Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 977: Energetic Introductions

Kaiden Grey had come up the aisle to greet them himself, an arm’s length away, and all three women on the receiving end were still hunting for language.

Sarah, Emily, and Leia stood there with their suitcases, the entire guild watching, and for a moment the only sound was the card game running somewhere at the back of the plane.

Emily moved first.

She folded into the bow she had researched at thirty thousand feet, aimed it at Kaiden, and held it. Fifteen degrees had been the plan, casual and warm.

Her spine, acting alone, delivered forty-five.

By her own research, she had just apologized to him.

”It’s an honor...” she told the carpet. ”I had a better version of this. There were angles. I practiced against my seatbelt and everything...”

”You’re doing great,” Kaiden said, and the laugh under it was warm and rough, exactly the one from the streams, except now it moved the air she was standing in.

Emily straightened up, having met her god and apologized to him inside the same four seconds.

Leia said nothing.

Sarah glanced at her twice to make sure she was still breathing, because in their group, quiet from Leia usually meant an equipment failure.

”Sarah.” Kaiden’s grin tilted at her. ”We finally meet somewhere I didn’t have to come through a wall.”

”You remembered.” The words came out steadier than the legs under them. ”The wall’s famous now, by the way. My mother shows the repair seam to guests.”

”How is she?”

”Still telling the whole street about the day you renovated our living room. And other things I’d rather not repeat.”

”She means her crush,” Luna supplied from her seat, boots still up on the seatback. ”Hey, Princess. Took you long enough.”

Sarah had watched this woman scream at video games since before any of this existed, and had once been pulled into an awakened medical wing on her say-so.

Being grinned at by her in the flesh felt like it was happening to somebody else, so Sarah answered on that somebody’s behalf.

”Supreme Empress,” Sarah managed, and Luna’s smile turned openly predatory.

”Damn right.”

”We’ve met as well.” Aria had come to stand at Kaiden’s side, pleasant as spring. ”I believe I told you something back then.”

”That he’s taken... I remember.”

”You have an excellent memory~” Aria said, and hugged Kaiden’s arm to underline the point.

Kaiden looked the three of them over, and his grin went shameless.

”Sarah I’ve met. And you’d be Lady Leia.” He tilted his head at her silence. ”Somehow I expected more volume.”

Leia offered him a small, gracious smile and nothing else, and Sarah’s sense of danger began to tick.

His eyes settled on Emily, and he let the pause stretch.

”Which makes you Emily. You write the sentiment posts, you keep the dashboard, and you hand out the mercy bans. And, if the handle on my platform is accurate, my internet wife.”

Emily made a sound like a kettle reaching temperature in a confined space.

”I DIDN’T PICK IT AS A CLAIM!!” Emily wailed. ”It was ironic! It was a bit! It was a whole era of my life ago!”

”She reserved it on thirty platforms,” Sarah said.

”SARAH!!!!!”

Somewhere in the row, Calypso was laughing loud enough to shake her horns, and the rest of the women watched the aisle with open delight, content to let the drowning continue.

”Sarah!” At the end of the row, Alice leaned around Alexandra to wave at her. ”You were there when I found big brother again! You kept our secret the whole time. You’re my favorite.”

”Thank you,” Sarah said carefully, aware of Leia’s eye twitching beside her at the reminder of exactly how long Sarah had sat on that story.

Kaiden let the noise run its lap. Then he came a step closer, and the grin gentled. The aisle seemed to shrink to the four of them.

”Before this turns into a party,” he said, ”I owe you three more than a dinner.”

Emily went still. Even the card game in the back quieted.

He tipped his head toward the rows behind him.

”Everything Valhalla’s Sinners and Eclipse is, is thanks to you. If not for your crusade, Maximilian Vice and ChronosX could’ve damaged us enough that we wouldn’t be here at all. So thank you. From me, from the girls, and from everyone back there who found their way to us through the doors you kept open.”

The words landed on three women who had prepared for everything except sincerity.

