Clash of the Smashers

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Prime Peril

A Lush and Beautiful Jungle…

A dark purple/black portal opened up and deposited Ganondorf, in all of his black armor and malevolent grace. He turned slowly around, taking in his surroundings, which were quite visually appealing. Rather than evoking a positive emotion in the Thief King, the beauty of the area caused him to frown, and his gaze became so furious that it would kill lesser creatures.

The surroundings he was in were stunning. Tall, healthy palm trees flourished, with thick watery leaves, standing over four times the height of Ganondorf. Large juicy fruit, ranging from bananas to oranges covered their tops, and the sky was a glorious blue. Smaller plants flourished near the ground floor, and small birds chirped happily in the upper leaves of the palm trees.

The jungle wasn't wild however. The palm trees grew all over, but there was a section of reasonably straight clear ground, about fifteen feet wide and very long that started far away from where Ganondorf was…and ended at a tall tree house.

The tree house was built on a massive tree that was considerably thicker than the surrounding trees, and the house itself was about the size of a medium sized cabin. Past it, the pathway continued, spreading out into other clearings that led to other, similar houses.

Ganondorf cared little for the pretty surroundings, or the other houses. He marched forward, heading straight for the tree house, and with every step his mood darkened.

Well before the evil bearer of the Triforce of Power managed to get to the tree-house, something confronted him. A small blue creature with large buck teeth and a strangely long and flat tail burst out of the trees and ran towards Ganondorf at a surprisingly fast speed, despite its short and stubby legs.

Ganondorf eyed the creature angrily, as if irritated that such a lowly being would dare come towards him. It came to an abrupt stop after it bonked its head into Ganondorf's knees. After shaking its head it looked up at Ganondorf and squealed and chattered at him. Ganondorf frowned, but appeared to understand the creature, as he responded.

"No, M.C. has demanded that I take care of that oversized ape. You go back and tell K. Rool to worry about himself. With Diddy in their group, they're probably going to want to come here, and if everything goes well D.K. will be gone…which means they'll be heading for him. Got it?" Ganondorf said, making it very clear that if the creature, which happened to be a beaver-like being known as a Gnawty, didn't "get it" he would MAKE it understand.

The Gnawty squealed in fright, and as quickly as it came, it vanished into the trees.

"I hate dealing with other's grunts," Ganondorf grumbled before continuing his march to the tree-house, this time uninterrupted.

He came to a stop in front of it, and craned his neck to see the top. He could hear rustling inside the tree-house, but he wasn't sure if it came from the person…or monkey, that he was looking for. He looked at that the slats that were obviously designed for climbing up to the tree-house, but Ganondorf didn't feel like wasting the time, and decided he didn't need the element of surprise.

"Hey! Donkey Kong! Get your fat, lard-filled ass down here!"
There was a moment of silence after Ganondorf's booming voice finished echoing. In fact, there were several silent moments. The birds flew away, and the trees seemed to shrink back in fear. No noise came from the tree-house until a loud bellow echoed out and something brown, big and fast jumped out of the tree-house and landed surprisingly gracefully in front of Ganondorf. Donkey Kong was here.

"Uh! You! Donkey know you! You BAD! Donkey no have donkey!" the large muscular red-tie wearing ape said, apparently misinterpreting Ganondorf's donkey statement, and his small eyes were narrowed in anger. His short legs were tense, while his long muscular arms ended in tight fists.
"Yes, Donkey…I guess I am bad. But that doesn't matter. Either you come with me peacefully…or I beat the crap out of you and you come with me only partially coherent. The choice is yours."
"Donkey no come with you! You bad! D.K. SMASH you!" D.K. yelled.

"Hm…not nearly as intelligent as your small friend are you?" Ganondorf asked.

"Eh?! Diddy?! You know Diddy! Tell D.K.!"
"Will you come with me if I tell you where your mangy friend is?" Ganondorf asked.

