I have dreams.
Dreams of a flooded room in the ocean.
I dream i'm trapped in this room, awaiting the gates to heaven to appear and welcome me.
I was so close to leaving this world and my own body, but forces beyond my control had other plans.
I have dreams...dreams of my demise that was cut short and I can't do anything about it but see the scar on my abdomen that acts as a reminded of that day.
The day...I died...
Somewhere in America, it's a bright sunny day and a couple is seen by their backyard pool. Playing inside the pool though is a boy near his early teens and a girl several years younger than him, splashing each other with water and laughing.
"Hal, I challenge you to go underwater and hold your breath for a minute." the girl coyly teases her brother as she giggles at him.
"You're sure about that E.E.?" the boy questions his sister due to a lack of confidence in himself. "I don't even think I can last more than 30 seconds underwater before I need to catch my breath."
"Oh come on Hal. That's no fun." the girl pouts after hearing her brother make a case against going underwater for a minute. "If you don't do it, I won't play house with you for the rest of the week.
The boy thinks for a few second, embarrassed and annoyed over what his sister said, shakes his head and replies, "Okay okay i'll do it E.E."
"Good. See ya in a minute Hal." his sister cheekily replies and immediately goes underwater to tease him even further.
"Oh gosh darn it E.E." the boy groans in annoyance.. He then takes a deep breath and submerges into the water. As he stays underwater, he starts to count to sixty to try and make the bet a little easier.
Much to his surprise though, he manages to hold his breath underwater for a minute and quickly emerges out of the water. However, he quickly notices that his parents are gone and the sky has turned into a queasy shade of red. Worried for his sister's safety, he turns towards where she submersed herself and sees no sign of her.
Thinking that she's still underwater, he waits a few more seconds to see if his sister resurfaces only to realize that she may have gotten out of the pool. This prompts him to get out but when he does, he notices there's no footprints on patio.
"E.E., are you out there? E.E.?" the boy calls out, hoping his sister will respond, yet he receives no such response. The boy then starts cautiously walks around to see if his parents and sister are around but doesn't even seem to see any glimpses of them.
As the boy continues to have his back turned from the pool, bubbles begin to violently surface from under the water, as well as the ground starts to tremble in sync with said bubbles. He then turns around and sees a figure jump right out of the pool.
The figure happens to be a shirtless long haired man with facial hair and he happens to be holding the boy's sister hostage.
"Hey! Let go of E.E. Right now!" the boy shouts at the man, hoping that will somehow convince him to let his sister go. "I'll call the cops if you don't."
"Oh. Do you think the local authorities can do anything to a person like me?" the man sneers at the boy as he breathes down on his hostage's neck. "Let alone your friends...Hal."
"...Vamp." the boy sneers back in a voice that belongs to an adult man, all while it's seen that the boy has suddenly aged to adulthood in a split second and is now wearing glasses. He then adds" I will tell you again. Let go of my sister or...I will shoot you myself!" and pulls out a pistol.
"Hehehe. Hal, you can't ever save your sister. Not even in your dreams." the long haired man growls, which he then pulls out a knife and positions it against the girl's neck.
Right before the long haired man gets a chance to pull his next move, the other man aims his gun, closes his eyes and pulls the trigger. The bullet then speeds right into the long haired man and manages to send him flying out of the neighborhood. However, the man with glasses sees that his sister is suspended in the air and has a bullet wound in her torso. As he witnesses blood gushing out of it, he drops his gun, gets on his knees, starts to smack his head with his fists and breaks down into tears.
"Dammit dammit dammit! Why can't I ever save you, E.E. Why? Why! WHY?!" the man loudly cries out as the body of his sister slowly falls into the pool, bleeding profusely.
And then...in a darkened room, this man awakens.
His name is Hal Emmerich and it's been eight years since he played a role in the fall of the patriots.
But a good thirteen years since the death of his half sister Emma during the Big Shell incident of 2009.
Despite helping Solid Snake, Raiden and several others retire The Patriots, as well as becoming the legal parent of Sunny, he is still haunted by his inability to save his own sister.
As he pants and sweat drips down from his forehead, he leans towards a desk near his bed and tries to find his glasses. He manages to find them and immediately puts them on. Right next to him on his bed is an auburn haired woman, who has blankets wrapped around her body. She perks her head up right as Hal grabs his glasses, looks at him and asks, "Hal, are you okay?"
"...it's nothing, Brittany. Sorry for waking you." Hal apologizes to her as he puts his glasses on. He then gets out of bed, puts on some clothes and picks up his cellphone.
