Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Metal Gear. Although would it really be so farfetched if one of the owners of either got online and wrote this crap out just to mess with their own fans? I think I'd be vindictive enough to write fanfiction on my own franchise if I ever had one just to be an ass about it.
Chapter 12: For the Record
"Any ideas?" Snake asked Naruto as they both faced Metal Gear REX down, Snake with a Stinger missile launcher, Naruto with his own hands, "Because I'm open for suggestions in this case."
The sounds of REX's body parts warming up and beginning to move alerted them both, "Yeah, I've got a suggestion." Naruto stated as he heard the sound of a turret beginning to rotate, "Fucking run! That's my suggestion!" With that, Naruto and Snake both split off before REX's guns could cut them both down before the battle even truly began.
Naruto was faster than Snake and it was clear by the fact that he was able to keep pace with keeping out of Liquid's crosshairs as he ran in a straight pattern to avoid being shot up. As he proceeded to run circles around the titanic machine, he learned that getting close to REX anywhere around its front side was a terrible idea as it attempted to nail Naruto with a focused laser beam from its belly directed at the ground. Naruto stopped running to spring directly back and handspring his way out of getting cut in half with it, 'That's really strong!' Naruto thought as he saw the burn mark where the laser had cut into the metal on the ground, 'If that touches me then I'm going to be missing a limb or two!'
With Naruto being sent back far enough to not be a threat, REX took a missile shot from Snake on its other side. As REX turned to face Snake completely, it launched a trio of missiles of its own supply at him, forcing him to dodge with his heavy missile launcher, the only thing he figured had a chance of doing damage to REX.
Despite avoiding the overall explosions, Snake found himself shoved to the ground by the shockwave of the missiles blowing up. There had to be some kind of weakness on REX somewhere. The other two Metal Gears he had come into conflict against before had a weakness; their basically unarmored legs. REX clearly did not share that vulnerability. The cockpit, per the normal as far as Metal Gear designs went, happened to be well protected, and hitting it with a missile would do no damage to Liquid himself inside. It wouldn't even keep him from seeing them as there was no way to look out through the shut cockpit anyway.
Wait, if Liquid couldn't see them through the cockpit then how was he aiming and taking shots at them? The machine gun turrets he liberally took aim at Naruto and himself with were manually operated. They fired as if they were being operated by someone actually taking visual aim.
"I'll send you to hell you wretched brat!" Liquid shouted from REX's intercom system at Naruto as he had the massive construct stomp forward towards him. How did something so big walk so fast? Naruto would up dodging a stomp per leg from REX and outran the laser beam that tried to annihilate him once he started running between REX's legs.
'Yeah whatever… I guess I'll see you there, jerk.' Naruto ducked behind one of REX's legs to get Liquid to turn off the laser lest he begin to cut through his own hull. When REX lifted the leg to stomp down on Naruto with its metal stake-like protrusions, Naruto jumped onto the leg and stayed attached with chakra, "Hit me now you fucking bastard! How do you like dealing with somebody that fights back?" He snapped.
"What in the hell is he doing?" Snake wondered aloud as he watched scale REX with the assistance of his clones to keep him from getting shaken off along with his use of chakra to stick, "What is jumping on REX possibly going to do?"
"Get off!" Liquid shouted as he launched his missiles again with no regard for any damage done to himself, aiming at the Narutos attached to REX's legs.
Naruto dismissed his clones and jumped right off of REX before the missiles exploded on its hull instead of just him. Naruto backtracked all the way to Snake's side and grinned ferally at getting Liquid to attack himself, "Let's see how much of that he can get hit with. Those missiles could take down a tank."
"REX is way tougher than any tank kid." Snake said, not convinced that any real damage had been done in the slightest, "That was a good idea to go for the legs, and you probably would have gotten one of the older models like that. But look at how thick that armor is. We aren't getting through that." The dust from the missiles cleared to show barely even a mark on REX, "We've got to get to Liquid himself."
Naruto gave him a bewildered look, "And just how are we supposed to do that? Ask him nicely to open up so I can stab him?" REX let out a roar, Liquid's way of showing that he was coming at them, "And why can a robot roar?"
Snake didn't verbally respond, he just shot off another missile at REX, hoping to land some damage somewhere. The projectile exploded off of REX's head and in response Liquid made the huge Metal Gear fire its gun at his twin brother. Snake almost dropped his Stinger missile trying to avoid the bullets but luckily he was saved.
When Snake fired his missile, Naruto had already gotten moving around again and had filled a nearby metal crate of ammunition meant for REX with his last three live grenades before picking it up and chucking it at REX's head/cockpit. The resulting explosion allowed Snake enough time to get away from REX's gunfire to reload his Stinger, 'I owe that kid one… again. What is that, two or three times tonight? I've lost count.'
Even with the violent explosion made from Naruto's archaic attempt to blow REX to hell, there was barely a mark on it. And from the smoke of the explosion came three more missiles; one for him two for Snake, who was still reloading his cumbersome weapon, "Snake!" Naruto shouted before going into his nearly depleted supply pouch. He had no more smoke bombs to use, not that they would be useful at all, and semtex wouldn't be worth a damn in this instance. All he had left was a set of chaff grenades that he hadn't even touched thus far.
Duh, why didn't they think of that from the start?
Without even saying anything, Naruto rushed towards Snake and dropped one of his chaff grenades, having it explode and send the missile targeting system completely out of whack with the small particles of aluminum filling the air. This made avoiding the missiles child's play… if children played by dodging high explosives.
"Chaff?" Snake said as he saw the particles flittering through the air. As he and Naruto looked up at REX and saw it stumbling around he noticed the massive radome on its left shoulder rotating wildly, "That makes it four for you today kid…" Snake mumbled.
"Four what?" Naruto said, not getting what he was talking about, "Alright let's scrap this thing!" Naruto ran directly forward, 'Come shoot me now you dick!' He thought angrily about Liquid inside, hoping that the man was pissing his pants at not being able to see. Naruto formed a Rasengan in his right hand and was prepared to try and grind right into the cockpit somehow, and maybe through Liquid as well. One could only hope to be so lucky.
"Kid, go for the radome!"
Naruto heard Snake shout and almost stopped, however he never broke his stride, trying to take his chance to take REX down, "I thought you said Liquid was in the cockpit!"
"That thing is thicker than any damn tank! You won't get through that hull before the chaff settles if you even can at all!" Snake yelled at the top of his lungs, "If we bust the radome then REX can't see us and he can't attack if he can't see!" He picked his Stinger missile launcher back up but waited to fire in case he caught Naruto in the explosion.
