The sun beat down on the truck. The metal was hot on his body. He had purchased as a souvenir for his friend and sometimes lover, Otacon. He never took him on missions with him because Otacon was fucking useless in the field. He always ended up peeing himself or crying over something or another. Vague memories of a someone's sister. Ah well, it wasn't important. Solid Snake, son of Big Boss, the world's greatest soldier, draped the Happy Panda t-shirt over his head, draping it around his neck. "Got to fit in, he thought." It looked nothing like a turban, but Solid Snake didn't notice. He massaged his aching back.
"War has changed," he mused, bending a Lucky Striker and sliding it between his aging lips, "It's no longer about nations, ideologies or ethnicity."
His compatriot balked. "I joined the army to kill the men who killed my family."
Snake grumbled. "It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by mercenaries and machines."
"I wish we had machines. I wish I had a rifle that worked." Someone chuckled.
Another man fidgeted with his ancient iDroid-mini, changing the background music to something less melancholic.
"No," Snake groaned weakly. "Listen to my monologue!"
The soldiers ignored him, and Snake collapsed, letting his cigarette slip into somebody's lap. He pounded his gortex covered fist on the bed of the Toyota. The man twitched wildly and yelped, but Snake ignored him. He was angry. These men were ignoring him. Ignoring him because he was old. Not alright. Not alright at all.
As the soldier next to him tried to slap out the smoldering cigarette on his crotch, Snake stood dramatically, his t-shirt head-wrap flapping in the wind, advertising the local Chinese restaurant to all who gazed upon him. He seized the man's iDroid and changed the music back to the melancholic instrumentals he had been subjecting the rebels to for the last half hour, a dirge suitable for his coming words:
"War, and its consumption of life, has become a well-oiled machine. War has changed. ID tagged soldiers carry ID tagged weapons, use ID tagged gear."
"What the hell is he talking about," one of the rebels asked. His friend just shrugged.
"Nanomachines inside their bodies enhance and regulate their abilities. Genetic control. Information control. Emotion control. Battlefield control. Everything is monitored, and kept under control. War has changed. The age of deterrence has become the age of control. All in the name of averting catastrophe from weapons of mass destruction. And he who controls the battlefield, controls history. War has changed. When the battlefield is under total control, war... becomes routine."
No one responded, so he grumbled and returned to his seat. "Must not of heard me over the wind." He thought, fishing another Lucky Striker out of his pack. He snapped it, like so many necks on Shadow Moses, and the tip glowed dully in the desert sun.
"MOOOOOOOO!"
Snake rolled under the truck. Most of his compatriots laid dead. One was holding his own severed arm, raving wildly.
"I'm getting too old for this shit."
Snake sat in the plastic chair. It was uncomfortable. His back had been hurting lately, and he didn't know why.
"Mr.. Snake, is it?"
"Hrrmm.."
"Right.. we hear good things about you."
"You don't know the half of it." He said with a cracking voice.
"It says here that you.. once destroyed an M1 Abrams tank with a handful of grenades."
"Piloted by a giant Inuit Shaman. He was a good man," He looked wistful.
"Uh.. and you single-handedly sunk a tanker."
"Yeah."
"An.. American tanker owned by the US Navy?"
"It was invaded by a group of nomadic Russian mercenaries lead by a pregnant woman named Olga. It had to be done."
"It made the news. You're a wanted for terrorism in at least 37 countries."
"Like I said, it had to be done."
"Well, everything seems in order here." The man in the suit suffered some files in a folder. "How do you like the Middle East?"
"You look a lot older than your profile says you are."
"Just a cold. It will pass."
"Jesus, man. You sound horrible too."
"You want me or not?"
"Simmer down. We want you. We need all the help we can get."
"That's what I hear."
"It's no joke. The Red team is totally steamrolling us."
"Red team.." Snakes eyes narrowed into a mess of crows feet.
"Yeah. We're going to lose the game if this keeps up. Their scouts keep overrunning our base. I fucking hate scouts, man."
"You work for the company, then?"
"Yeah. For five years now. Just got the latest firmware upgrade."
"No substitute for a soldier's intuition."
"Save it for the battlefield, hombre. I'm not the one you're here to impress."
Snake grumbled.
"You seriously look like shit, man. You sure you didn't lie about your age on your CV?"
"It'll pass."
"MOOOOOOOOO!"
Nano-milk sprayed from the genetically engineered utter jutting from the Gekko's undercarriage. The famous war hero and wanted terrorist found himself coated in an oily green substance. He tasted it. "Hrrmm... Not bad."
"MOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Snake grabbed a watermelon and hurled it at the Gekko's sensor unit. It exploded in a mess of rind and pulp. His target staggered blindly, giving him time to move in for the kill.
The hero of Shadow Moses grabbed the enormous testicles that swung wildly between the bio-mechanical monstrosity's thighs, crushing them hard. "Like watermelons!" he thought, in a much younger voice.
The Gekko went down hard.
