Chapter 15: Never been a sucker for grand speeches.
As Stark exited the tent back onto the lamp lit sidewalk alongside Victoria, he saw that the corners of her lips were smeared with jam.
“You eat jam donuts?” Stark asked, it was a complete guess.
Victoria grinned, sticking her hand in her pocket before retrieving a small white paper bag. “It’s this amazing thing called a jam tart, I saved one for you.”
“Do you have a napkin.” Stark asked immediately, the smears at the ends of her lips irking him.
Victoria quickly retrieved a napkin from her other pocket only for Stark to snatch it out of her hand and wipe her mouth clean.
“Did I… did I have jam all over my face?” Victoria blushed in embarrassment, it seemed that red would soon permanently replace her natural skin tone.
“There was just a little bit on your mouth.” Stark said. “It wasn’t anything too bad.”
Victoria smiled. “Ok.”
Stark smiled along with her as he asked. “You said you have one for me right?”
“Mmhmm.” Victoria nodded before carefully manoeuvring the tart halfway out of the paper bag and holding it to Start’s mouth. “Say ahh!”
Stark almost wanted to bite her damn fingers off, who the hell was she of all people to mommy him, especially in front of all of these people.
“I’m not a baby…” Stark muttered, his smile twitching.
“You treated me like a baby when you wiped my mouth.” Victoria pouted.
Stark squinted at her as he spoke. “That’s because you made a childish mistake, you act like a baby and you’ll get treated like on-“
Victoria shoved the tart into Start’s mouth cutting him off as he tried his best not to gag. At the next moment his entire world was consumed by mind numbing sweetness as the tart melted in his mouth. It was magical, like how he remembered Aunt Veronica’s milk tasting.
Stark swallowed as he looked the fidgety blonde straight in the eye with immense gratitude.
“I’m guessing that you like it?” Victoria asked, looking up into his eyes as she spoke in a high pitch.
Stark then suddenly slipped his hand under her coat and poked her in the ribs.
“Ouch!” Victoria jolted in shock before turning bright red. She then immediately tried to do the same back to him only for Stark to quickly dodge her.
“Too slow!” Stark chuckled as he teased her.
She then quickly lunged at him trying to get her hands under his coat to tickle him, completely disregarding any concern for the numerous onlooker’s.
The two quickly flew into another one of their play fights in front of the bewildered gazes of countless people.
Victoria tried her very best but was unable to land a finger on him. She stomped her feet against the pavement in frustration before attempting another lunge.
She slipped and was about to fall on her face causing Stark to jump forward catching her in his arms. He then flipped her around and hugged her from behind.
Victoria was instantly overcame by even more embarrassment and shock, her face was dyed a deep shade of red as she began to stumble over her words. “I… um…”
“It seems like we caused a bit of a scene.” Stark whispered in her ear.
Around him there were a few people who watched on secretly while pretending to attend the stalls. There were even a few girls secretly giggling at the two of them not too far away.
“Let’s get to the speech.” Victoria muttered in the slurred, half infatuated tone she always had whenever he got the better of her.
She took his hand and led him down the intricately paved sidewalk towards the large parliamentary courtyard.
Using their height to their advantage, they both stick their necks out above the increasingly dense crowd to see where the rest of the group had gathered. The crowd was like an ocean of black under the shining lights of the city. Their eyes both drifted up the long marble staircase to where a podium was erected just before the massive entrance to the parliament.
“That’s where the speech is going to be right?” Victoria asked, her voice barely audible over the chattering crowd.
Stark continued to look around, his eyes scanning the few tall individuals that stuck out above the crowd. It was then that he spotted the rest of the group. They were standing to the left of the base of the Marble staircase right at the front of the crowd.
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He leaned in towards Victoria’s ear and said. “I see them, they’re all the way at the front of the crowd.”
Victoria nodded before Stark led her through the tight crowd, bumping and grinding against everyone and their mother as he went by.
This persisted for way too long before He finally reached the rest of the group and let out a long sigh.
The rest all stood staring up at the podium seemingly not noticing their arrival. Only the director eventually broke his gaze away from it before looking at the two teenagers.
Unable to speak due to the noise of the crowd, he gave them a nod of acknowledgement before his eyes drifted back upwards.
Looking up at the podium himself, Stark saw countless camera drones flying around the arching marble ceiling of the parliament’s entrance. They swirled amidst countless stage lights that hung upside down, illuminating the tall figure that emerged onto the podium.
Stark couldn’t help but feel fascination. Was the individual above him the head of defence?
Their features were extremely clear to him. The stage lights didn’t allow for a single shadow to obscure the stern looking woman’s face.
