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Chapter 69- The Hands-On Gym

  Velli

  Piedmont is still an option for handling all of this. Maybe I can take him up on his offer. Maybe he can help me fight Prometheus. He wasn’t at his house, so I knew he would be at his second home—the Final Round, a combat gym for those with powers. The outside is nothing spectacular. The Final Round in red letters and a giant boxing glove rest on the roof of the building so the gym is visible from a few blocks away. The glass door is plain. It repeats the title of the place and the times of operation.

  I pull the door open and face the front desk. However, the man at the front desk does not face me. He gawks at the center of the gym floor. Everyone in the gym is fixated on the center of the floor. A sweat-drenched woman leaves her punching bag to focus on the center of the gym floor. She beats her chest and hums an eerie tune. A fit-looking couple in matching outfits right down to the neon shoestrings beat their chests in the same rhythm and make the same noise.

  The same goes for men and women on the treadmill, the speedball, the weathered bench press, and the rusty squat rack. Everyone eyes the giant tub in the center of the floor and beats their chest in rhythm.

  Two figures, frozen from the waist down, stand there. Piedmont and a polar bear. The beast swipes a massive paw at Piedmont. Piedmont dodges, and the bear roars at him for having the audacity to avoid his demise. Piedmont roars back.

  The bear makes a gruff sound, and Piedmont roars again, not as loud as the beast but equally as primal. The audience chest-beats and hums gain in speed and grow louder. It reminds me of Vikings hyping themselves up before a raid.

  Piedmont hits the beast with a jab and a cross. The bear flails its arm to regain balance. If its lower half weren’t frozen, it might have fallen over. Instead, it uses its momentum and springs forward, swiping across Piedmont’s bare chest. The dark-red blood leaps from Piedmont’s skin and stains the ice and the side of the silver tub. Piedmont does not cry nor roar. The crack of his fist against the beast’s nose is his noisy reply. The bear strikes back with a big paw. Then it’s a fury of pain and punches.

  The chest beating speeds up. It’s contagious. I tap my foot.

  Blood’s everywhere on Piedmont and on the bear and boiling inside me. I’m conscious of it. I’m hyped. I’m alive.

  Piedmont grabs the bear by its head.

  The chest beating isn’t passive now. It’s aggressive. All of our chests will be marked red after this. It is a conscious, justified effort to keep up with the rhythm of the fight.

  The bear reels back for another swipe. Piedmont does the only thing that Piedmont can do. He injects pain into the bear, probably the same pain he feels, just transferred. The beast can’t take it and, after three long seconds, falls flat on the ice. Slowly, he turns back into a hairy man.

  The crowd roars, this time without order or rhythm, just screams. Piedmont yells back and beats on the ice with his fist until it cracks. He then steps out of it with triumphant hands. A healer comes to help the knocked-out man. He wears all white—a white dry-fit T-shirt, white gym shorts, and white tennis shoes.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  I wonder what having a healer like that could have done for my mom. I won’t have to wonder much longer. Adrenaline still flows through me. I walk past the guy at the gym counter like he’s not there. He calls out to me, and I ignore him, my eyes on Piedmont. The guy calls out again. This causes the other gym goers to look at me, and they aren’t happy I’ve entered their sanctuary without checking in.

  “Piedmont,” I say.

  He hears me and leaves his conversation with the recovering polar bear man to look at me. “Boy.” His big mustache bounces when he smiles. “Have you come for a workout?”

  “Something like that.” I take a step toward him. “May I speak with you?”

  Piedmont raises his hand to signal for me to stop. I do.

  “You may speak freely,” he says.

  I don’t look at the eyes that judge me, or my nerves might get to me. “My mother is dead.” It still hurts. The adrenaline helps, but a lot of it drains out of me with those words. “I want to accept your offer.”

  “My offer…”

  He laughs, and my heart drops. Why is he laughing? What’s funny? He’s my last chance.

  “You told me no.”

  “Yes, and that was wrong. I understand that now.”

  “Boy, you told me no. That’s the end of it. No one tells me no and gets to come back.” He turns away from me, addressing the healer, who’s now fixed every scratch on Piedmont as well.

  “Piedmont—”

  “Send me an invitation for it, and I’ll pay for the funeral out of respect for your dad.”

  “No, please keep the money. I’ll give you money. I just need some guidance or something.”

  Piedmont ignores me. Someone grabs my arm in a firm grip, not as strong as Rose’s but dangerous still. I ignore them and call for Piedmont again.

  “You need to leave,” the man grabbing me says. It’s the front-desk man.

  “No,” I tell him. “Let me speak to him!”

  He yanks me backward, strong and rough.

  “Get off!” I send a punch to his face. I miss.

  He’s a few feet away from me. However, he still has hold of me—no, he doesn’t, but his hand is still on my arm, and it squeezes. The front-desk man smiles. I guess this is his power. He can make as many arms as he wants and leave them on his opponents.

  He runs forward. I swing again. He ducks and puts a hand on my throat. I knee him in the face while he’s low. He reels backward but fires a hand at my face, blocking my vision.

  I spin, punching randomly, trying to keep the front-desk man away from me. “Piedmont!” I yell, hoping he can stop this.

  There’s laughter. The entire gym laughs at me. A hand lands on my knee and brings me to kneeling. Another on the back of my neck. The hand on my face pushes into my skin and restricts oxygen from reaching my nose. The hand on my throat tightens. It’s joined by a hand on my free wrist. That hand brings my whole body to the ground. The hand presses further into my nose as the hands around my neck constrict. More hands grab me—so many I can’t say where they’re coming from. I’m consumed by hands until I pass out.

  “Hgghh!” I gasp awake. I’m in the street. It’s night now. Behind me is the gym. Is Piedmont…? No, everybody is gone. It’s dark. It’s late. Everybody went home. As I have to do now.

  Substack Link- For short stories of fantasy and horror that sometimes involve the characters from here

  https://iifinch.substack.com/

  Reddit Link- short stories here as well but you also get a bit more community.

  https://www.reddit.com/r/Finchink/

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