The first one to wake up the next day was Lal, who saw Piccolo at the table reading a pamphlet illuminated by a candle. He gestured for the rhino-man to come, so Lal took a seat at the bench next to him.

"Surprised to see you up so early. I thought I was the lightest sleeper out of all of us for sure." He arched his back against the back of the bench and yawned.

"Well, I don't sleep, so…."

"Oh, how could I forget," Lal said dully.

"Listen," Piccolo said. He had spent most of the night rehearsing this talk in his head. "I was thinking about last night, and, well… I didn't really have a good reason either time I hit Prakash. I just felt like doing it, and then it happened. Can you forgive me?"

"Sure, sure," Lal said absentmindedly. He stretched his jaw and neck. "So, what's that you're reading there? Didn't know you could read."

"This is Abu Bakr's dossier," Piccolo said. "And no, I can't read. I'm just looking at the maps, some of the sketches. Do you think you can help?"

Lal furrowed his eyebrows. "I can read Urdu, but not Hindi. Might be able to piece together some words, though." He examined the map. "So we're here," he pointed to an intersection near the edge of the city, "the warehouse should be about here," he pointed to an intersection further west, "and this," he pointed to a point on the western edge of the city, "is where the weapons drop is, possibly."

"Why maybe?"

Lal pointed to a legend. "The dot on the map is green. Green is for 'us', red is for Kovind, black is for other. The address next to the dot shows up a few times in the dossier, and none of the other green addresses show up except in this section that seems to be just a general description of all the marked points."

Piccolo made a noise between a disinterested snort and an interrogative grunt.

Lal peered at the map and brought it close to his snout. "There's quite a few Kovind buildings between the warehouse and the destination. Waaawwwwnder what we'll do about that." His eyelids drooped with the second sentence, and he walked to the door. "I'm going downstairs, see if there's breakfast. I think I saw a sign last night about one."

"I'll go with you, might as well," said Piccolo.

The two went down to the bottom floor of the coaching inn. No one was manning the bar downstairs, and there turned out not to be any breakfast-related signs, so Lal and Piccolo decided to find another place to get food. As the sun was not yet risen, open businesses were few and far between in Patna. Who was up at the time? None but dangerous gangsters, hooligans, and dangerous hooligan gangs. Of course, Lal and Piccolo were in the dangerous criminal type themselves, so they didn't take the city's snub too harshly. Eventually they found their breakfast, at a tea-and-fruit stall some blocks west. The chaiwala was another of the super-early riser types. He had only one eye, and a beard that looked like it had been trimmed by a deranged lumberjack. He definitely wasn't native to Bihar; he looked more East Asian. Aside from the tea, Lal brought two mangos and an onion, and Piccolo brought a banana.

They sat down on a bench next to the vendor and dug in. A few minutes later, a man wearing a long cloak greeted the vendor loudly in a foreign language, laughed along with him for almost a minute, and brought a pomegranate and a coil of rope. He walked to Lal and Piccolo's bench and took a seat. As he turned to face them, it became apparent that the man was Ram.

"So… What are you doing here?" Lal asked.

Ram said, "I could ask the same of you!"

Piccolo replied tersely, "Just having some breakfast."

"Oh, so you don't know China Man?"

"Who?" asked Lal.

"Y'know, the vendor. We're old friends. His real name is Man Fei-Hsia. Ring a bell?"

"No, we just came for the fruit," said Piccolo.

Ram blinked. "Ah. Small world after all, it seems. I was down to get some silk rope. The prisoner was complaining about the hemp rubbing down their wrists."

"That's considerate of you, but why would you come to a tea stand for rope…" Lal asked.

"China Man's very reliable," Ram said as if that explained everything that had happened in the last few weeks and the next month as well.

Lal adopted a tone of equal exasperation and confusion. "Well, uh, how is the prisoner doing?"

"Oh, he's fine. Before I left he threatened to have Kovind string me up by my right ankle for a day, disembowel me, force feed me my intestines, and then cover me in honey and leave my abdominal cavity open so biting insects will... eat me or… hatch in me… or something. And at some point in there he'd have me drawn and quartered, but I honestly can't see where that would fit in."

