Special Needs Forces

Lukier woke up in the medbay and there was an unfamiliar girl standing over him and he got scared and said "aaa!" but like a weak aaa that probably doesn't count as a scream but some unidentified sound of surprise. The girl saw that he woke up (because he made a sound) and started a conversation

"Hey you’re finally awake" said the stranger

"Where am I?" Lukier asked

“In medbay in your base. I am Lawenda and I’m new here because you needed more medics"

“Ugh, Jesus, I had such a shitty dream... Captain died and I killed a man and... what exactly happened to me? and where is Frezja anyway?"

"Uhh, as far as I know you were shot, Frezja went to make some coffee and your captain is fine, you don't have to worry about him"

”Oh thank god. Can you call him?"

"Okay" and Lawenda went to call the captain and Lukier was relieved it was just a dream after all because he had doubts for a moment whether what happened actually happened. Though his relief didn't last long, Lawenda returned with Rigel after a few minutes.

”Oh, Lukier, it's good to see you’re alive, I thought you were going to die. You were unconscious for quite a long time” said Rigel, and Lawenda walked out of med bay not to interfere with their conversation. Lukier was visibly confused.

"I thought Lawenda was supposed to call Captain"

"Uhh, about that..." Rigel thought for a moment how to convey the bad news to Lukier, but he didn’t know how to build the sentence and Lukier guessed what he was about to hear from the expression on his face and he didn’t know if he wanted to hear it.

"So it wasn't a trippy dream after all?" Lukier said to himself but quite loudly and Rigel heard it.

"If by trippy dream you mean being swallowed by a giant worm, cutting off Crow’s limb, Captain exploding inside the monster, and some crazy psycho who tried to kill us and would have succeeded if it weren't for you, then it wasn't a dream."

"So… Captain is dead? And now you’re... no, that can't be true"

"Well, it surprised me too, and to be honest, I have no idea what to do as the new captain..."

"He couldn't have died, he never dies. He always says that..."

”Everybody can die, Lukier. I am sorry too..."

”Has anyone searched the monster? Was the body found?"

“They found nothing to 100% confirm he’s dead, but they also found nothing indicating he was alive. It was an explosion, he probably got shredded to pieces, they won't find it."

"No, I don't believe he would’ve died just like that." Lukier said, lying to himself to make himself feel better "You can leave then, you’re not the captain I wanted to talk to" Rigel wanted to cheer up Lukier somehow, but in such a situation he didn’t know how to do that so after a moment of hesitation he left him alone and hoped he would get over it quickly. When he left the room Lawenda walked up to him.

”Is something wrong, captain? You look like you’re having some kind of internal emotional crisis” Rigel had a brain crash at first because he wasn't used to being called a captain.

"Uhh me? Um... actually, yes, I am having a crisis"

"Do you want to talk about it? I have some psychology perks so maybe I'll give you a motivational speech or something"

"This is probably the first time someone offers me a conversation first and it feels pretty nice"

"I will take it as a yes. So what's on your mind?"

"Er... just calling me captain feels weird. Yesterday, before you came to help, our old captain died, and I actually have no idea how to captain."

”I'm sorry. To be honest, I just leveled up from a recruit last week and I'm stressed all the time that I‘ll do something wrong so we’re in this together if it comforts you in any way"

"Actually, it does"

"Is that also the reason why this wounded guy with a cool haircut is sad?"

"What? Lukier? Yes, he was the old captain's best friend so he didn’t take it very well. By the way, Lukier was usually that nice guy you can always talk to about your problems and now he’s the one having problems but I don’t know if he wants to talk about it."

"Ah. But well, you've probably already suffered the loss of teammates, that's what happens in this job. He’ll be back to normal eventually, but right now you can come talk to me about your problems if you want, not to bring down the depressed guy even more."

"Oh, thanks" said Rigel to Lawenda and thought it was nice of her. And then Crow came with crutches because she had no leg and Lawenda, after looking at Crow, decided it was better to go and leave the captains to talk alone.

"My condolences," said Crow and Rigel didn't answer because he didn't really know how. He looked down at the ground and began to think about the answer, and then Crow spoke again

“If you hadn't come to the rescue, I would have died instead of Biel. Me and Lime. I’m sorry it had to be like that, but I owe you a lot and if you need anything, you can always call. I mean, when they assign me new members because all my people dropped like flies once again."

“Thanks" Rigel said in a sad tone and he also saw that Crow was also sad and everyone was sad because Captain wasn’t some random guy in a red shirt. And Crow was twice as sad because last time she was a bit rude when Captain wanted to talk and when he came to talk, he died and finally she didn't find out what he wanted. Then Melisanda came, not to Rigel, but to Crow, because while she was already at their base, Melisanda decided to contact the headquarters and help Crow choose a new team and through the new system she had a choice of people that she could assign to herself and that's all cool because you can check the stats of people and choose the best ones. Anyway, Crow chose her people and ordered a metal leg as well, and then her new pilot flew in to take her and Lime to their base.

Until the end of the day the whole team was sad because everyone, including Melisanda, felt bad that Captain was dead and Rigel felt awkward moving to the captain's room but on the other hand it was a very comfortable room and normally he would be happy if his friend wasn't dead. Anyway, the next day Melisanda woke Rigel up as she used to wake Captain sometimes and for Rigel it was awkward because he didn’t expect her to walk into his room without asking when he was asleep and talk to him when he was lying in bed.

