Chapter Thirty-Eight
The setting sun was touching at the tips of the mighty Rocky Mountains, bathing the city in a chilling orange light. It should have been beautiful, it should have been peaceful; instead it was a nightmare. As the dying daylight reflected off the mammoth skyscrapers, the steel and glass beaming blindingly, the streets below echoed with another sound. The sounds of jeering and hatred, of a bloodthirsty mob screaming in victory at their prisoners. And below that sound, as the pigeons flew about, blissfully unaware of the goings-on about them, below that sound was the sound of thousands of feet marching along the city streets in time with the drums, endlessly drumming on. The battle was won but the war still went on, so the drumbeats would continue until night had truly fallen on the city of Calgary.
The soldiers and riot police had been stripped of weapons, shields, wands, and helmets; many were bound with their own handcuffs, just to compound the humiliation. They were forced to march by the human walls hemming them in, forced to march with heads hung low in fear and shame. Looking up or trying to speak or beg for mercy was what had gotten one man on the end dragged into the mob and soundly whipped back into line, blood still dripping from the slash someone had inflicted with a switchblade to his cheek. They knew not of their destination, only that they'd been overwhelmed completely. Men would be grabbed by the converging mobs, one or two at a time, and systematically beaten, stripped of weapons, and then bound and thrown back into a circle of Gunnar's soldiers, all waiting in the wings to escort their new prisoners of war to…wherever they were being taken. The tactic was remarkably effective, whittling away at the morale of the coalition and slowly chipping away at their numbers, and with dozens of mobs and thousands of hate-crazed people, the effects were felt far swifter than anyone could have expected. This was no mere riot and these were no mere rioters. Every one that fell would get back up if only they were able, crawling back towards the forces trying desperately to supress them while still chanting, chanting, endlessly chanting.
It was like something out of a horror movie. A crowd would be sprayed with water, causing them to disperse- to the edges of the canon's spray, waiting patiently for the tanker truck's supply to be depleted. Then they would surge in again for another attack, chanting those same three words until the police and soldiers felt like those words would be ingrained in their very souls for the rest of their lives. They were impossible to suppress, hate and rage contorting the human horde into a collective monster that would not surrender until every last one of them had been shot dead in the face. Every time an officer glanced up to see where they were being lead, the head would duck down again almost an instant later; the looks of hatred and twisted, terrifying joy on those faces was enough to make any sane human sick.
And at the front of the procession, leading the march through the streets, was that damn woman who'd been throwing them about like toys, breaking their ranks and causing some of their men to flee in terror.
Alberta was grinning from ear to ear. She hadn't felt this good in a decade…or ever, really. Everyone was all in agreement for the first time in her relatively short life; Edmonton, Calgary, the people, and everyone was revelling in the glory of victory. The synchrony was infectious, and she had a stupid smile plastered on her face, wanting to start laughing and singing as they lead the grim procession through the streets towards the Stampede grounds. They weren't going to execute these men and women; that would be barbaric. Far from it, in fact. They were simply going to re-educate them all, and then "deport" them back to whence they came, so that nobody would ever try to keep her people from their ambitions ever again. It was going to be perfect, it was going to be wonderful, it was going to be-
And then her fucking phone had to go and start buzzing, and she sighed, falling out of line and ducking into an abandoned alleyway to take the call. Alberta held the phone up to her ear and growled a bit in annoyance.
"Hello?" she snapped irately.
"Alberta? You need to come to the Big Four building." That voice was Calgary's, unmistakeably. He sounded a bit funny, though- like his spirit had been blunted or something to that effect, delivering the words in something disturbingly close to a monotone.
Alberta opened her mouth to speak, only for Calgary to cut her off, which only added to her annoyance.
"The Prime Minister is currently in our custody, and enjoying some….Western Hospitality."
Her eyes went wide. He sounded a bit smug there, which was almost certainly a bad bad thing for all involved; Alberta growled and ground her teeth. She had a pretty good idea what they were doing to the Parasite Minister, and that couldn't be allowed to continue.
