The Innkeeper

As annoyed as Lex was by the two senior Morrisons, he noticed that neither the family heads nor the other three responded to them. It was as if years of experience had taught them the best way to handle them was to ignore them. The strong blush running down Miranda’s neck was completely not a giveaway about how she felt about Brandon’s flirting, not at all.

“Do you really expect this to work?” Richard asked. “You cannot trap us here. We can leave, and even if you do bomb two cities, or even more, as long as we return to Earth, all of you will die.”

“Do not try to bluff, old man,” Lee said, yawning. He was not at all intimidated by these few who had controlled Earth for so long.

“You bend over backwards to stop any cultivator conflict, and step in even if a mortal conflict is getting too big. You think you are being secretive, but the truth is old timer, other than your cultivation, you are not superior in anything else. The same goes for the rest of you as well.”

Lee gave a derisive look to all in the room.

“You are not good leaders. You are not good businessmen. You are not good politicians. You make yourselves feel good by saying you’re protecting people’s lives, but all you’re doing is suppressing your own people. Your shoddy rules and improper management are literally destroying Earth, but the mortals are protected from the truth, so who cares?”

At the end of his little triad, Lee got a little heated, no doubt from holding in years of resentment, but decided to stop so Miranda would not pester him. But just as she was about to speak again, he discovered that he really could not stop himself._.

“You’re uneducated and stuck in bygone traditions! You trained your descendants to be the best, but then forced them to hide and suppress themselves. You taught them to have ambition and then buried it with your own hands. It is not betrayal when you betrayed us first! You…”

“Lee, stop,” interrupted Kevin. “Go take a breather. We’ll handle this.”

Lee realized that he had, indeed, lost his temper. It really was better to go cool off – they still had many things to take care of after this. He gave Richard a dirty look and said one last thing before leaving.

“As much as you all look down on him, at least Brandon gave his descendants a place to thrive. Of all the families, his has the least members on the Council of the New Order.”

At this, Brandon and Audrey both raised an eyebrow. Council of the New Order is probably what they called themselves, but what truly attracted him was the part about the least members. Least did not mean none. So even the Morrison family had traitors.

With Lee leaving the room, Miranda took a deep breath and turned back to the Queen.

“We have much to do, so I’m not going to waste any more time. We did not come here to negotiate, we only came here to tell what’s going to happen from now on. You can choose how to react to this information, but the consequences will be your own. You can believe us about the nuclear bombs or you can test it out, it’ll be up to you.

“The mortals have ruled and the cultivators have hid long enough. It’s time to restore proper order – for both their sakes and ours. Soon, the borders of many countries will change. Sects will once again openly recruit and cultivators will take over positions of power. All efforts will be put towards the growth and expansion of the cultivation civilization.

“As for you… you will remain at the Inn until a time that the council decides you may return. Don’t worry, treat it like retirement. Play bingo, watch some tv, whatever it is retired people do. Because, even if you do come back, you’ll find that your influence is gone. No one will listen to you. Any authority you thought you had… was only because none of the council members wanted to fight you up front. Anyone who was still loyal to you… well, let’s not get into the specifics.”

“Is it so easy for you to massacre so many people?” the Queen asked in an even voice. If she was feeling anger or frustration, it was not evident.

Miranda looked at the Queen placidly, as if she had asked the stupidest question in the world.

“About as easy as it was for you to let my father die.”

“I think I’ve heard about enough,” Brandon said, standing up, a dagger still sticking out of his leg. “Little girl, I wish you the best in your endeavors. I never cared much for ruling Earth anyway, too much responsibility – I would rather chill at the beach with my wife. I will only give you one piece of advice: don’t kill too many people during your little revolution. If you piss off the boss lady, you might really learn just about how much power you really have. Oh and uh, I’ll stay at the Inn, but someone uses that as an excuse to harm my kids or grandkids…”

He didn’t finish his sentence as he left the room, but his message was clear. Miranda let out a little sigh, even as she swooned a little internally. Their biggest concern really was the Morrison family. Although mostly focused on Mars, their army was sizable. Naturally, against all the cultivators of Earth it was still inferior in strength, but the damage the council would take fighting them would be considerable.

“Are you sure about this?” Audrey asked as the old, but somehow very young looking, couple walked away.

“You know I never cared much for the responsibility. If Rorick or the others want to do something about it, they can, but I say good riddance. Keeping that woman happy was too annoying. Now we can just focus on what we want to do. Hey berry, want to have another kid?”

Audrey smacked the man on the back of his head, effectively communicating her feelings about that notion, as they continued to stroll around. They had many hours before the next match. Alexander was sleeping, recovering from the mental exhaustion, and Rorick was cultivating in his room, completely unaware of what was happening in the outside world.

While the Morrisons strode off, Lex was still focused on the meeting. The family heads learnt of how deeply the betrayal ran, and they all had mixed feelings. Basically, anyone not from their immediate family was very dissatisfied with them, to put it mildly. They were born at the peak of the world, raised to be the best, then suppressed and forced to hide their brilliance so that the mortal world would not be destabilized.

Lex honestly didn’t care about any of that, and currently he had no thoughts on what the family heads could have done better. He was slowly getting agitated by not being able to learn any specific details about Earth.

A part of him wanted to simply return to New York and see if he could call his family. But of course, he knew that all communication had been shut down so he would learn nothing.

Eventually, he decided to wait one more day to see if someone would answer his commission, or else he would start to take more… drastic… measures.

*****

Somewhere in the universe, far away, Serene Williams was looking at her husband as he practiced. On her face she wore expressions of both disappointment and annoyance, but the man did not notice as he was focused on his sword. He was practicing shirtless, his taut muscles rippling with each move, his rolling sweat giving his body a nice sheen.

His each swing was slow and deliberate, but despite that each time he finished a swing the very room would tremble. The man frowned, he still could not prevent energy from leaking. When he was able to perform each move without any sound or wind, without any energy leaking at all, he would finally reach a satisfactory level of mastery.

Finally, unable to wait for him to notice her, Serene said, “There’s news from Earth.”

“Oh, did the kid finally do something interesting?”

Serene gave her husband an exasperated look.

“He’s only just started cultivating, what can he even do? No, this is more serious. Cultivators have revolted against the proctors we assigned to keep the peace, war has erupted.”

This attracted the man’s attention, and he finally stopped practicing and turned towards his wife, wearing a look of ‘I told you so’.

“Even that isn’t the serious part. When I heard about the war, I had the local sentries call back all the ‘guests’ we’ve sent on Earth for their own protection. They’re all there, except…”

Serene paused, and despite her usual composure, wore a look of exasperation.

“No one can get in touch with Bastet. She has left the planet.”

The man was startled, but the look of horror quickly changed to that of great amusement. He burst out laughing, his energy causing an earthquake on the continent where they were.

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