Serendipity Is Broken

  Terka, 5:22 AM. Lymoca's embassy in the Terkan capital.

  Clamor… clamor… clamor… The embassy had cozy lights, a warm and enjoyable temperature, and exuded a fuzzy commodity. Notwithstanding, this did not deafen the sounds from outside, which were like the sounds of a multitude of people moving about, making a ruckus outside the embassy.

  This was quite brand-new. In the Sanctum Order, there were really no such things like this. It was rare in general, let alone for Lymoca, which has been the friendly image in every country’s eye, even if not an apple.

  From the doors leading to the outside, the front exit, an old man walked in, tall and slender, with bountiful stark white hair around his head. It was short and well combed to the side, somewhat elevated to give him a proper and approachable image, and had brown skin. This was the ambassador of Lymoca in Terka, Victor.

  As the old man, ambassador, walked back into the main hall, where even kids were already woken up and having breakfast before school in the middle of the weekday, everyone looked at him. There were attendants, public servants in charge of maintaining the embassy’s daily workload, their families, but no security. Even though the south of Moonblue supercontinent wasn’t a paradise, there was no reason to fear being assaulted by criminals.

  People could be tremendously disgusting, but even those without a purpose in life wouldn’t bring down others with them just because they were leaving. The situation was somewhat similar. After all, despite the fear for mental illness, it was ordinary people who did the worst in humanity.

  “Something happened?” A man asked, eating at the dinner table, sitting beside a couple of kids at the corner. The ambassador walked in and shook his head, walking over to sit beside his wife, a tall, redheaded old lady with a yellow dress and a brown collar around her neck. She was wrinkled, like her husband, but they looked proper and fitting together.

  The yellow dress was from one of Lymoca’s Túacan vibrant colors, while the brown collar was from Terka, or rather, the Ters culture. They were sitting beside their children, who were barely 5-6 years old, eating with gusto a mix of Ters and Lys’ cuisine.

  “There are some people doing a commotion outside. They are like 200, I don’t know what brought them here.” The ambassador spoke after giving his children a few playful moments, kissing his wife’s cheek, and eating a bit.

  “Wouldn’t it be because of their president’s words?” Another man asked, feeling it was obvious. But the old man shook his head again, speaking as he enjoyed his plate with a mix of cultures in his soup. He was unable to properly eat and speak. “I know this, but if that was the case, they wouldn’t have taken so long only to act out of nowhere, right?”

  “Right.” Another man nodded. A middle-aged woman with a carmine red cape dress and an extra mantle like ribbon crossing from her right shoulder to her lower left side added, “For something like this, it has to be one political party preparing something. We can give this information to the government as a tip.”

  “Or maybe we shouldn’t,” said the old man. Everyone looked at him. Noticing their confusion and silent questioning, he looked up and placed his wrists on the edge. “Why would the opposition do this? We have no open good relations with Terka’s new president. Instead of treating us like always, they decided to alienate us and bring us away from Terka? Doesn’t add up.”

  “But if that’s true, then what? Would the government do this to us? Impossible. It might just be a show of ‘self power’. It could be happening in other embassies. It’s just not discussed.” The woman said, frowning in disbelief.

  “Whatever might be the case, let’s eat. We can worry about that later. The kids should stay today,” the ambassador said, drinking more spoonfuls. Another woman asked, feeling it was a bit too much, “Should that really be necessary? They might take us for weak-minded.”

  “I will remain weak as long as my kids can grow up.” The old man looked up at the woman, who was startled before softening. She nodded and kept attending her little girl on her lap, not even 2 years old, helping her eat some applesauce after eating a cooked egg.

  “Yaaaayyy.” - “Really? Good!” - “Ehehe, no school today!” - “Noooo…”

  … Time passed. The ruckus continued, until it suddenly didn’t, but the people in the embassy were too engrossed in their breakfast to notice. Everyone went to wash their dishes before returning with either a bottle of juice or milk, with the former being for adults and some kids.

  “Has… something happened since the trial was announced?” The old man asked the others in the table after some minutes of simple blending before getting to work. The kids were having fun of their own. Very few times do they get free days from school during weekdays, so they were in a good mood.

  “No, so far. There are only speculations. It should start in a couple of minutes, we can watch it here, let the kids get to know the business, haha.” A person said, followed by another who shook their head, “Oh no. Mine wants to do a banana liquor industry when growing up, no politics, or geopolitics, mm mm.”

  “Hahaha…” The table laughed a bit, softly and amicable after years of knowing each other. Even the little girl’s mom traveled for 3 months to return from her pregnancy, wanting her baby to be born in Lymoca before it was too late. She took a long road from Lymoca to Terka afterwards, with the president even granting her some guards just in case. She stopped in every possible good enough hotel for her baby girl for a few days before resuming their trip.

