The First Battle

The next day Roadblock, Spirit and Shipwreck relaxed in the canteen taking a break while the kids were training. "I'm glad Hawk decided that we didn't have to do any more KP duty," Shipwreck sighed.

"I think that was sufficient enough for the boys to learn their lesson," Spirit said. "Now they understand what they do reflects on us."

"Yeah hopefully they'll think twice before doing anything stupid again," Shipwreck sighed. "So how's life with Blob and Toad?"

"Like feeding two bottomless pits," Roadblock groaned. "Well at least they aren't picky eaters."

"Yeah I hear ya," Shipwreck nodded. "Is Toad still having nightmares?"

"Yeah but they're a lot less frequent now," Roadblock sighed. "Only once or twice a month. That's a huge improvement. What about your kids?"

"Claudius cried every night for a week after he was captured," Shipwreck sighed. "I think he's starting to forget about it now. Wanda and Pietro are a bit of a mess. They won't admit they are having nightmares but I can tell."

"How's the kid doing?" Roadblock asked Spirit.

"He's still having difficulty," Spirit sighed.

"You mean he's still having trouble adjusting to his condition?" Roadblock asked.

"No that he's pretty much accepted," Spirit sighed.

"Nightmares about his past?" Shipwreck asked.

"Not exactly," Spirit sighed again. "Close…"

"Well what is it?" Roadblock asked.

"Let me guess," Shipwreck raised an eyebrow. "It begins with a K and rhymes with pretty?"

"Bingo!" Spirit sighed. "I know I have to be patient with the boy but to be honest with you he's starting to drive me up the wall."

"Look the kid broke up with the love of his life," Shipwreck said. "That's gotta hurt. Give him time. Remember when Mara left me? You remember that two timing witch? The woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with who ended up wanting to spend the rest of her life with another man? The heartless whore who rejected her own children and made them feel like garbage? Not to mention tearing my heart out of my chest and stomping on it until it was nothing but a puddle on the ground?" He slammed his palm on the table. "Look how long it took me to get over her. I'm fine now."

"Yeah you're much better," Roadblock said dryly.

Lifeline, Low Light and Beach Head walked in. "I can't believe you did that!" Lifeline snapped.

"Hey I had to be rough on them!" Beach Head snapped.

"What did he hit one of them?" Shipwreck asked.

"Nope," Low Light shook his head.

"They're not gonna be able to recover from that for weeks!" Lifeline said.

"You drilled them into the ground?" Roadblock asked.

"No they handled PT pretty well for a bunch of rookies," Beach Head said.

"What did he do?" Shipwreck asked.

"He showed them some training films on the battle drones and what they do in combat," Low Light said.

"Not the ones that were filmed in actual combat?" Roadblock yelped. "With all the blood and…?"

"Oh yeah," Low Light sighed. "Even Althea lost her lunch looking at them. Except for the Blob. He was the only one who didn't throw up."

"Did you really have to show them those films?" Lifeline asked.

"Hey it's for their own good!" Beach Head snapped. "If they see what kind of damage those weapons can cause they'll think twice before playing around with them again!"

"He has a point," Low Light remarked. "They need a lot of discipline!"

"I hope for God's sake you didn't show them to the triplets!" Shipwreck yelped.

"Are you nuts? Something like that would give them ideas!" Beach Head said. "I did show them to the others as a warning as well. You gotta scare these kids straight!"

"Great," Roadblock groaned. "That's another thing they're going to have nightmares about! Thanks a lot Beach Head!"

"Where are they now?" Shipwreck asked.

"Well our three offenders are now cleaning the bathrooms and the others are Recovering with Cover Girl," Lifeline sighed. "We're letting them settle their stomachs in the rec. room."

"You sent them to work right away after seeing that?" Spirit yelped.

"Well considering most of them made a huge mess in the bathroom yeah," Beach Head said. "Hey, I'm only letting them clean that one large bathroom near the training area with toothbrushes. They're getting off easy in my opinion. If I had my way they'd be doing every bathroom on this base."

"If we had our way you'd get a Section Eight!" Lifeline snapped.

"We'd better see to them," Roadblock groaned as he got up with Shipwreck and Spirit. "Take notes, never ever let Beach Head near these kids again!"

************************************************************************

"I can't believe Beach Head made all you kids watch those films!" Cover Girl fumed as she patted Wanda's forehead with a wet cloth. Both girls were sitting on a couch while Cover Girl attended to them. Todd was spawled in a chair nearby.

