revivalproject | ♤ One Night of the Hunter

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♤ One Night of the Hunter

WHO: A Hunter and you
WHERE: Temba
WHAT: Cayde takes his profession to a different level
WHEN: During event
WARNINGS: It might get violent in here
NOTES: Will follow suit for pose prefs. Feel free to choose your location/hellscapes.

i. cover your eyes
Being alone tends to encourage the imagination. The ever shifting surroundings certainly don't help to dull the edge that has been present ever since that cryptic message and the sound that had shattered all sanity. Be it an expanse of stillness or a jarring enclosure, one might suddenly get the impression that they aren't alone, that there's someone watching, and it isn't just that horrible Eye hanging in the sky.

It soon proves not to be a matter of one's imagination on overdrive after all. There are tell-tale sounds, a snap of a twig, the scrape of metal against a wall, heavy footsteps crunching lightly in the grass, both distant and yet all too close for comfort. Calling out receives no response, only stillness that breaks as soon as one is on the move again.

You're being stalked, and eventually when you glance back, you may catch a glimpse of cold glowing eyes staring back at you.

ii. the devil's inside
His target has proven to be surprisingly tricky, or at least persistent. He'd let them have a lead, let them think they might get the slip on him. Sometimes it was a little fun to play with your food, so to speak.

"I know you're there~" Cayde calls out playfully, but there's a dark edge to his taunting tone. It had been fun for a while, but now is the time to close in.

Perhaps thankfully his movements are limited to the physical obstacles, no sudden appearances through solid objects- but it doesn't stop him from picking up speed and cutting corners, darting forth from a blind angle. He's still got an obvious advantage to anyone of flesh and blood. He doesn't need to rest, but he feels a fierce need to feed.

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Everyone else here seemed resigned to doing some conscripted ritual, the whole space permeated by a weighty dread that stuck in the throat like the smell of meat. It was acrid, coppery on the back of the tongue and bitter like rot clinging to the nose like the sensation might never quite leave. It made Tony's eyes water when he got too close to the heaps or hanging bodies where flies had begun to gather, a stronger signifier that one of these collections was close than anything he could see in the sparse, swinging lights overhead. None of the people really seemed to respond to him, nothing he could really do to them that was any worse than their fate at the end of the line, so when he realized there was something else here, moving, he had listened, searching, then went to work.

He couldn't tell if it was some kind of clock running out on him, or just that the hunter had gotten close enough to hear the telltale squeak of his boots on the grim, stained floor as Tony darted around the corner just ahead of him. He stopped then, shoving one of those listless bodies out of line to take their place, shoulders hunched and crowded up close to the next weary person in line, head turned away from where he had come and trying to listen. He knew that voice, and that made his work trickier. He had seen Cayde on fire enough times now.

Back in the room he had left, the hair he had plucked from a hardly responsive slaughter-victim hardly caught the swinging, dim light, shivering slightly in its tension drawn across at ankle height. Tripping, it would ignite a pool of crackling fat, already primed enough to set the closest shelf ablaze in warning. Keep hunting, and you're going to get hurt.

It was overwhelming in here, from the distinct presence of bodies everywhere to the nearly suffocating scent that accompanied them. It was unpleasant, and to his Hunt-sharpened senses, maddening. Not that madness wasn't very far off.

The only give away that there was someone here was that there had been movement, not the listless occasional shuffle as the meat line moved up in turn, nor the methodical actions of their strange, unlikely slaughterers, but a more deliberate movement, an active presence. Prey.

He paid no mind to the build up of grime and stains that were just as well a permanent discoloration as he crouched, a gloved hand resting upon the floor. Pausing. Listening. Scent was not going to guide him here, and even then the ambient sounds of swinging chains and machinery threatened to cover up anything amiss, but they were just as easily something that could be dismissed once he got accustomed to the noise that belonged here and sought out what did not. He moved carefully again, each step with purpose, never straightening up. But nor did he seem too perturbed when the old floorboards would groan under his inlaid metal steps. He wanted his presence to be known. He wanted his prey to flee.

Abruptly he jerked his head up, tensed in an almost feral manner as though he'd caught the whiff of something that did not belong amidst the press of bodies. There was something disturbingly wild to that bright blue gaze as it scanned surroundings.

