With the match having ended inconclusively and the news that Count High School's reorganization had begun arriving later that night, Alexandra knew she could take a breather for the time being but to her there was no time to waste. She tried desperately to find a grain shipment she could use to feed the school but there was none in supply. All she hoped for was to pick up a few crates of instant oatmeal and distribute it to the population as a substitute. She walked along to see Lola's students from the Latvian legion talking with one of the students from Kay's Saunders legion. The latter student was enjoying a hamburger and some fried potato wedges. One of the students looked at her as if this food was gross.
"You know how tired I am from freezing in the trenches! I already forgot what we are fighting for." The first student began. Her friend was swallowed as she prepared to take another bite from her meal.
"For Kay, freedom and liberty. That's what Kay said we are fighting for." Her friend responded. She takes another bite from the burger while chewing it up. The first student began to speak next.
"And why are we talking about Kay, who is now having fun at her parties constantly in Petrograd, while we are dying in the trenches?" She asked. What was it that was worth fighting at this point and she had enough of Kay's antics. She turned to her friend and decided to ask her: "Are you tired of living like this?" Her friend looked at her while she seemed to make her think about the question. No response came from her mouth as the first girl began to speak. "I'm going to run off with two other girls from my legion tonight. I recommend you come with us." She told her as she wanted her to go off as there was some way they needed to be able to accomplish this if they were going to pull it off. The girl from the Saunders legion looked at her as if the offer to desert was fresh in her mind. She went to take a bite from her burger before the first girl began to speak about the food: "Can you stop eating this rubbish? It's disgusting already." She told her that the food was borderline inedible at this point and no amount of Saunders' budget was going to fix it. The second girl placed the burger down before dumping the entire meal to the floor.
"Okay." She told her friend. Maybe the students were finally figuring out that enough was enough and they were starting to turn against the system. Alexandra had been watching from a distance and smelled opportunity. If she could overthrow Kay and place herself in charge. Maybe she could use the leverage and purchase more grain to feed the school to prevent starvation. She knew she needed to join the protest.
Morning came as the breakfast items were fried pastries with sugary icing. The people were outraged by this as they decided enough was enough. They had been starving for the past couple of days and the only food left was junk. Now they were fed up with the breakfast items and decided to take to the streets. Many of them chanting V Put to let their dissatisfaction out on the people they knew were to blame for all of this: Kay.
"DOWN WITH KAY!" One of the protesters chanted as she held the banner. Other slogans to the protesters were called: ХЛЕБА and ЗЕМЛЯ И ВОЛЯ. Some of the students and workers on the ship had enough. A few people had climbed on top of the building without permission and were chanting while one of the adults was holding a flag. Another one was holding a long wooden stick. She wrenched it into the building and began to shake it around. The Saunders Logo that Kay had on display ever since she had taken over was beginning to get ripped apart. Another one chanted while waving her rifle with a red ribbon attached to it. Finally the logo came loose and took its first flight to the floor. The logo shattered on the ground into several pieces as this was a message to Kay. Other students were burning stuff, the flag of the US, another Saunders Logo and several pictures of Kay were being burned in protest. The students and adults continued to chant:
"МИР ВОЛЯ НАРОДБ!" She shouted in the language she knew. Most of the protesters weren't going to use Kay's language as it had served as chains to keep them under her thumb. They knew they wanted to have their protest demands met loud and clear. They might as well burn down the entire school until Kay had finally listened to them. Lola and Megumi were busy playing a game of cards to settle themselves down from the night before. They were oblivious to the drama that was happening. Suddenly, Konstantina ran in as she was huffing from a shortness of breath.
"Megumi, Lola there is some really bad news." Konstantina began. "Massive protests have erupted in Petrograd due to food shortages." Konstantina told them what was happening and the fact that the school had exploded overnight. "Now the protesters are rioters and the workers have gone on strike."
"What do the protesters want?" Megumi asked as she was worried about this. She feared a repeat of the events of the last revolution the school had.
