Chapter II: Discovery, Tragedy, and a New Life

While I was too busy taking in my surroundings, Jarvis's voice brought me back to my senses.

"Master Aaron, the wormhole is gone!" Jarvis said in exclamation. I could swear that Tony had upgraded Jarvis with a full set of human emotions.

"It doesn't matter Jarvis," I replied, shrugging my shoulders. "We still have or return device."

"Coming through the wormhole shorted it out, Master Aaron," Jarvis replied in a sad tone of voice.

"What?" I exclaimed. "What about the Inter-Universal Communicator? Did the wormhole short that out as well?"

"Fortunately, it didn't, sir," Jarvis replied. "I'll activate the computer controlling it for you."

"Thanks, Jarvis," I replied, thought-clicking the 'call' command with my military-grade cerebral implants. What shocked me was the mental message saying 'Currently in Iron Man Universe'. I thought-clicked the current date, for my armor had a micro quantum reactor clock built into it. I nearly fell backwards in shock when I saw the date: July 31st, 2559. And then it dawned on me: I had traveled 530 years into the future. Not only that, but according to the map of the Milky Way Galaxy built into my cerebral hardware, I was in a star system called Cerinius, which, according to the star charts, was 35,000 light-years from Sol. Then Jarvis brought me back to reality.

"Master Aaron, there's a warp ship beaming an encrypted message to you," Jarvis said. "It's encrypted with your voice code."

I waited until it said 'Download Complete'. And then I said, "This is Lt. Commander Aaron Leroy Silvers. Authorization Code Alpha Two-Seven-Niner. Decrypt."

After the message 'Voice Code Accept' popped up, a video from Tony came up in my mind's eye. Tony then began to speak.

"Lt. Commander, if you're watching this video message, then you must've figured out that you were sent through time instead of between parallel universes. We also figured out from your tracking signal that Cerinia was real. And if that's true, then the Lylat System is real, which also means that the Star Fox world is real, but far in the future and in our Universe instead of its' own. But that's not why I made this video message.

"After you stepped through the timehole, the wormhole on your end disappeared. How I know that is because your tracking signal was cut off, plus it was a hunch. But the surprises didn't stop there.

"The wormhole had escaped the wormhole machine and went to just outside Earth's orbit and from there turned into a black hole. We have only three minutes after the end of this message until we're in the black hole's event horizon. The last thing I would like to say is that when we genetically modified you, we were able to regress your age back to when you were 15 years and eight days old. Also, we were able to build your 352-crew member warp ship. We had sent it to Cerinia to a time three days before you arrived there yourself. Your crew, which we had genetically modified also, is waiting for you on your ship, which we named the U.C.S Lincoln. As of right now, you and your crew, which we had carefully selected, are the Last Sons of Earth. Good luck, Lt. Commander Silvers. Goodbye. And may God be with you."

Shock gripped me like a hard kick to the gut after hearing that message. I fell to my knees and started crying. All of my friends and family, including my identical twin sons, Aaron, Jr and Joshua, dead. I just screamed. I screamed until I was certain that my lungs were burning. After I was screaming for about five minutes, I passed out.

A few hours later, I woke up to the voices of an adult male, an adult female, and a 14-year-old girl talking around me. I turned my head to look around, but my heads-up display was deactivated. I then heard the voices talking around me more clearly.

"I think he's awakening," the adult male said. I thought-clicked the heads-up display to turn on. When it finally turned on after five minutes, I could only see dim flickers of light: Candles. I tried to turn up the HUD brightness, but that didn't work. It was still too dark. When I looked around, I could the dim outlines of faces.

"Krystal, you watch over him. We'll go prepare an herbal hot water compress for this stranger."

"Okay, Mother. I will call you and Father if anything happens. Or if he would wake up, whoever he is."

After I saw the adult male and female leave the room, I carefully sit up and flip my armor's face mask up. I started to look around... that's better. I could see a lot better. A girl's voice gasps. Carefully I turn to the source of the surprised gasp. What I saw made me star struck.

Right next to me was the most beautiful female humanoid fox I had ever seen. I could feel my cheeks burn. Quickly I shook my head and looked at the fox in the eyes.

"Waar ben ik?" I asked in Dutch (Where am I?).

"I fear I... can't understand you," the fox said with a sad look on her face.

"That's okay," I said with a sad tone of voice.

"You don't sound okay," the fox replied. "You look like something's bothering you."

"My home planet was destroyed a few hours ago," I said after thought-clicking the current time: 1750 hours local time.

"Buy the Cerinian Gods, I'm so sorry," the fox said.

"Actually, I'm glad my planet's gone," I replied, shrugging my shoulders.

"Why would you say that?" The fox asked, shocked. "That's a terrible thing to say about one's homeworld."

"Because the entire planet was in a war called the Genocide War. We were trying to eradicate the entire Muslim population because they were trying to detonate nuclear weapons in my country's borders." I paused to catch my breath. "But anyway, that was all in the past. I'm Lt. Commander Aaron Leroy Silvers, United States Marine Corps. Just call me Aaron." I took the female fox's hand and kissed it.

