Author's note: As much fun as writing this story has been, this will be the last chapter. However, the next installment in my version of the Misfitverse should be up in a few weeks, as well as updates to Mama Zarana.
Disclaimer: The Dreadnoks and any other G.I. Joe characters that make it into this story are the property of Hasbro. Lady Mastermind, Mimic, and Thunderbird belong to Marvel. Leathersuit and Virus are property of L1701E. Atlantis, Eventide, Chaos, Golem, and Corona are my own creations. No profit is gained from the writing of this story.
Learning to Breathe
70. Sight Unseen
There always seemed to be something to wait for on base these days. Waiting for the kids to get their collective asses in gear first thing in the morning. Waiting for the film crew to show up. Waiting for the film crew to leave in the afternoon so the team could get some training/schoolwork/real work done. Like it or not, Zarana soon discovered that waiting was a part of the group's daily routine in the two months she and Zandar spent with them.
That being said, waiting to be looped in to a video conference called by an irate Cobra Commander didn't fit with her new usual schedule.
"Does he honestly think we're stupid enough to let the general public know who we really are?" The pink-haired female Dreadnok grumbled at Zartan over the screen. His end of this impromptu conference was already rigged for video chat.
"Given the track record of the other Dreadnoks, probably." Her older brother admitted. "Especially where Torch and Ripper are involved."
"Yeah, but they're not involved here!" She growled. "We hide the 'work' vehicles, throw on disguises, and don't let the kids use their powers on-screen. Only someone who knows what our kids look like is gonna make the connection back to us. How did he find out about this, anyway?"
"I believe the Baroness may have been the one to tip him off, but that's beside the point." Zartan remarked. "Look, all we have to do is make the Commander see what a great opportunity this is for Cobra's financial wellbeing. This shouldn't be difficult, since no one has come up with a decent scheme in months."
"This drought keeps up, we may as well take the kids and do things our own way for a bit." His sister replied with a slight chuckle. "We can hide in plain sight until Fang-Face gets his act together again."
"Somehow I doubt he'd be entirely opposed to not dealing with the Dreadnoks or Shadowatch for a few months." He shrugged. "We'll see what we can learn from this meeting and work from there."
With a soft electronic pop, Cobra Commander's masked face appeared on the other screen before her. Today he wore the featureless metal mask rather than a cowl, no doubt in an attempt to intimidate her. It would have worked, if she didn't know how incompetent the man behind the mask tended to be. "What is the meaning of this?" He hissed in annoyance.
"You tell me. I'm not the one who called a meeting." Zarana folded her arms across her chest.
"Do not mock me, woman!" The masked man shouted, his high, slightly nasal voice grating her eardrums. "How could the two of you permit those little delinquents to go on national television?"
"First of all, it's a local cable channel that only broadcasts to the immediate area." Zartan clarified. "No one outside of Illinois knows about the show."
"You revealed the location of the base!"
"Again, all the cameras see is the motorcycle garage and some of the 'employees'." Zarana frowned. "Almost all of us adults wear masks. The kids that need 'em wear holographic image inducers disguised as jewelry. The stuff we really work on is in one of the sub-basement storage areas, along with the service 'bots." Burn-Out was a strong man, but he couldn't always get in to fix things on objects like tanks or airplanes (which had a tendency to be rather cantankerous to work with). For that, he kept three repair drones (well cared for, but several years behind the current models at the Terror dome) affectionately called Socket, Wheel-Jack, and Fritz. Socket and 'Jackie' worked pretty well, but something was constantly wrong with Fritz's electrical system, hence its name. "The public doesn't see anything we don't want 'em to see!"
"Not to mention Burn-Out's garage is a legit business in its own right." Zartan added. "It brings plenty of money into the organization."
"Whose, mine or yours?" Cobra Commander frowned.
"Figure it out." Zartan smirked arrogantly. The Commander scowled under his metal helmet and shook his head. He would worry about the Dreadnoks' cash flow later. Right now, he had more pressing problems.
"You should have gotten approval before…"
"Since when have we needed your approval for our personal projects?" Zarana spat. "Destro never asks before selling crap to other terrorists or countries. The Crimson Twins certainly don't ask when they decide to invest your money in the stock market. Mindbender doesn't ask when making new experiments, although after the Serpentor II debacle, he probably should! At least our stuff in Chicago isn't doing your precious Cobra agency any harm!"
"The Twins have been doing WHAT?" Cobra Commander pounded his closed fist against the desk angrily.
