4th Battle for Round 1 is a go! Here are the Stipulations:

Setting: Prison Planet beyond time and space, housing some of the most fiendish mutants to ever roam the galaxy. And guarded by seemingly harmless security drones and wall mounted turrets. But somehow this Prison feels familiar to Acel. It is in fact, a prison in which she will end up in sooner or later in the future, or already has at one point in his past. In this timeline, Acel is a shackled inmate with his arms and legs chained up.

While they are made of any kind of metal easily destroyed, the real feature is in a tiny chip in Acel's head that shocks her everytime she uses her speed. The shocks are mild and annoying at first, but begin to get seriously debilitating after the 3rd shock onwards, fraying her nerves and causing her to paralyze if she is not careful. Acel's gear is also missing, such as the Aether Shield.[/spoiler]


Handicap: Acel (The Organization) is imprisoned in this prison planet, not giving her full access to her gear AND is attached with a device that debilitates her speed and hurts her with every use.

Antes :
***Antes are Extra Challenges that add twice the points wagered if successfully pulled off. They come in 3 Flavors (Easy Medium Hard). No two participants can have the same kind of Ante.

Rochedan has initiated a Medium Ante: By the end of this battle, Rochedan must gain a significant insight about both himself and his opponent. The insight must be significant enough to deeply affect his character in the longrun.

Bonus for this Round: Early Bird / First to Post their entry

Scoring:
- Votes are worth 5 pts. each.
- CNC-ing an entry gives you 10 pts. Detailed ones get an extra 5 pts. Maximum 3 CnCs per participant.
- Bonus for the Round is 20 pts.
- Fulfilled Antes give 10, 20, 30 pts. and lost 5, 10, 15 pts if failed depending on difficulty
- Judge's Blessing gives 15 points if entry caught the Judge's eye.

Here are the entries:

Acel[spoiler=The Organization's Entry]OPERATION 02.2: Round 1// Acel vs. Luther Wright
01: Prison Lane
Acel awoke with a start. The cold floor pushed up against one side of her face and golden strands of hair draped over the other.

It didn't make any sense.

Why were her hands and legs bound, why did she wake up on the floor, and why couldn't she remember how she ended up in this situation?

Squirming like a worm, she managed to sit upright and take in a proper view of her surroundings.

The room itself was devoid of any amenities, except for a plain white cot. It seemed to be a prison cell, but there were no bars. Instead, the room resembled an inside out snow globe. The interior walls of the dome were clear, allowing her to see the gallons of water that surrounded her confinement cell. Through the water she could make out strange panels in the walls lining up the room outside of her cell. Fluorescent lights lit the inside of her cell; the white tile of the floor seemed to glow faintly.

"Interesting…" she whispered to himself.

The prison cell seemed to be designed to contain her. There was nothing that even resembled a door and the glass looked quite thick.

Trying to stand up, Acel completely forgot about her restraints and fell on her face.

"These things are quite the annoyance" she thought to herself.

She yanked apart the handcuffs, wincing as they bit into her wrists, but managing to break them. As she worked on the chains binding her legs, she wondered why would someone place her in an impenetrable cell and even bother to tie her up.

Standing up fully, she stretched and massaged her arms. She felt uncomfortable and out of place. Her hair was longer than usual and not tied up in her trademark ponytail and her body felt sore and weak as if she had not exercised in months.

She needed answers, but first she had to break out of her strange prison.

Acel walked up to the glass and tapped it. It was thick, but she was sure she could shatter it. The only concern she had was the hundreds of gallons of water surrounding her cell. The entire room seemed large enough for all the water to disperse and barely reach her ankles, so she reasoned that a little water would not be the end of the world. Her hair was already a mess anyway.

Her eyes became golden as she felt a familiar surge of power course through her veins. She held her hand back and struck the glass. It buckled and shook vibrating from the force of her impact.

But it held fast. The only blemish for a large crack emanating from where she punched all the way to the top of the glass dome. Almost immediately, the cracks around where she had punched started to shrink and disappear.

“It’s repairing itself,” she realized.

Taking a step back, she marveled as the fissures vanished from the glass dome. First the cracks that were at the bottom disappeared, then the impact point faded and shrunk to nothingness. The cracks going up the wall of the dome where the last to disappear, those at the very top lingering for a few minutes before vanishing.

