While Aron was busy shopping and discussing the new Research City plan with Nova, nyxians embedded in the various protest groups began plucking the instigators from the groups they were in and replacing them. After all, an unaimed herd of humanity was like a large firework launcher. Leaving either of them unattended was a very, very bad idea and could lead to incredibly destructive consequences.

The nyxians still allowed the mobs to vandalize buildings and other assorted properties, landmarks, and monuments, but they limited the damage and guided it primarily to the (former) government buildings along the way. Still, a few unfortunate shops and warehouses were targeted, but once the protesters came to their senses the next day, they would likely be surprised to hear that some of their favorite stores had been destroyed while their least favorites were just fine.

Nyx had instilled all of her nyxians with a rather wicked sense of sardony, after all.

Not all of the groups were monolithic, either, and fistfighting broke out within the protest groups rather often. The original organizers of the protests and architects of the violence couldnt be bothered to care about any particular issue and simply gathered people who were angry. It didnt matter why they were angry, just that they were. Unfortunately, with guns in the mix, quite a few shots were fired as well, though a surprisingly low number of them hit anything, as even the most fervent ammosexual was still in love with the idea of warning shots.

Whether or not those warning shots ruined the day of someone blocks away from them didnt matter. It only mattered that they got to fulfill their wet dream of frightening an enemy with a warning shot.

With the increase in reports of shots fired, the recently understaffed police scrambled to meet the new threat level of the protests. After all, some of their staff had resigned, some had been fired due to not deserving to wear a uniform, and a full quarter of the remainder had already reported to their nearest cube for retraining, courtesy of the Imperial Police Agency.

This is Captain Williams of the Houston City Police Department. Were requesting aid and reinforcements as soon as possible. Shots have been fired and we predict a full riot will break out shortly.

This is Chief Mehmet Kaya of the Istanbul Police. More than a million people have taken to the streets and are vandalizing buildings and setting fires on their way to the cube. Requesting reinforcement. The longer this goes on, the more damage the city will face and the higher the death toll will rise as emergency service vehicles are unable to reach the injured and the fires.

This is the police chief of Moscow.

This is the police chief of London....

This is the police chief of Paris.

One after another, cities began requesting reinforcements with only short intervals between calls. It was becoming very obvious to anyone paying attention that the violence was definitely planned beforehand, given the timing of violence breaking out all over the globe.

The reason those plotting the violent protests could even hope to succeed at all was because the citizens were absolutely pissed. If they werent angry, or even if they were a little less angry than they were, the chaos would have been much less. But people who had become accustomed to living their whole lives in a certain fashion had been forced to change the lives they were used to in a very short period of time.

That had given the operatives behind the protests an opening they could use to manipulate that anger, increase it, and point it in the direction the organizers wanted it to be vented in: the imperial government. It had been quite easy for the skilled intelligence operatives to convince the angry populace that if they just caused enough damage, it would delegitimize the new government and things would soon go back to normal for them, while the people responsible for the upsetAron and his inner circlewould be imprisoned, or even executed.

The only reason there was any doubt that there was a single goal behind all of the protests was because the nyxians had intervened in quite a few of them and acted as a calming pill to gradually bring the protesters back to reality. If that werent the case, things would be a lot more dire than they currently were.

Still, things were plenty dire.

Areas without nyxian influence had broken out into full riots, with protesters causing millions, or even tens of millions of END damage to property, and hundreds of thousands of people had been severely injured, with thousands more dead worldwide. And that was just the known figure; the estimates had already passed a million injuries and fatalities on the low end.

Things were rapidly coming to a head, and Arons nascent government was facing its first test. They could neither act, nor could they refrain from acting. If they acted to put down the protests, the tactics they would have to usehigh-pressure water hoses, beanbag and rubber bullets, tear gas bombardments, and so onwould only reinforce the idea that the new government was nothing more than a brutal dictators megalomaniacal power grab. But if they didnt act, the new government would be seen as incapable of preventing or restraining the protesters from causing so much damage and loss of life.

Either way, it would hinder the authority of the Empire.

......

[We cant count on the police any longer and need to respond with force. Otherwise the property damage and casualty numbers will only continue increasing,] Nyx said with some heartache in her voice. If only shed had more time or more operatives, she could have cut this entire issue off at the pass, or at least strictly limited it.

[The cubes are all ready, Im just waiting for the order,] Athena said to Gaia with a respectful nod. Despite only being a few weeks old, Gaia was still the head of the government in Arons absence and held his plenipotentiary authority, thus she deserved the respect that her position demanded.

[Send out the LEA-001s and impose martial law in the cities requesting reinforcements. For areas further away from cubes, divert carriers and yeet ARES into them armed with charge weapons instead of pulse weapons. Ensure civilian safety is prioritized over potential property damages. Buildings were built once, they can be built again.] Gaia gave a crooked smile. [Besides, theyre actually doing us a favor, since the existing cities will need to be torn down anyway. Still, the law is the law. Ensure that the instigators and worst offenders are punished to the fullest extent of the law and repair the critical infrastructure so that people dont suffer too much.]

[Understood,] Athena said with a smile. She had been looking forward to using her new toys, and now she had the perfect excuse.