Byako, round 2

Alex awoke suddenly from another dreamless sleep, a strange calamity that had afflicted him ever since he had created his world. At once his eyes adjusted to the dawning light and the world around him became clear. At this point he noticed something peculiar immediately about the room he had slept in. it wasn’t the room itself, which was the same fine inn room they had stayed in for the past few days getting accustomed to Byako. It was something missing… Civox wasn’t there.
            Alex bolted out the door in his stark undershirt and a pair of baggy pants he just managed to pull on without too much damage to his legs while simultaneously running through the inn. Getting outside, he got the urge to look up in the sky. Seeing nothing, he turned and saw Civox sitting on top of the inn, seemingly deep in thought. Alex found a ladder system on the side of the building and soon found himself joining Civox on the edge of the roof. But something was wrong… did Civox usually have that kind of outfit?
“Civox?” Alex started, but his friend did not turn. “Dude, what’s with the… err, spikes?”
“I don’t know…” Civox replied absent-mindedly.
“It doesn’t seem like something you would normally wear.”
“I know.” Civox didn’t seem keen on giving any hints as to why he was dressed this way. Right then, it hit Alex; he had designed that outfit for him to use for a part of the contest this round. One of the Kenton plushy officials dropped by their room to request an initial sketch as to what they would be wearing. Alex almost had thought of it as a costume party outfit, not something they would be fighting in. the theme, he was told, was to be an evil overlord. Alex had seen nothing wrong with the idea so he quickly gave Civox a look reminiscent of Nathaniel, a villain from one of the stories Alex had came up with for Civox.
“Is anything wrong?” Alex asked, rather hesitantly.
“I…I- I look like Nathaniel…” Civox seemed to be barely able to utter this. Alex couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at this.
“Well, I’m sorry.” At once, Civox turned to Alex and angrily demanded,
“Why are you sorry!?”
“Well… we were supposed to dress up this round, as evil villains or something, and I thought nothing better suited you.”
Civox was immediately enraged by this, and couldn’t help but grab his partner’s collar and swing him out over the edge, Alex’s feet now dangling 3 stories above the ground.
“NOTHING BETTER SUITED ME? I look like the man who wants nothing more than my brain splattered on a concrete wall!!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Alex had nothing better to resort to than pleading, he knew Civox couldn’t kill him, but if he was upset there’s nothing better for him to do.
“Can we just get through this round? I promise afterwards you won’t have to wear it!” Alex suggested, finally seeing a hint of remorse in Civox.
“Fine.” Civox agreed, slowly bringing Alex back down to the ground. “Only this round.”
“It’s not so bad, I gave you some extra stuff. You have some grenades now.” Alex tried pointing out, just to reassure him.
“I already said ‘fine’… could we forget the fact that I look like this?”
“Okay then. Let’s get some breakfast.” Alex finished as he led his friends back inside the inn.

            A knock at the door. Alex had just finished changing into his new costume, a black trench coat, sunglasses and a bullet necklace. He jumped to the door, and opened it to find a Kenton plush.
“Hello!” it happily stated with a smile,
“Hi.” Alex replied with another smile.
“We’re here to give you your next opponent, sir!”
“Oh good… Civox!” Alex called, “you wanna see who we’re fighting today?” Civox ran into the entry room, immediately saw the plush and boldly stated,
“Oh good! I’ve been waiting to beat one of those things into pieces!”
“Oh, good heavens no, sir. I’m just here to show you your next opponent!” said the Kenton, with no apparent phasing to what Civox had said, although Alex got a brief chuckle over it.
“You can come in, now!” shouted the Kenton across the hall.
In stepped another clockwork plush, recognized as representing what seemed to be a very old man dressed old 70’s gear; from an afro to pump-heels and topped off with star shaped glasses.
“You’ve got to be kidding me…” Civox could only mutter.
“He is known by his creator and opponents as the ‘Disco Grandpa’, quite the worthy opponent, would you agree not?” the plushy happily informed.
“Erm, I’m not sure I would use ‘worthy’… perhaps something along the lines of ‘experienced’?” Alex was also surprised to witness an opponent such as this.
“Well, he claims to be in his late 20’s.” said the Kenton. Stunned silence from the two partners, cut off by Civox’s outrage;
“What the hell!? What’s he supposed to be able to do?”
“I’m afraid I can give no hints as to what his abilities in combat are, but I can wish you both good luck. And remember, he’s wearing his evil overlord costume, so keep a sharp eye out!” and with that, the Plushies left leaving the pair in a slight state of shock. Alex was the first to speak after awhile,
“Well, let’s start strategizing then.” He said while walking back into their room.
“Strategize what? There’s no honor in fighting an old man! It’s like saying you used an AK-47 to beat up a kindergartener! Not doing it is almost as bad as doing it!”
“Exactly what that guy’s creator probably wants us to think. We just have to get creative, that’s all. Don’t come running after him with knifes and flamethrowers. Instead, we take an inventive approach.”
“Like what?” Civox seemed hopeless at this point.
“We’ll just have to wait and see what gets thrown at us.” Replied Alex with a sly smile. At that point, Civox knew they would pull through somehow.

