It's Like Having Been Born Again. Pt 8
Author chick's notes: R rating! This chapter is highly graphic in nature and a tad on the violent side…okay downright gruesome.
It's Like Having Been Born Again. Pt 8
It was after midnight in the capitol. The COBRA civil war had broken down into rapid skirmishes and gun fights. Cobra Commander and Destro, the two commanders responsible for the war were nowhere to be found by their followers, but they weren't sitting back idly either. In what remained of the Cobra Commander memorial, two figures stalked each other in an intense game of cat and mouse. Both were injured but not yet willing to give. The pain from his gunshot wound to the leg had become too intense and he found himself seated behind what remained of the base of the former statue to the COBRA leader. A shot rang out. Blinding pain in his shoulder let him know he'd been hit. He looked up and saw his foe standing there, blood seeping from his arm where he too had been shot. Then the world went black.
Further west of the battlegrounds a plane flew in low to avoid radar detection. A figure jumped from it followed immediately by another. Both jumpers deploying their chutes as soon as they jumped to avoid becoming bloody stains on the ground that rapidly rushed to meet them. The agent the Baroness had sent to meet the two watched as they both landed and quickly rolled their chutes. He waited anxiously until they approached, the taller of the two limping a little due to a sprained ankle received while landing. The agent took the chutes from both of them and led them towards the main Control Room of the bunker. Off in the distance, a lone figure hiked towards the landing site. Having seen the plane fly overhead and the two jumpers, the figure picked up its pace.
Clutch and Cover Girl had joined the rest in the Control Room when the agent followed by the two newcomers walked in. Both wore Arabic style shrouds and varied greatly in size, almost a foot and a half in height alone separated the two. Clutch watched as the taller of the two removed his hood. "You choose to stay here?" The southwestern accent had mellowed some due to years of speaking mainly Arabic but the voice was the same. Dusty had arrived, and he brought company. "You're more then welcomed too, believe me. We could use all the help we can get." He smiled warmly at the three Joes he knew were not from his reality.
Dusty introduced his partner as Imani, as she lowered the scarf from her face. In keeping with her native tradition she left her shawl on to cover her head, her youthful features were striking to say the least. She had rich caramel coloured skin and from what little did show, a deep rich mahogany mane of hair. But it was her eyes that caught their attention first. They were the colour of a tropical sea, and very pale against her dark complexion. "Imani is my wife." Dusty smiled as he made the introductions.
Dusty went on to explain how he and Imani had met and how they had become man and wife. In the deserts of the Saudi peninsula they were an efficient deadly team. Imani's sharp shooting and fighting skills rivaled his own, Dusty bragged with pride. Dusty had found Imani in the ruins of her village. She was barely seventeen at the time and she had been orphaned by the attack that had left nothing but smoldering debris where a tiny village once stood. It took him some time to gain her trust but when he did they quickly went from friends to lovers. He had taught her to fight and she surprised him by how quickly she had mastered her lessons.
Cover Girl watched, as Imani would occasionally smirk up at her husband in amusement as he told his story. She smiled as she saw she had a kindred spirit in the tiny desert warrior. The reunion was going along nicely until one of the soldiers on monitor duty broke it up with his frantic call.
"Baroness! I found this on all the television stations!" He cried as he punched up the broadcast onto the main monitor.
"…Of the world!" Cobra Commander's voice hissed on the screen. The Joes gathered near each other as they watched the broadcast. "Treason was committed against your Emperor! The traitor has been tried and found guilty of his crimes against me!" The speech went on. The view changed from Cobra Commander to the steps of the White House. There clad only in a simple loincloth was Destro, battered and bloody. His facemask had been removed and placed at the head of a large slab of stone. Destro was lashed to the slab with ropes and his punishment began. "For his crimes, he will pay the ultimate price. Death." Cobra Commander could be heard over the bloody scene unfolding on the screen.
Cover Girl shut her eyes to the horrors unfolding and buried her face into Clutch's chest, she only wished she could shut the memories off as easily. The trio of Joes who had only arrived to this dimension watched in horror as the former COBRA arm's dealer was brutally tortured to death. It wasn't until Tripwire spoke that they knew why Cover Girl and several others reacted to the grizzly display the way they did. Clutch felt his jaw muscles jump as he clenched his teeth and closed his eyes to the horror.
"That's how Ace died." Tripwire whispered, tears running down his face as Sci-Fi placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Tripwire leaned back into his lover's welcomed embrace, before turning to bury his face in Sci-Fi's shoulder, he couldn't bare to watch anymore as the memories flooded back to him of the pilot's fate. Sci-Fi rubbed Tripwire's back as he watched the proceedings unfold, his face betraying no emotions.
