He was the Hunter, and he showed us that not all went in fire.
The Hunter was not the international celebrity that many metahumans were. Where Champion was always on the front page, and Wotansdottir could be seen on the television, the Hunter was rarely mentioned. Even Nocturne, whose methods made it nearly impossible for anyone to interview him, was more well known. Nocturne was the subject of urban legends and nightmares everywhere. Few people outside of the police and the criminal underworld even knew of the Hunter.
Those that did, however, were glad they did. The Hunter was exactly that, a hunter of men. Clad in a dark uniform with distinctive crimson highlights and carrying the finest high-tech bow and arrows, he could be found mostly on the West Coast of the United States, tracking and subduing criminals. Few criminals ever saw him, until it was too late. A master tracker and expert in guerilla warfare, he would find his quarry, hunt them down, and bring them to ground.
The Hunters tools were highly varied. The bow and arrows that he commonly used were modern, high tech, and state-of-the-art. His accuracy was amazing; his abduction of The Maniac during a Seahawks game was a shot over 60 yards away, through a paniced crowd. The arrows he used were varied, but he most often used a blunt-tipped variety that acted like a taser or stun gun, imparting an electric shock in addition to the stunning force on impact. In addition, he carried grapple lines, smoke and flash grenades, and other gadgets. In his few appearances in public, he was accompanied by small, flying devices that he referred to as his hounds. These machines appeared to be small robots that provided him with reconnaissance and defense capabilities.
While the Hunters attitude towards the press was blunt and taciturn (when asked what his powers were, he replied, I hunt.), his actions towards the public were nothing but altruistic. People from Vancouver to Phoenix had stories of the mysterious figure, saving them from kidnappers, robberies, rapes, and other crimes. The Hunter often crossed paths with Champion in Southern California, during wildfire season, and the more public hero spoke highly of the archer. During the Troll Invasion, the Hunter descended into the Carlsbad Caverns, skirting the invading army to rescue trapped tourists. Without the Hunters efforts, the counterattack led by Champion would have been stymied by the presence of hostages, but when the battle was over, the Hunter could not be found. Assisting him in this was the fey and whimsical mystic known as Nightengale, who provided him with the cold iron arrowheads needed to harm the invaders, and who, when asked about the Hunters absence, cheerfully nattered on about the saguaro cactus for seven minutes before saying, He is a Finder; he is needed elsewhere.
Theories about the Hunter are nowhere as prevalent as those about Nocturne, simply because of his anonymity, but a few exist. His skill with the bow and arrow and in fieldcraft was indicative of specialized training generally only found in the military or among survivalists, and the cutting-edge nature of his equipment demonstrated a surplus of capital, plus the contacts to provide him access to technology. Given the unusual combination, it would seem easy to find someone in the Pacific Northwest that matched the skill set, but the Hunters ability to stay out of sight was not limited to his costumed activities, for no suspects have ever been suggested that did not have some factor that excluded them.
The Hunter seemed to have little in the way of what could be defined as powers, although most agree that his ability to track and find people was disturbingly preternatural. More than one criminal currently serving time in the California, Oregon, or Washington System of Corrections had erased his or her trail as thoroughly as they thought possible, only to have the Hunter find them. It is theorized, based on eyewitness accounts of the measures that criminals had gone to in order to remain hidden and the lack of evidence pointing to missing persons, that the Hunters abilities were psychic in nature, allowing him to track someone without physical evidence of their presence.
It is not known when the Hunter began his relationship with the warrior woman known as Wotansdottir. Historians who focus on those events featuring superheroes can confirm that the first time that he was involved in an operation that Wotansdottir was also involved in was the kidnapping of the children of the Italian ambassador by Il Duca Nero while they were visiting Disneyland in 1994. The two heroes encountered each other during simultaneous rescue operations, and their cooperation allowed a two-pronged operation. While Wotansdottir engaged Il Duco in his black battlesuit, the Hunter was able to disable the guards and rescue the hostages. Once the children were free, the Hunter sniped at the smuggler, distracting him until Wotansdottir could strike a disabling blow with her broadsword. In one of the few appearances when the Hunter did not disappear before the press could arrive, Wotansdottir publicly praised his ability and effort in the rescue, and convinced him to appear in public again, two days later, when the Italian ambassdor publicly thanked him for his assistance. The Hunter has been seen with Wotansdottir at two other events, but it has been theorized that the vigilante revealed his identity to her at some point between 1994 and her death in 2001.
The normally subtle and generally unseen Hunter became very public shortly after Wotansdottirs demise. Law enforcement in the Western Hemisphere began to receive indication that the vigilante was scouring the West Coast for clues to the identity of Nemo. Several paramilitary criminal organizations and militias were scattered in precise, surgical attacks that left the suspects injured and unable to flee. Authorities, alerted by anonymous tips, arrived to find evidence in easy access and the scene literally peppered with red-and-black fletched arrows. It was the busted slavery ring in Rio de Janiero that had the first indications that the Hunter was taking the investigation of Wotansdottirs death much more seriously than he had any other crime; a number of the slavers had been injured by arrows with conventional broadhead tips. The Hunter had changed to lethal ammunition.
