Match 19559 Alfred Pennyworth vs. Lil' Slugger

[IKA]

“Everybody has a story to tell, and every story has a writer." The famed psychiatrist proclaimed to his class full of students. “Just as every story has a writer, it also has someone who reads that story. This story will be talked about elsewhere be it a media website, or some fanatical forum. To tell this story, I simply must exist, and somebody will write about it, but as someone writes about me, so too does someone watch and write about them.” Let’s take our local caped crusader “Batman”, “he says turning to look at the sponsor of tonight's event, Bruce Wayne,” We all know who he is, we’ve all read it, yet still his story persists, his enemies and the citizens of Gotham pretend like they don’t know.” The psychiatrist begins to smile, his face contorting as he speaks, each word that comes out seems to cause the grin to become wider until the skin on his face begins to tear in half. “We all know Bruce, the writer of this story knows, the readers and their writers know. The only one who doesn’t know how your story ends is you...” 
 
 
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Bruce Wayne suddenly wakes up, his body jerking forward. What an odd nightmare that was, perhaps his last bout with Scarecrow left some toxins in him. He slumps out of bed and begins to wipe his face. The wooden floor in front of him begins to creak, and Bruce immediately jumps to defend himself but to his surprise it’s just Alfred Pennyworth, his butler, standing in front of him.  
 
“You seem a bit on edge this morning Master Bruce.” Alfred says in his usual caring, but Monotone sarcastic voice. “Perhaps we drink tea instead of coffee this morning.” 
 
“Green tea will do just fine,” Bruce replies wiping the sweat from his brow. “I’ll be down in the cave for a bit.” He gets out of bed and hobbles over to his bookshelf. He pulls a book back labeled “Alice in Wonderland”, it triggers a switch that slides the whole bookcase to the right revealing a secret door, the door leads down a dark hallway, the dark hallway leads to a series of paths to go all over Wayne Manor to various other doors hidden behind the cosmetically done mansion. They all lead to one central location and elevator to goes down to the Batcave.  
 
As the elevator door opens, the scent of a waterfall fills his mind. This would be a calming scent to most, but for Bruce, Batman, this isn’t his favorite because he knows what comes next. The noise of the elevator door opening echoes through the damp and dark cave stirring up the bats that dwell inside. Despite his moniker, bats have always terrified Bruce, they always remind him of that night. That night his parents were shot in front of him. This fear he has of bats is exactly why he keeps them around though, he believes it dulls his fear of them, and if he can conquer that fear, nothing could stop him from taking down all the crime in Gotham.  
 
“Your tea, sir.” Alfred says approaching Bruce from behind. No matter how fast Bruce is getting around, Alfred always seems to be right behind him. It’s both comforting and unnerving.  
 
“Thank you, Alfred.” Bruce grabs his tea and sits back in his chair staring up op the monitors that lined the cave walls.  
 
“What’ll it be today Master Bruce,” Alfred questions in his own special way, “Vampires, scarecrows, miniature dimension hopping fanatics?” 
 
“Seems there has been a rise in attacks lately. Multiple people are claiming to have been attacked by a kid with a baseball bat. It’s resulted in a few deaths already.” 
 
“I expect the Batman will be putting a stop to that soon enough?” 
 
“That’s just it, whoever this is, they have left no trail to follow. The instances just seem too random at the moment. At first, I thought it may have been Scarecrows fear toxins, or some other trick being played by the League of Assassins, but I’ve not found any evidence of it. 
 
“Could these perhaps be just making it all up?” 
 
“We live in Gotham Alfred, there’s always someone pulling the strings. We just have to find out who it is.” Bruce leaned back in his chair and flicked through the local news channels, several of them were reporting on the more recent events.  
 
“Two teenagers were attacked late last night. They were heading home after hanging out with their friends when someone rode up to them on roller blades and began to attack them with a baseball bat.”  
 
“Yeah man, we were just walking home, and some random Ass hole just tried to jump us.” The kid claims “But when we yelled back at him, he just rolled away, I didn’t get a very good look at him, but I just have you say *Beep* you man.”  
 
