Hamtero does not belong to me. All characters belong to Hideo Kojima. This takes place just before MGS2. I also took a very silly element from Metal Gear 2.

Suriphobia

By Marie Nomad

It had been a mission of his since he had first met Snake in Shadow Moses. Well, his primary mission was to rid the world of Metal Gear but this mission was important too. Snake had moved in with him to start the group Philanthropy. It was like the classic manga setup of a geek rooming with a super soldier mercenary. They had actually bonded over chaos and destruction. Otacon decided to try to get them to bond over something less dangerous; anime.

Otacon's quest to find some nice introductory anime to get Snake interested had been complicated. He couldn't show him anything that involved giant robots since Snake fought those in real life. A bunch of other animes had genetic engineering and cloning involved so he couldn't use those. Finally, he found something that Snake would either love or make him roll his eyes. He put the dvd in the player. "Oh, Snake…"

"Yeah?" Snake strolled in wearing nothing but his boxers.

"Put on some clothes!" Otacon ordered as he tosses a robe over to him. It was something that unnerved him. Snake wasn't messy, he was very tidy but he tends to lounge around in nothing but boxers.

"Yes, Mom." Snake rolled his eyes as he put on the robe. "Meryl never complained about me dressed like that."

"Meryl's a woman. Anyway, I have a surprise for you. I found this interesting anime that you might like."

"All right. You know that I might never go for these cartoons."

"They are not cartoons, they are anime. Never mind. Just bear with me." Otacon said as he didn't want to repeat the same old 'cartoons are not anime' argument. Those are just as redundant as 'smoking is deadly' argument.

"Fine, fine, let's go."

Otacon turned on the player. He grinned as the Hamtero theme song played. All of the hamsters were walking around and singing and he had to grin. It was one of the lighter animes that just seemed to distract him from the real world. He paused to look at Snake's face and there was a look of surprise and then fear.

"NO!" In a blink of an eye, Snake got out a hidden pistol and fired at the TV set. As always, his aim was deadly.

Otacon scrambled out of the way and saw that Snake's pupils had dilated. He was in a middle of his post traumatic stress disorder hallucination again. "Snake!!!"

"Huh?" Snake blinked to see that he had shot the TV. "Oops."

"Do you realize how expensive it is to keep replacing the TVs?!" Otacon yelled. "What is so threatening about a bunch of hamsters?!"

"Well…" Snake looked away almost embarrassed. "I had a bad history with hamsters."

"What kind of history?"

"…"

"They cannot be that bad! They are hamsters, cute little hamsters!"

"Not the hamsters I saw." Snake said seriously and then he saw Otacon staring at him. He could tell that he would have to tell this story, this story that had scared his mind. "Don't tell anyone else about this but it started in Zanzibarland…"

Flashback…

Snake crawled through the duct. He had to get that cartridge for the mission. It had been hard but he had to do it. Finally, he reached the other side to find hordes of hamsters all around the cartridge. Their little beady eyes were red and they were hissed at him.

Yozef, the animal expert, called him over the radio. "Snake! I think they are Poisonous Zanzibar hamsters genetically engineered from rat and hamster DNA."

Snake held his head. Genetic engineering had really made some vicious monsters.

"They're favorite food is cheese, so you could lure them out if you have cheese."

The hamsters ran at him hissing and jumping at him. Snake flung the rations containing cheese at them and they attacked it. They tore apart the rations with sharp teeth and Snake grabbed his gun and fired at them. The little monsters were fast but he managed to hit them. After all of the hamsters were shot down, he took a cigarette and smoked it. Then, out of nowhere, a hamster screeched and came down on his foot. "AAAHHH!!!" Snake shook his foot and as soon as the hamster landed on the floor, he shot the little hamster to little ham bits.

End flashback

Otacon blinked and then started giggling. Finally, he lost the battle and he fell down laughing. Snake lowered his head. It was a secret that he would rather not let anyone know.

"Come on, Snake, everyone has a weakness, a fear, yours just happen to be surphobia. Fear of mice or in your case, hamsters. That's nothing to be embarrassed about. I peed my pants when I first met you."

"You were facing a cyborg ninja. That would scare the wits out of any civilian." Snake confessed.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."

"Not even Mei Ling and Meryl?"

"Yes, not even Mei Ling and Meryl. We're friends aren't we?"

"Yeah, we are."

"And I promise, no more hamster animes. Just one thing."

"Yeah."

"No more shooting the TV."

"Got it."

The End