Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 777: Fangirl Mode

Nyx had not moved.

Her hands were still pressed to her mouth, her eyes the size of small moons, and the sound that had come out of her five seconds ago was still echoing in the cathedral because nobody had spoken since.

”Nyx?” Aria tried.

”That’s Scarlet!!” Nyx repeated, as if saying it a second time would make it more real. ”That’s Scarlet the Flame Monarch. At our dungeon. Standing next to Mother. At our dungeon!!!”

”You said that already!” Luna scoffed.

”At our dungeon, Luna!”

Kaiden watched his space babe spiral from the throne and felt a memory surface, old enough to belong to a different life.

A warm summer day. Ice cream cones. A nervous pink-haired girl walking beside him before her first adult shoot, trying to distract herself from the fact that a film crew was about to see her naked.

’Who’s your favorite awakened?’ he’d asked her. A throwaway question to keep her talking.

’Mine is Scarlet.’

The way she’d said it. The reverence and longing packed into a single name.

’She is the most badass woman I’ve ever seen. Scarlet is everything I ever wanted to be...’

Back then, Nyx had been a twenty-year-old girl who’d given up on ever awakening. A girl who watched videos of Scarlet burning monsters to cinders and shooting through the sky like a falling star, and saw in that woman the life she believed she’d never have.

Now Nyx was the Space Valkyrie, the Manifestation of Space. One of the most promising recently awakened people on the continent, standing in a dungeon she helped earn, surrounded by teammates who could level a small army.

And she was losing her mind because her childhood hero was at the front door.

’Some things don’t change,’ Kaiden thought, and smiled.

”Alright.” He stood from the throne and Alice shifted in his lap, latching onto his shirt as he rose. ”Let’s go meet her.”

...

The Nightclaws carried them back through the corridor in minutes. The familiar rush of dark wings and chirping escorts, the chokeholds passing beneath them, the temperature shifting as they crossed from the abyssal tunnels. Nyx spent the entire flight trembling, squealing, and muttering to herself.

”Do I look okay? Is there dust on my face? Luna, is there dust on my face?”

”No but when she sees you, she’s gonna ask why we brought a cow with us.”

”Luna,” Kaiden’s voice sounded, deep and authoritative.

”O-old habits die hard.” The pounding she received for bad behavior not long ago was still branded deep in her body.

They landed in the Safe Zone and the dungeon gate opened ahead of them, daylight cutting through the abyssal dark.

The sight beyond it made Kaiden slow his stride.

Two women stood at the threshold.

On the left, Vespera Ashborn. The Shadow Monarch. Her posture composed and unmoving, her red gaze surveying the perimeter she had organized with quiet authority. The shadows at her feet pooled thicker than natural darkness had any right to, as if the ground itself recognized what stood on it.

On the right, Scarlet.

In person, the image from the scrying view didn’t do her justice. The red suit jacket was sharper up close, tailored like it had been cut specifically to make the wearer look like she’d walked off the cover of a magazine and onto a battlefield without changing. The black turtleneck beneath hugged her athletic frame, lean and sculpted, the kind of build that could sprint through a dungeon break or walk a runway and look natural doing either. Her deep red hair caught the light where it escaped the low knot at her nape, and those molten orange eyes held a natural warmth.

Where Vespera was stillness and shadow, Scarlet was heat barely contained. She stood with one hip forward, hands in her jacket pockets, a faint smirk already forming as she watched them approach.

The Shadow Monarch and the Flame Monarch. Side by side.

If someone had wanted to paint a portrait of two of the most dangerous women in the country, this was one hell of a composition.

Nyx made a squealing sound like a kettle reaching boil.

Scarlet’s grin widened as the group crossed the gate. Her attention swept across them with open curiosity and clear amusement, those furnace-bright eyes touching each face in turn.

”So I finally get to meet the gang.”

Her voice matched the rest of her. Easy, unhurried, and entirely too comfortable.

Vespera’s gaze didn’t move from the perimeter. ”You’ve already seen them in person. You were in the audience when the President awarded their medals.”

”Ignore this grumbly woman, guys,” Scarlet waved dismissively and winked at the Valkyrie currently suffering a meltdown.

Vespera’s red eyes turned sideways. The glare she leveled at Scarlet could have wilted flowers.

Instead of trembling and running away as any normal creature with an atom of self-preservation should, she just returned the look and winked.

Nyx stepped forward before anyone else could speak. Whatever composure she had built over months of strategic thinking and battlefield coordination was gone. Completely gone. Her eyes were shining, her hands were clasped in front of her chest, and her voice came out at a pitch the group had never heard from her.

”I’m Nyx! The Space Valkyrie! And I’m such a huge fan, you have no idea, I’ve watched every single one of your recorded fights and I know your thermal lance technique by heart and I’ve been following you since before I even awakened and-”

”Breathe, darling.” She opened her arms wide toward Nyx, an invitation so casual and open it bypassed every social protocol a formal introduction should have followed.

Nyx’s eyes went huge as she made a noise that could only be described as a squeak and launched herself forward.

The hug that followed was immediate and total. Nyx buried herself against the Flame Monarch with the desperate enthusiasm of a girl who had spent years watching this woman on screens and never believed she’d touch her.

Scarlet rocked back half a step from the impact. Her eyebrows rose.

”Aren’t you a big girl?” she asked dryly, glancing down at the situation pressed against her chest.

Nyx giggled into her shoulder. ”It’s probably all the milk I drank growing up!”

”Milk?” Scarlet broke into laughter. ”If it was only that simple... I think your genetics played a cruel joke on the female gender, sweetie.”

Despite what she said, Scarlet’s expression stayed loose and unbothered, full of confidence in herself and her own beauty. There was not an iota of insecurity in this woman.

She brought one hand up and settled it on Nyx’s pink hair. ”I’m honored to have such a dedicated fan.”

Nyx squealed. Again. And squeezed harder.

”Big brother.” Alice’s voice came, innocent and curious. ”Are you losing a wife?”

Kaiden’s hand found the top of her head.

”No, Alice.”

She melted into the headpats and the question evaporated from her mind.

Luna crossed her arms and squinted at the spectacle.

”I mean, look, I always knew you were weird, but being a lesbian-”

”Shut it!” Nyx hissed with a velocity that could have broken the sound barrier. She did not let go. If anything, she hugged tighter, as if Luna’s commentary had activated a defense mechanism that could only be expressed through increased grip strength.

Scarlet laughed. A real laugh, warm and loose. She genuinely enjoyed chaos in other people.

”A lively bunch, aren’t you?”

Aria spoke up then. Someone had to represent the group’s dignity. ”I apologize for them. My two Valkyrie friends are both a bit strange.”

Those furnace-bright eyes found Aria, and the look that followed had an edge of mischief to it. ”Being ’normal’ is so overrated. Just consult your producers on the matter.” Her head then tilted a fraction. ”Also, I might not have been watching your content too much, but I did read some articles. So I must ask; are you really one to talk, ’Yandere Princess’?”

Nyx giggled from inside the hug. Still in full fangirl mode. Still not letting go.

Aria’s silver eyes narrowed.

”Humans are strange creatures,” Bastet’s voice sounded from beside the dais, her tail swishing once in measured observation.

”Let them be,” Calypso said, watching the whole display with her arms crossed and a wide smile on her face. ”It’s part of their behavioral pattern. They bond through acts of mutual insanity.”

Scarlet’s attention shifted to the two of them, and her focus sharpened with genuine interest.