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Her name was Kady Hauser.
She was a Sergeant.
Was.
She had her mom and pops, and her little brother, Vince. She had her Lady Jaye, and her old friend, Flint.
She had a promising career. First girl on the football team. The only girl on the football team. Until they ruined it, and broke her leg, and she was forced to quit.
She worked jobs to make up for her pops losing his, and to put her brother through his extra days doing whatever it was he did.
The accident kind of ruined her relationship with Vince. She loved her brother, really, but he seems to hate her.
Flint gets her into the military. Flint helped her rise from nameless recruit to a highly-respected sergeant. She had saved Lady Jaye’s life, so she got both of her best friends with her.
And then she’s recruited for the COBRA Cause as a teammate called it now.
Her life is ruined because of that mission.
They blow up the goddamn base, and one of her fellow soldiers is presumed dead in the explosion. They’re accused of their teammate’s murder.
It doesn’t get better, for a very long time.
They’re on the run for over half a year. In that half a year, they’ve almost died hundreds of times, she almost loses her arm, COBRA tries to take over the world at least seven times, and their presumed dead teammate is actually alive and half a goo monster called a BioVIPER.
But, she got something out of it.
She gets a family.
She already had one, yes, but that family had practically fallen apart when she was declared a fugitive, and this family is bonded because they’ve almost died together.
She’s not Kady Hauser anymore.
She’s Duke.
She’s a Joe.
———————-
Kady’s family looked at the screen in shock, sad that she could have thought her brother hated her. Vince was horrified. He didn’t hate her, he just wanted to protect their family.
Flint and Lady Jaye looked at each other, sadness in both of their eyes as they listened to the interview.
———————-
Military Intelligence Shana O’Hara worked her life to take down COBRA.
She was no longer a Lieutenant.
She had her dad, at one point in time. Just like she has her teacher, now.
Her life was ruined by COBRA. They took her father from her. She hated them long before then, but they took her most prized person from her, and she would stop at nothing to avenge him. That’s what she set her life on now.
She had four military personnel assigned to help her take down COBRA. They’re all women, so she doesn’t feel very weird about it. Not that she would if they were men, she outranked them all. So they had to listen to her.
Trying to gather dirt on that company was the second worst mistake of her life.
They blow the place up, taking all the evidence and the life of their comrade with it. Presumably. The BioVIPER that escaped almost gets them taken into custody two days after the fact. It’s the worst.
They’re fugitives now. They’ve been blamed for the death of their teammate, and are accused terrorists.
There are bumps in the road. They almost die hundreds of times, and she almost loses her teacher to her own stupid decisions.
Over half a year, at least six months go by, and they just keep getting closer to exposing COBRA. They get that presumed dead teammate back, who is now a human-BioVIPER hybrid thing. She also almost permanently damaged her leg in a cave collapse.
She’s grateful for the explosion, in an odd way.
It ruined her life, she was on the run for so long, but now she has a family. She has her dad back.
She’s not Shana O’Hara anymore.
She’s Scarlett.
She’s a Joe.
———————-
Patrick O’Hara smiled at his daughter on the screen. He knew these people, and trusted them to keep her safe, and her to keep them safe in return. He knew her mother would be proud of her.
———————-
Nicki Lee is a name synonymous with sewers in Brooklyn. She used to be Nicki Lee, Private First Class.
Used to be.
She had her folks, her mom and dad, and her older brother Teddy. She was the runt of the litter, born too early, too small. And so her family protected her like it was their job.
She was not weak. She was small, but that was her strength. She was a sewer rat, not a hamster, or some other tiny, delicate animal.
The only reason she’s in the military is too avoid jail time for trespassing and breaking and entering. She only took the deal to avoid her mom’s “I’m not mad, just disappointed.” Speech.
It’s normal, at first. She’s only set on spy missions cause she can find her away around places real easy.
Then Lady Jaye gives her the COBRA Cause. She’s got three other soldiers supposed to escort a Lieutenant into a civilian COBRA building.
There’s goo monsters, predictably. And the crazy doctor tries to fucking turn the entire team into goo monsters. Thank god he fails.
Unfortunately, they lose a teammate. At least, they thought they did. And the team is accused of said teammate’s murder.
For over half a year, they’re on the run. They get shot at at least two times a day, and their list of crimes only grows from there. She saved almost the entire team from these hypnotic, psychic twins, because she was paranoid as hell. And hey, she’s the medic. She’s the only one who can do shit like this.
They expose COBRA, and their stupid BioVIPERS. They get the presumed dead teammate back, who was now a half BioVIPER thing.
For all they went through, she’s glad for a few things.
Her teammates are her family now.
She’s not Nicki Lee anymore.
She’s Tunnel Rat.
She’s a Joe.
———————-
Teddy Lee smiled as his mother cried in relief and his father comforted her with a proud smile splitting his face. They knew she was okay, Teddy had reassured them as much. He was just so happy that his baby sister was okay.
———————-
Being strong is what Corporal Michelle Hinton is good at. She used to be Corporal Michelle Hinton.
Used to be.
She had her parents, her grandparents and her cousin, Hershel. She’s the biggest person in her family, which her cousin is salty about.
She’s had issues before, but she’s never been arrested or anything. Never even gone to court. She just happened to not be book smart like Hershel was.
She joins the military because she’s a passionate mechanic, and her size always helps for the heavy lifting. She’s tall and strong. And also, at least half the people she worked with were afraid of her because of her size.
