The doors opened and shut many times as candidates, Hatchling attendants, Archivists, and security came in.

It was ridiculously easy for a shadow to slip in among them, and even easier to find a place to hide, and wait for the opportune moment.

Others of that "number of housemates" seemed to have the same idea. Despite protests on Tenat's part, her little sister Kalaia had insisted she come-- and with her, her ojee pet-friend, and her dragon, half-grown by now and quite the trouble-maker. ::If anything gets too close to Kalaia, I'll just eat it,:: Netahiln had said, with a toothy grin. It didn't make Tenat feel much better about the situation, really; though she was quite certain the Chaos mutt could protect her sister, she could easily imagine the fight that would erupt if Netahiln caused any harm to Nekeress' offspring. The xenodragon was already on-edge enough.

Add to that anxiety the normal stressors of any xenodragon hatching, with its violent offspring and bloody "hatching"-- all but one of Nekeress' six "eggs" had hatched an unfertilized little monster which infected one of the waiting inyu waiting to become burstling hosts, to Nekeress' mild dismay, having hoped for more actual hatchlings-- and of course she was tense. Add to that the knowledge that there was a silver xenodragon somewhere on the station who wanted her or her bond dead, and who would possibly settle for crashing the hatching... well, she was glad that the bay was sealed-- and obviously empty of silver xenodragons-- once the last candidate finally trickled in.

Of course, if what little information she'd managed to glean in the past months since the flight were correct, that might not mean anything at all. After all, how did one detect, much less stop, a ghost? Aside from have a handy necromancer or spiritualist present, which she didn't.

That was provided the information was even correct.

Tenat turned her attention to the candidates for the first time. She only knew a couple of them, one or two recommended by herself or the xenodragon parents-- like that biomechanical xenomorph Phoenix. Phoenix wasn't even the only xenomorphic candidate present, which seemed somewhat... stupid, to Tenat. At least Phoenix was technically human, under all that getup. Other candidates weren't so bad: an aloof weasel-anthro, a deaf cat-woman, a serval... wait.

"What the hell?"

"What?" Gavin Vance asked, glancing at her. He'd been standing beside her and surveying his xenopack's actions; they were the best "security" they had at this hatching, though they'd also invited a couple other veterans of past xenohatchings, like Darel Tonn. Compared to Mayonaka's hatching, this would, they all hoped, be a cakewalk.

Tenat, at that moment, didn't care about security of xenohatchings. She stared at the familiar face, who hadn't seemed to recognize her. "That bastard's supposed to be dead!" she blurted.

"What?" Gavin repeated, frowning at her, before following her gaze. "He specifically asked for this clutch... do you know him?"

"Hell yes, I know him. I killed him back on Tanazira; he's the whole reason I came to Star City, to begin with. All that, and he's not dead? Gods and Royals, what is he doing here?" And, perhaps more to the point, why hadn't he recognized her by now and done something about it?

Before the Minister had a chance to say anything-- not that there was much to say to an exclamation of surprise over seeing someone dead back alive again-- Nekeress gave a screech, for the sole purpose of getting their attention. Tenat jerked her gaze off her one-time nemesis and back to her xenodragon, blinking blankly. That was when she realized that the candidates-- including Ceraphi-- had shifted attention from the imposing parents of the clutch to their imminent offspring, and that the inyu resined to the wall were struggling painfully, flesh literally crawling as the burstlings inside struggled to get out. Hatching was about to happen, it seemed. At last.

The first of the inyu gave a final, dying bellow before its whole middle... well, burst open. Tenat had seen xenoburstings before, and still thought it the least humane way to come into the world-- and one of the most disgusting. A couple of the candidates-- including, to Tenat's snort of disbelief, Ceraphi-- looked disgusted as Nekeress' first child fell to the floor, writhed a moment to get its bearings, and then started gliding towards them. Kalaia, well back from the "action", had her face in her hands to keep from watching. A couple looked expectant-- particularly that xenohathian, and the short, child-like one who Tenat was even now regretting admitting into her xenodragon's clutch-- and Phoenix, to Tenat's amusement, who had previously been bouncing with barely-contained excitement, was peeking through her fingers at the approaching creature. And still bouncing.

Nekeress let out a screech, again, but this time not out of a desire to get attention. ::Rankless!:: she spat, rising and mantling, eyeless head pointed directly at the brown-- entirely brown-- burstling, which paused and turned its own eyeless head towards her with an inquisitive chirp. ::I could not have clutched a rankless!!::

"Nekeress, you stay right where you are," Tenat commanded warningly. Security hadn't been put in place to protect the hatchlings from their mother!

::I had offspring to raise the bloodline, not create rankless, worthless rats!:: Nekeress screamed, leaping forward and bounding towards the burstling. It gave a shrill screech of its own and launched itself at Phoenix, twining bloodily around her neck and hiding behind her xeno-formed head-crest. Every armed security officer trained a gun on Nekeress, and every xenodragon in Gavin's little hive gave a warning hiss. Nekeress skidded to a stop before actually reaching the candidates, teeth bared down at Phoenix, who had the presence of mind to look a little nervous despite her somewhat-goofy grin, petting the burstling on her shoulder reassuringly.

"Nekeress, you do not hurt candidates or newly bonded," Tenat reminded her dragon, stalking forward with her own kind of menacing glare to stand between her and the candidates. After a moment of an eyeless stare-down, the gold xenodragon backed down, hissing with displeasure.

