“Uh excuse you Loophole, we’ll get to the loot boxes but you owe me something first,” Pinky said, crossing her arms as she stared right at me.

  “Huh?” I asked, looking over at her and she rolled her eyes just a bit overdramatically.

  “Water into Wine? Come on Loophole, it’s literally been like, three minutes, I know you couldn’t have forgotten already. Let me at least sip on a glass of red while we open these boxes… wait, you can control what kind of wine it turns into, right? Swansong, are you gonna have a glass?”

  “Huh? Oh um, I don’t actually drink all that much… I did at a few parties when I was still in High School a few years ago, but I tend to get… talkative and way too confident when it happens,” Swansong said, rubbing the back of her head. She had taken her hair out of the ponytail she had been keeping it in all day so far and it fell in a wave down her back.

  “Got it, okay Loophole, get with the wine making, Swanny and I here are gonna have a glass each while we do this.”

  “Swanny?”

  “What, would you rather I keep calling you SwanHole? That really only works for the two of you together,” Pinky said with a laugh as she answered Swansong’s confused question.

  I rolled my eyes and swapped my action bar out for one that had the ability on it.

  “Well if you really want this, I’m gonna need some water bottles or a gallon of water,” I said, eyeing the ability. It had seemed like such a silly ability to make, especially given it was the first one I had done, but that had been back during the tutorial when my ability didn’t even seem to care about the whole “General Understanding” concept. I sure as hell didn’t know how to make wine outside of the fact that it was just old grapes or something.

  “A gallon?! That’s so much!” Pinky said, her eyes lighting up with excitement. “Wait, I think I should have some back at home! I know we keep it stocked up in the house since we have to deal with droughts every so often.”

  Without a second thought for the loot boxes she had left on the table, Pinky hopped to her feet and rushed down the hall, past BrainCraft as he emerged. He looked over his shoulder at her before turning back to us with a confused look on his face.

  “Should I even ask?”

  “Pinky found out Loophole’s been hiding his ability to turn Water into Wine,” Jon called from the Command Center.

  “I wasn’t hiding it, I just don’t think about the ability all that much! I basically forgot I even had it,” I argued back.

  “That’s an… odd ability to have developed,” BrainCraft said, looking at me with a brow raised. Unlike the girls, he was still mostly in his full outfit, made up of a small pair of goggles covering his eyes, a dark blue jacket that almost seemed like a trenchcoat but only fell slightly above his knees and a thick pair of brown gloves.

  “It was the tutorial! I wasn’t trying to make it, it just happened,” I said, maybe a bit too defensively.

  “Oh I wasn’t judging, it just continues to show just how ridiculously versatile your powerset is, and that’s still only going off the base level of knowledge you’ve offered,” BrainCraft said as he descended the stairs and took a seat next to where Pinky had been and then materialized the single loot box he had available.

  A moment later, Pinky came hustling back down the hallway, a gallon of water in each of her hands, a bag of red cups barely gripped in one of them, and a smile on her face.

  “I knew we had some in our pantry, my sister was a bit confused cause she thought I had been out with some friends but eh, oh well, still kinda surprised she hasn’t figured out my Secret Identity yet,” she said, setting the gallons down on the table ahead of me before dropping onto the couch next to BrainCraft. “I figure we can use the extra gallon next time.”

  “He can do up to three gallons a day,” Jon offered and Pinky looked over at him, her eyes widening.

  “Holy shit, were you trying to go Miscreant and give people alcohol poisoning?”

  “No! It was the tutorial,” I said again, letting out a long sigh before looking at the two jugs. “What kind do you want? I don’t exactly know different wines but I do know “red” is more than just one… right?”

  “Ummmm,” Pinky said.

  “You… you do know there are different kinds of red wines… right?” BrainCraft asked her and she let out a nervous chuckle.

  “I never really looked at the bottles!”

  “Make one of them a Cabernet Sauvignon, that’s probably the kind she’s thinking of… or a merlot,” BrainCraft said and we all looked at him almost in unison. He squirmed slightly. “What… I had a friend who liked to go to wine tastings once we were legally allowed to, it’s not hard to remember a few different types of wine…”

  “Yeah just… wasn’t expecting it from you,” Pinky said, shoving him lightly. “I learn something new about you everyday.”

  “Well before we get sidetracked any longer…” I said, trailing off as I looked at one of the gallons and activated Water into Wine. The clear liquid began to rapidly swirl in the container, the color swirling from the inside out until all of it was a deep, burgundy color. The moment it finished, Pinky hopped back up and grabbed the bottle, quickly pouring half cups for everybody, even grabbing one and walking it over to Jon to pass through the small door.

