Lore/Oliver McQueen: The Mystery Man - Part II

I once again started back on my trek into The Island. After a few hours of non-stop walking, I finally found the other men that The Mystery Man was talking about. Naively, I approached their campsite. I was so stupid back then. They had about five tents at this campsite, and about 15 or so armed men walking around, few of them talking over their radios to other men, probably at different campsites. Everyone here was armed with a FN F2000 bullpup assault rifle, and a few of them even had sidearms. Most of them were wearing the same military-style clothes, except for a one who looked more important.

I walked into their campsites and tried to approach the more important looking man. I made it about 10 feet into the campsite when I heard the men shouting. I looked to my left and saw one of the men running up to me, his gun held high in his hand. Before I even had time to react, he hit me hard in the face with the butt of his gun. Needless to say, I immediately got knocked out.

I did not know how much time had passed, but I woke up inside a larger tent. I was tied to one of the tent posts, and there were a few beds and a table in front of me with a map of the entire island. There was no-one in the tent at the time, so I studied the map. There were a few red regions on the map, and one particular place was circled. The Mystery Man’s cave was not marked. One of the guards came in to check on me. He said something over his radio, and then walked out. Then another man walked into the tent. I instantly recognized the uniform he was wearing. This was the same person that I tried to approach when I walked into the campsite.

“Who are you, and why are you here? Do you know who we are? Who are you working for?” I was instantly bombarded with several questions. I looked up at him and said, “Look mister, my name is Oliver McQueen and my yacht was shipwrecked. I made it to this island and am just trying to find a way off. Please sir, help me.” The man looked at me, took out his unnecessarily large blade, ripped my shirt off, and started cutting my chest. “GAH! I told you the truth! Please!” I screamed.

After several gruesome hours of torture, the man finally stopped. “Don’t worry, you haven’t lost a lot of blood. I made sure of that. You see, in Blackwater, we’re experts of torture. We know how to apply maximum pain with minimal permanent damage.” said the man as he paced around the room. I looked up at him and told him that I do not know what he is talking about. And that’s when it happened…

Multiple gunshots were going off outside, and the man then held his blade against my neck, pressing in hard. “CALL OFF YOUR DOGS, NOW!” He yelled at me. I looked him dead in the eyes and told him that this is not my doing. As he pulled his blade into the air, ready to strike down at me, a flashbang rolled into the tent.

*\*BANG\**

Everything was so white. I could not see a thing. I heard the man fall over some tables, his blade making a sharp noise as it hit the ground. The gunshots had stopped outside. Then, someone cut the rope that had me tied down, and the person helped me up. He slapped me a few times to speed my vision back up.

“Oliver, can you see now?” asked The Mystery Man. “What the…” I said, looking completely surprised, “What are you doing here?” He helped me walk outside the tent, which is when the men attacked. He let go of me, and I fell on the ground. It all happened so quickly… so efficiently. There were five men, four attacking him simultaneously while one was in a tree trying to get a clear shot with a sniper rifle.

The Mystery Man beat down all four men, took out his knife from his belt and threw it at the sniper in the tree. The sniper fell. “Rescuing your clumsy ass” he said, “Now let’s get the hell out of here before more show up!”

We ran for about an hour, or at least it seemed that long, until we finally made it back to his cave. I was so exhausted. “Who the hell were those men back there?! And what did they want from me?” I asked, out of breath. “I told you before Oliver, the others on this island are not nice. You should have listened to me.” he claimed as he took off his helmet and facemask. He laid his sniper down and showed me the blade he had killed one of the men with. “Picked it up while you were whining about having to run.” he said cheerfully.

“You literally took all those men out by yourself.” I said in awe, “How?” He sighed and said, “I have had years of training from the FSB. Those Blackwater goons are good, but not as good as me.” “Let me guess, they are after you and thought that you and I were working together?” I questioned him. “Something like that, yeah. You see, Blackwater is an American PMC. I don’t know why they are after me, but I’m going to find out one way or another.” He explained.

“Wait, if I help you with your problem, could you help me with mine? You know, a little quid pro quo?” I jokingly asked. “HA! I just rescued you from one of their camps. What the hell could you do that I cannot?” He claimed, “You are untrained, an amateur, and quite frankly, a liability to me.” I looked down in sadness, sighed, then looked back up to him with seriousness. “Then train me,” I said. He paused for a second, looked at me, and then nodded. “Fine, I’ll train you. IF you think you have what it takes.” He said. I smirked and cheerfully said, “I’m a fast learner.”

“By the way, surely your name isn’t ‘Mystery Man’, is it?” I asked.

I did not realize how much one introduction could change my life.

He stepped forward and extended his arm. “The name’s Moser… Dexter Moser.”