Chapter 2: I'm Here, I'm Back
"SHEN! You better open this door right now!"
"Or you'll d-d-do what *Hic* Exactly?" A tittering drunken female voice giggled through four inches of reinforced steel door. "A-are you gonna *Hic* Cute me to death?"
Jack Tygan dragged a paw down his striped face and sighed. The few curious bystanders drawn to the good doctor's shouting match with the sealed bar door snickered.
Jack turned his cold blue eyes on the peanut gallery behind him and leveled a frosty glare at the Bengal Tiger and Lion hardly caring to stifle their mirth at his failing negotiations with a certain drunken vixen.
"Cemsay, Leroy? Don't you two have somewhere else better to be?"
" 'Fraid not Doc." The Bengal tiger Leroy chuckled. "Listenin' to two natural enemies verbally spar through a steel door is 'bout as best an entertainment I've had all week!" Cemsay snickered in agreement, his golden mane shaking.
Jack opened his mouth to further berate the overgrown felines but was interrupted by a tipsy croon from through the bar door.
"Short bunny! *Hic* Striped bunny! Little *Hic* B-ball of fur! Nice Bunny! Cute Bunny! *Hic* More, more, more!"
Jack buried his head in his paw as the two cats held onto each other for support crying with laughter.
"I'm a hare for serendipity's sake…" the heckled lapine's sigh going unheard over the lion and tiger's laughter.
Perhaps leaving a heartbroken Skye alone in a room with a cooler of vodka spiked pawpsicles hadn't been one of Doctor Jack Tygan's smartest moves, he realizes. It could be worse though. Jack may not be a therapist or physiologist but he was concerned that Skye may attempt to do something drastic.
Suicide was a very real possibility. It wouldn't be the first time XCOM had suffered such a casualty.
Jack had been banging his head fruitlessly against the bar door since Skye had locked him and everyone else out over two- no, now its been three- hours ago.
At first fear for the arctic fox's life had gripped Jack Tygan's heart like a vise. He had all but groveled for her to unlock the door and let him in. She, of course, had not.
Jack didn't trust her enough to leave her completely alone but as long as he stood there shouting at a cold steel airlock Skye would be occupied with responding to his jabs with her own.
At first she had been snippy and furious. Her answers to his pleas were either shots at his masculinity or his past employment with ADVENT. Something Jack knew Skye held against him like a razor against his throat. He didn't hold it against her though. Jack had been working for the enemy willingly and knowingly. he had taken the easy and comfortable route during the Alien's occupation. Until recently of course. Joining XCOM had been the most hare-brained and liberating decisions of his entire life.
His most recent decisions, however, were perhaps not the most well thought out. For the life of him Jack couldn't figure out why he had thought it was wise to leave the emotionally fragile vixen when the alarm had sounded upon hearing Wolford's convoy being ambushed, not even thinking about the poor fox on the verge of another nervous breakdown next to him. Not 30 seconds later Jack cursed his stupidity and rushed back to Skye's side only to meet with a locked door and a hurt and angry vixen screaming at him to go and stay away from her.
About an hour into their shouting match Skye began to dig into the cooler were the pawpsicles they had made together had finished freezing. The pawpsicles made with four bottles of 196 proof import vodka. The kind that can curl a cat's whiskers a ten paces. Just one pawpsicle was enough to knock a bull elephant on his tail.
It was by Skye's second pawpsicle that Jack discovered that drunk Skye was very flirty and he was in no way shape or form equipped to deal with That.
Skye was already 20 deep by the third hour and Jack had just given up at finding a way combat the hammered vixen's drunken advances.
Besides, this would be golden blackmail value later down the line. Jack had always been curious to see just how red an embarrassed snow white arctic fox's face can turn.
Thank Serendipity for voice recorders.
Jack quirked a miniscule smirk and looked down to check to see of the little voice recorder in his breast pocket was still on before schooling his features and banging on the door again.
