The room smelled of sweat, even over the artificial scent of coolant that pervaded the dwelling. Rotgoriel grunted as he pushed his body off the floor, then lowered himself gently back down. His muscles ached and throbbed, but that was the point of the exercise, so he kept on with it.

His brother had been lax. The wobbly flesh of his gut hanging over the waistband of his pants testified to that. True, Rich had had a lot on his mind of late, but it was no excuse.

Your body is your home, he'd read while he was studying books on philosophy a few months ago. The eastern ones appealed to him. He couldn't remember which one it was who had stated that truth, but it was a valid one.

Still, his brother had done well in developing half of his homes. Rotgoriel figured it was only fair that he should put some work in to shape the other. If only to make up for the tasty, tasty cake he could enjoy while he was visiting this world.

Rolling over, he switched to sit-ups. Eventually, sweat pouring down his face, he felt he'd had enough.

Mostly.

There were still parts of his chest that didn't hurt. For a second he wondered if he was being a bit harsh on his brother, leaving him a tired mess of aching flesh to come back to...

...then he grinned. Rich had gotten his tail killed several times during the siege of Turpentine. A little payback might remind him of his humility.

“It is weights day,” he decided. Throwing on a sweatshirt, Rotgoriel left his room, waved to his mother and Fred where they were sitting in the living room reading, and headed out of the apartment.

The idea of a room where you did nothing but burn energy was ridiculous... unless you were a human. Their bodies weren't equipped for constant growth, in the way that higher life forms were. They just got fatter and sicker and grumpier. For humans, gymnasiums made sense.

The one in Rich's home was in the middle of his building. It was a large room with exquisitely worked metal and leather devices, pools of hot and cold water, and a supremely comfortable wood-lined room where you could go and just rest in hot mist. It was a luxury that only the rich humans of Rotgoriel's own world could afford, and it was here, provided for the moderately-well-off and poor people of the building for a pittance of the cost it would have required in a different dimension.

And it was relatively empty, like most nights that Rotgoriel had ventured to this particular room.

It spoke volumes about this world that the people of it had such luxuries and convenience at their beck and call, and chose to treat them with disdain or bland entitlement. They had wonders in their grasp, and cared naught for the effort it had taken to place them there.

Rotgoriel found his way to the benches with weights, and set about pumping iron.

Midway through it, he found his head pounding, and not from increased blood flow.

Alarms were literally going off in his brain.

With a groan, Rotgoriel set the weight bar back into its holder, and closed his eyes. This was something to do with Rich's ECHO.

Rotgoriel had an imperfect relationship with the thing. Richard had been using it most of his life. Rotgoriel had come late to the device, and despite questioning his brother closely, most of the tricks and shortcuts that rich offered didn't seem to work for Rotgoriel. The current theory they were operating under was that Rotgoriel used different parts of Richard's brain than he did.

But he could muddle through, when it was important. And this thing wasn't letting up, so it seemed pretty important.

It took a few tries. Finally, he managed to get his mindset into something that made the ECHO happy... and inhaled sharply as it opened windows in front of his eyes.

He saw two men at the front door of the building, his building, fiddling with the manual lock. One of them put his hand through the glass, sending blood spraying, and undid the lock, before pulling back his gashed hand, one finger jutting out to the side, broken.

Rotgoriel rose, blinking until the screens shrunk to the size that he could see around them. He pulled the weights from the bar, putting them back into their basket, then took the bar with him and headed out to the corridor.

They went directly to the main elevator, the one who had bashed through the glass dripping blood all the way. At one point a door opened, and a resident stepped out, took one look, and retreated back inside. Rotgoriel didn't blame the man.

The main elevator would be too slow; Rotgoriel took the stairs instead. As he did, he unscrewed the caps from the end of the weights, leaving a hollow steel pipe.

I didn't intend for this to be leg day. But here we are, he thought as he felt the adrenaline surge in his veins. Humans had some useful advantages, now and again.

He studied them as he took the stairs two at a time.

They were well-built, strong and sturdy, he judged. One wore coveralls, the other had a suit. The one in the suit was older, balding but still fit, and with a fist full of rings. He was the one who had bashed the glass, and as Rotgoriel watched the man test his hand, then take the broken finger and twist, ripping it off and free and dropping it to the floor. Seemingly satisfied, he clenched his fist and released it, as blood splattered his face.

Their faces hadn't changed once, since they had popped up before Rotgoriel's eyes.

I know those signs, Rotgoriel realized.

And with that, there was no doubt in his heart. They were here for him.

He pushed himself harder, went faster, and was nearly heaving when he got to his floor. Slowing, he caught his breath, lungs working like a furnace and worry in the back of his mind.

I've just spent the last hour burning my stamina. They have the edge on me.

The worry fled, though.

This was Richard's world, not Rotgoriel's. There the math would be against him. Here? Here, he had a fighting chance.

The door opened.

Rotgoriel blinked the screens away, in time to see the men rushing for him. They were fast, and the one in the coveralls was drawing a hatchet from a deep pocket as he came.

Fingerless was in the lead, and Rotgoriel saw their strategy immediately. The bleeding and unarmed one would keep him busy while the armed one would deal the killing blow.

Rotgoriel drew the bar back like a club, holding it like one of Richard's baseball bats...

And then dropped to one knee as the man closed, shifted his grip, and thrust the bar as hard as possible straight toward the suited man's gut.

He didn't stop.

