An Upgraded Soul

Aditya looked at his hand which was holding a stone with shock and awe. Although he had expected that he would be proficient in throwing stones like Basketball, speculating a theory and experiencing practically was very different.

Even now Aditya was not sure that he was doing the right thing by intervening in these gang wars. He did not want to act but two reasons kept him from 'not' acting. One was that he got the basic gist of the story of what happened between the woman's gang and the others. He felt that the woman's gang were better placed morally, also Aditya's young blood boiled when he saw that Taarini was backstabbed by the very person for whom she had come alone. This sort of betrayal really could not be digested by Aditya's world view where friendship with trust, loyalty were the epitome of all principles that he adhered to.

The other reason was that Aditya was brought up in a pretty conservative way under the influence of his father who was brought up in rural hinterland area of India. Urban concepts like feminism and women equality were not prevalent yet during his father's generation. So, according to his father women were delicate like blooming flowers which needed to be protected and cared for.

Aditya had suffered multiple times in his childhood because of his father's thinking process. Whenever the neighbour girls or his female classmates came to his home, Aditya was forced to adjust at every step. Whatever the girl demanded like his toys or favourite snacks, they were given immediately without even asking for his opinion. Whenever he raised a ruckus about this, his father's reply was always consistent, 'they are girls'.

Taking this as granted, those girls would always complain about Aditya whenever he argued with them when they broke game rules. For example, when they played a business game, in the end when Aditya was going to collect all the money and conquer everything, that neighbour girl would pout and call his father with watery eyes. that's it, his father would take Aditya's paper money and give it to the girl. When those girls went to the park to play, Aditya was sent as their bodyguard. So, Aditya was used to this unfair treatment. Sometimes he wondered if it would have been better if he was born a girl.

So according to Aditya's psyche, he couldn't just ignore a woman getting hurt while knowing that he had the capability to help. If Aditya was just a normal teenager, he could ignore all this with a clear consciousness but the fact was he was not normal anymore at least since the last two weeks. So he could only clench his teeth and get ready for his life's first 'real' fight. His advantage was the darkness, long-range attacking skill, a big pile of gravel at his disposal.

He hoped that only the leader had a firearm and not the underlings, he would escape if any other person took a gun out. So, his first target was the hand holding the gun. Aditya just tossed the gravel stone into the air twice before his body got the gist of the stone weight, shape, trajectory, required force and style of throwing. All these factors were calculated just by tossing the stone once into the air, the whole process was natural as if closing your eyes when you sneeze.

As expected, the first shot itself was a success. Aditya was excited, he felt as if liquid adrenaline had been injected into his bloodstream, his body trembled with both fear and expectation. Just then, he found an interesting target, Aditya had been dazzled by the gold teeth of the person called 'Flame Tiger' which was sparkling as it reflected the construction lights. He wanted to see if he could hit small targets also accurately. When he, Aditya, willed it and tossed the next stone into the air as he saw Flame Tiger cursing in pain and turning towards his direction.

At that moment Aditya had not only calculated the stone trajectory but he had also analyzed the body movement, facial movement, the speed of Flaming Tiger, it was almost like 'prediction', he had figured out the position the gold tooth would reach when the stone thrown by him reached the target. So, he threw the stone at high speed after he had combined both calculations instinctively.

Then beyond all expectations of Aditya, the stone really hit the root spot of the gold tooth which he had planned to hit. Aditya could feel a fire raging in his heart when he saw that he had hit the target. He became more confident. There was some 25 meters distance between him and the gang, so he made sure that he would escape when any member got within 10 meters distance. He knew he was no fighter, if Bhadra was here, he might have tackled with two to three of these people. Aditya's thin physique never allowed any fanciful whims, like fighting a big group single-handedly, to enter his heart since he was a kid.

Aditya smirked as he grabbed a handful of stones with his left hand as he thought all kinds of s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e spots of a human body to target. Nose and mouth would painful but not critical if these guys did not know good from bad, he did not mind targetting eyes and crotch.

"Bastards, why are you all staring at me? Get that f**cker, I want to peel his skin today." Flame tiger roared at his subordinates with red eyes. One could not figure out whether it was due to pain or rage.

Crack!

Before the other men could move, a stone smashed into a nose of one of the men as fell down holding his bleeding nose. Shivers ran through the gang at the damage done by each and every stone. Usually, stones were not considered as a deadly weapon which could inflict fatal wounds. Unless many people cornered a man and stoned him multiple times from all angles, death by stones was rare.

"idiots, use something to block those stones, there are wooden planks lying over there, each one of you pick them up and defend yourself. don't you remember that dubbed English movie '300' we saw last Sunday, in that, the army uses shields to block themselves from arrows, you do the same." Flame tiger spat saliva mixed with blood as he g.r.o.a.n.e.d with pain.

