CHAPTER 16— "THE TREACHEROUS, SORROWFUL LOVER, PART 1: CAINA AND ANTENORA"
As Metal Gear DAEMON's roar stopped, Dante entered Snake's vision via his C3.
"SNAKE!" yelled Dante as Metal Gear DAEMON launched a massive barrage of missiles, machine guns, and water cutter laser blasts in the direction of Metal Gear HUMAN.
"Evasive maneuvers, Snake!" yelled Sheila.
Snake deployed flares and missiles of his own from Metal Gear HUMAN's own arsenal.
"I think it's time we launched some of Earth's nukes at Metal Gear DAEMON to disable its defenses, as well as stop its own nukes with terraforming nanite payloads," said Snake.
"Right…" said Sheila. "Hacking into the nukes now."
Snake could see the Earth's surface light up as several nukes were launched from Earth into space, toward Metal Gear DAEMON.
"I truly underestimated your will to survive, Snake… as well as Sunny's genius," said Dante with a frown. "But humanity will die with her pathetic little Metal Gear."
Then Dante's frown turned to a grin. "Now that Liquid's will is all but broken… it's time I focused my efforts on breaking yours, Snake," he said. "Allow me to introduce you to the man in charge of the deepest circle of hell, that reserved for traitors and oathbreakers… He'll prevent you from reaching the center of Cocytus."
"Who's in charge of Cocytus, Dante?" yelled Snake.
"You know him well…" said Dante as Snake started to feel chilly.
"Damn it!" yelled Snake. "Sheila, I can feel Dante starting to hack into my mind!"
"You have to resist it, Snake!" yelled Sheila.
"I'm trying!"
As several of the Earth's nukes penetrated Metal Gear DAEMON's surface and collided with Dante's own nukes out in space, Sheila said, "Actually, that gives me an idea… I'm going to try and upload Sunny's HUMANALIVE antivirus to Cocytus remotely, through your own BISECT."
"Through me?" said Snake.
"Dante's hacking into your BISECT remotely, so I'll use your BISECT the same way in an attempt to hack into Cocytus! Now that we've penetrated Metal Gear DAEMON's outer walls, it might work!"
"Well, what are you waiting for!" yelled Snake. "Do it!"
As Snake piloted Metal Gear HUMAN and used its jets to avoid Metal Gear DAEMON's incoming Metal Gears it launched out of self-defense while simultaneously firing its missiles and water cutter at said Metal Gears.
"I lied when I said you'd have to compete against 100 Metal Gears, Snake…" said Dante. "You're actually competing against 999… as well as mine."
Snake growled, "Well you made a mistake trying to swarm me in outer space with most of them, Dante… because they won't survive the nukes once they explode."
Dante grimaced. "And neither will yours, unless you make it to Metal Gear DAEMON first."
Snake frowned, and said, "Sheila, take the reins and take us toward Mars."
"I see," said Sheila. "You're going to use Earth's nukes to wipe out the army of smaller Metal Gears guarding Metal Gear DAEMON as well."
"Yeah, and we'll need to lure them all away from Earth to make that happen without damaging the Earth's surface," said Snake. "So, we'll sacrifice Mars' surface instead."
"Sounds like a plan," said Sheila.
"You can't run from yourself, Snake!" yelled Dante as Sheila flew Metal Gear HUMAN towards Mars.
The bait worked; Dante's Metal Gears flew toward Metal Gear HUMAN, and some of Earth's nukes flew toward them as well.
Then Snake began to black out as his vision became clouded by ice.
As he woke, he found himself lying naked underneath a snowy river of ice.
Shivering, Snake bashed through the ice, and pulled himself up onto the surface of it.
"Snake!" said a familiar voice. "Hey, Snake!"
Snake looked at the voice surprisedly.
"Johnny?" said Snake.
"You're not the only one who can revive the dead, Snake," said Akiba. "I'm a part of Cocytus now. Meryl killed me in order to spare me from the pain of being turned posthuman… but Dante had other plans for me. He wanted me to become my worst enemy… Meryl's."
