[center][b][u]October 27th
Primorski Krai[/u][/b]

There were few things akin to the biting chill of the Russian wind against his bare skin, that cloud of chilled air that puffed from his mouth with every breath. His heart pounded, struggling to warm his body by pumping fresh blood through his veins…but he was not concerned. He would not freeze. The spirit of the hunt flowed through him, warding off the chill.

No, his eyes remained firmly focused upon his quarry: a maneater, feared throughout the region. Eight hundred fifty pounds, a Siberian tiger known simply as “Ghost Claw” by the locals. He could see those eyes, that savage and predatory gaze that had him firmly in its sight. There was no fear in this beast, only hunger.

Removing his utility knife - the only “weapon” on his person - and tossing it to the ground, he crouched close to the ground and spread his arms wide. “Come, beast.”

Reacting in a blur of motion, the tiger charged forward with nary a sound. Paws spread apart in a deadly embrace aimed to pierce his flesh with five inch claws so that he could not flee from those bone crushing teeth as they closed down upon the back of his neck.

Ah, but he would be no easy meal.

Pushing off the ground as the great cat loomed over him in that breadth of a second, he wrapped his arms beneath the animal’s own upper limbs, tucking his head firmly in against its chest as he allowed the animal’s far greater weight to continue to carry him forward. A subtle motion of his feet - a turn - would alter their course and find the beast landing onto it’s back.

A flicker of surprise filled the cat’s eye for the briefest of moments, well honed instinct allowing it to linger no longer. Yet it was in that minute interval that he had struck, having released Ghost Claw before its back had even touched the ground. Lunging forward, his arms snaked around the beast’s neck as he tucked his shoulder in tightly beneath its jaw.

Muscles rippled along his arms as his grip suddenly tightened, his legs shifting beneath him as he twisted with a low grunt. As he felt the animal’s claws begin to sink into his back, he was at last rewarded with a sickening [i]crack[/i], those knives piercing his flesh withdrawing as the beast’s body went slack.

Allowing it to fall to the ground with an impact that resonated through the forest, Maxim Zirov stood above his latest kill, his lips turning into a subtle frown.

“...Too easy,” he muttered. “Far too easy.”

Even after abandoning all of his tools, all of his weapons, it seemed as if there was no prey worthy of Nimrod the Hunter. From the cold of Siberia to the scorching heat of the Sahara, from the Everglades to the jungles of Rajasthan he had searched for any remaining challenge to his skills.

There were none.

Stepping towards his discarded knife, he retrieved it from the snow before returning to his former prey. Though a disappointment, he would still honor its sacrifice properly and not leave it to rot and be devoured by carrion.

Setting himself to the task of skinning the creature, he would ensure that he wasted nothing...not even the bones. To do otherwise would be to disgrace the spirit of the hunt that coursed through his veins even now. Even in his growing melancholy and dissatisfaction.

“Nn…?” Zirov finished stripping the pelt free when he felt a subtle vibration against his outer thigh. Stabbing the knife into the carcass, he retrieved his phone and glanced at the text that flashed onto the screen.

He smiled, ever so slightly.

[hr]
[u][b]October 28th, 6:00 p.m.
Brooklyn, New York[/b][/u]

Marvin’s wounds were healing faster than bullet wounds should. He could only hope the depository shrapnel from the bullet’s entrances didn’t lodge themselves into his bones or lance any tendons. He was still in his hospital garb, and he hadn’t bothered to shower. He couldn’t; moving was too anguishing a task. How he was [i]awake[/i] eluded him. Alone Marvin sat amongst the soft blue hum of his large computer monitor which stretched across a decent portion of the warehouse’s second floor western wing. There was nothing of import on the screen; in any other situation and concerning any other matter there would be. Tonight, old pictures danced across the long monitor.

