twisted_fates

Here's to hoping that there isn't a character limit/cut off:







Twisted Fates:



By Evilwaffles







Chapter 1:







I swung open the door to my apartment, the soothing air of the air-conditioned room rushed to my

face, I entered my room to be greeted by my cat, Cat, who was a pure black tom cat, he purred as he

rubbed against my leg,







""Hey puss," I greeted, "miss me?" Cat sat and stared into my eyes, I gave him a scratch behind the

ear and went to the bathroom for a shower. After my shower I changed into some loose clothing,

which was a welcome change from my heavy, bulky flight suit that I was forced to wear as I did my

daily patrol of the skies, I sank into my leather recliner and turned on my TV, Cat making himself

comfy on my lap as I did, nothing overly interesting was on so I left it on Family Guy, it was amazing

how they kept the show alive for seven hundred years. About ten minutes into my viewing it was

interrupted by the networks logo, a deep voice spoke shortly afterwards,







"We interrupt this broadcast for an important news bulletin."







"Great." I sighed and sunk further into the chair, much to Cat's irritation, he dug his claws into my

leg, letting me know he was in charge, a blond lady, dressed in a suit was sitting behind a desk with a

backdrop of a city behind her,







"A satellite that was sent into space in the late 21st century with details about humanity and the

location of Earth and the Milky Way has landed back onto the soil of earth this morning with another

craft attached to it, scientists from around the world are attempting to figure out the use of craft. Is

this the first sign of alien life? We will keep you updated when more news arises." I was slightly

amazed, this topic did not really capture my attention as I was not one to believe rumors without

proof, but I had a certain friend who did, I grabbed my phone in an attempt to put my phone off the

hook before he called, but I was too late, the phone rung its loud tune, I let out an irritated sigh and

looked at the caller ID, there was the name "Josh" next to a picture of his grinning face, I hesitated to

answer, knowing he would babble on about the satellite and other stuff I didn't fully understand, I

answered,

"Hey Josh, how are you?" I greeted in a semi-sarcastic voice,







"Hey were you just watching Family Guy?" he asked,







"No I was eating nails, of course I was!" slightly aggressively, he knows that there was nothing else

on that I would watch,







"So I presume you saw that report?"







"Yeah, it doesn't really bother me."







"What! How can it not bother you? We first signs of alien life and it don't bother you? You should be

fascinated because…" I listened to Josh babble on, not taking in anything he lectured, I didn't hang

up because he was a good friend, he finally stopped lecturing me about how I should feel towards

that satellite, I took the opportunity to change the subject before he could find something else to

babble about,







"So anything interesting happen down at the labs today?" I asked, Josh was a scientist at the same

military compound I worked at, which had its benefits at times,







"Same old stuff." Josh replied, he is not one who is enthusiastic about his work, "You?"







"Well, my patrol made me have to fly all over the place, which is quite fun." I replied, I was a pilot for

the military and had to patrol different areas for about 9 hours a day,







"No confrontations then I take it." Assumed Josh,







"Nope, not at all."

"Then all that training in aerial combat has gone to waste then." When I was a recruit I worked

extremely hard to set the highest aerial combat score ever, but I never need to use it with Earth

being one community now.







"Well I am glad all is well, I will see you later on then?" I asked







"Yep sure, see you later." He replied, I hung up and let out a sigh of relief, Cat gave me humored

look,







"What are you looking at puss?" Cat's only response was letting out a loud meow.







I arrived home after another eventless patrol and did my usual routine, as always there was nothing

on TV, I decided to give my girlfriend Janice a call, I picked up my phone and entered her number, as

I waited patiently for her to pick up,







"Hello?" she answered in that sweet voice I had grown to admire,







"Hey, hello Janice, how are you doing?"







"Fine, you?"







"Good, hey I was wondering if you had plans for tonight."







"Nope, none at all, why?"







"I was wondering if you wanted to go down to the movies and see that movie you wanted to see?"







"Sure, I will meet you there at seven?"

"Right, see you there."







"Bye."







She hung up, something that couples would argue over who was going to do it first.







I arrived at the movies half an hour early to get the tickets, but Janice had already done







it, to my surprise she hugged me from behind, I turned around to see he long brown hair, she

released me and handed me a ticket, she was wearing a red silk dress with patterns stitched up the

side,







"Are you ready?" she asked,







"Ready when you are." I answered, trying to sound cool, I actually wasn't ready to watch the two

and a half hour chick flick, but if she enjoyed it, then it would be worth it.







We entered the cinema and took a seat one row from the back, she took my hand and I closed it

gently around hers, we had a while to wait for the movie to start, so I decided to grab some food,







"I'll be back in a second; I am just going to grab some stuff." I whispered, she nodded as I made my

way to the candy bar. I returned with a box of popcorn and two drinks, struggling to carry all of it, I

staggered up the stairs, and returned to my seat, I took a sigh of relief as I sat down, I handed Janice

her drink, which she accepted, I sat back in the comfy chair and waited for the movie to start so I

could get it over and done with.







I looked at my watch, five to seven, I let out a frustrated sigh, I was not known for my patience. I

waited and I saw a familiar figure walk up the stairs, I frowned in anger as I saw Jake, a man who I

had known since high school, and they were not good memories, he always found some way of

taking almost everything away from me, and quite recently he had tried taking Janice away from me

as well. Much to my anger he sat right next to Janice and started talking to her in a smooth voice,

"Hey there Janice, how nice to see you here." Janice smiled in reply but took no notice, he continued

making crude remarks at her, I made nothing of it, I knew she wasn't going to put up with his

remarks if she had heard enough, he continued flirting with her until the lights of the cinema went

down and the massive screen lit up and started the movie. I fell asleep halfway through the movie,

thankfully Janice didn't see, or I would have gotten a serving, I awoke from my slumber when I heard

a bang, I looked around trying to find what made the noise, I figured out that a car bomb had gone

off in the movie, killing the boyfriend of the main character. When the credits started rolling the

room lit up, I got up and stretched, Janice followed, but so did Jake, I glared at him as he followed us.

We managed to get to her car, which Jake walked past to his own car, I waved goodbye to Janice as

she drove us, followed by Jake, and I made my way to my own car and drove home.







It was ten at night when I got home, Cat didn't welcome me as he wasn't going to get off my bed for

anything, I sat down at my computer and logged onto my e-mail account, I got an offer to win a trip

to where ever I wanted, delete, a message from my internet provider, delete, there was one from

Josh, the subject read: "Did you see the news?" I opened it, the message read:







"Hey there,







I presume you were out with Janice tonight so I thought I may as well provide you with a link to the

report.







Josh."







I clicked on the link which brought up a white page with some writing on it,







"Today scientists working on the satellite that crashed into the Earth with our own satellite had

managed to unlock its exterior to reveal inside a communication device which military leaders used

to communicate with what was to be believed a hare/human hybrid, also known as a 'furry'

creature, details of the conversation is classified at this time but we will report any news we get on

this report."







I immediately regarded this as bogus; there was no life other then that on Earth as far as I was

concerned. I closed the laptop and made my way to my bed, as I laid down on my bed I awoke Cat,

who wasn't too happy about it as he growled at me as me made his way onto the other side of the

bed.

I walked up to Janice's door, planning on surprising her with the golden necklace I brought weeks

ago, I approached the door, before I knocked I heard giggling on the other side of the door, knowing

that she kept a spare key under her doormat I opened the locked door and crept up to where the

noise was coming from, I approached the door to her bedroom, I heard two voices, one was Janice's

and the other was familiar but I couldn't pick it out, a rather loud giggle was heard followed by the

second voice asking,







"How do you like that?" that was all I needed to hear, I opened the door slightly to see Janice and

Jake in her bed, Jake noticed me, he jumped out of the bed and ran to the door, attempting to slam

it shut, I was too fast I kicked the door open and in a blind rage tackled Jake and landed blow after

blow onto his face, Janice screamed and yelled at me in an attempt to get me to go, I ignored her, I

landed one more blow to his nose, breaking it, blood gushed out of his nose, Jake was now howling

in pain, I got up, I saw the blood on my hands, I felt no remorse for my actions, I glared at Janice

before making my way out to my car.







I made it inside my apartment, I knew that Janice would have called the cops and when my name

was entered into their system, I would have the military police onto me, I called Josh on my mobile

phone while grabbing clothing and the remaining food in my cupboard, he answered,







"I heard what happened." He started is a slightly angry voice,







"Heard what happened?" I asked, I thought Janice must have called him and told him what

happened,







"Look I don't want to be friends or contacted by criminals like you." He yelled,







"Criminal?"







"Goodbye Reece."







"Josh!" I yelled, but he hung up, Jake had done everything he said he would, he had taken everything

from me, I knew there was only one way out of this, I had to fake my own death, but how?

I was parked in a parking bay at the local shopping center; I needed to grab some items to alter my

appearance so I wouldn't be recognized after my 'death'. I put on my hat and sunglasses and entered

the shopping center. I entered a hair stylist's store and brought several cans of blue hair coloring,

next I made my way to an optometrist where I brought contact lenses that I could use to change my

eye color to blue from brown, that was all I needed at that point in time. Now I needed to buy some

gas containers from the gas station, by the time I got all the required ingredients I had lost around a

thousand dollars. It was time to put my plan into operation.







I drove down Oak Mont Drive which was along the side of a cliff, all my supplies were in a bag on my

back, I came to the road that lead straight off the cliff which was blocked by signs and gates, I simply

moved the objects out of the way and returned to my car, I took a deep breath, I left my door open,

ready to bail out, I sped up to very high speeds, just before my car went over I rolled out of my car,

slamming into a boulder, I swore loudly as my back cracked into a bad position, my pain quickly

turned to satisfaction as I heard a massive explosion, I crawled over to the edge of the cliff, unable to

walk due to my back, I couldn't see very much but I could see that the car was completely torn apart

and in flames, anything inside the car would have gotten disintegrated, I slowly made it to my feet,

'What now?' I thought to myself.







A year passed since my 'death', I joined an underground group of criminals who robbed convenience

stores, I never took part in any of the robberies as I was morally against it, I took up the alias of

'Scythe' during my time in the group. After another robbery, the gang returned to the base with

stashes of cash, food and some fuel to put into our home made space cruiser, little did they know

that they were being followed, the military broke down the door and began to tackle and handcuff

members of the group, I hid behind the ship, fuelling it up as I did, I noticed a familiar soldier, Jake,

as much as I would have loved to kill him right there and then I remained hidden so I wouldn't get

caught by the other soldiers, I thought I was completely hidden but Jake saw me and recognized me

through my disguise,







"Hey boys!" he yelled, "There is that guy who we thought was dead, Reece!" I swore quietly, I forced

open the cockpit widow and got into the ship, activating the engines as I closed the window, shots

were fired at the ship in an attempt to stop me, they failed, I flew right past the guards and headed

for space knowing that there was nothing for me on Earth now that my alias was discovered.







A week passed since my discovery, I now drifted through space at a very high speed, unable to go in

any other direction because I was out of fuel. I opened a packet of chips, eating them one by one, as

I ate I noticed several dots appear on the radar, they were coming straight for me, 'Oh crap I am

screwed.' I thought to myself, I heard a voice over the radio,

"You are now entering Lylat territory," it stated, "identify yourself or prepare to be shot down." I

looked franticly for the speaker to answer, I couldn't find it, "This is your final warning, identify

yourself or be shot down." I swore as I searched, I couldn't find it, I swore again, "We are now

engaging your craft." I now repeatedly swore as I saw several green and white craft engage, one of

them shot my craft causing electricity to flow through the craft and my body, knocking me

unconscious.









Chapter 2 - Lylat







"Then my ship was shot down, and then I awoke in here." I explained to the hare who sat on the

opposite of the metal table, I was in a near empty metal room with a hare in a military uniform and

two other guards, the hare just sat in his chair with no expression, he just glared at me, I don't think I

convinced him with my story, but I hoped he did, the old hare sighed and lent forward,







"So," he begun, "you claim to be a former ace pilot for your country but circumstances forced you to

fake your death, you then lived with an underground community until you were discovered where

you decide to drift through space forever." I was beginning to wonder if my detailed report of how I

made it to Lylat was necessary,







"Yes." I answered, the hare leaned back into his chair and remained silent, frustration begun to

overwhelm my body, I jumped out of the chair and yelled,







"Look I answered everything you asked of me, now just tell me why I am here!"







"You need to calm yourself," the hare ordered, "unless you would like a shock from the guard's

stunners." I saw the guards begin tapping fierce looking rods in their hands, I decided to obey, I sat

down in the chair and rested my head in my hands, "That's better, now we let me explain, about a

year ago we made contact with your race, all was going well until about six months ago when out of

nowhere they declared war on us, that is why you are here." I had no idea that Earth was once again

at war, but not with each other, now we were at war with a whole galaxy we knew so little of,

"Fair enough." I replied,







"Now I need to know if you are trustable."







"How do you intend to do that?" I asked, the hare smiled,







"We will know soon enough, those tests will be here shortly." I sat back into the metal chair,

knowing all I could do is wait.







After a while a leopard entered the room with some paper in her hands and handed them to the

hare before leaving the room, the hare read the papers before placing them on the table, he

remained silent,







"What do they say?" I asked nervously,







"They say that you were telling the truth." He answered, I let out a sigh of relief, "But now the

question is what to do with you." That changed my mood back to nervous, "I'll tell you what,

because I am a nice fellow I will give you three choices, you can either be sent back to earth, you can

be sent back into space, or you can help us in this war." The choice was easy,







"I'll help you guys out." I answered, the hare smiled,







"I thought so." he got up from the chair, "Come," he ordered, "It is time to see these skills you claim

to have." I got up from the metal chair and followed the hare out the room, closely followed by the

two guards.







As we made our way through the near identical corridors I saw a group of four passed us that caught

my attention, there was a green frog, a blue bird, a fox, and another fox with its hands linked with

the other fox, only this fox was blue, 'What the hell,' I thought to myself 'a blue fox, this whole place

just a whole lot more screwed up than it already is.' I noticed from the corner of my eye the blue fox

glare at me from the corner of its eye, I thought nothing of it and continued following the hare down

the corridors. We entered a room, it had several dome like structures were aliened along the wall,

the hare walked up to a keypad on the wall and punched in some numbers that made a panel on one

of the domes slide open but the interior was still hidden by a black cloth,







"In you go." The hare ordered, "I'll be back, I need to speak to the old team." I made my way through

the cloth and into a cockpit, the metal panel slid back locking me inside, I realised that this must be a

simulator, I sat on the seat and grabbed the flight stick in preparation for the simulation. The screen

in front of me lit up, a holographic interface appeared in front of me, the screen in front of me lit up,

the simulation was going to be set in an endless desert.







The first test was to fly through rings; I had done so many of these exercises during my time at my

academy it felt like an exercise that two year olds should be doing. After successfully flying through

the forty rings the second test begun, fly through the rings again but while performing aerial

manoeuvres, again after so many years of practice it was so elementary, the test finished after one

hundred rings. The next test came as a shock to me, defeat fifty engaging enemies, I flew around

luring a few enemies behind me while picking off some others, I noticed that I had all the remaining

enemy crafts trailing me, I pulled a loop and activated the brakes before sending a bomb into the

simulated enemies destroying them, with that the screen faded into darkness, the metal panel slid

open granting me an exit. I made my way out of the simulator where I met the hare who was holding

a piece of paper,







"You were certainty right about your skills in piloting considering you piloted that piece of junk into

our system." He spoke as he read the paper, "Now I have a proposition for you," he started, "there is

a team that I was once apart that contains some of the best pilots and people in Lylat, I have talked

to their leader and I have managed to get you a position aboard their team." I raised an eyebrow,







"What the use can I be aboard a team of 'elite' pilots?" I asked,







"Well you know the human's military weapons and tactics better than anyone else so you will be a

vital component to our victory." He replied, I grumbled, disliking the pressure that I now felt, "Now

we need to grab you some equipment before sending you to their base."







"They wouldn't happen to be that group we passed earlier would they?" I asked,







"Yes they are." He replied, I grumbled again remembering how that fox glared at me, "Follow me

and we'll get you some equipment for you." I followed him out of the room and into the corridors

once again.

