Chapter 20
Massive pillars of smoke billowed into the night sky. The Robotnik Factorial Facility, once abandoned, was in full swing. What had once been 7 factories was now one massive site, covering the exact same amount of space as the Pyramids of Giza. It was a place that redefined the term "industrial scale". The place was sprawled over acre upon acre of land, and from the sky, looked like the silhouette of a colossal primeval beast.
Snake studied the facility from a distance, positioned on a clifftop more than 10 miles away and almost half a mile high. Even from his height, the place looked massive. Snake's night vision binoculars gave him a perfect view of the place, and sent its imagery back to the SSB headquarters, where Link, Samus and Shadow were gathered in the very conference room where the whole crisis had began. A hologram of everything Snake saw was projected into the middle of the room, giving a mutual view to everyone. Midna had still not regained consciousness and remain incapacitated in the medical area.
Link pressed the com button on the round table. "Alright Snake, we see it. What's the story here?"
Snake's voice was slightly distorted, but intelligible. "We're looking at a couple hundred-acre facility that has the capacity to contain the blast radius of a nuclear bomb, should the outer walls hold."
Samus stepped in. "How tall are the walls? What are the dimensions?"
"Judging by my distance? Around eighty feet high, it circumferences the entire facility, and I'd guess around 7 miles thick. Robotnik wasn't kidding when he said 'impenetrable'."
"What's the outlook on the Perimeter defenses?" Link inquired.
"Well, from here, it looks like it requires several battalions to..." Snake paused. "Oh, shit, we're so fucked..."
"What is it?" Samus asked.
"Remember the Polygon Figures and Wire Frames? How they're programmed to rely solely on their individual selves?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, I hate being the bearer of bad news, but looks like Doom's been tinkering and upgrading his design. They're marching along the Perimeter, triple-filed, up to thirty at a time, with about a hundred yards between the front and back of each column," Snake reported to the shock of the others.
"Are they patrolling the whole perimeter?" Shadow demanded.
Snake's answer came slow. "Not exactly. They seem to be guarding only certain parts of the place."
"What parts?" Link asked.
Snake's answer was longer in coming. "They're guarding small nuclear reactors the size of semi trailers."
Shadow grinned. This was better than he had hoped. He turned back towards the other two and said, "It's better than we thought."
Link had a similar grin but Samus was a tad confused. "Better? How?"
Shadow rolled his eyes. Mercenaries. "To put it shortly, Doom's been careless. The facility didn't have nuclear reactors when it was in Robotnik's possession. This explains why Doom had to expand it so far and it explains why the Eclipse Station aimed for Central City instead of Westopolis. If he had fired the Super Laser onto Westoplis, the shock-wave would have torn down the perimeter walls and the cores in the reactors would have melted down and there'd have been no Wire Frames, like he had apparently intended from the beginning. If just one of those cores melted down, the blast would be powerful enough to level the entire facility, and seven miles of 80-foot concrete walls would contain the blast and keep the radiation from dispersing outwards. The other reactors would melt down and the result? No more factory." Shadow finished his monologue with the biggest shit-eating grin Link had ever seen on him, and now even Samus was grinning widely at this.
Snake broke in. "The difficulty won't be getting in. Black Doom managed to keep his design from being self-aware, because otherwise these things would be all over the place. Our difficulty will be getting out. Those walls will be very difficult to scale, though if Raiden does his job right, we'll be fine."
Shadow's grin turned down. "Our only real problem is getting the rest of SSB out of there. Black Doom is after me, but he's definitely sure to have guards in the prison area. To not do so would be uncharacteristic to the point of paradox."
"There's an even bigger danger," Link put in, "It's gambling very short odds to say that Black Doom will be holding SSB close to his proximity at all times, such that in order to get to them, we have to go to him." He looked Shadow in the eyes. "Are you still willing to follow through with your plan should this be the case?"
Shadow hesitated and nodded.
Link sighed. What we need is time. We won't have enough even if all goes according to plan. We need a diversion."
A barking British-accented yell came from the entrance. "You can leave that to me."
All three of the heroes turned to the entrance. A Twili man stood in the doorway. A bird-like helm addorned his head, and his two bright yellow eyes stared out at them.
Zant.
"Zant?!" Link stood up with a start. "How the fuck did you get here?!"
Zant grinned. "Midna sent me a telepathic message before she blacked out. Said you'd all need a hand while she was in her coma."
"Coma?" Shadow ask sharply.
Zant nodded gravely. "Dark Link's attack on her mind caused her to shut down. She's not dead, yet, anyways, but chances are she won't be waking up til this affair is done with."
Link grinned. This keeps getting better and better. "I was wondering if I'd ever see you after Gannondorf released you."
Zant grinned back. "I did too, but you know..." A wicked gleam flashed in Zant's eye. "You all could use a nutcase like me."
Link couldn't agree more. He turned back to Shadow. "So now that we have a chance to get this done quickly with time to spare, what do you say? Are we gonna do this?"
Shadow grinned and stood. "Let's fuckin' do it. Let's take that three-eyed sonofabitch down."
Samus stood and eyed Zant suspiciously. "How are you going to buy us time?"
Zant's helm closed, sealing his face entirely. "You'll see." His grin was heard in his voice.
Link placed his hand out, his TriForce brand facing up. Samus came forward and placed her hand on his. Zant came and placed his gauntlet-covered hand on Samus's. Shadow hesitated for a fraction of a second, and placed his hand on Zant's.
Link exhaled. "Let's go. We've got a job to do."
Two in one day! WOOHOOHOO! Been a while since I did that!
Hope you all are enjoying this and I hope to hear your opinions on this chapter and any other chapters anyone found interesting.
Plot's thickening, people, don't go away now!
Read and review!