The slow pursuit wasn't nearly so excruciating as Tony had darted around, comfortably ahead of Cayde and focused on his work. Standing as still as possible to not draw attention to himself just made Tony hyper-aware of every sound, every breeze, like he could feel the breath on the back of his neck, already coated in a cold sweat. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the sharp movement, making his breath hitch slightly and eyes widen as he was forced to shuffle along with the line. He had to slowly, slowly turn his head to try to spot Cayde again.

They locked eyes. Tony froze, slowly gathering his burning breath, just long enough for the body behind him to bump bonelessly against him. It went stumbling forward into the line as Tony bolted, vaulting over the guiding rail to lead the chase back through the grimy, plastic curtain and through the shadowy hall, where he leapt nimbly over his prepared tripwire and grabbed the next doorframe to slide to a curious stop.

The noise that escaped the Exo as Tony ran was almost a gleeful, electronic hiss. He surged after the man, throwing himself over a low shelf of questionably sanitary equipment and shortly after the line of bodies that Tony had been trying to blend with.

The sound of the curtain and whatever it had been hanging from being ripped from its hold would tell the other how close the Hunter was, and he only picked up speed as he eagerly dashed into the hall. All caution had been thrown out the window, the thrill of the chase taking precedence as Cayde caught Tony hurling himself through the doorway. The Exo rebounded off the wall adjacent from the same doorway, the makeshift tripwire easily unnoticed as he barreled after him.

The Exo coming at him with such speed made Tony start to flinch away, only to dig his fingers into the doorway where he had hesitated to watch, knuckles white and eyes hungry. The sound hit Tony first, a massive pressure release at the first touch to the hair even before it tenderly snapped. The burst sent a wide splatter of boiling fat across the room, sizzling where droplets hit and creating pools for the low, intensely blue fire to jump to as it eagerly made its way up the shelf it had been hidden in. The flames captured Tony's attention, light flickering in his wide, dark eyes, hardly blinking in the wave of heat that hit him, just until it was followed by the smell. Char, and human fat and hair that pushed Tony away, sprinting again through the anemic halos of buzzing light to lead the hunter through the next door. He slid cautiously around a half-closed metal bulkhead into the cool breath of a freezer, like Cayde might not notice this hiding place if he didn't touch it, holding his breath to keep from disturbing it and the delicately balanced hooks above.

Fire.

While it wasn't instantaneous, the resulting eruption of heat and light bloomed quickly enough, spurred by hungry flames and bountiful fuel. The overall smell condensed into burning, and the snarl that came from the Exo was unlike any sound he'd ever made in his right mind.

The fire was everywhere, searing his vision in its fiery brilliance, making it impossible to track where Tony had gone. The sound was what ultimately gave him away, but fighting through the intensity of the room made it more challenging to take up immediate pursuit. But his prey was on the move, still running. He ignored the fire that tried to make its way up the tatters of his cloak, plowing onward with an angry howl.

The dancing shadows captured the twisting of the Exo's form, firelight gleaming off of metal that seemed to be impossibly elongated into an inhuman shape. The actinic blue gaze pierced through the haze of the inferno itself before Cayde emerged like a creature from the depths of some freakish, mechanical hell.

The Exo had lost his patience and now lashed out at his surroundings with deadly metal claws, metal screeching in protest, leaving deep gouges. He dropped down on all fours, while not necessarily sniffing, still following that trail. Slavering jaws of jagged teeth were preceded by a sharp horn, steam trailing off heated metal in fine, snaking wisps.

The fire had made the hunter much more angry than scared, leaving Tony unsatisfied with a gnawing hollowness in his chest that quickly filled with frigid panic at the inhuman noises that came echoing down the hall after him. The screech of metal sent Tony further into the freezer, throwing himself behind one of the hanging bodies, wrapped haphazardly and not nearly enough to cover the broken ankles and the hook pierce through them, lifeless blood oozing from the wound sluggishly and frozen in place. He made the mistake of touching the corpse, feeling the strange give of a human stomach under his hand, frozen cold and rapidly melting under Tony's heated hand. Something burst, going from frozen to superheated, making Tony back away quickly into another body and send it swinging as something dark, viscous and vile splattered out of the plastic wrap across his feet. In the torturous, rusty screech of the swinging body, Tony's panicked gaze jumped to the door, then the free hooks he had suspended, pulled taut above it, ready to snare the moment the door opened ratchet back up to the ceiling.

