Herd of Bandits Chapter 7

"I can see it now." General Stonewall Jackson started. He was looking around the land he had just conquered. "This is a place where a Union citizen can live the dream." He smiled at the thought of how easy it was to obtain the land. "Soon, people will settle here, and call t home. It will thrive under their new mayor." Jackson looked up and yelled. "General-"

"STONEWALL!" somebody in the distance screamed.

Jackson stared off into that direction. He could faintly see three figures on horseback, up a grassy hill.

"Thanks for taking away my only advantage, dumbass." Terry told Deacon. His face was nervous after seeing the army that stood before him. They were easily outnumbered two hundred to one.

"G-general Jackson."

In front of Jackson was a soldier, his shoulder was wounded.

"Two men stopped our assault at the village. They killed everyone before we could fully eradicate the Pedbony. I am all that’s left of that squad."

Jackson examined his wound. "It seems you have been grazed by a Goldenwood rifle."

"G-grazed?"

"Yes. If the shot would have hit you full on, your arm would have come clean off. But even if it was just a graze, you don’t have much of a shoulder left, your arm is hanging from a thread.

"Am- am I gonna die?" the soldier asked.

"From the wound? No. they probably can't save the arm, but your chances of survival are high."

Blam!

The soldier now had a huge cavity in his chest. His lifeless body crashed backwards. General Jackson's shotgun was out and the barrel was smoking.

"From failing me, yes. It was a fatal mistake."

"Deacon." Terry asked. "Do you seriously think we can do this?"

Deacon was just taking a long sip of his flask.

"How could you possibly be drinking at a time like this?" Terry asked.

"I drink all the time. Not just times like this." Deacon joked.

Terry just sulked in fear. He was interrupted by the flask being shoved in his face.

"c'mon, just a little sip." Deacon offered.

Terry was going to reject it, but after taking another look at the opposing force, he snatched it and took a long sip.

"Thanks." Terry said, he then tried to hand it to Deacon, who was racing down the hill with his horse.

Deacon veered off to the side to avoid the army. They were all trying to fire at him. Any soldier that had a decent shot was put down by Terry and his sniper. Deacon then spurred his horse so it bucked him off. He used this momentum to get farther away from the army and closer to Stonewall. He ran as fast as he could to The General. Jackson noticed this. He just smiled and lifted a hand. Deacon was soon interrupted by a massive stonewall planting itself into the ground, right in front of Deacon. He tried to move to the right, and a wall appeared there. His left the same, and behind him as well. Finally, he tried to jump up, but another wall capped him in. He was trapped.

"What the?" Terry said in disbelief. "Jackson can create stonewalls?"

Isi nodded. "He must have been bitten by the Cobblehead snake from out village.

"I didn’t think any of that was real." Terry said. Still in disbelief.

"I'm going in." Isi then declared.

"Wait what?"

Isi pushed Terry off his horse and then hopped on. "I'm going after Stonewall."

"Did you not just see what happened to Deacon?" Terry yelled. "You could get killed."

"Well I know what to expect, and will avoid it. " She said, and then she raced downhill. "Cover me."

Deacon grabbed his rifle and went prone on the ground. He focused his scope on the enemy.

Isi charged straight into the sea of enemies. A squad of soldiers lined up in typical union formation and aimed. Isi reigned the horse so it could stand on two legs. She did this right when the soldiers opened fire. The horse was devastated by the many bullets shot into it.

"I'm sorry." Isi said. She genuinely regretted having to use the tactic, but it was a sacrifice she had to make.

Before the horse collapsed, Isi jumped off of it and landed right in front of the squad of soldiers that shot it down. She had her war-club in her left hand, tomahawk in the right, and she held her knife with her mouth. A soldier pointed his bayonet at her, hoping that she would surrender. His hopes were crushed as Isi smacked his bayonet away with her club, and then buried her tomahawk into his chest. She dodged a stab coming from another soldier and then crushed his ribcage with her club. She rolled out of the way of a charging soldier. Who ended up stabbing his comrade instead. Isi took this chance to slice his neck with the edge of her tomahawk. She spun out of the way of another charging soldier, and then followed through by smashing her club against the back of his head. The rest of the squad retreated, but they ended up dropping like flies, one by one.

Terry was trying to make a clear path for Isi by strategically sniping specific people. Jackson noticed this, so he lifted his hand. Small walls started popping up in a straight line that led to Terry. He could feel the ground under him shaking. Before he could react. A large wall popped out from under him. This launched Terry upwards, and then he landed on his face against the top of the wall. He rolled off and fell several feet down to the ground.

Jackson just smiled. "Now I just have to deal with the Rosie-"

He noticed Isi was closing in on him. He lifted his hand again. The ground rumbled and stones started popping out. They all joined around his raised hand to form a wall that he tossed at Isi. She jumped and then slid over the wall. Another one was coming her way. She skillfully jumped on that one and launched herself at Jackson. While she was still in the air, she lifter her war-club over her head. She waited until she was directly above Jackson and slammed the club against his head with all her might.

"Ngh." Jackson grunted. The pain from the blow was great.

"Way to go Isi." Terry said. He then tried to get up, but he was severely injured from the wall.

"This is for the Tribe of Pedbony." She said. She was still forcing the club downwards, trying to inflict more pain. Unfortunately, this victory was short lived. The head of the club snapped off.

