Chapter 1: Sickness and Despair
The lifeless, sterile waiting room of the downtown hospital reeked of antibiotics and the various forms of cleaning solvents which were used to keep the usually-busy room free from disease and filth. A flatscreen television cast the images of an uninteresting news broadcast onto the walls and floors of the waiting area, which was eerily devoid of activity in the early hours of the morning. The small, white room was completely empty except for two figures—a blue-furred vulpine bounty hunter known as Kursed and a gray lupine, who was the only man who could realistically claim to be a friend of the vixen. His name was James Byron, but he went by the title of Markheim for reasons he chose to keep to himself.
He sat beside Kursed, worryingly running his eyes over her attractive figure, which was covered with a form-fitting purple combat suit that she had quickly stepped into before she had left for the hospital. Out of sympathy, Markheim reached out his hand and softly stroked the vixen's shoulder. She would have lashed out at anyone else who had attempted to touch her; but because it was Markheim, she refrained. She gave no reaction to being gently caressed by the lupine; instead, she continued to sit in her white chair with her chin resting on her paws, her back curved, and a grim, almost tearful frown on her lips.
"You'll be fine, Kursed—I've seen you worse off than this," Markheim shakily said, attempting to disguise the fear and worry in his voice. The telepathic vixen slowly turned her head to look at him with her broken, aquamarine eyes and shook her head in reply. "Don't lie, Mark. I'm not okay."
Markheim removed his hand from Kursed's shoulder and leaned back in his uncomfortable waiting room chair, meaninglessly digging through the pockets of his black combat fatigues and pulling out his rectangular-shaped comms device that doubled as a personal computer of sorts. Most bounty hunters and mercenaries preferred wrist gauntlets to the easily-lost cellular devices, but Markheim had never cared for the clumsy, oversized communications interfaces. He checked his inbox for any updates on any pending bounties and found nothing. Earlier that day, he and Kursed had mutually agreed to team up to take down the vixen's most lucrative target; but after a series of highly unfortunate events, the wolf found himself in a hospital waiting room, seated beside Kursed, who looked deathly ill.
Her usually-proud face was twisted into a sickly grimace that revealed that she was struggling to avoid vomiting on the floor in front of her. Her body was quivering ever so slightly, but it was more than enough for the casual observer to know that it was not due to a lack of warmth. Her hair and fur were still moist from the emergency shower she had taken in an attempt to cleanse herself of the toxic chemicals she had unexpectedly come into contact with; and the tail rings she usually wore on her fluffy, blue brush were noticeably absent, having been left back at her residence before her and Markheim's frantic drive to the hospital. It was fortunate for her that he was around to help her, because on her own, she would have never been able to make it to the hospital.
Markheim attempted to speak to her, hoping to provide the vixen with a sense of solace; but he was never known for being particularly talkative or emotional. Perhaps that was the reason the usually-reclusive Kursed didn't mind having him around. The lupine was never intrusive to her and always allowed her to maintain her own personal space, even though she shared a joint residence with him on the industrial planet on which they normally lived and resided. On occasions, weeks—and even months—would pass without either of them seeing each other; and for the most part, they stayed out of each other's business, as it was understood to both of them that bounty hunters had a right to privacy.
The miserable vixen coughed heavily and clenched her teeth as Markheim snatched up the gray bucket he had brought with him and handed it to Kursed before she violently threw up into it. The lupine gave his associate a sympathetic frown as she wiped the vomit off of her lips and returned the waste bucket to Markheim, who placed it on the floor under his seat. He had witnessed his fair share of sickness and pain and experienced it for himself as well; but he had seldom seen anyone in as much pain as Kursed. Only making matters worse was the fact that nothing he could do would ease her suffering in the least.
Kursed's pained breathing was clearly audible to the lupine, coming out in slow, taxed gasps as she fought for air. Her eyes were tightly shut and her lips were moving, but no sound came out of her mouth. "Kursed? Is something wrong?" Markheim asked, shaking her arm slightly.
