5: The Hazard Room

The Hazard Room

Walking into the establishment, I made my way over to the booth with quiet steps, gracefully sliding into the seat across from Ms. Rivera in one smooth motion.

She smiled at the sight of me, not showing any surprise to my sudden appearance, and simply waved a waiter over to our table. It only took the waiter a couple of seconds to move from one side of the room to the other and provide us each with a diverse menu.

"Hello, welcome to the Outcast Diner! Can I get either of you a drink?" The waiter cheerfully recited as if it wasn't their thousandth time doing it. On the other hand, I wouldn't blame them if they eventually grew tired of repeating the same thing over and over again because I probably would as well.

Ms. Rivera motioned for me to go first.

"I'll take a sweet tea, please."

The waiter shyly nodded, meeting my eyes when I took a glance up at her face. She gave me a timid smile and turned to Ms. Rivera, who had been watching the interaction in amusement.

"Hey, Eliza, long time no see. I'll have the same thing as the hunk in front of me."

I shouldn't have been surprised that they knew each other, but the last part of her sentence caught my attention.

The waiter giggled, taking another glance at me, and went off to get our beverages of choice.

Once she was gone, our eyes met and we smiled at each other. "So... I'm a hunk, is that it?" I joked, raising an eyebrow at the same time.

Her smile grew and she just threw me a shrug, acting as if she had no idea what I was talking about.

"Have you ever been to this diner? It's quite nice." She expertly changed the subject, which I didn't really mind.

"No, I actually haven't. Was this place recently built because I've never heard of it before." That was true. I really hadn't heard of it, which was kind of weird because I knew this city like the back of my hand. After giving the restaurant a once-over, I noticed that there wasn't many customers.

Maybe it was just a slow day.

"This place has actually been around for quite a while. Dante, remember when I told you about the organization I work for?" Her voice gradually got lower until she was talking loud enough for just me to hear and nobody else.

I nodded, curious to know more about it.

"Yeah, you told me it was called Salvation."

She hummed in confirmation, casually browsing the menu as we spoke, which I totally forgot to do as I was distracted by the conversation. I quickly opened it up and tried to find what I wanted to eat.

"Well, this diner's purpose is to actually pose as a front for one of the many secret bases within the city, and it allows the massive organization to blend into society much easier."

That caused me to nearly choke on the air that I was breathing, shock filling my body when my mind caught up with what she said. "S-So, you're telling me that I'm sitting in-"

"Correct. Even the workers are part of the organization. That also includes Eliza, the cute girl that your eyes were on earlier." Ms. Rivera slipped the last part in with a smirk.

My eyes were widened in shock and I couldn't help but feel slightly overwhelmed from the sudden information that I was being fed. I was surrounded by people from Salvation and never even realized it.

I'm not even sure why that surprised me so much, considering the fact that I was expecting to go to a Salvation base anyways, but whatever. Taking a deep breath, I felt my nerves calm down, and I couldn't help but keep my guard up now.

I'll just chalk it up to inexperience with controlling my emotions and not being aware enough with my surroundings.

"That's... good to know. The idea is actually ingenious because of how misleading it is to a regular person like me, who was completely unaware of Salvation before yesterday."

She nodded, putting her menu to the side. That same waiter began to walk back to our table, no doubt returning for our actual orders.

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It was now just the two of us within the restaurant, aside from the obvious staff members doing their jobs. Our plates were otherwise empty, only left with the crumbs of the food that we thoroughly enjoyed.

Ms. Rivera wiped the side of her mouth with a napkin, clearing her throat afterwards. "I think it's about time you and I got down to business, Dante."

"Well, isn't it considered to be unprofessional when you call me by my first name, Ms. Rivera?" I teased, leaning back in my seat comfortably.

She let out a small laugh, the ends of her lips curving upwards into a smile. "In that case, you may call me Nicole. Plus, I doubt you honestly cared whenever I did it."

"Yeah, that's true."

I followed her lead when she got up and began to walk towards the back of the diner, cutting through the kitchen and all before we stopped in front of an inconspicuous set of doors. The only thing that seemed off about it was the fact that there was an odd lock on it, which most likely required a special type of key.

That's when I realized what the red keycard was for. Luckily, I remembered to bring it along with me from yesterday.

Nicole stepped to the side and just stared at me, most likely expecting for me to open the set of doors. Quickly pulling out the lanyard, I swiped the lock with my keycard and it let out a quiet beep in return.

Traveling down a short flight of stairs that had another keycard lock, which I opened for the second time, we were met with an elevator that she pulled me into. After going even deeper underground, the doors eventually slid open to reveal a bunch of soldiers and the like going about their day.

Most of them didn't pay us any attention when we walked in but a few of the females sent me a friendly smile, along with a little wave.

