bakerstreet | i am still a beast at bay

i am still a beast at bay

The Most Dangerous Game

"I wanted the ideal animal to hunt," explained the general. "So I said, 'What are the attributes of an ideal quarry?' And the answer was, of course, 'It must have courage, cunning, and, above all, it must be able to reason.'"
"But no animal can reason," objected Rainsford.
"My dear fellow," said the general, "there is one that can."
"But you can't mean--" gasped Rainsford.
"And why not?"
For some devoted hunters, the usual game begins to pall. They seek something a little more difficult. More dangerous. One that can fight back in ways that no tiger or bear or rhinocerous ever could. And so they seek out the most dangerous game available.

Humans.

And here we begin. Are you one of the hunters, seeking thrills and excitement in the pursuit of game that can potentially outwit you? Did someone coerce or force you to the island to play the game? Are you one of the hunted, somehow brought here as likely prey? Or did you somehow accidentally stumble onto the island without realizing it? No matter what option, though, you're in the midst of a fight for your life.

There are no RNG options for this meme-- simply decide what you want to be, what situation you're in, and start to play.

THE SETTING:
Hunter's Island is set in the middle of the open ocean, with no other land in sight anywhere. It's obviously too far to swim, and anyone who attempts it, or tries to fly or teleport away, will discover there's also an invisible globe-shaped barrier a couple hundred yards away from the edges of the island. The only thing that can pass through the barrier are small, unmanned helicopter-like craft that drop hunters off and then leave immediately. They return at set times, and should anyone not wearing a hunter's tag enter one, it will self-destruct.

Tags? Oh, yes. Each hunter wears a set of dog tags which are encoded (magically or scientifically, take your pick) to their unique genetic signature. The tags allow them to ride in the transports, and if they were issued any special equipment from the hunting lodge (such as communicators/walkie-talkies or night vision goggles or really special weapons) then that equipment will only function properly if it's within 30 yards of the assigned tag. And if that tag is removed from the person it belongs to, or that person dies, the tag becomes immediately inactive.

The prey, however, have a special tag injected under their skin somewhere on their body. It's all but undetectable, but it allows the lodge to keep track of how many remain on the island and, oh, dampens certain powers. Not all of them, because what hunt would be fun without a challenge, but anything that might, for example, blow up the entire island or allow someone to just sit and lob fireballs at anyone approaching will be somewhat... lessened. Perhaps the powers won't be as effective, perhaps their use will tire someone out much faster-- it depends on the individual.

There are always some prey left alive on the island before more are brought in, so that the fresh meat can learn at least something about their situation before hunters arrive, but there's not really much to tell. The goal is to stay alive, and by whatever means possible.

HOW IT WORKS:
♦ Leave a comment with your character's name and fandom in the subject, and be sure to note if you want to be hunter, hunted, or no preference. You can either set a scene yourself, or fill out this form for other commenters.

♦ Tag another character.
♦ Play out the results and respect others' preferences.
♦ Have fun!

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Character: Courier Six
Age: Unknown, appears to be in late twenties
Description: An utterly average-looking young woman with enough scars on her arms to win free drinks for life in any biker bar.
Role: Hunted (Good Karma rating means she won't hunt anyone)
Want: I have no idea. Surprise me.
Do Not Want: Uhm... nothing overly gruesome.

Character: Takaba Akihito
Age: 23+
Description: Brash, direct, conflicted, altruistic, outspoken, independent risk-taker with an uncommon respect for the value in the lives of even those who imprision, assault or harm him and forgiveness towards them- (Should their intentions turn out 'valid', as opposed to evil, malicious or heartless).
Role: Hunted. Takaba's sense of morality wouldn't likely condone going after someone with the intent to kill unless that person has directly abused/harmed him so severely and during a moment of psychological weakness that he may have a breaking from his sensibilities. However, I still doubt that would last long enough for an actual man-hunt.
Want: Any.
Do Not Want: No Smut.

Character: Colonel Sebastian Moran
Age: 41
Description: "This, gentlemen, is Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty's Indian Army, and the best heavy-game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever produced. ..." ... The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my companion. With his savage eyes and bristling moustache he was wonderfully like a tiger himself. - "The Adventure of the Empty House" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Role: Hunter
Want: Open to just about anything. Other hunters, prey, etc.
Do Not Want: Nothing I'll rule out immediately, but major things will be a "take it as it comes" sort of deal.

[It's three days after the start of the hunt. And all things considered, this isn't really one of the Courier's best days in memory. She hacked most of her red hair off after it got caught up in some bushes late in the second day. The only other person she's seen died during the first day. ("Keep running," the man with bandages around his arms said. "And don't stop. If you do, you'll be dead." He took a bullet to the back. He waved her off. She ran.)]

[Day three, and she's huddled high in the branches of the trees for a brief bit of a rest. The Courier hasn't run this much since Bitter Springs. There's enough cover (and enough dirt caked onto her face and clothing) that she feels vaguely safe here. But it can't last long.]

[She holds her breath and waits.]

