| Burt Gummer vs. The Jungle Hunter | |
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| Season 6, Episode 4 | |
| Air date | May 4, 2021 |
| Written by | I'm Lynda |
| Episode guide | |
| Previous Mez vs. Neptune |
Next Mary Poppins vs. Pennywise |
Burt Gummer vs. The Jungle Hunter is a What-If? Death Battle by I'm Lynda. It features Burt Gummer from the Tremors media franchise, and the Jungle Hunter from the 1987 Predator movie. (No link, it's like trying to hit a flipping moving target!)
Description
It's a man who hunts monsters versus a monster who hunts men, but which hunter will bag the other?
Interlude
Wiz: Hunters, they use training, tactics and weapons...
Boomstick: But mostly weapons!
Wiz: ...to bring down their quarry. Such as Burt Gummer, the survivalist turned monster hunter of the Tremors media franchise.
Boomstick: And the Jungle Hunter, the main antagonist of the 1987 Predator movie.
Wiz: I'm Wiz, and he's Boomstick.
Boomstick: And it's our job to analyze their weapons, armor and skills to find out who would win a Death Battle.
Burt Gummer
Wiz: Bertram Gummer has been called many things: "Gun enthusiast," "monster-hunter," "doomsday-prepper." But he rejects all of those labels in favor of "survivalist."
Boomstick: Burt Gummer and his wife, Heather, married and settled down in the sleepy little town of Perfection, Nevada; population 14. Burt considered it the perfect spot, he was able to build his dream house, fill it with arms and ammunition, and live untroubled by the government, or anyone else who wanted to tell him what to do. You know, I like this guy already!
Wiz: But, Burt and Heather's peace was interrupted when subterranean monsters out of prehistory woke up, and began hunting and eating the inhabitants of Perfection; creatures called Graboids.
Boomstick: Little did these monsters know that they had met their match when they broke into old Burt’s gun room. The guy had an entire arsenal at his fingertips, including pistols, assault rifles, shotguns, machineguns, and even a William Moore & Co. 8-gauge shotgun, a weapon that fires solid slugs intended for killing elephants. My Aunt Orka, had one just like it!
Wiz: Wait, your aunt hunted elephants?
Boomstick: No, but she liked to be prepared in case monsters or aliens showed up.
Wiz: Riiiiight. Anyway, this little adventure turned Burt into something of a celebrity. He travelled all over the world, dealing with Graboid outbreaks, using his wits and training, and the most firepower he could collect…which in Burt's case was always overwhelming.
Boomstick: Like the time he used an Argentine Army-provided M16 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage with a twin-mount .50 caliber M2 Browning machine gun anti-aircraft turret to mow down some 300 Shriekers. Which looked like a hell of a good time!
Wiz: But, Burt is not limited to being only being able to fire guns. When the world first encountered Graboids in their Shrieker form, Burt ran out of ammunition, and had to fight them with unarmed fighting techniques. In another instance, he faced a pack of Shriekers armed only with two machetes, and won the fight.
Boomstick: But, as with any good hunter, Burt's best weapon is his own brains...are his own brains? Whatever. Anyway, at every step of the way towards fighting Graboids, it was Burt who figured out measures to deal with them.
Wiz: For example, he realized the importance of using explosives against the underground monsters. He developed a system of seismographic sensors to locate and track Graboid movement underground. He was the first to capture a living Shrieker, and then he studied it, making the first discoveries of how it sensed its prey and how it reproduced.
Boomstick: He developed the tools and techniques that would allow him to be the greatest Graboid hunter, including the use of IR blocker film. Yeah, this guy is lethal: a crack shot, an excellent tactician, and a helluva a smart guy!
The Jungle Hunter
Boomstick: The Jungle Hunter! A member of an interstellar race of big game hunters. A race that like to go hunting...for humans..
Wiz: Known to themselves as Yautjas, these formidable people are high-tech hunters who live for the hunt. Their culture prizes the stalking and killing of dangerous prey.
Boomstick: And, they travel across the galaxy, hunting and killing all sorts of weird creatures.
Wiz: Yautja's are tall humanoids, standing about seven feet tall and weighing over five hundred pounds. They are very strong, and utterly ruthless. They don't necessarily give a prey a "sporting chance" - which is a human concept - but will often fire from ambush, using their superior technology to take a prey down quickly.
