Chapter 336: a new era

It was only for one day and some hours, but Mr. Trump felt that it was years already. He felt happy, just like the way his wife and 2 kids, Dandelion and Prince were happy too.

After what felt like forever, the lockdown was finally over and they survived.

Seeing the happy faces of the people all around him who took shelter in the same underground bunker as him and his family, his smile became broader, almost reaching the ends of his mouth.

During the night, they could not sleep as they were tense throughout, watching the projection that was showing the struggle of the previous night.

Knowing that their soldiers forfeited sleep just to fight on their behalf, they felt too ashamed to sleep. In the end, they took it upon themselves to cheer them on. It was superstitious, but they believed that their cheers helped.

During the early hours of the morning after the night raid ended, they finally had time to themselves to sleep and rest.

Due to some measures put in place by the soldiers who were guarding them, when the main battle pushed forward by the terrorists came, they couldn’t witness it as they were asleep.

When they woke up, they woke up to the news of victory.

As the soldiers escorted them out of the underground bunker, Mr. Trump felt a feeling in the atmosphere that he was familiar with.

Perhaps, the other less inexperienced civilians may only see it as a strange feeling caused by the victory, but he knew otherwise. He recognized what it was, it was a shift in era.

He could feel it, a new era was unveiling itself in Vatican City.

“What would it look like this time? It’ll obviously be better, right? With Major Clark around, everything will surely move forward in the right direction”.

As he still didn’t know of Clark’s breakthrough, he still addressed him as Major Clark.

He didn’t know how the Vatican City era with no terrorists would look like, but his gut feeling told him that it would be better than anything that he had seen before.

He felt anticipation for it, he wished time could just fast-forward and take him there. That would be a convenience that he would very much appreciate.

“Dad, is everything over?” Dandelion grasped her father’s trousers and pulled a bit, successfully getting his attention.

Seeing his daughter nudge closer to him, Mr. Trump’s smile grew even wilder. He bent down and easily lifted her into his hands. “Yes, dear, everything is over”.

Hearing that, the little girl’s eyes lit up. “Does that mean I’ll get to eat my ice cream again?”

The father laughed before pinching her mischievous little cheeks. “Yes”.

As all this happened between his father and his little sister, Prince’s focus was somewhere else as the memory of last night kept on playing in his head, over and over again.

The image just couldn’t leave his head, he was infatuated with it.

Feeling his mother’s hand rest on his head, gently scattering his hair, a smile lit up his face too as he turned to face her. She motioned to carry him but he dodged, making her laugh beautifully.

As one family, they made their way out of the bunker with the others and the guards.

They didn’t leave to their homes immediately though. After the guards explained the state of things to them, none of them protested so they all went to the government building to wait.

Getting to the government building, the place was already packed full.

Theirs was not the only underground bunker, the convergence of every citizen of the city in a single location meant that the compound was filled to the brim. Despite the stuffiness, none of them complained.

They were waiting for their returning heroes, so why should they complain?

The wait only took away 5 minutes of their time before they appeared, the heroes of the battle finally returned to the city.

Like usual, Clark’s exotic car was the one that was leading in the front as he quickly arrived at the front of the horde of civilians.

When he came down out of the car, he saw the excitement on their faces. He could see some of them with their quivering lips, they obviously had an urge to scream out excitedly but held themselves back.

After being separated from them for a time, stretching months, he finally appeared before them publicly again. He felt nostalgic.

When he started his career as a soldier, he never knew that he would one day become the leader of a city. Having the fate of a city on his shoulders, he had to confess that it was a different feeling entirely.

Before he arrived, a small platform that could serve as a podium was already erected in the middle of the crowd.

He still had bloodstains on his body after his armor was deactivated but he didn’t remove them, he stepped into the podium like that to address the civilians.

“Good day Vatican”. He paused.

Seeing the crowd giving him such respectful silence despite the sheer number of them, he felt a tear drop welling in his eyes. Perhaps it was because of his steel heart, but the tear didn’t drop.

He held the sound amplifier with his hands. “Today…, we confronted the Persian tigers organization”

“Today, we got fed up and declared an end to their tyranny”.

“Today, the whole of Vatican rose up with me to purge the terrorists”.

“Yes, it was a bitter battle…, but we succeeded”. He raised his right hand at the air for emphasis. “We fought hard and won!”

“Our brave soldiers, we lost some but they all fought a good battle. Their death was not in vain, their death was to make sure that the Vatican City of our dream becomes a reality”.

“Now, I declare a start to a new era”.

“From today, we will no longer live in fear of terrorists suddenly attacking us. Our children will live safer lives, and life overall will be easier for every citizen”.

“I, Captain Clark, I stand on this podium today and vow that I will always have the best interests of the city at heart”.

“Now, we won, but a lot of things were destroyed in the process”.

“We need to rebuild; we need to recover. Now is the time to state rebuilding our destiny in the way that we want”.

He clenched his raised hand into a fist. “For Vatican City!”

The people roared with him. “FOR VATICAN CITY!”

[Finally! An end to this minor arc, I hope you enjoyed it.]