A/N: Hey Y'all, Untraveled here!
So, this chapter is actually shorter than I would have liked but I feel it necessary to split it up, just because I can. I plan on burning through the next chapter and following up quickly so keep your grubby little claws crossed!
Be warned this chapter is more geared towards a little world building and introducing more characters, many made by your fellow readers! I had to rewrite most of this chapter a couple times to get everything to flow and fit so feel free to let me know what Y'all think. Comments are love!
As always if you have a character you wish to see featured in ZCOM than please put them in the comment section below! Just a reminder that not every character has to be a soldier, every story needs its roguish hustlers, shady merchants, and regular mammals just trying to survive! I love to see what you, my dear readers, have to offer.
To submit your very own character into the ZCOM dossier I need these few things:
Name, Age, Gender, Species
Brief history (i.e. lived in the woods since the invasion until found by XCOM scouts)
Basic personality traits (i.e. Optimistic, Clumsy, Womanizer)
At least two positive traits (i.e. Good with a rifle, funny, fearless)
At least two flaws (i.e. Hates foxes, fear of fire, alcoholic)
Post your character into the comment section below!
Chapter 11: Ghost Transmissions Part 3
"Are you sure this is the only way to get what we need? I mean I can think of half a dozen fringe settlements who has a Semi-truck we could borrow." A black furred coyote huffed.
Wolford fought to keep his rolling eyes from pulling a muscle.
"For the fifth time Adriana, we don't have the luxury of a cross country road trip on the off chance one of these fringe settlements might have a Semi big enough for us to use. Tell me, do any of these fringe settlements of yours also just so happen to have an Elerium power converter laying around?"
"Well damn! Sorry I said anything." The coyote shuffled uncomfortably in the passenger seat and turned her golden brown eyes out the window with another huff.
Adriana Whifur knew John Wolford was right but that didn't mean that she had to like it. Too many strangers for her taste. Just the thought of exposing her back out in the open with so many mammals made her shin crawl. The black furred coyote pulled her green recon cowl tighter around her head and shoulders and triple checked the Glock on her hip and the hold-out .38 revolver strapped to her ankle.
I never hurt to be over-prepared.
The XCOM veteran's fidgeting pulled Wolford's attention from the road for a moment. His grayed muzzle pulled into a small frown. He let one paw guide the wheel and the other rest on Adriana's trembling paws.
"How are you recovering? Those shock burns healing right?"
The coyote spared the timber wolf a brief glance before gently shedding his paw from hers.
"Yeah, I'm doing just fine. That Shock Lancer only grazed me, really. The damaged skin is still pulling weird and my leg keeps fucking twitching, but Doc says I'll be right as rain in time for the mission."
"Good." Wolford let her push him away.
She just needs some space. He was still feeling guilty for pulling her early from recovery for the upcoming mission but her knowledge of Zootopia's layout will be invaluable for navigating the super-city's decaying infrastructure. Not many mammals with intimate knowledge of Zootopia were still alive after the city was lost 20 years ago and no one was crazy enough to go live there since.
Zootopia is firmly in the center for the largest "Lost Zone" in the western hemisphere. During the initial invasion the Aliens bombarded the entire landscape with mysterious "Fog Pods" that corrupted and drained the life from everything around it.
Wolford had little interest in finding out what exactly the purpose of these fog pods served but about 18 years ago the resistance started receiving reports of bizarre creatures rising from Lost Zones all over the globe, and Zootopia was the worst of them all. Wolford was hesitant in taking these reports seriously, though one situation in particular stands out in his mind and at least gave these sighting some authenticity.
It was a report from about 18 years ago from a splinter cell led by Marcus Cross, a veteran from the original XCOM project. When he and his crew infiltrated the lands around Zootopia He reported encountering what he could only describe as Zombies.
Wolford was friendly with Cross before the first XCOM fell, but the stresses of battle always brought in a myriad of "sightings" like this, so officially XCOM disregarded Cross's report on the grounds of lack of evidence. Unofficially Wolford would be a fool to throw away potential intel. Zootopia and the rest of the Lost Zone was a huge Unknown, last thing he wanted to do was go into the very heart of unfamiliar territory blind and floundering.
He swung the beat up old pick up around a bend and gripped the wheel tighter when the weathered old truck hit a decrepit dirt road. Gravel spewed from beneath the tires and tossed them against the undercarriage along with a pluming cloud of dust. Adriana flinched from the crackling noise from the rocks smacking the truck, but she soon relaxed back in her seat.
Getting blown up one too many times in convoys will do that to a mammal.
