Welcome, ladies and gents!

I bring you the first complete battle by our newcomer, Brosephus!

Against him we have the infamous Alphaeus!


One gunman versus another, one tactician versus another...who will win?

In corner 1....Brosephus!
Unexpected Guests:
Brosephus' Battle
EDIT: The above link has been fixed^^

And in the other corner...Alphaeus!
The Last Bullet:
ical hue in the darkness. Rain patteren on the windshield of his car as he stared at the house across the street. Angelo was speaking to him over his headset.

“You at the place?”

He took a long draw, letting the vapor curl out slowly. “Yep. What’s the job?”

“We’ve got a man we need you to try to take down. This one is odd, though…he’s got a contact inside of Providence that vouches for him, so don’t try to act too fast. We need you to take things slow. Watch him for a bit.”

Reaching back behind his head, he pulled on his hood a bit so that it didn’t bunch up behind his neck as he leaned against the headrest of his older Ford Scorpio. News that this target had interacted with Providence before made him raise his eyebrows, not that Angelo could see that. He flicked down his goggles to look at the house more closely. “Mind telling me what the hell I’m watching for?”

Angelo let out a long sigh into his mic that turned into a blustery static for a moment. “Well…anything criminal. Violent, really. The Fixer is the name he goes by, and he’s got quite the track record. Some good stuff, but plenty horrible and a body count that could outnumber a small city. Brutal as hell, too. Hasn’t been as active as he once was, but that might just mean he’s become more low-key.”

Figures passed in front of the widows. Sheers obstructed clear vision, but he could get the gist. A man, good build, and a little girl. He focused in a bit more, but suddenly his night-vision exploded into an array of whiteness. He pinched his eyes shut as he ripped the goggles from his face, pulling the car off and down the street. Angelo’s voice pierced the rumble of the old car. “You aren’t supposed to be moving already.”

“Well, he’s clearly got some system capable of detecting nightvision, at least on his house. Leave the secrecy to me – I know when to move in and when to move out, thank you. Now….lemme get this straight. I’m supposed to watch this guy with his daughter to see if he turns out to be a psycho. If he’s not a psycho, I let him live. How long do you expect me to do this? Because he’s probably just another retired guy who isn’t a threat to anything other than donuts and his own bank account, judging from that house.”

There was a moment of silence. Elias slid the car into an open parking spot next to an Irish Pub that was still open in the downtown section of the city, just a few blocks up from his target’s house. A blinking yellow traffic-light cast the car in a lurid glow intermittently. “Angelo? Hello?”

His employer responded slowly. “It’s not a matter of if, Elias. It’s just a matter of when."

_______________________________________________


Altaer’s eyes weren’t really focused on anything – thoughts, as usual, were his enemy. His daughter could tell, of course, as children always do. Never as naïve as their parents would want to think, Katy could tell when he father was lost in one of his “spells.” No stranger to sorrow and loss herself, she kept quiet, often reflecting on her own deceased mother and sister. Not that she liked doing this – it usually made her too sad, and like all children she didn’t like to be sad. So…she smiled and played and waited until the last person she had to love drifted back to the last person he had to love.

The passing of time slowly eased shut the bars on those forbidden tunnels inside the beleaguered man’s heart, and his gaze cleared. His eyes turned to rest upon his daughter, who noticed the motion and looked up from her dolls, beaming at him. His face shifted as the vestiges of sorrow dispelled like the tendrils of smoke from a dying fire. A knock on the door broke the silent look of love as he rose. His motions were stiff, like those of an old man with the weight of many years bearing down on him, despite his youth. It took only a few moments for him to exit the living room and open the front door around the corner in the main hall.

“Oh, hey Doc. Thought it was going to be Lily again.”

The taller man in white strode through, his crimson hair stirred by a pair of emerald pendant earrings as he laughed softly. “No, not today. I know she’s useful to you, but her job is as my secretary as well as the clinic receptionist, so she can’t always be running around babysitting your daughter. Today I had planned to merely study this year’s new scientific journals and relax…figured I would fill in over here. Tough time planned?”

