this is another app just ignore plz
Out Of Character Information
Name: Snap
Are you over 15?: Yes.
LJ username: snaps_ass
Time zone: -6 GMT
AIM: Temporary Cancer
E-mail/other contact methods: no dats it
Anything we should know?:
In Character Information
Name: Metal Gear Mk II
Age: Uhhh. Not very old. Probably less than a year. He's ~the latest model~.
Birthday: I am gonna say December 18th, 2043.
Series: Snatcher
Occupation: Moe Sidekick. No seriously he pretty much just follows Gillian around all day saving his game and stuff.
Appearance:
hi
Metal Gear, shockingly enough, looks like... a Metal Gear. Seriously. Not the cool RAY-ZEKE-captial letters dudes, but the super-retro oldschool ones. Like... think Metal Gear D, paint it bright blue, make it the size of a lapdog, and you've pretty much got Metal. Unlike his inspiration, however, Metal has no weapons to speak of. Instead of the world's tiniest warhead launcher, he has a videophone strapped to his side, and he's got three eye/flashlight/camera lens things mounted on top of him. These lenses are all mounted on a retractable pole, which he can raise to look over obstacles.
Also he is totally still a dapper gent nothing can convince me otherwise.
Personality:
Navigator robots are specially programmed to suit the individual needs of their assigned JUNKER. An anxious JUNKER would have a navigator with a very calm, soothing demeanor, for example. Apparently, JUNKER decided that what Gillian most needed was a straight man to his comic foil. Metal's usually something of a fun-sucker: on-task and business oriented. Gillian's perverse antics never fail to get a sketched-out "I never knew you were into that kind of stuff". Try lampshading or fooling around? Metal will be equally flat-faced about it. Or... as flat-faced as something that doesn't even have a face can be, anyway. No Gillian there's no time for Mahjong stop calling the fire department without a reason why are you making me hold onto a girl's lingerie can we please put it back now etc. He's got no sense of mystery or atmosphere. You really don't want to take him to a magic show, unless you feel like putting up with an hour of "that container has a false bottom which holds the tiger" and "analysis shows the presence of a mass within his sleeve made of a 95% cotton, 5% polyester blend, indicating that the handkerchief did not, in fact, disappear into thin air." As literal-minded as he is, at least Metal's pretty polite... or he tries to be, at least. He doesn't seem to have a tremendous skill for being tactful. ("GILLIAN SORRY TO INTERRUPT THIS TOUCHING DEATH SCENE BUT THIS GUY IS TOTALLY GONNA KICK THE BUCKET ANY SECOND NOW. Oh what's that he can hear me? Gosh that's too bad. He's totally toast though. Seriously.")
It wouldn't be fair to call Metal uptight, though. He's pretty task-oriented and maybe a little bit boring, but he's still capable of having a little fun. He was pretty excited about going out for Neo Kobe Pizza (because yes tiny robots in the future can eat shut up), right? Less so about getting some noodles, but to be fair, you'd be pretty embarrassed if your partner was guzzling down noodles like a frenzied warthog. And for all his flaws, Metal's pretty useful to have around. He's programmed with a ton of knowledge, and he's always ready to drop obvious hints to puzzles help Gillian out if he's stuck. Sometimes he goes a little overboard with his knowledge -- you should hear the technobabble he spouts when he's doing an analysis -- and sometimes the stuff he points out can be pretty... obvious. ("WE'RE IN A TURBOCYCLE %D") Even so, he's always ready to help, and that's the part that counts, right?
Oddly enough, Metal also seems to be a bit of a scaredy cat. He becomes completely paralyzed with fear when accompanying Gillian on his first mission, and he always seems to balk at the idea of having to be the first one to go into the dark scary place/jump out of the speeding turbocycle/etc. This is a pretty weird trait to program into something that exists entirely to help a dude shoot cleverly disguised super mouth-laser Terminators, but there you go. Metal does show a few brief moments of courage, though -- for the sake of stopping the Snatcher menace, he totally tries to go out in a daring blaze of unarmed tiny glory. And comes back as a Sega CD what
Backstory:
SO. AD 2043. A big artificial island, covered by a sprawling metropolis called Neo Kobe City. The place is one of the most overpopulated cities in the world. It also happens to be the center of the Snatcher problem. So what are Snatchers? Totally original not at all ripped off robots that kill the wealthy and prominent citizens and assume their identity, leaving the rest of the world none the wiser. Neo Kobe basically got placed under quarantine as a result, in hopes that this would prevent the Snatchers from spreading to the rest of the world. JUNKER, a division of the police, was also formed to help combat the Snatcher menace. Unfortunately, JUNKER... has its work cut out for it. For one thing, even if they have the technology to just scan people and find out if they're Snatchers or not, human rights prevent them from doing so without a warrant to do so. Basically, they can't prove someone's a Snatcher unless they already have concrete proof that somebody is one. What's worse, there... aren't a lot of JUNKERs around. As in... there's like six of them. And only two are the runners that actually find and execute Snatchers. Jean-Jack Gibson, as well as newcomer Gillian Seed.