A heavy metal paw slammed against the door, with enough force that it left a slight indention. It swung open with almost a pained groan, admitting the great metal beast who looked even more like some sort of spectral hallucination as the cool air hit his yet to be cooled plating, his eyes casting an eerie blue aura that cut through the darkness.

It was just as quick as the fire trap, but something physical was easier to react to, although snapping at the sudden movement didn't necessarily make it effective. The chains dropped down, not making him bow down from weight so much as by surprise, but even as he caught one between his teeth to yank back he didn't realize the true intent until he found his body being hauled up as multiple hooks caught him up between paneling and joints. He felt the chain yet caught between his jaws go taut and yanked back viciously until it went slack, either from jamming its pulley or snapping its links.

Tony might not have been planning to ensnare something that at that moment resembled an animal more than something humanoid. Cayde's front half wasn't nearly as entangled as the back, and his jaws were still free as he swung about in his attempts to break loose.

What the hell happened to Cayde? Tony staggered back again, stumbling around the rattling meat as the beast burst through the door with enough energy that Tony doubted the hooks would hold him at all. As he went swinging up off of the ground, Tony cautiously stepped forward, eyes narrowing and lip raised, both hands going to his burning heart to press as he examined that glowing snarl. Belatedly, as the amped fear of the pursuit tempered to a steady tension, Tony realized that the hollowness was still there and with some frustration he risked sauntering closer, hands dragging down in rivulets of pink and gold gathering in waxy beads from the ragged hole in his chest, to hold out imploringly as he snarled back, "Do you even feel pain?" That wasn't fair at all. Tony was going to have to find out how to make an Exo hurt. Leaning closer yet, keeping his hands back out of grabbing range but bowing enough to bring his eye level with Cayde's wild gaze, he warned, "I bet you will when I open you up."

The sound of movement from his prey instantly ceased the creature's flailing, eyes fixing immediately upon Tony once he came out of his hiding place. The unnatural stillness was only punctuated by the almost gentle rattle of chains as they continued to sway against each other. It was only when Tony spoke up and in such a tone that Cayde growled and snapped at him again, sending him into a fresh pendulum swing. He strained against the chains, but his uneven position made it difficult to break free in that manner, not that it kept him from trying.

Fury burned in those glowing optics at Tony's words, fueling another garbled growl that could have been an attempt to speak, mangled by rage and that driven hunger. His prey was right there. He wasn't running any more, however. Thought he had the upper-hand. Metal teeth gleamed as he gnashed them again and again, a steel trap trying to catch the man's skull between them.

Staggering back out of bone-crunching reach once again, Tony frowned with frustration, then considered the rattling of the hooks dubiously, not trusting them at all to keep Cayde from tearing him apart for much longer. "Come on, then," he encouraged lightly as he slid a wide arc around the tangled Exo to reach the door. "The longer you hang there, the more you'll just have to wonder what I have waiting for you. Won't that be excruciating? Plenty of ways to take you apart here, Hot Stuff. I'll give you a hint: I do like it rough."

While Tony stepped just as coolly out of the freezer to leave Cayde to free himself, slamming the door behind him with a chilly sigh as the temperature rapidly began to drop again, a hunter's senses might pick up on his hasty retreat back down the hall, sprinting again until he was out of earshot.

Just try it. The words were rasped out, more of a suggestion than properly formed. He threw himself into a frenzied spin with his next attempt to try snapping at Tony, rewarded only with the dropping temperature and the accompanying quiet. He heard the man pick up speed once he was away from the door, neck craning in its direction as if to soak up as much of that sound as he could. It began to fade all too quickly. He wouldn't be able to catch Tony like this.

The chill tempered his anger brought on by frustration, enough for him to regain his senses as he studied the chains. He wasn't sure that shifting back to a body more familiar was going to help matters, but it appeared he had no say in that matter as his blood lust was for the moment, quelled. His arms had more range at least, and the chains yielded easily as he tore himself free, dropping unceremoniously to the cold floor. He took a moment despite knowing the longer he waited, the more distance his prey would gain from him. Yet he grinned.

