Interlude 1: Take It Slow

Sometimes Central Officer Wolford wonders if there was a God watching over him from Heaven. In the face of such a mighty and horrific foe as the Aliens he sometimes feared that there was no God. The thought that scared him the most though was that if there is a God, then why would he allow monsters like these to even exist and why doesn't he stop them?

Some nights when the tired wolf is staring down at the bottom of an empty bottle a nasty little voice of doubt pipes up from the dark cage Wolford had shoved it in.

Perhaps there is a God, and he is not on your side.

Finding Commander Bogo though pushed that little voice further back into its cage, not silencing it exactly but quieting it all the same. Meeting Fangmeyer gave him something to hold onto after the Aliens were defeated and (dare he say?) finding her gave him hope.

All those warm and fuzzy feelings (mostly about a certain tigress) would have to wait until after he isn't in a truck careening through the forest at nearly a hundred miles an hour.

"MAYDAY, MAYDAY. This is Central. We are mobile three Vic's towards EP-Victor with multiple Xenos in pursuit. MAYDAY, MAYDAY."

A harsh crackling whistle snapped across the speeding truck's window and engulfed an unlucky pine in green plasma fire. The shockwave from the impact shattered the tree and washed over the vehicle sending it skidding across a patch of loam throwing churned earth up onto the windshield and slamming Wolford painfully against the door.

Wolford grunted in pain as he tried to right himself in the passenger seat and continued to speak into the radio in the hopes of hailing any reinforcements. In the back of his mind he vaguely recognized the dull pulsing in his side as the gunshot wound from Operation Gatecrasher had finally been torn open, feeding a pool of crimson that was growing steadily across his tan combat top.

Everything had been going well at first, until Wolford had lost radio communication with Shephard Squad just as they met with the Skirmisher and Reaper representatives for the negotiation. When he had tried to reestablish comms that was when everything starting exploding and a swarm of ADVENT troopers flooded in from the forest.

What started out as a command crew of thirty two with six trucks and one semi was cut down to twelve mammals and three trucks. They had to abandon the dead and destroy all their other sensitive equipment in their haste to break through the ring of advancing ADVENT troopers. No one liked leaving so many good mammals behind but they had no choice. Wolford counted his lucky stars that both he and Fangmeyer had made it out as one of those twelve.

The wolf glanced out of the corner of his eye to the mammals crammed in the back seat. Erik Esman, a golden wolf with a lion like mane and Czer Hunter, a foul tempered opossum sat on either side of the grim-faced tigress. When he turned his head the tigress looked up and for the briefest of moments met Fangmeyer's wide green gaze. They may not have said anything but they didn't have to, that one glance communicated enough.

Whatever Fangmeyer saw in his golden flaked brown eyes must have scared her because when she finally broke from his gaze she looked down at the ominous red stain spreading across his tan shirt and seemed to have to physically restrain herself from crawling into his lap.

Wolford reached his paw behind the seat and gave the tigress' paw a brief but firm squeeze, she reciprocated with clamping down on his fingers like vice. Her grip hurt and his knuckles ground together but he didn't want her to know that so instead he trailed his thumb over her paw comfortingly. His small gentle ministrations bled some of the tough and proud tigress' terror and panic and she eventually eased her death-grip enough for Wolford to reluctantly slide his slightly aching fingers from her grasp and turn his attention back to the radio.

"How are they keeping up with us?!" The driver, a boar technician by the name of Bristol, exclaimed; terror souring the edge of his gruff shout. As he spoke another green plasma bolt whipped past the speeding truck and detonated on a pine in the distance.

Wolford attempted to hail any friendlies a few more times on the radio before throwing the handset under the mount.

"I think they are jamming our transmissions. I can barely reach the other trucks and they are only a few dozen yards away." Wolford growled in frustration. The boar driver blanched and the mammals in the back went ashen faced.

