markdown-everyday-life-with-raptors/chapters/part_02.md

# Part 2

A month ago, Owen Grady, a Lieutenant in the Navy, had received new orders from Captain Mark Grayson to be taken off ship and returned to the States. There, he was told about a top secret initiative that he’d only been made privy to that morning.
Monsters existed.
In fact, all around the world, in hidden islands and countries, were countless species of demi-humans. These extra species persons had lived in isolation for centuries, but were now being brought out of the shadows and into the limelight. Japan had been the first country to adopt an interspecies exchange bill, in which demi-humans and humans could attempt to live and work in harmony with each other. America was next…but America’s bill was somewhat different from the Japanese counterpart. The most glaring difference was that demi-humans could apply for United States citizenship. However, one aspect of the bill in America was the same in Japan: demi-human’s could not harm humans and humans could not harm demi-humans. The purpose of the exchange program was to push for interspecies cooperation and harmony. Violence or harm between the two would result in immediate deportation of the demi-human and possible incarceration of the human. So what happens if a demi-human commits a crime that humans can’t defuse?
The military had a solution.
In Japan, the Interspecies Exchange Program commissioned the M.O.N Squad, a team of demi-human special operatives who could defuse crimes and dangerous situations involving extra species persons. In America though, Commander Victor Hoskins commissioned the use of his own special operation squad. Four lizardmen, raptor variants. These four girls, known as the Raptor Squad, were sisters, and a perfect fighting force. However, they needed training by a professional…and Lieutenant Owen Grady had a long history of working well with new recruits in the Navy. Being a former K-9 Unit handler in the Los Angeles Police Department, and a trainer in the Navy, who better to train these four special operations raptors than him, right?

Anyone….anyone but him.

“This is going to be a disaster.” Owen mumbled to himself.
At first, things didn’t seem so bad. Dinner was coming along well, and it was pork chops, which Owen knew would at least make Delta happy, seeing as that was her favorite. The girls, other than Charlie, were all old enough to drink wine, so Owen had made sure that Charlie was given sparkling grape juice instead. And he’d prepared salad and broccoli to go with the food…and that would be the first major problem. Other than Blue, who ate what she was given without complaint, the girls had a strong resentment for anything other than meat. Charlie and Delta turned their noses up at anything green, and Echo, though silent, would just glare at food she wasn’t interested in.
And then there was the second problem. The girls had almost no table manners. Blue could handle herself decently enough, but as a rule, the girls ate like savage animals, using their hands to scarf down what they saw on the table and being rather noisy about it too. It’d never bothered Owen too much…after all, he’d seen far worse from young recruits onboard a ship. But for this inspections, the girls had to be on their best behavior…could they handle it?
“BLUE! FRONT AND CENTER!” Owen shouted. There was a clamor of movement and, sprinting in from the hallway came a fast object, halting just in front of Owen in the kitchen, who was still half focused on mixing the spices into the pork.
“YES SIR!” Blue cried. Owen turned towards her.
“Blue could yo-OH MY GOD!” Owen instantly covered his eyes as he saw that Blue was only half dressed with a towel around her waist. “WHY’RE YOU HALF NAKED?!”
“Y-you called me sir!”
“YOU COULD’VE COVERED YOUR TOP THOUGH! JESUS…”
“S-sorry, sir!” She quickly pulled up her towel to cover herself. It was better…but still very provocative. “Um…present and accounted for!”
“Good…um…damn what was it I was gonna…OH right!” Owen shook his head, recollecting his thoughts. “Tonight’s menu is pork chops, salad, and broccoli.” Blue stiffened a bit, but nodded.
“Sounds good!”
“I’m worried that the girls won’t eat their greens. Normally it’s not such a big deal, but tonight they NEED to be on their best behavior. Even if they don’t like it…I need them to try to eat everything on their plates.”
“I’ll issue the order sir.” Blue bowed.
“Good…and one more thing. You’re going to need to briefly instruct the girls on how to use better table manners. I know it’s not something you’re used to but…”
“No, I understand. I’ll teach them what I know.” Blue assured him. That’s not saying much; Owen thought to himself.
“Thanks, Blue. How’re the girls?”
“Charlie is cleaning up with Echo. Delta and I are both done showering and getting dressed.” Blue explained.
“Good…alright that’s all I needed.” Blue stood at attention and bowed again, turning to leave. As she ran off, Owen groaned and leaned against the counter in frustration.
“Oh God in heaven, please let this go over okay…”
“You do that often?” Owen spun around in surprise to see Delta leaning against the kitchen wall in the back. She was wearing her class A uniform, which was a black dress skirt under a khaki colored button down shirt. Ribbons of various colors and meanings adorned the left hand chest side of her uniform. Her name tag was resting on the right hand side, and she had a disgruntled look on her face…like she felt uncomfortable in it.
“Do what?”
“Pray.” She explained. Owen nodded and looked down at the skillet where the pork was cooking.
“Yeah, I do. Helps keep me calm.” Owen replied.
“…I guess that’s cool.” Delta shrugged.
“That may be the nicest thing you’ve said to me.” Owen laughed. Delta flushed and crossed her arms angrily.
“Whatever. I just came down cause I smelled porkchops.”
“Yeah. Just because we have company coming, doesn’t mean we can’t still do your favorite tonight. I promised we’d have porkchops tonight, didn’t I?”
“….Yes sir…” Delta grumbled. “You’re not poisoning it are you?” Owen groaned and turned to look at Delta.
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing sir…just a question.” She then turned on her heel and walked out of the kitchen. Owen rubbed his forehead, trying to relieve his stress.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get these girls.”
It would be another hour before the doorbell rang and, at last, the moment of truth arrived.

