Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 920: Rumors

The gate flared again and a group of newcomers arrived.

The anklets announced Bastet before the light finished fading, each chime slower than usual, and the felinid queen padded into the hall barefoot with her tail low and her dignity held together by willpower alone.

”Forty-one floors of marble today, Master,” she declared, flat and forensic. ”Eleven lobbies. Nine conference rooms. Not one civilization among them has discovered the cushion.”

She located the deepest cushions in the room, lowered herself onto them with ceremonial control, and then abandoned the ceremony entirely and melted sideways until she lay flat. ”Is this how batteries feel after a ten hour binge? Where’s my quick charge function?”

Aria crossed the room without appearing to hurry and was somehow already attached to Kaiden’s arm, both of hers wrapped around it, her cheek against his shoulder before he’d finished registering the perfume.

”Kai,” she sighed, as if the word itself was the thing she’d been walking toward for fourteen hours. ”Four of today’s executives were lovely. The rest were lucky I promised I’d behave.”

”She behaved,” Nyx confirmed, arriving last with her tablet hugged to her chest and her smile running at reduced power. ”Mostly. One CEO will be sending a written apology.”

”Numbers?” Kaiden asked.

”Three worth calling back. Two that tried to slide image rights past me like I can’t read.”

From across the room came a croak, muffled by upholstery. ”Fatty. Bring food.”

”Wait, where’s Blondie?” Nyx dropped onto the nearest sofa. ”Usually she’s brimming with joy in her sexy little demon maid getup as she brings the trays.”

Something underneath her groaned.

”Mmrrghh...”

Nyx’s eyebrows climbed. She looked down, found a mass of blonde hair and a crumpled maid uniform mashed into the cushions beneath her, and stayed exactly where she was.

”Oh. Hello, bestie.”

”Nnghh.” Alexandra’s face turned just enough to free one eye, which stared up at the pink-haired woman currently using her backside as a seat. ”Nyx. You’re on me.”

”Yeah.” Nyx settled in a fraction deeper, crossing one leg over the other. ”You’re very comfortable. Those executive chairs should just be one fifth as plush as you and they’d be so much better.”

”... I’m not plush.”

”Bestie...”

”Okay, maybe I am a bit plush...” Alexandra let the eye fall shut again and groaned into the pillow. Her notepad lay on the floor beneath one dangling hand, thick with pages filled edge to edge in handwriting that started neat at the top and devolved into desperate scrawl by the bottom.

”Lady Vespera does not slow down,” she said, muffled. ”She does not repeat herself. She does not wait for you to finish writing before she says the next thing. I filled this entire notepad. Both sides of every page. My hand is ruined.”

”You went with her voluntarily.”

”I wanted to learn! I thought I’d shadow her for a few meetings and take notes on how she handles duty.” Alexandra’s voice climbed half an octave into the pillow. ”She had twenty-two meetings, Nyx. Twenty-two. I wrote down everything because I was too scared to miss something.”

Nyx slapped her on the butt, and Alexandra yelped into the cushion.

”You did really good, bestie.” Nyx stood up, stretched her arms above her head, and looked down at the crumpled maid with something warmer than her usual smirk. ”Let me take care of dinner tonight. You stay right here.”

Alexandra mumbled something grateful and stopped moving entirely.

Nyx rolled up her sleeves and joined the kitchen effort, and between her, Kaiden, Aria, and Alice, the long table was set in minutes.

Bastet and Luna both ate where they lay, as decreed, accepting each offering from Nyx’s telekinesis without lifting their heads from the cushion.

Alexandra never made it, long asleep.

The rest of them sat at the long table, and Calypso retold the best battles she’d had that day.

Aria had fastened herself to Kaiden’s arm the moment he sat down and ate one-handed beside him, content. Alice wedged a chair in on Kaiden’s other side without anyone agreeing to it, listing tomorrow’s waffle gauntlet parameters into her soup with her eyes half shut.

Somewhere between the first course and the second, Calypso’s story wound down mid-sentence when she realized her audience had drifted off, so she finished it for her own benefit, quieter, still delighted with the ending. Nyx’s scrolling slowed, and slowed, until the tablet sagged against the table and she let it lie there.

The job listing had promised the world Eclipse would become the greatest guild history had ever seen.

For now, it snored.

...

Yuna Park rode the bus home without the ability to stop smiling.

The mask covered it, mostly. The bruise on her throat was turning a color that belonged on a sunset rather than a person, and she couldn’t stop pressing two fingers to it like a keepsake.

The healers offered a second pass on the bruise itself, but a certain assassin waved them off and ignored the weird looks sent her way.

Her phone had been buzzing since she left the facility.

’hey definitely-not-yuna. my fingers work again. how’s the neck?’

’purple,’ Yuna typed back.

’hot. warrior chic. own it’

The group chat the stocky man had started in the break room was already forty messages deep, half of them variations on ”BITCH I GOT STACKED BY A DOG” and the other half debating whether Luna’s wrist had actually cleared the pocket or not. Yuna knew the answer and was keeping it to herself, because people deserved to live in delusion sometimes.

She grinned behind the mask until her cheeks hurt, thumbing through messages and composing the version of today she’d give her parents. The version where she left out the choking. And the stabbing.

Her phone rang.

The screen flashed *Skyline Guild - Guild Leader Mercer* and the bus felt ten degrees colder.

Yuna stared at it for two rings, then picked up.

”Yuna Park.” His voice was warm. ”I heard some unsettling rumors.”