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Chapter I — The First Station: Draining the System [PT 1]

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Yanntek — "Rise" {YouTube, Spotify}

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It was early morning in Dewhurst, a small town of roughly six hundred residents five-hundred miles east of the Continental River, therefore eight-hundred miles away from Armorin, the capital city of Papetoon. And with the early morning hours of the small rural town came the inevitable dust storms blowing in from the Easton Mountains that reduced visibility to mere feet, consequently bringing the town itself into a standstill. Papetoonian dust storms were nasty, vicious storms, and nobody would be caught out there in the middle of it for fear that if the unhealthy air didn't asphyxiate you within moments of stepping outside, the debris being whirled around like a twister would definitely pelt you to a slow, excruciatingly painful death.

Gruesome, yes, but, luckily, it was the spring season of the arid, desert planet, so with the increase of temperature as well as the consequential increased humidity, the dust storms didn't last more than an hour or two. And, due to the strange, yet convenient daylight cycle of the planet, the dust storms would be long gone before the first rounds of delivery trucks started combing over the grid-like streets of the small rural township to deliver the daily paper to the patrons that supported the local printer's shop. Everyone was still safe and asleep in their homes while the storms ravaged the outside. It was such a common occurrence that people became used to the high winds, pluming sand, and dangerously low breathing ability outside and just ignored the storms all together.

Everyone except for thirty-two year old retired mercenary pilot Fox McCloud. Even being that he was in his hometown, in the same house that he had spent well over half of his childhood in before he and his family moved to Corneria, he still couldn't ignore the dust storms. He was never able to eliminate the howling wind and the excruciatingly annoying sound of the fine particles of sand relentlessly slamming against the resilient siding of his home, even when the homes themselves were built to withstand that kind of abuse. The sound akin to an unrelenting rainstorm complete with high winds and occasional rumbles of thunder was the one thing—amongst other things—that he couldn't be paid to hear more of any more than he already did in his life.

Lying in nothing but his fur, soaking in the divine comfort of his bed, Fox absentmindedly stared out the crack in his curtains to see the dark blue, almost black skies obscured by the thick, swirling dust. He flipped onto his side to get a better view with his bushy tail strategically flipped over his waist. From his vantage point, he saw the heavy curtains blocking almost all of the window, along with his nightstand that housed a very small picture of his family, taken about five years ago.

Maybe he should give them a call. It has been way too long since he's called them.

Then again, it might not be in his best interest. His dad would probably chide him for disbanding the mercenary team he had spent so much time and money building from the ground up for no noteworthy reason; at least to James that is. His mother would probably get in that same boat, maybe going as far as giving him a lecture on why disbanding the team was a bad idea in the long run. Either way, he couldn't win.

As the winds picked up in volume and intensity, as well as the annoying sound of the particles of coarse sand pelting his window, Fox groaned and flipped his legs over his bedside. After rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, as well as combing his long, unkempt mohawk back into place, he stood up, grabbed his robe hanging on the doorknob of his closet, slipped his arms through the sleeves and tightened the strap around his waist, and finally punched the snooze button on his alarm clock over an hour before it was supposed to go off. With that, he dragged his heels and clicked his hind claws against the hardwood floors as he slipped out of his bedroom.

With the interior of his home still relatively dark due to the Lylatian sun still resting under the horizon, Fox gently felt his way through the narrow hallway in order to get to the living room residing at the opposite end. As he flicked the light switch at the very end of the hallway, a lamp nestled in the far corner of his living room came to life, bathing the small room in a deep, orangey-yellow glow as if a large candle had been lit. With that, he could finally see the two small, worn couches arranged in an L shape against the back and left side walls overlooking a glass coffee table, as well as the bookshelf pressed against the wall joining up with the hallway. A small TV set hung from the wall opposite of the closest couch, and just in front of that TV—from where the vulpine stood—sat the front door, with a rack of worn coats in front of it. Directly opposite of that door was the entryway to the kitchen that utilized the wall the nearest couch was pressed against to house a countertop and many sets of drawers and cabinets.