[This is a hunt the invitation had read unlike anything you have experienced, Colonel Moran.

Not entirely true, but it didn't matter much. Man was still a worthy opponent.

And, really, those who had Moran on their trail were perhaps the luckiest. There was no scope attached to his rifle, and it was a bolt-action. Scopes were for sniping in the war. This was the hunt. Where the intelligence and danger made the game.

Mud... Well. Mud makes for good camouflage, yes. But it makes for excellent tracking, and the hunter is padding along silently, choosing the most grass-covered areas for his own tracks. As much as he has hunted tigers, he is one on the trail of his prey. His pale eyes scan eye level as he strains every sense. Smell, hearing, sight. Anything that might tell him where his elusive quarry has gotten to where the tracks are thin.]

[It was only supposed to be a stop at the 188 Trading Post for supplies. Then there was a rag over her mouth, the smell of ether, and then this.]

[There may well be no way out. But she'll be damned if she goes quietly into her own grave. Benny couldn't put her down all those nights ago in a tiny cemetery outside of Goodsprings. The Legion couldn't kill her when she wiped out their entire base single-handed. The NCR couldn't take her on Hoover Dam. She won't die here.]

[That's enough of a break for now. Twisting around, she holds onto a branch and drops quietly to the ground. It's muddy here. Plenty of footprints to follow. So she'll just walk in several directions before taking off.]

[Let him try to find her with that.]

"Fuck."

It was a quiet mutter, and an automatic one. Faith winced as she picked herself up off the ground, one hand going to her bloodied knee. The fabric of her jeans was torn, shorn from seam to seam as cleanly as if it had been sliced open by a blade, and already she could see blood seeping from the gash the rock had left in her knee.

Whatever the hell they'd done to her was playing havoc with her system. It felt a little like she'd been hit with the flu...something that hadn't happened since she'd received her slayer powers. She felt weak. Uncoordinated. And, of course, it had to happen now.

Normally, she wouldn't have run. She would have just taken the bastards on, one at a time, and kicked their asses so hard they wouldn't be able to sit for a year. But bullets would kill a Slayer as well as they would kill anyone else, and right now she couldn't count on being able to kick anyone's ass...let alone a pack of them.

It didn't mean she was defenseless. She'd known how to fight long before destiny had made her its bitch. But it was taking more adjusting that she liked...and possibly more than she could afford.

Woods weren't her thing. Give her city streets any day, and she could work it to her advantage. But trees and roots and bushes...she didn't know how to work with any of it. She just knew she had to learn. Fast.

Right now, the only thing she could think of was straight out of a Looney Tunes cartoon. But even if she had a shovel and the know-how to dig a pit and hide it under fake grass and leaves, she doubted they'd leave her alone long enough to set it up. So she'd have to try something else.

Probably for the best. She wasn't really the run and hide type, anyway.

It takes her a little while to find a branch that's sturdy enough to act as a bat, but light enough for her to wield. And then it takes even longer to find a way to attach it to her hip so she can scale one of the nearby trees. By the time she gets up into the branches, her hands are sore and bloody, matching her knee, but she's hoping it'll give her advance warning if any of the hunters come this way, and she'll have the added momentum of gravity to drop them if she can catch them off guard.

Character: Max "X5-452" Guevara of Dark Angel
Age: Early 20's
Description: Beautiful dark haired, dark eyed young woman of mixed ethnicity.
Role: Will do both.
Want: I'm up for anything!
Do Not Want: No non-consent oriented smut.

Character: Eliot Spencer
Age: 37 (unless you want one of my AUs which 17 or 28)
Description: resourceful, ex-Special Forces retrieval specialist with a dark past and a heart of gold
Role: Hunted, but he's quite likely to be the prey that hunted the hunter
Want: I'll go for just about anything. Just check with me first about any sexual content.
Do Not Want: Let's take it as it comes. If I find I'm not comfortable with something, I'll let you know.

Character: Lindsey McDonald
Age: late 20s to early 30s
Description: stubborn, smartass lawyer of dubious moral conduct working for the law firm from hell -- literally
Role: Either
Want: I'll go for just about anything. Just check with me first about any sexual content.
Do Not Want: Let's take it as it comes. If I find I'm not comfortable with something, I'll let you know.

Character: Kevin Prentiss
Age: 16
Description: abused, agressive, pyrokinetic punk with a chip on his shoulder and the emotional maturity or a ten year old
Role: Either
Want: I'll go for just about anything. Just check with me first about any sexual content.
Do Not Want: Let's take it as it comes. If I find I'm not comfortable with something, I'll let you know.

Character: Cerni Odair
Age: 14
Description: quiet, shy, sensitive son of two Hunger Games victors with a surprising stubborn streak
Role: Hunted. Cerni's too gentle to be a hunter.
Want: I'll go for just about anything. Just check with me first about any sexual content.
Do Not Want: Let's take it as it comes. If I find I'm not comfortable with something, I'll let you know.

