Nathan Hunter's Story

Romeo stood back and watched as the new mutant fought with his friends. Franky was being as hotheaded as ever, and it seemed so was Christine, literally. He had seen her eat fire like that on a few rare occasions, but it still surprised him every time. He might be able to do it as well, but he wouldn't be walking around as easily as her afterwards. For the time being it seemed like it was an even match, up until the few face got away from Franky and...stung Christine? If Romeo had seen it right, the woman had produced stingers of some sort from her wrists and used them to inject what he assumed to be some kind of paralyzing venom into the girl's neck, causing her to fall to the ground, or almost.

With that done the woman said a few words and then took off. While the Compound was in danger, Romeo was more concerned with the immediate danger of the venom in Christine. He walks over and kneels beside her to get a better look at the stings and to see how she was doing. Aside from not being able to move she was alive. "Franky, stay here and watch Christine. When the coast is clear take her back inside so someone can look at her wounds." Romeo says, standing up, the remaining spikes on his arm slowly retracting back into him, the same chemical process that made them melting them back down inside of him. As a result of this chemical reaction his core body temperature would raise slightly for a moment, but then return back to normal.

By now the woman was making her way over to Felix, passing Jamison along the way. Thankfully the woman didn't touch her, but for her that might have been a mistake. Romeo knew what Jamison could do, and it wasn't always a pretty sight. What's more it seemed Christine was slowly making her way over as well, and there was a...snake? Shaking his head the leader of the Compound just sighs and reaches a hand into either side of his coat, placing his fingers against his ribs. Slowly blood soaks into his shirt, staining it crimson, and then two tears appear and widen a bit as he begins to pull out two long blades from his sides. When he was finished his shirt was ruined, but the wounds had healed and he was now wielding what looked like two katana without proper handles or guards, and they were just as sharp as the real thing.

Felix was down, Christine looked as if a a still wind could knock her over, and now Jamison was trying to use her powers on the woman. However, Romeo steps in between the two females, blocking them from making eye contact.

"Jamison, sorry but this is personal now." Romeo says quietly to the girl, a slight grin on his face. "If she gets past me again feel free to take her down, and you can start calling Hunter your boss." He had a policy that if anyone trying to enter the Compound without permission got past him twice he would relinquish his control to whoever was the next capable mutant. "And Christine, thank you for your bravery, you've got as strong a spirit as ever, but you need to rest a bit. I think I can handle this."

Walking away from the two of them his grin widens a bit and his pace picks up. Once he has some speed he runs and leaps at the woman, swords raised over his head, and he brings them down in an X slash, aiming for her chest. Even if the slash hit it would be shallow, just an attempt to knock her back and away from the Compound. Romeo wouldn't even attempt to kill without it being absolutely necessary.

It was clear that something was going on inside the head of this woman, and while Romeo would love to just let go of her and let her do whatever she liked, so long as she left the Compound and his family alone of course, he could not in good conscious do it. She was struggling to get free now, and catching fire once more. The flames hurt a little, but it wasn't anything Romeo couldn't handle. Forming a small metal plate in his head he suddenly sits up and pulls her arms towards him, resulting in a headbutt hard enough to knock Fran out cold. It seemed that with her unconscious the flames that had begun to surround her died out as well, and as she slumps over he catches her, letting go of her arms to do so. Letting out a sigh he re-positions the woman so that he is holding her like a child and slowly stands up.

"You can cool down now Franky. I think we have things under control now." Romeo says, turning to look at the others who had surrounded the scene. Well, everyone but Felix anyway, who had walked off and now sported a pair of black wings. "Everyone, I'm sorry for the delay of this supply run, but once this has all been sorted out we'll try it again." Turning his head slightly he shifts his gaze out towards the wreckage of Driver and his truck. "Can someone please go and check on him?"

Without waiting for a reply he then turns and begins to walk back towards the Compound's main gate. As he gets closer the door opens and Hunter can be seen standing just on the other side, a purple claymore resting on his shoulder. Seeing Romeo carrying the woman he steps aside and lets them past, turning to watch as he heads for the elevator that would take him down to the safe rooms. There were specially designed rooms on the third floor down that were very tough. Unstable mutants or people with harmful mutations were taken there until better arrangements could be made for them or they could be helped.

"Alright everyone, back inside." Hunter says, putting a hand to his mouth to focus the sound of the voice so the others could hear him outside the Compound. "If you can get back inside on your own then come on, if not then say so and I can get some people out here to lend a hand!"

