The amber glow of Balthazar's chandeliers hung like suspended honey in the air, thick and cloying, dripping over white-clothed tables where the city's self-anointed elite dissected their escargot with the precision of surgeons plotting a hostile takeover. It was seven PM, the kind of evening where the wind off Spring Street clawed at your coat like it had a personal grudge, but inside, the heat was a velvet fist—warm, oppressive, laced with the buttery arrogance of French brasserie excess. And thank you, God, this place had banned that slimy strawman, Corden. One step forward for humanity—and the girls shall they ever dine here again.
The place reeked of old money pretending to be new, all mirrored walls reflecting infinite versions of the same performative feast—plates of foie gras glistening like forbidden fruit, waiters in starched whites gliding silent as ghosts, and that faint undercurrent of desperation, the sort Stephen King might whisper about in the corners where the light didn't quite reach, where fortunes were gambled on the flip of a wine list.
Alice Bromine slouched in the banquette near the back, her Mets tee swapped for a thrift-store blouse that Amber had elevated with a borrowed silk scarf—emerald green, knotted loose like an afterthought, smelling faintly of Chanel No. 5 and past regrets. She nursed a glass of tap water, the ice melting into tepid pools, while Amber perched across from her like a runway vulture, legs crossed at the ankles, her LBD hugging curves that screamed I know my worth, and it's denominated in crypto.
The restaurant's hum was a low symphony of clinking silverware and murmured deal-making—some hedge fund bro two tables over barking into his AirPods about SPACs, a gaggle of influencers dissecting the latest Met Gala fallout like it was the Treaty of Versailles.
Alice's eyes flicked to the corner booth, half-obscured by a potted ficus that looked like it cost more than her monthly rent. There, a lanky silhouette unfolded itself from a chair—red hair catching the light like a warning flare, shoulders hunched under a cashmere sweater. Conan O'Brien, or close enough—she couldn't swear to it, not with the ficus playing coy, but the awkward gait and that perpetual half-smile said late-night host trying to vanish into duck confit. Nobody bothered him. In Balthazar, fame was just another reservation, slotted between the power lunches and the quiet divorces.
"Jesus, this place," Alice muttered, her voice low, threaded with that Amazon-driver weariness that never quite shook off the graveyard shifts. "Feels like we're in a diorama for rich assholes. Like, why bother with the snails when you could just snort caviar off a mirror?"
Amber's laugh was a practiced trill, sharp as her acrylics tapping the stem of her untouched Bordeaux. "Babe, this is the vibe. Balthazar's not a restaurant—it's a statement. Eat here, and you're basically whispering I summer in the Hamptons to every rube with a Venmo. Besides, Lumiere and the coven are en route. They'll lap it up—pink Lambo screeching to a halt like it's the apocalypse of good taste."
Alice snorted, tracing the rim of her glass with a callused thumb. Five thousand miles and a wormhole away from Norinbel's blood-soaked wilds, and the hypocrisy clung like damp wool. They were peddling medieval blood money—unmarked Mard coins, each one a 9.15-gram slug of 24-carat gold, forged in a world where conductivity meant magic, not just some asshole's ETF portfolio. But fuck it—capitalism didn't care about provenance. It ate the sin and shat out spreadsheets.
Outside, the street detonated in a guttural bellow, twin exhausts hacking like asthmatic hellhounds. Alice twisted for a look through the fogged pane, condensation beading like guilty sweat. A pink Lamborghini Sián FKP 37—hybrid hypercar wet dream, 2020 limited run, the kind that guzzled V12 fury and e-motor spite for 800-plus horses—growled to the curb, scissor doors flipping skyward like a double-barreled fuck-you to the gridlock
Lumiere spilled out first, honey-blonde cascades tumbling from a shearling coat that hollered I dated a Kennedy and kept the jet, her Louboutins stabbing the sidewalk in entitled Morse. Olisse followed, all raven bob and leather mini that hiked high enough to make Alice's mechanic brain wail about structural integrity. They double-air-kissed the valet like he was auditioning for family photos, then strutted inside, trailing a perfume bomb that landed like trust-fund tear gas.
Seconds later, a white Porsche 911 GT3 RS purred up—sleek as a scalpel, wider than Alice's old van and probably faster than her last HR write-up. Dane emerged driver's side, all jawline and heirloom watch, his button-down unbuttoned just so, tattoos peeking like insider trading tips. Hammer—literal name, because of fucking course—slid out shotgun, broader, with a fade that said I box on weekends, daddy funds the ring. They high-fived the Lambo girls across the hood, a tableau of daddy's-money drag racing that made Alice's stomach twist.
Megan would've lost her shit over those rides—Alice could picture it clear as a diagnostic scan—her grease-monkey grin splitting wide, eyes glazing over the GT3's carbon-fiber weave, the 4.0-liter flat-six humming like a promise of torque. "Fuckin' Teutonic poetry," she'd drawl, popping the hood in her mind's eye, fingers twitching for a torque wrench. "Lambo's got the soul, though—Italian heart, raw as a back-alley brawl. Ferrari? Overhyped piece of utter shit." Alice almost smiled at the ghost of it. Almost.
The quartet swept in like a weather front, drawing eyes and whispers—waitstaff materializing with menus like shields, the maitre d' cooing their names as if tasting vintage. Lumiere spotted Amber first, squealing a "Weston!" that pierced the din like a stiletto heel. Hugs ensued, air-light and treacherous, Olisse's gaze sliding over Alice like she was an accessory gone wrong.
"Amber, darling, you look... intentional," Lumiere purred, sliding into the booth with a rustle of Hermès silk. Up close, she was a Pinterest board come to life—flawless contour, lashes like false promises, a diamond tennis bracelet winking under the lights. "And this must be the mysterious Alice. The expedition boss? Love that for you."
Alice extended a hand, firm but not crushing—Amazon reflexes dying hard—feeling the cool limpness of Lumiere's grip in return. "Yeah, that's me. Alice Bromine. Thanks for meeting us on short notice."
Olisse settled beside her, crossing legs that ended in thigh-high boots polished to a predatory sheen. "Expedition? Like, Indiana Jones but with better lighting? Spill. Amber's been teasing drops in the group chat—antique finds, no provenance drama—but we're not dummies. What's the score?"
Dane and Hammer claimed the opposite banquette, flanking Amber like mismatched bookends. Dane's smile was all teeth, the kind that closed deals in boardrooms. Hammer's was broader, laced with that bro-energy that masked a ledger of bounced checks. "Yeah, Amb, you ghosted after Fashion Week. Thought you'd ditched us for TikTok lives—or OF. Now this? Gold coins? Straight out of a heist flick."
Amber leaned in, her voice a velvet hook—NYC polish over the blade of self-preservation. "Boys, ladies, chill. It's not a heist—it's arbitrage. Alice here leads these... pop-up digs. Old-world relics, unmarked, pure as a nun's browser history. We're talking twenty-four pieces, each a fat 9.15 grams of twenty-four-karat. No engravings, no red flags—just gold that sings. Figured you'd know a designer or two who'd melt 'em down for that artisanal edge. Custom clasps, chain links, whatever the Met's begging for next."
The waiter materialized, a spectral Frenchman with a pad and a patience forged in culinary wars. Orders flew—Bourgogne Pinot Noir all around—'18 vintage, because why not drown Tuesday in liquid hubris—escargot for Lumiere, steak frites for the boys, duck confit for Olisse and Amber, splitting the bird like conspirators at a funeral. Alice stuck to her water, then relented for a side salad—arugula and goat cheese.
