As decided by Natsuko and Daisy, the meeting place for Girls’ Day was Rose the Florist’s shop. Rose was still present, though her job had shifted from selling flowers to housing Tianzhounese bandits. Bedrolls now occupied the floor, display cases, and storage closet of the flower shop. Exhausted with the new inhabitants, Rose was smoking an al-Nuwban cigar outside the shop. In a moment, her new tenants were getting kicked out, but it would be easier with a bunch of Heroes behind her.

The first Hero to arrive was a sultry woman with her pet raccoon. Rose remembered blondie’s name—Margaret—but she couldn’t remember the raccoon’s name. Not that she cared. The world was ending and she had only forked over her shop to Natsuko out of obligation for all the times Natsu kept her from being frozen alive by an Ice Wyvern.

“Is this Rose’s Flower Shop?” Margaret asked.

Rose blew an O with her cigar. “Yeah. It’s my shop. I’m Rose.”

She didn’t bother extending her hand to the two Heroes and the Heroes didn’t have much to say so the three women waited out front, Rose leaning against an empty flower terrace and puffing on a stogie.

“So… Do you know Natsuko somehow?” the raccoon girl asked.

“Yeah,” Rose said.

They waited to see if the Non-Hero would elaborate, but she kept smoking her cigar.

“Alright then. Any idea when the others are planning on showing up?” Margaret asked.

“Nope,” Rose replied.

A few minutes later, a tough-looking lady from Shikijima arrived who was probably Yuna. She had exactly the lemon-chewing face and recently-shaved buzz cut Natsuko claimed she did. Rose chuckled to herself at the uncanny description.

Yuna cleared her throat. “Is this R—”

“Rose’s flower shop. Yeah,” Rose said.

Yuna coughed in embarrassment, realizing how silly the question was when Margaret and the raccoon girl were standing five feet from her. The three women nodded at each other, not yet acquainted. Neither party had the nerve or tact to introduce themselves. What a sad bunch, thought Rose. Outside of Natsuko, Heroes were so stand-offish, even with each other. A lot of Non-Heroes wished they were Heroes, but as far as Rose was concerned, they could keep that business and let her run her damn flower shop.

Her cigar was just about finished when Natsuko arrived with the pink lady named after some kind of flower. The pink lady had a very suspicious-looking wriggling sack thrown over her shoulder, but Rose didn’t ask questions. Natsuko wanted her shop and that was the extent of her involvement.

She put out her cigar stub on the flower terrace. “Ready for me to kick ‘em out?”

“Yeah, I think we’re ready. Right girls?” Natsuko asked.

There was a round of lackluster agreement from the other three Heroes as Rose unlocked her door. Inside, a bunch of Tianzhounese bandits sat on the shop floor. Tables and display cases had been pushed aside to make room for bedrolls and satchels and in the leftover space the bandits were playing Elements: The Coalescing.

“Alright boys, get lost,” Rose said.

The bandits grumbled and picked up their cards and packs and filtered out of the flower shop. Rose kicked bedrolls out of the way and brought out beach chairs and milk crates. Once the flower shop looked somewhat presentable, Rose went back outside.

“All yours until 5pm,” Rose said, fumbling around in the pockets of her pink jacket for another cigar.

“Thanks, Rose! You probably saved the world with this you know,” Natsuko said.

“With mani-pedis and bubbling wine? Sure. Gods know this al-Nuwban tobacco is saving my world,” Rose replied, shaking her last cigar out of its wrappings and trimming it with a set of garden shears.

“Light?” Natsuko asked, a flicker of flame at the tip of her index finger.

Rose leaned in and puffed the cigar until there was a nice little cherry on the end and then drew in. “Ahh... That’s nice. Tell Shui I said hi when she shows up.”

Natsuko chuckled. “Will do, Rose. Take it easy.”

While Natsuko was talking with Rose, Daisy looked around at the three women staring at her.

“Shall we indulge?” Daisy asked.

