Slippy's Revenge

Fox McCloud waited in the lobby outside General Peppy Hare's office. He had come to discuss a somewhat delicate matter that had arisen recently, but since it seemed that everyone else had something that they needed to talk with Peppy about, there was quite a waiting line. Fox did his best to ignore the stares and whispers of the other people in the lobby with him, although they were too frequent to completely ignore. Being a celebrity – again – certainly had some disadvantages, particularly in the matter of personal privacy. He could have used his influence to skip ahead in the line, but he hated to take advantage of his fame for personal gain. If there was a matter of planetary security, he might have done so, but this was a strictly personal matter (well, mostly) so he was content to wait his turn until Peppy was ready for him. In the meantime, he kept himself occupied by reflecting on how the events of the last few months had affected his life.

There had been the slow dissolution of the Star Fox mercenary team; first Peppy, then Falco, and then Slippy had left for other pursuits, leaving him and Krystal the only remaining members of Star Fox on the active duty roster. Then he had forced Krystal to leave the team, out of concern for her safety – or at least, that's what he told himself then. In moments of honesty now, looking back on it, he had taken action while thinking only about how he would feel in such a situation, without considering how Krystal might feel about his unilateral decision. She had reacted quite badly, as a matter of fact: first bursting into tears and running off, and then disappearing from all sight afterwards.

Shortly after that, before he had been able to decide whether or not he had made the right call on that, the Anglars had attacked, striking from a base hidden deep within the oceans of Venom. The Venom Sea was an environment so caustic it had been previously believed that nothing could live down there, much less build up a military force capable of bringing the rest of Lylat to its knees. Regardless of how they had managed to do so, the Anglars had swiftly conquered pretty much all of Lylat, leaving only a few holdouts on Corneria still free of their rule. Fox had plunged straight into the thickest fighting on the planet, but it had soon become evident to him that he would fail if he continued alone. Putting aside his pride, he had slowly gathered the rest of his scattered teammates back together, and led them against the Anglar forces.

After they had won, the group had returned to Corneria tired and relieved, hoping to just settle down and rest. When they reached the city, however, they had no idea that a sneak attack by other elements of the Anglar armada had been thwarted by the loved ones they had left behind. In celebration of the victory both at Venom and at home, the ladies had put together a celebratory to commemorate the occasion. Of greater surprise, to Fox at least, was seeing Krystal again, there in the middle of it all. As soon as he was able, he pulled her aside and apologized profusely to her for what he had done. She had accepted his apology, and that had been the first step in mending their relationship. Now they were officially engaged, as were Slippy and Amanda, and Fox had never felt happier in his life. Well, except for one comparatively minor, but very vexing detail that was the reason for his current visit to Peppy's office.

"Mr. McCloud? General Hare will see you now," the aide called from the doorway, snapping Fox out of his reflections. He got up and strode into the office, being careful not to make too much noise upon entering; Falco might make an entry like a herd of stampeding elephants, but Fox considered himself both too polite and too dignified to advertise his presence in such a manner.

Peppy looked up as the vulpine pilot entered the room and actually stood from his chair to greet him; "Fox! What a surprise to see you here! How can I help you?"

"Hello, Peppy, how're you doing?" Fox said in reply. He already had a fair idea of the answer, (good, but busy) but was suddenly having a hard time actually voicing the reason he had taken the time to come and see Peppy here in his office.

Evidently the Hare was quick to pick up on his evasive comment. "Fox, you didn't go through all the trouble to schedule a formal appointment here with me just to make small talk. You could do that easily enough when I'm off duty. What was it you wanted to see me about?"

Fox hesitated for a moment before replying: "Star Fox and Star Wolf have been assigned to the same hangar bay right now. I'd like to request that either they or we be moved to a different hangar." Due to some maintenance issues with the new Great Fox Carrier, the Star Fox team had needed to shuttle all of their vehicles down to a temporary holding area until the big ship could be fixed… which was taking quite a long while. Star Wolf, the long time rivals of Star Fox, was currently enjoying the rare good graces of the Cornerian government for their contribution towards repelling the Anglar invasion, thus the reason the two teams were sharing the same docking facilities and were currently coexisting…relatively peacefully.

