While Lord Howeland had addressed the Houses of Parliament, the temperature of the large crowds that had by this point completely filled the Goldbrook Commons and Trinity Square, had risen by a significant amount of degrees. The Cordelia Police would later issue estimates of around sixty-eight thousand just around the Parliament palace, with as many as three-hundred thousand in the Inner City area in total at the peak of the demonstrations. Independent media would report more akin to five-hundred thousand, and that would explained the total lack of control the police would in a few hours demonstrate. The vast majority were there to make their voices heard, be it to demand armed response from the Royal Navy, declare support for the families of the dead soldiers, or to shout out their desire for peace. But like with every huge crowd that has ever gathered there is always a very small, but very visible minority who was present for completely different reasons. If asked, someone from this small group in this particular huge crowd, what they were there for, they’d probably answer “to start shit”. By the time the House of Lords convened, many of these troublemakers had managed to mingle with the parts of the crowds that were closest to the barrier line of police officers who were blocking the steps up to the Parliament complex. After the MPs had been escorted inside, the police had reshuffled their formations, the mounted squads pulling back behind a thick line of shield-bearing officers, with large armoured trucks forming a laager in the centre of the Goldbrook Commons. There were approximately a thousand police officers in the Commons, plus a further four-hundred at Trinity Square, but there were about sixty-thousand people between the two groups, which made coordination very hard.

And that made the next few events even more unmanageable. Almost as soon as Lord Howeland started his address, these few vandals started what they’d set out to do, and began pelting the thick line of interlocked police officers with empty bottles, rocks, and a myriad of other projectiles. Up until this point, the only thing shouted at the police had been slogans (and the occasional insult or physical object, but not to any large extent). Naturally, and in response to their crowd control training, the constables answered by raising their shields to protect themselves and they started to look around for the culprits, contributing to the general confusion of the immense crowds, some officers dashing out in an attempt to apprehend the throwers. As innumerable philosophers over the centuries and millennia have pointed out, humans are just advanced pack animals. And as soon as the projectiles started flying, the collective that was the deployed units of Cordelia Metropolitan Police started to close ranks, and feeling the sheer animalistic threat the pressure of the immense number of demonstrators represented, a senior police lieutenant made the desperate call up the chain of command for reinforcements.

The fact of the matter was that the vast majority of the crowds were behaving politely, but the troublemakers were so well-hidden amongst the general backdrop of humanity that the extremely outnumbered constables were unable to tell the yahoos from the rest, and with a very real sense of human claustrophobia setting in, the request for backup was placed. But by noon of the 13th, 80% of the Metropolitan Police was already on the streets all over Cordelia, because demonstrations were carried out all along the central Goneril districts, like Lysander, St Barbara’s, Gloucester, and Kent, and there were also the usual police duties to attend to. As such the only source of reinforcements that had judicial authority was the Royal Army Provost’s Corps 30th Field Battalion. Within twenty minutes of reception of the signal from the CMPD, the Provosts and Redcaps of the 30th RAPC were on the move. The Army had been expecting something akin to this, since they had been informed by the Royal Navy of the attack on the HMS Euphoria forty-eight hours previous, and the General Staff of the Royal Army had told formations around major cities like Cordelia, Raleigh, New Toronto, Arundel, Persephone, New Angers, Oldtown, and New Gwalior to be at an increased level of stand-by in case of major protests that the police would have trouble handling. In the end, only Cordelia and New Angers would become hotspots that required Army intervention, but the aftermath would be felt for a long time, especially in Cordelia.

Almost as soon as the projectiles were thrown from the crowd, the police closed ranks and started to call for the crowds to disperse. Officers stood on top of the personnel carriers that were formed in a laager formation, and using loudspeakers, tried to address the crowd.

“By order of the His Majesty’s government, I am requesting that you disperse and leave the immediate surroundings of Parliament in an orderly fashion,” one constable shouted, trying to be heard over the repeated slogans that were shouted back at her. “The closer you are to stepping onto the Parliament complex, the closer you as a collective are to impeding the democratic process of the Kingdom of Aurora, and preventing our elected politicians from carrying out their duties.”

