August 13, 2125/ 0840 hours/ Great Fox/ Space
Fox walked over to another door, opened it and yelled into it, "Peppy! Get your lazy butt out here, we need some Arwings!"
"Wha- Whazzat?" the old rabbit said as he was rudely woken up. Fox walked back down and sat down so Krystal could dress his arm.
"Oh yeah, you wake up the old hare, but not the frog," Falco said.
"Oh, calm down Falco, you know Slippy's been up the past few weeks upgrading the Arwing. He needs the rest."
"Yeah, I guess I should be thankful," the avian said.
"There you go," replied the vulpine.
While they were waiting, Fox opened the blast door to the armory and returned with two blasters. He tossed one to Krystal and holstered it.
He sat down and waited for Peppy to come out, once he did, Fox stood up and motioned for Bella and Krystal to follow. Together, they walked down to the hanger to find three Arwings waiting for them. Fox had it expanded since Bella would be part of the team soon. Fox took the middle one, Krystal took the one to his right, which left the one to his left for Bella. She walked up to the side, grabbed the side firmly with her paw, and swung her legs into the cockpit. She put on her head set and looked around the cockpit. She was already beginning to recognize everything, recalling moments from her early life, when Fox would take her for rides in the Arwing. She lowered the glass and listened as Fox told her how to make the adjustments on the G-diffuser so they could leave safely. Once all the adjustments were made on the communications line and all that, they were finally able to leave.
"Now, grab the two levers on the side and slowly pull upward," Fox said.
Bella obeyed, grabbing the two levers, she pulled up. The more she pulled up, the more pressure she felt build up underneath her. A few seconds later, a crevice opened, she didn't need explaining for that, she pushed forward.
Bella had never gone so fast in her life, everything zooming past her. She decided to slow down. so she pushed back down on the levers. Once she was going a pretty good speed, she decided to experiment by pushing up on one and pulling down on the other and found that she would roll, she did the same the opposite way and stopped to wait for Fox and Krystal.
"Did I do okay?" Bella asked.
"You did perfectly," Fox replied, "who knows, you might even be as good as Falco one day, once you get enough experience."
Bella realized Fox was correct, pride swelled up inside of her but she didn't want to brag because Fox and Falco had been friends before they were even Bella's age, and she didn't want to make Fox feel bad.
They continued with the lessons without any more flaws. Bella learned how to practically everything else, somersault, U-turn, fire the lasers and a whole bunch of other stuff.
After Bella learned everything, she and Fox sparred for a little bit so she would know what to do if she got stuck in a bad situation during a dogfight. She had to be carful about not shooting Fox's Arwing, knowing how protective he was of his Arwing. She thought about how Falco would react and couldn't really make an accurate prediction on how he would react to his damaged Arwing.
Once Bella was finished, she watched Fox and Krystal fly. She was shocked at how gracefully the Arwing moved. The worst pilot in the Lylat System could learn how to fly and would still move smoothly. She rested her head on the back of her seat and looked around. When she got to her left side, Bella nearly had a heart attack.
There was another Arwing sitting next to her. She switched off the communications between herself and her parents and looked closer. She expected it to be Falco or Slippy, but the aircraft looked to old and beaten to be one of them. She looked even closer and saw that it was the strange vulpine from the Great Fox.
"Wh-who are you, and why do you keep following me?" Bella asked.
He made a couple adjustments to his Arwing, looked back at Bella through the the glass and responded,"My name is... James McCloud."
Before she could respond, the Fox named James took off again and disappeared into space.
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A/N- Yeah, I know that the chapter title doesn't really ahve anything to do with the content of the chapter, but it was the best thing that i could come up with.
and just so you know, I'm going to start writing another story about Fox's early life, but it might not be out for a while, sorry.
