Cardenia bolted up in her seat, her eyes widened as she stared at the body of Ceres. “What happened?!” She screamed at Senia, who was racing to double-check with others, calling on her multi.
Zachary looked stunned too, not entirely sure what just happened himself.
The whole sequence of events happened way too fast, and everyone was watching closely when Ceres swung his sword downwards!
Instead, Ceres collapsed on the floor, the black lines that formed a spiderweb across his face disappearing gradually.
In his personal capsule, Oliver Athen groaned as he threw the remote away towards Doctor Wu. “You told me the backdoor was painless and quick, why was Ceres able to fight it off in the FIRST PLACE? Now everyone has seen it happen. Why did I have to press it three times!”
He fully erupted into an unbridled rage, taking it out on the doctor who cowered in his seat, his head hung low.
“It worked on everyone else, such as Braton and Trissa! My backdoor was foolproof! It worked, in the end, either way! We have to get him out of there before someone inspects him”
Doctor Wu finally regained some confidence in his nerval jack backdoor installation and fought back as the principal paced the capsule, thinking hard.
The medical staff on-site and arena guards were already rushing onto the scene, heading for Ceres.
“We need to get him into a hospital, your hospital. Do it now. And I want you to cure him back to normal. I don’t want any scandal reaching me, not at this stage!” Oliver ordered.
Doctor Wu shook his head vigorously. “I can definitely get him into our reach, but I can’t make any promises about healing him. I don’t know if his body had an adverse reaction to the backdoor, or he fought so hard that he might be now paralyzed from the waist down!”
Oliver stared at the doctor until he finally relented, nodding while sending rapid messages to everyone he knew that could help him.
“Also, once Chad is healed, ask him to see me immediately. Bring him up to my personal office in the hospital as well. We can’t have him roaming around.” Oliver sighed, rubbing his forehead in frustration. The fallout of the duel was obvious, but he had to immediately redirect the anger of the viewers somewhere constructive.
On the ground, the arena was in an uproar. Chad wasn’t sure whether it was yet another feint, but it wasn’t until the medical team rushed in that he knew it was actually real.
Why did Ceres collapse? Chad couldn’t move much himself, his chest and a few ribs crushed by the exosuit-powered stomp from Ceres previously. He lay on the floor as medics completely ignored him and rushed straight to Ceres.
He recalled the weird black lines he saw on Ceres’s face. That wasn’t a hallucination and he was sure of it. Chad found the entire sequence of events reeked of external intervention. The black lines were one thing, but Ceres suddenly stopping in the middle of the attack to slap his ears was a complete tell-tale sign.
Chad glanced up at the private viewing pod above, knowing that his grandfather was most likely complicit in this.“Was my grandfather’s level of confidence in me that low?! And he went against his principles by sabotaging a competent outer like Ceres!”
Anger soared within him, though he focused on getting treated first. As much as he liked his grandfather, how dare he sully such a good duel! Chad knew he should have lost!
The crowd was still in shock, but a few already understood that Ceres had lost. The announcer hasn’t announced anything yet, still trying to get a better understanding of the whole scenario.
He even had a celebratory video loaded up of Ceres winning. The intern who was editing the video was also unsure of what to do. Should he swap the video for a pre-made one of Chad instead?
“Haha, your precious ‘hero’ has fallen! That’s what you get for trying to go any higher!” A few haughty gamblers who had probably just won their fortune over the bet on the match shouted at the opposing side, who were still standing and trying to see what was happening.
Jeers and calls started to come from the side who supported Chad, causing anger to rise within the crowd on both ends.
“Well, your precious poster boy got smashed so hard in his chest that he can barely walk on his own! You call that a win? Fuck you inners, you’re always looking down on us!” A few outers rallied up the crowd, shouting back at the opposing side.
The inners became even angrier, as they couldn’t deny the fact that they too thought Chad was about to lose.
The boiling point of the arena was previously at its peak was about to be converted to physical violence, and both sides started to target each other as an outlet for their rage.
“All units, prepare for combat! It’s coming, stall them for as long as possible!” Henry Lesion barked orders to various units, standing at a mobile command centre deployed near the arena.
He too had watched the duel and was still shaking from the result, but he focused on his job and issued command after command, dragging squad positions on a large holo monitor that had a map of New Saint.
