//------------------------------//
// Chapter 18 The last battle 
// Story: PMC's, War Economies, and Fillies? I didn't sign up for this! 
// by Bronycommander 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 18: The last battle


Onboard Haven, Otacon welcomed them. “Good job. You’ve made it on board. Welcome to Haven.”

There wasn’t time for a tour, as Haven troopers deployed in large numbers, meticulously searching every nook and cranny of the ship for intruders, never breaking formation nor letting down their guard. Edward and Snake were surrounded.

“They’re well organized, I’ll give them that.” The PMC soldier took a Sniper on the top catwalk out with his Mosin-Nagant, while Snake took care of two FROGS that had jumped down on their level, not noticing the intruders before it was too late.

While disliking them greatly, Edward was still horrified that the Haven Troopers were fully carbonized within seconds after death. Hope that doesn’t happen to Noi. That and other worries about her couldn’t get out of his head.

Still, he stayed focused to finish the mission.

Moving to the far side of the ship, taking out more enemy soldiers without being noticed, they came to a watertight door with a circular handle, guarded by two Gekko.

They got destroyed by the fire of the Missouri however, allowing the team to procced.

Edward covered Snake as he used the handle to open the door.

After getting inside, they used a lift that leaded to the Command center of the ship.

It contained a holographic globe at the center of a large amphitheater-esque area, with rows of desks with computer monitors.

“Meryl!” Snake exclaimed as she was lying on the ground, unconscious. Edward checked her pulse. “Only knocked out.”

Out of nowhere, several Haven Troopers surrounded them.

A Stun grenade was thrown, but Snake and his comrade evaded it and fired at the enemy, Snake his M4, Edward his Mk.17.

Having fought them before, the young man had enough experience to deal with them.

Moving from cover to cover, switching to his Makarov when his rifle had to be reloaded, and even blind firing to defeat them.

Despite their large numbers, The FROGS got all killed by Edward and Snake.

Two Haven troopers, one to the left, one to the right of Edward were lying on the ground, still alive trying to shoot him with their sidearms. He killed the soldier on the left with his GSR, holstered it and drew his father’s sidearm to kill the other.

“Never had such a great battle before.”

“Snake…Edward…” Meryl awoke and tried to get up, but she grunted in pain. The woman got slowly up if she was held by strings.

Meryl pointed her Desert Eagle at Snake. Suddenly, Snake dodged a yellow whisping orb.

Someone laughed. “I know your wavelength. It brings back memories.” Edward looked around to see where the voice came from but couldn’t see anything.

“It can’t be,” Snake muttered.

Meryl then pointed it to her head as if she wanted to commit suicide. “Meryl, don’t!” Snake exclaimed as someone shot the strings off.

It was Johnny. Meryl got up. “Watch out!” Edward raised his rifle as two deceased FROGS got up, a blue glow was around them. They fired their P90s on a zombie-like manner at Meryl and Akiba who dived to the ground as Snake and Edward took them out.

“It has been a long time, Snake.” It was Screaming Mantis.

“You…Psycho Mantis?” Snake couldn’t believe it as he and Edward saw a ghostly image of Psycho Mantis behind Screaming Mantis.

“No, that was another me. Can you hear the screams? They cry for battle! Let me hear you scream! Howl! Roar! From the very depths of your soul!” Her voice was a mix between hers and Psycho Mantis.

She used two yellow orbs on Johnny and Meryl. The woman got up, but it had no effect on Akiba as he had no Nanomachines inside his body.

“What’s this…?” Mantis tried it again, to no avail. “I see.” She flew above the holographic globe and used blue orbs on the dead Haven Troops.

Edward noticed that the blue orbs came from a doll that looked like a man in a black raincoat, the orbs that affected the living, came from a doll that looked like Psycho Mantis.

That has to be her weakness! If we can shoot off the dolls, we maybe can use them against her! Edward tapped Snake on the shoulder and pointed at the dolls. He nodded and suppressed his nanomachines, so that Mantis couldn’t control him, Edward did the same.

Screaming Mantis laughed as the fight started.

Snake disabled Meryl’s nanomachines while Edward took care of the “Zombies.”

Then he aimed at the doll that affected the dead. With the Laser Sight and the Red Dot Sight, plus the grip, He could easily hit the doll from a distance.

“Sorrow! My doll!” Mantis yelled as her doll was hit but still attached.

