Kayley Peterson – although she preferred Kerlesshandra or Falcon Shriek, and her best and most secret friends called her Moon Wolf Snake Darkness – was excited beyond belief. She had heard that they might be here, but actually gazing upon them was almost too much for her. Finally, now, she could begin a most singular project, unparalleled in its ambition and most righteous in its motivation.
She was going to write a fanfic.
"Is there a reason you're hiding in those bushes?" Storm Shadow was staring at her, looking confused.
She emerged from the underbrush, picking leaves from her butterscotch hair. She didn't dare ask him how he had seen her. Snake Eyes was leaning against the car with him, and while she didn't really care what Storm Shadow thought of her, Snake Eyes was a different matter altogether.
"my name is kerlesshandra; but my code name is Flame Feather;" she began. "im just a regular girl in high school; and Now I've been Recruited By GI Joe."
Storm Shadow was definitely bemused now, and even Snake Eyes seemed quizzical. "What was that?" Storm Shadow asked.
"My name is Kerlesshandra, and I was just recruited by GI Joe," she said.
"Why?"
"Because- because I won the Hunger Games," Kayley said. "I'm from District 15."
"Well, brother, I have to say that I appreciate that your team's hiring policy does not discriminate due to age, or apparently, ever being in contact with reality," Storm Shadow said. "And yes, she did say Hunger Games. Even if you misheard, I certainly didn't."
Snake Eyes signed something else fast and indecipherable to Storm Shadow.
"No, I don't know how that's possible. It implies that our government is the Capitol, which makes no sense, since we meet the President of the United States in this movie. Although it does kind of explain her name."
"Anyway, the real question is who I'll fall for," Kayley said. "Will it be Duke? Or Snake Eyes? Or Flint? Or someone else?" Were there any hot guys on GI Joe she had missed? Kayley paused to think.
"Yes, because when someone writes a story about a girl who has put time and effort into cultivating a skill until she is one of the best in the world, my first thought is always to wonder who her boyfriend is," Storm Shadow said.
"But I was planned for Flint," Kayley said.
"Snake Eyes wants to point out that people aren't supposed to seem like they're created for each other, and that's what makes stories interesting," Storm Shadow said. "I'm actually more interested in what Lady Jaye is going to do to you, but I guess he has a point too."
Kayley was about to reply when Jinx appeared. "I leave you two alone for three minutes, and I find you feeding the trolls," Jinx said. "You just can't help yourselves, can you?"
"Kimiko, she's not a troll, she's the winner of the Hunger Games," Storm Shadow said. "Show a little respect."
"So she's just a Sue?" Jinx asked.
"Well, yes," Storm Shadow admitted.
"And not even a particularly weird one?" Jinx asked. "Just your average silly name and overblown skills and backstory stolen from elsewhere?"
"Fine, so maybe she's not the most spectacular Sue ever," Storm Shadow said. "And I should probably be more worried about how she found us than who she's paired with, but you were busy." With that, he opened the car door.
"Wait. You're leaving?" Kayley asked.
"We have places to be," Jinx said.
"Are you leaving because you think I'm a Sue? Because I'm not a Sue," Kayley said. "I have flaws. I do! I – I'm clumsy! And everyone makes fun of me because I drop things and trip a lot!" They ignored her. "And Snake Eyes needs me. He needs a girl, to make him happy."
"He needs you?" Jinx had stopped, looking skeptical. "What will happen if he doesn't get you? He'll turn back into a pumpkin at midnight?"
"Who's feeding the trolls now, you giant hypocrite?"
"Like I could let you have the last word."
Kayley watched them pull away, comforted only by the presence of her friendly saltwater crocodile, Snuffles. It wasn't fair. She was supposed to bewitch them, not watch them drive off without a second thought. She was attempting to decide between stamping her foot and weeping a single, crystal tear to express her frustration when she sensed someone behind her. "Who's there?" she asked.
"I am." A young man stepped from the bushes near where she had been hiding, holding a package of frozen peas to the back of his head.
"Who are you?"
"I am called Rain Shadow," he replied. "My colleagues and I have been watching you, Flame Feather, and we believe that between us we may share a common goal. Let me introduce you to them. They are very eager to meet you."
Flint was excited. Not because they were going to invade Pakistan, of course - that actually kind of freaked him out - but because they were in a helicopter. And that meant characterization. He wouldn't have guessed this on his own. It had seemed kind of counterintuitive, like the characterization was happening by accident on the way to somewhere, but Breaker had told him so. At the time, it had seemed wise to listen.
It had happened just before they left for North Korea. It had been a strange day to begin with, full of green-tinted light and sense of shifting paradigms. Flint was already hovering somewhere between anticipation and dread when Breaker had stepped from the shadows.
"Flint. I must speak to you, but already the hour grows late," Breaker said.
"Breaker, it's not even noon yet."
"Listen to me. This will sound mad, but if you wish to survive this movie, you must understand to what I'm going to tell you."
It was then that Flint noticed that Breaker seemed less opaque than usual. The light seemed to pass through him, as though he were a fading memory.
"Breaker, what's happening to you?"
"I'm being retconned," Breaker replied. "But I'm passing on my knowledge from the first movie to you, Flint, so that you can be genre-savvy enough to help your team."