I could tell that I was going to at least have some fun here.

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Apparently, the director wasn't able to be here due to a situation that needed to be dealt with, but I didn't mind it that much.

Nicole had given me a set of clothes that I had to change into, which were more suitable for the things I was going to do in the training room. From the looks of each article of clothing, it appeared to be simple athletic wear, but perhaps it was made of a more durable material.

I didn't really care.

Stepping out after changing my clothes, I made my way over to the training area and went inside. The room was huge, packed with a variety of workout equipment and advanced machinery that seemed like it could take my head off.

At least, if I was a normal person.

On one side of the training room, there was a section of glass that had people behind it, members of Salvation who were controlling certain aspects of the room. Along with them, Nicole was holding a microphone in order to communicate with me from behind the protection of stronger than normal glass.

From the speaker system around the room, she spoke to me.

"Welcome to the training room, Dante. There are other areas that you can physically improve yourself throughout the facility, but today you will be using your unique skill set to help us understand what we could possibly be dealing with in the future. Is that alright?"

I simply nodded, looking around the room.

The scientists that were studying me from their little lookout tower had excitement written across their faces but I didn't pay it any mind, instead following Nicole's instruction to stand in the center of the room.

Once I did, a scientist pressed down on a button that turned my previous surroundings into something reminiscent of a batting cage. Replacing the net that would've been around me with thick steel walls, the pitching machine was substituted with weapons that could potentially kill me.

Uh oh.

My confident demeanor vanishing, I forced myself to focus on surviving this encounter. A flamethrower popped out of a wall and let loose bright flames that were directed towards the only person inside this evil contraption of a room.

Rolling out of the way, the muscles in my legs tensed for a split second before I leaped into the air in order to dodge a volley of rubber bullets, which bounced off of the wall behind me. In the time that it took for my feet to land on the floor, my ears picked up on the sound of another automated gun whirring to life.

Making a quick decision, I ran towards the turret and wrapped my arms around the barrel. The people watching me were probably wide-eyed, shocked at my reckless behavior, but they were the ones without my unusual strength.

The turret's barrel let out an unpleasant whine as it began to bend in a way that shouldn't have been possible, which effectively caused it to stop working and power off when I was done.

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Inside of the observation room.

"T-This is incredible..." A scientist murmured, watching in shock as Dante prevented himself from being hit by anything. "His reaction time is crazy, not to mention the strength that he's displaying!"

Nicole Rivera wasn't faring any better. Her eyes couldn't stay off of the man inside the Hazard Room and she didn't want to stop looking either. To simply witness the kinds of things that Dante was doing as if it was easy...

It really was incredible.

As scientists scrambled to record their data and keep their eyes on Dante, a man and woman quietly entered the room, walking over to stand on either side of Nicole.1

The man had dark blonde hair that went down to his neck, along with a pair of brown eyes. He had a little bit of facial hair, which gave him a rugged look, and an earing on his left ear. Standing at a height of 5'11, his body carried a decent amount of muscle, which most likely came from the training he got by becoming an official member of Salvation. He wore a black t-shirt and dark blue jeans, followed by a pair of black combat boots. There was a tribal tattoo wrapping around his left arm that could be seen but the rest was covered up by his shirt.

(The picture of his appearance will be here.)

The woman had long black hair that reached down to her ass, which was round and plump. Strangely enough, she also had light purple eyes that caught the attention of many. Her sexy body was covered up with workout clothing that hugged her curves and caused her massive breasts to be even more pronounced. It was a pink sports bra and black compression shorts, along with a pair of pink sneakers. Standing at a height of 5'6, her body was athletic and endowed in all of the right places.

(The picture of her appearance will be here.)

Nicole took notice of the duo, a smile creeping onto her face as she returned to watching the hunk through the glass. "Hey, you two. I'm a little busy right now." She told them, her smile growing even further as Dante ripped out a turret from one of the walls and threw it towards another, causing it to explode from the collision.

The duo were shocked by the new person's amazing performance, although it was for two different reasons.

For the man, it was because of his obvious inexperience, and yet he was still doing so well with not allowing anything to land. Most of the time, the kids reaction speed is what was helping him so much from just barely getting out of the way whenever something tried to hit him.

Then again, whenever it was becoming too difficult, he used his crazy strength to get rid of some of the weaponry aimed at him. It wasn't a bad idea but there were better ways, not to mention solutions that required less energy than expending some of your strength in order to get something solved.

For the woman however, she was more focused on the man himself instead of his performance. The way his muscles tensed and bulged whenever he used them to destroy the things in his way. The clothing that he wore, more specifically how his shirt looked a little too small for him, ready to burst because of his drool-worthy physique...

Yeah, there were clearly two different types of people.

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