843.


The cause of fighting had never been much of an issue for Snake—back at his first home, the soldiers basically stood around until someone pointed them in a direction and told them to fight. There was no cause to fight for, only the thrill of fighting in itself. Some might swear for a purpose, but Snake did not. Machines did not churn their gears and calculate outcomes because they had a purpose, they did it because they were made to do the work. That was largely his own thought process. The Inferni leaders might be delighted with it, because he didn’t care what happened to him. Life, death, it was all the same. He was not afraid of death, and he was not afraid of pain. No, he didn’t care about the why—all he cared about was the how, where, and when.


When it came to Dahlia de Mai and Inferni, he believed it had been inevitable ever since he had arrived there. If you put two packs close enough to them with bad history and the roots of that still there, an evil plant would eventually sprout, fed by the prejudice and fear. He had met Haku on one fleeting occasion, and he was in all likelihood lucky to be alive from that encounter. He saw the wolf as something to be dealt with—he had been giving the Inferni coyotes grief for too long, and without good cause. Though all the wolves he talked with said they heard horror stories about what the coyotes of Inferni did, they only retaliated. If the wolves left them alone and in peace, would there be problems? It was hard to answer—he doubted the wolves would ever do something like that.


He believed he could see the faintest glimmer in her eye when he asked the question—she probably had noticed, like anyone who knew him remotely well (which he supposed she did), that it was out of character. It wasn’t that Snake didn’t care in others, it was really just that he didn’t find it to be his place to pry into their lives. That was why he was a very good listener, though he often had little to contribute. He would find it continuously odd for anyone envying how he had created the mindset he held—so many he had met found it alien and disturbing, his own mother included. He could remember her cursing under her breath when she thought he was asleep: “Why couldn’t I have had a normal one?” It had made him sad when he was younger, but nowadays he didn’t mind. There was nothing he could do about how he was now. He may be totally isolated from those things that were painful, but he was also severed from what so many based their lives around—the occasional and fleeting pleasures that made life worth living. It was like having the choice to disable your sense of touch: you might never feel pain again, but you would never feel soft or warm either. No wonder Snake did not feel very strongly about living or dying—it might as well have been all the same to him.


Kaena seemed uncomfortable with the question, which Snake regretted some; he had not wanted to make her purposefully upset. But she answered, sparse words that worked well enough for him. He had not wanted anything more descriptive than that. He nodded, his face somber. “Of course,” he said, though his voice showed neither optimism nor pessimism. Realism, he thought it was. He was sure that eventually she would feel better, the wounds would fade, though replaced by what?


Snake felt somewhat obligated to do… something. He liked Kaena well enough, and he respected her as an elder and a leader. To leave her here alone in the cave to do nothing and dwell in the past seemed very detrimental for her, especially if he could offer an alternative. He thought for several minutes, but was coming up blank. He had little to offer, little to do. He was not exactly the ‘talk about your feelings’ type (though Kaena might be thankful for that), not that he would understand the troubles of emotion-ridden beings anyway. Something did occur to him, though, as he thought about the war and his place in it—as well as hers. “Are you willing to spar?” He paused, shifting his weight and looking somewhat awkward. “If you do not feel well enough, I understand.” But it was really all he could offer. Regardless, he was very eager at the thought—he was young and virtually inexperienced, despite his position. He had been trained, yes, but his actual fighting had been restricted to a small number of creatures: his mother, his twin and his half-brothers. After a few fights, you began to memorize their patterns. He knew simply from her appearance that Kaena had years of fighting experience; whatever he could glean from her knowledge would only benefit Inferni. Snake would use it on their enemies.

1052.


Location did not cross Snake's mind, for the weather was poor enough to where a decently-sized layer of snow had covered most of Inferni. Hopefully if one of them happened to fall, that might save them from getting some sort of concussion or major bruise. Otherwise if something like that did happen, Snake would then suggest moving onwards towards the beach or something like that. For now, he felt no need. There was a decent-sized flattish area outside of the cave and he was already clicked into his battle mentality, so he couldn't think about much else.