"You better not be re-educating the bastard, Cal. He doesn't fucking deserve that. I'm on my way, and if he's not sitting in a cold dark cell, FAR away from that hall, I'm gonna jam my boot up your ass so far it comes out your nose, am I clear?"
The line went silent for a half-second as the city tried to process this new information, the end result being a large volume of panicked spluttering as Calgary hustled away to correct his mistake.
"Good. I'm glad we're on the same page." Alberta said coldly, hanging up and eyeing a sky-blue motorcycle someone had parked in the middle of the alleyway. Now that would certainly get her to the Big Four before the crowds arrived…
She smirked and strode towards it.
It was good to be the queen.
Calgary smiled at Slate menacingly as he clamped a shackle around the PM's ankle.
"You're gonna wish you'd never been born as soon as big sis gets here, fucker." He whispered, reaching up to pull off the blindfold that they'd tied tightly around Slate's eyes. The less he knew about where he was being held, the better. That done, Calgary straightened up, twirling his revolver cockily and putting it back in its holster. Canada and Ontario were looking at him with expressions of both contempt and pity, and the city just rolled his eyes. They were all parasites anyway, and soon they'd all receive the punishment they so richly deserved. That trivial task done, Calgary marched out of the cell and slammed the heavy steel door behind him, plunging the three men into darkness once more.
And Slate tipped his head back and screamed at the top of his lungs. He started to babble, raging at all the propaganda they'd tried to ram down his throat in the past….eternity, it felt like. He'd struggled and fought and raged and it was so hard, so tiring, so exhausting, that all he could do was frantically scream and angrily rant. If he got it all out of his head, it would be gone, right? Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone-
The screaming and babbling and sobbing went on for what felt like an eternity in the endless blackness, until finally it had petered off to the point where Ontario and Canada could hear nothing but quiet sobbing.
Canada closed his eyes and focused, tuning out the sound of the human's sobs. HE could faintly feel Alberta moving towards them, but he couldn't say how long it would be until she arrived.
"She's coming." was all he could say into the emptiness.
The door flung wide open with a thunderous clang, jolting the holding cell's three inhabitants awake and causing Canada to shudder.
Alberta raised a hand and snapped her fingers a few times, getting the attention of the same Reformationists who had been threatening the nation however long ago. They snapped to attention in that space just beyond the doorway, one of them running to get the lights. Instantly the room was flooded with harsh white light from the fluorescents far overhead, and all three men immediately shrunk back at the blinding glare.
He looked up into the eyes of the latest province to cause him nightmares and heartache as she strode powerfully across the cold concrete floor, and he swallowed. That look of madness in her eyes, the arrogance, the cockiness; god, nothing he hadn't seen before. First from Manitoba, then Quebec, and now…now Alberta. His…no, the youngest of the girls. They hated it when he called them 'his'. They were their own, as they'd all asserted many times; but he was still their nation, their patriarch; and in his eyes, they and their lands belonged to him. And Canada, quiet though he was, would be loath to let even the smallest of them go.
Granted, Alberta wasn't making it easy to stick to his usual instincts. Between the gun on her back and the gas mask in her hand doing nothing to change his perception of these people as psychotic monsters.
She leered down at her nation, the jack-o'-lantern grin on her face a disturbing reflection of Manitoba's bloodthirsty snarl or Quebec's strangle-happy smirk. He'd seen that look before, and it had ingrained itself onto his soul. It chilled him to his core, the thought that it had happened again. That he had let it happen again. But he was still her sovereign. She still had to answer to him. Canada took a deep breath as Alberta smirked down at him, then looked straight up into her blue eyes and said, firmly and coldly:
"Alberta. Listen to me. This has to stop, now. Let us go and we can discuss this like rational adults."
