A.N. : Well, this chapter didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted it to. Hopefully the next one will be better.

I forgot to mention. If there's any character you'd like to see appear, I'm more than happy to take suggestions.

Anyway, enjoy.

"T, O, Z."

"Good, now the next row."

I squinted until my eyes were almost closed, but I couldn't make out the letters. "Uh... L, T, F, E?"

"And the next?"

I was dumbfounded. "I'm sorry, I can't make it out."

"Got it." The government eye doctor wrote a few more things on his clipboard. "Okay then. We'll put you through the physical test after your pneumonia's gone, which should be by next week." he said as I jumped off the chair and grabbed my duffel bag full of free stuff. "Now, if you'll come with me, we'll determine the strength of your new glasses."

"Wait, what?" I stared at him. "I'm doing just fine without them, right?"

"Well, judging from the results from the test you just failed, no. According to law, if you're going to be in the Kaiju program or the military, if your vision needs correction then you are required to do so." He put aside his clipboard and smiled. "If you'll come this way, we'll start the the test."

I rolled my eyes and followed him. The whole thing went quicker than expected though – I stared into some machine while it scanned my eyes, and then spat out a fresh pair of thick-framed glasses. I was told later that they were built to not only help me see, but to protect my eyes as well. I still thought they looked awful.

After that, I went downstairs and saw the car that would take me to my new home. It was a nondescript sedan, in snow white. Walnut was leaning up against the hood, waiting for me to hop in the back. I threw my bag back there instead and sat in the passenger seat, noticing the way she blew a lock of hair out of her face as she took her place behind the wheel. "Nice girl-repellent." she said as she started to drive.

"Shut up." I growled as I looked out the window, looking at the colorful population. We soon stopped at an intersection, where there was a small cafe. There were girls serving people in big, fluffy, maid uniforms. One girl caught my eye, one with little bat wings poking out of the back of her uniform, and ears sprouting from the top of her head. Walnut caught me looking. "She's not one of you, if you're wondering. If I recall correctly, she was brought here about a year ago. Supposedly, where she's from, there were these guys designing babies with animal DNA, and every rich idiot wanted a fancy little kid, so their little snowflakes could be special no matter what." She paused as the light turned green again. "It's not just monsters they're bringing in, you know... those people who grabbed you. They're bringing in all sorts of people. They brought in an innocent little girl with your batch. She's only two years old."

My grip tightened on my arm rest. I had a feeling I knew that little girl.

"But anyway, you'll pretty much be waiting for the dispatcher to call our squad out. You don't have to wear the glasses when you're off duty, but if you show up to training without them I'm going to make that prison look like paradise." She gave me a look that meant she was as serious as a heart attack.

"I was told what I'd be doing before they let me change out of my jumpsuit." I drawled while starting to fiddle with my hair. "They didn't tell me the bit about the glasses, though."

"Of course they didn't." she hissed. We sat in silence for a while.

"Hey, Walnut."

Her eyebrow shot up. "Hmm?"

"Is that really your name?"

"Yup. It's the name you get when you let a four-year-old name a kid."

"A four-year-old? Are you kidding?"

"They held a stupid lottery for all the state-fostered kids to get a chance to name a baby. The one who named me was a little girl who thought she was gonna get to raise me." She smiled wistfully. "At least I got a good self-esteem out of the deal."

We didn't really say much for the rest of the ride there. There wasn't really much left to talk about. When we arrived, Walnut went up to the front desk and gave the woman sitting there a folder. The desk lady looked it over, smiled and made her way around the desk. "Right this way, sir." she said in a light, airy voice. She led me to the elevator, and pressed the button for 10. I was a bit surprised, since the building didn't seem that tall. "You'll be living on the A side of the building. Do try to remember that, because it's way more convenient to take the A side lifts then having to walk all the way around from the B side. This whole place is ring-shaped, and there's a outdoors recreational area in the middle. There's a parking garage underneath." I nodded, knowing that I'd probably never use either of those things.

That's when I noticed her brushing her fingers over my arm. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you think you're doing?"

"Your skin is so soft... like they always are when they first get turned... like a newborn." She smiled and kept doing it, pausing her hands over the occasional patch of scales.

I slapped her hand away. "No! Stop it." When I saw how shocked she looked, I added, "If you want to touch other people's skin, go be a massage therapist instead of... whatever it is you do."

She frowned dejectedly, and after the elevator let us off she silently led me to my room and handed me my key. I rolled my eyes as she left, getting the feeling that I'd be doing that a lot around humans, then looked at the brassy letters on my door. A113. The same room number as the classroom I'd taken my first steps to being a scarer in. I put my key in the lock and opened the door. "Hello? Anyone home?"

