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WIZ: To the blissfully unaware, they’re noble leaders and patriots of powerful nations. In reality, they’re warmongering puppets, raised in the shadows to guide humanity down the path towards ruin.
BOOMSTICK: While rocking some sleek facial hair and badass eye-patches! Like Fuhrer King Bradley, a.k.a. Wrath the Furious!
WIZ: And Solidus Snake, the rebellious clone of the world’s greatest soldier.
BOOMSTICK: He’s Wiz, and I’m Boomstick!
WIZ: And it’s our job to analyze their armor, weapons and skills to find out who would win a Death Battle!
KING BRADLEY
**Play music: “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood OST – Next Chapter” **
WIZ: Before its official inception in 1550, the great nation of Amestris was little more than an unorganized mass.
BOOMSTICK: But everything changed when a Philosopher from the East strolled up to teach people the totally-not-magical science of alchemy. Y’know, turning one thing into another, like rocks into statues or air molecules into explosions.
WIZ: And those lessons were quickly put to terrible use. One by one, neighboring states in the region were invaded and conquered, their lands and people integrated into an ever-growing, near-literal superpower.
BOOMSTICK: Yeah, that Edwin Starr song about “what war’s good for” definitely wouldn’t be topping Amestrian charts.
WIZ: By the late 1800’s, the country had become a centralized military regime synonymous with the term “conflict.” So who better to stand at its top than a man who distinguished himself amongst the storms of bullets on the battlefield time after time? Who else but Führer King Bradley?
BOOMSTICK: Absolutely no one!
BOOMSTICK (cont’d): So, you want me to start the “anime Hitler” jokes now or later?
WIZ: How about never, please and thanks?
BOOMSTICK: C’mon, they’re right there! And didn’t this series have actual Nazis showing up?
WIZ: Yes, but only in a parallel world to an alternate timeline as part of a non-canon story, which we will not be covering whatsoever after this point.
BOOMSTICK: Ooookay.
WIZ: Buried not too deeply beneath that stern, commanding exterior is a war hero adored by his nation for his nobility, his quirky personality and the unconditional love he holds for his family.
BOOMSTICK: Look at ‘em, they’re like the JFKs! Only real difference (aside from the, uh, politics) being that nobody’s about to reverse drive-by FKB.
WIZ: You might be wondering how Bradley rose to his current position, or which alchemical art he must have mastered to stand out from his peers. And the answer may surprise you.
BOOMSTICK: He’s not an alchemist, at all.
WIZ: He’s just a really…
BOOMSTICK: Really…
WIZ & BOOMSTICK: Really good swordsman.
BOOMSTICK: Maybe Bradley can’t blow up a town full of people by snapping his fingers. But toss him a sword, and he’ll literally cut that census down to size, one poor sap at a time!
WIZ: It won’t take him long, either. Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist who's reacted to point-blank gunfire and a bolt of lightning, couldn’t even perceive Bradley’s quickdraw.
BOOMSTICK: And he’s not just super-fast, but strong enough to cut steel and iron as easily as he could rice paper.
WIZ: Put those stats behind an utterly relentless fighting style geared towards never allowing the target a single window of opportunity—
BOOMSTICK: And you’ve got yourself such a freaking badass that even tanks run away once they’re in his warpath! [sinisterly] Not that it saves them...
WIZ: While the exact model Bradley uses is never specified, his swords bear quite the resemblance to an 1818 NCO Starr infantry saber. Bradley often carries six of these heavy, 31-inch blades into battle, and is well-adept at wielding them singlehandedly or in pairs.
BOOMSTICK: You gotta wonder how everyone in Amestris just sort of accepts this level of sheer CHADness. I mean, do they really see Bradley carving tanks like Thanksgiving turkeys and go, “Yup, that’s something a normal person can do?”
WIZ: Oh, I’m sure many saw the Fuhrer as a monster in multiple regards. They just didn’t know how horribly right they were.
**Play music: “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood OST – Knives and Shadows” **
BOOMSTICK: Remember that philosopher guy? Turns out he was evil all along. Who knew?
WIZ: To make a (very) long story short, the faux philosopher wished to pull God down from heaven and become a perfect being.
BOOMSTICK: His megalomaniacal checklist was pretty simple. First, he needed a country-wide transmutation circle dotted with bucket-loads of bloodshed, hence all of Amestris’ killing and pillaging.
WIZ: But as his plan neared completion, it became clear to Father that Amestris required a perfect ruler—someone with an iron fist at the wheel, dedicated to steering the country towards its final chapter.
BOOMSTICK: Time for yet another “super soldier project” backstory! Tons of orphaned babies, raised up in the most intense bootcamp possible. Nothing but day-and-night physical and mental conditioning, running the gamut from political sciences to “How to Kill People 101.”
WIZ: Once each candidate became of age, in came the obligatory super serum. This was a piece of the Philosopher's Stone, an alchemical substance created from and powered by countless human souls.
“Once injected into the bloodstream, it begins to take over its new host, and the human body tries to reject it. My body was repeatedly destroyed from the inside out and then rebuilt by the stone. The only options I had were to die, or to overcome its power. I chose the latter.”