"E-excuse me? Doctor T-Tigen?" A nervous ocelot squeaked, pausing Jack's futile efforts to shout a door open. Jack turned around to address the nervous little feline dressed in an orange engineer uniform.
"It's Tygan. Doctor Tygan." Jack corrected with a raw cough. Must be losing a voice a little from yelling through an airlock for the past 3 hours. "What can I do for you?"
The ocelot shot the lion and tiger towering over him on either side a timid apologetic glance and cleared his throat to address the stern hare nearly as tall as he was.
"I'm sorry Doctor T- Ty-" The cat looked so nervous he was visibly shaking. Was he really that intimidating Jack wondered?
"Tygan." Jack took pity on the poor kit and decided to cut to the chase, if only to keep the shaking ocelot from having a nervous breakdown from just trying to talk to him. "I think I remember you. You work up on the bridge right?"
The ocelot brightened a little at being recognized and proudly puffed his chest out. "Y-yes sir! My name is Felix! I'm a communications technician."
Jack chuckled dryly at Felix's bubbly pride in his job title. Cemsay and Leroy were both trading amused grins as well. Ah, the innocence of youth.
"Does the Commander need me for something Felix?" Jack asked. Out of the corner of his hearing he heard a muffled thump and a drunken curse from someone losing their balance from pressing her ear against the airlock door. The only indication Jack had heard his drunk eavesdropper was one of his long ears swiveling towards the door behind him.
"Oh! Y-yes sir!" Felix continued sheepishly. "The Commander wanted me to inform you that the Skyranger is going to be here in about half an hour."
Jack and the two large cats perked up at the good news. Jack was sure that Skye heard too and was likely still listening with bated breath. An invisible weight he had seemed to have forgotten was there lifted from the air. The operatives were safe and coming home.
But where one anxiety was eased another took its place.
"Are there any casualties?"
Felix lowered his head and chewed the inside of his cheek.
"Sergeant… Sergeant Stalvarg, they-!" The young cat choked as if it forcing those wretched words past his lips were painful. Cemsay and Leroy's smirks bleed into horrified stares. "He was- They… There was nothing they could do…"
"I'll spin up med-bay." Jack replied in his normal frosty tone. The time for gentle coaxing was over. "Are there any other casualties? Did the other Faction Representatives make it out too?"
"Both did Sir. The- the other casualty was the R-Reaper but he is conscious and ambulatory."
Tygan blew through his nose and sent a quick prayer that that little hiccup with getting that Reaper wounded wouldn't come back to bite them in the ass during negotiations later. What exactly happened in Zootopia?
"Very good Felix. Go tell Commander Bogo that I will take care of it. Also wake up Nathan Oncason and get him down here to open this door. I know he just had a 36 hour shift but I really need this door open."
"Y-yes sir!" Felix's little spotted tail flicked behind him enthusiastically and he bolted with anxious energy down the hall and back to the bridge to complete his tasks.
Jack fixed both Cemsay and Leroy with a clinical glare, causing both large cats to flinch back from under the diminutive lapine's cold gaze. "Can I trust you two to keep by this door while I get Med-Bay prepped? Keep her talking. If she's busy making fun of you she's not hurting herself."
The lion and tiger exchanged brief glances and both hardened their once jovial expressions and nodded solemnly.
"Thank you." Jack knocked on the door behind him and called through the steel barrier. "Shen, I have to leave for a while but I promise I will be back as quickly as I can. Cemsay and Leroy will keep you company until then, okay?"
Skye didn't answer but Jack thought he heard a tiny sob from behind the door. The small sound punched Jack straight in the heart but he had no other choice but to leave. He grimaced and pressed a paw against his aching chest before swallowing his hurt and making haste towards Med-Bay. He only looked back once at the locked bar door before he shook off his distracting thoughts and began to run through his mental checklist as he raced away hoping that no other mammal is lost this terrible night.
"Thank you Felix, you can go."
"Y-yes Commander!"
