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.

9. The Heretic Sniper's Burning Tomb

CHAPTER 9— "THE HERETIC SNIPER'S BURNING TOMB"

Snake woke up unable to see, but hearing voices around him, not sure if they were real or an illusion.

"…where the hell is Fat Snake?"

"He's gone dark since the bogey was shot down. We couldn't find him anywhere."

"Could he be the mole, Dante?"

"Perhaps he could be. But mere hunches don't matter anymore. Cyber Snake was found at the scene of the crash. His BISECT is the key to uncovering the mole, as I've been told he's interacted with the mole previously. After I get the information I need from him, we're free to begin the final phase of the operation."

"That means we can get off this island before NATO bombs it."

"Don't get comfortable, Meryl. You're not boarding Metal Gear DAEMON yet. Nor are the rest of you. Wake him up."

Snake then screamed as he felt a massive surge of electricity enter his BISECT.

Snake screamed, and looked around, blinded by the bright lights, but unable to look away.

As his eyes adjusted, he looked around.

Snake was in a bright white room with glowing tile surfaces.

Looking at himself, he realized he was completely naked, and he was cuffed by the thighs, ankles, torso, biceps, wrists, neck, and forehead to a sophisticated chair made of an alloy stronger than that of his endoskeleton.

Shit, thought Snake, I can't move!

Then Snake grunted as the chair was turned upright so he was facing the others.

Naomi, Rosemary, Jonathan, Ed, Akiba, Meryl, Mikki, and even Dante himself.

But no Fat Snake.

The distant look in Mikki's blue eyes suggested that she was terrified. Perhaps she had dissociative issues of some kind herself.

Dante said to Snake, "I'll admit I was impressed somewhat by your ability to best Raiden… He was a tough one for even me to break… I could only gain partial access to his true mind, thanks to the protection of his Jack the Ripper alter."

"But that no longer matters. How does it feel to know you failed your mission, Snake?" said Dante with a grin. "Instead of letting them live on as posthumans, your friends you think you saved are going to die with you."

"You make it sound like there's a difference," Snake said to Dante.

Dante laughed. "So defiant. I'm going to enjoy breaking you, making your worst nightmares come to life."

"My worst nightmare already has come to life because of you," said Snake. "My friends are gone."

"Oh, but I suspect you're in denial still," said Dante, his grin widening. "Your real worst nightmares have something to do with your past, given what I saw glimpses of while you were fighting with Raiden… when he shot you with that nanite-laced blade of his."

"My past…" said Snake, looking at Dante in horror. "So those memories that were entering my head… they weren't some sort of posthuman software."

"In order for the posthuman software to work on a person's consciousness, and turn them from transhuman to posthuman, their will has to be broken down completely. In other words, their minds have to be forced into letting the software in through physical or mental torture."

"You tortured my friends?" said Snake. "You're insane… You're going to destroy humanity… erase what little of us is still human… torture our collective consciousness until we all dissociate and leave reality. The will of humanity."

"That's where you're wrong, Snake," said Dante. "When humans agreed to upload their minds to the bodies of cyborgs via the BISECT chip inside their skulls, they essentially made incomplete copies of their consciousnesses. The incomplete copies lived on, while the irreplaceable original versions were killed in the process."

"Mikki invented the BISECT and the full-body transhuman augmentation patent that's prevalent throughout the world now. We both helped create this patent, but ultimately Hannah Brady, oversaw the project. We had hoped to survive global climate change this way, and turn humans into terraforming machines in an attempt to heal the biosphere, prevent a mass extinction event…"

"But Hannah Brady and her damned JD megacorporation were more concerned about selfish, short-term profit… She believed humans wouldn't be willing to change their nature enough to save the Earth."

"Change their nature?" said Snake.

"Become sustainable terraforming machines, capable of mass creation rather than mass consumption of resources… Not to mention destruction via fighting amongst each other for the sake of prolonging the war economy."

"So you sabotaged Hannah's new version of the Patriots, and planned to erase humanity in its entirety out of revenge?"

"Not out of revenge, Snake!" said Dante. "Don't you get it? I originally wanted to save the Earth and all lifeforms on it, not just humanity… Unfortunately, I came to the conclusion that the only way for that to happen was for humans to become something that wasn't human."

Snake grunted.

"We're in the endgame, Snake. The Earth's natural resources are running out… Superstorms are ravaging the Earth… And yet we're still fighting among each other like a bunch of cavemen in tribes when we need to evolve to survive. You want to save humanity, Snake… You just don't want it to change. This is the only way."

"No…" said Snake. "There's always another way."

"Well if you have a better suggestion, I'm all ears," said Dante. "But rather than tell me with your voice… tell me with your mind."

"I am a unique clone, one different than even the clones of Big Boss, produced by the Patriots in an attempt to clone Zero when they began to disobey his will and evolve into the Sons of the Patriots. I have my own unique human consciousness, I possess his dominant genes, his memes… His own consciousness and memories… as well as those of Big Boss."

"Big Boss?" said Snake in shock. "So… if you have the collective memories of Big Boss, Zero, and yourself… then you essentially have both of the minds of the original founders of the Patriots inside your BISECT!"

"That's correct," said Dante. "That means that I possess the will alone to burn these false Grandsons of the Patriots down… and recreate the Patriots as they were meant to be. I am the one true Patriot… I am the 01310011161!"

"You're wrong," said Snake. "You're not the one true patriot… That was the Boss. Big Boss and Zero founded the Patriots off of a misinterpretation of her will… Her true will is lost to history… The only thing keeping it alive are what people remember of her. What she truly was."

"She wanted a world without wars, where humanity was united, thriving, and their collective wills would be respected. But she wanted to leave it the same. The Patriots destroyed what little of her will was left after the real Big Boss and Zero died."

Upset, Dante shouted, "Enough, Cyber Snake! I don't need you to tell me about what it means to be a true Patriot… Just like I don't need to tell you what it was like during Les Enfants Terribles…" As Dante's arms crackled with electricity, he said, "That's right… I don't need to tell you, when I can show you instead."

Mikki clasped her trembling hands together.

Dante zapped Snake with an arc of electricity as he grabbed his skull, causing Snake to scream and tremble violently against his restraints. His veins glowed bright white as the electricity burned through them.

