I certainly hoped that they would take it easy on me when the time came. Whatever it was, I would humor them. They all deserved it after doing good work. I got another notification. Another hidden activity had revealed itself. It was "Gain confidence among the settlement 2/3". We actually were winning the hearts and minds of the people in the settlement. We just had to find something else to endear us to the people of the settlement. I looked around and thought of something. Before I could get any ideas to form, the Void Clan AEP units came back. It was pretty hard to tell what they were actually thinking. Parker and the others went up to both of them and wanted to play something worthwhile. The AEP units of Void Clan agreed to play. Their idea of playing was actually to spar. It made sense. They were just cyborgs. It was not like they gained anything from exercise or sports. 3 on 2 was not a fair fight. I decided to join the side of Void Clan. That made Parker, Chase and Kyan very nervous. They knew exactly how strong I was. The Void AEPs did not. They thought I was a huge liability.
Once things got started, it was very clear that was not the case. I was not trying to crush everyone because that would not be fun. I let Parker, Chase and Kyan do what they had wanted, but I made it my job to help out my new teammates if they were ever pinned down. Truthfully, I wanted my clan members to win. I was not going to make it easy for them though. They were going to have to earn their victory fair and square. Eventually, It was down to a very scuffed up Parker on one side and one of the Void Clan AEP units on the other side with me. They ran at each other, but Parker was the one left standing after their clash. He then looked to me. My clanmate was very nervous about what I would do. I just lifted my hands in surrender. Parker, not buying it, actually came over cautiously. He bound my hands together at the wrists using his own nanites before taking the win. I let him do it. I obviously could have won the whole thing, but that would not have been fun. People from the settlement had been watching the whole thing. Some had even taken big bets on the final outcome.
Money exchanged hands. I could hear some grumbling about the final outcome. I threw the game on purpose. We had out own agenda. No one told them to bet on me. I was not really part of this. Or the sparring in general. We had a ton of nanite paste blobs on the floor. Parker got to use his ability to charge them up using his internal battery organ. This sped up the healing process and allowed them to regain humanoid form sooner than if they were on their own. He was able to bring Chase and Kyan back before he ran out of power himself. I had an energy generator and placed it down next to them. All the AEP units got to benefit from the golden glow. Some nearby and wounded PEP and PEA units also came by to benefit. I did not bother to ask why they were wounded. Either it would be a classified secret, or Nicoletta already figured it out and would tell me the next time we met up with each other. That actually satisfied the 3rd tick of the confidence gathering activity. We were all in the money now. We had to make it to the end of the third day. I went to go tell Nicoletta about it.
