A warm stream of liquid flowed down Samus' cheek, stirring her to consciousness. A crack appeared in her green visor; her suit was already repairing it, by injecting the crack with a resin which would seal the fissure. She looked down at her right arm. It looked like a mangled steel flower in full bloom. The canon had peeled back leaving her black fleshy arm exposed, her zero suit was reduced to molten plastic sluge.
"Damn it John." She cursed.

Her right arm was in agony, mentally calling up a display of her suit, Samus disengaged the canon. With a mechanical rumble, the locks holding what was left of the canon in place released dropping the fragments of the barrel to the ground like wilting petals of a flower. Samus sat up and inspected her arm once more, flexing her charcoal fingers. It was charred, she was glad her air purifiers were working; she would hate to smell her own burnt flesh. She was glad that was the only damage the point blank missile detonation left her with.

Exploding inside the barrel, allowed the missile to bypass all of the suit's protective measures. She knew she was lucky to survive such a detonation; a normal human would have died. Thanks to the Chozo infusing her with their blood, her body was able to surpass limits imposed by the frail human body. Many of her abilities were greatly increased; some such as her constitution and strength were elevated to superhuman levels. Luckily she didn't have to put up with her seared hand for long, she laid her exposed forearm in what little foliage that remained after the explosion. It was all the stimulation her Metroid infused genome needed to activate her accelerated healing factor. Her arm was soon covered in a white pussy material, killing any and all growths that were colonizing the subcutaneous tissue, blisters soon started to sprout over her whole arm. The grass nestling against her forearm soon started to wilt eventually being reduced to dust.

The Metroid healing factor came at a cost, it acted like a 'life-force' vampire, absorbing life from other sources, or herself if absolutely necessary, and infusing it into her own cellular matrix, causing tissue to regenerate or be come revitalized. Soon soft fleshy pink skin flowed down her forearm replacing out the ash and blisters. The plant life wasn't plentiful enough to heal her arm completely; it no longer was in agonizing pain though. She would have to make due for now, with her injured arm.

With her Zero-suit protective layer damaged, she could feel the cool liquid metal as it flowed down the length of her arm. The armor would protect her from the vacuum of space, but it wouldn't regulate temperature to her arm. She would have to monitor her time closely if she were to venture back into space; she didn't want to cause further damage to her arm. Looking down at her arm canon, Samus gave it a light kick, realizing how naked she felt with out it. Her primary weapon was now in ruins, she still had several secondary weapons at her disposal, but her canon packed the most fire power.

"Of all the places he could have shot, he had to choose there." She growled to herself. "I guess that is what I get for not being specific enough." Men, she thought, you had to tell them everything.

She had contacted the Master Chief across the NIT, during Ridley's monologue. She wasn't sure how the Ring operated or what it did, she would need to keep him talking to find out as much as she could. It didn't take her long to realize he was keeping them her for a reason. She advised John to play along with Ridley so he could keep tabs on him, work him from the other side. When the portal opened she lazily performed a would-be stray shot with her remaining missile, she knew John would fire his weapon. She hoped Ridley would be convinced that his pot shot had thrown off her aim, but John had to take it a step further. He removed all doubt that he had caused her to misfire, and undoubtedly gained some trust for his actions. She just wished he had thought of a better way to do it.

She knew that the Ring was dangerous, but Ridley, if he had been telling the truth, convinced her that it was much too powerful. The thought of handing it over to the Galactic Federation had crossed her mind; it would make her square with destroying the BSL, only a few short months ago. But the Ring proved to be too powerful for anyone, even the Galactic Federation. Even if they wanted to use it for good, it would be too dangerous, not only would they jeopardize their universe; they could end up unwinding the very meshwork that constituted the fabric of Space-Time. Ridley's monologue revealed that the true threat lay not with the Ring itself, which could easily be rebuilt if destroyed, but with Forward Unto Dawn. Though she was no physicist, as far as she could tell the hull of the ship was still polarized with the charged with some sort of 'interdimensional particles', which allowed it to travel the wormhole from John's Earth to the Ark. When the connection was broken the ship still kept its charge, stretching a passageway from hyperspace back to the ship. The ship just lacked the energy to keep the hyperspace field stable, which is where the Ring came in. By pumping enough power into it the Space Pirates were able to reforge the connection and create a bridge back into hyperspace.