Conversation meandered like a drunk on Spring Street, circuitous and self-serving. Lumiere dissected the latest Jacquemus drop while Olisse name-dropped a atelier in Milan that did capes like they were born in them. Dane and Hammer tag-teamed crypto tales—Solana's pumping again, bro—shill or die. Alice nodded along, her smiles tight as knotted ropes, grasping the vanity in real time. These kids—barely twenty-five, if that—wheeled through life on axles greased by tax-write-off chariots, dropping a grand on a handbag like it was loose change from a bodega fountain. Clout-chasing clowns, infected with the modern plague—image over impact, where a Birkin bag trumped a balanced portfolio, let alone a balanced soul. She caught Olisse's side-eye once, twice—lingering on Alice's blouse.
"Your drip's... eclectic," Olisse said finally, over a swirl of wine that cost more than Alice's ConEd bill. "Like, post-apoc chic? Respect the commitment, but girl—step it up. Amber's carrying the team here."
Amber's fork paused mid-air, confit dripping like accusatory wax. Her eyes narrowed, but the smile stayed pinned—fashionista steel. "Olisse, honey, pump the brakes. Alice is the boss. The brains. She's out there leading expeditions, unearthing this gold while you're... what, curating your Insta grid? Doing blowjobs behind some Hollywood Boulevard DILF? She's the reason we're sipping this pinot instead of scraping Venmo for Ubers. And her style? Practical. Timeless. Not every girl's chasing the male gaze like it's a Black Friday sale."
Lumiere tittered, covering her mouth with manicured fingers. "Ooh, shots fired. But for real, Alice—expedition deets? Like, are we talking Andes ruins or some Hamptons estate sale? These coins sound sus. Unmarked gold? That's either pirate booty or money-laundering starter kit."
Hammer leaned forward, elbows on the damask, his watch—a Patek Philippe, Alice clocked it from afar, the kind that whispered old money louder than new—catching the light. "Yeah, spill the origin story. Mint marks? Assay stamps? Where'd you dig 'em up—some Balkan ghost town or a Swiss vault heist? 'Cause if it's clean, we're in. My guy's got a line on a jeweler in the Diamond District who turns bullion into bangles faster than you can say 'offshore account.'"
Alice's pulse ticked up, a faint echo of Tharren's fractured laughter in her skull—tickles turning to truths under wolf-shadowed oaks. She kept her face neutral, Amazon-customer-service bland, but inside, the calculus spun dark—Gate—Jietai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakeri, that old anime primer on interdimensional fuckery. Hand a medieval economy to 21st-century sharks, and you didn't get trade—you got colonization 2.0, gunboats swapped for algorithms, Isekai's quartz veins strip-mined by algorithms and venture capital. No sir, this is Hibiscus, Gate's next door but the door's not budging because 4anime are trying to one-up YouTube in terms of ads.
The Petals? They were different. Slaves once—chains etched in blood and bullshit vows—now flipping the script on bath salts of euphoria, portals as payback. But these kids? They'd turn Norinbel into a NFT drop, elves hawking merch on OnlyFans. That, or selling barely legal orcs to Team Skeet.
"Origin's not the flex," Alice said, smooth as the creek's murmur, evading like she'd dodged IRS audits. "Think antique numismatics—old European mints, pre-Euro chaos. No flags, no traces. Just pure metal, 24k, 9.15 grams a pop. We're not here for the backstory—we're here for the ballpark. What's it fetch in today's market? Spot price is what, two grand an ounce? These are collectors' wet dream—untraceable, unspoiled."
Dane whistled low, swirling his glass—the Pinot catching garnet swirls, deep as the mines' shadows. "Antique, huh? Vault vibes. Alright, let's math it. Twenty-four coins, call it two ounces each? Nah, grams to Troy—quick calc, 9.15 grams is about a third of an ounce. So seventy-two ounces total? Spot's fluctuating, but say 2,200 an ounce clean... we're north of 150k retail. But unmarked? Discount for the sketch. Still, juicy."
Amber jumped in, her voice a broker's pitch—vain but velvet. "Purity's locked, boys—spectro-tested, no alloys, no bullshit. Expecting at least 120 a gram—conservative. That's 1,098 per coin minimum, call it a grand flat to keep it sexy. We're talking 24k on 24 coins—24 grand baseline, but you vultures can flip for double in the District. Designers are gagging for that raw edge—melt it into rivets for Rick Owens drops or whatever dystopian couture's hot this quarter."
Olisse arched a brow, popping an escargot like it was popcorn at a premiere. "120 a gram? Bold. Gold's volatile as my ex's DMs. And expedition gold? Sounds like a rap sheet waiting to drop. But fine—intrigued. Dane, buzz your banker. Let's get an assayer in here before the confit's cold."
Dane's phone was out in a blur, thumbs flying—texts to some Goldman ghost who probably billed by the heartbeat. "On it. Raoul's two blocks over, closing a derivatives play. He'll swing with the portable XRF—ballpark us in ten. Hammer, you good for the wire?"
Hammer grinned, all teeth and trust-fund Teflon. "Always, bro. Daddy's AmEx is eternal."
The haggling kicked off proper once Raoul arrived—a wiry Frenchman in a bespoke suit, tote bag slung like a Bond villain's attache, eyes sharp as a loupe. He shook hands all around, murmuring enchanté like a spell, then unpacked his kit on the table's edge—the XRF gun, a squat digital beast that hummed to life with a predatory whine. Alice slid the velvet pouch across—twenty-four Mards, heavy as grudges.
Raoul zapped the lead coin, the tool's chirp carving the babble like a guillotine drop. Metrics bloomed on his slate—99.9% Au, pristine density, no adulterants. "Superbe," he breathed, accent dense as duck grease. "Pre-modern casting, Ottoman echoes perhaps, or alchemist's whim. Valuation... conservatively, 1,800 USD per unit at spot, numismatic uplift included. Twenty-four total: 43,200. Bulk clean? I counsel 38k sealed."
Lumiere inhaled sharp, clutch to clavicle—diamonds flinging fractured halos. "38k for pocket lint? We're not torching heirlooms here."
Amber's nails carved moons into her linen, tone syrup spiked with strychnine. "Raoul, love, you're underselling. 120 gram's the bedrock—1,098 each, 26k floor. These are time capsules, not teller trash. 28k, and you're VIP on round two."
Olisse chimed, flushed on the vine. "28's thirsty. We're eating the assayer tab, the transfer bites—22k, and we wrap it as 'expedition vault' for the inner circle. Tailors pay out the nose for the narrative, not the notch."
Dane volleyed. "20k to cushion the escrow suck. Unmarked's a gamble—throw in some field snaps for the sales deck? Make it pop."
Hammer piled on. "Yeah, and bump the pics with filters—vintage grain, no cap. My jeweler's flipping these into drops faster than Coachella tickets vanish."
Lumiere fluttered. "But sustainability audit? We can't just... source without the eco flex. Is this mined or, like, ethically foraged? My feed's all about conscious bling now."
Olisse nodded fervent. "Totally. And the carbon? If it's not offset, it's giving colonizer vibes. Pass."
The tug-of-war dragged, minutes hemorrhaging into an hour-plus, confit curdling to oily scorn, the Pinot pouring freer than alibis. Alice forked her salad—arugula wilting under a dressing tart as heirloom spite, 28 bucks for greens that could've stretched her through a lean Amazon week, back when the van's lash was her only yoke, parcels piled like Tharren's tumbrils, spine screaming from the grind of miracle miles in the merciless sprawl.
