“Uhhh… it looks like the students have gotten a bit excited. I’ll try to find another person to interview,” said Tifa as she stopped moving forward, and directed her news drones away from the brutal brawl that had just broken out.
The other reporters that had all been scrambling toward the red-clad students along with her also stopped and retreated back to the outer edge of the crowd and positioned their news drones away from the crowd and toward the stage where Mr. Melo was now standing.
“Tifa, what’s going on down there?” asked Fela.
“The crowd is too packed right now, we will have to get the interview later after the speech is finished,” said Tifa.
In the background of their conversation, the sounds of frightened and pained screams pierced through the air along with the loud ‘CRACKS!’ as the parasteel batons made contact with bone and para-concrete
“Fela can you hear me? We seem to be having a connection issue. I’ll be right back, I have to reboot the streaming system,” said Tifa as she quickly used her wrist-datapad and tapped in the command to cut the stream off.
Almost all of the field reporters immediately terminated their own streams due to technical issues, those that did not, used an ai to constantly loop previously recorded footage. None of them tried to fix and restart the live streaming.
Instead, they only stood around chatting and laughing with one another as they watched the scuffle unfold before them.
A few of the more proactive reporters captured a few scenes from the fight that could be edited later just in case the producers wanted to use it for something.
The red-clad students were attacking those that were standing nearest to the stage using the holo-batons, mechanical fists, and legs to pummel all of them.
They quickly began to spread out causing more mayhem as they attacked randomly. Several of the red-clad students stopped to light small round objects before throwing them into the crowd behind them.
BOOM! BOOM!
The loud mortar fireworks exploded as they landed inside the cramped gathered crowd. The explosion sent out red and yellow sparks high into the air with some of the sparks causing a few of the nearest people’s clothes to catch on fire and burn others.
In their attempt to escape the mortar fireworks and the approaching red-clad students, the crowd of people all turned and ran for the side streets or to the nearby buildings trying to enter them, only to find them locked.
In the mass confusion, several dozens of people were knocked down and trampled on. Those that were knocked unconscious, were attacked by red-clad students as they lay on the ground unable to defend themselves.
With a large portion of the crowd able to escape, those that were trapped at the front between the red-clad students, the stage, the fencing, and the buildings, bore the full brunt of their vicious attacks.
Several more mortar fireworks were thrown at them blocking their escape as they were pounced on by the red-clad students.
“Stop this violence!” shouted Mr. Melo, trying to calm the situation down, but the red-clad students did not pay him any attention and continued their attacks. A few of the red-clad students tried to approach Mr. Melo but were pushed off the stage by his privately hired security.
Near the outer edge of the crowd that had now been thinned out was where the more daring journalist stood as they were interviewing a female about her reasons for coming here.
“… I like to get all sides of any subject before I…”
Bam!
A mechanical fist slammed into her face.
“Filthy separatist! Get out of here!” shouted the red-clad man who had just punched her in the face knocking her into a nearby wall.
“Go die you filthy separatist!” shouted a screeching female in a high-pitched voice, as she darted forward and sprayed some sort of chemical in the stunned female’s face.
The reporter cut the interview short and immediately ran away, not looking back at the female as she was blinded and fell to the ground only to be stomped on by the two red-clad students.
All of this was happening so fast that Arron and the rest of the M1 officers positioned to keep the order were slow to react as they had to wait for their orders from HQ on what to do.
Captain Pointer had muted everyone when the Chief had joined the call only to be interrupted by a priority call from the higher-ups.
The situation continued to deteriorate around them as they waited for their new orders. The security drones did nothing either as they just lazily hovered in the air above the chaos on the ground. They continued to record the events taking in the information of each person in the crowd.
Finally, after several minutes of waiting the Chief finished his call and gave them their new orders.
“What? You gotta be kidding me!” said Captain Pointer when he heard what the Chief said.
“This is not a time to joke around Pointer. It is a direct order from the Office of Reason. You are not allowed to interfere with the red-clad students,” said a stern Chief Chesty.
“But they are…”
“Just make sure they don’t kill anyone. Lexa will send you more detailed information on a few things that the Office of Reason wants you to do for them,” said chief Chesty, cutting off Captain Pointer’s attempts to protest.
The call with the chief ended just like that, with the rest of the M1 officers looking to captain Pointer still waiting for details of what they needed to do.
“Our orders are to not interfere and standby for now. Only if you see someone about to die can you interfere with the red-clad students and stop the attack. In a short while new tasks will be given out to everyone,” said captain Pointer trying to keep his anger in check.
The M1 officers stood still stunned at their orders as they watched the attacks continue all around them.
Arron watched as a chubby man who had been punched in the face and now had blood coming out from his eye and nose, managed to escape his attackers.
Right next to him was another man who had a large gash on the side of his forehead that was bleeding heavily covering his face in blood and was dripping everywhere. He had one of his hands pressing down on the wound trying to stop the bleeding while the other hand was holding onto a cheap fast food takeout box.
“Why are you attacking me? I was just getting food from a place nearby!” the man shouted over his shoulder as he continued to run away from the red-clad students that were still chasing the two of them.