Commander Bogo watched the perky ocelot rush off to his monitoring terminal and turned his seat back around to his own terminal and sagged back into his seat as exhaustion, both physical and emotional, washed over him in a suffocating flood. This day has been a nightmare from the start, first Shen's stunt with Wilde's video and now the negations seemed to have collapsed. Someone tipped the Aliens off and it may have just cost him Wolford and dozens of brave soldiers and possibly an alliance between the Reapers and Skirmishers. This is the worst case nightmare scenario and Bogo can only sit back and pray that this shit-storm can somehow be salvaged.
Bogo looked down at this terminal's clock and blinked. He had been so lost in his head that he had eaten up 20 minutes just staring into space. The Flight Officer's terminal gave a happy chirp prompting the mountain ram manning the display to jump to his hooves.
"Commander, the Skyranger is back!"
The ram's declaration snatched hold of everyone's attention causing the background conversations to instantly go silent and every eye turn towards Bogo.
"Thank you LT." The older cape buffalo levered himself from his seat and grunted in pain as his legs and back popped in protest. He blinked and realized that every mammal on the bridge was still staring silently at him.
"Do I have something on my face?" He asked. A few of the cowed technicians sheepishly shook their heads. "Well then, carry on!"
Muted conversations bubbled up in the bridge as Bogo trooped out of the bridge with nary a limp or grimace, the only indication that he was hurting at all was his balled up fists and the sound of grinding teeth. When he was finally alone in the passageway Bogo relaxed and allowed the heavy limp in his throbbing right leg he had been fighting to show itself.
Whatever stasis technology the Aliens had used to preserve him kept his body in relatively good condition, virtually unchanged for 20 years. Tygan had noted a minor case of muscle atrophy and Bogo's joints sometimes felt as if they were grinding on broken glass but he more or less felt fit as a fiddle, or at least as fit as a beat-up cape buffalo in his mid-40's can be anyway.
The buffalo sidestepped a few technicians that had stopped in the hallway upon overhearing the flight officer's announcement, their eyes trained on his huge imposing hulk as he finally found the stairway up to the landing pad. Whether they were staring because of Shen revealing Wilde's video, respect for his position, or because of his reputation remained to be seen.
Ascending the stairs leading up to the stern mounted landing pad Bogo finally caught up with the herd of off duty mammals and nosy technicians itching to catch a glimpse of the Skirmisher and Reaper as well as try to help the exhausted operatives. Bogo scowled and marched his way through the congested hallway.
"If you're not helping the wounded off the ship, then GET OUT OF THE WAY!" He bellowed and waded through the blabbering crowd, scattering the technicians like bowling pins.
Bogo managed to get onto the landing pad just as the Skyranger's sleek hull pitched in a gentle turn and threw out its skids in time to catch the textured surface in a flawless and skilled entry. The jumpship's twin turbines threw up a cloud of superheated dust, only Bogo himself and the few aviation personnel that were actually supposed to be there stood unflinching as they scrambled to secure the Skyranger's struts to the landing surface and assess the damage to the jumpship's control surfaces as Doctor Tygan's medical staff surged forward with a host of medical equipment the second the Skyranger's ramp began to lower.
Bogo felt the landing pad shudder and begin to lower into the Avenger's hold as the swarm of mammals scrambling to aid his operatives and check vitals. It was impossible to see through the throng of bodies, even someone as tall as Bogo. He could make out Grizzoli's head above the crowd before sinking down to allow the shorter medics access to him. He couldn't make out the rest of his team though he did catch a glimpse of an odd jungle cat dressed in bizarre white and red armor.
Technicians and medics broke off in groups as they completed their assigned tasks. Several of them respectfully greeted the tired commander standing vigil on the edge of the landing pad. Their hails were more out of acknowledgement for their commander rather than an honest greeting.
"Good Evening Commander." A chestnut mare in technician yellow murmured as she opened the hold's bay doors.
"Good evening corporal." Is it really almost night already?
