I do not own Naruto or Metal Gear. I am taking myself hostage for the ransom of partial ownership of either franchise. Kishimoto or Kojima have six days to come up with a compromise to give me what I want or else. You don't even know what I'm willing to do to myself… This threat is real.
Don't ruin a young man's life because of greed. I will fuck myself up. You have no idea what kind of hell I can bring me.
Chapter 11: Against the Grain
Having just entered the first cargo room at the entrance of the underground maintenance area, Naruto frowned as he went through his supplies, "Okay I have two grenades left… three magazines for the MP5K… Five magazines for the SOCOM… I have most of the magazine left for the Dragunov and two extras." He blew a raspberry, "Yeah, that's not going to do me a lot of good down here."
"At least you've got weapons and bullets…" Meryl grumbled at hearing Naruto complain about his steadily depleting stockpile of ammunition, "I don't even have any extra ammunition for my Desert Eagle anymore."
"That's a shit gun for you anyway." Naruto told her as he went through his other supplies. Because of this he didn't notice the glare she leveled on him, "The damn thing jams too easily, it's too loud to be functional for something like this, it's heavy, and the recoil would kick your ass." He looked up from taking inventory to look at Meryl, "And yours looked brand new when I saw it this morning, have you even shot that thing before?"
"No." Meryl admitted with red cheeks at getting her attempted use of a new gun dressed down by a guy her age. The only time she had gotten to actually use her Desert Eagle was when Psycho Mantis took over her body and made her shoot at Snake, "I've been using the FAMAS the entire time right up until Snake and I fought Mantis. What does it matter anyway? I point a gun at someone and fire, then they die. It's that easy."
"Not when the person you're fighting is actually good at what they do." Naruto responded with a chiding look on his face, "You should make sure you're good with whatever weapon you want to use before you wind up using it in the field. Stupid stuff like that gets you killed." He would know. He had been shot enough times to fill an assault rifle magazine with the number of bullets that had been in him, mostly because of faulty practices that he had mostly been weaned off of by this point.
"Yeah, well I have to-." Meryl started to say before a sound of clattering occurred elsewhere in the room. Alerted by the noise, Meryl pulled the very Desert Eagle they had been conversing over and fired in the direction of the noise.
She missed her shot and a cry of alarm preceded electronic rippling, revealing a frightened Otacon, glasses slipping off of his face and a stunned look of fear pasted on his features, 'That was the third time I've almost been killed tonight! Maybe I should stop using this stealth camo for all the good it's doing me?' He thought as he looked at Naruto and Meryl nervously.
"You see?" Naruto commented amusedly, forcing Meryl to lower her gun, "You can't hit the broad side of a barn with that thing if you don't get time to aim." She pouted at him, but Naruto merely rolled his eyes, "You're lucky there's no guards stationed around all of the useless crap in here or they'd be all over chasing us out of here right now." He then gestured towards Otacon, "This is Dr. Hal Emmerich, but he likes to be called Otacon I guess. He's been helping Snake out for a while."
"It wasn't that big of a deal." Meryl tried to defend, though even she knew that argument about her attempted shot had no legs. Not only was the gun louder than Naruto's SOCOM pistols, even without their suppressors, the room had an echo… her ears were still ringing from the shot.
Ignoring that weak statement, Naruto walked past all of the crates and junk in the room to get over to Otacon, "What are you doing here? The guards down below are going to be out for blood, I wouldn't risk going down there if I were you, even with the stealth camouflage."
Otacon pointed beneath their feet, alluding towards the underground portion of the base, "Oh, Snake's already been through here. Yeah, the snowfield was free and clear so he was able to get right over here after getting out of the communication towers. Last thing I heard he beat Vulcan Raven in the storage room down below."
Naruto raised an eyebrow and frowned, "And by 'beat' you mean 'killed' don't you?" Otacon rubbed the back of his neck and nodded, "Don't say 'beat' when you mean 'killed'. There's a difference." He didn't mean to sound so harsh over it, it really didn't matter that much. It was just that other than turning his back on him and starting the insurrection with Liquid, Raven had always done right by Naruto, he never had a particular problem with the shaman. It honestly sucked that the man was dead, but Snake owed neither him nor Raven any favors, and Naruto had decided that Raven had picked his side a long time ago after what Sniper Wolf told him.
"Sorry." Otacon said in case he had gotten on Naruto's bad side. Any guy that could face down an entire platoon of Genome Soldiers and still be able to walk around and fight wasn't anyone he wanted to risk upsetting, "But Snake's really close to the hangar with Metal Gear REX, I'm surprised that Sniper Wolf hasn't tried to stop him yet." The man sounded rather happy that this hadn't occurred.
Naruto seemed to perk back up at hearing that Snake had more or less cleared the way down to the lower levels, as did Meryl, "That's great!" Meryl told Otacon, "This whole nightmare is almost over." She then looked at Naruto, "He does have a point though. I would have figured that Sniper Wolf would have tried to stop either Snake or you by now." After knowing who shot her, Meryl wasn't looking forward to another run-in with Wolf.
"I handled her already." Naruto said calmly, informing both of them that Wolf wouldn't be a factor in any more of the evening's proceedings, "She's not going to be fighting anyone."
"You?" Otacon said in a questioning tone of voice. Naruto fought against Sniper Wolf and won? What about whatever it was between them? He knew that he hadn't been imagining the camaraderie that the two had. Neither of them acted like they did with the other around anyone else in FOXHOUND. And he could just talk about going against someone that close to him that easily? And what did he mean by 'he handled her'?
Naruto just gave the man a dry look, "Yeah, me. Who else would have done it? Why does everyone think that I can't fight any of FOXHOUND? I'm not their damn intern or something." He then thought about that last statement, "Okay, technically I was, but that's not the point."
That wasn't even what Otacon had been implying. He was wondering how Naruto even brought himself to fight against her in the first place. If they did indeed fight, and he was the one still standing tall at the end of it then he would be remiss if he refrained from asking Naruto the question that made him queasy just thinking about it, "Did you kill-?"
"Like I said..." Naruto abruptly cut him off before he finished asking what he knew the man wanted to know more than anything else, "I handled it." He spoke with finality. He knew that he didn't kill Wolf. No one else knew it but Johnny and he was gone at this point. Things were better that way. The less people who knew that those two had gotten away, the better things would be in the long run.