We came across a steel door that was locked, the hare punched in some numbers that slowly

opened the door, I poked my head through the door revealing the mass numbers of weapons and

gadgets, I raised my eyebrows in surprise as I followed the hare through the door and into the

armoury,







"First thing's first," he started, "We need to give you weapons, starting with the blaster, make your

choice." I turned and faced the large selection of blasters, I looked over all of them, I picked one up

and took aim, it was too light so I put it back, I picked up another blaster it came with a scope

attached and it was the right weight, I faced the hare,







"This one should do." I announced, the hare nodded and led me to another selection of weapons,







"Now you have the standard weapon you need an assault weapon." He announced, I browsed the

selection of fierce looking weapons, one gun caught my attention, I picked it up and took aim,

surprisingly it was lighter than its body made it look, I noticed an imprint on the gun's barrel, it read

'Gattling' I had made my choice, I turned to face the hare but he was gone, I scanned the area but he

was no where in sight, I scratched my head in confusion, I noticed a figure emerge from behind a set

of shelves, it was the hare carrying several items, he laid them down on a bench he pointed out each

item and explained their uses, their were you basics like a holster and a gun strap, but there was also

some advanced gadgets like a reflector which sent any projectiles back in the direction they came

from, there were a pair of sunglasses which was able to activate x-ray, night and heat vision and last

was a communication gauntlet that I would use to contact or be contacted by while on missions or in

the base, "Now with the gadgets and weapons out of the way I am sure you could with a new outfit

since you only seem to have that attire." He stated out of nowhere, I swore under my breath, I hated

getting new clothing, the hare looked at his wrist, "and according to my watch the tailor should be

done any minute."







"Wouldn't a tailor require measurements of my body to make an outfit?" I asked,







"Yes we got those while you were unconscious, it was originally intended for them to measure you

so we could get you a fitting prison uniform but I had changed it to them making you a uniform." I

was glad that I didn't need to go through the whole process of finding clothing but I was slightly

irritated that I had been measured up during my state of unconsciousness. After a minute of waiting

we decided to walk to the tailor's workstation but we met the mouse in the halls,

"Ah General Peppy." The mouse greeted, it had an French accent which puzzled me since I expected

these races to have almost no accent and I finally learned the name of the hare, "Is this the one?" he

asked, Peppy nodded, "Ah an excellent figure, it will suit the uniform." I saw the clothing in a black

plastic wrapping in the mouse's hand, "Here you are my boy, your uniform." He announced as he

passed me the clothing, I took them from him, and nodded in thanks, he nodded in return then

walked off,







"Would you like to change into your new attire now?" Peppy asked, I nodded he gave me directions

to a location where I could change, I followed his directions and found myself in a toilet block, I

entered a cubical and locked the door, I removed the black plastic from the coat hanger revealing

the navy blue pants and shirt and a black jacket, I stripped from my clothing and changed into the

new attire, I exited the toilet block and made my way back to Peppy.







I met up with Peppy in the corridor where I had gotten my new clothing; I carried my old clothing in

my arm, Peppy smiled,







"Well that is an improvement." Peppy observed and started walking, I nodded slightly as I followed,

"Well it is time for us to provide you with a new ship." I stopped walking,







"What happened to my old ship?" I asked, Peppy turned to face me,







"Well your engines are no longer functional and everything else is unharmed." He replied, I let out a

sigh of relief, I couldn't care less about the ship but I had a box in the storage compartment that held

the last good memories I had of my past life. We walked through two large metal doors into a

hanger,







"Now the ship we have for you is not completely finished but it will be able to get you to the Great

Fox safely." Peppy noted, I nodded as we walked down the stairs; he led me to a ship that was

unpainted and had no weapons,







"Well this is it." Peppy announced, "The ship that you will piloting for the entire duration of this war,

now hop in, the auto pilot should take you straight to the Great Fox." I nodded; I noticed my

reflection on the ship's cockpit window, black rings under my eyes, the faded blue paint in my hair, I

sighed at how screwed up my life had become, "Okay so hop in and meet your team mates, I will see

you again." He smiled, I noticed my box in the cockpit, I smiled and opened the cockpit window and

entered, closing it behind me, I activated the ship's engines, the holographic control panel lit up, I

hovered out of the hanger and onto the runway, I flew off the runway and flew into the sky, I

activated the auto pilot which was following a path set by one of Peppy's technicians, it was

expected that the trip would take half an hour, I put my feet up on the dash board and relaxed.







I had dozed off during the flight but I awoke to a beeping from my ship, I opened my eyes and looked

at the interface, a message read 'Approaching Destination' across the screen I dismissed the

message, as it disappeared I saw a massive battle ship, bigger than most craft in Earth's air force, as I

inspected the ship a monotone voice spoke through my speakers,







"You are an unregistered craft," it announced, "please identify yourself." I noticed there was an in-

built microphone in my dashboard,







"This is Reece," I answered, "I am here under orders from General Peppy."







"Voice identified… Reece… new recruit; please proceed to the docking bay." It requested, I followed

its request; I flew underneath the bottom of the ship, flew through the purple force field and landed

my ship in a designated area. I took a deep breath as I saw the group waiting for me; I noticed that

the bird was missing, I swore quietly out of nerves before opening the cockpit window and jumping

to the metal floor, landing with a thud,







"So you're Reece?" asked the fox, I nodded, "Well, I am Fox, this is Krystal," he pointed to the blue

fox, she smiled as she was introduced, "that is Slippy."







"Hey." Greeted the frog, he had an irritating voice,







"And there is another member called Falco but he is asleep already."







"Is it okay if I go through the latest model of Arwing that the military had produced?" Slippy asked,

almost begging,







"Sure go ahead." I answered, Slippy made a slow jog towards my new ship, I turned my attention to

the fox couple in front of me,

"Right, time for the tour." Announced Fox, I nodded, I followed Fox, Krystal trailed behind me. First

stop was the bridge, as expected most of the mission briefings would be held here, I also noticed a

robot, I was told that he controls and maintains the ship. Next stop was the rec room, this is where a

massive TV screen was located, but my attention was drawn towards a virtual reality in the corner, I

was extra keen to give that a go. Our next destination was the kitchen and dining room, pretty self

explanatory,







"We left some food for you." Krystal noted, she walked into the kitchen and pulled a bowl out of the

fridge, she returned to the table and placed the bowl on the table, it was filled with a thick blue

mixture, I was put off by the food's appearance but its smell was rather pleasant, I picked up a

nearby spoon and scooped some of the mixture, I hesitated for a moment before putting it in my

mouth, it was surprisingly tasty, I politely ate the food as fast as I could without looking like a pig, it

was the first meal I have had that wasn't packaged before faking my death,







"I'll be back, I need to check on a few things." Announced Fox as he made his way though the door

and into the corridors, Krystal sat on the opposite side of the table and watched me eat, 'These guys

have been a lot nicer than I had expected,' I thought to myself as I ate, 'I hope they can trust me

though."







"We trust you." Stated Krystal,







"Huh?" I grunted,







"Peppy trusts you and that is good enough for us."







"Hang on…" I just realised that she had read my thoughts, "How the hell did you know what I was

thinking?" Krystal smiled,







"I'm sorry I should have asked," she apologised, "sometimes curiosity can come over me."







"Yeah but that doesn't explain what is going on here."







"I am a telepath." I was amazed; this stuff was always in fantasy or sci-fi movies but never in real life,

"Wow that must be rare on that planet I came from." Krystal paused, she sighed and lowered her

head slightly, I knew I had said something wrong,







"I am not from Corneria," she started, she told be about her planet of Cerinia and how she became

apart of the team,







"I'm sorry to hear about how you lost everything, I thought my life was bad but… wow." She raised

her head,







"Why what has happened to your life." She asked I sighed and told my story, she understood

completely which made me feel a little better.







I finished my meal and placed the bowl and utensils into the dishwasher, Fox re-entered the room,







"Where'd you go?" asked Krystal,







"I just had to finish some work on the bridge and make sure Slippy hasn't destroyed his ship." He

answered,







"Please tell me he hasn't." I moaned, Fox shook his head,







"Lucky for you he hasn't…yet." I let out a sigh of relief, "Right let's finish this tour." I followed the

couple out of the room. The next destination was the gym, several machines lined the walls, far too

many for four animals to use. Last but definitely not least was my quarters, it was fairly under

furnished but it had everything I needed, a chest of draws, a bed with my box on it, and my own

private bathroom,







"Well that's all there is to show I guess." Finished Fox, "You might want to get a good nights sleep,

you will be helping Slippy finish off your ship tomorrow." I nodded,

"Right I'll see you guys tomorrow then." They left the room, I took off my tunic and boots and

slipped under the covers of my rather large bed, the soft mattress was a welcome change from the

seat in my old ship, I closed my eyes and eventually went off into a deep sleep.









Chapter Three:







I forced open my eyes, my mind and body told me to continue sleeping but my brain told me to get

up, I decided to follow my brain's advice and get up, I wouldn't want to set a bad example on my first

day as a member of this team, I looked down at my gauntlet, the numbers read '08:12' I forced

myself out of the comfy bed much to my body's agony, I found my tunic, jacket and boots and put

them on, I walked through my door into the halls, I paused, I didn't know where to go to reach the

hanger, I scratched my head in confusion, I decided instead of asking for directions I would find my

own way to the hangers. After finding myself in the engine room, the laundry and the rec' room I

finally found the hanger, I walked through the double doors into the hanger, to my surprise Slippy

wasn't there, I quickly scanned the area to make sure he wasn't around, he wasn't, I was glad, I lent

against the railing and waited. At his own pace Slippy entered the hanger,







"What took you so long, get lost?" I asked,







"No I was at breakfast," he answered, "I am surprised you didn't turn up."







"I don't eat breakfast all that much." I replied,







"Anyways lets finish this ship." Suggested Slippy, I followed him to a control panel, he pushed some

buttons, a light humming sound could be heard from beneath my feet, I poked my head over the

railing, the piping underneath the metal grating lit up to a light blue, Slippy pressed another button

which opened up a roller door, revealing five ships, I recognized my ship instantly even with its new

paint job of blue and white,







"Who did the paint job?" I asked,

"I did last night, I hope you don't mind." He replied, of course I didn't mind, it was a nice change

from the color of the metal, the toad walked over to the garage next to me, he did something that I

couldn't see from the angle I was standing at but my ship hovered over the piping into the middle of

the hanger which I followed, Slippy made his way to the middle of the hanger also,







"That truck from Corneria should be here at any moment now." Announced Slippy,







"What are they bringing?" I asked,







"Just some parts to finish off your ship." He replied, I remembered that my ship was still requiring

some assembling.







A short while later a green truck with an orange container on its trailer slowly hovered into the

hanger, an old boar jumped down from the cabin, he lowered the container onto the hanger floor

before making his way to Slippy, he passed a clipboard to Slippy, he signed and stamped he sheet,

the boar snored when the clipboard was returned to him, he slowly climbed into his truck and

hovered out of the hanger into space. I helped Slippy open the container, I felt a bit sorry for him

being half my size and probably weighed as much or more then I did, we opened the container with

ease, inside the container were several different sized metal crates sealed with a glue, we unloaded

the container of the crates and placed them near my ship. We finished unloading the container, how

a ship could fly with heavy equipment like that was beyond me,







"Here." Said Slippy as he threw me a blade, I swore as I dodged the blade, it was traveling very slow

but trying to catch an airborne blade is something I did not want to risk,







"What the hell?" I yelled, as the blade landed on the floor,







"Sorry I thought you could catch." He replied,







"You do realize you just threw a blade at me?" I asked in an angry tone,

"Sorry." He apologized, I sighed as I picked up the blade from the floor. We slit the glue holding the

top of the crates together and opened them, some of the crates held wiring and other wiring

equipment while others held turrets and bomb launchers,







"This will be fun." Stated Slippy, he was actually looking forward to this; he was almost the complete

opposite of me. The first job we had to do was to install the new turrets; we had the take off some

parts of the ship's exterior to put in some wires that were connected to the ship's computer and

would connect to the turrets and bomb launcher. With that task completed we now had to re-attach

the ship's exterior and connect the turrets wires to the wires we just recently installed, this proved

to be more difficult than I had expected since I had cut the wires too short, Slippy laughed at my

problem which irritated me. The last task was to attach the bomb launcher that pretty much needed

the same assembling as the turrets. We finally finished the ship, I looked down at my gauntlet that

was partially covered in grease, we had been working for four hours, and it felt like a lot more than it

was,







"Well that's that." Announced Slippy as he wiped his brow and readjusted his hat,







"Good," I replied, "Now what?"







"Well we have the day off now." He answered, that was the response I wanted to hear, I then

realized that I had no idea what to do for fun,







"What is there to do around here anyway?" I asked, the toad smiled,







"Well there is a lot to do." He replied







"Like."







"Well we have a study full of books, we have a TV, we also have a gaming system, and another thing

to do is…"







"Whoa hold up!" I interrupted, "You mean that virtual reality set I saw in the rec' room?"

"Yeah."







"I got to try that." The toad smiled, "But before we do, is there anything that can remove dye from

hair aboard the ship?"







"Yeah, I'll grab it now." The toad walked over to some shelves where various paint cans and spray

bottles were located, he picked up a black spray can and returned to me,







"Now this will sting a bit." He warned,







"What…" I mumbled, before I knew it he sprayed the contents into my hair, hurting a bit was an

understatement, it burned like hell, I swore loudly and clenched my open hands into fists, I swore

repeatedly until the pain slowly went away, I looked into the reflection of my ship's cockpit window,

the blue in my hair was gone, it was returned to its original dark brown color, I felt a little more like

myself now,







"That suits you a lot better than blue." Complimented Slippy,







"Thanks," I replied, "now shall we go to the rec' room?"







"Right well follow me." I followed as he led the way to the rec' room.







We entered the rec' room, I noticed the blue bird who I presumed to be Falco asleep on the couch in

the far corner of the room, he must be the tough guy of the team wearing that gang member style

clothing,







"Here you go." Whispered Slippy as he passed me a headband that had some goggles attached to it, I

placed the goggles over my eyes and waited for the screens inside to light up, they lit up and a menu

appeared, since I was player two I had no control over which game we played. We played several

games which I lost several of, I did my best to let out my frustration without making much noise, but

after losing another game to Slippy I took off the goggles and put them down on the counter,

"No screw this." I growled quietly, Slippy chuckled much to my irritation, I noticed from the corner of

my eye Krystal entering the room,







"Hey I like your hair." She complimented,







"Thanks." I replied,







"Hey Reece maybe you could play Krystal." Suggested Slippy, I thought that sounded fair,







"Doesn't bother me." I replied,







"Sure I'll take you on." Krystal replied, I picked up my goggles and Slippy transferred his to Krystal.

We played all the same games but I lost even worse than I did to Slippy,







"You and your telepathic abilities." I growled no longer caring about the noise I was making, Krystal

and Slippy laughed, I sighed laughed myself, no point staying angry at something as petty as a game,

I felt some happiness fill my body, a feeling I had not felt in a long time.









Chapter 4: Encounter and Preparation



I awoke from a deep sleep, much to my irritation I had slept on my arm wrong causing muscular pain

when ever I moved it from that position, I groaned as I slowly massaged my arm in an attempt to

dull the pain, it relived a little bit but not much, I grunted and made my way to the bathroom. I

entered the bathroom, locking the door behind me, I shed the clothing I had left on, placed my

gauntlet on the bench and entered the shower, and I pressed the button on the screen and the

warm water begun flowing from the shower. The warm water rubbing down my body was just the

thing to wake me up, I was halfway through my shower when I heard a rather loud repetitive

chirping being made by my gauntlet,

"God can't I take a shower in peace?" I growled, I de-activated the shower, wrapped myself in a

towel and walked over to the gauntlet, to my surprise it was not a transmission request, instead

across the screen it read 'Alert', not knowing what to do I quickly snapped the gauntlet back onto my

wrist and quickly finished drying myself, as I did a massive force struck the side of the ship, causing it

to rock which made me fall, I hit my head on the metal corner of the shower screen, I was on the

floor, stunned, I shook myself out of it, as I did I felt a massive rush of pain go to my forehead where

it got hit, I closed my eyes and put my hands over the pain affected area, I swore quite loudly and

repeated to do so until the pain dulled down a little, I slowly removed my hand from my forehead to

see my hands painted with my blood, I groaned as I forced myself up, I walked out to my drawers

and pulled out a small towel from the bottom drawer, I quickly tied it tightly around my head hoping

that will stop some of the bleeding but with the continuing throbbing and pain, I highly doubted it. I

quickly and carefully got myself dressed, with that done I used my gauntlet to contact Fox,







"Fox here." He announced,







"Yeah what in hell's name is going on?" I growled, Fox swore,







"What the hell happened to you?"