"Ohhh," Wanda still looked a little green. "My stomach."

"I am so embarrassed," Althea groaned. "I mean I've seen a little blood in my time, but I was sure I could take that."

"Well you couldn't," Cover Girl sighed. "Come on kids, don't be too hard on yourselves. It happens to every soldier sooner or later. That film was pretty graphic."

"That was disgusting," Todd moaned. "I never felt so repulsed in my entire life. It was sickening. Can we see it again?"

"NO!" The others shouted at him.

"What is it with guys and gross stuff?" Wanda grumbled.

"I have no idea," Althea moaned.

"Hey," Todd noticed. "They have a video game! Mortal Kombat 27! Great!" He hopped over and started to play it.

"It's official," Cover Girl groaned. "You kids are now totally desensitized to violence thanks to Beach Head! Great! Now I'm gonna be sick," She walked to the next room to get some aspirin.

"I still don't understand what you see in him," Wanda said looking at Todd. "He's a total goofball!"

"But he's my goofball," Althea told her. "He's so sweet and adorable! And so loving. He just has this… I don't know, intangible quality. I can't explain it."

"What he has is a twelve foot long tongue!" Wanda said.

"That too," Althea smirked.

"Oh no, I so do not need that image in my head," Wanda groaned, covering her eyes. "Too late!"

"And he's got such a cute butt…" Althea continued.

"NO MORE!" Wanda covered her ears. "WAAAAYY TOO MUCH INFORMATION HERE!"

"Not to mention his other body parts…"

"COVER GIRL I'M GONNA BE SICK AGAIN!" Wanda screamed.

"I'll help you as soon as I recover," Cover Girl moaned.

"Well we're back," Lance groaned as he and the others came in. They looked a little haggard.

"That was fast," Althea remarked.

"Yeah well Pietro used his speed," Lance sighed. "So it wasn't too bad."

"Would have been faster if Pietro wasn't so queasy," Fred told them.

"I still can't believe we saw that film," Pietro grumbled.

"What I can't believe is that Blob not only didn't get sick but he ate half a pizza during it!" Lance said.

Everyone looked at Fred. "Hey!" He defended himself. "I lived on a farm, a circus and a monster truck show. I've seen a lot of accidents okay?"

"Accidents?" Althea raised an eyebrow.

"Don't ask," Pietro groaned.

"You know the more I hear about it the more I believe that out of all of us Freddy's the one with the most interesting life," Althea said. "And this is coming from someone who trains with ninjas and flew a spaceship a couple of times."

"Hey why don't we take our minds off it yo," Todd said. "We can play some video games! Who wants to be beaten to a pulp by me?"

Several people groaned. "Wrong choice of words Toad!" Lance snapped.

"Sorry," Todd came over. "Why don't we do something else?"

"Who are you to tell us what to do?" Pietro asked.

"Well I am the leader," Todd smirked.

"You are so not the leader," Lance snapped.

"Yeah I am!" Pietro snapped.

"You are not!" Wanda snapped.

"Are too!" Pietro stuck out his tongue.

"Are not!" Wanda snapped.

"Well if anyone should be the leader it's me," Lance said. "I've been watching most of you morons the longest."

"Oh please," Todd said.

"Yeah and some brilliant plans you had," Pietro snickered. "Remember the soccer incident? The time you ran off and ditched us to join the X-Geeks?"

"The time we got lost in the woods," Fred said. "And the way we lost all our battles and…Well actually you running off to join the Geek Brigade was the worst."

"You got that right," Todd said.

"Am I never to be forgiven for that momentary lapse of insanity?" Lance groaned.

"Not really no," Todd said.

"I should be leader because I have the most experience," Althea said.

"At what? Being a nutcase?" Lance snapped.

"Uh oh," Todd gulped as he noticed the look on Althea's face. "You really shouldn't have said that!"

"Why? She's just a girl. What's she gonna…" Lance realized the words came out of his mouth faster than he thought.

"PREPARE TO DIE ALVERS!" Althea tackled him.

"Oh that's gotta hurt," Todd gulped as he watched the carnage.

"OW!" Lance yelped in pain. "OW! OW! OKAY! I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY! NO! STOP! STOP! DON'T HURT ME ANYMORE! I TAKE IT BACK! I TAKE IT BACK!"

"What's going on in here?" Cover Girl ran in.

"Lance made a stupid remark that Althea wasn't qualified to be our leader," Pietro said.