"Sounds gruesome," Piccolo said.

"Yeah, but he promised me he wouldn't do the intestines thing if I got the silk ropes."

Lal's eyes opened, and he recoiled in his seat. He put his arm in front of Ram and Piccolo's chests and pointed at seven red-turbaned men (including one dog-man) in front of the tea-and-fruit stand. In the stand, a scowling Man appeared to be in deep negotiations over a basket of mangoes.

Ram saw the men first, and shivered. A group of seven men, all wearing red turbans, could only be Kovind's soldiers/thugs. Piccolo noticed them soon after Ram did, and immediately began trying to look as small and inconspicuous as a 2-meter tall green man could. The bartering continued until the mangoes were bought. Then some small talk began, although Piccolo and Lal still couldn't understand it because it was in Magahi. Ram, who did understand, turned almost-pale.

The Tamil mercenary whispered to his comrades in Hindustani, "They're going to a warehouse."

"It could be any warehouse," Lal said hopefully.

The conversation continued. "They're looking for a guy who disappeared yesterday," Ram whispered.

Piccolo sighed. "So it's our guy."

"Come on, let's beat them there," said Ram. He got up and left in the direction of the warehouse.

Piccolo and Lal put their fruit in a bag and followed him. Shortly afterwards the talking died down at the fruit stand, and Kovind's thugs started along the same path. They advanced in a single line, taking up the whole street. The man in the center seemed to be their leader; he wore a yellow Skinners' Horse coat and cummerbund which clashed with his red turban. Halting for a moment, they all drew tulwar from their clothes. "Freeze!" the leader commanded in Hindustani.

"Run!" said Ram. As they did, Kovind's men charged. Lal, finding himself in the back, turned left into an alleyway; two thugs followed him. Piccolo turned right into another side street shortly afterwards, and Ram climbed onto a roof to avoid the three of Kovind's men that hadn't went to chase the others.

Piccolo quickly turned another corner to escape the two thugs' sight. He hid behind a convenient wooden pallet, looking at the intersection through the slits. When Kovind's men got there, he lifted the pallet and pushed as hard as he could. Extending his arms, he slammed the first man into a wall on the other side of the street. The waves of compression in his arms as the pallet met the wall, their relief as the pallet snapped in two on the thug's face, to Piccolo they were caused a pleasant feeling not unlike what he had after finishing morning calisthenics. He tossed away the split pallet and squared up against the remaining Kovind soldier.

The soldier brandished his tulwar in front of him and took a stance. Piccolo tried to knock the sword out of his hand by extending his left hand, but he sidestepped and slashed the green man's wrist. Fortunately for Piccolo, while the gash stung, thanks to his protective ki it wasn't deep enough to impede the functioning of his hand. The green man carefully advanced towards the soldier. When he was almost close enough for him to hit without extending his arms, the soldier made a wide slash to keep Piccolo away. The green man stepped away from the blade and, on the backswing, shot out an arm to take the thug's wrist. Tightening his grip, Piccolo stepped into the thug's stance and elbowed him in the face. The pain made the thug scream and stagger, and Piccolo capitalized on the advantage by throwing him to the ground. Finally, he took the sword from the unconscious Kovind soldier's hand. It had some nicks in it, and it was slightly unbalanced to the left, but it would do. Tucking it into his belt, he took a look around.

The neighborhood had been woken up by the scuffle, and several humans and demihumans were looking out various windows. The soldier he'd just dealt with seemed to still be alright for an unconscious person, but the first one was oozing blood onto the street from a skull wound. Piccolo checked his pulse; the man was dead. The green man grimaced. Does this count as a kill I had to do? Abu Bakr wouldn't be happy if it wasn't. I'll just have to hope he doesn't come by here. Piccolo ran off for the warehouse.

Unfortunately, the streets were winding and immensely hard to navigate for someone like Piccolo who wasn't acquainted with the city. He leapt onto the roof of a house, drawing awe from the respectable citizenry. From there he scaled a taller house and surveyed the city. Against the now-rising sun he could see the Takht Sri Patna Sahib, the Sikh holy site. From there he scanned the riverfront buildings to the west until he found what looked like the right building. He wasn't very far from the warehouse, but there wasn't a path on the rooftops as some wide streets lay in between his position and there. He ran across a few roofs, climbed back down to street level, and a few minutes later was at the warehouse. The human-sized door was closed, but a large, splintery hole showed itself in the wagon entrance.