  “Perfect, thanks Pinky,” Jon said as he sat back into his chair. “Loophole, turn up the luck. Pinky, Brain, I don’t think we’ve gone over it yet, but I have the ability to reroll one of your loot boxes every 12 hours.”

  “Wait, really? That’s awesome!” Pinky said as she bounced back down into the pit. “I mean, I doubt I’d reroll either of these C:Tiers, but my F:Tier could certainly end up badly.”

  I materialized my two boxes onto the table before I focused on good outcomes for all of our boxes, then activated Luck Bomb.

  “Okay, who wants to go first?” I asked and BrainCraft immediately reached forward.

  “I only have the one,” he said, tapping it quickly. The box glowed and his eyes glazed over. “Hmmm, a Belt of the Thinker, that’s actually useful for me so I don’t think I’ll be rerolling it.”

  “That’s the one that has a high intelligence score and the Quick Wit feature, right?” I asked and he nodded.

  “I saw one in the resale shop a while back but it got scooped up before I had the credits for it,” he explained.

  “Yeah that tends to happen,” I said and then looked over at Swansong, “You want to go next since you only have the one too?”

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  “Sure,” she said and then reached forward to click the A:Tier box. Her eyes widened and her lips parted in a smile that made the freckles on her cheeks crinkle slightly. “Oh… it had a level up scroll… I’m level 15 now.”

  "Huh, I thought those only came in A+:Tiers but I'm not about to complain that you got it," I said, smiling back at her when she met my eyes.

  “What? Congrats! What’s your Hidden Power? Wait, don’t tell me if you don’t want to, I know that’s supposed to be a trump card,” Pinky said, unable to contain herself. Truth be told, I couldn’t help but also be curious, especially given just how much we did together.

  “Oh um… it’s a power called Doubling Resonance… It’s probably not as complex as Loophole’s-”

  “No, don't tell me what his is, I still don’t want to know his full set until I beat him in a fight,” Pinky said, quickly cutting her off.

  “Well… the short version of mine is that I am able to layer my songs together and combine effects without having to switch between songs,” she explained.

  “We will definitely have to do some testing with that, but we can do that later in the Sparring Dojo,” Jon said and Swansong nodded, happy to cede the floor.

  “I’ll go next!” Pinky said before I could offer to go next since I only had the two boxes. She tapped both of the C:Tier boxes she had, letting the boxes dematerialize before she reached for the F:Tier. “Well those had what you’d expect. Some meh gear I can throw in the resale shop and a bunch of stamina syringes. Now let’s see…” she said, trailing off as she clicked the F:Tier. “Nope, reroll that stupid mask!”

  “On it,” Jon said and the box refreshed on the table, as Pinky’s eyes glossed over and a wide smile spread across her face as she looked over at him.

  “Oh I could kiss you right now. Hell, I could kiss both of you. That Not Good Enough achievement definitely did some work with whatever luck thing Loophole just did,” she said as she materialized a necklace that looked incredibly similar to my Pendant of Paramount Ascension, but was almost a choker instead of a long chain. Unlike BrainCraft who had simply equipped his new belt immediately, she held the item out for us to highlight.

  “Choker of Giant Strength. Diamond Tier Equippable Necklace. Color: Black and Silver. This sleekly designed necklace is perfect if you want to look like you’re a teen desperately trying to appear just a bit unique. Personally, I’m glad Pretty Pink Warthog got it, it’ll look far better on her than it would ever look on you. 75% increase to Strength and 25% increase to Toughness. This necklace comes with the Double Up feature.”

  “Double Up. Increases max capacity of any non-health or stamina resources by 100%.”

  My eyes widened briefly as I saw the Double Up feature and I made a note to check the resale shop for any item that might have had it. If it worked exactly as it was described and it could affect my Time Bank it would be a relatively huge boon.

  “Well I don’t think I’m gonna want to get hit by you any time soon…” I said and she laughed. The necklace disappeared from her hands and materialized on her neck, perfectly fit and snug.

  “I do kind of wish it was pink, might need to visit the tailor and see if it’s dyeable.”

  “You can dye items?” Swansong asked curiously.

  “Isn’t that how Loophole got that orange jacket?” Pinky responded and I shook my head.

  “No, it came out this way when I first got it,” I said and she laughed in response before gesturing to my loot boxes.

  “Well who am I to judge, now come on, I want to see what you got.”

