Chapter 2: Brothers

Storm Shadow settled in the rec room nearest to the dojo with some paper and a pen, and started drawing up a training schedule. He wrote everything in the most uncommon kanji signs he could to avoid peekers noticing he was doing a long term schedule.

Snake Eyes appeared a few minutes later and snorted softly after taking a look at the nearly indecipherable schedule – Tommy's flawless memory had allowed him to collect a nearly endless collection of kanji, from the usual to the rare to the historical curiosities. Storm Shadow turned to face him, looking just a little bit more smug than Snake Eyes felt was entirely justified.

"Still haven't learned to read, brother?"

Snake Eyes signed that he doubted even most Japanese scholars could read that many kanji and pointed to a particularly ornate one he had never seen before, asking whether Tommy had actually made that one up or whether it was merely one that hadn't been used in a few centuries.

Storm Shadow scoffed. "It's my NAME," he said.

Snake Eyes shook his head and wagged his finger. He knew twenty different ways to write Arashikage and ten ways to write Tomisaburo or Tommy, and the kanji he had pointed at wasn't even close to resembling any of them. Storm Shadow chuckled good naturedly.

"Awh, you're no fun anymore: you used to fall for that every time. I'm not sure whether we made it up or not, to be honest. I haven't seen it anywhere else than in our scrolls. It represents the first phase of one of our meditation techniques."

Snake Eyes sat down and signed that Hawk had told him about Billy.

"Oh good," Storm Shadow said. "You can help me draw his schedule."

Snake Eyes examined the schedule again, trying to make some sense out of the kanji he recognized. He had a headache within two minutes: his time in Japan had been mostly devoted to training, not studying kanji. He could read hiragana and katakana just fine, but all in all, he had mostly ignored the Chinese-inspired system of cryptic little abstract drawings. He'd only learned to recognize the most common ones, plus the ones used in the various ways to write his brother's name – strictly so Tommy would no longer be able to pretend anything and everything was.

He signed to remark that the schedule seemed quite heavy.

Tommy grinned rather wickedly. "He wanted intensive training so badly," he whispered in Japanese, "I could hardly deny him."

Snake Eyes snorted silently and nodded. Considering the stunt Billy had just pulled, the ironic punishment seemed very appropriate, not to mention it would help get the living Cobra Commander bait at a level where he could mostly look after himself.

Tommy started pointing at the various parts of the schedule, reading the kanji aloud. Snake Eyes mostly just nodded, making the odd suggestion or remark every now and then, mostly to try and convince his friend to cram in more actual combat training. Storm Shadow gave a little, but defended his choice for more well-rounded training by saying that with his past and expected future trials, Billy needed the balance and the meditation if he was to stay sane.

They had been at it for about twenty minutes when Snake Eyes's head snapped up and Storm Shadow cocked his, a smirk appearing on his face.

"Oooh, ouch. Kamakura is going to have one beautiful bruise on his shin. Honestly, brother, do you teach him to be forgetful, or do you have him convinced, somehow, that striking an indestructible metallic limb is a good idea? Don't tell me he's using my apprentice for Iron Body Training: that would just be insulting."

Snake Eyes got up and leveled a glare at the other man that could be felt right through his visor, and that was known to make foes run away screaming. Storm Shadow got up too, folding the incomplete schedule and stuffing it in his pocket.

"That WAS the first blow," he said, edging past Snake Eyes towards the door, walking fast despite his would-be casual tone. "What, you think I'd let Sean beat up on Billy for any length of time? He's well below his level; you know that."

Snake Eyes twitched at the all-but-spoken reproach over his apprentice attacking his lower level brother, but followed Storm Shadow, walking just as quickly.

A few steps further, Storm Shadow winced and took off at a run. Snake Eyes followed suit, without needing to know what his brother had heard to guess it was somehow an indication that the fight was getting more serious.

