Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Metal Gear. Independence Day has long since come and gone, and no big ass alien ship blew up the White House to my knowledge. I'm kind of disappointed, because if there was anyone that could go up in there and 'Will Smith' that mother-mother up it would have been me. I've got heart.
Ooh, or a giant metal spider that wants to kidnap President Ulysses S. Grant. I'd love to see if I could fight one of those. Kinda like a Metal Gear without the nukes or the guns… or anything that makes a Metal Gear a Metal Gear.
Chapter 25: The Mark of a Soldier
(April 29, 2009 – 20 Miles off of the Shore of Manhattan – Big Shell Offshore Cleanup Facility – Shell 1 – Strut C)
Raiden was not having a good first mission under FOXHOUND. After seeing a man that seemed to be able to dance around gunfire like it was coming at him in slow-motion, and seeing a woman that rendered all bullets and explosives around her useless he felt more like he was in some kind of monster movie than a military operation.
From what he had seen, the current strut he was in was deserted, but he couldn't help but feel like there was someone watching him at all times. He was thoroughly on the cusp of freaking out, but only the fact that his girlfriend was monitoring his Codec calls kept him from reporting this to the Colonel. He didn't need that drama.
His USP pistol given to him by Pliskin was held up at the ready for whatever awaited him around the next corner, and as he crept into the kitchen of a mess hall he was glad he had a lethal weapon instead of the tranquilizer gun that he had entered with as he had caught someone off-guard, and it was hard to hold someone up at gunpoint with a tranq as the threat.
The sound of the automatic door shutting got the attention of a black man crouching down near the oven, "Freeze!" Raiden said, before he could even make a real move. It was a bald older man with a mustache and dark sunken eyes wearing a New York City police jacket. On top of the stove was a toolbox that the man put his hands towards to help him stand up, "You a cop?"
"Don't shoot." The older man said as he stayed still, "I'm not NYPD, I came in with the Bravo Team. Who are you? And what happened to SEAL Team 10?"
"They're dead." Raiden stated grimly. He was never going to forget the sight of Fortune taking those men down for the rest of his life. If you had asked him what outlandish things he would see today when he woke up to infiltrate the Big Shell that morning, he would never have gone that far up the weird scale. Not even close.
"All of them? That's bad." The old man sounded distraught as he slowly started to stand up, grabbing a nearby cane for support.
Having already been sufficiently freaked out enough for a lifetime already that day, Raiden's nerves hackled at the sight of the unknown entity beginning to stand up, "Did I tell you you could move?" He then swung his gun to the side at the presence of another person entering from the dining area of the mess hall.
"It's alright, he's one of the good guys." Pliskin nonchalantly strolled in, barely regarding Raiden with a glance despite the fact that he was pointing a gun at him, "Don't go pointing that thing everywhere kid." Having been chided in a manner by the older soldier, Raiden lowered his gun in an embarrassed manner, "What's your name?" He asked the old man.
"Peter." The man said as he finished standing up, using his cane to support what seemed to be an injured leg, "Peter Stillman."
"Lecturer at NAVSCOLEOD (Naval School of Explosive Ordinance Disposal) Indian Head." An impressed Pliskin said, looking over at the old man with a small smile, "Also a consultant for the NYPD bomb squad."
Stillman just shook his head as he heard Pliskin rattle off his past titles, "Just a poor old man who got dragged along for this picnic." He hobbled around the kitchen with his cane, over to Pliskin's side since that weird young man with the gun had just recently been pointing it at him and Pliskin was the one that got him to put it down, "I can't keep up with everybody as you can see. A famous church got wiped off the map because of me. All I lost was this leg."
Raiden put his gun away at that and nodded as he had fulfilled his next portion of orders to find the bomb disposal expert that had come in with the SEAL Team, "So you're the bomb disposal guy?"
Plisken scoffed in amusement at Raiden and put a hand on Stillman's shoulder, "Kid this is THE bomb disposal guy. Open any explosives disposal textbook and you'll see his name."
"Why'd they bring him out of retirement for this?" Raiden wondered aloud. For as good as he was, the leg that he was dragging around made him quite the hindrance for this kind of thing.
At Raiden's query, Stillman frowned deeply, "Because the terrorist group here includes one of my students. The 'Emperor of Explosives' Fatman. He built an atomic bomb when he was only ten. I created him in a sense. I was supposed to supervise the bomb disposal, but it looks like it was taken care of before I had my turn. I'm pretty rusty."
"I wouldn't say that." Pliskin said a bit unsurely, "There are at least two people who came claim to be experts at bomb disposal." He left it a bit more ambiguously than anyone else would have liked, but Raiden knew full well that he wasn't the one that was an expert at such a thing.
Stillman looked between the two strange men with a raised eyebrow, "Are you two with SEAL Team 10? I didn't see you at the mission briefing."
Now there was a problem. Raiden couldn't just go around letting people know that he was with FOXHOUND, and Pliskin had his own problems. Still though, the latter was quick-witted enough to salvage the situation, "Oh, we're with another squad. My name is Pliskin, Lieutenant Junior Grade. Honored to meet you sir."
He extended his hand to Stillman to shake, but he simply stared at it before getting down to business. No formalities, "Mr. Pliskin, do you have any experience with explosives disposal?"
"Don't worry about me." Pliskin assured him as he shot a thumb over in Raiden's direction, "And he looks young, but he can do it. We need more manpower though."
Raiden was about to interject, but he felt like the kid in the room while the grownups were talking and backed down as he remembered that he was supposed to carry out his mission as subtly as possible. Still though, he had been noticed by Stillman in the process, "What's your name?"
"Raiden." He said plainly. He could shell out a codename. That was what it was meant for anyway, something he could tell others to identify him without really identifying him, "Were there any other survivors from the attack?"
Stillman nodded, "There was an engineer with me. A skinny guy with glasses that went in with us, but I haven't seen him since the skirmish. They all said he was the security systems architect for the Big Shell."
"Why take a civilian along?"
"Everything in this structure is computer controlled. He was supposed to get us past all of the security measures. And he had official orders with him."
Due to their conversation, no one noticed the momentary smirk that appeared on Pliskin's face at the topic of the systems architect they were talking about, "We'll leave that for later. Right now we need to figure out how to deal with all of the bombs."
"But there's no one left from the SEAL's EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) squad." Raiden pointed out. He had just seen every last SEAL with the exception of Pliskin die from either Vamp or Fortune in a matter of seconds.
"That just means that we'll have to do it ourselves." Pliskin said, seemingly nonplussed at the prospect of handling explosives.
Raiden however didn't feel the same way, "But I've never defused a bomb before." Before he could continue arguing his point, his Codec went off, "Ah, hold on a sec."
Plisken rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned against the wall to wait, "Off to confer with the CO again?"
Ignoring the remark, Raiden put a hand to his ear to listen better and waited for the Colonel to speak, "Glad to hear Stillman is safe. Assist him in any way possible to clear the C4 from Big Shell."
"Colonel, you know I've never been trained in bomb disposal."
"It's all right. The man you're working with is the best in the field. All you have to do is follow his directions. You will of course keep your identity and your mission objectives to yourself. You need to be fast as well. The enemy may retaliate for the failed assault. Get those C4s neutralized now."
Why was everyone trying to get him to play with high-explosives today? He wasn't trained to do it, "Colonel, I'm not qualified for bomb disposal."
At first there was no response, but then the voice of a woman familiar to him came through, "Jack, it's me. You can do this. Trust me."
"Rose?" Before he could even really speak with his girlfriend again it cut out and back to the Colonel who was back to business and apparently had no concept of letting him have a damn personal moment.
"You haven't had bomb disposal training per se in VR, but you're more than capable of handling C4."
"You're up for this. You know that."
Pliskin had gotten sick of the conversation that he couldn't hear going on and decided to put an end to it, "How about it kid? Are the results in yet?"