"Fine! Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!" Naruto ran up the side of Metal Gear REX and slammed his Rasengan into the radome on REX's shoulder, but before he could start tearing it apart, it came back online and attempted to slam its body and Naruto into the side of the hangar, forcing him to jump off prematurely lest he get crushed.
The opening provided by Naruto allowed Snake to launch a missile now that the sunny blonde was free and clear, a missile that was right on track for the targeted radome and scored a direct hit. Their little offense against REX that they managed to string together seemed to have pissed Liquid off due to the double duty he attempted to pull after the radome came back on line from the chaff. He attempted to slice through Naruto with a laser and shoot at Snake with his machine gun, but trying to take on both with attacks at the same time desperately lessened the effectiveness of them, as Naruto quickly avoided the laser and sprang back onto REX while it was also shooting at Snake.
"Kid…" Snake said with trepidation as even if the shooter was sort of preoccupied, it was still a machine gun firing at him.
"I'm on it, hold your horses!" Naruto yelled back to him as he made his way up to REX's nose, climbing right up REX's back to the top of its head to drop some semtex into the gun pits on the side of its head that were targeting Snake, "How do you like that 'commander'?" Naruto shouted at Liquid mockingly before jumping back into the air as REX tried to shake him off again just as the semtex activated and exploded.
Naruto watched his handiwork from a wall nearby that he had stuck himself to and flipped Liquid off from his position until the missile pods on REX's legs opened up to fire again, "Crap."
"I've got missiles of my own Liquid." Snake quipped as he fired another shot from his Stinger missile that hit the radome on REX's shoulder again. As the missiles went at Naruto who jumped off of the wall to dodge, Snake had to comment, "Come on… I've shot it so many times already, how tough is the attachment alone?"
"Die Naruto!" Liquid shouted at Naruto as the missiles flew through the air at his former underling, "You were always more trouble than you were worth!" He finished as he turned to deal with Snake since he had cornered and in his mind dealt with the troublesome blonde gnat that had been buzzing around him.
'This is going to be ten different kinds of suck!' Naruto thought as he pulled one of his throwing knives and bit down on it between his teeth before forming his cross hand-seal, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Three clones of Naruto formed and jumped directly in the path of the missiles, taking the hits for Naruto as he held tight to the wall he was on, biting down hard on his knife to keep from yelling too loudly.
This was the third time today that he had been technically caught in an explosion. If he never saw another detonation for as long as he lived he would probably a-ok with that.
But now it was time to make REX go boom somehow.
Under the cover of the smoke obscuring him, Naruto formed another Kage Bunshin and held his right arm out, having his clone hold out its left as the two formed a Rasengan at least double the size of the original between them. Liquid was busy firing at Snake, keeping him from firing his Stinger missiles again, thus his back was turned and Naruto was out of REX's field of vision.
Naruto's eyes turned red as he and his clone launched from the side of the wall as hard as they could at the back of Metal Gear REX, "Eyes on the prize Liquid! Odama Rasengan (Great Ball Rasengan)!"
Liquid never saw it coming. The massive Rasengan slammed off of the back of REX's head and exploded on contact. Snake had to turn away from the sudden flash of light and power from whatever Naruto had just done. He had even dropped his Stinger from the shockwave that had emitted, 'And I thought that the kid was dangerous enough already… where the hell did he get that from?' Whatever had just happened, the sounds coming off of REX were doing their best impression of a crinkling aluminum can.
The explosions coming off of REX cleared to reveal that there was no radome left whatsoever. It had been roughly ripped off and the shoulder of REX had a deep spiral dent in it that reached over much of the left side of the machine with black smoke billowing freely.
"One attack of… whatever that was did all of that?" Snake said aloud, looking around for Naruto. He hadn't seen him after that huge ball of energy or whatever it was exploded all over the back of REX, "Kid! Where are you?"
"I'm here." Naruto said as he stood up from underneath REX breathing heavily. Sweat poured down his face that he wiped away with his right forearm, "I love that move so much." He said with a weak grin. Between the damage he had been taking on and off for hours, the amount of clones he had been making, and the cost of the Odama Rasengan he was really feeling it. But he still had something that needed to be done, "Now Liquid needs to open up before I cut that cockpit open like a tin can." He said with an edge in his voice.
REX, which had been motionless for quite some time, shifted the laser under its belly slightly and fired at Naruto, forcing him to dodge with a dive to the side that sent him to the ground. REX lifted one leg from the ground with its stakes extended, directly over Naruto's body, prepared to crush him like an insect. Before it could smash him, a figure positioned himself under Naruto and more or less kicked him out of the way before catching REX's foot, holding it up.
Naruto's body slid over to Snake who kneeled down and helped him back to his feet as he looked out at the Cyborg Ninja that had caught REX's foot, "Gray Fox! So it really is you?"
"A name from long ago. It sounds better than 'Deepthroat' though." Gray Fox said as his real face was visible through the open visor in his helmet, "You two don't seem to be looking so well." He commented calmly in his raspy voice.
Naruto merely stood up on his own two feet and flipped Gray Fox off glibly. Liquid however, even though he couldn't see, he could hear just fine and knew who had REX's foot caught as he drew it back up to stomp again, "I'll send you back to hell!"
As REX stomped again, Gray Fox leaped out of the way as the foot came down and landed right by Naruto and Snake. As the blind REX stomped about in their direction, the three of them scattered, with Gray Fox and Snake going off in their own direction for cover while Naruto kept trying to goad Liquid to open the cockpit as best he could, "Fox why? What do you want from me?" Snake asked him rather heatedly.
"I'm a prisoner of death." Gray Fox replied, "Only you can free me."
"Stay out of this Fox." Snake said in an tense voice, "What about Naomi? She's hell bent on taking revenge for you." He could see the emotion in the man's eyes as he said his sister's name, "You're the only one that can stop her."
"I can't!" Gray Fox said as the sounds of gunfire rang out, signs of Naruto's ongoing battle with the blind but still dangerous Metal Gear REX. It wasn't able to see, but that made it wildly dangerous to get close to, with the machine gun firing wildly and the laser running rampant all over any close range he could get to he was stuck holding his distance.
"Why not?" Snake wasn't going to take some bullshit answer for an excuse. He'd been getting more than enough of that for the last few hours to have to take it from someone he was actually face-to-face with.
