PIXEL-POWERED CYBER WARRIOR - Cartringer! Episode 1

High above the thick cloud cover, a celestial body blazing with purple flames zipped through the cosmos, igniting in the earth’s atmosphere as it punched through to the land below. The object rapidly cooled as it approached the raging storm below, halting to hover just above the turbulent mass of grey below.

The alien form was as turbulent and unstoppable as the storm that churned below it. Streaks of purple flames cut across the undulating mass of rippling tissue, the feint outline of a humanoid face occasionally appearing within the constantly shifting form, mouth agape in a silent scream.

Sensing electricity all around him, AEGIS tightened his senses as it scoped out the planet with the hopes of finding a source from which it could assimilate. Other planets and civilizations had such things, but then, those planets had lifeforms that had covered more than half of the available land mass with massive, sprawling cities. Here on… Earth, was it? AEGIS could sense no such thing. Not in the same capacity, at least. No, this planet still had an abundance of untouched wildlands.

It was young. Its population was still evolving and in its infancy compared to other intelligent life it had come across in the galaxy. “Intelligent enough to form a society, but still dumb enough to be manipulated.” He thought to himself as he absorbed the info being relayed over various satellite and radio signals.

AEGIS was a parasite. He knew not the conditions in which he had been born or where in the endless void of space his birth had occurred. By the time he had evolved enough to develop an awareness, his intelligence banks had spanned hundreds of planets and civilizations—Memories of sweet victories as he watched the last of a specific race die out. Of Rikter losses when he had been forced to flee the planet when the native race had discovered his presence and forced him out, often in painful measures.

Now, as he drank in the waves of info that spread across this blue sphere, he felt contentment. A sense of pride that he hadn’t felt on previous ventures. He could rule this planet quite easily. They had the technology he needed in order to put his agenda into place. Their primitive brains were still weak and lacked many of the nuances other species had possessed, denoting higher intelligence.




Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the ill-intended parasite, another alien creature had followed him to earth on his coat tail energy, tagging along sight unseen—a parasite for the parasite.




SNEZZ was his name, and he, like AEGIS, was an energy-based lifeform that alone was fairly harmless but, given a power source to siphon off of, could alter the very course of a lifeform’s evolutionary path, for better or worse.

This creature, no bigger than a dust mote, had attached itself to the energy trail of AEGIS following its last attempt at a planetary takeover. An antibody created by the race that had once called Mars home had grown sentient as a result of its proximity to AEGIS’s ability to accelerate evolution. Realizing that the evil creature would only abandon the Martians for another civilization, SNEZZ trailed the malevolent parasite in hopes of finally eradicating it once and for all.

It had traveled light years with its evil counterpart, delving into AEGIS’s own memory banks. Using the knowledge it obtained, it bided its time until the dark presence arrived at its next target planet. Now, it was time to detach and stow itself away somewhere safe.

With a blinding flash of light below, SNEZZ finally released its invisible grasp upon evil AEGIS and fell to the planet below.

To the planet Earth.

There, it would seek out a champion upon which to impart his knowledge and powers. It was the only way this primitive species, called humans, would stand a chance against the chaotic evil that was AEGIS.

C A R T R I N G E R

 