            Alex coincidentally managed to find the Disco Grandpa’s last opponent, a strange blindfolded ghost, and succeeded in coaxing out of him the information needed in order to find him. The Disco Dancing senior was keeping to himself in an old movie set somewhere in Byako, but it was hard to locate. Something about it being near a junkyard, or so said the ghost. They had made their way towards Byako’s only junkyard, (after a fair warning from the ghost about their opponent) and Civox had left Alex behind a scrap heap to go fly off and look for the lair. Civox came back quickly, with an almost startled look on his face.
“You’d be surprised, he’s practically announcing the location.” He said. Civox picked up Alex by the arms, and as they flew over the scrap mountain Alex realized Civox couldn’t be more right. The Disco Grandpa might as well have been plastering flyers of his lair all over the city. The domed fortress was covered in neon lights, with a black-light glow emanating from the entryway along with smoke and the faded sound of “Stayin’ Alive”. It also seemed part of the fortresses’ construction was to make it seem like a disco ball itself; square mirrors covered almost the entire dome.

As Alex and Civox drew closer, something appeared to try and block their way. In front of the doorway lay a small row of bear traps. Civox thought quickly, taking a step back, he unhooked one of his new grenades, pulled the pin and let it fly. Bouncing of the center of the trap, the timing was perfect as the bounce of the grenade caused the trap to bite the tough explosive shell. The blast was enough to clear away the remaining traps and cause a path to appear.
“Too easy.” What Alex didn’t see though, was the laser-light show tripwire blocking the doorway. As soon as they were about to enter, 3 nearby turrets were set off. Civox managed to dodge something rather saw-like, it’s blade tearing up the earth beside him. He caught eye of one of the turrets and fired, his explosive round causing the thing to go up in flames, suggesting a gas powered propulsion mechanism. The other two turrets were on top of the entryway, so a quick well-placed grenade finished them off.
“Did you happen to see what they were firing at us? It whizzed past me like a buzz-saw.” Asked Civox.
“Erm… maybe you don’t want to know.” Said Alex, quickly tossing the vinyl “AC-DC” record on the ground.

            As they entered the Disco lair, the door slammed shut behind them. The room was dark and hazy, and suddenly the music stopped. Alex pulled out his revolver and activated the laser sight, while Civox did the same with his magnum’s flashlight. But the smoke was too much; the beams of light barely passed a few yards in front of them. Suddenly, a voice boomed behind them:
“Hello, my pretties!”  
“Where are you?” said Civox.
“You kids these days, always asking questions! I’ll teach you some respect!” Suddenly, a mechanical claw dropped from the ceiling, and lifted Alex away by his arm.
“Alex!” he called out, while quickly reloading his magnum. At that moment, the Disco Grandpa appeared. Wearing a strange green set of armor and wielding a glowing green scythe, Civox was a bit more cautious now of his senile opponent. The Disco Grandpa unleashed a flurry of dance moves combined with swinging his weapon wildly, but this served as only a distraction when Civox realized the giant claw was targeting him. As the Grandpa let it drop from the ceiling again, Civox managed to roll out of the way as it dropped and grabbed a chunk of the floor. A few well placed shots at the chain of the claw broke it off of it’s masters control as it fell limply again towards the ground, permanently. Civox jumped onto the claw to have the high ground for only a moment, as the Grandpa rushed him from the side with another blind raging attack with his scythe. Civox just barely dodged out of the way, and now stood facing his opponent.
“Yes, I know. He’s becoming a hassle.” Said the Grandpa.
“Wait, what?” Civox didn’t know why, but it seemed his opponent was talking to himself.
“Never you mind! Before I turn into my ultimate form and become the Disco Dragon of Power!” with these words, the Disco Grandpa began to dance. His moves were swift, elegant, and very… disco-y, but it seemed to surprise him that he hadn’t changed a bit when he was done. The Grandpa tried again, only this time he managed to succeed only in falling down.
“My hip!” he cried out.
Civox began to laugh hysterically, and couldn’t help but fall to the floor himself. He laughed so hard he didn’t see the Disco Grandpa slowly recover and walk over to him, now shaking rapidly with laughter.
“I’ll teach you to laugh at something funny!” said the grandpa, as he raised his scythe over his head to deal a fatal blow. But at that moment, music came back on, this time the slow soft melody of The Beatles, Good Night. The lullaby was enough to stop the Grandpa in his tracks, his eyes slowly drifting in and out of consciousness.
“Oh… god night, my pretty…” was all he could manage to yawn as he fell over on top of Civox, who immediately felt surprised, then thoroughly creeped out at the fact that an old man was lying on top of him.
“That worked out better than expected.” Said a voice as the lights in the arena popped on. The first thing Civox noticed was a mini-bar in the corner of the room, but then he looked up onto a balcony. There was Alex smiling smugly, a door behind him saying “control room”.
“There was definitely a flawed logic in his plan… that’s where the claw dropped me.” He said, pointing to the door. “Aww! You two look so cute playing together!” he couldn’t help joking after he saw Civox crawling underneath the Disco Grandpa’s body.
“Shut up! The dude weighs a ton!” replied Civox, finally managing to get out from underneath him. “What took you so long, anyway?”
“Couldn’t find the light switch in the room, and then I was looking for the right record.”
“Wow… the guy needs an Mp3 player.” Civox said.

Later that night, Alex was eating dinner with Civox, a delicious meal of pasta alfredo and salad, when Alex decided to start up a conversation.
“You know, I’ve been thinking. To really succeed in this tournament, you kinda’ have to think like it.”
“Wait, how do you think like a tournament?” Civox asked.
“Exactly.” Said Alex.