Joe wasn’t a happy toy soldier. He was enjoying a well-deserved retirement in the attic when the worn and haggard looking Slinky knocked on the wall of his box. His body was deformed with a series of kinks and bends, and he had a personality to match. Joe wouldn’t judge the poor soul too harshly though, he knew what it was like to have battle scars and what it does to your mind to have to live with them. He may have been manufactured with the scar under his eye, but the rest, hidden beneath his camos, were earned the hard way. In battle.
The Slinky had brought an urgent message from the Chief. Joe was being recalled for a mission that apparently only his kung-fu grip was suited for. He had fully intended to never return to duty, but guilt would change his mind, it always changed his mind. In a moment of weakness he briefly considered putting enough kinks in the Slinky so he’d never be able to talk or return to the station, then Joe could slip away without ever looking back. He’d spotted a nice secluded crawlspace under the attic that he could just fit himself in. But G.I. Joe wasn’t built to run away, he was made in China for Americans. So he returned to duty like the good toy soldier that he was. But he wouldn’t be happy about it. Granted, the Chief didn’t look terribly happy herself.
Joe sat in a large room in Toy Command with a large upturned Animal Crackers box being used as a makeshift table. What he had been told was his new equipment lay spread out on the table, the fancy equipment looked like it could have been created just for him. It all looked far too high tech for an old toy soldier like him to figure out, but the Chief has assured him that it was easy to use.
“It’s all 3D printed. It’s been customized just for you.” Explained the Chief. “We scanned your body with the latest 3D scanners and took your exact measurements so all of this equipment was custom created to fit you perfectly.”
“So that’s why when I got here that guy told me to take my clothes off, stand perfectly still and keep my eyes shut…” murmured Joe.
“What did you think was happening?” the Chief asked, looking up at Joe.
“I been in that box a long time, Chief, I wasn’t that interested in knowing.”
She pursed her lips and turned back to the table of 3D printed equipment. “We had them customized by Cotswold Collectibles. They make reproductions and modern accessories for twelve-inch toy soldiers like you. It took all of Middle Siblings allowance that we could manage to scrounge together, but we ordered them online and had them delivered. It cost us $89.99, but that’s a small price to pay for winning this endless, senseless war.”
The Chief was a tall fashion doll, almost eleven and a half inches, thin and shapely with pink lips and blush on her cheeks. But her long blond hair had been haphazardly chopped away, and scars covered the left side of her face. The haircut was new, but the scars weren’t. She’d run afoul of the family dog in ‘11.
“Nice hair” Joe offered flatly.
“Shut it, Joe, I really don’t need your crap today.” she snapped. “Things are getting bad. We’re losing soldiers left and right, and the Ponies just keep growing in number. They’re gonna overrun us if we don’t figure out what they’re up to.”
The Chief had stopped and briefly looked over her shoulder when she said the last part, Joe saw a brief moment of worry on her face. The Chief was never worried.
“That’s why I need you to take this spy drone into Younger Siblings room and get us some intel. It has a powerful camera so it can get highly detailed images while being small and lightweight so it isn’t easy to notice. Long range scouts are telling us that they’re up to something, but none of the teams that we sent in were able to get us anything usable.”
“What happened to the other teams?” Joe asked. He knew he answer, but he wanted to make her say it anyway.
She offered cooly. “Most of them didn’t come back. The ones that did… well, they didn’t come back the same.”
“Who did you send?”
“It doesn’t matter Joe…”
“Who. Did. You. Send?”
Joe’s plastic eyes glared at the Cheif, her own fierce eyes meet his. The years hadn’t been kind to her original eye make-up, but she still made it work. Joe didn’t think that there was anything more terrifying than facing someone in battle with a flawless cateye. But he kept his eyes locked on her for what seemed like an eternity. He wasn’t sure how long it was, his watch was plastic and didn’t really keep time, but six o’clock was painted on it, so he thinks it took her a long time to give in.
“We sent in Potatohead first. They tried to make him french fries. That was bad. Trust me Joe, you don’t want to see what happens to toy plastic when it meets hot oil. The smell… I’m surprised that you didn’t get it up in the attic. Those little ponies are sadists. Pure evil. We needed to match their evil, so we sent in the Bratz next…” she trailed off.
