Investigation Ward

Chapter 1

Sulley exited the door with screaming behind him. Just like he had been for the past year, he was still scaring children for scream energy at Monsters Inc. Sulley looked down to his right and noticed Mike checking on the canister.

"Another full canister, Sulley. Keep this up, and you'll be able to power the whole city for a week."

"Just doing my job, Mike," Sulley said as he rubbed his fur with a towel. He had to admit to himself that he had been working harder lately. "Why don't we get one more kid in before we head out for lunch? We can go to that one restaurant you've been craving: Rusty Eyeballs. You talking about it has made me craving it."

Mike looked at Sulley while he summoned another door. "Well… sorry, Sulley. I would love to go get lunch with you, but I already promised Celia that I'd go there with her."

"Oh, yeah. Celia…" Sulley said with a very low sigh. "You've been spending a whole lot of time with her lately. If you're not sleeping or coaching, you're basically out with Celia."

Mike smiled and let out a heavy sigh. "Yeah, isn't it great? I think Celia and I are really starting to hit it off. You may not understand romance like I do, Sulley, but let me tell you, it's one of the greatest feelings in the world."

Sulley rolled his eyes, having heard this same statement over and over again from Mike. "Eh, believe it or not Mike, there are people who are a bunch more romantic than you are." He paused for a moment before also saying, "And what do you mean by me not understanding romance." Sulley crossed his arms. "I understand plenty about romance."

"Really?" Mike asked, rolling his eye. "You, the monster that does nothing but work-out, sleep, and scare little children, understands plenty about romance. Sulley, no offence, but you haven't done anything even remotely romantic with a girl in years."

"Sure I have," Sulley said with a faint smile, trying to convince Mike otherwise.

"Oh, yeah?" Mike asked with a smirk on his face. "Name one case in the past year."

"Well…" Sulley hesitated to even think of one girl that he has been out with. But after some heavy thought, he couldn't even think of a case in the past two years. Sulley frowned. "Well, yeah. I can't think of anything."

Mike frowned, noticing that he might have upset Sulley a little. "Listen, buddy. I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that. But, if you really want all of that, then you should get on out there and go do something about it."

Sulley nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

A door went down onto the machine and Mike turned it on. "Here, this one will make you feel better. This used to be one of Randall's kids, but Roz has been giving out new assignments. So, go show this one who's the new monster in town."

Sulley nodded and gave him a slick smile. "You got it, Mike. Let's do this." Sulley went into the door and did his normal scare routine. He never really deviated from it too much since it was always so successful for him. This case was no different. Once Sulley let out his signature roar, the child screamed loud enough for even Mike to hear on the other side.

Sulley exited through the door again and Mike sent it away. "There you go, buddy. Lots of screams, just like you're used to."

Sulley smiled. "Thanks, Mike. Let's go get you to Celia and you two can have your lunch."

Mike nodded. "Sounds good."

The two of them began walking out of the scare floor. Sulley turned to Mike and asked, "You know what I've been wondering, though? Especially after getting that door from Randall, I wonder where he has been."

"A lot of people have been calling in sick," Mike replied. "I guess some kind of flu has been going around in Monstropolis."

"That's what I thought, too. But I could've sworn that Randall was here today. He went down a different hallway than normal."

"Well, it doesn't really matter, I guess," Mike stated. "He's been gone for a good week now, and you must've racked up a bunch of points to push way past him. I mean, look at the leaderboards. You must be a champion at this point."

Sulley looked up at the leaderboards and immediately felt shocked about something. "Uh… Mike. I'm definitely beating Randall, alright."

"Why do you say it like that?" Mike asked as he stopped. He looked up at the leaderboards and immediately saw what Sulley was referring to. "Wow."

Sulley was number one, of course. However, Randall's name was nowhere to be seen anywhere on the leaderboards. It was completely wiped. "This can't be."

"You don't think that Randall got fired, do you?" Mike asked as they continued to go to the front desk.

"I don't know. You'd think that we would all know if a scarer was just fired."

"No… actually, Mr. Waternoose is pretty conservative when he fires people. It's practically incognito. He fires them and they're practically wiped from Monsters Inc. completely."

"Wow…" Sulley said with a heavy sigh. "What are we going to do without Randall? I mean, you have to admit that he was cool to compete with, even if he was a jerk about it half of the time."

Mike shook his head. "Pssht, no. I don't know what you felt when he was constantly trying to be better than us, but I didn't exactly appreciate the constant insults."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." They made it to the main lobby and the two headed towards Celia who was sitting in her usual spot behind the front desk. Sulley continued to look around and he eventually spotted a familiar sight. An eight-legged purple lizard heading out of an obscure hallway towards the main exit. "Hey, Mike. You and Celia have a good lunch. I'll see you back at the scare floor in a half hour."

