Special Needs Forces

It was a beautiful day on a planet that definitely isn’t Earth because there are no monsters on Earth but there are in this story. Because this story is about a monster hunting team. The team’s captain sat in the captain's room watching videos of unnerving pictures with happy music while waiting for missions that were usually reported by Melisanda, the secretary. His waiting for missions was soon interrupted, he hadn’t managed to watch even half of the video when he heard the sound of ringing from a wall-mounted TV where Melisanda was displayed when she called because she didn’t live with the team at the base. Captain stood up to answer the call as quickly as possible, but he didn't manage to click the "answer" button before Melisanda picked up herself. God knows why someone who made the communication system for the teams thought it was a good idea to give a secretary enough power to let her connect to the conversation without the recipient knowing, and also have access to the webcam, but Captain had nothing to hide anyway.

"Captain Eliasz Biel, I have a new assignment for your team," Melisanda announced.

"Oh, that's very good because I was getting bored, what do you have for us?"

"Some guy from the town of Spruceville called and I think a monster kidnapped his girlfriend or something, he was crying on the phone and I couldn't understand what the hell he was saying. You'll have to ask him on the spot"

"Great, finally something for us to do," Captain stood up and headed for the door to call the team and tell them that they have something to do today, but Melisanda stopped him.

"Captain?"

"What?"

"Try to be professional this time, okay?"

"I’m always professional"

"Uh, I don't know how to tell you this without sounding mean but I just want to remind you that your team is very low in the team rankings. Actually, you are dangling at the very end of the food chain."

"Not at all, my team is the best in this region"

"You do realize there is only one monster-killing team in each region, right?"

”Yes, what's your point? It’s still the best in the region. "

"Ugh" - Melisanda sighed, Captain probably had very low standards and didn’t realize the gravity of the situation. She was about to say something else, but Captain had already left the room in which the TV was hanging, so she hung up.

 Captain went to gather his team, which currently didn’t have many members. Apart from the Captain himself, there were just 4 other people. There was Lukier, a nice purple-haired punk, the Captain's best friend and probably second in command as well, but no one ever said it out loud, Freesia who was their team healer, Tawny who joined the team a year ago and when on the first day the Captain asked him what he could do, he unfortunately answered that he was a pilot so automatically became the team chauffeur, and Scott, that one guy without a cool nickname. When the team was gathered in the meeting room, the Captain told them that they were going to Spruceville to track down some monster and the team went to the ship. To clarify, 'Ship' was the name given to their cool futuristic flyer they used for the job and everything else. 

After they landed in Spruceville, they found a building spattered with acid, which was completely melted because it was a very strong acid. Captain stopped a passerby and asked if what happened here was the monster's fault or something else, but the passerby said, “I don't know”. Then he asked another passerby and the other passerby said he should talk to the guy whose girlfriend was abducted by a monster, because he was sitting on the sidewalk next to him and crying.

“Lukier.”

‘Yes, Captain?”

“Talk to this guy, ask if he is the one whose girlfriend got eaten, I don't like talking to people who are having a mental breakdown.” The Captain replied disgusted, and Lukier went to talk to the crying guy.

“Good morning, we are the team that kills monsters, did you call us? " Lukier asked politely.

"WAYEEEEEEEEEEE," said the crying guy as if he hadn't heard the question. Now Lukier understood why the Captain didn’t like talking to crybabies.

“Sir, please cooperate, we need to know more details about the monster that took your girlfriend.”

“Okay,” Said the crying guy weakly “What do you want to know?”

If Captain was the one talking he would’ve snapped by now because it was obvious they wanted to know exactly what happened and where the monster went, and this guy is asking what they want like he wasn’t the idiot who called them. But fortunately Lukier was more patient.

“We want to know what happened and where the monster went. Tell me all the details you remember.”

“So…” said the crying guy and started crying again. The entire team stared at him for about a minute and it didn’t seem like he was going to stop anytime soon.

“Can we go home?” Tawny asked.

“Lukier, continue” The Captain urged Lukier because the rest of the team was beginning to regret they had accepted the job at all.

“Sir, please calm down and tell us what happened so we can save your girlfriend”

“If she hasn’t been eaten yet..” Tawny added and got punched by Captain because it only prolonged the crying guy’s crying.

“Well, uhh…” the crying guy collected himself “we were holding hands walking down the street and suddenly I heard the sound of spitting and hissing and this building melted, and then this monstrosity flew by and grabbed her by the hood with its teeth like a cat and flew far far away.”

“Which way is far far away?” the Captain asked irritably

“Uh, there. " pointed his finger at the mountains on the horizon

“What did this monster look like?” Lukier asked.

“It was as big as a building and fluffy as a freshly hatched chicken. It also had wings like a butterfly...”

"That sounds pretty cute..." Scott began

"...and it also had a toothy mouth and spat with acid that melted metal"

"Okay, I take it back," commented Scott

Then the guy started to cry again and Captain walked away a bit and looked at the mountains on the horizon as if he had already formulated a perfect plan to find and kill the monster, so the team followed him.

"Do you have a plan, Captain?" Frezja asked.

“Honestly, I just walked away because I didn't want to hear this guy’s moaning anymore. But as for the plan, we get on the ship and fly to the mountains and then we’ll see what to do next” Captain said and so they did because they had no other ideas. When they arrived, they continued the conversation.

"Actually, since Frezja mentioned a plan earlier, I think it would be good to have one before we find the monster," said Scott

“My plan is to shoot the monster with a gun," the Captain replied

"Great plan but that guy in town said the monster is big and spits acid, doesn't that worry you a bit?"

