CHAPTER TWO: THE HUNTER AND THE HUNTED
~LAHARL
"And now it's time for a special episode of-"
Laharl groaned, changing the TV channel. "There's nothing good to watch on this thing!"
"Why...did you break...into my apartment?" Under him was a couch, as well as an angry young man being sat on. "And why the hell are you on me! ?"
"Do you have a death wish?" he snarled. "I could kill you right now!"
"Oh, really? Do you even know who the hell I am? !"
"If you're so great, why don't you just push me off of your back?"
"Good question!" He sat upright easily, flinging Laharl off.
He landed safely on his feet, drawing his sword from out of nowhere! "That's it! You're dead!"
His baby blue Hellsing outfit and brick red hair began flowing as if in the wind! In his fist there arose flaming red power! "FACE MY VULCAN BLA- hey, are you by chance the guy who just swept through and demolished the entirety of South America? I-I heard it on the news!"
He's right! Laharl started to sweat, to his surprise. I could just kill him, but could I make him my new underling? I see he has a lot of power himself, just by the sheer energy and willpower stored up in a single fist!
"No! Of course not! I could never get to THAT guy's power level!" he lied.
"Hmph. Well, then, you've got no business messing with me! I'm Adell, demon hunter, and you, vile demon, are finished! FACE MY VUL-"
"I'm not even a demon!" he assured, waving his hands around. "I'm just...a human boy with extraordinary powers!"
"...Wow, a guy like me! So am I! Heh, you must be misguided!" Adell put his hand to his forehead. "I sense the presence of a high-power demon in the area, I just know it! And I could've sworn it was you!"
He's so trustworthy, he realized, not like Etna, or even Flonne. THIS is someone I can exploit! But only if I follow along with his stupid ideas. Then I can eventually have a full-fledged servant! AAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA
"Well, I could help you search for said demon," Laharl suggested, "with my ice powers. I could even show you right now, if you need proof."
"Nah, that's okay! I trust you!" Adell was suddenly cheerful. "Want something to eat while you're here? I've got some fruit snacks in the cabinet!"
"I'm not hungry, but...is it alright if I stay at your place for a while?"
"Sure. Wait, why?"
"...I left home in search of a renowned...fencing tournament. But my family lived in South America, so they died," he said emotionlessly.
"Gosh...I'm so sorry that had to happen to you." He pumped his fist. "All the more reason to find that demon and kick his ass, for the sake of all the people and animals who died! Don't worry, kid, we'll find that demon someday!"
"Sure. Also, my name's not 'kid'. It's Laharl."
"That's a nice name. Is it really South American?"
Laharl sighed. "Yes, it means 'springtime'."
"Looks like I learned something today," Adell said with a smile. "Okay, let me set up the guest room for you. You can just get anything you need here, Laharl!"
"Gee, thanks. No hard feelings after sitting on you?"
"There were some at first, but we're cool, right?" Adell gave a thumbs-up before backing into the hallway.
Laharl plopped back onto the red couch, relieved. He'd lied his way over to a new opportunity! His future was looking good. He reclaimed the remote control and changed the channel some more.
"...On a strangely less tragic note," some guy said, "there appears to a large pale naked girl on devastated Chilean shores." He turned around to the image onscreen. "Why no clothes! ? Somebody put some clothes on this thing!" The blurred-out spots on the image were now covered by a revealing black leather jumpsuit. "Much better," the man said, to some laughs from the audience.
Adell wandered back into the living room, holding a plate with a couple of steaming teacups on top. "The bastards," he muttered, setting the plate down on a glass coffee table. "Makes me sick how all the TV comedians have started riffing on these things, like they're nothing! They think they can just joke about this giant naked Rei when the continent right below us has been completely decimated! ?"
"Yeah, I think death is pretty funny, too. They missed an opportunity!" Laharl said.
"Th-th...that's not what I mean! I mean that these guys should get serious and stop ignoring it!"