Snake managed to get some hit on the Mantis doll. “My doll! Mantis!”

In response, Screaming Mantis used Meryl to attack Snake. Mantis laughed, taunting at him but he disabled the Nanomachines of Meryl again.

Distracted by that, Edward managed to shoot the doll that she called “Sorrow” off. He dived after it as the leader of Beauty and the Beast Corps teleported after it.

Still he could collect the doll. To counter her loss, Screaming Mantis ordered Meryl to commit suicide, but like in 2005, Snake prevented it.

“Snake!” Mantis teleported to him for a melee attack but rolled out of the way and shot at the puppet.

It fell off and he grabbed it.

“Time to give her a taste of her own medicine!” Edward exclaimed as Snake used the doll against her.

Despite her bond with Psycho Mantis and her strong mental force, she was unable to suppress her nanomachines, and Snake ironically destroyed her using the Psycho Mantis doll.

She fell to the ground stopping inches before the ground in midair. Her power suit flew forcefully away from her body, her arm blades narrowly missing Snake's and Edward’s heads and sticking into the core of the command center.

After the whirl storm was over, Edward got out of his protecting pose and took a closer look. The beauty form of Mantis was showered with white flower petals as she heard laughing, white snow as she hears crying and howling, and finally, white feathers rained down on her while hearing bird caws when she leaped up.

Mantis had blue eyes and black hair. The woman panicked.

“I hear them in my head…The screams!” She exclaimed, taking a step forward. “Make them stop! I don’t want to hear them anymore! I’m scared…” She crawled backwards against the wall and held her head in pain.

“I’m so scared. My head hurts – it hurts! I’m sorry! Have mercy!” She got up and banged at thin air as if she banged against a door. “Let me out of here! I can’t breathe!” The woman collapsed on the ground.

Then she got up. “Now…Get out of my body. Forgive me. Set me free!” Screaming Beauty exclaimed.

While fighting her with non-lethal means, screams echoed through the room. Glass shattered as she passed it, Snake also collected an action figure of her.

The screams almost drove Edward crazy. But good for him, Mantis elegantly assumed the fetal position. ”Okay, now...What?” He was surprised as Screaming Mantis's armor reformed itself and began floating before them.

“Excellent, Snake!” A voice praised him. Above the armor materialized the disembodied spirit of Psycho Mantis.

“Psycho Mantis?” Unable to believe his eyes, Snake stepped back in shock, Edward did the same.

“You don’t seem to believe your own eyes. Very well…I’ll show you the power of the world’s greatest mind reader and psychokineticist! I’ll start by reading your personality. Or rather, your past. “That’s right… This is no trick. It’s true power.” He raised his arms.

“…What?! Where is your data… Where is it saved?! There’s no memory card!” He realized that this couldn’t work.

“Damn! Your skills have improved. Or rather, your hardware…How about this, then?!” Mantis exclaimed. “Witness my psychokinesis…Put your controller on the floor. Put it down as flat as you can…That’s good. Now I will move your controller by the power of my will alone!”

While Psycho Mantis showed his power, Edward thought not impressed, He’s not realizing that we’re on PC and there is no way to make the mouse vibrate, doesn’t he?

“What?! No vibration either?!”

As his body began spasming uncontrollably and the armored pieces of Screaming Mantis fired off in multiple directions as the spirit of the once great psychokineticist disappeared, defeated for good, Naomi’s voice echoed, “No more messages for you.”

“The spirit of the warrior will always be with you.” The two men looked up to the upper balcony of Outer Haven, where a ghostly man in a black raincoat, identical to the sorrow doll and another ghostly men in the uniform of an Arctic warfare trooper of the Genome Soldiers, smiling down on them.

Drebin radioed in. “So, you bested the screaming Beast. That doll you just picked up lets you manipulate anybody who’s got nanomachines in ‘em.

Sounds like something the devil’s cooked up, if you ask me.

Mantis came from South America. She was born and raised in a county wracked by never-ending civil wars. Her village was attacked by enemy forces and burned to the ground. That was when she was still a little girl.

Hunted by enemy death squads, she was separated from her family. She barely managed to escape with her life… Ended up in the basement of this one building.

It was full of corpses that had been dumped there. Almost all of them had been tortured to death.

She was petrified with fear.

And then she heard the sounds of heavy boots on the floor above her, followed by shrieking screams, the kind that would make every hair on your body stand straight up.