… … … … …

Snake was in a VR simulation again, on his hands and knees. Dante, Meryl, Rose, Akiba, Jonathan, Ed, and Naomi were in there with him, along with an electronically locked door.

"That door contains all I need to finish my plans, kill you, and any remnants of your friends' consciousnesses that you managed to glean from their BISECTs when you interfaced with them," said Dante as he pointed to the door and grinned. "You're going to open it for me."

"You're interfacing with my BISECT?" said Snake, looking at the door. "Shit…"

"End of the line, Snake," said Meryl. "Open the door for us."

Getting up, Snake said, "Go to hell—"

Only for Meryl to punch him in the face, knocking him back to the floor.

"If you think Meryl's fists hurt, Snake… you'd be cowering in terror knowing what mine feel like," said Dante as his arms crackled with electricity.

Dante picked Snake up, butted his head into Snake's, and slugged him in the stomach three times with one of his electrified fists.

Coughing up blood, Snake screamed.

Dante then hit Snake with an electric uppercut to the chin, sending him flying to the floor.

Spitting blood on the floor, Snake looked at his reflection on the VR simulation room's floors as their surfaces were beginning to crack open.

Dante's electricity was starting to burn off his external flesh, revealing his endoskeleton.

"That's your self-image, Snake…" said Dante. "You see yourself as transhuman now, not human."

"What's your point?" said Snake.

"Most people are never able to come to terms with the transition. Your will to fight is stronger than that of a typical soldier," said Dante.

"I was never a typical human to begin with," said Snake, "so it makes sense that I don't see myself as one."

"Your repressed memories of the Les Enfants Terribles experiments broke your mind down once, Snake… They'll break your mind down again. We'll spend as much time down here as we need to. Now… tell me, Snake, out of all the people that ever hurt you in the project… who was the one you couldn't stand the most? Was it Zero? Big Boss? Or perhaps one of your brothers?"

"I don't know…" said Snake.

"Who's your worst enemy, Snake?"

"I don't know!"

… … … … …

Snake remembered now.

He wasn't the only clone with recessive genes. Just like Liquid wasn't the only clone with dominant genes, and Solidus wasn't the only clone with perfectly balanced genes.

There were several failed clones that came before Snake.

"Congratulations, Solid Snake," said Dr. Clark. "You passed all the tests. Now you get to watch all your brothers die."

"NO!" screamed a very young Snake as he saw the other children be gassed to death in their prison cells.

As they screamed for help, Snake saw that one managed to claw his way out.

Liquid.

"The very fact that you're alive and breathing means that hundreds like you had to die… You're living on time borrowed from them," said Dr. Clark. "Tell me, how does that make you feel?"

Snake looked at the now dead clones, and fell to his knees, crying.

… … … … …

Something about that moment broke him.

Snake began to puke all over the floor in the White Room.

"I don't just want to die… I deserve to die…" Snake said as he trembled.

Dante laughed. "So tell me, Jayden… are you ready to open that door?"

"DON'T DO IT, SNAKE!" shouted Fat Snake as he stepped into the White Room.

Dante looked at Fat Snake in disbelief, then he frowned. Snake had never seen him look this furious before. He looked unhinged in a way that was disturbing.

"Liquid?" said Snake.

"You…" said Dante angrily. "What are you doing here… How are you sharing Cyber Snake's consciousness with him right now?"

"Those other clones, they didn't exist! This memory was fabricated, based on mere parts of reality! Snake, think!" said Fat Snake. "How could all of the clones exist? How did you come to exist?"

"I… I was a clone… I was manufactured…" said Cyber Snake.

"But even a clone needs a mother's womb," said Fat Snake.

"EVA…" said Cyber Snake, remembering her from Big Boss's memories during the night he had that dream. Her appearance in her youth was eerily similar to that of Mikki's appearance now.

"There was only one woman who volunteered for the project. Our surrogate mother, EVA. She could only give birth to so many of Big Boss's clones…"

"But not hundreds…" said Cyber Snake.

"Good…" said Fat Snake. "You understand. But do you know how that memory was planted in you?"

"Was it Dante?" said Snake.

"Not exactly…" said Fat Snake as the ground disappeared from under them, and the black abyss of the VR simulation beneath them enveloped them.

The dream. The memory of Saudi Arabia.

Mikki's clinic.

"Despite nearly losing Ed, Jonathan, and Johnny here in Saudi Arabia, we managed to steal back his body from Dante like you said to, Mikki. We would've been dead if it hadn't been for the cybernetic augmentation surgeries you performed on us."

"Good, thank god," Ultra Mouse said. "I'm sorry, Meryl. I know it must not have been easy."

"So, what was the point of keeping Snake in cryogenics, Mikki?" said Otacon.

"I'm curious to the reasoning behind this as well," said Naomi. "It seems eerily similar to the way Big Boss's body was stored and used by the Patriots."

"It's a long story," Ultra Mouse said. "I don't know all of the details of Dante's plans for him. Actually, I hardly know any. What I do know was that his consciousness was used for an experiment. One that was crucial to his plans for humanity, DICE."

"He believed Snake had the strongest will out of us all. If he could break his will and turn him into the very thing he despised the most—the ultimate way to prove you've gained control over someone- he'd be able to break the will of anyone. He was going to be the tool Dante used to finally complete his posthuman software program housed within the AI hivemind of his new Metal Gear. If you hadn't saved Snake from falling into the hands of Dante… it'd likely be too late to save humanity. I think we need to bring him back."

"What? Why?" said Otacon.

"If there's anyone who could bring Dante down, it's him. Not to mention that putting his preserved consciousness inside of a new transhuman body will make him stronger than ever before. He already had a strong will to live."

"But would it really be him?" said Rosemary.

"Rosemary has a point," said Colonel Campbell. "The Patriots may have made him a copy of Big Boss during the Les Infants Terribles project, but that copy was made of genes. Human genes. Snake was his own person. Now, he'd just be a copy of his former self."

"Meaning in reality, he'd technically be dead. Just like the rest of us," said Raiden quietly. "I don't like this at all."

"Mikki, are you sure this is the only way to save him?" said Meryl.