Character: Sakuya Izayoi
Age: Unknown, appears to nineteen
Description: An aloof, cold woman, the Perfect Maid is here for only one reason. Only uses knives as her weapons.
Role: Hunter
Want: No preference. And just to be fair... and make it more of a challenge for herself, she won't use her time-stopping abilities.
Do Not Want: Smut. It's not why she's here.

Edited 2012-08-09 14:52 (UTC)

Character: Sgt. Andrew Carter
Age: Mid-twenties
Description: An optimistic doofus who's more dangerous than he seems--a master of improvised explosives, trained on the fly in the art of infiltration and sabotage, who kills with only the cheeriest of smiles. But still a doofus.
Role: Hunted.
Want: Hunters or other hunted, I'm easy.
Do Not Want: Nothing too brutal, no sex.

[He really wishes he'd paid more attention in chemistry class. There's a way of making gunpowder out of saltpeter and sulphur and...is it something else? He can't remember, if the information was there in the first place.

What he does remember are all the things he learned in the dark German woods at the backs of the Unsung Heroes. They'd given him no training, they hadn't expected him to be there at all, but some things you just have to pick up as you go. Carter's blacked up his face and his clothes, waiting in the woods and barely breathing as someone comes closer. Some days they didn't have bombs. Those days they just made do with a hole in the ground.]

Character: Hermes
Age: 2
Description: Hermes is a Pacific Tree Octopus, about two feet high from mantle to mouth. Technically human, no, but smart as one and with a few tricks on the side.
Role: Hunted. He's got only the use of his body--no color change, no ability to breath underwater, and he can't seem to fit through dime-sized holes, but that still leaves him a few resources.
Want: Any.
Do Not Want: Smut. Not that kind of tentacles.

[Cerni staggers over toward Carter, yawning and rubbing his eyes. He hadn't gotten much last night because some hunter's hounds had caught his sent. He got away and killed a couple of them but it had been really close.

Silently, he wonders if this is what Mama and Dad felt like in the Hunger Games. Speaking of Mama, he hasn't seen her since he got here. He hopes that means she's safe at home, not somewhere else in these woods or, worse, dead.]

[Carter grins and waves for Cerni to come sit with him in his little hidey-nest. He's always been good at making friends, even with the less sinister of the stalag guards, and this is no time to be even less popular than it already is.]

We've got some good front row seats here, I tell you what. This might even be fun.

Character: Scorpius Malfoy
Age: 15-18 depending on your preference
Description: A young wizard with a penchant for protective spells and very little idea how those muggle contraptions even work.
Role: WHO WANTS TO GO ON A WIZARD HUNT? His spells will only be half as effective. No Unforgivables.
Want: Hunters or fellow hunted, canonmates or non, "I don't want to die a virgin!" smut, hunting from a more psychological approach, if canonmate hunter, paying retribution for his family's sins would be great
Do Not Want: Nothing too gorey.

Edited 2012-08-09 22:10 (UTC)

Character: Garrus Vakarian
Age: Mid-20's
Description: Cop-turned-viglante returning to his soldier roots during the Reaper Invasion. Sniper, ace marksman.
Role: Either or!
Want: Urban scenarios, mutual hunting.
Do Not Want: No smut.

Faith wasn't sure how she ended up here--or even exactly where "here" was--but she wasn't going to sit around moping about it, trying to figure out. There were plenty of people who'd be thrilled to deal with a half-powered Slayer...and that was without including all the people she'd pissed off all without the help of her pain-in-the-ass destiny.

Half-powered or not, though, she wasn't defenseless. Maybe she didn't have the strength she normally would, but she'd learned how to fight long before she'd tried playing the "One girl in all the world" game, and she wasn't about to stop now.

Or, at least, that's what she'd been telling herself for the past two days...but lack of sleep and food was a lot harder to deal with when she didn't have Slayer strength to make up the difference. She'd been forced to slow down and grab a few hours rest buried under a mess of leaves and dirt, but so far she'd found nothing to take the edge of the gnawing hunger.

Her stomach gave a loud growl as she paused to lean against a tree, catching her breath, and she started, muttering under her breath. "Shit."

The rest of her curses she kept to herself, a silent litany in her head, as she looked around to see whether anyone was near enough to have heard that.

Character: Hellboy
Age: 67
Description: Herald of the Apocalypse turned old soldier for the human race.
Role: Either or. Hellboy's been both, he can handle both.
Want: Heavy on the supernatural.
Do Not Want: Smut. Why would you even?

Character: Varric Tethras
Age: Early 30's
Description: Trope loving dwarf spymaster with a enduring relationship with his crossbow.
Role: Either works! Varric's got a nice ranged weapon for hunting, so he probably works uot better as a hunter-- especially if you're screwed up things for his surface dwarf family and their merchant's guild.
Want: Fantasy/urban settings.
Do Not Want: Smut.

What?

[Cerni walks over toward him, his spear trailing on the ground.]

Front row seats to what?

[Carter indicates his hole.] Our campfire's pretty close to here. They'll come walking through to find us and then bam, right in the hole. You want to watch, don't you? [He'll be sad if you don't.]

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i am still a beast at bay

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