By that time, Stillman had prepared something for the two of them to assist in dealing with Fatman's explosives, "There's no need to think about this so much. You won't actually be dismantling the bomb. That's not for amateurs. We're just going to go with a temporary freezing measure." On the center counter of the kitchen he set down two sensing devices and two cans of spray, "He also has a signature. He adds a touch of his own cologne to every bomb he builds."
"Something you taught him?" Pliskin asked with a shake of his head. He already knew of Fatman from Naruto.
"No, that's his own quirk." Stillman began to reminisce a bit, "He wouldn't work by any rules except his own, and he followed them like a religion. And common sense wasn't one of his strong points. I thought I taught him everything I knew. I have no children of my own, and I… I thought I found a son in him. He had the right stuff you know? There's something unusual about an ability like that. Even at Indian Head he got special treatment. Maybe that's what started all of this. But I didn't teach him the most important thing I had to tell him; that there are some things you have to pass on. The trick is to know which one. All I taught him were skills and now I have to stop him from using them to destroy us all."
"Right." Plisken said as he picked up a sensor and a can of freezing spray, "To take down a place this big there should be at least one set of explosives somewhere on each Strut. That's the only way to take down a place this size. Six Struts on Shell 1, another six on Shell 2, that makes twelve in all at least." He pocketed his equipment and started making his way out, "Kid this palce is all yours. I'll take Shell 2. Stillman, stay here. You'll only slow us down with that leg of yours. There's a war going on out there."
"Yeah, just let us handle the grunt work." Raiden interjected in support of Pliskin's viewpoint, "You can tell us what to do over the radio like in the original plan.
Stillman hobbled over to a stool and sat down on it in acceptance of the request of his 'comrades', "Fine. I'll instruct you from here. Good luck because this one's going to be dangerous."
"Good luck kid." Pliskin said, patting Raiden on the back as he left the mess hall, "Semper fi."
With that he left Raiden and Stillman alone. The old bomb disposal expert just stared at the door that Pliskin had used to leave with a suspicious look on his face, "That man's no SEAL. I don't even think he's a Navy man. Too many things don't add up."
"Do you think he's one of the terrorists then?" Raiden asked, ready to go and fight Pliskin for some answers if need be. Even if the man barely took him seriously, that didn't mean that he couldn't win.
"No, if there's someone to suspect on that front I'd put my money on you." Raiden looked a bit flustered at being put on the spot, but Stillman let him off the hook, "Just take care of those bombs for now. I've got a feeling this whole day's going to get worse before it gets better, even if you diffuse them."
XxX
(Meanwhile – Shell 1 – Strut E - Naruto: Age 22)
Mercs, mercs, mercs.
There were so many Gurlukovich Mercenaries in the Big Shell facility. Shell 1 by itself had more jerks waddling around in it than he had ever seen in one place before. The first question Naruto had as he snuck around was 'why weren't they focused as heavily in Shell 2 from what he had seen?' Maybe because there wasn't a damn thing there that needed to be protected.
Which made him more suspicious than ever. Years of looking over your shoulder and PTSD generated night terrors to keep one from sleeping soundly would do that it seemed. Places that didn't have anything to protect usually wound up having something worth posting guards around there for.
Bah, he didn't care to be quite honest. Let Snake worry about the overwhelming, grandstanding plot to harm the country. Naruto would get in on that after he handled his own reason for coming to Big Shell to interfere with today's events. He needed to find Olga, he needed to get her alone, he needed to find out how to help her and help his friends to keep them from getting themselves destroyed.
What in the world was he to do? He needed to make contact with one of his friends, but how would he get to any of them with any semblance of privacy?
It took an entire trip through the places in Shell 1 minus the heavily guarded core building of it before it came to him how to run into one of his friends.
…And he headed to the nearest bathroom.
Luck smiled on him apparently when a familiar set of pained groans entered the facilities and a regularly clothed Gurlukovich Mercenary quickly entered one of the stalls, slamming the door behind him and giving no time to check his surroundings. If the new arrival had, they might have noticed that someone had been hiding up in the ceiling corner of the restroom as he entered.
Naruto waited in the same place for well over ten minutes, though he wished that he had found a place to hide outside. He still suffered from chronic stomach problems? Go to a doctor man.
Eventually though, Naruto got tired of hearing sounds of toilet relief and other gross sounds. That was as private as he was going to get with that person. No one that knew better would hang around a damn bathroom with-, "Johnny."
"Huh!" Johnny said in pained annoyance from inside of the stall, "Who's out there? There's another stall over there and the urinals are open too. Leave me alone!"
"No, it's me Johnny." Naruto said again with a smirk on his face despite himself. There was some humor to be found in the situation. They had first met under similar circumstances after all, "You seriously need to take some medicine to keep that shit in check." Literally.
All of a sudden, metal clattering came from the stall from an alarmed Johnny who was finally aware of just what the score was, "B-Boss? What the hell are you doing here? Wolf told us she saw you, go away!" He said in a hissing whisper.
"Nice to see you too." Naruto muttered with a frown, dropping down from the ceiling corner to walk closer to the bathroom stalls where he leaned against the side, "No, I'm not going anywhere. Not until I figure out what the hell you guys are doing here and not until I get Olga to ferry her mercenaries off of this tin can."
Silence came from inside until Johnny finally spoke up, "…I can't let you do that Boss. Miss Olga has a reason for being here, and I really can't let you screw it up. It'll be better to just let it go. Just leave before bad things happen."
"Bad things'll happen whether I'm here or not." Naruto replied, "At least if I'm here I can say that I tried to stop it and help the people I care about. You know; damage control."
"There isn't enough damage control in the world that'll stop this one Boss." Johnny said as he flushed the toilet inside of his stall, "I only get like this when I'm nervous. Well when Wolf radioed me and Meryl and told us you were here, that unsettled my stomach. I don't like this."
"I don't like it either. You know that feeling that you get when you can feel a thunderstorm in the atmosphere? It sucks." He then looked down and saw that Johnny had slid him a key card. A high level key card. The highest level, "Johnny…" Naruto started to say until he was cut off.
"Don't say anything Boss." Johnny told him as he could be heard buckling his pants for a moment before the stall door swung open, "I know by now that when you get something in your head someone would have to kill you to stop you. If that's the way things are I might as well help you as much as I can. I only have one that high because of Wolf, Meryl, and Miss Olga… I'm not stationed anywhere that I actually need it."
That was a big gamble, especially with all of the people there. With the Dead Cell crazies, and everything else going on to boot?
Naruto picked it up off of the ground and raised an eyebrow in his clumsy yet well-meaning ally's direction, "Are you sure about this? If the wrong people find out that I've got your card-."
"Only a few people know that we're even friends Boss." Johnny said as he emerged from the stall tucking his clothing into place properly as he held his AN-94, "Besides, if anyone asks what happened to my card I'll just say that it fell in the toilet." He finished jokingly before stopping to take a good look at Naruto, "…You look so tired."
Naruto just grunted in return, not confirming or denying the statement, "I can't tell what you look like right now because you're always wearing that damn mask." He looked at the clearance of the card and noted that Johnny had placed his radio frequency on the back of it on a piece of tape, "I guess I'll call you if something's up. But what's Olga's frequency?"
"Do you really want to let her know that you're here with a random call when you haven't called her one single time in two years?"
"Good point. I thought you said you were bad with women."
"Not when they're already mad I'm not. I'm experienced at that. I'm just not very good at keeping them from getting angry in the first place."
"Right." With that Naruto tucked the card away into his equipment and gave Johnny a pat on the shoulder before heading out, "Here's hoping no one shoots me when they finally see me." He said as he ambled out of the bathroom to continue looking around for more of his friends, "Later."
Johnny just nodded before pointing in a direction, "Oh, if you want to find someone the easiest person to look for might be Meryl. She's heading up the patrols in Shell 2… Strut H I think." There wasn't an answer and when Johnny checked outside of the bathroom there was no sign of Naruto anywhere, "I hate it when he does that." He said with a sigh before looking around and pulling out his radio, "…I just saw him. He's going Shell 2 way again." He reported.