"Oh, that's been going on for a few years now." Zartan smirked, rather pleased at being able to uncover that tidbit of information. "In addition to wasting their budget with needless luxuries, they have apparently been using funds from one of your accounts to buy stocks."
"Bad stocks." Zarana added. "Lost a couple thousand last quarter, at least."
"That is unacceptable!" The masked man hissed angrily, momentarily forgetting about anything else. To think they had so recklessly done things with HIS finances… "Those two will be made to suffer for this!"
"Does this mean we can keep filming?" Zarana inquired, trying to take advantage of the Commander's latest tantrum. He could sometimes be made to agree to rather stupid ideas while in the middle of a hissy fit. "At least until our contract runs out, anyway." Unless the show was canned, in which case they would go back to their lives before the cameras invaded their home.
"Yes, of course." Cobra Commander answered in a very distracted tone. "Now, if you will excuse me…" The screen suddenly turned to static, indicating that he had left the chat in favor of tearing into the Crimson Twins.
"Well, that went better than I expected." She shrugged, looking to her older brother through the monitor. "You really think these kids can keep everything under wraps for a full TV season?"
"If the ratings hold up, I don't see why not." He answered. "They're smarter and better behaved than the Dreadnoks, and most of them love the idea of seeing their faces on TV. Not to mention Burn-Out is loving it. Business for his garage has increased significantly thanks to the show. And I'm not talking T-shirt sales. It's good for us, because his garage brings money to the Dreadnoks."
"Guess ratings are another thing I have to wait for." She grumbled, pinching the bridge of her nose. Impatient by nature, all of this 'hurry up and wait' crap was starting to get on her nerves.
"No need to be so dramatic about it." Zartan reassured, a knowing look on his face. "You didn't think you'd be patient enough to deal with them when they moved in, and now look at you. And I'm sure the show will be fine. I've been hearing word it's been doing well with viewers, so I'm optimistic."
"I guess you're right." She sighed, doing a bit of mental arithmetic. "Cor, has it really been a year already?"
"Hard to believe, isn't it?" He remarked. "They've come a long way."
"Still got a long way to go, what with these other teams supposedly starting up." Shadowatch was hardly the only teenage team in the world anymore. "They're gonna have to step up their game; the other groups are older than our kids."
"Physically, I suppose, but our kids are more mature." It was hard not to grow up fast in this business, and the kids were up to their necks in it. The other groups trained in basic combat; Shadowatch trained to kill. "No second-rate group of older teens is going to get one up on them." Now a group of adults…that was a different story entirely. He would have to work with them to improve on that. "In the meantime, we'll continue training them the way we have from the start and rotate which of us stays with them every few months."
"Good." She snorted in satisfaction. She liked the kids, she really did, but some days they made her want to pull her hair out at the roots. And speaking of kids she liked… "Any word on how much longer Zanya will stay gone?" Her niece was on her first long-term solo job, and while she trusted the teenager's ability to complete the mission, she still worried.
"She'll come back for a few weeks over the summer and during the winter semester break, but aside from that, she stays put until either we have to go to her, or she needs to come home." He sighed. She knew that not having his only child close by was starting to bother him.
Of course, he couldn't let it bother him for long and they all knew it. He'd volunteered to mentor the most stubborn and temperamental member of the group. Not that she hadn't wanted to take the kid for herself; the girl was smart, much smarter than most people realized. However, as the girl was also proving to be a great pain in her ass, Zarana decided that her brother could keep his new 'apprentice', as it were. "How long you reckon it'll be before our competition tries to copy our new 'winning formula'?" She asked, trying to keep a serious expression on her face…and not quite succeeding. The mental image of some of their rival terrorist groups trying to rein a group as wild as Shadowatch was fairly comical.
"Believe me, if the Joes had enough superhumans, they would have already formed a training squad." He snorted. "Call the kids in here; I have some new instructions for them."
Epilogue (sorta):
The kids were gathered in the communications room—which proved to be a rather tight fit with the whole team squeezed into the area-, all anxious to find out what the video conference was about. On the screen before them, Zartan took a moment to survey the group before he began speaking.
"These are your new orders. Any blatant disregard for them will result in swift and severe punishment."
The scene fades to an event in the not too distant future. Some of the kids are filming on-location at a local zoo, apparently doing a PSA for animal conservation. Everyone needing one is wearing an image inducer, and everyone is on the best behavior they can muster.
"You are to continue filming this television series for as long as it will run. Be careful to hide your true identities from everyone."