"I hate these damned backwater podunks. I mean how hard is it to set up in some city center or small town with actual roads?" Adriana muttered over the truck's rattling journey.
"You know just as well as I do why the Black Market can't just set up shop next to places like that. It draws too much attention."
"Hmph, if we would have gone to one of my contacts in the Fringe we wouldn't have to be bouncing down roads like the energizer bunny."
"One more complaint and I'm throwing you out the window and making you walk." Wolford deadpanned.
"Boooo." The coyote snorted.
With a sudden jerk the truck hit the edge of a broken blacktop and the rattle of rocks against the undercarriage ceased. The only sounds now was the crunch of crumbling road underneath the tires and the creaking of the suspension leveling out the otherwise bumpy ride over potholes and cracks.
Adriana kept her gold flaked brown eyes to the forest blurring past. Long pauses and comfortable silences were many and spontaneous in a soldier's line of work, however shit can start flying in an instant. Contrary to how it is portrayed in movies combat is vicious, ugly and often over in a matter of minutes, or even seconds. There are rarely any heroics in combat, only a mad scramble for cover, the burning of fear induced adrenaline, and the primal rush to survive by any means necessary.
Adriana Whifur has seen too many friends and subordinates die to truly relax in a situation like this. All it took was a mammal with intent and a gun to snatch her life from the passenger seat of the pickup, and she could do nothing about it.
She checked her pistols for a fourth time, just in case.
A tiny mumble and the creak of a straining seat belt behind her seat pulled the twitchy coyote's attention.
Three mammals were strapped in the back seat of Central Officer Wolford's truck, Gregor Grizzoli, a cranky grizzly bear that Adriana had worked with on quite a few occasions, Felix Haddison, an Ocelot technician from the Avenger, and that insufferable rabbit recruit Wolford has been parading around. All three of the mammals were in various states of exhaustion as everyone but the bunny had been trading places driving, she had been too small to see over the dashboard, even with Wolford's tallest booster seat, so she had slept almost the entire journey.
Adriana's lip curled in contempt at the fresh meat curled in a half sort of fetal position around her oversized seat belt. The rabbit doe was mumbling in her sleep and her feet and ears flopped and kicked sporadically with whatever carrot-filled dream she was in. Whifur had nothing against prey specifically, but there was no place for a bunny in XCOM's ranks, Judy Hopps simply did not belong.
"She's going to get eaten alive." The coyote internally snorted before forcing a more neutral expression over her anger and tuning away from the three slumbering mammals.
"We are here." Wolford announced.
He pulled the truck off the highway into a decrepit, vine infested suburb. Rusting vehicles, long abandoned years ago, lay scattered across the roads and weeds, some even found their resting places buried in the cookie cutter double-wides lining the winding streets. Wolford turned into one such house with an attached garage, the former resident's minivan crumpled into what was once the living room.
Judy snorted herself back into the real world and woozily bobbed her head around until she regained her bearings and slipped from her seatbelt with her X-9 rifle held against her chest.
The XCOM troops popped open the doors and slipped from the truck, their feet kicking up a decade's worth of dust and mold. Forgotten tools and random bits lay strewn across the garage, everything backlit a filthy green by a window crowded by creeper vines in the back of the building.
"Where's the black market supposed to be now?" Grizzoli asked in his scratchy baritone voice.
Judy wondered how a mammal could so easily wear all that ballistic armor and equipment underneath that huge jacket and not keel over from heat stroke. That and the way he gripped his rotary cannon and casually swung the triple barrels around put Judy on edge, a trill of anxiety that stabbed her right behind the base of her ears.
"A half mile north, maybe less." Wolford replied as he straightened his own equipment and weapons, his custom assault rifle and a wicked single bladed sword strapped to his back. "The black market holed themselves up at the docks by the river. Pier 8 if I remember right."
"Why not just drive up to the docks rather then stopping half-a-fuckin'-mile away?" The grizzly growled in irritation.
Wolford ignored him for a moment to stick his muzzle out and check for any strange movement out in the abandoned suburb. When he deemed the coast was clear he held his rifle in one loose paw and waved everyone to follow in a loose V-shape formation.
Felix jumped in and answered the grizzly in Wolford's place.
"Too much activity in one area is a great way to get yourself found, and the black market is all about staying under the radar. It's common practice to park well away and approach on foot." The ocelot explained.
The little jungle cat was clearly not comfortable in field work, it was painfully obvious even to a rookie like Judy. The way he wore his ballistic plate carrier underneath a bland gray hoodie was almost painful to watch in a way the doe couldn't explain. It just looked wrong. She was nervous just watching the engineer awkwardly cradling his shotgun in his fumbling paws.
