“Hiyah!” Shampoo shouted as she kicked one of the level two mobs back into the group. Originally there were about twelve of them of various types and levels though most were around level two. They ended up bunched together as they charged the two, uncaring if they got in each other’s way. Above the heads of each mob was a debuff depicting a cartoonish angry face that was cherry red and had steam blowing out of its ears.

Ranma followed up on the attack. Jumping up and, using his Tenshin Amaguriken, he struck the heads of any mob that he could see and managed to move past the door frame. Dramatic whooshing and over-the-top striking effects echoed in the battle, ending all together with the last punch as Ranma’s fist caught aflame and struck the head of a level four junkie elf who promptly stumbled back with a broken and bloody face.

A skill increasing notification made itself known before it went into the notification folder but Ranma wasn’t sure if it was for the Amaguriken or his school of martial arts. He hoped it was for his school since that skill increased his total damage a bit but for some reason the skill had only reached level two since he had come into the dungeon.

As Ranma began to fall he used the effect of his shirt to position himself a bit more to the side, allowing Shampoo to move back into the fray and finish off the junkie elf with her smash skill. Moving in the air with his shirt was strange, it wasn’t flying but instead more of a controlled fall. It also wasn’t fast, at least when using the falling distance he was able to when just jumping. Ranma wasn’t certain if the speed of his controlled falling with the shirt increased as he fell faster but he had a feeling that was how it worked. He really needed to test it out but he probably wouldn’t be able to a for a while.

The two continued to fight the group of mobs and they ultimately ended up not taking any damage from them both due to the chaos the elves brought to each other and the skills of the two martial artists. Ranma grinned as he dodged the attack of a level two and his dodge skill increased a level, “Hey, Shampoo! I think we should keep one or two alive! This is great trainin’!”

“Glad you’re feeling more like yourself, Airen!” Shampoo called back but she too was grinning as she uppercutted another level two elf into the air as the battle came to a close. She was indeed glad, her future husband seemed to have gotten some of his old self back since they came into the dungeon.

Soon there were only two elves left. They each sported terrified looks on their faces as they promptly lost their “Mad as Fuck” debuff and ran back into the chamber.

“Oh no you don’t!” Ranma called as he charged into the chamber after them.

“Aiya! Ranma, wait!” Shampoo called after him, running to catch up as she didn’t want him to be alone in this chamber. She had been getting a bad feeling about this place the longer she thought about it. It was a dead end in the tunnel system and was the main chamber where all of these elf mobs had come from. By that logic there had to be a stronger than normal mob inside, like a boss.

Shampoo vaulted over a ripped couch and then a table that was covered in snack wrapper and empty chip bags as Ranma took care of the elf dealer that had mostly hung back as the battle at the doorway went on. She zeroed in on the other elf, the last remaining level two who cowered against the wall and frantically waved his shitty shiv around at her.

Wasting no time, Shampoo used her wrist to knock his poorly aimed attack away from her and shoved a smash-enhanced fist into his face. The skill had been getting a good workout lately and was already up to level four. Sadly, the skill wore off after striking the mob and her unenhanced fist struck the wall with all of her current might. Shampoo reeled back and cried out in pain at the breaking of her fist under the force of her own strength and the hard immovable wall. She hadn’t been expecting it and wasn’t able to prepare herself for it at all. Her health pool went down a whole fourth of her total as she stumbled away from the wall, cradling her hand protectively.

“Shampoo!” Ranma called, hearing her cry out in pain. He rushed over to see her cradling her wrist and biting her lip as she tried to stifle her pain. “Shit, that looks bad. We need to set it.”

Shampoo shook her head, “No need, remember? This place will heal it properly for us as long as it isn’t severed.”

“I guess…” Ranma trailed off as he led her over to a chair so she could sit down. “Still, at least use your heal spell or a potion. I don't wanna see you in pain like this.”

Shampoo, despite the pain, managed a smile at the worry in Ranma’s gaze but nodded her head.

“Damn, y’know we used to break walls for the fun of it and now we can’t even crack one without breaking our hands,” Ranma grumbled as he watched the girl.