Metal Gear Mk. II was built by Harry Benson, JUNKER's engineer dude, to act as Gillian's navigator. The two are thrust into action almost as soon as they meet, when Gibson places an urgent call to Metal's built-in videophone saying he's on the trail of a possible male Snatcher, and requesting immediate backup. Gillian and Metal spring into action, rushing to the abandoned factory that Gibson had placed his call from. They arrive... a little too late. Little John, Gibson's navigator, is smashed beyond repair. Gibson himself isn't looking too much better, considering his head has been twisted right off his neck. Metal performs about a billion scans, discovering traces of Snatcher hair and skin on Gibson. The samples actually belong to two Snatchers, though -- a male and a female! It's obvious Snatchers killed Gibson... but why?
Clearly, "because he was a JUNKER and also probably trying to shoot their heads off" isn't reason enough. So they investigate further. Metal determines that Gibson, who suffered from ulcers, had consumed buffalo meat three hours before his death. Which is presumably bad if you have an ulcer. And also rare -- buffalo are endangered species, so that's not exactly the kind of meat you can get anywhere. That, along with a key and a note to "search the house!", are the only things Metal and Gillian are able to glean from the crime scene. They try to get at the Snatchers that killed Gibson, but alas, it is in vain. All that remains is to swipe Little John's memory chip and... oh. Oh goodness? Is that a time bomb? Why, yes it is. Gillian and Metal make haste, only to find their path blocked by Insectors, little buglike security bots used by Snatchers. Gillian totally shoots them all like a hero while Metal sits there being paralyzed with terror. So Gillian scoops his robot buddy up, they dash out of the building, and off they go to report back to JUNKER HQ.
Everyone is very sad about Gibson's death. Then they get over it like five minutes later. Gillian continues to investigate, taking a look into Gibson's locker and finding... a totally pointless chess piece. A ~queen~ which is totally not relevant or a hint about a puzzle way later in the game. From there, it makes sense to stop at Gibson's house. And search it. Oh and also tell his ~totally 18 years old which is legal y'know just saying~ daughter Katrina that daddy kicked the bucket I guess. Did we mention Katrina is 18? Because Gillian MUST HAVE HER!!! even though her dad just died and all. Gillian shows up at her door, flashes his JUNKER ID card, and talks about the heart-shaped birthmark on her inner thigh. Which is clearly a sign that this guy is allllright, so Katrina lets him in. Gillian macks on her a bunch and gets booted out macks on her maybe sorta kinda macks on her a bit and looks around for clues. That floppy disk from earlier fits into Gibson's wicked ancient computer, revealing a very important bunch of exposition!!
Snatchers typically only come out two times: night, and winter. Why is that? There's a flaw in their artificial skin that makes them super-weak to UV radiation. So sunlight gives them melanoma all over in like... no time flat. You can identify them by their aversion to sunlight, copious sunscreen application, some sort of... vague... cancer... smell?, and also the presence of SNOW-9, an artificial pollen that makes people sneeze and blocks off videophone reception. Oh, also: beware of Random Hajile the bounty hunter ooooeeeeeoooo.
Metal and Gillian decided to investigate the buffalo lead next. They got in contact with the informant, Captain Nasonex Napoleon, where they learned of Outer Heaven, local shady club-bar-restaurant-place. Which they couldn't enter without a mask. So after a quick stop at Plato's Cavern, local publically-advertised black market shop, Gillian picked up a mask. And learned that Gibson had been there too! Buying sunscreen! Which was a huge seller, even though it was December! Some asian dude had bought their entire stock! SUSPICIOUS!
But not important yet. So onto Outer Heaven. Gillian and Metal spoke with Isabella Velvet, the dancer-and-also-movie-star, and learned that Gibson had been there, following a dude. They got Isabella's description of the guy, then headed back to HQ to put together a police composition sketch... thing. Their montage had two possible matches: Ivan Rodriguez, a sky-surfer, and Freddy Nielsen, a taxi driver. Ivan turned out to be a human, though he was heavily into drugs. So onto investigating Freddy! The dynamic duo came to his place, but only his wife was home. A search of the house revealed... a map of Moscow. But who cares Moscow's not relevant at all. More importantly: SUNSCREEN. NO. Armed with this concrete evidence, Gillian was determined that his Snatcher was here.
