Handle with Care

by Forman

An epic tale of love, sacrifice, and cardboard boxes. Oh, and a demented cast of misfits who just happen to be, well, utterly demented.

Handle With Care - An alternate Metal Gear Solid Story.

********************==================********************

Foreword

Hello there kids! Welcome to Forman's Metal Gear Solid fanfic! Well, that isn't strictly true...
I wrote it, but it belongs to Naska Chijoue, an artist so talented she probably fell out of the
sky wearing a sign saying 'I am your God'. It should ONLY appear on her page unless she says
otherwise. That page being : http://Pendako.syste.ms/

Why? Because she deserves it, that's why. Don't bother changing anything contained within,
either, or we shall both hunt you down and kill you.

What else... oh, yeah. This isn't an appropriate story for anyone who isn't prepared to witness
the true horror of war. Blood and violence run rampant, the true darkness which lies dormant in
the human soul is laid bare for all to see, and it is a serious piece of writing which opts for
a more gritty, realistic view on the Metal Gear Solid story.

If you can live with that, read on. If not, you'll probably read what I've written anyway, just
don't say that I didn't warn you first...

Forman.

---------------------
Oooh, it's an update!
---------------------

Ahem. Naska shall quite literally not be putting this up on her own page, simply for the reason
that her site is strictly an art based one. (Not to mention this being too serious and mature a
piece of writing for just anyone to see)

So, it'll only be going up on my site then? Yep, but if you ask Naska nicely, she might let you
put it up somewhere else.

Forman. Again.

********************==================********************

Deep in the frozen wastes of Alaska, a man known only as 'Solid Snake' was relaxing in his home,
watching television and basically being a complete vegetable. It had been many years since he was
last in action, being a professional killer and all, and he was more or less enjoying life in his
new environment. Yet, he felt that something was missing from this life of tranquility, something
he'd felt often when upon the battlefield, and quite simply did not experience anymore.

He stood up and petted his dog before going through to the kitchen, picking up a large knife,
and stabbing himself several times in the thigh. No, it wasn't being stabbed that he missed, he
realised soberly as he painfully crawled back into the living room.

Then what was it?

Resisting the sudden impulse to shoot himself in the forehead to test his new theory, he decided
that having not been to the toilet for the past five weeks, it was probably time to do so now. He
undid his trousers, pulled down his underpants, and sat down for a relaxing...

With incredible perception and great cunning, he noticed that he was in the wrong room. More to
the point, he found that it was too late to change his mind. 'Ah well, nothing that a spade and a
bit of fumigation wouldn't fix, eh?' said Snake aloud. 'If a rabbit's a tasty snack, then I'm a
mother loving lawnmower, and no amount of grass is ass in MY class! Mwa ha ha!'

Snake's pet Husky didn't quite get the relevance of its master's rather ambiguous quote.

Snake's retirement from military life was proving far more difficult than he had first thought.
For one thing, you couldn't simply kill someone you didn't like anymore. Not that this little
technicality meant much to him: his actions had sparked off several murder hunts over the last
two years. No, the biggest problem was money.

For a start, he'd hired himself out as a storyteller to young children, and had been gratified
to see them sit around him in a little circle, listening intently to his stories of his life in
the army. They'd sat there, dreamy eyed and open mouthed, then paid him a small fee and went home
wishing that they could be more like the legendary Solid Snake.

And then, of course, they found out the meaning of 'disemboweled', 'eviscerated' and
'entrails' from their mothers and spent the next couple of months attending therapy and unable
to sleep or walk home alone at night. That was before Snake got his current job as a dog musher.

His piercing gaze swept around his living room, lingering at the last upon his most prized
possessions in the whole world. No, he realised. Not possessions, but friends. Three cardboard
boxes in pristine condition, with not so much as a bent corner upon them. His face lost its grim
countenance for a moment and he thought about crawling under them before running around totally
naked in the freshly laid snow, avoiding the law for as long as he could, and then being sent to
the cells for the night. Just so long as the inmates didn't try to attack him in ways that no man
should be attacked again. It could, Snake decided, be a real pain in the backside. Literally.

He suddenly heard people moving around outside. Wondering if it was that pesky Klu Klux Klan out
for another donation, he regally got up from his makeshift throne and rushed to the door.

His trousers, still down around his ankles, prevented him from moving in any other direction
but downwards. Hence, he fell right on top of his surprised pet more or less completely naked.

Surprised as the dog was, it was nothing compared to the astonishment that registered on the
faces of the armed soldiers who had just broken into the house, to be confronted by what looked
suspiciously like Snake molesting his pet Husky.

There was a short silence, as all humans present were too shocked to utter so much as a word,
Snake surprised at the armed men busting down his door, and the soldiers sickened by the frankly
disgusting scene before them.

Snake was just about to address the situation to the armed men facing him, when he suddenly
realised that the television program he'd been watching had stopped and another had started. He
watched in mindless horror as the words 'Hardcore Gay Porn - With Farm Animals Special' appeared
on screen.

Snake inwardly recoiled as he realised that there was no way in hell that the situation could
get any worse.

'Impotence can be quite a troublesome matter for straight people...' were the first words that
came from the set before one of the soldiers dragged him to his feet and butted him in the face.

'Look, I can explain everything!' Snake cried before being whacked in the face by a rifle and
pitching to the floor, unconscious. One of the soldiers grabbed Snake by the hair and dragged
him over to their commanding officer.