One was Marvin dressed in a karate gi when he was eight, another of he and his Aunt Veronica in matching barbershop quartet overalls succeeding some musical performance Marvin had that night. What it was, Marvin did not readily remember; maybe it was no musical performance at all? Maybe it was a play? Odd. He may have to investigate later. That was part of his problem now! Anything--innocent or not--Marvin had to be sure he knew all the facts. To let something rest as it was could no longer be, it had become something of a paranoia. If he was being honest with himself, it began to unnerve him, this necessity with unveiling every footprint stamped on his life. If an assassin had found him, there was no telling who knew how much about him. Prior to the shooting, Marvin was the watcher; now he was the one being watched!

How many eyes were fixated on him, he would never know. His soul knew it, too. No gadget or contingency could cease that great revolution: the hunter becoming the hunted. It was nature and her finest display of passivity; someone was always watching and waiting for the biggest cat to be a little slow or a little late, and then they would take their shot. Swiping through another set of pictures with a few clicks of the mouse, Marvin switched to the street cameras; in small and separate sections along the monitor there appeared a bird’s eye view pan of every major street and alleyway in Brooklyn. The city was quiet.

Through his mind ran the discussion with the detective from a few days prior. He hoped his plan was going to work, there was only so small a window of time he could buy to stave this mysterious kidnapper. And there were only so many contingencies one man could make; soon enough, he would have no time to plan and would have to face his enemies on their own terms. It seemed this kidnapper, whoever or whatever they were, was a better chessman than Marvin--there had been ten kidnappings, and Marvin nor the FBI had any leads on any of them. [i]How was the kidnapper hiding? Who was helping him? Why here of all places?[/i] The thoughts ached his temples, he pressed two fingers on each side and rubbed them softly.

Then there was the matter of the assassin at the hospital. A job undone usually meant death for the perpetrator. Broken memories of the attack brought back memories of well shined dress shoes that Marvin sussed while hiding beneath the hospital bed. The only people who sent their messages through men with shined shoes were the Mafia kingpins. Marvin--The Tiger, rather, was city-wide, but he didn’t bother the other mob bosses much. If Marvin’s guess were right, given the pattern of his vigilantism, the kill order likely came down from Don Colombo. Then again, anyone who was a thorn in the Five Families’ side was an enemy of them all. Secretly, it began to wear him down; the constant requisite defense of the people of his borough from threats which were all beginning to become too numerous and too great--even for a predator like Marvin.

[hr]

[u][b]October 28th, 8:17 PM
Dyckman Projects[/b][/u]

Brandon Plymouth smirked as he ran his clanmate over in his 1998 BMW 540i, the body ragdolling as it bounced off the hood. Laughing to himself as Charlie began to rage over his mic about being on a mission, he sneered.

“Good, I hope you fucking lose all your goddamn money trying to do it, bitch!” Brandon cackled in reply.

More raging, this time from some of his [i]other[/i] guildmates. He probably wasn’t going to be with this group for much longer, in truth. His time in a guild never last long, after all…once they figured out he was just there to troll their stupid asses, they’d kick him and he would move on to the next group.

“Fine, fine,” he threw his hands up in mock frustration. “Hold on, Charlie, I’ll drive you to your mission.”

“How about you help me [i]do[/i] it, like an actual fucking member of the clan?!” Charlie raged back.

Snickering under his breath, Brandon’s smirk broadened. “Fine, bitch, calm down. Jesus!”

It didn’t take long for him to zero in on Charlie’s position. There he was, waiting for a pickup. Flashing the whites of his teeth briefly, Brandon pressed down on the acceleration and with an audible [i]crunch[/i] he sent Charlie flying for the second time that night.

Erupting into laughter, he Brandon threw his head back as Charlie’s rage filled his ears again. HIs other “clanmates” were raging as well. Man, he really loved GTA VI.

“Brandon Plymouth…” A voice whispered out to him over his headset, it was deep, unfamiliar. “Can I tell you a story?”

Brandon ceased laughing instantly, slumping forward in his chair. “Who the fuck is [i]that?”[/i]

“What are you playing at now, asshole?” Charlie snapped.

