I watched from my burrow as Restus ran back to his hovel. True to his words, the training hall was small and dilapidated, as was fitting his position in the Restus society. It was scarcely more than just some mud walls and clay huts, with a large, open central area for what I can only guess was fights. The whole place looked like it had seen better days, although now that I think of about it, the entirety of the Restus' city looked to be in a lot worse shape than Pandora. I wasn't sure if that was because the Restus simply didn't need fancy facilities like the humans did, or if it was due to how resources were allocated between various Training Sites and its Aspirants. The Overseer did say that the Restus were lackluster, so perhaps they just had less funding than the humans did.

Either way, that wasn't really an important question to answer at the moment. I turned my attention back to my new peon, curious to see what he'd do. It was well past midday now, so Bakren had to enter each hut and all but kick the others awake.

“Brethren!” he screamed, “Awaken! I bring great news!”

The Restus started to wake up one by one, and none of them were happy to have been disturbed. I couldn’t for the life of me tell the difference between each of these inferior lifeforms, they all looked like scaly lumps to me, but one of the other ones got up and confronted Bakren.

“What are you…” the other Restus paused, looking confused, “What happened to your body?”

Bakren laughed, “I am strong now! I am a warrior chosen by the Outer Ones! Gone are the days that I will allow others to defeat me in battle, for I am now powerful!”

The others looked at him dubiously. I couldn't blame them, if Bakren was as idiotic as he showed me earlier, then it was no wonder that the others didn't have him in high regards. And to be fair, if I wasn't so constrained with time, I'd have probably gone with a slightly more intelligent minion myself, but I guess I couldn't be too picky right now.

“You do not believe me,” Bakren stated, “That is normal. I shall prove to you that I am chosen! Fight me, all of you, all at once! I issue a challenge!”

“You will die,” another Restus said plainly, “We will not go easy if you make it official. This is not like your games with Maar, please reconsider before it is too late.”

He laughed even louder, “I do not change my mind! Do it!”

The others shrugged, “If you say so. At least dying in a formal challenge will be a better end than being Broken.”

I was kind of curious about just how much stronger all of my mischief made to my first minion. If what he said was right, then the fifteen others here were of about equal strength to Bakren here, and he planned to fight all fifteen of them at once? Sure all of them can’t fight Bakren at once, but you’d still have to be several times stronger than your foe if you want to take on these odds.

All of the Restus moved to the large central clearing. Bakren stood in the middle, his head held high and his claws poised for violence. The others surrounded him on all sides and looked on with a mixture of curiosity and pity. They didn’t think my minion would make it, although to be fair, I wasn’t so sure that my minion would make it either. That cookie’s got to do some massive lifting to carry Bakren out of this mess.

It did more than that.

“Are all challengers ready?” Bakren yelled.

“We are,” they shouted as one, “Is Warrior Bakren ready?”

“I am!”

“Then we begin!”

They rushed Bakren all at once. Forget what I said before, they could all attack him at once; about half of them jumped into the sky to harass their foe while the other half rushed him from all sides. Bakren was about to be buried in a flurry of Restus.

Yet impossibly, it wasn’t the lone fighter that was overwhelmed, it was the fifteen others. Any individual that so much as touched the scales of Bakren was launched backward at an immense speed. If it wasn’t for my enhanced Xollon senses, I wouldn’t have even understood what had happened.

Replaying the scene in my cortex, I saw that as the talons of each of the other Restus touched the scales of Bakren, his body started to vibrate at an insane frequency. Those slight vibrations somehow absorbed the force generated by his attackers and reflected most of that kinetic energy back at his foes.

Bakren laughed as he saw his enemies flung all across the field, “Weak! It is no wonder our tribe has suffered so much! You are all weak!”

He didn’t give his foes any more time to recover as he rocketed towards the neared fallen Restus. And I mean rocketed, he moved like a lizard-spider-shaped missile and kicked the poor Restus so hard that the other fighter smashed through the outer walls of their hovel. I saw enough to see that Bakren had broken at least 4 limbs on that assault, and the other fighter’s neck was bent at a concerning angle.

Several more of the fighters had recovered enough to mount a counterattack if you could even call it that. They had forsaken their pride and taken out weapons from their inventory - these were pretty impressive to be honest, some of them were glowing with some kind of enchantment effect, while others were clearly made by an expert just from their appearance.

The various spears, war hammers, swords, and the like didn’t do the Restus Aspirants any good, however. Bakren’s scales had become an impenetrable shield that absorbed and deflected every blow that came his way, even shattering some of the larger melee arms that collided with his body. The tiny amount of damage the other fighters were doing to Bakren’s body healed almost instantaneously.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

He laughed again and with a casual wave, he caught a massive longsword by the blade and crushed the metal with his bare hands. He threw the resulting shards into the face of the stunned Restus before kicking him in the stomach, sending the poor individual careening off and crashing into one of his comrades. Bakren didn’t give those two any time to rest as he ran forward and stomped on his fallen foes. There was a disturbing sound of crunching bone as his foot met the neck of the first Restus.

Without even showing the slightest bit of concern that he might have accidentally killed one of his comrades, Bakren finished off the other man beside the first and ran towards the nearest combatant. He slammed his claws into the other man’s abdomen, digging his hands deep into the insides of the other. The poor skewered individual tried his hardest to fight back but his attacks couldn’t even penetrate Bakren’s scaly defense.