For a mere second, the vixen partially opened her eye and faintly shook her head "no." However, the reality was that everything about her felt wrong. At 1:18 A.M., in a vacant hospital waiting room, she reminisced on the last time she had felt anywhere near as ill as she did now.
That time had been less than two months after the end of the Aparoid War. She had fallen victim to the flu; and because the sickness was not prevalent on her birthplace of Cerinia, she had no immunity to it. She lay in bed in her quarters on the Great Fox II, a repurposed Cornerian warship Star Fox had purchased following the destruction of their original mothership. Death was a definite possibility for her. She had been given every known medication for the disease, but her body never seemed to respond to any of them. She had broken into a dangerously high fever and was pitiably weak. As she languished in a state of half-consciousness, Fox McCloud, her closest friend and leader, knocked at her door and requested permission to enter.
"Come in," Krystal whimpered in a voice so weak that Fox could barely hear her at all. He slowly opened her bedroom door and stepped inside before carefully sitting on her bed and lying down next to her with his hands placed behind his head on one of her blue pillows. "I came here to check on you," he worriedly spoke. "Are you feeling any better?"
The vixen sadly shook her head. "Fox, I feel like I'm going to die."
"Don't say things like that, Krystal!" he quietly replied in a near-whisper, turning onto his side and looking Krystal in the eyes. "I'm not going to let you die. I promise that we'll make it through this."
Remaining silent, the vixen looked back at him with a pain-stricken gaze as a silver tear rolled down her face. Fox reached out his hand and gently caught the falling tear, preventing it from reaching the bedspread. Krystal faintly smiled at her friend and feebly leaned forward to kiss the tip of his nose, bringing a tense smile to Fox's face as he lightly brushed the Cerinian's hair. Soon, he sat up and put his feet on the metallic floor of Krystal's room, preparing to leave her side and return to his own quarters.
Time meant nothing in the cold vacuum of space, but Fox felt that he needed to catch some sleep in preparation for the next day. The reconstruction of Corneria City after the Aparoid assault was proceeding more slowly than expected; and to boost the peoples' morale, Star Fox was scheduled to make a charity appearance at Corneria City's newly-constructed city hall the next day. However, Krystal's unexpected illness cast a dark shadow over the event, which Fox, Slippy, Falco, and Peppy had all been looking forward to. Krystal, on the other hand, was shy and timid in front of large crowds; and it was possible that she had literally worried herself sick in preparation for the momentous occasion following the most frantic combat the team had experienced since Andross's attack on the Lylat System.
Fox stood up and slowly shuffled toward Krystal's door, shutting off the lights as he stepped into the doorway.
"Fox…"
He turned his head and looked back at Krystal, responding to her plea. "What is it, Krystal?"
"Please, Fox—don't leave me." Her voice was tinged with sorrow and pain; and even though Fox was unable to see much of anything in the darkness surrounding the now-unlit room, he knew that Krystal was on the verge of tears. Carefully, he closed the door, made his way back to her bedside, and unzipped his jacket, tossing it onto the floor before pulling Krystal's bedsheets forward and climbing into bed next to her. The Cerinian sighed with an air of pained satisfaction as she shifted her eyes to meet his. "Thank you," she whispered, placing a paw on his chest beneath the silky sheets.
That night brought about the best sleep either of them had ever experienced before. Both Fox and Krystal slept deeply, completely unconcerned about any nightmares that may have sought to haunt their dreams. The next morning, Krystal awoke to find Fox kneeling by her bedside, watching her sleep and constantly monitoring her vitals to make sure that she would survive the night. She faintly yawned and weakly looked up at Fox, who sympathetically smiled back at her. That morning, his eyes looked more beautiful to her than she remembered. Something in them seemed to give her hope, telling her that everything would be alright and that she would return to health. "Are you feeling any better?" he asked, softly stroking her ear, causing it to twitch out of reflex.
"Stop it," she giggled, weakly raising her velvety, blue paw to bat Fox's hand away from her ear. "I think so, Fox. Can you help me out of bed?"