Boomstick: And they are UGLY MOTHER-F...
Wiz: Boomstick!
Boomstick: Wiz, have you seen these guys? It's no wonder they all wear masks. They have a face that not even an alien monster-humper could love!
Wiz: Yautjas prefer to hunt dangerous prey, and they take trophies off of each kill. A Yautja maintains a trophy collection to show his worth.
Boomstick: They take the strong and the dangerous, steering clear of human females that are not armed
Wiz: And they have a formidable array of weapons. First of all, the Yautja wear a mask that give them information on their surroundings, and enhance their vision, especially in the infrared end of the spectrum, which they find useful when hunting.
Boomstick: And each Predator has a laser canon on his shoulder that interacts with a targeting computer built into his mask. Plus, he carries a wrist-mounted pair of blades that it can extend for hand-to-hand combat.
Wiz: And if they are going against particularly dangerous opponents, they have other weapons, such as netguns and all manner of bladed weapons, not to mention many heavy energy weapons.
Boomstick: The Predators love a good fight, especially one that they can win, and take a trophy from. They'll never give a sucker an even break - they don't believe in sportsmanship the way that humans do, and they love spreading fear and panic. Nothing flips their switch like reducing a strong opponent to a quivering pile of fear...just before they finish it off.
Wiz: They are formidable opponents who have been hunting humans for millennia, and they have gotten very good at it.
Intermission
Wiz: Alright the combatants are set; let's end this debate once and for all.
Boomstick: It's time for a DEATH BATTLE!
DEATH BATTLE!
Pre-Fight
Burt Gummer wasn't happy when the SUV full of United States Fish and Wildlife Service agents had rolled into Perfection. There had been a new outbreak of Graboids, followed by the inevitable pack of Shriekers.
Burt had tried to keep them contained, but they had somehow gotten ahold of some crazy tourist's copious food supplies and multiplied.
The U.S. Government was determined not to let the Shriekers morph into Ass Blasters and spread, so they had sent in the troops. But, if there was one thing that Burt didn't trust, it was government agents.
Still, they seemed to be no-nonsense people, each armed with a M4 Carbine, which was not a bad weapon at all. Burt had opted to bring along the minimum: his beloved Heckler & Koch HK91 semi-automatic rifle, a Remington Model 700 sniper rifle for long-range shooting, and a Desert Eagle Mark I .44 Magnum pistol for close-in action. He also brought a carrying case with some miscellaneous supplies. And, off they went, towards the foothills, where the Shriekers were likely to be.
It actually hadn't proved to be too hard to find the Shriekers...or what was left of them. Some one hundred yards from the road, they had found a field filled with dead Shriekers. Burt studied them, and each one had been killed in the same way. Their chest cavities had been blown out.
One of the five government agents, a man named James Ziegler, looked around the field and asked, "So, poachers got 'em?"
Not looking up from the corpse that he was examining, Burt said, "Nope. No poacher did this."
He stood up, and confronted the man. "No normal weapon made these wounds. These creatures were killed with some sort of an energy weapon. Just what's going on here? Some sort of CIA weapons experiment?"
Agent Zeigler looked Burt in the eyes, and said, "I don't know what's going on here, Mr. Gummer. I work for the Fish and Wildlife Service, and all I know is that I'm here to cull some Shriekers. If anyone else is here, it's news to me."
Burt sighed, and looked back down at the dead Shrieker he had been studying
"What do you mean, 'energy weapon,' anyway?" Agent Ziegler asked.
Burt pointed down at the creature, and said, "That damage is too large to have been done by a hand-held firearm. And, an explosive that could have done that much damage, like a grenade maybe, would have blown the creature apart."
He shook his head, and looked off into the hills. "The wound is also half-cauterized. The weapon that did that used some sort of highly excited energy."
He turned about to the agent. "I have no idea what weapon could have caused that kind of damage, and that worries me."
Suddenly, there was an explosion over the ridge of ground that they had passed over, and smoke billowed into the air.
Burt and the agents ran back to their SUV, and found it on fire. The front end was smashed, and flames were billowing out of the cabin.
