do they still do an exist on this site

i do this every 5-6 months

not every year

i should prolly start doing more on the site

at this point, even ILS is outproducing me and he's powered by plants of all things. guy living off the diet of a koala, sleeping sixty hours a day, is making more shite than me

disgraceful that be

i'm making my own Darth Caedus respect thread. it'll be out on my fiftieth birthday and still be here a few centuries earlier than Ant's

seriously though: getting better and more consistent internet at my house soon, and i'm going to try and be getting back into Comicvine stuff. hopefully will make more respect threads in the future to get more people interested in the Acts of Caine and finally get that Windu thread out, along with a few others (like Saber of Red, Lancer of Black, some Fate characters, Arya and Galby, and a few others)

From the Acts of Caine, Berne is one of the main villains of Heroes Die, the first book in the series. Born to a Monastic official, Berne was raised and trained to be a weapon in his father's vendetta against the non-human races. Berne didn't want to do that however, and at seventeen, he attacked and beat his father into unconsciousness, before taking his sword, his horse, all his gold, and a jug of wine and setting off into the world. For ten years, before the events of the first book, Berne traveled, doing whatever he wanted. Notable things include: torturing two women to death, sexually assaulting another whilst simultaneously torturing her, and kicking the shit out of the main character.

As of Heroes Die, he's came into the service of Ma'elKoth, and become his personal assassin and favored servant.

Berne has no singular description, and instead various snippets are scattered throughout to the book, so I'll just be doing a rundown on his appearance, since I'm too lazy to actually go through the book, and find them: apparently has perfect features, blue eyes, blond hair, tall, extremely muscular, wears faded red clothing of serge, wears Kosall strapped across his back.

With that out of the way, respect Berne.

Combat Skill

Ma'elKoth claims that Berne is so-far-and-away better than Caine, that Caine besting him was a logical impossibility, and only happened due to it being more-or-less fated to occur.

“Doubly fools,” Tan’elKoth said. They were repeating themselves; redundancy is the hallmark of muddy thinking. “He does have power. One power: the power to devote himself absolutely to a single goal, to be ruthless with himself and all else in its pursuit. It is the only power he needs—because, unlike the great mass of men, he is aware of this power, and he is willing, even happy, to use it.” Tan’elKoth leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers before his face; he had been a professor for enough years that he fell into his lecture mode without thinking. “Men like Caine—and, if I may say so, myself—exert a certain pressure upon history; when we set ourselves a goal and extend our energies to achieve it, the force of history itself organizes into a current at our backs. You might call it destiny, though that is an inadequate word for a power of this magnitude. On Overworld, one can even see it: a dark stream in the Flow that organizes the interplay of historical necessities—the interplay which the ignorant call chance .”

[...]

“Puffery. Mere details. When saving the life he willed to save required that he defeat in single combat the greatest warrior of his time, he did so. Forget that this man was Caine’s master in every form of battle; forget that Berne, even unarmed, could have killed him in his sleep without breaking the rhythm of his snoring. Remember that Berne wielded a weapon that was legendary : Kosall, the unstoppable blade. Remember that Berne was Gifted with Strength far beyond human, and defenses that could make his skin impervious as steel. Remember that when Caine faced him he was bruised, and battered, half crippled—and poisoned —and still . . .” Tan’elKoth let his voice trail away significantly.

Blade of Tyshalle

Ma'elKoth claims that Berne is the greatest warrior warrior of his time, is Caine's superior in every form of battle, and that even while unarmed and asleep, he could easily best Caine. Though obvious hyperbole, it does indicate that Ma'elKoth perceives Berne as far superior to Caine, despite having intimate knowledge of both's capabilities.

“Puffery. Mere details. When saving the life he willed to save required that he defeat in single combat the greatest warrior of his time, he did so. Forget that this man was Caine’s master in every form of battle; forget that Berne, even unarmed, could have killed him in his sleep without breaking the rhythm of his snoring. Remember that Berne wielded a weapon that was legendary : Kosall, the unstoppable blade. Remember that Berne was Gifted with Strength far beyond human, and defenses that could make his skin impervious as steel. Remember that when Caine faced him he was bruised, and battered, half crippled—and poisoned —and still . . .” Tan’elKoth let his voice trail away significantly.

Blade of Tyshalle

Ma'elKoth states that Berne was the finest swordsman of his age, perhaps of any age.

His voice boomed off the walls of stone. “Berne was the finest swordsman of his age—perhaps of any age. Combat skill—like any other physical skill, even walking and talking—is a matter of reflex conditioning. An animated corpse of Berne would still have the skills of a superior swordsman, even without the higher cognitive functions that govern tactics. And, of course, they also took Kosall.”

Blade of Tyshalle

Caine states that Berne's technique and balance are better than his, and later on, that Berne is too good and that nothing he does seems to matter to him and that he couldn't beat Berne on his best day.

He’s vastly stronger than I am, inhumanly fast, his technique and balance are better than mine, and he has a sword that’ll cut through anything. Not to mention that this Buckler thing of his makes him virtually invulnerable.

[...]

He’s too strong; he’s too f*****g good. Nothing I do seems to matter to him. I couldn’t beat him on my best day.

Heroes Die

Berne was obviously superior to Caine.

The image freezes for an extended discussion of magickally enhanced strength and reflexes, and the curious “Berne’s Buckler” effect, and joking references to Caine’s either astonishing daring or extraordinary foolishness in facing an obviously superior opponent.

Heroes Die

Berne's swordsmanship was legendary.

His colorless tone, as much as the words themselves, brought rising purple to Berne’s face. Toa-Sytell was fairly sure that he couldn’t survive an attack from the Count; before his ennoblement a few months ago, Berne had been a notorious freebooter whose swordsmanship was legendary.

Heroes Die

He’d been created Count only a few months before, but Kierendal’s sources informed her that he was one of the new Emperor’s closest confidants—some reports claimed he was Ma’elKoth’s personal assassin—and he was known to command the Grey Cats. Every time she looked at him, Kierendal well believed the tale that Berne had received Monastic training—his instinctive weight-forward balance and perfect kinesthetic awareness were both convincing and unsettling. His swordplay was already legendary: he never wore armor in battle or duel, depending solely on his blade-skills for defense.Heroes Die

Even at age seventeen, there were few men who'd care to stand against Berne with a blade, and even fewer who could survive to the count of ten.

At the age of seventeen, he’d finally shown his father how well his training had worked. He beat the old bastard into unconsciousness, took the old man’s sword, all his gold, a jug of wine, and his best horse and headed for the city. He’d quickly discovered that there were few men who’d even care to stand against him with a blade, and nearly none that could survive to the count of ten; he’d never had any difficulty putting his hands on money.

Heroes Die

Berne was unquestionably one of the most dangerous men in the Empire, and it was widely said that no one lived to cross him twice.

Whatever the truth about him might be, he was unquestionably one of the most dangerous men in the Empire. It was widely said that no one had ever lived to cross him twice.

Heroes Die

Berne fights Talann to a stalemate, likely having an edge over her should the battle carry on further, and kills her by running her through when her concentration slips. Talann just prior killed five Cats, the best troops in the Empire, easily killed Mikli who, on top of being a Cat, was personally trained by and praised as a superb swordsman by Berne. She is also the most skilled combatant Berne had ever fought.

“Come on, then,” he said. “Whenever—”

She sprang at him, her neck cut so fast he barely saw the blade move. He made no attempt to parry, just shifted his Buckler to protect the joining of his neck and shoulder. Her borrowed sword rang as though she’d struck metal, and her eyes widened. He shifted his Buckler to his hand and grabbed her blade. She tried to yank the blade away, to slide it slicing through his fingers, but his magickally strengthened grip held it as though it had been driven into stone. He laughed and cut at her arm with Kosall. She released the blade in time to save her arm and dropped into a back-roll away from him, coming to her feet and staring with widened eyes out of which that manic confidence swiftly drained.

Berne flipped her sword into the air and sliced it in half with a stroke of Kosall. The pieces rang on the limestone and skittered away.

“Tell me,” Berne said in his richest, oiliest voice, “are you starting to think you might have made a mistake?”

[...]

THE WILD-ASS BITCH drew her knives and came at him again, flourishing them in an intricate flurry, blank translucent concentration on her face. Berne let her come, waiting; when she came within Kosall’s reach he cut at her head. She slipped beneath the stroke—for all his magicked strength, Kosall was a large and rather unwieldly weapon.

As she drove in under the cut, Berne whipped a straight-leg roundhouse kick at her ribs while holding his Buckler across his solar plexus to stop her knife thrust. Her point slashed through his shirt and skirred across his skin, and his roundhouse crumpled her like a doll, lifting her off her feet and sending her rolling across the bridge.

She rose unsteadily, blood on her lips. His kick had probably ruptured something in her midsection. But she offered a grin that displayed her bloody teeth, and she pointed to his leg. “You’re not invulnerable,” she said.

Berne looked down. She’d cut his leg, the leg he’d kicked her with, with the other blade. The cut was shallow, only a skin-deep slice: his serge breeches soaked up the blood that seeped into them. “Maybe not,” he replied, “but I’m a long f*****g way closer to it than you are."

Now for the first time, he advanced, attacking, slashing. She was a ghost, even injured: with more than human speed and grace she slipped away and around every stroke, never parrying, never blocking, avoiding Kosall’s irresistible edge by inches.

