Chapter 19

Link awoke in the early hours of the morning, a splitting headache hitting him instantly and causing him to nearly clutch his head in agony. Link curled up for a moment, suffering in silence until his headache subsided, and sat up, rubbing his temples with the air of one suffering massive mental strain.

And indeed, that wasn't the only strain Link was undergoing. Link's entire body ached as though from a vicious beating. He had quite forgotten how much strain it put on his body to go from dimension to dimension the way he had been for nearly a week now. Lack of sleep and lack of full nourishment gave Link a slightly gaunt look. Dark shadows were under his vividly blue eyes, and his skin had a slightly grey-ish tinge to it. His beard was unshaven and hair was ruffled badly, and he was in dire need of a change of clothes.

As if I didn't have enough on my plate without hygiene issues, Link though, exasperated. Standing up with a low groan, Link staggered sleepily through the wrecked facility til he reached his chamber, which, miraculously, was hardly damaged. Taking a closer look around him, most of the back area of the facility was undamaged, and the power obviously still worked. It was only towards the front of the place that the facility had taken heavy damage.

Link entered his chamber and began ruffling through his dresser, extracting his white tunic from the confines of his personal armory. How fitting, that I should wear my white armor to fight Black Doom, he thought, grimly amused by the coincidence. Link sighed and thought he might as well, and donned his white garb with reverence, remembering what it had taken to obtain it.

Washed, shaved, and garbed, Link returned to the medical area, where Samus was just starting to awake. Link smiled as his love stirred and sat up, taking a moment to wake up thoroughly before noticing Link in his white garb.

"Rather fitting attire considering our mission," Samus noted with humor. Link chuckled grimly.

"Indeed. It's almost too fitting."

Samus silently agreed. Grunting, she stood up and walked to her chamber, saying over her shoulder, "I'm gonna go change myself. I'm sure we're all needing to by this point." Link agreed and sat down next to the deeply meditating Shadow, whom had not stirred throughout the exchange and was sitting cross-legged with a deep scowl tainting his features as he breathed in and out deeply.

Samus went to her chamber, isolated on the far end of the facility and began stripping down, removing her Zero Suit and entering her bathroom, which, thankfully, still had running hot water. As she unhooked her bra and stepped out of her panties, she thought back on what had happened, and the enormity of it all seemed to be weighing down on her. She had been in several crises before, but this, this was different. The Ridely Crisis had been bad, the Tabuu Crisis was bad, the Hand Crises, years back, had been quite bad. But none of those came even close to comparing to this.

Black Doom was diabolical indeed to have executed such a deeply complicated plan, and the results were indeed devastating. Almost all of SSB was in captivity now, most likely having been turned back into trophies as they had been during the Hand Crises and the Tabuu Crisis. The Polygon Figures and Wire Frames had all been released from containment, and were now most likely reeking untold havoc everywhere they went. The Black Arms were out in full force, and Megaman might have taken out a good number of them, but there were still too many for just Samus, Link, Shadow, Snake, and Midna to take on alone.

As Samus quickly washed herself off, she cleared her mind of any doubts she might have and resolved to do everything she could to end this Crisis once and for all. As soon as she finished, she exited the shower and dressed in fresh underclothes and donned her original Zero Suit and then donned her original Power Suit that she had held on to since joining SSB. Holding her helmet under her arm, she trekked back to the medical area to find Link and Snake discussing tactical attack options. Shadow was sitting with them, listening in silence with his usual dark scowl on his face. Midna had not awoken since Dark Link's mental attack, and Samus wondered how long it would take her to recover.

Link looked up at her as she joined them. "Glad to have you here. Snake and I have been discussing plans of attack and need as much input as possible."

"We've already decided that I'll lead the attack," Shadow put in, "I'm partially attached to Doom and can easily find him. The only question is what we do when we find him."

Snake nodded. "It will all depend on where he is. If he's anywhere other than some kind of base, then infiltration won't be an option and will only leave the option of frontal assault. And there, we have a problem."

Link nodded and said flatly, "The Black Arms Force is far too large for us to take head-on, even if we use any kind of mass-destructive weapon. There's simply too many, and that's not counting the Wire Frames and Polygon Figures."

Shadow put in. "Fortunately, we won't have to take them head-on unless worse comes worse. Black Doom's headquarters are too large for even a force as large as his to guard thoroughly."

"How do you know?" Samus inquired.

"After Doctor Robotnik was defeated by Sonic, his factories were abandoned and left to fall apart. Black Doom took them back and began expanding them so that they became a city in themselves. That's where the Wire Frames came from in the first place," Shadow replied.

Link pondered this information for a moment. "How well is it guarded?"

"It's most heavily guarded area is the Western Perimeter, the side that faces Westopolis. It's so heavily guarded, even the G.U.N. forces can't penetrate its defenses. On the opposite side, however, it's a different story. The Eastern Perimeter has minimal security and could be possible to infiltrate, but it's not that easy. With Black Doom, nothing is."

Link agreed. "We can no longer afford any more mistakes in this. We have to have a contingency plan in case things go awry, which they are likely to do, considering the enormity of this situation." He turned to Shadow. "It would be best if you saved your energy for the face-off against Black Doom. If you wanted you could blow away all the Perimeter defenses, but to do so would give away your position and expend a fair amount of your energy."

Snake lent a suggestion. "It were possible that if I could contact Raiden, he could plant stealth explosives around the Perimeter walls, which upon detonation would give the impression that we were attacking from the East, but we would instead infiltrate from the North and South, at different locations, which would possibly divide the Black Arms Forces enough for us to hold our own until we meet up in the prison area and free the rest of SSB and take on Black Doom united."

"The rest of SSB would be too exhausted to be of any help," Samus protested. "There has to be something else!"

Link thought hard, but no matter how he looked at it, the situation was bad. The more I look at this, the less hopeful it seems, he thought, At this rate we'll have no choice but to wing it and hope things turn out for the best. But that's practically suicide, we can't afford any more mistakes.

Samus watched Link's thoughtful stance and felt for her love. How the hell are we gonna pull this off if all other options fail us?

And How will we come out of it alive?

WOOHOOHOO!

Alright! So now the final showdown is near, and things are looking awful bad. Will they pull it off? Will they destroy Black Doom and the Black Arms for good?

Or will all come to ruin and Black Doom come out Victorious?

Stay tuned!

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