Chapter 92: Chapter 89: Delivering an Ultimatum

Before Lilith could properly deliver her ultimatum, she had to announce that she was making an announcement. She could have just taken over the world’s broadcast systems again, but that was…forceful, and people really didn’t like it when that happened. There was no pressing time limitation and no need for the announcement to be sudden, so she sent out messages to some major news outlets, informing them that she would be speaking in an hour’s time.

In around fifty minutes, portals would appear in their offices and the reporters would be able to enter into her audience chamber, where she would give her announcement. If not enough showed up, then she would take over the airwaves, but the reporters knew better than that.

In the meantime, she began setting up some equipment of her own, so she could livestream her announcement. The idea was that not everyone had access or wished to access the news outlets she had invited, and so she needed to provide an independent way for people to hear what she had to say.

And if they didn’t have the means to access her stream or news outlets, then…well, they likely weren’t the intended target. If it was something super important that would affect everyone, she and Kali would probably end up shilling out some Worship and broadcasting it via the system.

She had to take the time to set up a language translator, too. Not everyone spoke English, and she couldn’t afford to have people not listening to her simply because they didn’t understand. Fortunately, with her skillset, setting up one of those was relatively easy, so it didn’t take as much time as it otherwise could have. The trickiest part about it was getting it to translate into someone’s native language, but she had practiced it enough that even that was hardly an issue.

In the end, she finished her preparations with around thirty minutes to spare. If the announcements Mae had made while Lilith was asleep were any indication, she usually did, but having a little extra time couldn’t hurt.

She passed the remainder of the time on her phone, scrolling through the internet and seeing what people had to say about the situation. Reactions were…mixed, it would seem; some people were all for the Society, some were very much against, but many simply didn’t care. She couldn’t really fault them for that, though; what happened to the Society didn’t affect their lives at all, and they had other things to worry about.

And soon enough, the time came. She opened her portals, waited for the reporters to enter and set up their equipment, and then began to speak. “As many of you are aware, the Society of the Light has declared themselves to be the governors of one of the frontier towns. This is in defiance of the spirit of my order to keep the governments of Earth and Haven separate.

“For those that might be unaware, allow me to give a very brief history of the Society and their relationship with the people of Haven. A long time before the Shift, the Society was created as an organization dedicated to restoring magic to the people of Earth. While this was a noble goal, they lost their way and devolved into little more than a terrorist organization.

“At the time of the Shift, I chose to give them a second chance, and while they have not performed any overt acts of aggression or made any major missteps, I have reason to believe this recent takeover has been done with malicious intent.”

Lilith paused for a moment before continuing. “While they claim they are doing this only because they have been asked to by the people of the town, I have done my own, independent investigation and found that a majority of the residents of this town were not residents of the town before the Queen of Monsters incident, and the majority of new residents are pushing for Society leadership.

“Furthermore, the vast majority of those residents wishing for the Society’s leadership are human, leading me to believe that the Society has purposefully planted these humans in this town, with the goal of garnering enough support to perform this takeover.”

There was a murmuring amongst the crowd, and Lilith waited for it to settle before continuing. “I understand this is a bold accusation, however I am unable to find any other explanation for this odd occurrence, especially when this is the only frontier town experiencing such a phenomenon.

“I would like to make it clear that I am not against the idea of the Society or any other previously existing organization or government expanding into Haven or creating new towns. However, I cannot condone the takeover of an existing frontier town, even if the people wish for it.

“Even after the non-aggression period has ended, I will carefully be monitoring changes of government in the existing frontier towns for evidence of foul play, but, during this period, any change of power to an existing entity is disallowed. I will give the Society one day to renounce their claim over the frontier town, and will lessen their punishment if they do. If they refuse, I will be handing out an even more severe punishment, and I would strongly advise not testing me on this. The Society is effectively on probation already due to their past behavior, and as such, any misstep will be handled severely.

“That being said, that is all I wish to say on the matter, so I will spend the remainder of this time answering questions. Please raise your hand and I will call on you as I see fit.” She paused, waiting for people to raise their hands, then picked someone at random from the crowd. “You, the man in the green shirt.”

“What exactly will your punishment be?” The man asked. “How severe is ‘more severe’?”

“Good question.” Lilith replied. “My punishment will be aimed at those who are at the heart of the incident and crippling the organization as a whole, not at the grunts who were told to carry the work out. To that end, I will be visiting several of the Society’s strongholds, and, simply put, be causing havoc.

“I will confiscate or destroy equipment, I will take records to peruse as I see fit, and hand over any evidence of small crimes committed to the local authorities. Should there be no local authorities, I will punish those responsible myself, with the severity of the punishment dependent, of course, on the severity of the crime.

“For the personnel manning those strongholds, I would advise they not fight back. As I said before, I am not interested in punishing those who had little say in what happened, beyond collateral punishment they may receive from the weakening of the Society. However, if I am attacked or obstructed in any way, including destruction of evidence beforehand, I will respond in kind.

“For those at the top, I will be visiting them personally. I will review their memories, determine their intentions, and punish them accordingly. While I will not divulge the exact nature of these punishments, know that they will be severe, not slaps on the wrist. Next question…yes, you, the woman in red over there.”

“Why does declaring governance of a frontier town carry a penalty when founding a new one does not? What if there actually is a problem with how they are and they need someone else to step in?”