"Something rocked the ship, I fell and hit my head in the bathroom."







"That looks like one hell of a wound."







"Didn't I cover it completely?"







"Yeah but your blood is being soaked up by the towel so I can see it."







"Mind telling me what the hell caused the ship to rock?"







"Well some old 'friends' decided to launch a bomb at our ship, I was hoping it didn't hurt anyone

but…"

"They still here?"







"Yeah they are assaulting the ship! We are heading to the hanger now as we speak."







"I am going to kick their f…"







"Just make sure you are okay to fly." He interrupted, I nodded, with that I ended the transmission, I

was breathing heavily and angrily, those bastards were going to pay and I was going to make sure of

it.







I eventually made it to the hanger, to my surprise I beat the rest of the crew there, Slippy

immediately opened the roller door and we dashed to our ships, Krystal stopped me from entering,







"Are you right to fly." She asked in a concerned tone,







"Yes I am fine, I have been through worse." I answered, Krystal hesitated before jogging to her own

ship, I opened my cockpit window and jumped in, closing the window behind me, I activated the

ship's engines and computers,







"Okay I am launching us now." Announced Slippy, I put my seat belt on as the ship hovered over the

piping; our ships turned to face space, and before I knew it our ships sped up dramatically launching

us into the space battleground. There were five almost identical craft flying around shooting random

parts of the team's mother ship,







"I was wondering when you would get out here." Snapped a wolf,







"Heh now I'll be able to use your ship as scrap metal." Snickered a chameleon,







"Now I will be able to win you back Krystal." Purred a panther, Krystal sighed in irritation at this

comment,

"The name's Hawk," Introduced a golden hawk in an arrogant time, "pleased to kill ya'."







"These guys better be easy money." Growled a rat,







"You are gonna regret waking me up early." Growled Falco, we all engaged our own targets, I

engaged Hawk, I fired at him mostly in a blind rage trying to get a compensation for the injury I had

suffered, I clipped the wing of his craft, he pulled a loop and begun to assault me from behind,







"Reece calm down and focus." Instructed Krystal, I took a deep breath and sighed in an attempt to

calm myself, I pulled a loop in an attempt to regain the rear position; he simply braked and resumed

the assault,







"Who is this Reece you speak of my love?" asked the panther, which caused me to remember how

Jake always flirted with Janice,







"You know I am with Fox Panther." She growled,







"Yes but with me you will be even happier."







"Oh my god you really are a f…" I yelled,







"Reece…" scolded Krystal,







"I suppose you're right, I should focus on this budgie behind me." Hawk swore at me and begun to

lay a fierce assault on me, he was a hot head like me, I knew I could use this to my advantage, "Hey

dude I have seen better piloting from first years at the academy." It was working; I decided to try a

little trick that often worked, I boosted up slightly to gain a bit of distance, he did the same but put

more power into his boost, I quickly put on the brakes, with Hawk traveling too fast to brake he had

to fly right over me, I took the opportunity to take out his wings which also held his turrets and

launchers, he swore in panic, I decided to finish him off with a lock-on bomb, he never had a chance

in hell of surviving that, the explosion made me feel a little better

"One down." I announced,







"Bah he useless anyways." Replied the wolf,







"Krystal come and join Star Wolf again, I will treat you better than Fox does." Panther asked, this was

enough, this was personal for me, I would not let what happened to me happen to anyone who has

been this good to me,







"Panther how can your ship handle over two tones of body fat?" I asked, I knew that attempted

ladies men was extra sensitive about their appearance,







"I am not fat!" he snapped,







"Whoa I am sorry I forgot about those mood swings during pregnancy." Panther swore at me,







"I am going to take you down myself!" he snapped, I laughed as I saw his ship turn around and fly

towards me, he was followed by Slippy who was having a hard time trying to land an assault on

Panther but now he could lay an assault from behind now he was focused on me, he begun to shoot

at me, I just taunted and flew around, I was confident that the frog could take out Panther, he

launched a bomb at me, I boosted at flew to the side, the bomb's explosion missed me luckily,







"Whoa cool it madam!" I taunted, Panther swore at me, he was too focused upon me and totally

forgot about Slippy, Slippy managed to get a lock on Panther and he fired a homing shot that took

out Panther's right engines, Panther swore and turned in an attempt to flee, I was not about to let

that happen but the chameleon had other ideas, he shot two bombs at us which exploded causing

me to have to pull a U-turn to avoid the blast, I noticed that the explosion had burnt some of the

paint off,







"Oh you bastard I just got that painted!" I yelled, I looked on the radar; he was too far away for me

to peruse,







"That rat is history." Announced Krystal, the wolf swore,

"God damn it, Leon lets get out of here!" he growled,







"But what about of Panther?" asked Leon,







"Screw him!"







"I had a feeling you were gay." I taunted, the wolf swore at me before fleeing with Leon.







I docked my ship in the hanger, with the adrenalin slowly fading from my body the pain in my head

began to return, I rushed a hand onto my wound, the towel was damp with my blood, I quickly

opened the cockpit window and walked into the corridors of the mother ship, I didn't get far before I

was stopped by Krystal,







"Where do you think you're going?" she asked,







"To my room." I answered,







"Not without treatment."







"I am fine, I don't need help."







"Your brain waves earlier said different." She had me; I wanted to ease the pain but my pride made

me not want to ask for help, "Come with me, we'll go to the medical ward and fix up that cut." I

followed her as she led me down through the corridors.







We entered the medical room; it had that smell of a doctor's surgery, several charts upon the wall

and lots of cabinets along the wall, I sat down on a chair that was along the wall,







"I hope you don't mind me asking," I started, "but where did you study medicine?"

"Back on Cerinia," She answered, "I wanted to help people so I decided to study the skills needed to

be a healer." She is such a caring person and always wants to help, "Now unwrap that towel so I can

see that wound." I hesitated before obeying; the dried blood slightly stuck the towel to my head, I

forced the towel off my head that left some threads in my wound, Krystal studied the wound and

sighed,







"That wound is deep," she started, "it's going to need stitches."







"No way," I protested, "it'll be fine it'll heal in a couple of weeks." I secretly had a fear of needles

that no one other than me knew about,







"That needs to be stitched up or you are going to have a very bad time."







"No need, it'll be fine." Krystal smiled,







"So you have a fear of needles huh?" she asked,







"I hate telepaths." I mumbled







"Look you have nothing to worry about, it will be quick and easy." I groaned, she walked over to a

cabinet and pulled out some liquids and a syringe, I kept a cool face but I was beginning to panic,

"There's nothing to be scared of."







"What a crock of sh…." She stopped me talking by putting the syringe dangerously close to me; I

jumped back against the wall as a result,







"Look just let me inject this and the stitching won't hurt." I remained against the wall with no

intention to move; as she moved towards me I walked along the wall. After about five minutes of

avoiding the syringe a look of pure horror appeared on Krystal's face,







"Oh crap." She mumbled,

"What?" I asked,







"They're back." She answered,







"What?" I yelled and turned to face the nearby window, I scanned the visible area, there was

nothing, I felt something penetrate the skin on my neck and go deep inside me, I froze learning my

mistake, as soon as I felt the syringe leave my body after Krystal emptied its contents into me, I

rubbed my neck where she had injected the solution, there was a drop of blood smeared on my

fingers, I faced Krystal,







"What the hell did you do that for?" I yelled, Krystal simply smiled, I felt a sudden storm of

drowsiness hit my head, I staggered over to a nearby chair and sat down, there was no pint fighting

the chemicals, I closed my eyes and gave into my drowsiness.









I opened and eye and examined my surroundings, I was in my room underneath my bed's covers, I

looked at my gauntlet for the time, I had been unconscious for over five hours, there was also a

message from Fox on it, I had to go talk to him about something, I grumbled and walked into the

halls. As I walked through the halls in search of Fox I put my hand to my wound, a cotton patch

covered it but I could tell there were several stitches underneath. I found Fox in the study; he was

writing what appeared to be a journal,







"You wanted to see me?" I asked, Fox closed his book and put the pen on the table,







"Yes I just wanted to inform you that we have been given our first mission today."







"Sweet so what do we need to do?"







I will explain that tomorrow morning, which reminds me you need to get up at six so we can land a

good assault on them."







"Six is when the alarm goes off for the military."

"Yes but on MacBeth it will be around two AM."







"Okay understood."







"Go enjoy the rest of your day." I nodded and left Fox to continue writing.









The alarm on my gauntlet chirped loudly which woke me from my sleep; I grumbled as I made my

way to the clothes I left on the floor, I quickly got dressed and slowly made my way to the bridge. I

was the fourth one to arrive at the bridge; Slippy, Krystal and Fox were already there. Falco entered

about ten minutes later, Fox stood up from his chair that he shared with Krystal,







"Nice of you to join us Falco." Greeted Fox, Falco replied with a grunt, "Now lets get this briefing

over with, time isn't on our side." I tried to pay a lot more attention to him but my body was still

waking up, a holographic planet appeared in front of the couches,







"This is MacBeth just so you know Reece." Stated Krystal, I nodded,







"Okay," Fox started, "so from the info that Peppy has told us we know that the humans have a mini-

fortress stationed in the deserted areas of MacBeth which was out of satellite surveillance until

recently." A section of the planet turned yellow indicating the location of the base, "So the plan is

that we drop Reece in about an hour away from the base, he will make it to the base and infiltrate

it."







"Nice plan but two problems, one I have no experience on foot and two, if I fly in, they will pick me

up on their radar."







"You won't be flying in, we will drop you onto the surface in the Landmaster and you will drive there

while using the cloak, it is completely undetectable by radar systems."

"But I have no idea how to drive a tank." I interrupted,







"You have a point." Replies Fox,







"I'll go with him." Offered Krystal "I can drive the Landmaster and I can help him with the infiltration

with my powers."







"That can work." Replied Fox, "Okay so Krystal you will go with Reece. Now from the images we have

gotten from Pep' we see that they use a keycard lock system, so there should be a lock on the main

door, if you use this keycard which Slippy made yesterday it will upload a virus into their security

systems so Slippy can unlock any doors and give you any codes you may require. Once inside you will

need to get into the security control panel and disable the air-defenses they have in place and we

can attempt to take the base from there." With the briefing finished the hologram disappeared,







"Reece go grab your gear and meet me in the hanger." Krystal told me, I nodded and returned to my

quarters.







I entered the hanger with my weapons and gadgets, Krystal was waiting with a staff and some other

weapons, I couldn't help but snicker,







"What's so funny?" she asked,







"What's up with the staff?"







"You'll see."







"Oh I see you are going to try whack the guards through their thick titanium armor." I laughed,

Krystal smiled, I didn't need to be a telepath to know she had something planned. Krystal activated a

roller door that revealed several Landmaster tanks; some were thicker and heavier looking than

others, I followed Krystal and entered one of the bulkier Landmasters. Krystal activated the

computer systems and the engines,

"This is Krystal," she announced, "is the communication lines working?"







"Affirmative, communication systems are active." Replied Slippy,







"The drop zone has been reached, awaiting further commands." Announced ROB,







"You ready?" Krystal asked me, I nodded, "We are ready to be dropped in."







"Roger, dropping Landmaster X-12 onto MacBeth's surface." I felt the tank slowly start moving, then

I felt us fall, just before we hit the ground Krystal activated the jets beneath the tank, slowing our fall

just enough to land safely without any damage being made.







"I am activating the cloak now and requesting radio silence until we get inside." Stated Krystal







"Alright gotcha." Replied Fox, Krystal pressed a button that activated the cloak; it had two hours of

battery before the cloak died. I decided it would be best if I could catch up on some sleep before we

got there, I put my sunglasses on and dozed off, hoping Krystal wouldn't notice. I didn't have that

long of a nap, as soon as Krystal realized she woke me up with a quick jab to the ribs since I wasn't

responding to her other methods, I then had to listen to a lecture of how I needed to be alert at all

times during a mission for obvious reasons.







We had driven 52 minutes and we finally reached our destination, it was still very dark on MacBeth, I

looked down to the Landmaster's computer, it was two in the morning by MacBeth's standards,

knowing what the humans were like, most of them would still be in bed. I poked my head out of the

manhole and I activated the night vision on my sunglasses, I saw there were two guards stationed in

the towers near the main door and another two at the main door, I hopped out of the Landmaster

and Krystal followed with her sniper-rifle, she attached a silencer to the end of it and placed some

darts in it, she took aim and fired four shots,







"They're down." She stated,







"What about when they find the darts in their bodies?" I asked,

"Don't worry, they dissolve after a few seconds so it will look like they have fallen asleep during their

watch." I nodded, Krystal re-entered the tank and I followed. We silently drove up to the main door

and exited the tank. Krystal had a metal box on her back that contained enough fuel for her to cloak

for ten minutes, it looked rather awkward and heavy to wear. I pulled the keycard out of my pocket

and placed it inside the keycard scanner,







"Keep it in until I say." Ordered Slippy, a light humming sound came from the scanner. "Okay you can

take it out, I'm in." Slippy stated after thirty seconds, I pulled it out and the doors opened, Krystal

quickly cloaked, I entered the fortress and hoped that Krystal was following, the door shut

automatically behind me.







I recognized the structure of the fortress, it was the same as what I had to stay in when I was apart

of the Anti-Terrorist Squadron in the Middle East, it was only a week, but I could still roughly

remember the layout. We were in the sleeping quarters as soon as we entered so we had to creep

past doors trying not to wake up any soldiers,







"Guards coming from the hall on your left." Noted Slippy, he must have gained access to the security

camera footage, I quickly hid in a cleaning supply cupboard and waited, "Okay it's safe to get out." I

got out of the cupboard and continued on my way. I was almost in the security sector; something

poked me on the back that scared the living hell out of me,







"I got five minutes of cloak left." Krystal whispered, I nodded,







"Reece they have blocked me out of the security network," Slippy announced, "last this I tried to

cancel them doing was ending all transm…" the line went dead, I swore angrily but quietly, I now had

no idea of if guards were coming or not and no one to open any doors. I came to the door that had

written above it 'Authorized Personal Only' I knew I was close, but the door was locked, that was

when I noticed the scanner; luck was on my side again,







"Freeze!" someone yelled, 'Or not.' I thought to myself, I turned around to face a guard wielding a

semi-automatic plasma pistol, "Drop them!" he ordered referring to my blaster and Gattling, I

decided to joke around, not caring about the consequences,







"Okay but I don't swing that way just so you know." I replied as I undid my belt buckle,

"Oh a comedian huh, well laugh at this!" he fired, as he did I activated my reflector, the blasts of

plasma were sent flying back to the guard, piercing his armor and hitting him right in the chest, he

died instantly, that was the first time I had ever taken a life, it felt so bad, but I had to get over it, I

placed the keycard into the scanner and waited for Slippy. After about a minute I heard his voice,







"Krystal, Reece, are you okay." He asked desperately, I nodded,







"We are fine, Reece is just a little shaken up by his first kill." Krystal answered,







"Aw he was just like you back on Sauria all those years ago, you hated to kill things but you grew

stronger."







"Anyways can you open the door please?" I growled before he got too off-topic,







"Oh, yeah, s-sorry Reece." The door opened, we entered into the next room. This room was lit up

with green lights, it was small but gave us three doors to choose from,







"Which one will take us to the security panel?" I asked,







"Ah…" Slippy replied,







"Come on Slippy someone would have heard that shot and when they find that dead body there will

be that many soldiers after us it will not end well."







"Okay, okay! It is the door in front of you. I will open it up for you."







