Quick disclaimer: this story is a semi-sequel to my Nintendo X Capcom story, which is why this chapter contains references to Resident Evil's BSAA as well as Darkstalkers villain Jedah Dohma. Please have a look at the final chapter of that story to see the lead-in. Sorry for the confusion.

CHAPTER ONE

Recruits

Being taken into custody was the last thing Star Fox was expecting to happen as they made their way back to Corneria from Earth. They weren't even sure how they would be able to find their way back with the ridiculous sort of situation they had just gotten themselves into. After all, if these people were able to subdue Falco Lombardi, their ace pilot, then they were far from just hired gunmen.

As they were brought below deck, they were at least comforted in knowing that they weren't exactly being detained when they were brought to the command bridge, but then what was happening to them? No one seemed phased by them, which was rather odd since they had been getting stares left and right by other human beings not too long ago. In truth, they felt that they'd rather be with those people right now than the company they were with now. At least there it didn't feel like they had done something wrong and they weren't aware of it.

Maybe them being here was enough for Earth to fly into a panic. They were technically aliens, after all. All they were hoping was that this wouldn't somehow lead to some terrible conflict. They were certainly no strangers to that.

They were seated as the bogey that had cleverly led them into this trap walked toward a large stand. The bogey, the so-called Iron Man, halted on the platform and stretched out his arms, prompting several mechanical tendrils to appear from the ceiling and floor and dig into the small cracks on his exoskeleton until every metal piece came off, revealing a tall man wearing a rather casual outfit compared to what he'd been wearing a few seconds ago. Like Director Fury, this man had a beard and mustache, though was Caucasian. Another thing that separated him from Fury was the glowing object in his chest. Even Slippy had no idea what it was.

"Hey, listen." Iron Man said to Falco. "Sorry I took your ship down back there. It's a fine ship, and I'll fix it up in no time. On the house. You did good back there, anyhow, so I'd say you've earned it."

Falco grunted at first, but then looked over at Iron Man with a smirk.

"Same to you."

Iron Man smirked in return and held out his hand. Falco returned this gesture after a real name was issued.

"Tony Stark."

"Falco Lombardi."

The remaining members of the team sat down while the woman that had subdued Falco (who had taken the time to identify herself as Natasha Romanov, though was codenamed Black Widow) kept a watchful eye on them.

"Could someone please explain to us what we did wrong?" Fox asked. "…I mean, yes, we're talking animals and on your planet, that has to be the strangest thing ever, but…"

Fury entered the room, still looking as intimidating as he did before, but that intimidation washing over Star Fox shifted into confusion when Fury typed in a command on a nearby keyboard and a monitor lit up, profiles of all four members appearing on-screen.

"We received this information concerning you from the BSAA." he announced. "Seems the four of you fell through some sort of wormhole and travelled backward in time a couple decades. At least, that was your explanation of the situation. Care to explain it to me?"

"It was because of a..." Krystal started. "…well, I'm not sure if you'll believe me."

"I've seen some pretty strange things in my time. I can believe quite a bit."

"…we were brought here as pawns by a demon named Jedah Dohma. Whatever the case, our being here isn't any of our doing."

Fury grunted and looked over Fox's information.

"Fox McCloud. Age thirty. Born February 27th, 2007 on planet Papetoon in the Lylat System. Mother, Vixy Reinard. Father, James McCloud. Leader of the commando-for-hire unit Star Fox…and due to be married to Krystal here."

Fox flushed bright red, but otherwise made no indication of embarrassment. Krystal, on the other hand, not only blushed, but giggled somewhat.

"Is that relevant?" Fox demanded.

"We do like to get to know the people we work with."

"So we're not under arrest, then. Despite the fact that we're walking and talking wild animals."

"Not even close. As for the talking animals thing, we've seen a walking and talking tree. You four are far from the strangest thing we've seen in our lives."

"…a talking tree? …Never mind. So what's this Avengers Initiative thing you were talking about?"

"The same thing as Star Fox, pretty much. Just with more members and more resources, but with a far smaller galactic range. More effective? That's up to you. Why don't we cut straight to the chase, though?"

He fiddled around with the computer again until pictures of four creatures appeared on the screen, each of them being an anthropomorphic aquatic creature. One being a hammerhead shark, one being an octopus, one being a squid, and one being a completely unrecognizable species altogether.

"Do they look familiar?"

The Star Fox team stood up and took closer looks at the pictures, and as Fury expected, they recognized the four figures in seconds.

"Didn't we fight those guys during the Anglar Blitz?" asked Slippy. "Zazan, Zako, Octoman, and Zoldge."