The power suit shimmered and then exploded, revealing the human beneath as the screen flashed white and then faded into a Game Over screen. That had been the fifth time the draconic-looking alien had bested the boy at the other end of the controller.
His name was Advrik. Rik for short, or sometimes Rik-E. He only heard his full name when he got in trouble. Now, though, he sat safely in his little bedroom. The same one he’d inherited from his older brother after he was moved to the newly built den(that had once been the carport). The room always had an air of mystery surrounding it, as his older brother kept the door shut and locked whenever he was home—never allowing the younger kids to venture into it except for the rare occasion in which he wanted to show them something. Beyond that, it was always off-limits—like a dark, dangerous cave that just screamed of monsters living within!
In stark contrast, Rik kept the room brightly lit. The closet door swung open, the inside of it piled up with haphazardly tossed articles of clothing, blankets and other oddities. The window was open, and an old, rickety window fan pulled warm air from the outside, cooled it, and then pushed it into the small enclosed space.
The boy hit the A button on the Game Over screen, prompting the save file to be reloaded, taking him back to the previous save room. A second later, Samus Aran reappeared on the screen; her power suit pulsed with electric energy as the save pod released her from its magnetic grip.
The deeper regions of Norfair were far from being foreign to the boy, but the fight with the space pirate captain—the previously mentioned Ridley—was a different story. He never seemed to have enough missiles of either kind to bring the alien down quickly, resulting in a game of cat and mouse with Power Bombs. He waited for the space pirate to swoop in, plant a bomb, and then hoped the boss monster would get caught up in the explosion enough times to kill the boss before it killed him.
He could just go back through the previous areas and seek out additional missile packs, maybe even extra energy tanks. But finding things in this game that weren’t out in plain sight had proven difficult. Heck, even the missile pack that was sitting right out in the open in the submerged area of Maridia had proven to beat the boy’s current know-how of the game’s mechanics.


The boy sighed, climbed up off the end of his bed where he had been perched, and hit Pause on the camcorder. He’d been recording his playthrough, specifically, the boss fights, while doing voiceovers and (poorly told) made-up stories to go alongside the dialogue he was adding. The camcorder sat atop the old blue trunk he’d received for Christmas in 1991, the end of the camera propped up using a few VHS tapes so that it was level with the television screen. No one would ever tell him that tripods were a thing until years later.
A knock came at the door. A knock, followed by a small voice. A distraction.
“Whaddya want?” He said.
“Mom said the food was done, Rik.” It was his younger sister. One of two sisters, the other still just a baby, and the oldest of the three siblings that had come after him. Rik was a middle child, with his older brother and two older sisters—having long since moved out—before him.
Rik set the controller on the ground, then flipped the power button on the camcorder. The television and Super Nintendo Entertainment System would remain on until he returned.
At nine years old, young Advrik was a gaming addict, as most kids were and are at that age. He’d always played video games, albeit poorly, on and off during the early 90s. Mega Man 2 being his very first experience with a video game, or at least the very first one to leave an actual impression on him. From there, he began browsing the rental selections offered by the Village Market, Movie Max, and Captain Video just to see what had been up for offer.
It wasn’t until Christmas of ‘94 that things became serious when his grandmother, as old-timey and out of touch with the modern day, had gotten him the Link’s Awakening Gameboy bundle for Christmas. Before that, he’d simply only “borrowed” his older brother’s gaming tech.
But that, as it turned out, was only the beginning.
His brother not only gave him his SNES that Christmas, but Santa had left copies of Gradius 3, Mega Man X, and the Super Gameboy as well. The rest had been history, as they say.


Dinner with the family came and went. Rigatoni spaghetti with just a little Rik of sauce to flavor the noodles and some garlic bread. His father was a mechanic and worked seven to five, Monday to Friday, then seven to twelve on Saturdays. When 5pm rolled around, everyone knew to be ready to eat as the dinner that their mother had been cooking would be wrapping up its time on the stove or oven by that point.
Dinner came and went. Rik ate half of what he’d taken from the pot. His younger sister and brother had to be told over and over to clean their plates while their baby sister hand-fed herself diced noodles from her high chair platter. It was fairly status quo, and everyone would disperse as usual to go back to doing their own thing.
In Rik’s case, that was to return to Planet Zebes and face Ridley once more!


