Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 837: The Gambit

They filed out of the chamber in various states of combat readiness, the Phase 2 countdown ticking behind Kaiden’s vision.

Alice was waiting in the corridor with her arms crossed and her chin tilted at an angle that meant someone was in trouble.

"You were ’successful’, hmm, big brother...?" she asked, and her tone made it clear she already knew the answer and was asking solely to establish her undisputed right to be mad at him.

"We did it, yeah," Kaiden confirmed.

The pout that sealed Alice’s mouth could have been registered as a natural disaster. "Stupid big brother..."

Then her eyes found Alexandra, and the pout evaporated so completely it might never have existed.

"You’re a Valkyrie!" She grabbed the blonde’s hands, eyes blazing. "Fortification and Restoration!"

"Y-yes?" Alexandra managed, startled by the warmth offensive.

"We’re going to be the best support duo this world has ever seen." Alice’s grip tightened with feverish certainty. "I heal from Conduit, you heal from the ground. As long as we work together, nothing touches Kaiden and the horny wenches- I mean the others."

"Hey."

"Little sis."

"Watch your mouth."

"We’re not the ones throwing a hissy fit about the most unhinged thing ever."

The girls weren’t having it, replying in perfect synchronization.

Alice didn’t seem to hear them.

Alexandra’s smile came slow and wide, her chest flooding with joy as she gripped Alice’s hands tight and then pulled the girl into a big hug, nearly suffocating her in the process.

Vespera stood near the back, arms folded, her gaze drifting to Scarlet.

The Flame Monarch leaned against the doorframe with an empty wine bottle dangling from two fingers.

Vespera’s eyes moved from the bottle to Scarlet’s face.

"Don’t ask anything," Scarlet said.

"Fun?" Vespera ignored the demands.

"I just told you not to ask!"

"I pay your salary. Behave."

"... You damned woman," Scarlet murmured, then sighed, dryly. "Yeah, watching your son sweat it out with five women was just the best."

Vespera didn’t react, evaluating with an expression that gave away nothing.

"I was being sarcastic," Scarlet clarified upon the scrutiny she was receiving, then hiccuped and asked for a second wine bottle.

Kaiden looked at the group gathered around him and the countdown ticked quick.

"We don’t know what Phase 2 throws at us," he said, and his voice settled into the register his girls knew. "But I know every person in this corridor, and I know what we do when we fight together."

"We’re doing this? Team captain speeches now?" Luna murmured.

"Yeah, why not?" Nyx giggled.

"Seeing Kai’s expression and hearing his voice, I’m already fired up," Aria decreed.

He opened his arms. "Bring it in."

They crashed into him. Luna first despite her complaint, her small body slamming into his chest at competitive speed. Aria claimed his left, Nyx his right, Calypso engulfed what remained, and Bastet pressed in with her ears forward and her tail curling around the nearest limb.

Scarlet stood back for one second, sighed, and was promptly dragged in by Calypso’s tail. Alexandra hovered at the edge until Nyx reached back and yanked her into the pile by her apron.

Alice was already hugging Kaiden from behind, not quite getting the memo, but it was serviceable.

One person remained.

Vespera stood apart from the huddle with her arms at her sides, watching the tangle of young women clinging to her son.

Kaiden caught her eye over the pile of heads and hair and horns. Alice followed his gaze. Without a word, both of them parted their arms, and the gap they made was small and obvious and meant for exactly one person.

Vespera looked at it. Her composure held for two full seconds before the corner of her mouth gave way, and she stepped forward and let her son and daughter fold her into the most chaotic embrace she’d ever been part of.

Her arms settled around Kaiden’s back. Alice pressed against her from the other side. The Ashborn matriarch closed her eyes and pretended she wasn’t committing this to memory.

"For love and XP!" Kaiden announced over the top of the huddle. "We shall attain a flawless victory!"

Nine women looked up at him with expressions so collectively dry the air lost humidity.

"...’For love and XP’?" Luna repeated.

A beat.

Nyx giggled. The giggle cracked Calypso, whose laugh broke Aria’s composure. Bastet’s ears twitched forward as she fought a losing battle against a smile, Scarlet muttered "Weirdest mission ever," and Luna threw her fist up and screamed it like a war cry.

"FOR LOVE AND XP!!"

"Flawless victory!" Alexandra echoed, cutely, shyly.

"...For family," Vespera whispered, so quiet the words barely left her mouth.

The countdown hit zero.

...

The world went white.

One second Kaiden stood in the stone chamber with his newly bonded Valkyrie and a room full of women scrambling into combat gear, and the next every surface, wall, and person vanished as if someone had pulled the plug on reality itself.

White void. No floor, no ceiling, no horizon. Just endless pale nothing in every direction, and Kaiden standing at the center of it with his armor already on and his pulse hammering against his ribs.

Then he saw the Kaiju.

It sat across from him on the white plane, its mountain-born shape compressed into a form that was smaller than the one raging outside the seal but still filled his vision like a nightmare given weight.

Six burning eyes stared down at him from a height that turned his neck into a hinge, and the pressure rolling off the creature made the air taste like stone and ozone.

’Boss fight?! Fuck.’

He wasn’t ready to face this thing, not at all.

But excuses wouldn’t be accepted, not now when everything was on the line.

The Blood Monarch’s Gauntlet flared crimson and Wrath ignited across his stance in a heat haze that bent the white light around him.

He was already moving, three steps at full combat speed, blood construct shaping into a greatsword, every Sin Stance rotating in the back of his mind as he closed the distance toward the creature that had been terrorizing an entire region.

The void wouldn’t let him close the distance.

He ran and the space stretched, each stride swallowed by white ground that grew faster than he could cross it, the Kaiju’s six eyes no closer after ten seconds than they’d been after one. The creature watched him sprint with the same patience, because it already knew what Kaiden was learning: this dimension had decided the fight would not happen on their terms.

[Phase 2 of the Dungeon Master Duel will now commence.]

[Phase 2 Designation: The Gambit.]

’The... Gambit?’