Disclaimer: I do not own GI Joe, Action Force, Battle Action Force or any
of their characters. I am merely borrowing them for a bit.
For those of you who have not caught on, one of the major points to this fan-fic is to iron out the continuity conflicts that exist between the current GI Joe Comic continuity, and the Battle Action Force's continuity. This is the chapter that may not work as well as I would like. ( If anyone has more information about the two continuities, such as the ultimate fate of Wolverine driver Hunter or the pilot of the Hawk helicopter please let me know.
Pt 6: Storm Shadow
Alone, in his locked chambers, Cobra Commander looked over the battle reports. Again and again Red Shadows had attacked key Cobra instillations. Their attacks had not yet come close to weakening Cobra, but they had managed to delay several of Cobras future plans. They would come out of nowhere, strike hard, and then vanish into nothing. He doubted that even GI Joe had yet realized the Red Shadows had returned. He had forgotten how well he had trained his old Shadows. Maybe he had been a little hasty in the way he cast the Shadows aside in favor of his new Cobra.
And now, Xamot had delivered video disk containing a message for him from the Red Shadows. He again played the message, in which the John Shepard, the Black Major appeared on screen.
"Greetings, my Baron," the message began, the hate and contempt plainly visible on the Major's face. "It has been a long time. The time I spent tracking your past, so that I may destroy you utterly. You covered your tracks well. I never even realized you were keeping a wife on the side while you continued operations with us. Did you know that the Joes have some strange notion that you actually were a used car salesman, they have no idea what you were actually doing on your dealership property.
"Your wife, indecently was no challenge. She, along with her second husband, and their children didn't put up any fight at all before they died. They didn't even make the newspaper front page, so I wasn't sure if you were even aware of it. I also arranged an accident for the investigator they had hired to find the son you kidnapped shortly after your bout with insanity. Again, no challenge.
"I want you to know you are being destroyed, and that I am the one behind it. I want to bring you down kicking and screaming. You will be completely ruined before I kill you."
The fool was digging his own grave in telling him even this much of his plan, Cobra Commander thought. In some ways, he felt it was almost a pity the Major could not have been brought over to Cobra. But then bringing Red Jackal into Cobra had nearly been a disaster.
Still. the threat was clear, and precautions would be necessary. It would be a risk to his programming to use him, but what choice was there?
***
Something was out of place, thought Billy. He couldn't quite put his finger on it yet, but something was out of place. He was being watched. He knew that much at least. The man with a walking stick at the corner who was reading a newspaper, and two men who had been following him since he got off the bus. There was more to it than that. He would be sure to tell Snake Eyes and Beach Head once he got back to Joe head quarters. No. that was suppose to be a secret, he would have to loose them before then. Who would want to follow him anyway? Was someone using him to find the Joes?
Billy turned into a coffee shop before he reached the man at the corner. He ordered some hot tea and sat in a seat that gave him an equal view of the street outside the windows, and the people inside. He would at least have little time to think about what to do, not many people had the skills necessary to follow him, as the two men from the bus stop had.
Storm Shadow folded the newspaper, and grabbed his walking stick and began walking back towards the coffee shop that Billy had entered. He didn't know if he was angry or disappointed in Billy. The boy had definitely neglected his training; otherwise he surely would have recognized him, even from that distance. No doubt the boy thought he was still quite good. Pride and arrogance had brought many men low.
It was also obvious that the two men who had been trailing Billy had no Ninja training, although they did seem to be well skilled as soldiers. They did not notice him as a danger as he passed between them. He gently bumped their shoulders as he passed, that was all they, or anyone else on the street saw.
The deed done, Storm Shadow vanished into the crowd.
From inside the coffee shop, Billy watched the man with the walking stick pass the two men from the bus stop. Even though the man's face was partly obscured, he knew him from somewhere. He knew him from somewhere. Then the two men staggered a few steps before falling to the ground. A crowd quickly formed outside the window, followed by shouts for someone to call 911.
