[Closed; see note] Trigger Scent Hunting

[shoplifter]

who: Laura Howlett and You
what: Laura has been afflicted with the Trigger Scent - and is ready to kill.
when: Thursday, Early Friday morning, after this unsettling post. 
where: All across Riverview.
warnings: Violence/blood, potential death (mainly NPC).
Note: If you would like to be involved, I may be able to squeeze you in; just hit me up at simpledog! I have a plurk here regarding this plot.

Laura isn't herself.

She doesn't really feel anything — see anything, think anything. It's more just an all-encompassing need to kill, some sort of mentally paralyzing fog where all she can think is that she needs to track and hunt. If you'd asked her, before the trigger scent was used, what this strange liquid was? She wouldn't be able to tell you. It's new information, something the scarce files Gabriela stole away didn't cover.

Too late now. 

She prowls through the city, her steps fast and her nose sniffing at the cooling air. She smells her targets. Some are stronger than others, closer by. Some are moving. Some are stationary. Whatever the case, she stops firstly by a local liquor store where a man is stumbling out with a beer in hand. She doesn't know him, and she won't remember that he's her first victim. Poor guy just got doused with the wrong thing, wrong time, wrong place. With him easily neutralized, she moves on to the next scent—

Likely one of you.

Comments

[shoplifter]

[He chokes on his breath, squirming and rasping in his pain.]

You didn't read what I read — she's made to be a weapon! S'all she — is! A number!

She's not worthy of the First P—

[He cries out, grappling more fervently, panicking as the fingers of his flesh hand scratch at her arm and towards her face. Anything to get the pain to stop; the First People, they'd have fixed this place, they'd have ended people like Hawke or X-23-23. They would have made this place a haven-]

[indigobird]

[Once upon a time, Hawke's stomach would have turned at the sight. But the thing is, when you spend a year with smugglers, and then subsequently end up having a number of gangs, criminals, Qunari, Carta, blood mages, slavers, demons, templars, and Wardens trying to kill you at some point or other, well... you wind up with a high body count. And after awhile, killing just becomes as straightforward as paying bills. Hawke's become horribly desensitized to it. It says nothing good, but that's not a problem to be tackled here and now.

Her fingers tighten, and the smell of burning skin fills her nostrils. Ugh.]

I'm well aware. She told me about that. And you know what? [The flames intensify, not entirely by her conscious doing.] You're still the bigger monster here. And you're going to die like one.

[His fingers scratch at her face, but she doesn't flinch, just moves her head out of the way. She could do the nice thing and just put him out of his misery, but eh. Let him suffer. Laura's victims suffered because of him. Laura suffered because of him. He gets to suffer now, too.

Giving the way the skin on his throat's bubbling and his screams becoming more panicked, it won't be much longer now anyway.]

[shoplifter]

[Ah, yes. That's about as excruciating a pain as he's felt — and his struggles intensify, throat closing up as the heat sears flesh. Smoke and the stench of a burning human flood upward, staining in the insides of his nostrils with his own slow death. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think straight—

All because of that foul little beast.

He damns them both to hell, prays for divine justice, just before he loses consciousness — and soon after, his life entirely. It's a particularly indignant way to go, and his body grows lax, eyes rolling back.

So it goes.

Rest in pieces.]

[indigobird]

[Hawke lets out a long, low sigh of relief as his body slumps. At least Laura is safe now. She lets go of him, wiping her hand on his shirt. Damn, it's going to take a lot of washing to get the blood and... fuck, she doesn't want to think about what else is on her hand and under her nails.

His arm's interesting, but she's not about to hack it off and sell it or something. That'd be a little obvious. But there is his bag, and like any good Thedosian, she rummages through it for anything useful. Sadly, there's not much. Some money (which she pockets), extra clothes, old food...

Ah.

She pulls out a phone. Shut off at the moment, but it could have some useful info.]

Now this might be worth something. Let's see who you've been talking to. If you have any friends from your little cult still scurrying about, I'd love to meet them.

[And do the same to them what she did to Shiloh. Because she's generous like that.]

But I'm afraid that, while this was entertaining, I need to go. I'll let the authorities deal with you. Maybe any friends you have left will take the hint when they find out you're dead.

[And she'd rather not be here for the authorities. Let them wonder who killed him. She pockets his phone and heads off, wondering how she was going to proceed with what she had.]