Mary Adams representing the United Christian States of America

A/N: Warning: use of slurs and homophobia in this chapter. Not in any way meant to promote or support discrimination or slur usage, but only meant for the sake of characterisation.

“And now the news from the front line. Communist forces have been driven away in a smashing victory by the 87th Infantry Division in a decisive engagement at the Rio Santiago River. Godless communists attempted a deadly river crossing in order to drive their satanic villainy across the lands of southern America. But the free-loving soldiers of the 87th Infantry Division sent them back to hell with minimum casualties. Delivering a tremendous victory for the land of the free.”

Once upon a time, this news would have given Mary a surge of excitement and enthusiasm. But it seemed that their soldiers achieved major victories every other week in the news. A month ago it had been a tremendous victory in Ottowa, and before that in Spain. All meaningless victories far away from Mary's home that seemed to bring her son or husband back home.

What she wanted to hear news about was news of Sam and George, her son and husband respectively. Both of them were away fighting the fight against the heathens in the war; she hadn’t heard back from them for months. It was to be expected; the Government had said that letters from and to the front could reveal secrets to the communist spies. So Mary was stuck listening to the radio and hoping for news about her son and husband’s divisions.

“Nothing for weeks.” Mary thought bitterly as she sliced a carrot stick with particularly brutal force. It’d been a tough war, and it was starting to wear on Mary. She’d just been through a gruelling twelve-hour shift for the sixth day in a row making parachutes for the military. Now she still had to cook dinner for her daughters and had to do it with one a single egg, 2 ounces of butter, and three quarter pound of meat for a week. Plus whatever she could grow in her garden. A garden she lamented that she had once used to grow roses and daffodils transformed into growing carrots, potatoes and vegetables. She'd loved her garden, but her stomach had had other ideas.

"Dinner's ready." She called to her daughters as she placed the plates onto the table, grimacing at the meal she had laid before them. Plain, flavourless and boring, but what more could you do with potatoes when oil was at a premium? "Come down quickly!"

To her frustration, there was only one pair of feet walking down the stairs to the kitchen. As usual, her best and most well-behaved daughter, Kimberly, walked down the stairs first. Sweet, pretty, and a talented tailor, Mary knew that she would make a wonderful wife someday.

"Where's your sister?" Mary barked, already knowing the answer.

"You know where she is. She snuck out again to play with that other girl; she snuck out again to hang out with her dyke friend, Samantha." Kimberly admitted, shrugging. "Honestly, if she wants to go dump her soul in hell, I think that's her business."

"That bit-that harlot?" Mary demanded, correcting herself of the sinful language only barely. "Where?"

"Probably the usual spot, in the woods," Kimberly admitted with a sigh. "Guess we're not going to be eating for a bit, huh?"

"We eat as a family, Kimberly; you know that," Mary said strictly as she put on a coat. It was late, approaching curfew. Should someone report Cadance to the authorities and the Templars came along... no. That wouldn't happen; she wasn't going to let her husband come home to a daughter who'd thrown her soul away due to a youthful fling. "Put the food in the fridge, now."

Mary stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind her. She marched down the streets, the summer air keeping the streets visible, which was fortunate, as the streetlamps hadn't been turned on ever since the war broke out. To keep the communists from bombing their towns. How could Cadance be so reckless? So stupid? All for a dyke? Did her soul and God mean nothing to her?

Mary redoubled her pace. Surely this Samantha hadn't spread her unnaturalness to Cadance, had she? Cadance had been so sweet and behaved as a child, before she had met that tart Samantha. Mary walked into the woods, following a path that ran parallel to a small stream. The woods were mercifully thick enough to hide in, but they were hardly foolproof. If the wrong person saw her daughter, what would they assume?”

And then she spotted them, hurdled at the bank of the river. At least they’d had the sense to hide behind a bush, but Cadance’s blue hair bow was visible through the leaves. And the little slut she was crouched beside in the shade, crying crocodile tears, no doubt. Cadance’s hand around her neck.

“KEEP YOUR HANDS AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!” Mary hissed so loudly it might as well have been a shout. They split apart as if they’d received an electric shock.

“M-mom? Wha-what are you doing here?” Cadance asked, her face as white as snow.

“Saving my daughter from being infected by a dyke.” Mary snarled, her eyes as thin as slits as she stared at the dyke.

“Mrs Adams, please, it’s not what it looks like. We were just hanging out; Cadance was just comforting me because I was upset about-“

The dyke didn’t get to say another word because Mary had slapped her in the cheek and thrown her to the dirt. She got up, fake tears in her eyes, sniffling like a brat. She was smart enough not to say another word, at least.

