DIVINE CHAMPIONS 3: THE RISE OF THE ELEMENTALIST

MAN GOTTA DO WHAT HE GOTTA DO

"Is he gonna be okay?" Aitri asked Rick, sitting beside her with a binocular. "We are at a football game, Rick." Aitri cracked at him, "It's a small ground. And Rish ain't small."

"You know he is cheating, right?" Rick said, with a wry smile.

"What do you mean?"

"He is using his divine strength to win the trophy."

"You should have seen him work out in the gym. It was in no way easy for him." Aitri said, with a dreamy look. As the final year had drawn near, Rishi had totally concentrated to build up muscle mass to get into the football team before leaving. He was doing well, given all that Norse godly strength and stamina, and was selected in the team as a defender, just as he wanted. 

"I saw him, Aitri." Rick said, "He was in my gym."

"Why did you not let him join a professional trainer?"

"Because, he lifted a hundred kilos without breaking a sweat. I don't believe that a guy does that and a trainer doesn't ask him questions about that weird strength."

As the match started, Aitri went to a flashback, on how everything had happened for them to get here.

About a year and half back, Rick had taken Rishi on a vacation to Iceland. Rishi went there, but what came back was a divine champion, or so the boys called themselves nowadays. Rishi had been chosen as Thor's champion, representative of the sky. He was asked to fight the evils of his own hometown. A year and half back, the town of Pankhpur was as different as night and day. Girls were cursed here, with terrible human faced monsters roaming the town. Soul breakers, life clinchers, all on effect of drugs, supplied by the most dangerous man in town, Vihaan Chaudhry. Rishi, the lean and lanky college kid was asked to fight that guy.

But this Rishi was a different person. He was divinely strong and powerful, and superbly confident, a reason that had attracted Aitri towards him. He always was confident, though a little nervous at times. But now, you should see him. Thor had transformed that lean and lanky college kid into a powerful warrior, an assassin of the evil.

Rishi had started slow, but was living upto the adjective above. Any soul breaker about to harass any girl in town, Rishi stomped them. As it had gone on, Rishi was deemed the Savior of Pankhpur. He did enjoy this Batman like status. But someone didn't like it. Aitri herself had been terribly affected. She had lost her brother to that hatred, and had been kidnapped, as a result of that hatred. But the assassin of the evil had destroyed all evil, having reached the full manifestation of his power, he had punched Vihaan to death, and saved Pankhpur. While the town quickly changed, moving from darkness to light, people still never got to know their Savior.

Rishi, though, had been outspoken about his supernatural side. Aitri had gotten to know much earlier, right on their first date. Rick had already known. His parents knew. Her parents knew, and literally everyone around them knew.

About five months later, another shocker arrived. Rick was chosen as the second champion of the lot, by love and witch goddess Freya. This time, the work was tougher, as the bigger picture appeared. This time, it was not one single town, rather, the whole world that needed saving. Aitri, courtesy of her relationship with Rishi, had stepped into the Norse world, and had now, met Thor, and Freya. She knew the danger the world was in, from a supernatural front. Some evil giant wanted to go against destinies, and was wanting to bring an apocalypse himself, and was progressing well. Rishi and Rick had combined once again, and travelled to Norway, and managed to thwart his plan, for now.

A year had passed. While Rick was swiftly running his company, the Sarkar Enterprises, Rishi had landed himself a job there, with aim of getting himself some experience, and also to stay in Pankhpur, with all the supernatural stuff going on. Aitri was now a PhD student, in Microbiology,  as she had always wanted. And her constant visits to labs, experiments, writing papers had her so jammed that she couldn't see her boyfriend much. Only little weekend getaways were the consolations.

Rick's company had another great thing in Aitri's life; her old bestie Meghna, or as Aitri had always called her, Maggie. Meghna was Rick's PA, and Aitri was pretty sure Rick had a thing for her. Over the years, she had gotten close to the multi-millionaire kid, whom she had not paid much attention to when she had first moved to town. She only had ever paid attention to Rishi because of their common housing area. However, it hadn't taken long for them to become friends. Aitri was lucky that way. She made friends easily. 

Anyway. So, Norway had returned a much changed Rishi. He seemed very upset that he had been taken down quite easily by Gullveig, or whatever her name was that the guys fought there. Rishi hadn't taken that well. He had always liked to play sport. Rick had said that he used to play football in school, before getting into college. So, when it was announced that Pankhpur was hosting an inter-city football tournament, Rishi decided to get in shape, and enlist his name. He worked hard for months, and got into the team. Aitri possibly couldn't recognize the skinny guy who had nervously asked her out a year and a half ago. Now, he was so muscled, so buff. He believed that these muscles would provide him extra strength over his already supernatural Thor-ish strength.

However, football was not one of Rishi's strength. Despite his valiant efforts to stop opponent attackers with his physicality, Rishi's positioning (that's what Rick said) was so bad that his team lost, terribly. Rishi went into the locker room, his head held low. When he came out with his kit bag, wearing a tracksuit, he seemed agitated. Perhaps seeing Aitri and Rick eased him off a little, so he gave them a little smile, before going back to that agitated face again. "5 goals!" He exclaimed, "How embarrassing!"

"Football has never been your game, buddy." Rick said, "Why don't you accept that?"

"I know, I know." Rishi said, "I just thought..."

"That now that you got strength, you might as well settle the score, avenge that school game?"

"Yeah. Man gotta do what he gotta do. But, apparently, not my thing."

Back in school, Rishi had saved a ball with his hand, and lost his team the game at the last moment. Since then, he had never played football. Aitri held Rishi's hand tightly, and said, "Well, you did what you could. Now that this is off the list, what's with Thor? Isn't the time approaching? Any news from the big guy?"

"No." Rishi put his arm around Aitri, "And I am least interested right now. It's your birthday tomorrow! And I am interested in a party."