"bet'cha a raisin cookie and half a ration the cat shoots himself in the foot." Judy heard Adriana whisper to her grizzly bear companion.
"Your on." Grizzoli chuckled quietly.
"Lock up the chatter." Wolford ordered.
"Remember, we are here to negotiate for a Semi-truck and a trailer large enough to transport the Skyranger and if we are lucky enough Felix can find us an Elerium Power Converter to get the Avenger up and flying. Everyone understand?" Once he saw every head bob an affirmative Wolford cracked a small grin and turned away at the tip of the V formation, but not before giving one last warning.
"Keep your eyes out and heads on a swivel. It's not just the Aliens we got to watch out for."
At that last comment Judy tensed and held her rifle in clenched fists, her tail quivering from nerves.
"Except for you squirt, just your ears will do." Grizzoli chortled, pulling a snicker from Adriana.
"Shut it Grizzoli." Wolford growled.
The grizzly's jaws closed with a loud snap and Whifur's chuckles died in her throat, out in the field no one talked back to Central.
Judy did take Grizzoli's words to heart though, after a few moments of silence as they traversed the dead suburban ruins the tension did loosen from her shoulders somewhat and her ears swiveled back and forth, straining to catch anything out of the ordinary.
Thankfully her vigilance proved unnecessary as the only thing she could hear was the shuffling of clothing and the rattle of weapons against hooks and buckles. The eerie neighborhoods and decaying building proved harmless for the moment. Only a couple times Wolford had raised a paw to halt the formation because he thought he had seen something, the other time the formation scattered in a heart-pattering rush as a bowing roof and suddenly caved in on itself, the rotten wood and drywall splintered and smashed with a thundering crack.
The suburbs may had been empty and harmless, but no words could describe the relief Judy felt at leaving those decaying houses to rot in peace.
About ten minutes later the gentle lap and swish of rushing water joined the lonely silence, announcing their approach to the docks.
Contrary to what the doe had read in books and heard in stories the docks were made of the same concrete foundation as the rest of the pier. She had been expecting wooden planks that stretched out over the water but given that 20 years had past she thought it fortunate that she had been wrong, last thing she needed to do was embarrass herself by stepping on a rotten plank and taking an unwilling drink from the river below.
The docks were lined with similar warehoused on both sides of the river, the buildings dark and overgrown by creeper vines and cracked by resilient plant life intent on crushing and reclaiming the land. It was sad in a way, the empty buildings and abandoned piers that were once a bustling center of commerce were now nothing more than husks of broken dreams.
Judy could hear snippets of hushed voices and muffled conversations from her right, the rest of the rotting buildings stood silent and empty.
"Sir, I think its over there." Judy called up in a little voice, a finger pointed at a huge crumbling concrete warehouse with a faded "8" painted on the side.
Wolford sniffed the air, for what exactly Judy wasn't sure, but he must have found it as he rolled his shoulders and relaxed his posture. He waved his squad over and padded over to the building's guard house. A weasel and a ram were lounging inside the 5 foot by 5 foot shack with their battered and filthy weapons leaning up against the door out of their reach.
The weasel was halfway into dreamland with his head hovering just over the desk, his yellow eyes blurry and drooped. It took him several seconds to notice the group of heavily armed mammals loitering just outside his window and several more to realize that they weren't hallucinations. Wolford proved too impatient to wait for this slacking fuzzball to return into wakefulness, so he pounded the window with a fist, sending the panicked weasel and ram clattering to the floor.
"The fuck?!" The weasel cursed. He rubbed his smarting head and hopped back into his seat. "The hell was that for?"
"To wake you the fuck up." Wolford replied coolly. "We need to get in and you two are supposed to be in charge of the gate, yeah?"
The weasel opened his mouth to retort but stopped himself. A sly little grin spread across his thin little muzzle.
"Yeah, sorry. Can't let'cha in. you don't look like Big's mammals and I don't suppose you got an invitation?" He asked sweetly.
"Invitation?" Wolford glanced at Grizzoli who shrugged his massive shoulders and shook his head. Wolford turned back to the grinning weasel. "What invitation?"
"Well, ya see recently we've had to be more… selective on who our customers are. If ya ain't got an invitation than you need ta leave. Unless…" The weasel cast an appraising glance at a glowering Adriana, his hungry gaze sent a slimy shiver of revulsion down the black coyote's spine. "Unless of course you can pay the toll."
"Toll, eh?" Wolford's voice shrunk to a whisper. The weasel took this as a sign he was winning this exchange.
