Deoxys vs Dark Samus (Pokemon vs Metroid)
"Two possibilities exist; either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” - Arthur C. Clarke
Deoxys, the Dark Hunter from Pokémon.
Dark Samus, the Great Poison from Metroid.
Extraterrestrial life; something that humanity has pondered the existence of as early as the ancient times, when philosophers such as Democritus and Augustine proposed the idea of innumerable worlds beyond our own, and lifeforms beyond that of man. And although we still haven’t found concrete proof of alien life, these two terrifying parasites are just Nintendo’s interpretation of what could be out there in the infinite sea of outer space.
With their otherworldly abilities in hand, who will survive when these two beings collide? Will Deoxys fulfill its destiny against Phazon-taken-form, or will Dark Samus prove itself to be primed for a fight with the DNA Pokemon? Let’s find out in this out-of-this-world edition of DEATH BATTLE!
Before We Start
Fairly standard stuff this time around. For Deoxys, we’ll be analyzing a wild, Level 100 Deoxys, as well as its depictions in the Pokemon games, anime and manga. This means that player-influenced items and abilities such as held items, TMs and IV/EV training will not be taken into account. For Dark Samus, we’ll be analyzing them as seen in the Metroid Prime trilogy, as well as the two part manga and any other canonically connected media.
Background
Deoxys
Within the vast world of Pokemon, there exists over 1000 different and unique species. From the electrifying mouse Pikachu to the fiery dragon Charizard, every Pokemon is special in their own ways. However, only a handful of them can truly be considered legendary; one of these being the DNA Pokemon, Deoxys.
Standing at 5’7 and weighing in at 134 lbs. (or 1.7 meters and 60.8 kilograms), Deoxys was formed by the mutation of a virus from space and it comes to Earth from inside of a meteor. Known for its alien-like features, lack of evolutions, and four Formes, this Pokemon is also known for its great intelligence and great psychokinetic powers. It is a good choice against Fighting and Poison types of Pokemon, but it doesn't do that well against other Psychic, Steel, and Dark types. It is often seen as a rival to the Sky High Pokemon, Rayquaza. In comparison to its fellow legendaries, Deoxys’ other-worldly traits help it stand out from the crowd.
Dark Samus
Samus Aran, a name known to many throughout the universe. This Chozo warrior has battled many foes and brought order and peace to the cosmos, time and time again. When she defeated the infamous Metroid Prime on Tallon IV, in a desperate move it absorbed Samus's Phazon suit and it subsequently exploded. Little did Samus know, that was a huge mistake as it created one of her greatest enemies and complete antithesis: Dark Samus.
Barely alive, Dark Samus managed to warp across space to the Luminoth planet Aether, where it began to harvest Phazon to empower itself, raiding space pirate camps and earning the moniker of “Dark Hunter”. Dark Samus faced off against its light twin three times, finally disintegrating and being seemingly erased along with all of Dark Aether. Yet, Dark Samus survived.
Luck would favor the former Metroid once again, as its remnants were picked up alongside some trace elements of Phazon in Aether’s atmosphere by a space pirate frigate. Absorbing all the Phazon in the hold, Dark Samus reformed itself, took control of the ship, and flew to the source of all Phazon: the sentient planet Phaaze. Using it, and a stolen Aurora Unit from a Galactic Federation ship, Dark Samus began its mission to corrupt the entire universe with Phazon, sending Leviathan seeds to turn distant planets into Phaaze copies, and inflicting three potent bounty hunters, along with Samus herself, with Phazon corruption. However, even with the power of all Phazon at its command, Dark Samus failed for the final time to overcome the Chozo’s greatest power, ultimately dissipating into nothing along with Phaaze, ending the scourge of Dark Samus once and for all.
Equipment
Deoxys
Core
While it may not seem like much, this core is actually quite important. It appears to be its brain, can shoot laser beams out of it, and in the anime, it has been shown to regenerate any part of its body that it may have lost during a battle.
Dark Samus
Aurora Unit 313
(art by u/RebeccaETripp)
A supercomputer that Dark Samus corrupted and stole from the G.F.S. Valhalla, before fusing it with the planet Phaaze. With it, Dark Samus can scan the universe for optimal planets to corrupt, before sending Leviathan Seeds to them. As a last-ditch effort, fusion with the unit can be done for a power boost. However, it puts Dark Samus at risk, as if the unit manages to be destroyed, Dark Samus will be destroyed along with it.
Leviathan Seed
A Phazon-infused meteor that Dark Samus can send to different planets. The Leviathans inherently can create wormholes across the universe, with warping potential superior to even the most advanced galactic federation technology. When the seed reaches a planet, it crashes directly into the planet, spreading Phazon corruption across it until the planet is terraformed into a copy of Phaaze. The seed is incredibly durable on the outside, but its core is noticeably weaker.
Abilities
Deoxys
Formes
Deoxys has the ability to transform into various forms at will, all of which enhance a particular attribute.
Normal Forme
Deoxys’ standard form, and the most well-rounded of the four, having equal stats in Attack, Special Attack, Defense, Special Defense, and Speed.
Attack Forme
Deoxys’ Attack Forme is suited most for offensive capabilities, greatly increasing its attack power, but sacrificing its defense. Truly, offense is the best defense for this form.
Defense Forme
Deoxys’ Defense Forme is suited most for protective capabilities, greatly increasing its defense power, but sacrificing its attack power as well as its speed.