Otacon didn't even know that Naruto could sound that cold when saying things. Even though he knew the blonde was a soldier he just didn't act like it a lot of the time; he admittedly did question the young man's being at Shadow Moses Island in the first place with Next-Generation Special Forces and FOXHOUND, people that seemed to take things more seriously. Now hearing that tone of voice from him on the Sniper Wolf matter and seeing the rather hard look in his eyes, it made him realize that this was the same person that fought off upwards of twenty soldiers by himself, the same person that blew up the inside of a tank hangar as a diversion.
And in his mind that left no doubt as to the fate of one Sniper Wolf. He had seen Naruto do those things nearly up close and personal firsthand. If he was there and Wolf hadn't been seen since attacking Meryl then that only meant that he had truly dealt with her. He knew in his heart that Naruto had killed Sniper Wolf… Naruto had done the very thing that he had been trying to convince Snake not to do if he crossed her path again.
"Why did you have to do it?" Otacon asked Naruto weakly as his fists shook out of anger, "Why did you have to kill Wolf? She was a good person! She didn't deserve to die! I thought you were friends! I thought you were more than friends! How could you kill her?"
He wished that attacking Naruto would have resulted in some sort of positive outcome for him. He refrained from doing so because he knew that attacking Naruto would get him very hurt very quickly. The way Naruto's attire and physical appearance looked he had been in fights all day and night, and he probably wouldn't have found a 135 pound scientist that had been skulking about instead of engaging in actual fighting trying to throttle him for defending himself and saving the country very amusing.
So all Otacon could do at this point was just let silent tears stream down his face as he dropped to his knees where the bawling began. He had never even gotten to speak to Wolf again before discovering her fate after having fought Naruto, "I was in love with her…" He muttered out through his crying.
Meryl could only look from the scientist that had broken down on the spot to Naruto who looked back at her and shook his head, sort of in an 'ask me or him later' gesture. Now was not the time to try and dredge up why Otacon was acting this way just because she didn't know. It obviously wasn't important to what was going on if Naruto didn't just tell her there. Still there was something wrong with watching a 25 year old man cry like that in front of her… and she didn't really know what to do about it.
On the other hand, Naruto didn't really like leading the guy on like that, trying to make it seem as if he had killed Sniper Wolf. He knew a few weeks back that he was into her, but Otacon knowing anything about what he had really done with her by handing her off to Johnny to keep safe and to get away from the base wouldn't have benefitted those two.
After this was over Otacon wouldn't be a criminal. Sniper Wolf and possibly Johnny would be, it was as simple as that. The fact that he thought she was dead was safer all around for her, since in this case at least one person believed that she was and would say as much when asked about it later.
It wasn't like he lied and said that he had killed her either, he just allowed Otacon to make his own assumption on the matter. He was never really good at lying, he never particularly liked it, but he could lead people on to make them believe something like no one's business.
Still, he felt like a real heel for putting the man in that state, especially for no good reason even if it was for the right purpose. Naruto looked over at Meryl, "Alright that's enough. I can't let you really go any further than this Meryl. I promised someone that I would keep you safe, and going down to where REX is definitely isn't safe."
"What?" Meryl cried out indignantly. She had come all of this way, had been taken over by a psychic, had gotten shot in three of her limbs by a sniper, dealt with all of the crap that had been going on since the base had been taken over, and here she wasn't even going to be able to see it out to the end? She didn't like that at all, "You think I'm just going to stay back because it's not going to be safe down there? That's bullshit!"
Naruto gave her a dry look, "Metal Gear is a 30-foot tank with legs that has machine guns, missile launchers and is going to be guarded and probably used by Revolver Ocelot or Liquid Snake. Neither of them are going to be bad at driving it, I'm sure. And then there's also the nuclear warhead part that I didn't talk about. Do you want to be around in case we set the thing off by accident?"
"...REX isn't that little. It's around fifty to sixty feet now." Otacon chimed in, still sniffling back tears, "REX was designed to be better than the last designs that came before it. The missiles are homing and anti-tank, the guns all freely rotate, and it has a high energy laser meant to deal with close range threats. It's feet are even powerful weapons."
After that little rundown of exactly what Metal Gear REX had to offer, Naruto just stared at Meryl with wide-eyes, something she did as well. He knew it was going to be huge, he knew that the weapons were going to be imposing… this on the other hand was ridiculous. But that more than anything told him that she definitely wasn't going down there with him.
Snake had already fought two different examples of earlier models. He had taken the measure of the metal behemoths before on his own. If anyone would be able to bring REX down then it would be him if push came to shove.
Naruto on the other hand could at least run interference and keep it off-guard. Maybe he could find something useful while he was down there to help take it out, but he wasn't holding his breath. In any case he was at least fast and agile enough to give whoever was piloting the machine fits in trying to catch him if he could pester them enough.
Neither of the two could risk someone going down there without a clue on what they were doing on how to fight REX nor could they let someone that didn't have the skill and attributes to pose a threat to the weapon. Meryl only had her Desert Eagle with its current magazine in it of which she had already fired a shot. She needed more bullets to even be effective on getting down there in the first place. Once she was there and if a fight with REX became inevitable she would only be a liability. She wasn't as fast as Naruto or Snake, she didn't have the weaponry needed to deal with REX, and she didn't know how to help without hurting the situation. One of them might get hurt or killed trying to watch out for her.
"Yeah, you're staying here." Naruto told her, and she actually didn't argue the point, something he took note of. He gestured down to Otacon who had taken up crying over Sniper Wolf again, "Make sure he stays alive and find a way for you guys to get out of here with Snake once everything ends."
A nod from Meryl was the reply. She wanted to be helpful, but even she had to know that against REX she would be no good. And they hadn't addressed how they were going to get out once everything was over so that was another good point as to why she didn't need to go down there.
With everything set as to how the dominoes would fall from here on out, Naruto turned to head deeper into the underground facility before he was stopped by Otacon, "Wait." Naruto turned to face him as he asked his question, "How could you do it? How could you go and do what you did to Wolf? The time you spent together, what you two had, didn't that mean anything to you when the time came? Did you even feel anything at all?"
Yeah if he had actually killed her he might have, but he hadn't killed her, which meant that he could sell his answer to Otacon's question coldly and put an end to the topic, "I could do it because it was what had to happen. She picked her side, she turned on me, she knew that we would have to fight if that's how things went. She wanted it that way. Before the battle ended, I don't know, maybe I made her realize that it was a mistake." He let out a sigh, "I did my job… that's all there is to it." He then started to walk away again.