  Today, they were only a few months from possibly being sent elsewhere, changed to a charge in Lymoca, or maybe stay in Terka. But that would be a bit too much. After all, who wouldn’t miss their homeland? Whichever someone was from?

  “I will miss this place. Even though we’ve done good work. I’m old. I’d like to go back and rest a little, at least from other places, haha. These kids should return to their daily lives in Lymoca.” The old man looked at his kids with tenderness in his eyes.

  “Yeah, I think-”

  …vrrrr… Vrrrrr- VRRRRROOOOOOOMM… Their conversation slowly paused, their eyebrows furrowed, and their heads turned to the front entrance. A murmuring-like sound that wasn’t there before was now there, rapidly becoming a little louder, before suddenly exploding with a thundering engine. This was also when they finally realized there was no longer any ruckus outside.

  VRRROOO- CRAAASHH!!

  “!!!” The old man stood up in fear and shock. Nobody was prepared to be assaulted, they only had walls and a railing keeping everyone from thinking this was a small mansion or the like. They were simple people, and with their families.

  “Everyone go to the patio. The pilots should be awake already, I’ll call them to quickly come here through the backd-” The old man sweated, his eyes wholly widened, and his hands trembled. But he still gestured to the others and his wife, loudly yelling at them as they nodded before he finished and moved themselves and the kids away from the tables.

  Slam! Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp… “Everyone get down!” But they were interrupted, with the old man looking back, slow and trembling, at a bunch of armored and armed specialized police forces. The police forces rushed into the hall, and the old man felt so threatened he felt an impulse to stop them.

  “No! You can’t do this! You aren’t allowed here! What are you doing? What are you doing!?” The old man raised and spread his arms, stopping the first 2 police elements, who quickly exchanged a glance before one of them grabbed his shoulder.

  Under the old man’s shock at the tight grip on his body, his eyes further shook as his vision changed, with the police element slamming him to the floor. Immediately after, the old man’s body was dragged further to their rear by the same police element, grabbing him by the back of his shirt and forcibly sliding him on the floor.

  “Aaah!” - “Victor!” - “Stop it! Don’t touch me!” - “What- what are you doing? Please stop…” The ambassador’s wife was shell-shocked, with the kids not knowing what was happening. They only saw the old man everyone respected despite how funny he always seemed being thrown around like a figurine.

  The police went to every person, with some police elements grabbing the kids after parting their firearms backwards, hanging from their shoulders. That was when the kids began crying, filling the embassy with growing terror as the women cried out loud, and the men were fidgety.

  Everyone, even the attendants, of which some are from Terka themselves, were grabbed and forced to the outside under a couple of minutes. The woman’s baby girl was the first to cry, who seemed like her head was about to explode, with tears streaming down and grabbing anything but swatting everything away with her tiny hands.

  Her mother was desperate, until she was slapped unconscious. The men were incensed, but the old man, who was being dragged out with his legs limping, acted first as he pushed the police elements from his surroundings. He tried heading to where the mother and baby girl were being unnecessarily shown to each other but growing further apart.

  “What the hell do you think you are doing? Ingrates! Bastards! Miscreants! Leave this woman and her baby for once! Nobody is fighting you, let them go!” The old man pushed shoulders away left and right, ignoring the hands tightly clutching his clothes and trying to pull him backwards. He became like an animal escaping their clutches, not caring about his fur or feathers becoming ruined along his skin, which he did feel injuries forming from.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Take them away already! O les damos a quemarropa!” A person among the police elements shouted, scaring the living out of the embassy worker’s bodies. It initiated, and just as the old man was raising his hands to the baby girl who recognized him and raised hers to him, his head was hit on the back with someone’s elbow.

  The baby didn’t process it immediately, suddenly not finding where the old funny guy went to, before returning to crying out loud as she was brought to someone’s rough, tough chest. She only saw uniformed backs and felt arms hold her tightly, uncomfortably.

  The other people were bashed away as well. Women were pulled by their hair, slapped on the faces or butt, while men were punched and choked, some until falling unconscious. Even the woman who was going after her baby was elbowed in the jaw, nearly losing consciousness right away, but she kept lunging for her baby.

  “Victor? Victor!!” She noticed him on the floor, facing downwards, this time not getting back up, or helped to his feet. However, she had her baby to worry about. So, with a few bloodstains on her face, and her head all dizzy, she hurried to her baby, whom she could no longer see.

  She thought she was fast and hurried, but anyone looking at her from the side would see a limp, slow, weird-faced woman move left and right with her arms extended onwards. Unfortunately, or not, there was no one in the vicinity. The embassy’s workers didn’t even notice where they were being led to, until they were close enough to see the monstrous vehicle.

