Demonic Po*nstar System Chapter 728: Confused Fangirls

Emilia's hands trembled once more.

Twenty minutes prior, she'd detected the shake while trying to fill the ceramic pot on her windowsill, but missed completely and drenched the wood below. At present, she gripped the watering can using both hands for her second effort, staring fixedly at the slim spout as though it demanded her utmost concentration worldwide—simply so her mind could ignore the searing replay cycle flickering behind her eyelids.

Her phone nestled between shoulder and ear. Leia's voice pressed on without pause.

"I’m watching it again. For the ninth time. Ninth. And I still can’t figure out what the fuck just happened."

"You and everyone else," Sarah said.

Emilia tilted the can. Water splashed onto the dirt. A portion landed precisely as intended.

That replay persisted in her activated interface, superimposed over her sight like an unremovable extra reality layer—she'd attempted disabling it thrice, yet her fingers reactivated it each time. Kaiden’s viewpoint from the first person, the ridge of the mountain, the trio of Ashborn siblings, shadows devouring the heavens, followed by Vespera Ashborn emerging from the gloom as if she'd resided there eternally.

The replay's viewer tally hovered at three point two million, steadily rising. Thirty minutes had passed since the stream went dark. Three million viewers rewatched familiar footage, drawn by its baffling nature that suggested repeated views might yield fresh insights.

It didn’t.

"She kissed him," Emilia murmured softly.

"She kissed him!" Leia echoed, her stress turning it into a grave accusation. "The Shadow Monarch, the woman who just caved in her own daughter’s ribcage, knelt on the ground and kissed Kai on the forehead like he was her favorite person in the world. And then she stood up and beat the shit out of three of her kids. In that order."

"The order is what gets me," Sarah admitted. "She went to him first. Before anything else. She didn’t even look at the siblings until she’d checked on him."

"Checked on him?" Leia’s voice rose sharply. "She cupped his face. She held his jaw and looked into his eyes like she was making sure he was still in there. That’s not just ’checking on someone’!"

Emilia placed the watering can aside since her hands showed no improvement in steadiness, and the marigolds now sported about four times their required hydration. She wiped her fingers on her skirt's hem and squeezed the phone closer to her ear.

The replay restarted. Vespera advancing from the shadows, dropping to her knees, her palm reaching Kaiden’s chin, the kiss pressed into his hair.

"The chat is a war zone," Sarah said. Her moderator overlay was active, evident from her frequent pauses to scan messages. "Thirty minutes offline and the comments are still going at full speed. I can’t even keep up with the filter. The theories alone would fill a book."

"What kind of theories?" Emilia asked.

"Every kind. Some people think she’s protecting her investment because Kai’s guild is contracted under New Dawn’s banner and she doesn’t want her assets damaged. Some people think it’s political, like she’s making a move against Magnus and Kai’s team is the excuse. Some people think she’s just a psychopath who wanted to beat her own kids and Kai happened to be there."

"That last one is stupid," Leia said flatly. "You don’t kiss someone on the forehead and then beat three people nearly to death for something unrelated. That’s cause and effect. She beat them because of what they did to him."

"Maybe."

"Sarah. She showed up after Luna lost her arm. After Selena took Luna’s arm off. She beat Selena worst, the obvious ring leader of this attack. You do the math."

Sarah went quiet.

Emilia glanced at her marigolds. Overflow now brimmed from the pot, liquid gathering on the sill and trickling to the floor. Caring seemed impossible. Vespera’s hand on Kaiden’s face replayed behind her eyes for the tenth loop, yet sense eluded it still.

"There’s a thread on the main forum," Leia said, her tone turning sly from fury. "Top post right now. Fourteen thousand upvotes in five minutes."

"What does it say?"

"The title is ’Did Kaiden Grey bang Vespera Ashborn?’"

Emilia choked.