While the agents held their guns at the ready, looking around for a threat, Burt ran up to the vehicle, threw open the back, and pulled out his supplies.
He had barely gotten the case free of the flaming truck, when there was a scream from back where they had been.
"Shriekers!" Agent Ziegler yelled, and led the agents back the way they had come. Burt swore, and then he pulled open the case, pulled out his poncho, and quickly put it on. Then, grabbing his HK91, he ran to join the others.
He ran to Agent Ziegler, who was stooped over the prone form of a man. Burt looked down and saw it was one of the agents, and that the man had suffered the same kind of damage as the creatures.
"No Shrieker did this," Burt announced looking around. "There's somebody or something out here with some strange firepower, and it's looking for targets. We've got to get to my house; it's a good defensive position, and I've got plenty of firepower there."
Agent Ziegler nodded, and called in the other agents. They formed a line, and began following Burt on the long walk to his house.
They had gone little more than a mile, when there was a whip crack noise. Everyone turned around in time to see the final agent in the line, a young man named Cho, drop to his face, an energy shot having nearly taken his entire shoulder away.
"Everybody down!" Burt yelled.
Burt unslung his Remington, and began looking through its scope, searching for their attacker. He saw nothing.
"Damn it!" Burt swore quietly. He continued searching the area, but he finally gave up in frustration.
"We're being hunted," he announced.
"What do you mean?" Ziegler asked.
"Hunted," Burt repeated, thinking the word pretty self-explanatory. "Whoever, or whatever, it is has some pretty advanced firepower, so he doesn't feel threatened by us. My guess is that he's doing it for fun."
He raised his rifle and began scanning the surrounding countryside, and, again, saw nothing.
Finally, he put the rifle down, and sighed, "Slight change of plan: we wait for nightfall, and *then* we head for my home. It'll be dark in just a couple of hours. This is a good position. We're in a dip in the ground, which means that if we keep our heads down, he won't have a shot at us, unless he stands up and exposes himself."
Burt and the remaining agents stayed quiet for the rest of the evening, holding their weapons at the ready.
Finally, after the sun had set, Burt quietly announced that it was time to go. "Keep low, and keep spread out," he advised. "Move quickly, but quietly, don't give him an opportunity to spot you and fire at you. OK? Let's go."
They ran along until their breath became ragged. Burt was just beginning to think that they had lost their attacker, when suddenly one of the agents cried out.
Everyone turned to see Agent Rodriguez with blood fountaining from her neck, before she collapsed to the ground. Instantly the remaining agents began firing into the darkness.
Burt crawled over to the fallen agent, and examined her wounds. "This wasn't done with a firearm, or an energy weapons," he announced once the gunfire had trailed off. "It was done with something sharp. He's close now...real close."
Burt looked over at Agent Weller, one of the two remaining agents, and suddenly noticed that there was a series of three red dots glowing on his forehead. A laser sight!
"Look out!" he started to yell. But, before the agent could react, there was the whip crack noise again, and an energy bolt flew out of the darkness, and struck the agent's head, causing it to explode.
"Shit!" Burt yelled. Then, he got up on one knee and began spraying bullets towards where he figured that the energy blast has come from.
Finally, he ceased firing, turned to Agent Ziegler, and said, "We're almost home. Let's go!"
Burt took off running, and the agent followed him.
Reaching Burt's fortress-like home, he reached into a pocket and pushed the button on a remote control. Instantly, the gate in the surrounding fence opened, and Burt and the agent ran in.
Once in through the house's front door, Burt slapped a large red button. The gate closed, and floodlights snapped on, illuminating the surrounding desert.
The two men ran down into the basement, where Agent Ziegler stopped, staring in open-mouthed amazement before Burt's gun wall. "My god," he breathed.
Burt ran up to a small window, and thrust his Remington up, ready to shoot at any target that presented itself. When he saw nothing, he ran to another window and repeated the same process. "Yeah," he finally breathed. "The god of firepower, and let's pray that he keeps us alive tonight."
He walked to a cabinet, and got hand grenades and more clips for his HK91, shoving them into the pockets of his cargo pants. Then, he pointed the agent towards some clips that would fit his M4.