Hunter was sort of the second in command under Romeo. It wasn't an official title or anything, just a sort of unspoken rule. The two of them would often go out into the desert at night and spar under the light of the moon and the next day others would come out to find the landscape dramatically changed. There would be deep ridges where their sword had missed their marks, rock formations had been shattered, shards of metal, both natural and organic, would litter the sand and glitter like diamonds.

As Hunter and a few other mutants came out to help those who had been involved with the short battle, Romeo was busy carrying Fran down to the third floor. It was just a short elevator ride, and once there he takes he to one of the special detention rooms. Once inside the door closes and locks behind him. Walking over to a simple bed he lays the woman down and takes a moment to look her over, trying to remember all the abilities she had. All of the rooms were, for lack of a better word, element proof. Fire, water, wind, ice, nothing like that would damage the room, so that meant no need to worry about her burning the place down. Her strength alone shouldn't do much if any damage to the room.

He turns his back on her for a moment to go over to a locked supply closet hidden in the wall, looking for something to put on her arms to deal with her stingers.

"I hate to do this to you, but you're a threat to me and my family." Romeo says as he rummages through the supply closet. He had heard her wake up and begin to move about, and while he was keeping alert he wasn't actually watching her. Nothing had been able to kill him so far after all. Plus if he had been killed by her after taking her into the Compound then he sort of deserved it as far as his logic was concerned. "I'm guessing you don't like the cold huh? Anyway, I'll let you out of here once we get back from gathering some supplies. I don't want to hold you here, but if I let you loose and then leave this place and you get out and hurt someone it would be my fault and I would probably have to hunt you down and kill you." His voice was as cold as stone, he was dead serious about this, despite the softness in his eyes as he turns to look at her.

Before he can say anything else Franky enters the room, followed shortly by Christine. Franky looked like normal again, he'd probably drank some water and cooled off a little before heading down to this level. Christine, on the other hand, looked better but didn't really act like it. Her stomach seemed to be bothering her.

"Here, take one of these, it should help." Romeo says, reaching into a bag he'd taken out of the closet an tossing a pill bottle to her. The pills inside were designed to help get poison and venom out of the system. "It may make you a bit sick, and you'll start to sweat alot, but it should help. I won't stop you from going into town but I would suggest against it." Turning to face Franky he nods. "Sure, go for it. Hunter should have sent someone out there to see about him but it wouldn't hurt to check anyway. If you don't mind take Christine with you, if she'd still like to go of course, and pick up Jamison along the way if you see her. I'll get another vehicle from the garage and take whoever else is left that wants to go and meet you there."

Romeo was ignoring the fact that Franky seemed to be flirting with the woman who had nearly killed him earlier, had nearly killed alot of them. Had any single mutant been out there and gone against her she might have made her way into the Compound. The military had a habit of assigning a letter to mutants based on class. It went from A to E, with E-class mutants being the weakest and A-class being the strongest. Romeo and Nathan were ranked B, and although he hated thinking about such things, this new woman would have to be at the same level, or maybe even an A-class mutant.

Romeo nods to Christine as she thanks him before heading out. The doctor and nurse follow behind, leaving him alone with Fran in the secure room. With them gone he turns to face the woman on the other side of the room, crossing his arms as she opens her legs. He was definitely getting an animalistic vibe from her, but from what the doctor said that could be from her natural mutations or the ones forced on her. It was a rare thing to come across someone who had been given a mutation through experimentation on purpose, but she wasn't the first. Hunter was a born mutant who had been surgically modified as well.

"I never planed on leaving you in the cold." Romeo says as he walks over to the wall and turns the thermostat up. "All of the rooms are adjustable to whoever will be staying in them. We can't raise the temperature too high, but this should be enough to keep you feeling well without letting you burn the place down around you." Soon a vent would activate and warm desert air would be pumped into the room through a series of vents and pipes and such. As the warmer air enters the room it carries with it the scent of the desert. Sage brush, mesquite trees, the smell of the sand itself. "I really don't like keeping you in here, but I hope you can understand this. We have nowhere else to go. Not everyone here is as strong as I am, there are women and children, and those who have been made weaker because of their mutation. I'll do whatever I have to in order to protect them. So until I return you'll be kept here, but when I get back I'll let you out and we can talk more, alright?"

With that said, and the room now warmer than before, Romeo turns to head out of the room, only to bump into Hunter just outside the door.

"I thought you were out taking care of things above ground." Romeo asks his second in command.

"Already taken care of. Driver has been taken to the infirmary, he'll live but never walk again. His truck was scrapped so we'll be taking it apart and bringing it down into the base for spare parts." Hunter says, all the while looking past Romeo at Fran. "So, she's the one who caused all the ruckus. You're getting soft Romeo, a few months ago you would have killed her and have done with it."

