AN: The new chapter has arrived at last! For the people wondering what the hell took so long my excuse is I had a small case of writer's block. Well now that that's over expect some chapters to come a bit quicker

than usual, that being said enjoy the new chapter.

The Robotics Center

Samus was standing against the wall, waiting for Snake to wake up when his codec began ringing. Samus walked over to Snake, removed the codec from his ear and answered it.

"Snake?" Otacon said confused.

"He's unconscious thanks to the trap your directions led us into," Samus said angrily, she heard Otacon begin whimpering on the other line.

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't know someone had set a trap for you guys".

"Whatever, what did you call for anyway?" the bounty hunter said irritated.

"It's just that we were about to tell you that we located the true source of the distress call, it's coming from a location not to far from where you are now, in the castle's robotics center".

"Affirmative, I'll relay this information over to Snake as soon as he awakes," Samus said before shutting off the codec.

"So, they had no idea they were sending us into a trap, huh?"

Samus turned around to see Snake, sitting up from where he was previously unconscious.

"Snake!" Samus said overjoyed as she ran over to him, "How are you feeling?"

"Just peachy," Snake said gruffly, "Didn't think you'd care".

Samus was at a temporary loss of words before handing Snake back his codec, "Your support team discovered the true source of the distress call. It's coming from a room called the robotics center".

Snake took out his PDA and searched the map for a robotics center, when he found it he stated, "Found it, its coming from the hall to the left".

Samus nodded in acknowledgement, "Well then let's get going and get this over with," she said before the two continued their mission.

Wolf reached the control room where Liquid and Master Hand were currently residing in. As soon as he entered the room Liquid said,

"Well, did you take care of Snake?"

"Yeah, he's done for, now for my reward," Wolf said while holding out his hand.

"In due time my friend, first we have to seize control of this world first", liquid said to a disappointed Wolf.

"Master Hand turned to liquid and said, "Making deals behind my back eh Liquid, I might just take that as a sign of future treachery".

"Oh no your Excellency, I was just ridding this castle of unwanted guest, my allegiance lies only with you," the blond clone said as he knelt down before Master Hand.

Master Hand gave an evil laugh, "I suppose so, but what of you O'Donnell?"

"I took care of Snake, isn't that enough proof of my loyalty?" Wolf asked.

"But what of the bounty hunter?" Master Hand questioned.

Wolf panicked, and Master Hand continued, "I see killing Solid Snake was for your own petty gain, but I guess killing Samus Aran was not part of it?"

"I – I", Wolf stammered but Master Hand cut him off.

"Samus Aran is still alive Wolf, SHE CAN JEPORADIZE THIS ENTIRE OPERATION!" Master Hand yelled, "Now get out of my sight".

Wolf looked at Liquid hoping he would help him out, but the clone just stood their smirking at Wolf's dismay. Wolf was about to respond, but Master Hand yelled, "GET OUT OF MY SIGHT RIGHT NOW,

IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU!" and Wolf fled the scene.

Liquid turned to a seething Master Hand, "Can't find good help these days, huh?"

"NO, you can't," the hand growled.

"You know Liquid, there are two types of people," Master Hand said as he turned to liquid, "There is dirty low lives like that O'Donnell character, and then there are the people who work hard for what they want, through

intelligence, and precision, those people are destined to rule".

"Don't worry my lord, I shall deal with the bounty hunter," Liquid assured Master Hand.

"We'll have to launch this operation sooner than planned," Master Hand said, "I'm going to go brief my pawns on this oncoming operation, you are in charge here while I'm away Liquid, do not even think of failing me".

"Rest assured my lord, failure is not an option".

When Snake and Samus reached the robotics center, Samus was struck with a bit of déjà vu. The room looked really similar to the bomb factory that Samus and Pikachu had confronted the Ancient Minister during the

"Subspace Incident". The only real difference between the two was that this room was much more depressing. The room was very dark with the only source light being several dim green lights that failed to light up the room.

It appeared there was currently no one in the room.

As soon as they entered the robotics center, Snake took cover behind some crates and contacted Otacon.

"Otacon, we have entered the robotics center".

"Alright Snake, the signal is definitely in that room for sure," Otacon informed the mercenary, "the signal is very strong, you must be close".

"Do you think that you could transfer the signal over to my PDA?" Snake asked.

"Hang on, I'm transferring it right now," Otacon replied, "There you should have it now, good luck Snake".

Snake activated the tracker on his PDA, and within minutes the tracker located the direction in which the signal was coming from, and followed it. When the signal had died down, Snake found himself staring into a glass

tube with a white robot with red arms staring at him with closed eyes.

Samus walked over to Snake who was fiddling with a control pad trying to let a robot out of a glass tube. She recognized the robot, it was the former ancient minister or R.O.B as it was called by others.

When the tube opened, so did the robot's eyes, and when the tube opened R.O.B lunged at Snake, and pulled him into a bone crushing hug, which Snake took as assault.

"Do …. something….. Samus," the mercenary begged.

"He's just giving you his gratitude, Snake," Samus said with a small smile.

"Yeah well, I don't want his gratitude," Snake choked out, "Now get him off!"

