Special Needs Forces

The team meeting was only a few days away again, and for the first time no one felt like a student waiting for a strict parent to return from the parent-teacher conference at the end of the semester. The Captain was especially ecstatic about the fact that he now has high ground over Anas, that unpolished hinge. Recently that dumbass got punched in the face and bent over, and now when he sees Region 13’s stats and finds out that their Captain is the captain again and he isn’t, his slippers will fall off. The team was happy that this interval ended with a 100% success rate. But today there was no meeting yet, and that's good because after they almost died yesterday they needed a small break to do nothing for a while. There were no alarms so far, and that's also good because if there were any, they would have to go do something and as it was mentioned, nobody wanted to do anything after almost dying yesterday. By the way, their ship was taken for repairs and they gave them a replacement one and a team without that particular ship is like a cowboy with a horse borrowed from a neighbor.

Anyway, Frezja was sitting in the living room with a TV and a console and she was waiting for her turn to play because Rigel was sitting next to her and it was his turn on the games right now. Then Tawny came in, and he usually didn’t start conversations, but this time he awkwardly came over and spoke.

"How's your leg?"

"Actually, you’re a better medic than me" Frezja replied, "when I woke up today it healed completely. If it weren't for you, I would have to stitch it up and I would have limited mobility but thanks to you it healed in a few hours. I didn’t even expect that to work at all"

"What about uh... the infection?"

"After testing and comparing the results with Rigel, it turns out that I also have that infection now, just like him"

"Oh... forgive me. I just thought-"

"Nah it’s fine, you don't have to explain yourself. Most likely it’s thanks to you and your regeneration that I didn't bleed to death, so to be honest I should be the one that owes you thanks" Frezja consoled Tawny because he looked like he was sorry as he had done something wrong. "Besides, if Rigel is mildly infected and he hasn't accidentally killed anyone yet, then I'm not likely to cause any problems either, everything is fine."

Tawny was actually relieved to hear that because after the last reprimand when he infected Rigel he expected Frezja to be furious about what he'd done and would stop talking to him as soon as she yelled at him for the second time.

Rigel, who was sitting on the couch next to them all the time heard their conversation and decided to join.

"Hey, by the way! Now Frezja is also infected. It means neither of us can be more infected, right?"

“I don’t think so?" Frezja said hesitantly "Why do you ask?"

"Because if neither of us could be infected more by each other, nothing would happen if we had a threesome or something" said Rigel and it caused a brief awkward silence so after a while he added "haha just kidding" But that just caused a second awkward silence. After a while Tawny finally responded.

"If it was without Rigel, I would have accepted"

"Actually, without Rigel I don’t mind it either" Frezja said, and Rigel felt sadder than ever. And even sadder when the two moved to a separate room. It was such a loser moment that Rigel went to talk to Lukier about this.

Lukier was alone in the kitchen reading a butter sandwich recipe on the internet and when Rigel came, Lukier was initially happy with the company but then he saw that Rigel was having an emotional crisis again and internally prepared for some uninteresting shit.

"Ughh" Rigel sighed after he sat down on the chair next to Lukier.

“If you have something to say, just say it instead of huffing at me, geez" said Lukier. He liked to talk about any topic, but he really hated when people try to make him guess what was wrong instead of telling him right away.

"Well ... I'm such a loser that Tawny and Frezja went to fuck because I said a joke." Said Rigel who was a bit jealous because Tawny was getting chicks again without doing anything.

"It indeed sounds like a loser moment" said Lukier, who unsuccessfully tried not to laugh at his friend's misfortune and Rigel then began to feel sorry for himself that he was trying hard and no one wanted him. After hearing all his whining, Lukier felt legitimately sorry, so he thought he would give Rigel some advice.

“You know, sometimes pick-up lines don't work..." Lukier started "actually, most of the time they don't work. You know what, you should be more selective about the people you're trying to seduce."

"But I don't even have much to choose from."

"Well, because you’re simping to people who are either strangers, newly met or you apparently piss them off and you don't get the signals that tell you should get lost"

"Wow thanks, I thought you were giving me advice, not a lecture"

"I am giving you advice, my advice is try to subtly flirt with people who are nice to you  instead of being nice to those who are not interested"

"Hmm, it makes sense" Rigel said, and he stayed in the kitchen and said some other things while Lukier was carefully following the butter sandwich recipe because he recently made a salad without a recipe because he thought making a salad couldn’t be that hard and then it came out bad but he ate it anyway so that food wouldn’t go to waste.