Who guzzled Bourgogne on a random Tuesday? Who savored slime while beastkin whelps hacked quartz in Hargrave's bowels, dust gagging their gasps to whispers? These whelps apparently, sightless in vanity's glare, curating facades keener than their consciences—hollow as the portal's afterhum, worlds grazing without the grace of collision. But tis' be New York—look hard enough and the disparity's crystal clear—much clearer than those waters you see in TikTok travel accounts,
"22k seals it," Alice sliced in at last, voice level as creek stones, choking down the five-grand gut punch like week-old jerky. Vanity was for vaults; capital was the cleaver. "Wire to Hibiscus New York LLC—pristine, no echoes. We ghost lighter; you glow brighter."
Toasts crashed—stems chiming like cabal oaths, Raoul repacking his wand with mercenary poise. The close sprawled over crème brûlée, spoons shattering caramel crusts like complacency's shell, banter veering to vanity's safe harbors: Olisse's St. Barts yacht slice. "Shared with a tech bro—total steal at 50k a season. Waves? Immaculate."
Dane one-upped. "My NFT bag? 10x'd on a bear trap. Told the boys—'Fiat's funeral.' Now it's funding the Dubai crash pad."
Hammer guffawed. "Dubai? Bro, I'm eyeing Monaco berths. Pops says 'diversify,' but yachts are the real hedge."
Lumiere sighed performative. "Yacht life, but make it green. My next one's solar—because, climate, obvi."
Who drank Bourgogne on a Tuesday? Who savored confit while beastfolk swung picks in Hargrave's pits, quartz dust choking their coughs into silence? These kids, blinded by vanity's glare, maintaining images sharper than their morals. Hollow as the portal's echo, where worlds brushed but never quite touched.
The evening wound down past nine, the restaurant thinning to stragglers—Conan's booth empty now, just a crumpled napkin testament to his escape. Valets fetched the beasts—pink Lambo purring envy, white Porsche idling judgment. Air-kisses exchanged, numbers swapped for next drops, Lumiere's parting shot—"Text me those pics, Alice. Let's make it aesthetic"—hanging like perfume in the chill air.
Alice and Amber spilled onto Spring Street, the wind a slap of reality—diesel fumes and distant sirens cutting the brasserie's haze. Amber's phone buzzed confirmation—wire cleared, 22k in the ether, pixels promising power.
"That was... a grind," Alice said, shoving hands into her pockets, the night's hollow echoing in her ribs. "Felt like selling pieces of Norinbel to clowns who think vintage means their parents' wine cellar. But hey—capital flows."
Amber looped an arm through hers, heels clicking solidarity. "Babe, you slayed the evasion game. No Gate slips, no Isekai oopsies. And 22k? It's a start. Swallow the ego, shit gets us to Shenzhen, drones, the whole portal-pipe fever dream. We're not them—vain ghosts chasing mirrors. We're the petals, unfolding in the dark. Fuck their confit—we've got worlds to flip."
They paused at the curb, exhaust haze curling like cigarette regrets from the departed beasts. The Sián's taillights flared ruby accusations as Lumiere gunned it north, a pink streak slashing the sodium glow—808 horses mocking the grid with hybrid heresy, doors scissored shut like a rich girl's slammed diary. The GT3 shadowed it, Dane's widebody squatting low, turbo whispers promising velocity these boys chased for the 'gram, not the grip—Porsche as prop, not poetry, clout over camber.
Amber's gaze hooked on the vanishing glow, lashes narrowing to covetous slits. "Goddamn, look at those rides peel. That Sián? Lumiere's got three in rotation—garaged like Barbies in a SoHo fortress because she thinks oil change is a damn suggestion. I'm half-tempted to crash her penthouse post-midnight, slice a portal, yoink the keys. Joyride that bitch straight to the Holland Tunnel, dump it in the drink. Or hell, snag the GT3 from Dane's daddy-funded hangar. Stealing from those vapid voids? Peak karma—reparations for every eye-roll and eco-virtue they shat out."
Alice barked a chuckle, low and ragged, the wind whipping her scarf like a half-hearted noose. "Tempting as fuck, Ambs. But pump the brakes—we might need those clowns again. Capital's a cold bitch, don't burn the Rolodex."
Amber's brow arched, but her grin wicked deeper, arm squeezing Alice's like shared sin. "Oh, come on—admit it. You loathe them extra. I'd bet my last Loub that you're plotting some deep-end dump—whisk Lumiere's ass to the Pacific trough, mid-sip of her matcha, let the swells swallow her screams. Or don't—we fed Tharren to wolves, let's do the same to her with Great Whites. Or bonus round—ten thousand feet down, portal pop, water crush like a divine vice. Pressure does the dirty work—no bodies, no beef. OceanGate that bitch."
Alice's laugh cracked darker, a Gen Z guffaw laced with Tarantino twitch because yes, I'm a huge fan of his work—the kind that sawed through the polite veil to the bone-dry truth. "Shit, you psychic now? Yeah, those girls grind my gears finer than Tharren's tickle tantrum. I'd yeet the lot—Olisse mid-rant, Lumiere's whole coven—straight to the fucking Mariana. Let the abyss claim the air-kisses—one gulp, gone. Cleaner than wolves on a slaver."
Amber threw her head back, cackling into the crosswalk gale, acrylics flashing under streetlamp judgment. "Dramatic much? You're serving Overlord villain arc, babe. You're prettier than that Bone Daddy, don't lower yourself. But if easy stacks are the itch, skip the splashy shit. Portal-hop their lairs solo—raze the safes, yank 'em wall-ripped, stash the haul in that Astoria crawlspace. Bound to be Benjamins fat as their egos, heirloom sparklers, or raid the wardrobes outright. Pair of limited Js? Flips for five figures on StockX, no sweat. Their closets are crime scenes waiting for a heist."
Alice giggled then, a rare bubble of it—nerves frayed but fond, the portal's hum a phantom itch under her skin. "Jesus, Ambs, quit arming the revolution in my head. You're worse than Monica on a bender. We're keeping the felonies lean and lurky—no splashy scores, no headlines. Low-key's the lane—anything louder, and we're the punchline in some DA's TED Talk."
Right on cue, a yellow cab prowled the curb—brakes hissing like a reluctant accomplice, CHECK ENGINE flickering dim on the dash. They piled in, the vinyl wheezing under them like it resented the upgrade from Ubers, Brooklyn Bridge smears bleeding gold into the night as the city gnashed its endless scheme. Alice slumped against the fogged pane, vibration thrumming marrow-deep, Tharren's echo-chortle faint but faithful. Pyrrhic win, sure—but survival's sums stayed savage—coins cashed, stains shelved, the churn cranking come cockcrow. In Isekai, indifferent stars wheeled over wolf-scavenged scraps. Here, scion exhaust faded to urban drone, deals diced in the duplicitous dark.
The cab spat Alice and Amber out onto the cracked sidewalk of 21st Avenue like a bad habit it couldn't quite kick, the engine's cough fading into the night's indifferent rumble—a symphony of distant horns and the N train's subterranean growl, that eternal asthmatic wheeze under Astoria's sagging brownstones. It was pushing ten PM now, April 2nd, 2025, the air crisp with that spring rasp that clawed at your collar like an unpaid bill collector, carrying the faint rot of fallen leaves mashed into the gutters alongside the ghost of halal cart grease.
Alice fumbled her keys from the depths of her jeans pocket—denim worn thin at the thighs from too many shifts hauling boxes that weren't hers to break—while Amber teetered on her stilettos, phone glued to her palm like a lifeline to the vapid void they'd just escaped.
