All day long Sledge had been wandering around the Sanctuary like a lost puppy. There was no rhyme or reason to where he chose to plod about. He just traveled whatever direction his head and feet were pointed, a sad look in his eyes, as he gently supported his left arm with the right. Of course the sling that immobilized his arm did a perfectly acceptable job of lifting it up. There was no need for him to hold on to it as though it would fall off, other than to bring comfort to himself. Using his powers was well and good, but trying a high speed punch when his arm was spent was ill advised, especially for this reason.

Still looking much like someone had kicked little Fido in the side, Sledge made his way into the rec room. Tucked into the sleeve of his shirt was a slip of paper which he had been periodically scribbling down numbers on. The sling was incredibly awkward and annoying, and it was making him break out in a rash underneath his shirt. Discomfort though was a small price to pay to walk about the Sanctuary without someone trying to get him to help out or send him off to do work. Should anyone suggest he do so he could simply point out that right now, should he use his powers, he'd incapacitate his good arm and then what good would he be?

Those numbers he had jotted down were the number of steps it took for him to travel from one point in a room to the other, or the length of a hallway. Sledge was gathering information about the Sanctuary slowly and informally. Nobody had asked him to do so, but he had the feeling that it was going to come in very handy in the future.

Aura had no real destination in mind as she walked about Sanctuary. She was to wrapped up in her own mind to care, even as some called out to her. Her aura just visible outlined her body. She tended to leave it on in Sanctuary as she hated having to hide her power. As beautiful as it was it attracted quite a bit of attention when used and made her easy to identify in the public eye. Humans were mere animals but their were a lot of them and as she had learned the more well known one was, the harder it was to get around.

Aura considered her room and considered Allison's room, she decided to go to nether however and started toward one of her lesser visited parts of Sanctuary. She had no dislike for the room, but the room held everything she found little interest in. TV, pool and sitting around. Still sometimes interesting people went to the room and so Aura checked it out every so often for that reason.

As she walked in she caught sight of a fellow order member. She had met him one or twice around the Sanctuary but had never really talked with him. . "How are you my friend?" Aura asked only glancing at his arm after she asked. "It has been awhile" she said deciding to ignore the man's arm for now in her conversation. It had been awhile since she had talked to him and even then the situation had been difficult.

Usually Sledge flirted with any lady that he met, or at the very least gave them special attention. Part of the trouble he had with keeping Kaitlyn from sending him everywhere was that he had no clue what to say to the kid. It was easier by far for him to chat up a bird than to try and connect to someone half his age. The flirtatious thing worked well in clubs, but it meant at times he could, and had, tossed out a line as a way to strike up a benign conversation. His favorite pub's owner loved it though, and the old lady would smack him playfully with a rag, calling him a "wicked little thing." Such behavior was dangerous around the Sanctuary he had discovered. To piss off a normal girl did not as frequently run a major health risk.

Although they had not really spoken much before, Sledge was aware that the woman was called Aura. It wasn't hard to see why, she wore her powers like it was a coat of arms, where Sledge kept his hidden. Well, as much as possible when you call yourself "Sledgehammer". David liked the element of surprise that came from a man of his physique producing so much power. The lack of referring to him by name made Sledge wonder if Aura even knew his name, or if "friend" was the way to address others around here, like some sort of cult. This was, after all, called The Sanctuary, and his first impression had been that this was some sort of church. "Sledge'ammer," he reminded her, just in case. As he continued he flexed the hand in the sling. "I've been better."

He purposefully kept his voice as dry as possible. Pity was not the aim here, but rather something between it and regret. Too much in one direction meant people coddling him, and too much in the other wouldn't keep him Sanctuary bound. "And yeh?" he asked. Flat voice or no, Sledge's accent came out strong when upset, or angry, or any strong emotion. What had sounded as the weirdest vowel in existence was just the letter "o". He had asked Aura how she had been.

Aura knew little of the man before her, but she sought to know more. It always paid to know what your allies could do. Finding out what Aura could do was not difficult and other then her current black locks she had not changed much at all. Though she had been quite, her picture was not hard to know. She nodded at his comment about feeling better not knowing what else to say on the matter.