“Cheif, I’m asking for a reason, not to get some perverse thrills here. I need to know what they’re capable of and what I’m getting into. I may be more durable than modern toys, but that doesn’t mean I’m indestructible.”
“Legos.” she continued. “Younger Sibling had annexed the Legos a few months ago. We saw… we saw no reason to find that worrisome. Lego’s are pacifists and have no reason to fight with anyone. Everyone loves Lego’s and Lego’s love everyone…”
“How did they turn the Lego’s against us?” Joe could hardly choke out the words so they sounded almost like a desperate whisper. The idea of a Lego taking up arms against another toy was too horrible to imagine.
“They didn’t.” she said calmly. Choosing her words carefully, the Chief took her time responding while she inspected the detail on Joe’s new 3D printed hand gun. Satisfied with the quality of the print she moved on to the binoculars. “They… the Ponies… they dismantled them. Spread them all across the floor. The Bratz never had a chance. The Lego’s were buried in the carpet, they never knew what they were stepping on.”
The Chief finally looked at Joe. Her terrifyingly precise cateye boring a hole into him. “If the Devil is real and made a sound it would be the wailing of two dozen Bratz fashion dolls stepping on a thousand tiny legos in their bare feet.”
Joe and the Chief sat silently in the room. The steel in her eyes softening in the silence until Joe couldn’t stand it any longer. He could see it on her face, but he needed to hear it. He needed her to make it real for him so he relented.
“I know you sent in Armstrong…”
She just looked at him, any hardness had long faded. Joe knew that their old pliable friend was gone.
“It turns out, that there was a limit to how far you can stretch him. Somehow, the Ponies had convinced Youngest Sibling to convince Eldest Sibling to use him as a makeshift bungee cord. Armstrong held out as long as he could but he just couldn’t take it. He just snapped. We all watched him… we all saw what came out of him when he… Well, if Hell is a gloopy sandy textured material then what came out of him was Hell itself. It got everywhere. It got in everything. It even… it got in my hair… ” Chief trailed off. She loved her hair. She brushed it every night, and used three different types of conditioners on it. She had made it so strong that when she braided it she could swing it around like a mace and take her enemies out without ever having to use her horribly impractical hands. For her to chop it off, Joe knew it must have been even worse than Hell.
The Chief stood silently and tip toed over to the far side of the room. “We couldn’t even mourn him. There was no time. The Parents…” She turned to Joe, and handed him his holster. “They didn’t even send him to the charity shop, he was too far gone so they just threw him away.”
Armstrong, Chief and Joe were the greatest toy strike team that Middle Sibling had ever assembled. Joe remembered proudly how they took on the dinosaur invasion of ‘09 and didn’t lose a single toy soldier. He remembered repelling countless stuffed animal invasions, so many that they all blur together. Only the Beanie Babies battle stands out, but that’s because of what happened to The Turtles. They had gotten cocky and rushed in, they didn’t stop to make sure that the Youngest Sibling didn’t have the Dog protecting his room. But the three of them made it out with only a few missing parts. Not even the Pets could take them down. You don’t come through battles like that without making lifelong friends, and Armstrong, Chief and Joe were the best of them.
Joe silently started putting on his high tech gear. The Chief watched as she briefed him.
“You only have to make it in as far as the bedspread, the drone can do the rest. You can control it with your write monitor,” she studied him as he finished suiting up. “How are you going to handle this Joe?”
“They took one of my best friends from me. Armstrong would have stretched a mile for me, I’m not going to let those damn Ponies get away with what they did to him,” Joe spat out.
“Joe, your mission parameters are very specific. Just get us that intel!”
“Oh you’ll get your intel Chief. I’m a good soldier, I’ll get you what you need. But I’m not coming back this time. I’m not going to stop until I’ve wrapped my plastic hands, kung-fu grip around each of those Little Ponies’ necks and squeezed.”
“I’m serious Joe, you stick to your mission!” Joe pushed his way out of the room in Toy Command and made his way to the stables. He’d be strapped on the back of one of the house cats and could use it to sneak into the south side of the house near Younger Siblings territory. He knew the Chief wouldn’t stop him from leaving. She would never admit it, but getting intel was never the reason she called me in, this was. And he wouldn’t let her down.
Source: Cotswold Collectibles.
