How Skull Face Stole Christmas: A V-Mas Tale

PROLOGUE: HOLIDAY AWAKENING

Every WHO down in WHOghanistan loved Christmas a lot. But Skull Face, who lived just north in OKB Zero, did not. Skull Face hated Christmas, the whole Christmas season. Why? Please don't ask, no one quite knew the reason. Maybe it was just that his mask was too tight. Or that his parasites just didn't spread quite right.
Though I think the most likley reason of all, was that as a young boy, he lost his holiday spirit, the bedrock for developing any joy.

But whatever the reason, his mask or his trauma as a boy, he stood there on Christmas Eve hating it and every envoy. Staring down from his base, with a sour Skull Faced frown, at the warm lighted windows of their cozy desert town. For he knew every WHO down in WHOghanistan was busy now, hanging a Tarragon wreath.

"And they're hanging their stockings" he snarled with a sneer. "Tomorrow is Christmas, it's practically here!" Then he growled with his Skull Fingers nervously throbbing. "I must find some way to keep Christmas from coming!

"For tomorrow I know all those WHO girls and boys will wake bright and early, they'll rush for their toys, and then all the noise, every voice, voice, voice!"

"If it's one thing I hate it's their language, thier noise, thier voice, voice, voice!"

"And they'll make shrieks and squeels racing 'round on thier wheels. They'll dance with decoys tied onto their heels. They'll play their damn fiddles, they'll bang their damn doors, they'll blast thier cassetes, then slam each other on floors!"

"And then they'll play games with a new cardboard box, and pretend they're just like an operative of FOX."

"Then they'll draw eyes and awe from everyone near, as they patrol down the block in a new Walker Gear."

"And then all the WHOs, young and Old, will sit down to a feast. And they'll feast and they'll feast. They'll feast on WHO Rations and Rare WHO Roast Bear. Oh Rare Roast Bear is a feast I can't stand in the least!"

"And then they'll do something I hate most of all! Every WHO down in WHOghanistan, the CP and the Zoya, will stand close together with Christmas alarms ringing. They'll stand hand in hand and those WHOs will start singing! And they'll sing, and they'll sing, and they'll sing, sing, sing, sing!"

And the more Skull Face thought of this whole Christmas thing, the more Skull Face thought:

"I must stop this whole thing! Why for fifty-three years I've put up with it now! I must stop Christmas from coming!

"But how?"

Then he got an idea. An awful idea. Skull Face got a demonically awful idea.


CHAPTER 1: R-EVE-NGE

"I know just what to do!" Skull Face laughed in his throat.

"I'll make a quick eye patch, fake beard, and a cloak!" He chuckled and clucked.

"Just a small stitch here and across, and with this patch and this suit I'll look just like Big Boss. All I need is some shrapnel."

Skull Face looked around, but then he figured that'd hurt so he looked to the ground.

"If I can't find shrapnel I'll make something instead..."

So he took an armored SKULLS unit, some chewing gum off a tread, broke a splinter off and stuck the makeshit horn to his head.

Skull Face loaded some fultons on to Sahelanthropus upon setting his clock, then he whisteled for Tretji Rebenok.

Then Skull Face said "FORWARD!" And Sahelanthropus started down towards where the homes where the WHOs layed asleep in thier town.

All their windows were dark, no one knew he was there, all the WHOs asleep, dreaming without care when he came sneaking up to the first house on the square.

"This is stop number 1." the Big Skull Faced Boss hissed as he climbed through the window with fultons in his fists.

Then he hid under a box, it was a tight fit and lacking in grace, but if any Dog could do it then why not Skull Face? He was stuck only once for a minute or two, then he stuck his head out and wouldn't you know, there were all the WHO's stockings hung in a row.

"These stockings" he rattled. "Are the first things to go!"

Then he sneaked and snuck with a smile most unpleasent around the whole room and took every resource and preasent. BB Guns, Minor Metals, Digitalis, and drums. African Peaches,  water pistols, decoys and swimsuits for those sunsets on the beaches. He stuffed them in bags and on fultons they flew, up into the air where the wind fiercely blew.

Then he snuck to the ice box, after their silverware, he took the WHO's feast, he took the WHO's Rations, he took the Rare Roast Bear! He cleaned out the ice box, quick as a flash, why Skull Face even took the last of the WHO's hash.

And out the window he went, as quick as he came. Onward to the other houses to do exactly the same. One after the other, all without fail, he extracted it all, leaving crumbs even too small for a snail.

