"See anything?" Teela asked.
"Not a soul. Guess they must all be inside." Mekaneck lowered his telescopic vertebrae and turned to the others. "I don't like it. There should be some guards out. It's too easy."
"Maybe they just assume no one would actually try to break into the place," Cover Girl said, shivering at the fearsome sight that was Snake Mountain.
"Still," Teela said, "we should proceed with caution."
"How exactly are we going to get in?" Short Fuze asked. "We can't just waltz through the front door."
Teela thought hard. "If my memory serves me correctly, there's a secret entrance behind the waterfall. Let's go."
"Are you sure that's water?" Cover Girl whispered, staring at the red liquid pouring down the side of the mountain. Slowly, silently the group made their way into the dark corridors. At every turn they'd stop while Mekaneck would peer ahead to check for any danger. Strangely, the fortress seemed almost abandoned.
"I don't like this," Fisto muttered. "Between Skeletor's forces, the Snake Men, and Cobra there should be someone down here."
"This could be a trap," Mekaneck agreed.
"Well then, I'd say it's time we set up our counter-trap," Short-Fuze grinned. With that he slipped off his backpack and began unpacking a load of C4 explosives. "This ought to rattle those snakes up a bit."
Teela nodded. "Good. Mekaneck, you and Cover Girl help Short-Fuze set up those bombs. Fisto, Snake-Eyes an I will head up to the throne room and see if we can find out what's going on."
As Cover Girl inserted the remote detonator in her bomb she noticed that Mekaneck seemed distracted from his task.
"Something wrong?" she asked.
Mekaneck sighed. "I was just thinking about my son, Philip. I can't help feeling I should be with him now instead of here. Considering all that's happening."
"It's tough being away from family in times of war," Cover Girl said.
Mekaneck nodded. "Philip's all I have left. His mother died years ago. Even before my injury."
"What injury?"
"You don't think I was born with this stupid thing do you?" he sighed pointing to his neck.
Cover Girl frowned. "It's not stupid. I think it's pretty cool."
"Oh sure it has its uses," he shrugged, "but by comparison it's pathetic. I mean look, Stratos and Buzz-Off can fly, Sy-Klone can fly and create whirlwinds, Fisto and Ram Man have super strength, Moss Man can control plants, and even Orko has his magic. It may not always work right, but it still beats being a human periscope."
"At least you have a special ability," the female Joe laughed. "You know what my specialty is? Makeup! That's how I got the name Cover Girl. I create the makeup and disguises for covert missions."
"See, you're a master of disguise. That's way better."
"No, no, no," she corrected him. "See, I'm not the one who uses the disguises. I don't have the acting talent to pull it off. I just make the disguises for the other Joes. I had to start working as a mechanic just to get taken seriously."
"Well even so," Mekaneck said, "you're still doing an important job for your team."
Cover Girl grinned. "That's right. Just like you are for your team."
Mekaneck laughed, realizing she had purposely led him right into that one. "Your right of course. And to be honest I've been through this conversation before. I guess I just need to be reminded every now and then."
"Well anyway," she said, "you may not be the most powerful guy on your team, but I think you're cute."
Cover Girl flashed a large, dimpled smile at him, and at that moment Mekaneck felt more full of self-confidence than he could ever remember.
"Just how big is this place?" Jinx muttered looking around.
"Keep looking," Man-E-Faces said. "It's got to be here somewhere."
As hopeless as the situation appeared, Jinx had to admit it could have been much worse. At least they weren't the ones who had to find the piece at the bottom of the sea. Even with the tracking device Man-At-Arms had managed to come up with, that was going to be extremely difficult. Perhaps impossible in the short time they had. Quickly the young ninja pushed the thought aside. She couldn't afford to give in to paranoia. Such fearful ideas had been continuously creeping into her mind since they had entered the tower. It seemed the longer she stayed inside, the worse it got.
Suddenly Orko's voice called out, "Hey over here!"
The others rushed over to find Orko floating in front of a small arch in which sat a cloaked skeletal figure that was set in a meditating pose as though it were the sacred remains of a monk or some other spiritual authority. And well he might have been, for resting in its bony, cupped hands was the elusive piece of the Crest of Infinity. Orko reached out to take the crest but suddenly stopped and drew his hand back
"What's wrong?" Dree Elle asked.
"I… I don't know." Again Orko reached for the crest but again he found himself unable to take it. Dree Elle and Man-E-Faces each in turn reached for the artifact, but they too drew back at the last moment. It was not as though some outside force prevented them, but rather some force within themselves.