Altaer shrugged as he shut the old wood and lead-glass door. He checked his phone as a notification from Spectre came in. Someone had hit the house with infrared...was just a quick blurb, though, so he dismissed it. Probably from the nearby airport, or maybe one of the enhancements on David's car. He slipped the phone back into his pocket, turning down the wide hallway and into the first room on the left where he had just been sitting with Katy. Like most spacious Victorian homes in the city, the room was large, but gained its primary sense of size from soaring ceilings. This airiness was contrasted with the darker hues of the room, much like one would expect in a gentleman’s hunting lodge or clubroom from the era. The fireplace was an expansive work of grey marble fittingly centered in the space, radiating out an aura of heat. A clockwork system positioned beside it fed pieces of wood into it intermittently through a shaft connecting it to the woodshed outside. Dr. MacBeth noticed the machine and raised an eyebrow as he picked up an excited Katy, holding her in one long arm against his torso. Altaer’s ingenuity sometimes surprised him, even after working with him for years now. David took a seat in his favorite chair – an immense leather armchair with brass hobnails, settling the little girl into the seat beside him. Altaer gave one last smile to the both of them before heading back into the hall, snatching his massive old duster from off the wrought iron coat-tree, and heading out the door.

________________________________________________

Elias slipped silently down through the manhole. His chest was heaving, but he kept his breathing suppressed, letting his mouth hand wide open. Immersed in the darkness, he dropped his goggles down to illuminate the space.

Several hundred feet ahead of him, he could see the figure of The Fixer. He kept his voice deathly low. “Angelo, I’m in. See if you can get a GPR tracking on him. He’s about a hundred yards out and moving damned fast.”

Angelo grunted. “Ground-Penetrating Radar isn’t the easiest thing to get ahold of. Keep tailing him in the meantime.”

No shit, easy for you to say… Elias grumbled to himself as he tried to both run and keep silent while tailing his target. He had discovered that the man didn’t keep to a routine, really, which had forced him to keep all kinds of hours just to follow him to a 2 AM donut binge on the other side of the city. So, he’d worked with Angelo to plant a tip, seeing if The Fixer would still be interested in taking it. The man had taken the bait immediately, so at least something was going according to plan.

The reeking odor of rot and scum and mold made him gag as he turned the corner where The Fixer had just gone, facing down nothing but a dead end. “Angelo, did you get that tracking on him?”

“Yes, luckily for you. He’s only about thirty feet ahead, so keep your voice down.”

Elias stared at the wall blankly…only to notice the tiny crease of a door left slightly open, but otherwise blended perfectly with the wall. He stepped through carefully, his baton out in one hand. Immediately he was almost falling over a corpse directly in front of the door, and had to brace himself against the other wall. The dead man stared at him, mouth agape…which would have been normal had the body not been face down. A quick glance down the hall showed three more bodies killed in similar fashion. He grunted. “Well, looks like you were right. Guy’s still a killer.”

Gunshots rang out in the underground chamber, forcing him to move forward quickly. Turning a corner, he ground to a halt. A hail of bullets forced him down to the ground as two men were shredded right in front of him, their bodies and armored vests reduced to ribbons. He rolled to a nearby desk and popped into a crouch, pulling his Walther from his holster and flicking off the safety. The place was cloaked in darkness except for the almost incessant spatter of gunfire from one central figure. Elias didn’t need to guess who that was. Keeping himself pressed low to the ground, he moved serpent like across the room as lead flew above his back, whipping into a small slot between a set of battered filing cabinets. The drawers rattled and pinged as stray bullets bounced off of where he had been standing, eating little holes in the thin sheet metal. There was a fraction of a pause as the killer changed the magazines in his massive SMGs, and Elias took his chance. He lunged at The Fixer from behind, baton cracking down on the man’s shoulder. His target whipped his head backwards by arching his back and neck, managing to smash his head into the side of Elias’ face, sending him staggering backwards. More gunshots exploded from the darkness as the killer tossed himself on top of his newest opponent, ripping the baton from his hand and swinging it into his gun-hand. The Fixer pulled back for another swing before another volley of shots from the mercenary group Angelo had planted there forced him to drop behind a couch and return fire from his pistols.