“There once was a boy, age thirteen,” the voice continued to speak in a hoarse whisper that sounded like he had been gargling shattered glass. “He often enjoys smashing bottles with a wooden bat after school. Sometimes, he even turns over garbage cans for fun.”

Brandon’s jaw dropped for a moment, his face growing slightly pale. “What? What the [i]fuck?![/i] Who the fuck are you?! How do you know me?!”

“Man, shut the hell up!” His clan leader shouted in irritation.

“C-come on, you don’t hear this shit?!” Brandon shouted back.

The voice continued. “He didn’t care about his grades. He didn’t care about his future. His parents were so disappointed with his wasted potential.”

“Bitch, you want me to call the fuckin’ cops on your creepy pedo ass?!” Brandon shouted back.

“I’ve been watching you, Brandon,” the voice claimed, “watching you at Midwood High School, watching you on your way back to your home at Bedford Avenue.”

Brandon felt his blood run cold at this, his heart pounding in his chest. “M-man, you shut the fuck up before I call the cops! For real!”

“And Brandon...I’m still watching you,” the voice continued, a low [i]inhuman[/i] chuckle resonating from his mic. Brandon instinctively looked out his window, but didn’t see anything. “Oh, I’m not outside the window, Brandon.”

Brandon felt his eyes tearing up at this point as he began to tremble. “W-where…”

The teen suddenly found himself consumed by darkness as the lights were shut off, a horrified scream ripping its way from his throat. “FUCK!! WHERE ARE YOU?!”

And then it spoke again, but the voice did not come from his headset.

“Don’t look behind you.”

---

Aaliyah Plymouth bolted to her feet at the sound of a scream after the power had suddenly blinked off, her concentration on the television having been broken. The power quickly returned, and her eyes darted to the room to her left, her heart fluttered intensely.

That scream had come from Brandon’s room. That had been her baby screaming.

“Brandon?” She stepped to the door, pounding on it. No answer. “Brandon! Boy you’d better open this door!”

Again, she received no response. Lowering her hand to the knob, Aaliyah turned it - it wasn’t locked - and stepped through.

“Bra-” She froze in place, her eyes wide. The chair in front of his computer had been overturned. The computer monitor was still on, and his headset was laying on the floor...but there was no sign of brandon.

At least, not until her eyes shifted to the far wall and saw the blood, still glistening red. Stumbling back before falling to the ground, her eyes watered at the unfamiliar word it spelled out.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/zEjvUUD.png[/img]

[hr]

[u][b]October 29th,
3:30 a.m.[/b][/u]

Sergeant Michael Bloom and Forensics Officer Felix Martinez arrived on the scene some hours after the abduction-homicide had been called in. The dead of night, the heart of the graveyard shift, a shift given only to the sturdiest of men. The Sergeant brought with him a handful of rookies and deputies, few of whom had experience with a case such as this. On normal occasions--occasions when the city’s higher ranking officers with supple field experience weren’t tied up in murder cases or retiring en masse because they were tired of being overworked and underpaid--Bloom would have shovelled the rookies to walking the beat in the nice neighborhoods, the NYPD had already lost too many recruits by putting them on foot patrol in the seediest parts of the boroughs. Inside the Plymouth home, Forensics Officer Martinez was swabbing the blood from the wall and collecting loose hair samples. Sergeant Bloom was consoling Aaliyah Plymouth, mother of the most recent victim,

“My baby! They took my baby!” Aaliyah wailed,
“Ma’m, we’ll get your son back. You trust me, eh? We’ll bring em back to ya. Swea ta gawd.” his accent was thick, one could smell the pork roll he had eaten steaming from his breath, he was a Jersey man through and through,
“Don’t look like it to me! We sufferin’ out here and y’all [i]still[/i] done nothin’! Nothin’!” her tears had dried as if by magic, the throttle in her tone shifted to anger.

