(SkullFox recommends the following music...for inspirational purposes)

Demon Hunter

"One thousand apologies"

"My heartstrings come undone"


-Chapter I-

(AN: The chapters on this will be much shorter than the ones in most of my stories so chances are there'll just be a whole helluva lot of 'em...enjoy)

Fox lay in Creed's bed, he felt a bit uncomfortable laying in a strange person's bed but at the moment he couldn't be too picky...had he stayed in that arwing much longer he'd most likely be dead. His fingers traced the thick bandages on his face, he could no longer feel the burn on his face but, as he'd feared before his right leg had been broken. He wondered where he was at the moment, this ship smelled worse than his did...and that was no small accomplishment. After the team had disband he lost the need to clean the place, there was a thick layer of dust, dirt, and random trash everywhere on the Great Fox. After some time sitting there he stood and slowly limped to a room, using what walls he could to guide him. He was happy to find it was the bathroom he was hoping for. He found it a bit hard to moved through a thick layer of debris on Creed's bedroom floor. He felt like he hadn't taken a leak in days, but after blindly fumbling around and nearly pissing in the sink he finally found the toilet...

-000-

In the kitchen of the ship Kursed was just being informed of their passenger...

"Look I don't see what the big fucking deal is!" Creed yelled in defense to Kursed's most recent verbal assault, "He agreed to pay us a lot of credits to take him to his flag ship! This is for the money...something we are in a pretty bad need of, Garex's ass didn't pay that well you know!"

"YOU THINK I DON'T FUCKING KNOW THAT!!" Kursed took a deep breath to calm her yelling, "I just don't like strange males."

Creed looked at the odd look on Kursed's face, "Stranger my ass. You know him..."

"Shut the fuck up Creed..." Kursed growled.

"So what happened, he find someone else? Cheat on you? Or did he just learn how much of a bitch..."

Creed was cut off by the sound of the charging blaster she now held under his chin...

"I warned you a long time ago to stay out of my fucking business..." Kursed said noticing that one of his arms held a blade to her gut.

"Sure you can pull that trigger without spilling yer guts?" Creed sneered, "Like I said we need the money."

"Don't pry into my life Creed...or I swear I'll collect on your bounty next."

Kursed started to leave the room before backing away from the opened door slowly as Fox limped through it using the walls to help guide his way through the halls. She hadn't wanted to see him but, now that she did she was a bit ashamed...not because she was opposed to helping him but, because now that she saw him in pain she wished he were in more. Even though she wanted him hurt she couldn't stand seeing her old love in the state he was in limping around like this it made him look weak, but also showed that he still had the determination of the Fox she once knew. As she felt a tear roll down the side of her face Kursed quickly made her way out of the room to avoid him altogether...

"Well nice ta meet you too..." Fox said sarcastically as he felt her brush past him, "Creed? You in here?"

Creed smirked, "Yeah I'm right over here...there's a chair about six feet to your right."

Creed was, for lack of a better word, impressed...this vulpine was half crippled on top of being blind but still seemed to insist that he could move around on a whim.

'Boy's got a lot of heart...'

Figuring the poor fox was probably hungry Creed went to the kitchen and came back with a small plate of food and a glass of water. As he sat the plate down in front of Fox, Fox misplaced his grasp at the foot grabbing Creed by the forearm. His head tilted slightly as he began to feel around; moving from Creed's metal forearm to his fingers, up his bicep to his shoulder...

"What the hell? Bionics?" Fox asked as he let go finally finding the sandwich on his plate.

"Nope...they're all me." Creed said moving his wrist around a bit while making a fist.

Fox swallowed the bit of food in his mouth, "Neural links...I thought those were outlawed."

"Yeah but...there are ways around laws."

Fox smiled, "I hear that...not all laws make sense."

Creed finally sat down across from Fox, "So 'the' Fox McCloud...Not someone I'd expect to find in this corner of space, not a safe place for a merc you know?"

"I'd pay mind to that...if I were a mercenary anymore." Fox replied with another bit of his sandwich, "I'm into retrieval...kinda like bounty hunting objects instead of people."

Creed kind of liked the sound of that, "There any good money in that?"

"If you know where to look...there are a lot of rich people looking for some rare and valuable shit out there."

"Well we're on a direct course for your ship." Creed assured the fox, "So how did you get stuck out here anyhow?"

Fox smiled, "It was really my own god damn fault. I was after a relic from Cerinia when this freak named Danzig stole it. Then I ended up chasing him into a small meteor shower, the first hit wasn't all that bad...accept the fact that it caused an arch of electricity from my console to do this to my fucking eyes..."

"Well you're a pretty luck fucker that's for sure...if that burn was any worse you'd be blind a lot longer than a few days."

Fox chuckled a bit, "Hey I'm grateful. If you didn't know so much about treating electrical burns I'd probably still be in pain."

"After the first meteorite hit my arwing I was pretty much flying blind...Shit..I'm lucky enough to be alive."

Creed had never heard of a Danzig, "So what about this Danzig person?"

"Well...I'm after him because that relic he took belongs to me. I'd kind of like it back..."

"What's this guy look like?" Creed asked.

