An Ape-alling Affair II

((Author's Note: I'm going to give you a very advance notice here. My wife is currently undergoing the consequences of being submissive and breedable around me. Consequently there is a chance that I’ll be going on a paternity break for a bit either around mid-to-late January or when her maternity leave ends.

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John had a single shell left at the end of the Boss’ first phase. He had every intention of putting it to use, as soon as the phase transition was done and John was certain the beast could actually take damage again.

Said transition consisted of it curling up again to reach into its lab coat and coming up empty. Then it instead went for the hat, pulling out a canteen and downing the contents. That caused its torso to extend slightly and its limbs to extend a lot more, while its fur changed from the black color common to chimps into a shaggier, dark brown coat.

Transformation completed, it roared in a manner very similar to Chewbacca and let go of the pipes, dropping to the floor. It made a superhero landing while the floor shook to an unreasonable degree, which probably mostly happened to justify pipes behind the open gates bursting and starting to spew green goop. Some of said goop started moving and coalescing into larger blobs, with the result it was working towards being pretty obvious.

Shouting to be heard over the chimpanzee-turned-sasquatch beating its chest loudly, John outlined a basic strategy, “You deal with the slimes that are spawning and help me when you can, I’ll handle the melee.”

Qhila nodded and turned away as the Boss’ phase transition finally ended, indicated by its HP finally going from 0/600 to 666/666. It took a single step forward and its HP was immediately cut down by a bit more than 200, as the last shotgun blast tore out a solid chunk of its torso.

The injury quickly knitted itself back together, leaving inflamed, furless scar tissue behind. The creature still moved with a hint of a limp, however, and its health bar remained unchanged. Clearly, it wasn’t the kind of regeneration it looked like, but instead just making it less hampered by its injuries than it should be. Like a store brand Gamer’s Body in a way.

Putting the shotgun away, John eschewed the squirt gun as well. At the kind of close ranges this was almost certainly going to be, the spray chamber in the Alchemfist was plenty. Plus, he wouldn’t have to worry about the beastman mutagen turning his hands unfit for a trigger that way.

The mutagen in question gave John a ghost of the rush of energy and power that Hyde serum had, as well as a short lived itching sensation all over as short grey fur sprouted from most of his body, his fingers grew into claws and his jaws and teeth changed. Surprisingly, he didn’t actually grow a muzzle. Instead, his jaws expanded in a manner befitting a gigachad meme, with the muscles growing stronger and the teeth turning into a full set of meat-tearing predator dentition.

The most visceral change that came with the mutagen, however, was to his sense of scent. Suddenly, from just a backdrop of smoke with a hint of acidic, a rich tapestry of sensations unfolded ranging from Qhila’s comfortable allure across lingering traces of every action taken and every attack made since the fight started, to the curdled chemical stench of the mutants themselves that the kobold had mentioned earlier.

That all would have been extremely likely to distract him at a crucial moment if not for one particular scent that laid inexorable claim to his attention. The Boss positively reeked of maddened aggression. John had never considered the concept of what emotional states might smell like, even for broad ones to say nothing of something specific like this. Yet some instinct either imparted by the elixir or awakened from the deprecated recesses of the pre-human parts of his DNA told him in no uncertain terms that that was what he could smell.

The scent sent adrenaline coursing through his system in amounts he had previously only experienced after what would have been a fatal injury if not for Gamer’s Body. The world felt like it was slowed down to 80% speed as the analytical calm of Gamer’s Mind went into overdrive.

And he really, really needed it. He had expected the mutant to be physically superior by a margin similar to what Pugsworth had been. Maybe a bit more on account of being the final Boss of the Dungeon, maybe a bit less on account of the poison darts Qhila had landed. The difference was closer to the one between pre-Abyss John and Frank.

The only reason he wasn’t immediately pummeled into oblivion was that its attacks were heavily telegraphed. Not in the game mechanical sense of attack indicators and such shenanigans but simply in the way it moved. The ape-turned-sasquatch fought with all the skill and grace of an angry toddler, but enough speed and power to be absolutely deadly anyway.

Ducking, dodging and weaving, John still got grazed for 25 damage by the second strike, after which he remembered to switch back to the jacket of deflection. That brought the graze damage down to 5-10 instead, but he was still taking that every few hits when he didn’t manage to get entirely out of the way.

Worse, he was taking that while focused entirely on dodging. Even though the Boss in theory left itself wide open with every swing, the attacks came in so fast and avoiding them compromised his balance so much, he didn’t have time to exploit the opening. Not if he didn’t want his chest caved in moments later.

