Metal Gear Solid 6: The Infernal Conflict

by DJJD2184

Solid Snake- now called "Cyber Snake" due to his new cyborg body- has been called out of retirement in the middle of a bleak post-MGS4 cyberpunk future to stop a catastrophic global threat- a Metal Gear capable of wiping out all life on Earth. But worse than that, he has no choice but to fight against the iconic characters of the series that he used to call friends.

8. The Ripper's Sharp, Numbing Fangs

CHAPTER 8— "THE RIPPER'S SHARP, NUMBING FANGS"

Snake felt so strange walking through the jungle path along the river that the waterfall pool drained into where Mikki took Snake to while he was unconscious, where they made out in the cave underneath it.

On one hand, he felt like he was losing his mind; technically he was, as he was literally fighting for control of it with the JD conglomerate's hivemind. On the other hand, he felt like he was gaining control back, too.

"Uh, Mei Ling… I don't know if you're actually Mei Ling, but… are you there?"

"Yes Snake," said Mei Ling as she appeared next to Jayden on the path. "What's going on?"

"I'm scared… I don't want to kill Raiden. Or any more of my friends. I've had enough of this damn grief."

"You may not have a choice," said Mei Ling.

"The entire basis of the mission I was sent on was based on a lie," said Snake. "I'm no longer seeing the point of covering up JD's crimes."

"I didn't think I'd be the one having to bring you up to speed on this situation…" said Mei Ling. "I get that you're still grieving about the others. I know Raiden and you went through hell together, first during the Big Shell incident, then during the SOP one."

"That's right," said Snake. "He's my friend."

"Keep in mind that you're not the one killing Raiden… because he's already dead," said Mei Ling, looking away. "Listen, Snake… When you killed me, it's hard to explain, but… you gave me, or rather… what little is left of my consciousness, a sort of peace that it's been lacking for some time. I was trapped in my own body, unaware of what was happening to me."

"So how am I talking to you now then?" said Snake.

"Good question," said Mei Ling. "Unfortunately, that's one I can't answer. But I suspect if you have to give Raiden and the others a second death, you'd be doing something similar to them… and I think they'd appreciate it. Especially given that they're about to unwillingly help a madman slaughter a ton of people."

Snake said nothing in response.

"In the meantime, though… I can show you a few tricks to give you the edge over Raiden and Naomi since they're both experts at stealth, survival, climbing, and combat in close and distant quarters… things that give them an advantage over you in this terrain."

"All right," said Snake. "Show me."

"For starters…" said Mei Ling, "I can give you my firefly abilities."

"How's that possible?" said Snake. "I don't have the same augmentations for those as you."

"Oh, but you do," said Mei Ling. "You just never were trained to use them properly."

Snake looked at Mei Ling as she said this.

"It's not easy to master transferring your consciousness into that of a tiny robot that's normally used to heal your new body all by themselves… I managed to master the ability over the years due to my attention to detail… But I suspect your extended reality vision and remote hacking capabilities will give us a workaround that should make the trick even quicker."

"The trick?"

"The first step is releasing them, which is a lot like using your blades… Only the nanite swarms should be built into the mesh alloy armor layer of your wrists, like they're hidden in your sleeves. So instead of holding your palms open with to use your sword drills, hold your hands out, like this."

Mei Ling extended her arms and hands out with her palms facing upward at an angle and her wrists forward.

"Okay," said Snake, as he followed suit. "I see now that's usually where your fireflies started to glow… that's when they left your hands, but I didn't realize they left your wrists instead."

"Mikki's activated your ability to trigger the nanites remotely."

"It was turned off? Why?"

"I suspect she was told by Hannah that you weren't ready to master them yet… As for me, I say there's no time to do so like the present."

"Okay," said Snake. "How do I activate them?"

"Upload the code you used to hack into objects in the environment to your wrists instead of your fingers. Your extended reality vision should give you a prompt."

"Huh… all right," Snake said, and then as he held out his arms and hands toward the canopy, he could see using his extended reality vision that his wrists were highlighted with an icon.

Snake looked at the icon, and as he interacted with it, he could see several more small icons appear moving around him.

"I released them!" Snake said.

"Now use your extended reality hacking abilities to either light up the nanorobots or transfer your consciousness to them," said Mei Ling.

As Snake interacted with several of the nanite clusters, they gradually lit up the treeline and glowed in the night air around them.

Snake looked around at the glowing fireflies in awe.

"I think I get it now… The icons I'm seeing are clusters of nanomachines that have flown together. Your attention to detail allowed you to spot the clusters normally and raise your hands toward them, essentially performing two programming functions at once with the code in your BISECT… One function for releasing the nanomachines, and then another to hack into them either to weaponize them, or transfer your consciousness to them so you could pilot a cluster of nanites remotely."

"I'm not a tech expert like Mikki," said Mei Ling, "so to me it came across less like I was writing code for some malware program and more like I was discovering a part of my body that I never had access to… a part of my body that my old body didn't have an equivalent part for, like a sixth sense or something similar. It took a serious mindset adjustment."

"Mikki is pretty damn smart," said Snake.

"Was it that part of her that caught your interest… Her mind?"

"Perhaps," said Snake.

"She is a beautiful woman," said Mei Ling. "I admit I'm jealous of her looks."

"Don't be too jealous," said Snake with a grin. "Speaking of which… I'm going to monitor Dante's comms to see what she's up to, and get some intel on the others' position."