The two were scanning for an escape when they saw the nearby Arron and Kix standing behind the physical fencing that had been torn down. They rushed forward with a burst of strength only to collapse on the ground when they were behind the two. They were letting out loud pained gasps for air but felt great relief now that they were safe.
Arron looked over to Kix questioningly. Kix was not showing any emotion on the holo-call and his body, which was equipped with the light exoskeleton, did not move from where he stood.
Before the red-clad students reached them Arron put his hand up and said, “Stop! You are not to pass this line.”
The students only slowed their pace to a walk as they looked at the holo-tape that Arron was pointing to.
“Why are you protecting them? Are you a separatist as well?” asked a cocky female student whose face was covered by a red silk face mask.
She, along with several others, continued to slowly walk forward not caring one bit about Arron’s orders for them to stop.
“This is your last warning! If you continue to interfere with our orders we will be forced to normalize the situation!” said Arron using his helmet’s loudspeaker so that his voice could be heard over the fighting and explosions of mortar fireworks.
“Yeah? And what orders are those?” asked the cocky red-clad female as she stopped right in front of Arron with her arms placed on her hips and her head cocked to the side.
A small crowd of red-clad students gathered behind her. All of them glared at Arron who was fully armored and Kix who was wearing the light exoskeleton.
“To stop you from killing any civilians,” was all Arron said.
“What rubbish! You really are just trying to protect separatists!” shouted the female as she stabbed her finger at Arron’s helmet and jabbed the mirrored-tempered para-glass a few times in anger.
Arron stood still and did nothing as he stared back at the angry mob.
“Everyone, ignore them! They can’t stop us!” said the female as she stepped to the side in a move to bypass Arron.
As she took a step past Arron a loud buzzing sound filled the air and she fell to the ground unconscious.
Arron removed his gloved hand from her shoulder, electricity still flickering between the gloved fingers.
“If you pass this line you will be normalized!” shouted Arron.
The gathered red-clad students grew more agitated at seeing the female leader of the small cluster get knocked out.
“You.. you! You attacked her! You’re all separatists!” shouted one of the males in the crowd.
Even though they were shouting angrily, none of them dared to cross the line.
The civilians that were being chased and attacked, heard everything and decided to use the last of their strength to reach the holo-tape where several different M1 officers stood like statues and did not move out to help due to their orders. The wounded civilians limped, crawled, and even rolled past the line that offered safety.
All along the holo-tape line, the red-clad students were stopped from chasing after those who had managed to pass the line. The M1 officers used the same excuse of stopping them from killing civilians.
“I’ve gained control of the college’s med-bots! Medical treatment will begin in order to make sure no civilian dies!” said Kat as she continued to type out commands on her holo-keypad.
Several med-bots flew out of the building behind them and started to administer minor medical aid to stop the bleeding and administer injections of liquid Ethylene to numb their pain.
Seeing their attack targets escape them the red-clad students milled around at the front of the holo-tape angrily glaring at the M1 officers while hurling curses at them.
Several of the red-clad students turned their attention back to Mr. Melo who was still trying to calm the situation down, but as several mortar fireworks started to rain down on the stage where he stood, he was forced to retreat as his guards grabbed him and pulled him back down the stage and back into the building.
Ping!
Arron’s NerViz received a notification that a new high-priority file had just been sent to him.
[Office of Reason orders to be taken care of immediately!]
Upon opening the file, nearly a hundred miniature floating holographic heads appeared.
[These are the suspected separatist that you are to normalize for the crime of harmful and violent speech against Mother and Father.]
Arron recognized the majority of the people listed… they were all of the people who had just escaped from the attacks of the red-clad students.
The ones he could not find were quickly located behind the milling group of red-clad students. They were laying flat on the ground not moving. Their bodies were mangled and in odd positions with their broken legs and arms sticking out this and that way.
Arron let out a long sigh and with the rest of the M1 officers, they turned their backs on the angry red-clad students and began cuffing the severely wounded suspected separatist.
The red-clad students seeing this started to cheer loudly as they watched the M1 officers drag off the suspected separatist to the waiting armored hover-transports.
At this moment the reporters once again began live streaming. The news drones captured the cheering red-clad students, and the M1 officers as they were carrying and dragging the suspected separatist into the armored transports.
“Sorry for the interruption!”
“Tifa, it looks like a lot happened while you were fixing the connection. Can you tell us what is going on?” asked Kommy.
“Right now the young students are cheering as the separatists are being normalized by the M1 officers who were protecting them only moments before!”
“What? The M1 officers were protecting separatists?!” asked Fela, shocked at this news.
“That’s right! I …” Tifa was cut off as a loud chant rang through the air.
“A~! ANTI~! ANTI-SEPARATISTA!”
“It looks like the young students are heading to the stage! Maybe they have something they want to tell us?!” said Tifa.
She, along with all the other reporters re-positioned their news drones to capture the stage in the best position as the red-clad students climbed up onto the empty stage. Several of their batons still had wet red stains on them.
As their chants died down the reporters and the hovering drones waited for them to speak.
A female student stepped forward out of the group and stood with her right hand on her hip and her left thumb pointing at her chest.
“We. Are. Anti-Separatists!” she shouted out for all the news drones to hear.
The red-clad students behind her repeated her words loudly for the tens of millions of viewers to hear.
