Disclaimer: I don't own Metal Gear Solid (or anything Metal Gear) for that matter, and I don't own Max Steel. My profit from this is an exact figure of zero dollars.
Oh come on, how could I resist this crossover, eh?
Timeline/spoilers- Post-Metal Gear Solid 2, Max Steel season 3.
For the non-MGS2 players, yes, Vamp's... preferences are canon. Hey, I can't keep a straight face writing, him either.
Metal Gears, Nanoprobes, and a Word from our Sponsor
Chapter I
by Alhazred
Dark rooms and click-click sounds would ordinarily be found in haunted houses at obscure locations in the country, not in apartments on the middle of Manhattan. This was an exception. This particular room also included a hefty computer rig and a man sitting at it, his face bathed in color as the monitor provided the only source of light.
He'd been sitting there for hours, maybe a day, he wasn't sure. It was so hard to keep track of things when something needed to be found or hacked. Or as he preferred to say, "h4x0red."
At this particular time, the door swung open, bathing the room in orange from the kitchen light. Standing in the doorframe was a larger and older man. If the bathrobe, stubble and cup of coffee were any indication, he had just woken up.
"Otacon, do you ever sleep?"
No answer.
"Otacon."
"Hmm? Oh, hi, Snake!"
He hadn't even looked up. The sounds of keystrokes filled the ensuing silence.
"Otacon. Sleep?"
"Oh, g'night Snake, I'm gonna stay up a little longer and search..."
Taking a very large gulp of coffee, Solid Snake regarded his compatriot with a blank stare and shambled off to take a shower.
And Otacon was still glued to his screen when he emerged from the bathroom, decked out in civilian clothes that would look nowhere near as out of place on any other person. "Okay Otacon, before you pass out on the floor, have you actually found anything?"
"Of course!" Otacon kicked his chair backward, giving Snake enough room to see the information displayed. "No Roy Campbell or Nastasha Romanenko, but these," the scientist pointed a finger at several blue dots on the world map display, "are definitely Ocelot-slash-Liquid being sloppy and letting that RAY be seen on the coasts. And down here, just before the tracker died, he surfaced and blew away an island in the Florida Keys."
"Must be where he thought the Patriots were hiding out. So what's the red one? The rabbit-hole into Wonderland?" Snake asked.
"Close," Otacon leaned forward and hit a few keys, bringing up several photographs of a person they both knew all too well. "That's Vamp."
Snake deadpanned. "Vamp."
"Vamp," Otacon said. "In the most unexpected place for vampires and other like freak shows..."
"And he's all we have?" Snake sighed. "With no indication that he's even a lead to what we're looking for, in fact, he probably has none..."
Otacon pushed his glasses up. "What are we looking for, anyway? Olga's child or the Patriots?"
"Preferably both, but Olga's kid works fine. It'd be pretty stupid if Raiden took a header into the path of a bus before we could find him," Snake answered.
"Guess it would be. Well, I haven't got anything else, I guess we're headed for California."
"So what's he doing, anyway," Snake wondered, leaning closer to get a better look at the images. All of them were from newspapers, and Vamp was either wearing protective gear or posing with two other people that looked just as strange as he did. One of the pictures even featured him getting air on a skateboard ramp.
"Are you ready for this?" Otacon turned and looked Snake in the eyes. "He's part of an extreme sports team in Del Oro."
Snake looked at him in a rather odd manner. "He's what?"
"Yeah, my thoughts exactly."
---
A rev here and some airtime there repeated and improved upon several times, and Kat was finished. The crowd went wild for her as usual, and it had to be a good sign that even Josh was clapping off to the side. The fact that she's completed the motocross course in less than two minutes was definitely a good thing.
"Nice Kat, very nice," Berto half-bowed.
Josh chuckled. "Yeah, I'm glad someone on this team can do that."
"Still jealous, eh McGrath?"
"Always," Josh rolled his eyes.
