"Hawk, you have got to be joking! I can't do a thing with these teenagers. They couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag," Grand Slam griped to his boss, while looking over the files that Hawk had laid before him as his new trainees. "They're all known troublemakers and I know that their parents think that we can do something with them, but even Psyche-Out says it's useless."
"Nevertheless, they're yours now. At least for the summer," Hawk told him with a small smile on his face, backing out of the room. What he didn't tell him was that all of the kids were related to various Joes, and had volunteered when he asked.
"Since when did this become boot camp for troubled teenagers?" Grand Slam wondered, wanting badly to bang his head against his desk.
The group of teenagers milled around the room, wondering what they were going to have to do next. None of them liked being the troublemakers that their files made them out to be, especially the De Havilland twins, but they all knew that this was to be the ultimate test.
To determine if they really had the abilities that their parents had passed on to them and the secret training that they had been given had worked. It was also a test for Grand Slam, to see if he could manage his temper with a bunch of brats better than he could with the usual group of greenshirts that he normally trained. Lately, he seemed to be getting worse; and Psyche-Out was worried about him.
He had talked to Hawk, and they agreed to ask the kids if they would provide a stress relief for him. The only volunteer that was turned down was Jaime Barney, the only child of Grand Slam and Spitfyre. Her presence would have given them away before they could do anything.
The door unexpectedly flew open and Grand Slam stalked through, only to find himself in the middle of a free for all brawl. He didn't notice that none of the punches or kicks was anywhere near to hitting target. It wasn't until a raven-haired temptress right in front of him drew her arm back to swing at her twin brother that he got into it.
He grabbed her arm and swung it behind her, dragging it up until she grimaced in pain.
"All right!" he yelled. "Knock it off," he hollered. Everyone froze in mid-swing, except for the girl he held, who was on her tiptoes, forcing herself not to use any defensive maneuver to free herself.
He glared at the group. "Y'all belong to me now. You'll abide by my rules. Rule number one: I am the boss here. What I say goes, got it? You will do as you're told, and you will knock off this infernal fighting amongst yourselves. You'll kill yourselves off long before your enemies get anywhere near to doing it. I don't see why the General thinks that I can make warriors out of you," he snarled.
"Now, little Miss De Havilland," he growled, "How are you going to get out of this hold?"
Before he knew what had hit him, she had spun and he was flat on the ground with her knee headed straight for his groin, stopping with only centimeters to spare. As he watched it coming down, he knew that he was in for some serious pain.
He slowly opened his eyes and let out the breath that he had unconsciously holding as she rose and offered him a hand to help him up. He used that to pull her, throwing his whole weight behind it. She flipped in mid-air, dislocating and then relocating her shoulder and landing on her feet, like a cat.
"How in the world did she do that?" he thought.
The whole six weeks that he was training them, he had to dodge many a practical joke and one night, he had more to deal with than he thought he could handle by himself when several of the kids decided to pull pranks all at the same time.
He called Hawk and had him send him some backup. He didn't know which was worse, the kids or his supposed backup- Short Fuse, Clutch, Airtight, and Quick Kick- the known practical jokers of the G. I. Joe team.
THREE WEEKS LATER
The interloper looked around, satisfied. Beach Head couldn't believe that it could be this easy for him to get onto the training base without being caught.
He heard the small "pfft" just before he was thrust forward into the trunk of a huge tree by a slam on his backside. He just had enough time to register that someone had seen him before he passed out.
He wasn't very happy when he came to and found the seat of his pants a pretty shade of babydoll pink. He hadn't seen or heard any movement or any noises that would betray another person in the area.
"Damn, he's doing better with these kids than we thought. I need to talk to Hawk about this."
SIX WEEKS LATER
The little group of teenagers, minus their main training officer, was gathered in the rec room, thinking up new mischief.
"You guys do realize that next Saturday is Staff Sgt. Barney's birthday, right?" Asked Lt. Eric Friestadt, the G.I. Joe code-named Short Fuze, who had been left in charge, which most people figured was a mistake, thinking that he was no more mature than the group of teenagers, one of which was his own daughter, Ericka.
"Actually, no," A.J. Steen, better known as Paynkiller said, as the rest of the group shook their heads. "But that is a good piece of blackmail information, though."
"Yeah," muttered one of the other guys, D.J. Fairborne, known as Diplomat. "It also happens to be graduation."
"We have got to come up with something better than the last group. Man, that was lame," Connor Hauser, Smart Aleck, replied, referring to the pranks that had been pulled by the prior trainees.
Just then, the radio began playing a song that had everyone looking at each other, "I'll Make A Man Out of You" from the movie "Mulan".