She would have to destroy the Forward Unto Dawn, severing the link to wormhole, even with her arm canon she didn't have the necessary firepower to destroy the frigate.

"Adam," she said activating the comm. "Bring the ship around."

o o o

John couldn't tell what was happening. He was surrounded in pure white, the only thing that conveyed any sort of movement was a tingling sensation that periodically ran down his body. The sensation made John's mind conjure up a net-like image. He assumed that is what Space-Time looked like if it were possible to visualize it. Time was almost incomprehensible to him; it was as if her were living brief moments of eternity as he sailed through the subspace tear.

He soon found himself along with Ridley aboard the other half of the Dawn.

Cortana he thought, what happened, where are we, when are we?

I don't know Chief, she answered back through the NIT, we are aboard the Dawn, and it seems to be dry docked on Earth, for some reason.

He didn't have much time to worry about the new circumstances of the Dawn's location was, he needed to finish his objective. The nausea of the trip was already starting to take its toll. The plan was to escape back into his own dimension and leave Ridley trapped in the interdimensional space. Shakily the Chief scrambled around the steeply angled cargo bay; strange I don't remember it being so steep. Man I really must be out of it from that jump. It's almost as if the Dawn was planted in the ground at a 45 degree angle.

It wasn't long before he heard Ridley's silver-tongued speech echoing through the ship. "I'm so glad you have seen the light, with your help, we can forge an alliance to help between our governments to purge the Terran Empire strangle hold in my dimension."

He is still reciting his phony rhetoric; he should have been a politician, not a warrior. Cortana sneered

How about you do something useful and help me figure out a way to get him back into the portal.

I don't know about you She replied back but I would just use that.

"Well what do you think; will you aid me in this merger of prosperity?" Ridley beamed, letting a trace of his vile cunning seep through.

"Na." John quipped, turning around brandishing a Brute Shot. John discharging a round into Ridley's abdomen, sending him flying towards the portal, red eyes wide with shock. Unbeknownced to the Chief, Ridley's tail had slithered between his legs, snagging it as he flew through the portal, taking John with him.

o o o

Samus had never really ordered Adam to take the Hunter out of the sector, she didn't know what Ridley had up his sleeves, and she just knew that she needed to stay mentally one step ahead of him. If Ridley was spying on them when they arrived planet side, she needed to make it appear as if he had the upper hand. Adam took the Hunter on a short jump out past the Jovian planet in the Rito system. After dropping out of hyperspace, Adam headed back to the planet landing on the far side, away from Space Pirate territory, where the rescued Terrans would be safe. Samus would summon him if he was needed.

Samus sighed; it would take Adam quite some time before arriving. Traveling through space was easy, the Hunter could achieve .8 c with its sublight engine, but traveling in the atmosphere, was another story it could only maintain a maximum speed of Mach 20, only a measly fifteen thousand miles an hour less than half of half of one percent what it could do in a vacuum, with out burning up. She let out another sigh, she hated waiting around, and it would be the better half of an hour before he arrived.

Before Samus could wallow in anymore self pity, a red light flashed in the corner of her visor. A huge bio sign was detected not too far off from the Dawn. She couldn't believe her suits scanners hadn't picked it up before. Either the radiation from the Ring had been interfering with her scanner or that missile blast was making it malfunction. She cautiously approached the source of the signature. Within several steps Samus came upon the source of the signature, or more accurately the source came upon her. Bursting forth from the ground, as if the planet was giving birth to the creature itself, a giant crocodilian head protruded from the ground. With the help of its tiny forelimbs, the great reptilian creature known as Kraid ascended to the planet's surface.

Samus' eyes were wide with shock; she thought she had killed Kraid on Zebes several years ago. How had her sensors missed him? She brought up her right arm to pepper him with her power beam. As soon as her arm started to rise she remembered she no longer brandished her arm canon. Kraid several shot razor-sharp claws from one of his many naval like pores, sending Samus diving for cover. Upon rolling she noticed John's Magnum lying next to her, Thanks John, she thought sardonically couldn't you have left me a smaller gun? Picking up the worthless fire arm, Samus fired a few rounds. Hoping at least to irritate the behemoth, she took off in a run, hoping to lose the giant reptile. Samus had never encountered Kraid in a wide open space and assumed that she could out run him. Despite his bulk, Kraid proved to be faster than Samus, hunkering down onto all four of his limbs Kraid bounded towards Samus, like the giant crocodile he was. Spewing molten rock towards her as he chased after her.