"Don't say a word to me. After what I did for you, after our deal." Mary hissed, venom pouring out of her eyes as the Dyke had at least the decency to fix her gaze at the dirt. "You agreed that you would leave my daughter alone and keep your unnaturalness to yourself. That was the deal so that I wouldn't report to the authorities. Instead, I find you assaulting my daughter."

"MOM, CUT IT OUT!" Cadance shrieked, grabbing Mary's hand and wrestling it away from the dyke. Tears fierce in her eyes, she stared defiantly at her mother. "She didn't break her word. I spoke to her; I wanted to comfort her. It was my decision."

"Don't make excuses for her. I raised you better than this." Mary hissed, but she redirected her anger all the same at her younger daughter. Deep down, she had suspected, but that didn't excuse the dyke, it just meant there was more sin to go around. "You spit on your father and your brother's sacrifice. They're off fighting in the war, fighting to keep this land safe and virtuous for you. And what do you do? You gallivant around committing the sin of sodomy. Have you no shame?"

"We weren't doing anything like that! I just wanted to comfort her." Cadance hissed, hands on her hips. The fury in her eyes a mirror to her own. "Isn't kindness a virtue? Didn't Jesus teach us to love thy neighbour?"

"Don't." Mary raised a finger like a knife. "Twist scripture to me, Cadance. Don't try and pretend you act like a saint. I've seen you lose your way countless times. More urgent action is necessary; cut out the sinful influence."

Cadance's face went pale, and she glanced at the dyke who'd started to tremble. "No, please. You promised. I'll do anything."

"You broke your promise. Couldn't keep your dirty little hands away from my daughter. I should have known better." Mary's eyes were dark and cruel, like she was an executioner, and the dyke trembled as if she stood on the gallows.

"It was my fault, Mom," Cadance screamed, tears in her eyes. Such a petty, childish tantrum for a girl her age. "It was mine. Mine! How many times do I need to say it? You can't. They'll kill her."

"It's the law. Not just Cross's law, but God's law. I was too soft before. I sinned by listening to you. Not this time, and perhaps the cancer needs to be cut out." Mary's temper was boiling over now, but she felt a savage glee that Cadance, after a lifetime of sin, disobedience and defiance, was finally listening to her mother.

"Sam, run! Run now and go into hiding!" Cadance begged the dyke, but the dyke couldn't move. Trembling on the spot, her face white as a sheet, tears streaming down her eyes. The fear of god finally put her in her place, and she had nowhere to go. "Please, Mom, please, I'll do anything."

"Except behave. Except stop sinning, it seems. After all I've done for you. Well, no more, don't cry, Cadance. Throwing a temper won't help-"

And then she was gone. Just like that.

"Mom?"

"Mrs Adams?"

Mary didn't know what happened. One moment everything went dark, and then the next moment everything went white. She felt her body being thrown from its feet and hurled through some white void. For one glorious moment, she believed she was being summoned by God himself and appearing before him in heaven.

Then it stopped, and the world returned just as suddenly as it was gone. Gravity returned, the sensation of standing on solid ground returned, but this time it was marble instead of dirt. Smells returned; the small trace of sea salt, like that of a beach, wafted through her nostrils, combined with the scent of dry ice. A tune could be heard, like those of the late-night talk shows she heard on the radio. She felt tiny; gigantic structures and pillars of marble like those of a Roman palace surrounded her, each impossibly larger than herself.

"Is this heaven?" She gasped, and for a moment her knees felt weak. She was unworthy; she didn't belong here; she wasn't a saint. She was just Mary.

"You're close, my dear. Oh, so very close." Turning on her heel, Mary immediately knew that this wasn't heaven. She refused to believe that a woman like this could exist in heaven, dressed like a tart. "Would you like a glass of water to help you relax?"

Mary was no genius, but she could tell by the devious look in this woman's eye that this wasn't someone to be trusted. She shook her head, but this didn't seem to dissuade the tart. If anything, it only seemed to encourage her. "Oh, not interested in water? That's fine, how about wine?"

And then, as if deliberately mocking Jesus Christ himself, she turned the glass of water into a perfect wine. For a moment Mary wanted to believe that it was a trick, a charlatan trap, but the sour scent of the wine wafted through her nostrils.

"How is this possible? Are you a demon?"

The creature adopted an expression of mock confusion. "Don't want wine? That's fine. We can do soda. Milk. Milkshake. Beer. Apple juice?"

With each declaration, the liquid in the glass changed; effortlessly, this creature was copying the miracles of the messiah. As if she was somehow his equal. Or superior. With each change, the creature was grinning wider and wider. It must be a demon; no angel would relish in such humiliation. Mary raised a fist to strike.

