"Any idea why the fang-gang is attacking an observatory in California?" Duke called out over his radio, only for Flint to pick up the broadcast.

"Don't know, but it must be pretty important if they brought half of their heavy hitters!" His VAMP MkII leaped over some debris with Breaker in the driver's seat, a rocket flying out and exploding before it ever reached the STUN he was aiming at with the twins, Tomax and Xamot in command.

Unfortunately the G.I. Joe members were unable to deal with the faster STUNS and collection of H.I.S.S. tanks as they used focus fire whenever someone got close. "Cobra's really dug in," Scarlett called out, "whatever they're looking for they must want it bad!" Pulling up on her flight controls, she brought her Conquest around for another strafing run against Destro and the twins.

"Can anyone get in there?" Duke felt his Mauler get hit in the left tread, the damage causing the vehicle to get stuck turning. That was when he saw Scarlett come around, and fire at a second H.I.S.S. tank that was getting a bead on him.

He watched as the Baroness punched her fist into the sky "Cobra!" firing the twin cannons of her H.I.S.S. tank at the G.I. Joe Mauler. It had already taken a couple of hits, but she could tell it was still in the fight with it's main cannon. She aimed to correct that mistake.

She had just gotten a target lock when an explosion to her side caused the Baroness to turn her head. "YO JOE!" The battlecry caused her to hesitate as a Wolverine, she showed her flank to, fired a pair of missiles.

"Evacuate the H.I.S.S.!" she screamed, and leaped out of the turret, while the driver opened the canopy, and leaped out as well. They lunged over the small incline and took cover as the missiles hit, causing the strongest weapon in all of Cobra's arsenal to erupt into fragments of twisted metal.

Cobra Commander hissed in consternation as he looked through the eyepiece inside of the observatory. Three of his Vipers stayed at the doorway as he wrote something down onto a tablet. Once he was done, the leader of the attack slipped the tablet back into his pouch. Redoing some of the dials, he looked for any way to delete what he was looking at before approaching his men. "I have what I came for, now let's get out of here."

"Understood, Cobra Commander."

Within seconds the trio of Vipers emerged from the building, laying down cover fire as Cobra Commander ran for his FANG "Retreat!" he called out. "Everyone to the rendezvous!"

At the call for a retreat, the Baroness watched as a Viper in a Stinger drove up, stopping only a few feet away. Getting into the passenger seat, while the H.I.S.S. driver leaped onto the back, she watched as several of their forces either started to retreat, or prepared to surrender.

When the three Vipers ran beside Cobra Commander on his way to the FANG copter, one stopped and took aim at the Conquest that was bearing down on them. Taking several shots, he watched as one of those shots impacted the plane's engine. Scarlett brought her hand up as the entire cockpit filled with smoke. Reaching down, she pulled the eject handle, and flew out as the canopy exploded out, followed by her seat.

The trio of Vipers stayed next to their commander as he hopped into his FANG, flipping switches to start the vehicle. It was then that the one who had taken down the Conquest saw the same Wolverine power through what was once a H.I.S.S. tank, but was now flaming wreckage. Turning back to the other two, he called out "Stop her!" before taking aim at the vehicle. The other two followed suit immediately.

Cover Girl had just pressed the button to fire her missiles at the FANG when enemy fire hit her Wolverine. In a matter of seconds, a missile launched and exploded barely out of the launcher. She covered her face with her leather clad arm as the missile erupted into a fireball barely ten feet away from her, sending her vehicle careening into a ditch. She only had seconds to leap out, not realizing that the green missile launcher was on fire at the time, before the entire thing erupted into a fireball, sending her flying forward.

Watching it all unfold, the Viper turned to the other two. "Get in your FANG's and flight pods! Regroup at the rendezvous!" At the sound of another GI Joe vehicle approaching, he proceeded to empty his entire clip into the VAMP's wheels and engine, sending it slamming into a ditch. He backed away from the fight, his rifle firing at both vehicles and Joes alike, making sure to destroy the former, and force the latter to keep their heads down.

He wasn't far from his FANG when he turned and ran. Leaping into the pilot's seat, he flipped switches and pushed buttons to start the engine. He noticed the driver of the Wolverine he destroyed running toward him, so the Viper pulled back on the flight yoke, and watched her disappear from sight.

Turning the small copter, he aimed it for over Los Angeles, and was surprised to see that none of the Joes were firing at him, but the reason became clear when he felt a hand grab his vest. "You're not going anywhere!"

