The Pain

The Pain appears in the game Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and is a member of the Cobra Unit.

He has the ability to control large swarms of hornets at will. He gained this ability by allowing hornets to sting him for days on end and for months at a time, until the hornets came to believe that he was one of their number. As a result of this, his face is covered with weals from the stings. He is also said to carry a Queen in the pack on the back of his hips, using her sound to guide the hornets. Additionally, he carries a large array of vials on his vest, which he flings at enemies to guide hornet swarms at them.

Besides his hornets, The Pain is armed with a Tommy gun and grenades, and can use hornets in conjunction with these weapons. He can protect himself from gunfire and other attacks by covering himself with a thick shield of them, and can create an exact duplicate of himself, shaped out of hornets, to confuse his enemies.

He also raises special hornets called "bullet bees" inside his own body. When he removes his balaclava, the bullet bees are released from his mouth. They move at extraordinarily fast speeds, and upon contact with enemies, they burrow into their bodies and begin eating their insides until they are dead.

His codename signifies the pain he feels while on the battlefield.

The Pain was ultimately defeated by Naked Snake in a battle in an underground cave. Upon his defeat, he activated a microbomb like that all the Cobras carried, destroying his corpse and his entire swarm. He was the first Cobra to fall.

Hideo Kojima revealed, in an exclusive interview for Japan's Famitsu magazine, that The Pain's forename is Claude.