CHAPTER 17— "THE TREACHEROUS, SORROWFUL LOVER, PART 2: PTOLOMAEA"

Snake said to Sheila over his C3, "Sheila! Have you found Sunny yet? According to Dante, she sounds like she doesn't have long!"

"…not yet, Snake…" said Sheila, "All I see is Mikki in the barracks."

"Dante must've done something bad to her already," Snake said while grunting.

"Speaking of which…" said Sheila, "Mikki may not have long either."

"Then we have to hurry and get to her before it's too late," said Snake.

As Snake activated a node next to the next set of cable cars taking them through Metal Gear DAEMON and its barracks in the Third Round, Akiba contacted him again, and his vision became icier than usual, albeit it started to become covered in static.

"I hear it's amazing when the famous purple-stuffed worm in flap-jaw space with the tuning fork does a raw blink on Hara-kiri Rock… I need scissors… 61!" yelled Akiba.

"Johnny, what are you talking about?" yelled Snake.

Shaking his head, Akiba yelled at Snake, "You can't win, Snake! Meryl is my wife, damn it!"

Snake looked at Johnny in confusion.

"Okay… Where was I…" said Johnny as he farted again. "Ah, yeah, right… Ptolomaea."

Snake looked at the third round of hell. It looked like a fortress in the middle of a jungle.

"Wait a minute… Is that… ?"

"Groznyj Grad," said Johnny. "Volgin's fortress that your father infiltrated back in the '60s, before he earned the infamous title of Big Boss."

As Snake walked through the jungle, the river he was walking across became covered in ice, and the snow falling from the sky was ashen.

"I see… Operation Snake Eater. This was the incident involving the Shagohod, Dr. Sokolov's invention… He was handed over to Russia after the Cuban Missile Crisis…"

"What's this have to do with Ptolomaea though?"

"In Dante's Inferno, Ptolomaea was named after Ptolemy, who invited his in-laws to a banquet and killed them. Hence Ptolomaea is reserved for those who betrayed their guests."

"I don't get it…" said Snake as he looked at the people lying supine in the ice, including Zero, Para-Medic, Sigint, a younger Big Boss, Ocelot, and EVA, as well as The Pain, The Fear, The End, The Fury, and the Sorrow. Even Volgin… and the Boss herself.

The original Patriots.

To Snake's surprise, the icy simulation became filled with computer static, and he looked at his own face in lieu of where Big Boss was, Mikki's face where EVA's was, Fat Snake's where Ocelot's was. Zero's face was Sheila's, Para-Medic's face was Sunny's, and Otacon's face was Sigint's. Mei Ling was the Pain, Raiden was the Fear, Naomi was the End, Rosemary was the Fury, and Johnny was the Sorrow.

Dante was Volgin… and Meryl was the Boss?

"Don't worry, Snake… it's a game, it's a game just as usual!" said Johnny.

"Was this Dante's plan all along, Akiba?" said Snake. "To disguise his Infernal Conflict as a twisted version of Operation Snake Eater… Make me into Big Boss? He must've thought that Big Boss was my worst enemy initially, then once he realized he wasn't… The plan started to evolve."

Johnny shook his head, and yelled, "Enough, Snake!"

As Johnny became engulfed in static, he said, "Sad… so very sad… Meryl and I… we were meant to be… lovers… not… not this."

His face became twisted and contorted, along with his voice as he screamed demonically, "WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING TO ME?!"

Snake looked at Dante as Dante appeared on his C3.

Dante frowned at Snake.

"Sunny's little anti-virus may be starting to affect Cocytus, Snake… but you still have 400 more Metal Gears to beat… including mine. As for Sunny…"

Snake yelled to Dante, "Don't kill her, Dante!"

Dante grinned as he said, "Who says I'm the one who's going to?"

Snake yelled, "Damn it!" and punched the ice as Akiba came back to Snake again.

"Big Boss betrayed his guest… you… back in Outer Heaven… and Zanzibar Land… He is you now, and therefore his sins are yours."

"I'm not Big Boss, though," said Snake. "I'm me."

"Fat Snake and Daemonic Snake would beg to differ," said Akiba.

"What do you mean?" said Snake. Looking around, Snake said, "Is it because Liquid disguised me as Solidus… made me into a partial posthuman back in Rome?"

Snake said, "Was Liquid originally in on Dante's plans?"

"No, it was Sheila, it was Sheila, damn it!" yelled Akiba as his image in the simulation started to emit static again. "She wanted you to become like Big Boss in an effort to fool Dante."

Snake sighed as he thought, Akiba's part of Cocytus somehow… and now that HUMANALIVE is starting to affect Cocytus… no… he's a goner already, though.

