A/N: So, I made a Mutant!AU...Sue me.

This is just an introduction to the plot. An arc establishing a basic layout of each of the main characters and their abilities will be next!

December 21, 2013

Unspecified location somewhere in the country of Russia

A assassin is only as good as his or her weapon. And, going by that logic, Natalia would be up with the greats.

Her dagger's blade was sharp, and she had spent a great deal of time making it so. It was a fine weapon, intricately crafted from fine silver in a spiral, which made the blade impossible to extract without causing more injury. She was very proud of the weapon, as well as how pretty it was. Though, prettiness was not necessary: Her victims had no time to admire it before they met their untimely demise.

Still, it made her feel more...ladylike, in a way. Sophisticated.

Natalia traced her one of her dagger's specially designed curves, feeling satisfied with how clean and smooth it was. Not a rough edge anywhere to be found. An impressive feat, considering how often it was used by the Belarusian girl.

"There you are, Natalia!" Came the gentle voice of her older sister, Yekaterina. Soft footsteps crunched in the snow, alerting the younger girl of her sister's approach. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

Natalia turned, looking at her sister with bored, half-lidded eyes as she easily put her prized weapon into its holder. "Yes, sestra?" She said, furrowing her brows at the sight of her sister's distressed expression. Yekaterina had always been a worrier, always going into a full-blown panic if Natalia or their brother, Ivan, so much as sneezed, but this worry...it was different. There was more stress in the Ukrainian's face, more fear in her eyes.

Something was wrong. And Natalia had an inkling of what it was.

"The bastards are back at it?" She growled, eerily soft and calm for the anger bubbling in her stomach, hand brushing over the leather incasing her dagger. Those men could never leave them alone, could they?

Flinching slightly at the hostile tone of her sibling, (she could never get used to the cusses that Natalia said so easily) Yekaterina nodded. "General Winter said they had just entered town a week ago and that his men had only been able to sense them now. They're getting better at hiding themselves." The report was almost automated, so different from the usual, annoying bubbliness of Yekaterina's voice.

"Let me guess: The General is moving us, against our wills, again?"

"I know that you don't like it, but it's for our own good, Natalia." Yekaterina's eyes shifted away, focused on the snow that had piled on the ground overnight. She knew that she spewed lies, but she wanted to keep a grip onto the jaded curtain the General had kept her "safe" behind for years. "He only wants us to have chance at living normally..."

Natalia resisted the urge to spit on her sister's ugly, worn work boots. "Living normally?" She sniffed, finally allowing herself to grab her dagger and twist it out of its unique holder. Oh, how she loathed the man who called himself 'General Winter.' "Does moving across continents every other half century count as 'living normally' to you, sister?"

There was no chance for Yekaterina to reply to the bitter question before Natalia turned on her heel and stormed away, barely sinking into the snow and disappearing into the fog like a silver-haired ghost. Yekaterina's frown deepened as she willed her normal tears away from her eyes. Why must Natalia be such a bitter girl? Yes, the General toted them around like puppets on invisible strings, but he had provided them with good clothes, food, shelter.

Safety. He had given them a chance to be safe.

The Ukrainian's hands found their way to the locket around Yekaterina's neck. She didn't have to look at it to refresh her memory of the design on it anymore. It was a simple six-pointed snowflake that was back dropped by a dark blue sky and surrounded by silver ribbons. Yekaterina's calloused fingers found their way to the dents on the metal, tracing the damaged areas without little thought to what she was doing.

She had no idea how long she had been standing there, before someone dropped down beside her. Their loud landing told her that it wasn't Natalia, but Ivan. Yekaterina's taller brother wrapped her bare hands in his larger, gloved ones, encapsulating both them and the locket in thawing warmth.

"She did not react well, da?" Ivan asked in his childish voice, his regular smile growing sad. Despite Natalia being a bit creepy to him sometimes, mostly when she needed comfort, Ivan loved his little sister more than any money that the General could provide them with. Really, he loved both of his sisters that much, but they couldn't extract themselves from the General now.

They were in too deep.

