Destroying Mon village

Without any forethought, Tritus walked up to the nearest man he could find and picked him up by the throat. The man's feet were pitifully dangling above the ground like he was a child. Tritus growled at him, "I need whoever is in charge to come out here, NOW!" He shook and rattled the man until the man started screaming. "He's in his hut! He's in his hut! Please don't hurt me. I can take you to him." the man begged. "What a sorry excuse for a man you are. Bring me to him immediately!" Tritus said while dropping the man to the ground. The man's eyes were wide with fear. He scrambled to his feet and started stumbling toward a large hut at the center of the village. "What's going on? Why are you…" Penn started but was cut off by a rage filled glare she got from Tritus, which made her immediately close her mouth. "She should understand how disgusting this is." he thought to himself. "As for me, I don't understand why I'm personally so infuriated. I just know that I need to put a stop to this right now." The man led them to a very large hut. It was sitting next to another, larger one that Tritus assumed was Mon's old hut. The man wordlessly pointed to the hut and then bolted, not wanting to be anywhere near Tritus and his rage. Tritus didn't care either way; he just let the man run. "Penn I don't know what type of man this is going to be, but if he is half as evil as I expect him to be, we are going to have some problems." Tritus started looking around and spotted what he was looking for. He walked up to a little girl who was no older than eight and knelt in front of her. "May I borrow this? I promise I'll give it back." he spoke softly to the girl with a smile and pointed to the vine around her neck. She smiled back at Tritus and shook her head. "I'm sorry, I can't take it off or I'll get in trouble." she said, looking scared and apologetic. Tritus stood up and patted the little girl on the head, then walked back to Penn who was standing in front of the hut. Next to her were two men, one holding a vine. They were a lot bigger than the mousy man that Tritus had intimidated earlier.

While Tritus was distracted, the men had grabbed her and tried to force a vine around her neck. Penn shrieked and slapped one of the men hard. The second man reared back his fist and prepared to hit Penn but Tritus caught his fist mid swing. "Um, excuse me gentlemen." Tritus said quietly and coldly. "I would hate to have a problem with you, so I wouldn't touch her again if I were you." There wasn't any emotion behind Tritus's words, just a promise of absolute, unhesitating violence. This promise had shaken the men to the point that they let go of Penn and slowly started backing away without objection. They were half a foot taller than Tritus yet were dwarfed by his presence. "We… we don't want any trouble just thought… I mean she didn't have..." the man who was about to hit Penn stumbled over his words. "Its okay." Tritus said smiling at the men with a cheerful tone. "Everyone makes mistakes. Just don't let it happen again or…" his words had turned cold and deadly. He left the end of sentence open, letting them imagine the consequences. "We understand." the second man said. Then, both of them swiftly fled. Tritus watched them leave then looked over to Penn who was composing herself. "Okay no. I need you to tell me what is going on with this village. What are slaves? Why does it feel like something terrible…" she drowned him in question after question. "Later." Tritus promised. "But first, we need to take care of this village. Because, as you can tell, what's happening her is not right and I refuse to leave the village as is." he said to her and started walking back to the hut. Penn grabbed his arm, not wanting him to walk away without answering her questions, but he just shrugged her off and walked into the hut. "Wait here." he said with a demanding tone. Penn begrudgingly followed his order, not wanting to make him angry.

