[color=blue][b][u]Documentation Updates[/u][/b][/color] ------------------- His Mightiness, King Lionel XVIII of Leonine speaking; you also know me as the Monarch Major, referencing both my duties as the king of Leonine, and as a drum major and percussionists that performs for the musical payroll system. The whole month of March in Wildcat City is primarily focused on marching bands and drum and bugle corps (with the payroll focusing on the latter for this year), but we do always acknowledge other holidays, since there seems to be a holiday for every day of the year. In this case, March 10th is known as Mario Day to all who celebrate it. (This is because MAR. 10, when you smash it together, spells out “MARIO.”) It’s not as big of a day to us as June 23rd (Sonic the Hedgehog Day), but the city has plenty of Mario fans in it, and Sonic and his friends frequently play Mario tunes with their instruments to pay tribute to the plumbers in red and green. As Super C stated, while the first eight documentation waves were made public, the C.I.D.F. then felt silly about doing it because it led to a risk of these individuals being attacked by more criminals and scammers later on, so they’re keeping the lists private from this day forward. Thankfully, we never had that problem, even though that’s mainly because CNG and/or IC2 had killed off all the people that were going after them for the wrong reasons. (IC3 doesn’t kill off the humans, but it does follow the trend of seeing to it that they will never live anything down.) All I am allowed to tell you about the ninth wave is that my palace is hosting the proceedings, since the G-52 HQ was not available, and Cripto wasn’t ready to open up his home to the public again. (The fact his basement was the site for the third wave was because he volunteered to let it happen there since G-52 HQ was unavailable, and Leo the Patriotic Lion was all tied up in his duties as President of the United States. Today, he is the UN Secretary-General, and the supernatural is taking advantage of that, because the world is still preaching that if it doesn’t obey him to the letter, the consequences will be so severe, and will last forever.) It allowed the guests from out of town to get a good look at the palace, because it was a 100%-accurate recreation of the palace I lived in back on Leonine. “It was a gift from the city,” I explained, “and it was very generous of them because Wildcat City is a city devoted to preserving all facets of history as they really happened, whether for better or for worse.” The wave began with a big parade that took us down the streets of the city and to my palace, but the only documented animals marching in the parade were the animals in various uniforms, because they had fallen for the mindset that it was mandatory that they pad (go barefoot), or do the equivalent, only to discover that Super C did not mandate it. (“The supernatural just wanted you to think that; casual dress would have been okay,” he said.) These included military personnel from all six branches (Air Force, Space Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard), those wearing marching band uniforms and playing instruments, those in scouting uniforms, and those that were dressed as the ringmaster of a circus. (The convention in question was a different one than the one from the previous eight waves.) Some of the casually dressed animals were also padding, but not all of them. Of the first responders, only the police officers were padding; the firefighters and paramedics wore shoes, boots, or the other appropriate footwear. Yet what do they all have in common? They were all humans until CNG took it away from them, made them anthro animals, and gave them superpowers just to get them in trouble with the law. Yet they did nothing wrong that constituted penalty from the law. As always, we had a drummer of honor performing each day, always drumming on a concert snare drum unless they wanted to keep using the marching drum they were beating. After the national anthem was played, we’d get the details of the drummer, and ask him or her to choose a piece of music he or she liked. The bulk majority of these drummers were male, but we did have at least one female, because the lioness had been added to the nine units of female Drumbums, known as Drumbumettes. She used her battery snare drum instead because she was more used to it, but she still chose “The Daughters of Texas,” a Sousa march, as her song of choice. “All nine units come from Texas, but that may be just a coincidence,” she said afterwards. “Have you had any more trouble from the city of Dallas?” I asked. “I know the Cowboys fans are driving you mad.” “As of this point, we haven’t,” she replied. “We were asked to patrol around it and play our music, but our intentions were to boost the morale of the people, not drain it. The supernatural wants to use our music to punish the public; that’s what’s happening in Philadelphia and Kansas City, too.” “The supernatural will answer for that,” Super C reassured her. “You may or may not have noticed that while this is the case, there’s always going to be somebody who appreciates your efforts. When the appointed leader of the Drumbum Minotaurs, Miles Grandridge, wrote me a letter one day, he said that all he and his troops wanted to do was perform a patriotic-themed halftime show to entertain the crowds present while they were waiting for the solar eclipse. All they wanted to do was provide a sound essential to the event. Instead, the supernatural used it as an excuse to make the entire crowd regret they were even born, let alone bother to go to the event. Remember, we almost had a crowd crush on that day.” “I remember; I was hiding in my house until it was over. I take it he wasn’t happy about the whole thing, was he?” “No, not really. He was very cross indeed. It was standard patriotic American march music he and his bands were playing. He thought the purpose of that was to boost the morale of the people; instead, it drained it to zero.” The Cat of Steel shrugged his shoulders. “I guess the supernatural didn’t pay attention to the consequences of what would happen if Leo really was the Galactic Emperor of the whole universe.” “I guess not.” -------------------- While we are not revealing the whole list to you (again as a safety precaution), the principles behind it were the same as the previous eight. All humans who played musical instruments got the same batch of superpowers: [quote][color=white][i]1. Being able to summon any instrument and play it at the Forsythian level, which was said to be “beyond professional.” 