"Is Wolf trying to pick a fight?" Peppy asked evenly.

"No, actually, he's been quite well-behaved, so far," Fox commented.

"Is Panther hitting on Krystal again?" was Peppy's next question.

"No; in fact, he's been rather cool towards her ever since she and I got back together. I didn't question that, I was just glad I didn't have to listen to his Don Juan impression every time she and I crossed paths with him."

Peppy frowned thoughtfully; all of the obvious sources of complaint had been tried. "So what seems to be the problem, then?"

"They're, ah… they're picking on Slippy. At first it wasn't anything really worth noting, stuff along the lines of the ribbing we gave him back in the days, but now it's starting to escalate."

Peppy nodded in understanding. Fox and Slippy had been good friends for years, back to when they were still in school together, and it had often been Fox who had stood up for Slippy when other students harassed him. It was only to be expected that he would be the one to bring this matter to Peppy's attention. "Have you talked to Wolf about this?"

"Krystal's addressing that end right now," Fox replied. "So far, the primary instigators have been Panther and Leon; Wolf's stayed out of it for the most part, although he hasn't really tried all that hard to stop anything, either."

"Hmm," Peppy mused. "I'll try and put a word or two in his ear to reign in his teammates, but unless they're actually doing something illegal, I can't issue any cease-and-desist orders." Fox looked crestfallen at the news, and Peppy tried to reassure him. "I'm sure they'll get bored with it after a while, and ease up on the teasing."

"It's gone far beyond teasing, Peppy," Fox said glumly. "Right now it's more along the line of hazing pranks, and it doesn't show any sign of letting up any time soon."

Peppy sighed slightly in resignation. "I'll do what I can on my end, but I don't really believe it'll have the desired effect. You may have to use some…creative… measures to resolve this problem."

Fox looked up in slight surprise. "Are you sure you want to let me handle this creatively?" he tried to clarify. Fox had a very active imagination on how to counter any sort of hassling, but in school such measures had gotten him sent to the principal's office on more than one occasion. Fox simply wanted to make sure that he wouldn't suffer any sort of official repercussions for trying to help a friend.

The hare smiled slightly behind the beard he had grown in recent months. "As long as you don't do anything illegal; aside from that caveat, you have free reign to do whatever you deem necessary to deal with this."

Now it was Fox's turn to grin, mischief glinting in his emerald-colored eyes. "Understood, sir," he replied. He stood and gave Peppy a heartfelt handshake; since the vulpine pilot wasn't formally in the military, a salute wouldn't have been proper. Peppy returned the handshake with a grip that showed that age hadn't completely caught up with him yet, and moved to open the door for Fox to leave. As he strode through the doorway, he heard Peppy call from behind him, "Molly, send in the next one, please?"

"At once, General Hare," the receptionist replied. She leaned out the door to call in the next person with an appointment, but Fox wasn't paying attention. His mind was busy with the question of how he might dissuade the members of Star Wolf from harassing one of his own teammates. The simplest answer might be to respond in kind, although that would more than likely lead to an escalation of the conflict, rather than a resolution thereof.

He was still lost in thought as he left the imposing structure of the Cornerian High Command post and flagged a cab to take him back towards the hangar complex where the team's Arwings were temporarily being stored. So engrossed was he in his musings that he didn't notice the presence of another until she shouted in his ear, "Ground Control to Fox!"

He started and turned to look at the person who had half-deafened him. She stood not a half stride away, her sea-green eyes gleaming with impish mirth at his expression. "What was that for, Krystal?" he asked, digging a finger into his ear to try and help ease the ringing inside it.

"Because you didn't respond the first two times I called your name," the cerulean vixen replied. She then surprised him again by stepping in closer and giving him a hug. He returned it in equal measure and went a step farther by giving her a kiss on her right cheek as well. Krystal giggled slightly at his affectionate gesture, and after they were done, she asked him, "So, how did your meeting with Peppy go?"

Fox made a so-so motion with his hand in the air as he answered, "Eh, about like we expected. He said he'd look into the matter, but he also said that unless Star Wolf was actually doing something illegal, there wasn't much official weight he could actually bring to bear on the matter." He took her left hand in his as the two of them began to walk back towards where the rest of their group was, and added, "However, he also said that, barring illegal activity of our own, we had full leave to try to resolve the matter on our own."