Kamakura had woken up that morning to a wasp stinging him right on his nose. He didn't know how the insect had gotten inside and he didn't care – what he did know was that the sting hurt like the dickens but that given his ninja apprentice status, he was going to be expected to just suck it up and pretend it didn't bother him.

It would have been annoying enough had the sting been on his arm, or his leg… heck, even on a hand would have been better than this: as it was, he couldn't breath at all from his left nostril, thanks to the inflammation that Doc's cream had only slightly diminished.

The fact that Jinx had laughed until she was sore when she had seen him had not improved matters any. Sensei hadn't even been there at the time, a fact which Kamakura was irrationally upset about – he would have absolutely loved to see him ask Jinx what she felt was so funny about facial injuries: Snake Eyes may not be her Sensei, but he was still a Master for the clan, and she would have owed him obedience and respect even if she hadn't been sneaking in training sessions with him whenever both their schedules allowed it and Storm Shadow, who she also used as a part time teacher, was unavailable.

As it was, she had gotten away with laughing at his misfortune with no consequence whatsoever, unless you counted a brief sparring session where she had, as usual, kicked his butt. Sensei had arrived towards the end of it and had merely asked whether he could breathe okay, a question Kamakura interpreted to mean he had fought as though he couldn't.

All in all, it had been a perfectly rotten morning, and his head had somehow felt the need to make things worse by suddenly remembering the last time he had been stung by a wasp: in Springfield, about two weeks before his biological father had died in the service of Cobra. Sean Collins had loved his second father dearly, as evidenced by his change of name; just the same, he had loved his first father as well and his death and the events that had followed had been very hard. Remembering it had done nothing to improve his mood.

He was in the middle of taking it out on a training dummy when the door to the dojo opened. He turned and his eyes widened – of all the people Sean Collins absolutely did not want to see today…

"Billy!" Jinx exclaimed, grinning. "Welcome back! Before you ask, it's a wasp sting."

Billy cocked his head, but then caught a glance of Kamakura and snorted before he managed to cover his mouth with his hand.

"Sorry," he said, barely suppressing his laughter. "It's just… you look ridiculous. Sorry. Thank you, Jinx. Err… I need to practice my katas… would you be so kind as to let me know if I make a mistake?"

"Sure thing," she replied, smiling.

"I cannot for the life of me figure out what is so funny about this," Kamakura growled at Billy. "Before you start wasting Jinx's time, would you care to explain?"

Billy automatically lost his grin.

"Waste her time? What's THAT supposed to mean?"

"It means you show up here once in a blue moon and stick around for a couple of days wasting the Young Master's time and energy until he gets tired enough to send you away again, and now you want to do the same to Jinx. Now answer the question: what's so funny about what is basically an injury on my face?" He thought of asking whether Billy also found Snake Eyes hilarious, but decided against it so as not to give the impression he was equating his predicament with that of his Sensei.

Billy had grown sequentially red, than white as Kamakura was talking. When he answered, it was in a hiss.

"I do NOT waste his time, and the fact I have to leave all the time is absolutely not because he wants me gone. You KNOW that! What is it? Can't stand the fact I don't act like an enamored puppy dog whenever he's around? Or is it that you had to BEG Snake Eyes to take you in, and you feel the need to think ALL senseis secretly wish they didn't have apprentices?"

Jinx wisely stepped back, fully expecting the two boys to stop talking with their tongues very soon. Kamakura's wasp sting was now looking LIGHTER than the rest of his face and she was willing to bet that Billy would not allow himself to hiss – and therefore sound like his father - unless he was furious enough not to notice.

"If he was so keen on teaching you, would he constantly send you to other teachers and stay behind?" Kamakura snarled back. "His oath to you predates the one he made to Hawk, yet he's hardly teaching you all he can, now is he? I may have had to request training, rather than undertake it because I wasn't given a choice, but I get to actually TRAIN! Under my own sensei! Do you REALLY think you don't remind the Young Master every time he sees you of what your father has done to him and his family? The very father you have repeatedly insisted not be killed because of your foolish hope he'll eventually be sane?"