  Just at the embassy’s entrance, a humongous 4 meters wide, 6 meters tall vehicle, full of metal armor and protected wheels, had ridden onto the sidewalk and several meters into the embassy. The walls tumbled at the sides, even leaving a gap of 2 meters to its sides.

  Its main lights were off, but the auxiliary, smaller ones around them were on, giving enough light to light everything, with the lights of the embassy cut off after the assault began. One by one, the beaten down and unconscious people were brought into the monstrous vehicle, still crying out loud, beaten to a timid behavior, or remaining a bit fidgety.

  The police forces seemed to forget about the old man, who remained immobile. Yet, he was clearly stepped on by large, heavy boots with some auxiliary designs for moving through dirt or mud marked everywhere on the back of his shirt and pants.

  “Falta uno, ese! Go get him first!” A voice sounded from inside the vehicle before a couple of police elements went down to pick the ‘dramatic’ old man up. When they grabbed his arms and pulled, he was limp. The police elements took some radio devices, as thin as phones, before a few police cars drove over. The police elements shoved the old man in one of them, with the other serving as its escort.

  Vrrrrrrrrroooooooooommmm! The enormous vehicle left afterwards, having no issue driving on the street, although it took the entire street to do so. It was a little slow, too, with some police cars emptying the road ahead beforehand.

  “…” Atop an out-of-service streetlight a few hundred meters away, a person hidden by the darkness in his immediate surroundings, with white paint on his face and clothes under a hoodie, observed everything.

  ***

  Proteros, presidential precinct. 6:05 AM.

  The cabinet finally reunited after a few minutes, now walking through the corridors to reach the presidential office. Fox and Luis walked abreast each other, leading the others as Luis already caught up with them. Entering the office, there was only one thing worrying them.

  “Hear me first,” Luis sat at his desk, with everyone else surrounding it. Grabbing his cheeks with his thumb and fingers, he looked up before beginning, “I received more information while coming here. Our sources in Terka had to be cautious after Terka’s intelligence went on to bombard anything that might have caught this on camera. They were on high alert.”

  “What is it?” Someone asked. Everyone was here, including the Defense Secretary and Admiral Secretary. Luis closed his eyes, his free hand trembling, “They not only forcibly expelled everyone from Terka. They also beat everyone and brought the kids away, roughly.”

  “…” His cabinet drew a sharp breath of air into their lungs. Someone asked again, “Everyone?”

  “Yes, they did that to everyone. Men, women… they slapped and suffocated them unconscious. But there’s another thing…” Luis said, sitting straight with his 10 fingertips tapping on his desk, fidgety. Everyone looked at him, conveying the same expression of ‘what is it?’.

  “The ambassador, Victor, was sent to the hospital immediately after he was struck from behind. There are no more news from this, other than the ambassador was then rushed to the airport.” Luis’s voice contained a noticeable rage in his throat, through his flaring nostrils as he spoke, and in his sharp, gray-black eyes.

  “Rushed to the hospital? Rushed to the airport? How brainless do they think everyone is?” Fox suddenly spoke at this moment, on his left. He looked impassively at the president, who looked at him, startled, before gesturing Fox to continue. “He’s dead. They’ve killed your man.”

  “…” Murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur…

  The others looked at each other and discussed in low voices, while Luis’s breathing became heavier. The meaning of all of this, from nowhere, seemingly from just a bad night where the world decided to be cruel to their Lys… What was this even for!?

  “Even if-” Luis shook his head after weighing everything put before him. He was just a president finishing his term, second term for that matter, first consecutive term. But then, Roam walked to the TV, tapped a circular part of the screen, and turned the TV on. “Sir, please… take a look at this…”

  Roam’s voice trembled. Luis was about to stand up to see, when everyone before him stepped away, letting him watch the TV as Roam increased the volume.

  “There has been a confirmation from Terka,” a redheaded news reporter commented after a small pause, where her aqueous, light cyan eyes widened, and its contents constricted. She opened her little mouth but stopped, before opening it wide along her eyes, fearful. “The Terkan president, more well-known in Terka as To?o R, has reaffirmed the expulsion of the Ly embassy from Terkan territory. Furthermore, gulp… Terka… the Ters of Terka… Terka has declared a state of war on our country, Lymoca…”

  “!!!” The cabinet was incredulous. Luis stood up at once, his eyes hardened. Only Nala and Fox’s eyebrows jumped, their eyes and visages remaining as natural as always. Everyone went deadly silent, with Sona’s face showing fear, too, before concern as she looked at her brother’s face. Lesly was pale, aghast, and more incredulous than before.

