Why Can't I Live In a Quiet Peaceful Life?!

Episode 16: Sea Shanties

Val looked at the cruise ship. It was large and grand, stretching about a football field. Apparently, Adrian's family was going to stay at this island for an entire week, so Val brought a lot of suitcases to prepare for the trip.

When Val walked up to Adrian, she looked around for his parents, but couldn't find them.

"Hey Adrian," Val asked, "Where's your parents?"

"They couldn't make it," he replied dejectedly, "My butler would be my supervisor for this trip."

"You have a butler?" asked Val, surprised, "How rich are you?"

"I'm not that rich!" Adrian smiled, turning around, "Here, meet Sebastian."

"Pleased to meet you, Adrian's friend," said Sebastian as he bowed.

"Nice to meet you too, Sebastian," Val replied.

When Val boarded the ship, she noticed Jazz, Styx, Brian, Jak, Neos, Kaleb, Yuri, Robert, and Carly sitting on the lounge chairs.

"You guys got invited to Adrian's vacation too?" Val asked.

"It was an opportunity that couldn't be wasted," replied Robert.

—

The ship sailed through the waters for a long time, giving everyone a chance to try out the many different places inside the cruise ship.

"Woah!" yelled Styx, "They have a whole sushi restaurant! We've got to try this out!"

Val and the rest were stuck the sushi place for an hour, with Styx having to pay for 75% of the bill. She must really like sushi.

"Hold on," said Adrian as he put his cellphone down, "Sebastian said that he needed to meet with Robert, Carly, Yuri and I to discuss about the schedule for our trip. You guys can go on ahead and explore the rest of the ship. We'll return soon."

As they wandered around the place for a few hours, the crew stumbled across a laser tag place.

"Ooh! I love laser tag!" exclaimed Jazz, "Let's try it out. We could all do a free-for-all."

As Val put on her vest for laser tag, she looked at the rules of the place. Specifically she looked at the scoring for the points. Each direct shot to a target gave you 2 points and each person, when they were shot, would have a cooldown of 5 seconds before they could return to the match. If a person gets shot, they don't lose any points. It seemed like a simple game. Soon, the crew were released into the map, seeking for their next opponents.

Immediately, Val found Styx and aimed her gun at her. However, in less than a second, Styx was gone and Val was already on a cooldown. Styx must've stopped time. Val should've expected that they'd be using their abilities. After the cooldown ended, Val returned to the map. However, after walking just a few steps, she was on cooldown again! She was shot from behind but there was no one there.

This was incredibly difficult. Either Kaleb or Jazz were using their abilities to get easy kills. Soon, Val found Jak and aimed her gun. When she shot it, she got 2 points. Val yelled in joy from actually getting a kill. However, a blur passed her immediately and she was on cooldown yet again. That must've been Kaleb..

Val peeked around the corner and noticed Neos sitting on the ground, shooting himself with a laser gun. What was he doing? Suddenly, Val noticed that the laser gun that Neos was holding wasn't his own. It was Brian's laser gun! Did Brian mind control Neos to become his own personal point tycoon?

In the end, the end game points were listed as:

Jak - 122 points
Jazz - 120 points
Styx - 102 points
Kaleb - 96 points
Brian - 60 points
Val - 6 points
Neos - 0 points

Jak must've manipulated reality to win the game by 2 points. How cruel!

Around a few minutes later, Jak and Brian both wanted to go to the casino to bet some money. However, only adults could play in the casino.

"I've got an idea," whispered Brian.

Brian mind controlled the bodyguard guarding the casino in their favor, guiding Jak through the place. With Brian's mind control, Jak was able to get clear access, fooling others that he was from a rich and wealthy family and that he was allowed to participate in gambling activities. One of which, was a simple coin toss.

Jak already knew what to do and bet all his money that the coin would land on tails. When the coin was flipped, Jak manipulated reality so that the coin would land on tails. After a few minutes in the casino, Brian and Jak were kicked out because people thought that they were cheating. Even though they couldn't find any evidence, they still kicked them out.

"Ah, it's useless to argue," said Jak, "This happens every time I gamble, so I don't do it too often. It's technically abuse, but at least we're on vacation doing so."

A few more hours had passed, and the crew met up with Adrian, Yuri, Robert, and Carly again. They talked for a while before the captain finally announced that they were approaching the island. They all looked outside to see how huge the island was and the grand forests that were on it.

Adrian and his friends would be staying in a mansion.

"So much for not being rich," smirked Val.