Disclaimer: Yet again, Metal Gear is not my IP.
Solid Snake silently left the side of the Navigation Deck where he fought Olga, crossing over to the middle. Spying a rather large ladder leading up the mast, Snake felt an uncontrollable pass over him. Must… waste… vital… time… climbing… nondescript… mast…
And so, upon reaching the crows nest at the top of the mast, Snake found that the either the Marines or the Gurlukovich soldiers had left a nice pair of thermal goggles at the top, for any brave adventurer wanting to squander precious world-saving time in order to explore every inch of a hijacked cargo ship/secret USMC giant fucking robot storage barge.
Returning to the bottom of the ladder, Snake continued to venture forth. Espying a guard exiting the Bridge, Snake crept behind him, unholstered his M9 and yelled "FREEZE!".
"Don't kill me!" The guard whined, wincing at the sight of the gun. "Listen, have a ration! No, bandages, yeah, unstoppable badasses love bandages, right? Aw man… hell, take my dog tags!"
"Dog tags?" Our hero quizzically replied, cocking an eyebrow. Despite his bewilderment, he made sure to pick up the tags off the tanker floor.
"Yeah… I hear that if you get enough of them, you can exchange them for fabulous prizes."
"Prizes hm… I like the sound of that. What can I get?"
"Uh… stealth camo…"
"Nice… anything else?"
"Uh… oh yeah, wigs!"
"Wigs? As in awesome aircraft? Or replacement hair?"
"Yeah, the second one, in all different colors, like brown and orange and blue?"
"Blue? Do I look like a Martian hooker? No wigs…" Snake said, yet again regretting he didn't have any ammo for his USP.
"Oh… you're into bandannas, right? I hear you can also get an impractically long bandanna."
"…How impractical?"
"Floor length…"
"Sweet! Thanks dude." Snake said, holstering his gun.
"Great, I'll just leave and head for my well-armed terrorist comrades then, okay?"
-Punch-punch-kick!-
"Sorry, but I'm not that stupid… Guess I gotta waste more time getting those fabulous prizes… Wait… BOX!" Our hero shouted, spying a poor neglected cardboard box, left to wither in the maelstrom. "Don't worry… it'll be alright. I promise… I'll take good care of you."
Before I could write some more unnecessary hurt/comfort SnakexBox fanfiction, Snake decided to take more time off from "saving the world" to "unnecessarily fuck with guards".
Upon entering the bridge, Snake immediately procured some USP ammo. Climbing down the staircase from the bridge, Snake snuck into a vacant storeroom. Spotting another box hidden behind the rack of delicious produce and flour, Snake sat on the floor with glee to play with his cardboard friends. Both boxes were apparently storing produce, as they had "The Orange" written on them. Or the orange boxes might've been storing cake and sandviches. Suddenly, the door opened, a guard walked in, and Snake could only watch in silent apprehension as… he fell asleep standing up.
I have to admit, for as much as I ridicule them, I envy their ability to remain fully upright while napping on the job. However, this didn't save the man from Snake.
"FREEZE!"
"Abwuh? You fucking interrupted my nap!"
"Hand's up!"
Despite complying, the guard couldn't just keep his mouth shut. "Can you shoot me, dog?"
"Huh?"
"You don't have the guts."
"Look, the whole 'you're not going to shoot me' ploy might be a good idea to try on a rookie if you're a nigh immortal badass, but I would seriously recommend a different bargaining approach. Hand over those dog tags!"
"No. As I said before you aren't going t…"
BLAM!
"Holy fuck! My beautiful knee!"
"Dog tags. Now."
"Okay, just please, don't shoot me again!"
-punch-punch-kick!-
And so, our hero continued his rampage, bludgeoning GRU members and stealing their ID, all in the name of fabulous prizes. Eventually after passing through the lounge, Snake descended a staircase, into the ship's engine room. Suddenly, he spotted a familiar silhouette at the back of the wall…
"RAVEN?!!" Our hero said, unholstering his USP. Fucking can't be. I killed him. Then again I thought I killed Fox, Big Boss, Liquid, et al and they came back as well. And I didn't see his body. Crap… maybe his birds took him away and nursed him back to health. Aw fuck. And I don't even have those remote missiles. Fuck!Growling, Snake rushed around the corridor, squarely aiming at… a Vulcan Raven action figure. Because as we all know, Marines on secret missions love the McFarlane Toys' line of Traitorous Evil Shaman dolls.
Turning from the toy, Snake proceeded through the engine room, glad that the ship apparently was designed with secret agenting in mind. The bottomless pits, abundant railings, dark corners and crevices allowed him to take out the small army of faceless guards aimlessly walking back and forth around the engine.
Reaching the other end of the engine room, he passed into another locker room. Yet again, the terrorists showed off their brilliance by placing yet another set of laser triggered semtex explosives in the middle of a hallway. Using the goggles, Snake easily took spotted the C4 control boxes, and thanks to the fact that he had already eliminated all of the guards, nobody was there to hear him shoot them out.
