Lavender & Fire

45. The Tipping Point

Rahn watched in horror as the male up in front of the auditorium spoke. Daielle couldn't be serious, could he? As he continued his words, it became all too apparent to her that he was, in fact, serious.

"For too long have we stayed dormant!" He yelled to the crowd, gaining some head nods and some grunts of affirmation, causing him to smile. "For years our old leadership tried to do things peacefully, to make the changes necessary for our people to thrive. But the years of secrecy and peaceful acts have become ineffective. The time for action has come!

This just couldn't be good, Rahn thought. Somehow the crazy glint in the male's eyes appeared to be even worse than the day before, when she had sat across from him in his office.

"They snuck in during the night and stole our people! Good, innocent people who love the homeland, and were only trying to do their best by it! So it is time we bring the fight to them!"

Daielle's words were met with cheers, but Rahn was dumbfounded. The guards had only come in and arrested people because that organization had first come in and kidnapped innocent people. Why was everyone listening to this?

"But we're not trained to fight!" A male called out from the crowd, but Rahn couldn't tell who it was. Hope swelled within her.

Daielle stood calmly at the front of the stage. He was smiling but it wasn't kind. Rahn felt her skin tingle with the need to defend herself, even though he wasn't looking at her. She followed his eyes to a male a few rows ahead and to the opposite side from her.

He stood up and continued. "We don't have any weapons, or any type of training. And now our numbers are far fewer than the guard. How can we possibly defend ourselves from the guard, let alone attack them?"

The crowd began to murmur loudly, many seeming to agree with this male. Hope swelled within her chest. But it died as quickly as it came. 

"Of course, of course." Daielle held up his hands to calm the crowd. He then motioned to the side of the stage where a female opened a side door and two dozen Qarthans came marching in. They were dressed in a type of armor and carried large weapons of some kind that looked to require both hands to hold.

"These will ensure our victory." Daielle said excitedly, his chest puffing out with pride. "Our own engineers have designed and built these state of the art weapons. There is nothing else like them in all of Domu. Designed based off of a weapon we were able to acquire from the visit from our friends on the nearby planet."

Rahn's ears perked up. Alien technology?! Our guards may not have anything to combat them. She didn't like feeling so blind. She needed to see one of these things work and get an up close look so she could figure out how to defend from them and hopefully how to dismantle or destroy them.

"All held by members of our team with strong training in combat, former members of the Grand Hall guards who were wrongly dismissed from a corrupt and unjust system. But their loss is our gain!"

Former guards? Rahn cursed under her breath. This kept getting worse. There were only two dozen of them, but they had these unknown weapons. Even if the actual grand hall guards came out victorious, this group could do some serious damage and hurt countless Qarthans before it was all finished.

"Come! We will enjoy a demonstration!"

Daielle exited the stage through the door the armed Qarthans had entered through, then they motioned for everyone else to follow behind him. Eventually they were all outside and watching Daielle as he stood on top of a large crate, holding one of the weapons.

Rahn glanced around to see the armored guards surrounding the onlookers, yet no one seemed to notice but her. She cursed again as she looked for exit strategies. As she continued to assess the situation, keeping her head down in case any of the former guards recognized her, Daielle got the attention of the crowd again.