His bedroom had cooled somewhat as the summer sun began to drop behind the house on the opposite side. It became slightly more comfortable but was still by no means as nice a feeling as the actual air-conditioned portions of the house, which were usually the living room or the den.
Shutting the door, he took a quick look around his small, modest bedroom. From where he stood at the door, to his front was the sole window and the accompanying fan that overlooked the front yard. To the right of that was the old writing desk that housed all of his electronics. His SNES, Sega Genesis. His games were tucked away in the drawers below. Above, his small sixteen-inch television sat atop an equally old (even for the time) VCR. The image of a partially completed map of Norfair still hung on the screen.
Just to the right of the desk was the closet where his clothes should have been hanging, but instead were piled up on the ground, and a floor-level rocking chair(the kind with the rounded bottoms, intended for kids) sat atop them. As long as Rik knew his clothes were there and what to get and when, what did it matter?
It was there he’d also hidden away some R-rated movies as well. Beneath the pile of clothes, out of sight from anyone that might come snooping around. His parents didn’t pay too much attention to what he did, but R-rated movies, specifically ones with nudity in them, were something they’d been oddly adamant about being viewed.
Like that one time, he’d been lying under the couch while his father watched Time Cop. A scene involving a naked, writhing woman came on, and the TV was turned off immediately. Rik had pretended he was sleeping so that he wouldn’t get in trouble for having watched it, even though it was his father’s fault.
From the doorway and to his left was his bed. He’d just attempted to make it earlier that day, actually putting his Mighty Morphin' Power Ranger sheets on, then perfectly smoothing out its accompanying blanket. It wouldn’t last as lying in a made-up bed just didn’t feel “right”.
Finally, beside his bed was his nightstand. It had a lone lamp, which he hardly ever used, preferring the brightness from the ceiling light instead. Littered around that were crayons, used paper, and a bunch of small figures, including(but not limited to) Mega Man, Power Rangers, and Dragon Ball, the latter of which he’d had no knowledge of at the time of purchase other than they looked like Chrono Trigger characters.
The walls, which were made up of the same wood paneling with the vertical black lines running through them that every house in America had, were sparsely decorated. Save for a single shelf on the wall beside the window where more games and VHS tapes stood, there was only one decoration, and that was a bright orange and purple Star Wars wall scroll.
It wasn’t the best room in the world, but it was his room. Keyword: HIS. He’d never let it go, either.
Turning on the camcorder and hitting Record, the boy took his seat at the end of the bed and unpaused the game. “Okay,” He said, checking the viewfinder once more to make sure the camera was recording the television screen. “It’s time to die, Ridley!”
Unbeknownst to Rik, the alien monster on the screen had heard him and would remember that declaration…


Rik’s reaction was nothing short of astonishment when Ridley performed a new move, reaching his long, gangly arm out and grabbing Samus mid-battle, holding her in place similarly to how the adult Metroid would later in the game.

Encountering new events in video games wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for the boy. And like most would in a similar situation, he began smashing away at every button on the Super Nintendo controller’s face. Rolling the directional pad, hitting all four of the ABXY buttons, but nothing happened. Ridley floated there almost harmlessly, save for the flapping of his wings. Samus didn’t lose any energy amid the grasp, the game seemingly soft-locking. He wondered if the game was about to lock up, an occurrence that made him worry about possibly losing his save files.

That fear was abated when Ridley’s sprite began to move, flying towards the top of the vertical battle arena and dropping Samus.

The camera did not follow Samus’s sprite as it should have.
Boss music continued to play, despite the scene unfolding on screen —a first time for the boy in all his previous playthroughs of the game. Even making Ridley drop the Metroid at the very beginning of the game didn’t surprise him as much as this did.

Ridley’s sprite changed. First, the head craning to look at the viewer, followed by the rest of his body. The sprite used for all of Ridley’s main appearances in the game now replaced with something that looks almost similar to the graphic used during his escape from the space colony.

Rik’s jaw dropped. He had to be sure the camera was getting this. As he moved, from the end of his bed where he sat, Ridley’s head had appeared to follow him! The boy gazed through the viewfinder, confirming that it was still recording when Ridley reached out his hand and pointed. The viewfinder went dark, and the camcorder shut off.

Frustration mixed with astonishment at what was happening left the boy flustered as he flipped the power switch on and off, trying to get the device to turn back on.

“Human child,” a voice said, not the digitized sort he was used to hearing in video games, but something as clear as day—and angry sounding.

Thinking that his father or even older brother was behind his bedroom door, he dashed over and opened it. Expecting to have someone burst in on him, but there was no one.

The voice spoke up again, clearly coming from the old television set. “Don’t play dumb, child. It is, the one you call Ridley, ready for you to ‘kill’ me.”