"Sounds like a plan," said Mei Ling. "And remember, now you have an extra tool to give you an advantage over the terrain. You can use the nanorobots as an invisible scout as well as a weapon. I'll be in touch."

Snake nodded to Mei Ling as she disappeared, and tapped into Dante's comms again while moving through the island by carving a pathway with his sword drills through the jungle foliage.

"Hades to Wrath Delta, Sloth Delta, and Heresy Delta, come in… In your last report you said you found Snake… Do any of you copy? What's going on out there, over?" said Max.

"This is Sloth Delta…" said Raiden, panting. "I managed to hit Snake with a nanite-laced blade. Heresy Delta and I were about to take care of him when the mole ambushed us from out of nowhere!"

"The mole? Did you see their face?"

"No," said Raiden. "Neither of us did… The mole managed to knock me out with a shock round of some kind, and Heresy was trying to spot the mole when they nearly got the both of us."

"Is this true, Heresy Delta?" said Dante.

"Yes, Hades," said Naomi. "Whoever the mole is, they seem to be running circles around us now… I was confused as to where they were due to the angle of the shock round that hit Raiden. Then I got hit by one as well."

You're pretty good, Mikki, Snake thought.

"But that's not all…" said Raiden. "We saw Snake kill Wrath Delta."

"What?" said Dante.

"I think he might have finally gotten over his grief," said Raiden. "And without our local hivemind intact… without Wrath's nanites…"

"If that bogey plane destroys more of our island defenses, we're sitting ducks out here," said Naomi. "JD was one step ahead of us."

"I see…" said Dante. "My sources, mainly our mole, is telling me NATO is scrambling fighter drones from two carriers deployed from Polynesia and Peru, respectively. We're almost ready to deploy the posthuman signal… after that NATO and the higher-ups at JD puppeteering them will be the ones in trouble. It's this damned business with the mole that I want dealt with more than anything."

"So do we go after the mole?" said Naomi.

"No," said Dante, "you, Sloth, and the others go after Snake."

"What? Why?" said Raiden.

"Do you still have leftover blades laced with hacking nanite gel?"

"Yes…" said Raiden.

"The nanites are all we need to unravel Snake's psyche. One shot to his body, and it'll be my hivemind vs. JD's, battling inside his head for control."

Snake froze in fear at the thought of this.

"Hold on, Hades…" said Naomi, "You're planning to use Snake's BISECT as a conduit for the larger attack? THE conduit?"

"Not exactly," said Dante, "as I suspect Hannah's smarter than someone willing to risk sending a walking access port to JD's central hivemind controlling the Reality of Things right into my lair."

"Wait, Hades!" said Fat Snake, his line hissing static. "Hannah created the global OS for the Reality of Things in an effort to allow for a centralized hivemind to monitor people's BISECTs for surveillance purposes… We're merely giving the OS an unexpected update… a posthuman one… is that correct?"

"Your connection is fuzzy, Gluttony…" frowned Dante. "Say again?"

"Apologies, Hades…" said Fat Snake. "The mole almost got me. I'm trying to gun them down as we speak. I'm regrouping with the rest of the fleet."

"Don't risk trying to take him on all by yourself, Ocelot," said Dante. "Whoever they are, they're clearly a skilled pilot."

"As am I. Now can you answer my question?"

Dante frowned. "You're quite the jester, Gluttony Beta. I figured that much was obvious by now."

"Were there other… unexpected updates before this one?"

"Yes, plenty in fact… several of which were to mask the fact that I chose to betray Hannah." Dante said, "You're asking for a lot of information in jest, all while knowing that Snake is here, and that he hacked into our local OS in Rome."

"Clusters of the original, larger global hivemind that we managed to hack into and capture, allowing us to use them for our own means…" said Fat Snake.

Snake thought about this for a moment while he continued traversing through the jungle.

"Enough talking about this, Gluttony!" said Dante. "What are you getting at?"

"I'm suggesting that perhaps it's not entirely Snake who penetrated your stolen networks, Hades… I'm no tech expert on par with Mikki, but… perhaps JD merely performed a counter-hack of some kind?"

"It doesn't matter. Snake's BISECT will contain the answer," said Dante. "Sloth, Heresy, get me Snake."

"Yes, Hades," said Raiden. "I'm investigating his last known locations he was spotted at as we speak."

"And I'm investigating potential routes he might try to take to the inner lair," said Naomi. "If he's here, he'll be on his way there."

"Good. Once he's captured, Pride Omega… you're going to be the one who turns him posthuman."

"Copy that, Hades," said Meryl.

Snake shivered as he waded through a creek in the jungle.

Why did Liquid reveal that to me? Snake thought. Is there something about the JD conglomerate and the Reality of Things that I'm missing?

Snake approached an airfield combined with a now-destroyed communications satellite tower, hiding in the grass behind a chain-linked fence as several more planes took off on the airfield, presumably to go after the mysterious bogey he kept hearing about.

Snake crept across into the airfield hangar, making sure to disable any lingering drones or security cameras with his extended reality augmentations as he did this. As he investigated the remains of the insides of the destroyed air hangar and the satellite network control tower, Fat Snake then called Cyber Snake on the BISECT communication frequency he gave him back in Russia.

"Snake…"

"Liquid? Why are you risking your cover like this to call me?" said Cyber Snake.

Fat Snake chuckled. "I'm already risking my cover plenty as is."