Suddenly, an alarm shrilled outside, and red lights began to flash. Burt ran to a window, but had barely arrived when there was some sort of an explosion, and a part of the ceiling collapsed. Something landed next to Agent Ziegler. It was inhumanly tall, and seemed to be only somewhat there.
Burt couldn't believe his eyes; the attacker had some sort of invisibility device! But, it didn't provide total invisibility. It obviously bent light around him, resulting in a strange distortion field, leaving him sort of there, but mostly not there.
Before the shocked Burt could do anything, the attacker sprouted some sort of blades from his hand, and he swiped at the federal agent. Blood fountained from the man's throat, and his head fell backwards, nearly severed from the neck.
"Jesus!" Burt yelled.
The attacker turned, and looked at him. Its eyes seemed to flash with a strange yellow light.
Almost without thinking, Burt leaped backward and fell through the downward-hinging door of his safe room. He rolled off the door, and it snapped back up, locking itself automatically. Burt looked at the door and laughed. His ex-wife Heather had thought the safe room unnecessary, but now it had saved his life...as he knew it would.
He looked around at his supplies and smiled, knowing that he could stay in here for years, if he needed to.
Suddenly, there was a crash, almost an explosion. The vault-like door of the safe room shook, and cracks began to appear in the reinforced concrete of the wall.
"Damn it!" Burt swore. The safe room was not all that safe. It had bought him some time, but that was all.
He grabbed a trench knife that he had bought off of an old World War 1-vet, and jammed it into his belt. Then, he ran to the far side of the room, grabbed a shelving unit, and pulled. The special unit swiveled on a hidden hinge, exposing an escape tunnel. He grabbed the crossbar, and pulled himself onto the slide. Then he let go, and was gone.
Burt slid out at the end of the tunnel, some 300 yards away from his house. His feet hit the ground, and he tried to stand, but instead he staggered for a few yards, and then collapsed onto the ground.
He was lying on the ground, trying to make sense of everything that had happened, when suddenly a noise came out of the escape tunnel.
The semi-invisible attacker hit the ground with a thud, but then leaped to its feet in a shocking display of athleticism. It looked around and around, obviously looking for Burt, but not seeing him.
Then, the Predator touched a button on its wrist, and it became plainly visible in the moonlight. Burt was shocked; whatever attacker was, it wasn't human!
Then the Predator turned, and walked away into the night, apparently headed back to the house.
Finally, Burt stood up, and looked after where the creature had been gone.
So, they finally did it, he thought to himself. Those crazy scientists from Project SETI, have finally contacted an alien civilization, and they decided to drop in on the Earth, and use it as an inter-stellar drive thru!
But, why hadn't the creature seen him?
He looked down at himself, and realized that when Zeigler had said that they were under attack by Shriekers, he had instinctively put on his poncho. The special poncho he had made from camouflage, infrared-blocking sheeting.
He snapped his fingers. That creature hunted using heat signatures, just like a Shrieker!
Burt smiled to himself; if there was one thing that he knew, it was hunting heat-sensing monsters.
The smile drained away from Burt's face, as he looked up towards his house. He had a lot of great weapons in his rec room, but he didn't dare go up there. The monster was probably watching the place, waiting for him to return. A good hunter didn't wander the countryside, risking getting detected, he staked out a spot where the prey was likely to appear.
Yes, the carrying case he had left out where they had first encountered the new monster. It had what few things he truly needed. Burt set out into the night.
FIGHT!
Burt lit the final road flare, and tossed it into the circle of lit flares that he had assembled. It made a nice beacon for the heat-hunter: hugely bright, and likely to dazzle the creature's vision.
Then, he turned on his weather radio, turned the volume to maximum, and set it down neared the circle of road flares. More honey for the honey pot.
Running up to a nearby rise, he laid down, pulled his IR-blocking sheet over himself, and positioned his Remington. He studied the flares through the scope, and waited for his prey. It was doubtlessly too intelligent to just rush in, but it would be drawn foremost to the heat of the flares.
The wait seemed to drag on for hours and hours...
And suddenly, there it was, the distortion field passed in front of the flares!
Burt's finger tightened on the trigger of the sniper rifle, but he didn't have a clear shot. Damn it!
Then, there was a crash, and the radio went silent. The Predator had stomped on the device to silence it.
