Chapter 59: 62. Authority is Cruel Part 4

The statue marchers are within the square now, accompanied by the counter protesters. This is how things always end up at these kinds of marches. Wherever their march winds up, the counter protesters make their presence known.

Today is the festival of Gwasila, a monster god of the crawler species. At the very center of the square, there is an effigy of Gwasila that was to be set aflame. The effigy is currently uncovered. It looks quite spectacular honestly, its height is about three Angelidis tall.

Around this effigy, there are a number of security personnel. These are volunteers who were told to make sure that nobody got too close or tried to set it on fire prematurely.

It was something that ruined a festival about 14 years ago. Since that year, a dozen people volunteered every year who made sure that nobody got any ideas. They weren’t trained or anything, they were a bit like scarecrows on Earth in that way.

However, today something else wishes to ruin the festival. These statue marchers. Their group, surrounded by the city guards, stand in front of the security volunteers. These volunteer guards are afraid. The marchers wait them out.

While they stand there with sneering faces, the guards in front of them take out their weapons. Most of them are holding swords: short swords, long swords, claymores, even rapiers. There are a number of other guards who are holding spears, warhammers, halberds and axes unsheathed the entire time.

The marchers as well are each armed. They look the most willing to tear them apart, but the city guards look the most threatening. They stand in front of the security volunteers with their weapons drawn. All they do is wait. It’s all they have to do.

The security guards notice the counter protesters. They are shouting in anger at the marchers while the marchers return their insults with their own racist shouts. There are several of them joining the security volunteers in defending the statue of Gwasila. Most of them are kids, bravely standing alongside them.

The volunteers start grimacing. This isn’t what they signed up for. Most of them are middle aged beastkin men with families of their own, one of them even has grandchildren. They were just supposed to stand around the effigy today and be intimidating.

Seeing the young teenagers joining their side to defend the statue only tells them that they aren’t meant to be here. Why did they wait even this long? Perhaps to hold their ground even for a little bit against these racist instigators.

One of the volunteers decides to leave. Then another. A couple more after them. Within a few minutes, the security volunteers all simply walk away. They may suffer humiliation right now, but it would be better than to be arrested tonight. Or worse.

As the volunteers start leaving, more young counter protesters take their places against the city guards. Those with fire in their bellies who haven’t yet succumbed to the despair that their elders have. Their elders can’t fight this fight, they only want to protect the little that they have. The little lives that they built up over the decades.

“Go home, marchers! Go home, marchers! The 33rd is dead! The 33rd is dead!” The young counter protesters shout together.

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There are about 20 of them, men and women in their late teens and early twenties guarding the effigy now. The guards do not move closer yet. They seem to be talking amongst themselves about how to proceed.

More and more protesters move in front of the effigy to guard it. Not all of them are fully aware of the purpose of this festival. One or two don’t even know what the effigy represents. But, they won’t just allow these interlopers to interrupt today’s event with their bigotry.

Shaula, Ajax, Angelidis, Dzan and Sigvor are in the crowd next to the statue, not directly in front of it. The people beside them are chanting, but they’re not so brave as to directly block the guards.

The guards continue to stand in front of the counter protesters for a minute. Then, one of them grabs something from their belt. Shaula assumes that he’s the leader of their group. His armor has a slightly different pattern compared to the other marchers.

“What’s that?” Angelidis asks. Dzan and Sigvor stare at it closely as well. The three of them have never seen tools like that.

“Is that…” Ajax asks in surprise as he sees what the leader has in his right hand, a cylinder bottle with a button on its cap.

It looks very similar to an aerosolized spray bottle. He hadn’t heard that the Federation had been successful at producing aerosolized crowd control weapons. Being able to compress gasses in order to create tools like that is…

Time freezes for Ajax and Shaula. They see more guards take out the aerosolized spray bottles from their carrying cases, belts and pouches. They didn’t realize immediately what those bottles would be used for.

The guards haven’t used them on the counter protesters yet, kids about their age. Ajax and Shaula quickly push their way through the crowd towards where the counter protesters are standing.

Being careful to hide their identities, Shaula takes a handkerchief from her pocket and covers her jaw and nose. Ajax does the same, just for convenience’ sake. They both get in front of the counter protesters.

“Get out of here, they’re going to spray something at you!” Ajax shouts towards the protesters. If Angelidis, Dzan and Sigvor don’t know what that tool is, they might not have seen it before. It’s likely that none of the counter protesters have either.

When did they invent aerosolized sprays? Ajax and Shaula had not seen those used as household products when they went grocery shopping. Is it only used for purposes like protest and riot control?

In truth, both Ajax and Shaula had assumed that what the guards were going to use is pepper spray. However, that might have been too optimistic.

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