His first thought was 'What kind of crazy do you have to be to leap onto a moving helicopter?!' but then he remembered that this was a member of G.I. Joe. Unfortunately, his second thought was 'She's going to hit me, isn't she?!' Unfortunately, it was a little too late to save him from feeling the face-plate impact his face.

Due to the impact, the FANG tilted crazily, nearly sending Cover Girl's legs up into the rotors. At the sight of that, he reached out, and pulled her into the cockpit, his head still swimming a little from the impact. "Hey! Get your hands off me!" she screamed as the copter went haywire. Now, instead of seeing a city, all he saw was forest and mountains.

"If you want to fall to your death, no problem!" he yelled back, "Right now, I'm trying to keep us alive until we reach the ground!" With the woman in between his arms, he tried to keep some variable control over the FANG, but it wasn't much use. The fuel mixture was haphazardly getting into the engine at best, and the rotors were catching nothing. He gritted his teeth as he watched the world spinning around crazily, the ground coming up to meet them too fast to comprehend.

"We're going to crash!"

"Thank you, master of the obvious!" Reaching between the pair, he released his harness, and wrapped his arms around Cover Girl. On the next roll, he let gravity take them out of the FANG. There was a split second when the rotors were between them and the ground, but at the speed of the spin it moved away before the pair had spanned the distance. A second later, the copter was past them, and slamming into the trees at high velocity, sending an explosion skyward. 'This is going to hurt!'

Holding the woman in his arms, he lowered his head as close to her as possible moments before impact. He held her close as they rolled down the hill, the trees around them impacting him as they glanced off one, then another, before he reached out with a hand, and grabbed onto a trunk. The sudden stop caused him to hear an audible POP from his shoulder. They were still laying there when debris flew and slid past the pair, and off the cliff into the canyon below. Rolling over once the noise died down, he lifted his arm from around Cover Girl, his entire body aching from the impacts. Looking around, she blinked "We're alive?"

Staying on his back with her laying on top of his chest, he let a small groan escape as Cover Girl pushed up to look down at him. From the reflection on his face-plate, she could see smudges of ash from the Wolverine explosion, as well as the grass, bark chips, and dirt on her face and in her hair. "You know, in another time, and another place," he remarked with a pained hiss "this might be fun, but right now could you please get off of me?"

Cover Girl grabbed a hold of the tree as she looked at where they landed, and her mouth dropped open as she saw the yawning chasm of the canyon just past his feet. "W-We could've been-!"

"Has anyone ever told you that you hit hard?" she heard him ask as the Viper slowly picked himself up from where he lay. That caused Cover Girl to look at him, her eyes blinking as he shook his head, trying to get the cobwebs out.

"What?"

Pulling himself up to a sitting position next to the tree, he took a series of labored breaths. "Hit hard. You." At his comment she blinked. "Anyone tell you that?"

"Only my sparring partner, Lady Jaye."

"Is she the one with the javelins, or the crossbow?" he asked as he hissed in pain again.

"Javelins."

He nodded. "She's shortchanging you." She watched as he held onto his side.

It didn't take Lifeline to tell that he wasn't doing so well. "What's wrong?"

"Shoulder. Dislocated."

Crouching down, she gently picked up his arm. "This is going to hurt."

"I know." She then popped his arm back into the socket, causing him to roll over onto his stomach with a scream of pain. She looked at him as he rolled onto his back, holding his upper arm, and trying to relearn how to breathe again. After nearly a minute passed, and he started to breathe better, she heard. "Thank you."

"You saved my life, I should be thanking you."

"Let's call it even." Reaching out with the arm that hadn't been dislocated, he started to pull himself up the tree, his entire body shaking as he looked out over the cliff to the bottom five hundred feet below where he stood.

"Any idea where we are?" Cover Girl stood beside the tree, her head turning left, then right, in order to find a clue as to their location.

"Not a one, and without the FANG, I doubt we're going to get out of here anytime soon." Turning away from the wreckage at the bottom of the hill, he started going up, hoping to see something that would tell him where they were.

"Where are you going?"

He never stopped, just spoke as he walked. "Up. We need to know where we are, right?" Cover Girl followed him up the side of the mountain, not realizing that they had passed Monrovia Peak, and were heading toward Pine Mountain. The opposite way of the one they both wanted to go. Upon emerging onto a dirt road, they decided to look around and see which way they should go, only for the Viper to go the same way they'd been heading.

Cover Girl stopped to look behind her "We're going the wrong way." she remarked "The sun is starting to set behind us, which means that the Pacific Ocean is in that direction."

