Disclaimer: Nope, MGS is still in Konami's hands, despite my insidious plot to usurp it from them.

As we last left our hero, he had just shoved a hobo-looking geek around, and then had an encounter with Meryl in the Ladies' room (though that particular event wasn't as... erm... interesting as I just made it sound). Anyways, Snake and Meryl were heading towards the Commander's room, when all of a sudden...

"Owwwwww. My head hurts..." Meryl moaned, clutching the sides of here head.

"Christ. My head hurts too. All these annoying speeches y'know.".

"SNAKE! This place is dangerous!".

"Riiiight. Between the Refugees from a bad Kung Fu movie, Red Dead Revolver rejects, giant tank driving Inuit Shaman, and the whole 'terrorist army' thing, I think that's fairly obvious.".

"Don't go on..." Meryl said, and then she stood straight up, looked at Snake, and smiled.

"What the hell was that about?".

"-Kssssssssssh- C'mon, Mister FOX-HOUND. The commander is waiting." Meryl said, a creepy, Darthvaderesque noise apparent in her speech.

"Wait, you just told me not to head on.".

"No I didn't. -Hsssssssssssssh".

"And why do you sound like your breathing through a gasmask?".

"-Ksssssssssh- I don't sound at all like that. Now get going before I make your head explode.".

"What?"

"-Hsssssssssk- Nothing.".

And so, Snake decided to go on, mainly because he was an ass. The reappearance of that badass theme music didn't even dissuade him...

The commander's room was more or less like a tacky gift shop. Portraits of game developers, fake elk skulls and a plastic singing bass hung on the walls, alongside other such novelties that would hurt like a bitch if they were telekinetically thrown at someone. Just so it didn't totally suck, a cool 3-d image of a pair of towers was shown on the table towards the left side fo the room.

And now, for some creepy innuendos.

"Snake...".

"Yeah Meryl?".

"Do you like me -kssssssssssh-?".

"Can we discuss my feelings for you when we aren't tasked with stopping the nuclear destruction of innocent civilians?".

"Hold me Snake-Sssssssssssssssssh-!".

"Wait. Did you somehow go to Mardi Gras, get drunk, and then come back here during the five seconds when I wasn't staring at your ass?".

"Make love to me Snake! I want you!".

"And I thought Bond made getting laid look easy!". Snake said with glee.

At that point, to keep this fic's rating at T, Meryl raised her Desert Eagle. Snake, despite not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, realized that something was amiss...

"Uh, Meryl, judging by the gasmask tone in your voice and the rather large pistol you have leveled at my face, I'd say you are acting a little strange...".

BLAM!

And so, our hero experience his 97th near fatal wound in the game. Of course, military rations fixed him up.

"Uh, Colonel, I think your niece forgot her ritalin today..." Our ever observant hero said over his CODEC.

"No jackass, it's FOX-HOUND's psychic, Psycho Mantis. That song you heard is his mind control." Naomi chimed in.

"Okay, so his superpowers come from TAPPY? Then how should I go about stopping Mantis?".

"Beat the stuffing out of my niece." Our lovable Colonel Campbell.

"What!".

"You heard me. Pummel Meryl and Mantis won't be able to control her. Then all you have to deal with is the most powerful psychic in the world. Should be easy.".

And so, Snake versus Meryl started. For fun, let's just do a comparison. Snake beat a fucking cyborg ninja two chapters ago. Meryl manages to look cute when she walks. On the outside, this fight looks evenly matched, but true enough, three punch-punch-kicks later, Meryl was out cold, and a different Predatoresque transparent silhouette than Fox's appeared.

"Useless woman!" The gasmasked Russian evil voice shouted.

"Uh-huh. And you must be Mantis?".

"-Ksssssssssssssh- Yessssssssssssss...".

"So, you can float, turn invisible, and have a cool theme. Any other powers?".

"There's no need for words, Snake. -Ksssssssssh- Now let me read your mind... or should I say... your saved game data -hssssssssssssssssk-?".

"What?".

"-kssssssssssssssh- My real ultimate power is to break the fourth wall!".

"We did that already... Meryl's frequency on the back of the CD case...".

"No, I can do much more than that... -Ksssssssh- I will grade your performance up to now. You like shooting people... don't you? And... you have not saved often -ssssssssssssssh-. And... you like staring at Meryl's ass.".

