"Why the fuck do we have to babysit the kid?" Casey asked while standing outside the door that lead into the Knotts' household, annoyed that he had been pulled out of training to come and babysit a girl who was essentially a mini Eliza. She had the wooly hat and everything!
"Because Eliza asked us to and we declined but then Boris forced us to do it anyway" Noah chuckled as he elbowed his cousin and Branch Deputy, Crystal whose eyes were practically glued to her phone.
"I hate filler chapters like this. Plus doesn't it seem a bit overkill to have 5 people babysitting one single child....?" Triple A muttered as he played with the white tip of his pompadour.
"........." Last Resort just shrugged. He had nothing better to do anyways so he just decided to tag along. Boris, Eliza and Killer were somewhere in the heart of Tallahassee, filling out the necessary details for their participation in Brawlhalla. All the gang members had the day off and there wasn't really anything in the old arcade so there was practically no reason for their headquarters to be ambushed.
What could possibly go wrong?
"Are you Killer and Eliza's friends?" A small voice said from beneath the group of gangsters.
Standing at the door was what was practically a tiny Eliza, the main difference between them being the lack of a scar on her face and the color of wooly hat, Eliza's being black and her sister's being blue.
"Sup lil nigga?" Noah greeted the girl with a smile only to be gifted a slap on the back of the head from Casey and receive disappointed looks from the rest of his gang members.
"What my cousin means to say is how are you doing? You're Erza right?" Crystal crouched down to the little girl's level and smiled at her exactly like Noah.
"Yep that's my name! You're the ones who are going to be looking after my friends and I right?"
"Excuse me did you just say friends-" Casey started asking when the sound of glass breaking was heard from inside the house.
"Erza! Timmy just broke a thing that was full of ashes!!!"
**********************************
"Something's wrong....I can feel it...." Eliza removed the wrapping of her treasured candy cigarettes, though this one was a strawberry flavor instead of her favorite mint. They were sold out apparently.
"I'm sure they can handle it. Relax...how hard could it be for 5 teenagers to handle a kid?" Killer grinned while looking up at the clouds through the glass ceiling of the building they were in, imagining all the fun and safe things Erza and the gang could be doing at the moment, while also being completely unaware of the fact that Eliza had forgotten to mention that Erza was having a playdate with four other kids.
He didn't really want to follow Boris and Eliza on their trip into the city. He was perfectly fine with babysitting Erza but Boris insisted, saying it would be interesting if the side characters got some chapter time for themselves; whatever that was supposed to mean.
"I do wish it was a shorter process. Do they really need to create a profile for every single one of our members?" Boris thought our loud, his single eye tracking the movement of every single person that came in and went out of the establishment they were in. So far no other gang had shown up for the profile creation, and there wasn't anyone acting or looking suspicious enough to be the guy who had been taking out gang commanders; or as the media had started calling the individual, 'Reaper'. It definitely wasn't the most original name he had heard but at least they didn't call him something like Jack the Ripper. He would have cried.
"They're making a profile for every single one of our members?! That's like 150 people! This is gonna take forever!!!" Killer wailed and slumped into his seat with a defeated sigh, looking like a deflated toy.
The three sat in the waiting room for a few more minutes, each of them keeping themselves to their own devices. Eliza was putting herself through some vigorous mental training which she saw on some random website, Boris was putting together a 2500 piece puzzle he found on the receptionist's desk and Killer was sleeping peacefully.
But not all the Taitanzu Heads were in a tranquil state like Killer though.....
************************
"This is going as badly as I anticipated it" Triple sighed as he watched another toy fly through the air and hit one of the 4 extra children whose presence they were not anticipating in the slightest.
It didn't help at all that Eliza had completely neglected to actually give them a list of instructions or pointers like she had promised. Hell even a sticky note on the fridge would have helped them.
But noooooooooooo, here they were. 5(now 4) gang members who had collectively fought and conquered hundreds of people barely able to stop 5 children from bringing the house to it's foundations.
Casey who was surprisingly delicate and orderly was carefully putting Erza's grandmother's urn of ashes back together, Noah was trying his best to make something, ANYTHING for the children to eat without burning the house down, Crystal was trying her best to stop all the kids from killing themselves over some toy or the other, Triple was watching in despair and Last Resort had straight up disappeared.
Crystal could bet that there was soon going to be a noise complaint from the entire neighborhood, because the past hour and a half were nothing but other-worldy screeching, guttural screaming and headache inducing crying.
