G. I. Joe Fan Fiction ❯ A Snake with a Temper ❯ Chapter 14 Continued ( Chapter 18 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
Somewhere in Germany
Snake Eyes watched as an armored truck pulled through the two gates surrounded a secure prison, Einsargen. It was strange watching someone look so similar to him jump out of the vehicle and enter the prison. Staying in the grass, he waited for a few hours seeing nothing out of the ordinary until a man riding a motorcycle pulled up about a mile away from the first fence. The man pulled out a canister, twisted two of the opposite sides, and pulled outward. It looked as if scales coated the inside cylinder. Pushing a button on the container the scales popped off, revealing to be mechanical bugs. As they flew to the fence and lit up Snake Eyes noticed that they were fireflies. After swarming around the area the fireflies' light flickered. The flickering quickened until they all simultaneous exploded. The man rode forward, shooting the first fence with a torrent of bullets until nothing was left, then shot a missile at the second, giving him a clear path to the entrance of the prison. The man jumped off the motorcycle that came apart and propelled itself forward to the doors and exploded on impact. The man pulled a parachute cord and came to a stop in front of the fire. He took off the helmet, revealing a camo balaclava and pulled out two guns from the holsters at his hips. A few short minutes passed and three men exited the prison, Firefly, the Cobra Commander, and Storm Shadow. He pulled out a gun of his own and walked toward a helicopter that quickly made it's way down, gathered the package, and left before Snake Eyes could get close.

He arranged his own transportation and soon was back in Japan.
***
Somewhere in the Indus Valley
"Protocol says we make a distress call right?" Flint questioned.

"No, protocol died with the unit," Roadblock stated.

"What?" Flint muttered as he tried to keep up with Roadblock and Lady Jaye, "How's anybody gonna know we're alive?"

"They're not, 'cause we're not. To our government, to our families, especially to our enemy, we were KIA at 0600 hours in the Indus Valley desert," Roadblock explained.

"We have to at least try, I mean, there might be someone-" Flint started.

"No, anything we do know is a rumor of a rumor. Any and all traces of our existence is terminated. The only one I trust out there is Snake Eyes." At that Roadblock shouldered his gun and kept moving through the blazing heat. "When we got hit, how we got hit, we were set up right from the start."

"How many stars would somebody need on their shoulder to call an attack like that? Four? Five?" Flint asked.

"No, not stars. Buttons on his suit," Lady Jaye corrected. "National Security Advisor, Secretary of Defense"

"No," Roadblock started to say, "there's only one man who could authorize a strike like that and I voted for him."

They kept walking, eventually Lady Jaye headed the expedition, and heard something coming toward them. She held a fist up, motioning for the men behind her to stop. Glancing back she took her index and third finger and tapped her ear twice. As they listened they heard jets and all three of them got ready to fire their guns at the first sight of an enemy.

"Aerial threat down!" Roadblock commanded and they kneeled. As an airplane soared over them they followed the aircraft with their guns, still ready to shoot. Lady Jaye looked to Roadblock, then behind her where the airplane came from. The three of them marched up a small sand dune and pressed themselves to the ground, coming upon an airstrip with a dozen cargo planes.

"We're going home," Roadblock assured them.

Though they did not like the idea of stealing, desperate times called for desperate measures.
***
In Japan
Snake Eyes continued training Jinx along with the Blind Master. The Soft Master periodically checked up on him after they both heard the news of the massacre of the Joes. Snake Eyes tried to put off the feeling of loss, knowing that grieving would distract him from the matters at hand. He had seen many of his comrades die, many friends die, and family, but this hit was too close for comfort. He spent every waking moment, directing pain to a different emotion, mostly anger. He was going to make Cobra pay.

He put everything into his fight with Storm Shadow at the temple in the mountains, but it did little to put a dent in his need for revenge. They had gotten a signal from Lady Jaye, which Snake Eyes was glad to hear, but he knew Temper was not with him, nobody needed to say it, he knew. He did as he was asked and brought Tommy back to Japan, alive.

"If Cobra and Zartan are in the White House then the world is at stake," the Blind Master stated.
"Storm Shadow, you will tell us Cobra's end game." Snake Eyes and Jinx held him by the arms, which were bound together, and made him kneel in front of the Blind Master, who stood, and the Soft Master, who sat there watching.