Late in the evening an alarm rang and no one wanted to go on a mission but they answered. Captain answered in the captain’s room.

"Good evening Captain" said Melisanda and then noticed that Captain looks a bit like he would rather sleep than talk.

"Just get to the point"

"Okay, some guy just called and said there was a monster under his son's bed"

"You are kidding right?" Said Captain "We are a monster killing unit, not a team making sure that a child won't have nightmares."

”But this is supposedly a legitimate call, Captain. The beast even bit the guy's finger and he had to put on a bandaid"

"That’s horrible." Said Captain, annoyed "But okay, it sounds like something easy, it will be done in 15 minutes"

"Their house is 40 minutes away from your base, Captain"

"Oh, well, it will be done in 55 minutes. Biel out" and Captain disconnected and went to the team who didn’t come to check what the alarm was because no one expected there would be an alarm, so Captain gathered the team manually in the living room.

“Okay team, today we're saving a child from a monster under the bed” Captain explained

"Are you kidding me?" Tawny said

"Believe me, when I heard it, I said the same thing, but no, it's not a joke, we're saving the kid. I know no one feels like saving the kid and this mission is like a trip to the store so the whole team doesn’t have to go if you don’t want to"

And nobody volunteered to go

"Okay, eeny meeny miny moe Tawny Lukier Rigel come on, the rest can stay"

"Four people is a lot for such a trivial call, Captain" said Tawny

"You be quiet, I’m taking you just because I don't want to drive. You can wait in the ship while we go there and settle it.” Captain said and Tawny sighed and at this moment he regretted he had a pilot licence because that’s exactly what happens when you can drive, everyone uses you as a chauffeur. Now he was also beginning to wonder if others didn’t have a license just because they didn't want to have to drive people around.

But either way they were flying with the new ship and the new ship was a pretty cool ship, like the old ship that is now being repaired except one was black and their original ship was silver. Rigel sat down next to Lukier so close that it was a little uncomfortable and started some kind of conversation and that was strange for Lukier because most of the time he had to start the conversation himself, people usually didn’t come to him to talk about nothing. It was a bit weird but so far he wasn’t complaining. Anyway, they talked for the whole journey and Captain didn’t interfere with the conversation because firstly he didn’t feel like it and secondly they were talking about something Captain didn’t know about, so why would he do that. When they arrived, they landed and Tawny decided to stay in the ship like Captain told him to, and the remaining three went to the house of the injured guy and his brat.

They knocked on the door and it was opened very quickly by a guy with a bandaged hand.

"Oh Jesus, good thing you’re here, I don’t know how much longer I can stand having this beast at my house" the guy was pleased and invited them inside.

"Okay, where's the problem" Captain asked 

"Here, please follow me" and the guy led them to his son's room "the monster is under the bed and when I tried to pull it out it bit me. It has sharp teeth like some deep sea creature and when it latches on, it won't let go."

".. Then maybe go to the hospital with that injured hand" said Rigel "monsters may have rabies."

"I'll go when the monster is out of my house" said the guy. Captain bent down to look under the bed and saw two glowing circles which were the eyes of the monster reflecting like a cat's eyes. Then Captain got up and said ‘yes, there must be a monster under the bed’. Then he put his hand under the bed to take it out because he was wearing thick gloves but the monster bit him and tore the gloves.

-”AW FUC-" exclaimed Captain, who jumped up from the bed and grabbed his bitten hand.

"Captain, are you okay?" Lukier asked

"That little bastard is going to get what it deserves!" said Captain and pulled out his gun.

"Hey hey no! Don't shoot in the house!" the guy to whom the house belonged got angry

"How do I get rid of a monster without shooting?" asked Captain

"I don't know, try to catch it in a net or something, shooting at home is not a good idea because not only is it loud and it's almost quiet hours, you will destroy my furniture and the wall and you’ll spatter the remains of the monster everywhere and the room will have to be renovated and I’m already paying a lot for your services."

"Ugh" said Captain "Do any of you want to try?" Captain asked Lukier and Rigel.

