Purple Phoenix

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Hello. So I'm back and will update regularly again from now on. Also, I cannot believe that we have reached a big whooping (nearly) 700 reads!!!! You guys are so amazing! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! 😁😄

Anyways, here's the chapter.

 "So, what do you guys think went wrong?" Lidia asked standing in front of the big screen in the room. We were in the so-called planning room again, with all the screens nearly blinding us. I would ask her to turn the brightness down if not for her face. It was safe to say she was not happy with our performance. One glimpse at her face would suffice to show her feelings: Eyes narrowed, jaw hardened, and nostrils flared. All screamed disappointment, frustration, and anger at poor Soraya and I, who were sitting down by one of the black tables, staring into our hands.

As soon as those words left her mouth, Soraya and I shared a look. The failure of the previous mission was obvious. After we came back, I took two days in bed to recover while Soraya took twice as long as I did. Now it was the fifth day, and Lidia wanted to go over what happened and how to improve before our next fight, whenever that would be.

Soraya pondered, scratching her chin with one finger, "I think it all went down when Kratos and Tangent X were introduced to us. I mean, before that everything was fine. The entrance was flawless."

Lidia shook her head. "Not everything was fine. You were caught by the camera, according to what Shadow told Phoenix." At Shadow's name, my gaze dipped down to my hands once more. I was going to make them pay for what Kratos did to him. Even though we had a rough start, he didn't deserve to die. Yes, he was a bastard, but Steve was an even bigger bastard. I promised myself I was going to get revenge.

"Eve? Hey, Eve. You in there?" Soraya snapped her fingers in front of my face, and I jolted out of my thoughts.

"Sorry, I was thinking about something." My hands clenched into fists.

"What about?" Lidia asked me, butting in as always. I doubt she knew the concept of personal privacy.

I shrugged. "Shadow... dying."

Lidia's face lost some of her anger and was replaced by something that looked almost like sympathy. Perhaps pity? "It wasn't your fault, Phoenix."

I ignored her comment and growled, "I'm going to make them pay."

Soraya murmured, "I don't think that's a good idea."

"And why not?!" I realized I was yelling, so I calmed down. "We can talk about this later. Let's get on to what we did wrong." Soraya threw me a worried look before sighing and nodding her head. Pushing away my raging thoughts, I focused on Lidia's movements.

Lidia clicked something on a remote and the screen changed to a bullet-point list. The first point was lack of teamwork, the second, lack of stealth, and the third, lack of power exploration.

"Looks like we lack a lot of things," I gathered after reading the slide.

Soraya gave me a grin. "At least we don't lack awesomeness." I managed a small smile in return.

One bewildered me, though. "What's power exploration?"

"We will get to that in a moment," Lidia answered before hopping on a counter and interlocking her hands in front of her, "First things first. You two aren't working together, and that has cost you the battle. I'm going to make you run a couple of exercises to improve your teamwork."
"Rip," Soraya whispered to me, and despite my anger beforehand, she caused me to crack another smile. After Soraya spotted Lidia glaring at her, she put her hands up as if she were surrendering. "Haha sorry, Lids. I'll be quiet from now on. I promise."