It'd been a solid three months since recruiting Alexandra. In that time, Smith had continuously gotten onto me to find the final member of my team. I hated that she chose to single ME out when my coworkers still hadn't finished either. Summer was around the corner too. One day in the food court when I went to dump my tray I noticed a dossier file inside the can. I got curious and took the file with me back to my office. Inside it logged a new strain of Slime, one that seemed to target injured and sick people specifically. So this was technically a search & capture mission… addressed to Smith, how did I not see that one coming?
"Well, if our supervisor won't do it, we may as well pick up her slack." I sighed, and mobilized the girls for a road trip.
It took us way out into the countryside. I could only wonder what a slime like this would be doing targeting the sick. All of the anime and manga I've seen and read put a lot of ideas in my head, but not one that could be a concrete reason. Once at the village, we had to ask around about it. According to the locals, the perp had been sighted around the nursing home numerous times. So we began our search there. Of course, everything seemed normal… until we checked the perimeter. Part of the fence had a weird jelly residue on it, which would indicate Slime presence. I had Terra rip open the fence so we could continue to follow the trail of the residue. We eventually arrived at a small save where a dark blue slime had taken an elderly man. Her body was quite gifted, and her slime hair was kept shoulder length with a single long antenna that was currently on the old man's forehead.
"You are diabetic, and currently have early stages of cancer in your lungs due to smoking when you were younger." the slime told the old man.
"Is that so…? Is there anything you can do?" the old man asked her.
"If you permitted me to do so… I could attempt surgery to fix it…" the slime replied.
"Can you really do that?" I asked startling the two.
"MON operatives… oh no…" the old man spoke before having a coughing fit.
"Answer me. Can you really cure it?" I asked again.
"Yes… if I had access to the inside of his lungs… I am a Nurse Slime after all… so it's kind of my specialty..." she answered.
"I'll see if I can't get a surgeon team out here from HQ. If you can do that, then I want you to help him." I told her.
"Can you do that?" Bolt asked.
"I'm sure Smith will have it handled." I replied.
I phoned HQ, and sure enough Smith was fully willing to have a surgeon team come out to help with the procedure. By evening they arrived, and helped the Nurse Slime get access to the infected areas. The real reason she needed help was that while she could rapidly seal any wound made including broken bones and can cure even the worst disease in minutes she had no means of actually making the necessary cuts to get inside. Luckily with the surgeon team there, she was able to successfully cure the old man's cancer. Then came the all-important part of why we came out here in the first place.
"A-Are you going to deport me back to Russia…?" the nurse slime asked me.
"I'd like to recruit you, actually." I told her.
"Recruit me?" she spoke blinking in disbelief.
"Yeah. We wouldn't have to worry about injuries if you were on our team. A medic is as important if not more so than someone who can cook." I explained to her.
"You mean… it isn't weird that I'm a walking pharmacy?" she asked nervously.
"Not at all. I'm Agent Satogami. These are my teammates. We'd be grateful to have you on our team." I answered her.
"I… I happen to leave a mess wherever I go, too… a-and my body sometimes sucks up loose rocks from the ground… funny considering my body is almost thicker than molasses because of all the medical compounds in my body." she sighed.
"I might have a solution to that. Ever heard of a scuba suit?" I suggested, and in roughly a half-hour we had her up to her neck in a pitch black scuba diving suit.
"This is a great solution!" she exclaimed looking herself over.
"So, your name is…?" I asked.
"Oh! My apologies. My name is Seras. I… escaped here on a fishing boat when I managed to escape the testing facility in Russia." she answered me.
"So, what do you say to becoming the final member of my team? We really could use medical expertise like yours." I offered while extending my hand.
"If you'll have me." Seras replied shaking my hand.
We took her back to HQ to get everything handled. Smith about took my ear off since she's technically supposed to be captured, but still commended me for seeing potential and acting upon it. She said I reminded her of herself using a horrible analogy of when she stacked Kimihito's charges on him, which made me feel really bad for the guy. After a good few hours of being bored to death with her reminiscing, we managed to get the paperwork finished. Since Seras has to wear the suit at all times so her feet and hands don't get everything covered in slime, we just gave her a MON vest along with a fanny pack of medical utensils so she can do surgery herself if need be along with her usual healing.
When she moved in we had to get her special plastic bedding so she wouldn't soak into her bed with her exposed head. To my surprise, Muri wasn't all that scared of Seras. I was glad to see Muri building up confidence in the safety of the house. She was more openly affectionate towards me too, going as far as referring to me as her older brother. Muri even keeps an eye on Bolt when she goes into the yard, and sometimes plays fetch with her. Terra looked pretty content with how Muri was behaving too.