"And does Peppy realize what sort of monster he may have unleashed with that statement?" Krystal asked skeptically.

"The real problem would be, doing so without provoking Star Wolf into retaliating. I want to resolve this, sooner rather than later, not escalate it." Fox mused.

"Maybe we ought to just let Slippy go nuts on them," she offered. "They'd certainly think twice before trying anything again after that."

"Maybe," Fox conceded. "That might actually be amusing to watch, but I don't think he'll do it any time soon. Oh, speaking of which, how did things go on your end?"

"Oh, about as well as they went on yours," she sighed wearily. "I tried to talk to Wolf about reigning in Panther and Leon, but he told me that unless they did something specifically illegal, he wasn't going to interfere with how they blew off steam." He sighed then, too; the best option for resolving this quickly was apparently closed to them.

"Well, let's get back to the rest of the group and see what we do from here," Fox said to her. Still hand in hand, the two of them exited through the rear of the bay and made their way to what had been a plots' ready room, where the rest of the team was currently gathered. There was Falco Lombardi, and Slippy Toad, and Slippy's fiancée Amanda, who was the newest member of Star Fox. They were currently gathered around a table, with Slippy sitting in a chair and looking rather sullen, and the rest of them clustered around him trying to cheer him up.

Falco was the first to detect the approach of the two foxes; his head came up to look at them and he asked, "So, how'd it go?"

"Not very far," Fox said perfunctorily. "If Panther and Leon do something patently illegal, the authorities will step in, but until then they won't. And Wolf seems a bit reluctant to interfere with what he seems to view as a means for the two of them to just blow off steam."

"Well, their diversion is interfering with my work," Slippy said, lifting his head to look Fox in the eye. Fox noticed that the amphibian mechanic/pilot had developed a tic in his left eye, a nervous twitch that pulsed with all the regularity of a metronome.

"Don't worry too much, Slip." Fox said reassuringly. "Another day or two and the Great Fox will be back in working order and you won't have to put up with them anymore."

"I'm not sure if I can last that long, Fox," Slippy said a little dejectedly. "There's some maintenance that needs to be done on the fighters, but I can't get it finished when Leon and Panther are sabotaging my work! I swear, if they keep this up, I'm going to go insane."

"That would be interesting to see," Falco said with a smirk. "I bet you could probably sell tickets to that."

"Oh hush, Falco," Amanda said heatedly. "Slippy has enough on his plate already without having to put up with the shenanigans of a pair of ruffians making amusement at his expense."

Behind her head, both Fox and Krystal looked at each other and mouthed, "Ruffians?" in quizzical amusement. Amanda missed this exchange as her attention was still fixed on Falco, who was looking suitably chastised by her reprimand. "All right, all right" he said, holding up his hands as though to ward her off. "I'm sorry I said anything; in fact, I think we should lodge a formal protest of this treatment of our team's mechanic with Cornerian High Command and the Parliament – no, wait, we already tried that and they said that there was nothing they could do right now."

"Falco, your mouth is going to get you into deep trouble one of these days," Fox warned him.

"Ah, whatever," the avian pilot grumped. "I think I'll go see if Katt's doing anything right now; maybe the two of us could go see a movie or stir up some excitement downtown." He had a recurring hot/cold relationship with the aptly named feline; in the wake of the Anglar War, the two of them had hooked up again for the time being. Falco grabbed a black leather jacket and threw it over his shoulders as he walked out the door, calling back over his shoulder, "Anyone else want to come along?"

"Nah, run along, and don't forget to play nice with the other kids," Fox answered with a grin. Falco made a mildly rude gesture in reply, and then was out the door and gone.

"Why do you put up with so much backtalk from him, Mr. Fox?" Amanda asked her team leader.

"Believe me, his skill in the cockpit makes up for his social shortcomings," Fox told her. "And I've told you many times before, my name isn't 'Mr. Fox'." He looked around the room and thought of something. "Hey, you know, we have been cooped up here for quite a while now, Slippy, you want to get away from here for a little bit, maybe go out and get a bite to eat or something?"

