Nitro vs. Shligger
Nitro bobbed his head to the sound of the beats playing from his headphones, keeping in time with its funky rhythms. His long, brown curly hair bounced with each motion. He was working out to the music, lifting large dumbbells that looked far too heavy for his average frame. He was built more or less like any other teenager, though a bit leaner perhaps.
He frequently visited this gym to train and work out. It was rather run down and somewhat dingy. Lining one wall were some mirrors, they were kind of fogged and unclean, but they helped spread what little light the gym contained. The walls were of a faded brown wood, its finish worn down long ago; the floor was a thin, worn grey carpet. The place was run by an old man who didn’t much care for the place and was just trying to eke any money he could from it. The equipment was old as well, and was some of the most basic of sorts. Various dumbbells lay on a rack, a bench press over near a corner, a couple punching bags on the other side of the room.
As such the old man didn’t have many rules, as long as you didn’t break something he didn’t care to much what you did. As a result Nitro was able to bring in his staff, a special redwood pole with a seventy-pound steel head on its end. So long as he trained with it and didn’t mess around with anyone, the old man didn’t care. The heavy end of the staff was also the reason Nitro always came to work out here, no normal man could wield it easily without thoroughly working out to be able to handle the weight.
Despite the music in his headphones, Nitro heard a small ringing as someone entered through the gym door. The door always knocked a small overhanging little bell to alert anyone that someone had come in. The guy who walked in had to be new, Nitro never saw many people here, and the ones he did see were either penny pinchers or old members. He could only guess this man was the latter of the two.
The man was fairly tall and very broad shouldered. His hair was long and spiky, and had an odd bright blue hue. He wore a black trench coat, but he soon took this off and chucked it onto the bench press. Underneath the trench coat the man wore a basic black tank top and pants, with an odd mechanical silver and yellow glove on his right hand. Mounds of ripped muscle covered his body. Veins bulged in a few places, and stretch marks were prominent everywhere. Nitro made a good guess that this man had to be using steroids.
As the man walked over to the punching bag Nitro greeted him casually, asking for his name. The man grunted “Shligger,” gave a wicked grin, and began to pound into the punching bag. For a moment nothing happened between the two, Nitro kept lifting dumbbells and Shligger kept pounding on the bag, every now and then giving Nitro an intimidating smile.
Finally Nitro set down his dumbbells and wondered over to the bench press. At the same time, Shligger moved to the dumbbells and intentionally picked up two bigger ones than Nitro had, just to continue trying to be intimidating. Nitro moved to grab the man’s coat off the bench press and chuck it in the corner, annoyed with this new guy who insisted on being an irritable dick. Before he could lay his hands on it though, a dumbbell whizzed by his head and smacked into the wall, blowing a hole into the next room.
Nitro swore, “Fuck, what the hell was that for?” Shligger just growled back, “Don’t touch my coat.” Shligger look pissed as hell for no reason; some veins bulging on his forehead and his mouth turned into a snarling grimace. Nitro could only guess once again it was steroids. The so called roid rage probably. Regardless, he sure as hell wasn’t going to listen to some asshole who decided to walk in and bust up his haunt. He grabbed the coat and threw it to the side, ignoring Shligger’s threat.
Shligger roared and hurled another dumbbell at Nitro before attempting to charge him. Nitro ducked the expected dumbbell and quickly moved across the room to grab his staff lying against the wall. He turned around quickly to smash the side of Shligger’s head with it. Shligger tried to stop but couldn’t get out of the way, he managed to turn a bit with the swing, but the blow still hit his head hard. Even in his rage his ears were ringing from it.
This served to just further piss Shligger off though, and as he regained his senses he saw Nitro’s staff now had green fire burning on its end. Nitro jabbed at Shligger with his staff, despite being to far away to hit Shligger with it physically. To Shligger's surprise a plume of green flame shot from the fire at him a short distance, knocking into his chest. It singed through his tank top and felt like a minor burn on his skin. Angry, but not completely stupid, Shligger didn’t bother to charge again. He ran back over to the dumbbell rack and began hurling the weights at Nitro.
Nitro dodged back and forth, trying to direct plumes of flame at Shligger in between throws but failing to do so. He hoped he could outlast the short supply of weights. Each one burst through the old wooden walls behind him with sickening thuds. He didn’t want to know what it would feel like to have it hit his bones. Unfortunately, he learned.
One of the dumbbells clipped his shoulder, and he dropped his staff as the pain jarred him. Shligger charged in again, slamming Nitro into the wall as he just got his hands around his staff. Stunned from the impact, Nitro felt his staff ripped from his hands, and then slammed into his sides. He fell to the ground rolling. As he looked up Nitro watched Shligger snap the wooden staff over his leg with ease, then chuck both pieces toward him.
Nitro rolled, escaping the two halves, his eyes widening as the metal tipped one buried itself into the ground. He grimaced from the agonizing pain of what were probably a few broken ribs and a busted shoulder, but still took a position on all fours. Shligger charged at him again, but suddenly Nitro was awash in a green flame that quickly exploded outwards with great a force.
Shligger was blown backwards a few feet and onto his rear. Emerging from the flame was a fox, emerald fire burning around the black claws and leaving thin trails of dark green smoke. The fox snarled and lunged at Shligger. Shligger managed to catch it by the head, but could not stop the claws from raking into his chest. It burned deeply; the scars would undoubtedly be second degree at the least. Shligger managed to twist the fox’s head just enough so it had to move to avoid having its neck snapped, and Shligger took the chance to throw it off his body.
Shligger quickly rolled, heading for the portion of the staff with the metal head that was sticking up out of the ground. He grabbed it, pulling it out as he rolled, and threw it at Nitro as the fox made another pounce. The staff slammed into the fox’s head, breaking through its face and mouth and bursting out the backside of its skull. There was a spray of blood and a few chunks of bone and skin as the staff broke through the other side.
Nitro was dead, his fox skull bashed in on itself, killed instantly by the force of the blow shattering his skull inward upon his own brain. None the less, Shligger was still enraged. He got up and began to kick the fox corpse around as he slowly calmed down. When he was finally done, Shligger put a hand to his ripped up chest. It hurt badly now that the adrenaline was no longer surging through him. The flesh was ripped and burned, a few strips hanging from his torso. Still, he grinned, he had beaten another fighter; he had won again in combat. He looked down at the fox near his feet. The corpse was fairly mangled, many of its bones broken and a few sticking out at odd ends. Shligger quickly glanced around for his trench coat, grabbed it, and headed out.
Unknown to him, the only new thing that was ever put into this old building had watched him the whole time. A security cam had caught the whole thing on tape, and its owner was not going to be happy to see his building ruined…
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I did not like this chapter very much. The characters just seemed bland to me in my head somehow.