Which was true. Lisa Nielsen was a Snatcher oh nooooo. Gillian shot her good, then prepared to strut off. Except NO TOO BAD FREDDY IS ON THE SCENE. And a Snatcher too! THEY WERE THE ONES WHO KILLED GIBSON. There is clearly trouble afoot, but in comes the bounty hunter Random Hajile to save the day. He is so cool.
So, back to HQ for a convenient recap from the chief! After that fasincating buffalo caper, it's time to focus on the stuff Gibson uncovered. The Snatcher weakness to sunlight clearly means that Snatchers have to be getting maintenance skin surgery to take care of the melanoma problem. That means there has to be some kind of Snatcher hospital out there somewhere. Harry's finished looking into Little John's memory chip, and uncovered something interesting. A picture of a neon sign for a hospital. OLEEN Hospital. Gosh what a strange name that is. Welp, back to Napoleon. Who keeps sneezing. A winter cold? No... it's got to be SNOW-9! BE CAREFUL NAPOLEON THERE COULD BE SNATCHERS ABOUT. Napoleon decides to lay low, and Gillian and Metal are off investigating OLEEN Hospital. Which... turns out to be a vet's office. Okay, clearly not the place they're looking for.
Before they can ponder what to do next, some disturbing news reaches them. Trouble at Katrina's house! You know, the ~18 year old~. Gillian and Metal rush to the scene and find that Katrina is missing. And her dog is dead. Did I mention Snatchers hate dogs? Also, Gillian sneezes, which indicates there's SNOW-9 in the place. OH NOOOOO. For lack of a better plan, Gillian and Metal head back to Gillian's apartment. Which somebody has broken into uh-oh. And whoever it is, they're using his shower!! And they left their lacy unmentionables on Gillian's floor!!
Gillian, cleverly deducing that this can only mean danger, requests that Metal deactivate the privacy screen, so that he might get a good look at his intruder. Surprise! It's Katrina! You kink!! Katrina didn't get Snatchernapped, she just got scared and decided to... break into Gillian's apartment. Well okay cool. With that zany misadventure out of the way, time to get back on track. If they can't find OLEEN Hospital, then maybe they're not getting the full picture. Eventually, our intrepid heroes figure it out. The neon sign is burned out in places, so the image isn't actually of the OLEEN Hospital... but the QUEENS Hospital! Which isn't a vet's office!
Gillian and Metal rush to the scene! The hospital is abandoned! There's nothing here but a very dark room with a picture of some building in Moscow! But who cares about that Moscow is not relevant at all! They also found a bit of paper with some strange Chinese characters on it. Metal is able to determine it's a patient record, but he can't read the characters in the name. But guess what? Napoleon is Chinese! Off they go to find him again! This time, he's disguised as the doorman to Outer Heaven, but his SNOW-9 allergy gives him away. He reveals the file is actually a code, using the Chinese characters for the elements of the periodic table. The name on the file? BENSON.
As in, Benson Cunningham, JUNKER chief! Or Larry Benson, JUNKER engineer! OHHH SNAP. PLOT TWIST. Gillian and Metal scoot back to HQ, but both the chief and Larry are out. Gillian and Metal do a little snooping, and find that Harry's desk has a set of matches from Outer Heaven and a note that reads "face to face" or something. Which turned out to be a clever hint! Benson Cunningham's office has a prominent painting of a vase... which is an optical illusion of two faces looking at each other!! The vase hides a switch, which flips the picture to reveal... a picture of Moscow??? Gosh it must be a red herring it's not like Moscow could possibly be relevant to anything. Oh, and by the way, Chief Benson's going to be at the Kyoto Summit, where world leaders are going to discuss the Snatcher problem. Which also isn't relevant I'm quite sure.
So uh. Back to Queens Hospital I guess. Gillian and Metal rush to the scene! Again! ...A little too fast! The turbocycle's out of control... the Benson Snatcher must have sabotaged it! Gillian freaks out and tries everything, including button-mashing, driving into cliffs(??), and fervent prayer, but it's all for naught! Luckily, Random Hajile rushes off to save the day again! On his... motorcycle... unicycle thing. Gillian lobs Metal at Random, and just barely leaps out in the nick of time. The trio makes their way to Queens to once again look around. This time, they discover the SUPER SECRET BASEMENT SNATCHER HOSPITAL LAIR!!! Whoooaaaaa. This part contains a bunch of gross stuff, including a room full of gross decomposed corpses. Metal analyses the corpses, and by just looking at their skulls (and being a science cop), he is able to identify them. There's the Nielsens, some Asian doctor man by the name of Shin Chu Oh, and.... Benson Cunningham!!!!! Before Gillian, Random, and Metal can do anything about it, they find themselves cornered by Snatcher!Shin Chu Oh and a bunch of naked Snatchers. A sticky situation, indeed. Luckily, Random came to the rescue again. This time by lobbing Gillian and Metal down an air vent and blowing himself up with a bunch of dynamite.