  Did they ‘made it’? Was worldwide peace finally broken like this?

  They weren’t the only ones. Lys, who were all intrigued by the trial, were slapped with the news that the country had suffered an ‘altercation’ Terka. That itself was overwhelming enough. Now, not only was there such a confirmation, the Terkan president even declared war on their country!

  First, the president’s sudden trial. Then, their embassy is… offended? Expelled? And now, their country was at war!? All of a sudden, unexplainable news after news dazed the Lys! This was a rotund slap to their faces as the origin of Humane Key, peace, and the Green Transformation.

  But they, Lymoca, weren’t the only ones processing this information. Twilight, Dawn, south of the Moonblue supercontinent, and especially ANS, were covering this news.

  “It has been confirmed, Terka has declared war on Lymoca…” - “This early morning, while most of us were just starting our day, in the south, Terka and Lymoca have entered into a state of war…” - “Terka has declared war on Lymoca. After Preut’s civil war, it was already a fearsome fact to think that wars would return to our world, but even then, it does not compare to 2 countries declaring war on each other!”

  “After hundreds of years of peace, there is war in the world. From Lymoca, no more. What does this say to the world? The place where an eternal peace was created, an origin of utmost envy that caused a grand finding that spread throughout the world, is now also the place of another ‘grand’ finding. But maybe not in the same form nor grace as it once did. What does this say to the rest of the world, when even this historic location has gone from a savior to its breaker, opening the gates towards doom?”

  “We need… to take this lightly…” Luis’s voice echoed. Everyone looked at the screen and gulped, their eyes engrossed yet lost, looking at the images and the words deflating their nation’s pride and honor. But their President’s words returned them their sobriety.

  “No, you were kidding,” Fox spoke in a lackadaisical tone. Eyes turned to him again, of which he still didn’t care. He looked at Luis, looking down like an elderly would to a foolish teenager. “You got your people injured, one surely is dead, and now you were declared war upon. It’s fine if you don’t do anything at all, or drastic. But not if you choose weakness for no reason. You don’t have the full right to speak in your country this time, do you? You are talking about giving your butt, when I’m already hearing noise in the streets.”

  “What do you supp-” Luis shook his head and lifted his shoulders, his eyes slightly widened. Fox interrupted, “I’m not telling you to do anything. I’m telling you to not act like a coward, a spineless imbecile who will let anything happen to their people for the sake of peace. It has already been broken. You can still maintain it by sacrificing your country’s public servants, along yourself and this cabinet, and surrender to Terka. Or not. Which is what I’m saying— or not.”

  “…” Luis became wordless. He understood Fox’s words, but he still looked at his cabinet, who for sure didn’t want anything of this kind to happen to them or their country. However, there was something behind their eyes, in their hearts, fuming and set ablaze. “… … …”

  General Edgar stepped forth, wearing his jacket, wearing no headgear. He looked at the president as everyone’s eyes convoked to him, making him sweat a bit. “President Heartez, I assure you this is no good. Whilst the response of the people is of utmost importance, their safety is first.”

  “No, you can’t talk like that in a matter like this,” Fox interrupted yet again. Everyone looked at him, with only the General frowning, yet still listening. Fox looked at the General, inspecting his face up and down. “Well, ‘forgive’ me for my bluntness, I know it’s rude and sudden. But I was in Preut, for a couple of years— its worst years.”

  “It’s for thoughts and mouths like yours that all those inside it suffered for even a month, don’t even speak of the 5 years of civil war. The moment that… mix of natural disaster struck Preut should have been the moment an intelligent, Humane, disaster-relief prepared force like the army and navy should have stepped in and rescued everyone, even the imbeciles who caused several million to perish.”

  The Admiral Secretary gave the Defense Secretary a look with a strict expression, not saying a thing, but his eyes showing disagreement, even if it was light. Fox continued, as always.

  “So, no,” Fox gave the General a stare like no one else would dare. Then, he returned his gaze to the president. “You have dreams for the country, which is, I believe, globally laughable in times like these. But one of those dreams, which is shared among hundreds of millions of Lys, is close to being finished.”

  “Now, you’ve been insulted, offended, taken advantage of, and grappled in fear by ‘what would happen if I do something the north won’t like’. So, do you want to ‘keep your people safe’, or protect them? It happened once, it will happen twice. Maybe not with others, but this comes from a brand-new president, as foolish as the braindead I took down with my own preteen’s hands when I had the chance.”

  Fox stood in front of Luis’s desk and lowered his back, facing the President face to face with his palms heavy on his desk. “In short, do you move, or do you let your people suffer? It won’t be anything like in Preut, but they will still suffer. Even years after you lose this seat.”

  …

  This is the beginning of Volume 5 — Zemblanity.