'Here's a deal, don't ask me to dance, and if you're free tomorrow, I'll treat you to dinner any place you like.'
A brave offer since he had heard she came from a pretty rich family, but he hoped that she would not ask for the Taj. And if she did, what the hell, Aaditya was feeling happy and reckless enough.
Before she could answer, someone stumbled into Aaditya, sending his phone flying on to the grass.
'What the…'
Before he could complete his sentence, he looked up to see a very large man, dressed in black. Aaditya could not make out many of his features, except that the face was black as the night. Figuring that this did not look like the kind of man to get into a tangle with and not wanting any trouble, he got up and moved out of the man's way to pick up his phone.
That was when he heard the scream.
***
The scream that pierced the night was high-pitched and shrill, but the moaning that followed left no doubt that it was from a person in utter agony. The man who had just bumped into Aaditya raced towards the sound, moving at a speed faster than Aaditya would have believed someone his size capable of.
Not wanting to get caught up in it, Aaditya started to turn towards the lake and make his way back to the gate, which was a few hundred metres away. That was when he saw a struggle in the distance. He could not see too many details in the dark, but what was obvious was that a large figure, likely the man who had just bumped into him, was grappling with a much smaller person. The long hair made it obvious that she was a woman.
Aaditya never liked getting into fights.
Walking away was not an option, not when it looked like there was a woman in trouble. However, Aaditya had every intention of settling this with little or no fighting. He figured it was a local goon who was taking advantage of the darkness and the secluded location to get frisky with a woman. Most likely he would just scoot when he saw that there was someone else there.
Aaditya rushed towards them. With his leg, he could no longer sprint like he once did in school, but he moved as fast as he could. When he was closer, he saw a man sprawled on the ground, but the other man and the woman were still locked in a struggle.
'Let her go!' He screamed at the top of his voice, and the man turned to look at him. Aaditya was now close enough to see the man more clearly. He was huge, at least a few inches taller than Aaditya and much broader across the chest and shoulders. His forehead seemed to have a prominent ridge above the eyebrows. As Aaditya paused, wondering what that could be, the woman struck.
She was small, perhaps no more than five feet six inches and thin, almost waiflike, but she struck with a speed and precision that shocked Aaditya. Her hand snaked out and hit the large man on the neck, sending him down in a heap, grabbing at his neck and gurgling in agony.
Aaditya stopped in his tracks.
What the hell had he got into?
The woman looked at him for an instant, and he could now see her long, flowing hair, cascading down to her waist. She was wearing a fitting white suit, similar to what divers wore. But what struck him the most was her face. Her eyes were blazing as if on fire, and she had a dark red smear running down the middle of her forehead. Even though she was much smaller than him, Aaditya felt truly afraid as her eyes bore through him.
He was about to back off, when four more men suddenly appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. They looked to be carbon copies of the one the woman had already dispatched-large, well built, and dressed in black. Two of them took out curved blades and lunged at the woman. Aaditya wasn't sure what to do, the woman certainly looked like she could take care of herself, yet he didn't want to just walk away, leaving her facing these four new attackers. His choice was made for him when one of the men saw him and rushed at him.
Aaditya was in great physical shape, having been an athlete for most of his school years, and had a Brown Belt in Karate to boot. As his attacker came closer and reached out to grab Aaditya, he side-stepped, took the man's wrist, and using the larger man's momentum against him, sent him sprawling to the ground. Aaditya turned to see that the woman had sent one attacker down, but was now trading blows with her other attacker, a blade in her own hand. The two of them moved in a deadly rhythm, circling each other, looking for an opening, striking and blocking with lightning speed. Aaditya would have kept watching, but he now had big problems of his own. Two big problems.
Two men, including the one he had sent down, were now running towards him. As tough as he thought he was, he wasn't sure he could take on both of these giants, and not having any way of backing off now, he decided to use surprise to his advantage and struck first. His feet couldn't move as fast as they once could, and he certainly was limited in his ability to kick, but he moved towards the nearer man, and landed a series of two quick punches- one to the solar plexus that winded the big man, and as he doubled over, a second blow to the temple that sent the man staggering back. Aaditya had put most of his strength into the blows and was shocked when the man stood up a split second later and grinned at him, baring a mouth full of yellowed and deformed teeth.
The second man struck out at Aaditya with a punch. He saw it coming and blocked it, his right hand coming down in an arc to deflect the momentum of the man's blow, and followed through with a kick to the shin. The blow jarred Aaditya's right leg and sent pain shooting through his body, but the metal and carbon fibre artificial leg did much more damage than his real leg would ever have. The man grabbed his shin and staggered down on one knee. Before Aaditya could do anything else, total pandemonium erupted around him.
He felt a gust of wind blow around him, and sand being blown across his face, before he heard the humming noise behind him. It was no louder than a vacuum cleaner, but when he turned to look, he saw a large flying vehicle land just next to the lake. He could not make out too many details in the dark, but it was easily as large as a fighter jet, and seemed to be white in colour. It had a raised canopy, and a nose that was split and curved upwards, like a bull's horns. As the vehicle landed on the sand, the canopy slid open, and a man jumped out.
He was tall, perhaps as tall as the four men in black Aaditya and the woman had been grappling with, but while they looked like gym-buffed bodybuilders, this man was all lean muscle. He wore a striped bodysuit, and as he came closer, Aaditya thought they looked like tiger stripes. His hair was matted, almost in dreadlocks and he carried what looked like a small trident in his hand.
If the woman had looked like she could dish out violence, this newcomer took it to a whole new level. He rolled on the ground, evading a blow from one attacker and casually slashed him in the back with the trident, sending him down, and even before he had fully gotten up from the roll, he had implanted the trident in another man's stomach. In no more than a couple of seconds, he had killed or maimed two of the giants, and stood facing the remaining two, a smile playing at the edges of his mouth.
'Want to dance, dear daityas?'
The two men rushed at him, blades glistening in the dark. The woman intercepted one, sliding on the ground, her legs wrapping around his, sending him down as she gracefully rolled on to one knee, and brought her blade down in one smooth move. When Aaditya looked up, he saw that the last man in black was also down, lying at the feet of the man with matted hair. He felt a surge of panic as the man walked towards him now, bloodied trident in hand, but the woman came between them, gently shaking her head. The two of them entered the flying vehicle and in an instant, it had taken off and disappeared from view.
Aaditya moved to a corner of the grounds and slumped behind a fallen oak tree. Getting into the odd scrape in school was one thing. The violence he had witnessed was of a totally different nature. Sitting there among six dead or dying men, he fumbled for his phone, wondering if he should call the police.
What would he tell them? How could he explain what he had just witnessed? That was when he saw the glowing cylinder lying a few feet away from him. He picked it up gingerly and was about to take a closer look when he heard another flying vehicle approach. It was a different ship, black in colour and shaped like a saucer. One of the men writhing on the ground seemed to be in contact with the pilot and said, presumably into some communication system, 'They got away. We need help.'
