"1053, right?" Stein asked, looking out her window. What with the fact she was riding with a ninja and crazy Thompson, and with the obvious tension between the two not helping matters any, she was more than a little eager to arrive. "Just a few more houses… huh? That's odd, it looks like there are agents there already. See the two black cars? Much nicer than the other ones around…"
Thompson cursed. "Storm Shadow," he said urgently, "they're Hyundais. NOT government. But Cobra doesn't use off-the-line vehicles…" he trailed off, clearly at a loss.
"Hush," Storm Shadow instructed.
He parked the car in front of the house, right under a large tree that provided shelter from the rain, and got out, taking out his cell phone and pretending to consult it for something while listening intently, focusing on the people inside the safe house. He isolated the pulses and breathing patterns one by one, increasingly worried, until he finally found Billy's.
Not having the time to carefully consider all the scenarios, he was reduced to hope Billy was still alive because whoever was holding him wanted something from the people they expected to pick him up. If that was the case, talking and negotiating were more likely than immediate violence so long as they played dumb. He turned back to the car and waved the two greenshirts out.
"That's the place," he called out, smiling encouragingly and hoping the two would realize they were to play along. "Come on."
They did: they got out of the car and followed Tommy to the door, looking as casual as they could. Storm Shadow kept his ears peeled, attentive to any out of place noise, dearly wishing he'd come alone after all. He'd only made the two greenshirts follow so they wouldn't be sitting ducks inside an un-armoured car and because the car leaving without him and Billy would have made it far too obvious they suspected foul play.
Someone opened the door before he even rang and gestured all three of them inside. Billy was solidly tied down and a second man was just pulling back from him with an empty needle. Two more men were in the room, and four more in the next room, hidden from sight but not from his ears.
Storm Shadow picked up a change in Billy's pulse and grabbed the closest man in a choke hold, lifting him a few inches off the ground.
"What was that?" he growled. The man he was holding gurgled, kicking ineffectually.
"Poison," the man who had injected Billy said in a heavy Japanese accent. "I have the antidote, but if you want the son of your boss to live, you tell me where Vizzori hide the loot before he go to jail."
"Tony Vizzori?" Thompson asked from behind him. "You idiots have the wrong kid! He's not a Vizzori, and we have no clue where the money is!"
That was explanation enough for Storm Shadow. Billy's pulse was nowhere near alarming yet, and the poison had to keep him alive long enough for him to disclose what the men had been hired to find out, so he had time to give them one chance of surviving their meeting.
"I have no idea what loot you're talking about," he said, releasing the man he had been holding to pull up his right sleeve, revealing his tattoo. The men certainly seemed Japanese, so he was guessing they were hired yakuzas – in which case they would recognize his clan's symbol. Confirming his guess, the pulse of the four men in the room picked up right away at the sight.
"I'm the Young Master of the Arashikage clan, this boy is my apprentice and if you want to live, you will give me the antidote AND the poison, now."
Two of the men paled, but the one who had injected Billy just snorted. "I think you bluff," he said. "Talk, or Tony Junior dies and YOU tell your boss how you…"
The man was interrupted by a shuriken slashing through his throat. Unlike the safe house owner earlier, he didn't even manage a gurgle before crumbling to the ground. The man on the other side of Billy fell lifeless as well, with an identical injury.
"Stein, duck! Thompson, no gun!" Storm Shadow instructed even as he threw two knives at the other two men in the room, burying them entirely between their eyes and instantly killing them. The yakuzas were using silent weapons, and if they did too, they could avoid the authorities broadcasting that something was going on and possibly attracting all the wrong attention.
He had time to note that Stein was frozen in place, then Thompson was diving towards her. He redirected his attention to the other room. Two men were now emerging in the doorway, running towards him, each with a sword in each hand. The other two were still behind the wall, possibly intent on giving up discretion and firing right through said wall.
Storm Shadow stopped and gave the two men in the door a worried look. As he expected, they responded by attacking, slashing their swords in his direction much too slowly to even qualify as a threat: he avoided two of the blades and caught the other two between the thumb and fingers of each hand. He flicked the weapons out of their owner's grips, caught them in the air, and used them to slice both men in half diagonally before jumping through the door and trusting the blades in the hearts of the last two men, who had indeed started to take out their guns but never got a chance to even get close to firing them.
Thompson blinked as he got up from pushing Stein to the floor: the fight was already over, he guessed within about fifteen seconds. Stein noticed too and screamed, struggling to get out from under him and away from Storm Shadow.