BOOMSTICK: Awesome.
WIZ: The last of Father’s seven Homunculus, his seven deadly sins, had been born. He’d already purged his Pride, Gluttony, Envy, Lust, Greed and Sloth. And now, he’d finally unleashed his Wrath.
BOOMSTICK: Just one or two caveats. Wrath’s six Homunculi “siblings” were directly spawned from Father himself, no guinea pig assembly required. So their stone cores didn’t have to empty those soul gauges right out of the gate.
WIZ: This means that Wrath lacks many abilities trademark to his kind. His body is susceptible to aging, and it cannot regenerate from damage.
BOOMSTICK: But each Homunculi also gets their own special superpower, and this was where Bradley didn’t get skipped over. That eyepatch he wears is strictly for show— take it off, and you won’t like what you’ll be staring down.
WIZ: Through his Ultimate Eye, almost nothing escapes Wrath’s gaze. Not even the near future is exempt, as the Eye lets Bradley foresee all possible variables in any given event and adapt accordingly.
BOOMSTICK: For example, when an assassination attempt blew up the mile-high bridge his train was passing on, Bradley just looked for a path through the falling rubble and hop-scotched his way to safety!
WIZ: Now, the so-called Ultimate Eye isn’t without flaw.
BOOMSTICK: Sure, it can peer through a friggin’ flashbang, but it still can’t see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch!
WIZ [rolling his eyes]: I was going to say that all of the precognition in the world is useless against a danger it can’t see coming in the first place.
WIZ: Plus, Bradley is a man past his physical prime, who’s gone on record complaining that his aging body is often unable to keep up with the Ultimate Eye’s suggested course of action.
BOOMSTICK: That being said, those are less “serious handicaps” and more “the only reasons our heroes ever stood the slightest f@%$ing sliver of a chance.”
WIZ: Despite being the youngest Homunculus by far, Wrath is also among the most dangerous by a similar margin. He effortlessly overpowered a defected Greed, killing the avaricious sin over and over again until his Philosopher’s Stone depleted.
BOOMSTICK: Even when the second Greed (long story) had gone and pulled a rehash of Bradley’s backstory by bonding with badass warrior prince, Ling Yao (longER story), Wrath more than held his own.
WIZ: It should be said that this fight immediately followed him tearing through an elite squadron of soldiers—and, yes, a tank—without receiving so much as a scratch.
BOOMSTICK: Bradley did take that and more, thanks to the shish-kebab-ing above (only possible through two people’s dying sacrifice) giving GreedLing an opening to gouge out the Ultimate Eye.
WIZ: Yet, he still lived on to ensure Father’s plan proceeded to its final step. Half-dead already, and now without a purpose, Wrath threw everything he had left into one last battle against Scar, a survivor of the very Ishvalan genocide Bradley himself had helped to orchestrate.
BOOMSTICK: F.Y.I., Scar used to be a warrior-monk-turned-serial-killer who exclusively targeted State Alchemists. He only wins thanks to a random, reflected ray of sunshine blinding Bradley long enough for Scar to blow his arms off!
WIZ: The surrounding context heavily implies this to be none other than divine intervention. You read that right: it took God Himself to bring about King Bradley’s final defeat.
BOOMSTICK: And how did Bradley immediately react? By grabbing the blade of his falling sword WITH. HIS. TEETH, and shanking Scar through the goddamn stomach! Sweet mother of Jesus!
WIZ: An insane last-ditch effort, to be sure, but still not enough to ensure even a mutual kill. Fuhrer King Bradley had fallen. His entire life’s journey, suddenly rendered meaningless by a singular moment of karma. But then… something odd happened.
BOOMSTICK: See, it’s funny. When asked for his final words, Bradley didn’t start spitting curses or anything, y’know, wrathful like that. All he really talked about was how his wife was the only choice he ever got to make, and how—if he had the chance—he'd do it all again.
WIZ: And so, ironically, the embodiment of Wrath died completely at peace.
“I lived my life by forever following the path that had been set for me. Thanks to the idiosyncrasies of humanity, it was… at least… a life worth living for… and maybe even a life worth dying for…”
SOLIDUS SNAKE
**Play music: “Sons of Liberty Main Titles” **
WIZ: When does a man truly die? Is it when his heart beats its last? Or is it when his name, his legacy, his every last accomplishment is forgotten?
BOOMSTICK: When the heart stops beating, duh. That’s how death works, Wiz. It’s kinda important to know in our job.
WIZ [sighing]: George Sears, 43rd president of the United States—
BOOMSTICK: Don’t you mean W. Bush?
WIZ [gritting his teeth]: No, I mean George Sears, 43rd president of the United States.
BOOMSTICK: Ohhh, right, Metal Gear lore. Gotcha. Lemme just strrrap myself in real quick.
WIZ: A decorated veteran of both the First Liberian Civil War and Gulf War, George was an American hero long before taking the Oval Office in the early 2000’s.
