Fragility Metamorphosed

Yuf Ec won the gold medal in the National Shooting Championship with flying colors. He didn't even seem to enjoy the moment. Winning was starting to bore him.

When interviewed by the press about how he had become so good, he replied:

“As a kid I played nothing but Duck Hunt.”

Everyone present laughed and photos and autographs followed. He did not forget the crazed fans who lined up just to see, even for a second, Yuf in person.

After exhausting his little social energy between words and pictures, Yuf just wanted to rest. There were always waiting for him his two sphinx cats, Mik and Kim. Neither was separated from the other while watching some predictable romantic movie. Gobble love was very rare to see, and even rarer to live for Yuf.

When the tenderness marathon was over, Yuf said goodbye to his mini sphinxes by posing a kiss on the head of each. However, they did not purr as usual. In fact, they looked uncomfortable.

“Is it because I don't buy premium cat food for you anymore?” the owner asked with disappointment.

Yuf got no reaction other than detachment. As he wondered what the heck was going on, he saw a light cloud of gas enter his apartment.

At first he thought something was burning in the building, but soon saw that it was just a passing mist.

Yuf ended his day by turning off all the lights and jumping into bed as if it were a swimming pool.

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Perhaps there is no time when you rest less than when you are most tired. Time shortens and the body becomes a jelly thing with existential amnesia.

Yuf had not come out of such a situation very well, when he heard his cell phone ringing uncontrollably in the middle of a darkness in which four green catlike eyes were shining. He thought it was a nightmare until a scratch from Kim made him jerk at last.

“Hello? Yuf here, who do I have the pleasure of speaking with? I didn't sign up for any call-in alarm service,” the champion stammered.

“Mr. Yuf Ec, the government needs you. Our nation is in danger. We request your presence at the Advanced Institution at seven in the morning,” uttered a voice with great seriousness without identifying himself.

Yuf at first thought his friends had a surprise joke in store for him for his recent national championship win. He dressed as if he were going to a pool party, not yet knowing what fate had for him. He said goodbye with as much sleep as affection to his cat friends and started running down the stairs.

When he reached the entrance to the building, he expected to see his friend Omar's truck. Instead, he was met with a cold mist that barely allowed to see more than five meters away.

Out of nowhere, Yuf was rammed from behind by two men, who instantly anesthetized him. He only came to his senses in a large room with several military men in front of him.

“Where am I?” asked Yuf without much strength yet.

“Dear Yuf Ec, your country needs you now on a crucial mission. It must be completed in less than 24 hours,” vociferated one of the military men.

“Why me? I'm just a sportsman who has done nothing wrong,” Yuf replied.

“Exactly. Everything you do is superb. Especially when it comes to shooting,” commented another.

“One of our scientists escaped from our facilities with a really toxic creation. You'll be taking the man and his invention down,” notified a third military.

“No! Are you crazy? You go. You have better weapons than me,” Yuf said self-sacrificing to the request.

“We'll make a lot of noise going. Both Drakiv, the scientist, and the citizen will be frightened, and that will lead to more chaos in the long term,” concluded a military man with a burnt, strong complexion, who looked like the leader.

Shortly after, hurried footsteps were heard very close to the great hall of the Advanced Institution. Everyone turned to look as the same military man from before pointed at her.

“This girl is Mika. She will be your escort on this mission. We have trained her for this type of situations. We hope you can complement each other well and bring Drakiv down as soon as possible.”

Mika was a young girl, short red hair, dressed in black leather from head to toe, a defiant look among very fine features that could make even the most discerning man fall in love, if it were not for the fact that she carried a three gun rifle on her back.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Yuf Ec. This is going to get intense. You think you can keep up with me?” she challenged him with a naughty grin on her face.

Yuf shrugged, loaded both his guns and kept pace with Mika through a long hallway that ended in the haze he had already seen earlier.

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The streets of Harluw City were deserted. The silence was tense as the two government special agents waited for an attack at any corner.

“Everything is moving very fast, and I still don't understand what we're up against,” Yuf said as he crept forward.

