CHAPTER THREE: Commence the Hunt
Zanya wakes up and looks out her window, flinching at the drop in temperature and rummaging under the seat for a sweater. Zandar and Zarana are both passed out in the front, snoring loudly like some absurd comedy band. Zanya rolls her eyes and peers through the frozen glass, spying dark figures slowly stalking towards them. She grabs a rifle from a case at the back of the plane, kicking open the door and shivering at the burst of sudden cold air. Zarana shrieks and curses at her, reaching for a woolly blanket as Zandar lazily drapes himself on Zanya, squinting at the distant figures.
Zanya pulls the scope up to her eye, watching the tallest figure raise a hand and wave. She grins, lowering the weapon and stepping away from the opening. Zarana preens in the small compact mirror she jacked from a convenience store, trying to get her bright pink hair into some semblance of order before the plane is boarded. Zandar gapes, stepping aside as a large grey wolf prowls into the vehicle, its cybernetic enhancements whirling and glittering. A few hawks fly in, equally tampered with and then Cobra Commander finally slinks inside with a large boa constrictor. Zarana looks love struck.
"Glad you could make it here, Zanya," he rasps, taking her hand. "Zartan spoke fondly of you."
"I'm sure he did." She replies, firmly shaking his hand. "I like your dog."
"A little side project I didn't have time to implement two years ago, think of it as a gift."
Cobra straightens up and nods at Zandar, whom he's met, and glances over at Zarana briefly. He takes a seat in he back of the plane while the others all stand about him, patient and obedient. The snake curls about his feet languidly, its metallic skin coloured green and brown and unaffected by the frost outside; Zarana quickly shuts the door and bundles up.
"But you're probably wondering why I asked you here."
"I'm a little curious, yes, I thought you still had supporters?" Zandar answers, a rare show of interest and even rarer insistence of him stringing more than five words together.
"Many have left, daunted by our previous failures. The few loyal ones I have left in my service couldn't make it, we're creating more of these…pets." Cobra looks to Zanya as she carefully strokes the head of the wolf.
"What do you need from us?" she asks.
"No more than what you are already doing, my dear. The media is filled with VIPER's crimes, and I even hear Erebus is taking an interest."
Zanya bristles at the name.
Not so long ago, Erebus was an informant of hers. So long as she didn't outwardly hunt people down, he'd keep the feds off her back as best he could. He'd promised her two years ago that when he encountered Zartan, he would force the master of disguise to hand over leadership of the Dreadnoks to her. If Zartan himself decreed it, everyone would have to listen to him, and Zanya could finally prove herself worthy of leading. So she gave him every bit of information she had on her father, all the notes, all the phone calls, his known locations.
He promised her father would not be killed, he'd be delivered back to her subdued, not dead. Not dead.
But then that incident happened, leaked footage of his body being tossed into the sea without a prayer, of Erebus standing by doing nothing. She hated him. Despised him. And now, now was the time to get back at him.
"Everything you've done so far has worked out beautifully, Zanya. When Erebus takes the bait, and we know he will, all I ask is that you draw in three more casualties for me." Cobra hisses consolingly.
"As long as I get to kill him."
"Of course," Cobra reached into his jacket and pulls out three files, three very thin files. "Two of these faces, you will recognize. The third should not be too much of a threat, I'd like them delivered to me relatively intact. Do what you will with Erebus, I already robbed him of an arm."
"Good shooting too," Zarana murmurs, catching Cobra's gaze before she looks away.
"That's all?"
Zanya purses her lips as Cobra cocks his head to one side. It's impossible to read his expression with that metal plate over his face; all she can see is her own childishly confused expression reflected back at her. It seems like a small favour to get what she wants, even smaller for Cobra to get back on his feet again and rally his troops. She thumbs through the files, recognizing the traitor Storm Shadow and the ninja Snake Eyes, the one called Fenris looks too green for battle despite the gnarly scars.
Zanya frowns at the unknown, and thinks hard. She doesn't want the Dreadnoks to become another part of Cobra's bigger picture, she wants her clean and simple revenge, and wants to go so far away that no one can ever bother her again. VIPER is a means to an end, not the end.
"Getting cold feet, maybe? I understand this is a grave undertaking, you will certainly have a lot more eyes on you – "
"I'm not getting cold feet, just thinking." Zanya growls at Cobra. "This is the one thing we do for you, you hear me? I'm not a Cobra goon, I'm a Dreadnok. And when this business between us is done, I lead them however I damn well please."
"Yes, of course, Zanya." Cobra stands and takes her shoulders in his hands. "Think of this as…as a contract. You won't be obligated to do more, unless you want to."
Zarana nods, Zandar shrugs, and Zanya shakes her head.
