The underground lab was sealed in axion polymer.
Every surface bounced sound back, the chamber trapping silence so tightly that Skyler heard his heartbeat thundering in his chest, heavy as a subwoofer's bass.
He blinked twice, three times. "W–Who… who the hell are you two!?" His hands tried some clumsy sign language no one had asked for.
"You're kinda funny, y'know that?"
The reply wasn't telepathic. It came straight from the pink-haired girl standing in front of him.
"Oh great, you do speak my language," Skyler said, voice cracking up into a pitch that annoyed even himself.
"Duh. I'm human," she deadpanned.
"So… you realize you just came out of the Singularity Gate, right?"
"Sing–what now? If you mean that cosmic hotpot machine over there—then, yeah, sure."
Hotpot. Great. The top-secret project just got rebranded.
Skyler's brain scrambled to connect the dots. No panic. No screaming. No barrage of questions.
Which meant… they knew exactly what this was.
"So where are you from? Future? Past? Parallel dimension? Outer space?"
"Do I look like an alien to you?" She whipped her hair so hard it nearly smacked him in the face.
"Uh—no! That's not what I meant…"
Yeah, no clue how to handle this anymore. Cosmic gate opens by itself, two random girls pop out—lucky break or cosmic screw-up?
Honestly, probably both.
His brain groaned. The gate was scary enough. But scarier? Two actual girls standing there. Last female he'd talked to? His mom. And that conversation had been about fermenting kimchi.
"H–Hi there… uh, citizens of another world."
Did I just say that out loud? If Dad knew this was my opening line, he'd light incense for me three days straight.
Then he noticed the red-haired girl, standing silent at the far corner of the room. Wait—had she been there the whole time?
She moved. No—launched.
A blur faster than a bullet train. Her crimson stare sliced through the air, sharp enough to split it open.
Skyler froze, brain gone blank, body locked—gravity itself pinning him into a statue.
Oh shit. The words surfaced without thought.
She was a heartbeat away from smashing into him when—
BAM! The pink twin-tail darted across, headbutting her straight in the chest. A flare burst out, a resonant hum shaking the air.
Thud! Red collapsed hard, shards of glowing dust scattering around her.
Both girls locked eyes, heat enough to spark a war—zero paperwork, no cosmic council required.
"You! You're the one who caused the parallel-world fracture, aren't you?!" Pink shrieked.
"That was supposed to be my epic entrance scene, and you totally—TOTALLY—ruined it!" Her twin-tails bounced like they were furious too.
Skyler just stood there, baffled.
She came off way more pissed about her "grand entrance scene" than, y'know, the parallel-world fracture.
Seriously… where are this girl's priorities?
And then—without missing a beat—she turned back to him with the sweetest, most innocent smile, pretending she hadn't just slammed her forehead into someone's face.
"Okay! Formal intro time. I'm Zoe, time-traveling adventurer—nice to meet ya!" Her voice rang straight into his skull.
"S–Skyler," he blurted, the perfect deer in headlights.
So this is what 'cuteness defeats everything' looks, in real life, embodied right in front of me…
Zoe spun and offered a hand to the redhead. "And you are…?"
The other girl slapped her hand away, stood up on her own, and turned her back.
"What, seriously? You're just gonna ignore me?!" Zoe snapped, stomping after her.
The redhead whirled—smack!—forehead to forehead. The crack rang out with all the elegance of a coconut colliding with a car hood.
"YAAARGH!" Zoe staggered, clutching her brow. "That's it—you're done for!"
Next thing Skyler knew, the lab had turned into a WWE smackdown. No bell. No ref. Just pure chaos. Hair-pulling, headlocks, knees, elbows, and way too much screaming.
"Wait—hey—STOP!" Skyler dove in to break it up, only to catch an elbow to the ribs and a flying knee to the gut. He crumpled, wheezing on the floor—roadkill with front-row seats—while the two kept brawling overhead.
Great. Perfect. Goodbye, dignity.
Clutching his hoodie pocket, he fumbled, pure idiot energy, until—finally—he yanked out his prize. He slipped it on, raised his hand, and shouted:
"BOTH OF YOU—ENOUGH!"
The command crashed with the force of a thunderclap.
The lab warped. Walls dissolved into endless black. Stars flared alive all around them. Gravity vanished—suddenly, all three of them floated weightless.
"Eh?" Zoe blinked, awestruck.
Even the redhead froze mid-grapple.
"Holy crap—how'd you do that?!" Zoe's grin lit brighter than the stars.
Skyler kept his tone flat, but inside? Yeah, he was begging for applause. "With the glove and this room, I can simulate anything."
"…So this is your special power?" she asked.
"Not exactly. Technically, I—"
"Can you make it an underwater world instead?" she cut him off, zero hesitation.
Skyler blinked. Does she ever let anyone finish a sentence?!
"Oppa~ pretty please? Don't L me, Zoe wants to swim with sharks, take selfies with Nemo… and maybe grab the Wi-Fi password while we're at it?" Her voice was sweet enough to rot teeth—and sharp enough to stab.
If not for those ridiculously sparkly blue eyes, he might've yelled.
