Chapter 823 – If It Were Easy

“Ancient relics still walk amongst us” is a beautiful way to put it, and Anarchia is ever so eloquent in laying out her grievances with the issue of our existence. She writes of how the world has moved on in all ways, and how it is our idea and characters that are the things which are the problem now. Yet the Goddess of Anarchy, for all her grandiosity, misses the most precious steps in how the world has not changed.

Humanity still loves and still hates, humanity still marches to war, humanity still draws and produces art. The sunset nowadays is still as beautiful as it was a thousand years ago. The presence of a jagged, artificial skyline of lights has not destroyed the skyline of the mountains. The fields are still fields, and pits are still pits. And the swell of a bosom is still as beautiful today as it was in the past. In every way that technology has brought efficiency to the world, there are a dozen ways that old admirations have managed to sneak in.

For these are admirations and it is only natural that a Goddess whose entire existence relies on tearing down the human construct that is society will miss them. The only reason she has been allowed to survive for so long is because of the White Pantheon’s self-guided absence from worldly affairs. The very power that she preaches against is also the very power that ensures she has a following.

Anarchia, simultaneously, will decry us as individuals as she benefits from the calmness of the world that we have built. She separates the maker-maintainer from the product and deliberately ignores the chain linking them. The stability and protection provided by the Imperial Army is because of, and not in spite of, Kassandora. The miracles of magic are because of Elassa, and they would not exist without her. The death of the Jungle could be only done by Of Magic.

These are second order effects and not independent events. It cannot even be compared to finished product which exist long after the creator has died. Art may exist long after the artist dies and buildings are made to outlast generations. Yet we are not talking of such things here. We are talking of families and their parents, of states and their rulers, of workers and their jobs.

Anarchy is not defined by itself, but by its opposition to order. And in this, Anarchia is destined to be destroyed.

- Reply from God Arascus, of Pride, to Goddess Anarchia’s “The Divinity Problem”.

“Helenna has put down the Hallin protest.” Arascus tapped his fingers along the table when Nikolas spoke up, a young tanned man from Gracya. It extended a metre ahead of him, and then cut down before continuing so that the humans sitting with their laptops at the table could work under his gaze, with everyone facing each other. Helenna had pulled him out of the whole, and she had not been subtle about it, and then she went a step further and even given him a team.

No doubt everyone here was on her payroll, and she knew what was said before the minutes of every meeting were even recorded but frankly, Arascus did not even care. To try and safeguard this room against her would be an exercise in futility. Both of them would be wasting time, him finding solid replacements and her with breaking those solid replacements. And besides, the most important reason for not getting rid of them was that the Goddess of Love did have an eye for talent.

She had gone young, from mid-twenties to mid-thirties. It was one of those small things that only someone with a keen eye would spot, but the inherent assumption would be that the world was not ending five and a half months, and instead they would have careers running for years if not decades. Viktor, a man from Norje, tall and blonde, sat leaned back in his seat, scrolling through a document as he read yet another briefing. Anastasia from Lubska looked up from her screen and around the room. “Stahlwerks are reporting workers heading back in.” She turned to Arascus. “Transportation asks whether it has its own authority to reroute trains for the immediate day to assist in the backlog from there.”

“They have their own authority.” Arascus said. He was staring at nothing, just the wooden ceiling and the walls of the room they had occupied. It had been hastily raised near the Imperial Palace, Helenna had to give it to her, it was far easier to deal with the entire running of the Empire from one single room. In a way, it was annoying how right she was. “Contact Helenna and Saksma individually, ask them to report on the events of the day.”

“On it.” Anastasia said, the team measured six individuals. Arascus had never had that many clerks working underneath him at the same time. The office practically ran itself. Julia from Rilia was another, she had been poached from Aimone’s household, a girl who was aristocracy still by the old traditions of Rilia, pre-Imperial. Santos sat next to her, sometimes, they spoke in Esberian together and shot jokes. Arascus could already see the two of them getting married in the future. Peter from Allia was the last of the crew, he sat at the far end, leaning down into his monitor as he quickly typed a report up that Arascus had assigned him to: a general guidance to Hallin’s police on how they should handle the protests.