Ivan wrapped his arms around his sister, allowing her to bury her frozen face into his thick winter coat. "Let's go have dinner." He suggested after a minute, pulling Yekaterina away from him. "Natalia will come around soon enough. She always does."

Yekaterina nodded, mutely, and allowed herself to be led back to the small hut all three of them shared by the arm. I really hope so...

Natalia had no idea where she was going. All she knew was that she was trying to get back to her "home." The snow falling from the sky certainly wasn't making her attempt any easier. Usually, she was able to walk across snow with the ease of a gymnast, but that was only for short strolls to the nearby market or out to her special place under an old evergreen tree where she usually cleared her head.

Wherever she was walking, it was much farther than those two places.

"Shit..." Natalia hissed, tugging her foot out from a particularly thick mound of snow. Damn it, those were her favorite shoes and they would, undoubtedly, be soaked once the snow which had gotten inside of them unthawed. As if that weren't enough, Natalia's stomach let out a very ugly, very loud growl.

Well, this was just great.

The Belarusian let out a snarl from her mouth, frustrated at both herself and Mother Nature. As she stopped moving, squinting through the cloudy air (which signaled an approaching snowstorm) Natalia finally started to feel the aftereffects of her little tantrum. Her thighs burned and her heart was going faster than usual; her pretty, pale pink lips were chapped and she could taste tiny drops of blood already dripping from them; and her silver hair was matted with snowflakes.

Muttering every cuss word she knew (both in English and Russian, mixed in with the few odd Ukrainian mumbles) Natalia started to rub her left thigh. The muscles were already contracting in them, making her grow stiff and sore. Clicking her tongue, (inside of her mouth, she didn't want to have snowflakes stuck to her tongue) Natalia began to awkwardly ease herself to the ground, hissing as cold water seeped into her dress.

Great job, Natalia. She sarcastically thought to herself, pulling her shawl closer around her body. You win the stupidest person ever award!

The platinum-blonde girl could already feel her hair being covered by a thick sheet of snowflakes. An involuntary shudder ran through her, shaking her to the core. Black, fuzzy cotton decorated the edges of her vision. Damn it. She felt something warm and wet slip down her cheek, leaving a trail of leftover liquid that froze on her pale skin. It took her a second to realize that she was crying.

Natalia didn't cry. She had never cried. But, sitting in the snow and slowly being entombed in it, she felt helpless. She couldn't fight the snow with her dagger, it would be foolish to even try, and that made her weak.

An assassin is only as useful as his or her weapon. And, going by that logic, Natalia was pointless.

:

"Hey! Don't cry!"

Something warm brushed across one of Natalia's cheeks, the heat radiating from it forcing her to wake up. Everything ached and her vision was blurred, but she could make out the form of someone sitting in front of her. Whoever it was, it definitely wasn't Ivan or Yekaterina. As her vision cleared up some more, Natalia could make out more of the stranger's features.

It was a teenager around Natalia's own age. He had skin with a slight tan to it, something that made Natalia know for sure that he wasn't a local, and messy brown hair with a flyaway curl coming from it. He wore something that made Natalia think of a prisoner's uniform, but in all white instead of the regular neon orange; a rectangular badge that was attached to the fabric on the left of his upper chest didn't reveal his name, oddly, but a number: 81545.

Well, at least she knew she wasn't dead; Natalia didn't think that angels would have numbers on their clothes.

She blinked at him, before her eyes traveled around him. Her jaw almost dropped at what she saw. A fully-developed snowstorm raged around them, but it separated like the Red Sea and brushed past their area, like they were in a glass dome.

"How...how are you doing that?" Natalia found herself whispering, voice unnaturally awed. She had never seen anything like this. It certainly wasn't natural...

Maybe she was in Heaven. Or a ghost, at least.

The boy returned her curious blink, looking behind him. He chuckled as he realized what she meant. He backed up from her (she hadn't even realized that he was so close until he drew back) and sat on his knees. "I'm Yong Soo." Was all he said, giving her no explanation to their casing as he offered her a hand to shake. "And you are Miss..."

