CHAPTER 18— "THE TREACHEROUS, SORROWFUL LOVER, PART 3: JUDECCA"

Snake's vision was clouded with ice.

This time his friends were completely submerged in ice in the river beneath Snake.

Snake was looking at the grave of the Boss, with the events of the SOP Incident flashing before him in the simulation.

"The Middle East… South America… Eastern Europe… Shadow Moses… and Outer Haven…" said Snake.

He saw Big Boss standing before him, next to Zero in a wheelchair.

Akiba said to Snake, "We're getting very close to figuring out who your worst enemy is, Snake," said Akiba. "We're so close I can taste it!"

Akiba farted again.

Snake looked at his old self—Old Snake—as he put a gun in his mouth.

"No…" said Snake. "This isn't the end, it can't be!"

Akiba malfunctioned, and for a second, he saw Mikki in his place.

"David!" she said. "There's something I need to tell you!"

"You had something you wanted to tell me earlier…" said Snake. "What is it, Mikki?"

"I'm… pregnant," she said as her voice emitted static until it sounded demonic. "Your… baby…"

"What?" said Snake in confusion. "Mikki, wait!"

But then Mikki turned back into Akiba again.

"Is Mikki really pregnant?" said Snake.

"No," said Akiba, "she's not… She wanted to confess her sins to you… Sins that run deeper than lust."

"Well, what did she want to tell me?" said Snake.

Snake saw an image of Otacon and Sunny on the Nomad.

"I don't remember the sun being so flat…" Snake said as he looked at Sunny's eggs.

Akiba said, "I'll get back to that. In the meantime… Judecca."

"The fourth round of Cocytus."

"Traitors to their lords and benefactors," said Akiba. "Judecca was named after Judas, Jesus's Apostle who betrayed him."

"What does this have to do with me and the SOP Incident?" said Snake. "We did exactly what the Patriots wanted us to do; it was just Naomi and Liquid who manipulated us into bringing them down from behind the scenes!"

"Not to mention Sunny," said Akiba. "Sunny and Liquid are still alive… Liquid through you…"

"You're not making any sense!" yelled Snake.

"Sunny and Naomi worked together on the FOXALIVE virus that crippled GW, and ultimately the entire network of the Patriots," said Akiba. "She knew what was going on all along."

"Your point?" said Snake. "She did the right thing!"

"She betrayed the Patriots," said Johnny. "You and she are the two ultimate traitors… but you will not reach the center of Cocytus!"

"Akiba!" yelled Snake.

"No…" said Akiba, "we haven't figured out who your worst enemy is yet…"

"AKIBA!" screamed Snake.

"Don't worry, Snake…" said Akiba as his voice became distorted again. "Sunny will reveal your role you played to you… In time."

"My role?" said Snake.

"Yes, your role," said Johnny. "This is a type of role-playing game, after all."

As Johnny's image started to emit static, the icy simulation dissolved before Snake's eyes… and he started to wake up.

"SNAKE!" yelled Mikki.

"…I don't remember… the twin suns… being so flat…" said Snake deliriously.

"Twin suns?" said Mikki, looking at Snake. Crossing her arms, she said, "My tits are not flat!"

Waking up, Snake said, "Mikki?"

"Snake, you're awake!" she said.

Snake said to her, "Mikki… Akiba and Dante are getting eerily close to hacking into my mind... turning me into my worst enemy… We don't have a lot of time…"

"That's not good!" said Mikki.

Looking around, Snake said, "Where are we now?"

"Judecca," Mikki said. "After hacking into the next node, I manage to carry you onto the next set of cable cars."

As gunshots started to fly by them aboard the cable car, Snake quickly got back on his feet.

As they put their backs to each other and started firing back at the swarms of posthumans flying around them and firing at them, Mikki said, "Why did you call my tits flat?"

"I didn't," said Snake.

"You were staring right at them!" she said.

"Sorry," said Snake, "I was staring through them… I was thinking about the time I upset Sunny… She served eggs for me and Otacon."

"Sunny… Her eggs?" Mikki said.

Mikki said, "About what I needed to tell you, Snake…"

"Are you seriously pregnant?" said Snake as he and Mikki switched sides, and continued firing their rifles at the posthumans swarming their position.

"What?" said Mikki. "No! My body has built-in birth control!"

Snake blushed, and said, "Oh."

"Who said that I was pregnant?"

"Akiba," said Snake.

"Akiba?" said Mikki as they got off the cable car and entered a massive cyberpunk-esque city that looked similar to Tokyo.

As posthumans approached them from every corner, Mikki and Snake hit the deck, and Mikki got on top of Snake as they fired their Stingers at a set of incoming aerial drones flying around the skyscrapers that fried missiles over their heads.

"He must've been screwing with you," said Mikki. "That's not what I wanted to tell you."