"What's WRONG with you?" Thompson demanded, pinning her down. "We don't want to be on the 6 o'clock news, so shut up!" He idly wondered how they were going to avoid that now, with eight bodies laying around, but he did know that screaming was not going to help.
"U… United Nations…", she babbled, "he's the same, he's just the same… ninjas... not human… LET ME GO!"
Tommy heard her scream, but pushed it aside for later consideration, busy searching the body of the man who'd shot the poison into Billy; he was looking for both the empty needle and the claimed antidote. He finally relaxed a bit upon finding both in the same breast pocket.
Stein was still screaming - through Thompson's arm by now - about how dangerous he was and how it was the United Nations all over again. He could guess she'd been there on the day Cobra had attacked a conference; he'd been brainwashed at the time into believing the army was working for his family's murderers - the World Order - and had been particularly murderous. He could also guess that until seeing him in action triggered her current crisis, she had exerted a remarkable level of control to appear merely nervous around Snake Eyes and him; enough control to fool Psyche Out into thinking there was a chance she'd be able to work with ninjas in general and him in particular.
Storm Shadow pushed the thought that her phobia –and its consequences on her career prospects with GI Joe - was his fault aside and continued to ignore her; he needed to figure out what he'd need to do with Billy before he could decide what to do with her. He broke the needle that had been filled with poison and tipped it over his thumb, collecting a tiny leftover drop. He deposited that drop on his tongue and relaxed a bit. He recognized the taste of the poison: it was the same one yakuzas used most of the time, and he had the antidote on him.
He discarded the antidote the man had had, not trusting that it was actually real, and fished his own out of one of his pockets. He cut Billy's ties loose to sit him up and dipped the antidote in his mouth, forcing the unconscious teen to swallow by rubbing his throat. He relaxed a bit more: his apprentice's life signs were still nearly normal, proving the poison had not done much damage yet.
He finally turned back to the two greenshirts, just in time for Thompson to hiss and curse under his breath, following Stein biting him. Storm Shadow smiled: the young ranger still did not move his arm.
"Stein," he started. "Calm down. Listen to me. I…" he trailed off, not quite sure what to say, especially considering that Stein had started trashing and screaming with even more energy upon his addressing her.
"Give it up," Thompson advised. "We've all been briefed on the brainwash thing, why do you think most of the greenshirts DON'T freak out when they hear about those years? Hit her sleeping point or something and let's get back to the Pit."
Stein bucked more than ever and her screams turned into begging Thompson not to let the ninja near her. Storm Shadow sighed and moved to follow Thompson's suggestion, but stopped in his track and whipped his head around to Billy; his apprentice's pulse had just shot way up. Almost simultaneously, the teenager let out a scream and curled up into a ball.
Tommy dashed back to him and pressed his sleeping point, attempting to force sleep. There was no effect whatsoever, other than Billy yelping and throwing himself in the opposite direction before curling up again, shivering. Storm Shadow cursed under his breath and gathered the ropes he had cut a minute earlier.
"Are you sure you're not related?" Thompson asked. "He's just as much trouble as you, by the looks of it. What are the odds of an extreme adverse reaction to an antidote? And in the same day he got confused for Tony Vizzori Jr?"
"He was also unknowingly selected, among many other volunteers, to shoot the Cobra Commander, while he had blocked the memory that the man was his father," Storm Shadow said while tying Billy up. "As for the antidote, that reaction is actually not all that rare for this particular formula; this sort of thing happens about one time out of ten. I really should have expected it, considering."
Thompson watched without anymore comments, somewhat amused: the ninja looked more like he was wrestling a rabid wolverine than tying up a sick teenager. Thanks to the fact Storm Shadow had quickly gagged him, the kid even sounded more like an animal than a human being.
Once he finally had Billy tied solidly again, Storm Shadow got up and turned to Thompson and Stein; she was still screaming in her fellow greenshirt's arm and trying to get out from under him. Behind him, Billy almost immediately started to whimper in pain as he trashed around. Tommy sighed, turned around and cut the ropes off again.
"Snakes!" Billy screamed at the ropes through his gag, backing away in blind panic.
"What are you doing, cutting him loose again?" Thompson roared.
"Look at him," Storm Shadow answered, pointing at the curled up boy.
Thompson's eyes widened: Billy's pale shirt was worn through in spots, and stained red everywhere the ropes had been.
"They do that sometimes," Storm Shadow said. "The adrenalin high gives them the strength to really push against the ropes, and they're in such a panic that they don't really notice the pain."