Speed Forme
Deoxys’ Speed Forme is suited most for, you guessed it, speed. This form greatly increases its speed, and while it does decrease its Attack and Defense stats, it’s not as big of a reduction as the previous two forms.
Moves
Normal Forme
Leer: A Normal Type move in which the user gives their opponent a mean glare, reducing their defense. It has 100% accuracy.
Wrap: A Normal Type move that causes the opponent to lose 1⁄8 of their HP. It has a 90% accuracy.
Night Shade: A Ghost Type move that causes the opponent to lose as much HP as is the level of that specific Deoxys. Due to Death Battle's rules, we will be using a level 100 Deoxys, which in turn will cause 100 HP damage to the opponent with this move. It has 100% accuracy.
Teleport: A Psychic-type move that allows Deoxys to teleport to another location, whether that be to go to far away destinations in less than a second, escape from battle, or maneuver itself while fighting.
Knock Off: A Dark-type move where the user disarms the opponent of whatever held item they’re holding. This move even does double damage if the target had an item when it was hit. It has 100% accuracy.
Toxic Spikes: A Poison-type move where the user lays a trap of poisonous spikes around the foe, which poisons foes entering the battlefield. If used twice, the poison damage is doubled.
Psychic: As its name implies, a Psychic-type move in which the user attacks the opponent with a powerful telekinetic attack. It has 100% accuracy.
Switcheroo: A Dark-type move in which the user switches held items with its target. It does not require both to be holding an item, in which case the item is simply given to the target or received from it.
Psycho Shift: A Psychic-Type move in which the user transfers any major condition that it has to their opponent. It has a 100% accuracy, but it should be noted that if the opponent already has a status condition, is a Poison or Steel-Type, has the ability Immunity or those behind a Substitute cannot be poisoned. In other words, this move sounds useful on paper, but when your opponent has immunity to those things, it becomes more or less completely useless.
Zen Headbutt: A Psychic-Type move in which the user focuses its willpower to its head and rams the foe. It has 90% accuracy and a 20% chance to make the opponent flinch.
Cosmic Power: A Psychic-Type move in which the user raises its defense and Special Defense stats with a mystic power.
Recover: A Normal-Type move in which the user can restore up to 50% of their maximum HP.
Psycho Boost: A Psychic-Type move in which it deals a lot of damage, but lowers the user's Special Attack by two stages after attacking. It has 140 power and 90% accuracy.
Hyper Beam: A Normal-Type move in which the user shoots a beam which has 150 power and 90% accuracy, but it leaves them immobile and vulnerable for the next turn.
Attack Forme
Taunt: A Dark-Type move, which taunts the opponent, into only using attack moves. It has 100% accuracy.
Superpower: A Fighting-Type move that deals 120 damage and has 100% accuracy, but it lowers the user's Attack and Defense by a level each.
Zap Cannon: An Electric-Type move that lets the user shoot a ball of lightning at the opponent that deals 120 damage. It has 100% accuracy.
Defense Forme
Spikes: A Ground-Type move which lays a trap of thorns around the foe, which hurts opponents in the opposing field. It can be used up to three times in a fight, but some Pokemon can resist it, most notably Flying-Types.
Amnesia: A Psychic-Type move that raises the user's Special Defense by two stages.
Iron Defense: A Steel-Type move that raises the user's Defense by two stages. Stats can be raised to a maximum of +6 stages each.
Counter: A Fighting-Type move that affects the user only. Once activated after the Pokemon gets hit, it can strike back with 2x power. It has 100% accuracy.
Mirror Coat: A Psychic-Type move that counters a special attack move 2x. It has 100% accuracy.
Speed Forme
Double Team: A Normal-Type move that raises the user's Evasiveness by one stage, thus making the user more difficult to hit.
Swift: A Normal-Type move that deals 60 damage, has an infinite amount of accuracy and ignores changes to the Accuracy and Evasion stats. However, it will not hit Pokemon during invulnerable stages, such as Bounce.
Agility: A Psychic-Type move that raises the user's speed by two stages.
Extreme Speed: A Normal-Type move that deals 80 damage, has 100% accuracy, and attacks before the majority of other moves (priority of +2).
Other Abilities
Regeneration
Deoxys has been shown capable of regenerating its limbs from near-fatal attacks, such as when it healed a portion of its body after taking a powerful blast from Rayquaza.
Duplication
Touted “Deoxys Divide”, Deoxys can create a large number of clones of itself. These clones are likely as strong, if not slightly weaker than their original creator, as they showed themselves capable of blocking a hit from Mewtwo.
Portal Creation
Deoxys has been shown capable of creating “black holes” that suck in those near it and transport them to another location. It should be noted that although Red describes it as a black hole, it appears to have no other qualities of a real black hole (spaghettification, warping, etc.), so it’s likely these are just standard portals.
Dark Samus
Elemental Manipulation
In its original form as Metroid Prime, Dark Samus could shoot out ultrafrigid ice beams, electric beams that can paralyze targets, beams that act like a tractor beam to pull targets closer, lava shots, an equivalent of Samus’s standard power beam, and a barrage of explosive missiles. In her final battle in Prime 3, Dark Samus also uses an equivalent to Rundas’s cryokinesis, creating Phazon infused ice pillars to attack.
Power Absorption
Due to its Metroid origins, Dark Samus can steal the powers of targets to amp itself. Upon stealing Samus’s Phazon suit, it gained all of Samus’s abilities, as well as her DNA. It also gained power from Rundas after absorbing his corpse, being able to create the aforementioned ice pillars. Also absorbed the other Prime 3 bounty hunters. Increases in strength by absorbing Phazon.