Balthazar's aftertaste lingered on Alice's tongue—arugula tartness soured by the five-grand gut punch, each Mard coin a sliver of Isekai's grime laundered into pixels on a wire transfer. Twenty-two thousand dollars, split five ways after taxes Lulu would no doubt carve out like a surgeon with a grudge, but it was blood money dressed in boutique drag. Hypocrisy's favorite costume—exporting feudal fuckery to trust-fund vampires who thought ethical sourcing meant a carbon offset for their private jet joyrides. Alice jammed the key into the lock, the tumblers grinding like Tharren's fractured laughs echoing from the wilds they'd left behind—tickles turning to truths, wolves turning truths to wet red nothing.
The stairwell smelled of yesterday's curry and cat piss, fluorescent bulbs flickering like they were auditioning for a horror flick Stephen King might pen on a bender—The Shining but make it Queens co-op with more disfunctionality than Trump's administration, both of them. Alice shouldered the door open on the fourth floor, the hinges squealing protest, and there it was—her shoebox sanctuary, that 400-square-foot cage of peeling wallpaper and deferred dreams, where the portal's hum had first cracked open the multiverse like a bad acid trip.
But tonight, it thrummed with life—low voices bleeding through the thin walls, the blue glow of screens slicing the gloom like interdimensional knives.
The rest of the Petals had beaten them back, turning the living room into a war room for the damned—a tableau of millennial mayhem stitched from duct tape and desperation. Lulu perched cross-legged on the threadbare rug by the coffee table, that wobbly IKEA refugee Alice had salvaged, back when isekai was just some weeb fever dream that Monica binge-watched and not a blood oath. Her laptop screen cast a spectral pallor on her face, reflecting off the wire-rimmed glasses that made her look like a sardonic specter auditing the apocalypse. Tabs bloomed open like guilty secrets—Google Docs bloated with LLC legalese, Spotify crooning some Ava Max tunes because if a story was to riff modernism, you gotta know the good artist—because Gen Z couldn't crunch numbers without a synth-riddled catchy beats to pretend it meant something deeper than spreadsheets and soul erosion. And there, sandwiched between IRS Form 8832 and a Wikipedia and Reddit dive on B2B Tax Implications for Interdimensional Trade (Hypothetical), a flickering PDF on federal taxation for nascent enterprises, footnotes dense as quartz dust.
Megan sprawled against the fridge like a mechanic mid-overhaul, legs folded lotus-style on the linoleum scarred from too many dropped wrenches and portal-spilled ale. Her lap cradled a spool of CAT6 cable—fifty feet of blue-veined Ethernet snake—and in her grease-blackened hands, a wire stripper danced with surgical spite, peeling back the jacket to expose twisted pairs that hummed with the promise of bridged worlds. Beside her, the WiFi extender squatted patient as a bomb, its ports yawning empty, waiting for the cable's kiss to birth this madcap miracle—internet piped through the void, TikTok feeds for goblin hordes, Discord pings across the veil, and/or introducing Japanese porn to fantasy oligarchs.
The world has gone all kinds of southways when that's an actual sentence written by a storyteller after three cans of Red Bull and admittedly, some grams of the white fun powder. And I will admit, it lost all senses that should be common even as I typed this shit in, dear readers, I'll be frank.
Monica, that Texas tornado of unhinged enthusiasm, dominated the couch's armrest like it owed her money—her farmer's hat tipped back, braid slung over one shoulder like a whip ready to crack. In her grip, a compact drone the size of a lunchbox buzzed faintly under her tweaks, rotors whirring soft as a threat while she fiddled with the remote controller, arms extending and retracting with clicks that echoed her restless pulse. The Cold Steel kukri lay sheathed on the coffee table, a medieval outlier amid the tech detritus—a reminder that their capitalism came barbed, soaked in the wilds' unforgiving arithmetic.
Alice kicked the door shut behind them, the thud punctuating the room's low hum like a gavel on a plea bargain. Amber peeled off her coat— that LBD still clinging like a second skin, reeking faintly of Balthazar's butter and bourgeois bullshit—tossing it over the plushie chair with a flourish that screamed above this even as her eyes darted to the setup, vain curiosity flickering behind the vanity.
"Meg," Alice said, voice tired as the N train at Monday rush hour, strategic weariness threading her words like rebar in crumbling concrete. She dropped her keys on the side table, the jangle cutting the Spotify drone—a glitchy beat drop that sounded like McCarthy's borderlands scored for chiptune. "How close are we to turning Norinbel into a goddamn hotspot?"
Megan didn't look up, her callused fingers twisting the RJ45 connector home with a mechanic's unerring torque—crimping tool snick-ing like a suppressed round. Stray copper flecks dusted her jeans, glinting under the lamp's jaundiced glow. "Almost done, boss. Just need this last sucker seated and we're golden—ready to stream TikTok thirst traps from the ass-end of medieval nowhere. Imagine some elf thirsting over MrBeast challenges while swinging a pickaxe. Peak satire."
Alice nodded, self-deprecation curling her lip as she eyed the rig—the solar panel propped against the wall like a stolen relic, car batteries jury-rigged to an inverter that hummed with Dollar Store defiance. "What about power? We can't exactly Uber Eats a generator through the veil without raising eyebrows from the mana-feds."
Megan jerked her chin toward the contraption—a Frankenstein heap of automotive guts and thrift-store hacks—two marine batteries siphoned from her shop's scrap pile, the inverter purring like a chained beast, that pilfered solar panel from the pizza joint next door, and a cluster of power strips daisy-chained from a dollar ninety nine outlet adapter that screamed fire hazard. "Got the full spread—car batteries for baseline juice, converter to smooth the spikes, solar panel I liberated from that greasy shithole next door, and this bargain-bin outlet to tie it all. Marcelo can go fuck himself sideways after the last war crime he calls a pepperoni pie. I wouldn't feed that abomination to a POW—let alone choke it down myself."
Alice arched a brow, flexible as ever, leaning into the input with that leader's ear tuned to the group's jagged edges. "Seems a little excessive for a WiFi lifeline. They can't be that bad—pizza's pizza, right? Greasy hug from the void."
Megan's laugh barked flat, sarcasm nerve-striking like a torque wrench to the funny bone. "Nahhhhh. Once your lips touch that cardboard-crusted regret, you'd wish for a mouth transplant—or no mouth at all. I'd sooner gnaw drywall than his slice. Tastes like regret baked at 350, topped with existential dread. I've accidentally sipped WD-40, okay. That shit somehow tastes better than an actual pie. That's a real sentence I don't even think could be said with a straight face."
Alice chuckled then, low and ragged, the sound bubbling up from the exhaustion pooling in her gut like yesterday's cold brew. "Jesus Christ. You're selling me on a hunger strike."
Amber, who'd been scrolling her phone—DMs from Lumiere already bubbling with those pics? emojis like digital herpes—piped up from the doorway, her voice slicing vain and opinionated, above the fray even in her own skin. "Hey, Mon, where the hell'd you score the drone? Don't tell me you blew your cut on that plastic piece of electronic shit. We just liquidated slaver gold for seed capital—save the toy budget for actual toys."
Monica's grin split wide, prideful as a fresh bruise, her fingers pausing mid-rotor tweak to flash the controller like a trophy from some interdimensional heist. "Who said a damn thing about buying? I was hauling ass out my apartment this afternoon—y'know, dodging that nosy super with his clipboard of petty fines—when this yuppie fuckwit, some photographer drone-jockey or some shit, buzzes this bad boy right over my fire escape. Low enough I could smell his artisanal beard oil. So I snag a brick off the dumpster lid—loose mortar, easy pickings—chuck it high like I'm pitching for the Rangers, open a quick slash-portal mid-arc above him, and drop the son of a bitch square on his smug dome. Wakes up to half his blood painting the sidewalk, two EMTs jabbing him with needles, and his precious bird? Bagged and tagged in my duffel. I was long gone before that Ambulance even got there. Portal power be OP, bitch. Why drop a grand when you can boost one for free? Capitalism, baby—finders keepers, portals pay dividends."