::If I ever see that thing again,:: she warned Tenat and Phoenix both, ::I will kill it.::

The burstling merely stuck its tongue-jaw out at her, which she haughtily ignored. Tenat turned to Phoenix. "Better get that thing fed and out of here."

"It's not a thing, it's Brickyss!" Phoenix cackled, but she hurried to the feeding table, anyway.

During all the excitement, the other four burstlings had killed and escaped from their hosts, and were now slithering their own way across the floor to the candidates. Nekeress watched with mixed pleasure and displeasure. ::Two warriors and two drones,:: she muttered at Tenat, her foreclaws caging her single, shuddering egg, and pointed each out to her. ::This is pathetic... I thought I'd have stronger genetics than this.::

One of the warriors, bright blue on black, chose Ceraphi. ::Canipess,:: Nekeress hissed for her bond's benefit.

"Great. Former dead druglord bonds a burstling from my dragon's clutch," Tenat grumbled, herself. "I hope I won't have to kill him again."

::See that you don't.::

The two drones chose Paca Maldava, the creepy one, and the xenodragon Xylet: Madigass and Lexuss, respectively, according to Nekeress. Tenat was too far away from the Archivist to hear their spoken names taken to the records. The last burstling, a black-on-black warrior, chose the steely-faced weasel anthro, Yasmine Aria. ::Stealess,:: Nekeress told her, eying the pair critically. ::That one might not be too much of a disappointment.::

Only the egg was left, and Nekeress applied her attention to that. Gavin, beside Tenat, seemed to subtly relax: nothing had decided to bond him or any of his already-large "hive". Tenat didn't think she'd relax until they left the bay and entirety of the hatching behind them.

Finally, the fleshy shell of the only actual hatchling of the clutch burst back, not unlike the bursting of the inyu themselves, and the creature inside crawled out. Silver on black, a warrior and female, she shook herself, hissed at her mother in response to the testing growl Nekeress aimed at her, and scampered towards the candidates. Her choice was the deaf cat-woman Harmony. ::Mornehyss, my only hatchling, you choose someone... defective?:: Nekeress growled.

::Are we defective from our lack of sight?:: the hatchling Mornehyss replied philosophically. ::No. We make up for it in other ways. There is nothing lacking in my bond.::

As the last bonded pair stepped together towards the feeding tables for the hatchling's, Tenat finally let herself relax a little. It was almost over. Soon she could actually go home.

"We can probably leave now, if you like," Gavin suggested kindly.

"I'll wait out the last of the bonders leaving, just in case," Tenat answered, giving him a little smile. "Can't imagine anything else will happen, though, except maybe Nekeress growling at that little rankless thing of Phoenix's."

Kalaia crept forward, looking a little green after all the violence of burstings, and Tenat shot her a slightly larger smile. Her sister had been so certain that something bad would happen at this hatching, that she had to come to protect her; the thought that Kalaia wanted to protect her was sweet, if a bit amusing. "See?" she assured the girl, "Nothing to worry about, Kalaia. Everything went just f--"

Everything quite suddenly went black. For a split second, Tenat was sure the power had failed in the lighting system, or something-- but when she suddenly found she couldn't breathe, she realized it had to be something else entirely.

::Revenge is sweet, is it not? Good night, Keren Tenat; we'll be after your bitch of a dragon next.::

That couldn't be... Skelemis??

Then she was more concerned about lack of air than who, or what, was smothering her.

Thankfully, this was only a beginning. Nekeress, the very one who had killed him, would be next-- as soon as they figured out how. That would be even better.

His exultation was cut short by a sudden shaft of pain lancing across his shadowy side. Refusing to relinquish his struggling prize, he turned part of his attention aside in shock: something had hurt him! His prey hadn't been alone, but he'd expected there would be nothing any of them could do. The Minister of Security was a purely physical man; the also purely physical xeno-demon; the little girl just that: a little girl, with a pet and a furry, eye-blinding, half-grown dragon.

But that little girl threw something, and again he felt pain: she was throwing light at him?

The pet wasn't standing idle, either, but casting threads of light at him, as well, stinging and lashing at the darkness that made him up.

But it wasn't enough. He wasn't letting go-- he wasn't leaving until he'd finished what he'd come here to do!

That's when the furry half-grown slid forward, teeth bared in a smile. ::You are made of darkness and shadow,:: she said, grinning all the more. ::That is what I deal in. I could make a nice little throw-rug out of you, dead or not....::

She meant it. Before he could so much as swear to himself at the rotten luck, she'd hooked a claw into the very stuff he was made of, yanked him free, and sent him flying across the hatching bay. He managed to stop himself halfway across, soaking into a resined shadow and vanishing against the blackness of the bay's floor and fleeing, furious. A last glance across the bay before he disappeared out the doors in the shadow of one of the retreating bonded pairs, to where Malysuss was waiting, showed him Tenat on the floor, coughing breathlessly and fawned over by Minister and sister alike. The furry one seemed to see him, despite his invisibility of black-on-black, and to his complete surprise winked at him, before turning her back on him.

Skelemis scuttled out and away before the doors slid shut, mildly confused but still toweringly angry and bitterly disappointed. All his plans, all that time, wasted!

::Back to the metaphorical drawing board, hmm?:: Malysuss said once he finally reached the hidden xenodragon and oozed up his side to settle on his shoulders, a spot of blackness against burnished silver and steel.

Remembering that furry mutt winking at him, wondering what that might mean, Skelemis replied, "Perhaps so."