[color=tan][b][u]The Case of the Monarch Worshiper[/u][/b][/color] ----------------- You probably know me as the Monarch Major, but if you want to be formal, I am His Mightiness, King Lionel XVIII of Leonine. Other titles such as “His Majesty” or “His Highness,” or anything else appropriate would also work, but the word “mightiness” is often used to help distinguish me from another famous lion, the great monarch of Kriegland, His Majesty, King Leo V. If any lion is the quintessential definition of the word “majesty” when speaking about a monarch, he is the one. And yes, I would be saying that if I wasn’t the king of Leonine. Yes; it’s true there were mistakes made over the years, but it’s harder to tell with him than it is with me because his reign was only three years long; mine was longer than that, although I have lost count. Of the four living monarchs of the Forsythe System, the longest-lasting is the odd one out (because he is a rat and not a cat of sorts), His Exalted Highness, King Ross II of Ratatat. I fall in second place. Third place goes to the king of 1776, King Lacklund VII (a white tiger), and then King Leo. King Ross is also the odd one out because he’s a saxophonist, while the three of us felines are percussionists. King Ross, however, embraces the fanfares of brass and drums that announce his presence, and he never takes them for granted. Speaking of drums, you might have heard from Leo the Patriotic Lion (now serving as POTUS, or President of the United States) that September is “Music Involvement Month.” For us monarchs, that meant our wonderful fancy palaces were almost constantly filled with the sounds of music, with percussion being the dominant sound because percussion was quite valuable to the Forsythe System. That may have been CNG at work since it wanted a universe where everything was the same, but I do not think that is the case. We always understood that percussion was important to everything, but contrary to what CNG wanted everybody to think, we did not worship them like gods. Why do I say that? Well, just a few days before CNG’s demise, the C.I.D.F. gave a presentation on how it operated by itself without any prompting, which put organizations such as INTERPOL, the ICC, the FBI, and the CIA at a whole new stress level. They had to distinguish which CNG-related acts were ones it did by itself so that no innocent lives would be wrongly punished, and which ones were criminals genuinely trying to use it for their own gains. But what would they gain from using that stuff? Absolutely nothing! One such rumor was the fact that the citizens of the Forsythe System were worshipping us in such a manner because they were jealous of our talents. “Such behavior would not be tolerated,” I told the press. “We are only the rulers of our kingdoms; we are not deities.” Roger J. Raticus (the Snare Soldier), who has proven himself to be the greatest drummer the Forsythe System ever had, also confessed he was having the same rumors spread about him. “It angers me,” he said, “and it brings out that military general anger I may have shown at times, since all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But by no means did any rat ever hold a shrine to me. If anybody praised me, they gave me the military salute as my soldiers and I marched in victory parades. However, this was CNG acting by itself. If you humans had been guilty of doing this, that would be a different story.” “I hope none of you out there actually believe that garbage,” King Ross echoed. “If you did, and you were my resident, and I was in a really bad mood, then you’d have 200 hours of community service coming your way!” The timpani rat in his royal ensemble began banging on the timpani for dramatic effect. (Note that King Ross did not actually give community service out for reasons like that; he just said that to confirm that he was an absolute monarch, and he showed no tolerance for stupidity. Thus, Super C did not ding him a demerit for that comment.) ---------------- King Ross later felt a tiny bit of remorse from saying that, though, because he was the first of the four of us to discover how CNG had affected us even further. This is because Leo and Cripto weren’t the only ones to suffer from what modern historians called “the Leo effect,” where what came out of our mouths was treated as absolute law. The C.I.D.F. had done further presentations proving to the public that while CNG was dead, its effects would take tens of thousands of years to wear off. As a result, when King Ross said those words, and the timpani rat played the dramatic notes, the combination of words and notes brought forth the magical effects CNG had given to all four of us monarchs, whether for better or worse, because we had the same phenomenon going. Nobody from the United States or any of the Commonwealth Nations did this, but there was one man living in Romania, who had been suffering more than he could ever imagine. It did not help his cause that he had a combination of autism, ADHD, and other mental disorders, but everything fell apart for him, one case after the other. His family disowned him (and then died from CNG because of it); his wife divorced him and won custody of the kids, he lost his job, and he was having the government sure everything got repossessed. But it all started because he had indeed worshipped us like gods. Then he heard King Ross’s comments that we are not gods, and as a result, all these things began happening to him when the timpani rat began playing the dramatic fanfare. This man went into self-exile before we could talk to him so that he could repent of his sins. The three of us vowed amongst ourselves and our royal ensembles that we would not speak a word about this to King Ross because we would not want to set him off with a remark, or it might set off the alarms on the G-52 app. After all, we have the Yuxi litmus test going. However, he discovered it anyway because the news media had decided to leak to everybody that the man did worship him. It then reminded him of what he said, and that was when Super C found out about it. However, as we said, he didn’t ding a demerit on him. When the three of us stopped by to see him later on, we saw him talking to Super C about it. “I don’t know why I said that,” he admitted, “but I didn’t want to wish death upon this person.” “Nobody is to wish death upon anybody,” Super C replied, feeling compassionate, “but the things you say can get you in trouble if you take it too far. Besides, you did put emphasis