“Here it is, it is right here, Charlie!” said Blackraven, barely suppressed joy in his voice, and brandishing his finger to a page in the open book. “Even you can’t deny what is written in the ultimate law of the land!”
“For the last time, Blackraven, it is not happening,” whispered Charlie harshly, a vein twitching in his temple. Stan was alarmed to see Charlie’s quiet fury. “There is absolutely no reason to do something that extreme now that the crisis is over.”
“Excuse me,” cut in Stan, “but what’s going on here? Blackraven, what are you doing here? This is a private council meeting!”
“I am well aware of that, Stan,” replied Blackraven, plopping himself down squarely into Archie’s vacant seat, “and so I figure that I had best be here for it, considering that I am now a part of the council.”
“Get out of his chair!” barked Charlie. Kat gave a little squeak of horror at the outburst, and Gobbleguy broke into tears. “You are not a part of this council, Blackraven, and to try to suggest it would make you a traitor!”
“You are accusing me of treachery, Charlie?” bellowed Blackraven, standing up to stare Charlie down from across the table. “I only want what is best for Elementia, and I would like to see action taken against our enemies quickly, without wandering through the political swamp of your bureaucratic elections!”
“Are you aware, Blackraven,” responded Charlie, kicking back his seat to stare the bird-man in the eye, “that those elections are the only thing keeping Elementia from turning into a dictatorship, like the one that we fought to take down just four months ago?”
“ENOUGH!” screamed Stan. Without thinking, he pulled the ceremonial golden axe from its sheath and brought it down into the table between Charlie and Blackraven. The golden blade snapped from the handle and fell onto the table with a loud clang. Stan didn’t care. He wasn’t even sure what they were arguing about, but he knew that if they were to deal with the Noctem Alliance, they could not be fighting with each other. The room fell silent. All were staring at Stan with humbled looks on their faces. He was the president, and it was his turn to speak.
“No more yelling!” said Stan, speaking in such a way that he was breaking his own rule. “We are the ones in charge of running Elementia, and right now we have to deal with the fallout of this attack. Anything that we need to discuss, we can discuss it like responsible people.” Stan turned his head to Blackraven. “Now, Blackraven, why do you think that you’re on the council? Council members don’t just join, they’re elected by the people.”
“Thank you, Stan! You see, that’s what I’m—” started Charlie, but Stan raised a hand to cut him off.
“Yes, I’m well aware of that, Stan,” replied Blackraven, smirking at Charlie. “But this is a special case. It says so, right here in the Constitution.” And he held up his book so that Stan could see the words The Constitution of the Republic of Elementia, by Bookbinder55, on the front cover. Blackraven pointed to a spot on the open page and began to read.
“‘All members of the Council of Eight, a group of eight players whose job it is to run Element City and the rest of Elementia, shall be elected by conducting a vote among the entire population of the server, UNLESS …’” he said with emphasis, as Charlie had opened his mouth to interject, “‘the server of Elementia is in a state of emergency. In that case, the council may appoint a temporary member until the emergency is resolved.’”
“Dude, we keep telling you, we ain’t in a state of emergency any more!” said DZ, his eyes wide with frustration. “The police’ve got the city secure, and the Alliance is gone for now! Why is there still an emergency?”
“I’m sorry, are you serious?” asked Jayden, speaking for the first time and with a dark note in his voice. “Do you not realize that Archie is dead?” He hesitated for a moment, trying to keep his composure. “G and I have known him since we first started playing this game. We thought that … when we lost Sally …” Jayden’s jaw was trembling, and tears were slowly leaking from his eyes, but he pressed on, “that we would never have to go through that again. But …”
“But now Archie is gone too,” continued G as Jayden became too distraught to continue. “The Noctem Alliance took Archie from us, just like King Kev took Sally. And now you expect us to just sit here and go through an election while the people who killed our friend are still out there?”
“Jayden, G, I understand what you’re saying,” said Stan evenly, trying to hide his alarm that the two of them were taking Blackraven’s side. “But you know, you’re not the only ones who’re upset that Archie’s gone, and the fact that he is doesn’t mean …”
“Oh, please, don’t even try, Stan!” cried Jayden, whose red face was now knitted in anger. “You don’t care that he’s dead as much as we do, don’t even pretend that you do! If you did, you’d agree with us without even thinking about it!”
“That’s out of line, Jayden!” seethed the Mechanist, jumping to Stan’s defence. “Stan is devastated, as we all are, that Archie is dead! He’s just keeping a level head and trying to preserve the values of our country instead of acting out of rash hatred!”
“But we deserve the right to act out of rash hatred!” bellowed Jayden, his face contorted. “The Noctem Alliance killed Archie, and we want justice to be served!”
“What you’re speaking of is not justice, Jayden!” the Mechanist countered. “You are thinking of nothing but revenge! Justice is keeping a level head and determining the best course of action to ensure that no further tragedies occur. The revenge you speak of, however, is taking action blindly, without sight of future consequences, thinking only of what is best for you!”
“Do you even hear yourselves?” shouted Blackraven. “It’s not like I’m asking for anything crazy or over the top! All that I ask is that, in recognition of the fact that the Alliance is dangerous and must be disposed of, I am appointed to the council … temporarily, of course … so that we can take immediate action against them, instead of having to wait for days as we organize elections.”
Charlie, Jayden and the Mechanist all opened their mouths to respond to this, but Stan cut in first. “Enough talk,” he said firmly. “Let’s put it to a vote. We’ll go around the table, and each take a vote as to whether we should allow Blackraven to become an unelected councilman for the time being, or to abide by the constitution and set up an election tomorrow for a new council member to replace Archie. A majority of five votes will decide.”
In his mind, Stan knew that he would never be comfortable with Blackraven joining the council unelected. As he looked around the table, though, he was quite confident that, out of the nine of them, only Blackraven, G and Jayden would vote in favour of it.
“Let me start off by casting my vote,” began Stan, “which is for Pro-Constitution. The country of Elementia was founded on our constitution, and the present situation is not bad enough that we should start ignoring it.” Stan turned to the person sitting to his right, Charlie.
“I also vote for Pro-Constitution,” said Charlie, his voice steely as he shot a quick dirty glance at Blackraven. Thankfully, it went unnoticed.
“My vote is for Pro-Constitution as well,” added the Mechanist, glancing at Stan and giving him a warm smile, which Stan returned. As tired, depressed and angry as he was, Stan couldn’t help but take a moment to notice how very wise and kind a person the old Mechanist was.
“I vote for Pro-Emergency Powers.”
That voice caught Stan off