BOOMSTICK: He didn’t slow down afterwards, either. Ol’ George personally founded the counter-terrorism spec-ops unit, Dead Cell, and singlehandedly made sure the National Missile Defense system became a reality.
WIZ: The Sears administration in general held a well-documented stance in favor of nuclear disarmament (along with numerous anti-eugenics policies). On the eve of George’s term, he was set to negotiate the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia. If successful, this would lower nuclear stockpiles around the world and secure George’s positive place in history.
BOOMSTICK: Real bad time for word to get out about Metal Gear REX: a giant walking battle tank capable of airmailing nukes to anywhere in the world from anywhere in the world. American-made, natch.
WIZ: Faced with a scandal that put Watergate to shame, George Sears promptly resigned, vanishing from the public eye without so much as a trace.
BOOMSTICK: Until years later, when the Big Shell decontamination facility and president #44 were taken hostage. The perpetrators: a radical terrorist group guest-starring Dead Cell and spear-headed by the legendary Solid Snake.
BOOMSTICK: Shit, I mean Solidus! Solidus Snake!
WIZ: Here’s where things start getting… complex. Let’s rewind. The Patriots, a secret society bent on unifying the world from the shadows, sought to clone founding member and “Greatest Warrior of the 20th Century,” Big Boss.
BOOMSTICK: This dude completed more impossible missions than Tom Cruise, so of course, the Patriots wanted to keep those skills around, especially after they and BB had a nasty falling out.
WIZ: Thus began the “Les Enfants Terribles” project. Dozens upon dozens of failures later, three “sons of Big Boss” were finally born. The first two were twins, one designed to express Big Boss’ negative genes while the other expressed his dominant genes. They were later codenamed Liquid Snake and Solid Snake, respectively.
BOOMSTICK: Factory Baby the Third, though, didn’t have any genes messed with, so he popped out all perfectly balanced, like Thanos would’ve wanted. He was neither solid nor liquid. He was… solidus… Wiz, what the f@$% is a “solidus?”
WIZ: You said it yourself. It’s the third state of matter in-between solids and liquids.
BOOMSTICK: Well, why not just call it gas, like everyone else?
WIZ [pausing for a moment]: Boomstick, what codename would that lead to?
BOOMSTICK: Gas Snake.
WIZ: Okay. Now, melodramatically shout that out loud.
BOOMSTICK: Gas Snaaaaake!
WIZ: Louder, and remove the second half.
BOOMSTICK: GAAAAAAAAAAAS!!! [...] You’re right, that sounds dumb.
WIZ: With Big Boss’ genetic makeup came the peak of human physical performance. And I mean that in the same way I would, oh, I don’t know, Captain America—which is to say, blatantly super human.
BOOMSTICK: There was this one time where B.B. bench-pressed the massive attack craft, Cocoon. By measuring its volume, we can tell this thing would’ve weighed in at over 14,000 tons!
WIZ: It’s actually more impressive than that. Big Boss completely halted Cocoon’s movement as it was falling on him at high speeds. In order to do this, he’d have to be exerting a force greater than its simple weight, one equivalent to over 300,000 tons!
BOOMSTICK: Since it takes more than a super body to make a super-soldier, the Snake triplets also had Big Daddy’s super-skills basically hard-wired in.
WIZ: Close-quarters combat, heavy weapons proficiency, stealth, guerilla tactics, vehicular operation—they all came naturally to a son of Big Boss. And George would pass on everything he knew when he adopted, raised and trained a white Liberian orphan, later codenamed Raiden.
BOOMSTICK: That sounds heartwarming, until you realize George killed Raiden’s parents! I mean, I get wanting to speed up the adoption process, but yeesh.
WIZ: All in the name of testing a hypothesis regarding the nature of George’s existence. You see, for all his abilities and accomplishments, his life had never been his to live. The Patriots controlled every step along the way, and they had contingency plans for their contingency plans.
BOOMSTICK: Not only did Solidus age WAY faster than normal (which is how his thirties look like his sixties), but one last nasty genetic inheritance left him infertile. Man, no wonder he was so desperate to leave something behind.
"I want my memory, my existence to remain. Unlike an intron of history... I will be remembered as an exon. That will be my legacy, my mark in history. But the Patriots would deny us even that.”
WIZ: Like Big Boss before him, George grew to despise the Patriots. He would stop at nothing to see every last one of their machinations burn to the ground. But first, he’d need something big to light that flame.
**Play music: “Metal Gear Solid 2 – Solidus Snake boss theme” **
BOOMSTICK: Why not the Patriots’ own ace in the hole? A machine that could control the world-wide web; a weapon to surpass Metal Gear itself; a submersible, mobile fortress called Arsenal Gear. With this, George planned to detonate a nuke high above NYC. The resulting EMP would take out Wall Street, crippling and exposing the Patriots in one fell swoop.
WIZ: At least, that’s what Solidus made everyone believe. In reality, his goal was something much simpler—extract the Patriot’s identities from Arsenal’s GW AI, and then hunt them down one by one while Dead Cell drew their attention.
BOOMSTICK: This is some 4D chess going on, and we aren’t even in the major plot twists yet.
