Chapter 5: Cobra

Fred XII took a deep breath when the crimson guardsmen who had been disposing of the guards surrounding the Hauser house signalled the course was clear. He had read his predecessor's reports and had been briefed on what had happened at the party, and he was not looking forward to starting his assignment of passing himself off as the girl's boyfriend and picking up where Fred XI had left off. Not looking forward to it at all.

He reminded himself of how well he was getting paid for this, took out the key he'd been given for the front door and let himself in. He silently made his way to the stairs, climbed them just as quietly, and soon found himself in front of the girl's bedroom door. He slipped in the room to find his quarry fast asleep. He tiptoed to the bed and softly called her name.

She snored in answer.

He put one hand on her mouth and shook her awake. She cried out in his hand, but her startled expression changed to delight when she saw him and she sprang up to hug him tightly.

"You escaped!" she exclaimed happily.

His eyes widened and he quickly covered her mouth again, putting a finger to his lips. "Shh!" he urged. "Your parents!"

Her eyes widened too and she nodded to indicate that she understood. He took his hand off her mouth and tried to listen out for any sign that the Hausers may have woken up. He didn't get a chance to focus on that for very long, however; Heliksa started whispering and his role required that he pay attention.

"Oh, my love, I was so worried!" she said. "I feared that revealing my destiny to me had cost you everything!"

Fred carefully hid his confusion; the report he'd read mentioned nothing of the sort. He quickly decided to just assume that his intel on the last interactions between his predecessor and the General's niece was unreliable.

"Firecat my darling," he said in a whisper, imitating her melodramatic tone, "I honestly don't know what I managed to tell you. I thought I was losing you, and I was in such a panic! I don't want to repeat myself needlessly now; time is not on our side. Tell me what is already clear, and ask any question you want."

She smiled at him. "Oh, Frederick, you didn't need to say much. I know you so well that everything fell into place very quickly."

He nodded exactly as if he'd had any idea what she was talking about. She certainly appeared to still be enamoured with him, which bode well for his talking her into joining Cobra. He just needed not to mess up so badly that she'd notice.

"My first realization was that this was never about my uncle," she said, still whispering. "I was Cobra's objective all along."

Fred didn't have time to decide whether he should contest that 'realization' or whether it was for the best that the girl was so self absorbed as to think that; Heliksa was still talking.

"Secondly, although this is hardly a new realization since I've known since we've met, you love me with all your heart."

Well, this at least was familiar territory; it was precisely what he had been ordered to pretend. He seized her closest hand and gave it a kiss.

"It's obvious to me that an evil person could never love someone like me; evil does not love goodness and beauty. Therefore, you must be good. It also follows that you must be a good judge of character, since you knew from the start that we belonged together."

The crimson guardsmen once again struggled not to let his face show his thoughts; at that precise moment, he was thinking of witches weighing the same as ducks and having a hard time not laughing. Unable to think of a suitable response, he squeezed her hand and looked her in the eyes.

"You told me all was not what it seemed," Heliksa continued, still mercifully whispering. "It was all you needed to say, my love. I know you meant that Cobra was not the evil they appear to be, and I know that you would not be wrong in that."

"Your genius is one of many things I love about you," Fred XII said, delighted. At this rate, getting Heliksa to follow him and join Cobra would be a piece of cake. In fact, he was starting to allow himself to hope she had already convinced herself for him.

She graced him with a smile and continued. "Cobra needs me, doesn't it?" she asked. "Despite the appearances, you're trying to do something good, something important. And you need my help."

Fred XII mentally shrugged. Whatever floated the girl's boat was fine with him. She'd find out soon enough how wrong she was and at that point, she'd still be made to stay and she'd still eventually be killed.

"Desperately," he said in answer to her assertion that Cobra needed her help. "You're not like everyone else, my love. There is nobody else who can save us."

She took on a serious expression and nodded gravely. "Can you take me to Cobra now?" she asked.

He nodded in a way that he hoped she'd see as determined and heroic. She got up, revealing a frilly nightgown. "Let's go," she said. "Lead the way, my love. Take me to my destiny!"

He briefly debated whether to suggest she put on some clothes but decided against it; she was clearly quite happy to leave right away, and he had been instructed to feed her taste for drama. He took her hand and guided her out of the house and to his car. She leaned over and kissed him when they sat down in the car. As required by his role, he kissed back, happily thinking that this assignment would be over soon and enjoying her temporary silence.

Heliksa could feel her heart hammering as Frederick drove them off into the night, towards her new life.

