Chapter 5 – Trees

Artwork by Vishnu Mohan

Disclaimer: The following story is a work of fan fiction. It is purely meant for entertainment purposes and not for any commercial or profit related purposes. I do not own any of the characters mentioned in the story. The Gods and characters from stories of Hindu tradition and not owned by anyone for they are living divinities. The character of the Predator is the one from the Predator movies, distributed by 20^th Century Fox. The character of the Predator was created in the film “Predator” (1987) directed by John McTiernan.

Hanuman landed back among the trees as Jambavan and Garuda split off. He landed on a branch and then dropped onto the ground softly, making no noise and creating no vibration. He then rolled to the base of a different tree and hauled himself slowly and noiselessly up onto a branch with his tail acting as a winch, holding one of his maces in one hand. As he started hauling himself up, he threw his other mace to land with a gentle plop a short distance away hoping to distract any of the asuras nearby. He was testing their abilities here, their sight, their hearing, and their sense of smell. He then hugged the tree and stayed still. Only his tail slowly crept down to the base of the tree increasing its length. It also carried down his second mace with it to the base of the tree.

He had barely stayed still for a few kshanas when a host of bright astras streaked towards him. He dropped off the branch the moment he felt the attack coming. The trunk and branch he had been on were blown to smithereens.

Hanuman now moved as a blur as soon as he dropped off the branch. Like earlier he moved in all directions at random while using the mace in his tail to flail about and scatter detritus on the ground, shake trunks, break branches. He leapt up on to trees, ran on the ground on all fours, ran on two legs, remained stationary for kshanas and only caused destruction with his tail. He even swung through the branches to higher levels of the canopy and between greatly separated trees.

Clearly the asuras were not deceived by stillness or distracting sounds. They likely could smell their quarry with great precision or see with absolute clarity in the dark. But his own abilities were not ordinary. He had a versatile fifth limb in his tail. It could change length to a considerable extent, change density at will and was perfectly prehensile. Also, just like his elders Garuda and Jambavan, his observational and warrior skills were unmatched, honed to perfection and beyond over millennia.

An observer with divine perception might have noticed that though Hanuman’s movement seemed random, the strikes with the mace in his tail were rarely so. He registered the point of origin of every astra flare and every deliberate malicious movement, and struck at that location with the mace. But none of the strikes were direct like with an arm. The flexibility of the tail allowed his mace to strike at impossibly acute angles and around objects like trees. His hits snaked up parallel to tree trunks, swung around trees, looped though gaps in the arboreal cover and dropped branches onto concealed enemies. So great was his training with his tail as a weapon, he could tell from the strike if he hit an asura or something else.

When he felt the asuras even begin to sense that he was not doing any of the striking with his discernible four limbs, he reversed tactics and used his tail to swing and move about while he thrashed about with the mace in his hands. The mace flew from hands to tail like it knew the path of its own volition. In less than three nimishas thus he had determined that he had twenty adversaries. Two were dead and none were now invisible. One was crushed under a falling tree and another had had its chest caved in by Hanuman’s mace. Most were visible and a few had failing yantras with clearly noticeable shimmers.

He now shortened his tail and flicked the mace into his left hand. He had sensed a reluctance to continue the attack from the ones hunting him. He let the lull extend kshana by kshana. He walked over to where he had dropped his other mace and curled the tip of his tail over it. He turned and took a few relaxed and uncaring steps. The creatures hunting him seemed to realize that he felt no threat from them, given that they had lost the invisibility. All of them now had their blades mounted at the wrists extended. Hanuman clearly saw all of them for the first time in this lull in the battle.

All of them seemed to have chakras, but none cared to use them. After all, what good would those do if the astras proved useless. Some also seemed to be carrying spears, which they had discarded in favour of the wrist blades. In the stillness of the forest, he also heard the faint whir of the cylinders on their shoulders which seemed to track his movements. He had noticed earlier that that was the source from which they fired their incendiary astras.

None of the asuras moved to retreat and that decided things for him. This was a fight to the finish. In that instant he heard Garuda’s roar and that gave him the opening to go on the attack. The asuras were, for a fraction of a kshana, distracted by the sound. He crushed the cylinder on the shoulder of one of the creatures at one extreme of their spread with a flick of his extending tail while at the same time he rushed the other extreme and crushed the cylinder on the shoulders of other asuras, one with his mace and another with his right fist. He then somersaulted over the shoulder of the asura whose cylinder he had crushed with his hands and flung the mace at the head of another from behind their cluster now. The head became a smear of glowing green.

His tail now shortened and snaked back towards him on the ground. It tripped up one of the creatures as it slid rapidly on the ground. None of his remaining opponents could unleash any astras for fear of taking down one of their own, for he was now behind their crude line. As the asura fell, the mace in the tail was raised high and almost came down hard on the head of another of the asuras. But this asura stepped forward while looking up to evade the strike as the mace came down. But the mace stopped its strike and stabbed into the creature’s abdomen instead, with the top spike, killing it.

The spike embedded itself so deep in the creature that Hanuman wasted no time trying to pull it out. His tail now wrapped around the ankle of the asura next to the impaled one. His tail now stiffened and extended, and it seemed like the asura was now strung upside down from a short pole. As this happened Hanuman had grabbed the asura whose cylinder he had broken, by the neck, from behind. The tail now relaxed and resembled a rope once again. It smashed the asura stuck in it on to the one who had been tripped by the mace earlier. The asura in the tail had its neck broken and the fallen creature, though alive seemed to have been severely injured. As this was happening, Hanuman snapped the neck of the asura he had grabbed. All of this happened in the space of a few kshanas.

All the remaining asuras had turned around to face him by now. So Hanuman dropped down low on to all fours and leap-rolled forward diagonally between two of the creatures. As he started the roll, his tail looped around the neck of yet another asura and stiffened to be a staff. As he ended the roll, the tail released the asura who was flung several tree lengths away. It landed with a crunch, and had clearly died of a broken back.

Hanuman stood up straight even as the asura was sailing through the air. He switched tactics from weapons and straight up punched an asura in the chest on the armour plate it was wearing. It collapsed in a heap, likely having had its heart stopped.

The remaining twelve asuras now retreated with great haste, again leaping and running away. Two were helping the injured asura move fast as well. They had lost eight of their fellows in a few nimishas and it was clearly time to retreat, regroup and rethink their next tactics. Hanuman let them leave, just like Garuda and Jambavan had done. He would not look to kill opponents who posed no threat and had no malicious intent, even if temporarily. It was time to check back with the other two and he leaped away.

Above image was generated by AI on WordPress. Its imagination of a Predator with a broken spear.

Next chapter – The Fight, on 29^th August 2024