It became a dance, a whirling ballet, and sweat began to prickle across Berne’s forehead and shoulders. She’d lean back to let Kosall sizzle past the end of her nose, then whip forward, both knives slashing, to score another thin line of blood across Berne’s body before he could recover for the backstrike. She was the most extraordinary fighter he’d ever seen , let alone faced, but skill is only one element of battle. Her skill wouldn’t save her forever—the internal injury that brought a trail of blood down her chin to her chest would tire her, and slow her.

Berne had no doubt of the outcome.

It ended with unexpected swiftness. Practically in midlunge Berne saw her concentration slip, saw her mouth drop open and her eyes go wide. He leaned into the lunge, and sweet release flooded his body as Kosall’s thrumming blade entered her belly through the golden skin just below her navel, thrusting in to the very hilt.

She said, “Oh, Great Mother . . .”

Berne pressed his body against her slackening flesh, and he kissed her on her bloody lips, savoring their soft fullness and the copper taste of her blood. Then he stepped back and twisted Kosall’s hilt so that the blade sliced outward through her side, opening a massive, gaping wound, from which spilled her uncoiling intestines. She gasped and fell to her knees. Berne stepped back, panting, and watched her fingers gingerly explore the huge extent of the mortal wound, this incredible gape that split her front to back, watched her follow the ropes of her guts out onto the dirt and grit of the bridge span. Her face was utterly blank with disbelief.

Heroes Die

“You have to deal with the Cats,” I tell him flatly. “The Cats are the best troops in the Empire—not just man-to-man, but running small-unit tactics, too. Everybody’s afraid of them: shit, they can hold the army together by sheer terror, if they want. Nobody wants to cross the Cats."Heroes Die

The Catseye smiled through his silver netting as he drew his sword. “My pleasure, my lord Count.” He slipped the hood off his head and gave a happy sigh.

He stepped out onto the middle of the bridge to wait for her, balancing his weight forward with his knees slightly bent. Mikli was a superb swordsman; he’d always been lightning fast and very precise, and for the past few months, Berne had personally overseen his training. Berne had no doubt that Mikli would perform exactly as ordered.

The wild-ass bitch never slowed. She sprinted straight for him as though she planned to run him down. At the last instant Mikli slipped to one side and cut at the back of her neck as she passed, swinging with the flat of his blade for the quick knockout. Once again, her almost prescient reflexes saved her: she threw herself under his strike into a dive roll that brought her to her feet with her back to Mikli, only a couple of paces from Berne.

She gave him a grin that held no hint of reason. “First him,” she said to Berne, violet eyes burning with manic fire. “Then you. Don’t go anywhere.”

“And miss this?” Berne said with an answering grin, keeping his eyes on her so as not to warn her of Mikli’s swift approach at her back. “Never.”

She lifted her hands as though to show Berne the pair of knives that she held reversed, their blades along her forearm; then she whirled and cut at Mikli’s leg as he fired a side kick at her spine. Her knife-edged forearm parried the kick, but the wire that reinforced Mikli’s leather leggings turned the blade. He followed with a slanting neck cut that she blocked with the knife along her left forearm as she stepped into him and sliced down with her right, hooking his sword wrist between the blade and her forearm. A push with her left while she pulled with her right twisted the sword out of his grasp, but she paid for it: Mikli was too experienced to try to hang on to the sword. Instead he let it go and slammed his doubled elbow into the side of her head.

She rolled with the blow, letting it drive her to the ground; then her legs shot out and tangled Mikli’s ankles, and he fell. As he twisted to turn the fall into a roll, the wild-ass bitch backhanded the point of a knife deep into the base of his skull. It went in with a crunch; bone and ligament crackled as she twisted it out, neatly severing Mikli’s spine.

Heroes Die

“Y’know, little girl, I’m starting to think you might be good enough to dance with me.” She slipped her knives back behind her belt and picked up Mikli’s sword as she rose. She nudged his body with her toe.

“I’d imagine he’d agree with you, if he could. So would my last four dance partners, back down there on the boat.”

“Five?” Berne said, eyebrows lifting, pretending to be impressed as his juices began to flow, his heartbeat picked up, and heat gathered in his loins. He pulled Kosall free of its scabbard by the quillions, and only then did he activate its magick by grasping the hilt; a second later its humming vibrated up his arms and into his teeth. “Five of my boys already today?"

Heroes Die

Years prior to becoming Ma'elKoth's favorite, Berne engaged Caine, and defeated him, severely wounding his leg and forcing him to retreat.

The big scar, from his right hip down his thigh, the one that slowed those kicks—that one he’d gotten from Berne.

Heroes Die

“I am not sure,” Ma’elKoth said. “He’s had a spectacular career, certainly.” He shrugged massively and laid his huge hand upon Berne’s shoulder. “Perhaps his peculiar quality can be summed in this way: he’s the only man ever to face you in single combat, Berne, and escape with his life.
A smile flickered onto Berne’s thin lips. “Only because he can run like a bastard jackrabbit.”
Ma’elKoth took Berne’s other shoulder as well, and looked searchingly down into the Count’s face. “I tell you this: you are not that same man. With the Gifts that I have given you, he will not escape you again.”

Berne reached up to stroke the hilt of Kosall; it answered his touch with a dangerous buzz, muffled within its scabbard. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

Heroes Die

“He fought Caine—he fought Caine again , just two or three days ago, in a brothel in Alientown. The Subjects were talking about it last night. Caine lost. Again.”Heroes Die

Berne fights and defeats an injured and poisoned Caine handily. Near the beginning of the fight, Berne nearly kills Caine by taking advantage of him looking away, then Berne nearly kills Caine again as Caine is running. Then Caine cheapshots Berne and stabs a knife into his hip joint, breaking the blade off in it, and causing pain that Caine describes as unimaginable and would render a normal man unconscious. Berne seemingly shrugs this off, and forces Caine back. Caine then steps into ranges too close for Berne to use Kosall, forcing the bout into hand-to-hand, where Berne defeats Caine in just over a second, and almost snaps his neck before Caine gets a hand on Kosall and cuts off Berne's toes. Berne then casts Caine aside like a ragdoll, and Caine admits that even on his best day, he would be unable to best Berne.

Worth noting, Caine had destiny behind him, and was more-or-less fated to defeat Berne. Had this not been the case, Ma'elKoth states that Berne would of easily beaten Caine.

“What the f**k,” he says, raising his voice above the wind. “I’m nothing if not flexible. You first, then.”

He lifts Kosall and regards its shimmering edge. “Y’know, I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

“Yeah, me too.” I hook his ankle with my instep and stamp the side of his knee, but he’s seen that one and it nearly costs me my leg. He bends the joint to absorb the impact, slicing down toward my thigh with Kosall, and I only barely throw into the back-roll in time. I go over my back to my feet while he’s pulling an arm’s length of Kosall out of the sand.

I back away from him, glancing at the ground around my feet so that I don’t trip over one of the cowering soldiers. He comes for me, stalking cat-footed, holding the blade loosely canted at a high angle between us. The smile on his face looks like what people must see on mine before I kill them.

It’s not much fun from this side.

Thunder cracks over our heads, and the flashing glare of lightning above tells me that the other fight, the important one, is still going on: Pallas and Ma’elKoth, duking it out in front of twenty thousand terrified witnesses. Nobody’s watching Berne and me.

Nobody cares about this dirty little grudge match.

No blaze of glory for me.

He’s vastly stronger than I am, inhumanly fast, his technique and balance are better than mine, and he has a sword that’ll cut through anything. Not to mention that this Buckler thing of his makes him virtually invulnerable.

I’m gonna kill him anyway. I have to. Because Pallas has no attention to spare for him, and there’s nothing but me between them.

I glance around, and he comes for me in a lightning lunge, covering three meters in less than an eye blink; Kosall’s point sizzles through my tunic, parting the leather without resistance, as I twist aside barely in time. I take his wrist lightly as he passes me, pulling him along to draw his balance, and then clothesline him with a forehand chop at his throat.

He drops his chin and takes it on the mouth—I don’t even draw blood—but his boots skid on the wet sand and he goes down on his back. No point in trying to take advantage: I can’t hurt him and he can muscle out of any pin. I whirl away and run as fast as my limping legs can carry me.

“Hey, Caine?” he calls mockingly from behind me. “You used to be able to outrun me!”

And he’s right on my ass already. I can hear his booted lope, but I’m almost there, almost to the spot I’d found with that risky glance. His Monastic training saves my life—as he swings for the back of my neck, he exhales a sharp chuff , like a ki-ya . I dive into a forward shoulder-roll. Kosall hisses through the space that my neck just vacated, and when I come up, the net is in my hand.

Berne stops and cocks his head, still smiling. “What do you think you’re going to do with that?”

“Recognize this, Berne?” I say. “This is the one four of your boys died watching.”

“So?” I draw a long, chisel-bladed fighting knife from its scabbard below my armpit. “So I’ve been saving it to kill you with.”

He snorts. Lightning flares and thunder crashes. “Come on, then.”

So I do. I don’t cast the net over him, as I did to Ma’elKoth. Berne is a born fighter, a natural warrior, and I’d never catch him like that. Instead I use his incredible reflexes against him: I snap the net like a whip at his head. He disdainfully blocks it with Kosall, but he hasn’t carried this blade very long, not long enough to retrain himself: he blocks the net with Kosall’s edge. It slices right through, so instead of wrapping around the blade, about half the net splashes across his face. In that half-second reflexive blink, I lunge with the knife. He knows how I fight.

He knows I favor the heart, and so I stay away from it—that’s where he will have focused that Buckler of his. Instead I lowline him and shove a foot of cold steel through his groin right into his hip joint.

