Chapter One
In the Beginning of What Once Was....
"Leaders lead
from the Front, that's what The Ancients
used to say and that's what The Ancients used
to do. And so I believe that that was, is," he made sure to emphasize his
point "and will forever shall be! The
natural check-&-balance barometer that keeps any leadership, elected or
not. Forced or not. Chosen" gotta be careful here, gotta be careful
"or not, in check." I gotta get the hell outta here, because
these bitches-&-bastards just don't give a fuck...!
He adjusted his
dark-rimmed spectacles and tried to keep from squinting as he looked around the
Imperial Assembly Hall and had no choice but to admit that those assembled here
were only concerned about the here-&-now and could care less about the
then-&-gone or the broken-&-beaten! A whole week! Of wasted time and hot-air! Was all that was going
through his heavily-guarded mind. And he had every right to feel that way, because
even as he was speaking the intentional disrespect was downright annoying as
fuck! They'd intentionally set holo-projection spotlights to sit high in a
half-circle in the cathedral-style rafters of the Imperial Assembly Hall, so
that they were blasting him full in the face like an encircling set of
spotlights trained on a criminal trying to escape from the cops! They were all
making it crystal-clear that they'd heard exactly what he had to say and this
is how they felt about him and it...!
I feel like a goddamn hue-mahn standing up
here talking to these morons-&-monkeys and they've got the nerve to be
masquerading as the leaders of this land! He'd come to the Imperial City in
respectfully modest clothes, simple black robes. No embroidery. No two-toned
layers to show his wealth and status. Plain black boots, which had his wife and
kids begging him to reconsider coming here to address these parasites! Over and
over they told him that if he had to worry about making sure even his boots, his
boots!?!?! Footwear can't even appear
to be threatening!?!?! But he was able to once again talk them into this
madness with the understanding that the fate of the Empire was on the line and
that for better-or-for worse, he couldn't knowingly see what was going to
happen up the road if current conditions were allowed to just blissfully bound
down the road and no real attempt was made to address them within their lifetime. That might be acceptable
elsewhere, but you get what you pay for when you know you need to do something
now, but then decide that somebody else will probably do it later.
He continued his
exercise in futility while keeping himself as calm as possible, but just
looking at him standing there behind a plain wooden podium on a slightly
elevated dais, just looking at him...? He looked exactly the way they wanted
him to look. Like the backwater fool they thought he is, where no one asked for his tainted opinion or his
dull-ass lecture. While for him? He looked and felt exactly what they wanted
and needed him to feel; powerless.
No Ilvala-style
attire at all, which almost cost him his Border-Region respectability! The lack
of any Ilvala-style anything!? Almost
made it so that he would have had a one-way ticket into the bowels of the
Empire never to return to his own territory that he ruled over, which the
Imperial Assembly and the Imperial Line were none too pleased about in the
first place! He was the only remaining Land-Lord left, anywhere within the
Empire! And the Land-Ladies of the Empire weren't too pleased with that either!
So they did their best... to put some stress on his chest with a list of...? Requirements,
before he could come to the Imperial Assembly and address them with his concerns....
No honor-guard.
No jewelry.
Tweezed. Eyebrows.
Which was humiliating enough. His finely groomed moustache? Shaved, gone. A
laundry list of intentional attempts to humiliate him and cause problems
amongst his own people, amongst his own Land-Ladies,
to try to get him going-&-coming and find some sort of way to get his
tan-ass, skinned alive! So that they wouldn't be subjected to shit like what he
was doing right now....
Lecturing them.
Empress Sai-Xiyi
sat back in her ornate high-chair with a satisfied smirk and continued to enjoy
the show that is, Master Malcolm the
Monkey King from the Border-Region.