Elias resisted the urge to yell as he realized his right hand was shattered. Not bother to find his pistol from where he had dropped it, he snacked a tactical knife from a fallen mercenary and rammed it into the Fixer’s back. The man roared in pain, spinning around as he sought to use his gun to drill a hole into Elias’ body. The shots went wide in the darkness, however, but Elias was no fool. Snatching up his pistol in his good hand, he retreated out the way he had came as yet another round of the fire-fight started up again.

“Angelo, we’re going to need to keep tracking him, and I’m going to need a doctor.”

His boss swore. “Is it serious?”

As he made his way up to the ladder leading out of the manhole, he did his best to climb with one hand. “Yes and no. I’m going to finish this bastard off first, though. Give me the mercenary boss’ number.”

______________________________________________________________


Time seemed to be getting to him. He massaged a stab wound on one shoulder. He had already wrapped it and was healing quickly enough…but still. He had hesitated…he didn’t like that. His reputation was built around killing fast and remorselessly. Not that he gave a damn about his reputation as The Fixer anymore…. He had set out today to destroy an underground coalition he had received a tip about, and he had. They deserved to die, he told himself. Willpower and habit kept him going, but too many times he had questioned why he was here. What he was doing. If it was even worth it. It’s not like the world was going to suddenly become a better place…while he respected David’s vision for Nehushtan, he had never truly believed it to be an achievable goal. Mankind was too tightly bound to their beloved inner slivers of hell.

He noticed that the streets were silent at this time of night despite their deafening roar. “Silence,” for him, wasn’t about the noise – years of training taught him to filter that out. Silence was matter of death and life. It was an odd turn of phrase for him, but he had taught himself to listen for those that brought death with their presence…and, in turn, those that were ministers of life. You could always tell, because behind every step was some purpose. If he stopped for a moment, and dropped his focus, the bustle was deafening.

“I’ll be late.” “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” “Taxi!” “Kristy, book a reservation at O’hannon’s for 12.” “Do you think we’ll make to the mall in time?”

Everyone seeking something, going somewhere. Meaningless. People bumped into his shoulders, propelling him back into motion with the ant-like flow. His focus returned, and with it the oddity of impersonal silence amid uproar. In the press of bodies that navigated the businesses and stores of the thriving New Town city district there was a startling absence of life. Machine-like humans about machine-like tasks, day in, day out…

A sound.

He turned over his shoulder, eyes probing the scores of lifeless faces in the funerary procession they call their daily routine. Nothing…

Again.

The instincts sharpened, burden of time be damned.

Death.

He dropped down as a bullet sang through the where his head had been, grazing a man in front of him. Blood sprayed, screams rang out. The marching ants panicked.

Altaer spun on his heel, bracing himself off the ground with his left hand as his right hand swiftly extracted one of his worn Colts from its holster. His eyes probed the mass of people for the source of the sound. The simple scrape from the pulling of a pistol slide, the dampened thump of a silenced weapon…there! A single hooded figure, walking smoothly through the crowd instead of running. The position was right, the stance too calm…

Altaer leveled his aim…

Three more gunshots rang out, these from the other side of the road. He flattened himself against the dirty concrete sidewalk as he felt the shockwave of them pass where his body, followed by the screams of their victims. Sticky hot mist doused the side of his face closest to them. Mind racing, his gaze danced across the scene. These attackers had made no show of subtlety like the first – they were not working together. He immediately recognized the last remaining members of the crime syndicate he had destroyed earlier. They sought vengeance. The hooded man…was still there, moving almost ghostlike through the crowd.

Quickly decided the other attackers were his main concern, he brought himself into a crab-like crouch, drawing his pistol’s twin from his other hip and letting out a series of shots. More fire range out from further down the street. He didn’t have time to look, but could hear that someone was clashing with the RHG Containment and Control that had swiftly arrived on the scene.