"The theory," Leia continued, flat and clinical, "is that Magnus Ashborn has been targeting Kai not because of guild rivalry but because Kai slept with his wife, and that Vespera showed up on the mountain to protect her lover from the consequences of a jealous husband’s revenge scheme."

"That is disgusting," Emilia said instantly, her hand tremors shifting to outrage. "He would never. Kai has girls who love him and he loves them. He has no reason to ruin anyone’s marriage, let alone get involved with a woman old enough to be his mother."

"It has fourteen thousand upvotes, Em."

"I don’t care if it has seven billion upvotes! He would not do that!" Her voice rose and she caught herself, pressing her free hand flat against the windowsill to steady the tremor. "Kai is a good person. He takes care of the people around him. He paid us so much money because he thought we deserved it. That is not the kind of man who sneaks around with married women."

"I’m not saying I believe it..." Leia clarified. Then her tone shifted. "But..."

Sarah scoffed. "Marriage. What those two have isn’t a marriage, it’s an alliance. Just look at how contradicting they are. Magnus sends his children to ambush Kai’s team, and Vespera shows up and beats those same children. How does that make any sense? They’re fighting each other. Whatever Vespera’s deal is with Kai, the simpler explanation is that she and Magnus are on opposite sides of something we can’t see."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" Leia jumped on it, her chair creaking as she leaned forward. "That’s the real story. Forget the cucking theory, though it’s really funny and I’d die laughing if true. Forget whatever the forums are smoking. What I would pay to have an insight into New Dawn’s inner workings right now!! Can you imagine? Their co-guild leader just beat three of their fighters on live television. The Shadow Monarch, one of the two people who run the whole guild, just showed up and publicly destroyed the people Magnus sent to do his dirty work. It must be pure chaos in there."

"...Yeah." Emilia retreated from the window. Her apartment was a studio with a kitchenette, a bed, and a desk where she did her moderating work, but she’d filled every available surface with plants. Herbs on the counter, the marigolds on the sill, a trailing pothos that had colonized the top of her bookshelf and was making a slow bid for the ceiling.

She tended them when she was anxious. Which meant she’d been tending them a lot lately.

Being a religious viewer of Valhalla’s Sinners had not been easy on the heart since the competition began nearly a month ago.

She moved to the pothos and started checking its leaves, her phone still pressed between her ear and shoulder, her fingers running along the vines.

The replay cycled in her interface. Four million.

"Look at the numbers," she said softly. "The stream’s been off for half an hour and there are more people watching the replay right now than most awakened combat streams get in a year of broadcasting."

"Because nobody can look away," Leia said. "This is the biggest thing that’s happened in the competition. Forget the biggest thing. This is the biggest thing that’s happened in awakened media this year. A legendary fighter appeared out of nowhere, kissed a rookie on the forehead, and then beat three veteran-track fighters until their bones broke. On camera. With millions watching. That doesn’t happen. That has never happened."

"And nobody knows why," Sarah finished.

Vespera kissed him, beat them, and the stream went dark. Nobody knew why.

Emilia’s fingers paused on a yellowing leaf. She pinched it off carefully and set it on the edge of her desk.

"I just want him to be okay," she said, and her voice was very quiet. "Kai and the girls. Luna lost her arm. Kai was transforming into something. They were hurt and bleeding, and then the stream cut. We don’t know if they’re safe or if the monsters got to them or if those siblings woke up and..."

"They’re alive," Leia said with absolute certainty. "Vespera Ashborn does not show up to save someone and then leave them to die. Whatever she is to Kai, she protected him. That’s the one thing we know for sure."

"We don’t know anything for sure," Sarah murmured. A lid twisted open on Sarah’s end of the call. Then the unmistakable, aggressive crunching of someone going at a Nutella jar with a spoon like it owed her money. Emilia didn’t comment. When Sarah reached for the Nutella, words had failed and calories were all that remained.

"I know one thing for sure. The next time that stream goes live, I’m going to watch it so hard my eyes will go dry like a desert."

Emilia almost smiled. Almost.