It's Remotely Plausable

Buttfuck Nowhere, Kentucky — Somewhere rural near the Mammoth Cave system

Mulder found himself in a lot of unfortunate places.

Places he was never supposed to see, be, or know existed.

Government and military black sites, off the grid underground bunkers, and questionable adult video stores in Gary, Indiana.

But this?

Jesus Christ.

This was a new high.

Or low.

And they’d never forget what they found in the woods.

Thickets and dense foliage shrouded them in a dark green veil, almost too alive to feel nature.

Like the ground was fed.

Given nutrients it didn’t recognize.

Absorbed them and flourished anyway.

Rain pelted down, slipping reluctantly from the trees overhead, landing in fat plunks on Mulder’s head.

“I’d like to backtrack on my original assumption, Scully,” Mulder said as he maneuvered through thick bushes, the damp denim of his jeans scraping as the thorns tried to latch on and keep him. “I don’t think it’s The Hellier Goblins or The LBL Werewolf,” he said, mainly to himself.

Scully rolled her eyes, lips parted in a silent sigh of exasperation like she questioned the entire partnership everytime he dragged her out into the woods for some anomalous critter that didn’t exist. She pawed at the shrubbery, jeans water-logged and sealing in an unforgiving chill against her skin.

“What I think,” Mulder continued, glancing over his shoulder at her with his hair matted to his forehead, finding her black raincoat slick with dew, auburn hair curled at her forehead with humidity. Fox gave a little crooked grin, the kind that always appeared when his theory got even better. “is that we’re dealing with a hybrid. What if The Hellier Goblins have experimented on a creature such as the Land Between the Lakes Werewolf? What if they’ve created an entirely different entity? Harnessing the power and surgical precision of an alien, while maintaining the beastly appearance and predatory instincts of The Beast?”

“Mulder,” Scully said pointedly, her patience thinned, swatting away a swarm of gnats that darted for her nose, the tip of it pink with the cold.

He kept going. “Think about it—“ he stopped. Turned towards her. Green eyes gleaming in the thought, his hands raised like presenting it to the world. “A gnarly, wolfish apex predator with the innate instinct to hunt, to kill… with the advanced consciousness and extraterrestrial technology to trap and execute their prey flawlessly…”

Scully’s eyes could’ve leveled him. If looks could kill, seriously— he should’ve been dead a hundred times over. “What I think,” Scully countered back, her brows raising, head tilted to look at him, almost pleading for this to end. “is that you’re making a mockery of a time-sensitive, serious, egregious matter.” She lifted a hand, like she could reason with him, adding in her classic Scully scoff. “How do you think the victim’s families will react to that conjecture, Mulder? It’s going to feel like a slap in the face while they’re already grieving.”

Mulder’s expression fell, but the resolve burned in his eyes. His jaw ticked once, then relaxed, his eyes shifting to the ensnarement of knotted trunks and jagged thorns around them. “I’m not saying I can prove this — yet — or that the notion is ready for public discussion,” Fox planted his hands on his hips, under the open face of his rain jacket, one boot propped on a rock. His eyes flicked back to hers. Held her gaze. “But don’t you think people deserve the truth — when the time comes, when we have the facts, when it can’t be denied?”

She raised a hand and rubbed across her forehead, head bowing slightly. Not in defeat — never in defeat, but resignation.

Because he was right.

And his quest for the truth? No matter how ugly, farfetched, or cryptid-hybrid level of insanity?

Scully knew it took him places.

That’s what set him apart.

Silence followed.

Heavy, like the murky filth in the air clinging to their skin.

Static, like the hum that came from the atmosphere itself — without any abnormal EMF spikes.

Even the rain lightened, like the world held its breath.

That’s the thing about evil…

Nature didn’t always react to it blatantly.

No.

Sometimes it was just in the quiet. Looming in the stillness.

Watching and waiting for the right opportunity.

Scully closed her eyes like she prayed to God this would end soon. “If you’re so hellbent on outing an extraterrestrial-lycanthropic beast, then I suggest we get looking.” Her eyes panned up, the leaves canopying her view of the angry, grey armada of clouds overhead like she wasn’t meant to see beyond the woods. “We’re burning daylight out there when I could actually be reviewing concrete data.”

Fox’s gaze lingered a second longer than it needed to, trying to search through that mask she wore too well. He turned slow, eyes gradually prying from her, surveying the darkening forest that swallowed them by the minute.

No breeze.

No song of birds.

No chirp or buzz of insects.

Not anymore.

A prickle of awareness crawled up Mulder’s spine, ghosting the nape of his neck, hairs standing at attention.

Dana shifted then, too, sensing it. Sensing him. Her arms crossed over her chest, turning so their backs were to each other.

“You feel that, Scully?” Fox whispered, the edge of a wry grin creeping in.

She didn’t answer.

Didn’t need to.

“…That’s how Mother Nature reacts when a predator closes in.”