"Then what did you want to tell me?" said Snake as he rolled on top of Mikki to help them dodge a set of machine gun fire that nearly hit them.

Looking up at Snake as she lay underneath him, she blushed and said, "I— I'm—"

As another drone fired grenades at them, Snake said, "Sorry, it'll have to wait again," and he managed to get back on his feet and hoist Sunny up. They used their jets to get out of the way of the grenades before they exploded.

Several transhumans approached Snake and Mikki's position, trying to take out the incoming posthumans and drones, shooting at them and fighting them in close quarters as well.

"Who is that woman Snake's with?" said a transhuman woman.

"She's hot," said a transhuman man.

"I think I recognize her actually," said another transhuman man.

Mikki got up to try and regroup with the transhumans, only for Snake to grab her by the arm and pull her toward him again while firing his SOCOM over her shoulder at some incoming posthumans.

"You're not in love with me, are you?" said Snake.

"I… I don't know…" said Mikki. "I'm the personification of lust, but…" Looking away from Snake, she said, "No… I don't deserve you… I've lied to you so much."

"People have lied to me all the time," said Snake, "and yet I still consider them friends. I just haven't considered anyone a friend with benefits yet."

"You wouldn't forgive me if you knew the truth about what I did," said Mikki. "You might even kill me for it."

"I find that a little hard to believe," said Snake as they fired Stinger missiles over each other's shoulders.

Snake hugged Mikki for a second. "I thought I had lost you," said Snake. "I don't care what you did. I'm not losing you again. I've already lost too many friends."

"I know," said Mikki as she sniffled.

As they regrouped with the transhumans, they could hear several Metal Gear ROTs closing in on them.

"We'll have to use the buildings for cover," said Snake. "Everyone stand your ground!"

As Snake located and hacked into the final node in the rounds of Metal Gear DAEMON, located in the city's town square, he could hear Akiba speaking through the Metal Gear ROTs as they approached.

"Time to die, Snake!" said Akiba as the Metal Gears launched missiles at Snake and the other transhumans.

"Evasive maneuvers!" yelled Snake as he, Mikki, and the other transhumans used their jets to dodge the missiles and fly through the terraformed, sustainable city-like space habitat.

Snake fired his Stingers at several of the Metal Gear ROTs, knocking a few of them out of the sky and sending them colliding into buildings until they exploded.

"I'm running low on ammunition!" shouted Mikki as she fired blast rounds from her AK-102 at the Metal Gears.

"Me too!" shouted Snake as he launched heat-seeking RPGs from his M4's underbarrel attachment.

The other transhumans were starting to run out of ammunition as well.

Still, at this point they had knocked out nearly half of the 133 Metal Gear ROTs.

Snake continued firing his Stingers at the Metal Gears as they rained missiles, machine gun fire, and lasers down at Snake, Mikki, and Transhumanity.

Several of the city's skyscrapers began to collapse.

"Snake, WATCH OUT!" yelled Mikki.

But as Snake was getting swarmed by several suicide Metal Gear ROTs, he was unable to avoid getting crushed by a nearby collapsing skyscraper along with the Metal Gear ROTs he was fighting off.

Snake woke up from another node.

"Snake!" yelled Sheila. "Metal Gear HUMAN is starting to run out of endoskeletons in its reproductive glands!"

"Damn it…" said Snake. "How many humans do we have left?"

"Barely over 8 billion."

"I hate to admit it, but we may have to rely on Metal Gear HUMAN to fight in the center of Metal Gear DAEMON," said Snake. "In the meantime, we've only got a couple dozen Metal Gear ROTs to go before we're there."

"I'll bring it in your direction," said Sheila.

Snake and Mikki stood their ground, firing their M4 and AK-102 at the remaining Metal Gear ROTs.

But right before Snake was able to finish off the last one, his vision became clouded in ice one last time.

"NO!" shouted Snake as he started to collapse.

In the icy river, Snake could see a detention camp in Cuba, then the deserts of Afghanistan, and the savannahs of the Angola-Zaire border.

"What is this?" said Snake.

"I don't know…" said Akiba. "This wasn't part of the S3 Plan!"

Calming down, Akiba said, "Ah… I see… the ground zeroes of your inner pain… the phantom pain of the former self that was taken from you…"

Akiba said, "I think I know who your worst enemy is now, Snake…"

"NO, AKIBA!" yelled Snake.

"Place your controller on the floor," said Akiba, "and I will manipulate it using the power of Cocytus!"

Akiba raised his arms, and Snake could feel his controller vibrate as if it was being puppeteered by the posthuman software of Cocytus.

But then his controller stopped vibrating.

"No… what's this… You're using the hard drive of a PlayStation 5… and a DualSense wireless controller?"

Akiba said, "Your skills have improved, Snake…"

And as Akiba started to lose control and turn into a fleshless, demonic-sounding endoskeleton, Snake felt himself gaining control back.