Duplication
In its final battle, Dark Samus demonstrated the ability to create multiple copies called “Dark Echoes”, who can do all the same abilities as the original.
Fusion
Fused together with Aurora Unit 313 to amplify itself.
Forcefield Creation
Dark Samus can create barriers potent enough to block any attack, with the exception of Phazon based attacks. The attacks that have been blocked include shots that distort space-time and are composed of both matter and antimatter, black hole vortexes that suck entities into an alternate dark dimension, beams that can ignore armor and attack the inner parts of a being, and all forms of elemental attacks.
Teleportation
Dark Samus is capable of short range warping, allowing it to fly immense distances across space, as well as being capable of interdimensional travel.
Invisibility
In its Metroid Prime form, Dark Samus could alter its biology to make it invisible to X-ray detection, thermal detection, and regular sight detection. Later on, grew superior in this category, being able to disappear to all visors except those that could see into alternate dimensions, and later grew invisible to that, requiring visors that could detect soundwaves.
Metroid Summoning
As Metroid Prime, can summon Metroids to assist it.
Invulnerability
Due to being an entity composed of pure Phazon, Dark Samus at a certain point became immune to everything that wasn’t Phazon attacks.
Samus’ Abilities
Due to being a genetic clone of her, Dark Samus possesses all the abilities Samus had up to the events of Metroid Prime 1, including:
Astral Projection
Samus could remove her spirit from her body to move around. Dark Samus used this ability to appear whenever Samus defeated one of the hunters, absorbing their essence.
Telepathy
Samus could communicate with Grey Voice mentally, and Dark Samus could use this power to interfere with Samus’s sleep stasis from at least a solar system away.
Possible Precognition
Samus can sense enemies about to attack her and can dodge/counterattack them. However, Samus only demonstrated this in Other M, which took place after Prime, so it could be argued Dark Samus does not have this ability simply by absorbing Samus’s DNA.
Boost Ball
Dark Samus can shift into a smaller morph ball form before boosting around at incredible speed, while being completely invincible. Seems to also have incredible control over its movement while using the morph ball, despite lacking normal vision.
Wave Beam
A special type of beam that, in other titles, can go through walls. However, the Prime version is instead electricity based.
Plasma Beam
A beam that fired superheated Plasma capable of melting targets with ease. It’s mere presence can also seemingly create volcanic activity.
Power Bombs
Explosives that, in the wrong hands, are capable of leveling entire planets.
Space Jump Boots
Allow Dark Samus to jump twice in the air, which when combined with Samus’s physiology being capable of moving on the 960x normal gravity Zebes, allows Dark Samus to achieve tremendous height.
Ice Beam
Fires shotgun-esque blasts of ice capable of freezing targets in place.
Spider Ball
Enables Dark Samus to stick to walls with the morph ball form.
Thermal/X-Ray Visor
Allows Dark Samus to see heat signatures, as well as entities capable of turning invisible via phasing out of reality.
Power Beam
Dark Samus’s main weapon is a modified version of Samus’s standard beam, which shoots massive lasers, scattershots, and standard shots, all infused with Phazon.
Phazon Manipulation
By far Dark Samus’s most potent ability, it is capable of self-generating, absorbing, and shooting Phazon and Phazon-based attacks. Phazon can do numerous different abilities. Read here for more information.
Soul Manipulation
Corrupted the souls of the Chozo, turning them into berserker ghosts that forever haunt Tallon IV.
Mind Manipulation
Turned the Chozo into violent monsters that attack Samus, despite her being the “savior” of the Chozo. Dark Samus corrupted most of a space pirate crew in minutes. Corrupted the minds of Ghor, Gandrayda, and Rundas, despite them all wearing special PED suits designed to fight back against corruption. Phazon is capable of corrupting Samus almost immediately in large doses, despite Samus resisting mental attacks from Mother Brain.
Radiation Manipulation
Phazon is described as an ultra-intense radiation, capable of instantly killing almost anything that falls into it unprotected.
Poison Manipulation
Phazon is referred to as “the great poison”. Flaaghra, a sentient plant corrupted by Phazon, poisoned the waters of the Chozo ruins, making it too dangerous for Samus to walk in, despite her being unaffected by the acid rain of planet Zebes.
Technology Manipulation
Technology Manipulation: Dark Samus corrupted the Aurora Unit 313. Corrupted Ghor, whose body is over 95% robotic. A small trace of Phazon in the Aurora Unit network forced the Federation to take all the Aurora Units offline, due to them being vulnerable to corruption.
Dimensional Battlefield Removal
The Aether Leviathan Seed colliding with the planet split it’s energy into two halves, dividing the planet’s atoms in half and trapping one half inside an alternate dimension called “Dark Aether”. Chozo corrupted by Phazon also ended up being stuck in dimensional flux.
Adaptation
Enough Phazon can allow a target to survive on any planet. Phazon slightly mitigated the Metroid weakness to cold by creating Fission Metroids, who can become immune to cold.
Life Creation
Phazon created the Ing race on Dark Aether, and is likely responsible for the powers the Ing possess. Gave life to a pile of rocks.
Homing Attack Resistance
Thardus, a being infused with Phazon, could negate the lock-on properties of Samus’s visor.
Elemental Infusion
Phazon granted Thardus the power to shoot ice.
