2 Days Earlier…

The time read 4:00 in bright green on the digital alarm clock sitting next to Fox's bed when the intercom buzzed to life. According to ROB, he had received an automated message from an unfamiliar source regarding some sort of job offer. Realizing the importance of such a message, the vulpine man forced himself out of bed rather unenthusiastically. He quickly made himself presentable enough, ignoring the sleepy and almost bloodshot weight in his otherwise lucid and ever-sharp emerald eyes, and trudged through the sliding steel door and out into the hallway.

The lights were cruel with their unusually bright intensity, but he knew they only seemed so bright because he'd just been happily asleep in that blissful and very dark void between dreams. Everything would be painfully intensified until his eyes finally woke up and adjusted. Until then he'd have to settle for limping through the corridor squinting like a feeble, blind old man, thankful no one else would be up and about for at least another hour or so. By the time he reached the turbo-lift, he was almost awake.

He shot up the various levels to the top, wondering all the way up why there were so many floors to the Great Fox. Come to think of it, why was the ship so big? The Arwings didn't take up that much space, and there were only five people residing on the ship plus two guest quarters. Who was using all of the extra space and what for? He made a mental note to investigate this at a later time as the lift doors slid open.

"I appreciate the promptness, ROB," Fox yawned as he approached the droid at his station, "but you could've just told me when I got up."

"My apologies," ROB pulled up the message for the leader, "I thought you should be informed of it immediately seeing as the sender was not one of our usual employers, but I will remember this in the future."

"Much appreciated," he chuckled as the video played.

The head of a pure white ram adorned with gold encrusted trinkets on his curled horns and pierced ears appeared on the screen. He was seated in an aristocratic setting that showed off several valuable antiques on cherry wood shelves behind him.

"Greetings, Starfox, my name is Sebastian Lorenzo, and I am an antique collector. I've requested your services to obtain for me an ancient artifact of particular importance to my collection. You will, of course, be paid handsomely if the item is relayed to me untouched. If you are interested in such an endeavor, I can be reached at this frequency. Thank you for your time." with that, the message cut off, and the team emblem labeled the screen again.

"I'm intrigued." Fox murmured as he mulled this over and shrugged, "Save the message, ROB, I'm going back to bed. I'll call a meeting with the others later, and we'll decide what to do then."

"Affirmative, sleep well, Fox."

"Thanks,"


"It seems harmless enough." Krystal commented once the message concluded for the second time that morning and disappeared from the screen displayed at the front of a round wooden table.

"Yeah, but why would he need to hire mercenaries to get some antique? Sounds a little risky on his part." Falco was dubious.

"We're not exactly as cut-throat as most mercenaries, Falco." Fox pointed out, "He knows he can trust us not to double-cross him."

The blue bird grumbled under his breath, not entirely convinced.

"Look, he promised a substantial reward if we did this for him. I think we should give it a shot, and if we change our minds once we get the details on this, we just go our separate ways and move on to the next thing that comes our way."

"Yeah, whenever that happens." Slippy sank back in his seat.

"Slippy and Fox are right," Krystal piped up, "I think we should at least see what the man has to say. It's better than sitting around like this."

"So we're all in agreement then?" Fox scanned the briefing room for any naysayers and grinned triumphantly when he saw none.

He walked to the intercom panel in the room and pressed a red-lit button. "ROB, hail Mr. Lorenzo's frequency and patch through to the briefing room, please."

"Affirmative,"

In the time it took him to return to his place at the table, the channel was patched through, and they were all staring at the clean-cut frame of the white ram.

"Good morning, Mr. Lorenzo." Fox greeted politely.

"And to you, Mr. McCloud, it's an honor to finally meet all of you." he dipped his head, his tone cordial.

"Uh, just Fox is fine, sir." the vulpine leader corrected uncomfortably.

"Very well, I assume you're responding to the offer I sent you?"

"You assume correctly. We wouldn't mind getting some details before we decide to sign on."

"Of course, as you already know, I am a collector of rare antiques, and I need but one more special artifact to complete my latest collection. Unfortunately, the terrain where it's located is far too treacherous for me to go trekking through, so I'm left with resorting to hiring someone more rough-and-tumble than myself to do the dirty work, so to speak, of obtaining it for me."

Fox raised a brow in an are-you-serious manner. He'd never had himself referred to as "rough-and-tumble" before. He heard Falco snickering behind him and smiled slightly when he heard his avian friend give a muted yelp at being thusly smacked by Krystal to keep quiet.

"Sounds easy enough of a task. What exactly are we looking for?"

"It's called the 'Serpent's Coil', named rightly so for the serpentine form it is shaped after. Crafted over a thousand years ago by a primal reptilian race-

"Uh, that's okay, Mr. Lorenzo," Fox stopped him, not really wanting to hear the lengthy, in-depth and probably boring historical background to a snake figurine, "Just the name and a picture will be fine."

"Oh, yes, well," he cleared his throat embarrassed and continued on, "In any case, this is a very valuable and very fragile piece. If it's been abused in any way, shape, or form, the appropriate amount will be deducted from your pay. Are there any further questions?"

Fox looked behind him to his team and watched them all shrug or shake their heads. "No, I don't believe so."

"Then do we have an agreement?"

"You can count on Team Starfox."

"Excellent!" Lorenzo clapped his hands together in finality and began typing away at his panel, "I'm sending you all the necessary information, including coordinates, a brief history of the 'Serpent's Coil', and a map of the territory, although I'm afraid the map is quite crude as I've never been to the planet myself."

"That's okay, we've dealt with worse."

"Thank you again, Starfox," the ram bowed his head graciously, "I am in your debt."

His image fizzled out as the vulpine man turned to his friends. "Are we good, or are we?" he bragged as they filed out of the room, "Slippy, start looking at what he sent us, and have ROB set a route to those coordinates."

"What was with the 'you can count on team Starfox' thing?" Falco laughed as he performed a cheesy impersonation of the cheesy line.

"I was trying to lay it on thick!" Fox objected.

"Too thick, man, I thought I was going to die of embarrassment!"

Krystal only shook her head with an amused gleam in her eye as she watched them argue all the way to the bridge.