She replied with what he might have guessed—ah, the halfling form. Snake would sometimes say that he preferred it to fight as well, though he did have his reservations. Canines from North America were still very feral by global regards, so it was no wonder that they wanted to shift into their burliest, most powerful form that still had full use of fluid four-legged movement and their claws and powerful jaws. But Snake thought that merely going by instinct and bloodlust alone in that form was a very bad idea—things could be so much more tactical. And sometimes you were caught in another form with no chance to change. Lupus was not that much different, but Optime was. That was why Snake had been taught extensively in making his bipedal body just as much of a weapon as that of his four-legged ones. And that was what he hoped he might be able to talk about today.


Through this he did not want to be patronizing. He didn't consider Kaena any less of a fighter at all—actually, he was sure that if they both shifted to Lupus or Secui forms right now, she would probably own him pretty quick. But he did have some things to teach, and that was what he wanted to do. He wanted to help her so that if, in the future, she was confronted by a monster like Haku Soul in Optime form, she might know a little bit more about defense.


It's easy to rely too much on teeth and claws as a Luperci, which is why many prefer their Secui or Lupus forms while fighting. It is familiar to our instincts—this form is not. My mentor told me this, and he told me that to get the upper-hand, one must break this cycle. He learned of how the humans fought in this apparently weaker form. They did not even have tooth or nail, so they used their fists and knowledge of the anatomy of their opponents to win. He paused, taking a peaceful step forward. His eyes were cautious, making sure she would not interpret it as an attack. It wasn't. For the moment, he was teaching. Muscles, nerves, veins, they are all linked like roads and they can be exploited. The jugular, he said, pointing at the throat right above the indention at the base of the neck. He pointed to each pressure point as he spoke, Clavicle, temple, nerve cluster behind the ear, solar plexus, bicep, wrist, elbow, knee. You can easily strike an elbow the way it does not bend to break an arm and render it useless. You can kick at the back of a knee to make the opponent fall. You can shatter collarbones with a strong strike to the clavicle. He paused, his eyes returning to meet her single gold one. Fighting is not always about cutting, bleeding, and killing. You can break an enemy until they can no longer fight.


Some would just want to kill them and be done with it, but this was perhaps a more... diplomatic way of dealing with someone that attacked you. Kill them, and you might be pinned as a murderer without anyone knowing the real story. Reducing them to a bundle of broken bones and discombobulated nerves, however, was a little less messy.


The technique of Optime fighting that I learned from Patriot is called CQC—close-quarters combat. The humans actually developed it centuries ago. They would fight like this, he said, drawing his knife with one hand and holding the non-functioning pistol in the other. The knife was held sideways beneath the gun, ready to lash out if someone got to close. After demonstrating that, he put the weapons away. Patriot changed it to where it only required a knife, since working guns are so rare. Then he reduced it to hand-to-hand. It's not a set form; it changes between people. I was taught to never strike first—I watch the attack of someone else and can see how their body moves. From that, I can tell how they're going to strike, and where. I try my best to get out of that and counterattack. Of course, that was not nearly so easy for someone who was not as disgustingly disciplined as Snake was. Others got misguided by rage or fear or sorrow or the joy of combat. He did not; he regarded everything as coldly and reservedly as if he were answering a question about the weather.


He took a step back, his eyes growing somewhat downcast. I apologize for the lecture, but I have come to believe that I know a little bit more about this type of fighting than others, and I wished to help. If you would prefer to shift into another form, you would only have to tell me. Other than that, he was unmoving, watching. He would never make the first move; that was burned into his mind, branded there.


Sometimes when he had fought with Foxhound it had been like a quickdraw. His twin brother liked to fight in his Secui form as well. When they would face off in Optime or Lupus form, they would both begin to shift as swiftly as they could. Whoever changed the most to function first won, usually by beating the shit out of the one that was slower. Foxhound used to always win in the earlier months, but then Snake had begun to block pain better and to focus more intently. Then he had showed up his brother, though not nearly as mercilessly as the other. It was this type of collected nature during the chaos of battle that made Snake such a lethal opponent.

