Muscles rippled beneath the brogre’s thick, leathery hide as it took a hulking step forward, its scorpion tail twitching, the barbed tip glistening with something toxic. Hiro had just a moment to register the weight of its footfalls before the monster charged.

  He reacted on instinct by casting {Kore Nani Neko.}

  ~Kore Nani, kore nani, kore nani, kore nani, kore nani, neko!~

  His phantom cats streaked forward, spectral blue bodies flickering through the grim of post-apocalyptic Central Park. Hachi bolted ahead matching their speed, the dog’s tongue flailing out of its mouth.

  Hiro gritted his teeth, and actually clutched the prayer beads around his neck this time as he tried for {Thoughts and Prayers.} Come on, it has to work at some point!

  Nothing. His fingers clenched tighter around the beads before he let go. He followed this up by shoving a Poison cartridge into his vape pen. Hiro inhaled deeply, the acrid burn hitting the back of his throat before he exhaled and sent a cloud of green, toxic smoke toward the Brogre.

  The beast staggered mid-step, its bulk slowing as it inhaled the noxious fumes. Its massive hand shot up to its face as it coughed violently, tusks rattling, stinger lashing about, its confusion evident. The Hunter stumbled back, reaching blindly for something to brace itself. Instead, it latched onto a rusted park bench and hurled it with terrifying force.

  Hiro tensed, ready to dodge—but Bianca moved first. Her tentacle whipped out, and pulled him to safety.

  Klank! The park bench hit a curb, flipped twice, and careened into a tree.

  Seizing the moment, Hiro bolted forward, katana in one hand, enlarged and salivating bear claw in the other with the hopes of closing the distance before the Brogre could recover. He moved low, slipping under its guard and its stinger, where he slashed—his katana carving into its thick flesh while his bear claw raked across the Hunter’s side.

  Hiro came up with a toothy attack from his claw, which the Brogre hated even more. The monster howled, “Broooooooooooooogh!”

  Yet its health bar remained close to full, the poison and Hiro’s attacks barely working. The beastly Hunter roared again, this time in rage, its eyes burning with mindless fury. It stomped a foot down and the ground shuddered violently beneath Hiro’s feet, a shockwave of force radiating outward.

  His knees buckled and Hiro dropped to the pavement, teeth clenching as pain shot up his legs. The bastard hit like a wrecking ball—mindless, brute force.

  A bark. A blur. The yowl of cats. Chaos riddled the air as Hachi launched himself at the Brogre, fangs flashing. The dog latched onto the monster’s groin with a ferocity that made Hiro wince in secondhand pain.

  The Brogre bellowed, clawed hands flying to its nether region in pure, animalistic panic. It staggered, shaking violently to dislodge the demonic Shiba Inu, yet Hachi held firm.

  It’s health bar is still topped off! Hiro thought as his eyes jumped to the health bar yet again. The poison isn’t working. We can’t flee. Can’t whittle it down with poison. The damn thing is too thick-headed to go down fast. My current load-out doesn’t give me an advantage based on its description, not one that immediately comes to mind…

  As Hachi and his phantom cats continued to distract the Brogre, whose raged burned hotter, its confusion turning into sheer, unfiltered aggression, Hiro glanced toward the edge of the Zone of Influence. He could use Mishka. He ould portal to the past, escape for a moment, and either reset his approach or flee entirely.

  But something in his gut told him that would only make things worse. The Doom System wouldn’t let him cheese his way out of this fight, especially one in which he’d been targeted.

  Hiro’s fingers ghosted over his inventory, over the single {Red Gumball} he had looted from the Bubblegum Man. No, not yet. Then another thought. Ogres are stupid. Brogres are stupid.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  Instead, he reached into his backpack and pulled out something else—a can of Knock-Out Punch. “Bianca!” he shouted to the shield, which had joined in distracting the Brogre.

  “Let me guess, you want me to do what I’m already doing!”

  “Exactly!”

  Bianca jumped to the right of the brogre and launched herself at the hulking monster again, latching onto its arm and wrapping around its thick, muscled wrist like a living bandage.

  The Hunter snarled, twisting violently as it tried to shake her off.

