A/N: Two timelines, running together simutaniously. For those of you who have some difficulty following it, Wolf is in the future, Fox is in the past. I'll meld it together soon enough. There are a few key events that have to happen before that happens though. All chapters labeled "Double Vision" or DV deal with two timelines at once in the chapter, I'll make furthur identifiers as needed as the story progresses.
Something like Euthanasia
Chapter two: Double vision; Two types of bored
"What we need, is work. A job, you know something to keep us from going stark raving mad." Fox announced.
Slippy looked up from his new past time of twirling spare bolts, and Peppy lifted an ear. It had fallen into his face again. Even as he pulled it up, its twin's tip began to droop. In about ten minute's time the tip would begin to dip further and further down until it fell into the vet's eye. Which of course would make Peppy grumble, push it up, straighten it… And even as he'd work with the 'faulty ear' its twin would shiver, begin to droop. The process took about half an hour an ear.
What scared Fox was that he'd seen it so many times he' timed it, and every other time he'd watched the event it had come to the exact same time.
That had been one day's entertainment. Peppy looking at them with worried eyes as Slippy handled the timer and Fox had loomed over him, measuring tape in hand so they could calculate the pull of the Great Fox's artificial gravity, the true weight and length of the descending ear.
Their conclusions, Peppy was subconsciously doing it, because the time would have been a lot faster if nature had taken a firmer hand in matters.
"Slip, when's the last time you built something?"
"Well… I've fixed a ton of stuff, the oven, the toaster, the fridge, the ar-wing's wing after the meteor incident… But I haven't built anything in forever."
"See, that's is my point..."
"Because we don't have the spare parts for me to build anything with, unless..." The amphibian's face brightened. "Could I wreck a room... please Fox, pleeeease?"
The plea hung in the air, so shocked by it that both older pilots gapped at Slippy and couldn't say a thing. Finally, the joy fled Slippy's eyes and he frowned.
" Normal, people don't ask to do that huh? I mean it'd be really stupid. What if I disrupted the air purifier system, or an oxygen transfer tube...?"
"You're going to be OK, I think." Peppy soothed, patting the crestfallen Toad between his raised eyes.
"Alright, I'm calling Pepper, its official, we need a job. I don't care what it is, even if it's janitorial duty at Cornerian Aviation High."
"Help Fox, there's flying T. paper on my tail?" Slippy mumbled, confirming Falco's rumor that he practiced his pathetic battle whines. "Hmm... that doesn't work, does it?"
"You might want to re-think that "He's OK" idea, Peppy."
"Heeey!" Slippy whined, then his wide eyes scrunched up and a smirk found it's way on his face. "Well at least I don't throw darts at a Wolf o' Donnel picture so much it looks like swiss cheese."
"I do not!" Fox roared. "I stopped doing that after the War, thank you very mu-"
"But you used to do it?" Slippy mocked.
"You... I..."
"Yes, oh great leader of Star Fox?"
Reduced to sputtering, Fox was about ready to pounce on Slippy and -if nothing else- give him a headache inspiring noogie, when Peppy pushed himself to his feet.
"I'll call Pepper, you two just go on and play."
"Play!" Ace and mechanic screamed in unison.
Ignoring them, the aged Hare shuffled out of the room.
X
"What the Hell?" Leaning back in his chair, he cracked open his working eye and heard the mechanical implant hum to life. There was a jolt, a painful span of agony that started from the artificial nerves of his left eye that made jerky red hazed path into the back of his skull. He grunted, waking up once more hating the various worlds and all the peoples in them.
But then that was his usual way of waking up. Lifting a paw, he let his claws rake through his mane, then trace a path around his scarred face so he could better scratch at the steel hued patch of fur that was only a shred lighter then the stuff growing out of the rest of him. Pale Jaw, one of his brother's nick-names for him, one of the nicer ones. Nicer than Runt, his usual nick-name...
Grinning, baring his fangs to the midnight darkness of his private room, Wolf rolled over and began his morning by nearly sliding out of his bed. His claws easily caught the grooves made by a hundred other such "rude" awakenings. Flexing his thick arms, he lifted himself by the tips of his claws out of the cloying warmth and softness of his bed. Secure in his balance, Wolf bent his elbows once, then vaulted off the side of his bed and into the center of his cylinder shaped den. Growling, pleased that his morning ritual was complete, the lupine star commander chuckled to himself.
Runt, heh, he wasn't that anymore. He was Lord. Lord O Donnel. And the fact that he might be attacked any day now and forced out of his territory didn't bother him in the slightest. Sargasso was the tip of the iceberg, the edge of his lands, he'd staked providences in Titania, Macbeth, Venom, and Corneria.
Not that the stuck up hounds of Lylat would ever admit to that.
He laughed, tugged his rumpled uniform into a kinda state of straightness, then shrugged. Like he cared what he looked like, so long as the pants were on and Caroso didn't drool. Gods, male or female, so long as it was agile, strong... Wolf shuddered at Panther's lack of preference.
Which reminded him, he'd have to ask how the feline's date with Krystal had gone. If Fox had blown any blood vessels... That was the key point of interest for Wolf, how far Panther had pushed Fox to the edge.