"Calm down, Adell," he said. "Here, just sit down, and we'll both watch these insipid television programs, and relax."
"B-but I can't! I don't even LIKE the Colbert Report! You can't make me!"
"Just relax..." He started rubbing Adell's back, coaxing him into sitting down with him. "And here, you can have the remote, too."
He looked away, to talk to himself. "Man...this boy's so kind, even in the most dire and painful of circumstances! This is the least I could do for him. Hell, he might even be sent into a spiraling state of depression if I don't just stay by him!"
Man, this guy doesn't even know how to think right! Laharl thought, grimacing. An easy pawn to capture. If I can just use the monster-taming techniques Flonne - thank you for once - forced me to learn, I'll have a team in no time!
"Ah, here's a neat-looking show!" Adell exclaimed, coming to a program's theme song. "Looks like that Flipping-Out show thing. Better than those comedians," he remarked.
A guy continuously said "aaa" in the background as a few people showed up onscreen. First up was the blond-haired and fancily-dressed Axel, as shown by the name below his picture. "Hey, it's Axel in the hizzy fo shizzy!" the same guy doing the background vocals said, set to video footage of him spinning an electric guitar around.
Adell's eye twitched.
The second member of his team was a smiling old guy named Bill. "Axel's crazy," he said to someone on his cell phone with a frown.
The third member was Renamon, a tall yellow-and-purple digital fox creature. "Why am I working for this guy?" she asked herself, rubbing her chin.
The fourth member was Spyro, a short purple dragon. "We are gonna flip this house like pancakes for breakfast," he announced, walking under some scaffolding.
Axel had to take a deep breath at the end to end with an extra big, "FLIPPING OUT WITH AXEEEEEEEEEEL!" The logo for the series appeared, saying "FLIPPING OUT" with a house inside of the 'O'. Oh, and also it said "WITH AXEL" in a completely different font below that.
Adell clenched his fists and began to shake. "Now, now, Adell," Laharl cooed, trying to keep him sitting down. "We can just change the channel, and then you'll never have to look at Renamon again."
"Axel...no..."
"Now, let's just-"
"NO!" Flames literally erupted from his body, pushing Laharl away! "LEAVE IT ON THIS CHANNEL SO I CAN PUNCH HIM!"
"...That won't solve anything! It's just stupid! Why do you-"
"FACE MY VULCAN BLAZE!"
Suddenly, everything but him, the TV and a square of land faded away. All at an extremely high speed, Adell punched the TV so hard that shockwaves emanated from his very fists! After five punches he leaped into the air and slammed his fists down on the television set! Then he leaped backward and charged forward, fist-first, and then backflipped twice, hitting the TV twice with his feet! Then he charged up his fist with amazing blazing power, the kind some demons only dream of, and gave it an uppercut! Then, as sparks fluttered around the airborne TV, Adell raised his fist...and it exploded!
Everything went back to normal, and the TV fell down in front of him. According to the numbers hovering above it, it had taken...1498 damage. It was badly beaten, but still fully intact.
Wow...such an amazing feat... Laharl was speechless. Wait, it only did 1498 damage! I can do SO much better!
"What kinda TV is this! ?" Adell complained. "Damn, and after all that buildup! Laharl, your turn!"
Laharl re-drew his sword. "NIGHTSEV- waaaaait, why were we doing this again?"
"To destroy the TV, remember? It's the only thing on which I can release my irrepressible rage!"
"What's so bad about this show, anyway?"
"Fine, just watch."
The TV, miraculously still on, showed Axel driving a car whilst wearing a huge-collared white jacket and no shirt. "Axel, I just don't feel safe when I'm riding with you in the car," Bill said, sitting next to him.
"Well, sure! I'm not the best driver," Axel said with an irresistible smile, raising one huge eyebrow.
"Well, no, I don't mean that. I mean, your collar is just huge! How can you watch the road with that on?"