"I'm afraid so," said Ultra Mouse.

"I'm against it," said Raiden. "He wouldn't approve of what his mind is being used for. It'd turn him into the very thing he helped us fight against."

"You managed to bring me back the same way, though," said Naomi. "I was so close to being gone, but Otacon and Sunny managed to give me the will to live again. I managed to survive the explosion at Shadow Moses, and before cancer got the best of me... you managed to find me, and use the cryogenics at what was left of Shadow Moses to keep me from aging, and to keep the cancer from spreading. Maybe we aren't chained to fate like I thought we were. Maybe we can truly cheat death, prevent the end of the world. What do you think, Otacon?"

"I'm not sure. He always said he wanted to die peacefully. Before we brought him here, he literally passed out in Tokyo with a smile on his face… It was like he knew it was time for him to leave. Not to mention keeping him alive would put him at risk of falling into Dante's hands again. I don't want to lose him, but… this whole thing just feels wrong."

"I see. Do you really think Snake, if brought back to life, could help stop the war economy, and bring peace to the world once again?" Naomi said to Mikki.

"I don't think. I know," said Mikki.

"Are you sure Snake would want this, Meryl?" said Johnny.

"I don't know. I really don't," said Meryl.

"Snake may not want to be brought back, but he's always believed in preserving the good of humanity, no matter how much it hurts him in the process. And right now, the world needs him," said Colonel Campbell. "Your heart is in the right place, Meryl. Do whatever it tells you to do."

Meryl sighed. "All right. Bring him back, Mikki."

Mikki smiled, and said, "I'll get started with prepping him for surgery."

To Snake's shock, as he started to wake up more inside the room in one of Mikki's philanthropic cyber-care clinics in Saudi Arabia, he found he couldn't move his body.

"Can you walk?" said Mikki.

Snake couldn't talk either.

"Damn it, we're out of time… Dante's here, and your friends… they're…" Mikki looked around and sobbed. "This is all my fault! I have to make this right," she said as she carried him in her arms.

Upon reaching the Nomad III in the middle of a Saudi Arabian village under siege by one of Dante's PMCs in the middle of a sandstorm, she found Otacon and pointed a gun to his head.

"Relax, I'm not one of them!" yelled Otacon.

"Then fly this thing for me," said Mikki.

"Are the others dead?" said Otacon.

"Worse than dead," said Mikki.

Otacon looked around. "Raiden mentioned something to me. He heard you say something that reminded him of Sunny… Do you know where Sunny went?"

Mikki's eyes went wide, and she then knocked Otacon out with her Metal Gear Mk. VI mouse drone's stun gun from behind via remote control.

"Sorry, Dr. Emmerich… I can't take the risk…" she said. "I'll fly the Nomad myself."

They reached Geneva, and Snake was put under again.

"His memories will have to be re-written… as will Dr. Emmerich's…" Hannah Brady said to Mikki.

"That will mean destroying part of his will!" said Mikki. "If we do that, then—"

"It doesn't matter," said Hannah. "You said it yourself. If Dante gets a hold of the real Solid Snake's consciousness, he'll be able to break his will and complete the DICE project. So, we have to break his will first, by taking away pieces of it."

"What would we take away?" said Mikki.

"Perhaps we could implant a deep underlying trauma within him," said Hannah. "Distort certain memories, or create new ones that go way back to the early stages of his life, ones that never existed… I'm sure you can put that together from experiences of your own during your forced stay in Area 51, in the Patriots' prison Raiden freed you from."

"I'm against this," said Mikki. "It'll mean the death of Snake! He's my only friend left that's still human!"

"You don't have a choice," said Hannah. "Do as you're asked."

"Damn it, no!"

But it was too late.

"If you won't do it, then I'll separate part of your will from you as well so you will do it. Anna, put Mikki Moskova's BISECT in sleep mode."

"No…" said Mikki as she started to pass out.

Hannah Brady looked down at Snake, "I'll have to send you on a virtuous mission to limbo before I truly send you into hell… Your infiltration of my old friend's stronghold in Hong Kong will be your baptism of fire… Cyber Snake."

Snake looked back up at the door as it shut permanently, and shattered to pieces.

He stood up, and looked at Dante and the others.

"So that's how I got those memories…" said Snake, looking away. "I'm no longer really myself… My will has been altered. I guess you can't truly complete your little project now."

Looking at the closed door, Dante grimaced at Fat Snake, and said, "I've seen enough… For now. But I still have one more card to play. Looks like you get to live after all Snake… Once again, you cheated death."

And as the VR simulation evaporated, Snake woke up.

Snake opened his eyes and screamed demonically as Dante pulled his hands away from his skull.

Panting, Snake looked at his body; most of his flesh was gone. His endoskeleton was covered in blood.

"What's happening, Dante?" said Naomi. "I thought you wanted to turn Snake posthuman!"

Mikki looked at Snake with a horrified expression on her face. She had been crying. Naomi, Meryl, and the others all looked at Dante in confusion. But Dante looked at Snake with a furious look on his face that intimidated him a little.

"Fat Snake is the mole," said Dante, "but that only leaves me with more questions…"

"I thought you saw into Cyber Snake's thoughts, though," said Meryl.

"No," said Dante. "I saw some of Cyber Snake's thoughts… But before I could see all of them, instead I saw Fat Snake's."

"Fat Snake's thoughts?" said Rosemary.

"I've seen work like this before… That means…" Dante looked around furiously, breathing heavily before he screamed in a deafening, demonic howl.

"MIKKI!" shouted Dante.

All eyes were on Mikki now.

"Your work was used against us… How!"

"I don't know, Dante," cried Mikki, who was a shaking mess. "Hannah Brady, she must've found a way to—"

Dante then grinned.

"Right. I understand… my love," he said to her, and stroked her hair as she trembled.

"You've cooperated with us this long… You wouldn't have reason to betray us now."

He kissed her on the lips forcefully. She shut her eyes tight out of fear as he did this.

"Come to my chambers for another round with me," said Dante. "This round will hurt even more than the last."

"Yes- yes, Dante," Mikki sniffled.

Dante shouted, "Naomi!"

"Yes, Dante?"