The Starman later related that he had encountered the Hunter near the Macchu Pichu ruins in Peru, tracking down the leaders of a drug cartel. After insisting once again that he liked Peru because the climate reminded him of his home planet and that Von Daniken was a certifiable fraud, Zhail explained that the Hunter seemed obsessed with finding out who Nemo was. He related that the vigilante had gone beyond what might be considered acceptable behavior and was dangerously close to torture and other unacceptable methods. He went on to say that he had attempted to calm the Hunter and convince him to rest and coordinate with the other heroes who were investigating, but the Hunter had refused. The Starman had not pressed the matter because he felt that he had reached the vigilante and pulled him back from the brink of madness, but that the Hunter had refused to rest and had headed east into the jungles of Brazil. This meeting, which occurred in October of 2001, shortly after Zhail and Nocturne had prevented the destruction of the World Trade Center by terrorists, is believed to be the last sighting of the Hunter before his body was found six months later.
On March 18, 2002, a National Geographic magazine expedition traveled into Western Brazil, following the Amazon. While taking shelter during a seasonal storm, one of the photographers stumbled across the remains of a human corpse. The body had been scavenged and very few of the bones remained, but what remains existed were clad in a torn and stained black and red uniform and the Hunters trademark bow and arrows lay nearby. Understanding what they had found, the expedition immediately contacted their base camp further downriver, who in turn, passed the message on to the magazine publishers, who then passed it on to the authorities. Within a few days, Dr. Tomorrow had the area cordoned off and was going over it with every forensic instrument at his command.
Sadly, the British superscientist could find little in the way of evidence. That it was the Hunter, he had no doubt. Despite the Hunters anonymity, Dr. Tomorrow had managed to acquire information that would accurately identify the vigilante. (It was revealed in the process that Dr. Tomorrow had similar information on several other very private heroes, which led to several burglary attempts on his Yorkshire laboratory by the costumed thief known as the Infiltrator. The Infiltrator, a.k.a. Wilson James, is currently serving seven years in the British Prison System, due to the efficacy of Dr. Tomorrows security.) In addition to the doctors identification of the corpse, a thorough examination of the surroundings found the wrecked shell of one of the robotic hounds, further confirming the identity of the body.
Dr. Tomorrow spent a week on site, cautiously claiming the remains and any evidence as to how the Hunter died. He spent another three weeks ensconced in his labs, delegating all but his most vital research to his staff. At the end of the three weeks, he spoke with the world press, telling them that, as far as he could tell given the evidence, the Hunter had suffered an injury and died of exposure and malnutrition. He issued a general statement to the public, asking for anyone who knew of the Hunters true identity to contact him, so that next of kin could be notified and funereal arrangements could be made. He went on to say, The common man has lost a true defender today. The world is a little more frightening.
Startlingly, less than 24 hours after his first press conference, Dr. Tomorrow called another. This time, he was accompanied to the press conference by Nightengale. The San Francisco-based mystic was amazingly on topic as she addressed the crowd of reporters. In a mournful voice, she informed them that the Hunter had died in violence. According to her, the Hunter had been ambushed in the jungle, by someone she referred to as a Beast in stolen skin, and left to die. She went on to say that the omens were worsening, predicting that other heroes would die, if this Beast was not found and stopped. Given the deaths of Champion and Wotansdottir, and the violent rage that had forced the Chinese Navy to kill Aquus in November 2001, many people took her assertions to heart. Finally, she said that she would take the Hunters remains home to his family, and that he would be buried in private, as unknown as he was in life, but that she would make sure that no one forgot him. In July 2002, Nightengale presided over the dedication of a small shrine to the Hunter in Vancouver, British Columbia, where his last bow and arrows can be seen to this day.
Of note, the Serbian-American gangster Andrej Petrovi, sometimes known as The Beast, disavowed (and continues to disavow) any knowledge of the Hunters death, despite the fact that the vigilante was directly responsible for Petrovis arrest in 1999.
The Hunter had fallen, and the Underworld celebrated. For a brief period, the crime rate on the West Coast of America rose, but then it dipped sharply as sightings of Nocturne and the Everyman increased in that part of the country. Several less known vigilantes took over areas of the Hunters territory, but they were poor substitutes. The world became, as Dr. Tomorrow had said, a little more frightening, as people took Nightengale at her word and prepared for more tragedy to come.
They were not long in waiting.
Ebony the Black Dragon
Senior Editor, Living Room Games
http://www.lrgames.com
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com
"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."
