"BRENNUS, BARBARIAN OF BRITANNIA!"

The screams, the jeers, the adulation. How had he ever lived without it?

Kicking up the sand beneath his bare feet, the blue painted gladiator span to receive all the Roman mob offered him. Oval shield lifted high, taunting the Latins with the swirling art of the Iceni people, he stubbed his spear into the ground and stood proudly, arrogantly even. He was so different to those silk strewn folk as to be almost alien, though of no great height his body rippled with muscle and scar stood out starkly on his tanned white skin. With ash rubbed through his hair to make it a white blonde and to stand it on head in a haphazard affair that only added to his odd appearance, he made an unusual sight even here in the arena. He wore only woollen trousers, with a belt on which he strapped the sheathed sword at his hip. Opting for pure mobility over armour of any sort was the way of some of his people, and the man known as Brennus intended to keep their memory alive, as long as he yet lived.

"Come then!" He roared in bastardised Latin, his toothy grin almost feral. It was that smile of anticipation his enemy would be faced with.

When you’re the plaything of a God, to be done with as the almighty eye sees fit – you don’t have much choice in your life anymore. That’s how it worked out that, from nowhere, a white-hot line of light split the air about six feet from the ground. It rotated clock-wise, and in that moment the whole thing seemed to swirl and swivel until it opened into a four-foot-wide doorway directly opposite the blue guy with the spear and the sword. On the other side was a man in chains, his wrists bound together with a chain run to his shackled ankles. A heavy, metal collar snapped closed around his neck and locks holding them all in place. His head angled down, short hair dirty and unkempt with ripped up blue jeans being the only protective clothing shrouding him. The collar’s chain led behind him, to a four-armed monstrosity with a face of lightning and a voice of thunder.

“You will fight him.”

It wasn’t a question or a concern. It was a declarative. An argument to the contrary didn’t exist. The man in chains simply stood there, unresponsive and downcast. The other planted his foot at the small of his back, and shoved him through the doorway – releasing the collar chain at the same time.

“You will fight him, and you will win – or you’ll wish he killed you, Frank.”

The force of the push swung him through the impossible door, and he fell sprawled out on his face in the sand. For a moment he simply lay there, almost as if a dog scolded and beaten into pure submission. Then, as the doorway began to close, his life was given back to him. For now, Azaroth would allow him to face another in glorious combat. For now, Azaroth allowed his life to be his own. He could sense that the other was merely a human, without supernatural powers of any kind – so he too allowed Azaroth to take his power from him, to put them on an even playing field. Most days, his might was enough to break the chains that bound him. Today, though, he was as normal as any other human walking the highway.

So, it was a good thing that with a wave of his hand as the doorway snapped fully closed, that the chains loosened themselves and fell to the ground, the shackles remaining almost like weapons or guards on his wrist and ankles. The chain that linked from the neck collar, though, he picked up. Wrapping it twice around his knuckles, and still holding two and a half feet of excess for a whip-like weapon, he lifted his hands. Left hand extended in front of his right, feet shoulder-width apart and his body turned ever so slightly. He was commanded to fight. To kill. And that’s what he was going to do.

Andraste protect me.

Brennus was an ordinary man, within reason, born to a world without any real magic or monsters beyond those made by man and god. He probably would have been even more disturbed if he could really make out what was going on, but from his position about a hundred and fifty feet away from the portal it wasn’t as clear as it could have been. All he really caught a glimpse of was some hulking four-armed monstrosity, and then the sudden emergence of a chained man seemingly from thin air.

The screams from the audience took on a whole new meaning in the face of such terror, but as quickly as it came, it passed. Such illusion and trickery was not far beyond the normal spectacles of the arena, and as the lone figure face planted into the sand, nervous laughter flittered through the stands. Laughter that quickly became a roar, as they watched the gimped man stand, some chains falling from his body, others seemingly wrapped around his wrists. Brennus, with the unique perspective of standing before this figure, was less sure of what he had just witnessed.

“He does not even hold a shield or sword, is this a jest?” The Iceni man murmured in his native tongue. Still visibly shaken, the gladiator looked to the stands, and his Dominus. Septimus shrugged his shoulders from the stands, as the other Dominus started to shout and complain to the officials. Behind the chained man, the portcullis slowly opened and the gladiator Brennus was meant to be fighting stepped out onto the sand, surprised to see a man sprawled on the ground between him and his opponent.

