The man once known in the frightening underground of ultra top-secret military infiltration as Solid Snake slowly opened his eyes, taking in the darkness. As always, when he first awoke, he didn't know where he was. His dreams, frightening and violent, hung before his blurry sight for a moment. His mind reeled back and forth before it clicked.
He was home, in his cabin in the Alaskan wilderness. Thousands of miles from human contact, a million years from his own past.
Snake swung his legs out from under the blanket and put his feet on the cold wood floor of the cabin. His hand fumbled at the night-stand for his cigarettes. When they came upon the crinkly plastic covering of the cheap paper package, they squeezed softly, as if drawing warmth from the pack. He pulled a cigarette out and placed it to thin lips, just below a soft greying mustache.
Greying. Christ. How old am I?
He winced as he lit the cigarette, trying not to let the thoughts come. But they did.
You're dying, man. Dying slowly and unpleasantly.
He nodded to the thoughts, puffing on the cigarette. The tubes the smoke was sucked down were more clotted than they had been in years previous; the breaths that took in the smoke more shallow.
Emphysema? Lung cancer? Throat cancer? Heart Disease? All likely choices, he thought as he smoked, watching the summer rain throw itself violently at his window. This body...it wasn't even his body, at least not originally...was beginning to show some wear and tear.
Solid Snake, like his "brothers" Liquid Snake and Solidus Snake, had been the ultimate type of test-tube baby. Cloned from the legendary "Big Boss", a solider and operative during the sixties who single-handedly neutralized a world-wide atomic threat, the three Snakes were the carriers of the genes of the ultimate solider. The only problem was...
"The only problem was, the old man was already just that, an old man, by the time they cloned him. Not too old, really..just old enough..to make our parts vintage." Snake said to the falling rain as cigarette smoke drifted along in the air in front of him.
Snake stood slowly, on legs that had at one time been fast enough to outrun the world's most dangerous fighters, on feet that had been silent enough to sneak up on the most perceptive of foes. How much blood was on his hands, he sometimes mused. How many mother's sons had he lain into early graves?
"And now, they get their payback in the form of me falling apart." He said, laughing bitterly, a laugh that sounded far too much like a wheeze for Snake to feel comfortable. He took in his appearance in the mirror by the bed; he looked like he was in his early sixties; a beer-gut hung over the elastic of his boxer shorts, his face was craggy and lined, his sharp nose like the spire of a cathedral over the stained-glass of his teeth; in between them floated the dawn cloud of his mustache. His hair was unkempt and getting long, only the smallest vestiges of the auburn brown it had been now remained.
"You look like somebody's alcoholic uncle." He said, pointing his cigarette-hand at the mirror, so the orange embers glowed accusingly back at him.
He turned cloudy blue eyes over at the digital clock by his bed. 3:50 am. Bright and goddamn early. He frowned again, eying the clock. He was never one to oversleep, but this was sort of ridiculous. It wasn't as if he had a lot to do today...or ever. It was a quiet life, but in retrospect, he wished he'd done one last mission...saved the world one last time maybe, except make himself known...
Yep..part of him now wanted the glory he'd denied himself for so long. Maybe it was because the wind was squeezing his heart a little more coldly now that he was older, and he wished he'd left something..left a mark that more than a handful of bureaucrats would know about and eventually erase...
The knock on his door was as loud as an earthquake, as loud as a nuclear explosion from a missile fired by a walking death mobile. Snake jumped and spun, his hand moving to his hip to draw a gun which hadn't been there in years. His heart thundered in his ears like taiko drumming, and his breath caught in his chest, struggling to bypass the thick slime that coated his bronchial passages. He began to hack, bracing himself against the wall with one hand as the knocking grew louder and louder, more insistent.
"Hold...hold on a second.." He croaked, wondering who in the holy hemorrhaging Christ could be knocking at the door at this time of the morning. The thought only had an instant to tear through his mind before the report of a pistol shattered the air, blowing a hole in the wooden door of his cabin, the cool wet air rushing in to fill the space even before the shards of woods settled on the floor.
Snake gasped, stumbling backwards as the door was kicked in with violent force.
The figure slowly stepped in, almost materializing out of the rain and shadows. Tall and regal of bearing, the man's face was one Snake knew well. Aged, with deeply set blue eyes under heavy brows. A hawk-like nose perched over a long droopy mustache reminiscent of nothing so much as Wild Bill Hickcock. The wind swirled his long, silver white hair around his head as he stood in the doorway.
