Chapter Text
The last thing Liquid Snake can remember before he woke up in this hospital bed was a paralysing pain and everything going dark and blurry as he was mere seconds away from finally killing his twin brother to claim his birthright and surpass his father.
Now he’s back to square one; No allies because they’re all dead thanks to FOXDIE and stuck dealing with his father’s obsessive lover or ex-lover. Delightful, just what he needed after nearly dying from FOXDIE: some wrinkly and balding old man whining about his father and how much he misses him while trying to control him like he’s a toddler.
“Fucking hell… My body aches…” He muttered to himself as he put his hands to his face.
Then he noticed it; one of his hands are gone, removed and it didn’t take him long to figure out what happened to it and where his hand is.
“That mother-fucker took my hand to replace his own!- I’ll kill him, I can still choke him to death with one hand… Hear it snap under my grasp while I choke the old bastard to death in his sleep. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll just have to wait for the perfect moment to strike.” He told him, forming a fist with his only hand with a scowl on his face.
”You won’t get very far with that plan if you just lay on your ass all day, you know.” A familiar voice commented into his head; Psycho Mantis… Or his ghost at least.
”Restless, I see.” Liquid replied, shifting back to internally speaking to the Russian by default.
“Trust me, I’d rather be here with you to watch humanity’s stupidity and beastly nature than do it alone.”
”He stole my hand, the fucking prick…”
“I’ve noticed, I guess you can’t drive or pilot anything.”
“I’ll just have to sweet-talk Ocelot to get me a new hand.” Liquid mused, his hand scratching his collarbone idly as he spoke to Mantis via the psychical link the two of them have.
"Good luck with that. I doubt he wanted you to survive FOXDIE."
“He has to or I can… Oh, you know… Fuck up everything for him. He seems to have some big plan going on and I think it’s stopping me from surpassing father so. Time to ruin his plan.”
A hiss left Mantis’s scarred lips before it came out of his gas mask as a low hiss. “What’s the plan then?”
“Arm transplant.”
“An arm transplant with one of my arms?” Mantis asked with his willowy and scarred arms crossed in front of his chest, interested in how Liquid thinks having major surgery is going to help kick-start the plan for revenge.
“Think about it, you can possess the arm and since it’s connected to me, you can possess me too.”
“Are you sure possession is really needed for this, Boss?”
“What other options do we have?” Liquid asked, sitting up more in the hospital bed to stretch his stiff and tired body a little or to force it to move.
Mantis tilted his head as he watched his boss slide up the bed to sit up properly in the hospital bed, his pale eyes narrowing at Liquid’s dismissive comment but he knew the blond had a fair point: What other options do they have?-
Likely a few besides possession but when Eli has a plan, it’s his way or no way at all. Mantis knew that Eli can be a stubborn bastard when it comes to planning and plotting so he tends to just nod his head and run along with it, passively giving Eli solutions to possible upcoming problems in their road.
“Fine. I guess we have nothing to lose.” Mantis spoke, breaking the silence between them.
“Perfect.”
Liquid found himself back in the same ward and same hospital bed but now he has a new arm that was originally Mantis’s and Ocelot channelled the restless ghost into the arm so they could work and collaborate together more flawlessly than ever before.
Ocelot stared at Liquid and his eyes shifted around his body to study him with slightly gritted teeth, he was already regretting channelling Mantis into Liquid’s new arm so they can continue working together as the perfect chaotic duo even with one of them being dead… God knows what they'd do now they're sharing a single body...
The duo started to chuckle before it turned into a burst of full stomach-bumbling laughter but with both Liquid’s and Mantis’s laughter layered on top of each other in a horrifying choir of laughter from a single mouth.
“Stop laughing like that, it’s weird.” The Russian snapped, his eyes narrowing as he watched the Brit turn his head to face him, now-clean Mantis’s gas mask resting in his gloved hands.
“No. you did this, you made this happen and this is all your fault, Ocelot. We knew that you’d betray us and FOXHOUND. We knew you’d leave us all to die at the hands of my brother /Solid Snake/ or FOXDIE.” Liquid’s and Mantis’s voices join to form an eerie double-layered voice as they speak, two perfectly in-sync voices leaving one mouth. But their voices were soon muffled since Liquid put the gas mask on to silence everyone’s thoughts and to make Mantis feel like himself again.
“But… We’re willing to continue working with you… Since we’re basically one person now… I think we need a new codename.” Liquid added to the pair’s words with a cold and piercing glare towards Ocelot, Mantis flexed and rolled the arm he has total control over as Liquid spoke.
“Hm. And what do you think your new codename should be?” Ocelot asked, eyeing the Brit.
“Psycho Snake sounds good… We’ve always been curious about what would be like this… Two people sharing one body.” Liquid mused as he paced back and forth once he got out of the hospital bed to allow Mantis to get adjusted to the new body he was inside of.
“Heavier and bulkier than I’m used to…” Mantis commented as he compared his own hand to Liquid’s, he knew he was skinny but seeing his scarred and thin arm compared to Liquid’s arm was jarring. It also means they’ll have to train his arm to make it match Liquid’s or they can just keep his arm the way it is, it’s something he and Liquid will have to discuss so both of them can agree on what to do; something they’ll have to do internally to avoid Ocelot’s spying ears like always.
“Hm. Didn’t expect you two to lead on a new codename so easily but. Who am I to judge?” Ocelot mused out loud with a lazy and small shrug of his shoulders.
The world was deafeningly loud without the gas mask on since you'd hear everyone’s thoughts and internal monologues as you walked by them was tortuous for Liquid, he struggled to think clearly with everyone else’s thoughts invading his mind like parasites burrowing their way into his brain.
“Fucking hell, how do you cope with this?! It’s a nightmare! I can even read my own thoughts!” Liquid commented out loud.
“I had no choice but to learn how to cope with it, Eli.” Mantis replied, his voice leaving Liquid’s lips as he spoke out in the open, something he wasn’t quite fond of doing.
Eli huffed and looked away as if Mantis was standing next to him like the days before and during the events of Shadow Moses, pacing once more like a restless, caged animal.
“You blame yourself for everyone’s deaths.”
“… Of course I don’t…” That was a lie and both of them knew it but Mantis just let him lie to himself and everyone else for a moment.
“It’s Ocelot’s fault, he was the one who led us to our deaths-“
“And I let him. I’m- I was the commander of FOXHOUND and look at us now! Everyone is dead and I’m alone!” Liquid snapped, running his hands through his blond hair before grabbing a hold of it in a death grip like he was choking Ocelot with them.
“You’re not completely alone. You have me, don’t you? Or am I not good enough for you?”
“I know I have you but… Everyone is dead because of my stupidity for trusting Ocelot back at Shadow Moses.”
“He’s a master manipulator and known traitor, Eli. It’s what he does so quit bitching about it.” Mantis said as he made Liquid kick his feet up onto the desk in front of them and lean back, “We’ll get our revenge, don’t worry. It’s best to wait for him to lower his guard and let him think we’ve forgiven him for the deaths of our comrades then attack him.”