Free Star Force: Perquisition by Aer-ki Jyr Page A

think you’ve had enough,” he declared with disdain,
standing still and raising his arms above his head in an obvious stretch. “As
for me, it’s time to get my workouts started. Thanks for the warmup.”
    The Protovic…Orange, Red, and Purple…sat there gasping
from the impacts and their fatigue as the trailblazer hop, skipped, and jumped
his way out of the ring over their downed bodies and left them there,
disappearing out a side door whistling as he went.
    The Oranges sat there looking around at each other and
the Reds and Purples, feeling a newfound kinship centered around anger at the Archon. The disrespect hadn’t been faked, nor had it been
sarcastic. He had insulted all of them over and over again, with them being
completely unable to lay more than a fleeting hand on him.
    Eventually they all picked themselves up and went
their separate ways, but even the veterans harbored a mild disdain for him
following that day. Where they had been teammates before, now there was a bit
of adversarialism present, and not from the sparring. That was just a part of
being Star Force and one could get beat badly and just walk it off as a
training exercise. This was different, because the taunts were personal and
obviously meant to be that way. The Archon had shown a side of himself that the
Protovic didn’t like, and though that didn’t mean they didn’t respect him
anymore, it did mean they weren’t going to be so amicable going forward.
    Before now he had been more of a wise mentor teaching
them things they needed to know. Now he was that, but also a bit of a jerk,
with that putting some iciness in their demeanor any time he was mentioned or
they saw him in person.
    But what they didn’t realize was that in the process
of him becoming an adversary, all those that had gotten insulted and beat up
were now on the same side rather than being rivals. The Human had become an
overarching rival, so much so that the lesser divisions between them were
gradually forgotten…which was exactly what Brad had intended. Makron understood that, having been around the trailblazer
more than others, but some of those verbal stings didn’t fade away even for him
    He put that down to the Archon’s skill in taunting,
amongst other things. He had a knack for making the insults stick, and going
forward a little wink or gesture here and there would bring that resentment
back for all those who had been involved in that fight, like a healing wound
that got a knife blade jammed back into it just as the pain was about to fade
away.
    Brad kept the wounds fresh, becoming the rival they
needed in order for them to gel and stop focusing on besting each other. A few
more sparring sessions with other Protovic and some ‘in your face’ spectacles
of skill were enough to eventually solve the Orange’s ego problem. When being
logical, honest, and friendly didn’t create common ground to bond people
together, sometimes you need an enemy to rally around, with your common ground
being your pain, insults, and inability to defeat them.
    The trailblazers had learned that lesson well from the
Black Knight, and Brad was more than happy to whip out that technique whenever
necessary to help his Protovic…though the insults were more of an Archon flare
that he’d added on. Vermaire was more the ‘silent and break your bones’ type.

 
 
    7

 
 
    January 31, 3011
    Deeran System
(Benoid)
    Wexfa

 
    Jarod-896331 slid to the right half a step to allow a Nevvan past him, for the lumbering quadruped could barely
fit through the walkways on the Star Force station without bowling people over
as it was. The waystation was on the interstellar link between the ADZ and Voku
home territory that had become a huge economic boon, not only to the two
empires but everyone else along the way. In fact there were far more non-Star
Force races passing through than one would think with an occasional, but not
too rare, Voku adding to the widespread mix of faces and limbs that