"Thanks." I drew my blaster and took aim at the door, ready to shoot any soldiers or threats, the

door opened, there was one guy sitting on a chair watching the security screens, he turned around

as he noticed the door opened,

"Who the f…" he yelled, I put the blaster to his head,







"If you value your life then you will de-activate any defenses you have here." I ordered, as I did

Krystal faded back into visibility, the guy screamed as he saw her, I put the gun harder to his into his

forehead and put my finger to my lips, he got the point, he got the point and stopped screaming, he

slowly pressed a few buttons,







"He has deactivated all defense systems, Fox and Falco are on their way to begin the assault." Slippy

announced,







"Thank you." I thanked the technician kindly before firing my faster onto the control panel so that he

couldn't activate the defense systems again or the alarm,







"Guys you have five guards about to enter the sector you are in." warned Slippy,







"Freeze ass-holes!" yelled a guard, I swore and turned around, I threw my weapons to the floor and

put my hands up, Krystal on the other hand decided to grab he staff and take a battle stance, the

guards laughed at her, I sighed in embarrassment,







"Okay fur ball you can go chase the stick when I tie you up in the yard with Spike." They laughed

again, Krystal swung her staff, a red orb flew towards them and blew up, horribly burning some

guards while it killed the others, I jumped backwards to the control panel, again she managed to

scare the living hell out of me,







"There, you see?" Krystal grinned, I was silent, I now knew someone that could read minds and use

magic, and it scared me, "Come on before any more of them come." I followed Krystal as we ran

through the halls of the base.







We eventually made it out of the base, I activated the heat vision and found the location of the

Landmaster, I quickly got in and de-activated the cloak so Krystal knew where to get in, once she was

in she activated the cloak and drove away, we lie in wait as I knew their were going to be ground

troops and vehicles coming out of the base soon, I noticed on the radar that Fox and Falco's ships

were almost at the base, I looked up to see them firing at some turrets on the side of the fortress. A

loud siren rang from the fortress and several aircraft and tanks emerged from the base, with the

enemy in sight Krystal drove the Landmaster forward towards the group, the assault had just begun.

Krystal and I charged towards the group of enemy tanks inside our cloaked Landmaster, I was in

control of the turret while she did all the maneuvers. Fox and Falco were taking care of the aircraft

and the occasional turret, Slippy was still aboard the great Fox doing god knows what.







Krystal deactivated the Landmaster's cloak to allow the engines to direct power to the turret instead

of the cloak generator. Our stealthy approach caught the tanks completely off guard who were

obviously focused on Fox and Falco, I fired one charged shot at a tank in the middle, the blast radius

hit the tanks that were nearby, it blew up two tanks and flipped one on its top,







"Wow is this the human's army Reece?" asked Falco,







"Ya." I replied,







"Ha! Even Bill's squadron could take these guys out." He laughed; I looked up and saw him picking

off the air force one by one. I returned my attention to the ground, Krystal and I had attracted the

attention of the other tanks, they begun to come for us, they were coming from all directions in an

attempt to box us in, I managed to take out two of the incoming enemies but that wasn't enough to

stop them from boxing us in and becoming sitting ducks for the air force, Krystal had other plans, she

made the tank tilt onto it's left and squeezed through a tight gap between two of them, I took the

opportunity to turn the turret around and fire a nova bomb into the group, I should have timed it

better as we barley made it out of the blast radius, thank god for the boosts,







"Slippy doesn't get mad if he needs to repaint the tank does he?" I asked, Krystal shook her head,

"Oh good." I took a quick observation of the flaming wreckage before returning my attention to the

front. We were now being marked by sharpshooters, their snipers proved to be a very powerful

weapon as it managed to pierce the armor of the Landmaster, missing me by a couple of inches,







"Crap that was too close," I stated, "Could you guys do something about those gun towers?"







"Whatever." Falco replied, the two pilots dived down towards the ground while firing at the towers;

they had to fire Nova Bombs in order to destroy them. The tanks in front of us begun to turn around

and drive in the opposite direction, they weren't too discreet with their mine dropping, they were

scattered all over the place in front of us, I fired one shot which hit a mine, starting a chain explosion

of mines, it threw so much sand at us it blocked out our visibility. We passed through the sand only

to be directly hit by an incoming blast of plasma, the Landmaster was flipped onto its roof, my neck

cramped up as a result of the flip, as I did a few stretches Krystal flipped the Landmaster back onto

its tracks, just missing another shot coming from the same tank, I returned the favor by firing and

completely dissembling his tank. There were only a few tanks left on the ground, they were no major

threat, and I picked them off one by one,







"How's it in the skies boys?" Krystal asked,







"Yeah there's no real problems up here." Answered Fox,







"Yeah these guys are weaker than overcooked," stated Falco,







"You really can't come up with new stuff can you?" Krystal interrupted, Falco didn't reply."







All the ground forces were defeated; there was nothing in sight or on radar,







"Shall we help those two out?" I asked,







"Yeah we… hang on," Krystal replied, "What's that?" she pointed to an unusually large blip on the

radar, I looked up to the location of where the blip was indicating the enemy was, nothing was

there,







"It's either a technical malfunction or the enemy is cloaked." I stated,







"Na Reece it is a magical pixie from pixie world." Falco replied sarcastically, I ignored his comment,

out of nowhere a rather large purple beam flew towards the area where Fox and Falco were,







"What the hell was that?" yelled Fox in a surprised tone, I knew that the enemy was cloaked, I fired

several shots at the source of the beam, they hit something, a rather large object flashed a couple of

times before coming into visibility, it was a extremely large tank, but it held no weapons to repel

ground forces, just a rather large amount of weaponry to take out aircraft, I knew what this was,

"Uh you two might wanna get out of here." I told Fox and Falco,







"Ha! If you think that pile of scrap is going to send me packing forget it!" replied Falco, the tank fired

several mini missiles that locked onto Fox and Falco, I begun to fire at the tank, the shots did next to

nothing to the tank other than scratch its paint,







"What the hell?" I asked myself, I fired a nova bomb at it, it did nothing as well, I slammed my fist on

the dashboard and swore, Krystal glared at me, I knew that she wanted me to calm down. I noticed

that the tank had a rather large gap between the ground at the tank's body, that gave me an idea,







"Slippy can you send me any times explosives?" I asked,







"Yeah but why?" he replied,







"So I can blow up a tank."







"Why don't you just use a nova bomb?"







"Just send the explosives."







"Will do." He was getting more annoying each time I spoke to him.







I tried everything to take out the tank, I even tried some of Krystal's ideas, a transmission request

appeared on the monitor I pressed the button to allow it,







"Please hold the line while I confirm your location." Requested ROB in his monotone voice, "Location

confirmed, sending package." As it announced that the tank had fired some rather large missiles

other than the smaller ones it had fired earlier, they were quick but I could get a lock on them, I fired

the charged shot at one of the missiles, it took a short while but the charge hit the missile causing it

to explode, I tried to lock onto the missile locked onto Fox but it was out of range,

"Crap Falco can you take out that missile?" I asked desperately,







"He's too far away." He replied,







"I can't get away from this thing!" yelled Fox desperately, Krystal reached over me and grabbed the

turret and began to fire at the missile but they disintegrated before they got to the missile,







"Don't worry, Slippy's here!" Slippy announced, his ship flew into view, he boosted towards Fox, he

fired several shots at the missile, he missed occasionally but he hit eventually which destroyed it.







I noticed a small blip appear on the radar, I looked at the monitor showing our surroundings in front

of us, a large metal box flew towards us, and it landed softly in front of the tank. I opened the hatch

and climbed out of the Landmaster and ran to the crate, I opened the crate revealing the explosives

inside, it was a gray box with two canisters with some liquid chemicals, I programmed the timer to

go off in five minutes, it started, I made a mad dash towards the now moving anti-aircraft tank. I

sprinted for two minutes to reach the tank; it must have seen me as a threat as it turned to face me

and drove straight for me, I didn't turn back, I got close enough and baseball slid underneath the

tank, I quickly wedged the bomb in a gap, the tank drove over me thinking that they had hit me, I got

up and dashed towards the Landmaster now racing towards me, it stopped right before me, the

hatch opened, I hopped in to face Krystal,







"What the hell were you thinking?" she yelled, "Do you realize that if you were a few inches to either

side you would have been crushed?" then we heard an explosion; we looked at the monitor and saw

the tank with green flames coming from underneath it and through its hatch,







"It was worth it." I replied, Krystal smiled and shook her head. We made our way out of the

Landmaster,







"ROB can you beam us our ships please?" Krystal asked politely,







"Affirmative." It replied, in a few seconds the tank turned from a solid object into several non-solid

lines, a few moments passed and the lines faded into nothing. A few seconds later two sets of blue

lines which made out our ships, the ships' physical appearance faded into visibility and was now fully

transferred, we opened our cockpits and activated our systems, we lifted off the ground and

boosted to the air to take out whatever air defense was left.







We approached the battle zone, when the assault started there was about one hundred craft in the

air, now there were just a few dozen. There was something odd about these pilots, the pilots I used

to fly with were a lot more skilled than this, things just didn't add up. I fired my lasers, bringing down

the final air unit,







"Well that's that." Krystal stated,







"What now?" I asked,







"Well, now we con," Fox stopped himself as we heard the a rather large amount of electricity,







"What the hell?" Falco asked, we all looked up, we saw several bolts of electricity going wild, a large

warship started to appear through the electricity, it would have been as long as two aircraft carriers

and about roughly two miles high, it was very high above us, it had more weaponry than anything

else I have seen. It moved its main turret to face the base below, it started to charge a shot, this

wasn't plasma like the other ships, it was a white laser of some sort,







"Guys we better get outta' here, that things about to fire a sonic blast!" Slippy yelped, Falco swore

and took off, if Falco was getting out of the way I decided it was best if I did as well, I boosted to

catch up to the group, the warship behind me fired a single beam, the beam hit the base dead on,

everything flashed white blinding me for a few seconds, I shook it off and looked down to see what

happened, the ship's shot had destroyed the entire base not leaving a single brick or wire to be

investigated, all that was left was a massive crater, with its job done the warship reversed back into

the electricity disappearing, when the ship passed through the electricity stopped.







"So there's nothing left of the base?" Peppy asked, we were de-briefing in the bridge of the Great

Fox,







"Well there's a crater." I joked, the hologram of the hare gave me a stern look, 'Not the smartest

idea." I thought,

"Anyways the humans do not have access to that kind of technology, we have only just recently

recovered that kind of weaponry from one of Andross's warehouses about three weeks ago,

something doesn't add up." Peppy stated,







"Another thing that doesn't add up is those military and air force personal were not as skilled as the

pilots I flew along side with, why they would send some unskilled pilots to a place where they were

guaranteed to get into conflict." I added,







"Well, I'll contact you when we have some more information on the human movements or we get

any info' about this technology, Peppy out." The image of the hare disappeared, I was overcome by

frustration about why those pilots were not as skilled as the one's I flew with, I decided to go to the

hanger and review my ship's recordings of the battle.







I reviewed the footage in my cockpit over and over again but there were no clues. Then, I noticed a

symbol on the wing of a human ship, I quickly paused it, that symbol wasn't of the air force, it was

the symbol of the air force reserve, no wonder they were so unskilled, I knew what they were doing.

I rushed to the bridge to tell the others my findings and my theory.









Chapter Six: Fichina







I rushed to the bridge hoping that they were still there. I stopped just before the twin doors to the

bridge, I caught my breath and calmly walked into the bridge, to my relief they were all still there,

Krystal must have sensed my mood as she immediately asked,







"What have you found out Reece?"







"You know those pilots back there, well they weren't the military, and they were the reserves."







"So what does that mean?" Falco asked,

"It means that they were a distraction from the real threat at hand."







"Which is?"







"How the hell am I meant to know?"







"We have to tell Peppy." Krystal added, Slippy quickly activated the communication line and

connected to the Cornerian Military Base. A hologram of a young female Labrador answered,







"Welcome to Corneria Military." She greeted,







"Can you put us through to General Peppy please." Fox asked,







"No problems, one moment." The hologram turned into the Cornerian logo for a few moments while

we connected. A few moments later the hologram turned into the old hare,







"I didn't think I was missed this much." he joked,







"Peppy I think Reece may have just uncovered something about that base on MacBeth." Krystal

stated,







"And what would that be?" he asked, I explained what I had found to Peppy, "Well that is

interesting, there plan really did work, but what were they distracting us from?"







"I have got no idea." I replied,







"Well you have a good point, I will send squads to the planets and see if anything is going on, is there

anything else?"

"No that's all I know."







"Right well then Peppy out." His hologram faded out.







"Well what now?" I asked,







"We wait until we get some info' about what we need to do next." Krystal replied that was exactly

what I wanted to hear.







I awoke from my short slumber, an hour had passed, it was all I needed to refresh myself and catch

up on the sleep I had rudely shortened. I put the boots back over my feet and found myself bored

and with nothing to do, I decided to scratch the gash on my head that Krystal had skillfully stitched

up, deciding it was best that I didn't continue I stopped but now a did need to itch, I started to shake

my leg in an attempt to ignore it, I shook my head to try relive the itch, as I did the beeper on my

gauntlet chirped, it read 'All personal to the bridge.' I followed its order, forgetting about the itch.







I walked into the bridge and stood with the rest of the team at the hologram of Peppy,







"Good you're all here," Peppy started, "we have to make this quick. Our patrols have seen human

activity on Fichina around the weather control center where Pigma had sent those Aparoids, we

don't know what the human's intensions are but I do believe that they have plans to do something

with that control center. I need you four to fly in and eliminate the forces and try to capture one of

the people in charge so we can interrogate them, understood?" we all nodded, "Okay then, Peppy

out." With that the hologram of the General faded once again. Slippy activated the ship's warp gate

and set the target destination to Sector S, the closest warp gate to Fichina,







"Okay we got ten minutes until we are able to be warped so go grab your stuff and meet in the

hanger in ten." Fox ordered, we all went our own separate ways to grab our equipment.







I made my way into the hanger, it took me forever to remember where I put my headpiece and in

which pocket I had put my microphone, but I found them and I was in the hanger waiting for the rest

of the crew to arrive. The fox couple was first to arrive, followed by Slippy then Falco. Slippy

activated the roller doors that opened to reveal the compartment where our ships were being held;

we each entered our respective ships and awaited to be launched. After ROB received the

conformation from Fox we were launched towards planet Fichina.







I activated the G-Diffuser upon entering the atmosphere of Fichina, the cabin was now unaffected by

the planet's gravity,







"Enemy spotted dead ahead." Announced Slippy, the snow was impairing my vision a little bit but I

could easily see them,







"What the hell are they up to?" I thought aloud, we then heard a siren go off, "Crap we've been

spotted." I cursed; I noticed that these ships were camouflaged to the terrain; I knew that this was

the real military we were about to engage.







Unlike the reserves these guys got into formations and I knew them better than anyone, not a wise

move on their behalf, the first group the approached were in a cross style formation, the ships on

the outside would fire while the middle one would lock on to a ship and fire a missile, they obviously

didn't know of the lock on weaponry that we had, I simply locked onto the incoming missile and

destroyed it, while Falco locked onto the middle ship and fired, the blast sent all five ships

plummeting to the ground,







"I believe that is plus ten to me." Falco bragged, I shook my head and continued to focus on the

fight. These guys grew more difficult with each wave of assaults; they took notice of our tactics and

performed new tactics of their own, they begun to fly from below hoping that we were distracted by

the ships in front of us, we were not that stupid, Krystal swooped down and shot each of them

down. I think we begun to make them grow worried, they pulled out new ground weaponry that was

completely alien to me, it turns out they were turrets, they shot canisters towards the air and

exploded with either explosives or flash bangs, either way they were a nuisance. One canister

exploded and blinded me, I swore loudly as I tried to keep going in the right direction and not get

shot down in the process, luckily Fox was nearby and managed to protect me long enough for me to

regain my vision, I thanked him and continued with the fight. I had just about enough of those

turrets, I decided they needed to be taken care of, against my better judgment I flew right into the

human's fleet, taking down whatever ships I could in the process, I reached the location of the

turrets, I locked on and fired nova bombs at them, ripping them to shreds, I laughed and flew back to

where my wingmen were.







We had almost completely taken out the human fleet; my ship's shields were on 50%. Then, five

familiar ships appeared on the radar,

"Oh crap." I mumbled,







"What the hell are they doing here?" Fox questioned loudly and angrily, Falco swore and Krystal

sighed, Star Wolf was on the scene.







"You guys extract it now!" ordered Wolf, "We can hold them off." The last time I was up against

these guys I almost got taken down several times, it was luck that it came down to,







"Allow me to introduce our newest members," Panther started, I fired at the incoming humans

taking them down, "our new bad-ass pilot Miyu, and our new mechanic, Fay."







"What the hell?" Falco questioned,







"Why did you two join Star Wolf after all they put us through all those years ago?" Fox questioned,







"We joined after the Lylat War, there was nothing to do, and now, we have found a team that will

always have something to do, no matter the consequence." The lynx explained,







"Enough chit-chat!" Leon growled, "Lets take them down already!"







