Me: Yo readers, or...reader... *shrugs* Oh well, welcome back! This chapter Fox travels back to Katina! Here you go!
Assault on Katina
Star Fox was flying out of Fortuna's atmosphere to see wreckage of ships. Oikonny's armada was reduced to a pile of dust and about half of the Cornerian ships just floating in space, void of life. All ships had black marks on them, some old and new. Some had steam coming off them, like a fire just happened.
"My god. What happened here?" Krystal put her hand to her mouth in shock.
"My guess is those 'Aparoids'. At least what ROB called them." Falco said and flew up to the Great Fox. Fox's mind was focused on the molecule that was in his hand. He held it up to the window. It still gave off a few sparks but the vulpine was used to it. His right arm was still bleeding but was absorbed by his sleeve so he didn't notice it.
"Fox? Fox come in." Slippy said to the vulpine over the comm. line breaking Fox from his thoughts.
"I'm here Slippy, don't worry. Let's get on board and see what this is alright?" Fox asked the toad. Slippy sighed and the four Arwings flew into the docking bay and exited the Arwings. Falco and Slippy went ahead and Fox was about to follow them when Krystal called him back.
"Hold on Fox." Krystal called to him causing the vulpine to stop in his tracks. Krystal walked up to him and noticed he was still staring at the molecule.
Fox looked up to see the vixen, "What is it Krystal?" Fox asked and crossed his arms.
"You've been staring at that thing for a while now, is something the matter?" Krystal asked and raised an eyebrow.
"Nothing." Fox said and tossed the molecule in the air.
"You're lying Fox. Tell me the truth or I'll have to prob that mind of yours." Krystal said and tapped Fox's head playfully.
Fox laughed, "Fine. It just seems familiar that's all. Let's get to the bridge before they worry about us." Fox said and nodded to the exit of the docking bay. Krystal nodded and the two walked out of the docking bay to the bridge. During the walk Krystal noticed a dark red blotch on the fox's right arm sleeve a little below his elbow.
"Fox?" Krystal asked and stopped looking at the red blotch.
"Yes Krys?" Fox glanced back at her still not noticing the blood stain.
"What is that on your arm?" The vixen asked and pointed to the stain. Fox looked down to his arm to finally notice the stain. Fox lifted his sleeve to notice that the blood stain was wet but wasn't bleeding anymore.
"Oh that. It's nothing. I'll put something on it later." Fox said and pulled the sleeve down and continued walking.
Krystal sighed, "Stubborn boy." The blue and white vixen mumbled and followed him. We soon reached the bridge and Fox tossed the molecule Slippy. The toad placed it on a table and activated a scanner and sent the diagnostics to General Pepper. A few minutes later Pepper came on the screen.
"Members of Star Fox... A grave danger looms. The Lylat System is in peril." The General said gravely.
"W-what? How do you know?" Fox asked and his eyes widened.
"We know... The research director will brief you on all the details." Pepper said and typed a few buttons and the General Pepper disappeared and a green toad similar to Slippy appeared except this toad had glasses and a... I think a mustache, kinda hard to tell.
"Hello again everybody." The toad said cheerfully.
"Dad! You're...the research director? You never told me that!" Slippy yelled waving his arms around dangerously on accidently hitting Falco's beak.
Falco held his throbbing beak, "Ugh! Dammit Slippy watch where you throw those things!" The avian yelled and he and the toad started a verbal war. Fox sighed and stood up and walked over to the bickering friends. Fox cleared his throat and turned to Krystal and Peppy who had ear plugs in and nodded to Fox.
Fox nodded, "WILL YOU TWO JUST SHUT THE HELL UP AND LISTEN TO BELTINO!" Fox yelled in their ears causing them to fall 2ft away from the vulpine.
Falco and Slippy stood up and rubbed their ears, "Ok, ok we'll stop." Krystal suppressed her laughter while Peppy let out a light chuckle. Everyone sat in their seats and waited for Slippy's father, Beltino to continue.
The toad cleared his throat, "In any case, if I may continue, these Aparoids, ahem-"
Fox interrupted Beltino, "Aparoids?" He was extremely confused on what these things were and wanted to find out.
Beltino grumbled angrily at being interrupted but continued, "Indeed, they are the enemies you faced earlier," Beltino brought up a picture of the destroyed fleet above Fortuna and continued, tapping his chin.