"You take Snake to his cell. Keep an eye on him," said Dante. "Rosemary, you're going to meet me in my office in a minute. And Jonathan, Ed, Akiba… and Meryl… Prepare for your journey to Metal Gear DAEMON for the final phase of the infernal conflict… I'll be with you shortly."

"What about Fat Snake, Dante?" said Rosemary. "Is he still on the island?"

"Yes," said Dante, "he is… but not in the way you'd think. He no longer matters."

"But… he's the mole!"

"And without his stealth bomber or his cover, he's got no way to stop our plans anymore."

"I don't understand…" said Rosemary.

"And you don't need to," said Dante. "I'm in charge of the hivemind's hierarchy, therefore you'll understand what I need you to. Rose, for the final phase of the plan, you and our own mole will be key players as well." Dante said as he walked out of the room. As Mikki and the others followed him, Mikki looked back at Snake briefly as Naomi released Snake from the chair.

As Meryl, Jonathan, and Ed helped Naomi restrain and tie Snake up, Dante walked toward Snake and grabbed him by the back of his skull again. "You won't be able to sneak past us any more, Snake. I've discovered Hannah's mole. All this time, he wasn't crawling around, or hiding in a cardboard box… Instead, he was hiding in plain sight…"

As Dante zapped Snake's endoskeleton with electricity again, he then shoved Snake face-first to the floor.

Snake screamed, only for Dante to stomp on his torso.

"You failed Hannah's mission for you, Snake… but my mission for you has only just begun…"

A few hours later, Snake was trapped in a tiny animal cage hanging above a pit of lava, not much unlike the one Mikki had been put in earlier.

Naomi said, "Stay still in there, or I'll shoot you and you'll fall into the inferno."

Snake grunted, and said nothing in response.

In the meantime, Mikki communicated to Snake via his BISECT.

"Mikki?" said Snake. "You look bad…"

"N- not… n- not as bad as you… Snake…" Mikki said deliriously, her breathing faint. She had nasty bruises, marks, and shock burns all over her face and body, and was covered in sweat from being hung too close to another lava pit somewhere.

"Is Dante going to kill you?"

"I don't know… He said I was just… in timeout again, but…" She started to cry. "What do we do, Snake? He knows I'm the other mole, I'm sure of it! Why did he leave us alive?"

"I don't know," said Snake. "What I don't get is that last part he said about Liquid. And why was he in my BISECT, in the VR Room of Death at that last moment?"

"He… was there because he was trying to save your life, Snake," said Mikki. "Dante was exposing you to your worst nightmares, but… what didn't make sense was that it did seem like he was trying to turn you posthuman until he stopped. That would've made more sense given what we know of his plans than killing you!"

"So then he probably was trying to turn me posthuman… Control my mind… again…" said Snake. "I saw what you did to me, with my memories. You didn't have a choice… You wanted to save me, and to some extent, you did... back in Saudi Arabia. I'm sorry."

"I've become a monster…" said Mikki. "My fuck-ups have led to all my friends' demise. I… I'm starting to suspect that I may not be who I once was either."

Snake decided not to tell her what he saw.

"You said you were friends with me in my life before… in my memories," said Snake. "How did I know you?"

Mikki's eyes went wide. She said nothing for a moment, but then said, "I- I don't remember."

"What? You don't?"

"No, I don't."

Snake said nothing in response.

"Snake, how did you know Sunny?"

Snake paused out of confusion, before responding. "After Raiden rescued her from the Patriots, Otacon raised her. I helped somewhat… although I never really got used to her cooking. I'm surprised Raiden never told me about you."

Mikki looked away as she said, "He didn't need to. I'm nothing like Sunny."

"You were just a child."

"It doesn't matter now. That was just a short scene in my story… It's about to come to an end now."

"Not if I have anything to say about it," said Snake. "I'll try to find a way to distract Naomi and escape my cell."

"You're not going to kill yourself?" said Mikki.

"No," said Snake, "not unless I have to."

"Good," said Mikki with a smile, "because I need you."

Snake smiled weakly at Mikki for a moment, then looked away.

"One last thing, Snake…" said Mikki.

"Yeah?"

"In the cave by the waterfall… you said you loved Meryl."

"What about it?"

"Do you still love her?"

"I don't know what to feel about her anymore…" said Snake. "It's hard to feel anything right now without hurting inside."

"All right, Snake," said Trina, "that's good enough. Good luck finding a way out. In the meantime I'll try to find my own way."

Snake looked around.

"Don't try anything funny, Snake," said Naomi. "Needless to say, there aren't any ketchup bottles in your cage, so good luck playing dead."

Raiden then approached Snake from outside of his cage.

"Raiden?" said Snake.

"Shhh…" said Raiden, as he tapped his head twice with his knuckles.

"Oh. Right," Snake said silently to Raiden via his BISECT. "What is it?"

"I'm going to help get you out of here," said Raiden. "Your stealth camouflage skin augmentation is still working. I'm booting it up as we speak."

"What?" said Snake. "My body has—"

"Yeah, just like it has nanites like Mei Ling's," said Raiden. "The trick is to stand still to let your camo's battery recharge while you're using it. You just haven't been charging it."

"I see…" said Snake. "You always tapped a button on your arm to activate your invisibility cloak… I'm guessing the first tap activates the augmentation, and every other tap after deactivates it."

"You're one step ahead of me," said Raiden.

"Good to know," said Snake.

Raiden said, "The reason that the stealth camouflage only recharges when standing still is because the cloaking apparatus consists of photocells that absorb the light waves that hit your endoskeleton… and a set of special electromagnets the photocells help power that bend the light waves around it to turn you invisible… It's harder to cloak me the faster I'm moving, thus the toll it takes on the battery. At least that's how Mikki explained it to me a while back."

"She is smart," said Snake.

"Snake, I want to thank you for what you did back there," said Raiden. "Somehow, you freed my mind from its posthuman prison… just like you freed Mei Ling and the Colonel. It was a huge sacrifice on your part, but… Hopefully it'll all be worth it."

"I'm not letting you rot in this cage. Not as long as I'm in your head. You're getting out of here."

"You're right," said Snake. "Raiden, Mikki's in danger."

"Do you care about her?"

"I do," said Snake.

"Then let's go," said Raiden.

