Shinai & Rajiv
The cold of peace and the heat of war
Shinai the weasel lives in a dirt cheap, cramped, sparsely furnished dwelling in the burning hot Arizona desert. Weasels were long stereotyped as cowardly, so he first became a combatant to disprove that misconception and resist that label - he would never weasel out of anything. He and his partner had met at their spartan coven's martial arts competitions. He used to be a follower of Mars, but he's renounced him since his partner was drafted and killed on the battlefield and his peers rejected him as weak for caring. He wants to join the army so that he can study and reverse engineer soldier mental programming to figure out how to break all soldiers in the world from it, so that no one will ever join it and that there will be no such thing as the army anymore. If there's to be an army at all, he thinks it should use non-lethal weaponry, be divorced from tribalism to anywhere, with soldiers who question orders, show self-control, value their own lives and each other's lives, and think for themselves. Because never again.
Rajiv the white tiger lives alone in an abandoned monastery on a snow-covered, cold wind-swept mountaintop. Tigers were long stereotyped as angry, so he first became a pacifist to disprove that misconception and resist that label - he would never be just another raging tiger. He and his partner had met as monks studying martial arts in another monastery. He used to be a follower of the Buddha, but he's renounced him since the other monks exiled him for having taken revenge on the one who'd killed his partner. He wants to lead his people into a revolution against their oppressors, to convince the rest of the world to take a stand against their oppressors no matter how 'inconvenient' it is for them to do so, to convince his people to take back their independence from them, to liberate people's justified anger from well-meaning repression, because peace without freedom and equality isn't really peace at all, endangered species deserve to be saved, and true non-violence goes beyond mere apathy. Because never again.
Shinai gets wind of Rajiv's phenomenal physical and mental prowess, and he decides to engage in a pilgrimage halfway across the world all the way up the snowy mountain to his monastery, not only so that he can perfect his combat ability to survive the physical challenges of the military life, but also so that he can perfect his mental skills to develop enough focus to resist the military's conditioning in his heart of hearts even while he'll outwardly adhere to it to successfully infiltrate it. After Shinai passes Rajiv's physical and mental tests to prove to him that he deserves to be trained by him, as his training progresses, they exchange their experiences with each other and begin to question their own missions. Shinai begins to wonder whether or not it's really possible to stop remorseless killers from killing without becoming a killer oneself, and Rajiv begins to wonder just how many of his people would be killed if he were to lead them into a revolution that they may not be able to win. But they encourage each other to persist in their chosen missions in spite of their misgivings, because neither of them wants to be responsible for stopping the other one from making a difference in the status quo that they both hate so much.
At first neither of them wants to admit that there might be an extra reason for which, after having gotten to know each other for longer and longer, they're beginning to question whether they still want to put their lives on the line or not. Because they're getting used to being around each other, and because of what they've both already been through.
I still don't know which decision they'd end up making at this point. Maybe it's better to leave it up to the reader to decide.