Cobra College

"Oh joy," Zartan remarked as the Cobras sat down at the conference room table at their newest base. "Another meeting. Just what we need."

"Why are we having a meeting?" Zarana complained. "These things are such a waste of time."

"Even more than the time Ripper had us catalog his bottle cap collection," Buzzer added.

"I had some good ones!" Ripper protested. "From rare beers from all around the world!"

"So, they're like stamps for alcoholics?" Blood Wing asked.

"As much fun as the other day was," Destro drawled. "We can't afford to rest on our laurels. Such as they are."

"I agree," Cobra Commander said. "Which leads me to my latest idea."

"Oh, dear God," The Baroness rolled her eyes. "What lunacy has come into your brain now?"

"This is never good," Firefly agreed.

"Especially if it's anything like the sea serpent plot," Destro nodded.

"Look! The sea serpent was a brilliant idea!" Cobra Commander snapped. "It just needed some fine tuning!"

"It needed to be thrown in the wastebasket," Destro glared at him.

"Okay I agree in hindsight we should have worked on it some more before setting that thing loose," Cobra Commander admitted. "Maybe some kind of voice or handprint recognition thing so it would know not to enslave me or any other top-ranking Cobra members? My point is, it wasn't the worst idea I've had!"

"No," Destro said. "The worst idea you had was trying to use a billion-dollar laser to try and carve your face on the moon!"

"That was not the worst idea," The Baroness said. "It was nowhere near as bad as the time he tried to attack GI Joe using cardboard troops and drones!"

"What about the fake UFO plot?" Zarana asked. "That one was really stupid!"

"I'd forgotten about that one," Destro paused. "No, the laser thing was worse. And Cobrathon was terrible!"

"That actually made us money!" Cobra Commander snapped.

"He's right," Mindbender nodded. "We lost our shirts in the Nozone caper."

"I was trying to force people to protect the environment!" Cobra Commander snapped. "Threatening to destroy the ozone layer was for their own good!"

"It didn't do our bank account any good," Tomax groaned.

"Although we lost much more when you built that amusement park Cobra World!" Xamot added.

"Hello?" Crystal Ball called out. "Giant vegetable army anyone?"

"God that was terrible!" Destro groaned.

"An absolute nightmare!" The Crimson Twins said as one.

"Definitely a wonky plan," Ripper added.

"Which he did twice!" Monkeywrench added.

"Even I knew that was stupid," Torch said.

"And he's an expert," Zartan pointed out.

"OKAY! I GET IT!" Cobra Commander snapped. "We've had a few ideas that didn't exactly cut the mustard!"

"You had ideas that turned the mustard completely rancid!" Destro snapped.

"Mustard can go bad?" Torch asked. "I didn't know that!"

"It's rare but it does happen," Mindbender told him. "An open jar of mustard can last up to two years if it's refrigerated."

"No wonder Torch doesn't know that one," Buzzer snickered. "An open jar of mustard barely lasts two minutes. He puts half the bottle on his sandwiches!"

"I like flavor," Torch snapped. "Sue me for having taste buds!"

"I thought those burned to oblivion the day you lot had a ghost pepper eating contest," Zarana remarked.

"Look I've come up with a foolproof way to get some extra cash," Cobra Commander told the group.

"Come up with your own jokes people," The Baroness remarked. "This one is too easy for me."

"You're just too easy period," Zartan quipped.

"I've been noticing a trend in the news," Cobra Commander decided it was best to ignore them now and torture them later. "The tuition of colleges is going up. And several schools are going online to make classes more affordable. In other words, this is a cash cow that is begging for Cobra to milk it!"

"You want to set up an online school?" Destro was stunned. "Now I've heard everything!"

"Hey if Donald Trump can do it, why can't I?" Cobra Commander asked.

Destro paused. "That's actually a legitimate question."

Cobra Commander went on. "But this will be a special kind of college. For people of our sort."

"Oh lord I see where this is going," The Baroness groaned.

Later that day…

On a TV screen was Cobra Commander. "Hello world! Cobra Commander here with a brief message!"

"Tired of the so called liberal elite colleges denying you your rights to education?" Cobra Commander asked. "Just because you don't have a billion dollars to take useless classes? Seriously? Intro to Poetry? Philosophy? Ethics? Calculus? Who uses this stuff?"

"If you're going to pay money to learn something, why not learn stuff you will really need in life? That's what Cobra College is for! Practical education at practical prices!"

