The Bend in the Road (A Karna-Arjun what-if story)

Trigarta's suicide squad

Abhimanyu's pov

Abhimanyu knew he was fighting better than he ever had in his life. Once his father and Vrishaketu's father breached the chakravyuh (he knew he could not claim much credit for it since he had been following them, though he had done a large part of the job of scattering the rings so that their army could follow), there was no hierarchy in that day's battle.

All warriors from both sides were gathered in a clumsy tangle inside what had been the heart of the chakravyuh before it collapsed. Abhimanyu had fought Dronacharya, disarmed his son Aswatthama and the King of Gandhar and killed at least a few hundreds of their enemy.

Before today, being in the third or fourth lines of their formation had not given him and his cousins the chance of taking on the best fighters on the Kaurava side.

He had grown a comfortable sort of partner in Vrishasena over the past couple of days. Today, too, they led the charge with his cousins and Vrishasena's brothers against the armies of Bahlika and Trigarta.

At some point, Abhimanyu came face to face with King Susharma before he had disappeared within his army again. That triggered a memory.

It was said that Susharma, the King of Trigarta, had joined the Kauravas with his kingdom's army with the sole purpose of killing his father for the way he had humiliated and defeated them effortlessly in protecting the Matsya Kingdom at the end of their year in hiding.

King Susharma's oath was one of those things Abhimanyu was terribly proud of. Extraordinary feats like defeating an army alone and getting death threats in return was the coolest thing a warrior could have.

My father defeated him once, and he came back intending to harm him.

He does not know Prince Arjun's son is here, too.

Abhimanyu gritted his teeth and called upon the Gandharva weapon. When it appeared, he shot it at the army of Trigarta.

The powerful illusion disoriented them all. Their chariots started moving haphazardly.

"What did you throw at them?" Vrishasena asked. "The Gandharva Astra?"

"Yes--"

Pressing his advantage, Abhimanyu kept shooting and shooting, taking down the army so fast even he was surprised. They appeared an extremely ill-trained bunch.

They thought they could hurt Father, did they?

Abhimanyu forced his way to face King Susharma and had disarmed him before he had realized.

"Greetings, Your Highness," he said coldly. "I have a score to settle with you."

"Who are you?" demanded Susharma.

"I am Rajkumar Arjun's shield," Abhimanyu declared before dealing out the killing blow. "Think twice before taking oaths to hurt him," he added to the corpse, and finished off the pathetic rest of Trigarta's force.

At the back of his mind, Abhimanyu felt a childish anticipation of the moment he would tell his father later today that he had wiped out Trigarta's army to avenge their stupid oath of hurting him.

Vrishasena wore a slightly bemused expression as he stared at a dead army that had been swarming them minutes ago.

"Quite the frenzy," he told Abhimanyu with a comradely grin.

Abhimanyu felt as ridiculously pleased as he felt when his father praised him.

As they turned together to scour for more enemies to finish off, they found a new Kaurava battalion making a formation, up against their brothers including Sutsoma, Srutakarma and Vrishaketu.