On his way out, Billy spared a quick glance at the fallen men through the crowd, and the growing pool of blood under them. A quick strike with a poison dagger, most likely, and no sign of the other man.
Billy quickly made his way to Joe HQ, they would want to hear of this assassination.
****
Storm Shadow didn't go far, the two men had to have back up somewhere in the area. He kept a sharp eye out for them. From his vantage point on a building ledge, he saw them. Two more men who had snuck back into an alley to discuss what to do next.
Storm Shadow leapt down into the ally between the two men. A flash of steal felled both men, and then he again sheathed his sword so that it again resembled the walking stick.
****
The Black Major entered the command room of their base, where Jackal, Red Laser, Red Wolf and Baron Ironblood waited to hear the report from their missing command staff member. "Our first assassination attempt on Billy has failed. The agents involved were all killed."
"Good." Said Ironblood, "That is what they deserve for failure. What do you have planned for the next attempt?"
"You should try something more subtle for the next one," Red Laser added.
"Subtlety has never been my style," the Black Major replied. "I was thinking something more along the lines of a full scaled assault."
The Baron laughed.
****
The Joes were not taking the threat to Billy's life seriously enough, Storm Shadow thought. He would have to stay around longer than he had originally thought. But then he knew that Snake Eyes and the others could be dense at times.
Snake Eyes never did really understand why the Soft Master had been so quick and so sure that Storm Shadow had been the one to kill the Hard Master, but then Snake Eyes didn't really know the full story about his past. Snake Eyes didn't know that before they met during the war, he had been a completely different person. Under the name of Azaki Suromo, he and his brother Shima had run away from home to train with another Ninja Clan that specialized in assassinations. Only one member from each family was eligible to become a Ninja. Snake Eyes did not know that he had murdered his own brother to make sure he would be chosen. Following that he had entered into a short career as an assassin. He didn't really learn the value of Honor or friendship until he returned to America and was drafted as Thomas Arashikage. The battlegrounds of Viet Nam had proven more of an incentive to reform than any prison ever could have been, especially his friendship with Snake Eyes. While serving there, he began patching up his relationship with his family, to the point that they welcomed him, and later his friend Snake Eyes into his own family's Ninja school. The rest was history.
After killing Shima, he knew he would have been the prime suspect for killing the Hard Master. As much as he may want to, he couldn't blame any of them for thinking that he had.
A TV news broadcast caught Storm Shadow's attention. ". In a vicious terrorist attack, several explosions have leveled the small town of Springfield."
Whatever was going on, was apparently much bigger than Billy. It made him wonder exactly why Cobra Commander had sent him out so far to protect a potential enemy, even if he was the man's son. In a way it made Storm Shadow feel somewhat nostalgic to be so near to Billy again.
****
Snake Eyes, silent as ever, followed Billy as the young man showed him his apartment.
"It's not that I mind you being here, Snake Eyes, I just feel like I'm a little old for a sleep over." Billy went on, then stopped, studying the impassive mask the other man wore. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by that. I wanted to join to help you guys out, bring my father to justice. I didn't expect I would be getting a wet nurse."
Snake Eyes dropped himself down on the couch, setting his sword, Uzi, and pistol on the coffee table, before laying on the couch with his feet propped up on the arm rest.
"Food is in the fridge. I'm going to bed." Billy disappeared into his bedroom. Each tried to rest, but neither succeeded in getting any sleep.
Across the street, Storm Shadow watched patiently, and grateful that Snake Eyes didn't seem to notice his presence, but he was not sure if Snake Eyes was pretending, or if he really did not notice him.
Outside, a truck drove by. then stopped a near the end of the street.
It was a much quieter sound that aroused Snake Eyes' attention. He did not stand, but reached over and grabbed his pistol and returned it to its holster. He reached over again to retrieve his other weapons, then rolled onto the floor to crawl away from the window that was just behind the couch. Billy stood in the doorway to his bedroom, not sure why he suddenly felt threatened.