  I shrugged and clicked on the A:Tier box first, finding another pair of Steel Wrappers. I still had my own set equipped along with the rest of my gear, though I did briefly wonder how I could technically be wearing two sets of gloves since my weapon slot also counted as gloves, but I decided it was a moot point.

  “Well I could sell these since I already have a pair, but given that necklace you just got, I might as well give you first dibs,” I said and materialized the silvery bandage wraps onto the table. Pinky looked at them for a moment before her eyes widened and she looked back to me hopefully.

  “How much do you want for them?” She asked and I shook my head.

  “We’re a team now, don’t worry about it. There’s plenty of opportunities for credits.”

  “Well aren’t you just the sweetest,” she said with a smile. There was no trade option that had to be opened, instead I just simply handed the gloves over toward her. To my surprise though, this did cause another achievement to appear the moment she took them from me and equipped them.

  “New Achievement! Generosity! You have given an item of Silver Tier or higher to another player without expecting to receive anything in compensation. Given just how broke you normally are, I’d call that maybe being a bit short sighted, but it doesn’t hurt to be in the good graces of powerful people. This is a Silver Level achievement. Reward: You have received an F:Tier loot box.”

  “Um… Angie I need some clarification… If I tell them about this achievement, does it disqualify them from ever getting it? Like, it says you have to do it without expecting compensation but knowing the achievement exists would make that a paradox… right?” I asked internally.

  “Hmm… one moment please,” she said with a hum. It didn’t even take her a full second before she began to speak again. “You are correct! If you want them to still be able to get that achievement, you will have to keep it to yourself.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I said, briefly making eye contact with Jon who nodded, clearly having heard the conversation I had with Angie. I left the F:Tier in my inventory and planned to open it later on just to avoid the obvious question and said, “Okay, on to the S:Tier.”

  “Umm.. well I guess I don’t need to use your reroll for that either,” Jon said once I had opened up the box. I knew for a fact he was right and quite honestly, they were an upgrade that I was exceptionally happy to see.

  “Slipstream Sneakers. Gold Tier Equippable Shoes. Color: Mauve (yes… mauve). When you were a kid, don’t you remember the feeling of putting on a new pair of shoes and feeling like you could run even faster than before? Well these shoes make that dream a reality, and for a lot more than just running. +5 to Dexterity, +3 to Charisma, +1 to Style. These boots come with the Speed feature.”

  “Speed. This feature increases your movement speed of ALL types by 15%.”

  I would end up losing the Steadyfoot feature and the exceptionally odd feature of dealing more damage by hitting guys in the nuts, but the large raise to my dexterity and the assistance to both my running and flying speeds would be nice, even if the latter didn’t exactly need more help. With a quick selection, I equipped the sneakers and changed my active loadout to include them over the Nutcracker Stompers that were now destined for the resale shop.

  Pinky eyed my new shoes curiously before a smile spread over her face.

  “Oh, changing out the white for pink huh? I think that might offend Swansong just a bit,” she said coyly and I could see Swansong stiffen in my periphery.

  “They’re mauve… at least according to the description,” I said, looking down at them. Truth be told, I had honestly no idea what the color mauve was when I had read it in the description. “You’re gonna have to show me how to use the tailor to dye these, I don’t think they exactly work with the rest of my costume.”

  “And the gaudy white boots did?” Pinky teased and I groaned.

  “I didn’t know I could dye them, sue me.”

  “Yeah, that’s kinda on you Loophole, you’ve been in the tailor, you really need to stop glossing over stuff… though to be fair, customizing how your gear looked did seem a bit low on the priority chart when you were dealing with the Vipers,” Jon said.

  “It’s still not exactly all that high, but we do have some breathing room here,” I said. I was just about to stand up when Pinky shot me a look and reached for the cup of wine she had been so insistent to pour but hadn’t yet touched.

  “Excuse you Loophole, the tailor’s not going anywhere and you just said we had some breathing room here. Yes, there’s still threats out there and yes we still have to take care of them. But we all have to find some time for at least a little bit of downtime otherwise we’re gonna go crazy and think being super heroes is all we’re allowed to do now,” she said with a smile and lifted the cup up. “I think tonight’s a great night to just stay in and do some team building drinking.”

  Happy Friday! If you're enjoying the story make sure you Comment, Rate, or Review!

  As several folks pointed out in the comments and on disc, Misfortune Abounds' wording was FAR too basic too really provide context for just what it could do or why Loophole would have picked the skill that he had. The abilities description has seen a major overhaul that is present in the last chapter, but I will include it here as well:

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