"I am Aura" she said as she moved further into the room. Her Aura faded slightly and seemed just about to fade away but never actually did. "I like meeting new members of our kind. It Helps to know those who may fight at your side as well" she said.saying nothing further as they were in an open room and Order was still secret. Aura looked around the room and saw it had changed little since she had been in it last.

Sledgehammer then, she was more comfortable with their chosen names anyway. To her friend was a way of signaling from a day long past. A greeting to one you knew little of. Her eyes looked a moment at the arm but asked no questions. She was glad her own Aura protected her flesh from wound's she could never fight as she did otherwise. Aura smiled and brought her hand before her head, Her Aura streamed down her arm and seemed to built at her wrist until it formed a Hammer like shape, the hammer then compressed and a blade appeared from it, as the aura moved from hammer to sword. Aura was her powers and so upon greeting anyone kenw she showed them what she could do. "So what do you think of the human infestation of this planet?" She asked, as she leaned against a wall.

Aura was one of those mutants who hated humans. Such behavior didn’t make sense to Sledge. After all unless you were born with your powers going, you spent a good portion of your life believing that you were human. For Sledge his powers had activated at a rather late age, at the last possible teen year. It wasn’t as though Sledge was unaware of the prejudices facing mutants. It was the reason why nobody in his family knew that he was a mutant. He could even understand why humans might have a fear of mutants. History was full of humanity fearing something new. And who wouldn’t be wary of those that could melt your skin off by sitting near you? But why should he hate humans? There was only a slight difference in genetics that separated homo sapian from homo superior. ”Dunno, some of those human girls make good company.” Sledge said after some thought, a wicked glint in his eye.

It wasn’t in him to try and convince Aura that humans weren’t an infestation. If anything the two of them were it. Mice aren’t pests until they invade territory that you had taken away from them. Human, mutant, it was all the same to Sledge until you got to power and influence. Some of the biggest names out there were taking on the issues of mutant rights, but Sledge knew the truth. To get anywhere in life you had to take all that you can, because there is not enough to go around. Money, not politics, ruled the world.

“Taking a brief holiday from the good fight,” Sledge said, going backwards in the conversation. He didn’t want to go bashing humans for several reasons. Sledge did however watch Aura make her own hammer, which turned into a sword. “Ace. Mine’s less notable.” The arm that was free from the sling gave a small wave. “Yours looks more convenient though.”

Aura looked a bit bothered by the thought of a human and mutant sleeping together. SHe was not about to mention her feeling on it however. Aura knew not everyone viewed humanity as she did. She was happy for the change in topic. "We all need time off weather to heal or for other needs" Aura said with a shrug. Aura had left to take care of matters a few times, and even ended up in Japan for a few months.

"It is the reason i still live, however to use it, tends to draw attention which i have been asked to avoid" she said, it was largely true. SHe had in fact felt the lack of massacres in her past few months were evidence she was trying. She had confined most of her killing to the homeless and gang members, two types of people who often went unreported.

"My power emerged in a fight with another girl, the blow was lethal. " she said somewhat casually. Death had meant something more then, well killing anyway. "Humans caged me before i even understood what i did." She continued.

"I hope your powers emergence were more pleasant? she said with genuine hope. Her own experience had been rougher then many she had spoken with. Still she did not regrett the event that sent her down her path in life, it was unique becuse she remembered the death upsetting her.

At seeing Aura’s reaction to Sledge confessing time spent with human females he gave her a small and sheepish smile, as if to say that he was weak. Honestly he did not care as much about genetics as others around the Sanctuary. It was what you did that dictated who you were, not what your blood says. Some of the best stories concerned humans who simply did what they had to when the time called for it. Mutant, human, child, adult, it didn’t make a difference, the capability to change the course of history still existed. It was better, Sledge thought, for Aura to think that he wasn’t able to resist human women’s wiles than for her to know how her opinion sat poorly with him. Anytime that you discriminated you lost out on one more person to manipulate.