"Long time no see, Snake." Revolver Ocelot said, his voice the same disturbing hiss it had always been. In Ocelot's gloved left hand was clutched his trademark weapon, the Colt Single Action Army. The right arm of his khaki duster hung limply by his side, as if no arm occupied it. Ocelot smiled, twirling the gun with his fingertips before replacing it silently. "Relax, my friend, I'm not here to kill you." He stepped forward lightly, the spurs on his cowboy boots clinking lightly. For someone of purported Russian ancestry, Ocelot certainly cultivated the American gun-slinger look.
Snake still stood in his undershorts, hands in front of him in a basic close-quarters combat stance, his blue eyes evaluating the situation, the possibilities for battle or escape, even as he spoke. "Ocelot...how the hell did you find me? What do you want?"
Ocelot leaned against the wall, shaking his head. "Find you? Did you really think we haven't been watching you, Snake?" He pointed at Snake with his one gloved hand, chuckling lightly. "No, the Patriots are aware of everything you do, everything you have done, since you attempted to "retire" after that catastrophe at Big Shell." He pulled one of the multiple Colts he kept on his person and spun it absently. "But as for what I want..." He looked Snake over. "You're looking old, my friend. Older than me almost."
Snake frowned, still not relaxing his body. "Thanks for your concern, Ocelot." He sneered.
The older man chuckled, spinning the single action pistol skillfully. "So..how long do you give yourself, Solid Snake? Your coughing sounded bad even through the door. Has the lung-cancer set in yet? Or perhaps your prostate's failing...are you pissing blood?" Ocelot laughed at the dim look of fear in Snake's eyes. "Yes, that clone body isn't holding up too well, is it?"
"What..how could you..I haven't been to a doctor...there are no records.."
Ocelot nodded, tossing the pistol up above his head. "You forget, I had a bit of the old man in me myself." He said, patting the empty sleeve. "Your brother's arm." He said, catching the pistol without looking. "It began to...get worse, Snake." Ocelot said, his face getting..almost soft.
"Worse?"
"Liquid began to get more and more prominent, fighting for control of my brain. As this happened...the arm started to fail. It became weaker...sickly, the skin opened with the lightest touch. I couldn't pull off any tricks with my guns anymore. So we...did the only reasonable thing."
"You cut it off. Didn't he fight it? Last time I saw the...two of you..he was in control."
"Liquid? Of course he fought, he fought like hell. But he couldn't maintain control in the long run. We just..cut it off in one swipe. The system shock was hell, but it worked. Liquid's gone."
"And the arm?"
"Instantaneous decay, Snake. Necrosis set in as soon as it was severed." Ocelot smirked a little, spinning the pistol again. "To think it's just because Big Boss was older when you were created is ridiculous...genetics don't age. But the clone material is still somewhat more unstable than regular human tissue. We're not sure why...but it looks like its happening to you."
Snake bit down on his cigarette, studying Ocelot. As always, the aged sharpshooter's real intentions were more than likely veiled in several layers of double cross, so it was with great caution that the next phrase escaped Snake's lips.
"What...do you want with me, then? I know you didn't come here to chit chat about health."
"Of course not." Ocelot holstered the pistol, and smirked. "I came to..offer you a job, in a manner of speaking."
Snake's brows furrowed. "I was pretty sure I unplugged the "Mercenary for Hire" sign."
"You did, but I think I can get you to work regardless." The old gunslinger chuckled. "Will you hear me out?"
"Considering you have a gun, my survival instinct tells me to do whatever you say."
"That's not the Snake I remember."
"Maybe I'm just waiting for you to show an opening." Snake sneered, snuffing his cigarette in the ashtray.
"Now there's the Snake I know." Ocelot leaned back, putting one foot up on the wall with a clink of his spurs. "So...shall I continue?"
Snake shrugged, trying to determine if there were any weapons he could grab and hit Ocelot with. The small lamp by the bed didn't look too promising... and something told him that now, more than ever, Ocelot was faster than he was.
"Alright. What I am offering you is the following: you complete a simple infiltration, figure out what's going on, and come back alive. In return, the Patriots, through me, are offering you nanomechanical stimulators to be implanted in you to repair the damage your body is doing to itself. With this technology we can get you back to top fighting shape.
"And if I refuse?"
Ocelot smiled wanly. "Your refusal will have large repercussions."
"What repercussions?"
"Not to say too much, but we have taken the liberty to rig up large amounts of explosives in several highly populated areas. Just a phone call, and a few sublimely suburban little towns go up like the a Christmas tree."
