Disclaimer: I do not own G. I. Joe, nor any trademark names in this story. I do own Megan Catrenski (Cheshire/ Secret) and any OCs that may appear, unless stated otherwise.

Thanks to Karama9, willwrite4fics and Card Carrying Villains for pointing out things that I hadn't even noticed. For the record, I will never, ever, ever in my life object if anyone reviews my stories just to point out mistakes. I'd much rather fix them than not even realise they were there. Seriously, guys... THANK YOU!

CRUNCH TIME

I raised an eyebrow. "Storm Shadow's killing Hawk today, you said?" Shit shit shit shit...

"Oh yes," the Commander said gleefully. "In fact, I think..." He checked a clock on the wall. "I think he'll do it in an hour."

I took a deep breath. "Sir, are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, the Joes won't like it." Holy understatement, Snake Man!

"Of course they won't, but with their leader dead, there'll be chaos," the Commander told me. "Cut the head off the Joes and the body dies too."

I was tempted to correct the saying, but sensed somehow that it would be tactless to tell him the word was really 'snake.' "All due respect, sir, but there are two options here. The body dies, or the body arms itself and sets out for blood, with nobody in command whom they respect enough to listen to when told not to call in an airstrike on this island."

"The Joes are military, and there are procedures for this type of thing," the Commander said confidently. "They'll be crippled for months."

I looked at him, wondering how someone this stupid was still such a threat. "Sir, the Joes are barely military. They're the biggest bunch of mavericks I've ever met. Insanity coupled with a healthy disregard for protocol is one of the boxes that have to be ticked on the application for recruits to even be considered. I really, really think this is a mistake."

"That's what Storm Shadow said about you, Secret," the Commander said smugly. "I proved him wrong, and I'll do the same to you. Pack your bags. You leave tomorrow."

I gave a jerky half-bow. "Yes sir."

This had gone on long enough. It had to end. Much as I disliked it, it was crunch time.

Storm Shadow and I were silent on the ride to Trans-Carpathia the next day. I was plotting, and he was sulking.

He had failed. Dumb luck was with the Joes again. Unbelievably, Hawk had sneezed. He had sneezed, and Storm Shadow's bullet had grazed his skull instead of going straight through. I could still barely believe it. I mean, really, what were the chances?

The plane was cushy enough, certainly. I stretched back in my seat and stared at the ceiling, thinking my plan through. I couldn't see any holes, but that didn't mean none existed.

"What are you thinking about?" Storm Shadow asked suddenly.

I sat up and looked at him. "Nothing. What are you thinking about?"

He pressed his fingers to his temples and shook his head. "I... I don't know. There's... My..." His face creased with pain and fear, and I wondered again how badly the mind-control was failing. Badly enough that Mindbender had had to reach out to Dermish, but not badly enough that Storm Shadow couldn't be sent on missions. Then again...

"Storm Shadow," I said slowly. "Do you remember yesterday?"

A flash of acknowledgment.

"You missed the general. You have the best aim I've ever seen–" except, perhaps, for Snake Eyes, who was beyond a goddamned surgeon with those Uzis of his, and even then I wouldn't put money on it "– and you still missed."

"I remember," he agreed shortly. He didn't like to be reminded of his failure.

"That wasn't on purpose, was it?"

The next instant, I had a knife to my throat. "Are you questioning my loyalty?" he snarled at me.

I kept calm, though from what I knew of his hearing, he could tell from my heartbeat how scared I was. "Yes. I have to. Who watches the watchers? I want to make sure you're on the right side. It's what the Commander hired me for, remember?"

He relaxed slightly, and finally let go of me completely. "I did not miss on purpose," he snarled, sheathing the knife. "Question my loyalty again and I will not be so forgiving."

"Alright, you've convinced me," I agreed, lowering my voice so the pilot couldn't hear me. "But Mindbender hasn't convinced the Commander." Storm Shadow's eyes widened and he leaned forwards. "The Commander thinks the Doctor is plotting against him," I whispered. "He wants us to get a copy of the files at the castle." I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out a small flash drive. "Can you do that? I have to investigate the rest of the castle, and I can't get into the main laboratory. So you get the files as soon as possible, and I'll take care of the rest of the castle, alright?"

Storm Shadow nodded, accepting the drive. Poor dumb brainwashed bastard. I felt a little guilty for using him like this, but I squashed it instantly. He would live.

I hoped.

Mindbender and Destro were waiting for us. They were excited about something, that much was clear. Before I had even had a chance to say hello, my bag had been yanked from my hands and I was being ushered into a small laboratory.

"Why am I here?" I said finally in a break between their excited chattering. "I can't read robots."

"Yes, but you can teach them how to read us," Destro said. He was like a kid on Christmas Eve. Did they have Christmas in Scotland? "You can predict peoples' movement through their physical tells, yes?"