Snake nodded, and tensed himself.

"Activating optical camouflage in 3… 2…"

Naomi looked at the cage with eyes wide open.

"What the fuck- where did Snake go! He was right here just a…"

Then Naomi squinted.

"Wait a minute…"

Snake then knocked Naomi off of her feet with the drills in his arms, also destroying the lock to the cage's door in the process.

He then used his jets to fly over the lava pit and past the opening where Naomi was standing watching over him while she was still stunned.

When Naomi managed to get up, she shouted into her comms, "SNAKE! SNAKE IS FREE! DANTE, RAISE THE ALARM!"

Now that the entire island was on alert, Snake would have to make use of his stealth camouflage augmentation to make it out.

He was hiding in a room full of lockers that held a bunch of uniforms that looked like the older Sneaking Suit models, only they were a lot more heavily-armored. He managed to find his gear in one of them, and quickly put his gear back on.

Once a set of guards passed by him, he crept out of his hiding place in one of the bathroom stalls and activated his camouflage as he moved through a camera-filled hallway with windows that showed a set of hangars containing…

Oh god… Snake thought, Dante's been stockpiling smaller Metal Gear models… including the ones Big Boss either took on or helped build during the Cold War.

Snake called Mikki on his comms while he hacked the lock to some sort of supersoldier training facility, and said, "Mikki, where are you?"

"I'm out of timeout," she said. "I'm at my hoverbike stash, around the backdoor entrance to the inner lair… It's where that bridge collapsed, near where Ocelot's plane crashed. I'm pinned down… Can you make it here, or do you need help?"

"I'm on the way there now," said Snake as he shot several elite posthuman guards with his SOCOM before they could see through his optical camouflage. "I assumed you knew Raiden would help me out."

"Yeah…" said Mikki, scratching the back of her head.

"Mikki," said Jayden, "you've been in Dante's island's Inner Lair for longer than I have… You saw the Metal Gears there, right?"

"Yeah… why?"

"Do you know what this island's purpose was for? Because I thought Dante was bringing the people meant to survive the posthuman signal here—both the ones who were unwilling and willing to go along with his plans—to hide them."

"Yeah, you're right…" said Trina, "there are plenty of living quarters here, as well as tons of prison cells for the unwilling ones in the parts of the lair you're about to pass."

"Then what was all of it for?" said Snake as he entered an air lock to exit the training facility and shut the door locks. "This should've been it! The belly of the beast, the place where Max's plans would happen! Where he'd launch Metal Gear DAEMON from!"

Mikki said, "Dante had kept me in the dark regarding his purpose for the island… He kept Ocelot in the dark too… You don't think he was keeping us in the dark because he didn't trust us ever to begin with, did you?"

"You are transhumans and not posthumans, to be fair," said Snake as he passed through the decompression hallway as he was blasted with puffs of air.

Mikki put her hand to her chin, and looked toward the outer and middle circles of the island. "What's Dante's endgame? How's he going to launch the signal?"

"Ocelot was wondering that as well…" said Snake as he opened the door lock and went through the empty living quarter areas, turning off his camouflage and stopping at the kitchen area to recharge his batteries for a moment. "Wait! What was it that Dante said to Rose? That he and the mole are going to play some pivotal role in his plans?"

"You're right!" said Mikki. "Damn it… I think Ocelot was right, Dante is going to use his mole to help him break into Los Angeles, and upload his posthuman software to the JD megacorporation's Reality of Things hivemind."

"If he does that, it's all over," said Snake as he turned his camouflage back on again and walked into the prison cell areas, shooting guards approaching him from both directions with his M4. Ducking into an empty prison cell, Snake said while he turned his camouflage off and stood still to recharge, "We have to figure out who his accomplices are. The ones who haven't gone into hiding, at least."

"It's not going to be easy," said Mikki, "knowing that Hannah Brady knows we're going up against JD as well."

"No shit," said Snake as he turned his camouflage back on, then went back out into the halls again, "but we don't have a choice."

Mikki told Snake, "Your GPS marker says you're almost to my position. Look for the air hangar, it should be close to right above you!"

"Got it," said Snake, as he called the nearby elevator and shot the security camera next to it.

As Snake entered the elevator, he carved open the hatch on the top of the elevator car with his drill swords and then flew up out of the elevator with his jets, and grappled to the top of the elevator with his grapple line, all while hacking into the laser tripwire systems built into the elevator shaft so they'd ignore him.

Pulling himself into a set of air vents, Snake crawled through the vents until he reached a ventilation shaft. He then grappled from one side to the other, and hacked open the lock to the door with his eyes and extended reality tool, then kicked the door in.

Snake entered the air hangar, where he saw the spot among the dozens of aircraft where the stealth bomber had been stolen from.

He used his optical camouflage to blend in among the dozens of guards hunting for him in here.

"Snake!" yelled Dante over the intercoms. "You can't escape my island, Snake! And even if you do, what makes you think Hannah Brady will help you? After all, she's the one responsible for starting this mess!"

Ignoring him, Snake said to Mikki over comms, "What's our exfil route?"

"Hoverbike through the jungle until we reach a cenote, the same one you infiltrated the island with via submarine."

"Right," said Snake. "It's still there."

Snake was almost out when he heard Naomi say to the guards over their comms, "He's using optical camouflage! Switch to sonar vision! Use EMP ammunition to disable his augmentations if you have to!"

Damn it, Naomi, Snake thought as he used his SOCOM to shoot down a nearby aircraft that was strung up to the ceiling, crushing several guards and causing a distraction.

He hid underneath another aircraft, and then crawled out when the remaining guards had passed him.

He managed to make it out of the air hangar and to the backdoor where Mikki was waiting for him on her hoverbike.

"You're pretty good, Snake," said Mikki with a smirk.

"Let's go," said Snake as he hopped on the back of the hoverbike. "I'll shoot. You drive—"

A sniper round grazed Snake as Mikki's bike lifted off from the ground and they headed out of the back entrance of the island's inner lair.

Snake looked back.

"Shit, it's Naomi!" said Snake.

Mikki gunned the hoverbike's engine, and did a hard right turn out of the cave behind the waterfall and they jumped over the fall across the rapids as Naomi looked down at them furiously.

