Chapter 1: The Hunted

He looks up, scanning the windows in each of the building's floors for signs of life... for targets. The lights are all out, and the angle is not quite perfect for looking into dark rooms at night time, but it doesn't matter... he can see just fine. Targets in almost every room... and it looks like his main prey is at the very top.

The front door is wood, and probably not reinforced much at all, since they're probably used to their powers protecting them from anybody wishing them harm. But, their petty abilities won't let them live through the night.

He feels the weight of the grenade in his hand. It will help him get through the first few floors without much problem, but the fun will really start once he gets higher.

He presses the 'arm' button on the grenade, and takes a step back from the door. Kicking out with all his strength, he causes the wood of the door to crack when his boot connects with it. The door falls from its frame, ripped off the hinges.

He tosses the grenade down the front hallway. A few of the occupants of the first floor pop their heads out of the doorless rooms on either side of the hall, to see what caused all the noise. It would have been better for them if they'd just found a nice dark corner to try and hide in.

The grenade explodes... not a violent, fiery explosion... just a simple 'pop', like a balloon, and then the gas is released. An orange mist erupts from the fragments of the grenade, and quickly dissipates throughout the floor, and up the stairwells, and through the next two floors as well.

They try to shout out warnings to each other... try to move to hit an alarm... try to do anything at all... but the gas overwhelms them quickly, and they stop moving in a matter of seconds.

He draws his weapons... twin silver handguns, each with a sharp, curved blade running from the hand grip to the tip of the weapon on the underside of the barrel. He holds them in his hands, at his sides, as he steps forward into the gas filled hallway. He breaths deeply as he passes through... though he is not wearing a mask of any kind, the gas has no effect on him. And though it is as thick as smoke, it does not bother his eyes.

He nears the stairwell, and is surprised to see that one of the people is still breathing. The man must have managed to get a few words, perhaps a hand gesture off before becoming incapacitated. He shoots the breathing man in the head, and begins his climb up the stairs.

He climbs quickly, guns aimed at each doorway he passes. These would lead out to the other floors, but he does not need to check them. There was enough gas in the grenade to fill three stories of this building. Everybody on those floors is already dead, or, like the formerly breathing man on the first floor, unable to do anything to stop him.

They are waiting for him at the door to the forth floor though. He hides just out of sight, around the turn of the stairwell. He can hear their heartbeats from behind the door... six of them. He jumps forward, turning the corner and firing two shots into the door. Rushing up the stairs, he readies himself, and slams, shoulder first, into the door, knocking it from its hinges, and using it as a battering ram to pin two of the attackers to the opposite wall of the hallway. He strikes out with his left hand as he spins back, catching one of the others in the throat with the blade of his gun. Spinning again, a second of the attackers falls to the blade in his right hand. He shoots the other two in the chest, and then fires two shots into the door, waiting for only a second to see that the two who were pinned beneath it slump down to the floor.

He hears something coming at him from the far side of the hallway, and manages to turn just in time to avoid a bolt of raw energy hitting his head. He smiles to himself... the only ones in this building powerful enough to pull that off are his main targets. He glances down the hallway, and just catches sight of the two of them, an middle aged man and woman, heading up the stairwell at the other end of the hall.

He rushes after them, firing random shots through the doors of the rooms he passes. He hears some of the shots hit the wood of the back wall of the rooms... but some of them hit flesh, and he smells the blood as it spills out to the floor.

He takes the stairs four at a time as he climbs, pausing only slightly at each floor entrance, to see if they left the stairwell. But, each time, he finds no signs that they have altered their path, and he continues rushing up the stairs, until he reaches the open doorway leading out to the roof of the building.

He follows them, out into the chilly night. It doesn't take long to find them... they're standing on the very edge of the roof, holding hands tightly, staring back at him. He approaches, aiming one gun at each of their hearts.

"You have been found guilty. Punishment for your crimes is death."

The woman looks furious, and starts yelling.

"Our crimes? What crimes have we committed? What are we guilty of?"

"You are descended from a tainted bloodline. You have been bringing other tainted humans to you for years now... giving them a place to sleep, and mate, and continue the dirty line of our race. Take your pick... each of those crimes brings death."

She starts gesturing with her free hand, but the man reaches over, stopping her.

"It's no use. He's the Hunter. We knew he would come for us some day. We can't fight against him."

Tears fill her eyes as the man turns to him.

"I have a request. In the first room of the top floor of this building, is a baby. Our child."

He shakes his head.

"Why would you tell me this? My orders are to cleanse the building... I'll have to kill the baby too."

"No, you won't. He's not our genetic offspring. We found him, abandoned, a few days ago. We've been searching the Core, trying to find some of his actual family. I'm guessing it was that computer activity that finally led you to us."