The hilt vibrates against my palm as the blade grates on bone. Berne gasps and gives a lover’s low moan. I jam the knife in deeper, right into the joint. As his superstrength muscles clamp down around the injury, I wrench the knife downward, leaning on it with all my weight.

The hilt snaps off in my hand. He looks at me in white-faced astonishment: he can’t believe how badly I’ve hurt him.

I drop the hilt with its stub of blade. I reach inside my tunic for my other fighting knife and between my shoulder blades for my wedge-pointed thrower.

And Kosall flashes down toward my head.

I throw myself to the side out of its path, but I feel an impact on my boot as I dive away: half my boot heel and a thumb-sized chunk of my own heel are sliced away in a fraction of a second. I scramble back, and Berne comes for me, snarling his agony with every step.

I can’t believe he can even stand , let alone walk, and now, beyond reason, he breaks into a running fleche —!

Again I throw myself sideways and roll away. My god, my god, that was my best shot . Any normal man would have fainted from the pain, and this would have been over . . .

“Run, Caine,” he rasps, hoarse with agony. “I can still catch you. I can still kill you. Go on, run.” I believe him. Despite the knife blade scoring the bones and slicing the cartilage in his hip joint—causing what kind of pain I can’t even imagine—he doesn’t seem slowed at all.

I’m gonna have to take him inside.

I stand and wait for him.

Kosall is a heavy weapon, and Berne’s magickal muscles don’t entirely compensate; swinging a blade that size shifts your balance in ways that have nothing to do with strength. He’s not lunging this time—maybe that knife blade in the joint has that much effect.

He slides his feet forward, keeping his weight perfectly centered as he lifts the blade in a short semicircular arc.

“That fighting girl, that friend of Pallas’,” he says, straining for a conversational tone, “she was better than you are.

” I shrug. “She was worth both of us, Berne.”

“Pretty, too. Did you f**k her?”

I let him think it’s working, the cretin: I force heat into my voice. “You sonofabitch, I’ll—”

And that’s all I have time for as he comes for me again. He thought he was taking me off guard, but in fact it’s the other way around. I slip Kosall’s lethal humming edge and step into him, knife blades reversed along my forearm. There are a couple things that you just can’t learn in abbey school. One of them is kali.

Suddenly I’m close enough to kiss him. As he tries to step back and slice with the sword, I stay right with him, my body against his, blocking at his wrist with the blade of my knife while the other one slices at his neck. His Buckler turns my blade from his neck, but the other cuts deep into his arm.

He snarls into my face, but he’s nothing if not adaptable. When I try the same trick again, only this time at his face and his heart for the death he drops Kosall and gets his hands in close, taking the cuts on his wrists. We stand nose to nose for one eternal second while our hands fly in lethal flurries; blood sprays, and it’s not mine, but he’s faster than I am and he slips a short hook onto the side of my head that shoots stars across my vision, follows it with a twisting roundhouse knee to my side that breaks a couple ribs with dull internal pops, and the next thing I know he’s got hold of my head and he’s gonna break my neck. He’s too f*****g strong, I can’t hold him but there’s Kosall upright in the sand—I get my hand on the hilt and feel the buzzing tingle. I can just barely drag it across his foot, and his toes fall away, and I’m flying one way while Kosall goes another.

Flying, tumbling through the air, I land skidding through the sand.

He cast me aside like a bored child throws a doll.

I struggle up, coughing blood—the sharp ends of those broken ribs must have ripped into my lung—but he’s not coming after me. He’s got Kosall again, and his back’s to me because he’s limping over toward Pallas.

She shines above us, a star against the storm, the center of a firestorm of lightnings and energy bolts that fly freely, seemingly from all directions.

Berne, Tyshalle damn his rotting heart, has somehow matured enough to get his priorities straight.

Once she’s gone, I’m no threat at all.

He’s too strong; he’s too f*****g good. Nothing I do seems to matter to him.

I couldn’t beat him on my best day.

Heroes Die

“Doubly fools,” Tan’elKoth said. They were repeating themselves; redundancy is the hallmark of muddy thinking. “He does have power. One power: the power to devote himself absolutely to a single goal, to be ruthless with himself and all else in its pursuit. It is the only power he needs—because, unlike the great mass of men, he is aware of this power, and he is willing, even happy, to use it.” Tan’elKoth leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers before his face; he had been a professor for enough years that he fell into his lecture mode without thinking. “Men like Caine—and, if I may say so, myself—exert a certain pressure upon history; when we set ourselves a goal and extend our energies to achieve it, the force of history itself organizes into a current at our backs. You might call it destiny, though that is an inadequate word for a power of this magnitude. On Overworld, one can even see it: a dark stream in the Flow that organizes the interplay of historical necessities—the interplay which the ignorant call chance .”

[...]

“Puffery. Mere details. When saving the life he willed to save required that he defeat in single combat the greatest warrior of his time, he did so. Forget that this man was Caine’s master in every form of battle; forget that Berne, even unarmed, could have killed him in his sleep without breaking the rhythm of his snoring. Remember that Berne wielded a weapon that was legendary : Kosall, the unstoppable blade. Remember that Berne was Gifted with Strength far beyond human, and defenses that could make his skin impervious as steel. Remember that when Caine faced him he was bruised, and battered, half crippled—and poisoned —and still . . .” Tan’elKoth let his voice trail away significantly.

Blade of Tyshalle

In just over a second, Berne kills Jak and Dak. Jak and Dak are praised as two of the best swordsman in the Empire, and are said to be unbeatable in close-quarters when fighting together.

The crossbows’ flat whacks are barely audible through the roar of the spinning wood. Only two quarrels make it through the cloud of wood into the apartment—but one of them slams into Dak’s shin. These quarrels mass roughly two hundred-fifty grams of solid forged steel, and they hit like a sledgehammer; Dak’s shin shatters, and he goes down with a cry, clawing at his brother’s shoulders. Jak turns to take his arm and carry him, and that’s when Berne dives into the room like a bloodstained thunderbolt.

His dive becomes an acrobatic roll, and he comes to his feet with his sword in his hands. I frantically reverse the direction of the flying wood, but long before I can bring it back into play, Berne spins and his blade opens a gaping wound across the nape of Dak’s neck before the wounded Twin even knows Berne’s in the room. Dak’s head flops forward, spraying blood across his brother’s face, and Jak howls like a damned thing, trying to drop his brother and bring up his sword at the same time. Berne’s already reversed his blade for an over-the-elbow backstrike, and he drives its chisel point through Jak’s open mouth and out the back of his head.

In just over a second, he’s killed two of the best swordsmen in the Empire.

Heroes Die

Dak and Jak grew up in the gladiatorial pens, they’ve been fighting as a team since they were six years old: in this kind of crushing close-quartersHeroes Die

Berne holds an edge over Caine during their skirmish in Alien Games, easily overpowering him and then disarming him of his fighting knife, before they're broken up.

But, on the other hand, Berne has his back to me.

I’m nimble enough, even at a flat sprint, to dodge around the bigger men on the floor, and I’m strong enough to flatten and overrun the smaller. I trail a spreading wake of shouts and confusion, but I’ve gone hypersonic, as it were: I outrun the noise of my passing.

Berne has warning enough only to barely begin the turning of his head before I reach the brass rail around the bones pit and launch myself over it like a javelin. I stiffen my neck in the air and spear him, the top of my head to the side of his jaw. My arms tangle in his, and we tumble over the bones field scattering gold and dice in all directions. The other players scatter, shouting incoherent surprise, and the table goes down in splinters. By the time we skid off what’s left of it to hit marble steps on the other side, I can hear the pit boss’silver whistle piping a shrill alarm that’ll bring the ogres at a run.

I don’t care: I landed on top.

The edges of the steps crashing against his spine had to hurt like a bitch, and his muscles loosen into stunned slackness. I lock up his legs with mine and get a forearm under his chin to force his head back and cut off his wind. His eyes go from glaze to focus almost instantly, and he mouths: You, and the half-buried flicker of fear that passes over his face calls to something elemental inside me, a volcanic surge up from the base of my spine that thunders in my ears and shades my vision scarlet.

“You bet your f*****g ass it’s me.” I create additional emphasis with a hammer-hand that crushes and spreads his perfect nose wide across his cheekbones. Blood sprays; it’s on my fist, all over his face, it’s on my lips, I can smell it and taste it and I no longer care if I die in the next breath so long as I go to my grave with my teeth in his throat.

So I hit him again.

He struggles beneath me, but I’ve got him now and there’s no way I’m gonna let him go. I slam his head into the curving step, and again, and again and again; the purple-veined marble is now artistically spattered with the crimson of Berne’s blood.

But he’s still conscious, and now he’s smiling up at me with those smeary lips and reddened teeth, and I have to choose between continuing to beat on him or just cutting his throat because those ogres will haul me off him in about ten seconds, and having to make that choice brings me back to something resembling rationality.

At about this time I realize he’s been pounding the side of my head with his doubled elbow. He can’t get any force behind it, lying down like that; he’s doing it mostly to distract me from his other hand, which is sliding up my neck to hook a thumb toward my eye.

As he swings again I rear back out of his elbow’s path and grab his upper arm, twisting him on around so his back’s to me now, pinning his scabbarded sword with my chest. The hair on the back of his head is matted with blood from a single cut where his scalp split against the edge of the step. I lock my legs around his again and roll us both over faceup just in time—the pair of ogres, who were winding up for free shots at my back, lower their morningstars uncertainly.

My left arm snakes around Berne’s face, over his eyes, to pull his head back while my right hand draws one of the long fighting knives jugular, and windpipe. He has no chance to survive, and he knows it.