She plunged her fist into the demon's cheek. The demon giggled mockingly, wagging a finger as if scolding Mary. Mary felt no pain in her fist, but neither had the demon flinched. The demon hadn't merely absorbed the impact, but also effortlessly prevented Mary from feeling any of the pain she should feel.

"Feisty, feisty. We'll need to teach this one some manners, but don't you worry. We have a whole show to straighten you out. Not to worry, though. First of all, why don't you tell us about yourself, Mary?" The demon asked, shoving a microphone into Mary’s mouth.

“Who are you, demon?” Mary hissed, her breath laced with venom.

“You’re so kind to ask, but I’m neither a demon, angel, nor goddess. All three titles I find to be beneath my magnificence. Though if you need a name, you might consider me the GREAT, the FABULOUS, the UNBELIEVABLY SEXY, HERA!”

“She’s far too proud of that slogan.” An armoured blonde woman muttered with no shortage of sarcasm. The demon, Hera, ignored her.

“Well, why don’t you tell us why you’re here. Mary Adams, why have you decided to participate in this contest of nations?” Hera asked, her teeth gleaming in the reflection of the spotlights.

"What in heaven are you talking about? I demand to be taken back to my-“ Mary froze, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks. “My daughter! Where’s my daughter? Where’s Cadance? I demand you take me back to her right now. Are you in league with that *BEEP?”

Mary paused, her finger still wagging as the sound of a buzzer escaped her mouth, as someone else had stolen it and replaced it with the sound of an air horn.

“Such foul language. I’ll have you know that in this show, we don’t put up with that sort of discrimination. Tsk, tsk. You’re lucky we haven’t started, or I might have to dock points,” Hera scolded, wagging her finger like she was Mary’s mother. “But don’t worry, your daughter is fine. Better even now that you’re gone.”

“How dare you?!”

“Ah, be quiet, Grandma,” Hera said, miming zipping Mary’s lips and suddenly Mary felt her lips refuse to move. They had become numb as if they had been pumped with anaesthetic from a dental operation. “But it’s clear that you don’t know crap about anything in your own world. It seems that you need this presentation as much as the audience does.”

A screen flickered to life, but it was thinner than any TV screen that Mary had seen before. It transformed to an image of the American flag.

“Yeah, just like the last one, the flag isn’t anything the audience hasn’t seen before. In any case, the point of divergence was during the Second World War, where, simply put, it wasn’t good old Roosevelt in charge but another guy. Good old Reverend Cranston.” The screen image turned to a video of President Cranston, the man who’d shielded America from subversive communist forces, giving a speech before a crowd of patriotic Templars.

“Instead, they elected this piece of shit. You know how they say better dead than red? Well, this guy took it a whole other level. To him, it was much better to be sick, dying, poor, and miserable than red, and he was able to convince the whole country of it.” Hera said; there was a note of distaste or perhaps mockery in her voice.

"You dare mock a great American hero?" Mary hissed. Ever since she was young, she had heard her father and husband talk about Cranston and how he had purged America of its socialist and satanic elements. Making a country safe for her children. "What reason do you have to doubt him? He's a hero."

Her answer was received with a snort, not from Hera but from a red-haired woman who looked like she belonged on the covers of those satanic Dungeons & Dragons games she had confiscated from Cadance. Her arms folded, the red-haired woman who snorted was looking up at President Cranston like he was a charlatan. "Something you'd like to say?"

"Fraud." She whispered, her voice cutting yet gleeful. "A blatant fraud; you can see it in the way he moves, in the look in his eyes, and in how he talks. Even without sound, I can read his lies tumbling from his lips.”

She was smug, her fingers tapping against her cheek as she seemed to relish mocking Mary. "And what would a woman like you know of this?"

"A queen, dear. A queen." The red-haired woman said, preening proudly. "And a successful one at that. Let me guess. Did he tell a tale about the whole world being against you? About how all the world was decaying into moral decay? Did he tell you that dangerous, evil people were coming for your children? Did they tell you how traitors were spreading lies to you and that to listen to anyone except them would make you a traitor?”

“So what if he did?” Mary demanded fiercely, hating how accurate this mocking stranger was. “It was the truth.”

The red-haired girl threw her head back in laughter. "It was manipulation, darling. Wasting your attention on your friends and neighbours so they can take all the wealth for their own selfish desires. And fools like you are gullible enough to fall for it.”

“Sounds like someone I know.” The blonde-haired girl growled, her blue eyes staring daggers at the red-haired Queen who smiled as if it was a compliment.

“Hence why I win, Ashara, darling. Hence why I win.” The red-haired queen’s smile was as savage as a wolf’s and gleaming with glee.