“Because the frontier towns are meant to be locations anyone can live and train in, regardless of nationality, species, or any other such quality. To allow them to be overtaken by existing groups would be to discourage certain groups of people from entering that town, and that is unacceptable.

“As for hypothetical problems, they will be solved by myself. I make a point of keeping a close eye on crime in the frontier towns and ensuring they have adequate policing. If I find that there are issues there that cannot be solved by the locals, I step in and help myself. This has only been required once or twice, but rest assured that I am watching closely. Next question…you in the front row with the sunglasses.”

“Doesn’t it seem unfair to punish them for intentions and not actual things they’ve done?” The reporter asked. “That would mean that no one can even think about anything you don’t like.”

“That is precisely the reason they had not been punished yet.” Lilith said. “However, in the case of someone who has already committed a crime severe enough for me to have to step in, I am often preventing more severe crimes, and I do not wish to have to blunt their punishment because I am preventing things that they would do later.

“Furthermore, this is not a simple examination, this is thorough; I will not be determining punishments off of one-off ‘what if’ thoughts. I will be looking at what they had plans for, their reasons for doing those things, and any other relevant information. Finally, those who have not committed any serious offenses will not be examined in this way; the rest of you are free to think however you wish, and I will not punish you for it unless you first do something requiring my attention.”

The remaining questions were in much the same vein. Lilith answered them all, then sent the reporters home. Once she had finished, she retreated to her room, where Kali and Alex were waiting.

“Good job, sweetie!” Kali said. “You were great!”

“Thanks.” Lilith said. “How are you feeling, Alex?”

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“Um…good.” Alex said. “I’m glad something’s finally being done about them. But…do you think they’re going to renounce their claim to the town?”

Lilith shook her head. “It’s possible, but I doubt it. The top brass know they’ll be visited either way, and they’ve got at least one anti-Perfect Chimera weapon that I know of, so I’m pretty sure they think they can handle me. They wouldn’t have made this bold a move if they didn’t.

“Don’t worry, though. Mae and Nuwa are looking into their bases and capabilities as we speak, and as of yet nothing’s shown up that will give us any huge amount of trouble. Their anti-Perfect Chimera weapon, a whip, is a little dicey, since one of their leaders is good with whips, but since we’re doing this out of the public eye, we have no reason to confront them directly. We’ll be able to play around it without significant issue.”

“That’s…good.” Alex said. “And, what about me? Can I…you know, help?”

“Sure, you can tag along to one of the raids.” Lilith said. “You should be able to hold your own against most of the people there if they try and put up a fight, but it shouldn’t come to that. You just have to promise to be careful, alright?”

“I promise I’ll be careful.” Alex said firmly. “I won’t let them get to me.”

“Mom, you looked so cool!” Mai said, bursting into the room and running up to her. “You had all those people listening to you, it was awesome!”

“Have you not seen one of those before?” Lilith asked, a note of concern in her voice as she patted the girl’s head. “You must have, at least the one right after the Shift, right?”

“It’s all pretty fuzzy.” Mai said. “Especially when you’re involved.”

“From what I saw, the memory suppression spell seems particularly strong when it comes to their new mother.” Kali explained. “Likely to prevent old memories and feelings from getting in the way of them forming their new attachment to you. Don’t worry about it, she’ll remember in…probably a couple of decades.”

“It just means I get to see you be cool for the first time again!” Mai said excitedly. “Do you do that a lot?!”

“Only when people are really naughty.” Lilith said. “So not too much.”

“Then…did you do it for the old me?”

“No, that was a little…different. I do this so other people know I’m doing something about the situation. Other people didn’t know about the old you, so I just took care of it without making an announcement. You’re still a secret, so don’t worry about it.”

“Like a secret weapon? Cool!”

Lilith had no intentions to ever use Mai or Aria as weapons, but it seemed to make Mai happy, so she just patted her head again and gave her a smile.

“Mai, don’t bug mom right now.” Aria said, poking her head in through the open doorway. “I’m sure she’s busy.”

“It’s fine, Aria.” Lilith said, motioning for Aria to come closer. “We’re taking a little break, so it’s fine.”

Aria reluctantly drew close, and Lilith gave her a pat as well. “What did you think?”

“Being in front of all those people seems…scary. I’m glad I didn’t have to do it.”

Lilith chuckled slightly. “You won’t have to be in front of reporters like that unless you want to.” She said. “You can just stay here, and no one will ever have to know about who you are.”

“What about school? We’ll have to go eventually, right? Carmen talks about it from time to time.”

“We want to maybe put you in some of the schools I went to growing up, but if it gets really hard for you, we can homeschool you. For now, just don’t worry about it, alright? We’re going to give you two plenty of time to get used to things here before putting you through something stressful like that.”

“Okay, mom.” Aria said. “Umm… if you’re taking a break, can you come play with us? I want to show you some of the stuff I learned.”

“Of course.” Lilith said, smiling. She turned back to Kali and Alex, who were also smiling. “You two carry on without me.” Lilith said. “I’m going to hang out with these two for a bit.”

“Yeah, just…get us if something important happens, alright?” Alex said. “I can’t help but be a little nervous.”

“I’ll get you if something serious happens, don’t worry.” Lilith reassured.

“I don’t have any problems with it either, then.” Kali added. “Have fun!”

Lilith nodded, and let her daughters pull her away.