“Congress shall have the Power to, in Cases of Invasion, Rebellion, or other Acts of Terror, raise and fund Militias to defend, with full force, the Integrity of the Union.”

—Article II, Section II to the Constitution of Meeting Tribes of Immediate Siblings

On December the twenty-eighth, 182 BC, two days after the spell had been cast and news of it had spread across the country, the municipality of Fillydelphia declared secession from the Union.

“We, the delegates of Fillydelphia,” read the closing statement of the Fillydelphia Deceleration of Secession, “find the incumbent president of the Union’s crimes against the citizens of Equestria truly abominable and unforgivable. The cruel and unusual military action against our neighbors, being both an abrogation of nature and morality, incontrovertibly indicates the work of a creature of Discord. For these reasons, the delegates of Fillydelphia believe that peace, the sole desire of the Fillydelphians, can not be found in the Union. And it is for this reason that they, under the permission of the mayor, declare Fillydelphia to be, forever more, a proud member and entity of the sovereign nation of the Friendship of Equestria.”

When news of Fillydelphia’s defiance reached Canterlot, the president, overjoyed at the ease of issuing orders under the Powers of War, ordered military action to be taken against Fillydelphia. To any dissenters—though there were few, since Princess Celestia had inexplicably vanished and less delegates were showing up at each session—the president simply appealed to their emotions. He found it much easier to simply justify his unilateral actions under the Powers of War, rather than get permission from Congress for everything he wanted to do: he spoke alarmingly about the dangers of the Friendship to everlasting peace, how the Friendship planned to ruin any concept of order and society, and how if they did not act now, each and every single one of them would be responsible for the dissolution of their proud nation—and that would be a betrayal of the vision of President Platinum and the founders.

It was so easy, he thought, playing them all; all he had to do was just speak loudly and somberly for long enough until he saw the most hardened faces of even the most conservative delegates melt into expressions of apprehension and horror.

On December the thirtieth, after the Union Army on the threshold of Fillydelphia was met with violence and hostility from the residents—who had their own little militia—Fillydelphia succumbed to the spell of chaos, just like its fellow deserters had.

The soldiers of the Union Army, who were sitting on the outskirts of these cities, could not be happier with the status quo; it was as if it were a party to which they were being paid to attend.

When the editorialists visited the campsites of various regiments, as hard as they tried to find war crimes committed by the Union Army, they only found the soldiers jocundly singing old war songs, drinking fresh cider, while dancing and hugging each other around their nightly campfires. Any misapprehensions that the citizens still had about the danger of the war slowly dissipated as they heard of these nightly celebrations; and, in the month of February, the Union Army’s recruitment statistics doubled in all its regions.

In March, to compensate for the influx of new recruits, an order of an additional six hundred thousand Trottingham Rifles was filled and shipped to the regiments in dire need of replacements. When the crowbars pulled off the wooden casings of the rifles in front of the fawning soldiers, they cheered as they saw the light of the sun bounce off the wood finishing of the rifles’ barrels. As they lined up to receive their new toy, they fidgeted and whinnied with delight; and when the last one was distributed, they ran around their camp grounds comparing their rifles to their colleagues’, fiddling with the weapons’ sights, polishing them, and taking them apart.

Firearms were a rarity in Equestria, much less rifles, since ponies had no need to acquire food and the few ones in circulation left over from the Changeling War were smoothbore—and they themselves were falling into disarray from lack of maintenance. Barely two years ago, a clever pony discovered that if he rifled the inside of the barrel of a gun and a conical bullet was built to match it, the bullet would spin upon exit, greatly improving the weapon’s accuracy.

The firing operation, while cumbersome, payed off in terms of sheer effectiveness: First, using his forehoof the soldier would remove, from a pouch on his neck, a paper tube filled with a premeasured amount of gunpowder sitting on top of a bullet. He would firmly bite his teeth around the twisted end that held the bullet; and, with a swift flick of his neck, he would tear it off, exposing the gunpowder—keeping the bullet in his mouth. Holding steady his rifle on the ground, supported by a harness around his body, he would pour the gunpowder down the barrel of the rifle and then spit the bullet following it—taking heed to discard the paper on the ground. With his mouth now free, he would draw with his teeth—the Union Army field manual insisted that it should only take two motions of the head—the ramrod laying on the underside of the barrel, and he would securely seat the bullet on top of the gunpowder. After returning the ramrod, the soldier would remove with his mouth, out of a smaller pouch around his neck, a brass percussion cap that contained oxidizers necessary for ignition of the charge; and he would bring the stock of the rifle close to his face, remove the previous percussion cap, and set the new one down securely on the primer. After this, it was a matter of fully cocking the rifle’s hammer and then pulling the trigger. The harness allowed a soldier to fire it with one forehoof, while leaving another on the ground; but, for further accuracy, a soldier could fire it while lying prone, using both forehooves to support the weapon.