She had stumbled across a makeshift torture chamber. Somebody had locked the door, and she was trapped.

It was dark. It was dank. And it was full of wretched stench. She couldn’t sleep with the screams of torture victims all around her.

All she could do was sit curled up in one corner of the room, trembling.

A week passed, then ten days. She managed to keep hydrated by drinking the filthy water pooled up on the floor, but there was no food.

Being trapped in that kind of place, half-crazy from hunger, did a serious number on her mind.

Did you female mantises eat their mates? The screams went on day and night. She covered her ears but it didn’t help.

And then, she was saved…By a little black mantis, that taught her how to block out the screams, how to plug up her inner ears.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Snake asked.

“I’m saying, Snake, that when she couldn’t stand the hunger any longer , she started to feeding in the corpses…But only the male ones.

She didn’t realize who was doing it. In her mind, it was a female mantis, devouring her mates. It was like one big, twisted waking dream.

There was no mantis, of course. It was all a hallucination. Nothing more than some story spun by another person she’d created inside.

Her unstable mind was what made her so vulnerable. Later they ripped out what was left of her psyche with drugs and hypnosis, and implanted the persona of Psycho Mantis.

It wasn’t her will that controlled the BBs. It was Psycho Mantis, half-assimilated into her soul, pulling the strings. Screaming Mantis was just another puppet.

Anyway, she survived several weeks down in that hellhole and finally got back to the surface. But the screams in her head didn’t subside.

They would always be with her… Only this time, they weren’t real.

The inner earplugs didn’t work anymore. The black mantis had disappeared.

There was no place to escape. Which is why she was always screaming – to drown out the ones in her own head. But it’s over now. You freed Mantis from that dark nightmare.”

“Wait, if she was controlling the others, what about Noi?” Edward asked worried.

“Well, without Mantis, she could be more dangerous. You better be careful.”

Snake helped Meryl up as more FROGS arrived.

Snake apologized that he brought her into this, she sobbed and said that she had this time his back.

“We’ll meet again…on the other side…Go. Hurry!” she had her Desert Eagle ready.

Edward said to her, “Thank you for helping me in the Middle East. I will never forget this.”

“And I will never forget you or Noi.”

The two advanced towards the server room while Meryl held the Haven solders back.

Edward and Snake encountered Scarabs in the missile hangar, a long hallway that contained several rows of missiles, but used his last Chaff grenades to disable them, so they could get past.

In a small corridor, Snake got a seizure as several Haven Troopers armed with blade closed in.

Edward aimed and pulled the trigger, but the Mk.17 made only a clicking sound. “Damn…it!” He tried to fix it by desperately pulling the charging handle but to no avail.

“The shots…They’re not working.” Snake was in too much pain to get up.

They came closer as an armless Raiden jumped through the door. The Haven Troopers stopped.

The cyborg held his sword between his teeth, lighting flow visible through his body.

“I am lighting…The rain transformed.” The lighting killed two enemy soldiers, the rest backed up in fear as the sprinkler system went on.

Snake regained his strength and Edward fixed his rifle as Raiden electrocuted another two soldiers.

“Snake, Edward…Leave this to me. I’ll go to the server room.”

“The corridor’s full of microwaves. One of us is enough,” Snake protested.

“My body is a machine. I can take it.”

Snake replied, “Your body is a machine…But your heart is human. You’ve got a life to go back to.”

“She means nothing to me now.”

"Edward, Raiden. You still have your youth. Don’t waste it. You can start over. From here on, this is my fight.” Snake said to both of them, telling Raiden that they tore the world apart that he made Raiden’s life a living hell. That it was his duty to put an end to all of this.

“All right. I’ll make sure they don’t get through.”

“And I cover you until you reach the corridor.” Edward aimed at the Haven Troopers, ready to fire, but they did nothing to prevent the intruders from passing through. Just pointing their blades at them.

Reinforcements arrived but Raiden kept them at bay as The PMC soldier and old hero moved on.

“Wait, another Command center?” Edward looked confused around as several Haven Troopers jumped down from the upper balcony.

While Edward putted a bullet into their heads, they only flinched. “What the?”

“They’re dead.” Snake pointed out as blood ran down their heads but they were still standing, standing like Zombies.

