The sky was dark, and not just because it was full of The Palace. It was close to midnight and Link was hiding in some convenient bushes close to an entrance of the aforementioned big thing. Having watched the guards for a week now, he had found that they change shifts every two hours. The next changeover was midnight.
He had stolen Samus' NCM (NaviCom Mini) after realising it had built into it what could be used to tell the time at night. He had left her alone in the cave about an hour ago and climbed down the mountain to his current position.
One of the guards made a noise that was similar to a cough mixed with a caw. The other guard walk up to him and said something in a strange language. Suddenly, the NCM beeped thrice and began to translate. Being in Link's bag, all he could hear was: "……… health sector ……… stealth …… Samus … the kid ………compromise security ………"
Link removed it from his bag just in time to hear it say: "Here come the next two. Come on, let's go, I'm shattered."
Sure enough, Link could now see four of what Samus called Space Pirates. The two that were there before were walking towards an iris in the wall where the other two had come out of. They put their arms into slots by the side of the iris for a few seconds before removing them. The one on the left inserted his head into another slot on the left and the one on the right said something which the NCM translated as: "Alpha 9 Delta". The iris dilated and the two entered before it closed again.
There was a rustle in a bush a few metres away from Link and a white wolfos emerged. After a few seconds in which one of the Pirates charged up their weapon, it was engulfed by green plasma. Within a second, the wolfos was a pile of dust.
Link was about to go back to the cave when a voice in his head stopped him. He had seen that the only way of getting into The Palace was through theses irises. He had also seen that the only way to get through an iris was by being a Space Pirate. Then came a revelation. Maybe the security system would work if he inserted severed arms and heads. It was worth a try.
He aimed an arrow at one of the Space Pirates but before firing, he noticed a small vent in the side of The Palace. He looked around and saw a small bird on top of a tree a few metres away. He fired the arrow at it and it fell. There was an audible rustle where the bird hit and the Space Pirates went over to investigate.
Link silently ran over to the vent and opened it. He slipped inside and closed the grate just as the Pirates turned round to come back.
After crawling through the vent for quite some time now, Link reached another grate. On the other side of it was a lone Space Pirate sitting with his back towards him. Link aimed an arrow through the grate at the Pirate's head and fired. Although it was a direct hit, it bounced back and the Pirate looked at the grate. Confused he got up and retrieved his weapon from the table opposite. Link quickly scurried back through the vent until he reached the place where he entered it.
He checked to see if the guards were looking in the opposite direction and when they were he crawled out of the vent. Now he needed a diversion to get back safely. He crept up behind one and planted three bombs on the floor next to it. He ran in the opposite direction for a few seconds before they exploded simultaneously. When the smoke cleared Link looked back and saw that the other Pirate was aiming its weapon at him.
Inside the West tower, Ridley was having a new weapon fused into his armour. He had just received a field report from two Space Pirates guarding an entrance saying that it worked well. Apparently it had completely vaporised some of the local wildlife.
Ridley was not happy however, as his scientists hadn't found a way of reducing the charge time. Ridley may have been able to cope with a second, but to fire the weapon with the destructive power he wanted, he had to charge it for ten whole seconds.
At least his armour was now resistant to all of Samus' weapons. The only thing that could damage it was the weapon that he was having fused into his armour which he had also given to the Pirates guarding The Palace.
Of course, Ridley was aware of the cliché things that happen in some fanfics so he built in an extra feature to these weapons. If the person carrying it does not have DNA patterns from the registered database, then the weapon would explode, killing all within a few metres.
Time was going in slow motion for some reason, making seconds last hours and allowing for the whole previous section of the story to be read in the space of half a second.
Link was looking down the barrel of the Space Pirate's weapon and hoping it was out of ammo. The emotions that were going through him were similar to those that might be going through a rabbit staring at the headlights of a car. Link imagined his fate would be very similar.
In about a second, the Pirate's weapon would be charged and he would be a pile of dust on the ground, to be walked over and forgotten.
A bit longer than a second later, Link saw the Pirate release the trigger. As time was still having a tea break, Link could watch as the ball of plasma travelled toward him. It travelled toward him, like a big, green plasma thing that travels toward people. It got to within a few metres of him when it suddenly veered off to Link's left.
Link tracked it with his eyes and saw it was heading toward Samus, who had arrived just as the Pirate released the trigger. She also had a ball of orange plasma protruding from the barrel of her arm cannon. The green plasma was being longitudinally stretched now. It was moving faster now, and Link could see that it was the orange plasma that was now its target.
It hit its target and the orange plasma that was formerly protruding from Samus' weapon grew to about twice its original size and turned a lightish brown colour.
This new plasma fluctuated for a bit before shrinking and disappearing. Almost a semi-moment later, Samus fired a beam the width of her weapon and a more azure colour. It passed through the head of one Pirate and hit the other in the chest. Both were vaporised. All that was left of them was their weapons, which detecting that their current users had been terminated, exploded.
Time, coming back from his tea break, fast forwarded for the next few minutes, creating a useful way of getting out of writing the dialogue between Link and Samus where she retrieved her NCM, and where Link started to explain the security measures before Samus interjected, saying that she had been woken up by her suit computer when her NCM was more than 10m away, and that she had seen the security herself.
After that Time returned to normal.
Samus entered morph ball and rolled into the vent she had seen Link crawl out of earlier. Link followed, and after a while emerged in the room where he had shot a Space Pirate minutes before. Samus was scanning the door to gain the access codes. Once she had acquired them, she fired a power beam blast merged with the access codes. The door opened and Samus mentioned that they had about an hour and a half before the next guards would discover that their predecessors were no more, so they had to be quick.
Link was intending to kill whoever owned this place, and if that meant reaching the summit, it might take a bit longer than an hour and a half.
The two walked through the door and entered chapter fifteen.