What he saw when he stepped inside actually made him throw up. There were women and little girls, tied up with vines, stacked on one half of the hut. All of them were nude and covered in feces, blood, and other bodily fluids. On the other side of hut was a man working his way through several women and little girls at once. Tritus almost leapt at the man but quickly calmed himself with all the self-control that he could muster. Tritus cleared his throat to get the man's attention. The man heard Tritus and turned around, the woman he was on collapsing when he stopped. To Tritus's credit, he didn't hit the man. Which, as far as he was concerned, was a miracle. "What do you want? I'm busy here." the man glared at Tritus. "I'm so sorry to disturb you and your… business but there are some matters that we need to discuss concerning this village." Tritus said in a polite tone as if he was talking about everyday business. "I ain't the leader of the village. That's Mon, and he left with someone for some gathering of chiefs or something like that. Whatever you wanna talk about ain't my business." The man said turning back towards the woman who was breathing hard on the ground. "I am aware, but Mon is not the leader of this village anymore, I am." Tritus said not wanting him to touch the woman again. This got the man's attention. He turned and faced Tritus fully now. "So you're the guy he left with this mornin'. Where is he?" the man asked looking Tritus straight in the eyes. Tritus returned his gaze. "He won't be coming back. I'll be the one running this village from now on. Because of that, some extreme, immediate changes are going to be taking place" Tritus said, dropping his polite tone. The man stared at him for several seconds before he spoke. "If Mon is dead or whatever, then I'm in charge now, not you foreigner. Any deal that you made with Mon don't apply to me and never did." the man stated as fact. "My first order as the new chief of this village is that you need to get outta here." he smirked at Tritus and pointed out of the hut. Tritus's mask of composure slipped all the way off for just a second and, for an instant, the man got to see Tritus's true feelings surrounding the situation. "Please don't make this into a problem, because that is not a confrontation that you want to walk into." Tritus growled at the man. The man seemed to hesitate at this, then he took a really good look at Tritus. To Tritus's surprise, the man snarled at him. "I don't know who you are, but I'm not weak. If you want to be chief, take it from me." the man stood at his full height. Tritus couldn't tell at first, but when the man stood at his full height, Tritus realized that the man was actually gigantic. Standing at about seven feet tall, he towered over Tritus. The man grabbed an animal skin next to him and draped it across his body, then he walked and stood right in front of Tritus and looked down at him. "Is that a formal challenge?" Tritus asked the man who just looked at him. Then, without saying a single word, he picked up Tritus and threw him out of the hut. "Wow, he's pretty strong." Tritus chuckled as he literally flew out of the hut and almost landed on Penn. Tritus could feel a rising sensation of satisfaction in his chest. "What a brute. Can't we just talk this out man-to-man?" Tritus teased the man, which only made him angrier. "Is this a formal challenge?" Tritus asked the man again, "and if so, is it to the death?" He was already throwing a swarm of punches and kicks at Tritus as he was talking. Tritus was uninterested in the fight, he dodged his opponent's attacks with a mixture of boredom and impatience. "I need you to answer me." he said while dodging a wild right hook that spun the man all the way around. "Yeah whatever. It's formal or whatever you said. Stay still so I can kill you!" the man shouted at Tritus. "That's what I wanted to hear!" Tritus humorously announced at the man. The man lunged at Tritus with his full weight. Tritus jumped straight up into the air, then brought his leg down in a powerful axe kick right across the man's right shoulder. He then punched the man square in his chest where his heart should be. His movements were so quick that the man had no time to react. It all happened in less than a second. Before anyone realized what was going on, the man was lying on the ground, crumpled and lifeless.

"What just happened? What did you just do?" Penn ran up to him shouting. "He challenged me to duel for the village and he lost. Now forget about him, he's dead. There are more important things to do right now." Tritus said motioning towards the hut he had been thrown out of. "Before you go in there prepare yourself, I'm pretty sure you haven't seen anything like this before and I'm sure it will affect you one way or another. Now go look." Tritus needed her to see the state of the women and little girls in the hut, if only to get the point across about how bad it was here. Any attempt to explain with words would just confuse her more. Penn turned around and walked into the hut. She opened the flap and peered inside. It was too dark to see from the entry so she stepped all the way inside. The smell along made her tense up. Tritus walked in right behind her and checked her expression. She was in complete shock. "I don't even… what is this." Her eyes were on a little girl, completely covered in who-knows-what, trying to help up the woman who the man was just on top of. "This is slavery. A worst case version of it I guess." Tritus said somberly. Since the outlet for his rage was gone, all he felt was sadness for the people here. The same little girl who had tried to help the woman walked over to the two, looking up at Tritus, "I'm sorry to trouble you but San is too tired to work could you ask Key to give her a break. I can work for her I promise. She is my sister. I don't want to… no I'm sorry for talking out of turn please don't hit me I'll…" at the end she covered her mouth and started to wince. Tritus couldn't help himself and started crying right there, he did not care who saw him. Then he dropped down to his knee and held the little girl, not caring about the filth, weeping the entire time. "It's okay don't cry." The little girl said rubbing his back trying to comfort him, which only made him cry even more. He didn't know why this upset him so much, he had seen cases of slavery similar to this before, but it completely overwhelmed him here.