Intangibility
By phasing between dimensions, Dark Samus can avoid being hit. Its intangibility is superior to that of both the Ing and Chozo Ghosts, as Samus could hit both of them, but failed to hit Dark Samus when using the same attacks.
Effects of Phazon
Standing near Phazon causes several diseases and sicknesses, including loss of motor skills, muscle spasms, respiratory problems, madness, and hallucinations. Those who survive Phazon are granted increased size, strength, and aggressiveness, but lose brain cells in the process.
Can force extradimensional beings existing beyond space and time to return to the mortal plane, preventing them from ever achieving that level of transcendence again.
Phazon passively interfered with the precognitive abilities of the Chozo, who could see over 50 years into the future, as well as the past.
Biological Manipulation
Entities corrupted by Phazon begin to turn into Phazon themselves. If Samus becomes fully corrupted, she becomes another version of Dark Samus.
Healing
Phazon can heal those who survive it’s radiation.
Regeneration
The weakest form of Dark Samus, Metroid Prime, could regenerate from the leftover cells from its destruction, which was preceded by Samus continuously attacking the soul and mind of Metroid Prime. In its second fight in Prime 2, Dark Samus had evolved to the point where it could regen from anything outside of “total atomic disruption.” Omega Ridley, a Leviathan guardian infused with Phazon, could survive exploding into particles to reappear in Samus Returns. Dark Samus, after having its essence disrupted in the final battle of Prime 2 (which involved attacking Dark Samus with Phazon, something that could destroy souls prior), dissipated into particles, followed by the dimension Dark Samus was in being erased from existence. While Dark Samus can teleport, it usually does so via special portals, which likely were not used given the condition DS was in. And while Dark Samus did fly up into the atmosphere, possibly indicating it escaped Dark Aether by flying off world and back to the main universe, the fact that none of the Ing attempted to do the same thing, and the fact that Dark Aether is only accessed through dimensional travel for the entire game, along with the Ing not simply leaving Aether to conquer the rest of the universe, hints that those who enter Dark Aether can’t leave without dimensional travel. Yet after the dimension was erased, DS managed to reconstitute itself and survive, regaining a physical form merely by absorbing Phazon. In fact, Dark Samus was shown regenerating throughout the game (1:13:16) by having its particles come together without absorbing any Phazon (2:48:58), and given that the same scenario happens after Dark Aether is destroyed, it is possible Dark Samus absorbed more Phazon not to regenerate, but simply to grow stronger (debatable theory). Was only truly killed for good when all Phazon in the universe was wiped out, alongside Dark Samus being bombarded with many Phazon blasts, more potent than those she had tanked in the previous game. This regen is also decently quick, as Dark Samus was capable of regenerating after defeat at least twice during Samus’s Aether adventure, which likely took place over a timespan of about a day, given that day does not turn to night at any point.
Ing Abilities
Due to the Ing being created by Phazon, and Dark Samus being a master user of Phazon, Dark Samus possibly has access to all of the abilities of the Ing, which includes:
Possession of both technology and organic beings. Can possess and revive dead organic beings through this process.
Corrosion
The Ingstorm can collectively create areas that will kill Samus in seconds, despite wearing a suit specifically designed to withstand the Phazon-infused atmosphere of Dark Aether.
Pocket Reality Creation
A more specialized version of the power that created Dark Aether, the Ingsphere Caches can store items inside a small pocket reality.
Phazite Crystal Generation
Used to craft armor that, from stronger Phazon users, is practically invulnerable barring specific weapons that bypass armor.
Layered Phazon
Phazon also comes in multiple tiers. While Samus can no-sell being submerged in regular Phazon in her Varia suit and gain a new suit with immunity to normal Phazon damage, red Phazon can still harm her. Despite Samus resisting being corrupted by Phazon normally, a single step on Phaaze would have instantly corrupted her if the PED suit didn’t save her life. All the Phazon attacks in Prime 3, including ones from Dark Samus, Phazon infused attacks from the Leviathan guardians, and Hypermode attacks from space pirates, can also damage Samus normally, despite her wearing a suit specifically designed to absorb Phazon.
Dark Samus, as a being made of and mastering in Phazon, also resists most of the side-effects of it, merely taking normal damage from Phazon attacks.
Feats
Deoxys
Overall
The first obtainable Mythical Pokemon
One of the few Pokemon to come from outer space
One of the only Pokemon to be able to directly communicate with humans
Regularly rivals Rayquaza
One of the most powerful Psychic-type Pokemon
Strength
Should be superior to most, if not all non-legendary Wild Pokemon
Pokemon capable of learning Defog can clear a massive fog on Route 210 in Sinnoh (326 megatons of TNT)
Tyranitars are stated to be able to shatter mountains (3 gigatons of TNT)
Dugtrio can create 60 mile earthquakes (4 gigatons)
Comparable to several other legendary Pokemon
Groudon has been described to raise continents (216 petatons)
Lugia can casually create storms that last for 40 days with a single wing flap (11 teratons of TNT)
Telekinetically controlled the Grand Meteor Delta (896 zettatons of TNT)
Regularly fights and has overpowered Rayquaza in the past
Speed
Should be faster than most, if not all non-legendary Wild Pokemon
All Pokemon are capable of dodging attacks made of sound, electricity, and light
Digletts can move at the speed of light (yes, really.)
Capable of reacting to and blocking a blast of energy by Mewtwo.