When the soldiers received this brand new innovation, they were overcome with joy at the fact that they call this state-of-the-art piece of machinery of their dreams their own; it really was like they were foals and it was Hearth’s Warming Day.

In April, during the first warm day of the year, a sergeant of the Second Canterlot Volunteer Infantry Regiment lost a round—and with it, a modest sum of gold—while playing a card game with his colleagues. Dejected, he left the game and his friends to walk in the field around the camp completely alone, to be with himself and his thoughts. On a whim, he climbed the small hill, on the base of which the camp was built, which blocked the sight of the battlefield, and he looked over the top at Ponyville. He had only seen it once, on the day he had been assigned his tent and his sleeping arrangements, and he had been so repulsed by the sight that he had immediately averted his eyes. Now, as he looked at the dying city, he was overwhelmed with sorrow: he could still see the life and the energy of the city, still fighting helplessly against its oppressor all these months later. As the city kicked back in defiance, the dark magic laughed at its impotence—and, like a constrictor, squeezed harder with every desperate gasp of air that its victim took. The sergeant felt a tear run down his cheek as he silently cheered on the tenacity of the small city— which refused to submit so easily to the iron clutches of despair.

In May, Enforcer knocked on the closed door of Princess Luna’s office. “Go away; I’m busy,” was all he heard her say. He sighed and shook his head, disappointed that the princess’s passionate and caring personality had not shown in a long time; but, in view of the previous months, he honestly was not surprised.

He watched her in the congressional sessions, which ended very quickly nowadays since the most prominent delegates of the Royal Party had stopped attending and since the president carried out all his orders unilaterally through his Powers of War nowadays, thus making the resistance that he encountered in the sessions much less potent, and Enforcer could see the disgust on her face whenever the president silenced any remaining dissent with his blood-curdling laugh. Enforcer had no idea how she managed to keep her resolve under the conditions. If he had to spend any more time with the president, other than the small amount he deliberately maintained in order to see him less, he would have lost any will to carry out his duties or to even get out of bed in the morning.

After turning away from her office, he swallowed nervously, as he was now about to perform the most dreaded part of his daily routine: he was going to see the president. As he intentionally walked slowly down the dreaded corridor between the vice-president’s office and the Horseshoe Office, he cursed the designers who, hundreds of years ago, put the offices of the vice president and the president so close together.

He approached the door to the Horseshoe Office and raised a shaky leg to knock on it, but he stopped when he heard a strange sound coming from inside.

Enforcer put his ear to the door. He heard the president’s voice, but it was too quiet for him make out what he was saying.

Usually, Enforcer would have extended the president his due privacy and waited until he was free, except there was one anomaly: the president was not scheduled to meet anypony today. As Enforcer listened, the president’s mumblings became louder and angrier until finally, Enforcer was too disturbed by the tone and intonation of the voice. He recoiled, slid the papers he wanted to show the president under the door, and took a deep breath, relieved that he had found an excuse not to talk to the president that day.

He jumped to fly away, but as soon as he began to flap, he felt his right wing cramp with an intense pain—and he fell back to the ground. He rubbed his head in confusion and tried to flutter his lame wing, but it had been seized into a dreadfully stiff position, refusing to respond to his commands. Enforcer was obliged to walk back to his office, but this was made difficult by a tremor that had taken a hold of his entire being, caused partly by the physical pain that accompanied the cramp—but which was mostly due to the shock that comes with watching part of one’s body fail.

In June, which marked nearly six months since the day Ponyville declared secession and six months of complacency in the president, the federal government, and the Union Army, the soldiers of the Forty-Eighth Baltimare Volunteer Infantry Regiment, stationed on the outskirts of Los Pegasus, engrossed in their card games, their drinks, and their jokes, did not notice that the pink clouds, which had blanketed the city for six months straight, were beginning to part.

The sun stretched its rays across the land, finally free to shower the forsaken city with its comfort and support after it had spent too long being impeded, and it would have shone directly on the Union Army camp over the horizon had it not been for the vast line of figures blocking it out—which nopony in the camp paid any attention to.