She takes a few steps backward and walks with Cobra back to the door of the plane. The boa constrictor slithers up his pant leg and weaves itself around one of his arms, two of the three hawks fly out into the cold, and the grey wolf powers down. Cobra pulls out a small case, the controlling device for the creatures, and waves goodbye, disappearing into the blizzard as if walking out onto a beach. Zanya heaves the door shut and sighs, rubbing her arms for warmth and settling back into her seat, one hand dangling over the edge of the armrest to pet the wolf.
"Well, let's get started then."
A few days' pass, Fenris focuses on training until a message from Hawk comes in. Snake Eyes receives it first, and the details are filtered out by Storm Shadow but the bottom line is that they're going to Hawaii. Not a terribly long flight, thank God, but an oddly strange mission. It's mainly a survey and report back to base kind of thing, a number of bodies had popped up in a raging fire and all of them previously served with the Joes. They will rendezvous with the Alpha Team who will be primarily investigating, it sounds more like an experience building mission.
Snake Eyes still encourages her to bring her weapons though, nothing promises a non-violent mission anyway. At the same time, Erebus leaves as well for Hawaii, as this attack is linked to VIPER which is more and more becoming linked with him.
Landing in Hawaii, the four of them are transported quietly and secretly to a small motel near the fire, Erebus disappears and conducts his own investigations at the site. All of the Alpha Team, sans Ripcord who's still fielding agents for his new team, have camped out on the floor of their bungalow. It reminds Fenris of her first encounter with them, and she quickly occupies a place on the floor with Scarlet. She doesn't wear her engagement ring on missions but she almost constantly glowing now, like she's captured the sort of iridescence stars have.
Scarlet lies on her stomach with a tablet, communicating with Ripcord back in some classified location. She looks up at their arrival and waves, smiling up at Snake Eyes who lies beside Fenris on his back. Storm Shadow hovers in the kitchen, surveying the available space with a resigned look, he'll abandon the indoors to sleep on the roof.
Breaker's tapping away on his computer, trying to mole anymore information about VIPER, Duke and Heavy Duty are placing chess on the couch.
"We got the invites," Fenris whispers. "I haven't had a chance to look at them properly though."
Snake Eyes sighs and sits back up, blindly ruffling her hair and standing back up. He moves towards Storm Shadow, Fenris can't see how his hands are moving.
"Don't worry about it, it's in the summer so there's time." Scarlet mumbles, she logs out of her tab and moves onto her side.
Fenris raises an eyebrow and mirrors her pose, the others couldn't properly see them speaking.
"How has Snake Eyes been?" Scarlet asks in a hushed tone as the ninja sits back down.
"We'll get moving soon, don't fall asleep."
"Got it." Fenris returns to staring at Scarlet, waiting for some sort of distraction.
Duke lets out an aggravated groan and the ninja gets up and crosses the room, leaning over Duke thoughtfully with a hand wrapped around his chin.
"He's been…fine?" Fenris tries, the answer not registering any emotional response from Scarlet. "But he's been really quiet about you, well, quieter. He doesn't use too many words about you."
"I get the feeling I've upset him somehow, he's hasn't been talking with me recently and when he does it's…different."
"I'll bug him about it after the mission." Fenris promises, sitting back up as Storm Shadow walks to the door.
"Could you? That would be great," she grabs Fenris's hand. "What about you and Snake Eyes?"
Fenris opens her mouth to respond but Snake Eyes glides in behind her, tapping her shoulder expectantly before moving towards the door.
"I will tell you later." Fenris whispers, jogging backwards the following the guys outside.
They smell the smoke long before they see the site, Erebus is poking around a tree a few feet away from the rubble. Snake Eyes passes her blueprints of the building and walks down the beach, lightly stepping around the deep footprints left in the sand. Storm Shadow jumps right into the thick of things by exploring the blackened structure, carefully moving underground and examining the bodies forensics hasn't picked up yet. Fenris kneels by the entrance, her eyes roving over the blueprints before she starts moving inside.
The fire started in the kitchen, that area was almost completely unrecognizable. The entrance to the basement is in the centre of the room, Fenris grabbed a flashlight and flicked it on. The spotlight falls on Storm Shadow's blank face and Fenris hisses, glaring down at the ninja.
"I was just going to ask for a light," he says lightly. "The interesting stuff's down here, come on."
He moves out of her line of sight and Fenris groans, tossing the blueprints out and hopping in. It's not far down but her ankles ache at the impact, she flashes the light around and finds Storm Shadow in one corner of the room. She shines the light on him and he tilts away, Fenris sees a row of manacles fastened to the wall. She swallows thickly at the distorted bodies dangling from the chains, not burned so much as…red.
"Something's been feeding on them." Storm Shadow remarks drying, drawing a sword.
