# DoobieMan77: get real lmao

# Iamilliterate: hey is anyone actually trading amethyst? no one on the main trade site responds

# WhiteWolf1488: no

# DoobieMan77: shut up nazi

# TheDarkRizzler: dont listen to the nazi also trade site is full of bots

# TheDarkRizzler: try asking in trade chat maybe

# WhiteWolf1488: I'm not a nazi

# Iamilliterate: oh okay

Looking over at the global game chat, I smelled an opportunity. Too pissed off at this point to actually work on anything, I'd gone back to the glory of isometric arpg grinding. It had been a few weeks since I was last online, and I was glad to see not much had changed in this one particular corner of my life. I ended up making a new character though, even though it was still the same league currently.

# AnathemaWaifuGirlie: @Iamilliterate Yeah the trade site kind of sucks, I can sell amethyst for 8 tendies /ea tho.

# Scarlet_UwU_: troll alert

# DoobieMan77: troll

# TheDarkRizzler: the troll is back guys

# WhiteWolf1488: no dont ruin it you r3tar-ds

# Iamilliterate: tendies?

# Scarlet_UwU_: noooooo

# DoobieMan77: too late

# TheDarkRizzler: RIP, new troll W just dropped

# AnathemaWaifuGirlie: @Iamilliterate tendies nuts aha lmao

# TheDarkRizzler: cant say we didnt try

In the end, I did actually trade with @Iamilliterate. That was the fun part of these games, after all—gameplay? What gameplay? The point was to grind harder than a stripper to get rich and deck your character out in the most absurd and ostentatious vanity possible. More than a troll, I was a hideout warrior, cutting deals and chasing the meta. In the end, it was basically just a stripped down, more digestible version of what the real world was all about.

Speaking of the real world, I logically should have been preparing to meet with Sleazebag—I still had that briefcase full of intel that my dad gave me, which seemed like it would be a great place to start. Maybe I would get lucky and this guy would already be in those files somewhere. After returning to the penthouse, though, I simply lacked the focus to work on something like that. I didn't even give my dad any shit about the sword, that's how bad it was.

I couldn't just go to sleep, though, so I fired up my desktop and went to work grinding for epic loot.

By the time the sun rose, I'd pushed my character all the way through the multi-hour campaign and hit the endgame—so in other words, I'd finished the extended tutorial and was ready to start playing the actual game. By that point, I felt like it was definitely time to shut it down and return to the real world. I hoped Katherine wasn't awake yet. I didn't want to have to deal with her yet—ugh, what am I even going to say? I didn't know where things stood with the new girl or how I wanted to approach meeting with Sleazebag.

Fortunately, she wasn't awake—it was still fairly early, especially for the weekend. David was already awake, though—which was typical, as he always got up unreasonably early and started exercising. People who were too healthy kind of unnerved me just a little bit. So, in the spirit of evening things out, I made some tea with extra sugar and popped some canned biscuits with holes punched in them into a pot of cooking oil. It was a handy trick to make fresh donuts at home without actually making your own dough.

And then I got to work. The first thing I did was read through the most important documents in the briefcase. It was pretty well organized, and it didn't take me long to find a section of documents to focus on. I wanted to know about the illegal augmentation scene in the city, basically. Sure, enough, there was one—and I found myself surprised by the scale of what the documents outlined. Christ—seventy billion dollars annually? That was an estimate of the total size of the illegal esoterics trade that went through LA in the past few years.

That was absolutely monstrous. A quick internet search confirmed it, though—well, all of the numbers that came up were wildly inconsistent, but they were in the same ballpark. Damn. I'd never really thought about that before. Poking around some more—both on the internet and in the paper documents—revealed a good explanation for why it was so high. The main reason for the figures being so high in LA specifically was that it was the hub for trade and travel between the west coast of the American supercontinent and the entirety of East and Southeast Asia and all of Oceania.

It was also one of the largest metropolitan areas in the premier superpower at present, as well as the aforementioned link to the other main superpower that had risen over the past three or four decades.