The figures stood erect, unwavering, and resolute as they passed silent judgment on the boisterous and oblivious foals in the camp who had the insolent audacity to call themselves soldiers. The slits of their eyes narrowed and their noses expelled clouds of air, thickened with indignation and disgust. Although one could not see their faces, for the sun rose behind the figures and cast long shadows on them, one could faintly see harnesses around their bodies peculiar to the ones used to equip its user with a long-barreled firearm.

When a private of the camp, noticing the increased amount of light, looked in its direction and saw the line of figures obscuring its source, he screamed in an effort to warn his friends, but it was too late. Not a moment after, the camp was hit by a volley of rifle-fire from the hill. The Union Army soldiers, neglecting their training for the past six months, ran in a frenzied, disorganized manner around their camp, trying to find their rifles and trying to find shelter from the remorseless and unrelenting rain of metal. They ran face first into each other, tripped over logs, and tore down their tents in confusion, while the figures on the horizon grit their teeth, kept their mouths in their cartridge-pouches, and their hooves firmly on the triggers of their rifles.

Thus, the Forty-Eighth Baltimare Volunteer Infantry Regiment was the first to fall to the Army of the Friendship.

The Nineteenth and Forty-Ninth Canterlot, the Twenty-Second Manehattan, and the Ninety-Fourth Baltimare Volunteer Infantry Regiments—who were stationed on the northern, north-western, southern, and eastern flanks of Los Pegasus respectively—never attributed the sounds of the gunfire to the attack on the Forty-Eighth Baltimare to the west; they assumed it was training, or some new event from the city, which always produced the strangest noises.

It was not until each regiment suffered a similar attack, though no less relentless, each one ten minutes apart from the last that they had realized, too late, what had happened.

Holding the casualty figures, Enforcer stood outside the closed door of the president’s office. He loosened his necktie, as he felt his shirt clinging to the sweat of his body. He had full control of his wings again; but, after the injury he had sustained two months ago, they had never felt the same.

But, as of this moment, as he stood right in front of the door of the Horseshoe Office, the loss of Los Pegasus was the last thing on his mind. He swallowed painfully, his throat extremely dry, as he opened the door and walked in unannounced.

He found the president reclining in his office chair with his stubby legs on his desk, looking up at a ball he was repeatedly tossing at the ceiling and catching as it fell back to him. When Enforcer closed the door, the president caught the ball, swung his legs off his desk, immediately sat up, and shot Enforcer a look that was bemusement mixed with genuine amiability.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Enforcer,” said the president, twirling the ball in a circle on his desk with the talons of his claw, “but I do believe this is the first time you’ve ever come in without knocking.” His face hardened and he leaned forward. “You must have an extremely good reason to warrant such a rude interruption.”

The president’s eyes seem to bulge out of his head as he strengthened his gaze—which was piercing into Enforcer’s own eyes.

Enforcer felt a bead of sweat fall off his brow; it hit the floor and spread out, leaving a rather large and noticeable stain on the carpet. Enforcer had this entire conversation rehearsed a million times, but when he started to speak, it was as if the president’s eyes were in his brain, deliberately sabotaging its speech centers.

“Sir . . . I . . . well that’s to say we . . . I have . . .” he sputtered.

The president stood up, walked around his desk, and stood directly in front of Enforcer. His tall body towered over the timid assistant; and his large tail slowly moved in a slow, calculated, pendulous swing, akin to a cat waiting to strike, and he leaned his head down right in front of the pony’s face, such that Enforcer could smell his putrid breath and could see how disproportionate and horrifyingly repulsive the president’s face truly was.

Enforcer leaned his head back to put valuable centimeters between him and the president, closed his eyes, and yelled: “Los Pegasus is lost!”

He peeked out of the lid of his left eye and saw the president’s face relax, make an amicable smile, and then sharply pull itself up as the president roared with his unsettling laughter. Enforcer felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end. He dared not to move.

“Enforcer!” bellowed the president, once he was finished laughing. The president took a step back and Enforcer exhaled with relief. “How kind of you to brighten up my day with such a amusing joke!”

Enforcer’s wings fluttered with anxiety as he cleared his throat, summoned up his courage, and said: “Sir, I . . . it wasn’t a joke, sir.”

