T-R-A-I-T-O-R
Prologue
"Firebird, what's your status?"
Falco glanced at the passing scenery below before answering, "No problem here, Fox." He skimmed the Arwing over the trees before pulling up. "No sign of our mysterious craft either. Figure we should move on?"
"Negative. There's something out here, something possibly dangerous that landed in this area. Wolf knew what he saw when he reported it in."
"I wonder why that furball isn't here right now. It's not like O'Donnell to sit out a mission like this. Maybe the rumors are true."
"What rumors?" Fox had a sharper edge to his voice.
Falco rolled his eyes. "You seriously don't know? It's been the talk of the Mansion… whoa! What's going on here?"
"What happened?"
Falco fiddled with the knobs and ran a quick system check. "All programs are properly working… no damage to the Arwing… sensors are going wild though." He turned the secondary systems off and did a reboot. It made no difference. "I'm getting massive energy readings here, sensors detect a ship below me but I don't see it," Falco switched his headset radio out of the private channel. "Samus, Olimar, are your ships getting any odd readings?"
"Affirmative," Samus's voice crackled through the radio. "I'm picking up faint frequencies from your position, Falco."
"Radio signals, to be more precise," Olimar added. "I've saved it to my ship's computers to decipher later. And, uh, I'm getting off-the-chart results from my scanners."
"I'm heading over Falco," Fox said. "Our little UFO might be there."
Falco fingered his blaster. "You do that; I'm going down to check it out."
"You're doing what–"
"Look, I'm going down there whether you like it or not. If you want to send someone with me, feel free to. But I want to see what this is up close. Something tells me that whoever's down there isn't friendly."
"Which is why, as your squadron leader, I'm ordering you to stay where you are!"
"No can do," Falco prepared for a landing. "A quick look at our possible enemies will be hugely advantageous. Besides," His grip on the controls tightened. "I got bored waiting for something to happen."
"Falco–"
"I'll leave the headset on. Falco, over and out."
Fox threw his hands into the air. Did that bird have to be so brash?
With a resigned sigh, he checked the squadron's coordinates. "Olimar, catch up with Falco. Radio in if anything goes wrong."
A long silence. "Olimar?"
"I can't fight," the Hocotanian said. "I'm a space explorer, a scientist…"
"Olimar, just get your butt down there!"
"… Yes sir."
Fox would've liked to pick his own squad for this reconnaissance mission. But Master Hand had given him little choice and had seemed to randomly thrown together the people who could fly a ship. "What's the difference?" Master Hand had said when Fox protested. "As long as they can fly and shoot a gun, all is well."
Fox wished that was true.
Wolf had been on guard duty, patrolling the borders when he reported a UFO landing in the forests nearby. This caused quite a stir among the Smashers and, much to Fox's annoyance, had a rumor starting that an invasion was taking place.
It seemed to tick off the Hands as well. After all, how are the Smashers supposed to focus on fighting when they were worrying their heads off about a potential attack? So Master Hand sent the Head of Security (who was, of course, Fox) with a team to put an end to the silly rumor…
… Which seemed all too real right now. But who would invade them? Who in the god-damned World would attack them? Tabuu was gone and no villain in their right mind would launch an attack, not with the Hands and their Fighting Alloys on the Smasher's side…
"Fox!"
Fox sat up at the urgent sound of Olimar's voice. "Olimar, what's your status?"
"Falco's out… army… outnumbered and they're closing in on us… don't know how much longer… hold them off…"
"Olimar, you're breaking up! Olimar!"
Static.
Fox wanted to pound the dashboard in frustration. "Samus, I'm going down. Stay here and Radio Mater Hand, tell him to send backup immediately. If I don't contact you in a minute, feel free to follow me."
"Roger that," Samus sounded reluctant. "Fox? Be careful. I have a bad feeling about this."
Fox took a deep breath. "So do I."
A/N: And so begins the (hopefully) epic adventure! This'll be my first attempt at writing a serious SSBB fanfic. Feel free to flame, review, whatever :D Oh, and yes... I do not own Super Smash Brothers Brawl though I wish I did XD