on the fact that you would have done something like that only if you were in a bad mood. I thought your legacy as the king of Ratatat was among the most beloved.” “I am lucky to have a good reputation going, even though I had to learn this hard lesson about how it can be destroyed in just one second.” “Maybe you were having a bad day already?” “Possibly. I had been stressed out from varying circumstances.” “I get it. Sometimes I say dumb things when I’m stressed. Virtually all the G-52s have done that, but this isn’t something worth penalizing. All you and the ensemble wanted to do was making a point. It’s the aftermath of the CNG effects that are making you look bad, not you.” Super C noticed King Leo, and then added, “This is a topic I’ve had many discussions with him about, and look how he turned out.” (Indeed, King Leo had a period where, just like Leo the Patriotic Lion, he was building up darkness towards the heartless threshold, due to his huge intolerance of stupidity and bad behavior. But whereas Leo had reached 60% at his peak, King Leo only peaked at 49.3%. Both lions at this point had gotten down to under 20%, last Cripto and the other D-19 agents checked, but both are aiming for 10% or lower.) “What happened was not what you intended to happen,” King Leo echoed, and I nodded to confirm this. “The supernatural twisted it out of context, and since you can’t really fight the supernatural unless you are supernatural yourself—and Cripto is an example of that—you’re better off letting nature take its course. Shame on it for doing what it did.” Bit by bit, King Ross began to feel better about the whole thing, and to help him put him in a better mood, the rats of his royal ensemble rearranged themselves into a big band setup (since they were multi-talented on a variety of instruments; the lions of our ensembles and the tigers of King Lacklund’s ensemble are the same way), and let him let loose on a few solos. Super C left at that point to do some other duties related to his role as the G-52 commanding officer. ---------------- Having seen the news leak himself, Cripto, after checking to be sure his actions would not violate the G-52 Code of Conduct, went on a D-19 mission to heal the man’s conditions and bring him to a better life. (He serves both organizations, but each one works to ensure the duties of the other one do not result in crossing the line on one or both sides.) Upon arriving in Romania, he met with Leo’s parallel from that country, Liviu the Dark Lion, and the two went to the apartment where the man was now living. The man did not speak English, so Liviu had to talk some common sense into him before allowing Cripto to do his healing duties. “Have him sit down on the floor here so I can do this probably,” Cripto suggested, and the lion did so. Cripto then sat across from the man and went into one of his meditation exercises Father Alphonse had taught him when he first became a D-19 agent of light. (He now ranks at the royalty level, and being one of the seven chosen princes of heart on top of that ultimately led to his peers in the G-52s giving him the nickname “the tiger of purity.”) “What is he doing?” the man asked. “I don’t know; just stay quiet and let him work,” Liviu replied. ---------- About half an hour later, Cripto opened his eyes. “That should do it,” he said. “How do you feel right now?” Liviu asked the man in Romanian. (He translated into English and back.) “I feel…I feel like a whole new man!” the man replied. “Thank you so much!” He then gave hugs to both Cripto and Liviu. The tiger of purity had magically changed his condition so that the depression elements that led him to worship King Ross were no longer there, and his ADHD was not getting in the way. He was also starting to see a whole new positive outlook on life. At Liviu’s suggestion, Cripto dialed up King Ross on the G-52 app, and the lion again served as translator so that the man could apologize for believing in a cult that he had unconsciously made up himself, and worshipping the rat as a result. “Your apology is accepted,” the rat replied. “I have a few regrets saying what I said, but I had no idea that the ‘Leo effect’ applied to me, too.” Both had a long conversation about it before letting bygones be bygones. ------------------- Meanwhile, I took the responsibility of telling Leo the Patriotic Lion about the matter, also speaking to him via the G-52 app. “It makes more sense that it would happen to you and the other monarchs,” he said. “Your four are actually the rulers of your kingdoms, even though your kingdoms no longer exists, and you’re just citizens of the United States, having to obey the laws, rules, and regulations as outlined by our Constitution and its Amendments. I never had that luxury. CNG just decided I made a better choice to rule as the actual Galactic Emperor of the Universe, and since an emperor outranks a king, it would mean anything I said from those bad old days would overrule anything you said. However, the mystery is solved, the man’s life is better, and you no longer have this problem, so start celebrating. March forth, Monarch Major, and keep your head held high!” “Yes, sir!” I said as I saluted Leo. After the link broke off, I put on my drum major uniform (though still padding, meaning I was barefoot), strapped on my field drum (rope-tensioned snare drum) I play when I march, and began beating militaristic cadences. King Leo took his field drum as well, while King Lacklund took a bass drum. King Ross then took his mace he used when leading parades and waved it around a bit, and soon we all were in our uniforms. Our ensembles met us along the way as we began marching around the mansion. We kept our paws in step, and with each beat of the drums, we felt more patriotic than ever before. -------------- As for the Romanian man, his ex-wife reconciled with him and remarried him, and his parents also reconciled with him, although they couldn’t figure out how to add him back on to the family tree after chopping him off. But they did invite him to the family reunion that happened later that week, and Liviu made a special cameo appearance, so to speak, so he could witness the reconciliation first hand. -------------- Cripto, meanwhile, relaxed at his Eternan vacation home in Port Goodfate, although he first included the events in his monthly reports he had to write to his bosses. As for the rest of us, we kept on celebrating with more music of all genres. ----------------- [color=wheat][b]THE END[/b][/color]