To MagicalGeek, Otacon and Sunny already being deep inside The Facility's systems was a throwback to the final moments of the Solid Snake vs Sam Fisher Deathbattle; one of my favorites overall.
Don't ask me which Deathbattle is my favorite; like apples and oranges, I like different Deathbattles for different reasons.

To TheVikingStranger, while the Bio-Ship, "Indie", has all the same power as M'gann's ship, all the extra non-Martian tech plugged in to replace what was irreparably damaged in the crash landing, and what caused it to crash, means it can't turn into a Limousine like was done in Young Justice: Phantoms, let alone something as-small as a Motorcycle. At the smallest, it could turn into an RV if its Loadout was reduced to the bare minimum; high-resolution sensor array, Codec uplink, Ion Engine, Slipspace Generator.
Also, unlike Ship from Ben 10, an "extruded" Galvanic Mechamorph, while Martian Bio-Ships can assimilate tech at the connection site like was shown in The Team's mind-simulation, Bio-Ships can't "consume" technology and add the mass to themselves like the Evolved from Prototype. If faced with an Antarian Obliterator, it could "impersonate" the silhouette and weapons, but not have any of the functionality unless the weapons themselves were taken off. At the end of the day, those weapons would still have to be put on a shelf somewhere, whereas Ship, being pure mechanical nanotech instead of a "meld" of organic and synthetic tissue, can "reconfigure" his mass and the properties of that mass while recalling the shape from a stored memory.
Sorta like how Gold and Platinum of the Metal Men aren't 100% gold and platinum, their Responsometers simply give them the color, texture, and properties of that matter; anything else would've completely bankrupt Dr. Magnus as he said in one of his recent comic book adaptations.

To Cousin687, the Bio-Ship, "Frankenstein'd" as it is, is still something like a living organism. If it recognizes the threat an intruder represents, they're basically standing inside a polymorphic box. Manifesting torture equipment may be a bit of a stretch, but I imagine Virgil would treat Indie well-enough that it would become "slavishly devoted" to the one that let it fly again, and wouldn't be above hurting intruders. The only difference between a seatbelt and a noose is what part of the body it's wrapped around.

*HERMIT WALKER*

The scene opens in on a resplendent sitting room, a gently roaring fire burning in the hearth, a number of hunting trophies displayed proudly over the mantle. Sitting astride a red chesterfield couch was a man with cancer-laced skin clad in only a red bathrobe with black-and-white stripes and a full face mask with large black spots around white eye lenses. At the moment he is reading from a magazine that reads Playboy with a heavily sexualized image of a woman of questionable age in a bunny-girl outfit.

After several moments of reading, the man finally notices that he is being observed.

"Oh hey, I didn't see you there~" a certain Merc with a Mouth said looking up from his book. "Come on, sit down, sit down. Let papa 'pool bend your ear for a second."

*Creak*

"Now, I'm sure you're wondering why things are starting off with my handsome mug when normally things are a lot more serious and 'mature' than Teen Titans around here," Wade said making air quotes. "Well as it turns out, good ol' Neo up on high is going to be writing about something that's very…"

Looking to the left, and then to the right, Deadpool leaned forward before stage-whispering-

"Controversial."

Leaning back in his chair and scratching his nuts-

"Yeah~ Yeah, just drink that image in~"

-Deadpool then went on to say-

"So, to do the bare minimum and stave off some basic bitches that are drinking a certain hermit kingdom's Kool-Aid, or think that being 'anti-racist' is more important than having more than two braincells in their freakin' noggins, I shall be dispensing with some, as the experts in the field say, 'legal bullshit'," Wade hummed as he put on a pair of spectacles, taking his time to adjust them as he looked at a piece of paper from the nearby end table. "Ah-he-he-hem."

*Poot*

"All characters and events in this written work –even those based on real people—are entirely fictional. All celebrity voices are both poorly impersonated, and imaginary. The following work contains coarse language and due to its content should not be viewed by anyone. Any resemblance to real persons, living and/or dead, is purely coincidental."

Off in the background, a cricket chirps.

"Yeah, that pretty much summed up how I felt too," Wade huffed as he tossed the paper up in the air before it fluttered down to land on his head. "Now if'n you don't mind, I'm about to do the 'five-finger shuffle' to a little Madonna on loop, so if you'd be very good and Christian-like and give me a smidgen of privacy."

*Shiff*

"Or don't. I've done worse on camera~ Like that time I desecrated a holy corpse, or way back when, when I wore green CGI spandex," he said with a shudder as he moved to abuse himself.

*HERMIT WALKER*

On the other side of things, Virgil's trip back east with Laura astride his new vehicle was largely uneventful after maneuvering through the freight elevator in "Area 51.5".

Though Indie was largely able to intuit the fact that he didn't want to break Stealth Mode under any circumstances, and was more than capable of maintaining optical camouflage nigh-indefinitely, as an added layer of camouflage, Virgil had the Bio-Ship polymorph itself into the shape of a stereotypical UFO; a large saucer shape with bubble-shaped protrusions on the dorsal and ventral sides.

At the height that they were flying at, no-one would be able to even remotely see the minute "lensing effect" that came with its Stealth Mode from the ground. However, on the off-chance anyone with a telescope, window seat, or even super-sight happened to look in their direction as they flew the other half of the way east, all anyone would think they saw was a UFO before writing it off as "a trick of the light" or whatever other excuse people used to convince themselves they were still a "Straight"; a colloquialism from Zatanna's side of things for people who absolutely refused to believe in the existence of capital-m Magic and/or capital-a Aliens despite all evidence to the contrary.