'What now captain?' he asked before spitting upon Snake's motionless body.

'Get this sicko out of here. Check that we've really got the right house, and get that Husky
into an animal shelter where it'll be safe!' the irate and disgusted captain demanded angrily.
'Torch the house too. We don't know what kind of filth this bugger keeps.'

*******************

'So Snake, we meet again.' Campbell's voice seemed to be coming from somewhere beside him. He
found to his great distress that he was in severe pain and couldn't see anything.

'My ass hurts,' Snake complained.

'Well, we ARE on a submarine, you donkey munching pilgrim. And some sailors tend to get a
little jumpy if certain... desires of theirs aren't fulfilled, you know? And since you were
unconscious at the time, we thought you'd be a better choice than subjecting someone else to
that sort of pain. Anyway, enough of your selfishness. The reason you're here is because we're
about to send you into the middle of an Alaskan nuclear bunker with absolutely no weapons at
all. Officially, this is in case they have weapon detectors lined up at the entrance:
unofficially, its because I hate you.'

'That's nice,' Snake commented.

'From here, you will make your way to an underground bunker somewhere in the complex, hopefully
getting caught and tortured somewhere along the way and falling in love with my daughter. Who
will then stab you to death while you're sleeping on the way home, just as long as she's alive.
So don't let her get killed, for God's sake!'

'Is she a choice piece of ass?'

Ignoring that comment, Campbell continued. 'You'll notice that you're wearing a custom built
stealth suit. Highly magnetic, it'll attach you to any metallic object I wish at the touch of
a button. I'll randomly attach you to walls at inopportune moments, such as during a gunfight
with some guards or suchlike. Then, if you somehow survive, you'll go forth and kick Metal
Gear's ass, killing your identical twin brother in the process. Questions?'

'What if I refuse?'

'Watch this,' Campbell grinned, snapping his fingers. Off in the distance, he heard someone
else shouting out an order. It took a moment to reach his ears.

'Fire torpedo!' one of the underdogs had yelled to the gunners.

Snake was launched with incredible speed towards the underground bunker, although the accuracy
of the gunner was rather suspect. He missed the entrance shaft by several meters, crunching
headfirst into one of the walls at several hundred miles per hour. Fortunately, the walls were
smashed inwards by the impact and he was swept, dazed and confused, through the waterway and into
the bunker where he was instantly set upon by scores of bloodthirsty piranhas.

Back in the safety of the submarine Campbell laughed wildly, slapping his thigh in glee.

*************

Snake shivered miserably from his position in front of the underground steel escalator. Not even
the combined effects of the anti-freezing peptide and his custom designed stealth suit was
keeping the cold from him. Unbeknownst to Snake, but now beknownst to us, Dr. Naomi Hunter had
cunningly injected him with pond scum and frog spawn in order to keep costs down.

Realising that standing still in front of a service elevator was getting him nowhere, he boldly
stepped inside and was surprised when the lift began to move automatically towards the surface.
He pulled off his diving mask and winced as the tightly attached swimming device deftly tore off
his left ear upon its removal. That Roy Campbell, Snake laughed. Such a joker, booby trapping his
mask with a mouse trap over where his ear went!

As the lift continued on its way, Snake reflected upon his great fortune in finding three
willing companions who had decided to accompany him on his mission. They were... the cardboard
box sisters. Their names were Tina Forrest, Sofia Forrest and Forresta Forrest, and he loved them
all, even to the extent of bedding them when he plucked up enough courage. Shy and insecure,
Snake feared them rejecting him at some point or other.

He ran out, narrowly evading the spotlights sweeping back and forth across the heliport. The
guards continued their vigilant watch over the area, yet were unable to locate Snake as he
sprinted over to the nearest truck, leapt in the back, and pulled a thick sheet of tarpaulin over
him in order to keep warm. It wasn't enough. He had to find something a little more permanent,
something that would last at least the allocated twenty four hours before the nuclear missile was
launched. Shuffling around in order to get comfortable, he heard a slight clinking as what
sounded like several bottles were shifted underneath him. Not daring to breath, Snake shoved his
hand underneath his makeshift blanket and found that he was lying on a box full of bottles of
alcohol.

The gods had not forsaken him! After all, what better to bolster his nerves and confidence than
seventeen or so bottles of Vodka? A fleeting thought passed his mind, before somersaulting out
his ear and plummeting to a gory death on the snow covered ground. What if they were poisoned,
deliberately placed there to attract the attention of particularly mindless intruders such as
himself?

He cautiously unstoppered one of the bottles and inhaled the fumes given off. His highly trained
sense of smell caught the distinctive whiff of dog urine mixed with paint thinner, benzine and
anti-freeze. But no poison. Thanking his lucky stars, he swiftly gulped down the contents of
several bottles in quick succession before smacking his lips in satisfaction. A fine brew indeed.
He then pulled one of his beloved boxes over him in a display of sheer cunning which rivalled
that of a demented chimpanzee who thinks that flies are 'dead cool'.

His beloved box had a 'To Canada' label upon it, but Snake was oblivious to this rather
unfortunate occurrance as he gulped down another three bottles and burped loudly, thanking God
yet one more time for his great fortune in finding such wonderful tasting bottles of alcohol.

