The monsters became a circle to decide what to do w/ Grey while he stood in the back, looking around the room in wonder.
"What can we do w/ him? He's hopeless!" whispered Benjamin.
"Don't you dare fucking say that," whispered Cedric, incensed, "We just have to figure out a way to teach him basic things and a way for him to get to know us."
"How do you suppose we do that, cabeza de mierda?" Cherry asked, being b**chy as usual.
"Yeah, how are we supposed to teach him?" asked Oliver, more calmly.
"I might have a solution," said Vicky nasily.
"What is it?" asked Pete.
"We each spend a day w/ him. Each of us will do what we enjoy except w/ hem tagging along, and during that time, we answer any questions he might have. And at one point, we engage in a friendly battle to test his abilities."
"Of HELL no!" said Benjamin, very angry at the idea.
"I for one think it's a great idea," said Cedric.
"Yeah, I could use a buddy to do bad things w/ against you you putas! >:)" said Cherry, thrilled at having at the idea of having a partner for her nefarious schemes.
"I'd love to have a gaming buddy," said Oliver, smiling.
"Oh for fuck's sake! Pete, my dear twin, please tell me you don't agree w/ this!" said Benjamin, really hating the idea.
"Weeeell… I mean, I would love to have a fun time buddy," said Pete.
Benjamin didn't say anything but he sucked teeth hard and audibly fumed.
"I do have one question though. Why did you refer to Grey as hem instead of him?" asked Pete.
"Oh didn't you know? Grey is both genders, but xhe leans closer to being male." Vicky said, nonchalantly.
Pete, Oliver, and Benjamin each got a WTF expression on their face at that.
"Weird, I thought all you shits knew," said Cherry.
"In any case, I'll go first for this. Each time it's someone else's turn, you can decide amongst yourselves who goes next for each day when Ash gets back," said Vicky.
"So we're really doing this?" said Benjamin.
Everyone else nodded.
Benjamin sighed, annoyed, "Shit."
Everyone went back to their original activity except for Vicky. She floated over to Grey. He looked at her expectantly.
"Follow me," she said.
Grey followed her back down the hall that Cedric led him from.
"You will spend the rest of the day w/ me," said Vicky as they went to her room. "You will do the same thing w/ the other 6 members for the next six days."
They arrived at her room at the end of the hall.
"I will be running tests on you. They will be painless and easy. I just want to get info. on you."
She opened the door. Inside, the room was crisp white like the Grey woke up in. On one side, there was all sorts of complex-looking equipment and a large, round circle thing. On the other, was all sorts of clothes toss all over, black and pink posters, all over the walls, and all sorts of small tubes and stuff.
"Don't mind that side. I, unfortunately, have to share my room w/ Cherry," said Vicky, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
She floated over to the round thing.
"This is a giant, advanced hamster wheel. I want you to get on it and start walking."
Grey climbed onto the wheel and started walking.
"I know you use that notebook to talk, but since I can't look at your writing while I look over the data, use the keypad in there instead. The keypad is that thing on your right w/ the letters on it," said Vicky.
Grey looked at the keypad strangely. He hovered his hand over it hesitantly for bit.
Oh, this feels so strange, he thought.
He typed out what he had been thinking for a while.
WHY DO I FEEL SO STRANGE WHEN I'M W/ CEDRIC?
"What do you mean?" asked Vicky.
I MEAN, MY FACE FEELS HOT, I CAN'T HELP BUT SMILE STRANGELY, AND I JUST FEEL STRANGE ALL AROUND.
"First off, another word you can use instead of strange is weird which is spelled W-E-I-R-D. Secondly, wait until you're w/ someone else to say that. I think know why you feel that way, but I'm not the person to talk to about that."
ARE YOU GOING TO HIT ME FOR ASKING THAT?
"First off, I can't hit anyone since I'm a ghost. Secondly, that is not something any of us would do. Not even Cherry or Ben."




...