"Because I'm the one who killed her parents!" Gray Fox finally blurted out, bringing Snake to silence, "I was young then and couldn't bring myself to kill her too. I felt so horrible I decided to take her with me. I raised her like she was my own blood to soothe my own guilty conscience. Even now she thinks of me as her brother… even when I'm like this." He said, referencing his cybernetic body, "From the outside we might have seemed like a happy brother and sister, but every time I looked at her I saw her parents' eyes staring back at me. So tell her for me, tell her I'm the one who did it." He begged.
Meanwhile Liquid was still going berserk in REX, "I know you're still here! Just die already!" He shouted, turning his guns away from Naruto as he couldn't see where he was. He wound up firing at the crates of ammunition and fuel drums all over the hangar.
One of the drums exploded near Naruto and blew him away, bouncing him off of the wall, "Liquid's got a horseshoe up his ass…" Naruto muttered to himself as he saw him still shooting around the area. He stood up and wiped the grime from his face as he glared at the wounded Metal Gear, 'Open the cockpit so I can slit your goddamn throat Liquid!'
Gray Fox and Snake had to duck down as bullets ricocheted off of the metal walls of the hangar, "We're just about out of time." Gray Fox said to Snake, "Here's a final present from Deepthroat." He looked out at REX and rushed from behind their cover, "I'll stop it from moving!"
"Fox!" Snake shouted in vain as his friend and former comrade ran out and dodged the sporadic fire from REX.
Dodging the errant bullets and missiles, Gray Fox got close enough that REX's laser activated and severed his left arm from his body effortlessly. Still, he didn't slow down and in an effort to keep a second laser blast from prematurely finishing him, he jumped and stuck to the wall prepared to fire his arm cannon, similar to Naruto earlier, only unlike Naruto he wasn't far enough away from REX that this was a viable strategy to try and use to avoid it, nor did he get himself high enough off of the ground, as REX's head slammed itself against his body and the wall.
Gray Fox got his arms around the cockpit/beak of REX that was crushing him and tried to hold it off from fully killing him as the blood splatter from being smashed was clearly visible against the wall. Liquid's voice mockingly came over REX's P.A. system, "In the Middle East we don't hunt foxes, we hunt jackals. Instead of foxhounds we use royal harriers. So let's see just how strong that exoskeleton of yours is." He remarked as he pushed against the struggling cyborg, "Snake! Are you going to just sit by and watch him die?"
Naruto growled and sprinted over to Gray Fox's severed arm, freeing the sword he saw in its grasp and taking it for himself as he kept rushing towards Gray Fox. He may not have known the man… cyborg… whatever. He may not have known him very well and he may have fought against him once, but he saved his ass two years ago, and he was helping to fight Liquid in REX, and that was more than enough of a reason to consider him a comrade.
As he got closer, Liquid pulled away to let Gray Fox fall to the ground on an elevated ledge. His body was bleeding heavily and electricity rippled through it as well, "Gray Fox!" Both Naruto and Snake shouted simultaneously as the cockpit opened up. Liquid saw Naruto rushing towards him and fired the machine gun turret at him to stop him in place.
"You won't get close boy!" Gray Fox shouted at Naruto before addressing Snake who had the ranged weapon, "…Do it now Snake! Fire the Stinger!" Fox's place on the ledge was right by Liquid's open cockpit.
"Can you really shoot?" Liquid taunted freely, "You'll kill him too!"
Snake lifted the Stinger as if by reflex and let it lock on to his side view of Liquid's open cockpit, but he just couldn't finish the job. Not with a still living Gray Fox right there as well, 'I can't do it!' He thought to himself frantically.
"Now…" Gray Fox said weakly, trying to convince Snake to shoot, "In front of you I can finally die..." He said sounding rather relieved of that fact, "After Zanzibar I was taken from the battle… neither truly alive nor truly dead. An undying shadow in the world of lights… but soon… soon… it will finally end." With that, Liquid used the top of his open cockpit to scrape Gray Fox off of the ledge to the ground below.
"Die!" Liquid roared with hatred as he lifted REX's foot and stomped it down on top of Gray Fox, crushing his lower body under the Metal Gear's full weight just for the sake of cruelty.
Cruel because Gray Fox still didn't die. His cybernetic body was strong. Strong enough to give some parting words, "Snake… we're not tools of the government or anyone else. Fighting was the only thing I was ever good at… but at least I always fought for what I believed in. Goodbye." He then weakly turned his head towards Naruto, who had the sword that he had been holding fall from his hand once he saw him get stomped, "And I do hope that you find your own reason for fighting… I could always see it in your eyes that you still have not."
He opened his mouth to say something else to the youngest soldier in the room out of all of them, but Liquid lifted REX's leg and gave one final stomp that engulfed Gray Fox's entire body. Snake and Naruto could only stare at the blood pooling from beneath REX's foot as it let out a roar at having taken its first life as an active weapon. The roar seemed to wake Snake up and bring him back to reality, "FOX!"
"Fool…" Liquid muttered as he stepped back from the bloody smear that used to be Gray Fox, "He prayed for death and it found him. You see? You can't protect anyone! You can't even protect yours-!" Liquid's words died in his throat as one of Naruto's throwing knives buried itself in the side of his neck. Liquid let out a slight noise from literally choking on his words and pulled the knife out, bleeding profusely from the wound as he glared down at Naruto. As he opened his mouth to berate him he stopped upon seeing a red aura surrounding him in the appearance of a fox complete with a tail of energy.
'First it was Master Miller… now it was Gray Fox…' Naruto thought to himself as he couldn't help but try to block his own tears. He hadn't cried in years and he sure as hell wasn't going to give Liquid the satisfaction of seeing him do it there. Just seeing Gray Fox die made him feel it, as he at that moment could almost see Miller's own dead body in front of his eyes, "You're going to die Liquid…" Naruto said lowly as the Kyuubi's chakra bubbled around him. He couldn't keep his anger out of the equation any longer. His voice was noticeably rougher than it normally was, "I'm going to cut your bleeding heart out!" He screamed as he picked Gray Fox's sword up off of the ground and ran directly towards Liquid at least twice as fast as he had been moving before.
Liquid didn't want to risk messing with any more of Naruto's weird powers as they seemed to be getting scarier, 'After that last little surprise he gave me, I don't need to see anymore.' In this case it was better to go around blind than be dead. As he began to shut his cockpit in preparation for defense against whatever Naruto intended to do, metal ringing and then broken whirring filled his ears. He looked up at his cockpit opening to find that it was being kept from closing by Gray Fox's sword that Naruto had thrown javelin-style, 'What?'
