"Where are they at?" I peered around the log pile I was situated behind, trying to get a glimpse of the advancing enemy. "I lost 'em Ben."

Instead of talking back he held up three fingers and pointed first left and then right. There they are, pretty close together in two groups of three. Perfect, we've got all six coming right at us. Now that I think about it that sounds really terrible that I'm excited all of them are going to be shooting at me in the next few minutes. The rounds are fake but still, sounds a little off-kilter that I'm happy about that. I really need to get a mental check sometime soon, my view on life might be a little bit…off.

Turning on my group channel I spoke in hushed tones. My external speaker was off but still, can't hurt to be safe. "Made contact approximately just a little while out from home base. What's the plan Mitch?"

"Stay hidden as long as possible if they keep advancing towards our position."

"What do we do if they start going in the opposite direction?"

"Shoot at them to get their attention. You absolutely have to make sure that they come into the circle of fire we're setting up."

I paused for a moment. "It's not really a circle…isn't it more of a triangle?"

"I don't fucking care, call it whatever you want. Triangle of confusion, rhombus of terror, parabola of mystery, just draw them into it." Mitch sounded really exasperated at my teasing which made me chuckle a bit. It's amazing that we can even work together when we both can just bug the shit out of each other without even trying.

"Yes Sir, Corporal Woley. Drawing them into the parabola now." I turned towards my two companions. "Alright, you guys heard the man so let's stealth it up a bit. If we get spotted then you two leapfrog it back and I'll hold up the rear and block with my bio-cade."

"Are you still calling it that?" The British voice of Talia came through the headset.

"Unless you can think of something better then yeah I am. It's kind of grown on me."

We carefully made our way backwards towards the rest of the team. Somehow we made it from tree to tree without being spotted, remaining on the fringes of sight. For a minute they'd disappear, we'd all panic, then the opposition would come back into view and everything would be ok. Things stayed that way for a while, at least until they grouped up for a couple minutes and discussed something.

As they talked I recuperated with my own team. "Mitch, they've stopped. You want me to engage or wait it out?" The only response was static. "Mitch, can you hear me? This is Wolf." Of course it was static. "Hey ass-face! Answer the damn channel." Well fuck you and your law Murphy. I crouched and ran over to where Talia and Ben were hiding and took a knee next to them, activating my external speaker as the comms were not working either. If I had to guess, this was intentional. Major Kyle was just throwing a wrench in the system and seeing how the fireteams would react. "Guys, I can't raise Mitch so we are currently on our own. As official second-in command as of about a half-hour ago I am making an executive decision." I paused and the two of them sighed loudly. It looks like the power's already gone to my head. "You two start the maneuvers because I'm going to kick it off. Mitch and the rest need to know that we're coming back to them and the plan is still in effect."

Ben nodded and turned to Talia. "You go now. Wolf and I will take first crack. Yell for me when you reach good cover and I'll take my turn to run past you."

"Got it."

She took off sprinting and the group of six turned towards her, too surprised to do anything. Guess that's my signal. "Hey assholes, think fast." Not my best insult but whatever, the effect is what matters. And it definitely worked, they turned from the running Brit and instead faced me and Ben now. As I hurled the oh-so stinging words we lit up the forest with gunfire, me with my Lancer and him with his M76 Revenant LMG. The six of them scrambled as rounds hit the woodland surrounding them.

"Ben, focus fire on the rightmost one." I yelled over the sounds of battle. "He's not even close to cover."

The two of us fixated down the sights on our rifles and the shimmering of shields indicated hits on the man. Before he could get into safety we took out the personal barrier. Shortly thereafter loud swearing could be heard as one of the enemy soldiers raised his hands, exiting the field of battle. "All mine, that one was mine." I shouted happily.

"Screw you Wolf. I totally got the last hit on him."

"Half a point each?"

"Deal."

It wasn't too long before the reduced team found a decent entrenchment and began to pin us down to where returning fire for more than a second was almost impossible. Our shields were almost instantly shredded as soon as we showed our face, even with my added barriers I couldn't do it. "Talia better get to cover soon or we're gonna be screwed Big Ben."

"Move yourself Vandel!" Speak of the devil.

"Can you give me a bio-cade please Wolf?"