"If only we had a device that could keep them distracted for a long period of time. Something they could look at with their eyes...." Casey muttered as he began putting the finishing touches on the fractured urn, while silently cursing Vice for this punishment.
"Look with their eyes? Case you're a genius! Why didn't we just turn on the TV?" Crystal slammed her fist into her palm and beamed at Casey who looked more frustrated than ever before.
"Are you trying to say YOU IDIOTS DIDN'T TURN ON THE TV SINCE WE GOT HERE?!!?!"
"I won't lie I didn't think that was going to distract them" Triple shouted above the screaming children from where he was sitting on the couch.
Casey was about to pop a blood vessel in anger when the faint smell of smoke wafted into his nose, effectively stopping his outburst.
"Noah what the hell are you doing back there...?" Casey groaned as he walked into the kitchen to make sure Noah didn't create a fireball.
Crystal chuckled fearfully as she turned on the TV; thank the Lord it was a Saturday and it was conveniently showing a random cartoon that fortunately piqued the kids interest.
With the kids quiet, Crystal and Triple could finally hear their own thoughts, a silence that lasted about 30 seconds until the sound of a small boom snapped all of them out of their peaceful reverie and threw all the children into immediate chaos.
"What the hell is happening in there?" Triple asked, amazingly calm with the fact that black smoke was now drifting into the sitting room.
"Triple get the kids to calm down while I go make sure that Case and my idiot of a cousin are still alive" she got up, patted down her rumpled skirt and walked into the kitchen.
And she almost fainted.
Something had definitely exploded. There were pieces of scrap metal everywhere and there was even a piece of shrapnel sticking out of Casey's bicep. And he did not look happy.
"How...in the fuck... did you blow up a microwave...WHILE TRYING. TO MAKE. A SALAD!" Casey was practically wheezing out of anger, his body visibly shaking like a volcano about to erupt.
"I didn't want them to eat a cold salad...." Noah shrunk into himself, looking like he wanted to disappear despite the small smile he had on his face.
"IT DIDN'T NEED TO BE HOT. IT'S A SAAAALAAAAAAD!!!!!" Casey wailed and punched a hole through the wall of the kitchen, smoke practically spilling out of his ears while Crystal just recorded the entire scene in front of her not sure if she should laugh or cry.
"I leave for 30 minutes-" a Last Resort poked his head into the kitchen, Erza sitting perfectly on his head like she was a hat.
"AND WHERE DID YOU GO MR STRAIGHTFINGERS?! YOU LEFT US TO DIE WHEN YOU KNOW WE'RE CLEARLY UNQUALIFIED FOR THIS SHIT!!!!" Casey continued rambling while pointing an accusing finger at his Deputy. Noah led him outside to let him continue venting while patting his back. It was something the rest of them did to just let Casey rage on because whenever he got like this there was little they could do to stop him.
"Did he just call me Mr Straightfingers-"
"That's not important. Where did you go? What have you been doing?!" Crystal wasn't going to explode like Casey but it sure was annoying to be abandoned like that.
"Oh I just went and bought some watermelons cuz I figured something like this would happen. I'm also really good with kids so how about I take care of them while you guys figure out how to fix this place up? They're full so they should be pretty easy to handle..." LR spoke with enviable calmness while Erza wordlessly pulled on his hair and toyed with his earrings. "All I ask is for a date with one of your hot friends"
Crystal thought it over, looking at the black spot where the microwave used to belong and then at the hole in the wall.
"I don't think I have a choice do I" she sighed and twirled a strand her jet black hair. "Fine. It's a deal"
*********************************
"The fact that this house is still standing leaves me both surprised and afraid" Eliza said as she walked into the house to be met with peace and quiet instead of the madness she was expecting.
"Bleeeehhhhhh" Killer moaned and collapsed, immediately conking out after spending the entire day sitting in a waiting office. It wasn't all boring though, he got to beat a security guard for talking smack to him and Boris did buy them lunch. Still; he was tired as fuck from the days overall inactivity.
Unlike the other Heads who were tired for completely different reasons.
Casey, Noah, LR, Crystal and Triple A were all passed out on the couch, all of them huddled up for warmth with Erza sleeping on top of Last Resort's head.
Boris who had been watching silently from the door came in and laughed, something Eliza thought she would never hear in her life.
The white haired commander sat next to Crystal's snoring form and smiled.
"Well would you look at that. A Taitanzu Head sleepover"