Rise of a superhero

 

• FLOOD DAY

 

Nothing is impossible for God and He was proving that yet again by causing it to rain all over the world. The day was called flood day. The great king Zhukov smiled when he looked at the drops of rain falling on the petals. He turned to his chief commander. “Release the hunter cats and their riders. It’s time to own the power I missed.”

 

And thus the hunter cats and their riders roamed the planet for their lord’s objective.

 

On the flood day, the new-born baby smiled instead of crying as he looked at his mother and father. The onlookers were perplexed by this sight.

 

******

 

 

• IN MILLENIUM

 

The officer paused, taking in a deep breath of carbon dioxide, and gazed at the sky with wonder in his eyes.

 

“What the hell is that?”

 

2nd officer: “What sir?”

 

Officer: “Look at the sky. That’s a blue ring, isn’t it?” The officer pointed his finger towards the sky.

 

2nd officer: “Yeah, is that a fighter jet?”

 

Officer: “No idea. Let’s revert this to the control room.”

 

2nd officer: “Yes, sir.”

 

The senior police officer pulled out a wireless phone from a holder attached on his belt and spoke into it. “Hello, control room? It’s the NGP check post. An unidentified blue ring was spotted amongst the clouds. It was moving too fast. It vanished from sight before anything could be confirmed. Over.”

 

Control room: “Copy that. We got the signal but the object is yet to be identified. But it’s headed north.”

 

******

“Hello, it’s NGP control room. An unidentified object is moving towards the capital,” the voice crackled out of the speakers placed in all the other control rooms, causing eyebrows to rise in confusion and curiosity. The antennas turned squeakily on their hinges to pick up the signal.

 

******

“Keep your eyes on the screen till the antennas spot that blue ring. Don’t miss this chance, guys. All right? Let’s see what’s happening here.” The scientist passed by the aisles of monitoring systems, giving his team a pep talk.

 

 

******

 

The sound of the plane landing in the runway woke Raezh from his slumber inside his taxi. Disoriented, he looked at his digital watch. “It’s 5.45 p.m. already!” Raezh murmured to himself. The flight from Imphal to Delhi had just landed. Raezh got out of his taxi and headed towards the arrival gate to pick up the incoming passengers.

 

“Taxi, sir? Taxi?” He ran from one passenger to another, trying to lure them. But there was too much competition among the taxi drivers to let Raezh make a catch that easily.

 

“Excuse me?” Raezh turned back on hearing the voice.

 

“Hello, I’m here.” The voice was coming from the opposite side of the taxi.

 

“Yes,” Raezh replied, walking towards the taxi.

 

“Shall we move?” the passenger asked.

 

Raezh nodded. “Of course!”

 

Both of them got into the taxi and Raezh started the engine happily.

 

“Thanks, sir. How was your journey?” Raezh started a conversation with the passenger who had taken the passenger seat in the front.

 

“Nice. But why are you thanking me?” The passenger asked Raezh, a bit surprised.

 

“Actually I…I was desperately waiting to pick up a passenger. So thank you.”'

 

“Why are you looking for passengers? They benefit you any?”

 

Raezh was shocked by the question. “For money of course; money to survive.”

 

“Not bad. But I haven’t any money, bro!” The answer was absolutely casual.

 

Immediately, Raezh stepped on the brake and brought the taxi to a halt. “Excuse me, could you please get off my taxi right now?”

 

The man’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What!”

 

“I said get out of my taxi. Right now!” Raezh shouted, pointing his finger at the door.

 

“Okay okay okay. I’m getting out.”

 

Raezh helped him to open the door and the man got down. Raezh was frustrated by such an unexpected incident. “What a creature!” he murmured to himself.

 

“Excuse me,” the passenger was talking to Raezh through the window. “Can I get a temporary job somewhere close? I’m new in this city so I don’t know anybody here. If you help me get a job then I can pay you your fare.” The man sounded sincere.

 

Raezh looked right into the strange man’s eyes and replied scathingly, “Hello, Mr Newcomer. If there was any job vacancy in this city then I would never have done this job. Do you get it? Can you please leave me alone now?”

 

The man smiled in a placating way and retreated. “I mean you are from this city. You should have friends, relatives, and neighbours. They might have some job to offer me…” He stopped on seeing the glowering look on Raezh’s face and stepped on to the road, and started walking.

