ADILAGES
MURCA 1'S
The murca of the angkara bears the fruit of infinite darkness.
The sound of police sirens still roaring in the distance, making the atmosphere of Jakarta at night quiet increased noise.
There is a quiet place in front of a skyscraper apartment building that has long been left in half-completed condition. There, all the noise sounded faint. However, the quiet atmosphere in that place will soon be broken by two people who are facing each other under the lighting of street lights. To be precise, a strange red-costumed man was being held up by a gun by a purple-costumed woman and was just as strange.
“Rangda? Sorry, but I have never seen you,” said the man, his tone seemed confused. He sets horses, ready to fight if he has to.
Girl nicknamed Rangda even rebuked, “Don't pretend! I know you're Cakra, the villain who tried to kill me at Anak Krakatau Mountain. I should've guessed, you didn't die after you drowned in the magma crater. And now you're back, looking for me to make sure I die and shut up, ‘ right? Good thing Reog told me where you were, so I finally found you here!”
Cakra exclaimed back, “I don't understand your words! You've mistaken me! Maybe it was my predecessor who fought with you before! My name is Adhyaksa Wiguna, and I..”.
“Lying! It is impossible for that mess-bearer to choose a good person as his heir!”
“If you don't want to believe, let me turn into a human being.”.
“Free! That keris spirit must have told you to fool me, then kill me when I'm not alert! Sorry man, whoever you are, I must've destroyed you and your armor.”
“So even if I don't kill you, you still kill me?”
“Ya!”
“You have dark eyes, do not want to believe and do not want to understand. Then, I have no choice but this!” As Cakra's last words fly by, he is forced to take risks by exploiting his super vision and the darkness of the night.
But Cakra does not know, Rangda's super vision is sharper. One shot of Rangda's gun into the night darkness hits the protective prana in Cakra's abdomen. The pain makes Cakra lose balance, then drift uncontrollably into the construction site of the building. Like a leaf in the wind, the body of the Red Thunderbolt Swordsman hit the small objects in the site.
Suddenly a pointy iron bar seemed to threaten Cakra's eyes. Reflexes, his prana-laden hands stretched out, grasping the iron rod. The overpass made his body slightly turn, then fall down on the concrete floor. The pain is not a headache, but it is certainly much better than being stuck in iron and a pranic shield being pierced by bullets.
Cakra sprawled, groaning because of his wounds. Inevitably, with the energy in pulling out a bullet that slightly hardened his abdominal muscles. With the deep healing power of his teacher, Mpu Gandring, the bullet wound gradually tightened.
Before he could breathe a sigh of relief to avoid death, the sound of fast steps that were increasingly clear to make Cakra gasp. He wanted to run away, just shy away from this woman whose mind was covered in grudges.
But Cakra just realized, running will not solve the problem, instead making his life will not be calm. The sounds of running are rising faster up the stairs. So regardless of the pain, Cakra forced himself to run to the other end of the corridor, away from the sound of footsteps that sounded faster and closer.
Before reaching the end, Cakra suddenly heard the sound of gunfire again. Not want to be careless again, with a very agile reflex motion Cakra convoluted side by side. Sure enough, the first bullet shot to one side and the second bullet from the other, both of them almost hit him.
The super man then inched as fast as lightning, climbing the stairs at the end of the corridor, before jumping first so that the pursuer confused him up or down. Cakra won't fly anymore, he wants to play Rangda for a while. He climbed three floors, then ran to the other end of the corridor and went down two floors.
Cakra intends to ambush Rangda from behind. But when he arrived at the floor in question, Rangda was not even in place. Cakra walked very quickly down the corridor, suddenly he felt a flow of prana from one of the apartment units on the floor. He stopped stepping, sparks of red lightning prana visible on his fingertips, ready to be fired at any moment.
Want to fight fast, accurate? Well, we'll prove who's the best among us, now! With a single breath, a single jolt, Cakra half-jumped across the doorway of the apartment unit while firing a streak of red lightning from the tip of his index finger.
At the same time, the sound of a gun eruption rang out, a single bullet covered in purple fire prana shot towards Cakra. Instead, a second bolt of lightning struck from Cakra's other index finger, crashing with great accuracy until the bullet broke in the middle of the road. While the first lightning hit Rangda's body, the purple fire bullet shooter earlier.
Rangda fell and collapsed on the floor, convulsing with electricity running through his body. Apparently the chakra shot had been set in level and strength to paralyze, not kill the opponent.
Cakra approached his opponent, but kept his distance. As he expected, Rangda slowly moved to get up again, the eyes behind her mask and her expression laden with murderous lust. His hand that was grasping the gun trembled, trying to aim.
