Coming to his senses, Uri saw a huge fist. He looked up and saw who it belonged to.

A giant was on top of him.

A man with a small, bald head sunk in a tower of muscle. A bodybuilder with a morphology resembling that of a bull standing on his hind legs, with the shoulders and arms of a gorilla, and covered with scars that appeared to be the scratches of a lion. He wore military trousers and boots, a fashion that was no longer surprising to Uri; and a sleeveless shirt that seemed to be about to give way to the pressure that those huge pecs must be exerting underneath.

It was the same brute who, along with Simon, had attacked him and Juzo in Liberty Park that Friday night!

“Kitten has come to say hello,” the big guy introduced himself.

Where the hell did that man come from? How could he not have heard such a beast coming?! Had he been so distracted not to notice it?

With dirt in his eyes, Uri tried to focus but suffered the burning. He tried to concentrate, but couldn’t. He tried to get up but slipped on the grass dampened with the oil from the destroyed android.

The giant smiled, grabbed him by the hair, and pushed him against the trees. He felt the void dragging him into the afterlife. He perceived to be still as everything swirled around him, the treetops, the purple sky; a whirlwind that later threw him headlong, and he saw grass, bushes, more grass, traveling at incredible speed, and then a thud that ended it all. The world came to a stop when a tree rammed into him; or had he been the one who had rammed into the tree? Nothing made sense, just the pain, and the dizziness, the dizziness, and the pain.

“Easy there,” Kitten spat to the ground, cracking his fists. “I’m not gonna kill you. Some broken bones will do to make my day.”

Kitten was a mercenary and a murderer; thirty-two years old, of which around ten he had spent it locked up. Every so often he was confined to a cell, sometimes by the military, other times by his own bosses; and every so often he was released, sometimes by the military and other times by those who were interested in his services.

He had started committing crimes at the age of nine. His massive stature and body mass had made him a terror to children and a promise to adult bullies. He had never been a bright person, but thanks to his strange animal instinct, he had always known how to surround himself with intelligent people and put himself at their service to achieve the only task that made sense to him: crushing skulls. At twelve years old, he already had three deaths under his belt; and from that time, he began to make a career as a mercenary and bodyguard for terrorists and important gangsters.

He was a clumsy criminal, and no one with an agenda was fond of clumsy criminals; they were feared, but they were not liked. Although his brute strength was unmatched by anyone else’s, that was enough for him and those around him.

Before Uri could recover from the sharp pain in… in all over his damn body, Zas! A new blow. This time in the jaw. His senses were put in slow-motion mode. He saw the path of the path, and he couldn’t stop it; he couldn’t step aside, nor beg the big guy to stop. The mallet hit him. Yes, it wasn’t a fist anymore; it had become a freaking mallet, damn it!

The sound of his bones creaking, along with a choppy exclamation, something like ‘Ugh!’ that came out of his lungs with the air he had left, stretched for long seconds until it dissolved. His sight was filled with red flashes; his tongue numbed, and the taste of blood flooded his mouth.

He tried to get to his feet, but his body ached so badly his legs didn’t respond quickly enough. His muscles were hardened with pain locks. He saw that mass of a man ready to attack him, ready to sink those murderous knuckles into him again. And he… He couldn’t straighten up.

Had to avoid blows, or he could end up with a broken bone. Maybe one had already been broken; his jaw ached like a thousand hells. He thought of his spine. That beast should not hit the spine. Anywhere but the spine; if the big man hit him there, he would break his back and then…

No. No. He didn’t even want to think about it.

Ahead of him was the shattered body of the park ranger android; the pieces of metal scattered around it along with chunks of solid silicone, puddles of oil, and the head ripped off along with a bunch of loose wires. This is how he would end up, that would be his head and those cables would be his vertebral column.

He tried to push his enemy away, but the energy he expelled was a sad essay of a normal Fotia. With dizziness crowning his head, and the pain weighing on his neck like an anvils necklace, his chances of forming a real electric fire grenade and taking a good shot out of it were almost nil.