Snake growled. "And if I kill you?"
"I thought it would come to that question. To answer that, I will give you a little insight into some neat technology we've begun to institute more and more. We've begun using some various things, such as computer system status or the heart-rate of certain individuals, as catalysts, again, for large amounts of explosives." His blue eyes twinkled.
Snake blinked. "You mean if you die...?"
Ocelot nodded. "Ka-Boom." Ocelot grinned, sadistically. "So...it's nanomachines in your arms, or innocent blood on your hands."
Snake crossed his arms, silent for a moment. "Then I suppose I don't have much of a choice, but I hope you can see why I would be somewhat unwilling to have the Patriots install anything in my body. What's to stop them from putting mind-control machines in there...or just straight up killing me?"
"Nothing is there to stop them. But don't you think if your death was what was required, you'd be dead already?" Lightning quick, Ocelot drew his pistol and fired, the sound as loud as a grenade inside the room. The bullet slid past Snake's face, burning him with the speed of it, but just far enough away to not cut him. Ocelot laughed as Snake stumbled backwards. "The reflexes aren't quite what they used to be, are they old friend?"
"God dammit Ocelot!" Snake said, coughing into his hand, his heart pounding in his ears mockingly. How long until that heartbeat went completely ballistic..and then stopped?
How long indeed?
Snake looked up at Ocelot. "Alright...so you're not here to kill me...but what about the mind control possibility?"
"Certainly, its possible. But that seems...a little obvious for the Patriots, doesn't it?" Ocelot mused, again replacing the pistol. "Not to be too flippant, but the Patriots goals are never what they appear to be at first, second, or third glance."
"That's a very weak argument, Ocelot." Snake said, sitting down on the bed. The one armed gun-fighter walked into the room, closer.
"Maybe, but it's also true, and you know it."
Snake frowned. He did know it. The Patriots true goals were often inscrutable, incomprehensible, spanning decades, anticipating the future, rewriting the past. Snake sighed. One last time, his mind nudged. The possibility...to be remembered...
Snake gritted his teeth. No, no. That's not the reason he fought. He fought to make a future, not to..not to glorify himself. He fought to help people, to secure life and safety...
...for people he'd never know.
No...I fought for a better future for...
For who, Snake? For the children you can't have? For the wife you never married? For friends you abandoned to slink back to your hole up here amid the snow...
"SHUT UP!" Snake snarled, punching the bed-table next to him. Ocelot jumped backwards lightly, startled. Snake looked at Ocelot. "I'm sorry." he grumbled. Why the hell he was apologizing to that bastard was beyond him.
"You are a mess, you know that Snake?" Ocelot said, sitting on the bed next to him. Snake was mortified that Ocelot would put his arm around him, try to comfort him. Thankfully, he didn't. The older man just drew one of his pistols, an extremely ornately engraved Single Action Army, and handed it to Snake. "This gun is older than you." He said. "It's the first revolver I ever used. Fancy, but no better than my others." He chuckled. "Its fully loaded, and it's my promise to you that as far as I know, everything the Patriots have offered you is legit."
Snake looked at the gun, the gun that fifty years ago had been aimed at Snake's "father" in an abandoned and mostly destroyed warehouse in Southern Russia.
"Well..are you going to come with me, or shoot me?" Ocelot raised his one hand over his head. "Pick one, it's cold in here."
Snake looked at the gun, cocked it, pointed it at Ocelot, considered. Ocelot didn't flinch. Snake applied light pressure on the trigger, and still the old man didn't move.
Snake looked into the eyes of the old liar, and in those eyes he found enough honesty to latch onto, enough of a hope that Ocelot was telling the truth.
"One last time." Snake said, and lowered the gun.
The drug which Ocelot administered to him at the beginnings of their helicopter trip (a modified Boeing Vertol "Chinook" if he wasn't mistaken, and he usually wasn't) washed Snake in and out of the blackness for a while; the procession from unconciousness to being awake was so smooth that he wondered how much of the trip he thought he saw was actually dream.
At some point he lost conciousness so deeply he didn't notice them landing or his being carried out of the chopper. It was not until some point after this that he again opened his eyes, having no idea where he was or the current time..or even day. He felt like hell, his entire body ached. Arching his head up, he looked at himself.
He was restrained on a hospital bed by heavy canvas straps. He focused on his forearms, there were large sutures up and down both of them. And did they seem...
