A/N-For those that maybe haven't realized, this is the first chapter of Ram versus Ravan. The battle will start in this hither chapter. This book just hit 70 thousand reads, and it's truly amazing that I can start the beginning of the end at such a huge milestone. Thank you to everyone for motivating me and dedicating your time to reading this book of mine. :)

Many hours before dawn, the vanar sena had assembled in their separate legions, standing at attention on the battlefield. The healing tents had been emptied the day before. For the first time since the beginning of the war, every living vanar in Ram's army stood on the battlefield. Some had bandages wrapped tightly around their head, others with missing limbs, some with scars that still hadn't closed. 

Ram's serene gaze had healed their wounds, and breathing the fire of anger, they stood.

In the front row were the usual generals; Mainda, Dwivida, Nal, Neel, Angad, Raja Sugriv and Pawanputra Hanuman. They had terrorized the battlefield for all these weeks, appearing in the nightmares of every rakshas soldier in Ravan's army. 

But for that day, Hanuman hadn't increased ten times in size, Sugriv hadn't bothered to oil his muscles, and neither Nal nor Neel tried to make any jokes.

Then there was Lakshman, glowering with his massive bow, dark eyes scanning the empty battlefield. There was the slayer of simmering Atikaya, the man who had killed the crown prince of Lanka without even a hint of illusion, a person who could make arrows rain down upon their army with minimal effort.

In front of them all, shoulders squared, stood Ram. Though not the most massive of them all, his post as leader of the army could not be questioned. Something made him tower over everyone else, something made his brilliance blind a man to everyone else's luster. Ram hadn't killed any of Ravan's generals. Prahast, Kumbha, Nikumbha, none of them were dead by his hand.

But not a single asur could forget the day he had stepped onto the battlefield. His lotus blue eyes were lit with an angry flame, jaw clenched, his arrows clearing every battalion like they were trees being chopped down and not feared demons. 

Who could forget when he had faced Ravan? His words still echoed. "Ravan! I do not kill unarmed men. Go back!" Shamefully, the King of Lanka had obeyed this command.

Sure, Ram hadn't killed any of Ravan's courtiers. But in minutes, he had forced Ravan to turn his back on the battle in a bout of cowardliness. That victory amassed ten times the fear that the killers of any other rakshas had. Under the guise of a gentle countenance and twinkling eyes, everyone knew there hid a warrior that could bring the sky to his feet with his arrows if he wished. But all he wanted was Ravan's defeat.

And that was what made them fear him the most.

-----O-----

Ravan was clad in his ceremonial armor, and puffed his chest out as Mandodari finished her aarti, setting the plate down before bringing his sword in both of her hands. Wordlessly, she nicked the edge of her thumb on the sharp blade and pressed a bright red tilak on Ravan's forehead. 

The entire room was silent, except for Ravan's occasional wheezing breath and the silent clattering of Mandodari's shoes on the tile.

Finally, Ravan grumbled. "Why aren't you speaking?" he asked, sharp teeth gnashing together in distaste. "As a wife, shouldn't you be looking at me lovingly regaling me with all the other enemies I've defeated? Shouldn't you be expressing your utmost confidence in my skill and that I'll bring my enemies' head back? Shouldn't you be talking about what food you'll make me once I come back from this battle victorious?"

Mandodari looked up sharply. "If she is married to you in all else but reality, why don't you go ask the woman whom you've kept captive in the Ashok Vatika to complete her wifely duties? Ask her to wish you victorious against her own husband!" 

Ravan's caterpillar eyebrows furrowed together, and he looked close to shouting at her with bulging eyes and the weird vein that ran through his temple, before he thought better of it once realizing that Mandodari still held his sword in her hands.

Pursing her lips, Mandodari turned away, picking up her husband's helmet before facing him, placing the heavy chainmail crown on his head. Then she stepped away slightly. "Of course, if you truly value my words that much, then May You Return Victorious, Ravan. But if you had, then there would have been no war to win in the first place."

Ravan rolled his eyes, laughing so hard that he began to snort like the pig he was. "Why should I return something that belongs to me? Everyone knows that whatever I set my eyes on is my possession! That hermit doesn't seem to have understood that yet!" 

He took the sword from Mandodari's outstretched hand and twitched his mustache. "But he'll learn his lesson soon. Too bad he won't be alive to teach it to other people."

Ravan turned his back on his queen and left their bedchambers, and Mandodari collapsed onto the floor, pressing her lips together until they turned white. "Oh Ravan, then I can only hope as your wife, that Yama himself doesn't appear in front of your greedy eyes today."

-----O------

"I see him, prabho!" Hanuman exclaimed, pointing his finger excitedly. Like a group of unified Bharatnatyam dancers, every head in the vanar sena turned towards the direction of Sigiriya, where a faint vehicle was seen approaching. 