"Commander." A vaguely familiar wombat with a permanent scowl on his stubby muzzle grunted as he waddled past with one of the operatives' shotguns clutched in his wide paws, its black matte surface caked with grey dust and some kind of foul green ichor.
"Evening Armory Sergeant." Bogo replied, finally recognizing the short marsupial in charge of weapon and armor maintenance.
A veritable flood of greetings followed to the point that faces blurred and Bogo's attempts at a proper greeting fell flat both due to his exhaustion and the amount of mammals throwing greetings his way.
Next time he should really avoid standing next to the only open bay door out of the hold if only to preserve his throat and sanity.
"Good evening Commander!"
"Good evening."
"Hello Commander!"
"Good evening."
"How's it going Commander?"
"Evening."
Maybe if I avoid eye contact they won't say anything?
"Nice to see you Commander!"
"Evening…"
No such luck…
How's your day going Commander?"
"Hmph."
"Long time no see Chief!"
"Shut up Wilde."
"Good evening Commander."
"Good eve-"
"Commander Bogo!"
Bogo jerked out of his trance of automatic greetings and blinked down at a pair of long black tipped ears aimed up at him from knee-height. He had to stoop over a bit to see around his barrel chest to meet a pair of tired but excited amethyst eyes and the bunny doe they belonged to.
Bogo couldn't recall her name yet, Skips? Pops? It was something like that.
Bogo frowned when he took in the doe's condition. Gray dust and dried green ichor marred her fur and crusted them into patchy clumps, her tan body armor was in no better condition with a few flecks of blood stained across her damaged chest piece. Her rifle, a conventional X-9s from before the Invasion Bogo realized, hung under her arm unloaded and filthy.
"Yes?" Bogo asked as gently as he could, his voice rough from lack of sleep and stress.
The bunny's ears fell behind her back as if she began questioning the wisdom in calling out the intimidating cape buffalo several hundred times her weight. She visibly swallowed and gathered her nerve and spoke again.
"Sir, it's about Outrider- o-or rather who he is!"
Bogo's brows rose higher and higher until it seemed they would leave his face altogether.
She's not saying what I think she is implying is she? Wilde is de-
"Long time no see Chief!"
Bogo's eyes widened, completely tuning out the bunny nervously babbling below him her arms waving around expressively.
"…He just vanished like- like a-"
"-Ghost." Bogo whispered, shocking the bunny a little. Bogo whipped around and sprinted from the Avenger's hold scattering personnel too slow or distracted to get out of his way with the little bunny soldier hot on his heels.
Bogo barreled into Med-Bay panting and sucking wind. He leaned against the doorway for support as he scanned the room of skittish medics staring up at him in confusion.
"Commander? What's wrong?" Doctor Jack Tygan pulled away from the circle of medics surrounding Adriana Whifur's bed and bounded down from the table to stand in front of the gasping cape buffalo.
"It's Wilde." Bogo gasped out. "Outrider is Wilde." Doctor Tygan looked like someone had just slapped him with a cold fish, his mouth open and ears down his back. "He's here and we can't find him."
"Wha-?" the confused doctor sputtered.
"Doctor," Bogo heaved. "Shen, Where is Skye?"
Hearing the vixen's name snapped the hare out of his fog. He regained his composure and squared his ears and shoulders.
"Follow me."
"Skye?"
A soft tapping on the outside of the locked airlock roused the miserable vixen curled against the bar counter. The arctic fox's drooped ears twitched but she otherwise was as still as a corpse.
Out in the hallway Nathan Oncason sighed, empathetic to Skye's suffering, even through the haze of his own exhaustion. Every mammal on the Avenger has been working overtime, Nathan being no exception, having worked nearly two days straight.
The Jaguar bartender gently rested a mutilated paw on the lock door, unintentionally putting his mismatched fingers and missing claws on display to the large cats standing behind him. Leroy and Cemsay hardly batted an eye however, a number of the Avenger's crew has similar scars, missing tails, mauled faces, and amputated limbs are a common sight among the resistance groups and settlements out in the fringe.