Alice froze mid-step, the chuckle dying in her throat, strategic mind whirring through the fallout like a risk assessment on overtime. "Seriously? Mon, that's... that's felony airspace violation wrapped in assault with a magical enhancer. You just turned Queens into a no-fly zone for hobbyists."
Monica shrugged, unhinged spark flaring in her eyes as she spun the drone's props with a thumb—whirr-whirr like a hornet in a jar. "He's fine, if that's what you delicate bitches are frettin' over. Just a simple laceration, a tad bit of bleeding, maybe a concussion to rattle that overpriced skull. I think. Shit, how many pints of blood does a human even pack, anyway? Asking for a friend who collects grudges."
Lulu didn't glance up from her screen, fingers flying across the keys—clack-clack like gunfire in a boardroom coup—but her voice loped out sardonic and precise, numbers her armor against the chaos because why wouldn't they. "Twelve pints. And just so you know, that's at least two grand in hospital bills—CT scan, stitches, observation overnight. Congrats, you've outsourced his healthcare to Blue Cross. God, I miss Obamacare."
Monica barked a laugh, Texas rumble rolling deep, pride swelling her chest like she'd just arm-barred fate itself. "Dude could afford a fucking Rolex—spotted it glinting on his wrist while he was eating pavement. Two grand's cakewalk for that trust-fund flyboy. Consider it my public service—thinning the drone herd one portal-brick at a time."
Amber's eyes narrowed to slits, acrylics tapping her phone case like impatient Morse—vain disdain curling her lip as she dropped onto the rug beside Lulu, close enough to judge but not to lift a finger. "You're an actual psychopath, you know that, right? Like, Ted Bundy but with better tits and a kink for medieval blades. I just fenced blood money to influencers who think trauma is a bad highlight, and you're out here playing interdimensional clay pigeon with civilians?"
Megan snorted, crimping the last connector home with a crunch that settled like a verdict, her pragmatism flat but laced with that nerve-striking sarcasm—realist to the bone, seeing the world's gears grind without flinching. "On the flip side, I think you'd make a killer Kevin if Home Alone 2 ever needs a remake. Forget toolboxes and paint cans—you'd portal-nuke the Wet Bandits from orbit. No survivors, just a chalk outline and a pissed-off pigeon."
Monica's grin turned feral, eyes lighting with that violence-first glee, her free hand flexing like it itched for the kukri's hilt. "If I was the one in Home Alone, those Wet Bandits'd be dead by the first three minutes—pizza oven to the face, microburst through the skull. And I'd be charged for double murder, plus desecrating a holiday classic. Fuckin' worth it."
Lulu's lips twitched, a sardonic ghost of a smile cracking her focus as she tabbed to another form—Schedule C, profit or loss from business, the IRS's endless hunger for their hypocrisy. "Castle doctrine. Though in New York? Good luck arguing proportional response to a judge who thinks self-defense stops at pepper spray."
Monica waved it off, pride unyielding as Texas granite. "Only works if you're dishing proportional defense. Go beyond? Straight felony parade—manslaughter, reckless endangerment, the works. But hey, I'd take the plea for the highlight reel. Call it Home Alone: Texas Chainsaw Edition. Where's LegalEagle when we need the dude?"
Amber groaned, tossing her phone onto the rug with a clatter, her voice pitching into that opinionated whine—above it all, but fraying at the edges from the night's schmooze. "Jesus Christ, I should've never dropped out of college if this is the caliber of psychopath I'm friends with. I should've stayed a virgin. Momma, I'm sorry."
Alice sank onto the edge of the couch, the springs groaning under her like an old grudge, self-deprecation weighting her exhale as she rubbed her temples—strategic pause, listening to the room's pulse before steering the ship. "Lu? Walk us through the paperwork apocalypse. We just turned slaver slugs into startup slush fund—don't want the feds sniffing our portals like it's a blockchain scam. We're Hibiscus New York, we don't do a Logan Paul NFT rug-pull. That shit's not our meta."
Lulu pushed her glasses up with a knuckle, voice dry as a margin call, dehumanizing the legalese into data points—numbers her shield against the moral muck. "I'm filing our last documentations. As you recall, we haven't really greenlit with my insider contact yet. But it's boilerplate bliss—EIN confirmation, operating agreement tweaks for the LLC—Hibiscus New York, remember? Satirical as fuck, naming our blood-money empire after a cocktail garnish. Or the literal flower we're riffing off."
Amber leaned in, vain curiosity overriding the squabble, her nails drumming the rug like impatient bids at auction. "What more needs documenting?"
Lulu's eyes flicked up, sardonic edge sharpening. "Some trivial shit—asset allocation schedules, initial capital contributions logged as consulting fees to dodge gift tax bullshit. And a nod to the B2B structure—we're positioning as import-export consultants, peddling antique curios from European suppliers. Leave the veil-voodoo to the fine print. It's airtight enough to fool the IRS till they audit our asses for unreported interdimensional income. When our fantasy McDonald's idea gains weight, I'll think of the fast food tax and paperwork angle."
Megan straightened then, the crimped cable coiling in her lap like a satisfied serpent, the extender's lights blinking green promise—ready for the void's embrace. "And we're done. It's primed to plug into your SoHo fiber, Lu. Daisy-chain the dream—Earth's bandwidth bleeding into Isekai like capitalism's wet kiss."
Amber's sigh was theatrical, vain protest laced with that self-opinionated drag—thinking herself above the tech-tinkering grunt work, even as the night's deals itched for more. "Can I skip this whole WiFi-through-the-wormhole circus? My nails are screaming for Shenzhen—bulk-buying velvet tunics and faux-leather corsets to flip for five times the Mard in Norinbel's markets. We liquidated 24 coins—that's runway runway, bitches."
Alice tilted her head, flexible input flowing as she weighed the logistics—tired resolve hardening into the conductor's nod. "How many can you haul back solo? Portal's got limits on bulk—can't exactly freight a container ship through my living room without the super calling code enforcement."
Amber waved a hand, acrylics flashing like tiny guillotines. "I don't know—depends on the store, the haggling, the sheer chaos of those wholesale dens. Chinese goods are dirt compared to our overpriced shit—I'll lowball a factory outlet either way. Fifty pieces? Hundred? Enough to stuff a duffel and portal it home without herniating."
Monica snorted, drone tucked under her arm now, her voice a prideful drawl thick with fucks and frontier flair. "Can you even speak Chinese to jaw with the salespeople? Or you planning to emoji your way through negotiations—heart-eyes for haggling, eggplant for discounts?"
Amber's eyes flashed, and she fired back in perfect mainland Mandarin—crisp Beijing inflections rolling off her tongue like silk from a loom, the characters hanging in the air to baffle and bewilder. "我做时尚的,你这个傻逼.当然会的.要是你不是整天吸火药或者揍人脸,你至少会记得我做过什么.而且,我在认识你们之前就有生活了,就这样吧."
The words cascaded—fashion's edge honed in sweatshops and showrooms, a life before the petals, before the veil ripped open their banal grind into something barbed and boundless.
Monica blinked, controller frozen mid-fidget, her Texas bravado cracking into genuine baffle. "The fuck you sayin'? Sounded like a cat hacking up a hairball in Morse code."