Snake could feel his mind returning to him as he re-entered Metal Gear DAEMON in reality.

The other transhumans were fighting the swarms of incoming posthumans and drones that had been lying dormant in their barracks, which looked like deceptively human living quarters…

This must've been where Dante started to erase the consciousnesses of the transhumans foolish and corrupt enough to go along with his plans instead of JD's, Snake thought. They're posthuman now, and we're fighting them.

Snake yelled to his transhuman army, "Keep pushing through!"

As he fired his M4 at the posthumans coming from the barracks, and the cable cars slowly moved past the living quarter areas one by one… he started to hear screaming coming from one of them.

He recognized those screams.

It's Mikki! Snake thought.

Snake jumped off the cable car, and used his jets to fly toward the direction the screaming was coming from in the barracks area.

He hacked open a set of doors leading into an interrogation room, and found Mikki inside, naked and strapped to a chair that was electrocuting her to death.

Mikki continued to scream as Snake hacked into a computer console that helped him deactivate the chair.

As Snake started to shoot through the cuffs binding her to the chair with his SOCOM, Snake said, "Mikki, it's me!"

But Mikki continued screaming, even though the pain the electricity was inflicting on her body had stopped.

"Mikki, snap out of it… It's me, Snake! Dante didn't get you yet!"

Then, to his shock as he finished shooting through the cuffs binding her left arm and leg to the chair, Mikki screamed and held up her hand towards Snake's head and nearly interfaced with his BISECT.

"What are you doing, Mikki?" yelled Snake as he dropped to the floor, his endoskeleton paralyzed, and his SOCOM fell toward where Mikki's free leg was.

As Mikki started to stop screaming for a moment, she managed to grab the SOCOM with her foot and get it up into her free hand. She then shot the other cuffs restraining her to the chair until she was free, then aimed her SOCOM at Snake and fired it several times.

Snake screamed.

"Mikki, did Dante turn you posthuman?" yelled Snake.

"I'm not Mikki!" Mikki screamed hysterically while tears ran down her face, firing more shots at Snake despite that her aim was terrible due to her endoskeleton being heavily weakened by the electricity.

Snake fired some non-lethal shock rounds with his stun gun at Mikki's arm, causing her to drop the SOCOM. She then picked it up with her other hand as her left arm went limp.

"Mikki, stop and listen to me!" yelled Snake.

"I'M NOT MIKKI!" she screamed at the top of her lungs as she pointed the SOCOM at her own head, still sobbing intensely.

"Mikki, you're still yourself, please don't!" yelled Snake as he fired his stun gun at her right arm and her right leg, causing her to fall to the floor.

Despite that she dropped the SOCOM, and both of her arms were limp and convulsing, he could tell she was trying to force an interface with her own BISECT using her extended reality vision.

"Mikki, NO!" yelled Snake as she kicked him away with her good leg. He was worried shooting her in the skull would kill her due to how much electricity she had already been zapped with, so he shot her in the right leg and then the heart instead.

Mikki fell over, screaming and barely conscious.

"I'm n- not M-mikki… I'm n- not M-mikki…" she said while sobbing.

"Well, whoever you are in reality, you're not a posthuman," said Snake. "I need you alive. You're my only friend still alive. You along with Sunny."

"Sunny…" she said, and she began to sob even more while her body was still limp and convulsing on the cold metal floor.

"I'm so sorry, Snake…" she cried. "I failed you. This whole m- mess is… is my fault…"

"No," said Snake, "it's Dante's."

"But I helped him!"

"And now you're trying to help me stop him."

Mikki looked up at Snake. "Snake?" she said confusedly.

Snake used the healing augmentations built into his hands to start healing some of the shock burns all over her skin.

"Are you still yourself?"

"I'm…" She shut her eyes, and suppressed a sob. "I'm still me… but… there's something I need to tell you…"

Snake heard shooting coming closer to their direction.

Remembering that he had a transhuman army to lead, he told her while continuing to heal her, "Can it wait?"

"No, Snake, I need to tell you now!"

Snake kissed her on the lips as he held her in his arms.

"It'll have to wait," said Snake as he helped her to her feet and wrapped his arm around her shoulder after picking up his SOCOM and kicking open the interrogation cell door.

He then shot the posthumans approaching them, and placed Sunny behind a table in part of the living quarters area, then kicked said table over.

"Surely there have to be some clothes around here that fit your bust size," said Snake as he peeked out of cover, and fired at the incoming posthumans.

"No… and don't call me Shirley," said Mikki. "And why does it matter if I get clothes or not? We're in the middle of a battle and my body is made of metal and artificial flesh anyway!"

"Now you're starting to act more like yourself," Snake smirked as he shot at the posthumans some more.

