The Return of the Toughskin Man

It did not take long for the “Return of the Georgian Toughskin Man” video to go viral, despite the actual content of the video. Despite the graphic violence and nudity getting it taken down from sites like YouTube the video spread. A censored versioneven wound up on news stations.

The anti-metas absolutely loved the video. It proved everything that they claimed. Metas are evil. They’re cruel. They use their powers to hurt and murder humans. They all need to be captured, sterilized, euthanized.

Campbell Brantley immediately seized the opportunity, striking while the iron was hot. He had the video put on his own website, promising that if elected he would do everything in his power to protect humans from metas. He also urged his supporters to contact their Congressmen asking them to pass a bill that would make it legal to kill metas on sight- it was clearly self defense and a God-given right, afterall.

Analysts noticed that the victim, a young Asian woman, mouthed “I’m Min Chang” at the camera at one point. I am Min Chang! became a rallying cry among the anti-metas. They even made T-shirts featuring stills of the girl in the video.

It was determined who Min Chang was, and when her grieving mother came forward Brantley took her under his wing. Nevermind that Min’s mother had not seen her daughter since she ran away at only fifteen years of age, or that Min ran away to escape her mother’s new husband who was on a registry. The politician knew what the woman sobbing while talking about what a beautiful light her daughter was before being so cruelly snuffed out would do to voters.

Anti-meta rallies were held across the country, and many devolved into riots.

It is not a good time to be a meta, or even tolerant to metas.

***

If Olle knew that asshole Campbell Brantley was going to be in the city that day, he would not have gone to New York City that weekend. All he knew was that there was a Scandinavian festival going on in Central Park, and even though, (as his girlfriend told him forcefully multiple times) Finland was not in Scandinavia he knew he would find those hard to find Finnish candies there. He hoped if he had enough pounds of salmiakki he could convince Piritta to see him in person for the first time in over a year. He did not know where it was going with her. He would think she had ghosted and dumped him, if not for the frequent texts. She did not always answer the phone when he called her, in fact she usually did not answer when he called, but she usually answered his texts and all those Tenth Kingdom memes meant something, right? And if it was over, it would be nice to know that so they could both move on.

So Olle was weighed down with a backpack full of candy, making his way to the Greyhound station, when all Hell broke loose.