"Hey Hale, I'm going to teach you Pankration." Calypso had abruptly said to Hale one day. Which explained why he was currently sparring with Calypso in the PEX's mid-sized backyard. The ground was clear of debris and rocks, made with the intention of teaching recruits self-defence. Pankration was a type of Greek martial art, used in the ancient Greek Olympic Games, and was a mixture of wrestling and boxing. Facing Hale, stood Calypso, dressed in a simple white shirt with navy-blue shorts up to her knee.
Hale held his fist up and got into a forward stance. Inched towards her with a cautious look. He took a deep breath, and whipped his leg at her. With practiced ease, Calypso gripped his leg and wrestled him to the ground. "That's the 138th time, not that anyone's counting." She smirked as she reached out for Hale's hand. He stood up awkwardly, brushing the dirt of his trousers. "Well, that's it for today's practice." She announced, and jogged off to the changing rooms.
Hale walked out of the PEX building slightly battered, he was already used to it. He didn't really have a thing for Pankration, fighting just really wasn't his thing. Yet he had somehow survived from the sinners, he was really curious on why he sometimes blacked out and appeared somewhere different, sometimes injured. Deep within Hale's mind, Hail whispered, "There is nothing to question about." As he had done thousands of times, and as per the thousands of times, Hale had forgotten the simple question once again. Hale's shoulder ached, they were bruised due to Calypso's painful sparring. He would have had to apply some medicinal cream once he got home.
Hale's apartment was a quite bizarre building, with the first and second floor being normal, but the third floor beautiful and dazzling. The once bright red paint job on the first and second floor's brick walls, had slowly faded into a more calm, dimmer red. On the contrary, the third floor had a thick coat of snow-white. Hale had rented out an apartment room on the second floor, there was not much competition as his floor was quite dingy and worn-out, but his neighbours upstairs being quite wealthy. He trudged through the front door of the building. Plodding upstairs towards his apartment door, he reached into his backpack, and fished out his keys from the bottom of his backpack. With an ungraceful motion, Hale opened the door, to close it carefully and collapse onto the couch immediately after.
The apartment had a tea-like scent, with Hale being a major tea lover. There were three rooms in total, the bedroom, living room, and bathroom, with the mini-kitchen connected to the living room behind the couch. The apartment room was perfect for a guy like Hale, it didn't feel too cramp nor large. Hale forced himself to get up, he clumped towards the bathroom, and open the cabinet behind the mirror, took out a white bottle of healing cream, courtesy of the Pandora Express company. Using his finger, Hale scooped up a wad of healing cream and smeared it onto his knee wounds. The wounds were already starting to heal, as if the cream was magic. But that couldn't be, could it? With another wad, Hale started to smear it onto his shoulder using his palm this time. His mind sharpened, Hail continued to smear the cream along his shoulder and bruised neck. Hail placed the bottle back into the cabinet, and look at his wristwatch. It was around dinner time, and Hail decided to eat out.
Hail slipped on his shoes, and went out in search of a restaurant. He could have simply called a taxi, but Hail wanted to observe the neighbourhood. He could save precious time if he was familiar with the roads when on a chase. Hail wandered around for a while when he had a thought, murdering people for entertainment without a mask or some sort of disguise was simply foolhardy. Now, with a new goal in mind, Hail set out in search for dinner. After a scrumptious dinner of meatballs, Hail headed to a hardware store. He had a plan and needed many materials in order to execute his plan. With a couple of glances at the racks, Hail picked up a couple of things. Once Hail reached home, he immediately cleared his dining table, dumped the materials and set to work. With a mask template, a whiteboard pen, and some duct-tape, Hail crafted up a mask with some dots and dashes as decoration in the shape of a dot, then a dash, then a dot again multiple times on the mask. Now with the mask complete, he would need a weapon, if he had used Pankration, (Hail had fully mastered Pankration by watching Hale sparring and practicing while Hale was unconscious.)Hail would most likely have been found out as experts in the art like Epimetheus and Calypso would easily be able to identify traces of Pankration, and Hail did not need extra suspicion, no matter how small it was.
Hail's choices were quite limited: a Trench Knife, a Baseball Bat, and Brass Knuckles. A Baseball Bat would draw too much attention to him, and he wasn't experienced in knife fighting. Which left the Brass Knuckles, now the damage would change significantly even if he used Pankration with the Brass Knuckles, which was absolutely perfect for Hail. With a persona and a weapon chosen and made, Hail need some sort of clothing that could cover his body shape. He treaded over leftover tape and markers on the floor towards his wardrobe, he slid the wardrobe open and looked at his clothes, Hail combed through the work uniforms and everyday-clothes until he reached the back, and found a pine-green poncho Hale had bought on a whim at a clothing store which had a huge sale but they never really wore the poncho ever. Hail's new persona was simple, a masked person wearing a poncho and always dark clothes underneath and Brass Knuckles as a weapon. Now that it was all ready, Hail cleaned everything and hid the disguise in a shoe box, underneath the bed. With his tasks accomplished, Hail hit the sack.