A Metal Gear Solid & Z.O.E. Fanfic by [REDACTED]
Venom walked into his quarters with a sigh. He set the WU Silenced Pistol on the nightstand as he sat down on his cot. He took out one of his birthday cigars, surely that would start to make up for the shenanigans recently plaguing Mother Base. He had been trying to enjoy the quasi-zoo Diamond Dogs had running on the Conservation Platform. Next thing he knew he was with Pequod, flying a man to the Medical Platform. The soldier was found near the bear enclosure, apparently he had wanted to "know what it's paw pads felt like."
He took two nice, long, drags, appreciating the fact that Seychelles didn't have the same embargo on Cuba that the United States did. His hair was still dripping from the shower unit. He thought of Quiet, of all the companions gone by. Snake's eye shot open, the cigar falling from his mouth, spraying ash as it hit the metal floor. Venom's face was suddenly filled with tears, his back feeling like Ocelot had run an electric current through his shoulder blades.
The faces of the Diamond Dog members dutifully saluting, hardly flinching as each shot put down one of their brothers. The rasp of his breath through the gas mask, the glow-sight obscured by a tear, the fight to keep his hand from shaking. He had to keep a steady aim. It's what these men earned...what they deserved. Besides the respect of Big Boss, a quick death was the only thing he could give them.
Snake shook himself back to reality. He focused on getting his breathing back to an acceptable level along with his heart-rate. As he calmed himself down, he noticed a manila envelope sitting on the shelf next to the sink. Venom's face betrayed the surprise he felt. It was incredibly rare for Big Boss to make contact with the Seychelles Mother Base, the hoops Miller had to jump through made the process long and tedious.
Venom took out his Sony Walkman and walked over to the sink. As Snake took out the cassette tape he inspected the label. Subject: TX-55, subtitle: Mobility. Venom walked back over to the cot, lay down, and hit play.
Kezr-POP
KAZ: "Boss, have you ever wondered how Peace Walker, ZEKE, heck, even Sahelanthropus were able to operate?"
BIG BOSS: "...I never thought about it. It seemed more important to stop them from moving."
KAZ: "Well it turns out they ran on some kind of special fuel. There was no way it was possible to equip a large enough battery, and while the armor was made to withstand a nuclear blast, the heat would have boiled the gasoline inside its tank."
BIG BOSS: "...Mm."
KAZ: "It turns out the ore responsible for bringing life to these things isn't just rare, to our knowledge, it's already run out."
BIG BOSS: "What?"
KAZ: "Apparently there was only one place you could mine it. Want to take a guess?"
BIG BOSS: "Costa Rica..."
KAZ: "Exactly. Here's the catch, the mineral is so rare because the earth never had any in the first place. Intel did some digging, a meteorite crashed around the jungles of Costa Rica circa 1967. That's how Hu-"
BIG BOSS: "No."
KAZ: "Right, sorry. That's how He was able to create Peace Walker, and subsequently, ZEKE. Boss, without this fuel, we can't complete the 55."
BIG BOSS: "Kaz, once you take care of X.O.F., I want you to start a salvage operation."
KAZ: "Boss?"
BIG BOSS: "We never got around to combing through the old Mother Base wreckage. ZEKE should still be-"
KAZ: "Integrated with Sahelanthropus. Due to Paz being Cipher's pawn, X.O.F.'s interrogation lead them right to it. They had already moved in a week after you fell into your coma."
BIG BOSS: "Venom is already dismantling X.O.F. and working on disabling Skull Face's forces. We'll just have to re-acquire certain objects from that frame's corpse."
KAZ: "Speaking of frame, you should have seen that thing jump. Combined with ZEKE's jetpack, with a big enough replica of the railgun, I bet we could send the 55 into orbit!"
BIG BOSS: "Kaz..."
KAZ: "Of course, sometimes my imagination runs away from me..."
BIG BOSS: "We need to make sure we're there to harvest the refined meteorite once Venom concludes operations in Afghanistan."
KAZ: "Don't worry Snake, while the dust settles I'll send a detached unit to pick up the Metatron."
Click
Venom deduced the tape was recorded during the middle of the Sahelanthropus Incident, which meant the collection was already complete. After how Kazuhira had been acting whenever Big Boss was mentioned by Ocelot, Venom wondered how he would feel about a visit to...Outer Heaven.
He got his answer as he looked up and saw Miller leaning against the door-frame.
"All for revenge."