"They want bread but there is no bread to go around as there is no grain or flour left." Konstantina told Megumi the protests were bread and she continued to speak. "They also blame Kay for all of the problems and the fact that she emptied out all of the grain reserves."
"This situation is going down hill really fast." Megumi told Konstantina. There was a loud bang as the protesters had flooded into the building to have their demands met. Before the three of them could react, they were cornered by one group of protesters. In the front of the crowd was Himari as she was pretty angry that neither Megumi nor Alexandra had fulfilled her demands.
"I am only going to say this once and if the three of you don't respond we will kill you." Himari began as she had rage and fury in her eyes. She wanted to be clear and she hoped they were going to follow her demands. "RELEASE YURI NAKAMURA FROM JAIL. NOW!" Himari told Megumi that she wanted her friend to be free. Megumi didn't respond. She didn't want to release Yuri from her cell. She knew that Yuri was a criminal. Himari then walked over and ripped the prison keys from Megumi and thundered off.
"Give those back!" Megumi called out. She was suddenly blocked by Himari's guards, who slapped Megumi in the forehead with the rifle butt while the others had them pointed at her. Himari went to her friend's prison cell and looked at the man guarding it. Two rifles were lowered as Himari knew she needed to make her demands clear.
"Open the door now or I will have you shot on the spot!" Himari called out. The guard gulped before he opened the prison door. Himari walked in as she quickly found Yuri's prison cell as she was waiting inside. With some quick clicks of the lock, the lock was unlocked as the door was opened. Yuri had spent a while in that prison cell doing nothing. She turned to see that Himari came to her rescue.
"Yes! I am now finally free!" Yuri called out with excitement. The other students were freeing students that Kay had locked up and they were finally going to have what they wanted for the longest time.
"Yes and I've taken advantage of the protests to release you from jail. Now while these riots continue, let's say we try to lead the school ourselves." Himari began. "I've been dissatisfied with Kay as she would shut down our parliament if we did something that she didn't like and the only way forward for us is if Kay is forced to give up her power."
"So let's continue the riots until she gets the message." Yuri told them that more violence was something they needed to get Kay to fold to their demands. Lola, Konstantina and Megumi were being escorted out as they were now under control by Himari's guards.
Even the sailors were rebelling as they too didn't like any of Kay's policies and were starving too. A couple of the sailors had climbed onto a Kay statue as they were now chanting that they should tear this statue down.
"She represents none of us! We're all starving while she plays Rock and Roll while we eat her processed junk!" One of the sailors chanted while standing on the statue. The head of the Saunders Navy looked at her as she knew she better get their attention to obey her.
"Get down from there you two or I will send you to court now!" She shouted. One of the students standing behind her raised her rifle and took a shot at her. She felt something hit her neck before she collapsed. Looks like the first years were getting tired of their seniors who were followers of Kay. The other students had huddled together as they wanted their demands to be made loud and clear. Konstantina and another girl were being prepared to be fired upon as they had disobeyed.
"Have you decided to oppose the order and go against the command? This is a mistake that you will pay for!" Himari shouted as she definitely wanted to take control of the school. She was going to start by taking her anger out those that had angered her the most. "Get rid of them!" She ordered for the two students to get shot. Himari heard the clicking of the rifle as the rifle was pointed directly at her. She turned around to see the students she used to help free the prisoners were quickly turning on her like a pack of hungry wolves. No one knew who to be loyal to any more.
Burning buildings were seen throughout the school as the students had been rounding up and arresting Kay's ministers and friends. Kay may have acted as its leader but now she lost control of the entire school. The riots would continue for the next couple of days, the police would fire on soldiers, soldiers fired on soldiers. Alexandra and her worker friends re-established the Petrogradskii Sovet with Konstantina joining in. It would quickly gain a new group name: Петроградский совет рабочих и солдатских депутатов, all written by Alexandra to denounce her language she had used previously and the new language she was going to use.
Kay had heard the news that Saunders had descended into chaos and was rushing back there as fast as she could to see what was going on. She was riding in a train carriage to figure out what was going on.