"Yes," I agreed. It was what had kept me from being flattened in sparring several times. "But I don't–"

"There must be something that you can program the robots to look for," Mindbender said impatiently. "This would make them unbeatable, Secret!"

"Unless they had to go up against a ninja," I pointed out reasonably. "Not even I can read them." Most of the time...

Mindbender waved that away. "You're just a human."

I'm just the human who's teaching your damned robots to fight, I thought, irritated.

"The BATs will be far faster and more efficient," Mindbender continued. "We just need you to lay the foundations."

"Alright," I agreed, massaging away a migraine. "Show me how to do this."

I had thought it would be a total waste of time, but it actually was quite effective. Mindbender had produced some sort of helmet thing that I was meant to wear. I had flat-out refused until he had sworn up, down and sideways that there was no way for him and Destro to use it to control me. Then they had calibrated the BAT's brain to be in synch with mine, and I had been shown a series of photos. I didn't have a clue how they had done it, but somehow, the robot actually had managed to record my analysis of each picture. Destro and Mindbender both were of the opinion that with enough sessions, it would have enough information to pose a real threat to any poor soul who had to face it in hand to hand combat.

I had to act.

I eventually pleaded exhaustion and made my way to my room. Storm Shadow was waiting there for me, perched in a meditative pose on my bed.

"I have the files," he said, tossing the drive to me. I caught it and tucked it into my pocket.

"Good work," I told him. "Now, listen. You need to get to the roof and stay there."

He didn't move. I tried not to roll my eyes. "I'm passing on Cobra Commander's orders here, Storm Shadow. He wants you to go to the helipad and stay there until I come and get you. Got it?"

Storm Shadow didn't react for long enough to make me nervous, and then finally, he nodded. "Yes."

"Off you go, then," I said, my eyes straying towards my bag.

He left the room, and I immediately dived for my bag. They hadn't checked it, the slack idiots; if they had, the first thing they would have noticed would have been the two bricks of C4 I had tucked into the false bottom.

Three hours later, I was making my way to the roof. My mood was so good I was almost whistling. That didn't last long; a moment after I stepped out the door, I got slammed to the ground and had a knife pressed to my throat.

"You lied to me," Storm Shadow snarled. "What were you really doing?"

"Let me up and I'll show you," I croaked.

He actually did it. I rolled to my feet, pulled out the detonator, held it up, and pressed the button.

The roof rocked beneath us as the bombs triggered a series of chain reactions in the castle. Storm Shadow swayed slightly, and drew his arm back to hurl the knife at me as I scurried backwards.

"Why'd you join Cobra, Tommy?" I yelled, to distract him.

He looked at me, shocked, stunned into stillness by the use of his name. I threw the detonator at his head. He caught it easily, but I had time to skip behind a nearby gargoyle.

"Stupid ninja," I growled to myself. "Stupid ninja and their stupid perfect reflexes..."

Suddenly everything happened at once. The door to the roof flung open and the Baroness staggered into sight. She saw Storm Shadow, clutching the detonator; she didn't see me, tucked behind my gargoyle.

She pulled a gun, took aim, and shot Storm Shadow in the chest.

I watched in stony silence as he fell and the Baroness turned to the troops behind her. "Prepare for evacuation, now!" she ordered. They immediately ran for the nearest helicopters.

"Baroness!" a familiar voice yelled over the noise of a not-so-Silent-anymore Castle. Mindbender wriggled his way through the stampeding troops. "Baroness," he panted. "Help me with the body."

"Why do you want it?" the Baroness demanded.

Damn good question, I thought darkly.

"We don't have time." Mindbender staggered. "Help me get it into my chopper."

The Baroness clicked her fingers at two guards. "You two. Help the Doctor." She turned back to Mindbender, added, "I hope you have several very good explanations prepared for the Commander, Doctor. For your sake, not mine."

I stopped listening at this point, because in the background I could see two soldiers loading Storm Shadow's body onto an empty helicopter. They were moving a lot more quickly than the usual sluggish pace; I suppose being on top of an ancient exploding shrapnel-heap would speed you up slightly.

I was still faster, though.

I braced myself against the gargoyle, took a deep breath, and exploded out of concealment. The Baroness and Mindbender were too busy bickering still to look in my direction, and from five metres away they couldn't hear me running over the din. None of the troops even registered me: none of them knew that I was the one behind this. Sometimes being below everyone's line of sight had its advantages. I sprinted up to Mindbender's otherwise-empty helicopter, slid in, and pressed the blade of my butterfly knife to the pilot's neck.

"Two choices," I told him. "You fly away now, or I cut your spinal cord and leave you paralysed. If you don't bleed out, of course."

The guy knew I wasn't kidding. The rotors purred to life, and we lifted smoothly away from the Silent Castle.

It was always a stupid name.

I sat in the emergency room and considered my options.