Skull Face then returned to his mech, his mission complete. Energetic and smug over his impeccable feat. "It's not over yet!" he said as he stood in Sahelanthropus' hand.

"This is but a mere Side-Op compared to what I truly have planned!"


CHAPTER 2: CHRISTMAS RACE

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through Mother Base, not a creature was stirring when around came Skull Face.

The Diamond Dogs' stockings hung on every deck, in hopes that Miller would gift them a check.

The child soldiers were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of wartime atrocities danced in thier heads.

They all had nestled down, every Dog in deep slumber, while Skull Face began his great holiday plunder.

Weapon placements and resource containers he easily took by storm, but the real gifts of course were on the Command Platform.

When Skull Face did find them, he had parasites in his smile, then he extracted the first gift, a hat made from a crocodile.

Sunglasses, revolvers, and gifts of all kinds into the air he hurled, Skull Face even stole a gift from "The Man Who Sold The World".

His mission almost complete, this filled him with glee. "And now" grinned Skull Face. "To extract the tree!"

As Skull Face hooked up the tree, as he started to flee, he heard a loud shout, then turned around fast to see what was the bother.

"FATHER!"

It was little Eli, the whitest of Mambas. Wearing his casual day clothes out of protest, instead of his favorite pink bunny pajamas. He stared down Skull Face and said "Tonight we finish this Snake! Once and for all!"

Eli was clever even though he was small, Skull Face would have to find an excuse to keep him out of this brawl.

But you know that old Skull Face was was slick, he thought up his lie and he thought it up quick.

"Look Eli" the fake Big Boss said. "Go back to sleep, I'll fight you tomorrow morning instead."

He belived that this lie would subdue the child, prevent the young one from getting too riled. So Skull Face got him a drink and sent him to bed, and when that didn't work he hit him over the head. And when little Eli was out cold with his cup, Skull Face crept back out and fultoned the tree up.
With that he had done it, not the least stressful. Skull Face had taken everything.

Infiltration Successful.


CHAPTER 3: PEACE ON EARTH

It was a quarter to dawn. All the Dogs still abed. All the WHOs still asnooze. When on Sahelanthropus he fled. Ten thousand feet up to the tip of OKB Zero, he rode with his load to destroy it far away from any hero.

"Woah-ho to the Dogs and WHOs!" He was demonically humming. "They're finding out now that no Christmas is coming, they're just waking up and I'll know just what they'll do!"

"Their mouths will hang open a minute or two, then the fireteams will all cry 'Boo-Hoo'."

"That's a noise" grinned Skull Face. "That I simply must hear!"

He paused, and Skull Face put a hand to his ear.  And he did hear a sound rising over the sand, it started real low then it began to expand.

But this, this sound wasn't sad, this sound sounded glad. Every WHO down in WHOghanistan was singing without no presents at all. He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming. It came. Somehow or other, it came just the same.

"Wait, WHO is doing this? Such a lust for Christmas! WHOOOOOO?"

Skull Face, his boots heel deep in the sand, stood puzzling and puzzling at the joy they were guzzling.

"It came without cardboard boxes! It came without frags! It came without rations, cassetes, and mags!"
He puzzled and puzzed until his parasites were sore. Then Skull Face thought of something he hadn't before.

Maybe Christmas, he thought, didn't come from the Store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.

And what happened then? Well in WHOghanistan they say, that Skull Face's cardiac parasites grew three sizes that day.

And then the true meaning of Christmas came through, and Skull Face found the strength of ten SKULLS Units, plus two.

Then with his heart not feeling quite so tight, he wizzed with his load through the bright morning light. He rode into WHOghanistan, he brought back thier toys, everything he had taken from all the good WHO girls and boys. He brought back thier rations but he would miss the feast, for the Seychelles waters lied just due east.

Across the waves on his Metal Gear he sped to right the wrongdoings that to which his anger had led.

His arrival at Mother Base would have caused quite the riot, if not for the enemy sniper.

Quiet.

From then on every Diamond Dog could rest easy, as they brough pillow to head, knowing once and for all, that Skull Face was dead.


CHAPTER 4: TRUTH

"That story was awful!" Eli raved at the end of the tale. The rescued children giggling at his expense.

"The other kids seemed to like it well enough." Replied Ocelot. "But if you think you could do better then please, find another Christmas story to tell before you return to your quarters for the night."

Ocelot handed Eli the story book which he swiped from his gloves, and then flipped through the pages to find them all blank. Ocelot slammed the mock book in Eli's face and then slammed Eli onto the ground with a loud thud. The other children's smiles grew wider at the display.

"Dismissed. And Merry Christmas."