"That's… not good." Sniper Wolf said in return over her radio, "Call him and tell him to come back. The way he crosses the bridges I can't deter him with sniping. My bullets are too high-caliber to ricochet off of that kind of metal."
Johnny was prepared to do just that before he remembered something important. The blush on his face couldn't be seen underneath his balaclava mask, "I uh, I kind of forgot to ask him for his new Codec frequency and just gave him radio frequency instead."
"Johnny!"
"I was in the bathroom and I was scared, I forgot!" Johnny reasoned in return. Didn't anyone else ever screw up? It happened to him all of the time. Even if Wolf told him and Meryl that Naruto was there it was terrifying to come face-to-face with the man while on the damn toilet, "What's the big deal anyway? Miss Olga isn't even in that Shell. She's in this one, in the core building to boot! They're nowhere near each other!"
Sniper Wolf only had one thing to say that explained it, "Old Boy and the Fallschirmjäger were commanded to patrol Shell 2."
XxX
(Some Time Later – Shell 2 – Strut J)
"What?" Naruto asked quietly, yet his voice was stunned, "Bombs?"
Naruto had somehow noticed Snake while moving through Shell 2… because he saw a cardboard box somewhere it had no business being. A Solid Snake classic that for some reason still held up to this day when the man needed to hide himself in a screwball situation.
From there Snake had given Naruto some messed up news that explosives were planted all over the Big Shell. With someone like Fatman being on the scene it was to be somewhat expected that bombs were set somewhere, so it wasn't surprising but it was still screwed up.
"Heard it from the best bomb disposal expert around." Snake said in confirmation, "He trained Fatman too, so if anyone would know it would be him. I found all of the ones with Fatman's traces, but I'm here looking for a bigger set somewhere in this Shell."
A grimace came to Naruto's face at the thought of having to tinker with a bomb, especially one made by Fatman, "I'm not really much for bomb disposal. I mean, I know enough to get around if I have to, but other than that…" He said, trailing off tellingly.
Snake just waved him off, "Don't worry about it. I'm doing this Shell while the Raiden kid is doing the other. We've got this." His looks then turned thoughtful, "But the bombs aren't anywhere important so far. They've all been places like in bathrooms, or hidden in storage closets. Stuff like that."
From his own personal experience, Naruto knew that Fatman had a thing for planting weak explosives in weird places. Everybody in Dead Cell had to check their crap routinely to make sure that Fatman hadn't stashed a bomb in their bags or under their beds… or under the table in the common area, "Those aren't the real ones. That's just him being a dick." He knew the things that Dead Cell had been meant to do, terrorist things, "Check somewhere structural."
Like Snake knew anything structural about facilities like this. The whole damn thing seemed precarious and unstable to him, so how could he tell the difference? Damn it, why did Otacon have to have his own crap to deal with during the mission for the time being?
"Call Catherine." Naruto griped when he could tell what the scowl on Snake's face was implying, "She's got the stolen blueprints to Big Shell on her computer just the same as Otacon so get the info from her." He hoped he wasn't that grouchy when he was Snake's age… which was just thirty-seven by the way.
Snake sincerely disliked the fact that Naruto's civilian 'sister' had been brought into the fold of Philanthropy, but there had been no alternative, and she really wasn't that bad. Still though, he didn't like untrained comm. specialists handling his stuff. The fact that she was the daughter of the person that partially trained he and Naruto was the only connection to the military she really had.
"I'll keep that in mind." Snake said, "I'll just call Peter Stillman and see what he says to do. Who'd know more about bombs and bomb disposal than an expert?"
"Whatever." Naruto said, before making a hand motion as the two split off, "Don't be tight-lipped if you get into trouble." Snake let out a grunt in reply, but Naruto already knew that the man wouldn't call if he needed the help. Not unless the entire mission rode on something getting done or being prevented from happening.
Special Forces guys…
He had his own thing to do anyway. Snake could go around disarming C4 explosives. He didn't need his help for something like that, even if it was someone like Fatman that planted them. No, now there was someone that needed to be located.
And per Johnny's instructions Naruto made his way to the appropriate strut of Shell 2 in order to locate her. As he walked carefully through the halls, ready to react to any sound or any unfamiliar sense that came his way, he had to again bring up the fact that he had no clue why Shell 2 was as desolate as it was.
Strut H was a storage building, but nothing that Naruto could use sat within. It wasn't supposed to be a military facility. Granted the terrorists that had taken over the Big Shell had brought some of their own ammo and equipment, they didn't keep it there. It was really just chemicals and machinery used to treat the ocean water kept in there.
Yeah, The Patriots really had the money to waste on simple appearances if they dished out the money to pay for all of this working crap. But if they had the money to waste on sinking a full tanker just to frame he and Snake they had enough money for anything. No wonder the national economy was shit. They controlled the United States down to the letter so they obviously used federal money to front all of that cover-up stuff.
The high shelves containing metal barrels and metal box containers served as Naruto's home to hide from anyone in the large and cramped warehouse that served to be like a labyrinth if one didn't have his ability to 'rise above' the shelves like him. But it was an unnecessary precaution. The only soldiers he saw in there reported to one person on… something that he could barely hear.
Something about 'estimated to be ready in several hours', but he could barely hear from where he was before he managed to get closer. By the time he did so, they were saluting the lone person that they had been reporting to, "Ma'am, the commander wishes to see you A.S.A.P., though she didn't tell us why."
"That's fine." Such a stern voice from a young woman his age with neck-length red hair. Well she was definitely different from the last time he saw her in the field. Far more confident, but it was probably because after living through what she had already survived would make anything else seem easy to handle, "Tell her that I'll be with her after our relief for this patrol finishes the rotation."
The soldiers that had informed her of her next set of orders snapped off a salute and quickly hustled out of the warehouse, leaving her alone. With a sigh she walked over to a metal chair that she had set up hours ago as the warehouse had been the center point of the patrol and sat down, crossing one leg over the other.
Naruto slowly climbed down the shelves directly behind her doing his best Spiderman impression until apparently his presence was familiar enough to the woman beneath him that she looked directly up and saw him hovering overhead. She had a look of shock on her face at the sight of the blonde man in his dark green operational gear before it morphed to one of annoyance, "Ugh, really?"
"Oh, sorry Meryl." Naruto remarked sarcastically in return, "I'll just walk around all of the shelves and run myself into six dead-ends while there are soldiers in here patrolling, instead of just going over the tops of them. What the hell do you mean 'really'? You expected me to go around?"
It was quite a sight to see a woman glaring up at a blonde ninja-looking man who was hanging off of a shelf upside down, returning it just as heatedly. If anyone had been there to see it of course.
Eventually Naruto dropped down and landed on the ground, crouching from a silent flip. Meryl rolled her eyes at the fact that Naruto was still a bit of a showoff, but from what she had seen of her 'comrades' on this mission he wasn't the only person she knew that had a flair for the dramatic by far.
Naruto stood back up and turned to face her, scrutinizing her appearance the way he had done so for all of his friends he hadn't seen in a while. She wore a dark combat suit that was a bit snug on her, but seemed to be armored in vital places, with a high collar around the back of her neck. On her arms she had sleeves that extended from her hands to her elbows and she had a full supply belt around her waist with all of her ammunition and guns.
She still used that Desert Eagle of hers, and if she hadn't gotten killed by then she must have known how to pull her shots with it by now. She even had another one with an extended barrel and a scope on it, something that made Naruto's eye twitch.
"I thought I told you a million times to drop that hand cannon." Naruto muttered distastefully at such a noisy weapon. Then again, Meryl wasn't about using stealth and working alone the way he had to most of the time.
"I thought I told you to stay away." With the last three syllables of her sentence, Meryl poked Naruto squarely in the middle of the chest sternly before her features softened and she pulled him into a hug, "Damn it, it's good to see you alive though."
For better or worse Naruto was something of her mentor despite being the same age (she'd never admit that to his or anyone else's face though), and during Shadow Moses they had wound up forming a strong friendship. Having him disappear twice off of the face of the planet for the better part of three years did make her uneasy.