Snake didn't have any qualms about holding off on firing his Stinger missile now, as it impacted off of Liquid's cockpit, nailing him with the brunt of the explosion, marking him up with burns and other damage. It was the cleanest shot he had gotten at his twin brother since he had gotten into REX.
Liquid just didn't know what to do at this point. His attention was split between his brother toting missiles while he was wide open and vulnerable and between Naruto who had long since proven he could climb up around his now open cockpit to get to him directly, and he didn't want to find out just what him being surrounded by that red aura really meant, "It's not over yet!" Liquid shouted in defiance, "I won't die here like this! Not when I'm so close!" The controls on REX were more or less useless due to the explosion, but he simply wouldn't give up the ghost in this instance.
REX staggered along until it simply collapsed in an upright position and remained motionless. And Liquid saw his life flash before his eyes as the red streak that he knew to be Naruto rushed across the room at him with murder in his eyes as he tried to scramble out of his seat.
Whether luckily or unluckily at that moment the entire massive Metal Gear exploded harshly through the entire hangar with Liquid still basically behind the wheel, throwing Snake away from the sheer force of the massive machine wrecking and doing the same to Naruto, first engulfing his body in flames due to his proximity before throwing him away as well.
XxX
"Do you see now how much you need me in this world?" Naruto heard in his head before he even opened his eyes back up, "The mere explosion of that death machine… do you think you would have managed to defeat it or even survive it were it not for me enhancing your powers? And that was just a taste of what I can provide you." Trying to take credit… he didn't need any help. Teamwork beat REX as far as Naruto was concerned. If it hadn't been for the combined efforts of he and Snake then he would have just been pounding away at the hull again and again until he ran out of energy. If Liquid's attention hadn't been diverted to turn around then he never would have gotten close enough with Odama Rasengan to bust the radome that eventually led to the cockpit being exposed. All the Kyuubi did was try to influence him when Gray Fox was killed, playing on his ever growing anger. He was about to charge like a berserker, a stupid berserker.
He didn't want that bastard bleeding its chakra into his body. Powerup or not, he didn't want the Kyuubi to get any satisfaction or sense of victory out of his own desire to kill Liquid. It wasn't because of anything the demon did, it was simply because he wanted revenge. The Kyuubi was not to overstep its bounds damn it.
'Yeah… you're a great blast shield.' Naruto thought derisively as he felt warm and stick fluid covering his head, his own blood, 'So why don't you get this fucking hunk of metal off of me before that fuel leaks over here and we get set on fire if you're so great?' He quipped mentally. After REX exploded, part of a catwalk fell and pinned Naruto beneath it.
He was fine… as fine as he could be with hundreds of pounds of dead weight trapped on top of him, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that the entire hangar was on fire and the extra fuel was leaking all over the place. He couldn't even move his left arm due to it being pinned and pain shot through him every time he tried. He couldn't move his legs either, but at least he could still feel them. Things could have been worse, but he still needed to get out.
"SNAAAAAKE!"
Naruto heard Liquid shout Snake's name before a thud hitting the ground. Possibly Liquid's receipt for kicking him off the catwalk fifty feet to the ground earlier. And it was officially time to get himself out of trouble, "Rasengan don't fail me now…" Naruto muttered as he formed the jutsu in his good hand and used it to try and propel some of the wrecked catwalk off of him. Naruto forced enough of the debris off of him to slide himself free and clear of being crushed, "Ow…"
"Naruto!" Turning his head to see who called his name, he saw Meryl running towards him with Snake, "Naruto are you alright?"
Naruto shakily stood back up with his left arm now basically useless, "Pretty much…" He looked at Snake and saw multiple bruises and cuts on his face, "You look like you were on the ass end of an asskicking."
"Look who's talking." Snake replied to Naruto who was more or less stained with his own blood and had a broken arm, "It's time to go kid. There's a parking garage to the west of here. We need to get out of here before we get hit with a nuclear strike. Meryl and Otacon got us a ride out of here."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! What?" Naruto said, holding his left arm with his right, "But we just won didn't we? Why the hell is a nuclear strike coming? Where's the fucking loyalty?" He asked heatedly.
"I couldn't tell you kid, but we need to get the hell out of here." Snake said as he and Meryl began moving towards the small door at the west end of the hangar. Once they noticed that Naruto didn't follow them, they turned around to see him running back towards the flaming wreck of REX, "What are you doing? Come on, let's go!"
Naruto just kept running towards REX, "I'll catch up, I promise! Just get going already!"
Snake growled and let Naruto make his own decision. If there was a reason for him to lag behind then it was his choice to do so. He was a grown man and had been nothing less than invaluable the entire way through.
"Naruto stop being stupid!" Meryl yelled at him. What on earth was he hanging back for? And he was telling them to leave without him? Just what did he think he was going to do to get himself out of there?
Naruto kept running without turning to face them, "Snake get her out of here now. I might have a broken arm, but I don't need both of them to knock her out and make you two leave!" He roared before vanishing into the fiery hangar as he headed towards REX.
"Naruto!" Meryl yelled, about to head in after Naruto before getting her arm grabbed by Snake, "What? Are you just going to let him go?"
"It's his decision." Snake said, not letting her go, "He's pretty much done this all on his own from the start, at least respect him enough to let him finish this on his own if that's what he wants." Meryl frowned but nodded as she began to lead Snake out of the small door towards the parking garage that stood in front of their escape route. Before leaving, Snake stopped at the door and yelled back in the hangar, "Kid if you're not out of here in ten minutes there isn't anything that'll save you from getting nuked!"
As they ran through the corridors that led them there they finally saw Otacon sitting behind the wheel of a jeep, "Come on!" He shouted, waving over at them, "Hurry up!"
Meryl jumped in the passenger's seat as Snake took up a spot in the back on a machine gun turret, just in time as well, because Genome Soldiers burst into the room from an adjacent door, lining themselves up nearly perfectly for Snake to gun them down before they could even attempt to stop them as Otacon then crashed the jeep through a garage door and flew through the tunnel that lay behind it leading to the surface.
As they flew through the tunnels, Snake prepared his machine gun for the blockades that he could see set up ahead that they would have to break through to get out.
XxX
(With Naruto)
Covered in more soot and burns than ever, Naruto ran through the hall he had seen Meryl and Snake go through to get out. On his back strapped between his Dragunov and his MP5K, there was Gray Fox's special sword. For someone that did that much to allow them victory today, Naruto wasn't going to just let him be forgotten, even if he and Snake were the only ones that knew what he had done.