Dusty would glance occasionally down to Imani who also showed no emotion save for her tears. He turned his attention back to the screen as the executioner picked up a sharp lethal looking hook. Thunder closed his eyes, wishing he could turn his excellent hearing off as well as Destro's screams of agony filled the room. Grunt winced as the evisceration began before turning away from it altogether. Leila had sought his arms for comfort and he buried his face in her soft hair. Steeler watched, frozen in horror as Destro's blood stood out against the stark white of his skin. The tanker could feel the Baroness behind him as she rested her head on his back, not wanting to see anything more. Rock-n-Roll felt the bile rise as the executioner went a step further and began removing the victim's entrails with the hook used to expose them in the first place.
Imani watched her family's murderer finally be given peace from his torture when an axe was raised then lowered quickly. She didn't flinch when Destro's head fell to the ground with a sickening thud. Dusty had turned from the sight long before, unable to watch it anymore. He reached over to his side for Imani as she gladly accepted the invitation of his embrace. Dusty was the only one who heard her prayers to her family as she muttered them for the last time against his chest. Dusty felt tears of his own, knowing that Imani was finally free of the pain of her family's death. Their killer receiving a far more lingering and terrible fate.
"Mother of God." A voice choked from the back of the room. Everyone turned towards its source to see Deep Six standing there, pale from what he too had just witnessed. "That's why it's so quiet in DC." He added as he moved closer to his former teammates. The diver had made his way to the bunker by hitching rides from his native Baltimore. He had seen the more daring arrival of Dusty and Imani earlier as he hiked the final leg of his journey.
After having seen Destro's bloody fate and reuniting under more solemn circumstances, the Joes along with the Baroness, Leila, and Imani retired to the library.
Steeler held the Baroness close as she explained that their mission had just gotten harder. "Destro would have been easy to overtake." She began. "But Cobra Commander…The world has not seen his like since Adolph Hitler, and Hitler was nowhere near as paranoid as that madman." She added.
"Was that *sharmute* easily manipulated then?" Imani spoke for the first time.
"Destro, yes. He trusted me." The Baroness answered, not sure which man Imani had spoken of. "The Commander however trusts no one. He is delusional at best, stark raving mad at worst." She finished.
"Does this mean you're in danger?" Steeler asked. "I mean you got them going at each other in the first place, and haven't been seen since." He continued, worried for her safety.
"I was always in danger around him." She answered frankly. "And as for my not being around lately, it will probably be excused. The pair of them know I avoid petty infighting, which it will be viewed as by many in COBRA's upper command." She defended. "And this war has been building since COBRA was in its infancy. All I did was give it the push it needed." She added.
"Are you going to have to return back to DC?" Grunt asked.
"Most likely yes. Probably within a few days to avoid further suspicion." She answered
The group discussed the new trials the shift of power presented before the Baroness spoke to Dusty and Imani. "The Middle East, what is it that keeps COBRA out of control there?"
"For ages the peoples of my homeland have fought to secure lands they can call their own." Imani said. "It took COBRA's take over to finally unite all the groups towards a common cause." She said, pride filling her voice as she continued her story.
All of the old wars and disputes had ceased. COBRA had removed the despots from power as part of their take over. Many of the people had gone back to a more nomadic existence, to avoid destruction at the hands of COBRA. Some of the terror organizations gladly joined COBRA, seeing them as a way to obtain their foolish goals. But many more banded together to stop COBRA at all costs. Ironically it was the secret service of a people long abused in the Middle East that coordinated the resistance efforts and trained many of the smaller groups in the ways of war. Imani spoke proudly of all the good the Mossad had done for the region in keeping it out of COBRA's clutches.
"Ironic, isn't it? I a Muslim, praising the Jews for all of their work in keeping my homeland relatively free of those tyrants." Imani smiled wistfully. "The only thing they couldn't save was my family's home." She added. Imani told the group of how Destro had led the invasion in the southern region of Saudi Arabia that took her family from her. She was leaving her home early to tend to the meager fields her village kept when she saw Destro lead the charge and destroy everything she ever knew.
Her village was believed to be a haven for resistance fighters and therefore marked for destruction. Imani had fled into the desert only to return a few days later and find nothing was left. A short while later a stranger entered the ruins only to find her crouched behind a crumbling wall, ready to defend herself to the death. The stranger ended up becoming her friend after he lived up to his promise not to harm her and take care of her. That had been three years ago. "Now I fight at his side." She smiled warmly up at Dusty as she leaned on him. It wasn't long after Imani finished telling her story that they decided to retire to their quarters. The new arrivals were shown to their own rooms and wished a good night. No one slept peacefully that night, the horrors from earlier still fresh in their minds.
To Be Continued…
Sharmute = Bastard in Arabic.