"People your age shouldn't be speaking like that…" Otacon said quietly, though whether he knew it or not Naruto could still hear him, "It's not right… that you can just write off fighting and killing friends as your job. Who can live with themselves like that?" He shook his head slowly as Naruto kept walking away, "…You're a monster."
Meryl turned to stare at the scientist in shock as he kept crying silently and then looked up at Naruto who had frozen in his tracks before he finally replied to Otacon's words, "Maybe." He said just as quietly as he continued forward.
XxX
(With Snake – Underground Maintenance Base – En Route to REX's Hangar)
The things that he had been finding out about REX just made stopping this Metal Gear seem more and more important. Not only could the thing fire nuclear warheads, it could do so without the warheads actually being rockets. By use of the rail gun on the machine's shoulder, REX could fire nuclear weapons that wouldn't technically be missiles. They also wouldn't show up on any kind of radar. So the people being fired on wouldn't know about it until the attack had happened.
As if there weren't enough reasons to make sure that this thing never got fired up.
The secret to the PAL key needed to override REX that he had gotten from ArmsTech President Baker… It turned out that there weren't three separate keys. There was only one, but it had to be used in different situations. Once while normal, once while frozen, and once while overly heated.
He had just done the latter, the last code that Snake needed to put in, and he was currently on his way back to the hangar and the control room to do such and put this mission to rest, riding a cargo elevator down the long way back through the depths of much of the base.
It was a long way down, and the elevator moved slowly. There was nothing to do to kill time but to make sure that his equipment was all ready and set to go once the elevator stopped and let him off. Luckily for the sake of his boredom, his Codec went off, only for him to find that it was Naomi's frequency, "Snake can you hear me?"
He hadn't expected to hear from her again after all that had happened and all that he had been told, "Naomi, what the hell?"
"Campbell and the others are busy right now. I'm on a different Codec." She explained, as to why she was speaking so lowly and why she even had clear access to speak to him in the first place.
Snake decided to get right to the point and stab at the heart of the matter he really wanted to get to, "Naomi is what the Colonel says true?" He really wanted her answer to be a resounding no. He had enough problems tonight to hear yes.
But his luck wasn't even close to being that good, "…Yes." Of course everything was true, because he didn't have enough people in front of him trying to kill him, he needed the people watching his back to try and do it too, "But not everything I said was a lie. I don't actually know my real name or what my parents even looked like. I bought all of my current identification, but my reason for getting into genetics was true."
"Because you want to know yourself, right?" Snake remembered the conversation they had when he had been captured and imprisoned by Ocelot.
"That's right. I want to know where I came from, my age, my race… anything I can really." Why she was telling him this he didn't know, but he felt compelled to listen, "I was found in Rhodesia sometime in the 80's, an orphan."
"You mean what's now known as Zimbabwe?"
"Yes. Rhodesia was owned by England until 1965 and there were lots of Indian laborers around. That's probably where I got my skin color from but I'm not even sure about that." Her tone was kind of somber, as if not knowing these things and then admitting such saddened her.
Snake shook his head, not that anyone could even see it, "Naomi you're too worried about the past. Isn't it enough to understand who you are now?" If Snake kept dwelling on his own past then he might have been driven mad by this point.
That seemed to just irritate her, "Why should I try to understand who I am now? No one else tries to understand me. I was alone for so long, until I met my big brother and 'him'." She had before alluded to a brother much older than her that had taken care of her before dying. Apparently they hadn't even been related by blood according to what she said.
"Your big brother?" Snake didn't like where this was going. If she was about to talk about this big brother of hers then that meant he had something to do with Snake, and he never really liked when people referred to one other man as 'him'. It just never had any positive connotation for him.
"Yes. My big brother Frank Jaeger."
"What?" Damn, he called that one from a mile away. Gray Fox's real name was Frank Jaeger. The same Gray Fox that was running around Shadow Moses in that cyborg exoskeleton, the same Gray Fox that he had blown to bits in Zanzibar Land after a fist fight in a minefield, "No. Gray Fox?"
Naomi's tone turned reminiscent as she began to talk again, "He was just a young soldier when he picked me up near the Zambezi River. I was half-dead from starvation and he shared his rations with me." An accusing tint entered her speech, "Frank Jaeger, the man you destroyed, was my brother and my only family." This was just really not Snake's day at all. He just couldn't catch a break on any fronts at all, "We survived that hell together, Frank and I. He protected me. He's my one connection… the only connection I have to my past."
"-And he brought you to America…" Snake tried to finish for her. How else would she have gotten here?
"No." Naomi corrected him, "I was in Mozambique when 'he' came."
And by now, when people around Snake used the word 'he' and 'him' too much around him as if it were taboo to speak the person's name, ever since 1999, he knew exactly who they were referring to, "And by 'he' you mean Big Boss don't you?"
"Yes."
Crap. That meant that he had been the one that had done the damage to both Gray Fox and Big Boss… people that were apparently important to her.
"He brought us here to this 'land of freedom', this America, but then he and my brother went back to Africa to continue the war… and that's when it happened." He knew what she was going to say. He had to fight them both in Zanzibar Land, "You killed my benefactor and sent my brother home a cripple. I vowed revenge and joined FOXHOUND because I knew it was my best chance to meet you, and I prayed for the day that I would."
"And obviously your prayers were answered." Now that the shock from the revelation started wearing off, Snake started looking at this as he would anything else; as just another person that wanted to kill him.
Bring it on.
"I waited two long years after joining FOXHOUND…"
"To kill me? Is that all you cared about?" Didn't any of these people get that it was his fucking job? It wasn't personal. If he could have finished that mission without killing Gray Fox then he would have, unfortunately there was no such option.
"That's right." Apparently Naomi had no sense of giving quarter for the life of a soldier, "You were all I thought about for two years, like some kind of twisted obsession." She finished with a small laugh, as if she now found the whole thing rather silly.
"Do you still hate me?" Snake asked. She had been through all of this with him, she had seen how he lived while on missions like this, how he had no choice but to do these things sometimes. Zanzibar Land was his most clusterfucked mission ever, not counting the one he was currently on. It was the one that had broken him.
