A Most Unexpected Party Guest

“Hey guys!” a human female suddenly shouted over the music and human din from behind them. “Look who I found wandering around the parking lot! He was looking for the party!”

Great. The human female was back. Probably brought another herd human in a costume. Comet prepared to seduce the newcomer with simple gifts and Ambrosia.

Then the figure stepped into the light.

Comet’s brain froze solid for a second and did a hard reset.

This wasn’t a nerd. It wasn’t a cosplayer.

A wall of muscle wrapped in a Frontenachii black hexasuit and magisteel armor, topped with a lush, bright red cape arrived at their table.

The face was a golden skull mask. Polished, gleaming, imperious. It caught the neon lights of the bar, reflecting it with triangular edges.

Comet inhaled deeply, refusing to believe her eyes. Her tail stopped wagging. The bells on her choker went silent.

It couldn’t be. It couldn’t! What?! HOW?!

She had watched this man pilot a ten-kilometer warship into the moon four hours ago. She listened to his broadcast, saw him disintegrate in a blaze of glory.

The drunk Frontenachii soldiers lowered their glasses, all staring. The Scrutimancer jolted awake and smacked her companion. The badger woke up, snorting and blinking at the new arrival. Symbiote guns jumped into their claws from underneath the table.

“No way,” Oppenheimer beamed, not noticing the shocked looking prads. “Oh dude, now that’s a wicked cosplay!”

Sarah grabbed a chair from a nearby table and dragged it over. “Guys! You’ll never guess who this is!” She noticed the armed prads and fell silent, then rapidly retreated away.

Comet didn’t need to guess.

The Emperor of Earth sat down. The chair groaned under his weight. He was massive, taking up enough space for two men. The red cape spilled over the back of the seat, spreading across the floor like a pool of blood. He was now directly next to Comet.

Close. Too close.

Comet’s mind raced through potential futures:

A: Summon her sisters or the Saint via Dasher’s gate. (Too slow. Might scare him away.)B: Pull out her gun and See-Mass him up. (Too public. Might fail if he’s a projection or something.)C: Pretend this was totally normal and she wasn’t currently sitting next to a man who had just nuked the moon.

She chose Option C as the safest path forward.

Something was wrong with her senses, unnervingly throwing off her Astral sniffing.

“A late arrival to the party?” Comet’s voice trembled slightly before she smoothed it into a purr.

The Emperor’s golden skull turned to her. He let the silence stretch, heavy and uncomfortable, until Comet felt the urge to fidget.

“I heard you were looking for me,” the Emperor said.

His voice was deep, resonant, and carried the same metallic distortion that had been broadcast across dimensions to Omnithornia.

“Damn,” Sergey said. “You even sound like the real deal!”

Comet’s smile felt frozen on her face. “I… yes. I… work for a charity. We deliver… cheer.”

“Cheer?” the Emperor repeated.

He leaned in. The golden mask was a foot from her nose.

Comet Evergreen, the prad empowered by the Spirit of See-Mass, the girl who faced down superstructure-sized planetary defense grids and armies of mages, felt a shiver run down her spine.

This wasn’t supposed to happen! Final bosses don’t just show up this early in the game! She didn’t even feel him ahead of time, didn’t expect her quarry to simply COME to her.

Comet swallowed. Her mouth felt dry.

“I…” she started.

“Well?” The Emperor spread his hands, palms up. The black gloves were reinforced with kinetic impact plates. Omnid design. High grade magisteel, recently made, smelling of the Corpse Seeker fabricator. “I’m here. Where’s my fruit basket?”

“It’s… Urm… in the Sleigh,” Comet uttered.

“Inconvenient,” the Emperor noted. “I was hoping for a snack. Piloting capital ships really works up an appetite.”

He turned to the human waitress hovering nearby.

“Beer,” the Emperor ordered. “And nachos. The biggest plate you have. My friend Comet here is paying. She has a very generous expense account from Saint Nikky.”

He looked back at Comet, the golden skull tilting slightly.

“Right, Comet?”

Comet stared at him. Her brain was screaming TRAP TRAP TRAP, WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE WHAT. Her job demanded she maintain the merry façade.

“Y-yes,” she managed, sounding thin and reedy. “Saint Nikky… provides g-gifts to all. Would you like some Ambrosia?”

“Excellent,” the Emperor said. “Yes, let’s drink. You can tell me all about your eight sisters. And your Sleigh. And exactly why you think planting dungeon seeds on my planet is a polite thing to do.”

Comet’s heart stopped.

He knew. HE KNEW?! LEVIATHAN’S TITS! HOW?!

“I… don’t know what you mean,” she laughed nervously, bells jingling. “Dungeon seeds? That sounds… spooky. I’m a charity worker, I deliver presents to nice boys and girls.”

She waved a hand at the presents on the table.

“Don’t be modest, Comet,” the Emperor stated. “I love gardening. We have much to discuss.”

He looked at Sergey.

“Sergey, my boy,” the Emperor said warmly. “You’re doing a great job. Friendly diplomacy is key. A job well done on seducing the Harbinger of See-Mass.”

Comet screamed internally. She had been played!

Sergey looked confused. “What? Huh? What is happening?”

“He’s the real deal,” the prad Scrutimancer hissed. “That’s the REAL Emperor of Humanity, you knob! I smell the ocean of fox eyes looming over him. An archangel leering at me from the abyss!”

The Frontenachii around the pub tensed up. Gun units sat in their hands, pointed at the Emperor.

This was bad. This was VERY bad.

Comet’s fingers slipped into her extradimensional pocket tightening around the See-Mass rifle. She glanced into the Astral and saw it too.