When it came to returning to The Bunker proper, there was already a dedicated hangar connected to an undersea tunnel allocated to the Bio-Ship's use that used to play host to a Cold War-era submarine. However, since Bludhaven was a major trade center, op sec dictated that Virgil overshoot well into international waters, dive beneath the waves, and then act as a submersible as they doubled back the 20 nautical miles separating the open sea from New Jersey's coastal state territory. The final stretch in of itself was actually the worst because they had to avoid causing any sort of wake that the coast guard would notice.

The hangar, which was formerly an underground naval dockyard, was a reinforced underground cave with a high ceiling, modernized industrial strength cranes, and enormous shelving units that at-the-moment were unoccupied.

After parking the Bio-Ship on the reinforced concrete base and transitioning it to its "Rest Mode", essentially a giant horizontal egg shape, Otacon, Sunny, and Snake all rushed out to greet them.

Virgil for his part was not only physically exhausted from the goings-on of the past few days, but also mentally. While he'd been able to get adequate amounts of sleep on the bus, the sleep in of itself was not what one would consider "restful". Not only were bus seats notoriously uncomfortable, but having thoughts of The Facility constantly in the back of his mind had kept him coiled like a watch spring.

Now that he was back home, or at least what passed for home when he wasn't at the Red Light, all he wanted to do was pass out in a real bed.

He was so-tired in fact that he hardly noticed, let alone cared, that Laura had followed him into his room like a lost puppy and snuggled up against him in the cramped one-person bed.

*HERMIT WALKER*

The Bunker: War Room
May 22, 05:14 EST

"Ladies. Gentleman. Thank you for coming in on such short notice," Miller stated to the gathered Freelancers, as well as Virgil's in-group. "I'm not going to sugar-coat it, things in the Infected Zone are deteriorating at a rapid pace; sooner than your Director's experts anticipated. But before we can handle things domestically, an enemy from abroad is our present concern."

Thumbing the clicker, the holographic screen behind her changed to the image of a round-faced, out-of-shape Asian man with drab clothing and a bad haircut.

"Kim Jong Un, the 'Supreme Leader' of the 'Democratic People's Republic of Korea', has recently been making demands that he be allowed to send in soldiers to repatriate a North Korean citizen who was allegedly living in the heart of the Red Zone at the time of the infection. It's been close to a year since Mercer dropped that germ bomb of his in our laps, so it's obviously a bunch of bull. And of course, he's threatening a nuclear strike if he doesn't get his way."

"I assume there's a reason Rocket Man's latest temper tantrum has us up at five in the morning…?" South Dakota growled under her breath as she ran a switch-comb through her knotted crimson hair. "I mean, it's not like bomb threats from the guy are anything new."

"A while back, a North Korean turncoat fled the country with these images in his possession," Miller said thumbing the clicker, the picture of the Hermit Kingdom's leader changing to a middling-quality, off-center landscape image of a giant quadrupedal mechanical apparatus with a massive electro-optical sensor for a head, the whole thing done up in Communist colors.

"Looks like Peace Walker, but on the cheap," Virgil quietly mused.

"Though Philanthropy hasn't officially been reinstated, even after the fall of The Patriots, unofficially, certain governmental bodies are remaining abreast to the potential construction of covert nuclear launch platforms by rogue states and funneling intelligence toward certain unnamed 'grassroots activist organizations'," Miller continued. "Kim's extravagant eating habits in conjunction with his unrestrained military spending and economic sanctions regarding AI components have put a damper on his attempts to create a Metal Gear –which henceforth will be called 'Hermit Walker'–, but that hasn't prevented his engineers from finding workarounds."

"No wonder the thing's so fucking fat," South Dakota huffed aloud.

"Doesn't have to look pretty if it can get a live nuke off the ground," her brother chastised.

"How soon until this thing is fully functional?" Virgil asked worriedly.

Roanapur ceased to exist because of one such "covert nuclear strike", so the idea of someone like Kim Jing Un having access to a Metal Gear filled him with dread.

"Unknown, but the fact that Kim is using the threat of nuclear terror in an obvious bid to get his hands on samples of the Mercer Virus and its mutagenic properties, means that it's closer than the Oval Office is comfortable with," Miller answered as she thumbed the clicker again, showing an unflattering image of what looked like the openings of five nuclear silos scattered across a stretch of unappealing slate-colored ground. "With Code Talker's work secured, the missions are as follows. The Freelancers will be infiltrating Kim's nuclear silos and planting Metallic Archaea to not only sabotage the ICBMs, but the nuclear stockpiles as well. An ICBM without a warhead is basically a flying trash can, but we won't let him have either."

"And what about Hermit Walker?" Carolina inquired.

"Intelligence places Hermit Walker close to the DMZ, likely so when it rolls out it can be used to broadcast North Korea's 'military might' to their neighbors," Miller said thumbing the clicker, revealing a massive warehouse not dissimilar to the one shown in North Korea's attempts to make a functioning Iron Man suit at a moderately-recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Said hearing was about commodifying the Iron Man "weapon".

Said hearing fell through when Tony revealed not only the staggering price tag of initial construction, let alone maintaining a quote/unquote "weaponized" Iron Man platform, but also some then-formerly-confidential documents from Senator Stern's computer about where that money would be siphoned from; the military veterans' pension fund.

