Aaron momentarily lost consciousness. His skull was cracked, and he clutched his gory nose, rolling to his knees. He squinted and blinked furiously to draw away the pain, but he couldn’t stop the flow and hold his broken nose together. The gym trainer thrashed around and toppled over several benches and a dumbbell rag, with its contents falling over his feet.
A fierce yowl escaped his lips, and he drew his eyes to the startled form of Maya. He caught her hauling Val’s body and dragging her out of the gym. A guttural cry escaped Aaron as he thrashed his way towards them.
“Where are you going!?” Aaron bellowed, startling Maya with how his face contorted. He glanced at a nearby mirror and blanched as Maya did. His perfect white teeth were discoloured to yellow. Warts popped up all over his face, and his nose enlarged like a potato. Aaron covered his visage. “No, don't, DON’T!”
“Stop it. I SAID STOP!!” Aaron futilely pressed against his face. The blood had stopped but his face was bloating up. “Don’t. DON’T!”
He abhorred his healing factor—dreading it like his true appearance. It all was unravelling. Maya looked at him in terror.
“WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME!?” Aaron’s voice broke when he shouted, and he stomped towards her. “This is all your fault. I’ll tear you from flash to bone, you hear!?”
Maya stumbled backwards whilst holding Val. She hyperventilated when she saw Aaron clambering towards her. Big, gnarly feet broke free from his sneakers. A mountainous hunched back and bulging shoulders tore through his shirt. Val momentarily woke up, only to stand face to face with the drooling and disfiguring face of Aaron. She blanched at the horror and fell into a coughing fit, falling sideways with Maya.
“Dhon’t whorry,” huffed Aaron, his voice deepening with his bulging throat. “Ohnce Ih ghet rhid of hher… *HEEHHHH* …I'll fhix your ashtma.” Aaron breathed in loudly. His face drew closer to the couple, and his hands bent the metal of the door frame as he fixed his gaze on Maya. “I'll ghet rhid off you, Thubby Bhitch-”
Aaron coughed when he experienced a heavy pain suddenly radiating from his centre. Someone just kicked him with a force that sent him crashing backwards and into a Smith Machine. Barbells and weights fell over Aaron, and he struggled to stand up.
“Whroo are yhou?” Aaron turned to the new stranger at the door frame.
He saw a man in a maroon bomber jacket and beige trousers next to Maya. The man lowered his leg that he used to kick Aaron. His shaggy, red-brown hair fell over his tawny face. The ugliness of a growing goatee graced his chin. He narrowed his green eyes and glowered down at Aaron.
“IH AHSKED WRHOO YWOU ARWE?” bellowed Aaron, his voice thickening as his body shuddered to heal him.
“Austin, what are you doing here?” wondered Maya, pulling Val’s body closer to hers. “How did you know we needed help?”
Austin pulled his hands out from his pockets and kept his back to hers. “I’ll explain later. Let me deal with him and get out of here. Trust me.”
Maya looked from Austin to Aaron’s grotesque form and then back to Austin. She noticed the freckles on the back of his hands deepened into deep brown scars. Picking herself up to her feet, Maya escaped with Val in tow. Asking questions would come later. Austin was here for a reason. Maya trusted him to take care of things.
“WROU SHAID YHOU CHOULD GRO-” Aaron’s bellowing got stuck in his throat when Austin’s arm enlarged and whipped the charging Aaron’s against the wall, sending plaster flying and electrical wires sparking.
Aaron landed unsteadily on his feet and shouted from his healing factor kicking in uncontrollably. He couldn’t stop it anymore. His shirt tore entirely, his bulbous nose enlarged, and his skin greyed with warts plopping up on his skin like a terminal smallpox patient. They were big and lumpy, protruded, and itched Aaron uncomfortably. His body expanded, and his face deformed grotesquely. His lips fouled and swelled as if he suffered an anaphylactic shock.
Then his limbs followed suit, ripping through his fake layer of make-up and skin until he was nothing but a monster ten times its weight and thrice its size.
