Disclaimer: Kabali is owned by V Creations. Superstar Rajinikanth surpasses all feats of strength and skill seen in this fanfic, and is the best choice for Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in 2021. All those eligible should vote for him, as living under his benevolent rule would be a better option compared to being crushed under his might.
Abu Bakr Yusufzai, commander of Squadron 3 of the All-Bharat Freedom Army, was thoroughly enjoying the peace and quiet prevailing in his room. Lal and Piccolo had left before he'd woken up, Ram was at the warehouse, and Prakash was touring the city; Abu Bakr could call the room his. He was taking the opportunity to read a book, a Persian translation of one Abu Hajaar's treatise on whether Muhammad and his Companions knew how to manipulate ki. While the author conceded that such a feat could have explained the martial success of Muhammad and the Rashidun caliphs, he insisted that their success was due solely to Allah's will and that trying to explain away His Providence was heretical.
Abu Bakr had been meaning to read this book for a while, but he felt self-conscious about displaying his religion in front of his Hindu and Sikh comrades. To that end he stuck to a Brahmin vegetarian diet and only made wudu and prayed to Mecca when he was sure no one was looking. He supposed it was a lost cause; after all, how many Hindus were named Abu Bakr? But he believed his comrades appreciated him not shoving his faith in their faces.
This Patna trip was a chance for Abu Bakr to let his guard down a bit. There were some beautiful mosques in Patna left over from the Mughals, and later in the day he wanted to look at them. It was a shame they hadn't arrived by Friday. He resolved to find someplace that served beef for him to eat at lunch.
Just then, someone knocked on the door. Abu Bakr opened it, and Ram and Lal escorted in a tall, niqab-clad girl.
"Ram, why aren't you in the warehouse?" Abu Bakr asked.
A smile developed on Ram's face; Abu Bakr couldn't understand why. The Tamil said, "This is for you, jamadar!" and shoved the girl in his direction.
Abu Bakr sputtered as the girl stumbled onto him. "W-well Ram, I do like tall girls, but…," he said.
Stepping up to the Ram pulled the niqab's hood up and its veil down. "Magizhchi!"
Abu Bakr looked up to see a very confused Piccolo. "You-you aren't a woman!" Ram and Lal laughed like idiots.
Piccolo sat down on a bench. Not having anything down there, he couldn't really tell if he was a woman or not. It was too much effort to think. He lay down on the hard bench, his legs sprawling out, and closed his eyes.
"No, Pik, you can't sleep here. We have to get going ASAP," said Ram as he propped up the green man. Piccolo was incapable of sleeping, and even if he was capable several parts of his body hurt more than enough to keep him from dozing off. But Ram did have a point; lying down and doing absolutely nothing for several hours was right now an attractive proposition for the green man.
"Excuse me, why do we need to leave again?" Abu Bakr asked.
"Kovind's on to us," Ram said. "Lal, Pik, and I were having breakfast, and we found that some of Kovind's soldiers were about to search the warehouse for our hostage. We tried to get there first, but they chased us. We all split up to lose them, but they didn't pursue us for very long. Lal and I regrouped first, but Piccolo and the soldiers went right to the warehouse. They fought, and the soldiers found the hostage. We helped Piccolo defeat them, but their jamadar got away. He's going to gather Kovind's men and kill us." While he was talking, he fetched a pail of water for Piccolo, who immediately dunk his head in to drink.
"Did the hostage get away?" Abu Bakr asked.
"No, he died," said Ram. He carefully avoided mentioning that he himself had killed him.
Abu Bakr sighed. "As much as I regret the death of a fellow Indian, it's for the best that he's dead. If Kovind knew what we were doing here we'd have to abandon the mission."
"Mitesh wouldn't be too happy about that," Lal said.
"I assume Piccolo is in a niqab because of that little incident?" Abu Bakr asked rhetorically.
Ram said, "Yes, he's way too conspicuous. There are many humans and rhino-men in town, but none of whatever he is."
Abu Bakr said, "They'll check all the inns first. And the staff will know he's here with all of us. We really do need to leave... but first we need to find Prakash."
"Why, where is he?" Lal asked.
"Touring the city," Abu Bakr replied.
