Somalia, two days later, 1:03 pm…

Phrixus arrives at an arid shrubland. The land is flatter than he had expected. The transport helicopter leaves the area, disappearing from plain sight after taking off. With coordinates for his gear at hand, he marches to the marked spot, as some minutes pass he perceives from afar a wild animal, a stalking leopard.

Phrixus is curious about the animal. He misses his pets. He stays in place while the animal slowly approaches, then it runs at full speed against him. At first glance it looks like the big feline is about to pounce him but it begins to slow down as it gets closer to Phrixus, to the point the leopard is paralyzed in place not by fear or awe but rather in a tranquil state. Phrixus wants to see if he can adjust the mind of the creature the way he did his pets. He messes around with its mind for a moment, then proceeds to talk to it.

“Heya, are you hungry?” Phrixus asks.

The leopard “nods” to confirm his suspicion.

“I don’t have any food with me but you can find better quarry that is less deadly.”

It exhales sharply from its nose and tilts its head a little to the sides, amused by its canny response.

“I’d love to talk more but I have business to attend, stay cool.” said Phrixus, both of them taking different paths.

Phrixus recognized it was weird talking to an animal but he doesn’t mind; he finds it as an intriguing experience when they receive the gift of sentience while maintaining their natural instincts.

***

6 minutes later…

Phrixus arrives at the location of his equipment, where he finds a very large duffel bag with a label that says “OMA” standing for One Man Army and a tall case. Checking the contents of the bag he finds enough firepower to take down a large battalion: An assault rifle, submachine gun, an automatic shotgun, two machine-pistols, a light machine gun, assorted grenades from flashbangs to fragmentation, a six-capacity grenade launcher, a pair of binoculars, lots of ammo for the mentioned weapons and some kind of full-body armor called “Blitz Suit” that looks like a variation of a bomb suit. It takes a few minutes to load all the guns and get equipped, once he is done he moves his attention to the case. He opens it and reveals a well-made pollaxe made of some type of military-grade metal, it has a razor-sharp edge, a bit short but menacing spearhead and a pick-like hook behind the axe blade.

“Hot damn, now it’s time to sow havoc and ruin.” Phrixus grabs the pollaxe.

With everything equipped, he goes to the headquarters of The Charred Ring.

***

4 minutes later…

Phrixus hides in the adjacent foliage and judging by the coordinates, he finds what appears to be the base of The Charred Ring: a big mansion in the middle of nowhere. Using his binoculars he scans the backyard of the place, there are a lot of armed guards standing around the opulent pools with beautiful tile floors. There are grills for barbecue, and some attendants serving drinks and appetizers to certain people, and there is sports gear such as soccer balls, basketball, and tennis. It looks like there’s a party going on, and the air smells of delicious, barbecued meat.

Knowing there are civilians in the area he can’t go in, guns blazing. Moving cautiously to the left side of the mansion he spots a distinct small building, a barracks where only armed men enter and get outside. Phrixus leaves the civilian party behind and decides to only attack the armed men. Wielding his grenade launcher he discharges the payload against the garrison and its surroundings, devastating the area with high-explosive shells and killing many guards in the process, while reloading the launcher an alarm rings all over the place and finds that some men are recovering from the attack and hastily looking for the aggressor.

Phrixus decides to drop the launcher and switches to his assault rifle. He advances, slaying his opponents while also receiving return fire, but without suffering any injury. As his enemies soon realize Phrixus is completely impervious to bullets, they retreat to one side of the mansion and head to the front the building. He follows their tracks and while reloading his rifle, he proceeds to stick to a corner and take a peek. There are still some civilians running for their lives while the guards take defensive positions.

Phrixus waits for a bit to allow the civilians to leave the area. The guards fire at him while he waits. After enough time has passed, he throws a flashbang at them, the loud report and brief flash of light have stopped the enemy fire for an instant, a moment Phrixus uses to charge forward and open fire against anyone who has a gun on hand. As soon as he brings down many of them, his rifle has run out of ammo and the enemy fire resumes. Dropping his weapon he switches to his machine pistols and continues the assault.

One of the troopers throws a fragmentation grenade which detonates next to Phrixus, it surprises him but does not injure him enough to slow him down. A few of them fall back inside the mansion, and he disposes of the machine pistols and wields his shotgun for better close-quarter combat.

Phrixus enters the mansion and arrives at the living room, it is very wide and there is a second floor where some guards appear and start shooting. Without wasting time looking for cover, Phrixus returns fire and kills his ambushers. Proceeding to the upper floor there are more troopers in his path, so he keeps the pace and takes down any soldier he finds until he reaches a balcony which oversees a secondary entrance to the manor, primarily for vehicles. From there he spots three cargo trucks loaded with soldiers heading to the building. Swapping this time to his light machine gun, he unleashes a hail of bullets. Barely affected by the recoil of the weapon and firing unceasingly, all the troopers of the cargo trucks are steadily slaughtered. With the gun now empty he drops it to the ground and gets his submachine gun to sweep the place for any remaining hostiles.

Suddenly he hears a voice from the manor’s loudspeakers,

“Get your bloody hide to the front of my palace now!”

Whoever he was he sounded pissed off.