“A troll working as a gym trainer. Now this is a paradox,” commented Austin, and stood still before the panting Aaron, who held his scar-riddled face in his oversized hands. Removing his hands, Aaron’s crying face contorted. He ripped open the sides of his massive gut, spilling blood that stopped and healed in seconds.
“WRHOO DHO YHOU THUNK YHOU AHRT?” Aaron shouted, readying himself for another charge, but Austin was faster. He dodged out of the way with a jump, his eyes narrowed at Aaron.
“Someone whose friend got hurt by a bubonic gas balloon.” Austin kicked Aaron in the face, leaving an imprint of his sole on the nose.
The troll reeled back. Austin’s fingers extended for the troll’s oily hair and slammed his head to the luminol ground. He quickly let go and retreated to a safe distance when Aaron came out roaring again—his injuries healed already.
“WRHWAT ARWE YHOU?” bellowed Aaron and swung with his scarred fist at Austin. “YHOU THUNK YHOU CHOULTH KHILL MHE?”
Austin stopped Aaron’s fist. The backlash tussled his hair gently, and Aaron could feel the calmness before a storm. Enlarging his own hand, Austin broke Aaron’s wrist with a simple twist. The troll tumbled over and gurgled a pained cry. He couldn’t wrest his hand free.
“I’m Nobody.” Austin flexed his free hand and balled it into a fist. “And I don’t need to kill you to teach you a lesson.” His fist struck Aaron before he could even realise what hit him.
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The wall collapsed behind Aaron. Pain radiated across his entire body, from his shattered ribs and torn flesh. But the damage was already mending, further deforming his monstrous form. Just one punch was enough to put a primal fear into Aaron.
Just one punch that felt like a train running over you. When he heard Austin’s footsteps echoing closer to him, he only had just one thought.
“Need to escape.”
His half-closed and swollen eyes settled on the large windows. He could jump through them and survive the fall. His body would splatter on impact, but he would survive. But not when he stayed here.
“Thinking of escape?” asked Austin. He stepped closer with his hands in his pockets, but a fistful of debris suddenly ensnared him, restraining his movement.
The troll took this opportunity to dash for the large glass panels and held his arms before him to shatter through them. What he didn’t expect was to land on the other section of the gym, opposite the windows.
“Surprised?”
Dumbfounded, Aaron looked back at Austin, who casually made his way back to him with his restraints gone.
“I know trolls are dimwitted monsters, but really? You posed long enough as a human to know better.” Austin's figure flickered where he was still restrained, then returned to his unbothered version. “Escape isn’t an option. You were done for the moment I got to you.”
“SHO TWHAT?” asked Aaron, his jaw hanging on one side. “YHOUR THWAT CHOWS FWRIEND. YHWOUR NWOT GWONNA FWINISH, AHRE YWOU?”
Austin grimaced, closing his eyes as he bit his lip and put a hand on his head to contain the headache he was getting. He remembered an unpleasant moment about himself.
“I’m not a good guy,” he confessed. “I said some insensitive things to my friend when I should have known better. I thought by getting rid of you, I’d feel better, but I don’t. Maya made the right decision to get herself and her girlfriend away from you. You’re just as ugly as you’re on the insides. And you will never take her down on your level.
“Unlike you, she’s just as beautiful on the insides as on the outside.” Austin took a deep breath and let go of a weight that burdened his shoulders for a while. “You, however, are just an ugly, deformed piece of meat, hoping to put others down to a level lower than yours.”
Aaron blustered in rage again. “I don’t need to hear any of this!” he huffed and puffed with his chest; his muscles and flab quivered uncontrollably. “I’ll get rid of him and then off that unsavoury woman. Who do they take me for?!”
Throwing his arm forward, Aaron watched how Austin sliced right through it with a swipe of his hand. Ligaments, muscles, and flesh tore apart, leaving Aaron’s arm mangled and hanging and desperately trying to mend back together.
“Let me fix that for you,” offered Austin, and extended his arm.
“NHRWO, DWON’T– GHWRAAAAA!!!”