“Snaaaake!! I’m afraid I can’t let you past here! You’re not going any further. I have been awaiting your arrival Snake. I wanna feel our blood washing away the hurt and pain I feel, the pain you inflicted, Snake. Only by washing away the pain, will I become whole again. Make me whole, Fix me!!!!!! Die!!” Broken Pony yelled as she jumped down from the balcony.

Snake and Edward nodded at each other, tranquilizer guns ready. Noi charged at Snake, the dead Troopers fired their P90 at him. He evaded it with a roll as Edward took care of the undead.

“Hold still! So I can free daddy from you!” she screamed in anger as she missed. The foal was way too fast to be hit. “Let’s play hide and seek!” She used her camo to vanish.

The two men carefully looked around. Then she deactivated her camo to do a bombing run with her wings. Snake barely avoided it, Edward was not in the radius at all. The young man could see that she thought that Snake forced him to work together and did not want to hurt him at all.

After landing, the foal fired with her P90, hitting Snake with a stray bullet into the leg. “Time to free my daddy!” She lifted her scorpion-like tail up to bring it down with considerable force.

However, Edward uses this to fire a round on her with the Mosin-Nagant. She dodged it and activated her camo. “She’s too fast!”

“The doll could help.” Snake got up and equipped the Mantis doll.

“But you aren’t a skilled Psychokinesist! You could kill her!”

“I only slow her down so you can hit her.”

“Okay!”

As once as she tried to attack again, Snake used the doll on her. “What’s happening?” Noi wondered as her could only move at slow speed. She got hit by a tranquilizer round. “Ow! Don’t hurt me!” She cried in a very scared and sad voice.

That caused Edward to tremble a little bit as she got up and retreated, while using a smoke screen and her OctoCamo.

Snake looked around as the foal charged at him from above with her wings. He dived to the ground to avoid it.

Noi accidently crashed into Edward, knocking him down. “Noi, stop this while you still can!”

“Da-daddy…” she sobbed as Snake took advantage and hit her with his Ruger. The filly jumped into the air from the hit. “Snake!” She charged at him again but was slowed down by the doll. “Stop cheating you coward!”

After she got hit by Edward again, her and Snake noticed that her attacks get slower, making the doll unnecessary.

Her charge was too slow, she got hit again. Then she tried to fly, But Snake was faster and hit her into the chest with his Ruger.

She let out a cry of pain and grabbed her helmet. “Can’t breathe! Please, no, I beg you!! Please, just no more of this! Please! Please, don’t let him hurt me! B-but I told you everything I know! Please, don’t do it! Please! Mercy!”

After removing the helmet, letting the liquid in it splash down her body, she gasped for air looking around and finding both Snake and Edward in her eyes. The helmet and other gear clattered to the floor as she took a cautionary step forward. As she did she looked at them with the saddest eyes. Her tail was cut short.

“Do you still... Love me?” She stumbled a few more feet.

"I thought you were my friends....” Tears rolled down her face, “like a father." she whispered as she grabbed her head and let out this blood curling wail.

“Please Love Me!” She screamed as she continued to walk slowly forward.

They backed up and shot at her with their tranquilizer guns. The room echoed with the sound of electrocution, followed by screams of pain, crying, insane laughter and angry shouts of Noi.

After some rounds, Noi let out a scream and ran crying into Edward’s arms. “I regret everything! Everything!” He-he t-tortured me!”

Edward responded by stroking her mane. “Shh…it’s over, shh…”

Snake holstered his weapon as Drebin reported in.

“I’m surprised that you managed not to destroy the sweet innocent pony she once was.”

“Drebin. What is it?” Snake asked him

“You wanna know how a sweet innocent pony got turned into a war machine that cause more havoc on the first day of operation than all the BBs put together.

But how you may ask yourself, well, I'll tell you.

After being kidnapped by Liquid, that sweet girl was locked into a cell, petrified with fear with he would do with her. All she could do was sobbing and calling out for her family and you, Edward.

Then Liquid decides to interrogate her, using the same device Ocelot used on you Snake 9 years ago. Your friend Naomi tried to stop it, but there was nothing she could do.

10000 watts are enough to incapacitate a grown man. He left it on for 10 seconds and listened to her screams. Ocelot’s mind tried to take over and stop him as it reminded him of someone else, but, it only made it worse.

In the struggle, the interrogator set the machine on Maximum.

It killed her, but luckily, Naomi could revive her, but the damage was already done.