*Ding Dong*

“GIRLS! FRONT AND CENTER!” Owen shouted. The stomping of feet could be heard as all four girls sprinted downstairs to stand ready for attention. Owen walked to the door and opened it up to reveal a tall black man in a navy uniform, a captains insignia on his sleeve and a hat under his arm. He gave a brief nod to Owen and a friendly smile.
“Good evening, Captain Grayson.” Owen said, stepping aside to let the Captain inside.
“Thank you for letting me come on such short notice. I’m afraid I had some major schedule conflicts and wasn’t able to come earlier than this.”
“Well we plan to eat soon, if you’d like to join us.” Owen offered.
“I did hope…but didn’t want to propose.” He laughed. “Where are th-oh! My how impressive.” Owen turned and smiled to see all four girls, dressed in their class A uniforms and standing at a perfect attention for the Captain. Blue took a single step forward and saluted.
“SIR! ALL PRESENT AND ACCOUNTED FOR, SIR!” She then took a step back, rejoining her sisters. Captain Grayson saluted them in return.
“At ease girls…at ease. I see they’re no less disciplined than when I last left them.” Grayson chuckled.
“I work diligently with them every day.”
“Yes…we’ll need to discuss that after dinner. But first….I’m starving. Let’s get to that dinner table, shall we?” The girls seemed to light up at the thought, particularly Charlie, who looked so fidgety and anxious to get to the table, her tail wouldn’t stay still for half a moment. Twice Blue had to nudge her back into place, she was jittering so bad. Owen finally grinned and nodded.
“Go on. Get to the table!”
“YES!” Charlie launched herself to the dining room with Delta and Echo behind her. Blue stayed close to Owen as he followed after.
“Blue, did you instruct them like I asked?”
“As best as I could…whether or not it will stick is…debatable.”
“God help me…”