I whisper in his ear, “Tell them to back off.”

“Back off,” he croaks. He coughs a wad of blood out of his throat, and his voice gets stronger and more confident. “Caine’s an old friend of mine. We’re not really fighting—this is just how we say hello.”

[...]

I don’t really need to know these answers badly enough to make listening to his shit worth my time, so I jam the knife into his neck.

The knife’s point skids off his skin as though his flesh has become tool-grade steel.

Stupidly I try to stick him again in the same place—I just can’t believe it didn’t work—and when it skids off again I waste a full second staring like an idiot at this blade that has betrayed me.

I begin to understand why he’s not scared. I think I’m in trouble.

Berne says in a voice bright but silky soft, “And now, for my next trick . . .”

He reaches back and takes my left shoulder with one hand in a grip so crushing it doesn’t even hurt: my whole arm goes numb. Then he peels me off him with irresistible strength—no art involved, just a long, smooth yank—and he comes to his feet and holds me dangling in the his air.

“I was always was better than you,” he says. “But now I’m the favorite of Ma’elKoth. He’s made me faster, vastly stronger—and invulnerable . Ma’elKoth created the spell just for me; he calls it Berne’s Buckler. You like it?”

I kick him in the face, a short Thai-jab that smacks the ball of my foot into his broken nose, and he laughs at me. He catches my crotch with his free hand and lifts me flailing up high.

And he throws me over the heads of the crowd.

Up, out of the bones pit, arcing high—he must be stronger than the ogres that stand staring dumbly at my flight. I tumble through the air while people try to duck out of my path.

My body can sort out the landing on its own; my full attention is consumed with how I’m going to beat him.

By the time I crash into a knot of gamblers and we all go down to a surprisingly soft landing, I’ve come to a couple conclusions.

One, strength alone won’t help him for shit against my knives, and—

Two, if this invulnerability of his was all he’d like me to think it is, I wouldn’t have been able to break his nose.

I can still beat him; I just have to alter my tactics to meet a changed situation. I have a hypothesis about this magick that protects him—and like any good scientist, I have an experiment in mind to turn this hypothesis into a theory.

The people I’ve landed on thrash away from me in a tangle of limbs, knocking me around a little, so I’m still fighting to gain my feet as the crowd parts and Berne vaults the rail of the bones pit. He wipes his bloody lips with the back of his hand and stalks toward me.

“You’re a lucky man, Caine,” he says. “I made a promise—”

The best time to catch a man off guard is while he’s talking—too much of his attention is on what he’s going to say next. Still on my knees, I cross-draw my throwing knives from the sheaths on my thighs and flip them both spinning backhand.

There’s no force behind this kind of throw, but force isn’t what I need. The one from my numbed and weakened left goes high, toward his face, and he slaps the whirling blade irritably aside—but it doesn’t cut his hand because that’s where he’s instinctively focused this defense of his. The other knife, that’s the one that warms my homicidal heart: it hits his leg an inch above the knee, slices his magenta hose, and cuts the skin beneath.

It’s only a little cut, a thin line of swelling crimson droplets, a hardly noticeable scratch—but he looks down at it, and I look at him, and when his eyes come back up I see the faintest perceptible twitch of uncertainty at their corners.

That unlocks a rushing within my mind, a waterfall of wind like God sucking in an endless breath, as the entire universe narrows down to Berne, me, and the three meters of open floor between us.

I stand.

I draw my one remaining fighting knife.

“He that lives by the sword shall die by my knife,” I tell him. “That’s prophecy, if you like.”

And I can see something else in his eyes now: the frenzy. He’s gone blood simple.

It's like looking in a mirror.

He says, inexplicably, “F**k Ma’elKoth.”

He springs at me, and I leap to meet him. He makes the over-the-shoulder draw so fast his hands are barely a flicker of motion. No subtlety here: he’s slicing at the joining of my neck and shoulder. My knife meets his sword in a two-handed rising parry that forces the arc of his blade over my head. The knife buzzes in my hand, sending unsettling shock through my arm and shoulder to my teeth.

I backhand the knife with my right to rake the point across his eyes, and miss by a handbreadth. I continue the motion into a diving side roll, and Berne comes after me, slashing, the air singing a tooth-grinding whine as his blade cuts through the carpet and into the floor beside my head as though the planks are soft cheese. I hook his ankle with my toe and kick his knee; he bends his leg to take it so the joint doesn’t break, but it brings him to the floor.

I kip to my feet and now I understand why my backhanded slash missed his eyes—my knife is about five inches too short , its blade sheared off three fingers above the guard, bright new steel gleaming like chrome along the cut edge.

His sword—sweet shivering f**k, that’s Kosall . . .

The realization freezes me for a scant second, long enough for him to reach his feet. A smooth croisé brings me into range and I chamber my leg for a side kick to knock him down again—

And a huge, blunt-clawed hand grabs my arm from behind and yanks me back and up into the air.

Heroes Die

Berne casually kills four Knights of Cant, and Abbal Paslava.

Light flared in the chamber above him, and five heads became visible as men peered down the shaft at him.

[...]

Once the blade cleared the scabbard, he took its hilt, and Kosall whined to tooth-grinding life.

Paslava’s eyes bulged.

Berne grinned and waved up at him with the humming blade. “You’re not the only one with a griffinstone.”

Paslava shouted, “Shoot! Shoot him now!” but before the Knights of Cant with him could bring their bows to bear, Berne bent his knees and sprang out of the well with a single leap. The Knights all ducked as he shot upward like a quarrel from a crossbow’s slot. He arced high over one ducking Knight and split the man’s skull from base to crown with a single backhanded swipe of Kosall.

He somersaulted in the air and landed gracefully poised. The dead Knight collapsed slowly to his knees, then tumbled forward into the well behind him.

He turned and leveled the blade at Paslava while the other Knights scrambled back and went for their swords. “Come on, then,” he said cheerfully. “Fight or run. You’re dead just the same. I don’t have all day.”

Berne did not consider himself an intellectual, or even an intelligent man; he preferred to leave thinking to men who were good at it, like Ma’elKoth or Toa-Sytell. Nonetheless, a question of the sort that he generally didn’t bother to consider sparked within his brain as he killed first one, then another of the terrified Knights of Cant. By the time he casually, rather distractedly slaughtered the third, this question had acquired real significance: it was a puzzler, and he suspected that its answer was somehow vital in a way he could not, yet, understand.

So it was that when he pounced on the fleeing Paslava and sliced the thaumaturge’s leg off precisely through the middle of his knee joint—so that Paslava tumbled to the ground in a screeching spray of blood, skidding his jetting stump along the jagged limestone—Berne did not finish him immediately.

Instead, he seized the thaumaturge by the thigh on his half leg, his strengthened grip cutting into the muscle until the arterial spray of blood diminished to a trickle. He lifted Paslava into the air, head downward to keep his blood pressure up so the wounded man wouldn’t faint.

Holding him out at arm’s length, Berne frowned into the Spellbinder’s upside-down eyes. “So tell me, before you die,” Berne said slowly, with a growing premonition that things were somehow going hideously wrong, “exactly how Caine knew I’d be coming down here to get that net.”

Heroes Die

At seventeen, Berne attacked and beat his father into unconsciousness.

At the age of seventeen, he’d finally shown his father how well his training had worked. He beat the old bastard into unconsciousness, took the old man’s sword, all his gold, a jug of wine, and his best horse and headed for the city. He’d quickly discovered that there were few men who’d even care to stand against him with a blade, and nearly none that could survive to the count of ten; he’d never had any difficulty putting his hands on money.

Heroes Die

Berne's Buckler

Gifted to him by Ma'elKoth, Berne's Buckler allows Berne to make a specific portion of his body "invulnerable". To what extent is unknown, but it was enough to make him "impervious as steel" as Ma'elKoth puts it.

“Puffery. Mere details. When saving the life he willed to save required that he defeat in single combat the greatest warrior of his time, he did so. Forget that this man was Caine’s master in every form of battle; forget that Berne, even unarmed, could have killed him in his sleep without breaking the rhythm of his snoring. Remember that Berne wielded a weapon that was legendary : Kosall, the unstoppable blade. Remember that Berne was Gifted with Strength far beyond human, and defenses that could make his skin impervious as steel. Remember that when Caine faced him he was bruised, and battered, half crippled—and poisoned —and still . . .” Tan’elKoth let his voice trail away significantly.

Blade of Tyshalle

According to Berne, his Buckler was enough to allow him to grab Kosall with his hands, without taking any sort of injury from the blade. Though the claim is somewhat questionable, as Lamorak was Berne's informant in Simon Jester's operation.

“Well, it is. Enchanted, I mean. It’s packed to the eyeballs with magick.” He held it slanted at garde to admire it in the fading light. “Cuts through anything. Huh, he nearly killed me with it. He dropped two of my boys, and when I came against him myself his first stroke sheared my blade in two, a handbreadth above the guard.”

“How did you take him?”

“I grabbed this blade with both hands, and held it while I kicked his lamps out.” Berne smiled with adolescent smugness and flexed his fists before him like a stretching cat. He opened his unmarked palms and turned them toward Toa-Sytell as though to say, See? It cuts through everything—except me. “Being Ma’elKoth’s favorite comes with bonuses.”

Heroes Die

Berne's Buckler has proved sufficient to prevent knives and swords from cutting him, or injuring him in any way.

I don’t really need to know these answers badly enough to make listening to his shit worth my time, so I jam the knife into his neck.