“Interesting,” she noted as her eyes reverted back to their violet shade.

Acel walked towards the middle of the cell and looked up. She slowly crouched down and braced herself.

In a flash, Acel tore through the top of glass prison, rolling down the outside of her cell and landing with a thud on the ground. She was soaked and felt a ringing going through her head, but she was otherwise fine.

“Well it’s about time you showed up.”

Confused and disoriented, Acel searched for the speaker while coughing up the foul tasting water. Through the film of water, she could make out the figure of a woman.

“Pretty impressive escape. Although I would recommend that you refrain from using your powers anymore,” she added with a tone of condescension.

“What? Who are you?”

“You should probably clear that crap from your eyes and as for me well, the name’s Oracle.” she responded curtly.

Acel did as she was told, wiping the water from her eyes to clear her sight.

Slowly, she lifted her head, catching a glimpse of the smiling blonde haired woman. She had clouded purple eyes and tanned skin.

“You look just like me!” accused Acel.

“To be fair, since I’m older than you, you actually look like me,” she added, “Now then, we should get going. There’s no time to explain, let’s get moving.”

02: Security Hall
Oracle led Acel down the hall, humming happily as she did so. Acel didn’t exactly trust her whimsical doppelganger who appeared out of thin air. However, she didn’t seem evil and Acel couldn’t sense any demonic power emanating from her.

“Ummm, Miss Oracle,” she interjected, “where are we headed exactly?”

The mysterious woman stopped abruptly, slowly turning around with her finger held to her mouth. She looked a bit deranged, but Acel had learned to expect that much from her already. Suddenly, Acel heard a whirring sound and saw a light come from behind the corner. A pack of security droids floated past, canvasing the area. Although they were small, they were each bristling with automatic weapons poking out of their round bodies.

In less than a minute, the security droids had already floated down another corridor, Acel could still hear the faint whirring however.

“This prison is fully autonomous, there’s no one here but us inmates and the droids. They implanted a tracking device in you when they brought you here. It’s not that powerful but when you left your cell block if set off a small alarm off in this section,” she explained.

Acel pulled her hair back, tying a strand of it around to make her ponytail.

“How are we gonna turn off the alarm?”

“We’re headed to the warden’s office. From there we’ll have full control of the facility and will be able to get out of here.”

“Warden’s office…I thought you said this place was fully autonomous.” Acel inquired.

“It’s the control center of this crazy place. If there ever was a warden here, he would be set up there. You see where those droids went? They’re headed into the main atrium. From there we should be able to find the Warden’s room.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I’ll explain later but we need to get to the warden’s office first.”

Briskly, Acel followed Oracle into the main atrium. It was huge but barren, lacking any distinctive features multitudes of floating droids and drones searching for her. There were four floors accessible by walkways each with no descript corridors that probably led to other cells. The area also had many storage containers that hid more droids from sight.

“Where is this office supposed to be?” asked Acel impatiently.

“Third floor, second corridor. But you shouldn’t—”

Acel took off immediately for the Warden’s office, leaving Oracle behind. Something was wrong however as she slammed into the side of a storage container after tearing through the second floor walkway. Acel was dazed and in pain, she had a splitting headache and was completely disoriented. Spinning up guns, the security drones began to flock towards Acel.

You don’t have your Aether shield, Idiot. Run!

Acel sprinted fast, weaving through the storage containers, but the drones could keep up. Without her gear, she was vulnerable to gunfire, and the drones insisted on firing hundreds of bullets at her. It was like trying to dodge rain, futile.

In a fit of desperation, Acel boosted once more, ripping through one of the droids instantaneously and smashing through one of the containers. Although risky, she moved fast enough to successfully elude the drones for now. However, almost immediately after landing, Acel felt as though her head was splitting apart. Her eyes watered and she began to convulse, clutching her head while wriggling on the floor. She bit her lip so hard that she tasted iron, but it was the only way to keep from screaming out and attracting the droids she had tried so hard to lose.

Unfortunately, an errant drone floated past the door of the open container, catching a glimpse of Acel. It began whirring up its guns to fire, but there was a loud snap and the drone burst into blue flames.

“Do you even listen to your elders?”

