Demonic Po*nstar System Chapter 890: Big Day

He was leaning against the doorframe with half a sandwich in his mouth, wearing a shirt he’d pulled from the nearest pile and pants that were clearly the first thing his fingers found instead of having put any thought into his fashion.

The silence was unanimous.

"No," Aria said.

"Absolutely not," Nyx agreed.

"Darling, what is that shirt," Calypso said. It was not a question.

They descended on him.

Aria took point, pulling the sandwich from his mouth and handing it to Alexandra.

"There’s really no need-"

Every pair of eyes in the room turned on him at once, and whatever he’d been about to say didn’t survive the experience. He raised both hands in surrender.

Bastet circled him, tail flicking, evaluating cuts and fabrics with an intensity she usually reserved for skirt hems.

Nyx ran her fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead, then tilted her head and messed it up in a different direction.

"No product," Aria said firmly, combing his hair with her fingers. "His hair looks best when it looks like he doesn’t care."

All of them knew that Kaiden wasn’t a pretty boy who needed a gallon of beauty products. They liked him being rugged and masculine, and the goal was to highlight that side of him.

"Agreed," Bastet said, holding up two shirts. "The dark one. It pulls across his shoulders."

"The dark one," five voices confirmed at once.

Luna, who’d been watching from the bed with her chin in her hands, offered her contribution. "Roll the sleeves up. Shows this crude barbarian’s forearms. Sluts love veiny forearms."

They did not put makeup on him nor try to soften him.

What they did was far more surgical: the right shirt, fitted across the chest and shoulders, sleeves rolled to the elbow.

Dark pants that sat properly. His hair pushed back just enough, then left alone so it fell however it wanted.

Calypso adjusted his collar with her red fingers while Aria stood back, arms crossed, silver eyes sweeping him up and down with the exacting focus she usually reserved for targeting weak points on the battlefield.

The result was a man who looked like he hadn’t tried at all, which had taken six women approximately twelve minutes to achieve.

Kaiden looked down at himself, then at the mirror Bastet was holding up with her tail.

He tilted his head one way, then the other. "It’s basically the same as what I was-"

Aria put the sandwich back in his mouth before he could finish.

She smiled up at him, loving and entirely sure of herself. "Just trust me."

"That I can do," Kaiden said after gulping a mouthful down.

"Good."

She took his hand and pulled him toward the door.

They walked through the construction site as the morning crews filed in.

The compound was taking shape, skeletal walls rising from the foundation, scaffolding catching early light, hammers and welding torches already filling the air.

Workers who’d hauled steel alongside them the day before nodded as they passed, tipping hard hats, offering greetings. Earned respect.

Pebble fell into step beside Kaiden halfway across the site, six eyes blazing, tail sweeping wide behind him.

"Not this time, Pebble."

"!!" The whine that left his mouth was impossibly small for something his size, and all six eyes dimmed at once.

Kaiden reached up and put a hand on the carapace. "The dungeon’s wide open while I’m gone. In the coming few days, it’s the most vulnerable it’s going to be for a long time."

He eyed the loyal monster with a sincere expression. "I need my badass Guardian standing ready. Can you do that?"

"WOOF!" The bark was a concussive blast that rattled scaffolding and made two nearby workers flinch.

Pebble’s eyes reignited like furnaces, his chest swelled, and he turned and trotted back toward the dungeon entrance with six eyes already sweeping the perimeter.

The vehicles waited at the edge of the compound.

Vespera stood beside the lead car with Alice at her side.

Alice had her arms crossed and her lower lip pushed forward far enough to qualify as a weapon.

"How was breakfast?"

"Excellent as always." Kaiden smiled at her. "Thank you, Alice."

"Hmph!"

"Mother," he greeted. "Morning."

"Good morning little sis, Mother!" the girls echoed.

Vespera’s poker face held for a moment.

Then the corner of her mouth pulled up, barely there, and a warmth that was still new touched her voice. "Good morning."

The girls slowed.

Glances passed between them.

This Vespera, the one who offered small smiles and warm greetings to the women around her son, was still a recent development, and none of them quite knew how to hold it without breaking it.

Then they smiled, all of them, genuine and bright.

They climbed into the vehicles.

The convoy pulled away, leaving the construction crews, the rising walls, and one very proud Guardian behind.

...

The wilderness rolled past the windows for many minutes.

Inside the vehicle, the chatter was warm and easy.

Nyx and Calypso debated whose outfit would generate more online discourse while Bastet refused to participate on the grounds that the answer was obvious. Hers.

Luna had her feet up on the opposite seat, scrolling through her phone, sending Kaiden a few nasty glares here and there.

Aria sat beside him with her fingers laced through his, watching the tree line thin into farmland.

The crowds started at the outskirts of the city.

People lined both sides of the road, three deep in places, phones raised and recording.

They hadn’t reached the city proper and there were already hundreds pressing against barriers that hadn’t existed yesterday.

Luna looked up from her phone, grinning wryly at the scene outside. "Kira and Rika?"

Kaiden glanced at the crowd and nodded. "They’ve been blasting every platform since last night."

"Those two chicks don’t sleep," Luna said, scrolling through their social media pages already packed with teaser posts, cryptic countdowns, and just enough detail about Eclipse’s arrangement with the government to send the internet into a frenzy without really revealing anything.

Association Awakened in full gear lined the route, doing crowd control instead of monster hunting, which said everything about the scale of what was happening.

More vehicles fell in alongside theirs as they pushed deeper into the city, flanking and protecting, official escorts with tinted windows joining the formation until it had tripled in size.

Every block brought more people.

Office workers pressed against upper-floor windows.

Students hung off balconies. The noise grew from a murmur to a hum to a roar that pressed against the tinted glass.

Then the Awakened Association headquarters came into view, and the crowd became a sea.

Thousands of reporters packed behind cordoned lanes, cameras and microphones bristling from every angle.

Kaiden looked at his girls.

They looked back, content smiles all around.

"Ready?"

They nodded.

Kaiden opened the door and stepped out first.

The roar hit him like a physical force, thousands of voices and camera shutters and his own name chanted in overlapping waves until the syllables blurred into a single wall of sound that shook the air between the buildings.

He looked up at the Association headquarters, then began walking toward it with unhurried steps.

His girls followed him out, one by one, and fell into formation at his back.

The Paragon of Sin had arrived.

It was time to rewrite humanity’s understanding of the Mana Apocalypse.