Cassy wakes up on the boat on the first morning of their third life.

  Cassy woke up, again. The morning sun was in her eyes.

  Hmm, nice lying here right next to... Bronsen?

  She sat up in a hurry and then took in their situation.

  That's right. It's now my turn with Bronsen. Or is it Bronsen's turn with me?

  Bronsen, by now, had woken up also, and he sat up.

  They sat there, hand in hand, knees touching each other's and tails wrapped around each other's backs.

  The morning was quiet; the sun was still dim, barely visible through the port holes.

  Cassy stood up and went to a port hole. It faced the shore and was just adequately clear enough to give a view of the outside sand. She could see yesterday's fireplace, with the large pot hanging from its supports. She could see the stack of lumber on one side and a stack of uncut logs on the other. She could also see a five-metre crocigator lying on the sand, possibly still asleep.

  "Hey, Bronsen!"

  "Yes"

  "Did you know that Drayden and I took down a six-metre crocigator on our first day?"

  "I believe I remember you telling us about that."

  "And crocigator meat is kind of tasty."

  "You mean tastier than grey goop?"

  "You bet it is."

  They snuck out of the ship, trying not to wake up too many slaves. Forced open the hatch, which had been dogged tight for the night. They jumped down to the sand and took out their swords.

  Bronsen said to Cassy, "How about I take this side, you take the other side, and we take it from there?"

  "Let's do it!"

  By now, the crocigator had opened its eyes and had seen the two. It opened its jaws, showing off its lines of serrated and sharp teeth. It flicked its powerful tail side to side. It then screamed with fury as Cassy zipped in and managed to hack off one of its front legs. Cassy moved fast to avoid the tail trying to bash her. This gave Bronsen ample time to hack off its other front leg.

  The two stepped back as the animal went into a frenzy, frothing at the mouth and lashing its tail around but not moving very far. Not having two front legs was apparently bothering it quite a bit. They avoided its weakening attempts to attack them and waited.

  Five minutes later, it was dead.

  Cassy had a belated thought: "Uh oh, all that commotion might attract other predators."

  "Right." said Bronsen.

  He jumped back and up into the loading area.

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  "Hoist up the body, and I'll catch it!" he said.

  There were already several slaves in the bay.

  "Just get out!" he shouted.

  They got out, and Bronsen leant out of the hatch and caught the body as Cassy shoved it up. He scrambled to get the thing inside, having some trouble with the two back legs sticking out. Fortunately, Cassy was onto it. She jumped up and wrapped one arm around the tail, and the other reached inside the hatch to grab a convenient cleat. Working together, they managed to hoist the thing inside, dripping blood everywhere.

  Cassy took a look outside. To the left was a smaller crocigator ambling around the ship's side, snout high as it sniffed the air. And to the right was some sort of octopus monstrosity, but only a small one. Probably no more than ten metres long. Pretty small by local standards.

  Cassy slammed the hatch shut and dogged it firmly.

  They took the time to admire the nice big lump of fresh meat. And also to listen to the fighting outside. It didn't last very long. What did last longer was the agitation on the inside of the ship. Eventually:

  "Hestia, are there Greys here that know how to skin and process this?" said Cassy.

  "Y-yes."

  "Well, how about they butcher this, and you can cook it when it's safe outside. Make a real meat stew for once?"

  "Sure, we can do that. Should be ready in, say, three hours?"

  "Good, good. If you can find us when it's finished?"

  "OK."

  Feeling like they had made an excellent start to the day, the Misfits decided to leave them to it and went back to their cabin.

  Bronsen and Cassy:

  Standing in their cabin, they looked at each other with a touch of embarrassment.

  "I was kind of thinking that, like, sort of, we could start to get up to, you know, things. Just like we were hoping to do so, back in our clubhouse on Earth," said Cassy.

  "Yeah. Strangely enough, I was thinking the same thing. Of course, for the time being, those 'things' can't get out of hand." said Bronsen.

  Cassy nibbled the tips of the fingers of one hand. "But we're not really alone here, are we?"

  "Well, we can lock the door... OK, we can't. How about we take one of those sticks of wood lying along the wall, cut it to length with that saw, and lay it from the inside of the door to the wall opposite? That should keep the door closed."

  Cassy nodded in affirmation. But neither made a move.

  "I mean, it is obviously ordained by System-san that we will be having our much-hoped-for-four-way romance," said Cassy.

  "And, with all of the System-san imposed conditions, we have a good chance of actually making it work," said Bronsen.

  "But..." said Cassy.

  "Yeah... We did kind of promise to stay in our original couples," said Bronsen.

  "But also, we all refused to take that extra step and make an actual vow never to stray from our original couples," said Cassy.

  Bronsen mussed up his perfectly neat hair.

  "OK, let's assume we will become that perfect four-way love square. This means we two will be working toward becoming, ah, lovers, ourselves. Agreed?"

  "Ah, yes. Hmm, remember when one of us girls said something about you boys wanting to make love to one of us, then hop to the next bed and do the other?" said Cassy.

  "Yeeeees. But remember, it also applies the opposite way; you get to hop from one boy to the other. And I think it has been thoroughly established by now that you two girls desire the sex as much as us two boys." said Bronsen.

  "Well, then, fine, let's work towards that. Ah, I hope Alice doesn't stress out and have a heart attack from all of this."

  "I think she's pretty tough. She'll survive," said Bronsen.

  "Nonetheless, let's take it slow and steady, shall we?" said Cassy.

  "OK, fine. Considering how late it is in the morning, let's sit here and have one of those heart-to-heart talks that System-san is so keen on us using to advance our feelings for each other."

  Cassy giggled.

  "In that case, I have the perfect opening question. Back on Earth, when we were all so naive and innocent, would you have embarrassed yourself if you were in a small room with eleven lovely ladies?"

  "Ah, that. I might have; it just depends on the circumstances."

  "Say, did you have a thing for older women?"

  "Ah, well now..." Bronsen looked away, "You could say I did, especially for our maths teacher. Oooh, yes, I think every hetero boy in our class did. And probably every lesbian, if there were any."

  "Hey, we had the same maths teacher! Although I think she taught us the dumbed-down version of the math curriculum. Yes, judging by the comments of the boys, crude comments, I might add, I'll say most of the boys in my class also had fantasies about her."

  "I would like to say that I never made any crude comments. I never made any comments at all, in fact." said Bronsen, "Since until you lot, I never had a friendship group."

  Cassy snuggled up to Bronsen. “But now you do!”