Storm Shadow, too, was alerted, he sat up to better observe the street below, and readied his long bow. The street was filled with people. Not just the street, but there were more along the sides, and presumably around the back of Billy's apartment building as well. They all wore red uniforms with red face concealing helmets. He took a brief moment to consider picking one of them off to steal his clothes and infiltrate their unit, but it didn't look like he had that much time. It also didn't look like they were even going to try to make this a covert operation, which would limit his options in that situation. Instead, he headed for ground level, but then thought better of it. The Silent Master would surely know they were there, but maybe not about all of them. There were just too many of them.
Storm Shadow notched an arrow, and targeted the phone connection to the apartment building. Sure enough, one of the Shadows was ready cut the line. Snake Eyes and Billy would need that phone line, since the Shadows were most likely jamming their personal communicators. The arrow flew.
Inside the apartment, Snake Eyes scowled at his wrist computer. No signal was getting out to summon help. It was now dead weight. Something landed hard outside near the corner of the building. He looked at Billy and pointed to the phone.
"It still has a dial tone," Billy said after picking up the handset. Then after seeing the look Snake Eyes gave him. "Right. Ill call for back up." Billy quickly dialed the number for GI Joe headquarters.
Storm Shadow watched the Red Shadows closely from his vantage point across the street. They had found the man he had killed quickly and had formed some sort of plan. He waited to see what sort of plan it was. They were leveling their guns at the apartment, most of them anyway, some had already made their way inside, and others were pointing their guns back to cover the building Storm Shadow was hiding in. And another was dealing with the phone line again, only this time by tying explosives onto the telephone pole.
For a moment, Storm Shadow thought about taking out the one with the explosives, but he did not have that moment. He ducked as a hail of machinegun fire peppered the building under him, in the same instant, the explosives went off cutting power and phone service for the entire block.
Billy's phone call was cut with a tremendous explosion, and every window in his apartment shattered under the hail of machinegun fire.
Firing their guns non-stop, the Red Shadows charged to the apartment, ready to leap through the front window to take out whatever may be surviving within. With the noise and excitement none of them noticed the small metal object that had landed in the shrubs in front of that window, until the grenade exploded, killing and throwing the first two lines of charging Shadows.
Two of the other Shadows who had been providing covering fire, also fell dead with two of Storm Shadow's throwing stars lodged in their necks.
The second wave of Shadows charged into the apartment, only to fall before an answering hail of bullets from Snake Eyes' Uzi. Others fell shortly there after, once Billy had armed himself with gun from one of the Shadows.
Since most of the Shadow's attention was now firmly focused on the apartment, and the unexpected resistance within, Storm Shadow was able to quickly reach street level. The Shadow's weakest point was definitely now the front. Based on the sounds of gunfire from within the apartment, Snake Eyes had the enemy bottled up inside, but he had no idea how weakened the force taking the front had been after the grenade and initial assault.
Moving from shadow to shadow, Storm Shadow made his way across the street. Appearing out of nowhere before each of the remaining Red Shadows frontal assault. He paused before making his next move, but decided he would have to take the chance that Snake Eyes would see him as a target, as he dove through the shattered front window into the apartment.
The front room was bullet scared and scored, but empty, with the doors shut. Spent magazines had been thrown on the floor. Storm Shadow again readied his bow and arrow, closed his eyes and concentrated. The act of using the ear that sees was nearly impossible with all the gunfire. The hallway and other rooms were filled with gunfire, but apparently the Red Shadows were just being thorough. In spite of him self, he felt sorry for all the other tenants who were loosing their lives this day. No sign of Snake Eyes or Billy, yet. No, they were still there.
He didn't know how they managed it, but they were in the ceiling. He fired his arrow into the ceiling next to where Snake Eyes was waiting. Storm Shadow lowered his weapons to wait.
The ceiling cracked, then gave way, Snake Eyes and Billy landed next to each other, crouched, and ready for a fight.
Billy was not sure what passed between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow as they glared at each other for a few seconds. The memory of their battle over General Hawk fresh in each man's memory. Finally Storm Shadow motioned his head in the direction of the broken window, a split second before he leaped through it. Snake Eyes and Billy followed after him, scarcely glancing at the dead Red Shadows outside.