"Simple, I-"
BOOM
"HAAAAA!" Laharl boomed. "That was hilarious! They just drove into the nuclear power plant! See, now Axel's dead. You don't have to worry anymore. ...Hey, I thought this was gonna be a reality show!"
Adell folded his arms. "If it's not Axel trying to make himself look good, it must be."
"Hey, did they just cut to nighttime?"
"Didn't wanna show Axel's face burned off, I guess."
"And that would've been hilarious!"
A perfectly-fine Axel and Bill were standing on the curb, giving hitch-hiking thumbs-ups to passing drivers. "Hey, can't we get a ride with the cameramen?" Bill asked.
"Heh! No way! Everyone knows the cameraman is never really supposed to be there! I mean, they're hanging around at every angle, sure, but you're not supposed to ride with them!"
"Hey, Joe, can I ride in your van?" Bill asked the cameraman filming that scene.
"Sure!" They ran over to a briefly-shown van in the grass, with the camera turned backward to a shrinking Axel and some other cameramen.
"Hey, wait! You can't just do that!"
"Sure I can! Have a good time freezing to death, Axel!" The van started up and drove away.
"Wait, no! You can't leave me like this! At least lend me your cell phoooooooooone!" Now shown in some other camera was Axel crying.
"See?" Laharl said. "The show's not THAT bad. I don't know what your grudge is about, but look, Axel's sad and abandoned!"
"Yeah, I guess you're right." Adell relaxed a bit.
"Coming up on Flipping Out With Axel!" Axel said, leading viewers into the commercial break with colorful graphics.
"Axel sucks!" said a little pink-haired girl.
"You're under arrest!" said the police, aiming at her with their guns.
The TV went black. "Hey, don't turn it off, Adell! That was getting good! Turn it on, or-"
"No way, man! That show sucks!" Adell barked. "And that last part really, really hurt me...here!" Adell put his hand to his chest.
"The police give you chest pains?"
He took a deep breath. "Listen, I know I'm frustrated...but that's probably because of the destruction of South America, plus this horrible, horrible show. I just need to forget all that. Besides, I've got a much better idea. Why don't we go out for a while, and get some smoothies?"
Laharl sighed. "I guess that's fine with me."
"Great, let's go." Adell pushed the decimated door open and headed outside.
They arrived at the Smoothie Warlord, a small shop at the local strip mall. A few people were lounging around in their parked cars, sipping fruity concoctions. "Smoothie Warlord? Feh! That's a stupid name," Laharl said.
"Hey, don't say stuff like that," Adell warned. "We haven't even seen the inside of it yet."
"That doesn't change the fact that Smoothie Warlord is a stupid name."
"Well, an opinion is an opinion. I've still got that demon-sensing feeling. The demon might be in here, so don't be afraid if I start fighting. Here, after you." He opened the door for Laharl, releasing a blast of air-conditioned air.
"It's so cold in here! It makes me wish I had a shirt on!" he said.
"You must be from one of those third-world countries where they don't wear shirts! I should've helped you earlier. Take my coat!"
"No!" He didn't want HIS dirty unattractive coat! "My scarf works just fine."
"Suit yourself. You'll be even colder when you have one of their smoothies! Just tell me what you want. You can sit here, while I order everything."
He slid onto a chair near the window. "Just get me a soda."
"Okay. And remember, just wait here."
"I'm not going anywhere!"
As Adell turned to start walking, he bumped into some rollerskating waitress, and the both fell backwards onto the floor! A white 1 was born from their collision.
"Ow! Hey, watch where you're going!" Adell said, rubbing his forehead.
"You want ME to watch where I'M going?" the blonde snapped. "You're the one who just came in! How was I supposed to see you when you just arrived! ?"
"Well, how was I supposed to see YOU when I was just turning around! ?"
"Look, man, just...apologize. Think of what would have happened if I were holding something!"
"YOU'RE the one who needs to give ME an apology!"