The knife’s point skids off his skin as though his flesh has become tool-grade steel.

Stupidly I try to stick him again in the same place—I just can’t believe it didn’t work—and when it skids off again I waste a full second staring like an idiot at this blade that has betrayed me.

Heroes Die

Suddenly I’m close enough to kiss him. As he tries to step back and slice with the sword, I stay right with him, my body against his, blocking at his wrist with the blade of my knife while the other one slices at his neck. His Buckler turns my blade from his neck, but the other cuts deep into his arm.

Heroes Die

She sprang at him, her neck cut so fast he barely saw the blade move. He made no attempt to parry, just shifted his Buckler to protect the joining of his neck and shoulder. Her borrowed sword rang as though she’d struck metal, and her eyes widened. He shifted his Buckler to his hand and grabbed her blade. She tried to yank the blade away, to slide it slicing through his fingers, but his magickally strengthened grip held it as though it had been driven into stone. He laughed and cut at her arm with Kosall. She released the blade in time to save her arm and dropped into a back-roll away from him, coming to her feet and staring with widened eyes out of which that manic confidence swiftly drained.

Heroes Die

Strength

Due to Ma'elKoth, Berne is vastly stronger than any regular human in the Acts of Caine universe.

“I always was better than you,” he says. “But now I’m the favorite of Ma’elKoth. He’s made me faster, vastly stronger—and invulnerable . Ma’elKoth created the spell just for me; he calls it Berne’s Buckler. You like it?”

Heroes Die

He’s vastly stronger than I am, inhumanly fast, his technique and balance are better than mine, and he has a sword that’ll cut through anything. Not to mention that this Buckler thing of his makes him virtually invulnerable.

Heroes Die

“Puffery. Mere details. When saving the life he willed to save required that he defeat in single combat the greatest warrior of his time, he did so. Forget that this man was Caine’s master in every form of battle; forget that Berne, even unarmed, could have killed him in his sleep without breaking the rhythm of his snoring. Remember that Berne wielded a weapon that was legendary : Kosall, the unstoppable blade. Remember that Berne was Gifted with Strength far beyond human, and defenses that could make his skin impervious as steel. Remember that when Caine faced him he was bruised, and battered, half crippled—and poisoned —and still . . .” Tan’elKoth let his voice trail away significantly.

Blade of Tyshalle

Caine muses that Berne has to be stronger than the orges that are employed as security at Alien Games.

Up, out of the bones pit, arcing high—he must be stronger than the ogres that stand staring dumbly at my flight. I tumble through the air while people try to duck out of my path.

Heroes Die

Said orges are capable of doing this:

Out in the street the day’s so bright that at first I can’t see much, but I can hear, and feel, and what I hear is a hot sizzle going past my head and what I feel is the breeze of something passing way too close to me and then there’s a spannng from up ahead and a chunk of masonry from the storefront there basically explodes.

What the f**k?

I skid to a stop and look back in time to see a couple ogres coming after me full tilt and another one behind them winds up and just throws something round and shiny straight at my face and I barely get out of its way and this one catches the wall square and stone shrapnel goes all directions and what the f****r's throwing at me are steel spheres like f*****g ball-bearings the size of my fist and Jesus a glancing hit could kill me.

Caine's Law

Berne causes the entirety of a building to tremble as if it were struck by a giant's fist, and then destroys a door to splintered fragments.

THE COMMANDER OF the northwest garrison had only just lain down, heading for a richly deserved nap after thirty solid hours on his feet. He was stretching his exhausted body on an obscenely comfortable pallet in a back room, his eyes drifting closed, when the entire building trembled and shook as though struck by a giant’s fist.

Outside his room, men shouted in confusion and terror. He scrambled to his feet and staggered to the peg where his scabbard hung on the wall. He clawed numbly at the hilt of his sword, but before he could draw, the door burst squealing around the bar that locked it and fell in rattling splintered fragments to the floor.

Heroes Die

Berne crushes a cone of stone to dust.

A flick of Berne’s powerful wrist snapped Kosall in a sizzling arc around its point as he lunged into the wall, a degage that sliced a cone of shining rock from the limestone; it slid free. Berne tapped it spinning into the air with Kosall’s flat, then caught it neatly in his left hand. He held it up, so that the assembled Cats could see the face of Simon Jester upon it.

He said, “This.”

An act of will summoned his enchanted strength, and he crushed the cone of rock within his fist with a sound like cracking bones, crumbling it to gravel, to dust that he allowed to trail between his fingers and trickle to the floor.

Heroes Die

Berne kicks Lamorak's bed to splinters, slapping Lamorak bodily into the air. Berne then casually supports Lamorak with one hand, and physically manhandles him.

He shifted his Buckler to his feet, short-stepped, and kicked Lamorak’s bed to splinters. Berne’s foot exploded through the mattress, and a blizzard of swirling chicken feathers filled the cell. The kick slapped Lamorak bodily into the air, his arms flailing helplessly. Berne’s hand struck with the speed of a stooping falcon and snatched Lamorak’s ankle.

He held Lamorak out, head down, at arm’s length and struggling. This strength, this power that Ma’elKoth granted him, he reveled in it. to his crotch.

“Just imagine,” he said thickly, “what a kick like that will do to your head .”

“Berne, Berne don’t . . .” Lamorak said, arms crossed in front of his face in futile defense—those muscular golden arms would splinter more easily than the bedslats had.

“Can you smell me?”

“Berne . . . Berne, calm down . . .”

With a flick of his wrist, Berne battered Lamorak against the stone wall of the cell. Lamorak left skin and blood behind, smeared across the stone, and rose-white bone peeked through where the impact had split the flesh over his elbow. Lamorak grunted, but did not cry out. For a long count of ten the only sound within the cell was the drizzle of his blood pattering onto the floor.

Berne said, “Let’s try this again. Can you smell me?”

Lamorak nodded with difficulty, his face becoming puffy with blood.

“What . . . what happened?” he asked hoarsely.

“What part does Pallas Ril play in this?”

“Berne, I . . .” Berne flicked him against the stone again, this time face first. Lamorak’s scalp split at the hairline, and blood slicked down into his long, golden hair.

Heroes Die

Berne snaps Lamorak's femur.

Berne pivoted into a low-line roundhouse kick that brought his shin against Lamorak’s golden thigh with crushing force. Lamorak’s femur snapped with a wet, meaty pop and he fell to the floor, clutching his broken leg and biting his mouth to hold in a scream.

Heroes Die

Berne shrugged aside foot-thick wooden beams as easily as a ordinary man would handle bundles of straw.

After the shocking indignity of having a building knocked down on his head, digging his way out had taken him only a minute; with his superhuman strength, he had shrugged aside foot-thick beams the way an ordinary man would handle bundles of straw. Raging, he’d led the Cats charging after her, through the streets of the Industrial Park and into the Warrens.

Heroes Die

Berne's kick crumples Talann like a doll, sending her off her feet and rolling across a bridge, rupturing something in her midsection.

As she drove in under the cut, Berne whipped a straight-leg roundhouse kick at her ribs while holding his Buckler across his solar plexus to stop her knife thrust. Her point slashed through his shirt and skirred across his skin, and his roundhouse crumpled her like a doll, lifting her off her feet and sending her rolling across the bridge.

She rose unsteadily, blood on her lips. His kick had probably ruptured something in her midsection. But she offered a grin that displayed her bloody teeth, and she pointed to his leg. “You’re not invulnerable,” she said.

Heroes Die

Berne sends stars shooting across Caine's vision with a punch, breaks a couple of his ribs with a knee-strike, and almost breaks his neck, before casting him aside in a way that Caine likens to how bored child throws a doll.

He snarls into my face, but he’s nothing if not adaptable. When I try the same trick again, only this time at his face and his heart for the death he drops Kosall and gets his hands in close, taking the cuts on his wrists. We stand nose to nose for one eternal second while our hands fly in lethal flurries; blood sprays, and it’s not mine, but he’s faster than I am and he slips a short hook onto the side of my head that shoots stars across my vision, follows it with a twisting roundhouse knee to my side that breaks a couple ribs with dull internal pops, and the next thing I know he’s got hold of my head and he’s gonna break my neck. He’s too f*****g strong, I can’t hold him but there’s Kosall upright in the sand—I get my hand on the hilt and feel the buzzing tingle. I can just barely drag it across his foot, and his toes fall away, and I’m flying one way while Kosall goes another.

Flying, tumbling through the air, I land skidding through the sand.

He cast me aside like a bored child throws a doll.

I struggle up, coughing blood—the sharp ends of those broken ribs must have ripped into my lung—but he’s not coming after me. He’s got Kosall again, and his back’s to me because he’s limping over toward Pallas.

Heroes Die

Berne takes Caine's shoulder in a grip so crushing that his arm instantly goes numb, and then peels him off of him with irresistible strength and holds Caine dangling in the air.

He reaches back and takes my left shoulder with one hand in a grip so crushing it doesn’t even hurt: my whole arm goes numb. Then he peels me off him with irresistible strength—no art involved, just a long, smooth yank—and he comes to his feet and holds me dangling in the air.

Heroes Die

Berne showcases physical superiority over Talann, holding her sword in his grip despite her attempts to remove it, as though she stuck it in stone.

She sprang at him, her neck cut so fast he barely saw the blade move. He made no attempt to parry, just shifted his Buckler to protect the joining of his neck and shoulder. Her borrowed sword rang as though she’d struck metal, and her eyes widened. He shifted his Buckler to his hand and grabbed her blade. She tried to yank the blade away, to slide it slicing through his fingers, but his magickally strengthened grip held it as though it had been driven into stone. He laughed and cut at her arm with Kosall. She released the blade in time to save her arm and dropped into a back-roll away from him, coming to her feet and staring with widened eyes out of which that manic confidence swiftly drained.

