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So it is etched in stone, so it shall be. Brought to us in visions of glittering poison and rusted armour, the Hatchling, little one that we have loved and accepted as our own, will not be enough. The dark ones have grown restless, intent on taking over what was never theirs to begin with. They have created something new, something to set the ball of fate rolling. It is misguided and sick, its actions clouded by its own hate. It is a warrior of a once noble people, now scarred by their actions and forever hating all who did this. But there is another, one who may set the Scarred Warrior’s path right again. He is exiled from his people but living among them in secrecy. His heart is noble and he sees what is right. Together, both the Scarred Warrior and the Exiled Leader may be enough to stop the gathering storm, the rending of the very fabric of reality itself. We only hope our Newborn will be there in time to see them through to the end, and set everything right once again.

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End Chozo Lore

~*~

The sky was a sickly yellowish gray colour, like it had come down with some sort of horrible disease. No, it was the Earth that was diseased, the sky was merely reflecting it. A horrible war was being waged, one where the death count had been lost a long time ago and whatever sides there had been had been blurred all too hell.

It was a slaughter-fest, not a war. Hulking mechs battled it out with, well, whoever wasn’t a mech. Civilians, innocents, and the criminals all merged together under one name: the Enemy. It didn’t matter that more than half of them weren’t the enemy, and that more than half of them had no idea what was happening. If it moved, it was prey, and if it was prey, it was the Enemy, and if it was the Enemy, it needed to be killed. No questions asked.

Gin saw the world through a blood red cross shaped visor, a pair of equally red eyes reflected back at him. The dizzying array of information projected onto his HUD would have scared off even the most confident pilot. Instead to Gin it offered a sort of respite from the outside world, a second home, if you will. The controls and information was as normal to him as a bee to a flower.

The only problem here was the anger. He was angry, furious, bloodthirsty. A line of red splattered across his visor but he neither saw it nor cared. This was single minded intensity at its finest, the by-product of untold years of training. The battlefield was rife with the metallic stench of death and the grand chorus of deranged screams, both his and his victims.

Another spurt of blood, this time dark blue. It came through the visor as a sort of off purple.. Gin wiped it away and continued with the bloodshed, unknowing and uncaring of who or what he had just killed.

Suddenly the field was silent. The fighting still continued as though nothing had happened but there was simply no sound. There was, however, no more than five feet in front of him, a little girl. She was seemingly untouched by the combat, her blonde hair swaying in the sick breeze of war.

Gritting his teeth and suddenly unable to control himself he charged at the girl, determined to show her her fair share of the fighting. His eyes had blazed up to a crimson fury as the rage took hold and all too soon she was dead, impaled on the end of his katana.

But she wasn’t as dead as he would have liked. Blood seeping from the corner of her mouth she looked up at him, her odd coloured eyes, one bright blue the other vivid green, staring right through him.

“You are the Alpha, you are the Omega,” she whispered, the only sound in the curious vacuum that had been created. “You were made for us, and like a phoenix you’ll always come right back for more.”

She dropped a pair of bloodied dogtags at his feet. Gin was no longer angry, but horribly, horribly sad.

And he could do nothing to stop the fighting.

Gin woke with a start, body trembling and covered in a cold sweat. The thin material of his clothes clung clammily to his skin and for a moment Gin was wildly confused, the nightmare was still vivid in his mind. He had no idea where he was, what was happening, or what had happened to land him here, and visions of the blood soaked battlefield still pervaded just behind his vision. The thick bandage over his left side and the fact that it hurt to breathe were the only indications of what had happened. That and the beeping machines tied into his chest.

He quickly sat up only to gasp in pain and fall into the bed again. His side didn’t just hurt, it hurt, and by the telltale way his chest rose and fell in an irregular rhythm led him to believe his ribs had been broken. It slowly began to come back. Some hideous creation, no doubt sent by the space pirates for some obscure reason. A massive spike studded tail colliding with his chest, followed closely by Tejed screaming his name.

That was so unlike her. Did she actually care what happened to him? Care if he was alive or not? Gin didn’t really believe it for a second. Tejed was irrational and mean at the best of times, prone to violent mood swings and acts of insanity. In all her different moods, though, he never once saw anything to tell him she actually cared about anyone other than herself. And over the course of, what, about three months since he had met her? He had seen a lot of her moods.