It took all of four seconds before he passed out in the back of the truck. Had he been
conscious, or even able to think coherently, he would have heard the truck driver rev up the
engine and scream 'Canada, here we come!' like a rhinestone cowboy, before blasting away at full
pelt.

He wasn't. Had he been awake as this was happening, he'd most likely have said:

'Bollocks.'

***************

Looking up in a bemused haze, Snake took several seconds to make out the letters on the sign.

'Welcome to Toronto.'

An icy wave of shock hit him, threatening to render him senseless. The Lone Ranger's best friend
had turned into a city and swallowed him whole! He was probably being digested at this very
minute, and his chances of escape were slim indeed... he knew that his only chance was to seek
help. Which he should have done a great many years ago, but never mind. He lurched over to the
figure nearest him and shook his head. The body in front of him was too blurry to define clearly.

'Heeaighh maight! Douh youghe knowhe hough I cahn geht bahck touh...' He paused in his elegant
speech to retch noisily into a gutter.

'Ahh, I see that your manners do not wish to be outdone by your incredible body odour,' the man
said. Snake punched him, before figuring out that it was actually an old lady. One he'd just
killed, as a matter of fact.

'Arse,' said Snake as the pigs came to haul him away. In the distance, Metal Gear could be seen
wildly searching the city for Snake.

Later, down at the local police station, one of the cops who had arrested Snake was typing up
his statement as the duty sergeant arrived. Snake sat in a depressed silence at the foot of the
desk as PC Dempsey continued to type away.

'Evening, sarge,' Dempsey said. The sergeant muttered something in reply and wandered over to
the microwave, slapping in a steak pie and setting the timer. He was angered to note that there
was no tomato sauce in the cupboard. Very few things in life angered sergeant Anderson as much as
an uncondimented snack. He turned round with an angry look on his face.

'HEY! Where the hell is the bloody tomato sauce?!?!' he half screamed at the unperturbed
officer.

'Sorry sarge, it's been a busy night and we've not had time to get any shopping done.'

Anderson was annoyed, but he attempted to hide the fact with very little success.

'So, John,' Anderson began. 'What type of criminal bastards are in for today?'

The constable looked up from his paper work, removed his glasses and stood up. 'Well, there's
that serial rapist up in room D3, the guy who assassinated Shigeru Miyamoto, and this comedian
here.'

'That all? Well, I've already spoken to the serial rapist. Seemed a nice enough young fellow,
actually. Told me that all the women he raped at some point or other had called him an ugly sod.
Can't blame him, really. Way of the world, I suppose. As for the guy who killed Miyamoto? Well,
he's a silly bugger, but boys will be boys, after all. So, what did this nazi here do?' he asked,
pointing at Snake.

'Well, he was drunk and disorderly, staggered across a busy road, and murdered an old lady.'

Snake clearly saw the sergeant's jaw muscles tighten in an attempt to control the sudden surge
of anger which threatened to overwhelm him. When he finally spoke, it was in a chillingly low
voice, slow and deliberate.

'Get this cowboy down to the cells. Me and him are going to have a little chat about certain
things.'

Anderson's grandfather had been killed whilst Jaywalking across a busy road. Seeing others
possibly throwing away their lives was about the only thing which could anger him more than pies
with no tomato ketchup. Once in the cells, Snake received the sort of beating which wouldn't have
looked out of place in a concentration camp. When Snake could no longer stand, Anderon smiled
down at him where he lay, broken and bleeding over the cold tiles of the floor.

'Sorry Dave, but I see it as my duty to discourage people from risking their lives crossing
busy roads in the middle of rush hour. Cruel to be kind, and all that. Trust me, you'll thank me
for this some day.'

Snake decided not to respond, as he had been gagged with his own underwear.

Sergeant Anderson, however, prided himself on being a fair man. The following morning he gave
Snake a cup of tea and a jam roll which Snake could not eat, being a rabidly anti-jam punter.
Also, trying to drink the tea whilst gagged with a pair of Y-fronts only succeeded in scolding
his face and chest. He was then sentenced to life imprisonment, by the end of which, or so
Anderson claimed, he would have learned that Jaywalking was a serious matter indeed.

Later, having successfully escaped from the prison guards by crawling under his bed, waiting for
someone to notice he was there, giving up three days later and burrowing his way home with his
teeth, he was ready to rock!

...

It took a few days for him to finally be picked up by a hitch-hiker friendly pundit, by which
time his enthusiasm had dampened considerably. And not a particularly sane looking pundit either.
It wasn't so much the way that he was spattered in blood and had three human skulls nailed to
each headboard in the car, nor even the decomposing body in the back seat that got Snake's
attention. It was more the way that the eyes seemed to be staring at him even when the head was
facing in the opposite direction, as if they'd swivelled round in their sockets and were looking
through the back of the skull.

'So,' Snake began nervously. 'What line of work is it you do?'

At this blatant intrusion into his private life, the driver pulled out a pitchfork and stabbed
Snake in the eyes. Somehow sensing his life was in danger, Snake pulled the lethal gardening
implement from where it was embedded in his skull and cunningly threw it out the side window so
that the driver could no longer access the deadly tool. Snake then bit the madman in the groin
and tore off his hands, forcing him to drive off the side of a cliff. Which just happened to be
a sheer drop of one hundred and fifty feet.

And yes, the resulting explosion as the car hit the rock at ninety-five miles an hour was fairly
impressive indeed.