Brennus stood with his spear standing in the sand and his shield resting over his left shoulder. The officials would have to sort this out, something seemed to have gone wrong indeed.

The demonic portal might have closed, but the supernatural madness was far from over. From where the emperor sat, there came a flash of light, and suddenly smoke billowed out from the throne, spreading across the sky like a thundercloud. The crackling of flame could be heard as a towering figure rose up beside the emperor, and stepped forwards, glaring down at the arena with a gaze that had cowed armies.



The audience's mouths collectively fell open as they beheld the spectral form of Julius Caesar, wreathed in flame. Hades had claimed him long ago, but now he had arisen once again, to personally oversee what was sure to be the greatest match in Roman history.

Arms spread wide, he called down to the fighters below. "Ego sum impatiens. Pugna incipere!"

With one hand he pulled out a flaming fig and took a bite out of it, sitting back on a seat that formed out of smoke behind him. With such an austere figure watching, the gladiators would no doubt give this their best!

By the time the ghost of Julius Ceaser took its place at the top of the forum, he was already on his feet and ready to fight. The other gladiator, who had literally no idea what was going on, was struck with awe at the sight of such an iconic leader returning as a ghostly apparition, and taking a place at the side of the current emperor at that! His poor little heart, which could barely handle the strain of fighting, simply refused to go on beating and shut down right on the spot. He clutched his chest, screamed in pain, and fell on the ground. Without the miracles of modern science, there was nothing to be done and he lay dying in excruciating agony. His own spear and sword falling to his side.

Of course, Frank took note of their location should he need them but for now he had his chain and shackles and those – now that they were broken and he had full-range of motion – were more than enough for him to work with. He took a few steps forward, standing just outside of spear-tip range of his opponent, and resumed his combat stance. His eyes locked on the others, and his body tense and ready to move at a moment’s notice and with little in the way of actual thought. You didn’t earn the title “Beatdown King” without always being ready to knock a motherfucker out.

Brennus’ jaw dropped to the floor as a fiery apparition took pride of place before the Emperor, its voice booming across the arena. The Iceni had only a basic grasp of Latin, but he recognised the ghostly figure was telling him to fight. Now this was too much for the mob. Some recognised Caesar, his name rocketed through the stands in a hysterical rush. Many simply fled at the sight, the Emperor darted from his chair and hid behind his guard as they ushered him away from the burning figure. A cold sweat ran down Brennus’ brow as he fought to master himself in the face of such ungodly machinations. Like any fighter, he concentrated on what he knew.

The chained man approached him, somehow covering over a hundred feet in a ‘few steps forward’ to stand about ten feet from Brennus. The Iceni hadn’t bothered to take a defensive stance up until this point, but with a flash of movement, the Brit punched forward with his left hand, throwing the left side of his body forward and releasing his hold over his large oval shield. He sent his shield flying straight at the man’s upper ankles, and in the follow up, passed over with his right foot and took hold of his spear in both hands ready for the thrust, which was to be determined by the chained man’s movements.

His hands clenched and his eyes never left the other’s. You could see everything you needed to see in a fight in the eyes of your opponent – besides he had insanely good peripheral vision. No great fighter stayed that way without it, after all. At first, he just stood there, sizing up the apparent fear at the appearance of a ghost. Especially one so known and renowned as Julius fucking Ceasar himself. Well, everyone who wasn’t used to this sort of thing would be afraid. He did have a fair advantage in that regard, having travelled as the slave of a God for so long, being put into fights he had no business being in – and seeing things no mortal man should have to see – he wasn’t put out when ghosts appeared.

But, apparently, not everyone was as well-traveled as himself. Which wasn’t surprising, he didn’t even honestly know what year he was in – but he could tell from the uniforms and people around that it wasn’t exactly during a time where time-travel or dimensional awareness was a thing. He couldn’t help but wonder where he was, or more accurately when he was – but his inquisition stopped the moment the fight began. See, you can’t really throw something without telegraphing it. The shoulder tensing, the arm moving, it all belied only two possibilities. A shield-punch, which with the distance he couldn’t even hope to reach him with his arms. Or, and the most likely, a throw. The angle of his arm also belied a likely target, and he immediately began moving. He swung his arm around, letting the length of chain gather force.