Taking a deep breath he sat up again, this time slowly. His ribs ached but did not protest. Without warning a shape came out of nowhere and abruptly pushed him back into the bed. Intense anger flared in his mind.

“Don’t move. Your ribs are broken.”

“But I need to get out of here,” Gin muttered, eyes flashing feverishly around the room. He felt anxious and vaguely angry.

“No.”

Something was wrong. Gin wasn’t supposed to feel like this, like he could snap at any moment. It was a dangerous mindset and unfortunately he knew exactly what had brought it on. And he hated it.

“Where’s Hackbot?”

One of the machines started beeping loudly, a shrill buzz that scratched against his mind like fingernails on a chalkboard. Gin’s teeth gritted together in pain and he briefly contemplated punching it, destroying it in an effort to destroy the annoying sound.

“Where’s who?”

The voice came somewhere from his right and was distinctly female. For a split second Gin thought it was Tejed, before remembering that she would never have been this calm. That and she sounded like a broken cassette tape. A badly recorded broken cassette tape. Carefully he craned his neck around to see the owner of the voice but merely brought on another spasm of pain. He promptly went back to his original position.

“The robot, who’s usually in here. He needs to help.”

“You mean the crazy one? I locked the door. He seemed dangerous.”

“Damnit! Get him in here!”

To accentuate his point Gin finally gave in and smashed his fist into the incessantly beeping machine, at long last silencing it. His hand came back bloody and chock full of glass, but he didn’t care. At that moment the owner of the voice came into his vision, revealing itself to be the only person he had ever looked up to: Samus Aran. Gin should’ve been ecstatic; instead he was angry and agitated.

She looked at his most likely now broken hand, unsure what was going through his head. Gin took a few deep breaths to steady himself and looked Samus in the eye.

“Please, get Hackbot in here. He knows things, he can help me.”

Samus made no inclination to move, eliciting a new onrush of anger from Gin. His normally ice blue eyes flashed a bright crimson and, ignoring the pain from his side, he managed to sit up and more or less scream at her.

“NOW!”

She got the hint and unlocked the door, right as the pain became unbearable and Gin flopped down again, cursing loudly as he did so. Hackbot rushed in, in one of his rare sane moods, a thin syringe held carefully, almost reverently in his hands, as though he was terrified it would shatter at the slightest disturbance. Samus watched him curiously as a thin alarm blared on the side of his head, unsure exactly what had brought about his sudden change in personality.

“I’m sorry, Gin! I would’ve come right away but the Hunter here locked the door and--”

“--Damnit, Hackbot! Quit your blabbering and just do it already before I snap!”

The hunter’s bright eyes had faded to a sort of dark simmering red and briefly reminded Samus of Tejed and her seething hatred. He even acted the part, too, what with his constant snapping at the robot. Whatever had caused his sudden change in temperament seemed to be the cause of his eye colour, as well. And whatever it was had Samus more or less intrigued.

“Damnit, Hackbot!” he yelled again. The robot had tried to get him to sit up, only to aggravate his broken ribs. Samus winced and walked over to him, leaving her outpost by the door.

“Here, let me help,” she said gently. Gin calmed visibly and lowered the arm he was about ready to slap Hackbot with, eyes dimming back down to that simmering red. Calmly, Samus slipped an arm around his waist, the other on his shoulder, and helped him into a sitting position. He gritted his teeth in pain but didn’t complain, his face slowly taking on the same shade as his eyes.

“Thank you,” he muttered quietly, ashamed of his outburst.

Samus didn’t pursue the matter, much to his joy, but what she did do was just as embarrassing. She took up her spot by the door again and stood there, watching him, arms crossed languidly across her chest. His anger had since faded, leaving him merely agitated. The Hackbot fussing over him with the syringe didn’t help his agitation all that much though, and all too quickly it elevated back to anger.

“Push your head forwards,” instructed Hackbot. Somehow he had managed to position himself behind Gin in such a way that it seemed ludicrous. Samus wasn’t even sure how he had managed, or how he was going to get out of there. Gin merely grumbled something unintelligible, not caring about the robot’s awkward positioning, and pushed his head forward until it was lolling against his chest. Hackbot poked his fingers around the base of his skull before finding something and readying the syringe. Samus craned her head to see.

“It’s going to hurt…” warned the robot.

“I know, god damnit,” snapped Gin irritably. “We’ve only been over this same procedure a million god forsaken times. I think I know how much it hurts.”