WIZ: To aid in his revolution, Solidus wears an exoskeleton developed by the U.S. military, which uses advanced artificial muscle technology to further augment his already-impressive strength, speed and agility.
BOOMSTICK: It’s also got two prehensile tentacles called the Snake Arms! They’re outfitted with homing missiles, capable of injecting poison and can always be ejected if Solidus wants to shed some extra weight.
WIZ: And should he somehow still not feel fast enough, the exoskeleton comes equipped with a built-in accelerator. Through short bursts of kinetic propulsion, Solidus can easily leave trails of flames in his wake.
BOOMSTICK: But this Snake’s more than the skin he wears. He carries around a P90 submachine gun. With a muzzle velocity of 715 meters per second and modified ammunition combining armor piercing and explosive incendiary effects, this work of art can bring down Metal Gear RAYs in just a few shots!
It should be noted that Metal Gear RAYs were specifically crafted to combat other Metal Gears.
WIZ: Solidus’ favorite weapons, however, are his two High-Frequency Blades. These state-of-the-art swords are reinforced by an alternating current that, when vibrating at intense speeds, disrupts the molecular integrity of its targets.
BOOMSTICK: In English, that means they can cut through pretty much anything.
WIZ: Fun fact: Go ahead and guess what Solidus calls his HFBs. We’ll give you five seconds. [...] Democrat and Republican. Ironic, almost, for a man who so openly hates a group called the Patriots.
BOOMSTICK: Well, duh! Those sons of bitches spat on that most sacred of principles America was founded on: freedom! Freedom to do what we want and be who we wanna be! Maybe we f@$% up, but at least we’ll have f@$%ed up on our own terms!
WIZ: Unfortunately for Solidus, his second American Revolution was doomed from the start. Everything that happened and every person involved in the Big Shell Incident had been either anticipated or orchestrated by—surprise, surprise—the Patriots.
BOOMSTICK: See what I meant by the chess shit?
WIZ: It was all part of the S3 plan—the Selection for Societal Sanity. Through Raiden, George’s long-lost son turned pretty boy mercenary, the Patriots wished to see whether any ordinary person could be melded into, say, a legendary soldier by experiencing recreated events.
BOOMSTICK: In other words, could the Patriots control someone under even the most extreme circumstances? As poor Raiden proved, yes. Yes, they could.
WIZ: And yet, after all was said and done, and Arsenal Gear had crash-landed in Manhattan, Solidus still needed to be stopped. He and Raiden were forced to clash swords one last time atop Federal Hall.
BOOMSTICK: Just beforehand, George added to the butt-load of truth bombs by admitting his fault in orphaning Raiden and turning him into a killing machine. Maybe out of guilt, maybe to give Raiden a reason — any reason — to keep fighting… who knows?
WIZ: It’s likely no one ever will, as only one man walked away that day. Solidus Snake, George Sears, 43rd president of the United States, died reaching up to the statue of George Washington, knowing that everything he feared would soon come to fruition.
BOOMSTICK: Buuut on the bright side, Raiden (along with Solid Snake) eventually took down the Patriots for good! And George’s Liberian tour later inspired a child-soldier-raising VR program, so, uhhh… there’s a legacy for ya, I guess.
“I will triumph over the Patriots, and liberate us all! And we will become… the ‘SONS OF LIBERTY’!”
WIZ: All right, the combatants are set! We’ve run through all of the data, and looked at all possibilities!
BOOMSTICK: It’s time for a DEATH BATTLE!!!
The North City forecast called for a sun shining bright amidst an endless blue expanse—a wintertime rarity, in these parts.
Too bad smoke decided to stand-in for clouds and dot the sky.
Amestris was under attack. Now, this sort of thing wasn’t exactly unheard of. Any national superpower worth its status knew the target painted onto its back, and it knew how best to deal with enemies looking to take that bullseye shot.
But this particular invasion was something truly special: A gargantuan battleship bursting out from under waters thought forever frozen over.
Attempts to make first contact had been met with hostile force like nothing seen before. Soldiers carrying automated firearms at least a hundred years ahead of their times were just the tip of the iceberg. Even that level of technological advancement paled in comparison to the bipedal mechanical monstrosities—twenty meters tall, streamlined and theropodian in build—tearing through all initial opposition with hydraulic cutters fired from their metal maws.
Within hours, North City was under new management.
But Amestris bowed to no one. Central Command rolled in reinforcements the very next day, with elite squadrons securing the southern perimeter. After that, the State Alchemists moved in, proving themselves a whole different breed of scientific military might.
Within hours, the playing field was leveled… as were a few North City blocks. Whoops.
But although the fighting has since spread through every vacated street corner, not a single Amestrian unit has advanced toward the ground zero of all this chaos: the massive submersible base, supposedly called “Arsenal Gear.”
“Well, why the hell not?! We could cut this army off at its source!”
“Didn’t you hear? We’re not to proceed until the all-clear has been given! Strict orders from Fuhrer Bradley, himself!”
