Chapter 616 The real leader
When Blip had been asked to make contact with the Graylash family, he was incredibly nervous. He was currently pacing back and forth in his office at the Crow’s base and biting his thumbnail.
The only person he had ever had contact with from the Graylash family was someone he told to go and shove his reports in a particular area. But he knew that this seemed to be important to Quinn and he owed him a lot for what he had done.
Eventually, he took a deep breath, sat down in his chair and made the call. It didn’t take long for it to be answered. Upon seeing Blip, the man in the video had a smug look on his face.
"Well, well, well. I didn’t think it would take long for you to come grovelling back." The Graylash man said. "What’s wrong, having trouble getting funds to repair the shelter, none of the other families will take you in, or maybe the Sunshields have returned?"
"Look, can we just let the past be the past." Blip said, frustrated knowing that the call was going to go this way. "I wanted to talk about-"
"No thanks, I don’t want to hear anything you have to say." He interrupted. "The only reason I accepted this call was to give you false hope and how nice it is to see that look on your face!"
"Wait!" Blip shouted while reaching out at the screen just as the man was about to hang up. "You said before that your family leader wanted to meet with us right, well we accept. Just let him come and meet with us."
"That was before, right now we are busier than ever. But just to let you know, even if we weren’t busy, I wouldn’t put in the request." He had the last word and was ready to end the call there and then.
Blip started to think about what to do, should he beg? Was he going to go to Quinn and say he couldn’t organise the meeting because it was his fault?
"The Blade family." Blip blurted out.
The Graylash member’s finger was hovering over the end call button, and it had stopped after hearing that name. "What did you say?"
"We want to have a meeting to talk about the Blade family."
The call ended there, but the man on the other end was trying to decide what to do. If someone had just mentioned that name on the off chance, perhaps he wouldn’t have even thought about it.
But somehow, the Crows had managed to survive the attack from the Sunshields, while all the other factions that were attacked hadn’t. They had files on the Crow’s, and by their calculations, they shouldn’t have survived, and now they mention the Blade family? There was a high chance that their survival had something to do with it.
He decided that he would report this to the leader Owen after all.
Owen was a busy man, so many things from the bottom wouldn’t usually get to him. He had surrounded himself with people he trusted. The family was simply too big for him to micromanage everyone’s doings, which was his original intentions.
Right now, he was looking at report after report of the Sunshields attacking everything they could on site.
"Burnie, you old fool, are you really going to resist? Is this your final stand?" Owen said. He had quite a sad look in his eyes when he was thinking about the Sunshield leader. "It looks like soon we might be down to two."
Reports about the lower factions and planets didn’t usually reach Owen, but the news about the Blades had done. The man in question had been granted permission to enter the room.
Owen was sitting on the floor in a lotus position with his usual large white gown and his long hair flowing down both sides. The room he was in had wooden flooring, and he sat on a simple large mat with a cushion on it.
The man had told him what Blip requested.
"Should we send someone to go out there sir, to see if it’s a trap?" The man suggested. "It could be a plan by the Crow’s as a way to ambush you there."
Owen chuckled quietly as his eyes took a moon-like shape.
"Do you really think if it was an ambush they could keep me against my will?" Owen replied. "I shall go myself, so you are not worried, I will take some Altum with me."
With that, the man was pleased. The Altum were the highest-ranking members in terms of power in the Graylash family. The big three were the strongest families, and everyone knew that, but even within their own families, they had split their strength into three groups.
The Altum were at the top, the strongest just below the leader. Medius was the class just below them. These were usually the commanders of their forces, such as Gox that Quinn had defeated, and then there was the Humilis.
The ones that were attacking the other factions were from the lowest class, the Humilis. However, they did have a single Medius with them, and Owen knew this based on the information in front of him.
There was no way anyone in the Crows would have been able to beat a Medius from the Sunshield family.
There was also something else that was noted in the report given to Owen. According to the traveller system, the Crow’s faction had been disbanded. When trying to look for Blip’s ID, they could see it had been moved into a new faction.
One called The Cursed.
’Looking at this brings back memories, I seem to remember a certain child called the Cursed Child at that inter tournament. Wasn’t he protected by the Blades?’
The meeting was set, and the day had finally arrived. On the Graylash planet, all family members and nearly all the faction members were currently staying on the Cursed ship. This time, no one complained when they told them the Graylash family were coming and needed to move. They had learnt from last time.
To make it clear that they didn’t want to fight and just talk, only a select few people were chosen by Quinn to be at the meeting.
Quinn had brought along the usual suspects with him - Fex, Paul, and Kazz. The high ex Crow members were brought along as well, Blip, Linda, Nate, Megan. Sam was brought as he was a key member of Quinn’s team, along with Dennis too.
To the current Cursed faction, these were the people that had saved their lives and who they respected around the base. There was one more person, Peter, or the cold one as he was often referred to.
The group was standing in front of the old Crow’s base waiting for the Graylashes to arrive.
A modest sized ship had entered the planet’s atmosphere, apart form this ship, it didn’t set off any of their sensors, and at most, they would have been able to fit twenty people on board. Seeing this was a relief as all of them were ready to bolt it through the teleporter if they were bringing an army with them.
It looked like they had kept their word and they really would just be talking. Paul told them that they would as they never saw the Crow’s as a threat at the end of the day. Even if they agreed to go to another big family, punishing them just wasn’t worth their time.
The ship landed, and the railing was let down, the first person to walk off was the man that Blip used to constantly communicate to.
"Oh, and I finally get to see the rude man’s face." He said.
"Hector, before that incident, didn’t we have such pleasant conversations? Besides, today isn’t about us." Blip replied, being careful to not get on the wrong side of the Graylashes seconds after their arrival.
"Indeed," Hector said dryly.
Emerging from the ship, five members from the Altum class had stepped out. The others gulped seeing this. They wore different clothing compared to the regular Graylashes, and one could tell by the trim colour on their martial arts robes. For them, it was a golden trim.
Having worked with the Graylashes, they had never seen anyone ranked above the Humilis class, and they knew their power. Finally, the last person to leave the ship was Owen.
He had his small metal fan covering the bottom part of his face, and only his eyes and long hair could be seen flowing from both sides. He looked exactly the same the last time Quinn had seen him.
The two groups bowed to each other.
"Should we head inside?" Hector said.
They walked in, and all sat down around a large circular table. From the Graylash side, the only ones that sat down were Hector and Owen. The rest remained standing but made sure to stay close, sticking to Owen’s side.
"Now, before we talk, there are a few things I would like to make clear," Hector said. "We are to pretend that a certain incident didn’t happen before." He said, looking at Blip. "And depending on how the meeting goes, the Crows and the Graylashes can still work together.
"There are many questions that we have from our side, why the need to contact us, how did you survive the attack from the Sunshields, and how do you know about the Blades?"
When Hector spoke, all of his words were addressed to Blip, and Blip just looked back at Hector blankly.
"Well, have you gone mute, you fool? Speak up, or are we just wasting our time here." Hector said.
"I’m sure you already know." Blip replied. "The Crows no longer exist."
Just then, Owen placed his hand on Hector’s shoulder. "I think it’s best you let me do the talking Hector. You see, this whole time you have been addressing the wrong person. Isn’t that right?" Owen said as he smiled at Quinn across the table.
As soon as he had left the ship, Owen couldn’t keep his eyes off of Quinn.
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