Chapter 55: John

"Doom?" Taro was confused. This random guy who doesn't look that strong came up to him and introduced himself as his doom. He couldn't think of anyone whom he had pissed off recently.

"Yea? How is it? Meeting your inevitable doom like this?" The man asked in a cheerful tone.

Taro thought for a while before he answered. "Hmm… Seems like my doom's a bit self-conceited."

The man chuckled. "I guess I am, when I'm faced with alien scum like you." His tone and expression changed instantly.

Taro sighed. "Damn. This is why I don't understand you humans! At one moment, you're all cheerful and stuff and the next moment, your mouths are filled with profanities. Calm down, will ya? It's like I miss Wadorian terrorists now-even they are better mannered than you guys." He spoke. "Well, since you know that I'm an 'alien scum', I believe you're from the MIB?" He asked.

"John Krabinski, MIB HQ." The man introduced himself.

"Headquarters, huh? It's in the US, right? That explains the difference I felt in you. The complexion, tone and stuff is really different from the goons beside me." Taro replied.

"Did you call us?" Someone spoke from behind. It was Lonappan and the aliens.

"What the hell is happening?" Thankappan, extremely confused about everything that unfolded in the arena, was the next person to snap out of it. Right then, he had many questions in his mind; like why Taro suddenly went berserk and why are the others here and why is the guy from the headquarters here so soon.

Since Taro had similar questions as well, he dragged his companions away from John and formed a circle. "So, who's gonna explain what the hell's happening?" He asked.

Lonappan raised his hand. "Well, this is what happened."

#

The morning after Taro and Thankappan left for Trivandrum. The aliens back in the Holy Land were having their morning tea in peace. Kunjan learned to make this tea when M'Baku told about how it was made by Shivani's mother. Even though it was a tea by name, it was more of a glorified hot lemon juice than a tea. Nevertheless, it was tasty. Kunjan prepared this tea every day, however since things were so hectic in the household that they usually forget about it and the tea turns cold. And once it does turn cold, it leaves a bad aftertaste, so everyone hates it. That wasn't the case that day. Since two key people were missing out, they didn't have much traffic and hence, things weren't hectic as usual. Therefore, they could sip the tea while it was hot. They were in bliss.

"Oh, you guys are having the lemon tea? Care to give me a cup of it too?" Lonappan barged in out of the front door and asked.

"You! I don't even get how you get in the house when you don't have the key…" Gibli's speech was cut short by Lonappan, as he dangled the keys before him.

"I sniped the key off Timothy-chettan!" Lonappan replied.

Gibli sighed. "We should really stop taking the key away from the lock."

"Wait, I thought you guys did it because you anticipated my arrival." Lonappan spoke in a gentle yet slightly whiny tone.

Gibli scoffed. "As if!"

"Then why are we doing it though?" M'Baku looked towards his alien compatriots and asked.

"For Lonappan to enter whenever he wants." Kunjan replied, sipping the tea.

Aw, fuck. Really?" Gibli asked.

"See, what did I tell ya?" Lonappan laughed. It was right amidst this joyful banter that the doorbell rang to put a stop to the commotion. "Were you expecting someone else besides me?" Lonappan asked.

"You think we're capable of inviting someone to our house?' Kunjan asked.

"I don't know, man. I feel like you guys have changed quite a bit recently." Lonappan replied.

"Even if that's the case, I assure you that we haven't invited anyone for today." Kunjan gave his reply.

"Very well. It might be someone looking for Timothy-chettan. Wait, I'll go check." Lonappan headed towards the door and answered it. Before him was an extremely fair person—the complexion rarely seen in the motherland of India. He had very blond hair as well. Lonappan was confused about the identity of the person. "Who are you?" He asked.

"Holy land; Room #306. I believe I'm at the right place." The man looked at his phone and mumbled before noticing Lonappan before him. "Hello! I'm from the headquarters."

#

"Please sit." Lonappan led the man to the only chair that wasn't massively damaged. Ever since Taro came in, there's been a deficit of chairs. He usually unintentionally damaged the chairs, so he had been sitting on the floor, even though he stopped breaking them for a long time. He said that he felt comfortable on the ground.

"Thank you." The man sat on the chair and moved quite a bit to find a comfortable position.

"I'm Lonappan." Lonappan introduced himself.