"Wait… actually there's a catsuit over there," she said. "Cover me!" as she ran to get it.

Snake ran out of cover and fired his SOCOM and then his M4 to suppress the enemy while Sunny partially zipped up her catsuit.

"This damn thing was always too tight… I couldn't get my breasts to fit all the way in without the zipper snapping," she said. "Whatever, as long as it doesn't fall off… Snake!"

"Mikki?" said Snake.

"What's going on?" she said. "Where are we?"

"Metal Gear DAEMON," said Snake. "Sheila and I managed to upload humanity's consciousness to Sunny's Metal Gear HUMAN at the last minute. Humanity still has a chance because of her genius."

"Still has a chance… because of Sunny…" said Mikki. "Snake, about what I had to tell you…"

"Unless it has something to do with saving the world, and something important at that, then I'm afraid it's going to have to wait, Mikki," said Snake. "We're getting swarmed here!"

"I—" Mikki sighed, and bit her lip. "Right."

Picking up a nearby assault rifle from a dead posthuman, loading its magazine, and cocking it, she said, "We have to stop Dante."

"This way," said Snake as they used their endoskeleton's jets and wings to make it back up to the set of cable cars Transhumanity was on.

"Where'd you go, Snake!" said one of the transhumans.

"Kept you waiting, huh?" said Snake. "I had to rescue a friend."

"Is she still human?" said another.

"She's close enough," said Snake. "Mikki, how do we stop Dante's plans?"

"Despite that HUMANALIVE will destroy Cocytus— and Dante's posthuman hivemind with it—it's not enough to destroy Metal Gear DAEMON… Not to mention we can't anyway."

"What? Why not?"

"If we do, it may crash back into Earth and cause an earthquake big enough to rupture the entire geosphere."

"Damn, I never thought of that…" said Snake. "It is the size of a city, to be fair…"

"Killing Dante and using HUMANALIVE to put a stop to Cocytus should be enough," said Mikki. "I assume you already got started on that if you've made it this far."

"You assumed correctly," said Snake.

"What round of hell are we in?"

"Ptolomaea," said Snake. "Speaking of which… what Metal Gears are we going to fight against now?"

"Advanced iterations of Metal Gears Big Boss fought against during the Cold War… including the Shagohod," said Mikki. "These ones will be more powerful than the RAYs even if I recall correctly. After that, the final round of hell before we reach the center will contain Metal Gear ROTs. As for what's in the center… Dante's likely holding out the toughest Metal Gears for last."

"What's tougher than a flying Metal Gear?" said Snake as he fired at more posthumans with his M4.

Then the cable cars stopped as they reached the next arena, which was much larger.

Snake said, "We'll have to find out after we pass through the latter two rounds," as he interfaced with the next node, and he, Mikki, and the other transhumans prepared to face off against the Metal Gears of the Cold War.

They encountered several iterations of the Shagohod, the Pupa, the Chrysalis, the Cocoon, the Peace Walker, and Metal Gear ZEKE, all of which—save for the Shagohod—were created during the Peace Walker Incident.

The various unmanned Metal Gears approached them, save for one of the Metal Gear ZEKEs, which was being piloted by Jonathan.

"You won't be able to stop Cocytus, Snake!" yelled Jonathan.

"We're not going down without a fight, Jonathan!" yelled Snake as he began to fire his Stingers at the hordes of incoming Metal Gears.

Mikki attached two Stinger cannons lying around nearby to her own arms, and joined the fight.

As they fought against the hordes of the various Metal Gears, suddenly a Shagohod used its rockets to run over several transhumans.

"Damn it… we can't outrun or out-fly that!" yelled Snake.

"Wait, Snake… I see my hoverbike lying over there!" said Mikki.

"Can you really outdrive that?" said Snake.

"You've seen how good I am with the bike, Snake!" shouted Mikki.

"Fine," said Snake. "Transhumanity, cover Mikki with suppressing fire!"

As the Metal Gear hordes fired missiles and machine guns at Snake and his transhuman army, they fired back with their Stingers and various weapons loaded with blast rounds.

"MIKKI!" Snake yelled as the Shagohod nearly ran her over.

Fortunately, some of the Metal Gears were starting to malfunction due to HUMANALIVE's effects, and a Chrysalis crashed into the Shagohod attacking Mikki, temporarily disabling one of its rockets.

Mikki barely made it to the hoverbike.

She gunned its engine, and drove it out of the way of the Shagohod, accelerating as the Shagohod's rockets recovered and it chased after her.

"Hop on, Snake!" yelled Mikki as Snake continued to cover her by firing his M4's grenade launcher at the Shagohod and other Metal Gears.

Snake used his jets to jump onto and land on the passenger seat of Mikki's hoverbike.

