"You did better than I expected," said Snake.

"What happened? Are you really alive? Am I dead?" asked Hal.

"Not unless you keep asking stupid questions."

Hal kept looking around in confusion until he finally seemed to notice the VR equipment around him. "That... that was a VR mission?"

"And you did better than I thought you would. You killed two of them, and were in the same room as the commander, even if he did-"

"Hey! You can't program this kind of thing, and I know I've never programmed that scenario-"

"I got some help from Mei Ling. You should thank her for being so thorough."

"Are you crazy? I thought you were dead! How could you do that to me?"

Snake shrugged. "Look, Otacon, it wasn't any worse than what you might have happen to you on a mission. And you did pretty well, for... well, for you. You managed to keep going, despite being tired and terrified. You managed to get pretty close to your target before you got yourself killed."

"But-"

"And so, I'm willing to consider it."

"What? Consider what?"

"Philanthropy."

Hal blinked at Snake for a moment. "You are? I mean, you're not just saying that, are you?"

"Hal, have you changed your mind?"

"Of course not! I'll tell you everything about it!" Hal said with an excited look on his face.

Three hours later, Snake was finally able to interject and stop Hal's long-winded explanation of Philanthropy with a quick, "I'll join, all right? Anything to stop this!"

Hal, being ecstatic about Snake agreeing, decided to continue yammering on until the wee hours of the morning when Snake finally just decided to leave the room. Snake suspected that even this had not stopped Hal, so he shut the door to his room tightly, got in his bed, and closed his eyes.

It seemed the day training Otacon would only be the first of many.

I hope Otacon can survive it, thought Snake with a chuckle, then fell asleep.

In the other room, Hal beamed. He'd made it through Snake's day, gotten Snake onboard with the Philanthropy group, and now, he was about to have a coffee.

Life is sweet, thought Hal with a smile. He took a sip of his coffee, then made a number of quick inputs into the virtual reality computer. Snake was going to have a bit of a surprise the next time Hal managed to get him into the VR programs. And revenge is even sweeter...


(The end...?)


Author's Notes

Hello! I thought I'd just write some notes on the entire story here. It's short enough that I don't think they need to be interspersed throughout the fic.

First, a big thank you to everyone who reviewed:
Scarbie: I hope it lived up to its potential (I hate wasted potential!)
Akaisakura: Ooh, the author of the Elevator! Thanks for the good characterizations comment!
Solidchristian-88: Glad you thought it was funny!
Nicky: Thanks for the comment

Let's see. This story had about 3 hours of research. First hour was spent on finding out correct forms for excercises. Do you know that no one has anything on correct posture for a pull up? Must be why Snake and Raiden do them so differently. The other two hours were spent researching guns. I am not a gun person, but I think I managed. I always like doing research for fics because you always find out such interesting things. And Metal Gear just has oodles of weapons research needs, which is better than finding little known Meiji-era Tokyo laws...

This was a tryout of the most interesting system I've seen for writing a story. Basically, the story was written completely before I put anything online. Then, I just posted one a day. It's a good system for me, and I'm going to keep using it. It makes sure the story actually ends. Unlike Want and Need. I think it worked out well. Anyhow, that's why it seemed to be written with a chapter a day. I'm not sure that I really worked that fast. Of course, the great eastern seaboard shut down killed me a bit, but even so...

It was also the first try from me at something funny (I tend to be a little over-dramatic, I think), but hopefully it was enjoyable. There was a guy helping me out from a message board on chapter 5. He should write something like this fic, but the supremely funny version he was talking about, if he ever reads this. You know who you are!

Is there another story in this? Might be... even I'm not sure what kind of deviousness Hal would put in a VR mission for Dave to find at just the right time... If people DO want to see a follow-up, tell me and I'll see what I can do.

Oh, and I forgot disclaimers throughout this. I don't think anyone minds, since it's obvious I'm neither Kojima nor a high level Konami employee, though if they'd like to hire me, I HAVE graduated from computer science! At any rate, I'm not making any money from this.