-----
There sure are an awful lot of things currently hitting Arsenal Gear’s circular walls; bullets either off-target or deflected... echoing screams cut off before they truly begin… body parts leaving behind pint after splattered pint of human blood…
These mercenaries, decked out in muscle-enhancing body armor, were combat veterans. They were first-hand witnesses to many of the very worst horrors and hells mankind can manufacture. They were survivors.
Up until now, that is. Now, they’re little more than cattle. Arsenal Gear is their slaughterhouse, and their butcher’s a whirlwind of steel.
He’s a bit on the later side of middle-aged, but his stocky physique would be the envy of men half as old. He’s got a full head of black hair, a thick mustache and an eyepatch over his left eye. On his person are military issue slacks with suspenders and boots, a short-sleeved black undershirt and five—count ‘em—five swords.
Fuhrer King Bradley barely needed two to turn this commando unit into something past-tense.
And to think, not a drop of blood landed on him.
Leaving behind the dark corridor (and the massacre to which it bore witness), Bradley opens the door to blue light. The towering room’s cylindrical in shape—a large circular platform, surrounded in eight intersecting ways by four supporting beams and four short walkways. On the walkway opposite Bradley’s entrance stands a ladder so tall that its end can’t be seen from its start.
And standing before it is an old man much like the Fuhrer, himself. Similar hair (albeit snow white), a matching mustache and identically-placed eyepatch... He’s even got dual swords sheathed at his sides. Unlike Bradley, however, this man’s peak-human physique is packaged in futuristic metal. And one glance at those two segmented, prehensile tentacles curling up and over broad shoulder pads is enough to wager that this exoskeleton is a cut above those comparative hand-me-downs from earlier.
Dear readers, I introduce ex-president George Sears, A.K.A. Solidus Snake.
“So,” Solidus begins, his voice smooth and gritty at the same time. “You must be the man I’ve heard so much about.”
“Well," Bradley's lisp-peppered baritone replies without missing a beat. "That entirely depends on what exactly it is you’ve heard, now, doesn’t it?”
“King Bradley. President. Fuhrer. Warmonger. More of a monster than even the very worst man could be.” The emphasis on that last point sends the room into momentary silence. When Bradley next speaks, there’s a certain cold fury bubbling beneath his words.
“That’s quite the insinuation.”
“And yet, it’s nothing but the truth. You can deny it all you want, Bradley… if that’s even your real name.”
Another beat of deafening quiet.
“If you don’t mind, I have some questions. First, I’d like to know who you people are, how you came to such conclusions and why you invaded my country.”
“Very well. In order: we are the Sons of Liberty, and explaining our technological ways to you would be a waste of my time. After all, our goal here is to free humanity from you and your kind…” With a warrior’s cry, Solidus squats down and bulks up through his exoskeleton’s artificial muscle tech. He then stylishly quickdraws the byproduct of unholy matrimony between pistol and submachine gun, aiming between Bradley’s eyes. “Permanently!”
FIGHT!
**Play music: “Sins of Liberty -- Brandon Yates” **
Shots fired. The P90’s automatic rounds may as well be undergrad softball pitches to Bradley, who brings his swords up to cut them down. But there’s a nasty surprise waiting for him upon impact.
These bullets explode.
The Fuhrer’s forced to backpedal as he’s peppered by fiery blast-waves that, while not much on their own, quickly add up to become quite the nuisance. Switching strategies, Bradley stops blocking the bullets, and starts weaving through them instead! Beelining towards Solidus, Bradley closes the gap almost instantaneously!
Keyword being “almost.” More than enough time for Solidus to realize that his P90 is about as useful as a peashooter and react accordingly. Dropping the sidearm like yesterday’s news, he reaches for something a bit more optimal. Democrat and Republican are unsheathed in twin streams of electrical currents. Four blades clash once, twice, thrice—up, down, side-to-side—before briefly locking together!
Only then do the P90’s diced remains clatter to the floor.
After a second-long staredown, Bradley shoves Solidus back, soon as the latter starts extending those Snake Arms. They lunge simultaneously, attempting to catch Bradley in a pincer formation. The Fuhrer ducks under the first, and his follow-up slash intercepts the second. Shame that that’s just what his foe wanted. Mechanical digits clamp shut around Bradley’s right-hand blade, locking it in place and leaving the Fuhrer wide open.
Spinning on a heel, Bradley turns Solidus’ iron grip against him, swinging ‘round the Son of Liberty before hammer-tossing his own sword… still within the Snake’s clutches! And that’s not all: seamlessly adopting a fencer’s stance, Bradley rushes in to skewer Solidus as the latter flies by. Only through using his free Snake Arm to pole-vault over said attempt does George Sears avoid becoming an all-American shish-kebab.
Solidus flips over, rights himself mid-flight and lands on his feet with cat-like tread. Missing nary a beat, he hurls the approaching Fuhrer’s saber back at him. Of course, it’s casually caught mid-flight and soon swinging down towards Solidus, right alongside its brethren. Once more, though, their assault is halted by the Snake Arms.
And this time, Solidus has an opening to exploit. He yells, swiping his blades at Bradley’s chest. Lightning-clad, sharpened steel tears through black fabric on its way to meet unprotected flesh. The impact is clearly felt…
Yet the skin remains unbroken.
