What Goes Around Comes Around (GT Story)

What Goes Around Comes Around

It was a day that no To'kustar could ever forget, a giant alien of unknown origins descended from the sky, landing right outside their village, towering over them. Before the To'kustars could even react, the imposing being began to speak.

"Greetings, people of To'kun. My name is Tartarus. This is an announcement from your new ruler, the mighty human race! I come from a faraway planet. From this moment on, you shall bow down to us and obey our every command."

Observing the small aliens below all too stunned to respond, the giant continued, "you are now our subjects, and your existence is solely dependent on our mercy. Any form of rebellion or disobedience will be met with severe consequences. We shall not hesitate to use our superior strength and intellect to crush any opposition. We urge you to accept your new reality and submit to our rule. Resistance is futile, and your only option is to obey us or face the consequences."

There was a short pause in the Tartarus's announcement, as he observed the To'kustars quivering in fear.

"Fear not. If all of you follow my orders as you are told, I will let you continue to live your worthless lives. But first order of business, do not ever touch me you filthy animals. Second of all, I'm designating the land across this body of water as mine, and you vermin are all forbidden to ever trespass my private domain. Any questions?"

The question was met with complete silence. To the To'kustars, the so called human race appeared about 10 times their size, and looked highly intelligent. It was apparent they were defeated in both brawn and brain, and thus no one really dared to fight back. Notably for the To'kustars, however, Tartarus's voice sounded very quiet for his size, but that was the least of their concerns. Having never seen such an enormous being, their survival instinct was to submit themselves and do whatever the giant says, if that meant a chance to have their lives spared.

"Good. Now better get some sleep tonight, and be ready to work your tail off", the human said, before the figure magically disappeared in front of their eyes.

Over the next couple of weeks, Tartarus began showing up more and more often, subjugating his undersized minions to all kinds of menial, yet simple tasks. Initially, a few To'kustars were recruited to collect the various colorful pebbles that were scattered in the landscape and weren't exactly uncommon. Some were also tasked to harvest some of the particularly oily seeds from vegetations in the forest.

Strangely, no matter what Tartarus asked them to gather, they were always ordered to either crush their yield into dust before delivery, which again wasn't a particularly difficult process. In contrast to the hardness of comparable resources from the world Tartarus came from, the pebbles and seed were more similar to potato chips in consistency. In fact, pretty much every naturally occurring substance were just as crumbly for the To'kustars, so being asked to crush them was a not a problem and hardly worthy of note.

Those being enslaved never understood their alien overlord's intentions. They were just glad that even though they were forced to do work to please their superior, their fear of being forced to work like a dog did not come true. Not only did the assignments take less than an hour a day of their time, it was odd for their master to order them to carry out these mundane and seemingly meaningless tasks. Perhaps he was just far too grand to do these plebeian work himself.

There were many other of Tartarus' directives that the To'kustars found confusing. He always wanted the finished products to be left near the coast lines. The collections themselves would then usually disappear overnight, but no one had ever saw Tartarus physically take them. None of them dared to question its intentions though. If performing these simple tasks guaranteed the survival of their lesser civilization, then so be it.