Tanner Hunt (CBO0tz)

Tanner Hunt was a UNSC Marine veteran of the Human-Covenant War. If it hadn't been wartime, Hunt would've been indistinguishable from any regular civilian on the street; he was a live-in-the-moment extrovert who loved being the center of attention, sports, cities and making new friends. However as the genocidal war with the Covenant dragged on, he slowly became just another fresh body to fuel the UNSC war machine - whose sheer will to live to see another day has pushed him to survive, despite the toll it had been taking on his soul.
==Early Career==
Being rushed through boot camp in 2536, he first experienced the War in 2538 during his first deployment to the Beta Taurius II Campaign, the site of a drawn-out war of bloody attrition between the UNSC and the Covenant that resulted in the near-total annihilation of human forces on the planet. Attached to the reinforcing Third Fleet led by Admiral Cole, he quickly learned to use every advantage he had in combat at his disposal - particularly the help of his fellow men - in the ensuing month of fighting. 
His ability to easily coordinate and plan attacks with other squads led to him being quickly fast-tracked for promotions. His combat skills and resolve under pressure despite (or because of) his trauma inflicted by heavy combat led to a ranking officer aboard the ship he was extracted on giving him a recommendation to a hybrid-learning specialist program at Koletre-Browning University on Circumstance, which was being held in conjunction with the UNSC to educate soldiers on a larger scale to become combat engineers and pilots.
After fighting on the front line at Orchid IV in 2539, finally nearing the end of his first tour of duty, he finally got accepted into the university program full-time - which would teach him chemistry and architecture skills to specialize as a combat engineer. The UNSC allowed Hunt to join, however he was told he would have to make up the time he missed in his first tour. 
He graduated after 3 years (from 2539 to 2542), and upon graduation the UNSC granted him entry into the UNSC's Engineering Corps, however his next tour of duty would continue past the maximum 4 years to a staggering 6. He was assigned to Anubis Corps, 38th Field Company for his second tour of duty in 2542, slated to finish in late 2547.
Although he thought his posts would be spent performing only light security missions in the Outer Colonies, Hunt ended up needing to fight for his life on several occasions, such holding out for a few weeks during the Battle for Alluvion before its sudden evacuation, and numerous brief, yet intense battles on numerous colonies, notably among them the Battle of Miridem. 
==Invasion of Draco III==
The most harrowing moment in the life of then-Staff Sergeant Hunt's career was when he had partaken in the Battle of Draco III, which was largely considered to be one of the bloodiest defeats the UNSC had ever taken. 
During the battle, Hunt had been one of roughly two hundred UNSC personnel that survived the near-total decimation of ground forces and civilians in the initial Covenant invasion. 
After regrouping at the formerly-decommissioned Firebase November, Hunt, alongside Air Force Flight Captain Oldes, ODST Sergeant Tiyang "Thresh", and a few Marines and Militia volunteers under the command of ODST 2nd Lieutenant Casler were sent on recon missions in the surrounding region. 
During a mission to recover survivors and materiel from the ruins of New Albany, the ragtag squad engaged an armored lance of Covenant attempting to cut their way into an apartment of armed civilians. In the ensuing battle, Hunt was grazed across the abdomen by a Sangheili energy sword while protecting 2nd Lieutenant Casler, wounding him heavily. 
Despite this, they were able to win the battle, and using captured Covenant Ghosts being oddly used as makeshift troop transports, were able to limp back to Base November with a few allied militia choosing to stay behind for a short period of time to divert tracking Covenant away from their position.
After undergoing surgery at the base's medbay, Hunt immediately re-joined the small team of Oldes, Thresh, and Casler to perform recon on a nearby Covenant base, suspected to be a staging area of Covenant activity on the planet. Their listening post would be a BXR mining facility in a nearby mountain. Infiltrating the facility and climbing an elevator shaft to the highest point in the facility to set up their listening equipment, they managed to observe what appeared to be a major Covenant gathering, surrounding a Zealot Field Master and a Prophet. 
Despite Lieutenant Casler's clear shot on the high priority target, Hunt strongly urged him not to take it, as it would not only go against what their mission was, it would also alert every Covenant at the base, and possibly even bring the whole fleet back to finish wiping the remaining human survivors out. 
Taking his advice, they began the return trip to base, nearly being caught by some Elite Rangers while descending the elevator, they hid away in the darkened mines of the mining facility, where they discovered a mining vehicle designed to blast through the mountain's titanium ore using shaped charges. Salvaging a sizeable amount of explosives from it, Hunt was also able to download a topographical map of nearly all BXR mine tunnels from a nearby administration hub - which Hunt theorized could be cross-referenced with surface maps to give the UNSC a way to infiltrate and sabotage the Covenant staging area.
The next day, the squad returned to November base, where Captain Royce was now joined by Captain Fay, a new ODST survivor from Casler's unit, accompanied by two SWAT police officers. He requested Royce's assistance in evacuating Karnak, once thought to be completely void of human survivors. In response, Hunt and the team were sent alongside a sizeable Warthog convoy to rescue the UNSC and civilian survivors in the distant city. On their way through the charred remains of the original invasion battlefield, they made their way to the Karnak Police Department headquarters, they were met with the sight of an already on-going battle with Covenant forces. Joining the police and UNSC, they desperately held back a Covenant siege in a bid to buy time for the civilians to board the transport hogs. 
