Chapter 49 Toppling a Country 101
Gon and Killua impatiently waited next to their cross-legged friend as Rayleigh plunged deep into meditation to figure out the best way to save as many as they could of the five million lives of the Republic of East Gorteau. They clearly remembered that the last time he tried this, he figured out an easy way for them to get to Greed Island. The price of failure of this mission was substantially higher.
Killua initially suggested killing all the controlled soldiers as stealthily as possible. It was confirmed that the cat-girl Chimera Ant could control someone and make them use their aura, so at least one person from every group of soldiers was being controlled by the cat-girl and being used to punch others with aura to test if they could awaken their Nen. If Killua killed a whole bunch of those controlled puppets, the speed of the selection would drastically lower.
Even though every moment they waited was another life slain, Rayleigh still managed to convince Killua to wait for him to plan out an answer using meditation.
About thirty minutes from when he started, Rayleigh opened his eyes. "I got it."
Killua and Gon both let out a sigh of obvious relief. If he didn't come up with a plan, they could only wing it and hope for the best.
Rayleigh got up and said, "We need to split up. Gon, you'll continue on foot toward the meeting place in the Capital city of Peijing. Along the way, you'll meet a Chameleon who will be of great help. Killua, I figured out that if you attack their bases without a plan, you are doing exactly what they want."
Killua argued, "What? How?"
Rayleigh explained, "No matter how brainwashed this country is, after a few days, they will eventually figure out there is a problem as more villages go missing. That means the country can, at most, test only half or up to two-thirds of its population before they wise up. But if you try to stop them and make a scene, they can enact martial law and justify the force they will require to get the other half of the country and ensure the people stay indoors and don't defend themselves or run."
Gon shouted, "What! They're even planning for that? Then what can we do?"
Ray smirked, "We use their own move against them. Killua, go ahead and go through with your plan. I'll take care of things on my side and meet up with you once I'm done. It's up to you how many people you want to kill or how you want to act. Just don't get caught, don't get predicted, and make a big scene. It will help if you can destroy or at least disable as many helicopters as you can. Other than that, you'll be acting as a big distraction while I make a few preparations."
Killua nodded, "No problem. I'll make it loud and flashy."
Gon asked, "So we're all splitting up?"
Ray nodded, "I'll meet back up with Killua once I'm done and we'll meet back up with you, Shoot, and Knuckle before meeting up with Nov and Morel at the meeting place."
At that moment, Rayleigh's cell phone rang. He pulled it out and ended the call without answering. He did send a text though.
[Too late. Better luck next time.]
Gon asked, "Who was that?" He was curious who would call Rayleigh only to get hung up on.
Ray shook his head, "A girl trying to repay me for a favor. But I don't need what she was going to give me, so there was no point in answering."
Rayleigh wasn't the only one in this world capable of seeing the future, and one such person owed him a favor. She tried to repay it by giving him the info he needed, but he got it before she did.
It wasn't her fault. Rayleigh once compared the Force to a fully packed high school. Secrets and knowledge of the future hung around like whispers and rumors between the various members of all the cliques. Rayleigh, who was on speaking terms with every one of the proverbial cliques, could listen to them all. Even if that girl was creating a Hatsu that granted her the ability to see into the future, it was only a prototype at the moment and she could not see the events of the Republic of East Gorteau as clearly as Rayleigh could since she wasn't even in the same country and it would not affect her.
Rayleigh figured the first thing she saw using her prototype was the true cost of owing Rayleigh a favor, so she tried to repay it back as soon as possible. Too bad for her she missed the chance.
The trio agreed to split up and Rayleigh went to work. Thankfully, this was not a war. If there were two opposing sides, Rayleigh's connection to the Force would limit him from taking part in either side because any conflict that led to war would have involved mistakes made on both sides anyways, and joining either side only built upon those mistakes. At least that was how the Force perceived it. But this was not a war. The Chimera Ants did not have a philosophy, or a belief, and were not fighting for the future. As far as the Force was concerned, they were an infection.