"Yeah! Fox, look at this one!" Falco exclaimed, pointing to the squid Zoldge. "You and Wolf knocked that guy into the fire on Solar, didn't you? How is he still alive? Hell, how are any of them still alive?! They should all be caviar after what we did to them!"

The mention of Wolf O'Donnell didn't please Fox, especially not when one of his teammates said it like it meant nothing, but Falco did have a point. They hadn't just tipped Zoldge's ship against Solar's surface. They had submerged it into the plasma, beating out any chance of the ship or its pilot surviving, and yet here Zoldge was without so much as a single burn on his body.

"It seems," Fury continued. "...that these four followed you through the wormhole from your galaxy, and they've started a subtle underground takeover of the entire city one burrough at a time. We've managed to keep them restrained for a little while, but it's occurred to us that if anyone can get rid of them, it's the four of you."

Falco sneered.

"So it's a 'your mess so you clean it up' deal, huh?"

"No." Natasha answered. "Because we'll be helping you. The four of you aren't nearly enough to take them on yourselves. They've gotten a lot of help."

"Meaning…"

"We've got supervillains like them on Earth, too."

"Yeah, we kinda figured that out the hard way recently."

"That, and we want to make sure you don't make things even worse."

"How reassuring. Glad to be of service…"

Fox bit his lip. They were being assigned to save Earth for the second time. He thought they'd at least get some time to rest before going out and giving more blood and sweat for this planet, but no. They were getting chucked straight back into the lion's den.

"Of course," Fury continued. "We can't make you do anything. We want you to help us only if you want to."

And by that, he meant they'd be held responsible if the Anglars took Earth over. A very large span of options, if I do say so myself.

The team looked at each other, all unsure of what to do. They were having enough problems just trying to get back home and having just gotten out of a sticky situation. They weren't keen to immediately launching themselves back into more trouble, but what would refusing gain them?

"On one condition." Fox finally said. "If we help you, you need to help us find our way back to our own time."

"I can't guarantee that I'll be able to do it, but you can bet your ass that I'll try." Fury said with a smile.

"Ordinarily, I'd say that trying isn't enough, but hey. What else are we supposed to do?"

"Excellent. Bruce."

A black-haired man wearing glasses stepped forward with a strange syringe-like device in his hand.

"Star Fox, this is Bruce Banner, our friendly neighbourhood biology genius." Fury announced.

"What's he got there?" asked Krystal.

Tony was the one to answer.

"Tracking devices that he and I developed together. It's injected directly into the arm and measures the heartbeat. That way, we can know where you are and whether or not you're conscious."

"…beat that, Slip." Falco said with a smirk.

"Kiss my ass, Falco." Slippy growled.

Bruce stepped forward and loaded up the syringe with a small capsule-like object.

"Alright." he said. "Who wants to go first? Just a quick warning: it's gonna hurt real bad for about a second."

Fox stepped forward and held out his arm. Bruce pressed the syringe to it and pulled the trigger, forcing Fox into a pained state as he felt the capsule slip through his skin and plant itself in his arm. The pain lasted for only a second, though, and a bright light began flashing on the monitor, indicating Fox's location.

"Perfect." announced Bruce. "Who's next?"

Falco reluctantly came forward, though let out a string of curses when he was injected. Then came Krystal, but as Bruce approached her to inject her, she reached out with her mind and examined his. A genius level intellect, but a temper problem…and the temper gave way into memories of running about and smashing everything in his sight, yelling at the top of his lungs and not caring who or what got in his way just as long as he could get to the thing that made him so angry. It also gave a name. One word that quickly caught everyone's attention when she looked at Bruce and said it.

"Hulk."

Bruce looked at her, his expression not changing in the least bit though she could sense a hint of concern.

"Nick warned me that you might do that. If it makes you feel any better, I'm more in control of it that I used to be."

"...what is it like?"

"I don't like talking about it so much, but I will say that it kinda hurts...a lot.

Bruce and Krystal didn't explain their conversation to the other Star Fox members as the third injection took place, and Slippy seemed disgruntled to offer forth his arm, but Fury held out his hand.

"No need, Slippy. According to your profile, you're a bit of a basket case, so keeping you aboard the helicarrier is perhaps a better idea."
"Are you serious?! I took out a mob of pig-men in one fell swoop and saved these guys! Are you saying that doesn't mean anything?!"

"That said, your profile also identifies you as a technical genius. I'm sure Bruce would greatly appreciate you helping in his experiments."

Bruce seemed unsure of this, but Slippy merely grumbled to himself before throwing up his arms in defeat.

"Alright. Fine. I'm not that useless, though."