The rest of Vicky and Grey's time together wasn't too eventful. Vicky tested different parts of Grey and the only part that was sort of surprising was how Grey's body had DNA from multiple people (but even then, Vicky wasn't that surprised). Vicky also taught Grey about everything that was in the living room.
"Looks like it's almost dinnertime," said Vicky. "Before you can go though, there's one last test I need to do on you."
What is it? Grey wrote, hoping it would be quick because he was pretty hungry.
"It will be a fight test. You are to avoid the different things I throw at you to the best of your ability. I will also teach you different things you do," Vicky said nasily as usual.
Vicky lifted the equipment off of the floor and reshaped it into the form of two giant hands and she lifted the rest of the stuff.
"Prepare yourself."

FIGHT START!
(Song: VS Colress from Pokemon BW2)
Vicky punched at Grey w/ left hand and he barely dodged it. She threw some equipment. Grey tried to dodge it as best he could, but some pieces grazed him and they hurt quite a bit. His HP was down to 75%.
"You can jump over my attacks you know," said Vicky.
(Press the (bottom button of what your controller or space if on PC) button to jump).
Grey started to jump over the equipment and it was much easier to dodge the equipment.
"Excellent, now let's try something more complicated."
Vicky shot four pieces of of equipment to the floor. She then made electricity go into them. It was impossible to dodge and Grey's HP went down to 60%.
"You can't dodge this, can you?"
Grey shook his head.
"Wrong. You can run over to the walls and jump up them to avoid the electricity," Vicky said sagely.
(Run to wall and jump on it).
Grey ran to the rightmost wall and jumped off it and kicked up it. The electricity could no longer hurt him.
"Yes that's good. Now," Vicky said, moving to the opposite wall, "Now, try to jump off the wall over to me."
Grey tried to follow the order, but he found he couldn't jump far enough. He was downhearted.
"Can't do it, can you? You need to dash in order to reach me."
Grey looked at her bewildered.
"Dashing is where you give yourself a burst of speed to move faster. You can do it on the wall to reach me," said Vicky matter-of-factly.
(Press (LB, RB, or tab*) to dash.)
Grey used his foot to kick himself foward and he went quite fast. He jumped onto the wall and kicked off it, hard. He reached Vicky quite nicely.
"Very good. Our lesson is now over."
Vicky dropped all the equipment.

VICTORY!

"Let's meet the others for dinner," said Vicky.
Grey, panting a bit, was relieved.




...


When Grey and Vicky reached the kitchen, everyone was sitting at the table eating something. Among them, there was now a weird, dark, puffy-looking monster. Grey could only assume that this was Ash.
"Hey everyone, we're back," said Vicky nasily.
Everyone looked up.
"Who the hell is this?" asked Ash, indignant.
"Remember that we told you that we got a new recruit? This is him. His name is Grey," said Cedric.
Ash got up and went to Grey. His clothes looked weird and gave Ash an air of authority. His "head" was huge and it's only features were two purple eyes. His hands were also puffy and lacked fingers. He looked Grey up and down a bit before speaking.
"My name is Ash. I am the leader of this group. We are known as the Freelance Seven, though now w/ you, we are the Freelance Eight. We take work from people in order to get by. Welcome to the team."
Ash held out his hand. Grey looked at it, unsure of what to do.
"Grab his hand and shake it gently, but firmly," Vicky whispered to him.
Grey did just that, albeit a bit awkwardly.
"So, what's for dinner?" asked Vicky.
"I ordered takeout," said Oliver.
"You ordered me boba tea, right?"
"Of course," said Oliver, smirking. "And for Grey, I just ordered him some fried rice and a soda."
"Good," said Vicky, "You sit w/ Cedric. I'll go to my place w/ Cherry."
Grey walked over to his spot w/ Cedric. He felt all strange and hot again. He looked at what was in front of him. It was a white carton and in the back was a metallic-cylinder w/ a weird design and on the right was a plastic spoon. Grey looked to Cedric.
"Go on, it's all yours."
Grey face felt weirder still as he opened the carton. Inside was what looked like rice, but it was brown for some reason. He grabbed the plastic spoon, scooped a bit of the rice, and tasted it. His mouth was flooded w/ HEAVEN. He had never tasted something so GOOD before! Before he thought about what he was doing, Grey just started shoveling the food down his throat. Everyone else just looked on, stunned.
"Goddamn!" shouted Benjamin.
"¡Cabron, no sabia que tu va quere ese comida tanto!" said Cherry w/ an astonished smile on her face.
"Welp, now we got two fucking eaters on us; this guy and Oliver," said Ash, disappointed.
Oliver was just grinning.
When Grey was finished, he looked in the carton and mildly disappointed that there was no more. He picked up the metal cylinder behind it. It felt cold and he could a quiet sloshing in it which signified that it had drinkable liquid. Problem was though, Grey didn't know how to open it.
"Here, let me open it for you."
Cedric glid his hand over Grey's and took the cylinder which made Grey feel VERY weird.
"This is a can of soda," said Cedric. "You open it by pulling this thing which is called a tab."
Cedric pulled the tab forward and the sound it made was oddly satisfying to Grey. He then handed the can back to Grey. Grey drank the beverage. Something in the soda made him cry but it did taste really good.