***************

Two days after that, Snake arrived in a quaint little town not far from the outskirts of
Toronto. Badly wounded in the crash, he'd been inside it when it had exploded and had spent the
next forty-eight hours removing shrapnel and stray rocks from his nose, rectum and genitals,
amidst other unsavoury places. Still, there was something nagging at him which he could not quite
pin down...

He suddenly thrust his fist into the air, and let out a joyful whoop. He'd suddenly remembered
that he had not eaten in five days! Happily bounding over to the nearest coffee shop, he was
promptly thrown out for being butt naked. Finding a somewhat more liberal coffee shop, he sat
down and ordered a cup of coffee and a pack of salt and vinegar crisps from the waitress. The bag
of crisps was three years out of date, but the coffee was not that bad once the rat had been
removed.

It was then that Igor from the Frankenstein films appeared at the doorway in all his crippled
glory, demanding 'food for the master'. He then levitated down the steps towards the counter and
ordered a side of beef and five tins of beans. He bit into one particularly juicy bean, then
looked up at Snake with his googly eyes and spoke in a dodgy German accent.

'Excuze me. My eyez appeer to be bigger zan my stomink.'

'What?' Snake asked, confused.

Igor shrieked like a girl and began levitating towards the door, but Snake was faster, shooting
the fleeing Igor forty times in the back.

'That was for World War II, you Nazi!' Snake shouted triumpantly.

He sat back, his hunger sated, and reflected upon the mission he'd been sent on. Or at least,
he tried to. Yes, the legendary master of all things stealth-like had forgotten the reason he'd
been sent to Canada. Or was it Alaska? Why on earth was he there? The noise from the television
drifted to his highly trained ears. Or ear, at any rate. He'd have to get Campbell back for the
mousetrap stunt. How could Cambell fail to see the funny side of Snake kidnapping his children?

'Anyway,' it began. 'Washington D.C. was annihilated by a NUCLEAR BOMB, which just happened to
be launched from the middle of ALASKA by a massive walking battle tank called METAL GEAR manned
by a renegade military operative known as LIQUID SNAKE... Snake! Bloody listen to me, you moron!
I'm trying to give you some subtle hints as to what your mission is, you ox-loving son of a goat
farmer!'

The relentless stream of sound was beginning to annoy Snake, who was desperately trying to
remember what he was supposed to be doing. He shot the T.V a black look, and was surprised to
find that the mid-day news was broadcasting the new Godzilla movie. God, Snake thought. How
Godzilla's changed since the old days. He looked more like a walking battle tank with nuclear
capabilities now. And the new Tokyo looked suspiciously like certain parts of Canada...

'Snake!!!' the 'Godzilla' screamed as it tore up 'Tokyo'. In fact, one of the shops looked quite
a lot like the one he was in just now.

He was rather surprised to find a gigantic metal foot smash through the ceiling, almost squashing
him flat. He grudgingly conceded that the special effects were slightly above par. It then
disappeared on its quest for 'Snake', whoever that was meant to be. Deciding that he'd wasted
enough time here, he got up and wandered over to the counter to pay.

'That'll be nine-fifty, okay?' the guy behind the counter said in a bored voice, his face
impassive.

'Eh?' Snake burst out in surprise, raking around in the carrier bag which now held his
possessions for change. 'That's maybe just a little bit expensive, is it not?'

'No, it bloody well is not. Now, if you'd be so kind, just hand over the damned money.'

Snake finally found all his remaining money and handed it over. The Shopkeeper's face was
outraged within seconds of receiving the small package.

'What the hell are you trying to pull here, you tight bugger? There's only nine forty-five here,
you cheap ass lump of maggot-ridden dung!'

'I'm sorry, but it's all I've got. Is that alright?' Snake pleaded.

Evidently it was not all right. The shopkeeper promptly produced a large steel baseball bat from
behind the counter and whacked Snake sharply around the side of the head with it. He ran from
the shop with the psychopathic shopkeeper in hot pursuit.

Who was then devoured by the not-so-dead Igor.

'Igor, my friend!' Snake exclaimed happily. 'Thank God I didn't kill you! And about all that
World War 2 stuff I said and you being a Nazi, well, Zeig Heil! I think Hitler was a great guy
after all, and...'

Snake stopped his praises the minute he realised that Igor was eating his face. In fact, he was
just about to give Igor the beating of his undead life when Campbell pressed that deadly button
labelled 'magnetism'. Snake was viciously pulled across the nearby highway, bouncing painfully
off three cars and a skoda on the way, before being magnetically attached to a lorry
conveniently bound for Alaska.

Igor shared the trip the whole way, biting contentedly at Snake's eyes.

During one of the Lorry's stopovers, however, the driver stopped in by a well known gay bar
known inconspicuously as 'the hairy testicles'. Snake and his friend Igor popped in by for a
drink while they could.

Snake decided that he needed a beer. Really needed a beer.

'I want it!' He screamed, unknowingly. 'I want it now, baby! Give it to me now!' Igor decided
that this would be an appropriate moment to flee, as all the men in the bar, all wearing droopy
moustaches, turned to look at the new 'pretty boy'.

As Snake sat down and ordered a beer, a heavily muscled man with, yes, a drooping moustache came
over and laid his hand upon Snake's thigh, saying that he could 'show Snake a good time.' Snake
responded, somewhat foolishly, by breaking his bottle over the table and stabbing the man in the
armpits. The commotion attracted several other heavily muscled men, dressed as sailors and
policemen, over to the table.

