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She tried to speak, but his hand kept her voice muffled. His two counterparts were wrestling her arms to her side while still rifling through her pockets. To her credit, she wasn’t making things easy on them as she squirmed around, trying to get away. Suddenly, they ripped off her coat and beanie, revealing a curtain of long, dark hair.

“Well, well, what do we got here?” asked the second man as he pulled out of her pockets. “A fistful of credits and some kind of—card? What is this? Is this one of those fancy new holo—”

Her foot came up, kicking him in the groin.

The unlucky mugger sank to his knees, whining like a small child.

At the same time, she bit the first man’s hand. He grunted and pulled his palm away.

She looked at the entrance of the alley, seeing me for the first time, and her eyes begged for help. She opened her mouth to yell when the last mugger slammed a fist into the side of her face. A hard crack sounded, and she slumped to the ground.

The man glanced back at me, finally alerted to my presence, and all three men weighed my intentions. I wasn’t the biggest brute in the room, by any means. I was only average height and in decently good shape from my years lifting and working with my hands. Still, I’d been in enough fights to know I could handle myself.

You don’t need to do this, I reminded myself. This isn’t your problem. This has nothing to do with you.

“What are you looking at?” the bigger one who’d hit her across the jaw yelled. “You gonna do something?”

“Yeah,” I said plainly. “I guess I am.”

“Wait a minute. I know you,” the man holding the dazed woman said.  “I mean, you’re different now with the beard and long hair, but—I’ve seen you somewhere, haven’t I? What’s your name, fella?”

I ignored the question, making my way down the alley. My steel lunch box container was the only weapon I had, but it would have to do.

“You’re a mechanic, aren’t you?” said the one who had his balls kicked in. He was still recovering, barely able to stand straight. “Just another Eternal slave. Working on their ships, following their rules, and doing whatever your Eternal masters tell you to do. The Warlords don’t bend the knee to those albino scum. We make our own rules. You’d better watch out, boy, because if we don’t get you, the Disciples will. Yeah, the Disciples are who you need to worry about.”

“Naw, he’s just dressed like a mechanic, but he’s someone else. It’s right on the tip of my tongue,” said the man holding the woman. His face was screwed up in a look of concentration. “Where have I seen you before?”

“Don’t think too hard,” I said. “You might overheat.”

“Oh, you got jokes,” the big man said, moving to intercept me. “Let’s see how funny you are when you’re lying on the ground. There’s three of us.”

“If you want to make it a fair fight, I can wait for you to go grab more of your friends,” I said. “Or you can just walk away with all of your teeth. No one will hold it against you.”

“That’s it, asshole!” he raged.

He was faster than I gave him credit for. He ran forward, swinging with his right fist.

I stepped back, slamming my lunch box upward with every ounce of strength I had. Adrenaline kicked in. It had been a while since I’d felt this, and I was scared to say I missed it.

My heart rate doubled as the lunch box exploded on impact. The container latch broke, sending my meager meal hurling through the air, falling in a pile of garbage. A spray of bloody teeth followed, launching together with the food in a gruesome display.

I didn’t wait to see how damaging that blow would be. I dropped my broken lunch box and took to the brute. He didn’t have a chance. It was an unfair fight from the beginning.

I landed two left hooks to the body, followed by a right to his temple, sending him to the ground.

The first man released the girl. She was finally conscious enough to stand on her own and slowly staggered away from him.

“I do know you,” said the man. “You’re—”

“Stop talking and grab him!” yelled the other guy, who was still holding his groin from the pain.

He reached into his coat pocket, revealing a knife with a short blade. He rushed at me with a flurry of blows. I blocked most of them, but it had been too long, and I was rusty. On his second attempt, he stabbed my left forearm.

Pain exploded in my limb. I clenched my teeth, refusing to yell out. Instead of concentrating on the knife in my arm, I took advantage of his momentary sense of triumph, breaking his nose with a brutal strike from my right hand. Blood spurted into the air like a broken sprinkler. Whether it was the pain or being in a fight again, bloodlust took over, and I laid into the man.

As I landed a series of strikes to his body and face, a rib snapped inside of him. Coming out of my trance-like state, I shook my head, breathing hard. I didn’t want to kill him, just put him down.

When I glanced over, I saw that the last man had backed out of the alley. His mouth formed a wide circle. He gave me one last look then bolted.

I decided to let him go, knowing it would be a waste to follow. Instead, I turned around and walked over to the woman.

“Thank you,” she said, massaging her jaw. “If you hadn’t come, they would have—well, I don’t want to think about what they would have done to me.”

“You shouldn’t walk by yourself in this part of the city,” I said, motioning to the two