Hackbot seemed unfazed by his master’s vehemence and quickly stuck Gin with the needle, the inch long tip going deep into his spine. Gin stiffened in pain but said nothing. Samus noted his high pain tolerance, impressed that a normal human could withstand so much. Promptly Hackbot withdrew the needle and somehow managed to hop off the bed, allowing Gin to flop back down and take a deep breath, eyes closing as he embraced the pain.

“And now I bid you adieu,” the robot said graciously to Samus before scampering off, his alarm fading down the hallways into silence. Samus watched the empty doorway, a strange smirk on her face. Gin sure did have the weirdest friends. She turned back to him and approached the side of his bed.

“Are you alright?”

He slowly opened his eyes, their colour having returned to their usual icy blue.

“I’m fine,” he muttered. “But…now my hand hurts.”

“Well that’s what you get for punching a monitor,” she said amiably, a light smile on her face. Gin merely blushed slightly and closed his eyes again. Now that he was feeling better he simply could not look Samus in the eye without feeling uncomfortable. She was only the greatest bounty hunter this side of the Milky Way. He felt as if he was unworthy to be in her presence.

“How about your other hand?”

Gin’s eyes snapped open again and he tried to sit up.

“What about my other--oh…” At that point he realized he was garbed in a simple hospital robe, no arms to the thing and no back. He promptly facepalmed with both hands.

“It took me a while to realize it wasn’t part of your suit. How’d you get it?”

“Long story,” he mumbled through his hands before pulling them away and inspecting the right one. The steel fingers were scuffed and dented but more or less in one piece. It needed some looking after, but it was still a good arm, just a little used. With a sigh Gin laid back down again, his one mechanical arm draped over his face and the other still bleeding over the clean bedsheets.

“You can’t tell Tejed.”

Samus cocked an eyebrow.

“Why?”

“She’s…impulsive. It’s for the best.”

Samus didn’t say anything for a few seconds.

“What about your eyes?”

“No!”

He had somehow managed, in the space of a second, to sit up again, face contorting in both worry and fear.

“It’s…a Federation thing. No one can know anything…not even you.”

“…what about the robot?”

Gin thought for a moment before flopping down again.

“Hackbot is an exception. He’s the only one who can help me.”

Without another word the hunter closed his eyes and somehow managed to worm himself onto his side, where he almost instantly seemed to fall asleep. Not wanting to bother him anymore but with a lot of things weighing on her mind Samus quietly left and closed the door, leaving him to himself. Somewhere, from the direction of what she surmised to be the kitchen, came the harsh muttered voice of Tejed as she ranted on to herself in a curious mixture of English and Space Pirate, no doubt blaming herself for putting Gin in this position. The smile having faded Samus started towards it.

Gin had said only Hackbot could help him. But did that mean only the robot was capable of the help he needed, or the robot was the only one he would let near?

~*~

“I lost control. I could’ve saved Gin but I saw him lying there all beat up and the first thing to flash across my mind was how good that dragon would look without a head, limbs, or internal organs, and despite myself I gave in. I listened to that obnoxious little voice that developed in the back of my head a few weeks ago and gave in to my insanity. “I could’ve said no, I could’ve helped Gin instead of releasing all my pent up anger and rage but I just had to go into Berserker and lay a number on that dragon, and the sad part is all my efforts were reduced to nothing, for to the dragon I was no more than an obnoxious little pest.”

Tejed walked anxious circles around the kitchen, a glass of phazon in one hand and the other tugging on her ear. Samus stood in the doorway watching her, a very faint smile creeping across her face. This was the first time in a few months she had seen the hybrid without her suit. It seemed as though the suit had melded itself to her, as evidenced by the shoulder and knee guards, and the thick cables running from her right arm. If anything, Samus mused, her lankiness made her even scarier than when she was in her suit.

“And I couldn’t stop myself. I tried and I tried but I simply could not turn the tap off and stop my rage fuelled attack. The voice had grown to a roar that clouded my vision and I could not say no to it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it so, so much and if it weren’t for my lack of self control Gin wouldn’t be in this mess and he wouldn’t be in a hospital bed right now and he wouldn’t have machines hooked up to him just to make sure he’s still alive and despite myself, back there, fighting the dragon, I enjoyed it in some sick twisted way I can’t understand and if it weren’t for my actions Gin--”

“--Gin’s fine,” interjected Samus, cutting the hybrid off from her guilt induced rant. Tejed stumbled, the glass almost falling out of her grip, and looked up, surprised the see Samus there.