"Absolutely," he consented, pulling Krystal's sheets forward and tenderly grasping her paw, which she had extended for him. Carefully, he helped his infirm teammate to her feet and held her up in case she found herself unable to stand. However, she had no trouble maintaining her balance. Fox's eyes darted across her figure, which was accented with a short, white nightgown that suited her body beautifully. While he reveled in her beauty, Krystal stepped forward, placed both of her paws around his neck, and nuzzled into him. Fox immediately blushed, feeling uncertain about his female teammate's affectionate actions towards him. However, his uneasiness quickly turned to bliss, and he allowed himself to indulge in the moment. He tenderly held her in his arms for more than three minutes, with Krystal making no attempt to break free of his grasp.
He was about to let go of her, when she lifted her head from his chest and kissed him, overwhelming him with a sheer flood of emotions that he had never experienced before. The rational, sensible part of him quickly came out with words, telling Krystal, "Stop! What if I get sick?"
The vixen seemed completely unfazed by his retort. "You won't," she murmured as she continued to shower him with her affections. It was not long before Fox gave into her provocation and returned her love with a passion he never thought he would have the capacity to express. He pushed her back onto the bed, making sure not to injure or hurt her in any way. She softly dropped to the springy surface with a sharp gasp as Fox lowered himself to the mattress and continued to dote on her before a knock at the door brought their passionate foreplay to a screeching halt.
Falco's voice could clearly be heard through Krystal's door. "Fox? Are you in there? What the heck are you doing?"
"Nothing, Falco!" he shouted in response, albeit in an inordinately panicked tone of voice that vaguely tipped Falco off to what he had been doing. "Oh, I see! Giving Krystal some love, eh?" he taunted, making sure to push every one of Fox's metaphorical buttons before he changed the topic and said, "Fox, we're supposed to meet in the hangar in twenty minutes. A shuttle just arrived to take us down to the planet's surface. Is Krystal going to be okay with this?"
"Are you going to be able to do this, Krystal?" Fox asked the vixen quietly enough so that Falco wouldn't hear him.
The Cerinian weakly gritted her teeth and replied, "Only if you stay with me when they ask me to talk."
"It's a deal," he consented, agreeing to Krystal's terms. "Falco, she says she's up for it."
"All right, Foxie—you'd better get ready, then. It doesn't look like they're happy about having to wait for us," he said before walking away from Krystal's door and leaving her and Fox to themselves in the room.
"Ma'am, the doctor is ready to see you now."
The sudden noise of the feline nurse's voice pulled Kursed out of her sickened reverie. Slowly, she rose to her feet, with Markheim placing a caring paw on her back and helping her to stand up. The sickly vixen slowly trudged down the hall towards the doctor's examination room, following the feline nurse until she arrived at the dull, gray door to the medical room. She never turned to look back at her lupine friend, who wearily sighed and regressed back into his seat in the waiting room before playing with his communicator again.
"Come in," said the voice of the elderly doctor, a large collie. Kursed slowly entered the room as the nurse left the two canids to themselves and swiftly traveled down the hall to another room, where she would be of more assistance to the injured or infirm denizens of the downtown hospital. "Sit down," the doctor calmly ordered. With a noticeably great deal of difficulty, Kursed seated herself on the soft, faux leather pads belonging to the doctor's examination chair. The doctor keenly ran his eyes across Kursed's body, observing her face and eyes in particular. Every few seconds, he would quietly grunt and scribble down one or two words on his worryingly large clipboard, adjusting his powerful spectacles every time they attempted to slide down his long muzzle.
"This is not good at all," he muttered, quickly writing down a line of observations on his clipboard. "I'm afraid that I need more information, Miss Kursed. Please undress."
Unhappily complying with the doctor's request, Kursed stood up and unzipped her combat suit, letting it fall to the floor at her feet before she sighed and removed her undergarments as well. It was necessary for her to disrobe so that the doctor would be able to uncover what ailed her, but she felt ashamed nonetheless. She felt that her nudity was something that only belonged to her and… that man. She could no longer bear to speak his name. The mere thought of her leader and former lover was enough to spark tremors of angst and resentment in her mind.
