I cannot let anyone else take this discovery. I do this not out of malice or greed, but a genuine worry of the effects of this Magic Bullet on the common man. I forbid even myself from taking it, as addiction to a Magic Bullet can be devastating.

-From Professor Shokolov’s Journal, 2nd Entry

AxEl woke up feeling sore and cold. His head throbbed and he struggled to move his body. When he touched his head, he felt an intense heat come back. Funny, there wasn’t any Firewire in his system?

Oh, He realized with a shock. A cold? It felt weird to be put down by something so mundane after everything that he’d gone through last night. AxEl sat up and opened his drawers. There’d be a pill somewhere around there.

He popped it out and walked down to the kitchen to grab himself a glass of water. Swallowing the pill, he checked his phone to find new messages had appeared. Again, from Kel.

Same alley as before, now.

It was sent about an hour ago. AxEl clicked his tongue in annoyance. His mother popped up from the hallway with sleepy eyes.

“Good morning,” she said as she began to brew a cup of coffee for herself. AxEl gave a half-nod in reply. His mother eyed him up and down and raised an eyebrow.

“AxEl, are you okay?” she asked. How’d she-

His mother put a hand to his head and grimaced. “Stayed out late again? I told you to put on more layers if you’re going to be spending your time in the cold.”

“Sorry, I got carried away with the concert last night.”

“Oh, I hope you enjoyed it AxEl. But try to be a bit more careful next time? Stay in for today. I’m sure a few missed classes won’t be too bad for someone like you,” FenEl replied.

“Y-yeah,” he answered. Then he thought for a few moments and decided it’d be better if she heard it from the source.

“Actually….The concert kind of ended early,” AxEl said in a hoarse voice. The cold seemed to exasperate it.

“Why so?” FenEl asked. She held her cup close to her chest.

“Magic Bullets…” AxEl said. His mother’s frown deepened once he mentioned that. “Tsk, figures it’d happen on the one night I let you go out on.”

She tapped her finger against the cup and then thought for a moment. “I’m glad you told me at least, AxEl. You have a good head on your shoulders if you left the place early.”

“Thanks, mom.”

“Now go back to bed. Your cold’s only going to worsen the more time you spend outside of bed,” she ordered. AxEl didn’t dare put up a fight. He’d have to sneak out later if he was going to meet with Kel.

FenEl seemed to consider the conversation done, and drank from her cup while preparing the rest of her morning routine. AxEl pretended to lay in his bed asleep. His mother came to his room and sang a quiet little prayer before leaving the house.

As soon as he heard the car speed away, he sat up in his bed and prepared. He put on as many layers as he could take, took a bit of insurance, then stepped outside the house himself. The cold air of the morning brushed against him.

The alley wasn’t hard to find. The only problem was that AxEl didn’t feel like finding it. So perhaps he wasted a few precious minutes that would test Kel’s patience. At this point, who cared?

His aloof demeanor dried up once he realized that Kel was actually present, with no one else besides him. The portly supplier was nowhere to be found. He slung his head downwards and walked towards the domineering man.

“AxEl,” he said in neutral tone. AxEl could see his knuckles clenched.

“Hey, Kel,” AxEl replied.

“You realized what you did, right?” Kel asked.

“I caused a scene.”

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“Oh, so you don’t. AxEl, you did not cause a scene, actually,” Kel stated. It gave a mite of hope to AxEl.

“You busted a huge sale for us,” Kel finished.

“I wasn’t carrying that much product, Kel!” The older man looked down at him with a serious expression, quenching any hope of rebellion.

“Of course you weren’t, you idiot! Now because I took pity on you, the upper brass is coming down on me,” He put a few fingers to his temple and rubbed them.

“We had a deal with the vendors there. They could keep a cut of the profit as long as they sell something extra on the side. Now that you showed up there, everything went wrong. Do you even understand how suspicious a single person in a hoodie looks in a concert like that?”

AxEl stuttered out a response.

“Somebody saw you, then being the good Samaritans they were, reported you,” he accentuated the last sentence with a hard poke on AxEl’s chest. “I-I can make i-“

“There’s NO making up for this!” Kel almost shouted. He kept his voice quiet enough not to get noticed by anyone outside.

“Don’t you understand? I’ve tried, and I’ve been lenient. But it seems you’re inadequate for this. Give me the rest of the Firewire, go home and be a quiet normal kid. If you do that much, maybe someone won’t go looking for your head for messing something like this up,” Kel said as he held out a hand.