Emily’s tears arrived on the spot, no warning at all.

Yeah, she was a girl who wore her expressions on her sleeve.

Sarah felt months of long nights rearrange themselves in her chest into the shape of having been seen all along. She swallowed once and filed the feeling away before it could reach her face, and it reached her face anyway.

And Leia, silent since the airstairs, silent through the bow, the wall, and the wife, finally chose her moment.

”...It is such an honor to finally meet you, Kaiden,” she said, lashes lowered, hands folded neatly at her waist, in a soft sweet voice none of them had ever heard her use. ”Please take good care of me in Japan.”

Sarah’s head turned slowly, like a security camera.

”What is she doing,” Emily whispered, tears forgotten. ”Sarah.”

”Nice to meet you too,” Kaiden said, to the stranger currently wearing Leia’s face.

”Who are you?” Sarah demanded.

”What do you mean?” Leia blinked, perfect innocent maiden mode activated. ”I’m Leia, of course. The most loyal follower of Kaiden and the Sinners.”

”Hah?” Emily’s back straightened.

”Eh?” Sarah’s eyes narrowed.

Three kittens were ready to conduct a legendary hissing battle.

But then the row behind Kaiden went up all at once, Calypso howling, Luna’s boots finally hitting the floor, Nyx hiding her giggle behind one hand. The laughter rolled all the way back to the card game.

”Alright.” Kaiden scooped Emily’s suitcase up before she could reach it and jerked his chin toward the stairs at mid-cabin. ”Dinner’s an ocean away and this thing has two floors. Let me show you around before Scarlet smells fresh wallets.”

...

The tour started down the main deck, and it took about eleven rows for the trio to understand that the walk itself was going to be a problem.

Inside, the cabin ran wider than any airliner had a right to, and the silver veins inlaid through the walls pulsed with slow light, as though the plane were breathing around its passengers. Emily kept one palm on the wall as they went, checking.

The bigger problem was the passengers.

”It’s them,” a woman stage-whispered from a middle row, carrying clear to the cockpit. ”The mods. The ones the boss invited to come with us.”

Word of the invitation had clearly run the length of the guild before the trio ever boarded.

”They know us,” Emily breathed, clinging to Sarah’s arm again. ”Sarah, the axe girl from the tryouts just waved at me!”

Leia was already waving back at the entire cabin like visiting royalty.

Toward the rear of the cabin, the crowd thickened into a ring of spectators around a folding table, and the trio got its first unfiltered look at the Flame Monarch.

Scarlet sat with her boots crossed on a spare chair, a mountain range of wine bottles stacked at her elbow, dealing for three recruits who looked partway through a shipwreck.

”Fresh wallets,” she said, without looking up from the deal. ”Sit, sweethearts. Auntie will be gentle.”

”Yes, mommy-” Leia’s knees bent on pure reflex. Sarah caught her by the collar.

”We watched you play from the front of the plane,” Sarah said. ”That man’s signing bonus is already in your stack.”

”Held in trust.” Scarlet fanned her cards, entirely at peace. ”Auntie’s practically a bank.”

”She has my rent,” the recruit on the left reported, mournful, to nobody in particular. ”Help.”

”Good thinking, Sarah.” Kaiden grinned, steering the trio on by the shoulders. ”Don’t succumb to this woman’s temptations. She uses her fame to trap innocent youngsters.”

”Don’t listen to a guy whose class is about sinning. It’s obvious who’s the more righteous one between the two of us.” Scarlet chugged her wine in a manner that lacked quite a bit of feminine delicacy.

She grinned. ”When we land, girls, come find me. I’ll teach you the game. Free of charge.”

”That’s how it starts,” said the recruit with the rent, openly weeping.

Midway up the cabin, a woman in a squared-away field kit stood at a gear rack, checking straps that had already been checked. Emily saw her first and walked into Sarah.

”That’s. Sarah. That’s the... the tape. The slap tape.”

”I can hear you,” Vanessa Sloan murmured, without turning around.