“Sorry, forced you to sleep first.” While saying so, Cakra shot out another bolt of lightning from his outstretched palm. Rangda's body was stung violently, convulsing for a moment and then not moving anymore.
\==oOo==
Four hours after his battle with Rangda was over, Cakra had already returned to his human form, a young man named Adhyaksa Wiguna.
Adhi, the nickname of the young man who works as a journalist, was just sitting on the window sill of an apartment that had not been fitted with glass. He glimpsed at the dawn sky, at the newly revealed sun, at the birds that occasionally passed by, into the high-low buildings in the distance.
Then, Adhi turned to look inside the room. In one corner of the unpainted room, a woman was lying on her back among a pile of dust. The woman was wearing a blouse suit, blazer and office trousers that looked still pretty neat. The beauty of his face made Adhi stunned, but the most important thing is the chest of the girl up and down, the sign he was still breathing.
Adhi knew the reason he did this. When he saw the short-haired woman squirming and twitching her eyes, he got down from the window sill, approached and stood on standby, keeping his distance. His face looked tense.
The beautiful woman opened her eyes, looking around. When his gaze was fixed on Adhi, he said weakly, stammering, “S-who are you…? Why... am I here?” It seems he lost his memory, unaware of his previous actions.
Still not approaching, Adhi replied, “My name is Adhi. You've fainted here for four hours, miss.” The woman gasped at it, then got up while fumbling behind her blazer.
“You looking for this?” Adhi brandished the semi-automatic pistol he took out of his own jeans jacket towards the top. “I know what you're thinking, but if I was mean, you'd have been dead since.”
Vigilance and common sense of the girl returned, her speech more smoothly, “Hngg.. So was it you who fought with me earlier... as Cakra?”.
“Of course. When I fought earlier I mentioned my name, ‘kan?”
“I forgot. I was too stifled, so Rangda filled my mind with a lust for revenge, blinding my wits.”
“Wah, your grudge against my predecessor is very deep, yes.” Adhi looked at astonishment. “Ah yes, almost forgot. What's your name, miss heiress Rangda?”
“Rania Giselda, call me Rania.”
“Nah Rania, so is my predecessor dead in Anak Krakatau crater?”
“If my common sense worked, I should have realized, even if Kris Mpu Gandring had managed to save Gerry from the sea of magma, Cakra would have been him, not you. Your face is too different. If Gerry had plastic surgery, he would not have changed the course from a criminal to an exterminator. ”
Rania's face flushed red, then she answered in a hurry, “Ngak tuh!”
“Oh, yes already! Here, gun. See you soon, yeah!” Adhyaksa just put Rania's gun under her feet. The magical belt of the Sudarsana Cakra that he wore shimmered red. Adhi transforms into Cakra and flies away through the window.
Rania, who turned out to be very quickly recovered his health thanks to the magical prana Rangda got up and shouted, “Wait!” But the Cakra had already flown too far, vanishing from sight. As the girl picked up her gun on the floor, she saw a scrap of business card under the gun and picked it up anyway.
Rania put on her glasses, then read the business card. It says there, Adhyaksa Wiguna, Reporter Lepas, along with phone numbers and personal data as necessary without mentioning the home address.
Rania kept the gun and the business card behind her blazer, then gazed up at the dawn sky. Her smile expanded, making her beauty radiate brilliantly.
\==oOo==
According to the information on his card, now Adhyaksa Wiguna no longer works still on the Sanggabuana Daily which is stopping to operate until the deadline has not been determined. So, to fill his time and bank account, the young man became a freelance photojournalist for a newspaper and a magazine.
Many of Adhi's published photographs are about the exposure of two of Adilaga's most famous super heroes, Taruna and Dahlia. But his articles emphasizing that the two are not necessarily lovers have never appeared on the surface.
But Adhi remained adamant with his stance until one of the gossip tabloids in Jakarta finally posted it. As expected, the article provoked a lot of criticism from among lay readers. Adhi dismissed the criticism. Superheroes have the right to keep their real identities and personal lives a secret. What appears on the surface does not necessarily correspond to reality, he wrote.
After that, only Adhi's photo-foro came out. That is the idealistic price of a journalist. Adhi only sighed, hoping that the famous Sanggabuana Daily was critical and vocally revived.
On the bright side, Adhi has plenty of time to meet Rania Giselda, the private detective and superhero, as well as the most interesting person he has known so far.
