Special Needs Forces

The team could not officially return to service because there was still chaos in the headquarters, but the monsters didn’t have a vacation, so Melisanda called whever she had to inform that if there were any reports, they could take them anyway. By the way, their original ship returned from repair and they seriously allowed them to keep a replacement tank-ship, though probably not because it was named now, more because they caught the murderer even though they didn't have to, and there was no way to reward them for it in the current situation.

It turned out that there were no reports of unwanted monstrous activity during their absence, so everyone went to do what they usually do in their spare time. Rigel, for example, went to complain.

“Sup Lukier, you once said that when I feel down and want to talk about it I can tell you so I come to pour out my sorrows.” He announced as he stood in the door of Lukier's room.

“Okay, tell me what's on your heart.”

Rigel went inside and sat on the bed.

"In the last few days I’ve gotten hurt more than during my entire stay on the team and I'm starting to have a nervous breakdown."

“Looking at it from the positive side, at least it’s good that you’re getting beaten up now and not earlier because you didn’t have accelerated regeneration before and you could die from it.” Lukier tried to cheer him up.

“Ugh, don't even mention the positive side. If I had no regeneration and my wounds would not heal before there is a chance to stitch them, maybe the scars would be less visible.”

"Look, you may have something to complain about, but complaining about fast regeneration is straight up dumb. Besides, you don't look as bad as you think.”

“You really think so?”

“Yes”

“So, hypothetically, you would still go out with me even if I have a scarred face?”

“What?” - that was an unexpected question. “Don't ask me such questions, I wouldn't go out with you no matter how you look. I'm just trying to say that some people might find it attractive.”

“Do you think it’s attravtive?”

“Ugh” - this conversation wasn't going in the right direction. “Yeah. But do you have to ask such questions that my answers sound the way they do?”

"I guess I just managed to flirt smoother than with any girl ever" commented Rigel.

“Damn, you come to vent about your problems or use me as a punching bag to level up your charisma?” Lukier was a little pissed off because he offered to help his friend and he used it to make his pathetic pick-up attempts.

"It doesn't have to be just leveling up" Rigel continued, and Lukier didn't even answer to that, he just looked him in the eye embarrassed. And Rigel continued again.

“Have you ever wondered…”

“What again, wouldn't I go out with you?” Lukier interrupted him, annoyed

“Actually, I tried to change the subject, but when you mention it, did you wonder about that?”

“Wait a second, I need to make an important call…” Lukier pulled out the phone “...Hey Captain, let's go do whatever so I can tell Rigel that I'm busy and can't talk to him right now. Oh really? I'm on my way to doing this very important thing that requires my full attention.”  He said on the phone and left the room. Rigel felt even sadder than it was before he came here to talk.

Meanwhile, Tawny stood in the corridor and looked at the flowers planted in a watering can, which Lukier had stolen from the hotel garden and planted in a watering can because they did not have a free flower pot. They were pretty flowers.

“Then these are your favorite flowers!” said Tanager who just materialized behind him.

"Uhh, yes," Tawny snapped out of his trance and replied, and then remembered his earlier conversation about flowers with Tanager. And he also remembered that he was rude to him back then and felt sorry, so he figured now was the right time to apologize.

“In fact, when we are on the flower topic, were you very sad back then when I told you to leave me alone in that hotel garden?”

“A little, but that's alright. People often say they want to be left alone.”

Tawny realized that Tanager was probably told to heck off very often and he felt even more sorry for him, but Tanager himself probably wasn't smart enough to notice that people didn't want to spend time with him, and he was convinced that it just is that way - from time to time someone stops the conversation to have a moment of peace.

“Oh. I'm sorry that this happens.”

“Me too. Because I, for example, do not want to be left alone though I very often am. It is a pity that I cannot trade with those who want to be left alone and are not.”

Tawny didn't know what to say, so he said nothing and kept staring at the flowers, expecting Tanager to say something like he always did when the silence lasts more than five seconds.

“Do you want to be left alone now?” Tanager asked, as expected. Tawny hesitated a moment.

"No" he lied.

“Cool! Me neither!”  Tanager exclaimed, excited. “I was about to go make food so we can go make food together, and then eat the food and talk while eating food, for example about what we are going to do after eating!” he exclaimed in one breath.

“Okay, let's do that.” Tawny sighed and they went to do those things

At this time Lukier  was sitting in Captain's room and they were watching videos about fashion life hacks to school for clever girls, and then they went to pet Puszymir and it turned out that Puszymir was hungry, so Lukier went to the kitchen to unfreeze some huge piece of meat for him and while he looked at the meat whirling in the microwave, Rigel entered the kitchen.

“Hey Lukier please don't leave before I say what I have to say.” He said quickly

“I didn’t intend to do that.”

“Forgive me for being creepy earlier”

“Cool, it’s forgiven. I hope you weren't offended that I had to go to a very important game of rock paper scissors with Captain during the conversation”

“Actually, I was sad when you did it, but I got used to such situations.”

“I'm not surprised. What was that supposed to be, aren’t females your main target?”