 

Raezh started the engine again and looked at his watch. It was past 6 p.m. so he didn’t want to go back to the airport. Instead, he watched in some amazement at the stranger in the side view mirror. The stranger was empty-handed—no bags, no luggage, no nothing. Raezh sat taking stock of the man. He was six-and-a-half feet tall. He was in blue jeans and a black jacket over a grey T-shirt. He was wearing old shoes. Raezh realized that even when he had thrown the man out of the taxi he hadn’t looked tensed. Raezh wondered how a penniless man like him could get on a plane. But soon Raezh shrugged off such stray thoughts and put his taxi into drive again.

 

******

 

Darkness was spreading but it was dissipated by the bright city lights, except in some shady empty streets and corners of the city. The markets and the pavements were getting crowded.

 

“Wow! She is quite beautiful, isn’t she?”

 

“Yep. What is she doing here?”

 

“I don’t know but I never expected such a visit.”

 

A gang of six men were checking out a girl on the road. She had a milky white complexion and shiny hair. She looked like a fairy in her white dress. She was looking around excitedly and when her eyes fell on the men she smiled at them cutely.

 

“Hey, she is smiling!”

 

They approached the girl and one of them greeted her politely. “Hi Ma’am. May I help you?”

 

But the girl smiled in reply and kept walking. The men looked at each other in surprise and started following her. “Hey, excuse me. What’s your name, miss? What are you looking for?”

 

She just kept walking without paying them any attention.

 

“I think she is deaf. Shall we force her do us a favour?”

 

“Favour? You also want a favour? Not a good idea.”

 

“What’s wrong? I don’t want to miss such a golden chance.”

 

The girl was confused and alarmed as the men kept following her. The half moon was the only witness to the whole scene in that dark night. Suddenly the leaves lying on the ground were ruffled by a gust of wind. She turned north and the men followed suit.

 

Suddenly a man appeared in front of the stalkers. He was bent on one knee and was propped up on one hand that touched the ground. He was wearing a blue and black costume and half of his face was hidden behind a mask. His blue eyes shone through the slits in his mask. He scanned the wary-looking men before him and rose slowly from the ground.

 

All the men stepped back and looked at the strange man in front of them. One of the eldest among them stepped forward. “What are you, man?”

 

“Your father. Now go back home. The sun has gone down, son.” His voice was filled with a cool menace.

 

“Of course, you better go home before papa kicks your ass. Look at his eyes.” One of the stalkers laughed raucously. “Bloody blue eyes!”

 

The blue-eyed man had work with the girl so he kept quiet, letting the threat sink into the minds of the stalkers so that they would leave peacefully.

 

The stalkers were not going to give in so fast. One of them raised their voice bravely. “What do you want? Who are you? A magician? How did you reach here so fast?”

 

“I don’t have the time to answer you guys. I have some business with her.” The blue-eyed man walked towards the girl.

 

The confused girl looked scared now.

 

Suddenly the stalkers bounded in front of the girl, shielding her from the blue-eyed man. “Oho ho! Mr-Blue Eyes has very little demand,” one of them taunted. “You know, I like your attitude but I can’t take it right now. Go back to your loft.”

 

“I don’t like to repeat myself.” The blue-eyed man stepped towards the stalkers and they grabbed his hand.

 

“Really?” The blue-eyed man raised his eyebrow in condescension. In a blinding fast move the blue-eyed man leaned back a bit and whammed his fist into the face of a stalker. The entire gang now tried to jump over the blue-eyed man but the latter was undefeatable.

 

But in the meantime the girl had vanished from the spot. The blue-eyed man looked for her here and there but there was no sign of her. His blue eyes shone eerily in anger. He walked and ran along the street but to no avail. Suddenly he stopped and spiraled on the spot at a dizzying speed. The motion caused the man to become a circular, blue blur.

 

In no time he was to be seen atop a building where he stood scanning the roads for hours.

 

******

 

Inside a city bar:

 

Person 1: “I think you are off. Stop drinking, man.”

 

Person 2: No, believe me. One hit from that guy and I was kissing the ground, man. Ask Jiten. We were there together.”

 

The two men raised their voices to get Jiten’s attention but the latter was busy with his girlfriend and he didn’t like the interruption..

 

Jiten: “I can’t talk now.”

 

Person 2: “Come on, man. It’s urgent.”

 

Jiten: “Wait, I’ll be back, darling.”

 

Jiten kissed his girlfriend a short goodbye and joined his friends. “What’s the matter?”

 

Person 2: “Please tell everyone about the blue-eyed man.”

 

Jiten: “I’m very bad in explaining things, man. But it all happened in front of our eyes. By the way, boss, why should we lie?”

 

Boss: “All right. But anything specific about that man?”