"When you get there McCloud, I'll be there, to push you off that edge." Wolf snarled, reaching in the dark that was half dark half... something else. The dark was twisted into something that his enhanced eye could pierce through with something that wasn't quite true vision, the difference, subtle but there, made his head spin upon awakening. The effect was something like waking up every morning with a hangover. "I'll throw you down to my hell with out a shred of remorse." Picking up his blaster, he slung it over his shoulder. Admiring the thickness of the weapon's barrel by touch alone. In the gloom of his base, Wolf O Donnel growled deep in his throat. "Just like your father, instead of him throwing me down though, its gunna be the other way around."
Flicking an ear, he was brought aware to the sound that had woken him up in the first place. The hammer and unfleash like rending of metal and steel. So they were still at it? His underlings were still hard at work pealing back the dead aparoid matter that had mixed like macabre mortar in the walls of his beloved fortress.
"Damn them, damn those bugs, damn Corneria and its flock of blue jays." Wolf growled. He shot the unoffending darkness, and cursed all the more, because for him at least the dark wasn't allowed to be dark anymore.
Damn Corneria, for making it that way.
X
"You're up." Slited eyes flickered, abandoned their mysterious point of focus between the stars outside and settled on him. "Good, the Lizard wants to see you after breakfast."
"It's Leon." Wolf corrected absently. He'd corrected Panther on Leon's name a hundred times, and still the feline insisted on the term "Lizard". Panther was either the bravest idiot born on Macbeth this decade, or the stupidest. Considering Panther's habit of running to affair to torrid affair Wolf would have voted for the latter. "Don't come crying to me when he gouges your eyes with a white hot hook or something for pissing him off."
"He's weak," Panther purred, he pulled off the top of his plate -some stupid rich accessory that he'd made from a busted wing of a scout ship- to reveal his breakfast of choice. Barely singed fish, fresh from Aquas. Wrinkling his snout, Wolf tried not to gag as the smell of raw fish tortured his delicate nostrils. "I could crush him, like so."
Flicking his wrist Panther tossed the cover, then with another hand drew his favorite hand held blaster. In less then an eye blink the metal disintegrated, and the vaporized atoms were tossed around the room.
"You're slow, and bored as hell to be frying plates." Wolf growled, picking up the slab of raw meat he'd chosen for his own meal. "Was last night that bad?"
Panther growled, his claws slid out of their sheathes and scrapped across the slab of metal that was Team Star Wolf's command center/mess hall. Having a mess of scour marks across his part of the table, Wolf wasn't going to whine about a little mutilation. Only Leon whined about the noise from time to time, but then Leon wasn't here, was he?
"She wouldn't sleep with you?"
"She liked the movie, but said she preferred if I'd keep... my not so subconscious desires to myself during the presentation." Panther growled.
"Ouch." Wolf chuckled, then sank his teeth into the raw meat with a satiated growl.
"She gave me the popcorn and left shortly after the film." Panther twined his claws together, doing an impromptu finger claw tap dance on the table's top. "Although she did make a promising offer… for a future meeting."
"Murmph?"
"Where?" Panther purred, his tail lashed, "Her place, where else?"
Choking, O'donnel nearly spat up all of his bloody meat. He settled for a hasty swallow, and stared at Panther, his eye that could wide as could be.
"She lives on the Great Fox you jack ass! With Fox! On Corneria! Why don't you just wear a target that says "member of Star Wolf" at a Cornerian shooting ground and be done with it?"
"If he does either, I'd want to watch."
Snarling, Panther threw his dead fish at Leon. The assassin easily ducked out of the way and the second his hand pealed off from the wall his skin and clothes resumed their natural hues. A long surgical knife rested in those delicate hands, with little more then a casual flick, he tossed the knife and Panther fell back in his chair with a shocked cry. The chair toppled, the feline fell out of it, and only the knife remained. Casting a glance at the knife, Wolf grinned at his friend.
"Good shot."
"Thanks."
Numbly Panther crawled to his feet; he rubbed his neck and shuddered as he realized that the fur by his jugular had been neatly shaved off.
"And for the last time, Leon." Wolf growled, picking up his haunch of meat once more. "We don't have any more prisoners; you killed the last one last week."
"That's not what I wanted to talk about."
Wolf's only reply was a grunt. He easily stripped the flesh off the bone of his meal, and even Panther shuddered and looked away at his leaders bestial eating habits.
"You're due for another check up, Wolf."
If nothing else, those words shocked the already shaken Panther more.
"Check up?"
"Hsss," Leon sighed, his lipless mouth pealed back, revealing a mess of tack shaped teeth. "It's none of your concern, cat. As you aren't going on the table, just yet."
Panther swallowed, his eyes wide, his cocksure composure blasted away by the hissed assurance that Leon gave him. The assurance that was a threat and promise all rolled up in one. Humored by the by-play between his wildly different subordinates, Wolf continued to eat his breakfast. He'd a strong enough stomach to walk by Leon's 'sport' even after eating a full meal. No matter if Leon got more creative the border he was preceding his "fun time". The real trick wasn't keeping the food down as he listened to the screams and took in the smells and sights of the dying; rather it was keeping the food in his mouth as Leon leered at Panther. And watching the three hundred some pound feline cringe in terror from a lizard who was well under a third of his weight.