“I don’t know. I just started noticing that you are so ... tall and-”

“I'm 165 centimeters tall including my mohawk. What are you going with this? I’m serious, how should I treat this because I don't know if it's some kind of a joke or what.

“Well .. Some time ago you told me to be more selective about the people with whom I am trying to go out and you are my closest friend and …”

"-and your plan B if you run out of girls in your area?"

"Ohh, now you sound jealous."

“No, Rigel, stop it, I mean it. If you want another golden advice from me, then you should put at least half as much effort into platonic relationships as you put into finding a significant other, or you'll end up without either.” said Lukier, not even trying to be nice anymore because it clearly wasn't leading to anything. Meanwhile, Frezja entered the kitchen and listened to the whole thing

“Uhh, maybe it's you who are afraid of new relationships because you have trauma and you don't want to admit it” Rigel tried to defend himself with the first thing that came to his mind

“Rigel, you have less tact than Captain while talking to Anas.” Frezja cut in, and it was true, so Rigel shut up and left. He felt worse again after the conversation that was supposed to be reconciling and now he had no one to talk to and he felt that Lukier might be right in what he was saying.

“Now I'm glad I was 5/10 on Rigel's list.” Frezja said to Lukier sympathetically.

"I'm probably at the bottom of the list as well, he just ran out of options. I try to be nice so as not to upset anyone more than necessary, but there’s no point in that. It just encourages him to keep trying.” Lukier replied, and soon after the meat thawed, he went to feed Puszymir and spend the rest of the day in the Captain's room so Rigel wouldn't bother him anymore.

The next day the team was woken up by an alarm and it was a very strange alarm because Melisanda personally came to the Captain's room and woke him up to tell him to sound the alarm and it was awkward. Anyway, the alarm went off and the team came.

“This is not really a contract because they’re all on hold now but the Captain ordered me to let you know if someone reports a monster, so I’m letting you know. Some venomous snake-like monster has sneaked into a village called Raspberry Land, bites people when they sleep and leaves toxic fumes and traces on the ground.”

“Then Tawny stays, he's so sensitive to substances that he gets drunk with alcoholic chocolates. And Tanager won't be on any missions at all until the end of the vacation, he still has unhealed wounds.” Frezja protested

“Then we have me, you, Lukier and Rigel. The four of us can do it alone.” Suggested the Captain

“I'd rather not go if I don't have to, and I don't have to because I'm officially on vacation. And even now I have to sew someone up every now and then. I would also prefer you not to go on this particular mission because it sounds dangerous with such a small number of people.”

“It's always dangerous, but if you don't want to, don't go. Three is almost like four, right?” Captain insisted

“Actually Frezja has a point” said Lukier “But knowing you, you’ll go on that mission even if you were to go all by yourself. That's why I'm going too, so that it doesn't have to be that way.”

"Aww" the Captain replied.

“Okay, then I will go too, but I want to mention that I also agree with Frezja” added Rigel

"Captain, your methods of persuasion are the worst and I don't know how they work, but congratulations, I'll also go there so you don't die there." Frezja finally agreed too.

“I second the questioning of his methods of persuasion” said Lukier

“You shut up Lukier, you are the first one to go when Captain suggests something stupid and his idea probably would not have passed if it were not for you” Frezja said.

When they got there, they asked the victims what exactly happened, and what happened was a monster which was the size of an average snake entered the house through some hole and swallowed someone, and then it apparently evolved like a pokemon because a large lizard ran out of the house and now it is walking somewhere in the village. Everyone is afraid of it because on one hand you cannot see it, and on the other you know it’s around somewhere because it leaves traces as Melisanda said, and these traces are also toxic. It didn't help either that the monster could kill painlessly on stealth and other household members realized that the monster was there long after the fact.

So they went to hunt the creature in some overgrown field, because if it was a snake, they thought that it probably lives on some meadow. Besides, there were traces leading there and the grass was covered with some snot and the team regretted not taking a machete with them because it was poisonous snot and when you walk in the grass, it's hard not to touch the grass with yourself. Especially Lukier regretted it because he didn't have long sleeves like everyone else and he rubbed against the snot several times, but nothing happened to him so he ignored it.

The tracks lead them through the whole meadow and then they entered a cornfield and eventually they went so far that wherever they looked, there was no exit visible and none of them was taller than the corn, so it was hard to tell how far they really were. But the trail continued, so they continued without a word until they heard a rustling in front of them. The only problem was that they were in the corn and not only did they not see what was rustling and they could not afford to shoot blindly, and they also couldn’t hide to identify what was rustling because in the corn field the corn was evenly distributed and they can’t hide behind a single corn plant. The source of the rustling was actually the monster, but they saw it at the same time it saw them, and the monster had better reflexes and attacked first. Fortunately, reflexes don't help the opponent much when you have a firearm and it doesn't. Lukier shot the monster before it could do something to someone, but it didn't hit any weak point, so the monster just got pissed, knocked Lukier over with its tail and ran away, the rest of the team ran after it and Lukier was left behind because he had to get up from the ground. When he caught up with the rest, they managed to get out of the corn field and it turned out that the monster was hiding in some field cellar.

