Part 37: Episode XXVII: Wreckage Warthog

Well, I suppose we ought to go investigate who was the only helicopter pilot on record ever to be beaten by a guy on the ground with hand grenades and a decent throwing arm.

Snake jogs over to the wreckage...


"Sorry to disappoint you."


The woman with Chris' sprite stands up and pulls a gun on Snake. Who is this doppelganger and why does she look like Chris? Well, it seems she's pulling a very special magic trick. That is, having an entirely different appearance between in-game and cutscene!

The scene shifts to cutscene mode in which the woman gains purple hair, dark skin, a couple cup sized boob upgrade, and an entirely new outfit. It's a REALLY good magic trick...


"Sophie N'dram at your service, Solid Snake. Don't move. You'd like to live a bit longer, wouldn't you?"
"Put the gun down."
"Can the 'Legend' actually be pleading for his life?"
"No. But I don't plan on being killed by you."
"My, you're pretty confident."
"...I just took your state-of-the-art gunship down with a few hand grenades. I think I've well earned that confidence, lady. Besides..."
"You're all being used."
"Are you talking about Black Chamber? No, actually we're the ones using them."
"Oh?"
"Revenge against Fox-Hound and the U.S. We know their real objective."
"In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in the greater Gindra region that hasn't heard about it. It was literally ALL any of them ever talked about. It got a bit tiresome..."
"You know and still -?"

Sophie smirks...


"Exploitation in the name of 'justice' and ideals. We have all the aces now. They'll be mad if I kill you here won't they?
"'Justice'?"
"The 'justice' and 'order' being given lip service in your society applies only to that world. Free trade, world order - all the trappings of your private, exclusive ethics that keep bleeding Gindra for the sake of first world prosperity. We finally said no more, and troops were sent in to bar our way. But this time, we will break free of first world meddling."
"Is that your 'ideal'? Or the General's?"
"Mine."
"That's a lie."
"That whole spiel was so rehearsed that you ought to have opened with a monologue about the Sears administration."


And then Sophia N'dram exploded. Okay, no. It's supposed to be the helicopter's fuel tank erupting behind her or something. Jimmy will be the only randomly detonating character in this narrative.


"Will you plead for your life?"
"No. I'm not afraid to die."
"For the 'ideal'?"
"Yes."
"I mean, I grant that the dog of the first world executing a revolutionary of the third world speaks somewhat ill about the ideal's strength. But I still stand by my stance."
"Why so fervent?"
"Have you ever been treated like a piece of dirt?"
"...?"
"...Wait. No. Stop. If I say yes, can I skip your sob stor-"


Sophia's Theme

"My father was French. He met my mother after his firm sent him to Gindra, and I was born."
*grumbles and lights a FOGGER*
"But she was nothing but a little local color to him; when his term was over, he went back to France without giving us a second thought. I was still just a baby. I went to see him once I was grown, but all he did was give me some money and demand that I never bother him again... I learned that day that neither I nor my country could expect anything better than that from your kind..."
"....."
<Daddy issues... Very original...>
"I used the money for university education in Britain, to take the knowledge and the skills back to Gindra. While I was there, the genocide policy went into effect - my mother, an ethnic minority, died at the hands of government soldiers. I flew back to Gindra and joined GLF. Deeds, not words, I thought. But the government was winning, and we were almost gone. That's when he - the General - appeared, and suddenly turned things around. Plentiful funds, new weapons, and most of all, the ideals he brought us. A true independence for our people, a country for ourselves. Everyone saw the future in him - I did too... There was a time when he was everything to me..."
"Is he still?"
"....."
"....."
"...No..."
"It's the perm... It just is a complete turn off in a man."
"Let me ask you something. Why did you call me a liar?"
"Your eyes don't have the hardness of someone who lives for that single cause."
"....."
"Instead, you looked as though you were struggling to hold on..."
"I'm going to guess hiring the Looney Tune brigade and hijacking a nuke wasn't part of the whole starry eyed revolutionary ideal."
"....."
"...You are, perhaps, right about that..."

Snake holsters his weapon...


"Out of ammo."
"I know you're lying."
"You're free to go."
"Just, no more helicopter attacks. I think you owe me that, eh?"

Snake begins walking away...


"Are you talking about Chris?"
"Yes. Viper's taken her. Go and help her. I know she's waiting for you."
"I would even if she weren't."
"She's a lucky woman."
"She would have been luckier if she hadn't had anything to do with me."
"I doubt that."
"Alright, get going. This is all starting to sound like one of your decadent American soap operas."
"Been a lot of that going around."


Alright folks. Onward to the final area of Ghost Babel. Bring a snack for the proceedings. This here is cutscene country...