1 Sodium Overdose

*Somewhere in the middle of the United States*

In a well-illuminated basement at 4am, a young man was hard-focused on his computer. He looked as if his very life was at stake as he stared deeply into the computer screen. He was of average appearance and height, with messy blonde hair that met his ears. 

"Please, please, please, please, come on gacha gods… Just this once!" The man proclaimed as if he was reciting a ritual. In fact, it might as well be a ritual, considering the amount of candles in the room surrounding a portrait of a blonde-haired woman with a blue hat.

That's right. This man named Aster was engaging in what many call being a gacha gamer. He had spent the last four months saving up every resource he had in the game from the game's various events and dailies, and now was the moment he was waiting for. 

"PLEASE CASTER ARTORIA COME HOME! The man screamed as he saw his once vast amount of saint quartz drop at an alarming rate. "There's no way I don't get her after spending 800 Saint quartz! There's just no way!" 

Aster's eyes slowly became more empty as the mapo tofu and black keys continued to pile up in his inventory. His spirit waned, and his eyes were almost bloodshot as he watched his hard-earned resources go down the drain. Eventually, he made it to his last ten pull, and everything rode on this as there was no way he was gonna bring out the wallet, considering he was a broke college kid who didn't pay his taxes.

"...please, Rngesus, Buddha, God, Nasu, anyone, let me get one copy." Aster looked in defeat as his last roll went through the animation. The blue rings swirled around as craft essence after three-star servant went past his eyes. Suddenly, on the last pull, rainbow sparks started to fly. Aster opened his eyes wide as it was finally time for the payoff he'd been waiting for all this time. 

"YES YES YES," Aster chanted as he started jumping from his chair and knocking over some of the items from his desk. A golden card appeared on his screen depicting a mage-looking figure.

" WOOO BABY! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! THAT'S WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT WOOO!" Aster, acting like a caveman who had just discovered fire, began pumping his fists in the air as the golden caster card was unveiled. He wasn't even looking at his screen as he started running around his room, knocking over candles and swinging his favorite baseball bat around. 

While Aster was swinging his club like a caveman, he suddenly heard something he had not considered, bringing chills to his spine. 

"I will always be there for you! Your reliable Shrine Maiden Fox, Caster, has now arrived!" A bright voice rang out from Aster's emulator.

Aster snapped in place like time had stopped as his legs gave away, dropping him to his knees as his favorite baseball bat fell from his hands and rolled across the room. His eyes, once so full of life, dimmed as the light that fueled this gacha addict disappeared as he slowly cranked his head to look at the screen. His body flopped over as he fell to the ground, his eyes meeting the blue screen depicting a fox girl in a miko uniform. 'Damn you, Rngesus…' Aster's last thoughts came to his head as he died from gacha salt.

********************

Aster woke up from what felt like a dream as his body slowly awakened. His eyes opened to find himself in an empty black void. He suddenly jerked up, instinctively reaching for his baseball bat, only to realize he didn't have it. 

"Where am I?" Aster said as he looked around. He turned to see a gigantic golden wheel standing in front of him. He raised his eyebrows as he gazed upon the several-story tall tower-like wheel before him. 'Is that a wheel?' Aster thought very intelligently as his mind was trying to wrap around his new reality. 

He started to walk up to the wheel as he read the sign on the lever next to it.

"Free SSR spin?" His eyes regained that shine as he started to realize what this was. 'Is this some kind of gacha?!' His eyes sparkled at the prospect of a new source of gacha.

He tried to scout the options on the wheel, but the text listed was too small for him to read. Aster, seeing that he could not get any more information, decided to do what anyone would when faced with a random lever in an unknown void space.

He pulled.

The wheel started to spin as lights came out of nowhere, surrounding it and flashing as he watched in awe at the spectacle. After what felt like hours, the wheel started to slow down as the arrow became visible again, slowly hitting each rung. 

Aster was on the tip of his toes, excited at what he would get while completely disregarding the fact that he had just died because of a gacha game. Eventually, the wheel slowed down as Aster watched. He gulped as he started to see some of the options being highlighted by the wheel that he couldn't see earlier.

"Heavens Feel? Herrscher Core? Wait, I recognize some of these… This is not what I was expecting from this wheel." Aster watched as the wheel finally stopped on its selection.

"Mystic Eyes of Gacha Perception???? What the hell is that? That doesn't even sound real. I know mystic eyes, but this…this is just dumb." 