"Not exactly…" Naomi replied almost hesitantly, "I was partly wrong about you…"
"What about Liquid and the others?" Did the way she felt go any further than him? Did she have any vested interest in actually stopping the nuke from being launched, from Metal Gear REX being activated? Things were so close to being complete, would she really pull something that would keep him from finishing things up?
"I'll have my revenge on them too." She more or less assured Snake of the fact that none of the terrorist leaders would walk away from this. Liquid and Ocelot were the only ones left at this point anyway.
But hearing that she was putting down members of FOXHOUND and that the way she felt didn't stop with just him he had to ask her something else, "Naomi, you didn't kill that doctor too did you? The one that used Gray Fox for the genome experiments."
"Dr. Clark? No that was my brother. Afterwards I covered it up and helped him hide out." Naomi admitted, "I even helped him ensure that the young man he had with him was kept clear of anyone discovering his time in captivity as well." She let out another small laugh, "I never knew that the same boy that I wound up getting to a medical facility to lay low was Naruto Uzumaki. I didn't know what had become of him until I met him again. He was actually very useful in designing something very specific to FOXDIE even if he never knows of it. But then it was never his problem in the first place."
"So you actually knew more about Naruto than you let on?" Snake prodded further on the topic, "And that ninja-. I mean Gray Fox… he's come here to kill me?"
"Not much more than anyone else knows, but yes I do know Naruto a little better than anyone else knew. And I don't think Frank is here to kill you. I think he just came here to fight you." Well at least there was that going for him. Gray Fox wasn't there to kill him, "I wasn't sure before but now I think I understand. A final battle with you is all he lives for, I'm sure of it."
"Oh Fox no…" That was no way to exist and Snake knew it. Such an arbitrary purpose for staying alive, even for a soldier that had lived in battle was no good whatsoever, "Naomi tell me something."
"About FOXDIE?" It took long enough in her mind for him to get to worrying about himself and the virus he had been injected with, "FOXDIE is a type of retrovirus that only targets and kills specific people. First it infects the macrophages in the victim's body. FOXDIE contains smart enzymes created through protein engineering. They're programmed to respond to specific genetic patterns in the cells."
What a nasty little bug, "So they recognize the target's DNA?" Snake was no stranger to biological warfare and the like, but that was absurd.
"Yes. And they respond by becoming active, and using the macrophages they begin creating TNF epsilon." The sound of silence over the line indicated that Snake had no idea what that was, "It's a type of cytokine, a peptide that causes cells to die. It is carried along the bloodstream to the heart where it attaches to the TNF receptors in the heart cells."
Hearing heart was all he needed to know, "-And they cause a heart attack?"
"The heart cells undergo shock and suffer an extreme apoptosis, and then… the victim dies."
"And you must have programmed that thing to kill me too, right?" Why wouldn't she have? She wanted her revenge, so why not use her miniature Frankenstein monster to take him down? And the silence he got in return was the only answer he needed once again, which begged only one last question, "Do I still have time?" Once again he did not receive an answer, "Naomi, I don't blame you for wanting me dead. But I can't go yet, I still have a job to do."
"…There's still something you need to know." Naomi finally spoke, hesitance clear in her voice, "Snake, I'm not the one who made the decision to use FOXDIE. You were injected with FOXDIE as a part of this operation. I just wanted to let you know that." Snake didn't say anything. How are you supposed to respond to something like that? Having secrets kept from you about your mission is one thing, but having a deadly virus intentionally injected into you was just unexplainable, "No, that's not the whole truth… The real thing I wanted to tell you was-."
At that moment, footsteps could be heard running over the Codec from Naomi's end before Campbell's voice came over, muffled from the background, "Hey! What are you doing?" There were sounds of a short struggle and the line being disrupted before Campbell came up, "Snake, I can't allow Naomi to make anymore unauthorized transmissions. Naomi's been removed from this operation."
"What?" Why did it have to happen right then? What was she going to say to him before they took her away? "What happened to Naomi? What did she mean when she said that FOXDIE was a part of this operation? Colonel let me talk to her!"
"I won't." Campbell said with finality, "She's under arrest."
"Damn it…" Snake muttered angrily, "You really did double-cross me…"
"There's no time for that right now Snake!" Campbell insisted heatedly, "Right now your job is to stop Metal Gear! Okay Snake?" And with that he hung up, leaving Snake alone to stew in his own thoughts.
With all conversations done, Snake still had to wait on that long elevator to reach the lower portion of the base. Things had gotten progressively worse… all Snake knew was that when all of this was over if he lived long enough afterwards he was really going to disappear. This was the final straw period. What was even the point of loyalty anymore if he was just going to be used as if he didn't matter?
He thought these things to himself until a rather heavy thud landed on the elevator behind him. Snake whipped around and set himself in a ready fighting stance until he saw who it was that landed behind him, "God kid, don't do that. I thought you were another one of those stealth camo idiots." He said upon seeing Naruto, "How did you even get here?"
Naruto pointed up and then at the metal wire wrapped around his taped right fist, "I anchored a kunai up top and just dropped while holding onto my wire. It's like rappelling only way more dangerous and stupid." He started unwrapping his fist and shook it out, "Also if I wasn't wearing this tape and hadn't bundled the wire so well I probably would have cut right through most of my arm."
"That's lovely…" Snake said sarcastically before letting out a groan, "Where's Meryl? I thought you were going to go get her."
"Done that… Now she's with Otacon who's having a mini freak-out right now." Naruto saw Snake's questioning glace and he decided to elaborate, "I fought and beat Sniper Wolf and told him when he started asking about her."
'Damn, that's pretty impressive.' Snake had to admit that fighting Wolf was not on his list of things he needed to do today. So now he owed Naruto for getting Meryl and himself out of lockup, but now for dealing with one of his main threats. No wonder he never ran into her again, "So wait, you're actually going to help me deal with this personally?"
Naruto shrugged, "I'm here aren't I? Of course if you actually want to do this alone then I can head right back up." He said with a grin. He wasn't going back up top even if Snake actually did ask him to. Getting not even the usual roll of the eyes for his attitude from the elder soldier, Naruto frowned, "Hey is there something wrong Snake?"
"I don't even know where to start or where to begin…" Snake said in return, noticing that Naruto did actually seem to be somewhat concerned, "Don't worry about any of it though. I'll still be able to finish the mission, don't you worry about it." There was no quitting anything now, no matter how he felt about it. He didn't have the option.