"Dante, it's Mikki! She's the other mole!" yelled Naomi.

"I know," said Dante. "As a matter of fact, we can all drop the act now, Naomi… We are part of a hivemind after all."

Snake looked at Naomi as she managed to catch up to them with her own hoverbike and do a one-handed shot at them with her sniper rifle.

"Damn! She's a good shot, Mikki! Hurry!" shouted Snake as Mikki drove the hoverbike through the jungle pathways.

As they crossed the river where Snake chased after Mei Ling on a boat, near where the waterfall was that Mikki had dragged him to in order to save his life, they could hear several aircraft coming after them from the inner lair.

"Evasive maneuvers, hang on Snake!" shouted Mikki as the aircraft bombed the route they were on, and she steered out of the way.

If it weren't for Snake's adhesive grips, he wouldn't have been able to hang on to the hoverbike's surface.

Snake tried to maintain his balance as the trees came down all around them and Mikki steered out of their way.

Snake thought, Naomi's not likely to lose us… she's good at both sniping and fast movement… her senses are impeccable. She managed to shoot Ocelot through his plane's windshield and bring his plane down that way while it was invisible… There's no way we're going to escape the island with her on our tail. I have to take her out.

Mikki said to Snake in horror, "Snake… Dante said they can 'drop the act'… Did he know I was a mole the entire time?"

"I don't know, Mikki… I'm starting to wonder if Dante had some sort of hidden agenda for keeping you and Ocelot at his side the whole time."

"Damn it, I slept with that prick… He tortured me so much… and all this time I was playing right into his hands!" said Mikki.

"We'll get to the bottom of this once we're out of here," said Snake as Mikki steered off the jungle path again and they crashed through some thick foliage.

Snake struggled to hold on, and ended up falling off as they came back on track.

"SNAKE!" yelled Mikki.

Snake managed to hang on by firing a grappling line at the side of Mikki's hoverbike.

"I'm okay! Just keep driving!" Snake yelled as his endoskeleton got caked with dirt and grass as he was dragged across the jungle path by the hoverbike.

Snake screamed as he was shot from behind in the chest by Naomi.

Parts of his endoskeleton were emitting static electricity now.

He quickly turned on his stealth camouflage to try and throw her off, but his optical camouflage wouldn't help the fact that he was covered in mud now.

Snake had to end this now, before Naomi killed them both.

As Naomi aimed at Mikki, Snake aimed true with his SOCOM.

He managed to shoot Naomi, causing her to drop her sniper rifle and steer out of control on her hoverbike just right after she shot Mikki in the chest.

"MIKKI!" yelled Snake as Mikki was thrown off of her hoverbike.

Reacting quick, Snake severed the cord from her hoverbike and was thrown off of the hoverbike.

Snake then used his jets to defy gravity's pull on his body, and got to his feet.

To Snake's horror, Naomi managed to dual wield one of Raiden's blades and used a grappling line of her own to snare Mikki by her chest wound where she had fallen off of her bike in the jungle.

Shit, thought Snake, Mikki's in trouble… I have to stop Naomi from killing her!

Snake saw an incoming enemy hover-tank approach him as Naomi dragged Mikki back the way they came with her hoverbike.

Snake grimaced, and braced himself as the tank aimed at him.

I'm a cyborg… I'm a cyborg… and I've beaten Metal Gears before… Snake thought as he ran at the tank and managed to dodge its explosive EMP blast with a boost from his jets.

Shit, that was close! Snake thought as he continued to sprint toward the tank until he reached the distance where he was able to jump onto the hover-tank with the help of his jets.

He then grabbed the hover-tank's entrance hatch and yanked it off with his augmented strength, then pulled the pilot out of the tank and threw his body off while blasting through the pilot with shots from his SOCOM.

Snake then hacked into the hovertank's controls, and got used to them quickly as he steered the hovertank's jets in the direction of Naomi and Mikki.

He gunned the hovertank's engines, slamming through some incoming hoverbikes with Dante's posthuman troops on them and firing at another enemy hover-tank with its cannon's explosive ammunition.

The enemy hover-tank and the enemy planes bombing the jungle island almost managed to destroy Snake's hover-tank.

"Attention all Deltas. This is Hades," Snake heard Dante say over comms. "You may stop pretending you're human now. I'm activating the local hivemind's merge."

Snake saw the enemy hovertank's cannon switch to an EMP round, causing Snake's hover-tank and some of his own augmentations to malfunction.

Grabbing his head, Snake said, why didn't they just destroy my tank! They would've killed me! Unless… Max wants me alive?

Snake stumbled out of the tank, and looked at the posthumans.

They were surrounding him, but they were just staring at him.

I'm a part of his plans somehow… but it looks like Mikki isn't.

Snake then got a call from Hannah Brady.

"Snake, this is Hannah Brady! Come in, over!"

"I hear you," said Snake with a frown.

"NATO is about to bomb the island in an effort to stop Dante, and Mikki isn't responding to my calls. Our surveillance hivemind has been monitoring your BISECTs in real time."

"I know that!" said Snake. "You threatened me by reading my mind while you were busy bragging why JD's goals were only less draconian than Firelake's before the beginning of this mission!"

"What are you going on about, Snake?" said Hannah. "I never briefed you before this mission."

"Yes, you did!" said Snake.

"Damn it, I'm being serious, Snake!" said Hannah. "You were—you were inserted on your own to Max's island… via submarine…"

"Uh-huh…" said Snake while rolling his eyes.

"Never mind. I already suspected the schism between JD and Firelake is causing my access to your mind to dwindle… but I suspect it'd be all over already if that was the case. Dante's attacks would've started. Someone else is plotting against me simultaneously it seems… and I think I may know who."

"Listen to me, Snake… I guess by now you know I'm no saint."

"That's putting it lightly," said Snake.

"But you have to trust me. I never briefed you."

"Then are you saying your vacation yacht you deployed me from was a trick? Another VR simulation?"

"If so, it wasn't mine. I'd never vacation so close to Dante's island as a cover. I've been in Geneva this whole time."

"Shit… You are telling the truth," said Snake, looking around at Dante's posthuman army as they approached him. "Why did you call me?"

