5:24 pm…

Two days after the incident with The People’s Militia, the social unrest is steadily increasing: at first they are small incidents from defacing government’s publicity, like posters and mural paintings, to billboards in many regions of the country showing anti-government propaganda and furtive vandalism acts against any private property of the false Ernesto’s opposition. Although he is spending a lot of resources to search for and capture Phrixus in addition to preventing and neutralizing any attempt at an uprising by the government’s real detractors. So far Officer Eve Grant has not contacted Phrixus, but he has a score to settle with a certain criminal…

“Move this trashcan faster,” Valeria taps the car door twice. “We don’t have time to lose.” She sits in the driver’s seat of an old and small van reading the newspaper, while Phrixus pulls the vehicle with a harness to his lair to be gutted for parts.

“There’s no hurry for me. You’re out of the sun, so there’s no rush,” Phrixus says.

“At least there’s a good distance to travel here until we arrive at your fort,” she says over her newspaper. A minute later she laughs. “Check this out, they put your face here with the crimes you have committed. Do you believe it?”

“Yeah? Let me see that.”

Valeria hands over the newspaper.

He inspects the page. “Wonderful… they chose a picture where I look like a dog, and some of the ‘crimes’ are just plain ridiculous: attempted assassination, terrorism, genocide, damage of private property, right to commit crimes, the bounty in U.S. dollars is… 12,000. What a meager bounty, I feel insulted.”

“You have stirred up the hornet’s nest. How does it feel to be a kind of guardian angel for the city?”

“Odd... but I will get used to it, and our trip ends here.” Phrixus removes the harness.

Roberth comes out from the hideout to greet them. “Phrixus, we don’t have more food for Dixy and the engine of the portable generator is making strange sounds, these sudden power outages are getting annoying.”

He sighs. “The electricity is now failing in many areas of the city, and that thing is too old, looks like it’s time. I’ll get a new one.” Phrixus goes to his pick-up truck.

“Don’t forget Dixy’s food!”

***

Phrixus arrives at an acquaintance’s hardware store. It doesn’t take long for the dwellers to notice him and give him a bit of praise.

“Phrixus!” The owner offers a warm handshake. “A pleasure to see you, thanks for making this town safer, some customers who arrive here usually comment about how easy it has become to walk to the streets lately without muggers stalking you, but they also commended your heroic rescue of the teenager days ago, they say you deserve a medal and they mean it.” He chuckles heartily, then he gets down to business. “So, need anything?”

“Yes, do you have a portable generator for sale?”

“Umm yeah, but we only have those gas-powered, not the deluxe ones manufactured by the U.S. and their allies. Since the damn Red Confederacy came and with the economic measures Ernesto has issued, we can barely get decent goods. I only wish the diplomatic relationships would return to normal… Anyways come with me to see the models I have.”

Phrixus follows the owner to the storage room, where he shows him the available merchandise for sale.

“These are the only models I have.” says the owner, pointing out seven portable generators. They range from small and economical to large and costly, with a high-energy output.

“I’ll get this one,” says Phrixus, choosing the most expensive one.

“Alright, I’ll call one of the workers to move it to your car, follow me.”

***

3 minutes later…

With the generator placed in the pick-up truck, Phrixus goes to a butcher shop to get meat for Dixy.

“This should replenish Dixy’s food for enough weeks, time to go home,” Phrixus thinks.

Phrixus arrives at his lair.

“Just in time, this piece of junk already died.” Roberth gives a few kicks to the old portable generator.

“The best one available, try to kick it and I’ll do the same to you,” Phrixus says.

“You can try,” Roberth laughs. “I’ll get the gasoline.”

Before Phrixus can do anything, he receives an unexpected call from his smartphone.

“Do you remember me Phrixus? Of course you do, or should I call you Alejandro, your buddies were very talkative about you and that’s nice, we have unfinished business to conclude and you better be prepared now, or…” says Yonvisneiker. There is a brief pause, sounds of footsteps, and then a woman saying, “Alejandro!”

He recognized the voice of a friend of his.

“Alright you coward, you’ll have your fight but if you do something to her…”

“Not only her but also to seven chums of yours I have here as hostages. You better come right now, or the axe will fall… you have half an hour, tick tock, tick tock.” Yonvisneiker ends the call and a few seconds later Phrixus receives a text message with the directions.

“This is now personal.” Phrixus gets his equipment and goes to the place mentioned.

***

24 minutes later…

Phrixus arrives at the area Yonvisneiker specified: a large, abandoned building acting as a warehouse on the docks. The door is unlocked so he gets in quietly, and giving a quick study to the area, he sees that it looks like a perfect spot to be ambushed. As he stands in the middle of the place all the lamps suddenly turn on, illuminating the zone and revealing many thugs at the upper level of the warehouse armed with firearms, three of them armed apparently with grenade launchers, all the group aiming at Phrixus.