Jumping down from the balcony, Phrixus goes to the front yard. There is no one in the yard besides the corpses of the fallen guards. Then, from behind tall ornamental shrubs, a man steps forward. The only thing that looks “normal” about him is his ERDL pattern uniform, from there things look sinister; the veins of his arms and neck are blue and glowing, and he is wielding some kind of weapon that looks like two machetes strapped together with a personalized handgrip for better manipulation. Phrixus can sense a lot of power inside him, but he is not sure whether it’s mental or psychic power, or some other kind of power. Judging by his profile, this man must be The Corsair, the leader of The Charred Ring. This is the man he is here to kill.

“I receive a call about a moron destroying my property, killing my men. You have the nerve to aggravate me?!” He makes a threatening swing with his weapon. “Who the hell are you and who sent you?”

“I’m Phrixus, the VOA wants you out of the game, your antics in Africa end now.”

“Oh, is that right? Why don’t they send their planes to carpet bomb the entire place instead? No, they know I have many places just like these. The Red Confederacy has given me the entire continent for my entertainment and the war is getting me big cash, so I ain’t letting some dolt crash my business…” From one of the tips of his weapon a constant arc of electricity scorches the floor of marble for four seconds, leaving a red burning spot. “I hope that armor has enough metal because I am gonna weld you inside it.”

Phrixus drops his other weapons and wields his pollaxe. “Bring it on, freak,”

His opponent rushes at him at high speed and both weapons collide, Phrixus feels an electric shock at the moment of clashing his double-glaive. Instead of parrying, he resorts to dodging. The initial encounter lasts for two minutes and neither of them flinches. Phrixus scores a hit against the leader and he backs off quickly and releases an arc of electricity against Phrixus’s chest. Besides the electrical shock, he feels a searing sensation as the metallic layers are overheated. The Corsair stops and regains his posture, the burning touch still lingers and causes Phrixus some distraction.

“We are of the same breed and you decide to seek safety behind those metal plates. We can receive a great deal of harm and still kick in, that suit will be your coffin,” says The Corsair.

“Consider it an advantage, one you are wasting away. I’m far from defeated, just merely getting singed.”

The fight resumes and The Corsair assumes a more aggressive approach, with a combination of arcs of energy and shocking strikes he slowly tears apart Phrixus’s suit. Phrixus responds with precise strikes, while getting zapped by every blow he deals against him. The duel lasts for many minutes and it looks like the odds are in favor for The Corsair. Then, having had enough of the fight, Phrixus focuses his power and lunges his pollaxe forward, impaling The Corsair with a direct hit to his chest.

Still alive and refusing to give up, the man grabs the shaft and emits a continuous current of electricity, electrifying Phrixus. With great willpower and endurance Phrixus maintains his grip and manages to put The Corsair on his knees, his energy slowly fading away until he falls to the ground, no longer able to fight back.

“I’m never… on the losing… side…” says The Corsair. Then he releases his last breath.

Phrixus pulls out the pollaxe from the body and takes a moment to rest after a difficult fight, though it doesn’t last long as he senses company coming near. The last regiment of The Corsair has arrived late, supposedly to help him but they only find his corpse. Phrixus does nothing but stare at the soldiers aiming at him with their guns, after a moment of unnerving silence the troopers drop their weapons and hold their hands high as a demonstration of abdication.

“Your leader is dead, if you value your life leave this place now!” says Phrixus.

With their morale shattered, all the troopers run away from the mansion, returning to their transport trucks and not turning back. Phrixus loots the body of The Corsair and takes his red beret, adorned with the symbol of The Charred Ring, as a trophy. After that he goes inside the mansion to find anything of interest, but first he gets rid of his battered armored suit, his uniform has many burned patches from those electric arcs.

***

A couple of minutes later…

“Nothing but your usual warlord’s home; drugs, weapons, special influential guests, contacts to the country’s army,” he rummages the place but nothing catches his attention so far, he returns to the dining hall. The place is a wreck after the onslaught and very likely nothing of value has remained intact, nonetheless he combs the place and tries his luck, the last spot to check is a wood display cabinet, riddled with bullet holes and crushed with a piece of debris that fell from the ceiling for good measure.

Whatever was inside must be completely pulverized… but who knows, thinks Phrixus.

He checks the least damaged part of the cabinet, by some sort of miracle something remained unscathed: a small, marvelous dragon figurine, it has a silvery-white luster so he deduces it must be pure platinum, it also has six gemstones encrusted around the dais where the dragon is standing. Phrixus scrutinizes it with keen fervor.

Such unique curio… at least that guy was someone of culture and good taste, I’ll give him that. Phrixus thinks while he carefully packs it in a pouch to take with him.

***

“Phrixus here, the mission is complete, requesting immediately evac.”

“This is the evac team, go to these coordinates for your extraction, ETA seven minutes.”

Phrixus advances to the indicated place.

“I’m gonna need a good rest after this…”

***

Camp Morgan, two days later, at the briefing session, 7:19 pm…

“Outstanding work, Phrixus, the death of The Corsair has caused the cells of The Charred Ring to dissolve into disarray. No doubt this will be good for us and Africa, the Red Confederacy has lost an important supporting group and now we have the upper hand in the continent, but still we have more battles ahead to face in the future. I’m afraid this war is far from over but at least we have made an important step to end it soon. You will be placed on reserve for now, go get some R&R, dismissed.”

“Thank you sir,” Phrixus says. He is pleased at the idea of getting a rest, although he hopes he’ll be back to the action soon. Better give my parents, Roberth and Valeria a call soon, he thinks to himself.