Aster started to glance around his surroundings. 'Where is my damn bat?' he wondered as he thought that hitting the wheel would fix this "error." After patting himself down, he realized he was only in his pajamas, which consisted of sweatpants, socks, and a blue t-shirt. 'Fuck I must have left it in my room. How am I gonna fix this?' 

After thinking about it for a few minutes, he ultimately decided to just hit the thing with his fists. As you can see, Aster has been blessed with infinite wisdom and problem-solving skills since a very young age, and he brandished these skills as he walked up to the metal wheel and hit it as hard as he could.

"ARRRG FUCK ARRGGGHG DAMN IT" Aster screamed as he clenched his teeth together as tears came out of the corner of his eyes. 'This always worked. What happened?!' 

While Aster was wallowing in his self-inflicted pain, the wheel had been spinning without him noticing. It blew past names like "Blue Archive" and "Arknights" before landing on a name. The wheel then disappeared, surprising Aster as he was still trying to blow on his hand to ease his pain.

"Wait, where did it go, and why do I suddenly feel so…sleepy…" Aster said as his body crumpled, leaving him face down, ass up in a black empty void before disappearing similarly to the wheel.

********************

[POV: Aster]

"Ugg, my head. Why do I keep waking up in random places?" I brought my hand to my forehead as I felt I had just faceplanted into a wall. "What was that? A dream?" Why does this keep happening to me? I don't think I had a history of fainting randomly in the past. As I was thinking about my sudden new medical affliction of randomly fainting and waking up in weird places, I felt something really familiar yet wrong. 

"Wait, am I sitting on a… toilet? Huh? In my pajamas?" Now that I think about it… where am I?" Looking around, I see a bunch of people in white lab coats surrounding me with wide eyes. One of them dropped their clipboard as if he was shocked.

A man walked up to me, clearly balding, considering the flash of light that radiated off his head when he moved. "What are you doing here? Where is your identification? Wait, why are you dressed like you just woke up?" 

The man started to interrogate me as I continued to look around at this room, which looked like it came out of a sci-fi movie.

'Did I just get kidnapped? Is he a part of the IRS? I know I was committing tax fraud to fund my gacha rolls, but did they catch me? I thought they couldn't catch me if I didn't submit the paperwork…' 

These thoughts, among many others, went through my head. 'I mean, his head is very shiny. These could be aliens…'

His questions were a muffled blur as I got up immediately and ran out of the room. 

"GET AWAY FROM ME YOU BALD BASTARD!" I screamed while sprinting full send towards the door and into the hallway. "NO MATTER WHO YOU SEND, I WILL NOT BE PAYING MY TAXES!" There was just no way I was gonna pay the IRS, even if they sent some weird bald alien to kidnap me.

'Although the rest of him looked pretty normal…' I immediately shook my head at the thought, as there was no way someone could be missing that much hair and be an actual human.

This is totally a spaceship, as seen by the cool automatic doors and weird, suspiciously smashable boxes everywhere. I can't believe the reach the IRS has; I mean, can you imagine the government sending bald aliens to abduct people who don't pay their taxes? Their power seems to have no bounds… Though they seem to have a good sense of music with this ambiance playing in the background…

I kept sprinting around the "IRS" compound as I tried to find anything that could be used as a weapon. Eventually, I found a crate filled with black bats. I immediately shivered, thinking about the black keys I had pulled earlier. 'No! Bad Aster! This is not the time for thinking; it's the time to gank a fool'. 

Ripping my shirt off and grabbing one of the bats, I did some practice swings to test the weight. "It's no Orphan Obliterator, but it'll do." Man, I miss my bat; it must feel lonely without me… I gotta find a way out of here. The world must know about the secret alien empire the "IRS" has under its control.

I began to run down the long hall before eventually spotting a woman with pink hair in a lab coat. I immediately sprint-jumped while my socks slid across the metal floor, sliding up to the person. The look of shock that this "IRS" agent had was amusing, as they probably had no idea that one of their debtors got out. I used the momentum to swing my bat horizontally at their face, sending their head and body into a back flip. I stopped to look at my work "Sheesh, now that's a home run!" That should stop them from pursuing me for a few minutes; if anything, a good night's sleep ought to get that head all better.

 I returned into a sprint, trying to find anything that could help me get out of here. I saw nothing that could help me as I passed more smashable boxes, purple/green canisters, and strange floating blue crystal things with rings on each end. 

'What even is this place?' I began to ponder before a loud crash reverberated throughout the spaceship, followed by the screams from those agents.

 'Oh my god! Did the ship just get hit by a meteor?' I struggled to steady myself as the ground started to shake; eventually, it settled as I regained my balance. 

