Python's Peak
"And again Mindbender, I have to remind you to keep your science projects in your lab where they belong instead of the break room!" Cobra Commander snapped as he headed another Cobra meeting.
"First of all not all of them were my projects," Mindbender huffed. "That stuff in the refrigerator belonged to the Dreadnoks!"
"We really gotta teach Torch not to leave his toe jam in the refrigerator," Zarana groaned.
"Ditto with Monkeywrench's explosives," Zandar agreed.
"Secondly they were authorized to be there," Mindbender added. "You wanted the break room redecorated right?"
"Not in zombie janitor splatter," Cobra Commander grumbled.
"Again that was the Dreadnoks," Mindbender huffed.
"Okay that was Ripper who got a little carried away," Zartan admitted. "And yes I know the Dreadnoks didn't have to use those grenades in the break room and I had a talk with them."
"Which takes care of Article Seven of the agenda," Cobra Commander interjected.
"So sorry Mindbender about destroying half of your mind controlled zombie janitors," Zartan rolled his eyes.
"Don't worry, I'll just make another run to Home Depot or two," Mindbender waved. "And FYI most of them were not technically zombies. Only a small amount of them were dead and reanimated using Cobra nanobots. Of course I suppose I can play around with a few limbs and make a few more Nano-Zombies…"
"Nano-Zombies?" Destro asked.
"That's what I call my new creations," Mindbender grinned. "Take some body parts, sew them all together, add some tiny microscopic computers and voila! You have an obendient happy group of workers. You just have to remember to power them down for four hours a day."
"Don't they…smell?" Zarana wrinkled her nose.
"Oh no, the nanobots take care of the rotting," Mindbender waved. "Even reverse it to a degree. Just have to power wash them once they finish working. Of course I still haven't figured out how to change their skin color back from green but other than that…"
"Not all of them are dead right?" Zero asked.
"No. There's a good chunk of them that are merely mind controlled," Mindbender waved. "See the ones that are not green we use where the public can see them and the others are behind the scenes. And best of all if someone from the first group dies…"
"Which inevitably happens at least once a day," Destro interjected.
"I just fix them up! Inject some nanobots and add it to the second group," Mindbender grinned.
"Well that's one way to be cost effective," Cobra Commander said. "I have to admit Mindbender in all the years I've known you, you never let anything go to waste."
"Well there was some bacteria but you know?" Mindbender shrugged. "That was part of the plan anyway…"
"Let's move on to Item 8," Cobra Commander went on. "Speaking of not letting things go to waste. I feel that it is time to recycle some old ideas and renew them. With a little tweaking the plans that failed in the past could work again today."
"You mean we're going to redo some of our old plans which failed miserably? Oh God…" Destro moaned. "Now we have struck the bottom of the barrel!"
"Look the important thing is that we learn from our mistakes!" Cobra Commander said.
"And boy did we make a lot of them," Zartan groaned.
"If that were true Cobra would be some of the smartest individuals on the bloody planet," Zarana added.
"Item One," Cobra Commander pressed on. "The Blizzardinator…"
"That stupid thing!" Destro barked.
"It was only the weather dominator stuck on one setting!" The Baroness complained.
"I almost got frostbite that week," Zandar grumbled. "Not that anyone cares…"
"It was a good idea we can use again!" Cobra Commander explained. "We can use the power of ice and snow to bring the Eastern Seaboard to a halt!"
"Didn't Mother Nature already beat us to it?" The Baroness asked.
"Well this year yeah!" Cobra Commander snapped. "But down the road…I don't see why that plan failed. It was a good plan."
"A good plan? Seriously? Oh for crying out loud…" The Cobras groaned.
"What? What was so bad about it?" Cobra Commander asked.
"For starters the fact that our Blizzardinator was in the middle of a desert could have been a huge tip off!" Destro barked.
"Seriously what were you thinking there?" Mindbender remarked.
"I thought it was brilliant!" Cobra Commander defended.
"Brilliantly stupid," The Baroness grumbled.
"Who would look for a snow making machine in the middle of the Sahara Desert?" Cobra Commander asked.
"Anyone with a weather satellite or had access to the International Space Station?" Destro raised an eyebrow.
"A very small group," Cobra Commander waved.
"A very small group that also had access to tanks and missiles!" Destro barked. "The GI Joes and the United States Army? Hello!"
"Not to mention all those scientists that could see that giant huge white spot in the middle of the Sahara desert," The Baroness snapped. "FROM OUTER SPACE!"
"They were showing pictures of that huge snowstorm in the Sahara on the eleven o clock news all over the world!" Mindbender protested.
"Okay! I hear what you're saying! So our problem last time was location! Got it!" Cobra Commander waved. "Next time we'll build it in Antarctica or somewhere else where it will blend in. Moving on…Remember the sea serpent we had built to rob ships of their wealth?"
"Oh God no! How could you forget that monstrosity?" Destro yelled.
"Relax Destro I've been going over my own plans and this time we will eliminate the flaws that were in the original design," Mindbender waved.
"And by flaws we mean that this one is going to be programed to obey me and not enslave me!" Cobra Commander snapped.
"You know this one is going to bite you in the ass again right?" The Baroness groaned.
"Again we move on," Cobra Commander said. "Now remember Chicago and the giant plants?"
"Oh no…" The entire group moaned as one.
"Even I would think twice about doing that experiment again!" Mindbender snapped.