Oracle appeared from the corner of Acel’s eye with a wide grin and a smug look. The flames on the drone, which now had a blue tint, vanished and it flew off into the distance.

“How did—”

“I’m not stupid,” interrupted Oracle, “See that doesn’t feel nice does it?”

Acel sighed, the pain had faded but the memory of it was still fresh in her mind.

“What’s wrong with my powers?” she asked.

“You remember that tracker I told you about? It’s up here,” she said pointing to her head, “It’s got a built in accelerometer in it. Any time you go to fast, you get zapped. If you think it hurt last time, I can guarantee you won’t like it the next time.”

Acel stood up slowly, bullets falling out of her limbs as they repaired themselves.

“So, if I can’t use my speed and I don’t have my Aether shield, how am I supposed to get to the Warden’s office without becoming swiss cheese?” she complained.

“Just follow me,” she said walking outside of the storage unit and back out into the atrium.

Acel did as she was told and followed Oracle outside, greeted by an odd sight. The blue droid that Oracle lit on fire seemed to be firing on and destroying the other droids.

“The plan was to turn one of the machines against the others, and simply waltz into the warden’s office,” she explained condescendingly.

“Oh, sorry.”

“Well, I guess you received your punishment already. Come on then dear, we haven’t any time to waste.”

03: Cosmic Wall
Slowly, he stood up off the cold hard ground. His mind was foggy and he didn’t have the faintest idea of where he was. He seemed to be in some sort of garage, but there were only 2 cars, both strangely shaped with large treads. On the side of the wall it read, “AIRLOCK 2 B-E”, with a small warning under it that said something about putting a suit on before going outside.

“Airlock…Where the hell am I?” he wondered.

The young man figured that since he had no clue of where he was or why he was there that he should search around for clues. As he did so however, he realized that he could feel something under his jacket.

Unzipping it, he was surprised to find a black folder along with a black capsule strapped to his chest. Easily detaching the two items, he unzipped the files and read over them:

Target: Cecelia Q. Graves
Location: Phantom Supermax Penitentiary Sector 6 Block D Cell 66
Alias(es): Acel
Species: Half Demon
Age: [REDACTED]
Client: [REDACTED]
Authorization: Operator

Target is highly dangerous, approach with extreme caution. Upon encounter, inject with the serum provided and utilize the prison's escape pods to transport the target to HQ. Do not return upon failure.

The strange black file also contained multiple pictures of a tan blonde woman with violet eyes. She didn’t look like much of a threat, but he had never received a black file from the Operator before. If she thought that this Cecelia person was a threat, then it was safe to assume such as well.

The operative opened the capsule, revealing the syringe inside. It was quite large for a syringe, with a dangerously sharp looking needle jutting out of it. It also seemed to be filled with a silvery liquid that resembled mercury. It seemed to be some sort of tranquilizer, but it was nothing he had ever seen before.

That being said, he had never encountered a half demon before, so perhaps this would be the only way for him to take her down. He had met many powerful and exotic opponents as an agent of the wRHG, but this half-demon piqued his interest.

Flipping through the file, he found the map of the prison facility. On it was a small note with a four areas circled: a room labeled “Warden”, cell 66 in the D block, the airlock where he was, and the location of the escape pods. The note read:


“Guess I can’t home without this girl,” the operative said, folding up Acel’s photo and the map and placing in his back pocket. He knew that she wouldn’t go down easy, but the mission seemed pretty straightforward.
===================================================================================
The warden’s office was specious and well-furnished, resembling more of a luxury living area than a prison warden’s office. However, the room had long since been lived in as dust had collected everywhere and the air smelt stale and metallic. Oracle immediately headed over to the large computer consoles in the back of the office.

“This is the control center for the entire prison facility,” she reiterated, as her fingers danced over the keyboard.

“What kind of prison can be controlled with a single computer terminal?”

“A fully autonomous prison in space,” Oracle responded, pressing a single key on the keyboard that turned all the walls in the room transparent, revealing the desolate lifeless planet outside.

The sky was pitch-black and the only source of light was a huge bright star in the empty sky.

“There’s no stars…”

“This planet…this prison…our prison…It’s completely cut off from the universe you once knew. You see that bright light in the sky,” she said pointing towards it, “That’s the only way out of here. A wormhole that connects our universe and this one.”