"You're the bogey, aren't you?" said Snake as he looked around for evidence; he found nothing of use that wasn't destroyed by the stealth bomber's attacks, save for some e-books containing a training regimen for a posthuman guard unit operating on Metal Gear DAEMON. "Hannah wanted you to take out Dante's local OS on the island."

"I'm surprised you didn't catch on to that already," said Fat Snake. "Then again, no one else has. But that's not why I'm calling."

"Then why?"

"I assume you've tapped into Dante's secondary BC comms network using that fun little extended reality tool of yours."

"That's correct."

"Then you heard what I said to Dante earlier."

"What about it?"

"I suspect Dante was never planning to hack into the Reality of Things' global OS remotely. As a matter of fact, he probably could've done that by now already."

"You don't seriously think he's going to hack into it locally, do you?" said Snake. "He'd have to break into its central server."

"Right… the central server, which is in Los Angeles."

"Los Angeles?" said Cyber Snake.

"One of the richest, most decadent cities in the world would be a perfect place to hide the server, wouldn't it," said Fat Snake. "What's worse is that many of JD's higher-ups own mansions in Malibu, near there."

"I think I'm starting to understand," said Cyber Snake. "But how would he break into it?"

"You underestimate how deep the schism Firelake created within JD runs, brother…" said Fat Snake. "It's going to get very difficult to trust anyone from here on out, whether their consciousness is human or not. Breaking into it will be easy for Dante. But I suspect that it's Dante's mole he mentioned that's going to do most of his dirty work for him."

"I don't understand, though," said Snake. "Who could the mole be?"

"I don't know," said Fat Snake as he appeared next to Cyber Snake.

"Can I trust you, Liquid?" said Snake.

"I've helped protect you so far," said Fat Snake, "and I'll continue to do so."

"I know that you have an agenda of your own, Liquid," said Cyber Snake.

"It may seem like that. But my only agenda is to protect you," said Fat Snake.

"Why on Earth would you want to protect me?"

"Because if you die, I die," said Fat Snake.

"What?" said Cyber Snake. "Hannah's going to kill you if you fail to protect me while I'm of use to her!"

"Something like that," said Fat Snake. "On one hand, I know I need to share information with you that's vital to the mission… But I'm wondering just how much information your suicidal mind can process right now."

"Damn it!" shouted Cyber Snake as he shoved the table covered in e-books over.

"This airfield's been cleared out," said Cyber Snake as he looked at the table. "They must've been trying to cover something up."

"They were destroying evidence in the inner lair while I was there, too," said Fat Snake.

"Right," said Cyber Snake. "I need to get there and fast." Snake looked at his schematics of the island on his BISECT using his extended reality tool. "There's a swamp nearby that leads to a set of ancient ruins. That looks like the quickest way through."

"Better get going," said Fat Snake.

"There's one more thing I have to ask. I wonder if Mikki will know," Jayden said, while quickly calling Mikki.

"Snake?" said Mikki. "It's good to hear you again, I was getting worried. Have you made it to the inner lair yet?"

"Not yet," said Snake as he left the air hangar and satellite tower, "but I'm on my way. I have a question to ask you though."

"All right. What's the question?"

"It's regarding the code talk Dante is using on comms. He's calling you and Liquid 'Beta' after calling each of you by one of the seven deadly sins, but everyone else he calls 'Delta', save for Meryl, who's an 'Omega,'" said Snake as he ran across the empty airfield. "What's the significance of that?"

"Oh, that part's simple," said Mikki. "Fat Snake and I are designated Beta because we're transhuman members of his army. Alphas are humans, Betas are transhumans, and Deltas are posthumans."

"Then what's Omega stand for, and why's Meryl designated as one?"

"That's… a good question," said Mikki. "Maybe Max has other plans for her."

"But… would that mean she isn't a posthuman?" said Snake. "And if that happens to be the case, then why would she go along with his plans?"

"Perhaps she wasn't the person you thought you knew," she said.

"No… that's not possible," said Snake.

"Right… You're probably right," said Mikki. "Maybe she was pushed into a corner."

Snake frowned, and looked away.

"Right… sorry. I get that losing her and the others has been painful for you."

"Yeah," said Snake.

"Try to find ways to keep yourself from losing your mind," said Mikki. "You have to get off of the island alive. For me. Please."

"All right," said Snake. "You be careful too, Ultra Mouse."

Mikki smiled, and ended the call.

Snake used his extended reality vision and his nanites in combination to scout and spot several of Max's posthuman soldiers hiding in the bushes and the bottomless swamp's canopy while hiding in a thicket of bushes and fallen trees.

They were waiting to ambush him.

Snake decided to cause some controlled chaos.

He used his extended reality hacking abilities and nanites in sync to hack into a few soldiers' BISECTs remotely from a distance.

The soldiers Snake hacked into started to scream as Jayden commandeered them, making copies of his consciousness and using them to tell said soldiers to kill the other soldiers he hadn't hacked into yet.

"What are you doing?" yelled a soldier. "We're supposed to be hiding!"

Snake watched as the soldiers quickly started to massacre each other.

"What the fuck is going on!" yelled a lone survivor who ran deeper into the woods. "Hades, my unit was just massacred!"

"Was it Snake?" said Hades, as he communicated to the soldier over comms as Snake tailed him from the bushes.

"No, they just started fucking killing each other!"