Henry breathed deeply, trying to forget what just happened and concentrate. As much as he was an outer himself, he will personally make sure Ceres is safe later.
For now, he had a job to do. “Don’t arrest or hit anyone! You’ll make things worse! Just keep them apart!” Henry expected the exact same situation that happened in the past when he won sixteen years ago.
However, the ensuing chaos was unlike anything Henry had ever seen, with violence erupting across every part of the arena crowd.
Not just in the arena, the fighting started to appear in some viewing parties that involved both sides, causing mayhem in their respective areas. Outers took to the streets to show their anger, finally reaching the tipping point.
The enforcers and arena guards rushed to block and form a wall, preventing the two sides from having a go at each other.
All over the city, the entire society was in an uproar.
Apart from the fighters, a large majority of the citizens too knew something was off. Everyone had watched the duel, seeing Ceres suddenly back off during an attack.
The black lines too pointed towards some sort of external influence, and who else would do it other than the inners themselves?
Some of the inners were too disgusted at what the higher-ups were doing, even joining the ‘Ceres’ side. Heated discussions rose to the top of the forums, while the mainstream news even had to tell people to stay at home.
Henry never relented, continuously having an oversight of the whole scenario and stopping people. “Don’t shoot at anyone, don’t hurt anyone!” He was afraid one of the enforcers would be trigger-happy and shoot into the crowd, which will cause even more anger and hatred to pop up.
Many bored citizens who weren’t even watching the competition started to join some of the fighting, using the unrest as a shortcut to breaking into buildings and houses. Such arson and looting took place all over the city, while Henry did his best to target the worst area.
Despite his qualms about deploying the military garrison, he immediately requested it, knowing that even he himself had severely misjudged the fallout of the duel.
The viewing party at the dumpling store Mrs Qiu was an anomaly, in the sense that no fight broke out. Everyone just looked at each other, trying to get over the unbelievable disaster that just happened. Ceres had lost!
They looked crestfallen as they still continued drinking, their prior happiness turned to uncertainty and sorrow. Zone 17 residents were never one to waste a bought drink anyway. However, deep down in their heart was an unwillingness to just let it go like this.
Something had to be done.
In the hospital ward, Braton and Trissa jaw-dropped, looking at the unbelievable event. Erik was equally confused, but instead of staring at the screen hoping for a miracle, he began pulling up the video replay to see what happened, tracing back frame by frame.
“What are you looking for?” Trissa asked as Erik stared intently at his own multi, meticulously inspecting every action of Ceres. “I’m looking for something off, something weird that Ceres would never do!”
Of course, there’s something off! I think that whole hidden strength thing is already pretty weird! He was barely even recognizable at the end right there. If I fought him, my arm might have been torn right off!” Braton shook his head.
To him, he should be stronger than Ceres, yet he could never imagine himself overpowering Chad head-on. Whatever Ceres did was way beyond the realm of possibility to Braton.
“I know Ceres, he should’ve won over Chad much earlier! Obviously, something wrong must have happened to him. But exactly what and why is what I want to know!” Erik continued looking through the video, as Braton and Trissa recalled how they lost their duels too.
They had also heard a humming sound as well, realizing that Ceres might have had the same issue. But their reaction wasn’t as bad as his. The doctors told them that they had a nerval jack issue, but it was a temporary effect due to them overstraining it.
Braton didn’t buy into that though, because he never used an exosuit for any of his melee duels! Nothing was plugged into his nerval jack, so how could he suffer because of it? It should’ve been inactive, yet he too was distracted by it and lost the duel.
Finally coming over onto Erik’s side, Braton started to look through the video on his bed too. Lisa watched with him, looking for anything else.
However, after a good few minutes of watching, Erik couldn’t find anything much different from Braton’s and Trissa’s case apart from the black lines. He pondered on who would benefit the most from Ceres losing, assuming there was an external influence at all.
Meanwhile, the arena was in complete chaos as the viewers started to take sides. Those who supported Chad banded together, while the fans of Ceres demanded an explanation for what happened.
Shouts and taunts flew over the heads of the enforcers, who formed a human wall blocking off the two sides that were gathering around the arena. Random objects were hurled over, some outers even throwing their cheap clothes over in disdain of the inners.
“Your ‘hero’ lost! Get over it! The duel was fair and square!”