"Muri seems happy." I mentioned to Terra.
"Happier than she's ever been. MON tried to separate us at first… they still had us Large Breeds blacklisted, you know? I busted her out of her old homestay and that's how we really became fugitives. We only escaped that first time because Demonic Fang began a shootout with MON letting us get away unseen." Terra told me with a saddened grin.
"That explains how registering her under me was so fast compared to you four at least. So what was her other homestay like?" I asked her.
"They were treating her like a delicate little flower who couldn't do anything without help. It was insulting how little they let her do things for herself. Muri's a very intelligent girl, despite her size. You aren't like that at all, and I'm grateful for it." Terra answered with a happy sigh.
"I'm ex-Demonic Fang… so who knows, I might have unwittingly helped you escape from them." I told her.
"If you did or didn't, it doesn't matter. What matters is that it was you who came for us looking to recruit me instead of capture us. She can only smile because it was you who came." Terra scoffed hitting my shoulder.
"I'm going to change things in MON… even if I end up turning on the people I once considered allies." I told her while clenching my fists.
"Sometimes you have to make tough calls like that. When the time comes, I'll have faith in you as our leader." Terra told me.
Two weeks passed and sure enough Smith told me to check on Kimihito once more. This time I decided to take the group with me. Once at the door it flung open and Kimihito leapt out into my arms followed by a loud crash inside. The dust settled and once again some of his charges had crashed down the stairs.
"Seras, see to them and make sure they aren't hurt." I ordered and with a nod she hurried in to the pile of extraspecies.
"Satogami-san… nice to see you…" Kimihito chuckled nervously.
"I guess you've gotten a sixth sense for when danger is coming at you, huh? They'd have landed right on top of you." I told him.
"Yeah… guess it happens so often I am developing skills for it." he chuckled.
"I've tended to their injuries. They'll be okay." Seras reported with a salute.
"Seras?" Suu asked in confusion.
"Suu?" Seras replied.
We gathered in the living room and learned that Suu also escaped from the facility. It seems that they planned to do horrid things to her and when she escaped she busted Suu out too but got separated at some point. It was kind of funny to see Papi slightly jealous of how much Seras got Suu to talk fluently. My report was a green-lit one, meaning nothing wrong to report, and Papi continued to give dagger eyes at Seras until we left.
When we got back to HQ the building was under attack. The assailants… were all Demonic Fang. I had no choice but to open fire on them using knockout rounds. I gave orders to my team without even thinking twice. I started giving the girls Demonic Fang tactics and to my surprise they seemed to understand what I meant by them perfectly. The extraspecies that charged me were met with my Demonic Fang martial arts techniques. Within the hour we managed to capture all of the attackers. I made sure to confiscate their cyanide pills, even if Bolt just thought I wanted to cop a feel on them, because I knew exactly how missions like this went. With no means of escaping, they were all imprisoned and soon interrogated. Smith came to me an hour later.
"Satogami-kun… you couldn't have come at a better time today." Smith sighed.
"I'm guessing that's why you sent us off, because you knew we'd have the upper hand since I'm an expert on Demonic Fang tactics." I told her.
"I'll be honest, I just wanted to catch up on paperwork so the higher ups would stop nagging me. It just happened to play to our advantage. Now, as for the prisoners… we can't get anything out of them." Smith admitted bowing to me.
"Let me guess, you want me to see if I can't get something useful?" I asked.
"Please!" Smith pleaded.
"Okay… but you aren't allowed to dispute how I do things." I told her.
"Show a little restraint?" she asked.
"In the Demonic Fang, you never show mercy." I told, and she reluctantly agreed to my conditions.
They got me the tools I asked for, and to the interrogation room I went with Seras accompanying me to heal the injuries I was about to make on them. We entered the room and a Lizardfolk woman was cuffed to a chair. I tossed the chair away and then flipped the table over as Seras wheeled in the cart with all my tools on it.
"Ooh, flip the table more, bad cop…" she commented, and I slugged her right off the bat.
"Which commander ordered this?" I asked.
"Give me one reason I should tell you…" she snarked, and I hit her again.
"Tell me." I ordered.
