You want to know what we did during those bloody two year at Rivendell-487?

  The People want the truth!

  THE PEOPLE CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH! - Trial of Major Breastasteel, Clownface Nebula Conflict. Trial suspended due to an attack by the Endless Legions of Good & Light upon the planet. Records lost due to planet cracking and nova bomb.

  The day was overcast, which was typical for the region. Sections of ancient road, once blasted apart by the Mantid attack, had reverted back to swamp water filled canals. Most of the monuments from antiquity bore silent testimony to the eons that had savaged them. The Grand Vampire Hunter Lincoln was scarred as much by history as his deeds as he sat upon the Silver Throne. The wind snapped at people's protective clothing, some thin thanks to aerogel others thick due to being stuffed by newspaper. It was one of the richest cities in the Confederacy, with the daily commerce profits outstripping some star nation's annual gross domestic product.

  It also was the second largest homeless population and had the some of the poorest beings in the Confederacy that had somehow gotten themselves cut off from the basic sustenance nanoforges and creation engines.

  It was one of the most heavily patrolled and near militarized cities in the Confederacy. Patrols armed with weapons usually seen on the battlefield guarded their charges with cybernetic adrenaline injectors online and simmering. It was also complete anarchy and survival of the most violent in regions where even the High Threat Response Teams refused to go.

  But everyone there owed their existence to the largess of the Hamburger Kingdom.

  Those on the bottom, who were locked out of even Basic Sustenance Allowances, knew that the powers they supported would eventually gain power again, allowing them to throw their enemies down into the gutters without even the BSA from the nanoforges to protect them.

  It was a city of shadows. Of knives. Of lies. Of betray. Of treason and plot, of gunpowder and shot.

  It was a city soaked in blood built on a swamp.

  The streets had the bones of ten million mantid ground into them. Governmental buildings were sheathed with the armor wrested from the wreckage of Lanaktallan starships, armored vehicles, and some of them even had almost completely intact halves of Lanaktallan armor, powered and unpowered, welded into the facades.

  It was Washington's Defiant Challenge. The seat of power of the Hamburger Kingdom.

  Rain spit now and then, nothing major, just a few drops here and there. The Hamburger King did not allow the weather control systems to be used on his city. He would accept natural weather, but he did not trust giving control of the weather itself to someone else.

  A young woman, blond hair and dark skin, hustled out of a Jimmy-Cab, the smiling large-toothed synth saying "Come back soon, ya hear!" as the woman clutched the bag of roasted nuts in one hand and her tesseract case in the other.

  One of the drones spotted a bar code invisible to the human eye and swooped in. Multiple licenses, permits, and waivers. It alerted a supervisor, who went over the data.

  In empty parking spaces, which were mostly there for aesthetics, vehicles began to materialize. Blockades appeared. Law Enforcement robots appeared as The Soup assembled them. The robots all had "RIOT POLICE" on their chests as well as "WDC DOMESTIC ENFORCEMENT" underneath. They carried shock batons, axe handles, neuro-rifles, grenade launcher. At the moment they only had two arms deployed, one to hold the armored shield, the other to hold the basic shock baton for the level one deployment.

  That got people's attention and they began wandering forward as the girl was joined by a good two dozen other young people. She opened her case and pulled out a standard wooden box normally used to hold bags of laundry flakes for industrial use. She pulled out a standard white coned and red handled voice-amplifier. She handed out holosigns, which the others lifted.

  The symbols of the Confederacy crossed out. Images of almost cartoon Noocracy ornislarp. Iron Dominion symbols crossed out.

  But they knew better than to feature the Hamburger King or his Court.

  He had a tendency to come down personally.

  And it was never pleasant for those who were stupid enough to challenge his power.

  A crowd began to gather as the young men and women, both and neither, set up their demonstration.

  After all, it was free entertainment.

  Government workers logged they were 'caught' by the protest or whatever it was and relaxed, ordering a drink or something to snack on. It was a level three protest and you didn't see those often.

  The sun began to set.

  The Volumator squealed and gave out a burst of static out as the blond girl raised it to her mouth and gave the time honored opening chant.