Looking over at Snake who seemed to have enough equipment to take on half of the soldiers stationed elsewhere in the base, Naruto commented on Snake's state of mind, "I'm not really that worried about the mission Snake. But if you don't want to talk about just what the big problem is, I'll let it go."
The elevator then finally reached the level that REX's hangar sat on and let them off, letting the both of them rush through the rest of the base to the target.
XxX
(REX's Hangar)
"You've got to be kidding me…" Naruto said with a twitching eye as he stared up at what he saw to be the Metal Gear REX model that was the focal point of all of the mayhem that had been taking place, "Who builds crap like this?" He asked dubiously.
It looked like a t-rex dinosaur made of metal. The entire frame of the machine was heavily armored. It did indeed stand just as high off of the ground as Otacon had said that it did, it was also more massive than Naruto had been expecting. The two massive reverse-joint legs were just as wide as at least three or four of him. On its shoulder, looking past all of the other imposing weaponry, sat the miniaturized, yet still rather large rail gun that would launch nuclear weapons once everything was all set and ready to go for .
Snake noticed Naruto's slack-jawed stare and nodded," That's Metal Gear for you. Designers really don't mess around when they make these things." Still, when he had seen it the first time he had a similar reaction to it. It was just the fact that REX was an upgrade from the last two models he had seen that he had gotten over it quickly.
Naruto still recovered though, though he was still in awe that people could create something like this. If it operated as dangerously as it looked at first glance then he needed to put that thing down. Hell, the portable weapons that Snake had with him wouldn't even do the metal monster any damage. It was too heavily armored. Oh well… "Meh… Shukaku was still bigger." Shukaku didn't have guided missiles though and couldn't nuke a country from entire continents away though.
Snake let out a grunt before he began to climb the maintenance balconies to make his way back to the control room high up on the third floor against the wall of the massive hangar. He obviously knew what he was there to do, to input the PAL key and bring all of this to a close.
On the other hand, Naruto just took notice of the fact that for REX being the single most important aspect of Shadow Moses, there wasn't a soul guarding it. There wasn't anyone anywhere, not even hiding anywhere ludicrous that he would choose to use to keep himself hidden from sight. So it was time to take advantage of that little fact.
Naruto started directly scaling REX to get to the cockpit at the mouth. Looking inside to find out if he could have stolen this thing and actually used it if Snake wasn't about to deactivate it forever, he felt clueless and out of place as he did so. And he thought flying a chopper was a big deal. He had no idea where to even start about possibly driving REX. Even if the thing was turned on he doubted there was a tutorial system inside of the thing.
"Wait…" Naruto said to himself, scratching his head as he looked into the cockpit, "Why are there six petals if there are only four directions?" Yeah, Liquid was right on the money when it came to keeping him out of the hangar for all of those months. If he had access to REX, even if he still didn't know about the insurrection, he would have been trying to learn how to drive it anyway just because he could. Then he would know how to drive it for sure.
On the other hand letting him see REX might have been a better diversion than keeping him up top at the base, doing nothing for as long as they did.
"…Bastard knew I would want to drive it… Can't anyone even let me steal anything the right way anymore?" Naruto muttered angrily before jumping to the top of REX and sitting on the top of it to wait for Snake to finish.
XxX
(With Snake – REX's Hangar – Control Room)
Snake inserted the final form of the PAL key into the necessary slot provided in the computer to end everything and waited for the confirmation announcement that everything had been shut down.
"PAL code number three confirmed." The computer stated, putting a small smile on Snake's face. He was smiling right up until the computer spoke again, "PAL code entry complete… detonation code activated." An alert then went off sounding throughout the entire hangar.
"No!" Snake exclaimed, banging on the computer as if that would take back what had just been declared, "Why?" He had done everything right! He had gotten the key down there just like Baker told him he would need to, he had put the key in three times, so why was the detonation still going to happen?
"Ready for launch." A startled Naruto stood up and jumped off of the massive Metal Gear as it seemed to kickstart and rumble violently.
Naruto landed near Snake's place in the control room and looked over inside through the observation window, banging on the glass of the room, "Snake what happened? Were we too late? What about the PAL key? Wasn't that supposed to stop it?"
"I don't know!" Snake yelled back, "I just don't know! I deactivated it! I know I did!"
"Thank you Snake." He heard over his Codec. It was Master Miller's Codec frequency, "Now the detonation code is completed. Nothing can stop Metal Gear now."
"Master what's going on?" Snake asked.
"Master?" Naruto repeated questioningly before gritting his teeth angrily and trying to use his own Codec to get in on the conversation himself.
He tapped in just as Miller continued to speak, "You found the key and even activated the warhead for us too. I really must express my gratitude. I'm sorry to have involved you in that silly shape memory alloy business with the PAL key." Miller had never sounded so damn smug before. That wasn't like him at all, Naruto knew he was right about sending someone to the man's house.
"What are you talking about?" Snake growled out. He thought this was over. Why couldn't anything ever be cut and dry?
"We weren't able to learn the DARPA Chief's code." Miller said, sounding very victorious over the whole matter, "Even with Mantis' psychic powers he couldn't read his mind. And then Ocelot accidentally killed him during the physical interrogation. In the end we weren't able to launch the nuclear device and we were all getting a little worried. Without the threat of a nuclear strike, our demands would never be met. Without the detonation codes we had to find some other way, and that's when we decided that you might prove useful Snake. I thought we could get the info from you, so I disguised Decoy Octopus as the DARPA Chief… unfortunately he didn't survive the encounter thanks to FOXDIE."
'So that was what killed Octopus.' Naruto thought to himself before blinking in confusion, "Wait… what the hell is FOXDIE?" He asked out loud.
Snake couldn't believe it. He had been used again. Not only by his own comrades but by the enemy too, and they were all getting what they wanted out of him, "So you had this planned from the very beginning? Just to get me to input the detonation code!"
Miller just started to laugh out loud over the connection, "You didn't really think you made it this far on your own did you?" He taunted cruelly, "In any case, launch preparations are complete. Once the world glimpses the power of this weapon the White House will have no choice but to surrender the FOXDIE vaccine to me. Their ace-in-the-hole is useless now."
"Ace-in-the-hole?" Naruto said questioningly. Wasn't sending Snake in the big plan? What was supposed to happen if he didn't pull the mission off? He didn't get the point of things, "Wasn't Snake the entire focal point of whatever the higher-ups wanted to do?"