Keeping this up was a guaranteed loss, unless Qhila suddenly turned up a lot more time to help him than expected. But trading a hit with this thing was going to hurt very badly and relying on a crippling hit to swing advantage in his favor was a poor bet against a regenerator. Unless he could **** that it regenerated using scar tissue somehow…

That was it. Target something that suffers severe loss of function even at light to moderate scarring. Joints were affected more than skin and muscles. Organs even more so, but usually well protected by placement inside the bo-

Eyes! Surface organs, significantly degraded with even very light scarring. Something that pretty much everything guarded instinctively though, and the creature was too tall for them to be easily attacked.

He would at most get two shots at this, and if he needed the second, he was probably losing anyway. Especially since figuring out a possible path to victory had already cost him 62 HP. But he did have a trick on hand for that, ironically partially courtesy of the Boss’ first phase.

John loaded winter’s breath into the Alchemfist, made another narrow dodge and sprayed the freezing liquid on the floor. The mutant continued swinging wildly, momentum and the slick floor combining to rob its balance.

Rather than crashing to the floor, it quickly adjusted to a lower, wider stance to keep its footing. It still brought the beast’s eyes down into easier reach and robbed its punch of a significant amount of ****. An important thing, that, since John still took a bone crushing 41 damage hit to his shoulder as the price of getting in close and gouging the Boss’ eyes out.

Backing off again to avoid taking more than the one hit, John used the last Boon granted healing potion. With that, he was down to just his remaining health bar and the 34 he could get from a ‘real’ minor health potion.

The Boss turned out to be less hampered by the damage to its eyes than expected. While the scarring looked like it had been rendered wholly blind, it could clearly determine his approximate location with other senses. That should still have made its precision suffer, but with its fighting ‘style’ already being very imprecise, it was not as much of an impediment as John had hoped.

Still, he could dodge cleanly enough to avoid damage now, at least until he would start to get fatigued. Trying out how trading light blows worked out showed very clearly what John had expected: no way to come out on top doing that.

He spent some time just dodging, trying to come up with a way to get the upper hand. Before he could think of any, however, Qhila called out, “Can you get it to stand semi-still again?”

Sparing a glance in her direction, she was turned towards the fight between John and the mutated ape, crossbow in hand. Behind her, she had set up a trio of trap modules in ripcord configuration, which she was evidently confident would keep the slime spawns under control for the time being.

That moment of split attention cost him another 9 HP from a less than perfectly evaded blow. Still, with Qhila able to focus here and clearly coming in with a plan, things were looking up. “Sure, at least until I run out of winter’s breath. But I don’t think it’ll last long enough for you to debuff this thing into the ground.”

“Roger. Flinch then.” Qhila took a moment to switch the dart in the crossbow while John dodged another few wild swings. When she indicated that she was ready, John hit the floor with another round of winter’s breath.

Once again, the Boss adopted a wider stance to avoid slipping, in turn leaving it to move around a bit less. It was still swinging wildly and being generally aggressive, but its center of mass mostly stayed put, which was all Qhila really needed.

The acid injection caused the beast to lock up for a moment as it cried out from the brief but intense pain. John exploited the opening to rake his mutagen-gifted claws across the Boss’ abdomen, clawing a line of gashes that turned into scars in moments.

That turned out to still be a slight overextend, as the beast grazed his arm for 8 damage, taking it down to an even HP if taken in proportion to their respective health bars. Still, it was proof of concept that the strategy could work.

They proceeded to do the rotation several more times, with John not going quite so hard on the offense. That let him avoid trading health a good bit of the time, leading to an overall trade in their favor. Unfortunately, it could not last.

“Last shot of winter’s breath. I think I need to change focus, get elemental damage back on the table.”

“Roger,” Qhila responded without missing a beat. For the last few rotations they could get in before the floor was no longer slick enough, John focused on tearing at the Boss lab coat.

It ended up with only frayed sleeves covering its front, though its back remained protected. If the mutant’s apparel worked like the actual equipment drop, that should at least make the flat damage reduction from elemental AR not apply to frontal hits. It was unclear if the damage resistance did or not, but even if it did, percentual reduction wouldn’t take his damage down to 0.

The mutated ape now moving freely, John was once again unable to attack with claws or punches without getting punished. The recoil on the Alchemfist spray was weak enough for that to leave a lot less of an opening though.

“Taser,” John called out his intention, then sprayed the Boss with congealed lightning. While the damage still wasn’t great, it wasn’t 0 either. Better yet, it caused the beast’s muscles to lock up for a moment, which was enough for Qhila to follow up with an acid dart. John then followed up with a claw swipe to the leg.

The new rotation had tighter timing margins, and it was ammo limited too. But since they pulled it off flawlessly on the first go, John still felt like they had a solid shot at taking home the win this way.

That went out the window when the Boss suddenly started emitting thick smoke at 50 HP remaining, along with it getting a new buff.

