Swagger was greeted with warm familiarity by Owen and the others as they piled into the vehicle. Owen drove, with Swagger riding shotgun, and the car rolled toward CTU Headquarters.
Back at HQ, Jack Bauer was away—apparently summoned to the White House by the President for some urgent meeting. Inside the main hall were only Simon and Trigger. Compared to the six-member external field team in L.A., D.C.'s field unit was stripped down to just three. With Can Opener now in SEAL training, only two remained. Not that it hindered their effectiveness—when it came to heavy-duty missions, tactical teams usually handled those directly.
As Owen brought Swagger into the office area, he was about to introduce him to Simon when he noticed something strange—Simon was staring at Swagger with a surprised look, and Swagger was staring back.
"Ghost?"
"Hawkeye?"
What the hell— was Owen's first thought. But then Simon punched Swagger on the shoulder, and the two burst out laughing, pulling each other into a bear hug.
Apparently, they knew each other.
Owen, Monica, and Heartbeat were dumbfounded. What were the odds? One was a retired SAS operative; the other, a top-tier U.S. Marine sniper. How the hell did these two ever cross paths?
"Hawkeye, weren't you—?" Simon began, his voice full of surprise and suspicion. Then, almost instinctively, he glanced around nervously.
Owen shot him a look. Without a word, he motioned the group into a side meeting room.
Inside the conference room, Owen didn't explain anything immediately. Instead, he looked at Swagger.
Swagger understood. "Simon and I met at the Hunter School in Venezuela," he said.
With that, the pieces started falling into place. The mystery of how these two seemingly unrelated elite soldiers knew each other made sense—and not only that, they appeared to have bonded through fire and hell.
Simon had been there representing the UK's SAS; Swagger, for the U.S. Marine Corps.
The Hunter School—an infamous military training center hidden in Venezuela's tropical jungles. It was one of the most brutal and prestigious special forces academies in the world, known for its merciless regimen and punishing attrition rate—somewhere between 50% and 80%.
The candidates? Elite among elites from every major special operations force on the planet. Even so, many failed to make it through. Some quit. Some were sent home in stretchers. Some never made it back.
The first rite of passage was the infamous combat simulation gauntlet: 20+ high-risk, live-fire trials conducted in 15 days—prone crawls under live ammunition, booby-trapped kill zones where veering off path meant triggering mines, and no safety equipment provided. Mistakes meant injury—or death.
Even beyond that, their daily wake-up call was a tear gas grenade. If you underperformed, you didn't eat. In POW training, they experienced the full psychological trauma of real prisoners—deprivation, interrogation, torture. It wasn't training. It was simulated death.
Most days, trainees endured freezing water dumps, poison gas exposure, or punishment drills like log-carrying until collapse. Upon arrival, each trainee signed a "death waiver"—an agreement that stated plainly that any harm, injury, or death would be the student's and their government's responsibility alone.
Inside Hunter School, the trainees weren't even treated as human. One particularly cruel hallmark of the program: the instructor's dog.
Every instructor had one. The dog ate while the students went hungry. It rested when they trained. If the dog misbehaved, the trainees were punished. Over time, the dog became a symbol of humiliation. Every trainee hated it with a burning passion.
And if anyone broke? Wanted to quit? They had to stand in front of everyone and read a degrading script aloud: "I'm useless. I'm trash. I'm dying." Then they had to burn their beret—symbolizing their own death—and watch as their country's flag was lowered in shame.
Swagger and Simon recounted these memories vividly. Their descriptions were intense, sometimes delivered through clenched teeth. But the pride was unmistakable—they had survived.
Out of their class of 84, only 18 made it to the end. Both Swagger and Simon were among them.
Owen was floored. He had gone through SEALs' infamous Hell Week himself and knew how psychologically and physically brutal it was. But Hunter School? That was Hell Week on steroids. He couldn't even fathom what they'd endured.
As the room sat in stunned silence, Heartbeat's thoughts, as usual, took a sharp left turn. "Wait," he said, eyes wide. "Ghost, did you... really kill the dog?"
That broke the tension. Swagger and Simon burst out laughing, voices filled with a rare kind of cathartic satisfaction.
"Oh yeah," Simon said proudly. "I did it myself. All 18 of us helped."
"We were the only class in history to kill that damn dog," Swagger added with a grin. "After us, Hunter School issued a new rule—do not kill the dog. In our final week, you couldn't even find it—they had it hidden. Hah!"
Their shared memories brought the two even closer. And now that their connection was known, Swagger's status could no longer remain a secret—nor did it need to be.
Simon knew who Swagger really was—and knew about his past fugitive status. With him now standing openly in CTU, it was obvious something had changed.
Owen quietly filled Simon in on the classified arrangement—Swagger's identity had been scrubbed and replaced with a new cover. Apart from Jack Bauer and the Rapid Response Team, Simon was now the only other person in CTU aware of the full truth.
With the introductions done, Owen brought Swagger down to the armory. He needed to see what sniper rifles were available, and whether they'd meet his specs. If not, Owen would personally request logistics to order custom gear.
After a thorough review, Swagger stuck with what he knew—Marine Corps-standard issue.
He selected two weapons:
M40A3: A reliable, bolt-action precision rifle chambered in 7.62×51mm NATO. Equipped with a Unertl integrated scope, it used improved M118LR rounds for long-distance engagements.
Barrett M82A3: A semi-automatic .50 BMG anti-materiel rifle. The A3 variant was customized for Marine use—robust, devastating, and familiar. It dominated the .50-cal market and was widely regarded as the best in its class.
As for sidearms and standard rifles for close-quarters use? Swagger didn't care. He was proficient in just about everything. Like Owen—who preferred the HK416 for assault and the SIG Sauer P226 for sidearm—Swagger could handle any weapon in the U.S. arsenal with ease.
With his gear sorted, it was time for the team's first full-squad joint training session. Integration was critical. They had to function as a unit—clean, fast, and deadly.
The exercise went well. These weren't rookies. Everyone adapted quickly. No glaring issues, just a need to refine coordination and build muscle memory.
And when it was over, Owen gave Swagger his first mission—one not listed in any operation file:
Recruit Ghost into the team.
Owen had had his eye on Simon for a while. The man was too capable to be wasted on idle rotations. Now that he knew Ghost was also a Hunter School graduate, his desire to bring him in had only intensified.
But this had to be done carefully. Recruitment attempts that fail are hard to repeat—once someone says no, it's difficult to change their mind.
Swagger was the perfect in.
He and Simon had gone through hell together. They weren't just colleagues—they were brothers-in-arms. If anyone could plant the seed, it was him.
And Owen? He'd be right behind, watering that seed into full-blown loyalty.
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I Am Hades, The Supreme GOD of the Underworld! (Chapter 570)
Reborn as Humanity's Emperor Across the Multiverse (Chapter 660)
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