Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 978: Geopolitical Warfare

The trio arranged itself into a formation of pure innocence.

”We locked four thousand hate threads about you,” Sarah told her, because the truth was coming out one way or another.

”Well, after you got hired,” Emily added.

”Before then, we might’ve encouraged such threads.” Leia whistled.

”...” Vanessa turned around at that. She looked the three of them over, unhurried, the same flat read she gave a gate mouth, and then she nodded to Sarah.

”Thanks, I guess.” She turned back to the rack, and that was the whole review.

The trio moved on in reverent silence.

”She did the quickest redemption arc in Sinners history!” Emily whispered. ”I like her a lot more than I ever would’ve guessed.”

The stairs at mid-cabin curved up through a collar of the silver veining, and the upper deck opened into a lounge that belonged in an embassy, low tables, deep seats, and one long band of window running the length of the hull.

Two identical shapes had beaten them upstairs and now popped up from behind the nearest seatback, tablets already recording.

”THE COWORKERS!” Kira and Rika announced in unison.

”The coworkers!” Emily answered, delighted, because the group calls had built the bridge already, and the twins descended on the trio for a greeting that was half hug, half camera blocking.

”Reaction shots,” Rika directed, backpedaling ahead of them with her tablet up. ”Walk in again but slower. Emily, do the face from the arrivals hall.”

”I don’t have a face from the arrivals hall!”

”You do. We have it from three angles.”

White-gloved attendants with the Circle’s crescent pinned at their collars moved through the lounge with lacquer trays. One of them laid out a tea service and a tower of hot bite-sized delicacies at the nearest table, then glided off.

Leia stared at the tray, then at the crest on the attendant’s pin, then at Kaiden.

”Who is paying for this?”

”I told you.” Kaiden took one of the delicacies and ate it with a clear conscience. ”My treat.”

Emily muffled a scandalized noise in both hands. Sarah saluted him.

”You’re far too shameless...” Leia muttered reverently while taking a glass from the tray.

”Shameless?” Kaiden grinned, and took a second one. ”But I’m the Paragon of Virtue.”

”...” The girls couldn’t believe their ears.

...

They ended up around the largest of the low tables with tea steaming in front of them. The family came drifting up the stairs in ones and twos until the lounge held the exact faces the trio had spent months defending from strangers on the internet.

The window end went to Calypso, loudly. Bastet took the seat under the warmest light, the caramel cat from the claw machine tucked against her hip.

Luna spun a chair around backward and sat on it with her chin on the backrest. Aria reclaimed Kaiden’s arm before he finished sitting down, Alice wedged herself onto his other side, and the rest arranged themselves close and casual.

Alexandra poured for everyone before anyone asked, and Emily accepted her cup with two hands and total concentration, keeping it perfectly level.

”You’re...” Emily started, and lost the noun somewhere.

”The maid turned Valkyrie,” Alexandra beamed, moving down the table with the pot. ”Don’t look at the tea set too closely. It costs more than the average annual salary. I checked the manifest twice!”

Sarah waited until the cups were full.

”Can I ask the obvious?”

”Shoot.” Kaiden nodded.

”What exactly is going on between Eclipse and the Shogunate Circle? At one in the morning a dinner invite turned into custom itineraries from Japan’s number one guild. That doesn’t happen. Allied guilds can’t even agree on scrim schedules in a day, yet you got such a renowned guild from across the globe to do this all for you.”

The room traded a look, and it was Luna who went first.

”You know what our people have done since four hundred of them signed up to fight monsters under the Eclipse banner?” Luna’s chin came off the backrest. ”Interviews. Two federal teams in one week, sitting our combatants down one at a time to ask if they’re afraid of us.”

”A raid,” Leia declared, vibrating in her seat. ”I called it a hate raid with government letterhead the night it started. Sarah. Tell them I called it.”

”She called it,” Sarah confirmed.

”I’m still not sure if I’m following fully...” Emily whispered, brows knitted. She didn’t like being out of the loop.

”Long story short, we couldn’t train at home,” Kaiden explained plainly, without heat. ”Every drill we schedule turns into an exhibit for somebody’s folder. Meanwhile my recruits still don’t all know each other’s powers.”

He turned his cup once on its saucer.

”And then I remembered one of the many mails I’ve received from abroad in the last few days. One of them was from the Shogunate.”

”They were wishing us ’best of fortunes with our government’...” Aria quoted, smile as tender as ever. ”And offered to organize a joint exercise should we want to ’train away from bureaucracy.’”

”We sent the reply message at nine at night,” Nyx picked up. ”The answer took eleven minutes. They ’somehow’ upgraded the offer to an open-ended stay all paid for by them.”

”They also made our visas unlimited,” Luna giggled. ”We can stay in Japan for as long as we want. Even the government is welcoming us with open arms.”

”Even the government?!” Leia’s eyes widened. ”That is... Oh dear.”

Alexandra beamed as she added, ”The Japanese government wrote us a letter of its own, unprompted. It guarantees our safety, settles our legal standing, and promises an honor reception at the airfield.”

”I must admit, this human nation seems a lot more amicable than that pile of... what we have at ’home,’” Bastet scoffed, visibly disgusted with the USA.

”Hell yeah! Japan rocks! Their dungeons have been overflowing for a while, too!” Calypso added happily from the window, tail swaying against the seat. ”So much fun waiting!”

Alice, wedged against Kaiden’s other side, looked profoundly satisfied with any plan that took her big brother somewhere with her attached.

Alexandra slipped a second tray of the little hot things onto the table, and under the floor, faint and far forward, machinery began to wake.

The three moderators understood the current situation with painful clarity now.

”Two federal teams harassing you in less than one week,” Sarah began untangling it all. ”And by tonight, every feed on the planet will know that the most watched guild alive has left the country. You’ll be training with Japan’s number one, and a foreign government put the welcome in writing, with honors.”

”And nobody here has to publicly say one angry word about America!” Leia had failed to keep her volume down for a full sentence and gave up on trying. ”The pictures will say all of it! Tokyo is about to keel over to give you a deserving welcome while Washington harasses you with its suits.”

”And, best of all...” Emily whispered with a ghostly pale face, but with a small smirk emerging at the corner of her lips. ”They can’t even ruin everything back home if they get angry. The dungeon is sovereign territory, after all...”

The amazement stood in all three pairs of eyes, open and undisguised.

They had boarded this plane for a dinner promise, and the fangirl in each of them was quietly shaking hands with true professionals of international politics.

”We’re inside the history books,” Emily whispered.

Kaiden helped himself to another delicacy. ”We’re going to train and eat tasty food. Anything else that happens along the way is a pure coincidence.”

Nyx’s smile curved deeper into her cup.

”A big, beautiful, fucking coincidence,” Luna agreed, stretching both arms over her head.

Under the floor the engines rose from hum into voice, and the whole hull came alive with it, silver veins brightening along the lounge walls. From the deck below, hundreds of people started cheering at once.