He shouldn’t have taken the pill.

With the recent attack on the Ellicon tribe, it will be a long time before he would able to get more. But he was late, he missed the last public transportation unit and the council meeting was in 30 minutes.

After swallowing the pill sparks started shooting out of his feet and slowly started to climb up his legs. His heart started pumping twice as fast causing his skin to turn red and his veins to pop out. His hair stood on end, and his sweat turned cold. Soon he had a negatively polarized magnetic field surrounding his entire body (a side effect), and now, as the pill ran through his veins, he ran on all fours to the council meeting. He hoped that he could arrive on time.

As he ran through the green dessert, he saw a figure emerge from the horizon. He recognized her. He tried going around her but he found himself transfixed in a magnetic field.

“Pliara, let me go, now!” he commanded.

She gently stroked his chin with her metal claw,

“Now Arixon, if I were to do that, then you’ll just go ahead and ruin our whole plan, and that wouldn’t be good for our cause, would it?”

Arixon tried concentrating the pill’s energy to his hands to try to force himself out of the magnetic field. His attempts to escape were futile.

The woman spoke into her wrist, “the fly is on the spider web, proceed with phase two”

He knew he shouldn’t have taken the pill, for at this moment he realized the only thing keeping him trapped was the pill’s side effect. Arixon’s legs went numb. When you take a super-moose spleen concentrate pill, you have to move around as to not overload your body with energy. Failing to do so is fatal. Arixon tried to concentrate the energy into his left arm to try to free his right arm, so he could reach his bag where he had the pill’s neutralizers. His attempts to escape were futile.

“Oh Arixon, you are so predictable. Every single Fry-day you get a bit gloomy and you go to a fight club to win a couple matches hoping to boost your self-esteem. Then you go ‘celebrate’ into early hours of the morning drinking bunny-juice and flirting with fem-bots. I knew you would miss the PTU and that you would take one of our pills.”

There was one only one thing he could do at this point.

[He puked]. It was he was trained to do in this situation after all. He simply tightened his stomach muscles and forced out its contents. Stomach acids burned Pliara's eyes, and Arixon was free of the pill that was left in his stomach.

Arixon took advantage of the fact that Pliara was distracted and preceded with the next step in cleansing his body of the pill.

He used the pill's energy to break his Internal Blood Reserve Spooch, and then pushed this new blood rapidly through his circulatory system to force all of the old blood out. He flushed this old blood into his stomach using a bypass he had installed back when he was still training.

He puked. Arixon was now very weak but at least he wasn't transfixed on the magnetic field. He slowly crawled towards the super-moose as Pliara was still busy trying to get over the fact that she was covered in Arixon's blood and last nights supper. She pulled herself together and deactivated the magnetic field. Arixon got on the super-moose and began to gallop away to the resistance meeting.

He really thought he was home-free. He let his guard down for a moment, which was all that Pliara needed.

Arixon should've predicted what was going to happen next. After all, they both had been trained by the great General Cocarate. The deactivation of the magnetic field should've been a dead give-away.

Pliara was on all fours, with her hair standing on end, running after Arixon. She gulped down all of his puke so that now she would have the pill's power. He didn't even see her coming until her metal claw ripped across his face.

Arixon violently fell off the super-moose in agonizing pain and rolled on the green desert sand.

Pliara barely saw the ball of plasma flying out from his hand as he was rolling. This anti-matter bomb landed on her shoe. She quickly kicked her shoe off into the air and disintegrated it with the disintegrator ray from her mechanical arm.

If another fraction of second would've passed by the plasma would have eaten away at her shoe releasing the anti-matter stored within it. The anti-atoms would've then come in contact with regular atoms in the vicinity, causing a massive (but some-what controlled) gamma-ray explosion. The explosion would've killed Arixon, Pliara, the super-moose, and an iguana named Benjamin about 40 miles away. The explosion also would've destroyed the neighboring communities among which are Iguorunaro (the city where Arixon spent the night, about 35 miles to the west), Quadnokia (50 miles to the south), and Istarutawan (a cannibalistic intentional community 67 miles to the east). It also would’ve destroyed the southwestern part of the city Owanaro (Arixon's destination, 80 miles to the northeast). The rest of the city (including the rebel forces) would’ve immediately evacuated to the bomb shelter under town hall, ensuring their safety.

It would’ve been at great cost, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Almost all of the rebel leaders are going to be there, and if the Administration of International Defense and Security carries outs its plan any hope for The Restoration is as good as gone.

However his move wasn’t all in vain. By making Pliara use the disintegrator ray on the anti-matter bomb, it drained most of her Internal Electrical Energy Supply (energizer brand, of course). Currently, she only has enough energy for physical movement, and it will be quite a while for her energy supply to recharge.

Arixon got up slowly, stumbling and swaying like a male oproye on a strawberry leash. He looked at Pliara’s dark purple eyes and reminisced about the old days, the days when they were training together under General Cocarate. Back then they were both care-free. They didn’t worry about the Bridge or AIDS or The Restoration. All they worried about was getting stronger, learning about their bodies and about the world. He tried to remember what Pliara used to look like. Her long, curly violet hair, her warm rosy cheeks, Arixon could almost taste her luscious red lips again. How he longed for her. But now, that timid young girl he once knew is gone. Pliara's hair is now short (for practical reasons), her face is covered in battle scars, and she lost her arm and had a mechanical one installed. The only thing that was really the same was her eyes, and as Arixon was drowning in them, Pliara decided to chuck something up herself.