As he made his way to the parking garage, he heard the roar of an engine turning on, allowing him to let out a sigh of relief. Apparently Snake, Meryl, and Otacon hadn't left yet so he could catch a ride.
When he arrived however, he saw the jeep peel out of the garage and the ruined door at its exit with a squeal of tires. He saw the blonde hair of the man behind the wheel however and grit his teeth, 'Liquid! Why won't he just die already! What is he, the douchebag Terminator?' He thought to himself as he looked around, 'And that bastard took the last jeep! Son of a bitch!' Naruto ran to the center of the room and rapidly looked for anything to help only for his eyes to land on something that made them widen, "Holy crap I thought he got rid of this thing!"
Naruto ran over to the corner of the garage and picked up a sleek looking board that looked to be made of light metal three inches thick and slightly less than his own height in length, "My platform board! I thought he shipped this thing back to R&D!"
Being FOXHOUND's probational member, for an entire year Naruto was more or less the guinea pig for anything that their development teams came up with as far as equipment and weapons went. If the others liked it they would test it themselves after seeing him use it, but most of the time everything he tried had bugs and would fail miserably. This was one of the experiments that had apparently failed… only Naruto didn't feel like giving up the prototype.
The board was based on old Soviet flying platforms, old designs of scouting vehicles meant to access places difficult to reach on foot, only instead of using one's hands to maneuver, this board allowed the user to use their feet and legs to move it, keeping their hands free to use their own weapons.
Naruto first tested this in early December and crashed horribly. As a Christmas gift to himself he kept it instead of letting Liquid or any of the others return it to research and development as per the original arrangement as he was determined to make it work, and he did. With the free time given to him to do absolutely nothing at Shadow Moses, all he really did to kill said time was to practice on the board and make it work for him, and work it did.
By January when he had been discovered to not have returned it, actually keeping it in his room, Liquid confiscated it as contraband and Naruto thought that was the last he had seen of it.
Apparently things were too far along in Liquid's plans for him to return it or get rid of it, because weeks later Naruto found his lost tool in the parking garage that he hadn't been able to get access to until now.
"Yes! It still runs!" And he wasted no time in firing the board up and hopping on it, set on getting himself out of the base and chasing Liquid down.
XxX
A FAMAS toting Liquid Snake had gotten his own ride out of the base and had mercilessly pursued Snake, Meryl, and Otacon, down the escape tunnel, taking shots at them and smashing his jeep into theirs, trying his best to exterminate his brother and his other targets.
As Snake fired his machine gun turret at Liquid he was begrudgingly impressed with Liquid's driving skill. The man dodged enough bullets to keep his jeep running and in good enough shape to stay in pursuit, and all with one hand on the wheel, because he was still holding that FAMAS and shooting right back, coming close to hitting all of them a few times prior.
Liquid got close enough to ram into the back of Snake's jeep, throwing off his machine gun aim before pulling off, keeping Snake from getting an easy shot at him. Meryl growled and tried taking aim with her Desert Eagle, but when Liquid fired at them again she dropped her gun as she ducked down in her seat.
Getting alongside the enemy jeep, Liquid ducked in and out of pillars in the tunnel, timing them just right so that he could slip through, ram into Snake's jeep, duck back out through another pillar, and avoid Snake's return fire.
As true, honest daylight could be seen at the end of the tunnel, an angry Liquid sped ahead of the loaded down enemy jeep and spun in front of them, cutting them off with his own and ducking his head just as they crashed and both flipped over just outside in the deep snow of the post-blizzard of the new morning.
Otacon was thrown a short distance from the jeep and was knocked unconscious as he lay in the snow, but Snake and Meryl were pinned beneath the jeep, unable to free themselves along with the disorientation of the crash itself, "Meryl… are you alright?" He asked her, holding his head.
"Yeah…" Meryl replied, "I'm just a little shook up." She tried to crawl out but found her legs stuck in the snow beneath the overturned, "Ugh, it's no good, I can't move." She looked over at the other wrecked jeep across the way, "What happened to Liquid?"
"Liquid's got to be dead…" Snake said somewhat hopefully. He hadn't seen any sign of him since the crash while everyone else could be accounted for. He then heard metallic thudding and shifting and bit his lip, "Uh oh."
Liquid limped from the backside of his worthless jeep, limping, but still holding his FAMAS in one hand, "Snake…" He seethed as he bled steadily from the wounds all over his face and bare torso. He stomped over to the trapped Snake and Meryl who couldn't free themselves and smirked at their helpless state. Before he could get any closer to prepare to execute them, he heard whirring coming the tunnel and turned to see a board fly out of the tunnel and miss him by a mile planting itself further awa, "Ha! What was that supposed to-?" He was about to say, but a sudden sharp pain kept him from finishing.
Standing behind Liquid, between himself and Snake and Meryl, Naruto held Gray Fox's sword in one hand in a downward grip, piercing Liquid through his collar area directly downward on his left side. He let out a gasp and dropped to his knees.
"Gray Fox and Master Miller say hi Liquid." Naruto said, breathing heavily as he kept his tight grip on the sword, seemingly twisting it deeper to make sure this time the man died for certain, "I'd say that you'd have found that out soon enough, but you're going to be too busy burning in hell to care."
"…You stupid brat…" Liquid struggled to utter as blood began to well up through his body and flow from his mouth, "You're still just a child."
"Whatever." Naruto muttered before pulling the sword out of Liquid amid a fountain-like spray of blood that rained down on him and the white snow on the ground, "And you're still just dead." He said as Liquid's body fell forward with a crunch of snow beneath him once and for all.
All Naruto could do was just stare down at Liquid's body, holding the sword that had done the deed in his hand loosely. He had killed the man that had done away with one of his only concrete links to anything in this world, and he didn't feel any better because of it. He couldn't even feel angry… because he knew that the way he had killed Liquid had been agonizing. Now what?
He looked at the sun and let out a long sigh as he went over to pull his board out of the snow that it had stuck itself in, 'What do I do now?' He thought to himself. Was he really just supposed to be reprocessed and placed somewhere else? Fuck that, they're going to nuke the base. He didn't care for this country anyway. If they were just going to get rid of him as if he were dirt then why would he fight for them? And then he could see Liquid's earlier point.
He could see and understand… that didn't mean he agreed with it or regretted stopping it. Liquid was still a son-of-a-bitch and the world was a better place without his scheming ass around treating him and his loved ones like pawns in a game.