“Nobody collapses just like that! He might be dead because Chad killed him!”
“Chad will never do something like that! You’re just jealous that you can’t be as good as us!”
“You think you’re so great, living in your stupid cavern shit! I bet you never dug a rock in your life!”
“I’m rich enough to not have to, why? This just sounds like the frustrations of the poor! Just work harder!”
“We’ve been slogging away for thirty years! What do you mean work hard!? How do we climb when you’re hogging all the top positions and sabotaging us!? You can’t even let a twenty-year-old kid win!!”
As the sides grew even larger in number, Henry tried to insert enforcer units from the mobile command centre to prevent them from grouping up. The last thing he wanted was a mass stampede, which will cause many to be injured or even die.
However, he couldn’t stop the discussion from spiralling way beyond control. Some of the grievances aired weren’t about Chad and Ceres, but the pent-up hatred and anger the outers had for the inners.
Even some of the inners were on the outers’ side, cursing those who were condescending to the outers.
“All we want to know is what happened to Ceres, and you can’t stop us! SHOW US THE TRUTH! SHOW US THE TRUTH!” The outers shouted, breaking into chants.
“You just can’t accept Ceres lost! Chad’s standing, Ceres’s dead, that’s it! Chad’s the winner!” The inners yelled back in response.
Already both sides were flinging everything they had on hand at the other side. Empty drinks, food waste and the occasional liquid flew over the struggling enforcers who tried to calm them down.
Certain rumours started to spread, however unlikely, speculation running wild around the crowd. A few outers in the crowd supporting Ceres suddenly started reminding the others around them that Ceres had attended the training camp hosted by Cardenia Hawthorn.
Wasn’t Ceres meant to go through the so-called ‘new’ syllabus that would have been applied to the outer schools? Perhaps something went wrong in the training camp.
The focus started to shift onto her, the people demanding to know where she was. Henry’s eyes squinted, trying to get a better view of who were the outers spreading those rumours, but he soon noticed that they were all already leaving the crowd, exiting the area. It was clearly obvious that they were planted by someone else.
“Fuck! Someone go after these instigators!” Henry shouted to the intern in front of him, who was sweating profusely under the intense pressure.
“Sir we don’t have any more available in the area, and even if we did they are all being swarmed down by the people!”
“What about the local garrison? Where’s the army?”
“They are requesting clearance from the higher-ups in the chain, it will take about close to two hours before they receive an answer!”
“Dammit! Take over here, I’m going after them! Log their faces into the database in case I don’t catch them! Someone’s behind them!”
“No need, I will catch them myself. You stay put here Henry. Start getting ready to shift to the Zone 4 Seras General Hospital.” A large black exosuit entered the mobile command centre, but everyone was too busy to salute it. It was Major Derfas.
“Sir, my modified Athen Defender is one of the fastest. I can catch them within..”
“Henry, stop. This is my order. Now go! I’ll do my part as well.” Major Derfas exited the command centre, dashing away after the tracked outers, while Henry swiftly changed gears and continued organizing the units.
“To all units, Hawthorn’s private viewing capsule is now landing. Form a defensive perimeter around her as soon as possible. Do not let ANYONE touch her!”
Down at the arena, the crowd were still swarming and growing larger with every second. Both sides started shouting to see Cardenia. The ‘Ceres’ side wanted to see her answer, while the ‘Chad’ side wanted her to announce Chad as the winner.
Just in time, Cardenia’s private viewing capsule finally descended, with the crowd jostling to see her while her own private guard bolstered by the police enforcers formed a defensive ring around the exit of the capsule.
She exited the capsule gracefully, showing none of the agitations that she had before, already having controlled her emotions. Her face showed absolute calm and control, while internally her mind was in complete turmoil.
She had lost the wager, and for no good reason. Someone must have sabotaged Ceres. And she had a good inkling as to who would benefit the most from this outcome.
However, she didn’t know what to say when verbally assaulted by the masses, all of whom were shouting questions she could barely hear or even respond to.
“Fellow citizens,” Imperial Prince Zachary came out of the capsule next to her, stealing the show yet again to make up for Cardenia’s lack of words.
“Ceres is not dead yet, he is alive and well. We will investigate deeply into why such a reaction was shown. The training camp was never intended to harm him, only to help! Please calm down and let the authorities determine the actual reason! Any further violence on your part will result in punitive action taken against you from now on!”
