I tell him, "I may be a cold blooded ruthless killer. I may have been a guy who killed for fun. I may have been a bloody murderer. But I tell you this, call me brother today and I shall not disappoint. Get up. We were friends in the beginning. Let's end this as friends. You find out a lot about yourself when you fight. I found out that I was a guy who was a bug hypocrite and I am willing to change that. What about you?"
He looks at me and asks, "What have you done for me to be able to trust you again? What have you done to prove that you shall change? Why should I trust you?"
I smile at him and say, "Yes, I have done nothing to gain your trust. I have done nothing to prove that I'll change. But I all you this. Take a leap of faith. Join hands with us again. I promise you, we shall sink or swim together."
I held out my hand to him. He looked at it wearily and said, "Well, this or death after all!" He took my hand and I brought him up. I told, "I win the duel by the way! Forfiet now!" He chuckles and forfiets the match. Or stats are back to the way they were before. I am happy that this ended happily rather than sadly. I hope that Dharmendra hears us out and she's with us.
Adi pats me on the back and says, "Well done brother. I'll tell you this much- You are not a cold blooded ruthless murderer. Such a person would not think about whether he was one. He would go around proclaiming it when he did his job. You may go over the top at times but you are not a murderer. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. A murderer would not have done what you did today.
Now, onto another topic, we need to find Rahaas. While you were getting battering slashing around in air, I was thinking about all that's been said. About it reputations. I am willing to change. But we need to figure out everything. We need to forest figure out about that day- If Dharmendra is actually right. If he is, we trust him. Else we don't drop it guard near him. It's better to keep your enemies closer than your friends."
Dharmendra says in a frustrated voice, "You guys wanted to tell me something- That's why we had this fight. If you guys are going to babble among yourselves, I'll go back to my cell and rest in peace."
I say, "Let's go inside first. Then we can talk."
We walk out of the stadium and into a room. The room is dark and dusty. Bhishma says, "I'll leave all of you now. Call me hen you need me." He walked out of the room to mind his own business.
We look around in the room. There is only one bulb alight. I don't seem to find any other switches so this seems to be it. [In this game, the world progressed the same way as it did in ours. Just at one point, in the 2030s(in the game) the Gods were pissed off at the horrific and scandalous actions of humans and took things into their own hands. Gods and Demons brought back heroes and villains from ancient to modern history and mythology and legends back to life. Technology such as electricity and television exist in this world as well. For fighting there are guns and other technological means but they are not used as much because they make loud noises and give away your position to your opponents. In this world such a thing is fatal. Nukes are basically another MKS. But other MKSs are used because nukes also kill innocents while there are other MKS that can be used to target specific group of people. A nuke if targeted at a city would destroy the entire city but an MKS like my Vajra could be used to target only one specific location inside the city doing the same damage to that one location as the nuke does to the city. Guns and Nukes were forgone because of the above reasons but other tech like computers, electricity, phones, cars are still in use. Most countries switched from Democracy to Monarchy when the old kings arrived and the oldest or strongest of the old kings presumed the title of the supreme warlord or emperor of that country.] There is a small table in the middle and at the end is a screen or a board. It is hard to tell in this darkness. There are three chairs around the table-one on one side and two on the opposite side. There are torches around the room. This room is probably an abandoned torture and interrogation room. The screen might be a one way glass and somehow we are not able to see the other side. That would also explain the darkness in this room. Dharmendra takes a seat. I and Adi sit on the opposite side.
I ask Dharmendra, "You know what this game initially was, don't you?"
Dharmendra's eye twitvhes in anger as he growls, "What do you think of me, Karthik?! If you are going to insult me all day long, I might as well go back to my cell. It is better to be alone than with a condescending and disgusting person."
You have got to be kidding me. I am trying my very best to reign in my anger. Adi sighs and says, "We do not mean this as an insult to you. We just want to make sure that you know what this game was all about because what we are about to tell you depends on that."
Dhamendra says, "Hn! Fine! This game was where the Gods were no longer happy with how humans handled anything and they thought that it was fine to take over. The demons felt otherwise. The two factions started warring against each other. In the end, we are struck with the Gods and demons bringing back anyone who was a good fighter in the past, back to life and back to their prime. What does any of this have to do with what is happening now? Are the gods the ones behind the white beam of light?"
I say, "Many were probably misled by the colour of the light. Contrary to popular belief, white light is not holy. Holy things just so happen to be white a lot of the times. White does symbolize purity and holiness. But white itself is not holy. It can be produced by mixing all other colors. The beam of light is not from the heavens; it came from hell."
"Who told you that? Is it the same source who has kept on telling you to murder innocents?" Dharmendra said in a snarky and sarcastic manner.
I tell him, "No. This one came directly from Indra."
"What reason do you have, to believe in him? He might have told you a lie to make you go against the demons. It's not like Gods are incapable of lies. Indra is also vain and egotistical at times. I wouldn't put it below him to manipulate someone with lies," says Dharmendra. All the points he put forth are quite valid. I don't have an answer but fortunately, Adi answers for me.
"I have reasons to believe that it is demons and not Gods that did this. I once saw a vision. A vision of two demons congregating with each other. They were talking about something. One of them were claiming that whatever they were going to do would not work. The other said that it would. Regardless, after that vision ended, the new announcement about that soul thing began."
Dharmendra says, "So basically, the demons did this to us and they are doing something bad?"
I say, "Yeah."
No sooner did I say so than a window popped up in front of all of us-
"Choose your side quickly. Choosing the side of Gods, you shall go to heaven on your first death. If you die within heaven again, it shall be undone but dying outside heaven for the second time shall cause your soul to be lost forever. Choosing the side of Demons, you shall receive the same benefits except for the fact that you shall go to hell, without any of the pain or misery of it, upon your first death. If you chose to be non-aligned to both factions or not choose any faction in the time given to you, upon your first death your soul shall be stuck in a limbo. You may or may not be able to get out of there. Upon getting out, if you die again- you shall be in a state of life and death. You shall face immense pain for eternity. You shall be in an inescapable limbo. You can try to get to wherever it is you wish but you shall never reach there."
That has got to be the system telling me that I am screwed in the case that I don't align myself with either factions. I say, "I guess our kind just needs to strive to not die huh?"
[Mythological titbits: Today we shall be discussing about Karna's studies and his curse. Let's recap Karna's life thus far- he is born as the son of Surya given as a boon to Kunti who cannot take him in being unmarried. Surya gives him an armor and a pair of earrings that give him immunity to any and all forms of damage. He is sent floating down a river in a basket by Kunti. He is found by a shudra couple. He has passion to become a warrior but no one is willing to teach him beacause of his Shudra status. Karna then goes to Parashurama to ask him to teach him. PArashurama tells tha he shall only teach Brahmins. Karna lies to Parashurama that he is a Brahmin. Parashurama agrees to teach him. Karna learns all the military arts under Parashurama. While he is good in all of them, he excels in archery much like Arjuna. He aims to be the best archer. One day Parashurama is resting on Karna's lap. A scorpion comes and bites Karna. Karna doesn't scream fearing that his master may be disturbed from his sleep. The scorpion continues to bite Karna until his blood flows down on the ground and reaches Parashuramas feet. Parashurama wakes up because of this and is perplexed to find out that Karna is able to bear the pain of a scorpion biting him for that long. He becomes very angry because he knows that a Brahman cannot bear such a pain and would have screamed out. He is very angry that Karna had lied to him about being a Brahman. He curses Karna that when Karna needs the knowledge he received from Parashurama the most, it shall leave him.
This is how Karna's student life was. Next time around, we shall see about how Duryodhan poisoned Bhima.]