Piccolo tried the human door first, but it didn't budge. He went to the hole in the cart entrance and peeked in. There was no one visible, although the rows of shelving concealed most of the room. Piccolo ducked through the hole, still keeping an eye on the entrances to the aisles of shelves. The stairs to the second floor were in the middle of the other side of the warehouse; an aisle a few to the left led straight to them. But the exit of that aisle would be the perfect trap. Instead, Piccolo clung to the wall. He turned right, then left, then left again, checking around every corner and in every aisle for ambushes. Finding none, Piccolo climbed the stairs.

The second floor consisted of a large room occupied by long, tall rows of crates and barrels. This room was connected to several smaller rooms, some of which had a door and some of which did not. The hostage room, if Piccolo recalled correctly, had a door and was on the left side of the room. He snuck to the edge of the leftmost row of crates and looked around the corner. Exiting a room were six men in red turbans. Piccolo hid behind the crates before peeking again. One of the men was definitely the prisoner, and another was the yellow coat guy. The men fanned out, four including the ex-prisoner in the front and two including Yellow Coat in the back. The group started to move forwards.

Piccolo took a deep breath. According to Ram, Kovind did have at least a few ki-users in his army. They might be some in this group, or there might not be. But if the prisoner told Kovind about their plans, the entire mission could go down the tubes. Piccolo grit his teeth. This was supposed to be an easy mission, practically training for them. Where had it gone wrong? Looking back, the mistake was leaving the prisoner in the warehouse. They should have known that someone would go looking for him, and that this was one of the first places they'd look! It would have been much better to kill the prisoner and dispose of the body, like he'd wanted, or to take him to their inn room, like Prakash had wanted. By compromising, Abu Bakr had picked the worst possible option. Piccolo made a mental note to apologize to Prakash.

Finished with his train of thought, Piccolo turned his attention towards defeating Kovind's men. He ran to the center of the aisle across from the room the prisoners had been held in and gave the stacked crates a sharp kick, sending them tumbling down on the men in the back. Piccolo jumped over the toppled barrier and hit another red turban with an arm-stretching cobra punch.

Three down, three to go.

Piccolo jabbed with his left, crossed with his right, hooked with his left again, and sent another man flying into a wall with a roundhouse to the tricep. I hit him higher than I wanted to. Probably because I've been sparring with Lal.

Four down, two to go.

The last rescuer standing and the ex-prisoner took stances. The rescuer took a wide stance, holding a tulwar out in front of him, and the prisoner took a semi-wide stance with one arm in front and another at his hip. Piccolo furrowed his eyelids and drew his own tulwar. He screamed and wildly slashed at the ex-prisoner. His efforts ripped a gash in the man's chest, but it was too shallow to prevent the ex-prisoner from grabbing the green man's sword arm by the wrist and sleeve and yanking it down. Piccolo pivoted clockwise and struck his opponent's right arm with his palm, then grabbed his left wrist and forced both of his grips loose. As he stepped back, three feet of steel flashed in front of his face. The green man pivoted to see the swordsman winding up for another swing. He hacked and slashed into the air, but Piccolo ducked deep under his swings. He received a low kick from the ex-prisoner to the chest, stabbed at him to force him back, and backwards somersaulted out of range. Piccolo shuffled back a few more meters, but the two men held their positions and went back into their stances.

Abu Bakr had a saying about fighting more than one person. The saying was that, while theoretically fighting multiple people should be incredibly difficult even with a protective ki aura, most fighters trained to fight alone and would try to fight alone even if numbers were on their side. A group needed to have special training to truly gang up on someone. Evidently, his opponents did. Too bad for me. The pile of crates strewn on the floor shook, and the two men that had been under them rose. Even worse.

