G I JOE - BACK TO REALITY - CH17
"It's time to finally put you both out of your misery!" Cobra Commander's fingers danced across the computer keyboard as he observed his enemies on the monitor screen in front of him.
And then the virtual nightmare for Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes began.
With the darkness that forever brood inside Cobra Commander's mind, the potential for his enemies demise was limitless. Whatever he thought, in this artificial world - it came true, utterly, horrifically true!
The room changed. The dojo shattered like mirror glass and became a demented world filled with only what belonged in a psychopathic mind, and Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes were thrown into this hostile world. The sky became blood red, the ground erupted into jagged, cracked rock, with the colour texture of volcano stone, and standing before them was Billy, wearing a SS Nazi uniform.
The teen looked at the duo with sinister disdain and hate, dwelled with programmed emotion. This was not the Billy either one of them knew. The true Billy was arrogant, and living in San Francisco. And he was a young man in his early twenties. But this was obviously the boy's father's attempt to reconstruct his son to what he wanted, envisioned, remembered, and what better way than to imply a persona of a World War 2 SS Nazi officer, the most hated people in history. Only Cobra Commander would think of that!
But it was also very symbolic. During WW2, kids were forced to serve the Third Reich, their childhoods ripped from them in war. And making Billy an SS officer, one of the highest in rank amongst the Third Reich, only went to prove Cobra Commander still held his son in high regard - his only son! A father never truly hated his child, even after his son betrayed, abandoned, and disowned him.
"Watch it, Snake Eyes...anything can happen here!" Storm Shadow warned his friend, and Snake Eyes, again mute, nodded in agreement.
Each began to circle around Billy. They were unarmed, but a ninja didn't need weaponry. The body was its own weapon, and with a sharp mind, there was no enemy that a ninja couldn't defeat!
But Billy didn't appear hostile, other than what he was wearing. He merely watched the two ninja as they surrounded him and looked back and forth from the other. Billy wore a gun belt to don with his light gray Nazi uniform, but nothing else.
The real Billy Storm Shadow knew didn't need a weapon. Despite blind in one eye and one artificial leg, Billy's ninja skills were masterful. He could hold his own without the need of external devices. Storm Shadow knew this because he had trained Billy himself to be a great warrior and a ken to his marital arts abilities. This Billy also was injured in either his left eye, or assumingly had an artificial right leg.
"Why do you hesitate, Cobra Commander?" Storm Shadow said. It was obvious his enemy was listening benevolently. "Why purpose does this image serve?"
Storm Shadow heard the Cobra leader chuckle like a god in the sky. "That I can do whatever I please, Thomas Arashikage," Cobra Commander said. "Turning your student, my son, into one of the most hated people in history...the irony is uncanny, don't you think?"
"The doesn't frighten us. We know this world isn't real. And what isn't real can't harm us."
"Oh, but you're wrong about that! I turned the safety off. You're just as vulnerable in that world than in the real world. You can bleed, and die! And you're utterly at my mercy. You can't escape!"
"There's always an escape to every predicament, Cobra Commander," Storm Shadow said. "Bring it on!"
"Indeed." Firefly mused as he stood behind Cobra Commander at the computer console. "Are you going to kill them, or just parade your son in pompous drab?"
"Watch your mouth!" Cobra Commander spat back. "My immediate intentions are mere formality, a fear factor, if you will. I have them right where I want them. I can take all the time I need."
"I'd just kill them and get it over with. No theatrics, no melodrama, no savoring the kill - just cold-blooded murder!"
"I'm much more civilized than that."
Firefly chuckled softly.
Cobra Commander swiveled in his chair to face Firefly. Firefly swallowed. The Commander's eyes narrowed with disdain and coldness as he looked at Firefly. He blue eyes looked like two tiny ice picks. "Care to share the joke? You believe me to be a sadistic psychopath?"
"Not at all," he lied. "I just believe in getting immediate results."
"Ha!" Cobra Commander turned back. "Like when I paid you a ton of cash to murder Snake Eyes in Japan when he was living with the Arashikage Clan? I had to hire Zartan because you couldn't get the job done. And now, several years later I'm about to finish the contract I put on Snake Eyes life with finality. The old axiom is true: If you want something done right, do it yourself."
"Let me redeem myself, Commander. Let me go into the program and kill them. Free of charge."
"Ha! Nothing with you is free! But, if you do manage to kill them, I'll give you a sizable bonus."
Firefly grinned beneath his mask. Then went to the BWS and attached electros to each of his temples, slipped on a VR visor, and entered the VR world created by Cobra Commander.
"You're such a fool, Firefly. Now I can kill you too for your miserable failure!" Cobra Commander's fingers moved over the keyboard. "I'll kill all my enemies in one final swoop!"
"But Commander, Firefly is our ally!" Slice said. Still chained to the wall, he struggled slightly to free himself but to no avail.
"A man of my stature and position has no allies, I live for myself, my goals, and nothing else!" Cobra Commander continued to add new parameters into the matrix of his VR world with the insertion of yet another player. Firefly would not be easily swayed by the horrors this world could summon, so Cobra Commander would have to use his imagination. And he had plenty of that. Only he called it "vision"!
to be continued...