Venoms visit to the Seeker platform was short and to the point.

"We need some kind of healing power," he told them.

The platforms current leader, who took over after Wasp ended up mission capable, blinked at Venom in obvious confusion.

"We've already translated two, we've seconded all the bottom rank Seekers we've found to the medical platform with Everheal and anyone who is due to see combat is taught Everfight. We told Ocelot, he was supposed to pass them onto you."

Venom froze.

"Ocelot knew? What exactly do these powers do?"

"Everheal should be pretty self explanatory I think. It allows a Seeker to heal someone else, to near perfect condition by current experience. Everfight is similar, but focused on the user. Lets you recover, get yourself back in the fight."

"I'm going to need you to forward them to my iDroid. Both of them."

Venom considered.

"I think I have an idea of why Ocelot didn't pass them on to me, but that doesn't make what he did right."

"I'll get your copy to you right away sir. Is there anything else?"

"Yes. Can you confirm the list of Titans whose amulets we have secured."

]

The list of Titans didn't hold any real surprises, besides a second 'sand snake', Dark Pharoah.

Unlike Heirospecter, it was classed as a warrior, but Venom accepted the amulet to try and bond with the Titan.

It wasn't quite as quick and easy as with either Heirospecter, but he nonetheless got the feeling that the Titan wanted to bond with him.

His next objective on Mother Base was collecting the upgraded fultons.

While Mother Base was less than a perfect place to bring the child soldiers, it was far better tgan leaving them to die in somebody elses war.

He also decided to bring Quiet on his initial extraction mission, first making it clear that she was not to harm any of the children.

Her response either indicated that she wasn't going to harm them even without his reminder, or she felt his concern for their lives or wellbeing had no place in their line of work.

Either way, their expedition to Africa to retrieve the child soldiers and bring them to safety went according to plan.

And If a number of their commanders, the adults using children as soldiers, ended up killed by Quiet rather than being brought back to Mother Base, it was hardly a real loss.

While they were in Pequod, set to return to Mother Base, when Ocelot contacted him.

"Snake, we have to talk about Skullface when you return. But before that, I have a mission for you, seeing as you are currently in Africa. Our employer for this mission is a militia who have had a unit taken prisoner. They want us to eliminate the unit before they can spill any secrets, so there is a certain urgency to the mission."

"Eliminate or extract?"

"They want them eliminated, but it may be possible for us to get away with recruiting some of them. But be careful. If they discover we have their men we will lose a lot of reputation."

"Understood. Snake out."

]

The initial stage of the mission was straightforward enough, finding the mine the soldiers had been put to work in and extracting the commander, tranquilising the guards and extracting any the int-scope identified as being sufficiently skilled along the way.

And then they found their way to the cells.

Or rather, Venom did, Quiet preferring to remain outside where she had better sightlines.

Which didn't change the fact that the 'soldiers' Venom had been hired to kill were children.

"We have a complication," Venom reported. "We need to extract the captives."

He took a closer look at one of the children.

"We'll need a medical team on standby as well."

"You're going to extract all of them Snake? Even after my warning?"

"They're children."

There was a pause.

"I understand. We'll need to find somewhere for them and the other children you extracted. Will you be able to get the out?"

Venom considered.

"Yes," he stated, bringing the butt of his pistol down to break the lock.

The children flinched back as he entered the cell, not trusting his attempts at reassurance, using words learned from the Afrikaans translator for when he'd them.

He approached the most injured of them, who would need to be carried to safety, in as unthreatening a manner as possible, and placed a hand on his leg.

"Everheal," he muttered softly, a glow spreading from his hand over the injury as his power healed the boy, the others staring at this display of incomprehensible power.

When Venom stepped back, the boy was sufficiently healed to stand up unaided, staring at his leg as though he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Venom led the captives out of the cell, his act of healing enough to win some level of trust from them, and opened his iDroid to call in Pequod for extraction.

Bringing up the map, however, revealed a problem.

There were more soldiers, marked by Quiet, entering the mine through the same route he'd taken.

It was a simple matter of luck that his iDroids automatic mapping function had already found another exit, towards the back, otherwise he'd have been forced to try and fight his way through the soldiers while protecting the children, hardly an ideal situation to be in.

