"Ngggggg."

Carl opened his eyes.

His first destination was the bathroom, as he'd already gotten into his morning groove, and that was how it started. He felt like he'd skipped a step from the other days, but whatever it was, it didn't seem important.

The next step was…

He had to triple-check something.

"Logout. Logout."

Carl put his glasses on and squinted. It was now five minutes past twelve, which he was sure was gonna be important somehow or other, but right now he just double-checked that his logout timer was set to go off in another fifteen real-minutes and logged back into the game.

He didn't remember why he needed to stay logged in.

It was pre-coffee o'clock, and he had a lot of things he didn't remember.

No, that wasn't right.

He did remember this because it was pretty important.

He was here for Mina.

She was having a rough time, and he needed to make sure she was okay before he did anything else, just like he'd do for Sammy or Bobby.

But he needed coffee first.

Carl stumbled over towards the exit of the building he was in. "Guard," he mumbled as an order to the guard-y thingy with weird hair sitting against a wall.

"I will."

He wasn't sure if he trusted that, but it seemed like he should. He opened the door—carefully, though he didn't remember why he needed to be careful—and left.

----------------------------------------

"Carl, stop fucking about. Drink the fucking coffee."

"COFFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—"

"Fuck, what happened to you? Can't believe… Okay, we're gonna do it the hard way."

Carl snapped into full wakefulness a moment later. He twitched as his coffee synapses fired irregularly.

On instinct, he recognized that he'd just consumed something that was not coffee.

It was similar to coffee, and yet…

As he steered the full capability of his overly-awakened mind towards the memory of what had happened, he realized something.

He'd just imbibed Super Coffee.

He'd never encountered it previously, but he knew that's what it had been. This was coffee with the strength, the power, the raw coffee-ness of one hundred cups of coffee.

No, not one hundred.

One hundred and six.

His Coffee Sense told him so.

"Uh, what… Carl, why're your eyes open that wide?"

Carl looked down and saw that Vol was standing in front of him. She wore her white face-bandanna, a gray t-shirt, jeans, and her leather shoes. She peered up at him with her stormy gray eyes. He looked around. He was in…

He sniffed the air.

Triangulating using his Coffee Sense and his memory of the various coffees he'd scented while traveling around the city, he knew he was standing on the side of a street near the south part of D-three.

"Carl?" Vol snapped her fingers a few times in front of him.

"Yeah, just getting my bearings," he said, shaking his head. He took a long blink, then shook his head again. "What… Where'd you get that coffee?"

Vol gave him a look that he knew was a smirk. "Made it myself. Told you I know how to make coffee."

Carl ran his hands through his beard. Hoo boy. "I don't know if I've ever been this awake before." Might be a little too awake.

The shorter woman laughed. "Great, isn't it?" She took a drink from one of the brown stone mugs in her hands. "Haven't made this shit in forever. Nobody ever likes my coffee, and it's such a hassle."

At that moment, Carl Weathers faced a crossroads.

According to his time display, it was just after nine in the morning, which was weirdly late, though he recalled that he'd also gotten up later than usual after also staying up later than usual the night prior in case Mina had wanted to talk or anything.

He knew that he should probably return to the workshop immediately in case Mina woke up.

He also knew, however, that he really wanted to try another cup of this amazing coffee, which would mean he'd have to follow Vol around to wherever she'd gone to make it and wait while she made more.

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He decided to compromise.

"You, uh…got any more?" he asked, eyeing the mug she was drinking from.

Vol brightened visibly. "Really?" she squealed in a very un-Vol-like manner. "You really like it?"

"Is that a yes, or…"

Vol tipped her head back and let out a long breath. "Okay, we're definitely friends. Inventory." She poured the remainder of her coffee into her mouth and threw both mugs forward into the air, where they vanished. She reached into nothingness, and her hands and forearms similarly vanished. Her hands emerged moments later with a fresh pair of steaming mugs. "So great," she muttered. "Dismiss." She handed him a mug.

Huh, I think that's actually the first time I've seen someone else use their inventory. Looks pretty weird. "Thanks." He accepted the mug and took a sip.

Carl felt that his world was momentarily swallowed by an overpowering coffee flavor. He staggered in a disoriented state and stared down at his mug.

"You're, uh…" Vol sipped from her own mug, seemingly undisturbed by the rich, full, dark, deep, dense, brutal coffee flavor that she encountered. "You're a bit weird before you drink coffee, Carl. Anyone ever tell you that?"

Carl looked at his coffee a little longer before braving another sip that sent him hurtling through space and time to the exact same location and the next instant of his life. He blinked, though it was more like closing his eyes for an eternity and then realizing he hadn't ever closed them. "Wow, that's strong. Um."

He immediately recalled the question he'd just been asked due to the effects of the Coffee Power buff. "Yeah, I kinda sleepwalk a little in the mornings if I don't get my coffee soon enough. Drove my wife kinda crazy the few times we ran out, so we always keep a big supply." He rubbed his beard and grinned at the memory of the stockpile they always kept in the pantry.