He waded through the frozen waters surrounding Mother Base, and interfaced with Akiba.

Inside the VR room, Akiba was muttering, "the spirit of the warrior will always be with you…"

Snake said to Akiba, "I don't understand, Akiba… How are you connected to Cocytus this way?"

Akiba said, "It… it was Meryl… she didn't want me to suffer from being turned posthuman by Dante… She's still transhuman."

"She is?" said Snake.

"She killed me… She thought it was mercy," said Johnny, "but Dante had other plans for me and her."

"I was put in partial charge of monitoring her thoughts and the rest of the hivemind…" said Johnny, "and because of that, I became my worst enemy… Hers."

Snake said, "You love Meryl, don't you."

"More than anyone else," said Johnny. "Certainly more than you love her."

Snake frowned at this.

"Out of all the others… she might be the one who's able to bring you down," said Johnny.

"Why do you say that?" said Snake.

"Because she still loves you!" said Johnny.

Snake was shocked by this.

"She does?" said Snake.

"Always did," said Akiba. "She was upset that you abandoned her after Shadow Moses… just like you abandoned Holly White. But still… she loved you just the same… I suppose that's why Dante called me 'Envy'."

Snake looked at Akiba in disbelief.

"She wanted to save you from what Dante had planned for you," said Akiba, "so she sacrificed herself, and everyone else, except for you."

"I… I don't believe it…" said Snake. "I… I'm sorry, Johnny," said Snake.

Johnny began to shit his pants.

Groaning, Johnny said, "It's all right. Despite that I'm jealous of you, you're still my friend."

"And you're mine," said Snake sadly.

"I always loved looking at the stars with Meryl," said Johnny. "It feels only right that I freeze to death in the depths of outer space… but then again… I'm no longer real… I'm just a computer program."

"You're more than that, Johnny," said Snake. "You're human."

"I know," said Johnny. Surprised, he said, "That light… Wait… it's disappearing."

"What light?" said Snake.

"I'm sorry, Snake…" said Johnny. "It looks like I won't be able to join you and the others in the afterlife…"

"What do you mean by that?" said Snake. "Johnny? JOHNNY!"

"The spirit of the warrior will always be with you…" said Johnny as his goggles began to crack where Meryl shot him, and he bled out on the floor before freezing in ice, and turning to stardust.

… … … … …

"JOHNNY!" yelled Snake.

Mikki yelled, "SNAKE!"

Coming over to Snake, she said, "Are you all right? For a second, I thought Dante hacked into your mind!"

Snake sighed, and said, "I'm still me… but Johnny… he's gone."

Mikki looked at Snake with sadness in her eyes.

"Meryl… She sacrificed everyone, including herself, for me…" said Snake. "She still loves me. She's still a transhuman."

Mikki said to Snake, "Do you still love her?"

"I—" said Snake before his voice caught. He looked away from Mikki.

"We have to go to the center of hell now," she said. "Now that we've hacked into all the nodes and prevented Dante from hacking into your mind… we should be able to enter Cocytus and battle with the last 133 Metal Gears... and Dante's."

"All right," said Snake. "But we won't be able to do it as ourselves… This is going to be risky… but we're going to have to use Metal Gear HUMAN to fight Dante."

"If we lose…" said Mikki.

"Then humanity dies with us," said Snake. "It's all or nothing now."

Mikki said, "We're going to have to risk it. We're out of ammunition and endoskeletons. It's our only chance."

"All right," said Snake as he uploaded his consciousness back to Metal Gear HUMAN as it arrived.

They approached the center of Metal Gear DAEMON, and Snake used Metal Gear DAEMON to hack open the sets of blast doors guarding the cargo elevator leading down into Cocytus.

As Snake piloted Metal Gear HUMAN onto the cargo elevator and it descended, he was contacted by Dante.

Furious, Dante said, "I may have failed in turning you into your worst enemy, Snake… but I won't fail in erasing you and the rest of humanity… once I destroy your puny Metal Gear."

Mikki said to Snake, "I'm working on hacking into the remaining Metal Gears. We're close to erasing HUMANDIE from Cocytus completely. Once HUMANALIVE is uploaded fully… We win."

Snake said, "We still stand a chance, Dante… It may be a slim one, but we will prevail."

"You flatter yourself," said Dante.

As the cargo elevator finished descending into the center of Metal Gear DAEMON, and its doors opened, Snake piloted Metal Gear HUMAN through its massive, freezing steel corridors until he reached a massive arena.

At the center was Cocytus's central server.

The final node.

Surrounding it were several terrifying Metal Gears.

But above it all, was a Metal Gear unlike one Snake had ever seen.

"Time to die, Snake!" said Dante.

"It's your time to die, Dante," said Snake. "I'm dead serious."