Chapter 2- Breaking Jack
Months later...
Raiden spent the last few months with a Native American tribe, living in Alaska. They taught him many skills, the main one was how to track, hunt and better stealth. He wanted to bring the Patriots to their knees. The Metal Gears had to stop. He knew that Washington was their main base of operation and he was looking right at it.
The White House, the location of Big Bosses remains. Liquid's goal all those years ago on Shadow Moses Island was to get those remains, now Raiden was going to successfully obtain them and destroy the Patriots.
Or so he thought...
A bright spotlight shone in his eyes, he could not move. With all of his strength, he attempted to get up and break free, but to no avail. He was being kept down by metal shackles on his wrists and ankles. This gave him terrible flashbacks to the Big Shell when he was tied up naked with Revolver Ocelot and Solidus Snake.
"But sir, we can not do something like that. It destroyed the last subject." A voice said.
"We can not allow his mental state to grow too unstable, as he holds the back up data for GW in his-"
"I am aware of that, but he knows the location of Sunny and we can not complete Metal Gear without her." An elderly voice said, "Do as GW is suggesting! Is that clear!"
The transmission ended and the two scientists walked over to Raiden.
"Hello Jack, we need to ask you a few questions."
The first one was completely bald, had brown eyes, wore a pure crystal white lab coat and a pink shirt, "I am Doctor Ogra and this is my mentor, Doctor Madnar."
Madnar was an older looking man with a grey moustache. He was also bald with a grey ring of hair that started at one ear and ended at the other. His face was sort of angular and he had brown eyes. He was slightly hunched over, but his lab coat made it look like it was in a terrible condition.
"Where is Sunny?" Ogra said.
Raiden remained silent.
"How much do you know about Metal Gear Joy?"
Silence.
"How did you find our lab?"
Silence.
"This is not good..." Madnar spoke up.
"Have you, ever heard of Gray Fox?"
Silence.
"You are sealing your fate Jack. GW suggests that we- then fish the data out of your memories."
"Do what you me?"
"You will see Jack... If you do not cooperate."
"Your threats mean nothing to me."
"You asked for this."
Ogra released Raiden out of his restraints, quickly jabbing him in between two vertebrae. He screamed loudly in the pain, Madnar looked away as it happened and Raiden's body lay limp on the metal table. Motionless he lay, but he was still conscious. Ogra jabbed a needle into his foot.
"You feel that?"
Raiden expected that his body was paralysed, so he wouldn't be able to feel anything, but he could. His eyes clearly told Ogra that he felt it.
"Good, let us begin. You have to be unable to move, but still able to feel pain for this to work." He smiled.
"You cannot do this."
"Still torn from Frank are we?"
"No."
"Then prove it to Zero that you are not."
Madnar picked up a syringe that had a neon blue glowing liquid, "I am truly sorry." He jabbed it onto Raiden's leg.
He felt all the pain of a sharp butcher's knife going into the leg, whatever Ogra gave to him seemed to increase all the pain that he was feeling. Ogra placed brainwave monitors onto Raiden, "Once we have finished our experiment on enchanting the human body, we shall then take the information from you."
'Why are you doing this' Raiden thought, but his mouth would not respond to the words his brain wanted it to say.
Ogra yanked him back up, placing something on his back. Raiden didn't see it, but it was metallic, it attached to him like a sticky octopus, before several needles jabbed along his vertebrae and into his spinal cord. Raiden wanted to scream out in agony, the pain was too much for him to bare. Tears ran from his face, the only physical response he could give.
"I'm sorry if that hurt, but this is only one of your enhancements." Ogra smiled, "We are going to break your mind Jack."
"What?"
"Zero wants his free will, if he has it, well sadly he wouldn't listen. His past must consume him."
"No he has had enough!"
"Listen Jack." He placed a pair of VR goggles over Raiden's eyes, "You're going to sleep, but it's a special sleep, one where you will be able to feel all pain."
'No, please.'
"Are you ready?"
'Listen to me!' Jack screamed in his head.
"Good."
Then nothing...
Raiden awoke to the sound of gunfire, a very hard stabbing pain in his back was also the cause of the sudden sleep disturbance. He could feel his spine being played with, but he couldn't see it. His eyes flung open.
"Liberia?"
He remembered the thick sandstorms, the harsh sun with its scorching gaze. The smell of the cannon smoke. He walked across the red-hot sand, where he found the Small Boy Unit. The year was probably 1991.
Forty children, one was as young as three, all carrying rifles, shotguns and one had a grenade launcher. All lead by teenage George Sears. He walked upon the battlefield as proud as Raiden remembered.
"Listen up!" He shouted, "You are aiming for the enemy's weak spot. That is their head. If you miss their head, a bullet goes through yours."
He remembered this speech and the dreaded six-mile hike to where they encountered the enemy.
"Let's go!"
The boys started to march, for some reason, Raiden felt a need to go with the boys. After what felt like hours of walking a gun was fired at them, killing one of the boys instantly. They prepared them self for battle. A fight that lasted until sunset, all the blood flying out from their bodies at every shot. Most of the boys only managed to take sound the enemy and George was getting annoyed at that.
"My boy! Front and centre!"
