Simon lunged forward like a madman in the throes of a psychotic attack, his left fist held high and engulfed in electrical currents.

Malin interrupted the momentum of the attack with her forearm, and before Simon tried to hit her with his other arm, she punched him in the forehead and elbowed him in the nose.

Numb with pain, Simon staggered back, using his arms to steady himself.

There, Malin saw the opportunity and grabbed his left wrist; if she managed to break it, the only implant he had on would be useless and he would have to kiss his Photias goodbye.

But Simon was a cunning man and figured out Malin’s intentions; and even with the dizziness from the blows clouding his senses, he acted quickly and yanked her off of him. He let out a euphoric whoop, followed by a snarl of rage. His cheek burned, and he could barely keep his right eye open. He couldn’t feel his nose, but he could smell the blood that ran from it and stained his mustaches. He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving for air. Even he didn’t understand if he was enraged or excited by the fight. His brain was as dazed as it was his face.

“Oh, c’mon, babe!” he yelled at Malin and doing those same stupid boxing moves, spit on the ground. “Why are you playing dirty?!”

Simon fell face first into the living room table. Adam had thrown himself at him from behind.

“Son of—!” Simon turned to Adam, and they got locked in a struggle once more.

“Adam, stay out!” Malin yelled.

Adam tried to hold his enemy back by grabbing him around the waist, attempting a bear grab with his arms, but the bastard moved fast and was so sweaty it was impossible to hold him for more than a second. He grabbed his pants belt with one hand and with the other; he threw a couple of punches toward the face, but only a few hit the target. Simon grabbed him by the hair, wanting to shake him off, and took a couple of blows to the jaw, though nothing hard enough to make him flinch.

“I already told you, listen to your little girlfriend!” And finally, with a hook, Simon knocked Adam out cold, sprawled on the ground with a split lip. “You may look a lot like Juzo, but damn! Is there a difference between—!”

Excruciating pain erupted on his knee and shot up to his teeth with electrical speed. His scream was so upsetting that if the neighbors hadn’t already been alerted by the fight, they now had. Malin had taken advantage of the distraction and had just kicked him with the sole of her foot just below the thigh.

Simon limped to one side, wanting to avoid the next attack that was sure to come.

Malin wasted no time digging the heel of her boots right into his chest, once again reaching for his left wrist for the implant.

“Whatta—?!” Simon raged. What was that bitch doing trying the same trick a second time?! Did she think he was stupid enough to have forgotten what she had tried to do to him just a second ago?! And, still unable to stand upright, feeling as if someone had just hammered his knee and stabbed him in the chest, he moved the fingers of his left hand and created a voluminous Photia with which he bought time and postponed Malin’s plan. As long as he was holding a shock grenade, it would be impossible for her to break his wrist with one blow without first falling prey to the raw energy.

The pain in his knee was strong, the stitch in his chest, unbearable. Never neglecting the protection his Photia conferred on him, Simon looked down to see, among the hairs on his chest, the cut made by that bitch’s heel, and there, more blood. He began to hyperventilate. The humiliation of having been beaten by the same woman twice outweighed the pain that plagued him. Rage covered his eyes and painted them red, suffocating him with the heat of wounded pride and plugging his ears with the pounding of his heart. He raised his arm, and with the same Photia with which he held Malin at bay, aimed at Adam. His nose bled again, and the blood moistened his mustaches and reached his chin; then he took a deep breath and decided to do what a spiteful kid would do when he realized there was no way he would get away with it: break the first thing that came to hand. He turned toward the central air conditioning control by the front door and fired. The Photia hit the computer on the wall, exploding it to pieces. The burst spat fire on the carpet and fabric armchairs in the pre-living room area, and caused a short-circuit in the electrical system, unleashing endless sparks that rained from every lamp and electrical outlet in the apartment. In the blink of an eye, the light from the electrical discharges and the restless red glow of the fire had begun to pulse in more areas within the loft.

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Not satisfied with this, Simon fired another grenade into the hydrogen gas pipe that fed the kitchen. There was a loud CRACK! and after the muffled sound of combustion and a shock wave that threw framed posters and other decorations to the floor, the flames hissed, projecting everywhere, bringing destruction wherever they fell.

Adam was standing still with blood on his lips, watching as everything burned. The things he had bought, the things he had built, his beautiful parquet floor, the platform with his bedroom. The fire had spread its cloak across his home, a cloak that had gone from a blue and green hue to an immense and painful range of reds; while he stood there, trying to size up the disaster that lay ahead.

The huge picture of him walking half-naked on the rocks of the sea fell to the ground, eaten away by threads of fire that, from there, jumped onto the shelf that was next to it. Flames climbed the wooden shelves, claiming whatever was found there, and the box with Juzo’s ashes disappeared forever behind a curtain of red light.

“Get out of there!”

Malin warned him, and turning, Adam found a fireball right there, opening its jaws to swallow him.

Malin pushed him away just in time, and the explosion only grazed his skin with a whiplash of flames. It took him a few seconds to react, though, and when he did, when his eyes interpreted what he saw, between fire and shadows and the shock of seeing everything that was his come crashing down, Malin had already fallen at his feet. The young woman had just saved his life, and he did not know if she was alive or dead.

“I won’t wait for you to burn to death, sissy boy.” Simon came up behind him, and catching him around the neck, dug his fingers into Adam’s throat. “I’m gonna kill you myself,” he whispered into his ear, so close that he even moistened Adam’s ear with the blood that dripped from his nose.

The smell of sweat and scorched clothing coming from the mercenary permeate Adam, almost as much as the smoke from the fire. He tried to pull Simon off him, but those fingers were like hydraulic clamps closing around his neck. The air was escaping from his lungs; he was losing consciousness. Even his growls grew so weak they became moans. He would suffocate to death if Simon didn’t end up ripping his throat out first. A distant noise, someone’s scream. Malin? No, Malin was on the floor, dead or unconscious, waiting for the fire to reach her and take her to hell. Perhaps it was his neighbor, Mr. Quintana, knocking on the door to see if everything was okay. No, Mr. Quintana! Run! Get out of here!

Until everything started to go dark.

“Don’t fade away!” Juzo ordered. “Wake up!”

With lightning speed, Juzo’s presence broke through that black cloud that had already blinded his senses and became a supernatural heart that pumped blood straight into his consciousness, an engine screaming for safe passage to release the maximum power. Adam discovered that in his mind there was room for two people, that there always had been, and that, at that moment, he, who was the pilot in charge of that machine called the physical body, stood aside, and handed over the commands to his co-pilot. Everything that came from that moment on, he experienced as if he were witnessing it from the outside.

A luminescence sprouted from the very pores of his skin as if a white star was hidden under his muscles, a star which grew and grew, seeking to free itself from that prison of flesh and blood to manifest its brilliance with full intensity. Soon the light got transformed into jets of power that danced like lightning bolts around a lightning rod, and his shirt and long hair fluttered in an unearthly hurricane.