For the first time since he woke in the hospital, or even since the explosion in the helicopter, Venom knew who he was, felt settled in his identity.

It was only now that he could realise how much strain he'd been under, his two sets of memories and identities in conflict within him.

He had thought that knowing the truth, that he was a double for Naked Snake, was enough, but his memories had still been in conflict, his old memories trying to return while the new fought to remain dominant.

Whatever had happened when he pushed himself too far, however, had let him work through the conflict, to bring his memories into a single harmony.

He could no longer believe he was Naked Snake, but nor was he the man chosen as his double.

He was the best parts of each, in a single body.

And it was time to get back to work.

]

It was clear Ocelot hadn't been expecting him to be on his feet again so soon.

"Situation report," he commanded, taking his supposed place as leader and turning it into fact.

"While you were recovering, Skullface grew suspicious of your lack of appearance. To prevent him from moving to target… we sent out a team to take your place on a mission," Ocelot reported, skipping over the details on the subject of Naked Snake for the nearby soldiers. "There were injuries, and not all objectives were completed."

"No deaths?"

"Not on our side."

"Anything else to report?"

"The pup you brought in has been trained, and is ready to take the field. He's currently going by the name 'Diamond Dog', or DD for short. We've also found indications of the current location of Dr Emmerich."

"I take it his extraction is to be my next mission," Venom stated. "Any developments on Mother Base?"

"The Seeker platform? The only useful development is an iDroid update, letting your Titans mark hostiles. We took the liberty to upgrade your iDroid while you were recovering. Most of their missions since you last checked in have been failures. The sites had already been cleared by the time they arrived. Whether it was the Organisation, before we launched our assault, or someone else we don't know. Our successful missions have only secured basic amulets, for Strix and others of similar utility. The powers they translated are either useless in battle or guaranteed to be lethal."

Venom considered.

"Have them send one of those powers to my iDroid, for when I run into the Skull unit again," he decided. "It's easier than carrying around a gun I'm only going to use against them, or running into a group of Skulls without appropriate weaponry."

"You could use your Titans," Ocelot pointed out, in as non judgemental manner as he was capable of.

"If I'm on the battlefield, I'm not just hiding behind my forces," Venom stated. "Now, I'm going to rescue Emmerich, make sure I get the details before I land."

"Are you sure you're ready? You've only just got out of medical."

"I'm more ready than I've been since Cyprus."

]

It was an inconvenient fact that the closest LZ he had established for Pequod to the site Emmerich was being held wasn't actually all that close.

Rather than take DD, he deployed with D-horse to cover the distance easier.

He could have acquired a jeep from one of the outposts in the area, but DD wouldn't have been able to keep up and he wasn't confident about DD being able to travel in the jeep comfortably.

All of which led to now, Venom riding through some more of the ruins in the region.

Until the discharge of a sniper rifle saw him throwing himself off D-horse to take cover.

The horse was already fleeing the area, all too aware that there was no way for him to help.

Venom took a moment to calm himself, before contacting Mother Base.

"Mother Base, I am currently under fire. There is a sniper active in the ruins."

"That would explain the wreckage on your other possible route," came the response, a rather more relaxed member of the communications team speaking than Venom was used to. "They knew you'd be trying to retrieve Emmerich, and set an ambush. Did you want backup?"

"No, I wanted you to be aware that I am having to delay my actual mission," Venom spoke slowly, to make sure there couldn't be any misunderstanding.

He shut off his radio, turning his attention to his opponent, the mystery sniper engaging him.

For some reason, his thoughts went to when Naked Snake confronted the End.

The sniper of the Cobra unit had attempted to challenge the original Snake to a sniper duel in the last week of his life, an attempt to go out with a bang rather than a whimper.

While Snake had respected the End, or at the very least respected his skills, he hadn't given the old man the fight he wanted.

Instead, he had outmanoeuvred the End, holding the man up only for a set of bombs implanted in him to detonate, killing the sniper despite Snakes actions.

And preventing him from learning about why the Cobra unit had 'turned traitor'.

Venom called upon his memories of how Snake had fought, and prepared to take this sniper down.

He poked his head from cover, using his int-scope to try and track where the shot had cone from, to find a route to approach them safely.