'What the hell happened here?' one demanded.

'This faggot just tried to hit on me!' Snake replied indignantly. And stupidly, too. He
received yet another heavy beating for his impertinence, but was fortunately magnetised to the
lorry again just before it drove away.

Ominously, Igor was nowhere to be seen.

*****************

Many hours and many days later, Snake was back inside the facility. Treading carefully about,
his ears and senses alert for danger, he ducked back into a shadowy recess upon hearing a guard
walk past. Breathing a vast sigh of relief, he continued through the complex unmolested until
he came across a guard lying down on the floor, apparently sleeping. He decided to throw a rock
at the guard and kill him when he came to investigate.

Picking up a three stone boulder, Snake hurled it at his sleeping nemesis and turned away just
in time to miss it breaking the guard's kneecaps.

He crouched down behind a nearby crate, and prayed that the guard would not look his way when he
walked past to find out what had disturbed his rest.

Snake farted so loudly that it shook the room.

Not that this random occurrance meant very much. The guard had, after all, died of a heart
attack two hours previously, and Snake sat like a turnip for several hours for absolutely
nothing. What a great guy!

*****************

'So, you're Meryl I take it?'

'Yes, Snake. I am! And my uncle has told me to kill you while you're sleeping!'

And so ended the greatest introduction sequence in history. I thank you.

*****************

One of the guards had somehow managed to steal one of Snake's boxes from him whilst he'd been
talking to Meryl, and had decided on a particularly stupid course of action: he'd hide
underneath the cardboard box and kill Snake during a moment of inattention.

Of course, Snake could home in on his beloved boxes far more accurately than any radar ever
could. The Genome soldier even heard a mechanical noise as Snake's head turned in his direction,
his eyes glowing a bright red.

'Forrest! Come to papa Snake, my friend!'

The guard's breath hissed between his teeth. The psycho was going to stuff him into his pockets
along with the stupid box he was hiding under! He decided to unleash a full magazine of ammo
into the man known as Snake, who seemed not to notice that he should by rights be dead.

'Now Forrest, you're being very naughty,' Snake admonished his box while still walking towards
it with his arms outstretched like a zombie. The guard decided on the only sensible course of
action left to him: he bolted.

Snake stood stock still for a moment then called after his box. 'Forrest! Come back! Come back
here or I'll be forced to shoot you!'

The guard heard the screams of the crazy man behind him, but could not quite believe his ears at
first. Had he been turned in the other direction, he would have been able to see Snake, tears
flowing from his eyes, pull up his Socom, point it at the fleeing cardboard box, and pull the
trigger several times. He would have seen no more, simply because he was dead after that. Snake
bounded over to the stricken box and was prepared to give it a damned good telling off, when all
of a sudden he caught sight of the genome soldiers' corpse peeking out from underneath. His face
instantly broke out in a wide smile.

'Good cardboard box! I see you've devoured one of the guards for me!' He searched the body
further and stifled a cry of pride for his beloved cardboard box. 'And there's some bullet holes
in him! You'd make an excellent hunting dog, you know that? How did you shoot him without hands?'

The cardboard box modestly said nothing, and just sat very still. It was a very well behaved
cardboard box, Snake realised. No, not just a box. A partner. And he owed it his very life.
Sitting down beside the box, Snake decided to tell it a bit about his life.

'I know that I'm the greatest killer of this century,' Snake began. 'but I never wanted to be
this way. When I was young, I used to dress up in women's clothes and hang around the docks in
order to make a little extra pocket money for myself. The work was painful, but not particulary
hard.'

Forresta continued to listen attentively to its master.

'When I got home, my father used to make me sit on my head for no other reason than to laugh at
me. I used to be forced to mow the lawn with my teeth, and my sister would take a cheese grater
across my leg at random intervals during the day. Breast feeding was not permitted: my mother
would tease me with it, then make me work for my milk by sucking a cow's udder. I'd be hustled
into a burlap sack, sprayed in a sort of barbecue sauce, then hurled into the midst of a pack of
starving dogs every sunday morning as a treat if I'd been particularly good: pretty normal
stuff, really.'

Three days later, Snake finished up his story and moved on through the base, silently and
deadly. He realised that the best thing about his beloved boxes was the fact that they did not
judge him in the slightest.

**************

Breaking into Otakon's lab was easy. Snake was actually whistling along to his extreme joy in
finding all the guards outside the laboratory as dead as fish on dry land. Admittedly, the fish
had been cut to pieces and had their blood liberally strewn across the room up to twenty feet
from where they'd died, but the resemblance of the decimated soldiers to dead fish in Snake's
highly trained mind was uncanny.

Leafing through his notes, Snake was mildly surprised to find that Otakon had intentions of
becoming a film director. Picking up the script to E.T. 2, he began reading.

It went:

*Start of movie*

(Outside in the garden: Night time)

Child: Mom! Mom! E.T. has returned to share the rest of his life with us! Look! Look!

Mom : Yes dear, but he's dead. He never got home in time, and he's beginning to bloat up and
smell.

Child: (Hitting E.T. with a stick) No he's not! Look at him! He's dancing! Whee! Whee!