I COULD tell them BOTH to apologize, Laharl thought, but the Overlord wouldn't do that! Plus, it's fun to watch.
"You're the person working here, and you're also the one wearing such fragile and shaky rollerskates!"
She dusted her simple red, black-aproned dress off, standing effortlessly on her skates. "For your information, it's rollerblades that are shaky and fragile. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have customers to attend to..."
"And who said I wasn't a customer! ?" Adell leaped up. "Since I'm the paying customer, y-you could get sued! By me, Adell, demon hunter!" He tipped his hat stylishly.
"Do you always have to introduce yourself like that!" Laharl interrupted.
"Well, yeah! That's just my style."
Another employee-looking girl walked in, with really long black hair and a white headband under it. "Is there something wrong, zam?"
"Who's 'zam'?"
"...What?"
"Stay out of this, Laharl," Adell said, stepping forward. "This petty argument isn't something you should get involved in."
"What's going on, zam?"
"I said, who's 'zam'?" Laharl sounded annoyed.
"...I'm not talking to 'zam', zam."
"I SAID WHO'S 'ZAM'! ?"
"It's her verbal tic!" the other waitress answered. "Are you making fun of Yukimaru?"
"Yukimaru?" Adell repeated. "I don't really know Japanese, but I read enough manga to know that Yukimaru's a boy's name."
"Yes, that is my name. Stop...stop making fun of me, zam."
"Why do you keep saying 'zam'?" Laharl said.
"I'm going," Yukimaru said, walking away with a look of despair but a tone as bland and soft as snow. "Rozalin, surely you can handle this on your own, zam."
"You're running away just because of - ugh! Sometimes I just can't handle this job!" Rozalin got all up in Adell's grill! "You listen up, Adell. There's customers waiting for their smoothies, and unless you can get a grip, I'm kicking you out."
"Laharl and I did nothing wrong!"
"Keep me out of this!" Laharl roared.
"Okay, so maybe I did nothing wrong."
"So you're saying that-"
"No, neither of us did anything wrong! We just came in here for some smoothies, and then you bumped into me!"
"Who bumped into who?"
Adell put his fist up. "Accept it, Rozalin! You're the one who started skating in my general direction, therefore causing the fall! If only you were more mindful of your actions. And you know what else?"
"What?"
"You smell like a demon."
Rozalin gasped. "Demons have a smell! ?"
"Burned peas and mashed potatoes! But that's besides the point. For I, Adell, am a demon hunter!"
"We know that already!" Laharl intruded.
"And it is my duty to exterminate you!"
MUSIC PLAYED! (YOUTUBE LINK) /watch?v=jaHl725hKZ4 - It's "Spread Your Wings" from Disgaea 2's soundtrack!
TUTORIAL!
Everyone else evacuated, Rozalin teleported farther away, and Adell and Laharl had to crawl out of a blue portal to begin their fight. BUT WAIT! On the normally red-and-blue floor tiles there was now a suspicious yellow line between them.
"Damn, there's some yellow stuff on the floor," Laharl said. "That means we can't go past it!"
"Watch and learn, Laharl," Adell said. An area around him, stretching about five tiles outward and representing his movement limit, glowed bright red. It stopped three spaces forward, however, right where the yellow line was. "Hunh? That's weird. What are we gonna do? Rozalin's all the way over there!"
"And I can't run out the door, either!" she realized. "What is the meaning of this! ?"
"I've seen this kind of thing before," Laharl said. "First of all, look to your left. What do you see there?"
The in-game camera moved south-west until it became focused on a large, yellow-and-black cube. "It's a box!" Adell answered.
"That thing's called a Geo...wow, I thought it would be a pyramid-looking thing. I guess it's called a Geo Cube."
"That's some handy advice! How do you know so much about them, Laharl?"
"There's a lot of similar Geo Panels in South America."
"You used to live in South America! ?" Rozalin looked somewhat sorrowful.
