Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 919: New Batch

Kaiden Grey stood at the railing of the observation deck and watched the first five hundred go, the chant of ”DEFINITELY-NOT-YUNA!” fading down the corridor toward the break rooms until the double doors cut it off mid-syllable.

The hall they left behind looked like a small war had been hosted in it. Politely. Claw furrows ran the padded floor in tidy parallel lines, a starburst crater marked the spot where Calypso had stepped off the deck, and dark wet patches were all that remained of one assassin’s ice.

The last healers swept the floor for stragglers, and near the far wall a man was explaining to his colleague that he had not been folded, he had been stacked, and that the distinction mattered to him.

A facility administrator in Association gray walked the longest furrow from end to end, counting his steps and tapping at his tablet, calm, because none of this was coming out of his budget. The junior aide trailing him had no such calm.

”Sir, shouldn’t we ask them to hold back a little? That padding is load-rated. It’s supposed to survive B-tier impacts.”

”It did survive. It’s just a different shape now.” The administrator turned the tablet toward him without slowing down. ”Authorization from upstairs. Eclipse uses this hall as they see fit, and the Association covers whatever stops being a hall. Put the padding order in tonight, and be grateful it’s their invoice.”

Luna arrived on the railing beside Kaiden with a crack of displaced air, dropped into a crouch, and produced a sound like a rusty hinge.

”My throat is dying,” she rasped. ”Do you have any idea how much cardio it is to shit talk five hundred people?”

”You could rotate your insults,” Kaiden said. ”Rest the vocal cords a bit. You screamed ’pussies’ at them like fifty times.”

”I do rotate. Pussies is the anchor. You build the rotation around the anchor.” She massaged her neck with both hands and glared at the arena as if it owed her compensation.

Calypso’s laugh rolled up from the arena floor before she did, the demoness hauling herself over the deck railing one-armed and landing beside Kaiden.

”This is a promising crop, Darling~” she purred. ”Did you see the squad with the halberd woman? They kept getting up! I hit one of them three times and he still crawled toward me!”

Below them, Pebble had turned himself off.

The building-sized guardian who’d spent the afternoon confiscating fighters like a mother cat lay collapsed beside the great doors with his chin flat on the ruined padding, six amber eyes sliding shut in tidy pairs from the top down, tail thumping once whenever anyone within fifty meters said his name.

Doug from Human Resources arrived on the deck with a tablet and the unhurried air of a man for whom kaiju logistics had become a Tuesday.

”Batch two is checked in. Five hundred and eleven victims- I mean candidates, staged in the north wing with refreshments.” He scrolled. ”And before you ask, sir, they haven’t crossed paths with batch one. I ensured they used separate corridors and exits to limit the trade of information between batches.”

Naturally, there were more than five hundred awakened who desired to join Eclipse. This was just the first batch of them.

”And after they leave?” Luna asked.

Doug’s scrolling finger paused. ”Five hundred people just watched a kaiju stack humans like laundry, miss. That’s not a secret. That’s a fire shopping for oxygen.”

”Let it shop.” Kaiden watched the last stretcher glide out through the doors. ”The test isn’t meant to be a riddle. Hearing the answer doesn’t hand anyone the spine to stand tall before my girls or my pup.”

”Woof!” Pebble was in full agreement.

”Yeah.” So was the red-skinned demoness. ”If someone walks in wearing fake confidence, we lean on it until we find what’s underneath.”

Luna’s rasp brightened considerably. ”So the fishy ones get extra attention.”

”Yep.”

”Batch two is staged,” Doug said, and checked his tablet. ”Please take up your places in six.”

Luna groaned off the railing and vanished in a crack of displaced air. ”Time to make my second epic entrance of the day.”

Calypso cracked her neck, blew Kaiden a kiss, and dropped off the deck toward the observation platform she and Luna had walked out onto for the first batch.

Across the hall, six amber eyes reopened in reverse order, bottom pair first. Time to work.

Kaiden walked in after him, where the dark smelled of concrete and warm chitin, and Pebble lowered his head to the floor without being asked.

Kaiden stepped up. The grin went on last, the way other men put on a name tag.

Beyond the reinforced doors, five hundred and eleven strangers murmured in a padded hall with no tables, no chairs, and no explanations, their voices climbing through the same confused arithmetic the last group had run.

”Long day ahead.” Kaiden rolled his shoulders once, and beneath his feet Pebble took the first step, and the murmurs on the far side died between one thud and the next.

*Thud.*

*Thud.*

*Thud.*

The doors ground apart, and the darkness opened its eyes one burning pair at a time.

And just like that, it was time to get back to work.

...

Kaiden came home through the dungeon gate at half past nine, beneath the compound’s foundations, with a hoarse gremlin on his back and a singing demoness hopping joyously beside him.

Luna had declared her legs a work expense somewhere around the parking structure and climbed him like public transport.

She hung off his shoulders with her cheek mashed against the back of his neck, occasionally issuing directions in a voice that had been reduced, over the course of six batches, to the timbre of a dying kazoo.

Calypso carried the snacks she’d bought on the walk over, all nine bags of them, dinner’s existence notwithstanding, and hummed something tuneless and happy that she’d apparently composed herself.

Their home’s common hall glowed warm ahead of them, lamplight on stone, the long table already set, and the smell of dinner drifting from the kitchen with an authority that made Luna moan directly into Kaiden’s ear.

”Food,” she croaked. ”Deposit me at the food.”

He deposited her on the nearest couch instead, where she flopped face-down and stayed, one arm hanging to the floor like an unwatered plant.

”Big brother!”

Alice intercepted him three steps into the hall, apron still on, a wooden spoon in one hand and a clipboard in the other.

”Thirty-one kitchen staff candidates,” she announced. ”I tested all of them. Personally.”

”How did it go?”

”Two were at least somewhat acceptable.” Alice flipped a page, satisfaction crisp enough to cut glass. ”I had every single one of them make waffles.”

Alice decided she’d interview the kitchen staff for Eclipse, quoting she couldn’t allow half-baked losers to embarrass her brother’s guild.

Naturally, she wasn’t the only judge present... In fact she wasn’t a real judge at all. But she most certainly voiced her strong opinions about each candidate.

”Two is a good start. Thanks for your hard work.” He put his hand on her head and ruffled, and Alice leaned into it with her eyes closed, purring louder than an actual cat, the wooden spoon hanging forgotten at her side.

The gate flared again and a group of newcomers arrived.