An almost white-haired boy stood on the battlefield, moving his comrades out of the way, wielding an AK rifle. The enemy stopped and stared. The boy pulled the trigger, hitting each one of them in the head, not one of them missed its target. The blood, the bodies, memories that Raiden had tried so hard to forget, tried so hard to keep under a lock and key. Were all flooding back to him. His legs suddenly collapsed in a sudden pain, he'd been struck with a sledgehammer. Quickly he turned his head, no hammer.
"Look at how quickly you have forgotten your true nature." The white haired boy stood behind him, but he was also standing in front of him, mowing down the enemy with an onslaught of unmissable rapid-fire bullets.
"Who?"
"You don't remember me, your 'imaginary' friend." The boy said.
His voice was quite groggy and sounded only a few tones darker that Raiden's.
"Rippy?"
"So you do remember? Years of therapy, real friends and Rose have pushed me away Jack, pushed me into the corner of your mind and, I want out."
"No Rippy. I, have a fiancée now and a baby."
"A dead baby! Seems you forgot about that little phone call that bitch-"
"Don't talk about Rose like that!"
"Oh? Did I hurt your feelings? I am the only one who understands your pain Jack. No one else went through what you weren't through."
"Gray Fox."
"He's dead, so he doesn't count." He said with a murderous grin, "And I have the security tape lodged in your memory."
"What? How?"
"My conscious is a part of GW."
"An AI then. Wait how? Emma's worm destroyed GW."
"No, half your fucked up mind, I was alive before GW, remember. Those Patriots placed a backup system for an optic-neuron AI."
"That's not GW."
"How the fuck, do you know? It was given to you when you came to the states, and you memory is mazy at best. Through GW they kept me away, but now it was mostly destroyed by the stupid girl, here I am."
"Mostly?"
"Yeah she left a bit. The backup data, that was left in your head... So she died in a bloody mess for no reason."
Raiden felt another pain in his right side, his intestines were going out, he felt it.
"Ghostly isn't it?" Rippy said, "They did a similar thing when they placed GW into you. Paralysed you."
Raiden recovered from the pain and stood up, "Then why don't I remember that!?"
"Not all of your memories have been restored. You still have Nanomachines in your blood."
"Point."
Raiden's gaze turned to the fighting again, more bodies were displayed upon the sand like scattered pens on a desk. He couldn't look at them for too long.
"Wuss. Embrace your past, your others did. According to the government database, most of these boys became murderous madmen."
"That is exactly why I won't embrace it! I am not like them!"
"No. You're a Patriot pawn, all was have been all ways will be."
"What?"
"Think about it, your parents were killed by Solidus, who was President of America, the Patriots system tells all leaders around the world what they can and cannot say. Then you get kidnapped by them, house a backup for GW inside your brain. Get taken into the 'reformed' Foxhound, to be used again by them in the Big Shell. A pawn."
"No."
"You know that it's true. You can not hide from the dark gritty past that you try so hard to fight."
"I can fight it, the Patriots will not win!"
"That won a long time ago."
"They can be stopped... They need to be stopped."
"And what is telling you to do that? Your past, Snake, or their actions. Your motive is not truly your own."
A large sharp sword slashed at Raiden's carves, forcing him to fall to the ground in the pain, no blood and no blade.
"Make them stop this!" He screamed in his torture.
"I have no control over-"
"You have connection to GW Rippy!"
"They wouldn't stop, you're their prisoner, they don't care if you live or die at this point. Your life, never meant anything to them."
"AAAAAHHHHHH!" Raiden screamed.
Rippy smiled at his 'other' self's pain.
"You are me, why don't, you- feel this?"
Rippy shrugging, "Sadly I don't know that! They might be touching the wrong part of your brain."
Raiden looked up, the sea of bodies, the battle was over. The sight was too shocking to relive.
"You here!" George said.
A young Liberian boy who was around the age of six came out.
"You missed the enemy."
The boy started to shake in fear.
George placed his hand on the light-haired boy's shoulder, "Kill him."
Without a moment's hesitation, a single bullet was placed in the other boy's head and he fell lifeless to the ground in a bloody mess.
"That is how it is done. Follow that example and you won't end up like him." George said.
"... ... ... I killed him?"
"Oh yes, quite entertaining I must say. My favourite kill actually. Watching him flop down. Oooooh my cup of tea." Rippy said.
"It's not mine."
"Didn't you effortlessly kill those three guards when you went to see Big Mama?"
"Yes."
"And did you or did you not think about killing that guard outside of Area 51?"
"It wouldn't have been practical."
"You are so accepting to take a life when it benefits your own objective. But not this!" He swung both the arms out into the air.
Raiden had no comment to that, "You are right."
"Ha! And I bet you want to kill everyone here?"
"Of course, revenge for what they have done to Snake, Sunny and I."
"Then I can help you. Take those lives with the blade that you wield." He said holding his hand out.
Raiden did not wish to take any more pain fell upon him.
"Fine, if you refuse to give in, then you shall become my puppet as well!"
Raiden awoke with the light back in his eyes, strange people stood over him, but he felt as if he knew them.
"Red eyes... Welcome to the light, Rippy." Ogra said, "And your new body."