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Welcome to a Round Two Battle Thread for the BoG Tournament! Be mindful now, as your votes are the determining factor to who takes the win!

For a few reminders though:



Now without further ado here are the works of our would-be Masters of Genre!

RichardLongflop - Yo ho ho and a bottle of AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
craft carrier as it sailed through the ocean, giving him a full view of the world around him. Some people commented on this, saying “you’re gonna fall off and kill yourself”, that it was “dangerous”, and that they would “report him to the captain.” To this, Peterson often replied “fuck off”, “fuck off” and “fuck right off.”

He observed the surroundings. The ship only had a few fighter jets on it, the most important thing on deck being a big submarine held aloft by two sturdy cranes. The sea around the ship was calm and flat, the only disturbance being the gentle waves skimming the sides of the ship as it sailed onwards, creating a soft white noise. The only thing bluer than the ocean around was the sky above it, a few clouds hazily spread here and there. The horizon was as flat as a very flat thing, and it relaxed Peterson knowing that there was nothing to interfere with the mission.

The mission was simple, but silly. If you asked around various drinking establishments, you’d sometimes hear of a rumour of some legendary weapon lost to the sea decades ago. Nobody actually knew what it was, so nobody gave it much thought, until some intel came up a few weeks ago that confirmed its existence.

The Sgt. spat the smouldering cigarette butt into the calmness of the ocean, stood up and gave a contented stretch. He closed his eyes and soaked in the atmosphere. The gentle rise and fall of the ship, the pleasant hiss of the water, the increasing tone in the distance, the birds twee- hold on one goddamn moment.

His eyes snapped open to witness a dot in the distance. It was tiny, barely visible, but it was benign.

“The Russians,” he spat, and made quick for the control tower.

By the time he burst through the control room’s door, everyone had already picked up on the object.

Peterson started, “Do you know what it is?” He paced about hurriedly, glancing at screens and trying to get a better window view.

The place was all command consoles and screens being attended to by a plethora of people, the Captain himself standing still amongst the commotion, eyes dead set on the sea.

“No,” replied one of the men, “We don’t know if it’s Russian yet.”

Another one pitched in, “Reading say that it’s… unusually small, but incredibly fast!”

Another, “Is it experimental tech? Small but fast? Is it a weapon?”

“It’s headed right for us!”

“Fuck!”

“Shit!” “Bollocks!” “Arse!”

“Did I mention fuck?”

“You did.”

“Oh. Uh. Then…”

“Cock?”

“Oh. Cock!” along with other expletives.

The only calm one on deck was the Captain, a hardened face adorned with age, scars and an eyepatch. The man had seen the horrors of the sea and then spat in its face. Before shooting that face repeatedly. With automatic cannons. What I’m trying to say is, he’s a hard bastard.

“Captain,” Peterson stressed, “We gotta do something.”

The captain’s chapped lips opened, speaking in a voice so gravelly that you could drive trucks over it, “Our ship is strong, Sergeant. Let them come.”

The men on deck fell silent, the only noise being the blips of radars and the ever-increasing “aaaaaa” in the distance.

One man had taken out a telescope for visual confirmation, and broke the silence with “Uh. Guys. It’s a big guy on a wooden raft… blonde hair, wearing a kilt. Got something on his back.”

“Wait, give that here” said the guy next to him. He took a look, gently shat himself, and said “It’s Ragnor.”

The captain, expression as solid as a mountain, opened his wise lips once more and let out an oddly feminine yell. He collapsed to the floor like a strip of raw bacon that had accidentally been dropped on the dirty, hairy floor. You’d probably just rinse it under the tap and cook it, though. Dirty bastard, you.

The crew erupted into horror and yells, terrified of what was to come. Peterson stumbled to the window to get a good view on the ever-closing beast, and saw it. A tiny wooden raft with a viking-like man on it, emitting a constant war cry without any need to breathe in, being followed closely by a colossal wave. Whatever this Ragnor was, he was so powerful that the ocean itself followed him like an army.

Peterson muttered his prayers and braced.

What came first of the impact was a deafening boom as the ship’s hull was penetrated effortlessly, and what came next was the wave smashing into the side of the ship. The whole vessel lurched violently to one side, half of the on-deck planes being thrown off and swallowed by the sea. The submarine swung violently but remained attached, and the Sergeant thanked his lucky stars for that.

Until Ragnor seemed to fly up through the deck and toward the tower’s windows.

“Fuck.”

And then Ragnor gracefully blasted through the windows, followed by a perfect landing. Along with someone exploding. Because they got in the way. Of his style.

The sheer presence of Ragnor boosted all the men’s testosterone production levels by 200%, and suddenly everyone had stubble. Even the women. Especially the women.

This being was a man, though it could be argued otherwise. A giant of a guy, Ragnor’s body was so powerful that each pair of abs could be mistaken for regular human pecs. His head was covered with glorious golden hair, his long beard braided down to his belly button, the hair atop his scalp flowing and golden, wafting ceaselessly in a gentle breeze, even though there wasn’t one. His mouth was in a constant scowl, and his eyes could melt holes through steel. And then maybe make that steel explode.