So, the heir of Mpu Gandring enthusiastically fulfilled Rania “Rangda”'s invitation to meet at a kopitiam aka coffee shop in Kelapa Gading area, North Jakarta. As fellow coffee lovers, they both had a good conversation while enjoying coffee-o and white coffee and lunch with a typical culinary dish of Singapore.
On the sidelines of the conversation, they also shared a secret piece about “legend” inheritance and superpowers respectively.
“However, you got Rangda's power from Shinta Devi, in the fight against my predecessor Cakra,” Adhi said with a serious attitude. “Then how can you partner with Reog?”
“Wah, the story is even longer. Maybe I'll tell you next time,” replied Rania. “But what makes me so curious, what about the spirit of Mpu Gandring? Is he like Rangda, strange and unpredictable personality?”
“To put it bluntly, I am currently united heart, one soul with Mpu Gandring to avenge him who has been buried for centuries. The difference with my predecessor, this time he entrusted his way to me, and equipped me with knowledge, strength and skills that are now almost perfect.”
Rania nodded, her smile implying a sense of relief that Cakra would be a partner that would be very reliable. And the moment of proof for that arrived as quickly as one sip of coffee. “See, my clients have arrived. Time for business,” he said as he pointed with a nod of his head.
Dahi Adhi is crinkled, only to find out this is a business meeting, not a date. He looked around and saw two people walking through the glass door. They are men and women, joining together like lovers or husbands in their early thirties.
The man was rather thin and tall. Her hair was combed very neatly, shoulder length. The short-haired woman with the sides and back was cooked until it looked thick. They both look beautiful like former models.
Politely Adhi and Rania got up from their seats, welcoming the two “tamu”. The man guest said, “Detective Rania? I am Indra Lukmanto and this is my wife, Dian Megaranti.”
“Oh yes, please sit down,” replied Rania. “Call me Rania only, yes.”
The couple sat down, but Dian glanced sharply at Adhi and spoke, “Who are you, huh?”
Rania interrupts, “She Adhi, my partner. Take it easy, whatever you guys tell me must be up to him anyway.”
“Oh, I see,” Dian said with a cold tone and expression, dismissing the menu offer from the waiter.
Turn Indra talk, “We go directly to the point of the problem only. Look, Rania, we have a huge plot of land and a house on the edge of town. Recently, our house was the arrival of creepy figures that we feel, comes from the occult.”
“What do they look like?” adhi asked, suddenly becoming very interested.
Dian replied, “The one is like a haired, skinned and dressed all in white. The other one was dressed as a pocong, but was very large and stocky.”
Adhi gasp. The names “Okkult” and “Gangren” were almost spoken of, but Rania's sharp gaze made the words just hang in her agape mouth.
So that the interlocutors do not wonder, Rania said, “What do they do?”
Indra replied, “Because we didn't live in the house, both ransacked the household and killed one family of maids and housekeepers. After that, the pocong and the kuntilanak intercepted us in the middle of the road, gave us a threatening letter written in the blood of their victims so that we would not come to the mansion again or report to the police. Or next letter will be sent with our head.”
Adhi was amazed to hear how sadistic Gangren and Okkult were. He had already fought with them and knew about their actions to smash a car to rob a keris from the memory of his teacher, Mpu Gandring. But he was silent, waiting for a response from his partner.
“So, do you want us to expel the two supernatural beings so that your home returns to its rightful owner?” ask Rania.
“True,” replied Dian. A long explanation is definitely not his style.
“If you need to destroy the bullies,” said Indra. “There is no law in the supernatural realm, so it doesn't matter, ‘kan?”
Adhi interrupts, “Unless it turns out that the ‘hantu’ is a living human.” He already knows who Gangren and Okkult really are, but deliberately provoked the reaction of Rania's clients. Rania glares again, but this time Adhi ignores her. His attention was centered on Indra and Dian's astonished expressions.
“A-did you know about that weird pocong and kuntilanak?” dian asked, as if horrified to re-imagine the faces and appearance of the two enemies.
“Eh, t-no, no kok,” Adhi flutter. “So I just origin only.”
Rania reprimands Adhi, “In addition save your comments until the client finishes talking.” Then switch to both clients. “But Adhi's opinion has a point as well. We must be careful in acting, even when deciding whether to kill an opponent or not, against the law or not.”
“Soal way is up to you,” Indra said while holding his wife's hand, calming her down. “That's important we accept the result.”
Seeing Dian's face pale from severe trauma, Adhi receded for a moment. He decides to observe Indra and Dian only, utilizing the instincts of the journalist and his intuition.
While Rania casually sipped her white coffee, then said, “Nah, so now we are talking about her services..”.