Seeing him there, even under the current circumstances set her stomach a bit easier than it had been when he came up as a topic in the past. At least at this point she could confirm that he was alive and kicking.
"You too." Naruto returned the hug and idly took note of how much physically stronger she felt than when they had first met. Pulling back, he also noted how that damn suit of her accentuated some of her more feminine assets, "You look really good you know. Gunmetal is definitely your color."
He took a punch to the shoulder for that compliment though, "Eyes off my tits you womanizing-… ugh. You're so hardheaded." It was clear he was just trying to lighten the mood, but there wasn't much of one to lighten, "…It's bad Naruto. It's really bad. This is so screwed up."
"What?"
"Everything!" Meryl exclaimed suddenly, "Olga's baby is tied up in all of this somehow. You remember the deal with that right?"
How could he forget? Either Olga accomplishes some big mystery mission or brings about his death, otherwise her child dies. But who in God's name was pulling the strings to dictate that this was the mission that was intended?
"So you have to get what the leader that's calling himself Solid Snake wants, or the kid doesn't make it." That had to be the mission. It was completely over-encompassing in regards to anything else. What could possibly be a bigger mission than this? "So does that mean that the guy running this thing is one of The Pat-?"
"We don't know." Meryl grumbled. She felt like flinging her chair straight through something, but she had to keep playing it straight, "And he's definitely not Solid Snake, that's just the alias he's using until he gets what he wants and it doesn't matter anymore. The codename he used until this was Solidus Snake."
"Original." Naruto deadpanned. What was with all of the fucking snake-related names? Didn't anyone have any inventiveness in them anymore? If he had ever gotten to pick his own codename… oh man that would have been really something. He could only imagine.
Apparently Meryl felt the same way from her distaste in how she spoke of the ringleader of the entire thing, "I know, right? But we know him better as something else. This guy is George Sears, the last President until Shadow Moses happened."
That guy again. First in France, then again in Sierra Leone, and finally right back to New York City. Espionage was one thing, but this had strayed over into the realm of the absurd a long time ago, "…I really hate my government."
"I thought you'd didn't claim being American."
"Fine, I hate your government then." While this wasn't the President that Naruto wanted to put a bullet or a blade into, because Johnson held that position quite firmly, Sears was quickly moving his way to the top of the list, "So if this fails it all goes to hell. What the fuck does he want?"
And was it something that could be afforded to be given?
Meryl was quick to answer, "A newly developed kind of Metal Gear, something aquatic, I don't know much more about it. Naruto this whole place is a front for its development in secret." Putting the new weapon of mass destruction and worldwide panic into the hands of another lunatic? Damn it, "Only he, Ocelot, and Olga know anything about it though. She's trying to keep us as far away as she can, for our safety or… I don't know."
Ocelot. He was there. Great. Someone else whose neck he wanted to break. What was this, a greatest hits reunion?
The conversation was cut short when the large doors of the warehouse were thrown open and orders were barked out in German as the boot steps of troops marched in. Both Naruto and Meryl turned to each other with looks of panic on their faces, for different reasons.
"Damn it, my shift commanding the regulars is over." Meryl was only still there until all of her men were relieved by their replacement guards, who were on their way inside of the warehouse right then, "You've got to go Naruto. This is not good."
Naruto knew that full well, because he knew the enemy a bit more personally after having worked with them himself before, "Old Boy and the Fallschirmjäger?"
Instead of letting him wait until it was too late, Meryl shoved Naruto off towards the back exit, "Just go! We'll talk later!"
"145.29." That was all Naruto said before quickly vacating the warehouse through the back. He wasn't afraid to fight those guys, not at all, but getting seen by them with Meryl with the two of them not trying to kill each other would simply not work out.
Still as fast as ever, Naruto was able to escape just before the area became flooded with clean-shaven soldiers dressed in plain grey uniforms and carrying Belgian FAL rifles that lined up awaiting their leader.
The stillness of the room gave way to slow, plodding footsteps that revealed a small and hunched old man with wispy white hair and a stern expression wearing an old German officer uniform from the WWII era. His chest was adorned with metals and on his person he kept quite outdated equipment, most notably the German semi-automatic rifle the Gewehr 43 on his back.
He marched up past his similarly appearing soldiers who stood in obedient attention as he moved up closer to Meryl who stood taller than the old man, "Come to take command of the Shell from me?"
"Of course." Old Boy said with his thick German accent, "With the Seal Teams dealt with and with the intruder that King is so certain that we have, it is only right for a little more discipline to be added to the proceedings don't you think? My men will shoot to kill first and foremost."
Ah, Old Boy of course had a longstanding problem with Russians, and that was what the Gurlukovich Mercenaries were completely comprised of. It was an old World War II and Soviet Union occupation thing. Old people held serious grudges like that, even though he got himself out of Germany as quickly as possible after that war.
Old Boy took a slow walk around Meryl, circling her as he observed her, "Such a beautiful girl, working against her home country. How did you ever fall in with this lot to begin with? After Shadow Moses you should have been perceived as a hero, yes?"
She could see the smirk on his face and spoke back bitingly, "I guess it's the same way that Dead Cell almost wound up liquidated six months ago…" Patriots didn't want them and proceeded to do something about them.
"So it's Rapture's fault?" Old Boy said, speaking Naruto's codename as if it were something poisonous, "Did his rogue actions do you harm the way that they did Dead Cell's reputation harm? Did they get your CO killed the way that Dead Cell's commanding officer was thrown away to die in prison for nothing? Did they put enough scrutiny on your group that eventually framing you as an excuse to kill you off seemed feasible?" He seemed to be getting angrier and angrier as he spoke and his thin hair started flipping about.
Old Boy then calmed back down and smoothed his hair into place once more for appearances sake.
"If that is not what you were implying…" Old Boy concluded sharply, "…Then our paths have nothing in common. I hope that boy is cursed blind, deaf, and dumb." With that he brushed past Meryl and started barking commands to the remaining soldiers in his personal unit for how their shift was to go.
Meryl let out a scoff at the crotchety old man and strode past him and his group of handpicked soldiers on her own way out, "Well maybe you'll get lucky enough to get a chance to do that to him yourself. That is if you don't believe he's dead the way it was reported back in 2007."
"Vermin like Rapture are oftentimes hard to kill, and they often know when to abandon sinking ships. So no; no one amongst us believes he is dead, and neither should you."
"Don't worry, I don't." That was the last thought that Meryl left him with as her voice echoed through the warehouse prior to her leaving.
XxX
(Elsewhere in Shell 2 – Strut H 2nd Floor Basement)
"Snake, you need to stop looking right now and get the hell out of Shell 2 altogether."
Damn girl chattering in his ear. Why did Otacon have to be on-site and leave him with Naruto's 'sister' running distance support? She was a good girl and knew herself, but she seriously had little place anywhere near a battlefield, "I can't. I'm supposed to be looking around the bottom of Strut H. Pete's suspicious that there's something down here."
Instead of hearing Catherine chiding him to leave, Naruto's voice came over Snake's Codec, "Grr… that's a structural spot. We can't just leave it alone if there could be bombs there." Sielnce reigned for a moment, "Fine. Be careful and search. I think I'm gonna have to take some of the heat off of you, because Old Boy's Fallschirmjäger are in the Shell in force and they'll definitely find you if you're stuck searching for bombs."
Snake then looked around at his position. It was lower floor of the warehouse Strut H where there was more open space and the entirety of what was stored down there was heavy industry equipment lining the walls with the open floor meant to be a safe place to take things down. No place to hide. Any idiot could locate anyone in there just by checking corners.
Yeah he was going to need that diversion.
"…If you're not going to get yourself killed doing it feel free to take some of the heat off of me kid."
"Right. Kitty, give me a good place to redirect guys away from Strut H. I need to give Snake some privacy to search."