Bruce turns off the monitor and leans forward, setting his coffee on the desk. “Perhaps you’re right Alfred, the kid wasn’t telling the truth there. He made it all up. But he’s not the only one talking about this mysterious attacker.” Bruce accesses a file on his computer called “Lil’ Slugger” that's what the media had referred to the attack as, inside the file in hundreds of articles showing people who have claimed to be attacked by a kid with golden roller blades. The description sometimes changes, but he’s almost always also wearing a red hat. “At first, I didn’t think too much of it, but there is too much here for it to be a coincidence. What I’m more concerned about is that it’s almost as if he’s watching me always knowing what I’m going to do to try and find him. There is never any evidence, and the attacks seem random. He seems to be one step ahead no matter what I do.”  
 
 
-------------------------------------- That Night----------------------------------------- 
 
In a dark alley of Gotham’s downtown, to men waited in an alley just outside a movie theater. They were waiting for their perfect chance to strike on some unwitting victims and take them for all they were worth. Two people approached them coming from the in the alley, a man and his wife laughing about the movie they had just watch. The man looked back for what seemed like only a moment and that’s when the fist thug jumped in front of him. He was holding a baseball bat and pointed it at the man who begged to be let go, He wouldn’t be so lucky, the second thug came from behind and smacked him in the head with a baseball bat of his own. The man fell lifeless to the ground, the woman screamed and tried to run, but without hesitation the man struck her down as well. The attack was quick, but brutal, the thug beat them well after they were already dead just to ensure that they would never be able to tell their story. Suddenly a cry could be heard from behind them as a child, the child of the now brutally murdered couple hid behind a dumpster petrified of the man. The first thug pleaded with the second one begging him to stop, this was never meant to be anything more than a robbery. The second thug who had already murdered two turned his gaze to the child and lifted his bat.  
 
 
----------------------------The next morning-----------------------------  
 
Police were called to the scene of the brutal murder, one of the suspects had remained in the alley, while the other, the presumed murderer, had fled the scene. Two bodies were on the ground brutally beaten with a baseball bat that had been thrown on the ground.  
 
“I didn’t want this to happen man, it wasn’t supposed to go like this!” 
 
“Shut up!” One of the Officers said as they shoved the suspect face first into a wall. “You know who did this so tell us!” 
 
“I can’t he’ll kill me too.” 
 
Batman jumped down from a fire escape that had watched over the alley. “Let me talk to him.” 
 
“Haven’t you let enough people down Batman? Leave this one to the police.” The Officer declared pushing the man into the wall even harder. 
 
Batman pulled the Officer back and grabbed the suspect from his collar lifting him off the ground.  “I won’t be as nice as he was,” Batman yelled punching the wall next to the suspect’s head leaving a very noticeable break in the brick. “I don’t need weapons to break you.” 
 
“Hey wait there is something in the dumpster!” Another yells opening the lid of the dumpster before quickly shutting it and backing away looking like he was going to be sick. 
 
“You.. You sick fuck!” Another police officer without even thinking of who was around him un-holstered his gun and pointed it at the suspect. Batman dropped the Suspect and tried to disarm the officer, but it was too late. The Suspect had been shot twice and was killed instantly. It all moved so quickly after that, Batman stormed toward the officer who had just killed the only suspect Batman had ever gotten to for this, but the other officers shoved him back protecting their co worker. They blamed Batman for not protecting the suspect, if he hadn’t gotten involved none of this would have happened. Batman took a step back and noticed inside the dumpster was another arm, there was in fact a third body, but this one had been hidden. These people they never stood a chance, and he couldn’t save them anymore. Batman used his grappling hook to flee the scene, but as Batman physically left the scene, Bruce Wayne in spirit never left, he remained in that dark alley on his knees in tears thinking of the night his parents were killed too. He couldn’t protect them then, and he couldn’t protect these people now.  
 
It was two days later, Bruce had not returned to Wayne Manor, all his appointments had been missed. The News blamed Batman for the rising instances of attack, in in return Batman was becoming more violent in his pursuit of the attacker. Bruce had become Batman. As Batman pursued the “Lil' Slugger” the city began to split as accusations filled the news and false leads clogged up the police phone lines. In truth, there had only been one Suspect in the alley that night, a man having a mental breakdown took his anger out on the people, and when he couldn’t come back to reality, he too was convinced it was someone else. There had been no Little Slugger, he was just a growing hysteria among the citizens, one that could only grown stronger the more people believed in it.  
 
Alfred knew that Bruce was still there hiding on the other side of that mask. He knew that only the combined force of Bruce Wayne and Batman could squash this hysteria, but he would need to pull him back into his right mind. He would need to convince Batman that he was wrong about there being a second suspect and he had to hope the Bruce could convince Gotham of the same.  
 