"No! Tell D.K. or he CRUSH you!"
"Fine. I was hoping you'd say no. I really want to hurt something."
"D.K. hurt you! You go SQUISH!"
"Squish, crush, smash. You certainly have a one-track mind," Ganondorf let out a feral grin and cracked his knuckles, "Don't give up too quickly," Ganondorf said…before charging at D.K.

An elevator on Zebes…

The Smashers were quite nervous. Although Ridley/Meta-Ridley was killed, as was Mother Brain and a fair amount of Space Pirates, Samus still appeared nervous, and an elevator was taking them to something new. Since this elevator was transparent, they could see through it that the Phazon was inside the shaft as well, although it had fortunately not penetrated the actual elevator.
After a few minutes of awkward silence while someone tried to figure out something to say, Falco, still slightly giddy from being reunited, pointed out something strange.

"Hey guys…is it just me…or is this elevator going UP?"
It took a while for everyone to get his meaning, as they were quite distracted…but after they all looked around it was soon obvious that the elevator was indeed, traveling in an upwards direction.

"Samus?" Diddy asked, hoping that she would know what was going on.

"What? We're going up, I don't know what that means!" she exclaimed, and despite her denial, her tone made it very clear that she knew what was coming.

"Samus. Ridley is dead, and there's that weird Phazon gunk everywhere. What is going on?" Link asked.

Samus turned away.

"I…don't know."

"Samus!" Bario said, determined to keep the group together, "You DO know. Now EXPLAIN."

Coming from anyone else, Samus would have been angered about being given an order…but Bario was different. Too different. There was something she was supposed to ask him…

"Samus?" Raichu said, making him the fourth person to say her name in as many minutes.

"Metroid Prime," Samus said.

There was a long awkward pause, and the others started to wonder if that was all she'd say.

"Metroid Prime is next. That Phazon can cause rapid and unstable mutation in creatures, and Metroid Prime is a Metroid that has lived in the stuff."

While Samus spoke, her voice was a simple monotone, as if the only way for her to explain was to not show any emotion.

"At least that's what I thought. Later I realized that Phazon came from an actual planet that vomits up asteroids made out of Phazon that fly through space. In the asteroids are massive worm like things called Leviathan Larva. After the asteroid hits a planet and starts to infect it, the larva chooses a creature native to the planet and gives it massive amounts of Phazon. This causes it to become obscenely more powerful, like Meta-Ridley did."
"That's nice and all…but why are you so worried? We killed Ridley, even with that goop all over him, and despite his metal armor. How could this Metroid Prime be worse?" Falco asked.

"Because it's also absorbed a fair amount of Space Pirate technology, giving it sophisticated armor and weaponry in addition to its original, formidable defenses. And there are…other reasons…" Samus said.

"How do you know all this?" Link asked.

"Because…I killed Metroid Prime before…three times."
"Really?" Diddy asked, "I mean, K. Rool never seems to give up, but we never killed him. Are you sure?"

"Quite. Actually, it might be more than three…I was so sure it was over, that horrid monstrosity was finally DEAD!" Samus said, slamming her hand on the side of the elevator, as it came to a halt.

"Samus. There's still something you're not telling us," Bario started, his voice understanding, but commanding, "But now is not the time. Let's just hope that we can get through this…"

The doors opened, and the Smashers piled out…into a chamber of horror.

The Phazon had covered most of the ceiling and the upper half of the walls, and was slowly but surely spreading. Fortunately the floor remained mostly untouched, but there were small pools of Phazon spread haphazardly around the room.

The rest of the room was massive as usual, although it seemed smaller. This might have been due to the fact that it was an oval-shaped room with rounded sides, making the whole thing seem smaller than the more rectangular rooms. The dark rock and blue Phazon also provided an eerie contrast.

But the thing that drew the attention of the Smashers was located at the back of the room, hanging from the ceiling.

It was a massive black oval-like object that hung from a thick black tentacle shaped thing. So astonished by this bizarre and out-of place creature, it took a minute for the Smashers to notice something else different with this chamber.

It was Samus who noticed it, as she was less fascinated by the creature hanging from the ceiling, and trying to hide her dread over what was going to happen she scanned the chamber, and saw something that did not bode well.