For those of you who have not caught on, one of the major points to this fan-fic is to iron out the continuity conflicts that exist between the current GI Joe Comic continuity, and the Battle Action Force's continuity. This is the chapter that may not work as well as I would like. ( If anyone has more information about the two continuities, such as the ultimate fate of Wolverine driver Hunter or the pilot of the Hawk helicopter please let me know.
Pt 6: Storm Shadow
Alone, in his locked chambers, Cobra Commander looked over the battle reports. Again and again Red Shadows had attacked key Cobra instillations. Their attacks had not yet come close to weakening Cobra, but they had managed to delay several of Cobras future plans. They would come out of nowhere, strike hard, and then vanish into nothing. He doubted that even GI Joe had yet realized the Red Shadows had returned. He had forgotten how well he had trained his old Shadows. Maybe he had been a little hasty in the way he cast the Shadows aside in favor of his new Cobra.
And now, Xamot had delivered video disk containing a message for him from the Red Shadows. He again played the message, in which the John Shepard, the Black Major appeared on screen.
"Greetings, my Baron," the message began, the hate and contempt plainly visible on the Major's face. "It has been a long time. The time I spent tracking your past, so that I may destroy you utterly. You covered your tracks well. I never even realized you were keeping a wife on the side while you continued operations with us. Did you know that the Joes have some strange notion that you actually were a used car salesman, they have no idea what you were actually doing on your dealership property.
"Your wife, indecently was no challenge. She, along with her second husband, and their children didn't put up any fight at all before they died. They didn't even make the newspaper front page, so I wasn't sure if you were even aware of it. I also arranged an accident for the investigator they had hired to find the son you kidnapped shortly after your bout with insanity. Again, no challenge.
"I want you to know you are being destroyed, and that I am the one behind it. I want to bring you down kicking and screaming. You will be completely ruined before I kill you."
The fool was digging his own grave in telling him even this much of his plan, Cobra Commander thought. In some ways, he felt it was almost a pity the Major could not have been brought over to Cobra. But then bringing Red Jackal into Cobra had nearly been a disaster.
Still. the threat was clear, and precautions would be necessary. It would be a risk to his programming to use him, but what choice was there?
***
Something was out of place, thought Billy. He couldn't quite put his finger on it yet, but something was out of place. He was being watched. He knew that much at least. The man with a walking stick at the corner who was reading a newspaper, and two men who had been following him since he got off the bus. There was more to it than that. He would be sure to tell Snake Eyes and Beach Head once he got back to Joe head quarters. No. that was suppose to be a secret, he would have to loose them before then. Who would want to follow him anyway? Was someone using him to find the Joes?
Billy turned into a coffee shop before he reached the man at the corner. He ordered some hot tea and sat in a seat that gave him an equal view of the street outside the windows, and the people inside. He would at least have little time to think about what to do, not many people had the skills necessary to follow him, as the two men from the bus stop had.
Storm Shadow folded the newspaper, and grabbed his walking stick and began walking back towards the coffee shop that Billy had entered. He didn't know if he was angry or disappointed in Billy. The boy had definitely neglected his training; otherwise he surely would have recognized him, even from that distance. No doubt the boy thought he was still quite good. Pride and arrogance had brought many men low.
It was also obvious that the two men who had been trailing Billy had no Ninja training, although they did seem to be well skilled as soldiers. They did not notice him as a danger as he passed between them. He gently bumped their shoulders as he passed, that was all they, or anyone else on the street saw.
The deed done, Storm Shadow vanished into the crowd.
From inside the coffee shop, Billy watched the man with the walking stick pass the two men from the bus stop. Even though the man's face was partly obscured, he knew him from somewhere. He knew him from somewhere. Then the two men staggered a few steps before falling to the ground. A crowd quickly formed outside the window, followed by shouts for someone to call 911.
On his way out, Billy spared a quick glance at the fallen men through the crowd, and the growing pool of blood under them. A quick strike with a poison dagger, most likely, and no sign of the other man.
