Chapter Five

A cold, grainy texture abraised the left cheek of the felled mercenary as he gradually came to his senses. The aching of his jaw provided a potent distraction from his fruitless attempt at recalling the last time he'd been hit so hard. His vision slowly regained its full power that had been temporarily robbed by the resultant force that had followed the attack by his adversary, the spotlights of the military base that stood no more than one hundred metres away from him moving to highlight circles of sand in the night. He smelled something very much like sulphur and gunpowder, and felt physically sick.

Three words ran through his mind, fighting his desire to stay on the ground: Get up, Jack. Get up, Jack. It took too long for his body to follow his brain's instruction, but eventually his nerves got the message through to his muscles and he dragged himself slowly from the ground. On one knee, he instinctively reached for his SOCOM in his thigh holster, but felt only the material of his Skullsuit. He looked frantically left and right for where his weapon had fallen, but to no avail.

"Looking for this?"

The soldier turned around to face his addresser, and the events of the last few minutes came flooding back as he saw her: Miasma. She was holding in her right hand his SOCOM pistol, studying it casually and feeling its weight.

"'Raiden,'" she spoke his name aloud. "Weird codename."

"That, coming from 'Miasma'," Jack replied, trying to sound defiant; but, denied by his grit-laced throat, he just sounded whiny.

Miasma giggled, and watched curiously as the pistol's rubber grip began to steam and bubble. Within a few seconds, the entire grip had melted from the gun, dripping in liquid form to the sand below, where it hissed viciously as it was introduced to cold. Raiden could only observe in silent amazement as the pistol itself lost its shape, combusting into molten steel in a matter of seconds.

"What are you?" he thought, only realising that he'd elecuted the question momentarily afterward.

"I am your superior, Raiden," she answered, a tone of amusement clear in her voice. "Admit it, and I'll let you live."

"You can go to hell," he hoarsed, stifling a cough. He glanced to his left, and saw VII standing still a few metres away from him. Before Raiden could demand help from his comrade, or even pursue the thought, a force equally powerful to that which had almost sparked him out moments before impacted hard in his stomach. The attack made him uncontrollably sink to his knees, and he could immediately feel bile rising up in his body.

Miasma looked on in satisfaction as Raiden vomited mucus on his own hands and the ground beneath him. Victory had never been in doubt for her, but she felt like indulging herself before she finished the fight. She spoke again.

"That's right, Raiden. Show that you're beneath me."

Raiden attempted to forcibly prevent himself from retching, but it was no use. Miasma had emitted horrifically odorous fumes into the air, making him vomit even more violently. Desperately, he tried to hold his breath, but sick spewed from between his lips and he almost choked.

"Say it, and I'll let you live."

The final remains of his last meal left Raiden's stomach, and he purposely spat them into the pool of egestion at his knees. Whatever spit was left in his mouth he hurled in Miasma's direction, and watched as the smile left her face. He cracked an agonising smile at her, realising that his frustration had been passed onto her. The last thing he saw before blacking out was her roundhouse kick, travelling at an almost impossible speed towards his face.

The woman saw him fall face first into his own vomit, and wasted half a second by spitting once onto his motionless body. Then, she turned to the last man who opposed her.

"Hello, Jordan," she greeted tauntingly, staring seductively into VII's featureless black mask.

"Hrrm." He grunted a reply, curious at the use of a name he vaguely knew.

"Same old mask?" she asked, expecting his resulting silence. "If you are going to wear that thing all the time, I could melt it onto your face. Call it a favour from an old friend."

"I don't know you," VII stated truthfully. He couldn't recall ever meeting her in the flesh, though he knew her too well by reputation.

"Oh, that's right," she said with a mock air of remembrance. "You're an amnesiac now, after Ling and his kids fucked with your mind. They can be a little overly optimistic sometimes."

"And you can be an overzealous, overconfident bitch," he dared to say.

She laughed. "I'm certainly confident. But then, I have all the power. What's your excuse? Look at you, swaggering in your own delusions of grandeur. You've always been the same, Jordan. You make the mistake of underestimating more than I do."

Like lighting, something like a lost memory struck VII's ever-calculating brain. He felt the sting of a betrayal of long ago, and linked the woman before him in his mind's eye to a man called Karl.

"I certainly overestimated you," he said. "But I hope Shark met your expectations."

Her face hardened as she tried to suppress a sudden swell of rage. Her fists tightened.

"I could kill you where you stand," Miasma said calmly. "But, seeing as we're old friends, I'm giving you the chance to surrender."

VII looked around at the destruction Miasma had wrought: the motionless RAY unit, Liquid unconscious on the ground, Raiden beaten to within an inch of his life. He remembered her liquefying steel by changing her hands to corrosive gas, and was impressed by the memory of her martial arts technique. VII assessed the danger she posed, and weighed his own abilities against it in an open arena where he was vulnerable from sniper fire.

"So?" she asked after a few seconds. "Care to try your luck?"

VII kept his weapons holstered, and raised his hands to shoulder-height.