"Jeez, stop being such a wimp, it won't have time to spit on you if you shoot it first." Captain's words did not cheer up Scott at all, they also made him look like a chicken compared to the rest of the team, who didn’t question the plan to shoot the monster.

"Hey, look out the window," Tawny interjected and the team looked out the window. Outside there were melted mountain tops, just like the building in the city.

"So we're close, nice," said Captain, "land." Tawny landed and the team left the ship to inspect the area to see where the monster might be hiding. They walked along a path covered in molten stones, like a trail of breadcrumbs, except it was a trail of melted stones. At the end of the trail, they found a large cave where a monster like the one from the description would probably fit, and there were remnants of melted stones everywhere, so it was obvious that the cave owner was exactly what they were looking for. They entered the cave, but found no monster in it, except a bat that scared Scott and he almost shat himself. So they turned back and started walking towards the ship, thinking what to do. After a while they noticed the monster nibbling at their vehicle.

"HEY! Get away from it! The repair cost will be deducted from my payment!" A very pissed off Captain exclaimed and charged the monster with the shotgun he was wielding.

"Captain, no-" cried Frezja, trying to stop him, but it was impossible to stop him, he was already running.

The monster was very confused when it saw some shrimp running at it with a stick. It just looked at Captain approaching and waited for something to happen. And what happened was that Captain came very close and shot it in the torso. He was aiming for the head, but missed. The wounded monster finally realized that the shrimp had a shooting stick and was trying to kill it. It started hissing, flew up, and started performing some strange attack where it jerked its head and spat out small drops of acid. The rest of the team hid behind some stones and Captain himself was just lucky that nothing hit him. He still didn't like the monster spitting drops so he shot it with the shotgun again. The monster then discovered that 2 shotgun shots at close range had done quite a lot of damage to its body and it flew away. Then the team came out from behind cover.

"Captain, what the hell was that? You could have died," said pissed off Frezja

"I had to save the ship."

"It's spit damaged the roof and there are a few small holes in the wings" said Tawny inspecting the ship, "But I think it will fly so at least we have something to go home with."

“Go home to say we failed the mission again? This monster will die in a few shots, Captain almost got it" said Lukier, who knew Captain wasn’t happy the missions have been failing recently and wanted to be supportive.

"Okay, but the monster flew away and I don't know how you want to find it again," said Scott

"Just get on the ship and we'll see it from above." said Captain and that’s what they did. And turned out, he was right. They saw the monster escaping to its other hideout and followed it because their aircraft flew faster than the monster. When they came closer to it, the monster became uncomfortable being followed by a ship the size of itself and spat acid at the team, but missed.

"Jesus Christ, Captain, let's not fight it, if it hits us we'll fall and die in an aircraft accident and that would be a very stupid way to die," said Tawny, who piloted the ship and just saw a beam of acid fly several centimeters above their roof.

"I second the idea of not fighting the acid monster," said Scott, and there was no time for further discussion as the monster decided it had no choice but to attack and started chasing the ship when Tawny turned around without the order to do so.

“Tawny, I didn’t tell you to turn back- ..or you know what? Continue" Captain said and opened the back door of the ship. The whole team panicked because, even if they had their seat belts on, an open door meant that the monster could spit inside. And the whole team, this time together with Lukier, began shouting at him to stop whatever he was doing. What he was doing was trying to shoot the monster with a shotgun when it was beyond the range of the shotgun, and everything was moving, and there was no way to switch to something more accurate and aim. Frezja got up, pulled Captain back and closed the door, and Tawny turned on fast fly mode and escaped the monster.

"Damn, I almost had it! You saw I almost had it.” the Captain complained

"To me it seemed like it had you, and all of us too"

"Sorry Captain, but she's actually quite right," said Lukier, "it was a risky mission and I think I'd rather abandon it than let someone or all of us die"

Captain looked like he was offended and didn’t talk for the rest of the way home. It was pissing him off that they couldn't complete any missions for about two weeks because either the monsters were escaping or doing a lot of damage before they were killed, or the team members ended up injured or dying. Deep down, Captain was a bit concerned that if he went on like this, he would be fired and someone would replace him. When they got back to the base where they lived, Captain filled out the mission report and sent it to the system, and after a few hours Melisanda called him.

If you’re calling about the report, I don't know if I want to talk about it", Captain began as soon as Melisanda appeared on the screen.

"Actually, kind of yes but kind of no. I mean, well ... There was a bit of hype in the headquarters because of this report, there were bets on whether Region 13 would finally finish a mission correctly. And no one lost because everyone bet that you’d fail."

"Who came up with it? At the next team meeting I’m going to punch them"

”Actually, it's not an individual person, or even a bunch of idiots. Everyone is already laughing at you. I mean, not me, but in general. They call you Special Needs Forces"

”Those hideous vile basilisks, I'm going to punch all of them.”

“Captain, no-" said Melisanda, because she didn’t want any fights between the teams to start on the aircraft carrier where the meetings were held.

“How do they know about it anyway?"

“Public team statistics are kept from the beginning of the formation of the unit. This data is important for research and entertainment.” Melisanda said and quickly changed the subject to the reason why she called in the first place "I'm calling because I managed to convince the boss that your low results in the table may be due to the fact that you don’t have enough people in your team, so you were assigned a new teammate with a shield, and he should arrive at your base tomorrow. I believe that with an additional team member you’ll finally be able to improve your stats"

"Oh cool" said Captain, "I'll go tell the team then" and he left and told the team about both things. The team also got pissed and everyone's mood was ruined after they found out that people were laughing at them. But they were happy that they would have a new companion, and a shield at that. Maybe thanks to that they would be able to kill monsters more effectively.