
Aren't we getting a little old for all of this," Ridley said mockingly.
Samus got to her feet, scowling. She fired off a missile at the dragon's face, which he deftly deflected with the palm of his hand.
"I think it's time we upped our game, don't you?" Ridley said, pulling out an assist trophy. "It's time to bring out an old, dear friend of ours."
He flipped the switch, activating the trophy. The light from it grew bigger and bigger until it revealed a massive red, fleshy brain housed within a giant control capsule. Large gray spikes jutted out of rivets all along its back and a single eye stuck out of the front. The eye looked around, taking in its surroundings, before zeroing in on Samus.
"Mother Brain?" Samus said.
"Oh, yes, Samus," Ridley said, "As much as my queen wanted to take part in the battle here today, her condition makes that a little difficult, so I managed to get ahold of a spare trophy stand in order to carry her in."
The giant brain glared at Samus. Samus stared back, remembering all the times she had gone up against this grotesque thing in the past. It's eye began to glow with purple energy. Reacting quickly, Samus dived out of the way just before a powerful laser shot from it. She turned and fired a charge shot at the brain. A tiny ring of energy zipped in front of the blast, intercepting it. Samus stopped. She hadn't seen them before, but Mother Brain was completely surrounded by those little rings, all ready to protect it at all costs. She cursed inwardly.
"Oh, dear," Ridley mocked, "It looks like little Samus is a bit outmatched. What will she ever do?"
"Don't be silly," Samus said, "I've taken both of you down on multiple occasions. I can take you again."
"How about all three of us, then?"
A pair of green reptilian arms wrapped around Samus, restraining her. She craned her neck to see another of her old enemies, Kraid. The last time she had seen him, he had towered over her by several hundred feet, but now he was the size he had been when Samus first met him, barely taller than she was. The corpulent reptile squeezed Samus, his immense strength starting to damage her power suit. A group of sharp spines on his belly jabbed into her back, and he dug with his claws into the armor covering her torso. Samus pushed and fought to get out of Kraid's grip, but he held her tight. With a sharp crack, the claws opened up a tiny hole in her armor. Samus twisted and managed to get her arm cannon around to point at Kraid's belly, firing a charge shot into it. The blast was enough to loosen his grip on her. Samus slipped out of his grip just in time to see Mother Brain's eye fire off a bright purple energy wave at her.
The energy struck Samus with the force of a tank. She was thrown backwards by the blast, the energy pounding at her. She could feel the spot on her torso starting to burn where the crack in her armor was. She bit her tongue in agony as the attack ended and her body rolled across the stadium floor.
Samus rolled over to see that the crack had been blown open further, revealing a large patch of the blue latex of her zero-suit, damaged a little itself. Samus fiddled with a small compartment on her suit, popping it open to reveal her failsafe. A glowing Smash Ball. Hopefully this would—
A piercing pain ripped through her body. She looked up to see Ridley standing over her, stabbing a long wooden stake he had pulled off the stage decoration through the crack in her armor. Samus stared at it in surprise, then up at Ridley. Even now, she could feel that it had been a mortal wound. Grinding her teeth, Samus clenched her fist around her Smash Ball, breaking it and allowing its energy to flood through her.
Ridley glared down at her. "That won't save you now, you know."
Samus aimed her gun at him. "I know."
She fired. A blinding wall of energy burst from the cannon, slamming into Ridley and forcing him backwards. The dragon tried to flap his wings and escape, but the power of the attack held him fast. Kraid and Mother Brain tried to escape but the energy pulled them in too. Samus could feel her power suit falling apart from the strain of it. With one last blast, Ridley and Kraid were thrown over the wall of the arena and out of sight.
Samus lay gasping for breath as the attack ended. Her suit had crumbled to pieces around her, leaving her only in her skintight blue zero-suit, the long stake still protruding from her stomach. Nearby, Mother Brain only remained. All of its rings of energy were gone, and its capsule had shattered, but it had barely managed to escape the blast. Its single grotesque eye glared at her, starting to glow purple again. Samus closed her eyes and waited for death when a sharp metal sound rang in her ears. She looked to see a long metal shaft piercing right through the giant brain. The purple glow faded. Samus's rescuer stepped out from behind his victim, his eyes glowing and metallic.
"Luigi?" Samus whispered faintly, "H-how . . ."
Luigi smiled and crouched down beside Samus, pulling the stake from her wound. "Sshhh," he told her soothingly, "Just hold still. Weegee's gonna make it all better."
"But . . . ," Samus's consciousness faded as Luigi's hand slipped into the hole in her stomach.