Penn just stood there, her eyes darting from the pile of bodies to Tritus and the little girl he was holding crying. She was struggling to process what was going on. She had never seen or heard of violence like this, but she knew that it was the single most disgusting that she had ever seen. Now she understood Tritus's emotional reaction from the moment they first stepped into the village. "How?" Penn asked Tritus but received no response. He was still crying in the arms of the little girl who was holding him. To Penn, it seemed like this was something else for him, like it brought back some kind of traumatic memory that haunted him. She didn't know what, but it was clearly painful. Penn placed her hand on Tritus who had stopped crying so intensely, but was still shuttering. "Can you tell me what is going on? I mean get it, but I've never seen something like this before. I don't even know what to think. Can you explain it all to me? Help me understand, please." She said gently to him. The little girl looked up at Penn and smiled. This almost made Penn cry and she didn't understand why.

After a time, Tritus got himself together and stood back on his feet. When he looked at Penn there was nothing but cold steel in his eyes. They were as hard as diamonds and as cold as ice. "This ends now. I will unite the other three villages, but I will have to hold off on bringing this one into the fold. It's going to take more work than I thought, which means I will have to stay here and lead it directly." Tritus said. Penn looked at him for a second before speaking. "Wouldn't it be better to bring them in sooner?" she asked not understanding his plan. "No, in fact I think it might be worse for them. We'll bring other villagers here slowly to help them, because if we just throw them into an entirely new lifestyle it will frighten them. So, me and you will stay here and slowly break their mentality and mold them correctly." He said with certainty in his voice. "But why am I staying? I'm supposed to be leading the villages, right? How am I supposed to do that if I'm always here?" Penn asked. "These women need someone like you to help them. I understand that you have your own duty so I won't make you stay here, but I will send for you often. They need to see what a strong, independent woman is like. Attempting to change the social order of a whole culture is not something I can do alone, especially this one in particular. I will be the one actually staying here, but I still need a lot of your time to help me get this place in order. Will you help?" Tritus almost seemed to beg at the end, which shocked Penn a lot. "You're my leader, so of course I will do as you ask!" she said with a determined look on her face. Tritus breathed a sigh of relief and smiled brightly at her. "Now let's go, We have work to do."