“All he has are some broken ribs; he’ll be more than fine in a few weeks.”

Tejed’s grief-stricken expression brightened and she let go of her ear.

“And it wasn’t your fault. You’re still young, still learning. The pirate’s did a lot to you, both physically and mentally, and you can’t be expected to instantly know how to handle it.”

Tejed smiled slightly, relieved by the Hunter’s kind words but still anxious about Gin.

“What about now? Is he…”

“He’s fine. Just sleeping.”

The hybrid relaxed visibly at her words and finally sat down, her too long legs almost looking like they were going to get tangled beneath the seat. Despite Samus’ reassuring words Tejed still looked worried, and it struck the Hunter once again how much humanity the pirates, in whatever quest they were trying to take, had inadvertently left in her. Smiling Samus sat down beside her.

“You can’t keep beating yourself up over something you couldn’t control,” she said quietly. Tejed’s ears fluttered but she didn’t answer, just stared forlornly into the glass of phazon. Samus put a comforting hand on her arm before getting up and leaving the kitchen, prompting the hybrid to slouch forwards until her head was resting on the table. She looked up for a brief second at the glass of glowing phazon before pressing her face back into the table.

“I swear one of these days I’m going to contract phazon madness from this stuff.”

Sighing again she sat back up and gazed around the kitchen, feeling for all the world like a poor, lost puppy that had just done something horribly bad. A line of saliva snaked down her chin but she wiped it away before it could accumulate into a glob of drool.

“It’s still my fault,” she muttered bitterly.

“Yes, it is. If you would’ve just killed him when we had the chance we wouldn’t be here…”

“Shut up,” she hissed, unconsciously grabbing her ears again.

“Ignoring me is a fatal mistake, Ms. Jenal. Embrace me, let us be as one…”

Without warning Tejed lashed out at the glass, sending it flying to the other side of the room. It hit the wall with a loud crack, phazon seeping all over the floor. Her breathing was low and haggard and abruptly she stood up, hands going to her head.

“Why do you insist on speaking up at the worst times?”

“Why do I insist on speaking up at the best times…?”

“I’m not listening to you.”

She pushed the nagging voice to the back of her mind, ignoring its attempts at sadistic conversation. At least she had something new to blame. It wasn’t her that had lost control.

It was the voice.

~*~

Tejed leaned anxiously against Gin’s door, muttering to herself and tapping a foot impatiently on the floor. What normally would have been soundless with an ordinary person was amplified with Tejed. Not in her suit, her mechanical feet tapping against the steel floor echoed all the way down the hall, an almost obnoxious metallic tapping. Tejed didn’t notice or care, she was too preoccupied with her own thoughts. And once again the voice wasn’t helping matters.

“Don’t wait around like some commoner, break the door down and devour all within…”

“I swear, you have the worst ideas.”

“But they’re not mine, they’re yours…”

“I thought I was ignoring you…”

The tapping had increased in tempo along with her frustration, and once again Tejed seriously considered ridding herself of her ears. Suddenly the door she was leaning on swung inwards and after a confused tumbled Tejed found herself, with a loud crash, face to face with the floor.

“Ow,” she muttered dejectedly. The voice merely laughed at her.

“Oh, come one. You’re going to laugh now?” she sneered.

“I…wasn’t laughing.”

Tejed winced slightly at the new voice and quickly got up from the ground, embarrassed that she had been caught talking to herself.

“Samus! I…”

“Who were you talking to?”

Tejed’s ears fell slightly and she looked down at her feet.

“…the voice…”

“What was it saying?”

Tejed looked back up. Samus had closed the door and was leaning against it more or less the same way Tejed had been not five seconds earlier. For a brief second Tejed considered not telling Samus anything, too ashamed of herself to divulge her thoughts to the only person she looked up to.

“Tejed…?”

It couldn’t be done. Ever since she had rescued her from a life of torture Tejed saw Samus as an older sister, the one person she could go to for anything. And Tejed couldn’t lie to her sister, real or not.

“…horrible things.”

Samus cocked an eyebrow.

“Like what?”

“…it…it wants me to kill…Gin.”

Tejed rubbed the side of her now sore face and averted her gaze back to the floor, unable to meet Samus’ eyes. The voice had abruptly changed tactics and was now urging her to kill Samus instead. Tejed’s face twitched as she tried her best to ignore it.

