Kelsin is a member of one of the unnatural groups who actually banded together to something like what the GUARD does, without the bring-back aspects... they police unnatural activities, keeping naturals free of the effects of what unnaturals can do, especially those who try to use their abilities for personal gain (and that does not mean a precognate who is a fortuneteller on the side, but those who would steal and hurt others, especially naturals, for their gain). They call themselves the FLD, or First Line of Defense, and are unknown to the general public, but have made a name for themselves in the unnatural fringe world. To cover their occasional public displays of powers, they've become rather famous local special-effects artists. Or at least, as far as anyone's concerned, that's what they are, operating under a genuinely registered tradename, First Line of FX Pty Ltd. This group consists of their leader Jerry Matthews (ECHO) and his wife Martje (ICE BIRD) (who was killed in the Main Complex breach), Molten, Fury, Poltergeist, Medic, Tap, Night Cat (deceased), Hehx, and Sabre. All the FLD knows of and has stood beside the Outcasts (Lair Brats) in the past, against the GUARD and other threats. The FLD is full of veteran RUNners and thankfully wealthy enough (or Jerry is) to keep up their facade and keep out of GUARD clutches because of it and their network of allies.

RING

Real name: Tabitha Mansfield
Height: 5' 11"
Weight: 136 lbs.
Eyes: brown
Hair: black, bleached to gradual white

ABILITIES:

Ring is a RUNner from Chicago who runs with a small gang of other unnaturals (Bronze, Fume, Candor, and Coil), all of which are good friends with the unnatural police officer, Martin Jaffe (MARTYR). They know the Outcasts, or most of them from before the kids left Chicago for Washington State. Ring has a strange taste in clothing and works out often, hence her massive physique. She often speaks with a harsh British accent, but has never been to England. Her abilities are similar to Venin's; Ring is able to transfer pain into energy blasts which emerge as visible physical rings of glowing pale light. She can take a great deal of damage physically, her body sponging the damage up and altering it, with the side-effect of bleeding the damage away, working as something like a helaing factor, but not quite. She will not heal from poisons or colds, only true physical abuse. In a fight, its not uncommon for her to run into a fist, or step into the path of an aluminum bat, or even to kick a brick wall with enough strength to shatter bone. The more damage, the more power she can use. She does have limits, however, and can be rendered unconscious, it just takes longer than normal due to her gifts. A mortal wound will not heal, so if she's shot through heart, while she may be able to squeeze off one last blast, she will die.

CANDOR displays the most painful truths of a person's heart, BRONZE can alter her skin into hyper-strong bronze-colored metal making her nigh impervious, FUME can alter his physical form into a mist and also control gases (yeah, just try to laugh at that when he removes all oxygen from your immediate vacinity), and COIL holds energy tentacles in visible sheaths on his forearms.

MARTYR is a young cop who can regenerate any part of his body... remove his head and it will regrow in a day or two. Cut off a limb and it will return an hour later. Unless he's carved into many tiny pieces and those shipped around the world, buried in metal trunks, he'll pull back together, alive. Even years later. There's a small problem with this however, beyond the fact he seems potentially immortal (he is not, he will age and eventually die... he hopes) and that is that more often this happens, the more his regeneration powers are employed, the more it hurts. Where he would have run in front of an oncoming vehicle without thought before (which earned him the monicker "Martyr" from his Force friends, not the GUARD), he might now hesitate, knowing he won't DIE, but also knowing the agony he'll have to endure in the regeneration. A small price for a life, many would think, but then they don't have to deal with the repercussions. If it only hurt a little, there'd be no problem....

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SILK

Real name: Kirian Silk
Height: 5' 9"
Weight: 124 lbs.
Eyes: black
Hair: black
Skin: white

ABILITIES:

Kirian hails from the South Australia GUARD Base, though she was born in Queensland. She has spinerettes in her palms which, like a spider's, produce silk. She can spin this silk into webs, cables, hammocks, etc... and silk, being inch for inch stronger than steel, is quite effective as a containment device. Yes, it can be burned through or cut through by the right devices, but it's not overly easy. And the silk, like webs, is sticky. She has other spider-like abilities as well, able to cling to walls, climb glass, leap tremendous lengths and heights, etc... she has superhuman strength and speed, above the unnatural norm. She also carries a few weapons, as befits a Hunter; some shield pods (3), an energy net gun (3 nets, keyed to targets) and a tazer-like weapon (4 charges). She is proficient in hand-to-hand combat, has had weapons training, skilled in computers and techno-things, trained in some martial arts, etc... standard GUARDian knowledge. No, she does not have a "spidey-sense".... but she does have six eyes.

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RUELETTE

Real name: Fabian LaRue
Height: 5' 7"
Weight: 110 lbs.
Eyes: green
Hair: blonde

ABILITIES:

Ruelette was aptly Filenamed. She has six various abilities and she never knows which one will surface when she calls on her gifts... it's a complete gamble. These are: Weather manipulation, laser zaps, plasma shots, TK (incl. flight), invisibility, and super cold projection. She may also exhibit a wild card factor, meaning she pulls a power, not one of her normal six, from somewhere. Her durations last on 6 minutes currently and she needs to rest 6 minutes in between transfers. She has the strength, speed, agility and endurance of an unnatural female her age who engages in frequent rigorous exercise. She is trained in hand-to-hand combat, some martial arts, and techno-things.