"You got it, Sulley. See you later."

Sulley then left Mike and headed for Randall who was just reaching the exit. Soon after they both left Monsters Incorporated, Sulley finally caught up with Randall.

Randall turned to his left and immediately noticed when Sulley was at his side. "Sullivan?"

"Hey, Randall," Sulley said, stopping to chat with Randall.

"You're… probably wondering why I haven't been around lately," Randall said, fiddling with his small fingers.

"Well, yeah. I thought you were sick for the past few days, but then I suddenly noticed that you weren't even on scoreboards anymore. Did they fire you?"

"Here, walk with me," Randall started. "I only have a half-hour lunch, so I have to hurry it up." Randall began walking towards the market area of the city, and Sulley followed closely behind. "I wasn't from Monsters Inc. as you can probably tell from me still roaming around. I was just… reassigned. I'm not a scarer anymore."

"Not a scarer anymore?" Sulley asked. "Why would they reassign you? You're one of the top three scarers at this company."

"That's what I told Waternoose. But he figured my skills would be better suited for the Investigation Ward. He said that the company was lacking good investigators, and he basically just signed me up right away."

"What the heck is the Investigation Ward? I've never heard of it before."

"Neither did I until last week. But the child details in those files of yours; they don't just magically appear when we get a new door. The Investigation Ward essentially sneaks into the child's home and spies on it for a few days until they got the data that they need. I was in some girl's room for 5 hours last night…"

"Wow… that's crazy," Sulley said. He turned to Randall and said, "You don't look too upset by that, though."

Randall shook his head. "No, I am. I'm just a lot better than I was before. I almost threatened to quit because I didn't appreciate being ripped from my preferred job like that."

"Yeah, I would've been furious. We went to college for this. Well… mostly."

Randall let out a small chuckle. "Yeah, you get the point. The thing is… the Investigation Ward changed me a bit. I'm constantly in the human world, just sitting in a corner while I stay camouflaged for hours on end. And when I'm back here in the monster world, it's not any better."

"What do you mean?" Sulley asked.

"You don't get to interact with your friends. Heck, you don't even get to interact with your partner who tracks your progress and writes down the data as it comes. Everyone down there just keeps to themselves." Randall looked down to the ground. "That's kind of when I realized that I didn't really have any friends to begin with. Everyone's too afraid to talk to me. They say that I'm intimidating."

"That can't be true," Sulley responded. "Fungus must be your friend."

Randall shook his head. "Fungus is gone, Sulley. They put the poor guy on leave since he didn't have what it takes to take my place as a scarer. They have to hire a new scarer first before they can bring Fungus back." Randall looked at the city and saw a bunch of happy faces in the market. It didn't change his bleak look. "Fungus blames me for getting fired. I tried to tell him that I didn't have any choice, but he didn't want to believe me."

Sulley frowned, actually feeling legitimately upset for Randall. "That's rough, man. I don't think that I'd be able to handle something like that for me. I'm sorry."

Randall stopped, causing Sulley to stop as well. "Don't feel sorry for me, Sullivan. We both know I deserve to be kicked down a few notches after how I've treated everyone at the company." Randall looked around before maintaining his focus on Sulley again. "To be honest with you, sitting in the human world for hours on end really gave me some time to think about what a jerk I've been."

"You were just doing that for the sake of competition," Sulley said. "A little bit of competitiveness doesn't hurt anyone."

"Even so, I took it too far and… I wanted to say that I'm sorry." Randall reached his hand out to Sulley and said, "I really do respect you a lot as a scarer, and as a person in general. I hope you can find it in you to forgive me for all of those terrible years in the past."

Sulley grabbed Randall's hand and shook it. "Of course, Randall. Believe it or not, it takes a lot of guts to go up to somebody and say all of that. I have a lot of respect for you, too, and I hope that we can be good friends in the future."

Randall smiled, eventually letting go of Sulley's hand. "Thanks, that really does mean a lot to me." They continued walking to the café that Randall was heading to. "And please, call me Randy. My friends call me Randy. Randall's too formal."

"Only if you call me Sulley," Sulley said with a chuckle.

Randy chuckled in return. "You got it." They made it to the café and they both stopped at the entrance. "Well… this is my stop."

"Yeah. I'll let you get some food. Hopefully I'll see you around."

Before Sulley could turn around, Randy said, "Wait, Sulley." Sulley turned around. "We both have the same lunch break. Why don't you just come eat here with me? You're already here anyways, so why not?"

Sulley shrugged. "Sure, that actually sounds pretty great. I could go for something different than a burger for once."

Randy opened the door for Sulley and said, "Well, after you."

Sulley smiled and nodded, entering the café. Randy entered shortly after he did.