It took a few hours for Eileen to successfully call her little ragtag army, it wasn’t much to look at mind you, but it was a start. There was Arthur Skinner, the butchers apprentice sick of being told how to “efficiently” prepare the meat into perfect cubes, (which made absolutely no sense to him either, because with the exception of the rare Cu-bison, which looked like something that haunted the nightmares of surrealists the world over there were no square or cubic animals, and Cu-bison weren’t exactly a local species.) There was Daria Darnitt local weaver and textile specialist who if was asked to make one more bloody grey suit was going to strangle the customer who requested it with their own tie. There was of all people an accountant, wearing a perfectly proper suit (which made Daria eye him suspiciously,) who clutched a roll of Ledretter pens in a way many would expect to see from a warrior with their blade. His shoes were polished to an immaculate shine, and there was all told a creepy as hell feeling to him. Then there was a small squad of architects, each determined to leave their mark on this town one way or another.

Then most surprising of all, a schoolmarm by the name Letta Lern, who had had quite enough of being told what her curriculum should be based on efficiency, rather than the needs of her students. So she had put her hair up, and opened the wooden case beneath her desk. Picking up her wooden ruler for the cause she believed in. Finally, and most drastic of all was a veritable battalion of sanitation engineers, (who had been quite happy being binmen before they were told to manually sort the mess into types based on incineration difficulty. Surely if they were sorting it figuring out what could be recycled would be better, but that was inefficient apparently.)

Thus in a little bakers building off fifth street the fires of rebellion were stoked.

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Blake eyed his city once more, soon it would be a true marvel. He had everything as orderly as humanly possible, and soon the conjunction would be upon them. Then the city would run like clockwork for eternity. (Anybody who has ever used this expression has clearly never ever ever dealt with actual clockwork in their lives. One wrong wind and sproing, there goes your mainspring, and if you try to fiddle with it without knowing what you are doing you are liable to get a chunk of metal flying with the speed of a crossbow bolt lodged in your forehead. If the expression “runs like clockwork” were used in any accurate manner it would roughly translate to hasn’t quite self destructed in a spectacular manner yet, but give it time.)

Then he noticed something, with a creak one of the buildings slipped out of alignment, then another a few blocks from the first. He gave a sigh, it seemed it was time to file some staff under T.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Then something even stranger happened, suddenly all over the city splashes of uncoordinated colour appeared, like the city was blooming. (Ugh such a frivolous expression, why did he think of that?) Reaching to the files he placed some, as the men in grey entered the room.

“It seems that we have a disturbance on the streets, and the conjunction draws near. Stop them.”

The men in grey gave a nod, and walked out (one did not run, it was disorderly.) It was time for the neighbourhood watch to go active.

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Out on the streets word had been carefully leaked out as to what Blake had planned, now many of the adults were doing what they had been taught to do all along. Reporting each other in droves, but the kids? Here’s the thing about rebellion, adults usually get it drummed out of them with time. (There were of course exceptions to this rule, and a decent number of them, but a lot are quiet for the sake of their family.) While kids? They’re just learning how rebellion works, and seeing a teacher at their side is definitely reinforcement.

Many a grey suited creature fell that day to the flash of a yardstick, or a spirited hit from the little old lady down the street. While the kids decided now was definitely the time to get creative, grabbing leftover paint from basements and attics, they decided it was time to have some fun. They ran through the streets splashing colour, attacking the grey drabness where it lived.

Whenever a watchman stepped close to one of the kids they were halted, by an expertly thrown pen. Or scarier still, a Sharpege Deluxe heavy duty compass.

“Why do you resist us brother?” A grey suited man asked, “surely true order is pleasing to Ordurlee, why would you resist, and aid in THIS, when you could have perfect order?”

The man bit back a wistful sigh, he had struggled with this in the past and truly understood the dilemma.

“Without the choice to be disorderly when needed how can the order be true? Do the documents not sometimes need to be shredded? True order has the choice for chaos. You have turned away from the teachings in the Filofacs, and chosen to impose the order of man into the works of the gods, this is wrong brother can you not see?”

Thus throughout the City Brother was pit against Brother, as Redletters were drawn.

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The Sanitation engineers were out in force, if there’s one thing you can definitely say about lifting bins all day it is that it makes you strong. Another thing you can say after a few days on the job is bins are bloody heavy, yet lids were held like shields, while the metal cans became clubs. Driving back the enemy. Until at last they were surrounded by the watch. They fought valiantly and helped each other out. As suddenly the watch found themselves pelted with paint. Apparently Letta had started an impromptu lesson in physics., with a class on on how Trebuchet were made. Gold stars were worn as proudly as medals as the class fell back, only to reemerge elsewhere