Krystal ran along the forbidding alleys of this strange, dirty world with Fang following close behind. She slid and crept along the walls with ease, as Fang took soft steps with his pistol in his grasp at all times, his maroon colored fur fairly damp, with his white furred underside, from the occasional drizzles coming from the dark, polluted skies.
"Get back!" Krystal spoke softly to him, as she heard something in the distance, finding a space in which to hide with the cadet. The sound of hard metal footsteps began to echo through the alley of the never-ending city.
Fang's eyes went wide when he saw them, a group of Cybers, marching through the street, patrolling the area as Krystal stayed hidden with him.
"Robots…" Fang spoke as the group left the area. "We're in a world of robots."
"No." Krystal shook her head. "These things aren't robots…"
Fang furrowed his brow. "Well, they sure look like they are."
"Fang…" Krystal turned to the cadet, "If these things were robots, I wouldn't be sensing organic thought patterns in them right now."
"Well, what are they thinking, then?" Fang tilted his head in interest.
Krystal sighed. "Mostly the same basic thoughts…'track'…'obey'….'delete'."
Fang shook a bit as he held his pistol. "I hope we can find your ship, and get out of here soon. This place is starting to give me the willies."
Krystal nodded as she pulled out her own gun. "This city has to have some kind of central database. We might get some answers if we find that first."
Fang nodded as he followed the vixen, keeping an eye out all around him as they left the alley. What he couldn't see was the figure of a creature, that was not a Cyber, looking down on them from the top of a building, watching the two like a hawk…
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"The Mondas system?" A confused Falco looked to Fox as he explained what happened. Falco was the only available Starfox team member who could come to the base where Fox was on now, since Pepe was too busy giving a lecture at the academy, and Slippy was too occupied with "upgrading" parts of his ship.
"Yeah." Fox nodded. "I've never seen ships like these before, Falco. We took two of them down, but we had a hell of a time doing it. I don't even want to think about what a whole armada of those things could do to us. "
Falco nodded and looked over to the rest of Fox's squad, sitting around talking to each other, unsure of what was going to happen.
"Say…" Falco thought to himself before speaking again. "Isn't the Mondas system close to where Cerinia used to be?"
"I think so." Fox furrowed his brow. "What's your point?"
"Well…" Falco scratched his chin some. "I'm just looking for a reason as to why Krystal would be hanging around there, out of all the other places to be, in the galaxy."
"I don't know." Fox groaned, trying not to think about her right now. "Right now, I'm more concerned about Fang. This was supposed to be a routine scan and sweep. It's bad enough I took these rookies into dangerous combat before they were ready, if I don't return to the Academy with Fang intact, I'm in big trouble."
"Settle down, settle down." Falco motioned with his wings at the same time. "I'm sure there's a way we can find both of them. All we have to do is figure out where that tractor beam came from."
Fox hummed to himself. "How are we gonna do that?"
Falco scoffed. "Hell, I don't know.", He laughed some, "But I'm sure we'll improvise something, as always."
He walked off and checked something on a computer screen nearby as Fox sat back and shook his head slowly. "You're a real comfort, Falco."
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Krystal continued to stealthily sneak along the streets of the depressed, and broken looking city that made up this strange planet. Not a single trace of life could be found, as she and Fang hid every so often from any group of patrolling Cybers that might have seen them.
After waiting another few seconds, Krystal slowly crept out, and motioned for Fang to follow…before she sensed something flying right at her!
Krystal quickly spun and swung her staff, deflecting a blast from a Cyber in the distance, as it smashed back into the hand the Cyber shot it from, burning it's hand off. It let out a loud electronic howl, as if it were in pain, while Krystal grabbed Fang's paw and ran with him.
"We've been spotted!" She shouted.
"How did that happen?" a flustered Fang asked. "I thought you were good at sneaking around." Suddenly, another Cyber came out and fired at them, as Fang awkwardly began to return fire with his pistol, each shot just bouncing off the Cyber's armor.
"They must have more than one way to watch every place." Krystal spoke quickly as she closed her eyes and focused her telepathy before finally exclaiming. "The mouth!"
"What?" Fang looked over to her, as he dodged another blast.
"It's their weak point, Fang! Aim for the mouth!"
Fang's jaw dropped. "But it's, like, this wide!" he held his fingers only slightly apart.