Groggily, Fox slipped through the arched entryway and immediately slid up to his coffee maker—already prepped the night before. With a touch of a button, the coffee maker groaned in activation and set to work in brewing Fox's morning wake-up drink. While that was working, Fox moved over to the end of the countertop where his smartphone and tablet were charging. He unplugged both, each one letting out a quiet chime in recognition that they were no longer charging, and slowly trotted over to his kitchen table and set both down. Due to his phone being unplugged just moments prior, his screen was illuminated when he set it down—his lock screen image blurred and obscured with a notification saying he had four unread messages.

Sighing, he sank down into one of the kitchen chairs and held the device in his paw, unlocking it and taking a look at the messages. The first one was a message from an unknown address, which he ignored until later. Funny enough, two of the other messages were junk messages that he immediately deleted, which left him with one unread message… from his mother. With a small, yet forced grin plastered on his muzzle, he opened the message and read the text that popped up on his screen.

Fox, did you hear what some of your friends did? I think it was Falco, Miyu, Fara, and a few others that formed their own mercenary team. Weren't they with Star Fox before you decided to disband it? Well, it looks like they're still having fun and making a name for themselves while you're enjoying your retirement. If anything, at least give them a call and with them luck or something. They're your friends; you should at least try to keep in contact with them. You're lucky I still send you messages.

Oh, don't forget: your father's birthday is next week. I'd really appreciate it if you'd take some time to visit. If not, just send a card, or a message, or something to let us know that you're actually still alive. Let us know as soon as you can, or as soon as you feel like it, as the case may be.

Halfway through the message, Fox's smile faded away into a particularly nasty and disapproving scowl, and as soon as he was done he unceremoniously set his phone back down on the kitchen table, completely forgetting about the message he had yet to read. After another sigh, he opened up his tablet, immediately popping up a home screen filled with the latest sports scores and a few news headlines. Just as he expected from his mother's message, the top news story involved his former teammates. The picture displayed on the screen pictured Falco, Slippy, Miyu, Fay, Fara, and two other characters he had never seen before, while the headline above the picture was enough to put a sour taste in the vulpine's mouth.

Ex Star Fox ace pilot Falco Lombardi and company form 'replacement' Star Fox PMC — "Star Falcon" takes to the skies.

Fox didn't even bother reading the rest of the article. In fact, he had a hunch about what was depicted in the article, ranging from Falco boasting about his superior skills and Miyu cracking a joke like she would do given the chance, so he just closed up his tablet without looking at anything else. Conveniently, his coffee pot buzzed as soon as he did so, signaling that his morning cup of joe was ready. After pouring himself a mug of the blazing hot liquid, he wandered over into the living room and stared out of the front window.

Absentmindedly sipping his coffee, Fox became entranced with the outside sunrise. It had been a while since he caught the exact moment of the dust storm settling due to the rising Lylatian sun over the horizon. By some weather phenomenon that had yet to be explained coherently and completely, the dust storms at night would only be calmed with the presence of sunlight. As soon as the smallest ray of sunlight peeked over the horizon, the raging storms of sand and dust would slowly simmer down into faint gusts of wind, eventually settling completely as soon as the environment started to heat up and lighten up.

Fox was always intrigued with this interesting weather patterns, yet he didn't have an adequate knowledge of what kind of science was behind that division of meteorology, so he just let the sights do the talking for him. He wanted to explain the means of why these dust storms behaved in the way they did, but at the same time it would ruin the intrigue for him. He admired its enigmatic presence because it allowed him to separate his mind from the real world for a few minutes to calm his nerves and to soothe his muscles.

