Conclave of Tyrants

"What are you doing here?" A sweet but exasperated voice asked out.

The person who spoke was a young girl who looked no more than 20. She had a helpless expression in her voice as she asked this question. The person she was asking was a fairly large lad who looked like he was made of nothing but round balls.

The fatty casually stared at the girl and said, "This King is here to join this group. You should be happy that I am here, you know that you enjoy my company."

The girl sighed and was about to speak when she was interrupted by a rather excited voice, "A new team member! Finally we are now three, just two more and we can start going on missions… Hi there, I'm Nyasha it's nice to meet you."

Nyasha held out his hand and the fatty did the same.

"My name is Ranga and I am Tadi's fiancé. It's an honour for you to be acquainted with me."

Nyasha was lost for words when he heard the round boy's introduction. He looked at Tadi questionably. He did not know that there would actually be a man who would be bold enough to claim that he is in a relationship with her. In the three days he had known her she had probably only said two or three words to him. To say the girl was cold was am understatement.

"You…"

"He is not my fiancé!" Said the girl coldly as she turned around and went into a nearby stone house.

Nyasha could only shake his head. He looked back at Ranga and said. "It's a pleasure to meet you Ranga."

"Of course it is…" Ranga said arrogantly as he walked past Nyasha to enter the little stone house.

The minute he entered the little house he noticed that Tadi was a bit stiff. He quickly walked towards her and realized why. In the middle of the room that they were in was a table which was surrounded by five stone stools, and on one of them sat an elderly man.

Nyasha was the only one who was not so shocked when he saw the man. He respectfully greeted the elder and proceeded to sit on one of the stools. Tadi and Ranga immediately followed suit and greeted the man, then sat down.

"My name is Banabas and I am your team supervisor. I am here to inform you that the two remaining people of your team will be joining you shortly, but before they show up you three have a mission, they might even join you during the mission."

Nyasha and Ranga couldn't hide the excitement on their faces when they heard this. They had been waiting for this moment ever since they graduated. Tadi on the other hand had close to no expression on her face but the light in her eyes gave her away.

"Now you see here is the problem…" the man started. "You guys barely know each other. You have known each other for at least a couple of days, but I'm sure you barely know shit about each other. As a team you will need to know each other inside and out. There is not much we can do to improve your understanding of one other in a short period of time. So to make it slightly better I want you kids to tell each other about your past and all. This is not a request but an order so none of you have the right to disobey."

The three youths looked at each other for a good five seconds, and just as it felt like neither was willing, Nyasha finally spoke. "My Name is Nyasha, I am 19 years old. My story goes like this…"

***

"The heavens really don't favour my Clan. Three sons, three sons!! All of them useless! What do I have to do to get a proper cultivator?" The middle aged drunk man couldn't help but shout this out when his last son went through his awakening.

"Bule calm down. It's not like they are as useless as you're thinking. Kudzai is just lazy, Tawanda just isn't a summoner but he is still a cultivator, as for Nyasha, well he is a bit odd but at least he can summon… something…" Another middle aged man spoke.

"Don't get it twisted…" Bule started. "I love my boys, all of them, and I will support them in anything they want to do, but as a father I had my own expectations. You will naturally understand if you ever have kids."

The middle aged man could only sigh and help Bule drink down his sorrows.

The two of them were in a big mansion, and on the other side of the big mansion there were three boys sitting and laughing together.

"Haha… you little shit, turns out you're just as worthless as me and our older brother. We should throw a banquet to celebrate."

Tawanda was the first to speak; he didn't really care how worthless he and his brothers looked to other people. As long as the three of them stuck together then nothing else mattered.

"Hahaha…" Nyasha who was only 6 at this point began laughing and said. "We should just cut off our dicks, that way we can really be useless…."

"Haaaaa….. You little f*cks who said I was useless like you bloody eunuchs. At least I can summon what I draw…" Kudzai who usually had a deadpan expression was actually grinning like a crazy person.

Both Nyasha and Tawanda rolled their eyes when they heard this.

Tawanda stared at his older brother and said playfully, "Yes, you are good at summoning paper. That's very miraculous… haha… I actually shouldn't be counted as useless because I can still become a general; I got the brains for it, unlike our little bro here who has nothing. "

Hearing this Kudzi laughed and added, "Haha, can barely draw and think, it's sad how we are going to take care of his ass in the future…"

Nyasha pouted and retorted.

"You two are the worthless ones. I can actually summon something, it might not be a full beast, but it's still something."

Kudzai rolled his eyes and said.

"Lil bro go sleep, its way past your bed time now."

