As soon as Venom had secured the weaponsmith, he knew this wasn't the man he was after.

He might have possessed skill as a weaponsmith, granted, but Venom could tell he was nowhere near legendary.

Securing the prisoners, from the previous. Mission, for extraction had been no problem, even with them being held in separate buildings.

If either had been in similar shape to Miller when he'd rescued him it might have been an issue, requiring him to call in Pequod and secure the weaponsmith later, but fortunately both had been in sufficiently good shape to be extracted by fulton.

And with them on the way to Mother Base, Venom had fulfilled all his objectives on the mission and was able to turn his attention to the weaponsmith, extracting a puppy he ran into along the way.

At first, when Ocelot contacted him, Venom had believed that the smith was a prisoner for him to rescue, but upon locating the man it became clear that he was working with the militia more or less willingly.

There was something of a thin line between bodyguards and jailors.

Having marked each of the guards, Venom settled back to consider how to proceed, placing his remaining animal traps in likely looking spots.

If the smith had definitely been a prisoner, the decision would have been easy, he'd have rescued him without thinking twice.

But if the smith was working with them willingly, would it be right for Venom to abduct him?

With the soldiers and commanders, it was one thing. Besides from the conscripts, little more than prisoners themselves, they were all willingly causing so much harm to the region.

But the weaponsmith?

He wasn't responsible for how others used the weapons he made. And even without him, they would still be able to get weapons from elsewhere, so an attempted recruitment of the smith wouldn't even harm the local war efforts enough to solve the moral quandary.

But… there was no guarantee that the smith was working with them willingly, and should he decline the invitation to work for the Diamond Dogs it would be possible to transport him elsewhere instead.

Even if it was a big 'if', given how Ocelot had been able to recruit everyone Venom had brought back to Mother Base so far.

He really should have done something about finding out how Ocelot maintained such a success rate.

But an attempt at recruitment it was.

He took out the guards quietly, one by one, until it was just the smith and his bodyguards left, before going loud.

A flashbang into their midst, followed by some quick bursts from his rifle, and they were all on the floor.

It was time to call Pequod for extraction.

Venom opened the iDroid map for the area, calling Pequod to the closest LZ, and paused.

That wasn't too far away, was it?

He considered all the soldiers in the base…

]

By the time Pequod arrived, Venom had already relocated everyone to the site, the weaponsmith over his shoulders.

Even if he wasn't 'the' legendary weaponsmith it was possible he had a lead to the real one, and Venom already had him ready for transport.

Pequod didn't comment on him stacking body after body in the helicopter before climbing aboard himself, which raised certain questions as to why he was so accepting of 'Snakes' eccentricities, but was convenient enough for now.

Venom checked in with Ocelot as they arrived back at Mother Base.

"From the commanders you extracted, we have learned of a tank deployment by the XOF to reinforce their forces," Ocelot began without preamble. "That should be your next mission."

"How long do we have?"

"The convoy isn't expected for a few days. The XOF doesn't seem to have fully established themselves in the region, and have to ship them in from elsewhere."

Venom nodded.

"We have time for additional training then."

"Of what sort?"

"Training so my Titans can use my equipment," Venom responded. "It occurred to me on the mission how useful it would be if Heirospecter, the nearly invisible Titan, could use the fulton extraction system while separated from me."

"How useful could that be? You'd have to hand over each fulton when you wanted it to use one."

"But it can go flat enough to fit under a door. What's to stop Heirospecter from lying concealed on the road and extracting a vehicle from underneath, beyond the need for training?"

Ocelot considered.

"Good point. And it would work well for securing the tanks. Anything else?"

"We got the wrong weaponsmith," Venom stated.

]

It would only be a best case scenario for Ocelot to track down the actual legendary weaponsmith in time to upgrade Venoms weapons, so he left the matter to Ocelot while working on his Seeker preparations.

The additional Mother Base platform for Seeker business had been completed while he was away, the center being a massive library for Seeker texts and spare amulets, waiting to be studied.