She’s recruited for the COBRA Cause, because her size is reassuring to some civilians. And predictably, it all goes to shit. The building blows up and they’re accused of the assumed murder of a friend.
They’re on the run for so long that she started to lose weight because of how little they had. Getting shot at and having an entire organization after your head is a good workout, apparently.
Running in Hershel again is unexpected, because he joins the military to take her down, specifically. All because of some stupid inheritance. Something she didn’t even want, because she had more memories of their grandfather, and he was more proud of Hershel because he was the first person to go to college in the family.
She loves her family, she really, really does, but they don’t seem to understand her very much.
Being almost blown up can do that, she guesses. No one else in her family can relate to that, she knows that.
She feels a little bad. She made it her mission to watch over her teammates, and they’re falling apart because they can’t get anything from anywhere, cause they’ll get arrested. The smallest of them is paranoid, but thin and strong, and exhausted. She feels horrible about it.
At least, though, she gets a family out of it.
She’s not Michelle Hinton anymore.
She’s Roadblock.
She’s a Joe.
———————-
Hershel Hinton’s hand clenched around the box he held. Inside was the pin his grandpa had left him. His cousin was always his favorite, he loved her like a sister, but she was right that he had climbed up just to look down on the rest of the family. He had righted that, but he was ashamed to come back to the family before joining the military.
His grandma’s hand tightened on his shoulder, and they gave each other smiles.
———————-
If someone in the base was an adrenaline junkie, it’s Willow Weems, Private First Class.
She’s still an adrenaline junkie, but now she can’t be Willow Weems, Private First Class.
She’s mostly normal, she thinks. Her mom works at a bakery, albeit run by COBRA, and her dad encouraged her diving habits. Her mom was not very happy about that.
She thinks she was normal back then. She can’t remember why she joined the military, maybe something about the thrill of it? She knew she enjoyed it, according to the others.
She was assigned the COBRA Cause, dubbed by herself, and it went smoothly until the whole “Blow it up, we definitely won’t cause any lasting effects on ourselves” thing.
There were, in fact, lasting effect. Everyone thought she was dead.
Her teammates—her friends were accused of her murder, which was reasonable. If she wasn’t there, she guesses she would have accused them to.
Unfortunately, she is then taken hostage by COBRA’s very own Dr. Mindbender, or whatever the hell his name was. And kept there for a majority of her teammates’ time on the run.
It’s hell, from what she can remember. And yes, there was memory loss involved.
She becomes COBRA’s special Patient X. She doesn’t remember a lot, but the memories were repressed, according to a teammate. She hadn’t forgotten them, her mind decided not to remember them.
She hates COBRA. Hates everything they had done to her and her friends.
They stuck a chip in her head, made her half BioVIPER, hurt her and hunted her friends.
No matter what they did, COBRA would never be able to make up for what they did to her, and attempted to replicate with others.
She’s happy most of them are as good as dead.
Even if she hates them, they gave her what she always wanted.
Siblings. An even bigger family.
She’s not Willow Weems anymore.
She’s Ripcord.
She’s a Joe.
———————-
Wails of relief filled the bakery, as the entire Weems family clutched each other close. Their second youngest member was alive, her death had been faked. They didn’t even care about that, their Willow was okay.
———————-
Her honor refuses to let her leave.
It’s not that she hates these people, she doesn’t. She trained one of them, after all. But for a while, they were helpless without her.
There has always been Snake-Eyes. There was never anyone else. She has no name, no family, no background.
Well, at one point, there was someone else. A different name, fake as it was. That was before she joined the Arashikage, so it was before she was Snake-Eyes. She doesn’t remember where she was when she went by that name, though.
Theresa O’Khan, mute girl who survived a car crash. She had no parents, a child in foster care. Theresa O’Khan doesn’t exist. She never had. Records showed that there was no one named Theresa O’Khan. She chose the name for reasons she can no longer remember.
When she left, Theresa O’Khan was erased from the world. The people she had formed relationships with searched everywhere, according to the internet.
She has a treasure. It’s a pair of weighted die, always landing on Snake-Eyes. No one knew about them. Not the Hard Master, now Jinx, and not Tomisaburo. Not even her other students knew about them.
She had, at the time, loved her fellow student. Thought of him as a brother. She still does, slightly. Tomisaburo, now Storm Shadow, was someone she cared for greatly.
He hated her, though. He had tried to poison her. He had killed the Hard Master, and thought that she had slit his throat.
A vow a silence. That’s why she spoke no longer. Well, until a helicopter exploded in front of her and severed her vocal cords.
She trained Scarlett, joined them on their first mission in secret, has saved their lives many times. She has a soft spot for animals, specifically her wolf, Timber. She had her time with every other member of the team. And she treasured them greatly. They were her family now, even if none of them knew what she looked like. Or what she had sounded like.
She had always been Snake-Eyes.
There was no one else.
She’s a Joe.
————————-
Kim smiled, holding onto the reed her sensei had allowed her to keep. No one knew who her sensei was before this interview, and now they had a fake name and no face. She wondered, briefly, what Storm Shadow was thinking at the moment, and if her father would be proud of the girl he chose to lead their clan.
Storm Shadow watched silently. A small smile made its way onto his face. His sister really was a good person. She still cared for him, even after what he had done and accused her of. He almost ruined their relationship because of COBRA, and she still cared for him so.
The Hard Master must be proud her. He must be.