Instantly her face darkened, and Canada's eyes went wide. Oh, that was probably not the right thing to say…
"Discuss?" she hissed, the snarl on her lips turning fully predatory. Ontario opened his mouth to interrupt, to interject, in a desperate bid to Save Canada's ass from the hole he'd just dug himself, but Alberta whipped her head in the direction of her fellow province and hissed,
"Shut it, you. You've got nothing to contribute. If either of you fucking parasites-" and she paused there to glare at Slate and ensure he too had gotten the message- "-open your fucking traps to say ANYTHING, I'll cut your tongues out and feed it to Sasky's dog, am I clear? You will speak when spoken to."
Ontario gulped, and his sister smiled frostily.
"Glad we're on the same page, then. Now, as for you…"
Alberta turned to face Canada, folding her arms and snarling at the nation with no small amount of disdain in her posture. Did he really think that would work? Did he?
"You've got a lot to answer for, old man." She hissed, "Not least of all the fact that you've spent the better part of FORTY FUCKING YEARS treating me like COMPLETE SHIT! AND YOU EXPECT ME TO CALMLY DICSUSS THIS WITH YOU?!"
Her voice reverberated off the cinderblock walls, an echoing, thunderous roar of rage. But the look in her eyes told Canada that this rage was all her own. This was not Corvus's doing. This anger had been simmering away in the province's heart for untold decades, plastered over with countless distractions and excuses until finally, finally, the corrupt premier had stripped the façade away and bared her hate for the world to see.
"I didn't- I- I've never tried to hurt you!" he protested, the slight stammer in his voice down to sheer terror more than anything else. He could feel her soul, could feel her emotions, and Alberta burned with hate, hate for him and all he represented. She was the personification of the provincial; he, the personification of the federal. And nobody in this godforsaken province had any love for the federal, especially not her.
"Bullshit." She spat, "You've tried to hurt me, and don't even fucking try to deny it. And you enjoyed it too, I'll bet, you fucking thieving pinko PARASITE! I SHOULD HAVE LET LOUGHEED CUT YOU OFF, YOU KNOW THAT?! LOUGHEED WAS GONNA CUT YOU FUCKERS OFF THE DOLE, GET YOU THEIVING ANIMALS OFF MY BACK AND OUT OF MY WALLET, AND WHAT DID YOU DO, CANADA?! WHAT DID YOU DO, WHEN I WAS UNDER ATTACK FROM YOUR FUCKING PRIME MINISTER!? YOU. DID. NOTHING!"
Canada scowled.
Alberta's ranting and raving wasn't entirely unfounded, though he was loath to admit it. During the 1970's, events in the Middle East had caused an unprecedented oil boom in Alberta, flushing the province with cash and allowing then-premier Peter Lougheed to invest heavily in the province's economy and sock away a good 14 billion dollars in savings, called the Heritage Fund. But the flip side of this good news for Alberta was a massive spike in gas prices across the country that lead to the economy being nearly flipped upside down and nearly put the whole east out of a job.
"Trudeau did what he had to do to keep the national economy from crashing! If it weren't for the measures he'd taken, the rest of us wouldn't have had enough gas to keep from freezing to death! That and it was threatening to upend the economy!" Canada snapped right back, a sudden fire in his eyes. The riposte was swift and sharp, laced with his frustrations of decades of having to defend this point of view.
"Did what he had to do? Did what he had to do?!" She echoed, face bright red and utterly livid, "OH, SO PUTTING A BOOMING ECONOMY IN A STRAIGHTJACKET AND TREATING ME LIKE A FUCKING SECOND-CLASS CITIZEN- LIKE A FUCKING TERRITORY! THAT'S DOING WHAT YOU HAD TO DO, EH?!"
The retort stung like a slap in the face, and Canada winced. He opened his mouth to continue, but Alberta steamrolled over him with even more ancient history, even older grievances that had been woven into the fabric of her people's collective consciousness since the very beginning. She'd been formed out of the Northwest Territories with her twin Saskatchewan in 1905, and was little more than a glorified territory at the time. Neither she nor her brother had any autonomy over their resources, and when the oil was discovered, Ottawa's indifference and reluctance to give control of them over to the provinces had bred a festering wound that still seethed to this day.