He was glad that she was interested—usually everyone was so off-put with his age that they refused to listen to whatever he had to say. Snake often believed that he could help when it came to fighting. Most people fought for short periods of time in their lives; maybe it equated to one total month by the end, if you put it all together. Snake might have only been alive for one year, but most of that year was spent fighting for his life every day. It was not an exaggeration. He had been under intense scrutiny in New Haven, and the months between him being an infant and him escaping were the toughest of his life. Snake never put stock in age. Time was variable, depending on what you did with it. He may only be a yearling, but he felt ancient sometimes. Such was the aspect of the warrior in some ways.


The coyote caught a glimpse of more intense interest—or fear?—when he drew the pistol from his pocket. He fought back a flash of a smile; she didn't have to worry. Despite all his best efforts, the thing was still refusing to work. Snake kept half for sentimental reasons (after seeing Patriot's extremely limited armory, he had always wanted a firearm for himself, working or not) and half because he wanted to fix it at one point. He was just about as knowledgeable about the pistol as a monkey was an iPod, but he would figure out eventually. He hoped.


The Hydra dipped his head respectively when she spoke, pleased that she had gleaned at least some use from his small lesson. Maybe when she found herself in a bad situation later, she could direct her attacks towards those points and gain a little bit of an advantage. Snake didn't find it hard to best opponents that were bigger than him because of it—the older Kaena might find a similar advantage. He was interested to learn that she fought similar to how he did—watching and waiting before striking. Snake remembered how Patriot had put it—in the wild, the rattlesnake warns, but does not run out to attack anyone. He simply lets them come close enough, lets them underestimate him, and then he strikes. It was deceitful and deadly—in that way, Snake was very much like a snake.


This made him have to decide, though: who would attack first? Usually Snake would just wait and wait until his opponent did, but that seemed disrespectful to him. Though it naturally went against the grain of his training, he could force himself into a preemptive strike. It didn't mean that it was colored any different than how he usually fought, though. He gave a sympathetic nod to her final assertion, but half-way through the motion he slid forward. Snake was a solid guy—neither tall nor very broad, but built tough. He always made sure he could move faster than one would think he could. He slashed towards the most generic area he could think of—where the collarbone met the throat. It was a test; he wanted to see what she would do, how fast her reflexes were. His olive eyes were keen, watching for all the details. One could tell that he was in his element.

Patriot had wanted a working gun. He had tried to fix one himself, and it took him a while to swallow his pride and acknowledge that he couldn't figure it out. Right before Snake had escaped New Haven, he remembered the wolf giving one of the guns to Otacon, his son and Snake's half-brother. Snake had no doubt that Otacon would figure it out. His half-brother might not know anything about what the world really was, but he understood machines and he understood logic. He could probably stare at the inner workings of the device for half an hour and know everything about it. Of course, that was how they all were—Snake and all of his brothers. They excelled at one thing, but they were totally inept at everything else.


She moved back fluidly, and as his claws raked through the air he found himself impressed with the elder hybrid's speed. She certainly didn't let her age prohibit her—he respected that. He was in the process of bringing back the hand that he had attacked with when he saw her charing forward. Processes raced through his mind, so quick that he wouldn't remember them—he could try to dodge, meet the forward rush with one of his own, or fall back and try to control it. Option one: likely to fail, or be counterattacked. Option two: risk damage to both parties. Option three: optimal for these circumstances.


He lifted an arm just in time for the impact, catching the blow to where it didn't knock the wind out of him. He staggered, but did not fall. He paused for a half-second, regaining his stance and scanning for any movements that would suggest any further attack. He saw none, and took his own initiative. He feigned toward the right—his preferred side of attack due to his injured left shoulder. But then at the last second he switched, taking a step to the left and attacking with both claws.