Disclaimer: I don't own Star Fox, someone else does. Thanks for letting us write fanfiction for it.
This is a one-shot short story, something I need to work on more. I read in a writing book that "Writing a novel because your short fiction failed is like building a house because the shed you built collapsed."
Fade
Fox's ship set down gently onto the roof of Krazoa Palace. He shut off the Arwing and the canopy opened with a slight creak. After grabbing a small pack, he jumped from the cockpit and landed heavily on the ground. A Thorntail waited to greet him. As Fox took a few steps towards the Dinosaur, the Thorntail guard took a surprised sniff.
The vulpine had an unfamiliar scent about him. His fur was scruffy, his clothes (strange as they were to Dinos) were rumpled and looked unwashed. He had definitely lost weight. But it was the look in his eyes that startled the guard the most. They had a wild, grief-stricken look, bloodshot and tired; yet he was wide awake, as if he had tried to sleep but simply could not.
The Dino recalled what had spread about the planet. What had happened only a few months ago...
Fox slowly approached the Dino guard. He barely felt the pack he carried in his paw and he ran the other paw slowly through his unwashed fur.
"I need to speak to a Krazoa Spirit," he said, his voice hoarse and a few tones deeper than normal.
The Thorntail nodded wordlessly and led Fox to the gated dias. The guard roared, the gates rose and Fox walked in. Before he stepped onto the dias, he opened the pack and pulled out a gold necklace with a teal stone. He clenched it in his paw and hunched over, as if overcome by intense emotion.
Sensing the moment was private, the Thorntail turned his back and stood guard. There was nothing he could do for the grieving fox but keep him unbothered.
Out of the pack he also pulled a short staff. Krystal's staff. It expanded to its full length in his paw. Fox stepped onto the dias and the warp took him to the small room that connected to the room where he'd faced General Scales. It seemed so long ago. So long.
Fox focused on the liquid mirror. Taking Krystal's staff, he swept the gold tip across the watery surface. It ripped angrily. Fox stepped back and waited. A blue spirit burst forth and after circling him several times, finally came face to face with him.
"Your grief has overcome you," he said.
"Bring her back," he said, barely audibly.
The spirit was quiet for a long moment.
"We cannot do that," he said.
"Yes you can. You must," he took a pleading tone.
The spirit circled around him several times again.
"Your life has been full of brief moments of happiness... before plunging again into darkness and despair."
Fox's heart squeezed. Why was the spirit doing this?
"Just when you found happiness... when you thought you had a real reason to live... she was taken from you."
The spirit circled him as Fox crushed the necklace to his chest. He'd not find happiness... she was gone. He was alone.
"Now you wish to bring her back. Have you considered that she might refuse?"
"Not an option," he replied, "She wants to come back, she must."
The spirit paused in front of Fox, "She must?"
Without waiting for a reply, the spirit returned to the mirror.
"Wait!" his voice echoed in the room. He was alone again.
The spirit burst forth from the mirror and slammed into Fox, taking him towards the ceiling, where he remained floating.
Fox was surrounded by everything and nothing at the same time. Stars faded in and out of focus: millions of blue spirits besieged him. A loud, startling shriek cleared the space and all went dark. A bluish spirit took the form of Krystal in front of him.
"My... my staff," she called to the staff still clutched in his paw.
"Krystal," Fox breathed. He didn't even care that she had greeted her staff before she had greeted him.
"Why did you bring it here?" She looked angry.
Now he was confused, "I needed it. To see you. I want to bring you back to life."
"I do not want to live! I hate the world of the living," she screamed, literally sending Fox reeling away.
"I did not want to live with you on that awful ship," she yelled again.
Fox didn't know what hurt worse.
"Why?" he whispered. Tears streamed down his face.
Her form vanished but the blue glow remained. Soft weeping came from the haze. Soon it began to reshape into Krystal. She curled into a fetal ball and cried.
"I did not want to live. I did not want to die. I fell and fell and nothingness came after a while. So quiet, so peaceful here. Like the most beautiful place I can imagine. And our children are here. They are happy children, Fox. They are like..."
Her disembodied form drifted to him, "I was not supposed to die. But I am happy here. Now my selfishness has taken from you something you were supposed to feel. You know something you should not. I fear there can be no happy ending."
"There can be a happy ending," Fox said. For the first time in months, he felt numb. Not the bad numb, just feelingless, "You just have to come back with me."
She turned as if looking at something behind her. When she looked back at him, he couldn't read her expression. He didn't often see the faces of spirits.
"Fox... I..."
Fox closed his eyes. A cool breeze touched his face. It felt refreshing. His anguish drifted away like flotsam, the grief floated away like a feather. It wasunyielding, the truest peace one could ever feel. The feeling magnified a thousand times. He could feel in his finger tips, in his tail, his toes, the feeling he felt in his heart.
The spirit was unrestrained emotion.
"This is what death feels like," he whispered.
Krystal's spirit drifted over him, or below him... there were no spatial definitions in this place.
"You understand why I cannot return now? Once a spirit has experienced release, it cannot return to the world of living. Mortal life crushes the spirit until it can no longer sustain itself."
Fox was silent. What was this happiness, this peace that Krystal now had? The freedom to have emotions that were unconstrained, unadulterated. He couldn't remember happiness anymore.
No. He could. He simply... blocked them in his grief. He remembered the first time he heard her laugh, when he kissed her passionately and she returned the passion. When he admitted his love for her, and when she returned the sentiment with equal affection.
"There is no one else out there for me," Fox said and reached to her, "I will wait to see you again."
"It will not be long," she said.
Fox stared at her.
"How long?"
The spirit circled him frantically, "You have entered the place from which the living do not return."
He felt betrayed, but the feeling was short-lived. He felt all the anger he had ever felt, all the love he had ever felt, all the emotions he had ever felt, he felt them drip from his body like water from a sponge. His spirit emptied of its scattered emotions until at last he was as pure as the day he was born.
The world became dark around him.
Calm.
"Fox? Fox?... Fox!"
A shriek of grief.
Silence.
"He's dead."
Peace.