Sasquatch **** Rage
Ignore all crowd control and stat debuffs and emit dense smoke, but take increased damage from all sources. When the effect expires, the subject dies.
Time Remaining: 14 min 59 sec.

So they could either DPS race it or kite. But with its speed, they would’ve needed the winter’s breath to have much of a chance. Leaving DPS race as the only option, and probably one he would have to take alone as Qhila wouldn’t be able to see what she shot.

All he could really do was bet on the increase to its damage taken, pop the minor healing potion to pad his own health as much as possible, and be ready to leave if he couldn’t win the race.

Well, there was one other thing he could do to hedge his bets. The moment he heard movement towards him, he shot a spray of shardoil on the ground directly in front of himself. Then he crouched, narrowly avoiding a punch towards his head, and rammed his right hand claws into his foe’s stomach.

He had meant to pair that with slow release congealed lightning for the good old taserfist, but got it crosswired with the shardoil release just prior, such that his gauntlet was now leaking caltrops.

The beast retaliated with a downward elbow. It got partially deflected by the daily save on his hat, but the would-be crit still came in with enough **** onto his upper back to deal a bit of damage and knock him off balance.

Rather than fight that momentum, John followed it into a roll. Coming back to his feet and whipping around, he found the smoke had become too dense to see his foe even a few steps away.

He could still hear the beast’s footfalls and furious roaring though, and was getting damage notifications of 1s and 2s for “embedded shards”. If not for knowing that the beast didn’t need sight to locate him, that would have tempted him to give the kiting strategy a try after all.

Instead, he took a half-step back into a crouch as soon as he could see a silhouette in the smoke. The beast’s fist passed above and slightly in front of his head. Then he uncoiled like a spring, pouncing at the beast and trying to drag both of them down with him on top.

It clearly hadn’t been able to track his movements well enough to anticipate this, or maybe it was just too lost in the rage to give thought to defense. In either case, they went down in a tangle of flailing fists and rending claws.

This close, the beast didn’t have the space to get full momentum into its wild swings, taking the damage down from devastating to just high. John’s claws had the same issue, but he had another weapon. One he would probably have been **** to use if not for the combination of Gamer’s Mind’s dispassionate analysis and his instincts screaming to win at all costs or do as much damage as possible before losing if he couldn’t win.

Thus, without hesitation, he opened his widened, strengthened jaw and tore out the Boss’ throat. It wasn’t enough to take it out, though, and it immediately switched from trying to pummel his sides to grabbing his head and trying to crush his skull.

The pressure was agonizing, and John felt a creaking in his head as red spots started dancing in his vision. Still, the analytic calm held, and he jabbed the Alchemfist spike into the mutant’s chest and injected a reservoir of acid.

Howling in furious agony, the beast involuntarily let go. John was right back at going for the throat again, but it was flailing enough that he missed and bit into its shoulder instead.

The creature went for trying to crush his skull a second time. With no more acid available to get himself out of it, John went for the next best thing as a hail mary pass and kneed it as hard as possible in the groin.

Much to his surprise, that didn’t just get it to let go. The Boss went fully limp for a dozen hammering heartbeats. Then, it faded into nothingness, depositing John into a short fall to the floor.

Breathing heavily, he slowly got back on his feet in the rapidly thinning smoke. Qhila was looking at him with crossed arms and a stern expression, though her tone didn’t have much bite to it. “Cut it awfully close instead of leaving the barrier…”

At some point, he had lost track of their respective health bars and put his whole focus on just the ****. Sheepishly, he glanced at his own and found it down to single digits. “... I guess I did. Sorry.”

Qhila harrumphed and turned away to pack up the trap modules. He would have offered to help, but decided to take a moment to catch his breath first. His HP wasn’t the only thing he had pushed to its limits at the end there. Still, he couldn’t stop smiling. It had come down to the wire, but they had won. The rush of a truly hard earned victory was second to nothing, and having those victories in the flesh rather than through a game avatar only elevated the experience further.

As the adrenaline of the fight slowly left his system, however, he felt the leaden weight of exhaustion only briefly before something else took hold of his senses and attention. Pushed into the background by the presence of danger, the sweet allure of Qhila’s lingering heat now inexorably invaded his mind through his mutagen-boosted nose.

Despite his enhanced sense of scent, it didn’t fog over his mind in the way the concentrated pheromone had. Nonetheless, the arousal it invoked through bringing to mind passions already shared was very real and undeniable. Still, this wasn’t really the time or the place. “Qhila, we have a… problem. You smell way too good right now.”

The nubile monstergirl turned around and, in case his tone had somehow not made it clear, seeing how his pants were tenting made the situation very obvious. For a heartbeat, she seemed to think, before a mischievous smirk found its way to her face. In that same moment, notes of female arousal mixed with her pheromonic scent, elevating it the last bit towards irresistible.