Flew from the edge of the galaxy to the Earth in 10 days while controlling the Grand Meteor Delta (986,174.91c) Debatable, more in Verdicts
Durability
Capable of surviving attacks from, you guessed it, most, if not all non-legendary Wild Pokemon. These attack include:
Seismic Toss, which slams Pokemon after tossing them into orbit
Earth Power, which makes the ground erupt
Dark Samus
Overall
The most powerful enemy Samus has faced to date.
Nearly succeeded in corrupting the entire universe.
Took control of the entire space pirate civilization with ease.
Easily defeated Samus with two attacks at the beginning of Metroid Prime 3.
Wiped out the entire Chozo civilization on Tallon IV.
Mastered all the capabilities of Phazon.
Strength
Due to most of Samus’s scaling occurring when she’s using her Varia or Gravity suits, and Dark Samus scaling to suits that are superior like the PED and Light Suit, Dark Samus should be able to scale to most of what Samus can do, despite Dark Samus’s relatively early placement in the timeline. These feats include:
Can damage enemies who can harm her, such as a weakened Gorea who was close to regaining its full power (12:08). Full power Gorea was stated by the Alimbics to be capable of annihilating/devouring everything in its path as it rampaged across the galaxy, and would wreak havoc on the universe (Alimbic War). Its first form crashing into the planet Alinos destroyed the planet’s core (Alimbic War), forever changing it from a fertile planet into one littered with volcanoes and lava. The Alimbics had some of the greatest military technology in the Metroid universe, which should put their tech at comparable levels of power to technology that can destroy planets, and Gorea took no damage from any of it.
Broke Mother Brain’s zebetite shields (1:35:32), which are made of the same material as Zebes’ planetary defense shield (Ch. 7, p. 18), which required the Space Pirates to use a black hole capable of destroying a planet to break through (Ch. 4, p. 18), despite there being easy-to-acquire country busting missiles available in the verse.
Defeated Ghor, who could badly damage Samus’ ship (0:29), which previously survived a massive explosion seen from space with little damage. (Ch. 4, p. 20). (2.419 petatons of TNT)
Matched Raven Beak who, while weakened, could survive a collision that destroyed his space station and (potentially) caused Planet ZDR to self-destruct. (9:51)
Controls Leviathan Seeds, which when impacting a planet create craters 1000 km wide on planets with over 850x more gravity than Earth. (Planet level)
Fought and damaged Samus when the latter was using the Light Suit, which was imbued with the Light of Aether (4:02), which is capable of recreating Aether (a planet with comparable (1:02:56) gravity (11:18) to Zebes) on an atomic level (The World Warped), and sustaining half of Aether’s existence even with ⅛ of the light, with either half of Aether being erased from existence if it’s energy is lost (2:38:30) (Luminoth Lore- Dark Aether, Saving Aether). Reasonably, U-Mos would put as much of the Light’s power into the suit as possible, as the power of the Energy Controllers can be used offensively, and Samus was the last chance for Light Aether’s survival. (4.58*10^44 Joules via mass-energy conversion, since Aether should have the same mass as Tallon IV at 5.1 trillion teratons, and the Light of Aether energy source can recreate all of a planet’s mass on an atomic level)
Grows stronger with more Phazon, as DS grew from being comparable to Varia Samus at the beginning of Prime 2 to matching Light Suit Samus at the end of Prime 2 merely by absorbing a few (The Hunter) canisters of Phazon (7:51). Later absorbs an entire cargo hold of Phazon at the beginning of Prime 3 (1:21), before fusing with an entire planet’s worth of Phazon at the end of Prime 3, making endgame Dark Samus many times stronger than Light Suit Samus. (313 Log entry)
Speed
Easily speed blitzed all the bounty hunters in Prime 3, including Varia Samus.
Should be comparable to Gorea, who was stated to be able to wreak havoc across the universe and rampage across an entire galaxy.
Far superior to Varia Samus, who can dodge the blasts of solar energy shot by Lumites (Lumite logbook).
Can potentially dodge shots from Samus’s light beam in gameplay, which fires attacks of concentrated light at enemies (Logbook scan), which moves in a straight line, burns Darkling enemies to death, and refracts through crystals (8:31).
Superior to Varia and Gravity Suit Samus, who is capable of controlling her movements while using the Speed Booster (3:17:03), which massively amplifies Samus’s travel speed, and was used to heavily amplify the speed of a ship comparable to Samus’s (Ch. 5, p. 16). Samus’s ship could cross a distance equivalent to a small percentage of a galaxy, with no visible signs of hyperdrive usage, in the span of a short conversation (Ch. 2, p. 1-3). Samus is capable of piloting her ship at fast speeds during a race while dodging incoming laser fire. (Ch. 5), and while hyperdrive of some sort does exist in the series (1:29), Prime 3 shows that there are locations that are too far to reach with conventional space travel (2:07:56), which would include warping, as other non-Samus ships in the series are capable of hyperspace. So, the fact that Samus didn’t warp directly to the planet Maru inside Extreme Galaxy could show that Samus couldn’t warp there, as her ship is seen outside the galaxy in the first page (1.76 billion c)
Varia Samus can keep up with Chozo ghosts, who are the spirits of Chozo capable of flying outside of space and time (Exodus, Contain, Meteor Strike). Chozo ghosts mainly travel with physical movement in-game (7:25). (930 million-2.43 trillion c assuming it took 50 years and a week respectively, as the timeframe for the Chozo being pulled back to Tallon IV by Phazon was implied to be short)
Superior to Ridley, who can outpace Samus’s ship briefly (4:00) and is potentially capable of flying across space himself, since his only shown ship (4:52) was destroyed (17:01) in Zero Mission, yet Ridley manages to fly from SR388 to the Ceres Space Colony to Zebes, all in a short time.