The chain, heavy and durable, slammed into the side of the shield when it was about a foot from his legs, pushing its trajectory off to the right – letting it eat and bite down into the sand. He made no counter-move. Once the shield bit into the ground, he stood there with his eyes still focused on the other. His cold, dead eyes. There was clearly no soul behind them, no life. Whatever the God did to him, it was an atrocious act.

Simply put, his enemy could not have given him a better opening. Brennus was advancing directly behind his shield, and the man had opened himself up by wasting time with an unnecessary effort swinging a chain at nothing more than a diversion. As the chain swung into his shield it would be out of position to defend the man as Brennus passed over into leading with his right foot, shooting his spear forward in a vicious jab at the man’s lower torso. A gut shot would put him in good stead to end the fight quickly, and with a long pointy stick to cover the range, there was naught the man could do about it this late as he had chosen not to move from his position.

Brennus did not really have any reason to fear a two and a half foot of chain while he held a six foot spear in his hands, so immediately after attempting to put the end of his spear in the man’s body, he’d retract the weapon and swap footing, ready to launch the series of thrusts that would end the fight.

The other man advanced behind his shield, moving two-steps forward to come within spear-range – already prepared to thrust. It didn’t take much for him to turn his body to left and bend his lower torso backwards, which allowed the spear to bypass the point of entry for a clean stab, and simply slide along his gut. A small, trickle of blood flowed from the cut – but it was nothing he couldn’t manage. He’d suffered worse bloody noses in hand-to-hand fights. Still, though, that this enemy managed to draw blood was a sign that he should begin taking this fight seriously.

That meant making it an actual fight, instead of a coward trying to pig-stick a roast ham for his dinner. The easiest way to do that was by dropping his left hand from the elevated position it went into to facilitate his bending motion and give him balance. This motion of his hand, which would be a downward thrust of his palm against the wooden haft of the weapon, came at the same time as a side-step inward, which moved him closer to the other person. At nearly the same time, however, his right hand came up and his wrist slammed into the wooden section of the spear immediately behind the metal broad head.

The end result of the maneuver was the resounding craaack of wood breaking, as the haft of the spear was snapped clean in two by his pretty impressive strength. Though it was probably a certainty that the man would quickly try to recall his spear toward him, it didn’t matter – because even if he pulled it back there wasn’t enough time to get it completely out of the way. The haft would either snap about a foot back from the tip, where his hand originally smacked and latched onto, or it would break a bit closer to the end – because pulling it back would simply make his wrist hit the broad-side of the spearhead.

Brennus’ thrust went wide, cutting a neat groove across his enemy’s stomach, but not opening him up as he would have liked. Reacting on instinct and training, the Iceni warrior began to pull his weapon back, before realising his opponent was trying to stifle the retraction. He turned anti-clockwise at the torso, lifting his body straight as his right hand pulled back the shaft of his spear to the left side of his body and crossed over the front of his left arm. This had the effect of not only retracting his weapon far faster than the chained man might have expected, but also swerving it wide of his strike. Brennus was left in a momentarily awkward position with his spear held up almost to his neck and his arms crossed into an X in front of his body.

However, there was a surprising amount of power to be found in that bunched up position, as the Iceni was keen to demonstrate. Pulling his right leg back past his left, as his right arm unfolded and shot down to his right, he was able to spin his spear in a tight arc that saw the point move first up, and then to his left, before shooting back down with surprising force in a diagonal cut to Brennus’ right. The point of the spear would cut a nasty path across the front of the chained man’s face, quick and powerful, it could easily blind him in his right eye or simply disable him outright as the soft flesh was rent by cold steel.

This cut served a dual purpose, as it also allowed Brennus to return to an effective striking stance and make some distance from his closer ranged foe. He’d end up left foot forward, right back and slightly turned, ready to thrust again.

As soon as the strike to the spear missed, he turned his whole body to face the other’s once more. His footwork was impeccable, shifting forward with his steps. By the time the diagonal slash came toward his face it was too late to really strike his face. Instead, he let the haft of the spear slap against his shoulder, and slide up until the wood rested against his neck – trapped beneath his collar. It didn’t matter though, he continued forward. It only took a couple of steps to put him into striking range – and once there his right hand snapped upward – traveling between the wide-gripped hands of his opponent.