..yes...somehow...they were..more defined. Strong veins ran under his skin. He flexed lightly, feeling pain in all of his arm but also a fresh, pulsing strength.
The son of a bitch hadn't lied after all...or at least, the part about "fixing him" hadn't been a lie. The jury was still out on the rest of this.
Snake looked across the room. A barred cell. Not surprising. The room smelled of the ocean, and straining past the whirr of some monstrous motor nearby, Snake thought he heard sea birds.
Looking up now, Snake saw a camera trained right on his face. He was also not surprised in the least by this; in fact he'd be very surprised if he wasn't on more than just this camera; others must be hidden around the room, in all possible angles. He licked his lip, felt his mustache gone. He chuckled lightly. Bringing back the old Snake it seemed. He wondered if they'd hand him a ratty bandanna as well.
Snake moved his legs, felt pain and strength there. They were also held down by canvas straps. He tried shifting, grumbled. No matter how strong he was, he couldn't tear through them. He felt his stomach growl and wondered when the hell was the last time he had eaten. A day? Two?
Suddenly, the door to the cell, a heavy metal thing with a plate glass window around the level of a human face, clanked open. Ocelot stepped in, his one hand on his belt, fingers looped into it. "Snake...how do you feel, old friend?"
Snake looked at Ocelot vaguely, not entirely comfortable with being the old maniac's "friend".
"I'm sore...but I feel...I don't know...better." He offered.
Ocelot nodded and smiled, twiddling his mustache between his gloved fingers. "Excellent. You do understand why you are restrained, of course."
"I'd imagine because now that I'm stronger and healthier, I'm again considered a threat."
"Quite correct, Snake."
"I sort of appreciate that."
Ocelot "hmmphed" a bit, opening his jacket and removing a hip-pack he was wearing. Laying it on the bed by Snake's feet, he opened it, removing a manilla folder. "I hope you don't mind if I go over the specifics of your mission with you. Consider this your briefing."
Snake nodded, annoyed that he was bound, but strangely interested in the mission; what could be so important that the Patriots would actually keep their promises to him? What on earth could have the La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo so paranoid?
"There are two ways we could do this, Snake." Ocelot said, absently flipping through the pages of the folder with his dexterous fingers. "We can start recent and go backwards, or start at the earliest related incident and move to the present."
"Let's start at the beginning, Ocelot." He said, again trying to shift, to get comfortable, and failing.
"Alright. How familiar are you with your Nazi history?"
"I'm not bad with the equipment they used. As far as anything else, I have your average college-student level of interest, I'd imagine."
"Good enough." Ocelot cleared his throat a bit, as if he had rehearsed this. Snake mused that he probably had. "Nachtstein, Germany, August, 1941, one of the hottest summers in German records. A top secret Nazi death-camp, dedicated to the breeding of some sort of biologically altered attack animal, was destroyed, along with all the work being done there, in a small nuclear explosion which took out an area equivalent to three hundred city blocks of the surrounding forest. In the days immediatly prior to the explosion, a number of Nazi soldiers were found, according to messages sent from Nachtstein to Berlin, skinned and hung from trees like field-dressed animals."
Snake cocked his head, taking this in slowly.
"Jump to Nha Trang, Vietnam, 1968. Again, an incredibly hot summer. An entire platoon of American soldiers is found slaughtered, hung from trees, and cleaned like deer. Some of their heads and spines were missing. Next, we head to Central America, 1987. Two army search and rescue squads were systematically wiped out. The first squad was killed and hung like those in Nachtstein and Nha Trang. The second group was dealt with the same way, except their was one survivor. The incident also resulted in an explosion which, coincidently enough, was nuclear in nature and destroyed approximately 300 city blocks worth of rain forest. The survivor, a Major "Dutch" Schaeffer, has sinced disappeared."
"Disappeared?"
"Even the Patriots haven't been able to find him."
"So what does this have to do with me?"
"Be patient, Snake. History lesson's almost over." Ocelot flipped a page. "Los Angeles, 1997. During the worst of the drug riots, someone is brutally killing gang members and police alike, skinning them, taking their skulls, etc. A group led by an Agent Peter Keyes, is sent in by the CIA, to deal with the killings, and subsequently, Agent Keyes and a number of other members of the team are killed. The only survivor is the police detective named Harrigan, who also disappeared shortly after the killings."
"I see the similarities, but ... are you saying that ... we're dealing with...a seventy-five year old group of terrorists with nuclear capabilities that sends its message through mutilation of other armed groups rather than blowing up shopping malls and buses?..A group that for some reason, the CIA feels the need to cover up?"