"Team Freakz is starting," Berto pointed back over to the starting point.
In the nearby stands, two men stood with their hands on the rails, tips of something electronic poking out from under their sleeves with a wire running up to a small speaker in their ears.
"'Team Freakz,'" Snake repeated, "Sounds about right. And I'd say the mini-directional mics are working, Otacon."
"Looks like Vamp is up," he heard Berto go on.
"Lucky you," Otacon said, "Vamp and his friends haven't said a word."
"Check the other teams," Snake advised, "everyone's raving about how Vamp and his buddies got to second place in the rankings so fast."
"Except the guys in first place, I'd imagine," Otacon chuckled.
Snake's wrist pivoted slightly. "You're right."
"Uh, Kat," Berto stared at the course, "I think he's gonna beat you."
Kat's mouth was hanging open. Vamp was tearing up the time-attack; at the halfway mark he'd been at least thirty seconds ahead of her time at that point. The massive gap had lessened, but the outcome still seemed unchangeable. And Kat had just set a record.
Before Josh could comment on this, he lost his footing and stumbled back, clutching at his head like he had a migraine. Kat noticed first and caught him as he fell over, easing his drop.
Otacon yelped and, having the sense of mind to make it look like he was swatting a mesquito away, tore the little speaker from his ear. Snake had a similar reaction, but having a higher pain threshold then his brainy partner, merely winced and held a hand to his ear.
"Did you get that too?" Otacon whispered in a rather rushed tone, restraining himself from being loud.
"Oh yeah," Snake gritted his teeth. "You sure you got the bugs worked out, Otacon?"
"Positive," was the answer. Otacon wouldn't settle for anything below perfect for things like this, and Snake knew it. "Maybe it's just overly sensitive to college jocks."
"Josh? Yo! Speak to us!" Berto waved a hand in front of his friend's face. Getting a blink, he took it a step further, snapped his fingers a few times, and made a peace sign. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Three hundred and nine," Josh groaned, pulling himself to his feet with Kat's help. "That hurt."
"What happened?" Kat asked.
"Oh, just a migraine, you know how that goes," he said, just a little too loudly. Kat and Berto noticed his eyes shift ever so slightly to the side and turned.
"Well, well, well, what have we here," Otacon smirked, seeing Vamp trot up to Team Steel with that sinister grin on his face.
Snake, at the end of his rope, pulled the speaker from his ear. "This is ridiculous. The freak is here competing. He is doing nothing. This is a dead end, Otacon."
"Well what do you prefer we do," Otacon raised an eyebrow, "sit and do nothing at the apartment in Manhattan or sit here and maybe do something?"
"Point taken," Snake growled, replacing the ear piece and re-aiming the mic just in time to hear Vamp make small talk with the competitor whose' time he'd just beaten before asking her friend if he was alright.
It was so much his style that it was frightening.
"I can't tell which one he's flirting with," Otacon blinked.
"I don't want to know which one he's flirting with," Snake said.
Blanching, Otacon replied, "Come to think of it, me neither."
"So Vamp's making nice with his biggest competitors," Snake went on, reaching for a pair of binoculars to get a closer look. "Maybe we can use that."
"How?"
"I don't know how," Snake frowned, "but it must be something."
"Do remember to take your headache medication, Mr. McGrath, it'd be a... shame to never compete against you again," Vamp smiled.
"Of course," Josh answered, trying desperately to hold his smile.
"Doesn't sound like they care for him very much," Snake said.
Otacon rested his chin on his fist. "That's Team Steel. You know, Team Freakz just put them into the number two rank, they're probably feeling very competitive right now. And Vamp has one more teammate then they do."
"I see three on both," Snake looked back down.
"Nope, I checked, the one in glasses is their manager."
Noticing the sudden silence from his partner, Snake turned. "What are you suggesting?"
Otacon just looked at him and chuckled. Light dawned in the spy's head, and a sudden terror crept into his eyes.
"Otacon, no."