"Oh," Cover Girl shrugged. "As you were."

"OKAY!" Lance whimpered as Althea held him down. "OKAY! I GIVE! YOU WIN! YOU'RE THE LEADER! YOU'RE THE LEADER! JUST DON'T HURT ME ANYMORE!"

"Just don't what?" Althea said twisting his arm a little.

"Please don't hurt me anymore boss," Lance gulped.

"Okay," Althea let him go. Lance scurried as far away as he could from her. "Anybody else have a problem with that?"

"Not me!" Todd spoke up quickly.

"Nope!" Fred said shaking his head.

"Uh uh," Pietro raised his hands. He looked at Wanda.

"Don't look at me," Wanda held her hands up. "I don't want the job!"

"Well I guess that settles that question," Cover Girl sighed. "Now if you all…"

She didn't get to finish because at that moment the alarm sounded. "What's that?" Lance asked.

"It's the alarm!" Cover Girl said. "Cobra's attacking! Althea get them to the station!"

"All of you!" Althea shouted. "Follow me!" They ran to a section of the base that was deep underground and had several monitors.

"What is this place?" Lance asked.

"It's one of the fall out shelters," Althea told him. "We have places on this base where us kids and any civilians have to go in case of attack. So the Joes don't have to worry about us when they're fighting."

"But we have powers!" Fred said.

"Yeah we can go out and help!" Pietro said.

"No way!" Todd shouted. "The X-Geeks tried that once and look what happened."

"What happened?" Wanda asked.

"They screwed up!" Althea snapped. "Do you wanna repeat their mistake? Come on, we can watch the battle on the monitors." She turned them on. They could see Cobra Jets and Joe planes in a vicious dogfight as well as a fierce firefight on the ground.

"Man it's really fierce out there!" Lance said. "I wish we could get in on the action!"

"We can't!" Todd said. "The X-Geeks did that and Cobra ended up getting their DNA. See! I recognize those canisters! They have these metal mosquitoes that draw your blood!"

"I can't believe they're doing the same plan again!" Althea groaned.

"Hey! That's Ms. Baron!" Fred pointed to the screen.

"She's called the Baroness," Althea told her.

"Who's chrome dome over there?" Lance pointed to a man in a silver metal mask.

"Destro," Althea told him. "Another maniac. Those two report directly to Cobra Commander."

"Who's…?" Pietro started to ask when he saw a huge explosion. To their horror they watched helplessly as some Cobra troopers managed to break through the lines and capture several Joes, including Duke and General Hawk.

"Oh no!" Althea went pale. "They've got the general!"

"We can't let them hurt the Joes," Lance said. "What do we do?"

"We gotta do something!" Wanda agreed.

"I have an idea," Althea said. "Here's what we'll do!"

Back outside the firefighting had mostly stopped. "Victory is ours!" Destro laughed. "To think, we were only going to get some simple DNA from some mutants but instead we got a greater prize."

Hawk glared at him. "You may have some of us, Destro but if you think for one minute that you're getting your scaly hands on any of those kids…"

"Look around you General," The Baroness said. "You are our prisoner! Call off your troops! We've won! We…What is that?"

"HEY COOOOBBRRAAAAA!" Fred stood out in the middle of the field waving his arms. "YOO HOOO! OVER HERE!"

"COME ON YOU SNAKES! OVER HERE! THIS WAY!" Lance shouted, standing next to him.

"NICE MUTANT DNA RIGHT HERE!" Fred waved and turned around, wiggling his butt. "COME ON! EVEN YOU GUYS CAN HIT THIS TARGET!"

"What are they doing?" Duke wondered aloud.

"I don't know," Hawk blinked.

"Well how nice of them to oblige us," Destro snickered. "Release the DNA extractors! We can capture them after we capture their DNA!"

The devices shot out of the canisters towards them. "NOW!" Lance cried using his powers to create a huge wall of earth. It blocked the machine's way so they could not get to the mutants. "NOW WANDA!" Wanda used her powers to make the 'bugs' short circuit. They exploded, crashing into one another.

"Looks like your metal mosquitoes are broken," Althea called out as she emerged from her hiding place with the other mutants.

"Aw they're all gone?" Fred said. "Now what do we play with?"

"How about them?" Lance pointed to the Cobras. An evil grin showed up on every mutant's face.

