The news drones hovered over the stage no longer paying attention to the mangled bodies of the suspected separatist that were still being scraped up off the ground, cuffed, and shoved into the transport vehicles.
“We are Anti-Separatist and we will fight against any filthy separatists trying to spread their message of hate and division!” said the red-clad female with great conviction.
“What’s your name!” shouted one of the reporters.
“We don’t use names! That only brings trouble for everyone.”
Although Arron and the other M1 officers were able to scan the anti-separatist NerViz systems and gather their information, the people they had already attacked as well as the people watching the live streams could not see who they were because of their disguises. They could walk down the street in disguise and no one other than M1 and the Office of Reason would know who they were.
“The previous speaker Mr. Melo, who was supposed to speak here today, along with his supporters, are exactly the type of filthy separatists that we will always fight against!”
“Instead of allowing filthy separatists to speak, we have arranged for a few respected guest speakers to replace this separatist event. In half an hour the event will start. All of you who are not separatist and wish to join our cause, please come out and listen and be sure to wear all Red!”
The red-clad students walked off the stage and entered the building behind the stage leaving the news reporters to talk nonsense as they tried to explain what had just happened to their audience.
“Who could be the guest?”
“The young generation is truly growing strong!”
“Is this the result of all that they have learned from their free education at the new Everpreen college?”
Arron and the other M1 officers finished cuffing and cramming the 100 or so suspected separatists into the waiting armored transport vehicles and watched them drive off to the nearest Office of Reason building.
Even though the original purpose of the event had changed they were told to stay on guard as the event was not over.
“We just got new orders… we are to shoot anyone who tries to cause any disturbance to the guest speakers,” said Captain Pointer over their secure comms.
In the first fifteen minutes before the guest speaker was going to appear little to no one gathered near the stage. There was only a few dozen citizens who now mingled near the side streets and buildings warily looking at the stage and surrounding area that had been in chaos moments before.
When there were only 5 minutes left Arron was shocked to see tens of large double-decker hover-buses, each filled with hundreds of people, arrive near the stage along with a large stream of hovercars behind them.
The people that were pouring out of the buses and cars showed no hesitation and swarmed forward toward the stage. The area was now even more crowded than the previous crowd that had been chased away earlier, and it was still growing.
When the time for the speech arrived, the college doors opened. The red-clad Anti-sep students stepped outside along with a sharply dressed young man and an elderly man who had graying hair. Together they walked to the center of the stage.
The hovering news drones that had been flying over the large crowd were now flying over to get the best position to capture their speech.
The Anti-sep students didn’t waste any time and began speaking “Welcome everyone! Please repeat after me!” said the female student as she stared into the crowd.
“Anti-separatism… Is the only way! Separatists must be… Permanently Normalized!”
When the echoing chants finished, the elderly man stepped forward.
“Hello, citizens of the first level! I am Hurni, one of the head professors at Everpreen college. It is an honor to be able to teach the current and future generations of young adults about the greatness of the party of Mother and Father and their achievements. We must not allow our city to devolve into such an evil government as those who ruled over Nippon in the past! This is why I fully support the young students gathering and forming groups to normalize all separatists from our society! Today we have a special young guest from the 4th level! His name is Mr. A. Slicer, and he is one of the youngest party members under mother! With young people like him taking charge of the future, there will be no way for separatists to take hold of the city!”
With that, he stepped aside allowing party-member Slicer to step forward. The crowd went wild with cheers and even a few people tried to rush forward with outstretched hands but they were immediately sedated by the hovering security drones.
The fanatic people around them paid them no attention with many of them stepping or standing on the limp bodies.
“Thank you for the warm welcome! I wholeheartedly agree with the creation of the Anti-Sep movement! I am glad that you have all taken the words of my fellow party member Buck Boomer to heart and created this group.”
“His words were not just something you can say and forget! You must live by it every day! History will show that we are on the right side!”
The crowd burst into cheers again.
“Why do I mention history? Because we are surrounded by evil symbols of the past all through the mega-city. These evil symbols are corrupting many of the weak-willed or unlearned civilians into having thoughts that they should not be thinking! Those dangerous thoughts are what lead people to become separatists! This is why we have been having such a hard time stamping out the separatist scourge that infects the Mega-city!” said Slicer. He paused for a minute to let his words sink in.