 
 
-------------------------------- 
 
 
So here it is – Little Slugger isn’t real and can not take any direct action to stop Alfred from trying to calm Bruce down. The City and Batman are both convince that there is a murder on the lose. The City and Police Force blames Batman for the escape of the suspect and will fight him in his pursuit.  

 
Can Alfred bring Bruce back, or will the hysteria consume Gotham? Your vote will decide the fate of all of them, you can decide to save everyone, or you can decide to burn it all down. What will you decide, whatever it is, I will remember, and I will be watching.  

[Callisto]

Learn More About
Alfred Pennyworth
Read more about Alfred Pennyworth at Wikipedia
Official Site: DC Comics Links: Wikipedia Profile Weirdspace

Lil' Slugger
Read more about Lil' Slugger at Wikipedia
Official Site: Madhouse Ltd. Links: Lil' Slugger's Wikipedia Article Absolute Anime Tsukiko Sagi's Wikipedia Article

[MistressOfWords]

Yo.  

Batman's always a good choice.  His opponent is unique and different, and really meshes well with the batman universe with the scarecrow's toxin and that.  It could be a more tricky Batman episode.  So yeah, Its a good set up.  Everything makes sense for the characters.  I like how you spent time in Bruce's head, I always feel closer to characters when the author spends time in their head/thoughts.  A lot of the other entries don't do that well, which is a shame because like its a debut character challenge let me feel close to the character. 

However, you have some grammar mistakes (ex. quotation mistakes in first paragraph).  It was very comma heavy, which is okay but some of your commas were very clearly supposed to be new sentences instead (look to the That Night paragraph).  Also, and this is just a tidbit of advice but still concerning that paragraph, if all of your sentences are the same size/format, it is not interesting to the reader, you should vary your sentence lengths. 

Its hard to describe, but it also feels like... things are going too fast?   It is much better in the first half of the write up, but worse once you hit the That Night paragraph.  I think its a mix of telling instead of showing and not enough descriptions.  Look to the Batman showing up to the scene of the murder part, for example.  You say what's happening, but it runs quick because you arn't giving enough details to sink into the scene.  What does the blood look like, is it shining from the moon, is it splashed all over the alley?  Is there a smell?  Is there a sound when Batman lands on the ground?  Is the dead body in the dumpster giving off a smell?  Does the gun make a sound when it goes off?  You say the officers are angry and blame Batman; what do their faces look like, what are they saying?  You are giving more descriptions than some people, but you need even more descriptions, including our senses other than just visual, to slow down the scene make it feel more real.  Make sure you keep the character thoughts and feelings too, increase them even, that will also help it feel more real. 

Lastly, this is a debut character challenge and it focuses on Batman.  Alfred feels like a sidenote.  It would have been better (and even more interesting) to be in Alfred's head instead, to hear his thoughts instead as he watched Bruce slowly devolve into madness.  I do feel like Alfred would win--this is all a result of the Scrarecrow's toxin; Alfred is smart enough to figure that out, cure Batman, and then fix the city with Batman's help.

[IKA]

19 minutes ago, MistressOfWords said:

Yo.  

Batman's always a good choice.  His opponent is unique and different, and really meshes well with the batman universe with the scarecrow's toxin and that.  It could be a more tricky Batman episode.  So yeah, Its a good set up.  Everything makes sense for the characters.  I like how you spent time in Bruce's head, I always feel closer to characters when the author spends time in their head/thoughts.  A lot of the other entries don't do that well, which is a shame because like its a debut character challenge let me feel close to the character. 

However, you have some grammar mistakes (ex. quotation mistakes in first paragraph).  It was very comma heavy, which is okay but some of your commas were very clearly supposed to be new sentences instead (look to the That Night paragraph).  Also, and this is just a tidbit of advice but still concerning that paragraph, if all of your sentences are the same size/format, it is not interesting to the reader, you should vary your sentence lengths. 

Its hard to describe, but it also feels like... things are going too fast?   It is much better in the first half of the write up, but worse once you hit the That Night paragraph.  I think its a mix of telling instead of showing and not enough descriptions.  Look to the Batman showing up to the scene of the murder part, for example.  You say what's happening, but it runs quick because you arn't giving enough details to sink into the scene.  What does the blood look like, is it shining from the moon, is it splashed all over the alley?  Is there a smell?  Is there a sound when Batman lands on the ground?  Is the dead body in the dumpster giving off a smell?  Does the gun make a sound when it goes off?  You say the officers are angry and blame Batman; what do their faces look like, what are they saying?  You are giving more descriptions than some people, but you need even more descriptions, including our senses other than just visual, to slow down the scene make it feel more real.  Make sure you keep the character thoughts and feelings too, increase them even, that will also help it feel more real. 