"Not quite, Snake, but your almost there." Ocelot said grimly. "When you were a kid, did you ever watch science fiction movies?"
"What?"
"You know..aliens and spaceships and such." Ocelot said. "They were very big when I was a boy...most of the American sci-fi movies made during that time were actually conveying fears about Russia."
"Ocelot, are you trying to say you think space aliens are doing this?"
"I don't think it, I read it." Ocelot said. "We managed to ... procure the files on Keyes' group. Turns out they were a government agency for dealing with the problem of alien interaction with humans...the real Men in Black, so to speak."
"This is goddamn insane, Ocelot."
"Any more insane than Psycho Mantis's powers? Or the fact your dead brother took up residence in a severed arm?"
Snake blinked. Bringing those things into the conversation made spacemen seem...downright logical.
"Alright...I'll accept the possibility of invaders from outer space. But how does this involve the La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo, or me?"
"Glad you decided to ask. In the Northwestern part of the United States, there is a long stretch of temperate rain forest, some of the last virgin forests in the world. Hidden within that forest is a top-secret research center for the design and construction of new Metal Gear units."
Snake scowled at that, but resigned himself to continue listening.
"However...we've hit a snag in the fact it appears...one of these creatures...has decided to spend it's time on our lovely planet hunting and killing the soliders and other operatives we have stationed there. We lost all contact with the base after receiving a garbled message about a monster skinning people, and a security camera image...of this." Ocelot held a print out of a security camera capture, seeming to show an empty hallway with a fire extinguisher and the cold, unadorned walls Snake had so long associated with top-secret military bases. "This is all we had to go on...everything was sort of filled in based on guesswork..but we think it is one of the creatures."
"There's nothing in this picture, Ocelot."
"There isn't? Look closer...in the shadows toward the top of the picture."
Snake peered closer, seeing nothing at first. Then it slowly crept into his brain. A... distortion of the shadows and light near the top of the picture. It must have shown on his face, because Ocelot smiled softly. "Yes...see it..."
"Is that..the outline of a person wearing a stealth suit?" Snake offered cautiously.
"It does appear to have similar characteristics to the known stealth technology we have...except look at the size.."
Snake did a rough estimation of the things size, judging by the average size of a hallway and the fire extinguisher in the picture. "Ocelot..that things huge..has to be almost eight feet tall."
Ocelot nodded. "Exactly. We believe that's the alien."
"So...am I to understand I'm to drop into the woods, kill this thing, and rescue as many people there as possible, if any are still alive?"
"That is the plan."
"All to safeguard one of your damned Metal Gears."
"I imagine that you would show some displeasure at it, so we've taken a few precautions to ensure you don't destroy the Metal Gear model there."
Snake's eyes narrowed. "What precautions?"
"Well, we know that your own death is not enough to deter you from destroying Metal Gear, so you remember what I said early about my heart-beat and those explosives?"
Snake just stared.
"The moment that we decided you were the man for the job, we initiated another link. This new security measure is truly a trump card. The catalyst for a massive payload of explosives beneath Times Square in New York happens to be that Metal Gear's central computer system, and if it has so much as a momentary blip of being offline, then Times Square will collapse in one of the worst catastrophes in decades."
Snake gaped, blinking, disbelieving. He stammered, tried to find words, failed, and stammered again. Finally he said. "You...can't."
"Of course we can. We can do anything, Solid Snake, and don't you forget it...ever."
Snake closed his eyes slowly. "Anything else I need to know?"
"No." Ocelot said. "Ready to go?"
"What equipment will I be using?"
"Reinforced sneaking suit, a modified MP-5 with laser sight and attached grenade launcher on the side, a diamond edged, laser-sharpened combat dagger, and, just for kicks, one of my revolvers as your side-arm."
"Are you kidding me?"
"Well, Snake, it's not like you can keep them." Ocelot chuckled. Snake sighed. This wasn't what he wanted; he wanted a last mission, but one where he fought for what he believed in...
You keep saying that. What is it exactly you believe in?
Freedom. Truth. Justice.
Why not just throw in "The American Way", and admit your beliefs are just the same crap the La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo have been feeding to the masses for a hundred years.
Snake bit back the urge to tell himself to shut up out loud again. He didn't need Ocelot and the rest of the Patriots who were no doubt watching from their hidden lairs to think he was crazy. Insanity was a weakness. If he showed weakness, he might not get out of this alive.