"Natalia...Just call me Natalia." She found herself replying. His hand was solid in her own, giving her a firm handshake that made any of her silly paranormal notions fly out the window. Although her rational mind demanded answers, the only thing she could do afterwards was stare at him. Yong Soo just grinned at her as she watched him critically, his brown eyes glittering with a mischievous joy.

Suddenly, after a minute-long staring contest, Yong Soo's smile dropped. He seemed to almost...flicker, all of the pigment in his body draining and leaving him an array of different shades of black and white. It was like he was an image on an old television. Natalia stared at him, shuffling away from the boy a bit as Yong Soo gasped in pain.

She frowned, furrowing her brows as she watched the boy. What the hell...?

Yong Soo stared back at her, his face whiter than the melting snow they sat on and his now dark grey eyes turning into pinpricks. "I can't..." His voice had become an odd echo, sounding like he was somewhere else but with Natalia all at the same time. "Can't...can't...ca..." He was struggling, gasping out the words as his face contorted in some kind of phantom-caused pain.

Natalia felt wind and sharp pieces of hail whip across her face again as Yong Soo began to tremble, the invisible shield that had been cloaking them seemingly affected by whatever was harming the once-brunette teen. More and more wind surrounded them, filling their area with painful shards of ice. Natalia hissed as she felt some of them cut into her pale flesh and watched as they did the same to her companion. Even his blood had become monochrome, glinting a shade of bright silver that reminded the Belarusian of her precious dagger.

Yong Soo suddenly let out a loud screech, an animalistic sound of pain that came from some deep recess of the teenager, his body flooding with flashing streaks color as he stared at up the sky with huge eyes that resembled dinner platters. Natalia felt the wind disappear again, watching with wonder as a thick, grey wall materialized around them.

So, this had been what was protecting them.

The blonde girl watched as Yong Soo's head lolled to his chest, wide eyes falling closed. A bright red splotch had appeared in the center of his once crisp uniform, followed by the familiar scent of blood. Natalia frowned, slowly reaching over to tilt Yong Soo's head up. How had he gotten injured? What even was that display? There were so many things to ask Yong Soo that Natalia had no idea where to begin once he came back to the waking world...

Before her fingers even touched his skin, Yong Soo grasped her wrist in an iron grip.

"Natalia Alovskaya. Youngest member of General Winter's Northern Terrors." He recited, like he was reading a book. His voice was still echoing, but in a...stranger way. More emotionless. "Accidental daughter of a slut and a businessman looking for a good time. Left out in the cold of a Belarusian winter when she was just five. Taken in as the adoptive younger sister of Yekaterina Braginskaya and Ivan Braginski at six. Forced into the General's care just a month afterwards. Hates the man with a burning passion. Wants freedom from his puppetry." Yong Soo's head tilted upwards, reveal blank, completely grey eyes.

"Wants to kill the man and woman who made her so she can get revenge for the shitty life they left her with..." Yong Soo's voice faded, the grey draining from the whites of his eyes and leaving monotone circles for his pupils. He slumped forward, falling into the Belarusian's lower chest, leaving Natalia stunned and without any form of communication as the wind whistled outside of their shelter.

How...had he known all that? What the hell was he?

Yong Soo's formed flickered again, but the color didn't drain like it had originally. The male teenager's form seemed to dissipate in Natalia's grip, before it finally disappeared all together, leaving the Belarusian holding onto nothing.

"What the hell..." Was all she could mutter into the silence of the solidified force field. Really, it had all happened so quickly that, without the grey wall surrounding her, she would have thought it was all just a dream...

December 21, 2013

Location Unknown

"Subject 81545 is contained and stabilized, sir."

"Good. It seems that the boy's powers are stronger than we originally thought; we'll have to work with that. Now, I want you to get 81545 cleaned up and then bring in Subject 90245 for testing. Also, tell our newest client about the Terrors' location; he'll pay us big money for it."

"Sir, yes sir!"

Powers:

Natalia Alovskaya - N/A

Yekaterina Braginskaya - N/A

Ivan Braginski - N/A

Yong Soo - Force field generation, omnipresence, psychometry