Nightshade: A SimLit | Chapter 71: Power & Control

The cameras focused on President Boucher standing, tall and determined, at the podium. It was a large room, though it was empty aside from the cameramen, and banners were displayed along the back wall, royal blue lined with gold trim. As the microphones drew closer to her in preparation for the television broadcast, she took a deep breath and spoke when she received the signal she was live.

"Citizens," her bold voice echoed as she began, "I have an announcement of the utmost importance to make. As I'm sure you all know, the term for presidency is ten years, and there is a limit of three terms. This is my thirty-ninth year in office. The series of mysterious and... rather unfortunate... events that occurred last election forced me to hold office for an extra term, seeing as... no viable candidates were left alive. But a new election is approaching, and under the current law, I am unable to run again. I have heard the rumors about my lack of aging, and I unabashedly confirm them: I indeed have taken the anti-aging serum discovered by FutureSim Labs, therefore rendering myself forever young. With this news comes the next surprising revelation: I have had no greater honor in my life than serving you all as your president, and I have no intentions of stopping now... so it is by the power vested in me as the President that I have abolished the very concept of our elections and declared the presidential term to last for life or until resignation."

She paused, and the silence was so overwhelming that you could hear a pin drop. Her lips twisted into the faintest smirk. "I will continue to do my very best to bring order and justice to our world. I cannot abandon my throne now... not while there is still work that I can do. I fight for the people and alongside the people, and this is why I would like to bring to your attention an extremist group threatening world order itself, The Arcane. They are comprised of various supernatural life forms, including vampires, aliens, and even witches, as far as we know. They seek to destroy us. I have been running an undercover operation to quietly put an end to this problem, named the Arcane Annihilation Agency, but it has not been successful. The problem is spiraling out of control, so it is with a heavy heart that I declare... every last one of these supernatural creatures, members of The Arcane or not, must be eliminated. They are not human, they are not our allies. They are dangerous, and they will die for their atrocities. Thank you for tuning into this announcement, and I wish all of you a good day." She forced a smile as the cameras cut off and stepped away from the podium. Her ultimate plan was finally in motion -- all she had left was to see it through.

---

Vance's eyebrows furrowed together as he turned off the large TV in front of him, and his eyes closed tightly, allowing deeply troubled thoughts into his mind.  Everyone in The Arcane's headquarters was dead silent, soaking in the shock of what they had just witnessed. It was as though no one even dared to say a word.

"...this is bad," Vance finally murmured, "this is really bad."

The redhead snickered and rolled his eyes. "Extremist group? Dangerous? Really...? Like she's one to talk."

The witch sitting beside him crossed her arms. "This isn't a laughing matter! She's convincing people it's a good thing to have us all killed! And to top it all off, we're stuck listening to Vance..."

"...You've got me there, Medea." He snickered at his own sarcasm as he turned his attention to Vance. "So, what do you propose we do about this, your excellency?"

"Excuse me?" Vance turned to them. "Let me remind you: Lilith isn't here today, and she left me in charge, so it really isn't in your best interest to question my authority or to mock me unless you want to be punished when she returns."

"Actually," a voice called from behind him, "don't take this the wrong way, but... you're just a field agent. I kind of think this isn't a good time for you to be in charge of anything, so maybe Lilith shouldn't take the weekend off and we should call her--"

"You've got a lot of nerve calling me just a field agent when you haven't even been working here a week, Andreas," Vance interrupted as he turned to face the other man and leaned down closer to his eye level. "And to correct your misinformation, I'm the lead field agent. I'll be your boss once you get promoted to working on the field, so trust me when I say you don't want to get on my bad side."

Andreas's cheeks reddened. "...Y-Yes sir, I'm sorry," he stammered nervously.

Vance narrowed his eyes. "You'd better be."

"Ooh, scary," the redhead butted in. "What next, you're going to intimidate us all with your tiny little fangs?"

"Can you guys stop fighting? This seriously isn't the time! We have enough to worry about without coming at each others' throats!" Amalthea snapped, propping her elbow on her desk to rest her chin on her hand. "Remember who the enemy is. It isn't Vance, so all of you shut up!"