Suffice it to say, the Iron Man platform was not commodified, and not just because keeping the Infected Zone under quarantine was so monumentally important.

"Special Agent Washington's squad, the Interlopers," Miller said gesturing vaguely in Virgil's direction, "will be directly sabotaging the Hermit Walker after collecting enough evidence so as to further tighten economic and material sanctions against North Korea. The plan is to use the Nanosuit's 'Spore Warfare' systems to completely annihilate this Metal Gear from the pilot seat. Barring any unanticipated developments, all acts of sabotage will be triggered simultaneously, and then all parties will exfiltrate along predetermined routes," she said thumbing the clicker revealing an orbital map of the operation zones, including a number of brightly-colored pre-planned routes, which fanned out to either the sea or the Chinese border, but not through the DMZ.

"Remind me again why we can't hop the border?" Mercury asked with a sarcastic hand-raise, his finger pointing down.

"This much sabotage against his nuclear arsenal can't be tied back to the west in any way, shape, or form," Miller answered. "Best case scenario is you get in, do your jobs, and you're already out of the country by the time anyone notices Kim's arsenal is literally falling apart."

"What about the people Kim will punish for this?" Emerald inquired. "I don't personally care, but it warrants asking," she said shooting an awkward look Virgil's way, the teen giving her a small smile and nudging her knee with his, the girl crossing an ankle under the table and giving him a girlish smile.

Mercury scoffed her way, but she flipped the bird at him in a way that only he would see it.

"Nothing we can do about that. No-one would notice the difference anyway," the woman replied frankly.

"You know, we always could pop a couple rounds into Rocket Man's ass," Mercury hummed aloud.

"We aren't the CIA, and this isn't the 1950s," Miller countered. "If the US or the UN want Kim out of the picture, they'll have to do it themselves. No PMC would touch something this politically volatile because it would hurt all of our bottom lines. No SPB would do so either for much the same reason."

"Besides, we've got more important shit to worry about," Emerald cut in. "You said things in the Red Zone were deteriorating?"

"Yes, but only those going in will be briefed in full," Miller said giving Virgil a significant look.

"I assume we're moving out immediately?" Carolina asked.

"No. While we may be able to insert you behind enemy lines with our recently-activated Bio-Ship, we still need to prepare alternate avenues of escape," Miller stated. "Worst-case scenario is you'll have to exfiltrate with the Wormhole Fulton, which can potentially be back-traced depending on how Kim's been spending his money."

"I mean, yeah, opening yawning holes in space and time isn't exactly subtle…" York admitted.

"What's stopping me from picking everyone up in the Bio-Ship?" Virgil asked.

"We still don't know what extended sessions behind the pilot seat will do to your mind since it isn't 100% Martian, and the Freelancers got on without an anti-grav stealth ship long before you came into the picture," Miller answered. "You just worry about yourself and the Interlopers. Not all of your missions will overlap with theirs."

*HERMIT WALKER*

The Bunker: Dockyard/Hangar
May 22, 05:47 EST

"I still can't believe you have your own UFO~" Mercury grinned as the newly-christened 'Interlopers' gathered around the Bio-Ship, still in its egg-shaped 'Rest Mode'

"I mean, that is pretty cool," Emerald grinned as she eyed the shiny black on chrome shell.

"I'm still not sure how I feel about what was done to it," Virgil hummed as he rubbed his hand along the cool-yet-warm surface. "I mean, Hargreave basically 'Dr. Frankensteined' it with Ma'aleca'andran, Earth, and other technologies…"

If M'gann saw this, it might as well have been her neighbor's dead pet turned into a zombie cyborg.

"He's like us," Laura hummed walking up beside him, reaching out her hand before the thing bristled at her palm. "He didn't really get to choose, but thanks to you, he gets to fly again."

"Maybe…" Virgil hummed, feeling a pleased trill against the edge of his mind.

"Which reminds me for whatever reason; how'd you come up with that team name?" Mercury asked.

"I just leafed through a dictionary, waited for the right word to jump out at me," Virgil said scratching at his hair.

"Well, I can't argue with the results," Mercury shrugged. "Interlopers sounds pretty badass~"

*HERMIT WALKER*

Launching doctrine for the Bio-Ship had been established long before the vessel in question was declared air-worthy.

The initial step when launching from a naval dockyard was to enter into a submersible state, covertly traverse well into international waters, and then discretely surface well out of visual range of any potential observers based on orbital reconnaissance of the area of egress. From there, the Bio-Ship would climb into a sub-orbital flight path, placing them more than seven times the higher end of the usual commercial cruising altitude. The thinness of the atmosphere would enable speeds far exceeding those of commercial international flights with a proportional reduction of noise. At heights in the sub-orbital range, not even high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft like the Lockheed U-2 "Dragon Lady" would be in the conventional flight path. The flight path would also accommodate orbital reconnaissance satellites so as to not fly directly beneath one; the only thing better than some analyst somewhere thinking the cloaked Bio-Ship was "just a glitch" was to never see it at all.

Because the built-in navigation computer was rated for interstellar travel, it was a trifling matter to navigate between Bludhaven and the Korean Peninsula; all Virgil really had to worry about was not deviating from the indicators on the HUD.

Between getting all the gear prepared, ensuring all their intelligence was up-to-date, and that the Freelancers' course of egress had been locked down, it was already past 2200 hours, Korean Standard Time.

