The Mockingjay and the Snake
Author's Note: I've become a fan of The Hunger Games book series as of late. After reading certain parts of Mrs. Suzanne Collins brilliant work (I've read all three books, don't worry) I thought that this would make for an excellent crossover with one of my favorite video game series of all time, Metal Gear Solid. I have played all of them from The Twin Snakes Gamecube remake to Guns of the Patriots, and even played the Playstation 2 ports of Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake that was included as bonus features on Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. I noticed that Suzanne Collins and Hideo Kojima explore very similar themes in their great works of art, The Hunger Games and Metal Gear Solid, respectively. Now, I don't know how many Hunger Games fans are aware of the Metal Gear franchise, or how many of you are gamers in general, but this is an excellent series that I cannot recommend enough. This does have spoilers for Guns of the Patriots, the fourth MGS title, so some of you may be turned off if you have never played a Metal Gear game before, but you can watch playthroughs on Youtube to get caught up with the story, from Metal Gear to Guns of the Patriots. This is also a very violent story, hence the M-rating. Also, Hunger Games purists, I have read the books, and I know that I'm changing a lot of things, I'm not going to follow Mockingjay that much at all (which is where this crossover will mainly take place) just remember, it is a fanfiction, it is set in an alternate universe. I'm already changing a lot by putting Solid Snake in The Hunger Games to begin with. THERE WILL BE A LOT OF CHANGES TO THE MOCKINGJAY STORY, JUST GO WITH IT! Don't take it seriously, I'm not changing any canon, as this is fanfiction!
Disclaimer: The Hunger Games belongs to Suzanne Collins and Scholastic. Metal Gear Solid belongs to Hideo Kojima and Konami. I own neither franchise, if I did, I would be filthy rich.
Prologue: What Went Wrong
It was the day of the wedding between Johnny Sasaki and Meryl Silverburgh. Celebration was aplenty. The Patriots, the secret entity that had controlled the United States of America since the Cold War, had finally been defeated, in the year 2014.
Hal Emmerich, aka Otacon, had been talking to Drebin, about his days as a war orphan, a gun launderer. The conversation was interrupted by a young girl's voice, the young voice of Sunny Gurlukovich.
"Hey, Uncle Hal, can I give him the Mark III?" little Sunny asked, pointing to a young boy native to the island that the wedding was taking place on. She was holding a small robotic device that rolled around, which would make some people mistake it for a toy. That is, if children's toys came equipped with the ability to trade guns and ammunition for money, use optic camouflage, and had a little cord that acted as a stun gun.
"Huh?" Otacon asked his "niece."
"He's kind of," Sunny began, searching for the right words, "...a new friend! He lives near here. We can't understand each other's language, but we're having fun! He's my very first outside friend!"
Otacon looked from Sunny, the little robotic life form she was holding, and the boy that she was with. He then smiled.
"Really? That's great." He began. "Sunny, it's okay if you want to live outside now. It's your life. There are other havens out there."
Sunny smiled and looked over at the sunset. "The sun looks so pretty." she said admiringly.
"Sunny." Otacon said, heartbroken with a mixture of sadness and joy that his "niece" was growing up.
"I like it outside!" Sunny said enthusiastically. She then paused, noticing that one normal member of their "family" had not attended the wedding. "Uncle Hal," she began cautiosly. "When is Snake coming back?"
Otacon turned away, trying hard not to cry. He had lost so much in his life. His father had committed suicide because of a relationship he had with his stepmother. His first love, the Shadow Moses FOXHOUND member known only as Sniper Wolf, died in a sniper duel with his best friend, Solid Snake. His little half-sister, Emma Emmerich, had been killed on the Big Shell by the Dead Cell vampire only known as Vamp. And his most recent love, the scientist and medical practitioner, Dr. Naomi Hunter, had killed herself by turning off the nanomachines that were keeping her terminal cancer at bay. Now, because of accelerated aging, he was going to lose his best friend, Solid Snake, at some point within the next year or so.
"Snake," Otacon began, talking to Sunny like Snake was her favorite dog that he had to have put down. "Is sick. So he went on a trip to help him get better." he finished his lie.
"We're not going with him?" Sunny asked.
"No." Otacon said with finality. "He needs to be alone."
"I wonder if I will ever see him again." Sunny thought aloud.
"Snake," Otacon began again, using the same tone of voice. "Had a hard life. He needs some time to rest." He felt a few tears begin to loosen from his eyes.
"Are you...," Sunny asked in disbelief. "Crying, Uncle Hal?"
"No." Otacon lied. "I'm not crying."
A few days later...
