A loud, deep grunting filled the gym, followed by the familiar ching of metal weights crashing together.
A level two troglodyte hissed at us from the counter, and Donut jumped to my shoulder and slammed him with a missile. He fell over, dead.
“Hey, was that a three power? He didn’t explode.”
“Yes, it was. I’m conserving my mana.”
The automatic door slammed shut behind us, and the well-lit room turned red.
The familiar music started to play as I pushed my way through the turnstile. The boss battle message blared, almost identical to last time. Our mugshots floated into the air, and we were announced as we rounded the corner. Six of the level-three Troglodyte Bashers filled the room, working the machines. A trio of the Virtuosos stood in the opposite corner.
And then there was the boss.
The monstrosity stood across the room, admiring himself in the mirror as he curled a pair of absurdly large dumbbells. The creature stopped when we entered the room. He dropped the weights. The pair embedded themselves halfway into the floor with a reverberating crash. Wood splintered up all around where they fell. The beast slowly turned in our direction, and the world paused the moment his eyes met mine.
Ah, fuck, I thought as the face of the creature zoomed big on my interface.
Versus…
The Juicer!
Level 9 Neighborhood Boss!
With a body enhanced by the finest anabolic steroids the dark web has to offer, the Juicer spends his days pushing iron, snapping necks, and crying that his pimple-infested sac is a third the size it once was. Having reached a plateau, rage now fills his enlarged heart. All he ever wanted was to gain, but right now he’ll settle on bringing out…
The music hit a crescendo with a dun, dun, dun!
…the paaaaain!
“The cheese factor on some of these descriptions is just horrifying,” Donut muttered. “It’s worse than that Knight Rider show you love so much.”
Once again, this creature was a person from our world, though without the description it wouldn’t be quite as obvious. It was like they’d taken a Troglodyte Basher and merged it with a contestant from a bodybuilding contest. And then inflated his muscles well past what a normal body could sustain. He was a couple of inches taller than me. He still had the lizard head, and a scaled body and tail. He wore little black shorts and nothing else, revealing a preposterously muscled physique, covered in tributaries of bulging veins as thick as my finger. The thing was so shredded, he was like a kid in a snowsuit who couldn’t put his arms down. His trap muscles made him look as if he had tumors sprouting from the edge of his shoulder to halfway up his scaled head. His thighs were the size of beer kegs, forcing him into a ridiculous, wide stance. He waddled when he moved.
“Bro,” the monstrosity croaked. “I need a spot, bro.” He pulled a round, metallic free weight from a rack. The disc was the size of a manhole cover. With a twist of his waist, he threw it right at my head. The giant weight burst into flames as it rocketed toward me.
“Holy fuck!” I cried as I jumped out of the way. Donut leaped in the other direction. The weight crashed into a treadmill and exploded, shattering the mirror behind it.
I activated my scroll of Confusing Fog as the other troglodytes descended on me. The effect was immediate. A thick, wet fog filled the room, temporarily blinding me before it faded before my eyes. Water beaded over everything, making the ground slick. I could still see the outline of the cloud in the room, but the opacity of the effect was halved. I knew the troglodytes couldn’t see a thing. The scroll didn’t say how long the effect lasted, but I suspected it wasn’t long. We had to act fast.
The troglodytes, blinded, started running into each other and the scattered gym equipment. The Juicer picked up another weight and chucked it in a random direction. “Bro,” he groaned. “Bro, I can’t see.”
I rushed toward the group of bashers as yet another weight crashed against the squat rack, knocking it on its side with a mighty clang. We’d decided ahead of time that I’d take out the support creatures first if I could while Donut dealt full-strength headshots to the boss. I leaped over a glute machine, punching down into the wide-eyed, confused face of a Basher. These guys took at least four or five punches to stay down. My fist burned as I tore through them.
I swept the leg out of the final Basher, and he tumbled, hitting his head on the padded chair of a chest press. As I caved in the side of his head with my fist, the fog cleared, just as quickly as it had come.
Damnit. I read my second scroll as I scrambled away from a flaming disk. It smashed into the same chest press, sending flaming hunks of metal in every direction like shrapnel. I cried out as my exposed hip exploded in pain. Blood geysered down my leg. I cast my Heal spell just as the fog re-filled the chamber. The Confusing Fog had lasted barely fifteen or twenty seconds, and I only had one scroll left.
Donut bounced back and forth around the room, launching at the Juicer, who was content to stay where he was and hurl metal at us. The powerful magic missiles were having an obvious effect on the boss monster, but his health bar was still in the green by the time Donut had to drink a mana potion. The Juicer grunted every time the missiles hit his head, followed by a bellow of rage. He’d pick up another weight and toss it in Donut’s general direction. She was smart enough to move after each blast. The weights flew through the mist like comets.
In addition to avoiding the attacks by the boss, Donut had to dodge the random tongue lashes from the Virtuosos. She tried to keep a machine between herself and the poison-dealing monsters. Only I had the anti-poison resistance, and if she got hit, we’d have a hard time keeping her alive until she’d be allowed to drink an antidote potion.
Both my leg and my hand healed as I launched myself toward the other side of the room at the three Virtuosos. One blindly shot his tongue, and it smashed into a chin up bar machine next to me. I grasped the tongue with my left hand before it could recede, and the lizard made a strangled cry as it tried to retract but found he couldn’t.
He retracted anyway, getting dragged across the room toward me. His large mouth clamped down on my fist. I cried out in pain. I banged the head against the side of a machine, but the body remained firmly attached. Its dozens of sharp teeth were embedded in the bones of my arm. The Virtuoso wasn’t dead, but he was literally choking on my fist. He seemed just as desperate to get free of me as I was. His body weighed barely anything, and it flayed desperately as it dangled off my arm.
I reached the other two lizards just as the fog began to clear again.
“I’m almost out,” Donut cried behind me.
I snap kicked one in the stomach, and he doubled over. I smashed down with my foot, breaking his neck as I whirled on the third, hitting him with a right cross. I took my left fist, which was still inside the mouth of the first troglodyte, and I pummeled the third to death.
The lizard affixed to me also died during the beating, and his body broke off at the neck with a disgusting snap. The teeth remained painfully attached to my left wrist, like I was wearing a bizarre boxing glove made of troglodyte head. Bits of gore and bone still hung from the neck hole. I whirled to face the boss.