Like that was looking like a realistic possibility.
"We will be leaving in about an hour. You will be allowed to walk around and adjust yourself to the stimulators now, under the supervision of seven armed guards.
The guards shuffled in, dressed in khaki BDU's and black ski masks. Guns were instantly leveled at his face. Snake swallowed slightly, and Ocelot moved to the door of the small room, a somewhat annoying task since the guards had filled the room uncomfortably.
"Ocelot!" Snake called as one of the guards undid his restraints.
"Yes, Snake?"
"Get me a bandana, would you? And my cigs."
Ocelot gave Snake a startling warm smile. "It's good to have you back."
The hunter watched as the ooman flying vessel hovered above the forest. How impractical it looked, with it's spinning blades whirring above it's clunky, ridiculous body. And by the spirits of his clan, how loud it was! Did the oomans really think he would not know they had come?
The hunter was crouched in a tree, above the tiny cement bunker which was the entrance to what he had begun to refer to as "the reserve" in his predatory mind. The oomans had built miles of tunnels and rooms below the forest floor, and he knew that those who were still alive down there (and there were many; he was picking them off one at a time, going unerringly for the strongest) would be doing one of two things; blubbering in fear, as the soft meat often did, or planning their reprisal and escape, which they did only slightly less often. The second was what the hunter hoped for.
This target had been picked by Old Scar-face, the leader of the pack to which the hunter belonged, because of its remoteness; no one would be able to escape the hunter if he was wise and quick, and the hunter, whose name, unpronounceable in the ooman tongue but approximating to the title "Dark Spear", intended to be both of those; wise and quick, as well as ruthless and victorious. Then and only then, when Dark Spear had killed all the strongest, would he turn on the beacon for Scar-face and the rest of the pack to pick him up. And Scar-face would be so impressed he would have to give the younger hunter his own pack.
Dark Spear cocked his head, his long black braided tendrils brushing against his armored shoulders as he watched a single ooman dropping down by a rapelling line, into the forest. One ooman? ONE? They were sending another single warrior to face him? Dark Spear chittered to himself, insulted. This warrior had better be a grizzled veteran of great skill, not like the wet-behind-the-ears youngster they sent at first.
The first one they sent, was a yellow-haired one who Dark Spear had taken for a female at first; as if he was supposed to know the genders of the soft meat; they were all ugly, and from what Dark Spear did know, this yellow-haired rookie looked like a female; slim, long haired, pale skinned. No matter.
Dark Spear jumped quietly from one tree to the next, disturbingly silent for something his size. Though he stayed downwind, he flicked on his ghost-suit just in case this warrior was sharp-eyed. The light warped and bent around him, rendering him almost completely invisible. And it was from his perch, high above the misty ferns, that Dark Spear studied the new comer.
Snake landed softly in the wet, fragrant green of the forest. Mist hung about him in thick cloud. Letting go of the line, he watched as the Chinook disappeared into the gray sky, the chest-thumping sound of it's blades lingering long after it was gone from sight. He inhaled slowly; it was hot and sticky, and those damned no-see-um bugs whirred madly around him. He tightened the bandana on his head; a green one, to match the wilderness. His sneaking suit was also forest-camo, and his face was painted up as well. A real commando. His weapons, each painted in the green-brown-black of standard camo, were slung to his suit in easily accessible places. He knew roughly where the place was, a few kilometers of rugged, green terrain to his north.
Snake had wanted a pair of therm-goggles for this, especially if these spacemen had stealth-camo. Ocelot had informed him that there would be a few pairs within the base, and he could procure them on sight. A real naked mission it seemed, despite his abundance of weaponry.
Snake moved cautiously, his eyes, sharper now than they had been in years, looking everywhere. Each bird cry, each insect buzz would...
Snake blinked.
The birds had fallen silent. The grey sky gave no token of life at all.
The bugs too, had seemingly fled somewhere, perhaps clambering silently under rotting logs. Snake reached back, unslinging his weapon. Blue eyes slide back and forth, ears perked.
Nothing.
Something in his mind...a gut feeling..said run. Run now.
Snake always listened to those gut feelings.
Bolting forward, Snake vaulted a fallen tree, green and heavy with moss. He landed with a thud, right on his ass, on the other end. He hadn't even noticed the small drop there; what was wrong with him?
Panic, that's what was wrong. For the first time in forever, Snake was afraid.