Moving on, I sought out a way to pinpoint the particular group I was dealing with. That might be difficult, because they didn't strike me as being particularly big fish, at least relative to the total size of the underground esoterics industry. And yet, it seemed I was in luck. It didn't take me even five minutes to find a sheet with a black and white printout of Sleazebag's face plastered in the top left corner. Jason DeVille, formerly known as Anthony Briars. He changed his name? Oh, yeah, okay.

It seemed like 'Jason' had gotten himself into a bit of trouble—the kind of trouble that would get you shot from a rooftop a block away. Wow. He was a surgeon? It seemed like Sleazebag had made it through medical school and spent a few years working as a reputable plastic surgeon. Unfortunately, it seemed he'd also developed an unhealthy interest in esoterics that led him to attempt to extract an Anathema seed and stick it in a jar.

Specifically, he first neglected to report a false positive on a standard Anathema screening test, then proceeded with what was originally supposed to be reconstructive chest operation anyway, put the patient under general anesthesia and tried to extract the seed. It didn't work, which was how they caught him when the seed hatched prematurely. Or rather, they would have caught him, had he not both survived the initial incident and fled the scene.

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Reading further, it seemed like they'd concluded he was up to something nefarious and hadn't merely attempted an illegal and misguided attempt at a 'cure.' It was all highly classified, but fortunately for me, the overlords in Red had their own interest in the incident, not least because Dr. Briars was interested in exactly the same exact shit they were only doing. The document briefly mentioned that they considered an attempt at recruitment, but ultimately declined due to 'a concerning personal obsession with the creation of stable, Anathema-human hybrid organisms.'

That single line had to be the single most hypocritical thing I'd ever read.

Moving on, I learned that he'd crafted an entirely new identity for himself with the help of his new employers, the Violet Bouquet. I immediately hated the name, but I'd probably have to deal with hearing it a lot from now on, since they were apparently one of the big time players in all things esoteric—not just in LA, but in the entire country. They were far from the only big syndicate, though—there were several others that I'd have to study up on.

Anyway, it seemed like the Bad Doctor had found a new, far more lucrative position among the Violets. The more I read, the more I realized he was a much bigger deal than I originally thought. The list of suspected clients included some really big names that I already knew just from being ultra-rich. As for the services offered, those ranged from esoterically-augmented, but otherwise normal, cosmetic operations to combat enhancements to lifespan extensions and organ replacement, all based on esoteric techniques.

There were occasional handwritten notes scattered throughout the documents, and one of them pointed out that these things actually worked. Good to know, I guess.

It was all extremely illegal, though—again, the kind of illegal that got the Civil Guard coming down on your ass and quite literally shooting to kill. For that reason alone, protection comprised a significant portion of the entire 'industry,' both in terms of services and internal operations. That was the reason why actual Guardians were the ones taking orders from Sleazebag. Basically, he was way more important than any low tier Guardian due to his specific expertise. The reason they were even there in the first place was most likely to be simple bodyguards.

So why was he wandering around in a bad part of town, sleazing it up with a random girl he met at a trash fast food diner? Maybe he just liked to go slumming. That was very much a real thing—poverty tourism and the like weren't uncommon activities. It was a little hard for me to picture someone as gross as he'd come across being a competent medical practitioner, let alone one capable of working with cutting edge esoterics. Maybe I needed to be a bit less prejudiced.

"Wow, you're up early."

I was proud of myself for managing to not get startled by Katherine's sudden appearance. "That's because I never got up in the first place," I grumbled at her. "It was a bit of a long night."

I filled her in on some of what happened. There was a lot I had to leave out, if only because I wasn't sure what the 'official' story on some parts was going to be, and I'd need to talk with either my dad or the other new Anathema to figure that one out. "...but yeah, that's why I need to delay Vegas for at least a day or two. Sorry."

Katherine blinked. "I'm coming with you."

