Chapter 79
***
The Olimpiysky Stadium, built just two years prior specifically to host the much-discussed "Olympics-80," was packed again. Every seat in the stands was taken, and the field itself was covered — young men and women standing in open formation, in even rows. Many young men and women. Very many.
The stadium, designed to hold thirty-five thousand people, had today admitted more than forty. And still there hadn't been room for everyone who wanted in. People crowded outside the stadium walls. Other sports venues across the capital were equally occupied — and not only in the capital. Those venues had been fitted with large screens broadcasting everything happening inside the Olimpiysky arena.
The broadcast was being carried by television stations across the country — stations that had been occupied, politely, by young men and women several hours earlier. These visitors didn't interfere with the stations' operations, didn't disrupt programming or production. They had a single demand: at eighteen forty Moscow time, every television in the country was to be showing Olimpiysky.
What struck the broadcasters as strangest was that the law enforcement representatives they summoned in response greeted these young men and women with courtesy and respect, listened to a short, cryptic phrase — "Viktor-Sensei will be speaking" — exhaled in awe, and then politely requested a spot near one of the screens for eighteen forty Moscow time. Very politely, and very respectfully. The way juniors address seniors — not the way security forces address lawbreakers.
The representatives of the Committee for State Security who arrived somewhat later received a mission status report from the very "occupiers" they'd come to address, and likewise took their places near the screens.
This, in fact, completely satisfied the broadcasters. After all, they too knew perfectly well which "Viktor-Sensei" would be speaking at nineteen hundred hours Moscow time. Speaking to his entire Federation at once for the first time — and, as an incidental side effect, to the whole Soviet Union. The broadcasters were also absolutely certain that abroad, as nineteen hundred struck, every head of state and responsible official in the world would be pressed up against their television screens in a mixture of dread and anticipation. Because this was Viktor-Sensei. Head of the Martial Arts Federation, with more than forty million "Soviet Supers" in its ranks. A force capable of doing absolutely anything on this planet, anywhere, to anyone. And one that had already proven it more than once.
At eighteen fifty-five, a ripple of movement started near the hastily constructed platform. Without any command, the assembled crowd spontaneously formed a living corridor, and through it a man made his way toward the platform. Tall, broad-shouldered. Black training trousers of the kind worn for Kung Fu practice, belted with a white Master's sash, barefoot. Bare-chested. Missing his right arm almost entirely up to the shoulder. The place where the body ended wasn't bandaged — it was raw red flesh with a fragment of bone in the center. No bleeding. But it looked less like an arm that had been cut or amputated and more like one that had been torn off, or detonated from within.
From a thick yellow chain around his neck hung a large medallion at the center of his chest — a green stone set in an intricate mounting. The presence of that medallion on that man's chest caused the handful of sorcerers scattered across the world who had, out of curiosity, also turned on their televisions, to stare in open-mouthed shock. They knew exactly what that medallion was. What they couldn't begin to understand was what it meant.
The man reached the platform and vaulted onto it from the ground without a running start — though the structure stood no less than three meters high. He landed and walked to the microphone. Every camera on the field, and there were quite a few, locked onto him immediately.
"Today, at fourteen hundred twenty-seven hours, Comrade Stalin was killed by enemies of this country," he said, with no preamble whatsoever. The words sent a genuine shock through the assembled crowd — through them, and through the entire Soviet Union beyond. And the one-armed man did not pause, did not give anyone time to absorb what he'd said.
He continued.
"The time is nineteen hundred. We are beginning a 'Mass Sporting Event.'" A soft murmur rippled through the rows. "Yes, a Mass Sporting Event," he repeated. "The 'Field Seminar' was last time. Let's not repeat ourselves. For now." Light laughter moved through the crowd and faded quickly — the first piece of news had not been conducive to laughter or levity.
"Your task: by twenty-two hundred hours Moscow time, you will secure the city. Train stations, airports, law enforcement, government administration, military installations, telephone, telegraph. The city is to pass fully under your control." He fell silent. A full minute of silence followed. Then a shouted question came from the front rows.
"The city? Which city, Sensei?"
"Every city with a Federation chapter is to be brought under your full control by twenty-two hundred hours tonight," the one-armed man said flatly, which sent the population of the Soviet Union into shock — and the young men and women, the boys and girls who made up the Federation, into euphoric enthusiasm.
"Moscow is to be secured within ninety minutes," he continued, after a half-minute's pause. "At twenty-three hundred hours, an emergency session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR is to convene in the Kremlin to designate a new General Secretary and assign responsibility for the country's future to him. How long it will run is unknown. But until the new General Secretary has fully assumed his duties and received his briefing, not a single shot is to be fired in any city under your control. Not one combat missile is to leave the ground. No riots, no disorder, no lawlessness, no crimes. Suppress anything of that nature immediately and with maximum force. Organize joint patrols with law enforcement. Twenty-two hundred is the start of curfew. Until six in the morning, no one is to be on the streets unless they are directly performing their official duties at that location and at that time. Is the task clear?"
"Yes, Sensei!" The stadium roared back as one.
"Good," the one-armed man said with a nod, and turned to leave. But another shouted question from the front rows stopped him.
"What if they attack us? We can't shoot. And the missiles—"
"If our neighbors are foolish enough to try something like that," the one-armed man's lips began to spread into a predator's snarl, "then we will hold our 'Field Seminar'… on their territory." He said it, and showed his teeth. And the heads of state and government officials of neighboring and distant nations, pressed up against their screens, felt a chill move over their skin — followed by a curiously synchronized swallowing motion.
"Since the task is understood — begin its execution. Senior Students and Masters, organize your people."
"And you, Sensei?" Another shout from the front rows — where the Senior Students and Masters were standing.
"Me?" The one-armed man said it with weight. "I'm going hunting. Stalin was not my friend. But I respected him. And not one person responsible for his death will escape justice tonight." He paused. "Dismissed."
With that, he stepped away from the microphone, dropped down from the platform, walked the length of the living corridor to the arena's exit, and disappeared through the door. Behind him, above Olimpiysky, the commands of the Federation's Senior Students and Masters were already ringing out.
***
If You Like The Story Drop a Review
~Read Advanced Chapters on: patreon/Amiii_
~Every 150 PS = Bonus Chapter!
~Push the Story forward with your [Power Stones]