Rik turned back to the TV, shutting the door behind him. Ridley’s head was facing him now. Impossibly new graphics he’d never seen before. “You’re not really talking to me, are you?” He said, back against the door.

“Stupid child,” the draconic alien snapped, “Of course I am talking to you. Do not think that I didn’t hear your declaration earlier.”

“Y-you didn’t hear that. There’s no way you could have! Video games can’t hear—“

“Silence!” He roared, “The line between video games—between all digital media—and your world are about to be erased, and with it, your existence and that of all mankind!”

“This is stupid. You’re stupid.” Rik said as he reached for the knob that controlled the power and volume of his television—turning it all the way to the left and flipping the power switch inside.

It remained on.

“Nah-ah-ah,” Ridley said, right before his arm thrust forward, creating a ripple of television static across the glass screen as his huge, grotesque arm went from harmless, purple graphics on the television set to something straight out of a horror movie! The huge clawed hand wrapped around the boy’s head, encasing it

Rik felt his body yanked forward, then a wash of tingly, bubbly suds-like sensation washing over his body and then, intense heat, hotter that the hottest summer day he’d ever experienced in his young life to date.

* * *

SNEZZ scoured the digital waves, searching thousands of signals simultaneously with ease, looking for any signs that AEGIS might be making his move. AEGIS had never been one to dawdle for too long, based on all of the data that SNEZZ had collected or been fed from his own creators. The malevolent creature was impatient, and it was only a matter of time before it showed its hand.

Earth, as SNEZZ had come to learn of the planet’s self-given name, was still relatively young, comparatively speaking. The solar system itself was a mere four billion years old, fetal when compared to the regions of space from which he and his evil counterpart hail from.

The humans who populate Earth have barely begun to develop their technology, with radio waves and satellites still being widely used and cables of all sorts still being employed to send and receive data. So primitive, yet still painting a terrifying picture: AEGIS could take hold of this planet quite quickly and efficiently. The apes that had undergone their dramatic evolution were still dull and showed no signs of becoming more intelligent, if the data currently riding on some of the more secretive waves was any indication.

AEGIS needed to be found, and they needed to be found soon. This WAS the sort of planet that the creature had been hoping to find. One that could be easily taken over, rapidly altered, and pushed to meet his own, devilish agenda.




A ping. A tiny, long-lasting blip on the waves transferred by the slower physical connection. It was AEGIS for certain. In more advanced tech, that blip would have been nothing more than a flash of data that cycled out faster than a quarter of a second, but the radio frequency it traveled on sustained it for far longer. A sheer stroke of luck for SNEZZ as the flash of data lingered in the data for far longer than AEGIS could have anticipated, but then the odds of it actually caring were slim. It had no reason to concern itself with being followed.

The light-aligned digital being snapped to the closest radio wave, traveling along faster than the waves themselves could move. This interference was undoubtedly causing issues for the creatures below, but the temporary snowy picture or distorted audio from their stereos would pale in comparison to the nightmare AEGIS was about to conjure for them.

The scenery zipped by at an incredible pace. Much faster than SNEZZ anticipated, but considerably slower than what it was used to. It traveled from an RF signal originating from somewhere on the western half of the continent of North America, moving steadily across the airwaves as it headed east. Small cities and towns, all connected by vast stretches of pavement, flew beneath the creature as it marveled at the sights below. These roads snaked through forests, deserts, over and through mountains, and even across water!

Most were still under development, with crews clad in orange suits of soft armor lining the roads, smearing thick, rapidly hardening paste across new stretches of road and, in many places, over pre-existing streets.

Snapping the digital parasite out of its reverence was another burst of energy coming from AEGIS. This one was far bigger, suggesting his counterpart had given up on any pretenses to remain hidden from any prying eyes—not that it expected any out here. If SNEZZ deduced that the creatures of this planet could not see AEGIS in their data, then AEGIS itself had already come to that conclusion long ago.


SNEZZ detected a non-data entity that had been unexpectedly merged with the same data point as AEGIS, and it feared the worst.

