StarFox: A Vixen's Departure

Chapter 1: A Negotiation

Location: Sargasso Space Station; Hangar Bay

Time: 0800 hours

Krystal lets out a huff of air as she surveys the damage to the hull of her ship. She'd had the CloudRunner for five years now. It was a sturdy vehicle and it had seen its fair share of intergalactic dog fights and skirmishes. It was old and ailing now. She was surprised that it still had all of its original pieces.
She presses a hand against the cool metal of the ship and begins to walk the length of the hull. As she paces next to it, her fingers find the littlest scratches and dents. There are some individual marks that she remembers receiving, but otherwise, the damages were less than memorable. She identifies a crater just underneath the cockpit as the toothmark of a Red-Eye on Sauria from a few years ago. Another long scrape that stretched from the tip of the nose to just under the right thruster had come from an Anglarian ship's wing when it nicked her in a dog fight. The initial cut hadn't been bad, but the acidic sea water that coated the ship's exterior had corroded a decent amount of the metal away before she could neutralize it.

"You've just been through it all, haven't you, old girl?" Krystal asks the ship.

It doesn't respond, but instead sits quietly in the hangar bay of Sargasso.

Krystal steps onto the wing of the CloudRunner and slides into the cockpit. The leather seat greets her with a groan as she settles into it. She runs her fingers over the controls and starts as her com-link crackles to life.

"Krystal", Ruffian's voice bleeds through the speakers, "are you heading out somewhere? You need to clear any departures with Lord O'Donnell first!"

Krystal sighs and leans back in her seat. Ruffian had probably spotted her on the security cameras. Sometimes, Sargasso felt more like a prison than a home. She leans forward to open a channel and reply to Ruffian, but she finds her hand lingering over the switch.

Should she just go somewhere? What if she turned her thrusters to the station and never looked back? Would anyone notice if she left?

An overwhelming surge of doubt crashes over her. It paralyzes her. She sits and stares into open space, just contemplating everything that had brought her to where she was: her fight with Fox, her rash decision to seek out Panther, the idiocy of asking Wolf for a position on a team that she had no business being on and much less deserved to be on. Who was she kidding? She was a decent pilot, but she paled in comparison to other creatures like Wolf, and Fox, and Falco.

She suddenly thinks, I want to go home.

It is a statement that leads her to question, Where is home?

Krystal feels tears begin to prick the corners of her eyes. The controls blur in front of her. Her hand still hovers over the communication link.

"What am I doing?" She asks aloud.

She hadn't sought Panther out after her fight with Fox for solace or to satisfy the pettiness of her worser self. She simply knew that the feline had taken a liking to her. More importantly, he had seen her skills as a pilot. Most importantly, he was a member of Star Wolf, and she couldn't think of anywhere else to turn. She couldn't bear the routine of the Cornerian Army, and as much as she loved Peppy, who had taken command after General Pepper's health had declined, he always treated her like a child. She had wanted the thrill of a mercenary life and she knew that O'Donnell would push her to the limit if he accepted her.
But, Panther had become more of nuisance than she expected. He couldn't see that she had only been kind to him for his connection to StarWolf, and he continually pushed her for intimacy. Once, he had pushed her against a wall and forcibly kissed her. She'd struggled against him and eventually planted a knee into the V of his legs to escape from him. Wolf and Leon had yet to let him forget it.
While her spit-fire personality was a source of frustration to Panther, Wolf had liked it enough to grant her a spot on the team. Though now, Krystal wasn't sure that she wanted it. She just felt so alone.

Fox would take me back if I asked.

"What am I doing?" She repeats the question to the silence of her cockpit.

"Krystal?" Ruffian's voice answers her. He sounds impatient.

Krystal shakes her head and steels herself. She sets her jaw. She cannot go back. She will not run back to McCloud. She didn't need him. She didn't need anyone. She'd been alone from the start, and that was how she was going to proceed. Star Wolf was a team, but they weren't a family like Star Fox had been. Maybe Wolf and Leon were close, but that was only because they'd grown up together in the Venomian Army under Andross's reign. They'd banded together to survive. She and Panther were outsiders.

Krystal sucks in a breath and flips the communication switch. "Tell Wolf I'm not going anywhere, Ruffian."

She runs a hand through her hair and rubs furiously at her eyes.

"Tell him yourself. He's on his way down to you."

Krystal, with her head still bowed, frowns in confusion. What?

A heavy thud makes her head snap up. She turns and nearly jumps out of her seat as she finds Wolf O'Donnell perched on her wing. His nose is inches from her cockpit.
There wasn't anything in Wolf's appearance that made him look like someone to be feared. Instead, Krystal was surprised to find that he was ruggedly handsome in a way, despite his missing eye. It was everything else about him that gave off a predatory vibe: the way he walked with his chest out, how he scanned a room without moving his head, how the curl of his upper lip exposed his canines when he was frustrated. He had a way of narrowing his eyes at other animals in conversation that was slightly off-putting. But, Krystal had come to realize that he only did this when he was sizing his guests up and not really listening to what they were saying. He still did it to her, sometimes, and she was getting better at not feeling so meek under his gaze.

She feels very small as he stares at her through the glass of the CloudRunner's canopy that day for some reason. His gaze is more pensive than usual, and he has caught her off guard. A silence stretches between them in which Wolf stares at her, and Krystal blinks back at him. She waits for her heart to quit kicking in her chest before she realizes that Wolf is waiting for her to open the cockpit.

She tears her eyes from his face to flip the switch on the control panel in front of her. The canopy releases with a hiss.