*HERMIT WALKER*

North Korea
March 22, 22:30 KST

Upon descending from their sub-orbital flight path, it was well into the night on the Korean peninsula. On the northern half, the major source of light seemed to be solely from the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, little more than a tiny golden dot in a sea of black. In contrast, South Korea was lit up like Paris, France. That China was similarly lit-up made the Hermit Kingdom's perpetual darkness all the more striking.

The final approach in of itself was almost laughably easy, with anti-air defenses capable of picking up on stealth craft almost nonexistent. In fact, Virgil was almost positive that even if Indie dropped out of stealth mode, they would still be completely invisible; even if they were decked out in chrome

"All hands, we've arrived at Drop Point One," Virgil muttered in Codec to his passengers, the Freelancers disengaging their harnesses at the rear of the Bio-Ship as a bio-mechanical winch system molded itself from the ceiling, set to drop them behind the tree line overlooking North Korea's nuclear launch silos.

"Good luck, Interlopers. You'll probably need it," Carolina hummed back as she hooked the clamping ring to her suit and was lowered down into the woods.

"Landing party has disengaged," Emerald reported a minute later, she, Mercury, and Laura seated in front of 'the captain's chair' on a lower tier.

Allegedly, Indie recognized Virgil's place in the hierarchy, though it could've just as easily been normal operation doctrine for Bio-Ships.

"Affirmative. Moving on to secondary target," Virgil hummed as he slowly took the Bioship up and out of the trees before making his way further southward at a sedate pace.

Slow-moving targets in the dark were harder to spot than fast-moving, after all.

*HERMIT WALKER*

North Korean DMZ
March 22, 23:06 KST

The building that "Hermit Walker" was being constructed and maintained in looked exactingly like the "blooper reel" Tony Stark showed off at that senate hearing. Aside from the capital which was around 100 miles away and still lit up like the sole beacon in a lightless sea, the facility that Indie was floating in the blind spot of was even better-lit than the DMZ a spitting distance away.

The tension between the two half-nations was so-thick it could stop bullets, and if Kim Jong Un flaunted around a nuclear-capable mecha like some jackass bandying about with their new sports car, that alone might be enough to set off a nuclear conflict if anyone in the south could actually identify a Metal Gear on sight.

"All hands are in position," Emerald hummed over Codec.

"Beginning on-site reconnaissance," Virgil intoned, his right palm caressing the glowing 'control orb' and causing the floor to shimmer until it was like standing upon a glass-bottom boat. The image fidelity was so great that Emerald and Mercury both drew back their feet in instinctual terror, Laura's head tilting inquisitively as she tapped what looked like empty air beneath them.

"Activating Nanovision. Slaving to on-vessel sensors," Virgil continued, the nanomachines within his eyes connecting to the Nanosuit, which in-turn fed its collected data into Indie's on-board computer, allowing all hands to see not only the number of North Korean soldiers on-site, but also the number of vehicles and their observed numbers.

"That's a lot of guys," Emerald hummed as the number on the floor-mounted HUD continued to rise.

"Of course now the question is, how many of them are actually working with a full stomach?" Mercury snarked.

"If I could get a whiff of them, I could probably tell you," Laura answered with a completely straight face.

" . . . Oh, you are just a treat~" he grinned.

*HERMIT WALKER*

North Korean DMZ
March 22, 23:36 KST

Within the initial half-hour of reconnaissance, Virgil had sent Emerald into the nearby guardhouse clad in her Interloper regalia; a full Sneaking Suit equipped with FaceCamo and a Solid Eye connected to the Bio-Ship's data store, allowing her to not only see people through walls in a very Assassin's Creed-like fashion, but to also relay additional data back to the Bio-Ship.

It didn't take Emerald very long to get her hands on the guard rotation, and when she did, no-one was surprised to learn that the soldiers on-site were working twelve-hour shifts, and that the next contingent of guards wouldn't be up until 0600 hours local time.

Though honestly, given most North Korean soldiers slept on mattresses filled with rotting rice husks, it was no wonder that they'd need the full twelve hours to recuperate. At least according to Mercury.

"Laura, you have the helm," Virgil said as he rose from his seat, Laura's own reorienting to the vacant throne and the five-point harness unlatching.

"Wait, you made her the understudy?" Mercury blinked as the captain's chair adjusted itself to Laura's size, the girl resting her hands atop the control orbs and maintaining the ship's orientation.

"I'll get Emerald keyed in at another time after Indie gets a feel for her," Virgil said as he approached the center of the ship, the interior lights dimming after he hooked his combat webbing to the overhead winch, a yawning maw allowing him to steadily descend. With the exterior, the cable, and the Interloper himself all under the effects of optical camouflage, there was barely anything to see as Night Snake was lowered belly-first like something from a spy movie.

Coming down in an almost cat-like four-point landing, the tether disengaging and swiftly retracting, Virgil stealthily snake-crawled his way to one of the roof's hatches.

After getting within spitting distance of the hatch, Virgil activated the Active Sonar he'd had installed in the suit's right leg while he had been away, his Nanovision showing him a pointillistic outline of the ladder and catwalks immediately underneath him. There were no guards nearby.

"Commencing infiltration. Mirage, do you need me to open a ground-level door?"

"No need, Snake. I pinched a set of keys from the guard house," Emerald returned in response to her alias, a smidgen of pride in her tone.

"Roger that," Virgil said as he tested the hatch. When no horrific squeal of rusty metal rose up to meet him, he slinked into the hatch, diving into the belly of the beast.

If it were anything like the half-emaciated soldiers surrounding him, he doubted there'd be much to worry about.