Suddenly, a bunch of floating purple orbs started filling the hallway as I tried to navigate around these floating "IRS" landmines. 'Man, I knew they had advanced tech, but this is crazy?!' Suddenly, all the orbs started to shift before taking the form of some sort of purple robot knight thing. They were equipped with what looked like arm blades filled with stars, while some others seemed to be holding canons. 

"OH SHIT!" I screamed as I noticed the new "IRS" reinforcements arrive. "Oh hell nah! I can't believe the IRS sent their hit squad after me!" 

I began to run as these orbs became more and more "IRS" troops; weirdly enough, I saw some kind of bar above their head calling them a "Void Ranger?" Whatever that meant, I mean they have some sort of number that's also filled with weird symbols. Whatever, their wacky fashion choice aside, I gotta get out of here.

******

Eventually, I turned a corner to see two figures running past me. One was a tiktock egirl with her pink hair, weird outfit, and holding a bow, and the other was just some dude who looked like he was cosplaying a Genshin character with a spear. What was that guy's name again? Ciao? Mao?

 For some reason, they also had bars above them…What is the deal with people on this ship rocking this weird hovering bar above their heads? Why does one of them have a date for what I'm assuming is their name? 

'Wait a second… Did that…Did that bar just say four star above their names? Like in a gacha game?'

'Is this not the IRS?'

I immediately ran behind them to catch up to them, "HEY!" I screamed loudly as a hoard of dark knight dudes chased behind me. "TAKE ME WITH YOU!" They both looked back at me and then at the hoard of thirty dudes behind me then back. 

The mao cosplayer shook his head as he started to take a stance. "Quickly to the elevator!" the green dude said as he threw a spear behind me that hit a Knight Ranger thing in the head. "This way!" He yelled as he pointed toward a futuristic elevator. Meanwhile, the girl named after a date fired blue arrows from that giant bow into the crowd, freezing some of them randomly. "We need to get out of here!" She said while rapidly firing arrows.

Eventually, we made it to the elevator area before it started to shine gold. "Look out!" yelled the pink girl as a golden light filled the area. The massive explosion knocked us back before the light finally receded. In our luck, it seemed to have hit a bunch of boxes into the path of our pursuers. After we got our bearings, we immediately ran down a hall that seemed pretty clear before sealing the door shut. The two began to look at me as we caught our breath.

 "Where did all your clothes go?!" Asked the pink-haired girl while trying to cover her eyes with her hands. 

I looked down to see that I had somehow lost both my socks and shirt in my journey through the spaceship. "Um," I scratched the back of my neck. "I guess I lost it?" as I shrugged my shoulders. 

"Put something on now, please!" the girl said while turning around and hiding her face. "Dan Heng! Do something! Give him like your jacket or something!" Dan Heng looked at her, then at me, then back at her before sighing and taking off his weird cosplay. 

"Here," he said as he passed me his weird trenchcoat. I accepted it, realizing that being in space without a shirt would be a bad idea. 

"Anyway…I think an introduction is in order," he says monotonely. "I am Dan Heng, and this…is March 7th." 

"Wait, like the date," I asked, both brows raised high.

"Hey! It's a good name!" March says as she crosses her arms. "What's your name anyway?" she says while pouting.

I began to take a pose while wearing Dan Heng's trenchcoat, pointing at the ceiling like a guy named after a car company. "I…am Aster, the scourge of the IRS, the obliterator of orphans, and a baseball bat connoisseur."

They both stare at me, deadpanning as I finish my introduction. 

"Anyway…" The girl says as she tries to ignore my intro. "Are you one of the researchers? We are a part of the Astral Express and here to help."

"Astral Express" I question, as that sounds really familiar. 'Wait a damn second…'

"Yeah, you know, The Astral Express?" The girl looks confused as she glances at the silent man beside her. "We travel on the star rail… and trailblaze across the stars? Followers of Akivili? The Nameless?" She slumped her shoulders as she looked down. "Aw, I thought we were more famous. D:"

Dan Heng began to sigh as he looked at her. "March…"

Whatever they were saying, I was not listening while pondering the new knowledge I just got. 

'Wait, star rail? Wasn't that the game that came out last year?' 

What was it called again? Horny Star Rail? No, that doesn't sound right.

I only remember that hot redheaded woman on Twitter with the huge honkers who was from that game.

'Big honkers…'

'Gacha…'

'Rails…'

'...'

'Wait… am I in Honker Star rail?'

'Fuck I never played that game!'