"Still just a child. You have no idea of what's going on around you." Miller said amusedly in reference to Naruto, getting an angry grunt out of the young man, "The Pentagon's plan to use Snake was already successful back in the torture room." He then let out a cackle, "Snake you're the most important part of all of this and you don't even know! You poor fool."
"Who are you anyway?" Snake just wanted to know who this person was so that he could put a few rounds into his kneecaps. Nothing major. It wasn't like this mission wasn't grating heavily on his nerves and he needed some kind of release. Nothing like that at all.
"I'll tell you everything you want to know… if you come to where I am that is."
Snake growled lowly, "And where are you?"
"Very close by…"
At that moment, Campbell's voice chimed in once again over the conversation, "Snake that's not Master Miller! Naruto was right the entire time!"
"You're too late Campbell." 'Miller's' voice taunted in a sing-song manner.
"Master Miller's body was just discovered at his home! He's been dead for at least three days!" Hearing that gave Naruto a feeling of just being punched in the stomach. He had to sink against the wall to process that thought. He kind of knew that it would be the case, no amount of optimism would take that niggling thought from the back of his mind. However the reality was much different from just thinking about it being a possibility, "My Codec signal with him was jammed, but Mei Ling just said that his transmissions have been coming from inside of the base! Snake this entire time you've been talking to-!"
"Me…" Suddenly Master Miller's voice took on a British accent, "…My dear brother…"
"Liquid!" Snake yelled angrily.
"You've served your purpose…" Liquid stated smugly, "You may die now." At that moment the doors to the lab Snake had been in locked and gas started filtrating into the room.
Naruto saw the gas beginning to fill the room and started punching at the windows, unable to break them. He pulled out his SOCOM and fired at it only for nothing to happen. The glass was at least bulletproof in strength. He heard footsteps on the metal catwalk around the side of the control room out in the hangar and saw his prime target for even being there in the first place… and he had more of a reason now to kill him than he ever had before, "Liquid you're dead!" He yelled in anger as he jumped off of the side catwalk onto the head of REX.
Seeing Naruto standing on top of REX, Liquid turned his FAMAS towards Naruto and began to fire at him, missing when Naruto jumped off and landed on the maintenance balconies surrounding it, "You could work with me Naruto." Liquid said to him once Naruto took cover around the backside of REX to buy himself some kind of reprieve from Liquid's assault rifle, "You could get all of those questions you have answered. You could live in a world where you would always be wanted, always be needed! I'm doing this for men like us! The fighters! Trying to make a world where we're valued!"
"I already had that you bastard!"
From the very top of REX, two Naruto clones had their MP5K's pointed at Liquid while from both sides of the maintenance balconies beneath two more clones provided more well-aimed fire from their SOCOM pistols as the clones up top tried to focus their automatic fire to corral Liquid and give the pistol shooting clones an easier chance to hit him, "Master Miller was the only man that ever meant a damn thing to me in this world!" The original Naruto shouted angrily. It was clear that the real one wasn't among the clones because of the lack of emotion on the clones' faces, "He was like family to me! And you think I care enough about my place in this world to let you use me the way you used the rest of FOXHOUND?"
Sick of being shot at, Liquid placed a pair of grenades in the pockets with the pins drawn out and threw the heavy trench coat at Naruto's clones atop REX, rocking them with the explosion and dispelling them, even if they weren't caught in the explosion to keep Naruto from taking further phantom damage.
Liquid smirked at seeing the copies of Naruto destroyed, but heard a yell mixed with pain and anger coming from behind him, turning around to meet a fist to the face from the original Naruto that made him drop his gun.
This would mark the second time today that Naruto felt the pain of being caught in an explosion by way of his clones, only this time it didn't hurt nearly as much as the first time. And that left Naruto free to attempt to vent his anger on the one place that it mattered with the only weapon he felt like using at the moment, Liquid's face with his bare hands.
Specs of red began to bleed into the blue of Naruto's eyes, but when he began to actually feel it he forced it back, 'I don't need you! This is for me! You didn't know or care about Master Miller so don't step in!' Naruto basically ordered the Kyuubi who was trying to leak its power into him by way of his anger.
Naruto landed several hard blows to Liquid's face with his fists before the stunned FOXHOUND commander was able to register what was happening and put up a defense against it. He grabbed Naruto by the front of his vest and yanked him in forward to jar him with a series of headbutts to the face that stopped the offense, "I will not lose a fight to a babyfaced runt!" He shouted as he grabbed Naruto by the hair and threw him harshly into the railing on the side of the catwalk.
A bloody-nosed Naruto's body smashed the metal, however he lashed back out with a stiff front kick to Liquid's face, using the railing to steady himself. The satisfying clicking sound of Liquid's jaw suddenly snapping shut from the kick got Naruto back into the reason for the season so to speak, which was to make the man suffer for what he had done, "This 'babyfaced runt' is going to kill you Liquid!" Naruto shouted at his fellow blonde as he cast off his vest that Liquid had just used for leverage. If that was how the fight was going to go then he didn't need the extra grip for an opponent.
Liquid's back hit the wall and he growled at possibly getting a chipped tooth from some punk kid, 'He can't possibly be that good at hand-to-hand combat. He doesn't even know CQC or any kind of actual style.' Liquid thought as he came back in to fight Naruto on the narrow catwalk. His first jab was blocked but Liquid then followed up with a powerful straight right hand that broke Naruto's guard with brute force.
'Man he's got scary strength!' Naruto thought as he stumbled back, forearms stinging harshly from the blocked punch, still he wasn't even close to backing down. Liquid would have to kill him, which was the general idea of the fight in the first place. Naruto came back in at Liquid who seemed to be timing him for another powerful punch, however he telegraphed himself thinking that Naruto would just come forward and attack head-on. Liquid had taken that to be his nature in personality and in combat.
With Naruto seeing the punch coming right for him all the way, he used his superior speed to hop up onto the railing of the catwalk and deliver a hard kick to the side of Liquid's head that sent him stumbling to the side against the wall. Naruto jumped off of the railing to plant his boot right on Liquid's head as it sat near the wall to squash it but he missed. Naruto saved face by using his chakra to stick to the wall, preparing to launch another aerial attack until Liquid grabbed him by his back leg and pulled him off, slamming him against the metal railing again.