“What?!” Safe to say, this... isn’t quite what Solidus was expecting. And that shock further deepens when he feels his Snake Arms buckling under Bradley’s unrelenting brute force. Seconds away from losing much more than just a power struggle, Solidus thinks quick and acts quicker. Activating his suit’s internal accelerator, he slides left—a burst of motion so kinetically blistering it leaves flames trailing behind—but not before slashing the sabers overhead.
This time around, the cuts are clean. Bradley’s swords are divided by two, and inertia forces him to swing on nothing but air and cinders. For a moment, his ever-so-slightly widened eye darts from his broken weapons to his non-existent chest wound.
“Your technology never ceases to astonish and confound me,” the Amestrian warmonger wryly remarks as he stands at attention. Solidus seems keener on keeping a safe distance than he is in a conversation, so Bradley continues uninterrupted. “I’m especially curious about those swords.” Speaking of, Bradley drops his. But instead of immediately swapping out a fresh pair, his hands move somewhere higher. “Let me take a closer look.”
Off comes the eyepatch, and Solidus suddenly feels chatty, sporting a spiteful glare.
“The Book of Revelations mentions a ‘Mark of the Beast,’ a symbol for those who, whether knowingly or not, sold their souls to the devil wishing to usurp God in heaven. Many believe it to be the number 666, but it would seem Amestris holds a different interpretation.”
Well... he's not inaccurate.
Glaring back at Solidus is King Bradley’s newly-exposed left eye, scarred over from lid to lid. In lieu of a proper pupil, there’s a red tattoo depicting the Ouroboros—the winged serpent which encircles a hexagram whilst devouring its own tail—representing both the endless cycle of life/death and human creation as a whole. This is the Ultimate Eye, and from its gaze, not even the microscopic vibrations of Solidus’ swords are hidden. As of this moment, Fuhrer King Bradley has left the building.
Now, Solidus Snake faces the Homunculus called Wrath.
And he’s going on the warpath. Pulling out his second sword set, Wrath blitzes across the platform. Solidus stands his ground, and another blurry engagement begins! Democrat and Republican dance their high-frequency dance while the Snake Arms act as backup, swinging on Wrath whenever it seems like he won’t see them coming!
But he does see them coming. He sees all of Solidus’ movements coming, before the latter even makes them. He can judge where Solidus will strike next, where his body will be next, with time to spare. And while Solidus may not know exactly why, it’s second nature for a man engineered to surpass Big Boss himself to notice the tides of battle turning.
Time to change tactics. Solidus throws his Snake Arms back over his shoulders, extending them under the platform’s railings, where not even an Ultimate Eye may pry. There, the ends open up and fire some missiles into those support beams mentioned earlier. Relatively low-yield though the explosives might be, they still get the job done. The platform gives way, beginning its multi-story descent.
For Solidus, leaping to safety is child’s play. Who needs a ladder when your octopus-esque tentacles can simply wall-crawl? Wrath, on the other hand, has none of that, so he takes a more straightforward approach. In a feat of speed and athleticism reaching far beyond absurdity, Wrath not only runs to the 90-degree ladder (amidst falling debris, mind you)... but up it upon arrival!
Yes, you read that right.
Somehow, Solidus is less than impressed. Using Snake Arms as his crutch, he easily exceeds his opponent’s gait. The two old warriors are soon meeting up for another clash of swords, albeit one far more mobile than its predecessors. And what a thrill it is to behold… for the few short seconds it spans.
Due to positioning, Wrath can only defend Solidus’ H.F. assault with the sword hand facing him. Furthermore, Wrath’s one-track momentum—the fact that he can’t stop for anything, lest he fall—is the definition of exploitable, and a Snake Arm sweeping from the front proves as much. See, a mighty swipe from Wrath splits it down the middle. But no worries, because the sacrificial Arm was never expected to knock the homunculus down.
All it had to do was force focus off its compatriot coming in from underneath.
Looping around a right elbow like an iron anaconda constricting its prey, Solidus’ remaining tentacle forces Wrath’s arm behind his back in an unorthodox (yet painfully effective) chicken-wing hold. He can just feel his sword slip from his pinned grasp—its clatter against the ladder rungs barely audible over all the other metal-on-metal scraping—before the Fuhrer of Amestris is then slammed face-first through the ladder, embedded in the wall and violently dragged behind as Solidus proceeds to make an accelerator-charged ascension! Pelted by metal debris and afterburners, it’s all Wrath can do but to try and squirm his way free until they reach...
-----
Arsenal Gear’s rooftop. This particular area is marked by a massive, neon-blue, hexagonal pattern repeating inwards. Strange, barely-decipherable text dots these lines, and futuristic, near-see-through material fills in whatever blanks are left behind.
A small explosion marks the arrival of Bradley and Solidus, the latter’s velocity rocketing both dozens of feet into the sky. Coming back down, Solidus’ sole Snake Arm swings Wrath around, as if prepping a homunculus hammer toss. Thing is, it isn’t looking to let go, but instead to viciously slam Wrath into the rooftop!