Snake had found interrogating Dawson to be an easier venture than he'd expected. Some dark, unreachable… yet familiar part that sat at the back of Snake's mind felt disappointment. He decided not to dwell on this, and asked his next question.

"So Ling, your boss, is in charge of building a weapon for the Patriots here."

Dawson strained to nod his head. No prizes for guessing what the weapon is, Snake thought.

"Metal Gear," he said to himself, prompting another nod from Dawson.

"Who's the kid?" Snake demanded after a pause. A noise emerged from his prisoner's throat, but no answer was forthcoming. Snake punched the wall behind Dawson hard, and the shelf on which the jar containing the virus stood rattled ominously with the resultant vibrations.

"I don't know!" Dawson croaked, the honest tone of fear prominent in his voice. "I'm just meant to look after her. Her name's Alyssia."

Snake considered, and came to the conclusion that Dawson was holding something back, but whatever he needed to know about the child he could find out later. He was about to end the conversation when something else occurred to him.

"What's with the Snake collection in that containment room?" he questioned, and was met with a look of confusion from the interrogated. "The Item Quarantine. It had all my old stealth suits in. What's going on?"

Dawson looked very confused and very frightened, but he wasn't speaking. He didn't know anything. Snake was just about to use his fist again, this time to knock the Doctor unconscious, but he heard something in the corridor behind him, where he had left Alyssia.

Footsteps.

"Stay right here," Snake whispered to Dawson, drawing his SOCOM and stepping silently towards the doorway of the medical supplies room, putting his back against the wall behind the open door.

The footsteps of the other person were clumsy, almost staggered. Probably a guard, judging by the leathery sound they made on the polished floor, and of average height. Snake was ready for anyone the US Army had trained.

What followed was the rustling sound of the man's uniform as he knelt, no doubt inspecting the unconscious girl in the corridor. It took him eleven seconds to notice and remove the tranquilliser dart in her neck, and a further seven to realise the nearby door was open and to step inside.

Snake guessed the man's height at about six foot one. He was muscular, but nothing Snake couldn't handle, especially since he'd failed to check the room's blind spots before continuing. Kids today, Snake thought. The former Foxhound operative watched the recruit notice Dawson by the chemical rack.

"What did you do to her, you wanker?" the soldier demanded of the statue-still Doctor, receiving no answer. He stepped towards Dawson quickly, but Snake was faster. In no time at all, Snake managed to step up behind the soldier without making a sound, using a technique that involved rolling the ball of the foot steadily in order to walk. Even without the padded stealth suit reducing sound made by the feet, Snake could've been behind him before even the tiniest noise of a step had reached him. With the stealth suit, Snake left the man no chance of hearing.

What gave Snake away were Dawson's eyes. The soldier saw that Dawson was looking past his shoulder, and swung around to confront whatever threat lurked behind him. Snake was unprepared for this, but still managed to kick his opponent's submachine gun into pointing to a safer direction and strike the man in the face, forcing him to stagger backwards. Snake pointed the SOCOM at the man's head before he could raise his M25.

"Freeze," Snake commanded. The soldier did so, but didn't raise his hands. The man was young, no older than mid-twenties, and had a short brown buzz cut and messy stubble. Snake looked to the identification on his dogtag, tilting his head to the right in order to read it. "Brooks, Private N."

"So you're the hostile escapee," Snake was surprised to hear Brooks say.

"Who said you could talk?" Snake replied forcefully. "Put your hands on your head and face him," he ordered, gesturing Brooks to Dawson. He took longer than a usual hostage, but Brooks did as he was told and turned to look Dawson in the face.

"You," Snake addressed Dawson. "Get his M25 and fleece him for any rations." The shell-shocked Doctor quickly obliged. The SMG clattered to the ground.

"You're at least half American," Brooks told Snake. "How come we're holding you here?"

"Shut up!" Snake said angrily. "Talk again and I'll kill you."

"You're a terrorist," Brooks said. Snake didn't reply. This kid knew nothing. "What's your game? Disarming the US? Destroying nuclear weapons? You probably have delusions of helping the next generation. All your doing is stopping us from making peace."

Snake pulled Brooks back to face him and struck him hard in his solar plexus, causing the solider to sink to the floor in pain.

"I warned you," Snake said. He put the SOCOM to Brooks' forehead. "The only reason you're still alive is because I need someone to take me to Ling."

Snake nearly blacked out with the immense pain that struck him without warning in the side of the head. He suddenly found himself travelling headfirst into the wall where he'd held Dawson up minutes ago, and felt the plaster break under his skull's impact. A human hand grabbed him again, lifted him from the floor and slammed him again into the wall, crafting a massive cracked hole beneath the shelf. Snake went limp and slumped uselessly to the floor, seeing his attacker for the first time.

He was huge. He was wearing a brown military coat. He had inhumanely sharp teeth. He'd managed to sneak up on the greatest soldier alive. He was Shark. And he was the only image in Snake's mind as it shut itself down and succumbed to unconsciousness.


Author's Note: Yes, all my characters do talk in macho slogans.