"The school is in trouble, I'm coming back there to fix everything." Kay told herself with a smile. She was determined to set things right but the protests allowed new groups to emerge, Alexandra's workers group was at the forefront of all of this and Kay, not being a fan of Alexandra to begin with, knew that she needed to stamp her out first before she could be a bigger threat to what was going on. Kay looked at the newspapers to see that she was being a puppet to all the businesses of the school. Kay opened the window to the carriage to toss the paper out of the window. "This is not true, I will make this school better than it is, these people are ungrateful for all of the changes I have brought." Kay muttered to herself. She noticed the train was slowing down, and they were heading to a stop. Once the train stopped, Kay looked out of her window, there was no station in sight that they had pulled into. She went to the other window and the same results were shown, no station. Then the door opened as several adults had boarded the train to talk to Kay.
"Kay we need to talk." One of them began. The adults pulled out some of the seats and sat down in them. Kay looked around as she seemed to be a little scared of what was going on. "Saunders has descended into chaos and you returning isn't going to solve it. We have decided to chat with some of the people and the DUMA that has been formed, it is best for you to abdicate your position as leader of the school." The adult laid out the situation to Kay. Kay was filled with distraught, abdicating the position as the tsarina? She didn't know how to respond to this.
"Why… Why do they want me to go?" Kay asked. She didn't know if she wanted to let this position go. The adults turned their heads to each other and began to think about what they were going to say next.
"You have been a very weak and ineffective leader Kay, you trying to fix everything isn't going to work. It's best that you step down from your role as leader of the school." The adult explained that Kay's leadership had done more to hurt the school than help it. Now with the people and the school army and navy against her. It was a checkmate for Kay, there was no way she was going to be able to continue to resist. The adult slid her the piece of paper containing the information regarding all the wrong Kay. "Since the army is no longer on your side and with the war still going badly, we have been convinced that if you abdicated, maybe the school would calm down. It's the only choice going forward." He continued to explain to Kay. Kay began to think about it. She didn't want to lose control of the school but with everything going badly, she had to make a decision. Kay took the sheet of paper and signed her name. Kay was going to step down. Several students being lead by Alexandra watched on as this was a local victory for them.
"But we will proudly and boldly raise the banner of the workers' struggle, the banner of the great battle of all peoples for a better world and holy liberty." The students chanted as their days of oppression under Kay were coming to an end.
Kay's abdication was announced the next morning and the people had finally decided to calm down. The position of the tsarina had been abolished as no one was willing to succeed her. With this news the population's anger began to subside and things went back to normal. The question however remained who was going to succeed Kay. To Kay's request it had to be an adult and American as well, this man was a professor at a highly prestigious university, tall, brown hair, light blue eyes. He wore a fresh suit everyday as if it was his job. He was going to take charge of Saunders' new Provisional Government. Megumi and Lola had barely survived the chaos and with Kay given the boot, they hoped this new man was going to do stuff to change stuff up. Megumi heard of this man a couple times before and maybe he could change things up. They were waiting around while Megumi was reading a newspaper.
"Principal Nicholas II was forced to abdicate under the chaos of his school. Oh dear." Megumi began, their counterparts must've experienced something similar to Saunders, a ripple effect one might say. Then the door opened as the man walked in to see what was going on. Megumi turned to greet the man. "You must be Professor Kerensky of the Hoover institute at Stanford University?"
"Yes, that's right." Kerensky told Megumi. He sat down at his desk as Megumi began to speak.
"Alexandra is in charge of the soldiers and workers from what I have, you will be running the school." Megumi laid out the situation regarding Saunders. Kerensky nodded as he began to read over the papers. Maybe he could change some things for Saunders. He got to work, and within a couple of hours two things had been changed on the spot. The Okhrana were disbanded, the death penalty abolished, they might even hold elections for the students to decide on what they were going to do going forward. Alexandra looked on, she and the workers weren't ready to make their move as Kerensky was still new and striking him on day one was a bad idea. Kerensky got up and decided to have a meeting with some of the other adults. Alexandra decided to follow behind him to make sure she wasn't noticed. Kerensky entered the room where he decided to sit down with the new people in charge of Saunders. Alexandra placed her ear to the wall and began to listen. What Kerensky was saying wasn't good news for Saunders.