Bursts of dust rose from the ground, forming a trail, as though some fast moving entity was pushing off the ground and covering the distance in the air, even as he tracked and marked his target.

This wasn't a normal sniper.

Not even one like the End.

Despite the lack of their fog, this had to be the Skull units version of the End, combining the role of sniper with the ability the Skulls possessed to teleport.

Or maybe not quite teleport, given the bursts of dust with each step, but the next best thing.

And he hadn't had a chance to learn the power yet…

The bursts gave away the route traveled, with an added indicator of which way the sniper was headed, giving Venom where exactly he would be able to find them.

Assuming they didn't use their pseudo teleportation trick at least.

So, his options.

One: try and outsnipe a sniping specialist.

Two: try and sneak up on them, when they could easily and near instantly relocate across the battlefield.

Three: uh, maybe try and drop something on them? No, that would never work, they could dodge out of the way just like with option two.

So…

Use Heirospecter to try and set a trap?

Set them to choke the sniper out, should they drop on top of the sand snake, and try to shepherd them towards Heirospecter?

Of course, that assumed the Skulls still needed to breathe.

Which meant invoking a Heirospecter.

Venoms breath caught in his throat.

He knew he had only collapsed after using multiple Heirospecters for the entire duration of the mission, using powers to further deplete his stamina.

A single Heirospecter, without further power usage, shouldn't be a problem.

Not for the time taken to secure the sniper.

But his body didn't agree.

It knew he'd been harmed by invoking Heirospecter, and now it was trying to ensure he wouldn't suffer the same injury again.

Even if it had let him piece together his mind, two shattered halves into one new whole.

Well, more than halves really.

And with that came the willpower of Naked Snake and the medic who followed after him.

More than enough to overrule a disobedient body, as he'd discovered to his cost and gain.

"Heirospecter," he whispered, the word soft but still enough to call out his go to ally.

Heirospecter needed no words before slithering out of his chestpiece, flowing unseen towards one of the possible sniper nests of the ruins.

Venom brought up the local map on his iDroid, tracking Heirospecters progress.

There was the sound of the sniper moving again, and their icon on the map vanished, the iDroid system not ready for a target moving so rapidly.

He dropped the map to track the target with his int-scope, trusting Heirospecter to get into position.

There was a flash of light as he marked the sniper, and Venom flinched back into cover less than a second before a bullet impacted the ground behind him.

From the timing, he was sure that he'd only moved after the rifle was fired.

He readied his sniper, the tranquiliser not likely to work properly on a Skull but better than nothing, and calculated relative positions as best he could.

He swung the rifle over his cover, adjusting his aim the last few degrees to cover the sniper, before firing and returning to cover in the same motion.

The crack of the bullet, proving him right to fall back so quickly, was followed by the cracks of the snipers relocation, and Venom took the opening to relocate himself.

This was a lethal game of cat and mouse, and the only way he saw to win was to manipulate his foe into the living trap that was Heirospecter before they could land a hit on him.

That or manage to knock them about with enough tranquiliser rounds that the repeated impacts rendered them unconscious, but he wouldn't hold his breath on having enough ammunition for that.

On Venoms part, this meant holding up in cover where Heirospecters location (or at least suspected location, as Venom didn't feel it was safe to check the map right now) was a good but not perfect sniper nest.

And avoiding anywhere with a 'perfect' sniper nest of course.

It took time and patience, and a number of missed opportunities to fire back due to not lining the shot up properly before he had to dodge back, but finally the sniper fell into his trap.

Venom kept his pistol at the ready as he approached Heirospecter and the sniper he had caught, not trusting the Skull to be unable to escape.

He wasn't expecting the sniper to look alive, like a normal human.

Nor for her to be female.

All the previous Skulls he'd encountered had once been men, making this sniper stand out in two ways from the Skull he'd expected.

Assuming she was a Skull.

There was something familiar about her, but he couldn't place it, not helped by her glaring at him.

Oh, because she was pretty much in underwear.

She did… something, as though she was trying to escape, but was unable to break free from Heirospecters grasp.

Content that she was secure as long as Heirospecter remained invoked, Venom turned away to give her a semblance of privacy as he called in Pequod.

Bringing her back to Mother Base would mean abandoning the mission to extract Emmerich, but he was no longer sure completing that mission was a good idea…