Without remorse, Bakren ripped off one of other Restus’ arms and ate it before throwing the dying fighter to the ground and stomping on him with so much force that the body split in two. His fight was getting more and more reckless by the second. It was like something in his was forcing him to become ever more violent, and everyone else around him seemed to notice as well.

The other contestants looked on with fear and disgust. Bakren had clearly gone too far, even for this warmongering species. Now they didn’t even want to continue fighting this monstrosity.

“Stop!” one of the others shouted, “What have you done? This is no longer a challenge between warriors!”

But Bakren didn’t agree with their assessment, he charged towards the speaker and tackled him to the ground. The others could only look on in horror as Bakren pulverized the other man’s face with punch after punch after punch. He didn’t stop until the other Restus was well and truly dead, even biting chunks of the other fighter between his unrelenting assaults. By the time Bakren was done, there was scarcely more than a red puddle where the other man’s upper body used to be.

Okay… I think that’s enough of that. Noe, calm that idiot down before he kills all of my future minions.

“Acknowledged.”

The life visibly left Bakren’s body as he wailed in despair. I’ve never heard something so soul-wrenching in my life.

“No! Please, no!” he screamed while the others looked on with fear, “Not again!”

I took that time to pop out of the ground and fling the desperate Restus to the side.

“I said I wanted to meet your fellow Restus,” I shouted, “Not kill them all!”

Now all of the attention was on me. I think this was the best introduction that I could have possibly had, everyone was already terrified of me and I didn’t even need to use my skill. I don’t blame them, I was the one responsible for the nightmarish shift in Bakren’s personality and physique.

“No! Give it back!” he cried, crawling towards me with a crazed need in his eyes, “Give it back!”

“You dare make demands of me? You!” I commanded, pointing with one of the unharmed Restus with a feeler, “Take him away. He is a disgrace! Let him wallow in weakness until he has learned his error.”

The Restus didn’t question my authority and did what he was told. Bakren was screaming the whole way, but no one dared to pay him any heed as he was dragged into one of the empty huts.

“What… what are you?” One of the other Restus said once everyone recovered enough to gather before me.

“I am here to help!” I said without really answering the question, “And I am the one responsible for gifting Bakren his newfound strength, yet he has squandered it. He allowed the power to cloud his mind. He is a disgrace!”

The other Aspirants looked at each other with questioning gazes, they were still unsure about my motives and most importantly, unsure if I meant them harm. But they weren’t completely dismissing me just yet, I think it was a good time to layer on the shock and awe with my new skill.

Do the same thing we did to Bakren to the rest of them, just… a little less intense. We don’t need these folk going insane like our first guinea pig.

“Acknowledged, my Host,” Noe answered, “I will endeavor to achieve your desired results. Allow me to modulate the emotions of your pawns.”

Thanks Noe.

Once again the results of Noe’s intervention never failed to amaze me. Where the Restus were once on guard and untrusting, they eased up on their vigilance almost immediately and unconsciously moved closer to me. They weren’t ecstasy stricken like Bakren was when I screwed with his brain earlier, but the new Restus were certainly liking whatever Noe was doing.

I felt my maw twitch into a growing grin, “Now your comrade Bakren was unable to contain my gift, but will the lot of you be any different?”

They all mumbled incomprehensibly at the same time; I couldn’t understand what they said over the cacophony of noises, but the message was clear. They wanted in. They wanted what made Bakren so powerful and the small caveat that they might lose their minds went out the back door thanks to Noe’s intervention. I was starting to fully understand just how powerful emotions could be.

But my first experiment did tell me that I had to take things a little easier for the time being. I couldn’t have these 10 Aspirants explode in strength, that’d make my present too obvious. I couldn’t afford to alert the 1100 Admin staff, even if they weren’t monitoring this random city as much as Q’s staff was for Pandora. These Restus didn’t have a Lord Arbiter or an Anomaly present, after all.

Thus, while I highly doubt that the dwindling resources of Central could staff physical people to check up on all the Aspirant cities, I couldn’t afford to be too complacent either. Just because the Trash Matrix couldn’t detect my presence wouldn’t mean it can’t detect a random bunch of its Aspirants gaining monstrous power overnight, not to mention what would happen if I caused the city to descend into total chaos. No, I’ll have to be a little more subtle with my approach, which meant that my current peons couldn’t just lose their minds as Bakren had, but they did need a little motivation.

I addressed the 10 Restus once more, “I can offer you strength beyond your comprehension! Bakren has tasted but the smallest drop of what I have to offer, but he has shown that your species are weak!”

Grunts of discontent rose up, but none dared to refute what I had to say. They knew that what I spoke was the truth.

“And your minds are too fragile to handle such an influx of power all at once,” I continued, “As Bakren has clearly demonstrated was the case. But I have not completely given up on you.”

Their eyes went wide with anticipation. They looked like nice little pets waiting for a juicy treat, kind of fitting for an inferior species to behave when faced with a Xollon.

“But you will have to earn it,” I said again as my gaze fell on each individual Restus, “You will have to prove to me that you are not a lost cause, for your first impressions have been dismal.”

“Yes!” one of them said finally, I think it was the same individual that took Bakren away. I’ll have to try to remember who’s who eventually…

“We can prove to you that we are better than Bakren!” another added, “He has always been the most stone-brained amongst us!”

I nodded, “Good, then I will gift you the tiniest amount of might.”

Noe, let ‘em feel invincible now. We’re going to need a few more minions.