"Screw yourself…" she growled
I looked through my many devices, and began to systematically run her through them. The one that made her crack was what the Demonic Fang calls the nutcracker, even if it's effective on both genders. She gave us the details of future attacks, but not the answer to the question I wanted to know. She did point us to the leader of the attack who would have that information though. So we had her taken back to her cell and brought in a Minotaur with long blue hair. I knew her… her name was Mercedes.
"Well knock me up… how ya been, Ryuji?" Mercedes chuckled.
"Better than you're looking. Who ordered this attack?" I asked.
"Why would I tell a turncoat like you?" she laughed and I touched her jaw.
"Mercedes. I can break you or you can tell me." I offered her.
"So you can deport us as fast as possible, right?" she chuckled.
"Oh we aren't deporting you. Why would I let them do that when you can give us an edge on those upcoming attacks?" I told her.
"You think we'd help MON?! They must have busted that head of yours when they brainwashed you!" Mercedes laughed.
"Cut the crap, Mercedes, we both know what the others will do if you're found." I told her, and her laugh stopped immediately.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Demonic Fang doesn't tolerate failure. You of all people should know that. Why do you think they give you cyanide pills? It's succeed or die. That ensures that people can't go turncoat. Fail your mission, and fail to die, their orders are to kill you on sight immediately assuming you squealed." I told her.
"It's better than being a lapdog to them…" Mercedes growled.
"I'm not a lapdog… I'm here to make changes from the inside. I'm pretty sure that Shoh attempted to tell you all this." I told her.
"Oh? What's changed then…?" Mercedes scoffed.
"I haven't been here long enough for long term changes to occur. I will make things better for extraspecies though. It's only being here that I can say I don't have to worry about being stabbed in the back if I screw up." I told her while grabbing hold of her right horn.
"Gonna rough me up if I don't cooperate, huh? Good luck, because we both know I'm a masochist…" she chuckled.
"Yeah, but I know you hate being filthy too. Seras, expose your hand." I ordered.
"Why?" Seras asked.
"You're the perfect tool to make her give in. Start covering her in your slime." I ordered, and I felt Mercedes jerk a bit as I held her horn tighter.
I watched her face as Seras began nervously exposing Merc's body to run her exposed hand on her. Merc was squeaking trying to get away but to no avail. She really can't stand being dirty, especially if she has no ready access to a shower. After five minutes of petting Merc finally screamed to stop.
"It was Kurt, okay?! Kurt ordered it! He got sick of the way the others were doing things, killed them, and then seized control of the Demonic Fang! He's the sole leader now and refuses to appoint any other leaders! Just please, wash me off! Wash me off, wash me off right now!" Mercedes begged flailing in the chair.
I had her taken to the showers to be washed, and then I reported to Smith to give her the information to send the top brass. She was really disappointed in me for my methods, but they got the answers they were looking for. I was inevitably called into the top brass's meeting room to be questioned about my methods. In that room I felt a disturbance in the force, because there were politicians along with the top brass.
"Agent Ryuuji Satogami. Would you care to explain your actions in that room?" one of the suits asked me while footage of me torturing the Lizardfolk girl played on a projector.
"She was uncooperative, as was to be expected of a Demonic Fang member. I would know the training, as I am a former member, which I'm sure you all know since you're the ones who hired me. So needless to say I did not use kid gloves with her and gave her the full extent of my ferocity." I explained to them.
"Our interspecies exchange bill forbids touching them." another suit scolded me.
"That in-lies the problem, sir. By alienating our own abilities to act in situations that call for it, it allows organizations such as the Demonic Fang to have the upper hand. They could care less about that bill's rules. If a human has to beat an extraspecies to get answers they'll do it without a second thought. Why do we disregard it? It's because we believe them to be equal to us and not above nor below. They can never be equal to us if we give them special treatment. I agree with facilities to accommodate them, but to have facilities expressly for them is segregation. The states went through that phase and look where they are now. I suggest we skip that so we don't have those same problems. I believe we'll be better off that way leaping straight to integration." I lectured them.
"Satogami-san… are you saying we went about it all wrong?" the only woman suit of the group asked.
"That's exactly what I'm saying." I answered her.
"How would you rewrite the bill then?" she asked.
"There's a lot about the exchange bill I agree with, but a lot that I don't. Forcing our culture so they abandon their own is wrong, in most cases. First off, I'd get rid of that stupid no-touching clause because it is currently being abused profusely. Secondly, I'd do away with the no love clause. Seriously, that one is pure stupidity, it's same-sex marriage all over again. There's no reason to regulate it nor a reason to have a separate classification of marriage in the first place. People are going to love who they please, deal with it. If I want to marry and sleep with an Arachne, that's my business. If I want to sleep with a Dragonewt, that's my business. Furthermore, the way you're blacklisting species because they become violent… it's because they don't want to lose their culture. Large Breed Arachne are territorial and short-tempered, sorry, that's just how they are, but Terra is an example of one who can be friendly." I lectured further, and one of the politicians slammed his fists on the table.
