1997
8 year old Dusty Irwin held as still as he could, and watched TV while his best friend's big sister applied green Halloween makeup to his face, and black circles around his eyes.
It was summertime.
They were going to play a little prank.
2011
October 20th.
Dusty Irwin wandered through the grocery store, and then stopped dead in his tracks.
There was a display of Halloween masks, and one of them hypnotically grabbed his attention.
It was green, metallic, and...couldn't seem to decide if it was a ghost, an alien, or a skull, and had a black shroud on the back for covering up the wearer's hair.
It made him flash back to "The Green Monster".
How that night in '97, he had snuck around, and peeked in people's windows, and scared the crap out of them.
How one redneck idiot even came out looking for him with a shotgun.
How getting him home that night alive was like something out of a spy novel.
How, the next day, it ended up in the papers, not as kids fooling around, but as "The Green Monster".
Dusty grinned like an idiot, and thought "man, people haven't gotten much brighter, wouldn't they just shit if I grabbed that sucker, and did a sequel?".
He thought better of it, and chickened out.
That mask kept popping back into his mind though, and wouldn't stop bugging him.
2011
October 27th.
Dusty went back to the store.
The mask was gone.
Outwardly, he laughed it off.
Inwardly...he was crushed.
2012
Dusty spent the better part of that year looking for the mask, and planning something.
Something bigger than a prank.
One thing would suggest another, and it all sort of fell into place.
"Green Monster", just hadn't been good enough, and he was sure it had been taken by a sports mascot, so, some internet thesaurus searches later, and "Jade Shade", it was.
2013
January 1st.
The preparations were almost set....still no mask.
He'd just have to make do.
This Halloween, he'd grabbed a generic "maniac", hockey mask, a black executioner's hood, some cheap green tinted mirrored sunglasses, and, with a little of this with a hacksaw, and a little of that with some green paint, some beefed up extra padding from a boxer's helmet, a little extra tinkering, and gluing and stitching all together, and....VOILA!
2013
January 14th
"If it doesn't matter...then I can do what I want anyway", Dusty grumbled.
He rolled over, and looked at the costume draped across the kitchen chair.
Black jeans, black workboots, black sweatshirt, black flak vest, black leather gloves, black fanny-pack full of toys, and...the mask.
"Yeah, fuck it, I'm doing it".
He nodded, rolled back over, and went back to sleep.
The Jade Shade he would be.
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