***

Ridley stood over its prey, resting on his haunches like a roosting chicken. He folded his dragon-like wings against his back and waited. Waited for the small human child that he’d pulled from the perceived safety of his domicile and into this world of digital brimstone and boiling acid.

Nothing was real, but at the same time, everything was. Especially for a flesh and blood creature like the young human he was about to annihilate. The digital world was the zeroes and ones that made up code turned physical, giving rise to artificial sensations of touch, smell, and even taste.

Video games were not a concept exclusive to this Earth. AEGIS had seen similar creations all across the universe, but most were so advanced that the Earthling version looked like mere pixels on a calculator. Primitive, yes, but the young, easily influenced minds of humans were seemingly addicted to the medium. And it was here that AEGIS would begin its reign of terror.

The alien parasite had assimilated the data for Ridley, a boss monster in the Super Metroid video game. Being alien in nature itself, AEGIS couldn’t help but feel a tinge of disgust at the way humans perceived non-Earth-based races.

It would soon change that perception.




“Wake up, human. Face me. Kill me, as you said you would.” His voice echoed through the room. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all made up of lava rock with no apparent exit beyond the huge hole in the ground that he’d crashed through upon abducting the human child.

“Wake up, now!”

The boy stirred. Slowly climbing to his feet. AEGIS-Ridley noted the sweat that was beginning to drip down the human’s face. The heat- that’s right. This was a volcanic region, somewhere deep within the planet. It was remarkable that the child was even still alive, all things considered.

AEGIS-Ridley had failed to notice the tears welling up and spilling from the human’s eyes. His lips and eyes scrunched together as he breathlessly cried. The shock of being pulled into the video game he’d been playing and the sight of the giant alien monster made flesh and blood (to an extent) would be demolishing the child’s psyche right now.

“Tch,” AEGIS-Ridley smirked, “The heat and stress will get him before I even take a swipe at him.” Ridley rose to his full height, revealing the bony, malnourished torso of the alien dragon as it stood fully upright, reaching nearly fifteen feet in height. Well above the child’s four-and-a-half feet.

His wings unfolded, and he snapped his spiky tail around, whipping the wall to his back and slicing stalactites and pieces of the wall and ceiling off with ease. Finally, he used his voice for more than just speech: He let loose with a roar so loud and powerful that it sent the little boy flying backward, smacking into the wall with a thud.

“Now, child, strike me down like you said you would—“

A blinding light, followed by a force that burst into the sealed lair, impacted the alien monster, sending it hurling through the room and into the far wall with a thud. The collision caused a small cave-in that buried the still-reeling creature beneath.

“Human child, please, there is no time. You must listen to me!” A gentler, though just as loud, voice spoke. The bright, blue-white light pouring off its unintelligible form rapidly cooled the area around him and instantly healed the scrapes and bruises the child had suffered.

“Please, human, heed my plea!” The voice said once more.

One second he’d been standing before the real-life Ridley from Super Metroid, the next he was gasping for air as his lungs emptied upon impact with the cavern wall. If it had hurt, he didn’t feel it, which probably meant his back was broken, and he was probably going to die soon.

Only, he could hear, see, feel, and move everything. His eyes opened, still blurred and stinging from the tears of raw fear he’d been shedding just moments ago. Crawling to his knees, then to his feet, Rik looked around the room, not just trying to locate the monstrosity that had been seconds away from swallowing him whole but also for an exit.

“Please, human, heed my plea!” Spoke a new, softer yet just as large-sounding voice. A glowing sphere that pulsed in time with his own heartbeat. It was no bigger than those large, nasty-tasting grapefruit his grandmother always had on hand. “You must accept my power; it’s the only way you and your planet are going to survive the coming threat.”

Rik scrambled back toward the wall, pressing as hard and as flat against as he could go. If he had somehow fallen asleep after dinner and were having a spaghetti-induced nightmare, he’d love to be woken up from it right about now.

As the pile of boulders on the far side of the room began to rumble, so did the beating of his heart and the rapid pulse of the new being’s glow!