As he thought about these things, a hand planted itself on his bad shoulder, forcing him to twist his face and hiss in pain, "Ah, sorry kid. I forgot." Snake said apologetically towards messing with Naruto's hurt arm, "Well, we're officially dead."
"What?" Naruto replied questioningly, "Damn… the nukes. I forgot."
Snake let out a chuckle, "No, not literally… I said officially. The Colonel faked my and Meryl's deaths so that no one would try to come after us in another cover up. There's no nuke coming. The man behind the cover-up was acting alone, the Secretary of Defense." He sounded as if he didn't believe that excuse, but since he was about to disappear again there was no tracing it down any further than what he had been told, "What about you?"
"Bring it." Naruto said with no amusement in his tone, "If anyone wants to cover this up they can feel free to try and find me… they'd better not count on going home though, dattebayo." He sat down on his recently freed board and looked up at Snake, "I still have questions Snake. There are still things I need to know. The only thing I do know is that I'm not going to find my answers being a soldier for the U.S."
"So what are you going to do?" Snake asked as he watched Meryl bring Otacon back to the land of the conscious, "I really don't think there's going to be a problem with you getting discharged after this." He had been doing this for how many years before this anyway? Yeah, he could leave officially, even though he probably wouldn't take official channels regardless.
Naruto shook his head, "I really don't think you should know what I'm going to do." He said, "No one needs to know what I'm going to do next. It's better for everyone that way."
At this point, Meryl came over and caught the last things that Naruto said, "Wait, you're not coming with us?" She said in a confused voice. If he wasn't going with them then what was he going to do? Where was he going to go? "Are you going home?"
"I don't have a home to go back to honestly." Naruto replied with a shrug, something that made the others feel for him for different reasons, "But there still are things I have to do." He said, standing back up while wiping the bloody sword off in the snow.
Meryl frowned until she remembered what she had been told moments before. She more or less had a clean slate at this point, so with a grin on her face she walked up to Naruto as he placed the sword on his back and stood up on his board, "Do you think you'll need a 'ghost' following you around for whatever it is you're supposed to be doing?"
Snake just smirked as Naruto stared at her owlishly, "Are you serious? You've known me for like two days, you can do whatever you want in the world now, and you want to go with me to get into more trouble?" A confident nod was Meryl's answer. Naruto looked over at Snake who was backing away with his hands up defensively, smirk still in place, "Why?"
"What else am I going to go do?" She responded with a shrug. Apparently it was as simple as that.
Naruto let out a groan, but then again she was supposed to be 'dead'. Maybe she would fit in? Maybe not, but if that was what she wanted he couldn't just ditch her there. And Snake didn't seem to be offering up any alternative options for the girl, "You do know that this is a really stupid idea don't you?"
"Of course it's stupid." Meryl said cheekily, "It involves you after all." She let out a laugh at the glare he gave her following her crack, "Just take me with you. It's not like you won't need some help, right?"
"Fine!" Naruto exclaimed, "You can come with me, but you'd better not drag me down… I've already got enough issues to deal with." He jerked his head towards the board he was standing on, "Get on, and watch the arm."
Meryl quickly did as instructed and jumped on, grabbing a hold of him, "What are you going to do with that sword? Do you even know how to use that thing?"
Naruto scoffed, "It's a sword, not a jetpack. I'll figure it out." He looked down at Snake, "And what are you going to do?"
A rather serene smile came to Snake's face, "I think I'm just going to live my life…" He said as he continued on in his thoughts, 'However much time I have left… who cares about the FOXDIE?' A speech Naomi had given him earlier had inspired him to do such. He then extended his hand towards Naruto, "I have to say it was good to work with you kid. Having you shoot at me instead of with me would have really sucked. I'd say it was a pleasure, but we both know that it wasn't."
Naruto grinned and grabbed Snake's hand in a hearty shake, "Hey, you never know. We might run into each other some other time. It was good working with you too Solid Snake." He gave Snake a faux salute and fired up the board, suddenly having it hover off of the ground much to Meryl's shock and surprise, "Take care of yourself…" He finished before shooting off on the board, flying off over the landscape.
Otacon could only watch things as they went down, adjusting the glasses on his face, "Do you think they'll be alright?" He asked Snake. Even if he was still frightened by and somewhat upset with Naruto, he couldn't help but acknowledge that he had been a tremendous help.
Snake nodded confidently, "Yeah, those are some tough kids Otacon. I wouldn't worry about them at all. They'll land on their feet no matter what happens."
XxX
(A While Later – Alaska Mainland Coast)
Johnny drove the jeep across the frozen ocean surface that had become such due to the intense cold of the blizzard that had lasted well over 24 hours. He had been relieved to get the call from Naruto that he was on his way to meet them, not just because he didn't feel confident that he could hide out on his own, but also because the only thing that had kept him from being intimidated to death by Sniper Wolf's stare was his assurance that Naruto would be there by sunrise.
As he looked out on the horizon of the frozen waters he saw a single figure flying across the ice coming their way rapidly. He looked through the scope of Sniper Wolf's confiscated rifle, trying to ignore her annoyed growl as he did so before he let out a loud exclamation, "It's him! It's the Boss! He's here!" Sniper Wolf perked up and stopped glowering at Johnny once she heard him say that, "But I think he's got someone with him? Who is that?" He wondered aloud.
Not too long afterwards, Naruto's board came to a stop right by Johnny's jeep as he turned to the girl that had been holding onto him, "How was that? It was awesome right?" It was clear that he loved his little personal transport from the grin on his face, "This thing is great."
From behind Naruto, Meryl let go and shakily jumped off of the board before he even killed the power to it, just to get back on solid ground sooner. Her knees were shaking from riding on the dangerous flying board as fast as they had gone. That thing was more dangerous than any motorcycle in her mind, "Never again…" She said with a glare at Naruto, "…Never make me ride one of those things again."
Johnny's eyes widened behind his balaclava and even Wolf couldn't take her eyes off of Meryl, "Boss what is she doing here?" He asked, pointing at her accusingly, "What are you thinking?"
Meryl's eyes panned over Johnny and Wolf and her own eyes widened, "You two?" She looked at Naruto accusingly, "I thought you said you killed Sniper Wolf back when we ran into Otacon!"
Naruto shrugged, "I never said I killed her. I let you guys come to that conclusion on your own." He picked up his board and placed it in the back of the jeep, covering it with the tarp that had been over Wolf when she had been smuggled out, "I don't like killing my friends, and I protect them when I can. I saw a chance and I took it." It didn't take a genius to feel the tension between the three of them. Johnny had been Meryl's prison guard, Wolf had brutally wounded Meryl in a rather cruel manner to goad Snake into a fight earlier, "Hey! Chill out!" He snapped, getting all of their full attention.
