Most Dangerous Game: My Serpentine

[x-cannonball.livejournal.com]

Sam stays mobile, trying to find the village and save the villagers. But he's still got Kraven the Hunter stalking him. And Kraven isn't the only danger the jungle holds...



Sam wiped his brow and paused at the base of a large tree to get his bearings. Despite the protection it offered, his uniform jacket had been the first casualty of the jungle, as it was simply too hot and humid to be wearing a long sleeve leather jacket. He had removed the Kevlar inserts, however, to wear as a vest. Just because Mojo's stock footage of Kraven had only shown him with a spear didn't mean that the man wasn't using more modern weapons. He'd done his best to camouflage himself by smearing dirt over his arms and white tank top. Despite Mojo's injunction that the native village was out of bounds, Sam was moving towards that area, hoping to find some way to circumvent the bomb and save the villagers while also dealing with the hunter.

Sam's one mistake, however, was assuming that Kraven was his only enemy. The jungle itself was as much an adversary in these conditions. Well-beaten paths could easily conceal traps, and it was safer to stay just off them.

Unless, of course, a master hunter had anticipated that.

The simplest of all traps is the pit trap, a simple hole dug into the ground and camouflaged for the prey to fall into. In some cases, the pit is filled partially with water, or sharp spikes. Or, in this case, Eunectes murinus, the deadly thirty-foot-long green anaconda.

Sam was being so careful to place his feet as silently as possible to not give things away that the trap caught him completely by surprise. His foot was through the canopy of leaves and sticks and he fell towards the bottom, twisting hard in midair in an attempt to land on his feet and hands.

For a reptile weighing well over twice Sam's weight, the anaconda was lightning-swift, bursting out of the shadows to coil around Sam's legs, working its way upward and beginning to squeeze.

Against a baseline human, the misstep would have likely been fatal. But Sam's reflexes were almost as quick, and even as the anaconda was coiling around his legs, his blast field ignited, quickly roasting the snake in the chemically created flames. As the charred reptile fell off of his feet, Sam leaned against the side of the pit, attempting to still his roaring heartbeat.

From out in the jungle, the sound of drums could be heard. Surely someone from the village had seen the blast.

And if someone from the village had seen or heard it, odds were pretty high that someone hunting Sam would have seen it too.

Sam had not yet used his blast field for precisely the reason that it was loud and noticeable, and that wasn't a good thing when you were being hunted by someone who had the express intention of killing you. On top of which, while invulnerability was a handy side effect of his power, it would be very tiring to keep up nigh-constantly. But in the split second of survival instinct, that had all gone out the window, and the game was about to get more interesting. Sam rocketed up out of the pit and landed, trying to scan in every direction at once.

"An excellent first showing, Mister Cannonball," Mojo's squeaky voice came from a partly-concealed speaker in a nearby tree stump. "Initial buy ratings are in the top tenth percentile of this season. So you've got people interested, now we have to get them talking. By the way, it seems to go over better with the viewers if you're a little bit afraid so I'll give you this tip, off the air of course: Kraven's less than a quarter mile from you right now."

"Afraid?" Sam asked quietly, with a raised eyebrow directed at the hidden speaker. "What, am Ah s'posed ta be some kinda skeered iggernant hillbilly?" he continued scornfully, playing up his accent a bit. "Not hardly," he rejoined to his own rhetorical question. "Ah'm no easy meat."

"And that's what may keep you alive," the speaker hissed, followed by wheezing laughter. "You're definitely an interesting one, Mister Cannonball. I'm interested to see what odds our experts give you. Provided you survive another hour until the books officially open, that is." A background noise seemed to grab Mojo's attention, as his voice sounded distracted. "He's what? We're what? In fifteen? Well then. Mister Cannonball, I bid you good luck. We'll speak again soon."

A wry head shake was Sam's only reply, as he could hear the soft click that meant the remote connection to the speaker had already been broken. "Master hunter, huh?" he murmured to himself. "Well, let's see what ya got, then."

The low whistling sound was the only warning before a feathered dart embedded itself in the tree next to Sam. Two more barely-perceptible puffs, and a triangle of pointed death sprang from the tree, barely a foot away from Sam's head.

Across the open pit, the foliage parted and a tanned man in primitive leathers stepped out onto the path, sliding a blowgun into a harness on his back and unsheathing a powerful-looking longbow. Notching an arrow, the elaborate tattoos on his left shoulder and chest rippled, and he gave that friendly-yet-feral smile.

"Kraven the Hunter would like to welcome his prey to the hunting grounds," he barked out, "And it seems that the prey has already dug its own grave. Which saves Kraven the Hunter some work, for that grave will be... your tomb!"

"Kraven the...?" Sam struggled to hold in a snicker. "Y'all actually talk about yourself in the third person?" He rolled his shoulders and narrowed his eyes. "An' whether or not that pit is gonna be my grave or yours remains to be seen." He quirked one side of his mouth in a smirk. "Take y'r best shot."

"Kraven the Hunter will take more than his best shot, Kraven will... wait, what?" Relaxing the string on the bow, Kraven raised one hand to his ear, frowning. "All right, commercial break, sir. I'll have him down in..."

Glancing up, Kraven's jaw dropped as where Sam had been standing, now only waving branches marked his disappearance.

"...shit. Oh yeah, I think I know where he's headed. Don't worry, sir. This one's going to be good."