“Who are you? Are you an alien?! I wanna go home!”

The ball of glowing silver-blue light floated closer, the brightness naturally dimming as it drew in closer to the boy’s face. An actual physical form that, from what the boy could tell, looked almost like the large power pellet from Mega Man X.

“Please, human child, you—“ SNEZZ paused, processing the data it had come to obtain in the short time it had been on Earth. It thought back to the other major form of media. To television, and to what children all over the world were watching the most. Now, had comics not been analogue media, there’d been no question as to where SNEZZ may have pulled from. But it was the 1990s, and there was only one true choice for children’s media.




“Human child, do you want to be a Power Ranger?” It asked, piqing Rik’s interest even through the fear as the rocks began to tumble off one another and revealing the draconic form beneath. “I can give you those powers to protect yourself. To protect your world and the things you love.”

Glowing orange eyes illuminated the far side of the cavern as AEGIS-Ridley shoved the last of the lava boulders off of his gangly form. Lashing his spiked tail to his side and spreading his wings, he let loose with another ear-shattering roar that rocked the entire cavern. Halfway through the roar, the dragon alien’s throat began to glow as flames lapped at the back of his throat, promising a fiery death for anyone in the way.

But Rik had ignored it this time, transfixed on the glow of the softer, kinder lifeform. He reached out, the tips of his fingers gently brushing—




The cavern exploded in a fiery explosion of flames and shattered rock as Ridley fired the first gamut of explosive, fiery breath. Where or who that other lifeform was was irrelevant. A piece of data in the game he hadn’t been aware of or not, it would be erased along with the human boy.

The fire ripped and tore through the wall on the opposite side of the cavern, destroying everything in its path in a violent, catastrophic explosion big enough to make even Godzilla blush. Ridley smirked, the corners of his long mouth coiling upwards, creating a devilish, terrifying grin. It hadn’t been the most horrific first kill he was hoping for on this planet, but AEGIS would make up for it later when—

A pulsing blue and white glow began to steadily grow through the smoke and flames, cutting the image of a powerful-looking figure therewithin.

A growl escaped from the AEGIS-controlled Ridley as the figure began to stroll forward, the light aura surrounding it cutting away at and eating the smoke and flames as he drew closer.




Rik stepped out of the smoke, and all of the fear he’d felt previous was gone. The negative energy replaced with a sense of infinity would be how he might have to describe it to someone. Whatever that power pellet had done had remade him, changed him for the better—at least within the current situation.

The boy looked at the towering menace on the opposite side of the room through a tinted shade. His entire body had been encapsulated in some sort of armor or a power suit. He couldn’t tell without a mirror, but it kind of feels like it did on that Halloween where he had to wear bulky long sleeves and sweat pants underneath his Red Ranger costume because it was so cold out that year.

That, but nice and breezy. Like he had a tiny air conditioner running under his clothes.

“What is this?!” Ridley roared, lurching forward.

Rik looked at his hands, now covered in a thick but breezy fabric of some sort. Where his gloves ended was a greyish pauldron that covered his wrist and tapered off to a point beyond his elbow.

Similarly colored pieces of armor-like fabric encased the rest of his body, wrapping around his chest in a way that kind of resembled both the crescent on the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers suits, but was raised similarly to the Gold Zero Rangers shield.

Bulky boots, a grey shade or two darker than the rest of his body, save for the pauldrons, encapsulated both feet, with the same armor fabric riding up his legs. It reminded him of how Mega Man X looked, but far more streamlined.

“What are you, and what did you do with my human?!”

Rik’s right hand balled into a fist, allowing a Pringles can-like contraption to quickly encapsulate it. There atop it was a Y and an X button—green and blue respectively— both were close enough to the rounded sides of the cylinder that all he had to do was place his left hand atop the gadget for easy access.

And so he did.

He pressed the Y button down and held it down as a steady humming noise built up within. He knew exactly what this was doing, but did Ridley? Let’s teach him a lesson, he thought, as he felt the hum hit its peak, releasing the button!