There was a reason why Liquid was the man in control. While he specialized in utilizing vehicles he was no slouch in any other combat aspects. Ocelot and Liquid were the only members of FOXHOUND that Naruto actually thought were dangerous just off of hand-to-hand skills alone. Raven had the size to be a threat but no real skill behind it other than rudimentary training to defend himself and while that would be enough against anyone normal, Naruto, Ocelot and Liquid had the pure skill to take him down on their own if it came down to fists.
With Naruto pinned against the rail, Liquid slammed a knee into Naruto's stomach and pounded away on his head with punches until Naruto dropped to his knees. He grabbed Naruto by his hair and jerked his head back, pulling him to his feet so that he was looking at him directly in the eyes, "Killing Miller and taking his place was the best way to get in with Snake… but if it really bothers you that much I'll make sure you and Snake meet him again soon!" He laughed, pointing at Snake still trying to survive in the heavily gassed room.
Taking his eyes off of an even mostly immobilized Naruto was a mistake that he would soon pay for. Even without his hands, Naruto still had something up his sleeve as a quick movement of his tongue produced a razor blade from his mouth that he used to quickly cut Liquid across the side of his face, forcing him to let go, 'I was aiming for his throat…' Naruto thought to himself as he got his legs back under him and shot out a side kick to the face, 'Why can this guy take a hit so well?' Naruto asked himself as the fight moved down the catwalk in front of the control room that Snake was stuck in, windows providing him a clear view as the fight moved directly into his line of sight as he struggled to keep from inhaling the gas.
Naruto wished he could help, but he had his own problems at the moment.
An angry Liquid with a rather deep wound on his cheek that might have taken an eye if it had been a few inches higher caught a spin kick from Naruto and threw him against the unbreakable glass of the control room, following up with a hard right hand to the body. He heard Naruto sharply exhale from the force of the punch before the youngster responded to Liquid's attack with knee to the inside leg that threw off his balance and an elbow to the face that sent him backwards and set them at a stalemate again.
"Why did you have to kill Master?" Naruto angrily demanded an answer from his former commander, "He didn't have anything to do with this! He was innocent!"
Liquid merely wiped away the blood running down his face from the cuts and contusions that had formed from his fight with Naruto, "There's no honor in dealings like this you idiot! Just because someone is 'innocent' doesn't mean anything! Wars are fought all over the world and innocents are caught in the crossfire everyday! You haven't seen true innocents! He was a means to an end, a way to manipulate Snake, to get intelligence on my enemy… just like the rest of FOXHOUND were merely fools if they could all fall to you and Snake so easily."
"And that's why your stupid plan to make a haven for soldiers doesn't have any legs to stand on…" Naruto growled out, "Why would anyone follow you if they couldn't trust you? You'd feed me to the jackals the second anything got a little tough, and you're offering me a chance to join you? No thanks. So good luck getting anyone worth working with to help you without Mantis brainwashing them!"
"In addition to the nearly 1000 men I have stationed here I have at least 1000 of the Gurlukovich Mercenaries with Sergei himself just waiting for the demands to be met!" Liquid snapped back at Naruto heatedly, "They will help form the core of the new Outer Haven! The world won't dare touch us as long as we have Metal Gear REX, and our forces will only grow while the larger nations bicker over what we accomplish here!" His faith in his plan, even after all of the potholes that had sprung up thus far was impressive, "One washed up old soldier for all of the things that I've done and will continue to do… I'd say that the kill is worth the benefit from it." He said lowly in a derisive manner before a row of shuriken buried themselves in his chest. He never even saw Naruto draw them he moved so fast.
And then he didn't even have time to react as Naruto angrily charged him and tackled him to the ground. Liquid used his legs and kicked Naruto back to get him off. As he tried to get up, he took a series of kicks to side of the body and the head from a Naruto that wasn't going to give him any reprieve even as he tried to stand back up.
Throwing stars? Honestly? If the kid could fight dirty then so could Liquid if that was how he wanted to play, he was sick of losing anyway. He was not about to let some 18 year old punk with a grievance keep beating him up at the time of his greatest triumph, this was his moment.
He got his opportunity quickly when Naruto went high with a kick at Liquid's head and missed due to Liquid ducking low. The crouching Liquid unleashed an uppercut to Naruto's most vulnerable area and basically lifted him off of the ground with the ferocity of the hit. No need for the fancy little assassin tricks that Naruto employed from time to time; cheating was cheating either way.
Naruto fell to the ground, wide-eyed and coughing horribly, feeling completely drained from the punch to his testicles. Liquid then proceeded to put the boots to the downed blonde's body and head until he pushed him towards the end of the catwalk and with one final kick pushed him over the edge to the ground below.
Liquid listened to the dull metallic thud of Naruto's body hitting the ground below and let out a loud laugh at the rudimentary way he disposed of him, "So much for that…"
Snake watched the entire sequence of events from his place trapped in the control room, "Kid!" He exclaimed before coughing. The gas had almost taken him down at this point, but he was aware enough to watch Naruto take the fall, "Otacon get me out of here!" He roared into his Codec.
Otacon had been hacking into the systems from wherever he had been to free Snake from the trap in the control room, "Snake I've got the door open! You're free!"
That was all he needed to hear as he raced through the room and sprinted outside, getting his full wits about him back now that he had fresh air to breathe. He rushed over towards where he had witnessed Naruto fight Liquid and quickly pointed his pistol at the man, "Liquid…"
"You'd point a weapon at your own brother?" Liquid asked mockingly, "I must say that you performed quite well even with all of the manipulation… I'm sure the boys in the Pentagon are saying the exact same thing."
"What are you talking about?" Snake asked, glaring Liquid down more or less at gunpoint.
"Following orders blindly with no questions asked…" Liquid ran a hand through his hair as his smirk returned now that his fight with Naruto was through, "You've lost your warrior's pride and become nothing more than a pawn Snake." He pointed down, alluding to where Naruto's body had dropped to, "At least he understood the concept of not letting himself be used… even if he sort of was in the end." He returned his full attention to Snake, "Stopping the nuclear launch, rescuing the hostages… all of this was just a diversion!"
Having had enough of all of the mind games after having just watched Naruto drop forty or fifty feet to the ground to go along with everything else he had been dealing with tonight, Snake snapped at his 'brother', "Tell me what you mean!"
