Aliyu had been walking beside Drust for a few hours now. The redhead didn't seem to be in a talkative mood; he just kept walking, his eyes fixed ahead. When the silence became unbearable, he would comment on something that could be contained in a single sentence. Things like the origin of the scientific name of a certain fish or plant; the depth of the river, how many liters it contained. The tattooed man was what they called a scientist. Aliyu had seen one or two in the mines of his homeland. He only knew what he had heard from his father: they were men who knew many things and were there to discover even more. Maybe that was why Drust was in Brazil: to discover more than he already knew about the plants and fish of that river.

Fortunately, the African no longer had to walk with his hands crossed over his groin. Staying beside the redhead, he managed not to stare so much at the other's cock and balls. He tried to look at him only in the brief intervals when his right leg took a step forward and covered his genitals. They were very brief moments, but more than enough to take in a series of details. What most caught his attention, of course, was how he was completely tattooed. In some places, where his body hair was more abundant, the tattoos almost disappeared, but it was obvious that they extended beneath the hair and even onto his scalp. And there were the scars: tiny, almost imperceptible, but present on all his skin, even on his face. They were mostly more or less long, very thin lines, except for a few rounder, pinkish spots along his arms and legs. They seemed to have been made by the same weapon, besides being visibly more recent than the others. There were also the small freckles and the robust veins on his feet, hands, and arms. One could assume that Drust was a man accustomed, somehow, to using his whole body. Why a scientist would need this kind of exertion was a mystery. As far as Aliyu understood, one of the big differences between normal people and scientists was that the latter were paid for their knowledge, not their physical effort.

Hiding his own affliction, of course, became much easier when the redhead spoke. Aliyu could dwell, for as long as possible, on the information about the animal or plant the other was talking about. However, while observing a pink dolphin, an Inia geoffrensis, moving away, the African noticed that the waters in that direction were more orange. It didn't take him long to realize that the light from Drust's flames penetrated the river in different ways at that moment. There were darker parts of the water, which cast shadows on the others, more golden. It soon became obvious that the darker waters were on the left and the lighter ones on the right, and that it was in the mixture of both that the two men were walking.

"It's where the Rio Negro and the Solimões River meet," the redhead's deep voice sounded as he pointed, respectively, to the dark and yellowish waters.

Aliyu could distract himself for quite some time with the spirals that formed and dissolved around them, shadow and golden light dancing in all directions. However, his vision through the clay revealed in the distance, from the direction they had come, a bright spiral that was approaching. Soon the African realized that it was some kind of serpent. He had seen serpents before, but the way that silvery creature spiraled through the waters was especially frightening. Especially when he noticed that the creature was emitting beams of light in all directions.

That made the African stop right where he was. It didn't take a second for Drust to ask:

"What's up?"

Aliyu pointed in the direction of the serpent and waited. Drust took a few steps in that direction, his eyes narrowed. Then his eyes widened as he spoke:

"We need to hurry."

As much as possible, the African obeyed. Although he didn't feel worse as the hours passed, since he had fallen into the river, breathing through the black clay was a challenge. And there was that dizziness, the weakness, always present. Every movement underwater took twice as long and demanded about twenty times more strength than on land. It was like trying to swim in wet cement.

Drust walked much faster, but he stopped from time to time until he was reached. He looked back more and more frequently, and increasingly apprehensive. Aliyu didn't need to turn his face to know why. He could see eight more silvery serpents, fast as wolves.

Now that they were closer, the African realized that the serpents were not only silvery: they were actually made of metal. They were machines like he had never seen before, a series of metal pieces interconnected by rubber rings. Each segment was about the size of a bag of rice and had four beams of diffused light. It was hard to look at those snakes and not think of the Hammer Exos.

Drust stopped and announced through his teeth, his eyes fixed on the African:

"This isn't your fight. Whatever happens, keep running. And don't look back!"

And before Aliyu could make any move, the redhead ran towards the vipers. The African didn't know what to do. He wanted to shout, "What kind of coward do you think I am?" Deep down, he knew that his anger had nothing to do with bravery. The truth was that he feared for the redhead. Their reunion was a gift of chance, an immense stroke of luck that was now slipping through his fingers. Running away seemed totally out of the question. Of course, Aliyu knew what would happen to Zainab if he entered that battle and lost. He was her only chance. No one else in the world knew she was different. And when they found out, no one would care if she lived or died. That was a lie: the good people of the tin mines in the village of Kofar, and even his own parents, would do anything to see her dead. So, by simply standing there, Aliyu might be signing her death warrant.

The African's thoughts were interrupted when Drust pulled his arms back, growling as the flames around him flared. Then, with a long shout, the redhead pushed something invisible towards the serpents. A stream of fire shot from his hands towards the nearest metal snake. It would have reached it in two seconds, but the machine dodged with relative ease. The redhead, still shouting as he held his arms outstretched towards the thing, had to redirect the stream of fire a few more times before hitting it. However, as soon as the flames touched the machine-serpent, each of its segments turned into a huge fireball. Where there had once been a machine-serpent, there was now a chain of growing explosions, large enough to engulf a car.

Aliyu didn't think: he focused all his strength on running towards Drust. He knew it would take at least ten seconds to reach him, but he kept going. His body might not move fast, but his mind was racing. Fire itself wouldn't be a danger to the redhead, so his concern was the shrapnel.

The serpent's explosion was now large enough to swallow a bus. To the African's relief, that was the maximum size the explosion reached. Soon after, the fireball shrank rapidly, compressed by the river. And that's when Aliyu saw hundreds of shrapnel pieces emerge from the fire cloud, slicing through the water in all directions. Contrary to what he had thought, they didn't go far. They lost speed almost instantly, sinking inertly to the bottom of the river. At that point, the explosion's fireball had regained the brightness of the fire and was growing again, but not as much as before. Even so, a wave of death spread among the fish.

Despite the water overcoming the explosion and the shrapnel, all the fish around the explosion died in sequence, first those closest to the bomb, then those further away. They stopped swimming and floated, blood staining their mouths. A wave of death that would engulf Drust first, and soon after, Aliyu. The redhead then roared with all his might, making the flames grow six feet around him, and that somehow protected him. Then, when the wave of death passed through the African, he understood. The force with which the water was coming was immense, strong enough to shatter every bone of anyone who dived nearby. If it weren't for the black clay, that would have been Aliyu's fate. Even so, the wave still had enough force to throw him back, knocking him down.

As he fell, the African felt three more similar waves pass, painful but increasingly weaker, to the point that the last one didn't even drag him anymore. Almost immediately Drust's roar stopped, and he shouted, running towards him, eyes wide:

"Giant!!!"

Surprised, Aliyu tried to get up quickly. Drust had already gotten close to him and even stretched his hand to help, but gave up. He quickly withdrew his hand, serious. That hurt the African much more than the waves of the explosion. Maybe the redhead had finally noticed his sick desires.

The hurt was quickly forgotten when Aliyu noticed two metal points, with four hooks each, quickly sprout from the tattooed man's belly.

Immediately, the redhead started screaming and shaking, the muscles in his body tensed to the maximum. His flames went out completely and, without warning, the hooks pulled him forcefully towards the metal serpent that had shot the hooks from behind him.