Jinx's eyes widened. Billy's scowl darkened, he took a sharp intake of breath through his nose and most worrisome of all, he smiled viciously. At that precise moment, she would have been hard pressed to believe the young man wasn't in fact directly related to her cousin if she hadn't known any better.

"He's made it quite clear that he doesn't blame me for whose balls half my DNA happens to come from," he growled. "I must say, I wouldn't have expected you, of all people, to think the masters would judge us based on family ties. I mean… you must have had to endure unfair assumptions that Snake Eyes only took you in because your father was a friend he happened to feel he was indebted to?"

Jinx's eyes widened a bit more still: nothing in Billy's tone implied that he thought those hypothetical assumptions were right, but it made no difference on the impact of even bringing up the possibility, and it was clear from his tone that Billy had said it precisely because he knew it would hurt Sean. Kamakura hissed and launched at Billy, who avoided the first punch and skipped back, putting his prosthetic leg forward out of sheer habit.

Kamakura, for his part, was well beyond thoughts and was not fighting Billy any more; he was fighting some idiot who had implied his sensei only put up with him because of whose adopted son he was.

Jinx felt the clang was almost musical. She took another step back as Kamakura hopped backward, keeping his weight off the leg he had just kicked with. She didn't have time to wonder whether Billy was actually angry enough to lose his head too and charge as well, blissfully disregarding the fact that despite his first mistake, his brother could beat the stuffing out of him; her cousin's apprentice was on Kamakura a mere second later.

She briefly wondered whether she should stop them, but it was just too hilarious to watch – the two were messing up their poses and attacks worse than usual from their anger and looked like the ninja version of a pre-school ballet recital.

Besides, a bit of rough housing was good for bonding, right? The fact they were so cute right now had nothing to do with it, it was simple common sense that it's good for trainees to spar. She'd step in if and when Kamakura started to draw a significant amount of blood.

The command was not quite yelled, but it was certainly loud enough to be heard above the fighting, yelling and the cheering from the few Joes that were in the dojo and who had formed a small audience.

"Both of you, STOP."

As angry as he still was, Billy had had some sense knocked back into him in the form of a broken nose and a lot of bruises, and he seized the chance to end the fight before Kamakura could finish flattening him. Knowing Snake Eyes' apprentice didn't have the same motivation to stop fighting as he did, he stopped in a guarding pose. Kamakura's next hit therefore didn't do much damage.

Tommy heard Snake Eyes' pulse jump up briefly and felt the air move next to him as his brother launched for his apprentice, tackling him to the ground. Kamakura, for himself, was so pumped full of adrenaline that, although enough of his brains kicked in to prevent him from struggling against the hold, he started screaming various invectives at Billy, somehow mixing up their senseis' names in there before Snake Eyes' arm gagged him. After a few seconds of screaming into the arm, Kamakura finally relented and quieted down.

Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes leveled glares at the other Joes, who all suddenly remembered they needed to be somewhere else, and the ninjas were soon left alone in the dojo. Snake Eyes released Kamakura, who snarled at Billy, literally shaking with the repressed urge to pounce on him again, but remained where he was. Billy, completely unhelpfully, was doing his best to look calm and was coming close enough for the furious Kamakura to be fooled.

Snake Eyes clicked his tongue to draw the eyes towards him and signed to demand an explanation.

"Jinx, you're a neutral party. Why don't you do the honour?" Storm Shadow asked.

Jinx's pulse jumped up.

"There's really not much to say," she said, shrugging. "They were insulting each other, and then they started fighting."

"Fighting? You make it sound like they wanted to hurt each other, as opposed to simply sparring."

Snake Eyes signed at Storm Shadow to stop playing dumb and asked Jinx directly why she hadn't stopped the other two.