She opened her window and threw her head back, breathing in the night air. This was Firecat's first breath… taken at high speed, in the dead of the night, with her love by her side. It was just so perfect.

She would not have been able to say how long the drive was; it seemed as though they were walking into an abandoned mall mere seconds after they left her house. Her breath caught when she stepped through the door, leaving the dark and decrepit parking lot for a bright hub of activity, filled with men in uniform and strange machines. She felt herself filled anew with a great sense of purpose, and smiled as some of the men gazed at her. They were quick to focus back on their various tasks, but she caught a gleam in their eyes; they knew she was the answer to their prayers, and only their dedication drove them back to their work when they were no doubt dying to throw themselves at her feet instead.

Frederick, wasting no time, guided her straight to an ornate door.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

She nodded firmly, grinning. He knocked on the door and upon hearing an invitation to do so, they let themselves in.

She stood tall as she stepped into the office of the man who so desperately needed her help to save the World. She was quite excited, but felt it was important to remain composed and to exude calm and grace in order to make the Commander feel safe and comfortable.

The Commander was standing by a window, hands joined behind his back and looking out into the darkness of the night. He turned his head towards them and his whole body relaxed at the sight of her.

"Miss Hauser…" he said. His voice was filled with wonder and just like the rumours said, he extended the s sounds, giving his voice a uniquely snake-like quality.

She swallowed and nodded. "Commander. I understand you are in desperate need of my assistance."

The man turned fully towards her and nodded firmly. "Yes. But first, you need to send your family a message. You may not have the chance to contact them again for a long time."

Heliksa felt her heart hammering harder and harder. It was all so serious… one could tell that her mission, her purpose, was vital to Cobra and thus to the World. And the Commander, even though he was obviously deeply moved by her presence, simply exuded urgency and authority.

"I appreciate your solicitude," she said, "but I could never let my family interfere with our objectives and endanger the whole of humanity. I knew I was leaving my loved ones forever when I left my house, and I am ready."

The Commander, obviously shocked by her dedication, took a moment to compose himself. It was remarkable how clear his emotions were to her, despite the mirror mask that hid his face and his rigid posture, which gave nothing away to her eyes. She realized at that moment that their minds were connected; she could read him like a book. Like a wonderful, unimaginably amazing book.

It was only through a great effort of will that the Commander refrained from strangling both the silly girl and Fred XII on the spot; for the Hauser brat to be so gung ho on getting to work right this second, the crimson guard had to have overdone the whole idea that Cobra was actually fighting for the good of mankind. It wouldn't have been a problem as such, no more than the fact she obviously thought she was personally needed, but as long as the girl refused to send a video message to her parents and uncle, he'd have to keep up the little game, and he had absolutely no desire to do so; he'd kept up this kind of act for three years the last time, and he was STILL sick of it.

"I insist," he hissed, quickly improvising an argument. "One cannot gain strength from immoral actions, and allowing your family to think that misfortune befell you would certainly be reprehensible. It will take but a few minutes to fulfill your family obligations, freeing your mind and your soul to then assist me."

Heliksa opened her mouth to protest, but the Commander put up his hand. "I insist," he repeated. "Miss Hauser, you do realize that I will, in the future, ask much more difficult things of you? Would you really start refusing me now?"

Her eyes widened slightly and, for reasons he didn't care to guess at, she smiled. "Of course not, Commander," she said, shaking her head slightly. She turned to the young man replacing the one who had been pretending to be her boyfriend. "Frederick, would you show me the way?"

"Of course," the siegie replied with a smile, offering his arm.

The girl took it and off they went. The Commander sat back at his desk and started going through some of his files on his latest plan.

The couple was back a mere ten minutes later. They knocked, and Fred XII asked to be let in with the assurance that the recording was made. The Commander smiled; he was now free to stop his little act. Heliksa did not need to be a willing trooper to be put on the front lines and get herself killed, after all.

"Come in," he called back, his voice genuinely happy.

Heliksa followed Frederick in the office, smiling. The Commander was sitting at his desk this time, poring over files that she could easily guess were about her.

"Did you tell your parents that you were going to serve Cobra of your own free will?" he asked the moment they came in the door.

"Of course. I explained everything. Rest assured that they will understand and share my devotion to Cobra."

The Commander laughed then, so great was his joy that Firecat was now free of the bonds of her previous life. She felt her heart hammering again and, unable to deny the connection she shared with the leader of Cobra any longer, turned to Frederick. He deserved her honesty.