Having a near-death experience, was the first step of damaging her mind.

Naomi did what she could to make Noi feel better, but she got relocated to the lab in South America.

Finally alone and realizing that she had no knowledge about your mission, he tortured her just for his amusement for hours.

After being in pain and screaming in agony for hours, she curled up in one corner of the cell crying.

But then, her mind snapped, or rather broke, realizing who brought her into this.

You, Snake. You helped creating this beast.”

“Do you blame for this?” He sounded offended.

“No, but you unintentionally created Broken Pony.

But still, the fear of never seeing her family and friends again, the sadness of missing them, the anger towards you and the joy of seeing you suffer made the perfect combination of all the other BBs. Her broken mind no longer able to process her emotions. But it’s over now. You both freed that sweet child from her prison.”

A WA 2000, an expensive, yet rare and valuable weapon. A collector item. This one was specially modified for her to use and can fire explosive rounds.”

“The last of the Beasts.”

“You got it, pal. Well, I’m done playing storyteller for a while. Now get going. GW is waiting. And this time, you get to make up for the ending.”

After Drebin was done, Snake saw how Noi was still crying, her head buried into Edward’s chest. “I’m deeply sorry that I brought you into this.” Snake felt guilty.

“Don’t be, without you, I had been already dead.” He rocked the foal.

There was the sound of boots. “Damn, more of them! Go, I hold them off! It was an honor to fight with you.”

Snake just nodded and went for the server room as Edward putted Noi into cover behind a wall.

He fired with his Mk.17 at the Haven Troopers. After running out, he switched to his GSR, fighting the countless waves of FROGS, Noi covered her ears.

The young soldier suffered countless gunshot wounds but he kept fighting to buy time for Snake and to protect Noi. After running out, he even used the WA2000 and the explosive rounds were very effective.

But eventually, the pain became too much and he collapsed.

As the Haven Troopers were closing in to deal their finishing strike, Edward clenched Noi protectively, crawling backwards against the wall. She had her eyes closed, not wanting to die. Time stopped and she heard her heartbeat at the imminent death, her life flashed before her eyes.

Edward closed his eyes too, ready to die, to protect her.

But death never came as they heard screams.

Slowly opening their eyes, they saw that the FROGS went into hysterics as their nanomachines shut down, meaning that Snake was successful.

But it also affected Noi. She screamed in pain, her voice was a mix of fear, anger, laughter and crying. “Make it stop!” She held her head in pain, Edward hugged her tightly.

“I’m here for you.” She writhed in pain before she fell lifeless to the ground. No! Don’t die on me! Despite the pain, Edward managed to get a hand to check her pulse. Nothing. His heart skipped a beat. No… He thought, in shock, seeing that it had killed her. “Noi…” Then, a weak, yet stead pulse. He let out a quiet yet relieved sigh as fortunately, the filly breakdown was non-fatal, despite her young mind not able to take it, having passed out.

Before Edward passed out from exhausting, he grinned. “You did it. You bloody did it, Snake.”





Despite successful in destroying GW, Liquid was still not defeated. Far from it.

On the top of Outer Haven, he and Snake still had a score to settle.

During their last fight, Ocelot's personality slowly began to resurface as the fight progressed, using his signature hand gestures and moves that he remembered from his fight with Big Boss back in 1964. But eventually, despite all this, he got defeated by Snake.

Believing that he succeeded in his plans, Ocelot had some last words.

“This is only the beginning, Snake. America will descend into chaos…It’ll be the Wild West all over again. No law, no order. Fire will spread across the world. The people will fight…And through battle they will know the fullness of life.

At last…Our father’s will…His Outer Heaven…is complete. Somewhere out there…I know he’s laughing.” Liquid chuckled.

“We are beasts created by man. Unless the light is put out…The shadows cannot be erased. So long as there is light…Erasing shadows will do no good.” He gasped as Liquid persona was now fully gone.

“I am Liquid's doppelganger. And you are his. Just like your father. Please, tell Edward I’m sorry for what happened to Noi. I tried to stop it but Liquid was stronger. And that he is just like you and his father…pretty good.” He made his signature hand gesture as the same phrase echoed from his encounter with Big Boss in 1964 and Solid Snake in 2005 before dying.

While Snake was glad it was finally over, he wondered if they did the right thing. What did they lose? What did they save?