By the time Zac exited the changing room, he was wrapped in a long white towel that Ami had helpfully tied for him. He stood proudly, striking a pose in his makeshift toga. He had hoped to be fully buff around the demons, but he supposed if he wasn't wearing anything, he couldn't take anything off when he inevitably lost at strip-balls or whatever Halphas had planned.
"So how long have you been working for Halphas?" Zac asked the small bird demon, who was now leading him down a steamy corridor.
"Forever!" the private said sharply, saluting the air.
"And you're still a private?" Zac mused. "Do you just suck or something?"
The demon slouched, his feathers drooping. He pointed silently into a massive, sand-filled room. "This is the palaestra, sir."
The palaestra was vast, a sand-filled arena surrounded by colonnades where other demons were practicing swordplay, wrestling, and lifting heavy stones. It smelled of sweat, dust, and raw effort.
Zac frowned. Of fucking course it's the gym.
Halphas spotted him immediately and rushed over, ushering him into the room before Zac could even think about bolting. "Come on, Zac!" the eagle said happily, clapping a massive hand on Zac's shoulder. "You told me you wanted to get whipped into shape!"
Zac winced. He did, indeed, let those vulgar words slip from his mouth during his disastrous two-mile "run". But thinking about how much his legs still hurt, dull, throbbing aches that radiated from his calves to his glutes, he was already starting to have second, third, fourth, and fifth thoughts.
"It's always good to work up a sweat before bathing," Halphas explained, practically bouncing on his toes. "Gets those impurities out of you and it lets the hot water relax the muscles."
"But working out blows so much," Zac whined, trying to dig his heels into the sand.
Halphas leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Andras said you nearly collapsed after only a few minutes of getting railed."
Oh god damn it, Zac thought, his face flushing hot. He just had to go and hit me where it hurts. My pride as a power-bottom.
Zac gave Halphas serious side-eye. Well, at least he's in a toga too, he reasoned, eyeing the way the white fabric draped over the eagle's muscular frame. Mmmm, maybe I'll get to see up his skirt if playing with our balls gets a bit competitive.
"Fine," Zac finally conceded, crossing his arms. "Show me your balls."
"Oh, we only need one ball," Halphas said cheerfully. He snapped his fingers, and with a puff of smoke, a follis appeared in his hand, a large, inflated leather ball, roughly the size of a basketball but softer. "Since you're so weak and fragile, we can just play a bit of Ourania."
Zac nodded confidently. "It's been a while since I played RuneScape, but I'm pretty good at clicking runes."
Private Ami practically had to drag Zac out of the hellish gym. The game of Ourania had been surprisingly familiar, basically just a variation of Jackpot where one player would hurl the ball into the stratosphere and everyone else scrambled to catch it as it fell back down to earth... or hell. But it had been so long since Zac needed to use any sort of hand-eye coordination that didn't involve a touchscreen that he was left winded, tired, and covered in sand.
Halphas had decided to stay behind and work out a bit more so he could get his own, much more developed muscles properly straining before he bathed, leaving Zac in the apparently capable hands of a lesser officer who had been a private for... ever. It did not give Zac much confidence in the skinny bird's abilities.
"Are you sure you're not the one who should take bird growth hormone?" Ami asked as he half-dragged the human down the corridor toward a new room.
"Fuck you," Zac wheezed.
The lesser demon looked a bit smug, his head bobbing. "No. I'm under strict orders to not do exactly that."
Zac looked over, offended. "Well I'm not into you either, so we don't have to worry about that."
"Good."
"Good!"
"GOOD!" they kept saying back and forth until Zac found himself pushed into a tiled shower room.
Zac tried to shoo away the private so he could wash off his sandy, sweat-drenched body, but found he was denied any privacy from the Private.
"I'm to make sure you're clean," the bird-man said, rolling up his uniform sleeves.
"Fine," Zac sighed, leaning against the wall. "Didn't know you were a voyeur. I'm sure getting to watch a virgin avatar of a demonic President is quite..."
Zac's voice trailed off as he watched the grey bird approaching with a scrubby brush on a long handle and a sudsy mop bucket that smelled like industrial bleach.
"That, uh, looks very bristly," Zac said, backing away.
Private Ami grinned wickedly, his small beak clicking. "As just a lowly private, I'm used to scraping barnacles off of Leviathan-class transports. I'll be sure you're spotless."
Zac swallowed hard. "But I'm a cute little leopard boy. I can't change my spots!"
…
As Zac stepped out of the shower room, he felt clean. Violently, aggressively clean. In fact, he was fairly certain that the top three layers of his epidermis were currently floating in a drain somewhere, leaving him looking less like a human and more like a boiled lobster in a towel. He felt raw, exposed, and medically vulnerable.
"Oh, you don't have to worry about bacteria," Cher Ami cooed mischievously, noticing Zac inspecting his bright red arm. "Bacteria are living things. This is Hell. Nothing lives here that doesn't have permission."
"What about viruses?" Zac asked, wincing as the rough towel rubbed against his sensitized skin. "Is the plague a virus? Or some sort of prion?"
"What is a prion?" the private asked, tilting his head as they walked back down the corridor toward the hot pool room.
"Wouldn't you like to know," Zac sighed, adjusting his toga. "How am I the only one who's up to date on modern information? Are you all stuck in ye olden times? I feel like I'm the only one here who knows what a router is."
He reached out to steady himself against one of the massive black columns lining the hall. The stone was cool and smooth, carved from obsidian fluted with gold in a style that screamed 'Roman Empire but make it Goth.' It was impressive, ancient, and very much not modern.
"Master Halphas is quite hip!" Ami squawked defensively, puffing out his chest. "He finds human warfare quite intriguing! He keeps up with the trends!"
"Yeah, sure," Zac said, wincing as his raw palms touched the cold stone. "Vikings and boomsticks. Very trendy. Next you'll tell me he's into muskets."
"Pshh!" The small bird demon waved a wing-arm dismissively, looking insulted on his master's behalf. "Boomsticks are not nearly as effective as the Earl's Turkish walnut Mark XIX Desert Eagle, .50 Action Express with its custom 10-inch barrel and Weaver-style optical rail! It's quite the versatile platform that allows for barrel, bolt, and magazine conversion!"
Zac stared at the little bird, who was practically vibrating with ballistics enthusiasm.
"Like I care about his expensive Counter-Strike skins," Zac hissed, leaning down. "I only care about his high-caliber eagle dick."
Cher Ami's feathers puffed out so hard he looked like a grey dandelion. He opened his beak to sputter some sort of defense of his commander's honor, or perhaps the tactical advantages of the .50 AE round, but his spatial awareness failed him completely.
THUNK.
The private walked face-first, at a brisk pace, directly into the black marble column. He bounced off and landed on his tail feathers, looking dazed.
"Boom, headshot," Zac said flatly.
He stepped over the concussed lesser demon and pushed through the heavy doors, walking back into the steam-filled embrace of the caldarium.