 

“Yes, blue eyes!” they both said in a single breath.

 

Boss: “Shut up! Most of the Europeans, western and even middle-east people have blue eyes and it’s not difficult to change the eye colour nowadays. There are contact lenses available for that very purpose. Maybe it was one such man with training in martial arts.”

 

Person 2: “But you better not neglect this.”

 

Jiten: “Yes, he wasn’t ordinary,” Jiten supported his friend.

 

Boss: “Okay, we will find him out anyhow. Relax now.”

 

The boss of the D-Shooter gang downed his last peg and left the bar. Thus the small meeting came to an end for the night.

 

******

“Raezh, aren’t you going for work today?” Jobin enquired loudly from the road.

 

“Yes, bro,” Raezh replied his friend and then hollered at his mother in the same breath, “What’s the time now, mom?”

 

“Quarter past eight.” It was his younger sister, Retika who replied instead of his mother. Retika was a B.Sc. final year student.

 

“Raezh, are you going to memorise the newspaper?” his mother enquired from the kitchen. But there was no reply so she changed the topic herself. ”Retika, don’t forget to clean the drawing room before you leave.”

 

“Your tone suggests that I don’t do this very job daily.” Retika sounded miffed as she shot back at her mother.

 

“I just tried to remind you, honey.”

 

“I’m still young, mom. Perhaps you forgot that.”

 

Their mother giggled. “I know and may God bless you with a long life, my dear. But now please get to work.”

 

Retika smiled and got down to work.

 

“Where is Jobin?” Raezh asked suddenly.

 

Retika stopped wiping and replied, “He is gone. I think he has a date.”

 

“Really? But how do you know this? Did he tell you?”

 

“Nope! He just looked like a guy going out on a date.”

 

Raezh wasn't happy with her answer. “Shut up! You are always at dating and chatting!”

 

“When did you see me dating and chatting?” Retika asked heatedly.

 

“I asked you to shut your mouth, all right?”

 

“No, not all right. You shut up first.”

 

“Could you both please stop?” their mom broke up their argument as usual.

 

After breakfast, Raezh got into his taxi and shouted, “Retika, do you want a lift?”

 

“Yes. Yes. Wait. I’m coming.”

 

“Hurry up, girl.”

 

She rushed outside with a hand bag swinging from her right shoulder and got into the taxi. The taxi crossed the gate and rolled on to the road.

 

Raezh suddenly saw something on the road and stepped on the brakes.

 

“What’s wrong? Why did you stop the car? I’m almost late,” Retika whined.

 

“Wait.” Raezh called out through the taxi window. “Hey, new comer. Do you have any job now?”

 

The man from yesterday was sitting alone on the road. He shook his head and slowly stood up and walked towards the taxi. “Can you help me?” he requested.

 

“But I don’t have the right job for you,” Raezh hastily backtracked.

 

“No, no. Not job. I’m very hungry. I’d be grateful if you could give me something to eat right now.”

 

Raezh looked at Retika once and then turned towards him. “Sure I can give you something to eat. Get in please.”

 

The stranger got into the taxi and Raezh started the taxi again. “By the way, what is your name, buddy?”

 

“Edex,” he replied.

 

“Nice name.”

 

“Yeah, my father named me.”

 

“So what does your father do?” Raezh asked further.

 

“Unfortunately my father passed away a few days ago.” Edex sounded sad.

 

“I’m really sorry about that.”

 

“It’s okay. He was actually the king of Imphal,” Edex said casually.

 

“What! Are you serious?” Raezh asked incredulously.

 

“Yeah. Why should I joke about this?”

 

Retika shot her brother a warning look and Raezh realized that he was crossing his limits. He felt silent instantly. Now Edex started questioning Raezh and the latter introduced himself and his sister.

 

“Where are you going now?” Edex wanted to know.

 

“I’m going to drop my sister off first. Then I’ll join work. Why?”

 

Edex asked enthusiastically, “What about my food and job then?”

 

Raezh smiled. “I can give you food but I can’t assure you a job.”

 

“Can’t you even try?”

 

“Sure. Mmm…well, what kind of a job do you want?”

 

“I’m willing to do any kind of job but on one condition.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“I need a job so that I can afford daily meals. I don’t need to make savings. I just need a job where I’ll be paid daily.”

 

They discussed about prospective jobs in the taxi all the way to Retika’s college. Raezh dropped off Retika in front of her college and started back for his home.

 

When Raezh came home, the sound of the taxi alerted her mother. She peeped out of the first floor window. “Raezh, what happened? Won’t you go for work today?”