“How is…Gin?”

“Still sleeping.” Tejed looked up and smiled. “But your constant muttering out here is bound to eventually wake him up. That and your tapping…”

Tejed blushed slightly, her dark green skin tingeing with purple, and looked back down at her feet again, for once actually hating them and their biomechanical structure. Smiling Samus took hold of the hybrid’s arm and led her away from the door.

“Now, about those voices you hear…”

~*~

Samus carefully undid the bandages and checked the hunter’s side. It was bruised to hell and swollen, tender to the touch. Gin winced as she applied the new bandages.

“And then there was that whole escapade with the military. Crazy couple of years, I tells ya. If it weren’t for…hell, I don’t even know. I still blame that damnable project for everything.”

He was blathering on, doped up on painkillers and tranquilizers. His ribs were healing nicely: a little faster than what Samus initially had expected but healing nonetheless. Now if she could just do something about his constant talking.

“That’s where I got the arm, you know, in the military.”

He put emphasis on military then started laughing, as though it was the most insanely hilarious thing he had said all day.

“Because you know what military is code for, right?”

“No, Gin. I’m afraid I don’t,” replied Samus with a sigh, trying her hardest to tune out his chatter. She gave Tejed props for that. Not listening to him was incredibly difficult.

Quickly Gin glanced around the room, paranoid that someone would overhear. He motioned Samus close and whispered into her ear.

“The Federation.”

He waggled his fingers for effect. Samus mentally rolled her eyes and went back to her chores, cleaning up the med kit and making sure he was alright. Snickering to himself and with all the air of someone who had just divulged some huge secret Gin smiled.

“And it’s not just the Federation, oh no. It goes…somewhere. Somewhere high up, but I’m not sure where. Not quite sure just yet. My brother had found something out before…before he…died…”

Samus paused and looked back at Gin. His chatter had stopped and he looked like he was about to cry.

“You have a brother?”

He nodded slowly.

“Vince. Old cyclops I used to call him. One eye was bright blue and the other was vivid green. Best in class, we were.”

Absently he fingered some dog tags around his neck, dog tags that Samus somehow didn’t notice up until now. A fox logo was inscribed in one, a delta symbol in the other. For a moment Samus had extreme déjà vu, as though she had seen those two symbols in conjunction with one another a long time ago.

“Delta…Fox?” she muttered, trying to remember. Nothing. The feeling had gone just as fast as it had come.

“Yeah! Delta Fox!” said Gin happily. “That was his codename. Me and him were equals, both leaders in our team. EPSiLoN, it was called.”

Samus stopped dead and rounded on him.

“EPSiLoN?!” she said, louder than intended. “What do you know about them?”

“Know about them? I was in them! Went by Omega Phoenix-000. We were all named after Greek letters and animals…don’t remember all the others too well. Gamma…something or other. And a tiger…I think he was Alpha…”

He laughed. Samus would have none of it.

“What program were they in? What faction? What were they assembled for?”

Gin shrugged.

“Something about…Elites, I think. That was years ago, no one even cares anymore.”

Samus resisted the urge to curse at him.

“You say you were Omega Phoenix. What did the Federation do to you? Any experiments?”

“I don’t know,” he replied as he shrugged, too out of it to even speak properly. “There was some crazy shots they gave me. Something something…Vince got them too, but his were perfected. Not mine, though. SabreX they called it…sabretooth tigers…I always liked sabretooth tigers as a kid. ”

For the first time Samus noticed the faded tattoo in Gin’s left arm: A large Omega symbol with three zeros underneath, a testament to whatever he was hiding. Just who was this bounty hunter?

“…What’s your name?”

“Gin Phoenix! Bounty hunter!”

“Your real name.”

Gin was silent for a moment.

“…Gin Phoenix,” he said slowly, seriously. “…But there’s so many other things to talk about! Like my old boomerang. Vince stole it years ago, threw it into the billabong…never did get it back. Damn cyclops. Of course, he wasn’t a cyclops back then, what with his scary as hell piercing green eyes, but…Damn cyclops.”

Unfortunately, given the amount of painkillers Hackbot had given him earlier, getting information out of Gin was about as easy as getting milk from a brick. Instantly his train of though had shifted and he was no longer interested in the Federation. And considering his reluctance when he wasn’t drugged up, well, Samus wasn’t getting the information she needed any time soon.