Another scene involving the kids and their handlers appears, this one at a football stadium. Everyone seems to be enjoying the game, be they cheering on their favorite team (rather loud and violently in Andi's and Steve's cases) or stuffing their faces with hotdogs and popcorn—much to a local vendor's joy. For all practical purposes, they look like a normal group of teens and chaperones reveling in a day spent away from school.
"Blend in with the world around you; don't give local law enforcement any concrete evidence of your existence. However, you will become the stuff of legend to every street gang and would-be truck robber on your end of town. Protect the supply shipments that go in and out of the base, but let no one know you are the ones doing it. All will respect you, yet none must be able to identify you."
In the dead of night, a local gang faction attempts to attack one of the tractor-trailers hauling Cobra supplies to the base. A group of black-clad figures appear out of the shadows, faces obscured from view by masks and hoods. Soon, a conflict ensues and the hooded figures easily gain the upper hand. The robbers depart empty-handed.
"You will bide your time, patiently waiting for your opportunity to strike. Rest assured, it will come; mutants and super-humans can't hide from the general public for much longer."
A full year into the future, the team stands in the media room, all eyes glued to the television screen as mutants are exposed on national television. Everyone watches with baited breath as the X-Men and Brotherhood fight the Sentinel robot.
"Other organizations will try to copy our success with teams of their own, some getting their people together much sooner than others. You will come into conflict with them; there is no way around it. Some of them might even be old friends or family members who know you well, but there should be no hope for them to match you."
Another year later, the female half of the team take up battle positions inside the training room of the main Terror Dome. Their male counterparts watch intently as several of Magneto's Acolytes—including a murderous-looking Bolt—prepare to fight them. Cortez launches the first attack, and the fight begins…almost immediately becoming one-sided. Pyro is subdued with little effort, and Corona handily contains Bolt with a forcefield.
"They will, most likely, be older and have access to better training equipment. While they might appear to be stronger on paper, however, they shouldn't stand a chance against you. You don't fight fair or pull punches, and you certainly won't rely solely on your powers. In fact you will, by then, be just as proficient with power-free combat and weaponry as you are at using your powers. We will see to that personally, and it will be what sets you apart from them."
The girls are thoroughly trashing the Acolytes, much to the chagrin of the older mutant males. With Pyro out of commission, only Corona and Eventide need to actively use their powers. In fact, it is Eventide's agility and strength that allows her to best both Ramrod and Ramfist, causing them to take each other out. Atlantis takes on Cortez, pinning him to the ground in swift, fluid motions and holding a bowie knife to his throat. Corona and Lady Mastermind team up, and between the two of them manage to take out Bolt. Begrudgingly, the Acolytes (the ones still conscious, anyway) surrender. All of this while several figures watch from the command center…
"Some of these other players will try to coerce you over to their side. They may threaten you, or offer you wealth, or try to get you to buy into their 'sales pitch'. Whether or not you accept is up to you."
After the fight, in the hallways outside the training room, Magneto extends an open hand out to Atlantis, asking her to join his team of Acolytes. The entire team waits for her decision, none looking thrilled at the prospect of working with the Master of Magnetism. They all look from their leader, to Zarana (who is standing nearby), and then at Magneto before starting the rotation up again.
"But know this: they may promise you many things, but they can't hope to recreate what you have here. We may not have the best equipment or noble dreams, or even a moral compass, but that was never what brought you this far or made you this strong. You were underdogs looking for a second chance; strays in need of a home; orphans in search of some semblance of family. While we can't promise you very much here, you know we will always find a way to get you what you need."
They don't need to wait too long; she spits into Magneto's open hand, glaring venomously at him before turning on her heels and leading her team in the opposite direction. A proudly smirking Zarana falls into step with the group, much to Magneto's ire.
"For now, continue doing what you have been doing and follow these instructions."
The scene fades back to the present day, with the kids all intently focused on the screen in front of them.
"You really think we'll be that good?" Neal asked timidly, a slight frown of concern on his face. He just didn't see how they could pull something like this off.
"We might, if nobody knows we exist besides the Joes and SHIELD." Regan answered, thinking things over. "Aside from Andi's dad, the big players in the mutant underground don't know about us, my absent father included. We can use that to our advantage."
"As it is currently one of the only advantages you have, I strongly suggest you do use it." Zartan remarked. "Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, boss." The kids chorused.
"Keep up the good work and try not to kill each other. Zartan out." The Dreadnok leader stated just before the screen went blank.