Yuna frowned and jammed a finger towards Margaret and Gomiko. “Who are these two?”

“Oh, sorry, introductions are in order! Yuna, this is Margaret and Gomiko. Gomi is Sofi’s… rawr rawr!” Daisy said, growling like a puma and making weird hand gestures with the hand not holding the wriggling sack. Margaret looked aghast and Gomiko tucked her crimson face into the crook of her elbow to hide it.

Oblivious, Daisy continued, “Margie and Gomi—”

“Margaret,” Margie said.

“—this is my teammate, Yuna! She likes comic books and potato chips and revolution.”

Margaret swallowed nervously and extended her hand to Yuna. “How do you do?”

Yuna looked at Margaret, then down at her hand, then back up at her, and grunted.

“A pleasure to mee you,” Margaret said.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Great, everyone’s caught up,” Daisy said. “Girls’ Day can officially start!”

“Wait, where's Shuixing?” Gomiko asked.

Daisy and Natsuko looked at each other and grinned conspiratorially and Daisy said, “We’ll get to that in a moment. But before that, we need to move to Phase One… Brunch!”

Yuna squinted. “Brunch?”

“Yeah! Follow me.”

Daisy led them to a kitchen table set up in the back of the shop. Waiting for them were six seats, six menus, six place settings, and one waiter who was a Sibe-Lander tribesman wearing leather riding breeches and a leather tanktop and nothing else. He pulled out chairs for the five of them as they took their seats.

“Good morning, ladies. My name’s Temur, I’ll be taking care of you today,” Temur said in a husky voice.

Daisy was supremely giddy at this just as a matter of principle instead of any particular naughtiness and was bouncing in her seat to give her drink order. Yuna, meanwhile, was unimpressed at how small Temur’s muscles were compared to hers. Margaret and Gomiko were baffled by what was happening. The only person treating Temur as proper eye candy was Natsuko whose gaze fell on his veiny forearms holding an order pad.

“May I get you ladies anything to drink?”

“Ohmigods, hi! Yes! I want a peach bellini!” Daisy said with a satisfied squeal.

“The fuck is that?” Yuna asked.

“You won’t like it,” Natsuko explained. “Get a bloody mary, that’s what I’m having.”

The ‘bloody’ part intrigued Yuna and once Natsuko explained it was vodka with enough spices and tomato to make it a viable breakfast, Yuna got one for herself. Margaret ordered a coffee, a shot of vodka, and a cigarette. Gomiko asked for orange juice.

Daisy grasped her arm. “No dear, this is Girls’ Day. You must get daydrunk with us!”

“That’s okay, I-I don’t usually drink this early and—”

Margaret put her hand over Gomi’s. “It’s okay. You do what makes you comfortable.”

“She’ll have a mimosa,” Daisy said.

“Coming right up,” Temur said.

“Wait! We’ve got one more order.”

At long last, Daisy finally acknowledged the sack at her feet. Everyone but Natsuko had been wondering what it was about and in conjunction with the additional order, they had a suspicion.

“Daisy, you didn’t…” Yuna said.

Daisy laughed maniacally. “Ahaha! Daisy did!”

She threw open the sack to reveal a very pissed off Shuixing bound hand and foot with a gag in her mouth. The others watched dumbfounded as Natsuko and Daisy propped her up in the remaining chair while Shui mumbled angrily at them. Natsuko pulled the gag from Shui’s mouth and Shuixing was quick to voice her displeasure.

“What the f— fr—” Shui’s body fought against the out-of-character expletive forcing its way out of her mouth. “What the fuck has gotten into you two!? Are you insane!? You’re dooming us to be annihilated forever a-and—”

“She’ll have a coffee,” Natsuko said.

“Two coffees, two bloody marys, a mimosa, and a shot of vodka. Got it,” Temur said with a wink at Natsuko.

“Don’t forget the cigarette,” Margaret added.

“Hey wait, why aren’t you making Shuixing drink?” Gomiko asked.