For once in my life, I couldn't just leave. I could have walked out of the Joes if I had really wanted to. I could have cancelled the Cobra mission at any moment and Hawk wouldn't have held it against me. He had made it clear, when I had rung him six months ago from the lab, that this was my show. In fact, he had wanted nothing to do with it, but he had realised I hadn't been kidding when I had told him there was an opportunity here that I wasn't going to miss. He hadn't realised Dermish was my target; I hadn't realised it would be so hard to get to the slimy bastard.

I had information. I had useful information. I could call it off now and still have it be worth the time. Another life spent. Before Dermish, after, as a member of the Joes, then as a Cobra agent; if I really possessed nine lives, I had five left to spare.

I couldn't just abandon Storm Shadow. He was in the deepest coma any of these doctors had ever seen. They had thought he was dead when he came in. It was beyond a miracle that he was even alive. He was helpless, and it was entirely my fault. I still needed something to tell the cops when they got here.

The Scanner was gone. That had been the target of my first C4 brick. I take attempts to control people's minds very, very personally, and I hadn't been about to let Mindbender slide on this one.

There was still Dermish, as he was calling himself now. I smiled coldly to myself. There was a debt to be paid there, and I intended to take it out in blood.

The Joes. I reached up, unclipped my largest earring and looked at it critically. It was a gaudy diamond stud, completely not my style, but still the smallest beacon Breaker had managed to engineer. It wasn't transmitting continuously; Cobra would have picked it up in a heartbeat if it had been. I had to turn it on for a signal to be sent. Scarlett had gotten it into my pocket, along with instructions, when she had tackled me in the alleyway.

I sighed and rubbed my forehead. This was why I maintained distance between myself and the world around me; this was why I hadn't had a relationship with anyone since I was ten. I liked the Joes well enough, but I could live without them. I liked Storm Shadow, but he couldn't live without me, quite literally. I owed him. It was my fault he was in this situation.

Swearing lightly to myself, I turned the beacon on.

They showed up not half an hour later. I was in one of the empty rooms of the hospital, lying through my teeth to two upstanding lawmen, when I heard them.

"A hit-and-run?" The older man definitely didn't believe me. That was fine. I would have been far more concerned if he had. "Ma'am, you're saying your friend got that badly beat up by a car?"

"They're lethal," I said, straight-faced.

"Ma'am, he has bullet holes in his chest."

"No, that was a branch. He got knocked against a tree."

"There's bullets still in the holes, ma'am."

"Well, you see..." Where the hell was the Joe team? Late slackers. I glanced out the window, and caught sight of a pair of small lights in the dark sky: a helicopter setting down. I breathed a sigh of relief. "You see, the tree was armed. It didn't appreciate being bumped into."

The officers exchanged looks. They found this very, very fishy. Suddenly, their faces altered, spasmed, went slack, and both of them slid to the ground, completely unconscious.

I actually smiled. I hadn't even heard him come in. "Kamakura. Nice one."

He nodded back sternly, a little proud but trying to hide it. "Cheshire." Then his face altered and he became all business. "Where is Storm Shadow?"

"In surgery. He got shot eight times. By the Baroness," I added quickly. "Where's everybody else?"

Kamakura's face wouldn't have changed to an uninitiated viewer, but certain lines deepened, certain muscles twitched, and my spider-senses began to tingle. I could read deep concern there. "They're in the Middle East, most of them. An American ambassador got kidnapped and some rebels took it as a sign that now was a good moment to launch an attack on American military bases. Hawk is diverting everyone he can here to pick you up, but I was the closest. I drove like mad to get here in the time I did."

My breath left my lungs. "You drove? In a car?"

"There weren't any helicopters around when the call came in."

"But I just saw one land a mile away five minutes ago," I said slowly.

Kamakura and I stared at each other. "Damn it!" he breathed.

I darted over to the window and looked out. Dark figures in the parking lot, dressed in a familiar uniform. I was an idiot. I should have stayed away from the window. I saw one Viper look around, spot me, stiffen, and I ducked. The next instant, the window exploded into glass chips and bullets riddled the ceiling.

Kamakura dropped like a rock, covering his head from the glass. I wriggled over and we scuttled out of the room, pulling the door closed behind us. "Sorry," I gasped. "That was dumb." I had confiscated the police officers' guns; now I stuck one in my belt and stood. We were in the reception area. The secretary was gossiping with a young doctor. They both looked at me; I pointed the weapon at them and said quite seriously, "Get into the operating room or I'll shoot you."

The poor ladies fell over themselves obeying. Kamakura gave me a reproachful look. I rolled my eyes at him.

This was a tiny hospital in a small mountain town; the rest of the night staff had been working on Storm Shadow already. We had the floor to ourselves.

"Let's hurry," Kamakura told me grimly.

I gave him a very sweet smile. This might actually be fun.

Next chapter, some Vipers find out first-hand exactly how much damage an apprentice ninja and a kind-of-sort-of-but-not-really-because-that-would-make-her-a-Sue-apprentice ninja can do in a hospital full of nice pointy/poisonous/explosive objects... fun times will be had by most!