It was a few days after the graveyard meeting with Solid Snake, and his father, the man with the code known as Big Boss. The man that he and his now-dead twin brother, Liquid Snake, shared. Big Boss had officially announced the end of the Patriots, and the beginning of a New America, an America that was no longer a dictatorship cleverly disguised as a democracy. He had killed his partner in the founding of the Patriots, the man known only as Major Zero, and then himself, allowing himself to be exposed to Solid Snake's new FOXDIE virus strain. Snake knew that he would die, from his accelerated aging, and then, the FOXDIE strain would be gone, forever.
Snake got up out of his chair, needing to go outside to take a walk to help clear his head of the last few days. The Patriots were gone, and America was free again. He crossed to the front door, leaving something behind.
"Snake, wait up!" his best friend, Otacon, called, holding a pack of cigarettes. "You forgot these!"
"No thanks." Snake said, cutting his friend's sentence off. "I'm quitting."
"Snake?!" Otacon said in surprise.
"These things will kill ya." Snake said, a-matter-of-factly.
"Where will you go?" Otacon asked. "Our fight is finished. There's nothing left for us to do."
"No." Snake said in disagreement. "There's still one thing I still have to do. I have to see this age off. See what the future brings."
"Sounds good to me." Otacon said happily. "I'll go with you."
"Otacon, I'm going to be dead soon." Snake said. "You don't have to come."
"You said it yourself, Snake." Otacon protested. "There's nothing inside you can pass on to the next generation. No genes, no memes. You're man-made. You're a beast."
"I know." Snake said. "A blue rose. There won't be any happy Beauty and the Beast ending for me. What little time I have left will be spent living. As a beast. A shadow of the inside. Of old age."
"Exactly." Otacon countered. "That's why you need me. As a witness."
"A witness?" Snake asked.
"Yeah." Otacon replied. "Someone on the outside to bear witness to your final days. Someone to pass on your story, not that I'm the only witness. But I'll remember everything you were, and stick with you to the end."
"Otacon..." Snake said, speechless.
"Besides, you wouldn't let me suffer Sunny's eggs alone, would you?" Otacon joked.
Snake and Otacon laughed, one of the last laughs they would ever share together. Within that year, Solid Snake had succumbed to his disease and died. A small funeral was held, attended by the newly-wedded Meryl and Johnny, Otacon, Sunny, Jack, aka Raiden, his wife Rose, along with their son, Jack Jr., and Colonel Roy Campbell, Snake's former commanding officer. Mei-Ling and Nastasha Romanenko also attended, despite not knowing Snake as well as the others did. Even Drebin and Meryl's former Rat Patrol 01 US Army unit was there. While tears were shed and eulogies were said, Otacon and the rest of Snake's former allies in life knew that because of everything Snake did, America was forever safe.
How wrong they would be in the coming years. As natural disaster and war ravaged the Earth, as well as the North American continent, the United States of America ceased to exist as a nation. Within that time, a new nation known as Panem had took its place. Campbell, and the rest of Snake's allies with the exception of Otacon, were lucky enough to pass away before Panem rose.
The old Hal "Otacon" Emmerich, was now bed-ridden and on his deathbed in his home in what was now known as District 12, formerly known as the US State of Virginia. He watched as for punishment of the first rebellion, a barbaric event known as The Hunger Games was established, an event where the Districts were required to offer up young tributes, kids between the ages of twelve to eighteen, and as required viewing, Otacon was now watching what they called the Reaping, the very first of its kind, for the first Annual Hunger Games.
"Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor!" the announcer called out.
Otacon closed his eyes and sighed, disgusted with the way the world had turned out. They fought to defeat the Patriots, and now they may as well live in a world where the Patriots actually won. "If only Snake had been here. The first rebellion against this new Capitol would not have failed." he said to himself. He looked over at a photograph of him and Snake in their younger days, where he was smiling, but Snake was not. Just like him, the old bastard, rarely ever cracked a smile. Otacon smiled to himself sadly. "Snake, where are you when we need you?"
That night, the night of the first Reaping of the First Annual Hunger Games, Otacon had had enough with the way the world had become, and whether or not it was God who heard his disgust, allowed Otacon to pass on, pass on from a world where his children and his children's children would have to fare for themselves.
Exactly seventy-three years after the death of Otacon, the teenage girl known as Katniss Everdeen awoke to calm her younger sister Primrose Everdeen of the nightmare that caused her to awake with a scream in their home in District 12. The day of the Reaping for the 74th Annual Hunger Games. Little had Otacon, nor Katniss, would have known, that their seemingly unrelated adventures would soon come to meet.
Author's Note: First chapter, what do you guys think? I'll try to do more if this gets good feedback. Thanks!