Durability
More durable than Varia/Gravity Samus.
Samus can survive the point blank detonation of her own power bombs (1:45), which the Greed Corp member Blast used in an attempt to blow up a planet (Ch. 4, p. 12). While it could be argued this was an amplified power bomb, there are points against this. First, most tech factions in the series that are incredibly advanced, like the Space Pirates, failed to actually amp Samus’s tech, only making inferior versions of her beams (Element Trooper log), and supersizing Samus (yet Samus was still weak enough for common Federation Troopers to defeat her). This also shows that bigger technology is not always superior in this franchise. Moreover, Blast and the other Greed Corps members could only do their feats because they had Samus’s tech. If Blast had the capacity to massively improve Samus’s bomb technology to the point it isn’t even comparable to the original, he could have just made his own bomb. It’s also possible Samus could scale to these bombs anyway, as she easily no-sold another piece of Greed Corp Samus tech in the form of Chrysta’s ice beam, and has survived power bombs boosted beyond their normal capabilities in the form of the Power Bomb Guardian. The latter is part of the Ing group who stole Samus’s abilities and unquestionably amplified them (the Spider Guardian possesses an electric shield the original Spider Ball doesn’t have), which makes sense since the Ing originated from Phazon.
Took hits from a Gorea that was close to its original strength.
Samus in her Power Suit easily broke out of the freezing attack used by Chrysta’s ice beam (Ch. 3, p. 18), which was capable of freezing the surface of a star (p. 13). (Multi-Continent tier)
Due to regeneration, Dark Samus can survive even when the dimension it’s in is erased from existence.
Can take numerous Phazon blasts from a nearly fully corrupted PED Hypermode Samus.
Leviathan Seeds shrugged off attacks from the Light of Aether with no damage (Luminoth Lore - The Stellar Object).
Weaknesses
Deoxys
Much like with other Psychic-Type Pokemon, Deoxys is weak to Ghost, Dark and Bug-Type attacks, outright being unable to hit Dark-types, and struggling to do damage to steel types. Its forms, while useful in certain situations, can become quite a detriment in fights, due to the fact that at the cost of raising one stat, it severely lowers the others. For example, while Attack Forme will increase its strength, all the other stats will be massively decreased, so it's a bit of a risk. Lastly, if its core gets damaged it will be somewhat of a game over, since the core is the center of Deoxys's life energy.
Dark Samus
Phazon may be the source of Dark Samus’s power, but it is also its only weakness. If Dark Samus is hit by Phazon based weapons repeatedly for extensive periods of time, it will begin to weaken Dark Samus, and can even result in overloading of its essence, causing it to dissipate into particles and having to regenerate (which necessitates absorbing some Phazon if the damage is particularly severe, although the amount needed to regain a physical form has likely decreased due to Dark Samus absorbing far more Phazon since Prime 2). Also, if all traces of Phazon in the universe get destroyed (which can be done by permanently destroying the original planet Phaaze), and Dark Samus’s essence is overloaded with Phazon to the point of dissipation, it will have no way to regenerate.
Verdict
Stats
To start off, let’s discuss Deoxys. Being a Legendary Pokémon capable of throwing hands (or tentacles in this case) with others like it, it should be significantly stronger than basically every Pokémon that isn’t a Legendary like Tyranitars and Dugtrios. However, these ‘mons are practically fodder in comparison to the likes of Deoxys’ biggest rival, Rayquaza, and even the ultimate lifeform, Mewtwo, as it was able to take blows from and even overpower them in Attack Forme. Not only that, but Deoxys has a direct feat in telekinetically controlling the Grand Meteor Delta, which, had it crashed into the Earth, would’ve destroyed it. This would comfortably put Deoxys at planet-busting levels of power, with some potential to scale even higher considering that they not only fought Rayquaza, but Mega Rayquaza. This transformation could be comparable to that of Mega Mewtwo, who was able to fight the likes of 50% Zygarde, who was able to fight Ultra Necrozma. This would potentially mean Deoxys could downscale from a Pokemon that could light up the entire universe, requiring Multi-Solar System to Galaxy levels of power. However, with a scaling chain this long and the fact that you’d have to be generous in assuming Mega-evolved Legendaries are comparable, it’s arguable whether this leeway is allowed or not. Still, at their absolute minimum, they should be Planet, but given the benefit of the doubt, Deoxys could potentially be stronger.
Dark Samus, as arguably the strongest character Samus has ever faced in the series, is an extreme powerhouse. Even in its weakest form as Metroid Prime, it was still capable of matching Samus in her Phazon Suit, which is far superior to the Varia and Gravity suits Samus has used to fight entities who can tank country busting missiles, damage ships with enough durability to withstand continental tier explosions, and even tank hits from weapons or characters that can destroy planets. However, the greatest feat of scaling Dark Samus has is matching Samus at the end of Prime 2, equipped with the light suit. The Light Suit is powered by the Light of Aether, which is capable of sustaining an entire planet down to an atomic level, and recreating it, even if said planet has over 800x the mass of Earth. Mass conversion energy for a planet of that size gets into the star-large star tier easily, and this is simply a minimum, as Dark Samus got even stronger in Prime 3. How much so is unknown, but considering that Dark Samus went from at most planet level at the beginning of 2, to large star at the end by absorbing a few canisters of Phazon, and Dark Samus later goes on to absorb both an entire cargo hold’s worth of Phazon, and fuse with an entire planet made of Phazon, Dark Samus likely got at least a similar boost in power, easily breaching the solar system tier potentially.
