Disclaimer: This is Konami's story. I'm just borrowing it.
Part one of two (I think) of my re-imagination of the battle between Snake and Screaming Mantis. I'm not making a statement about any flaws in MGS4's story, there is only one in my approximation and I will address that at a later date, but rather just an idea I had about something that could have been a cool little addition and connection to the original Metal Gear Solid.
Enjoy the cliffhanger first half, and gimme a shout about what you think.
Beauty is Only Skin Deep
Part I: The Surface
Damn it, I'm too old for this. Snake thought as he dove behind a pillar, dodging one of Screaming Mantis's thrown blades. He switched out the spent M-4 clip for a fresh one as another howl filled the room.
"SNAKE!"
Coming, dear. He thought with a cough that sent shooting pains up his side. His position compromised by the sound, the hero/mercenary/criminal leaped out from his cover, weaving between the bullets unleashed by the few remaining resurrected FROGS and cutting them down as he went. How is it that everyone except me gets a new goddamn body to inhabit when the old one wears out?
After clearing the nearby area of the ash-composed forms of undead, Snake swung his rifle to the center of the room, searching for the multi-armed, sickle flailing, corpse wielding puppet master of The Beauty & The Beast squad. He found her remaining voodoo doll in his iron sights, but the beast struck first, striking him with one of her ethereal-esque blasts. His reprisal was only instants after, but as soon as he squeezed the trigger his vision blurred and his arms jolted upward, sending the burst into open air. Cursing, Snake took off again, flipping out the hypo of nanomachine suppressant and jamming it into his neck.
Feeling his body returning to his control again, he turned his attention back to the hologram of the Earth that Mantis usually floated above, shouldering the carbine for another strike. It took an instant to realise that, instead of looking out over the room, he was staring down the muzzle at Meryl's horror-twisted features, as well as the gaping maw of her Desert Eagle.
"Oh hell..." was all he managed before his combat reflexes threw him to the side, just as the thunderclap of a .50 calibre bullet tore into the room. He felt the slug miss his head by mere centimetres as he moved away, but that sensation was secondary to the sting of the point-blank GSR blazing into his uncovered eye. Impulsively covering the injured organ with his free hand, Snake stumbled backwards and swung his rifle down hard on his comrade's firearm before the manipulated girl could be forced into shooting again. The massive handgun flew free of the woman's hand, landing with a loud thud at the floor just before Snake kicked it away.
"I'm sorry Snake..." Meryl moaned, tears welling up in her wide, pleading eyes.
"I know, Meryl." the grizzled warrior replied, before with much unspoken remorse he brought the butt of his M-4 back across her face, knocking her out. She fell like a stone, Mantis no longer able to exert any influence for the time being. He winced at the sound of her unconscious body hitting the floor, but could scarcely afford any more time to think about it as Mantis herself swooped down at him, her blade's whistling lethally around her.
"I want to hear you scream, Snake!" she shrieked in her strange dual layered vocalizations. She swung for his neck, and followed his dodge with a jab towards the stomach. Narrowly escaping decapitation and disembowelment however, left his limbs too exposed to completely avoid the hooked knives once she went after them, and she managed to slice into both his forearm, and somehow his shin at the same time. With a grunt, he fell to his knee, depressing the trigger of his gun while he fell in desperation. She dodged the fully automatic clearing of his clip, but instead of pressing her advantage and finishing him off while he had nothing left but what amounted to a fancy looking club, she zoomed in, kicked his rifle away, and hovered back into his line of sight, crossing her many arms.
"You can do better than that, Snake! This doesn't end until the air rattles with the echoes of your terror!"
We're going to be here a long time then Snake thought as he regained his feet. Despite the pain from his new wounds, he smirked at the malicious creature in front of him.
"But then, that won't come from fear of death, will it..." Mantis mused, brining one of the false hands to the chin of her faceplate, stroking it. For once, she spoke rather than wailed, seeming genuinely perplexed, but no less frightening. In fact, it disturbed him more than anything she had done since he stepped into the Ark's control center, and he slowly began reaching for the Operator he still had tucked into its holster.
"How to reawaken your panic, how to revive your horror... what frightens someone who is already dead..." She looked about the room, her eyes falling on the Meryl, who was slowly regaining consciousness. "Ah! I know..."
Once he realised what was about to happen, Snake abandoned subterfuge and ripped the .45 out of its cloth sheath and brought it to bear in a motion so fast the weapon's inertia almost pulled it from his palm. But Mantis already had captured her prize and had lifted her to the center of the room, cradling her like a wounded child. Too far away to risk making the shot with a short barreled weapon like the Operator, Snake franticly leaped over the banister before him and began bounding from terminal to terminal, as Mantis levitated Meryl into a standing position before her. Then the post-traumatic stress victim turned inflictor began cooing grotesquely, running a hand along the other woman's cheek.