"Since you asked so nicely..." I stepped out from behind my cover, an action I instantly regretted as all fire was drown to me instantly and thrust my two empty hands forward. A large purple wall appeared in front of me and the other team started yelling in surprise. God I love this thing, the effort is totally worth it. As long as my amp holds out of course, after what happened last time I was a little frightened to use it again. Walking backwards step by step, I grimaced from the effort of holding up the large wall as projectile after projectile slammed into it.

"Wolf I'm in cover, drop it."

With a loud exhalation of relief I dropped the bio-cade, turned tail and booked it towards a shoulder-high wooden barricade before throwing myself over, almost crashing headfirst into Talia. "Watch yourself Wolf."

"My bad, let me scootch over to the end over here so I can return fire." She mumbled something unintelligible, it almost sounded like, "nice job." "I'm sorry what was that?"

"I said…nice job with the wall back there. Wanker."

Pretending to clean my ear, which kind of loses effect when you have a helmet on, I leaned forward as if I had difficulty hearing. "I didn't catch that," I fired a burst from the Lancer, "almost sounded like you said, 'nice job.'"

"You know what I fucking said, just shoot at them."

I laughed as I leaned back out, this time using my Mattock to make up some accuracy at this distance. As I pulled the trigger as fast as possible, they advanced towards us, occasionally scrambling for cover when their shields dropped too low. We made our way back to Mitch, Marissa and Diego just like that. Talia and Ben alternated running to cover and once we were threatened heavily out came the shield and I ran back too. No eliminations were made for either side until I drew closer to the tower.

Once again I tried to raise home base on the comms. "Mitch come in. Can you see me yet?" Still, there was nothing but static on the radio. "Mitch, Marissa, Diego, somebody help me out here."

This sucks. I don't even know if I'm going the right way. When you come under fire, making sure that you're going the right direction pretty much goes straight out the window. The good news is that all five of them still followed us three blindly so we still had that part of the plan in effect but unless I could reach one of the guys we were pretty screwed.

"Ben, I still can't get the other three on the comms." I fired at a Marine who was leaning out just a bit too far, making him crawl back behind a large tree. "You ready for another run for cover big man. That guy almost flanked us."

"Sure thing." The six foot eight southerner stood up tall and blasted away with his Revenant. "Talia, comin' your way darling."

"Go on hillbilly, Wolf and I have got you covered."

I bellowed out as Ben began to run. "Bio-cade up!" I ran out and resumed the game of chicken I'd been playing with the opposing squad. Every time we made a run and I raised the wall my stamina dropped steadily as the fatigue compounded steadily. "Fucking move it!"

Static cut in on my headset as I tried my best to multitask with decoding the garbled words and still keeping up the divider. "Wolf…this is…almost…Big Ben…position."

"Mitch repeat that. Transmission was shit." I gave a grunt as a particularly large volley of fire was concentrated on my barrier and the shield began to shimmer dangerously.

"Can you hear me? Wolf come in, I can see your wall. Talia's close by and Vandel is already in pincer position soon to be joined by Diego once you give the word."

A huge grin crossed my face at hearing the little sniper's voice coming in clear and strong. "Mitch I could kiss you right now."

"Please don't." A small chuckle could be heard. "If you can make it a few steps more, then Marissa and I will be in range to start raining hell."

"Sounds good to me." I switched to the group channel. "Talia, run now. I'm going to join you in a minute but I need to recharge a little bit because I am about to keel over if I keep this up."

"Going now." The lithe, black haired adept sprang through the forest like a gazelle as I slowly retreated, looking over my shoulder the entire time for a suitable spot to hide behind for my recovery. That'll do. Letting my biotics fade, I sprinted, which is harder than it seems in medium armor, behind a wooden barricade and propped my back up against it. Breathing heavily from the effort, I tried to catch my breath and talk at the same time. The welcome sounds of sniper rifles began to fill the air and I smiled. The plan is going to work, just one final thing that I need to do. "Diego get into position, I'll let you know once I'm going to put another wall up. Get ready to run."

I could practically hear the smirk over the channel. "They won't even know what hit' em."

As I leaned against the wood, breathing deeply I tried to focus for one last biotic push. All that was left now was the final distraction. Talia and Ben were both in place, still hidden, just waiting to spring the trap and once that happened, good luck to anyone not behind solid cover. "Mitch, I'm ready. Give me the signal."

"Alright, everyone's set. Spring it."

