A/N: Heeeeeere's the second chapter!

Sword: *puts down the ax she was holding* Uh, sure! Yeah!...That's what I was thinking of...

All characters, items, and places belong to Nintendo except for Sword and Pen. I own them. Also, the plot is owned by lines22 and myself and the story is owned by me as well.

Pen: That should be all. Although why you would want to copyright this travesty is beyond me.

Sword: Everything is beyond you Pen.

Pen: At least I can read!

Sword: En garde!

Enjoy.

Chapter 2- An Unexpected Landing

It had been two years since the incident at the Cornerian Flight Academy. Since then, Fox and his friends had passed with flying colors, earning their wings and the right to protect Corneria. After completing several missions for the Cornerian Fleet, Fox's father had put in the request to transfer Fox aboard his mercenary vessel, the Great Fox, to replace the empty space that had long been vacant since Pigma's treachery where James narrowly escaped with his life (thanks to Peppy). General Pepper reluctantly yielded and allowed the boy reunite with his father, but had to release Falco and Slippy into James' custody as well since the three were inseparable and the young vulpine would not leave his friends behind.

For the trio, life was nearly perfect to them. They flew around to all sorts of different planets and locales, met a variety of interesting people ranging from races just like to them to one of dinosaurs, and were heralded as heroes on Corneria. And all within a matter of months since joining.

They had just finished one such mission on a distant planet in the galaxy and were on their way home. It had been an arduous and tough fight against the forces of Andross, an enemy Fox and his friends had only heard about, but never seen. The made scientist had been repelled shortly after declaring war on the Lylat System by James, Peppy, and the Cornerian Army, thanks to the skills and information provided by the former two. This had led to the inner planets' safety, but that did not stop Andross. He had turned his attention to the furthest planets from Corneria, slowly attempting to overthrow their forces and take control.

The team had been successful in repelling the attackers from the planet, but were sorely in need of supplies and recuperation. Although one would never know that by how the vulpine and his avian partner-in-crime were behaving.

The two of them had taken their custom-built Arwings out of their respective places in the hanger and were flying among the stars and around the Great Fox, dipping under and arcing over it while Peppy, James, and Slippy watched from the bridge. While the frog listened to the taunting banter Fox and Falco threw back and forth between each other, the hare turned to his old friend, and took a sip from his mug of freshly brewed coffee.

"He takes after you."

"You think?" the other questioned as his eyes followed some of the death-defying tricks Falco pulled off in front of them. "I always thought he was more like Vixy. He does have a soft side for his friends and cares for everyone close to him."

Peppy shook his head and raised the cup to his lips once again. "Maybe," he slurped. "But he also has that sense of adventure and love of flight like you. Not to mention your stubbornness," he muttered slyly, but James caught onto it anyway and they both chuckled jovially.

The alarms on the ship's computer cut them short and they raced over to Slippy and R.O.B., who was manning the helm. "What do we got?" James barked.

"Sensors indicate several ships fast approaching from the port side," R.O.B. answered in his monotone voice. His fingers tap danced across the keyboards that would have taken several men to operate, with nothing to say of his rapid precision that was unmatched by any organic being. In a few seconds he had more information for them. "Four ships in all. Signs that they may be hostile. Deploying shields to Great Fox."

"Dad?" Fox's voice called on the bridge's radio. "What's going on?"

"We got enemies coming from our port side," Peppy answered him while Slippy ran off to the hanger to ready the other Arwings.

"Let 'em come!" Falco interjected, itching for a fight. "I hope these guys can put up more of a fight than Andross' boys."

"Oh I'm sure we can accommodate you," a smooth voice replied on the radio. They had only a split second to wonder who it was before the four ships appeared. Each was designed similarly to the Arwings and could have been mistaken for one if not for the red paint that replaced the blue. They spread out and hovered in the air, waiting for their leader, who inched forward ahead of the rest, to let them loose.

"Star Wolf," James gritted his teeth. "What do you want?"

A snort that sounded more like an ominous chuckle came over the radio. "Oh we just wanted to see an old friend," the new person answered.

"Pigma!" James caught Peppy's eye, who silently gestured to him that Slippy had readied both of the remaining Arwings in the hanger. One of them was shared by the two since they were both reaching their golden years and did not have the energy, or strength, to go on every mission with the younger three. The hare bade his friend to go this time and took over control of the radio.

"What do you want Pigma?" Peppy inquired, hoping to distract them long enough so that Slippy and James could surreptitiously fly behind Star Wolf and enclose them in a pincer attack.

"To finish what I started before," the pig pilot told him. "Andross doesn't pay unless I deliver your heads. But don't worry, we brought some help this time."

"Bow, you foolish mortals, before the might of Andross and his nephew, Oikonny!" a shrill voice cried. And with that last threat, the radio connection cut out.


On the exterior of the Great Fox, the skirmish between the two mercenary teams was heating up. Two of the Wolfens had broken off from the formation to bombard the main ship while the two left behind held Fox's and Falco's attention. One was Leon, who traded shots with Falco as they both chased one another while Wolf, the other, led Fox further away from the fight and more toward the gravity of a nearby yellow planet, whose space was being occupied by the battle.

"Come on. Can't you keep up?" Wolf taunted the vulpine. Just as he assumed, this angered the other, just like it would his father, and caused him to push the Arwing to go even faster. All the while, Fox made sure to keep an ear out for any distress signals from his teammates. But so far, they sounded like they were handling each other well. Falco and Leon were on even footing while Pigma and Oikonny were no match for the combined might of James and Slippy.