Erik, the golden wolf, shifted the rotary cannon in his lap and peaked through the rear window. The remaining two trucks were trailing behind them still, one had a trail of black smoke trailing from beneath its hood from an unlucky shot from one of those plasma bolts but for now they were holding together. A number of bulky black vehicles resembling armored vans flickered into view every now and then through the underbrush beyond them. A portion of the closest van's roof was open and a wolf ADVENT trooper manned a dangerous looking plasma cannon to their 7 o'clock, and his sights were trained right at him.

"SWERVE RIGHT!" Erik roared. The boar didn't hesitate and jerked the wheel just in time as a green bolt ripped through the air and tore part of the truck's flatbed from the chassis. A second later and they would have been vaporized, armored truck cab or not.

"Bloody Hell!" Czer snarled, the opossum shot Erik a glare. "Hey freak! How about instead of backseat drivin' you put that oversized bullet mulcher of yours to good use and hang out that window and shoot 'em!"

A throaty growl rose from the wolf. "How about I just open the window and throw you at the enemy instead?"

"If you two don't shut the fuck up right now I will turn this truck right around!" Wolford snapped. Jokes aside both mammals didn't miss the snarl coloring the edge of his words and wisely clamped their jaws closed.

Placated that the two idiots in the back had been pacified Wolford's ears caught a senseless muttering over the roar of the truck's engine. He glanced at his driver, the boar seemed to be babbling to himself. Wolford reached out a paw to shake the boar's shoulder.

"Hey Bristol? Are you alri-" The boar suddenly snapped ramrod straight in his seat and went completely ridged las if someone had pressed a taser to his spine.

Wolford jerked his paw away as Bristol's eyes rolled back in his skull showing white and his head lolled back as his mouth open in abject terror.

Then the boar started screaming.

"Bristol! Scat! what's wrong with him?!" Erik shouted over the boar's wordless screaming, the technician now thrashing in his seat and jerking the truck's wheel wildly in his throes.

Wolford had an idea on what was happening, but he prayed it wasn't true. The wounded old wolf leapt across the console and tried to wrestle the wheel away from the crazed technician in time to steer the truck from ramming head on into a tree.

As he wrestled with the boar he looked up at the technician's rolling eyes and to his horror saw an eerie purple glow from behind the mammal's eye sockets.

Mind Control.

With unnatural strength the boar threw ZCOM's Central Officer into the passenger side window and with one paw leveled the pump action shotgun in his lap at the stunned wolf. Adrenaline singing in his ears Wolford lashed a leg out at the barrel kicking it away and fouling the boar's aim. The shotgun went off, buckshot smashing into the windshield, clouding the compromised laminate into a mess of crumbling glass and cracks.

Ears ringing from the gunshot just inches from his face Wolford saw his kick and knocked the shotgun's stock into Bristol's chin. Not wanting to waste the scant second it bought him Wolford lunged forward wrestling for the wheel as the boar flailed his weapon around in one hoof. Fangmeyer managed to enter the fray and wrap her arm around the weapon as the boar screamed in mindless rage and thrashed about madly.

Bristol wasn't able to break whatever Alien had taken hold of his mind and at this rate he was going to kill everyone in the truck. It left Wolford with no other options. He drew his pistol and pressed it to Bristol's temple but for the briefest second he hesitated. It cost him dearly, the truck careened into the side of a tree, throwing the vehicle violently. Wolford nearly lost his grip on his sidearm and dove for the wheel in a desperate attempt to regain control of the truck.

"WATCH OUT!" Fangmeyer screamed. Wolford looked out of the windshield just in time to see a fallen tree inches from the glass. Far to close to dodge and far to late to do anything about it.

"Well, Shi-"

They hit the fallen tree hard, the impact crushed the engine compartment and warped the frame into a mess of flying metal and radiator fluid, effectively catapulting the truck tailgate-over-headlights. Wolford pulled back a little looking around with a calm mind, intent on drinking in what was quite possibly the last seconds of his life.

It's strange how the faster death speeds toward him the slower time seemed to crawl. Wolford had felt this before, even as his body is driven wild by adrenaline, fear, and anger his mind was oddly clear. If he had to put a name to the sensation he'd say he felt… detached. Like he was a passenger in his own body and he was only along for the ride.