*HERMIT WALKER*

The warehouse interior was extremely bare bones. Apart from the Hermit Walker whose belly was resting on a raised reinforced concrete bed so no duress was placed on its leg actuators, and the cranes directly overhead, there was little else beyond crates of ammo. That might have been because the actual construction was largely if not completely finished, but Virgil just felt like there should've been "more" in the garage of a nuclear-capable quadrupedal mecha apart from retractable catwalks and a dedicated crane stopping the Hermit Walker's "head" from lolling forward.

"Snake, I'm in," Emerald hummed, Virgil panning his Nanovision around the warehouse until his HUD showed him a green triangle nestled in a dark corner.

"Stay dark for thirty seconds. I'm going to case the room. After that, make your way to the catwalk."

"We going to infiltrate mission control?" Emerald asked as she eyed what looked like a cheaply-built office building hugging the back wall.

"That's the plan," Virgil nodded as he stuck to the shadows, panning his Nanovision over everyone his Infared could trace.

Unsurprisingly, the building had little to no climate control.

*HERMIT WALKER*

By the time midnight rolled around, Night Snake and Mirage had infiltrated the Hermit Walker's "mission control". In particular, the server room.

"Silver, how are things outside?" Virgil asked after swiping the keycard, Emerald slinking in like a shadow.

"No change. They're all as half-starved as they were half an hour ago."

"You'd think for something like a Metal Gear, that Rocket Man would actually feed the people protecting it," Emerald hummed as Virgil slinked inside behind her. "Snake, do you have the goober?"

"Right here," Virgil said slipping a black thumb drive with a white skull insignia out of an ammo pouch. "How does security look."

"Practically non-existent," Emerald hummed as she stared at a yellow sticky note taped to the corner of the monitor, the password listed as password.

In English…

" . . . Filyss, copy as much as you can," Virgil said tossing the same transceiver he'd used on Dr. Banner's computer to Emerald. "I'll watch the door."

*HERMIT WALKER*

"This is almost too easy."

-is what Emerald was smart enough not to say out loud as Kim's computer gave them everything they needed to put North Korea into even more of a stranglehold. Sanctioned material violations, vendors, shipping routes, illicit activities abroad; the supranational bodies' wet dream.

"Filyss, how does it look? How soon can Hermit Walker mobilize?" Virgil asked.

"Kim Jong Un is scheduled to oversee its maiden voyage in the morning."

" . . . "

" . . . "

" . . . What?"

*HERMIT WALKER*

As it turned out, the "Supreme Leader" had had a last-minute change of heart and planned to put the "Divine Iron God" through its paces and fling a nuclear trash can that morning.

This change was further substantiated by a minor discrepancy the Freelancers had discovered in regards to North Korea's nuclear silo the previous night; that one of the warheads had been "unaccounted for".

With the possibility of the United State's defense readiness condition being elevated all the way up to DEFCON 1 at the worst, DEFCON 2 at the best, the Interlopers' maiden voyage had become far more tenuous.

"Command, please advise. What the actual hell should I do?"

Being the former resident of a city that had almost been nuked off the face of the Earth once before, the threat of nuclear Armageddon hit close to home.

"Are you still in position to sabotage the Hermit Walker?" Miller asked, sounding like she'd woken herself up with a certain diuretic stimulant.

"I have several more hours before Rocket Man arrives to press the big red button in person, but…"

"Go on."

"We got too damn close to nuclear Armageddon this time around, so I just feel… I feel like that deserves an appropriate response."

"Such as?"

"I want to humiliate him. I want to humiliate him so-badly he never tries this shit again, even if he can get around sanctions. I want to wound his pride to the point that he never tries to use Metal Gear ever again."

"I assume there's a reason sabotaging it with Metallic Archaea isn't good-enough for you? A reason other than because you yourself were used as a front for North Korean spies while in foster care."

Virgil paused for a moment as that embarrassing bit of his past was poked at, but was swift to regain his composure.

"If we sabotage it as originally intended, he'll assume it happened because we caught wind of it; that we we're scared of him. If we're going to kill their Metal Gear program, we need to make it look like a freak accident."

" . . . What do you have in mind?"

*HERMIT WALKER*

North Korean DMZ
March 23, 06:50 KST

"Rocket Man is on-site. I repeat; Rocket Man is on-site," Mercury hummed from the Indie's 'observation deck', watching the armed convoy bringing in both the 'Supreme Leader' and the warhead they intended to mount on the Hermit Walker's railgun.

"Do you have eyes on the nuke?" Virgil asked.

"Affirmative. I also have eyes on the pilot."

"How will I know him when I see him?"

"He's the only one with a full stomach that doesn't have a bad haircut," Mercury snarked. "He's dressed like a palette-swapped Captain America."

"I'm surprised Rocket Man stood for that," Emerald hummed. "The haircut, I mean."

"He probably has to because he can't fit in the cockpit."

" . . . Did Talon just make a joke…?" Virgil blinked. "I am so proud~"

"Hey, remind me again why we aren't popping this guy?" Mercury asked as Kim Jong Un strode toward the massive warehouse with a swagger, a small tide of sycophants right on his heels.

"If we kill him, he becomes a martyr for communists everywhere. If the world wants him dead so-badly, they can kill him. I won't have this blow back on Foxhound or Cell," Virgil answered.

"Alright, just making sure," Mercury nodded.

He understood the logic behind it, but he was still disappointed he couldn't assassinate a famous person.