“Well, of course it was a joke, my good colt!” At this, his body language dropped the pretense of amusement; he crossed his forward extremities and said somberly: “And I know that because I gave explicit orders to the Department of Magic and Defense to apply such discording and reality-bending magic to those cities that its citizens would not even be able to grasp the concept of ‘retaliation.’”

“Well . . . sir . . . it appears that somehow . . . Los Pegasus has broken it.”

“What!” yelled the president, as he approached Enforcer in such a quick manner that the assistant backed up equally as swiftly until his head hit the closed door of the entrance to the office. “How is this possible?”

“I don’t know!” Enforcer wailed. “I’m not part of the Department. I don’t know how unicorn magic works. You’re asking the wrong pony!” Enforcer pressed his head against the door, closed his eyes, and extended his hoof, with an assortment of papers balanced on top of it, toward the president. He felt a searing pain on his hoof as the papers were swiftly taken from him, leaving a paper-cut. He opened his eyes and watched the president’s eyes move rapidly across the words on the page.

“What is this? I don’t understand this. Didn’t we have nearly twenty thousand soldiers around that city?”

“So why do these reports say that there were only an estimated seventeen Union soldiers killed in action and forty wounded?”

“While there are no list of casualties on the rebellion’s side? How can an engagement of a combined thirty thousand ponies yield such relatively low casualties and such little intelligence?”

“I see no reports of the rebels keeping prisoner of war camps, yet I see no figures listing any of our soldiers as missing in action.”

The president looked up from the reports and stared at Enforcer with a blank look on his face. With a rapid blinking of his eyes, the president stuck a talon inside is left ear, scratched it, and said: “Pardon? Excuse me? I do believe I’ve misheard you.”

“Sir, while we do not have any confirmed reports of this, we believe that the rebellion refuses to take any prisoners and that the overrun regiments were given the choice to join them or to be executed. We do have one soldier, a private first-class, who escaped from the attack on the Ninety-Fourth Baltimare: the last regiment to fall. She’s being treated in a hospital here in Canterlot, and she says—”

“I’ve had it with this hearsay,” said the president as he slammed his paw, which was furled into a fist, down on the desk, causing Enforcer to jump in surprise. “I want to talk to the soldier myself; I want her in this office right now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Enforcer,” he said, affecting a false calm tone of voice, which clearly conveyed his sense of indignation. “But I do believe that when the president of the Union issues a command to his assistant, he expects it to be followed; therefore, the private will be here in the next ten minutes. And, after that, I want Director Star right after I’m done with her. You’re dismissed, Enforcer!”

Enforcer would have given anything during the last five minutes just to hear those three words sooner.

Seven minutes after Enforcer had flown out of the Horseshoe Office in such haste that the wind from his wings blew a few sheets of paper off of a bureau sitting against the wall, he came in through the door that neither him nor the president had bothered to close. “Private First-Class Meadow Green of the Ninety-Fourth Baltimare Volunteer Infantry Regiment of the Union Army,” he said.

With his elbows on his desk and his paw and claw clasped together in anticipation, the president stared at Enforcer. He then gestured them outwards, face up.

Enforcer, interpreting the gesture, looked behind him, saw that there was nopony there, blushed, walked out of the office and led a yellow earth-pony through the door.

PFC Meadow Green’s left eye was black, and there were multiple scratches on her right cheek. Her mane was matted and tangled with sticks and grass, and a blue ice pack was strapped to the back of her head in an odd sort of helmet. Her once beautiful Union Army uniform, which was made with a royal blue cotton, lined by an arrangement of gleaming gold-colored buttons up the torso, was now tattered around her shoulders and was covered with pine needles and dirt. The upper button was barely hanging on by a small blue thread, and her collar was popped up, wrinkled and bent. She was chewing nervously on her cap, and the two brass buttons shaped like crossed trumpets made a metallic clinking sound as her teeth chattered on them. She was staring at the ground when she walked in, but when she saw the president, she quickly placed the cap back on her head—which had lost all its shape and definition and which slumped like a pillow on the side of her temple—raised a shaky foreleg in the traditional military salute and coughed out, her voice raspy and quiet: “The un’un for’ver.”

Enforcer watched the disheveled pony take a seat in front of the president’s desk without invitation. As he saw her slumped in the chair, this once proud soldier now at rock-bottom, he thought that there was never a creature that symbolized the state of the Union as she did now, as she sat in front of the president. Enforcer wondered if the president realized this too.