"Or die, by the same sword you once used to kill our Master." The Blind Master turned, picked up a white sheath, and pulled out the blade. The end did not shine like the other half, which had the red Arashikage symbol, but instead was stained a rust red from dried blood. "Your sword-" The Blind Master held it up for everybody to see, then lowered it down, and walked across Tommy's path, the point of the blade passing just in front of his bruised and bloody face. He did not flinch, or blink. "-Given to you by our beloved Hard Master. Do you deny that your envy and hatred drove you to shed the Hard Master's blood?" the Blind Master asked, his back turned to the accused, holding the blade up in front of himself though he could not see the sword. The Blind Master turned the sword upside down, blade to the ground and planted it there in the grass.

"It's possible to feel so much hate you stop feeling it at all," Storm Shadow spoke, the first words he has uttered since coming into the temple he once lived in. He looked forward, remembering the day he lost his master, and tears brimmed his eyes, he still did not blink.

"Like a fish not knowing it's in water, but my path was chosen for me by my enemy. Who framed me for killing the Hard Master-" Tommy finally looked in a direction, to Snake Eyes, "-and my friends for believing it." He then looked to the Blind Master and Soft Master, who were once again side by side. "Why defend yourself to men too blind to see?" Tommy questioned and looked toward the white hilted sword in the ground. "That is the Hard Master's blood," he agreed, "but that is not-" Tommy lunged, rolled, grabbed the sword and swung it at Snake Eyes, who was already preparing for a fight. As the blades met in an x- form, Snake Eyes' sword was proved to be stronger as the one in Tommy's hand was cut in half. The blade flew in the air and penetrated the ground.

"Wait!" the Blind Master shouted holding his wooden staff up, not seeing the ordeal, but hearing it.

"-my sword," Tommy finished with his body crouched down, back to Snake Eyes.

With quick movements he flipped the dagger sized sword, effectively cutting the rope around his wrist and got up, looking to the Masters. Storm Shadow held what was left of the sword up for the occupants of the room to see. "Arashikage steel does not break," he pointed out.

The Soft Master's lips turned up in a smirk. The Blind Master let the staff drop, the sound of the wood vibrating could be heard in the silence of the room.

"I have asked myself over and over," Stormed shadow started, walking horizontally in front of the Masters,"who despised me enough to destroy my life?" As Storm Shadow got to the edge of the glass, he turned, looking to Jinx and Snake Eyes and then to the Blind Master.

"I am sorry Storm Shadow, but who would stand to gain the most by framing you for this crime?" the Blind Master questioned. As Storm Shadow stood there, forming the answer, the Blind Master went on, "Your young adversary who chased you away? Or the man into whose arms you were chased." Tommy remembered running, he remembered the man he ran to. "Someone who welcomed you, showed you kindness."

"He needed me," Storm Shadow informed, looking to the ground, "for who I would become. A warrior of great skill and anger. The man who betrayed me was capable of great ingenuity, violence, but most of all... disguise." The scene played out behind Tommy's eyes, the old, haggard man sticking the duplicate sword into his master and the man taking his mask off, revealing a mad much younger than the mask made him to be, bald, big nose, rounded chin.

"Zartan."

"Yes," the Blind Master agreed. "Tell what he and Cobra have planned, so we can destroy our common enemy, together."

"But before that," the Soft Master interjected, "I, as well as the Blind Master, sanctify the exoneration of Tomisaburo." The Blind Master nodded nodded once in confirmation.

"This trial is adjourned. Snake Eyes, Jinx, prepare to leave immediately for the location of the remaining Joes," the Blind Master ordered and walked out of the room, leaving Storm Shadow and the Soft Master.

"I require a set of clothes and weapons," Tommy informed him.

"They will be given to you. Have you heard the state of Temperance?" the Soft Master asked.

"Yes, I heard she was among the casualties of attack on the Joes."

"Cobra has also attacked the Pit, leaving more bodies in their wake. We must stop them." Storm Shadow bowed his head and turned to leave. "I am not finished," Tommy looked back, and went to sit in front of the Soft Master, "we still have much to discuss."