"People change, Hunter. Not always for the better, but sometimes." Romeo says, looking away. "If you'll excuse me, I need to be going now. I still have a supply run to manage." With that the mutant leader walks off, leaving Hunter alone with with Fran.

-=-

After finishing his drink Hadrian looks at the empty glass, holding it up in the palm of his hand. His hand begins to heat up and the glass melts, forming a puddle in his hand, which he slowly turns to the side and allows to drip. The liquid glass forms small droplets, like tears, as it falls and cools, disappearing into the sand below them. He was getting restless, and although it took energy to do such small things, he felt if he didn't do something he would go mad.

"We'll be heading out to Belhart city. I have a source who says there is a group of people who live out in the desert and come into town for supplies every month or so. Hopefully we can catch them on their supply run and question them to see if they may have spotted Fran." Hadrian says, cooling his hand off before turning around and walking inside. "We own one of the buildings on the outskirts of town, we can use it as a temporary base of operations while we gather information."

Something in the back of his mind was calling Hadrian out into the sands of the Nevada desert, and while he could survive out there on his own just fine, Fredrick could not. Logic, then, would say to stay near the desert, but not out in it. Belhart would be a good start, and if they found anything interesting they could always move. Among the fleet of various military vehicles at their disposal were a few MCV units, Mutant Recover Vehicles. They were large black vans fitted with various technologies on the inside that could track mutants if they got their hands on a DNA sample that was fresh enough and that also had a special device inside that rendered mutations useless.

After leaving the secure area of the Compound Romeo makes his way back to ground level and to the garage. It was a fairly large area, housing some fifty vehicles. Everything from simple everyday cars that some of the mutants had driven out to the Compound on their first day visiting and never bothered to take back to wherever they came from, to a few stolen military vehicles left over from the last big fight between the military and the mutants. More than a few of them had been modified for running the the desert, like Franky's beloved Clementine. Romeo's vehicle of choice was a humvee that, well basically the gun was gone from the top and it had been given a coat of paint the same color as the desert sands. Aside from that it was the standard military model. Not that he needed it to do much more than get him from one place to the other.

Climbing inside he slides the key into the ignition and it growls into life. A normal one would roar, but Romeo had gotten Franky to work on the engine. It was just as powerful as before, but quieter. After checking to make sure he had plenty of gas and none of the warning lights were on he pulls out of the garage, the door opening and closing on its own thanks to the trigger device Franky had put in it.

Soon the heat of the mid-day desert was all around him. He had spent longer leaving than he had meant to, which meant that the others would reach Belhart a good hour or so before him. This wasn't a military style community, so no one would be forced to wait on him to arrive before they could get down to business though. He would have everyone regroup before they left though, make sure they had gotten all the supplies and extras they needed to last for another month.

Romeo was just wondering how Christine was doing when the ground before him just sort of exploded. He didn't know what was going on, and before he could figure it out the humvee flipped sideways and rolled three or four times before coming to a stop upside down between two large sand dunes. Out of instinct he had created metal spikes that created a sort of roll cage around him, so aside from being dizzy he was relatively fine. At least he was until the spikes began to bend, and then snap away. The humvee then began to shake violently before crumpling in on itself, as if a giant had reached up out of the sand and shook it before crushing it. Despite his healing factor the crushing injuries had him incapacitated, and he wouldn't be able to move or do anything until he got loose.

This is what the two mutants responsible for the ambush were counting on. The sand around the crumpled metal begins to shake once more, then it and the two mutants descend into the ground, into one of the hidden, rarely used tunnels.

-=-

"Honestly, I don't care who you are." Hunter says, stepping into the room so that the door would close behind him. Reaching out with his left hand, the one covered in red bandages. Small specks of purple light, like will'o'wisps begin appearing around his arm, gathering, until a short sword seemingly blinks into existence. His fingers wrap around the blade and the purple specks die out, leaving now trace of themselves behind. "My name is Nathan Hunter and I'm the one who really runs his Compound. Romeo just thinks he is in charge."

Raising the sword and pointing it at Fran, Hunter takes a few steps closer, closing the distance between them, the tip of the sword now just a foot or so away from her neck.

"I've got some big plans in the works and you nearly ruined them with that little stunt you pulled this morning. I should just cut your head off then make it so cold in here that you'll freeze, but I'm not in the mood for death just yet today." There is another flash of light and the sword is gone without a trace. "You're free to go as far as I'm concerned, just stay out of my way."

Turning around once more Hunter walks back to the door and, on his way out, hits a switch that deactivates the devices binding Fran's wrists together. When he walks out, the door doesn't shut behind him.