Frowning she returned to the med kit, a lot on her mind.

“You know Vince always made the best tea? I never could remake his recipe. I don’t know what it was but every time I drank his tea for a few short seconds I was in tea heaven. Never did manage to get the recipe off of him. Crazy old cyclops…”

The med kit all together Samus once again turned back to him.

“Go back to sleep, hunter,” she said quietly as she headed for the door.

“No, Samus. Wait.”

She stopped at the door and half turned to him. He looked like a lost puppy watching its best friend leave. For a moment it broke her heart.

“…don’t leave. I like talking to you.”

She stared at him for another second before leaving without saying anything, closing the door gently behind her. What had begun initially as a means to help someone had evolved into both an impromptu information gathering and a reason to keep him safe, both him and his secrets.

Apparently Mr. Gin Phoenix was hiding a lot more than he let on.

1 week later

“She wants to see you.”

Gin choked on his drink and seemed to almost suffer a heart attack.

“Tejed?!”

Samus nodded curtly. It took Gin a few seconds to calm down after the shock of knowing that Tejed actually wanted to see him, after which he was instantly suspicious.

“…Why?”

“She’s worried about you.”

Gin stared at her for a second before bursting into laughter.

“Wow, Samus. I didn’t know you had a sense of humour!”

“I’m serious.”

He stopped laughing.

“She’s beating herself up over it, with the belief that she caused your current predicament. She thinks she hurt you.”

“But all she ever does is insult me. Hell, she almost killed me once.”

“She’s insane and hears voices, how would you feel if you were in her shoes?”

She did seem horribly off when he had fixed her console, as though something terrifying had been bothering her. And she was insane, from what he had seen. Gin mused that if he went through what she had gone through, he’d be pretty pissed all the time, too. But was it even possible for someone as inherently hostile as Tejed to care for anyone other than herself? Frankly, Gin was having a hard time believing that.

Sighing, he inspected his mechanical arm again, noting a few bolts that needed tightening.

“Fine. She can come in. I just…”

“…need some actual clothes?”

He smiled sheepishly.

“Yes.”

“I’ll help you,” said Samus quietly, as she fetched his clothes.

~*~

Tejed eyed the door to Gin’s room, now doubting whether or not she should go in. Samus had given her the green light, and Tejed had been overjoyed. She hadn’t seen Gin since his chance encounter with exactly one spike studded tail and at the time she had been delighted. Now, though, standing in front of the door she was having second thoughts. She was, suffice it to say, nervous.

“Going to see him, are we…?” inquired the voice amiably. “Good. I was wondering when we would slowly kill him…”

Ignoring the voice she pushed open the door and peeked in, thick hair momentarily obstructing her vision.

“Gin?” she said softly, pushing her hair back.

“Hey, Tejed.”

He looked tired and exasperated. But then, that’s how he always looked. Tejed was happy to see him and for a brief second her austere face actually showed it. Quietly she pulled up a stool and sat beside his bed.

“How’s your side?”

“It’s…been better.”

Normally happy, he seemed to Tejed less than excited to see her. It almost crushed her. More then ever she felt as though it was her fault, and that he blamed her for it.

“I’m…” she trailed off, unable to say what she wanted to.

“You’re sorry? I am, too. Why is he still alive? He’s like a cockroach…”

“You’re not helping,” she hissed. Gin gave her a weird look.

“So…Samus told me that…you hear voices.”

The voice just had to ruin this, didn’t it?

“Not voices, a voice,” she growled, suddenly angry. “The opposite of plural, only one.”

“Sorry for asking,” he muttered, hands held up defensively. Tejed’s eyes narrowed at his choice of clothes: a white shirt, a tan vest, and a pair of black leather gloves. Why would a bed ridden man wear gloves?

“What are you hiding?” she asked suddenly, prompted by the voice. For a moment Gin was at a loss for an answer. He gaped like a stranded fish before finding his voice.

“Nothing! Why?”

“You’re wearing gloves. In bed.”

“I…I always wear gloves! Under my armour, yep.”

“No you don’t.”

He was silent for a few seconds, contemplating his next words.

“…Well, prove it!”

“I can smell the leather,” she replied, tapping her nose for emphasis. “I never smelled leather on you before. You’re hiding something.”

“You’re paranoid, Tejed. Why would I hide anything from you?”