"Meryl's?" said Snake in confusion.
"They say that when you're about to die, your life flashes before your eyes… Now that's going to happen to your consciousness, Snake… I'm going to walk you through the hell that is your life story."
"Damn it…" said Snake as he tried to snap out of it.
Walking across the ice, Snake looked around at the two icy versions of Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land, respectively.
"You killed Big Boss, your own father, twice… At least that's what you thought at the time."
"I know…" said Snake. "Later on, the declassified files on Big Boss's operations in the Cold War stated that the Big Boss running Outer Heaven was just someone who Big Boss brainwashed into thinking he was Big Boss… But to me, it felt like he was my worst enemy at the time… like he would never die, and would always keep tormenting me. It was terrifying."
Shutting his eyes and shaking his head, Snake said, "No, but Big Boss wasn't my worst enemy. He isn't."
"I know," said Akiba. "We thought that initially as well. We're yet to get there yet."
As Snake walked across the river, wading through the snow that covered the ice of the river's surface, he desperately tried to avoid the soldiers of Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land trying to grab his legs as their bodies were trapped halfway in the frozen river.
"Snake!" yelled Akiba as he started to come to again.
"…Snake!" yelled Sheila.
Snake gasped heavily.
Looking around, Snake said, "I'm still here."
"Thank god," said Sheila. "The trick worked… somewhat. Most of the first wave of Dante's Metal Gears he sent after you were fried by the nukes, but Cocytus is currently trying to rid Metal Gear DAEMON of HUMANALIVE. We're approaching Metal Gear DAEMON now."
Snake braced himself as another wave of flying Metal Gears approached Metal Gear HUMAN.
Snake fired his water cannon and missiles at them, causing several of them to explode.
"We're almost there…" yelled Sheila.
The other humans inside Metal Gear HUMAN braced themselves as Snake managed to make it into a hole that a nuke punched in Metal Gear DAEMON's outer armor.
As Metal Gear HUMAN entered the interior of Metal Gear DAEMON, Snake used Metal Gear HUMAN's water cutter to seal the gap in Metal Gear DAEMON's armor behind him before the other Metal Gears caught up to him.
Snake then said, "All right… Time to make another body of mine."
Next thing he knew, his consciousness had been transferred to the BISECT of another cyborg body manufactured by Metal Gear HUMAN.
"I'm turning Metal Gear HUMAN invisible using its stealth camouflage to hide it," said Sheila. "I'm also using HUMANALIVE to prevent Dante from finding its location."
"Good," said Snake. "That'll keep humanity from getting annihilated."
Snake headed further inside Metal Gear DAEMON, where he found an electronic air lock mechanism guarding the door into the halls of its guts.
Snake hacked into the mechanism and opened the air lock.
As he entered the air lock room and the first door shut, he felt air returning to his lungs as the vacuum of space was shut out and decontamination air sprayed against him.
Then the second door opened, and Snake entered Metal Gear DAEMON's interior proper.
Looking around at the futuristic, stainless metal halls of Metal Gear DAEMON, Snake looked at a nearby server next to a set of cyborg bodies that were turned off.
That must be a node, Snake thought as he hacked into the server.
"Sheila?" said Snake.
"Good… That's good," said Sheila. "Not only do you have a way to get back in case you die, Snake, but I'm able to upload one of HUMANALIVE's antiviral clusters to Cocytus through the node! Keep finding the other nodes, and we should be able to hack and overwrite Cocytus and its posthuman software!"
Snake started running across a catwalk overlooking a long fall into another part of Metal Gear DAEMON's structure, and hacked the door lock on the other side until he was in a set of blinding white hallways.
Snake activated his stealth camouflage as he saw several posthuman guards approaching to find and kill him.
"SNAKE!" yelled Dante over the intercoms.
"Kept you waiting, huh Dante?" said Snake.
