Monster tricks 6 (crash course in saying hi)

"I'm afraid I still don't see the appeal"

"I know it sounds stupid" Rat replied as he got the TV and DVD player in her apartment working, the exchange had apparently provided one of both for each of the eventual resident's of the complex (kind of dated tech but hey, not like they have money for a million Disney plus subscriptions) and apparently hadn't gotten round to setting them up yet.

"But I guarantee it will make you bust your gut with laughter, it's that good".

Elmia smiled a bit at her friend's excitement as she looked down at the stack of dvd's in her hands. Since she and Tana had been shown around town two weeks ago (a day that had ended with Josh chasing a still laughing Spike around the parking lot for five minutes) at least one of the three humans would come by to chat or skate some area of the complex before more liminals arrived.

"But it's just people deliberately getting hurt?"

"that's the whole point of Jackass, at least watch the bit with the swimming pool and bungee cord, it still makes me crack up".

"Maybe, but not today" Elmia offered, sorting through more of the various movies and shows Rat had brought with him. To be honest, she was mostly still getting used to the idea of spending so much time around a man who she wasn't related to (granted their was also the first of her now weekly check in's with agent Whitman but that was more of a professional interaction in spite of their familiarity) so when Rat offered to come over to get her TV working and bring something to watch, she was caught off guard.

"So, what's this one about?" she asked as she held up one of the cases.

"Oh, Road To El Dorado. Two conmen find their way to an ancient civilization and get mistaken for gods"

"I see" Elmia replied as she turned the cover, facing the two smiling men on the front. "interesting".

"anyway" Rat continued as he grabbed the nearby controller and pointed it at the screen, "This should do the trick"

With a click the TV lit up, its pixels forming the manufactures logo.

"Thank you again for doing this" Elmia stated as she wheeled her chair up next to her companion.

"don't sweat it, you can borrow those DVD's if you like".

"really"

"sure" he said as he grabbed his Jacket, "I'll grab the one's you've finished with at the end of the week. Anyway, I gotta go get some stuff for my grandma, want me to run you through how anything works again?"

"No, I should be fine. Have a nice day Rat"

"You too" he replied as he stepped out the door, leaving her alone in her apartment.

"So, which of these should I watch first" she thought to herself as she looked at the various plastic covers in front of her. Her eyes panning over the varied images featured on each of them (if nothing else, she had to commend Rat for how multifaceted his taste in entertainment was).

A sudden knock on the door broke her focus, she quickly put the stack of films down and rolled to the front door.

"Yes?" she asked.

"It's me miss Elmia" a familiar voice responded.

"Brian" she exclaimed as swung the door open.

With a smile agent Whitman entered, noticing the TV turned on.

"Oh, the staff finally set up your TV?"

"No actually, my friend Rat did"

"Hmmm" Whitman hummed to himself as he sat down. Elmia had mentioned last week she had managed to meet some of the locals, a fact she was practically singing about.

"Oh, and he lent me some DVD's as well" she added, positioning herself across from him and gesturing to the various movies laid out on her coffee table.

"Seems like a generous guy" Whitman responded absentmindedly as he picked up the copy of Naked Gun and chuckled when some of the film's jokes came to mind.

"Would you like to meet them?"

This actually caught him off guard, on the one hand he felt like he should maintain a level of professionalism, even if he was still essentially on the bottom of the exchange's agent itinerary but on the other, he couldn't deny he was growing to care about Elmia personally and his big brother mentality was starting to want to check if these new friends were good people or not.

"I'm sure I'll run into them sooner or later"

"wonderful" she responded, "so shall we start back we're we left off last week"

"Sounds good" said Whitman as he opened up his notebook, "so how have things been since then".


Rat sped across the streets on his board, a small bag of groceries tucked neatly into the crook of his elbow and the upbeat rhythm coming from his ear bud's making his head gently nod along.

"Wonder if Elmia would like these guys" he thought to himself as the opening rift for Fermented and Flailing by NOFX started up. "Eh, anything's possible"

As he pulled to a stop at the traffic light's and waited for the cars to go bye, a telltale chirp from his phone interrupted the song and got his attention. He quickly slipped it out of his pocket and looked to see a pair of messages from Josh.

"Are you free?" and "How fast can you get union street?".

Normally in these situations, Rat would suck it up, tell his friend it would take him nearly an hour to get home and back and they should just go on without him, then head home with the shopping.

But normally, it didn't involve union street.

"Give me ten minutes" he quickly typed and, seeing the light turn green, head west to one of the best spots in town for his little trio of buddies.


After last week's fiasco and some introductions between him and Tana, Josh had been looking for some good fortune. It wasn't that he was that ticked off about his summer job or Spike's impromptu visit (he got her back two days later via some itching powder he bought and access to her favourite pair of boots) but it just felt like something was off, like he hadn't had anything exciting happen in a while.

So, when he found out that they we're finally wrapping up construction nearby Union Street and there was going to be way less people driving down it, it meant one thing.

Hill bomb.

Looking up from his phone he saw Rat ridding up to him.

"So, we're doing this?" he asked.

"Yup" he replied "we've probably got half an hour before the traffic get's bad enough for people to try cutting through here. Also, what's with the paper bag?"

"Food run, gran asked me to grab eggs and juice"

"Gotcha. So, I do one bomb while you watch our stuff, you do one and so on until traffic show's up".

"sound's good" Rat responded as he sat down on the curb next to their bags.

"Man, I've needed this" Josh muttered to himself as he looked down the long steep incline that was union street. "Time to have some fun".


"This is incredibly uncomfortable"

If their was any statement in Fyri's mind that would best fit how she and everyone else seated next to her in the back of this car it would be that this is incredibly uncomfortable.