He watched as the sun slowly eased up from the horizon line, gradually increasing the surface temperatures as well as lightening up the otherwise dark and cold desert planet, not realizing that he had been standing there, sipping his coffee for over half an hour. He felt more alert now that his coffee was nothing more than a few drops in the bottom of his mug, but, once again, he let his mind wander off for too long that he didn't even realize it. Shaking himself into the present time, he traveled back into the kitchen, set his mug by the half-full coffee pot to be refilled later, then trudged over to the heavy door separating the kitchen from the garage attached to his home. Before stepping out, he slipped his sandals over his hind paws and tightened the robe around his waist.

In his two car garage sat a single heavily armored SUV, recycled from ground missions in the old Star Fox days. Albeit unpractical with its highly resistant material and bulletproof glass, its fuel economy was shockingly high, and Fox loved its handling and its admittedly intimidating size. As he punched the button next to the door, causing the large garage door to slowly retract into the ceiling, the early morning sun glinted off of the stainless steel grill and the matte black finish of his SUV, showcasing its unblemished and clean appearance. However, the vulpine ignored it for now, and grabbed the small broom leaning up against the wall just underneath the garage door mechanism.

Slowly, but efficiently, Fox used that broom to wipe off the layer of orangey-brown dust that covered his driveway. To him, it was no different than shoveling snow on Corneria, but he did think that the layer of sand was an easier task to accomplish for multiple reasons. For one, it was much lighter than the heavy snow that could accumulate, and for two he didn't have to bundle up to clean up the sand. In fact, if it wasn't for the robe he was wearing, he could do it with nothing at all. The only thing he hated about dusting off his driveway was the annoying scraping sound of the bristles on his broom being forcefully wiped against the cement. The grainy sound was enough to drive him nuts within minutes, but over the years he slowly started getting used to the sound, even if it was still a nuisance to his ears.

He finally got all the way down to the base of his driveway, where the cement sloped down into a curb the street his home resided on linked up with. To his right, a few more houses with more than an adequate amount of space between them consumed with the desolate orange sand continued down the street until another street intersected it, while to his left the same street his house sat on extended without bound, sometimes curving to accommodate for the sloping terrain and sheer cliff sides that the ground degraded into. Most of the houses varied enough to distinguish one's home just by the outside appearance, and Fox's home fell under that category—being that his home was the only one on the street that had a deep cream colored siding that was only a few shades lighter than the sand covering the ground. A few decorative spots of cacti grew in the wedge of space stemming from the path to his front door and his driveway, and his mailbox—a weather beaten metal box with his last name and a set of four digits—sat on the far edge of his driveway.

After Fox momentarily leaned his broom against the box, he opened the front flap and pulled out its contents. A few articles filled the box, mainly his newspaper and junk advertisements, as well as a bill for his electricity, but other than that it had nothing of importance. He shut the mailbox, stuffed his bill in with his newspaper and stuck it underneath his arm, and grabbed his broom, but as soon as he started to walk away he heard the faint roar of a motorcycle. With his ears pointed upward, he focused in on the engine's rumbling that, after a bit of straining to hear, was stemming from the left side of the street in the cover of the cliffs.

Within moments, a singular headlight became visible around the terrain of the sharp cliffs towards the very end of the street. The light progressively became brighter and more defined as the motorcycle approached, and for a while there Fox assumed the rider would just harmlessly drive by. However, as the biker got within three houses of Fox, the engine cut out, leaving the rider to gradually coast up to the vulpine.

It became apparent to Fox that the rider was female judging by the composition of her frame and the way her body seemed to hug her bike. Most of her frame was covered in a thick jet-black suit resembling a jump suit, with a few decals of well-known racing companies stitched onto the chest and shoulders. A matching bike helmet adorned her head aside from her long, narrow muzzle that protruded from the aforementioned headgear. A combination of light gray, tan, and brown fur covered her protruding muzzle and long, bushy tail that jutted out from her waist. With her short, slender frame, and the color of her fur, the biker was obviously a coyote underneath all of her protective gear.

