Going back, it made sense for us to hang out in the lounge on the barracks floor. The Yellows and Indigos split off from us. We got a table in the corner and talked about what we did amongst ourselves. Onyx Blaze was now the most frustrated. "We could have been sprouting and having a great time by now! It's unfair." he said. I was able to track the goals via the menu. It was ticking closer to being accepted. The engineer must have been impressed with us. That, or she wants to use us for something. As a matter of practicality, we just needed to get in. I was talking to them about it and they agreed with me. The Uhmi captured the Staulirs and enslaved them. That forced all the different colored sub entities to band together to become bigger and fight as a united force. Now that we were escaping them, the old caste systems were starting to reassert themselves. Suzie and I were both Blacks, so I was totally fine with taking the squat to meet her and defecting from the ship. We needed 2 fused to make eggs and 4 to incubate. That meant that we needed 6 in order to have pure breed offspring.
Just as I was going to broach the topic of reproduction, 2 Greens came over and sat down with us. From the grins they had on their faces, it certainly looked like they did not want to simply sit. "Hey. So you're the ones that beat the Indigos the other day." one of them said. I nodded. The others looked at them carefully. Greens were the lowest of the dominant half. We did not want to piss them off right in front of the whole lounge. The other one spoke up and said "You also got called in personally by the human researchers. That's interesting. My name is Green Tho and my friend is Verdant Pics." I introduced myself and the others followed suit. They shared a quick look and a smug Verdant Pics said "It would be nice to see what all those humans are up to. We could reward you if you could let us in next time you get called." Pitch Gleam crossed his arms skeptically. "What's in it for us? This is not a small ask." "C'mon. You're Blacks. We will let you fuse with us and see what it's like to have some real power. We can even let you sprout and entwine with us." Green Tho leaned in and said.
Verdant Pics and Green Tho were certainly laying it all on the table. "So you are going to give us control of the combination? We have an odd amount here. It just won't work out." I told them. Verdant Pics just said "Get a squad mate. If we get a couple of Blues with us, it will be alright." They seemed pretty dismissive about it. Green Tho was as well. Seeing that raised alarm bells for me. I did not say anything in front of them though. Pitch Beam got up to search for either Carbon Sparkle or Black Shine. I watched as the Greens left to look for Blues. I leaned over to Onyx Blaze. "When we fuse, make sure you go straight for Verdant Pics. I'll go straight to Green Tho." I whispered in his ear. He looked at me and asked why. "I don't really trust them. It felt weird that they did not care about it until I brought it up." I told him. He looked at them going over to some Blues and then nodded at me. It seemed they were turned down at least 3 times before they got 2 willing to come with a group like ours. When they came back to us, I learned they were named Blue Ignis and Blue Sol. They looked friendly.
Kicking around, we began to engage in small talk. Onyx Blaze was so happy to recount all the fights from the day before and the tests from today. Beating the Orange in style and rescuing Violet Twinkle was the best part in my opinion. I backed him up even when he exaggerated the truth. Hopefully, it would give all of them pause before trying to screw us over. It took a long time, but Pitch Beam came back with Black Shine. "I had to look all over the barracks. I hope you're happy." Pitch Beam said. "I was walking around to think by myself." Black Shine said as he sat down. Green Tho got up and said "Let's go to a more private place for this." It did make sense to me. We were exchanging sexual favors for access to the next time the humans wanted us after all. We were going down to the lounge we met Violet Twinkle. It was Blue Ignis's idea. Onyx Blaze had put it in all of our minds. When I was able to get them alone, I told Pitch Beam to go for Blue Sol. They nodded and we kept moving. When we got to the lounge, it was totally empty. Verdant Pics said "I guess we should get started then."
