The First Age
Seth Marx - Printable Version

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Re: Seth Marx - Seth Marx - 09-06-2013

Regus,

As per your request for skilled Hunters, one of my best is flying to Moscow. As you well know, we don’t have the organized cells and hierarchies of our European cousins. I am sorry that it took this long to track him down.

I have taken the liberty of attaching a short dossier on the Hunter in question. I believe you already have his niece under your command.

Donec, qui aberrare non reuertisse.
-Father Woods


Seth Marx

DOB: 19970910
SSN: 023-87-3397
Ht: 1.78m Wt: 81 KG
Hair:: Black Eyes: Blue

Condensed Psych Profile:

Despite suffering from minor depression, Marx remains an effective hunter. He is, however, reluctant to work with other Hunters aside from his niece Runehilda Marx. When placed in subordinate roles, he has reportedly been a constant challenge for those set above him. This most likely stems from the less centralized nature of the American Atharim network and the culture of independence that it has fostered.

In speaking with the man, he has demonstrated a certain amount of sarcastic humor. However, he has also demonstrated a marked lack of ability to connect to other human beings on an emotional level. At first, this seemed to indicate signs of sociopathy. However upon further examination seems to simply be his manner of coping with his line of work.

One worrying development is the extent to which he enjoys the Hunt. Reports from other Hunters have accused him of toying with and causing unnecessary suffering to the creatures he is set upon. The validity of these reports has yet to be entirely confirmed.

Biography

Seth Marx was born in rural Oklahoma to James and Christine Marx in the year 1997. He had two older brothers (Jonathan, Michael) and his sister Violet would be born four years later. Our earliest records of Marx family service in the Atharim dates them to the late 1700’s. Michael Marx died of a brain tumor in 2008.

Being a resident of rural Oklahoma, Seth was trained from a young age in rudimentary firearms usage. Hunting trips in the countryside around his home were common. Being a member of one of the oldest Hunter families in the United States, he had the entire bestiary memorized before he had read his first novel.

Seth went on his first Hunt at age 15. It was a standard three man clean-out operation on a rougarou colony that had been kidnapping campers in western Arkansas. The hunt went bad, and his brother Jonathan Marx was fatally shot, although Seth and his father did complete the Hunt.

The rest of his early years were fairly standard, until his father was gutted by a harpy outside Paris, Texas in 2017. He tried to assume James Marx’s position as the head of the family, but his mother killed herself soon afterwards leaving only him and his seventeen-year-old sister.

Two years later in 2019, when it turned out that the Bigfoot sightings reported in Minnesota were actually a pack of oni, he jumped at the chance to leave Oklahoma behind. It took four years for him to put a significant dent in the population. However, right as he was making headway he was attacked in his cabin by an eight months pregnant Violet Marx. She had been possessed by a Wefuke spirit, and he was forced to kill her.

He was able to save the baby, cutting her from her mother's womb and naming her Runehilda Marx. He had initially planned to shield her from the Atharim, but when she began to suffer symptoms indicating she was Furia, the codes dictated that he train her as a Hunter. The pair left Minnesota in 2030, after Seth was reasonably sure the oni population had been destroyed.

Records are thin after that point, although there are records that they spent some time in Alabama. What we do know for sure is that he devoted the next fifteen years to molding Runehilda Marx into an effective hunter. Since her departure for Moscow, he has been working alone.




Something about the Hunt helped him clear his head. He hadn’t been right since sending Rune off to God-knows-where. It’d been a long time since he’d worked alone, without someone to watch his back. And he wasn’t getting any younger either. Still ain’t too old for this.


It was early morning, and he was outside some tiny town in Nowhere’s Asshole, Tennessee. Father Woods almost jumped at the chance to send him when he heard about the roogie problem. He had just been sitting around glaring at people the past couple months. There hadn’t been enough monsters to kill.

It must have been a young pack, because they were sloppy. Just killed and ate--didn’t kidnap anyone and cut them up piece by piece. That was better for everyone involved; roogies were nasty business. They’d taken over an abandoned hunting cabin out in the woods, and they had the weapons to match.

There were only four of them, all told, between them they had couple shotguns and an old rustbucket AR-15. Probably took the shotguns off the people they killed. He’d been watching them for a couple days now. He could definitely take a couple of them out with his hunting rifle, an old yet meticulously kept Remington 770, but he didn’t want to risk a couple of them bolting. As a group, they were one problem. He didn’t want to hunt down three.

As he saw it, his best bet was to wait until a couple of them went out hunting. Once I can catch a couple of them cannibal bastards alone, they’ll be easy pickin’s.
After he took out the ones in the cabin, he would just have to hide in a tree a couple hundred meters away and wait for their friends to come home. Easy. A little C4 wouldn’t be a bad idea neither.

He didn’t have the chance until almost noon. Two inbred-looking roogies marched off into the forest with the shotguns. And I’d always thought Deliverance was’n unfair stereotype.
That meant there were just the other two in the house, and just one barely functioning rifle between them. He waited half an hour, to put as much distance between himself and the two unlucky monsters in the cabin’s friends.