"Yeah now you can try those new engines and weapon systems I installed." Fay stated happily, those

two didn't seem to fit into that team in my eyes, you had the bad ass, the insane guy, the pervert,

and now you had a tomboy and an innocent mechanic. We now had two threats to deal with, Star

Wolf and the remainder of the human forces. I focused on the humans and let the others deal with

Star Wolf, but Panther must have remembered how I acted during our last encounter as he engaged

me, I boosted in an attempt to get away, but his boost was far superior to mine and was extremely

close, I pulled on the brakes, but his braking mechanics were superior also, he came to a stop much

faster than me,







"Try the new power weapon I installed." Fay suggested,

"Thanks dear." Thanked Panther, I don't know how any female could work with him, I didn't see

what exactly happened but Panther fired a massive beam that must have been locked onto my

engines, it completely disintegrated it, with nothing to keep me in the air I nose dived towards the

ground, if I bailed out, I would be shot when my parachute deployed, but I had a second idea. I

allowed my ship to nose dive until it was dangerously close to the ground, all I could hear was the

team telling me to bail out, if I responded then my plan would be ruined, I just about hit the ground

before I tilted the ship up slightly and activated the ejector seat, I was sent flying several yards in

front of the ship, hitting the snow cushioned the impact when I was slammed into the ground, but

not much though. I must have hit my head on a rock or something as everything went black. It may

not have been the best plan but at least this gave me a chance to avoid capture.







Something kicked me in the ribs and ordered,







"Wake up!" I physically couldn't move, I got another kick to the ribs, "Now!" I forced my eyes open

and my body was now physically aware of the damage my little stunt had caused, I had cuts,

scratches and bruises all the way up my body, I tired to get up but I got a kick to the gut as I did, I left

out a cough and tried to get up again, this time I was let up, my vision was slightly blurred, I must

have had a mild concussion, Wolf grabbed me by the hair and pulled me closer to the group







"You are going to help us and you have no choice in the matter." He growled before throwing me

back into the snow,







"Like what?" I groaned,







"Lets say it involves your friends." Hissed Leon,







"I'm not going to set them up." I replied,







"You don't have to." Panther replied,







"After we shot all of you guys down the humans beat us to your ships, you were the only one they

didn't find." Fay started explaining, "Wolf wanted them for himself so he could kill them personally,

but the humans took them aboard a heavily guarded research vessel, Wolf opposed this but we

were grounded and guarded by sharpshooters so there was nothing we could do to stop them." It

just hit me where they were and what happened aboard a research vessel if a foreign species is

caught, I felt physically and mentally sick knowing what is going to happen, I had to intervene, but

my ship was destroyed, I knew I had no choice but to obey Star Wolf,







"What do I need to do?" I asked,







"You need to get them out of there and get them to us." Wolf answered, I agreed, just because I

agreed to his plan didn't mean I had to follow it,







"So how will I get in?" I asked,







"Miyu will take you there in her Wolfen as it has the most space. When you get them out we will be

waiting with a van which you will put them into." I nodded; it was now a race against time to save

the lives of Star Fox.









Chapter 7



Against the Clock







"Okay let's go over the plan one more time." Fay suggested, I was in her Wolfen sitting in the storage

compartment,







"Why do you fly for these jerks?" I asked, Fay ignored me,







"I will drop you in the hanger, you locate Fox, Krystal and the rest, get them out safely and get them

to us in our awaiting van." Since I had no weapons of gadgets on me when I was shot down I was

supplied with a blaster and a reflector, but they were different to the items I was used to, I didn't

like the idea of walking around with a blaster with a blade underneath the barrel where it could

easily stab into my leg. I made sure the blaster was fully charged, "What do you think they are going

to do to them?" she asked,

"I got a feeling I know what, but I don't want to talk about it." I replied, I knew what was about to

happen if I didn't act first and just thinking about it made me physically sick,







"We are approaching our destination." Fay announced, she pointed to a small airlock that was open

on the side of the massive vessel,







"You're kidding right?" I asked hoping she was, I was to enter through a trash tube,







"Nope, sorry." She replied, I grumbled unhappily under my breath,







"What was that?" she snapped, she must have heard me insulting her and Star Wolf,







"Nothing, nothing." I lied,







"Okay this operation is crucial that you get it done fast and undetected."







"Yeah yeah yeah." I grumbled as I slipped into the spare bio-suit, it was a little tight for my liking, but

it wasn't tight enough to show anything, I passed Fay the smaller bio-suit which she easily slipped

into. She stopped the Wolfen just outside the open vent,







"Okay I'm opening the cockpit now." Fay announced, I pressed the button on the control panel on

my chest, oxygen now freely moved inside my bio-suit, Fay did the same, the Wolfen's cockpit

window slowly opened, the artificial gravity disappeared, I unbuckled my seat belt and pushed

myself towards the open vent, I got a grip inside the vent and gave the thumbs up to Fay, she closed

the cabin window and slowly flew off, I gripped onto the sides of the vent and pushed my self

forward into it.







I eventually made it to the end of the vent; a hatch blocked off the vent, there was an emergency

open button to my right, I pressed it, the hatch swung open real fast and stopped with a loud clang, I

heard something fall to the ground, hard. I pushed myself into the ship's interior and fell to the

ground hard due to the artificial gravity's pull. I looked over to see what I had hit with the hatch;

there with a broken nose was a scientist, unconscious and bloody on the ground, his name tag read

'Terry B', I wondered what I could do with Terry's body, but then an excellent idea came to mind, I

stripped from the bio-suit and chucked it into the vent, I was now in my jumpsuit, I stripped Terry of

his clothing (apart from his underwear of course) and threw him into the vent as well, I put the lab

clothing into the bag on my back that Star Wolf had provided me, that may come in handy later.







The two doors in front of me slid open in my presence; I was hiding around the other side of the

doorframe. I poked my head around the corner of the doorframe, there were several crates and

freight containers stacked on top of one another must be a storeroom, I also noticed guards

patrolling around, not wearing heavy armor but armed with plasma assault rifles. I waited until the

guards were not going to be able to see me, I sprinted as lightly as I could and hid behind one of the

containers, I drew my blaster and took aim at the route the guards took. The guards walked out into

my crosshairs, I fired two shots, taking them down; I rushed quickly to their bodies and dragged

them into a location that would not easily be found, I took one of their assault rifles and continued

into the storeroom. I was hidden beside a freight container, there was an elevator I needed to take

in order to get to the door to which I believed the labs were but I had a problem, there were at least

five guards stationed on both levels. I studied the time of which it would take the elevator to reach

each floor, it took roughly ten seconds, I looked around for something to cause a diversion and I

came up with an idea. I took aim at some unstable crates, I fired, the blast knocked three crates off

the top of the pile, they fell upon a poor guard underneath it, the fellow guards swore and rushed to

help their fallen comrade, the stations near the elevator were now vacant, I sprinted and rolled into

the elevator, I pressed the button to close the doors and lift me to the balconies above. The elevator

doors opened, I poked my head out of the doors to check to see if my diversion was still affective, it

was, there were at least five guards trying to help the poor guard I had crushed get out from

underneath the crates. I crept along the balcony to a steel door that was locked, I quickly put the lab

clothes over my clothing, threw my assault rifle into the corner and hid my blaster, I pressed the

button to communicate with the people inside, the screen to my right lit up,







"What is it?" the guy snapped,







"I got some confidential documents about some specimens we captured earlier today." I lied,







"Who sent you?"







"The head scientist."







"Who do you want here?"

"I'm not allowed to disclose that sort of information."







"What's your name labie?"







"Terry."







"Oh jeeze sorry to keep you waiting Terry I'll open the door right away." this Terry fellow must be

someone important, the two sliding doors opened, I drew my blaster and shot the five scientists

inside, it was a small area with lots of computers and monitors, it must be some sort of security base

or a database. Luckily for me one the scientists was still logged in, I decided to browse through the

database looking for any information that could help lead me to Fox, Krystal, Falco and Slippy. I came

across a document called 'Scientific Procedures' I tried to open the document but it was blocked and

I needed a keycard authorization, I swore, I looked around for a keycard but there were none in

sight, then I noticed something odd, the sides of the identification cards were stiff while the rest

could bend, I removed the card from my chest and swiped it through the reader, the computer

worked trying to see if Terry's card was authorized to access this document, the message

disappeared and was replaced by a schedule. As I read through the document I saw a chilling

message, "Autopsy Procedure scheduled for 1700 hours. Two subjects, both humanoid animals, one

male vulpine, one male avian." This is what I feared I looked down to my gauntlet, that procedure

was less than half an hour from now. I rushed through the documents in an attempt to try find

Krystal and Slippy's location, Krystal had apparently broken free of her captors, apparently she broke

some of their bones, I chuckled at this and she was now being held in solitary, Slippy was being held

in a low security holding cell. My order of rescues was now clear; I had to save Fox and Falco first,

then Krystal then Slippy. Before I started my operation I made a direct link to the Cornerian Army

from the information I had stored on my gauntlet,







"Cornerian Defense." Stated a male jaguar,







"Look I don't have time to explain anything just record this message as I don't have time to repeat it

and pass it on to General Peppy."







"Right go ahead."







"Team Star Fox was shot down over Fichina and were taken to the vessel I am now on, we need help

to escape from here but be alert Star Wolf is on the scene."

"Right… Star Fox shot down, yeah, I will be sure to pass it on."







"Don't believe me then try contact them." I ended the transmission.







Now with a map downloaded onto my gauntlet and their specific locations marked on it I slowly and

calmly walked over the balcony, all the commotion of my earlier diversion has died down, guards

were now back at their posts and the guard that was crushed was now out of the area, my disguise

seemed to be affective as guards didn't even give me a second glance, I walked freely past the

guards and through the door which did lead me to the labs. When no one was looking I glanced

down to the map on my gauntlet, I was a few corridors away from the lab where Fox and Falco were

being prepared for their autopsy that was only twenty minutes away. I entered a room, I noticed

that the air was heavily recycled; I knew this was close to the autopsy lab. I opened one set of doors,

only to meet another set of doors that had a guard behind it,







"Ah Terry you've decided to show up." Growled the guard,







"You know me turn up when I want." I replied,







"Damn typical, if you weren't the General's son I would give you a knock to the teeth."







"I see your mouth moving but all I am hearing is woof woof."







"Get in there and chop up that freak before I chop you up!" the door opened, I strutted through but

received a shove from the guard who also swore at me, I snickered and walked up to hovering trolley

which Fox and Falco were placed on,







"You never learn do you Terry?" the other scientist asked as he picked up a scalpel, "Can you please

slit the clothing off please?"







"Are these things alive?" I asked,

"Yeah we need to keep them alive so we get a nice fresh body."







"All I needed to hear." I replied as I drew my blaster and shot the scientist and the guard, they fell to

the ground without a sound, I was now left with the task off waking the pair up from their induced

state. I tried slapping them, yelling at them, blocking their breathing but they didn't wake up, that's

when I noticed the cupboard of injections, as much as I didn't want to open it I did, there were so

many injections filled with different solutions, I browsed through the selection and found two that

are supposed to wake up induced patients, I took them and injected them into Fox and Falco, all I

could do now is wait for them to wake up.







It took roughly two minutes for them both to wake up; they groggily stumbled off the hovering

trolley, Falco must not have recognized me as he tackled me into the ground and put his hand on my

throat down on my throat strangling me,







"Now you're going to get us out of here and you have no choice." He growled,







"I had intended on doing that." I gasped; Falco must have recognized my voice as he quickly released

me of his grip and helped me up,







"Reece why didn't you say something?" he asked,







"Well I was on the ground with a blue parrot strangling me." I grumbled,







"Where's Krystal and Slippy?" Fox asked desperately,







"Don't worry I know exactly where they are." Fox was still desperate to see his friends. I picked up

the guards pistol and rifle and handed them to Fox and Falco,







"Let's tear them up!" Falco yelled,







"No if we go through blasting everything then they will hold Krystal and Slippy hostage." Fox

explained, Falco seemed to be a little down by this,

"Right well lets not leave them waiting." I suggested.







Walking through the corridors were not as easy now, we had to hide more often we even had to

crawl through a vent to avoid detection. We were now just outside of Krystal's cell, there were two

shock troopers guarding her cell, they saw us,







"What the hell!" they yelled, I swore and we shot them, we didn't take them down fast enough

though, the alarm was triggered and there would be more shock troopers breathing down our necks

in a few minutes, the guards did not have a key on their bodies so we did Falco's solution which was

blasting the hell out of the lock, it worked much to my surprise, we kicked open the door, Krystal

was on the ground restrained by chains and unconscious, again we used Falco's solution and shot

the chains, freeing her from the ground, Fox picked her up and carried her over his shoulder. As we

exited the cell there were several shock troopers waiting for us,







"Don't move, drop your weapons and get on the ground." Ordered the head trooper,







"Make us!" I taunted,







"Take them down!" they fired at us, but I was faster, I activated the reflector, the pink curves

reflected the shots right back at the shock troopers, the ones still left standing were shot down by

Falco, now we needed to rescue Slippy.







At least every minute we encountered some shock troopers but they all were just a minor

inconvenience. We kicked open the door to the where Slippy was being held, we entered to see a

guard on the ground and Slippy picking the lock,







"Slippy, you alright?" Fox asked,







"Yeah, I am almost through this lock." We then heard a click, the door of the cell swung open; I

turned around to check for shock troopers none were there. The beeper on my gauntlet sounded, it

was an incoming transmission from Peppy, I accepted the transmission, the hologram of Peppy's

head popped up,

"Okay just what the hell is going on?" he demanded,







"Well we got taken out over Fichina by Star Wolf, these guys were taken here by the humans, Star

Wolf found me in the snow and forced me to come here and rescue them so I could deliver them to

Star Wolf but I contacted you so I wouldn't have that factor to deal with." I explained,







"Right well are you all okay?"







"Krystal is unconscious but we are all fine."







"Right well just hold out for five more minutes then we will be able to use the warp gate and get to

you, hold the line so we can lock onto your location." I nodded in conformation,







"I have an idea that we can do that we can escape with." I suggested, someone let out a small groan,

it was Krystal, she was waking up from her induced sleep, Fox put her off his shoulder and placed her

on her feet but still had his arm around her until she found her feet,







"Huh, wha? How did I get here?" she questioned,







"Well first…" I started, she put her hand up signaling for me to stop, "I see." she said after a few

moments, she must have read my memories,







"As I was saying we can go to the armory which is not too far from here, take some bio-suits and exit

through a window or something where we can have a ship waiting."







"That can work." said Slippy, with Slippy's approval the rest of the team agreed.







We dashed towards the armory, it was only a few corridors away, the door was unlocked probably

due to the carelessness of some shock trooper, we entered the armory at our free will, I directed

them to where the bio-suits are kept, we walked towards them, a shot was heard, the plasma hit my

thigh, I yelped and collapsed to the ground, Fox shot my attacker dead, I was helped up by Krystal

and Slippy,







"You okay Reece." Krystal asked concerned,







"Apart from the gun wound to my leg, I'm fine." I grumbled, I then swore loudly in pain then cursed

myself for being so stupid, I hopped over where the bio-suits were located with assistance from

Slippy and Krystal, Fox pulled the bio-suits down from the shelve in which they were concealed, I put

mine on (again with some assistance) ad the rest of the team did the same.







We waited a while until Peppy to announce something. It took him five minutes after my injury to

contact us,







"Okay you held the line open, good, I heard your plan Reece, and we have marked your location and

are ready to blow open an exit so activate those bio-suits." He instructed, I activated the oxygen on

my bio-suit and the others did the same, "Okay stand back!" a massive explosion appeared in front

of me, it ripped open the wall of the ship, we were sucked out into space. There was a space fight

going on between Star Wolf, Corneria and the humans while we waited to be picked up. A Cornerian

shuttle came towards us, it opened its back doors and reversed into us one by one and shut its

doors. We were safely inside the cargo compartment of the Cornerian van, the artificial gravity now

set in and oxygen now freely moved around the cabin, we were safe and on our way to the massive

Cornerian warship.







"How bad is it?" I asked the doctor who was inspected the gunshot wound; I was in the warship's

medical bay with the other members who were in for a checkup,







"Well it barely missed one of your main veins and it has gone down to your tissue and burned the

surrounding tissue."







"So what's the treatment?"