*HERMIT WALKER*

Emerald, up from her place in the nosebleed section of the rafters, adjusted the camera on her Solid Eye so everyone up on the ship and back home had a bird's eye view of what was going on.

The mindless sheep were sucking up to their "supreme" leader, as was the custom in these parts, more than one writing down every word the man said as though it were gospel. The poorly-dressed Asian with the bad haircut, of course, was lapping it all up, but also made no secret that Hermit Walker was the apple of his eye.

"Can you understand what they're saying?" Mercury asked in her ear as Rocket Man proceeded to converse with men in tattered, stained lab coats.

"No, Merc, I can't understand Korean," Emerald said rolling her eyes inside of her mask; only reason he even asked was because she'd become fluent in many languages to impress Ms. Fall. "Filyss, can you understand them?"

"Kim Jong Un is asking how-soon they can begin construction of another Metal Gear."

"Ohhhh that is it; he's getting it now," Virgil growled, already nestled in the cockpit.

It was amazing how-good of a distraction a malfunctioning construction crane was.

As soon as the camera crew had gotten into position, the most-competent North Korean that Emerald had ever seen approached the Hermit Walker, intent on climbing the handholds built into the right foreleg since, apparently, there wasn't any room in the budget for towable stairs.

Which then raised the question; what were all the retractable catwalks for…?

Before "Captain Korea" or whatever the propaganda machine was calling him could begin mounting his giant nuclear-capable steed however, the enormous mechanical left foreleg began stamping incessantly like someone with an itch on the underside of their foot. Everyone locking up for several seconds as a large dent was made in the floor, when the stomping stopped the Hermit Walker's spherical head began to twitch and convulse, a jittery sound emitting from the speakers as its cycloptic eye-light shone a baleful red.

"Huh. The boss must be really committing to the bit," Mercury hummed as the 'malfunctioning' semi-autonomous Metal Gear gave one final stomp with its right foreleg, the 'Supreme Leader' spattered with human giblets as the Hermit Walker lifted its belly from the ground and stomped forward, snapping the head-chains as the machine belted out the Soviet national anthem from its propaganda speakers.

*HERMIT WALKER*

The main thoroughfare between the KDMZ and the North Korean capital, the Pyongyang-Kaesong Motorway, was a 110-mile-long stretch of controlled-access highway. Though the distance to Seoul in South Korea was present on signs, it was not possible to cross the border. There were multiple paved lanes and several tunnels, tourists having reported the presence of very light traffic, multiple checkpoints, and tank traps.

None of this of course was actually an obstacle for the Metal Gear which history would forevermore remember as "Hermit Walker".

Now, one would think that North Korea would've shot down a runaway mecha; doubly-so because it would've taken around two hours to make the trip to the capital. Yet, the Supreme Leader, unreasonable as always, wanted it to be retrieved intact, not even taking a moment to mourn the loss of his chosen pilot.

According to Emerald's recon from the nosebleed section, the man had been more-worried about the red spatters on his clothing.

So it went without saying that Virgil's egress to the North Korean capital astride a cheaply-built quadrupedal nuclear-capable tank remained largely interrupted. Had he actually had to worry about traffic, the trip would've taken much longer; instead, he worried about how-much he'd be screwing over the Russians by playing old propaganda tunes.

He did of course absolve himself of the majority of his guilt by reminding himself that Russia was one of the many countries that had sold Metal Gear-compatible components to the hermit kingdom.

Also, the thing had zero shock absorption and the seat was uncomfortable as hell, so there was plenty of non-racially-motivated hate to go around.

"Heh. The thing must've been made in China."

-was one of many snarky comments that Mercury made.

*HERMIT WALKER*

Pyongyang
March 23, 08:49KST

With an average per-capita income of just 1,000 USD annually, North Korea was dirt poor. This made things like bicycles, motorcycles, and especially cars a complete rarity. A disparity not helped by the fact that the roads in the capital were built so large and wide in an attempted show of prosperity and power.

Yet regardless of this fact, North Korea still employed live traffic conductors; around 300 at current estimates. Traffic conductors who had to carry on like their intersections weren't perpetually abandoned by waving imaginary cars this way and that for hours on end.

One such traffic conductor, tall and beautiful by North Korean standards, stood at her vigil with naught but the howl of the wind through the nearby buildings to keep her company, the nearest person so-distant you couldn't even see the whites of their squinted eyes.

Well, there were also her thoughts to entertain her, but with the impending threat of termination upon the eve of her twenty-sixth birthday looming, even thoughts of the future were of little comfort.

Before her thoughts could once again spiral to a draft into the Supreme Leader's "Pleasure Squad", the asphalt shuddered beneath her feet.

For a moment she thought it was just her imagination playing tricks on her, as both of the cars that normally passed her vigil by had already come and gone that work day. But then the street shuddered again, followed by a mechanical sound that was not a part of her usual backdrop.

Turning on her heels, the traffic conductor felt her eyes go wide as she beheld an enormous mechanical monstrosity with a spherical head stomping toward her on four limbs, its heavy footfalls tearing enormous gouges in the eight-lane road she presided over, a foreign national anthem playing from propaganda speakers.

Of course, all those feelings were swept aside by the very fact that this great mechanical beast in state colors was stomping right toward her!

The logical part of her mind told her that with how-high its belly was from the ground, and how-far-apart its feet were from its fellows, that she was too small to fall prey to its press-like footfalls.

The more primal however, geared towards the fear of quadrupedal shapes more-powerful than one's own self, made her legs lock up in sheer terror as the thing loomed over her, the sound of crushing asphalt and Russian music filling her ears as the great shadow fell upon her.