As for how to deal with the ants? He had many options. The Chimera Ant's plan was quite smart. It took into account multiple variables and made it so that, in essence, their opposition worked for them. It was very clever, but not that clever. The reason it would have worked was that there seemed to be interference from the Hunter's side. Rayleigh wasn't the smartest person on the planet among those paying attention to this place. Plenty of others had seen the ant's plan and took no action to go against it because they predicted an outcome that would benefit them in the end. How many people died on the path to achieving that outcome was just an unimportant number.
Rayleigh looked forward to meeting them so he could kick their ass, but their presence would not affect his own plans. The problem that many in the Hunter Association had when it came to this matter was that they all thought like humans and assumed the ants thought like humans as well. The President, Morel, and Nov assumed the worst-case scenario was the King discovering the assassination plan and vanishing to go into hiding where he would accumulate power until he was too large of a threat to stop. They were assuming he thought like a human.
Rayleigh did not have that problem. He had received lessons on countless alien species and the general rules for quantifying specific behavioral patterns to figure out how they think and will respond. He knew that there was no chance the King would flee. He also knew that there was no chance the King would decline a fight if someone worthy showed up. When two Kings meet for battle, the one who flees forfeits their right as King. This was true for many animals as well.
But, even if Rayleigh knew this, he'd get in a bit of trouble if he just flipped the board of a game he wasn't even a player in. He wasn't strong enough yet to piss off every player who thought of him as either a wild card or a piece. So he had to act with a bit of prudence.
Thankfully, this sort of thing was par for the course for the average Jedi. His lessons and training gave him more than enough knowledge to single-handedly topple this country even without any assistance. With a bit of help, he could do it in a day.
The first thing Rayleigh did was find the road and use Overdrive to run as fast as he could. He would not be able to travel the length of the country on a single use of Ren, but he could still go very, very far before he needed to recharge. His speed was also much faster than a car, though he didn't meet many on the roads.
Rayleigh had about twenty-four hours before Killua's actions was large enough to get the Ants to declare Martial Law, and Rayleigh intended to use that time wisely.
From what Rayleigh was told, the Ants learned about human society through the use of books, and after reading just about everyone they could get their hands on, they formulated complex plans and strategies to enact their goals. Rayleigh was willing to bet that there was one subject that was sorely lacking in their research. Infrastructure.
No one questions how a country works, how the pieces fit together, and all the trial-and-error it takes to achieve the balance that most countries rely on to function. Why not? Because if they did, most would freak the fuck out because of how incredibly fragile the entire system is. They just don't want to know. Because of this, books on infrastructure would not be found among the ones acquired by the ants in various villages and towns.
Rayleigh knows of course. A well-trained Jedi is required to know about infrastructure because without knowing what a government needs to function, they can't use that knowledge to negotiate with those governments.
If this country worked off capitalism, he wouldn't be able to do anything to the infrastructure. Capitalism doesn't care about the people, the happiness, or the lives, only the profit. Anything that could impact profit is maintained as well as it could be without harming the profit. Things like infrastructure were passively maintained in the background of capitalist countries, but the Republic of East Gorteau was a dictatorship. A decent infrastructure was actually a threat to such a regime because it allowed its people too much personal power and freedom. Instead, they kept it to the absolute minimum necessary to work at least half the time.
Why was any of that important? Because for the country to test and kill off 99% of its population, it would be relying on that fragile infrastructure.
The Republic of East Gorteau had dozens of military bases scattered around, and most of the main roads were basically just the paved dirt between the bases with side streets leading to the villages and the actual paved road only existing closer to the capital city. While Killua distracted the various bases, Rayleigh would be crippling this main road and stopping all transit using it.
It wasn't hard for such poorly maintained roads to lose their function. Rayleigh would pick a spot where the trees around the road were particularly dense and then cut a large number of trees before and after that spot with his Nensaber. Then he would use the Force to telekinetically lift the fallen trees and stack them into a massive pile on the road while interlocking them with the trees around the spot to make them much harder to move. Rayleigh's connection to the Force was strong enough to finish making a roadblock like this in only two minutes.
Of course, he predicted that the military bases would use armored vehicles to plow through the barricades and uproot the trees they were locked into. To account for this, he added a little trap. Rayleigh removed the dirt on the road, basically using the Force to dig a deep pit. He then covered the pit with densely piled trees. Any tank that came through and made it past the trees would fall into the pit. Rayleigh tried to make at least one Pit trap for every military base. He also destroyed anything that looked weak. Bridges were brought down, landslides were generated, and any easy way he spotted to make a nuisance of himself was not missed.