Heroes Die

Berne lifts Caine flailing up high, and throws him over the heads of the crowd, up and out of the bones pit, arcing high.

I kick him in the face, a short Thai-jab that smacks the ball of my foot into his broken nose, and he laughs at me. He catches my crotch with his free hand and lifts me flailing up high.

And he throws me over the heads of the crowd.

Up, out of the bones pit, arcing high—he must be stronger than the ogres that stand staring dumbly at my flight. I tumble through the air while people try to duck out of my path.

My body can sort out the landing on its own; my full attention is consumed with how I’m going to beat him.

By the time I crash into a knot of gamblers and we all go down to a surprisingly soft landing, I’ve come to a couple conclusions.

One, strength alone won’t help him for shit against my knives, and—

Two, if this invulnerability of his was all he’d like me to think it is, I wouldn’t have been able to break his nose.

I can still beat him; I just have to alter my tactics to meet a changed situation. I have a hypothesis about this magick that protects him—and like any good scientist, I have an experiment in mind to turn this hypothesis into a theory.

The people I’ve landed on thrash away from me in a tangle of limbs, knocking me around a little, so I’m still fighting to gain my feet as the crowd parts and Berne vaults the rail of the bones pit. He wipes his bloody lips with the back of his hand and stalks toward me.

Heroes Die

Berne explodes a chair to splinters with a kick.

Veins twisted in his neck. A chair that got in the way of his furious pacing exploded to splinters under his kick. He wheeled on Lamorak. “What about Pallas ? How was this supposed to help him rescue Pallas?”

Heroes Die

Berne physically manhandles Lamorak again, and tears off one of his fingers.

“It means we’ve found a test . Set him down in that chair.”

Berne did so.

“Take his hand,” Toa-Sytell said.

Lamorak tried to cower away, but Berne’s strength was irresistible.

“Now,” Toa-Sytell said, “pull his fingers off one by one until he repeats the phrase, ‘I am an Aktir .’ My guess is, he’ll lose all ten.”

Lamorak began to howl, his screams muffled and distant behind his teeth, even before Berne twisted and yanked his smallest finger from his hand. The bones crackled like crumpling paper, and the flesh tore with a sound like the ripping of heavy cloth. Berne tossed the finger over his shoulder like a gnawed-clean chicken bone. Blood sprayed his grin, and lips.

Heroes Die

Berne seizes Paslava's thigh on his half leg, his grip cutting into the muscle hard enough to diminish the arterial spray of blood into a trickle, and he then lifts him into the air.

Instead, he seized the thaumaturge by the thigh on his half leg, his strengthened grip cutting into the muscle until the arterial spray of blood diminished to a trickle. He lifted Paslava into the air, head downward to keep his blood pressure up so the wounded man wouldn’t faint.

Heroes Die

Berne covers fifty feet with a leap to the roof of a stable, then jumps to the rooftop of an officers' barracks, and then to the top of the wall, a height ten times the height of a man.

Berne stretched like a cat, and his loosening joints shifted and popped beneath his skin. He grinned into the moonlight, measuring the towering black-shadowed wall that enclosed Old Town. In the next breath he burst into a sprint along Ten Street, the wind of his passing sizzling in his ears. Twenty paces from the garrison stables he bounded into the air, his enchanted strength sending him soaring up to the stables’ roof; then without even a pause he sprang upward again, to the rooftop of the officers’ barracks and from there to the top of the wall. A triple bound had taken him up ten times the height of a man.

Heroes Die

Berne leaps out of a well with a single leap.

Paslava shouted, “Shoot! Shoot him now!” but before the Knights of Cant with him could bring their bows to bear, Berne bent his knees and sprang out of the well with a single leap. The Knights all ducked as he shot upward like a quarrel from a crossbow’s slot. He arced high over one ducking Knight and split the man’s skull from base to crown with a single backhanded swipe of Kosall.

He somersaulted in the air and landed gracefully poised. The dead Knight collapsed slowly to his knees, then tumbled forward into the well behind him.

Heroes Die

Berne leaps more than twenty feet.

And he leaps.

So do I.

He shoots upward like an arrow. I jump up and out to intercept him, with all my failing strength. I’m starting fifteen, twenty feet above him, but it doesn’t matter, it’s not enough, I’m too late, too slow. I stretch forth my hands . . . and my fingers find his boot top as he soars past me, and I hang on.

Heroes Die

Speed

Due to Ma'elKoth, Berne is inhumanly fast.

“I was always was better than you,” he says. “But now I’m the favorite of Ma’elKoth. He’s made me faster, vastly stronger—and invulnerable . Ma’elKoth created the spell just for me; he calls it Berne’s Buckler. You like it?”

Heroes Die

Berne makes an over-the-shoulder draw so fast his hands are barely a flicker of motion to Caine.

He springs at me, and I leap to meet him. He makes the over-the-shoulder draw so fast his hands are barely a flicker of motion. No subtlety here: he’s slicing at the joining of my neck and shoulder. My knife meets his sword in a two-handed rising parry that forces the arc of his blade over my head. The knife buzzes in my hand, sending unsettling shock through my arm and shoulder to my teeth.

Heroes Die

Berne reacts to Talann's surprise attack which moves so fast that he can barely see the blade.

“Come on, then,” he said. “Whenever—”

She sprang at him, her neck cut so fast he barely saw the blade move. He made no attempt to parry, just shifted his Buckler to protect the joining of his neck and shoulder. Her borrowed sword rang as though she’d struck metal, and her eyes widened. He shifted his Buckler to his hand and grabbed her blade. She tried to yank the blade away, to slide it slicing through his fingers, but his magickally strengthened grip held it as though it had been driven into stone. He laughed and cut at her arm with Kosall. She released the blade in time to save her arm and dropped into a back-roll away from him, coming to her feet and staring with widened eyes out of which that manic confidence swiftly drained.

Heroes Die

Berne covers three meters in less than an eyeblink with a lightning lunge.

I glance around, and he comes for me in a lightning lunge, covering three meters in less than an eye blink; Kosall’s point sizzles through my tunic, parting the leather without resistance, as I twist aside barely in time. I take his wrist lightly as he passes me, pulling him along to draw his balance, and then clothesline him with a forehand chop at his throat.

Heroes Die

Berne dives into a room like a bloodstained thunderbolt, and kills Dak and Jak in just over a second, killing Dak before he even realizes Berne's in the room, and driving his blade through Jak's open mouth before the latter can draw on Berne.

The crossbows’ flat whacks are barely audible through the roar of the spinning wood. Only two quarrels make it through the cloud of wood into the apartment—but one of them slams into Dak’s shin. These quarrels mass roughly two hundred-fifty grams of solid forged steel, and they hit like a sledgehammer; Dak’s shin shatters, and he goes down with a cry, clawing at his brother’s shoulders. Jak turns to take his arm and carry him, and that’s when Berne dives into the room like a bloodstained thunderbolt.

His dive becomes an acrobatic roll, and he comes to his feet with his sword in his hands. I frantically reverse the direction of the flying wood, but long before I can bring it back into play, Berne spins and his blade opens a gaping wound across the nape of Dak’s neck before the wounded Twin even knows Berne’s in the room. Dak’s head flops forward, spraying blood across his brother’s face, and Jak howls like a damned thing, trying to drop his brother and bring up his sword at the same time. Berne’s already reversed his blade for an over-the-elbow backstrike, and he drives its chisel point through Jak’s open mouth and out the back of his head.

In just over a second, he’s killed two of the best swordsmen in the Empire.

Heroes Die

Kierendal muses that Berne could blitz Janner, and kill him in the fraction of a second that it would take him to draw.

Berne liked the dice and was a bad loser from the first roll. If he found someone to blame for it, Janner’s head would be rolling across the floor in the fraction of a second it took Berne to draw. And Janner was the proprietor of Ankhanan Muckers and Manure, one of Kierendal’s more profitable partnerships.

Heroes Die

Berne moves his hand with the speed of a stooping falcon, and catches Lamorak by the ankle before he can hit the floor.

He shifted his Buckler to his feet, short-stepped, and kicked Lamorak’s bed to splinters. Berne’s foot exploded through the mattress, and a blizzard of swirling chicken feathers filled the cell. The kick slapped Lamorak bodily into the air, his arms flailing helplessly. Berne’s hand struck with the speed of a stooping falcon and snatched Lamorak’s ankle.

He held Lamorak out, head down, at arm’s length and struggling. This strength, this power that Ma’elKoth granted him, he reveled in it. to his crotch.

Heroes Die

Endurance/Durability

Berne shrugs off Caine spearing him over a table, and onto the edges of stairs, then breaking his nose, and then slamming his head repeatedly onto those stairs.

But, on the other hand, Berne has his back to me.

I’m nimble enough, even at a flat sprint, to dodge around the bigger men on the floor, and I’m strong enough to flatten and overrun the smaller. I trail a spreading wake of shouts and confusion, but I’ve gone hypersonic, as it were: I outrun the noise of my passing.

Berne has warning enough only to barely begin the turning of his head before I reach the brass rail around the bones pit and launch myself over it like a javelin. I stiffen my neck in the air and spear him, the top of my head to the side of his jaw. My arms tangle in his, and we tumble over the bones field scattering gold and dice in all directions. The other players scatter, shouting incoherent surprise, and the table goes down in splinters. By the time we skid off what’s left of it to hit marble steps on the other side, I can hear the pit boss’silver whistle piping a shrill alarm that’ll bring the ogres at a run.