The two rising men, Yellow Coat and the dog-man, brandished tulwar in front of them, in order to keep the green man away while they recovered. Piccolo shook his arms. If they grouped up they would be too hard to take on; if they rushed him it would be difficult to escape or to defend. He would have to prevent the four men from coming together. He gulped. Maybe he could wait for Lal and Ram, but they might not be coming. And then he would have needed their help, to use them to solve his own problems. Piccolo roared and charged the two men who were still getting up.

The first man in his path was the dog-man. Piccolo hacked into his shoulder and kicked his body back several meters. The green man jabbed Yellow Coat in the shin and raised his tulwar over his head, but as he struck, his blade was stopped by Yellow Coat's hand. The sword jerked and dropped out of his hand. Piccolo saw Yellow Coat toss the sword up in the air and grab it at the hilt. The man stared into Piccolo's eyes. Even though blood leaked down the left side of his face and stained his black hair red, he looked more offended than outraged.

"Could you please explain why you attacked the forces of Kovind?" the man asked in Hindustani.

Piccolo spit. "None of your business."

"Let's clarify things. I am Jai Imam, first jamadar of Kovind. So I'd say it is my business. And I can make you agree." He put the sword to Piccolo's neck and gently pressed the blade against it. Piccolo focused some of his ki in his neck to nudge the sword away.

"So that's how it is, huh? Well, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. It seems like every punk like you has a trick or two up his sleeve nowadays." Jai put more force on the sword. The blade paled; if the room wasn't already lit up a faint glow would have been visible. "As do I." A trickle of purple ran down Piccolo's shirt.

Piccolo swerved his head away from the sword, then under. He head-butted the swordsman, but he hooked his arms underneath Piccolo's armpits and pushed back, dropping the tulwar in the process. Piccolo struggled to escape, but Jai dragged his torso up and crouched to go for his left leg. Piccolo sprawled, dropped an elbow on his opponent's back, and wrapped his arms around his neck and armpit, but a foot collided with the green man's hip and knocked him down.

Jai stood up, followed shortly by Piccolo. Jai turned to face the kicker, the ex-prisoner. "This is my fight. Stay out. He is an amateur; I can beat him on my own," he said.

Piccolo snorted. "If I'm such an amateur, how am I doing so well?"

Jai shrugged. "You're quite strong, although I'd guess that's mostly natural strength from being a Raakshas."

"Spare me the flattery."

"Okay," Jai said with a smirk. He punched Piccolo in the face. The green man saw red for a moment, then came back to his senses. He put his hands up and got in a boxing stance. Piccolo blocked a jab with his right and a cross with his left, but a hook slammed into his ear. Piccolo lightly jabbed at his enemy's right hand, then slammed his own right at Jai's face. The yellow coat staggered back for a moment, but quickly regained his composure.

Jai was a ki user, just like Ram had warned about. That meant he could take hits very well, and dish then out. Additionally, he was a skilled martial artist. What were his weaknesses? For one, he was shorter than Piccolo, so he had a shorter reach. But his shortness could be an advantage, too, in some scenarios. He would have to keep Jai at at a distance. Out of the corner of his eye, Piccolo could see Jai, also plotting something. Piccolo shot out his arm to punch him in the stomach. It wasn't too hard a hit, but it was sufficient to get Jai's attention and disrupt his thoughts.

For the next few minutes, Piccolo and Jai exchanged blows. Although Jai dodged most of his punches, Piccolo largely succeeded in keeping him at range. Occasionally he would get close enough to lay a few blows, but then Piccolo would push-kick or move back until they were back at range. While Jai put most of his ki in his head and only a little in his arms, Piccolo kept almost all he could access in his fists. Because of his height, Piccolo couldn't really hit anything below Jai's head, and Jai could land body shots easily. But with one ki-powered haymaker to the nose after another, Jai started to obviously wear down. His ki field was weakening and his reactions were slowing. Feeling confident, Piccolo shifted his ki to his right leg and executed one final roundhouse kick.