"There's no exit door!" Samus shouted.

A quick scan by the others revealed the accuracy of the assertion, and a suddenly suspicious Falco spun around and saw something equally unpleasant.

"Hey guys…the door is…gone."
It took a moment for his words to sink in, but once they did the others spun around and saw that again, the assertion was accurate. Phazon had apparently engulfed the door to the elevator and now the blue mass blocked their only escape route. Unconsciously the Smashers backed away from the foul gunk, before turning and aiming their weapons at the being on the ceiling that must have been Metroid Prime.

"Looks like we're not leaving till we kill this thing," Bario said.

The thing appeared to have realized that it was not alone, and after its red eyes opened from its center, it uncurled itself from the ceiling, revealing that the "tentacle" was in fact six close-together long and spindly legs. It dropped to the ground with a loud thud, flipping over in midair and its many legs spread out its weight efficiently enough for it to stand.

Metroid Prime really did not look like any of the Metroids previously faced. In fact, it looked like a massive six-legged spider thing, with a large body ending in a pointy, cone-like head. It was a dark color, but its body wasn't entirely smooth as divots and rivets riddled the creature.

It stood around twenty-five feet in height, but its constant bobbing caused the height to move around a bit. Additionally it had several large fangs in the front, below the high-set eyes, further reinforcing the spider image.

Upon seeing the Smashers Metroid Prime reared back and shrieked, before all the rivets and the joints changed to a vaguely yellowish color.

"Samus? What's it doing?" Falco asked, aiming his laser gun.

"Don't shoot!" Samus said, but she was too late. Falco shot off a blast, which hit the lower part of the creature's body…and bounced back, zinging in between Falco's legs, almost impacting a very important part of his body.

"Whoops," Falco said, slightly stunned from the closeness of his failed attack.

Metroid Prime looked warily at its opponents and shifted from foot-to-foot. It seemed to recognize Samus, and was unwilling to make the first move. Apparently it didn't notice Falco's attack.

"Because of the Space Pirate technology, this creature can block most types of special attacks, and because of the extremely thick armor, pretty much all melee attacks are useless," Samus explained.

"Then how do we hurt it?" Diddy asked.

"When it sets up its defenses, it can only attack with one type of beam, and that element can slip through and hurt it, but only right by its eyes. So right now…it can only be hurt by the Power Beam!" Samus punctuated her statement by dashing to her left, side-stepping over a small puddle of Phazon and firing uncharged Power Beam shots rapidly.

Most of the shots caught Metroid Prime in its weak spot, and the great beast shrieked with more rage than pain. It reared back, and a mouth-like hole flipped open on its underside, from which it unleashed a large yellow beam that missed Samus by inches and scored a deep hole in the wall.

Metroid Prime shrieked again as a charged shot of Samus's slammed into it. Thinking they had caught on to her plan the other Smashers spread out and started shooting their projectiles. Regrettably most of them exploded or shattered uselessly on the creature's armor, while others, like Bario's magic balls, Meta's energy balls, Raichu's electric balls and Mario's firebombs were reflected back, and they had to dodge to avoid their own attacks.

"Guys!" Samus said, evading another Power Beam laser, "You can't hurt it…just back off before it notices you!"
She was too late. Although their attacks caused essentially no damage, Metroid Prime was aware of their existence, and casually fired two yellow balls of energy from holes behind its head. They slowly floated towards Link and Raichu who attempted to avoid them at first, but soon realized the attacks were homing.

Link and Raichu fired, a bomb arrow and an electric ball respectively, at the balls, destroying them. Unfortunately the yellow balls exploded when they vanished, knocking the two fighters back and hurting them.

Right around that time Samus managed to slam Metroid Prime in the face with a Super Missile. Letting out a particularly pained shriek the beast turned around…and carved a tunnel through the rock wall across from the entrance, quickly vanishing through its makeshift escape route.

There were several moments of stunned silence as the Smashers processed the escape of the creature. It was Falco who broke the silence.

