Early next morning. Taro slowly opened his eyes. He was in an unfamiliar room. He tried to remember what happened last night, however, he couldn't remember even a single frame of it. And whenever he ended up in such a state, it always meant that he was in deep shit. He hoped that's not the case as he slowly got up. "The fuck happened?" He asked as he looked around. It was a hectic event. His eyes weren't in a shape to register all the events happening around.

"Oh, you're awake! Do you remember what happened yesterday?" Someone asked. It took him a bit of time to recalibrate his focus towards the person. It was Kunjan.

"I don't know! My memory is a bit hazy." Taro decided to tell the truth, since he had no idea on what was happening. However, Kunjan didn't look so. He had it under control.

"Understandable. It's supposed to have a recoil after all." Kunjan nodded at himself before he checked Taro's body.

"What do you mean?" Taro asked, however, before he could get an answer, he saw Kunjan's focus lingering towards someone else.

"Man! Why does my body ache?" Thankappan wondered as he stretched out his shoulders.

"Ah, Thankappan! Well, that's because of all the wriggling you did." Kunjan replied.

"Wriggling?" Thankappan didn't get it. He forgot everything since that one shot of vodka.

"Another one with the amnesia. Let's see what happened with the third one." Kunjan sighed before he left Thankappan behind and headed towards Gibli. "Gibli, wake up!" He slightly nudged his shoulder to see what would happen.

However, Gibli was in deep sleep, reliving one of the bitter moments in his life. "No, I don't wanna leave Ark. I don't wanna leave you guys!" He moaned.

"Seems like he's having a very emotional farewell. Let's ruin it." Kunjan looked sadistic as he repeatedly punched Gibli.

"Ouch! Why'd you do that?" Gibli cried as he dragged himself away from Kunjan.

"Obviously to wake you up. Now tell me, what happened yesterday?" Kunjan got straight to the point.

Gibli looked around for a moment and sighed. "Ah, we ate the cookie and ended up here, didn't we? I knew it was some kinda drug." He proclaimed as if he made a new discovery.

"No shit, Sherlock. By the way, you missed the adventure in between." Kunjan replied.

"What do you mean?" Gibli was curious about this.

"The adventure of the police officers chasing us and throwing us into this cell." Kunjan answered.

"And here I thought that I'm the one with the entire recollection of that event." Gibli sighed as he saw the plankton superiority that he had heard rumors about. It was once said that even though planktons were small, they emitted immense pressure, since they were simply best at everything. Today, he got a glimpse of it.

Meanwhile, Thankappan had something to get off his chest. "Wait, why do you even remember yesterday? We supposedly consumed hallucinogen and went bat shit insane. However, both of you are fine—at least Kunjan is. And you can remember for the most part too. Why is it?" He asked.

"Well, I'm an Arkian. We do have our strong foundations which would delay the effect of any drug that enters our system." Gibli explained his side.

"No wonder your medical field looks like it's the worst in the entire galaxian civilization." Kunjan shared his thoughts.

This time, Gibli agreed with this assessment. "Exactly! They ain't actually weak. Like, if you consider pure skill, they surpass every other doctor in this entire universe, since they're able to cure the Arkians of their ailments even with a delay." He explained before turning towards Kunjan. "That said, I don't know why it didn't affect the plankton." He replied.

"What is it, Plankton? What did you do?" Thankappan and Taro was curious as well.

"Heh, I guess you could say that I endured it. Rather, it didn't affect me a bit." Kunjan gave out a grin.

"That's crystal clear. I asked you for the reason." Thankappan replied, not impressed with Kunjan's smug face.

"Look. Just as Gibli talked about his Arkian heredity helping him, me being a member of plankton civilization helped me too." Kunjan gave out his explanation.

"Shoot, genetics again!" Thankappan sighed. If it was something that he developed through thorough practice, he could've make use of that technique. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to be the case.

"Hell no. Being a member of plankton civilization, the same civilization that conducts covert operations for anonymous personalities, we have to go through harsh training so that we won't spill out confidential info or jeopardize the anonymity of our employee. Therefore, I had to go through a multitude of hallucinogens and torture back then, some ten or hundred times stronger than this shit. So, I developed tolerance." Kunjan shrugged it off as if it was nothing. Meanwhile, the others had a hard time processing what they just heard.

"Man, that's dark!" Thankappan, who planned on practicing it, decided to leave it at that. "Anyhow, from what you said—that would mean that you were sane when we got caught." He spoke.

"Yup, totally." Kunjan nodded his head.