"I WAS A FUCKING GLORIFIED TERRITORY WHEN I WAS BORN, YOU KNOW THAT?! AND THEN, OH, THEN CAME THE OIL. THEN CAME THE OIL, AND WHEN I CAME AND ASKED YOU FOR MONEY TO DEVELOP IT, WHEN I ASKED YOU FOR CONTROL OF MY OIL THE SAME WAY ONTARIO HAD CONTROL OF HIS OIL, WHAT WAS IT THAT YOU SAID, CANADA?! WHAT WAS IT YOU AND ONTARIO TOLD ME?! OH YEAH, YOU TOLD ME TO FUCK OFF!"
Under the bright fluorescent lights, Canada saw the faintest sparkle of something that took him aback. A tear in her eye, growing and threatening to spill, only for Alberta to defiantly blink it back as she stared down the man she seemed to have decided was the cause of all her problems, the reason for all her anger.
Canada opened his mouth, and then, to his surprise and hers, he actually had a retort to make. And as the rage had welled up in her, so too did the frustration well up in his heart, and he snarled. She was just being belligerent at this point.
"I NEVER told you any such thing!" Canada thundered back, "THOSE RIGHTS WERE NEVER YOURS TO HAVE! AND YOU KNOW WHAT?! YOU'RE GREEDY, YOUNG LADY! YOU'RE SELFISH AND GREEDY AND YOU DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS ABOUT ANYONE BESIDES YOUR FUCKING SELF! TRUDEAU HAD TO TAKE THOSE MEASURES AND PUT IN THAT NATIONAL ENERGY PROGRAM TO ENSURE THE REST OF US WOULD HAVE ENOUGH GAS TO GET BY! AND YOU KNOW WHAT?! AT THE END OF THE DAY, YOU'RE NOTHING! NOTHING, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?! THREE MILLION ALBERTANS- THERE'S TWELVE MILLION IN ONTARIO AND EIGHT MILLION IN QUEBEC! SO FORGIVE ME IF I AND MY BOSSES FOCUS A BIT MORE ON THEIR WELFARE THAN YOURS! YOU'VE GOT SO MUCH MONEY AND YOU WOULDN'T SHARE A FUCKING PENNY IF I DIDN'T FUCKING FORCE YOU- ESPÈCE DE CRÉTIN!"
Something clicked, and Canada looked up to see the barrel of a machine gun right in his face. The end of the barrel was trembling, and Alberta had a look on her face like the only thing standing between her and splattering his brains all over the concrete was the last screaming shreds of her conscience and the grace of god himself. And the tear Canada had noticed, the tear he had seen her blink back; it resurfaced and slipped out of the corner of her eye, rolling down her cheek and falling to the floor with a single, nearly silent plip.
"I'm nothing to you." She echoed flatly. "I'm nothing to you, eh? Nothing at all? Fine. FINE. FINE." She shouted, narrowing her eyes until all Canada could see was the hate burning out between slits. "Then I'll kill you. And I'll kill your boss, and I'll order every single one of your fucking men you marched in here shot too. We're nothing to you, so it's not like it even matters. Corvus was right. You really do hate me. You really do hate us all. You just want to keep me chained by your side to milk me for money while treating me like shit. Corvus was right about EVERYTHING!"
Canada's heart sank.
Alberta's finger curled around the trigger, closing her eyes and bracing herself for…for the splash of….of blood, probably, or whatever it was that happened when you shot someone point-blank, ready to just unload the entire clip and be done with this monster for good…
"STOP!"
She opened her eyes and turned to look at the person who had spoken, the tinge of regret vanishing and being replaced with that same angry, intimidating snarl from before.
It was Slate who had spoken, Slate who had risen to his feet, and Slate who had defied her orders. She snarled and turned the gun on him instead, having far fewer hangups about splattering the disgusting human all over the wall. What was surprising was the fact that Slate had the good sense to put his hands up, looking her square in the eyes as he did so.
"CANADA!" Slate roared with his trademark thunderous bellow, "SHUT THE FUCK UP. NO, ACTUALLY, I HAVE A BETTER IDEA. APOLOGIZE TO HER."
