I used to work with "Tom".

Tom's older brother was a special forces hand-to-hand combat expert, who not only mastered one particular school of fighting, but literally inherited it, when the previous master, in the old country, passed away. Tom grew up punching gravel to toughen his fists, stalking his big brother through the forest with a bow and arrow, and taking a boot to the chest when stumbled too close without spotting him.

You'd never know his background to look at him. He was short, and kinda scrawny looking. And martial arts had taken up too much of his life, so Tom became an artist and worked with me, in video games now.

He still trained, of course, but I think he was starting to get antsy, and miss the physical challenge.

One weekend we were playing paintball - not the "EXTREME Sportz!" kind of paintball, with inflatable barriers, expensive markers, and the sort of jerks that brings - the local Marine base sort of paintball, with crawling through scrub brush, laying down fire, flanking, and the sort of jerks that brings.

We were eating lunch between rounds when a couple of punks very nearby decided to crank their car stereo obnoxiously loud. It seemed carefully calibrated to project plenty of dumbassery, but not quite force a response. But like I said, I think Tom was itching. He walked over to "talk" to them.

Naturally, they seemed to take it as a challenge, and started getting puffed up. When I saw Tom reach out and "nonchalantly" touch one of them, I knew they were being baited, so I stood up. And so did a co-worker, and a friend I'd brought. The three of us averaged 6'6". Suddenly, the punks remembered somewhere they had to be.

They had no idea that the three black-and-camo-clad hulks who'd just made them wet themselves were actually goofy nerds who'd just saved them from the ass kicking of a lifetime.