Fabian was GUARD raised in the Midwest, around Nebraska. It has become her goal and dream in life to be transferred to the main complex in Oregon and make her mark next to the Greats like Venin, Warpole and Old Scratch. She studied hard, was treated well, loves the GUARD as her family and friends, will say little to nothing adverse regarding them, is gung-ho and excited to go out and hunt RUNners. She's a good girl with a good heart and a firm belief in the GUARD's codes and regulations.

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PSIWARP

Real name: Gabriel Madison
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 115 lbs.
Eyes: blue
Hair: buff

ABILITIES:

Gabriel is possessed of a very distinct brand of telepathy, a kind which can bypass any type of psionic shielding because it never touches the mind of the victim. Instead, Gabriel 'reads' events imprinted on a person... anything that has helped shape a figure in the past he can see. And since this includes almost everything, his ability is vast. Around, indeed on the astral 'flesh' of a person, each incident which has occurred in that person's life is etched, embossed. Even if it's crossing the street or falling out of bed, it imprints. Psiwarp can see these, but he'll much more quickly pick up the truly impressing issues, violence or love or hate... these he sees far more readily. And he can 'pull' these off, projecting them onto a kind of screen his blue eyes produce. Yes, he can see them and yes, he can control what's played. He can change it, alter it, warp it. In the process, it also affects the mind of the victim, the impressions change, literally rewriting history. It changes so fully that even a psychic, or post cognate, or himself or any other telepath who looks upon it would see what he's twisted it into being. A creature who sees truths would even have a very hard time, for the new memory has become the truth, as if it happened. Different from a telepath's tamperings, because Psiwarp's power makes the victim's own mind do the work, those embossed experiences actually DO change to fit it. Its not a memory change one can just snap out of, its so utterly total, there IS nothing out of which to snap. And once the mind accepts what is being shown before their eyes, and any psionic shielding (which inevitably) lowers, his powers only intensify. What Psiwarps powers do is this: He projects the images he pulls off the aeriform. This allows both him and the victim to watch the events as many times as Gabriel wishes. His eyes and his gifts place the victim back INTO the display, let them relive the event(s) again, as if it were fresh, for the mind never forgets completely, just stores things away in the long term memory, able to retrieve them again when the cues are given. And this is what the mind does, pulls everything back out again, every feeling and emotion, every detail, everything, and the victim is there again, and the image plays, sometimes altered. And since it is altered swiftly, the mind has no time to rebel. He's never failed a task, though it takes much out of him. For an example of his powers at work, read what he did to Venin.

Psiwarp's particular gifts have never before been seen and the GUARD has him. The GUARD actually saved his sanity, for when Gabe's power first surfaced, he saw far too much and it threatened to overwhelm him, he was losing himself in so many others, his eyes spinning the tales before him, making him relive his own stories and others'. As the images became stronger, his sanity slipped further until the GUARD caught up with him. He was such a horrific weeping mess by that time, and having tangled with some particularly strong images of a cyhunter, at the very brink of insanity. They sent in Hyaline, invisible but tangible, and that inability for him to see her allowed her to approach him, take him back to the HeadQuarters, and work with him there. The two still have a very strong bond. Psiwarp tends to be rather cold and quiet, he has telepathy (as in reading minds, mindspeech), but its not his strength. He taught PsiClone (or helped to) and Rikky looks on Gabe as a mentor and until Rika, Gabe was Rikky's first and pretty much only, friend. PsiWarp has a rather unhealthy infatuation with Eclipse which does not extend to a sexual one.

STARCHILDE

Real name: Tayla Dreyer
Height: 5'0"
Weight: 80 lbs.
Eyes: blue
Hair: blonde

ABILITIES:

Tayla was one of the very few children sold into the GUARD serum experiments, as her father was in massive debt from gambling. He'd borrowed from loan sharks and gotten into deep trouble with the mafia, so when the opportunity to make a lot of quick cash came in, he took it. His wife was unknowing, of course. He told her only that he'd managed to secure them some free prenatal care. Bankrupt, she was more than delighted and didn't ask why or how. Tayla was the product. Her powers manifested when she was nearly 15, scared her terribly and hurt more than a few others, children at school who had been teasing her about her height and other such things children will find to pick on.

CLERIC

Real name: Leanne Williams
Height: 5'5"
Weight: 105 lbs.
Eyes: brown
Hair: honey brown

ABILITIES:

**...G.U.A.R.D. =Genetically Unnatural Apprehensions and Research Department
***R.UN.ner= Rogue Unnatural ((All Unnaturals receive their monickers from the GUARD, who use them as filenames. Whether they accept the use of the names or not is a personal choice.))

The Legal Mumbo Jumbo
All characters contained on following pages, or their distinct likenesses, the names Unnaturals, Hunters, R.UN.ners, GEMlabs, and G.U.A.R.D. are copyrighted under law by Rebecca Baerman, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1996, 1998, and 1999. Artwork excluded in this claim would be any that she herself did not draw which belong to their respective owners and creators legally. What will eventually be printed will not include borrowed images, and Rebecca Baerman makes no claim to them as her own.