My first memory of my time at Uncle Jimmy's was of his house. It was HUGE. By the standards of a six year old kid, it was GINORMOUS!!! I was full of excitement and energy as we made the fifteen minute drive up the driveway to the actual house. While he drove my uncle spoke:
"This estate has been in our family for generations. Generations upon generations. In fact it's been in our family since the Founding Fathers first came to America. If not before that. It is a mere 750 thousand acres. 80 thousand is swampland. 60 thousand is a 'haunted forest'. 135 thousand is dedicated to farmland and other money making ventures. 55 thousand is a massive body of water of untold depth. The rest is an open field where nothing taller than knee high dead grass grows. There is a legend that surrounds that particular section of the property. It is said that a thousand years before my family came into possession of this land; a massive, bloody battle from the literal bowls of hell took place there. None survived and it was almost wiped from the existence of history.
Only the two great nations of the two massive armies that fought here remember who they were. Only their records prove the battle was fought here. Unfortunately, however, both kings and their heirs where among the fallen. With their deaths, it was not long after that both great nations fell. Few survived the collapse. Those that did told the story of this land and the war that took place here. Decades later, rumors began to appear that the demise of the two great nations was orchestrated by an old ancient enemy. It is upon this accursed land that I decided to build my humble abode upon."
As my uncle finished his tale of the history of his land – which I found quite interesting – the way up ahead cleared and his home was reviled. The place was MASSIVE. The front porch looked like Old Gothic Victorian. The porch had thirteen massive stone pillars that ran the length of it. The whole structure was black with a gold trim that had a blood red glow to it.
"This place is massive Uncle!" was my only uttered response as we pulled up to the massive front porch.
Gargoyles lined the steps and surrounded each of the stone pillars.
"Welcome to your new home nephew."
It is three weeks before my tenth birthday. For the past three years I have been training as a member of Ouroborus. My day goes as such: wake up at 4:45 am. I am expected to be showered, dressed, have my bed made and be in the dining hall by 5:30am for breakfast. Not a second past. Failure to do so results in being "punished" and breakfast is forfeited immediately. Classes start at 6am sharp.
The first class of the day is basically military calisthenics until 8am. From 8am until high noon when lunch is served is your basic classes taught at your average grade school from math to science as well as several advanced classes such as chemistry. Lunch lasted exactly thirty minutes and then it's off to the next set of classes. Or as I liked to call them Bad Guy 101. These where classes taught to me to be a successful member of Ouroborus:
MMA, Sabotage, Espionage, Assassination, Stealth, Heists, Parkour, Gymnastics, Olympics, Snowboarding, Skiing, Rock climbing, Hacking and Computer Science. The Ways of the Shadows 101, Mechanics 101, Aviation 101, Hunting 101, and a lot of other 101s. These secretly became my favorite classes. By the time I finally turned ten, I was a highly educated child assassin. I knew how to field dress and attend over one thousand wounds from being stabbed to a gunshot and evening needing to amputate one or more limbs on myself or others.
I could survive in the most unforgiving environments. I was a full fledge master mechanic, pilot and sailor. I could drive and operate any kind of vehicle whether it was on land, in air, or by water. I could outperform and maneuver the best Olympians the world had to offer in any field. I could infiltrate an entire country and bring it to its knees in terror, rearrange who was in power, or completely obliterate it from existence.
I could walk into the most heavily guarded place and rob them blind leaving no trace that I had ever been there in the first place. And I was better at it than anyone else in the history of Ouroborus and not even field tested yet. I was also the first member to master every known language to man.
At least that's how the rumors put it. There was even a rumor going around that I was better than my Uncle Jim. And I paid the price for these rumors. The other men being trained here never did anything but my prideful Uncle Jim made my life a living hell for those rumors. At the end of a very long day, dear ol Uncle Jim would find a section of Castle Smrt's vast floor for me to scrub with a toothbrush for three hours. "If you're the best at everything that you do then this should be a cakewalk for you" was always his smirked comment.
The biggest news came the day of my tenth birthday. For the next three years everyone and everything at Castle Smrt would be trying to kill me including and especially my dear loving Godfather. Yay me.