"Uh, no, I have fingerless gloves and I don't want to have fingerless hands too" said Lukier

"I have cheap gloves and to be honest, I don't want my fingers bitten off either" said Rigel.

”Okay wait, I'm going to call Tawny. If the monster bites him, he will regenerate” and Captain went to the ship to get Tawny and at that time the guy’s wife offered Lukier and Rigel tea and it was nice. Lukier also asked how the monster got into their house and the guy's wife said that the window was open and the monster probably climbed through it. This meant they would probably have to look for more monsters around their house and shoot them so that this situation wouldn’t happen again.

When Captain returned with Tawny, Tawny wasn't happy that he had to leave the ship and be in the house of strangers looking like a cosplayer, especially since their child looked at him like he was some kind of fairy-tale hero. He wanted to get it over with quickly and head back to base. With no warnings whatsoever he just put his arm under the bed and grabbed the monster like a pissed off cat and pulled it out from under the bed and then everyone could see what they were dealing with.

"Oh damn, it’s cute!" exclaimed Lukier, because the monster was pink and fluffy like a duckling and the size of a cat, and it started squeaking like a little kitten or some other cute little animal.

"Okay, here's your monster from under the bed" Tawny wanted to give the monster to the client but the client didn’t want to be anywhere near this thing.

"Okay, take it away from my house" the guy said and then apologized and asked them to leave the house because he was going to go to the hospital with his injured hand. Captain had an injured hand too, but he had a doctor at the base. Anyway, they returned to the ship with the monster and didn't really know what to do.

"Okay, what are we going to do with this?" asked Tawny who was still holding the monster which now stopped squeaking and just sat quietly.

"We should keep it" said Lukier

"What? No! this little shit has bitten 2 people and can be dangerous, what if it's some chick that will grow into a giant creature and eat us? We should take it outside and kill it or something” Rigel said.

"How can you want to kill such a fluffy little creature come on"

"We live on a planet where you either kill a fluffy creature or it will grow and kill you" said Rigel

"Then make up your mind already because I don't want to hold it anymore" said Tawny

"I can hold it." said Lukier and Tawny gave Lukier the monster and the monster started squeaking again and Lukier started to pet it to calm down.

"Tomorrow, we'll come here with the whole team and look for more of these monsters. And I don't know about this one here" said Captain.

“Let's just let it out somewhere else. For example, let's throw it into the circular waterfall, or I don't know...”said Rigel

"What are they saying? they want to throw you out?" Lukier talked to the monster like people talk to little animals "How can you do that, how can you throw out such a fluffy creature" The monster soon stopped squeaking and started purring like a cat.

"Awwww," said Lukier, "I'll call him Puszymir" he announced

"Oh no, Lukier, what have you done!" Captain exclaimed

"What? what did I do?"

"If you gave him a name, we can't kick him out now!" Said Captain as seriously as if it really was some inner power of family ties connected with giving a name.

"Well then, we're going home with Puszymir." said Lukier satisfied, and they started to fly home and for half of the journey Rigel panicked that they would bring the creature home and have a problem, and for the other half he got used to the thought that maybe they could tame the monster just like some people on the internet have tame pumas or bears. When they returned, Tanager and Frezja also said that the monster was cute and should stay and it was voted down. And then Captain and Puszymir were sent to med bay to get rabies shots. Frezja also checked in the monster directory what kind of species it was and it turned out that it was an aggressive carnivorous monster which is the size of their ship as an adult and it looks like some four-legged dinosaur with horns and spikes. It was a shame because Puszymir had already been named and now he couldn’t be kicked out or killed. It also seemed that Tawny and Lukier were the only people who the monster didn’t hiss at, and late at night Lukier fed him with some small pieces of raw meat, and after some time the monster decided that Lukier was mom and went to sleep.

On the second day, the team went to see if there were other similar monsters around the client's house, and for a long time they found nothing and then they found the corpse of a large Puszymir who fell into a bear trap which, by the way, was set where it shouldn’t be, and they thought it must have been Puszymir’s mother and the whole team felt sad and decided that it was good that Lukier was now the new mother to the monster, and if he grows up and causes problems, they will worry about it later. At the moment they only knew that the monster was staying and they would keep it in Lukier’s room or in the garage for a change and so far everything ended happily except that they had something to hide from the headquarters again. But they've already been hiding worse things, so they'll probably figure it out somehow.