“A real slut, you mean. And not the kind that puts her hand in your pants—she’s the kind that puts their hands in your pockets.”
However, his sister would just sigh and beg him to treat little Mikey kinder.
This is what ‘kinder’ gets you, sister, Peter thought as he was finishing his second shot. He’d ordered a bottle of beer and headed for the doorway that must have led to the ring.
Peter Hagen had been into football and baseball for the most part, but he had enough appreciation for boxing and MMA as well, so he watched the ring with interest. One of the fighters pressed the other one into a corner, pummeling on his head all the time. The second man managed to escape the grip and tried to step back, but the victor-to-be grabbed him again. Then the stronger fighter threw his opponent over his hip and immobilized his head with his legs. A few seconds into the submission hold, the second fighter started to beat on the floor with his gloves in recognition of his defeat.
The crowd booed disappointedly. No one wanted to see a fighter give up. Watching medics carry someone out was a lot more fun. The crowd needed blood, not just a defeat.
As the crowd shouted, the fighters rose to their feet and left the ring. They were replaced by a boy with a mop wiping up the blood.
Then the boy disappeared, and the announcer took his place. His bow tie sparkled in the spotlight.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, would anyone like to enroll in a creative writing workshop? Hilton “Clerk” Desmars will be happy to see you there!”
Classical music started playing, and a tall black man entered the ring. He wore black workout pants and a white T-shirt, as well as a pair of black leather boxing gloves.
The crowd thickened. The public met Desmars with shouts of encouragement. Someone ran past Peter with a fistful of papers of some sort. He realized people were placing bets.
“As for his opponent...” the announcer made a deliberate pause for dramatic effect, “it’s the guy who didn’t only make a lot of you cry, but cried along himself! Mike ‘Crybaby’ Hagen, ladies and gentlemen!”
Classical music became replaced by an intense hip-hop track. Peter couldn’t understand a word of it.
The other fighter entered the ring. He was naked to his waist, wearing red shorts and bright green laced-up boxing gloves.
It was certainly little Mikey, but at the same time he looked as a completely different person. He was slim and fit, his bearing was confident, and his well-defined muscles were even more conspicuous in the spotlight.
Peter Hagen nearly dropped his bottle.
In the meantime, Mike gave the audience an energetic bow. However, when he straightened himself up, he pretended to wipe tears from his eye with a glove. The audience laughed and shouted in encouragement.
“So, he’s been working out a little.” Peter took a swig of beer. “Both of them must be clowns that entertain the audience between real bouts.”
But he didn’t believe his own words. Little Mikey moved like a real pro. Whenever had he managed to get into this shape? And why now? Every time Peter had suggested that Mike take up some sport, his nephew would always stare at his toes and mumble something incomprehensible.
Right now, he looked as if he’d hailed from a parallel universe—the version where the younger Hagen always listened to his uncle and didn’t hold onto his mom’s apron.
In his excitement, Peter started to chug his beer at double his normal speed as he elbowed his way toward the ring.
“I don’t believe it! How could it be? Oh, man!”
In the meantime, his geek nephew’s doppelgänger kept spoiling for a fight. A referee replaced the announcer. He checked the fighters’ gloves and waved his hand to mark the beginning of the fight.
Mike instantly crossed the distance between himself and his opponent and threw a couple of body punches. Desmars went on the defensive, blocking most of them.
Peter watched Mike, grabbing his bottle tight. He didn’t even notice when he started to comment. “You’re too close! Step back!”
When Mike did just that, as if having heard the advice, Peter sighed in relief. “That’s it! Keep your distance. Well done! Wait for his defense to drop.”
The bout looked as if Desmars hadn’t expected Mike to be so aggressive. Whenever he’d tried to get him with a long punch, he’d instantly receive a few counterpunches right to the body. Desmars tried to kick, but Mike would always try to grab his foot. Although the outcome remained unclear—Mike would hardly manage to beat a six-foot-six giant if he’d switch to wrestling techniques.
Desmars must have realized that grappling would give him an enormous advantage. But it wasn’t that easy. Hagen didn’t even need to crouch to duck his opponent’s attempts to grab his body. It seemed as though the clerk didn’t have anything going for him.
However, the next time Mike slipped out of Desmars’ hold, the latter squared his shoulders, took a quick step back and threw a strong punch at Mike’s head. Hagen managed to block it with one of his hands, but the punch was strong enough to have made him groggy.
The second attack knocked Mike down—it was a kick in the face.
The audience started shouting. Someone threw a slice of lemon from their cocktail at Mike, but the security immediately identified the miscreant, twisted his arms and pulled him towards the exit.
Having fallen on his back, Mike instantly turned over and crouched.
“Get up, get up!” Uncle Peter was yelling, spilling his beer over himself.
The rest of the audience was shouting the same—and yet little Mikey appeared to have heard his voice. He turned his head toward his uncle.
Peter saw his eyes, blue just like Helen’s.
He couldn’t tell whether his nephew had recognized him.
“Get up, my boy!” the last time Peter shouted with such a voice was on the battlefield. “Show him what us Hagens are made of!”