"Sunny's little antivirus may have bought you and humanity time, and the signal helping me track you is growing weaker, but with my access to your BISECT I will keep sending my posthuman soldiers your way until I find you."
"Do your worst, Dante," said Snake.
"Also…" said Dante, "the longer you wait, the more Sunny suffers."
"DON'T HURT HER!" yelled Snake. Shaking his head, he said, "No… as much as I care about Sunny… she may end up being a small sacrifice to save humanity as a whole."
"Are you sure you want to stop caring about her, Snake?" said Dante with a grin. "You're starting to sound an awful lot like your worst enemy…"
As the hallways started to grow icy again, Snake yelled, "NO!"
Before he entered Akiba's simulation of the center of hell again, he could hear Mikki screaming for help over the intercom.
"SNAKE!" she screamed.
Snake grimaced as his vision became clouded by ice for a moment, but then it disappeared.
"What happened?" yelled Snake.
"Some of the other members of humanity tried to stop you from being brainwashed by Dante, Snake, to buy you time while HUMANALIVE works its magic!" said Sheila over his C3.
"I told you not to use them as a sacrifice, Sheila!"
"I didn't," said Sheila. "They volunteered for this."
"What?" said Snake.
Several members of humanity communicated with Snake over his C3.
"We're not going to let ourselves die without a fight," said a man.
"We've got your back, Snake," said a woman. "If Dante gets us, we'll re-upload our minds to the bodies of the node you captured."
Snake sighed.
"All right. Thank you all."
"Thank you, Snake."
Snake grunted, and continued moving into the first concentric outer ring of Metal Gear DAEMON.
As he moved into the first round, he approached a set of Maglev funicular cable car being guarded by posthumans.
Snake shot the posthumans from a distance with his M14 EBR and M4 Custom, then reached the controls to the Maglev cable cars, as well as another node which had the word "Caina" above it.
Snake hacked into the node, and then headed to the cable car and got in.
Several posthumans heard the cable car activate, and they started shooting at Snake from all angles.
Snake screamed as he fired back at them with his M4, until his vision became clouded by ice again.
Snake was wading through the snow of the icy river again, and found himself staring at a hellish version of Shadow Moses in the distance.
"This is Caina," said Akiba. "The first round of the ninth circle of hell… treachery."
"In the story of Dante's Inferno, Caina housed traitors to their kindred… It was named after Cain, the son of Adam and Eve… the first man to kill his own brother… While you weren't the first human to kill a brother of his… you were the first cloned human to… Not to mention you were the son of EVA and Big Boss… There were always Biblical theories about how Cain was the son of the serpent from the Garden of Eden, not Adam."
"Right… Shadow Moses… I killed Liquid here," said Snake. "But Cocytus isn't just supposed to be hell for me… it's supposed to be hell for humanity. This is all just another sick mind game of Dante's."
Snake walked past several of the Genome Soldiers, and the bosses he fought at Shadow Moses… Decoy Octopus… Psycho Mantis… Sniper Wolf… and Vulcan Raven… as their heads and necks stuck out from the ice and they tried to bite his feet and ankles.
Snake screamed as versions of Revolver Ocelot and Liquid Snake nearly managed to chew off several of his toes, only for him to kick their heads away, decapitating them.
Looking around at the bizarre version of Shadow Moses, Snake screamed even louder and grabbed his head as if he was trying to push the memories out of his head.
In reality, Snake and several other transhumans were putting up a fight against the swarms of posthumans and drones coming out of their storage chambers and attacking the cable car, shooting them down with whatever weapons they could find, and using the posthumans' weapons when they ran out of ammo.
"We're here, Snake!" yelled one as they got off of the first cable car.
Snake uploaded his mind to a nearby node before he heard the roar of a hoard of several Metal Gear REX variants.
Grabbing a set of Stinger missiles lying around, Snake loaded them into his arm launchers, and braced himself to battle against the hoard of Metal Gears.