 

“Yes, I will. But come down once. We have a guest today.”

 

When she came down Raezh introduced her to Edex. Then he followed her into the kitchen after inviting Edex to sit on the sofa where he spent his time watching the beautiful wall paintings in the drawing room. Soon mother and son came out of the kitchen with some homemade food and served Edex.

 

“Come on buddy, have a seat please.” Raezh pointed at a chair placed around the dining table. Edex quickly took his place at the dining table and tucked into the food eagerly. Raezh and his mother looked at the poor boy sympathetically. Taking a break in between gobbling the food, he enquired, “Why are you standing? Won’t you eat too?”

 

Raezh smiled and replied, “No, I had my breakfast earlier. You please carry on.”

 

“Is this your house?” Edex enquired.

 

“Yes.”

 

“You have a big house then why are you running around for money?”

 

Raezh looked at his mother who smiled at this childlike question.

 

“For earning our daily bread, just like you want to. Actually, you know, this house was built by my grandfather. He was a great businessman but my dad couldn’t run the business for long and even I couldn’t support my dad.” Raezh sounded sad.

 

“What about your father?” Edex probed further.

 

“Passed away two years ago.”

 

“I’m sorry about that.”

 

“It’s okay.”

 

After Edex finished his breakfast, he and Reazh took their seats on the sofa and continued their conversation. Raezh’s mother went back to her own work.

 

“Well, you said your father was a king and he died a week ago…” Raezh left his words hanging there.

 

“Yes.”

 

“But I have never heard about any of the kings’ in Imphal or any deaths recently!”

 

“But how would you know about it from here?”

 

“Through the media like…”

 

“Like?”

 

“Like the newspapers and news channels on the TV.”

 

“That’s cool. So who gives you the news?”

 

“News reporters.”

 

“Oh! But what about my job?”

 

“I know. Let me look into it.”

 

“Yeah, if I don’t get a job then I will keep coming to your house daily for food.”

 

“Seriously?” Raezh was taken aback by Edex’s plan.

 

“Yeah, you know, hunger is my weakness.” Both of them laughed at the bitterness of this universal truth.

 

“All right. I think you need to get some idea about this city now.” Raezh went on to assure his new friend, “Then we’ll see about your job.”

 

******

 

Days, weeks, and months passed. Edex started working as a taxi driver. He was driving the taxi that belonged to one of Raezh’s friends who had a MBA degree. When he got a job abroad he handed his taxi over to Edex before leaving the country since by then Edex had managed to gain his trust completely. Edex also learnt a lot about city life. He was staying in a rented apartment having rejected Raezh’s invitation to stay in his home.

 

******

 

Inside the heart of the city, dozens of riffle men were standing guard around the castle. Expensive cars were driving through the gate one by one and then coming to a halt after going around the winding driveway. People then got off the cars and entered inside the castle in ones or twos.

 

Inside the castle there was a big hall where around thirty men and women, all in the age group of twenty to sixty, were gathered. They were all facing a man in white. This man was the all-powerful Deyswan, founder of the D-Shooter gang.

 

When all the gathered people started talking at once and the ensuing din became loud Deyswan raised his hand to restore silence. When he spoke his voice echoed around the hall, “Has anybody seen him? Face-to-face, I mean.”

 

A middle-aged man raised his hand. “Yes D.B. (Deyswan Boss), just a week ago my men and I were unloading weapons in the south port. Suddenly we saw a blue ring approaching us in speed. I thought it might be the police or the army. And we opened fired. When our bullets broke through the blue blur it hit the man but it would have been better to shoot at metals for all the good it did. And in the fight that ensued he injured eight of my men.”

 

D.B. shouted, “Stop! Just answer my question.”

 

“Yes, D.B. I saw him.”

 

D.B. asked, “How does he look like?”

 

“Blue eyes, half of the face covered in a mask, and he can rotate in a blurring speed. That’s it, D.B.”

 

“Any other identification?”

 

“Nothing. We just call him blue eyes.”

 

D.B. looked at all the faces around him, worried. He exhaled loudly. “Well, we have suffered a lot of losses because of him. We can’t ignore him now. I want everyone to keep a lookout for him. We need to stop him for once and for all. I want direct reports on all his attacks and his movements. I expect no mistakes on this count.”

 

Everyone nodded and soon the meeting was dismissed.

 

Deyswan was one of the youngest dons in the city. He started his career as a contract killer and a sniper. Politicians and businessmen used him to eliminate their enemies as

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 21.08.2015
ISBN: 978-3-7396-1031-3

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