"R.O.B down," Samus said as if she was talking to a dog.

R.O.B recognized Samus's voice and dropped Snake, and charged towards Samus, about to give her a hug, but Samus held her arm out stopping him in his tracks. R.O.B put out his hand in a "shake hands" gesture.

Samus accepted his gesture and said, "It's good to see you again R.O.B". After R.O.B let go of her hand, the Samus asked, "Were you the one who sent that distress call?" R.O.B nodded and then Samus asked,

"How did you get here?"

R.O.B's eyes immediately turned sorrowful and turned his head in the direction of an assembly line.

Snake, now fully recovered from his earlier strangulation asked, "What do you mean?"

R.O.B led them over to another area of the robotics center, and upon reaching it Snake and Samus came face to face with a sickening scene. They saw dozens of dark blue R. working on various pieces of equipment

coming along an assembly. Not to far from this scene of forced labor was a crane holding up R., struggling to free themselves as they were consumed by purple spores, and turned into that dark blue color.

Samus looked in absolute disgust at the scene before her, "This is despicable; these poor people were already enslaved once, only to be corrupted and enslaved once more, absolutely despicable," Samus said unable to look

at this scene any longer.

R.O.B put his head down, deeply upset at the burdens his people were forced to endure.

Snake meanwhile was scouting across the other area of the center, and he noticed an unforgettable sight, and called over to Samus, "Uh Samus, I think you should see this". Samus walked over to Snake and when she got there she growled at

the sight before her.

In front of Snake, and Samus was several R. applying pieces of armor to a purple creature, one Samus could not forget.

"Is that…Ridley?" Snake asked the bounty hunter.

"Yes, that's him alright, but in his Meta form," Samus growled, "Now's my chance to deal with him once and for all".

"No its not," Snake ordered, "we are currently no match for him without your power suit, besides he looks like he'd rip us to shreds in a heart beat".

Samus gave a frustrated sigh, "Maybe you are right, we're no match for him now, but eventually I will destroy him, and nothing will stand in my way," and they headed back to R.O.B.

All of a sudden an alarm went off, and the dark R. began scouring the room for the intruders. Snake cursed himself, they had probably found the tube R.O.B was originally was in was empty, or a camera must've spotted them,

or maybe Ridley had spotted them.

"Dammit, how could I've have been so careless," Snake thought angrily to himself.

While Snake was contemplating on what could have spotted him and his comrades, a laser whizzed past his head.

"We've got company!" Samus shouted over to Snake.

Snake, Samus, and R.O.B immediately took cover behind some crates and returned fire to the R..

"There's too many of them," Samus said to Snake, who had just chucked in the direction of a group of R. trying to advance on them.

Snake turned to R.O.B and asked, "Do you know where an exit is?" R.O.B twisted his head to Snake, as he fired a gyro into the head of another R.O.B and nodded.

Samus turned to the two and said, "That exit won't do us any good as long as these guys are firing on us".

Snake thought of an idea, he took out several chaff grenades, and threw them at the crowd of R. firing at them, and within seconds the grenades detonated, and causing an unexpected result.

Instead of shutting down their weapon systems as anticipated, it caused their weapons to go haywire and they started firing all over the place, even at each other. Once the dark R. were all out of deactivated or destroyed, Snake, Samus, R.O.B

headed towards the exit, R.O.B took one last sad look at his people before heading off to join his comrades.

Master Hand had just returned from briefing his pawns, when a GENOME soldier with information on the robotics center for Liquid.

"Boss, we recovered the footage from the robotics center that you requested," the soldier told Liquid.

"Well then what are you waiting for, play the footage," Liquid ordered.

The soldier put the tape into the VCR slot, and the footage began to play. The footage showed everything going smoothly at first, It then switched to the tube where the ancient minister was being held, it showed a dreadfully familiar sight.

"Snake," Liquid growled, but Master Hand remained silent.

The footage showed Snake let the minister out of the tube, the scene then switched to the R. in the lab firing at Snake and his companions, then after a flash the screen went black.

Liquid turned to Master Hand who looked like he was going to explode.

"THAT DAMN O'DONNELL, IF I EVER SEE HIM AGAIN I'LL HAVE HIS HEAD!"

"My lord, though they have the minister with them there is still only three of them," Liquid told his boss.

"You don't get it do you," Master Hand said in a dangerous tone, "Those three can destroy our plans".

"Don't worry sir, I've found a new much more than capable assassin capable of dealing with Snake and ".

As soon as he said this, a creature clad in blue armor entered the room.

"Sylux, your objective is to eliminate Solid Snake, the Ancient Minister, and Samus Aran, I believe you are already acquainted with Samus Aran," liquid told the bounty hunter, "You have one chance, so I suggest you don't fail me".

"My pleasure, I'll kill each and every one of them," Sylux assured his employer, "Besides, one chance is all I'll need".

AN: So here it is the new chapter. I have introduced ROB as the new character I mentioned in the last chapter; later in the story I'll introduce some more characters. I'm going to try and turn him into a comic relief character of the sort, because I think the story is in the need of some comic relief, the story seems a little too serious.

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