Now, it was Rishabha, and Matha. Rishabha was known as being easily angered, ruthless and brutal. Rather, he didn't have a very conventional way of fighting, yes, you could say that. Why? Because Rishabha had unconventional fighting methods. Which was why he commanded such a large legion. Sugriv greatly valued the element of surprise in war, and Rishabha was nothing if he wasn't surprising.

With graying hair and what looked like weak and bent limbs, some rakshasas laughed at him as he came flying out of the clouds like some sort of monkey-angel banished from heaven. What would this monkey, after all, do to them, the rakshasas of Ravan? What they didn't seem to understand, even after weeks at the battlefield, was that no matter whom they fought for, whose kingdom they belonged to, they were killable, and monkeys wanted to kill them, and so they would die, and Ravan would not step off from his throne and save them.

There were only three sons of Ravan left, and Rishabha (current status: escaped from Heaven), had his beady eyes stuck on only one of them. And this was Matha, who was indeed, much less recognized than Devantak and Narantak, with good reason too. Still Matha (which meant head, though he had none and he soon, very literally, would lose it) was a jewel of Ravan's crown, though not the crown jewel, because that position always went to Indrajit, but still a shining one. An emerald to the Koh-i-Noor. He was not to be underestimated.

This rakshas did not use his head to fight. He was all claws, ruthlessness wrought with iron and thrust into the very being and purpose of his being. Every man, animal, giant, and demon, son of Ravan or otherwise, was born on the Earth with a purpose, and Matha's sole purpose seemed to be finding a way to kill the vanars who challenged him with the most painful of strategies. It was as if he was competing for a sort of medal.

But it took one to know one. Rishabha landed behind Matha, and kicked him in the very small of the back. Matha went flying, or rather, skidding, his clawed feet digging into the Earth, dirt dithering in the crevices of his nails as he fought against momentum to stop. In one second, he had whirled around, grasping his spiked club harder than ever as he eyed his newest opponent. And in moments, he had burst into laughter.

"Y-You?!" he cackled., clutching his stomach for a moment as Rishabha seethed, raising a cynical eyebrow as if truly interested in what Matha was saying. "F-F-Fight against me? What are you, thousands of years old? Greying hair, weakening limbs, fur wiry and thin! Are you some sort of a grandfather? Go back, dadu, go back and fetch someone who might be the same age as me! Read your grandchildren goodnight and wait for your mercenaries to be bathed in blood!" Matha puffed out his chest.

Middle Of Passage Bonus Scene

Lakshman gnawed his dirty nails thoughtfully, before quickly grabbing a piece of parchment. Ram looked over curiously as his brother etched numbers into the paper. "Wow, Lakshman!' he exclaimed, and some monkeys walked over too, Sugriv and Aniya being some of them. "I've never seen you doing math before, and right in the middle of a battle? You really are improving! Good job!" He cuffed his younger brother's shoulders proudly.

"See," Lakshman said after turning a little red in the fingertips (not the ears, the fingertips). "Papa beat Ravan in the early years of his rule. He drove him back into the island of Lanka. By then, Ravan was already a well-known, terrible sort of rakshas. Which means that Ravan must be at least seventy thousand years old. He married Matha's mother, Maharani Dhanyamalini when he was about fifty thousand years old, only a few years after Maharani Mandodari, for she doesn't seem to age, and we read about the magnificent wedding in the scriptures." Ram nodded to affirm his words as Angad choked at his words.

"Matha is a little younger than Meghnad, who, based on the average time spent after marriage before having children being three years, is about nineteen thousand nine hundred and ninety seven years old, which means that Matha is about the same age. Matha married his wife after about twenty years of living, which means that logically, if his own son married at about the same age, that Matha has many thousands of great grandchildren, which means that he is much older and much more of a grandfather than General Rishabha will ever be-"

Sugriv paused. "Just yesterday, we found that Aniya is good at settling arguments. A few days ago, we uncovered how much of a fashion designer Jal could be. Now Lakshman-sir is a math prodigy? It seems we are discovering new talents among us every day!"

-----O-----

It was that moment that Rishabha grabbed his opponent's head and smashed it against a large boulder. A sickening cracking sound echoed in both of their ears as Matha forced his head, still very much in the grip of Rishabha, back up into the air. So now it looked like a monkey was twisting Matha's ear in scolding and admonishment. Rishabha was a good actor. "Next time," he chided. "One should always respect their elders, Mathu!"

And with that, ever a disappointed guardian, he twisted M̶a̶t̶h̶a̶  Mathu's ear clean off, throwing it into the battlefield, where it landed on poor Atikaya's head. Matha still wasn't quite done yet, and swung his club through the air that it whistled protestingly against the thick wind, and neared Rishabha with fury racing through his veins. How dare this old man insult him? How dare he talk to him like a child? How dare this monkey, inferior to him in all ways, just-

Rishabha blocked the club, covered with spikes razor sharp enough to dig through a diamond, merely with his hands, not even wincing as it went straight through the flesh. With a running jump, he pounced onto Matha's shoulders and pushed him down onto the soil and with a deep breath, sunk his sharp teeth into the prince's neck. Rishabha thrashed, screeching with agony, his limbs spasming this way and that.

Rishabha's grip never loosened, and the blood never stopped flowing, and these two added up was a recipe made for death. The blood of Matha flowed in streams on the battlefield that day until it stilled, until his head was ripped off, hanging only by two strings.