“A wormhole…The Organization was experimenting with creating alternate universes, but they never got it to work. Fascinating…How do you know all of this Oracle?”

“How about we take care of that chip in your brain first?” she asked, dodging the previous question.

Oracle began typing away at the terminal again, clicking and dragging windows so fast that they seemed to blur the screen. A few minutes of technological wizardry she had finished.

“Alright, I’ve disabled all the droids i

Cool, cool cool cool.
The google doc link doesn't work for me. But it doesn't really matter, the forum one only makes it look more `piled up`.

Damn I read your story The Organization. I won't say anything about it now though, maybe when the voting´s finishes.
There´s one thing though.... what was the red beam Luther used to destroy the storage container that Acel threw at him (or maybe I just read that part wrong).

Quote from Rochedan

Cool, cool cool cool.
The google doc link doesn't work for me. But it doesn't really matter, the forum one only makes it look more `piled up`.

Damn I read your story The Organization. I won't say anything about it now though, maybe when the voting´s finishes.
There´s one thing though.... what was the red beam Luther used to destroy the storage container that Acel threw at him (or maybe I just read that part wrong).

Enraged form energy burst/Red Breath b/c at that point I figured he wasn't hurt enough to use the electrical discharge thing

Quote from The Organization

Enraged form energy burst/Red Breath b/c at that point I figured he wasn't hurt enough to use the electrical discharge thing

Alright, well. Luther isn't able to do anything `enraged-energy´ related unless he is severely wounded and enraged (almost dead). Which is only the electrical discharge.
Well I guess this move is actually pretty cool so I might add it to my abilities list :)

Right off the bat, let me just say my vote goes to The Organization,

To the both of you.. This was an AWESOME battle, because they got (in my opinion) two of the best writers on the forum against each other. Both of your stories were completely fantastic, even with Rochedan's form alittle messed up (I really don't give a damn about spaces and stuff so it didn't quite bother me.) Choosing whose was better was alittle hard, but I thought my decision was clear after giving both a hard look.

Organization: Your story was really cool, with the introduction of the Oracle aswell as the wormhole and seperate universes... it was pretty damn awesome and added alot to your story and gave you some new plot elements. I saw that you both injected different elements into your story, and to be honest that is what made my vote really damn hard. Your story was great, but afew things, such as the very first sentence when she is trying to get out of the chains and realizes what is going on felt very rushed and bumpy to me. Luckily, the rest of the story had a good flow and went smoothly but it made me uneasy to think of how the rest of the story would be. I also felt that some of the conversations between Oracle and Acel were abit odd and felt heavy handed to me, and just gave me a weird feeling whenever I started to read it. Your story was still good, and that is why I voted for you.

Rochedan: Your story was pretty good too, I liked your plot alot and was almost in a trance while reading it. You really caught my attention. However, I felt as if the conversation with the Operator and Bellatrix was awkward in phrasing and simply conversation. To be fair, I thought you still kept to their character but it seemed as if you were really forcing their character and bordering on redundant with how they acted, making them seem almost one dimensional. Your story was great, but for some reason I just preferred the Organization.

Quote from saintmccaw

forcing their character and bordering on redundant with how they acted, making them seem almost one dimensional.

Could you please elaborate on that, not necessarily in this thread you can also PM if you want. Thanks for your CnC, and to be honest I already felt I was going to loose when I read my story a second time, I kind of rushed it to get the early bird bonus, I thought one could only get the bonus if they were the very first one to post their entry, and not just between me and The Organisation.

Quote from Rochedan

Could you please elaborate on that, not necessarily in this thread you can also PM if you want. Thanks for your CnC, and to be honest I already felt I was going to loose when I read my story a second time, I kind of rushed it to get the early bird bonus, I thought one could only get the bonus if they were the very first one to post their entry, and not just between me and The Organisation.

When Bellatrix was pushed, and she immediately regained her elegant posture within seconds. Not just with this, but with certain characters personalities stayed rigid, and if they explored their character it seemed alittle cliche. I'm not trying to bust your balls, but I feel that if you hadn't tried to get the early bird bonus then you could've expanded your story abit more and scored my vote.

