The atmosphere in the kitchen was suffocating. Between the rising steam from the industrial dishwashers and the thick smell of grease, my lungs felt like they were breathing in soup. I stood there, leaning against the cold metal sink, staring Flash Thompson down. My heart wasn't just beating; it was thumping like a heavy-duty engine, a rhythmic thud-thud that I could feel in my teeth.
I felt invincible, but a small, nagging voice in the back of my head reminded me of what ROB said. I was nerfed. I wasn't the monster that cracked the Earth's crust yet. I was a glass cannon with a Ferrari engine and a bicycle frame.
Flash didn't wait for a formal invitation. He was a guy used to being the apex predator of Midtown High, and the sight of me—the "nerd"—standing my ground was more than his ego could take. He lunged forward, his face a mask of twisted, ugly rage. He didn't use technique; he just put all his varsity-athlete weight into a desperate, heavy hook.
THUD.
The fist connected squarely with the side of my jaw. My head snapped back with a sickening crack of my neck. For a split second, the world went white, a blizzard of static filling my vision. I stumbled, my boots skidding on the soapy tile floor as I collided with a stack of metal trays.
CRANG! The noise was deafening in the cramped kitchen. I hit the floor, my breath hitching in my chest. Damn... that actually hurts, I thought, spitting a glob of metallic-tasting blood onto the tiles. My eyes were blurry, and my lungs felt like they were struggling to catch air. I was still "thin," still human enough to feel the pain of a high-school bully's fist.
"Is that all you got, Prince?" Flash laughed, though he was shaking his hand out, his knuckles already turning a deep, bruised purple. "You're still just a freak who thinks he's tough because he grew a jawline!"
I didn't answer. I just stood up. My legs were shaking, but as I rose, I felt a familiar heat bubbling up from my stomach. It was the calories from the Wagyu beef, the pasta, and the sliders. My Doomsday blood was finally waking up, screaming for a conflict to settle into my DNA.
I didn't know how to box. I had no system to teach me "Ultra Instinct." All I had was the raw, primal urge to crush the thing in front of me. I lunged. It wasn't a "move"—it was an assault. I pulled my fist back so far I felt the muscles in my back stretch to their limit and drove it forward.
SMACK.
The sound was like a sledgehammer hitting a side of beef. Flash didn't just stumble; he was launched. He flew back a good five meters, his boots sliding through the dishwater like he was on ice before he slammed into a heavy prep table, sending a shower of silverware flying.
The kitchen went dead silent for a heartbeat. Flash looked up, blood leaking from his nose, his eyes wide with a shock that bordered on terror. But he was Eugene Thompson; he didn't know when to quit. He roared, scrambled back to his feet, and charged me again, his lackeys cheering him on from the doorway like it was a gladiator arena.
Behind me, I heard a familiar ding.
"Oh, this is gold!" Harry's voice rang out. I glanced back for a microsecond to see him holding his phone high, a manic grin on his face. "Keep going, Alex! The group chat is losing its mind! Washing these dishes was the best decision I ever made!"
Flash reached me, and the brawl turned into a chaotic, messy blur. He landed a hit on my ribs that felt like a hot iron, then another on my shoulder. Each one hurt like hell, but something was happening. With every impact, my body felt... denser.
I could feel my muscle fibers tearing and knitting back together in real-time, becoming harder and more compact. My skin felt like it was turning from parchment to thick, reinforced leather. Each punch I threw back came with more force, more speed, and more crushing weight. I wasn't just hitting Flash; I was breaking him.
I was dominating. Flash's punches, which felt like hammers a minute ago, now felt like annoying taps. My final move wasn't even a punch. I planted my lead foot, channeled every remaining calorie into my leg, and delivered a front kick straight to his chest.
K-CHOW!
Flash didn't just fall; he went airborne. He smashed through the swinging kitchen doors, sailed across the dining area over the heads of screaming patrons, and crashed right through the front plate-glass window of the diner. A rain of glass shards followed him onto the sidewalk like falling diamonds.
Pin-drop silence.
The restaurant was frozen. People sat with forks halfway to their mouths, staring at the Alex-shaped hole in their afternoon. I stood in the middle of the kitchen, steam literally rising off my skin as my body tried to cool down from the rapid, forced evolution. I was panting, my chest heaving, my vision pulsing red.
Harry was jumping around, his "rich kid" poise totally gone. "Did you see that?! He cleared the whole dining room! Flash is a projectile! Hahaha! I'm posting the slow-mo right now!"
Flash's lackeys didn't even look at us. They scrambled through the broken window, dragging their leader's unconscious body away like beaten dogs.
I looked at Peter and Harry, raising a shaky hand to give them a thumb's up. "We... we won..."
But as the adrenaline evaporated, a terrifying emptiness hit me. It was like a black hole had opened in my stomach. I had burned every single calorie from that massive feast in just three minutes of combat. My vision swirled, my knees buckled, and I slumped onto the wet floor, completely out of energy and calories.
SPLASH!
A wave of ice-cold, dirty mop water hit me square in the face. My eyes snapped open, my pupils constricted to pinpricks.
"Waking up, pretty boy? How was your sleep?"
I sputtered, wiping the greasy water from my mouth. I looked up to see Harry standing over me with an empty bucket and a smug, vengeful grin. He and Peter had used the chaos of the fight and a "hospital lie" to escape the dishwashing debt.
"Tch... that was not cool at all, Harry," I croaked. My voice sounded deeper, vibrating with a power that wasn't there before.
"Not cool?" Harry scoffed, dropping the bucket with a clang. "We told the manager you had a metabolic seizure so he wouldn't call the cops! We dragged your heavy ass out of there before the sirens showed up. I'm never showing my face there again."
I tried to sit up, feeling a physical density that made the pavement beneath me feel soft. My bones were like iron. My skin felt thick.
"Well... thanks for the save," I muttered. "But now... I'm even hungrier."
Harry froze. He looked at me, then at the sky, then back at me.
"After all that?" Harry yelled. "You ate enough to bankrupt a small country! You were munching like a monster! And you're still hungry?"
Peter stepped forward, his eyes wide. "Alex, it's not physically possible. Where is it all going?"
I looked at my hands. My forearms were corded with lean, hard muscle that hadn't been there this morning. The Doomsday blood was a black hole—it didn't store fat; it converted everything into "Apex" tissue.
"High maintenance cost, Pete," I smirked, my amber eyes glowing in the alleyway shadows. "If I'm gonna be the strongest, I've gotta be the hungriest."