Now that the Arisen Era was done and over with she was still undecided about
whether or not she needed to rein in the Border-Region Territories with their
ass-backwards way of doing things. She had a bunch of shit irritating the hell
out of her, but one thing that was definitely grating on her was the fact that
hue-mahns from neo-earth were still being given equal rights out in his
backwater-boonies! And his ass seemed all too pleased with it too. She didn't
even wanna think about the fact that they were out their race-mixing just like
the Arisen Class had been doing before she was finally able to correct the
mistakes her mother and grandmother made in playing around with creating a
class for fuckin commoners, in the first place.
Equal rights for hue-mahns, the thought
made her almost throw-up in her throat. How
on earth did my predecessors allow them to keep their savagely-stupid system of
doing things anyway...? But she was quickly reminded of the Wulu People From
Beyond and that actually sent a cold shiver through her body and brought her
back to reality in a hurry. The Wulu War nearly destroyed the Empire of
Tae-Khan-Sai and it would have too if not for the very same Border-Region
Territories that she was now turning a hateful-eye towards either gaining
complete control over them and their annoying-ass leader standing in front of
Her, or?
The thought of
eliminating them after all of the time, effort, resources and womanpower it'd
already taken to finally cull and cleanse those goddamn Arisen-Idiots!? She
took a deep breath, slowly. Very slowly. She knew that the Monkey King was
dancing to her and Her Imperial Assembly by choice, not by need, and that was
the problem. The Border-Region Territory was nothing like the Arisen Class and
she knew that he was aware she was looking for any fuckin means to detain him
here in the capital, but!? Those bitches
of his back out there...?
She knew full-well
that if she snatched him up on any kind of trumped up charges, His so-called
wife, with her brute-bitch-ass! Would rally the rest of those savage-sluts of
his and come riding right through the Empire like a bunch of crazed
balta-beasts looking for their leader! And after just finishing the purge of all
of those Arisen Family-members and their stupid supporters, she couldn't help
but frown as she had to admit that!? The
Border-Region Territory is filled with nothing but mindless elite-killers.
She continued to listen to the Monkey King blabber and gabber on about morality
and some other meaningless shit, where she realized that his ass didn't know
that the people he'd come here to lecture them about doing away with?
Had already been
done-away with! And to Xiyi, this was a great thing because it meant that!? He has no spies here at all. No contacts or
anyone willing to tell him about what's been going on here, unless his ass is
underworlds best actor.
A strikingly
beautiful Sun Child, a Bronze-Sun Child to be exact. Empress Sai-Xiyi was
decked out in her full regal-regalia, a perfect diversion to hide the fact that
she had her exo-armor set to manifest itself if the Monkey King made even the
slightest move against Her or Her Imperial Assembly. She'd warned all of them
to come prepared just in case, because he was most definitely the Lord of the
BRT, which always made all of them laugh because it reminded them of the
hue-mahn sandwich! A BLT! She'd joked before his arrival that she wondered if
the dim-bitches-n-bastards even understand why they get laughed at by Imperials
when they proudly mouth-off about being from the BRT. She damn near
laughed out loud as he was still yammering, but reality set in quick when she
remembered that laughing behind their backs was one thing. Laughing in their
faces?
Good way to get
dead.
Because to be
killed means that they somehow failed to kill outright after being mocked in
such a manner. So like it or not, she had to accept the fact that...?
They are a necessity, she thought to
herself, but now that momentum is on our
side perhaps it is long overdue to bring them more in line with the rest of the
Empire....? And to an extent, she had a point. They were and are a
necessity, a critical necessity, but!? Much like the Arisen Families she was in
the midst of exterminating for their arrogance, the autonomy of the
Border-Region Territories actually bothered her. And this fool with his
ridiculous receding hairline was just as much of a joke as his attempt to try
to tell them how to govern with
compassion. It left her with the fact that she needed the Border-Region
Territory intact, but not the way they are now. They could be tamed, was the
issue rolling around in her head as she continued to pretend to give two-fucks
about what he was prattling about.
They can be tamed and should be tamed!
