He clearly did not want me to interfere with Conqueror faction business. I said "My clan's hub is for the Researcher faction. I do not want you guys to conqueror humans because it would lead to lots of people on both sides of the conflict getting hurt. I want to stop them." 03 looked upset. "That doesn't mean that I can't be friends with you." I said. He said "Arm wrestle me." I blinked. "What did you say?" I asked. 03 said "Clean your human ears. I said you have to arm wrestle me." I indulged him. We moved to where we could do it. I was already getting tired. Because of that, 03 was able to beat me in a best 2 out of 3 contest. I put everything I had to win the second round. It meant I had nothing for the third. 01 and 02 saw it. They surrounded me and gloated. 03 said "So you'll listen to me now I showed you, right." I just shrugged. It was not impressive to me. "Maybe. If it makes sense and fits with what I know and it doesn't go against my morals." I said. 03 looked at me and said "Then let 05-001 and 10-001 go. They're friends." It hit me like a ton of bricks. "You know where they are!"
03 had been trying to convince me to stop my pursuit of them for a while now. Now I could see why. He wanted to not have his friends hunted by me. I looked at 03. He looked really determined. 01 and 02 were also starting to gather how important this was. I sighed. "Fine. If you can tell 10-001 and 05-001 to stop trying to all the humans in PEP clans, I won't have any reason to hunt them down." The 3 AEP units looked at each other and 02 sighed. "I can connect you 03." he said as he opened up the port in his chest. I asked what was going on. "We need to plug in directly to interface with the transmission hub. But we can use each other to talk to other units." 03 then opened up his port and allowed a wire to stretch between them. He plugged it into 02. 02 grunted. "Now I can search for them and make contact with them if they allow it." 03 explained. He closed his eyes and when they were open again, they were green with no pupils. "10-001 is open to talk." he mumbled. "10-001, can you stop killing humans in clans? It's not that special to bully them. You can just let them serve us." he said.
That was not how I would have put it, but I was silent. This was a conversation between 2 Conqueror AEP units. It was not my place to interfere. They went back and forth for 10 minutes. I could only hear 03 talking. To be very honest, it was like watching 2 children bickering back and forth. It was not very productive. Eventually 10-001 backed down. "Eggs?" 03 asked before his eyes cleared up. "He cut the connection." he said in surprise. I smirked and said "He probably had to lay some eggs. The last time he attacked him, we played a really mean prank on him." They all wanted to know what it was. I told them and they were on the floor laughing. "He lays eggs like a big chicken now!?" 01 guffawed. 02 and 03 were also cracking up. 03 said "That's worse than a human!" 02 said "If he can't stop a little trick from humans, he really has no right to be a Conqueror." I was glad they were taking my side. 03 was next to me and smiling along. It seemed I really had befriended him. 01 said "I want to fight with you now." he said. He sparred with me. I beat him but not as convincingly as I had with 03.
02 walked up and wanted to spar. I beat him as well. I was breathing heavy. Now that I had beaten all of them, they looked at each other in surprise. They got together in a huddle to talk. "Did you fight him, 03?" 01 asked. "Why are you asking me that!?" he snapped. "01 and I lost! We can't let this go if we all lost. We're better than him." I heard 02 snap. 03 looked at me for a moment. He was the first to lose. Not only that, but I was also fresh, and he got his ass kicked. "We went training on the equipment in the gym. You saw me win at arm wrestling. What do you want from me!?" he said. He did not want to admit that he lost. "Fight him." 01 said. "I don't wanna!" 03 said. "I don't care. Fight him or we're fighting you." 02 chimed in. 03 looked at me and then groaned as he walked over. He got in a fighting pose and said "I'm coming at you." It was no skin off my teeth to yield here. When he hit me, I took a dive. I was getting tired out anyway. "Oof! You're too strong 03. I can't get up!" I said. 03 gave me an annoyed look. "1 punch knock out!" 01 said as he rushed over. I shrugged and reached out.