“We're not going in?” asked Lukier and only now the team had a chance to get a better look at him and everyone got scared.

“Damn why don't you say you're bleeding?!” Frezja shouted, and came up to him with some med bag.

“Oh ... I didn't notice” Lukier replied looking at his arm, which was cut along its entire length and it is no wonder that Frezja reacted as she reacted. “I must have fallen on a rock or …”

“I don’t want to say that you are lying, Lukier, but aren't these symptoms of poisoning from the monster's venom? I mean it kills painlessly so anesthesia would make sense.” the Captain interjected

“Oh hell, there was a lot of this venom on the leaves we were walking through.” admitted Lukier

"We should go back, I can't help him any more on the spot" Frezja said

“No, we have the sucker on the crosshair, let's finish the job” protested Lukier

“It’s okay, we can go back Lukier. I know that I insisted on this mission, but if you are going to die here, I don't care about the monster that much” said Captain

“This lizard has just entered someone's property and I think I'm less dying than its owner will be in a moment.”

“Do you think we should knock and inform the owner or rather go in without asking like some robbers?” Rigel said, and before anyone could answer, the answer came by itself, because someone in the house had obviously noticed a lizard because they could hear some noise from inside. Due to the situation, the team went in without permission, but it was too late because the attacked individual was already dead and the lizard ran away again somewhere.

"Great, we'll be down in the ranking again" commented Rigel.

“Cool, someone dies in front of you and the rankings are the first thing you feel sorry for” - replied Lukier

“This is not an official mission from the command, it will not count in rankings. And now be quiet, no time to argue.” Captain silenced them

“And I think it's the perfect time.” - continued Rigel - “If this doesn’t count in the rankings it's time to go back because all we did was harm instead of helping by herding this shit into someone's backyard.”

"I must agree with that" Frezja said.

“Lukier?” Captain looked at Lukier, who was the only one who had not yet stated his opinion

“Damn, there are already two votes out of four, how important is his opinion?!” Rigel was pissed.

“We can go back..” replied Lukier, ignoring him. “..because I think I'm really starting to lose feeling in this arm.”

This worried everyone a bit, and Frezja suggested that Captain should get to the ship on his own and fly up here so that Lukier would not have to make unnecessary effort and thus spread the poison faster and that’s what he did.

“You won't believe how awesome I am! I managed to kill that thing myself on the way to the ship.” Captain exclaimed when everyone got into the ship and everyone on one hand felt relieved that they had not failed the task, but on the other hand, they were a bit jealous that Captain had done it himself practically by accident, when a moment earlier they had an argument about whether the task was too difficult and should they abandon it.

“Lukier how's your arm?” Captain asked

“Well, it's a bit better because the anesthesia is wearing off and it probably means that the poison stops working, but it's also worse because ... the anesthesia is wearing off. And I feel a little dizzy and now I don't know if it's from poison, pain or bleeding.”

Rigel however was sitting in the corner with mixed feelings about the situation. On one hand, it was the first time that Captain listened to his comments on the mission, on the second hand, Captain proved that his remarks were not so accurate, but on third hand, if he had not intervened, Captain might not have been so lucky, but on the fourth hand, he had argued for the third time with Lukier in the last two days, and now was not the time or the place to talk to him about it. He was also afraid that he had crossed some border and now, when he starts a conversation with Lukier, he will throw him into the trash can or something like that.

While part of the team was on the mission, Tanager came to Tawny and asked him if he wanted to be left alone, and to his delight, Tawny said he didn't want to be left alone, so they made burgers together. Tanager sang songs throughout the process, which sounds like torture to the person being forced to listen to it, but it turned out that Tanager sings pretty well, so it was actually quite enjoyable. When the rest of the team returned, everyone was surprised that Tawny was talking to Tanager and not listening to edgy music in the dark or anything else they suspected Tawny was doing when he was away.

After Lukier was stitched up and released from medbay, it wasn't even an hour since he returned to the room before Rigel came to him.

“Is the offer of pouring out sorrows to you and asking for advice expired or still valid?” He asked uncertainly

“Come on in. What do you want?”

“If I have a friend who got pissed at me three times in a row and I don't know how to talk to him, what do you think I should do?”

“I don't know” Lukier looked into his eyes reproachfully “I need more details. Did your friend have a good reason?”

Rigel was a bit embarrassed that he put Lukier in the perfect position to call him out now, but he continued.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Then why don't you just tell him?”

“I don't know how to talk to him now.”

“I don't know either, maybe try some pick-up lines, it seems it always works and is a symbol of interest in a deep relationship with another person.”

"Your legs must hurt because you keep walking on my mind" Rigel said without thinking.

"I really don't know what to think about the fact that you can recite it on command."

“You wanted it yourself, better tell me whether the text worked or not, because I don’t know if I need to continue asking you for advice.”

“I’ll accept it on the condition that you never say it ever again in your life.”

“Okay, great, that's the deal. You see, there was some use to remembering pick-up lines.”