Lastly, this is a debut character challenge and it focuses on Batman.  Alfred feels like a sidenote.  It would have been better (and even more interesting) to be in Alfred's head instead, to hear his thoughts instead as he watched Bruce slowly devolve into madness.  I do feel like Alfred would win--this is all a result of the Scrarecrow's toxin; Alfred is smart enough to figure that out, cure Batman, and then fix the city with Batman's help.

It is not a result of a toxin, just growing hysteria afrer a build up of lies. The toxin part was put in to imply Bruce's thoughts. Bruce was wrong. The only person to suggest everything was being made up was Alfred in the first half of the story.

 

I do agree with the criticisms though, I had to rewrite the second half after realizing a big mistake I had made. 

 

The reason I chose to follow Batman instead of Alfred was do show his decent and how quick it was. I was trying to show how he was linking unrelated things (such as the fear toxin). I also. Chose to speed up the second half as to try and feel like the hysteria was taking power from you the reader as well, though I do suppose it did not come off that way. 

 

Also this is a debut challenge, and the debut in this case is for the Lil' Slugger not Alfred so that is why I focused most of the challenge on the Hysteria than anything else.  

 

I hope that makes sense.

[MistressOfWords]

@IKA

Ah, yes I do see that after a reread.  The toxin has nothing to do with what is happening.  My mistake, I'm not sure why I thought that as Batman only thinks it once and then dismisses it as the reason.  

And you're right slugger is the debut character not Alfred.  However, Alfred still is the first half of the match up, not batman.  It felt like you were writing a match up between slugger and batman.  It still would have been good for Alfred to have some screen time as one half of this match up, and possibly more interesting and different too (how many stories are there about batman vs the number about alfred); he could easily watch Batman devolve into madness and thus show the sluggers effect, dialogue could be used to show some of the thoughts batman is having that you wanted highlighted.  Another option would be to just add more scenes, letting batman have screen time to show sluggers power but then also show Alfred and have a nice contrast between the slowly going insane batman and the calm and rational alfred who im sure would be actively trying to figure out what's going on and how to fix it.  

As for speeding up the end purposefully, I think I see what you mean, maybe.  You can definitely show escalation in thoughts and behavior and still write and describe well, though that can be a skill really difficult for a lot of people too accomplish.  Its something that would be really difficult to describe here and make my comment way too long lol.  It's all like in the way that you describe, where you choose to shift the scene, how fast you shift it.  Its hard to explain.  

[IKA]

I get it, I'll have to get back to this fight at some point and put in a better edited version.

[DSkillz]

Good entry, IKA. Pretty good introduction to Lil' Slugger, even as an apparently imaginary character in this story. Match could still use a bit of editing, though. 

As for the match, Alfred knows Batman about as well as, if not better than, anyone, so I think he can eventually help Bruce out of this latest funk. 

[IKA]

3 hours ago, DSkillz said:

Good entry, IKA. Pretty good introduction to Lil' Slugger, even as an apparently imaginary character in this story.

He is a Mass Hysteria in Paranoia Agent as well. Great show.

[Pizzaguy2995]

Yeah Bruce goes through one of these episodes every other story arc and spoiler alert he NEVER gives up on being Batman with or without Alfred’s help.

[IKA]

10 hours ago, Pizzaguy2995 said:

Yeah Bruce goes through one of these episodes every other story arc and spoiler alert he NEVER gives up on being Batman with or without Alfred’s help.

No in this instance he didn't give up on being Batman, he's leaned to far into the persona and gave up being Bruce Wayne.

 

Alfres is trying to bring Bruce back, not Batman.

[Callisto]

Match Final Results

Member Ratings:
4.00 - Pizzaguy2995
3.80 - MistressOfWords
3.90 - broadwaybeyonder
5.00 - Macklemore
4.80 - Boratz
4.30 - GreyPanther

FPA Calculation:
6 Total Votes cast
25.80 Total Combined Score
25.80 / 6 = 4.30 Final Rating on the match

MATCH SCORE
Alfred Pennyworth: 4
Lil' Slugger: 1

[DSkillz]

Oh, I forgot to grade the match? My bad, man. 

At least you got a good amount of ratings overall.