Instead… his face heated up. Worse—he realized he was smiling back.
Damn it. Stupid traitor mouth.
Skyler whipped around before his grin could nuke the 'cool' image he'd been building for—what, three paragraphs now? And of course, that's when he glanced at the other one.
Yeah. Not the kind of gaze that would ever call him oppa.
The redhead floated perfectly still, her stare fixed on him, unblinking—as if running a silent scan to decide whether he was human… or just a miscast hunk of silicon.
The woman in the black bodysuit looked as though it had been stitched onto her since birth—functional, deadly. The kind you could throw a zero-gravity roundhouse kick in without breaking stride.
Skyler tried to find a safe place to fix his attention. He failed. Miserably.
"Release me," she said flatly.
He lowered his hand. Her body drifted down in a controlled descent. For one terrifying second, he thought his knees might buckle—not out of respect, but out of something he refused to name.
Keep cool, son. His dad's words echoed in his head.
She spoke. "I am Major Roxy, Sigma Four Unit."
The words struck with all the subtlety of a command prompt. Skyler's arms snapped stiff at his sides, his face flushed scarlet. Did she actually say Roxy—or did his brain just translate it into Sexy?
His glance strayed, traitorously, to the black pendant on her chest—engraved with symbols that seemed like an ancient script. Before he could spin up a theory, he realized he'd lingered far too long in the wrong place.
He swallowed hard, jerking his head away in the least convincing 'not-looking' maneuver in history.
"M–My name's Skyler, Ma—Maj… Se—Se—"
"Rox. ee." Her voice cut as if made of steel.
"Y–Yes ma'am! Skyler, reporting, Major Roxy!" He blurted, snapping into a salute stiff enough to pull a muscle.
Oh great. Now I'm calling myself 'reporting for duty.' Absolute genius. Brain, please stop sabotaging me.
A laugh bubbled out—Zoe's, of course. The pink menace. Skyler just lost another million cool points.
Roxy circled him slowly, the way a biology teacher once circled his desk after he'd tried answering, 'Glucose is a sneaker brand.'
"You built this place?" she asked.
The words hit with the shock of a spotlight blasting at 3 a.m.
"Yes, ma'am—I mean I did. With my professor. We… uh… built it together." The second it left his mouth, he wanted to bash his forehead into the wall.
Why am I still talking like some medieval knight?!
Roxy didn't say anything—just let the silence speak for her stare. The quiet stretched, heavy and awkward. Not even Zoe cracked a smile this time (or maybe she was mid-spin doing a cosmic Usain Bolt reenactment—who knew).
Someone—anyone—says something. My muscles are straight-up cramping from anxiety.
No rescue came. So Skyler raised his hand and swept it to the side. The starry simulation vanished. The lab snapped back into place.
Zoe floated down in a twirl, arms flaring wide, the dramatic landing of an Olympic gymnast. "Nailedddd—ten out of ten, baby!" she squealed.
Skyler rolled his eyes internally. Shouldn't that be a perfect ten?
Zoe's outfit was half idol, half festival—short cropped jacket with a weird patch-badge on the sleeve, and a mini skirt that looked like it might also be a napkin. Somehow it was absurd—and adorable. He almost asked which era she was from, but it didn't matter anymore.
"So what year is this?" Zoe leaned in so close that Skyler could feel warm breath on his collar.
"…2327," he managed, stumbling back a step—the human equivalent of getting handed an oral exam he never studied for.
Don't get this close—my heart is not okay.
The two girls immediately fanned out, raiding the workshop with the casual entitlement of someone rummaging through their own kitchen.
"Whoa—don't press that!" Skyler blurted faster than his brain could finish the sentence.
"Ooh—what's this? And this?" Zoe slid, twisted, toggled—mechanisms hissed and a section of the wall split open, revealing drawers packed with tech that would make Nexacorp jealous.
"Bro, this lab is literally cracked."
"Stop—Zoe! That's not a button!"
"If you're so brave, catch me~ I did just KO you back there, remember?" she teased, skipping past him.
Who is this kid—idol or a tunnel-dwelling spy?
After sprinting after Zoe until he was spent, Skyler collapsed onto the floor, drenched in sweat. The chamber that had been neat earlier was now a kindergarten art class explosion. He lifted his head and caught Roxy—calmly running her hand along the wall, eyes scanning, composed, every gesture staged with the polish of content-worthy footage. Skyler's gaze lingered and—of course—Roxy caught him staring.
"You two get friendly fast," she observed.
He shook his head slowly and, sheepish, asked, "Um… can I just call you Roxy?" His voice dropped to a hush, like the name could wound him just by brushing his cheek.
She glanced at him for a beat. Chill ran down his spine.
"You need to ask me that?"
Okay—does that mean yes or go die?
Skyler wanted to bash his head against the nearest solid object. There wasn't one, so he fussed with his hair, full-on 'reboot the human OS' energy. Finally he looked at the Singularity Gate—only hope left: shove these two back into their own dimension before the facility was truly wrecked.
My head's going to explode. How do you send two interdimensional girls back without getting yelled at by the professor?
If Valentine saw this mess when he returned, the lab would be dust and bones before you could write an apology letter.