"How do you know the first movie will be anything like the second movie?" Flint had asked. "Shouldn't everything be completely different this time around?"
Breaker sighed in exasperation. "My generalizations are three. First, any given backstory will include at least one of these elements: death of family members, attending the school of hard knocks, or having daddy issues. Use this knowledge to your advantage. Second, if you're in a vehicle going to or from a mission, it's time for some characterization." Breaker paused, a faraway look coming into his eyes.
"And the third piece of secret knowledge?" Flint asked.
"It is perhaps the most important that I can bequeath to you. If you see a helicopter approaching, it comes bearing plot. It is beyond the ken of humankind whether it brings good or ill, but know that the narrative will be irrevocably changed," Breaker said. "Best of luck to you, Flint. I would stay, but I am nearly written out." With that, he'd wandered off down the hall, trailing bits of what looked disconcertingly like ectoplasm.
But now that he was in the helicopter, Flint had to admit that there didn't seem to be a lot of characterization going on. Unless, of course, bantering about bullets that could change direction in mid-air was a kind of characterization. But what hadn't worked for Wanted wasn't working here either, and all he could think about was how happy he was that Mouse was going to die, and how tantalizingly close he was to Lady Jaye. Stupid Mouse with his stupid face and his stupid, obvious appeals to the audience's emotion. Stupid Jaye, being all charming and competent and gorgeous and calling him out on being an overgrown frat boy. Stupid both of them, hardly letting him talk.
Somewhere in the background, he could hear Roadblock quoting Jay-Z, and it was then that Flint realized what was happening. Someone was getting characterization. It just wasn't him.
For the second time in the course of the movie, Roadblock and Duke were bonding over shooting things. Granted, it was real things this time, and they did have an undeniable chemistry, but it failed to add any depth to their relationship that the video game scene hadn't.
"I can't believe our dumb friendship is hogging all this time in the movie and Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow haven't even shown up yet," Roadblock said casually.
"I don't even know why you would make that comparison. They're not actually friends," Duke said. "And be quiet so I can shoot this cupcake. Even if shooting a stationary cupcake with my eyes open with a gun isn't even really a challenge. I'm just saying, if you could go get some ground squirrels and maybe a scarf, we could make this really interesting."
"You're sick. Just take your shot."
Duke raised the scope to his eye – even though, as previously stated, it was child's play – took a deep breath, pulled back the trigger—
"And would you like to explain what you meant by real friends?"
The shot missed, Duke turned back to Roadblock. "Real friends don't kill each other, or roofie each other, nor does a real friend kill all the other friend's henchmen, or take them home to a family that wants to kill them. Although I would happily watch children, which is what these two normal people are offering to do for each other. I'm amazing at Hide and Seek."
"To be fair, all of those situations had mitigating circumstances," Roadblock said, pulling out his M2 Browning. It chewed through cupcake, post, and about ten feet of biological soil crust on either side of the target in seconds.
"Really. There's a mitigating reason you had to take me back home? It was a farce of a trial, Snake Eyes. I'm surprised they didn't attempt to extract a guilty plea from me via thumbscrew."
"Your aunt made us give away the thumbscrew."
"It was a metaphor," Duke said. "Because it was medieval."
"That's pretty appropriate, for ninja," Roadblock said.
"Well, how about the time you killed me?"
"To be fair, you had just blown up Paris."
"And the Red Ninja?"
"Most of them just died of incompetence," Roadblock replied.
"Not the ones you threw off a mountain."
"They were incompetent for letting me throw them off a mountain."
Duke was about to reply when Flint ran over to them. "You guys, you have to stop talking and get ready." He pointed to the sky, toward a bunch of ominous black helicopters. "The plot is coming."
"Seriously, I'm the one who sucks at this?" Jinx asked. "Because I'm pretty sure that was the thing where therapists let you play out your trauma with dolls."
"They were bantering. Like friends."
" 'Your aunt made us give away the thumbscrew'? 'That's pretty appropriate for a ninja?'" Jinx asked. "How would Roadblock know what was appropriate for a ninja, anyhow?"
Because he's a chef-ninja-commando-boxer-father, Snake Eyes said. If the plot requires it, he can know anything.
"Wait, since when was he a ninja?" Storm Shadow asked.
I may have shown him a few things.
"You'll train anything that moves."
Says the man who trained the Baroness.
"She was pretty. What's your excuse?"
A/N: So, while the updates have been somewhat uneven up until now, I'm hoping that it will be somewhat more consistent after this. This is what you get when you write without a buffer, like a bad person. Also, I've now collected a sufficient number of anonymous reviews that ask kind-of questions that I feel like I should reply, even though replying to reviews in your author's notes is unbearably old school.
First, with regards to Scarlett: I also kind of don't think she's dead – I'm honestly surprised they didn't just recast her – but I don't want to get Jossed. So, if she did show up here, it would probably be somewhat covert.
Second, with regards to the jar of candy beans, it was intended as a reference to the whole 'A ninja does not step on a land mine' thing, implying because Jinx is a ninja it can be assumed that she didn't do the clumsy, obvious thing (in this case, dropping the candy beans) and rather it just happens to look that way. Do rest assured that some of the more creative logic in Retaliation has not escaped my notice.