"Then why the hell are you here? You could've ran away by yourself; or you could've take us away with you. At the very least, you could've warned us." Thankappan scolded.

"Well, you should be held responsible for what you did." Kunjan got back as well.

"As I said before, why didn't you—" Thankappan was cut short by Kunjan.

"I'm involved in this too, right? So, I deserve to be punished too." He replied.

Gibli sighed before he spoke. "Great! We asked this guy to raid the MIB HQ with us. He'll just give up right in the beginning if this is the case." He was met with a dumbfounded audience of three.

"Huh?" Thankappan was the most baffled one amongst them.

"Nothing." Gibli quickly tried to cover up.

Thankappan took in a deep breath. "I'm just gonna pretend I didn't hear anything you said right now because that would be downright impossible and you'd be placed in a prison for planning something ridiculous as this." He spoke in a calm and rational tone.

"Wait, you're chill about it?" Gibli was surprised. He never expected this turn of events.

"I am. Because I know it's impossible for just the three of you—four including M'Baku if he agreed with it too." He replied.

"Cool, we'll continue with our plans then." Kunjan spoke this time.

"Good luck." Thankappan wished them for their plan.

Since that was done with, Gibli turned his attention back to Kunjan. "Now, back to our point. Why?" He asked.

"Because we deserved it." Kunjan bluntly replied.

"Man, I get it. But don't you think this is a bit much? Look at Vineeth over there for example. The guy's in shambles." He pointed towards Vineeth, on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

"No! I can't be in a prison. My wife.. my kids.. I can't let them get shamed because of me! Why did I agree to do this shit?" Vineeth cried. It was a similar case for several others as well—except one asshole, of course.

"Man, can you pipe down. It's not that big of a deal." Tyagi raised his voice as he picked his nose.

"And then there's that asshole. He fucked us all over and now he's chilling out there." Gibli looked at Tyagi furiously. Although, Tyagi didn't care since he was used to it.

"Yup, he deserves a harsher punishment." Kunjan agreed with Gibli's sentiments.

"Dude, since when did you become this justice warrior type of character?" Gibli asked. This version of Kunjan was quite Different in what way?different from the one he know.

"What do you mean? I always stand by justice." Kunjan assured.

"Very well. Are you expecting something to happen to him?" Gibli asked.

"Unfortunately, no. At least, nothing right now. But I feel like a storm's coming." Kunjan gazed towards the farthest ceiling.

Suddenly, Gibli's face turned grim. "Here comes Kunjan's impeccable bad omen radar." He spoke.

"What do you mean?" Taro asked.

"I don't know how, but whenever he talks about something going awry, it generally does." Gibli explained.

"That's just straight up black tongue [????]" Thankappan replied.

"Black tongue?" Taro was interested in this new term.

"It basically means the same thing that he said right now. Bad omens coming true." Thankappan explained it briefly.

"I hope he's wrong about it this time though." Taro whispered.

#

Back in the Holy Land, Lonappan had been waiting for the guys for hours now. It was awfully silent. However, this silence was broke when his phone rang. He picked it up—it was Gopan. "What's up, Gopan?" He casually greeted his comrade.

"Ah, it seems like I'm the only one who heard about it." Gopan replied upon hearing Lonappan's laid back voice.

"Heard about what?" He asked.

"About how the guys got jailed for illegal consumption of marijuana." Gopan replied.

"Huh, that explains why they're late." There wasn't much of a surprise in his voice as Gopan expected. It was as if he knew it would happen. "Well, did all four got caught?" He asked.

"Yea, why'd you ask?" Gopan asked back.

"Even Thankappan?" Lonappan didn't want it to be true. Even though he did call his junior an idiot for fun, he didn't want that to be factual.

"Yea, even him." Gopan replied.

"????????????. ???????????????? ????????????????????!" Lonappan cursed inwardly. "Gopan, it seems like we've got to help."

"Sure! I'll come by as soon as possible and we can go to the station right after." Gopan said.

"You do that. However, before the police station, we will have to move to another place." Lonappan gave out an order that Gopan didn't expect.

"Huh? Okay." Although a bit doubt crept into him, Gopan decided to place his trust on his friend and headed towards his auto.

Lonappan hanged up the phone as well and clenched his fist in anger. "For fuck's sake. Making me pull out a double duty. I'll never forgive them for this." He cursed.

#

[????] Indian myth which states that someone with a black tongue might be able to say things that'll come true. Applicable mostly to bad omens and stuff.