Quote from saintmccaw

When Bellatrix was pushed, and she immediately regained her elegant posture within seconds. Not just with this, but with certain characters personalities stayed rigid, and if they explored their character it seemed alittle cliche. I'm not trying to bust your balls, but I feel that if you hadn't tried to get the early bird bonus then you could've expanded your story abit more and scored my vote.

Yep, I misinterpreted the Early Bird bonus :P such a shame really. I Actually intended to expand the small things but I was simply too paranoid about the bonus I guess.
But anyway, I still aspect about 10 people to vote so we'll see. Thanks for your CnC again I will use this in the future.
I also CnC on your entry, and after reading your entry your words about 'me needing to expand things more' got kind of ironic :)

Quote from Rochedan

Yep, I misinterpreted the Early Bird bonus :P such a shame really. I Actually intended to expand the small things but I was simply too paranoid about the bonus I guess.
But anyway, I still aspect about 10 people to vote so we'll see. Thanks for your CnC again I will use this in the future.
I also CnC on your entry, and after reading your entry your words about 'me needing to expand things more' got kind of ironic :)

To be completely honest? I rushed like hell to get the early bird bonus, and as soon as I was finished I posted it. xP

I'm wondering if anyone actually understood who Oracle actually was, she was meant to be weird on purpose
but her character was very experimental
@Rochedan How well did I portray Luther in my story, personality wise.
Obviously I'm not voting, but:

@Everyone else for those who have voted or haven't yet I would appreciate more CnC. While saintmccaw's input is good, it alone is not sufficient enough for me and Rochedan to make significant improvements in our skills.

I hope my CnC would help.

The Organization:
Your work flowed nicely, the twist in Oracle's actual origin kept me wondering until the end even when she said she was both past and future of Acel. The battle was quick but with nice content.

Rochedan:
Your entry had a great back story but the you made Acel's appearance very low in your part. I felt little presence from her. The story was good though.

Both of you had different takes on the prison colony, which gave the readers different views. I especially liked The Organization's interpretation of the Prison Colony and his small twist in Oracle's true identity. Rochedan had a good buildup, he had a team and I was really looking forward for an awesome four on one battle but in the end it seemed a but rushed for me and it let me down. Both works are good in my opinion and The Organization just gripped my attention more than Rochedan's. So, I give my vote to the Organization.

@the organization
Yeah, well in fact it wasn't Acel, it was just her demonic self. I suppose that wasn't so obvious for you guys to understand. The portal took Luther and his team 5 years back. 5 years back, Acel location was still unknown, so I tried to make some sort of mysterious background for those 5 years. What would happen after Luther took her in with the Operator? What did they do to her? Well, I suppose I should've made that more clear from my story, since you didn't speak about that.

@errorblender.
yeah, most people expect a big battle between the two gladiators. I will do that next time because people seem to like a good fight more than a good buildup/background story

Quote from Rochedan

@errorblender.
yeah, most people expect a big battle between the two gladiators. I will do that next time because people seem to like a good fight more than a good buildup/background story

To me, You should have both of them. A good buildup and back story coupled with the battle. Its called a wRHG Battle for a reason but the 'w' is not to be forgotten. Written makes it a story. It should have a story in my opinion and yours had oodles of it. You just lacked a bit more combat, I suppose.

Vote went to The Organization.

I think that both entries could have benefited from at a second, slow read, because there were a lot of typos that interrupted the flow of the story, and so both of them were rough reads where I don't believe that was the intent. The biggest reason I ended up voting for The Organization was, in addition to being the smoother read, the fact that that entry seemed to follow my expectation of what was to be happening best. Not just the lack of a big battle, but I felt that your focus was off the mark.

Luther's entire sequence seemed to be buildup for his ante, and Acel received a token role. Not sure if "took a backseat" is quite appropriate, considering I feel more like she was actually stuck in the trunk of this metaphoric vehicle. You mentioned her...not enough, I think. As a piece without any expectations, I liked it, but you seem to have ignored the whole of what the Round 1 thread, to me at least, explicitl, where each Gladiator is sent to an arena for battle via giant teleporter ray.

Quote from The Strongest

Gladiator is sent to an arena for battle via giant teleporter ray.

Yeah, I don´t think I read anything about this. I think this was added after I started writing my story which was like two hours after the bracket was up...