Kitten was making fun of him. The damn giant laughed. His laughter was stupid and heavy.

Uri saw him stretching those big hands towards him. They were coming straight at his waist! He rolled and set aside just before he got caught; the branches of a bush stabbed him in the back. The mastodon perched in front of him, squeaking his knuckles to restart the beating.

Uri pretended to fly away, but he didn’t master that ability, and all he managed to do was hover less than three feet above the ground. He swayed like a broken plane; and when he gained some height, he hooked his foot between the branches of the bushes. His escape plan went down just like him. He tried to flee again, but Kitten caught him by the ankle. Still hovering in midair, he turned desperately towards the man and threw other attempts of a Fotia at him; sparks that only made him feel more humiliated.

His eyes stung, his mouth was injured and bloody, and even growling was a painful experience.

“Let me take care of him!” Juzo’s voice echoed in his consciousness, and for Uri, it was the trumpet announcing the cavalry.

Having nothing else to try, Uri gave up the fight and handed the command of his body to his brother’s spirit. Suddenly, the moment Kitten released him to deliver another direct punch to the face, when those knuckles struck his cheek again, the energy lines came to him as if they had always been there, behind a mental wall, waiting for the right signal to break free, and they exploded around him, burning the giant’s fist.

Kitten recoiled like someone who had just been doused with boiling water, spitting curses and grunting in pain. Uri’s fire had completely blackened his arm, leaving his fist raw and smoking.

Uri rose, flashing lighting through his eyes; and despite his bruised face, his countenance was of an enraged warrior. He raised the arm that hurt the least, his right one, wrapped it in a swirl of energy, and with a single punch, he knocked the giant down. The crisp sound of thunder accompanied the blow, breaking the tranquility of the forest; and as its echo dissolved among the bushes and gloom, Kitten crumbled to the ground, like a huge tree that had just been cut down.

The fierceness disappeared from Uri’s face as quickly as a black cloud is erased from the summer sky, leaving the face of an aching hurt young man to replace it. Uri descended and slowly returned to the ground. Leaning against a tree, he took a seat on the grass and there he stayed. He couldn’t tell if he had just knocked out Kitten or killed him, he couldn’t hear him complain or move; one though, the big man’s body was smoking.

He looked at his left hand; at some point, he had lost the splint that covered his index finger. Whatever! Everything in him hurt with the same intensity.

Slowly, careful not to make a false move that could unleash more pain on him, he opened his torn sports jacket, lifted his shirt and studied the mark of the blow he’d received on the belly, near the ribs. What he saw with the little remained light was an ugly, violet stain, which encircled his previous bruise. It hurt him quite a bit, though not enough to think there was considerable damage behind it; or was there?

He noticed a loose tooth dancing in his mouth, and he hated the giant’s guts. He choked on his own blood, coughed, and suffered sharp pains in different parts of his chest.

A few feet from him, sticking out of the grass, was the destroyed Cyclops, and its head ripped off a little further away. It was a miracle he didn’t end up like this. Another miracle would be that he had no broken bones; he would see that later when a doctor examines him.

He watched the big guy lying on the ground and thought he would have come out of the fight in better shape if he had known to handle his powers. Juzo had fulfilled, once again, his role as a superhero to the rescue; though something told him his brother would always help him, but only at the last moment, not before. And the time factor was a luxury that, after this experience, he no longer could afford. He wasn’t sure he’d make it if he gets caught the next time. He had to learn to control his powers. It was time to take the training Malin demanded.

Staggering, he searched for his phone, which had flown from his hand when he’d received the first punch. Even though the lighting reaching the area was the remains of the nearby buildings’ lights, with a little luck, and by recalling where he had been standing when he’d lost it, he soon found it. The grass had cushioned the fall and the small device was still working. He pressed the autodialer and called Malin.