The people in the crowd all quietly talked among themselves trying to figure out what and where the evil symbols of the past were. They didn’t have to wait for long.
“Those evil symbols of the past that are corrupting civilians, are the statues and monuments all throughout the Mega-city! We must not allow this to continue! We must take action! Those who put up such evil symbols need to be brought to justice!”
Out of the corner of Arron’s eyes, he could see Kix’s face frowning while he muttered, “What nonsense, his father is the one that put up the majority of these statues…”
“They’ve already paved over and torn down all the old buildings from the past. Now they want to tear down the statues of history?”
“To quote a great speech from before that you might remember, ‘It’s not enough to not be a separatist, you need to be anti-separatists and show your support for WHO and mother and father!”
“Are you willing to join me and the young Anti-sep members in liberating ourselves and the future generations from the corrupting history and symbols all throughout the mega-city?”
“Yeah!”
With that, party member Slicer stepped aside and the female anti-sep leader moved to the front of the stage once again.
“Let us go forth together, and tear down the evil symbols!”
With that said the core anti-separatist on the stage jumped to the ground and walked through the gathered crowd that parted for them creating a path to reach the street behind them.
They held up the holo-batons that had dried blood on them and activated them as they marched forward, the several thousands of people that had come to listen to the speech followed behind them.
As they marched the large crowd began to grow rowdy and a few windows of business and parked hover-cars were destroyed as they passed by.
When the large crowd reached the nearest statue, they all gathered around it and with their bare hands began to try to push and pull it down!
“It doesn’t matter who or what these statues were put up for! They must all be torn down!”
When the statue was pulled down the cheers were loud enough to deafen anyone nearby. Not satisfied with taking down just this statue, they again began marching to the next destination.
The M1 officers were given new orders that they were to ensure that the Anti-sep were not attacked or harmed by any separatist so they were forced to follow behind the group as they prowled the streets.
One after another statues were torn down.
Arron and Kix were one of the few that had been sent ahead of the massive group to try and clear out the streets and sidewalks before the crowd arrived.
The people who did not listen to their warnings or tried to move toward the crowd were attacked by the crowd. Passing Hover-cars on the street had their windows smashed and chemicals sprayed inside.
There was little the occupants could do as the hover-cars were all on auto-drive. They could only try to swat away hands that were reaching inside until the hover-car was able to drive out of range of the massive crowd of Anti-sep.
Arron saw such things happen several times.
During one of these attacks on random citizens, another man tried to stop the attacks but was soon forced to run away with a small crowd of anti-sep chasing after him.
The man saw the M1 officers up ahead and tried to run to them but in his haste, he tripped over his feet and fell to the ground.
The anti-separatist brutally beat him with their blunt batons, feet, and fists.
After all that happened this night, Arron finally reached his limit and could not let this happen in front of him, so he moved forward with Kix reluctantly following behind him.
They both drew their weapons as they walked up to the crowd who were attacking the man.
“Step away from the civilian!” shouted Arron as he roughly pushed the anti-separatist off the man and grabbed a fist full of the man’s torn and bloody clothes. Just from one look at the man’s broken arms and legs that were now sticking out in a grotesque position, there was no way he was going to be able to walk.
“You’re going to have to bear with the pain for now sir. We’ll get you to a med-bot as soon as we can,” said Arron.
The crowd of Anti-sep that had been attacking were shocked that they had been stopped and were a bit skittish as they looked at the weapons pointed at them.
Kix covered for Arron as he dragged the man back to the original forward line where the other M1 officers were urging people to escape while they could.
Other anti-separatist noticed the brief scuffle and started to swell forward toward the area.
The crowd’s fury was instantly turned against Kix and Arron since their target was taken away from them.
They started marching after both Kix and Arron shouting curses at them.
The other M1 officers both from the front and rear could see that Kix and Arron were in a tight situation and so they all pushed through the crowd and joined together to stand against the mob blocking them.
“Chief, we need backup! Things are getting out of hand here!” said Captain Pointer as the M1 officers lined up with their Riot shields and electric batons.
“Why are you in riot gear!? We don’t see no riot here!” chanted the angry crowd of anti-sep who were once again blocked from attacking their new target.