"Wake up, my darling. Open your eyes; you can rest for eternity in a moment."
Meryl's eyes fluttered open just as Snake made it to the depression in the very middle of the room. Mantis allowed enough time for her prey to realise where she was before whipping into a tornado of razor-sharp metal centered around her.
"NO! Damn it Mantis, this is between you and me!" Snake growled, trying vainly to follow the blur swirling around the coronel's daughter.
"HAHAHAHAHA! But what is you and me, Snake!? We are nothing but what those around us have created! Friends! Enemies! Nameless tormenters! They determine who you are! This woman is as much a part of you as your own flesh and blood; she helped create you! Just as the ghosts of my past are what created me!" Mantis squealed with bloodthirsty glee as her sickles sliced away at Meryl's uniform, sending shredded pieces of kaki and leather in all directions. Snake, giving up on shooting Mantis, shuffled over to where he could see Meryl's face, dodging half of a combat boot as it came flying away from the maelstrom on the way.
Meryl's face was a portrait of fear, eyes and mouth sealed closed, her head pulled down into her shoulders in an effort to block out the horror surrounding her. But no tears ran down her cheeks, and no sound issued from her lips. His pride in her swelled; whatever stand she could make, she was making it. Mantis seemed to notice this as well, spinning out of her flurry and wrapping herself around Meryl, who had been stripped of all but the bodysuit she wore beneath her combats. Floating all around, each of the beast's remote hands pressed a knife to her neck.
Damn, she's too close to her. I don't have a shot.
"She is strong, as you are, Snake," Mantis said, in the hollow approximation she had of kindness, which dropped with her next sentence. "But is she as unfeeling? Is she as heartless?!"
"S-Sn-Snake! Get out of here!" Meryl cried, daring to open her eyes and locking glances with him. Snake shook his head decisively.
I left you at the mercy of someone like her before. Never again.
Mantis lolled her head backwards from Meryl's and turned her expressionless faceplate towards him. A surreal hush fell over the room for a moment, but it was far too fleeting.
"Let's find out together, David."
Solid Snake didn't have an instant to protest, to even think about how she knew his name, before Mantis again transformed into a whirlwind. This time, however, she did not hold back, and soon he completely lost sight of Meryl in the cloud as it became reddened with jets of blood. She lost control after only a few seconds of the vicious onslaught, not that he blamed her, and began screaming just as Mantis demanded. The hideous sound of her agony cut into his soul with the same ferocity that the beast cut into her flesh, and any worry of hitting her with an errant bullet became immaterial. He opened up at the crimson mist above him, shooting for the edges, with only a prayer to guide the bullets to their mark. Undaunted, Mantis taunted him over the cries.
"SNAKE!! DO YOU HEAR IT?! DO YOU HEAR HER SCREAMS?! Think of it, the last thing her soft skin will feel is the caress of my blades. The last thing her pretty blue eyes will see is the spray of her own blood. Will the last thing she hears be the silence of a man who felt nothing for her, even at the moment of her death?"
On his knees, depressing the trigger of an empty gun, with tears running freely from his eyes, Snake broke. His arms fell to his sides, his handgun dropping uselessly from his hand. Meryl's voice rang out in his head.
"Can you shoot me rookie? --Careful, I'm no rookie."
"Just what I'd expect from the legendary Solid Snake. You trying to sweep me off my feet?"
"Y'know... I don't use makeup the way other women do... I hardly ever look at myself in the mirror. I've always despised that kind of woman."
"I promised... I wouldn't slow you down! I... I... I can still help... I want to help you!"
"During all the pain and the shame there was one thing I was sure of... a single hope that I held onto... And that hope kept me alive... Snake, I wanted to see you again..."
The playback faded with Meryl, her howls dying into whimpers as another fragment of cloth fluttered down from the chaos above. Almost as if guided, it came to rest in front of him, and Snake picked it up. It was her bandana, one and the same with the one they had made their unfulfilled covenant of living for each other over, a lifetime ago on Shadow Moses Island. Torn, bloodied and tacked with stands of Meryl's red hair, he clutched it against his torso as the pain and sorrow that had welled up in his chest exploded out of his body, filling the quiet that her now absent voice had left behind.
"Meeeeryyyyylll!"
"Now that's more like it Snake!" Mantis cackled in delight, stopping dead and casting the limp, scarlet stained body of his comrade, his friend, across the room with a gesture. She lunged again, knives thrust forward. "The sound of your pain is delicious."
