Author's Notes:

Like the story's description said, this was originally an April Fools chapter of my other story, Pony Gear Solid. I spun it off into its own story after the reception it got, something I'd been thinking about doing if it did well enough with my readers to merit its own entry on FiMfic.

That story isn't required reading for this one; this is every bit a Metal Gear and EqG parody as it is a work of self-parody. If you know either set of source materials well, then you'll probably be able to follow and laugh at this story. But knowing PGS would at least let you pick out the various references to it sprinkled throughout, and there are, needless to say, a lot.

The following is very silly, and not to be taken seriously under any circumstances.

Few things got Solid Snake quite so solid as lying down on his stomach and creeping along the ground, even if the bulge in his crotch just made the process more uncomfortable. Sneaking was just what he was good at, and he liked doing it as often as possible, whether rain or shine. In today's case, it was frosty out, and the cold seeped into him through his clothes as he crawled through the bushes, preventing his crotch-serpent from reaching full solidity. It made for better sneaking, really, but part of him missed the sensation.

Snake's bandana fluttered in the cold morning breeze as he emerged into the open air and raised his binoculars. From across the white field, he observed the crowd of students making their way into Crystal Prep High, his breath misting in front of him. His spying was soon interrupted by a familiar ringing sound, so Snake lied down again to answer his phone.

"Otacon," he said in his characteristically growly voice. "I'm outside the site now. No sign of Metal Gear."

"Keep looking, Snake," said his friend of many years. "You've come this far. Don't give up now!"

"I... wasn't going to..." Snake mumbled. "Hrrr... Looks like the other students are all heading in for class."

"Well, you don't want to be late."

"Goddamnit, I know, Otacon." Snake ended the call in a huff and put his cellphone back in his pocket. "Why does he even call me?"

Packing his binoculars away, he stood up and emerged from the bushes. Looking down, Snake promptly noticed that he had gotten dirt all over his new Crystal Prep uniform. His first day in a new school, and he was already a mess. With a sigh, he trudged sullenly across the field to join the throng. This mission was off to an inauspicious start.

It wasn't long before Snake started getting weird looks, either because of the dirt, or the bandana that he insisted on wearing everywhere. Neither was exactly standard fashion in an uptight place like this. But Snake had never gotten along with his fellow teenagers, and he hadn't expected Crystal Prep to be any change of pace. It made no difference either way. He was here on a mission. He had to find Metal Gear. The consequences if he failed were too dire to think about.

Snake's eyes flitted between the other students as he walked through the halls. This felt wrong. It was too open, too exposed. Snake was always much more comfortable when he was out of sight, and preferably also crawling on the ground. Standing upright and walking out in the open was for jackasses; everyone in his family knew that. Except for his big brother, Solidus, who had been the most popular kid in school and the class president, but he was just... weird.

I miss my cardboard box, thought Snake. Stupid dress code.

His brooding distracted Snake from looking where he was going, and he ran straight into another student, a purple-skinned girl with her hair tied in a bun. She gasped and dropped her books, instinctively apologizing as she went to pick them up. Snake grunted something apologetic in turn, and bent down to help her.

There was an awkward pause when they both rose again, and the girl blushed slightly as he passed her one of her books.

"Um, thank you," she said, smiling at him.

Snake saw where this was going, and wanted no part of it, so he just grunted noncommittally and shoved past her.

"Wait!"

Damn it, now she was following him. Girls never knew when to leave him alone. This was exactly why he hated interacting with people face-to-face. Phone calls and texts and internet chats were much easier. No faces involved meant no unwanted female attention. Otacon understood this; he never socialized in real life, and the girls never bothered him.

Snake quickened his pace to try to get away. Just as he turned the corner in hopes of escape, however, he spotted a thick crowd of students. Driven by his finely honed instincts for stealth, he backed away around the corner and pressed up against the wall. Unfortunately, this gave time for the purple girl to catch up with him.

"Hey!" she said. "I just wanted to know your na—"

Snake shushed her, and leaned out from cover to peek around the corner.

"Oh, are we hiding from someone?" the girl whispered.

"No." Snake's eyes snapped over to her. "We're not doing anything. Get lost."

"Oh..." The girl gave him a downcast look. "I'm sorry."

Just as she went to leave, Snake reached out and grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her back over with a yelp.

"Wait," he said, pointing down the hall at a pair of students chatting away by their lockers – a reedy, pimply dork with a peachfuzz beard, and a small girl with platinum blonde hair and a bright, sunny smile upon her face.

"Who is that?"

The girl looked at his hand with a blush, stammering. "I... uh..."

"Answer me, dammit!"

Yelling, as usual, worked, and she looked where he was indicating.

"...You mean that boy? That's Macbeth. President of the drama club. I don't know who the girl is, though. I think she's new here."

She was new. A transfer from Shadow Moses High, just like him. Snake would've recognized her anywhere.

Metal Gear.

To Snake's immense frustration and fury, he and the purple girl shared most of their classes, and she dogged his steps through all of them. She told him her name was Twilight, and even wrangled his own name out of him over the course of the day. That would've been bad enough, but then she made sure she sat next to him in every class they had together as well.