"...guess I shouldn't be surprised you like playing hard to get," he said, despite having only an audience of putrefying bodies. He swung the door nearly off its hinges, taking off in belated pursuit.

The longer Cayde took, the more frustrated Tony grew with the increasingly louder demand for that fear that Cayde was refusing to feed him. He wasn't dreading the pain Tony had promised, he wasn't afraid of springing another trap, and he hardly seemed anxious that Tony would really hurt him. It did give Tony arduously long minutes to prepare, then go slipping back down the hall carefully toward where he had left Cayde, knowing intimately now that he could be baited much like Jon could.

With his back up against a stained wall, he slowly leaned over to try to peek through the fog of another plastic sheet to spy Cayde's approach, digging his nails into his own palms to set his heart beating again and muttering, "He's close, he'll see you..." to himself to use his own anxiety to provoke a hunter.

It was difficult to dread what he didn't think possible. When you knew you could blaze with the intensity of solar flames, fire just didn't seem very fear-inspiring. And yet there was maybe that nagging curiosity to see what exactly Tony could- ahem, cook up.

The wait was a tactic in itself, drawn out on purpose. Cayde had no idea that that it was turn for his prey to feel more frustrated than fearful. He caught that sense of anxiety like a wolf the whiff of a creature's scent. The scrape of his knife against a metal railing echoed eerily through the slaughterhouse, an undeniable anomaly that rang above the sounds that they'd otherwise grown accustomed to within the nightmarish space.

He was coming.

The shriek of the metal made Tony's gut clench and he jumped back enough to press his shoulders to the wall again where it began to softly steam, the panicked fluttering of his heart stoking its fire higher and wicking away his own cold sweat and the condensation slipping down the slaughterhouse tiles. With his eyes squeezed closed, Tony took a steadying breath to calm himself enough and listen again, waiting for the stalking stomp of Cayde's boots close enough that he could hear Tony's sprinting, and the flutter of the plastic sheet leading them back into the bleeding area where the waiting lines wound in oppressive complacency, barely flinching as the next wet splatter hit the ground.

By the time the hunter caught up, the line was scattered and disoriented, looking more like a crowd in mourning milling around the open wound in the abattoir floor where the blood drained, the body that had been at the front of the line still slumped over the edge of the platform and dripping onto one of the plastic tarps that the meat was wrapped in thrown haphazardly over the drain. Tony stood on the opposite side, watching the door like he expected Cayde, in his feral tunnel vision, to not notice there was a hole between them, still breathing quickly but shoulders squared and holding the glownie that had presided over the meat line by the ears, one foot pressed into his back and his still slick knife in the other hand. Maybe this trap would finally make Cayde wary. Maybe he wouldn't even notice the new tripwire set for him before he had to find out what was down the hole.

He hastened once he heard Tony's fleeting footsteps, but after blundering twice into a trap, Cayde allowed for a little more caution. And there was no doubt in his mind that Tony probably had more traps up his sleeve. The slaughterhouse had an abundance of tools and advantages at his disposal, but they could just as well be the Hunter's own.

His own heavy steps suddenly tapered off into silence. Hunting wasn't only the chase, and indeed some of the thrill came from leaving your prey to guess at just how close behind you were. When he finally did step past the dingy, stained plastic that hunt across the doorway his movements were slow, deliberate. He flicked a look around the room and its mindless occupants, but there was no interest to be found in those who had already accepted their fate. The scent of blood itself was both maddening and suffocating, swallowing itself in its own over-fulfilled promises. Tony was spotted easily enough, Cayde lifting his head slightly almost in question as he saw the man's position taken. If one didn't know better, they might think it a poor attempt of a hostage situation. He shook his head, almost in disappointment. Clearly Tony needed motivation.

His hand dropped to the holster at his side, his gun removed and fired in the same motion without him having to raise it any further than his hip. The single shot zipped perhaps impossibly through a narrow window between the haphazard scatter of fleshy obstacles. There was an spray of fresh blood but it wasn't from Tony, however undoubtedly close for comfort, but it wasn't like he had any particular ties to the glownie he held.

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♤ One Night of the Hunter

ii (Desolation Tony, and we're in the Flesh's slaughterhouse, both of those things are awful)

you always bring me to the nicest places

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