Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator: An Interview with a Cobra

Destro poked his head through the door to Cobra Commander’s office. “Your 3:00 is here now, my dear Cobra Commander.”

“Excssssellent,” Cobra Commander cackled. “Let me sssslip into ssomething more comfortable.”

While the Scottish weapons dealer looked on, the terrorist leader pulled off his battle helmet and replaced it with his ceremonial hood.

“Pleasssse, ssssend him in,” he hissed.

“As you wish, my dear Cobra Commander.”

I stepped into the office and placed myself in the chair in front of the Commander’s desk. He was sitting behind it, pouring over the contents of a manila folder.

“Uh, here’s the bottle of urine for my drug test,” I placed a two liter bottle on his desk. “I had to drink a lot of ice tea to fill it up. I hope it’s enough.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, asss long ass you’re not on Venom or that stuff that Headman’s pushing, I'm sure you’ll be fine.” Still looking at the file, he took the bottle and placed it in a drawer in his desk. “I sssee you included your résumé as well as your official filecard and a headshot.”

“Yes,” I smiled. “I understand you would probably like to see a different kind of a headshot produced by one of your operatives, but so many agencies are asking for them now…”

“Heh heh, yesss,” he laughed. The Cobra leader finally set down the file and looked at me. Behind the hood, I could just make out the expression on his face change. “You! You! You’re the one who blew up my gloriousss airship! You are the one who worked with the cursed Joe team to stop my plans in Springfield! I ssshould kill you right now.”

“Whoa whoa, hold on right there,” I held up my arms. “To be fair, your assassin Zartan tried to kill me. It was my duty as a presidential candidate to investigate. Then Colonel Scar captured me and was going to kill me as well. I had to defend myself.”

“Hmmm…” Cobra Commander tapped his fingertips together as he thought.

“And at Springfield, er well…” I thought for a moment. “The fact that I’m here now shows that when I was there, I was just doing my job. Pay me now, and I’ll work for you. Pretty mercenary of me, huh?”

“Yessss,” Cobra Commander’s eyes lit up. “I do like mersssenaries… Sssso tell me, right off the bat, if you were to attack a landmark, like sssay the Eiffel Tower, how would you do it?”

“Well let’s see,” I replied. “Teleporting it away has already been done. So has destroying it with meteorites and nanotech. I would still want to do something elaborate though. Probably have a one of a kind machine made that has real unusual and hard to get components, like maybe a freeze ray that uses ionic ice from the South Pole, a rare cold metal found in a South American pyramid, and some sort of power core that we would have to steal from a research lab.”

“I like it! I’ll get my bessst men working on it right away.” He looked at my filecard again. “It says here that you’re a qualified paratrooper.”

“That’s right,” I answered.

“That’s good. You could be a Firebat pilot or a gunner on a Rattler. If your plane gets shot, you could just jump right out and parachute to the ground.”

“Er… sure.”

Cobra Commander slammed the paperwork down and placed his palms on top of them. “I tell you what, Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator, I don’t like this interview very much. I like action. Do you consider yourself a man of action?”

“Of course,” I responded. “I’m Action Man, that is I’m a man of action, you know.”

“Right, right. This issss good because I have a little test for you. Ever take a test to get a job?”

“Sure,” I answered. “I had to write a press release to get a job as a PR intern. I assume that you don’t want me to do any writing though, do you?”

“No I don’t,” Cobra Commander answered. “I have something a little more physical for you; in fact this mission will be your physical. I want you to go to Cobra Island, find a way to sneak into the base there, take out the Cobra ninja guarding Serpentor, and then kill him.”

“Kill Serpentor?” I asked.

“Yesss! I hate him! I hate that damnable clone with his regal arrogance and hisss ‘Thisss I command’ and that stupid cape!” the Commander howled. “I hate that cape. I hate him! Kill him then meet me at the Terror Drome.”

“You go it.” I winked at him and made a pistol out of my forefinger and aimed it at him, making a clicking noise to complete the effect.

* * *

The guard was bored. It was a quiet night with a full moon and no one ever attacks a base under a full moon if they can help it. There’s just too much light.

The coffee he just drank to keep him awake just went right through him. A full bladder and boredom make for a long night, so he decided to just let it out right there.

Nobody else was down by the docks. There was a small river that led straight into the Gulf of Mexico with a number of buildings built up around it. Further down were it was deeper, Water Moccasins and Moray Eels were docked but nothing was here where the water was only about a foot deep.

Splish splish splish.

The trooper looked up. Some idiot was running straight at him in the river. It wouldn’t be an attack would it? Why would someone attacking be right out in the open like that?

With a jumping back kick, I sprung up out of the water and clocked him in the jaw. I was then ready to give him my cool action line.

“I thought you’d get a kick out of that,” I smirked. Yeah, I’ll use a better line next time.

The Cobra Ninja was tougher. He was too quick and agile for me but I managed to stun him with the sonic disrupter on my Wristcomm and finish him off with a flying kick.

I then made my way to Cobra Commander in the Terror Drome. “Mission accomplished,” I said.

“You killed Serpentor?” he asked.

“Well no,” I answered.

“You failed?!” he screamed.

“No, I just subcontracted it out,” I explained. “I hired Zartan to do it.”

“You got someone else to do it?” he hissed gleefully. “I like it. Showsss that you’re definitely management material.”