AxEl knew the deal he was being offered was better than anything he should deserve. He wondered why someone would take pity on him like that. But he just….couldn’t leave it well enough alone.

“I…I won’t,” he said. Kel didn’t bother arguing any further. He grabbed the collar of AxEl’s coat and pulled him upwards with a strength that didn’t befit him. AxEl looked at his eyes and found them glowing grey.

That confirmed one suspicion that AxEl had had about Firewire. He didn’t necessarily have to smoke it. AxEl chewed on the piece he had kept in his mouth as insurance and felt the immediate heat and burst of strength that came along with it.

“What?” Kel stated, but the moment was enough for AxEl to break out of his grip and kick backwards. Kel fell over on the ground with a grunt. AxEl spun around and booked it out of the alley as fast as he could.

He ran and ran until he felt he was far enough not to be caught. AxEl took refuge under a dirty overpass. It wasn’t a big structure, but kept him hidden enough. His heart rate spiked and he began breathing rapidly. Calm down, a voice said, and AxEl tried. His mother, what would Kel do to his mother?

”Please, Lord Mirage, please don’t let her be found out…” AxEl prayed. Barksight wasn’t the smallest town out there, so he hoped his mother would be safe from Kel and his people. He looked around and found nothing to keep his mind at bay.

So he dialed up the only person he knew he could trust. Nook picked up the call quickly, with a casual tone of voice. “How’s it going, AxEl?” he said to his friend.

“N-Nook, can we meet up? I need some help,” AxEl asked.

“Sure? Is it serious?” Nook replied. He caught a bit of worry in his tone now.

“Yeah... Just come see me near the swings again.”

“AxEl, what exactly happened?”

“Please, later.”

AxEl hung up the phone afterwards, feeling a bit of tension release from his shoulders. He stood up from his hiding spot and started walking out from his hiding place. His legs shook but he kept moving despite it.

****

AxEl had expected that he would run into someone Kel sent, but surprisingly the path there yielded no encounters. He arrived to find Nook standing by the park, tapping his foot against the concrete. He breathed a slight sigh of relief and waved a hand, trying to be casual.

Nook didn’t pretend however. “AxEl, what’s wrong?”

“Straight into it, aren’t we?” AxEl joked, but even he found it forced.

“Just tell me, man,” Nook replied.

“I-It’s Kel.”

“Who?”

“The guy who gives me the Firewire to sell. I….He asked me to hand it back since I didn’t make back the money I owed him.”

“And you did what?” Nook gestured for him to continue.

“I-I ran.”

Nook ran a hand through his hair. “Let’s move somewhere else,” he asked AxEl. They found a secluded spot between two shops. Nook bought AxEl a hot drink to calm.

“I don’t know what he’s going to do. He might just search for me. He might even go after my mom! I don’t even know what I can do without getting caught!” AxEl ranted. The cup in his hands shook with his grip.

“…We could hide you out in the old man’s house?” Nook told him.

“Seriously? At a time like this? Nook, focus!”

“I am!” Nook replied. “The old man’s nowhere to be found! I went scouting myself, and he hasn’t come out in a week. I knocked on his door and he didn’t even answer! We could hide you out in the house, wait for Kel to give up and then move you back.”

AxEl looked at him, dumbfounded. “So you think he’s somewhere else?”

“Know so.”

AxEl’s mind started connecting dots. He’d heard this before. Nowhere to be found…Just like the supplier. The fat supplier. He knew it was insane. There was a million people out there that could look like that. But the old man might have been growing Magic Bullets. Nook said it was impossible for Firewire to grow in a low temperature like the one they had in the town, but what if he was wrong?

What if they’d made artificial heating? What if the old man was the supplier?

“Nook, I might have an idea.”

“Really? Tell me, then,” Nook asked curiously.

“We have to go to the old man’s house. I think he might be growing Firewire for Kel.”

“You think he’s got a miniature volcano down in his basement?”

“Maybe. We won’t know until we look,” AxEl replied, then set his cup down on the nearest trash can and began walking.

“AxEl. What are you going to do if he is?” Nook asked.

“I can rat him out. I can get them all arrested. I don’t have to worry about Kel if he’s behind bars,” AxEl reasoned. Nook noticed how the worry had receded from AxEl’s face, but was still present. The little movements he did, the twitching.

“Alright, Ax…” Nook agreed. AxEl patted his shoulders. A bit too hard maybe.

“You’re better a friend than I deserve, Nook,” AxEl said with a smile.