After some time, Tritus managed to corral all of the people in Mon village together. It took a couple of threats for some of the men to listen. Tritus walked around with the head of the man who was previously second in command. Tritus learned that the man's name was Pon. The women just listened and followed his orders to the letter, lining up in an orderly manner. Although Tritus was disgusted with everything that was going on in the village, he had to admit that he was impressed. He had thought that Palm village was impressive, but this village was on another level. They had a simple currency system and engaged in actual trade with other villages. Their village was actually organized geographically. Women who had not been connected with a man yet living on the edge of the village. The chief in the dead center, and everyone else in between. While gathering all the inhabitants, Tritus was able to confirm that the treatment of women here was tradition and had been the norm as far back as anyone could remember. There were even other villages that practice the same tradition. "I guess hunting down those other villages is on the top of my to do list." Tritus said as he stepped on to a platform at the center of the village. When he did, all of the villagers stared at him. No one was speaking, they had all seen him walking around with Pon's head and didn't want to anger him. "Listen up," he said in a tone that was fiery and demanding of a challenge from anyone who disagreed. Penn was directly behind him. "I am only going to say this once. I hate the way this village is being run. I'm in charge now, and a new leader means new rules. First and foremost, this business of treating women as property is done. If any one of you has a problem with that, well..." He motioned to the pike on the side of the stage that had Pon's head. He let the statement sit there, the people no doubt knowing the consequences. "I'm not a bad man, and I'm here not only to help you, but to improve your way of living. All of you men, women, and children alike in my eyes." He motioned to Penn to stand beside him. "This is my second in command, a woman. You will respect her. She is the chief of a few villages on the other side of the forest and will be here often to speak with me and carry out important business. When I have to leave the village and she is here, she will be in charge and you will listen to her." Some of the men looked angry at this but didn't say anything. The women looked shocked. From their experience, there was no way that a woman could possibly lead men. A tidal wave of conflicting thoughts was rolling through their heads. Tritus was disappointed to see no excitement from them, only confusion. "This runs extremely deep, to the point that they literally can't imagine a different way of life." he thought to himself. Emotions threatened to run over him but he masked them for the time being. He still couldn't understand why this was bothering him so much but he accepted it. "Now all of you women and girls, I want you to remove the vines that are around your neck. You don't belong to anyone anymore. That's an order." He had to accept that, while he wanted them to be free, they weren't going to just up and change without prodding and guidance. So, he would temporarily take advantage of their need for order until they are able stand on their own. He could see them deliberating over the order to take off the vine. It was understandable. Tritus had come so suddenly and completely shattered the norms they were raised in. At first, only the little girls were willing to discard their vines. For them, it was far less complicated of a request. Within a few minutes, even the most hesitant of the women followed through with taking off the vines. Seeing this, the men of the village didn't try to hide their disgust. Even the little boys were agitated. This included everyone except a single man and what looked to be a teenage boy in the back. No dared to challenge Tritus directly. None of them wanted to risk it after seeing how he killed Pon. "I can see that you men don't like this. I'll take all of you on if you want to fight about it. Just challenge me. However, you should know that I will forever stand by my decision. What was going on here was the most disgusting thing that I have ever seen and I won't stand for it. You can either challenge me or leave. Anyone still remaining here as of now will be following my rule to the letter. As for those of you wanting to leave, don't even think of bringing any women with you. All of them will be remaining here under my protective watch." Tritus thoroughly explained to the crowd. The last thing that he needed was for the men to start ordering the women to leave with them. At this, almost all of the men and boys started walking out of the village. Only a few remained. "I know that you're probably going to some of the villages that you have traded with. Don't worry, I'll be there soon to take them over as well." He called out to the group that was leaving, his voice gleeful with amusement. It may have seemed like he was jokingly toying with them by his tone and laughter, but he was dead serious. He intended on fully eradicating this ideology before it spread any further.

Tritus had given everyone who wanted to leave time to do so. Many of the men and boys who decided to leave took a few of their belongings, grumbling and snarling through the whole process. Everyone who remained looked at Tritus blankly, not having a direction to go in. They anxiously waited for his next orders. "Now that most of the bad apples have left the bunch, we shall proceed with only the freshest and ripest fruits." he smiled at the audience. "I know that change is scary, but it is necessary for progress. It is something that you can't prevent so you must embrace it. I have already made myself very clear on how I felt about how the village was being run, but I will not hold any of the men here accountable for these actions. Think of it as starting over. From here on out, I will judge you by your behavior in the present, not the past." he said with a stern gaze in his eyes but a smile on his lip. "Now, I've said everything that I think is important for now. As of today, Mon village no longer exists. It has been destroyed. As of today, this village will be called Peddle village, named after the little girl who comforted me, even though it should've been the other way around." The little girl in question was standing in the front of the group. Tritus had learned her name while she showed Tritus to the stage. "Peddle village, and the other villages that are under me currently, will be the start of something great. Let us work hard and make this something special." None of the villagers responded to this, but Tritus didn't expect them to. He knew that the only way to get them to where he wanted was to demonstrate exactly what he was trying to do. So, that's what he planned to do. He would show the men that the way they were living before was brutal and unjust, while teaching the women that they were more than just currency. They were citizens on equal footing with everyone else.

There was one thing that still bothered him about this entire thing. Tritus had seen slavery countless times, especially this form of slavery which was actually very common, so he didn't know why he'd been affected so deeply. He thought it was because this was the first time that he had fully experienced it in person, but it seemed that it was more than that. He was still shaken and confused over the whole thing. This is something he would have to ask about when he returned to the hub. For now, he'd just push it off and continue his work.