With those words I walked out into the open as heavy fire erupted from the outcroppings of rock and trees on both sides in addition to the snipers from up top. One of the soldiers was eradicated almost instantly and threw up his hands in frustration.

"Bad guy down!" Talia yelled from off to the side.

Luckily for me the four men left were too confused to even mount much of a counter-attack. None of them fired at the same target, one at Talia, one at Ben, one at the tower and one for yours truly. If they were smart they would have withdrew instantly, or even tried to just bull rush us. My wall would have gone down instantly if they had any kind of sustained fire. I turned my head and caught a shadow slinking from tree to tree, almost at the soldier's position. Just a few more seconds. Push this out, don't stop now. My arms shook from the effort as I gave a guttural yell of effort. As more bullets slammed into the barricade, pain that felt like someone put hot metal to my body, and yes I do know what that feels like, surged through my body and I was forced to one knee. Blackness started to creep in on the edges of my vision and I shook my head violently to try and force myself to stay up.

"I'm in position, thanks for the assist Wolf. Even if I didn't need it."

Instantly I dropped what I was doing as my team's fire redoubled, seeing that our front wall was now down and that I was out in the open in an extremely precarious position. My shields dropped quickly and as I made it halfway to joining Talia's position, staggering from the pain the whole time, they were down to twenty percent and my VI was blaring obnoxiously.

"Shields critical. Advise that you get to cover immediately."

"Yeah no shit, thanks for the help. You want to do something about that instead of bitching at me?" Why am I arguing with a program? The shields fell to five and a red warning symbol appeared before, as if listening to my yelling, the shields boosted up to full again. "The fuck?"

Ignoring the strange boost but happy that I was still, "alive," I raced the last third to join Hawk as fast as possible while pain still shot through me, before collapsing behind the large grey rock. I could have hugged the thing. As I looked back towards the tower I noticed Mitch's omni-tool glowing bright orange. Oh. That's where the boost came from, no magical computers helping me out. I could just imagine the cocky smile that was on the smarmy bastard's face right now. Then he even gave a smug salute.

"Thanks for the assist Mitch." I grumbled, firing through the mental fog I was now in.

"No problem buddy. You looked like you could use the help."

"I was fine, didn't need the help." I muttered. "Those guys are terrible shots anyway."

"Sure you were." He sounded less than convinced.

"What, I was!"

"Wolf, you were getting blasted. My great-grandma could have shot you and she's practically blind."

I didn't respond for a moment as I saw one of the soldiers stuck in an awkward position. Lining up the Mattock's sights I gave four quick pulls of the trigger, the first three dropped the shields and the last one signaled another kill to bring my tally to one and a half. "I'm sorry, what you were saying Talia? I was too busy bringing their team down to half-strength to notice."

"Big deal, I've got one too."

"Hey, I've got one and a half, Ben and I agreed to a half each. I am the official current kill leader on this team and I also feel like my head's been crushed in a vice grip due to being stuck on, "tank," duty or whatever you called it…so if you two could do me a solid and shut the hell up it'd be much appreciated. Thank you."

"Wow, ok then." The sniper talked over the channel.

"Touchy." I heard from the adept next to me.

"One more down." I turned and looked to where Ben had his own sniper rifle out, a semi-automatic M97 Viper.

"What the hell?"

"I said I got one, it's down to two left team."

"Well…shit."

Laughter from the rest of the team drifted through my earpiece as the fight continued. "I'm afraid your position atop the leaderboard is shared now Wolf."

"Thanks for that Barnes."

A loud three round-burst from a sniper rifle took out one of the last two soldiers in an instant before Marissa yelled uncharacteristically loudly. "I got one!"

"Nice job 'Rissa." Mitch's voice came over the channel. "Alright, we've got one left team. No screw ups and we'll stay unblemished." The fire from all six of us pounded away at the last remaining enemy team member. He yelled once again. "Let's finish this guys. Draw the noose."

With that I ran down the hill, still stumbling slightly. On the other side Diego shadowed me as we began to flank the unfortunate bastard still standing. As we stepped around the large outcropping he was behind Diego and I peppered the man with rounds. As the shields dropped my rifle overheated. Shit, I wasn't even paying attention to that. What a rookie mistake. The gun vented the excess heat and I could feel it through the gloves I wore. I'm embarrassed to say I dropped the Mattock in surprise and swore loudly. "Holy shit, that stings like a bitch."