Snake fired his Stingers at the hoard of Metal Gear REXs as they fired their own missiles towards Snake and the transhumans that volunteered to exit Metal Gear HUMAN and fight to survive.
Snake used his jets to jump around and dodge the missiles as they flew close to him.
He continued loading Stingers into his arm launchers and culling the herd of Metal Gear REXs as their water cutters and machine guns pierced through nearby metal crates several transhumans were cowering behind.
Several Metal Gear REXs made inhuman roars as they exploded and crashed to the ground.
"Fuck… how many of them are left!" yelled Snake.
"The Metal Gear REXs, or the Metal Gears in total?" said Akiba. "If you're talking about the former number, then the answer's 99. You've only defeated 34 so far."
"Damn it! How many Metal Gears are left in total?"
"Aside from the 133 Metal Gear REXs you have to fight, there's another 133 Metal Gears housed in each round of the ninth circle of hell, and another 133 in the center, along with Dante's Metal Gear."
"Right… 133 times 5, plus 1… 666," said Snake while rolling his eyes. "Dante only sent 333 Metal Gears to stop us from getting inside Metal Gear DAEMON?"
"You didn't seriously expect Dante to fall for your trick on Mars so easily, did you, Snake?" said Akiba.
Grimacing, as Snake looked at the transhumans getting ripped apart by the swarm of Metal Gear REXs, he thought, I can't give up!
Snake screamed, and used his jets to fly into the center of the swarm in an attempt to distract the Metal Gear REXs from killing more transhumans.
He fired more Stinger missiles at them as he was in mid-air. He managed to down the Metal Gear REX 69 of 133 before the Metal Gear REXs started to move towards him, firing their machine guns at his endoskeleton along with their laser cutters.
One of them managed to sever one of Snake's arms off with its laser cutter as the swarm boxed him in, and this stunned Snake long enough for the swarm to hit him with several missiles and crush his endoskeleton completely with their legs.
"No, Snake! Stay with us! SNAAAAAAKKKEE!" yelled Sheila.
Snake woke up at the nearby node as his mind was uploaded to a new cyborg body.
"That felt weird…" said Snake as he came to, and gained control of his new body.
"Very nice job, Snake… you managed to kill 69 Metal Gear REXs before they got you the first time!" said Akiba.
"I'd make a joke about asking when you learned to count so well under pressure from combat, Akiba, but you're not Akiba… you're a posthuman," said Snake. "You used to be a great soldier, a great friend. A great man… and a great husband to Meryl."
Akiba frowned at this while he farted.
"You'll have to get back into the ring and defeat the rest of the Metal Gears before they slaughter too many humans… The nodes only have so many cyborg bodies to upload human consciousnesses to… along with Metal Gear HUMAN."
Snake said, "I plan to," as he flew back into the hangar-esque arena full of Metal Gear REXs.
As Snake re-entered the arena and loaded some Stingers onto his arms, Sheila said to Snake, "You can't keep trying to put yourself before the rest of humanity, Snake. Don't focus on protecting them; stay on the offensive and destroy all of the Metal Gears!"
"But every single life counts! The more we use as Metal Gear fodder…"
"I know, Snake, but I sense that these Metal Gear REX variants are different than the original model in that they're piloted by Cocytus, and they are learning how to fight you better with the help of Dante's hivemind. The longer you stall, the more they learn about you!"
"Damn it…" said Snake, "I need to finish them off quickly then."
Snake fired more Stinger missiles at the weak points of the Metal Gear REX swarm, reloading one arm while firing from the other all while dodging with his jets.
On the ground and in the catwalks of the hangar, humanity was fighting for its life with Stingers of their own. Several humans were having trouble lifting the launchers, and had to get used to the recoil after firing missiles from them.
Snake started to realize something else as he watched the other transhumans fighting.
"You're starting to get the picture, aren't you, Snake?" laughed Dante. "So many humans who have never held a gun before in their lives now have to do so to ensure their collective survival… That feeling after one's first kill is always terrifying. But after a soldier kills again and again, the feeling goes away… Sound familiar?"
