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- Dehradun -
- October 15, 1936 -
The October sun hung low over the Doon Valley, casting a golden hue on the white-stone façade of the newly built military academy. The morning air was crisp, filled with the quiet murmurs of discipline—the sound of boots on gravel, the sharp call of instructors, the rustle of uniforms as cadets stood in perfect lines. Dehradun, once a sleepy hill town, was now a symbol of the new Bharat—focused, determined, unyielding.
Aryan stood on a raised platform, dressed not in royal robes but in the understated, sharp uniform of Supreme Commander. No medals, no embellishments—just a clean-cut look that reflected purpose. Before him stood the first batch of recruits, hundreds of young men and women, handpicked for their loyalty, skill, and potential. They represented a new kind of soldier—not colonial pawns, but defenders of a sovereign land.
He looked over them, his expression unreadable for a long moment. Then he spoke, and his voice cut through the air with calm certainty.
"Not long ago, the sacred land—the country you now prepare to serve—was ruled by a foreign power that treated us, the rightful inhabitants, as mere slaves and resources to be exploited for their own gain. But not anymore. Today, we are in command."
There was no applause, no shouting. Just silence—focused, solemn, proud. They didn't need cheering. They understood the weight of this moment.
Across the country, things were shifting. The British had been cast out, their plans exposed and undone. The integration of Bharat was nearly complete, as the varied demands of different regions were carefully negotiated. Kashmir, too, had agreed to a framework—some of their terms accepted, but without compromising Bharat's sovereignty or territorial integrity. That piece of land was now an integral part of the nation.
It had only been days since the world watched Mountbatten float back to his homeland in disgrace, abandoned on a rusting prison ship—his defeat plain for all to see. In contrast, the French and Portuguese officials had been returned with formality and dignity. That wasn't mercy. It was strategy.
Aryan had known of Britain's next move. His offshore intelligence network, layered through trade companies and shell corporations, had uncovered whispers of a full embargo being orchestrated by the British. They hoped to isolate Bharat, to force its submission through economic strangulation.
But Aryan had acted first.
By drawing a clear line between Britain and the other Western powers—by treating France and Portugal with diplomatic courtesy—he shattered the illusion of a united colonial front. Britain appeared petty and vindictive. Bharat, firm yet rational. The message landed where it mattered. The Americans were watching. So were Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, who quietly sent feelers through unofficial channels.
The result: the embargo effort stalled. Britain stood alone in its outrage, while the rest chose to wait and watch. Aryan had given them reason to hesitate. Afterall, for those in the know, Bharat's contribution to WW1 and Europe couldn't be outright denied completely, and now that the tensions for another great war were increasing, an outright rejection of Bharat and isolation was not considered a wise move by these Western Countries.
Back home, the momentum didn't slow. Subhash Chandra Bose had taken on the vast task of reshaping the armed forces. The old guard—those who had saluted foreign flags—were quietly retired. In their place stood soldiers who had defected from the British Indian Army during the freedom struggle. Others, fresh and eager, poured into the ranks, ready to serve a nation that now belonged to its people.
Modernization was no longer a goal. It was essential. Factories, with modern and advanced technology, matching and sometimes surpassing, the most technologically advanced nations of the time, were rising in Bengal, Punjab, and the Deccan—churning out rifles, artillery, uniforms, and ammunition, under careful guidance of Aryan. Military academies like this one in Dehradun were being established across Bharat—from Kashmir to the South, in the Northeast, and the Thar. Every corner of the subcontinent would be ready.
Aryan looked at the cadets again, his gaze sharper now.
"You are not just soldiers. You are shields. You are blades. And you are the promise that no foreign boot will ever march on our soil again."
He paused, letting the weight of the words sink in.
"Train well. Lead with discipline. And when the time comes—fight with purpose."
He stepped back, allowing the academy commander to take over. But the air had already changed. The recruits didn't cheer. They didn't smile. But something lit behind their eyes—a quiet fire.
As Aryan left the parade ground, his thoughts were already moving ahead. The world was watching, and Bharat could no longer afford hesitation. It had to rise—not just as a free nation, but as a force that would shape the century to come.
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- Samrat Bhavan, Delhi -
- October 15, 1936 | Evening -
The old Viceroy's House, now renamed Samrat Bhavan, stood tall against the evening sky—its domes glowing softly in the orange hue of the setting sun. Inside, its marbled corridors no longer echoed with the clipped boots of British officers, but with the quieter, steadier rhythm of a nation taking shape.