"Well, you know…" she stammered. "Boys will be boys and all…"

The double glare she got clearly showed the answer was unsatisfactory.

"I have no excuse," she tried, bowing. "I'm sorry."

"Why?" Storm Shadow asked, repeating Snake Eyes' question.

"Well… for one thing, they're not my responsibility," she said defensively. "Also… they just looked too cute! They looked like toddlers putting on a ninja show!"

Storm Shadow rolled his eyes and Snake Eyes palmed his forehead, while Billy and Kamakura both turned brick red in indignation – which Jinx assumed was pretty much the only reason why their senseis were a bit calmer again.

"I think we'll need to talk about this," Storm Shadow breathed to Snake Eyes.

Snake Eyes shrugged, nodded and turned on his heels, signaling Kamakura to follow. Kamakura automatically fell into step behind him, thankfully missing out on Billy soundlessly cooing at him like he was a puppy and pretending to offer him a doggy treat.

Jinx judiciously waited for the door to be closed before turning to her cousin, who was unsuccessfully trying to look like he didn't find Billy's little show amusing.

"You always were more of a cat person," she said, smirking.

He did not reply, turning instead to his apprentice.

"Billy, you obviously have way too much pent up energy. Once you get your nose bandaged up, go run twenty laps, then come back here and we'll get you started on your training."

"Yes, Sensei," Billy said, smiling in relief at the incredibly light punishment.

"We'll see about your punishment after I've talked to my brother," Storm Shadow specified, shattering the illusion.

Billy lost his smile but still ran off.

Tommy continued to pointedly ignore Jinx and unsheathed his twin swords, launching into a kata his cousin could not remember ever even seeing, effectively reminding her that she owed both Snake Eyes and himself for a good bit of training already and that she could still learn more from them, and so, that she wanted to stay on their good side.

Billy spied a greenshirt he hadn't met yet waving at him to stop when he neared the entrance to the Pit on his fifteenth lap, and slowed down.

"General Hawk wants to see you!" the greenshirt started yelling when the young ninja apprentice got within earshot. "Right away!"

Billy stopped, his heart beating a bit quicker than could be attributed to the run. He already knew roughly what Hawk was going to tell him, but the meeting would make things official and final.

"He's in his office, come with me," the soldier said.

The young ninja apprentice shrugged and followed. He knew where Hawk's office was, but if his escort had been told to take him there, there was no reason to complicate things by trying to be independent.

The walk to the office was completely uneventful; at this time of the day, most of the base was busy and the hallways were all but empty. The greenshirt knocked on the office door.

"Sir!" he called in. "William Kessler, as requested."

"Let him in and dismissed," Hawk's voice came from the office. Billy's eye widened briefly in curiosity: the general sounded angry about something.

"You heard him," the greenshirt said. "I suggest you don't make things worse by making him wait."

"Uh? Oh, it's fine. He's not angry with ME," Billy said to the already departing soldier's back. The greenshirt shrugged without turning around and went on walking.

Billy took a deep breath to steady his nerves and entered the office to find Hawk leaning back in his chair, hands joined and looking at him with a dark scowl that rivaled Storm Shadow's.

The young man automatically felt sorry for the poor soul who had made GI Joe's commanding officer angry. He'd met Hawk before, but this moment was when he finally understood why all the Joes, including the ninjas, simply did not mess with their General. Feeling a salute was out of place since he was not a soldier, he did a quick bow.

"Sit down," Hawk said. "Do you have ANY idea what you could have caused?"

Billy's eyebrows shot up as he sat down.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "I was pretty sure I wouldn't cause anything: I knew the Commander wouldn't pick up on my travelling right away. It's hard to explain, but when he found me last time, you could tell he was sick of it and ready to give up on me again. I figured he wouldn't be paying attention closely enough to find out I was 'Scott Travers' right away."

Hawk's scowl deepened and the younger man swallowed, the realization sinking in that HE was the poor idiot Hawk was angry with.