The motorcyclist slowly crawled to a stop just at the base of his driveway, and as soon as she came to a complete stop she flipped her visor upward, revealing a set of deep, sapphire blue eyes that popped with her dull, sand-like textured fur. She immediately smiled and kicked her kickstand up to balance her bike, allowing her to stand up completely. Now, Fox wasn't tall by any stretch of the word, probably standing at a solid five foot eight, but she was easily two or three inches shorter. Fox couldn't help but let his eyes wander; luckily the coyote was too preoccupied with her emotions to even notice.

"Oh my gosh!" the female yipped, jumping on her toes and holding her arms to her chest with her paws balled in overwhelming excitement. "You're Fox McCloud! THE Fox McCloud!"

Fox let a small grin surface at the coyote's bubbliness and excitement. "That's me," he responded with an unconscious tone of overbearing pride.

The coyote squealed and removed her black motorbike helmet, revealing an explosion of vibrant, albeit unnaturally toned light blonde hair that slightly curled from its initial straight style as it flowed down all the way to her shoulder blades. After setting her helmet on the seat, she ran a paw from the very leftmost side of her hair where the blonde coloring faded into her natural light brown color, flipping it out of her eyes and over to the right side of her face as it flowed down in front of her triangular ear. After wasting a few seconds to make sure that her appearance was presentable, she took a few steps forward and forcefully grabbed the vulpine's available paw and gave it a vigorous shake with both of her own.

"I'm Natalia Fayne," the coyote said giddily, releasing her vice grip on the vulpine's paw. "I'm, like, your number one fan!"

"Oh," Fox almost recoiled, admittedly feeling incredibly awkward standing in front of a young fan in nothing but his robe. "Well, it's nice to meet you."

"You're telling me?!" Natalia giggled, eyes wide in excitement as her voice seemed to jitter in overwhelming happiness. "I'm finally talking with my idol! You were definitely my idol when you were still flying. Most girls like those generic boy bands or stuff like that, but not me! Like, ten years ago or so when I was still in primary school, my room was filled with everything Star Fox! My favorite thing was a replica nylon jacket that I wore everywhere! It was so nice and comfy! And—get this—they even had a video game and everything!"

Fox chuckled sheepishly and scratched the back of his neck.

"Oh, am I making you uncomfortable?" she asked, folding her ears back. "You did the thing where you scratch your neck, so you must be uncomfortable. I'm so sorry, I'm just… really excited that I'm finally talking with my hero. I'm sorry if I'm weirding you out…"

"It's okay," Fox assured. "Believe me, you're tame compared to other fans of mine years back."

"That makes me feel better," Natalia grinned nervously, grabbing at her wrist. "So, what are you doing here of all places? I thought you were still flying."

"I disbanded the team and retired," he replied frankly. "But my old teammates just formed a replacement team in my absence, so it's not all bad."

"Aww, that's a bummer," she said, seemingly deflating like a punctured balloon. "You were my favorite mercenary."

"I can tell," Fox chuckled, making the coyote smile. "So, I was your idol, eh?"

"Yeah!" Natalia yipped, her voice becoming energetic again. "I first heard of you when I was twelve, and ten years later I still haven't forgotten you. It's hard to forget your amazing heroics. You were the best pilot ever! Even better than Falco!"

Fox grinned, blushing slightly at the praise. "Oh, thanks."

"Oh, can I get your autograph?" she asked, folding her paws together. "Please?"

"Sure," the vulpine said warmly, adjusting the newspaper under his arm.

Natalia squealed in delight and skipped back over to her motorcycle. She lifted the seat, exposing a secret compartment with a black backpack and a yellow padded envelope. Without wasting any time, she grabbed the envelope and shut the seat compartment, and immediately removed a magazine from the envelope and gingerly outstretched it to the vulpine.

"It's an old edition of the Mercenary Contractors magazine that featured your team on the cover," she explained. "It's my favorite edition because it goes super in-depth into Star Fox, from you guys' equipment to all of your previous jobs, even before you took over."

