Ashtabhuj: Advent

The Preparation

At an undisclosed location in jungles of Himachal Pradesh a villa was illuminated with light deep inside the snow covered jungle. Inside there were five individuals, three men and two women, sitting on sofas in the living room of the villa as wood in the fireplace burnt.

"Two new recruits, isn't it?"

"You know it."

The man who asked the question was around sixty five years in age, well built with a beard and a hald head he wore a suit. The woman who replied to him was a a stocky lady in her late fifties wearing a gown.

"When will he learn?" The bald man in suit said.

"You know that he is incorrigible, Rajan," The woman said.

The other three sat and listened to their exchange. A lanky, sharp nosed thin man in his late 40s, a man in his early 50s and the woman who was thin with a sharp nose in her late 40s. The stocky lady was Natasha Kumar, the bald man was Rajan Mackenzie, the owner of Mackenzie-Brown Corporation. The man with the sharp nose was Sharad Singh, a politician, businessman and philanthropist from Indraprastha city, the man in his early 50s was Dushyant Chopra CEO and owner of BrightLight Industries, and the woman in her late 40s was Sumona Dey the chancellor of Riverford University.

"Bhattacharya needs to be taught a lesson," said Dey.

"All in due time," said Natasha Kumar.

"We all know what our priorities are," said Rajan Mackenzie. "We killed Balraj and here he is with two more."

"Balraj was tough to kill, all of those trained by Bhattacharya are," said Sharad Singh.

"The problem with Bhattacharya and company is that he has no masters and we despite being better than him in every respect, have masters whom we are answerable to," said Macheznzie.

"But you know that he has friends all over the world," said Dushyant Chopra.

"So do we," said Natasha Kumar. "He is not as strong as us, it's just that he and his band doesn't give up. We have the whole system with us, it's just that we can't go all out on him as that would wake people up."

"What are our occultists doing?" asks Sumona looking at Natasha.

"They are reaching somewhere," said Natasha. "They have been working, and if everything goes well, we would have so much power that we would easily crush Bhattacharya and company."

"What about the relics?" Asked Dushyant Chopra.

"We have different teams all over India and abroad working on acquiring them. You know that there are a lot of them. Bhattacharya depends on his small group of people to acquire them, and we have more people at our disposal to acquiring them," said Natasha.

"Bhattacharya always locates relics before us, and we despite having so much resources at our disposal fail to locate them before him. That's one reason to not to destroy him before we accumulate enough relics," said Mackenzie looking at the group.

"It was Balraj that located Shershah Suri's ring in Patna, isn't it, and then died protecting it, that bastard was hard to kill," said Sharad Singh.

"We have the ring and now we are locating Humayun's dagger, it is somewhere near Lucknow but we don't know the pinpoint location," said Natasha.

"Wait for Bhattacharya to locate it, we have access to their minds, we know what they think, how hard is it going to be?" said Dushyant Chopra.

Mackenzie looks at Dushyant, "You know how hard it is, it's not a joke, he and his group of idiots are tough, and he selects toughest of the lot. You might not have access to our minds but he has access to minds of other people, and his selection of people is impeccable, that idealistic bastard.".

In Kalpa it was almost the break of dawn. Jay woke up and sat on his bed. It was a whole new life and he had some revelations in the last few days. The first day he was pranked by the members of Ashtabhuj who kept him in dark about what was to be done. They acted secretive and suspicious until next day when Naaz said it was nothing like that. But what he came across was strange still. He was about to be part of a group that hunted relics in parts of India and the world, and they had to do it before their adversaries did it. He knew that there was one more guy as new as him in the campus, and that his name was Vedant. He was going to be trained for being his handler. He asked whether all of them had handlers, and they said no, it was strange that it was only him that had a handler, but he ascribed it to being new to the group. He had visited Building 9, where Vedant would visit today. When he had visited Building 9 he was made to wear a helmet and training modules were downloaded in his head. Vedant would go through the same process today, but unlike Vedant he would have to go through physical training as well as his job was mostly field work, he had to work with others to locate and acquire relics in different part of the country and the world. As much as he was told, these relics contained power that made the ones who possessed then powerful and they had to be acquired first by the university to prevent them from falling into wrong hands.

Jay looked out the window of his room. It has started snowing. Prithvi, Naaz, Sukhbir, Vinayak and Carol lived in the manner, while Dr. Rajesh and Sharanya came just to eat and mostly remained outside. They had their own flats in the university in addition to rooms in the manor. Sharanya had said that she would bring Vedant at the manor in the evening when the training module is downloaded in his head. He has been feeling great since the the training module was downloaded in his brain. Imagine having the knowledge of millions of books downloaded into your head without you ever reading them. Imagine thinking about something and that information popping up into your head effortlessly, that's what it felt like, it felt great, and that would happen to Vedant today. Sharanya had told him that he was chosen by the professor for two purposes, to be his handler and to fight against the adversary at the psychic level. He could access Vedant's file in his head, but he didn't want to make preconceived notions about him. He wanted to meet him. He was waiting eagerly for the evening to come.

It was 9:15 in the morning. Vedant was sitting on a chair in the lab in Building 9 wearing what looked like a helmet. He had met Prithvi briefly when he arrived, just basic introductions, and then he was made to sit on a chair.

Dr. Sharanya was standing in front of a large screen. "We will begin the download process when you are ready, Vedant," said Dr. Sharanya.

"I'm ready," said Vedant.

Dr. Rajesh and Prithvi looked at the large screen. Dr. Sharanya pressed a button on a keyboard and Vedant drifted into sleep.

He woke up and looked at the clock in the lab. It was 5:15 in the evening exactly eight hours since he slept off on the chair.

Dr. Sharanya who was sitting on a chair besides him got up and came to him. "How are you feeling Vedant?" She asked.

Vedant thought for a bit and felt a rush of information in his head like never before. There was no headache, no paranoia, no feeling like the Antichrist. There was a lightness in his head.

"To tell you the truth doctor, I have never felt better," he said to Sharanya. Dr. Rajesh and Prithvi smiled at his answer and so did Sharanya.

Prithvi comes to Vedant. "It's now time to meet your new friend. Get up and come with me," Prithvi said removing the helmet thing from the head of Vedant. Vedant gets up.

"Go and meet Jay, I and Sharanya have some work to do in the lab, we will meet you later," said Dr. Rajesh.

Vedant got out of Building 9 with Prithvi and hopped on Prithvi's cruiser on with him. Prithvi started the bike and rode towards the manor.

At the manor, Naaz, Sukhbir, Vinayak Carol and Dinesh were waiting for Vedant. Jay was in his room.

Naaz heard the sound of Prithvi's cruiser and told Dinesh to go and call Jay. Dinesh darted. As soon as Jay reached in the hall, he saw Prithvi and a young man entering the hall. Naaz welcomed them and they all sat on the sofas in the hall. Naaz introduced Vedant to everyone, and at last to Jay who then got up shook hands with Vedant. Vedant had kind eyes as Jay had noticed. To Vedant Jay looked like a tough but friendly person. Naaz asked Dinesh to bring tea for everyone. Vedant was about to stay the evening in the manor getting to know everyone. Jay decided to wait till the last to have conversation with Vedant.