Rayleigh also snuck into many of the military bases and broke their short-range radios without making them look broken from the outside. These were the secure communications that were used to give and direct orders to the various bases. Of course, the soldiers could still use cell phones, but almost no one in such a poor country had one. The cellphone towers were to encourage rich tourists to come since no one wants to visit a place where their cell phone doesn't work. And since poor countries like this over-relied on radios, the military bases didn't have any hardline landline phones because it wasn't worth it to invest in such infrastructure when Radios worked just fine.
Once the radio was disabled in a way they could not possibly fix, the only form of communication the base could receive was the TVs that worked off short-range antennae.
After twenty hours, Rayleigh had made several dozens of roadblocks all over the country and disabled the short-range radios for most of the military bases. He even saw Killua once or twice, but both had their jobs and they didn't stop to chat.
Killua destroyed multiple vehicles, killed dozens of controlled soldiers, and went to many different villages and told them to head West and avoid the bases if they wanted to live. Compared to him, no one cared about the roadblocks. Those who found one or two never suspected how many were actually out there and considered it a small matter. Those who tried reporting it over the radio were unable to do so and thought the Radio was merely broken. Such things were normal. The ones who didn't give up could only get it escalated using their commander's cell phones, but every base commander was in constant contact with the others discussing Killua. No one cared about the roads when their fighter jets were being taken out by a lone thirteen-year-old.
The following night, Rayleigh sat in a relay station outside the capital city of Peijing. The massive satellite on this building was the source of local news and radio from the city to the rest of the country. Rayleigh walked in without a fuss. Some guards and managers questioned him, but he diverted their attention with the good ol' Jedi Mind Trick. They had better things to do than worry about a small child that was definitely not suspicious at all.
[... and now re-wire the last three relays.. yes. good. Well done, Master. I believe your operation was a success.]
Rayleigh looked over his work and nodded. Creating a recording of his voice was easy. Getting that recording to play over a live broadcast without changing the picture was less easy. Ensuring that all this equipment was disabled beyond repair after the recording ended was not easy at all. In order to make sure he didn't make any mistakes, Rayleigh got out HK-47 and asked for his input on how to proceed with his plan.
Rayleigh confirmed his work once more before putting the tools he used away and moving everything back to how it looked before he got here. He then picked up HK-47's head and said, "Thank you for your help."
[Declaration: I exist to serve Master. Although I do wish you had used more of my suggestions in the recording, I am pleased that this should lead to a bloody conflict with a great deal of killing and dismemberment. To be able to take part in such unadulterated violence even while I am in such a disreputable state pleases me to no end.]
Rayleigh rolled his eyes before heading off. The few security guards and military officers walking around were avoided with a simple, "You saw me with my father, you have no reason to worry about me."
After getting clear of the broadcast station, Rayleigh headed toward a nearby village and waited. He didn't have to wait long. Each and every village had at least one tower that contained speakers. They had only a single use.
As they turned on, the speakers blared a loud siren multiple times. Unsurprisingly, this got everyone's attention. This speaker tower was a relay speaker, a part of the Emergency Broadcast System, and designed to deliver messages to every ear in the Republic of East Gorteau at the same time.
After a few loud buzzes, a woman's voice was heard. "Good evening. The dearly beloved leader of our land Diego has an urgent announcement to make. To ensure that our great leader's message will be heard clearly throughout the nation, we request that all relay speakers in all regions be turned to maximum volume. All televisions and radios should be on, and the volume raised to its maximum settings."
After a short pause, another voice appeared, this time from a monotone male. Those watching a TV would see a picture of the nation's head honcho wearing sunglasses. "Good evening.. My beloved citizens. I'm Diego."
Surprisingly, at least to everyone listening but Rayleigh, the audio then cut out. Those watching a TV still saw the sunglasses-wearing tyrant moving his jaw up and down, but didn't hear a sound from him. A moment later, another voice came through on the speakers. But it was not Diego's.