Ram facepalmed. "No problem, we'll just search the entire city for the one guy in our group who looks like everyone else in the city, all while being pursued by several hundred armed warriors who know what we look like. No problem."
Although his mind was still hazy, Piccolo had an idea. He stood up and said, "No one will find Prakash in Patna, right? We only need to worry once he comes back here and runs into the Kovind soldiers' stakeout. So we need to keep him from entering this building, and direct him to wherever our next hideout is."
Abu Bakr said, "Good, but how do we warn him before he falls into a trap? And where can we hide if the inns are all out?"
"I know a guy," Ram said. "His name is Man Fei-hsia. He might be out working right now, but I know where he lives."
"That's a good start," said Abu Bakr. "Let's send three of us there, and leave someone else on Prakash watch. Any volunteers?"
Piccolo replied first. "Can't be me; I'm too green for them not to notice, even with the niqab." Although he didn't mention it, he also wanted to get to safety as soon as possible to rest.
Ram said, "I'm the only one here who knows where Man lives, so I'll have to go with you too."
Lal said, "There aren't very many Pathans in Patna. I'll probably be the most inconspicuous one to stay."
Abu Bakr retorted, "I doubt there are many rhino-men in Patna either, and you're twice as tall as me too. I'll stay."
Lal and Abu Bakr played a game of rock-paper-scissors to decide. Abu Bakr picking paper and Lal picking scissors, Lal ended up on Prakash watch. Meanwhile, Ram and Piccolo packed up everything in the room into the five packs they had come from. After Ram wrote down the directions to Man's domicile, they all left the room.
A few minutes later, the three were at Man's door. It was wooden, and nailed to it was a plaque with his name in Devanagari, मान फ़ेश्या. Ram knocked. Then he knocked again. "Anyone there?" he asked loudly. Annoyedly, he knocked again.
"I don't think there's anyone in there," Abu Bakr said.
Ram said, "Well, we can't just sit out here like a bunch of disreputable women. Come with me; I know a better way."
The building Man lived in was a row of dozens of mud brick apartments facing the street. The bottom story was occupied by vendors and businesses, although many storefronts were boarded up and the rest had an air of uncleanliness. The second and third floors were accessible through stairs at both sides of the building and in the middle, and the stairs were connected by wooden balconies on the front of the building. All the apartments' front doors exited onto these balconies. From the other side of the street, the arrangement looked a lot like scaffolding. The back side, accessible through a side street, opened onto a fairly shabby courtyard shared with another apartment complex on the other side. Ram led the others into this courtyard.
"It doesn't look like these apartments have back doors," said Abu Bakr.
"No," Ram said, "But they have windows, and that's close enough."
Abu Bakr asked, "Ram, are you sure your friend will be fine with us coming in his house unannounced?"
Ram confidently dismissed his commander's doubts. "He will, I'm sure of it."
Piccolo looked at the back wall. It looked like it would be difficult to climb. There were no obvious handholds or footholds except for the windows, and the first floor didn't even have those, so it was a six-meter climb to the first window. Additionally, the windows were all shuttered, so they would have to be unlocked somehow to enter. "Maybe we should wait for him to get back," the green man said.
Abu Bakr spat on the ground. He took a long look at the wall, crouched down, and jumped the ten meters onto Man Fei-Hsia's windowsill. There he squatted, facing Ram and Piccolo. "Come on up!" he exclaimed.
Ram blushed. "I'm, I'm not sure I can jump that high," he admitted.
Piccolo could only stare. How was it possible for someone to jump so high? Was this the power of the ki in which his commander had been training him? If so, he needed to gain this power.
Like he could read the green man's mind, Abu Bakr said, "I'll have to teach you this sometime. For now, Ram, how about you grab onto Piccolo, so he can take my hands?"
They did, and Piccolo shot his arms up to grab Abu Bakr's hands. The Afghan dug his heels into the windowsill and leaned back onto the shutters, and Piccolo slowly retracted his arms. It hurt almost unbearably. To retract his arms Piccolo had to contract every muscle in his limbs until they were back at a normal length. His arms were so sore from his earlier fight that they ached even to flex. With just his own weight working against his arm retraction, the process would have been slow and painful. But with Ram on his back, and three packs to share between them, it was four times slower and ten times more agonizing. The green man was panting like a dog when he finally reached the top, and it took all his composure not to moan in front of the commander.