"The Pentagon only needed you to come into contact with us! That's what killed the ArmsTech President and Decoy Octopus!" Liquid laughed at the realization on Snake's face, "That's right, you were sent in here to kill us so they could retrieve Metal Gear undamaged along with the bodies of as many Genome Soldiers as they could recover. From the beginning the Pentagon was just using you as a vector to spread FOXDIE."
"Are you telling me Naomi was working with the Pentagon?" The thought only made Snake grit his teeth angrily.
Liquid shrugged, "They thought she was. But the dear doctor couldn't be controlled so easily… my spy told me as much." He informed him, "My spy reported that she altered FOXDIE's program right before the operation… but no one knows how or why."
"I wonder…" Snake stated with a shadowed look in his eyes, "Maybe they arrested her so they could find out the answer to that."
"No doubt brother." Liquid said in a patronizing way as if he were talking to a child, "But I had no idea she was motivated by such petty revenge. We still don't know what changes she made to FOXDIE's program but I've already added the FOXDIE vaccine to the list of White House demands."
"There's a vaccine?" Snake didn't sound too sure about that. That would be a little too convenient wouldn't it? Why would a specifically altered disease meant for only a handful of people have a vaccine?
"There must be." On the other hand Liquid seemed positive that a vaccine existed, "But the only one who knows for sure is that woman… but it might prove to be unnecessary… because you contacted all of us so we must have all been exposed to the virus. Yes, Baker and Octopus were killed by it, but Ocelot, myself, and Naruto whom they didn't know wasn't on our side until you got here, along with you the carrier were apparently unaffected."
"You must be lucky like that." Snake quipped, "Maybe there's a bug in the programming."
Still, Liquid seemed to be unconcerned with anything going on at the moment, "In any case if it doesn't kill you then I'm not worried either. After all, our genetic code is identical."
"So we're-."
"Yes. We're twins." Liquid stated firmly, "But we're not ordinary twins. We're twins linked by cursed genes." He let out a bitter laugh, "Les Enfants Terribles." Anger then crossed his face, "You're fine. You got all of the old man's dominant genes. I got all of the flawed, recessive genes. Everything was done so that you would be the greatest of his children. The only reason I exist is so they could create you."
Snake let another joke fly, "I was the favorite huh?"
"That's right." Liquid spewed hatefully, "I'm just the leftovers of what they used to make you. Can you understand what it's like to know that you're garbage since the day you were born?" He then smirked again, "But… I'm the one father chose."
"So that's why you're so obsessed with Big Boss…" Snake surmised, "Some warped kind of love." He himself wouldn't have understood it. If anything Snake hated Big Boss for what he had done; betraying him, using him… love was the last thing he felt when he thought of his 'father'.
"Love?" Liquid sounded offended by the mere thought of it, "It's hate! He always told me I was inferior, and now I'll have my revenge! You should understand me brother. You were the one that killed our father with your own hands! You stole my chance for revenge! And now I'll finish the work father began. I will surpass him… I'll destroy every aspect of him…"
"You're just like Naomi." Snake remarked, sick of hearing Liquid's sob story. It didn't mean anything to him, just another psychopath that figured he was in the right somehow. Just someone else that couldn't move along to find something new for themselves.
"Well I'm damn sure not like you!" Liquid retorted, "Unlike you I'm actually proud of the destiny that is encoded into my very genes!" With that, Liquid jumped over the side of the railing and landed in REX's open cockpit.
Snake holstered his pistol and took off in a retreat away from the active machine, "Damn…" A gun sure wouldn't do any good against that metal behemoth for sure.
"Snake!" Liquid's voice came over the intercom that was being projected from REX, "Your blood will be the first to be spilt by this glorious new weapon!" The maintenance balconies around REX fell as it began to move, "Now you get to see the power of the weapon that will lead us in the 21st century!" The massive platform that REX had been on began to move up towards the upper level of the hangar, the place where it would be deployed outside.
As the platform moved up, the balconies and catwalks collapsed and were destroyed, prompting Snake to jump onto the platform to avoid being crushed, "How am I supposed to stop this thing?" Snake said to himself
"… I don't know…"
Snake turned to the side and saw Naruto sitting on the ground, multiple wounds on his person, but still alive and well off more or less, "Kid! Are you alright?" He had just fallen at least forty feet. He had to have some kind of lasting damage.
"I'll live." Naruto said in a weak voice, holding onto his groin area, "I've taken worse falls than that before... and there's nothing like the threat of death to make you forget that you might not be having kids later…" He remarked dryly as he slowly stood up as fast as his damaged goods would allow him to.
The platform finished rising to let them set in the large main hangar where the two immediately got their distance from REX. The sounds of gunfire alerted Snake to Naruto who was simply firing his SOCOM at REX without stopping. He even reloaded and kept firing until Snake spoke to him, "Kid what are you doing?"
Naruto turned to him and holstered his pistol as he answered, "Wasting bullets on this bastard… as if I'm really going to get lucky and do any damage like that." He then saw Snake pull out a Stinger missile launcher and gave him a deadpan look, "Right… you find a way to hurt it. I'm going to go play defense with my body… again." He finished while clutching his balls, "I've got something special for situations like this… not that I ever thought I'd have to use it."
"Maybe we'll get lucky." Snake suggested.
"Yeah that's possible." Naruto replied sarcastically, "And just how's your day been going so far? I know mine sure has been lucky." He finished, getting a growl out of Snake.
His entire day had, and seemed to be continuing to go quite terribly if Snake had to say it out loud, "Point taken." However that was still a low blow that didn't need to be brought up. Before they could even continue to banter back and forth, REX then let out a guttural roar that let them know the fight was on, "Go Team Hopeless…" Snake said dryly.
Naruto was just stuck glaring at REX's cockpit where he knew Liquid wasn't even looking at him, just at Snake, "No matter what we have to do here to break that stupid robot I'm killing him before sunrise. That's a promise."
And that's chapter folks. The thing about Metal Gear REX is that it is hard to describe in words what it looks like. You've got to go somewhere and actually see a picture of it if you really care what it looks like.
I've not got much to say here so I'll just leave you with a fond farewell, and then I'm going to work because someone's got to do it, right?
Questions of a non-spoiler related nature? As usual I'll see what I can do while I'm at work. Maybe answering some will kill some time.
Regardless of that, I hope you enjoyed. Kenchi out.