Billy quickly made his way to Joe HQ, they would want to hear of this assassination.
****
Storm Shadow didn't go far, the two men had to have back up somewhere in the area. He kept a sharp eye out for them. From his vantage point on a building ledge, he saw them. Two more men who had snuck back into an alley to discuss what to do next.
Storm Shadow leapt down into the ally between the two men. A flash of steal felled both men, and then he again sheathed his sword so that it again resembled the walking stick.
****
The Black Major entered the command room of their base, where Jackal, Red Laser, Red Wolf and Baron Ironblood waited to hear the report from their missing command staff member. "Our first assassination attempt on Billy has failed. The agents involved were all killed."
"Good." Said Ironblood, "That is what they deserve for failure. What do you have planned for the next attempt?"
"You should try something more subtle for the next one," Red Laser added.
"Subtlety has never been my style," the Black Major replied. "I was thinking something more along the lines of a full scaled assault."
The Baron laughed.
****
The Joes were not taking the threat to Billy's life seriously enough, Storm Shadow thought. He would have to stay around longer than he had originally thought. But then he knew that Snake Eyes and the others could be dense at times.
Snake Eyes never did really understand why the Soft Master had been so quick and so sure that Storm Shadow had been the one to kill the Hard Master, but then Snake Eyes didn't really know the full story about his past. Snake Eyes didn't know that before they met during the war, he had been a completely different person. Under the name of Azaki Suromo, he and his brother Shima had run away from home to train with another Ninja Clan that specialized in assassinations. Only one member from each family was eligible to become a Ninja. Snake Eyes did not know that he had murdered his own brother to make sure he would be chosen. Following that he had entered into a short career as an assassin. He didn't really learn the value of Honor or friendship until he returned to America and was drafted as Thomas Arashikage. The battlegrounds of Viet Nam had proven more of an incentive to reform than any prison ever could have been, especially his friendship with Snake Eyes. While serving there, he began patching up his relationship with his family, to the point that they welcomed him, and later his friend Snake Eyes into his own family's Ninja school. The rest was history.
After killing Shima, he knew he would have been the prime suspect for killing the Hard Master. As much as he may want to, he couldn't blame any of them for thinking that he had.
A TV news broadcast caught Storm Shadow's attention. ". In a vicious terrorist attack, several explosions have leveled the small town of Springfield."
Whatever was going on, was apparently much bigger than Billy. It made him wonder exactly why Cobra Commander had sent him out so far to protect a potential enemy, even if he was the man's son. In a way it made Storm Shadow feel somewhat nostalgic to be so near to Billy again.
****
Snake Eyes, silent as ever, followed Billy as the young man showed him his apartment.
"It's not that I mind you being here, Snake Eyes, I just feel like I'm a little old for a sleep over." Billy went on, then stopped, studying the impassive mask the other man wore. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by that. I wanted to join to help you guys out, bring my father to justice. I didn't expect I would be getting a wet nurse."
Snake Eyes dropped himself down on the couch, setting his sword, Uzi, and pistol on the coffee table, before laying on the couch with his feet propped up on the arm rest.
"Food is in the fridge. I'm going to bed." Billy disappeared into his bedroom. Each tried to rest, but neither succeeded in getting any sleep.
Across the street, Storm Shadow watched patiently, and grateful that Snake Eyes didn't seem to notice his presence, but he was not sure if Snake Eyes was pretending, or if he really did not notice him.
Outside, a truck drove by. then stopped a near the end of the street.
It was a much quieter sound that aroused Snake Eyes' attention. He did not stand, but reached over and grabbed his pistol and returned it to its holster. He reached over again to retrieve his other weapons, then rolled onto the floor to crawl away from the window that was just behind the couch. Billy stood in the doorway to his bedroom, not sure why he suddenly felt threatened.