"How big?"
"Here? Maybe a wild boar, there's a passageway behind us."
Fenris frowns immediately, backing up and standing beside Storm Shadow. She looks at the bodies again, then up at the ceiling of the room.
"Smoke inhalation?"
"Probably, a few might've survived which is why they left an animal down here."
"Correct me if I'm wrong…"
Fenris and Storm Shadow start walking, Fenris grabs one of the blade ends of Gleipnir, this one inscribed with Skoll.
"Yes?"
"This leads in the direction of the ocean. I didn't think motels had secret passageways."
Storm Shadow chuckles. "No, they don't. Keep your light up, I go first."
True to his word, Storm Shadow started down the narrow tunnel on the other side of the room, sliding in sideways with a few grunts. Fenris followed after him, entering with a little more ease while trying to aim the light somewhere pass his chest. They're inside for only a few minutes when Storm Shadow raises his hand, they could hear waves a few feet in front of them and Fenris could make out something like a cage.
"When the tide is low enough, something comes out of that cage." Storm Shadow said, there was a sizable gap between them and the cage.
"Somehow, they've funneled the water down here to go left to right. Enough fish must pass through here as food." He went on, starting to push her backwards.
"Is it a boar?" Fenris whispered back.
"A very big boar…and its seen us." He pushes her backwards, the two of them quietly hurrying back the way they came.
"Oh fuck no…"
"Just keep moving, shut the light off."
Fenris did as she was told and shut the light off, stumbling out of the tunnel and rolling away before Storm Shadow stepped on her. She shifted under the hole and cursed, what little light shone made it difficult to see Storm Shadow.
Tentatively, she turned the flashlight on and pointed to upwards, hoping either Snake Eyes or Erebus would see. And then she heard it.
Shrieking metal, a loud thump, and then the boar squealing.
Storm Shadow pulled out his other sword and Fenris stuck the flashlight in the ground, holding one blade out in front of her and waiting. The passageway sagged as if it was truly made of sand, and the boar squeezed through the opening and snorted. Storm Shadow didn't move very fast, but he swung one sword down on the beast's back and it clanged as if it hit metal.
"Back up, and grab that light!" Storm Shadow commandeered, hurling himself away as the boar charged him.
Fenris hissed and snatched up the light, shining it around the room and blinding the boar. It stamped the ground madly and squealed, turning away from Storm Shadow and heading for Fenris. She tossed the light towards him and released the blade, letting it hit the sand beneath her feet before she grabbed the chain and spun, heaving the blade up. It clanged under the boar's face but it was enough to stun him, Fenris danced back and threw the blade again, grunting as it bounced off the boar's horn, snapping it.
Storm Shadow tossed the light up and out of the hole, leaping onto the boar's back and sliding both of his swords under its chin, Fenris twirled and heaved both blades into its face, staggering backwards as the boar bucked Storm Shadow off. She wasn't sure how well a boar could see in the dark, but it didn't appear to matter because it evidently had better eyesight than her.
It barrelled towards her, its remaining horn slashing through her thigh, Fenris tripped over a piece of wood, throwing her arms up to defend from the boar's hooves. They cracked against the blades, Fenris cried out at the impact, hoping she hadn't broken a rib; it was enough though to call down Snake Eyes who pulled the creature off.
"Metal back and face!" Fenris warned, wheezing and checking her wrists for breaks.
Snake Eyes nodded, diving and slicing through a leg. Storm Shadow picked himself up and went for another leg, the two ninja rearing backwards at the sudden red light coming from the boar's eyes. Fenris saw waves of heat and dashed for the tunnel, throwing herself onto the ground as laser cut through the space where her head might've been. Snake Eyes moved behind the beast and cut its tail off, launching himself upwards and out of the hole.
The boar continued to shoot lasers and Fenris saw her chance – the sides of the boar were not armour plated. She climbed to her feet and swung both arms, sending the blades flying into the boar's sides, and she slowly pulled the chain back, ripping the skin open. Storm Shadow ducked low and stabbed a long knife into the cut, pounding it further into the boar's chest until it roared and sunk to the ground lifeless.
"Everyone OK?" Erebus called, tipping his head into the opening.
"We're alright, Fenris?" Storm Shadow stood up and pulled her blades from the boar.
"Hopefully just bruises." She answered standing beside the ninja, coiling the chain and examining her blades. They were slick with oil and blood, she made a face.
Storm Shadow hummed thoughtfully and jumped up, Erebus caught one of his hands and yanked him back above ground where the two of them pulled Fenris up. She hissed and glared down at the cut on her thigh, fingering it slightly with a groan as Snake Eyes appeared and probed the cut with his fingers.
"I've called the others to investigate, we're done here."