She got her left arm (the non-mechanical one) and reached down her own throat. She pulled out a sword.

Arixon snapped out of his reveries when he saw the shiny blade. He quickly pulled out a fossilized sub-chicken.

They lunged at each other, and their blades met in mid-air. Pliara's blade sliced through Arixon's fossilized sub-chicken as if it were a stick of butter. They were now facing away from each other about 20 meters apart. Arixon looked at the half of the FSC still in his hand with disbelief.

“That’s quite a strong blade you have there Pliara. You and I both know FSC's are 15 on Moh's Hardness Scale; 42 times stronger than diamond.”

“It's a new carbon arrangement, 22 on Moh's hardness scale, 254 times stronger than diamond. It's standard issue for AIDS officers,” Klaretta replied, with confidence in her voice.

The thing you should know about AIDS is that, even though knowledge of their existence is quite public, very little is known about AIDS inner workings. They usually never reveal their plans, how they get money to fund their organization, or who worked for the organization. This creates a huge lack of trust in AIDS-controlled communities. Your neighbor, your robot servant, the cranky old guy you played poker with every now and then, or even YOUR OWN MOTHER could be working for AIDS and you would NEVER know. Another thing was that you would never know if something was planned or not. You could never just assume that that kid that bumped into you in SUPER!!!-burger, causing you to drop all your food and spill your soda was just clumsy. For all you knew, it could've been AIDS trying to keep you inside the restaurant a few extra minutes. If you got a cold, you could never be sure that AIDS didn't infect you. If that girl that you have a crush on turns out to be a lesbian, you could never be sure that AIDS wasn't just messing with your heart. This makes everyone in AIDS controlled communities very hostile.

The only time that an AIDS officer could even IMPLY that the organization has had a hand in something is if your death is imminent. This is what bothered Arixon.

She could be bluffing of course. Arixon had known for a long time now that Pliara worked for the organization. It was one of the reasons they broke up, after all.

“You know, I really thought that little resistance group you're in would've gotten their hands on some of these. I mean you seem to have gotten your hands on our pills somehow.”

Pliara turned around and relaxed. Arixon kept his ground and looked at her over his shoulder.

“I'm starting to think this fight is a little unfair. This blade I have can pretty much cut through anything you have. Part of me really wants to just re-swallow this blade so we can have some clean hand-to-hand combat, you know, have some fun.”

Pliara laughed wildly, revealing teeth as sharp as a super-moose's.

She put the blade to her mouth, and used her teeth enhanced by the pill's energy to menacingly rip a piece of it off.

[Suddenly, she went pale]. She started breathing heavily, and her hair relaxed. Arixon turned around slowly

“I don't know what you learned with AIDS, but I remember that General Cocarate taught me never to taunt your opponent”

Klaretta felt something crawl under her skin.

“DPL's...” she whispered to herself.

Domesticated Paralyzing Leeches aren't just leeches. They are a team (usually five) of parasites, maggots and leeches, trained to be efficient killers. One of them filters out anything useful from the bloodstream (nutrients, oxygen, and, in Pliara's case, the super-moose spleen concentrate pill) and transports them to all the other leeches causing the victim to go unconscious or at least very weak. The second one eats away the articulations, ligaments and muscles rendering the victim immobile. When the first two are just about done the third one injects a lethal strand of hormones directly into the brain stem, to ensure the victim's death. Then the last two leeches eat anything that's left. The whole process takes a few days, but it only takes a few hours for the victim to die and a few minutes for the victim to become unconscious.

The only way to really beat DPL's is to be high. The first leech will take whatever dope you have running through your system and take it to the other leeches, and they would all end up trippin' balls, as they say.

“How did you get them on me!?” Pliara shouted over the excruciating pain that she was in.

“They were exposed to your scent while I was trapped on the magnetic field. I had them go to you while you were rambling.”

Pliara quickly used what strength she had left to throw her sword at the super-moose. It stabbed right through its squeedle spooch making the moose implode.

Arixon walked toward Pliara while thinking about what to do next. The super-moose was dead and he didn't have any pills left, so there was no way he could get to Owanaro in time to stop the meeting from taking place. Plus he was very weak. He had to puke up all of his supper and he didn't have time to eat breakfast. He would probably die of hunger if the desert heat doesn't get to him first. Well, he could eat what was left of the super-moose or Pliara, if he was really desperate, then maybe he could get to Quadnokia or back to Iguorunaro. But for what? So he could live the rest of his life wondering how things could've been different? So he could spend the rest of his days in isolation and depression?

Arixon kneeled on Pliara's left side. He took out a flask from his bag and placed it on the sand near him.

He held her unconscious body in his right arm, caressing her with his left.

“I'm sorry it had to end this way...Pliara”

He put her down and picked up the flask. He drank the orange poison.

In a few seconds Arixon dropped dead beside Pliara on the green desert sand.

[The final tear ran down his cheek as the vultures began to gather.]