The Hunter was not the international celebrity that many metahumans were. Where Champion was always on the front page, and Wotansdottir could be seen on the television, the Hunter was rarely mentioned. Even Nocturne, whose methods made it nearly impossible for anyone to interview him, was more well known. Nocturne was the subject of urban legends and nightmares everywhere. Few people outside of the police and the criminal underworld even knew of the Hunter.
Those that did, however, were glad they did. The Hunter was exactly that, a hunter of men. Clad in a dark uniform with distinctive crimson highlights and carrying the finest high-tech bow and arrows, he could be found mostly on the West Coast of the United States, tracking and subduing criminals. Few criminals ever saw him, until it was too late. A master tracker and expert in guerilla warfare, he would find his quarry, hunt them down, and bring them to ground.
The Hunters tools were highly varied. The bow and arrows that he commonly used were modern, high tech, and state-of-the-art. His accuracy was amazing; his abduction of The Maniac during a Seahawks game was a shot over 60 yards away, through a paniced crowd. The arrows he used were varied, but he most often used a blunt-tipped variety that acted like a taser or stun gun, imparting an electric shock in addition to the stunning force on impact. In addition, he carried grapple lines, smoke and flash grenades, and other gadgets. In his few appearances in public, he was accompanied by small, flying devices that he referred to as his hounds. These machines appeared to be small robots that provided him with reconnaissance and defense capabilities.
While the Hunters attitude towards the press was blunt and taciturn (when asked what his powers were, he replied, I hunt.), his actions towards the public were nothing but altruistic. People from Vancouver to Phoenix had stories of the mysterious figure, saving them from kidnappers, robberies, rapes, and other crimes. The Hunter often crossed paths with Champion in Southern California, during wildfire season, and the more public hero spoke highly of the archer. During the Troll Invasion, the Hunter descended into the Carlsbad Caverns, skirting the invading army to rescue trapped tourists. Without the Hunters efforts, the counterattack led by Champion would have been stymied by the presence of hostages, but when the battle was over, the Hunter could not be found. Assisting him in this was the fey and whimsical mystic known as Nightengale, who provided him with the cold iron arrowheads needed to harm the invaders, and who, when asked about the Hunters absence, cheerfully nattered on about the saguaro cactus for seven minutes before saying, He is a Finder; he is needed elsewhere.
Theories about the Hunter are nowhere as prevalent as those about Nocturne, simply because of his anonymity, but a few exist. His skill with the bow and arrow and in fieldcraft was indicative of specialized training generally only found in the military or among survivalists, and the cutting-edge nature of his equipment demonstrated a surplus of capital, plus the contacts to provide him access to technology. Given the unusual combination, it would seem easy to find someone in the Pacific Northwest that matched the skill set, but the Hunters ability to stay out of sight was not limited to his costumed activities, for no suspects have ever been suggested that did not have some factor that excluded them.
The Hunter seemed to have little in the way of what could be defined as powers, although most agree that his ability to track and find people was disturbingly preternatural. More than one criminal currently serving time in the California, Oregon, or Washington System of Corrections had erased his or her trail as thoroughly as they thought possible, only to have the Hunter find them. It is theorized, based on eyewitness accounts of the measures that criminals had gone to in order to remain hidden and the lack of evidence pointing to missing persons, that the Hunters abilities were psychic in nature, allowing him to track someone without physical evidence of their presence.
It is not known when the Hunter began his relationship with the warrior woman known as Wotansdottir. Historians who focus on those events featuring superheroes can confirm that the first time that he was involved in an operation that Wotansdottir was also involved in was the kidnapping of the children of the Italian ambassador by Il Duca Nero while they were visiting Disneyland in 1994. The two heroes encountered each other during simultaneous rescue operations, and their cooperation allowed a two-pronged operation. While Wotansdottir engaged Il Duco in his black battlesuit, the Hunter was able to disable the guards and rescue the hostages. Once the children were free, the Hunter sniped at the smuggler, distracting him until Wotansdottir could strike a disabling blow with her broadsword. In one of the few appearances when the Hunter did not disappear before the press could arrive, Wotansdottir publicly praised his ability and effort in the rescue, and convinced him to appear in public again, two days later, when the Italian ambassdor publicly thanked him for his assistance. The Hunter has been seen with Wotansdottir at two other events, but it has been theorized that the vigilante revealed his identity to her at some point between 1994 and her death in 2001.
The normally subtle and generally unseen Hunter became very public shortly after Wotansdottirs demise. Law enforcement in the Western Hemisphere began to receive indication that the vigilante was scouring the West Coast for clues to the identity of Nemo. Several paramilitary criminal organizations and militias were scattered in precise, surgical attacks that left the suspects injured and unable to flee. Authorities, alerted by anonymous tips, arrived to find evidence in easy access and the scene literally peppered with red-and-black fletched arrows. It was the busted slavery ring in Rio de Janiero that had the first indications that the Hunter was taking the investigation of Wotansdottirs death much more seriously than he had any other crime; a number of the slavers had been injured by arrows with conventional broadhead tips. The Hunter had changed to lethal ammunition.