Arrests would be public and total, for everyone attending, not just the ringleaders. They wouldn’t be long though, but that didn’t matter. The goal was to get: All protestors sentenced as a headline. Helenna had not even been consulted, this was Arascus’ management directly. The God of Pride sat there and let out a deep breath as the meeting continued. Normally, he did not care about aesthetics too much but this table was idiotic. He wanted to be rid of it as quickly as possible.

And then, the atmosphere changed in the room. Arascus’ own screen came up with a notification, he saw the same shade of black and red appear in the faces of his secretaries. Anastasia leaned back from her screen, Peter stopped typing. Eyes went wide and everyone looked to Arascus.

Well, they were young still, and Helenna had been the one who had chosen the them. He couldn’t expect military discipline a few days in. Arascus clicked open the notification and typed in his password to unencrypt the message. The rest of the screens flashed and changed. And the God of Pride read, it wasn’t long: Hallin Local Watch reports, magical signature detected above the city, roughly nine hundred metres in the air. Similar signature to the portal at Rhomaion.

His secretaries would be reading the same message. Arascus took more interest in them. Anastasia narrowed her eyes and re-read it twice before turning to the God of Pride, dark grey-blue eyes focused and waiting for an instruction. Of course she would be like that, Lubskans were some of the most steadfast Imperial supporters: Olonia ensured that. Peter released a deep breath and shook his head. Julia muttered a quiet swear in Esberian, Santos leaned back to stare at the ceiling, received a kick under the table from Viktor and fixed his posture. Good enough. No one was crying or panicking.

“Viktor, alert the local garrison, use military channels how I showed you and tell them to mobilize.” Arascus said. He leaned back and tapped his fingers along the table. “Contact Helenna, she should know. Give her the order to stay out of the fight.” Against an Ardan opponent, or against some Tartarian horde, he would be more comfortable. But angels were nothing like demons or humans, the lowest of them was worth a whole platoon of soldiers.

And the orders kept going on. “Anastasia, send a red-alert to Northern Doschia command, tell them they have full authority to handle it. Green light on airforce deployment. Santos, check if there are ships scheduled for decommission in Arnburg’s LCL, take them off the list if there are for now. Nicholas, alert Lubska command, Julia you’re on southern Doschia, Peter, reroute a plane to pick me up, destination is Hallin.”

“Understood!” The room echoed and got to work. Keyboards immediately began to click as the humans began typing away, far faster than Arascus ever could. The first few times he had tried to use these things, he had accidentally broken the mechanical device through accidental strength. There were a few Divines that did not need a storeroom of spare equipment: Malam, Helenna, Kassandora, those who could control themselves, but the general attrition rate of mundane technology demanded slowness that many of his did not possess.

So they typed, and suddenly, there was another notification. Arascus stared at it, and then once again inputted his password. The black-red glares on every screen faded away and Arascus read the next message: Aris Local Watch reports Rhomaion-like magical signature above the city, current location is stable and holding one kilometre above the city centre.

“Aris…” Viktor said, scrolling through his screen. He turned up to Arascus. “What do we do now?” That was the sort of question that soldiers never asked, but frankly, Arascus actually liked some of the innocence in it. It was almost quaint to see them stressing like this. Anastasia’s eyes were narrowed. Nicolas had stopped typing, Julia muttered another swear. Santos stopped tapping his leg.

“Send word to Kassandora, she will deal with it. The Extermination War is a lower priority than this, pull out half the Divines from there.” Arascus thought of walking away to fix the issue in Hallin as Kassandora handled Aris, but something stalled him. “Ready the plane as well.” It was a heavy feeling, his stomach feeling as if it was suddenly weighing him down. Hallin and Aris at the same time were two places. One was one. One was unique. One was an operation that Paradeisius had tried, and then failed in.