But for her the question was; how to tame
them...? And it was a question she needed an answer for right away! Resistance had been more than I ever thought
possible. And maybe, maybe...! Their rustic-ways are
what allows them to be so fuckin effective, huh-nah! It absolutely bothered
the shit out of her that this... man! Because that was all she was
seeing him as, a man! A hue-mahn man! Was daring to show his face and fuckin
lecture her and her entire Imperial Assembly about leadership-&-civility! When
the Arisen Families were blatantly attempting to overstep their boundaries and
had gotten away with it throughout the tail end of her mother's reign and had
been able to ride roughshod all over her and the Two Classes as if they were
somehow something more than just over-evolvedddddd... peasantry!
She motioned for an
attendant who brought over her favorite gold goblet on a silver platter and she
smiled at the fact that this is what she needed from men like Malcolm, because she damn sure didn't like calling his ass
master. That travesty fell solely on her predecessors and the fact that his
long-winded shit-talking ass lived out in the boonies! I had no idea that Border-Region bitches-&-bastards talked this
fuckin much...!? Probably accounts for why they're so effective against
invaders, they talk them to death! Her beautifully bronzed skin and finely
burgundy painted nails were pristine and perfect, hiding the fact that she
possessed the supreme power to overtly kill anyone and everyone in this
assembly hall except for the emasculated fool standing underneath the blaring
spotlight in front of her and her Assembly. The fact that he'd continued to
bow-&-scrape to her was showing the type of poise that had her hard pressed
to underestimate the fact that the Border-Region Ladies-&-Lords are not the
fools from the now fallen Arisen Families. They're
supposed to be protecting the border, slaughtering Ilvala and whatever other
Old Adari garbage gets vomited up against our boundaries! And dying faithfully
in service to the Empire! Not sitting around trying to be smarter than the
average tigling!
As Master Malcolm
continued to speak she took a slow-graceful sip of her abuja-wine and smiled at
his latest observation so that she could continue to put forward the poorly
done appearance that she gave a shit about what he was saying. She made sure to
check her links with her daughters to make sure that this moron was not
corrupting them with his on-&-on about nothing. All five of them were
honestly listening to him, which bothered her, but they were also pointing out
the flaws in his words and the fact that the Open-Ended Arisen Era is what
started all of this and culminated centuries later in the collapse of the
Arisen Families after they'd been bullying about and expending the Empires
resources as if they were as endless as the Endless Plains of the East!
This made the
Empress happy and she used that to fuel her phoniness as she raised her goblet
and made sure that some of the gems reflected and sparkled as best as possible
back into Master Malcolm's face. To show him the fact that once the Arisen
Families were defeated and destroyed mysteriously the Imperial Treasury
was now holding a massive surplus of shit! As it should, since those fools felt
as though they didn't have to actually pay taxes to the Crown correctly anymore
because of their brute-bitch bullying! For him to come up in here and try to
pitch-a-shit about how they handled the Arisen Affair is just pure-D bravado
and after the fact reflections. If his
defenses slip and the palace systems pick up one stray empathic-thought of
anything that I can use to shut him the hell up he's a dead hick...!
Master Malcolm
continued "Being in a position of power can become the world's sickest
joke when it is a parasitic relationship between leaders & followers,
instead of a symbiotic one. The parasitic relationship is normally easy to
spot, no matter how hard attempts are made to hide it. It usually manifest itself in a top-down terminology
& system of checks-&-balances, literally! Those who
constitute the masses are generally illustrated or alluded to as being 'on the bottom'. They are ironically the Foundation on which everyone
&/or everything else is then stacked on top of!"