“Now, my dear,” said the president, resting his chin on his paw, “Enforcer tells me that your regiment was assaulted and overrun by the rebellion. Is this not true?”

PFC Greene spoke with a thick Baltimare working-class accent; and Enforcer, being a refined upper-class pony from Canterlot, had a hard time understanding what she said, but the emotion in her voice told him all he needed to know. “Ah . . . Ah dun know what happen,” she said.

“Well, do your best,” said the president, in a tender voice which Enforcer had never heard him use before. “I want these rebels to be brought to justice for what they did to you and your friends, but I can’t do it on my own. I need your help. Can you help me?”

PFC Green took her hat off her head and used the fabric to wipe the tears that were now beginning to form in her eyes. “Ah was walkin’ ‘cross the campin’ grounds, gonna’ meet up with the lieutenant”—she gave a sad chuckle in the middle of her strangled words—“tell ‘im a funny joke Ah had heard from ma’ good buddy Chive.”

“Ah heard . . . Ah heard the most definite scream comin’ from someplace, an unnatural scream, sir. Ah swear: if you’d been there, sir, you’ heart most definitely would’ve turned to cold.”

“Lookin’ back on it, it was probly’ the rebellin’ soldiers, ‘cause when Ah looked in its dirction’, Ah saw an entire firin’ line of ponies. They weren’t in proper colors,” she said, as she tugged on her collar. “Them were in a gray suit, with a red stripe goin’ down the legs. Ah didn’t think nothin’ of it until Ah saw the smoke from their rifles. One nearly got me.” She pointed to her shoulder piece, which Enforcer could see had a conical tear right across its seam.

“Ah fell back,” she continued. “And then when Ah opened mine eyes, Ah could hear screamin’, and ponies were runnin’ all over the place. I did not dare stand up, mind ya; Ah cud still hear them bullets over mah head.” She made a whistling noise with her mouth and moved her hooves in the air, as if to imitate the path of the bullets. “From where Ah was, Ah couldn’t see mah tent or mah rifle, and Ah didn’t know what should be done . . . Ah am sorry—so, so sorry! Ah’ve betrayed the un’un! Ah’m a deserter! Ah’m a dirty rebel!” At this she buried her face in her cap and sobbed.

“Soldier, I don’t know if I understand you,” said the president, who leaned back in his chair with a skeptical look on his face.

“Ah promised to stand with ma brothers through thick ‘n thin, and Ah promised to uphawld the constutun, but Ah crawled away like a proper coward.” She made a despondent grunting noise through her clenched teeth. “Ah crawled and crawled, ‘till Ah couldn’t hear them bullets over mine head.”

“Well, from what I’m told, it sounded like nopony was standing with anypony.”

“That’s where yur wrong, sir,” she said, as she looked up at him. Enforcer could see that her eyes were red. “When Ah got to a safely distance, Ah climbed a tree, pulled out mah pocket binoculars,”—and she reached into one of the pockets on her belt and pulled out a small spyglass, its lens badly cracked—“and looked back. Ah could see the camp, and Ah could see a few of mah friends behind a makeshift barricade, firin’ back at the attackers with all them hearts. Ah saw a line of what I reckon to be a thousand rebels, firing down at our four thousand. Ah should’ve been there; Ah should’ve been at that barricade.”

“My dear, what I don’t understand is how one thousand disorganized and poorly equipped rebels, who have been under siege for the past one hundred sixty-eight days, could defeat four thousand highly-trained soldiers of the Union Army.”

“Ah was sittin’ there, watchin’ my friends defend the camp; and, on the hill, Ah saw a good-lookin’ pony. He had the gray and red of the rebels, but he had them fancy-lookin’ epaulets, like the officers do. He was holdin’ a chest of some sort, and he faced it ‘twards the battlefield. He was about to open it, but before I could fancy a peek as to what was inside, the most p’erful light with the most loud’st sound came over the world—so bright that even when Ah closed my eyes and put mine two hooves here over them, it still was hurtin’. Ah assume it was a bomb or somethin’; but, in any case, Ah lost my balance and fell outta’ mine tree. I got quite the knock on the head, as you can see her’.

“When Ah woke up, Ah didn’t know how long Ah’d been out, and my head was hurtin’ like there was no tomorra’. Ah was dizzy like ya wouldn’t believe, sir, but Ah didn’t hear no rifles no more, so Ah crawled close enough to see wot’ Ah could see.”