Shampoo, now quickly done basking at the attention Ranma was giving her due to her constant pain, finally used a potion to fix her wrist. Both she and Ranma watched in fascination as her hand instantly repaired itself, already thinking that if they had such a thing before their martial arts training could be taken to the next level. She flexed it as she continued to stare at it in wonder and Ranma did too but then he paused and cocked his head.

“Hey, you hear music?” Ranma asked as Shampoo quickly shot up from her seat in worry before she began searching the chamber. The music was a heavy, intense, and disjointed kind of music. Suddenly, the door to the chamber slammed shut all on its own and then the chamber echoed with a loud clicking sound as if its lock had just been engaged. The two quickly looked around the room for a few moments in panic before, as one, they happened to look slightly up in one particular direction.

B-B-B-Boss Battle!

You have discovered the lair of a Neighborhood Boss!

You’d better hope you’ve prepared well for this or at least found yourselves a weapon cause otherwise you gonna die suckas! Aaaaand Here. We. Go!

The AI screamed, the voice echoing around the room as the whole chamber seemed to rumble with its excitement. A spotlight clicked on loudly and the light suddenly shone on an area up towards the ceiling. The light revealed a massive trailer that was embedded into the chamber wall. It was truly massive, at least twenty feet in height alone, and hung far enough from the wall that the weight of it made the whole thing sag slightly. Right in the middle of the sagging trailer was a screen door which had a confederate flag painted just above its door frame, not that either knew what it was. Ranma and Shampoo only got a brief look at this before the screen door exploded outward, sending the door crashing into the opposite wall with a loud bang. A tall figure emerged from the unnaturally dark trailer even with the light shining on it before finally being slowly and dramatically revealed by said spotlight.

He was massive, at least eighteen feet in height, yet he was thin, almost malnourished, and was also another Trash Elf. His tank top was practically a dirty faded rag that could have once been generously called white before all the years of sweat, grime, and food stains colored it like a tie dye shirt and it hung loosely over his frame. His pants were far too loose on his legs and almost seemed to threaten to fall down at any time despite the belt on his waist seemingly pulled to its maximum tightness. The hair on top of his head was bone white, long, and very thin on top as if he was beginning to bald.

“Oh, you little cocksuckers entered the wrong fucking neighborhood! I’m gonna teach you little sonovabitches what we do to little shitstains like you! Nobody messes with my operation and lives to tell the goddamned tale!” the elf angrily screamed as he pointed a finger down at them before he reached back into the trailer and yanked out a massive purple bong at least half as tall as he was. He then rested it over his thin shoulders and bounced it up and down like it was a baseball bat. He took in a deep breath and with a roar that was a lot deeper than expected he leapt down from the trailer straight towards the two martial artists.

Then, just as the boss elf’s feet left the trailer the world froze, the boss just hanging in the air. Neither Ranma nor Shampoo could move but they were entirely aware of what happened next.

Mugshots of Ranma and Shampoo’s faces appeared floating in front of them with their names and leveled under each image. Both were slightly made smaller and pushed to the side as, suddenly, a jagged diagonal line styled like lightning appeared next to them. A massive flaming “VS” smashed over the lightning line followed by the mugshot of the boss in front of them and a description.

The Trailer Smasher!

Level 7 Neighborhood Boss!

Born and raised in a trailer park to a poor family he was treated as nothing but white trailer trash his entire life. Even with the lofty dreams and aspirations of his youth he was unable to move past the trailer park he grew up in, forever stuck living with bad influences surrounding him every second of his life. Eventually those bad influences finally caught up to him and now that he is older he is now forever unable to break free of the cruel cycle he was born into. He began selling drugs and eventually got addicted to his own stock. He no longer has his old dreams and aspirations of his youth. There is a lesson to be learned from his life but you probably won’t be able to work it out when you’re too busy trying not to die.

The title of the boss appeared floating in the air, spinning around wildly until it finally slammed lopsided right underneath its mugshot. A puff of white powder erupted from behind the title with a coughing sound effect before it then sprinkled down like snow. Once the description was done Ranma and Shampoo could finally move again and they rushed to try the door just as the boss slammed down where they were at, sending dust and debris everywhere as furniture was either crushed under the feet of the boss or knocked aside with a swing of his giant bong.

