Trent’s eyes rolled back in his head. His legs turned to jelly. His entire worldview, his years of training, his arrogance—all of it vanished in a microsecond of blinding structural agony. As Trent began to collapse, Arthur didn’t let him fall. He grabbed Trent by the collar of his expensive MMA sweatshirt and spun him around, using the young man’s falling momentum to slam him face-first into the metal handrail of the front stairwell. Trent crumbled to the floor, gasping for air, clutching his ruined elbow, completely incapacitated.

The entire sequence had taken less than 2.5 seconds.

The bus was dead silent. The passengers were paralyzed, their brains struggling to process how the hulking, aggressive alpha male had just been folded like a cheap lawn chair by an arthritic senior citizen.

In the back, Greg, Liam, and Cody jumped to their feet. Cody, the heavyweight, let out a roar and charged down the aisle.

“You’re dead meat, old man!”

Arthur stepped over Trent’s writhing body. He didn’t take a fighting stance. He just stood there, waiting in the narrow aisle. Cody threw a massive front kick, aiming to push Arthur backward into the windshield. Arthur sidestepped the kick with the grace of a matador. As Cody’s leg extended past him, Arthur delivered a devastating piston-like kick with his heavy work boot directly to the side of Cody’s knee. The joint buckled inward with a horrific snapping sound. Cody shrieked, collapsing into a heap in the aisle, clutching his leg in pure agony.

Arthur looked up at Greg and Liam, who were frozen halfway down the bus. The two young men looked at their gym leader crying on the floor by the stairs, and their heavyweight enforcer screaming in the aisle. Arthur didn’t say a word. He simply raised one hand and pointed a calloused finger toward the back row of seats.

Greg and Liam didn’t hesitate. They scrambled backward, practically climbing over each other to get to the furthest corner of the bus, raising their hands in terrified surrender.

Arthur calmly reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a small heavy tactical flashlight, and clicked it on, sweeping the beam over the two downed men to ensure they were no longer a threat. Satisfied they were neutralized, he turned his back on them, stepped over Trent again, and sat back down in the driver’s seat. He picked up his radio microphone.

“Dispatch, this is Route 42. I have a 10-39 on board. Two aggressive passengers subdued. Requesting law enforcement and EMTs at the mile marker 14 turnout. Over.”

“Uh, copy that 42. Units are en route. Are you injured, Arthur?” the dispatcher’s voice crackled back.