John stood at the railing and watched as the forces of the Dragon Emperor, whoever the hell that was, marched on to the central part of the massive arena. The space took up nearly triple the space the other two had, but that only made sense he supposed. This was meant to test large unit tactics after all.

“Sir, three Bradleys just disappeared from the staging area.” The young aid said, no doubt giving him info passed on from Major Cranton.

“Thank you, please relay my thanks to the major. Tell him to document anything that has gone missing, and provide it to me at the end of the duel.” John returned his attention back down to the fight. He wasn’t sure if the ‘resurrection array’ that he purchased would also work on vehicles, but he hoped they would. Those machines were expensive, and he wasn’t sure if he would be able to replace them any time soon.

The Emperitor sighed deeply and John turned to look at him. “I thought dear General, that we had an understanding. That this was going to be a fair fight between our forces. Instead, we will have to out spend one another, no? Why waste what little precious treasure your people have been able to accumulate during the integration, on this?”

“I do not understand what you are talking about Emperitor. Please elaborate.”

“Ah, so this might be just a slip up because of ignorance. Such things can be forgiven, for a price.” He sighed again. “You’re buying victory points. You and your people are new to the universe and System, so allow me to educate you. That is considered quite rude, and uncouth in such duals as this. A challenge is seen as an opportunity for forces to fight and win on a small scale. Spending outside resources on them while allowed by the System, is . . . well, it's seen as a violation of that understanding. How many EU’s have you spent so far?”

“A few thousand. Why?” The Emperitor spluttered and spit out his hot chocolate, some of it came out his nose and John couldn’t help it. He smiled at the sight.

“You spend the worth of a town in minutes, so casually?”

“Is that the worth of a town?”

“Yes, on most worlds. A town of a few thousand citizens will produce at most six thousand EU’s a year. This world must be truly large for so much to be seen as worth so little to you. Only the greatest of worlds in the C, or low B rankings would treat such an expense as casually as you do. Take this as advice, on a purely leader to leader level. Do not waste such treasures lightly. Holding the portal onto your world is not worth so much effort and expense.”

That had John smiling from ear to ear. “Perhaps it speaks to just what you face here. Withdraw your challenge, return to your home, and we can trade in good faith. After a while, and some form of reparations of course.”

The Emperitor gave John a worried sidelong look for a hard moment. A heartbeat later he cracked a smile. “You almost had me going there. I like you low-born. I hope your leaders are as interesting as you are.” John shook his head.

“Suit yourself. Let's see how this unfolds.”

“So, you’re going to insist on this course of outspending each other?” John shrugged.

“I have no fear of being outspent by someone who thinks five minutes of output by my electric grid equates to a fortune. Let's see what happens.” The Emperitor shook his head, the smile gone and turned back to the dual in progress.

“Fine, I can only match you then. Let's see how creative our men and women can be with the fortunes we will give them, shall we?”