Both Snake and DarkGidora were thinking the same thing. So he says a bunch of random stuff about the game. Wow. Like I believe he can really read minds...

"-Ssssssssssssssh- That's not all. You enjoy the Resident Evil series, don't you? Stare at Jill as much as Meryl, huh? What's with you and redheads? -Ksssssssssssssh- And... Ace Combat 5? GTA3? Killzone? You really like blowing shit up, huh?".

"Out! Out of my mind!" Our author yelled sarcastically. But that Jill/Meryl thing... when that floating anorexic's right, he's right...

"Still have your doubts? -Ssssssssh- put your controller on the ground. Yes, very good. I shall move it with the power of my will alone!".

And so, after proving that DarkGidora's dualshock controller wasn't broken, Mantis decided to get on with the fight...

And the word "HIDEO" appeared across the screen, and then disappeared. But as Snake shot he who slayed suspension of disbelief, Mantis dodged. So in short, never fuck around with someone who can read your mind, children. And so a cycle started. Snake would shoot and miss, and then Mantis would hit him with a hadoken. After fifteen minutes, DarkGidora remembered something he picked up from a strategy guide he once read.

And so the controller was switched to port 2. And the real fight began.

"I can't read you!" Mantis yelled, proving that if you fight a telepath, they'll have no qualms alerting you to a flaw in their battle plan.

And so, Snake donned his thermal goggles to battle the invisible psychic. When Mantis prepared to blast him again, he got a dozen bullets flying towards him. Despite the fact he was about as muscular as a paperclip, he managed to continue fighting. Flying to the center of the room, Mantis used his superpowers to levitate several portraits, and then...

WHAM!

Snake caught a picture of Ryuhei Kitimura with his face. This was followed up by getting a statue broken over his noggin, and then getting knocked into the wall by a chair.

WHAM!

"My spine! My beautiful spine!".

SMASH!

"Not my face!".

RANDOM HIT TO NUTS!

"Not those either!".

Of course, Mantis's strategy of "break everything in the room over Snake's cranium while floating, completly exposed and visible in the center of the room" had a drawback. Namely, the floating completely exposed and visible in the center of the room part. Eventually, Snake had time to draw his FAMAS.

"OW! Okay, new plan." Mantis said, becoming invisible and charging up his energy blasts. While this was the same plan he had when the battle started, he called it new because he once again mind controlled Meryl and had her ineffectively shoot at Snake.

Five seconds (and another cycle of 'practice Kung Fu on potential love interest') later, Meryl was out cold once again.

Floating back to Meryl, Mantis said "Hm. You are very powerful indeed. But I know your weak point... -ssssssssssssssssh-.".

"No! You bastard!" Snake yelled, his voice full of fear as he covered his crotch with his hands.

"Er, no, I meant your other weakpoint -sssssssssssssssh-.".

"And that would be?".

Of course, with his ability to read minds gone, Mantis had to make a bunch of guesses "Kryptonite?".

"That's Superman. Jackass.".

"Yellow?".

"Green Fucking Lantern.".

"Alcohol?".

"Well, that might work on me, but Iron Man is more of a drunk than I am.".

"Water?".

"Wicked Witch of the West.".

"How about -ksssssssssssh- This second controller slot? Muwahahahahahaha!".

"That's your weakness. Christ, I'll just say it. Redhead, nice ass, not Jill Valentine.".

"Oh... -sssssssssh- Thank you. Now then, Meryl..." Mantis said, coercing Meryl to stand again, "Stand right where he can see you... and blow your brains out!". Meryl pressed her Desert Eagle to her head and...

"Egad, you fiend!" Snake yelled. Tired of punching people, Snake just pulled the pin on a stun grenade, and Meryl was out cold yet again.

"-Ksssssssssssh- I think you're going to need some relationship counciling when all is said and done..." Mantis said.

"Yeah.".

"So, should we just..."

"Yeah."

"-Sssssssssssssh- Okay then. SNAKE! PREPARE TO DIE!".

And so the battle resumed, with Mantis simultaneously levitating everything in the room, and charging up his energy attack. And Snake just raised his FAMAS.

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!

"NO!" Mantis shouted as he was tossed back by the bullets.

"Campbell, I saved your niece.".

"Thank you Snake, now get going. I can't wait to see what kind of mortal danger you get my niece into next..".

Naomi felt the need to chime in. "So Snake, why'd you save Meryl? After all you've killed hundreds of people in your life.".