"I believe it was about 17 years ago... A whole fleet was destroyed by a sole Aparoid." The four members of Star Fox gapped, surprised by this revelation. If a single one of those bugs was able to destroy a fleet, how would they be able to fight them?
"We were somehow able to survive that trial," Beltino shook his head in sadness, "But that was just a taste of what's coming... But that aside, we are currently analyzing data from the Core Memory you found." Fox nodded, Slippy sent some diagnostics before the meeting started. Fox was hoping for some good results but his hopes downgraded, hearing that they would have a better read if they had a complete specimen.
"Cheer up Fox. I sure it'll be alright." Fox smiled a little hearing the toad's attempt at cheering him up. Beltino left the screen and Pepper came back.
"We have discovered a distress signal originating from the Katina outpost." Fox's eyes widened, hearing the General's words.
What Pepper said next didn't help Fox, "Unfortunately, we're unable to contact anyone there," General Pepper closed his eyes while Fox curled his fists, Pepper continued, "We suspect aparoid involvement. You must find that distress signal." Fox raised his head, slight anger shown on his face.
"I'll find the signal, no problem." Pepper raised an eyebrow at Fox's tone, slightly confused. General Pepper gave a nod and closed the com channel.
Fox turned around and left the room, only stopping to say to Peppy, "Peppy, ROB, plot a course to Katina, I'm headed there immediately." He left the room without any other word. Everyone stood there, increasingly worried and shocked at Fox's behavior.
Falco crossed his arms, "Krystal, you help him." He left the room to go practice, Slippy soon following his avian friend.
Krystal turned to Peppy, "Why'd he ask me? Wouldn't it be better to ask Slippy or go himself, they're friend with each other longer than I've known him."
Peppy just laughed and turned around, shipping his fingers across the keyboard, "I think that should be obvious." Krystal was slightly confused but realized what he was talking about, her muzzle flashing red before zooming out of the briefing room to Fox's. She reached the fox's room but before she could knock Fox opened the door scaring the living daylights out of her.
Fox raised an eyebrow, "What are you doing here?" She could tell he was slightly angry still and decided it was a bad time to see what he was thinking.
"I decided to come here and see what's wrong." She tapped her feet together lightly, not liking the tension.
Fox sighed, "Sorry. One of my longtime friends was stationed on Katina and I'm worried. Just tell Falco I'm fine, alright, alright, see ya on the battlefield." Fox grabbed his blaster and dashed to the hanger, leaving Krystal in a daze.
Wait, what? What just happened?" Her brain swirled with thoughts and headed for the hanger as well. When the Great Fox reached Katina Peppy gave the go to launch the Arwing. The team nodded and blasted towards the planet. Getting through the atmosphere Fox used his radar to trace the source of the distress signal. Locking on Fox transferred the co-ordinates to the teams' cockpit and they all launched to the outpost. Fox landed his Arwing next to an entrance and jumped out. Grabbing his blaster rifle that was attached to his back, he walked slowly towards the entrance.
As he walked slowly towards the base he muttered something out, "It's too quiet..." Fox stopped just a foot passed the entrance, "Something's wrong here..." Suddenly a movement trigger let out an alarm and snapped the doors shut, preventing anyone on foot to escape.
He turned around, hearing the alarm and backed towards a corner, "It's a trap!" That was obvious Fox. Hearing a noise against his sensitive ears Fox snapped around to see 6 four legged spiders with a single, blue eyes and a lightly armored dark blue shell crawl towards him.
"It's the aparoids after all..." He grit his teeth, readying his blaster. One fell from the sky, gave a battle cry and launched towards Fox. He dodged the charge and fired three blaster rounds into it, killing it almost instantaneously...
Well, than this should be easy. He grabbed a grenade, activated it and chucked it into the fray of aparoids. They were shredded into bits and pieces of armor and flesh. Fox dove behind some boxes and kept shooting the bugs heading towards him. After blasting more bugs in his path and grabbing a machine gun from a soldier's body, he heard Peppy.
"Fox, I've located a target that you need to destroy, head to it on your radar." Fox dove behind cover and activated the radar on his wrist watch. Seeing two big red dots surrounded by a few small yellow dots Fox traced the path in his mind and dove from cover, launching his submachine gun bullets at the bugs. Fox stood up and dashed towards the location of where they were, killing everything in his path. Soon he came up on a more heavily armored aparoids; good thing was there was only two. Fox gripped his machine gun and sprayed what bullets he had left on these guys. By the time Fox ran out of bullets one of the big aparoids went down and about 10 little ones.