And for the follow-up, it rapidly reels Solidus in. The ex-president readies Democrat and Republican, their sharp edges sheening in the midday sun. Bradley rolls on his back, brings up his left sword to block—!
Solidus shears through it en route to Wrath’s throat. And while his inhuman hide stops the high-frequency blades again... this time around, their incision draws blood.
This doesn’t go unnoticed. A grin all but dripping triumph slithers onto the Snake’s lips, premature though it may be. Even as Solidus immediately backpedals to keep what’s left of Wrath’s sword, hurled like a dart, from turning his sternum into a bullseye, that grin remains. Because now Solidus knows...
“You really can bleed.”
Before dignifying that with any sort of response, Wrath hops to his feet. His fifth and final saber is unsheathed, cold steel meeting colder air—neither one comparable to Wrath’s sub-zero glare.
“But of course. Every living thing bleeds. Why should I be any different?”
“Oh, let me not be mistaken,” Solidus barks. “This is wonderful news!” With a hiss and a pop, the Snake Arms are completely ejected from his exoskeleton. “My path to victory—the first step on mankind’s road to freedom—has been laid clear.” He squats down, leg muscles tensing like springs, like a panther ready to pounce. “Death by a thousand cuts!” He then rears back and screams to the sky: “All RAY units in my immediate vicinity, TO MEEE!”
The booming command echoes, echoes and echoes again. No response, no sound at all, save for the howling winds and the far-off symphony of war. All is quiet, here on this western front.
Wrath opens his mouth.
Titanium titans make their dynamic entrance, leaping onto the rooftop with speed and grace ill-fitting a weight class that shakes Arsenal Gear to its core. Visualize a pack of mechanical velociraptors, only they stand almost twenty meters tall, sporting hooves instead of clawed feet, massive “wings” in lieu of arms and triangular mandibles where teeth would have otherwise been. Looming over Solidus Snake are three—count ‘em—three Metal Gear RAYs.
Wrath readies his sword, unfazed and unintimidated. “You honestly believe I didn’t already mow down my fair share of your machines on the way here?”
Solidus meets his stoney gaze head on. “I’m sure you did. I just want to see for myself...”
**Play music: “Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2 – Brahman” **
Wrath doesn’t comment on nor question that last statement. He can’t. He’s too busy being all but blitzed. With the Snake Arms’ weight subtracted, Solidus’ next accelerated movement is a blur to even the Ultimate Eye. The attached homunculus moves an instant too slowly, earning himself a gash on his unprotected forearm.
Clairvoyance caught off-guard.
“... How that eye of yours handles groups.”
With a piercing screech, the hunt begins. The lead RAY makes the first move, opening wing-based ports to reveal automatic turrets. A hail of anti-tank rounds rain down upon Wrath, but we already know how this song and dance ends: without a single bullet finding its mark. The distance is closed, and the armor encasing the RAY’s foot may as well be held together by masking tape, the way it peels apart to a blurry flurry of sword strokes.
As the Metal Gear stumbles, heavily favoring one side, Wrath double-checks on Solidus’ location, only to find the ex-president gone. But there’s no time to dwell on that when RAYs #2 and #3 are circling around to lay down suppressive fire. Instead of trying to block or parry the whole lot, Wrath opts to book it underneath #1, and let those massive mechanical thighs soak up their fair share of bullets.
RAY #1 clearly isn’t a fan, judging by it attempting to stomp Wrath flat. But the Fuhrer’s a slippery bastard, and one pricey misstep costs the Metal Gear a leg to stand on, cleanly severed at its inorganic ankle. Unable to support its own weight, the colossus falls—downed, but not necessarily out. Before Wrath can rectify that, booming footsteps and a shadow cast herald RAY #2 running into the thick of things. It tries taking a bite of the homunculus, but inhuman legs easily vault him up and over those jaws...
Right where Solidus, who’d snuck himself a Metal Gear RIDE, is ready and waiting to accelerate, to meet Wrath midair with a crossed-swords-slash before the latter can mount a proper defense.
Two more flesh wounds added to the tally.
Wrath gnashes his teeth. Something’s changed. When he hits RAY #2’s back rolling, when he starts running down its length—hacking all the way—he does so with a newfound ferocity. When “King Bradley” springboards off the mutilated mech… when he bypasses RAY #3’s stinger missile barrage by using the warheads as stepping stones… when he descends from the sky to bisect the Metal Gear straight down the middle…
He does so with a cold fury befitting the sin he was raised to embody.
As for those aforementioned missiles shoved off-course, they not-so-coincidentally happen to impact the other two RAYs—three metaphorical birds, one metaphorical stone. The ensuing detonations coat Arsenal Gear’s roof in flames, hellishly juxtaposing the winter snow.
Having avoided annihilation, Solidus doesn’t let up. He zooms across the burning battlefield again and again, zeroing in from all angles. It’s a devious, “nick-and-run” strategy. And it pays off in dividends, Solidus’ adversary accumulating deeper wounds with every pass. Even once sparks start to fly instead of blood—once Wrath starts to adapt, his eye starts to adjust and his sword starts to parry the oncoming HF blades—it’s merely delaying the inevitable:
Amestrian steel becoming undone at a molecular level.