"Well, I can't do it," Otacon said.
"No way in Hell."
"And no, you can not have the stomach acid suppressor to hide your smokes, hand 'em over!"
---
"This is demeaning, Otacon."
"Shhh, don't talk to me with people around, Snake," Otacon's voice scolded.
"There isn't anyone around. I'm heading up to the half-pipe, competitions for the day are over, and the closest people are the ones I'm looking for. And I'm whispering." Snake shot back, really just venting the sheer rage he felt for actually going though with this.
"Okay, let's go through the checklist, then," Otacon came back. "Kneepads."
"Check."
"Elbow pads?"
"Check."
"Helmet?"
"Check," Snake rapped on the plastic thing with his fist.
"Quality skateboard that is way too expensive for our budget but you insisted on it anyway?"
"Hey, you said N-Tek sponsors these kids," he patted the board, "a little sucking up never hurts."
Snake could see Otacon drop his face into his hands from his end of the Codec. "Then why is the rest of your gear generic?"
Snake rolled his eyes. "We couldn't afford brand names for the rest, remember? Hey, if you want to go restart Philanthropy and get it on the UN pay role again, be my guest. Until then, budget cuts are a setback."
"What budget cuts?" Otacon laughed. "We're unemployed in the first place."
"True, that. Are you in position?"
His demeanor turning serious and professional again, Otacon answered, "Yep, just got here. No one's in any of the arenas around here, either." Snake noticed Otacon put binoculars to his eyes. "Looks like all of Team Steel is there now. Um, Snake.. There's a problem."
"What's that?" Snake whispered lower, walking around the giant billboard at the top of the ramp.
"Vamp is there too!"
But Snake was already in sight, and Vamp was just jumping off the ramp and coming to a stop on the platform. His reflexes kicking in, Snake dashed back around the billboard instantly and pressed his back to it. "Thank you Otacon. Next time you're going to watch, don't take the binoculars off."
"Sorry," the scientist squeaked.
Another reflex caused Snake to jerk his hand up; he'd almost impaled his fist on a rather large stray nail on the sign. It'd drawn blood, something he remedied with a simple bandage.
"I'm leaving the frequency on so you can still talk without popping up and scaring me into a wipeout, for your information," Snake sent back.
"All yours," Vamp smiled, kicked his board up to his hand, smiled at Josh, and took a bow in his direction. He now wore the same coat he had in the Big Shell, but the slices in his chest and the bullet hole in his stomach were gone. For that matter, so was the one in his head. Vamp didn't quite move yet, his eyes darted around for a split-second and he inhaled a large breath through his nose.
His smile turned into a grin, and he walked off. Snake slid around the other side of his cover as Vamp walked away.
"Man, that guy couldn't possibly be creepier." Berto crossed his arms, holding back the shudder that Vamp's mere presence brought on. "Hey, look at me, I'm too good to wear pads."
"Hey, it's not our fault he's so friendly it hurts," Josh scratched his head.
Deciding this would be the perfect time to make himself noticeable, Snake opened his mouth. "He's not being friendly."
"Huh?" Berto, Josh and Kat collectively answered, turning to the newcomer.
"I said, he's not being friendly," Snake repeated.
"Smooth, Snake," Otacon rolled his eyes over Codec. "Of course, you're used to making sure people don't see you, so I guess you have an excuse."
Silently wishing he had some way of telling Otacon he was ignoring him to be rude and not to look 'normal,' Snake went on. "He's hitting on you."
"Come again?" Josh was visibly confused.
"He's bisexual. Ya'know, 'Vamp,'" Snake made quotes with his fingers. "He's hitting on you."
Josh's face took a swan dive while Berto and Kat giggled behind him, quickly stopping like nothing was wrong when he glanced back to glare.
"He was definitely hitting on me after the time attacks this morning," Kat chuckled, "I dunno, you up for a threesome, Josh?"