"Oh, Frederick," she said softly. "You know how much I love you." She grabbed his hands and looked deep into his eyes. She could gaze right into his soul, and she knew that he could see into hers just as well. "Never forget that, for I know this will be difficult for you. You can probably read it in my heart, but how could I expect you to believe what you see there? I don't want you to deceive yourself, my love. I need you to know the truth."

Frederick frowned. "You've got to be kidding," he started.

She put a finger on his lips. "I would never," she assured him. "I love you as much now as ever. How could it be otherwise? You and I are soul mates. You are my Lancelot, Frederick."

Frederick, no doubt traumatized, laughed. "And he's your Arthur?" he asked, pointing at the Commander.

She nodded soberly. The Commander, clearly stunned with delight, did not move.

The Commander took a second to absorb exactly what the teenaged drama queen was saying, then snorted. "King Arthur? And you think he's Lancelot? You really are delusional."

Heliksa blinked and frowned, puzzled. "I… I do apologize for being so direct, Commander," she said, "but why deny your feelings? And why deny Frederick's? Don't you know how close we are?"

Fred XII snickered. "Close? We only met tonight and you couldn't tell me apart from your previous Frederick. Who, if you're wondering, is still in custody."

Heliksa frowned, confused. "You mean to tell me you are not Frederick?"

"I'm a Fred II series crimson guardsman, and so is he. I'd rather strangle you than kiss you again, and trust me, so would he."

"My pain at losing Frederick was so great that I was blind, it seems," Heliksa said after a moment's reflection, addressing Fred XII. "But I forgive you. I understand why you did it, and I appreciate the honesty you're displaying now." She turned to the Commander. "I assume my first mission is to rescue the true Frederick, our dear Lancelot, from his unfair captivity?"

"He's not particularly dear to me," the Commander said with a shrug, "and if I'm to believe his reports, he'd rather stay where he is than have to put up with you again. He was seducing you on my orders, girl. You're just the tool we used to make your uncle pay for his arrogance. We have no need of you beyond that and as a matter of fact…"

"No need of me?" she interrupted. "I… I don't understand."

"Okay, I'll spell it out for you," Fred XII said, grinning nastily. "You were tricked into telling your family that you were a willing member of Cobra. This will hopefully kill your uncle's career and even if it doesn't, it will hurt him."

"Don't be foolish," she scolded. "I've explained to them that Cobra is actually…"

"You've told them we were actually trying to save the World and that we were misunderstood, and that only you could help us achieve our goals," Fred XII cut her off. "Unlike you, they're not stupid enough to believe that the same organization who was threatening your uncle and who tried its best to kill your two bodyguards, the same organization who regularly does murder people, hundreds or thousands at a time whenever it can manage it, is misunderstood. And darling, only you would believe that Cobra could possibly need the likes of you."

Heliksa didn't answer right away. This was certainly an unexpected and tragic development; she was once more betrayed, and this time, it was by the very one she had mistaken for her soul mate.

Her innocence had been abused, she had been tricked. She was the victim of a cruel prank, and worse yet, her one true soul mate, the masked man she had come here to meet, seemed blind to their connection.

It was without a doubt the greatest tragedy the world had ever known, and she was the innocent, beautiful and pure maiden at the center of it. She felt a burst of courage radiate through her and she looked straight at the Commander's visor, staring at her own reflection.

"I will not allow for our love to die," she declared.

"I wasn't clear enough, was I? I don't…"

"I know you can't see it yet," she interrupted, her voice steadily rising in passion. "It matters not! I will endure anything for you! I will be the ever loving soul, the one who gives everything and expects nothing in return. I will be…"

"Do you even HEAR yourself?" the Commander asked, spreading his arms.

She nodded. "I do, my love, and no amount of scorn will deter me. I know you will eventually feel what I feel and in the meantime, I will be by your side always, dedicated and yours body and soul. I will be the pure beacon…"

"You think I'm going to fall for you?" he asked. "You call that expecting nothing in return? And you're going to serve me, are you? To do whatever I ask?"

She ignored the rhetorical questions and only answered the last two. "Yes."

"I'm working on a plan right now that requires thousands to die a horrible death. You're okay with that, are you?"

Heliksa's heart was hammering; he was truly magnificent. "I don't care," she said honestly. "I will love you until you love me back."

"So… you're going to help me murder my way to taking over the world, just to try and make me fall in love with you? I should get you to make another recording, this is gold."

Heliksa nodded, determined to courageously face her tragic destiny and to do whatever it took to win her love.

The Commander drummed his fingers on the desk. After a second, he got up, walked to the door and called someone in. One of the uniformed troops she had seen on her way to the office came in, walking rigidly.