"As you are fully aware," the general said, "this Pit is relatively new: we only moved in here a little over two years ago. Don't you realize WHY we went through moving a whole operation and billions worth in technology and equipment?"

Billy nodded. "Cobra knew where the old one was," he said. "You moved when they acquired that weapon…"

"We moved when they started acquiring weaponry that represented a danger to the old location. Until then, their knowing where we were represented an acceptable risk, especially when compared to the cost and danger involved in moving. That acceptable risk was further reduced by improving security and the last few holes were fixed when Storm Shadow started working for us. By flying into New York, you could have revealed to them that we were still in the area, and not only narrow the possibilities for our exact location, but open the possibility of their targeting the whole city if they ever became desperate to eliminate us!"

"But I just told you, the Commander was fed up with me last time, he's not going to…"

"Do you think it matters how long it takes them to track you?" Hawk thundered, getting up and slamming his hands on his desk. "The trail will lead them to the same place no matter how old it is!"

Billy felt the blood drain from his face and he swallowed again. Hawk was right, of course, and if he'd stopped to think about all this for two seconds before taking off from his safe house, he would have realized it by himself. As it was, he could hardly believe he hadn't. Sure, he'd been roaring to go and he'd been sick of being tossed around and having his life on permanent hold, but that was no excuse; neither was the fact that Kamakura, with but one year of training, was a better fighter than him.

"I… I'm sorry," he said, feeling lower than dirt. "I'm an idiot, I should have…"

"I wouldn't be so angry if you WERE an idiot," Hawk said. "But you're not, you just acted like one. You were too preoccupied with your own goals to think beyond the most basic and immediate danger assessment. I understand that you've been building up frustration for over three years; I know it hasn't been easy to be on the run most of the time, even with your mother with you for the past little while. I can imagine you were too worried for her safety to enjoy her presence all that much."

The young ninja-in-training shook his head to indicate he wasn't going to try and come up with excuses. "What are you going to do?" he asked. "Did Cobra…?" he trailed off, unwilling to even finish the question.

"We sent an unmarked plane to the airport and made it take off for Boston minutes after your flight disembarked. I arranged for five different planes to leave from Boston to various locations shortly after that first plane arrived from New York. The cost for all this will be charged to you, deducted from your pay."

Billy sighed in relief.

"I feel you owe me a very big favour," Hawk continued. "Storm Shadow was so focused on the danger you put yourself in that he didn't think of Cobra picking up your trail either, and I didn't enlighten HIM."

Billy ran his hands through his hair. "Not to sound ungrateful, but I'm guessing it's going to dawn on him pretty soon. Either that or he assumes you fixed it already."

"You would have heard about it from him if he realized you could have given our location away and that the only reason you didn't was because I cleaned up your mess. I'm sure that it will occur to him or that he'll find out pretty soon, but at least he'll be a bit calmer about it all by then. You'll survive, and I won't feel sorry for you at all over whatever he does to you at that point."

Hawk sat back down and glared at the young man.

"I'm sorry," Billy repeated.

"Don't ever do this to me again," Hawk said in reply. "Now, about your status while you're here: I am hiring you as an independent agent so that you can be part of the team without going through basic training. I could have had you arrested instead, but then I would have had to waste resources to keep you contained, or to send you elsewhere and then have to find and capture you again as soon as you escaped from wherever I sent you. Hiring you is less troublesome, and if nothing else, you will keep Storm Shadow busy and hopefully, relatively out of trouble."

His interlocutor nodded. "What duties will you assign me, sir?"

Hawk sighed. "Look, I think you will eventually be a valuable asset, in fact I'm sure of it and that also played a part in my decision to hire you rather than arrest you, but you're not quite there yet. There's really nothing you can do for me on a regular basis that several of the men and women already under my command cannot do much better at this point, so I'm not assigning you any regular duties. I will let you know when I need you, and it won't necessarily be anything exciting or challenging."