"It was."

"He's not one of us. We've already done the tests."

"Then I'll take him with me. But, be warned... we will test him ourselves. If you're lying, and he is tainted... I'll kill him."

"I know you will. I'm not lying. Now... carry out your orders, so we can be at peace."

The man and woman turn towards each other, embracing one last time, whispering soothing words in their moments of death. He can hear their whispers, but he ignores the words as he fires off two shots, hitting each of them in the head. They fall over the side of the building, and the Hunter is already back down the stairwell before they hit the pavement on the street below.

He pushes open the door of the first room on the top floor, and finds a teenaged girl, calmly singing a lullaby to a very small baby in a crib. The girl turns to face her death, closing her eyes as the blade of his gun comes down upon her.

The baby cries.

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The Hunter hands his guns over to the technician to be serviced, and turns around, ready to get his new assignment. He is surprised to see an older man standing behind him, wearing the uniform of an Alliance General. The General does not look happy.

"You brought the child here. Your orders were to cleanse the entire building."

"My orders were to eliminate a clan of tainted humans. Unless the results of the genetic tests are back already, we do not know if that includes the child."

"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO KILL THEM ALL!"

For most people, a gruff, menacing Alliance General is a frightening sight. But the Hunter is less than impressed. As all of the gathered technicians in the room try to look busy so the General won't pick on them, the Hunter just takes a step to the side, and walks past him, into the next room.

The Hunter approaches a man in a white lab coat, and ignores the Generals continued ranting.

"My next mission?"

The man in the lab coat is just about to speak when the General shoves the Hunter out of the way.

"Doctor Eckart. I demand that something be done about this. Your experiment will not cooperate with me, and it refuses to answer my questions."

Eckart just smiles at the General.

"General Rhiner, the Hunter wasn't created to answer your questions. You can ask whatever you wish of the lab techs, or myself for that matter. But, the Hunter has better things to do."

"If I wish to ask it a question, I will. I AM in charge of the Alliance Defense Force."

"But, you'd may as well just ask a question of a police officer's hand gun. The Hunter is a weapon... nothing more. Now, the tests on the child that it brought back were negative. The baby was not tainted. We will turn it over to the government for placement with a family, and that is the end of the argument."

General Rhiner, furious, turns to leave, but instead bumps into the Hunter. It is not often that the General, being over six feet tall, has to look up to meet another person's gaze, but he finds himself leaning back to see the empty eyes of the Hunter.

"General or no... the next time you shove me... I'll kill you."

A few minutes later, and the General is out the door, with promises to see the 'experiment' destroyed for its comment. Eckart turns to the Hunter, shaking his head.

"You could have been nicer to him. Our contract with the Alliance runs out in a couple of months. It'll be that man that decides if we can continue working on the Hunter Project."

"If I'm just a simple weapon, should it matter what I have to say?"

"Just because I played to the General's beliefs of you being a weapon he can use against the Tainted, doesn't mean you have to mock me for it."

The Hunter actually laughs.

"I know the story, Doctor. I know what I am... why I am here, and how it is that I came to exist. I don't need to know any more than that. So, please... my next mission?"

Doctor Eckart nods, and motions to one of his lab assistants to bring the Hunter a brown file folder. Inside the file is a single page of paper, with a picture, a small list of known facts about the target, and a last known location. The Hunter looks at the picture, and is slightly confused.

"Doctor, this guy has to be at least a hundred years old. That can't be possible. He'd have to be very powerful to avoid the Alliance for so long."

"We suspect he is very powerful indeed. A Sweeper team was sent to take him down at his last known location. He wiped them out. That's why they've asked me to send you next. I'm hoping that you'll put on a good show for the government so they'll push the General to renew our contract."

"I'll kill him."

The Doctor nods.

"That is the idea. Now, go and get ready."

The Hunter leaves the room, reading over the information in the file, and committing it to memory. When he is gone, the doctor turns, and heads through one of the other doors leading out of the room. He enters a long white hallway, and walks about halfway down it before stopping at a security door. He places his hand against the blue outlined square on the wall beside the door, and the sensors start their work... verifying his finger prints, hand print, DNA, and reading the security chip that rests between the bones of his fingers.

When all this is done, it takes about a second, the door opens. Doctor Eckart enters the room, and smiles as he approaches the equipment in the center of the room.

"And how are you today?"

In the center of the room, hooked up to a vast number of machines and computers, is a tall glass tube, filled with thick blue liquid. A roughly humanoid shape can be seen through the liquid, hooked up to tubes in its head and arms.

The Doctor moves to one of the computer terminals, checking on the status of the experiment. At the very top of the computer screen, in large letters, are the words:

Phase Two...