"Give her your gun," the Commander ordered his soldier, pointing at her.

Heliksa took the weapon jubilantly. This was it, she was in!

"Kill him," the Commander ordered her, leaning on his desk to observe.

The trooper jumped backwards and backed off as far from her as he could, babbling protests.

She pointed the gun and pulled the trigger.

The Commander was divided between rolling his eyes and laughing: the girl had shot, but the recoil had made her fall on her behind and the shot had not even been near hitting the hapless trooper, who was nevertheless curled against the wall, shaking like a leaf and pathetically begging for his life.

He walked to Heliksa and kicked the gun out of her hand. "That settles that;" he said, "loyal but useless in a fight. I'm putting you on cleaning detail."

He figured he could get her killed any old time; he might as well enjoy the misguided dedication in the meantime.

Billy came out of his debriefing with all senses on alert, expecting his sensei to materialize out of thin air any second. He knew he was going to pay for the two cupcakes and the coke, accepted it, but he was certainly not looking forward to it.

He reached the quarters he shared with Storm Shadow with no incident, however, and even there, was not pounced on by an angry sugar phobic ninja. Instead, he found a sticky note on the door ordering him to the dojo.

Well, maybe a night of working off the calories would satisfy Tommy. He set off at a quick pace, figuring the less he waited, the better his sensei's mood would be. He found Tommy going through a kata he wasn't familiar with.

Billy bowed, stepped on the mat, sat and waited. He resisted the urge to clear his throat, knowing his sensei had heard him already, and contented himself with watching the kata.

He didn't have to wait long; Tommy finished a last sequence and came to a stop, facing him with his arms crossed.

"So?" he asked, his voice low. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

Billy blinked; he hadn't expected to get a chance to justify pigging out, but Storm Shadow sounded like this was a far more serious business than he had thought.

"It was looking suspicious for me to keep looking at the food and not have any," he said. He chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. "I know, I know, I kind of took advantage of it, but…"

"This isn't about the sweets," Tommy interrupted. "I'll just make you work those off, and you're the one who will suffer through reinforced sugar cravings. I also hear the Hauser girl qualifies as pre-emptive punishment."

The ninja stepped closer to his apprentice and poked his shoulder, hitting the precise spot the bullet had entered, right through the bandages Doc had applied on the young man's return to the Pit.

Billy bit back a yelp but felt his eye water. "Right," he gasped. "Not allowed to get shot, I'm guessing?"

"You DOVE in front of a BULLET."

"Well, yeah, I had to shove our stupid charge out of the…"

"You would have me believe that the exact angle you took, the one that put you straight in the path of that bullet, was the absolute only one you could use, would you?"

"No…" Billy stammered. "I just… I didn't analyze all that, I kind of just reacted! Bullets do go pretty fast, you know," he continued in a voice growing more and more annoyed. "I couldn't exactly take an hour to plan my move!"

Tommy forced himself to take a deep breath. "You shouldn't NEED an hour," he said. "Up."

Billy got up, clenching his jaw. He knew that tone; it was the 'you're in for a whole night of hurting' tone.

Six hours later, he could attest that the tone, as ever, had not lied. Or rather, he could have spoken to the fact had he had any energy leftover for speech.

Wanda Pike felt her upper lip curl up in a snarl under her mask. She'd heard of trying to enjoy one's job, but this was ridiculous. It wasn't that she minded her work as such, but the fact was that the main good thing about scrubbing after a bunch of jerks trying to take over the world was the generous pay check. There was just no reason at all to smile like a loon and sing happy little songs while in the middle of cleaning one of the many glass walls in the disaffected mall this branch of Cobra was using as a base.

"Will you stop humming already?" she hissed at her co-worker. "What IS that, anyway?"

The girl lifted her nose at her. "I do apologize for not providing you with a listing of the songs in my repertoire," she said, "but not recognizing this particular piece is no excuse to interrupt me so rudely. For your edification, this was the instrumental version of Hum While You Clean."

Wanda's grip on her mop tightened. There were so many things wrong with what the girl had just said she didn't even know where to start. She settled for just ignoring the statement altogether. "What are you so happy about anyway?" she asked. "Look, I know the pay's good, but…"

That drew a frown. "I am most certainly not here for mere financial gains! I…"

Heliksa was interrupted by a loud bell. Wanda felt her spine snap in position and the hair on the back of her neck stand to attention.

The singing wonder blinked, clueless as to what was going on. The other custodian supposed she would be; it WAS the Commander's first visit since Hauser had started over a month earlier.

