It was a rare slow day in the Blachernae; there were no leaders Justinian planned on meeting, not policies to be made or games to attend. And with no wars to be fought, there was absolutely nothing serious for the Byzantine to do beyond watching the servants scamper about the palace. So, that left him with one of his default pastimes; reading. While he had picked up a particularly thick history book to begin reading - finding historical inaccuracies in them was a particularly entertaining pastime - he also had a copy of the morning paper he had yet to read. Picking up the paper and practically feeling the newsprint smudge underneath his fingers, he was about to flip the page to a particular court case he had been following - ignoring the other articles such as a new study finding Chirper reduced brain cell count and that a glass of red wine was just as good as a workout at the gym - when the headline jumped out at him and practically slapped him across the face with its caption.

Civ VI Announced!

Justinian had no time to ponder the implications the announcement had on the structural integrity of the fourth wall; there was business to attend to. Mainly preparing for the arrival of the newcomers. He leapt off his throne and rushed down the hallways, nearly bowling over some poor maid who had been too busy looking down at the laundry basket she was carrying to see the Leader, and quickly grabbed the nearest phone he could find. A couple of phone calls and a bit of waiting later, and Justinian found himself standing in the conference room that was usually reserved for the World Congress meetings, hauling an old mattress to a red x painted across the floor, while everyone else either watched in amusement or talked absentmindedly.

"Thanks for the help..." Justinian muttered with a heave as he finally let go of the edge of the mattress and straightened out his back. Augustus shrugged and Montezuma nodded intently.

"You're welcome!" the Aztec replied cheerfully as he sharpened his ceremonial dagger against the edge of the table. "I made sure the x didn't go anywhere this time! So, when are the sacrifices going to start?"

Justinian resisted the urge to facepalm and turned to face Montezuma.

"Montezuma, this isn't-" the Byzantine cut himself off. This was Montezuma he was dealing with; little words. Justinian cleared his throat again.

"Acutally, Montezuma, this time the gods will be giving something to us," the Emperor drawled sarcastically. Montezuma nodded like a an eager child being told a bedtime story, while Augustus cocked an eyebrow in amusement. Justinian continued. "They're sending us a new friend."

Montezuma let out an 'oh' in understanding and returned to his blade, while Justinian let out a sigh of his own. It wasn't exactly a lie; because if his fellow leaders trashing his palace with their meetings wasn't enough - and he certainly wasn't going to put up the resources to build a completely different building for the sole purpose of letting it get trashed (and neither would any of them, for that matter) - apparently something had decided that his palace was also the place to dump the new leaders in, because putting them in the capitals of their own civilizations would have been too convenient. Justinian looked up at the high roof as he heard a very faint yell sinking through the tiling.

"Speak of the devil..." many of the other leaders had stopped their own conversations as the yell became louder and louder, joining Justinian in looking up at the stone speed bump hanging above them. Seconds later the screaming leader crashed through the roof in a hail of dust and debris, the gathered leaders flinching as they instinctively covered their heads, only to crash into the mattress Justinian had been kind enough to lay out. The leaders cautiously gathered around the dust cloud that had engulfed that section of the room, coughing as it settled. Justinian blinked a few times at the figure lying facedown in the cushion and then looked up at the clear blue sky through the hole in the roof.

"Really!?" he shouted to whatever was up there.

"You sound like you're not happy to see me..." everyone looked down at the leader as he pushed himself up with a groan and began dusting himself off. Alexander finally stretched out his arms and popped his neck, while the remaining leaders scrutinized him.

"You look... different," Dido commented, eyes scanning over the bruised and bloodied Greek.

"Really?" Alexander wondered, looking down at himself and wiping away a bit of blood trickling down his arm. "One minute I was watching Odysseus' Island and the next moment I'm falling through thin air. Guess I never had time to notice."

"Regardless, I'm sending you the bill for the roof," Justinian said as he stormed off, muttering under his breath about the pointlessness of it all. The gathered leaders watched him leave with mixed emotions, before Bismarck cleared his throat.

"Zo, what now?" Alexander gave his usual cocky smile and gestured to conference table covered in gifts and food.

"Well, it would be a shame to let all of Justinian's hospitality go to waste, wouldn't it?"

Justinian ignored the sounds of shattering glass in the distance as he stormed off to his room in frustration, deciding that his presence would only exacerbate the situation.

"Honestly," he muttered as he threw open the door to his chambers, the only light in the room streaking through a gap in the curtains next to his bed. "If they're going to destroy my home the least they can do is send someone new..."

The Byzantine placed his crown on his nightstand and crawled under the covers. "Sometimes I wonder why I even get out of the bed in the morning..."

Justinian turned over and covered his other ear with the adjacent pillow to try to drown out the noise coming from the hallway, trying to ignore the growing pain in his head.

"At least I'm safe here..." he muttered to himself. Too busy trying to drown out the other Leader's noise with his pillow, he only heard the second bout of faint yelling when it was too late. He removed the pillow from his head and looked up at the ceiling; it caved in seconds later, none of the debris miraculously landing on him. The same couldn't be said for the leader that caused it.

"I-I say," came the voice of the leader currently crushing the Byzantine's ribcage. "That was a mighty fall, and where in blazes am I?"

"On my windpipe," Justinian wheezed out. The squat man currently sitting on Justinian - and the Byzantine couldn't see much of him beyond the brown suit, bushy moustache and round glasses, but he got the sense he had moved to look down at the unusually talkative cushion he had landed on.

"Oh, my sincerest apologies," getting off of him would have been a better one, Justinian mentally quipped, while the other leader continued. "What's your name, good sir?"

Justinian tried saying something, but it only came out as a strangled wheeze. He caught the other leader's brow furrow.

"Speak up son, I can't hear you!" the Emperor ignored the urge to scream.

"Justinian," he wheezed out. Due to the weight pressing down on his chest, however, it came out as 'juice'.

"Well that's an unusual name, but it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance Mr. Juice," the mustachioed leader said, giving him a bone-crushing handshake - because he apparently wasn't in enough pain already. "I'm Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, but you can just call me Teddy."

The portly American finally got off Justinian, who quickly gasped for air, and was about to head for the door when he turned back.

"You wouldn't happen to know where a 'Washington' fellow is, would you?" Theodore asked. Justinian figured responding would get him to leave quicker.

"Follow the trail of destruction, he should be nearby."

"Thank you, good sir," the American finally left, quietly closing the door behind him. The Byzantine let out a heavy sigh and closed his eyes, only to open them when he heard another scream coming from the roof. Justinian covered his face with a pillow and screamed.

Author's Notes: Figures the week I'm away from a computer is the one the Civ VI is finally announced, and we can be near-certain that Alexander will be included (not that I'm complaining).

But anyways, here's my question to all of you; who are your top three black horse leader candidates for Civ VI, and what three new civs would you like to see the most? Personally, mine would be John II Komnenos for Byzantium, William the Conqueror for England, and Krishnadevaraya for India (I'd fit Charles V somewhere into that list were it not for how difficult it is to peg down a Civ for him), and Hungary, Armenia and the Mughals as civs. In other news, it appears that Cleopatra, Qin Shi Huang and Theodore Roosevelt are in for Civ VI, two of whom I did find to be rather surprising inclusions (and as we only have screenshots of Teddy, he was the only one to get an appearance in this chapter).