Omake
Dusty Bookworm
And the Modern Thermopylae
The second he had heard that Big Boss had handed out orders for Diamond Dogs to mobilize to protect the people of Kandahar, Mark Linkman, Dusty Bookworm, knew that they were all going to die. Diamond Dogs was an organization made up of the best. The top one percent of the top one percent he had once heard. Operations, management, supply, infiltration...if it had something to do with War and it's associated art, they had the best. No nation, no ideology, no religion,no ethnicity, no language defined who made into DD. Only skill. Against any other foe Diamond Dogs, the new Soldiers without Borders, would have already turned the tides. Armour would be scattered and directionless, the men broken in spirit and body, the leaders scared witless. But this was no ordinary foe.
He still couldn't help but snicker. Real honest to god Zombies! The dead brought back to kill the living! With some kind of living machines to boot! Hah! Only alongside Big Boss.
But he wasn't afraid...the living dead or no. Because he heard the screams, the terror, the disbelief. And it didn't matter. Because 'Bookworm' wasn't some ironic name. He loved history, military history especially. From the recent wars in the Asian South-East to the World Wars, to the Napoleonic Wars, to the American Revolution, The Hundred-Years War, The Punic Wars, to the days where 'war' was two tribes of intelligent monkeys clubbing and cutting each other with rocks. And he knew what was going to happen. Maybe even before anyone else.
Because 2,000 years ago this had happened before. 300 Spartans, led by King Leonidas and assisted by almost another 1000 Greek soldiers against the veritable horde that was the Persian Army. The Greeks died to a man, but by the time the Persians had made it to Athens, the city had already been evacuated. The city was burned, yes, but the people lived.
And as his comrades and friends broke, as they grew terrified by this foe they could not stop, he grew angry. Because he knew why they were here. Why the Boss had sent them despite the odds being against them. It was their lives for time. Every minute They, The Diamond Dogs, the Mujahideen, Commander Ocelot, so long as they held, so long as they fought, for every inch! For every minute! As long as they yelled and screamed and bled and died! It was one more civilian who managed to get away. One more child who would be able to live a life. One more chance for a better tomorrow.
Every minute they fought and held, was one more minute for the Boss to save the world. And if that wasn't a good enough reason to fight to the death, Bookworm didn't know what was.
Decided to throw my hat into the ring of vicious hat-eating terriers.
I'm going to be honest, Bookworm is a bit of a sacrificial pawn, this whole spiel is one part rallying speech, one part last words, and one part acceptance of the fact that it's a soldiers duty to fight and die, and that in this battle, all of these men are Heroes, dying to save as many people as possible. Because as long as some people live, it's not a total defeat.
Edit: So I might have not known about the Omake and OC rules when I sat down and wrote this so...if Konami wants to take this off the omake list or anything else until I fix my mistakes, I completely understand.