"Well we are going to have to operate to clean and repair the wound, it shouldn't take long and

you'll be leaving back to the Great Fox with the others to rest." I was satisfied by his response.

Krystal hopped up from her bed and walked up to me,

"Thank you Reece." She thanked,







"What for?"







"Well for saving us for one."







"I was only doing my part."







"Which saved our lives."







"Your welcome." She rustled my hair before returning to her own bed, this had been one intense

day, two missions and a rescue in it, I was looking forward to this rest I was going to get.









Chapter 8



Revise







A/N: This chapter is going to be short, and for that I apologize.







"Well the operation was a success." Announced the doctor, I looked over at the clock, it had only

been three hours since the procedure had begun,







"How long did it take exactly?" I asked,







"Oh about half an hour, we put to sleep a little longer than we expected, must be something to do

with your immune system." I was glad to know that the operation didn't take all that long as I

wanted to spend the night in the bed I have grown accustomed to in the Great Fox not this mattress

that felt like it was stuffed with rocks. Walking around was a little more difficult now; they had

injected me (much to my dislike) during my operation with something that would stiffen my legs up

so I could not move them, giving the solution they put in my leg time to work, so I was forced to walk

around on crutches.







I hopped out of the back of the truck into the Great Fox's hanger followed by the others. We

unfortunately had to stay on the medical ship, apparently there were tracking chips planted in the

arms of Krystal and Slippy and they had to recover from the operation, needless to say I did not

sleep all that well, I eagerly awaited for the all clear to do what we wanted,







"Well you guys are free to do what you want, but I have to go to Corneria and sign some documents

in order for us to get new ships." Fox announced, he didn't sound too pleased about having to do

work while the rest of us had the day off,







"I'll come with you Fox." Offered Krystal,







"No it won't be necessary thanks." Krystal didn't appear pleased with his response, "Well I'm going

to start the warp gate, you guys do what you want." I eagerly limped to my quarters where I caught

up on some sleep.







I somehow managed to get out of the bed after three hours without falling down, I limped over to

my crutches that were against the wall and made my way over to the rec room. I walked in Slippy

was sitting down watching something to do with engines I wasn't paying all that much attention,







"What's this?" I asked,







"A show about engines, you wouldn't understand." He replied, "Hey do the humans know much

about Lylat?"







"No, we only found out about this place like a year ago, why?"







"Well when you think about it, how would they know one of the rare unobserved spots on MacBeth,

then they set up a base near one of the areas that is the most protected in Lylat yet they manage to

get through those defenses."

"You have a point there, some one must be giving Intel' to the humans, another thing is that weapon

they used on the base, there is no way that can be of human creation." Slippy nodded in agreement.

I eventually got bored of the show and limped out of the rec' room.







I got bored of walking around; I decided to study those Landmasters in the hanger. I opened the

roller doors where the Landmasters are kept, there were several types, one was bulkier than the

others so it would be slower yet more defensive and possibly more powerful, there are also lighter

ones that can move around faster and have a faster rate of fire then the other version. As I was

inspecting the Landmasters I heard a craft land behind me, I turned around to see a truck with

several new Arwing style crafts on its trailer, then one of the crafts flew in and landed behind the

truck, the cockpit window opened and Fox jumped out,







"I'd like to see those bastards shoot me down again while I'm in this baby." Fox claimed excited, the

truck driver hopped out and started unloading the ships onto the hanger floor,







"What's so good about these models?" I asked,







"Well everything is so much better, handling is improved, weapons fire faster, more powerful shots,

do I need to continue?"







"Say no more." I noticed that there was a small cube shaped bump in Fox's jacket pocket,







"What's that?" I asked pointing at the bump,







"Uh… Nothing." He replied,







"Come one, tell me."







"It's nothing." I decided to drop the topic, "Hey, go to the rec' room, I got some stuff for you all while

I was down there, we got a compensation pay out for our capture and near dissection."







"Right." There was really no need for me to get a gift, but I think he only got me one to be fair.

I was waiting on the recliner chair with the others (other than Fox who was getting the gifts from his

ship). Fox walked in with a small metal box and put it down on the floor,







"Right well I think I'll give Reece his first since he needs it the most." He reached into the box and

pulled out a band aid 'Here you go, so when you get your next injury you can patch yourself up." I

laughed sarcastically, "Nah seriously though here is yours." He passed me a black plastic bag, I

removed it from the contents that were a pair of jeans, a black shirt and a gray vest, "You need that,

your current clothing is all torn, tattered and has a gun shot in the upper thigh." I took them happily

and thanked him. Krystal got a silver bracelet, Falco got a silver chain and Slippy got a new hat, all of

them were to big to be that bump I saw earlier. My new attire fitted me perfectly and it suited my

image. Well there was nothing to do now but wait until tomorrow where we should hopefully get

our next mission.









Chapter Nine:







Redemption of Star Fox







I walked into the bridge where the rest were waiting, the hologram of Peppy was there too,







"Nice of you to show up Reece." Peppy scolded,







"Sorry, I guess I like my sleep." I replied,







"Anyways lets get this done quickly, this mission is of critical importance. Our recent scans have

detected that there is massive human numbers around Solar, upon further investigation we see that

there is a satellite that appears to have a weapon on it, and it is pointed directly at Solar. You

destroy the fleet and the satellite, we win this war, you don't, then everyone in the Lylat system is

dead."







"So how do we win the war if we destroy this?" I asked,

"Well our investigations have found that the human leaders are aboard that satellite, if you destroy

the satellite, then the humans will be without a leader and crumble which means victory for us." We

all nodded in conformation, "Then hurry Star Fox, stop them and win this, remember, it is do or die."

With that said we all dashed to the hanger.







I was awaiting the order of Fox to launch inside my cockpit. I rolled my shoulders; I hoped that if we

did save the system then I would be accepted as apart of it.







"Okay we are launching!" announced Fox, I pulled the hair out of my eyes and took one more breath

before we were launched into space.







"Get into formation!" ordered Fox, I think the pressure was getting to him a little bit as well, we got

into the box style formation,







"Sir, intruders!" announced someone, our radio systems must have been upgraded, this is the first

time I have heard humans over the communication system,







"Oh for god's sake!" cursed another human, "Get out there and screw them over!"







"Come on Hawk unit, let's tear them up." Another human ordered, I recognized that voice, I didn't

want to but I knew who it was,







"Just wait…wait… wait…" ordered Fox, the human fleet was getting closer and closer, "NOW!" he

yelled, we all broke up and begun laying siege to each part of the squadron, I flew right threw the

middle of the one thousand strong fleet, luring them to chase my tail, I got a few dozen after me,

they could not even hope to catch up to the speed of my new craft, or even do anything to rival my

new ship,







"Krystal now!" I yelled, Krystal boosted right towards me, she lobbed a Nova bomb at my tail,

although it was locked onto me it wasn't going to hit me, the poor humans behind me got hit taking

out all of my enemies,

"Oh you guys are flying like pieces of sh…" he didn't get to finish his sentence thanks to me; I shot

the engine of his ship which caused it to completely explode.







"God damn it, bring out those new cruisers!" cried one of the humans, well at least I was going to

get a taste of their new ships. Those new ships came out a lightning fast speed,







"Holy crap!" I yelled, there was now way in hell I could shoot them or even lock onto them, they

were that fast, "How the hell do I take those bastards out?" I yelled angrily,







"I'll deal with them, I am always one step ahead on these guys." Krystal replied, with that she took

off towards them, she fired some shots at nothing and begun taking them down,







"Oh my god…" I mumbled quietly to myself, she performed very well to take out those crafts.







"Bring it out now!" cried one of the humans; I noticed a rather large object fly out towards us. It got

close enough for me to interoperate; it was sort of like a prism with a small head and arm

extensions,







"Since when have humans had AI of this level?" I yelled questioning the robot in front of me,







"Hey didn't we destroy that over ten years ago?" Falco asked,







"Yeah, it looks almost exactly like it." Slippy added,







"Where the hell would the humans have gotten access to that?" yelled Fox, Krystal and I were left

with no idea with what the robot had to do with their past (well Krystal probably telepathically saw

what it had to do with their past).







The robot shot its arm's at us; rockets that gave them incredible speed propelled them, but the

turning capabilities of my ship made them easy to avoid, but then it shot a massive bolt of electricity

at me that caught me off guard, the electrical currents caused my ship's engines to stall, Fox and

Falco were laying siege to the head of the robot while I desperately tried to restart my ship. Fox and

Falco were flying overhead of the robot, blasting its head with a storm of shots that seemed to

distract it, they distracted it long enough for me to restart my engines and resume flying. I hah just

about lost my patience with this robot; it was time to end it. I told Krystal to see what I was planning,

she agreed to it, we both flew out to wide corners of the robot, I dived down underneath the robot

while Krystal flew above it, we then flew right towards it's head, we both launched simultaneous

nova bombs, they hit the head of the robot at the same time, the blast took out the head of the

robot, shutting it down,









"Don't lose focus, this thing may still be active." Fox warned, we flew around cautiously for a whole

minute, it was destroyed there was no question.







Now the human leader swore heavily over the radio,







"I'll deal with these filthy animals myself." Another growled, it was that voice again, I knew it

belonged to some one from my past and I dreaded the confrontation. The massive warship that we

had seen on MacBeth two days ago begun to fly towards us, "Let's see how you deal with this!" the

human growled,







"You have got to be kidding me." I moaned, how were we going to take something out of that size?







"What the… Is… Is that you Reece?" the voice asked,







"Nice of you to realize Jake." I replied,







"Ha! This is going to make my kills all the more honorable, just imagine what Janice will think of me!"

That hurt, it had been a whole year but it still hurt, that made me angry, made me thirsty for

revenge, vengeance for everything that had happened, I will get it now!







"Reece don't let him get to you." Krystal warned in an attempt to keep me focus, she had no success;

I was purely motivated by my anger and thirst for vengeance.

I boosted towards him, the warship's guns were firing rapidly, I didn't care if I got hit, as long as I

took him out, which was the main thing. The shots had no chance of hitting me, my ship was too

fast, I located the location of the bridge on the ship, I found it, I dived down and fired shots and a

nova bomb at the window of the ship, the shots and nova bomb were destroyed by a force field that

showed up as it blocked the incoming assaults,







"What the hell!" I growled,







"It is amazing what the people in the labs can come up with, actually it was your old friend Josh that

came up with the invention, shame you guys don't have this technology." Jake laughed, I swore and

hit my fist onto the dashboard,







"Hey, I got an idea," Slippy claimed, "Reece, shoot it again." I did so; it was just blocked by the shield,

"Got it, Krystal, can you read me and scramble this message?"







"Will do." She replied, I noticed the main turret of the ship, the same one that destroyed the base on

MacBeth,







"Oh crap, scramble, he's trying to lock onto us with the canon!" I warned, we all did so,







"Damn it!" yelled Jake,







"Incoming message." Krystal noted, I looked down to the computer, a message appeared on it, it had

some sort of coding, it read:







"Kxo wodohukehj ev kxo jxoactj uho cesukot idtohdoukx kxo muad kihhok, kxo k0fo ev jxoact

wodohukaed kxo0 uho ijadw aj giako noub, av Reece, Fox, Falco udt A vaho u delu remr uk ak, kxod

Krystal jxeict ro urco ke kubo eik kxo wodohukehj nxaco kxo jxoactj uho tend komfehuhac0." I had

no clue what this was,







"Message intercepted sir, it appears to be in some form of coding." Announced a human,

"Decrypt it quickly!" Jake ordered, my computer it had just about finished decoding the message,







"It is unknown to our systems, it could take days before the computer can figure it out."







"God damn it!" Jake yelled frustrated, I laughed, the message had finished decrypting, it read:







"The generators of the shields are located underneath the main turret, the type of shield generation

they are using is quite weak, if Reece, Fox, Falco and I fire a nova bomb at it, then Krystal should be

able to take out the generators while the shields are down temporarily."







"Understood." I confirmed,







"We do this on the count of three, we need to do it at the same time or it won't work." Fox warned,

the three of us grouped up,







"Keep them separated!" Jake yelled desperately, the ship fired their canon we split up temporarily to

avoid the beam, I hoped that the beam would eventually wear out before it hit something. We flew

towards the generators of the shields and regrouped,







"One," Fox started,







"Do something!" Jake yelled,







"Two,"







"What the f…"







"Three!" Fox interrupted, we all fired our bombs simultaneously, Krystal flew in and fired at the

generators, they blew up much to Jake's displeasure who swore like it was going out of fashion. If we

eliminated the bridge, then there would be nothing the ship could do it would be useless. It was the

beginning of the end of this war; we were going to win,

"Sir! Start it now!" Jake yelled desperately,







"It already has." I looked over to the satellite, it was slowly beginning to build up a massive ball of

energy, I desperately tried to think of a solution, what could stop it, there was no way we were going

to pierce the armour of that thing, I looked at the warship in front of me, the weapons were still

working, I had a plan, time to execute it.







I boosted towards the docking bay of the warship,







"Reece! What are you doing?" Fox yelled,







"Trust me, I know what I am doing." I replied, I flew into the docking bay and landed, I fired my

turrets at the nearby soldiers; they were either killed or ran fled in aircraft I hadn't managed to

destroy. I pulled out my blaster, opened the cockpit window and jumped out, I dashed to the door,

the ship was on an evacuation setting so no doors were locked. I turned around the corner and fired,

just in case there were people running, unfortunately there weren't anyone around the corner I

continued doing this until I was at the bridge.







I walked through the double doors, wielding my blaster, Jake was there in the middle of the bridge

still swearing at his men (who I believed had all abandoned ship), Jake turned around to face me,







"You!" he growled, he pulled out a pistol and aimed at me, I already had my blaster in my hand so I

shot him the upper leg first, he collapsed to the floor, howling in pain, he dropped the blaster as

well,







"Your time is up, my time is now!" I growled, I walked up to the pistol and kicked it away, I took the

handcuffs off of his belt, I kicked him in the chest, winding him, I dragged him to the railings of the

bridge, I handcuffed his wrist in one cuff and the railing in the other cuff as tight as I could, he was

still moaning. I walked up to the control panel of the bridge, I turned the ship to face the satellite, I

begun to charge up the canon,







"Captain Hark, what are you doing?" Yelled an angry human; I picked up a microphone,

"This is Lieutenant Reece Kilza and I am stopping your operation."







"Kilza, are you mad?"







"If saving a whole galaxy is madness then I guess I am."







"I will have your head for this!"







I fired the now half charged canon, the beam travelled directly to the satellite, since it wasn't fully

charged it destroyed only the bottom half of the satellite, which was the part posing the threat,







"Heh, no you won't." I laughed. I heard Jake moaning, I looked over at him,







"What are you going to do with me?" he asked,







"I'm leaving you here." I replied, as I changed the direction of the warship,







"That's a little easy don't you think." The ship had fully rotated and was now facing Solar, I then

activated the autopilot, I set it to a low speed so I could get out safely,







"I don't know, what do you think?" I replied with a smirk, I heard him swore in panic as I jogged back

towards the hanger.







I flew out in my ship from the warship; I happily watched it plummet onto the surface of Solar,







"I think we are even." I mumbled happily.







"We did it! We won!" Slippy cheered,

"We took out their leaders and stopped their operation." Krystal added,







"And we all got our redemption." I added,







"What about the remainder of the satellite?" Fox asked,







"I say we leave it, there is no way it will make it through the night." Falco added. We all agreed to

the decision, but before we flew off we noticed a massive blip appear on our radar, we turned

around to investigate, as it was not recognized by our ship's scanners, all I could make out were

three separate objects moving together,







"You humans have failed me for the last time, our deal is off, you can't even take out five mangy

pests with all the technology I provided you. Your time is up, I will have to deal with things myself."

The voice growled, two of the objects moved then clapped together, destroying the rest of the

satellite, the three objects faded into nothing,







"You have got to be kidding me!" Fox yelled,







"What… how…" Falco stuttered,







"Oh no no no no no no." Slippy cried,







"Not him again." Krystal added with fear,







"Who are you talking about?" I asked, everyone was silent, "Who?"







Fox hesitated before answering,







"Andross…"

Chapter Ten







An Unexpected Turn







A/N: No! Another short chapter!







"That guy is a real bastard, I'd love to kick his teeth in." I claimed after the others had finished

explaining who this Andross jerk is, we were on our way to the bridge as we talked, his last

encounter over Sauria must have been pretty bad for him in the end if they thought he was dead…

again.