"I remember this," Fox said with subtle awe, gently flipping through the pages. "This was back in the good 'ol days where mercenary teams actually made a living in the world. I think I remember posing for that photo shoot too, and answering all the questions they threw at me."

"A lot of people thought that you and your team had metal prosthetics with how your boots looked in this picture," Natalia commented, covering her muzzle to stifle a giggle.

"I've honestly lost count of how many people have asked to see my legs because of that," Fox mumbled, taking the black marker the coyote gave him.

"Well, you obviously don't," she remarked, her eyes wandering down to Fox's hind paws. "I hope I didn't wake you up with my motorcycle. I've tried to calm the noise down, but it's still really loud."

"Nah, just the dust storms keeping me up," Fox corrected. "And it's really not a big deal you caught me like this. Could be a lot worse."

"True," she about laughed, watching as Fox uncapped the marker. Accompanying his large, swooping signature that looked about as elegant as his flying skill, Fox wrote: [To my number one fan, Natalia; keep on flying. All the best, —Fox McCloud]

As soon as the coyote saw the elegant signature written just above his picture on the magazine, she squealed again and immediately tucked the magazine into her envelope so that it wouldn't get ruined. She then placed the envelope back into the compartment underneath her seat, but also removed the backpack that sat in there as well.

"Oh, I wanna show you something too," she said, unzipping one of the pouches and rummaging around inside of it. She finally pulled out a small replica model of his custom-made blaster he used on ground operations. Down to every little minute detail, the replica looked identical to his own weapon despite being half the size.

"Whoa," Fox gasped in visible awe. "This looks exactly like mine."

"I made it in my engineering class in college," she explained, holding out the replica to Fox. "Yeah, it actually works too."

"Wow," he grinned, looking over every little inch of the weapon before handing it back. "That's impressive."

"Thanks," Natalia giggled, blushing noticeably as her hips and tail started to sway. "I keep it on me just in case something happens. I almost got attacked once, but this huge guy saved me, and ever since then I've been working with him. I'm his main engineer."

"Nice," Fox said with encouragement. "Who do you work for?"

"Oh, a private mercenary company, like you did," she said happily.

"Really?" the vulpine asked with a hint of worry. "How is it?"

"It's so much fun!" the coyote nearly yipped, starting to bounce on her feet again. "Did I ever show you how this works?"

Caught off-guard with the sudden topic change, Fox stuttered, "Oh, well, does it, uh, work like mine?"

"Somewhat," she replied, beginning to fiddle with the weapon. "It's got the normal laser setting, but it's also got a stun option that I created and spliced into it. See, you just flip this dial here, and then you can do this."

Before Fox had time to even process his next move, Natalia turned the weapon at him and fired, hitting him in the stomach with the stun round. In one less-than-graceful motion, Fox fell sideways onto his driveway, involuntarily hitting his skull against the cement while his newspaper and other mail scattered from his grasp. Natalia covered her muzzle with both of her paws—still with her weapon tightly clasped in her right paw—and stared at Fox's unconscious and unmoving frame for a few seconds, but once she was sure that he was completely out, she abandoned her shocked expression and started snickering to herself.

After the coyote stuffed her weapon back into her bag and flipped it onto her shoulders, she reached into one of her pockets on her black jump suit and pulled out her phone. While staring at Fox's unmoving frame, she dialed in a few numbers and instantly held it up to her face. As soon as the dial tone faded away, she didn't bother waiting for the person on the other line to initiate the conversation and immediately began speaking.

"Hey, it's me. McCloud's down for the count. Worked like a charm. He'll be out for an hour at most, so hurry up and get here."

"We're only a block away," a gruff, male voice replied. "Good work, Fayne."

"Would you mind hurrying up, Wolf?" Natalia suggested, her eyes wandering to a particular spot on the vulpine. "Fox is only in his robe, and it kinda untied when he fell over."

