Chapter 53 3:
Chaos was a word that Korr had learned in his lives, both this one and the previous one.
The matter of everything being turned into a mess, that nothing followed an order and that any small thing changed absolutely everything, had never made more sense than in these moments.
His reflective silence toward the words of his instructor, certainly younger than him if his previous life was added in, and who nevertheless seemed to possess more depth than his more than 54 years of lived experience, had been interrupted by the shouting and fights of the natos around him.
The noise of fists striking flesh and the crying at his side, the biting and the blunders here and there, had driven him out of his mind.
He wanted to rise and send them all to punishment. But very likely some nato would challenge him, and certainly there were high chances they would beat him.
Here the classifications were not a mere ornament, they formed an intrinsic part of the Viltrumite identity itself, allowing the elevation of one individual above another in every aspect of their existence.
Or that was the idea.
In any case he was class 15, so a class 14 or lower could wipe the floor with him.
Nevertheless he did not remain with his arms crossed because of that.
He had well demonstrated many times that he possessed the makings to tame these child soldiers.
So Korr gently moved Nul-lam aside and climbed down from the bunk, ignoring the slight sting in his chest from the nightmare that had remained buried in the deepest part of his psyche.
This was not the time to think about self-contempt and reflections that at these moments were irrelevant.
Now his priority was to find solutions.
The moment his feet touched the floor, the childish chaos that seemed to become a cursed tidal wave struck him head-on once again.
Vulc-an and Kang were still rolling around trading clumsy blows.
While the other two, the tall one and the short one, flew like meteorites above their heads, trying to simulate some sort of flying joust using their hands as lances.
That bewildering image was his reality and it seemed ridiculous to him.
At that moment he filled his chest and exclaimed at the top of his lungs.
"SHUT UUUUUUP ALREADY!" Korr roared.
His voice exploded through the entire room like a gunshot, LITERALLY.
His own voice almost seemed to have broken the sound barrier from that abrupt displacement, but all the natos were able to hear him very clearly.
That shrill sensation had also irritated the natos' eardrums, something Korr was already suspecting to be an apparently inherent weakness of the race.
It was not that they were weak to sonic attacks or anything like that, but according to the teachings of his superior, there existed an organ in their bodies between the region of their ears within the cranial area which was highly sensitive to them, to the point of causing death in the worst cases since the rupture of said organ could provoke a massive cerebral hemorrhage.
To a greater extent, that distortion of the frequencies coming out of his mouth not only affected him, but also the other natos who ceased any kind of action at that moment to stare at him.
Several children froze from the discomfort, and one, the chubbier one, even vomited.
Others simply looked at him defiantly.
"Stop doing what you're doing," Korr exclaimed. "We are in our sleeping schedule. Do you want our instructors to Correct us? I will not say it again, obey and return to your bunks."
"And who are you to give orders, class 15?" spat one of the taller natos. "My classification is better than yours, so I order you to shut up and you go back to the bunk."
"Yes yes, I also have a higher classification than you. Go back to the bunk, it's an order an order."
Another child accompanied him, floating upward with his arms crossed, completely defiant, demonstrated by his puffed cheeks like a hamster.
"Challenge challenge." A girl shouted enthusiastically, almost squealing as if she were witnessing something extravagant.
"Challenge yes challenge."
"The weirdo challenged Tuth-pak, how exciting."
"The best of the class against the weirdo, incredible."
"Challenge challenge."
And several others joined in the campaign that was beginning to form.
"Why don't you carry out my orders, class 15? If you don't I'll report you to our instructors."
"If you don't shut up I'll hit your head as many times as I want, child." Korr responded back, his gaze hardening.
Upon looking directly into the brat's eyes, he felt the compulsive need to grab a belt, pull down his uniform to expose his buttocks and spank him until they turned red for his insolence.
"These children." He thought.
In moments like these he remembered the upbringing his parents had given him.
How he wished he could do it with these brats. But he was in a different world, with a different upbringing.
A ruthless world.
Here he had to be brutal in order to educate a brutal child.
And brutality was certainly something he lacked, though little by little he was cultivating it.
He had witnessed firsthand the brutality expressed in this side of the universe.
He initially experienced it from his father, he experienced it from his instructor, he experienced it from another alien with tendencies toward evil, and he would probably continue experiencing it in the near future or all his life.
The children shouted an "Oooooooooooh!" escalating things.
"Do you dare do you dare?" Tuth-pak shouted furiously at him, about to rise and launch himself at Korr, which could translate into something disadvantageous for his person.
But in his eyes, they were all nothing more than children. Super strong and extremely dangerous, but children nonetheless.
So he did not avert his gaze and threatened him.
"Yes," he nodded. "If I want to I can break your nose, so shut up already and obey me."
Korr warned him.
He might refuse to hit children, but he had learned one or two things about tough paternal love in his previous life.
Seeing that the child indeed would not desist from his actions since for obvious reasons there were high chances he held the advantage, he displayed a dangerous smile, warning him.
"Listen well, Tuth-pak. You too, disrespectful natos. All of you, bunch of poorly made tadpoles," he said while cracking his knuckles. "I don't give a shit about your classifications."
He slowly approached Tuth-pak, until staring directly at him, managing to intimidate him and make him avert his gaze.
That action had even forced Vulc-an and Kang to stop and rise from the floor they were on.
"If you keep squealing, I'm going to sculpt your little heads with punches until you learn to behave like Viltrumite warriors."
This last thing had been a shameless strategy, personally, a very low one. But it was the one that worked.
Being a perfect Warrior of the empire was every child's dream in this place and part of their training lay in temperance and DUHM (a sort of Viltrumite stoicism philosophical current that was irrelevant to the matter, perfect for keeping calm in battles).
Silence fell for a few seconds.
"Was that a challenge?" asked the tall child, who felt challenged. He ignored the short one entirely and focused directly on Korr.
Korr-add took another step forward, leaning down so he could observe him directly in the face since this child truly was tall.
"Try it and let's find out who ends up using their head as wall decoration."