It would be bad enough if it was just her considering the base of her tail was squashed against the back seat but she was also stuck between this oversized and overly shaggy werewolf who had somehow managed to fall asleep and was snoring as well as some sort of mantis girl who kept tapping her foot. Finally, the cherry atop this awkward sundae was the fact for safety reasons, she had to wear these stupid foil caps over her horns and tail.

She's a salamander, fire come's with the species.

Another loud growl emerged from the slumbering form next to her, causing her to groan in annoyance. They we're moving ten new people into this housing complex, herself included and as the only three people who had body types that could "comfortably" fit in a standard car, they had to share a ride together.

She would argue differently.

"Are we nearing it yet" the Mantis girl asked absentmindedly.

"we'll be there soon miss"

The young mantis person look's down, muttering something to herself. "it's Mx".

"Sorry did you say something?" the driver asked innocently.

The mantis stuttered for a bit in response before Fyri sighed and answered for her.

"She said it's Mx, whatever that means"

"Oh shit" the agent replied, "my bad, I forgot the file's mentioned you're non binary"

"it's okay"

"Non what" Fyri asked in confusion.

"Non binary" a sleepy voice next to her responded. Quickly Fyri turned to see the werewolf smiling at her. "Means they don't identify as male or female"

"thanks'" she replied awkwardly.

"No problem" he said, still with the same half-asleep look in his eyes. "I'm sully".

"Fyri Al-Fayed"

"Nane" the mantis quickly replied

He then looked across to them, "sorry if I was overstepping my boundries their bud"

"Huh, how"

"Because, it's like your gender identity and stuff, I don't wanna be all mansplaney, you know".

Nane giggled a bit at that. "You weren't, don't worry. I'm still kind of figuring this stuff out myself"

"Heh, cool"

By this point, Fyri was content to let them talk between themselves. She leaned back against the head rest, letting the increasingly cheery conversation going on at either side of her continue. She had to admit, they were starting to pique her interest.

Sully was big, with messy silver hair and fur that obscured his eyes and hung of his head in a wavy pattern. He was also well built and would tower over her and her brothers but their was something inherently gentle about the way he carried himself, if equally lazy and unresponsive.

Nane was the opposite, short and compact, darker skin mixed with green chitinous plating. The scythes on the ends of her arms instead of hands, covered in some sort of protective sheathes and they seemed anxious about everything even with Sully's coaxing.

This kept up until something suddenly went thud against the side of the car

"Whoa, what was that?" Sully asked, somehow keeping the same sleepy tone.

"Please stay calm" the agent responded, "remain inside while I investigate"

"Yeah right" Fyri muttered to herself as she reached for one of the door handles, slipping out the opposite side of the car.

"Should we do stop her?" Nane asked.

"Eh, she's probably cool."


One good hill bomb, that's all josh wanted, all he asked for. One good shot of old school adrenaline from flying down one of his favourite spots as fast as he could. Instead, he was huddled over next to the car he just went shoulder first into.

Fuck, that hurt.

"Are you okay sir?"

Josh looked up to see someone in a black suit and sunglasses peering down at him. A sight that may have caused some warning signs to start flashing in his head.

"Please tell me this is a thing for the exchange and I haven't just rammed into someone from the CIA or the mob".

"Yes, we're with the exchange" the man said with a chuckle. "Still haven't answered my question".

"Yeah, I'm fine" Josh replied as he sat up, rubbing his shoulder. "Sore but fine".

"what's your name" a voice behind the suit asked, Josh looked back to see a fairly tall woman with dark ruby colored skin that was occasionally broken up by a smattering of golden scales across her cheeks and down her arms which ended in black clawed hands. Most noticeable however were the large golden horns and tail that protruded from her head and lower back that had what looked like metallic foil wrapped around the ends of them.

"Miss Al-Fayed" the agent said in shock. "I asked you to stay in the car"

"Well, I wanted to know what was going on and who had stopped us"

"Yeah, that was me" Josh answered as he got up. "Sorry about that"

"Well then why did you charge into our car" She continued, now marching up to Josh and pointing a finger in his chest.

"lay of would ya" josh argued, starting to loose his patience. "I was doing a hill bomb, you guys drove by, I crashed into you".

"don't do something you obviously don't know how to do"

If getting a lecture from someone after slamming into a car hadn't already put him in a bad mood, that comment definitely had.

"Hey, I don't need an earful from some loud mouth who doesn't know a thing about skateboarding and thinks tin foil makes a good accessory" he growled as he reached up and flicked one of her horns.

"What did you just say" Fyri asked as fury began to fill her body.

"You heard me"

"I will give you one chance to apologise"

"Or what"

"sir" the agent interjected. "I would advise you listen"

"Josh?"

The three turned their heads to see Rat making his way down the hill. Concern written all over his face.

"You okay man? I saw you slam into that car"

"Yeah, just dealing with tinfoil girl" Josh replied with a chuckle. His confidence suddenly shrinking as he noticed how uncomfortably hot the air around him had suddenly gotten.


"Well, that should be everything" Agent Whitman stated as he gathered his things, "I'll see you next week"

Elmia nodded with a smile as she wheeled over to get the door for him. "Looking forward to it Brian".

the sound of a knock at her door got their attention. Quickly, Elmia opened it to reveal a middle-aged man dressed similarly to agent Whitman.

"Oh, agent Smalls. What are you doing here"

"Hey Whitman, we got a situation. Some kid crashed into one of the transport vehicles carrying the new residents on his skateboard and then got into a argument with one of them"

"Excuse me" Elmia asked, visibly paling. "What did this person look like?"

"About 5ft 9, blue spikey hair and he was wearing a checkered hoody. Why do you ask"

Whitman sighed as he looked at a much more awkward Elmia.

"Guessing that sounds like one of your friends?"

"Would it help to say he hasn't been having the best time lately"