The silence that filled the room following the Prime Minister's words was deafening. If someone had coughed, the echo would have been audible. Canada stared at his boss in stunned silence, jaw agape.
"You- You can't be serious, Sir! She's- she's completely crazy! I meant every word I said-"
"APOLOGIZE, CANADA! THAT'S AN ORDER!"
The noise Canada made in the back of his throat was a reluctant growling noise, and he choked out the most grudging apology of his entire life.
"…M'sorry…" he mumbled noncommittally, glaring at Alberta like that would somehow reverse their positions or put him in a place where breaking the chains wouldn't get Ontario shot in the head.
"GOOD. SIT DOWN AND DON'T MOVE."
This order was followed just as grudgingly, with Canada glaring daggers at the wildly unpopular Prime Minister as he complied with his command.
Alberta lowered the gun- slightly. She was still looking at Slate with narrowed eyes, wondering what precisely the Prime Minister was playing at. She didn't trust him; he could quite easily be trying to trick her. He was scum, moreso than Canada himself. Slate was a politician, after all, and that meant he was automatically scummier than the average human being.
To the surprise of all involved, Slate was actually the one to speak first.
"…Miss Alberta." He said quietly, looking at the floor. The softness of his tone and the humility in his words actually shocked Canada, and he wasn't the only one completely stunned by it. Alberta herself was regarding the Prime Minister with wide eyes, since she'd been fully expecting him to start bellowing again. He seemed….subdued. Remorseful.
"Miss Alberta…please listen to me. I've…I'm now realizing that I've made a grave mistake in coming here." He said, still looking at the floor as he spoke, "And I realize that as of this moment, I have little to bargain on and little ground to make requests. But I would make a single request of you, and in return, I offer you my life to do with as you will. I'm not important anymore."
To say Alberta was shocked by the sudden professionalism and competence from the Prime Minister famous for shouting at the entire G20 when they refused to stop talking and the President was trying to get their attention was an enormous understatement.
"I…request?"
Slate took a deep breath, looking up into Alberta's eyes and maintaining eye contact.
"I, Prime Minister Jackson Angus Slate, offer you my life to do with as you please. All I ask in return is that you release the men I brought here- soldiers and officers and everyone else. Let them go home, and I will ensure they will never come back. That is all I ask. And in exchange, you may have my life, my money, whatever it is that I possess that you desire, you may have it."
Alberta raised an eyebrow.
"So I could feed you to a bear, and you'd be okay with that?" she said flatly. "I could force you to make a video message asking to dissolve parliament, and you'd do it?" The possibilities of having the Prime Minister at her beck and call were slightly outweighing the grudging desire to re-educate the coalition he'd dared to bring into Calgary…But the thought of swelling their forces with trained soldiers was also tempting. She'd need to get Corvus's approval for this one, but she was seriously inclined to let them go in exchange for having a pet Prime Minister. He was the one ultimately calling the shots, after all.
Alberta took out her phone and turned away from the gathering, unlocking it and taking a step towards the door. She paused then, the cowboy hat that crowned her head turning back to look at her three captives.
"…We'll see, Slate. I'll make sure your men are kept unharmed for right now. I need to make a phone call. Oh…and Canada?" She said, turning and smiling at him cruelly, "You're gonna wish you'd never come west."
A/N:
#trigger warning history #trigger warning LOTS of history
Good god this chapter was a bear to write. Sorry it took so long- I'm in uni and homework comes first.
Anyway, here's hoping you enjoyed that. I strove to make the history as accurate as possible and write it in such a way that anyone can understand it. Hopefully this gives some much-needed context to the events of the story and what's come before!
I did try my hardest to avoid soapboxing here, so I hope to god I was successful. Attempts were made to ensure this chapter was reasonably historically accurate, but don't quote me on any assignments, yeah?
As always, leave a review if you liked it, hated it, or whatever! Let me know your thoughts and I'll write you more story. That's how this works, see?