A woman with shoulder-length indigo hair walked out of a side room. Her eyes looked me over, and her lips were set in a slight frown, despite her obvious overbite. "You must be Randall." she said as I set down my bag.

"Yup. That's me." I noticed her eyeballing my bag. "Should I put that somewhere else?"

"Yeah. Your room's the one in the middle, when you go through that door..." She pointed at it, and I nodded and dragged the bag to my new room and simply pushed it through the door, figuring I'd unpack it later. I then wandered back out, and glanced around. "So, are you going to show me around the place?"

I watched her roll her eyes. Apparently there was an epidemic of doing that today. "The kitchen's over there -" she pointed to the room she'd come out of - "and the bathroom's over there." she said as she pointed to a door on the opposite side. "As you can see, we have a nice couch and TV..." she said as she motioned to the furniture that sat in the living room. It looked like it had been bought from some cheap furniture store. "Me and the Perrys were talking about maybe getting a side table, and a few chairs."

"Oh, yeah, that would be nice. I mean, that couch doesn't look like it's got room for four people, and I don't think someone wants to sit on the floor." I sighed and sat on the couch, feeling it barely sink beneath me, then looked at her curiously. "Hey... by chance, did you go to Monsters U? Because your name sounds kind of familiar."

"Yeah, I did, and the Perrys did too." Claire said as she sat on the other side. "They're out getting groceries right now." She sighed. "And I definitely remember what you did. You were all over the news for a good month, at least."

"Let me guess. It was the Waternoose thing." I said as I took my glasses off and set them on the arm of the couch.

"Yup. You would have thought he was making a bomb that would blow up the world, with the amount of coverage he was getting." She rubbed her forehead. "A huge thing was whether you and that Fungus guy were manipulated into helping him."

I thought back to when Waternoose had asked me to help him. The idea was just so tantalizing – I'd be on top, way beyond Sullivan. Nobody could tell me I was second best! "I guess you can say I was. He knew what I wanted, and what he wanted me to do... that was a way to get it."

Claire raised her eyebrow. "And what did you want?"

"I... I don't want to talk about it."

At that point, someone knocked on the door. Claire got up and went to go answer it. "Oh, hi Ickis." she said. My nose caught scent of an awful smell, and I turned to look at the door. There was a kid there, with two, bright red ears sticking out from his messy hair. He looked past Claire and his purplish lips split into a huge grin, revealing his tiny fangs. His bright yellow eyes seemed to glow from his tan skin, and he ran over and hugged me. "You're him! The second-best scarer from your world!"

I wheezed, then coughed a little. The stench had become unbearable. "Yeah. That's... uh... that's me." I said as I awkwardly patted his back, then glanced at Claire, who just shrugged.

He let go and clasped my hand so tightly it felt like my bones would snap in half. "Goodness, it is such an honor to meet you! I saw some videos of your work a week ago, and I've got to say, it's some of the best I've ever seen! When you did that thing where you ran around that kid's room while you were invisible and tricked him into thinking his toys were possessed, and then jumped out at him, my friends and I were speechless!" He took a few breaths, then shook my hand. "I'm Ickis!"

"It's... uh... nice to meet you." Even if I was a bit weirded out by him, it made me feel a little better knowing that someone didn't focus on the Waternoose incident when they thought about me.

Ickis produced a high-pitched giggle and dropped my hand. "It's so cool that I'm living across from you! My friends are going to be so jealous!"

All of a sudden, we had another visitor. "Claire!" He bellowed and then scooped her up. I recognized this guy, though, with his bright red beak. "I'm so glad to see you're somewhere safe!" He set her down again. "So... about your job... I've been talking to the higher ups, it's okay for you to... to take a leave of absence if you feel you can't perform to your highest ability."

Claire nodded. "I figured they'd do that. Thanks for letting me know, Brock."

I turned my attention from them as they started to converse, and went to my room to unpack. Ickis followed me, kind of like a lost puppy. It started to get hard for me to breathe, so I sat down on my new bed and waited for it to get better. As I did so, I glanced around, taking in the cheap-looking furniture. There was a simple closet, a bedside table, and a desk. Most of the stuff in my bag were clothes, so I opened the closet to find a few changes of bedsheets sitting in the bottom. I then turned to Ickis and checked his hands to make sure they weren't filthy. "Okay, kid, you want to help me get all my clothes in here?"