"Who are you gonna call?" Brittany asks Hal as she slowly gets out of bed while keeping a blanket wrapped around her nude body.
"Sunny." Hal gravely nods back as he dials her number on his cellphone.
"Isn't it a little late to be calling her?" Brittany questions him as she approaches Hal and keeps the blanket tugged against her exposed flesh.
"Nah she's probably neck deep in something so I don't think it'll be an inconvenience." Hal adds, still sounding shaken up.
"I hope so." Brittany replies and shakes her head in slight disappointment.
4:08 AM EST
Unknown Location, USA
January 19th, 2022.
Inside a hanger within SOLIS, a silver haired teenage girl is seen wearing a welder's helmet and working on repairing a aircraft. On the other side of the room is Bladewolf, who's laying down on the cold metal floor and scanning the room in case an intruder arrives. However, his sensor goes off when he hears a cellphone ringing. He perks up, runs up to the table the cellphone is sitting on, opens his steel jaws, grabs a hold of it and runs off towards the damaged aircraft.
"Alert. Alert. Someone's trying to get a hold of you, Sunny." the robotic hound shouts out as he holds the phone in his mouth.
"Do you see i'm busy, Wolfie?" the girl whines back as she tries to concentrate on her work.
"My sensors tell me that a Hal Emmerich is trying to reach you on your celluar phone." Bladewolf adds, ignoring what Sunny just said.
"Uncle Hal? Oh hang on a sec." Sunny replies as her tone becomes more concerned than it initially was. She then turns off her blowtorch, sets it down and descends from the ladder she was standing on. She then gets onto the floor, takes her welding helmet off, approaches Bladewolf, gets a hold of her cellphone and answers it.
"Uncle Hal, is that you?" Sunny asks the person on the other end of the line, hoping Bladewolf's sensors aren't starting to show their age.
"Yes Sunny it's me." Hal replies, sounding marginally more relaxed before. "Did I bother you?"
"Not a whole lot." Sunny quips back, though starting to sound a little tired."I was just trying to finish repairing something before I retire for the night. What about you?"
"I had that dream again." Hal stammers out, starting to sound shaken again.
"Lemme guess, Uncle Hal." Sunny playfully replies and starts to think. A light bulb then goes off in her head and she adds, "Was it about that Sniper Wolf lady?"
"It wasn't Wolf." Hal replies, declining that he was dreaming of Sniper Wolf, a long deceased member of FOXHOUND.
"Then was it Ms. Hunter?" Sunny asks him, figuring that it might be since since it wasn't Sniper Wolf he dreamed of.
"...sadly no, Sunny." Hal again declines as tears start to dribble down his face. He then takes his glasses off, cleans the lenses off with a tissue, then puts them back on, all while Brittany continues to watch him, worrying for his own well-being in spite of him talking to his niece. "It was Emma. I had another dream about my late sister Emma."
"Oh." Sunny mutters, which indicates that her chirpy attitude has taken quite a hit due to what Hal just said. Even though she never met her, she can tell just by the tone of Hal's voice how important his sister was to him, even more so than Wolf and Hunter. "I am so, so sorry Uncle Hal. I should've been able to catch on when you answered the phone. I guess my lack of sleep explains why my brain isn't at it's peak right now."
"You don't need to apologize for that, Sunny." Hal replies as he opens a drawer and shuffles through it. "I just wanted to hear from you again, especially since we live quite some distances from each other these days."
"Oh Uncle Hal. You know that i'll be coming down there tomorrow. That's why I decided to finish this repair up before I go take a nap. Can't leave someone's damaged aerial jet left unrepaired when i'm visiting you." Sunny replies back. Her tone immediately kicks back into being quite cheery despite being concerned for her uncle.
"Yeah that's probably for the best." Hal inquires while he manages to find what he was looking for in the drawer. "Anyways, i'll see you tomorrow."
"You too, Uncle Hal." Sunny replies with a real warmness in her voice. She then hangs up the phone, stretches her arms, yawns, looks at Bladewolf, hangs her cellphone back to him and tells him, "I don't think you've seen Uncle Hal, Wolfie."
"Negative." Bladewolf replies in his usual monotone. "I have never met Mr. Emmerich, though my database have enlighten me of who he is, so I expect him to be quite an adequate, yet slightly troubled man."
"Oh Wolfie. Always reading people you never met like books." Sunny giggles after hearing Bladewolf comment on her uncle. "Anyhow, can you please assist me on finishing these repairs?"
4:15 AM EST
New York, USA
January 19th, 2022.