"Hey, just be happy your little explosion of fan-girl worked," Wolf's voice grunted. "Oh, and please try to cover that up before we get here."

"Afraid of getting turned on by it?" Natalia snickered. In reply, she got the empty tone of a terminated phone call, causing her to explode into resounding laughter as she kicked part of the vulpine's robe over his privates. Seconds later, another roar of a motorcycle became audible to her ears, and sure enough, off to the right of Fox's house where the intersection was, the coyote saw a single motorbike followed by a pure white SUV spin around the corner and drive up to Fox's driveway.

The person on the motorbike—the unmistakable reptilian frame of Leon Powalski—immediately hopped off and removed his helmet. Upon seeing Fox lying flat, he snickered and approached Natalia.

"Good," he sneered, his eyes wandering from her to Fox with such speed that you couldn't blink or else you'd miss what he was looking at. "Maybe I underestimated your talent. I didn't think you could pull it off."

"Told ya to never doubt me," Natalia remarked confidently, followed by a friendly elbow to the ribcage of the chameleon. As Leon guided his bike up the curb and around Fox's body, the doors to the white SUV opened almost in perfect unison, the sound of the unlatching doors and faint chatter slipping out of the truck filling the coyote's ears.

The first to get out was the person in the back seat behind the driver; a toned, slim blue jay decked out in a black tactical vest overtop his snow white shirt and a pair of cargo khaki pants tucked into his black boots. A small headset encompassed the back of his head, forming around his black, white, and cobalt blue feathers like it was part of his skull. A small microphone jutted out from the left side of his headset and jutted off of the avian's long, pointed beak. He turned his green eyes to the coyote, then to Fox's unconscious frame, then let a smirk crease his beak as he nodded his head.

After the blue jay nodded, the person sitting behind the passenger's seat—a tall and slender light copper husky—poked her head above the clearing of the truck's front end and smiled. Shortly after, she stood in front of the hood, using the faintly reflective properties of the paint job to paw her explosion of cinnamon colored locks into place. Even with it looking as good as it did, the husky's voluminous hair could only be compared to a volcanic eruption off the top of her head that luxuriously flowed down her shoulders all the way past the base of her tail in length. With the sun looming close to the horizon, the sunlight hit her hair in a way that gave it the illusion that it was on fire. Covering her hourglass frame was a pale pink tank top that only covered the area of her cleavage and about a half an inch below it, with a white sleeveless vest overtop it—allowing her to show off her white and light brown arms. Two small pistols were holstered to her belt, which aided in holding up a pair of skimpy, black jean shorts that only covered about a third of her upper legs. Overall, the husky took advantage of her looks and flaunted them very well, considering how Leon stopped what he was doing to stare.

The person in the passenger's seat was the next to exit the confinements of the SUV; a hulking mass of white and light gray fur in the form of a malamute becoming visible in the dull early morning light. The malamute apparently was built like a tank, with hulking, yet toned muscles covering almost every part of his six foot seven frame. A nasty scar starting just below the base of his hairline—where a head of relatively long, black hair erratically scattered between his tall, pointed ears—traveled down across his forehead and right steel gray eye, ending at the base of his jawline. Wearing nothing but a sleeveless black shirt and a set of similarly colored cargo pants, the canine's intimidating size was enough to send shivers down anyone's spine, even without the large automatic rifle strapped to his back and the hilt of an energy beam sword strapped to his leftmost belt loop.

Finally, the driver lifted himself out of the SUV, and it was none other than the infamous Wolf O'Donnell—eye patch and all. As of recently he abandoned his spoked shoulder pads and went for something more conventional, like his current getup of an insulated jacket overtop a faded orange t-shirt, tied together with a pair of black combat pants and his usual boots. After shutting the door, he turned to the blue jay and poked at the back of the truck.