Wrath’s final saber, his final defense, being sliced in two.
“At long last!” Solidus shouts. “Liberty rings—!”
Lightning-clad blades dig deep into flesh… but not quite deep enough. Wrath, having foreseen this turn of events, snatches his own sword’s broken tip at the apex of its ascent. Wrath, roaring at the very top of his lungs, brings it down to stab Solidus Snake through the skull. The last sound ever made by George Sears, the perfect clone of the perfect soldier, is drowned out by the crimson liquid which fills his throat and frames his face. His arms slump, Democrat and Republican slipping from his grip. He falls to his knees, then flat on his face.
A lifelong puppet, whose strings have forever been cut.
Wrath takes a moment to breathe, and another to recollect himself. To the victor go the spoils: two high-frequency blades, given a few test swings by blood-stained hands then placed back in their sheathes. Regarding his adversary with but a glance and some few final words, Fuhrer King Bradley turns and walks away.
“That was well-fought, human. But rest assured, your kind won’t need liberation once we’re done with it.”
K.O.!
**Play music: “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood OST – Philosophorum Omega” **
BOOMSTICK: Bradley… with high-frequency blades… Funny, I was just thinkin’ it’s been a while since we totally doomed a fictional world.
WIZ: This bout was intense, both in the obvious spectacle and the not-quite-as-obvious verdict. I know I say this a lot, but legitimate arguments could be (and were) made for either combatant claiming victory.
BOOMSTICK: Outside of automail, the tech level in Amestris is set to “Industrial Revolution.” That’s 18th century, at the latest. Now, compare that to Solidus strolling in packing gizmos and gadgets from “Sci-Fi 2012.”
WIZ: Simply put, from his explosive P90 and exoskeletal accelerator to his versatile Snake Arms and high-frequency blades, Solidus had a wealth of options for approaching the battle with Bradley from all ranges. Bradley himself, on the other hand, was far more limited, always needing to keep things up close and personal.
BOOMSTICK: Not exactly the best place to be when your opponent (whose swords can cut basically anything after enough swings) has way, WAY more speed on his side. We know Solidus’ gene daddy’s glorified stunt double, Venom Snake—no, I am NOT elaborating further—was able to dodge lasers fired by the grand-daddy of all Metal Gears, Sahelanthropus.
WIZ: Going frame-by-frame, even a low-balled calculation comes out over 5,000 times the speed of sound. Meanwhile, you have Edward Elric’s father, Hoenheim, blocking a bolt of lightning called down by Wrath’s father, er, Father. That would require reaction speeds clocking in at a little under mach 2,000.
BOOMSTICK: Cool, but that still leaves the Bradster less than half as fast as Solidus on a slow day, sooo… how’d Wrath take the W?
WIZ: For starters, let’s take a look at a later show of Father’s force: the energy wave he unleashed to annihilate most of Central Command. This, Hoenheim couldn’t defend against, so he (alongside a bulk of the main cast) had to tank the damage head-on.
BOOMSTICK: By sizing up Central Command and how much of it was left standing afterwards, we can estimate that the power backing this Philosopher’s Kamehameha was worth 55 kilotons of TNT! This lines up with a bunch of Stone-fueled shenanigans committed by State Alchemists. And need I remind you, Bradley curbstomped those guys on the regular.
WIZ: But what’s key to note here is that the Metal Gear universe only reached these levels of power with the nanomachine fists of Senator Steven Armstrong, which could deliver over 70 kilotons of TNT in one punch and overpower Raiden even after the latter had undergone his third (yes, third) full-body cybernetic conversion.
BOOMSTICK: In layman’s terms, Armstrong beat the ever-loving electrolytes out of a cyborg ninja leagues beyond his original, Solidus-slaying body in every way. But hey, let’s assume Ol’ George’s high-frequency blades could chip away at Bradley’s durability.
WIZ: That’s where the critical X-factors come into play. Wrath had decades of training and combat experience over Solidus, and his Ultimate Eye’s pseudo-precognition helped to make any speed gaps less of an issue.
BOOMSTICK: Put those together, and we think it’s way more likely than not that Wrath would find an opening to land the single hit a guy with his strength would need before Solidus delivered death by a thousand cuts.
Bradley’s swords may have a reputation for breaking, but outside of one arguable outlier, they’ve only ever been shattered by Greed (whose Ultimate Shield is THE hardest material in the FMA world) and Scar (whose destruction alchemy ignores durability outright). And as Senator Armstrong demonstrated, high-frequency blades aren’t indestructible, either.
WIZ: Solidus Snake was a cunning, tenacious foe with technological marvels and impressive speed on his side. But King Bradley’s skill, overwhelming power and all-seeing eye ultimately put an end to Big Boss’ spitting image.
BOOMSTICK: If I could name George’s single greatest mistake, it was sticking around to face Bradley’s Wrath.
WIZ: The winner is Fuhrer King Bradley.