"Sleepwalk. Huh." Vol took a gulp. "Not sure I'd really call it that, but it was fun chasing you down anyway. What're we doing today?"

He frowned a little. Don't remember making plans to hang out again. "I think I'm just gonna hang out at the workshop and keep an eye on Mina," he said by way of letting her down eas—

"Okay, could be fun," Vol said, seeming to be inviting herself along. "Wanna walk, or you wanna take a shortcut?"

"Well…" Carl chewed the corner of his lip a little. "Kinda wanna get back now, actually, in case she's…awake…"

They were back in the workshop.

"Hey, sex doll!" Vol whispered, giving the doll a wave.

The doll stared blankly into the distance.

"She's sleeping up there?" Vol asked, pointing to the second level.

Carl nodded. He took another drink in order to replace his disorientation at being teleported with the more reasonable disorientation of Vol's coffee. "How'd you do that anyway?" he asked quietly. "And what is this coffee? It's awesome."

Vol pulled her bandanna down, exposing a smug grin. "Coffee's a secret. Sort of. Probably wouldn't make sense even if I tried to explain it since, well, it's me, and I'm bad at explaining. But the moving thing… Eh, that's also a tough one. We were there, and now we're here. But also we were here the whole time, and I just replaced the us from here with the us from—I said I was bad at explaining things!"

Carl's coffee-powered grimace felt oppressive even to him. Gotta be some kinda high-level skill. With how weird magic is to use, something like that's probably got some even more bizarre mental hoop you gotta jump through to activate it. "Alright, forget I asked. Thanks, though, it's pretty handy."

"And you're not gonna ask what else I can do?" She gave him a curious look.

He shrugged. "Am I supposed to? Doesn't really matter. Just gonna sit around today and be here for Mina in case she needs me."

Vol finished her coffee in a long, single gulp. "Alright, let's get to the sitting then. Inventory." She threw her cup at Carl, and it disappeared shortly after leaving her hand. "Dismiss."

That's so weird to watch. He took another life-altering drink from his own mug, coming to the realization that he was still himself afterwards but his coffee was now gone. "Probably not gonna be a super exciting day like yesterday," he warned her as he made his way over to one of the recliners.

The twenty seven year-old woman dropped into a recliner and let out a soft groan. "Ten or twenty might not even be enough for how fucking good this feels," she said while in the process of reclining.

Carl smiled a little at the reminder of her joke, taking a seat himself and setting his mug on the floor. "Yeah, they're pretty freaking great. Wish I had one at home."

"I think you just build your home around one and then call it done."

He chuckled softly, and they sat in silence for a while after.

"You're really gonna just sit here and hang out with me?" he asked. Can't really imagine it. She seems way too gamer-y to be just sitting around.

"Carl, would you believe me if I told you that you're the most interesting person in this entire city?"

"Probably not."

"Let me tell you a little about this city."

"Uh, you mean like lore?"

"What? That's a weird way to put it. Nah, I mean what people do here."

"Oh."

"Things used to be different." Vol sighed wistfully. "City of Wrath used to fucking mean something. We were out fighting with three or four countries at a time. We had the arena, yeah, but it was more recreational. Gladiators would be the war heroes and the ones training to go fight on the lines. Victory was sought after, but it meant something. Wasn't just marks and admirers."

Yeah, everyone always misses the early days of games. Sounds like maybe stuff is getting more solved and min-max-y than I thought.

"Now it's different. People start their days training just to fight in the arena or drive on the tracks. It's all they do."

"What's wrong with that if they're having fun with it?"

"It's so fucking pointless!" Vol threw her hands up. "Say you get strong or you win your battles: what do you really gain? Fame? What can you do with that? Marks? What the fuck do you even spend them on after a certain amount?"

"No, I mean, maybe everyone's just having fun, and that's enough." Hardcore gamers are really on another level. What more do you want if you're playing a game?

"Okay, supposing you have fun, what happens when you get bored? Or if you're no longer able to fight for a long period of time? You haven't learned any worthwhile, productive skills, so then you're either just sitting around doing nothing, or you try to take up a trade without any knowledge and throw all your money into helping you succeed while you learn how shit works. The arena can't run on its own. Gladiators need equipment, they need food, they need the fucking arena itself, which has to be cleaned and fixed when idiots break shit."

"Huh. Never really thought about any of that. Doesn't it just repair itself?"

Vol clamped a hand over her mouth and started laughing while giving him an amazed look. "Repair itself?" she repeated between snickers. "Is that a fucking joke? Do you know how many stonemasons the Empire pays to replace all that shit when it breaks?"

"Guess I haven't actually been to the arena yet, now that I—"

"What?!" she exclaimed. She looked up and went silent for a moment, but there was no sign that her outburst had roused Mina, who was still sleeping and maybe would benefit in some intangible way from Carl going up to check on her again now that he thought about it.