Guardians: Chapter one
#2 of Guardians: The First Cycle
Guardians:
Chapter One: The First Mistake
The dragon was laying on the beach his red scales glimmering in the sun. He stretched always-loving days off and the beach. A shadow passed over him and stopped, he cracked an eye and looked up at the gray timber wolf above him. It took him a moment because of the sun behind the wolf before he realized whom exactly it was.
"Vance? Why are you out here? I thought I'd made it clear the entire team was to have the day off. Which includes you." He looked at the wolf for a few moments before Vance laughed and replied,
"Well maybe I want to see you during my off time eh?" Vance lay down in the sand beside the dragon that was actually shorter than the wolf. "So this is what you do when not ordering us all around Alyx?"
The dragon grinned,
"What? You don't like it?"
Vance looked down at the sand and picked a handful of it up and then tossed it over the dragon. He laughed at Alyx's expression before saying,
"All the sand, it's just really hard to get out of my fur."
Alyx brushed the sand off of him that he could the rest of it getting stuck in between his scales.
"Well, the sand is annoying I'll agree... But I mean the warmth aaand..." He looked around indicating the other furs walking around in bathing suites, "There are usually some attractive furs out here."
Vance grinned and shook his head,
"You monster."
"What? It's not like I go after them."
Vance giggled quietly and leaned back in the sand,
"Yeah, your brave enough to run up to someone who hates you and has a grenade launcher, but you can't ask someone out to save your neck." The wolf looked around at the furs noting the other wolves around for a second before continuing, "It's not hard."
Alyx hid his head under a wing,
"I don't know, I just can't every time I try my mind goes blank and I end up looking stupid."
Vance pushed on him,
"That's a stupid reason stupid!"
"So, what's your point?"
Vance made an exasperated gesture,
"I give up you're hopeless."
Alyx took his head out from under his wings and let the sun warm his face again,
"Yup, that's me the hopeless leader."
Vance looked at him for a moment,
"Now you're scaring me."
The dragon laughed,
"Would it make you feel better if I at least tried?"
Vance grinned,
"Yes."
Alyx groaned, and stood up,
"Who then?"
Vance pointed and giggled at the one he'd picked out.
"Wait what? Sain!?" Alyx looked at the blue dragon who was playing volley ball with several other furs, before looking back down at Vance who was grinning his head off. "You want me to ask Sain, who is, by the way, our most heavily armed gunner out in the field, for a date!?"
Vance didn't respond his grin just got wider.
"Do you know what she did to the last guy who asked her for a date?" Alyx asked. The wolf stretched and stood up before commenting,
"Well the last guy was fat, stupid, drunk, and definitely not a dragon. Besides you have got to have seen how she's looked at you before."
Alyx rubbed his neck nervously,
"Yeah but that was right after I saved her life."
Vance smacked the dragon,
"Shut up and stop thinking so much! Jeez."
"Alright, alright. I'll ask her, but I'd better not see you laughing when she cans me."
Vance grinned,
"You won't..."
Alyx looked at the gray wolf for a few moments before turning and walking towards Sain. He watched as the blue dragoness played volleyball with a few other furs, a female hawk, a rabbit, and two male cats. Sain was brilliant in Alyx's opinion using her speed and flexibility to block whatever the three on the other side threw at her. When Alyx got over to them she scored her side another point, Alyx clapped and Sain turned to see who it was,
"Hi, Sain. Do you mind if I join? It looks like you might be short a player."
Sain shrugged,
"If you want sir."
Alyx shook his head,
"We're off duty, call me Alyx..." He paused for a moment; "I'm not your commander right now but rather an equal civilian wanting to play some volley ball with you."
Sain chuckled to herself and tossed the volleyball to Alyx,
"Fine then, you serve. Let's see how our brilliant commander can play volleyball."
Alyx caught it and looked at it before backing up to the left corner of the square. He tossed it into the air before smashing it away from him over the net to the other side. The ball soared up higher than he'd meant to do it, but it was still inbounds so the game continued, with Sain catching everything Alyx missed.
"Careful. If you keep doing that you'll get us penalized for an out of bounds." Sain said to Alyx as he backed up for another service, "If you keep deflecting the ball with the edges of your arm it'll keep popping sideways. Try to hit it straight for a while before you try trick shots alright?"