"The Commander is on base!" she hissed. "Stand up! For crying out loud, we're right next to his office! He's going to walk RIGHT BY US! STAND UP!"

Heliksa gasped as her heart leapt in joy. Finally, her love was back for her! She stood straight and proud, shoulders back and chin high, ready for him to falter at the sight of her.

He stopped in front of her, his gleaming mask reflecting her face. "You," he said, "in my office."

Heliksa nodded crisply and followed her Commander, her soul mate, into the office he occupied when he was in town. She realized she was still holding her bottle of glass cleaner and her rag, and elected to keep them; let it be a gentle reminder to the Commander of what he'd already put her through, of what she had already endured for their love.

He sat at his desk and gestured her to close the door behind her. She did so and sat down as well, across from him.

"I have missed you terribly," she chided, "but I trust our separation was worth it and that our plans have advanced?"

"I hear you're not getting along with the other employees here," he said.

She smiled, touched. He was too concerned for her well being to even hear talks of their longer term hopes. "They are indeed rather coarse, but it is nothing I cannot endure if it helps achieve our dreams."

"Yes, well. I'm sending you on a mission," he said, leaning closer to her. "There's a chemical production laboratory on Finance Street…"

She lost track of his words, hypnotized by his commanding voice and the light playing on his helmet. There was a slight smudge on the upper right portion of the mirrored mask and she was forcefully reminded of the many times she had fixed Frederick's hair. She smiled slightly at the thought of the foolish boy who had sought to trick her and manipulate her emotions, only to deliver her in the arms of her one true love. It occurred to her that what she had done for her false love, she needed to do as well for the man she was destined to. How could she, however, when the light of her life never took off his helmet? She spotted the smudge again and suddenly, knew exactly what tender gesture she could do in lieu of straightening the Commander's hair.

"So once you've disposed of the guards," the Commander said, carefully hiding how unlikely he figured that was to happen, "you…"

Spritz.

He never finished his sentence, momentarily shocked into utter silence and stillness. The girl had just sprayed his helmet with glass cleaner. Before his brains could decide whether to kill her on the spot or torture her first, she leaned over his desk and started polishing his mask, smiling tenderly.

He glared at her through the mask, feeling a vein throbbing, and finally managed to grab her arm. "What do you think you're doing?" he screamed.

She smiled. "You had a smudge."

He took a sharp intake of breath and suddenly, wanted nothing more than to pop her bubble. "I'm married, you know."

It was technically true; he had never actually divorced his wife. He had no idea whether she was even still alive, but he supposed it was more likely that she was than not.

She shrugged. "We are soul mates. She'll just have to find someone else."

He let go of her arm and sagged in his chair. "Whatever. You have your instructions. Go."

The girl's eyes widened briefly before she took to contemplating her fingernails in a vain attempt at looking nonchalant. The Commander briefly contemplated making her squirm a bit before finally forcing her to admit she didn't know what her instructions were, but that scenario involved enduring her presence longer. He opted for the direct approach, content in the knowledge that he was sending the foolish girl to her death or at the very least to her capture.

"I take it you were distracted while I explained your mission. You'll just have to make it up to me by making do with a shortened version." He scribbled the address of the lab and the name of the chemical he wanted her to try and steal on a piece of paper and handed it to her. "Go there, steal that. Don't get caught. Got it?"

- Fifteen Years Later -

"Alas," Heliksa said with a heavy sigh, leaning on the bars of her cell, "no human, not even a ninja like myself, could have possibly completed this mission. And to make things worse, the Commander was wrongly informed that I had died… how else would he have failed to free me in all this time? Destiny has robbed me of my true love."

"Yeah," her cellmate said. "Destiny and what? A dozen convictions for murder and one for attempted terrorism? I mean, you bombed a lab full of scientists."

"It's hardly my fault my soul mate's dream is to take over the World!" Heliksa said. "I did what I did for love! And there's still time… he'll come for me yet. We'll be reunited at last!"

"Yeah," her cellmate chuckled. "Maybe now it's time. Or maybe when you wake."

Heliksa started babbling something in answer, but her cellmate picked up the book she had on loan from the prison library and tuned her out.

Fin

Author's Notes

Yes, those two lines WERE totally lifted from Annie's "Maybe". Consider yourselves lucky I never had the urge to incorporate the whole of "Tomorrow" into a story. :P

This was meant to be a quick epilogue, but Cobra has this tendency to take more words than I intend to give them. I hope you enjoyed and that this chapter was still fun despite the near complete lack of apprentice torture.

Thanks for reading!