Billy cast his eye down. "Understood," he said.

"Good. Now, the technical details. Uniform: I want you to get one, for visibility and recognition. I don't care if it's jeans and a t-shirt as long as you're consistent with it. You can see the QMs for that. Quarters: same as usual, you're rooming with Storm Shadow. Pay: you're on basic wages and I'm deducting 50% until the costs of your little stunt are covered. It WILL take a while. You're entitled to two weeks annual leave. Any question?"

The ninja apprentice shook his head, still reeling over how badly he had messed up, just to end up being almost useless to Hawk. "No, sir. I… I'm really sorry. I…"

"Get over it," Hawk said, not unkindly. "It's done, it's fixed, don't do it again."

"Yes, sir."

"Dismissed."

"Yes, sir."

Billy gave another bow and let himself out.

Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow met later that day on the roof, seeking privacy from prying ears and eyes to discuss what needed to be done with the younger members of the clan.

Snake Eyes sat on the edge, feeling, above all, that there wasn't much to discuss: Kamakura and Billy had some issues to work out, they'd be okay once they had inflicted a few bruises and maybe a couple of shallow cuts on one another. He had a sinking feeling Tommy would not see things the same way – the very fact they were meeting at all, rather than just each deciding what punishment to inflict to their own apprentice, made it look like Storm Shadow was once again blowing things out of proportion.

"You think I'm overreacting and that we should just let them beat each other up until they get it out of their system, don't you?" Tommy asked, sitting next to him.

Snake Eyes nodded.

"You do realize Billy would end up in the clinic several times, and that Kamakura might need therapy?"

Snake Eyes rolled his eyes, tilting his head back as per his usual to exaggerate the gesture and make it visible despite his visor, and signed that he was confident Kamakura had more control than that and was big enough to handle whatever insult Billy threw at him.

"Judging from this morning, I think you may want to temper your trust."

Snake Eyes shrugged, conceding that in this particular case, Kamakura had indeed lost control. He asked what Billy had said to him.

"Kamakura implied I kept sending Billy away partly because he reminded me of his father, and Billy feigned surprised that Kamakura would accuse any of us of judging our apprentices by who their father are, adding a 'guess' that some people must have wrongly thought you only took Sean in because of Wade."

Snake Eyes sagged, understanding Tommy's point a bit better: Kamakura's implication that Tommy cared whose son Billy was reflected that he was having trouble looking past the fact himself, and not only had Billy known exactly what button to push to hurt his brother, he had used it – proof that Kamakura's comments had stung him, regardless of how unfair they were.

"The core of our clan is down to just us five," Tommy said. "What few were left when the Hard Master died have long since gone on their own paths and we can't assume they would come back even if we opened the compound again."

Snake Eyes tensed a bit and Storm Shadow raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not trying to talk you into accepting a certain other apprentice," he specified, smirking. "Whether you do or not should be entirely your decision."

Snake Eyes relaxed and signed that he still thought Kamakura and Billy would sort things out eventually.

Storm Shadow scowled.

"Eventually is not good enough! I want them to have each other's backs. I want them to be brothers, not squabbling coworkers. And I also want Kimiko to realize she needs to look after them."

Snake Eyes did not need to hear anymore: Tommy had that look that almost invariably meant he was about to do something stupid, crazy or quite possibly both. He looked his brother straight in the eyes and signed that it was a bad idea.

Storm Shadow did not show any sign of being insulted at Snake Eyes assuming he had a bad idea before hearing it, or even being told he had any kind of idea. Instead, he smirked at him in a completely un-reassuring manner.

"That's why I'm going to need your help to pull it off, Brother."

Author's Notes

Thank you for reading, and please review! I eat reviews for breakfast, and you know it's not good to skip breakfast, right?

Yes, alright, that makes no sense. But you know what I mean. :D