The brute rushed forward with terrifying speed for someone his size.
Eric's mind screamed at him in real time, cataloguing every terrible decision that had led to this moment. 'Stupid, stupid, stupid. What the hell were you thinking? You've never been in a fight in your life. You're going to die in an alley behind a motel because you couldn't mind your own business.'
Up close, the man was even more intimidating than he'd appeared from a distance. Eric had thought himself reasonably tall at 183 centimeters, but this guy towered over him by at least ten centimeters. Veins bulged from arms that looked like they'd been carved from granite, the kind of physique that came from years of prison yard workouts and violence. Tattoos covered every inch of visible skin, crude designs that spoke of a life lived on the wrong side of every line.
The man's fists were like hammers. His shoulders were broader than Eric's entire torso. And his eyes held the flat, empty look of someone who'd hurt people before and would happily do it again.
'I'm so dead,' Eric thought with crystalline clarity.
But his body moved anyway, muscle memory from movies he'd watched kicking in despite having no practical application. Eric raised his hands, trying to approximate what he thought was a fighting stance. Fists up, elbows in, knees slightly bent.
It probably looked ridiculous.
The brute took it as provocation.
"Wrong move, pretty boy," the man snarled, and threw a hook that could have demolished a wall.
Eric watched it coming with a weird sense of detachment, his enhanced intelligence noting the trajectory, the power behind it, the way the man's entire body weight shifted into the blow.
'This is going to hurt,' his brain supplied helpfully. 'This is going to hurt a lot.'
But then something strange happened.
The fist, which had seemed blindingly fast in the first instant, began to slow. Not actually slowing down, Eric realized with sudden shock, but appearing slower to his perception. Like someone had adjusted the playback speed of reality, giving him precious extra milliseconds to process what he was seeing.
'The stat increases,' some part of his mind whispered. 'The strength and stamina boosts. They changed more than just raw power.'
Eric's body moved before his conscious mind caught up. He stepped sideways, smooth and controlled, and the brute's fist sailed past his face close enough to feel the air displacement.
It hit nothing but empty space.
Silence crashed through the alley.
The woman pressed against the wall stared with wide golden-brown eyes, shock written across her face. The brute stood frozen mid-swing, his expression shifting from confidence to confusion. And Eric stood there, hands still raised, his own mind screaming in disbelief.
'I dodged it,' he thought incredulously. 'I actually dodged it. How the hell did I dodge that?'
Eric looked down at his hands like they belonged to someone else. They were steady, controlled, showing none of the terror racing through his mind.
The brute recovered first, rage flooding his features. "Lucky shot," he growled, resetting his stance. "Let's see you do that again."
He rushed forward, throwing a combination this time. Left hook, right cross, left uppercut, flowing together with the brutal efficiency of someone who'd learned to fight through necessity and violence.
Eric watched it all unfold in that same strange slow motion. Each punch telegraphed itself seconds before it arrived. The way the man's shoulder dipped before the hook. The slight twist of his hips before the cross. The dropped elbow before the uppercut.
'I can see it,' Eric realized with growing wonder and terror. 'I can actually see everything he's going to do.'
He moved.
Lean back from the hook. Duck under the cross. Twist away from the uppercut. Each motion flowing naturally, his enhanced body responding with precision his mind hadn't known it possessed.
The brute's fists hit nothing but air, again and again.
"Stop moving!" the man roared, frustration bleeding into his voice.
A kick came next, aimed at Eric's ribs with enough force to crack bones. Eric saw it coming from the moment the man's weight shifted, giving him an eternity to react. He stepped back, the kick missing by inches, then danced sideways as another punch whistled past his head.
'This is insane,' Eric thought even as his body continued its impossible defense. 'This shouldn't be possible. I don't know how to fight. I've never trained. I should be on the ground bleeding by now.'
The woman watching from the wall made a small sound of disbelief.
The brute was breathing hard now, sweat beading on his tattooed forehead. "What the fuck are you?"
'Good question,' Eric thought.
The man came again, faster this time, angrier. A flurry of blows that would have been impossible to track without Eric's enhanced perception. But track them he did, weaving through the assault like smoke, untouchable despite having no idea what he was actually doing.
Dodge left. Duck right. Lean back. Step forward into the gap between punches and immediately retreat as the next one came.
The brute was getting sloppy now, his movements more desperate, burning through stamina with every missed attack. His breathing turned ragged. His punches lost precision.
And Eric began to feel something new rising through his terror.
Confidence.
'He can't hit me,' Eric realized. 'He's bigger, stronger, more experienced, and he can't touch me.'
The next combination came slower, more predictable. Eric didn't just dodge this time. He tested something, stepping inside the man's guard, close enough to feel body heat, then dancing away before the brute could grab him.
'I'm faster,' Eric thought, the truth of it settling into his bones. 'Not just reflexes. Actually faster. The stat increases did this.'
But dodging wasn't winning. And Eric could feel his own stamina starting to flag despite the boosts. His muscles burned. His lungs worked overtime. The morning's ten-kilometer run was catching up to him, exhaustion creeping in at the edges.
'I need to end this,' Eric thought. 'Before I run out of gas.'
He'd been on defense this entire time, too shocked by his own abilities to consider offense. But the man was slowing, getting tired, frustration making him reckless.
'Now or never.'
Eric made his decision.
The next time the brute threw a punch, Eric didn't dodge away. He dodged forward, closing the distance, his enhanced speed carrying him inside the man's guard in a blur of motion.
And he threw a punch of his own.
It was amateur. Terrible form, thumb tucked wrong, elbow too wide. Everything about it screamed inexperience. But Eric's enhanced strength was behind it, and his speed made it almost impossible to see coming.