Meryl pointed at the still tied up Wolf, "But she shot me three times in my arm and legs! She didn't even try to make it painless!"
Wolf could only let out a chuckle, "It could have been worse. And by the way, no matter where I shot you it was going to hurt honey. Bullets hurt when they go into you." She finished in an informative baby voice to the soldier several years her junior.
Meryl tried to lunge at the tied up Wolf, but Naruto caught her and threw her back with his good arm. She tried to get past him again, but he kicked her legs out from under her and knocked her to the ground, planting his foot on her chest staring down at her seriously, "I said chill out. Right now you guys are all officially dead… except for me and maybe Johnny, but that's different." He looked up to see the smug look on Sniper Wolf's face and pointed at her, "And stop antagonizing people. I'm the one that put this bullshit plan together so that means I'm more or less responsible for all of you… Kami help me…" He kept trying to push the thought out of his head to try and make them kiss and make up, right now was supposed to be a serious moment that marked his leadership status.
"Okay." Meryl said, trying to squirm out from under his boot on her chest, not knowing why it was so difficult to budge, "Just let me up. I promise I won't strangle Wolf."
Naruto rolled his eyes but took his foot off of her and walked over to Wolf to cut her loose with his sword on his back. Instead of wishing to ask him where he got that, she focused on the limp limb hanging at his right side, "Your arm…" She looked into his eyes and noticed that he was pretty much covered in blood, some his own, some not, "What in God's name did you do on that island?"
A frown marred his face as he could see her concern for him. Sitting in the front passenger's seat of the jeep, he turned around and gave her a reassuring smile, "Don't worry about me Wolf, I'll be fine if I can just make a sling or something." He wasn't about to head to a hospital for that crap. They had somewhere they needed to get to anyway and they were more or less on the clock. They needed to get as far away from Shadow Moses Island as they could, "Right now we need to get you guys to Russia. I know someone that would let you guys lay low especially since they know who Wolf is."
"Gurlukovich Mercenaries?" Wolf asked, getting a nod from Naruto, "Ah. I see." She already knew because Johnny had told her what Naruto's plan basically consisted of once she had reawakened from her KO. They still thought of Wolf as a FOXHOUND ally as the two groups had conspired for all sorts of things after the ransom had gone through. She and Johnny could most definitely get some sanctuary there, but there was still the problem of Naruto and Meryl, "But what about you two? They know that you were supposed to-."
"They don't even know who Meryl is." Naruto cut her off as he directed Meryl to get in the back with Wolf, a method of having them hash out their problems on the fly as they glared at each other once she sat down, "And I'm not going to Russia with you." Saying that got all of their attention, "At least not yet. I still need to go a few places." He finished somberly, looking away from everyone after slamming his head lightly off of the seat once.
Wolf ran a hand through his hair as Johnny climbed into the driver's side and started the jeep back up, ready to leave, "What's the matter little probie?" She asked him in a soothing voice, "Tell me what's wrong." He wasn't even responding to it the way he usually did, he just kept on staring at the steadily rising sun. It kind of worried her. Maybe all of this had burned him out?
Naruto wanted to thank Wolf for trying to help make him feel better, she had always been great at doing that. Still, this wasn't one of those easy to handle situations like his temper getting a bit out of hand, this was far more serious, "Liquid killed Master Miller and imitated him to get the drop on Snake on Codec."
That stopped Wolf's hand. She didn't know Liquid had gone that far to get an advantage during Snake's infiltration, and she found it to be grossly unnecessary. What if Snake had never shown up at all? Then he had more or less just butchered one of Naruto's precious people… to make sure that either way, if he had joined him or now, Naruto had nowhere else to go. The bastard, "I'm so sorry probie."
"That's why I can't just go right with you guys…" Naruto admitted, his eyes basically lifeless once the adrenaline stopped and the reality of the situation truly hit him, "There's somewhere I have to go first… and it's too dangerous to take you guys with me just for this. You guys don't have a stake in it. So I'll get you guys out first, then I'll handle my own personal business." He said, leaving things at that. And no one felt like questioning him on just what that business was. With Naruto, it was anyone's guess.
XxX
(One Month Later – March 2005 – Los Angeles, California)
Drained was the word to describe her if there was anything that could. One phone call that came to the house one month ago told Catherine that her father was dead. And that was it. No one told her or her mother anything about the body or if it would even be released to them, she wasn't even told how he died.
Her mother had been shocked at first and had consoled her for the first week, but it was evident that she wasn't hit nearly as hard as her daughter was with the news. For Catherine's mother, things went back to normal soon enough, even if Catherine still couldn't bear it. Eventually however, she had to think about it and one thought came to her mind; she kept thinking about how her older brother would have handled it.
Well, first of all he probably would have found out what had happened, but she was just 16 years old and in high school. She had no way of doing that; no connections, no intelligence on the matter of what could have happened, nothing like that at all. She was just a normal girl.
Second of all, speaking of her older brother, she hadn't heard from him in about five months. Not a single word. Who knew where he was or what he was doing? He might have even suffered a similar fate to her father, how would she have known? They wouldn't even give her any information on a retired soldier, why would they tell her about an active one that had been doing obscure operations for years?
Letting out a sigh as she arrived from walking to her home from afterschool evening tennis practice she admittedly just didn't care anymore. Coming to California to go to school was great at first; she got to do all of these things that she hadn't gotten to do in Alaska, she got to tell Naruto and her dad about all of the things she was doing and always felt like doing her best to make them proud.
Now she was dragging completely. She had been making straight a's prior to her father's death… but recently they had been suffering extensively due to her apathy. It just wasn't important. And there wasn't anyone to kick her butt into gear since Miller couldn't scold her over the phone and her mother was oftentimes gone for her work, now being one of those extended times.
She dropped her backpack at the door once she got inside. She wasn't going to even touch it until she left for school Monday morning anyway, opting to instead take her duffel bag upstairs with her to her room. As she reached the top of the stairs she saw a light on in her bedroom and the adjacent bathroom and held back a gasp. She set her bag down and slowly reached inside of it to pull out a small black kunai that she had 'borrowed' from her big brother's room in Alaska years ago before she left to come to California in the first place.
Slipping out of her tennis shoes to leave her in her socks, Catherine began slowly walking down the hall the way she had picked up to keep her footsteps from making noise on hard surfaces, keeping the kunai in a reverse grip with her free arm up in a possible defensive stance.