"Which sector?" said Hades as Snake approached the soldier from behind and shot him through the head with his SOCOM pistol.

Choking, his endoskeleton covered in blood and emitting static, the soldier managed to say before he died, "Five… south-south-west… by the… swamp… It's… it's got to be him!"

Shit… thought Snake as he heard several drones approaching him in the distance.

"All units, this is Hades. I've received actionable intel that Snake may be in Sector Five, South-South-West of the island's middle ring. I also believe Snake is capable of hacking into individual elements of the hivemind at this point. That means you may think that because you think, you are, but you aren't. For this reason, we are going dark on all long-range electronic communications until I say it is okay to start them up again. Effective immediately."

Damn it, thought Snake as he quickly hopped and walked across some logs and debris floating in the bottomless swamp to keep from sinking into it.

He came across a set of ruins, and hid in the ruins' temple.

Looking at the strange patterns etched into the ruins, he thought, skimming the Internet for information on ancient civilizations shows me that these aren't from any known ones… which makes sense, given that this island was a project of Firelake Industries that was meant to be terraformed from scratch.

This is a posthuman language of some kind, evolved out of the existing human paradigms to make it seem familiar but still foreign… and near-impossible for humans to translate.

If Dante's plans succeed, they're going to erase the entirety of human history, everything we left behind once we're gone, probably what was left behind by other species, too… all in the name of 'saving the Earth', Snake thought in horror.

It won't be long before the posthumans shed their mortal disguises, see them as irrelevant. I don't want to think about what they think their true form should be. I have to stop him before it's too late.

Snake kept moving through the darkness of the temple, turning his sonar vision on to help him navigate. Eventually he came to a brighter area of the temple, lit by torches that were burning some sort of biofuel, and turned his sonar vision off. He could see the shapes of the bricks and patterns inscribed on the ruins' walls along with the moss on them more clearly now.

There was a set of brick stairs ahead of him that led to a circular door made of the same semi-natural material as the walls were made of ahead of him.

Snake walked up the stairs and looked at the glowing symbols on the door.

He realized he could interface with the symbols, as they were essentially electronic locks that he could hack to open the door, but there were several symbols all over the door that would only respond in sequence.

"GPS says this temple's the best route to Dante's inner lair, but if I don't find a way through this door, I'll have to backtrack and risk further detection… but I can't understand the posthuman language being used in the symbols…" said Snake.

"Let's see… there are three symbols on the outside ring, three on the middle ring, then three on the first inner ring, ten on the second inner ring, four on the last, and in the center, there are three symbols, one yellow, one red, and one black…"

"I don't get it… I don't get it!" shouted Snake as he paced around. "Maybe Mikki can help me. Mikki? Mikki!" Jayden tried to call Mikki, but she wasn't responding.

"Damn it, the signal's jammed in here," said Snake. "I can't figure this out!"

Turning away from the circular door, Snake said, "Forget it… I have to get out of this temple…" As Snake walked back down the steps that led to the door, he said, "God, it feels like I'm crawling out of… of…" Then his eyes went wide. "Hell…"

Turning back and looking up at the door again, Snake thought out loud, "That's it. Dante's Inferno. Dante… or rather, Daniil Drakovich, was obsessed with it. The old epic poem must've left a significant impression on the hivemind that he had been building for JD."

Snake said as he held his hands up to the symbols in the correct order and hacked into them until they all turned blue, then green before his eyes.

"The outer circle of bricks' symbols are the first three circles of Hell… they represent limbo, lust, gluttony… the middle circle of bricks' symbols represent greed, wrath, and heresy… Each of the circles their own versions of punishments as poetic justice…"

Jayden looked at the three outer circles. "Limbo contained a deficient version of heaven for those who didn't sin, but weren't believers… Imagine going your entire life without sinning and still being sent to hell for that. You'd think the first act in itself would be impossible…"

"Lust contained a violent storm with terrible winds swaying back and forth, punishing those whose self-indulgence and passions carried them so far away from the path of God that now they would drift away forever… Huh… Makes me think of the superstorm I got caught up in when I was heading to Dante's estate back in Bangkok. And Max called Mikki 'Lust Beta', probably because he's proud of how far she'll go in bed in with him. Thinking about what he does to her just grosses me out…"

"Gluttony contained a vile slush produced by an endless icy rain, something so sickening that it would ruin the appetite of even the most overconsuming of individuals… That makes me think of how cold it was up in the Russian mountains, up at Jonathan Bozeman's airfield he used to ship transhuman and eventually posthuman products to people… and that sweaty A-Nile-8 factory. Max called Eric 'Gluttony Beta', perhaps because he's big and has an appetite. He's such an asshole that he's mocking even his most trusted human associate."

Jayden then looked at the three middle circles. "Greed contained a place where an eternal jousting match was enforced between those who hoarded possessions and those who squandered them… They used great weapons that they pushed… This mimicks the so-called 'pointless' fight over resources to survive, and shows the greedy how their indifference to others turned them against each other. Makes me think of JD's battle with Firelake, and how Campbell—Greed Delta—was convinced to screw humanity over for Dante so Little John could live a good life…"

"Come to think of it… didn't Liquid say something to me in Firelake's headquarters in Rome, when he was disguising me as Solidus to get me past that biometric scanner so I could access the servers? 'Don't squander this opportunity, Snake… Dante is hoarding his wealth of information on those servers.' Was that another clue of some kind? Does he know more about Dante than he's letting on? To be honest, Liquid's motivations still confuse me."