But a shadow covered his nephew—it was Desmars preparing for a kick. Peter couldn’t fail to notice the man smiling in a peculiar way—as if he’d been asking Mike to forgive him in advance.
* * *
THAT MORNING started with the familiar routine: Mike jumped out of the bed and ran to the mirror.
This time, the point invested into Charisma had a manifest effect. He was an inch and a half taller, and his face changed even more. His lips started to look manly, and his chin seemed wider and squarer.
He couldn’t have said the man in the mirror was a stranger. It was doubtlessly little Mikey. However, it might as well have been a completely different person. Like a doppelgänger from a parallel universe. Someone who’d been luckier with his life from the very start.
He read the information about his transformation more carefully this time. Apart from the height, the shape of his skull had been altered, as well as his facial muscles. His facial expressions and his body language had been changed, too, so as to reflect his emotional state better.
The system messages looked interesting as well:
7. Upgraded capacity for identifying one’s emotional state
8. Upgraded capacity for identifying other people’s emotional states
“What does this mean, Dem?” Mike asked as he re-read the text.
“It means you’ll get a better understanding of what’s happening to you and how to react,” the assistant answered nonchalantly. “Correspondingly, you’ll get a better understanding of what’s happening to other people.”
“Do you mean I didn’t understand it before?”
“You don’t understand that much even now, but at least you’ll do less stupid stuff.”
Hagen took some offense at that. He even considered going back to the assistant’s default voice. This “sounding-like-a-human-being” business was beginning to irritate him. Or was it already the effect of his upgraded identification capacity?
He really gorged himself at breakfast, having emptied his fridge completely. He needed a lot of calories to compensate for the upgrade.
Hagen had two visits planned for today. However, since he’d never developed a habit for precise planning, he couldn’t even tell himself where he’d go first.
As he was getting dressed, he felt his shirt too tight around his shoulders. He’d had to rummage through his wardrobe to find another one which had been too big for him before. Now it fit him perfectly. Wearing his uncle’s jacket on top would make him hot, but he had no money for new clothes.
His shoes felt too tight as well. When Hagen got into the car, he discovered he’d have to roll the seat back since his legs no longer fit.
“Demetrious, do you have an opinion on whether I’m developing my stats right?”
“Bro, the strategy and the tactics of leveling up are completely up to you. If you think you need to develop your Charisma, go for it. It’s not like it matters much to me.”
“But?”
“But if we consider the rationality of how you distribute available points, your Luck is very low. This often makes you receive critical attacks. If you want to keep Luck at this level, you’ll have to compensate for it by leveling up your Stamina. It’s way low.”
Hagen started the engine. “If I really level up my Luck, will I get lucky in casinos?”
Demetrious snorted. “Sure. But only if a fight breaks out. That’s where you’ll get lucky.”
“I get it. So I’m not likely to win a lottery, get an unexpected inheritance, or find a suitcase stuffed with cash?”
“On the other hand, your opponent in the ring can get a stroke. When your Luck is maxed out, the possibility of it happening is 0.02%.”
“Is there anything else?”
“You’ll be able to punch through any block as if it was soggy cardboard, and 80% of your attacks will be likely to knock out your opponent. However, your attacks need to be strong enough, and your skills need to be at a certain level. In other words, there are quite a few parameters and dependencies that play a part there. Would you like to see a table?”
“Nope, no tables for the time being! I get it, thanks a lot.”
The local community hospital was his first destination. It was a gray building looking rather unwelcoming and resembling some abandoned factory of the sort one sees in action B-movie final showdown scenes.
Hagen had already figured out that many of the problems in his life were a result of his mother’s overprotective attitude. But he was still grateful to her for never cutting corners when it came to medical care. No matter how poor they may have been, she’d always take Mike to the best hospital available, so he’d never visited this place before.
He found out the whereabouts of Goliath’s ward at the reception.
He was walking through crowded corridors with sitting and lying patients lining the walls, horrified by how St. Ian could have amassed so much money from his real estate operations and still fail to provide one of his bodyguards with access to proper health care. Everything was in the hands of god, of course, but would it be such a tall order for one to remain humane?
He opened the door and peeked inside. Goliath was sitting in front of the TV, looking thin and haggard. There was already a poster of St. Ian on the wall and some wilted flowers next to a bunch of religious pamphlets on the table.
Goliath turned toward Mike, clearly failing to recognize him, then carried on watching his TV show.
Reputation: Indifference (10/10)
Resistance to your Charisma: very low (10/10)
Hagen shut the door and walked away without saying a word.
He’d still been shaken by the news that he had almost killed Liam “Goliath” Anvil. He had shared his misgivings with Gonzalo earlier.
“Mike, you’re going to participate in an MMA championship,” Gonzalo had replied. “How many more folks will you knock out, maim, or have sent off to the hospital? And how much damage are you gonna take yourself? We all choose our own path. You shouldn’t feel responsible when it makes someone twist their ankle or smash their nose to a pulp.”
