Event Log: Predator vs. Prey

[hadrielmods]

Who: All characters participating in the event
What: The event log for the Predator vs Prey event
Where: All over the city
When: March 13th-March 21st
Warnings: None

It all starts with an explosion, because Rage is excellent at managing her anger. But an explosion isn't enough - she hasn't worked out all her feeling yet. Not until the city itself has gotten caught up in her anger at Fear for being unable to save Delight. And yeah, that means you.

So now you're a predator (Rage) or prey (Fear). You want to hunt, or you're being hunted. Maybe you were defenseless before, or maybe you're the sort who no one could be afraid of... but it's different now, because the gods are passing on their blessings to you. All the better to catch and kill, or run and hide.

What will you do? Try to resist the urge? Good luck with that. Who would want to resist, anyway, when it feels so right to give in? Hunt someone down like a cat after a mouse, or flee like a deer before wolves. Maybe you can find someone to help you, whether that means hunting in packs or looking for safety in numbers. Who knows, maybe you'll even make a few new friends while trying to kill your old ones.

► This log covers March 13th-March 21st.
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you get caught by a predator or have things turned on you by your prey, please let us know here.

Comments

[bythehand]

[ Excuse you, Kylo. That's piece of rebel shit.

Finn feels like shit, though, actually, so maybe Kylo just saved him the time finding the right word. He definitely hasn't scraped his faculties back together by the time Kylo is up and stalking over again-- he's feeling vaguely sick and trying to blink his vision back into full clarity, and also his head hurts. That makes "get off the ground" round two more of a hard mode challenge.

So he's doing his best over there right about up to the point where his shoulder starts burning. That's around the time when he figures out that he dropped the focus ball, because he managed to miss an actual giant coming right back at him.

It is, point for point, exactly as bad as Finn remembers it being. Worse, actually, because remembering that something hurt more than anything else he'd ever been hurt by is one thing, and having it happen again is another. I don't have an icon for screaming, but Finn doesn't have enough chill to get slowly burnt by a lightsaber and not yell.

In light of not being able to grab a laser sword by the laser without losing his hands, Finn falls to a backup strategy: kicking. It starts more as a way of trying to put off the inevitable, a graceless backwards scramble. Once his back hits (dun dun dun) tree, though, it's more about desperately trying to put up any resistance that he can.

There are some pretty hefty chunks of debris around, he thinks; if he gets a chance to lurch in that general direction, he can try to bring half a brick to the party. Something. Anything. A non-searing opportunity that he can grasp at.

Knowing he's pretty much zeroing in on dying within the next ten minutes and that it won't stick doesn't make him less inclined to grasp at those straws. It's gonna be bad enough explaining without Poe and Rey thinking he didn't really try to avoid it first. ]

[forcer]

[ Finn is a piece of shit. Period.

Kylo isn't about to acknowledge the rebel part of it, especially because all that does is make him think of his mother and father and, stars, that's never a fun time. Imagine how much he hated it when Poe called out to Leia. Not a good time for Poe... Or Kylo.

Instead, he's going to focus on killing Finn. Much better, much more enjoyable.

The kicking doesn't do anything but cause more pain for Finn in the long run because it forces Kylo to pull his lightsaber up through Finn's shoulder and out, making the injury worse than had he just jabbed it in and left it there. And the resistance he's putting up angers Kylo more than had Finn just laid there and begged for him to stop. Kylo takes another swing at Finn, aiming for the head this time. ]

[bythehand]

[ Of note: RIP, jacket shoulder. No amount of Poe's crappy sewing could have fortified you against what just happened. RIP shoulder in general while we're at it. That's his arm of preference. Not good.

There was going to be a longer description of exactly how much that sucks for Finn, but it got lost in an accidental notepad closing. The important thing is, everyone here can picture exactly how much it sucks. Especially because lightsabers just go right ahead and cauterize that shit.