"No freakin' way," cracked up E.J. Steen, IV, and Paynkiller's twin brother. "It's just too perfect. He didn't think that he had a chance when General Abernathy made him take us on."
"You've got to admit, though, we did make it hard on him as well. We did our best to be the worst that he's ever dealt with, even though we were just following Dad's orders," Christine Abernathy, Rottweiler, voiced.
"He thinks that we haven't learned a thing. Either we're all really good actors, or he's the master of the oblivious."
"What do you think, Lieutenant?" asked A.J.
"E.J.'s right. It's just too perfect an opportunity to pass up. I'll do some underground checking and see if any of the other Joes are willing to help y'all out with this. The rest is all up to you guys, and you have to figure it out who does what," Short Fuze answered.
Connor and D.J. looked at each other. "A.J., you're the only one with dark hair long enough to pull off the role of Mulan in the song. Ask your dad if he'll help us out as the guy in charge. His voice is perfect for it, and we know that there's quite a few of the other Joes that will definitely help us out."
A.J. ran for the phone in her room and called her dad, G.I. Joe medic Lifeline, who readily agreed with the plan. He agreed to meet them over at the training barracks to help plan.
Before the kids knew what was happening, most of the room was full of Joes who wanted in on the joke. Even General Hawk was in on it.
Quick Kick got tasked to keep an eye out for Grand Slam. Christine's CD of Disney songs got dragged out and the group began to try to sync their voices with it.
Scoop offered the use of his studio for the group to use to record their own voices for the performance, and they took full advantage of it. After a few hours and goofed tries, Chuckles got annoyed with hearing the same thing over and over and found himself in the middle of recording with a very rich, bass voice.
When it came to the choreography, Mainframe's daughter, Blair, volunteered to be the clumsy one, knocking everyone off of their log perches.
E.J. loved "floundering" in the "stream". Airtight's son, Andrew, volunteered to be the one who couldn't catch his breath.
Shipwreck volunteered to be the leader of the Huns, and even Flint, Duke, and Snake Eyes got into the act.
Most of the older Joes split into two groups, one to bolster the kids' positions, and the other half into Huns. Even B.A. got in on the act. He was the rotund guy from the kids' group that was always getting picked on.
Hawk managed to find Grand Slam something to do off base to keep him from finding out what was really going on. Chuckles and Psyche-Out had their hands full keeping him away and unaware. Needless to say, it wasn't as easy as it looked.
By the time the next Saturday rolled around, each person knew where and what they were supposed to be doing.
Graduation of the group went off as scheduled, until the end.
"And now," Short Fuze spoke at the podium, "A tribute to our birthday boy and best training officer ever, Staff Sergeant James Barney."
"You guys do realize that we're all dead meat, right?" A.J. asked, rhetorically. They all nod. They all figured that it would be worth it.
The music started out of nowhere, and everybody was lined up the way they were supposed to be. A.J. took a couple of minutes to get her hair ready and joined the group at the tail end of the line at the end of the beginning melody, exactly where she was supposed to be.
Lifeline looked perfect in his role as the captain. Everybody went through their parts perfectly. Even the "attack" was perfectly performed and timed. Even down to when A.J. "rescued" Lifeline during the avalanche.
At the end of the song, everyone had joined as one big group. Cheers erupted when the last note faded away.
An older gentleman turned to Grand Slam, "These are the kids you were griping about having to train? You did an unbelievable job."
An unidentified figure wearing the Cobra insignia falls from the roof of the pavilion, a stiletto through his heart. The group of brass standing nearby turned and looked at the direction that the stiletto came from.
A.J. was still retracting her throwing arm when everybody figured out what had happened. One of the "sticks" that she had hidden in her hair was actually a stiletto knife. She watches the brass and shrugs.
"Yep," said the older gentleman to Grand Slam, "You did good, son. They're even worse than you told us about. It's a hell of a tribute to a trainer that they can respect."
Beach Head stomps his way over to A.J., grabbing her by the upper arm. "When the hell did you become such a dead shot?" he demanded. "And what is all this acrobatics that you're doing?"
Grand Slam steps over to the pair, tucking A.J. under his shoulder. "Back it off, Sneeden. You know better than to jump one of my trainees," he says softly.
Beach Head looks at A.J. hard. "You're going to be the first one on my gauntlet when you get to the base," he says, stomping off.
A.J. looks up at Grand Slam, laughing. "Does he realize that I'm the one that set the record on that gauntlet?"
"I highly doubt it. Now, whose idea was this?"
"All of ours, Staff Sergeant. The song came on the radio, and we all got the same thought at the same thing."
"Let me guess, Short Fuze had something to do with the casting, right?"
"No, Sir. He didn't. All of us kids figured where we'd be best, but the other guys did their own casting."