Unfortunately, Wolf knew the situation as well. So when they were in range of the planet, he immediately yawed his Wolfen up into a semi-circle above the Arwing and shot at it's engines. Fox quickly spun his ship around, using the barrel roll to deflect the gunfire away from him and copied Wolf's action to take aim at his ship.

"Oh no you don't," Wolf growled, banking to the left and downwards. His pursuer followed, trying to obtain a lock-on and steadied his finger over the trigger, prepared to fire when the Arwing's computer told him to. However, the image on the screen suddenly veered off to the side, causing the targeting to fail and necessitating that Fox follow the turn if he wanted to obtain a chance to fire.

While he was trying to chase Wolf, he failed to notice that one of the other Wolfens was fast approaching with an Arwing in tow.

"For Andross!"

The strident battle-cry from Oikonny's ship was followed by a hail of fire into the back of Fox's plane, damaging the engines and most internal systems and sending him into a downward spiral.

"Fox!" Falco's shout alerted the other two Star Fox members to the situation. They broke off their attack of the Wolfens near the Great Fox to target the other two. James swooped in and hammered Oikonny's ship with gunfire. Falco joined in as well until it too was free-falling to the planet below, pulled faster each second by the strong gravity.

James watched his son's ship disappear the closer it got to the planet and prepared to go down there. But Peppy interrupted him by radioing that the other members of Star Wolf had already destroyed some of the Great Fox's systems and taken Slippy out of the fight, who had docked his Arwing once it could take no more abuse. Venting his frustration in a string of swears, he spun his plane around and directed his anger at the rest of enemy aircraft, disabling one of them with the help of Falco.


The warning lights flashed in all parts of the Arwing, harkening Fox back to his early days in the academy - the flight simulator. He had never actually experienced it and after the second try, he never had once had to deal with it in the simulator again either. This, conversely, was the real thing. And it was sending him into more than just a state of panic. Yet he never lost his cool like Slippy did and, true to his training, he concentrated on what he needed to do if he wanted to survive.

Engaging the failing engines, he angled the boosters down and fired off what was left in the tanks while pulling his control stick up. The combined power lifted the nose of the Arwing up with a sickening, straining whine. The ground was fast approaching and the inky darkness of space had been replaced by a daisy-colored sky and an assortment of oddly shaped trees. Fox thusly moved onto the next step and killed the thrusters and boosters after the plane was at a satisfactory angle. He pressed a button on the front console and a mechanized voice came to life. "Activating emergency shielding." He felt the rumble from the storage space on the bottom of the Arwing open up as a gold ring was spit in front of him; he promptly flew through.

He almost breathed a sigh of relief as the shield gauge on the computer began to climb, silently thanking Slippy for installing each of their Arwings with an emergency ring. But it stopped midway, followed by the voice continuing. "Shield malfunction. Shields at forty-eight percent." He frantically began pounding away at the console with his fist, desperately pleaing with the apathetic machine. He gave it one final smack and the meter jumped up to seventy percent, but still claimed there was a problem.

"Better than nothing," Fox muttered. He turned his attention to the cracked window and realized he only had a few seconds left. Hoping and praying that he would make it, he tightened his belt straps, held on tightly to the control stick, and braced for the sudden impact, which came roughly and abruptly and knocked him unconscious.


"We'll be back!" Wolf vowed, circling his Wolfen around to follow his fleeing teammates, one whose wing was severely damaged and precariously close to falling off.

Normally, the Star Fox team would have celebrated with jeers at their retreating enemy and jubilation at another well-earned victory. But this time, James and Falco silently docked their ships on the battle-scarred Great Fox, which had been bombed several times by Star Wolf. When they both reached the bridge, Peppy was there to meet them. Slippy had left to go repair the damage to their Arwings.

"Well, he did head for the planet," Peppy said, answering James' question before he could ask it. "Whether or not he is alive, we can't tell."

"Well let's go down there then!" Falco said, psyching himself up for a journey onto an uncharted planet.

The hare solemnly shook his head. "We can't. We have no idea what that planet even holds on it or whether it's even habitable. And we wouldn't even know where to look for Fox."

"We can't scan it?" James inquired.

"Negative," R.O.B. told them from his control booth. "Scanners damaged at ninety-five percent. Along with several other systems. Engines at fifty-four percent. Lfe support at sixty-three percent. Shields at four percent. Weapons offline." And he continued to ramble off the checklist of the major components of the Great Fox, painting a vivid picture of how foolish it would be to mount a rescue for their lost comrade at this juncture. When he had finished, he looked up at the three. "Recommend repairs immediately."

"What? And leave Fox here?" Falco yelled incredulously.

"I don't like it either," Peppy said, trying to calm the avian down. "But if Star Wolf were to come back, we would be destroyed. Besides, with our scanners down, we don't even know where to begin searching for him." He turned to James, whose conflicting emotions between what was logical and what he wanted to do raged across his face. He could see that it would be up to him to decide what to do. "R.O.B. Set a course for the nearest repair station."

"Roger." R.O.B. followed his order while James headed for the door. Peppy hobbled over to him and caught his friend by the shoulder. His questioning eyes met the vulpine's shaded ones. Speech was unnecessary at the moment, as the silence and heavy gloom said it all. Peppy patted the other's shoulder reassuringly and let him go without a word.

A/N: And that's all for chapter 2. Comments?

Pen: Critiques?

Sword: Praise?

Then let us know. And thanks Chocovi for beta reading this chapter. He really improved the quality of the chapter I believe.

Sword: Uh-oh! Star Wolf has arrived! Do a barrel roll!

Pen: Great. Now I am going to have to put up with ridiculous quotes all day.

Sword: Press A to shoot!