"One sec." Clicking of a mouse could be heard through the line before the young girl spoke back up, "Strut H is around the front of the Shell, the side that connects with the bridge to Shell 1. So don't go outside and fight. On that bridge you'd just be making it easy for them to concentrate their fire. Strut J on Shell 2… it regulates power to the entire Shell. A very important place, and a spot where they can't free-fire or they'll risk damaging something."
A rather devious chuckle came from Naruto from his end of the conversation, "Well if I've got to fight against all of those guys I don't think there's a better place for someone like me to take them on. That's my battleground. Listen for the noise and you'll know when you're clear."
The noise to signify the diversion couldn't come soon enough apparently, because Snake could hear footsteps down the hall outside coming closer and many people speaking to one another in German. He was still dressed in his SEAL gear for his cover as Iroquois Plisken, but he had his sneaking suit on underneath, so that meant he still had his M4. Even so, a firefight was the last thing that the doctor would have ordered.
No defensive position in the whole room. Sweet. All Snake could do was crouch down on one knee while facing the door, his gun up and ready to fire. His best chance was to create a clusterfuck at the door by gunning down the first few to come through.
'Alright. I need to group these shots well or I'm going to end up wasting too much of the mag to jam up the doorway-.' Snake's thoughts came to a stop when he heard barking over the radios of the men outside. His German was a bit rusty, but a smirk still came to his face as he was able to make out the fact that an alert had been sounded elsewhere in the Shell, 'Good work kid.'
For as long as Naruto's distraction lasted, Snake had been bought some time to keep searching for Fatman's mother lode of C4. And it didn't take him too much longer to find it. Around a support pillar that ran up the center of the room, at the very top of it against the ceiling sat enough C4 to span it all around. The only reason he saw it was because of the flashing green light of the detonating device.
Snake's jaw dropped before he pulled out his small can of freezing spray meant to neutralize smaller explosive setups and looked back up into the air, "…I don't have enough spray for that." He went to his radio and called Stillman, "This is Pliskin. Do you read me Pete?"
"I'm right here. What's up?"
"Raiden needs to hear this too."
"I'm listening."
"I checked out the bottom of Strut H for you Pete, and a hell of a lot of C4's been packed into the bottom of the strut." Snake reported, "He called it right Raiden. These are sensor-proof. Sealed tight to prevent vapor-leak and there's no trace of the cologne signature."
The response he received after that statement more or less let him know that today was turning out to be just like one of those other days he had every so often. He hated those days because they never seemed to end.
XxX
(With Naruto – Shell 2 – Strut J)
The power plant in Strut J had a rather defensible position. From one entrance there was a straight and long hallway and at the end of it was a 90 degree angled turn to another similarly sized hall that led to the second exit of the building.
The inside walls of the hallways led to the actual power plant room, which housed a structure within that controlled the electric distribution through the entire Shell. A two story elevated control point sat around several transformer fields all over the room with wires hanging in the air all over the place.
Naruto stood at the joining point of the two hallways with a clone in front of him and at one of his sides, holding up their right arms toward the individual exits. On the floor in the hallway lay several of the Fallschirmjäger soldiers that had been cut down by Naruto's use of the HF Blade that he had stowed away. No need for it here anymore, at least not yet.
'Come on you fuckers… which one are you coming through?' Naruto thought to himself, eyes darting between the two exits. With a mental command, Naruto's clones began charging up the Solar Gun that they all had on their right arms built into their suit and waited.
Apparently Old Boy had coordinated them to come through both doors at the same time, because both hallways began flooding with the personal guard of the Dead Cell member, and upon seeing them come through, Naruto's clones as ordered began opening fire with the Solar Gun. Over a dozen rapid-fire bullets of light were sent down to the doors and drilled the soldiers coming through.
Even if the weapon didn't kill it still packed more than enough of a punch to bring any enemy down with sheer concussive force.
But the tide of enemies didn't stop. The original Naruto created a single clone bringing the number of functioning Narutos to four; two shooters and two to wage a direct attack. Both original Naruto and his newly created clone ran down the hall, dodging the shots from their backs courtesy of the other Narutos before drawing their HF Blades and cutting through anyone stepping through their respective doors.
This continued until Naruto felt his sword clone expire via gunshots from more advancing soldiers. On that end of the hallway they started coming further and managed to gun down Naruto's corner clones.
Gritting his teeth as he could feel the wounds, Naruto backed off. He couldn't use any of the ID locked FALs that the Fallschirmjäger dropped in death and defeat, so he didn't waste time trying to pick up a firearm. His only other weapons on his person aside from the Solar Gun and his HF Blade were his kunai and shuriken, ninja wire, and his SOCOM pistol that he wasn't wasting the bullets for yet.
That was okay though. There was plenty more fight left to be had, and by now he had trained to deal with the backlash pain of his clones dying. Thus he ducked into the power plant room and took momentary refuge there.
He already had a trap prepared for the eventual storming of the room. Both doors had metal ninja wires running from the floor right inside of them in puddles of water to directly around Naruto's fingertips. It took some of his own personal supply inside of his flask, but it was worth it. Thus he waited until it grew quiet outside and then began generating electric chakra from his hands into the wires, "Raiton: Yuurei no Todoku (Lightning Release: Reach of the Ghost)!"
The moment the assault was coordinated to be waged simultaneously, the doors flew open and members of the Fallschirmjäger piled in, only to step on the wires on the floor that were tied to Naruto's fingers.
Several more soldiers fell due to vicious electrocution, but others stepped over their bodies to get inside. His trap had already done what it was able to and Naruto cut the lines around his fingers before guns were pointed at him in the control area. He was able to dodge the gunfire by jumping up into the mass of black tangled wires overhead right underneath the ceiling.
Instead of blindly firing at the ceiling, some of the men grabbed Semtex and threw it at the ceiling to get Naruto down or kill him. The explosives blew up and knocked down copious amounts of live wires. Some of the wire edges hit the transformers and caused explosions and sparks to fly all over the room.
It was meant to smoke their blonde enemy out, but it backfired when the power went out due to the damage done to the control room. The moment the lights dimmed, sounds of men getting cut down left and right started sounding out and blasts of light from the Solar Gun erupted all over the room. Frantic panicked gunfire was aimed all around until it fell silent as there was no one left standing.
The backup electricity that was connected to the transformers in Shell 1 kicked on after a minute or so, but when they did Naruto remained in the room sheathing his sword on his back amid the fallen bodies of his attackers.
In the silence of the room Naruto could hear his Codec connection to his sister take life again, "Okay, I'm glad it was too dark for my camera to see most of that. Good God Aniki that was ridiculous."
"I was going more for awesome, but I'm sure you meant ridiculous in the best way possible right?"
"No I meant ridiculous as in, 'How the fuck did you learn how to do even half of that by yourself?' That was like thirty guys from start to finish."
"Glad someone was keeping count." Naruto said in return. With no signs of any more troops coming, he reached for his ear and made a call of his own, "There. That had better buy you all the time you need Snake."
"Thanks for the solid, I cleared out the rest on my own. Want to do me another favor? Make sure the bridge connecting the Shells is clear. Peter Stillman is coming to diffuse the huge bomb in Strut H. I've got to make sure the last of the diversion C4s are out of commission just in case."
"Fine." Naruto said, immediately getting on the hop to hustle back to the bridge, "I'll make sure he gets to Strut H. The Fallschirmjäger are completely done so it should be clear once he gets inside."
XxX
(With Raiden – Shell 1 – Strut E – Heliport)
One explosive left in Shell 1. All he had to do was find the final C4 he had to diffuse. As he went outside and strode on the walkway that wrapped around the building he came across a staircase that sat right by the bridge that would take him to his destination.
As he neared the bottom of the staircase that led up to the helipad on the roof he hid against the side of it as he heard voices from the top of it, "I've taken care of that annoying fly." A man on the radio had to be referring to the SEAL helicopters that had been shot down. The terrorists had mowed straight through any other military intervention quickly, "What's the situation over there?"