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  "WHOSE STREETS?" she bellowed.

  The robots activated the stun batons and dragged them down the riot shields and a growling nap of high voltage sparks to let the protesters and counter-protesters that they were now legally allowed to attempt to breach the police line.

  She finished her two minute chant and then pointed up.

  "FOR FIFTY YEARS WE STARED AT AN EMPTY SKY!" she shouted. "FOR FIFTY YEARS THE UNIVERSE HELD US PRISONER IN A CELL OF OUR OWN MAKING! OF THE GOVERNMENT'S MAKING! OF THE MAKING OF SCIENCE OUT OF CONTROL OF THE PEOPLE!"

  "POWER TO THE PEOPLE!" someone yelled.

  "THE CONFEDERACY HAD ONE JOB! ONE! ONE JOB!" she shouted.

  Paid shock troops slammed into the line of robots, swinging fists, bricks, makeshift weapons, and the odd sports implement here and there. The robots responded by slamming their shields forward and striking the shock troops with the batons.

  "WHAT DID WE FIND WHEN THE BAG OPENED?" she asked.

  "WHAT?"

  "TREASON!"

  "BETRAYAL!"

  "WAR!"

  She pointed at a sign of a photo-realistic Mar-gite chasing a cartoon child, fully animated, with fountains of tears coming out either side of the child's head.

  "THE MAR-GITE! THE SAME MAR-GITE WE FINISHED FIGHTING ONLY A FEW HUNDRED YEARS PRIOR!" she shouted. "WORSE, WHILE WE WERE GONE, THEY LET THE MAR-GITE SWARM THE GALACTIC SPUR!"

  Booing sounded out.

  One of the shock troops went down, teeth, blood, and saliva spraying from a good hit with the baton. He was dragged backwards to the medic, still trying to shout. The medic hit him with a nanite injection and the medical nanites went to work.

  The robots fired annoying level smoke and gas.

  That separated out the professional shock troops from the people who just wanted a little smash and bash to liven up their day.

  "CONFEDERACY IMMEDIATELY DEMANDED OUR COMPLIANCE EVEN AS THE NOOCRACY ATTACKED OUR WORLDS! EVEN AS THEY ATTACKED TERRASOL ITSELF!" she shouted.

  "DEATH TO NOOKIES!"

  "HEY HEY BEE-KAY WE GONNA KILL ANY NOOKY TODAY?" she shouted.

  The crowd picked up the chant.

  It ended only a few seconds before the 5 minute timer ran out and the chant would have entered "You're boring me, Squidward" legal territory.

  "INSTEAD WE SENT YOUNG MEN LIKE HIM!" she pointed at the picture of a smiling young man in comfortable classic clothing that was on a sign being waved by someone behind her.

  "THERON PINION HAD TO JOIN THE DEATH CULTISTS OF ROTC TO PROTECT US BECAUSE THE CONFEDERACY IS NOTHING BUT AN APPETITE! AN APPETITE FOR TAXES! FOR BLOOD!"

  She paused.

  "HEY HEY BEE KAY WILL YOU DEFEND US TODAY?"

  It only lasted a minute or two.

  "THE CONFEDERACY'S INCOMPETENCE, NO, MALEVOLENCE MADE IT SO THAT THERON PINION HAD TO JOIN THE SOLARIAN IRON DOMINION MILITARY SERVICES TO PROTECT THOSE HE LOVES!" she pointed at the sign where the young man was side-arm hugging a young woman who was looking down at a phone she was tapping.

  Sharp eyed observers would have noticed that the young woman in the picture and the young woman shouting were one and the same.

  The sun slipped below the horizon, plunging the free speech square into darkness. People lifted up torches, both flame and incandescent, to light up the square.

  A flaming bottle hit the robots, coating them in flame that did little except make them look cool. Some of the robots took the time to flex or pose, making sure they were extremely photogenic. Some of the robots, inhabited by DS, threw up their PopTop links as they flexed or posed.

  One burning robot posed with a feline splice human, both of them in fighting positions facing each other with only two meters separating them, as two cars spontaneously caught on fire and one flipped over on its own.