Ranma reached the door first and yanked hard on the door knob. It refused to budge, even turning it was impossible, and hitting it did nothing. A notification flashed in front of him.

Hah! Nice try jackass, you can’t just leave a boss room without killing the boss. Oh, and watch out.

Ranma swore and jerked around just in time to see half of a table being launched towards the two. Both martial artists leapt to opposite sides, the broken remains of the table crashing into the door and shattering into smaller pieces. Ranma ignored the tiny wooden shards and scrambled to run and keep the attention of the elf boss on him. He sent a message to Shampoo with the messaging system, it was helpful that he could mentally type what he wanted to say and send it. Plus, if the people running this damn thing wanted to give them a way to talk to each other without the mobs being able to hear their plans then he’d make use of it.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Ranma: Get up high, Shampoo, and use that Meteor Strike of yours. I’ll distract this guy.

Shampoo: Got it! Good luck, Airen.

Ranma: Heh, c’mon Shamps, I’m the best martial artist around! There ain’t no way this stupid idiot could take me on!

Ranma wasted no time and grabbed the nearest thing he could find. It was a brick of cocaine. Ranma grunted as he hefted it in the air and chucked it as hard as he could at the boss. The brick of cocaine went flying and slammed right into the boss’s nose, breaking the brick open and sending a cloud of cocaine into the air. His aim was impeccable and it seemed it was one of the few things that wasn’t reduced in skill when he entered this place.

“I’ve snorted more cocaine than that in one sitting, boy!” The boss screamed at Ranma as he lifted his bong to his lips and sucked in. His chest expanded like he was a frog as he took in a deeper and deeper breath. Finally, he was done and he held it in for a moment before the air in his lungs blasted out towards Ranma.

The blast was sickly green and looked more like mucus than gas. It was, for some reason, also shot out of the boss’s mouth in the shape of a skull and crossbones. “Fuck!” Ranma swore as he dived away just in time.

Ranma watched as the skull and crossbones attack hit the pile of cocaine he stood near and dissolved it at a visible rate. Instead of air, the boss shot acid out of its mouth. The pile of drugs was significant and Ranma didn’t think that whatever that was could destroy all of it but that didn’t matter. He could not allow that attack to hit him anywhere or else he’d lose a chunk of himself in the process.

It was also very fast once it left the boss’s mouth. If it didn’t have such a long and noticeable casting time he probably wouldn’t be able to react in time with his current abilities. Plus, it was powerful enough that Ranma wouldn’t want to try beating this guy by throwing things at him. And Ranma had always been more of an up close and personal kind of guy.

So Ranma charged, only changing course to avoid a thrown piece of debris or to avoid another blast of acid. During this brief exchange Ranma was able to see Shampoo sneak around the boss and attempt to jump up to the hanging trailer. She wasn’t able to make it, falling just shy even with her skill, so she had begun grabbing whatever she could get to create a makeshift pile that would likely give her enough height to make the jump.

The boss raised its bong high in the air as Ranma neared and slammed it down at him. Ranma had seen it coming a mile away and easily jumped to the side thanks to his now higher leveled dodge skill and his Light on Your Feet skill. Once the giant bong slammed into the ground Ranma used his Air Jump skill while he was still in the middle of his dodge to hop from the air one time at his apex in order to get enough distance to kick up at the face of the boss.

The boss roared in pain as Ranma’s foot slammed into its nose. He leapt off the boss’s face as it tried to ineffectually swat Ranma away with its free hand. It missed its swat and inside slapped itself in the face, doing barely any damage and earning Ranma an achievement which promptly stored itself in the notifications folder. Ranma was able to use the Air Jump skill again since the system seemed to count jumping on the boss’s face as standing back on the ground in order to return back to hitting the boss as many times as possible.

Ranma punched and kicked the boss’s face using this method. Its health began to tick down but it wasn't as fast as Ranma hoped, it eventually reached just about shy of over two-thirds before the boss managed to gather its wits and respond back. It backhanded Ranma in the side as he managed to land one last punch into the boss’s jaw, sending Ranma flying back to the drug storage area. Ranma let out a loud and pained “oof!” as his back slammed into another pile of cocaine bricks. By his own estimation his ribs were broken and his chest felt like Ryoga was squeezing him with every last bit of his strength and a quick look at his health menu reinforced that feeling. His HUD was flashing red as his health dipped dangerously low.