A girl with a Russian accent responded in turn, "Puzzling. I saw a man dressed as a ninja just now. It's the only way to describe it. A kind of cyborg ninja, complete with a sword."
"What?" The man on the radio sounded shocked and a bit angry.
Raiden eventually crept to the edge of the stairs enough to look up the staircase at the woman standing atop it with a radio in her hand, "Are you hiding something from me?" She accused sharply.
"Olga. Are you sure it wasn't an Arsenal Tengu?"
"Don't be a fool. You think I wouldn't know the difference?" Despite the sun glare from the angle he was looking from, Raiden was able to make out her features quite easily. She had shoulder-length silver hair and wore a gray camouflaged uniform, jacket half open, with combat boots and a harness with a belt that held two handguns, one at her chest, another at her waist. As far as looks went she was quite beautiful, even with the considerably noticeable scar that went diagonally across her face, "I've never seen field gear like that ever."
"Alright, we'll intensify patrols. Anything else?"
She turned her back to pace around the stair area of the helipad as she continued to converse, "Actually, one more thing. I saw a man hiding under a cardboard box." Raiden saw his opening to get closer and possibly detain this Olga woman as a prisoner.
"Where?"
"On the connecting bridge to Shell 2." Olga let silence permeate over the line before she spoke again, "So you believe me this time?"
"I've seen someone use that box trick before. Don't worry, I'll have a trap set for the Shell 2 connecting bridge."
"Over and out then."
As Olga put her radio up, Raiden decided that then was the time to act and swung around the corner with his USP pistol pointed at the top of the staircase at Olga. He had managed to get her off-guard, "Freeze!" He ordered for the second time that day to someone, "You must be one of Dead Cell."
From her place at the top of the stairs, Olga turned towards Raiden at the bottom with a look on her face like he was some sort of adorable thing completely out of place at Big Shell, "Of course not. What a thing to say?" Did she look like she had freaky powers or weird obsessive personality traits?
The glare from the sun disguised the fact that Olga had a gun in her hand until she had turned Raiden's way, but when he saw it he was quick to let her know about it, "Drop your gun."
'It took him that long to see it?' Olga thought to herself as she could feel the sun beating down on her back. She realized why and smirked down at her would-be captor, "Hn. Not a chance." Without wasting another second, Olga smoothly side-flipped over the railing at the top of the stairs in a gravity-defying move.
Raiden fired two shots and simultaneously panicked as he saw her plummet over the side of the strut and seemingly into the water inside of the oil fence. There was no way she survived that. He rushed up the stairs and looked down only to find that there was no sign of the woman at all.
"What the hell?" Raiden whispered to himself before sitting down on the stairs and making a call on his Codec to the only guy he had with him in the field; Pliskin, "I saw a female soldier. Russian."
"Must be Olga Gurlukovich."
"How do you know?" He asked as he searched the top of the helipad along all of the supply crates of various sizes. Eventually he came across a harrier right in the landing zone and smirked as he checked beneath it and found C4 there. With a victorious grin he started to freeze-spray it.
"Unlike you I've been briefed. She leads a Russian private army. You'd better watch yourself with her. She's a tough one."
She seemed tough from the way she dodged him and escaped in one move that he was more than certain he couldn't follow. He didn't see anything over the side of the stairs to catch onto at all, and you simply couldn't swim in that water even if you fell into it, "Ha. The last C4 is frozen."
"You're way ahead of me kid. I've still got one C4 to go and Pete just got here."
"About Pete…" Raiden said, remembering what he overheard, "There's supposed to be a trap on the bridge connecting Shell 1 and Shell 2."
"…A trap on the bridge?"
XxX
(With Naruto – Shell 1/Shell 2 Connecting Bridge)
"Aniki…"
Naruto heard his sister speak to him through his Codec and he simply gave a tap to his belt where Catherine had placed a small camera so that she could see what was going on for as long as possible, "Yeah, I know. It's not like we didn't expect something like this to happen eventually, right?"
It wasn't a problem to get Peter Stillman to Shell 2 from that bridge. But it seemed that it didn't matter because right after he did, Naruto looked directly at the other end of the bridge and saw the wrinkled and diminutive figure of Old Boy, waiting on him as if he already knew that he was there. The bridge had an upper portion and a lower portion with side catwalks beneath the top area for better observation of the water being treated below.
Naruto hid just inside of one of the strut shades that led directly out to the bridge. He could have just gone back inside. It wasn't a confrontation that needed to occur. But Naruto didn't care. He'd spent the last few years hiding from everyone. Maybe it would feel good to go out into the light for once.
"It could be a trap. Old Boy… he's a legend internationally. He's got ten times the experience in battle that you do, and it's like he's been waiting for you over there. You don't have to go."
"I'm not afraid of Old Boy, even if he is smarter than me." Naruto said, checking his Solar Gun's amount of energy left. It didn't matter because he'd just recharge it in the sunlight through his suit, "Let's see what's up here Kitty."
Across the other side of the bridge, Old Boy's countenance twisted at the sight of Naruto as he walked out, seemingly without fear as to his situation, "Still as hardheaded as ever I see. Time doesn't teach us some things after all, eh Rapture?" He spoke loudly to cover the span of space between the two of them.
"Hey Old Boy." Naruto greeted loudly with a hard look on his face, "You're looking… old."
The shrewd old German man didn't rise to Naruto's cheeky remark, because even he seemed to realize just how much deep shit he was in with the members of Dead Cell, "You have quite a few crimes to face the music for boy. Dead Cell inherited your reputation as a rogue unit after your foolish stunt on the U.S.S. Discovery two years ago. You've marked us by them."
"Yeah, well they framed me to get me out of sight and out of mind." Naruto told Old Boy matter-of-factly, "I didn't do anything. But I doubt you want to hear a word I'm saying."
At that, a smirk came to Old Boy's weathered face, "Exactly right. Be grateful though. If I were Fortune or Chinaman you wouldn't even be getting to speak the peace that you've been given. I just wanted the satisfaction of knowing that you were alive so that I can kill you myself. No other members. Just me."
Naruto didn't say a word. He just got down in a stance prepared to move quickly. He had fifty yards of bridge to cover out of the seventy to get close enough to Old Boy to attack him. The good news was that he was clearly going to be the fastest thing walking that bridge anytime soon. The bad news was that Old Boy had an actual rifle and Naruto knew he was a crack shot.
Neither of them were privy on making the first move, but they couldn't stay there all day. And Naruto's brash nature came through as he was the first to blink so to speak. Naruto whipped out his SOCOM pistol and took a prayer of a shot all the way across the bridge that Old Boy didn't even bother trying to dodge as it missed wide.
Instead he swung up his Gewehr 43 and put Naruto in his crosshairs before squeezing the trigger. With a crack he fired a shot of his own at Naruto that the boy didn't disappoint him in dodging. With a flip Naruto landed on the railing of the bridge and started running on it in a straight line directly at Old Boy who missed three more shots before finally timing Naruto's rapid footsteps, "Still as fast as ever Rapture, but these old eyes are still sharp."
Another shot from Old Boy and Naruto chose to jump to the other railing, but Old Boy saw him jump to it and went to shoot out Naruto's foot before he landed. Gritting his teeth and knowing that he almost screwed himself over, Naruto intentionally overshot the mark on the upper railing and landed on the lower side catwalk to preserve his ankle from being shot out. He didn't need that kind of a handicap against him.
At the end of the catwalk, back on the upper part of the bridge, Old Boy leaned over the side and fired three shots at Naruto before ducking back up after the young man hotfooted it back to avoid the angled shots.
A single stick-like device came flying over the top and landed on the catwalk near Naruto. He wasn't privy to old-school explosives, but he could see the warhead at the top of this stick and knew what it was, 'Stielhandgranate!' Pumping every bit of muscle to his legs that he could, Naruto jumped into the air and backflipped straight up over the railing to the top of the bridge just as it blew up.
