Chapter 6 - The Anatomy of a Prodigy
Emma didn't move. She stood on the edge of the mat, watching Viktor’s balance shift.
"You think because you know a few high-kick drills you can take down a full-grown man?" Viktor sneered, his fingers flexing into iron claws. "Gabriel trained you, didn't he? From the time you could walk. He turned his little girl into a weapon."
"He didn't turn me into a weapon," Emma said quietly. "He taught me how to defend myself against men like you."
Without warning, Viktor exploded forward.
He didn't use formal martial arts forms. He moved with brutal, pragmatic military efficiency—a heavy shoulder-tackle designed to slam her into the wooden wall, followed by a series of short, lethal palm strikes aimed at her throat and chin.
Emma moved like water.
She didn't try to power-block his massive frame. She yielded, stepping laterally into his blind spot, her body slipping past his rushing shoulder by a hair's breadth. As he overshot his mark, her small hand shot out, her fingertips driving sharply into the nerve cluster behind his left ear.
Viktor let out a strangled gasp, his vision swimming with white sparks as acute, blinding pain radiated down his neck.
He spun around wildly, swinging a heavy backfist. Emma ducked beneath the blow, her motion effortless, her eyes calculating his movement two steps ahead. She swept her right leg across the floor, catching his back ankle just as his weight shifted.
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Viktor crashed hard onto the oak floorboards, the breath exploding from his lungs in a sharp, ragged burst.
THUD!