...


Where's the cleaning bucket? Grey wrote to Cedric.
"The what?" Cedric asked, cocking an eyebrow.
You know, the bucket that's use to bathe and brush teeth as well as the other one for waste.
Cedric looked at him w/ that eyebrow for a good two seconds. "Uh, we have a room for that. C'mon, I'll show you."
They walked down the hall again over to room w/ a different door.
"Here we are. This is the bathroom."
They went inside and Grey looked in wonder at all the normal bathroom things like the nice mirror and the shower.
"This bowl here is the sink. We use that for brushing. This is the mirror," he pointed to the mirror, we use it to see ourselves. That white thing over there is toilet, where we dispose of waste. Finally, over there is a tub and showerhead. You turn on the showerhead by turning that knob over there. See here."
Cedric turned the knob and water rushed out of the showerhead.
"The more you turn it this way (clockwise) the water will get warmer/hotter and the more you turn it in the other direction, the colder it gets. You understand?"
Grey nodded.
"Good. I'll leave you here to clean up."
And w/ that, Cedric left. Grey stripped down and stepped into the shower and the shower on. As he washed up (having an awkward time washing his new "area"), he couldn't help but think of how strange this place was and how strange the people here were. He also couldn't help but wonder what became of that spirit that took his body and where it went, not knowing that he would learn very soon what happened.





...


When Grey was done drying off, brushing his teeth, and putting his clothes back on, he went back to the room he woke up in, feeling tired. Cedric, now wearing a blue shirt and a wide pair of odd-looking shorts and he was laying down on the top rectangle.
"Ready for bed?" Cedric asked.
Grey walked up to Cedric and wrote, Bed?
Cedric slapped his forehead, "Seriously? A bed is what I'm on right now. Though in the context I said it in, it means to go to sleep."
Oh yeah, I'm ready, Grey wrote.
Grey then sat on the floor, crisscross-style, and fell asleep.
"Excuse me, WHAAAAAT?" Cedric said, speechless.
He shook Grey awake. Grey, of course, looked around fretfully until he saw Cedric.
"Listen bud, I don't know you were raised to sleep, but that is NOT how it is done. I mean, does that even feel good?!"
Not really, but I've always slept like this, Grey wrote.
"Oh hell no, I'm going to teach you how to sleep right," said Cedric, while walking over to his huge box thing. He opened one part up and pulled out a purple shirt w/ shorts that were shaped like the ones he wore except they had a different design.
"Here. Change into these while I have my back turned."
Grey, of course, complied, though he felt incredibly awkward while doing so. Cedric did lie a little about the back turned thing, as he would steal quick glances over at Grey as he secretly admired his big, plump body. Once Grey was done, (his belly, once again poking out of the shirt), Cedric then led him to the bottom bed.
"This is your sleeping place from now on. I don't want to see you on the floor again. Do I make myself clear?"
Grey nodded and climbed into the bed, not sure how to feel about this.
"Good," said Cedric. He then turned off the lights and climbed up to his top bunk.
"Goodnight....," said Cedric, drifting off.
Grey layed there in the bed. It felt strange not being on the floor, but he had to admit, the bed hugged his body in a really good way and the clothes did feel good too. After a few minutes, he finally found himself drifting off until he finally went to sleep.