His landing wasn't as smooth as he would have liked due to the blowback from the grenade blast and he landed on his stomach. Pushing himself vertically off of the ground with force, he was able to avoid two more shots from Old Boy's Gewehr 43. Hearing the pop of the gun's cartridge hit the ground, Naruto's feet touched the ground and he took off back in Old Boy's direction before he could reload.
The ravages of time weren't kind to one such as Old Boy. His reload time in his prime for his weapon was three seconds max. You could adjust that for age and what arthritis and other ailments could do to one over a lifetime and tack on more length to that number. He couldn't reload fast enough to stop Naruto from sprinting a mere fifty yards in the same length of time.
The moment he realized that the Gewehr was a lost cause he reached for his sidearm and pulled out a Walther pistol to kill or deter his adversary. It was scary how quick Naruto was though, because the moment he pointed his gun up at Naruto he could see the whites of his eyes… or was that red. Either way he fired twice, but missed and had his wrist grabbed and lifted directly into the air by Naruto.
In Naruto's free hand he saw a spinning blue orb of raw energy and using a device in the sleeve of his other arm, another Walther popped into Old Boy's free grasp.
Two shots and both of them broke away from each other, falling back onto the ground. Old Boy's right arm was dislocated at the shoulder by Naruto's rough grip that lifted it into the air, and Naruto had taken two bullets right to the chest. Thank goodness for his reinforced suit's durability, he could see the bullets caught in the fabric of his chest, stopping way short of getting through. Hurt like hell though.
Old Boy scooted away as quickly as he could, seething in pain at his injury as he put up his Walther and held a radio up to his mouth before shouting into it in German, "Take aim now! You couldn't miss him if you were blind and firing without arms now!"
From the top of the strut closest to Old Boy's side of the bridge, a pair of his Fallschirmjäger soldiers held up a pair of Panzerfaust disposable anti-tank rockets and took aim at Naruto. He was right. They couldn't miss him. There was nothing on the bridge whatsoever to substitute himself with.
Despite his now useless right arm, Old Boy stood back up from the ground sneering at Naruto who was a mere twenty yards away, "Always have an ace-in-the-hole Rapture. Even if I myself cannot defeat you, you'll still die here."
"Do you really blame me that much?" Naruto muttered to himself. Older people like Old Boy that believed that they had everything accounted for in battle, they loved talking down to their enemies as they had things well in hand. You had to get your jollies in a fight somehow.
Naruto didn't wait for an answer though.
The moment Old Boy's mouth opened, Naruto held up his left arm. While the right arm of his suit had the Solar Gun built into it, his left arm had a device in it that stored a large amount of ninja wire, tipped off with a shuriken that Naruto could place in at his wrist. But without a shuriken attached the wire could still be drawn out and used.
That was what he had done when he had grabbed Old Boy's right arm to prevent him from firing earlier. He had tied his wrist up loosely with metal wire and let the device slack off on the tension until he needed it.
Once he forced the wire to go tense, Naruto yanked Old Boy with his absurd strength as hard as he could. The frail old man couldn't have weighed any more than 120 pounds at that point in his life and he flew through the air, landing on the metal bridge face first at Naruto's feet.
The blonde quickly dropped a heavy knee on Old Boy's back and forced a shout out of him before he placed a kunai to his throat and looked up at the soldiers aiming down at him, "It's over Old Boy. You lose. You should have just left well enough alone."
German curses sprayed freely from Old Boy's mouth, even as Naruto's knee pressed further into his bad back, eliciting cracks from it, "You don't get it do you? We shouldn't be alive right now. Dead Cell has no purpose. We're just a drifting group, no reason to fight for except for one. Our revenge. Our revenge on The Patriots for discarding us like refuse and destroying what was left of our lives, and you for giving them the incentive to do so. Were Colonel Jackson here this would never have occurred, but because of you…"
He trailed off as it grew harder for him to speak when Naruto dug the kunai into his skin enough to draw blood from his neck. The force his knee exerted also increased due to what he had heard from his former comrade, "I don't need you telling me that I screwed up because I already know. But if you want to dump the blame for everything that happened to you on me, you'd better come with more than shitty World War II weapons if you're gonna kill me!"
Old Boy started to laugh despite the pain his body was in from Naruto's pinning predicament, "You think you accomplished something? Taking out an old man that's knocking on one-hundred years of age. You fight any other member of Dead Cell and they'll chomp at the bit to kill you. But you're not getting any further than this bridge today. Fire on him now!"
"Are you out of your mind?" Naruto growled down at him, "I'll move and you'll take the hit instead. I'm ten times faster than you on your best day rickety bones. You don't have a chance."
"I cannot kill you myself." Old Boy admitted with a grim smile, "But the moment I die they'll know it was you, and you won't survive to see the sunset. No one else would have been able to draw me into direct combat except you. Now fire on him!"
Before the Fallschirmjäger could go through with that order, behind them appeared a figure that cut them down in a bloody display of swordplay.
The first one was slashed down before they could even turn around. The cut was deep enough to force them to fall from the top of the strut building and down the 150 plus feet into the contaminated water below. The second soldier dropped the Panzerfaust and tried to draw his sidearm, but before he could the sword of his attacker cut him cleanly across the neck, spraying blood freely like a faucet.
It wasn't the brutality of the attack that got his eye. It was the person doing it and the method they used to do so. A sword, and that body.
With the last threat to him having fallen violently, Naruto felt like he had seen a ghost as he looked up at the figure on top of the strut, "Gray Fox?" He thought he only had post-traumatic flashbacks at night in his dreams, not during the day when he was wide awake.
It couldn't have been Gray Fox, but it looked just like him. The armor was almost the exact same as the Cyborg Ninja from Shadow Moses Island. Mostly blue plating, but with red instead of yellow on joints like the elbows, knees, and shoulders. The other difference was that in the middle of the mask there was no single glowing red eye, it was just a solid facemasked helmet.
The ninja stared down at Naruto and Old Boy before choosing to freefall down the side of the building. Naruto was about to say something aloud until the ninja stabbed their sword into the metal siding of the strut building and slid down the side before jumping off and landing on the bridge soundlessly.
Naruto got up from off of Old Boy's back and held up his kunai defensively as he backed away from this strange individual, "Who are you?" He asked warily. If this person wanted to rumble that was fine with him. He still had enough in him to fight whoever the person was after taking on Old Boy and the Fallschirmjäger if it had to come to that.
The ninja just stared at him, not saying a word until a pistol was abruptly drawn and two shots were fired. One hit Old Boy in the chest and the other in his head, bringing his life to a sudden end right there with no fanfare.
This prompted Naruto to aim his fully-charged Solar Gun directly at the new Cyborg Ninja in case the bullets would be turned his way next. It seemed to be a standoff for the longest time between the two and no one moved a single muscle, "…You look so tired."
He'd heard that already today, but such a comment wasn't the first thing that Naruto had expected to hear from the previously mute ninja. But at least he could confirm that this wasn't Gray Fox, because the voice was totally different. Still distorted and machine-like much like Gray Fox's was due to the armor, but it wasn't his voice at all. That was good because if it was Gray Fox, Naruto probably would have shit a brick.
"You think that battle tired me out?" Naruto responded cheekily, keeping some of his bravado going, "I can go twelve straight rounds right now. I don't want to, but if that's the tree you're barking up we can do it. Who are you?"
There wasn't a sudden answer. It took another minute for the Cyborg Ninja to reply to him, "I'm just thinking. Thinking on whether or not I should kill you now for contingency, just in case so I can use it as a bargaining chip, or wait until later when there are no options left."
What the hell was this crazy talking about? Bargaining chip? He wasn't going to be anyone's bargaining chip or contingency plan. Just hearing that made him think of The Patriots and how they deemed to use him as their weapon, "Answer my question and tell me who you are! What do you want?"
"The only way you're going to find that out is right before you drop dead… or I do."
If that were the case then he would just have to beat the answer out of them. But before he could even move to initiate conflict there was a horrendous blast from behind him from Strut H at Shell 2 and he felt pain and heat at his back.