"Taken one down." The triumphant voice of Diego alerted all of us to the fact that the last remaining member of the opposition had been eliminated. I sighed resignedly, does something stupid have to happen to me every time I enter a sim? It's like the entire damn universe is out to publicly humiliate me.

I opened up a private channel to Diego before taking a knee due to the pain shooting through my head once again. "Hey, uh, Diego you keep this little accident on the down low for me and next time you feel like making a 'supply' run I'll cover for you, how's that sound?"

"Cover what up Wolf?" He gave a cheeky grin. "I don't even know what you're talking about."

"You're a good man Private Barnes."

"I just try to do my part."

I stood back up as the rest of the team circled up and gave a small pat on the back to each other for a job well done. "Nice one Sierra Squad." Corporal Woley collapsed his helmet into the armor as he talked. "Way to stick to the plan even through some comm difficulties and execute it."

Talia yelled loudly. "And Wolf didn't black out this time!"

A loud cheer went up from our group that I sarcastically joined in on before turning my back and as we walked away Mitch pulled me to the side. "Hey, good work out there buddy. Those biotic walls are coming along nicely."

"Thanks." I didn't mean to be short with the guy but erecting the bio-cade that many times had worn me out. That and I was a little pissy at being put on, "meatshield," duty again even if I had played it off during the simulated fight. And while I didn't black out this time I came pretty fucking close again. I didn't really feel like

"Hey, you alright. You're a little quiet."

"Doing fine. I'm just tired."

"You sure? You don't really seem like yourself."

I raised my voice at Mitch, tired of the continued questioning. "I said I'm fucking fine alright? Maybe I'm tired from drawing fire from half-a-dozen people for this last drill and need a break from being 'Private Meatshield.' That ever cross your mind? Last time I used that thing I blacked out and what's the first thing you did today? That's right, you put me in a position where I'd be screwed if I didn't do it again."

"So, that's what this is about? You think I don't know what I'm doing?"

"That's not even close to what I said. What I said was that I'm tired of being stuck right in the middle of the shittiest situations possible and being told to fucking deal with it. All the while," I pointed a finger into his face, "you sit back playing armchair quarterback and doing your little sniping thing. I don't say anything in front of the team since I don't want to undermine you, I'm not that big of a jackass, but it sucks to be the distraction all the time."

Mitch began to retort, still in an infuriatingly calm tone of voice. "You agreed to it though. We all discussed this and said that this was the best plan. Plus you seemed fine out in the field just now."

I just raised my hand as I walked away. "You know what, I don't need this shit right now. I'm heading back to the barracks and getting out of this armor. Have fun with the rest of the team celebrating."

LINE BREAK

The hot water from the shower splashed over my face and I smiled a little at the relaxing effect it brought. After the scrimmage was over I went back to the quarters, changed out of my armor and did some maintenance on my weapons while I waited for the team to clear out. Needless to say, after my little spat with Mitch I didn't feel like washing up with the rest of the squad. I scrubbed what little hair I had remaining with shampoo and washed it off before turning off the water and walking into the locker room, towel wrapped around my lower half.

"Hey Wolf?"

I whirled to see Private Second Class Marissa Simmons in the gray and blue Alliance shorts and tee shirt that were standard for when we didn't have anything to do for the rest of the day. I sighed loudly and opened up my locker, grabbing my clothing. "Hey 'Rissa. What's up?"

She blushed a little bit at my lack of clothing, before giving a little, "huh," noise as if making a discovery. "I guess they weren't lying then, that's definitely a ten."

"Who's they?" I moved behind a low wall and began to change into Alliance casual gear as we talked.

"Oh, you know. People like to talk, they've got nothing better to do on base but gossip."

"That's for sure."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, why not?" I gave a little shrug.

She paused for a moment as she considered her words carefully. "When you were with the Reds and you went through the, 'initiation' or whatever they called it, did you really," her voice got quiet, "did you really shoot those people?"

"Yeah," I threw my shirt on, "one of those two people happened to be my only friend growing up too."

"So, when you abandoned the Reds that was obviously a pretty big risk right? Gangs like that don't just let members leave and if you would have gone along with them you wouldn't have risked anything besides your morality. You put your life at risk because it was the right thing to do, even at the cost of your friend."

I looked at her with an expression that basically meant, "no shit." "Yeah, I might have been a criminal but I would never kill an innocent man, or turian in this case. And as for Finch, I still don't know how I feel about him personally, but I know I'm not that ethically bankrupt. Not yet at least."