"Wrath contained the Styx, where the passively wrathful lie under its swampy stinking waters, where they can't find joy, while the actively wrathful wade through the river's surface, fighting each other for nothing. Shit… ironically I killed Mei Ling, whom Dante called Wrath Delta, in a swampy area of this island in a fit of rage while I was high on my own grief and anger. It kept me alive, and made me aware of my own distorted perceptions of my trauma, but…"

Snake looked away. "Maybe she really died in that swamp. And maybe Campbell died up in that tower in Rome." Frowning, he thought, "Still… that doesn't explain how they're talking to me, and even helping me understand how to use my augmentations the way they do!"

Snake then looked back at the symbols on the circles. "Speaking of towers, the Entrance to Dis… This was the part of the poem where Virgil told Dante that they were approaching the City of Dis. Dis, surrounded by the Styx and its marshes, contained lower Hell within its walls. An angel had to intervene to let them into Dis by fighting back the demons, signaling that they had traveled so deep into hell that they were starting to uncover sins so horrible that they can't be understood or rationalized by humans."

Looking up hopefully, Snake said, "That makes me think of how Mikki saved me when I was almost turned posthuman by Naomi and Raiden when they attacked me all at once… and stabbed me with a blade laced with nanites. After we reconciled with each other in the cave… I felt different, like a burden was lifted off of me. But like the poem, my mission isn't over yet. And I'm slowly starting to become further and further confused by what's happening, and what is and isn't real."

"Sixth circle, heresy. Heretics who preach that the soul dies with the body, are trapped in a flaming tomb. There's a volcano lair in the center of the island… Naomi was called 'Heresy Delta,' Raiden was called 'Sloth Delta', Rose was called 'Unforgivable Delta', Akiba, Jonathan, and Ed were called 'Envy Delta,' and Meryl 'Pride Omega'… These codenames… they're technically from Dante's Purgatorio, the second part of his Divine Comedy. Perhaps Dante's code talk is based off of sins related to them when they were humans, somehow… Did Dante mean to finalize his operation here on this island? Is this where everything ends for humanity?"

Pausing, Snake looked at the three inner circles before hacking into them. "I'm getting sidetracked, and unfortunately the last three inner circles are less detailed, that or they're so densely written that it's hard to tell what they're saying… almost like the hivemind is building something deeper into the rock where there's less room to write."

"Let's see… The first inner circle must represent violence… and the three symbols represent the three rings that were used to punish the people who committed the different types of violence… Violence against others, against the self, and against God, art, and nature."

Snake then said as he examined the next inner circle after hacking the first, "The second inner circle represents fraud… and the ten symbols represent the different ten different trenches, or Malebolge, dug around the large funnel of stone leading deeper into hell… Each trench punished a different type of fraudster, such as flatterers, simoniacs, thieves, or those who sowed discord…"

Snake said as he examined the final inner circle, "The third inner circle represents treachery… and the four symbols represent the outer rounds of the frozen lake in the center of hell… Cocytus…"

"The first round is Caina, named after Cain for murdering his brother… Caina was used to punish traitors to their family and friends…"

"The second round is Antenora, named after Antenor… a Trojan who betrayed his city to the Greeks… Antenora was used to punish traitors to their country…"

"The third round is Ptolomaea, named after Ptolemy… appointed governor of the Jericho region of Israel… He married a daughter of Simon Maccabaeus, and held a banquet for his father-in-law, and killed most of his family… Ptolomaea was used to punish traitors to their guests…"

"The fourth round is Judecca, named after Judas… the infamous disciple who betrayed Jesus and gave him to the Romans… Judecca was used to punish traitors to their lords or benefactors…"

Snake looked as he examined the large central brick in the door, "And then there's the Center of Hell, where Satan lies frozen in ice… a giant, terrifying beast with three heads… one red, one yellow, and one black… Satan committed the ultimate sin, treachery against God…"

Snake pressed his hand against the three heads in order. "All interpretations of the three faces are that they represent a perversion of the holy Trinity… impotence, ignorance, and a burning, unconditional hatred for God and his creation… Humanity…"

Snake looked as the three heads of the drawing of the Beast turned blue, then green like the rest of the symbols, and the door slowly gave way until it was open.

I may not be religious, but having read Dante's Inferno sure helped here, Snake mused as he walked through the door and continued onward.

Upon making it out of the temple and the ruins, Snake moved through a set of tunnels high up in the rock formations of the island until he made it to a pathway with a massive view of Dante's private island and the jungle beneath him.

Snake could also see the volcano at the center of the island from here.

That's where Dante's inner lair should be, Snake thought. I'm almost there.

Snake used his grappling line and adhesive grips to grapple across the gaps in the rock formations and climb a set of mossy rocks and vines until he reached the top of the island.

The jungle's foliage and canopy were extra thick up here, but Snake was on the outside edges of this area. He came upon a set of rope bridges leading over a massive drop down from the rock formations to a set of gushing rapids and conical rocks below. The rope bridges connected to a backdoor entrance to the cave.

After scouting ahead with his nanite augmentations for possible soldiers waiting to ambush him and killing said soldiers by lighting them on fire with the nanites' firefly ability, Snake crossed the bridge. He kept his SOCOM raised in the event that he was seen, and kept his balance, refusing to look down and see how high up he was.