Martinez was examining the scene: the tipped over chair, the headphones, the unpaused fetch quest on the television screen which sported GTA VI, the blood on the wall. [I]KINDERFRESSEN[/I] is what  it read, this was not the first time the kidnapper had left their insignia after a catchl, but it was the first time it left its insignia sprawled in a victim’s blood.

“Kinderfressen. Indo-European language family… Dutch? German?” Martinez made a note to have a translator investigate once the crime scene had been properly combed and its contents sent back to the forensics lab. At least now there was a lead, there was no way of telling how far along this lead advanced the investigation, though.

[b]Brooklyn
4:00 a.m.[/b]

Marvin had fallen asleep in the fluffy leather computer chair. A snore erupted from the stunted intervals of his breathing loud enough to dance across the wide halls of the warehouse. Tonight’s dream was the calmest he’d had in years:

A kid again, watching his favorite Saturday morning cartoon, [i]The Looney Tunes[/i] which ran on syndication. His favorite character, Tweety Bird, had once more outsmarted the wily Sylvester the Cat, duping him into stumbling into the very same mouse trap Sylvester had set up for Tweety himself. In his oversized bowl of cereal were Froot Loops, he sat cross legged in front of the antenna television, the pasty colors of the trademark Hannah Barbara animation lit up his slim, chocolate face; big green eyes settled unwavered on the screen. Behind him, his mother ran a pick through his curly hair, unraveling the kinks in his afro so it blossomed to its full breadth. She blurted out, suddenly,

“James!” no answer, a pause,
“James! You hear me talkin’ to you!” finally, James Hayes emerged from his room upstairs and peered over the railing,
“What?!” he shot back. Marvin’s mother, Yvette, only careened her head slowly toward her eldest son and Marvin’s eldest brother for James to realize his err,
“Boooooy! You already [i]know[/i] good and damn [i]well[/i] not to be talkin’ to me like you grown! Bring ya ass down here.” James huffed under his breath. Yvette heard it, but she let it slide (this time). James’ long feet pattered down the beige carpet which coated the stairs and the living room floor, one’s steps were always silent when traversing the downstairs area of the house thanks to the thickness of the carpet.
“Go to the store and get me some cigarettes.” Marvin, James, Tianna, and Cecilia Hayes’ mother was a heavy smoker, two packs a day was child’s play. James’ expulsion of a rebelling sigh marked his disdain for the simple task; as the eldest brother and heir to the Man of the House title, he had to do things he did not want to do; this was, after all, a mark of manhood. His reluctance subsided when the $20 bill graced his tan palm for it meant more than just cigarettes; it meant candy. Lots of candy. Marvin’s eyes lit up as he watched his elder brother go and retrieve his coat and even beneath the weight of his mother’s hands--delicate as they were heavy--he zipped his neck around to face her, a shock of pain shot through the base of his neck as the pick tore from his afro and nearly tore a piece of his soft ebony bundle of follicles from his scalp.

“Ma, can I go? Lemme go, please!” Marvin pleaded,
“No, it’s gonna be dark soon, you know you don’t go out after them streetlights is up.” a sensible retort, the same one Marvin [i]always[/i] heard though
“Then why you lettin’ him go? I don’t never get to go! I ain’t gone do nothin’ bad, I swear!” Marvin tried again,
“I said no! Now turn around and let me finish.” Yvette made sure the matter was dropped,
Marvin sighed. His mother popped him near as quick!
“Ow!” Marvin moaned,
“S’what ya ass get, now shut up and let me finish.” Yvette remarked,

The door to the upstairs bedroom opened, out stepped a man donning a white dress shirt with a collar that was all the way unbuttoned, underneath lay a white t-shirt, some jeans and some black socks. At 6’5, the lengthy chocolate-peanut butter hued man had to duck as he exited the bedroom reserved for his wife and himself as the other half of the heads of the house: Marvin’s father, Reginald Hayes. Reggie for short, he was an early balder, his shoulders wide and his neck thick, as a young man he had worked construction--calloused hands bore the years and the scars of his work within their folds. He leaned over the bannister and called out, voice smooth and baritone--honey,

“What’s all that commotion I hear? ‘Vette, you messin’ with my son again?”
“Ain’t nobody messin’ with that boy!” Yvette spiked back with a small grin,
“What he wanna do anyway?” the sound of a phone ringing broke the stream of the dream and Marvin awoke, present day, the outside of the Plymouth residence with all the police cars singular and fixated on his screen. Back to reality, but oh, how badly Marvin wished he was dreaming again.