XxX
(With Raiden – Shell 1 – Strut A – Service Elevator to the Deep Sea Dock)
Pliskin freezing over the last C4 was nothing more than a trap. Once all of the C4 bombs were diffused that would only make the true explosives meant to destroy the Big Shell go off. The big ones, one of which had been discovered by Pliskin in Strut H, and the other that was supposed to be in Strut A according to explosives expert Peter Stillman.
He had seven minutes to reach the last big bomb and diffuse it, but time was ticking down and he was stuck in that bastard service elevator that seemed to be taking a millennia to get to the bottom level of Strut A.
Raiden's Codec went off and he hurriedly activated it, "Pete?"
"Raiden, Pliskin, listen carefully." Stillman said gravely, "I fell for it. Fatman has my number."
"Fell for what?" Pliskin asked. He was still in Shell 2, keeping a watch over the area near Strut H to make sure Stillman didn't get anymore unwanted visitors.
"A proximity trigger on this bomb. Microwave. With a seven-foot range. It's not a technique I taught him. Neither was his huge multi-bomb booby trap." Stillman was speaking like it was all over and it was freaking Raiden out, "Looks like he's far surpassed me as far as explosives technique goes. As for the rest-."
"Pete get the hell out of there!"
Despite Pliskin's frantic request, Stillman's voice kept as calm and as collected as ever, "There's less than 30 seconds left. It's too late. Pliskin, get away from Strut H as far as you can. Raiden, keep your distance when you stop your bomb on your end or you'll just end up triggering the same trap as me. Both bombs need to detonate in order for the facility to collapse."
"Me?" Raiden exclaimed. His heart was thumping in his chest, "I'm not sure I can do this!"
"But I am. Do it. I know you can."
No other words came from Stillman's end of the connection before a deafening explosion sounded out and there was nothing but static from that point forward on the line, from both Pliskin and Stillman, "Hey! Hey! Someone answer me!"
There was no response. And Raiden felt entirely too angry to do anything but turn his Codec off, gritting his teeth as the elevator finished its descent to the deep sea dock.
It stopped and let him off and was audible enough to attract Gurlukovich Mercenary sentries to inspect what was going on. The moment the gates of the elevator automatically opened up they poured inside to see just who had ridden it down there, but they didn't see a soul inside.
They missed the man holding on to the caged ceiling of the elevator who grabbed his USP pistol in one hand and fired two headshots that killed both men, letting him drop down to the ground to vacate the elevator, 'Two minutes left!' He left the supply elevator area and sprinted down the hallway back to the dock, catching sight of two soldiers walking his way while he did so. Not wasting a second he fired six shots, five of which hit and killed his enemies without a fight.
His second bomb sensor was going mad at that point as he searched high and low for the last bomb. It was never stronger than when he reached the deep sea pool that he used to infiltrate the facility. Underneath the personal submarine that was hoisted off of the ground above the water there was a ton of C4 packed underneath it. Heeding Pete's advice, Raiden stayed back and adjusted the spray can to spray more freely.
In a matter of seconds he had rendered the final explosive nullified. What a day though. An amateur like him had survived a bombing threat while a man that was noted to be legendary for diffusing explosives died because of a trap involving them.
With nothing else he could do, Raiden placed his hand to his ear to make a Codec call, "Colonel, the last bomb has been diffused." At a great cost though, "Is there any damage report for the explosion?"
"The duct for diverting contaminated seawater is destroyed, and the central core section of Shell 2 is flooding. The explosions ignited the oil slick on the surface, but the chemicals meant to treat the oil stayed in containment. There's no immediate danger. Shell 1 was unaffected. The price was high, but the threat of the bomb is over for now. Now on with the mission."
Yeah, right. On with the mission.
Peter Stillman was a good man, killed by the explosives of the man that he trained to save lives, not take them. This was all he could think about as he walked slowly back through the deep sea dock toward the hallway, 'Even a fool would know that Pete wasn't trying to pass down how to make perfect explosives to Fatman. So what made him think that becoming a bomber was appropriate.'
People would do what they wanted in the end. All the previous generation could do was guide them. If the reins were too loose they were liable to wind up anywhere, but if they were held too tightly the next generation would resent the one that came before it and lash out at its first chance.
When exactly did he try to become a social analyst? As if he had any room to speculate on that kind of thing. He was a soldier, not a philosopher.
"Raiden the terrorists have retaliated for our bomb neutralization." That sudden report from the Colonel got him to freeze in his tracks, "A hostage has been killed. Shot in the head. They shot one of them on the roof just to make sure we caught it. One of our satellites caught it, clear as day. They announced they would kill one hostage every hour from now on."
Damn. And it was technically his fault, "What are my orders? What should I do?"
"Stay with your mission objective. Rescue the President?"
"What about the other hostages?"
"President Johnson is your first priority."
What kind of copout bullshit response was that? He didn't even sound like it was hard to say. Those were just regular people they were pulling out and plugging in broad daylight as a show of force, "Priority my ass! They're all in danger!"
He was already planning on how he was going to try and reach the hostages to get them out before the voice of his girlfriend reached him again, "Jack, be reasonable. I know what you're feeling but you can't save them all alone."
"You're right. Not by myself." Raiden said, already knowing who he was going to try and count on for something like this. The only other person in this foxhole with him.
"Are you expecting that Pliskin to come through?" Damn again. It was like the Colonel could read his mind or something, "It looks like he's turned his radio off too."
Asshole. He had just been caught in an explosion. The thing probably got wrecked. If Fatman's two bombs were strong enough to compromise the integrity of Big Shell then just leaving Strut H before it blew was not going to be enough to avoid the blast entirely, "I can't complete this mission by myself."
"That man was not included in the simulation. He is not a factor in this mission. Your mission must remain a solo effort."
"What are you talking about?" That was retarded. Who did anything like this by themselves? He was fighting an entire army, no one did that alone! What in the world were they expecting of him? "What about the SEALs? No second attempt?"
"They haven't even gotten to planning that. In the meantime you're our only hope."
"…Understood." Raiden grumbled before shutting his Codec off. He sure didn't forget to do it that time. As he walked through the hall back to the storage room with the freight elevator he could only let out a sigh.
Wait. Why was the elevator moving again? Was that reinforcements for the troops that he killed? They couldn't check in so maybe someone had come down there to see what the problem was.
In a word, yes. Just not the kind of reinforcements he had been expecting.
He hid behind some of the freight in the room and observed who had gotten off only to curse internally at the sight of a portable rail gun, then the dark-skinned figure of Fortune, complete with her trench coat draped over her shoulders as she stepped out, "I can't tell you how happy I am that you were alive after all. I knew this moment would come."
Raiden raised an eyebrow but stayed silent and hidden, 'Is she talking about me? That's pretty creepy if she is.'
"Show yourself and finish me." Fortune demanded, her rail gun charged and ready to fire at the first sight of anything alive to eradicate, "Finish me like you finished off my father Rapture! Otherwise you'll be the one to die!"
'Who the hell is Rapture?' Raiden queried internally as he heard her gun begin to squeal loudly, "Oh crap…" He had to dive out from his cover or be turned to debris along with it from the power of the rail gun. Great, so cover meant nothing. But upon getting sight of him she seemed to be taken aback.
"That's not him." Fortune said, seemingly to herself before smirking, "This could be… interesting. You've seen the fires of hell, haven't you?" It would be just his luck that the elevator would decide to go back up to the surface of the strut at that very moment, "Maybe you can give me death." She said to Raiden before pointing her gun at him again, "My name is Fortune; lucky in war and nothing else, without a death to call my own. Hurry and kill me please!"
"Well I'm not 'Rapture' but I'm sure going to try." Raiden said, reloading his USP to make sure he had enough shots on him for a fight.
Chapter done.
Alright I'm going to go buy snacks for a grand viewing experience tomorrow because right now my cupboards are bare and that is incredibly embarrassing. You all can get back to your regularly scheduled lives as well if you'd like. I'm through wasting your time for now.
Until the next time around folks, Kenchi out.