Josh went red in the face, while Berto couldn't contain his laughter anymore. Totally scandalized, the former turned back to Snake. "So how do you know so much about him?"
"Oh, we've met before," Snake rolled his eyes. "Meeting that freak isn't something you forget. Mind if I take a spin?"
"Not at all!" Josh beamed, gesturing for him to go right ahead.
"You just want out of practicing your boarding, McGrath," Kat shook her head.
"You're right, I do," he confessed.
Meanwhile, Snake put his board down and shoved off.
"Nice, Snake," Otacon tracked him from his perch. "I've known you for years and you're still full of surprises."
"Hey," Snake answered when he came back to the opposite end of the half-pipe, "even I had a childhood. Kind of. My ankle hasn't twisted this way in thirty years, now I know why I stopped doing this and got the espionage gig."
"Unbelievable," Otacon shook his head, watching Snake launch off and spin around so much it almost made him dizzy. "Tony Hawk, eat your heart out. Hey Snake, try some of the things Vamp did, might make them notice more."
"You know, he's pretty good for an old guy," Berto said.
"Better then Vamp," Josh added.
Kat cracked her knuckles. "Yep. Ya'know, Team Freakz outnumbers us, I'm thinking we should even that up a little."
Waving her off, Berto made it clear he didn't like where this was going. "Whoa, whoa, guys, you're talking about some dude as old as all of us combined who may be a good boarder and may suck at everything else."
Frowning, Kat answered, "You're right, you're right..."
"But that's why you've got me around to check someone's background in five seconds flat and see if he has a reputation. Assuming this guy's even interested."
"That's why we love ya, Bro," Josh grinned, suddenly flinching and rubbing his head behind the ear.
"You okay, Hermano?"
"Yeah," Josh shook his head, "hearing that weird ringing again, not so bad this time."
Elsewhere, Otacon pulled the earpiece to his d. mic out and gave up on the thing. "Hey Snake, sounds like they're curious. Act interested and bay for pity."
"Otacon, no offense, but don't give me social advice."
A sound that sounded vaguely like growling reached Snake's ear through the Codec. Snake chuckled to himself, shut the frequency off, and jumped to a stop back on the platform.
"Hey, you part of a team at all?" Berto asked.
"Looking for one... you looking for a new teammate?"
"We might be," Josh glanced at Berto and Kat. "Why don't you give us your number and a name, and we'll be in touch?"
"Gladly," Snake looked down as he rummaged through his pockets for a pencil and a stack of post-it notes. He handed the paper to Josh when he was done. "Name's Dave. Dave Hayter."
"Josh McGrath."
"Pleased to meet you. I'll catch you later."
Snake walked off, content with his first step of success. Otacon would have to make a nice false identity for him, including some references to being very good at extreme sports. And then he'd have to practice faking that some more.
Otacon's voice came over the Codec. "'Hayter?' Is that your real last name, Snake?"
"It most certainly is not, Dr. Emmerich."
"Dave, what are you doing Dave," Otacon came back. He never tired of that gag.
Snake decided that he shouldn't have told his dear friend Hal his first name to begin with.
Back on the platform, Berto stared after Snake after he'd left. "Oh boy... guys, are we sure about this?"
"About what?" Kat blinked.
"We're thinking about bringing on a guy that's got to be at least forty years old here, and... why? Because Team Freakz is pissing us off and we absolutely must even things?"
Josh and Kat looked at each other, then back to Berto, both responding with a simple "Yes."
"Great, we're honest about it," Berto smiled. "I'll run that background check. Something kinda weird about him..."
Kat said, "Yeah, he wouldn't know a razor if he shaved his finger off."
"I know I've seen him somewhere," Josh added. "I'm gonna follow him around a little."
---
"Max, you've been following the guy for hours. I'm shocked you haven't been shorting out yet."
"Hey, you're the one who said something was weird," Max whispered. "Make up your mind, Bro."