The result of that was an uppercut, not one with a lot of power behind it – it was just a testing strike. A set-up for a larger combo, but it was targeted and it was going to do some damage if it landed. The most effective block would be to move the spear-haft into place to block, but it’d break under that pressure. And moving it that far, with the wood trapped beneath the metal of his collar - which wasn’t intended just a happy accident - would be nearly impossible. In the same motion as the uppercut, though, other parts of his body tensed and prepared to move in for further strikes – though what those might be even Beatdown hadn’t yet decided.

The man perhaps was overconfident in his footwork. The spear’s point would not simply miss his face because he was moving forward, for several factors.

Brennus had first thrust from range, the ground to cover was significant, and that stood against the man’s intentions. Brennus had also stepped backwards upon launching his own cut, carrying him at least as far backwards as his foe sought to move forward. Finally, a spear is more malleable than the man gave it credit. Brennus simply pulled the haft of his spear further back behind his body while making his cut, subsequently bringing the point to bear towards the man’s face, and him having taken no action to defend himself, he would suffer. Such was only human.

Furthermore, Brennus could lead into his follow-up. Upon drawing the haft back sufficiently to still cut the man’s face, his left leg drew level with his right, and as he stepped back with his right foot his spear would be level with the chained man’s throat. With the man rushing him, it wasn’t necessary to put much force behind a thrust as he was doing the work for him. So Brennus simply brought his right hand in line with his body again to thrust his spear forward a little towards the man's throat. The chained man would do the rest of his job for him, likely skewering himself on the point, and ending the fight before it really began.

So, Brennus could react quickly when faced with adverse circumstances. It was about time he showed some fuckin’ mettle and decided to take the fight seriously. As Beatdown advanced, he slid the haft of his spear backward in his hand. Of course, that held its own faults. You couldn’t jerk backward on something already in a downward motion without losing some of its forward momentum. Fortunately, though, his left arm was still in a lifted position – considering it never lowered past mid torso. As the haft of the spear slid backward, his forward momentum continued – and at the same time he contracted his torso and let his knees bend just a little. With a single, last step forward, he too reacted quickly.

His body stopped, his knees bent into perfect ninety-degree angles. That, alone, would be more than sufficient to make the spear pass just above his head, and scantly causing it to miss his shoulder. Though, it never made it that far in its travels. As his body dropped downward, his left arm continued to lift upward – the back of his forearm slamming into the wooden haft of the spear – halting it immediately with a resonating thuuuuuunk of wood on muscled flesh. With the cut halted, the man apparently considered himself ready for another thrust attempt.

Honestly, the cowardice of the fight itself was beginning to wear thin on him. From his position, he shifted and stood up straight once again – bringing his hands back up to an orthodox stance, left hand extended forward. Right hand pulled back, chain curled around his knuckles and his grip tightened and prepared for whatever strike came next. That would, apparently, be a thrust aimed forward at his throat. Another pathetic attempt at the same thing again. When would this guy learn? Probably right now.

The spear halted only an inch from his throat – as his left hand snapped closed around the wood and then twisted, pulling the spear around and holding it. With the blade pointed behind him, and the wood at his thigh, he began to pull – pressuring the man to other move forward, or try to counter-act his pulling force. Should the latter happen, he’d simply bend the wood around his thigh until it snapped – the own man making it possible to hold it in position for that very maneuver. If he came forward…well, then he’d finally be on the right path to proving himself someone worth contending with, rather than a coward who preferred to hide behind his tools.

Amazingly, despite having left any semblance of defence to the very millisecond, the man managed to make an additional step and then crouch before the spear cut was finalised, blocking it by crossing his forearm over his body and lifting it into the air at such speed to be barely considered human. Obviously as a spear is a lever, the question of jerking it backwards effecting its downward momentum was moot, but that was beside the point. Brennus was already dragging his spear back by this point and behind his body, which led itself nicely into a vicious draw-cut at the man's forearm, likely deep enough to disable the limb, or at the very least cause him to bleed profusely.