Slippy shook his head mournfully. "Sorry, Fox, I'll never be able to rest until I've gotten that work on the specialty fighters finished, nor will I be any good for company until then. If you and Krystal want to go out for a bit, that's fine with me, but I'm staying here." He turned to his fiancée and asked, "What about you Amanda, do you want to go out and get some fresh air?"

"And leave you here all by yourself?" she asked sharply. "No, absolutely not, I am not leaving here unless you are."

Fox looked over at Krystal and received a noncommittal shrug in reply. "Eh, I guess we'll stay here for a while as well," he said. "It wouldn't be fair to leave the two of you here all alone while Panther and Leon are making trouble." Slippy smiled slightly at that and said, "Thanks for the support guys. Well, the first thing I need to do is some checkup maintenance on the Bullfrog, so I guess I'll go ahead and get started on that." He stood up and walked out the door, headed towards the hangar bay.

There was silence for a little while, until Fox stood and said, "Well, I don't know about you ladies, but I'm starting to get hungry. I'm going out to get something to eat; do either of you want me to bring back anything?"

"I'd like something, please," Krystal offered.

"Me too, and could you pick something up for Slippy as well?" Amanda asked.

Fox hid a smile; it was almost a sure thing that if Amanda asked for something, she'd include Slippy in the request as well. "All right, so that's four orders of… whatever I happen to find?" he verified. "See you girls in a little bit." With that, he walked out the personnel entrance and around to where he had parked his hovercar. As he started the vehicle up, he hoped that he would be able to resolve this problem before something drastic happened.

Unbeknownst to any of the members of Star Fox, their leader's departure was observed by three individuals who were not part of the team. Leon Powalski had hacked into the security camera system, and had been eagerly watching the hangar area for just such an opportunity. Slippy was alone in the hangar bay, and there was no one else nearby for him to call for help. "It's perfect," the reptilian pilot gloated to his compatriot.

"Indeed, it is," purred the chocolate-colored feline, in a suave-sounding voice that had tickled the ears of more than a few females in the past. "Perhaps almost too perfect, though?"

"Oh, come on, Panther, this is Star Fox we're talking about, here," Leon said scornfully. "If their leader was a bit more like Wolf, I'd be worried about this being a trap too, but they don't have the guts, or the will, to set this up as a trap. Once we get done with our latest plan, that frog will never live down the embarrassment, and we can move on to bigger targets."

Panther snickered quietly to himself as he considered how their latest plan would affect his team's rivals. True, there was technically a truce between the two of them, since they had both been more or less on the same side during the Anglar War… but that had also been the case during the Aparoid War, and look how long that truce had lasted. As far as he knew, as long as Star Wolf existed as a coherent unit, it would always be the rival to Star Fox, as long as that group existed as a coherent unit.

A stray reservation flickered through Panther's mind, and he asked, "What if we send the frog over the edge?"

"He's the weakest fighter among them; that's why we made him the target in the first place, remember?" Leon said. "Honestly, Panther, are you chickening out? I can do this by myself if you don't feel up to it."

"No, I'm fine." If Panther had any psychological weakness, it was in the vicinity of his ego. "What are you waiting for, Leon? Let's go tag his ship." Sniggering like a pair of schoolboys about to pull a prank, the two of them slipped into the hangar area and made their way quietly to where Slippy lay mostly under his custom starfighter, the Bullfrog.

Slippy hummed tunelessly as he worked underneath his craft. He lay on a mechanic's backboard, essentially a flat panel on wheels that offered slightly better cushioning than the concrete hangar floor and allowed him to easily slide out from under the fighter without banging his head on the underside. As he finished his last adjustments inside a removable panel in the fighter's underside, he could feel some of the tension leaving his body. Falco had once made a quip about how repairing machines stood in for therapy for the amphibian pilot, but he was closer to the mark than he realized. There was a logic and order to machinery that Slippy loved, and that helped to balance out the chaos in the rest of his life.

Between his humming and the sound of the work he was doing, it took some time for Slippy to realize that someone else was in the hangar with him. The first thing he noticed was a pair of black leather boots that didn't belong to anyone on the team. He didn't think much of it until he heard a soft 'pssh' sound. His eyes widened as he realized what it meant, and he pushed himself out from under the Bullfrog and jumped to his feet, only to be caught by a large furry hand and spun around to look at the leering face of Leon Powalski.