Nathan tried to rouse Skye one more time before he had to resort to unlocking the bar door letting himself and the two other cats inside. The sight that greeted him broke his heart. the sickly sweet smell of fruit flavored alcohol punched him in the nose and the floor was doted with patches of sticky strawberry juice. He noted there was also a puddle of vomit a few feet away from the bar underneath one of the stools and pressed up against the bar and curled up on the floor was Skye, her fur and clothes matted in dried strawberry juice.
"Oh, mi pobre pequeño zorro." He cooed, crossing the pawpsicle stick strewn floor and scooping the miserable strawberry and vodka stained arctic vixen in his black furred arms.
Skye reacted to the comforting warmth and latched onto the tired jaguar and stuck her snout under his arm to stifle the dry sob that tore from her raw throat. Nathan found the cooler that had at one point held over 200 pawpsicles, seeing a quarter of them gone the jaguar let out a small indistinct noise of sadness. Skye must really being hurting badly to try and drown her suffering like this.
Nathan closed the cooler and sat on top all the while he swayed the distraught vixen in his arms and purred quiet reassurances in a mix of English and Spanish, his mind too tired and distracted to realize Skye wouldn't be able to understand half of what he was saying. Thankfully it didn't seem to matter, just being able to cling to the gentle feline bartender and hear his warm soothing whispers was enough to soothe her through alcohol addled misery.
While Nathan comforted Skye Leroy and Cemsay had trailed inside after the jaguar and took up stools, careful to avoid the puddle of vomit and the occasional strawberry stains.
Upon seeing the sorry state of the bar Leroy shot Cemsay a look that clearly said, 'Shen never does anything by halves.' Cemsay snorted and waved a large paw in relenting agreement. Though very true pointing that out now would be in poor taste.
After a few minutes Skye managed to calm down and reluctantly unglued herself from Nathan's arms, though she still stayed in his lap and leaning against his chest looking drained but a bit less miserable. Looking around the bar she finally realized she had a small audience for her break-down she huffed but still didn't move, she was too exhausted to care.
"Thanks Nate." Skye mumbled, her voice still wobbly from the alcohol.
"Of course señora." The jaguar crooked a roguish smile and patted the diminutive vixen between her ears. Skye snorted and weakly waved off his patting paw as if it were an irritating fly. Leroy and Cemsay chuckled at her plight, their purring laughter lightening the mood.
Skye crossed her arms and glared daggers at the chuckling cats, which did exactly nothing to stop them, she rolled her reddened eyes playfully and tapped Nathan's thigh.
"Make yourself useful and get me another pawpsicle." She commanded with a playful snobbish authority.
"I think you have had enough." Nathan replied, frowning slightly. Skye turned her head up and molded herself against his chest, her eyes widening pleadingly.
"Please?" She whimpered. When he looked like he was going to refuse she cranked her "puppy-eyes" up to 11, finally breaking his resolve.
"That… is playing dirty." He grumbled, turning his eyes away amidst Leroy and Cemsay's giggling.
"Please Nathan? I've had the shittiest day and I don't want to end it sober." Skye asked.
"You're hardly sober now." Nathan replied, but he already knew he had lost their battle of wills so with a reluctant sigh he placed the swaying vixen on the floor and popped open the cooler to fish out a number of pawpsicles. He passed them out to a pleasantly surprised Leroy and Cemsay, but before he handed one to Skye he held it and met her eyes with a stern gaze.
"When I say you've had enough, then you will not argue, yes?"
Skye's answer was to snatch the pawpsicle away and trail her pink ribbon of a tongue lavishly over the frozen treat with an impish grin on her face. Nathan shook his head with a helpless snort and popped his own pawpsicle into his maw. A delighted trill rose from his throat at the taste.
"Huh, this is actually good." He commented, pulling the pawpsicle from his maw to speak. "Where did you come up with it?"