Then he realized he had a second one. Fox heard a noise, turned around slightly and combat dived behind some boxes to dodge a shadowed ball of energy.
"Fox, use a charged shot to take it down!" He heard Peppy through the com. Fox re loaded his blaster and held down the trigger. A small ball of plasma formed and when it charged fully Fox swiped out of cover to be barrel to face with the aparoid. He let out a cry and let go of the trigger. A small explosion occurred and Fox was blown into a wall, the force leaving a small dent and Fox's back stinging in pain.
"Fox, are you alright?" Krystal heard the thud over the comm channel and was worried. She heard Fox moan in pain and felt her heart tighten a little.
He dove behind the other side of the wall and let out hoarsely, "I'm OK, but there's no end to these things." Suddenly the fox had an idea.
"Peppy! Send me a Landmaster, will ya?"
Peppy grinned, "On its way! What's the situation?"
Fox smiled a little as the pain receded, "Well, I've got my hands full, but what else is new?" Falco's and Slippy's laughter could be heard over the comm.
"Done! Here's your Landmaster!" Fox looked out into the field to see a blue line breach the land and a swirl a dust spun around as the Landmaster was teleported to the surface... about 30 yards from Fox. Aparoids heard the sound and decided to go check out the mysterious tank while Fox face palmed.
"Great... Good to see the transmission system's targeting system is as sterling as ever." He rushed out from behind the wall and dashed towards the tank, spamming the trigger button as fast as he could, shooting every possible bug between him and the tank that would rip these things to shreds. He destroyed everything and jumped into the Landmaster. Activating it the radar showed to red dots scattered across the outpost.
"Show 'em what that Landmaster can do!" As Fox went around destroying them he heard Krystal.
"Fox! I've got enemies on my tail!" Hearing her cry Fox activated the boosters and searched around for the attackers. Spotting them Fox prepped a charge shot and fired, destroying one of them.
"Unh! I'm hit!" Fox was angered more than he already was and fired an unlocked charge shot. It scored a direct hit on the flying aparoid and shredded it into nothing.
"I thought I was done for. Thanks Fox." She smiled and Fox nodded happily. He went back to destroy the rest of the armored bugs. When all ten were destroyed Fox thought it was over but his breathing moment didn't last long as eight grippers with fours claws floating downward.
"Whoa! What are THESE things?" Fox gasped, awed by how many kept falling. As these 'things' floated towards the metal of the Katina Outpost they snatched onto the metal and ground.
Peppy grimaced, "Hmm... this looks bad. Our scanners show those things can spawn aparoids." Everyone's eyes widened, Fox's job just got a lot harder.
"Destroy the aparoids Fox!" The radar updated to show 15 bigger red dots of Hatchers scattered around the base. Fox destroyed the outer Hatchers first then went for the ones inside. Since Fox didn't want to waste time opening the door he blasted it open. Seeing as there was no way to fit the Landmaster inside Fox jumped out and dashed inside the building. As soon as he touched the floor his Landmaster was destroyed.
"Thank god I jumped out." He muttered as he made his way through the building. Soon he saw a lot of small aparoids, about 50 of them, two Armored Aparoids, and two Hatchers. Fox did the only thing he could think of. He grabbed a Homing Launcher he grabbed earlier and fired at least five out of ten of the missiles. A large explosion could be heard and seen very easily. Fox walked nonchalantly out of the wrecked portion of the base and called for another Landmaster. It almost landed on top of him as it was being transmitted. Fox barely dodged the tank and grumbled angrily about the transmission system.
Fox destroyed the last of the Hatchers without a problem and jumped out, opening the comm to talk to Peppy.
"Ugh. I've got a bad feeling about this..." Fox said aloud, noticing the aparoids retreating from the base. The others were confused as well, noticing a lack of those bugs chasing them.
"Suddenly, a pink barrier appeared in the sky and opened up to reveal the biggest Aparoid Fox had ever seen,
"What the hell?" Fox muttered as he stumbled backwards to his Landmaster. This was going to be his second biggest fight...
Me: Cliffhanger! I'm sorry for the extremely long wait, but school annoys me. I will be posting just this story until the end of Assault, and then I'll move to Command after a short break from this story. Well hope you enjoy the chapter, have a nice night, or day, wherever you live, see ya next update!