Chapter 13
The Commander was apparently not impressed with Destro's little games either - the incident was the straw that broke the camel's back and convinced the Commander that Destro was intent on taking over Cobra. I hadn't suspected the weapons dealer of this at all, but after this little stunt, I'm inclined to agree with the Commander. His own self is probably the only person in the world Destro would like to see at the head of Cobra more than the Commander.
Not wanting me to go off on a wild goose chase - Destro's had the sense to disappear after the Commander screamed at him over Scarlett's kidnapping – the Commander hired a mercenary by the name of Major Sebastian Bludd to kill him. Long story short, the attempt failed spectacularly thanks to the Baroness who saved her lover and was blown up for her troubles. Not exactly a loss for human kind – she was the very definition of a she-devil.
Bludd, as far as we know, has been captured by the Joes. The Commander has somehow managed to convince Destro that the whole thing had been Bludd's idea, citing the Baroness as the mercenary's motive. Both he and the Commander are pretending to be quite happy with each other, and merrily doing business with each other again.
At the same time, the Commander has assigned 12 spies to keep tabs on Destro at all times and Destro is not good enough an actor to hide the fact such a precaution is indeed necessary.
It's actually quite entertaining to watch. It does, however, mean that the Commander keeps me closer than ever. Thankfully, the whole situation has him in a rotten mood and he's the quietest I've ever known him to be.
It's been about a month since Destro has had me kidnap Scarlett, and about 3 weeks since Bludd failed to kill him. Things are settling into what passes for normal for Cobra.
The Commander is having breakfast and I'm picking at mine, watching over him and keeping an ear out for any sign of trouble, when his cell phone starts vibrating. I stop eating and look at him curiously. I don't remember his cell ever ringing – he uses it to call people, not the other way around.
He appears to be just as surprised as me. He checks the caller's ID and stares at it for a moment before speaking.
"Switzerland," he hisses. "Who…?"
He finally establishes the connection and answers.
"Who is this? How did you get this number?"
"This is Major Bludd, Cobra Commander. As you can certainly tell, I am no longer in custody of the Joes."
"Good for you," the Commander replies. "Why do I care? You failed me, you're not getting paid and I don't see why I'd bother hiring you again."
"You will pay me, Commander. Two million US dollars, delivered by your hand. And you will do this because otherwise, I will contact Destro and tell him about our arrangement. I was with the Joes long enough to find out you're still doing business with him: I'm guessing that he doesn't know you wanted him dead and that you wish for him to remain ignorant of that little fact."
"You don't even know how to contact him, and besides, why would he believe you?"
"The Baroness is with me," Bludd announces, rather bluntly. "Say hello, dear."
I roll my eyes. This place is turning into a living soap opera.
The Commander passes me the phone just as the Major passes his to the Baroness.
"I'm quite alive Commander, and I really do think you owe me compensation for the distress you've caused me," she says.
With the phone in my hand, I can hear her voice clearly, as well as her breathing and her heart, and there's no doubt that she's the genuine article. I hand the phone back to the Commander, nodding.
"How do I know you won't tell Destro about all this whether I pay or not?" the Commander demands.
"I can only give you my word," the Major says. "But you can definitely be sure that we will tell him if you DON'T pay."
"Where?" the Commander snarls.
Bludd gives him the name of a hotel and the Commander hangs up before throwing the phone against the nearest wall. I sit back down and calmly finish my breakfast. It's disgusting, like most of what they call food around here, but it's worth slowly eating every bite to hear his heart rate accelerate as he gets angrier and angrier.
"Storm Shadow, you will come with me. I want them both dead, and I want their deaths to be slow."
I swallow what's in my mouth and smile.
"Yes, Commander," I say. It almost feels like I get to start making amends for my services to Cobra ahead of time, while at the same time improving the Commander's chances to stay alive.
Even though I remember the individual events that took place in the past few hours, the actual sequence that led to the present moment is so bizarre that I have trouble piecing it together in a way that satisfies logic.
The Joes found Bludd and the Baroness at around the same time we arrived in Switzerland. They tried to capture them, we arrived in the middle of it, and after some confusion, the Commander ended up trying to flee the scene with the Baroness in a stolen vehicle. Five Joes, Snake Eyes included, followed in hot pursuit, and the Major and I followed THEM in another of their vehicle, he intent on rescuing his blackmail money, me intent on rescuing the Commander. I've reasoned that he was more likely to be useful alive than dead, so I've let him live so far.
Staying true to their natural talents at making any situation worse, the Baroness and Commander dragged us all to a ridiculously dangerous mountain road, narrow and winding, with a cliff face on one side and a sharp drop on the other. Every now and then, we can see remnants of guard rails that look as though they were woefully insufficient even back before they were decrepit. The Major has noticed my bow and arrow and has been ordering me to shoot the Joes off the road.
I may have done several things over the past eight years that I would not have believed myself capable of, but I will still not hurt someone from my own clan – not even Snake Eyes. Mostly to shut the Baron up, I pretend to try and follow his instructions. I shoot a few arrows to miss the tires.
"I can't shoot the tires and the rest is armoured," I announce. I have no idea how thick the armour is, but I try to sound as though I'm positive that I can't penetrate it with my arrows.
The Major curses and continues to drive.
The chase continues with no progress by any party until the Commander and the Baroness, swerving a bit too much on a tight turn, collide with the cliff side. The Joes stop right behind them and jump out of their vehicle, three of them running towards the Commander and the Baroness and the other two turning to face us. Snake Eyes is one of the latter and rushes straight for me.