"How can you talk so frankly?! Do you not even realize that you could be fired for speaking this way?!" he roared at me.
"Oh… looks like someone didn't get the memo. I never wanted this job, in fact I can outright say I hate everyone in this room with a burning passion with no fear of repercussion that I don't already know can happen to me. I'm for equality across both specie and gender. If you don't think they're worthy of being equal… I'll punch you right in your politician shnoz." I told him with a smile killing his nerve immediately.
"Satogami-san… you've stepped far past your boundaries…" one of the brass members growled.
"Look at my face. Does it look like I care?" I scoffed at him.
"Satogami-san… I'll be taking your words right to the ones who can change it." the woman suit spoke.
"Y-You can't be serious?!" another of the brass asked in shock.
"His words are blunt, to-the-point, free of corruption, and are coming from someone who deals with extraspecies on a daily basis. If they won't listen to someone who knows first-hand what the bill means when interacting with extraspecies, then who will they listen to?" the woman told them with a smile.
"T-Then you mean to tell me he'll go without punishment?!" another of the politicians asked.
"That's exactly what I'm telling you. In fact, he deserves to be praised for his work ethic. He's continuously praised for helping extraspecies of coworkers without a second thought, and doesn't even flinch when he approaches even the strangest ones. He makes perfect eye contact and talks as if they were an actual person. For an ex-Demonic Fang member, he's pretty beloved by his coworkers." the woman answered him.
When I walked out of there, I held my head high. Someone actually got it, the way I think of extraspecies. The rest of the guys in the room were completely butt hurt about the decision to praise me. Bolt was really glad I wasn't punished. The whole team was waiting for me outside the meeting room. I thought about the woman's words, and looked around as we went to my office. To my surprise, my coworkers were smiling and waving at me. I really was having an effect on my coworkers.
The following day, Smith gave me the lecture of the century. She'd apparently heard from the top brass that I told them off. My only argument was that I was honest with my feelings. That's what happens when you ask for my honesty, I deliver no matter who you are. Sure enough we were interrupted by a member of the top brass. Smith stood at attention and yanked my arm making me salute to him too.
"What brings you here, sir?" Smith asked.
"I've… been asked by the government to choose an example of an extraspecies loving a human… on equal terms." he answered.
"Really? I know just the man." Smith told him shooting a wink at me as I said a silent prayer for Kimihito.
Sure enough she had me pick up Kimihito so he could give his opinion on his homestay charges to some officials. My team was also staked in charge of ensuring his safety. That led me to believe that the Demonic Fang intended to strike sooner than we anticipated. Without a doubt, especially if Kurt was now in charge, they'd try something to force their ideals into the meeting. Once the meeting began, of course a barrage of lead questions came at him from the politicians. Kimihito actually surprised me by avoiding the answers they were fishing for. Like me, he was brutally honest with how he felt. When it ended the room filled with applause, and I couldn't help but smile at the defeated looks of the fishers.
About a week passed, and abnormally the attack set for that day didn't happen. That gave me a cause for concern. I noticed teams were being sent on missions too. Smith came to my office one day and looked ghostly pale.
"Satogami-kun… Kimihito has been kidnapped by the Demonic Fang…" Smith told me.
"Where are they?" I asked.
"All we know is they want certain changes to the exchange bill change or else they'll end his life." Smith answered.
"I can think of several places… can you get me a rifle with above-average range?" I asked.
"The best rifle on the market today was designed to be used by Monoeye, why?" Smith asked.
"Kurt would have you believe otherwise, but I'm the best sniper in the Demonic Fang… well, when I was still part of their ranks I was." I answered.
"You can snipe?" Smith asked.
"Who do you think was shooting Tio when you captured me?" I answered.
"So you're that hotshot… well I'll be damned. Explains why you were blown almost to hell when Zombina got to you." Smith laughed.
They got me the rifle and then custom fitted my team with armored suits. We were preparing to go to one of several different locations. Kurt was smart, but at the same time was an egomaniac. I could use that to our advantage without a doubt. If he thinks he's untouchable, then I could easily put him in his place. It was time for Team 7 to move out.
End Chapter 3