"Think you can shoot accurately while we're moving?" said Mikki.

"Of course," said Snake. "Drebin gave me some upgrades that make me as good of a shot as Ocelot."

"Drebin's tech is good…" said Mikki. "Well make it count!"

Snake continued to fire his M4 at the Shagohod and other Metal Gears.

"How many Metal Gears have bitten the dust this round?" said Mikki.

"34!" said Snake as he used his Stingers to blow up several more Metal Gears and severely damage the Shagohod.

Suddenly a gate in the ceiling of the arena opened, sucking several transhumans out into space.

"NO!" yelled Snake. "Everyone use your adhesive grips to cling to something!"

As the remaining transhumans quickly hit the deck and clung to the floor, their hoverbike was thrown into the air. Snake and Mikki quickly grabbed onto some pipes in the ceiling just in time.

Snake was holding onto Mikki's hand with one hand.

"Hang on, Snake!" yelled Mikki as they barely managed to avoid getting sucked out.

Snake managed to use his other arm to fire a Stinger missile at the Shagohod, destroying it and causing it to burst into flames before it could launch a nuke through the window.

Unfortunately, now they had to deal with the Peace Walker.

Snake screamed as he shot at the Peace Walker with blast rounds from his SOCOM.

Mikki yelled, "My grip's malfunctioning, Snake!"

"Hang on just a little longer, Mikki!" screamed Snake as he tried to keep firing at the Peace Walker as it was priming a nuke to be launched toward Earth.

Fortunately, several transhumans managed to launch enough Stinger missiles at it to temporarily disable it, preventing it from launching the nuke.

The ceiling gates closed again, and Snake and Mikki fell from the ceiling, only to recover with their jets before they hit the floor.

"We're at 61!" yelled a transhuman.

"You're all pretty good!" shouted Snake.

They continued to fight against the remaining Metal Gears.

However, Snake's body was blown to pieces by a missile launched from Metal Gear ZEKE.

"SNAKE!" screamed Mikki.

Snake awoke in another body next to the node, and quickly returned to the fight, where Mikki was lying on the floor, wounded.

Snake dragged her to safety and used his healing augmentations to heal her leg wound while she used her revolver's blast rounds to shoot at Metal Gear ZEKE.

Jonathan was starting to lose control of his Metal Gear as more of the other Metal Gears were starting to malfunction and fight amongst each other.

"Goddamnit!" yelled Jonathan as he tried to correct course with Metal Gear ZEKE.

"We're at 105!" shouted a transhuman man.

"When did you learn how to count?" shouted a transhuman woman.

"Just now!"

Snake fired more Stinger missiles at Metal Gear ZEKE, only for Metal Gear ZEKE to try and pounce on Snake and Mikki.

Snake threw Mikki out of the way and used his jets to dodge ZEKE, missing it by barely over a foot.

Mikki quickly got back on her feet, and used her Stingers to finish off Metal Gear ZEKE.

Metal Gear ZEKE began to explode, and Jonathan had no choice but to eject himself from the cockpit.

As Jonathan hit the floor, he pulled out a Desert Eagle and tried to shoot Mikki, but Mikki knocked the pistol out of his hand with a punch, and hurled him back onto the floor again with an attempt at CQC.

"Not bad, Mikki," said Snake.

"I'm pretty good, right?" she said.

"Yeah," said Snake.

Heading over to Jonathan, Snake quickly interfaced with Jonathan's BISECT.

"The light!" cried Jonathan in the VR room in his mind before his endoskeleton was fried by the interface.

Snake looked at Mikki as she looked away from Jonathan's corpse.

"We did it!" chanted several transhumans as Metal Gear number 133 bit the dust.

"Only 267 Metal Gears to go," said Snake. "We're in the endgame now, everyone! Don't give up!"

Contacting Sheila, Snake said, "How many transhumans are left, Sheila!"

"Slightly less than 9 billion at this point…"

"Not good…" said Snake, "…but we have to keep going."

Snake looked at Mikki.

"What now, Snake?" she said.

"Now we push on to the final round, and then we enter the center of hell," said Snake.

Before they reached the next node outside the arena, however, Snake was contacted by Dante and Akiba again.

"So… you rescued that bitch…" said Dante angrily. "Good for you… but it won't help you or the rest of humanity, Snake."

"HUMANALIVE is already working its magic, Dante!" said Snake. "We'll beat you in no time!"

"Like hell you will," said Dante before his furious sneer turned to a grin. "Akiba, give him a taste of the center of hell."

"Will do," said Akiba.

Snake screamed as his vision became icy again, and he began to shiver. He felt lightheaded and numb all of a sudden.

"Get up, Snake! Snake! SNAAAAAAKE!" Mikki screamed to Snake as he began to collapse.