The female officer, trying her best to make the crowds stand down, was in turn answered by receiving a sizable rock to her (thankfully) helmeted head. She dropped the loudspeaker, and tumbled down the side of the navy-painted carrier truck, thankfully caught by a trio of other constables who had observed the scene. From that point on, pandemonium erupted. The ones responsible for creating the quickly escalating chaos in the vast crowds pulled on their masks and balaclavas, and started to pelt the police lines with anything they could get their hands on much of it brought in backpacks and bags, while every peaceful protestor around them immediately looked for the most convenient exit route. It did not help that it was at this point in time that a captain from the 30th RAPC received the call from Lord Howeland that the very apparatus of Auroran democracy might be in danger if this situation was allowed to continue.

These orders were quickly communicated down the line, whistles were blown, gasmask filter slotted into their integrated tactical helmets, and activation buttons on shack-lances were pressed. The Redcaps started to march forward to the shouted orders of their NCOs and officers, and the police accommodated their approach from the rear by splitting into smaller squads, so that the combined RAPC and Cordelian Police line was a patchwork of camouflaged and white-navy blocks.

And as the Redcaps hefted their shields, presented their shock-lances, and the Cordelia police started to lob teargas and sting grenades into the crowds while continuing to shout for the crowds to disperse, Horace Sciacca, eldest son of the Secretary of Defence, had moved past the point of starting to regret bringing Lady Evelyn Delafontaine to the demonstration, to actively wishing he hadn’t gotten out of bed that morning. That Sunday morning had started so innocently, with a nice full breakfast at a street-level café in the fashionable quays in St Edmund’s, something he and Evelyn had planned for a couple of weeks now. It was hard finding time amidst his busy schedule as a doctoral student in biochemistry at the King’s College of Science, and fulfilling his obligations as a peer, so Horace enjoyed relaxing and mundane outings like simple breakfasts out, or trips to the theatre, which lacked the overt show and pageantry that accompanied going to the opera. And it certainly helped that he was accompanied by Lady Evelyn Delafontaine, the Lady Wraith. Evelyn was about his sister Beatrice’s height, somewhere around one-eighty, with long copper hair, crisp grey eyes, and a charming full-toothed smile. Her status as Lady Wraith had been due to some quite unfortunate familial scandals, which had sadly ended with her parents’ divorce and her mother’s denouncement of her noble status, which meant that Evelyn’s father was still the Marquess Wraith, but Evelyn was now styled as Baroness Wraith in a very convoluted dance of titles and propriety. Horace didn’t pry into the specifics; he was a gentleman after all. They’d finished their nice breakfast and wondered what to do for the rest of the afternoon. Both of them were completely aware of the recent news from Lucidia, Horace was the son of the Secretary of Defence after all, and the story of the attack on Euphoria was transmitted and discussed on every news stream in the Kingdom. So they’d casually decided to walk down to Goldbrook Palace, more to observe than to anticipate, excited by the prospect of watching the congregations. However, they’d been pulled along by the momentum of the gathering crowds, and as noon rolled along, the pair found themselves in the thick of Goldbrook Commons.

A sting grenade exploded close by Horace’s feet and his world became a ringing cacophony of high-pitched noise and white light, and he struggled to keep his balance, but refusing to let go of Evelyn’s hand, despite rubbing his eyes with his free one.

“Come on!” he shouted over the din of panicked screaming, the keening ring of the grenade’s aftermath, and the shouts, pulling Evelyn along in what he judged to be the opposite direction from where the grenade had come from. “We need to get out of here, they’ll start to clear the square!”

“I can’t see anything,” Evelyn complained, using one of the hems of her long tan autumn coat to dab at her face in an attempt to wipe her eyes clean. “Where are we going? Where is out?”

“I think this way,” Horace said loudly, but immediately bumped into someone and staggered back into Evelyn, before finding his feet and setting out again. The air was getting thick with tear- and incapgas, making people’s eyes sting and water horrifically, producing choking sensations, and sent rolling waves of nausea in their stomachs.

“Clear the Commons,” the repeated call came from loudspeakers, “by the order of His Majesty’s Government, please disperse.”