Then, to Snake's surprise, he saw Liquid's stealth bomber above him, fighting off several aircraft occupied by posthumans, as well some posthuman aerial drones.

Assuming Liquid had the drones distracted, Snake kept moving along the rope bridge until he felt a massive pain in his chest.

Screaming, he stumbled and nearly fell off the bridge; a sniper blast round had penetrated his heart. Suddenly, he had a feverish vision of Liquid getting shot in the chest through the stealth bomber's cockpit windshields with a blast round.

"What the hell…" groaned Snake as he looked at the cave in front of him.

Shit… where'd she come from?

It was Naomi. Her sniper rifle was raised toward the sky.

"Hades, this is Heresy."

"Heresy, I told you to cease all communications—"

"I shot down the bogey."

To his shock, Snake looked up.

Liquid's stealth bomber was falling out of the sky, and crashed somewhere in the deeper jungle area that was eerily close to where the rope bridge was.

Snake could hear the plane's frame shred through the trees as it made an emergency landing.

"LIQUID!" yelled Snake.

As the plane came out of the jungle and smashed through the posts the rope bridge was tethered to, Snake screamed as the rope bridge collapsed.

Snake held on for dear life to the bridge as it slammed into the rock formations beneath the cave.

Snake grunted, his skin was bleeding all over and covered in bruises from the impact.

Above him, Naomi looked down at him with a bizarre expression.

"Someone there?" Naomi said. Looking at the wreckage of the plane as it was smashed to pieces by the conical rocks in the waterfall, she then looked down in Snake's direction.

"Do you see the mole down there?" said Meryl to Naomi as she appeared at the other end of the cave.

"Not yet," said Naomi, looking back up.

"If we don't have a body, then he's still out there," said Meryl, as she looked down. "What's this rope bridge doing here?"

"I don't know. Maybe the mole set it up as an exfiltration route from the lair? It's thick enough to hold a hoverbike… or was."

"Well if that's the case…" said Meryl, as she looked down at Snake and squinted.

"No!" yelled Snake as Meryl raised her hand toward him instinctively, then frowned and hesitated moments before she fired her Patriot machine guns at the posts connecting the rope bridge to the cave.

"NO!" Snake screamed as the rope snapped and he lost his grip.

"MERYL!" He screamed as he fell down into the rapids, and after he hit the water, he dislocated his right leg as he slammed it into a conical rock at an angle.

The plane wreckage was crashing through the rapids, the flames from its jet fuel turning to steam in the rapids as it tumbled down right behind him.

As he fell over another waterfall, he managed to deploy his wings and the jets in his legs, barely landing on his feet in the dirt before he lost control, further breaking his right leg and falling face first and skidding into the mud not far from the shallow bottom of the waterfall.

Before the stealth bomber's wreckage that didn't get shredded by the trees or conical rocks fell over the side of the waterfall, Snake saw an ejector seat launch sideways and land somewhere in the trees past him before the wreckage fell very close to Snake, crashing and reigniting the jet fuel.

Panting heavily and covered in blood, scratches, mud, and tears in his skin revealing his endoskeleton, Snake managed to propel himself back onto his feet using his jets and limped away from the burning wreckage before it exploded, sending him flying again and blacking out for a second as he hit the ground.

As he lifted his head out of the mud as it started to rain, Cyber Snake saw an equally heavily wounded Fat Snake whose ejector seat's parachute strings had gotten caught in the canopy in front of him. Fat Snake unbuckled his seatbelt and cut through the foliage with his own set of sword drills, falling to the ground next to Cyber Snake.

Snake said, "Liquid… get up… they'll find us here… we have to go…"

Liquid got up, and yelled, "NO!" He limped into the trees.

"Liquid, wait!" yelled Snake as he raised a hand. "What… about… me… ?"

Snake tried to get up, but his right leg's jet wasn't working now due to the fact that he had dislocated it so badly.

Getting up, Snake tried to use his strength to snap his leg's endoskeletal parts back in place one part at a time. He now just had to twist his leg when a blade went through his arm.

Snake screamed as he started to see horrifying visions of his childhood.

"Got him," Snake could faintly hear Raiden's voice say as he faded in and out between his external reality and his internal one.

Snake remembered them performing horrible experiments on him when he was young, during the Les Enfants Terribles project.

It was like being in the Holocaust.

Snake was regularly starved, tortured, beaten, and deprived of his senses, only to be deployed in combat trials.

He had blocked out the memories until now.

Dr. Clark, or "Para-Medic," was incredibly sadistic in how she treated him and Liquid.

He wanted to block out the memories again… They were too painful.

Snake screamed as he put his hands to his head as he ripped the blade out of his arm, and snapped his leg into place.

Standing up, he howled in agony, and bent over, holding his skull as his hands began to glow, and smacked the side of his head with one of his hands until his skull was bleeding even more.

"WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME?!" Snake screamed in an inhuman-sounding roar.

"…are you trying to kill yourself?" said Raiden as Snake looked up at him from where he was balanced on a tree branch in the jungle canopy.

"Well, go on then," said Raiden to a now-delirious Snake as he climbed around a set of trees to make him dizzy.

And as Snake tried to get up, he found that he was holding a revolver in his mouth again.

Snake screamed as he pulled the trigger the first five times, only to throw the pistol away.

