05127 and 04820 were able to get the upgrades with 7 members, the 2 females had to choose which males to mate with first. 05127 chose the blue eyed one with their brown jacket. He had played a big part in untying her. It made sense. 04820 choose the blond. He was the one the others seemed to gravitate towards. A natural leader. I could see that. That was a good clan in our pocket. They were our vassals. Clan Star was the same. Paul called to tell us that he had got the first one set up. Clan Pump and Dump was now online. That was on the road to Volta City. He was currently taking a group along the road to Neo-Rutten to find a good spot to set it up within the territory of the Heat transmission hub. They would be known as Clan Gas and Pass from now on. We told them about the 2 that we set up in Micropolis. It was looking up for us. With 4 clans directly loyal to us, and not to Heat Clan, we could confederate by ourselves. If Heat Clan was willing to make any concessions to us, we could also hear them out about letting them lead a confederation. We would be the real power.
Being the best meant that we could take detours like this. It did not change that we were in an amazing position. Before this was even a confederacy, we could launch from our hanger at any time. Heat Clan had snubbed us, but all the best things for cyborgs came from our clan. No one could deny that. In the current situation, there were only 2 Researcher faction transmission hubs on the continent. Those were the Heat and Radiation hubs. There were just 3 Advocate faction transmission hubs here as well. The Lightning, Sonic and Void hubs would be naturally peaceful to all humans living there. Peaceful cyborgs were outnumbered by nonpeaceful ones. I was not too happy about that. The other 8 transmission hubs were controlled by the now dominant Conqueror faction. Among them were Wind and Magnetic Clans. We had them on our hit lists for what they had done to us. It was the time to get our revenge on them for once and for all. We would start with Wind Clan. 06-001, 12-001 and 12-004 had betrayed us after we had spared them. It was over for them and the clans now.
It took several weeks to find where they were hiding their transmission hubs. It was all well and good. Us keeping a low profile lowered the heat on us. Doing the flashy demonstration raised a ton of questions. Questions that we really did not want to answer. The Conqueror faction clans that we allied with were demanding we give up all of our XX-frames. That was not going to happen. The Advocate faction clans already had a couple of blueprints that they were collectively researching. We gave all the blueprints to Radioactive Clan. We were tied to the hip. They still needed to gather the money and materials though. Vassalizing clans would be a problem too. Because they all got wiped out initially, the PEP units in the region formed their own clans and living arrangements. Since they were older and more established in the region, the other clans saw no need to come swear fealty. It was something they would need to work on. They were much too far to make the trek over there. Besides, it was not actually clear that the Progenitors they would summon would be friendly to humans.