Bummer. But aside from a temporary voice glitch, Metal was fine. Oh and Gillian was okay too I guess. As it turned out, the vent lead out to the old Tube-Liner tunnels -- the future-subway that nobody used anymore because who needs public mass transit pffft. Without his turbocycle or, I don't know, some form of public mass transit, Gillian hops in a black market taxi... DRIVEN BY SNATCHER!SHIN CHU OH! Destination: hell. So Gillian shoots him and cruises back to HQ. Where Chief Cunningham has struck! Mika, who is the JUNKER receptionist and also hiding behind the safety shutters in her desk, tells Gillian that Harry went after the Chief. Gillian marches in to save him, but is... kind of way too late. Harry's busy bleeding to death when they arrive. Metal helpfully chimes in to let Gillian know this several times, as Harry coughs out his brave last words. So then stuff happens and Gillian shoots the chief! Yaaay!
But it's not over yet. Conveniently, in comes a phone call from Jamie. Who? Oh yeah. Gillian's wife. She remembers everything and also has been abducted by Snatchers! And the Kyoto Summit's going to nuke all of Neo Kobe in three hours! Craaaap. If they can find the Snatcher base in time, then Neo Kobe -- and of course Jamie -- will be saved! So they use some STUNNING DETECTIVE WORK to figure out that:
1. There was "snow" in the picture when Jamie called Gillian
2. There's usually SNOW-9 around whenever Snatchers appear
3. There's a river in Neo Kobe with lots of SNOW-9 around it
4. That river is the exact same shape as a river in MOSCOW!!!
5. The Nielsens' (remember them?) map of Moscow had the Kremlin on it
6. The place on Neo Kobe's river that corresponds with the one in Russia is some old church!
ACE*DETECTIVES.
Once again, Gillian and Metal do some rushing to some scenes. They fight their way through the church and discover the Snatchers apparently worship their creator. Dr. ELIJAH MODNAR whose name DOES NOT HINT AT ANYTHING especially not if you SPELL IT BACKWARDS. Metal bows out to go tell the Kyoto Summit people that the base has been found, and rather than just messing up the whole place, what they need to do is just eradicate that one church. While he's gone, there's a whole bunch of exposition and the AWFUL TRUTH is made clear, but whatever man this is about Metal okay. So he's able to convince the world leaders to explode the place from orbit, straps some signal trackers to himself, and rushes back just in the nick of time. He tells Gillian to GTFO because the place is gonna blow in like five minutes, and because he's the one basically telling the satellite where to aim, he's gotta go down with it. Random Hajile (who was there and not dead and also a robot????) also stays behind, to make sure that Dr. Elijah Modnar, who has NO RELATION WHATSOEVER TO RANDOM especially not anything relating to THEIR NAMES, doesn't escape. At the last possible second, Random dives to shield Metal Gear form the worst of the blast. What a guy.
In the end, enough of Metal remains intact to more-or-less rebuild him (spoiler: they glued his eyes to a Sega CD and called it a day). So he goes off to accompany Gillian on a mission to Russia to eliminate the last of the Snatchers. Who came from Moscow. How about that.
Canon Standing:
Post-canon.
The Calling:
After everything had been taken care of, Metal Gear finally went in for repairs to get his old body back. He was getting pretty sick of Gillian trying to play Sonic on him all the time ok
SUDDENLY, MICE
Wherever Gillian goes, Metal's bound to follow. Especially if there's a possibility of Snatchers. So it's off to Zenithia with Metal Gear! Hooray!
Anything Else?:
Metal Gear Mk II is equipped with all the best stuff. We're talking sensors out the wazoo. Some of the stuff he can do:
- Detect motion!
- Scan people! Determine if they're snatchers! But only with a warrant! Determine the contents of their stomach and how long ago they were eaten!
- Scan inanimate objects! Identify suntan oil, drugs and their intended use, and who knows what else! Tell the race of a person and their identity based on their skull!
- Be a convenient walking flashlight!
- Record everything. EVERYTHING. This includes taking pictures.
- Store evidence! And food! Because he eats!
- Be a videophone!
- Read Chinese! He specializes in wonton and chop suey!
- His danger alarm sounds like a codec :3c
- I bet you can still play video games on the dude
In Character Example Post
How unfortunate. This city seems to lack an equivalent to Neo Kobe's Alpha-One database. Before Gillian and I can operate the shooting range, I must insist that I be familiarized with the local firearm legislation. As a JUNKER navigator, I cannot allow myself to be associated with the maintenance of an unlawful business.
Gillian, I hope you've been making sure everything is above-board too. And I don't just mean with the firearms. Try to behave yourself, won't you?