Instead he chose to take her up on asking when his powers emerged. Hard to believe that it was nearly ten years ago that he learned he was a mutant. Ten years and he had questions about it still, like why his arms turned to lead noodles. “I was already caged. Me mate Briggs and I were on a job and everything went pear shaped.” Which was a more polite way to say that he had gotten arrested because of something that he shouldn’t have been doing in the first place. “He woulnit shut his gob, and I missed ‘is head.” To this day he wasn’t sure if that was the best option. He knew without a doubt that taking the exit that he had made only put his future deeper into the pot than if he had just been patient and waited for Charlie. Given the chance to go back he probably still would have done it anyways. Corpses are terribly inconvenient, and waiting in a jail cell never sat well with Sledge.

“Can’t right say iffin that’s better or worse than what happened to yeh,” he concluded. On the plus for him he hadn’t knocked the head off of someone who he did consider a friend. He also got himself out of the cell, which might not have been the case for Aura, he didn’t want to pry. However he no longer could return to where he had been living, let alone his birth country.

So he had been in jail as well, it was common enough among people at sanctuary and even more common within the Order itself. Aura would have been hard pressed to recall many members that were not involved in something illegal. Knowing to keeps one's mouth shut was a valuable thing in deed. In the forest they had cut the neck's of those two wounded to make it back to base for that very reason. The dead told few tales, still it had never been something she liked.

"Our pasts make us who we are, our experiences forge our mind's from them. I was broken out of my cage and then trained for front line combat. I watched many of our kind die back then..." she said though she was unsure how many had been real and how many were simply altered memories. It had also been there Aura had been taught the way the world worked, which had insisted in coming undone the past year or so.

"Now a days i hunt Gang members, homeless and prostitutes. Few people bother reporting their deaths. Humans tend to be disappointing in combat though" she said with a shrug.

"The head can be a small target, sometimes the chest is better, people don't last long, with their rib's shattered" SHe said cheerfully. Aura considered it helpful Advice but she liked targeting vital organs when she fought to kill. Aura assumed Sledgehammer had meant to kill the man for not keeping his mouth shut.

Somehow Aura had gotten the wrong end of the stick. While he couldn’t remember what exactly he had hoped to accomplish by fighting Briggs that day, Sledge felt confident that it wasn’t to kill the sod. Life was always worth more in the end. Sure he had no qualms with taking every last dime out of your pocket and bank account, but to actually end a life was another thing entirely. He’d rather leave someone’s life in ruins than to bring about the end. “Sorry but I think you’ve got me wrong,” he said, looking quite seriously at the girl, and a little uneasy.

He knew that mutants did not get accepted easily. There was prejudice about it everywhere you looked, but the United States felt that they had to have a registration for mutants. Policy had been marvelously slack in England by comparison. Didn’t mean that Sledge felt like he could tell his family that he was a mutant. Hell, he didn’t even let anyone other than Charlie know when he landed in jail. How could he possibly tell them that he was one of those dangerous people that you read about in the Sunday papers? Even knowing how hard it could be to tell those that really do care about you that you’re the carrier of unfashionable genetics, he couldn’t picture what would drive someone to use their powers to kill. “I don’t kill. Doesn’t strike me as proper or smart. Killing Briggs would ‘ave given me more trouble than letting him live.”

And it was true. Breaking out of jail is one thing, but killing someone while in there was another entirely. In the former he got the chance to escape and live a new life. Had he managed to punch Briggs in the head, it would be game over for him. “I was already in a cage, what good would it have done me to off him? What I was in for was not nearly as heavy as murder. Got to keep me good name.”

The Man claimed not to kill, their were reasons not to kill of course. Aura found killing to be easier. It was harder to stab someone and leave them a life then it was to simply aim for a major organ or artery. It told Aura they were very different people as well, to her killing was a reflex. "That makes sense, I don't recall a time when my name was not synonym for murder. It is a sad thing when the thought of taking a life no longer matters" she said honestly. Her name and picture were in every police hall in the state and even a few area's of japan.

Aura believed that if the humans ever did catch her she would likely be executed at best or worse locked away without her powers. She had decided what she would do long ago if humans ever caged her once more. The thought of being confined without her powers was unbearable. "Different people are meant for different thing's, some like me are meant to kill" she said simply. She had no idea what her new friend was meant for but it seemed different then her own path.