Alyx nodded to her flashing a smile at her before serving again. The game continued for about thirty or forty minutes before they broke apart. Sain had definitely dominated this game and the others marveled at her skill and asked her how she did it, but she didn't say anything other than:
"I just do it alright? I don't know how but I do."
Eventually the other furs left leaving Alyx and Sain standing there. Alyx handed Sain her volleyball,
"You're amazing. I don't think I've ever seen someone play like you do."
Sain rolled her eyes,
"Come on! You think I'm only good for chewing Arcadians up with a machine gun?" Alyx didn't say anything and looked at her before seeing her grin.
"Well, now that I think of it... you can cook..." He joked making Sain giggle, since Alyx had tried to cook for team once and ended up making sludge that was not even fit for worms. Sain had "saved" the day then and cooked some delicious venison steaks from a deer they'd shot earlier.
"What would you do without a cook?" She grinned.
"I'd probably starve or poison myself with an experiment..." He looked away being completely serious.
Sain looked down and cleared her throat,
"Yeah... Anyway what are you doing out here on your day off? I thought you had a laboratory or something you retreat to whenever you have a chance."
Alyx shook his head,
"No my lab is my job when we don't have any missions, so I try to stay away from it." He looked at Sain and asked, "What? Does the team think I'm a robot with no life?"
"Yes." Sain chuckled, "We never see you do anything but work."
Alyx shook his head,
"Oi... That's not what I'm like outside of The Corps." He looked out at the sun that was setting into the ocean making the entire scene seem to catch on fire.
Sain looked at him, his red scales glittered in the light majestically. He almost looked like a true guardian, but what he may have been guarding Sain couldn't imagine. She looked at him for longer than she meant to and quickly turned away as he tilted his head to look at her.
"Sain?"
Sain froze for a second thinking he'd seen her looking at him in ways she shouldn't look at her commander with.
"Yes?"
Alyx took a deep breath and turned to her, and as suddenly as he was going to say them the words disappeared as he saw what the sun was doing to her. Her blue scales contrasted greatly with the sunlight, but it made her glitter and sparkle like an angel to him. He inhaled and Sain looked at him curiously,
"What?"
Alyx smiled a little,
"God, you're beautiful."
Sain stiffened for a moment. Did he just say he thought she was beautiful? She'd tried to approach him before and he had been totally uninterested. And now he was saying she was beautiful.
"Are you okay? Did you hit your head?" She looked at him concernedly.
Alyx shook his head,
"No not at all. Vance just made me try to ask you out." He grinned sheepishly, "Are you with anybody?"
Sain shook her head, the confusion gone from her face now
"No." Her face hardened, "And I'm not going to be with you if you only come after me because someone dared you." She turned and walked away immediately.
Alyx hissed to himself. She was beautiful; he'd just never seen her as anything but a comrade in the field before now. He shook his head and just stood there as the sun disappeared casting the world in twilight.
Vance walked up with his ears down,
"I'd say that didn't go well."
Alyx growled,
"I told you she wouldn't go for it."
"Well what'd you say?"
Alyx shook his head
"I told her she was beautiful."
"Well that's strange." Vance scratched the back of his head, "That's usually a compliment."
Alyx grimaced
"No, she was stunned by that. Then she asked me if I was alright and I told her that you'd made me ask her out. That pissed her off."
Vance made a face,
"What!? You told her I was behind that? Oh shit!" Vance made a few strange sweeping gestures, "She's gonna totally pick me up and toss me in a pit of boiling sewage water!"
"Uhh... Not if I have anything to do with it she won't. Anyway it's not bad she's not that evil. Is she?" He asked realizing he didn't really know her well enough to judge that.
"Well, sometimes." Vance looked away. "Anyway it's late and we've got a mission tomorrow. I'm gonna rest up so I'm ready for it."
Alyx nodded and bade the wolf goodnight before retiring to the hotel room he'd rented. He sat down on the bed and grumbled to himself picking up the file for the next days mission. He looked down at it and saw it was an extraction for someone who apparently knew too much.
"Great." He muttered to himself seeing it was in an illegal gladiator coliseum, "Just great."