"You have to get Mikki out of there, she's the only chance we have at counter-hacking Dante's offensive hack into the Reality of Things. I assume you know by now that the Reality of Things hivemind belongs to JD… not Firelake."

"Yeah," said Snake as he started blasting his way through and running away from the posthumans surrounding him with his M4 and underbarrel grenade launcher. "I'm working on that… How much time do I have?"

"At best 20 minutes…" said Hannah. "I'm working on trying to stall NATO. Did you find out where Dante was deploying Metal Gear DAEMON from?"

"No," said Snake as he kicked a posthuman soldier off of his hoverbike and got on it, "wherever it's being deployed from, it's not on this island. The island's inner lair was a training facility of some kind, along with a temporary internment camp. Dante was also stockpiling other Metal Gears here."

"I think I know where Metal Gear DAEMON will be deployed from," said Hannah. "We still have a chance. Provided you get Mikki out of there."

"What about the submarine?" said Snake.

"What about it?"

"Is it there?"

"It is. It was stolen and stashed in a cenote on the edge of the island by Mikki as a means of escape."

"I know the cenote you're talking about," said Snake as he rode after Mikki and Naomi again as the posthuman troops formed a barricade. Snake blasted through them with explosive shots from his SOCOM while steering the hoverbike with his right.

As he caught up to Naomi, he looked at Mikki.

She was being dragged around on the dirt path. Her body was covered in blood, without skin, and her endoskeleton lying underneath was dented and emitting static. The rope was pulling at her chest wound.

"Give up, Snake," said Naomi, "and go home. Your mission is over. Mikki dies here."

"Like hell it is," said Snake as he shot the grappling line that was attached to both Naomi's hoverbike and the blade lodged in Mikki's chest, severing the line and sending Mikki crashing into the mud.

Naomi circled her hoverbike around to face off against Snake.

She cocked her sniper rifle.

Jayden readied his SOCOM, nanites, and stealth camouflage, then gunned his hoverbike's engine.

Naomi was about to fire a non-lethal shock round off at Snake's head when his nanites clouded her vision and started to burn her. She nearly grazed him, but he couldn't afford to even get grazed at this point.

Just a little closer… Snake thought as he primed his SOCOM.

Naomi desperately fired around as she looked for Snake through the burning haze of the nanites.

Then Snake fired a massive blast round through Naomi's stomach, knocking her off of her hoverbike.

Snake got off of his bike, and looked at Naomi as she held the hole in her stomach while getting off the ground to run and retrieve the sniper rifle she dropped.

Snake fired two more shots at her legs, then stomped on her arm as she grabbed the sniper rifle. He then held his hand up to her forehead and his veins glowed blue as he interfaced with her.

In the White Room, Naomi stumbled around in a trance, her gaze suggesting she was scared when she looked back at Snake.

"Snake?" Naomi said. "What… what's going on?"

"I killed you," said Snake. "You're dead."

"But you and I are friends… sort of," she said.

Snake said nothing in response to this.

"Shit… This is the VR Room of Death," she said. "You're not kidding."

Naomi sat down, and said, "You said you killed me. Why? And why can't I remember anything?"

Snake sighed, and paced around.

"It was pointless to interface with you like this… I can't bring any of you back! I don't even know if I should!"

"Snake, slow down… Please tell me why," said Naomi.

"All right…" said Snake. "Daniil Drakovich turned all of you, save for me, Otacon, Sunny, and Mikki, posthuman after you saved me in Saudi Arabia, Naomi… He erased your consciousness."

"What?" said Naomi. Looking around in shock as she looked at the burning cage Snake had been kept in, she said, "I remember now… but if my consciousness was erased, then why am I still here?"

"I don't know…" said Snake. "Colonel Campbell, Mei Ling, Raiden, two of the other friends I killed, tried to explain to me, but it feels like they were keeping some details hidden from me."

Naomi looked at a flaming tomb she was looking at.

"What are you thinking about, Naomi?"

"Fate. I was always chained to it… I'm going to die again for the things I've done."

Snake sighed.

"Otacon said something to me, a few nights after he revived me…" said Naomi. "We made love again."

Naomi said to Otacon, "We have to stop, Otacon. I betrayed you."

"I don't care if you did," said Otacon. "I'm just glad you're alive… Do you want to stop?"

"No," said Naomi, "I don't… but…"

Otacon said to Naomi, "You know that if you keep believing you'll always be the same, and never change, you'll never allow yourself to be happy, right? Even if it's for the sake of some sort of self-preservation? Aren't you happy right now?"

"Yes…" said Naomi, "more than ever."

"We have to fight for what we believe is right, Naomi," said Otacon. "All the tyrants in the world right now seem to believe the same thing. That the majority of humanity is a waste of resources. That they deserve to rot in poverty, or be killed off so that the privileged few can have those resources."

"What are you talking about, Otacon?"

"I never bought into that," said Otacon. "It's just eco-fascism. The Earth has more than enough resources to support us all… If that's the case, then why are we not allowed to exist together?"

"But… that's no longer possible, Otacon. That's not the reality we're living right now."

"Yes, it is," said Otacon. "We have to fight for it. Maybe then, we can be together."

"I wanted it to be true so badly," Naomi cried. "A world where we don't have to fight for scraps to survive, a world where we don't have to die inside and sell our souls just to exist! A world where we can choose our fate."

Naomi was crying as she sat on the floor of the VR Room, next to the flaming tomb.

"Otacon may not have said this to me himself… but he was right you know," said Snake.

"About what?" said Naomi.

"About fighting back to make a better world. I just wish I had heard something like this earlier. A world where we can all exist, and thrive without having to worry about scarcity of resources, or hide who we are… It's possible, we have the technology to make it so… The higher-ups at JD and Firelake are just using the technology to destroy most of us instead."

Naomi said, "I should've listened to him."

"Otacon is wiser than he looks…"

Naomi started to scream as the tomb's fire spread.

"NO!" she screamed. "GRAY FOX!"

Snake didn't say anything. He felt so numb to it all.

"I understand now…" said Naomi. "Why I wanted to fight you so badly… You killed him. He was my only friend… until Otacon and Sunny came into my life."

Naomi cried. "Instead, I became something awful… I became like Sniper Wolf… Otacon's other lover he had before she died."