Aura ahd, had to learn things when she retuned to the city those years ago. Like not every human would try and kill a mutant. Killing was fine but one had to selecta a target more carefully, random large scale murder tended to get one to well known. That had been Aura's issue by the time she understood the city from the battelfeild she had already killed to many people for it to matter.

“Have you ever noticed though,” Sledge asked, sliding his free arm underneath the one in the sling for additional support. It was a carefully thought of ploy, to make himself look more vulnerable, and therefore less of a threat to Aura as he spoke his judgment. Presenting yourself as a weaker target when that's your expected behavior grants some levels of freedom. “Have you ever noticed though that one corpse just attracts an other? There's always someone seeking vengeance, or a witness that has to be taken care of.” With his arm in a sling he wasn't able to give a full shrug of the shoulders, but he could manage an awkward half shrug combined with a shrug sort of face. “The whole affair just seems too messy to be bother with in the first place.”

Aura was fine with explaining her killing away as something that she was meant to do. Well, he was meant to swindle, lie, cheat, steal, and just in general take what he wanted from others without remorse, but that was different. His targets got to go home at the end of the day. There weren't ones to mourn. As long as you have life still in your body there is a chance to change your fate. He had taken that chance when he was a teen, and now lived a life that he wanted. Other than being blackmailed bu a young girl and working for yet another prepubescent anklebiter.

“Me, I'd rather break the spirit,” he offered. Killing meant nothing to Aura, so arguing over the merits of it with her was a study in futility. Instead he thought to talk to her about other things that one might do. “Keep pushing a man back into a corner and either he'll snap, or he'll break down. The challenge is figuring out which way they'll go. If it's the former, walk away, but with the latter?” Sledge rolled his eyes and whistled low, “With them, they just keep giving you exactly what you need.”

"Witnesses can be issues and that is the reason my face is so well known which has been an issue. It's only been recently i have not dreamed of dieing in combat" she said honestly. Allison had changed much for her. He was certainly right it was a very messy affair and one of which Aura had only recently started to consider diffrently. In Aura's view the man you let go, might kill you tomorrow.

"A trapped animal will often strike back even the most docile ones. However it is also a tactic i do not fully understand. I am fairly sure it is different then torture?" she said considering the idea of breaking one's spirit. "What could a human give me i would want though?" she said considering the other part of this and also looked a bit confused.

SHe chose not to point out that exactly what she felt like she needed, was for humanity to longer exist. Things seemed like they would be simpler then, at least for her. A realization of something useful a human couuld do hit her a few moments later. "I suppose a human could act as a spy" she thought aloud but even this quickly turned an eventual blood bath.

"That's the problem with people," Sledge said, in reference to Aura's caged animal comment, "They spend their whole lives already living in a cage. A comfortable cage granted, with cushioned seats and delectable tasties, but a cage none the less. We fool ourselves into thinking that it's not so bad, and keep up the charade long enough that we forget the cage is even there." It was time, it would seem, to talk about his theories of life. Sledge had not been one for intense theological moments, but he had established a dogma of sorts, a general philosophy of life. First rule was that there wasn't enough to go around.

"The ones that break, that you can take for a ride and wring every last penny out of, those are the ones who not only deny that they're in a cage, they've become afraid to leave it. So you do one of two things. Make 'em think that if they don't follow you that they will lose their cage," with his free hand Sledge held out his thumb, then his forefinger, "Or make them promises of a gilded cage that in the end, you don't deliver to them."

He nodded his head in agreement with Aura on the spy issue. Everyone loves a little bit of espionage. Although he had never watched the telly as a kid, Sledge had gone to the movies, and when still in primary school, pretended that he was Bond. The man was suave, drew women to him like a magnet with paperclips, and had at his disposal the most amazing gizmos and gadgets. Who wouldn't want to be him? "I'd prefer the term 'informants'. Tell them that they're spies and you have people runnin' round hard and getting sloppy. Make them think that you're their mate, and they'll drop tidbits of knowledge without even thinking about it."

Spies wasn't the only use for humans. Maybe it was because Sledge had been using people for so long, even before he discovered that he was the carrier of an active x gene. "But there's more than just that. Funds obviously. Human, mutant, anyone is vulnerable to being swindled out of their money, home, business et. all. Alibis are always a good thing to have on 'and."