Attached to his back was a large rusted beast of a blade, a great-chainsword. His lower body was covered with a chainmail kilt plated with rusted sheets of metal, and he wore some damn awesome leather boots.


The viking-like intruder shot his attention toward the collapsed Captain, then to the Sgt. “RRRGH?” he asked.

“The Captain’s passed out, he’ll be alright,” replied Peterson. After a brief moment he realised that he actually understood what Ragnor meant with his primal grunt. This surprised him.

“RRRGH. RRHGHRGH?”

“Navy, sir.” Sir? Why’d he call him sir? This also surprised him. “After a legendary weapon.”

“RRRRGH RRGH!” Ragnor spun around, grunted wildly at all the manly men and manly women, and they all got to work. Ragnor may be a man of no words, but he’s certainly leader material. The Sgt’s surprise was wearing off.

“Sir!” yelled one of the men. The Sgt thought this one was wimpy, but in Ragnor’s presence, it seemed like he gained confidence. Also a beard. And 30lbs of muscle. And possibly two women. “Blip on the radar! I think it’s a russian submarine.”

“RRRGH?” Ragnor had to see it with his own eyes. He paced powerfully towards the radar, punched it apart because he doesn’t need no bitch screen telling him whatever the fuck his eyes can, and then used said eyes to spy out the last remaining window for the submarine.

His powerful gaze scanned the calm waters and saw a deep blue shadow off in the distance. He focused his view more, being able to pierce the murky depths to see the lettering on the side. This had the side effect of slightly melting the window through the sheer pressure of his vision. And then it slightly caught fire, followed by it slightly exploding.

“RRHG, RHGHRHG.” The viking-like giant stated, before grabbing a fistful of Peterson’s chest and jumping out of the window. Peterson started being surprised again.

By the time Ragnor’s feet had hit the deck, his testosterone had reached every part of the ship. All the men in the control tower were now speaking in grunts and yells rather than words. The fuel in the engines turned into 65% proof whiskey. All the crew of the ship turned swole, men and women alike. All this caused the ship to grow 200% more effective, and the calm water around it trembled and tore in its wake.

Before the Sgt. knew it, he and Ragnor were inside of the ship’s submarine. pushing buttons and grunting through radios. Even the Sgt. was grunting now.

“Rrghh?” Peterson asked, wondering what the plan was.

“RRRHGH,” replied Ragnor concisely.

The viking stomped the floor with a mighty boot and the submarine tore off its hooks. Then he punched the ceiling, and it hopped effortlessly into the water.

Then the viking turned to look Peterson straight in his eyes, slammed a pedal into the floor and uttered a one-liner that the Sgt. would remember to his grave:

”GRAAGH.”

Immense G forces thrust Peterson back as the submarine shot down into the water. He kept his eyes trained on all the terminals around him, some with engine statistics, some with speed measurements, and one with a spinning line outlining a dot just to the right of the middle.

“Rrrrgh!” Peterson warned, pointing to his right.

“Rrgh?” Ragnor cast his eyes to the radar, and responded with a slightly irritated ”AAAAAAAA”, before steering a hard right.

The radar showed the blip getting closer, but that was just Ragnor deciding to voice his disagreement in person.

The blip hit the center, and a massive crash slammed into the side of the sub. When he was sure that both submarines were flush with each other, he shot a clean punch through the walls and hooked both of them together. It was at this point that the Sgt. noticed that his viking comrade hadn’t actually stopped screaming. It’s as if air constantly streamed into his nose and out of his mouth.
With both ships hooked together, Ragnor used both of his mighty arms to tear a hole between ships, combined with his powerful gaze to weld the edges together. As the hole grew increasingly larger, more and more terrified faces could be seen.

As soon as the hole was large enough for Ragnor to fit his colossal torso through- which is, safe to say, big enough for two average men to somersault through- he flung himself into the other submarine and started asking questions.

“RRRHG?”

People replied, but in russian. Ragnor did not understand this and so sought to have these men respond in a language he could understand.

The viking unslung the mighty metal log from his back, a beast of a chainsword that bore so many teeth that it would make sharks feel pitiful and have them go to their local car dealer to buy Hummers.

He revved up the blade to a scream, and everyone was like “AAA”, “AUGAHG” and “DEEARGH”, words that Ragnor could understand.

After a few minutes of constant screaming (and a few pansy fainters) Ragnor understood all he needed to. The russians had also learned of the intel and followed the navy vessel, trying to piggyback the prize.

Knowing this, Ragnor decided to take both sides there. He positioned himself in the breech between hulls, one hand per sub controls, and started to drive the combined vessels down to the treasure. All Peterson and the russians could do was be thrown to the back of the submarines as Ragnor achieved faster and faster speeds.