"Kajær, the gear," he said sternly, prompting the avian to nod in acknowledgement, then Wolf watched as he trotted around the truck and opened the cargo door. As he lifted heavy looking bags out of the back, Wolf slowly walked up to the coyote and gently ran his paw over her head, smiling the entire time.

"Good job," he said, allowing the coyote to throw her hair back into place. "Runt never saw it coming, did he?"

"Not in the slightest," Natalia cooed back, slyly running her cheek across the tuft of fur poking out from Wolf's shirt as she approached her motorcycle parked just in front of the SUV. "So, now what?"

"First off, Dahlstrom needs to drag Fox inside," Wolf stated, to which the massive malamute helping the avian take the bags of equipment out of the back of the truck groaned in response.

"Sheila needs to get him," the malamute argued in a deadpanned, thick Fichinian* accent, gently setting a few of the heavy bags on the curb next to the driveway. "I'm helping Adam get the gear inside."

"I can't do all of this on my own," the blue jay, Adam, agreed, grunting as he picked up a heavy duffel. "I need Patrik's help to get all of this inside."

Wolf let a growl form in the back of his throat. "Fine. She, I need you to grab Fox and take him inside."

Sheila huffed impatiently, but ended up coming off more adorable than frustrated. "Aww, Wolf, come on! Do I really have to?"

"Yes," Wolf replied all too quickly, disregarding the pleading stare the husky was giving him. "We still need him."

The light copper husky tried to glare at the lupine behind his back, but it faded almost instantly as she let a sigh through her nostrils. She unenthusiastically crouched down and wedged her paws underneath Fox's back, and—with a bit of difficulty, apparent from her grunts and groans—managed to pry Fox off of the ground and drape him over her shoulder. Natalia was gracious enough to help the husky back up to a standing position after she successfully had Fox in an improvised fireman's carry, but after that she was on her own, forced to lug his unconscious body across the driveway, through the garage, and into his house after the coyote opened the door for her.

Huffing in discomfort, she did her best to gently set Fox down on one of the living room couches, which worked for the most part. Still completely unconscious, Fox limply laid on his back as Sheila pulled his legs back up on the couch and draped his robe back over his waist. As soon as she backed away, Leon poked in and forced Fox's arms behind his back and tied them together with a thick zip-tie, and then did the same with his ankles.

"Hey, hey, not so tight," Sheila whined when Leon tightened the ties as tight as Fox's limbs would let them.

"I like it when my prey can't get away," Leon sneered to himself, looking over his handiwork with a smug smile.

Sheila shook her head and looked in the kitchen just in time to see Adam and Patrik drop a total of five large duffel bags next to Fox's kitchen table. Adam immediately took a seat and gasped for breath, panting from exertion, while Patrik just looked at the pile of bags and let a burst of air out of his nose.

"Kajær," the malamute grunted, picking one of the bags out of the pile and unceremoniously set it on the table in front of the blue jay.

"Careful!" Adam squawked, immediately grabbing at the bag. "This equipment is fragile."

"Then I'd recommend you get everything set up," Patrik suggested, his voice refusing to venture from an uninterested, blank tone. He set his large rifle on the countertop next to the coffee pot, then poked his head out of the garage to see Wolf backing the white SUV into the garage, with Natalia guiding the two motorcycles into the small space in between both heavy vehicles now residing in the garage. As soon as everything was secure, Patrik nodded and punched the button to let the garage door slowly descend to cover up their vehicles.

"And we are in the clear," Natalia said, pumping her balled paw in the air as a celebration.

"Not yet," Wolf said, shutting the door to his truck. He walked up to the coyote and wrapped an arm around her much shorter frame as a broken hug of sorts before continuing, "They could still locate us if Kajær doesn't set up our firewall right."

Natalia nodded, slipping inside the kitchen before Wolf pulled the door shut. The lupine then immediately walked up to the blue jay, who already had a computer and two separate hard drives set up on the kitchen table. Seeing that Adam was clearly occupied in setting up his rig, he walked right past him and approached Leon, who was overlooking the avian's progress.