“Apparently they are large and very poisonous insects with great resistance to insecticides,” Mika replied before pausing abruptly.

It was evident the silence was ending. A mutter was beginning to rumble more and more in the agents' ears, but no matter how much Mika shone a light around, they saw absolutely nothing.

Yuf adjusted his glasses in the middle of that gray, anxious morning as if preparing for the most intense shooting of his life. Mika accompanied the mood by looking everywhere, not letting go of the trigger until... a manhole exploded.

Mika and Yuf were dumbfounded to see not insects, but hundreds of bats, of various species, come out as a dark, chaotic stream that expanded like a great billowing oil slick over their heads.

“Fire!” The national champion managed to shout desperately before firing his guns.

Nothing Mika witnessed made sense to her. Her training, her personality and her ability to react were broken into as many pieces as she saw bats. She discovered how fragile she was.

Yuf was accurate, but his ammunition was not as much. He was firing, but he was also watching Mika out of the corner of his eye to see what she would do.

“You want us all dead? What are you doing standing there like a statue?” shouted Yuf.

Mika fell to her knees and while clutching her head, she began to cry inconsolably. Fear had taken full possession of her body.

The champion acted accordingly, and using the numerical advantage he had gained, he went for Mika's rifle and with a couple of super shots wiped out what was left of the enemies.

“Not that you were super trained?” asked Yuf angrily to Mika several times.

“I hate bats! The government lied. They're not insects, my Gosh,” she shrieked.

“Together we can; alone we can never. Young Mika, you need to put speculation and phobia aside,” Yuf said before running off and down the manhole where that swirl of bats had come out.

Mika's mind was still in shock and his body was unable to move. The Harluw City crisis had become Mika's personal crisis, too.

Just as if it had been a gunshot, a memory came to her mind. It was her being happy practicing shooting as a child, and trying to become a champion like Yuf.

Soon the tears and tremors stopped and Mika stood up with his characteristic determined look, and descended down the sewer.

She fell into Harluw's river of sewage and began to walk shouting her partner's name. There was no response. It was all darkness and the whisper of water down there.

Mika turned her flashlight on full blast until, in the distance, she spotted something strange. She didn't hesitate to point it, but as soon as she got closer, she saw that it was a pained Yuf.

“You finally came, you little coward,” Yuf said in a choked voice with a weak smile.

Mika wanted to ask what had happened, but several bites on Yuf's arms and neck made everything clear. The champion's body turned to stone soon after his gentle farewell.

At another time Mika would have succumbed to such a tragedy, but she was no longer fragile. She had remade herself from the rubble, and with obvious inspiration from Yuf, she took the three gun rifle from his hands.

She fired with vehemence at every bat that came her way. Adrenaline was pushing her despite the fatigue and agony she felt. Just when she thought she couldn't take it anymore, she almost crashed into a metal door.

Her instinct led her to think that this was Drakiv's lair. She soon broke down the door, and once inside she saw with horror how the scientist was looking at her with a half-human, half-bat face.

“You blamed my precious bats for the great virus, they being innocent, my precious babies! Now you will all die for your great power,” said an unhinged Drakiv before pouncing on Mika.

She tried to fire her weapons once more, but she had no more ammunition, to which she reacted by pulling out her last ace up her sleeve: a K-1 bomb.

Mika threw her rifle and hit Drakiv's head before activating the bomb and running away as fast as she could. The explosion was not long in coming and the shockwave shook the agent without her stopping.

After several days of investigation, it was determined that Drakiv was indeed creating a super army of toxic bats, including him, to take over Harluw City and then the entire country.

“Why was I never told they were bats?” questioned Mika.

“When we had the suspicion, we didn't want you to know so the plan wouldn't be ruined. Yuf definitely helped,” replied the military at her side.

Mika looked at him with obvious indignation. But before solemnly bidding Yuf farewell at his funeral, she adopted his cats, to a city no longer in awe, but proudly applauding the man he had been and the heroine he had left for posterity.