"We have to keep fighting this war, our allies need us." Kerensky told them that Saunders was going to keep fighting despite them getting rid of Kay. Alexandra was horrified. She thought Kerensky was going to finally end the war but instead he decided to continue it. Alexandra rushed back to tell them the news of what happened.
Alexandra has arrived back with the others in their workers room. Konstantina was sitting down waiting for her.
"What's the news?" Konstantina asked.
"Kerensky isn't going to end the war. Saunders is going to keep fighting. We need to end Saunders' involvement in it." Alexandra explained that Kerensky was going to continue fighting and to Alexandra, she had enough of fighting especially since the war was looking like it couldn't be won.
"Yes but how, we're too few in number to really do anything significant. Even if we did, we'll just get stamped out. We need a large number of willing students who are willing to go down for our cause." Konstantina told Alexandra as she took count of the number of members that they had, there were twenty five and this wasn't going to be enough. Alexandra began to think of a way to get more students on their side if they were going to cause problems for Kerensky and help them achieve these goals.
"I may have an idea, but this will be a gamble. Tricolor middle school is inactive and is looking for an opportunity to help spread the revolution. I may have a few friends that I can invite over as well but I think we might need to wait a few days for all of this to happen. But in the meantime, let's try to get those first few students and the grain reserves to keep the starving workers fed if we are to spread the revolution. Food is the key." Alexandra told Konstantina that they would be able to overthrow the Kerensky government and finally have a revolution.
"Right." Konstantina told Alexandra. Konstantina walked away as Alexandra got out her phone and began to dial in the number. "Hello?" She began. The one on the other side of the phone was Manami.
"What is it Alexandra, have you given up fighting yet and you want to sign a peace treaty? We heard there was a revolution in Saunders." Manami asked if Alexandra had given up as of yet.
"Yeah about that…" Alexandra began. She began to think of what she was going to say next. "I'm not in charge of Saunders, some weird professor has taken over. I want you to listen to me and listen carefully, I have a bunch of friends that are laying around in a high school that know the works of Karl and Engels, if you send them to Saunders and we can stage a revolution to get this Kerensky guy out, maybe we can come to some sort of arrangement." Alexandra explained that she had a few friends in another school she needed if they were going to quickly achieve some results once she can get in control of the school, she can pull Saunders out of the war and the people wouldn't have to starve.
"Well, since you sound desperate at this point to not fight us, then we can certainly agree to this arrangement. Give us a couple of days and we'll send the students to Petrograd." Manami told Alexandra that she needed to wait a bit before she was allowed to cause chaos for the new government. Alexandra nodded.
"Okay I'll be glad to see them." Alexandra told Manami. "Okay see ya." Alexandra then hung the phone up as she was finally going to get her wish of a revolution. Now all that she needed to do now was wait for the revolutionaries to be delivered.
Manami meanwhile was talking to Runa about the phone call she had finished talking to Alexandra about.
"Saunders keeps fighting but its morale has been weakened with the recent revolution." Runa began. "We must intensify the revolution and poison the enemy's army with poison. I look forward to your reply on that matter." Runa explained to Manami. She definitely wanted to see some change and they needed to do it quickly and try to bring results faster that would knock Saunders out of the war.
"I believe from our point of view, it is preferable to support extremists, since this is what will quickly lead to certain results." Manami began. She paused to think about the conversation she had with Alexandra on the phone about the people she had friends with. Was she going to get their attention and bring them to Saunders? Manami continued to speak. "In addition, according to Alexandra whom she called me a few minutes ago, she said she had friends in one of the schools that isn't at war with any of us that she wants us to bring to Saunders. She didn't specify who but based on the information and the fact we've seen them before when we heard the news, they are willing to cooperate with us if we mention Alexandra's name."