Skye's smile faded, her eyes glazing over mournfully. "It… I learned it from Uncle Nick."
"Nick Wilde?" Leroy piped up, earning a sharp glower from Nathan. The tiger had the decency to give Shen an apologetic look, his round ears lowering sheepishly.
Skye, to her credit, only sniffled a bit and licked her treat again, albeit with a somber far away look. To their surprise after a few quiet moments she was the one that broke the silence.
"It's his birthday today." She whispered. The cats turned their attention to the distracted vixen as she struggled with her words. "Dad and Uncle Nick's birthdays are close together so when I was a kit we all used to just have one big party for them both."
It seemed cathartic to talk about what was hurting her to a group of people she trusted. In the back of her mind she realized she only had the confidence to open up because she had shared this with Jack first. She didn't really know what to think about that.
The cats all looked at each other, hesitant to bring up what was on their minds. Nathan tilted his head to the tiger and lion and they nodded in response. The jaguar looked down at the fox in his lap.
"What…. What was he like? Outrider I mean." He asked a bit uncertain of where to take this conversation. To his relief a small smile broke over Skye's muzzle and she stared down at the pawpsicle sitting in her lap.
"He…" She giggled; her voice rough from the regurgitated alcohol. "He was an asshole."
Looking up and seeing her thoroughly confused audience's jaws hanging in confusion Skye snickered.
"What? It's true. Just because I loved the guy didn't mean he was perfect." She threw up her paws and waved her pawpsicle around for emphasis. "to be honest I sometimes saw him as more of a father than my own Dad." She sighed.
"Yeah Uncle Nick was an asshole, but he was a lovable asshole. He may have been a bad mammal he did what he did for all the right reasons. He… Uncle Nick was snarky and unrepentantly sarcastic.
"-you forgot charming, witty, and handsome."
Skye chuckled wetly, a few stray tears finding their way to her eyes.
"Yeah, sure." She scoffed; her gaze trained back to the pawpsicle in her lap. "He could be infuriating and slippery with the slyest touch to ever grace a con-mammal thieving fingers-"
"-In my defense I was left unsupervised."
Skye giggled and looked up from her lap and rose her pawpsicle to her mouth to take a bite. "Yeah you would always say tha-"
Her mind's gears ground to a halt as a pair of hauntingly familiar emerald eyes stared back at her. All around her the other three felines blinked slack-jawed at the black clad fox that seemed to have just stepped out of Skye's photograph. Skye froze, her pawpsicle still poised a few inches from her open mouth as she stared at what could only be a ghost.
He looked almost exactly like he had when he died, his features sharp and rugged, his fur a crimson-orange with a splash of white that ran from the underside of his jaw, down his neck and vanishing behind the folds of his dark livery, his paws ended in a dark charcoal brown closely matching his pitch black trench coat. Though she couldn't see underneath his partially shredded clothing his body looked lean and coiled with powerful muscle.
Those beautiful emerald eyes dragged away from her gaze and a pair of red-orange furred ears snapped on straight on his head in pleasant surprise.
"Oh! A pawpsicle! Why Snowball you shouldn't have."
Then the ghost leaned in until his wiggling black nose was a scant inch from her own and his mouth closed around the frozen treat in her paw and snatched it away.
Skye's suddenly parched throat worked to moisten her mouth but no words came out, she only managed to open and close her mouth a few times in numbed shock as she watched the blissful expression on the fox's face as he snacked on the spiked pawpsicle. Nathan, Leroy and Cemsay were in much the same position, Cemsay's face actually paled to the point his mane bleached a sandy white in fright.
When the ghost met her gaze again Skye's brain seemed to finally jumpstart, though the only thing running through her head was disbelief. This is too good to be true, it had to be, right?
"Is…" Skye swallowed and tried again. "Is this a- a dream?" She stammered. "Or another nightmare?"
The red fox stopped his chewing and tiny near imperceptible smirk took over his face. the hint of razor sharp metal fangs flashed from beneath his lips. "I'm afraid not Snowball."