“Thank you, Orbita,” Hera said, her teeth gritted, her expression unhappy, her hands on her hips as she pouted at the red-haired girl. “But let’s not forget that this is not your show but MINE here, and get back on track.”

Orbita opened her mouth, but just like before, she seemed to have her vocal cords removed, and no sound escaped her mouth. Hera smiled like she had won some secret contest as she returned back to the screen which became some kind documentary montage. “Anyways in order to cement control, Cranston used religion and made his own little hit squad called the Templars to hunt down communists, secularists and liberals all over the US of A. One of these was a small project called the Manhattan Project, but I’m sure that wasn’t important.”

Hera winked at the boy in the oversized throne. “So I bet you can tell what that means, Alex?”

“Um…” The boy, barely older than Mary’s daughters, spoke up. His voice sounded hoarse from disuse. “They didn’t have an atom bomb?”

“Correctamondo. Yep, no nukes and nothing stopping World War III from breaking out, and an America quickly being turned into a theocratic state, dear old Cranston opted to stay on for a few more terms than the usual two, and soon enough it really was a one-party state. Oh, they kept the constitution.” Hera said, pre-empting Mary’s outburst. “But they ignore it now. Just talk about it for propaganda. A ‘we’ve got a constitution so we’re a better democracy than you commies’ sort of thing.”

Hera was so dismissive, the way she insulted Mary’s country, her people, her religion. Every aspect of her voice made Mary’s hands itch to throttle her. Never had she heard anyone speak like this, so outrageously.

“So, in any case, it just got worse and worse for the yanks. And what’s even worse was the rest of the world wasn’t doing the same. They were implementing these terrible things called national healthcare insurance, same sex marriage and worst of all, workers' rights. Or, to translate all that into Cranston’s American: COMMUNISM! AGGH!” Hera mimed waving her hands about like she was a child telling spooky stories at a campfire. Unsurprisingly, no one shared her scream.

"Anyway, because of the possibility of their own citizens getting ideas that things might not actually be one hundred per cent perfect in their theocratic 'utopia', the leaders of America decided to invade their former allies to restore the principles of 'liberty', 'democracy', and 'Christianity' to countries that had never really lost them. And speaking of losing, that's what the Cranston's America did. It lost, badly."

"No."

"I'm sorry?" Hera fluttered her eyelashes in mock innocence towards Mary, but her smile betrayed her insincerity.

"No, we're winning. Major victories are reported in the news every other week." Mary said, before snorting in derision. "For a moment I thought you were a danger, but you're just an idiot."

"Am I?" The smile on Hera's face grew wider. "Why don't you look at the map?"

She gestured to the screen, which had turned into a map of the world and supposed battle lines, but Mary wasn't going to take a demon's word for it. "I don't have to. I've been listening to the radio. And I remember that we won several major victories. First in Spain, then in Ottawa, then at Rio Santiago. And those are just the places I remember."

"Then why?" An aristocratic-looking woman with a British accent asked. "Are those victories getting closer to American borders?"

Mary looked at the map and noticed what she meant. First was a major victory in Spain, which was across the Atlantic ocean in Europe. Then Ottawa was in the north, on the American continent, and Rio Santiago was in the south, from where the drug dealers came. Mary had never bothered much with geography; her role in life was to be a mother and a carer, not a general. "I'm no general."

"If you're winning a war, the battle lines would not be getting closer to your territory." The aristocratic lady said, tapping her chin. "How spaced out were these 'victories'? What other battles occurred in between?"

"I can answer that. Yeah, sure, Cranston's America did win those battles, but they were minor things. On all other fronts, they're losing, and losing badly. I mean, what can you expect when your dear old president was stupid enough to declare war on not only his own allies but the whole world as well." Hera explained, as the screen started to show the combined nations of the world concentrating on America. "So yeah, it's unwinnable. And just like with Ashara, they've joined this contest to win an unwinnable war and try and escape the consequences of their own stupidity."

"That's not-" Any further protest that Mary was about to make died on her tongue as she felt her muscles in her throat betray her, refusing to work and letting out no noise.

"We've still got one more contestant to get to, and we've spent far too much time arguing with you, so just take a seat over there." Hera made a shooing motion to one of the empty chairs, and Mary found her feet being marched over to the seat on their own accord. She folded her arms in a last act of defiance.

"Quite a feisty one we've got here; it's going to be a challenge to see if she can overcome her prejudices and temper for the sake of her civilisation." Hera raised an excited finger. "But dear Alex, and dear viewers, we've still got one more contestant to join us. We've got contestants from a distant past fantasy, and from alternate modern days; it's now time to go to the far future. Here to show us what a xenowoman can bring to the table, give it up for ALEMA VEN!"