[MAX]
When the CIA put together their experimental junior agent program, Danny was chosen, and Dylan was passed over. The Company's cited reasoning? Dylan had "attitude issues" and "problems with authority."
After their junior agent program crashed and burned, and after both the twins had graduated high school, Dylan joined up with the Navy SEALs.
Makes total sense, I know.
Dylan was an exceptional SEAL, and pretty much everyone who met him realized as much. He excelled at whatever task was placed before him, he was never one to run away when faced with a bad situation, and he had natural leadership skills that most people could only aspire toward.
Most of his "attitude issues" bit the dust in his time with the Navy, but those "problems with authority" weren't so easily shaken. If he respected whoever outranked him, it wasn't a problem; he wasn't a brat, he just couldn't follow someone he didn't believe in.
Something he and I had in common.
But the real trouble for him came in a situation when he was ordered to do something he didn't believe in.
When your higher-up tells you to go into a place and level it, no questions asked, and you and your team show up and there are civilians everywhere, you're probably going to at least have some questions. Dylan's a good soldier — he would correct me here and say sailor — but he's a better man, and when he was faced with that exact situation he defied orders with no second thoughts.
It became a massive ordeal overnight, when a group of SEALs who were supposed to be "taking care of a problem," suddenly ended up defending a town of non-American civilians.
The fallout included the admiral who had ordered the strike being fired with a slap on the wrist when he should have gone to prison for life. Dylan, after private congratulations and commendations, was quietly asked to step down from his position in the Navy.
Thus came Dylan's early retirement — and he did so as gracefully as the situation allowed for. By the time he left the SEALs, he was a decorated hero, but not a public one.
But just because Dylan took his retirement gracefully, didn't mean he was satisfied with how everything had turned out. He had seen terrible parts of the world, and he knew he could do something about it.
And so the Fugazis were born.
—
Dylan and I put the toaster fire out in record time.
Keahi, though the perpetrator, was of no help whatsoever. Admittedly part of that was due to the fact that Dylan had shouted him away from the toaster before he could make it worse.
The gleeful look Keahi had donned once the toaster had flames coming out of it was indication that really, he wouldn't have been helpful even if Dylan hadn't ordered him away.
Keahi Huxley was the Fugazis' demolitions expert. He was also the youngest of the team of five, and there were times when he made sure to act like it. Like now.
He and Dylan had met during SEAL training while Dylan was in Hawaii; Keahi had a history so far as explosives went — a reputation in both his neighborhood and with the local police — but he was wildly successful during his time with the Navy. He was a quick learner with a penchant for improvisation, and he became notorious for his ability to create and dismantle any number of improvised explosive devices.
Keahi stood at five-foot-eight and head a head full of thick, midnight black hair, which was pretty much always tied up in some kind of bun. His eyes were as dark a brown as they could get without being black, and yet they glowed with mischief. His smile was radiant, too cheeky for his own good, and no matter its size it revealed his dimples. His being a native Hawaiian meant his skin was the color of warm clay, and his physique was defined due to the exercise each of the Fugazis actively underwent.