"I'm Krystal. Pleased to meet you." Krystal said, blushing and giggling. "You sure are kind."

"My mother always taught me to be nice to girls," I said, looking away, blushing myself. Then I carefully got up and flipped my Iron Fox Armor's face mask shut. Then I tried to talk to Jarvis.

"Jarvis, you still there?" I asked, trying to reach Jarvis.

"I'm here, Master Aaron," Jarvis replied, much to my relief. "I was beginning to get worried that you wouldn't wake up."

Just from that response, I knew then that Tony had upgraded Jarvis with full human emotions. After I dismissed the thought, I said to Jarvis, "Detach Mark IV Briefcase Armor, Jarvis."

The armor started to detach itself from my body. 20 seconds later, it was fully detached from my body. I pulled my arms from the sleeves, and then the armor was fully folded up. Just as soon as the Mark IV Briefcase Armor had finished folding up, Krystal's parents came into the room. When they saw me standing, they were surprised to see me standing up so soon after I had woken up. I turned to Krystal's and saluted them, for even on an alien planet, I could recognize the tattoo marks of a tribal chief and his wife.

"Lt. Commander Aaron Leroy Silvers at your service, Chief," I said as if I was addressing the CO of the Marines. Krystal's father just smiled and held his hand in friendship. I took his hand and shook it.

"I'm Chief Agaron, Lt. Commander. Just call me Aga," Aga said in a friendly tone of voice. "And this is my wife, Kara. I believe you already know our daughter, Lt. Commander."

"Yes sir, I do," I said, Krystal and I looking away from each other and blushing. Aga apparently noticed this and cleared his throat, looking at Krystal.

"Daughter, why don't you take Aaron and show him around the village?" Aga asked Krystal. Krystal nodded and took my hand.

"Yes, Father. Come on, Aaron, I'll show you around," Krystal said, pulling me out of the hut. Kara turned to her husband.

"Aga, do you get the feeling that Krystal has fallen in love with Mr. Silvers?" Kara asked her husband.

"I actually sensed it in their minds," Aga told his wife. "When Aaron flipped his armor's face mask up, and they saw each other, they were instantly in love with each other." Then Aga smiled thoughtfully and said, "I think we may have found a husband for our daughter. We'll just see how things play out between them. And if they mate in front of the Great Fox God's statue in the sacred shrine, then we'll know that they're meant for each other. For now, we'll wait and see."

Aga and Kara smile as they look out of the hut's doorway, as if they could see their daughter and her love interest walking around outside.

Meanwhile, out in the village...

Krystal and I were already enjoying each other's company, with Krystal explaining the last building on the tour: The Cerinian Senate Building.

"This is where policy is determined on Cerinia," Krystal said after pointing to the Senate Hut. "All of the tribal chiefs currently in the Senate, with the exception of my father, govern a certain area of land on Cerinia. My father holds the highest office in the Senate, while my brother, Kalius, is the Senator of my tribe's area of land. We've discovered the borders on the other half of Cerinia of land controlled by tribes not currently a part of the Senate. We are currently in the induction process for three of those tribes."

""Very interesting," I replied, nodding. "On my planet, we called this sort of government democracy. Your senators and people in your father's office are chosen by the commoners, am I correct, Krystal?"

"Correct, Aaron," Krystal replied back, smiling at my knowledge. "The people in my father's position are elected for a four-year term, while the senators are elected for a six-year term. But people in my father's position can only be re-elected once, whether right after their current term, or after anyone who is elected after them. After that second four-year term, they have to retire and go back to being a Senator. But senators can be re-elected as many times as they want. It just depends on how popular that Senator is with his commoners, while also depending on how well he worked for the people."

"Interesting, very interesting," I replied. "I have a feeling that my new life here will be pretty interesting." I continued to admire the Cerinian Senate Hut. All of a sudden, Krystal came up to me.

"Aaron, can I talk to you?" Krystal asked.

"Sure, Krystal," I replied, turning to her. "What's on your mind?"

"I don't know if I should say this," Krystal said. "But I... I like you."

"You do?" I asked her. Krystal nodded, hanging her head in embarrassment. I smile as I lifted her head so she would look me in the eyes. I smiled lovingly at her.

"It's funny how the world works," I said to Krystal, "because I like you too. Ever since I saw your face after I woke up, I thought you were the most beautiful fox I had ever seen."

Krystal looked up at me hopefully. "Really?" Krystal asked. "You mean it?"

"I really mean it." I told her. "I love you Krystal. And I don't wan anything to come between us."

Krystal smiled softly as she said, "I love you too... Aaron Silvers." Krystal and I gently leaned in for a kiss, while in my head; my EA was playing one of my favorite Celine Dion love songs, 'Because You Loved Me'. This wasn't my first kiss, but it was a first for Krystal. After we parted from our kiss, we walked back to her hut hand-in-hand, with Krystal laying her head on my shoulder. Tomorrow was a new beginning. It was also the start of a new life for me and my new girlfriend, Krystal of Cerinia.