vs. Alex Halo

Beakers and flasks containing liquids of all sorts adorned the shelves of the room. Cages containing lab mice were stacked in the far corner. Bunsen burners slowly heated test tubes to a light boil. Yet even with all this going on, not a soul could be found.

“Is anybody here?”

Vhryn called into the emptiness, hoping to be able to find one of the working scientists. He wanted to be able to get some information on this “Alexander Halo” he was sent to fight. So far though, the place seemed to have been abandoned. Vhryn could only assume it was in preparation for the upcoming fight.

He proceeded along the pathway between the shelves when the tinkling of glass behind him caught his attention. Always alert, he primed his Scalpel for combat. After a quick browse through his options and a blur of particles, Vhryn was now wielding a large plasma cannon in place of his right arm.

“Show yourself!”

Vhryn was poised to fire when the shelving farther down the row suddenly teetered over, smashing all the glass vials and raising a large cloud of dust.

“Oh... ummm… oops…”

As the dust settled, a figure wearing a large top hat and ratty coat was sitting on the ground behind the rubble.

Slightly stunned and incredulous, Vhryn lowered his weapon and approached the boy.

“Can I assume you are the ‘Alexander Halo’ of which I am supposed to fight?”

“Yeah, that’s me all right,” the boy said with a large smile, “but you can just call me Alex.”

Alex brought himself off the floor and lightly brushed off his aberrant array of clothing.

“So, you’re Vhryn then?”

Still in a mild state of awe, Vhryn nodded in the affirmative.

“Glad to meet you. Hey, what’s with your arm?”

Alex pointed to Vhryn’s Scalpel as a child would a shiny new toy.

“Oh, it’s my Scalpel; it can change into anything I need it to be.”

“Wow! That sure sounds nifty. My hat can do something similar. Care to show him, Hat?”

The hat situated on top of Alex’s head began to stir, causing Vhryn to take a cautious step back.

“Why yes Alex, a demonstration would be fine. Shall we let him see our special trick we’ve been working on?”

“Oh, right! Good idea, let’s show him!”

The top of the hat opened revealing a large phantasmal hand that lunged out at Vhryn. Still a bit confused by the recent series of events, Vhryn was caught off guard and knocked back by the ethereal fist.

“Oh no, sorry!” Alex hollered in the direction of Vhryn’s flight, “I didn’t expect it to be so strong!”

Not taking any more chances with trying to understand this seemingly bipolar child, Vhryn decided to keep this at a ranged battle. He charged a plasma bolt, locked onto Alex via the HUD superimposed onto his vision, and let it fly. The scream of panic and a satisfying crashing noise against the far wall confirmed his hit.

“If you don’t wish to suffer any more serious injuries, I suggest you forfeit this battle now.”

Vhryn didn’t want to hurt the child too severely, so it would only be proper to offer a truce. The reply was not what he expected.

A speeding ball of flame shot through the dust kicked up from Vhryn’s previous attack and alerted him via his HUD just in time for him to change his Scalpel into an energy shield and block the incoming projectile.

“Hah! You wish!”

Alex’s taunting mockery was followed up by more flaming bullets from the haze that made the laboratory more visually obscured as the battle progressed. Fortunately, this affected Alex as well and his accuracy was slowly decreasing, allowing Vhryn to begin to sneak around to where the source of the projectiles seemed to be.

Sticking low to the ground and moving as stealthy as possible so as not to attract his opponent’s attention, Vhryn reformatted his Scalpel into a wide blade so as to be able to fend off any further projectiles as well as be an affective weapon.

As the distance between them lessened, Vhryn could begin to make out a figure firing the scorching orbs. He lunged forward with his sword poised for attack, only to slice into nothing. A light poking on his leg earned his attention.

“Boo.”

Alex’s hat looked up at Vhryn with a wide grin on its face.

“My, but you are quite the witty one. Unfortunately, two minds seem to be better than one in this case. What a fool to have fallen into-“

Not caring to hear the rest of the hat’s speech, Vhryn knocked the annoying thing into the murky darkness of the room. Unfortunately, the hat’s distraction had worked as well as planned, and Alex was able to jump forward and connect a fireball with Vhryn’s gut, knocking him back into some desks much as Vhryn had done to Alex earlier.

“Now I’m going to ask you the same thing, do you give up?”

Pulling himself from the rubble, Vhryn decided enough was enough. This needed to end.

He reconfigured his Scalpel into large extendable claw not unlike the one used by the talking hat. Hoping the visually impairing haze would hold, he quietly slinked out of the rubble. Making his way to where the hat had fallen, Vhryn formulated a trap similar to the one he just fell for.

Alex, tired of waiting for a reply, went off in search of his friendly headwear.

“Alright Hat, enough fooling around, where’d you go off to?”

Peering around one of the few intact shelving, the familiar silhouette of his headpiece was lying on the ground a few paces away.

“Now what’re you doing over here?”

“No Alex! It’s a tra-“

But the hat’s frantic warning was too late. Vhryn’s large grappling claw launched out and gripped Alex and the top hat between its large bionic talons.

“Now who looks like the fool!”

Vhryn’s taunting exclamation was mostly drowned out as he smashed the duo into the floor and ceiling repeatedly while they remained in his grasp. After a good series of impacts, he hurled the pair into the far wall.

Returning his Scalpel to its former plasma cannon form, he approached the battered twosome with a charged shot aimed at Alex’s head.

“I’ll ask you again, forfeit now and you will have to suffer no more. Please, I do not enjoy harming a child.”

Alex looked down to his unconscious hat, and then back up to Vhryn.

“Alright, just don’t be a jerk about it later.”

The boy attempted a small smile through his injuries.

“I’m glad you accept. Now, let’s get you two to the infirmary.”

Alex placed his hat in its rightful location upon his head as Vhryn assisted him out of the now completely demolished laboratory.

“You know who’s probably got it worse than this?”

Alex asked Vhryn, still managing to keep in good spirits.

“What’s that?”

“Having to clean up that mess we made back there.”

The pair laughed as they made their way through the door out of the facility.