He never felt so pleased to hear her reproaching him: “Hey, jerk! You hung up on me before I—”

“I’ll wait for you on the reservation… where I always do my thing…” he interrupted her, talking almost without opening his mouth so that his jaw wouldn’t hurt more than it already did. “I don’t feel good… to go back home by myself.”

“What happened?”

“An orangutan… gave me… a beating.”

“I’m coming over! I’ll be there in a minute!” she said.

“Wait!” he stopped her. He waited for a second, and when he realized she was still on the other end, he said: “Bring my medical assistance card with you… I left it on the kitchen table. I’ll see a doctor as a matter of urgency… I don’t want my face to look all swollen.”

Silence on the line.

“Sometimes I’m surprised at how shallow you are,” Malin said and hung up.

Uri leaned back against a tree; and while he waited for Malin to arrive, he stayed alert in case Kitten got up.

Minutes passed, the longest minutes of his life, where he can think of nothing but pain, dizziness, and tolerate some annoying mosquitoes.

Until he heard footsteps in the woods coming at him. Malin? He scanned the darkness of the forest and saw two men arriving on the other side of the pond. He squinted and turned his hands into fists. Who the hell were they and what were they doing there? Dealers about to close a purchase? Two boys wanting to have a good time alone?

The strangers stopped near the shore. Their faces had no expressions. They were dressed in a gray suit and tie, with black glasses. They weren’t here to pick up a fight; they looked very neat and too serious for that. Uri didn’t trust appearances, though; and forgetting the pain, he stood up and got ready to face whatever.

The two men stood still, watching him from the other shore. Uri tried to figure out who they were. From the way they dressed and the way they held their gazes towards him, they didn’t seem to be just nosy guys, or any of the things he’d thought of before. They didn’t look like Broga thugs either; rather, they looked like members of a government agency or something.

“Didn’t anyone tell you how ridiculous you guys look with dark glasses at this time of night?” he said, opening the talk.

“We were following you, Mr. O22,” one of the two said.

“And the little circus you orchestrated made it easy for us to find you,” the other said.

Uri took a long, deep breath.

“Sorry. That circus was a necessary action to save my life,” he said. “Who are you?”

“Satellite agents,” Malin called them, appearing from the bushes, and standing next to his partner.

Supporting the statement, the men in gray showed their IDs.

“Satellite Agency from the International Research Center,” said one. “We need to talk to you, Mr. O22.”

Malin stopped cold and pivoted toward them.

“With him?” She was puzzled. “Guys, I must say, I’m surprised. I thought you had finally decided to come for me.”

“We are aware of your movements, Miss Viveka,” the other agent replied, and pointed at Uri with his chin. “But the one who interests us now is him.”

Uri snorted; he didn’t like the arrogance of those two. However, judging by Malin’s seriousness and the way she had crossed her arms—as if she were waiting for bad news—Uri knew that Satellite agents, whoever they were, were not individuals to take lightly. Their presence meant trouble, that’s for sure; a kind of trouble different from what Kitten had caused to him, but trouble anyway.

Then, he recalled how reluctant Malin had been a few days ago, when he’d offered to take her to the hospital to have her wounded shoulder healed.

“These are the other vultures you feared, right?” he whispered to her; his gaze on the men.

Malin said nothing; her silence was an affirmation.

“Gentlemen…” Uri addressed them, exposing the sharpest sarcasm that his sorry state could offer. “Considering what you ask of me, seeing me in the condition I am in, I must tell you’re being rude.” He ran his fingers across the corner of his mouth, wiping the blood from his split lip. “You didn’t tell me my mouth was dirty, and you didn’t even offer me a tissue to clean me up.”

One of the Agents was about to say something, but Uri stopped him with a gesture and continued speaking:

“I’ve no problem hearing what you have to say,” he said, “as long as we talk on our way to the hospital, which is where I’m headed right now, with or without you.” He pointed out the wounds on his face, “You see, bruises don’t look good on me.”