Chapter 130 Cooperation
All this that Gabby had done, the whole movement of resistance that he had established was just to safeguard his own interests. Not only did he get an army to protect his card and that of his teammates but he also had a chance to devour the points of the legendary trio if the plan succeeded. This ambition had made him appear in peace in front of the other group that was comparable to his own in terms of strength.
No one in Zavier's group was able to answer him definitely and his earlier words were still ringing in the air. Eventually someone pointed towards Kacie and nominated her to be the temporary leader of their group so she could make the decision. While some supported her, some pointed towards Shiranui as well; at least those who had seen her true strength. But the movement regarding Shiranui couldn't gain popularity as Shiranui truly wasn't a people person as she was always cold to everyone other than Zavier. So Kacie was the most popular choice for she was the senior most amongst them and was part of the core group of the team and its strength.
Zavier knew that these weak willed individuals would eventually turn on her if they suffered losses from the alliance. Because then they would be able to point towards her in the future and would be able to blame her for making the wrong decision. Zavier knew that these kinds of people weren't even worth trusting but he didn't stop it. The rest of the people in the group supported that thought so Kacie was chosen as the temporary representative that had the authority to make decisions on their behalf.
She stepped towards Gabby in order to respond to his earlier question. She had deliberated on his question and had felt that the response team against the trio was a good idea assuming that the trio was truly as powerful as the other team described him to be. Even if they were not, they simply had to make sure that they didn't end up becoming the puppets or cannon fodder that Gabby could utilize at whim. This was also the crux of the issue. Although she was willing to be a part of the large group, she didn't want to lose their autonomy in the process.
"I understand where you are coming from but we will not just believe whatever you have said to be true just based on your face value. Not one of us has ever seen someone like that in the competition. I am not saying that all of you are lying but I would want to see the villain for myself before handing myself and my group over to you. Your purpose is to go after the trio but there is no need for you to call the shots for everyone. If we were to join your team, you have to understand that we would not be willing to listen to your orders or of anyone else for that matter. You can call shots for your own people while we will decide on our way forwards by mutual understanding amongst ourselves."
Her demand for autonomy within the group had enabled them to move away without a thought once their goals and methods didn't align together at any point during the cooperation.
Zavier felt happy listening to Kacie as he had already known that she would turn out to be good leader material.
Like him she had probably managed to articulate what the true plans of Gabby really were. In reality, he was just hungry for points that the trio had managed to accumulate during the competition. Being the leader he had a greater chance to get a hold of their cards which was why Kacie had refrained from handing her group over to the wolves.
Zavier wanted to stop this cooperation if possible but there was nothing that he could do to stop it from happening. Even if they didn't agree to Gabby's proposition there was a chance that other teams would eventually form the alliance and would wage war against his clones. Since he could not stop the eventuality, he preferred to be in the know about what was happening. After all, 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer', was a time tested saying.
Zavier was laughing on the inside at the joke that was being played on him. In order to hide his true identity and to hide the fact that the legendary trio just comprised of his clones, he had to move with the group to attack himself. He had never expected such an outcome when he was going about looting everyone in sight.
And even funnier was that even if the large group managed to take down Zavier's clones, they would never be able to get their cards since they didn't have one from the beginning. He could almost picture the despair that Gabby and his team would fall into if that ever happened.
Although Gabby didn't like what the girl had proposed but he had to agree to her demand in order to take this group into the fold. He knew that this group had some really useful members and their demands weren't very wrong from a general point of view. If he showed the slightest greed, his own group might fall apart in an instant.
Since the groups had agreed to form a temporary alliance until they took down the trio, they began to move together in order to recruit more members for the raid.
Zavier's group was laid back and lax in the later recruitment movements as they didn't want to get entangled with Gabby's plot.
Gabby's target was to make the team continue to recruit more members until the entire group was 200 people in number. He felt that it was the safest bet to have at least this number of people if they wanted to successfully raid the trio.
There was another hidden reason that Gabby had never bothered to tell anyone else. It was that he planned to gather a large number of people together so that after they got their hands on the trio's cards, it would be easier for his original team to prey on the remaining ones as they would all be close to them.
Gabby was in fact planning to take over the place of the trio to wreak havoc since his group would probably be the strongest after the trio after all.
There were various students in the team who had ideas that were similar to Gabby since the very thing that was holding such a large team together was their greed. Since not a single one of them was as devious and calculating as Gabby, their plans were easier to see through for the others.
The students understood that they had to be ready to fight for the cards of the trio after the successful raid. They also had to fight against other groups, which was the reason that the group silently fractured into many different groups with their own leaders. After all every one of the students had realized the need to group together to attain the maximum benefits from this hoax alliance.
The teams ranged from fifty to one hundred and fifty people. Only a handful decided to refrain from doing so. They stayed as they had been before joining the alliance.
One such leader was an acquaintance that Zavier had previously encountered during the competition. It was none other than Kevin who had flaunted in front of Rebecca previously about his steel dick and had ended up with a broken one by the end of their confrontation. Kevin had a strong desire to fight and his will was still strong despite the fact that he was injured. Zavier had to appraise him a little higher based on just that. It was quite admirable that his spirit was still standing strong. Zavier felt that either he had a very strong ego that didn't let him stop or he had no pride at all to begin with.
Mabel took some time to observe the change in the points on the point screen and found that the changes in the individual points had come to a halt which was too strange. There was no way that the participants would have stopped accumulating points unless someone exciting had appeared who had broken the game board.
She excitedly switched the monitor screen to a map that was littered with small red dots. This map was obviously that of the Black Forest region that was currently the stage for the first entry test for Caesar University.
Mabel was excitedly watching the monitor as the crux of her test started to reveal itself. She could see small dots on the screen that represented all the human life signatures in the test region. She could see them all moving together in sync and a constant stream of dots joining up with them.
After observing it for a while, she knew that a superpower had appeared on the battlefield. There was nothing that united two individuals with differing ideologies more than an enemy that was powerful enough to plunge them both into despair.
Mabel had designed her test to single out the most prominent genius or a group thereof so that she could put them through even more stringent requirements. This test would be able to change its difficulty for those who had a higher level of strength compared to their peers. Numbers had power and Mabel had known that a higher strength could be countered by grouping up people together.