This voice seemed to come from a young man and to those who paid attention, his accent matched that of the locals of the region. This voice gave a very alarming message. "The leader of the Republic of East Gorteau has passed away. To those watching a television, you see what our government is willing to do to cover this fact up. You see the disrespected corpse of our former leader puppeteered like a sick joke. His dead, unblinking eyes, hidden behind sunglasses. The only moving part you see is that of his jaw moving up and down. There is no emotion on his face and if the audio had not been replaced, you would notice that the words being played over his announcement don't even match the movement of his lips."
Rayleigh smiled at the shocked expressions the local villagers had as his recording aired to millions of people. Of course, he had no idea if Diego's dialogue was properly lip-synching or not, but since they couldn't tell, he could make accusations they had no way of proving false.
And since the first lie would do its job to bring doubt, the remaining lies would work better in cementing that doubt.
Rayleigh's message continued, "Diego's death has been covered up in order to facilitate a Coup d'état. The usurped military has been given orders to go to every village and force them to declare their loyalty to the new regime. All the citizens loyal to Diego have been killed. What is worse, is that this murderous regime is blaming the deaths on others and intends to use this to enact Martial Law. Using Martial Law, they will justify the open movement of their disloyal armed forces to all villages to search for rebels that will not bend to the betrayers. They will demand that all citizens stay indoors and wait for their traitorous military to force their loyalty at gunpoint. I'm sure some of you may not believe me. You don't even know who I am. Well then, I shall tell you."
Rayleigh's audience throughout the country waited with bated breath for the reveal.
"I am General Roy Mustang, the most loyal servant of Diego's eldest son and your new rightful leader, King Bradley."
Rayleigh had to clench his teeth to prevent himself from laughing and drawing any attention to himself from the crowd.
"King Bradley has lived in the Republic of West Gorteau until now for his own safety, to protect him from the disloyal snakes that stayed hidden near our beloved leader, waiting for the time to strike, waiting until now. And now that Diego has passed away, it is our duty to swear our loyalty to our new and rightful ruler, King Bradley. I have sacrificed my life to ensure this message is delivered to my fellow countrymen so that our beloved leader's favorite son takes his rightful place on the throne. To all those who would rather die than see the usurpers control our country, take as much food as you can carry and head west to the Republic of West Gorteau. There you will meet King Bradley who will protect you from the usurpers. Do not use vehicles, you must avoid the roads. The villainous military that has already betrayed Diego has blocked all the roads to prevent escape, so you must flee on foot. For those who have any doubts, those doubts will vanish once you find the empty villages of your neighbors in the west filled with the corpses of those who refused to surrender. Long live King Bradley!"
To those who had TVs, the emotionless face of Diego kept moving its mouth up and down. The sunglasses he wore while indoors was viewed with suspicion. Plenty of families took the time to examine that face and confirmed that, other than the jaw that moved up and down, it didn't seem to move in any other way. No arm movement, no eyebrow or nose movement, not even the moving of his chest to indicate he was breathing. Hell, as long as you paid attention, you could at least see that he was not blinking by looking at his eyebrows.
Rayleigh found some of the more responsible-looking adults in the village that still seemed to be hesitating and used another Jedi Mind Trick on them. "King Bradley will reward those who find him first and swear their loyalty." These brainwashed guys didn't stay out of self-preservation. They stayed because they were brainwashed and conditioned. Rather than break it, he just had to use it against them.
Unsurprisingly, that line did it. Those few people started packing and those who hesitated saw them and started packing as well, starting a chain reaction.
This was one of the villages closest to the capital city and furthest from the Republic of West Gorteau. As they moved through other villages, those villages would join them in their migration west. Rayleigh intended to travel to all the villages close to the city and do the same to create a massive wave.
As for the city itself, they had no idea what was happening. The edited audio only affected the broadcast through the relay station satellite, meaning it only affected radios and tv antennas. The actual capital city got the original version which told them to enact Martial Law. It would take a few minutes for them to figure out what was going on, and Rayleigh intended to use those few minutes wisely. On his way to the other villages, Rayleigh sent a few text messages.
[To Morel, Shoot, Gon, Killua: I've hacked the cell phone towers. Mine is now the only cell phone that works in the country. If you have a message to send to someone, send it to me and I'll relay it.]