Akiba said to Snake, "Dante's right, Snake… In order to save humanity, you'll have to turn humans into an army of monsters bred for battle just like you… You'll have to become like Big Boss, or rather, worse than Big Boss… You'll have to become the version of you that you were destined to be… The ultimate Patriot."
Snake looked around in horror at the other transhumans.
"Fuck it… we're not going down without a fight!"
"Time to become monsters of war, everyone!"
"Kill the Metal Gears! Kill the posthumans!"
"NO!" yelled Snake as he grabbed his skull again while the remaining Metal Gear REXs fired missiles all around him.
His vision became clouded in ice as he imagined a version of the Shadow Moses incident where he hadn't saved Meryl.
"Do you remember the reason why Liquid didn't kill Meryl, Snake?" said Dante.
"It was… because I didn't give in to Ocelot's torture," said Snake. "She gifted me my bandanna for saving her afterwards."
"It's moments like that, like this, that can make or break a person, define who we really are," said Dante. "But in this case, it's when you make yourself that I'll finally be able to break your will."
Snake said to Dante, "Why mine? Now that humanity's here too, can't you just break their will all over again?"
"Unfortunately, Sunny's HUMANALIVE virus is preventing me from doing that…" said Dante. "But your will is the last will I have left to break. After that, there will be no stopping me from winning this infernal conflict!"
"Sunny's virus?" said Snake. "Then that means…"
"…we still have a chance," Snake said as the ice started to dissolve and he returned to combat.
He was heavily wounded, but there were only 5 more Metal Gear REXs remaining.
Snake and the other transhumans hit them with a barrage of Stinger missiles, and caused them to topple.
Snake breathed heavily.
"We did it!" yelled one human.
The others cheered.
Snake shouted to the other transhumans, "Don't get too excited… We still have three rounds of hell along with the center of hell left before we purge Metal Gear DAEMON of Dante and his posthuman army!"
The other transhumans looked at Snake as he said to them, "You all were brave and strong so far, facing a hoard of Metal Gears like that. But the Metal Gears and Dante's posthumans are only going to get worse and worse from here on out… We have to stick together… Fight until the bitter end!"
"We've got your back, boss!" said a transhuman man.
"Don't call me that," said Snake.
"We need a name for our army," said a transhuman woman.
"I'm not good at naming things…" said Snake.
"What would you call an army without a planet, fighting inside of a hellish creation like this in an effort to hold onto the parts of what we are as a species that matters?"
Snake frowned. I'm not calling it that.
"For now," said Snake, "we'll just call ourselves Transhumanity… and we're fighting against Posthumanity. Got it?"
"Got it boss!" said the other transhumans as they saluted Snake.
"Let's move out!" said Snake as they ascended to the next round of hell via another set of cable cars as more posthumans started to exit their resting chambers and swarm Snake's new army of transhumans.
As Snake activated another node next to the concentric Maglev line that read "Antenora", Snake's vision became icy again as Akiba said to Snake, "You want to know about the next round of hell, right Snake?"
As Snake looked around the icy, snow-covered river he was walking on, he said, "I really don't, Akiba…"
"Well, that's too bad, because I'm going to tell you about it anyway."
Snake then looked ahead of him before he was plunged underwater as the ice broke beneath him.
To Snake's shock, he saw the wreckage of the Marine ship he infiltrated to take surveillance photos proving the existence of Metal Gear RAY for the non-profit he and Otacon were working for at the time before the Big Shell Incident.
As Snake swam through the wreckage, Akiba said to him, "Antenor was a Trojan soldier who betrayed his city to the Greeks. Hence, he was a traitor to his country, which is why this round of hell is dedicated to traitors to their countries, whereas the previous round was dedicated to traitors to their kindred."
As Snake saw a vision of Ocelot's Metal Gear RAY approaching him, Snake quickly swam back up to the surface of the ice and tried to bash through it with his fists before Metal Gear RAY crushed him.