"Hello. I'm John Krabinski." John introduced himself as well. Suddenly, Kunjan flinched. It didn't go unnoticed though. "What is it?" John asked Kunjan.

"Did you pick the name for yourself?" The plankton asked.

"Yea, why?"

"Ah, well. Your name makes sense then." Kunjan replied.

"Oh, that? I just love the actor." John cleared his part.

"Why didn't you just go all the way, then?" He asked.

"For copyright and branding purposes." John replied.

"Huh?" Kunjan looked dumbfounded, as John fiddled with the thin veil of fiction and reality.

"I have a perfume line under my name. So, it would've been hard with the legal disputes that might happen if I just blatantly stole his name." John replied as Kunjan heaved in a breath of relief.

"So, why are you here?" Gibli entered the conversation.

"Ah, who among you is a guy named Normal-Taro?" He asked.

"Mr. John. Let's speak about that privately, shall we?" Lonappan interrupted and asked.

However, by that time, Gibli had already replied. "Taro's out now. You won't be able to get hold of him for a day or two."

However, even though Lonappan requested it, John was rather inclined to ask the aliens since he felt like Lonappan was hiding something. "Why? Where did he go? For what reason? Who's with him?" He barraged Gibli with a bunch of questions.

"Well, he went to Trivandrum to participate in the state martial arts tournament. Since he went by train, it might take him a bit of time. And he's with Thankappan and his dojo master." Gibli answered.

"Ah, Thankappan's my subordinate, so you don't have to worry…" Lonappan tried containing the situation, however it was too late.

"Are you kidding me? You just let a fucking calamity level threat out to fight a martial arts tournament! How stupid are you lot?" John screamed.

"Sir, its potential calamity-level threat. It's not proven yet. And this fight might prove whether he's one or not." Lonappan corrected John.

"Does that even matter? What matters here is that you let out a 'potential' disaster maker out in the wild, with your subordinate—who's most probably a junior field agent, the sort of person who couldn't even contain the alien if it went on a rampage. Well, if it's a calamity-level, it wouldn't even matter if he's present or not, right? Since, the entire planet will disappear anyway! What ticks me off is that you sent the bomb right into the ideal place to explode. To a martial arts tournament? Are you fucking crazy? There's people everywhere in that sort of event." John explained furiously.

"Not like I care about the people anyway." Lonappan mumbled. However, nothing escaped John's ears.

"Oh, seems like we got an edge lord between us! You don't care about the people? You don't care about the work we do? Don't worry, neither do I! However, whether we like it or not, we are the last line of defense because the innocent people who actually care about the world might die without even knowing why and the reason for that will be people like you and me—people with knowledge of what's really happening around the world." John spoke with a passion in his voice.

Lonappan stood still for a while, contemplating all the idiotic moves he did for the past few weeks. "You're right! We can't let innocent people die because of our mistake!" Lonappan was motivated. He wanted to stop Taro from fighting before something grave ended up happening.

#

"I get what you're saying. However, weren't you the one who trusted Taro and Thankappan and stuff?" Ponnappan asked on the phone. Lonappan had called him to explain the events that unfolded before them moments ago.

"I still trust them. However, something's been bothering me for a while. And with John's words, the worry's just increased. For some reason, if Taro ended up getting unhinged, what do you think will happen? We won't be able to protect anyone—not even the ones close to us. It would've been fine if we had been done with this before John's appearance, however if Taro did something even minutely wrong, everyone's gonna be blamed for it. We gotta be careful about that." Lonappan explained.

"What about all the 'our mistake' thing you said? You sound like you just care about the ones around you; not anyone else. You kinda sound a bit shrewd sometimes." Ponnappan replied.

"I guess I'm a bit selfish before anything else. Well, it is as you said once. It's really a bother if they found out that a calamity-level threat resides here. I prefer peace too." Lonappan spoke.

"For real though, you contradict yourself sometimes with your speeches! I just can't get a hold off you. Anyway, what are you guys planning to do?" He asked.

"We'll most probably be heading towards Trivandrum." Lonappan replied.

"I sure do hope that the tournament ends peacefully before you get there!" Ponnappan spoke. "By the way, I'll send something for you. Keep it by you on the journey. It might just help you if everything goes awry." He said and hung up the phone.

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