Mom : You are sick, my son.
*The End*

Dropping the script in shock, Snake took several hours to recompose his cool, uncaring exterior.
Picking up another script with shaking hands, he began reading once more. This one was for that
classic film 'Star Wars'.

This one went:

*Start of Movie*

(Obi wan's retreat, playing R2D2's message)

Leia : Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're our only hope.

Obi-Wan: Screw that, let's go and play tennis!

Luke : Yayyyyy!

*The End*

Snake quickly snatched up another script, praying that at least one of these scripts would
contain an inkling of decency. Spotting the alternate script to 'Star Wars - The Phantom Menace',
he snatched it up and bravely began to read once more.

This went:

*Start of Movie*

(Anakin returns after winning the Pod Race to find his mother cooking supper)

Anakin: Mom! Mom! I won the Pod Race! Yeeha!

Mom : That's nice... what on earth are you wearing?

Anakin: (Proudly) Oh! That's right! Jabba told me to put this on and become his 'bitch'. Do you
know what he meant, by any chance?

Mom : Yes. Now go to your room without supper!

Anakin: Yippee! Boiled cabbage!

*The End*

The shock of reading about the tragic circumstances which befell his hero Anakin Skywalker
proved too much for his already overworked brain to cope with. He passed out there and then,
awaking to find himself in the company of several druids. Who didn't smell very savoury, he
noticed.

'What the heck are you guys doing here?' Snake demanded irately. 'And what's the matter with
him?' he asked, pointing to a decomposing corpse in the corner.

'Oh he's just died of terminal tooth decay. Rats contain too much sugar, you know. We told him.
God knows how many times we told him, but would he listen? No, the monkey humping infidel that he
was. Only one more rat, he'd say. Just the one. And where is he now? Over there, rotting in
a corner, that's where! Being eaten by... yes! Rats! Now that's poetic justice isn't...'

'Could you please just shut up and answer my first question?' Snake broke in quickly.

'We are here to help you find that which you seek,' one replied mysteriously.

'My underwear?'

'No, you sick little donkey puncher,' another one replied, cuffing Snake around the side of the
head sharply. 'We're here... to help you find... Metal Gear!'

'What the hell's Metal Gear?' Snake replied, confused.

One of the druids leaned forwards and casually punched Snake in the mouth. 'Anyway,' the first
druid began. 'In order for us to help you, you must first help us. We need you to break us out of
this cell with... this haddock.'

'It's... nice,' Snake said uncertainly, studying the sorry looking fish they had just moments
before triumphantly produced from their underpants. One of the druids became suddenly outraged,
saliva running unnoticed down the side of his mouth as his face turned as red as a tomato. A
particularly red one, at that. One ready to burst with tomatoey goodness.

'Nice? NICE!?!?' the druid screamed at the semi naked Snake. 'This miracle of marine based
technology which may be our only hope of salvation, and you have the nerve to call it NICE?!!?!?
Quincy, stab this heretic.'

Quincy happily obliged.

'Agh!' Snake cried as Quincy stabbed him with the holy haddock. 'Okay, I'm sorry! I know how you
feel about it. After all, if anyone touched my cardboard boxes, I'd feel the same way about it.'
He produced one of his boxes proudly.

The druids were not overly impressed. One began to urinate on it derisively.

This, of course, was not the best course of action to take with Snake's beloved boxes. Grabbing
the offending druid by the head, he took a large bite out of his skull and tore the body limb
from limb, breathing heavily in an attempt to not let his anger show. Which had already failed,
obviously.

'Seize the heretic!' one screamed. 'For he has defiled the Holy fish!'

Snake grabbed said fish and hurled it at the cell door with concussive force. The door suddenly
exploded outwards in a huge blast, killing the guards sitting around outside. The druids cheered
wildy at the sacrifice of their most revered talisman in order to ensure their freedom.

Once his bloodlust settled down, Snake turned on the druids. 'Right, I got you out using the
damn fish. Now, you help me find Metal Gear!'

'No. Bugger off,' one druid replied absently. Snake killed him with his own shoelaces.

'Okay, for the love of Bill Clinton,' one sighed. 'If you're going to be that way about it, it's
in the hanger at the back of the complex. Now bugger off.'

Snake bit him savagely for all his help, then ran naked down the corridor singing Yankee
Doodle. What a crazy guy is our Snake!

**************

Warning: Necessary Porn Induced chapter.

Snake conceded that he was, quite frankly, screwed. There were, he counted, several thousand
guards holding him at gunpoint. This was, of course, total bulldog, but Snake wasn't very good
with numbers. In fact, there were a grand total of three. And Meryl, having been shot several
times and stabbed in the head, was nowhere to be seen.

'So, the Snake has finally come out of his hole,' he heard a distinctively female voice say. He
looked over and studied her. Quite a few times, actually, as her chestal area was exceptionally
well developed and poorly covered.

'Okay, now why are you here?' She asked bluntly, as if the answer wasn't totally obvious.

Snake continued to look at her breasts. 'Wee...' he said in a dreamy voice.

Irritated, she tried a new question. 'You do realise that we're going to torture what you know
out of you, don't you?'

'Bouncy... mammary glands...' Snake marvelled. Sniper Wolf, for it was she, kicked him hard in
the nuts to get his attention. Snake didn't seem to notice.

'Damn it, just knock this pervert out and send him to Ocelot,' she sighed. 'There went my
dramatic scene.'

One of the guards whacked Snake in the stomach with the butt of his rifle.