Looking around at the
Assembly he could see that some of the Ladies-&-Lords were getting a littttttttttttle uncomfortable with
where his lecture had turned and that was great! It meant that these useless
bitches-&-bastards still had some signs of being redeemable. Still had some
signs of knowing that just because they were born into the modern-day classes
of the Nobility and the High Nobility it was more a matter of luck and very
little to do with their own skill or choice! If there was one thought running
through his mind as he stood in this ungoddessly-gaudy-ass waste of Imperial
resources-&-reasoning! It was that he knew that he has gotta be quick with this, before these bloated fools start using their
burned-up brain cells to realize what I'm actually saying to them "Now...?
Pay attention here." his voice carried well in this high cathedral-ceiling
styled testament to excess and he enjoyed seeing the fact that even the Empress
had gathered all of the Princesses of the Empire to sit atop their elevated
dais & overlook the long gold table of the Assembly opposite of his clear
cut podium position of embarrassment "Because imagine if you will that if
you're a part of this very essential essence
of life! Imagine if you had to literally have someone or some-thing!
On the top of your fool-ass head at all times! How long would you go for
that!?!?!" and it didn't take long for laughter and smirks by his audience
at the very thought of anyone placing
a balancing-board on their well-groomed and oft-times helmeted or either
crowned or attired in some way shape or form, heads!
He felt a dryness
in his throat as he saw the Empress and her daughters smiling and laughing and
probably saying to themselves how funny his Border Region-ass is, which was...
not why he was here "See...!?!?!? Look at, see!?!?! Don't laugh now, don't
laugh cuz this is serious people!" he had not come to the Imperial City to
put on a comedy routine for the so-called ladies-&-lords
of the land. But one of the core
principles that he'd made sure to stress to the leadership of his own region
was the fact that talking to power, talking to a person who doesn't honestly
have to go through the shit that you do? Never mind that they may very well need
you to be in the position you are in, because that allows them! To
enjoy the privileges of power that they possess! To keep yakkin-&-yakkin
with them at some point or another becomes pointless, because it's not their
problem! It's yours! So in the
end...?
I'm wasting my time talking to these people.
And while he knew and understood that, he also realized that with the
multitude of tele-empathic systems the Imperial Palace has the last thing he
could do was allow his own conscious disappointments to erode his psi-defenses
and then have the palace systems begin picking up his empathic-thoughts and
report them to the Imperial Throne and the Assembly, so!?
He quickly recovered and smiled and cooned and accepted the fact that his
attempt to reach them had failed and he'd best return to the Border-Region as
soon as he finished his address "This is serious people, but it is funny
within its own right! Parasitic power-structures & systems of relationships
are always depicted as the parasite being AT THE VERY TOP! With nobody standing
on THEIR
HEAD! But the only reason why them or those or she or he! Can be at the
top! Is because of those at the VERY BOTTOM!" he knew that he was starting
to turn his entire address into a cheesy, cartoonish-caricature, but he also understood
that talking to corrupt leadership, talking to corrupt power, almost always
resulted in the messenger being killed and his legacy, words-&-works, being
shitted on. So now it was all about getting through this and getting the fuck
out of here with his head still on his shoulders as he added "And note the
middling-mess in between the foundation of the masses & the select-slim-few
of the parasite at the top! conveniently blocking
a direct-connect from the ruled over masses to the exploiting parasitic few,
perfectly! Perfectly! Which is not. An
accident. It's not by accident. It's intentional. And cowardly." now some
of the laughter... stopped. The smirks-&-smiles, eased up into creased
concerns, awkward uneasiness and outright looks of accusations that his words
were a little too close to home for this all-powerful audiences tastes. Which
he quickly clean up with semi-soothing words where his inflected-tone presented
an out to the Assembly and the
Imperial Family that no, he wasn't talking about them, perish the thought! As
he assuaged them with "So please ladies, and gents," he smiled as he
reiterated to them "and gents. Don't be fooled... Don't be fooled...
Always make sure to keep yourselves connected to those you rule over...."
or else you're gonna find yourself rolled over....
-Lord
of the BRT/Philosopher Master Malcolm addressing the Imperial Assembly of the Empire fifty years after the End of the Original Arisen Era-
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