"Samus…what the hell just happened?!"
Samus answered slowly, "I think…it ran away."
"Well no duh!" Falco said, "But what do we do now?"
"The only thing we can do," Bario said, "Chase after it!"
The others nodded, even Link, and they ran for the tunnel, noticing that it sloped upwards. They powered up the not to gentle slope for about thirty seconds before coming to an almost identical room, save there appeared to be more Phazon. Metroid Prime was there as well, only now the joints and rivets had changed to a bright white.

"Ice vulnerability," Samus said, eyeing the creature as it bobbed around. "Watch out for its attacks…they can freeze you now!"

The others nodded and attempted to distract the creature with their projectiles, dodging their own attacks. Metroid Prime seemed to not care about the attacks, until a few Ice Beam shots managed to slip through, the other attacks helping to prevent Metroid Prime from avoiding them.

It screeched and then charged forward quite fast, almost knocking over Samus, and as it spun back around it hit Meta with the side of one of its legs, stunning the insane swordsman.

"Agh! Sumas Krad!" Meta shouted as he rolled away from Metroid Prime's large stomping legs, an action that was repeated by the others as they backed off from the dangerous beast.

It opened its mouth again and fired a large white beam. It narrowly missed Bario, but froze the section of the floor behind him. As Bario moved away from the slippery floor his foot touched the edge of a nearby Phazon puddle. Immediately a static like noise penetrated his ears and he jumped away from the puddle in pain, as its radiation level was so high it was like touching lava. His leather boot almost appeared to be smoking.

"Be careful!" Raichu said, shooting a ball of electricity at Metroid Prime and then avoiding the subsequent rebound.

"Little late, but thanks!" Bario said, shooting off a pair of magic balls.

While the other Smashers distracted Metroid Prime, Samus managed to hit it in the face with a fully charged Ice Beam. It shrieked and leapt back, before dashing forward again, hoping to squish the Smashers. This time they managed to dodge and get back to the original hole where they continued their assault.

Metroid Prime released two ice balls that floated slowly. Seeing them, Mario and Raichu blasted them well before they were in range, although sharp shards of ice flew out of the ensuing mini explosion, cutting a few of the Smashers.

Before Metroid Prime could attack again, Samus hit it in the face with her Ice Spreader, completely encasing the creature's head in ice.

"Now! Hit it with everything!" Samus shouted, switching to her Power Beam and charging.

The Smashers obeyed and the projectiles increased in speed and power, with Link and Diddy firing their explosives as Metroid Prime shivered and shook, trying to break free of its icy prison.
Just before it could escape Samus slammed it with a Super Missile, shattering the ice, and apparently severely damaging the powerful beast…as it turned around and burrowed up again.

"Samus," Link said slowly, as if tired, "How tough is this thing?"
Samus didn't answer at first, but as the others headed for the second upward sloping tunnel she turned back to Link.

"We're weakening it…but we've got a long way to go."
With that Samus led the charge up the tunnel. It took them about forty seconds to get up there, forty long seconds.

When the Smashers reached the top they discovered that they were in a nearly identical room as before, but with even more Phazon surrounding it. Metroid Prime's sub-color was now a light violet.

"Wave…but I don't…" Samus started to say, before turning to Raichu, "Raichu! It's vulnerable to electricity now! Hit it!" Samus said, before dashing away and firing multiple Power Beam shots.

"What?" Raichu said, confused.

Metroid Prime thought that the damaging attacks would be coming from Samus again, and it ignored the other Smashers and fired a powerful purple beam at Samus that skimmed past her leg, shooting miniature bolts of electricity up and down. Samus grunted but continued to attack, although she now favored her left leg.

"Raichu!" Bario said, who was following Samus's lead and attempting to distract the powerful beast, "You need to hit it between the eyes!"
Catching on Raichu fired four fast moving electric balls. They covered the ground quickly and two hit the unprepared Metroid Prime in between the eyes. The other two missed and bounced harmlessly away.