She had long blonde hair and green eyes that glared white hot intensity. Her nose was hooked and her lips were thick with three scars slicing through them on the right side of her angular face. The scars extended further up her cheek and stopped just underneath the bag of her right eye. She wore a military hat and green camouflaged military attire. Her shoulders were broad with the muscles of her arms outlined in her sleeves. Stark had never seen such an intimidating human ever before. It was obvious that she was an Immortal Soldier and clearly one of the strongest too. Clearly not someone to be messed with.
Behind her emerged several other people dressed in darker more bland looking military uniforms. They appeared to be quite tall as well, indicating that they too were Immortal Soldiers.
Stark could tell at first glance that these were killers, their eyes had a sharpness to them that caused chills to go down his spine.
The woman adjusted the microphone causing Stark’s ears to sting.
She then spoke, her voice thundering across the crowd.“Greetings citizens of New Johannesburg and The Greater UNRE. It’s my honour to be speaking to you all to address concerns over the future of our planet.”
Stark listened attentively, he knew practically nothing about the current era, non of them did. Perhaps that was why they were at this speech in the first place. Perhaps this was all supposed to be a lesson.
The woman’s hair flared up in the as the wind ripped across the crowd and through the pillars of the parliament, making her appear like a lion perched on a cliff side. “I’m sure there are those among you who have given up hope. Who see the gaping whole in the sky only getting bigger and bigger every day. I myself have seen many people close to me lose the fire in their eyes, and it hurt. It hurts me beyond belief to see the fire of the human spirit be broken by the plague that is consuming the universe. I too know how hopeless it all feels.”
The crowd died down as a gloomy atmosphere began to encroach on everyone.
Looking around, Stark saw a dullness in the eyes of the people that matched his own. He then looked back at the rest of his group.
Victoria appeared to be lost as she stared up at the podium, her huge blue eyes shining in the reflection of the stage lights.
Sighing to himself, Stark looked past her where he saw the rest of them.
The director, Aunt Veronica, Beverly, Lupus and Delilah all had the same dazed look.
Only Hockney had a unique expression, appearing to be in a state of deep pondering. Stark couldn’t help but wonder what was on his mind.
“But…” The woman at the podium said suddenly, recapturing Stark’s attention. “Isn’t that how King Baldwin felt when his enemies surrounded him, outnumbering him with over twenty times his men. Isn’t that how Moses felt before him, when the pharaohs army cornered him on the banks of the Black Sea. Isn’t that how the first humans felt when they were born into a world filled with formidable creatures that could kill them in seconds. Some may say that overcoming the Cosmic Death is impossible. To them, I say that that’s the same thing they said about us landing on the moon, and that’s the same thing they said about us curing cancer. It’s the same thing they said about us ending world poverty and it’s the same thing they said about all of humanity uniting. It’s the same thing they said about us travelling faster than light and as many of my fellow Immortal Soldiers can attest to, it’s the same thing they said about us living forever.”
The crowd began to grow lively again as the woman paused for a few seconds.
Stark kept his eyes fixed on her this time. It would be inaccurate to say that he was enthusiastic, it was more of a morbid curiosity than anything else. His only interest was in learning about the current state of affairs around the world, he was never a sucker for grand speeches.
“Humanity’s story has never been one of us giving up, it’s never been one of us backing down. We’ve overcome everything they said we’d never be able to overcome and this is no different. So what if the universe is dying? Why should that be the end of the fire that has burned in our hearts since the dawn of time? Life has always struggled to survive in the harshest conditions, from the oceans of titan to the scorching caves of Venus. Through it all we emerged on earth as one of the few sentient species in the universe and we won’t go down without a fight.”
The crowd had cheered up again. The atmosphere around Stark was almost bearable now.
“Today we’d like to introduce you all to our next best weapon against the encroaching plague.” The woman preached before something unexpected happened.
For a second Stark thought he was going crazy.
She looked down, not down in front of her, but at him? No! She was looking at his group…
Stark immediately looked around at the rest of them in complete and utter confusion. Everyone else was just as baffled as he was, even Aunt Veronica had lost her composure.
Only the director was unfazed amidst it all. He locked eyes with Stark briefly, dawning a face the boy couldn’t read. His eyes then shot upward towards the head of defence.
Stark looked back up at her as well.
That’s when she suddenly said. “I’d like to introduce you all to the second and strongest generation of Immortal Soldiers…”
At the next moment Stark was pierced through by hundreds upon hundreds of violating eyes. The weight of the goddamn world had just fallen on his shoulders, it all made sense now. Everything was leading up to this moment wasn’t it? The reason why the director suddenly announced that they could go outside. The reason they were made to attend this cursed speech. It was all so that Stark and the others could be exposed to the world and imprisoned by the expectations of billions.