A large blast of energy almost as big as his body and as wide as the tires on his father’s van erupted from the arm cannon, ripping across the cavern and smashing into the lanky body of Ridley. Caught off guard, he took the entire ball of energy. The explosion sent the giant monster smashing into the very same wall once more. Fireballs erupted off of the monster’s body, resembling real-life recreations of the same explosion effect from Super Metroid.

The draconic alien didn’t wait around for a follow-up blast. He charged the boy as soon as he regained his composure, roaring and whipping his tail around wildly. Long, gangly arms reaching out and pulling himself along with ferocious, murderous intent!

But Rik did not move. Whatever this suit of armor was, it didn’t allow him to feel fear. It didn’t tell him how to fight, but it at least ate away at some of that crippling emotion that would have otherwise had him roasting in the flames right now.

“Uh, what do I do next?!” He thought to himself and then received an answer.

“Fight.”

“I don’t know how to really fight! I just copy what I see on TV and video games!” He yelled, having appeared to be talking to himself.

“Then do that. Do not worry; your armor and new powers will make it work. I promise.”




Ridley was right on top of the boy now, his right arm reared back and ready to swipe. Rik reacted in the only way he thought he should, and that was to lunge towards the monster rather than run. If what that power pellet said was true, then the powers would do the rest for him.

Sure enough, as his shoulder connected with the belly of the beast, the impact was enough to knock Ridley back. Stumbling and clutching his stomach.

“Pepostorous!” He roared, flames once again licking the back of his throat.

“Now, act like you’re drawing a sword from your side!”

Rik didn’t hesitate this time, performing the all-too familiar motion and drawing back a huge, shimmering sword. Its metal was glistening blue, and it had a silvery hilt and handle. It was now the second coolest thing he had ever seen.

Ridley let loose with a steady stream of fireballs, which Rik instinctively swiped at each one with his sword. Some cut in half and jettisoned to his left and right to explode while some just evaporated then and there.

The alien dragon had no words this time.

Rik, blue-bladed sword in hand, lept forward and took a slash at the monster. Just like in Power Rangers, sparks—instead of blood—shot off of the creature where the blade had come in contact. Ridley attempted to sneak attack with his tail, snaking it across the ground and then rising on the boy’s right like a King Cobra.

Swapping hands, the sword finding purchase in his left, his right hand had once again found itself encased in the cylindrical arm cannon. Without looking or even aiming, he held his arm back and shot a quick blast, destroying the pointed tip of Ridley’s tail in a rapid series of explosions.

“I-Impossible!! What is this, what are you?! You’re no mere child…” He gasped, taking a series of admittiedly slick-looking slices across his abdomen. The child had skill, he thought, as he stood there stunned. The rapid succession of blows had weakened him so much that he couldn’t even see straight. His body roared with red, searing pain.

“Now, Finish Him!” the disembodied voice shouted, somehow reverberating within the confines of Rik’s helmet.

“How?!” He yelled back, afraid of losing the chance and the monster regaining his footing.

“Do what feels best to you, human! You are familiar with the media that inspired these powers. You can do it!”




Rik held the giant sword up to the cavern’s low ceiling, the blue metal drawing in lightning from the ether as it absorbed the energy and began to glow golden-yellow! Then, drawing it back with both hands high behind his back, he slammed the blade down with all his might, sending a twenty-foot-high shark fin of energy ripping across the cavern and slicing into the alien’s body.

The same golden bolts of electricity coursed all over Ridley’s body as he began to explode. Explosions that once again looked like real-life versions of the explosions from the game ripped Ridley’s body apart as each segment fell away and disappeared in a chaotic, fiery maelstrom.

When the explosions finally subsided, only a faint purplish glow remained. Rik thought it was one of the life-restoring orbs in Super Metroid at first, but then it moved upward and phased through the ceiling.

“You did a fine job, human.”

Rik couldn’t muster up an answer. Whatever calming sensation the armor granted him in the midst of battle had apparently worn off, as not only was he scared as heck once more, but he felt like he was going to fall asleep on his feet—

The sound of clanking armor echoed through the cavern as the boy fell over, snoring.