The Inseparable Princes

84. The Kid Does It Again!

All that was seen, if one wasn't close enough to Lakshmana and Atikaya, was a rain of arrows. It was like arrows were making up the world at the moment, seemingly woven into each other, before the fell downwards, killing demon and monkey soldiers alike. The duel had barely begun, Lakshmana had just twanged his bowstring, and Atikaya had roared, before they began to attack each other with their deadly arrows.

Atikaya had asked for this. He had gone before Rama, after slicing off the trees that were being thrown at him, and spoken some haughty words, claiming that he was stronger than Rama, and that he could easily defeat him. He had also challenged any able warrior to come and fight him because he didn't fight the "incapable" ones. And so, Lakshmana had walked out, his bow held up, strung and ready, and his quiver filled as it always was with the best of arrows.

A known fact as it was, the demons liked to brag even after witnessing the best of attacks, and predictably, Atikaya was no different. "Go back! You are just a boy, Lakshman!" yelled Atikaya, even after all those arrows that had been shot by the "boy" into his flesh. Lakshmana raised a brow and turned away for a millisecond with a tiny chuckle.

"I'm not a boy, Atikaya. I can see that you're clearly growing old. I can see it in the 'Oh, you're a little boy!' type language, and in the fact that you can't see very clearly." said Lakshmana, his blazing eyes narrowed, as Atikaya, once again, very predicatbly, yelled angrily, before deciding to go with his initial plan.

"I can send you to Yama in few moments! Why do you want to get yourself killed? Look at the weapons in my arsenal, and you will shudder at the thought of it. You will have nightmares about the Astras that I own. Why do you want to bring so much trouble upon yourself just before you can die at my hands?" he said, very smartly as he thought, before Lakshmana shattered all his imagination.

"You know, Atikaya, I've said this to every demon I've ever had to fight against, but bragging about yourself is not going to give you victory. If you really are as great as you think you are, why don't you let your weapons do the talking? No, you want to talk all day long, singing laurels, praising your own self. That is what a coward does, Atikaya, and each one of you have proven to me that you are all cowards." said Lakshmana rather calmly.

Atikaya did not have an answer to the reasonable words of Lakshmana, and so, he decided to obey the "boy" and he picked up his bow and placed an arrow on it, before shooting it towards Lakshmana. However, before it could even reach close enough to Lakshmana to be able to harm him, the son of Sumitra had shot an arrow adorned with a crescent shaped arrowhead, and it, as was expected, split the arrow against it into two perfect halves. The "boy" had aimed it perfectly, and that showed Atikaya some of his skill.

Atikaya, however, was going to believe in one thing forever; he was the best. He thought that he needed to believe that he was the best, and that he could kill anybody who tried to fight him. He thought a lot of things. Not all of them were true. Atikaya drew out a few arrows from one of his twenty quivers, and placed them on his massive, golden coloured bow instantly, before releasing the in the air, as the arrows seemed to swivel magically in the air as they came closer to their target, Lakshmana. But before they could actually reach him, Lakshmana struck those arrows down with just as many. Not a single arrow had escaped.

Now Lakshmana knew that he was going to take the aggressive route, something he was best at. Defence was something that never was the thing he enjoyed most. He loved to be the one to anger the opponents, to shoot the most hazardous of arrows at them, to stab the sword into every limb of theirs so that they would be weakened, before he could kill them. He just somehow liked to kill his enemies most brutally. And why not? His enemies were always those who had hurt innocent people in the worst possible way.