"Is the girl named Natalia?" Runa asked. She was thinking of Pravda's current commander at the time. Manami smiled as Runa was right on the dot when she mentioned the name.
"Yes that's it." Manami told her. She had an idea. If she could get Fumie and the rest of Pravda to Saunders, they could cause chaos and get Saunders out of the war. "Oh and send a telegram to Chihuahua High School and tell them to attack Stars and Stripes Middle School so they can't send resources to Saunders."
"Right." Runa told her. Runa walked away. Manami was off to find Pravda and give them the news.
Meanwhile with the Pravda students. Fumie was sitting around with Lisa, Katyusha and Clementia. They were busy reading a newspaper as if the news had just reached them.
"Hey Natalia." Clementia began. "Says here there's been a revolution in Saunders and the reign of Kay has ended." Clementia described what was going on in the newspaper that another revolution had happened and Kay was no longer in control. Fumie was frustrated.
"Oh, come on. I missed another one?" Fumie shouted to herself as she had missed the golden opportunity to overthrow Kay. "Why am I even in this fanfiction?" Fumie asked as she tried to vent her frustration out.
"Well, it's not like you could have done anything. As long as there's the 61st Sensha-do tournament happening, you can't get back to Saunders." Lisa told Fumie that as long as the war will continue, there was no way they were going to go to Saunders and overthrow who was now in charge of the school. Suddenly the wall came down as if it was Manami as she had a question for the Pravda students.
"Who wants to start a rebubublution—I mean, rebublu, revolution—Dang it!" Manami felt frustrated that she wasn't able to ask the question. "I messed up, I might as well start from the beginning." Manami disappeared as she was going to make another attempt. Fumie was reading her copy of Crapitalism when she decided to take a sip of her coffee. Then the wall exploded as Manami made attempt number two. "Who wants to start a revolution!" Manami asked. Fumie's eyes looked up as the rest of Pravda looked at Manami.
"Who sent the message of us wanting to start a revolution? I hope it's at Saunders." Fumie asked as she was itching to start one.
"It's Alexandra and she is looking for students who are willing to take over using the works of Karl and Engels." Manami explained who sent the message calling for a revolution. Fumie's eyes lit up. She remembered earlier as she explained that she hoped Saunders was going to lose.
"Did Alexandra say she was going to keep my words about Saunders losing the war in mind?" Fumie asked if Alexandra remembered what would happen if Saunders was going to lose and the population was willing to overthrow her.
"Yes. Yes she did. And now she wants you to go to Saunders and cause as much chaos as possible for the new provisional government." Manami replied. With Saunders now in chaos, Kuromorimine smelled an opportunity. With Alexandra asking Manami for these people to come to Saunders, there was now a chance to knock Saunders out of the war completely.
"How are we going to get to Saunders if there is no way we can get there by boat?" Katyusha asked if Manami had any plans on getting the Pravda students to Saunders.
"By train. Come with me if you girls want your chance to spread Karl and Engels to the uneducated students of Saunders." Manami told them as she began to lead. The Pravda students began to follow Manami. There was a chance for Saunders to finally change. Change by the dictation of Alexandra. Fumie was excited as she was really looking forward to this.
The first revolution back in chapters 22 and 23 hadn't changed much but this new revolution had Kay removed from her leadership position and there will be one more revolution after that. Without Kay a big power vacuum had opened up and Kerensky, Himari and Alexandra were rushing to fill it.
Himari and Yuri had formed the provisional government with Kerensky as its leader while Alexandra was giving orders to the workers and soldiers so Saunders was now stuck in a dual power conundrum. This balance was delicate and all it was going to take to get rid of it was Fumie and her comrade friends, she was willing to give the entire school the push to finally achieve Fumie's dream.
Communism.
[A/N]: Another revolution has happened as the population of Saunders is sick of the war at this point and they had just forced Kay to give up her power. Now we enter into a chaotic period for Saunders as there is no central leadership to have the school be led and with this there will be some chaos and the build up to the next revolution. I will see you until then. Goodbye.