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Graecie was absolutely terrified, to put it bluntly.
She'd known coming into this that the mission was dangerous, but it was her job. Her crew was wonderful and would have no issues handling such a threat, perhaps except for some injuries.
She'd thought Nom and Katie would be just fine fending for themselves, highly capable and well-exercised apex predators they were, and she was right.
That was what scared her. They were too fine.
The battle was beginning to come to a close, the raiders who had been illegally capturing aliens dealt with one way or another. All of the captives were safe on an external ship that would take all of them back home to be cared for by the proper authorities.
Nom and Katie had been handling a wing on their own—the smallest one, and they had insisted that they were quite capable and would be just fine. Graecie knew perfectly well that if they weren't, the tech on the ship was enough to patch them up, so she had agreed.
Graecie had met up with the rest of the crew, who had just completed their own battles and neutralized their own threats, before they as a collective went to get Nom and Katie and check if they needed further assistance.
One thing Katie and Nom had told Graecie when she mentioned that they were apex predators was that humans actually didn't hunt very often. Like most other intelligent species, they preferred to raise and slay livestock. Not only that, but humans were not carnivores—when questioned as to why, from an evolutionary standpoint, Nom and Katie also enjoyed fruits and vegetables, they had specified that humans foraged for food for much of evolution, alongside hunting for it, and were omnivores.
Still, killing bugs for being annoying was a predatory behavior, as was the human instinct to play games such as tag and hide-and-seek, reminiscent of the behaviors Leonin young would engage in. Humans engaged in predator-prey relationships between each other just for fun.
Humans were endurance predators, not equipped with sharp nails and teeth the way many other predatory species were, even on their own planet. They had never grown the need for such things, Nom said, having fashioned their own weaponry. Nom and Katie weren't the fastest runners, nor were they the greatest swimmers, but they could do both of those things longer than anyone else in the crew could.
These things didn't scare Graecie anymore. She'd grown used to Nom and Katie being extremely capable, but just as tame, intelligent, and endearing as the rest of her crew was. They weren't a threat in her mind and hadn't been for a while.
She very nearly went back on that statement when the door to the hall Nom and Katie were fighting in opened.
There was blood of every color everywhere—the ceiling, the floors, staining Nom and Katie's clothes. The cold, stark white tiled walls and floors of the foreign ship would never be clean again, at this rate. For a second, the two of them blended right in between all the bright neons.
Then they were far too hard to miss.
Graecie focused on Katie first. Her brilliant ginger hair had fallen out of its braid, spilling down her back stiffly, not quite used to being out of its confines. Her gun was pointed high in victory, whereas her sword remained strapped to her side. It, too, was bloody from top to bottom. She'd clearly used it at some point.
At her side, still vigilant as ever, morningstar still in hand, was Nom. His hair was too short to be tied back, but was still a total mess, all out of sorts. He was drenched head to toe in varying colors of blood, most of them shades of blue.
Both siblings were wearing menacing grins, and for a while, Graecie had believed that baring teeth wasn't a threat display at all for humans, simply a way to express joy. She'd been proven wrong, evidently.
The entire scene made every alarm bell in her body scream.
Katie turned and caught sight of them, the manic light in her eyes never once faltering. Runner's high, she had called it once. Graecie wasn't quite sure that was the right word for the shine she was seeing now, though. "Hey, guys! Don't worry, we got it covered!"
Nom gave a wave as well, finally securing his mace to his back and moving to absently check 4C, Scott, and Mae for injuries. The rest of the crew gave him a very, very wide berth. Katie's grin had softened just a little bit, engaging in idle, purposeless conversation with Bek while everyone else stayed far out of her arm's reach.
Apo's jaw might as well have been on the floor. Graecie had never seen her so shocked, and yet she understood the sentiment. Apo had sparred with Nom before, had even properly angered him once when they made the mistake of jokingly insulting Katie whilst in earshot. Apo had even fought Katie a couple of times, and been beaten and tackled to the ground by the human.
Apo had never seen Nom or Katie drowning in blood, grinning with bloodied weapons in hand. Graecie didn't think any of them ever wanted to see it again. The strategist part of her brain insisted that it was useful, two people who were so willing to fight and even seemed to enjoy it if it meant that their pack was safe. The less rational part of her brain said they shouldn't have to fight and get away from them in equal measure.
Slowly, Nom and Katie calmed down, less hopped up on adrenaline than they had been earlier. There were some interesting things between humans and adrenaline going on, but Graecie didn't think she could be less interested in human anatomy if she tried right about now.
As the crew disembarked back to their own ship, watching their movements and checking every corner for strays, whether they were captives or foes, Graecie couldn't help but think that they were incredibly lucky for Nom and Katie to be on their side.