Forgive me. Snake thought numbly, rising in what felt like slow motion. His mind was a storm of emotions, most of which rarely passed through his mind. One over-riding thought, however, was familiar, and roared through the din clear and undeniable. Mantis too seemed to slow, and the sound of his heartbeat drowned out all but the beast's most vapid screeches.
I'm not the hero you thought I was.
Drawing his carbon-fibre combat knife, Snake made a promise that, even if it cost him his life, and with it the free world, he would kill Mantis with his bare hands. For an old dog of war like him, it was all he could do; all he knew. Taking an upright CQC pose, Snake took in a ragged breath and steadied himself, both emotionally and physically. The parry to Mantis' all-out attack would have to be perfect, because he would not have another chance.
I'm nothing!
He waited until he could see the glint of the sickles' blades before he moved, diving into the sea of arms an instant before the knives struck. This threw off the beast's timing just enough that she could not plunge the blades into him as she had wanted, instead having only the time to drag the tips across his body, leaving trails of increasing depth from his shoulders all the way to his shins. The arms had adapted enough by the time they reached his calves to have gouged into his muscle tissue, making any meaningfully fast motion impossible, but his gambit had paid off. With the tip of his own knife protruding from its back, Snake grabbed a-hold of the second voodoo doll.
Meryl, I'm sorry.
"My doll!" Mantis screamed, turning tail and zooming away as he rose, taking out the first marionette he had retrieved. He wasn't one who believed in providence, but the opportunity for poetic irony these items presented was too great to ignore. Each one had differing capabilities, one seemingly able to control the living while the other reanimated the dead, but he figured it would be best to use both and be sure. Flicking the puppets as Mantis had, he watched with grim satisfaction as the woman snapped back like a parachute had been opened, and he instinctually swung the dolls downwards. As he had hoped, Mantis followed, stopping only when the ground beneath her demanded she did. Her body shattered the holographic projector below, sending up a shower of sparks and collapsing the massive photonic globe. As the exposed conduits began to short-circuit across Mantis' body, she screamed again.
But this time it had no extraneous phonic effects, just one voice; Meryl's, recorded from just moments ago. Mantis's way of tormenting him, even in her defeat. Filled with a rage that paled any he had felt before it, Snake tightened his grips on the dolls and swung them around with all his strength. Again, Mantis was dragged along, smashing through any obstacle she ran afoul of.
Forgive me.
A full five minutes later, Mantis' body was reduced to a heap of fragmented bones held together only by her jumpsuit, the armour bent and broken around her natural limbs. The cybernetic arms were long left behind, some burrowed into walls, others broken into dozens of pieces that lay scattered across the room. It wasn't enough, not by a long shot, to repay what she had done; the only reason he had stopped was his arms had begun to tire at the out-of-control flailing.
Snake advanced on the motionless, almost formless body in front of him, resisting the urge to pummel it once he reached it. His codec toned, perhaps not for the first time in the last few minutes, but he ignored it as he flipped over what his hands confirmed was nothing more than an over-tenderized sack of meat. Remarkably, the mask had remained intact, though the lights that ringed it were all broken, and it sported a large indentation from when she had careened headfirst into one of the steel support beams for the rooms upper-deck.
He began feeling around the helmet for a release clasp, assuming it was the logical place for such a device. It did not escape Snake that, unlike her 'sisters,' Mantis had not sprung from her outer suit when he had beaten her, but he didn't really care. It was probably because unlike Laughing Octopus, Raging Raven and Crying Wolf, Snakes assault had killed her without leaving her the opportunity to escape the malfunctioning gear. He wasn't really sure why he was taking the time to see the deranged woman's face either. For that unknown, his only explanation was perhaps a need to know exactly who it was that had so mercilessly murdered someone who he had loved. To have more than just the mask and the screams to haunt his nightmares. His finger found the release clasp along the base of the spine, and with a hiss the faceplate separated from its backing, and Snake removed it.
The gasp of confusion that escaped his mouth coincided with the sound of the slide of a handgun being drawn back. Cock-and-lock, rotating action, .50 calibre, held a few inches from his head. Raising his hands, Snake slowly stood away from Mantis, or rather the FROG which had been stuffed into Mantis' armour. As the chest and torso shells shrugged aside sluggishly, jamming in some places from the damage they had sustained, he saw slashes and stab-wounds around the nameless woman's flanks, pelvis and stomach, ones he was not responsible for.
The sound of the weapon was more than enough information to identify who it was standing behind him, but acknowledging this fact was another story. Drebin finally forced contact through the codec, but it wasn't his newly recognizable voice that Snake focused on. Instead, it was one he was intimately familiar with, one that shouldn't have sent shivers down his spine.
"Snake, do you like me?"