Part 48: Vlad Boss Fight

Part 45: Vlad Boss Fight

Snake climbs up onto the highest area of Vlad's castle, a large, raised wooden platform, like a medieval helipad. Ringed around the castle and the hills in the distance are numerous corpses impaled on stakes.

Kaz, I did it. That clock tower was a nightmare to navigate, but I'm finally here…the top. Everyone else is gone…it's just Vlad and me.

Help!!!

Huh?

At the far end of the platform is the crawling upper body of a badly-damaged Snatcher. Vlad looms over it with a steel pike in his hands.

No… don't! I beg you!

So, even machines know fear…good! Perhaps you also have souls…the devil will certainly be in interesting company tonight!

Vlad strikes downwards, snapping what's left of the Snatcher's head off its shoulders.

AUUUGGHHH!

Hahahahahaha. As you can see, Big Boss, you needn't have worried. I've exterminated all of them. It's a pity. They challenge me in ways I haven't felt in years.

Mmmm. You used to be a guerrilla at one point, right?

"Little soldier?" Yes. I crept into camps of Ottoman warlords and nobles, and slaughtered them in their sleep, one after another. Payment in kind for the times I spent as their prisoner. I went among them as a snake.

Or a vampire?

Heh heh heh… such stories are told about me, and they suit me. Truly, I do crave blood, but you should know by now as well as I that the greatest monsters in the world are only men. I prefer to think of myself as more a Kresnik than a Kudlak. The Kudlak craves the destruction of the innocent, while the Kresnik destroys the wicked.

They're two sides of the same coin, aren't they?

Yes. But, of late, the world is filled with wickedness. So it's good that I crave violence. It's good that I fight without end, that I am surrounded by foul enemies.

Vlad gestures wildly with his pike.

The sinners of the world flock to my borders, so that I may strike them all down! I will never stop killing, for there are so, so many people who deserve to die! I was made to fight. I do not wield a spear. I am a spear!

Snake is shaken by these words.

Wh…what did you say?



No…

Vlad seems to stop himself mid-rant, as if a new thought had occurred to him.

But, of course, I can't fight the whole world with just my own two hands. I need a mighty weapon, and now, I have one. Did you know the order my family belongs to, the Order of the Dragon, was so named in honor of George, the slayer of dragons? But, in one legend, he not only slew the dragon…first he tamed it. As have I! Come forth, Varful de Sulita!

With a shriek, a 20-foot-tall dragon crawls up from beneath the wooden platform! It has blade-like wings and a spear-shaped head, and upon its back is a saddle.



Oh, my God…

He was drawn to this land from the stench of the impaled corpses. Evil feeds upon evil, you see. With this monster as my weapon, I'll terrorize the whole world, and put the fear of God into them!

Vlad mounts the beast's saddle and it flaps into the air.

You too are a trespasser, and have shed the blood of my countrymen. For that, there will be no mercy. DIE, SNAKE!

The dragon inhales, and launches a fireball at Snake, who dodges and hauls ass back down into the castle.

KAZ! You never said he had a god-damned dragon!

Sorry, Snake! He killed everyone who ever saw it, we thought he just using a flamethrower or something!

And me without my rocket launcher…dammit!

A fireball blasts apart half of the wall in front of Snake, covering him in dust. Behind it the dragon looms.

Snake! I'll tear apart this entire castle to kill you if I have to!

Yeah? Let's see if you really mean that!

Snake shoots off a couple of bullets from his rifle at the beast, and then runs like hell towards the interior of the clock tower! It's a maze of twisting gears, conveyor belts and whirling cogs.

He'd have to be crazy to smash his way in here.

Another fireball blasts the stone away from one wall!

…yup!

SNAKE!

The dragon claws its way into the tower--only for one of its paws and part of its wing to get snared by the gears! It shrieks in pain and the gears jam, protesting against the intruding flesh.

Here's my chance!

Snake leaps onto a horizontal gear beneath the thrashing dragon. He pulls out an entire clip of tranquilizer darts in one fist, and jabs it into the soft underside of the dragon's throat! The beast nearly takes his head off with one swipe of its bladed head, but he rolls away with inches to spare.

Snake, if you refuse to die and go to hell, I'll gladly bring hell straight to you! FIRE!

The dragon wells up another fireball and blasts the interior of the clock tower. The whole apparatus clangs and falls to pieces, freeing the dragon. Snake narrowly escapes from the tower through a side-passage to the battlements. However, he's exposed out there and the dragon soon finds him!

No more! Blast him!!

Another fireball blows Snake half over the side of the wall--and almost onto the huge field of pikes and impaled bodies beneath it on the lower hills.

Gauugh!

The dragon moves to attack, but then it groans…the tranquilizers jammed into its throat are kicking in and its wingbeats slow.

No! NO! Wake up! Don't you dare fail me!

The dragon tries to swoop down on Snake, but passes out in mid-flight and smashes into the side of the wall, embedding itself in the rock. Vlad goes tumbling off his saddle and clings to the crumbling stones.

Hey!

Snake recovers and rolls over to Vlad, and grabs his hands.

Hey! Hey! Stop! Give it up! Stop fighting me and I'll help you up!

Stop fighting? Stop fighting!? STOP FIGHTING!? NEVERRRRRR!

Vlad twists in Snakes grasp and wrenches one hand free to pull a knife from its sheath--but Snake drops him, and he falls, screaming, onto one of his own pikes beneath the castle.

GAUUUGGGGHHH!

Ughh… why?

Never stop…never… I can't stop…you can't stop… This is the reason God put us on earth, is it not? So…we needn't stop… never… gsss…glugh…

…

Snake? Is it over?

Snake surveys the quiet battlefield, and the forest of spears around the castle.

It should be over. I'm…I'm okay, Kaz. I'm coming home.

That's great! We'll send the extraction team to you right away!

One more thing, Kaz. I'm… Tell Huey and Strangelove, I'm canceling the Metal Gear project.



To Be Continued!