While Hunt assisted in clearing an evacuation path for the Hogs, he additionally set up C-7 traps for future Covenant pursuers, nearly falling to plasma fire from a pair of patrolling Ghosts on the way back to base, remaining in the base afterward to repair damaged UNSC comm equipment. 
Oldes drove a Mongoose with a grenadier passenger around downtown to distract and divert Covenant Ghost patrols, which he did so effectively until his ATV nearly exploded. Both he and his passenger managed to ditch right before it did, with Oldes' helmet absorbing most of the potential damage, destroying it in the process. Only he managed to make it back to the HQ with Covenant stalking them in the distance.
Casler provided sniper support on the roof of the KPD HQ, where he discovered a team of cloaked Elites attempting to infiltrate the building. Attempting to divert them away from their objective long enough for the UNSC to prepare for the threat. Narrowly avoiding a potentially fatal Needler attack by the Elites, Casler retreated through a hole in the roof just before a Banshee strafing attack destroyed the section of roof he was on. In retaliation, Casler was able to disable one of the Banshees with a well-timed shot as it passed over the building. He then assisted in defending the front entrance of the HQ as long as possible, entering an offensive retreat as the Covenant slowly encroached.
Meanwhile, Thresh was sent to a nearby apartment building to help create an ambush for any Covenant armor support. After helping destroy a number of Banshees, Covenant ground forces responded by besieging their position. In a desperate attempt to make it off the building roof, the Covenant chased Thresh and a pair of Marine survivors onto the scaffolding, where they were caught in a Wraith plasma artillery blast. In a stroke of luck, he managed to just barely survive the blast by ducking into the nearest apartment window. Quickly recovering, he discovered his fallen men in the alley below, with one Marine was just barely alive under the fallen scaffolding, however she was missing both legs. Attempting to hide both himself and the Marine away in a dumpster when the Covenant pursuers arrived at the scene, his attempt failed when an Elite wrenched him out of the dumpster as he attempted to lob a grenade out in a desperate act. In one final act to attempt to kill it, Thresh bounced the same grenade between the legs of the Elite, causing it to explode directly behind it, and shielding him from a majority of the shrapnel and concussive force. In a deafened and adrenaline-fueled state, Thresh managed to finish off the Elite, and force the Grunt and Jackal followers to retreat in a panic. Recovering the Marine in the heavily-damaged dumpster, he carried her with him into a nearby sewer, where he limped back towards HQ, eventually finding a prybar and wrenching his way out of the sewer, and was narrowly rescued by Marine and Police forces as he limped his way through crossfire to get the Marine to safety.
When everyone had returned, it was clear that they were inevitably going to be overrun. After Casler and Hunt assisted in killing the cloaked Elites that made it into the building, all personnel were evacuated at the garage. As they left onboard their Warthogs, Hunt gave his trap detonator to Casler to detonate, as he chose to be in the last Hog to leave. The trap worked perfectly when Ghosts pursuing the convoy were caught in the C-7 car bomb blast, which also collapsed the nearest building into the street behind them.
Instead of returning directly to base, the convoy met with the Base leader in a stop on the side of the road for camp. Captain Royce informed them that the Covenant Base seems to have every Covenant asset on the planet. Additionally, a Covenant Corvette had been spotted by surviving satellites in orbit heading towards the base's position. She requested that they help her come up with a plan to conduct a near-suicidal attack on the Covenant by morning, as the UNSC forces were planning to assault the Covenant base before they were prepared to launch a proper attack. When they awoke, Hunt was the first to plan for the Corvette's destruction, by suggesting the use of the fallen Paris-class frigate UNSC Providence as a diversion with its remaining operational weaponry, and a self-destruct. The plan was approved, despite some resentment for using a thermonuclear fusion reactor explosion in-atmosphere. They took a few days to get to the frigate crash site, but the plan went flawlessly. The Corvette was forced to approach the Frigate's position due to its Archer Missiles striking both it and the base, and the light coilgun PDFs tearing apart the base's airpad, and thus was caught in the ensuing thermonuclear blast, which Hunt and the squad managed to just barely avoid, due to Thresh and Oldes' skills in flying a surviving Pelican.
For his actions during the battle, he, along with the rest of the squad he was in, were awarded with a Silver Star, a Purple Heart, and recommendations for officer's positions, which he requested time to think about before making a choice on accepting it. 
Continuing to serve his last years of service, Hunt ended his tour with the Battle of New Llanelli, where he finally got what he considered a proper respite from heavy fighting, despite needing to evacuate civilians once again when the Covenant invaded. 
==Off-Duty==
During his time off-duty on Skopje, Hunt had ended up being caught in a Covenant invasion.
==Personality & Traits==
Hunt's attitude towards most actions while in the Marines was 'that you shouldn't be prepared unless you know all the ins and outs of what you're going to do'. His careful demeanor was typically the foil to many squadmates in his lifetime. 
Despite this, Tanner was also often willing to commit to often extreme acts of bravery to protect the people around him, even for those he hardly knew; a major example of this being his protection of 2nd Lt. Casler and his squad, taking a grazing swipe from an energy sword that was most likely meant for his Lieutenant. 
Category:UNSC Marine Corps Personnel