Cryptotrappers!

Cryptotrappers- Nightmare in Pink

Monday 28. My arm is patched up, and Randy is back on his feet. Thank the stars too, and may I never need to get in Sid's car again. I was looking forward to seeing Randy in person for the mission, considering how we'd bonded during the time spent in hospital. And the fact that I'd never have to watch another episode of some of the tripe he watches doesn't hurt either. My bets were placed on that he would have taken a sticker on leaving the hospital, but to check either way, I'd have to head to the lab. As expected, Eva waited to give the mission.

"Eva, I swear, if this is another water mission!"
"Don't worry, you can leave your trunks at home today, Michael." Eva reassured me. "You're going to be taking to the streets this time, to take on something very interesting."
"What is it?" I asked, now curious.
"There's a fairly interesting rampaging Unicorn, down in one of the southern seaside areas. Arabian, of course, your traditional picture of a Unicorn. But it's not just any old Unicorn, it's-"
"Pink?" This was the voice of Randy who had just entered the room.
"Um, yes, Randy. Have you heard of this specimen?" Eva asked, clearly as confused as I was about this.
"Yes..." replied Randy, looking off broodingly into the distance at nothing in particular. "In fact, that Unicorn is my white whale, so to speak. I mean it's a horse, not a whale, and it's pink not white but- what I'm saying is that it's is why I'm here now in the Cryptotrappers. But also why I have might not be here at all now, if you get what I'm saying. Let me begin. Eva?"
"Erm, go ahead." Eva offered, blank faced, as Randy took a seat and began to reminisce.

"Before I came to this place, I lived downwards from here, not far from the sea, as Eva mentioned. I'd transferred here as part of an overseas college exchange... thing and I wasn't exactly intending on heading home afterwards; if you'd known my family you'd understand. Anyhow, I was a wannabe game developer. Just me, on a solo team and I'd never actually finished anything of note beyond a three minute quest to fetch bread. I didn't even know what a cryptid was beyond the back side of dubious magazines and a few anime I'd watched. Then, one day I was strolling down to town to get some more pot noodles for my pad after my roommate ate all of what I had, when I saw Brucie for the..."
"Wait." I interjected, clearly cutting off Randy's flow. "You saw a pink unicorn and your first thought was to name it Brucie?"
"Okay one, that's delving into gender stereotypes. Michael, I'm ashamed of you. And two, it had a beard, of course I gave it a guy's name!"
I could tell Eva wanted to say something, but declined to comment.
"Fair enough" I replied, bemused, with no intentions to query further.
"Anyway, Bruce saw me and I saw him in the middle of town; unfortunately for me we were the only ones around. I was shocked, of course, but he was no less than furious. Maybe it was a bad day for him or something, maybe his unicorn girlfriend had dumped him or... that's besides the point. Anyway, before I could react, he slammed me against a wall and tried to ram me with his horn. Back then, I was a scrawny seventeen year old, so I couldn't fight back. I ducked out of instinct, and his horn got rammed into a wall, leaving a nasty dent. I turned and ran, but it soon got itself dislodged. And it was about to ram me when my roommate at the time, Mickey, was bursting past in his low-end car. Don't judge, his mom bought it for him on his fourteenth and she didn't trust him with anything too expensive. That's besides the point though. He saw me, saw Brucie, freaked and opened the door. I leaped inside and he sped off."

"I see!" Eva tried to smile, but Randy clearly wasn't finished.
"Then, it chased us from that town to the next, never losing pace with car, always close behind. We just couldn't shake it. Sometimes we got a lead, sometimes it caught up. Eventually, Mickey ran low on gas and we came to a plan. We drove really fast at a nearby lake, then swerved at the last second. It plunged into the lake and swam away clumsily as we headed to the nearest gas station. After that I stopped developing stuff, and turned my attention to myths and monsters. I bulked up at the gym, learned what I had to and then Mickey and I started our cryptozoology firm; The Unicorn Brothers. That's brothers as in, like, 'bros', we weren't blood related. Obviously it didn't catch on, but it gave me the experience I needed for Eva to hire me a few years later. Mickey had moved onto bigger and better things by then, we don't even talk now, but I'm still here today."