"At Cobra College you will learn all the skills you need to have a successful future," Cobra Commander pointed at the list onscreen. "Classes like Embezzlement 101. Computer Hacking. Acting In Order To Fool A Rich Elderly Person. Con Artistry 103. Firearms Safety. How To Make Realistic Fake IDs For Fun And Profit. Lockpicking. Safecracking For Beginners. The Ethics of Arson and How to Ignore Them."

"And Calculus. Apparently, those in the mad science profession actually do use that. So yeah. We have that for the math nerds."

"And for those of you who shall we say lack the drive or ambition to become criminals," Cobra Commander added. "We also have a course where you can get a law degree. So, you can defend criminals. Preferably the high paying ones."

"Basically, the law degrees course is all the questions you need to know to pass the bar," Cobra Commander told the audience. "Why spend years prepping when you can only spend a couple of months studying? It's that easy!"

"But don't just take my word for it," Cobra Commander waved. "Listen to these testimonials!"

Then there was a shot of Ripper dressed in a brown suit and wearing regular glasses instead of his usual shades. "My life was on a path to nowhere," Ripper said in almost a wooden tone as he was clearly reading from some cue cards. "Until I signed up for Cobra College. Now I am a lawyer and make tons of monkey."

"Money!" Cobra Commander was heard hissing off camera.

"Oh, right money," Ripper nodded. "That makes much more sense. Thanks Cobra College!" He held up his thumb.

The next shot was Tiffany done up in a blue business pantsuit and glasses. "Thanks to Cobra College I went from robbing banks to managing one. Because of the teaching I received I can manage…"

Tiffany frowned. "You know, I don't want to be picky. But that word actually does look like monkey."

"Just read the line you…" Cobra Commander was heard hissing off camera.

Then it cut to the next testimonial. It was Zartan in a blond wig and glasses in a business suit. "Getting a law degree from Cobra College was the best decision of my life. I am now a successful lawyer."

"You're gonna need it with all the charges you've racked up mate," Torch was snickering off camera.

"Will you shut up you shaved…?" Zartan shouted.

Then another testimonial was on the screen. This time Buzzer was in a suit and not wearing sunglasses. "Cobra College gave me the law degree that not only led me to a rewarding career, it cut down on my sentence! Thanks Cobra College!"

Then the scene cut to Cobra Commander. "So why not give Cobra College a try? At twenty bucks a class, what do you have to lose?"

"Besides money and time?" Crystal Ball asked off camera.

"Will you…?" Cobra Commander turned.

That was when the commercial ended. The Cobras looked at the screen. "This was the best we could get?" Cobra Commander groaned.

"I'm amazed we got that!" Zartan told him.

"237 takes," Firefly groaned. "And those were the best scenes."

"Well," The Baroness groaned. "There's an afternoon of my life I can't get back."

"Would you even want it back?" Firefly asked.

"Okay fine," Cobra Commander sighed. "Our target audience isn't that bright in the first place. We'll just play it off as humor. Most of them will buy that. Then they can buy our classes."

"Yes," Destro drawled. "So that we can make a lot of monkey!"

"I have to admit," Zartan shrugged. "That word did look a lot like monkey. Who wrote those cue cards?"

"Me," Monkeywrench said.

"That explains it," The Baroness groaned. "Those cue cards were written by a monkey!"

"Speaking of monkey brained ideas," Destro let out a breath. "You do realize that even online colleges need actual courses with actual teachers?"

"Relax Destro," Cobra Commander waved. "Mindbender has that covered."

"All I had to do was edit and upload dozens of classes that Cobra used to teach," Mindbender waved. "I found them in this computer's memory banks. Apparently, this base used to be a Cobra Academy."

"That explains all the chalkboards on the walls," Zartan remarked.

"What about teachers?" Destro asked.

"Computer programs with realistic features of old Cobra professors we used to have," Mindbender shrugged. "Like an interactive video game."

"Won't those professors want to be paid for their likenesses being used?" The Baroness asked.

"That's the best part," Cobra Commander told them. "They're all dead. Apparently, there was a huge carbon monoxide leak right after a student uprising…"

"To be fair," Mindbender admitted. "How To Lead A Successful Student Uprising was one of the classes we used to teach. It's been discontinued. For obvious reasons."

"A carbon monoxide leak?" Zartan shouted. "Great! I'll sleep great tonight!"

"It's been fixed years ago, you baby," Mindbender rolled his eyes.

"Pity," Crystal Ball quipped.

"What about the bar answers that Cobra Commander promised?" The Baroness asked.

"All I have to do is hack into the computer that grades the exams," Mindbender told her as he typed something up on a computer. "Once I find it."

"Oh yes," The Baroness groaned. "This plan won't fail spectacularly!"