Metroid Prime was hurt, but not badly. It was perplexed however. That attack did not come from Samus. Turning towards the Smashers it tried to figure out which one had attack it, but was unable to as Raichu had moved and the other Smashers were firing their projectiles.
Irritated, Metroid Prime fired another electric beam that missed Bario and fizzled out against the opposite wall. A bolt of lightning from Raichu zapped it hard, and turning again it tried to find its new assailant.

Raichu had dashed away already, and all Metroid Prime saw were Falco and Kirby who were trying to repel it with laser shots and shockwaves, neither of which were causing any actual damage. Metroid Prime then released two electric balls which started to home in on Mario and Kirby, but a few quick shots by Falco and Samus caused those attacks to miss.

Metroid Prime then charged forward, knocking Kirby, Falco and the nearby Link around like small toys. It then spun around, shooting off another electric beam, this one hitting Mario in the chest and sending him sizzling into a puddle of Phazon. With a cry of extreme pain Mario leapt up, parts of his body smoking.

Raichu maneuvered, trying to get a good position, but a series of missiles similar to Samus's shot out of the back of Metroid Prime and flew at the Smashers. They did their best to dodge them, but the speed and unexpectedness of the attack caught them off-guard. Raichu just barely managed to dodge one, and deciding that he need a bit more power, he started to charge.

Spotting the electrified mouse the others did their best to increase their distractive powers, and caused so many attacks to fly at Metroid Prime that it was almost blinded. Unfortunately they were a bit overzealous, and enough attacks came back to damage and knock down Falco, Diddy and Meta, and a quick missile attack caused Bario, Samus, Mario and Kirby to go flying.

Soon only Raichu was left standing, his small size and the protectiveness of his companion keeping him up. Metroid Prime fired an electric beam at him, hoping to finish him off…but it got the opposite affect as Raichu effortlessly absorbed the attack…and then retaliated in kind, boosted with the considerable power of Metroid Prime.

Shrouded completely in electricity Raichu flew at Metroid Prime before it could blink and slammed headfirst so hard into the creatures skull that it actually staggered back…and then Raichu unleashed all the electricity he had stored up, and what he absorbed directly into Metroid Prime.

The process was over in seconds, and a dazed and drained Raichu fell to the floor, narrowly missing a puddle of Phazon. Metroid Prime stood, motionless and smoking as the other Smashers looked on in shock…and with an almighty bellow Metroid Prime ran at them.

They rolled out of the way in various degrees of athleticism and Metroid Prime continued unhindered…and carved a new tunnel upwards.

"Get it!" Samus yelled, wasting no time in running up herself.

The Smashers followed, although by now they were getting quite tired, and Metroid Prime was still a powerful foe. Raichu needed to be helped by Diddy, and the close proximity to the Phazon was making all of the Smashers feel quite sick. It took them a full minute to reach the next chamber, which fortunately had no Phazon on the floor, although it covered the walls and ceiling.

Metroid Prime attacked as soon as the first few came over the lip of the tunnel. Sporting a new black and dark red color scheme, it blasted a large red beam that skimmed over Mario and Samus's heads before slamming into the rock behind them with a resounding crash.

Mario and Samus rolled to opposite sides of the tunnel and the other Smashers came running up as well, firing what they could to distract it. Metroid Prime attempted to release two large red balls, but they were shot at and they exploded close enough to Prime to damage it a bit.

"Fire!" Samus yelled out, shooting off a useless missile, "its weak point is fire!"

Mario caught on instantly. Flipping over some missiles launched by Prime he fired five firebombs, and each one slammed into Prime's face, knocking it back. Mario then dropped to the ground, and started to jump again when Metroid Prime ran at him, ignoring all of the other Smashers and skimmed him as Mario was jumping, knocking him off course and causing him to land roughly on the ground.

Metroid Prime spun around and launched off a stream of missiles again. Seeing an opportunity, Falco dove under the missiles flying at him, jumped up at Metroid Prime…and Fire Falco'd it in the FACE.

