"Make your report, and after call the council to my tent. NOW Deathbringer." ordered Darkness.
"Yes-s-s sir-r-r" stammered the nervous Durahan.

"Scout 1-9 report no trouble on the east and west sides, sir. However, there is a new army setting up camp to the North. Lord Nightstalker has already commanded the 20th and 30th battalions to come with him to their leader to invite them to join our army, sir. When I leave, shall I also tell Captains Visha and Roshiv to go assist Lord Nightstalker in case of war?"

"No, with Nightstalker there, there should be no trouble. Continue with the report please."

"Scouts 11-23 report many wild monsters, a band of pixies, and a scattering of hidden villages in the forest, sir. However, there is more sir ...
To the south coming from the valley of the river Yarse comes the entire fighting force of the White Paladins, sir. Scout 45 has reported a very tall man in armor with double-bladed katanas riding at the head of the army an-"

"WHAT! DID SCOUT 45 VERIFY WITH LORD TSAPKIRO THAT IT WAS INDEED DOUBLE KATANAS?"

"Yes-s-s sir."

"Alright, Deathbringer, you are dismissed. Don't forget to get my council"

"Soon we shall meet again in battle, my brother. And don't think you will walk away alive..."

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"Lord Tsapkiro"
"Present"
"Lord Miyama"
"Present"
"Lord Inferno"
"Present"

"Alright men. I've learned that my brother Hermes and his 'White Paladin' army is coming toward us from the south. Last time we faced them we were forced to retreat for lack of forces. However, we have grown much and I believe we can take them. Also, Lord Nightstalker is recruiting an army to the North and Lord Lynx is recruiting in the forest. This should add to our air forces and ground forces."

"As we know, the paladins are an all ground army. However, they have the power of magic and strength and can easily bring down flying forces. Which is why we meet them in battle on the ground in 3 days. If we make preparations for war tomorrow and move toward them the day after, we can make the battle ground at Vizel in 3 days, in time to catch them while on the move and slightly tired."

"If this sounds like an easy victory, its not. The enemy probably has seen us as well and is preparing for war. Add the fact that we are missing two of our lords and 4 battalions, and we are probably at a disadvantage. Be careful."

------------------------------------------------


Darkness stood atop a hilltop, surveying the scene before him. Monsters and men in black against men and monster in white struggled valiantly against one another. As he watched his three lords banded together to form a circle and move like a spinning top with blades extended out, only to be driven apart by a rampaging golem. A tiger lept into the air and used howl, flattening 2 white paladins to the ground before coming down with a spin attack, killing both. A large legion of white durahans crashed against a legion of black zans, the zans proving their superiority in battle as uppercut followed by uppercut to each durahan ended quickly with a giant hole in each one of them. The battle was going fine, it seemed.

But he still couldn't find his true enemy. He once again bounded into they melee, his own double- bladed swords first cutting a golem into 7 pieces, which promptly fell on a couple of horseless paladins. Jumping off the now useless pile of rocks he came down blades extended, right through the middle of a joker's mask. A cloud of purple gas created a haze that hindered sight for many in the vicinity.

Darkness had been waiting for this, as he was invulnerable to a joker's death haze and recovered quickly. He rushed forward, through the haze, blades extended, -

------------------------------------------------

Hermes watched from a pillbox in the ground as his brother sliced his monster's to smithereens, sending a sliced up golem onto his second in command, killing the unlucky man. "Curse you, f***er" he swore vehemently as he watched the mass carnage. Then he watched as the joker sent up the haze.... and rushed out of the ground, toward his oncoming brother, blades in a blocking position, feet steady, -

----------------------------------------------

"CLANG"

The sound resounded throughout the battlefield as both sides retreated to opposite sides of the field to watch their leaders battle in a traditional leader v. leader battle. It was the way of both armies to fight this way.

Darkness jumped backwards, sending off air shot after air shot toward the paladin and then propelling himself forward, blades outward in a zan's drill dive attack posture.

Hermes jumped around most of the air shots but getting knocked around by the mini-tornado created by some super-fast airshots that had combined. He looked up just in time to see a pair of blades. In a lightning fast motion he put up both his double katanas in a blocking motion, then pushed back, sending Darkness flying.

At this point both realized that this battle would last much longer then expected, so both tried some tricks to make it shorter. At once the sword fight was put on hold as magic spells flew through the air.

"BURST" yelled Hermes as Darkness was thrown upward by fiery explosions underneath him.

"MULTI-ELEMENT BLAST" muttered Darkness as lightning bolts, ice spikes, and fireballs erupted out of nowhere, blasting the ground was to smithereens.

As the monsters looked, they saw one problem.