Finn rolls his first nat20 of this encounter in managing not to get his head chopped off. It's graceless by all definitions of gracelessness. It is, in fact, more of a really bad lurch than a legit dodge. But he doesn't get his head chopped off. And while he's in the lurching neighborhood, he figures he might as well try to scramble for one or two of those aforementioned big hunks of rock. This is literally the best plan he has. Try not to get chopped up and get to the makeshift weapons. ]

[forcer]

[ Spinning on his heel in an attempt to stop Finn, Kylo nearly loses his footing. His eyes go to where Finn is headed and the big hunks of rock aren't really something Kylo wants Finn getting his hands on considering he has a huge advantage right now over the Traitor. So, he'll use the best way he knows how to stop Finn: the Force.

He stops him from moving once he reaches the rocks, firmly holding him in place. ]

It's unfair of me to do this by myself as General Hux wanted to be the one to end your life, but I can't let the opportunity pass me by.

[ Finn will start to feel it, something he's never felt before. It's foreign, it hurts, and it goes against everything he wants and yet he's powerless to stop it. Kylo takes this opportunity to search Finn's mind, looking for any details Poe may have left out, events he didn't experience himself. He wants to know exactly what happened that he's yet to experience. ]

[bythehand]

[ Hm. This is Bad. To explain it as one of the greatest understatements made in human history, at least.

Finn is silent at first, wild-eyed, trying to process a sensation that he still wouldn't be able to describe even now that he's experiencing it. Thorough and brutal enough, inexorable enough, that the First Order would be pleased to have anybody on board willing to do this. It's no wonder.

The silence doesn't last. There's no trick to lessening the intensity of it, no pushing it or anything else aside to think about later, and so Finn builds to screaming; builds to a raw throat and a wet face that he only barely registers.

He didn't realize how long it's been since he felt really, genuinely powerless. Not just angry or frustrated or shaken, but powerless.

And the feeling lingers in jumbled thoughts, in flashes of memory that go rapidfire and out of order. It's Cassian lying in the snow smiling, and 2 AM coffee with Chyler, Poe looking annoyed and covered in glitter while Finn throws his head back and laughs-- setting a collision course the battering ram cannon and closing his eyes, the way that Rey's face softened when he said "we came back for you"- John Sheppard leaning back haphazardly in his chair, boots propped up on his desk while he fiddles with a toy ship- Solo shoving a blaster at him and telling him that women always find out the truth-

He's smoothing a blanket over Rose on the Falcon, equal parts sharp concern and soft gratitude, and Poe is saying "Finn, I'm gonna call you Finn, is that alright," and he's never had someone ask him that before-- Slip reaching up towards his face and everything sharply changing, the jarring brutality of his first deployment, the cold dread of thinking there's something wrong with him, he's broken- meeting Rey halfway on Crait and throwing his arms around her, the failed plan to disable the Supremacy's tracker, holding the binary beacon out to Poe like it means everything--

And it is everything, it's everything. Everything that Kylo Ren is looking for, he finds.

It doesn't stop.

Any active cursory attempt to shut down or push back, at the same success level of anyone who isn't equipped to actually do it (aka no success at all), that doesn't last, either. It grinds down to almost involuntary reflex, a muscle spasm in prey that's being held down by the throat.

Hux unceremoniously putting him down point-blank with a blaster would have been better. Regular human torture is sounding appealing by comparison. ]

[volitaunt]

[ Poe doesn't exactly realize he's screaming as he charges Kylo Ren. It's part terror, part blind rage, and if it gets the ghoul's attention off of Finn so much the better.

Not that he's thinking much about distractions. What he's thinking about is launching himself into a tackle as he grabs at the wrist holding Kylo's lightsaber, furious scream turning into words. ]

Leave him the fuck alone!

[ Possibly Poe should have led with shooting at Kylo Ren. He does have a gun. But that would have required .5 more seconds of thought and who has the patience for that. ]