Burt fired just above the radio. There was a strange scream, and the Predator suddenly became visible. Burt worked the bolt, chambering another round, and fired towards where the monster was reeling out of the dull flare-light.
The monster vanished into the dark. God! What Burt wouldn't have given for his night vision goggles!
But Burt wasn't a stupid man, and he knew better than to expose himself to a monster that may not be dead. So, he went on peering through the scope, watching for the creature to again appear between him and the flares.
In spite of the cold desert night, a bead of sweat trickled down Burt's forehead, and down his nose. Then it just hung from the tip of his nose. Burt didn't move a muscle.
Then, there was a crunch right nearby. The Predator had studied the lay of the land, and deduced that Burt must have been firing from this rise. It was too late to move now. He would just have to trust in his IR-blocking sheet.
Suddenly, the sheet was ripped off of Burt, exposing him to the Predator! Burt reared up, drawing his Desert Eagle. He fired, and bright green blood bloomed on the creature. Burt fired again, and the monster staggered backward.
But, before he could fire a third time, the Plasmacaster on the Predator's shoulder flashed, and a bolt of high-energy plasma struck the pistol, causing it to explode out of Burt's hand.
The Predator advanced on Burt, extending his wristblades. Burt drew his trench knife, and waited for him to come.
The Predator stopped, and removed his mask, exposing his ugly, alien face.
Burt gave the creature a lopsided smile, and said, "Now there's a head that will look good on my rec room wall."
The Predator surged forward, and slashed at Burt. Burt blocked with the knife, but before he could follow the move up, the creature's other arm came up, delivered a titanic punch that sent Burt flying backward.
The Predator again advanced on the man, but before he could attack, Burt punched out with the knife, the brass knuckles on the handle connecting with the creature's face.
The Predator reached up, and touched the side of its face, and then bellowed his defiance at Burt.
"Oh, shit." Burt breathed.
Then, the Predator's fist shot out, connecting with Burt's face and sending him tumbling to the ground. Stars danced before Burt's eyes.
The Predator picked Burt up and punched him again, again knocking him to the ground.
Then, the creature picked the semi-unconscious Burt up, and raised his hand before Burt's face. He extended his wristblades, showing Burt what was coming.
Then, he punched Burt in the stomach, the long, cruel blades, tearing out through his back. Burt dropped his trench knife, and cried out in pain. The Predator dropped him to the ground.
Slowly, painfully, Burt started laughing!
The Predator used his wristblades to tear away Burt's poncho, and could see eight hand grenades attached to the man's vest.
Burt held up a blood-covered hand, and from his middle finger dangled a ring and pin! Burt's laughter got louder.
The Predator turned, and began to run.
Suddenly, there was a tremendous explosion. The Predator was thrown to through the air!
K.O.!
The Yautja stumbled into his camp, blood seeping from numerous wounds; some minor, and some severe. He needed his medicomp. But, even more, he needed a beer!
Results
Boomstick: He he. OK, that was pretty good. Still, I was hoping that good old Burt would come out on top.
Wiz: Burt Gummer was a formidable opponent. He had a deep arsenal that he was extremely familiar with, some very handy supplies, and he had a lot of experience with hunting monsters that used infrared vision. And, indeed, in some scenarios, he would likely come out on top against the Predator.
Boomstick: The problem for Burt was that, unlike the monsters that he was used to fighting, the Predator was an intelligent hunter in his own right, and unlikely to just throw himself against Burt's firepower.
Wiz: Also, the Predator has a very strong durability, meaning that he could face Burt's firepower without too much fear. Indeed, in during the events of the 1987 movie, after the Predator had killed Blain, he was fired at by the entirety of Dutch Schaefer's heavily-armed team, and was wounded, but was not killed.
Boomstick: No, when it came right down to it, Burt's hope of victory simply went up in smoke. The winner is the Predator!
Next Time
She loves children and wants to help them, while he loves children and wants to eat them. Tune in next time when we present Mary Poppins vs. Pennywise.
Trivia
- The ending was inspired by three different movies and a YouTube video - the original Predator movie, Leon the Professional starring Jean Reno and Natalie Portman, Raising Arizona starring Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter, and Woverine vs Predator by batinthesun.