Alice's brow furrowed, self-deprecating chuckle bubbling as she replayed the alien cadence in her head—strategic curiosity piqued, but the exhaustion tugging like gravity. "What was that? You channeling some Duolingo demon now? Zhong Xina?"
Amber switched back seamless, English snapping like a designer label—vain triumph curling her lips, opinionated fire unquenched. "Just because I mainline silk and the softest of leathers doesn't mean I got no life outside this portal-powered shitshow. Fashion world's global, bitches—I sourced from Shenzhen runs before this shit Pre-us, pre-wish, pre-wolves feasting on slaver scraps. Drop it, cuh."
Lulu's fingers paused on the keys, sardonic amusement glinting behind her glasses as she tabbed to save—numbers paused, but the math of Amber's hidden depths adding an unexpected variable, and Lulu will not let this shit slide that easily. "Why don't you just say so? No need for the linguistic smoke bomb—we're hypocrites, not historians."
Amber's laugh was sharp, dismissive wave cutting the air. "What the fuck do you think I just did, Excel? Spill my resume in bullet points? Pre-Isekai: Fluent in Mandarin, networked half of Guangdong. Nah—actions over anecdotes. Unless it's Show, Don't Tell—fuck that stupid ass, ancient ass, dinosaur-authored rule.You keep crunching; I'll keep slaying. Cool?"
Megan eyed her sidelong, wire stripper twirling idle in her fingers—pragmatist to the core, sarcasm flat but probing. "Would you be fine going solo? Shenzhen's a beast—sweatshops stacked like Jenga, hagglers sharper than your Louboutins. No backup if some factory boss decides to negotiate with muscle."
Amber's chin lifted, vain steel unbent. "I'm going solo? Like, me against the Middle Kingdom? Please—I've talked down tailors who make Monica look cuddly. But yeah, fine. Hit me with the why-nots."
Lulu adjusted her glasses, voice clipping efficient—numbers dictating the divide-and-conquer calculus. "I have to babysit the SoHo fiber at my old man's place—keep the portal stable from this side, monitor latency spikes like it's a stock dip. No room for field trips."
Megan nodded, coiling the cable with mechanic's precision—tension tested, no kinks to snag the signal. "I have to deploy the extender on the Isekai end, run diagnostics, tweak the antenna for ether interference. Alice can co-pilot the heavy lift, but it's still a full-hand job, and not in the hehe boy way—solder points, signal boosters, the works. Can't half-ass bridging dimensions."
Monica cracked her knuckles, drone case thunk-ing onto the table—prideful itch for action thrumming under her skin like a fresh tattoo. "I wanna flight-test this bird. Meg's brother's extender's a budget bitch—maybe some hundred meter radius if the Isekai gods ain't dicking us with mana static. But up high? Eyes on the prize—scout the sprawl without boots on the ground."
Alice leaned forward, elbows on knees, the Mets tee from last night rumpled under her jacket. "Also, I wanna benchmark the portal's endurance. If it's timed out after twenty minutes, we case the joint accordingly—quick in, quick out. But if it can hang static, independent like a parked U-Haul... shit, we leave caches, forward bases. More gear staged in Isekai without schlepping every op."
Amber exhaled theatrical, rising fluid as a catwalk pro—opinionated resignation masking the thrill of solo spotlight. "Alright. Then I guess I'll go alone—Shenzhen siren, weaving silk deals while y'all play mad scientists. Fine by me; beats soldering in the dark ages."
Alice's gaze softened a fraction, flexible probe for cracks in the vanity. "You know anyone stateside-to-China? Contacts to grease the wheels, or you flying blind on Insta vibes?"
Amber pulled her phone again, thumbs blurring into DMs—networks spun from Fashion Week flings and pop-up collabs. "Yeah—this girl I met a couple years back, Yi Han. Lived in Nanshan back then, tech hub vibe—we're still ping-ponging on Insta—cosplay shots, thirst traps, the usual. She dabbles in LARP gear on the side, so... perfect shopping spree sidekick. I'll hit her up, see if she's down for a bulk-run field trip. Girl's got the hookup on factory rejects—tunics that pass for authentic medieval without the plague-rat aesthetic."
Monica clocked the time on her battered Casio—band scarred from bar fights and portal jumps—her drawl dripping skepticism. "At 10 PM? Jet lag's a bitch; you portal-pop her mid-nap, she'll shank you with a selfie stick."
Amber rolled her eyes, vain snap cracking like a runway whip. "Our 10 PM here's her 11 AM over there, dumbass—time zones, remember? International woman's hour. She'll be fresh off congee, scrolling feeds. Logistics, Mon—try 'em sometime between haymakers."
Alice nodded, the leader's sign-off weary but resolute—self-deprecation whispering what fresh hell is this crew? even as trust bridged the gap. "I mean... if you're sure, I'm cool with it. Watch your six—hagglers turn feral over bulk discounts. And keep me looped, one ping if the silk turns to snakes."
Amber's grin flashed wicked, already waving a hand, the air shimmering as the portal yawned open in the living room's cramped heart. Swirling black maw, edges fraying like cigarette smoke in a stiff breeze, the void's indifferent pull tugging at the rug's fringes. "It'll be fine. I'll hit a money changer once I'm boots-down—yuan for haggling ammo. Catch y'all on the flip—may your signals stay strong and your drones not eat shit."
She stepped through without ceremony—cloak flaring like a curtain call, the vortex imploding behind her with a pop that rattled the coffee table's salt shaker, leaving only the faint ozone tang and Spotify's ads pulse to fill the void. Gone to Shenzhen's neon sprawl, where capitalism's factory gods churned knockoffs for worlds both real and ripped from wishes.
Alice exhaled slow, the room contracting around the remaining petals—tired resolve snapping into focus as she clapped once, sharp as a starting pistol. "Y'all ready? Let's bridge this bitch before the ether gods notice we're cheating physics."
Lulu snapped her laptop shut, rising with analyst's efficiency—sardonic glint in her eye as she pocketed a thumb drive bloated with forms. "Ready. Fiber's primed, just need to thread the needle."
Megan shouldered the cable spool, tool belt clinking like wind chimes in a hurricane—pragmatist gearhead, sarcasm holstered for the grind. "Ready. Batteries charged, inverter purring—let's make the multiverse WiFi'd."
Monica vaulted up, drone case in one fist, kukri's hilt peeking from her belt like a promise—prideful energy coiling, fucks queued on her tongue. "Ready when you bitches are. Let's turn Nomence into a goddamn subreddit."
Megan paused at the fridge, hefting the rig's duffel—solar panel strapped atop like a makeshift shield. "What's the play, Al? Drop zone with eyes?"
Alice's mind cartwheeled the variables—high ground for signal supremacy, low profile to dodge the guilds' watchful crows. "High places. Towers, firewatch spires, anything with elevation to push the range. We need line-of-sight to the sprawl—mines, warehouses, those crimson cart paths Tharren spilled."
Monica's eyes lit, Texas schemer mapping kill zones in her head. "Gotta be the Adventurer's Guild building. That motherfucker's a solid hundred feet, not counting the steel spires flanking it like spiked shoulders—panoramic as hell for recon."
Alice shook her head, strategic veto soft but firm—self-deprecation acknowledging the allure even as caution clipped its wings. "Too hot. Guards thick as thieves up top—adventurers pulling sentry shifts, airwatch with those hawk-eyed spotters, fucking anti-wyvern guards too probably. One bastard clocks us with a crossbow, and we go from merchant ghosts to intruder piñatas. Pass."