"There's no need to get sympathetic. That's behind me now!" Laharl boomed. "Adell, Rozalin, you've got a problem on your hands. I really wanna see you two fight, so you should remove the Geo Cube that's causing this!"
"But how would it...?" Rozalin began.
"Have a look." The cursor moved onto the Geo Cube, bringing up a box of information.
GEO CUBE No Entry
"No Entry?" Adell looked shocked. "But that means I can't enter! H-how can we fight! ?"
"There's a couple of different solutions," Laharl said. "First, you can do things the old-fashioned way: kill it."
"I'll get right on that. Yah!" Rozalin whacked the thing from above with a convenient triple berry smoothie, doing 510 damage and exploding it. "That was simple," she remarked, twirling the weapon around in one hand and spraying smoothie juice all over them.
"Aah! Ow! It's in my eye!" Adell began frantically rubbing.
"Don't try to be cordial with me. The boundary has been broken, and it's about time we battle!"
"Not so fast!" Laharl pointed at the right side of the yellow line. "There's another cube, over there...and it's PURPLE!"
"What?" Adell was honest-to-goodness surprised! "How'd that horrible color get here without me noticing! ?"
"For your information, purple represents royalty," Rozalin huffed.
Laharl shrugged. "It's also preventing you from fighting...again. So what'll ya do?"
"Kill it!" Adell and Rozalin said at the same time. A Vulcan Blaze made short work of the cube, dealing 2085 damage this time. But this time, the yellow panels all turned purple, just like the cube.
"That's another rule of Geo Cubes," Laharl taught. "If they're not the same color as the panels they're on, their destruction will turn all of the panels under and/or around it into that same color! This also hurts any enemies on said panels."
"Sweet! I could strategize with this info!" Adell smirked.
"So can we battle now?" Rozalin wondered.
"Hell no! There's another cube on the left...and this time it's GREEN!"
Adell gasped! "Oh no. So you're saying we STILL have to learn stuff?"
"If you actually want to have a fight. You think I'M summoning all these Geo Cubes?"
"Well, yeah, kind of. No offense."
"None taken. But here, look at this cube in particular." The cursor moved onto it. As well as revealing that it had taken a bit of damage, it showed the following:
GEO CUBE No Entry Invincibility
"It's invincible!" Rozalin gasped. "We'll never fight at this rate."
"No, there's another simple way to get around this. If you can't destroy the Geo Cube, just move it away! Some attacks, like your Triple Strike, can do this," Laharl mentioned, gesturing to Adell, "but the simplest way to do this while conserving SP is to throw it away!"
"How did you know I have Triple Strike?"
"Well, you use fists, it's a fist technique...they just go together."
"I'll try! Unh!" Rozalin threw the green cube one space away, enough to remove its effect.
"Bravo, I guess," Laharl halfheartedly congratulated. "But one Geo Cube can never have more than one effect. The Invincibility is gone, but not the No Entry."
"Oh you've gotta be kidding me," Adell said, pinching his forehead.
To their right, there was a clear Geo Cube with a glowing orange orb in the middle!
"I...didn't expect that one to appear here," Laharl admitted.
"And since there's no invincibility effect, we can just destroy it!" Rozalin chimed. "Hyah!" A 582-damage whack of her smoothie, and the thing was gone. But when it exploded, all of the purple panels simply disappeared!
The whole place exploded with light! "What the?" Adell shouted, shielding his eyes. When the light cleared, the image of a flying old guy appeared from above. "Huh?"
"Ew!" Rozalin shielded her eyes again.
"This is new," Laharl admitted. "Well, the panels are gone. Your tutorial phase is now officially over! Go kick some ass. I'll be watching from back here."
"Wait, you're not helping me defeat my latest rival?" Adell said.
"Latest and GREATEST rival," Rozalin corrected.
"You're not great!"
"Eh...fine." To hide his immense power somewhat, Laharl grabbed a nearby rolled-up newspaper as his weapon. It drastically lowered his Attack and Intelligence stats. Perfect, he thought.