Jai caught it. He shoved Piccolo's leg behind him, forcing the green man to show his back, which he hit with a roundhouse kick. Piccolo kept himself from falling over, but by the time he had righted himself Jai had closed in. He began with a flying knee to Piccolo's stomach, then an elbow to his cheek, a fist to his gut, another knee to his side. Piccolo could barely move without another blow to a soft spot. He spread his ki throughout his body and quickly drew back. Jai moved forward, but as he moved and pressed his attack, his form degraded. Piccolo lunged through a horizontal elbow to grab his leg. He lifted it up, gave Jai a few shoves to destabilize his position, then threw him to the ground. The two fighters went down together; after some struggle Piccolo was on top.

"I'll get him off of you, jamadar!" a soldier yelled. He brandished his tulwar in Piccolo's direction. The green man flinched.

Taking full advantage, Jai wrapped his legs around Piccolo's and trapped the green man. Then he pulled his right arm to his own right, shoved his head to the left, and twisted to put his own left leg on Piccolo's head. Putting all his ki in his hips, he pushed Piccolo's elbow in the way it wasn't supposed to go.

Piccolo put his ki in his arm to resist Jai's armbar, but he was in a terrible position and it was all he could do to keep his arm intact. Fortunately, at that moment Ram and Lal chose to enter the scene. The one soldier left crumpled under a flying kick to his back, and the ex-prisoner was taken out by a heavy punch to the side of his head. Ram and Lal drew their swords, and Jai began untangling himself from Piccolo. Jai made for Piccolo's tulwar, but Piccolo shot out his arm to grab it before he could. Jai took a fighting stance, but seeing Ram and Lal close in on him and Piccolo begin to stand up, he fled.

As the yellow-coated soldier started running, Ram slashed his back, tearing his uniform and drawing several droplets of blood. The hit was too light to stop him, however. The next slash missed and Jai took a running jump out of the window.

Piccolo, Ram, and Lal rushed to the window. From there they saw Jai, shaking his fist at them. "Fuck you! I'll get everyone else, and I'll kill you later!" he shouted. Then he took off.

Ram and Lal took a look at the corridor and the five bodies within. "Did you do all of this?" Ram asked, slightly impressed. He quickly slit the ex-prisoner's throat. "Reincarnate as a damn silkworm, you idiot."

"Yes," Piccolo panted. As the adrenaline wore off, he was starting to feel the effects of the battle. He was tired, thirsty, and soaking wet, his right elbow hurt to move, his wrist was bleeding all over his hand, his entire upper body was sore, he was bleeding from his cheek, and there were several bruises forming on his stomach and chest.

"Nice," Lal said. Ram made to finish off another unconscious Kovind thug, but Lal stopped him. "Let them live. They don't know anything."

"Maybe, but we're screwed. Kovind will know we're here now," Piccolo moaned.

"Yeah, we might as well go back to Uttarakhand while we still have legs to run with our tails in between," Lal muttered.

"Don't be so negative," Ram said. Piccolo and Lal looked at him like he had three eyes.

Ram explained, "Alright, it's bad, but we can still pull things through. We just have to keep him from knowing where we actually are until tomorrow evening when we can deliver the goods and skedaddle. And the first step is to get back to Abu Bakr and Prakash and inform them, so we can make a plan to do that."

"As long as we can get there without them noticing us," Piccolo said.

"It shouldn't be hard; it'll take a while for them to get their men out and about," Ram said. "But still, you're quite conspicuous... stay right here!" he commanded.

"What are you doing?" Lal asked.

Ram didn't respond. In only a few minutes, he found a roll of black cloth and cut a large piece off. Using his sword, he fashioned it into a niqab, which he draped onto Piccolo.

"This looks ridiculous," the green man complained.

"It'll keep people from noticing you." Ram sniggered. "Just watch yourself around Abu Bakr, you're his type!"

Piccolo, Ram, and Lal quickly left the building. Going by side streets, they soon arrived at their inn.

Author's Note: Given everybody's generally low power levels and the Earth's limited knowledge of ki manipulation, fighting skill is currently more important than ki strength, and will be for a while. However, if King Cold were to survey the power levels in Patna with his scouter, he would find these levels among the characters.

Piccolo: 30

Jai: 25

Ram: 25

Lal: 20

Abu Bakr: 40

Prakash: 30

Average Kovind Soldier: 8-10