“Because I’m insane and impulsive, which, now that I look at it, are very good reasons to keep things from me… Now give it up.”

She grabbed his hands and tore the gloves of, not caring if they ripped or not. Gin tried to resist but failed, miserably I might add. A determined Tejed was a Tejed that wouldn’t take no for an answer, which was one of the reasons Gin had never told her. Yes, he had more than one reason.

She glared at his hand and rolled up the sleeve, the light glinting dully off his arm.

“What is this?”

“It’s a P-3012, model 2, number 267789 of over 500,000 separate models. Custom made, may I add.”

For something that he had slowly grown to resent over the course of years he sure sounded proud about it. Or maybe he was just proud that he had somehow managed to remember a load of useless numbers. Tejed glared at him, not impressed by his sardonic attempt at humour.

“I don’t speak moonspeak,” she sneered. “In English, Gin. Or Space Pirate, but you don’t speak that now do you?”

“It’s a prosthetic arm,” he sighed. “I got it years ago in the Fed-- …in the military.”

Tejed’s angry mood had softened and she sat down again.

“How?”

“Pirate raid or something of the sort. We were sent in to fight and…” he trailed off for a moment, trying to remember. “…and I was cornered. Damn pirate managed to slice my arm clean off.” He chuckled. “At least I gave him what he deserved and lopped off his, as well.”

“…that must have been painful.”

“It was…it was…”

By this time the voice was going off on some tangent, trying desperately to get Tejed’s attention. She tuned it out and said what she had wanted to say more than a week ago when she first saw him lying there unconscious.

“I’m…sorry,” she said quietly, her harsh voice for once not seeming all that harsh. Gin seemed surprised.

“Wait, what? Say that again?”

“I said I’m sorry,” she repeated. Gin started laughing, prompting her to scowl, appalled that he had taken her heart felt sorry and more or less curb stomped it into the ground. Without another word she got up and left, her antennae dragging forlornly behind her. It took Gin a full three minutes before the hilarity wore off, at which time he realized he was alone, and facepalmed.

“Just because it was funny didn’t mean I had to laugh,” he muttered. Well, at least he learned something new that day. It was actually possible for the common Tejed to think about others. It was either the seventh sign of the apocalypse or her regaining some humanity. He chuckled again.

“And here we see the wild Tejed, in a moment of kindness, yes folks, actual kindness, apologize for something.” He said it in an over the top, forced, and stereotypical accent, like a host for some cheesy nature show, which actually wasn’t all that far off from his usual accent. He didn’t notice Samus laughing at him from the doorway, amused by his farce.

“Looks like the drugs haven’t quite worn off yet,” she commented. Gin blushed, not realizing she had overheard him, and gave her a shy smile.

“That would probably explain why I started laughing, eh?”

“That might explain it.”

Smoothly she sat on the same stool Tejed had used, a wry smile upon her face.

“Tejed looked devastated. What did you say to her?”

“…you mean she wasn’t pulling my leg with the whole ‘sorry, Gin’ charade?”

Samus shook her head, prompting Gin to facepalm five times in rapid fire succession, his hand clanking against his head.

“This is why I hate painkillers,” He commented quietly, looking back up at Samus, suddenly suspicious.

“What did I say when I was…out of it?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly, a little too quickly. Noticing his suspicious look she said it again, quieter, and changed the subject.

“You didn’t say anything,” she said gently. “But to tell the truth Tejed looked about ready to burst into tears.”

“Where is she now?”

“Most likely back in the kitchen. Last I heard she was arguing with herself.”

Gin looked horribly ashamed of himself. For a brief moment Samus considered asking him about the Federation right then and there, strike him when he’s off guard. She even had her mouth halfway open and the question on the tip of her tongue when who else but Hackbot should run in, a syringe held tightly in his grasp.

“Painkiller time!” he announced happily, ruining her chance. Gin looked terrified.

“No, Hackbot, I’m not in pain. I don’t need your--”

“Stick!”

What really managed to throw Samus off was not the fact that the robot had stuck Gin in the side of the neck with a rather large needle, but that he somehow thought it was necessary to exclaim ‘stick!’ while he was doing it. Samus shook her head, once again perplexed as to Gin’s choice in friends.

“Toooo late,” the hunter slurred, before promptly slouching back and falling asleep.

The chance had passed. Now that Gin was asleep Samus had no need to be here, and she only looked back once as she got up and approached the door, an unreadable expression on her face.