"Jayden, this is Mikki!" Mikki yelled over his C3. "I'm monitoring your mind, it's going haywire! Raiden must've gotten you again, but I'm too close to Dante right now… I can't help you! You have to fight through the traumatic memories you're being bombarded with, or else you'll lose consciousness forever, and after that… fuck… You have to keep fighting, Snake! You have to!"

"…are you trying to kill yourself?" said Raiden as Snake took his hands off of his skull after hearing Mikki's voice, but his veins and eyes were still glowing bright blue.

"Shit… Hades, this is Sloth. We've got a problem," said Raiden. "Snake's badly wounded, and he's suicidal… You said you needed him alive, but the nanite-laced blades seem to be inflicting too much mental damage on him… Copy that."

"STAY AWAY FROM ME!" Snake yelled, and released nanites into the trees, burning Raiden out of some of them before he couldn't release any more.

"Shit… Mei Ling, the nanites aren't working… How do I stop him?" yelled Snake.

Mei Ling wouldn't respond.

"Mei Ling? Campbell?! Hello!" screamed Snake.

"Mei Ling? Colonel Campbell?" said Raiden. "Those were Wrath and Greed's respective human names… and you used Mei Ling's nanite abilities a second ago…" he said. "Hmmm… I think I'm starting to understand what's going on. I'll have to ask Hades for the whole picture though."

Snake said to Raiden, "Raoul, what was that a second ago that caused me to see my childhood memories?"

Raiden laughed. "Raiden's mind contained a memory where something like this happened… He was terrified as a child. I see now. So that's what's going on?"

"What?" said Snake. "What do you mean?"

"The human mind is weak, Snake… You may have a strong mind to resist this much mental trauma, but the fact that you'd forgotten your past, protected yourself with amnesia… That just shows that you're a perfect example of such weakness."

Snake grimaced. "I'm talking to a posthuman, not Raiden. I have to kill you to save Raiden!"

Raiden grimaced in return, and said, "Raiden doesn't need saving. And even before he was turned posthuman, he was the superior fighter."

Raiden threw a barrage of blades at Snake, but he used his jets to dodge them.

Raiden used his nanite-laced blades to corrupt several nearby animal-like drones.

Snake fought them off, blowing them up with grenades launched from his underbarrel launcher.

Raiden snuck up behind Snake, and nearly sunk his fangs into him, only for Snake to block him with his own sword drills.

"You want a sword fight, Snake, that's what you'll get!" said Raiden as he readied his own swords.

Snake readied his tentacles and other sword drills, only for Raiden to slice half of them off.

"Solidus won't help you here, Snake!" screamed Raiden.

Snake backed up, and shot at Raiden with his M4, only for Raiden to deflect the bullets with his swords. However, he managed to land a few hits with armor-piercing rounds.

Furious, Raiden activated his own jets and ran and climbed to the safety of the trees.

"Maybe you could hit me, but can you hit what you can't see?" said Raiden as he activated his optical camouflage.

"Shit," said Snake as Raiden turned invisible.

He tried to activate his extended reality vision to help him spot Raiden, but for some reason it was malfunctioning.

The nanites in his blades must be causing me to lose control of some of my augmentations, Snake thought.

Snake tried to use his sonar vision instead, and managed to spot Raiden just in time once the second pulse lit up his vision.

Raiden was flying silently around the treeline, setting wired nanite blade traps to help ambush Snake.

He was about to throw more blades at Snake from above him when Snake raised his M4 and managed to shoot Raiden in the head, chest, and heart with assault rifle and shotgun fire.

Raiden screamed as he flipped around in mid-air and slid through the dirt; his optical camouflage skin augmentations were now malfunctioning, and he and his physical wounds became visible.

His endoskeleton was showing through his head and chest, as half his face had been blown off by the blast. His right cybernetic eye that had been underneath his artificial human one was glowing bright red.

Snake approached Raiden to hack into his BISECT, only for Raiden to hook his leg around Snake's and knock him over as he boosted back onto his feet with his jets.

"Your attempt to save your friend in close quarters will cost you," Raiden said as he stabbed Snake several times.

Snake screamed as he hallucinated, seeing each crossbow bolt as a punch from one of his abusers in the Les Enfants Terribles project.

"Die, Snake!" they laughed.

The first slice went through his chest, the second through his leg again, the third through his other leg, causing Snake to spin around and fall on his face in the mud.

Looking over at the Boss's grave and the revolver in his hand, and shaking as he fought through the hallucinations, Snake used the strength in his arms to crawl through the mud as the rain poured down.

Snake screamed, and reached out again, now seeing that a blade had pinned his right arm to a tree, and tore the blade out with his left arm, then reached up with his destroyed right arm, and managed to reach up and grab another blade pinned to the tree.

"It's over," said Raiden, his voice demonic-sounding as his human larynx filter had been damaged. "These blades are doing too much damage to your body, and the others are closing in. You're surrounded. Come with us to Hades's inner lair peacefully."

"If Hades wants me so bad," said Snake, "he can have my corpse."

Snake tapped the blade trap with his other hand.

"I pull this laser tripwire blade you planted out of the tree and it'll explode on both ends, right?"

Raiden looked at Snake. "Really? That's your strategy to stopping our plans? Killing yourself?"

"Maybe not," said Snake, "but if you want me to come peacefully, then you'll let me interface with you. You'll share the same fate as Mei Ling and Colonel Campbell, but the others will outlast you as posthumans."

"I'm not bargaining with you," said Raiden as he raised his sword. "Come with me!"