"What's wrong with all of you?" Jinx shouted, slightly annoyed. "It's just a corpse. It's not like it's Skeletor!" However when she went for the crest she found that she too slowly became stricken with a deep swelling sensation of fear. Forcing it down she addressed the decayed form before her.
"Forgive me fallen one but, with all due respect, I must take this item." With a final burst of courage she grasped the crest sliver. As she lifted it though, the dead hand suddenly sprang to life and grabbed her wrist causing her to drop it in shock.
"I'm afraid, I cannot allow that," it said.
Jinx managed to pull free of the bony grip and backed up as the supposed dead corpse rose from its resting place and threw off its shroud, revealing a bare, bleach white skull with a huge crack running down its forehead.
"You are very brave pretty one," the skeleton said as it took slow menacing steps towards Jinx and the others. "but like all those who came before you, you will succumb to my power."
Jinx tried to hide the trembling in her voice. "You're not Skeletor. Who or what are you."
Though it would not seem possible for a skull without flesh, the skeleton's mouth actually parted into a terrifying grin. "I am the sultan of terror. The master of fright. The king of all fear. They call me… SCARE GLOW!"
"Scare Glow?" Jinx chuckled. "I'm sorry, was that supposed to induce terror or fits of laughter?"
"Mock me while you can," Scare Glow snarled. "You may be valiant enough to withstand my normal power, but you aren't the first to do so. And I have other means at my disposal. All fighters, no matter how brave, have some weakness and it's only a matter of time before I find yours. You have no hope of winning, I cannot be killed. You can only tremble with terror as I…"
Jinx cut the evil specter off with a roundhouse kick to the head.
"I know it's rude of me to interrupt," she said, "but I was really getting tired of listening to you ramble on."
"I see now," Scare Glow hissed. "It wasn't bravery I saw in you, it was cockiness. To think, I was actually concerned for a moment. And yes human, I'll admit you caught me by surprise there, but like a true amateur you failed to take advantage of the situation. You could have followed through and overpowered me. Now you will pay for that mistake with your life."
"Oh shut up already!" Jinx shouted. "That's what I mean. Talk, talk, talk! Like you're some kind of crappy pro wrestler. Now are you gonna bark all day little doggy, or are you gonna bite?"
"You really are anxious to die aren't you?" he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "I believe I'm going to enjoy savoring this."
Scare Glow stepped backwards into the darkness. As he did a powerful gust blew through the chamber extinguishing the torches.
Jinx rolled her eyes. "Oh, darkness. I'm so scared."
"Oh you will be I assure you. You will be," Scare Glow laughed. Jinx concentrated hard and tried to pinpoint his location but was unable to. It was though the evil warrior was everywhere at once. It was becoming all to clear where her earlier sense of danger had come from. She turned to the others.
"Talk to me guys, any idea where he is?"
"I can't concentrate," Dree Elle whimpered. "I'm too scared."
"Come on guys," Jinx said, though with a nervous twitch, "he's the one hiding in the dark."
"I just wanted to make sure you got the full affect of my power," Scare Glow cackled. Suddenly the darkness was broken by a haunting green light. Turning around, Jinx saw that the light was coming from Scare Glow. That isn't to say he was holding a torch or lantern. The ghostly figure himself was actually glowing in the dark.
Jinx glanced back at the others to make sure they were about to back her up, but all three of them were standing, or floating, in place, their only movement being their trembling in terror.
"What's wrong with you?" she shouted
But Jinx knew what was wrong, for she could feel it too. Something about Scare Glow's presence, his very aura, was filling all of them with a petrifying sense of fear. Jinx's ninja training allowed her to overcome most phobia, but the others were all frozen in their tracks.
"Amazing isn't it?" Scare Glow snickered. "One moment a warrior can be the model of courage, but introduce them to their fears and they become sniveling weaklings. And believe me, no matter how much they try to hide and deny it, everyone has at least one thing that they are afraid of. So tell me, what is it you fear most? What keeps a ninja up at night?"
With that his light erupted into a violent flash, forcing Jinx to cover her eyes lest she go blind. When she could feel the light die down, she slowly opened her eyes and blinked. Something was very wrong. Instead of the darkened chambers of Central Tower, she found herself standing outside of a series of bunkers.
There was something eerily familiar about these surroundings. As though she had been there sometime before. Sometime unpleasant as well. A haunting fog hung over the compound. The air was bitterly cold and Jinx drew her cape around herself for warmth… then realized she hadn't been wearing one before. Looking down at her attire the young ninja saw a huge black Cobra emblem sprawled across her chest.
My infiltration outfit? she thought. What am I doing in this?