"Don't even think about it!" The Baroness shouted. "Look over there! We have your friends the Joes under…guard?" To her shock the Cobra soldiers who were holding weapons on the other Joes suddenly lost theirs due to a huge gust. Now the Joes had the guns and were pointing them at the Cobra soldiers.

"I love the old switcheroo!" Pietro cackled as he skidded to a halt.

"Stop!" The Baroness held a gun to Hawk's head. "If you don't want to see your general…AAAAHH!" The revolver exploded in her hand, thanks to a well-aimed hexbolt.

"You were saying?" Lance grinned an evil grin. Then he sent a tremor towards her.

"This is not good," Destro gulped.

"I think we must be going now," The Baroness agreed. "AAAAAHHH!" She fell backwards and nearly fell into a huge hole in the ground. Only Destro was fast enough to grab her in time.

"Oh don't go," Todd smiled.

"Yeah the party's just getting started!" Lance cackled as he sent a tremor towards several Cobra soldiers.

"GET 'EM!" Althea shouted kicking one soldier in the chin. "YO JOE!"

Soon the Cobras were running for their lives. Wanda took out a few Cobra Jets with her hexbolts. Fred was smashing several HISS Tanks with his bare hands, having the time of his life. Todd slimed several troopers and kicked several of them. Lance used his powers to sink several tanks into the earth as well as shooting a tidal wave of earth towards some soldiers. Pietro ran everywhere, punching out Cobra troopers, yanking some of their pants down and generally causing some mayhem. One trooper made the mistake of aiming a portable water cannon at Althea. She simply used her powers to wash him and several others away.

By now most of the Joes had stopped fighting. "You think we should help them?" Stalker asked as he watched.

"Nah," Roadblock smiled. "They'll be okay! Let's let the kids play!"

"It is mighty entertaining I must admit," Dusty laughed.

"I'm glad they're on our side," Scarlet said.

"RETREAT!" The Baroness screamed. "COBRA RETREAT! LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!" Soon most of the Cobras escaped. There were a few that were prisoners. The kids had trapped them either in holes or tied up with their own guns.

A rousing cheer went up from everyone. "Pretty good teamwork you guys!" Duke said.

"We did it!" Fred crowed. "We actually beat somebody!"

"We're sorry we disobeyed orders General," Althea said. "But we couldn't let you guys get hurt."

"Yeah you guys have been pretty good to us," Lance said.

"Besides your way didn't work," Pietro said.

"We had to do something!" Wanda said.

"Please don't be mad," Todd asked.

"I'm not mad," Hawk smiled. "Considering the circumstances I think we can over-look this. In fact, as of now consider all of your probation over."

"No more KP duty and extra training?" Pietro asked. "All right!" The kids cheered.

"See I told you I was the perfect leader," Althea crowed.

"What are you talking about?" Lance asked. "Did you see how I made them run?"

"It wasn't just you ya know!" Fred snapped.

"Did you see the look on the Baroness's face when I nearly caused her to fall into the hole?" Lance said. "And how shocked they were when I put up that earth wall?"

"It was my plan moron!" Althea snapped.

"Who are you calling a moron?" Wanda snapped. "You like Toad for crying out loud! That proves your judgement is questionable!"

"Hey!" Todd snapped. "It just means she has good taste! More than you!"

"What?" Wanda and Pietro yelped.

"Don't you say that about my sister!" Pietro shouted.

"Hey I can fight my own battles!" Wanda told him. "I don't need your help!"

"Do too!" Pietro huffed.

"Do not!" Wanda got into his face.

"Well I said I was the leader and that's that!" Althea snapped. "You want me to prove it again?"

"You just got lucky," Lance sniffed.

"Oh yeah!" Althea tackled him.

"Don't shove me!" Pietro snapped at Wanda.

"Make me!" Wanda shoved back.

"You asked for it!" Pietro tackled her.

"Stop it you two!" Fred tried to separate Pietro and Wanda.

"Who asked you to butt in?" They ganged up on Fred.

"Don't you hurt my girl yo!" Todd shouted at Lance as Althea wailed on him. "Hey babe, let me get in a few good licks!" He jumped on the pile.

Soon all of them were shouting and arguing. The next thing the Joes knew, they were all fighting each other. They stood there in shock as the kids rolled around on the ground, brawling.

"They're gonna get KP duty for this aren't they?" Roadblock sighed.

"Oh yeah," Hawk groaned.

"So much for teamwork," Duke sighed.

"One step forward," Spirit sighed. "Two miles backward."