“You know something crucial about the Federation,” she said quietly, guardedly. “And whatever it is, I have every right to know it, too.”

It was one thing to have a hybrid on her hands that the space pirates were going through seemingly great lengths to get back, it was entirely another to have an injured bounty hunter that knew things, very specific things that she herself was looking for. She couldn’t leave them now. She needed to get her information, first. Before the Federation did.

~*~

Ridley limped back to the frigate, his breathing low and haggard. Almost instantly the pirates of science team were on him, fixing his cooling towers and bringing his dangerously high temperature down. One of them accidentally pinched a nerve in the process and with a pained scream Ridley crushed him underfoot. Snarling he wiped the smear over the floor. There was nothing worse then a dead pirate stuck to one’s foot. By the third day they always got sticky.

“Progress report,” came an imperious voice. Ridley was the high commander, he listened to no one. As such he ignored the voice; a grave mistake.

Like lightning one of the pirates, one clad in the armour of a high ranking individual, jumped up his spine and ran to his head, where he plunged his claw deep into the dragon’s membranous brain. Ridley screamed in sudden pain and whipped his head around but the pirate held fast. Suddenly there was a flash of white light and Ridley found himself immobilized.

“Progress report.”

The dragon turned a few of the eyes suspended in the membrane to the pirate, namely, its claw. It was clutched around his main nerve cluster. One wrong move and Ridley would be a dead man…er, dragon.

“There we go,” cooed the pirate. “Now you realize who your master is, eh? I was the one who created you. Don’t ever ignore me again.”

Ridley wanted to claw his face off and feast on his organs. That or step on him. But then there was the whole ordeal with the stickiness. Instead he bowed his head in submission. The pirate chuckled.

“Now, progress report.”

Ridley obeyed and activated what remained of the camera Tejed had ripped from the side of his head. A holographic image displayed in mid air, depicting a furious Tejed gone Berserker running up his spine a lot like the pirate had just done, before latching onto his head and going all out. The pirate laughed in glee.

“Very good!” he exclaimed. A few of the scientists stopped and looked up for a moment before going back to work. “TransFuse is beautiful! But if it didn’t defeat you, then who…?”

On cue the recorded video buzzed with static, as though under heavy fire, and turned away from the insane experiment and towards a new threat. The pirate growled when he saw it, instantly full of rage.

“The Hunter,” he seethed. She fired exactly two missiles at the dragon, each of them colliding with the towers. There was an explosion and a sickening crack, the towers falling away. A shrill alarm started off and with a violent shake TransFuse was dislodged. Camera fading to a dangerous red Ridley took off. With a burst of static the transmission ended.

Scowling the pirate let go of the nerve bundle and jumped off the dragon. Ridley shook his head, spilling blood everywhere. It sizzled just like Tejed’s where it hit the floor, and an unlucky pirate. He screamed and hastily removed his armour, the blood eating into his flesh.

The pirate commander though, didn’t care about science team’s casualties. He sauntered back to his command post and carefully sat back down, always one to be as comfortable as possible. His claws clicked on the steel armrest of his chair as he pondered his new knowledge.

“Oh, TransFuse,” he mused. “How wonderfully insane you have become. Now only if we can get you back…And destroy the Hunter, in one fell swoop.”

Ridley ignored him and snapped a scientist in half, eager for the feel of bones snapping between his teeth. It always did manage to lessen his frustration. The pirate who had taken a splash from Ridley’s blood lay dejected in a corner, slowly dying, his organs visible where the flesh had been eaten away. Ridley laughed deep in his throat, the pirate’s pain like some sort of hilarious joke to him.

“Ridley.”

The dragon snapped to attention, not eager to feel a claw in his brain again.

“I have a new plan for you. What do you feel about killing…no, destroying the Hunter, once and for all?”

Ridley said nothing. Indeed, he couldn’t say anything with his lack of vocal cords. Instead he smiled wickedly and lashed out at the pirate in the corner, severing him so quickly and neatly that the pirate was still alive for a few more minutes, alive and confused and terrified.

“Good,” chuckled the commander. “Just wait, Hunter. The great Zebesian race isn’t one to forget past grudges. And you, my friend, will feel our force firsthand.”

The clicking of his claws melded a bit too perfectly with his deranged laughter, laughter that permeated the entire ship, and filled its occupants with nothing short of fear.