Lulu chimed in from the portal's edge, voice sardonic and clipped—numbers favoring the shadows. "The Merchant Association building? Shorter perch, maybe sixty feet, but zero boots on the roof. Everyone's huddled downstairs, hawking ledgers and bribes till midnight. Top level's a ghost town this hour—clear for our little incursion."
Alice nodded, flexible accord sealing it—the plan's bones solid in the dark calculus of survival. "Good call. And I find it funny as hell—Isekai's Nomence region ticks the same clock as this state. Eastern Standard for elf ears and orc overtime. Synchronicity's a cruel joke."
Monica snorted, slinging the drone case higher. "That a problem? Or just the veil's way of saying fuck you to jet lag?"
Alice's chuckle was tired, em dash of a shrug. "Fine by me. Synchs the ops clock—less math for Lulu's spreadsheets. Lu, hit it."
Lulu's palm sliced air—portal unfurling to her parents' SoHo loft, that Tribeca-adjacent aerie of polished oak and unspoken expectations, where fiber optic veins pulsed gigabit gospel through walls lined with Rothkos her old man pretended to understand. The maw stabilized, edges humming stable, and they filed through—Megan lugging the rig, Monica's boots thudding purpose, Alice bringing up rear with the Kimber's weight a cold comfort at her hip.
Earth-side, the loft breathed quiet opulence—city lights bleeding gold through floor-to-ceiling glass, the Hudson a black vein below, air scented with vetiver candles and the faint leather of her dad's wingback chair. Lulu crossed to the router rack—sleek black boxen stacked like high-tech altars, cables snaking neat as surgical sutures—and Megan knelt, plugging the CAT6 home with a click that echoed final. Extender linked, signal primed—Earth's digital heartbeat cued to cross the veil.
Lulu slashed again, this portal yawning to the Merchant Association's rooftop—a flat expanse of weathered slate under Isekai's indifferent stars, the city's torchlit sprawl unrolling below like a medieval circuit board etched in grime and greed.
Norinbel at night—walls gnashing jagged at the dark, southern gates yawning for cart trains heavy with chained cargo, the air thick with coal smoke and the distant clamor of forges hammering quartz into conduits for the mage-lords' whims. Wind whispered unforgiving across the tiles, carrying the metallic tang of silver veins and the faint, acrid bite of Bottom One sweat—those magic-less dregs, one-percenters of the population, ground to paste under the system's boot.
Alice stepped through first, Kimber drawn low but ready—shadows pooling at her feet like spilled ink, the rooftop's low wall her bulwark against prying eyes below. Megan followed, duffel thumping soft as she scanned for vantage—pragmatist eyes clocking the slate's cracks, the rusted rain spouts dripping creek-water echoes. Monica last, drone case cracking open with a snap, her breath fogging the chill as the portal winked shut behind.
They moved spider-quick, creeping low across the roof's expanse—tiles cool and gritty under palms, the city's pulse throbbing distant below—merchant calls dying to murmurs, a whore's laugh spiking sharp from an alley crib, the low growl of guard dogs patrolling the warehouse district. Alice led to the northern parapet, where a utility pole jutted like a gibbet—rusted iron, looped with forgotten signal wires from some pre-mana telegraph era. Megan knelt, extender in hand, zip-tying it secure behind the wall's shelter—plastic biting metal with zip-zip restraint, antenna angled to kiss the skyline.
"Secure," Megan muttered, voice flat sarcasm threading the wind. "Now for the juice—let's see if Dollar Store dreams hold up to interdimensional spite."
The rig took shape piecemeal—solar panel propped against the pole's base, leads snaking to the inverter's maw—hum igniting low, car batteries chained in parallel for that brute-force surge, outlets daisy'd to feed the beast. Monica draped a scavenged cloth over the mess—burlap from Tharren's inn heist, still faintly reeking of ale and desperation—cinching it with a belt looped tight, camouflage crude but effective in the star-shot gloom. A bundled pauper amid the merchant elite's spires, hidden in plain sight.
Alice crouched beside, slicing a thumbnail portal—small as a peephole, edges fraying to Lulu's loft glow. Her head thrust through, disembodied and grinning wry—blood framing the rift like a guillotine's kiss. "Lu, we're set. Signal's begging for a lifeline."
Lulu jolted back from the router, laptop clunk-ing on the oak sideboard—sardonic composure cracking into a yelp, hand clutching her chest like a bad trade spooked her. "LORD! Jeez, Al—nearly gave me a fucking heart attack. Warn a girl before you go full Ring ghost."
Alice's laugh muffled through the veil, self-deprecating quirk tugging her lips. "What? Just a headshot—efficient delivery. Pass the cable end, let's stitch this Frankenstein."
Lulu steadied, sardonic snap returning as she yanked the CAT6 free from the wall jack—fiber's promise coiled in blue sheath—and fed it through the rift. "Here. Don't drop it in the void—that's a bitch to fish out."
Alice gripped it firm, pulling her head back with a schlup—cable trailing like an umbilical, handing it off to Megan who seated it home in the extender's port. Click. The lights danced—green heartbeat flickering tentative, then steady, as the signal clawed across the metaphysical gulf.
Back on the roof, the connection stuttered birth-pangs—bars fluctuating wild, connecting—disconnecting—again, again, a digital seizure in the ether's grip. Lulu's gigabit pipe choked on the void's weirdness—mana interference? Quantum spite? Who the fuck knew—but it clawed to stability, settling at a grudging 30 Mbps. Not Netflix 4K glory, no sir—more like dial-up's vengeful cousin, buffering through blood and bullshit. But enough—texts across the veil, low-res maps, Discord's text bones without the voice-chat frills. Capitalism's hack, satirical spit in physics' eye—exporting bandwidth to a world where gems conducted spells better than copper ever dreamed.
Alice fished her phone from her jacket, thumbing Discord open—Lulu's icon blinking impatient in the group chat, Petals in the Void. She typed quick, We're good. Signal's holding—barely.
Lulu's reply pinged instant, emoji sardonic: Holy shit, it actually worked. Latency's a dog, but ping's under 200ms. We're gods now.
Monica whooped low, slamming her palm to Megan's in a chest-bump that echoed off the slates—prideful thunder, her grin splitting the night. "Told you bitches so! Who's your fucking mommy? Say it—Monica fucking Smith's the queen of the goddamn veil."
Alice's chuckle cut the wind, phone screen glowing her face like a quartz conduit—tired triumph warming the edges. "Hold up—let's benchmark how good we can push it. No half-measures, if we're bridging worlds, might as well test the bandwidth for cat videos and coup plots."
She thumbed YouTube open, search bar swallowing Trevor Wallace—that short popping queued—when u still use ur high school email. The video buffered hesitant, Wallace's face blooming pixelated at first, then sharp—1080p grudging, slight stutter but no dial-up death. "We're holding stable. 1080p... minor buffer, but not some AOL nightmare. Behold—interdimensional cringe jokes."
Monica peered over her shoulder, nose wrinkling in disdain—unhinged judgment hot as a fresh tattoo. "Ugh, you like this prick? Guy's got the charisma of a class clown—talks like he's auditioning for Chris Rock's Netflix Special."
Alice shrugged, self-deprecation lacing her grin as the video rolled. "He's funny. Relatable chaos—kinda like us, if we swapped portals for passive-aggressive group texts."
Monica's snort was pure Texas venom. "He's a dick. I'd portal-brick his mic mid-set. Fluffy or bust—Gabriel Iglesias gets the pass, rest are filler."
Lulu's Discord flared: How's it? Buffer hell or bandwidth bliss?