Austin ripped off Aaron’s poor excuse of an arm and yanked him to the ground. Clutching his bundle of oily, seaweed-like hair, Austin flipped Aaron upside down. Left flopping helplessly on his back, Austin inspected Aaron’s stubby legs.
“Someone here obviously skipped leg day. Do you still need them?”
“NHRWO, STOP– “
The troll’s scream reverberated through the gym. Aaron’s ego shattered as easily as his legs. Austin had enough of looking at the troll.
“You’ll never hurt someone ever again. Time to end this–” Austin stopped mid-sentence. He turned his head to the strange sound in the middle of the gym hall. Right towards an unsuspecting stranger that shouldn’t be doing workouts right now.
—⚘—
The new stranger at the gym was a woman. A woman who bench-pressed with ridiculously massive weights one would only see in fiction. Austin estimated their mass to be over 100 kg (200 lbs) on each side, though it could have been even more.
The stranger heaved herself up, wiping the sweat from her cheek with a towel draped over her shoulders. Her body looked like a seasoned bodybuilder, full of ripped muscles. She wore tight leggings that barely contained her massive thighs, almost tearing the fabric apart. Her tremendous biceps were bigger than his head, and her abdominal muscles looked like they could be used as a cheese grater.
She wasn’t wearing a shirt, opting for a crop bra to hold her substantial bust in place. Her silvering black hair was tied into a ponytail, which revealed the undercut and bangs framing her angular face set in a permanent scowl.
White runes and tattoos, lined with fading or large scars, riddled her muscular olive-grey skin. She stopped her workout; her glimmering green eyes glanced briefly at Austin before standing up. Her height overshadowed Aaron—she was almost over 192 cm tall (6 '3 feet).
But she turned her back on them, picked up the barbell, put them across her shoulders, and did squats and ignored them.
Austin could have sworn no one else was at the gym; he made sure of it. But this woman deeply unsettled him. No sane person would work out at this hour now. Waving with his hand, Austin raised the imaginary mist around them to obscure their surroundings. Initially, he intended to make Aaron suffer some more for his misdeeds, but there was no time.
“Do you know this woman?” asked Austin, but Aaron didn’t reply, and resolved to pained groans. “Figures,” Austin raised his hand, “I better finish this quickly before—”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
His hand stopped just inches from Aaron’s bumpy nose. Turning back, Austin saw the mist dissipating. The stranger stopped her rep mid-squad and glared their way over her shoulder.
“Don’t,” she repeated with more pressure.
Austin straightened his back, feeling an intense prick of needles running up his spine. In his moment of distraction, Aaron slugged Austin into a smith machine and made his desperate escape.
“Sorðinn!” Austin cursed, wiping the blood from his mouth. “You’ll pay for this, troll—”
Time slowed down for Austin as he saw the troll’s arm fly in the air. Toppling over, Aaron cried in pain as he was just cleaved in half from his clavicle down to his pelvis. He tentatively touched the wound and flinched, unable to regenerate as a bearded spear, blazing hot white flames, cauterised the wound. Aaron cried out loudly when the woman pulled out her weapon from the troll’s searing flesh.
“I told you not to do it.” Her deep voice resonated threateningly at the troll. She cut another large wound into his back and tore off his legs subsequently, drawing out another cry. “You ruined my workout.”
Austin could barely speak. “Who are you?” He managed. “What are you?”
“Nobody, little giant,” the woman replied, her form shrouding itself in amethyst light. Darkness veiled her body. Grey wings pointed towards the sky like horns from her black helmet hiding her face. An emblem held her coat together—three interlocking triangles shining in silver light. A Valknut, Austin realised. “I’ll take this troll with me.”
Her ironclad hand grabbed for the troll’s hair. A pair of swan wings sprouted from her back, littering the air with dark feathers. They disappeared in a flash of light, leaving Austin confounded in the gym.
“Well, that’s not how I imagined Tuesday Night going,” thought Austin, and looked back at what she said. “Little giant, huh?” he clenched and unclenched his hand. “I guess I can’t hide who I am anymore… can I?”