Yonvisneiker speaks through the building’s megaphone:

“I told you before of what I am capable of,” Yonvisneiker hisses. “There is nothing more satisfying than pulverizing someone with fire and brimstone with one strike. You chose the wrong gang to mess with and now this ends here. Snuff him out!”

A storm of bullets strikes Phrixus, followed by three impacts of high explosive shells, enough to envelop him in a smokescreen. After twenty seconds of gunfire the thugs stop the attack and wait for the smoke to dissipate, only to find him kneeling, surrounded by his psychic field to protect himself. He is only mildly injured, and he stands up.

“Your first mistake, and the last one,” says Phrixus.

Phrixus gathers a substantial amount of psychic energy and unleashes it outwards with destructive force, making the building tremble violently, causing the upper platforms to collapse to the ground, making the thugs fall to their death. This ability has been taxing to perform, he is up for the anticipated fight, however.

Yonvisneiker is the only one remaining and speaks again through the megaphone, laughing maniacally:

“You are really good at culling the weak. I have a morbid secret to tell you: as a former drug dealer and then a terminal addict, the alien meteorite allowed me to turn my decaying condition around and the stuff that used to poison my life is now my source of power. A truly curious thing to happen, I’m not gonna waste this special godsend, it made me stronger than ever and I don’t care if I look hideous, and now I’m going all-in to overcome this small issue…” says Yonvisneiker.

From the damaged upper platform, something hits two metallic doors until they are blown away by the person behind it: a tall, moderately distended muscled man reveals himself, his skin shows more cracks than before and despite having a sickening appearance, he exhibits a threatening presence. He descends with a jump and lands in a plume of dust.

“I will push my limits and no one will ever stop me!” says Yonvisneiker with a dreadful voice and roars at Phrixus.

“You are dead, you fucking junkie!” Phrixus yells.

Yonvisneiker rushes against Phrixus, launching a flurry of punches with absolute savagery, Phrixus deflects and evades a lot of his attacks but still gets hit by some of the strikes which makes him fall back. He shoots Yonvisneiker with his assault rifle as a distracting maneuver, making him cover his face with his arms and at the same time charging blindly towards Phrixus, but receives a piercing strike to his right thigh in the process by Phrixus’s knife. He flinches, then removes the blade, and continues to fight, after two minutes of fighting, Phrixus gains the advantage and makes the decisive blow, impaling Yonvisneiker’s abdomen with the pollaxe spearhead followed by the two-bladed gauntlet to his chest.

“AAARRRGG!” He falls to his knees.

Phrixus pulls out his gauntlet. “Time to get rid of the rabies.” Phrixus yanks the pollaxe from him and with a mighty swing, he beheads him.

“Good riddance… time to save my friends.”

Phrixus quickly checks the area; it takes a while but he manages to find his friends, tied but unhurt.

“Alejandro is that you?” says one of them to his masked face.

He lowers the bandana. “You never know what kind of friends you’ll get, sorry for getting you involved in this. At least that jerk is gone for good.”

“Thanks for saving us, I just wanna go home,” says another of his friends.

Phrixus releases them and calls their relatives and friends to pick them up. While waiting outside, one of his friends speaks to him.

“I wondered why you were missing at college, guess this explains it all…”

“I never asked for this, but hey, can’t complain about it,” Phrixus replies, keeping to himself his secret deal with the VOA; to his friends, he is just Alejandro.

“I’m aware of what is happening, rumors say the two big alliances really want the alien rocks to discover and harness their power, but so far they managed to find nothing.” Another friend says.

“What’s next, open a portal to another dimension? Messing with something not even from this world can have dire consequences,” another says.

“The Bellusaxum and these space rocks sound like good excuses to go to war…”

“As far as I’m concerned, I hope they take their rabble elsewhere, we have enough problems with this regime already.”

Minutes later some cars appear carrying the family and acquaintances Phrixus called for his friends. They quickly get out of the vehicles and both parties greet with hugs and comfort.

“Take care pals, I’ll go my way.” With that, Phrixus escapes.

***

2 hours later…

Roberth is training his abilities by infusing and shifting thermal energy to metallic objects, a few seconds later Phrixus arrives to his lair, he shows some scrapes and Roberth quickly deduces what happened by the look on his face.

“Tell me you killed that bastard…” says Roberth, waiting for his answer with anticipation.

“Damn straight, I’ve sent him directly to Tartarus, sliced his head off like a chicken, a part of me wanted to keep the head as a trophy but I’d rather get the satisfaction of having executed him the way he deserved.” said Phrixus with conviction.

“That’s a great news to hear, we should have a toast in honor of Yonvisneiker, now suffering to eternity.” said Roberth, laughing.

“Now we are talking, Valeria will be glad to join us too.” said Phrixus, giving Roberth a high five.