“Well, she’s tied up so it wouldn’t be consensual, y’know?” Natsuko said, patting her angry, thrashing friend on the shoulder. Her glasses were coming off from all the wiggling so Natsuko straightened them for her. “Just got with the flow, Shui. Trust me. It’s Girls’ Day, relax.”

“R-Relax!? The end of the world is a week away! Natsu, if I don’t—”

Natsuko yawned loudly. “Yeah, yeah, if you don’t find a way to save the world, everyone dies. Don’t you know you only gotta say something three times for it to sink in? Everyone’s heard it a million times by now. The real mystery is what’ll happen if you relax and enjoy yourself for once.”

If mice could growl, Shuixing did a solid impression of them. Seeing that Daisy and Natsuko had gone off the deep-end, she turned to the others.

“Please, you have to stop them!”

Gomiko and Margaret looked nervously at each other.

“R-Really guys, you should let her go,” Gomiko said.

“Nuh-uh. We’re saving the world in our own way, and that means giving our little scientist here some extreme, mandatory relaxation. Otherwise she’ll end up frustrating herself,” Natsuko explained.

“I’m plenty frustrated now!” Shuixing said.

“Yeah, cuz you haven’t had your coffee yet.”

Temur came back with a platter of drinks, courtesy of Joad who was generously giving the women open access to the entire logistical stockpile. The Cascadians and Sibe-Landers wouldn’t be happy when they found out the committee had requisitioned their champagne and vodka, but as Natsuko had explained, Girls’ Day was a matter of life or death. Daisy clapped her hands as the bellini was put in front of her and politely waited for everyone else to get their drinks before slamming the whole thing back in one chug and circling her fingers for Temur to bring her another one. Margaret sipped her vodka and puffed on her cigarette and seeing her teammate relaxing, Gomiko tentatively took a sip of her own drink.

“It’s not... bad. There’s not a lot of alcohol in it, right?” Gomiko asked.

“Nah, Mimosa’s are just a glass of wine,” Daisy said. “That’s why I’m getting a second.”

“Are you all really going to go along with this insanity?” Shuixing said.

Gomiko bit her lip. It felt scummy to ignore Shui, especially after what had so recently happened to Gomiko herself, but she felt there was a method to Natsuko’s madness. Not that she could’ve done anything anyway. Her only option was to dimension-jump Natsuko and Daisy, and that seemed like a really, really bad idea.

Yuna, meanwhile, was investigating her bloody mary like a dog, sniffing the spices and salt on the rim and the tangy tomato juice before sticking out her finger to prod at the thick red liquid. Finally, she sipped it.

“It doesn’t taste like blood. Not metallic enough,” Yuna said.

“The ‘blood’ part comes from the tomato juice,” Natsuko said.

Yuna lifted it up to swirl around. “I see. Well, it’s still decent.”

“Uh-huh,” Natsuko said, nibbling on her celery stem. She glanced over at a still-fuming Shuixing. “Want me to help you with your coffee?”

Shuixing’s wrists strained behind her chair. “No, I want you to let me go!”

“Okay, but like, what would you say is priority #2 right now? What is the next best thing your bestie could do for you besides untie you?” Natsuko asked.

“Tell Sofiane so he can untie me!”

“Okay, but… what’s priority #3?”

Utilizing Daisy’s strategy of wearing her down, by priority #13 Natsuko finally got Shuixing to acquiesce to drinking a cup of coffee if Natsu would untie her wrists so she could drink it herself. Natsuko considered for a moment whether her friend was concocting some secret tactic to escape, but eventually she let Shui enjoy her cup of coffee.

This defused some of the tension, and halfway through her cup Shuixing said, “Okay. I’ll have brunch. But please let me get back to work afterwards, alright, Natsu?”

“Sorry, no can do, Shui. We’ve got mani-pedis after,” Natsuko said.

Shuixing shook her head, nearly sending her glasses flying. “We’ve got what!?”