The hollowed bar plunged into his belly with a wet sucking sound even as his hands groped to catch Rotgoriel. The dragon who was a youth tumbled backward, dropping the bar to keep rolling, as the man hit the ground and gore sprayed out the other end of the weights bar.

Rotgoriel rose, protecting his head, expecting the second one to be on him, but found only empty space. Reorienting, he saw the skewered man on the ground, scrabbling, trying to rise without tearing his guts out. But his motions were growing weaker, and the pool of blood was growing on the floor.

The other had slowed his charge, crouched by his fallen kin. For a second Rotgoriel thought he was going to heal him, or apply some technique or trick...

...and then the man ripped the bar out of the stomach of his fallen comrade, and gave it a few test swings.

Rotgoriel ran for his door, managed to reach it a few seconds before his pursuer caught up to him. “We are under attack!” he bellowed, as the man thudded against the cheap fake wood, and the door shook in its frame. “Get to your room and seal yourself in!”

Frederick stared, fear and confusion filling his face, but Rich's mother was made of sterner stuff. “Nine-one-one! Emergency!” she yelled, grabbing Frederick and hauling him up from the sofa.

Rotgoriel trusted they were going to safety, he didn't have much time to watch. Rummaging through the silverware drawers, he came up with a pair of steak knives, and growled at the lack of anything with any real reach.

The door cracked and blew open behind him, and he whirled as the man came through, swinging the weights bar one handed. Rotgoriel ducked below it and slashed at his arm as he did, moving backwards until he bumped into the island, and sent dishes crashing to the tiled floor.

The hatchet caught him in the side, and for a second he thought he was dead. The hit had enough weight behind it to send push the island over and send him rolling over it, pain lancing through him as he tumbled through the remnants of the dishes.

She just had to insist on actual ceramic plates! He mourned, as he scrambled back, losing a knife as he pushed himself up. Taking a split second to check his ribs, he found no cut, but a flare of pain that told him he'd have a hell of a bruise later. If there was a later.

His foe came on, stepping around the island, and ignoring Rotgoriel's attempts to feint and lure him into striking. He was bleeding freely from his wrist, but his face had no expression. Neither he nor his ally had exhibited any emotion at all, from the moment they'd shown up on the cameras. That was how Rotgoriel knew what they were, what they had to be.

These are the masked ones. They are ridden.

They didn't care about pain, or the bodies they were wearing. They could push them past the limits of strength, doing damage to their bodies in exchange for momentary advantage. They cared not if their hosts died.

The only consolation Rotgoriel had was that their bizarre and grotesque abilities hadn't carried over to this world. That sort magic didn't work here.

That gave him a chance, but a slim one. He would have to deal a serious enough injury that their bodies couldn't ignore it, that their alien nature wouldn't let them carry on regardless.

The hatchet came for his skull, and he moved to the side, slashing and missing, as the stranger tried to punch him, forcing him to back up again. He was well into the living room, and running out of space. The windows were all screens, with solid walls behind them; he couldn't break through and escape.

The only sound was the whistling of breath between his teeth, and that gave him an idea. But it would be risky. He'd need to wear this thing down, and these creatures had endless springs of endurance. Rotgoriel knew he'd need to injure it to the point that he could gamble with his plan and survive.

While he was thinking, the creature was moving in, giving him no respite, trying to corner him. It had dropped the weight bar and was groping with its free hand, so Rotgoriel put a few slashes into his appendage, sending a finger flying and gashing his palm.

The hatchet came around again and he dodged, but the man stepped forward, surprising him. It was the man's arm, not the hatchet, that struck his head and that was all that saved him, as he tumbled and the world got wobbly and full of sparkles for a second. He crawled away, stopped as a hand grabbed his foot, and managed to wriggle his foot out of his shoe before the man could drag him back.

The man rocked backward as the shoe came off in his hand, stumbled and fell backward, and Rotgoriel, without rising, twisted and shoved off of the sofa, and grabbed his attacker's leg. And with a quick, brutal swipe of the knife he cut the man's leg where the ankle met the calf.

He lost the knife for his troubles when the man put his foot in Rotgoriel's face, and more stars shot up. Rotgoriel backed away, grabbing, stumbling, pushing himself up from the island, his teeth loose and his mouth full of blood. He knew he should be moving, trying to capitalize on his gain, but everything hurt, and the world wouldn't stop swaying. Three long breaths it took him to get his senses back, and in that space the man had tried to rise and fallen, his tendon cut badly enough that he wouldn't be standing again anytime soon.

I have this! I can do this! Rotgoriel thought, staggering back to the overturned island, and reaching up to the rack above to unhook a frying pan...

...and then turning at a sound, to stare at the first man, the one in the suit, now pale as death but standing and holding his guts in as he lurched through the door.

The man's arm rose to block his face as Rotgoriel laid into him with the frying pan, sending him back through the doorway, but the noises behind him told the youth that the other one was crawling toward him, was possibly grabbing hold to pull himself up for the killing stroke—

—and then horror filled him as a message flashed before his eyes.

Incoming Message From: Patrick Bayer

>>Rich, log off! We're under attack IRL!

“No. No no no no no!” Rotgoriel yelled, rushing forward and shoulder checking the suited man to the ground, then running out the door and down the hall as fast as he could.

He knew what was coming, and the only chance of his brother's survival would be getting far enough away before—

And then he was a dragon again, and WorldwarpR flinched away from him as he howled his rage and frustration to the skies.