"How do I still have a bed time when I'm now so old?" Nyasha retorted.

"Cause you are 6 years old. You are still a bloody baby." Tawanda said playfully.

Nyasha stuck his tongue out and proceeded to leave the room. He only walked down four doors before he arrived at his room. He got in and threw himself on his bed. He couldn't help but sigh when he stared up at the ceiling. He and his brothers did not care about how other people looked at them, but he knew that his father cared.

He couldn't even imagine what his father was going through at the moment. He knew that he and the other two were close to worthless in a clan of summoners, but they still had to work hard in what they could do.

The one thing all three of them didn't want to do was disappoint their father more than they already had.

It didn't matter how they were going to do it, but all they had to do was make him proud, and one way or another they were going to do just that. As Nyasha laid in bed he couldn't help but think about how he could improve his ability.

In the end he just shut his eyes and slept.

Four years later, the three boys were together in the same room. But this time there were not in the comfort of their own home. At the moment all three were tied up in the middle of a dark room.

There was not even a single hint of panic on their faces as the three of them were conversing and laughing.

"Haha, our clan is useless." Kudzai started. "We got kidnapped a week ago and yet we are still here."

Tawanda then added. "These bloody kidnappers probably asked for a ransom or something. It gets more complicated when they do shit like that."

"I'm now hungry though…" Nyasha spoke. "I think it's about time we left don't you think?"

It did not take time for the trio to release themselves from the rope. The rope was not really tight to begin with so Kudzai just drew a knife on the muddy floor and then used it to cut them free.

"Remind me again why we didn't just free ourselves earlier?" Nyasha asked.

Tawanda sighed and said, "Because home was boring and we thought this could actually be fun."

"Well it wasn't fun and we made another bad decision. Oh well," Kudzai replied.

Tawanda looked at his younger brother and spoke. "When we open that door summon the essence of a Golden Winged Garuda."

"Cool!" Nyasha uttered.

In less than three hours the three brothers were walking into the gate of their house. Everyone was happy that they were back, but behind those excited looks, there was also shock. Most of the people who saw them were thinking the same thing.

Did the kidnappers grow hearts and willingly let them go…

It had only been two days since the kidnappers had sent the ransom note, so it was a shock to many people when the three boys just swaggered back unharmed. Only their father had a smile on his face.

"Your mother would've lost it if you kids skipped dinner again today."

Hearing this, the boys couldn't help but laugh and apologise.

"Haha… sorry, father"

The servants and people on the street couldn't help but gawk at the short exchange between the father and his sons. It almost felt as though they didn't really take the kidnapping seriously at all. The four of them casually entered the house and proceeded to eat dinner.

Another four years passed and on this day, Nyasha's mother passed away. For the first time ever in their lives the trio were in the same room but didn't even utter a single joke.

It took more than a month for them to escape their depression.

It took even more for their father to properly get back on his feet, but thanks to the three boys he managed to find joy again.

A year later Tawanda directly entered the military, Kudzai decided embrace the fact that he was the next clan head and began being more involved in the clan's affairs, and Nyasha joined the training camp of the elephant foot guard.

At first the brothers met twice every month, but as time went on the amount of time they got to spend together got smaller and smaller. But deep down Nyasha knew that his older brothers would always be there for him, and they too felt the same way.

***

"It might not exactly be the most horrible thing that you have heard, but that has been my life so far." Nyasha finished.

"This King now respects you." Ranga was the first to speak. "It is definitely not the worst past I have ever heard of, but it was definitely interesting. When will you see your brothers next?"

"I don't know…" Nyasha answered.

Banabas looked at Nyasha whilst wearing a complicated expression. "So you're more of an illusionist than you are a summoner then?"

Nyasha nodded.

"Anyway…" Ranga started. "It should be my turn now. To be honest with you, This King hasn't had a very hard life; in fact I'm a noble so my life has been very smooth. But I do have secrets and things that almost broke me. It all started…"

***

"Ah… she's here!" a young excited voice sounded out from the balcony of a lavish mansion.

The chubby boy quickly ran from the balcony and proceeded to exit the room, but as soon as he reached the corridor he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder.

He abruptly stopped and jerked his head backwards.

Behind him was standing a middle aged woman who wore a sweet caring expression when looking at the chubby boy. "You should calm down." The woman started. "You don't want to chase her away do you?"

Ranga smiled even broadly after hearing this. He then said. "Come on mom, I just can't wait. She is already my fiancé, so she won't be able to run away from me even if she tried."

The woman could only shake her head.

She then grabbed Ranga's hand and said. "Let's go, you'll see them in the main hall. Your father is already waiting there.