"Uh, what?" Isi thought. "How could it just break."

Jackson's face of pain turned into an evil smile. He quickly recovered and snatched Isi's throat with his big hands.

Isi still had her knife in her mouth. She spat it out and caught it with her hands. She then stabbed one of Jackson's arms, and his grip loosened. She shook off And landed right in front of him, gasping for air.

"Not bad." Stonewall said in a confident tone. "Maybe if I wasn't so powerful, you would have had me." He then made another stonewall from at his fingertips and then he tossed it at Isi.

The wall hit her flush and she crashed backwards against a tree. She ducked quickly and the wall snapped the tree in half. She had weakly roll out of the way to prevent from getting crushed by the tree.

"Isi!." Terry screamed. He then struggled to get to her. His injuries were slowing him down.

"Now, Time to end the pathetic Pedbony once and for all." Jackson said, he then started forming another wall.

CRASH!

The noise startled Jackson, he looked at its general direction and saw that there was a huge hole on the front of Deacon's prison. Dust was emanating from the hole. Soon Deacon walked through the hole. You could see the rage in his eyes.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" He screamed with his arms raised.

The scream caused chills to run down Stonewall's spine.

"D-Deacon?" Terry questioned. How did Deacon break out of the walls?

@mikesterman: I get what you're doing with the character, but taking the name of a real person, and completely changing everything about the way they were is a bit different from taking say, Batman, and changing everything about him. People are still going to hate that you changed Batman into a tutu wearing crimefighter, but if you make his ballet kick to the head cool, and can make it an interesting story about how the Joker and Two-Face were frustrated thespians in a town that hated special makeup effects, the readers will say, "Okay, cool fan-fic" (or God help us, "Cool Elseworlds tale"). Most importantly, the audience will accept Ballet-Batman if they still see the core characteristics of the Bruce Wayne/Batman we know in the normal comics.

Changing Abraham Lincoln into a werewolf or vampire hunter is still acceptable to a reader/viewer, because Lincoln's character will still be essentially the same as historical texts depict him. He's swinging axes at werewolves? But he's still Honest Abe? Okay, let's roll with it.

When you go the other way, and turn someone like Stonewall Jackson (generally seen as honorable and "the good guy" [from what I remember of my grade school lessons on him]) into a sadistic badman, critics are going to eat you alive. You need a real good reason why he's gone this direction, and the story has to be impeccable. If he's so different as to be unrecognizable, then the question is: WHY Stonewall Jackson? Why not "Brick Mason" or some other fictitious name?

I really, really think you should rethink your use of Stonewall before this story sees publication in your college newspaper (congrats on that again, btw). Assuming a lot of people read the college newspaper, I think you're going to draw a lot of criticism on your depiction of Stonewall (especially from the history majors). Even if they like the story- even if they like the weird stone-wall-making-and-throwing powers- they're going to roast you over Stonewall's characterization. I think you should seriously consider renaming the character.

Feel free to use "Brick Mason" if you want. ;)

@cbishop: i just took the fact that he was in the confederate army. Not much is said bad about him in his wiki, but nothing inherently good either. He pretty much seemed like a blank slate to me. (pun intended)

@mikesterman: Mannnn, a wiki is a good place to start, but don't let that be the full extent of your research when it comes to real things/events/people. Especially if you're going to show them in a bad light. If they're a bad person, fine, but if you don't know, find out more before you paint them as the face of oppression. I still think you'd be better off with a fictitious character for the role. Or use someone like Custer. No matter how bad you paint him, the readers know what his end is. ;)

@cbishop: even then its not really the historical figure, I literally took his name and made a completely different character, I'm doing the same with teddy Roosevelt and turning the rough riders into bandits.

@mikesterman: Correct- that version of Custer would not be the historical figure, BUT he actually died at the hands of Native Americans led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse who were determined not to be forced onto reservations by the US Army; something much closer to what you're going for in this story. I'm not suggesting you replace Jackson with Custer. I'm saying if you're going to use a historical figure in a fictitious context, at least pick one that makes sense.

On that note, Teddy and the RR's as bandits- why? Again, there's ways to twist historical figures and historical happenings to fictitious purposes. A minor but funny example is in Shakespeare In Love, when Queen Elizabeth walks up to a puddle and stops. All the men bowing suddenly realize what she's waiting on, and start to unstring their cloaks, but she walks through the puddle muttering, "Too late, too late." Funny, because we know Walter Raleigh did that for her, and was knighted.

Or the example of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter- still Abe, but thrown into the fantastic circumstance of having to kill vampires. They didn't throw in the racist trait of Abe killing them because they were an impure strain of the white race. That would have been too weird, even in a movie with vampires.

You can go the absurd route in portrayals of historical characters, like the historical people plucked from the timestream in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Let loose in a mall, Aristotle and Freud were fawning after teen girls, but rejected as dorks. Freud was holding a corn dog, which slowly lowered in his grip from an upright position in his hand. That's funny if you know what Freud is famous for. What would have been weird is if he suddenly tried to drown the girls in the mall fountain.

The point you are missing here is it's you have to leave the person's core intact when you make changes. Is Teddy and the Rough Riders as bandits going to show any hint of who Teddy and the RR's really were? If not, then why bother with Teddy and the RR's? It could just as well be Eddie and the Prairie Pirates. Same with Stonewall Jackson.

Well, that's my two cents on it.