Yes, other than messing with the emergency broadcast, HK-47 also helped him hack the cell phone tower terminal to ensure that only his cell phone's sim card could work. Any other would get a busy signal. The signal for this was the end of the Emergency Broadcast. Rayleigh also set a kill switch in the broadcast station itself that would basically break everything at the end of the Emergency Broadcast. So once the broadcast was over, every Antenna TV and public radio station in the whole of the Republic of East Gorteau stopped working.
It didn't take long for Rayleigh to get some text messages.
[Morel: What the hell are you doing? Didn't you hear about the martial law?!]
[Killua: Was that message yours? Nice. I destroyed every helicopter I could find by the way. Why did you need that?]
[To Killua: The thing I did with the cell phones can't be fixed easily without access to a helicopter.]
[To Morel: I hacked the broadcast for the audio that aired outside the city. The guys in the city don't know it yet, but everyone in the country now knows that Diego is dead and to run away to the Republic of West Gorteau.]
[To Morel: I also made it look like someone inside the country is responsible for this, so even if the King investigated it, it would look like the country itself was retaliating, not an outside force. If it's just from the country fighting back, he won't run away, so don't worry about that.]
That should cover just about everything. The only thing left was the residents of the city, but they were all scheduled to come to the palace on the 10th day, which was after their planned assassination was set to go off so the King should be dead before then.
[Killua: I'll keep convincing people to head west.]
[To Killua: Remember to tell me when they start watching you so I can come over.]
[Killua: Ok.]
The announcement wasn't just for the villagers. It was for the military as well. Each and every soldier still thought they were loyal to Diego. And each and every military base had a relay speaker and heard every word of Rayleigh's speech.
Those who decided to defect would assist the villagers in going to West Gorteau. But what was going to happen to the ones who didn't care about the Coup d'état was even funnier. Rayleigh implied that the roadblocks were made by the loyalists to the new regime. Since their radios were broken and the cell phones stopped working, they would have difficulties confirming if the roadblocks were placed by their own government or not. This would delay their response to getting them removed.
Of course, none of that was the best part. While deciding whether or not to save the country, Rayleigh also had to decide how far he was willing to go to save it.
What if you saw someone about to get hit by a car and pulled them out of the way, saving their life? Then you discovered they were ill and would die if they did not receive the medical treatment they could not afford. Then you discovered that there was an assassination bounty placed on them. How far would you go to save their life?
Rayleigh decided to go as far as he could. Even if he saved the lives of the citizens of the Republic of East Gorteau, they were still brainwashed sheep that had no idea how to free themselves from their own tyrants, and another one would replace seize power as soon as this mess was over.
Rayleigh's plan did not simply save them. Obviously, there was no King Bradley. But Diego was dead. Rayleigh honestly didn't have a clue if Diego had kids or not, it didn't matter since no one else knew either.
Once the citizens left their villages and headed west, that was the first step in denying a regime without Diego. Once they learned there was no King Bradley, they would either have to go back to the regime they denied, or do something else. The Republic of West Gorteau was not on friendly terms with East Gorteau, that's why they split. When West Gorteau basically got the entire population minus the capital city of East Gorteau, they'd have the leverage to take it over completely.
The guys in West Gorteau would be able to figure this out without anyone telling them. They would definitely accept the refugees from East Gorteau knowing that said refugees would eventually return home and the whole of East Gorteau would fall into their hands. And while West Gorteau was not exactly the best place in the world to live, it was many levels up from East Gorteau.
About ten minutes after the announcement, Rayleigh got a call from Morel. Rayleigh figured Morel and Nov had just finished discussing what was happening.
Rayleigh answered, "Sup Morel. How's life in the big city?"
[I'm not even going to ask how you disabled the cell phones, but what the hell did you do with the announcements? You said you changed the audio outside the city?]
"Yeah. After Killua said he wanted to stop the killings, I predicted they'd use the emergency broadcast, so I hacked that and made some arrangements. I basically told everyone that Diego's son wants them to head West so he can protect them from the usurpers who killed him."
[Diego doesn't have a son.] was the immediate reply.