"Why did they make you with these things?" Snake wondered, wiping the tasty fluid from his face with his headwrap. He crouched next to the unconscious beast, and seized its teats. He began milking it vigorously, spraying each drop into his empty canteen.
He pressed X and a memory seized him. "In the jungle, you'll have to find your own lunch, and breakfast, and dinner for that matter."
Snake felt invigorated. He had stopped thinking about why his hair had turned white, or why his back wouldn't stop hurting, or why he was experiencing dementia at the age of 42. He was on the battlefield again. He took a long draw from his canteen, slurping the thick green liquid. "Delicious!" He yelled, giving away his position. He didn't care. In one swift motion, he grabbed the alerted soldier's gonads, squeezing them like a ripened melon. The soldier screamed in shock and agony as Snake CBT'd him into unconsciousness.
"Eh.. one of mine." He shrugged, and dragged the man who was fighting to avenge his family's death into the hollowed out remains of a Gold's Gym, shoving him unceremoniously into one of the lockers. "Sleep well, my friend," he said, lighting a Lucky Striker.
"Broooother!"
"You're not my brother, Ocelot."
"Says yooouu," he droned, cattily.
"You're mentally ill. You chopped off your arm and replaced it with a dead man's. We're not related. You're just obsessed with me and my family because you have some kind of weird crush on my father."
"Big.. Boss.."
"Big Boss..."
Snake pressed X to remember. He was an old, scarred, sporting a robotic arm. He had a familiar look to him. "I'm going to teach you the basics of CQC," he said dryly.
Snake grabbed Ocelots testicles and squeezed hard.
Ocelot didn't resist, which was kind of creepy, but kind of fun too. The mustached-Russian-cowboy-turned-megalomaniac-clone-imitator collapsed in his arms, almost lovingly. "Goodnight, sweet prince," Snake whispered, giving him a gentle, grandfatherly kiss.
Ocelot awoke in his cell, his robotic arm missing. "Typical," he growled. "So.. are you going to torture me?!" He yelled at his invisible captors.
No response.
"Because if you have to torture me, I'll understand," he said slyly, stroking his mustache with his good hand.
No response.
"They're mocking you, Ocelot!" Cam Clark shouted.
"L-liquid."
"In the psychotic recesses of your mind, Adamska."
"Nobody calls me that any more."
"Oh yes, it's Shalashaska. Or would you prefer just-"
"-LIQUID OCELOT," they said in unison. Someone pressing X to remember.
"Sew it on."
"This arm is from a three year old corpse, it won't-"
"-SEW IT ON."
"You're stuck with me, Ocelot. Whether you like it or not."
"Stuck with you? I WANTED this!" Ocelot's mouth frothed slightly as his eyes bulged.
Cam Clark just scoffed in disgust. He hated being a psychic-ghost-arm-turned-brainwashing-regiment in the mind of a man who quite literally thought he was in a cowboy movie. A man who was constantly wondering why everyone wore such strange clothing and why they refused to plan stage coach robberies with him. What the Patriots were thinking when they elected for this troubled man to be their eyes and ears was beyond him. A revolver didn't make sense on the battlefield. It wouldn't have even made sense on the battlefield 50 years ago.
He reached deep into his psyche, probing his troubled thoughts. There was a man, familiar, but distant. The memory taunted him. He knew it held answers, but this jackass kept thinking about having sex with his father, blocking out everything else. If he could only break through, perhaps he could-
"Liquid Ocelot."
"Yes?"
"We understand you were having a little.. adventure, in the Middle East somewhere."
"Oh yes. I was a bad boy!" he growled, "Why don't you punish me?"
"In due time, Liquid. First, we have someone we'd like you to meet."
It was then that she stepped into the cell door. Ocelot though of strangling her with his one good arm, but his injuries had left him weakened. His testicles had swollen to the size of grapefruits, and he could barely stand.
"This douche bag?" EVA groaning with disgust. "I'm really tired of running into you."
Para-Medic's tits bounced energetically in his face.
"Cyyybooorg," she sung to herself, "Gonna make my very own cyyyboroog."
It was off key and terrifying, and the fact she had ripped open her shirt moments before, tweaking her own nipples right before picking up the industrial drill was more than a little unsettling.
Gray Fox opened his mouth to protest, failing to make only wet gurgling sounds.
"Oh, my little cyborg. I have such plans for you," she said, licking his blood spatters from his forehead.
He remembered the battlefield. Friends locked in mortal combat. Betrayal. Left for dead. Zanzabar Land. He'd done his best to defend the will of their great leader, to uphold his sacred principles in their war against the world.
Gray Fox saluted the unquestioned leader of the world's only remaining nuclear power. We Wish You a Merry Christmas blared in his ears. He eyes were wet with pride.
"AAAAAAAAaaaa!"
"Your voice box is working again. That's good... I think," The half-naked genius giggled, her breasts swaying gently in his face.
Pink. Her areolas were pink, he thought.
"Now, let's see if we can get the rest of you working, silly!"
"AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaa!" was his tinny scream.
"AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaa!" all into the night.