Snake barely got back out onto the ice in time, and stumbled onto the ice, only to kick the head of what resembled Raiden off of his body.
Snake looked at Raiden's headless body in shock, along with Rosemary's head and the head of Colonel Campbell.
Rosemary cried, "I… I can't bend my neck!"
Colonel Campbell's head spoke in what was partially his and partially Akiba's distorted voices. "It takes a lot of nerve to betray one's country, doesn't it Snake?"
"I didn't betray my country," said Snake. "I betrayed the Patriots!"
"But the Patriots were the embodiment of what America stood for at the time," said Akiba. "As long as the nation would continue to exist, so would the Patriots."
Snake passed by Fortune, Vamp, Fatman, Olga, Emma Emmerich, Revolver Ocelot, Solidus, and the various members of Colonel Gurlukovich's PMC and Dead Cell that were puppeteered into raiding the Big Shell and hijacking Arsenal Gear—all of whom had their heads trapped above the ice but not their necks, rendering them unable to bow their heads.
Akiba said to him, "It doesn't matter; you betrayed the Patriots, and the Patriots were a political entity, and that's all that matters for you to end up here."
"But everything and everyone is political!" said Snake. "If betraying any political entity matters enough to send someone to the ninth circle of hell for it, then who wouldn't end up in hell?"
"I guess that explains why we're all here then…" laughed Akiba.
Snake tried to kick away Solidus's tentacles as they hovered slightly above the ice, and he kicked Solidus's head to make him stop.
"I suppose it wasn't just you that betrayed the Patriots… it was also… Raiden…" said Akiba. "Now that Sunny's starting to break under Dante's torture, she started reverting to her former self… started screaming his name."
"DON'T HURT HER!" yelled Snake. Shocked, Snake said, "And what about Mikki? What have you done to her?"
Akiba laughed.
"No…"
Then just as the hellish vision of the Big Shell Incident and Arsenal Gear was overwhelming Snake, it ended, and the ice around his eyes melted.
Snake was still in the midst of fighting several posthumans in CQC aboard the cable car he was on.
After defeating the rest of them with some brutal fisticuffs, he managed to kick the last posthuman off the cable car by knocking him over one of its railings.
Then he fired his M4 and M14 EBR at the posthuman soldiers and drones swarming his cable car and the cable cars of transhumanity.
"Damn it…" yelled Snake as a blast round knocked him off of his feet, "my mind's growing weaker…"
"And so is Dante's," said Sheila. "After reaching that last node, we managed to expand HUMANALIVE to several other nodes in between. You're almost there, Snake, keep pushing!"
Snake sighed, and grimaced as he got up.
Looking around, Snake could see a nearby elevated arena-esque platform surrounded by water.
Crap… we're likely going to have to face the Metal Gear RAYs next…
Snake looked at the other surviving transhumans as the cable cars stopped next to the elevated area. All of them, as well as Snake, used their jets to fly onto the platform and reach the next node.
Snake hacked into the next node.
"All right, Sheila… I'm patched in," said Snake.
"Good job, Snake," said Sheila. "Hey wait a minute!"
"What is it?"
"I'm able to patch into some of the security systems that are a part of Cocytus's hivemind now… I see Mikki!"
"Where is she?"
"She's being kept in a torture chamber of some kind within Round 3, Ptolomaea… She's being watched over by Jonathan… It looks like Ed is heading your way to stop you in Round 2."
"Damn it," said Snake. "I have to kill them to get to Mikki, if it's not too late for her as well! By the way… have you been able to locate Sunny?"
Scratching her head, Sheila said, "…not yet. It might be too late for her."
"All right," said Snake, shutting his eyes as he entered the arena along with several Metal Gear RAYs.
"Brace yourselves, Transhumanity!" yelled Snake.
As the ice clouding his vision lessened for a moment, he could see that Ed was piloting one of the Metal Gear RAYs that was underwater.