"If we're going to figure out what these 'Anglars' have planned, we're going to need to take down each burrough one-by-one. We'll be sending you in pairs. Head up to the deck and we'll send you down. Fox, you and Natasha will take Brooklyn. Falco, you and Tony will take Manhattan. As for Krystal, you'll head for Queens. Your partner's already on the deck waiting for you. Let's move out, folks!"

Krystal's partner was a man named Clint Barton, codenamed Hawkeye thanks to his expert marksman skills. Not with a gun, but surprisingly with a bow. Star Fox had seen a few of their comrades use bows in the battle they'd just been in, but to think that there were people of Earth still using them was a bit of a Speaking of ranged weapons.

"Lombardi!" he called. "You're the marksman here. Maybe you can give these a try."

He tossed Falco two leather cuffs. Falco himself looked at the cuffs with a look of confusion before his finger grazed a small switch on one of them. In the blink of an eye, a large chrome arm cannon extended out of it, loaded up with a plasma reserve and ready to fire.

"This…is awesome!" he exclaimed before slipping the cuffs onto his wrists.

"Thought you'd like them." said Clint with a smirk.

"Don't trust him 100% with those, though." Fox called with a laugh. "Out of all of us, he's the one that loves to blow things up the most."

"I'll try to keep that in mind. Suit up, everyone. We're heading down."

He had quickly tossed everyone a parachute save for Tony who had gotten back into his suit. The suit was really a technical marvel, fitting Tony like a glove while still looking as durable as a battleship. A single thought ran through their heads as they remembered how easily he'd taken down Falco's Arwing: "I gotta get me one of those."

"So wait, we're skydiving?" Falco asked.

"We're hoping to enter the city in a subtle manner without stirring up a lot of trouble." Clint answered. "Besides, we busted your jets."

"Arwings."

"Whatever they're called. Don't tell me you're scared, Lombardi."

"Of course not. Skydiving sounds badass. I was just wondering."

Fox looked over the side of the helicarrier at the bustling city below. It was almost as large as Corneria's capital city if he could believe it, and it seemed just as lively. It was hard to believe that the Anglars had attempted to take over Corneria a few months before this had happened. Now they were trying to do the same thing to Earth. They didn't actually think it was going to work, did it? No. They had to have some sort of trump card, but what?

He groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. This kind of business just never ended.

"I need a long vacation after this." he sighed.

His ears pricked up when he felt Krystal lay a hand on his shoulder. He looked at her and saw a sad smile on her face.

"We're just never gonna get to the wedding, are we?" she asked.

Fox smiled and felt at her cheek. All the two wanted was to settle down and maybe have a couple kids. This whole galactic hero thing was making that far more difficult than it needed to be, but it was their duty. If they didn't do it, no one else would…well, no one else except these Avenger people, but that wasn't the point and it wasn't what Fox wanted to think about.

"We'll get there. I promise. Even if I have to give up a limb, we're gonna get married. Besides, even if we don't, it's not like we're forbidden to stay in love. All marriage really does is make us both give the same tax payment…and you don't pay taxes, anyway."

Krystal laughed. He certainly knew how to cheer her up.

"Yeah. You're right…but for now, duty calls, right?"

"Don't worry. We'll get this done and get home soon. You come back in one piece, okay?"

"Look who's talking, fly boy."

They shared a laugh and one quick hug before they all took their spots lined up on the wide diving board.

"Wish we could stop and admire the scenery." Falco laughed. "No offense, but it really looks like you guys haven't done much in terms of environmental care."
"Gets better at night." Tony responded. "Especially where the two of us are headed. You all ready?"

The three nodded and looked down over the edge. It was a wonder they didn't get vertigo right then and there with how high they were. They could still hear the hustle and bustle of the city from there, but it still seemed far too overwhelming. The weirdest part was that they were mercenaries who specialized in aerial combat, so why did this feel so much different?

The answer became apparent as the six leaped over the side and delved to the ground, getting into their respective pairs and splitting off to their assigned areas of the city. This wasn't Corneria. This was Earth, and despite how the two planets would establish formal relations in less than half a decade if memory served, they handled things differently here.

I'm going to try to work on this story and Sunfall at the same time in set intervals, so I'll publish one or two or however many chapters I have ready for this story and then another amount for Sunfall afterward. Sunfall's just been kind of sitting there on hold ever since I released it, and since this story isn't directly related to it, I can work on both without having to worry about spoiling the continuity.

And let me answer a quick question that you may or may not have: why didn't I put this in the crossover section? Simple: most people wouldn't be able to find it since it would be in a separate crossover section rather than both the Star Fox and Avengers sections. Anyway, I hope you'll stick around for the next little while and I hope you can find some form of entertainment in this story. Until next time.

SOUNDTRACK SO FAR (yep)

Briefing- The Avengers theme