Allright, more than afraid. He was-
-cut off from all thoughts as a body came crashing down in front of him, landing in a bloody, crumpled mess by his feet. He let out a strangled little gasp and pulled the trigger of his weapon, spattering himself with blood and breaking the unnatural silence of the forest with gunfire.
Above him, Dark Spear watched invisibly. This one wouldn't even make it to the "reserve" if that was how it acted to a dead body falling from a tree. Where Dark Spear came from, it practically rained corpses.
Snake stopped firing, swearing at himself for his panic. He cast his eyes to the forest above, looking to see where it was...what had thrown the body. He stood slowly, never bothering to inspect the corpse he assumed was just a worker or soldier from the base. If he had looked, he may noticed a lock of blonde hair hanging from the base of the body's skull, just accidentally missed by a sloppy skinning. He would have seen the platinum lock and perhaps paused for a second, wondering where he had seen such hair before.
He may have even made the connection to the young operative Raiden, who helped him at Big Shell, so many years ago.
But he didn't.
People like he and Raiden lived invisibly, and died unknown, even by their own kind.
As Snake rose to his feet, Raiden's empty blue eyes stared up at a sky threatening rain.
Dark Spear leaned forward, still invisible even to the skilled eye of his new quarry. He watched as this ooman stood, shook itself off, and slowly turned, it's weapon at the ready, scanning for the hunter. Dark Spear would make himself known soon enough, if the ooman got past his traps...
Snake moved forward, unable to shake the feeling of being watched, of being studied. Didn't Ocelot use the word "hunting" when describing what the aliens did? Perhaps he was being hunted.
Snake moved cautiously now, not wanting to plummet down another incline; a mis-step in these woods could mean a broken leg, and then he'd be a goddamn sitting duck for the thing.
He barely caught himself from hitting the tripwire.
His booted foot had been in motion, ready to come down on what he thought was just another patch of ferns, when something caught his eye.
A glint of light where it shouldn't be.
He stopped, teetered, finding nothing there when he looked directly at where the glint came from. He cautiously stepped back, bringing his foot down safely in one of his own footsteps. He dropped to his knees, cocked his head, studying. Maybe he was being paranoid...
..no. There it was.
A line of...rope? Wire? Something like that. Stretched across where he was walking. It was...
...well it was damn near invisible, that's what it was. It wasn't that it was particularly thin or made of see-through material, it was as if it was cloaked in a stealth-suit technology.
Snake lay on his stomach, drawing his gun. The repeated "pop pop" of the machine gun echoed through the forest as the tripwire was shot, snapping.
Snake braced himself...
..and was goddamn glad he hand't stepped on it.
From both sides, whizzing over his head, flew short, barbed spear heads, at least a two dozen of them. They drove themselves mercilessly into the trees on each side, giving away nothing of their point of origin other than a vague direction. If Snake had been standing, he very well may have been torn apart by them.
"Jesus Christ" Snake said, feeling the stimulators in his body click on, relaxing his muscles, easing blood-flow and breath. He cast another glance up at the sky as he stood slowly.
"You missed." He called out to the forest, expecting it to come alive and swallow him up in anger. "Your goddamn booby-trap missed, you bastard."
Dark Spear's recording loop picked up the ooman's garbled idiot speech. The words made little sense. "You missed. You missed. You missed." It played three times inside Dark Spear's mask, and then stopped. He would save it for later, perhaps it would serve a purpose. He himself couldn't speak ooman, but he knew Old Scar-face could. Scar-face had been hunting this world for centuries, and somehow he had only gotten stronger and more deadly with age; some hunters mellow and focus all their time on breeding, but Scar-face managed to sire pup after pup and still bring home monstrous trophies. Dark Spear would impress the elder, he swore to himself.
He himself was impressed that the ooman, whom he had written off as another rookie due to it's reaction to the falling body, had spotted his trap. Perhaps this one, whose hair was grey, as ooman elders locks often were, was just shaking off the rust. In that case, Dark Spear intended to take his head as a trophy of real value. An ooman elder was a trophy worthy to sit alongside anything Scar-face could bring home.
As thunder rolled across the sky and it split, birthing a light rain, Dark Spear clicked off his cloaking device. It would do not good in the rain. Now was the time for the fight to begin.
Snake's BDUs were already soaked with sweat as the sky opened. It wasn't going to get him any wetter. He cracked his neck, his alertness was now most certainly bordering on paranoia. Every fallen stick and rustling leaf was a trap set to turn him into lumpy spaghetti sauce. When the rain came down, he cursed aloud. The cement bunker was ahead of him not a hundred feet away, but there was no way he was going to head any further in the lowered visibility of the rain.