As she reached the wall right next to the bathroom she pressed herself against it as that was where she saw the shadow emanating from. Tightening her grip on the weapon, she prepared to hastily confront her home invader when a voice stopped her, "I already knew you were there Kitty. Don't you know you can never sneak up on me?" She let out a soft gasp and dropped the kunai from her hand, letting it clatter on the floor, "Hey, don't drop weapons."
She opened her mouth and closed it several times, not knowing what to even say right then, "A-Aniki…" She said hesitantly as she finally turned into the doorway and saw Naruto standing at the sink in her bathroom, washing his face and wearing civilian clothes; a pair of blue jeans and a sunburst orange shirt.
"Since when did you start calling me that?" Naruto said in a quiet but amused voice, a smile evident even as he kept washing his face, "But it really is good to hear your voice again." He was about to turn towards Catherine when he felt her considerably smaller body smash into his and wrap a hug around him tightly. He could feel her body shake in silent sobs and he just wrapped his arms around her, rubber her back gently, "I'm sorry…"
Sorry for what? He didn't know what to say. Sorry for not being able to do anything for Master Miller? Sorry for not being able to tell her a single thing about it without putting her in terrible danger? Sorry for not seeing her face for almost a year and a half? Sorry for even leaving and getting involved in all of his crazy bullshit in the first place? He didn't know. If he had to answer he probably would have said all of the above, whichever one of those things made her cry.
There was only so much he could really do, "I got the guy that did it." He said to her quietly. Maybe it would give her some kind of solace to let her know? He had no idea, but it couldn't hurt, "I don't know if that helps or not, I'm sorry." He repeated.
"Don't apologize." She said, burying her face in his chest as her quiet tears streamed down her face and stained his shirt, "You didn't do anything wrong… you never did." She turned her face up to his and gave him a brilliant smile, even through her crying, "It's just-… I'm so happy to see you again! I was so scared! I was scared that you had gotten captured, or that you were hurt again like last time, or even worse! I can't even believe that you're actually here!"
Naruto held her out at arm's length and looked her over having not seen her in over a year. She still had the pretty green eyes that were slightly puffy from crying, her curly blonde hair was put back in a ponytail, probably because she had just come from practice. At the moment she was wearing a white tennis dress with the back out of it. She was really growing up more and more every time he saw her, it was amazing to him.
Naruto moved past her and looked out into the hall, confusing her until he spoke, "Is your mom here?" He asked tentatively. He didn't want to answer any questions about why he happened to sneak in through a second story back window. There was no way he could explain that to a woman that didn't know him or like him one bit.
"She won't be back until midway through next week." Catherine said, wiping her eyes to regain her composure. Crying in front of him was certainly not cool as far as she was concerned, "You're not going to stay here that long either way are you?" She asked as if she already knew the answer.
"I just came to see you Kitty." He wished he could have made her happy and said yes, but things just weren't that simple. He had never missed being a genin in Konoha when things were so simple anymore than he did right then. At least there was a definite place to go to where he felt safe, now he wasn't sure where he would be going, but he knew what he was going to do, "I won't be staying that long though… I can't." And what he felt he had to do had nothing with staying anywhere near Los Angeles.
A sigh of disappointment came from Catherine before she merely grabbed his hand and dragged the confused Naruto across the hall into her room and pointed at the bed. He tilted his head in puzzlement before she rolled her eyes and pushed him down on it, curling up with him on the bed before he could ask what it was that he was in there for. He let her yawn and pull herself closer to him before he spoke up, "Um… what the hell?"
Not that he was a complete stranger to this sort of thing, having been with Sniper Wolf even if it had only been once, but this girl was like his sister. It was weird.
"You just said that you won't be here for long." Catherine said without opening her eyes, "So I'm going to enjoy the time I've got with you. Who knows if you'll actually come back the next time?" She cracked an eye to look at him, "What's the matter? You used to let me do stuff like this all the time when we were younger."
'Yeah, that was before you got all hot!' Naruto yelled in his mind and his face reflected it, 'You're sure not little anymore damn it!' Now if he had said that, then it really would have been weird, "So… you just want me to lay here while you sleep?"
"Yeah…" Catherine said softly in a content voice. God he was solid, "Just go to sleep Aniki… or tell me a story…"
Naruto snickered and let her legs intertwine with his to let her get comfortable, "I thought you were too old for any story I could tell you?"
"Let's just say I feel like I'm little again… and I've needed something to cheer me up." She said, poking him in the chest, "Now take your pick. Sleep or story. Just don't leave me alone again."
"Fine…" Naruto said with a smile on his face. If she was all he had left then he was going to make sure she was taken care of, even if he was an entire continent away he would keep her safe. He had other people he needed to keep safe as well, and he would protect all of them. He had to get stronger, he needed to be more than 'just a child'. But right now he couldn't stay with his sister the way she wanted to, the way she wanted to. That didn't mean he couldn't enjoy the time he had though, "Alright I've got it. I don't think I've told you the story about the Forest of Death before."
XxX
"Yes sir, the entire unit was wiped out." Revolver Ocelot's voice said over a phone line, "Those two are still alive, the brat made it out and disappeared to who knows where as well." Silence reigned for a minute before he spoke up again, "The vector? Yes sir, FOXDIE should become activated soon enough… right on schedule." Once again he stopped talking to listen to some more questions, "I recovered all of REX's dummy warhead data from Solid Snake just as you requested."
"…"
"No sir, my cover is still intact. Nobody knows who I really am. The DARPA Chief knew my identity, but I disposed of him before any harm was done." Once again he went silent to listen before speaking up, "Yes. The inferior clone was the winner after all." He let out a chuckle, "…That's right. Until the very end Liquid thought he was the inferior one." He then suddenly stopped talking as the man he had been speaking with told him something else, "Yes sir I agree completely. It takes a well balanced individual such as yourself to rule the world."
"…"
"No sir. No one knows that you're really the third one… Solidus. Now what should I do about the woman? Keep her under surveillance? Yes sir." He listened again and when he spoke once more his voice took on a satisfied tint, "Yes sir. Thank you. Goodbye… Mr. President."
*click*
Alright, I think I've got a cool direction for things to go after this, and it will totally make sense whether you've played the games or not. It should be a good old time once the real stuff starts up again. I've got some space to fill, and plans are all ready to roll for the next segments people.
Hope you all enjoyed. I'll catch you all around.
Kenchi out.