"I only watched that movie for s.e.x scenes," a member muttered as he scratched his head to look at what the other members were doing. Some men picked up wooden planks and kept them before there body and started to move towards the dark corner where Aditya was situated. Flame tiger thought that even if these thugs couldn't catch the culprit, they could at least cover him.

Aditya saw these people using wooden planks and sneered. It was a pity these wooden planks had to be held in place by holding them in the sides. These planks did not have handles which shields possess to protect their hands. He could clearly see exposed fingers from the sides of planks.

"let's get this woman out of here first, I doubt these dumb bastards can play any useful role, they can do nothing but drink and roll around every day." Flame tiger bent down to hold Taarini who was still moving in a muddled fashion.

A shriek was heard as a gangster fell down catching his right hand with his left one, the nail of his middle finger was ripped off from the skin layer due to the stone injury. When Flame tiger thought that he was safe, a larger than average stone took a small arc from above the height of his subordinates and hit his right ear. The stone had a sharp edge which cut his ear pinna pretty deep. The shock of the impact sent Flame tiger into a similar state like Taarini. Flame tiger suddenly didn't know left from right as he fell directly beside Taarini.

The people who were holding the wooden planks found their fingers being smashed and their nails ripped. Aditya had heard that pulling out nails was a part of interrogative techniques used by the military on terrorists. So, he tried if he could achieve that with his stones. Whichever person had a slightly grown nail which stood out from skin became his target as he hit exactly at the junction of nail and skin with his stones. These men were not your regular groomed men to maintain small nail sizes. So, he had plenty of targets. Aditya specifically targeted the man called Rana who had betrayed Taarini and hit her from the back. He felt this person was more despicable than the others.

The men were furious at the start, their rage only grew with more injuries as they tried to push towards Aditya but after getting hit multiple times, their rage was replaced with caution. After some time their caution was replaced with fear which later at the end transformed to terror. They felt that the, their lives were totally in the control of that god of death. Horror grew in their heart as they thought if this god of death aimed at their head and other critical spots.

Just as they thought of it, a blood-curdling scream sounded which even caused the addled Flame tiger to regain some focus. Rana had fallen holding his crotch with both his hands as he writhed in pain.

Aditya was feeling pretty hyped right now, he felt that he was in control of the lives of these people who could nothing but get hit in front of him.

"Bastard I will kill when I find you again, bastards get moving." Flame tiger sounded a warning before escaping first. He did not want to stay a second longer in this area. Even those people who were part of the Varma gang who had been beaten up Taarini also escaped while fumbling, they carried their leader away who had both of his arms dislocated from shoulder. Rana was also dragged by his hands by two other people while fleeing.

Aditya looked on as those people ran like they were escaping from a ghost, Aditya felt his rapidly beating heart calm down. Although Aditya was pretty sure that the people who took away his parents were much stronger than these street thugs, he still felt his confidence growing. He gripped his fist vowing to himself that there will come a day when Bunny would also escape like that before him.

He looked at the distant escaping figures which had reduced to mere shadows in the dark night, he calculated the distance to be around 70 m. Aditya could still know who was who as he had 'remembered' their movements, figures and manners.

He smiled as he took a medium size pebble and threw at the sky at a 45-degree angle with his full strength. He took a handkerchief and covered his face with it as he walked towards the woman called Taarini, he couldn't leave her like that.

Aaah!

Flaming tiger's painful cry which was similar to what a pig makes when it is being slaughtered drifted to Aditya's ear as he reached the fallen figure who was still moving incoherently. Aditya thought that this woman was lucky that Rana did not aim to kill. Otherwise, given the natural soft bones of a woman and the brute strength of Rana, she would have been beyond saving.

Aditya sighed as he grabbed her right hand and put it around his neck while he used his left hand to hold her around her waist. Aditya thought given his usual performance, he might not be able to carry her. But reality exceeded his expectations as he hoisted her up pretty easily which surprised him. Was this woman not as heavy as she looked. Aditya thought as he cast his eyes on her figure, especially in some places which seemed to carry more weight than normal.

Her oval face carried grace and charm, Aditya found it hard to imagine that a woman with such an innocent face was so brutal when she fought. She just felt so harmless while leaning on him for support.

Aditya almost started getting a boner when he saw those places. For god's sake, he was in his most energetic peak of life where he had to wake up every morning to a stiff ramrod, he had just built up his confidence by making a group of gangsters running which made him feel lightheaded and a little muddled.

Just as he was immersing in his fanciful thoughts, an icy voice spoke, "Do you have a death wish?", it was like a bucket of cold water had been splashed on Aditya's face as he almost let go of Taarini. The place which had started growing immediately shrunk back like a startled tortoise head. A set of dark eyes were staring at him which reminded Aditya of the entrance to freezing hell.