STAGE START!
"Alright! We've got the first turn," Adell said, stepping back out from the weird blue portal. "Let me attack first, Laharl!"
"Chaining our attacks might do more damage!" Laharl pointed out.
"...Okay! I've set up things so that I'm about to use my legendary Soaring Fire attack!"
Laharl shrugged, now standing right next to him with a newspaper behind his head. "I'll attack after you. Let's get on with it."
"TASTE THE HEAT! SOARING FIRE!" Adell leaped into the air, took aim while he levitated for a second, and then punched in a fiery +-sign formation! He landed exactly where he was before. Rozalin was caught right in the middle of it, taking 1282 damage.
"Hey, why can't I do anything right now?" Rozalin asked, paralyzed for the most part and hurting all over. "THIS is a stupid way to fight!"
"Get used to it!" Laharl barked. "Super Something Attack! Die!" Rozalin was pelted by ice by his previously-described attack. It seemed to only do 404 damage.
"I had a feeling you would be much more powerful than this," Rozalin said.
"Oh, shut up! I just grabbed a stat-lowering rolled-up newspaper! You're getting low on health. One more turn and you're dead!"
"You're just lucky I hate Adell," she warned, running in back of the red-haired guy.
"Hey, where'd she go! ?" He looked around, startled.
"She just ran behind you, don't be stupid! A 'back attack' also does more damage."
"Gosh, there's so much about battling I didn't even know until-"
"Smoothie Splasher!" she cried, pouring out some of a strawberry smoothie all over Adell. As it mostly washed away, a levitating 1038 revealed the damage total. Rozalin later threw the cup offscreen.
"Aah! It burns! But it's so cold at the same time..." Adell shivered.
"Would you believe that was my FIRST special move?"
"Aah! No."
"Well...IT IS."
"Dah!"
"Quiet, you two! Just for that, I'm attacking already!" Laharl ran for Rozalin's back, and shouted, "Hurricane Slash!" He flew around Rozalin, creating a blue tornado around her. When she reached the top, Laharl was there to slice her with his newspaper! She fell down and showed a floating 268. "...Hmph. Resistant to ice, are you?"
"Well, I DO work in a SMOOTHIE store."
"Lemme warm you up...with VULCAN BLAZE!" Adell really put the hurtin' on Rozalin with his legendary twelve-hit move! It did a whopping 2560 damage to Rozy, who swiftly imploded!
"Hey, now that we've won -"
"Together!" Adell reminded.
"- we can do a victory jump!" Laharl suggested. "All together now..."
"HELL YEAH!" the demon hunter shouted, and they both jumped with a fist in the air! "And it looks like Rozalin dropped a Halberd!"
"No, that's just from the bonus gauge."
"Wha?"
"Hey!" Rozalin's disembodied voice roared. "That's not yours! It must have belonged to one of the customers! Give it back to its rightful owner!"
"No way! We won this thing, fair and square! And now YOU have to apologize!"
"I don't know if she can do that without a body," Laharl pointed out.
Suddenly Rozalin regenerated, clothes and all! "Phew," she sighed, wiping her forehead.
"Wait, she's not dead yet?" Adell's smiled faltered.
"Of course not!" Laharl said.
"O...kay. When did people start battling like this?"
"Who cares about Yukimaru's weapon, anyways? She ditched me, so I'm ditching her! I'm high-tailing it out of here!"
"Not before I kill you!" Adell bravely declared.
"Not before I summon my lackeys to kill YOU! Rise, my demon servants!"
From within the shadows, three mysterious, red-eyed demons appeared, their teeth gritted, their voices snarling. "Rar," one even declared.
"Laharl, you'd better find a more adequate weapon! That newspaper's just not doing it for ya!"
"No!"
- Chapter End -
AUTHOR'S NOTE: All of the battling won't be like this. ...Just some of it. For a while. ...Yeah.
