7 Years ago-
"Wash your face kid." Wintergrey's voice had always comforted me. He had been in the service a few years longer than me, and had been something of a mentor leading into my induction into the SOF. "Now, let's go another round. You we're let in because of your potential, if you ain't workin' at it the general's just gonna kick you out," he said, a slight encouraging grin creeping across his face as he raised his bo-staff over his head. "Alright, Bill, take it easy though, will ya? This bojutsu or whatever it's called is no shit." Me and Bill had gone through this so many times. These Bo-staffs were made out of metal, 2 feet of solid metal, and Bill wanted me to know the ins and outs of it within a matter of months. He strikes high, I block high. He strikes low, I block low. Wintergrey was a great teacher, and we had developed something of a chemistry. The higher ups noticed it right away, and Wintergrey hand-picked me to be his "wing man". The SOF was a special branch of the military; we got the best training, the best guns, you name it. And what really made us different, what really made us deadly, was that we only worked in teams of two. Studies had shown that 2 highly compatible agents with specialized training, in constant communication could outsmart and outfight any other regular-capacity squad. Some army generals decided to put this theory into practice, and me and Wintergrey were selected almost immediately.
Our training facility was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the USS Ravager. One hell of a ship it was. The training facility was comprised Of a large number of sound proof rooms, complete with target practice dummies, hand-to-hand training dummies, and any kind of weapon specialized any agent wished to train in. Me, I had always been worth my salt in any fight, being the fastest, strongest guy in the room'll do that to ya, but Wintergrey thought it would be best for me to try something different. "Ya know, some of the best fighters in the world are more than just bare-knuckle brawlers, Wilson." That was the company line for what I had taken to calling 'Wintergrey Kung-Fu Palace'. And that's how we ended up here, at the end of yet another hours-long training session, dripping sweat, Bo-staffs clanging, creating an echo that would go throughout the room. It was a great sound; the sound of combat, the sound of progression. It was a sound that I was beginning to love.
A few weeks had gone by, and I remember Bill shaking me from my bunk that morning. "It's time Slade. It's day one." We had been preparing for this for months now. Our first op. It was a thought that salivated me, and Bill felt the same. We were both eager to prove ourself where we knew we could shine; like a little kid that just learned a new trick on his bike, eager to show it off and earn the awe and envy of all the other neighborhood kids. It was our time. "Oh, how'd I forget?" He said, producing a fancy looking small black leather case from his pocket. "Try this on" he said, tossing it into my lap. I asked what it was and got no response, he just took off.
The leather case had two gold clasps that I pushed open, and the odor from inside was odd. Whatever was in there had been in there for a long time, waiting. It had an almost new shoe smell, and slowly I pushed back the leather's cover and there it was, staring at me. A mask. But not just any mask, my mask. The left side was a rusty gold-ish color, the right side a very dark navy blue. There were two eye holes cut in, and picking it up, I felt its weight in my hand. This mask must have cost Bill a fortune, was my initial thought. Kevlar, through and through, yet light as a feather. Lead-lining, made the piece of work completely resistant to any kind of x-ray or identification technology. I brought it up to my face and it stared back at me, it was an inanimate object but had a kind of eery, knowing feel to it. I got up, and placed it on my head for the first time, and the thing fit like a glove. Looking into the mirror, I remembered Wintergrey's words, almost as if there was an intercom built into the mask as well. "This is our big break Slade. No more staying on dirty bases, or having to fight through shitty run down villages. We make our own path now. We're gonna be the big guys, man. Legends." Wintergrey was right. It was time. I stepped out onto the deck, and was greeted by Wintergrey. We looked like twins, except Wintergrey's mask had the colors inverted so that our commanding officers had some way to tell us apart. He handed me a dossier on our target, and it began.