"It must be Ravan's flying chariot, don't you think, Vibhishan ji?" Vibhishan could only nod, swallowing slightly and sipping green tea from the tumbler Ram had gotten him for his birthday.

But something else caught Ram's attention as well. "Bhaiyya!" Lakshman said, and Ram's head turned. From behind the gates of Lanka, they could hear the familiar roaring of the rakshasas, and the heavy thundering of their footsteps was already shaking the Earth. Ram tilted his head. "Of course." Lakshman scowled, eyes narrowing. "Ravan's so cowardly. How could we have expected him to initiate a fair one on one fight? He wants his entire army dead, it seems."

Hanuman stepped forward. "Prabhu! Let us handle the army. We'll finish them off in minutes!" Sugriv nodded, gesturing for a few legions of his army to step forward before hoisting his mace onto his shoulders. Nal and Neel did their little handshake, and Angad started to stretch. Ram squinted at the army, before turning towards Hanuman.

"Finish them off quickly," he laughed, shaking his head. "You have to be here to witness my battle with Ravan." Shifting his bow to the other arm and leaning forward, he hugged Hanuman tightly, before doing the same with Sugriv.

"Prabhu!" Neel exclaimed offendedly. "This is injustice! What adharm! What discrimination! What segregation! We want hugs too! Just because Hanuman and Maharaj Sugriv are larger doesn't mean they deserve hugs more than us! We too are fighting for you! We're also killing rakshasas! We too are-" Ram leaned down and hugged Nal, Neel, and Angad with his long arms, before standing up fully, smiling at all of them.

"May you be victorious, this last time, as you have been all the days before this." Hanuman, still bright red from blushing at his hug, leaned down and touched Ram's feet, before joining his hands together.

"That was all we needed, prabhu. Now there's no chance of our failure! Even the fates wouldn't dare oppose your hopes. Before Ravan can even lunge at you, we'll be back with every single soldier here intact, don't you doubt it! This is Hanuman's promise." He crackled, his knuckles, before beckoning to all the vanars behind him. "Let's go, and show these last demons how we say goodbye to our enemies!"

"Jai Bhavani!" Angad shouted.

"Jai Bhavani!" The army echoed.

"Jai Shri Ram!" he roared.

This time, the words weren't even properly audible. Ram could really hear only furious shouts before the Earth began to quake underneath him. Even Bhoomi Devi herself feared this army. Dust clouds started to rise from the ground as millions of pairs of feet started to run. Ram could barely make out blurs as the entire vanar sena stampeded towards Ravan's unassuming soldiers.

He felt a sense of immense pride rising in him. Hadn't Ravan and his courtiers laughed at Sugriv's vanars? Hadn't they called his army savages, monkeys who couldn't even fight, creatures from the jungle that probably would be trampled by their elephants and rakshasas? But as those same monkeys that they ridiculed charged, Ram wondered who would get trampled this time. Those demons that had tried to humiliate his sena seemed to cower in front of them.

Ram snapped out of his thoughts as Lakshman shifted beside him. With a quick move, his hand grasped onto Lakshman's shoulder tightly. "You're not going anywhere." he ordered. "You're staying here, next to me. Don't even think for a second that you'll be able to blend in with the vanar sena. I can see you from ten kilometers away."

Then, Ram dropped his hand, exhaling. "Actually, do what you wish, Laksh. Especially since you killed Indrajit, I have realized that I shouldn't have been holding you back." He swallowed, looking down at his bare feet. "I just worry so much. You're all I have left."

Lakshman stared at him. "Bhaiyya. I wouldn't leave you now! Ravan is the rakshas who caused you so much pain, who separated you from Sita bhabhi, who tried to touch her! He killed Jatayu and injured our vanar sena and didn't even allow us the peace of our final year in exile! I want to see you kill him. The entire battle, I want to see the fear slowly dawning in his eyes. Why would I care about random asurs when you're fighting?"

Then, he swallowed, biting his bottom lip contemplatively. "But, I mean, if you've finally agreed that I can go and-"

"NO!"

-----O-----

The second Ravan left the dome of Sigiriya in his flying chariot, something weird started to happen. Though it was the middle of the day, the sky started to turn the familiar blue that only started to overtake the day during evening. 

Dawn was starting to blend back into nighttime. Ravan blinked, before squinting his eyes to look towards the sun. There, the shadow of the moon was starting to cover Surya. It was a solar eclipse.

On the other side of the battlefield, Lakshman held a hand over his eyes, though Ram stared directly at the son, his breaths even. Behind them, Vibhishan swallowed, his mustache bobbing as he set his tumbler aside. "Is Hanuman trying to eat the sun again?" Dwivida asked. "Who's going to tell him that the suraj isn't a fruit? Wait, who else here can fly?"