Storm Shadow, too, was alerted, he sat up to better observe the street below, and readied his long bow. The street was filled with people. Not just the street, but there were more along the sides, and presumably around the back of Billy's apartment building as well. They all wore red uniforms with red face concealing helmets. He took a brief moment to consider picking one of them off to steal his clothes and infiltrate their unit, but it didn't look like he had that much time. It also didn't look like they were even going to try to make this a covert operation, which would limit his options in that situation. Instead, he headed for ground level, but then thought better of it. The Silent Master would surely know they were there, but maybe not about all of them. There were just too many of them.
Storm Shadow notched an arrow, and targeted the phone connection to the apartment building. Sure enough, one of the Shadows was ready cut the line. Snake Eyes and Billy would need that phone line, since the Shadows were most likely jamming their personal communicators. The arrow flew.
Inside the apartment, Snake Eyes scowled at his wrist computer. No signal was getting out to summon help. It was now dead weight. Something landed hard outside near the corner of the building. He looked at Billy and pointed to the phone.
"It still has a dial tone," Billy said after picking up the handset. Then after seeing the look Snake Eyes gave him. "Right. Ill call for back up." Billy quickly dialed the number for GI Joe headquarters.
Storm Shadow watched the Red Shadows closely from his vantage point across the street. They had found the man he had killed quickly and had formed some sort of plan. He waited to see what sort of plan it was. They were leveling their guns at the apartment, most of them anyway, some had already made their way inside, and others were pointing their guns back to cover the building Storm Shadow was hiding in. And another was dealing with the phone line again, only this time by tying explosives onto the telephone pole.
For a moment, Storm Shadow thought about taking out the one with the explosives, but he did not have that moment. He ducked as a hail of machinegun fire peppered the building under him, in the same instant, the explosives went off cutting power and phone service for the entire block.
Billy's phone call was cut with a tremendous explosion, and every window in his apartment shattered under the hail of machinegun fire.
Firing their guns non-stop, the Red Shadows charged to the apartment, ready to leap through the front window to take out whatever may be surviving within. With the noise and excitement none of them noticed the small metal object that had landed in the shrubs in front of that window, until the grenade exploded, killing and throwing the first two lines of charging Shadows.
Two of the other Shadows who had been providing covering fire, also fell dead with two of Storm Shadow's throwing stars lodged in their necks.
The second wave of Shadows charged into the apartment, only to fall before an answering hail of bullets from Snake Eyes' Uzi. Others fell shortly there after, once Billy had armed himself with gun from one of the Shadows.
Since most of the Shadow's attention was now firmly focused on the apartment, and the unexpected resistance within, Storm Shadow was able to quickly reach street level. The Shadow's weakest point was definitely now the front. Based on the sounds of gunfire from within the apartment, Snake Eyes had the enemy bottled up inside, but he had no idea how weakened the force taking the front had been after the grenade and initial assault.
Moving from shadow to shadow, Storm Shadow made his way across the street. Appearing out of nowhere before each of the remaining Red Shadows frontal assault. He paused before making his next move, but decided he would have to take the chance that Snake Eyes would see him as a target, as he dove through the shattered front window into the apartment.
The front room was bullet scared and scored, but empty, with the doors shut. Spent magazines had been thrown on the floor. Storm Shadow again readied his bow and arrow, closed his eyes and concentrated. The act of using the ear that sees was nearly impossible with all the gunfire. The hallway and other rooms were filled with gunfire, but apparently the Red Shadows were just being thorough. In spite of him self, he felt sorry for all the other tenants who were loosing their lives this day. No sign of Snake Eyes or Billy, yet. No, they were still there.
He didn't know how they managed it, but they were in the ceiling. He fired his arrow into the ceiling next to where Snake Eyes was waiting. Storm Shadow lowered his weapons to wait.
The ceiling cracked, then gave way, Snake Eyes and Billy landed next to each other, crouched, and ready for a fight.
Billy was not sure what passed between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow as they glared at each other for a few seconds. The memory of their battle over General Hawk fresh in each man's memory. Finally Storm Shadow motioned his head in the direction of the broken window, a split second before he leaped through it. Snake Eyes and Billy followed after him, scarcely glancing at the dead Red Shadows outside.