One night, the group was in a bar when a group of Grotens attacked them. They were all members of Brute Squad, a loosely organized gang of Groten mercenaries. While the Grotens out numbered THEM, they lacked the skill necessary and were all defeated. There was one tense moment when a Groten got a hold of Anaximanda, completely engulfing her with his fist. Fortunately, the Groten was already hurt and was killed a moment later. After the battle, one surviving Groten was interrogated and the group discovered an immense bounty had been placed on their heads - of the order of about a million credits. Smaller bounties were offered for all of the underlings. Upon trying to contact their underlings, they were enraged to discover that most had been killed - including Sozen who they had recently worked with.

THEM decided to go seek out Brute Squad and started randomly killing their members. Eventually, they discovered the location of a bar in which the leaders of Brute Squad could be found. In a bold move of either intense bravery or intense stupidity, Vasculus walked right into the bar. The bar was filled with Grotens and as soon as he set foot in the door, the room fell silent. Vasculus eventually found the leader of Brute Squad, Fabry, and started talking. Eventually, it came out that a Trop was offering tons of money to have THEM killed. Perhaps a member of UGLLY had survived.

A deal was made with Fabry (many of his men were killed by THEM so he wanted to end the hostilities). THEM would supply Brute Squad with a dead body that resembled Anaximanda and members of Brute Squad would attempt to claim part of the bounty. Hopefully this would lead THEM to the Trop that was offering the bounty. In return, the Brute Squad would declare that they had beaten THEM and chased them out of their area of the planet. Fabry wanted to save face and the reputation of Brute Squad.