*HERMIT WALKER*

Virgil's rampage astride the Hermit Walker, were anyone to find out about his role in it, could be easily considered as a politically-motivated hate crime due to the targeted nature of his assault.

On the inverse, everything about that mission was politically-motivated, so the scales balanced out.

After navigating countless kilometers of empty paved road to really sell the idea of a "malfunctioning" Metal Gear, his first target was one of the most-iconic landmarks in the capital according to the locals; the Mansudae Hill Grand Monument.

The complex had 229 figures in all, commemorating the history of the "revolutionary struggle of the Korean people", especially the leaders, but the central part of the monument consisted of two 22-meter-tall bronze statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Since it was forbidden to photograph them from the rear, Virgil bowled the both of them over so their backs were facing the sky as the ultimate insult.

Next was the Worker's Party Foundation Monument, three massive concrete arms holding aloft enormous tools of the North Korean ideology; the hammer, the sickle, and the calligraphy brush. The statues were 50 meters high to symbolize the 50-year anniversary of the founding of the Workers' Party of Korea, the belt surrounding the monument featuring North Korean propaganda.

Unlike the earlier statues, the WPFM was too-big to just bowl over wholesale, so Virgil had to settle for a strafing run with the Hermit Walker's point-defense weapons; miniguns, mine launchers, and flamethrowers.

His final target was the Ryugyong Hotel. Though it stood prominently over the Pyongyang skyline and cost around 750,000,000 USD to build, the 329-meter-tall structure had never admitted a single guest.

The first bricks had been laid in 1987, and the structure had reached its full height only 5 years later, but progress had been perpetually stalled in part due to the collapse of the Soviet Union around a year prior. Without the coffers of their richest ally to support them, North Korea didn't have the capital to complete such an ambitious project.

The Ryugyong Hotel had become such an embarrassment that North Korea began manipulating photographs to remove it from the North Korean skyline to deny it ever existed; a bit of a problem considering it was the tallest structure for miles around, if not the entire country.

In another time and place, in 2018, giant LED display screens would be affixed to the most-prominent side and be used to show bits and pieces of Party propaganda.

That eventual ambition would never pass in this timeline however, as Virgil drove the Hermit Walker through the vacant hotel lobby like he were the Kool-Aid Man, deploying its point-defense missile array on everything around it. And not only did he choose that moment to unleash his "Spore Warfare" protocol at full blast to render the Metal Gear irrecoverable, but the Metallic Archaea would go on to spread through the Ryugyong Hotel's foundation like termites, leading to the eventual collapse of the completely-vacant structure.

With no tangible proof of outside human involvement, the international community would be "begrudgingly" forced to rule the entire incident as an unfortunate malfunction of a weapon too-complicated for North Korea's manufacturing base to produce on its own; no matter how-big the tantrum Kim Jong Un threw.

And hey, at least North Korea wouldn't have to doctor photos anymore~

Not that the money saved would go to anything meaningful…

As for why Virgil's rampage went on unimpeded… Not only was Kim Jong Un dead set on retrieving the "malfunctioning" nuclear-capable quadrupedal tank, but even if he did want to shoot it down, not only did he not have anything in his arsenal powerful and precise-enough to shoot it down without leveling half the capital, but the soldiers who operated such equipment were indisposed for one of two reasons. They were either A) on leave with their families to fill their bellies since there was no room in the military budget for food, or B) their hands were all busted up from propaganda-centric, brick-related injuries.

Or at least that's what Mercury speculated, endlessly clowning on North Korea as Virgil climbed more than 100 flights of stairs for evac at the unfurnished penthouse suite.

*HERMIT WALKER*

"Stairs… Too… Many… Stairs!" Virgil gasped as he flopped bonelessly to the Bio-Ship floor the moment he was free and clear of North Korean soil.

"So… Think you did enough damage?" Mercury snarked as Emerald and Laura helped him into a seat, Indie manifesting a passable cot for him to lay upon.

"That depends… Did my masquerade work?"

"Radio chatter appears to indicate in the affirmative," Filyss chimed in.

"What about the Freelancers?"

"Oh, they fled the country well before you went on your rampage."

"Still worried about the terrorism."

"Technically, I'd call it a false flag operation," Miller hummed.

"Against what? Faulty AI?" Virgil deadpanned.

"What's important is we can tighten sanctions against North Korea," Miller stated.

"Not that it actually does anything, but, you know," Mercury shrugged dismissively.

"God, I am so fucked in the head if I don't even care about this," he said staring out the window at the columns of smoke dotting the capital.

"If you were really fucked in the head, I don't think you'd care," Emerald hummed supportively.

"So… Mission accomplished?" Laura blinked, unused to just… 'minding the car' as it were.

"Yes, I think your work is done here," Miller stated. "Take your time coming back, but don't stay in North Korea for too long, you hear?"

"Yeah… Yeah, I hear you," Virgil nodded.

"Hey, before we flee the country, can we take a little detour?" Mercury asked hopefully.

"I temper my sense of decency in expectation."

"Oh, please. I can get tail back home for free," Mercury smirked.

"Ew," Emerald said crinkling her nose.

*HERMIT WALKER*

"Guys… Why am I in a circling pattern around one of Kim's private compounds?" Virgil asked from the captain's chair, the Bio-Ship looming over an enormous cube-shaped building done up in communist colors.

"Okay, we'll tell you… But you can't get mad at us," Mercury insisted.