Prime shrieked and stepped back, and Falco dropped to the ground and ran out of the way. It launched another beam attack, followed by more missiles, but this time Kirby ran over, ducked under the beam, and with the top of his head smoking he ran up to Prime, jumped up, and turned into a large ball of fire which flew into Prime's face, causing it to shriek again and swipe with one of the smaller legs near its mouth, hitting Kirby and sending the lightweight flying.

"Wow," Diddy said, "I didn't know Kirby could do that."
"Do what?" asked Raichu, who had been watching Mario get up and start shooting again.

"Turn into a flaming ball."
"He did what?" Raichu said, before he and Diddy dodged some rebounded energy balls from Meta.

Meanwhile Prime was weakening. Mario had good aim and was fast, and the armor that appeared impenetrable was weakening with every hit it took. Desperate, Prime used a desperation attack.

It shot out a green glowing beam from two of its mouth parts. The beams hit Mario and acted almost like a tractor beam…they dragged him closer to Prime. He struggled to get out, but the beams were tough, so deciding to take advantage of the situation, Mario poured on firebomb after firebomb into Prime. As Mario got closer Prime opened its mouth…it was apparently going to try and hit him at point-blank range.

A second before that happened; Mario's last firebomb seemed to hit a critical point, causing the beams to dissipate. Free, Mario backed off, but held back on his next attack. Prime began to shudder, and before any of the Smashers could react, the creature collapsed in on itself, apparently dead.

Before anyone could rejoice at their apparent victory however, they noticed the black armor was becoming a blue puddle of Phazon…and out of it floated a similarly colored creature.
"NO!" Samus shouted, firing at this new, Metroid Prime.

It looked far more like a Metroid now, and although it was still big, without the armor Metroid Prime had shrunken considerably. It had six long thick tentacles and what almost appeared to be a face.
Samus's shots hit the creature, but the missiles seemed to cause minimal damage. Letting out a high-pitched shriek Metroid Prime slammed the ground with its tentacles, creating a large ring of fire that spread out, hitting Samus and knocking her back into the nearby Raichu.

"Samus!" Link yelled out, firing some bomb arrows that exploded upon touching the creature, "What's going on?"

"This is the core Metroid Prime! Kill it! Kill it NOW!" Samus said, surprisingly panicked, before charging up her Power Beam.

"You heard her," Bario said firing three magic balls that crashed into Prime, "ATTACK!"
No time was wasted, as attack after attack flew at Prime. Fortunately, unlike its previous form it was not nearly invulnerable, although it was still a force to be reckoned with. After a few seconds, the creature vanished.

Stunned, the Smashers stopped firing. After a second Samus realized what had happened and yelled out a warning…too late.

Metroid Prime reappeared by Kirby and Diddy, and slammed the ground, creating the fire ring. They tried to avoid it, but it was too fast, and the two heroes were sent flying, burned and hurt. Beneath the creature, a puddle of Phazon formed.

However its reappearance placed it close to Meta and Link, who were just on the edges of the blast. While Prime seemed to pause to assess its situation the two sword users ran/flew for Prime, hitting it before it could react.
Both swords cut deep, and before Prime could retaliate, they spun around, slashing it again. Angered and in pain, Prime slammed the ground, forcing Meta and Link to suffer the same pained fate as Kirby and Diddy, before vanishing again.

The Smashers scanned the area carefully, but the location of Prime was impossible to determine…until it appeared right by Samus.

It attempted to do its fire ring attack again, but Samus managed to leap over the initial strike, only to get smacked down with a tentacle. Before Prime could get in the last attack, Mario jumped over and slammed it with his hammer, causing the floating creature to dip.
Before it could recover, Samus smiled beneath her helmet…and fired her Super Missile at point-blank range, sending Metroid Prime flying until it skidded to the ground where it disintegrated into a puddle of Phazon.

There was a moment of stunned joy, as the Smashers thought their trial complete…but that was quickly halted when the puddle that was Prime began to bubble and expand.

"No," Samus said in shock and denial, "No! NOOOO!"
Whatever she was afraid of was happening…as the Phazon that was Metroid Prime took on a familiar form…