"Yeah! I can let'cha all in, I would just need to inspect that suspicious looking coyote standin' next to ya in the closet for about ten minutes or so."
"Is that so?"
"Yup, just ten minutes. Ain't that a cheap bargain for lettin' y'all pass? So, what do ya say?"
His answer was a timber wolf's fist smashing through the window.
Wolford's claws clamped around the weasel's throat and dragged the gurgling mammal through the shattered glass. The ram froze, struck dumb by the wolf's sudden and savage attack.
In the few seconds he wasted staring at the furious timber wolf proved vital. By the time the stunned ram snapped out of his terror induced stupor and dove for the shotgun leaning against the back door the black coyote his friend had his eyes on had flown through the smashed window and planted a flying double kick in the center of his back, sending the burly sheep sailing through the doorway. The ram's face dragged a bloody trough through the dirt, leaving the sheep stunned and gasping for air.
"Grizzoli," Wolford's cold eyes never left the struggling weasel wheezing and choking against his clenched claws. "Open that fucking gate."
"With pleasure." A toothy grin split Grizzoli's lips. He slung his rotary cannon and gripped the chain-linked gate in his huge paws. With a single grunt and a powerful jerk, the grizzly wrenched the entire gate from its electrically operated mount and tossed the twisted metal frame in the dirt next to the groaning ram.
"Ya know I could have just pushed the button to open it right?" Adriana snarked from the guard house.
"mhmm. Nah, tearing it off felt better." Grizzoli sniffed.
Suddenly the back door to the warehouse burst open and a flood of tattered mammals swarmed the court yard with a huge variety of weaponry all pointed at the huge grinning grizzly with the downsized minigun held casually in his paws.
"Get on the fucking ground!" A Dingo with dust brown fur and clad in a myriad of loose cloth and camouflaged wrappings barked.
The Australian wild dog rushed forward fearlessly with a battered and well-loved X-9 assault rifle tucked to his shoulder. He stopped just out of Grizzoli's reach and kept his rifle trained on the bear's chest.
"I said get on the ground, or me and my boys'll cut you down." He snarled.
Grizzoli's head tilted as he stared at the snarling dingo, a considering expression on his muzzle.
"Roman?"
The dingo jumped, and his snarl slacked into a confused frown. Wolford popped up from behind Grizzoli with the Weasel still gasping him his vice-like grip. A broad smile split the wolf's scarred muzzle.
"J-John?" The Dingo stammered, his rifle turned to the dirt. "Is that you?"
"Ravenshoe!" Wolford tossed the weasel next to the ram and laughed. "Holy shit, I thought you were dead!"
"I thought you were dead!" Roman blubbered. "I never thought I'd ever see you again after XCOM."
"Who said XCOM stayed dead?" The wolf chuckled.
"Fair enough." The dingo cast a curious glace at the mess around him. "So, what are you doing here Wolford? Because having my front door ripped off its hinges was the last place I would have thought to meet you after all these years."
"Well, I was here for business but…" Wolford sent a murderous glare in the weasel's direction. "After one of your mammals tried to extort one of my mammals for sex, now I'm not too sure."
"WHAT?" The dingo snarled. The other security mammals behind Roman eyed the weasel with varying degrees of contempt and disgust.
"H-h-he's lyin' boss!" The weasel whimpered. "I ain't done nuthin' like that!"
"Yeah, he didn't say "Nuthin'" like that, did you?" Adriana appeared from the guard house with a sway in her hips and a swing in her black and ash white tail. The coyote stood over the terrified weasel with a paw on her hip.
She flashed Roman a coy grin. "He only wanted to inspect little ol' me in that supply closet over there for ten minutes or so." She smiled down at the wide eyed weasel. "Ain't that right honey?"
The weasel knew he was fucked, no matter what he said, so all he could do was gulp down his choking terror.
"Weaselton, is that true?" Roman asked, his quiet voice heavy with barely suppressed rage.
"C-come on boss, you ain't gonna believe some random bitch over one of your own, right?"
The Dingo quivered and shook with a fury so hot that it skipped from blind rage straight to cold clearness.
"Raymond, Kevin." Two polar bears in matching sweat pants, tank tops, and huge automatic shotguns snapped to attention. "Scrape this slime out of the dirt and throw 'em in one of the shipping containers for Mr. Big to sort out later."
"What?" Weaselton squeaked. "No, no, nononono! Come on Roman, you can't do this to me!" He scrambled away on his tail from the approaching polar bear twins. "Come on mammal, I'm one of you!"
