companionwolf

When he wakes fully, the sun is low in the sky, and he walks the small stables with legs slightly jelly, pausing a few times to lean on one of the support rails between the stalls. Dust kicks up at his footsteps, silvery golden notes in the fading light. He pushes his way out of the front doors, and stands blinking in their arch way, trying to orient himself. 

He can see all the way across the ‘campus’ is the back of the ‘Welcome Center’, which extends from there to halfway to the stables, ending in a porch that leads down to a gravel circle patch; along the circular form are two long buildings the stable rests just beyond of. 

A house is situated on the other side of the ‘campus’, with a large greenhouse off to the side of it and a chicken coop, and further off, on the right of the stables, a padlock with a pond. In the middle of this x configuration is a large square building, no windows, and only one, well locked exit from what PC can tell as he warily darts from shadow to shadow around the buildings. 

He narrowly ducks behind a truck parked nearby the gravel circle as someone comes out of the one exit square building, and though he cannot hear what they say, he can see the way one of them is frowning and how the other is shaking their head. 

PC keeps moving, knocking over some laundry left out on clothings lines across the gravel circle as he moves under and across. He slides to hide behind the form of the left building, and finds he is breathing heavily. 

He takes a moment to inhale. Alice would tell him he’s getting all caught up in probability, would ask him to tell her what’s the most likely outcome, rather then the worst, would assure him of that. 

But Alice isn’t here. Alice is in the car with Espeon. 

PC, sprinting across the gravel to crouch behind the right building, pauses, looks at the ‘Welcome Center’’s back again. He could use a little help, now that he’s thinking about it. 

PC rushes across the lawn for the side of the Welcome Center, drops into a army crawl and makes his way across the grass  along the side of the building until his elbows hit gravel, and hauls himself to his feet once he’s cleared a few feet from the building. 

PC jogs across the lot, weaving between vehicles half crouched, ducking down even more slightly one he reaches the van and hoping no one noted. He presses half frantic fingers against the door handle, knows that it’s locked, pulls it anyway. 

He sees Espeon’s dark form jump up on the seats. He waves at her, and then is sent crashing to the asphalt to try to avoid the glass as she flings a Psybeam at the window, the pieces shattering around him. 

Espeon’s head appears in the broken frame of the window, wobbling; as PC stands back up, he can see she is balancing on the arm rest. Alice, still seated in the chair, looks toward him. 

“Something is wrong,” she says.

“No shit,” says Espeon and jumps out the window, swearing inaudibly as she dances around the shards of glass and clambers up PC’s leg to end up on one of his shoulders. “There, much better. What’s going on? Where’s the humans?”

PC reaches through the window and picks up Alice; the latter stares back at the broken glass. “Davey will be upset,” she says.

“If he’s still around to feel things,” Espeon answers. She gives PC a little ear wiggle and a grin. “That’s what we’re facing, right? Some life or death shit? Full XCOM?”

“I’m not sure,” he says. “When we went in, I got swarmed—“

“Swarmed?”

“By operators; they grabbed me, pulled me into a room, started tearing me apart—“

Alice cuts him off, gently pushing her paws against his thumb. “Are you... functional?” she asks.

“Well it’s certainty not a good addition to all his fires,” says Espeon, “and boys got a lot of fires!”

“Hush, Espeon,” says Alice. 

“I’m... it’s...” He struggles for a moment, cannot breathe for a moment. “It’s fine, a girl found me and helped me, it’s fine.”

Espeon perks her ears. “Ooooh, a girl?” Her tail lashes. “You can’t replace me or Alice, you know that! Not with some human girl!”

“Not like that, Espeon, please,” he says, and she laughs. 

Alice looks toward the Welcome Center, narrows her eyes. “What do you want us to do?” she asks. 

“Well, I want Espeon to be ready to help me make a distraction,” he says. “You- I just want someone around. I don’t want to go in there alone.”

“Why don’t you ask the girl?” says Espeon with a sneer. 

“It’s not a bad suggestion,” Alice says. “She knows more about this place then you.”

“Maybe,” PC says. “She did say I didn’t want to get caught—“

“That’s XCOM protocol though; don’t get caught,” says Espeon. “Don’t get caught, kill the alien, celebrate prematurely, get your base fucked up, lose the earth, get your ass tanked, cue xcom 2.”

“That’s what we’re trying to avoid,” Alice says, as PC says, rather quietly, “I really don’t want to get cut up again, anyway.”

Alice hums. “Let’s find the girl,” she says. “Maybe she can help us. If not, she can at least point us toward someone or something that is.”

“And if we get found first?”

“Well, you did say you wanted Espeon to possibly be a distraction; if we are found, she will be one.”