Very Cancerous Rodent

I'm the giant rat that makes all of the rules!

**Very Cancerous Rodent** is the TRUE secret boss of **[ 1-2: THE BURNING WORLD ]**, only spawning after Cancerous Rodent has been killed. Along with the Cancerous Rodent, it is a reference to a recurring character in the videos of boomer shooter Youtuber Civvie11. Killing the Very Cancerous Rodent opens up the gate to the Second Limbo Slab, making this boss a requirement to obtain the Alt Revolver.

## Appearance/Details

Very Cancerous Rodent is just a scaled up model of the Cancerous Rodent with a face similar to that of a Skull. Unlike its smaller iteration, however, VCR can actually deal damage to V1. VCR will shoot out green projectiles at V1 that home in similarly to the ones fired by Mindflayers, Minos, and the Flesh Prison. but do significantly less damage and explode. However, because of the arena, it may be somewhat hard to dodge the projectiles. VCR does not move from its spot, but will turn to face V1's direction.

## Rending Apart

The VCR can be tricky to kill because of the small arena, but it's not in any way impossible. One strategy is to peer out from the corner of the Dungeon exit and fire a magnet from the Attractor Nailgun and shoot out nails from the safety of cover, or use the Marksman Revolver while under cover, y'know, if you're a COWARD. If you choose to fight the VCR head on, Shotgun Swapping, the Overheat Nailgun, Parrying and any of the Railcannon Variants are good tools.

A cheap tactic for beating VCR is to stand as close to it's face as possible. The projectiles it spawns will glitch out, causing them to explode on spawn and damage the rodent slowly killing the irradiated beast, but not V1, as it instantly heals with the blood that rodent loses during explosions. Another cheap tactic is to simply stand on top of it and ground slam it. It is a giant rat, after all. What's it gonna do, throw you off and bite you? Didn't think so.

## Trivia

* Both the Cancerous Rodent and the Very Cancerous Rodent have a unique battle track that is not currently present in any OST release.
* Very Cancerous Rodent is the only enemy in the game to fire green projectiles. These projectiles home in on the player identically to the teal seeker projectiles used by Mindflayers, Flesh Prison, and Mysterious Druid Knight (& Owl), but explode on contact.
* Very Cancerous Rodent internally has its EnemyType identifier set to `Cerberus`. This doesn't affect much, but it does result in the Rodent being assigned a support priority rank of 3 instead of the default -1, making Stalkers and Idols prefer targeting it over fodder enemies, with the same level of priority as Malicious Faces, Swordsmachines, and indeed, Cerberi.
* You can skip the Very Cancerous Rodent and hit the Slab II switch without killing it. Simply slide over its large body into the crevice that is normally only revealed after its death. However, you are trapped here until the VCR unblocks the entrance.
* To help in the fight against cancer in more than just this video game, you can donate to help childhood cancer research at https://www.stbaldricks.org/, or you can donate to St. Jude's children's hospital to help families fight childhood cancer at https://www.stjude.org/donate/donate-to-st-jude.html.