"That just makes things easier. I also disabled all TVs and radios outside of Peijing so they won't be getting any more instructions or another Emergency Broadcast."
Although it was called the capital city of Peijing, Peijing was actually the only city in the Republic of East Gorteau. They just added 'capital city' to its title to make tourists think East Gorteau had more than one city. The next largest populated area was a decently sized town surrounded by two military bases around the middle of East Gorteau.
Morel sighed over the phone and stated back, [You're taking a lot of risks here.]
"Not really. Just changing the rules a bit. The ants won't know how to fix this."
[You think they can't ask the members of the government who remained in the palace?]
Rayleigh loudly scoffed, "You think elected officials know how to fix a broken country?"
Morel unconsciously gave a huff of agreement. [You know they have military advisors too.]
"I broke the radios in every military base and Killua destroyed their helicopters. Without cell phones, those bases can't receive any new orders."
[They can fix the radios.]
"They don't have the parts, I checked." If the military base was in a foreign country, they'd have the parts, but when parts were a short day's travel to the city to get, none of the bases bothered to store extras.
One reason to impede contact was that Rayleigh did acknowledge that Military advisors were usually competent. Most of them started at the bottom and worked their way up, so they had a general idea of the infrastructure required for everything to work. Those who start at the top have no idea what's below them. In any case, Rayleigh didn't foresee any problems from the bases. Those who did not go to West Gorteau on their own would be trapped without orders and find it very difficult to receive them.
The only complication was the puppets used by the Cat-girl Chimera Ant, but Rayleigh learned through Kite's corpse that she cannot give them new orders without being up close, so she'd have to leave the palace if she wanted to do anything useful. Since the ants knew that their enemies wanted to draw away the Royal Guard, they obviously could not leave.
[Wait, you said you told them all to go to West Gorteau? Do you have any idea what kind of political shit-show that will cause?]
Rayleigh answered in a bland voice that was half monotone, half sarcasm, "No. I have no idea that it will cause a revolution and that the armies of East and West Gorteau will fight it out. I am totally unaware that without the population of farmers, the citizens of Peijing will run out of food by the time of the selection and that after the King has been assassinated, the weakened Military will have to spread themselves thin to acquire food and empty their money reserves as the armies of West Gorteau march on their soil and eventually make their way to Peijing. I am completely clueless about the fact that by the time the armies of West Gorteau arrive, Peijing will be almost completely out of food, money, and ammo, and have no choice but to surrender and merge back under the rule of West Gorteau. Got it?"
Morel didn't answer. He couldn't. He was having trouble processing the fact that Rayleigh's plan was not simply to save the citizens, but to start a war that would see the end of the Republic of East Gorteau.
It was at that moment that Nov took the phone and said, [I understand. You simply did an impulsive act, and as a child in a difficult situation, can not be held responsible for your actions.]
Rayleigh replied, "Exactly. I'm just a brat trying to save lives and fight monsters. What the hell do I know about politics? I can't possibly understand the ramifications of my actions."
[Agreed. Call if anything comes up. Shoot and Knuckle said they would be targeting a fast-moving Chimera Ant on its way to Peijing. Make sure they keep in contact with you so you will know if they are killed. And do make sure you do not die yourself.] With that, he hung up.
Thanks to the liberal use of the Jedi Mind Trick, Rayleigh had all the closest villages and towns to Peijing start evacuating West on foot in less than an hour. Thinking that there were military roadblocks, they decided to avoid the roads and travel through the forest. Many stayed, but there was nothing Rayleigh could do about that. He was not a god. The number of people he failed to save in the long run would always be higher than those he successfully saved. Even the ones he did save today would face their own troubles in the future that Rayleigh would be unable to help with. What mattered was that he did what he could and gave a chance to those who originally had none.
It was then that Rayleigh got a text message.
[Killua: They've got me surrounded and there's a sniper.]
Rayleigh quickly texted back, [I'm on my way, hold tight.]
*Author's Note*
And that is how a Force User who doesn't prescribe to the Light Side or Dark Side destroys a country. He didn't kill or even harm a single individual. At least not directly.
And in the next chapters, we're back to the action. Stones and reviews will fuel the next chapter to come out in 48 hours.