The citizens were then finally reminded of the severe punishment for rioting outside of licensed zones and timings. The mass riots sixteen years ago were still a clear image in many people’s heads. It was due to the emotions built up from the duel that led to such an outburst.
A few who were only there to stir trouble tried to get the people to fight back, but the majority understood the reasoning that the Imperial Prince provided. Even if they didn’t understand that, they very well understood the potential jail time and criminal record they might accrue if they continued.
“You have three minutes to disperse! We will find out the truth very soon and publish it! Anyone found gathering in this area with ill intentions past the deadline will be charged with illegal rioting!” Henry’s voice echoed throughout the square, carried through the air via speakers.
The crowd finally slowly calmed down, dispersing gradually as they made their way off the arena.
Some didn’t get the memo, clashing furiously against the enforcers, who easily tasered them and put them down. They were given no pity by the others, who just looked at them as though they were dumb.
Yet, all of this was just a stopgap measure. The fire was still burning in their hearts, and the grievances already aired.
Now that hostility had already been revealed between both sides, who could ever fix it with just a single sentence? Not even the Imperial Prince had that kind of respect to pull it off.
Henry knew nothing he was doing now was a long-term solution in any way, but at least it was a way of mellowing out. If they won’t listen to reason, they’ll have to threaten them.
The Loeric Empire was built on strength and military conquest – naturally, force was the best way of getting the people to obey.
In any other star nation, perhaps what Henry said would have backfired instead, but the high respect for the enforcers and military is instilled into the people from young in New Saint on Athen.
No matter their grievances – you should never fight directly against the enforcers. Even the large criminal rings knew that.
The supporters (or gamblers) of Chad were ecstatic, relishing in their victory, both monetary and morally. But before they could leave happily, suddenly Cardenia took the opportunity to announce her statement.
“The win of Chad is suspended till further notice under the authority given to be as the owner of Athen, until we know more of what happened to Ceres. Any form of external involvement will be subject to deep investigation!”
Those words from Cardenia, who finally regained control of herself, hit them hard, causing them to shout back in defiance and forming yet another riot.
Cardenia bolted up in her seat, her eyes widened as she stared at the body of Ceres. “What happened?!” She screamed at Senia, who was racing to double-check with others, calling on her multi.
Zachary looked stunned too, not entirely sure what just happened himself.
The whole sequence of events happened way too fast, and everyone was watching closely when Ceres swung his sword downwards!
Instead, Ceres collapsed on the floor, the black lines that formed a spiderweb across his face disappearing gradually.
In his personal capsule, Oliver Athen groaned as he threw the remote away towards Doctor Wu. “You told me the backdoor was painless and quick, why was Ceres able to fight it off in the FIRST PLACE? Now everyone has seen it happen. Why did I have to press it three times!”
He fully erupted into an unbridled rage, taking it out on the doctor who cowered in his seat, his head hung low.
“It worked on everyone else, such as Braton and Trissa! My backdoor was foolproof! It worked, in the end, either way! We have to get him out of there before someone inspects him”
Doctor Wu finally regained some confidence in his nerval jack backdoor installation and fought back as the principal paced the capsule, thinking hard.
The medical staff on-site and arena guards were already rushing onto the scene, heading for Ceres.
“We need to get him into a hospital, your hospital. Do it now. And I want you to cure him back to normal. I don’t want any scandal reaching me, not at this stage!” Oliver ordered.
Doctor Wu shook his head vigorously. “I can definitely get him into our reach, but I can’t make any promises about healing him. I don’t know if his body had an adverse reaction to the backdoor, or he fought so hard that he might be now paralyzed from the waist down!”
Oliver stared at the doctor until he finally relented, nodding while sending rapid messages to everyone he knew that could help him.
“Also, once Chad is healed, ask him to see me immediately. Bring him up to my personal office in the hospital as well. We can’t have him roaming around.” Oliver sighed, rubbing his forehead in frustration. The fallout of the duel was obvious, but he had to immediately redirect the anger of the viewers somewhere constructive.
On the ground, the arena was in an uproar. Chad wasn’t sure whether it was yet another feint, but it wasn’t until the medical team rushed in that he knew it was actually real.
