Chapter 871: Different Approach
Chapter 871: Different Approach
The Chairman extended a hand toward Kaiden, and Kaiden shook it the same way he’d shaken Lazarus’s bloody one a few seconds ago.
Apparently this was a handshake kind of day. "Chairman."
"Kaiden Grey. Guild Leader of Eclipse." The Chairman held the grip a beat longer than courtesy required, his eyes doing a scan that had nothing to do with politeness and everything to do with intelligence assessment, then released.
"On behalf of the Awakened Association and the people of the United States, I want to say that what you and your allies accomplished in there was extraordinary. You faced a threat that had every military planner on this continent drafting contingencies, and you handled it on your own terms." He paused, letting the weight of it land. "This country owes you and Eclipse a debt of gratitude."
Grace merely smiled at Kaiden slyly, offering nothing as the Chairman continued. "That said, I’ll be direct about what comes next. What I have to discuss with you is not fit for millions of pairs of ears. I’m asking if you’d be willing to end your stream for the time being."
The stream was rolling, the chat was a living organism of memes and all-caps demands for more Pebble content, and a mere month ago the idea of turning it off voluntarily would’ve felt like unplugging from the thing that made him him.
Valhalla’s Sinners.
The quirky adult streamer with abilities nobody could explain and the harem everybody wanted to dissect.
That brand had carried him from a no-name F-tier with the nearly useless Pornstar class to a hundred million concurrent viewers on a legendary combat stream, and he loved every second of it.
But he was the Guild Leader of Eclipse now too, and the Chairman of the Awakened Association was standing in front of him asking for a closed-door conversation while world leaders milled around the staging plain with his guild’s name a few hours old in their mouths.
He could keep the stream rolling. He could decline to play along, grin and wave and stay the cocky young man rising rapidly and doing things no one can predict.
But for once, the smart play was turning the lights off, sitting down with the adults, and proving that the guy behind the brand could handle a room without a chat window cheering him on.
He opened his interface and tapped the stream. "We’re going to cut it here for now."
The chat exploded into a wall of crying emojis so dense the text became a single quivering block of grief, and he laughed at it. "I know, I know. I’m suddenly a bore and a traitor."
A few fangirls tried to insist they weren’t disappointed, but the overwhelming majority of the chat seemed more than happy to agree with him.
Kaiden chuckled at that. "We’ll do a proper after-stream when the dust settles. For now, we have some boring grown-up stuff to handle."
He read the chat scroll for one more second, found a message that said KAIDEN GREY IF YOU END STREAM I WILL FIND YOU, and that got a bigger laugh. "Thank you for all the support. Seriously. You guys are far too amazing. We’ll be back."
He cut the feed.
Grace exhaled, her shoulders dropping a centimeter as days of crisis management left her body in one quiet shift.
Vespera inclined her head toward Kaiden, the approval slight enough that only someone watching for it would’ve caught it.
Her son had just made a great political decision without being nudged by her.
"We’ll set up in the command tent," Grace said, already turning. "I’ll have it cleared."
Kaiden turned to his girls. "Let’s go."
Aria smiled softly, shook her head, rose on her toes, pressed her lips to his cheek, and lingered there a beat longer than necessary because letting him walk away without marking him first was physically impossible for her.
"No."
"No?"
She didn’t elaborate. "Bring them to their knees, my love."
Luna punched his shoulder and kissed the same spot Aria had claimed. "Don’t let them lowball you."
Nyx held his gaze, her pink eyes calm and certain. "We’d just crowd the tent and speak over each other..."
They were all trusting him to conduct this meeting on his own, letting him take the spotlight without contention.
Calypso squeezed his hand, kissed him, and grinned. "Go get ’em, Darling."
Bastet’s tail curled once around his wrist before hugging him needily and nestling her head against his broad chest. "Make them grovel, Master."
"Good luck, big brother. Don’t let them trick you. Politicians are slimy." Alice materialized, turning from his halo to a young girl standing near him, hugging him from behind.
Then, thinking over what she just said, the teenager paused and added for further explanation, "Slimier than actual slimes."
"..." The Chairman seemed to pretend he didn’t hear that.
"I-I know you’ll do well!" Alexandra snuck her way in last, giving him a big hug and an even bigger smile. "I’ll cheer you on from outside!"
"..." Kaiden was surprised they didn’t follow, but the lot of them just stood there, proudly looking at him.
The trust in that was louder than any of their words. As Nyx said, they could have filled that tent with enough firepower and personality to flatten the conversation into rubble, but this wasn’t the time for that. They were choosing to send him in with just his mother at his side.
He nodded once, turned, and walked toward the command tent with Vespera falling into step beside him.
Behind them, while a certain old man was being dragged away by a very angry young lady, Nyx was already moving.
Her hand closed around Scarlet’s before the Flame Monarch had finished watching Kaiden leave, and she tugged her sideways with a smile that had far too many teeth in it for a casual invitation.
"Why don’t we have a little chat, just you and I?"
Scarlet blinked down at the hand on hers, then up at the pink-haired girl attached to it. "Are you the same starry-eyed girl who was fangirling over my mere existence less than a day ago? Where did all my respect vanish?"
"Hmmm..." Nyx’s smile deepened. "Perhaps after you cheered me on while I was getting ravaged from behind and called it my art, don’t you think we’ve moved past idol and fangirl?"
Scarlet stared at her for a long second, then barked out a laugh. "You will never let me forget that, will you?"
"Nope."
"It was the wine speaking."
"Nope."
"Haaah..." Scarlet allowed herself to be led away.
Kaiden caught the tail end of the exchange as he ducked into the tent and shook his head, amused at his space babe’s antics and refusal to sit still even in these moments.
The tent was military-standard, beige canvas stretched over a collapsible frame, but the interior had been converted into a field office.
A long table dominated the center, holographic displays dark along the walls. A young woman in Association uniform sat at the far end with a leather-bound ledger open and a pen already moving, and she glanced up as Kaiden entered, saw the grin still on his face from the exchange outside, and returned to her notes.
His grin cut out like a breaker tripping, and what settled over his features had nothing to do with the guy who’d been shaking his head at his girlfriend’s antics two seconds ago.