" . . . I'll give you a soft 'maybe' given my recent foray into politically-motivated terrorism," he sighed laconically, one cheek resting on his raised fist.

"Okay, so, Cinder gave us an assignment to pinch some valuables off the Supreme Leader a while back, and…"

" . . . Do I need to get up from this chair?"

"Um, no, we've already hashed out all the details ourselves," Emerald said holding up a sheaf of documents; floor plans, camera coverage, guard rotation, the works. Everything a gang of ne'er-do-wells in a heist movie would need for a successful operation.

"And you're confident you can get in and out without getting caught?"

"Biggest issue was the getaway, and now that we have a magic invisible spaceship…" Emerald asked hopefully, looking up through her eyelashes at him in an attempt to look earnest and endearing.

"And I don't need to get up from this chair?" Virgil repeated.

" . . . No. No, you do not," Cinder's learned youngsters answered after a shared look.

" . . . I'm too tired to say 'no', and I already spent the better part of a day clowning on North Korea. What's a couple more misdemeanors on my conscience?"

"YES! Oh, Vee, you're the best!" Emerald swooned as she rushed up to hug him before kissing him full-on the mouth for several long moments.

"Just for the record, I ain't kissing you too," Mercury chimed in.

*Pop* "Noted," Virgil answered, a dusting of pink on his cheeks as Emerald skipped away. "Now, go on, get out of here you crazy kids. Only take what you can carry, I ain't hauling anything as big as a car, and you only have the one trip, so make it count."

"Aye, sir!" the two stood at attention and saluted.

" . . . You're a good friend, Vee," Laura said putting a hand on his shoulder after a moment, failing to read the room in its entirety.

"How is it that I'm the most socially well-adjusted person here?" Virgil groaned, Indie making his chair recline and raise up his feet as he collapsed even more-bonelessly into it than he had been before.

*HERMIT WALKER*

Less than an hour later and the Indie pulled Emerald and Mercury back into the hold, each one shouldering a backpack jostling with loot.

"Not that I want to make this a habit, but what's the haul?" Virgil found himself asking as they began their climb into sub-orbit.

"You wanna Swiss watch?" Mercury asked holding a display case filled with expensive Swiss timepieces, the whole array of six columns by three rows worth more than some houses 'if not all of North Korea' as the silver-haired teen would later quip.

" . . . Em, what about you?" Virgil asked, red eyes meeting red.

"I um… I grabbed something nice for Ms. Fall," the greenette blushed, seemingly intent on keeping the object in question secret. "O-Oh, but I didn't forget about you," she said digging into her pack. "It's in here somewhere…"

"Em."

"Yes?" she squeaked as she met his eyes.

"Friends don't owe friends," Virgil said smiling gently at her. "I was happy to help."

Emerald for her part blushed slowly up to her ears, a small smile pulling at her own face.

"I wonder what that fetish is called."

*Thump*

"Oof!" Mercury grunted as the greenette jabbed her elbow into his ribs.

"Well, I hope you had a good run, 'cause I ain't coming back to this shithole without a damn good reason," Virgil said as the Indie leveled out.

"I mean… since we aren't gonna double back, you wanna steal a supercar from an impound lot?" he asked hopefully. "I know this great place in Dubai~" he continued with his best 'winning smile'.

" . . . No."

"Ah well. There's always next time," Mercury relented at Virgil's flat refusal.

"I am… so sorry about him," Emerald apologized with pressed hands.

"I don't really mind," Virgil sighed. "I'd just rather not press my luck any more than I already have; especially in literal broad daylight," he said looking out at the illuminated horizon of the Middle East.

"Soooo there is a chance we can raid the impound lot later~" Mercury grinned.

"I'm not going to dignify that with a response at present," Virgil deadpanned, turning his attention back to the wild blue yonder.

*AN*

The official name for Virgil's spec ops unit, "The Interlopers", came about on the Discord, but I don't completely remember with whom and on which string, so if you wanna step forward and I can corroborate, I'll be sure to properly thank you in the next chapter.

Now, technically Young Justice and the DCAU in general use North/South Rhelasia as allegories for North and South Korea, quite flagrantly at times, but given I've mixed Metal Gear into the Lore of this universe, and "The Divine Leader" or whatever he's calling himself this week is a prolific nuclear taunter, doing something like this was too good to pass up. Especially since I've gotten more mature in my writings.

Full disclosure, I was inspired by 2014's The Interview produced & directed by Seth Rogan & Evan Goldberg.

Now, onto the heavy stuff; does writing something like this make me racist?

Possibly. Possibly.

Does me being potentially-racist against North Koreans bother me?

Not at all, no.

And I mean, come on, who hasn't clowned on North Korea at least once in their lives?

*P.S.*

The reason I didn't have Virgil play "Gangnam Style" by Psy on loop during his rampage/false flag op, like I'd originally intended, is because A) that song came out on July 15, 2012, and B) that would've implicated South Korea in the failure of North Korea's Metal Gear program.

And believe me, I was tempted~ But if Virgil's going to delve into political terrorism under a false flag, he isn't going to implicate one of America's allies. He isn't above giving Uncle Sam a black eye if the situation calls for it, but he'd never commit outright Treason.

Not against the nation, at least.

Anywho, if you want to get sneak previews of this story for two weeks in-advance (of the completion of Final Proofing) or you just want to help support some story-related art, you know where to find me on P*treon. So until next time, just remember...

"Communism is the very definition of failure."