Name: Snap
Are you over 15?: Yes.
LJ username: snaps_ass
Time zone: -6 GMT
AIM: Temporary Cancer
E-mail/other contact methods: no dats it
Anything we should know?:
In Character Information
Name: Metal Gear Mk II
Age: Uhhh. Not very old. Probably less than a year. He's ~the latest model~.
Birthday: I am gonna say December 18th, 2043.
Series: Snatcher
Occupation: Moe Sidekick. No seriously he pretty much just follows Gillian around all day saving his game and stuff.
Appearance:
hi
Metal Gear, shockingly enough, looks like... a Metal Gear. Seriously. Not the cool RAY-ZEKE-captial letters dudes, but the super-retro oldschool ones. Like... think Metal Gear D, paint it bright blue, make it the size of a lapdog, and you've pretty much got Metal. Unlike his inspiration, however, Metal has no weapons to speak of. Instead of the world's tiniest warhead launcher, he has a videophone strapped to his side, and he's got three eye/flashlight/camera lens things mounted on top of him. These lenses are all mounted on a retractable pole, which he can raise to look over obstacles.
Also he is totally still a dapper gent nothing can convince me otherwise.
Personality:
Navigator robots are specially programmed to suit the individual needs of their assigned JUNKER. An anxious JUNKER would have a navigator with a very calm, soothing demeanor, for example. Apparently, JUNKER decided that what Gillian most needed was a straight man to his comic foil. Metal's usually something of a fun-sucker: on-task and business oriented. Gillian's perverse antics never fail to get a sketched-out "I never knew you were into that kind of stuff". Try lampshading or fooling around? Metal will be equally flat-faced about it. Or... as flat-faced as something that doesn't even have a face can be, anyway. No Gillian there's no time for Mahjong stop calling the fire department without a reason why are you making me hold onto a girl's lingerie can we please put it back now etc. He's got no sense of mystery or atmosphere. You really don't want to take him to a magic show, unless you feel like putting up with an hour of "that container has a false bottom which holds the tiger" and "analysis shows the presence of a mass within his sleeve made of a 95% cotton, 5% polyester blend, indicating that the handkerchief did not, in fact, disappear into thin air." As literal-minded as he is, at least Metal's pretty polite... or he tries to be, at least. He doesn't seem to have a tremendous skill for being tactful. ("GILLIAN SORRY TO INTERRUPT THIS TOUCHING DEATH SCENE BUT THIS GUY IS TOTALLY GONNA KICK THE BUCKET ANY SECOND NOW. Oh what's that he can hear me? Gosh that's too bad. He's totally toast though. Seriously.")
It wouldn't be fair to call Metal uptight, though. He's pretty task-oriented and maybe a little bit boring, but he's still capable of having a little fun. He was pretty excited about going out for Neo Kobe Pizza (because yes tiny robots in the future can eat shut up), right? Less so about getting some noodles, but to be fair, you'd be pretty embarrassed if your partner was guzzling down noodles like a frenzied warthog. And for all his flaws, Metal's pretty useful to have around. He's programmed with a ton of knowledge, and he's always ready to drop obvious hints to puzzles help Gillian out if he's stuck. Sometimes he goes a little overboard with his knowledge -- you should hear the technobabble he spouts when he's doing an analysis -- and sometimes the stuff he points out can be pretty... obvious. ("WE'RE IN A TURBOCYCLE %D") Even so, he's always ready to help, and that's the part that counts, right?
Oddly enough, Metal also seems to be a bit of a scaredy cat. He becomes completely paralyzed with fear when accompanying Gillian on his first mission, and he always seems to balk at the idea of having to be the first one to go into the dark scary place/jump out of the speeding turbocycle/etc. This is a pretty weird trait to program into something that exists entirely to help a dude shoot cleverly disguised super mouth-laser Terminators, but there you go. Metal does show a few brief moments of courage, though -- for the sake of stopping the Snatcher menace, he totally tries to go out in a daring blaze of unarmed tiny glory. And comes back as a Sega CD what
Backstory:
SO. AD 2043. A big artificial island, covered by a sprawling metropolis called Neo Kobe City. The place is one of the most overpopulated cities in the world. It also happens to be the center of the Snatcher problem. So what are Snatchers? Totally original not at all ripped off robots that kill the wealthy and prominent citizens and assume their identity, leaving the rest of the world none the wiser. Neo Kobe basically got placed under quarantine as a result, in hopes that this would prevent the Snatchers from spreading to the rest of the world. JUNKER, a division of the police, was also formed to help combat the Snatcher menace. Unfortunately, JUNKER... has its work cut out for it. For one thing, even if they have the technology to just scan people and find out if they're Snatchers or not, human rights prevent them from doing so without a warrant to do so. Basically, they can't prove someone's a Snatcher unless they already have concrete proof that somebody is one. What's worse, there... aren't a lot of JUNKERs around. As in... there's like six of them. And only two are the runners that actually find and execute Snatchers. Jean-Jack Gibson, as well as newcomer Gillian Seed.