"Come any closer, and I'll rip it out," said Snake, looking down. "You're better than me in a fight. You're the superior model. Rules of nature."

"You're right. I'm suicidal. Have been for a while now. It doesn't help things now that my friends are gone, too. Anyways, I'm not afraid to take a posthuman with me."

"Wait!" shouted Raiden as Snake started to rip the tripwire blade trap out of where it was lodged in the tree.

"Fine," said Raiden. "A life for a life. I'm not afraid to sacrifice myself to become a lesser being again for the rest of the hivemind. None of us are. We don't feel. All that matters to us is our purpose."

"Good," said Snake, "because if there's a chance Raiden's in there, I'm getting him back!"

Snake then reached out with his other hand as Raiden approached, and interfaced with his BISECT, while Raiden simultaneously reached out with his hand and deactivated the blade trap.

… … … … …

In the VR room in Raiden's mind, Raiden attacked Snake with his sword, only for Snake to feint and slice through Raiden's endoskeleton.

Raiden fell to the floor, bleeding white blood, and screamed.

"Raiden?" said Snake.

"Oh my god… what the fuck is happening to me?" said Raiden.

Looking up, he shouted, "Snake?"

"You with me, Raiden?" said Snake.

Raiden said, "Yeah… Snake, you've got to get me out of here!"

"I'm getting—" Snake then caught himself. "I'm- I, uh…" Snake started to cry. "I think we're trapped here."

"What do you mean? Where's here?"

"I'll explain to you in a place that feels more familiar to you," said Snake. "Remember when you helped me track down Naomi, back in South America during the SOP incident?"

"Yeah?" said Raiden, as his memories played on the VR room's walls.

"You helped me learn how to track," said Snake as they walked through the grass, looking for footprints.

"I know," said Raiden.

"Can you retrace your memories like you were tracking?" said Snake. "Think of when you were in Saudi Arabia… or Rome."

"I'm trying," said Raiden as they traced the footprints to a river nearby. His eyes then went wide as they started wading through the river. "Oh god!"

"You remember?" said Snake.

"I do," said Raiden, panting heavily as he got on his knees and clutched his throat as he puked up more white blood, and the river began to rise.

"That's good."

"No… Not good."

"Why did Dante choose to codename you as Sloth?"

"It's likely because I used to do what I was told, because I didn't know what else to do." Raiden said, "That was true during the Big Shell incident. My mind was lazy… I didn't realize what was going on until the very end, and then… The Patriots, they taunted me for it."

"But you weren't lazy," said Snake. "You really did save the day."

"The day, yes," said Raiden. "The rest of humanity's time on Earth… no."

Raiden said to Snake, "It was you who made me realize I needed to find something to believe in, to pass on to the future… It wasn't even my own idea!"

"That doesn't matter, Raiden!" said Snake.

Raiden sighed as he began to sink beneath the boiling, swampy waters. "I suppose you're right."

Raiden looked at himself, then a reflection of Vamp. "I became my own worst enemy… Vamp."

Then his eyes went wide. "No… That's not right… I still had some control over myself, despite that I eventually was turned posthuman. That's why I wanted to kill you so badly, Snake. You're…"

"I'm what?" said Snake.

"…Solidus," said Raiden as he sunk into the stinking swampy waters and fought with Solidus and Vamp as they screamed.

"It… it was just a disguise," said Snake. "I'm still me. I'm your friend."

"You're right," said Raiden. "We share similarities in our pasts… Both of ours were traumatic. I had to revert to my alter ego, Jack the Ripper, to protect who I was when Solidus raised me as a child soldier. And you…"

"My memories are coming back," said Snake. "They're hurting."

Snake saw other child soldiers fighting each other to the death in the river of Styx.

"Dante broke me this way," said Raiden. "Took advantage of my divided mind… and brought out Jack the Ripper… this time for good. Only difference is that this version of the Ripper was posthuman."

Sitting up, Raiden screamed, "Don't let Dante mess with your mind, Snake!"

"It's… it's too late," said Snake. "He's breaking in, bit by bit. I can feel it…"

"No!" cried Raiden. "You have to fight, Snake! Get up and fight! If you beat me, then you can beat Dante! You have to!"

"I—I'm sorry, Raiden," said Snake. "My legs are pinned to the ground, and the others are closing in. This looks like the end."

"Well, whether it was real or not… it's been a good life together, Snake," cried Raiden.

"Yeah, it has," said Snake.

"Maybe we can see each other again if there's a… what… what is that light…" said Raiden.

Snake sighed, and looked at Raiden as he lay back down underneath the Styx, puking up white blood and filthy water, and shut his eyes as the VR room evaporated, and he returned to reality.

… … … … …

Snake looked at Raoul's lifeless endoskeleton as it fell over in the mud as the rain came down.

"RAIDEN!" screamed Snake.

"Give it up, Snake," said Naomi as she, Meryl, Rose, Jonathan and Ed approached Snake in the jungle, along with countless other elite posthuman soldiers of Dante's.

Snake could see Akiba's silhouette through the rain.

Snake sighed, and raised his hands in the air with his arms pointed away from the others. "All right. I give up."

Meryl raised her machine gun arm augmentations toward Snake, then lowered them for a moment. "I'm disappointed in you, Snake."

She then raised them again and shot Snake's eyes with two electric shock rounds, one from each of her Patriot arm augmentations, causing Snake to pass out.