The Underwear vs. Local Hero — Part 2

Section 1: The Buried Power

Sean lay motionless among the wreckage until his eyes fell on the two wrenches beside him. Something about them felt strangely familiar. Then, from somewhere deep inside, a voice whispered, “Sean… pick them up. Do you remember the power you once wielded?”

Sean stared at the wrenches without moving. “A few years ago, you buried these wrenches,” the voice continued. “You buried your past with them—and half of your power.”

“No,” Sean whispered. “I’m a local hero now. I’m not going back.”

“Then remain here. Watch that underwear freak slaughter those people one by one. Listen to their screams. Is this the hero you chose to become?”

Sean said nothing. His hand slowly reached toward the wrenches, but stopped halfway. He was still hesitating when a terrified scream came from somewhere outside. “We’re doomed! What do we do now?!” Another voice followed, even more desperate. “Please! Somebody save us!”

Sean’s hand remained suspended for a few seconds. Then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay… here goes nothing.” When he opened them again, the hesitation was gone. “If this is what it takes to save them, then I’ll pay any price—even my soul.” He reached forward and wrapped his hands around both wrenches.

Sean’s hands tightened around the two wrenches.

The shopkeeper heard the rubble shifting and hurried over. He found Sean struggling to his feet and bent down to help him.

“Are you okay, sir?”

Sean raised one wrench, stopping him before he could get any closer. “Step aside. I need to pound that underwear freak into meat paste.”

The shopkeeper froze.

Sean pushed himself upright and started walking. After a few steps, he stopped and glanced back over his shoulder. “By the time I come back, have your money ready. I’m robbing this place once I’m done with that underwear freak. You got that?”

The shopkeeper stumbled back two steps, his entire body trembling as a warm stream soaked through his pants.

Without another word, Sean walked out of the hardware store through the broken wall, one wrench in each hand.

Section 2: I AM SO BACK, BABY

Outside, Dave had already turned away and was about to leave.

“HEY! YOU, THE UNDERWEAR FREAK!” Sean shouted. Dave stopped and turned around.

Sean reached up to his shoulder, grabbed the Chinese flag draped across his back, and ripped it off. With one swing of his arm, he hurled it high into the air. The flag caught the wind and drifted away above the street.

Sean lowered his arm and looked straight at Dave. A cold, wicked grin slowly spread across his face.

“I AM SO BACK, BABY.”

Sean could feel it—the dark energy awakening inside him, an invisible aura spreading from his body and surrounding him. With the dramatic change in his clothing and the two wrenches back in his hands, he felt as though he had returned to the man he had been ten years ago.

However, through Dave’s eyes, absolutely nothing had changed. Sean looked as normal as a man could possibly look. He was just holding two wrenches now.

Section 3: Dragon-Tiger Frenzy

Without another word, Sean tightened his grip on both wrenches and charged straight at Dave. The moment he came within range, he unleashed his ultimate technique.

DRAGON-TIGER FRENZY

Both wrenches erupted into a blur, hammering Dave all over his body in a rapid barrage. Dave immediately raised his arms to defend himself, but the blows kept coming from every direction—his shoulders, ribs, chest, arms, and legs.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

Every time Dave tried to grab Sean, another wrench slammed into him and forced his hands back up. Sean moved around him at full speed, pounding him from one angle after another. Dave had more than enough strength to crush Sean—but none of it mattered if he couldn’t get his hands on him.

“ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!”

Sean counted every strike as the wrenches continued hammering Dave’s body. Dave threw a punch, but Sean slipped aside and smashed a wrench into his ribs. Dave swung again. Another miss. Sean answered with three more blows before Dave could even turn toward him.

“TEN! ELEVEN! TWELVE!”

Dave stopped trying to attack and brought both arms up to protect his head. Sean immediately shifted his strikes lower, pounding his ribs, stomach, thighs, and knees. The moment Dave lowered his guard, the wrenches flew back toward his head.

“TWENTY! TWENTY-ONE! TWENTY-TWO!”

Dave could do nothing but defend.

The count kept climbing.

“FIFTY-EIGHT! FIFTY-NINE! SIXTY!”

The wrenches never stopped. Dave tried to step forward, but Sean struck his knee and forced him back. He tried to grab Sean again, but Sean slipped outside his reach and hammered him across the ribs.

“ONE HUNDRED!”

The crowd stared in disbelief. Sean was moving so quickly that the two wrenches had become little more than blurs around Dave’s body.

“TWO HUNDRED!”

Dave was still standing, with minor bruises all over his body.

“THREE HUNDRED!”

Still standing. Visually, almost nothing had changed.

Sean’s grin slowly disappeared.

“FIVE HUNDRED!”

For the first time, Sean began to wonder just what the hell this underwear freak was made of.

“SIX HUNDRED! … SEVEN HUNDRED!”

The numbers climbed at an unbelievable speed. In less than two minutes, Sean had already landed nine hundred blows, both wrenches striking so fast that the crowd could barely follow them.

“ONE THOUSAND!”

The crowd erupted. However, Dave was still standing.

Dave had gone fully on the defensive. He kept both arms raised and protected himself as best he could, unable to find a single opening to fight back. Sean’s wrenches continued pounding him without pause.

“ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED! … ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED! … ONE THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED!”

By then, thin cracks had begun appearing across Dave’s massive muscles. “Look at that!” someone in the crowd shouted. “You see those cracks?” Another man pointed at Dave. “I think Sean’s winning!”

The crowd immediately came alive. “Come on, Sean! You can do it!” someone shouted. “Beat that underwear freak!”