Metal Gear Mk. II was built by Harry Benson, JUNKER's engineer dude, to act as Gillian's navigator. The two are thrust into action almost as soon as they meet, when Gibson places an urgent call to Metal's built-in videophone saying he's on the trail of a possible male Snatcher, and requesting immediate backup. Gillian and Metal spring into action, rushing to the abandoned factory that Gibson had placed his call from. They arrive... a little too late. Little John, Gibson's navigator, is smashed beyond repair. Gibson himself isn't looking too much better, considering his head has been twisted right off his neck. Metal performs about a billion scans, discovering traces of Snatcher hair and skin on Gibson. The samples actually belong to two Snatchers, though -- a male and a female! It's obvious Snatchers killed Gibson... but why?
Clearly, "because he was a JUNKER and also probably trying to shoot their heads off" isn't reason enough. So they investigate further. Metal determines that Gibson, who suffered from ulcers, had consumed buffalo meat three hours before his death. Which is presumably bad if you have an ulcer. And also rare -- buffalo are endangered species, so that's not exactly the kind of meat you can get anywhere. That, along with a key and a note to "search the house!", are the only things Metal and Gillian are able to glean from the crime scene. They try to get at the Snatchers that killed Gibson, but alas, it is in vain. All that remains is to swipe Little John's memory chip and... oh. Oh goodness? Is that a time bomb? Why, yes it is. Gillian and Metal make haste, only to find their path blocked by Insectors, little buglike security bots used by Snatchers. Gillian totally shoots them all like a hero while Metal sits there being paralyzed with terror. So Gillian scoops his robot buddy up, they dash out of the building, and off they go to report back to JUNKER HQ.
Everyone is very sad about Gibson's death. Then they get over it like five minutes later. Gillian continues to investigate, taking a look into Gibson's locker and finding... a totally pointless chess piece. A ~queen~ which is totally not relevant or a hint about a puzzle way later in the game. From there, it makes sense to stop at Gibson's house. And search it. Oh and also tell his ~totally 18 years old which is legal y'know just saying~ daughter Katrina that daddy kicked the bucket I guess. Did we mention Katrina is 18? Because Gillian MUST HAVE HER!!! even though her dad just died and all. Gillian shows up at her door, flashes his JUNKER ID card, and talks about the heart-shaped birthmark on her inner thigh. Which is clearly a sign that this guy is allllright, so Katrina lets him in. Gillian macks on her a bunch and gets booted out macks on her maybe sorta kinda macks on her a bit and looks around for clues. That floppy disk from earlier fits into Gibson's wicked ancient computer, revealing a very important bunch of exposition!!
Snatchers typically only come out two times: night, and winter. Why is that? There's a flaw in their artificial skin that makes them super-weak to UV radiation. So sunlight gives them melanoma all over in like... no time flat. You can identify them by their aversion to sunlight, copious sunscreen application, some sort of... vague... cancer... smell?, and also the presence of SNOW-9, an artificial pollen that makes people sneeze and blocks off videophone reception. Oh, also: beware of Random Hajile the bounty hunter ooooeeeeeoooo.
Metal and Gillian decided to investigate the buffalo lead next. They got in contact with the informant, Captain Nasonex Napoleon, where they learned of Outer Heaven, local shady club-bar-restaurant-place. Which they couldn't enter without a mask. So after a quick stop at Plato's Cavern, local publically-advertised black market shop, Gillian picked up a mask. And learned that Gibson had been there too! Buying sunscreen! Which was a huge seller, even though it was December! Some asian dude had bought their entire stock! SUSPICIOUS!
But not important yet. So onto Outer Heaven. Gillian and Metal spoke with Isabella Velvet, the dancer-and-also-movie-star, and learned that Gibson had been there, following a dude. They got Isabella's description of the guy, then headed back to HQ to put together a police composition sketch... thing. Their montage had two possible matches: Ivan Rodriguez, a sky-surfer, and Freddy Nielsen, a taxi driver. Ivan turned out to be a human, though he was heavily into drugs. So onto investigating Freddy! The dynamic duo came to his place, but only his wife was home. A search of the house revealed... a map of Moscow. But who cares Moscow's not relevant at all. More importantly: SUNSCREEN. NO. Armed with this concrete evidence, Gillian was determined that his Snatcher was here.