When the waiting was done with, he clambered down from his perch. He’d been in a tree a few hundred meters from the cabin. Too far away for them to catch him by anything more than chance. He ditched the rifle, and most of his supplies. He kept a satchel filled with explosives, a small medical kit and a few extra mags. All geared up, he headed around the back of the cabin. Cliche, he knew, but were a couple backwoods cannibals really going to keep watch?

When he reached the back door, he drew his Colt M1911 - series 70, same one granddad carried on Normandy - but he was hoping he could catch one of them unawares with the knife. Shoulda brought a submachine gun.


Before he made his grand entrance, he edged up to the window and took a look inside. One of them had nodded off, and the other looked like he was praying. God ain’t gonna do ya any good, son.
It looked like the stage was set. All he had to do was crash in the door and make his kills. With the ones that were still almost-human, brute force was just as surprising and terrifying as it was to normal people.

He took a deep breath, collected himself. He might’ve done a little stretching, maybe. What? Not gettin’ any younger.
It was really exciting, that moment when the hunt comes together. Best way he could describe it was like taking a long-overdue piss.

The praying one wasn’t even looking at the back door. He’d crash through, put a bullet in the one that was asleep and wound his buddy. He needed one of them alive if his plan was going to work.

Ring, ring. Son of a bitch...
His Wallet was ringing, and the sleeper bolted upright. Ring, ring. That was the kind of shitty luck that got Hunters killed. And so, instead of crashing through the door and killing him some roogies, the wiry little bastard jumped through the window and tried to tackle him. Sent his gun to the dirt, but he still had the knife.

He was a chatty little fucker. After getting thrown against a wall, he decided to give Seth fair warning. “Old man you don’t got no clue who yer fuckin’ with!” When he showed his teeth, Seth saw that half of them were missing. Old man?
No time for that. Where was the other one?

The roogie was wondering the same thing. “Lester! Get the gun!” No time for fancy stuff, no matter how fun that might be.

"Don’t got time for this."
he muttered. He feinted for his gun, then charged. The look on Toothless’ face was priceless when he noticed the blade in his heart. Last thing he saw was Seth’s grin.

Shit, the one inside!
He dove for the pistol, for real this time. He could grab the knife later.

The praying one was getting scared. “Who the hell are you!” he screamed. Barely sounded older than sixteen. Damn shame. Couldn’t be helped.
A few gunshots sliced through the side of the cabin before he heard a muffled swear. It jammed.

Seth laughed. Balance. "Just God’s messenger, son. He wants to meet you!"
He stood, stepped into the doorway and fired twice. The kid screamed when his legs came out from under him. He’d never walk again, not after taking a .45 in both knees. If he was anything but a roogie the blood loss from just his right knee would have been fatal. Not that it mattered, he wasn’t going anywhere.

The screaming, crying and praying went on for a good ten minutes before the pathetic monster realized he wasn’t getting killed. Seth took the chance to wander around the cabin. Fridge was filled with body parts, of course. In passing curiosity he took a look at the blood-stained bible. "King James, really?"
Funny that he thought he could be saved.

When the kid calmed down a little bit, he looked up at Seth. ”What do," he choked the words out, "You want with me?” Good. Time to set the plan in motion.

”When your friends get back here, I want you to tell them it’s time to go. Get your asses outta here, I never want to see you again. Elsewise you’re gettin’ worse than what I gave ya."
The pathetic hope that dawned on his face was sickening. Still, something to draw the other morons inside was necessary. He didn’t want them running the second they saw the place.

”Alright!” He said between sobs, “We’ll leave! You won’t never see us again!” Hah. No, no he wouldn’t. He tossed the kid the bible on his way out. He probably didn’t notice the satchel Seth left in the middle of the room.

He had to wait a few more hours up in a goddamn tree before the other two got back. When he finally caught them in his scope, they were dragging the body of a young woman with them. Probably raped her before they killed her, knowing roogies. Damn shame. Couldn’t be helped.
They dropped everything and ran inside when they heard the kid calling out. Must’ve been a brother or a son or something.

He didn't wait long after they went in. The explosion silenced the screams. Ring, ring. He had time to actually check the goddamn Wallet while he walked the three hundred meters to check the corpses.

When he put it to his ear, a thick Texas drawl greeted him. “Seth Marx? This is Father Woods.”

”Father Woods. You almost got me killed by a pack’a roogies earlier.”


“What? How--sorry. Anyways, listen and listen good.” He paused. The Regus needs experienced Hunters. I’m sending you to Moscow.”

"Rune couldn’t handle it?"
If Rune wasn’t enough for the job, he was going to have some fun in Russia. Still, being unceremoniously summoned halfway across the world didn’t make him particularly happy.

”They have a lot of talent in Moscow, but no experience. You’re going to have a team.”

A team. Son of a bitch.
The priest explained the important stuff--where he was going to catch his plane, where to send his guns so they could be transported securely overseas, and all the other minutiae associated with sending an Atharim Hunter overseas. He was going to Moscow. And he’d have a team.


Edited by Seth Marx, Jan 19 2015, 12:58 PM.