"Anyone that thinks it's okay to pressure others into mating with your filthy hide ain't one of us… But it isn't my call." The Dingo grinned. "That's Mr. Big's."
The weasel whimpered as huge polar bear paws dragged him away into the warehouse along with his terrified ram accomplice.
Judy was standing off to the side next to poor Felix, her jaw clenched and her rifle trembling terribly against her chest.
John Wolford, the scary, grumpy, but otherwise gentle mammal that had pulled her from the smoldering ruins of her home had moved with such rage and violence that she now struggled to recognize the laughing timber wolf in front of her. It was like he had flipped a switch somewhere and became a completely different mammal.
She had seen him tackle a rhino and mow down an entire squad of Advent troopers back in New Providence but for some reason that hadn't felt real. Not nearly as real as dragging a helpless weasel, a fellow mammal, through a shattered window and then strangle him without a shred of remorse.
If he can do that to another mammal, someone who isn't even our enemy, is XCOM really better than Advent? Judy found that she didn't have an answer.
She passed a paw across her throat, her fingers tracing the lacerations from another wolf just like the one she was following.
Are we really the good guys?
"Hopps!" Wolford calling her name snapped Judy from her soul searching. The timber wolf was looking at her from over his shoulder with a concerned light in his eyes. Her drooping ears perked, and her shaking knees steadied.
No, he may be rough around the edges, but Wolford is not evil. He wouldn't burn down a farm and slaughter a defenseless family. He saved me. I can put my trust in him. I owe him that much.
"Coming Sir!" The doe bounced after the chuckling timber wolf with renewed energy and a lighter heart-
-And a quiet little prayer that everything would be alright.
A/N: Shout out to all the awesome readers that allowed me to use their characters in ZCOM. I am humbled to be able to take something that someone else has created and bring them to life. Y'all are awesome!
ZCOM Character Dossier
Creator: Carbonrap45 (AO3)
Name: Adriana Whifur
Age: 35
Gender: Female
Species: Coyote
Appearance: Black fur and deep golden-brown eyes with a lean muscular physique. Dresses light in favor of mobility and stealth, often seen with a recon hood and half mask with a shemagh around her shoulders.
Brief History: Grew up on the streets of Zootopia before the invasion. After capture by an Advent raid early in their occupation of earth Adriana escaped from custody and has been on the run ever since with extensive experience in paw to paw combat.
Personality: Paranoid, determined, lets slip little about herself while willing to talk to others
Positive traits: Empathic to those that suffered under Advent, has knowledge of combatting most Advent trooper types.
Flaws: Has little faith in new recruits and often refers to them as "fresh meat", paranoia tends to flare up at the worst of times.
Creator: .gaming ( )
Name: Roman Ravenshoe
Age: 38 Years old
Gender: Male
Species: Dingo
Brief History: Roman was born to a very poor family in Russia. When it became apparent that the Alien's arrival was imminent Roman jumped at the chance to join XCOM as soon as he turned 18. He volunteered for the Cybernetic Enhancement program headed by Chief Engineer Raymond Shen, Skye's father. Roman became one of the pawful of survivors of the program when Earth surrendered to the Aliens. Roman fled to the wilderness to avoid capture and lived with a tiny fringe settlement until an old acquaintance recruited him into the resistance to work in the Black Market.
Basic Personality Traits: Calm, Optimistic, Bit Flirty
Positive traits: Cybernetic enhancements, Intimidating Presence, confident in leadership role
Negative traits: Severe PTSD episodes, Stubborn and resistant to change, Unable to maintain his Cybernetics making them prone to failures
Name:CommanderOps (AO3)
Name Gregor 'Brick' Grizzoli
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Species: Grizzly Bear
History: Gregor was a fresh face heavy weapons specialist when the XCOM Headquarters was assaulted by the Invaders. He and his comrades/squad buddies that also were freshly promoted to some specialist was tasked defending a maintenance tunnel. They bravely held it till the dreaded sound of skittering from above. He was the lone survivor of a squad of six that escaped with the other survivors of the base. He continued to dutifully serve what was left of XCOM, but as the years go by and the more comrades he lost he became slowly numb to the loss of the life that he regards any new rookie as just another number to the wall. He was denied the rank of Sergeant based upon the mixed review of his leadership, leading successful operations but at the cost of an injured/dead rookie.
Basic Personality Traits: Serious, Reserved
Positive Traits: Heavy Weapons Specialist, Strong, Prior War experience
Negative Traits: Chronic Alcoholic, Hates Robots of any form, PTSD with Chrysalids.