"Well you don't have to," Cobra Commander said. "I tweaked the formula and started the experiment myself so…"
"You?" Destro did a double take.
"I am one of Cobra La's greatest scientists remember?" Cobra Commander gave him a look.
"Actually that part always eludes me for some reason," Destro admitted.
"Me too," Mindbender nodded. "I just can't see him in a lab."
"Exactly. Like can you picture the Commander wearing a lab coat?" Zero asked.
"Pretty hard to imagine," Zarana admitted.
"Anyway…" Cobra Commander pressed on. "I changed the formula around so that the plants aren't thirty feet tall but human sized. There is a very good possibility that with the right conditions they could be grown into weapons for Cobra!"
A buzzer sounded. "WHAT?" Cobra Commander pushed a button on his wrist communicator. "I'm in a meeting here!"
"Commander! The plants! The plants they….AAAAAAAAAAAAHH!" A blood curding scream was heard.
"Speaking of things biting us in the ass…" The Baroness rolled her eyes.
"Let me take a guess," Cobra Commander sighed as he spoke into the communicator. "The plants have grown faster than expected. Mutated into some kind of killing fields and are currently tearing apart the lab? Am I right?"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" The dying screams of the unknown flunky could be heard.
"I hate it when this happens," Cobra Commander groaned.
"Commander? Where exactly did you put the formula? You didn't put it in our water system did you?" Destro realized.
"So that when the greens keepers water the lawn and shrubs they'd turn into monsters and eat the guests? No! I'm not that stupid!" Cobra Commander snapped. "I only put it in the lower sprinkler reserve system."
"Wait you put that formula in the lower sprinkler reserve system?" Mindbender did a double take.
"Yeah. That water doesn't go outside the base or into the hotel," Cobra Commander waved.
"But it does go into the greenhouse!" Mindbender shouted. "You know? Where we're growing all the pot!"
"Uh oh," Cobra Commander blinked.
Another beep resounded from a phone on the table. Cobra Commander pressed the button for the speaker. Out came screams and yells of terror and limbs being torn apart. "That is never a good sign," Cobra Commander groaned.
Not long afterwards they were looking at the blood stained walls of the greenhouse. "Great. This is going to wreck our budget isn't it?" Cobra Commander groaned.
"Oh dear…" Destro winced. "Do you know the statistic that pot never really killed anyone?"
"Yes," Cobra Commander asked.
"Can't say that anymore," Destro groaned.
"Oops," Cobra Commander gulped.
"If you are one of the greatest scientific minds of Cobra La this explains why your race is going extinct," The Baroness gave him a look.
"I don't recognize what's left of the guys over here," Zarana pointed to some corpses on the floor.
"I do. Those two guys are some buyers for distributing our pot in Colorado," Zero winced. "Yeah this will not be good for our ratings."
"Ratings?" Destro asked.
"Yeah. You know how wine has ratings?" Zero said. "We were making our own high end brand. We call it Python's Peak."
"Well the pythons have peaked all over this lab," Destro looked around. "Someone's still alive!"
"Uhhhhh…" Vapor was lying on the floor, his left arm was gone. All that was left was a bloody stump. "Dude…Once my high wears off I am going to be so pissed…"
"Well that's lucky," Cobra Commander said.
"Dude! I lost an arm!" Vapor yelled.
"Don't worry. Mindbender can make you a replacement one," Cobra Commander waved.
"Would you like a robotic arm or a more natural one?" Mindbender asked cheerfully.
"A little tip dude," Zero said. "Go for the robot one."
"Where are all the plants?" Zartan looked around.
Screams were heard down the hallway. "Oh great…" Cobra Commander groaned. "There goes my four o clock massage!"
"Mindbender take Vapor to your lab and fix him up," Destro ordered. "The rest of you grab a flamethrower and follow me!"
"I'm going to grab a Harvey Wallbanger and go the opposite way," Cobra Commander said.
Later that day….
"So, is that little problem all taken care of?" Cobra Commander asked as he finished his drink in his office. The other Cobra High Command was there covered in blood, plant stains and scratches.
"Well the good news is we stopped the killer plants before they made their way to the hotel," Zartan sighed. "So no more guests were killed."
"And the bad news?" Destro groaned.
"We lost a chunk of our new troops and half of accounting," Zartan gave him a look.
"More fodder for the Zombie Janitor Squad," The Baroness quipped. "Cleaning up their own brains off the floor. How ironic."
"Ugh! I hate it when mishaps at work cut into my profits," Cobra Commander grumbled.
"I don't think all the people maimed and dead appreciate these mishaps either," Destro gave him a look.
"Hey Cobra has comprehensive health care which is more than what half of the country has!" Cobra Commander pointed out. "Anyone gets injured they get the best and most radical treatment they can take to either get on their feet again or…Well let's just say Cobra has a lot of job openings that can be readily filled."
"And I was able to use one of my mutated limbs I grow in the lab to give Vapor a new arm! Bingo Bango!" Mindbender said cheerfully.
"Is it at least a human arm this time?" Destro asked.
"Mostly," Mindbender shrugged. "I mean there are scales on it and kind of light green but no claws. And it's twice as strong as before. Thanks to my years of research and free experimentations with nanobot surgery, he's good to go!"
"And all on Cobra's dime to boot," Cobra Commander said cheerfully. "You have to admit it's better than Obamacare!"
"And that's the truly frightening part," Destro sighed.