"She's right," Vance growled. "Why the hell are you all criticizing me when we have the bigger problem to deal with, which is, just a friendly reminder, confirmation that our crazy now-dictator is the leader of The Triple A and she just declared a plan of mass genocide against us?"

The room fell silent upon those words aside from Amalthea quietly grumbling insults regarding her coworkers' incompetence under her breath.

---

Uranus: Emiko, you awake? I can't sleep. I'm really excited for the wedding but I also kind of have something bothering me...

Emiko: I'll be excited to attend your wedding if you can promise me the bridesmaid dress I have to wear isn't hideous.

Uranus: Well, it's pink and poofy.

Emiko: I think Orion would be way happier to wear that than me. By the way... what's on your mind?

Uranus: Actually, it's about Orion. He rarely ever responds to our group chat anymore. Or even my texts to him. I asked him if he could make it to my wedding, and he said he didn't know... I haven't heard anything from him since.

Emiko: I never hear much from him anymore, either...

Uranus: Do you think he hates us? Did I do something wrong?

Emiko: No, I think it's more like he's the father of two really awful toddlers. He's just busy, don't worry, okay? I know he'd be at your wedding if he could be.

Uranus put his phone down and fell back onto the bed with a heavy sigh, barely managing to find the motivation to look over at the door when he heard someone walk into the room. "Hey, Amalthea... you worked really late tonight. Is everything okay?"

"Well..." Amalthea sighed, worry painted clearly on her face. "Have you heard the news?"

Uranus hesitated, but nodded. "Yeah. I assume you guys were dealing with... that."

"I don't know if dealing is the right word, but we're... I don't know." She shook her head. "This is a mess. You seem upset... is something on your mind other than the impending threat of execution?"

"Wow, thanks for putting it so nicely," he laughed dryly in response. "Yeah, actually. My friend isn't responding to my texts. I'm worried he isn't going to come to our wedding..."

She walked over to the bed and climbed in, resting her body halfway on top of his. "Your friend? Well... if he's your friend, I'm sure he'll do his best to show up. And even if he can't, that's okay."

"I know, but still... he means a lot to me." Uranus frowned. "Maybe I'm just kind of worried about him. He's growing so distant. I get he's busy, but I can't help wondering if it's something more than that."

"Try not to worry so much, 'kay?" She leaned down to kiss his nose, earning her a giggle in response.

"Okay... I'll try not to." Uranus smiled, but he still couldn't push the worry out of his mind.

---

Weekends were always both the best and worst time of the week. With Onyx and Amelia out of the house today, Rocket was able to find plenty of time to slip away from his mother -- who was supposed to be watching him, but lucky for him, she was bad at that -- and get into a little trouble. This time, it was a huge mess all over his bedroom floor with some random substances he'd discovered in the kitchen cabinets. He almost got away with it, but unfortunately, his luck quickly ran out. His first clue was the rapidly approaching footsteps, the sound of the doorknob turning...

"The hell is going on in here!?" Tiffany snapped as she entered the room. "You're making a huge mess for me to have to clean up!"

He dropped the bottles in his hand and looked up at her innocently. "No, I pwaying!"

"You call this playing? You must have a hundred dumb toys that your dad bought you!" She motioned dramatically to the toybox. "Are you too stupid to use them or what!?"

Rocket averted his gaze to the floor, not really understanding why she was so angry about it. His dad never acted like this... "I sowwy...?"

"SORRY!? That's what you have to say!?" Tiffany lunged forward, surrounded in a dark mist as she slipped into her dark form. "I'm so SICK of dealing with you!"

-----

"Daddy, what's a dictatater?"

Orion took a long pause. "A dictator? Where did you even hear that word, Meteor?"

"Onyx and Amewia said it before they left!" Meteor's eyes widened. "They not seem happy."