In terms of speed, while Dark Samus can scale to a lot of characters who have potential feats of flying across interstellar space, like Ridley and Gorea, most of these are unquantifiable. However, Dark Samus should be comparable to Samus’s ship, due to blitzing Varia Samus, who can react to obstacles while using the same speed booster that can massively amp said ship’s speed. As well, Dark Samus is far superior to the Chozo ghosts, who in lore were capable of flying outside of space and time, and has more Phazon power than a leviathan seed at its best, with the seed being capable of pulling the Chozo’s souls back to Tallon IV from their place outside of space, in what was implied to be a short timeframe. This puts Dark Samus at upscaling 930 million c at least, to potentially 2.43 trillion c at best.
For Deoxys, they’re scaling to Pokemon who can react to lightspeed attacks such as Signal Beam and Flash, attacks that are described as being beams and flashes of light respectively. However, we did also bring up the feat of Deoxys crossing the galaxy in a mere 10 days with the Grand Meteor Delta, but this feat is… well, flat-out wrong. See, the feat assumes that the meteor in question is on the other side of the galaxy, but as we can see in this panel, the meteor is right within the vicinity of the Earth. Meaning, funnily enough, if the meteor did take 10 days to reach Earth, it would only be moving 28 mph. To give you an idea of how slow that is, the average speed limit in the US is only 69.8 mph. So yeah, unfortunately, Deoxys’ best speed scaling gets it into the lightspeed ranges.
So, Dark Samus takes stats, unless you scale Deoxys to Necrozma through the chain of Deoxys -> Mega Rayquaza = Mega Mewtwo (since base Rayquaza and Mewtwo performed comparably similar against Deoxys) < 50% Zygarde < Ultra Necrozma. This would make Deoxys downscale from a power that could light up the entire universe, requiring MSS-Galaxy levels of power, more than what Dark Samus can achieve without very generous highballing of the Phazon enhancement multiplier.
There are also arguments for Deoxys to get infinite speed, either via Necrozma’s light potentially lighting up an infinite space, or scaling to characters that can move around in the Distortion World that supposedly lacks space and time concepts, but Dark Samus has similar arguments via upscaling the Chozo Ghosts, who could both fly outside of space (with space in Metroid having an infinite size statement), and being able to exist and move beyond space and time as well. So speed would still be relative, since both can scale to feats involving moving across the radius of the universe in a short time.
To summarize, while Deoxys could be potentially more powerful given a scaling chain to Ultra Necrozma, it’s hard to argue for them to be faster via Dark Samus having more clear-cut speed scaling, as well as countering any arguments for Deoxys having infinite speed with their own infinite speed arguments. Even if we give Deoxys the strength advantage, Dark Samus is taking speed, which will be important as you’ll see in the next section.
Arsenal and Abilities
Dark Samus admittedly travels fairly light, mainly equipped with an arm cannon. However, Dark Samus tends to make heavy use of Leviathan seeds, which are extremely potent in their ability to not only warp across the universe at will, but also corrupt any planet that they make contact with overtime. While this may not make a major difference in a short battle, over time these seeds will turn more and more planets into Phaaze copies, giving Dark Samus more Phazon to draw on to grow stronger, speed up its regeneration, and make it easier to hit Deoxys with Phazon.
That said, Dark Samus doesn’t particularly need many items when her body and essentially all of her attacks are based on Phazon. What is Phazon?
Magic.
It does everything, it corrupts souls, the mind, warps biology, creates pocket dimensions, splits energy between dimensions, fucks with mindreaders passively, it revives the dead, gives possibly layered transdimensional intangibility and invisibility, it allows interdimensional travel, it allows for regeneration from anything between cellular level to outright Mind and soul destruction, etc. That last one in particular is very important, as it allows Dark Samus to survive pretty much everything that isn’t outright conceptual or plot based or some other higher level of Erasure. Even wiping its body from existence along with an entire separate dimension of reality wasn’t enough, as Dark Samus came back 5 minutes later. Suffice to say, even with its wide variety of moves, Deoxys has nothing to permanently kill Dark Samus directly within its arsenal, while Dark Samus just needs to shoot Deoxys once and cause a multitude of effects, from instant death to mind control to even turning Deoxys into a new copy of Dark Samus.
An argument that might come up is that when Dark Samus was disintegrated in Prime 2, it took months for it to regenerate. However, there’s some context to this. For one, it didn’t take months, as Dark Samus emerged good as new almost immediately after being submerged in Phazon. Second, Dark Samus’s regen gets progressively better as it absorbs Phazon, going from cellular to atomic to mind and soul destruction regen, and since it absorbed more Phazon in Prime 3, the amount of Phazon needed to regenerate has likely decreased. Third, it’s entirely possible that Dark Samus didn’t actually need the Phazon to regenerate. If you look at the secret ending of Prime 2, which is immediately after the ending of the game and Samus leaving Aether, you can see Dark Samus’s particles coming together, in a way very similar to what it does earlier in the game (2:48:57). Here, Dark Samus could regenerate without absorbing any Phazon, so it’s possible that the same is true for this ending scene.