"You became jealous of someone who was already dead?" said Snake.

"Promise me, Snake…" said Naomi. "Promise me you'll make whoever did this to me and Otacon pay."

"I plan to," said Snake. "To them, you're a heretic because you don't believe in their bullshit justifications for their atrocities. To me, you're a heretic because you're struggling to move on from the ones you committed yourself."

Naomi said, "You're angry at me, aren't you?"

"Not anymore," said Snake. "I moved on a while ago… but now that you're all gone… I hardly feel anything anymore."

"I'm so sorry…" she said as she began to vomit up blood and burn as she walked into her own burning tomb.

"You'll have to make peace with yourself somehow in these last few moments," said Snake. "So you might as well tell me something useful… Do you have any idea what Dante's larger plans are?"

"I don't…" said Naomi. "Only what he said his plans were after he flew us to Rome to be brainwashed…"

"What were they?" said Snake.

"He wants humanity to burn," said Naomi. "He wants transhumanity to become a bunch of posthuman terraforming machines."

"I know that part," said Snake, "but what's the final step of his plan?"

"I don't know…" said Naomi. "He said he was going to find a way to upload the posthuman software to the central server of CI's Reality of Things. Locally… in Los Angeles. But he didn't say how. I don't think he was planning on using any of us to do it."

"Where's the signal going to be broadcast from? Where's Metal Gear DAEMON?" said Snake.

"I… I'm sorry, Snake. I'm so sorry…"

"Naomi, stay with me a little longer!"

"…but I think my time's up. I'm going to see my fate through now… what the… that… light—"

"Naomi! NAOMI!" shouted Snake as Naomi burned alive in her tomb, and the VR room evaporated in a fury of smoke and flames.

… … … … …

"NAOMI!" screamed Snake as he lowered her lifeless endoskeleton into the mud, and shut her nonexistent eyelids with his fingers.

Trembling, Snake screamed in anger.

Shaking it off, he thought, So Ocelot's hunch was right.

Snake looked up, and heard Mikki groaning on the floor.

"MIKKI!" screamed Snake as he ran over to Mikki.

"Shit… your chest wound looks bad…"

"My… heart…" Mikki spoke in a cold mechanical voice, as her body's skin had been shredded off when she was dragged through the dirt path.

"Stay with me, Mikki!"

"The blade wounded my mechanical heart… Without its nanites… I can't heal!"

Snake said, "Then have some of mine," as he held up his hand to her body and used his nanites to grow Mikki's skin and catsuit back and close her chest wound somewhat.

"You're healed mostly, but your heart's still wounded," said Snake. "Hold on," he said as he carried her in his arms, and placed her on his hoverbike.

He then made himself scarce as he drove her across the island to the cenote.

As they reached the beach, Snake parked his bike on the edge of the treeline, and grabbed Mikki.

"Hold onto me, Mikki," said Snake as he supported her by placing her arm over his shoulder. "Try to walk, we're almost there," he said as he hoisted her up, only for her to collapse in the sand.

"Come on Mikki," said Snake, "The world needs your help… I need you."

Mikki looked at Snake, and started to laugh uncontrollably.

"Mikki?"

"I need you too… Please don't kill yourself."

"I won't," said Snake. "As long as you're alive, I have a reason to stay alive too. So, hang in there—"

Mikki lifted herself out of the sand, and kissed Snake on the lips.

"I'm all right," said Mikki with a smile. "Thank you for coming back for me."

Snake smiled slightly in return.

As he walked toward the water to locate the cenote, Mikki said from behind him. "And Snake?"

"Yeah?" said Snake, as he turned around to face Mikki, he blushed.

"I missed you," she said as she finished taking off her catsuit and stripping down to the bikini she was wearing at the waterfall location earlier.

Snake nodded, and they dove into the water and started to swim toward the cenote, getting away moments before the island was bombed by NATO.

In the pilot seat of the mini-submarine, Snake was looking through the files in his BISECT when Mikki came to sit next to him and put the controls on autopilot to Los Angeles.

"Why'd you do that?"

Mikki kissed Snake on the lips again and wrapped her arms around him. "I really liked it when you held me like this beneath that waterfall… There was a time when there was this one boy I liked… He did something similar with me. He's gone now, though."

Snake said, "Is that why you became a slut?"

"No," said Mikki. "Actually, I'm not sure why I became as extremely hypersexual as I am… Maybe Hannah made me like this."

Snake frowned. She was probably right given what he saw happen to her in his memories.

"Can… can you teach me how to be loyal to one man again?"

"I guess I can try…" said Snake, scratching the back of his head.

"Thank you, Snake," said Mikki. "After sleeping with that jerk Dante for so long… I want to sleep with someone who actually cares about me."

"Oh," said Snake, who was blushing. "Are you sure we shouldn't take things a little more slowly?"

"By the time we get to Los Angeles… We may never see each other again, Snake."

"Oh," said Snake, looking away sadly. "You're right."

"But if you're uncomfortable with that, I can—"

Snake then kissed Mikki on the lips again and put his arms around her. "All right, Mikki… I'll indulge you."

Mikki smiled as Snake leaned their seats back, and dimmed the lights as they stripped each other's clothes off, kissing each other as they started to lie down.

… … … … …

Mikki was lying naked on top of Snake. They were both breathing heavily.

"That felt good," said Mikki. "Did it make you feel good?"

"Not really," said Snake. "It's like you said… I don't feel physical pleasure or pain… I'm glad it felt good for you though."

"Oh," said Mikki. "Right… I forgot about that."

Snake asked Mikki, "Do you think it's possible to live in a world without scarcity of resources? One that negates the need to terraform it and resort to an eco-fascist agenda like JD and Firelake are doing?"

Mikki asked, "Where is this coming from?"

Snake said, "Naomi's mind. She believed it was possible."

Mikki looked away, and said, "I don't know if it is anymore… That was something I believed in back when I was naïve."

"You mean back when you were happy."

"I…" said Mikki. "Maybe you're right. Maybe we can still turn this around... Maybe there's hope for humanity… or transhumanity, at least."

"I hope I am right," said Snake as he looked out the window of their mini-submarine at the ocean as they neared Los Angeles.