"I know, I know," Berto answered, his own voice fading over the Biolink. "But that doesn't mean something's wrong. So he's nocturnal; it's 1:00am and he's done nothing really strange except walk around a lot. If he was going to be living with us I'd say go right ahead, but it's not like he'll be slashing us in the night."
"I just know I've seen him somewhere before, though," Max said back.
Sighing, Berto answered, "Look Hermano, I'm going to bed, and I think you should come back yourself."
"But," Max started, hearing Berto's end of the link turn off. "Great. The second you leave, something's gonna happen. Stealth mode."
Still creeping along through the shadows, Snake rounded the corner of the building and ended up in front of the fence blocking the courtyard from trespassers. The pool was close enough to reflect light every where.
Otacon had said this was the hotel Team Freakz was staying at while competing in the D.O.X. so it was certainly worth snooping around, but he was starting to get impatient to the point of going up to Vamp's room and just asking for... whatever.
Nothing in the place was out of the ordinary, if he wanted to find anything he'd have to get into Vamp's room, and Vamp's room was high up. No dots showed on the Soliton Radar, so Snake took a step out into the moonlight and walked along the fence, looking up at the higher areas of the hotel.
Getting up there wouldn't be the easiest thing in the world, but after things like Shadow Moses and Arsenal Gear, it wouldn't be the most challenging either.
Max watched him step along, noticing he managed to step without making a sound and hide well enough in the dark when he wanted to. Skill like that meant he probably had good hearing. The invisible secret agent made it a point to be quiet himself.
He almost failed at that when he looked through the fence and saw a shape emerging from the water, not swimming, more like standing up in the deep end.
It was Vamp. When he stopped moving, he was standing on the water as if it were solid as concrete. Snake heard the water dropping from his body and turned, slowly and deliberately.
Vamp made no motion to hide; he merely smiled and bore his fangs when Snake looked at him through the fence. "I knew that was your blood in the air. I wasn't sure you'd show. I've been waiting for you, Solid Snake."
Solid Snake... why does that sound familiar,
Max thought.He kept himself still; if Vamp could do things like stand on water he could probably see the distortion from his cloak if he moved. And a power drain right now would be an exceedingly bad thing.
"I'm flattered," Snake answered.
Vamp cocked his head to the side. "It'll pass. Why are you here?"
Snake crossed his arms. "Why do you think? Patriots? Olga's kid? Take your pick. Be nice if you told me anything about either, too."
Laughing under his breath, Vamp said, "And what makes you think I know of either? Heh, the La-li-lu-le-lo... did it not occur to you that I'm simply living? Queen is dead, Solidus is gone, and Revolver Ocelot is currently... unreachable, if he exists anymore. You will forgive me for doing something to pass the time rather then twiddling my thumbs and, eh heh, dying of boredom."
Vamp crouched down, jumped from the water, and soared over the fence to a landing less then a foot in front of Max. Max didn't move a muscle, but Snake turned to keep his eyes on his query.
"Maybe you are, maybe you aren't," Snake's hand moved to his back, where his trusty SOCOM sat under his belt and hidden under his shirt. Just in case. "But you're not an ignorant type. I'm willing to bet you know something."
"I'll tell you this much," Vamp raised a hand and snapped his fingers up, one his throwing knives now held between them. "Following the La-li-lu-le-lo is a dead end. 'The Patriots are a kind of ongoing fiction themselves.' Your words, Solid Snake."
"How did you know," Snake started. A sound hit his ears, footsteps, and pebbles grinding under someone's feet.
Max kicked himself. It hit him right there; Solid Snake. He had heard that before. But he'd also stumbled back, and made noise.
Max froze when Snake turned. He turned back... but Vamp had vanished. So he looked toward the sound again... and then walked closer. He could swear the wall of the building across the street was bending in a way that it shouldn't, almost like someone was using...
And then Max felt the nanoprobes hit redline. He lost the stealth and fell to one knee in pain, the transphasic energy putting on quite a light show. For a brief second, he completely forgot that thought that this was the worst possible time for it to happen.
