Alias vs Pseudosyne (ELP Duel)

"Twinkle twinkle little... stream!" Burt whizzed it left, right, up, down, and even side stepped several times to hit more fence planks. "HOW I WONDER what he'll scream?" The wet stains flowed downward along the wood grains, finally dripping onto unkempt blades of grass. Burt zipped up his shorts and finished his song with a loud whistle.

"Come here Pongo! Thirsty boy? Here ya go, lap up some of this!" Pongo was the neighbor's dog and could just stick his head under the fence to Burt's yard to lick at the falling drops. The eight year old trouble maker giggled with delight, watched the dog struggle to drink his urine for a few more seconds, and then kicked the fence with full force. Pongo yelped in fear and confusion as he pulled his head away, and Burt fell down with a violent spasm, unable to control his laughter.

"Burty! BURTY! Get in here!" came the muffled shout from the bowels of the house. "Burty, you stupid kid! Your mother's calling you!" It was practically a snarl, a voice roughened by years of tobacco smoke and irritated grumbling. The owner of the voice took the basements steps half at a time. Over the years, elevation change had become his mortal enemy; now, even the shallowest wheelchair ramp proved devastating. Gritting his teeth and breathing heavily, he continued shuffling his way up to the ground floor. The day's first experience of summer sunlight came as his sole touched the cold tile. He shivered and forced out another yell. "BURTY! DAMMIT! Help your old grandpa out!" The boy wouldn't come. Nobody ever came.

Grandpa Wilson remembered the war. He remembered the deafening bombing raids, the bloody corpses of his comrades, and the dark days that changed his very soul. Unfortunately, he didn't remember going senile and creating war memories out of thin air. Grandpa Wilson had spent the war working as a sanitary employee or, in the present climate of political correctness, a garbageman. It had made him tough, yet he now felt he could solve every problem by simply throwing it in a big bag and dropping it at the dump. He sighed. Too bad it was illegal to do that with Burty.

With painful steps, he hobbled outside, grabbing his cane in the process. "Kid! Where are you?" Grandpa Wilson's beady eyes scanned the backyard. No sign of the brat. "I'm finding you and taking you in! You can't run, Burty! Just come out so I don't need to whoop you!" he finished with a smirk.

Pongo was always an endless source of entertainment, but Grandpa Wilson struck a nerve. "I'm NOT Burty, Grampa! I'm Burt! No yee!" His whine was almost girlish. He had crawled behind a potted tree when Grandpa Wilson first yelled for him, but in a wholly unstrategic move had just revealed his position. Oops.

Everyone in the family, Grandpa, Mom, Dad, those annoying cheek-pinching bags of perfume that tried to smother him eye Easter and Christmas, and even little Greggy called him Burty. Burty this, Burty that, What a fine young man your Burty is! BLEARGH. Greggy would probably hate his own nickname by the time he reached four, so Burt was planning to exact his revenge against his family by tormenting his little brother.

"I'll show YOU, Grampa Wilsy!" The years of wearing away at Greggy were soon to come, but Burt had a score to settle with Mr. War Stories here and now. He scooped his chubby right arm into the tree's pot. "Ngg-YUH!" He let out, tossing a large handful of woodchips at the old man. The lighter ones never made it across the twenty or so feet, but Burt had pricked his fingers on two or three large ones and was hopeful.

Grandpa Wilson's reaction time had ascended into the double digits in his advanced age, and as such, he didn't even manage to turn his head until the woodchips clattered uselessly against his midsection. Rather, that was how any casual onlooker would have assessed the situation, but to Grandpa Wilson, it was as though a fist had landed in his gut. "OW! Burty, you little devil! I'll have the bruises to show to your mother, just wait and see!" he cried out, rubbing his tattered shirt with his free hand. "Now, I told you you can't hide from me. I know you're there, behind that shrub! I'm coming for you, lightning fast, just like an F8! You better watch out, Burty!"

After those fighting words, Grandpa Wilson sprang into action. He was covering ground faster than he had ever been before, nearly a foot every 2 seconds. "Ha! Look at me go! There's nowhere for you to run, Burty! You're coming in with me whether you like it or not!" he said gleefully. With just a few yards left to the tree, Grandpa's supposedly beat up knee suddenly buckled and the old man wobbled in place, struggling to maintain his stance. He would go on and on about that knee and how it was ruined by a dirty Jap in Munich while defending against a harsh Italian offensive. As his closest friends would agree, it was an all too common scenario. "BURTY! YOU'RE MINE!" Grandpa Wilson shouted with all the strength of his crusty, tobacco hardened vocal cords. Having regained his footing, he put on his personal afterburners and charged the rest of the way to the tree.

With a maniacal grin, he swung the cane as fast as he could behind the pot, expecting to catch the little boy in the side of the head and start the tears flowing. Corporal punishment was an American institution; why start changing things now?

He had almost growled when his woodchips fluttered down, never making it to Grandpa Wilson's head. The senior still seemed to cringe at the light impact, but as far as vengeance went, Burt was lacking satisfaction. And then there was that threat to tattle on him - since when did grownups tattle? It was an inexcusable affront for someone as old as Grandpa Wilson to use Burt's prized skill against him!

He had plopped down behind the potted tree after throwing the woodchips, and Grandpa Wilson's turtle steps were so slow that Burt didn't hear the old man's approach. Only when his grandpa had closed the distance and yelled out BURTY YOU'RE MINE did Burt perk up his ears and lift his head to look, only to catch the incoming cane with the side of his face. His eyes watered for a moment, before his entire body erupted in a siren.

"oof-waaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH" he sobbed, collapsing away from the cane still hanging in midair, clutching his face. A breath later he was back to his scream. Grandpa Wilson may have been senile, but it didn't matter how slowly he swung his cane at the handle - the tip traveled faster. And puffy though they were, Burt's cheeks were they were no match for a wooden rod. His tears were flowing profusely, even though the sting of the strike subsided within a few seconds. Still wailing, Burty furiously scrambled to retaliate by grabbing the end of Grandpa Wilson's cane, and subsequently falling back to the ground, clutching it. The cane slammed into the trunk of the sapling that Burt had been hiding behind, and acted as a fulcrum for the haphazard see-saw of old man and boy.

The boy was bawling, jets of salty water flying out of his eyes like a lawn sprinkler. Grandpa Wilson smirked. Honestly, it served Burty right. The kid had always been a pain, even from his diaper days. There was a comic strip character that Grandpa Wilson felt captured Burty perfectly: Dennis the Menace. It was only coincidence that the elderly, easily irritated next-door neighbor of the strip was Mr. Wilson. Mere coincidence, nothing more.

The cane caught Grandpa Wilson hard in the upper abdomen. His eyes widened as the tiny, puff-sized quantity of air was knocked from his lungs and he stumbled forward, clutching the tip of the cane in attempt to push it away. "Bur-burty!" he choked out. "You stupid runt! You'll kill me if you keep this up!" As his chest crashed into the top of the tree, he realized that perhaps he had just discovered Burty's true goal. If so, the child was much more sinister than he had first thought. Grandpa Wilson gritted his cracked teeth. It was time to do his duty. "BURTY! You're the devil, aren't you, boy? Come here, let me see the 666 on your head! I know it's there! Just like that rascal from The Omen."

With a righteous fire in his eyes, Grandpa Wilson reached forward, his gnarled hands trembling as they inched closer to the boy's head. If he needed to, he would shake the answers out of Burty. "You won't be getting rid of me that easily, boy!" he rasped. "Show me the mark! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!"