Alice thumbed back, wind whipping her hair across the screen. Stable enough for 1080p. But I lost another brain cell—Monica hates Trevor Wallace. Debate incoming.
Lulu's reply bubbled quick. She did? Me too. In this sea of comedians, if you pick anyone but Gabriel Iglesias, you're losing five points in my book. Fluffy's the beacon—hot Cheetos and heart.
Alice barked a laugh, sharing the screen as Megan leaned in—pragmatist smirk tugging her lips. "I'd have to agree with her. Fluffy's the best thing America's got in these dark times. That, and Ubisoft's warranted, expected downfall. Please, do not buy ACShadows—it's cultural colonialism in samurai drag with less historical accuracies than Ancient Aliens."
Alice waved them off, strategic pivot snapping focus—tired but unyielding, the leader's yoke settling. "ANYWAY... Monica, quit yapping and fly or don't fly the drone. This world's dark as a miner's lung—no floodlights stabbing the sky like some WWII flick. They won't clock a modern perv in the clouds, not at this lumens level. But if some sharp-eyed sentry does ping us, we spin it—magical familiar, scouting spell. Air elemental with a voyeur kink and a tendency to eye naked women."
Lulu's voice crackled through Discord voice—portal permitting the audio trickle now, her tone sardonic command from the loft's safety. "Monica, punch it high—ceiling altitude, full send. Circle the perimeter, map the sprawl."
Alice nodded to the void, phone propped on the wall like a command post. "Take shots at everything you can. Drain the battery for all I care—we need photos of the city for future planning. Warehouses, choke points, any building bigger than the average McDonald's. Data's our new gold—cheaper than Mards, deadlier than vows."
Monica rubbed her hands, feral glee igniting—prideful predator scenting the hunt, the controller gripped like a grenade pin. "A'ight, let's see what this bad boy can do." She slotted the FPV goggles on, world narrowing to HUD glow—altimeter ticking, battery green, signal bars mocking the void's spite. Thumbs danced pretest, props whirr-ing soft on the slates, drone twitching eager like a hound off-leash. "Oh yeah, that's the stuff—responsive as a fresh clip."
She lofted it gentle at first—drone lifting silent on brushless whine, vanishing into the star-pricked black faster than a thief in the gloom. Alice was gospel—Norinbel's night swallowed tech like sin, no anti-air wards or bat-wings to snag it— just the indifferent wheeling of constellations that had mocked Tharren's screams not nights ago. Up it climbed, hitting five hundred feet, then ceiling—six hundred max for the boosted bird without further adjustment—circling wide in lazy loops, the extender's three-hundred-meter bubble stretched taut by elevation's grace.
Through Monica's goggles, the HUD fed bounty, snaps firing every three seconds, 48-megapixel bursts capturing the sprawl in grayscale grit—torchlit alleys veining like infected wounds, the Gilded Thorn inn a smoldering scar from their heist, cart paths crimson-dyed in Tharren's spilled truths snaking north to Hargrave's tumor-mines. Videos stitched seamless—guard rotations at the south gate, a mage-priest chanting wards over a quartz shipment, beastfolk shadows shuffling chained under whips that cracked like punctuation in a slaver's ledger. The 128GB card bloated slow—gigabytes of intel, satirical cartography for their capitalist crusade—points of interest pinned, from underhall vents to noble spires ripe for infiltration.
Time bled—twenty minutes grinding the battery's throat, the HUD flaring red warnings as Monica banked hard for one last sweep—the wilds' edge, ruins pocking the hills like God's discarded sketches, rivers coiling noose-tight around trade veins. "Battery's low," she called, voice husky with the thrill—prideful satisfaction thrumming as she thumbed descent. "Bird's gasping, but we milked it dry. City's naked now—every dirty secret snapped."
Alice pocketed her phone, the YouTube short long ended but Wallace's rant looping phantom in her head—self-deprecating anchor in the mad math. "It's fine. We got the haul—data trumps dramatics for now. Lu?"
Lulu's Discord pinged crisp. Got it. 29 minutes on the timer—portal held like a champ, no bleed. I'll compile the data when you get back—full-on geo-tags, overlays, the works. Mines are priority—those Xs are screaming for a plan.
Alice nodded to the night, strategic wind-down easing her shoulders. "Copy that. We're out—Mon, land the bird gentle, don't want it pancaking on a thatch roof and blowing our op. Meg, unplug the cable—tidy the cloth, leave the rig ghosted. Spot's prime, we'll upgrade to a DIY RF tower next jaunt—proper antenna farm, solar backbone."
Monica coaxed the drone down feather-light—props braking to a whirr-fade on the slates, case snapping shut around its warmth like a coffin for spent sins. Megan knelt one last, yanking the CAT6 free—signal dying with a digital sigh—draping the burlap snug, belt cinched to ward the wind. The cable snaked back through a quick slash Alice opened, vanishing to Lulu's loft like a retreated vein.
From Earth-side, Lulu's portal yawned wide again—SoHo's glow beckoning—and Alice countered with her own, big enough to swallow the trio whole—rift stable, edges humming farewell. They stepped through, the rooftop's chill swapping for the loft's conditioned hush—city lights winking conspiracy below, the Hudson's black mirror reflecting their fractured faces.
The petals reconvened piecemeal, portal pop-ing shut behind Monica, who slapped high-fives all around—prideful afterglow making her braid whip like a victory lash. Megan coiled the cable methodical, tools stowed with a clink that punctuated the win. Lulu synced the drone's card to her laptop—files dumping in a torrent of metadata, the screen blooming with aerial ghosts—Norinbel's underbelly exposed, mines lurking like accusations in the north's bruise-purple hills.
Alice slumped against the wingback, the leather creaking under her—tired to the marrow, but the strategic fire banked hot. Twenty-nine minutes of veil-time, endurance benchmark logged, signal proven, drone's eye birthing maps that turned whispers to weapons. Hypocrisy's harvest—Tharren's laughs laundered into low-res recon, wolves' feast funding fiber dreams.
"Done for tonight," Alice murmured, voice rough as the slate they'd trod—self-deprecation whispering what fresh sins tomorrow? "Shower the ether off, crash hard. 10 AM my place—debrief the drops, plot the next petal unfurl. Amber's silk run, drone dumps, LLC locks. Lulu, send me a copy of the pictures. Capitalism waits for no witching hour."
The loft exhaled them one by one—portals slashing to Astoria's shoebox, Monica's walk-up, Megan's shop—voids winking conspiratorial. Lulu lingered last, laptop humming as she stitched the data—crimson paths overlaid on Qwen's grim facsimile, mines circled red like fresh wounds, finally biting on Amber's AI-labor-offshoring nonsense. Outside, SoHo stirred indifferent—sirens wailing alms for the damned, the city's grind mocking their multiverse meddle.
In Isekai, the extender squatted silent on its perch, cloth-draped sentinel awaiting the next bridge—bandwidth bleeding slow into the dark, a satirical thread in survival's unforgiving weave.
But dawn would crack both skies soon enough—Shenzhen's neon for Amber's haggling wars, Norinbel's torch-smoke for their recon's ripening rot. The Petals slept fractured—dreams of maps unspooling like tongues, crimson veins leading to hells where children laughed in chains, wolves at the threshold with quartz-fanged grins.
Here, in the overpriced pulse of it all, the grind paused—but only paused. Capitalism's cold march resumed at cockcrow, petals unfolding savage in the satirical dawn. And if you imagine it hard enough, you can faintly, very briefly, hear Tony Iommi's SG playing Paranoid somewhere in this literary hellscape.