Horace could hear the shouted responses of profanity-heavy defiance from around him, but personally he was more than happy to apply to the police’s recommendation. Problem was, there were people everywhere and everyone were in the way. Evelyn grunted as someone much larger and heavier than her ran shoulder-first into her from behind, and stumbled into Horace’s back. He fought to stay upright, bracing himself on an unseen body to his right using his free arm, receiving a “get the fuck off” in return, but it helped arrest his fall. With fight or flight instincts activating, he knew it would mean certain death to fall to the ground and be trampled by the panicking horde.

“Evelyn,” he said, drawing her close enough that he could see her face through the streams of tears and mucus that leaked from his eyes, “you have to stay on your feet, no matter what. Keep close to me, never let me go, and we’ll get out of this safe. Do you understand?”

Her face was as much of a terrifying mess of physical and emotional distress as he reckoned his own was right now, but she nodded after a moment to retch at the invasive incapgas that flooded into her lungs with every breath. There were more sounds of tearing canvas around them, the tell-tale sound of sting grenades, and a sudden leaden current that seemed to suck what remained of air out of their immediate surroundings. The pair didn’t know at the time, but they were very close to the advancing line of police and Redcaps, the military police armed with long shock-lances and marching forward through the gas in what could only be described as a shield-wall, lances presented. While not deadly in any way, the electric shock of these lances would not inspire anyone to reacquaint themselves any time soon, and they were effective tools to disperse stubborn crowds. By now the scene at the Commons were complete and utter chaos, and the panic had spread to the crowds in nearby Trinity Square just across from Nestor Street, and the police there fared much worse than the much larger contingent at the Commons, supported as they were by a battalion of Provosts. The vandals had for the most part decided (some groups were coordinated, a lot were lone wolfs looking for adrenaline kicks) to get as close to the Parliament gates as possible, but a few had opted for disturbing proceedings at the other end of the huge crowd. In a worse position tactically, without vehicle backup, but with the hundred-forty odd constables mounted on horses, and with a sizable number of K-9 officers and their trained police wargs, when the Trinity Square detachment were met with thrown bottles and other assorted missiles, they first resorted to holding their ground. That worked well for about four minutes after their colleagues and the MPs at the other end started to escalate the situation. The press of bodies was even more extreme at Trinity, since people were fleeing in that direction, and ran up the steps towards the plaza where the three huge pillars that held the large statues of a regal lion, dragon, and unicorn. A monument to remember the original United Kingdom origins of Aurora, it now became a desperate battleground for the suddenly rushed police. Like at the other side of the street, they ordered the crowds to spread out, but there was no way to coordinate such a large number of people in such a limited space. And then the horses and wargs added to the already horrible situation. Auroran wargs were similar to dogs in that they were easily trained and bonded very well with humans, but their average size was the same as a Giant Schnauzer (fur universally grey-silver, like most Auroran predators), with six legs, three tails, four eyes, and a long snout full of snapping teeth. Obedient to a fault when trained by professionals, they were still just animals, and their banshee-esque shrieks that were intended as warnings to the running two-leggeds to not get closer, spooked the Earth Ardennais horses the Cordelia police used. One-hundred and forty of which, with their human riders, were located behind a struggling line of constables trying to stave off thousands with their shields, backs turned to their mounted colleagues.

The screams coming from the opposite direction were the first hint that alerted Horace and Evelyn to what was happening.

“What in the Gods’ name is that?” Horace asked, trying for the umpteenth time to clear his nose of the lingering incapgas, but failing for the umpteenth time. Evelyn was as clueless as he was, dry-heaving as another bout of nausea hit her from the gas.

“Sounds like horses,” she said after a few moments, having spent almost inhuman focus and effort to not deposit the remains of the breakfast unto the cobblestones at her feet. “Horses and human shouting, it sounds like.”

“By the order of His Majesty’s Government, please clear the area!”, the artificially amplified shout came from somewhere behind them, but it had become more like a background noise more than something Horace actually focused on. Someone to his left ran up, hitched a tossed object back in the general direction of the police/Redcap lines, and Horace could hear the weird clapping sound of an electric explosion wasting itself on the plastacene shields of the police.

The person right in front of Horace were suddenly violently thrust right into his face, and his first instinct was to protest loudly, before feeling his body sagging towards the ground under the person’s limp weight.