"So we've got our hideout," Leon remarked.

"Yep," Wolf agreed.

"And our gear and crew."

"Yep."

"What about him?" Leon asked, pointing to Fox, still unconscious on the couch with Sheila tending to the wound on his head.

"He'll be useful," Wolf said confidently, folding his arms.

"How?" the chameleon questioned. "You do know he's Fox McCloud, right?"

"No shit," Wolf nearly snorted. "I'm saying he can be useful to this operation. His data can get us into the mainframe."

Awkwardly, Adam raised a wing and turned around in his seat. "Well, technically I can get in without an authorized personnel's ID—"

"You'd trip the security system if you did," Wolf interrupted. "We're trying to draw as little attention as we can."

"And using Fox's ID will bypass all of that security," Patrik remarked, not losing that deadpan tone throughout his words. "Makes our job easier, saves time, and is safer than trying to break into their network from scratch."

"But it's still a risk getting into a secure government database," Adam added, pulling out a stack of hard drives from one of the bags and setting it onto the table behind his computer. "Even if we can get through, sapping their data will get us noticed."

"Which is why we bail as soon as we get the info we need," Wolf responded, glancing over his shoulder at Fox. "But first, we need to wait for him to wake up."

"Not to be a killjoy," Patrik's perpetually blank voice spoke up. "But what use does he have to us? If anything, he'll get in the way."

"You might think that, but that's actually not the case," the lupine answered him surely. "He's got skill. And I think I can speak for him by saying that he retried and disbanded his team too soon. We could use someone like him."

Leon scoffed from beside him. "Him? He'll never agree."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Sheila broke into the conversation, passing by the team while holding a bloodied rag. "Wolf's quite the persuader."

"Still doesn't change the fact that Fox has been fighting him for a decade," Leon muttered, watching the husky drop the rag into the kitchen sink.

"We were paid to fight each other," Wolf corrected him, slowly approaching the blue jay while keeping his stare on the chameleon. "Fox knows that I was paid to fight him. There wasn't anything personal there."

"So you're thinking that you can try to push that decade of hostility under the rug to get Fox on our side," Patrik commented, sitting in the chair next to Adam. "It's a good plan, but it's just a matter of making it work."

"Don't worry about that," Wolf assured. "Soon as he wakes up, I'll make him an offer he can't refuse."

"And in the meantime we can get our rig set up for the extraction," Adam said unfocusedly, wiring his drives to his computer. "We're gonna need extra power to power these drives so that we can get the entire system."

"I'm gonna go jam the breakers so they don't trip while we do this," Patrik announced, standing up and walking towards the hallway.

"Whoa, that's not a huge fire hazard?" Wolf questioned, watching as the malamute harmlessly passed by into the hallway.

"Of course it is; this whole shoebox could go up as soon as I do it."

[҉]

*Fichinian — Finnish

A/N: Hello all, and welcome to the madness that ensues when both Sheppard and Callie are without power due to a nasty ice storm earlier in the week. Well, no power means no internet, and when that happens, bad things are bound to happen. So in a matter of a few days, Callie and I constructed the immediate framework to this fic (and by that I mean the first three or four chapters), but, as our issue seems to be, updates may be few and far between due to our respective work loads and lives. However, that won't deter us. We'll do what we can, when we can, and regardless of our intervals, I hope you fellas enjoy them nonetheless.

This is the first part to the opening chapter, so I would expect questions, but don't worry, they're all answered in due time. I feel like I need to make that statement because if I don't, I seem to lose my viewership return for the next chapter for some odd reason. There is a method to my madness, I swear.

Also, don't worry, I haven't forgotten about Veria. That's just in a bit of a rut right now. I'll try to churn out another chapter soon, I promise.

Anyway, again, hope you guys enjoyed, and as always, reviews are welcome and encouraged.

~Sheppard