Why did Ceres collapse? Chad couldn’t move much himself, his chest and a few ribs crushed by the exosuit-powered stomp from Ceres previously. He lay on the floor as medics completely ignored him and rushed straight to Ceres.
He recalled the weird black lines he saw on Ceres’s face. That wasn’t a hallucination and he was sure of it. Chad found the entire sequence of events reeked of external intervention. The black lines were one thing, but Ceres suddenly stopping in the middle of the attack to slap his ears was a complete tell-tale sign.
Chad glanced up at the private viewing pod above, knowing that his grandfather was most likely complicit in this.“Was my grandfather’s level of confidence in me that low?! And he went against his principles by sabotaging a competent outer like Ceres!”
Anger soared within him, though he focused on getting treated first. As much as he liked his grandfather, how dare he sully such a good duel! Chad knew he should have lost!
The crowd was still in shock, but a few already understood that Ceres had lost. The announcer hasn’t announced anything yet, still trying to get a better understanding of the whole scenario.
He even had a celebratory video loaded up of Ceres winning. The intern who was editing the video was also unsure of what to do. Should he swap the video for a pre-made one of Chad instead?
“Haha, your precious ‘hero’ has fallen! That’s what you get for trying to go any higher!” A few haughty gamblers who had probably just won their fortune over the bet on the match shouted at the opposing side, who were still standing and trying to see what was happening.
Jeers and calls started to come from the side who supported Chad, causing anger to rise within the crowd on both ends.
“Well, your precious poster boy got smashed so hard in his chest that he can barely walk on his own! You call that a win? Fuck you inners, you’re always looking down on us!” A few outers rallied up the crowd, shouting back at the opposing side.
The inners became even angrier, as they couldn’t deny the fact that they too thought Chad was about to lose.
The boiling point of the arena was previously at its peak was about to be converted to physical violence, and both sides started to target each other as an outlet for their rage.
“All units, prepare for combat! It’s coming, stall them for as long as possible!” Henry Lesion barked orders to various units, standing at a mobile command centre deployed near the arena.
He too had watched the duel and was still shaking from the result, but he focused on his job and issued command after command, dragging squad positions on a large holo monitor that had a map of New Saint.
Henry breathed deeply, trying to forget what just happened and concentrate. As much as he was an outer himself, he will personally make sure Ceres is safe later.
For now, he had a job to do. “Don’t arrest or hit anyone! You’ll make things worse! Just keep them apart!” Henry expected the exact same situation that happened in the past when he won sixteen years ago.
However, the ensuing chaos was unlike anything Henry had ever seen, with violence erupting across every part of the arena crowd.
Not just in the arena, the fighting started to appear in some viewing parties that involved both sides, causing mayhem in their respective areas. Outers took to the streets to show their anger, finally reaching the tipping point.
The enforcers and arena guards rushed to block and form a wall, preventing the two sides from having a go at each other.
All over the city, the entire society was in an uproar.
Apart from the fighters, a large majority of the citizens too knew something was off. Everyone had watched the duel, seeing Ceres suddenly back off during an attack.
The black lines too pointed towards some sort of external influence, and who else would do it other than the inners themselves?
Some of the inners were too disgusted at what the higher-ups were doing, even joining the ‘Ceres’ side. Heated discussions rose to the top of the forums, while the mainstream news even had to tell people to stay at home.
Henry never relented, continuously having an oversight of the whole scenario and stopping people. “Don’t shoot at anyone, don’t hurt anyone!” He was afraid one of the enforcers would be trigger-happy and shoot into the crowd, which will cause even more anger and hatred to pop up.
Many bored citizens who weren’t even watching the competition started to join some of the fighting, using the unrest as a shortcut to breaking into buildings and houses. Such arson and looting took place all over the city, while Henry did his best to target the worst area.
Despite his qualms about deploying the military garrison, he immediately requested it, knowing that even he himself had severely misjudged the fallout of the duel.
The viewing party at the dumpling store Mrs Qiu was an anomaly, in the sense that no fight broke out. Everyone just looked at each other, trying to get over the unbelievable disaster that just happened. Ceres had lost!
They looked crestfallen as they still continued drinking, their prior happiness turned to uncertainty and sorrow. Zone 17 residents were never one to waste a bought drink anyway. However, deep down in their heart was an unwillingness to just let it go like this.
Something had to be done.