  Some of the robots pulled out the axe handles. Others pulled out the pellet guns.

  The shock troops roared their approval, putting on brass knuckles, hefting bats and 2x4s and home made shields.

  All within the permits.

  "WE SEND OUR YOUNG MEN, WOMEN, BOTH, AND NEITHER OFF TO FIGHT THE FIGHTS THAT THE CONFEDERACY IS TOO INCOMPETENT OR UNCARING TO FIGHT! WHAT XIR AMONG US WILL BE CALLED NEXT? WHEN WILL OUR UNDYING TRYANT BE FORCED TO LEVY A CONSCRIPTION IN ORDER TO ENSURE OUR ENEMIES ARE FLAME BROILED IN HIS NAME?" she shouted. "ARE PEOPLE WERE EXTINCT BEFORE THE BAG OPENED! WILL WE ALLOW THEM TO MAKE US EXTINCT AGAIN? DO WE NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO LIFE?"

  The crowd roared its approval.

  Extra Strength Spicy Fog? was being launched now. Bones and robotic mechanisms were being broken now. A pair of grav-knuckles shattered a robotic head but the return axe handle strike from the robot next to the downed one shattered a spine in reply. Vehicles were burning, some were flipped. Protestors jumped up and down on them, shattering windows.

  A truck exploded and some of the crowd roared their approval.

  "YOUNG MEN LIKE THERON PINION! WHY DOES HE HAVE TO FIGHT AND POSSIBLY DIE WHEN THE CONFEDERACY HAS LET THE NOOKIES GOBBLE UP OUR TERRITORY, OUR INFRASTRUCTURE, OUR WORLDS, WHENEVER THEY WANTED! FORTY-THOUSAND YEARS OF APPEASEMENT AND THE FIRST THING THEY DO IS KILL INNOCENT BURGERLANDERS!"

  Guns were being waved and fired into the sky, where the nanites of The Soup quickly broke them down and pulled their mass away.

  Robots loaded injured shock troops and protestors into ambulances even as the crowd clashed with the robots, trying to push them back, while the robots pushed forward, forcing the crowd back and into a box at a four way intersection. The rioters pulled cars into the intersection to make a wall and the robots just lifted them up.

  The rioters, the shock troopers, faces sweaty, smiled under the masks.

  It felt good to hit back. To smash what was in their way. To give back a little of what they felt they always got.

  The DS enjoyed themselves, feeling fleshy matter deform to their blows, to watch them barf their lungs out from the Spicy Fog.

  The drones watched.

  Still with permits and waivers.

  "AND WHO WILL BE NEXT? WE CANNOT ASK THE ROTC DEATH CULT TO STOP RECRUITING! THE DEATH CULTISTS OF ROTC AND THE ARMED SERVICES ARE ALL THAT STANDS BETWEEN US AND AN ORNISLARP STOMACH! MEN! WOMEN! BOTH! NEITHER! LIKE THERON PINION!"

  A burning trashcan bounced down the street.

  "HEY HEY BEE KAY IS THE DRAFT KIDNAPPING TODAY?"

  She moved over to the edge of the platform of laundry detergent crates.

  "THERE CAN BE NO QUARTER! THE ORNISLARP BELIEVE IN EAT OR BE EATEN!"

  She paused.

  "WE OF THE HAMBURGER KINGOM! WE CHOOSE TO EAT! TO EAT OUR FILL! OUR APPETITE! OUR GLUTTONY! WE ARE LEGENDARY! WE ARE THE ONES WHO WILL TEACH THE ORNISLARP THAT WE! WE! WE ALONE! ARE THOSE WHO EAT!"

  The crowd roared its approval even as another car exploded.

  She jumped down as the robots came out of the alleys, slamming into the protestors. She ducked under a net fired from a gun but got grabbed by the hair. The hair extensions came off and she ran for it, jumping one of the walls.

  The crowd and the robots went at it toe to toe in the light of the burning cars as she made her escape.

  The Hamburger King stared at the violence from his fortress, nothing beyond his gaze, his smile showing nothing but sharp teeth bared in a smile of approval.

  After all, didn't he promise them they could have it their way?