Owen tried not to watch…the image was just too painful. Blue was managing moderately well, though she had a bad habit of putting her elbows on the table, and leaning across the table to grab bread. Echo wasn’t too bad either, but she kept dropping food in her lap, as forks were not easy for her to handle. Frankly, she was more accustomed to just grabbing the food at eating it. Most of the girls had an aversion to utensils. It was Delta and Charlie though that made everything cringy. To Delta’s credit, she was making an attempt by putting her napkin in her lap (a feat even Blue had forgotten to do) but she was savage in her eating, ripping the pork with her teeth rather than cutting it with a knife. She would lift the entire slap of meat with her fork and rip it apart piece by piece. As for the salad, she all out rejected it until Blue growled at her from across the table. Now she was picking at it, but hardly eating it. Charlie, by far, was the worst. She didn’t seem to have retained anything as she scarfed down the pork. She was more than liberal with the gravy as she doused the pork in it and ripped it apart like a wolf bent on carnage. Blue was flushing from ear to ear at the appalling behavior.
“Captain Grayson, I am SO sorry…”
“Don’t be.” Grayson chuckled, though he too was having trouble observing the feast. “I’m not bothered.” Owen didn’t eat a bite…he was too ashamed.
After an hour, the girls finished and Owen snapped his fingers. They all jumped to their feet, standing at attention, Delta and Charlie had most of their food plastered on their face from their ravenous eating. Owen looked to Blue and nodded his head slowly.
“GIRLS! REPORT TO CLEAN UP! CHARLIE! ECHO! YOU’RE ON DISHES! DELTA, YOU’RE WITH ME ON TABLE TEAR DOWN! GO!” The girls jumped into high gear. Delta and Blue began breaking down the table; removing placemats and dishes and running them to the kitchen, Charlie and Echo grabbed dish rags and started tossing dirty plates and skillets in the sink to scrub them. Owen could finally smile at this…they might not be the best eaters, but they were efficient at cleaning messes. It was like they were incapable at being clean and tidy…but were more than happy to clean up the messes they made. An admirable quality. Captain Grayson just silently sipped his cup of coffee while he watched the girls work. It wasn’t until they were all out of the room and working that the Captain spoke again.

“I don’t have much time Lieutenant Grady, so I suppose I should get straight to the point…I came here to inspect the Raptors and see how they were growing since I last saw them…but I also came with some news.”
“And what’s the verdict?” Owen asked.
“Oh they’re doing marvelous. It’s reassuring to see how they’ve adapted to life on the outside. Last time I saw those four, they were still just children, fighting over who would be leader.”
“And you weren’t surprised it was Blue?” Owen chuckled.
“Oh Blue’s biggest rival was always Echo…but it seems Blue’s really come into her own as their pack leader. I couldn’t be more proud of them….poor Echo though.”
“She’s always been like that though.” Owen pointed out.
“Oh, not always. A few years ago, back before you gave them their names, she was just as cold and calculating as Blue…the problem was she had no control of her own ego and that ended up getting the better of her…ask Blue about the scar on Echo’s face and you’ll know what I mean.”
“I’m afraid to ask about those kind of personal things…” Owen confessed. “But…what news was it you wanted to mention? I think we both got a bit off topic.” Grayson nodded in reply and sipped his coffee.
“Hoskin’s has demanded a field test.” He answered. Owen sneered at the name. Victor Hoskin was a former Naval officer who was constantly working to develop new weapon systems and advances in military tools and technology. He’d been the one who sponsored the girls staying in America…and he convinced the Navy to continue funding this experiment. That meant he called most of the shots. Without his support, there would be no money for them to live off. “He thinks the girls have had enough time to get familiar with human life and need to be tested in the field on real targets.”
“Damn that man…”
“The girls hate his guts with a passion, I know…”
“Last time he was here, he refused to call them by their names…just their numbers.” Owen snarled. “I don’t want to do him any favors.”
“I’m afraid the Navy agrees with him. The girls need to demonstrate that their funding is going to good use.”
“As I recall, we started this project to help control extra species criminal incidents. What if nothing happens!?” Owen snapped back. “Let’s be honest here, Captain. We both know what Hoskins wants! He’s trying to turn these girls into-”
“Lock it up, Lieutenant.” Captain Grayson barked, silencing Owen before he finished his comment. “I don’t like Hoskins any more than you do, and I do agree that he’s a fool…but sadly he has a point. We can’t spend valuable Navy dollars on an exchange program like this without some kind of evidence our time and energy is well spent.
“…I understand.”
“We will be in touch. When the next extra species criminal incident takes place, you’ll be our first call….have the girls ready to deploy when it happens.”
“You seem certain something WILL happen…” Owen growled.
“There have been a fair number of criminal activities taking place this last month. The media just doesn’t publicize them the way they should be. I fully expect something will happen in a week or two.” Grayson confessed. He stood up and put back on his hat as he made his way to the door. “As I said before, I didn’t mean to pop in so suddenly and I thank you for a delicious dinner. It’s reassuring to see the girls so healthy and happy….thank you for your hard work Grady.”
“Of course, sir.” Owen gave a nod of respect and Grayson turned, marching out of the house. Grady simply sat in stunned silence, contemplating what he’d just been told.

“….A field test….we’re actually gonna take these girls out in the field?”