Mate I never wanted

First match: Little puppy vs. Ex (II)

Vivian

My back hit the hard wall behind us and my ears started to ring.

It took me a few moments to wake up enough to sit up.

The good thing is that our suits had additional protection that I installed yesterday. It minimized the damage.

Slowly, I rose to my feet and looked around, my brain still hazy.

I looked around the room and when I was about to turn to look at the rest of my team, I saw one of the pirates running in my direction with a knife in hand.

A part of me knew that I should do something to protect myself, but I was too disoriented by the explosion to do anything. Swinging slightly, I prepared myself for the impact of the pain of being cut, but the pain never came.

When I opened my eyes the next time, the pirate was no longer in front of me. Instead, he was pinned to the wall with his knife sticking out of his shoulder, keeping him pinned in place. As I blinked a few times, I saw Lucien standing next to me talking, but it took a few more moments for my hearing to return.

"... Vivian, my darling... are you alright? Please answer me? I'm so sorry, I should have protected you..."

He was talking so fast that I could barely catch his words as they spilled out of his mouth. He had his hands all over my body as he was checking for any damage.

Blinking slowly, I looked around and saw that Andrew was healing Rebecca from the ground. If I'm not mistaken, Kevin softened her blow, because he was still leaning up against the wall and she was right in front of him.

"I'm... I'm fine."

Slowly I managed to answer as my eyes returned to him.

It looked like he got the worse of it. The front of his suit had burn marks still on them, but other than that, there was nothing more there.

"I'm so sorry, I was sure that they could not use explosions and traps like this, but I still should have checked and...and.."

There was another trail of barely comprehensible words spilling out from his mouth as he kept searching my body for any damage... or maybe trying to calm himself.

Only now did I think about the fact that his heat-ridden brain was probably having a hard time with me being here, in danger and all that. His animal instincts to protect me should be through the roof, especially now that this has happened.

Shaking my head, I knew that I had to calm him down before he went crazy. We need him to finish this mission.

I lifted my hands and captured his face in between my palms, forcing him to stop and look at me.

"Hey, hey... I'm fine, we are all fine. This is not your fault. They were not supposed to use explosives or even real guns, just sedatives and stuff like that."

He blinked a few times and I saw from his eyes that he was getting ready to start again.

"Hey, I said that I'm fine... it's all fine..."

My words stopped him, and he concentrated on me more seriously now. After a few moments, I could see that he had finally started to calm down.

"Now, let's check on our team? Okay?"

He nodded as we turned to the rest of our team when the side doors to the room were ripped open. Immediately, Lucien moved to stand between me and the door, blocking away all the possible danger.

Over his shoulder, I saw James running in first and then the rest of his crew. The last one running was a girl that I was pretty sure was in the navigator program. They all looked terrified.

A second later, we saw why they were running like that.

Through the door, we saw a wild beast following right after them. It was another bear-like scaly creature and he was moving fast.

The girl running last stumbled a bit, releasing a loud scream because the beast was only a few meters away from her.

SHIT, HE WAS GOING TO GET HER.

Before I could even move, Lucien was there.

As we lost our guns in the explosion, he had to take on the creature with his bare hands and with what looked like a medium-length knife.

With speed and skill, I had never seen anyone move. He jumped onto the creature and captured them in a choke hold of his legs as he pushed the knife into the only sensitive part of his face eyes. The knife went in deep, piercing deep enough to kill the beast almost instantly.

Lucien jumped off the creature as it started to fall and moved to the frightened girl.

"Are you okay?"

She made a short nod as one of her team mates moved towards her.

"Thank you... James tried to shoot the creature, but he missed and only made it more angry and then he attacked us..."

As I listened to the girl talk, I heard the sound of a shot and my eyes turned to James, who was holding a laser pointed directly at Lucien. The shot landed right next to Lucien's left foot. Well, I guess it is good that James had such a poor aim.

For a second, the whole room was completely silent. Everyone was too stunned to speak. Lucien was the one to break the silence.

"Did you just try to shoot me with a stun gun after I saved you and your teammate? A teammate you left behind to face the threat you caused?"

"I... I..."

He was backing away cowardly, but Lucien was faster. In a few fast steps he was across the room standing right in front of him.

"You are a sorry excuse for a hybrid... you are not fit to be a commander. Hell, you are not even fit to be part of the royal academy... It's your duty as the commander to protect your team and not be the first one to run. The point of this exercise is to finish the mission with as few casualties as possible. Hell, that is the point of every mission. One of the most important rules of any mission is that you do not leave your people behind, they are your responsibility, from the moment they step on to the ship up until you return them back home."

While shaking his head, he moved away.

"Team, let's move. I don't want to be next to this piece of trash more than I need to. I hope that your team throws you out after the s**t you pulled."

He said to us, but turned to look at James one more time.

"And if you point your gun at me one more time, make sure you do not miss, because if you do, I will make sure you wont be able to hold a gun at all... ever..."

He walked up to me and wrapped his hand around my waist. We picked up our guns and moved in the direction of the artifact, leaving the other team behind. The moment we were a few feet away from the other team, we heard fighting erupt behind us.

"... you left Sally to die and tried to attack the man that saved her..."

We heard James release a sound of pain as sounds of fists hitting flesh filled the room. We chose to ignore them as we stepped through the next door. Well, it was more like a hole left from the explosion and, to no surprise, there was the artifact that we were here to get.

"Be careful, if they used explosives, there is great chance there is more traps here."

I whispered to the rest of the team.