Astral Realms

#24: Political lobby

The Nobles want to hand over the team and get this sorted as soon as possible. The Marshals want to protect their warriors and the ministry were supporting the Marshals. The team arrived at Delhi headquarters. They will be present when the decision of their fate will be debated upon.

The Marshals and the Nobles were not much aware of the 17th Noble. They know it was Chandravardhans. But never thought it would be Viraj as he was enlisted and preferred being named Viraj Kashyap.

Mr Samar and Mr Dilip were waiting for them, Mr Samar gave Viraj his emblem with which he have to vote if necessary. He have the voting right in the assembly as he is the noble head of Chandravardhans. Mr Samar said, "All the best Lord, I know you will win over them. I am not allowed to enter the assembly so Mr Dilip will take you there."

Mr Dilip said as they were walking through the corridor, "Its bad to say but you all don't have any role in there, you are just a scapegoat. Now we will just try so that all of you don't have to die because of what happened in a mission."

They were in the doorway of the assembly. They showed their papers to the Gaurds. Mr Dilip just showed his ID card and he was allowed. Maybe a special case or he might have connections inside.

All the marshals and the nobles seated in there, the Head Minister alongwith his 5 reginonal ministers of Northside, SouthSide, East side, West side and Central India. Minister of Northside Deven Rawat. Minister of West Side, Sanjiv Shah. Minister of South Side KS Antony, Minister of East Side Hemen Sharma and Minister of Central India Jalal Ahmed.

The Noble Heads, Rajeshwar Suryavanshi, Amit Singh Raghvore,  Bishal Chandra-Neru. Gayatri Shimhavanshi, Mohan Rajvarma, Hritesh Sumeria, Girendra Rajdharmabahu, Nitin Rajshetty, Tarun Dev-varman, Raghav Rajarao, Yash Rajvanshi, Sheila Singh Gareja, Kishan Chakradwaj, Yogendra Dutta-Singh, Vikash Mann-Singha, Kritika Manik-Raj and the last Virendra RajChandra a.k.a Viraj Kashap.

The Marshals: Karun Dev, Mahendra Singh, Sameer Roy, Tehrina Quereshi, Soumya Dev (Sister of Karun Dev), Gaurav Pande, Hridesh Dwivedi, Akshat R. Reddy, Koushik Chandra-Neru (Son of Bishal Chandra Neru, a noble), The other three Marshal's name were only known the marshals, even the nobles don't know about them. One of the three was present and he wears a mask, so there identity were concealed.

As time passed by the assembly just quarrelled on what to do. Sons of Kritika Manik Raj, Daughter of Yogendra Dutta-singh, daughters of Rajeshwar suryavanshi, son of Vikash Mann-Singha,  daughters of Gayatri Simhavanshi and son of Amit Singh Raghvore.

Amit Singh Raghvore addressed the assembly and said, "The lives of thousand children and school staff in exchange of 14 knights, these knights have chosen this life where they may die in any mission, but these children are the future of our country, I propose we surrender them to the attackers and compensate the families of these knights with 10 crore rupees each."

Viraj was feeling to crush this guy, he thinks the lives of knights are for being used for parley. Marshal Koushik rose up and said, "I oppose this motion, If we keep surrendering our knights it will just signify our weakness as a nation, I myself will lead a team of admirals and wipe them out, my esteemed colleagues may not even need to lay a finger."

Amit Singh Raghvore said again, "Can you provide the assembly a written statement that there won't be any casualties, you Marshals destroy everywhere you go, you will just kill everyone in there." marshal Koushik just gave a look to Amit Singh Raghvore and stayed silent. Then the Head Minister ordered for the voting, but before that they had to introduce the new Noble Member of the Assembly, they announced, "The 17th Noble Member, of House Chandravardhan, Sri Virendra Chandravardhan a.k.a Viraj Kashyap, A* ranked Knight, youngest user of 8 attributes, world record holder of highest Spen Growth in a month." Viraj felt a little over exaggeration of his name but it was ok as it was the tradition. Viraj walked towards his seat which empty during the squabbles. This created a huge turf and inside talkings among the nobles. They voted, the vote was to surrender or battle. The sudden inclusion of Viraj into the voting power, lead to a change. 12 Marshal, 2 Ministers and 3 voted for battle, 3 nobles changed their votes as they were Rajvarmas, Chandra Neru and Chakradwaj, Chakradwaj were from Assam, so its head Kishan has heard about Viraj well so has the Eastern Minister Hemen Sharma. The Head Minister had also voted for battle. This created equal number of votes and all depended on Viraj's vote now. It was planned as Mr Samar had already talked with Minister Hemen Sharma and Kishan Chakradwaj who supported Viraj they also lobbied Rajvarmas who thought Viraj as a valuable asset for being an absorption type A* rank Knight. Chandra-nerus were actually distant cousins of Chandravardhans so Mr Samar lobbied them too.

Amit Singh Raghvore's face was all of sudden changed to saddness seeing this. Viraj rose the NOTA card, it meant it was a tie and they have now listen to the NOTA card holder's proposal and his reason for not supporting any motion.

Viraj addressed everyone with dignity and wished them goodness and he said, "I don't have any qualifications to oppose the Marshals or Nobles or the Ministers, I just don't want deaths of the children, my proposal is that, the government surrender only me, not any of my other team members, I have got some other information, the 1st commander of Demetor is here, he has obliterated our team leaders arm Mrs Gia, he is here for revenge as his wife the 5th commander was killed, by me. Send them a message that we will surrender the killer of 5th Commander Viraj Kashyap simultaneously with the last kid being released from the captives or the Marshals will attack them if they don't respond within an hour. This way everyone will saved. After that the marshals can rush to save me and obliterate our enemy."

To this proposal, all of them supported, as it was a sacrifice made by Viraj himself. He thought to himself, I may die but I will not sacrifice kids life or my teammates.

The Indian Astral Government sent the message. As soon as they read the message, they just sent a bunch of kids alive and well with the message that they accept it.

Priyanshi was furious and crying like as if she has lost someone already. Dilip sensei gave her water, As soon as Viraj came towards them she fell on her knees and said, "Why have you done this Viraj, Please take me with you I want to fight with you till our deaths."

Viraj who had tears in his eyes said, " Its ok Priya, I will survive alone for the Marshals rescue me. I will be alright." Then he went and touched Dilip Sensei feet and said, "Thankyou master for everything, you have taught me so many things and a lot of things left to be learnt from you, If I don't come back please take care of my family, they already lost me once and now maybe they will loose me forever." Hearing Viraj's words Priyanshi bursted into tears with more intensity, Dilip sensei also became a little emotional with Viraj's words.
He said, "You are my best student and I know you will return."

They reached the school and the transaction began....