"Right, and when your girlfriend back home was in trouble and you were being chased you stayed behind even though you could've died."

"Yeah I did. I wouldn't let somebody I dragged into a situation unknowingly get killed because of me either." I paused for a moment. "Who told you about that, just out of curiosity?"

"I'll get to that in a moment." She sat down on a wooden bench and patted for me to sit next to her, which I did now that I was fully clothed. "Anyway, what I was trying to say is that obviously you are, maybe not reckless, but you have no qualms about getting into dangerous situations." Ok, where is she going with this? "So, my question then is why did you have so much of an issue then with being put out front there when fake bullets are being fired at you when you clearly have no trouble getting into real danger? I heard you and Mitch when we were leaving the field today."

Oh, that's where it's going. And I really didn't have an answer for her, at least one that I could vocalize. When I was silent for a few seconds she continued. "I'll take a guess then if that's ok with you?" I nodded. "Now you know who it was that told me about the Reds, Emma and everything that happened back in Detroit?"

"Mitch, probably."

"Yeah it was, when Major Kyle told us who was going to be the last member of the team he was really excited, you should've seen him."

I scoffed. "Yeah I'm sure."

She punched me lightly on the shoulder. "I'm being serious here, now try and put yourself in his shoes. You're put in charge of a team of soldiers around your age and two of them happen to have been your closest friends back in boot camp. That's a tough line to walk, maintaining the balance between friend and CO, what do you think?" I just gave a shrug but I could kind of see where she was coming from. I'm not the easiest person to handle anyway so maybe Mitch felt like he had to compensate a little bit. "In addition to your two friends, the other three people in the group are complete unknowns. You also have to manage them while getting to know what makes them tick."

I finally spoke up. "If you don't cut it as a Marine, you should apply for a shrink job back home."

"Maybe I will." She gave a friendly smile. "But back to you. I think the real issue is that you're scared."

I gave a dismissive wave, laughed and leaned back in my seat. "Please, I'm not scared of anyone. I'll fight anyone, anywhere and with any weapons."

"I didn't say 'anyone,' did I? I only said that you were scared. My guess is that your amp almost frying again today is a major part of it."

I looked up at her. "You saw that?"

"Yeah, your last time doing it you practically collapsed." The engineer then gave me a couple reassuring pats on the back. "You haven't faced a problem like that before. It's not some street thug that you can fight, that's your brain you're struggling against. You could just be going through biotic drills like normal when it blows and just like that you have some serious, potentially fatal issues that are completely out of your control. I think that's why you flipped out on Woley today. Am I close?"

I just grumbled. "Maybe, you did say part though, what's the other part I'm afraid of then?"

"Betrayal probably." She shrugged.

"That's crazy. The biotic stuff ok, you're spot on there but Mitch betraying me?" I cackled loudly. "The guy's a boy scout in Marine attire. I've never once thought that Mitch is gonna shoot me in the back or anything like that."

"Well, there's a lot of forms of betrayal. I don't mean that Mitch is literally going to physically betray you but the authorities and friends in your life, other than your unofficial Dad, haven't exactly been there for you. Now that Mitch is your commanding officer you're worried that he's going to do the same thing."

"…I guess that does make a little bit of sense."

"And his need for professionalism as a CO is only adding to that paranoia you're feeling." The shorter woman stood up and held out her hand, pulling me to my feet next to her. "So, how are you feeling now?"

"I think I understand." I sighed loudly. "I should probably apologize to Mitch, right?"

"That's a start." She tilted her head and tapped her chin. "But what you really need to do is come to an agreement, just offering up a one-sided apology isn't going to help you at all. Plus, with Mitch being your commanding officer it's his job to make sure everyone's comfortable and working together as a cohesive unit so just explain your side of things and see what he says alright?"

I started walking to the door. "I can do that."

"Wait." Before I could get to the door she grabbed my arm and stopped me. "If you ever need to vent too, just let me know alright? Don't just hide behind the sarcasm and jokes, you keep doing that and internalizing everything you're going to keep blowing up like this."

"You really should have been a shrink." I gave a big smile and before the door closed I added one final statement. "Thanks for that 'Rissa, you're the best."

She beamed back in a pleasant manner. "Anytime Wolf, good luck with Mitch." She gave a final wave as the door slammed shut behind me.