As Brennus had stepped further backwards and the man had remained stationary in a half crouch, his spear thrust had not materialised. He had intended to let the man impale himself on its point, after all. Brennus simply stood watching him from seven feet away, left foot forward, spear point held menacingly between the two of them. It was clear he was fighting an opponent with superhuman powers to have avoided the point of the spear with such last moment evasions twice in a row. Brennus was taking no chances.

Because the man was no longer rushing him, he would not be able to make a grab for the spear. Brennus instead was pivoting the spear, causing the point to rapidly dart upwards and downwards, making it impossible to tell where he planned to strike until the last moment. Not that it mattered, this man was not human.

The only clear thing happening here was his opponent clearly giving humans very little credit in their capabilities, and misunderstanding time-frames and timing in and of itself. He didn’t step forward and then crouch. He crouched AS he stepped forward. It was not an additional step, but the same steps already undertaken. The fact of his body crouching mid-step, and his arm being pushed outward not just above, but in front, of his head is what made the block entirely possible. Brennus seemed to assume that all humans are weak, fragile things. That their minds and bodies don’t react on pure instinct in the heat of the moment.

If Brennus was truly the warrior he claimed to be, then he’d have to understand that simple concept. For Beatdown, this fight wasn’t one of thought – where each option was weighed carefully and then undertaken after a far too long thought process. For him, fighting was second nature. Every move he made, every endeavor undertaken in the heat of combat, was muscle memory. It was instinct. That made his reactions immediate and definite. Not superhuman, no, but the movements of someone highly trained and skilled in combat for more than most their lives. Some people just didn’t understand that concept. Didn’t understand how muscle memory, how instinct, how reaction works. That’s fine, those people could be taught if they were willing to learn.

For Beatdown though, he’d learned it a long time ago. Throughout hundreds and thousands of battles fought and won by the blade and the fist. This man, though? He was a coliseum fighter. He fought for audiences, for the glory of his name. He didn’t truly know what it meant to be faced with death. He didn’t know what a true fight was, and he clearly didn’t begin to fathom what true, bred training in life-and-death situations bred into a real warrior.

So, Beatdown shifted back to a standing position, before taking two steps backward as the spear began to pivot. This put him at a range in which the man would have to fully extend his arm all the way outward just to make a minor point of impact on the most outward part of his body. Meanwhile, he inspected his forearm – and reminded himself that he was glad the shackles remained. It’d caused the sliding of the spear backward to lift a bit, and instead of a deep gash formed a shallow cut on his arm. It stung a great deal, but the blood loss was minimal and the cut itself barely a nuisance.

“Are you ever going to truly fight, or are you going to just keep trying to poke me with your stick? I’m growing bored with your ignorance, child.”

Chewing on his fiery fig, Julius Caesar watched the two combatants thoughtfully, his ghostly eyes never blinking even once. After all, to close one's eyes for but a moment would be to risk missing a key movement, perhaps the one that would bring an end to the fight! So far only a modicum of blood had been spilled, but that crimson streak was merely an omen of the carnage that would eventually come.

He swallowed, then idly commented on the proceedings, his voice booming out across the arena.

"Audentia meretur homo gloriam. Quod astuti facit hominem victoria."

With that, he settled down again, hardly caring whether the gladiators listened or not. The fight was theirs, and his part lay only in the enjoyment and contemplation of the duel.

The chained man backed away, finally showing some degree of caution towards the point of the spear that had cut him twice already. Brennus was starting to wonder if the man gave a whit about his own life, and then his mind shot back to the strange arrival of his enemy in chains. If he was the slave of some horrific creature of the underworld he was likely a plaything, tortured and defiled constantly by those terrible powers. What a pitiful creature he must be. Brennus now sought to kill him to put him out of his misery. At which point he began to babble in a language the Iceni was not familiar with.

“Dicere sensus!” Brennus barked at him in his bastardised Latin, expecting him to at least speak the language of the civilised world, like the burning, ghostly, figure up above.

Without further ado, Brennus made quick gathering step towards his foe, drawing first his back-foot level with his front, before stepping forward with his lead left. He would repeat this step to bring himself within seven feet of his enemy, continuing to pursue the man for a few steps at least if he sought to maintain distance between them. At the moment he reached this optimum thrusting range, Brennus would stop endlessly pivoting his spear and jab slightly forward towards the man’s upper torso, before revealing that he was not fully committed to the strike, retracting, and instead thrusting at his right inner thigh.