"He's a Kewian; pretty big for a cat, white fur black stripes, missing ear on his left side, massive burn scar on the left side of his face too." Fox said producing a piece of paper and pen from his pocket blindly scribbling a number on it, "You two are bounty hunters..." He said passing the number to Creed, "...if you see him call me and let me know where he is. I can pay for the info, just not much...most of my money goes to re repairs of my ship. So how did you two meet anyway?"

"She tried to kill me..."

Fox laughed, "There's a helluva first date huh? Nice dinner but now you gots ta die?!" He said imitation a machine gun.

Creed laughed out loud, "Are you fucking kidding me? Kursed is the last person in this galaxy I'd go for. I can tell you she's got the looks and the body but...between you and me she scares the hell outta me. She comes off as the kind of woman that could be fucking yer brains out one minute...and blowing em out the next."

Fox grinned, "Enough jokes though...how long till we reach my ship."

"About an hour maybe two..."

-000-

Kursed couldn't stop thinking about it, why of all the places for him to show up did it have to be her ship? Thinking about the past was something she'd always attempted to avoid. It brought back far too many painful memories; her friends on the team, her time with Fox, even her time trying to make his jealous of the sick creep Panther...Ugh...just the thought of him was enough to make her sick, after their only real date he seemed to make it his goal in life to get her into his bed. It eventually got so bad that he tried forcing his way onto her, not a good idea...Apparently Wolf was raised a bit better than most gave him credit for and handled the situation nearly beating the cat to death before kicking him off the team. The hot waterfall that sprayed from the shower head was the only comfort she had at the moment...she didn't necessarily need to clean herself up, it was only for some sort of peace. Her thoughts constantly worked back to the day she'd gotten back at Fox for abandoning her. With Star Wolf's help she managed to take away his fame, and with Panther she managed to break his heart the same way he'd broken hers...as her thoughts proceeded to screw with her mind the relaxing shower began to loose it's effect on her as her emotions began to drag her down...but like always when she started thinking about the past, she found a way to retreat into her own mind to avoid those thoughts...

After her shower Kursed walked into her room, it was most likely the cleanest one on the entire ship; the bed was nicely made though a bit small, the floor was bare, and the walls were clean. She made her way to a small set of square indents on one of the metal walls and pressed a few buttons causing the drawers concealed with in the wall to attempt coming out before she struck the wall knocking their circuits back on-line. She went through her things a little at a time pulling out a pair of black lace panties, as she slid them on she looked at herself in a nearby mirror, she remembered back when she was a member of Star Fox, she'd have never worn such a color...but, now she had an understanding for the color...just as it was void of all other colors, so was she void of everything that once made her Krystal, very little of the old vixen remained...

Kursed huffed at the mirror as she clipped on a matching bra, "Good riddance."

As Kursed finished by fitting into a pair of dark blue jeans and a black tank top Creed's voice echoed through the ship's PA system, "Kursed we've reached his ship. He wants to talk to the captain of this ship so I guess that means you."

"Whatever I'll meet you in the docking bay..."

A bit angry with having to face him again Kursed stormed out of her room and began to walk down the halls. After a bit of time she realized that her small ship itself was in the docking bay of a much larger ship as the small port windows showed now signs of space. In the docking bay she could see that the bay doors were opened and Fox's arwing had already been moved out of her ship, the vulpine himself stood near the entrance of her ship's docking bay. His ear twitched toward her causing him to blindly whip his head around a bit too far looking to a wall that was beside her...

"I was hoping I'd get to thank you before I left...without the two of you I'd probably be dead right now." He said with a half assed smile.

Kursed fought every fiber of herself not to simply blow up in his face, "It's fine...We were headed this direction in the first place..."

"You know what?" Fox said asked tilting his head a bit towards her, "Your voice sounds...vaguely familiar...have we met before?"

"If we met I'm sure one of us would have remembered it.." She replied folding her arms across her chest, "So was that it we really need to go?"

"Actually...there was something else..." He said stammering towards her removing a picture from his pocket, "...I'm looking for this person."

Kursed very quickly snatched the photo with her closed eyes before opening them, it was just as she though, "Who's the blue girl?"

"Her name's Krystal..."

"Why is finding her so important?" Kursed asked.

"Honestly?..." Fox asked.

Kursed looked at his face, he looked like he'd be crying if the bandages weren't blocking his eyes, "I love her..."

Kursed bit her lip for a second, "I...If I find her I'll let her know you're looking for her."

She tried to give him the photo back but he told her to keep it, and produced another, "And this lousy piece of shit is named Danzig, I'm willing to pay you a good price just for telling me where I can find him."

Money...now this one she liked. The photo was of a white cat with several black stripes that came across the sides of his face...

"Why would you pay for that?" Kursed asked.

"He stole something from me that I need back. That staff was the only thing I had left of her...all I request is the info. Don't hurt him..." His face snarled angrily, "I'll do enough of that myself." He growled.

As Creed approached them Fox turned and walked off their ship and onto his own, "I left Creed with my com channel...I'll be waiting for your call!" He yelled over the roar of the engines.

Fox waited until he no longer heard the roar as their ship pulled out of the docking bay, and lowered his head against his chest sighing depressingly, "It was nice talking to you again..." He said to himself as he turned to head to the docking bay, "Computer...let's go home!"

ROB's voice was the only part of the bot left on the ship which echoed from the PA system, "Destination: Planet Sauria...ETA 5 hours and 23 minutes."