  Hiro took his chance. He carefully rolled the can of Knock-Out Punch across the pavement. The cylinder clattered toward the Brogre’s feet. Just as Hiro had hoped, the beast’s head snapped toward it immediately, instincts overriding reason. It jumped for the can like a starved animal, snatching it up with both hands, which was Bianca’s cue to move aside.

  “Come on, Hachi!”

  The dog released his grip and darted back, leaving just a pair of phantom cats to claw at the Brogre in desperation as it examined the can. The monstrous Hunter shook it furiously, the liquid sloshing inside, fizzy and enticing.

  It hesitated.

  Then, with a deep, snorting inhale, the Brogre pierced the can with its clawed finger and sniffed the fluid that sprayed out. Its eyes went wide and it drank what it could and ate the can.

  For a second, nothing happened.

  Then the creature blinked with confusion. Its scorpion tail twitched. It swayed slightly, one foot shifting awkwardly. The massive brute stumbled once, twice—then collapsed face-first onto the pavement. Out cold.

  Hiro let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. His legs still trembled from the brogre’s earlier stomp as he pushed himself forward, katana tight in his grip.

  Hiro cautiously stepped over his massive opponent. He adjusted his grip on his katana, lifted it high, and drove it down into the back of the Brogre’s skull.

  [A Hunter has fallen.]

  You have new followers!

  You got cash!

  + 3,000 Soul Cash!

  One Hit Wonder: {Aim of an Imperial Stormtruppen}

  Grade: A

  Description: “Thousand-dollar swim trunks, can’t even swim.”

  When Westside Gunn dropped this line in his legendary collab album with DJ Drama Still Praying, he had no idea he was about to trigger a crisis in the field of rumpology—a field that, up until that moment, had been reserved for pseudo-intellectuals, desperate grifters, and a handful of cloning specialists employed by the Empire on the planet Kamino.

  If Gunn had really wanted to shake the world, he should’ve asked the real questions: How does the division of the gluteus maximus correspond to the split between the brain’s two hemispheres? And equally baffling: Is this somehow a callback to alchemy that not even my homies Benny the Butcher or Conway the Machine could have foreseen?

  Blame it on the mother of famous fictional boxer, buttered-up botox bad boy and U.S. Special Forces veteran Rocky Rambo; or if you’re being petty, point your frustration at Ulf Beck, Germany’s foremost (and only) serious rumpologist, who once sent Gunn a letter explaining that the shape of a person’s buttocks could predict everything from charisma levels to the success of their future progeny.

  The point is—Gunn didn’t listen.

  After the album dropped, Imperial cloning specialists took inspiration where they shouldn’t have, tweaking genetic templates in hip-hopatic ways that led to tragically misaligned glutes.

  The result? A generation of Stormtruppen whose off-kilter postures wrecked their marksmanship, their blaster fire going as wide as their poorly designed armor. Combine that with their ridiculous diaper plating, and the Empire’s finest were doomed to an eternity of missing every damn shot.

  Lucky for you, that same principle now works in reverse.

  Using {Aim of an Imperial Stormtruppen} completely disrupts your opponent’s ability to hit you with any projectile. Whether it’s bullets, arrows, or the poo-flinging simian menace currently skull-humping his way through Long Island City, this One Hit Wonder will make sure they miss. Every. Single. Shot.

  “I wish it didn’t think it was funny,” Hiro said, wary of mentioning the Doom System by name.

  “I wasn’t even paying attention,” Bianca nudged the Brogre’s limp body with a tentacle just as it started to fade. “But hey, we got cash. What now?”

  “Now…” Ahead, somewhere closer to Harlem, Hiro could see the purple beacon indicating the revenant he needed to tackle next. But he was also hungry, and he wanted to see what it would cost to do some upgrades based on the advertisements he’d seen in Times Square. “Now, we grab a bite and maybe do a little shopping.”

  “Ugh, finally, finally, Big Bro, finally, you decide to take a little me time. It’s important, you know.”

  “Yeah?” Hiro asked as he turned in the direction of Columbus Square.

  “And don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to psychoanalyze you or anything.”

  “Okay.”

  “But you’ve got issues.”

  Hiro laughed. Rather than reply, he whistled for Hachi to follow.