Eyes. So many eyes.

FUCK MY LIFE.

“Go ahead, Harbinger,” the Emperor spoke with an unnervingly cheerful rumble. “Shoot me if you dare. Admiral Evelithria shot me in the head, then she lost her ship. Do you dare to lose your dungeon vessel too? Because I could just as easily drive it into the moon… if you annoy me.”

The Emperor’s chest was broad.

A guaranteed, easy kill.Or was it?

Comet didn’t dare make the move, mind fraying at the edges as she stared at the ghostly eyes in the abyss.

The magic-less humans weren’t horrified at all, they simply saw the dim, smoky interior of The Tipsy Sasquatch. To Comet, peering through the Astral, the air behind the Golden Skull was a writhing tapestry of pure liminal terror.

Wings.

Massive wings made of thousands of blinking fox eyes unfurled from the Emperor’s shoulders, phasing through the booth, the wall, and the humans.

The eyes stared at her.

Thousands of colorful pupils dilated at random, whispering a single word into her mind: Snack.

Comet’s smile twitched.

“You possess… a very spirited aura,” she managed to squeak out, slowly removing her hand from her pocket. “Saint Nikky teaches us that violence at the dinner table puts one on the Permanent Naughty List.”

“Wise Omnid, your Saint,” the Emperor said.

The tension in the booth was thick enough to cut with a chainsaw. Sergey looked scared and confused. The leopard Scrutimancer was huddled against Oppenheimer, gun out and hissing softly like a kettle left on high heat.

“You,” a sharp, female voice barked from above.

The Emperor slowly rotated his golden mask to face the newcomer. “Yes?”

The Wendigo Commander was looking imposing even in her drunken state. She wore a standard black hexasuit unfolded to the sternum, revealing spotted gray-black fur and a collection of cheap plastic Mardi Gras beads draped around her neck. Her antlers were festooned with glow-sticks highlighting her black and slightly emerald feathery mane.

Flanking her was the tiger prad who had earlier threatened to drink Sergey’s jelly plus ten other armed prads.

“Commander Wattica,” the Emperor greeted her as if they were old friends meeting for brunch. “I see you’ve embraced the local culture. The glow-sticks nicely accentuate your lovely bone-skull.”

“Youuu,” Wattica hissed with narrowed silver eyes. “My Scruts tell me you are HIM! The Primitive ruler. The Ship-Breaker!”

Comet rapidly slid the red Ledger back into her extradimensional pocket.

“Emperor of Earth, if you please. ‘Primitive’ implies I don’t know which fork to use for salad,” the Emperor corrected. “And yes, I broke your ship. I hope you packed your toothbrush.”

Carrla growled, claws extending. “We should gut him like a fish!”

“At ease, tiger,” the Emperor waved a hand dismissively. “We’re all friends here.”

“F-frie-h-nds?” Wattica let out, looking shocked at the audacity of the human Emperor to claim such things.

“Yes, friends. Sit down, Commander,” he commanded. “Grab a chair. Drink with us!”

The order carried the weight of authority, backed by the pressure of the astral eyes.

Wattica hesitated.

Then she seemingly made a decision, grabbed a stool and sat down.

Comet noted that the Wendigo was obviously trying to claw information out of the Emperor’s head with her hooks and was failing at it. The Frontenachii girl looked increasingly confused and frustrated.

Carrla stood behind her Lady, looking ready to pounce if the Emperor so much as sneezed wrong.

“Fine. This is a… truce,” Wattica announced, trying to salvage the shreds of her dignity. She poured herself a shot of Comet’s ambrosia without asking. “A temporary cessation of hostilities due to… logistical complications.”

“Call it what you want,” the Emperor said. “I call it a date.”

Comet choked on her own saliva. “A… date?”

“Why not?” the Emperor spread his arms, the red cape fluttering. “Look at us. A dungeon-spreading fox-wolf, a Wendigo Commander, humans and prads sharing drinks. It’s a lovely party!”

“You… Destroyed our capital ship today,” Wattica ground out, slamming the empty shot glass down. “Many of us are staying on Earth or in cramped quarters on smaller ships ‘cause of you!”

“Your capital ship was a male-prad meat grinder,” the Emperor said coldly. “And now it’s gone. You’re welcome.”

Wattica opened and closed her skull-mouth struggling with the man’s audacity.

The nachos arrived.

It was a mountain of corn chips smothered in molten yellow cheese, jalapeños, and questionable-looking ground beef. The waitress set it down and vanished.

“Eat,” the Emperor ordered. He grabbed a chip, shoved it into the mouth-slit of his mask, and crunched loudly.

Wattica stared at the food. “What is this slop?”

“Cultural heritage,” the Emperor said. “Nachos! Try it.”

The Wendigo Commander gingerly picked up a cheese-laden chip with two sharp, black claws. She sniffed it. Then, with the air of someone defusing a bomb, she placed it in her mouth.

She chewed.

“It is… excessively salty,” she judged. “And fatty. And spicy.”

“Good, right?”

“S’ acceptable,” she grunted, reaching for another.

Comet watched the scene with mounting frustration. This had all gone so wrong!

The narrative was broken. The Final Boss was eating bar food with the Enemy Commander while her intended prey, the astrophysicist, was currently clinging to her like a lost drowning man at sea.

[Rudy!] She cast via her Neural Interface to the Sleigh. [The Emperor of Earth is here! He’s here! What do I do?!]

[What do you mean ‘he’s here’?] Rudy replied.

[He’s right here! Sitting in front of me! In the bar! I found him!!!]