Their last course of the day was history. Snake had deliberately taken a seat at the back of the class to avoid the staring, judgmental gazes of his fellow students, only to end up being stared at all through class anyway. Fortunately, Twilight didn't talk, busy as she was with her rigorous note-taking. Unfortunately, she did keep trying to hold his hand.

The lecture itself was pretty boring too, which didn't help matters. The teacher was an overweight, uncharismatic old man with a thick accent, who took frequent breaks from his droning to polish his shoes and drink something from a hip flask.

"Today, we only have apocryphal accounts of the God-Emperor's reign," Mr. Granin slurred, dribbling clear liquor down his chin. "But most sources trace our modern practice of naming things after horses for no reason back to him. The God-Emperor's obsession with equestrian sports and breeding is referenced in the Biblia Discordia, dated seventy years after the end of his reign..."

It went on like that for the rest of the hour as Mr. Granin described, in detail, the God-Emperor's penile insecurities, and his dream of transcending the human body to become a well-endowed stallion named Bucephallus. When Snake finally escaped the classroom and its stench of vodka and shoe polish, the relief was one of the sweetest feelings he'd ever felt. Not even Uncle Ocelot's torture resistance training was that painful, and Uncle Ocelot got really into it in those sessions.

Twilight came up and put a hand on his shoulder.

"So... hey!" she said. "We didn't get much of a chance to talk earlier. I thought it might be nice to get to know each other!"

Snake shuddered. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to stick a gun in his own mouth and wipe his meme from the face of the earth.

"I'm not interested in anyone else's life," he grunted. "The only thing I want to know is where Macbeth is and what he's doing with Metal Gear."

"Oh." Twilight let go. "Well, doesn't that kind of imply an interest in their lives? If nothing else?"

Now Snake just wanted to hit her. But, dammit, she was right, and he signaled his agreement with a begrudging grunt.

"So, um... that being the case..." Twilight wrapped her arms around her midsection self-consciously. "Maybe we can go find him, together. Or even just hang out. If you want, I mean."

Snake turned his back on her. "I don't need a sidekick."

"I-I wasn't thinking in a sidekick sort of way. I was thinking more in a... you know..." She started mumbling. "Licking ice cream off each other's nipples sort of way."

"Ice cream?" Snake grunted, ears perking.

"I mean, hey!" Twilight pointed down the hall with a fragile grin. "It's Macbeth! A-And he brought a friend!"

!

Snake pulled open Mr. Granin's classroom door and hid behind it, pressing himself against the nearby row of lockers. With his free arm, he pulled Twilight close. She melted against him, shuddering rapturously.

"We should have else desired your good advice, which still hath been both grave and prosperous, in this day's council, but we'll take to-morrow." Macbeth's voice was high and nasal, and broken by pauses for snorts of breath. "Is't far you ride?"

"To the cherry farm?" an androgynous-sounding voice replied. "Not really. Could take me awhile to get there and back, though. You know how Hickory is."

"Goes Operator with you?"

"Nah. He doesn't travel well, I'm afraid."

"As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, shoughs, water-rugs and demi-wolves, are clept all by the name of dogs. The valued file distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle, the housekeeper, the hunter, every one according to the gift which bounteous nature hath in him closed; whereby he does receive particular addition from the bill that writes them all alike. And so of men."

"Uh. Yeah. Same here, man. Anyway, this is Mr. Granin's room, so..."

"To make society the sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself till supper-time alone while then."

"Sounds good! I should be home by 8; stop by, and I'll whip you up some homemade gallo pinto."

Then came the sound of hands slapping together. "Don't worry," said the other voice. "I'll put in a good word for you, like always."

Macbeth went off down the hall, whistling a tune that made Snake growl with annoyance.

The Cure. How I hate The Cure.

Then the door pulled shut, leaving Snake and Twilight exposed in the hallway. "Thanks for getting that for me, man," said the other voice.

Snake immediately pulled away from Twilight and seized her by the shoulders. "Who was that, huh? Answer me!" He shook her once, hard.

"Harder," Twilight muttered.

"What?"

"Oh, uh." Twilight slapped herself and shook her head. "That guy with Macbeth was Trenton. A real jock type. He runs track, plays basketball, lacrosse – Principal Cinch is counting on him to be our ringer in the Friendship Games this year."

"Jock type, huh?" Snake released Twilight's shoulders and cupped his chin. "I'll bet he's a total asshole, on top of everything else."

"Not really. He's big into philanthropy, actually. When he's not tutoring freshmen and organizing fundraisers for the school, he volunteers at the animal shelter. Even adopted an old dog from there, too."

"Yeah, just like I thought. A total asshole." Snake stroked his bare upper lip, musing for not the first time about how cool he'd look with a mustache. "But what does he want with Mr. Granin?"

Snake cupped his hand against the door and leaned his ear into it, straining to hear the muffled sounds of conversation and shrugging off Twilight's hand when it found his shoulder.