"Well, froggy, what do think of the new paint job?" the lizard-man gloated. "Personally, I like it much better than the old one."

Slippy's jaw dropped open in abject horror. While before the fighter had been painted silver with blue trim, the usual color scheme for Star Fox vehicles, now derisive slogans and vaguely obscene images had been haphazardly sprayed over most of its surface. That, in and of itself, wouldn't have been so bad, except that the paint used was highly reflective and almost impossible to remove without scraping off the top layer of hull plating along with it. It was normally used to mark spots that needed repairs on ships in space-dock.

"You… you…" Slippy stammered, at a loss for words to express his dismay. Panther let him go, and he turned to glare at his two tormentors. "Stop it!" he shouted. "Stop tormenting me, there isn't any reason for this anymore!"

"But it's so much fun," Leon said with a sneer. Slippy snorted in exasperation and stomped off to try and find some means of removing the graffiti without damaging the hull in the process. He hadn't gone more than a few steps when something wet and sticky smacked into the back of his head. He whipped around again in the hope of finding out what it was, but all he could see were the two Star Wolf pilots standing there smirking at him. After a moment or two, he turned back around to continue on his way, only to feel the same projectile hit him again. He spun around, a little faster this time, and managed to see Leon's long tongue retracting back into his mouth.

Something in Slippy snapped. He grabbed the nearest heavy object he could find - a long crescent wrench nearly the length of his arm - and charged his tormentors shouting, "That does iiiiiiitttt!" At first Leon and Panther stood there grinning, but as he kept coming without slowing down, their expressions gradually changed to trepidation instead. Slippy aimed towards Panther, who was closer, and raised the wrench in preparation for a smashing blow on his cranium. Only the feline's excellent reflexes saved him, as he spun out from under the blow at the last minute and the wrench slammed into the wall behind him hard enough to dent the armor-quality steel.

Panther and Leon exchanged stunned glances at the sudden violent turn their victim had taken. Slippy didn't waste time contemplating the ding in the wall, but instead turned and lifted the wrench again and charged, this time at Leon. The lizard-man didn't waste time gawking at the sight, but instantly turned tail and fled. Slippy pursued him throughout the hangar, shouting incoherently all the while and occasionally taking a swing at him when the amphibian thought he was close enough. Leon managed to dodge each blow, and they left divots in everything they hit. Whether by accident or by design, Leon had fled into the side of the hangar where Star Wolf's fighters were berthed, so the majority of damage was meted out on their vehicles.

After a little while, Slippy made one too many swings, and the head of the wrench snapped off and clattered to the floor. That didn't stop the resourceful mad mechanic, though, who immediately set to hunting for another instrument of mayhem. His gaze settled on an arc-welding torch, which he picked up and turned to brandish it in the direction of his two tormentors. Grinning like a psychopath from a horror film, he began to advance on the two of them, their eyes growing wide with fright at the sight of the sparks leaping from the instrument's business end. Frantically the two of them tried to find a way out of the room, but the entrance was on the other side of the hangar, and they had to get past Slippy before they could reach it.

The two Star Wolf pilots rolled underneath one of their vehicles and came up on the other side of it from Slippy. The amphibian simply ran around the parked starfighter rather than follow his targets, as it was faster, but they had gotten a sufficient lead on him that he was unable to catch up. Panther and Leon paused for a moment to catch their collective breaths, certain that they had been able to escape the attention of their victim-turned-pursuer.

A 'hiss-thunk' sound told them that they were far from out of danger. Since Slippy couldn't catch them with the arc-welder, he had discarded it in favor of a rivet gun, and was now launching bolts at them from across the room. A divot appeared in the wall scant centimeters from Panther's nose, and he and Leon had to resume their mad scramble to get to the exit of the hangar before the irate amphibian caught up with them. They made a mad dash to the door, dodging and weaving in an attempt to throw off Slippy's aim. Their efforts were mostly successful, although one rivet passed so close over Leon's head that he could feel the breeze of its passage. Panther reached the door first, throwing it open and waiting only long enough for Leon to dive through before slamming it shut between them and their tormentor. A couple of 'dings' sounded as more projectiles hit the door, but the hardened steel was too thick for them to penetrate through.