Hearing her old nickname, something no-one but one mammal ever called her, broke something in her chest. Her vision swam as tears of confused joy filled her eyes, blurring the red fox's face and for one terrifying moment Skye though she was really waking up.
"U-Uncle Nick?" She reached out blindly with trembling arms her paws uncurling pleadingly, but all she felt was cold air.
A pair of larger warm paws cupped her own and gently guided them forward until she felt a narrow muzzle and soft facial fur. Skye's breath hitched and she blinked furiously to get herself under control as she began to desperately but carefully trail her paws over the once familiar cheek bones and around to the pair of triangular ears twitching atop his head.
She vaguely noted a scar free of facial fur just above his left eyebrow where a bullet fired at point blank range had grazed his temple, leaving a rigid trench in his handsome features.
When Skye breathed in the stench of blood, steel, and gunpowder hit her like a violent haymaker, but underneath all that she could just make up a faint scent that pulled at the furthest vestiges of her kithood memory.
He smelled like violets.
Without warning she flung herself at the red fox- at her Uncle Nick- and buried her head into the nape of his neck and bawled unashamedly like a little kit.
Her weight bore the injured fox to the ground but Nick dropped his half-eaten pawpsicle managed to gently set them both on the floor as she wrapped her entire body and fluffy white tail around him in a tight cocoon as she clung to him for dear life.
Slowly Nick's stoic and hardened mask cracked until a few tears of his own leaked out and a small sob choked out and he returned his long lost niece's embrace.
"You've grown up, Snowball." He hoarsely whispered in her ear; his voice tight with emotion. Saying her nickname caused her to tighten her hold on him in case he were to suddenly vanish.
Out of the corner of his eye Nick saw a familiar cape buffalo charge into the room with a hare and that bunny soldier hot on his tail. They all stopped and stared sheepishly at the intimate embrace they found the foxes in, Bogo in particular looked stricken. The unfamiliar cats Nick had found SKye sitting with were all staring at him in a similar manner, their expressions one of slack jawed disbelief and a small amount of fear. Maybe later he would look back on this moment and laugh at their stunned faces but for now Nick deemed them unimportant and turned back to the vixen in his arms.
"Stay please." She begged. "Don't leave me again. Please don't die again. Please don't die…"
Nick wrapped his tail around her and guided her muzzle to the underside of his chin so he could scent mark her, just like he had when she was a little kit.
"I'm here." He whispered as he rocked her back and forth. "I'm here, I'm back and I'm not leaving again."
A/N: ZCOM is back baby! Hallelujah!
Finally, Nick and Skye are happily reunited and the Avenger's chief engineer has her favorite uncle back! Though now I wonder just how Bogo and the rest of the crew will react to Nick Wilde's return...
Not going to lie, writing this took a lot out of me. 2019 has not been kind to me and both my time and drive to write have been virtually non-existent. I am striving to get back in the swing of things but it is a struggle, I only hope that y'all enjoy the fruit of my labors.
A shout-out to the creatures of the Writer's Box, a small group of dedicated zootopia Fanfic writers on Discord that have been instrumental in their efforts to beta-read through this work.
Usernamesweretaken and CommanderAIK in particular. Y'all are awesome, thank you.
(On an unrelated note you, my dear reader, can find both of these authors' work on AO3. check them out!)
I am Always on the lookout for more OC's! (original characters) the heart and soul of the XCOM series is always the people you command as you lead them through the war against the alien menace, ZCOM is no different!
To submit your very own character into the ZCOM dossier I need these few things:
1. Name, Age, Gender, Species
2. Brief history (i.e. lived in the woods since the invasion until found by XCOM scouts)
3. Basic personality traits (i.e. Optimistic, Clumsy, Womanizer)
4. At least two positive traits (i.e. Good with a rifle, funny, fearless)
5. At least two flaws (i.e. Hates foxes, fear of fire, alcoholic)
Post your character into the comment section below!