"Don't worry, most of us here would love nothing more than to do that as well, I want him dead

though." Fox stated darkly, ever since we saw Andross he has been acting out of character, I don't

know what Andross had done to Fox in the past but it must have been something extremely bad if

he is acting this dark towards everyone. We entered the bridge where ROB contacted Peppy on Fox's

command, Peppy appeared on screen,







"Well considering we're not dead I presume that you stopped them?" Peppy asked,







"Yeah." Fox answered angrily,







"I know that tone, what's happened?" Fox didn't respond, he mumbled something under his breath,







"Well, we destroyed the human satellite partially, since it proved no threat to anything we decided

to leave it." Krystal explained







"So that's why he is so ticked?"

"No, just before we were about to leave…"







"Yes?"







"…Andross showed up and destroyed the remainder of the satellite." Peppy was stunned, he didn't

know what to say, he replied in a tone of desperation,







"Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?" Krystal and Fox nodded, Peppy slammed his fist on the

desk and swore, "Why won't he die?" he yelled, I slowly became intimidated of the hare now that he

was extremely angry, he swore again, "This explains everything, and it changes everything. I am

starting system wide patrols and surveillance, we have to find him or we are truly screwed." I now

realized that this Andross person was no joke as he as gotten everyone apart from me worried.

"What technology did he have?" Peppy asked,







"He had some sort of powerful cloaking device and radar avoiding technology." Slippy replied,







"Can you come up with something to counteract these devices Slip'?" Peppy asked,







"Maybe, but it'll take a lot of work, it might take me a while by myself." Slippy replied,







"Maybe my old friend can help?" Krystal suggested,







"Yeah, last I heard she was working on some devices that could help us out."







"Krystal get her over here and fast, we need some new radar technology fast, Peppy out." With the

de-briefing over I decided to go freshen up, that battle had really made me sweat and tired out.







After I had freshened up I decided to go see what they had on the system's TV networks. I entered

the room, much to my disliking Falco was there but wasn't asleep, he was watching some action

movie. I tried to catch onto the storyline but I couldn't. After the movie (which was pretty lame in

my eyes) I decided to wonder the halls instead of watching another movie. I was walking past the

hanger doors when they opened; I turned my head to face a very tall tiger over seven feet, she

appeared very strong, I raised my head to see her face, but instead I was greeted with a punch to the

chest which winded me, I hunched over while I attempted to catch my breath, I then had an elbow

to the back of the head, which darn near knocked me out, I fell down on my stomach, I was stunned,

I couldn't move,







"Pfft, humans are such weak creatures." She growled, "What did I do?" I thought to myself, before I

knew it I was dragged into a nearby storeroom; I eventually got up from the ground and tried to

open the door, it was locked, god damn it, I leant back into the corner of the small room and waited

for me to be discovered.







After ten minutes Fox who was with Krystal and the tiger who I could call a few names at this

moment opened the door,







"Reece, are you okay?" Fox asked,







"Yeah." I replied,







"I'm sorry, I had no idea that you were apart of the team, you need to know that I thought you were

invading the ship." The tiger explained,







"Yeah, I get that a lot."







"My name is Tigress Arcnon, nice to meet you Reece."







"Well we could have met on better terms but same to you." I could tell that she feeling a regret

about her, "I presume that you're going to help Slippy make those radar thingies?"







"Yeah I specialize in that area of mechanics." Tigress replied, I still wasn't overly happy with Tigress, I

understand it was a misunderstanding but the back of my head tells me other things, I walked off to

hang around in my room while I tried to force myself into forgiveness for Tigress.

Chapter 11: The Calm Before the Storm



A/N: I love holidays, gives me plenty of time to think of ideas and time to actually work on my fan-

fic. (grins)







I awoke to find myself on my bed, I must have dozed off again, I really need to stop that habit before

it becomes natural to me, I decided to go see what everyone was up to. I entered the rec room

where Falco was still laying on 'his' couch watching some action movie… again; I left him to enjoy it

on his own. I walked into the kitchen, seeking some food which was always an experience for me

seeing that I have never eaten most of the stuff they cook, I walked through the doors to see Fox

having a sort of a… well… emotional moment, probably had something to do with that Andross

fellow, Krystal was hugging him in an attempt to comfort him, I decided it was best to not invade on

their moment and left. With my two options to pass the time having their rooms currently occupied I

grew incredibly bored. After a few minutes of wandering I decided to go see what Slippy and that

tiger Tigress were doing, knowing Slippy he would be either in the hanger or the rec room, since

Falco was king of that room at the moment he must be in the hanger.







I entered the hanger, no surprise that I found Slippy and Tigress there working on some mechanical

device,







"What are you guys making?" I asked, Tigress turned around; her height still slightly intimidated me,







"Well we are working on a device that we can attach to your ships main CPU which can work in

simular fashion to those glasses you wear." She explained,







"So basically you are making us able to have night vision, x-ray and infrared visions on the cockpit

windows?"







"Pretty much." Slippy added,







"We are also making a scanner that fits inside your headpiece which will come out from inside just

by the press of the button on the side which will work like your glasses." Tigress noted,

I nodded, not really caring or attempting to understand what they were saying.







"Hey Reece do you mind getting me that power core over there which is next to my tool box." Slippy

asked,







"Okay." I replied and wandered over to the table, I was about to pick it up when Slippy called out,







"Be careful with it, that's radioactive." I didn't really care, it's not like I am going to drop it, I was

about to pick it up but I felt a massive shock to my arm, I yelped and jumped back and landed on my

butt on the floor,







"What the hell?" Tigress asked in a shocked voice, I looked down at my wrist, there were massive

red marks running from my wrist to just before my elbow, it was throbbing badly with pain,







"Ouch what happened?" Slippy asked,







"What happened?" I yelled, "That thing just god damn zapped me!"







"That has never ever happened to anyone I know for… well ever." Slippy claimed also in a shocked

tone of voice,







"That looks pretty bad, you better go to the med' bay and get it scanned." Tigress suggested







"While I am at it why don't I get my ribs and skull checked?"







"Now that was uncalled for."







"Yeah Reece, she said she was sorry and she didn't know any better, give her a break." Slippy

scolded, I sighed and forced myself up on my good arm,

"I'm sorry, I'm just having a bad run at the moment, first getting a beating then getting zapped by

that piece of s…"







"Well get to the medical bay so we can get some scans done." Tigress interrupted. I decided that her

advice was the best to follow it.







I sat down on one of the more comfy chairs in the Medical Bay, this seems to be the room I visit the

most in the whole ship second to my quarters.







"I think Krystal would have a better idea on what to do in a situation like this then me, I'll go get

her." Tigress told me, she walked into the halls and the door slid shut behind her. The marks on my

arm were begging me to itch at it and I was finding very hard not to obey their demands. Krystal

walked in a few minutes after Tigress had left, she looked quite distort, the marks were probably

over exaggerated, she walked up to me and grabbed my hand gently and positioned it so she could

see the marks,







"Crap that is worse then she said." Krystal stated unhappily, well since it wasn't over exaggerated I

begun to feel a little uneasy about the marks. I noticed that some of Krystal's fur begun to fall onto

the wound, she must have either noticed as well or read my mind as she pulled away very fast, I

looked up as she jumped back but looked back down at my arm, the fur was gone, there was no

breeze and I hadn't moved my arm so there's no way they could have simply fallen off. Krystal

returned to me (keeping some distance this time) with a device, she placed it on the table next to

me, it was some sort of scanning device, I put my arm on the arm rest and waited for something to

happen, Krystal pressed a few buttons on the nearby computer and the scanner begun to move over

my arm emitting some white lights. After a minute had gone by the scan finished,







"Oh my god." Krystal whispered as she read something on the computer,







"What is it?" I asked nervously,







"The amount of radiation you have in your lower arm is unbelievable." My eyes widened, that was

not what I wanted to hear. Krystal walked over to the cupboard that held the injections,

"I'm sorry Reece but this has to be done." She stated as she pulled out an injection, there was no

point fighting about it or even resisting it,







"I know, give me your worst." I asked as a clutched my eyes shut; I felt the injection go in then out, I

opened my eyes,







"There we go, that should deal with most of the radiation." She claimed, I thanked her and followed

her out. I walked into my quarters that were nearby and put on my jacket over my vest so no one

else would be exposed to the radiation.







My gauntlet chirped, it was a transmission from Fox, "Reece come to the bridge, Peppy's on the

line." It was about time we got another mission, I had been so bored lately. I entered the bridge

where Fox and Krystal were waiting, Fox turned and saw me,







"Okay Pep' we are right to begin." Fox told the hologram of Peppy,







"Hang on, where are the other three?" I asked,







"They are not necessary for this operation as it is a minor one." Peppy explained, "We have not yet

uncovered any information regarding the whereabouts of Andross but we feel we are onto his scent.

Anyways there is a small group of thieves on a small island on Zoness who are believed to have

stolen from several jewellery stores, since this is an intergalactic affaire I would usually send some

members of the army but we have too many resources dedicated to finding the location of Andross

so that's where you come in. You three are to disguise yourselves as potential customers and as

soon as they offer you the jewellery you bust them, but be prepared they will be armed and they will

not go without a fight, try to bring back as many as you can alive." With that the hologram faded and

we all slowly jogged to the hanger.







We were, launched from the hanger and towards Zoness. While we were flying to the ground I

asked,







"So we are just going down here, provoking a shoot –em-up situation, kicking their tails and we all go

home, right?"

"Pretty much." Fox replied, he appeared a lot calmer then he was when I saw them in the kitchen,

whatever Krystal did must have worked.







We landed on an island nearby the island we are meant to go to, we all hopped out of our respective

ships and begun to walk over the sandy ground and to the bridge which would take us to our

destination. We eventually made it across the bridge but were stopped by two apes wielding crude

looking machine guns,







"What's your purpose here?" one of the two asked, the other one took aim at us,







"We are here to buy some jewels." Fox answered while waving a card at him,







"Hmph. Be on your way then." We continued walking through the encampment. We entered the

only building in the site which we resumed was the safe house of the encampment seeing as the

windows were barred and it was made of pure steel, as we walked through the door we had

machine guns pointed at our heads by two more apes, there was a chimpanzee sitting at the table

Fox and I stood side by side with the guns aimed at our heads while Krystal approached the

chimpanzee,







"Who the hell are you and what the hell do you want?" the chimp demanded,







"My name is Kursed and I want some jewellery to go with my collection." Krystal lied,







"Well Miss… Kursed, who are those two over there?"







"The human is known as Scythe and the vulpine is known as Remorse,"







'Did she just say my name was Scythe? How the hell did she know about that incident?' I thought to

myself, "and they are my bodyguards."







"Well Kursed we are not exactly cheap here, maybe you might want to go to your little princess

stores on Corneria?"

"We're banned from Corneria, why else would we be dealing with guys like you?" she snapped, she

was actually making me believe her story,







"Well we have some jewellery right here, fresh from Corneria." The chimp stated as he pulled out a

bag full of rubies, emeralds, sapphires and diamonds, "Which one takes your fancy?"







"I think I'll take the lot along with you as well." Krystal replied, Fox and I quickly punched the apes in

the face and disarmed them; we now had them on the floor with guns aimed at their heads, I saw

that Krystal had knocked the chimp on the ground and had the jewellery in her hand, "I think I'll

need help carrying him." Krystal asked, I rammed the back of my gun into the temple of the ape and

the same to the other knocking them out cold,







"That was unnecessary." Fox stated,







"Makes me feel a lot better." I replied with a grin, "Point a gun at my head and that's what happens,

Fox walked over and picked up the chimp over his shoulder,







"Who are you guys really?" he asked,







"We're Star Fox." Fox answered,







"Good luck getting out of here." The chimp laughed, "HEL…" he yelled, I shut his cry short with a

whack from the back of my gun,







"Reece, seriously." Fox laughed, I grinned.







Getting out of the encampment was going to be tough, there were more people armed now then we

first walked in,

"Right, Krystal and Reece you are going to have to keep them off of me so we can get out with this

guy, Reece, catch." Fox explained as he threw his reflector at me, I caught it and kept it ready, with

guns raised we ran out of the building and behind some metal crates, they began to shoot at us, I

rolled out and activated the reflector which distracted them long enough for Krystal to get up and

fire at them, with them too focused on Krystal and I Fox managed to make it to some crates near the

exit gate, I signalled for Krystal to get across to Fox as well she ran past and begun firing which gave

me enough time to make it across with her. With all three of us behind the crates near the gate, I

noticed a flash bang grenade attached to the chimps belt, I took it and threw it,







"Cover your eyes." I warned, we heard it go off, I saw that the group had been disoriented so we ran

through the gate and onto the bridge. We were not home safely yet, I turned around and saw an ape

with an RPG,







"Sweet merciful crap!" I yelled, Fox and Krystal turned briefly and saw it, we were almost across the

bridge, if we ran really fast we might make it, they fired it and we sprinted, I turned my head to see if

we could make it, there was no way, I activated the reflector and hoped for the best, the impact of

the RPG was so strong it caused me to tilt the reflector down, the RPG hit the bridge and exploded,

the force of it threw me into the toxic waters of Zoness. The bridge was too high to climb up so I will

have to swim to shore; it is only about 70 meters away, Fox and Krystal were walking on the bridge

alongside me making sure I didn't drown. I eventually made it to the shore, the waters of Zoness was

thicker then I had anticipated and took a lot more energy then I had expected, I swallowed a fair

amount of the water on the way. I crawled on the shore and threw up, the water's toxins must have

done that, I also had a massive itch on both of my forearms I slowly rolled up my sleeves on my

jacket and what I saw shocked me, I rolled them down faster then anything,







"What's happening to me?"









Chapter 12: The Coming of Age







I found my feet on the shore of the island, still shaken by the discovery I had made. Krystal and Fox

who was carrying the chimp made their way over to me,



"How was your swim?" Fox asked, I pointed to the vomit,

"What do you think?" I replied with an angry tone,



"I say that you haven't been eating all that much." Krystal stated, I glared at her, "What were you so

distressed about after you did… that." Like I was going to tell anyone what I discovered,



"Just the fact that I have a scrape on my knee." I lied, Krystal raised an eyebrow, she must have seen

through my lie.



"Right well Reece, I am going to need to put this guy in your storage compartment as it is the

biggest." Fox stated,



"Fine by me." I walked over to the back if my ship and opened its compartment hatch and Fox put

the chimp inside and I slammed the hatch shut. We turned to see Krystal holding a diamond,

examining it,



"I wish I had one of these." She sighed, Fox put an arm around her shoulders,



"If you keep playing your cards right then you might just get one." Fox replied in a romantic voice,

Krystal then turned and hugged him, I was amused by the whole situation, animal romance, it made

me snicker inside.







We were flying back to the Great Fox in our ships. I had an itch on my hands; I removed the gloves

and was shocked again, I put them back on again,



"Reece what's up?" Krystal asked,



"Nothing."



"Well when there's an wave of emotion coming from you that I cannot ignore so there has to be

something wrong."



"Trust me, there is nothing wrong." Krystal didn't respond, she seemed to accept the fact that I

didn't want to talk about what was going on.







I jumped the short distance from the cockpit to the floor of the hanger after landing my ship, Fox

walked up to my ship, opened the hatch and took the still knocked out chimp into the halls of the

Great Fox. I was about to exit when Krystal asked,



"Reece may I speak to you for a moment?" I sighed in frustration,



"There is nothing wrong with me for the last time." I continued walking,



"I know about your arms and hands." I stopped in my tracks, I was stunned, she knew what was

going on, she walked up to my side, "Show me your arm and hands please Reece." I hesitated,

"Reece there is nothing to be worried about." I sighed, sucked up my pride and took off my jacket

and gloves revealing the blue fur growing off of them, I compared the color to Krystal's; there was no

doubt that the fur that had disappeared was causing this, I looked at the ground and away from

Krystal in shame,



"Hey this is nothing to be ashamed of." Krystal comforted, "If you ask me you look better with it." I

let out a small smile but I was proud of my humanity, I didn't want to have anthro features. Krystal

walked over to the tool bench and returned with some scissors, she snipped a small bit of fur off the

top of my arm,



"I'm going to have Slippy test this to see if it is the same fur as mine," she also scratched some skin

cells from my shoulder, "and he will test this to tell us if it is spreading." I nodded and quickly put my

jacket and gloves on and walked through the halls to my quarters.