"Good work, Piccolo!" said Abu Bakr, prompting a grimacing smile from his complementee. He then asked, "Ram, this shutter is locked. Can you get into it?"
"On it," Ram said. He lifted up the slats of the shutter and stuck his hand in. Dextrously he wiggled his hand to the lock, confirming its position. He brought the lock up to the slats and, with a set of lockpicks and a bit of meddling, opened it.
Unfortunately, as Piccolo and Abu Bakr were leaning most of their body weights onto the shutters, those opened as soon as the lock did. With no warning, all three of them tumbled into Man Fei-Hsia's bedroom.
Fortunately, they tumbled not onto the floor but onto the chaiwalla's bed. The three got up and put their packs against the wall. Abu Bakr and Ram left to search the other rooms, but Piccolo stayed in the bedroom.
The apartment wasn't very large, but it was clean. There was only one other room in the house, a combination kitchen/dining room/shrine. It had a table with two chairs, a row of shelves festooned with food items, kitchenware, and wood, and a mud brick fire hole. In the northeast corner of the apartment (the door was on the north side) was a small shrine, separated from the door's immediate vicinity by a curtain. The shrine consisted of an image of Ganesh, a candle, an incense holder with a joss stick stuck in, and some other devotional objects. There were no people inside, at least for the moment. Ram went back to the bedroom. There, Piccolo was covering the bed, his arms stretched out enough to touch the floor on both sides.
"Piccolo, what are you doing?" Ram asked.
"This bed is so soft... I could just stay here and never get up," Piccolo said.
"It's just a normal old straw bed," Ram said, as he touched the mattress to confirm. "Have you never slept in a bed before?"
"No, I don't think so," Piccolo admitted.
"Weird..." Ram commented. He lingered in the bedroom, not having anything else to do.
Piccolo asked, "Do you think Man will let me rest here?"
"There's a phrase for that," Ram said, "It's called, 'abusing hospitality'."
"Fine..." said Piccolo. Then they both heard the sound of an opening door, and of a screaming woman. Piccolo's arms snapped back to their normal length, and he and Ram rushed into the front room. There they saw a flustered Abu Bakr, holding a clearly terrified woman and covering her mouth with his hand. The woman was fairly attractive, and was wearing a faded sari. Her screams were muffled by Abu Bakr's hand, but could still be clearly heard.
Ram shouted, "That's his wife! Let go of her!"
Reluctantly, Abu Bakr took his hand off of her mouth. The screaming got much louder, and Abu Bakr closed the door with his foot. "I'm sorry for the trouble, miss," he said. The screaming subsided.
"Ram, you never said Man had a wife," Abu Bakr said.
"You never asked," Ram said.
"Who are you people?" Man's wife asked, still terrified.
Abu Bakr pointed to himself and Piccolo. "The green man and I are friends of Ram. We're visiting town and we wish to stay for the night. Can we?"
"Who's Ram?" the woman asked.
"You don't know who I am?" Ram asked.
"No, s-sir," Man's wife stuttered.
"I'm a friend of Man's," Ram said. "From his old career."
"You mean you're a spice merchant too?" the lady asked.
"No...," Ram said.
Abu Bakr pleaded, "This is an awkward situation. Can you let us stay here until your husband arrives? We should be able to clear this up with him."
The woman hesitated. "Yes, yes," she said. "Now can you please let go of me?"
Abu Bakr obliged, although he kept himself between her and the exit. He didn't want her to warn the authorities, which in this city meant Kovind. Man's wife ran into the bedroom, and slammed the door behind her.
For the next few hours, Piccolo, Ram, and Abu Bakr waited in the apartment's front room. They tried to retrieve their packs from the bedroom, but the door was either locked or barred. As the sun grew higher, Piccolo began to feel better, but Ram and Abu Bakr grew desperately bored. Fortunately, by noon Man Fei-Hsia had arrived.
As soon as the door opened, Ram was up to greet his old friend. But his greeting was cut off by Man. "What are you doing in my home?"
"We're in a bit of a grind and…" Ram said.
Man interrupted, "Yes, I've heard, you're wanted by Kovind dead or alive!"
"And we'd like to stay at your place until we can get going. One night; that's all," Ram continued.