An inkling of her being deeply desired to seek him out and forgive him for the tragic and unintended error he had made by dismissing her from his team; but over the years, Kursed had silenced and suppressed that small, quiet voice inside her mind. "It was for my safety," she bitterly scoffed to herself. "As if I couldn't protect myself."
Instead of being taken as the well-intended order that it was, Kursed—known as Krystal at the time—took her leader's dismissal of her as an insult—an affront to her ability to protect and defend herself in the heat of battle. After leaving the hangar of the Great Fox II for the final time in her Cloud Runner fighter, she swore to herself to prove that she was more than capable of holding her own against anything that dared to harm her. She joined Star Fox's rivals—Star Wolf—and proceeded to assist them in their fight against the Anglars' attack on the Lylat System, all while taunting her former lover by deliberately showing her affections for Panther Caroso, Star Wolf's newest member apart from her.
In spite of her attempts to prove to her former leader that he was wrong, she never felt satisfied. The war ended victoriously for Star Wolf, but not for Kursed, who slowly became a hated and despised figure among Lylat's populace, who began to hiss at her as she passed them. The burden of her situation quickly became too great for her to cope with; and with tears in her eyes, she abandoned Star Wolf, her former friends in Star Fox, and the Lylat System altogether, determining in her mind to never return to the system which she had called home after her homeworld, Cerinia, was destroyed.
Following a vague mental memory of the location of her doomed planet, she traveled far outside the Lylat System, eventually running out of food and fuel. Her body slowly began to wither away in the deep reaches of space as her ship's oxygen supply gradually diminished. It was by pure chance that she was rescued not too far from the orbit of a highly populated metropolis planet that was known as a premier locale for mercenaries and bounty hunters.
The man who saved her from the clutches of death had been returning from a successful assassination attempt on an important politician on a neighboring planet; and as he began his preparations to return home, he found the powerless white and blue Cloud Runner floating aimlessly in space. The frigate he was piloting was large enough to contain the craft, so he pulled it in and quickly entered his ship's small hangar area to investigate his catch.
The man's name was Markheim, and the rest was history for Kursed. In the years following their chance encounter, they had come to know each other as close associates and confidantes, although their relationship never ventured past the 'mutual friend' stage. Romance was completely out of the question for both of them. For Markheim, it was due to his jaded and seared conscious. For Kursed, it was because after Star Fox, she felt that she would never be capable of truly loving another man. She had genuinely tried to love Panther when she flew with Star Wolf, but she could never shake her feelings that continued to tell her that she belonged with… that wretched man.
Kursed seated herself in the doctor's examination chair and uncomfortably crossed her arms in front of her breasts as the doctor closely examined her fur and underlying skin for the telltale signs of an illness. Temporarily, he turned his back and snatched up a needle from the counter behind him before he plunged it into Kursed's leg and drew a small quantity of the vixen's blood, causing her to momentarily yelp in pain. With the sample collected, he placed the collection tube in a white machine that began to run a diagnostic sweep on her blood in an attempt to locate the source of Kursed's illness.
The vixen and the canine doctor kept their eyes fixed on the small, blue readout to the right of the blood-filled tube, watching as the meter indicating the progress of the sweep slowly moved to the right, inching closer to its conclusion. In seconds, the screen flashed red, and a dissonant buzz emanated from the machine. The doctor furrowed his eyebrows in concern and stepped closer to the machine, intending to more closely observe the results of the scan. Kursed nervously squirmed in her seat as she waited to hear the doctor's verdict.
With a distraught, stony gaze, the collie slowly turned to face Kursed and said, "The blood sample indicates that you've inhaled significant quantities of Myeroetheline." He briefly paused, then continued, "Myeroetheline is an airborne toxin usually found in fuel tubes belonging to industrial machinery. It's been illegal for commercial use for quite some time, so I have no explanation for how you managed to inhale it."
Kursed fearfully looked back at the doctor. "What does that mean for me?"
For almost five seconds, the doctor looked away from Kursed before he hesitantly redirected his attention towards her. "It means that you probably only have about a week to live. The sickness will wear off soon, but it'll come back and enter its terminal phase in a matter of days."