It wasn't an ideal place to train his Titans in using modern technology, but that wasn't why he was visiting.

"What do we have," he asked Machinegun Wasp, who had pretty much established herself as head of the Seeker department, despite her initial intention of rejoining the RD department.

"A few more recruits, some possible matches for amulets," she answered, reading off her iDroid as she spoke. "Nothing you'd find particularly useful, the Battlemaster for example seems to be the classical equivalent to a Metal Gear."

"I wouldn't put it past Skullface to field a Metal Gear," Venom pointed out. "It might be worthwhile to hold onto a Battlemaster as security."

"They use catapults as weapons," was Wasps deadpan response. "I don't think they'd even dent a Metal Gear. The texts we've translated so far haven't been too useful either, mostly about possible Seeker sites across the world."

"Are any of our Seeker recruits up to exploring the sites?"

Wasp hesitated.

"Possibly, but I'd expect casualties if there are serious protections. We did find one power you might want to learn. It seems to operate by creating what we have come to describe as a 'hammerspace', after some old cartoons that did something similar. Essentially, you can store as much as you want in the space created by the power, and access them again anywhere by using the power once more."

Venom considered.

"I'd be able to keep a good supply of equipment with me. Even different loadouts to switch in the field."

"Indeed. It doesn't seem to work too well with amulets, but everything else has worked so far."

Venom nodded.

"Copy the details onto the iDroid and send me a copy. I'll learn it while training my Titans."

]

The first step was for Venom to decide which Titans to train with the fulton devices.

Each would add to the energy burden of keeping them invoked, and he didn't know just how much energy he'd need to learn the power.

Mara was somewhat lacking in the hands department, so Venom dismissed it from consideration.

Heirospecter was the one that had brought the idea to his mind in the first place, so was a clear priority for the training.

Freelancer was somewhat less stealthy, but the 'Red Brass' mission had demonstrated its ability to serve as a distraction.

Plus Freelancer was notably sturdy.

Venom decided to start by training Freelancer with the fultons, progressing to explosives if it seemed Freelancer was capable.

You didn't want people running around with explosives if you couldn't trust them to use them properly, after all.

Venom had heard the rumours of soldiers smoking by the ammo dump, like everyone else…

So his 'lesser' Titans both received the basic equipment training that all recruits received.

Venom made sure to remain present as he studied the new power, in case he was needed.

The other recruits receiving the training didn't really react to the addition of the walking suit of armour and spectral mummy in their ranks, at least not after seeing Venom overseeing things.

It seemed they were willing to just dismiss them as part of the legend of Big Boss.

Venom… wasn't sure how to feel about that.

]

The deal with the Foundation was agreed just before Venom had to set out, the holotome module arriving as he was setting out on Pequod.

Venom took time in transit to ensure RD were focused on reverse engineering the module, preferably without damaging the demonstration piece irreparably, and to send a Seeker team on an expedition that should be safe for them.

Any mission had risk, he acknowledged, it was impossible for any commander to keep all their men alive.

But on the other hand, only a bad commander sacrificed their men pointlessly, rather than do what they could to keep them alive.

And throwing away lives for no gain was something the Philosophers had done.

And something Skullface would do.

Paz had been his agent, after all, and even if she had been considering abandoning his mission, she hadn't made that decision when he ensured she would hate him, and implanted her with the bombs.

One that he had removed safely.

And… one he hadn't.

In fact, had Skullface demonstrated any tactics or strategies that would have been out of character for the Philosophers?

The Skulls were like a twisted mirror to the Cobra unit, replacing elite specialists with unique talents with artificial 'super soldiers'.

He killed his agent, in an attempt to eliminate a target, while they had one operative kill another.

He was furthering the unrest and conflict in the region, while they did the same worldwide.

Skullface was the heir to the Philosophers.

He might have had different goals, may not have any connections to members of the group, but nonetheless he was acting as their heir, continuing their methods and inflicting suffering upon the world.

And as a representative of a founding Patriot, it was therefore Venoms duty to put an end to his plans.