"Snake Eyes! That's him! Give him one for me, will ya?" the other one yells.
I recognize him as the one who broke my ribs on the Joe's last attack on Cobra Island; he's not particularly hard to remember, what with the fact his arms are about twice the size of mine.
As he approaches, Snake Eyes's heartbeat slows a bit and his breathing deepens. Whatever made him hesitate to do his best to kill me last time has obviously since stopped to be a factor: he's out for blood. The fact bothers me a lot more than I can explain – I've known his intentions towards me for over eight years, and he's already tried to do away with me last time we met, even if half-heartedly. So why was I not expecting this?
I spend the next little while desperately dodging and blocking as he tries his best to kill me. I'm quite over the shock of seeing him again, and my bout of suicidal thoughts is long over: I can't get revenge if I'm dead and therefore, I don't intend to die.
I almost immediately have to block out our surroundings to give him my full attention, and he soon has me with my back to the cliff side. I start talking then, hoping to distract him more than anything else: I really don't have anything to say that might change his mind about killing me. I do have things to say, but since they amount to little more than complaining about my lot, I intend to just spout insults in an effort to break his concentration.
"Are you trying to kill me or to teach me a new dance?" I sneer. It's a hollow joke, especially since his last move was an attempt to run my heart through.
"How did you lose your voice? Did you just forget how your tongue works? And what's with the mask? You weren't THAT ugly." I almost wince at how stupid this last one is, but it does the trick – he gets angry and puts too much strength in his next slash, slowing down his recovery by half a moment, allowing me to listen out and glance around for the Commander and reassure myself that he's fine.
The good news is that he's alive and apparently unhurt. The bad news is that he's still here, held tight by two Joes and wearing handcuffs. He's looking at me, very obviously waiting for me to fix the situation.
I roll to avoid Snake Eyes' latest attempt to part my head from the rest of my body then run in the Commander's direction, taking out my second sword as I go and screaming at the two Joes who are holding him. I listen out for the remaining two, and find them behind where I was, apparently intent on sneaking up on Snake Eyes and myself.
The two Joes let go of the Commander to take out their guns, aiming at me. Snake Eyes is right behind me. He probably expects me to go low to avoid the bullets because that would make aiming at me more difficult while not reducing my ability to change direction and dodge.
I can't do what he expects me to, so I jump. I twist in mid-air to avoid the gun fire and pretend to aim at the two Joes, who promptly dive out of the way. I redirect one of my swords to slash the Commander's handcuffs and throw the other one towards one of the Joes, too low to catch anything else than his legs unless he's stupid enough to duck. I push the Commander towards the car the Joes were in. The other one is gone, presumably taken by the missing Baroness and Major. If we're lucky, the keys are still in the remaining car and he can drive off while the Joes try to prevent me from killing them.
I hear Snake Eyes right behind me again and his sword swishes through the air, aimed at my legs. I skip over it, barely clearing it, and roll right back to the ground, guessing he wanted me to go up. It turns out to be a good guess – he had his gun aimed up. It takes him about a quarter of a second to adjust, just enough for me to kick the gun out of his hands.
The thought crosses my head that I should have killed him – I'm not likely to get an opening like this again and in all likeliness, I've just made my last mistake. I clench my jaw – I won't hurt him. I'm not the traitor they all think I am.
I hear the engine of the car starting and the Joes curse, running and shooting towards it. I take out a few shurikens but I don't have time to aim before I throw them at the Joes – Snake Eyes is on me again, and I'm stuck devoting all my attention to blocking and evading again.
The car keeps going and the Joes eventually stop firing. They're still cursing, understandably enough. Snake Eyes is furious too, and increases the ferocity of his attacks again. My eyes widen and I only manage to block one out of his next three blows. I almost avoid the other two, but they graze my arms, drawing blood.
At this rate, I estimate I'll be dead in about 10 seconds. He is actually going to kill me – even now, I can't quite believe it. I hear the Joe with the huge arms behind me, but I don't have the luxury to do anything about him; I need to concentrate on Snake Eyes if I am to trump my own prediction.
I hear the other Joe's fists moving towards my head at the same time as Snake Eyes trusts his sword towards my abdomen. I twist to avoid the sword, but one of the punches catches me. Everything goes quiet.
Author's notes:
To the comic book fans: you're not imagining things, I'm deviating again. It just really worked better that way for this story. Having the Commander captured first and Storm Shadow rescue him as opposed to allowing him to escape in the first place was just slowing down the plot.
About Snake Eyes: I know he's not usually a particularly murderous ninja. I can't reveal exactly why he's so intent on killing him yet since Storm Shadow is not a telepath, but I promise I'm not just making him into a villain (I wouldn't, honest). Without spoiling, I can at least remind you that as far as Snake Eyes knows, Storm Shadow murdered his uncle and then proceeded to spend the next 8 years helping Cobra by, among other things, killing a lot of soldiers, some of them Joes.
I've mentioned several times that I really like reviews… well, as of last chapter, I'm expressing my gratitude to reviewers by sending them bonus material (deleted scenes, bonus scenes outside of Storm Shadow's POV, notes, insider knowledge, that kind of stuff). I send it by replying to the reviews, so I'm afraid I can't send anything for unsigned reviews. If you don't want to receive anything, you can still review – just say you don't want the bonus and I'll spare you from it. :D
Thanks for reading!