After talking to Sunny on the phone, Hal puts his cellphone down, places a framed photograph on the table and looks at it. The photograph in question is of him and his sister Emma, taken not too long before the incident that robbed Emma of her joy of swimming. As he looks at the photo, memories of his time with her before the incident, after the incident and the last time he ever saw her alive flash through his head. More tears then start to drip out of his eyes as he realizes how long it's been since his sis passed away.
"Oh Emma." Hal mourns as keeps looking at the photo. Outside of the apartment complex he's living in, rain is seen pouring in the streets. On a balcony on a nearby building, a figure in the dark is seen spying on Hal with no apparent concern of being drenched in the rain. The figure remains crouched down until it notices a woman walking by. Since it doesn't want her noticing it's watching them, the figure takes a run for it and jumps off the building, disappearing into the night.
5:00 PM UTC
Kópavogur, IS
January 19th, 2022.
"Ms. Jensen. Are you okay?" a bearded thin haired man with a heavy Icelandic accent asks a short haired brunette woman in fatigues and shades as they both sit inside a helicopter. "You look a little pale."
"Just a little hung over." the woman replies with a slight groan as she rubs her forehead.
"Ms. Jensen, you knew that you were going to be on a flight en route to Kópavogur the following morning so why did you do that?" the man replies back with a hint of disappointment in his voice.
"Honestly I don't even remember, Mr. Nyström." she quips back in a dryly sarcastic tone. "All I remember was that I really, really wanted some liquor in my system."
"Oh brother. Get ekki trúa þessu skít." Mr. Nyström groans after he hears Ms. Jensen's explanation of her hangover. He then pulls out a pack of Ray Menthol, opens it, takes one out, looks back at Ms. Jensen and asks her, "Care for a smoke?"
"No shit." Ms. Jensen replies with a light grin on her face as she takes the cigarette out of the pack. Mr. Nyström then pulls out a lighter and lights both of their cigarettes. "So...the others have told me you're a two time ex-employee of Liquid Ocelot. How was it working with him?"
"Liquid Ocelot?" Ms. Jensen stammers after hearing that name. "Lemme just put things simply...the pay for my first tenure with him on Arsenal Gear was...decent, but the second one when I was enlisted as a co-commanding officer for the FROG unit was crap. I blame that only me and one other were not Nanomachine and SOP bound. The two of us were hired as commanding officers a notch below the man himself since the 'others' were nothing more than robots with organs in the state of mind they were in."
"Oh fjandinn. I knew how much of a hold the SOP and the nanomachines had on those ladies' minds but not to that extent. Bara hræðileg." Mr. Nyström replies with some disgust in his voice. "So glad those days are long behind us."
"Me too. The battlefield should be filled with those who can express how they feel, not littered with emotionless husks." Ms. Jensen replies back as she recalls her tenure as co-commanding officer of Ocelot's FROG troopers. "That was another reason why I hated that gig. Seeing fellow women in duty acting like mindless drones was very unsettling."
"So working for Ocelot during his insurrection can be summed up by poor pay and soulless accomplices. Glad to say he never reached out to me and asked me to join his troupe during that time." Mr. Nyström quips, being proud of not working under Ocelot's wing. "Still...does that mean the agreed terms of our greiðslur to you is a lot better than what Ocelot gave you during your tenure with him?"
"Obviously." Ms. Jensen replies while smiling. "Besides, I really appreciate getting paid upfront for this gig."
"Glaður að heyra það, Ms. Jensen." Mr. Nyström replies back in a satisfied tone. "This job is easy money for you, especially since you're an ex-FROG."
Right before they can continue conversing with each other, both Ms. Jensen and Mr. Nyström look out their windows and see that the helicopter is descending towards land. This leads to Mr. Nyström telling Ms. Jensen, "Looks like we're here. Get your gear ready so I can introduce you to a few friends of mine you'll be accompanying today."
Ms. Jensen nods back, grabs a bag she's sitting next to, stands up and awaits to leave the helicopter. Both she and Mr. Nyström then immediately notice that the plane has stopped moving, followed by the helicopter pilot shouting, "Við erum hér. Hinir eru að bíða fyrir utan!"
"Við munum taka það áfram, Símon. Margir takk fyrir flug og Guð hraða, vinur minn." Mr. Nyström replies to the helicopter pilot."
"Guð hraða til þín líka, Viðar." the pilot replies back as Viðar opens the door. Both him and Ms. Jensen then proceed to exit the helicopter and find themselves in the outskirts of Kópavogur. Awaiting the both of them is three men leaning against a tan Humvee with a M2HB-QCB machine gun mounted on top of it.