She looks at Wolf with less timidity and more patience, waiting to see what was so important that he granted her the courtesy of coming to her instead of it being the other way around. Her heart thuds away in her chest.

Wolf's good eye narrows the way it did when he was thinking. "Get out", he says.

Krystal kept staring at Wolf, but this time her mouth made a little "o" shape. She'd registered his words, but the context wasn't there. Suddenly, all the doubts that she had pushed away came flooding back to her. She feels her mouth go dry. Her brain was playing with two possibilities:

"Get out" as in "Get out of the ship".

Or.

"Get out" as in "Get out of the Space Station".

"Get out of Sargasso".

"Get out of our lives".

Her heart begins to kick in her chest again. She wonders if it had ever stopped in the first place.

Wolf's eyes narrow again. The band of his eyepatch is pulled taught as his brows pull together. A frown tugs at the corner of his mouth.

"Get out of the ship." He says, as if he could sense her desire for clarification. He turns and hops down from the wing of the CloudRunner.

She follows close behind.

"You're not flying this piece of scrap anymore." He tells her when she joins him on the hangar floor. "You've been falling behind in flight formations and you're a decent pilot, so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and blame it on this piece of shit ship rather than yourself. Regardless, this," Wolf gestures to the CloudRunner as if he has already run out of insulting names to pin on it, "can't keep up with our Wolfens".

No, no, no! Krystal screams to herself. She has lost so much already. She can't stomach another loss. She doesn't know if she can bear the familiarity of the CloudRunner being taken from her, as well.

Wolf must take her silence as a sign of consent because he continues, "Your Wolfen should be ready soon, and then your old ship can go to Corneria-"

"I'm not getting rid of it." Krystal blurts out. Wolf is as surprised by her interjection as she is.

His hands go to his hips. This was another trait Krystal had taken note of. The few times she'd seen Wolf negotiate with someone, he always placed his hands on his hips. Sometimes, he hooked his fingers into his belt and his thumbnails would scrape away at the metal. She wasn't quite sure what it meant, yet. Negotiations generally did not go well when he assumed this position, though.

"You're not flying it in formation anymore, that's for sure. It's hideous." Wolf says.

"It's been through a lot."

"It's falling apart!" Wolf countered.

"I haven't got the credits to fix it." Krystal says.

"You're not flying it with us. It's taking up space in the hangar where your Wolfen is supposed to go. It can't stay here. That's the end of it."

Krystal crossed her arms in a subconscious attempt to hide her desperation. To hell with it, she thinks. She has already asked so much of the system's most fearsome space pirate. She can ask one more thing. She was full of surprises today. She stands her ground. "Give me the credits to fix it, and when it's finished I'll sell it and give you the profit. I'd rather see someone else flying it than see it be turned into scrap."

Silence stretches between them for a second time that day.

Krystal can see Wolf contemplating it. He looks at the ship, and then looks at her. His tail whips back and forth behind him. He scratches his chin, and says, "You're getting a new Wolfen whether you want one or not, and you will fly it. But," his mouth forms a tight line, "out of curiosity, where would you keep the old ship while it's being repaired?"

"There's space in the drop ship hangar where the supplies come in. It could stay there. People could see it there, too. If someone's interested-"

"Fine, fine!" Wolf cuts her off before she can elaborate further on her plan. "I get the point." He scratches behind his ear and sighs. "You're more stubborn than you look."

Krystal can't tell if it's a compliment or an insult. It sounds more like an insult. She snaps back without thinking, "Well, growing up without parents means I didn't have anyone to tell me no."

She's not sure why she says it. Maybe she is mad at him for thinking that she would give up her ship so easily. Her reasoning is irrelevant, though, because it is the wrong thing to say. The comment comes out dripping with sarcasm. She immediately regrets it. She tenses as Wolf's face scrunches up into something between a frown and a snarl. His upper lip curls and exposes his canines.

"I'm sorry." Krystal rushes to mitigate her outburst. She decides that an apology is wrong as well because Wolf's expression doesn't change.

"Do you want your ship fixed or not? Because that's not the way to get it done." His tone is biting. His eyes narrowed and piercing.

Krystal seizes up under the scrutiny of Wolf's gaze. The booming bass of his voice makes her fur stand on end. She doesn't know what to say. She suddenly finds that she cannot look him in the eye.

His voice is low and firm when he speaks again. "I want you to have the controls of the Wolfen memorized by the end of the week. Your Wolfen should be done by tomorrow, and your old ship will be moved to the delivery bay. We're doing flight training on Friday. I'm sure Caruso would be more than happy to help if you need it. He follows you around like a damn pup, anyway, might as well make him do something useful with his time."

"Okay." Krystal says it to the ground. Her arms are still crossed across her chest, but she is holding herself together rather than showing her defiance. She holds her breath and prays for the lupine to walk away, but his boots stay within her line of sight.

"Look at me." Wolf's voice finally breaks the tense silence.

Her stomach tightens. She can't breathe under his heavy gaze. Her heart is pounding so hard in her chest that she swears that he will hear it and be even angrier with her.

Krystal raises her eyes slowly, and finds that Wolf's gaze has softened. His brows are still furrowed, but he doesn't look like he is going to kill her anymore.

"Don't back down so easily when people pressure you." He says it like a command, but Wolf waits for her to nod in recognition before leaving her in the hangar by herself.

Krystal waits until she is absolutely sure he is gone before letting out the breath she had been holding. She feels lightheaded, but relieved. Still, she finds herself asking aloud once more, "What am I doing?"