I sat on my bed with my torso off, examining the fur; it seemed with every second it was covering a

little more section of my body. I decided to look at the positives of the situation, if I allowed the fur

to continue then I would look like any member of Lylat and I would feel a lot more confident about

walking around on planets. The message alert on my gauntlet chirped, "Report to the bridge

immediately." It read, I threw on my shirt, jacket and gloves and made my way to the bridge. I made

my way onto the couch in front of the hologram projector and Falco followed me.



"Okay Star Fox," the hologram of Peppy started, "We've found him."







"Where is he?" Fox asked desperately,



"We managed to locate his craft in the canyons of Titania, closer inspections of the scans that our

satellites have secretly provide us we can see that there is indeed a lab of sorts built into the ravine."

Peppy explained,



"So what is our course of action?" I asked,



"Well there will more than definitely be automated defenses so you will need to take the

Landmaster to the metal door which will be uploaded onto your database. You will need to infiltrate

the base, find out what is going on inside and if he is there, apprehend Andross by any force

necessary, but if necessary you have the government's full authority to eliminate him."



"What do you think is inside these labs? Machinery of sorts?" Slippy asked,



"Well we believe that there is more than definitely there will be some bio-experiments and some

radioactive experiments." My eyes widened as I heard the word 'radioactive'



"I think I'll stay out of there, thanks." I told no one in particular,



"Why?" Peppy asked,



"He has had a bad run in with radioactivity today." Tigress explained, Krystal gave me a look in an

attempt to comfort me,

"Reece you need to do this, only you, Fox and Krystal have the skill on foot needed for this mission."

Peppy stated,



"I can go." Tigress offered,



"Sorry but from what I have heard you have only been able to produce the technology for three

ships which are yours, Slippy and Falco's, so if he makes a break for it you will be able to track him."

Tigress sat back down on the couch slightly disappointed, I swallowed my fear and accepted the fact

that I would have to go in "Anything else?" No one said anything, "Good, well the map is uploaded

onto your databases so get going." I went to go grab my combat gear before heading to the hanger

to meet up with the others.







I dropped my Gattling into the Landmaster and I followed it, I sat in the passenger seat and put the

Gattling behind the seats. Fox hopped in the Landmaster and threw his sniper and machine gun in

the back as well; I was forced into the back as well when Krystal hopped in also, apparently she was

a better shot with the turret then I am.



"Safe dropping height reached, Landmaster 21-WE-1 unlocked." ROB announced, the Landmaster

begun to drive through the hanger and towards the force field, we drove through it and begun to fall

to the desert wasteland below.







We began to hover just before we hit the bottom of the ravine, landing safely. Fox brought up the

holographic map which had the location of the lab pinpointed on it, we begun to drive in that

general direction. Driving was smooth and easy, too smooth and easy. I spoke too soon, all of a

sudden hundreds of turrets popped out of rocks; cliff sides and some even flew out from hangers in

the cliff sides. The Landmaster rolled (luckily the G-Diffuser was active or I would be in some trouble)

in order to avoid the shots, Krystal fired shots at the turrets, as we found out they are very old and

have gotten very weak hulls from age. We continued to roll and blast the turrets, we did not expect

what was coming next, a flying turret fired a nova bomb at us that was locked onto us, it hit us, I was

sent back into the wall then rolled forward to the back of the seats, I don't know what happened but

some of Fox's blood landed on my face, I desperately tired to wipe it off, but it was gone, now I was

worried, I got up and saw that Fox had a blood nose, he must have hit his muzzle in the blast, he was

holding his nose with one hand and trying to drive with the other.







We managed to make it to make it to the steel door, Fox must have lost his patience as he told

Krystal to low it off, she charged up a shot and fired at the door, as soon as the dust and smoke

faded we saw that the door had been cleanly blown off its hinges, I passed Fox and Krystal their

respective weapons and followed them out with my own weapons. We entered the dimly lit halls of

the lab, weapons raised, I put on my sunglasses and activated the infrared scanner to check for

invisible lasers that would trigger an alarm, there were none in sight as of yet. We continued through

the halls until we cam across a rather active experiment, there were several test tubes containing

some strange liquids, there were even some that were glowing. I read the data that was on the

screen, from what I could understand he was creating some sort of chemical compound that could

easily be turned into a weapon, I called Fox over, and he read over the screen attempting to

memorize it. We continued through the labs, we came across two robotic sentries; they were hostile

towards us so we shot them until they were nothing but scrap on the floor.







We came across a big red door, we opened it cautiously, it appeared to be the command center,

there were computer screens and terminals all over the place, but most noticeable was the big chair

in front of us, we all raised our guns and entered the room, the big chair spun around revealing an

ape that was half robot wearing a cloak and a red jumpsuit, he begun laughing,



"I've been waiting for you Star Fox." He stated,



"Put your hands on your head or we'll blow you into a thousand pieces!" Fox growled, the ape put

his hands on his head and slowly started moving forward, "Stay where you are!" Andross obeyed

with a smirk, Fox and Krystal moved towards him, I noticed something began flashing as they walked

through the doorway; it was a laser that was going to trigger something,



"Guys watch out!" I warned, I had no idea what was going to happen, all of a sudden we heard a

bang and everything went white, my eyes burned, I rubbed them furiously, that must have triggered

a flash bang grenade, I heard three shots and Fox yell in pain. When my vision returned to me I

found myself on the floor, I saw Krystal walking around disoriented, she must still be affected by the

flash bang then I saw Andross standing overtop of Fox with a gun pointed at his head, I grabbed my

Gattling and fired furiously at him, letting out a battle cry as I did. The bullets seemed to be getting

blocked by a barrier of some sorts but the impact seemed to be knocking him off balance, when I ran

out of bullets I threw the gun at him and started firing at him with my blaster. When I ran out of

shots I threw the gun at him and charged towards him, a jumped at him but he used a device he had

installed in his robotic hand, it sent massive bolts of electricity to me, it was also holding me in the

air, I yelled in pain as the bolts traveled through my body. Krystal must have snapped out of her

disoriented state as she silently charged towards Andross, jumped up behind him and slammed her

staff on the top of his head, this broke the chain of electricity but sent me flying into a monitor that

shattered on impact, I fell to the ground and everything went black.







I awoke coughing and slightly choking where I had fallen, everything about me hurt, I was dazed and

confused and I felt… different, I noticed that I had glass shards in my back that would need to be

removed later. I sat up from the floor and Krystal gave me a hug,



"We thought we had lost you." She whispered,



"What?" I asked, she broke the hug and Fox helped me up,



"When Andross fled from my attack we found you on the floor… without a pulse or any signs of

breathing." She explained,



"So I was dead?" I asked,

"Yes but thanks to Krystal's CPR skills you are alive and well." Fox stated,



"How do we tell him?" Krystal asked, I did not like those words, Fox put his hand on my shoulder,



"Uh… Reece, this is going to be hard to say… but…"



"Yes." I said trying to make him continue,



"…you are not what you used to be."



"What do you mean?"



"That electricity must have sped up the process of what ever was happening to you Reece, you are

now fully transformed." Krystal finished for Fox, I laughed,



"Nice joke but we have to end Andross before he escapes."



"We're not joking, look at your tail bone." Krystal suggested, I looked at my tail bone and jumped

higher then I have ever done so before, behind me was a blue and white tail, I was scared I didn't

know what to think, or do, I felt around my body, I had ears on top of my head and a muzzle. As

much as I wanted to question everything I knew now wasn't the time, it was the time to end Andross

for good.







I followed Fox and Krystal out of the control room and out of the lab, it felt so weird to have a tail

moving about as I ran, it gave me goose bumps (which was a whole new experience now that I am

covered in fur). We made it outside without any real hassle,



"ROB can you quickly beam down Fox's, Reece's and my ship please?" Krystal asked, I noticed that

my hearing was improved,



"Affirmative." I heard ROB reply from Krystal's gauntlet. Blue beams bun to fade into the shapes of

our respective ships. They finished beaming in and we jumped into our respective ships, I landed on

my tail badly, I yelped, I carefully sat down making sure I didn't make the same mistake twice before

I followed Fox and Krystal into space.







We met up with the group who were just about five minutes flying time from the atmosphere of

Titania,



"Where is he?" Fox asked,



"He's here somewhere," Tigress replied, "his cloaking is better then I had expected." I pulled out my

sun glasses from my pocket, I tried to put them on but I had to snap the extensions off so they could

rest on my muzzle, I activated the heat vision option on my glasses, I saw lots of heat coming from all

of our ships, then I noticed a massive blob of heat not too far from us, I thought in an attempt to

secretly communicate with Krystal,



"Did you end up saying that you assaulted Andross with you staff Krystal?" I asked,

"Yes I did why?" she verbally responded, I knew what I needed to do, I studied Andross' craft, there

were three heat blobs that were clearly engines,



"You did what now?" Falco asked,



"I know what she's on about, I'll tell you later." Tigress answered. I remembered that when Krystal

had the cloak activated when we were on MacBeth that there was a fair amount of heat being

generated from the battery pack, so that must mean that there has to be a lot of heat coming from

his cloaking generator. I noticed underneath the blob that was Andross' craft there was a fair

amount of heat being generated; I needed a way to destroy the generator without shooting it or

firing a bomb at it, I came up with an idea. I flew straight to the suspected area; I noticed two hand

like figures try to hit me, in an attempt to avoid them I turned my ship on its side and boosted,

making it through the gap between his thumb and hand, I made it underneath his craft, I braked so

my engines were facing where I believed the generator was, while the brake was still on I activated

the boosts, the flames from my engines were heating up an object, the temperature eventually

became too much and an object exploded, I was right, Andross' head and hands craft now appeared,



"No where to run, no where to hide." I growled,



"Crap there he is!" Falco yelled in surprise,



"No escape!" growled Andross, with that he activated a device that created a field that would

prevent anyone from escaping, the battle had now begun.







We all circled Andross firing at will; that same shield he had activated in the control room protected

him from our fire. There had to be a generator of some sorts but where it was located was anyone's

guess. The fight was becoming ever so more frustrating by the minute,



"Ah, they've arrived." Andross stated, I turned my head to face the blips on my radar, I swore loudly

in anger, just when I thought we had seen the last of them, Star Wolf appeared. I am really sick of

these guys,



"We're here, an earlier notice would have been nice." Snapped Wolf, I pulled a U-Turn and boosted

towards the opposing team,



"This is who we are working for?" Fay asked desperately,



"Not cool Wolf, not cool." Miyu snapped,



"I'm not having any part of this." Fay stated,



"Neither am I." Miyu agreed,



"Fine, we don't need you, Panther can deal with you." Wolf snapped in return,



"I've had enough of them, I'll take care of them happily." Panther replied,



"And I have had enough of you and will take care of you happily." I growled,

"Who the hell is that?" Leon asked,



"Don't you recognize me?" I asked before I fired several shots at all members of Star Wolf, whether

they are helping or not. To my surprise even though I was firing at them Miyu and Fay were fighting

against the members of Star Wolf, we had the remaining hostile Star Wolf members attention,

allowing Fox, Krystal, Tigress and Slippy to concentrate on Andross.



"I'm warning you guys, you back off or I swear I'll use my new weapons on you." Fay warned,



"Well then allow me to be your guinea pig." Leon taunted,



"Fine." Then she fired a string thin beam to Leon's ship, his ship was then covered in electricity, all

engines and lights were now off, I think she must have short circuited his systems,



"Holy crap." I said in disbelief,



"Impressed?" she asked,



"Indeed I am." She then fired the same weapon at Wolf and Panther's ship, the same results

occurred, I laughed in disbelief.







With that threat down we now had to deal with the threat at hand.



"I think I can deal with him." Fay stated smugly,



"No wait!" Tigress cried, too late, Fay fired that same weapon at Andross, it was reflected by his

shield, right back at me, my ship suffered the same shut down as Star Wolf,



"My scans show that it did not fully hit your ship so that shut down will only be temporary." Tigress

stated, I swore,



"Well isn't that just great." I replied sarcastically. While I was completely helpless Andross fired

seven hook like structures from his at everyone but me, it caught them, Andross laughed, I then

noticed massive balls of energy slowly moving up the chain. I began to repeatedly swear and slam

my fists on my dashboard. My engine systems then came back online, but not my weapon systems, I

noticed a slightly glowing spot in-between Andross' eyes, it was clear that was the power source of

his weaponry and if I was lucky, his shield. I had no time to think of my course of action, I had only

one option, and it may cost me dearly. I activated the boost on my ship, heading straight to the

glowing spot, I ignored everyone's pleas to stop me, Andross may be able to shield shots, but

physical damage, he had no hope. I flew straight into the spot, I hit my head on the incoming

dashboard, all went black again, which I thought would be the final time.







(This of this chapter will now be told from Fox's point of view)

"Reece you idiot!" I cried, he didn't listen, his ship crashed into forehead of Andross, the chains

broke and we were free, I was stunned, Reece had sacrificed himself for our safety, I would make

sure his sacrifice would not go wasted, for the first time ever I activated the distress beacon that

would go straight to Peppy, I requested a medical ship to come to the scene, dead or alive we are

going to do all we could for Reece.







Andross was going to pay for everything he has done to my family, my friends, my love and me. I felt

a sudden rage come over me, I fired my shots at the eyes of Andross' ship, the fingers of his ship split

open and dozens of missiles came out and scattered all over the place, I ignored them, I continued

the assault on the eyes. I noticed two of the missiles had locked onto me, I let out a smirk, I let them

get close to me, I then boosted to Andross' eye and got as close as I possibly could, I then pulled a

loop, the missiles were not as quick as I was and they exploded right on his eye, I opened his mouth

wide open and one of his hands begun scratching that eye, Fay then swooped in and fired one of

those shots into his mouth, the electricity from the shot moved all over his ship, he was now

immobile and unable to act,



"Fire your bombs now." I ordered, everyone who could fired their bombs almost simultaneously into

his mouth, that was enough to tear his craft apart, revealing his pod, we all fired at the pod until it

exploded, Andross was done for, there was no way anything could survive a blast of that strength.

My attention turned to Reece, I hoped he would make it through this.









Chapter 15:



Conclusion







I opened my eyes slightly; everything that I could see was blurred, I blinked slowly in an attempt to

focus my sight, I came to realize I was in my bed in my quarters. I slowly got up from my bed; my

muscles were very weak, "How long was I out for?" I thought to myself, I slowly made my way into

the bathroom. When I entered I looked into the mirror I saw I had my torso removed revealing a

white furred covered chest, I had bandages wrapped around my right bicep, left wrist, I turned

around and examined my back, I had little band-aids put all over my back where the glass had been

removed from my back. I found a shirt that I had stuffed somewhere in my drawers, it was crumpled

but I didn't care I just threw it on and searched for my boots.







I was sleeping on my bed when I heard the door open,

"Commencing routine scans." I heard a monotone voice announce, it was obvious that it was ROB, I

heard him wheel over to the side of my bed, a bright blue light disturbed my sleep, I opened my eyes

and sat up,



"Reece. Status… active. Notifying Captain McCloud." It announced, I returned to my sleeping

position and closed my eyes, he could wake me when he got me.







"Reece are you awake?" a male voice asked as I was shoved, I groaned as I opened my eyes and sat

up, Fox and Krystal were standing by my bedside,



"Hello." I greeted, Krystal broke out a large smile and hugged me,



"Glad you're okay." She said happily as she broke the hug,



"We appreciate what you did for us back then." Fox stated,



"How long ago was that?" I asked,



"Around a month ago." Krystal answered, I was out for a whole month, I was shocked,



"But you are awake and okay now." Fox stated,



"What injuries have I suffered exactly?" I asked,



"Well you broke a few ribs and have a massive bruise on your forehead apart from that you just have

a few scratches and bruises." Krystal answered, I nodded.



"So have I missed anything in the time I was out?" I asked,



"Well we have got something to tell you." Fox answered, Krystal grinned as she showed me an

engagement ring on her ring finger, it was solid gold and has diamonds in a stripe down the middle,



"Congratulations, when did this happen?" I asked,



"Well on one of the most beautiful beaches on Corneria under the stars he proposed to me." Krystal

told me, this was perfect, I was alive and well and two of my good friends were getting married.



"Now we have to call Peppy, he wants to award you a medal for your selflessness." Fox told me, now

my day got better. When I started this journey my fate seemed soon, but now my fate appears to be

light years away, I turned to Fox and Krystal and stated,



"Call me, when you need me."







~End