He leaned cautiously against a tree, and froze deadly still as he saw the...thing...crouched on a limb not thirty feet away.
It was easily eight feet tall, though it was down on it's haunches. It's large body was armored in a few specific spots by dark metal armor. It's face was concealed by a mask of the same metal, a strange design covering what was no doubt an inhuman face. It looked like it had hair of some kind, pleated into tight dreadlocks. In one hand it held a long, vicious looking spear. On it's left shoulder was what looked to be a...
...gun! Snake dove out of the way as a ball of green fire exploding from the mounted weapon on the creature's shoulder, heading straight for him. It hit the tree behind him, blowing it to shards. He landed on his feet, spraying the machine-gun fire toward the creature.
With a dexterity the thing should not have had, it flipped backward, dropping into the brush and then lunging forward. If Snake hit it, the thing was apparently bulletproof. Snake's eyes widened as it's spear was thrust right at his face, only the last-minute snap of his neck to the side avoided his skull being turned into shish-kabob.
The creature growled under it's mask, a bizarre bass chitter. Snake slid forward, again firing at the beast. This time, the bullets must have connected, because a burst of blood the color of glow-stick fluid sprayed out from the thing's mid-section. The creature stumbled backwards but didn't fall; the gunfire which would have torn a human being in half did little to stop the monster.
Well at least it bleeds, Snake thought. If it bleeds, I can kill it.
The creature whipped it's spear around, connecting to the side of Snake's head, knocking him into a burst of cranial-nebulas. He stumbled backwards, staggered, dropped the MP-5, fell. As he fought to remain conscious, the beast barreled into him, breaking ribs with it's force. Snake collapsed onto his back, and through the blood and rain in his eyes he saw the creature flick it's right wrist, and two long, jagged blades extending from the metal bracer it wore. Snake's eyes were wide as the blades moved toward him. His hand floundered at his belt, trying to find one of his other weapons.
His hand came upon the holster of the colt Single-Action Army. He struggled to draw it as those vicious wristblades were brought down at his midsection. Suddenly he felt those nanomechanical stimulators kick into gear.
He pulled the gun out, aimed it quickly and haphazardly, and fired.
Dark Spear had thought the kill was certain. As his blades tore through the thick material of the ooman's gear, he felt the cold barrel of an ooman weapon touch right under his chin. He hadn't even seen the ooman draw the weapon.
Beady eyes bugged out under the mask as the weapon fired. The last thing Dark Spear saw as the bullet tore through his skull was ...something...coming...out...of...the..sky...
...Scar-face's ship.
Snake howled in triumph as the beast fell backwards, growling wet and thick, as the blasted back of it's head dripped green blood and foul chunks of whatever alien ganglia governed it's life. It stumbled, collapsed with a thud onto the brush. Snake exhaled, looking down at his body and the wicked looking, but thankfully shallow, cuts on his abdomen, unaware of the eerily silent behemoth descending from the sky above.
Snake stood, kneeling by the creature, which was still twitching it's death throes. He cocked it's head, wondering what it looked like under it's mask. He reached forward tentatively, unhooking the mask with a hydraulic snap-hiss that released what smelled like methane into the air for a moment. Snake tossed the mask aside, looking down as the rain spattered onto the creature's strange, mandibled face, with tiny eyes that stared up at the sky, beginning to fill water.
"You are one ugly mu–." Snake was cut off by the sound of something huge and metal crashing through the trees. His immediate thought was Metal Gear, but when he turned, he saw the strange craft landing, snapping trees easily under it's weight. It settled onto the ground, the rain sizzling off it as it landed.
Snake's hand clenched the pistol, raised it, as a panel on the side of the ship opened, and a ramp descended. Several of the creatures, all of similar size and dress, slowly walked down the ramp, and then parted as...another..came.
This one was their leader, Snake could tell. Huge even by their standards, it held it's battered mask in one giant hand, a long black cape trailing down from it's expansive shoulders. It's face was similar to the one Snake just killed, except this one's visage was a broken by three long lines of scars running down the left side of it's face. It's dread-locks were long and ornately beaded as well. It spread its mandibles and roared at Snake.
Snake pulled the trigger of the Single-Action Army.
Nothing. He pulled the trigger again, and again.
The huge creature's right hand clenched, and in the pale rain, Snake saw the long, jagged blades extend from it's gauntlet. He pulled the trigger again.
And again.
And again.