-----O-----

There were only two left, and among them, was Trishira, the one who could lead thousands to their death if his father so wished. Trishira beamed, his white teeth sparkling with shine though his entire body was covered with blood. In both of his arms were long spears, made with black silver, and claiming lives. Every moment he was left alone, storming on his thunderhorse, he would impale, run through hundreds of vanars on the very same weapon, looking like krabby patties or kebabs on a skewer before they were tossed off, crashing into even more ones.

Another interesting thing about him was that Trishira had three heads. He was named after his uncle, Trishira, whom Ram had killed in the forests of Panchavati. There was a background to everything, every single thing it seemed these days, and Trishira was no exception. He was out for Ram's blood, because he wanted to kill the man who had dared do so to his uncle and godfather. Sadly, getting Ram's blood wouldn't be easy, and not only because he had a very short-tempered brother next to him.

Everything was going alright for the triple headed beast, galloping around and spearing monkeys until Hanuman's eyes lay upon him and narrowed dangerously into thin slits. Previously, the ginormous monkey was spotted stomping on rakshasas, wielding boulders and turning them into flying missiles, killing Vajradamshtra, and ripping apart demons on the Hanuman-tracker network, watched by the readers of PoA. Now he had seen Ravan's son, Trishira, and he had very much decided to kill him.

"HEY!" he shouted, and Trishira looked around for the owner of the voice, his hands tightening on the spears. "You coward, look here!" Hanuman grew ten times in size, and suddenly, Trishira could see him, clear as day. Muscles tensed and flexing angrily, legs wide apart in a wrestling stance. Hanuman was the most worthy opponent he had spotted that entire day! "Good to know you aren't blind," Hanuman taunted. Once Trishira had seen Hanuman, the monkey ran in giant leaps towards the rakshas.

Trishira angled his spear in a diagonal direction so that Hanuman got impaled upon it, but like a lever, Hanuman jumped on the handle and sprung into the air. Trishira looked up, eyes widening as Hanuman soared down, the wind whistling in his ears and hair flying behind him. Barely dodging the flying missile intent upon crushing him, Trishira, with clammy hands, quickly grasped another spear, pointing it towards Hanuman.

"Really?" Hanuman asked, raising a perfectly immaculate eyebrow in a cynical response. "That's all you have? Son of Ravan and just this mere stick of iron which I can twist-" he grabbed the weapon straight out of the enemy's hands and knotted it into a pretty bow. "-with my very hands without a problem?" Trishira's eyes, much like Ravan's, widened to the size of-wait for it-mini planets. "Aww, feeling a little defenseless?" Hanuman asked, shaking his head as if interacting with a toddler.

With a giant leap, Hanuman again leapt into the air, grabbing a rock off the dirt before again leaping near Trishira and standing atop the demon's two shoulders. Now Trishira was in a situation. If he lost his balance, the monkey would fall, but he would be crushed. But if he kept his balance, the monkey would stay on his shoulders. As he considered this dilemma, with a great swing, Hanuman crushed two of the demon's three heads.

Trishira screamed, at that very moment, as two thirds of his mind became bleeding stumps, bare parts of his head(s) scattering disgustingly on the ground. As he screamed, Trishira lost all his sense, not even going to defend himself as Hanuman raised his fists and beat the last one into a pulp with his elemental fists, before jumping off. Still confused, the headless body of the rakshas stumbled around incomprehensibly, before finally falling to the ground with a final, single thud. Trishira was dead.

And Hanuman beat his chest, roaring loudly as if he was a gorilla as Angad and Neel ran towards him, each taking a leg of his and parading him around for moments on the battlefield before setting the victorious warrior down. Just one left to go. One more to kill off. Too bad this was the mightiest. Perhaps it was the time for the battlefield to witness a new face.

Bonus Scene

"Am I dead?" wondered Lakshman faintly, rubbing his eyes and patting his cheeks thoughtfully. Angad turned towards him, bewildered. If it was his peer who had asked this, Angad would have smacked him across the back of the head, but this was Lakshman bhaiyya, the warrior prince, younger brother of Prabhu Shri Ram and very much his senior, and so Angad just swung his legs uselessly on the bed.

Thankfully, Prabhu Shri Ram was there for the job, and did just that. "Lakshman!' he roared angrily. "Before you die, the world will end! You're not dying in front of me! You feel that pain? Pain is human! Which means you're alive!" Ram paused, hands trembling. "Why do you ask such a thing? Are you okay? I-" his eyes widened. "You aren't thinking about hurting yourself are you, for some dumb reason of yours? You aren't-"

"No," Lakshman said. "I just thought that I'd die before I voluntarily did math, is all."

A/N-Holaa! Okay, anyways, hi! I'm back with daily updates (hopefully). But actually, I'm here for something else. We. Have. Passed. 30K. Reads. And 350,000 words. HOW-I could write five full-length novels with that word count! This could be a series if I had published it! Actually, there's this site that prints and binds your books, so with some editing and after I finish it, I might print five hardbound copies of this book for personal use! My own little series! The Prince of Ayodhya! EEEEK-

Anyways, how do we celebrate? Someone! Give ideas! I've already done a Q/A, but we can do another one! How about something else? I won't do a face/name/age reveal, but-actually, I was considering letting you guys pick what I work on next, after this one is over, but then that will be a little selfish, wouldn't it? That's not much of a thank-you for you all! Is there anything else I could do?