The question then becomes, why did Dark Samus wait so long to continue its plans? The answer is simply that it lacked sufficient power, given it had lost 3 times during the game, so it needed to absorb more Phazon to grow stronger. Thus, it waited for a sufficient Phazon cache.
Finally, even if the regen was dependent on absorbing Phazon, that only applies to any subatomic regen, and the amount isn’t something that Dark Samus would struggle with nowadays, especially since Deoxys would have no way of knowing that it needs to destroy all nearby Phazon. At best, Deoxys can incapacitate Dark Samus for a little while, but not fully destroy it.
That said, Deoxys does have some potential counters. It’s moves like Role Play and Skill Swap could be used to swap or copy one of the passive abilities of Phazon, Mirror Coat can redirect Phazon back into Dark Samus to destabilize it, and if Deoxys manages to destroy Phaaze and fully destabilize Dark Samus simultaneously, the latter will likely not be able to come back. However, all of these have caveats.
Role Play and Skill Swap only copy or transfer one passive ability at a time, and with Dark Samus having several, the one Deoxys gets will be completely random. It will likely be a benefit regardless.
Dark Samus can survive many shots of Phazon without being destabilized, so a single round of Mirror Coat likely will not be enough, and afterwards Dark Samus will be much more cautious to attack. Since this is Deoxys’ only reliable method of destabilizing, that is a problem.
To wipe out Phaaze, it would have to be fused with the Aurora Unit (since Phaaze is made of Phazon and thus can likely regenerate on its own when destroyed otherwise), and the Aurora Unit has to not be able to regenerate when destroyed. Then Deoxys will have to find Phaaze, a single planet in an entire universe, get to it, and blow it up, all without touching any Phazon or the planet itself once, when Deoxys has very limited methods of mind reading, and Phazon passively interferes with and blocks the vision of those who try to mentally interface with it. Certainly possible, but very unlikely compared to Dark Samus simply shooting Deoxys once.
Overall, while some of Deoxys’ niche counters could help decrease the gap a little bit, Dark Samus still has the more vast and useful array of abilities to use, and the fact that she really only needs to hit Deoxys once to win doesn’t help the DNA Pokemon’s chances.
Tertiary Factors
Dark Samus is likely smarter, as it was capable of teaching the space pirates (one of the most advanced tech organizations in the galaxy), how to improve their own spacecraft after a few days of being on their ship, and single-handedly masterminded a plan to corrupt the universe and control the entire space pirate fleet. Deoxys may potentially compare to Alakazam’s 5000 IQ, but it has no major intelligence feats on Dark Samus’s level. Fighting skill also likely goes to Dark Samus, due to absorbing Samus’s Chozo DNA, and thus her years of training with the Chozo, while Deoxys typically doesn’t employ immense combat skill in its fighting.
Experience is tricky, since Dark Samus has technically been around for over 50 years, but most of those were spent in a cave within Tallon IV not fighting anything, and has only 3 games of fights to its name. Since Deoxys has been in more games, it likely has experienced more actual combat, so point to it.
Conclusion/Overall
Deoxys
Advantages
With their Planet-level strength, could destroy Phaaze and prevent Dark Samus from regenerating
Potentially stronger with high-end Necrozma scaling
Tactics like Role Play and Skill Swap could allow Deoxys to gain access to some of the passive benefits of Phazon
Mirror Coat can redirect Dark Samus’s Phazon attacks, taking advantage of its Phazon weakness
Technically more experienced
Disadvantages
Far weaker without high-end scaling and definitively slower
Has very little counters to the effects of Phazon
Less deadly abilities
Inferior regeneration by comparison
Cannot touch Dark Samus physically without being affected by Phazon
Dark Samus
“The troops now call her the "Dark Hunter". It is a fitting title.”
Advantages
Takes the stat trinity by a significant margin
Deoxys has no answer to the effects of Phazon
More useful abilities with superior range
More intelligent and skilled due to absorbing Samus’s Chozo DNA
Far superior regenerative capabilities
Disadvantages
Potentially weaker with Deoxys’ high end scaling
If Phaaze were to be destroyed, would not be able to regenerate
Susceptible to Deoxys’ Mirror Coat redirecting Phazon attacks back at Dark Samus
Technically less experienced
Metroid Prime 4 is totally coming out you guys I swea-
To sum up, while Deoxys may have the potential to outstat, Dark Samus’s regeneration and nigh-immortality means that won’t mean much overall, and the only ways Deoxys has that could feasibly overcome this hurdle are either extremely reliant on random chance, or are so convoluted they may as well not exist for someone like Deoxys. Meanwhile, no matter what, Dark Samus just needs to land one or two hits to completely decimate Deoxys, and with its ability to phase between dimensions and turn invisible to an extent even beyond invisibility detecting equipment, it’s very likely Dark Samus will get the chance it needs to land a fatal blow. In conclusion, even if we give Deoxys some leeway, Dark Samus just has better speed, range and deadly abilities that, realistically, should just end the fight in mere moments.
Deoxys can throw whatever it wants at Dark Samus, but none of it will Phaaze her, as it was her destiny to win this intergalactic fight.
Results
Team Deoxys (0): Why does its face look like a-
Team Dark Samus (7): LandonTalksALot, RedHeadedElf, Ashuto, JJSliderman, Partytime, StrangeFate, Robert Lee
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