After Ranma’s own health shot down to the edge of red he slowly tried to pick himself up. He could barely believe that a single attack from the boss could have done so much damage to him. It wasn’t even its strongest attack and this damage was likely from raw stats and maybe some skills alone. He used his Heal spell to replenish some of his health and when that wasn’t enough he used one of his health potions. The two bits of healing were enough to nearly give back all of his missing health and his injuries were basically all gone with the exception of some soreness that Ranma could easily ignore. Ranma, now fully able to pick himself back up, went back into the fight.

He dodged another acid blast and once more noticed Shampoo. She had finally managed to grab onto the trailer above them and was pulling herself up. Ranma grunted and moved to position himself so that the boss was between him and Shampoo, then he closed the distance and ducked under a side swing of the giant bong. After the first failed swing the boss tried another time, this time Ranma managed to leap over it with his Light on Your Feet skill.

“Motherfucker! Stand still!” came the eloquent shout from the boss as it slammed the bong into its face and sucked in hard and without care, its chest once more expanded like a frog but far more rapidly. Not wanting to try and deal with that acid attack again, Ranma moved and punched as hard as he could into the expanding chest bulge. He did it again and again and again. A pained groan escaped the lips of the boss as the bulge seemed to shudder and ripple for a moment with every punch before the boss fell to its knees and violently vomited the acid contents upwards.

The sound was horrifying and disgusting and the spray of acid vomit just continued to pour out of its mouth like a waterfall. The acid flew at an angle towards Shampoo, who yelped and threw herself down prone on top of the trailer. It was just in time as the acid spray soared just over her head and landed further back on the trailer.

Now that the boss was on his knees and open to more attacks Ranma used his Amaguriken and his body sped up. He was used to the increased dexterity now that he had done it enough times and with it artificially increased so much he struck out at the boss with all of his might. His fists flew at the boss as he angled his attacks up to reach the center mass of the boss much more easily.

The boss groaned as Ranma struck but its health wasn’t as depleted as he would have thought. Ranma scowled as he concentrated on dealing as much damage as possible. His fists caught flame as he punched and punched and punched. He did not let up as he battered the same general location of the boss’s chest. Shampoo needed to deal the final blow as Ranma wasn't able to keep this up for longer than a few seconds and neither really wanted to drag this fight on for long. Fortunately, the two didn’t need to fight other mobs at the same time and could focus solely on the giant target in front of them. Ranma knew that this fight would have been a lot harder if he had to deal with a bunch of minions while dodging the acid attack of the boss.

The boss seemed to have stopped being dazed by having its acid attack prematurely let loose and it glared down at Ranma. Its health had been steadily going down the longer Ranma continued his assault but it was clear that he wouldn’t be able to kill it with this burst of damage alone. The boss was a lot tougher than its gaunt and skinny frame looked and Ranma cursed his current lack of a damage dealing skill like Shampoo’s Smash. He knew he could get some just by doing things in the dungeon so he had been doing whatever he could to induce the system into giving him one. His skill for his martial art school was nice but he needed some bigger numbers that had things like cooldowns. According to Maxwell, the skills with cooldowns or mana requirements were often better than the more passive ones with only a few rare exceptions. Sadly, most of his skills were passive ones and the few active ones he did have had more mana points required than he currently had or weren’t feasible for the current situation like the Hiryū Shōten Ha.

Ranma shot a quick glance up as the final moments of his skill faded, Shampoo was now standing on top of the trailer like she was the star of a wrestling match. The trailer was shuddering ominously now and she was fighting to keep her balance on the shaking metal monstrosity. Finally, after a few moments of unsteady feet she tensed her legs and shot upwards with her fist cocked back.

An air current formed around her fist as if it was indeed a large meteor falling through the sky. Wisps of flame lingered and licked over the current of air as Shampoo continued to rise into the air. The skill itself didn’t give Shampoo the ability to float and charge the attack, she had to charge it by staying in the air for as long as possible with whatever means she had with things like potions, equipment, magic, or other skills. She didn’t have any of that yet so the most she could do was jump as high as she could and charge the attack as she reaches her apex and until she strikes her target.