Two though? Two were a group. And a group could be two, three, four, or twenty. Anastasia looked up from her laptop. “Helenna just reported in the closed channels.” She took a deep breath. “Arcadia too, the signature is big.” That was a none-issue, negligible. Elassa was there, as were most Imperial mages. It was a delaying mission and nothing else.

“Send word, tell her to prepare, but to continue with work. She has no restrictions.” Arascus saw another notification appear and began to click around to declare a state of emergency and for the system to stop requesting permission to unencrypt every single warning: Zawitz Local Watch has issued a code red regarding magical signatures. A moment later: Kaczaw Local Watch states Paradeisian incursion inbound.

So they were coming. This was the invasion. “Anastasia, have you sent off the order regarding the Lubskan Theatre?”

“Yes Sir.” She was fast.

“Rescind the order and tell them to start preparing their own defence. Issue a note that Olonia is not to take command of the situation of the whole theatre.” They had generals for that, Olonia could lead, but not at that scale yet. Arascus stood up, his eyes went down to the screen. Oledo was on the list now too. Manceinon was reporting, they were targeting every major city.

“New orders.” Arascus said. “Julia, prepare for IAPAD to issue a statement regarding general mobilization.” Internal Affair’s Public Affair’s Department. The acronym could be said as just a single word and everyone knew what it meant. “Send word to the Imperial Military, reroute troops from the Extermination War to local garrisons. All Epan theatres are to mobilize and start preparing their own defence, wake the air force, they’re unrestricted. Inform Kassandora, state she can keep one heavy hitter down there, the rest are to come back up here. Bring her back up and assign a local general to the hole.”

“Heavy hitter?” Julia asked, her cheeks turned red with embarrassment when Arascus gave her a dry look as answer. A major Divine, Allasaria, Irinika, Neneria, Olephia, Anassa and Elassa. The ones that were in their own category.

“She’ll know what it means.” Arascus didn’t bother to explain. “Formally, after, contact Etala in the UNN. Contact Karaina and send word to Iliyal Tremali. Send a formal word of notice to Guguo and notify Tasaidien in Alanktyda that his own magicians are to be mobilized.” He turned and looked down at the list, Igos and Nanbasa weren’t on that list. None of the cities in Imperial Arika were. “Alert the Arikan theatres and give them a code-red. Epa is code-black.”

The clerks got to work as Arascus listed the orders off. He wanted to issue commands to individual garrisons already but that was the worst thing he could do. Everyone knew the policies, Rhomaion had sounded the warning shot and the military had adapted. They would not be coming to such easy prey as they thought. The first wave would be the worst. This was an assault on a larger scale than anything in the Great War. Paradeisius did not deploy forces like this.

In eight hours, it would be annihilation or they would be fighting largely inexperienced yet drilled rabble. That was their chance. “Under my authority, give the SIS the order to mobilize and enter war-state.” And then, he saw their faces paled. Julia once again breathed a swear, even Anastasia looked shocked.

The Lubskan girl reported it before Arascus could even read the notification. “Pheonix Nest reports too.” That was what Arascus had been waiting on. If there was ever a place to strike, then it would be there, where the Empire was stockpiling its lattices for its own protection. Of course that is where they would hit. Arascus leaned back and stared up at the wooden beams in the ceiling.

It should be the end. If that place fell, then the story of Arda had a five and a half month expiration date on it. And yet, he found himself smiling. They were going to save Arda, and it did not matter what the universe threw at them. An apocalypse on a timeline? Interplanetary invasion at the same time? Let it come. Who did these people think they were? That Arda would just roll over and die?

“I am going to protect Pheonix Nest.” Arascus said. “IAPAD can deliver the news alone, or meet me there.” He took a step away and then stopped. “Send word to Fortia, and make it Fortia and not Kassandora. Ready the nuclear arsenal, she makes the calls. Ring me if the situation changes and do not leave this place.”