I don’t care: I landed on top.

The edges of the steps crashing against his spine had to hurt like a bitch, and his muscles loosen into stunned slackness. I lock up his legs with mine and get a forearm under his chin to force his head back and cut off his wind. His eyes go from glaze to focus almost instantly, and he mouths: You, and the half-buried flicker of fear that passes over his face calls to something elemental inside me, a volcanic surge up from the base of my spine that thunders in my ears and shades my vision scarlet.

“You bet your f*****g ass it’s me.” I create additional emphasis with a hammer-hand that crushes and spreads his perfect nose wide across his cheekbones. Blood sprays; it’s on my fist, all over his face, it’s on my lips, I can smell it and taste it and I no longer care if I die in the next breath so long as I go to my grave with my teeth in his throat.

So I hit him again.

He struggles beneath me, but I’ve got him now and there’s no way I’m gonna let him go. I slam his head into the curving step, and again, and again and again; the purple-veined marble is now artistically spattered with the crimson of Berne’s blood.

But he’s still conscious, and now he’s smiling up at me with those smeary lips and reddened teeth, and I have to choose between continuing to beat on him or just cutting his throat because those ogres will haul me off him in about ten seconds, and having to make that choice brings me back to something resembling rationality.

At about this time I realize he’s been pounding the side of my head with his doubled elbow. He can’t get any force behind it, lying down like that; he’s doing it mostly to distract me from his other hand, which is sliding up my neck to hook a thumb toward my eye.

As he swings again I rear back out of his elbow’s path and grab his upper arm, twisting him on around so his back’s to me now, pinning his scabbarded sword with my chest. The hair on the back of his head is matted with blood from a single cut where his scalp split against the edge of the step. I lock my legs around his again and roll us both over faceup just in time—the pair of ogres, who were winding up for free shots at my back, lower their morningstars uncertainly.

My left arm snakes around Berne’s face, over his eyes, to pull his head back while my right hand draws one of the long fighting knives jugular, and windpipe. He has no chance to survive, and he knows it.

I whisper in his ear, “Tell them to back off.”

“Back off,” he croaks. He coughs a wad of blood out of his throat, and his voice gets stronger and more confident. “Caine’s an old friend of mine. We’re not really fighting—this is just how we say hello.”

Heroes Die

Berne no-sells having a building dropped on his head.

After the shocking indignity of having a building knocked down on his head, digging his way out had taken him only a minute; with his superhuman strength, he had shrugged aside foot-thick beams the way an ordinary man would handle bundles of straw. Raging, he’d led the Cats charging after her, through the streets of the Industrial Park and into the Warrens.

Heroes Die

Berne is uninjured from being pushed down a well.

He got no warning at all. No scrape of boots, no breath of breeze, nothing except silent and invisible hands striking his back at his center of balance while an invisible tether held his ankles. Before he could understand what was happening, he found himself falling headfirst down the well, tumbling as he bounced from wall to wall, crashing into the yielding cold-meat bodies of his men.

Heroes Die

Berne easily recovers falling twenty feet and slamming into sand.

He shoots upward like an arrow. I jump up and out to intercept him, with all my failing strength. I’m starting fifteen, twenty feet above him, but it doesn’t matter, it’s not enough, I’m too late, too slow. I stretch forth my hands . . . and my fingers find his boot top as he soars past me, and I hang on.

The opposing angles of our momentum jerk us into a crazy tumble in the air. I fall down, down, and down, losing my hold on him as we twist apart, and the sand slaps all breath from my lungs.

I can only lie there, limbs twitching like a dead man’s, while I try to drag air into my chest. Even as it comes in a great whooping gasp, Berne looms over me, backlit by the lightning-shot storm clouds above us.

Heroes Die

Berne is seemingly unaffected by Caine stabbing him in the hip joint with his knife, and then breaking off the blade in their, an injury that causes pain Caine describes as "unimaginable" and would have knocked a normal man unconscious.

He knows I favor the heart, and so I stay away from it—that’s where he will have focused that Buckler of his. Instead I lowline him and shove a foot of cold steel through his groin right into his hip joint.

The hilt vibrates against my palm as the blade grates on bone. Berne gasps and gives a lover’s low moan. I jam the knife in deeper, right into the joint. As his superstrength muscles clamp down around the injury, I wrench the knife downward, leaning on it with all my weight.

The hilt snaps off in my hand. He looks at me in white-faced astonishment: he can’t believe how badly I’ve hurt him.

I drop the hilt with its stub of blade. I reach inside my tunic for my other fighting knife and between my shoulder blades for my wedge-pointed thrower.

And Kosall flashes down toward my head.

I throw myself to the side out of its path, but I feel an impact on my boot as I dive away: half my boot heel and a thumb-sized chunk of my own heel are sliced away in a fraction of a second. I scramble back, and Berne comes for me, snarling his agony with every step.

I can’t believe he can even stand , let alone walk, and now, beyond reason, he breaks into a running fleche —!

Again I throw myself sideways and roll away. My god, my god, that was my best shot . Any normal man would have fainted from the pain, and this would have been over . . .

“Run, Caine,” he rasps, hoarse with agony. “I can still catch you. I can still kill you. Go on, run.” I believe him. Despite the knife blade scoring the bones and slicing the cartilage in his hip joint—causing what kind of pain I can’t even imagine—he doesn’t seem slowed at all.

Heroes Die

Equipment

Berne wields Kosall, a blade stolen from Lamorak. Kosall is able to cut through wood, stone, or even steel if given enough time or force behind a swing.

Lamorak stands at the south wall and puts Kosall’s point to the wall at head height; he leans on the pommel, and Kosall slides smoothly through the planks, its whine dulled to a hum. He draws the blade downward in an arc, not sawing, just pressing it through the wood as though the wall were soft cheese. With this sword he can cut his way through the tenements all the way to the river, if need be; Kosall can cut stone, or even steel, given enough time.

Heroes Die

The silence, underscored by the voices from the adjoining room, stretched thin. Berne coughed again. “Well, I have his sword, don’t I?”
“Do you?” Berne drew the blade smoothly over his shoulder. Its edges shimmered in the crimson twilight, and a whining hum came clearly to Toa-Sytell’s ears.
“The enchanted blade Kosall—you’ve heard of it?”
“No.”
“Well, it is. Enchanted, I mean. It’s packed to the eyeballs with magick.” He held it slanted at garde to admire it in the fading light. “Cuts through anything. Huh, he nearly killed me with it. He dropped two of my boys, and when I came against him myself his first stroke sheared my blade in two, a handbreadth above the guard.”Heroes Die

A gift to @themuser who's kinda salty about the state of the current Ven Zallow respect thread. Well, "kinda salty" is a bit of an understatement. He has more salt than the Dead Sea about it. Unable to take the sheer salt, I decided to rectify the issue. Thank me later Muser. With that out of the way, respect Billy Ray Jedi, and all his mulleted glory.

Accolades

Out of the Jedi present at the sacking of the Jedi Temple, Darth Malgus regards Zallow as the only one that was worthy of his attention.

Malgus knew the battle had turned, that it soon would be over. He glanced around, still seeking Zallow, the only opponent in the field worthy of his attention.

Deceived

Darth Malgus praises Zallow's fighting ability, stating that he fought "especially well".

Malgus considered. The Jedi had fought well, especially Zallow. They misunderstood the Force, but he nevertheless wished to treat them honorably. “Make the Temple their tomb. Bring the whole thing down.”

Deceived

Darth Malgus compares the sensation of sensing Aryn Leneer's Force-signature, to the sensation of sensing Ven Zallow's, indicating some level of parity between the two of them.

Malgus felt a flash of discomfort, the irritating needle stab of a light-side user, the feeling oddly similar to that which he had felt when he’d fought Master Zallow in the Temple. The feeling lasted barely an instant and disappeared, leaving only a sensory ghost in its wake. [...] Malgus felt the signature of another Force-user, the uncomfortable pressure of the light side, and it pulled him to his feet. The pressure reminded him of how he’d felt in the presence of Master Zallow, and he knew that Aryn Leneer had come at last.

Deceived

Combat Skill

Zallow swiftly cuts down two Sith Warriors, moving his blade in a blur of speed and precision to Darth Malgus. He then dodges a strike from Lord Adraas, before dispatching him with the Force.

Malgus finally spotted Master Zallow ten paces away, whirling, spinning, his green blade a blur of precision and speed. One Sith warrior fell to him, another. Lord Adraas landed before him, trying to take Malgus’s kill for himself. Adraas ducked low and slashed at Zallow’s knees. Zallow leapt over the blow and unleashed a blast of energy that sent Adraas skidding on his backside across the hall.

Deceived

Zallow one-shots a Sith Warrior.

Zallow, for his part, moved toward Malgus. A Sith warrior bounded at Zallow from his left, but Zallow leapt over the Sith’s blade, spun, slashed, and cut down the Sith.

Deceived

Zallow one-shots two Sith Warriors.

Malgus spun into a high, Force-augmented kick that hit Zallow in the chest and sent him flying backward ten meters. Zallow flipped and landed upright in a crouch near two of Malgus’s Sith warriors. They lunged for him and Zallow parried one blow, leapt over the second, and spun a rapid circle, cutting down both Sith.