"Is there anything I can do to stop it?" she pleaded, her eyes nearly filling with tears.
"I'm afraid not, ma'am. Personally, I suggest that you tie up any loose ends before you pass on."
The doctor's words seemed to drive an iron stake into Kursed's heart, already weakened by the effects of the toxin she had inhaled. No longer attempting to maintain her composure, she bitterly wept in the doctor's chair, filling the room with her earsplitting wails. The doctor forlornly glanced at her, feeling sympathetic towards the sickly vixen, but knowing that there was nothing he could do about her illness. When he had first graduated from medical school and entered the professional practice, he had been traumatized when his patients would die, even though he had done everything in his power to save them. Over time, though, he had learned to accept the inevitable and to avoid wasting energy on grieving for the terminally ill.
Compassionately, he picked Kursed's clothes off the floor and handed them to her, telling her to dress herself and to leave the room. The vixen slowly and tearfully complied; and after one minute, she returned to the hospital lobby, where Markheim was anxiously waiting for her. He was going to ask her about the doctor's prognosis, but when he saw the tears in her eyes, he realized that her illness was terminal; and he knew that she did not have much longer to live.
"Come on, Mark. Let's go," the vixen feebly whimpered, motioning for the door that would lead them out of the waiting room. The lupine wearily rose to his feet and followed his female friend out the door and into the hallway outside. Kursed led the way to the elevator and pressed the down arrow, causing the door to quickly open. Clearly, no one after them had used it. The hospital was eerily devoid of activity that night, only adding to the disheartening feelings that plagued Kursed and ate at her heart in an all-too-literal sense.
Both the vulpine and the lupine silently rode the elevator down to the bottom floor, with Markheim discouragingly scanning his friend's unhealthy figure. Even though he was less perceptive to emotions than most, he was easily able to discern that her spirit was broken. She was completely shattered, without a hope for the future to lean on. He briefly recalled when he had felt the same way. The only difference was that he had found a way out of his situation. Inversely, Kursed was powerless to escape from the obsidian claws of death that were slowly coming to claim her—to pull her down into the yawning abyss of the grave.
She attempted to maintain a straight face and appear confident; but the bitter, agonized scowl on her face never vanished. The fur beneath her eyes was darker than the fur that surrounded it, having been moistened by the many tears she had cried after hearing the doctor's dismal prognosis about the state of her health.
Shortly, the elevator 'dinged', and the two metallic door panels slid open to allow Kursed and Markheim to exit. The lupine took Kursed's cerulean paw in his powerful gray one and began to walk out of the building into the parking lot adjacent to the hospital building. It brought a mild degree of comfort to the grieving vixen to feel her friend's hand in her own. It was surprisingly warm, considering that many considered Markheim to be one of the coldest-hearted bounty hunters in existence.
A light, misting drizzle fell over the city as Markheim let go of Kursed's trembling paw and pulled his car's key fob out of his pocket, pressing a specially marked button which unlocked the vehicle and fired up the ignition all at once. The metallic gray-colored, angular, exotic sports car noisily came to life as its somewhat experimental plasma-based powerplant awkwardly initiated its mechanical heartbeat, creating a small explosive sound before quieting down marginally; although it was still obnoxiously loud, especially to Kursed's ears. Then again, Markheim's prototype road car was never intended to be subtle. He could have afforded a quieter model that rode on antigravity diffusers rather than wheels, but those vehicles tended to be unreliable when the weight figure exceeded 1,000 kilograms. However, the main reason he had selected the exorbitantly-priced vehicle as his land-based transportation was due to its imposing qualities that reflected those of his own persona.
Kursed struggled to climb into the red, leather-lined interior, crouching under the vertically-opening doors and trying to avoid hitting her head while entering the vehicle. Markheim effortlessly slid into his driver's seat and pressed a button that closed both of the doors before he reversed the car out of his parking spot and began to make his way back to the residence he and Kursed shared in a secluded part of a suburban area roughly fifteen miles from the city's center.