“Ah was expectin’ there ta be bodies layin’ all around, but what Ah saw was worst than that: Ah saw mah friends, naked, in a line. At the front of that line, Ah saw one of them gray and red fellows, and Ah could see many cardboard boxes, stacked upon another. Ah saw Chive . . . Chive! The strongest boy that had ever gone, he take somethin’ . . . that the gray and red pony gave to ‘em . . . Poor Chive! Oh my word, that poor boy!”

“It was . . . it was . . . one of them uniforms that they were wearin’. The gray one with the red stripe one, sir. And Chive . . . Chive put it on. He left the line dressed in their dress as the pony behind him got up to receive his.

“It was at this point when Ah realized that the great plume o’ smoke that Ah had attributed to a far’ caused by somepony knockin’ over a lantern in his confusion was act’lly made by a great burning pile of the un’un’s blue uniforms.”

The president’s eyes bulged out, his ears stiffened, and he looked at her with his mouth open. “So you’re saying that they weren’t captured? Or killed? They’re all traitors to the Union?”

“Ah don’t know if they’d been killed, sir. When Ah saw that, Ah couldn’t take much more, and Ah ran away. Ah tried to make it to the other fortifications, ta warn ’em of the attack, but when Ah got there, they too were givin’ out them uniforms. Ah ran from the city, fastest as Ah could. I was dizzy, and Ah fainted a few miles out. If the flyboys from the Air Force hadn’t spotted me, I’d be a goner fo’ sure.”

At this, PFC Green leaned close to the president, and the steeliness of her eyes almost rivaled that of his. “Sir, mark me: war is comin’ and it’s comin’ hard.”

The president stood up, his amiable expression completely gone from his face, took the private’s hoof, helped her up, and said: “I appreciate you taking time out of your day to talk to me. You’re dismissed. Go get some rest.”

She looked at him, and, with her free foreleg gave the military salute and said: “The un’un forever, sir,” before falling back into the chair.

The president didn’t reply. He grasped her gently by her mane, helped her out of the chair, and gave her to Enforcer, who led her out of the office.

Enforcer gave her back to the two nurses, who were waiting for her with a wheelchair. No sooner had he helped her into it then he heard a voice back from the office: “Enforcer, send in the other one!”

Enforcer popped his head back in to see the president sitting at his desk again. “Excuse me, sir?”

Enforcer knew that this moment would come and he had prepared for it, but this did not quell his heart, which was beating at upwards of one hundred beats per minute. “Sir . . .” he said, “we couldn’t find him.”

“He’s not at the department; he’s not at home; he’s not anywhere. We’ve looked. I don’t believe he’s even come into work for the past few months.”

“In that case, he’s a deserter, a capital offender, just like General Hoop. Put a warrant out for his arrest, and don’t stop until you find him. Also, have my carriage ready; I need to get to Los Pegasus immediately, so I can reapply the spell and, this time, do it properly.”

Enforcer raised an eyebrow at the president, and when the latter’s countenance did not relent in intensity—as one’s usually does shortly after one has made a joke—the former shrugged his shoulders in confusion. Nevertheless, Enforcer bowed and was about to walk out of the room when the president, as if it were just a passing remark, said: “Oh, and Enforcer? Make sure that General Sherbert relays to her troops that if they don the uniform of a traitor to the Union, no matter what the reason or the threat, they are traitors to the Union and they will be treated as such.”

The president saw or heard no acknowledgment of this order, but the sound—or, rather, the lack of sound—of the pause in the assistant’s hoof-steps and the whoosh of air caused by his wings nervously fluttering, and a sharp crack of unknown origin, as if something had snapped at its seams, made the president certain that the pony had heard it and had no doubt made off to relay the order.

When Enforcer was out of sight of the president, he leaned against the wall, loosened his tie further and breathed rapidly and shallowly until he had calmed down. It was only now that he collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain, as the realization as to what had happened to him sunk in: in his haste, he had broken his hip bone.

Two days later, General Sherbert received a letter bearing the stamp of the Horseshoe Office: it was a formal order from the president. Upon reading the letter, she knew that a good night sleep was not going to be hers; but, like a good soldier, she immediately relayed the order to the officers in the field.

On June the sixteenth, 181 BC, the president, acting under Amendment XI of the COMTOIS, suspended the writ of habeas corpus; and the thousands of court-dates scheduled for the March on Mane Street protesters, among others, were indefinitely postponed.

Ordo ab Chao

by Integral Archer

Chapter IX: Nos Vos Provocamus