Deceived

Easily his greatest feat, Zallow engages in a closely contested duel with Darth Malgus, one of the best warriors in the Sith Empire. At first, he proves capable of defending against an enraged Malgus' offensive, until Malgus uses a melee strike. Then, when he later goes onto the offensive, he proves capable of pressing Malgus to the extent that Malgus is unable to find an opening to counterattack, until the latter tactically outmaneuvers Zallow.

Zallow bounded forward and intercepted the downstroke. Zallow and Malgus stared into each other’s faces and the rest of the battle fell away.

There was only Malgus and his rage, and Zallow and his calm.

Their blades sizzling in opposition, each used the Force to press against the strength of the other, but neither had an obvious advantage. Malgus shouted rage into Zallow’s face. Only a furrowed brow and the tight line of his mouth betrayed the tension behind Zallow’s otherwise tranquil expression.

Feeding off the anger from Eleena, Malgus shoved Zallow away and unleashed an onslaught of overhand slashes and crosscuts. Zallow backed off, parrying, unable to respond with blows of his own. Malgus tried to split Zallow’s head but Zallow blocked again and again.

Malgus spun into a high, Force-augmented kick that hit Zallow in the chest and sent him flying backward ten meters. Zallow flipped and landed upright in a crouch near two of Malgus’s Sith warriors.

They lunged for him and Zallow parried one blow, leapt over the second, and spun a rapid circle, cutting down both Sith.

Malgus, burning with hate, flung his lightsaber at Zallow. He guided its trajectory with the Force, and it spun a sizzling path through the air at Zallow’s neck. But Zallow, riding the momentum of his attack on the second Sith, leapt into the air and over the blade.

While Zallow was still in the air, Malgus unleashed a blast of energy that caught the Jedi unprepared and sent him crashing downward into a pile of rubble. He lay there, prone.

Malgus did not hesitate. He mounted the column of his anger, shouting with hate, and leapt twenty meters into the air toward Zallow. Mid-jump, he used the Force to recall his blade to his hand, took a reverse two-handed grip, and prepared to pin Zallow to the Temple floor.

But Zallow rolled out of the way at the last moment and Malgus’s blade sank to the hilt in the stone of the Temple’s floor. Zallow leapt up and over Malgus, landed in a crouch, reactivated his lightsaber, and pelted across the floor back at Malgus.

Eschewing speed and grace for power, Zallow loosed a flurry of rapid strikes, slashes, and lunges. Malgus parried one blow after another but could not find an opening to mount his own counterattack. Lunging forward, Zallow slashed crosswise, Malgus parried, and Zallow slammed the hilt of his saber into the side of Malgus’s jaw.

A tooth dislodged and his respirator was knocked askew. Malgus tasted blood, but he was too deep in the Force for the blow to do real damage. He staggered backward a step, as if the blow had stunned him.

Seeing an opening, Zallow stepped forward and crosscut for Malgus’s throat.

As Malgus knew he would do.

Malgus turned his blade vertical to parry the blow and spun out of the blade lock. Reversing his lightsaber during the spin, he rode it into a stab that pierced Zallow’s abdomen and came out the other side.

Zallow’s expression fell. He hung there, impaled by the red line. He held Malgus’s eyes, and Malgus saw the flames of the burning Temple reflected in Zallow’s green irises.

“It is all going to burn,” Malgus said.

Zallow’s brow furrowed, perhaps with pain, perhaps with despair. Either way, Malgus enjoyed it. He waited for the light to disappear from Zallow’s eyes before jerking his blade free and allowing the body to fall to the floor.

Deceived

Telekinesis

Zallow dispatches Lord Adraas with the Force, sending him skidding on his ass across a hall.

Malgus finally spotted Master Zallow ten paces away, whirling, spinning, his green blade a blur of precision and speed. One Sith warrior fell to him, another. Lord Adraas landed before him, trying to take Malgus’s kill for himself. Adraas ducked low and slashed at Zallow’s knees. Zallow leapt over the blow and unleashed a blast of energy that sent Adraas skidding on his backside across the hall.

Deceived

Zallow uses a Force Blast to drive Eleena's body against a pillar.

Zallow, his eyes on Malgus throughout, deflected the bolts with his blade and sent them back at Eleena. Two struck her, and as she collapsed Zallow used a Force blast to drive her body against a column.

Deceived

Force Jump

Zallow leaps back twenty meters.

Master Zallow and the six Jedi Knights near Malgus leapt back and up, flipping at the top of the arc of their leaps, and landed in a crouch twenty meters away.

Deceived

Strength

Zallow matches Darth Malgus' physical strength.

Their blades sizzling in opposition, each used the Force to press against the strength of the other, but neither had an obvious advantage. Malgus shouted rage into Zallow’s face. Only a furrowed brow and the tight line of his mouth betrayed the tension behind Zallow’s otherwise tranquil expression. Feeding off the anger from Eleena, Malgus shoved Zallow away and unleashed an onslaught of overhand slashes and crosscuts. Zallow backed off, parrying, unable to respond with blows of his own. Malgus tried to split Zallow’s head but Zallow blocked again and again.

Deceived

Zallow slams his hilt into Darth Malgus' face with enough force dislodge a tooth, and knock his respirator eschew.

Eschewing speed and grace for power, Zallow loosed a flurry of rapid strikes, slashes, and lunges. Malgus parried one blow after another but could not find an opening to mount his own counterattack. Lunging forward, Zallow slashed crosswise, Malgus parried, and Zallow slammed the hilt of his saber into the side of Malgus’s jaw. A tooth dislodged and his respirator was knocked askew. Malgus tasted blood, but he was too deep in the Force for the blow to do real damage. He staggered backward a step, as if the blow had stunned him.

Deceived

Speed

Zallow moves his blade in a blur of precision and speed, and leaps over a slash from Lord Adraas.

Malgus finally spotted Master Zallow ten paces away, whirling, spinning, his green blade a blur of precision and speed. One Sith warrior fell to him, another. Lord Adraas landed before him, trying to take Malgus’s kill for himself. Adraas ducked low and slashed at Zallow’s knees. Zallow leapt over the blow and unleashed a blast of energy that sent Adraas skidding on his backside across the hall.

Deceived

Even with his eyes focused on Darth Malgus throughout, Zallow easily deflects two blaster bolts fired by Eleena back at her, and before she can collapse to the ground, uses a Force blast to drive her into a pillar.

Zallow, his eyes on Malgus throughout, deflected the bolts with his blade and sent them back at Eleena. Two struck her, and as she collapsed Zallow used a Force blast to drive her body against a column.

Deceived

Zallow leaps over a Sith Warriors blade, then speedblitzes him.

Zallow, for his part, moved toward Malgus. A Sith warrior bounded at Zallow from his left, but Zallow leapt over the Sith’s blade, spun, slashed, and cut down the Sith.

Deceived

Starting from a meter away, Zallow intercepts a blow from Darth Malgus, before he can kill a Jedi who is doubled over right before him.

Zallow and Malgus closed. They halted at one meter, studied each other for a moment.

A human male Jedi Knight separated from the swirl of battle and stabbed at Malgus. Malgus sidestepped the blue line of the blade, punched the man in the stomach, doubling him over, and raised his own blade for a killing blow.

Zallow bounded forward and intercepted the downstroke. Zallow and Malgus stared into each other’s faces and the rest of the battle fell away.

Deceived

Zallow parries the blow of one Sith Warrior, leaps over the blow of a second, and then speed-blitzes the both of them.

They lunged for him and Zallow parried one blow, leapt over the second, and spun a rapid circle, cutting down both Sith.

Deceived

Zallow dodges Darth Malgus' saber-throw.

Malgus, burning with hate, flung his lightsaber at Zallow. He guided its trajectory with the Force, and it spun a sizzling path through the air at Zallow’s neck. But Zallow, riding the momentum of his attack on the second Sith, leapt into the air and over the blade.

Deceived

Zallow rolls out of the way of Darth Malgus' attack.

But Zallow rolled out of the way at the last moment and Malgus’s blade sank to the hilt in the stone of the Temple’s floor. Zallow leapt up and over Malgus, landed in a crouch, reactivated his lightsaber, and pelted across the floor back at Malgus.

Deceived

Durability

Zallow shrugs off a kick from Darth Malgus that sent him flying ten meters.

Malgus spun into a high, Force-augmented kick that hit Zallow in the chest and sent him flying backward ten meters. Zallow flipped and landed upright in a crouch near two of Malgus’s Sith warriors.

Deceived

Zallow tanks a Force-Blast from Darth Malgus.

While Zallow was still in the air, Malgus unleashed a blast of energy that caught the Jedi unprepared and sent him crashing downward into a pile of rubble. He lay there, prone.

Malgus did not hesitate. He mounted the column of his anger, shouting with hate, and leapt twenty meters into the air toward Zallow. Mid-jump, he used the Force to recall his blade to his hand, took a reverse two-handed grip, and prepared to pin Zallow to the Temple floor.

But Zallow rolled out of the way at the last moment and Malgus’s blade sank to the hilt in the stone of the Temple’s floor. Zallow leapt up and over Malgus, landed in a crouch, reactivated his lightsaber, and pelted across the floor back at Malgus.

Deceived

yes

I HAVE BROKE INTO THE YOUTUBE VERSUS BATTLE COMMUNITY. HERE IS MY DEBUT VIDEO, AND AS YOU CAN ALREADY SEEN, I AM BETTER THAN LITERALLY EVERY VIDEO MAKER ON THE SITE.

ALSO, SHIFT GOT STUCK ON MY KEYBOARD AGAIN AND I'M TOO LAZY TO FIX IT. SO HAVE THIS IN ALL CAPS.

Accolades