As Markheim turned out of the hospital parking lot onto a large, mostly empty avenue, he quietly spoke to Kursed, still keeping his attention focused on the road ahead and shifting into a higher gear to lower the engine's RPM and bring the noise level down somewhat. "What are you going to do, Kursed? How long did he give you?"
"A week," she pitiably muttered.
"Damn… that toxin was worse than I thought. Is there anything you want to do? Maybe take a relaxing vacation before you… well…"
"…Die? Don't be bashful, Mark," Kursed coldly replied. "I don't want to do anything. I'd rather die now than watch myself fade away into nothing."
"Is there anything I can do to make it better for you?" he asked, albeit in a voice that showed very little emotion.
"No, Mark," she said before correcting herself, "Actually, there is one thing you can do. Shoot me. There's no sense in me waiting to die. Just get it over with."
Still keeping his weary, intense eyes on the road, the lupine vehemently replied, "No. Absolutely not."
Pleading with him, Kursed cried, "Why not, Mark? Don't let me suffer like this! If you won't do it, I will."
"Please don't, Kursed!" he forcefully retorted. "Is there anything that would like to do before you die?" He briefly paused, pondering his choice of words. "If you could do anything at all—knowing that it would be the last thing you ever did—what would you do?"
Kursed lowered her head and looked away from Markheim, tears slowly forming in her eyes as she clenched her teeth, her mouth shifting into a spiteful, angst-filled scowl in the process. Her breathing intensified, and it became apparent that she was furious at someone or something. An enormous struggle was brewing within her mind, and for the rest of the trip home, she remained silent.
After Markheim pulled his car into his garage, Kursed quickly entered the house and walked to her room, slamming the door behind her and locking it without so much as bidding her friend goodnight. She pulled off her clothes and lay down on her bed with the room's lights turned off, leaving only the silver moon to illuminate her room.
Desperately, she opened the top drawer in the nightstand next to her bed and dug through its contents until she managed to grasp a ripped, torn photograph that appeared to have been repeatedly destroyed and then taped back together. The bottom corner of the small picture was singed black and looked about ready to fall off, and various parts of the photograph were partially smudged from being exposed to drops of a clear liquid. The picture depicted Krystal standing next to Fox McCloud in a field of flowers as the sun began to set in the horizon behind them. Both of them looked indescribably happy to be in each other's company. Their paws were locked together in love, and their eyes radiated a sense of joy that defied description. At the bottom right portion of the photograph was a series of words written in a silver, metallic permanent marker.
"I love you, K—"
The place where the name "Krystal" would have been written had been burned away and blackened by the flames that had claimed the picture's right bottom corner. With tears of hatred and anger mixed with genuine sorry and longing, Kursed tightly gripped the mutilated portrait and looked at Fox's face, always smiling back at her, never deviating from his confident, contented gaze. In a fit of anger, the vixen crumpled up the photograph and hurled it to the bedspread, falling into a prone position face-down on the bed. She sobbed and shed a flood of bitter tears, making no attempt to keep them from running off of her fur and dripping down onto the bed.
"Why did you do this to me, Fox?!" she yelled, picking up the damaged picture and unfolding it like she had done many times in the past. She looked again at his face, unchanged no matter how many times she attempted and failed to destroy the image of him and her together. The reality was that she couldn't bring herself to do it. No matter how hard she tried to purge herself of any feelings she had for Fox, there was always a sliver of her that still loved him.
Sobbing furiously, Kursed remembered the question Markheim had asked her in the car—the question that started it all.
"If you could do anything at all—knowing that it would be the last thing you ever did—what would you do?"
With her hands shaking, she gripped the picture of her and Fox and cried even harder. She looked down at the moonlit bed and noticed that her tears had created a moist spot that was more than a foot in diameter. That small part of her wanted nothing more than to find Fox and admit that in spite of her angst and despair; despite the fact that he had kicked her out of his team—her family—she still loved him. With nothing left to cling to, she finally caved and whispered, "Please, Fox. Take me back. I don't care what you did to me anymore. I have nothing without you."