But this wouldn't stop them from running him down from behind.

Venom didn't hesitate to call Pequod in to the valley behind the mine, trusting to pilot to find an LZ by himself.

It might be possible to extract the children via fultons, but he would Pequod to exfiltrate the mission area.

Or would he?

The problem was that fultons were not designed to be put on by the person they extracted.

But he'd already trained his Titans, or nearly half of them at least, in how to use a fulton.

In theory, there was nothing to stop him getting extracted by one of them, returning the Titan to their amulet to extract them in turn.

Except, that would mean leaving Quiet behind.

So he was going to need Pequod for extraction after all.

"Get me our Afrikaans translator on the line," he ordered over his iDroid. "There are some phrases I'll need ready…"

]

There was only one exit from the mine into the valley, and Venom took the opportunity to invoke Dark Pharoah as a barrier, the act earning even greater awe from the children.

Dark Pharoah, much like Heirospecter, had a body that mostly consisted of a similar material to that used to wrap mummies, this time visible.

The Titan seemed mostly formless, a vague shape formed from its wrappings, except for a headpiece that looked like that worn by a pharaoh's mummy in its sarcophagus.

The Titan only appeared able to move dlowly, and demonstrated no obvious ability to fight, but Venom had faith it would hold the soldiers long enough.

But with them outside, it was time to start their extractions.

Venom repeated the translations he'd been given, the language foreign to his lips, trying to explain how he was going to use his fultons to rescue them.

The boys looked between each other, clearly worried, until the boy he'd healed stepped forward, volunteering to go first.

He lay on the ground, as Venom directed, letting him put the fulton into place.

They all stepped back, startled, as he shot into the air, letting out a shout that started of panic but turned, before he was out of earshot, into delight.

The others hesitated, but soon enough all had been extracted, leaving just Venom and Quiet to escape on Pequod.

With all the children out of the line of fire, Venom called Quiet forward, to help cover the valley.

]

The soldiers pursuing them seemed unable to get past Dark Pharoah, which would have left a clear route for Venom to escape except for one thing.

The hostile forces had a helicopter of their own.

Unlike the XOF fighter jet, Quiet was unable to shoot the pilot, and was either unable or unwilling to hit the helicopter on its critical systems, leaving it to Venom.

While Venom had come to terms with why he'd been unable to kill, and accepted the Diamond Dogs killing people, it didn't mean he was going to kill anyone now.

Which meant he was left to sneak past the helicopter as best he was able, avoiding its sweeps across the area.

With the children or the pursuers, if they hadn't been stopped by Dark Pharoah, it wouldn't have been possible.

But with just Venom and the helicopter playing the deadly game of hide and seek, he was able to get through to Pequod, returning to Mother Base.

]

It was after they returned, and Venom confirmed to Ocelot that Skullface knew he wasn't Naked Snake, that Quiet finally accepted her new sniper, one that fired tranquilisers rather than lethal rounds.

It came in helpful on their next few missions, rescuing a couple of intel agents and extracting 'the Major', before things went wrong on Mother Base.

Venom was checking on the development of the D-walker, the Walker Gear adjusted for his use in the field, when the sick soldiers were first truly noticed.

Until then it had seemed like any other disease, nothing serious, but this was when the first of them dropped dead.

Ocelot insisted on Venom returning to the field straight away, to avoid risking him being infected, and started work on a quarantine platform immediately.

He took the chance to try to extract the legendary weaponsmith for a third time, waiting until the new platform was finished before sending him to Mother Base.

Soldiers were placed in quarantine as soon as they started displaying symptoms, but more cases kept popping up, the sickness infectious before symptoms appeared.

There was no doubt in anyones mind that this was an artificial disease, a targeted attack on the Diamond Dogs.

Their only lead on a possible cure; an XOF facility in Africa.

Venom and Quiet set out for answers, unwilling to head back to resupply or change up their equipment before they had a cure.

AN: I have a couple of points I want to hit before the story is finished, but I clearly won't be able to finish them before NaNoWriMo finishes (tomorrow), so expect a few extra chapters.