The Starman later related that he had encountered the Hunter near the Macchu Pichu ruins in Peru, tracking down the leaders of a drug cartel. After insisting once again that he liked Peru because the climate reminded him of his home planet and that Von Daniken was a certifiable fraud, Zhail explained that the Hunter seemed obsessed with finding out who Nemo was. He related that the vigilante had gone beyond what might be considered acceptable behavior and was dangerously close to torture and other unacceptable methods. He went on to say that he had attempted to calm the Hunter and convince him to rest and coordinate with the other heroes who were investigating, but the Hunter had refused. The Starman had not pressed the matter because he felt that he had reached the vigilante and pulled him back from the brink of madness, but that the Hunter had refused to rest and had headed east into the jungles of Brazil. This meeting, which occurred in October of 2001, shortly after Zhail and Nocturne had prevented the destruction of the World Trade Center by terrorists, is believed to be the last sighting of the Hunter before his body was found six months later.
On March 18, 2002, a National Geographic magazine expedition traveled into Western Brazil, following the Amazon. While taking shelter during a seasonal storm, one of the photographers stumbled across the remains of a human corpse. The body had been scavenged and very few of the bones remained, but what remains existed were clad in a torn and stained black and red uniform and the Hunters trademark bow and arrows lay nearby. Understanding what they had found, the expedition immediately contacted their base camp further downriver, who in turn, passed the message on to the magazine publishers, who then passed it on to the authorities. Within a few days, Dr. Tomorrow had the area cordoned off and was going over it with every forensic instrument at his command.
Sadly, the British superscientist could find little in the way of evidence. That it was the Hunter, he had no doubt. Despite the Hunters anonymity, Dr. Tomorrow had managed to acquire information that would accurately identify the vigilante. (It was revealed in the process that Dr. Tomorrow had similar information on several other very private heroes, which led to several burglary attempts on his Yorkshire laboratory by the costumed thief known as the Infiltrator. The Infiltrator, a.k.a. Wilson James, is currently serving seven years in the British Prison System, due to the efficacy of Dr. Tomorrows security.) In addition to the doctors identification of the corpse, a thorough examination of the surroundings found the wrecked shell of one of the robotic hounds, further confirming the identity of the body.
Dr. Tomorrow spent a week on site, cautiously claiming the remains and any evidence as to how the Hunter died. He spent another three weeks ensconced in his labs, delegating all but his most vital research to his staff. At the end of the three weeks, he spoke with the world press, telling them that, as far as he could tell given the evidence, the Hunter had suffered an injury and died of exposure and malnutrition. He issued a general statement to the public, asking for anyone who knew of the Hunters true identity to contact him, so that next of kin could be notified and funereal arrangements could be made. He went on to say, The common man has lost a true defender today. The world is a little more frightening.
Startlingly, less than 24 hours after his first press conference, Dr. Tomorrow called another. This time, he was accompanied to the press conference by Nightengale. The San Francisco-based mystic was amazingly on topic as she addressed the crowd of reporters. In a mournful voice, she informed them that the Hunter had died in violence. According to her, the Hunter had been ambushed in the jungle, by someone she referred to as a Beast in stolen skin, and left to die. She went on to say that the omens were worsening, predicting that other heroes would die, if this Beast was not found and stopped. Given the deaths of Champion and Wotansdottir, and the violent rage that had forced the Chinese Navy to kill Aquus in November 2001, many people took her assertions to heart. Finally, she said that she would take the Hunters remains home to his family, and that he would be buried in private, as unknown as he was in life, but that she would make sure that no one forgot him. In July 2002, Nightengale presided over the dedication of a small shrine to the Hunter in Vancouver, British Columbia, where his last bow and arrows can be seen to this day.
Of note, the Serbian-American gangster Andrej Petrovi, sometimes known as The Beast, disavowed (and continues to disavow) any knowledge of the Hunters death, despite the fact that the vigilante was directly responsible for Petrovis arrest in 1999.
The Hunter had fallen, and the Underworld celebrated. For a brief period, the crime rate on the West Coast of America rose, but then it dipped sharply as sightings of Nocturne and the Everyman increased in that part of the country. Several less known vigilantes took over areas of the Hunters territory, but they were poor substitutes. The world became, as Dr. Tomorrow had said, a little more frightening, as people took Nightengale at her word and prepared for more tragedy to come.
They were not long in waiting.
Ebony the Black Dragon
Senior Editor, Living Room Games
http://www.lrgames.com
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com
"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."