In a private chamber on the second floor, where the former Viceroys once hosted banquets of control masked as diplomacy, Aryan now sat across from a man who didn't quite belong—at least, not by appearance.
He looked Western In style, dressed in a charcoal suit tailored with European finesse, his eyes a pale shade of green, skin fair, hair wavy and dark. But there was something else in his bearing, something old. A restlessness that Aryan recognized. Not the restlessness of ambition—but of someone whose roots had long been denied a place to grow.
He was Romani—one of the scattered children of Bharat, pushed far and wide through centuries of exile and wandering. In the West, they were called Gypsies. Here, he was a Bharatiya, who had returned to his roots in the sevice of Samrat Aryan.
Aryan, dressed in a simple black kurta with intricate and elegant design embroidered at the shoulder, leaned back slightly, watching the man speak with precision and clarity.
"My name, as given in Europe, is Elias Varga," the man said in fluent Hindi with a faint but graceful European lilt. "But my grandmother called me Elaiya. I was born in Hungary. Educated in Paris and later in New York. And now, by a twist of fate… I am at your service."
Aryan smiled faintly—not a smile of triumph, but of recognition.
"You were never their own to begin with, they will never accept you, as you may seen by the actions of west against your people and now Germany's open hostility. You belong here in the service of your motherland," he said. "You were only borrowed by the West for a time."
Elaiya—Elias—nodded.
Their meeting was not the beginning, but the culmination of a silent operation that had started almost a year ago. When Aryan had sent his shadow clones when he had travelled to Europe, stealthily under different names, disguises, and shadows—selling rare artifacts from the Dungeon World into black markets, earning seed capital that no one could trace. He had used illusions to fabricate records, planted rumors in scholarly circles, and walked through halls of power cloaked in quiet anonymity. That had birthed the first companies—small, agile, unassuming.
He had left them under the watch of his clones—each seeded across Europe and America, working as businessmen, engineers, traders. And it was there that one of them had discovered Elias. A sharp mind. Former strategist for a major European logistics firm. But more than that—loyalty that could not be bought, but earned.
Aryan had earned it the day his clone healed Elias' daughter—an illness the Western doctors couldn't name, let alone treat. Using his ability to manipulate energy, he had bolstered her bio and life energy, Aryan's clone had successfully cured her in a matter of hours. Elias hadn't asked how. He had simply knelt, eyes wet, and pledged everything.
Now, he sat as the chosen head of Aryan's offshore empire, one he desired who could one day control the world's economy. Hundreds of companies, masked behind shell structures, all tracing back—if one knew where to look—to Aryan. They had invested in armament firms, rare metal mines, shipping lines, even soft influence media outlets and technology workshops quietly being funded in secret wartime laboratories.
"What you've built," Elias said, spreading a file of numbers and graphs between them, "is unlike anything in the market. You predicted the tensions of war before anyone moved. You invested in oil, steel, food security, and even propaganda networks before the world started to shake."
Aryan looked down at the papers but said nothing. His mind wasn't on the numbers—it was on the future.
"I don't want fragments," he said after a while. "Too many moving pieces. Too many risks. We consolidate. One holding company. Registered in a neutral country. Switzerland, maybe Sweden."
Elias leaned forward. "And the name?"
Aryan's eyes narrowed slightly. "Kalachakra Group."
The name felt heavy in the air. The Wheel of Time. Neither modern nor archaic. Not bound to any flag or race. Just… eternal.
"You'll be its face," Aryan continued. "Publicly. You'll answer to no board. No state. Only to me. Quietly."
Elias nodded slowly. "And when people ask where the capital came from?"
"They'll ask," Aryan agreed. "But they won't find the answers. Only shadows."
The room fell silent again. Outside, the faint calls of Delhi's night markets drifted in through the tall windows. Bharat was alive, bustling, uncertain, but sovereign. And in the heart of its capital, decisions were being made that would shape not just its future—but the world's.
As Elias gathered the papers, Aryan stood and walked to the window, hands behind his back.
"In the West, war is coming," Aryan said softly. "And when the world burns, we won't just survive. We'll lend them the firewood… and sell them the water."
He turned back to face Elias.
"Go build the foundation."
Elias bowed, not out of submission, but understanding. "Yes, Samrat."
As the man left the chamber, Aryan remained still. The world thought of power in flags, borders, and armies. But he knew better.
True power was silent. Distributed. Invisible. And now, it had a name.
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