He woke unsteadily, unsure of who he was, or where he was, floating out of the darkness.
Was he the student of the Joy? No, the Boss, that was what she was called now.
Or had she died?
Was he the one who killed her?
Was he the medic, who missed a bomb?
Was that why he was here? Injuries from the explosion?
Was he a loyal agent of the FOX unit? Was he a rogue operative?
A name came to him, only to collapse into an initial before he could remember it.
C.
That was all he could remember of the name he once had.
His opened, but it took time before he could see.
There was a man there, speaking words he couldn't comprehend.
The mans name… Shala…
He couldn't recall the rest.
There was another name, an easier one.
Cat? No, not quite.
Wildcat?
Nearly, but completely wrong.
He tried to move, but a weight on his chest held him in place.
He looked down, to see a… dog? Wolf? A hybrid?
It was missing an eye, but looked excited to see him moving.
A hand touched him, a voice said something, and the world came into focus.
"Snake, can you hear me? Are you alright, Snake?"
"That… isn't my name. Is it?"
The man, Ocelot, that was it, looked at something else in the room, before returning his attention to him.
"What do you remember?"
"Too much. It… doesn't make sense, it all contradicts everything."
"Well, I certainly knew there'd be consequences for a Seeker pushing themselves too far," a vaguely familiar voice stated, "but I had no idea it could result in something like this. You must have some serious willpower to keep going that far."
Seeker…
The word stirred something in his memories.
It was… someone who could do the impossible?
"You managed to use up all your energy keeping your Titans invoked and kept going," the voice continued. "I'd honestly thought it was impossible for anyone to keep going that far, that the Titans would dismiss themselves sooner, or the Seeker would just collapse rather than struggle on and complete their mission. Even reach extraction!"
"I'm more concerned about how long it has taken for Snake to recover this much, and he is still in no state to do anything!"
"I've already contacted everyone I know who might have some way to help, you've contacted the Foundation, the problem is this isn't something anyone has investigated before. Hell, not even something they've encountered before! For most Seekers, by the time they might be able to keep Titans out until they literally run out of energy they know better than to take the risk. At this stage, I think all we can do is give Snake some time to rest and recover, give his body a chance to recover the energy he's lost."
Snake, as he assumed his name was after all, had managed to get a hand free and was stroking it through the canines fur as he listened to the discussion.
"We can't afford for Snake to remain out of action for that long! The XOF are already getting suspicious, not to mention-"
He cut himself off.
"Yeah, yeah, you have secrets from me. I get it, you aren't the first secretive bunch I've contracted for. Not that I'm going to tell you who they are of course! But these XOF, does it really have to be Snake specifically to allay their suspicions? Or do you at least have someone you can send out in place of Snake?"
"That is-"
Ocelot stopped himself, considering.
"There are some operatives who may have the skills to pass themselves off as Snake for a single mission, so long as no XOF forces get a good look or report in. It wouldn't buy us much time though, and I doubt it would work more than once. Skullface is too much of an expert on Snake to be fooled twice."
"But it won't be long before Snake is recovered, will it? Unless he's completely unable to recover, that is. Either way, you only need to trick the XOF, or this Skullface, once, and then you'll have your answer about Snakes recovery."
Ocelot visibly considered.
"We do have a somewhat urgent mission, that does not show any signs of direct XOF involvement. Hmm, maybe if we send in all the above S rank combat operatives, to go after each objective separately, we can distract Skullface enough that he doesn't question if Snake was involved, so much as where he was involved…"
"This is your area of expertise, I'll leave it to you to decide what you're doing. Now, do you want me to hang around, checking on Snake as he recovers, or should I go back to my latest lead?"
The voice was following Ocelot as he walked away from the bed.
The canine seemed content to stay with Snake, until Ocelot whistled to call him away, leaving Snake alone to try and rest.
]
He rested, and remembered…
There was an orphanage, but he was left alone by the carers.
Not because of malice or cruelty, but because he was more mature than the others, he helped take care of them.
It left him with a desire to help others, but a dislike for other children, driving him to find a way to get away from them.
The army was always recruiting, and he found a place as a medic. Training to help those who would otherwise be overlooked.
An officer saw him forwarded to the FOX unit, where he first saw John, the man who would become Naked Snake.
They didn't interact much, getting different missions from the brass, but each time it seemed that John helped teach him something, inspired him to be better. Even told him that while it was the job of John and those like him to take lives, as a medic it was his job to save them.
It wasn't anything special, not as far as John was concerned, he helped a lot of FOX agents grow, but it stuck with him.
And then came the day John, Naked Snake, returned from a mission, and received the title of Big Boss.
And quit the FOX.
It left him stunned, unsure of his path forward, until he heard of Snake founding the MSF.
He didn't hesitate to quit, following Snake to his new command.
If it was Snake, they had to be doing something good. That was just the sort of person he was.
Snake didn't recognise him of course, he was accepted as just another medic in the MSF. Or at least, he was at first.
But he proved himself, gained renown, and was finally assigned to Morpho, in case the extracted prisoners needed emergency treatment before they could reach Mother Base.
He treated Chico, and the other prisoners Snake extracted with him, without problem, and then it was the turn of Paz.
He removed the bomb, they should have been safe.
Then the second bomb detonated.
And blackness.
With whispers filling his ears.
They told him of Snakes training, of the man he was, the words shaping the void until he could see what Snake had done, feeling the guns in his hands as he killed again and again.
He remembered waking with the belief that he was Snake, while John guided him out of the hospital, saving his life against Volgin and the other XOF forces.
He was brought in by Ocelot, who also believed he was Snake, and set to rebuild Mother Base for the Diamond Dogs.
And the first time he had a target in his sights, ready to kill, justified his inability from visions of the Sorrow, the man whispered to have loved the Joy, the future leader of the Cobra unit.
It didn't prevent him rescuing Miller, a man he had seen around the old Mother Base, a man who now saw him as his own hero.
Here was his first encounter with the Skull unit, Skullfaces answer to the Cobra unit Snake had dismantled, an encounter that gave him an excuse to retreat rather than fight, rescuing Miller rather than having to kill.
And the reconstruction of Mother Base began.
He completed mission after mission, without inflicting a single casualty. He stole a commander from his post, shut down the communications of the outposts, rescued prisoners, acquired experimental weapons, until…
Until the Skulls returned.
He couldn't exfiltrate while they still lived, he was forced to kill them with his own, real this time, hands.
More justifications, that they weren't truly alive, that it didn't count.
That… that…
He couldn't return to Mother Base.
Instead he set out into the badlands, rescuing those soldiers of the MSF who had found their way to Afghanistan, until he had no further choice, no remaining objectives and dwindling supplies, and was forced to return to Mother Base.
The bucket of cold water Ocelot threw over him was a shock to his system, one he needed.
Not just for the hygiene, so many days in a desert not good for anyone, but bringing himself back to himself.
But he wasn't ready for another mission.
He wandered Mother Base instead, and saw Paz, alive, on the medical platform.
A hallucination from guilt of course.
One that helped him recover.
For if she was alive, her death couldn't be his fault, he hadn't set everything in motion from his moment of incompetence. A lie, but a necessary lie.
And then the fateful mission, something that should have been so simple and easy, that changed how he'd see the world forever.
And the follow ups, all the threads from that first mission to tie up.
Again he ended up in a position to kill, and had to drop the gun instead, learning he was Johns phantom.
He remembered everything, every detail of the past that had shaped him.
And he knew his name.
Venom Snake opened his eye once more.