[hr]

[u][b]October 29th, 5:33 AM
Marcy Projects[/b][/u]

This was where it had started, the Tiger’s hunt.

During the riots that had engulfed New York, he had appeared to quell them...but this was only the beginning. His eyes had quickly turned to the three-pronged head of New York’s underworld, and like the apex predator he was, he proceeded to hunt them down. Sometimes one by one, sometimes in entire groups. Either way, he would dispatch them with precision and grace.

“I can still feel it,” [url=https://i.imgur.com/ktFtQvm.jpg]Nimrod[/url] whispered through his helmet, his voice metallic and deep. Running a hand along the claw marks that remained etched in the dirty brick wall of the alleyway, he closed his eyes. “Yes...your heart beats strong, hunter. This is your jungle, one of concrete and steel. They seek to [i]hunt[/i] you, but they will [i]fail[/i] because they do not [i]understand[/i] you. Only a true predator can understand how another of its kind thinks.”

Yes, he could feel it. In his bones, that rush of exhilaration he hadn’t experienced since he had tracked his very first bear as a child. His heart pounded, his pupils dilated...for the first time in so long he felt [i]alive[/i], for he knew he had at last found a worthy prey.

But he would not strike yet. No, he was still wounded, surely. He did not come half way across the world to slaughter an already injured beast. He would watch and wait for him to once again take to the streets, observe him in his full glory as King of this jungle of man. He would not be satisfied unless he claimed his pelt while he was in his [i]prime![/i]

Turning from the alleyway, Nimrod’s gaze ascended to the metal staircase that hung above him. With a deep crouch of his knees, he launched himself nearly ten feet vertically into the air as his fingers grasped the edge of the stairs. Effortlessly he pulled himself up, before once again leaping, repeating this until his feet touched the rooftop.

While he waited for him to reappear, Nimrod would busy himself studying his newest quarry...and mastering the terrain of his hunting grounds. The fools who hired him did not understand that you could not truly defeat a predator in its home unless you learned to live as it did, to see and [i]move[/i] as it did. If you could comprehend these things, then you could devise [i]counters[/i] perfectly suited to your chosen prey.

A gunshot, distant shouting.

Yes, a stirring of conflict. A mugging? Gang warfare, perhaps...he did not know all of the workings, so he couldn’t say. But he would understand soon enough. Until The Tiger reappeared, he would hunt these petty thugs as he did, and through this he would become one with his prey.

Shifting his eyes to the warehouse that stood across from the building he was now perched on, Nimrod the Hunter removed a bouquet of flowers from his brown hunting jacket. Hurling them across the chasm, they slammed against the side of the warehouse before falling to the pavement below.

“Get well soon, Marvin Hayes.”

---

[u][b]October 30th, 8:48 PM
Marcy Project[/b][/u]

“Come on, man, don’t do me like that!” Teon begged his friend over the mic. “This is the last one I need!”

He almost had enough to unlock the 2017 Lexus RX 350. It had taken him [i]months[/i] of grinding this out every day, and now he was almost there. Of course, if he could afford the thirty dollar price tag, he could’ve just [i]bought[/i] it from the online store.

Man, when were they going to learn? Didn’t they remember what happened to Overwatch 2 when Blizzard put all balance-related patches behind a pay wall?

“Can’t you wait till tomorrow, Teon?” His friend whined. Peter live in the UK, so he was ahead quite a few hours, and was clearly exhausted. “I’ve got school in the morning.”

“Please man, I’m beggin’ yo-”

“Teon Harris, can I tell you a story…?”[/center]