"Uh, way to bring down the mood. I can't kill one anorexic bald dude with the power to cause natural disasters with his mind without you nagging. Thanks Naomi." Snake said, pouting while signing off. And he still didn't suspect a thing.

Of course, Mantis was not dead (yet). If he was, then Snake wouldn't be subjected to a sad death speech that would make him feel like a horrible monster. "-coughing kssssssssssssh- So... you used the other controller port... I couldn't read the future." Mantis said. Shame he didn't notice that Playstations had two ports until after he got shot a hell of a lot.

"A strong man doesn't need to read the future. He makes his own. Or he does what I did and hides away in the middle of Alaska, secretly hoping to be forgotten by the world. Either way is fine.".

"So, I guess it's time for me to give you vital information and my life story, despite the fact that my torso was shredded by 5.56 cal. bullets. -Ksssssssssh-. Go through the hidden door through the bookshelf, past the cave of wolf-dogs, through a pair of communications towers, past the obligatory snowfield, then through the obligatory fire level, then through another obligatory ice portion, and then you'll find -Kssssssssssssh- Metal Gear.".

"Wow. You just summarized the rest of the game for me in one run-on sentence.".

"I left out some parts.".

"Such as?".

"The rest of FOX-HOUND.".

"Ah. Crap. Anyways, why are you doing this.".

"I hate humanity." Mantis said. During that time, Meryl woke up, wondered why the Hell she felt like she'd been repeatedly hit in the face, and walked over to Snake, who was busy removing Mantis's gasmask.

"Gross." Our heroine said of Mantis's jigsaw visage, another observation that was pretty goddamn obvious.

"You see," Mantis said "I think that humans are all sex-drive controlled monkeys with no real purpose aside from cranking out as many offspring as possible while leeching the resources of their homes dry. But eh, I'll leave my Agent Smith philosophy for now and talk about how my father wanted to kill me because my mother died giving birth. So I killed everyone my hometown horribly."

"So you gave in to the dark side of the force?".

"-Cough- Yeah. Anyways, the world is a more interesting place with homicidal maniacs like you in it. Also, I revel in slaughtering innocent civilians, and that's why I signed up for this gig.".

"You suck." Meryl said, the 900th amazingly goddamn obvious thing said in this game.

"Yeah? But compared to Snake... I'm not so bad. Sure, he's not the one planning nuclear holocaust, but he's a real bastard.". Looking at Meryl, Mantis continued "Y'know Snake, despite the fact that you and Meryl have spent a grand total of fifteen minutes together, five of which involved horrible domestic abuse, the fact that you know nothing about each other, and you've treated each other with borderline contempt half the time, Meryl loves you.".

"YES!" Our hero shouted, jumping with glee.

"Anyways, give me my mask. It's kind of sickening hearing your thoughts." Mantis said, and frankly, I wouldn't want toreadthe thoughts of a homicidal, oversexed, antisocial mercenary and his bipolar girlfriend either. After his gasmask was put on, Mantis spoke once more. "That hidden door behind the bookcase leads to Metal Gear... -kssssssh- I'll open the door for you.". Upon doing so, Mantis gave one last speech. "This is the first time I've ever used my power to help someone. Strange... It feels... kind of... nice... -dying kssssssssssssssh-.". And Snake thought Wow. He wasn't really all that bad. I sure do feel like a horrible monster deserving a painful demise...

And so, with the homicidal psychic mercenary dead, Snake headed towards the door. Of course, we were not finished with the sad speeches quite yet.

"Snake, what's your name?" Meryl asked.

"Doesn't matter.".

"Age?".

"Old enough to kill people.".

"Family?".

"None.".

"Any friends?".

"I hate people.".

"Mantis was right. You are a sad, lonely man.".

"Damn straight. C'mon let's get going. I have a feeling everything will be smooth sailing from here on out.".

And so, join us next chapter, when I try to piss of as many members of GreenPeace and PETA as I can. Also starring Sniper Wolf and her chest.

Author's note: Well, another chapter down. Anyways, I'm planning on making a second intermission chapter, possibly about the ninja, or a behind the scenes look on how vodka and a gaming addiction have spawned this fic (Projected to be chapter 15). But nothing's in concrete yet.

And also, we're getting up close to the certain scene where the good or bad ending is determined. So, which ending do you guys want to see? Good or Bad?