Just over an hour ago, Amelia had taken Onyx along to do her typical weekend activity: selling art in San Myshuno. It left Orion and Tiffany alone to care for the toddlers, and truthfully, he was shocked that Tiffany was even taking part in that today. Why should he even be surprised that his young child was worried about dictatorship? This is just a normal Saturday afternoon like any other. "Well, um, it's... it's not good. They're not happy because of that."

"Okay." Meteor frowned. "...Why it not good?"

"...you'll understand when you're older. For now, don't worry about politics," Orion sighed. "You'll wish you could afford not to later in life."

"...what's a polly tick?"

"Um, no, not--"

Their conversation was cut off by the sound of Tiffany's yelling and Rocket's loud cries coming from upstairs. Orion froze up, the panic already setting in before he even know what was happening. He stood quickly from the couch and glanced down at Meteor. "Stay here. Don't move. Okay?"

"What going on?" Meteor frowned.

"I-I'm going to go see. I'll be back in just a minute." Orion tried to smile calmly before turning to hurry upstairs. 'This can't be good...'

-----

Eyes aglow, Tiffany moved closer to Rocket, her rage only heightening more with every step.

"M-Mommy?" Rocket stumbled back with a sniffle, the entirety of his tiny body trembling in fear.

She was poised to strike like a venomous snake, her fingers were curled like freshly sharpened claws. Her fangs gleamed in the darkness that now surrounded her as her lips curled upward to expose them. If Orion had been even a moment later, the scene he saw when he entered the room could have been even more terrifying. She froze up as the door was thrown open, smacking into the wall loudly.

"T-Tiffany? What are you...!?" Orion stammered, cautiously stumbling into the room. He soaked in the situation quickly, and his eyes narrowed. "...Get away from him."

Her head slowly craned to look over her shoulder, a malicious smirk forming on her lips and her soulless eyes piercing into him almost as harshly as her fangs were about to.

"I'm teaching him a lesson, but it looks like you need one first."

Tiffany lunged forward without warning and sank her fangs deep into Orion's neck, struggling to restrain him as he yelped and thrashed underneath her. Her hands gripped onto anything they could hold, and she tugged his hair harshly. She growled out muffled demands underneath her breath. "Stay... still... struggling will get you nowhere!"

"Daddy!" Rocket screamed, and only cried harder, terrified and unsure of what was even happening.

Orion didn't give up the struggle, but he couldn't stop the tears when every move he made just caused the pain to intensify. "Y-You can't do this! N-Not... not in front of Rocket, please...
 please stop..."

"Stop!" Rocket cried, trembling even harder than he was before. The sight was terrifying. Despite not knowing what was happening, he knew that it was wrong. "Leave daddy alone!"

Orion felt his legs weakening beneath him, and underneath the weight of Tiffany, it sent them both crashing to the floor. She pinned him down to the floor, relentlessly drinking every last drop he had to offer. "Stop," he whimpered, trying his best to shove her away. Above anything else, Orion was the most worried about Rocket, screaming and bawling his eyes out as he witnessed all of this. The edges of his vision began to grow blurry, his mind buzzed with empty thoughts. It occurred to him that, just maybe, she fully intended to drain him dry.

It felt like a hundred years before she harshly ripped her fangs from his neck and stood up, smirking at the metallic taste still on her lips. He had never felt more helpless as he stared up at her, not knowing her intentions now that she'd weakened him with blood loss...

...but she simply turned and walked away, her cloud of darkness following her out the door. He sat up hesitantly as she left and silently wished the throbbing pain in his neck would go away sooner than it usually did.

"D-Daddy...?"

Rocket threw himself into his father's arms. "Daddy," he sobbed. "I-I scared..."

"I-It's okay, shhh... everything's okay now..." Orion held him tightly, trying to stop the tears that were still falling.

Rocket whimpered. "Mommy hurt you..."

Orion could only lie to reassure him. "N-No, no... I'm okay. Please don't cry... I hate seeing you cry."

"But you crying," Rocket said with a frown.

"...I'm crying because I was scared, too..."

 "No be scared! I here now!" Rocket tightened his grip around Orion, sniffling a little.

Orion formed a tearful smile and kissed his son's forehead. "You're right... and I'm so glad you are..."