They hadn’t really had the chance to test the skill out yet but Maxwell insisted it was a good one to have if they could keep Shampoo in the air long enough. The skill had a 15 hour cooldown on it between uses so they had to use it carefully and couldn’t rely on it to kill everything they faced. As Shampoo reached her apex she began quickly falling down towards the boss who hadn’t seemed to notice her yet.

The boss attempted to swipe at Ranma with his hand again but Ranma just leapt out of the way in time and watched as Shampoo’s fist struck the top of its head. The upper body of the boss was crushed under Shampoo’s fist, quickly being squished into pulp as the force of her attack forced the body of the boss prone to the floor. Blood showered Shampoo and even Ranma wasn’t spared from the splash radius of the gore as the pulped remains of the boss’s upper body coated his legs and waist.

Her attack didn’t stop there as when her fist hit the floor instead of breaking her hand like what had happened just a few minutes ago the entire chamber instead shook with its force and a crater formed under the body of the boss. Her skill finally stopped and she quickly found herself falling face first in the puddle of blood and gore. Shampoo yanked herself out of it, sputtering and spitting it all out of her mouth in retching disgust. As the chamber rumbled an ominous groan of strained metal echoed above them. Ranma and Shampoo glanced up worriedly as they gazed upwards at the trailer that was now shaking a lot more violently than before.

“Shit! Outta the way!” Ranma cried as he and Shampoo scrambled to move. The massive trailer above them shuddered one more time before, with a shriek of tearing metal, the whole thing was ripped from the wall and all came crashing down. A deafening boom echoed in the chamber as the trailer crashed to the floor, the force sending Ranma and Shampoo flying and dust exploding around the room. They each grunted as their backs struck the opposite wall and their health dipped down a little, but they were otherwise fine.

After a few moments of just laying there against the wall they eventually stood back up to look at the mess. The entire trailer was now down on the ground and up above a small bit of rock from the walls was now gone, having been attached to the back end of the trailer and now laying scattered around the chamber. Most of the rock and metal from this section was covered in acid which was likely the cause of the trailer's sudden fall. The front entrance of the trailer was now where the rest of the boss’s body lay and for a moment the two were worried that the trailer had smashed the body into ruin.

Fortunately, the trailer had just missed the body but not by much. With the way it had landed in the crater it almost looked like the trailer itself had been the one to smush the upper body of the elf boss. At some point the lower half of the body had flipped around to face upwards and now the whole scene looked a bit like a more fucked-up version of The Wizard of Oz scene of the witch being smashed by the bottom of the house what with the blood still pooling around the corpse.

A host of new achievements filed themselves away as Ranma and Shampoo made their way down the crater and examined what they could loot from the boss. All it had was a map that each of them could take and the looted maps quickly filled in their own. It filled in a square mile of their maps and they could now see the mobs in the area it filled. Nothing else was lootable from the boss’s corpse so they moved to examine the now crashed trailer.

The inside was dirty and ruined. Even after having crashed to the ground Ranma doubted that it’d have looked much different.

“Well, I don’t see much in here,” Ranma said as he examined the junk inside the trailer. He had been hoping for some epic loot or whatever but those hopes had been thoroughly dashed.

“Nothing but garbage,” Shampoo nodded her head. “Want to just take everything we see and then go to a Tutorial Guild? I really need a shower. And mouthwash, lots of mouthwash.”

Ranma silently agreed with both suggestions. Maxwell had said that there were some things he couldn’t explain until they encountered them. Alive went unsaid. And they each needed a shower, bad. Ranma wasn’t enthused about walking around gore covered any longer than he had to be and Shampoo had it even worse since she was in the epicenter of her Meteor Strike. The skill had pulped the boss and the gore had to go somewhere. It decided that Shampoo was the optimal target and now she was drenched in blood. She was also starting to smell.

Ranma took in a deep breath and regretted it almost immediately, even without the smell Shampoo was covered in the trailer wasn’t much better. He let it out and said, “Well, let’s get to work. The faster we grab everything the faster we can get cleaned up.”