"And why did you just go and beat up one of Kovind's jamadars like that? Don't you have a brain?" Man seethed.
Abu Bakr jutted in. "Actually, Piccolo was the one who beat him up." He pointed to the green man.
Man angrily pointed at Abu Bakr. "Who are you?" Then he pointed to Piccolo. "And what the hell are you?"
Piccolo was getting distinctly uncomfortable. Who he was, he felt he had the answer to. He was Piccolo. But what he was, he didn't know. He didn't even know whether he was a man or a woman, or something else entirely. He answered the best he could. "I'm a raakshas in the service of Abu Bakr," he said, pointing to the man.
"So, are you in the service of this ass too?" Man asked Ram.
"I wouldn't call him that, but yes," Ram said.
"So are you who told Ram and 'Piccolo' to go around beating up Kovind's soldiers?" Man asked Abu Bakr.
"I did no such thing," said Abu Bakr. He steeled himself. "But I'd gladly have Kovind, all of his soldiers, and every other wretched Company collaborator in the country beat up if I could!"
"So you've gone rebel now?" Man asked Ram quietly.
"Yes, I am," the Tamil admitted.
"One question. Why are you throwing your life away?" Man asked. The question was directed at Ram, but it could just as easily apply to all of them. So they all answered.
"Because the company is the center of evil in this country, and a good man must always struggle against evil," said Abu Bakr.
"If I wasn't fighting against them, I'd have to fight for them. That just pisses me off," Piccolo said.
"… It's something I can't not do. And who's to say we we'll die? Tyrants always do fall," Ram said.
"Yes, and new tyrants always rise to take their place," Man said. "After all the competing militaries send the country to hell, of course," he added.
"We can do better than that," Abu Bakr said softly.
Man said, "Of course the Afghan would say that. Whenever tyrants fall, you always come in to be the new ones. The Mughals, the Rohillas… and so many more. The company people aren't that bad compared to yours."
"I'm an Indian first and an Afghan second," Abu Bakr said irately.
"Nothing good can come out of more foreigners toppling the ones we already have in charge," Man insisted.
"Big talk. You're much more foreign than him!" Piccolo said.
"Yes. I'm from Awadh, by Allah! What makes you think you can lecture me about being a foreign invader, chinky?" Abu Bakr asked.
"I haven't been here for too long, but I don't make trouble, or seek it out. That's all you do," he said, waving his finger between the three. "I live like a Patnan, I eat like a Patnan. I married a local girl, and I even worship her gods." He pointed to the shrine. "Maybe you do that too. I don't know of any Pashtun Hindus, but you could be the first. Because I also don't know your life story. But I do know what the difference is between you and myself. I help out people here who are hungry, or homeless, or who have other problems. But, in helping, I stay within the bounds of normal, civilized life. That's what you don't do, because you want to tear down all the boundaries just to get at the parts you don't like."
A long silence followed. Piccolo thought on his speech. His boundaries, as a raakshas, were limited to fighting in the company's battalions or hiding in the mountains where no recruiters could find him. When his bounds were restricted so much, he didn't really have much of a choice on whether to break them.
"Man, we're still friends, right?" Ram asked.
"We've known each other too long not to be. Yes," Man said.
"If you don't let us stay with you tonight, we could die," Ram said.
"Fine. Stay," Man said. He stormed off to his bedroom and, finding it locked, sulked by the door. "Is there anything else you want from me?" he asked. There was a long silence. Abu Bakr, Ram, and Piccolo did all want 'something else' from him, but it felt distinctly awkward to ask for it. Finally, Abu Bakr spoke out.
"Lunch would be nice," he said.
Man Fei-Hsia coaxed his wife out of the bedroom, and with her made lunch for his guests. It was good food, chicken curry on naan bread. Although he didn't draw attention to it, Man was bringing out his best ingredients for the meal. An hour later, Lal and Prakash arrived. Shortly afterwards, Man left to attend to his tea stand. The afternoon passed without incident, and dinner was another fantastic meal. They all went to sleep full and satisfied, Man and his wife (whose name they'd learned was Priyanka) in their bed and Squadron C in the sleeping bags they unfolded in the front room. The exception was the unsleeping Piccolo, who lay down on his bedroll prepared for eight hours of complete boredom.
How wrong he was.