No, no, please—don't let it happen like this. "No the fuck you aren't," I snapped at her. She was referring to my meeting with Dr. 'DeVille,' of course—and yeah, I really didn't want her tagging along for this particular sidequest. She would cause way more problems for me than she and her stupid power could possibly solve just by being there at all. "Think about—"

The inevitable argument was cut off before it could properly begin by the shimmering portal that ripped through the air in the middle of the living room just a couple of yards away from us. Oh come on. Could he have picked a worse possible time?

It was my dad, of course—and to make matters worse, he wasn't alone. I was pretty sure my eye literally twitched. It definitely twitched when he clapped his stupid fucking hands together like he hadn't already gotten our full attention. "Good morning. I hope you're well rested, because today, I'd like to introduce the two of you to this world's newest true Star Guardian!"

So that's how it's going to be, is it? As much as I was irritated, I was also amused—because considering things from Katherine's perspective, this was going to be hilarious. Imagine thinking your part of a trio of up and coming Star Guardians, just to find out literally everyone else is a fucking Anathema. Like honestly, how the hell would you even react to something like that?

And of course, Katherine was already up on her feet, practically salivating at the thought of welcoming a third member into our special little group. To make matters worse, the new 'Star Guardian' looked equally excited. God fucking damnit. There were now two of them.

Dr. Jason DeVille

Jason couldn't stop pacing. It was still many hours before their agreed upon meeting, but the anxious energy simply wouldn't go away. He hadn't felt this jumpy since the first few months after the incident, back when he'd been expecting a bomb to go off every time he opened a door or a bullet to come sailing through any exposed window.

Ultimately, things could hardly have worked out better. He made a lot more money, had much better hours, incredible resources at his disposal, and the ability to continue his true research with an unparalleled degree of both safety and freedom. Joining the Bouquet hadn't just saved Jason from a swift end—it was the best decision he'd made in his entire life.

And, for the most part, he didn't have to be too involved in the usual inter-organizational politics or the danger involved in maintaining a criminal organization at scale. In fact, it was other people who were tasked with worrying about protecting him. It was, in a word, ideal.

So why the fuck did someone send muscle to terrorize him—him of all people—and to demand a private meeting? It didn't make any sense. While Jason preferred to stay out of the major rivalries, he wasn't completely blind. Other organizations had attempted to poach him before, be it by kidnapping, blackmail, or just upfront and honest bargaining. The inner circle was determined to keep him, though, and they had treated the Doctor more than well enough for long enough that he didn't particularly mind.

So who was he dealing with, and what was their angle? Jason wasn't stupid. He'd already reported everything he knew to all his usual contacts, and multiple very important people were already 'looking into things.' So far, he had yet to receive any answers. It just doesn't make sense. The best theory he could come up with was that it was some kind of twisted and utterly brass-balled setup for yet another recruitment sales pitch.

In fact, there was one detail in particular that stood out in support of that theory. Whoever it was, they hadn't just sent any ordinary muscle after him—they'd sent not one, but two hybrids after him, both of which were young and conventionally attractive females. It was well known by this point that the infamous Dr. DeVille wanted nothing more than to create intelligent, controlled, and socially-inclined humanoid Anathema. He'd made significant progress over these past few years, and it helped that the inner circle was more than willing to support him in the endeavor.

Many of the partial results had already proven their usefulness in other applications, and achieving his goals would also provide the Bouquet with an incredibly valuable—and unique—asset.

Or so we all thought. Jason had zero doubt that the two women really were Anathema, as the blonde one explicitly hinted at. The blonde one was a Tier 3 chamelium anthro and the brunette was a Tier 2 lurker. The things you could do with those webs... Jason shook his head. Someone had already succeeded, and not only that—they were confident enough to send two of their precious products to go screw with him and him specifically. He shook his head again. Why would they even need me now that they've already done it?

It was always possible they wanted to recruit more experts in the field. In fact, Jason hoped that was the case. He'd never personally entertained any of the previous offers—but this one? Assuming his theory was correct, Jason was more than ready to accept, even if it would put him at odds with the Bouquet.

All he truly needed now was the patience to wait and find out.

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