"It's a solar eclipse," Ram sighed as Lakshman rolled his shoulders like he was ready to drag the moon out of the sky. "But I checked the astronomer's predictions yesterday itself. There was not going to be a solar eclipse today. Not for another few months, actually. The very position of the moon has changed! Soon, the battlefield will be completely dark. It will be as if night has fallen again."

"Don't worry, bhaiyya." Lakshman consoled, patting Ram's shoulder. "Apparently, aside from magically flying and killing feared rakshasas, the vanars also have good night vision. Naturally adapted. Angad told me."

"Day will turn to night." came a voice, and both brothers turned around to look at Vibhishan. The man stared at the sky, watching it slowly turn from fire like orange to a gentle blue, eyes shining like a prophet. "It was a curse once placed upon Bhrata Ravan by one of the many women whom he-" 

Vibhishan cut himself off, swallowing. "The day will turn to night before noon can even arrive. Fear that day, Ravan. It'll be the harbinger of your end."

Vibhishan laughed humorlessly. "But Ravan's rule itself wasn't like the day, but like the night. It was said that the sun could never set on Ravan Rajya because times were so terrible in Lanka that even Surya wouldn't dream of rising from its mountains. If the sun isn't even in the sky, how can it eclipse? That was what we all thought. How can Ravan be defeated if the curse is impossible?"

Ram just stared at Vibhishan. "This means that Ravan's entire rule was the curse. Every single day that he presided over Lanka, his end came closer and closer. You know, Vibhishan, that while it is rare, solar eclipses can happen during midnight. But you can never see them. Ravan was so blind to his own wrongdoing that he couldn't tell death apart from life if it stared him in the face."

"Ravan, like the moon, can try to cover the sun for only so long. But Ram bhaiyya's brilliance is so great, like the sun's rays, he is visible despite the moon's greatest efforts. The moon is nothing without the sun, its light only borrowed, its time only minimal, its impact tiny in front of Surya."

"It's a Midnight eclipse." Lakshman realized.

-----O------

It felt like night had fully fallen, if not for the ring of rays from the sun that still glimmered in the sky. The loud shouts of rakshasas still echoed in the distance, and Hanuman's silhouette was barely visible as he swung his mace. But Ram had tuned all of this out. His eyes were closed, the only sound he heard was his own breathing, the only thing he felt was his grasp around Kodanda.

He heard his father's voice. Open your eyes, putra, it said. Slowly, Ram did. From the shadows, Ravan's golden chariot emerged. His eyes were crazed, and his pose arrogant, and he stared at Ram. Ram exhaled, and began to walk forward.

He walked closer and closer until a bridge of soldiers separated him and Ravan. "Hermit!" Ravan shouted. Ram stayed silent. "You have come to get your wife back, I see! But alas, the only thing you'll be getting is an ultimatum. I send a present to Yama today. Surely, you have been told over and over that you'll be able to defeat me, and that's why you stand so confidently in front of me today. But after my first arrow, you will be quavering!"

He nocked an arrow into his bowstring and closed a single eye. But before he could even let go of his weapon, something knocked the astra out of his hands and skidding into the Earth beside him.

Stunned, Ravan lowered his arm, staring at Ram's outstretched bow. "Your arrogance is your downfall, Ravan!" Ram declared. Such was his power that he didn't even have to raise his voice for his message to carry towards its recipient. 

"Look at the sky. The day has turned to night. Your end is so near, and yet you don't fear anything. That is not courage, that is pride, for you are a coward! A prideful coward! You don't fear any curse, any mortal, any god except when they come to look you in the eye!"

"I was going to make your death quick," Ravan snarled, picking up another astra. "But now I see that I shouldn't have even thought of mercy! Prepare for a long, painful end to your pitiful life!"

"In my eyes, nothing is more pitiful than raping women! Nothing is more pitiful than snatching away someone's rightful kingdom! Nothing is more pitiful than sending your own kin to fight a war in your name!" His eyes flashed. "Nothing is more pitiful than taking someone's wife away from them after so many years of suffering. Be thankful that I'm nothing like you, or else if I had to put you through the pain I felt, you'd be dying for twelve months!"

They both sent their astras at each other at the same time, and they collided mid-air with a show of bright sparks while darkness surrounded them.

The moon covered the sun fully and slowly began to drift away. 

A/N-I seriously cannot believe that I am writing this author's note right now. That Ram versus Ravan has actually started. I'll be honest with you, the reason that I hadn't updated quicker was because I couldn't think of a title. And I always think of a title before I start writing. It was bugging me so much! 

I think The Midnight Eclipse is pretty okay! Okay. *fanning desperately* I guess in the next few chapters, Ravan will be dead. Let's just pray I can keep writing!

Another thing: I just realized that this book has crossed 400,000 words. Which is just-amazing. It's about 8 times the size of an average novel. Yayay!