Frantically weaving to avoid the molten rock that Kraid belched up, Samus realized that he would soon be on top of her, and she would be utterly defenseless. She darted off to the side, knowing that she could turn faster than the large reptile. Kraid was forced to rear up on his hind legs in order to cut down the time he spend turning. This was exactly what Samus had hoped for; as he was rearing up he exposed his soft fleshy chest, which she could blast through. Punching a complex sequence into forearm, before polarized her suit causing it to glow with a golden light, Samus initiated her jump jets to maximum thrust she lunged at Kraid. Using her shoulder charge was a risky move, it was a powerful close combat attack she sometimes used, but she had no idea the kind of effect it would have on Kraid.

Kraid noticed the bounty hunter rocketing towards his exposed thorax, and immediately started to drop his upper body towards the ground. Samus realized his counter attack, but couldn't stop her shoulder charge in time, Kraid opened his mouth swallowing the speeding bounty hunter whole. Rising up to his full height, Kraid spread his miniscule arms and roared triumphantly. Doing what both Mother Brain and Ridley had failed to do in the past.

His victory was short lived; his throat soon was illuminated by a white light, causing it to distend greatly, before rupturing into gore. A small metal sphere erupted out of the throat, propelled out of the beast by a detonated power bomb. Along with Samus, the back of Kraid's skull, and most of his lower jaw were launched away from Kraid's collapsing body.

Samus impacted the ground, absorbing most of the impact by landing on one of her knees. She slowly rose up to her feet, looking back at the defeated Kraid. His body began to wriggle, becoming semi-amorphous; his exploded extremities flowed back into the mass of wiggling flesh. With his muzzle reformed Kraid sprang towards the hunter. Lurching forward mouth wide, Kraid went to bite Samus in half, as to avoid another power bomb. Samus had no time to react; the darkness of Kraid's mouth was already encompassing her upper body. Just as the mouth began to apply pressure to Samus' suit, several large electrical discharges were heard. The Hunter had arrived, unloading its main canons upon Kraid, freeing Samus from demise. The Hunter arrived just in time; luckily Adam was able to upload Samus' firing orders from her forearm command pad before she was severed in two.

Samus moved over to inspect what remained of Kraid, surprised to find little of his mass left, instead she found organic pulsating goo.

"X!" she exclaimed, confirming her hypothesis. Curling the liquid metal away from her injured hand, she drove her fingers into the X absorbing its life force, completely healing her arm. The use of X explained how she didn't detect Kraid's bio-signature until recently; obviously the X was in its natural state until it engaged her. The Pirates had obviously discovered the X during their extended studies with the Metroids, and had weaponized it, and not just for germ warfare. Samus had Adam sweep the area for any X bio-signatures. Unsurprisingly the cavern which Kraid excavated as he approached the surface was teeming with X. Samus descended into the cavern, to discover hundreds of vials and Petri dishes. Finding a terminal Samus accessed the caverns directive.

The Pirates seemed to have been developing both weaponized versions of Metroids and the X in tandem, however the Galactic Federation had just recently learned of the latter's existence. After much painstaking research the Pirates were able to alter the X's genome to program it to do their bidding. The X would be placed in a vial, or dish, with a cellular culture specimen of some sort, when needed; the X would become active, instantaneously growing into the specimen. Through the miracle of genetic engineering, the specimen with pre-encoded orders would begin its assignment, with the aid of all the specimen's memories, not realizing it was really X. Doing so they could control any possible ramped outbreaks of X.

Samus was horrified not only had the Pirates discovered a way to create millions of shock troops, they could do so from only the most loyal and skilled soldiers, making them even deadlier than before. Through the use of the Cellular cultures, their bio-signatures would almost be undetectable. However the most frightening was the last file she encountered. The pirates had samples of all their top scientific researchers, not only could they mass produce brawn, but they could do so on brains as well, meaning the top scientists were not working on just one project but all of them. Samus transferred all the data to the Hunter, and then laid a power bomb in the facilities, reducing it all to ash.