Continuing through the Deck 2 hallways, Snake snuck by more inattentive guards, taking care to hold them up and relieve them of their dog tags whenever he could. Eventually, as he neared the holds, he ducked behind a crate. GRU soldiers emerged from the hatch, closing it behind them. One of them spoke on a radio.
"Colonel, we have sealed the stern hatch."
The same gruff Russian voice that conversed with Olga responded "Alright… I'm on my vay to the holds."
"Sir, the Marine commander has started his speech already… can you say long winded as fuck?"
"Da, zhat vill give us plenty of time to finish preparations…"
"All communications to the hold have been cut off. No one is aware of our presence." The Russian said. Snake pondered how much US recruiting standards must've dropped if faceless guards managed to avoid detection.
"Let no one into ze holds until ve're out…"
"Yes sir. We will secure your exit, with our lives if necessary." Snake shook his head. Dude, you're a balaclava wearing terrorist in a videogame. Your life expectancy is about fifty seconds after I start shooting.
"Zere is one more thing… My daughter… keep her safe."
"Uh sir, no offense, but why the Hell did you let your pregnant daughter in on a mission like this? Is it 'take your daughter to a warzone' day? But don't worry, nothing will happen to her." Turning, he somehow realized someone was hiding in the corridor. "Who goes there!"
BLAM!
And so, the battle was on. Snake versus faceless guards. As usual, the guards decided to rush blindly into Snake's line of fire in groups of three. One of the soldiers turned to his comrades and said "Shouldn't we, y'know, try to flank him? Or at least not rush straight into his field of view?"
"No. That's how a coward fights. Do you want to be a coward?"
"No, but I…"
"But nothing, our GRU forbearers fought this way for decades! I mean, they even fought against a brown-mulleted, gravelly-voiced, bandana-wearing spy too!"
"Did they ever beat their guy?"
"I'm not so clear on the outcome. But hey, if they failed I'm sure Mother Russia would take a deep, introspective look at their training and fix the underlying problems. It's not like a military organization would spend precious resources training complete idiots how to fight."
"Yeah, I guess you're…"
BLAM!
"Hey! He was saying some…"
BLAM!
After a few more waves of cannon fodder, Snake once again stood victorious over the forces of evil. Stepping past the corpses, he opened up the hatch they had closed, and descended into the cargo holds. However, a lone guard, unnoticed by Snake, snuck up and… closed the door. Yep, he avenged his fallen comrades by shutting the door behind Snake. Real man of action, that one.
Anyways, the guard himself was being snuck up upon. Hearing a distinctive clinking sound, the guard whipped around. "Who goes there?" he yelled, apparently not recalling how well the other guards fared after that dialogue. However, he calmed down upon seeing the figure making the noise. "Ah, Shalashashka. Why are you here? We thought you, the completely trustworthy Revolver Ocelot, would be with your best friend in the whole wide world, the Colonel."
BANG!
After spinning his revolver for a second, the Russian cowboy walked past the recently departed guard towards his true objective… the door. Making sure it was tightly closed, Ocelot turned to go on his merry way. Barely acknowledging the corpse, he said "Granted, I could've simply had you securely close the door, but I'm the supervillain here and you're the lackey, alright? I do important things, like closing doors, and you… well, get shot in the head. Oh, and by the way… the Colonel will be joining you very soon (DarkGidora's update schedule permitting), comrade."
Amazingly, the guard was not dead, yet. "-kaff- Colonel? What Colonel? Colonel Sanders? 'cause I'm looking at him right now."
BANG!
"Nobody calls me that! Nobody!"
"Really –kaff-? I'm not afraid of you. Guess you could say… I'm not chicken… haha!"
BANG!
"Why won't you die?"
"I dunno –kaff-. I just want to make cryptic speeches?"
"Let me guess. You had a sucky childhood, are angry at the world, joined terrorist army due to said anger, and are refusing to croak until dramatic music plays and you rehash your entire past?
"How'd you guess?"
"I am the only person in this game that has any fucking clue as to what's going on. So spill it, I just want this to be over so I can get back to backstabbing."
And so, as Ocelot listened to a rather heart-wrenching tale involving a family of kiwi birds, a demented Certified Public Accountant, and a misplaced shipment of goliath bird eating tarantulas, Snake continued on his journey. For soon, there would be an ending, but also a new beginning. And another returning foe; this time even more ridiculous. And the most incompetent USMC force ever doing stupid things inside a cargo hold.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
See? I told you the delays would be starting up. Ah well. Anyways, thanks to Crow T Robot for some ideas, I'll definitely use some later on. As for anyone else, feel free to PM me with ideas if you have any.
As for any future episodes of TIA; expect TIA3 sometime after I get done with this. I bought the Essential Compilation over the summer, and that's actually what spurred me to (finally) get started with TIA2. At the moment, TIA4 looks like something of a no-go, don't have a PS3, and I'd want to play the game before actually writing about it (Though the recent teaser on Konami's website might bode well for future TIA).