Which was true. Lisa Nielsen was a Snatcher oh nooooo. Gillian shot her good, then prepared to strut off. Except NO TOO BAD FREDDY IS ON THE SCENE. And a Snatcher too! THEY WERE THE ONES WHO KILLED GIBSON. There is clearly trouble afoot, but in comes the bounty hunter Random Hajile to save the day. He is so cool.
So, back to HQ for a convenient recap from the chief! After that fasincating buffalo caper, it's time to focus on the stuff Gibson uncovered. The Snatcher weakness to sunlight clearly means that Snatchers have to be getting maintenance skin surgery to take care of the melanoma problem. That means there has to be some kind of Snatcher hospital out there somewhere. Harry's finished looking into Little John's memory chip, and uncovered something interesting. A picture of a neon sign for a hospital. OLEEN Hospital. Gosh what a strange name that is. Welp, back to Napoleon. Who keeps sneezing. A winter cold? No... it's got to be SNOW-9! BE CAREFUL NAPOLEON THERE COULD BE SNATCHERS ABOUT. Napoleon decides to lay low, and Gillian and Metal are off investigating OLEEN Hospital. Which... turns out to be a vet's office. Okay, clearly not the place they're looking for.
Before they can ponder what to do next, some disturbing news reaches them. Trouble at Katrina's house! You know, the ~18 year old~. Gillian and Metal rush to the scene and find that Katrina is missing. And her dog is dead. Did I mention Snatchers hate dogs? Also, Gillian sneezes, which indicates there's SNOW-9 in the place. OH NOOOOO. For lack of a better plan, Gillian and Metal head back to Gillian's apartment. Which somebody has broken into uh-oh. And whoever it is, they're using his shower!! And they left their lacy unmentionables on Gillian's floor!!
Gillian, cleverly deducing that this can only mean danger, requests that Metal deactivate the privacy screen, so that he might get a good look at his intruder. Surprise! It's Katrina! You kink!! Katrina didn't get Snatchernapped, she just got scared and decided to... break into Gillian's apartment. Well okay cool. With that zany misadventure out of the way, time to get back on track. If they can't find OLEEN Hospital, then maybe they're not getting the full picture. Eventually, our intrepid heroes figure it out. The neon sign is burned out in places, so the image isn't actually of the OLEEN Hospital... but the QUEENS Hospital! Which isn't a vet's office!
Gillian and Metal rush to the scene! The hospital is abandoned! There's nothing here but a very dark room with a picture of some building in Moscow! But who cares about that Moscow is not relevant at all! They also found a bit of paper with some strange Chinese characters on it. Metal is able to determine it's a patient record, but he can't read the characters in the name. But guess what? Napoleon is Chinese! Off they go to find him again! This time, he's disguised as the doorman to Outer Heaven, but his SNOW-9 allergy gives him away. He reveals the file is actually a code, using the Chinese characters for the elements of the periodic table. The name on the file? BENSON.
As in, Benson Cunningham, JUNKER chief! Or Larry Benson, JUNKER engineer! OHHH SNAP. PLOT TWIST. Gillian and Metal scoot back to HQ, but both the chief and Larry are out. Gillian and Metal do a little snooping, and find that Harry's desk has a set of matches from Outer Heaven and a note that reads "face to face" or something. Which turned out to be a clever hint! Benson Cunningham's office has a prominent painting of a vase... which is an optical illusion of two faces looking at each other!! The vase hides a switch, which flips the picture to reveal... a picture of Moscow??? Gosh it must be a red herring it's not like Moscow could possibly be relevant to anything. Oh, and by the way, Chief Benson's going to be at the Kyoto Summit, where world leaders are going to discuss the Snatcher problem. Which also isn't relevant I'm quite sure.
So uh. Back to Queens Hospital I guess. Gillian and Metal rush to the scene! Again! ...A little too fast! The turbocycle's out of control... the Benson Snatcher must have sabotaged it! Gillian freaks out and tries everything, including button-mashing, driving into cliffs(??), and fervent prayer, but it's all for naught! Luckily, Random Hajile rushes off to save the day again! On his... motorcycle... unicycle thing. Gillian lobs Metal at Random, and just barely leaps out in the nick of time. The trio makes their way to Queens to once again look around. This time, they discover the SUPER SECRET BASEMENT SNATCHER HOSPITAL LAIR!!! Whoooaaaaa. This part contains a bunch of gross stuff, including a room full of gross decomposed corpses. Metal analyses the corpses, and by just looking at their skulls (and being a science cop), he is able to identify them. There's the Nielsens, some Asian doctor man by the name of Shin Chu Oh, and.... Benson Cunningham!!!!! Before Gillian, Random, and Metal can do anything about it, they find themselves cornered by Snatcher!Shin Chu Oh and a bunch of naked Snatchers. A sticky situation, indeed. Luckily, Random came to the rescue again. This time by lobbing Gillian and Metal down an air vent and blowing himself up with a bunch of dynamite.