Bristol's tusked maw was still wretched open in an incoherent scream Wolford couldn't hear, his weapon pointed at the ceiling and held there by the tigress wrapped around it. Wolford's gold tinged brown eyes turned to the half obscured windshield. The forest, at first a blur of spinning green and brown had slowed to a gently rotating panoramic of the forest floor and the blue sky peaking through the canopy above, though with every rotation the forest floor was getting closer and closer.

Whatever, problems for two-seconds-from-now me.

Ignoring his impending doom spiraling ever closer Wolford trailed his gaze from the windshield to the tigress behind him. Her eyes were screwed shut, her jaws clenched and muscles tight, and round ears (Were they shorter than is?) were pulled back against her head, anticipating the inevitable impact. She was beautiful, and if her face was the last he ever saw than he could live with that.

If my pack were still alive I wonder how they would react if I had married a tiger?

He cracked a grin and reached out a paw and traced a gentle line across her striped cheek as a shadow of a standing pine tree overtook the windshield behind him.

The spinning truck clipped the tree the collision horribly jarring, throwing bodies against the dashboard and like pressing the fast-forward button Wolford's world spun faster and faster, playing catch-up for its temporary slow-motion reprieve. The truck ricocheted from the tree and smashed into the ground, cutting a gorge from the earth and cartwheeled into a boulder, once again launching into the air-

-Where it came crashing back down to earth with a sickening final crunch.

A/N: Hello Y'all! I realize that this update is severely short but I found that it didn't truly fit in well with the rest of what I had written, so I separated it.

What Wolford experienced here is actually something I'm familiar with, its actual name is Tachypsychia. It's a symptom of our fight-or-flight response and common in high-stress situations, in my case it was a car crash. Time seemed to slow down, even though I knew in my head that wasn't the case. I tried to take my experience and adapt it for this story into something readable. (This includes what Wolford's sarcastic "well shi-" line right before impact. Haha!)

And lets not forget the Alien's overpowered mind control powers! For those that haven't played the XCOM series mind control is just one of the first powers your squad encounters and its every bit as frustrating to combat as it sounds. But what kind of monster could be capable of wielding that kind of power?

I suppose you'll have to wait and see next time!

-Untraveled

-: ZCOM Character Dossier :-

Creator: Erik+Olson (AO3)

Name: Erik Esman
Age: 21
Gender: Male
Species: Wolf-lion hybrid

Brief history: Erik was branded as a freak by some, but others believed that he was a miracle, that he was special. Worked part-time as a caregiver with his mom, a lioness, looking after a family friend. When the Aliens attacked, he lost his wolf grandpa.
Basic personality traits: Kind, helpful, sometimes laid-back, caring, compassionate, curious.
Positive traits: Believes in peace but is willing to fight for what's right, never gives up, likes cleaning or fixing things, artistic, open-minded, high morals, sticks up for others, good with puzzles and riddles.
Negative traits: Stubborn, easily angered by bullying, Naïve to a fault.

Physical traits: Hazel eyes, golden brown mane, retractable claws, wolf-like muzzle, dark fur.

Creator: CzH (AO3)

Name: Czer Hunter

Callsign: Ghost-Overwatch

Age: 31

Gender: Male

Species: Possum

Appearance: Bulky, Long scar across left eye

Brief history: A former PMC member who had the opportunity to be in one of the later established Advent zones, being able to hear of the dark things being done via a number of contacts led to him and his team basing themselves out in the wilds before being found by Black Market scouts. They subsequently followed their original trade and operate as on-loan security for various havens or force multipliers for Resistance ambushes, recently acquired as a team by Wolford to bolster rookie teams and those sent on vital missions.

Basic Personality Traits: Quiet, Focused, Prickly

Positive Traits: Experienced Soldier, Confident in combat leadership role, Unusually accurate with a rifle

Negative Traits: Abrasive attitude towards outsiders, brutal to anyone perceived as a threat, Reckless when faced with overwhelming odds