New World Disorder

Chapter Fourteen

"Hey Oran," Hester called. "Oran!" she called a second time when he did not reply.

Crap, that's me. Pope stopped grousing and tried to fit back into his teenage persona. "Hey Hester. What's up?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to get together this weekend. There's a lot going on."

Great, more teen drama! Pope thought. "Sorry. I've got a full weekend of super training. Still trying to get my Level 1 cert and my trainer has me booked out of town tomorrow through Sunday. Sorry."

"No that's alright," she said, eyes downcast. "I know how important that is. I just wish ..."

"Yeah. So, I'll see you Monday." Oran smiled and closed his locker. She was still standing there when he walked away, thinking about the upcoming weekend.

Carl had more or less turned over his training to YoungBlood for the last two weeks. It had been interesting working with the team. He was learning new things, or exploring the use of old skills in new contexts. The upcoming weekend was his first "mission" with the team.

The Temple of Life Unchained was having their annual International Convocation over the weekend, part of which included a big Rally for Life Unchained in Battery Park. It was expected that there would be protesters outside their newly opened Battery City Grand Temple for all four days of the convention and a big counter rally in the park on Sunday. YoungBlood had been contracted by the City to help provide security and crowd control, especially at the rally.

At first Oran was curious why they needed supers security for a church gathering. It turns out the Temple of Life Unchained was an international organization of super-supremacists that put itself forward as a church to gain special freedoms in the US and EU. Supers were called the Blessed and were considered the next stage towards the salvation of the race. Not satisfied with having been officially recognized as a religion by most western governments, the Temple were intent of finding or building a homeland for the Blessed. There was some concern among various government and law enforcement groups that the Temple might not be too particular if someone else was currently occupying that homeland. And the Temple had dozens, possibly hundreds, of supers among its international flock. The most combat capable of these supers, called Templars, and acted as strike forces for the organization.

While there was record of the main team, The Knights Templar, fighting the Liberty Legion and the Peacekeepers, and the training team, the Squires, fighting YoungBlood, the Temple had always successfully argued these altercations were simple misunderstandings or that the Templars were defending the religious freedoms of the Temple. So far these arguments had stopped anyone from going to jail.

Upon arrival to the YoungBlood HQ, Dr. Kovacs had them in the briefing room. "Word on the net is that Humanity! is planning a massive counter-demonstration on Sunday. Numbers are expected to be in the thousands, including the Temple adherents, the random tourists and sightseers, and the Humanity! crowd."

"Oh, the Humanity!" Brad quipped.

"Oh, the originality," his sister countered.

"Oh, the interruptions," Malcom 'Titan' Davis growled. At eight feet tall, his voice could not help but come out deep and reverberant. He smirked at Ellen as she blushed in chagrin.

"You are there for two primary purposes," the aged trainer continued. "... crowd control to avoid or curtail disturbances from the mundane protestors; and protection should either group instigate powered or armed conflict. Your primary goal is the protection of the citizens. Stopping the combatants is secondary. Are there any questions on that?"

"Wouldn't stopping the combatants be the best way to protect the people?" asked Emilio 'Black Dragon' Delgado. Oran was a little surprised as he had not come across as the aggressive one. He was more the shaved headed, meditative, fire-breathing type.