Snake fired his M4's grenade launcher and his Stinger arm cannons at the dozens of Metal Gear RAYs as they began to swarm him and the other transhumans.
They started taking heavy casualties nearly instantly; Snake only managed to make it through the first 25 Metal Gears before he was killed by one of their water cutters.
He was revived at the node, where he could see his transhuman army getting slaughtered dozens of people at a time.
"Damn it!" yelled Snake as he fired his Stingers at the next several Metal Gears as they fired machine guns and missiles at him and the shrapnel started to tear away his flesh and dent his endoskeleton. "I'm running out of volunteers!"
"It's all right, Snake!" said Sheila. "You're starting to get more!"
"How many humans do we have left?" said Snake.
"Roughly a billion humans weren't augmented before Dante's attacks. They're all dead now," said Sheila. "As for transhumans, you've still got 9.25 billion left… There were roughly 500 million that were selected to be Dante's posthumans."
"Nearly 250 million humans have died so far?" shouted Snake.
"Their sacrifices were necessary ones, Snake," said Sheila, "and we're running out of bodies at the existing nodes."
"Shit!" yelled Snake. "This is like what happened on Earth after the posthuman attacks started all over again!"
Snake managed to increase his resolve out of desperation, and managed to kill 76 Metal Gear RAYs before getting stomped on and killed by one again.
Snake screamed demonically before his mind was uploaded to a new body via the node.
As more transhumans entered the fight from Metal Gear HUMAN and the nodes, Snake said, "We're making a dent in their numbers! Keep pushing everyone!"
"Yes, boss!" yelled the other transhumans as they fired their weapons at the Metal Gear RAYs.
Despite being heavily wounded, Snake and the other transhumans had almost made it to Metal Gear RAY number 133.
Then Ed showed up with his Metal Gear RAY.
Angrily, Snake yelled, "ED!" as he fired at Ed's Metal Gear RAY.
"Meryl sends her regards… Snake," said Ed as he fired a barrage of missiles at Snake.
Snake managed to use his jets to avoid them by a matter of inches.
"Give it up, Snake, and we'll let Sunny live," said Ed.
"You know I can't do that, Ed!" screamed Snake as he fired blast rounds from his M4 towards Ed's cockpit.
As the other humans managed to best the last of the other 132 Metal Gear RAYs, Ed's Metal Gear RAY started to make its iconic, terrifying roar as it fired its water cutter toward Snake.
Snake dodged it with his jets, then ran up the side of the Metal Gear and started to fire through its armor with more blast rounds from his M4.
Not bothering to reload, he then tried to make a dent in the armor surrounding the cockpit with his own fists.
Snake managed to drag Ed out of the cockpit using CQC, and then managed to use the Metal Gear RAY's controls to force it to self-destruct.
Snake then jumped out of the cockpit, and landed near Ed.
He then quickly interfaced with Ed before he died.
"The light…" said Ed in the VR room before his endoskeleton was fried.
"We did it!" yelled the other transhumans.
Snake thought, we may still have a chance… the other transhumans inexperienced in combat compared to the posthumans, but they outnumber them… We're 266 Metal Gears in, meaning we just have 400 to go…
Snake said, "All right, Transhumanity… Keep pushing forward, let's end this infernal conflict for good!"
"End the infernal conflict!" yelled Transhumanity.
As more humans showed up to volunteer as they started to reach the barracks within the third round of Metal Gear DAEMON where transhumans Dante brought up here had been turned posthuman, Snake's vision became icy again as he was contacted by Akiba and Dante.
"Tell your foolish transhuman army to give up, Snake…" said Dante. "You need Sunny's brains if you want to beat me."
"I can't take that chance, Dante!" yelled Snake. "I need the rest of humanity's help to beat you as well!"
"If you want me to kill more of them, then so be it," said Dante with a grin. "In the meantime, it's time I started to torture Sunny to death."
Snake said, come on Sunny, hang in there… as he and Transhumanity continued onward to Round Three of Metal Gear DAEMON.