“Eve,” he managed as he felt his knees buckle under the weight of a grown male while still holding Lady Wraith’s hand, “please fucking help me here!”

Evelyn, not sure if the person had just body-tackled Horace or passed out, quite inhumanely grabbed the collar of his coat and threw him to the ground, the very situation Horace had warned about finding herself in. She realised that just a few moments after the fact, after making sure that Horace was still upright, and immediately started to look around for the person, but visibility in the writhing mass of humanity and the omnipresent gas made that impossible.

“Shitshitshit, fucking shit, I just threw someone down, Harry,” she said as Horace regained his footing and they embraced, making sure they were still both there.

“Shh,” he breathed in her ear, “don’t think about that right now, let’s just get the fuck out of her, and then we’ll talk through it.”

A loud whinnying to the couple’s left caught them off-guard, and despite the numbing presence of the gas, they could see a huge rider-less horse with empty stirrups flapping along its flanks race past, people tossing themselves aside to avoid getting run over.

“What the flying fuck?” Horace half-shouted, but shook his head immediately after.

“Doesn’t matter, we need to get out of here. We get out here, I treat you to a lovely bottle of upper shelf, we’ll discuss it, and we’ll laugh about it. But right now, don’t let go of my hand, and keep following my voice.”

It would take days for the Cordelia Metropolitan Police Department to reconstruct the hell that had transpired in Goldbrook Commons and Trinity Square, but after about nine days of intense investigation, which involved large numbers of officers from the Special Affairs Investigative Division, the preliminary reports that was reported to Sir Thomas Tedenby’s office, being the Secretary of the Home Department, highlighted the unpreparedness of the Cordelia police units in facing such large crowds. Sir Justin McCloud, the Chief Commissioner of the CMPD immediately protested this, but was ultimately let go fifteen hours after the report became public to the mass media. As far as the Royal Army and their performance was concerned, they pretty much escaped the public eye’s ire, despite forming a substantial part of the Goldbrook Commons formation that in essence went to war against the gathered protesters.

Lord Howeland had started his address at 12:40, the Houses had argued for about forty minutes before the noises of the mess outside had forced proceedings to be suspended. By the time that the Houses had been cleared, sixty-three demonstrators and three Cordelia police officers had been killed due to the desperate actions of the large mobs. But the Trinity Square panic added just so much more misery. Most of the wargs were involuntarily let loose, and the poor horses of the mounted officers fled the scene, shedding their riders. The stampede that followed down the steps of Trinity Square claimed further one-hundred and forty-three lives, and five-hundred wounded. The areas around the Parliament palace were, in the end, cleared, but not due to the peaceful dispersal of the crowds, but due to sheer fear and danger of being trod under foot. Linton Sciacca would only the day after, the 14th, learn that his own son had been present, because Horace and Evelyn had both been hastily transported to the nearby hospital of St. Gertrude because of their excessive inhalation of the police’s anti-riot gas substances. They’d both make speedy recoveries, and a few nurses would comment on the fact that they wanted their beds next to each other in the recovery ward, and get distressed if one or the other was wheeled out for examinations.

In all, eleven Cordelia Metropolitan police officers lost their lives, along with two members of the Royal Army Provost’s Corps, all the while one-hundred and seventy-three of their combined number were wounded in one way or another. 5849 protestors were arrested on site that day (including another few thousands from other parts of the city), but the vast majority were released after twenty-nine hours. One-hundred and three were charged with the intention to deliberately disturb the peace, and ninety would later be found in the courts of law to be guilty of trying to upset the democratic coalition of the Kingdom of Aurora, or excessive use of force against public officials. In New Angers on Angevin, sort of the same happened but in smaller numbers; the National Angevin Parliament was convened to discuss how to respond to this new threat to the Kingdom’s and the Union’s security, but about fifteen thousand protestors amassed outside Parlemont Plais. Luckily, the New Angers Police was prepared, and had sought help from the RAPC 19th Battalion, although the Redcaps of the 19th would have very little to do apart from providing rear-area support and cleaning up. What this would entail, in the end, was a very lively debate in the House of Lords and Commons, the likes of which had not ever been in Auroran society. That was after excusing the Secretary of Defence for two weeks as he sat by his son’s hospital bed.