Chapter Four: The Reason For Alarm

Sub-chapter 1: Meta...Kraid?

The Space Pirates had definitely landed on SR388. The bubble door was their trademark. In fact, the only planet on which they never employed bubble doors was Planet Tallon IV. Samus promptly opened the door with her gun to be greeted warmly by a duo of Flying Pirates. But they weren't expecting Sonic, who by now had a heavily armed Varia Suit and froze them, then spin-jumped them (even through the suit), at which point they shattered like a glass vase. At that Sonic and Samus continued, but Samus had re-assumed the habit of using Sonic as a shield, and the Screw Attack had only made Sonic's spin-jump more powerful.

Using Sonic's jumping moves and Samus's heavy missile ammo, they found their way into the thick of the Space Pirate installation. The room that they entered was littered with the corpses of various SR388 creatures. "Wow," Samus observed, "it looks like they've been sucked dry by a Metroid then torn to shreds by Kraid." Well, Samus soon discovered that she was half-right. No sooner than she had finished the word "Kraid," a giant, fat, metal monstrosity leapt from the deep pit at the center of the room. It was...

"Meta Kraid?" Sonic chimed in after hearing the results of Samus's scan visor reading.

"Well, that's what my Scan Visor says, and it's never wrong."

Fortunately, the both of them had either played or taken part in Super Metroid, so they knew exactly how to beat Kraid: his mouth. But when their attacks were deflected by an invisible shield, they became worried.

"How do we stop it?"

"I remember that to beat Meta Ridley, I had to shoot him in the chest."

"There was a Meta Ridley?"

"Yeah, on my mission to Tallon IV."

"Never heard of it."

"I'm not surprised, they haven't made a game out of it yet3."

"Anyway, let's try it."

They both fired at Kraid's chest, but the chest weak spot was guarded by a stomach-spike.

"We've got to wait until he fires that spike!"

He fired the spike, and they shot him. The shot worked, and Kraid was hurt. A few more shots and he was down.

Sub-Chapter 2: The Continued Quest

Meta Kraid was beaten, so Sonic and Samus continued on their quest. Well, to be honest, not all too much happened. There were no new upgrades because they'd gotten them all, no more fights at all, because there were no enemies. That's because a few influential scans of computers revealed that the Pirates hadn't been on SR388 for that long a time. Not much happened until they reached a large machinery room with a single occupant, surrounded by Space Pirate corpses.

"It can't be!" Sonic shouted in disbelief.

"What, you know him?" Samus replied sarcastically.

"Well, yeah! Haven't you played Sonic Adventure?"

"You mean that's..."

The figure stepped into the light revealing a large red-and-white torso with two small green eyes, long wheeled legs, and two slender metal arms, one equipped with a gun, the other holding a single blue Chaos Emerald.

"Gamma?"

3Remember that this story takes place after Sonic Adventure and Super Metroid, both in game time and in real time; Metroid Prime had happened, but the game hadn't been released yet.