"Do you want do as I say, or do you want to be dead?" Krystal barked.
Fang nodded quickly as he got up and fired a few more times, eventually hitting the Cyber in the mouth. "Gyaaahhhhhh!" The Cyber exclaimed as sparks shot from its head. It fell over and erupted in sparks, clearly a goner as Fang smiled and led the way now, protecting Krystal as she withdrew her own pistol, her staff still sheathed along her back diagonally.
Fang ran right into another area where Cybers patrolled. "Let's rooooooock!" He shouted, before letting loose with another barrage of shots from his pistol, while Krystal soon backed him up with a rapid fire spray of lasers from her specially built gun, keeping the Cybers at bay before taking out her staff and waving it through the air, letting the group have it with a well-placed fireball, before pulling Fang away into another corridor underneath the city.
"I get it, Fang,…" she grunted a bit as she put her gun away, annoyed with his brashness. "You've got guts. But even people with guts aren't fireproof." Fang just held his gun, as he followed Krystal, who lit up the end of her staff to guide them through the dark corridor.
"Man…" Fang thought to himself. "It's bad enough your Ex has to lecture me all the time. You have to do it too?"
More groups of Cybers were now leaving one of their central bases, a few of them departing in special land cruisers, that hovered a few feet above the ground as they zipped off into sections of the city.
One of them tromped over to what looked like an intercom, and pressed a button.
"The Outsiders have been detected. Unit 57-Z engaged them, only to sustain heavy casualties in the process. We are still currently tracking the two specimens."
"These specimens of ours are becoming more and more of a problem from where I sit." The same distorted voice from before spoke to the Cyber. "Where are they now?"
The Cyber's mouth lit up once more. "They last seen heading into the western tunnel system."
"Let them think they have escaped detection for now." The voice spoke. "As soon as you see them heading out of an exit, give them some distance to run, then ambush them. I want these two apprehended at all costs."
"Affirmative" The Cyber nodded slowly, before tromping off to join the rest of its currently stationed unit.
Krystal kept the way lit as she walked through the quiet series of tunnels, getting a bit lost, as there were split paths everywhere.
"Where do we go now?" Fang enquired as he held his gun.
"Give me a minute to think." Krystal responded, before looking at Fang and his gun. "I think you can put that away for now. We're not likely to encounter many dangers in a dead place like this."
Fang shrugged, as he slowly holstered his weapon, following her as she walked slowly with her staff outstretched.
"So, Cadet, what brought you to the Academy in the first place."
"Why are you so interested, all of a sudden." Fang asked.
"I'd like to get an idea of who my partner is."
He nodded as he walked and thought to himself about the subject. "Well, what can I say? I wanted to see a little action, I love flying when I can, and I wanted to go where a lot of my friends were headed. That, and the pay is lousy at the moisture farms back home, in the desert."
Krystal hummed to herself. "That's not a complex response."
Fang chuckled a bit. "Hey, I'm not a complex kind of guy."
Krystal smiled a bit, as she looked left and right. "You're a real grunt, then."
He scoffed a bit at this analysis. "Now wait, I wouldn't exactly say that."
"Oh, I would." She turned slightly. "What are you going to do about it anyway, Cadet?" She gave a quick glance at his crotch, as he simply turned his head away, and shrugged.
It was then that she turned to another path and walked. "This way."
"How do you know this is a way out?" Fang asked as he followed.
"Simple. I can smell the air pollution a little better from this direction." She dimmed the glow on her staff, as it began to get naturally brighter in the tunnel. "Always remember to utilize all five of the senses. Or six, in my case."
The two travelers walked back out into the strange city, seeing an odd looking statue in the middle of what looked like a square. Rust, and other pollutants, had eaten away at the figure, making it impossible to know what it was, exactly.
Fang quickly withdrew his pistol once again, and patrolled the area.
"It looks clear." He said as he looked back over to Krystal, who was looking high up, distracted by something.
"What's wrong?"
Krystal looked back down. "I sense something. Something a bit…odd."
"More of those robot things?" Fang readied his gun. "It's a good we know their weakness, then."
"No…" Krystal shook her head. "This doesn't feel like one of them."
She then ran off and looked back to Fang. "We'd better move quickly, now!"
The cadet nodded, and ran off with her, getting about halfway through the square, before a large collection of Cybers suddenly jumped out of two of the abandoned buildings nearby!