In the hospital ward, Braton and Trissa jaw-dropped, looking at the unbelievable event. Erik was equally confused, but instead of staring at the screen hoping for a miracle, he began pulling up the video replay to see what happened, tracing back frame by frame.
“What are you looking for?” Trissa asked as Erik stared intently at his own multi, meticulously inspecting every action of Ceres. “I’m looking for something off, something weird that Ceres would never do!”
Of course, there’s something off! I think that whole hidden strength thing is already pretty weird! He was barely even recognizable at the end right there. If I fought him, my arm might have been torn right off!” Braton shook his head.
To him, he should be stronger than Ceres, yet he could never imagine himself overpowering Chad head-on. Whatever Ceres did was way beyond the realm of possibility to Braton.
“I know Ceres, he should’ve won over Chad much earlier! Obviously, something wrong must have happened to him. But exactly what and why is what I want to know!” Erik continued looking through the video, as Braton and Trissa recalled how they lost their duels too.
They had also heard a humming sound as well, realizing that Ceres might have had the same issue. But their reaction wasn’t as bad as his. The doctors told them that they had a nerval jack issue, but it was a temporary effect due to them overstraining it.
Braton didn’t buy into that though, because he never used an exosuit for any of his melee duels! Nothing was plugged into his nerval jack, so how could he suffer because of it? It should’ve been inactive, yet he too was distracted by it and lost the duel.
Finally coming over onto Erik’s side, Braton started to look through the video on his bed too. Lisa watched with him, looking for anything else.
However, after a good few minutes of watching, Erik couldn’t find anything much different from Braton’s and Trissa’s case apart from the black lines. He pondered on who would benefit the most from Ceres losing, assuming there was an external influence at all.
Meanwhile, the arena was in complete chaos as the viewers started to take sides. Those who supported Chad banded together, while the fans of Ceres demanded an explanation for what happened.
Shouts and taunts flew over the heads of the enforcers, who formed a human wall blocking off the two sides that were gathering around the arena. Random objects were hurled over, some outers even throwing their cheap clothes over in disdain of the inners.
“Your ‘hero’ lost! Get over it! The duel was fair and square!”
“Nobody collapses just like that! He might be dead because Chad killed him!”
“Chad will never do something like that! You’re just jealous that you can’t be as good as us!”
“You think you’re so great, living in your stupid cavern shit! I bet you never dug a rock in your life!”
“I’m rich enough to not have to, why? This just sounds like the frustrations of the poor! Just work harder!”
“We’ve been slogging away for thirty years! What do you mean work hard!? How do we climb when you’re hogging all the top positions and sabotaging us!? You can’t even let a twenty-year-old kid win!!”
As the sides grew even larger in number, Henry tried to insert enforcer units from the mobile command centre to prevent them from grouping up. The last thing he wanted was a mass stampede, which will cause many to be injured or even die.
However, he couldn’t stop the discussion from spiralling way beyond control. Some of the grievances aired weren’t about Chad and Ceres, but the pent-up hatred and anger the outers had for the inners.
Even some of the inners were on the outers’ side, cursing those who were condescending to the outers.
“All we want to know is what happened to Ceres, and you can’t stop us! SHOW US THE TRUTH! SHOW US THE TRUTH!” The outers shouted, breaking into chants.
“You just can’t accept Ceres lost! Chad’s standing, Ceres’s dead, that’s it! Chad’s the winner!” The inners yelled back in response.
Already both sides were flinging everything they had on hand at the other side. Empty drinks, food waste and the occasional liquid flew over the struggling enforcers who tried to calm them down.
Certain rumours started to spread, however unlikely, speculation running wild around the crowd. A few outers in the crowd supporting Ceres suddenly started reminding the others around them that Ceres had attended the training camp hosted by Cardenia Hawthorn.
Wasn’t Ceres meant to go through the so-called ‘new’ syllabus that would have been applied to the outer schools? Perhaps something went wrong in the training camp.
The focus started to shift onto her, the people demanding to know where she was. Henry’s eyes squinted, trying to get a better view of who were the outers spreading those rumours, but he soon noticed that they were all already leaving the crowd, exiting the area. It was clearly obvious that they were planted by someone else.
“Fuck! Someone go after these instigators!” Henry shouted to the intern in front of him, who was sweating profusely under the intense pressure.