Horns began to blare as the traffic in the street sought to escape being caught between the combatants, some people choosing to run while others crouched down inside their vehicles. The gunmen were staying down behind civilians, using the pressing mass as living cover for their assault. Altaer kept his fire concentrated just above their heads – he was not about to shoot through the innocents to hit them, but the suppressive fire was enough to keep them and their gun pinned. He alternated shots, mentally counting down the rounds left in his magazines. These were his last – the earlier combat had drained his supplies, and his car was parked in a garage up the street.

5…

4…

3…

2…

_________________________________________________________

Elias wove his way back through the crowd, dodging people as they ran past him. Had he been shooting with his dominant hand, this wouldn’t have been happening. Stepping over a toppled hot-dog cart, he crouched down behind the steel box and yelled into his intercom to be heard over the screaming.

“ANGELO!”

The man’s voice came back tight with stress and adrenaline. “Elias, what they hell is going on there?! From my point of view I can’t tell anything except that a ton of people are freaking out.”

Elias glanced up at the restaurant patio on the twentieth floor of a nearby building. A tiny speck was leaning over the railing with a set of goggles. It occurred to him briefly that the guy could move pretty fast into a recon position wh

The link to Brosephus' battle isn't working for me. Could you paste it onto the forums, or at least a google doc, so we can all read it?

I'm not going to be mining for grammatical errors here, but what I will say is that I vastly preferred Brosephus'(s?) story, for reasons that come pouring out of the woodwork when you examine both stories critically, and that both of your stories are readable or better, so good job on that. :p

Starting with Alph's story, I'll say that at around the climax especially, to me it was if the action slowed down, and drifted away from me midway through. The countdown especially threw me for a loop when I realized I had no idea on a first read why we were counting down, why someone apparently died midway through the countdown, and why after the clock hit zero, nothing really happened, and Elias just started talking about how much more he respected this "Mr. Fixer" fellow now that he'd bust through his home and nearly killed his adoptive daughter. Having also worked with this character (Altaer!) in the past, and knowing the extensive list of writers whose characters have had similar interactions with him, the afterword was almost awkward to read, in that it seems to invoke an imagining of Altaer that is the inverse of everything the character has shifted away from in recent years -- a lonely, angsty hitman that people either love or hate, but ultimately treat like shit and have no true respect for or trust in. Even ignoring the entire supporting cast of the clan-leading & organization fronting hero, I could make the case that Zalgo even respected Altaer on some level as a capable adversary, despite obviously hating and fearing him more. But I can brush all that off pretty quick, don't get the wrong idea -- you're free to write your character how you want, and you don't have to have Altaer and those he works with having a terrible amount of respect for each other if that's the direction you want your end of the story moving in when all's left to you and yours.

But moving away from my gripes with Alph's story this time around, I do want to say that Brosephus's debut is great in its own right, and would have stood toe to toe with Alphaeus's writings even without the complaints I found with this particular piece of his, and Brosephus almost seamlessly blended how I'm more used to seeing Altaer with his own solid use of his own increasingly solid character. While if I tried, sure, I could probably say something critical about the random invisible people towards the end, but it was all in good fun, and it gave Elias a quick means of displaying his worth. Setting the confrontation in the Diamond Lounge let the whole thing play out, and even the subplot with Kathryne was touched on in a respectable way. Nobody we really cared about died, some interesting plots for later got woven in (invisible corporate ninjas included) and the two protagonists left on fair terms with clear directions. I enjoyed it, I enjoyed the characters, and that on its own deserves a mention. Moving back to the comparative examination though, I don't know if I could name a single thing about Alph's story that Brosephus didn't, in my mind, do better or just as well, and I guess I'll close by saying that regardless of my opinions on which is better, the good bits and lessons learned from these stories, not to mention the battle itself, wouldn't have been possible without the respect and commitment to your craft that both of you have shown today and in days up to here. Both of you have a good bit to be proud of, and both of you have given me a fair bit to look forward to with your writing. Have a good day, y'all.