'Must... examine... breasts!' Snake gasped painfully. The guard hit him again. And again.
Finally, Sniper Wolf ordered a sledgehammer brought to them. When it arrived, she cracked Snake
sharply over the head with it forty times before setting him on fire.

'Bouncy... jiggly.... breasts!' Snake cried as if noticing something great and new for the
first time ever as his hair and clothes continued to blaze wildly.

She turned around to prevent him seeing her female attributes, but Snake was not to be deterred
so easily.

'Such... fine, pert... buttocks!' he almost wept.

Sniper Wolf turned around and did up her shirt. Snake slumped to the ground instantly. 'Men,'
she sighed hopelessly, right before castrating him. At least there'd be no more Solid Snakes in
the world after this one, she thought. At least Meryl would be more willing, she decided.
Willing... and nubile. She ordered a comcorder to be brought to her room, where Meryl had been
taken after her capture.

This would net her some money on the black market!

**************

Having escaped Ocelot's clutches by pretending to be a cardboard box for several days, then
going berserk when he tried to interrogate the other boxes he had on his person, Snake had met
with little resistance other than a gruelling run up a huge flight of stairs, running out the
door, and copping a missile off the side of his face from his brother who was now flying Hind-D
gunship for no real reason other than to kill Snake. Running to the nearest ledge of the roof,
Snake looked down and felt his stomach churn helplessly. It was a sheer drop of at least forty
floors. He was doomed! Doomed! DOOMED, HE TELLS YA!

'Snake, there's a rope to your left,' Campbell yelled at him through the radio, partially
deafening him for the rest of his life. 'Pick it up and... jump... no, that's not the word...
uh... decend?'

'Rappel?' Snake inserted helpfully.

'You utter bastard!' Campbell screamed at the confused Snake. 'You rat eating, piss drinking,
dog shaving, ass munching, monkey punching degenerate son of a homeless person! Trying to steal
my glory are you, woman? That was my word to say!'

Snake had already uncoiled the rope, attached it to the nearby railing and was about to jump.
'Look I'm sorry, okay? Damn it Roy, what's the big deal?'

'Snake, stop being such a sour faced scumeater and do the jump, okay? If anyone can do it, you
can Snake. We all believe in you.'

Touched by this sudden display of affection, Snake leapt triumpantly off the radio tower with
a smile on his face and a song in his heart. Unfortunately, Roy had accidentally-on-purpose led
Snake straight to a rotten piece of rope which snapped instantly upon taking the full weight of
the plummeting Snake. Crunching into the ground at a vast rate of knots, Liquid Snake decided
that he'd never find a better opportunity to rid the world of good old Solid Snake and spent the
next three hours emptying all his bullets into the motionless form of his nemesis.

'There,' Liquid said in satisfaction. Let's see him get away from tha...'

Snake began crawling painfully towards a nearby door. Reaching into his pockets, he took out
Tina Forresta, the joyous cardboard box, then crawled under it for a whole three seconds and
suddenly burst out in a rather impressive way, totally groovy and fully healed.

'Bastard!' Liquid Snake and Roy Campbell swore in unison. 'And we'd have gotten away with it
too if it weren't for that meddling box.'

It began raining cabbages.

**************

Anyway, skipping past that boring part where Snake has to grab the keycard and heat it up,
chill it and whatever else he had to do (The only cool stuff he did here was fall into the
molten metal and kill Vulcan Raven, Giant and Shaman, by stabbing him in the eyes with the beak
of one of his feathered friends), Snake was now in front of Metal Gear for the final conclusion.
The battle had already begun, however, and Gray Fox had just wasted Metal Gear's radar while
Meryl lay awaiting rescue in the background.

Yes, and he'd also been squashed up against a ledge and beaten to within an inch of his life.
Now, Snake had a stinger aimed directly at his brother's exposed form.

'Fire the missiles,' Gray Fox yelled painfully to Snake. 'Kill Metal Gear! Don't worry about me,
just do it!'

Snake did so gladly. His aim was slightly off, however, as the missile shot straight towards
Gray Fox and exploded off the side of his head. Killing him instantly.

'Arse. I appear to have missed with the last missile in my Stinger,' Snake commented for the
benefit of anyone blind that happens to be reading this. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw
the body of Gray Fox fly across the room and squash the bound Meryl, who was sitting there
awaiting rescue. That would teach her to get her hopes up, Snake laughed!

'And what are you going to do now?' Liquid gloated. 'Skewer me with your rapier wit, perhaps?'

Snake thought about the possibilities of such an action. It didn't sound so bad, actually. If
it failed and he got killed, he'd try something else instead. Taking a deep breath, which caused
several guards in other areas to turn blue in the face and die from lack of oxygen, he prepared
to scream out his most deadly insult.

'Yo mama's so ugly, she looks out the window and gets arrested for mooning!' He yelled at his
brother. The implications of what he had just screamed out loud in front of numerous security
cameras did not occur to him for several days.

Liquid replied to Snake's tirade by firing off a missile, which was aimed not at Snake, but
rather at his beloved cardboard box and most trusted partner, Forrest.

'Run, Forrest! Run!' Snake screamed. That box could run like the wind. He knew it could! The
speed it had moved when it was chasing the guard had been prodigious!

