Standard disclaimer: I do not own the Happy Tree Friends; they are the property of Mondo Media. I own only my own characters and this story. Now here's chapter 5:

5 – INTRODUCING THE COUNCIL

Although a huge city Metramegopolis normally didn't have more than a nominal government. The main jobs of city officials were to make sure that the city services remained working properly, especially food production, waste disposal, law enforcement, and city security. However beyond the basics of these things city officials did not possess much of what we would term "political power." The view of the citizens was that city officials were supposed to serve the people, not the other way around.

However in a time of great crisis an exception would be made, and a council with much greater power could take control of the city. Such a council would only exist for the duration of the crisis and would disband immediately when it was over. However during the crisis the city and all of its resources were put at the council's almost total disposal. It wasn't martial law or a dictatorship, but in the interests of strong leadership and quick effectiveness it wasn't that different – except that afterwards the council members would have to give a full accounting for all of their actions.

There was no specific method for choosing a council since it often had to be formed on the spur of the moment. The mayor of the city and the head administrators of the three communities were automatically members, and they were the ones empowered to call a council and choose other members. Members were usually the people deemed best suited to meet whatever the emergency was at the time, so potentially anyone in the city could become a councillor.

The last time the city had needed an emergency council had been during the last Marauder attacks a year earlier. After the war had ended the council had disbanded but the members of that council, knowing that further attacks were inevitable, had remained in touch with each other. Toothy had been a member of that council, and his former colleagues from that time were the people that he summoned to a secret meeting at Dane's residence soon after hearing from Flippy and Splendid.

There was himself of course, and Dane, who was the administrator of the human community, also Robot, the leader of the A.I.s., and the mayor of entire city, a stern faced elderly woman named Diana King (some people said that her last name went to her head when she was in office, but on the whole she was a competent mayor). In addition, Virgil was present, as was Barry. The other members of the council were Kevin, a middle-aged man, Emily, a girl of Barry's age, and the Rides, a couple in their mid-20s, Tony and Anna; these were not their real names, but those they kept secret because they were often used in covert work.

The only non-members at the meeting were Flippy and Splendid, whom Toothy had asked to be present, and Sniffles, an ant-eater of great intelligence who was helping Virgil and Robot with the code zero preparations. Sniffles didn't say much, but he knew a lot (a brainiac, as Barry had called him), and Toothy often conferred with him.

(To Be Continued)