She watched as the Viper stopped to look at the sun being lower on the horizon behind them than in front. "I had a feeling."

Turning to regard the enemy soldier had Cover Girl cocking her head to the side a little. "What do you mean you had a feeling?"

"I think we're heading toward Pine Mountain, and if that's true, then we need to get there before we can head South."

"Why not just go West?"

Stopping in the middle of the road, the Viper shook his head. "Three reasons; first, we would need to climb over Monrovia Peak, which would take half a day, this way we'll be near Los Angeles in only a few hours. Secondly, I have no intentions of meeting up with G.I. Joe platoon, and becoming a prisoner." She watched as he continued onward.

"Okay, so what about the third reason?"

"I know for a fact that Cobra has a vehicle stashed in LA, and once I'm there I can start it up and make my way to Cobra Island." Cover Girl watched him, her eyes blinking at the prospects of losing the lone prisoner she took down by herself.

"You're not going anywhere." she stated as she grabbed his wrist.

"Lady," he scoffed, "you have no way of taking me in, and I have no intentions of sitting in a prison cell."

"We're going back to my unit-"

"That's not going to happen."

Cover Girl moved to block his path. "You're my prisoner!"

"I don't think so," he said moving to the side, "now back off, because I don't want to mess up that pretty face of yours."

Lowering her chin, he watched as she smirked. Moving in, she lashed out with a punch, but he brought his arm across, in an effective block, before she brought her other fist around, aiming for the side of his head. She connected, but felt like it wasn't a solid hit. That was when noted he spun around, taking most of the kinetic energy away from the impact, his hand curling up.

His fist connected with the back of her head, knocking her forward in a stagger. When she tried to attack him again, he grabbed her wrist and arm. In a single fluid movement, she felt herself being spun forward, until her face slid into the dirt road. Placing an arm down to cushion the blow, she left her other arm pulled behind her back, and a heavy weight going onto the middle of her back. A second later, her other wrist was grabbed, and pulled behind her. Laying in the dirt, with his lower leg between her shoulder blades and waist, neither of them noticed that his foot was resting on her rump as he held her wrists against her back.

"Get off of me!" she screamed while thrashing about.

"We could've gone our separate ways, but you had to force this. Congratulations! I hope it was worth all your efforts." Cover Girl continued to thrash, her legs kicking while her head moved violently side-to-side. He shook his head as he pulled out a length of parachute cord from one of his small pouches and tied it around her wrists.

"Stop!"

"You only have yourself to blame here." Standing up, he pulled Cover Girl up onto her feet. "Get moving!" Pushing her to start walking in the same direction he was going, she tried to turn around, only for him to push her forward again. "You had your chance to go back to the Joes, but now you're coming with me."

Cover Girl staggered a couple of steps forward. "Why?!"

"Three reasons; First, if your friends catch up to us, I can just throw you down the hill as a distraction so I can get away. Second, upon returning to Cobra I might get a promotion for capturing you, and finally, you wouldn't just let me leave, so consider this my way of teaching you a lesson." the Viper then pushed her forward. "Now walk, or I will put you over my shoulder and carry you."

Staggering again, she turned to glare at him. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Don't test me!" He then motioned for her to keep going, but Cover Girl stood her ground. Giving a sigh, he pushed her again in the direction they were heading, but after a few steps she stopped, turning around once more.

Cover Girl smirked "What are you going to do now?"

Taking a step, he crouched down, and football tackled her waist, before standing up again with her over his right shoulder. "This." Kicking and yelling at him, he wrapped his arm around her thighs, and continued on his way. Unfortunately, because her arms were secured behind her back, she couldn't do much against his back as he walked down the dirt road.

Half an hour after they witnessed Cover Girl leap onto the skid of the FANG, and it's resultant fiery crash a mountain away, half a dozen members of G.I. Joe, including Flint and Duke, arrived at the site of the crash. Finding both the Viper and their teammate gone, they started a cursory search that led to the edge of a cliff. "Anything?" the latter asked as the other four members of their team searched.

"It looks like they went off in this direction." Beachhead announced a minute later as he crouched next to a set of tracks leading up an incline.

Duke approached where Beachhead was crouched, and saw the tracks himself. "We need to get her back, and hopefully the Viper will know something about what Cobra Commander wanted."

"Let's hope." Flint shook his head. "I need three volunteers to find Cover Girl, and retrieve that Cobra Viper."

"I can track them, so I'm automatically going." Beachhead crossed his arms over his chest.