"Salutations, Viðar. Glaður að sjá gestur okkar hefur gert það með þér líka." one of the men, who appears to be rather pudgy and burly looking, shouts out as the newly arrived duo gets closer to him and the other two men.
"Halló, Sören. Haldið að bíða, ha." Viðar replies, twisting his lips into a smirk. He then stands right in front of Sören and in a split second, both men then embrace each other, hugging and shaking their hands. Viðar then turns his attention back to Ms. Jensen and tells her, "I apologize for Sören's lack of English. He never bothered learning it and neither did Ingimar, who you can easily recognize for his unusually slender build and pale blonde hair. However, both Lúðvík, who's this sculpture of a man you can see standing on my left and I can speak English so if you have any questions during this mission, feel free to ask us. Now with that out of the way, please introduce yourself to the others, Ms. Jensen."
"Dana. Just call me Dana from here on forth." Ms. Jensen tells the men, not digging that people are referring to her like she's their drill sergeant or something. "Anyhow, i'm a former member of Solidus Snake's Tengu Unit and and was a co-commanding officer of Liquid Ocelot's FROG unit. Aside from those two 'milestones', the other jobs aren't really worth mentioning. However, I do appreciate that you hired me and I will gladly do what you want me to do. That reminds me...please refresh me on what my job is here."
"Dana, your objective is to assist us finding and recovering Dagur Sjöberg. He's another member of our PMC group that's been kidnapped by some street gang and is being held captive a good fifty miles from here." Lúðvík explains to her, which garners a rather bemused expression from her face.
"Hold up. You're telling me that some street punks kidnapped this Dagur dude?" Dana stammers back in slight annoyance and bewilderment. "I hate to sound like a complete ass but you guys should be able to handle them on your own."
"Normally we are capable of handling these kind of situations but this isn't just a standard group of teenage punks, Dana. We're talking about some real slæmur rass móður helvíti hér." Lúðvík replies to Dana, trying to explain why they had to hire in the first place over something that sounds a bit pointless and easy on the surface. "Also, their ransom demands recommended us hiring you for a rescue mission. I know, it sounds bizarre but i'm telling the truth."
Dana remains quietly staring at Lúðvík and the others. She rolls her eyes at them all for a few seconds, then replies, "Okay. You already paid me for this job so i'm all ready for whatever weirdness comes our way."
"Good to hear that. Dana." Viðar chimes in satisfaction. He then opens up one of the Humvee's doors, gets in and orders the others, "Alright. Let's get in and go bust Dagur out of there. Dana, you're gonna control the turret while the rest of us will be inside the vehicle."
Dana nods back, gets in and makes her way up to the gun turret and stands there while the others get in. Viðar then starts the Humvee up and drives it away, heading towards where Dagur is behind held captive.
Little to their knowledge, however, a seven foot five humanoid machine suddenly appears out of thin air and is seen standing from a distance and watches them drive away. The machine then quietly mutters in a robotic growl, "Sick Boy, this is Ulcerator. Those Excalibur Valentine guys got the target and are heading your way."
"Glad to hear that." Sick Boy replies via Ulcerator's internal codec. "Disaster Blaster is in position to initiate the ambush while me, Sweet Jane and Z.N.S. will wait for his signal to make our presence known to Ms. Jensen. She has no idea who she's gonna be reuniting with today."
"I see. Ulcerator over and out." the machine replies back, signs off and turns his stealth camo back on so the helicopter pilot doesn't notice him.
1:45 PM EST
Washington DC, USA
January 19th, 2022.
Two men in business suits are seen standing in front of the President's room. One of them knock on it, only to hear a voice coming from the other side. The door opens it and reveals a mature woman with long curly dark hair standing in front of it in the room.
"President Lopez, we have something urgent to tell you." the African American man in the business suit tells the President.
"This better be good, Mr. Myer. Please come inside." President Lopez replies in a stern voice. She then looks at the other man and tells him, "Come in too, Mr. Turner."
Both men nod at her and enter the room. President Lopez then sits down by her desk and mutters, "So what's the Intel on our recovery mission over there?"
"Olivia...errr...Ms. President. They found REX, RAY and several other things...but they couldn't find any remains of Dr. Naomi Hunter and Vamp." Mr. Turner informs her, which immediately sends chills up her spine. "Do you have any clue of who could have any idea of where their remains could be, let alone anyone who may have paid Shadow Moses a visit since Liquid's Insurrection?"
"I think I might know someone." President Lopez sternly replies back with a very serious look in her eyes. "Get me Hal Emmerich's phone number. He might have a clue of where their remains could be."