“ONE THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED NINETY-EIGHT! ONE THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED NINETY-NINE!”

Sean’s grin finally returned. He could almost taste victory. Less than a hundred more strikes, he thought, and even Dave’s monstrous muscles would finally break apart.

“TWO THOUSAND!”

Sean brought both wrenches down with everything he had.

CRACK!

For a split second, Sean thought Dave’s muscles had finally given out. Then he looked down. Both wrenches had snapped in half.

Dave noticed the broken wrenches too, but Sean was already one step ahead. He immediately jumped back several steps, putting distance between them.

Dave slowly lowered the arms that had been protecting his head. “What a shame. You were almost there.”

Section 4: The Last Wrench

Sean knew he couldn’t do any real damage to this freak without a weapon. Without looking back, he turned and sprinted toward the hardware store. He had to retrieve another pair of wrenches.

“Oh no, you don’t.”

Dave bent down, scooped up a handful of rocks from the ground, and hurled them in Sean’s direction.

The rocks tore through the air like meteors, glowing from the friction as they shot forward. Dave grabbed another handful and threw again, then another. Within seconds, a barrage of flaming rocks was raining through the air like artillery fire.

Sean heard the rocks screaming through the air behind him and immediately prepared to dodge. But as the first one reached him, it flew way overhead.

Sean’s eyes widened. Another rock flew over him. Then another. None of them were aimed at him.

Sean turned his head and followed their path.

“Oh, shit.”

The bombardment was heading straight for the hardware store.

By the time Sean reached the hardware store, it had already been reduced to rubble. He spotted the shopkeeper lying among the debris, his body covered in blood, and immediately rushed over.

“Hey! Are you okay?” Sean crouched beside him. “You still owe me the money I was going to rob from you.”

He quickly checked for a heartbeat. “Oh, good. His heart is still beating.”

And Sean was right. The shopkeeper’s heart was still beating—on the ground about one meter away from the rest of his body.

Sean stared at the beating heart for a moment.

“Oh, shit.”

He finally realized the shopkeeper was dead. With a rare trace of sadness on his face, Sean picked up the still-beating heart and gently placed it back into the hole in the shopkeeper’s chest.

Then he noticed something in the dead man’s hand—a brand-new wrench, still clutched tightly in his fingers.

Sean carefully pulled the wrench from his grip and looked down at him.

“Hey, old geezer. I’m going to avenge you.”

Section 5: One Wrench Left

Sean returned to the battlefield with the wrench in his hand.

With only one wrench, however, he could no longer use DRAGON-TIGER FRENZY. The technique depended on the rhythm between two weapons—the Dragon Swing from one side and the Tiger Swing from the other, alternating without pause. With one half missing, the rhythm was broken.

Dave charged at him the moment he returned.

Sean slipped past the first punch and struck Dave across the ribs. Dave spun around and swung again, but Sean ducked beneath his arm, landed another blow against his side, and immediately backed out of reach. Dave rushed forward. Sean retreated. The moment Dave stopped, Sean stepped back in and struck him again.

After several exchanges, Sean realized the problem. One wrench simply wasn’t enough to do any serious damage to Dave. But there was one thing working in his favor—Dave still couldn’t touch him.

Sean slipped away from another massive swing and smirked.

“What a slow, clumsy muscle freak.”

Dave clenched his fists. He charged again, desperately trying to close the distance, but Sean was already moving away.

Dave kept chasing, but every time he got close, Sean slipped away. Punch after punch cut through empty air. No matter how hard Dave tried, he simply couldn’t close the distance.

Then, in the middle of his desperation, an idea suddenly struck him.

Section 6: Muscle Dash

Dave stopped.

He planted one foot against the ground and drove down with all the explosive strength in his leg.

The pavement shattered beneath him.

MUSCLE DASH

It was a new technique Dave had just invented.

Dave’s massive body launched forward like a cannonball. Instead of trying to outrun Sean, he used the raw power in his legs to create one explosive burst of speed, closing the entire distance between them in an instant.

The move caught Sean completely off guard.

“What the—”

Dave’s fist buried itself deep into Sean’s stomach.

BOOM!

Sean shot backward through the air, smashed through the wall of one building, tore through another, then another, disappearing through several blocks in a trail of shattered concrete and dust.

A few seconds later, he finally crashed into a pile of garbage several streets away.

For a moment, the street went silent. Then the crowd erupted into cheers and applause. “Holy shit! Did you see that?” someone shouted. Another man threw both hands into the air. “This is better than the NBA Finals!”

Standing in the middle of the cheering crowd, Dave looked toward the direction Sean had disappeared. That guy was strong—far stronger than Dave had expected. Still, in the end, he had managed to beat him. But for the first time, a small doubt crept into Dave’s mind. If someone like Sean could push him this far, was he really as strong as he thought he was? Was he truly the strongest man in the world?

Section 7: The Former Gangster

Half an hour later, an ambulance arrived several streets away. Sean had been pulled from the pile of garbage and was now lying unconscious on a stretcher as the paramedics prepared to load him into the ambulance.

A female reporter hurried toward the scene with a microphone in hand and turned to the camera. “We are now at the scene of the terrible fight between the mysterious fighter known as the Underwear and Sean, a former gangster who once served time in prison—”

Sean suddenly shot upright on the stretcher.

“Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Who the fuck did you say is a gangster? Are you a gangster? Is your mom a gangster? You better watch your mouth. I can sue you for defamation!”

Sean’s eyes rolled back. He collapsed back onto the stretcher and passed out again.

The paramedics stared at him for a moment, then continued loading him into the ambulance.