The brute's eyes widened in shock as Eric seemed to blur.
The punch landed in the man's stomach with a sickening crunch.
The brute's breath exploded out of him in a whoosh of air and spittle. He doubled over, arms wrapping around his midsection, face going red then purple.
Eric jumped back, staring at his fist in shock. Pain radiated up his arm. Blisters had already formed on his knuckles where they'd impacted the man's abs. It had felt like punching a brick wall.
'Holy shit,' Eric thought, flexing his hand experimentally. 'That actually worked.'
The brute straightened slowly, one hand still pressed to his stomach, murder in his eyes. "You're dead. You're so fucking dead."
"Just walk away," Eric said, his voice steadier than he felt. "This doesn't have to get worse."
"Worse?" The man's laugh was pained and bitter. "You think this is bad? You haven't seen bad yet, pretty boy."
Eric's confidence wavered. He'd landed one hit, but the man was still standing, still dangerous. And Eric's amateur punch had hurt his hand almost as much as it had hurt his opponent.
But he'd come this far. No backing down now.
The brute charged again, and this time Eric met him. He threw a kick, aiming for the man's knee with zero technique but plenty of speed. It connected with a solid thump. The man stumbled but didn't fall.
Eric followed with another punch, this one aimed at the ribs. The brute blocked it with a forearm that felt like hitting a log, but Eric pulled back and tried again. A jab at the face that the man slipped. A hook at the body that landed but did minimal damage.
'This isn't working,' Eric realized. 'I'm faster but he's too tough. I can't hurt him enough to put him down.'
They traded blows, Eric's speed and reflexes against the brute's power and durability. Eric landed more hits but they were weak, glancing, doing little more than annoying his opponent. The brute's hits were fewer but devastating when they connected, each one a freight train that Eric barely avoided.
A punch grazed Eric's shoulder and he felt it go numb immediately. 'One clean hit and I'm done,' he thought desperately.
The brute pressed forward, sensing Eric's flagging stamina. His face was flushed, blood trickling from his nose where one of Eric's wild punches had landed, but he looked far from finished.
"Getting tired?" the man taunted. "Good. Makes it easier."
Eric gasped for air, his legs feeling like lead. The morning run, the stat increases, the adrenaline, all of it was catching up to him. His stamina bar, if it had a visible meter, would be flashing red.
The woman still cowered against the wall, her golden-brown eyes wide with terror. She flinched every time a punch was thrown, every impact echoing through the alley.
'I need to end this now,' Eric thought desperately. 'Before I collapse.'
The brute threw another combination, slower now, both of them exhausted. Eric dodged on pure instinct, his mind racing through options.
'How do you knock someone out? Movies always show people getting hit in the head or the neck. The back of the neck, specifically. Some kind of nerve cluster or pressure point or something.'
It was ridiculous. Comic book logic. But Eric was out of options and running on fumes.
'One shot,' he thought. 'I get one shot at this before I'm too tired to try again.'
The brute swung wide, putting everything into a haymaker aimed at Eric's head. Eric ducked under it, feeling the wind of its passage ruffle his copper-orange hair.
And in that moment of overextension, Eric saw his opening.
The back of the man's neck, exposed and vulnerable as his momentum carried him forward.
'Now.'
Eric sprinted forward, closing the gap with the last burst of speed his enhanced stats could provide. The brute tried to recover, bringing his arm back, cocking a fist for a devastating blow that would end this if it connected.
But Eric was already moving.
He leaped, putting every ounce of remaining strength into the jump. His body lifted into the air, higher than should have been possible, time seeming to freeze for one perfect instant.
The brute's fist came up, massive and deadly.
Eric twisted in mid-air, his body rotating, leg extending in what his movie-addled brain told him was called a spinning kick.
His shin connected with the back of the man's neck with a meaty thwack.
Eric landed in a crouch, far from the clean landing he'd imagined, stumbling and barely catching himself. Pain shot through his leg where it had connected with what felt like solid oak.
He spun around, panting, preparing for the brute's counterattack.
The man still stood.
'No,' Eric thought, despair flooding through him. 'No, no, no. That should have worked. In the movies that always works.'
The brute took one step forward. His legs moved mechanically, like they didn't quite remember how to work properly. His face held a confused expression, like he couldn't quite understand why his body wasn't responding.
Eric stepped back, instinct screaming danger, his hands coming up despite having nothing left to defend with.
The man took another step.
Then his eyes rolled back, revealing nothing but white.
The brute swayed once, like a tree deciding which way to fall.
And collapsed.
He hit the ground face-first with a sound like a dropped bag of concrete. Didn't try to catch himself. Didn't move. Just fell and lay still.
Silence crashed through the alley.
Eric stood frozen, panting so hard his chest ached, staring at the massive body sprawled on the ground. Waiting for it to move. To get back up. To reveal this was all some kind of trick.
The man didn't move.
'I did it,' Eric thought, the realization crawling through his exhausted mind. 'Holy shit, I actually did it.'
His legs gave out and he stumbled back against the alley wall, sliding down to sit on the dirty ground. Every muscle in his body screamed in protest. His knuckles were raw and bleeding. His shin felt like he'd kicked a tree. His lungs burned with every breath.
But he'd won.
Against all logic, all experience, all reasonable expectation, he'd won.
Eric stared at his shaking hands, at the unconscious brute, at the woman still pressed against the opposite wall looking at him like he'd just sprouted wings.
"What the fuck," he whispered, his voice hoarse and shaking.
And for once, the universe had no answer.