Suddenly a man dressed as a Cobra officer came running out of the bunker next to her. "Okay, the timer's set," he said. "Let's get out of here!"
The officer turned his face towards her and Jinx gasped in shock and disbelief.
"Falcon?"
What's going on here? Jinx thought. This all happened years ago! Have I somehow gone back in time?
"Come on beautiful," Falcon grinned. "First round's on me." Falcon ran off into the fog, laughing good-naturedly.
"First round's on me" Jinx repeated to herself. Those were the last words he said to me. Right before… oh God no! "Falcon! Stop, wait."
Jinx ran after him, praying that she could catch up to him in time. Hoping beyond all hope that history wasn't about to repeat itself. A scream of pain and terror that pierced the darkness told her that her prayers had gone unanswered.
Emerging out of the fog, Jinx found Falcon's cold lifeless body lying in a pool of blood. His neck was slit, and his chest had been stabbed countless times.
"This isn't right," she sobbed. "It didn't happen this way!"
"What difference does it make?" said a tiny voice.
Jinx tuned with a start and nearly jumped out of her skin, for what she saw made even less sense.
"Yuckers? How can you be here? And what do you mean 'What difference does it make'?"
"You failed to save his life," the small Trollan said. "It doesn't matter how he died. You had a second chance and you blew it. You failed him, just as you failed me!"
"But this isn't the way it happened!" Jinx shouted. "Falcon wasn't brutally slain! He threw himself in front of me, taking the arrow aimed at my heart. He sacrificed his own life for mine!"
"And look how you've repaid me!" the corpse of Falcon growled and rose to his feet. "If I had known you'd turn out to be such a worthless failure, I wouldn't have thrown my life away. I thought you were capable of avenging me and putting a stop to Vypra's rampage, but it seems I sent myself to the grave on a lie!"
Jinx sobbed. "No, Falcon you can't really think that!"
"Damn straight I do!" he growled. "And I'm not the only one!" With that the fog slowly parted only to be replaced by over a hundred floating ghostly figures. Though many of them Jinx had never seen, there was no mistaking them.
"Each of these poor tortured souls is one of Vypra's victims," Yuckers said, confirming Jinx's assumption. "All of them waiting for you to put an end to her. And you've failed them just as you failed us."
Jinx backed away in terror. "No. I will kill Vypra. I will…"
"You've proven tonight that you can't!" Falcon shouted. "You were given a second chance to stop her and save me. And look at me! I wound up worse than before. Look around you at all these lives that could have been spared. Each of them is on your head Jinx! Each of them would still be living if you had done your job!"
"I'd say," Yuckers snarled, closing in on her menacingly, "that makes you responsible. You're just as much to blame for their deaths as Vypra. More so in fact!"
"You're no better than she is!" shouted an old man.
"You deserve to die!" cried a young woman.
Jinx was on her knees covering her ears. Trying to drown out the furious cries of the souls closing in on her. As a result she failed to notice Falcon pull a glowing halberd, seemingly out of nowhere, and raise it poised to take her head off.
"No," Jinx shouted, more to herself than anyone else. "I won't just lay down and die, no matter what any of you say or think. I will succeed. I will kill Vypra. I may have failed up till now, but I WON'T…. GIVE… UP!"
As the words left her lips, Jinx pulled out her sword and swung it around blindly, but with her full strength behind it. Before Falcon could bring the halberd down on her, the blade sliced through his neck severing his head from his body. As the head bounced away and the body fell, everything vanished. The souls, the bunkers, all of it melted away to be replaced once again by the interior of Central Tower. Falcon himself transformed into the now decapitated Scare Glow.
She had never left. It had all been an fear-induced illusion created by Scare Glow's power. Now that Jinx had removed the specter warrior's head, he was no longer able to maintain the deception.
"You almost had me," Jinx said to the body. "But you chose the wrong fear to play off of. Yes, I am afraid of failing all those souls. I live with that every day of my life, but I don't let it weaken me. No, that fear is what keeps me fighting on!"
"Well done," Dree Elle said, coming out of her own fear-induced trance.
"Come on, let's move," Jinx said picking up the crest piece. "There's no telling how much time we've lost here."
"Umm, Jinx, I hate to say this," Orko stuttered, "but I don't think your fight's over just yet."
Jinx turned back and gasped in shock as Scare Glow's headless body rose from the floor, picked up its head and reattached it to his neck as though it had never left.
"You are quite a fascinating specimen," he said. "It appears I'm going to have to use a different strategy to defeat you."
"That makes two of us," Jinx whispered.