"We don't have to worry about that part until we get some actual students and they pay up!" Cobra Commander snapped. "The first couple of classes we can always just throw in some basic law trivia we can get from TV shows to buy us some time."

"How big are the class sizes?" Destro asked.

"Anywhere from one to a thousand," Mindbender said.

"Keeping the bar low I see," Destro remarked.

"All I have to do is upload this commercial onto the internet," Mindbender typed on the computer. "Using a simple tracing program of my own design combined with the servers and a double non-detecting algorithm I found in the computers here so we can't be traced. And we upload…Now."

"Good!" Cobra Commander beamed. "Now all we have to do is wait and…"

Just then the monitor started to fizzle. Then it went blank. "That's odd…" Mindbender frowned as he worked on his computer.

A beeping noise was heard. Destro took out the small data pad he used. "Is there a blind spot in this room? I've been disconnected from the internet."

The Crimson Twins took out their phones. "So have we…"

"It's not the devices or our location," The Baroness checked her phone. "They were working just fine before."

"There it is…" Crystal Ball rolled his eyes.

"What?" Mindbender asked.

"It could be just the Internet is down," Buzzer suggested. "That happens every now and then right?"

"Well yes if there is a vi…." Mindbender blinked. "Uh oh…"

"What do you mean by uh oh?" Destro asked.

"Let me just check something…" Mindbender worked on the computer. "Uh huh…"

"The screen is blank," Torch pointed. "That might be a problem."

"YOU THINK?" Zarana shouted.

"Oopsie," Mindbender blinked.

"What the hell does Oopsie mean?" Destro snapped.

"It means Mindbender screwed up," Torch spoke up.

"In the context of the situation!" Destro snapped. "HOW DID MINDBENDER SCREW UP?"

"Uh…Well…" Mindbender gulped as he worked on the computer. "It seems that I didn't do a very thorough job of checking the servers for back door viruses."

"How non-thorough are we talking about?" Cobra Commander asked.

"I didn't do any checking at all," Mindbender admitted.

"That doesn't sound very thorough to me," Crystal Ball quipped.

"I forgot about the sabotage program," Mindbender realized. "A secret virus built to infect any foreign computer that gets into this base's systems."

"What idiot thought up that idea?" Cobra Commander screeched.

Then he realized something. "Oh right…That one was mine."

"Yeah in case GI Joe hacked in," Mindbender nodded. "And their computers would crash."

"Well at least we know it works," Torch spoke up.

"I'm going to get a drink…" Destro turned around and left the room.

"That sounds like a good idea," Cobra Commander sighed as he followed him. "Mindbender try to fix this. And then go commit suicide…"

"I could help with that," The Baroness remarked.

The following day…

"Well the good news is that the internet is back up and running," Mindbender addressed the Cobras in the conference room. "The bad news is that a lot of computers aren't."

"Apparently, we caused more computers to crash than the latest security download for Windows," Zartan explained. "And those computers infected a lot of other computers."

"In other words," Destro paused. "We are responsible for a lot of online chaos."

"In a nutshell, yes," Mindbender nodded. "Apparently somehow we infected the computers of half of the governments of the world. Including the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, Japan, France, Spain…You get the gist."

"Really?" Cobra Commander was interested.

"A lot of government programs were shut down," Mindbender went on. "Social security. The DMV. Even the post office. Everything is just chaos."

"Oh," Cobra Commander was impressed. "Oh well. Sometimes there are such things as happy accidents."

"You're not mad anymore?" Firefly asked.

"Why should I be?" Cobra Commander shrugged. "Okay our college was a bust, but on the other hand in one fell swoop we crippled the governments of the world and proved that Cobra is a force to be reckoned with."

BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The base shook violently. "So is the Russian Army," Crystal Ball quipped. "They were able to track us down. Apparently, the Kremlin is a little miffed at our latest project."

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

"You said that program couldn't be traced back to us!" Zartan shouted.

"Obviously I was wrong," Mindbender gulped. "Apparently Russian computer experts are better than I anticipated."

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

"YOU THINK?" Zartan, Zandar and Zarana screamed as one as the base shook.

"And I'm back to mad!" Cobra Commander snapped.

"You know the drill!" Destro shouted over the sound of explosions. "Grab anything that looks valuable and head to the ship!"

"We just moved in!" Cobra Commander shouted as they fled for their lives. "I hate it when this happens!"

"I'm not too thrilled about this myself!" Destro barked.

"What kind of bird-brained outfit did I join?" Blood Wing snapped.

"I'm starting to think rejoining Cobra was a bad career move," Firefly groaned.

"Starting?" Zartan snapped. "I've had doubts since day one!"