The Hunter floated menacingly above the Dawn, while Samus sat fidgeting in the captain's chair. She wasn't sure how long she needed to wait before blowing up the Dawn, she didn't want to trap John in that interdimensional space. They had teleported over an hour ago; surely they should have arrived by now. She didn't even know if interrupting the flow of energy would cause a total collapse in the wormhole or not. Reluctantly Samus charged the main canons of the Hunter.

o o o

The second time going through the wormhole was easier than John anticipated, instead of being locked in a state of paralysis, as before he found that if he thought hard enough, he could actually move his limbs. Communication was almost impossible even with Cortana across his NIT, he could feel that her artificial consciousness was still intact, but that was about it. The blast from the warhead propelled Ridley and John through space at a much more accelerated rate than before. The grip Ridley's tail had on his leg loosed noticeably; obviously Ridley was still stricken by the paralysis of the jump.

Using Ridley's tail John pulled his body towards the dragon's head. Cortana he thought, the portal could close at anytime, I don't want to be stuck here forever, I'm trying to beat Ridley out of the wormhole explaining his makeshift plan.

N…. Sh…..t! Her jarbled response came back. John rolled his eyes deciphering the message. Slowly climbing on to Ridley's shoulders, John pushed off with all his might sending Ridley slowly in the opposite direction, while rocketing him towards the other opening of the wormhole.

Hugh beams of light lanced forward from the Hunter's main guns, tearing deep into the unshielded Dawn. A small green clad figure popped through the gateway, as the Dawn erupted into flame, causing the wormhole to collapse. Picking up John's bio-signature Samus lowered the Hunter to search for him.

Coming across a moaning figure, Samus helped John sit up.

"That's for wreaking my Varia suit." Samus explained, indicating the Chief's present condition.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he mumbled. "I did exactly as you asked."

Shaking her head, Samus helped John into the Hunter, telling Adam to go pick up the Human survivors he left stranded on the other side of the planet.

Unclipping his helmet, John breathed laboriously, "You know," He said between gasps. "I was thinking about it and I don't know if Ridley will remain trapped in the interdimensional space."

"What do you mean, you thought of it?" Cortana interjected, projecting herself sitting upon the shelved helmet. "I said that, as soon as we exited the wormhole. I believe my exact comment was, 'This is so Déjà vu, this is almost exactly the same way we arrived her before.' I then went on to note, that when the slipstream the Ark created was broken we arrived here, so Ridley could have popped out in anywhere in any dimension, just like we did."

John laughed, "Well I guess you deserve some credit for the idea."

"We can always hope he popped in close to a star or something." Samus said.

As her Varia suit dematerialized, Samus couldn't help but feel sorry for John, still recovering from his trip through interdimensional space. He was stuck here in her world, he could never go back to his friends or family, both of which she knew were the UNSC.

"You know," She began, "I'm sure the Chozo can find a way to get you back home. I mean your MJOLNIR suit was exposed to the interdimensional particles, which is what happened to the Dawn." She looked down, at her feet, unable to face him after such a lie. She couldn't even make herself believe it, and knew her eyes would give her away.

John chuckled to himself.

"There is nothing back there for me anyways, the only friends I had died during the war."

"Ahem!" Cortana insisted.

"Almost all of my friends, it looked like the Arbiter made it through the slipstream ok."

Cortana rolled her eyes.

"The war is over in my dimension, I would be shuffled around as a celebrity, it is now up to the politicians to keep the peace, I would be nothing but UNSC propaganda, I better serve Earth by being remembered as a hero, than a washed up figure head. Your world is in peril, Space Pirates still run rampid under Mother Brian. No offense but it looks like you could use some help here."

"John is right." Cortana agreed, "With the Covenant dissolved, the Halos neutralized, there remains no threat back home. John's 'death' defending all free species will only help to strengthen the shaky alliance between the Elites and the Terrans."

"Oh," Samus said, "Is that the only reason you're staying?"

"Well," the Chief began, "Cortana could be a great asset to the Gal…"

"Oh would you just shut up, and kiss the woman already." Cortana shouted from a top her helmet refuge.

Cupping her head in his hands, John pulled Samus in for a passionate kiss.

"Men," Cortana sighed.

"What are we going to tell Admiral Dean about what happened here?" John asked.

"Let's worry about that later," Samus answered pulling him closer, returning his kiss.

o o o

A mechanical whir, disturbed the dead silence in the pitch black cavern. The whir was soon followed by the sound of shattering glass, and a screeching roar. Two menacing angular red eyes were all that illuminated the hidden lab.

A/N: I know I got a little long winded at the end, but it wasn't enough for me to break into two chapters.