Ickis clasped his hands together, and his face lit up. "Of course!" I smiled and showed him what went where, and the whole thing took only a couple of minutes with his help. "Oh... I think you might want to wear these." He tossed a pair of dog-tags into, and I saw my name etched on both of them, right after the word Recruit. "I mean, I don't know if you have to wear them off duty, or..."

"I know I need to present them to get into the training area." I said as I put them on. They jingled slightly, and I ran my fingers over them, feeling the little bumps that told everything about me, from my birthday to my blood type. I then reached down and pulled out an alarm clock. "Come on, let's get the rest of this stuff set up. And, if you could get my glasses from the living room, that would be great."

He nodded and ran out to get them. As he did, I heard the door open and close again, and Ickis soon came back. "The Perrys are here, and they need help getting the groceries unpacked, but I guess you could finish with your stuff first."

"That's what I'm gonna do." I said as I put the glasses on my bedside table, then tried to set my alarm clock. After a few, frustrated tries, I finally managed to cajole the stubborn thing to show the correct time and to wake me up at a certain time. After I confirmed to myself that it was indeed working, I went out to the kitchen and saw that all the groceries had been put away. "Sorry about that, you guys."

"Oh, it's no problem." A new voice said. It came from one half of a pair of conjoined twins. He was the shorter of the pair, and his short brown hair stuck up a little. He smiled, but it seemed a little forced. "I'm Terri with an I, and he's Terry with a Y." His brother looked at me and smiled too. His hair was a bit longer.

"I assume you know who I am, since I've got a reputation." I said, then coughed a little bit. "So, I guess now's as good as ever to tell you guys my schedule. I'll pretty much be gone all day on the weekdays, but I get to rest on the weekends."

"Dude, you are gonna be so sore." Brock said while heading for the door. "You're definitely going to want to invest in muscle rub." He turned to Claire and smiled. "I'll see you around."

"You know, I should get going too, since I've got some classes I need to go to." Ickis said as he joined Brock. "I'll be back around one. In the morning." They both headed out the door, as I turned to my roommates and stared at them. "That Ickis kid... the whole way his society works is different, isn't it?"

"You bet." Terry said as he went to stand up, but failed because Terri hadn't moved his leg as well. After a few glances they were up on their feet. "For one thing, they live in the human's world."

"And second of all, they literally live off of screams."Terri said as he exchanged a few more glances with his brother. "Apparently there's this huge pool, and the more they make people scream, the more the pool gets filled, and that's where all the monster's life force comes from. Or something. Now, Terry, where do you want to go?"

"The kitchen."

"Why?"

"I'm thirsty."

"Okay, fine, let's go get a drink." The two awkwardly toddled towards the kitchen.

"Speaking of life force, they're incredibly long-lived." Claire said while turning on the news. "Ickis's dad is at least two hundred years old."

I whistled in amazement as I went to sit on the couch next to her. "Two hundred? I'll bet he's seen a lot of stuff."

"At least six major wars, and I think he accidentally participated in the birth of a nation, from what the kid's been saying." she said as she dropped the remote between us. "Oh, hey, look at this Aku guy." I looked up to see a big, shadowy, horned figure absolutely demolishing a city. "That's what you signed on for, huh?"

I groaned. "Oh, man, I'm gonna get squashed the first day, aren't I?"

Claire smiled viciously. "Nah, I have a feeling Aku here would be a bit more creative. He delights in misery, or something like that." After seeing the horrified expression on my face, she sighed. "Look, I wouldn't worry about him. He's on the other side of the planet, and I'm assuming they'll have you go after something more local."

"I sure hope so." I said as I watched Aku turn to a random man and snatch him up, gleefully pulling him apart. "I mean, this guy looks like he means... business."

"Ugh. Yeah." She grimaced as she turned the channel to some cartoon. "You know, the interesting thing about TV here... apart from the news, you really can't tell what you're gonna get." she said as she flipped it a couple more times. "I tried it yesterday. None of them were what the guide said they were."

"You think maybe you got the wrong guide?" I asked, then coughed a little and reached for the tissue box.

"Maybe, but I'm not gonna sit around all day trying to figure out what's on each channel." She muttered while pushing it closer to my hand.

"I'd do it." I said as I pulled the box into my lap. Claire looked surprised, and chuckled a little. "No, seriously. It's not like I have anything else to do while I get better. They're not going to put me through training until I take this test to see what I'm good at, and I need to be in good health for that."

She shook her head. "Knock yourself out, I guess." I happily grabbed a pen and the guide, then settled in to get to work.