This reckless power made the submarine walls creak and wail and scream, but they never tore or gave out. Perhaps this was because of excellent engineering. Or the fact that Ragnor’s hands weren’t really doing anything, he was just intimidating the fuck out of the submarines. The submarines weren’t breaking, they were screaming from fear.

Eventually they reached their destination. To be more precise, Ragnor drove the submarines through 20 feet of solid rock until he crashed into a tunnel system. There was probably an actual entrance to it somewhere, but who’s got time for that shit, there’s treasure to find.

Ragnor followed the tunnels downward, weaving in and out of cave sections and through gaps with effortless grace, until he surfaced up in a subterranean cavern.

As he booted the hatch off his submarine, stale air blasted into the submarine as the pressure got right. Eardrums popped and stomachs were turned, but all could cope.The viking beckoned the Sgt out, who complied, but when the russians tried to scramble for an exit Ragnor gave them the ‘stay’ hand signal, as if they were dogs. And like dogs, they sat down and looked a little nervous before shitting all over my fucking carpet, I took you goddamn dogs out for a walk ten minutes ago, fuck.

The Sgt. looked around the cavern. It was massive, big enough to fit in a whole ship. And, funnily enough, there was one. In one of the cavern walls, grown over with rock and moss, was a giant wooden ship. It was full of holes, cannons hung limply out.

“Rrrgh?” asked Peterson, which roughly translated to ‘Holy fucking shit there’s a ship down here.”

“RRHGHRhGH” replied Ragnor, which roughly translated to a friendly ’AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA’, which itself roughly translated to ‘That used to be my ship. It took armies to pull it down, but I wouldn’t let them have it so I sunk it down to the bottom of the ocean myself, and buried it a grave worthy of its splendor.’ Or he could have just been grunting. Who fucking knows, right?

There was a massive hole in the side of the ship which the two entered in. Treasure gleamed everywhere, shining colours of gold and silver. Though they were all beer steins, perched atop dozens of massive wooden kegs. Could this be the treasure?

But there was more. Perched on a wall across the kegs was a gargantuan hammer. It would take four normal men to lift it, though now it’d take many more to bring it to its previous glory. The iron was worn, the leather had decayed, it was-

“RRHGHR” called out the viking, and Peterson’s attention snapped to it.

Ragnor approached Peterson with a small leather-bound book in hand. It appeared to be a notebook. He handed it to the stammering Sgt.

Peterson opened the book up carefully and glanced over its innards. He flicked a few pages, and it all clicked together in his head.

This was a blueprint. A recipe. It was instructions on how to create the perfect ale. It was beautifully crafted and detailed with amazing penmanship and care (though everything was in capital letters.) The front page simply said “RAGNOR’S BEER,” and apparently it could even get the viking himself blackout drunk, and could induce hangovers that could drive any weak man to death.

“RRrhg,” noted R

It's conflicting, really.





I'll go with Richard here.

Sadly I can only be brief for both of these:

Richard:
Your story was certainly entertaining to read... but it lacked a conflict, and every potential enemy that came up was either made friends with effortlessly, or killed effortlessly. There was nothing to get engaged in. From a humor point of view, I loved it. The jokes and manliness wore off after a bit though and kind of got old, but I loved the bit where the viking dude pressed a button and supposedly unleashed his manly effects on you. That was awesome :p
In some moments, metaphors were used so often that they started slowing down the story. And also--wait, do I hear screaming outside? OH GOD AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Cruel:
I disagree that your story was too dark. Same with Richard having too many swears. We're about to go up to the Horror genre so we might as well establish we're writing for adults here :p
Right off the bat, this story would have had a much harder-hitting effect if it began with the invasion of the town, and then 3/4ths of the way through, having the duo run into those wolves. Then there would be a sense of them bonding, and a hope that everything will be okay before the moment where all is lost. That would have been awesome.
One thing I had to keep shrugging off was that the story didn't really make sense. Russia wouldn't be able to leave their borders with military vehicles without massive consequences. Why would they target a small town to pillage as a first strike against the country? Why would they senselessly kill everyone? Not all of these questions need answers, but they're things that made me frown while I read. A plot that makes sense is good to have.

Because Cruel's story had a plot and was the more well-written of the two in regards to writing, my vote goes to him for this round.

I tried to go with a more comedy thing since action isn't something I'm too good at. This was based off a prompt from Jessepinwheel's prompt list:



I don't think I did it as well as I should have, but I had fun writing this story. Unlike my previous one.

Oh, also here is Ragnor's character page. In case you want to read it.

But aye, thanks for the criticism! I'll keep more to set genres in future.

Yeah I didn't think the geographic technicalities through when it came to the nationality of the invaders, and it was a little rushed overall to be honest. I wanted to make it longer, but i was late as fuck as it was.

Let me just start off by ssaying I loved both stories, but for different reasons.





This was probably the toughest match of the round for me. But Cruel's simply had me more enthralled from the middle to the end, whereas Richard kind of lost me after the beginning. I think this one goes to Cruel, which is funny considering I voted for Richard last round x3