Bummer. But aside from a temporary voice glitch, Metal was fine. Oh and Gillian was okay too I guess. As it turned out, the vent lead out to the old Tube-Liner tunnels -- the future-subway that nobody used anymore because who needs public mass transit pffft. Without his turbocycle or, I don't know, some form of public mass transit, Gillian hops in a black market taxi... DRIVEN BY SNATCHER!SHIN CHU OH! Destination: hell. So Gillian shoots him and cruises back to HQ. Where Chief Cunningham has struck! Mika, who is the JUNKER receptionist and also hiding behind the safety shutters in her desk, tells Gillian that Harry went after the Chief. Gillian marches in to save him, but is... kind of way too late. Harry's busy bleeding to death when they arrive. Metal helpfully chimes in to let Gillian know this several times, as Harry coughs out his brave last words. So then stuff happens and Gillian shoots the chief! Yaaay!
But it's not over yet. Conveniently, in comes a phone call from Jamie. Who? Oh yeah. Gillian's wife. She remembers everything and also has been abducted by Snatchers! And the Kyoto Summit's going to nuke all of Neo Kobe in three hours! Craaaap. If they can find the Snatcher base in time, then Neo Kobe -- and of course Jamie -- will be saved! So they use some STUNNING DETECTIVE WORK to figure out that:
1. There was "snow" in the picture when Jamie called Gillian
2. There's usually SNOW-9 around whenever Snatchers appear
3. There's a river in Neo Kobe with lots of SNOW-9 around it
4. That river is the exact same shape as a river in MOSCOW!!!
5. The Nielsens' (remember them?) map of Moscow had the Kremlin on it
6. The place on Neo Kobe's river that corresponds with the one in Russia is some old church!
ACE*DETECTIVES.
Once again, Gillian and Metal do some rushing to some scenes. They fight their way through the church and discover the Snatchers apparently worship their creator. Dr. ELIJAH MODNAR whose name DOES NOT HINT AT ANYTHING especially not if you SPELL IT BACKWARDS. Metal bows out to go tell the Kyoto Summit people that the base has been found, and rather than just messing up the whole place, what they need to do is just eradicate that one church. While he's gone, there's a whole bunch of exposition and the AWFUL TRUTH is made clear, but whatever man this is about Metal okay. So he's able to convince the world leaders to explode the place from orbit, straps some signal trackers to himself, and rushes back just in the nick of time. He tells Gillian to GTFO because the place is gonna blow in like five minutes, and because he's the one basically telling the satellite where to aim, he's gotta go down with it. Random Hajile (who was there and not dead and also a robot????) also stays behind, to make sure that Dr. Elijah Modnar, who has NO RELATION WHATSOEVER TO RANDOM especially not anything relating to THEIR NAMES, doesn't escape. At the last possible second, Random dives to shield Metal Gear form the worst of the blast. What a guy.
In the end, enough of Metal remains intact to more-or-less rebuild him (spoiler: they glued his eyes to a Sega CD and called it a day). So he goes off to accompany Gillian on a mission to Russia to eliminate the last of the Snatchers. Who came from Moscow. How about that.
Canon Standing:
Post-canon.
The Calling:
After everything had been taken care of, Metal Gear finally went in for repairs to get his old body back. He was getting pretty sick of Gillian trying to play Sonic on him all the time ok
SUDDENLY, MICE
Wherever Gillian goes, Metal's bound to follow. Especially if there's a possibility of Snatchers. So it's off to Zenithia with Metal Gear! Hooray!
Anything Else?:
Metal Gear Mk II is equipped with all the best stuff. We're talking sensors out the wazoo. Some of the stuff he can do:
- Detect motion!
- Scan people! Determine if they're snatchers! But only with a warrant! Determine the contents of their stomach and how long ago they were eaten!
- Scan inanimate objects! Identify suntan oil, drugs and their intended use, and who knows what else! Tell the race of a person and their identity based on their skull!
- Be a convenient walking flashlight!
- Record everything. EVERYTHING. This includes taking pictures.
- Store evidence! And food! Because he eats!
- Be a videophone!
- Read Chinese! He specializes in wonton and chop suey!
- His danger alarm sounds like a codec :3c
- I bet you can still play video games on the dude
In Character Example Post
How unfortunate. This city seems to lack an equivalent to Neo Kobe's Alpha-One database. Before Gillian and I can operate the shooting range, I must insist that I be familiarized with the local firearm legislation. As a JUNKER navigator, I cannot allow myself to be associated with the maintenance of an unlawful business.
Gillian, I hope you've been making sure everything is above-board too. And I don't just mean with the firearms. Try to behave yourself, won't you?