"I'm going too." Lifeline announced. "Either of them could be hurt, you're going to need a medic, just in case."

They watched as Low Light stepped up. "Count me in."

Flint nodded. "Good. Follow their trail, find Cover Girl and attempt to bring back the Viper if you can."

Beachhead nodded "Okay, men. Move out!" The trio set off up the incline with the balaclava clad Ranger in the lead, while both Low Light and Lifeline followed in his wake. Watching them go, Duke, Flint, and Scarlett hopped back into the Tomahawk they used to arrive at the crash site, the trio flew back to regroup with the rest of the Joes.

Cover Girl was getting tired of being held with her rump pointed in the direction they were traveling. "You tired of carrying me yet?"

"Nope." That caused her to blink and look at him. "I've carried heavier on my shoulders for hours every day." He then leaped up onto a large rock, and then quick-stepped down an incline to leap across a three meter wide creek, his boots splashing down in calf deep water. "You weigh what? A buck five to a buck fifteen, beautiful?"

"Hey! Never ask a woman her weight!" Cover Girl felt her cheeks burn at his words, refusing to admit that he was off by more than ten pounds, and that she detested people calling attention to her physical appearance. "Besides, my name's not beautiful! It's Cover Girl."

"Either way, I could carry you all day, Cover Girl. You weight practically nothing."

"You need to stop doing that!" She pouted, looking at his rump as he walked.

"Doing what?"

Turning her face away, a blush tinting her cheeks "Flirting. I don't go for Cobra operatives."

She watched as the Viper stopped and picked her up, setting her on a log next to the creek. "Wait! Me? Flirt with you?! Not likely." He shook his head. "I don't go for hypocrites from the military."

That caused her to scowl. "First off, I'm not a hypocrite! Besides, I bet you know nothing about being part of an actual military unit!" she glared at the Viper as he pulled off his vest, and set it on the log next to her, his shirt was soaked, causing it to cling to his toned body.

"Yeah, you keep thinking that." He stood in front of her, crossing his arms over his chest. "If I let your hands free, do you think you can contain yourself from attacking me again?"

"What are you going to do if I can't?" Cover Girl glared at him.

"I tied you up once, I can do so again," his voice became menacing as he spoke, "only this time I'll drag you to LA."

Fear stabbed at her heart, but she didn't show it on her face. "Fine. I won't attack you." Stepping up behind the log, he proceeded to untie her wrists, before going back to the creek.

She watched as he disconnected the face-plate, pulling his mask off, and start washing it in the water. Filling it with some of the water, he then set the face-plate into her hands. "Here. Get a drink." Cover Girl looked down at the clean water, and took a sip while watching as he cupped water into his hands and drank. She could only partially see his face, but when she leaned forward, he turned away from her and held out his hand.

Cover Girl blinked at his actions and set the face-plate into his hand "Thank you."

Dumping out whatever water she didn't drink, he proceeded to affix the plate to his helmet with a grumbled. "Whatever." Standing, he turned to face her again. "Are you going to walk now, or do you want to be carried?"

"I'll walk." Glaring at him, Cover Girl scowled as she crossed her arms under her bosom.

He nodded, and motioned for her to start walking as he slid his vest back onto his shoulders. Zipping it up, he walked just out of reach to Cover Girl's side. "We need to pick up the pace, because I can see Los Angeles through the mountains." He then started to power-walk from that point further with her keeping up with him.

Beachhead crouched down next to the same creek half an hour later, noting that the heavier depression was now lessened, and there were two distinct footprints afterward. "I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure the Viper stopped carrying Cover Girl, and allowed her rest, if only for a few minutes.

Crouching down behind the fallen log, Lifeline picked up a piece of parachute cord, and brought it up to his nose. "I think he tied her wrists up with this, but set her free." he then looked at the creek "Probably to allow her to get a drink."

"How in blazes do you know that?" Beachhead asked crossing his arms over his chest.

Standing up, he held up the parachute cord. "It smells like the perfume Cover Girl puts on her wrists every morning."

Low Light narrowed his eyes through his red visor. "I have tracks heading Southwest."

"Any indications that they might be hurt?" Beachhead asked with a shake of his head at Lifeline's deduction.

"None." Standing up, he looked at the man in red and white. "You may have come unnecessarily."

"Protecting and saving lives is never unnecessary." Lifeline announced as he started to follow the tracks.

That one statement caught Beachhead unaware, but he had a mission to complete, so he dropped the potential argument. All three of the Joes continued on, questions jumping around in their heads as they slowly closed in on their quarry.