Hermes wasn't there, and neither was Darkness.

Suddenly both appeared once more and commenced the sword fight. Darkness tried a series of slashes and kicks mixed in at the same time Hermes did an X-Blade attack, causing serious damage to both.

"Ceremonial fight?" asked Darkness as their blades once again locked together.

"Fine. Remember, no armor, no special swords, no magic, no stepping out of boundaries."

"Yea, yea," said Darkness as he drew a 20 x 20 foot ring in the dirt.

This time, the fight commenced with no special moves, magic, armor, and only one long sword as a weapon for each of them.

Darkness did a twirling motion and attempted a jab. Hermes parried and feinted, then slashed, leaving a light gash on Darkness' leg. Darkness, seeing his brother in a vulnerable state, slashed multiple times, drawing light and deep wounds with lots of blood.

"Curse you," snarled Hermes.

Hermes jumped back and tried an overreaching sword slash. Darkness hit the blade down and jumped forward, plunging his blade into his brother's heart, ending their feud once and for all.

"You forgot the first rule of fighting," commented Darkness to his dead brother.

"Don't lock your elbows"

------------------------------------------------


Darkness returned to camp and found a huge army awaiting him there, Lords Nightstalker and Lynx at the front.

"Sir, we recruited everyone from the forest and the army." they reported.

"Good, good. Deathbringer, how many troops did we get from the paladins and how many were lost in battle?"

"Sir, we gained 456, 219 troops from the White Paladin army at this time, and that's probably only half of the army. The rest are still in line to get issued ranks and army I.D.’s. However, we lost 56, 672 troops in battle sir."

"•••• IT. Alright Deathbringer, go help issue I.D.'s... were losing too many to war and although were getting lots of new troops, every life lost is still as valuable as anybody's life.

"Sir," said Inferno, Darkness's second in command. "Where do we go from here?"


"We head south," said Darkness. "We have to find out what terrified the White Paladin's enough to make them abandon their fortress and kingdom."


-I hope that's long enough, give me help and comments please.

Marked Improvement. You do have the makings of greatness.

Personally, after reading the prologue, I am amazed by the use of words like "vehemently" in this one. I was also impressed by the battle of the brothers, in that it is much better than my early ones were.

Of course, some mistakes will be noted in every story.

One thing that really gets under my skin is repeated words.

I.E. "Nightstalker has already commanded the 20th and 30th battalions to come with him to their leader to invite them to join our army, sir"

-too many 'to's. Maybe commas are in order?

When describing a fight, I find it easier to alternate name with breed or descriptions.

Another I.E. "Darkness did a twirling motion and attempted a jab. Hermes parried and feinted, then slashed, leaving a light gash on Darkness' leg. Darkness, seeing his brother in a vulnerable state, slashed multiple times, drawing light and deep wounds with lots of blood."

-Instead of saying 'Darkness' so much, try using 'the Dark Durahan' or 'The Durahan'

The really simple one was "It was the way of both armies to fight this way."

-You could have just put "It was the way of both armies to fight like this."

I refuse to believe you lack the creative aspects to fix these minor issues, and that is obvious by the rest of your writing.

FYI- 456, 219 is HUGE. Especially being half the forces of one army, so I don't see how they ALL managed to fall back to the sides for the combat to resolve. I know you've seen the Two Towers by now, and the Helm's Deep attacking army was only 10,000. The number you used just seemed totally unrealistic, to the point I couldn't even fathom him finding his brother at all, regardless of luck.

If my math is right, that being half, so add it to itself (The White Army, being 912,438), then add that number to itself again(The Black Army, since the opposing army needed to be equally, or at least close to, as big to do battle with it). So, that number grows to nearly 1,824,876 monsters there.

Not to mention the new monsters at the base, referred only as "huge". When you control almost Two Million soldiers and still call an army "huge", that is just too much. Especially since, by your intro, new armies are razed and destroied nightly, so how can this many soldiers even still be alive?

The only other complaint I have is lack of description. I have no idea what most, if not all, of the generals look like, or even what they are.

Ok, that is all I have. With very few (I actually only saw one) spelling error, now I look forward to what your future abilities will create, seeing you've done considerably better in just one chapter.

I'd say it's 100% better, but I'm afraid it's only **does calculations** 99.58732222222222222% better. Very good, although I agree with CHB on the numbers. I look foreward to chapter 2.

Thanks for the tips CHB
As for the armies i was trying to put up a number close to the size of the armies of germany and russia at Leningrad, but I think I added too many too now that I look back.
Thanks for the grammar tips as well.
If you dont have too much on your hands i would like to send my chapters to you for proofreading too
Thanks a lot.