LINE BREAK

"Mitch? You in here buddy?" I peeked my head into the armory barracks where all the maintenance on weapons and armor was done. Big Ben had been out in the hallway and directed me towards this portion of the building if I was looking for the sniper. Well, somebody's in here, the sound of metal clattering confirmed that for me. Walking around the corner I took in the sight of the blonde Corporal disassembling his M92 Mantis while he sat at a workbench.

Approaching cautiously I called out again to the CO just in case he actually hadn't heard me instead of just choosing to ignore the words I spoke. If I was him I probably would've ignored me. "Hey, need any help Corporal?"

"What do you want Wolf?" His tone was gruff, not unfriendly but still a little rough. "Coming to yell some more?"

I almost fired back with a sarcastic response before remembering that I was here to apologize to the guy. Probably wouldn't help if I started off again with the insults. "Nah," I took a seat next to him and grabbed the M77 Paladin he used as a sidearm and began to take it apart to clean it, "believe it or not I actually came here to apologize."

"You? Apologize? That doesn't sound like the Wolf I know." He just kept cleaning the sniper rifle as he talked. "The guy I know would've said something snarky by now."

"Well, usually I would have but I talked to Marissa after getting out of the shower and she talked some sense into me. Girl knows me better than I know myself."

"That sounds terrible." Oh hahaha Mitch, good one.

"Yeah, it must be. Anyway, what I wanted to say was that I'm sorry for snapping at you like that." I stopped the maintenance on the gun and turned to Mitch. "I was freaking out about a couple things, namely my amp frying from bio-cades along with some other personal baggage I carried with me from back home." He just gave a little grunt. "Plus, I didn't think of your situation either. It must be tough to be thrust into a situation where you're leading a group of five other people, two of whom you're friends with and three others who are complete unknowns. Plus you're supposed to lead those people into combat in addition to just managing them and their personalities around the base."

I waited for Mitch to say something but no response came. He did however stop the work he was doing on his weapon of choice. "I recognize now that you stuck me up there on the front simply because that's what the best thing for our group was." I gave a little chuckle. "Even if it wasn't the most comfortable situation for me to be in." Hey, I got a smile out of him with that one. "I guess all that I'm saying is that no matter what happens I'll respect your decisions and know that you just want what's best for everybody. If needed, I'll even keep the sarcastic comments to a minimum while I do it, as hard as that may be."

Mitch still said nothing so I opted to leave, having said my piece. I grabbed the door handle and once again before I could exit the room I was interrupted. "Hey Wolf, thanks for saying that. I might not say much about it but sometimes I get a little overwhelmed from the responsibility." He gave a derisive chuckle. "I know right? Me, Mr. Perfect back in boot, the guy who didn't do anything wrong is worried. But it's true. I worry all the time. Every decision I make I fret about constantly and believe it or not, your stupid little comments help me get my mind off that fear and focus on the task at hand. So you ever feel the need to bitch about something or make some sardonic comment, my comm is open."

I grinned back at the infiltrator. "Thanks Mitch, you know you're gonna regret those words though. You just gave me free reign to complain to my superior officer." As I left the area a loud sigh could be heard through the door along with a muffled curse. Yeah, there's going to be plenty more of that coming up soon. For now though, all's well on Elysium.

A/N: Would have liked to get this out earlier but work tied me up, not much else to say other than happy 2015 everybody!

Ranger Station Charlie is my beta.

JMA: Yup. Don't want to give anything away on future happenings but there's definitely a plan in place. My beta, RSC and I have hammered out a timeline that runs through the end of ME1 and kicks off the two years between 1 and 2.

Yeah there's definitely going to be a little bit of skipping in the future since I'd like to get into the ME1 storyline sometime this year, lol.

I've actually got all that little stuff typed out so I can access it quickly but thanks for sending that over!

RSC: I know. You can only right sim fights for so long but thankfully this'll be the last one before some real shit goes down.

That's kind of the same thing I've always thought too. A lot of the vanguard powers are high force by nature whereas the ones that require a mix of both like singularity are left to the adepts. Wolf's strengths are definitely power and reserves, the control he's still working on.

Yup, Wolf is kind of reckless by nature and tends to go all out in everything so he'll have to learn how to pace himself. Otherwise as soon as he gets into a fight his reserves will be instantly shredded.