"Engage the outsiders!" The unit leader shouted through its illuminated mouth, as the Cybers all held out their arms, firing lasers from the palms of their hands, their deadly forms toned down according to their leader's request for simple capture.
Fang narrowly avoided being hit by these stun rays, before firing back, trying to hold his own, as Krystal let out a loud battle cry, running in and swinging at one Cyber with her staff, taking its feet out from underneath as she took out a smaller pistol and held it in her other hand, firing and smashing the Cyber's mouth apart, as she turned, and smashed another Cyber across the face with a quick swing of her staff, again firing with her pistol at the same time.
Fang was quickly grabbed by a Cyber from behind, as he screamed a bit and struggled, before cocking his pistol behind him and firing, getting the Cyber right in the mouth as it howled and sparked, running off and jumping to smash another Cyber with his right knee, crushing its face as he landed and got right next to Krystal.
"How did you do that?" She asked as she fired and swung at two other Cybers.
Fang hit his knee, producing a clanging, metallic sound. "Implant. I lost my real knee in a cruiser accident."
He jumped out of the way as two Cybers made a grab for him, making them collide into each other as Krystal fought to give herself some space between her and the Cybers. When she finally got it, she holstered her gun, and jumped a few feet into the air, coming back down and smashing her staff into the ground, making it quake as the Cybers struggled to stay on their feet, while Fang stumbled a bit as well.
Krystal used this moment to grab fang, and head off with him into another alley, vanishing.
"After them!" The unit leader called out, as the remaining Cybers got to their feet and quickly followed this command.
Krystal and Fang ran like hell through the alley, as a few scant Cybers crashed through the boarded door and made a grab for them. Krystal soon knocked them away with her staff as Fang fired away with his gun, hitting two of them right in the mouth from a distance.
"I think I've finally got the hang of this!" He laughed a bit as he covered Krystal, who took out a dagger from a compartment in her suit, and promptly stabbed one in the mouth through it. She then sensed something else, and tossed the dagger off into the alley to her right, as it twirled through the air.
Fang quickly looked over as the dagger flew, only to be caught by a hand that came out of the shadows…a furred hand!
Krystal looked to the alley with Fang soon after taking down the last Cyber. The same creature that had been spying on them earlier, finally stepped out of the shadows. She was a vixen, and appeared to be of the same species as Krystal! Her fur was a light reddish gold, her hair blonde, like the tip of her tail. She even wore the same basic outfit Krystal wore in her days on Sauria, and even held her own staff at her side.
The vixen walked out, holding Krystal's dagger up. "You want it? Come and get it!"
Fang just stepped back as Krystal furrowed her brow, her mouth wide open. "Who the hell are you?" She said slowly, totally floored.
The vixen didn't answer, as she soon held out her staff and yelled out. "I've found them!"
Fang and Krystal soon heard more tromping in the distance, as a group of Cybers, seemingly under the vixen's command, came out from behind her and fired! The shots all carefully sailed past the vixen, as Krystal grabbed Fang, who was too busy trying to return fire, and ran off with him. The vixen ran along after the two, trying to keep close to them and her Cybers at the same time, so they wouldn't get lost.
As all of this was going on, a Cyber tromped slowly into a strange room, far from where the action was. It stopped a few feet short of a large mobile chair; with it's back turned to the Cyber.
The same distorted voice spoke from the turned chair, which had respirators attached that hissed every so often. "Progress report, commander."
The Cyber commander spoke. "Unit 115-A engaged the outsiders, but soon lost them due to some bizarre powers the female seems to possess. But we have not lost them. Unit 85-K is now in hot pursuit."
"Topaz's unit." The voice of the creature in the chair responded. It turned to reveal the face of what, evidently, was once a male fox, half of its head organic, while the other half was held together by a grotesque assembly of robotic parts, it's one mechanical eye glowing red as it held out a skeletal, cybernetic arm to the Cyber commander.
"These two outsiders are becoming even more of an unnecessary headache. If our units cannot apprehend them within the next hour, give the command to delete them on sight!"
"Yes sir." The Cyber responded, as it turned and tromped out of the room with its heavy, metal feet.
The creature sighed. "I will not let these two ruin years and years of careful planning." It turned back to face one of the screens in its room.