"What the," Snake said. "Well. I didn't know optic camouflage got that violent."
He stepped toward his stalker, but Max rolled on his hands, threw a kick up into Snake's stomach, used the momentum to get to his feet, and sprinted off.
Snake was close behind. "Now I'm mad. Otacon!"
"What's up Snake? Find anything?"
"Oh I found something alright," Snake kept running. He rounded a corner in time to see Max round another and continued the chase.
Max gambled and tried stealth mode again. If he could get one last charge against Biocon in the jungle, he could get one here.
And it worked. He stepped into the shadows so Snake would see the distortion as he ran by on the sidewalk, and ducked into an alley as soon as Snake was a satisfactory distance away. The stealth failed again and Max started to feel himself fading, so he did the only thing he could and powered down.
Hoping Snake wouldn't double back when he realized he'd lost his prey, Josh took off in the opposite direction with the intent of getting back to the van.
Berto and Kat were going to get a very early wakeup call...
---
Solid Snake did not look happy. "I lost him."
"You lost someone, Snake? I thought the performance earlier was a surprise." Shoving his glasses up his nose, Otacon pretended to ignore the daggers Snake glared. "So, didja get anything?"
"Depends on how you define 'anything,'" Snake pulled a chair from the kitchen table and sat down, wincing as the fresh bruise on his abdomen began to make itself known. "Vamp said he knows something about the Patriots, not in so many words. Nothing on Olga's kid."
"How 'bout the guy wearing Optic Camo?" Otacon flopped onto his bed, opened his laptop and hooked the phone cord into it. "Gimmie something I can look into."
"Brown hair, blue eyes, kid, wore N-Tek gear."
"N-Tek?" Otacon began typing. "You're kidding me. Maybe we're in the right place after all. This'll take me a few minutes... big businesses aren't always in my league."
"Out of your league, Otacon? That's a new idea," Snake chuckled.
"Hey, gimmie a break, I'm not a hacker by trade," Otacon didn't look up.
---
Josh rarely felt as energetic as he did when he finally made it back to the van, especially considering how low he was on T-Juice at the moment. Before doing anything else, he hooked himself to the portable generator, turned it on, picked it up, and carried it with him throughout his little journey.
Then he rattled the bunk shades and raised his voice. "Kat, Berto, wake up!" Nothing came from Berto's bunk, but he heard Kat groan herself into consciousness. He also knew better then to pull back the covering with no warning. "C'mon Kat, getup! Berto!"
Now conscious himself, Berto proved that he wasn't actually awake. "Jo~osh it's two in the mo~orning... go to sleep."
Kat's bunk flew open, and she stared him down quite well considering the bags under her eyes and the fact that she had dedicated one arm to holding her blanket up. "What the hell is so important at 2:00am, McGrath?"
Josh's eyes lit up. "Kat, he's Solid Snake!"
"The what, what?" She shook her head, her eyes glazed over. "Who's Solid Snake?"
"The guy, the guy we met on the half-pipe, the guy that wanted to join the team?" Josh blurted out, far too excited from a combination of being drunk with revelation and being way overtired.
Kat stared at him and didn't blink for a long moment. Her expression never changing, she said, "The Solid Snake?"
"The Solid Snake," he repeated.
Kat shook her head. "Whoa. Okay, you know what, I can not process this right now, tell me again in the morning. Later in the morning."
She got back in bed and pulled the slide closed again, but Josh, being hyped at the moment, would not be deterred. He half-opened the slider to Berto's bunk.
Berto was still awake. "Go. To sleep."
And Josh watched as an empty glass flew out of the darkness and shattered against the wall behind him. He blinked at the debris a few times. "I think I'll go to sleep..."
"Good idea, Hermano. Good idea."
---
The ref list:
-The title is inspired by an episode of Reboot.
-The dialog-
"I'm flattered."
"It'll pass."
-is from Blade.