He moved back to Stein, ignoring her increasingly desperate cries, and pinched her sleeping point. She slumped to the floor immediately. Thompson got off, making a face at the spot where she had bit him.
"You don't look all that worried, so I'm guessing this just wears itself out?" he asked.
"It usually takes a bit less than an hour," Storm Shadow confirmed. "Bring Stein back to the Pit, he could become violent and you two are of no use to me if she's so agitated that all you can do is hold her down."
"You're just going to stay here and wait it out?"
Tommy shrugged. "He can't be transported right now, and I'd still rather avoid attracting attention. Besides, even if none of that was an issue, a hospital wouldn't be able to do any more for him at this point than I can. Call the Pit on the safe line when you get back to the car and send Doc here. Be as cryptic as you can, just in case, and make sure Doc is sent, not Lifeline – I may need someone who won't refuse to fight the patient a bit."
"What are you doing about the bodies?"
"I'm assuming you're going to give Hawk a full report when you get to base, and that he'll have a firm opinion on that matter. In the meantime, I'll just move them if they become an issue. Get going, we don't know when these men were supposed to report in and I want you both gone before anyone else shows up," Storm Shadow said, tossing the younger Ranger the keys to the car.
Thompson frowned as he caught them. "Why?"
Storm Shadow scowled at him. He could hear gunfire all around that he knew only existed in his head, the light in the room was looking more and more like natural sunlight, and the longer Stein stayed here, the more likely he was to completely become lost in what was obviously a rapidly developing full blown flashback. He hadn't had one of those in months, but there was no mistaking the phantom sounds and sights. He needed both greenshirts out of here – unlike Billy, he did not have an oath to protect them that had already proven to be strong enough to bring him back to reality. Not that it'd come to that: with Stein gone, he was confident he'd be able to ward off the flashback.
"I told you," he said irritably, "the pair of you are of no use to me at the moment. If I have to fight off more yakuzas, I'd much rather only have one dead weight to shield from the attackers. Now get going!"
Thompson's eyes narrowed.
"You're following Duke's orders," he stated. "You're sending us both to safety even though I COULD be useful now that SHE's out."
"You have YOUR orders, Thompson," Storm Shadow growled.
"Yes, Sergeant," Thompson answered flatly. He picked up Stein in a cradle hold, got out and walked back quickly to the car, thinking up a cover story as he walked in case anyone spotted him and asked questions.
Storm Shadow leaned against the wall, holding his head and scanning the room for something real to focus on in a bid to keep his mind from wandering into the past. The strategy backfired as his eyes first fell on the bodies of the yakuzas. Stein's panicked screams filled his ears again, quickly mutating into the noises of the battle at the United Nations as the dead yakuzas became dozens of dead soldiers.
He resisted the urge to squeeze his eyes shut and to press his hands against his ears to block the sights and sounds: doing that only ever made things worse. Somewhere among the sound of guns firing and hearts stopping all around him, he heard Billy whimpering about a giant snake and grimly thought that his apprentice ought to worry about the Order more than about Cobra.
He groaned: the Order was the made-up enemy the Commander had provided him with as part of his reconditioning. He had believed in the evil world controlling organization, opposed by the righteous Cobra, for three years. He had met Billy during that period, and the two of them had spent a lot of energy trying to make the other see what they each saw as the truth.
He cursed under his breath and simultaneously fixed his eyes on the boy while focusing on the drug-accelerated pulse, breathing, and the assortment of whimpers, screams and moans Billy was letting out. He had removed his gag at some point – exactly when, Storm Shadow had no idea – but he was mercifully not screaming anymore.
Focus; he needed to focus and help Billy as well as he could before his apprentice lost it enough to really hurt himself. This was not a good time to dwell on the past.
Billy caught a glance of him and yelped again, trying to back away further but stopped by the wall. Tommy cocked his head, momentarily shocked before he remembered he was wearing facial prosthetics.
He ripped them off and tried to approach Billy again. The teenager's eye widened, making him look younger than he was. The impression was further accentuated when he spoke.
"Dad?" he said in an unbelieving tone.
Tommy stopped in his track and swallowed. That… was unexpected. He didn't think he could pull off pretending to be the Commander, even if he managed to make himself try.
Author's Notes:
Anyone who guessed those guys in the house would have a serious problem when Stormy got there, I'd congratulate you but… well, was there any doubt at all?
Third and last part will be up shortly. Thanks for reading, and please review!