Both pilots collapsed to the floor, panting heavily with the exertion of their previous efforts to avoid getting caught. They thought they were safe, until a gruff voice growled from above them, "What have you idiots done now?"

Leon looked up to see his longtime comrade Wolf O'Donnell standing over them, with arms crossed over his chest and glaring with his one good eye. Hurriedly, the lizard and the feline jumped to their feet and began to relay the account of what had happened inside to their leader. Wolf let them get as far as their escape before he cut them off. "So let me get this straight; you dimwits locked the mad mechanic in the hangar-"

"That's right, because he was going to kill us," Panther interjected.

"-where our Wolfens are berthed?" Wolf finished. The other two Star Wolf members turned to look at each other, speechless but with the same horrified expression mirrored on both their faces. Silently, they both mouthed the same phrase; "Oh, shit…"

Fox rushed down the stairwell to the hangar bay entrance, which was on the ground level. Amanda and Krystal had seen Slippy's entire rampage on the security cameras, and had told him about it once he'd gotten back. Not only had they seen the whole thing, but Krystal had possessed the foresight to record everything that had happened, which meant that they could go back and see what had happened over and over again. Krystal and Fox thought it was comical how quickly the tables had turned on the two Star Wolf pilots, while Amanda radiated a fierce satisfaction. "Serves them right for picking on my Slippy," she had said when Fox had asked about her reaction to the incident.

Fox had waited until he had seen Slippy collapse from exhaustion before he ventured down to the bay. He was pretty certain that in the state of mind his mechanical expert was in, he might not distinguish between friend and foe. Krystal was right behind him, curious to see what all had happened after Panther and Leon had vacated the area.

Fox opened the door and stopped so suddenly that Krystal ran into him from behind. His jaw dropped in amazement as he looked over the scene before him. "Wow," was all he managed to breathe out. Looking over his shoulder, Krystal had to agree with his assessment. The three Wolfen starfighters lay in pieces all around him, wings and rudder components and various other parts scattered across the floor. In addition, Fox could see that the access panels inside the cockpit were open, with various pieces of the fighters' computers missing and presumably in Slippy's possession. Slippy himself lay asleep in a pile of spare parts left over from his orgy of destruction… and the mental image that phrase evoked had Fox scrambling frantically to find something to replace it with.

A loud groan from behind him caused him to turn around. Krystal stood there, grinding the heel of her palm into her forehead, trying to erase the image she had inadvertently picked up from his mind. She looked up at his glance and growled, "Thanks a lot," in his direction. He chuckled slightly at her discomfiture and resumed his survey of the damage done to the hangar. Upon closer examination, it appeared that Wolf's fighter had escaped the worst of the manic mechanic's ire, although it had not gone unscathed. Fox shook his head and made a mental note to never push Slippy that far, then strode over to where the toad lay comatose and began to gently shake him awake.

"Hey, Slip," he whispered. "Time to get up."

"Mmm…" Slippy grumbled under his breath. He reluctantly opened his eyes, to see Fox standing over him with a worried look on his face. Oh, Fox, what's up?"

"You tell me," the vulpine replied. "How do you feel?"

"Better, actually," the toad replied. "Much, much better." He sat up and looked around the room in surprise. "Wow," he breathed. "Did I do all that?"

"Yep," Fox affirmed. We have it all recorded, too, in case you want to refresh your memory any."

Slippy's expression darkened. "Serves them right for picking on me so much."

Fox laughed and helped him back up to his feet. "Yeah, Amanda said something similar. But somehow I don't think they'll be bothering you any time soon. And, we got a lucky break - they've finished the repair and refitting on the Great Fox ahead of schedule, so we can bring all our fighters back up to the ship in just a little while."

"Oh, good," Slippy replied. As they were walking back towards the door, he noticed Panther and Leon watching him from behind a pillar. He feinted a step in their direction and had the satisfaction of seeing the two of them cringe back in fear. "That's right," he muttered. "Be nice to the geeks, or they may turn on you." Slippy grinned evilly. From now on, he doubted anyone was going to give him a hard time about anything.