2. Being able to magically change clothes on the fly by waving one’s hands in front of themselves (usually their face). 3. Being able to manipulate sounds with one’s hands and feet, although almost nobody ever uses this power on purpose. 4. Being able to summon portals to help them get to a place faster in case of emergency.[/i][/color][/quote] ---------- A random selection of animals, such as the police officers and the animals dressed as a ringmaster, found they could do numbers 2 and 4 on this list, but not numbers 1 and 3. That we still do not have an explanation for yet. --------- Turning into an animal also rapidly matured one’s behavior for the most part, even though they were living with the eccentricities that had been planted into their minds when CNG got to them. For example, we had scores and scores of lion cubs, tiger cubs, bear cubs, and wolf pups in scouting uniforms, all of whom had made it a habit not just to pad, but to drill march in formation. Some of the adults in scoutmaster uniforms felt they were to blame for that, similar to a previous case from the eighth wave where a father and two sons, all bears, had these habits. (The father had been a military drill instructor and carried it over into his civilian life, which risked traumatizing his two sons, but the trio had made amends with each other and with Super C afterwards.) However, once we reassured them that the supernatural was at fault, not them, they felt better. ---------------- We also had plenty of furries in superhero garb and wearing the fancy dress (such as a tuxedo with bowtie), because they had gone to various superhero and TV game show-themed conventions, but again, they weren’t the same as the ones from before. Unique to the superhero furs, however, were that they came in groups of two, three, or four, each wearing the same premise of a superhero’s costume. This is because they had been finalists in a contest the convention held, with the winners guaranteed to have a comic book published starring their superhero self as the lead character, and the public got to vote on which of the group would be the official hero, while the others would reorganize themselves as other supporting characters that assisted the hero when needed. (Many of the losing contestants ended up having comics published anyways, because the owners and rights holders liked what they saw.) For example, there were three tigers wearing red and black form fitting outfits, all with the letters “XB” on their chests; the “XB” stood for “Extreme Bengal” (stylized as “Xtreme”). The winning tiger had the letters in white, however, as well as wearing white gloves and boots, though he still had a red cape. “So why are you the Extreme Bengal?” I asked. “The back-story,” he said, “is a variation of how CNG had taken my humanity away from me, because the character I play was a human being that was kidnapped and forced into an experiment in the villain’s lab. The intention was for me to be his slave. Instead, he got the formula all wrong because he overlooked one little detail—he added too much of a chemical—and it gave me superpowers. Go figure. Now I’m virtually indestructible. It’s a bit like how Cripto is the real world’s ultimate superhero.” “That’s interesting,” said Super C. “Does the real you have the same powers the fictional you does?” “Yes, I do. Flight, super speed, super strength, super X-ray vision, super hearing, super high jump, super sense of smell. The basic package. The one thing that the real me doesn’t have that the fictional me does is the ability of omniscience. This is to pay homage to some of those old cartoons from the 1960s and 70s that were pretty cheesy. I’m glad I don’t actually know everything.” “So am I. It would give me a headache the size of Rita Repulsa.” (Note that while the G-52s aren’t necessarily Power Rangers fans, 2023 marked the 30th anniversary of that franchise, so they recruited many allies that were cosplayers of the various Rangers. 2025 marks 50 years of the Japanese franchise Power Rangers is an adaptation of, Super Sentai, and so Ryo the Samurai Lion helped with the induction of several Japanese furries—also formerly human—that liked to cosplay as those characters. Because of this, Super C frequently mentions the franchises.) “I bet it would. By the way, does your Code of Conduct include the basic rules that Zordon had the Rangers follow? I used to be a Power Rangers fan.” “Well, the one about keeping one’s identity secret is not there, because I was once unmasked by a bank robber in the hopes of ending my superhero career. The public instead urged me to keep on fighting, even if my secret was no longer a secret. A law was also passed making it illegal to unmask a superhero, but that has since been deemed unconstitutional. Because of this, I give my recruits the option to keep it secret in the traditional method, or go ahead and let it out in the open. Most of them let it out in the open.” “Then I’ll probably do the same.” “However, the two other rules they follow are in the Code, and allies to the G-52s also must abide by the Code, though with a few exceptions. You actually have superpowers, so you must not use them for personal gain, and you must not escalate a battle unless the enemy forces you to do so. That second case happens more than you might think, thanks to the GSAF.” “Ugh! I hate the GSAF!” “Yeah; don’t we all?” said another tiger that was a candidate to be the chosen Extreme Bengal. --------------- After the day’s ceremonies were complete, Super C had the tiger that became Extreme Bengal set up an appointment at G-52 HQ so that he could test his powers in the Cat of Steel’s famous simulation room, “The Cube,” a reference to when he hosted “The Krypton Factor” from 2008 to 2016, and again in 2019. (WBC is in the process of bringing the show back again for the fall of 2025, and Super C will once again be the host. Over the summer, he’ll be doing a special preview limited-run series of the same show, inviting past champions to compete for a $200,000 cash prize. The regular grand prize remains $50,000, but the winners have the option to accept it as cash, or take it as gold.) At a later date, he would induct him as the latest G-52, and he would do the same with several others, so stay tuned; we’ll give you the bios in due time. --------------- This completes the news updates. Thanks for your time, and as always, never be afraid to march to the beat of your own drum. --------- [color=gold][b]THE END[/b][/color]