"Um.. hello new captain, there are new available quests"

"Uh... that's... good?" Rigel said half-questioning, because not only was he sleepy, he was never really interested in the things the captain was doing and he didn't know what to answer.

"Would you like to see the available missions?" Melisanda asked after a moment of silence.

"Well umm... yes, but right now? Like, at this moment? " asked Rigel who was still in bed.

"Yeah"

"Then why don't you get out and let me get dressed or something?" Rigel said, a bit embarrassed. It seemed a bit out of character because following his classic behavior he would say some pick-up lines, but in this situation he didn’t feel like flirting, and certainly not with Melisanda. He was now beginning to wonder how Captain managed to put up with her since she came to live with them instead of on the aircraft carrier. And when he thought about Melisanda and the carrier, he started to think about why Melisanda didn’t return to the carrier but still lived with them, but he assumed that it was because of the new system or something and he didn't want to ask about it. As he got dressed, Melisanda and the rest of the team were waiting for him in the living room, except Lukier who was not only wounded but also depressed and wasn't fit for missions in such a state.

"Okay, new captain, there are three missions around our region."

"Alright, give them to me" said Rigel, pretending to know what he was doing

"The first order is a monster from the depths of a cave labyrinth that kidnaps individuals from the outskirts of the city"

"Oh noooo no, we're not going to the cave, I'm sick of caves, maybe let's see the other ones?"

"Okay, new captain, the second one is about some rat mutant that lives in the sewage under the city center-"

"Ew, even worse. The sewer is one tier lower than the cave. Like a cave filled with feces, spoiled food, and dead fish of children who can’t care for animals they got for christmas, the sewer is out of the question."

"Biel wouldn't be so picky..." commented Frezja

"Okay, but I don't know exactly how to captain yet, the first mission under my command should be simple and relaxing so I won’t get demotivated if something goes wrong, okay? Melisanda, read the description of the third one."

"Umm, the third one is probably some bug in the system"

"Come on, what is it?"

"Some old man called to help him catch a mole in his vegetable garden"

"Oh!" Rigel exclaimed

“You can’t be serious” Tawny commented this time

"I think this is a perfect warm-up. A small creature, little work, little chance of failing. This is what we should do today."

"Damn, we're not trained to catch beasts to help a grandpa catch a little pest, he could adopt a cat to do such things" Frezja said again.

”What’s the problem? We do catch beasts! It’s just a smaller one this time. Look, it's difficult for me too, no one has mentally prepared me to become a captain in such a short time. Melisanda, tell the grandpa that we are going to help him"

"Yes, new captain" said Melisanda

"So um... Tawny? Fly us to the site." said Rigel

"All of us? to catch one mole?"

"Yeah. Why not?"

"New captain, may I cut in?" Melisanda said and Rigel looked at her questioningly "Since you have two flying vehicles and one of the two people who knew how to pilot them is not with us anymore then I think it would be a good idea to train someone to become a new backup pilot" Rigel he didn't even have time to think or answer when Tanager spoke up.

"Ooh me please! Pick me! It’s my fourth dream to learn to drive a vehicle!"

"Okay" said Rigel, who didn’t even want to ask what the other three dreams were.

"Melisanda, sign him up for flying classes or something, I don't know how to schedule training for a specific person."

"Okay, I can take care of it" and she took care of signing Tanager up for driving school and it turned out that there was an option to hire an instructor from the headquarters, but you had to pay for it with the team’s money, or you could also use someone with the rank of a pilot to teach the person how to fly and then, after the training is over, Tanager would just have to take the test and a license immediately and it was a cheaper option, so Rigel chose it, and for the equivalent of the course fee he bought an anime body pillow, silk bedding and a garden sprinkler because it was on a -60% sale, so why not. Tawny didn't like it that he had to teach the stupidest guy on the team to pilot the ship without his consent, but Tanager was obviously very happy that he would be able to spend more time with his best friend, and Tawny would feel bad for saying no. Not like he had any choice.

The team went on a mission to catch the mole, but Frezja stayed at the base to monitor how Lukier was doing. And when they were there, they didn’t catch the mole because who the hell knows how to catch a mole like that. In the end, they really resolved the situation the way Frezja previously suggested. Tawny told the grandpa to adopt a cat and after two days the cat caught the mole from the garden and 4 mice, 1 rat, 3 and half a bird and some large insect and the grandpa was so pleased with the cat's work that he decided to tip the team for such generous advice and it was nice but then again, this mission was comparable to completing a quest to collect 10 carrots when you’re level 60 and you should be fighting the boss. When they came back, Rigel was actually happy with the job and Lawenda was too.

"Well done, Captain, thanks to you we not only got a tip, we also did a good deed" Lawenda complimented rigel

”A good deed we could do by killing some monster that eats people. The tip was nice, but we get enough money and 100 coins one way or the other doesn’t make much difference to us” Tawny said, a bit disappointed because it was kind of a disgrace to take a mission that gives little experience and looks like a joke.

"Don’t be so hard on him, when he figures out the captain stuff we’ll be taking more advanced assignments. You have to start slowly when you’re not feeling comfortable with doing something” Lawenda defended Rigel "Thanks Lawenda, finally someone on this team is on my side." Rigel said and he was starting to like Lawenda because she was the only girl who was nice to him on the same level as Lukier and even more, but he decided that this time he would try to level up their friendship first before flirting not to spoil the chance to use the advice Lukier gave him before he became depressed.