Beatdown watched idly as the man took his steps forward, wondering if maybe he was finally going to fight him like a man. Of course, he wasn’t. Kids and their weapons, though. They couldn’t move past them. He was beginning to think this man would be completely useless if the fight became about fists and feet. Even with him in armor and Beatdown only wearing a pair of ripped up, faded out blue jeans. Fists would still give the other a clear advantage, but he chose to employ his weapon like a coward hiding behind his friends. Well, there wasn’t much he could do about that. So, he watched the man begin to thrust his spear toward his chest. Of course, Beatdown still had his arms lifted and was preparing to fight the man if he got close enough.

His left hand immediately reacted and started to swing out to grab the spear. It didn’t work. The spear retracted and targeted his thigh before the left hand came into place. Immediately he realized he’d fucked up, and now he was about to lose the use of his leg. He braced himself for the pain that was about to come…but it never did. He wasn’t sure why, until he felt a weight like someone pulling at his right arm – and immediately he glanced down to check.

His laughter rang throughout the quiet arena, as if those remaining were quiet in anticipation. What was he laughing at? Pure dumb luck, obviously. See, when his right hand lifted into position, the chain still wrapped around his hand left the excess hanging out before it, pointed toward the ground. And in the man’s rush to cause him injury, he’d neglected to take it into account. So, when the spear thrust forward to his thigh the chain was hanging in the way. The tip traveled halfway through that link, before becoming lodged and pulling the chain tight – which resulted in the tugging at his arm.

It wasn’t intentional. Hell, he hadn’t even thought it would be something to work – and he took no time to react to the second thrust, believing the first to be the true attack. But, it did work. Luck was on his side in that moment, and he couldn’t hardly believe that himself. Now, though, the spear was wedged between the links of the chain – and he wasn’t quite sure where to go from there. Except to keep tension on it and try to pull the spear from the other’s grasp. Believing that he’d finally get the man to let go of his cowardly ways and fight like a true warrior.

Brennus had taken the chain into account, which was why he thrust for the inner thigh rather than the leg proper, but by a twist of fate (and the chain) his spear had jammed itself between one of the wide links. The chain would still slam into the inside of the man’s leg, but apparently not enough of the point had breached the link to cut into his body. Unfortunate, but it meant retrieving the spear would be no difficult task, it wasn’t wedged if it wasn’t poking out the other side. Brennus quickly moved into his next attack, as the chained spear point bounced off the man’s leg it would thrust between both legs, and Brennus knew that a spear could still be dangerous going out again.

Straightening his body, Brennus lifted the spear quickly with his lead hand, as he retracted with a forceful draw cut aimed at the man’s groin. The spear point would of course free itself from the chain as it pulled backwards, and the side of the blade would pose a credible threat in the form of cutting open the man’s nether region. Bleeding out from such a wound was not uncommon, but more importantly, what man wanted his dick cut open by a spear? To accommodate this movement, he’d have to make another of those gathering steps in reverse, but a bunching in his thigh suggested he was ready to rush back in again once his spear point was again in his control.

The problem was the chain. It was always the chain, where this fight was concerned. See, when the chain pulled tight going forward it was under the pressure of the spear. So, when the spear began to be retracted – and lifted – so too did the chain itself. Friction, the result of the pressure destabilizing which held it in place. Call it whichever of those things you wanted, since both had an equal impact on what happened. Regardless, the chain pulled back and lifted in exact timing with the spear, until it touched his body. As soon as that link of chain touched his groin, it stopped moving. The resultant action of that caused the spear to just slide along the metal of the chain, never actually touching his body. Beatdown knew that would happen, but apparently the other didn’t fully understand what was going on.

Of course, this fight wasn’t much of a fight – and Beatdown was growing tired and weary of everything happening. It wouldn’t be much longer, though, and he’d be in the position he needed to be in to ensure a victory – all he had to do was wait out and survive one more attack. Could he do it? Well, if the man’s current prowess was any indication, then yes. Yes, he could. Easily. He prepared himself for what would likely be another spear-thrust, shifting most of his weight over to his left leg and tightening every muscle in his body.