And so it came as a shock to Snake when his box stayed motionless and was blown to smithereens.
Not just a shock, in fact. His sanity, which had previously been quite akin to a loosely
restrained sociopath, was now similar to a rabies infested rottweiler who has just devoured its
parents, and is now on the rampage for small, child-like humans.

'Who's laughing now, my brother?' Liquid taunted.

As a matter of fact, Snake WAS laughing. Not in the 'my god, that was a hilarious joke' kind of
way, nor in the 'what an idiot' sort of way, oh no. Nope, he was laughing in the manner of one
who thinks that cutting off their own arms and shoving them into a blender is a great party
trick to show your kids.

'Oh great,' Liquid sighed. 'I'm F...'

Fortunately for the censors, Liquid was interrupted mid sentence by Snake tearing off one of
Metal Gear's legs and slapping him around the face with it, before tearing it apart with his
bare hands. This was followed up by leaping upon Metal Gear itself and tearing off its head with
his teeth.

Ducking under the machine's legs, or leg, rather, Snake grabbed the machine gun nestled where
a man's 'bits' would be. Taking a solid grab with both hands, Snake tried to pull it off. It
refused to come off easily, and Snake began jerking at it violently, even trying to bite it off
before wrapping both legs around the device in an attempt to wrench it from the machine itself.

'Damn... you to hell!!' Snake screamed impotently. 'Why won't you... come... off!?!? Come on!!'

The weapon slowly began to creak free. 'Yes!' Snake gasped. 'That's it! Yes! Oh yes, that's the
way I like it baby, yeeha!'

Through his herculean efforts, the machine gun finally fell clear and Snake panted blissfully.
'Not bad at all,' he said, admiring his handiwork.

The security cameras continued to run. This particular escapade got Snake a starring role in a
local Blue Movie known as 'Hefty Gear'.

Freddie Mercury danced up to him and patted him on the back before diving into a vat of battery
acid naked. How bizarre.

As for Liquid Snake, he was already dead. Let's be honest, there's no way he could
realistically have survived Snake's onslaught, and realism is the key to this whole tale. Meryl
was dead, but apart from that, everything was hunky dory!

Running outside gleefully like a child of the night, Snake looked out over the Alaskan
wilderness and sighed happily. His ordeal was over.

'Well, it appears my work here is done, Campbell,' he laughed. 'Now, are you gonna pick me up
or am I going to have to walk home?'

Campbell gave some serious consideration to letting him walk home, but then changed his mind.
'Snake, my boy! There's a Landspeeder in a cave behind you. You can use that to get home, we're
all waiting for you!'

Walking to the cave, Snake was mildly surprised to find Campbell telling the truth. He was even
more surprised to find that Campbell hadn't somehow bribed one of the guards to wire up a bomb
to the brake lights.

'Thanks Roy, I'm coming home!' Snake said happily into the radio.

Snake kicked the motor into ignition and sped off across the ice, oblivious to Campbell's little
joke. The ice cracked and shifted the moment Snake set off, swallowing him up in its murky
depths. Snake laughed loudly, and good-naturedly cursed that fun-loving scallywag known as Roy
Campbell.

******************

Epilogue

******************

Snake was at home in his new house lounging around, having returned from the nuclear base to
find the old one razed to the ground. It had taken some time to relocate his beloved Husky after
it had been put into a shelter for mistreated animals, and even longer to persuade them that
there had been a mistake in it being put in the shelter in the first place.

Too long, as a matter of fact. Snake had ended up getting bored and murdering everyone inside,
before freeing all the animals and finding new homes for them all, which had taken the better
part of three hours. 'Kah, vagrants,' Snake said aloud. 'However, if goldfish are a tasty snack,
then I'm a mother loving lawnmower, and no amount of class stops glass going in MY ass! Mwahaha!'
He paused for a moment, wondering why he'd just said that. Shrugging, he finished off the new
song he'd blatantly ripped off from Weird Al Yankovich.

It went:

Say, do you remember that guy Campbell next door,
how he always was the neighbourhood clown?
Like the time he pulled my pants off and he took those colour pictures,
and posted copies all over town?

All those wedgies he gave,
all those shoe tips he ties,
all those cookies he made,
out of insecticide,
what a crazy kid Campbell was,
always fooling around!

Boy, what a joker, what a funny, funny guy!
I'll never forget about Campbell, no matter how I try!

You know I couldn't help but laugh, even though he treated me like slime,
Remember when he cut my car in half? Hell, he really got me good that time!

Say do you remember when I broke in Campbell's house late at night,
and tied his mouth with a rag?
Then I dragged him by his ankles to the middle of the forest,
and stuffed him in a big plastic bag?

If the cops ever find him, who knows what they'll say,
But I know that old Campbell's still with us today!
He would have to agree with me - it was a pretty good gag!

Boy, what a joker, what a funny, funny guy!
I'll never forget about Campbell,
No matter how I try... no matter how I try!

- Composed and written by Snake. Not Al Yankovich.

Snake stretched out happily now that his masterpiece was finished, and waited for Campbell's
response to his last trick...

************

Down in the driveway, Campbell was sniggering wickedly as he tied an old lady between Snake's
rear bumper and the garage door. Boy, would Snake have one heck of a mess to clean up tomorrow,
he laughed!

Igor broke wind in glee.

-----------------

The End...?

Requested by and dedicated to:

Naska Chijoue, a true master of her art.

Who'll probably kill me for this lousy offering to her greatness, but never mind...!