Hagen was more impressed by the way Gonzalo had worded his thoughts than by the fact that he’d been perfectly right.
“Dem?” he asked grimly. “Is this a result of reading?”
“Quite so. Gonzalo would read a lot in college.”
Hagen drove to the city library and borrowed the first book from the United States Military Academy Officer’s Professional Reading Guide.
* * *
NEXT HE VISITED the Highmark sports center. It was a new building next to the city park. Hagen approached the glass wall of the ground floor with the Krav Maga courses booklet clenched tight in his fist.
The gym was almost empty. Mike deliberately chose the time when there’d be a break between classes.
“Looking for someone?” a voice asked behind his back.
April was wearing a tracksuit, with a towel on her neck and a bottle of water in her hand.
“Looking for a girl,” Hagen replied honestly.
“What girl?”
“The one who’d sent me a pair of boxing gloves. I wanted to thank her. They’re a great piece of gear. I was wondering if I owed her something in return.”
“Hah! Don’t be silly, Mikey boy. I grabbed them when I was moving out of Sylas’ place. You need them more than he does. His whole garage is crammed full of AthleticSmart equipment.”
April escorted Hagen to the gym which was clean, roomy and shiny. Ochoa’s seemed like a real dump in comparison.
“So this is where you train your students,” Hagen said, then decided to zip it for a while, remembering how often Lexie would make fun of him for stating the obvious.
“Yup. The rent is high but my classes aren’t cheap, either.”
“Duh. And there I was hoping to pick up a few Krav Maga moves against blunt and bladed weapons.”
April laughed. “Sorry, Mikey, it’s a total matriarchy here. I only teach women.”
“You handled that fanatic admirably.”
April adjusted a stray lock of hair. “Oh, that time. I shiver every time I think of it. I mean, I’m a martial art instructor and all that. I keep telling women how to defend themselves on a daily basis. I even regularly participate in championships. But having to apply what I know in real life... I never could have thought I’d have to do it someday.”
So that’s why the incident with the zealots had unnerved her so much. She’d only used her skill in front of the public and at contests.
Hagen felt wiser and more experienced. That encouraged him. “How about private lessons?”
April scrutinized Hagen. “You appear to have changed. As if you’ve become taller. Is it a new hairdo?”
“I keep working out and reaching for new horizons. So what about that bladed weapon thing?”
April removed the towel from her neck and approached a stand with assorted training equipment. When she got back, she had a plastic orange knife that she handed over to Hagen.
“Here’s a mock knife we use for training. Take your shoes off and get on the mat here.”
She followed him and stood right in front of Hagen. “The first rule of fighting an opponent armed with the knife is to avoid fighting them.”
“What do you mean?” Hagen looked confused. “Didn’t you take out that zealot?”
“I was lucky. He’d never learned to use his weapon properly. As far as I understand, they were intending to give us a scare rather than do a real number on us.”
“Yeah, but we got so scared we couldn’t help doing a number on them.”
“Exactly,” April smiled. “I spent some time in Israel with my dad, and I went to Krav Maga classes held by an IDF vet. One of the first things he told us was that all those moves devised to disable an opponent with a knife were bullshit. If your attacker knows how to wield the knife, they’ll slice you up whatever you do. No matter how many moves you know.”
“You did study them, though. And you teach them here.”
April sighed. “I have indeed studied them, and I do teach them. However, the
only situation where they can be of any help is when you face an amateur like that religious nut back then. He may have had a knife but he’d had no idea how to use it. The same is true of you now, by the way.”
Hagen changed his hold on the knife’s handle. “Is it better this way?”
“No. You’re holding it like you’re about to peel a carrot. The knife’s hilt must rest in your palm. In your case, it slides, so you won’t be able to stab properly.”
Hagen laughed. “But I wanted to learn a move to defend myself against a knife, not to use one.”
“OK, attack me.”
Hagen grabbed the mock knife and raised his arm.
He saw something move quickly over his head. His arm jerked to the side as if it had a will of its own.
April was already behind him. Hagen felt her body pressed against his, the plastic knife at his own throat.
“Didn’t I tell you?” April let Hagen go. “Someone who cannot attack can be defeated by nearly any move.”
April repeated the trick, showing Hagen just what she’d done the first time and how to wring the opponent’s wrist the right way. He did it a couple more times until eventually, his moves started to acquire the smoothness of her own.
“That’ll do for starters, Mikey boy,” April said approvingly.
Blocking an Edged Weapon: the skill has been unlocked.
You have to use the skill more often to level it up.
“Try attacking me again.”
Hagen took another swing at her. This time April kicked him right in the wrist. His knife landed a few feet away from him.
“You are holding it wrong again. If I fought someone who knew the right grip, I wouldn’t be able to kick the knife away. Try a stab now.”
Hagen followed her instruction, trying to stab the way a knight with a sword would. April stepped aside, grabbed his wrist and made him drop the knife again, then twisted his arm.
The pain was sharp and unexpected. He crouched and was promptly swept off his feet. Still holding his arm, the girl picked up the knife and climbed onto Hagen.
Level Up- The Knockout Page 26