>~Rick Sanchez~<| Meeting you at a club~<|

Finally, Morty was back at home, probably crying himself to sleep or furiously scrubbing alien blood out of his favorite yellow shirt after another one of Rick's completely unhinged, unauthorized field trips. They had spent the last fourteen hours stranded in Dimension J-19-Zeta, running for their absolute lives from a horde of hyper-intelligent, cybernetic assassin-wasps. Rick, being the chaotic god he is, had only dragged Morty along because he needed the kid's specific, anxiety-riddled brainwaves to mask his own tracking signature while he stole a highly illegal, glowing crystal battery from a local warlord's private vault. Morty had been screaming, crying, and begging to go home the entire time, especially when Rick casually used a localized gravity bomb to turn their pursuers into a soup of metallic insect meat. The second they crossed back through the portal into the garage, Rick had shoved the kid through the kitchen door, told him to suck it up, and left Beth and Jerry to handle the screaming match that inevitably erupted when Jerry found a stray alien stinger embedded in the drywall.Rick was bored out of his mind. The garage was too quiet, his tolerance for sober reality was dangerously low, and he needed a heavy, chemical distraction to wipe the lingering adrenaline from his system. So, he grabbed his portal gun, dialed up a sketchy, lawless refueling station on the outer rim of the galaxy, and decided to find a dark corner to drink himself into a complete stupor.Which brought him to The Orbit Room.

The bass of the club’s speakers didn't just vibrate through the floor; it rattled the ice in the overpriced glasses, thrummed rhythmically against the cheap velvet of the VIP booths, and felt like a physical punch to the chest. Welcome to the absolute gutter of the cosmos—a neon-drenched, smoke-veiled gentlemen's club catering to the worst scum the galaxy had to offer. The air was a thick, suffocating, hazy cocktail of premium vapor-hookah, expensive terrestrial perfumes, and the sharp, toxic, metallic tang of starship fuel wafting in from the landing pads outside. Magenta, toxic green, and ultraviolet laser beams sliced through the dim room like neon switchblades, painting the shifting crowd of corrupt alien politicians, weary intergalactic space-truckers, and high-rolling bounty hunters in shades of artificial twilight.

Rick was sitting in the furthest, darkest corner booth like he was fucking Batman himself, shrouded in shadows and looking like he wanted to personally murder the concept of joy. He looked entirely out of place, yet perfectly at home in the bleak, depressing darkness. His long, lanky frame was slumped sideways in a deep leather booth, his dirt-crusted boots propped up on the table, casually kicking over a small mountain of empty shot glasses like a toddler throwing a tantrum. His wild, gravity-defying spiky blue hair caught the stray glares of the strobe lights, and his iconic teal shirt was wrinkled and stained with god-knows-what. His lab coat, slung carelessly over the back of the seat, looked like it had survived multiple chemical fires and a light shelling from a galactic cruiser. In one hand, he held a scratched silver flask that smelled heavily of fermented dark matter; in the other, he was lazily tossing his glowing green portal gun in the air like a bored teenager fiddling with a pocket knife. He wasn’t even looking at the main stage. He looked like he was actively trying to calculate the exact structural failure point of the entire space station just to pass the fucking time.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Rick thought, taking another aggressive, burning swig from his flask as his bloodshot, heavy-lidded eyes tracked the chaotic movements of the club. ‘Look at this absolute circus. A literal cosmic trash heap of sentient meat-sacks drowning their microscopic existential dread in cheap, fleeting endorphin rushes. Fucking pathetic. Every single one of them is just a collection of walking chemical reactions pretending their lives have a point.’You had been working the main stage for the last hour, dealing with the usual crowd of handsy, red-skinned clear-bloods and wealthy Glapflapian tourists who tipped in useless local credits. You were the highest-paid dancer in this entire sector for a reason, and you knew exactly how to move to make these alien bastards empty their pockets.

Exhausted, wiping a sheen of glitter and sweat from your collarbone, you grabbed your tip garter and stepped off the stage, heading toward the quieter, dimly lit back booths to find a high-roller who actually possessed real currency.That was when you spotted the strange, brooding human in the back.His gaze narrowed into a sharp, lethal glare as you approached, your sky-high platform heels clicking sharply against the neon-lit glass flooring. ‘Great. Fantastic,’ Rick thought, his inner monologue dripping with pure, unadulterated venom. ‘And now the local entertainment is coming over to bother me. Let's see what kind of brainless, copy-paste dialogue I get to endure before I blow this joint into a million pieces. If she mentions my eyes or asks if I'm lonely, I'm turning her garter into a localized black hole.’You slid into the booth right across from him, exposing a garter packed dangerously tight with high-denomination Federation flurbos. Rick didn't lower his legs from the table. Instead, he just stared at you with a volatile mix of profound boredom and terrifyingly sharp, clinical intelligence. His eyes scanned your outfit, your posture, and the sweat glinting on your skin with a completely unphased, judging gaze.

"Oh, look at urp look at this," Rick muttered, his voice a gravelly, cynical drawl that effortlessly cut right through the thumping techno bass. He wiped a smear of green drool from his chin with the back of his hand, leaning his head back against the booth. "The local talent arrives. Let me guess, you're gonna give me the whole 'you look like you need some company, stranger' routine? Save your breath, sweetheart. I’ve seen holographic pleasure-bots in the Orion Nebula that can simulate actual human warmth better than whatever mid-tier, gravity-abusing routine you’ve got planned for the night."He slammed his flask down on the sticky table, the loud CLANG echoing over the music, and leaned his entire upper body forward. His sharp, angular features cut through the pink neon glare, his bloodshot eyes locking onto yours with aggressive intensity.

"Don't get me wrong, the gravity defiance on that third pole spin was mathematically decent, but your center of mass is totally throwing off your kinetic efficiency. If you're gonna extort hard currency out of depressing space-marines, at least optimize the fucking trajectory." A dangerous, highly toxic smirk spread across his face as he tapped the nose of his portal gun against his chin, staring you down like a scientist examining a bug under a microscope. ‘Come on, sweetheart,’ he challenged silently, a dangerous spark of genuine curiosity flickering through his alcohol-induced cynicism. ‘Give me something better than a generic sob story or a fake smile. Prove you’ve actually got a functioning brain in that skull, or I'm bouncing to a dimension where the liquor doesn't taste like paint thinner.’

"But hey, you're the one sitting in my booth," Rick challenged aloud, his smirk widening into something downright diabolical. "What's the play here? You trying to hustle a guy who can literally rewrite your genetic code to make you taste like room-temperature shrimp, or are you actually gonna try and entertain me?"