“Sir we don’t have any more available in the area, and even if we did they are all being swarmed down by the people!”
“What about the local garrison? Where’s the army?”
“They are requesting clearance from the higher-ups in the chain, it will take about close to two hours before they receive an answer!”
“Dammit! Take over here, I’m going after them! Log their faces into the database in case I don’t catch them! Someone’s behind them!”
“No need, I will catch them myself. You stay put here Henry. Start getting ready to shift to the Zone 4 Seras General Hospital.” A large black exosuit entered the mobile command centre, but everyone was too busy to salute it. It was Major Derfas.
“Sir, my modified Athen Defender is one of the fastest. I can catch them within..”
“Henry, stop. This is my order. Now go! I’ll do my part as well.” Major Derfas exited the command centre, dashing away after the tracked outers, while Henry swiftly changed gears and continued organizing the units.
“To all units, Hawthorn’s private viewing capsule is now landing. Form a defensive perimeter around her as soon as possible. Do not let ANYONE touch her!”
Down at the arena, the crowd were still swarming and growing larger with every second. Both sides started shouting to see Cardenia. The ‘Ceres’ side wanted to see her answer, while the ‘Chad’ side wanted her to announce Chad as the winner.
Just in time, Cardenia’s private viewing capsule finally descended, with the crowd jostling to see her while her own private guard bolstered by the police enforcers formed a defensive ring around the exit of the capsule.
She exited the capsule gracefully, showing none of the agitations that she had before, already having controlled her emotions. Her face showed absolute calm and control, while internally her mind was in complete turmoil.
She had lost the wager, and for no good reason. Someone must have sabotaged Ceres. And she had a good inkling as to who would benefit the most from this outcome.
However, she didn’t know what to say when verbally assaulted by the masses, all of whom were shouting questions she could barely hear or even respond to.
“Fellow citizens,” Imperial Prince Zachary came out of the capsule next to her, stealing the show yet again to make up for Cardenia’s lack of words.
“Ceres is not dead yet, he is alive and well. We will investigate deeply into why such a reaction was shown. The training camp was never intended to harm him, only to help! Please calm down and let the authorities determine the actual reason! Any further violence on your part will result in punitive action taken against you from now on!”
The citizens were then finally reminded of the severe punishment for rioting outside of licensed zones and timings. The mass riots sixteen years ago were still a clear image in many people’s heads. It was due to the emotions built up from the duel that led to such an outburst.
A few who were only there to stir trouble tried to get the people to fight back, but the majority understood the reasoning that the Imperial Prince provided. Even if they didn’t understand that, they very well understood the potential jail time and criminal record they might accrue if they continued.
“You have three minutes to disperse! We will find out the truth very soon and publish it! Anyone found gathering in this area with ill intentions past the deadline will be charged with illegal rioting!” Henry’s voice echoed throughout the square, carried through the air via speakers.
The crowd finally slowly calmed down, dispersing gradually as they made their way off the arena.
Some didn’t get the memo, clashing furiously against the enforcers, who easily tasered them and put them down. They were given no pity by the others, who just looked at them as though they were dumb.
Yet, all of this was just a stopgap measure. The fire was still burning in their hearts, and the grievances already aired.
Now that hostility had already been revealed between both sides, who could ever fix it with just a single sentence? Not even the Imperial Prince had that kind of respect to pull it off.
Henry knew nothing he was doing now was a long-term solution in any way, but at least it was a way of mellowing out. If they won’t listen to reason, they’ll have to threaten them.
The Loeric Empire was built on strength and military conquest – naturally, force was the best way of getting the people to obey.
In any other star nation, perhaps what Henry said would have backfired instead, but the high respect for the enforcers and military is instilled into the people from young in New Saint on Athen.
No matter their grievances – you should never fight directly against the enforcers. Even the large criminal rings knew that.
The supporters (or gamblers) of Chad were ecstatic, relishing in their victory, both monetary and morally. But before they could leave happily, suddenly Cardenia took the opportunity to announce her statement.
“The win of Chad is suspended till further notice under the authority given to be as the owner of Athen, until we know more of what happened to Ceres. Any form of external involvement will be subject to deep investigation!”
Those words from Cardenia, who finally regained control of herself, hit them hard, causing them to shout back in defiance and forming yet another riot.