"...Just saying, Mr. Granin, that he's a real nice guy, a good student, and he knows how to treat a girl. No funny stuff."

"I am hearing you, don't get me wrong, Trenton. But there is a reason I no longer let my daughter date. She is very precious to me, and all those rumors about her 'taking the Stinger like a champ,' hurt me. Because they hurt her, you see, and when she hurts, I hurt. And when she hurts, and I hurt, then the people who say the bad things, I hurt them, and then I lose my job."

"Sir... I'm just asking you to consider it. That's all. I don't want to see Metal Gear get hurt, either. She's a good friend of mine. Macbeth will treat her right, though. I wouldn't bring it up if I didn't genuinely believe that."

Snake's eyes widened. "That son of a bitch Macbeth is trying to steal Metal Gear! And Trenton's helping him!"

"Mm?" said Granin, voice rising in alarm. "What was that just now?"

"Oh, there are some kids out in the hall. Young couple fooling around. They're not hurting anyone."

Young couple. Snake's face burned. Of all the idiotic...

"Ah, I ought to write them up, but for you Trenton, I will let it slide. Now. Shall we pick up where we left off?"

"Absolutely; you know I love our book club. Now, according to Marx, socialism can be defined in the following ways..."

Snake pulled away from the door with a growl and slammed his fist into the locker hard enough to dent it. "Damn it! Even Granin's in on it! How high does the conspiracy go, huh?!"

Then he tore off down the hallway, trying to retrace Macbeth's steps.

"Wait!" Twilight called. "Where are you going?"

"To find Macbeth!"

"But won't you take me? With you, take me with you?" she hastily added.

Snake grunted to himself. "Fine! But keep up, or I'm leaving you behind!"

Macbeth had a head start on him, but Snake had speed and wits on his side. He hunched over as he moved, keeping his eye on the floor. Macbeth had left dusty footprints on the linoleum, from orthopedic shoes, by the look of it. What a loser. Didn't he know that those offered no tactical advantage whatsoever during stealth missions?

Snake sped along thus, not daring to look up, for fear that he might lose the trail – and then where would he be? Nowhere good, he knew that much for—

He bumped into something that felt and smelled like a butt, and fell backward. "Eargh!" he grunted as his back smacked into the floor. "What the hell?!"

The butt stopped mid-step. It was skinny, and meatless, and attached to a body that was equally skinny and meatless.

Snake's eyes narrowed. "Macbeth! Turn around and face me like a man!"

Macbeth's shoulders shook with laughter as he turned around, a bottle of nasal spray shoved halfway up one nostril. He squeezed the bottle slightly, snorting, and tucked it away in his back pocket. A mouth, wired so heavily with braces that Snake wondered how he kept from falling forward onto his face, grinned at him.

"Prithee, peace," Macbeth declared. "I dare do all that may become a man; who dares do more is none."

Snake frowned. "The hell are you talking about? Speak English, you freak!"

Twilight's staggered breathing and footfalls echoed behind him. He felt her hands underneath his arms, squeezing his triceps slightly, and he let her guide him back to his feet before shaking her off.

"He is speaking English," Twilight wheezed. "It's from Shakespeare. He's in the drama club, remember?"

"He's gonna shake a spear at me, huh? Well, guess what?"

Snake reached into the back of his uniform pants and pulled out a gun, which he leveled at Macbeth's eye.

"I got something better than that."

"Snake!" Twilight hissed, hugging his arm frantically. "What are you doing? Do you want to get thrown out?!"

Macbeth stared down the barrel smugly. "Swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn, brandish'd by man that's of a woman born."

"Swords, spears – make up your mind! Not that it matters either way. You shouldn't bring either to a gunfight."

Snake's finger traced over the trigger before squeezing.

A thin stream of water spurted from the barrel and struck Macbeth's cheek, making him jerk with surprise. A second splashed against his glasses. He blinked, removed them, wiped them off on his shirt, and placed them back on his face.

Twilight watched with burning cheeks.

"There," said Snake. "And there's a hell of a lot more where that came from, unless you stay away from Metal Gear."

Chuckling, Macbeth shook his head. "Avaunt! And quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!"

He turned, and continued to walk away, snorting another puff of nasal spray.

Twilight pulled a tissue from her uniform and wiped the end of Snake's squirtgun.

"Look, you're new here," she muttered. "So maybe you don't know, but this is a zero tolerance school – a squirtgun is as bad as a real gun in the eyes of the law. You get caught with that, and you'll be facing expulsion. And that, um... that would be regrettable."

"Yeah," Snake grunted. "How else am I supposed to protect the purity of Metal Gear if I can't go to the same school as her?"

Twilight stiffened. "Yeah. Can't have that."

She tucked away the tissue with a sigh. Snake tilted his head curiously.

"How'd you catch up to me so fast, anyway? I ran pretty far, and I was goin' a mile a minute."

Twilight, her face blank, pointed stiffly down the hall. Snake turned to look at what she was indicating.

Fifteen feet away from them in the perfectly linear corridor was Mr. Granin's classroom.

Snake folded his arms with a grunt. "Well, it seemed further than that."