Chapter 6: The Hunters

Ekansh

Training began immediately — Andhruva's urgency leaving no space for the emotional processing that Ekansh's fourteen-year-old psychology desperately needed. The uncle understood this and did not apologise for it — the particular pragmatism of someone who had been preparing for a crisis that operated on a timeline indifferent to human readiness.

The training chamber was deep within the Resistance's compound — a crystal-walled space whose geological properties had been engineered to amplify Tarang output, the chamber functioning as both gymnasium and laboratory. The crystals that lined the walls were not decorative — they were responsive, each formation tuned to a specific frequency band, the chamber's architecture creating an environment where every Tarang channel could be practiced independently or in combination.

"Your mother could access fourteen distinct Tarang channels," Andhruva said, handing Ekansh a replacement wristband — a Madhyabhumi-manufactured model that was more sophisticated than Ishaan's surface-world version, the crystal technology integrated into a flexible band that fit Ekansh's wrist with the particular precision of something that had been made for him specifically. "You have demonstrated three: seismic suppression, sensory expansion, and the telepathic channel you accessed during the Hunter encounter. We need to develop at least eight channels before you can interface with the crystal foundation. We have approximately three weeks."

"Fourteen channels in three weeks is impossible."

"Eight channels in three weeks is ambitious. But your mother achieved fourteen in six months starting from zero. You are starting from three with seven months of practice. The genetic foundation is there. We need to activate it."

The first training session focused on the channel that Ekansh least wanted to develop: combat frequency. The particular Tarang application that converted geological energy into offensive capability — the weaponisation of the same connection that Ekansh used for rescue work, the stabilisation frequency inverted into a destabilisation tool.

"I suppress earthquakes," Ekansh protested. "I don't create them."

"The Hunters will not be suppressed by rescue techniques. The combat frequency is the seismic suppression frequency's mirror — the same energy, the same geological connection, the same channel. The difference is direction. Suppression pushes energy into the ground to stabilise. Combat pulls energy from the ground to destabilise. You already know how to do this — you used it when you created the decoy signature in the forest."

The memory of the decoy — the seismic amplification that had redirected the Hunters' triangulation — confirmed Andhruva's assessment. Ekansh had instinctively accessed the combat frequency when survival required it. The training would make the instinct deliberate.

The combat training was conducted against crystal targets — the responsive formations programmed to simulate Hunter Tarang signatures, the crystals generating the dissonant frequency that the Hunters used so that Ekansh could practice recognising and countering the interference pattern. The targets attacked. They deployed the frequency net. They triangulated. They moved with the particular coordination that the Hunters' training produced.

The first session was a disaster. Ekansh's combat frequency was unstable — the energy surging and dropping unpredictably, the geological connection flickering between offensive and defensive modes as his psychology struggled to reconcile the rescuer's instinct with the fighter's necessity. The crystal targets overwhelmed him within minutes, the simulated frequency net suppressing his Tarang with the particular efficiency that real Hunters would replicate in the field.

"Again," Andhruva said.

The second session was marginally better. Ekansh managed to sustain the combat frequency for thirty seconds before the net's interference collapsed his connection. The wristband showed the channel — a deep red that was the seismic suppression's orange inverted, the colour carrying the particular intensity of geological energy directed against rather than into the earth's structure.

"Again."

By the sixth session — three hours into the training — Ekansh could sustain the combat frequency for two minutes and could counter the simulated net's interference with the telepathic channel's perception, reading the net's structure and finding the gaps in its suppression pattern. The combination of combat and telepathic frequencies was crude but functional — the fourteen-year-old's version of a technique that his mother had performed with the fluid precision of a master, the genetic inheritance providing the capability while practice would provide the skill.

The training was interrupted by a Resistance operative — a surface-world woman named Alankara whose dark eyes carried the particular intensity of someone who had lost family to the Hunters and who channelled that loss into intelligence work with the focused fury that grief produced in people who refused to be broken by it.

"Surface report," Alankara said. "The three Hunters that tracked Ekansh have captured Dr. Huddar."

The words hit the chamber with the force of a seismic event. Ekansh's Tarang flared — the combat frequency spiking with the emotional intensity that the training sessions had not produced, the wristband blazing red as the geological energy responded to the boy's fear and rage with the particular amplification that extreme emotion provided.

"Where?" Andhruva's voice was controlled — the particular calm of a commander processing tactical intelligence while his nephew's world was collapsing.

"The Hunters are moving toward Mrigank's forward base at Mahabaleshwar. Dr. Huddar is alive — the Hunters' Tarang signatures indicate containment rather than elimination. Mrigank wants him alive."

"Why?"

"Because Ishaan is the only person who has successfully mapped the Madhyabhumi's phase-thin points. Mrigank needs the map to execute the crystal foundation's destruction. Without the map, Mrigank cannot locate the foundation's core — and without the core's location, the collapse cannot be initiated."

The tactical situation crystallised. Ishaan's capture was not a consequence of the Hunter encounter — it was the objective. The three Hunters had not been tracking Ekansh. They had been herding Ekansh — driving the boy away from his father so that the capture could proceed without the complication of a telepath's interference. The Hunters had used Ekansh's protective instinct against him, the particular cruelty of exploiting a child's love for his parent as a tactical tool.

"I have to go back," Ekansh said. "I have to rescue him."

"You cannot rescue him in your current state. Three hours of combat training against crystal simulations does not prepare you for a military base staffed by trained Hunters and commanded by General Mrigank. If you go back now, you will be captured or killed and Mrigank will have both the map and the telepath. The strategic loss would be total."

"He's my father."

"He is my brother. And he would tell you exactly what I am telling you: train first. Prepare. Develop the channels that will give you a chance of surviving a rescue operation. Ishaan is alive because Mrigank needs information from him. Ishaan will not provide that information easily — your father is the most stubborn person I have ever known. We have time. Not much. But enough to prepare you."

The logic was unassailable and the emotion was unbearable — the particular torture of a situation where the right decision felt wrong, where patience was strategy but felt like abandonment, where the person you most wanted to save was the person most endangered by your unpreparedness to save them.

Ekansh's wristband settled from combat red to the deep indigo of the telepathic channel. The boy closed his eyes and reached for his father's frequency — the familiar Tarang signature that he had perceived every day for fourteen years, the particular energy pattern that meant safety and knowledge and the steady presence that had been Ekansh's only constant in a world that was literally coming apart.

The signature was distant — hundreds of kilometres away, the surface world's geological layers attenuating the telepathic signal. But it was there. Ishaan was alive. The signature carried the emotional texture of resistance — not panic, not surrender, but the focused determination of a scientist who understood exactly what information he possessed and who was calculating how long he could withhold it.

"He's alive," Ekansh said. "He's fighting them."

"Then we have time. And we will use every second of it."