The election had finally arrived, and no matter one’s feelings about politics or the candidates, it’d be hard for a beast to ignore the energy that surrounded what was once lauded as the country’s single biggest and most important event.This election had been one for the history books, as most media liked to tout, with Beltold Grump’s sudden and unexpected drop-out upsetting his party beyond words, lamenting that he “just gave the libs the election!”
As unexpected as the republican candidate dropping out was, it wasn’t the only sideswipe the election season experienced.
Towards the end of August, the head of LovelessCo, Garou Loveless, announced his bid for the Oval Office via the independent party. Billionaire businessmen entering the fray wasn’t unheard of by any means, but Garou fully funded every aspect of his campaign from beginning to end, ignoring all bids from the National Rifle Association and American Magic Guild, or the AMG for short. Garou promised the people that his interests were solely in politics that bettered the people and country and that no special interest group would have their hands in “already too full pockets”.
Entering the race so late and representing a party that largely goes unnoticed would usually mark the end of a hopeful candidate before things even begin. The Loveless Campaign had it a near-silent start, but within weeks, he had garnered an unprecedented following that neither imbued the violent, hateful tendencies of the Conservatives nor the performative, overly sensitive hand-holding from the Liberals. His more vocal detractors screamed cult-like mindset, while others offered neutered arguments about his lack of a stance on the rise of the Predator-Prey movement.
But possibly the biggest upset to a presidential run the world has ever seen was his lack of a running mate, which Garou simply claimed in the one interview held with Reuters that he “Didn’t feel he needed one” and that if and when he does win, that he’d “pick one from his company on election night.”
But the truth of the matter was Garou had already planned everything out long before he ever even announced his bid for the White House.
Inviting no major media outlet to his building, Garou sat at his desk in an all-black suit that somehow still clashed against the even darker fur that covered his muscular body. The large dire wolf leaned back in his chair, head resting on hands that were clasped together by threaded fingers.
A single camera sat idly by on a simple tripod near his desk while members of The Pack lingered about, sampling the various foods being offered to them as they had been freed from the confines of the barracks to join the single unifying point between them all.
Garou Loveless.
Tasker the Hyena, master of long-range combat with pinpoint accuracy using a sniper rifle. Syndel the Maned Wolf, second to none in strategy and planning out operations. Rebar the Musk Ox, the heavy unit that had taken bullets to the head before and kept on chugging, decimating his enemies with a mana-powered minigun.
Then there was Selene Veras, the operative sent to Brickhedge to scout the town by request of Garou himself. She was a monster breeder, having bred the troll that she herself had set loose in the region. Raising it from an infant after ripping it away from its mother. The plan to rile up the town had not gone exactly as Syndel had intended, but it had brought to the surface an aspect of the town that Selene had not expected.
Advrik, her ex-boyfriend.
Putting down the troll she’d raised from birth on an unmarked monster farm in Norway suddenly paled in comparison when she saw that familiar wolf. Dull as he was when they were together, she’d left him in a way that couldn’t exactly be considered gentle. He hadn’t deserved it, but she wouldn’t be where she was now had she stuck around and tried to actually fix what was wrong.
Polls were beginning to close around the country as the numbers started coming in. Garou remained motionless, quiet at his desk while The Pack members meandered about, each clustered together in groups of three around the various television sets that each had a major news outlet reading back the results. Walking about sets that the newscaster could manipulate via a tablet, presenting the video feeds and polls as floating images. Tech that the station would boast about, wowing the aged demographic that primarily used such channels for their immediate gratification and, in the case of the Republican party, the easiest means by which they could warp the minds of its viewers.
One by one, states began to light up. First blue in the north, then a few red further south, though there would be no recipient for the wasted votes. Garou had made sure of that. They’d find Grump dead in his bed come the morning, then the current sitting POTUS shortly after the inauguration in January.
The dire wolf had longed to put an end to the public squabbling between the two leading political parties in the country. Witnessing supposed enemies when in the public eye, dining and patting each other on the back when behind closed doors at private functions only fueled the fire and the will to eliminate them all. If one is to rule over a people, then it needs to be done honestly and with one’s intention on full display.
The pathetic, performative nature of the Democrats and their tendencies to hold marginalized groups up on pedestals in ways that made them targets was sickening. To then campaign on the damages they had wrought, promising that they would protect them from the hatred they themselves had invited by the Republican party.
Republicans. A party once used to pride itself on its supposed morals and goal of preserving “the American way” now a festering breeding ground for the elite money-grubbing, specist beasts that still cling to life despite being well past their usefulness. Recently, taking up the fight in trying to instill the Predator-Prey hierarchy in modern society, an act that has been criticized the world over for its blatant disregard for life.
Garou was done with the squabbling. The two parties end tonight, and the map of the United States would soon rapidly begin turning green. The influence of his talents and reality-altering magic, no matter how small scale it performed, would see to that.
“Selene,” the dire wolf growled. “Prepare the stage; we need prepare.” Garou leaned forward, his golden-black eyes opening, causing the heads of every beast in the room to snap toward him. The smaller female wolf nodded, having been snapped out of her deep thoughts by the wolf’s silky, powerful voice.
“Fellow members of The Pack, it is an honor to have you all here with me tonight. For the tides of destiny have changed, not just for the beasts here on this rock we call home, but for the beasts all over the world that will soon know us all by name.” Loveless stood upright and walked silently across his desk to hooks by the bathroom door. Taking a black coat and slipping it on, he then approached the members of The Pack, who had all filed in as he spoke.
“After this night, you will all ascend with me to greater plateaus. My real mission will finally be set in motion as the cogs of time start to finally turn, and a new era will be born. I have reason to believe you have all come to me for specific reasons, and in the coming months, you, too, will learn those reasons.” Garou stepped up to the giant ceiling-to-floor window that covered the wall behind his desk, a pitch-black figure against the shining silver aura of the moon. Crossing his arms behind his back, he continues as the states rapidly turn green on a map being presented by Faux News.
“A change unlike anything anybeast has ever seen is coming, and we are at the precipice of this great alteration.”
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