Author's Note
I am just gonna put this here...
III
Oh! How I missed you, my darling!
You haven't changed a bit!
It's so great to see you again!
Wolf ran up the stairs, skipping every other step, with a paper bag in one hand containing all his clothes and his tail wagging furiously. A grin was pasted on his face as he leaned forward onto the cockpit window. A stout guard followed up behind him, watching him wiping the cockpit windshield with the fur on his hands.
The guard cleared his throat and raised one of his arms where the hand was dangling his keyring, shaking it up and down. Wolf turned around, and with one rapid motion of his arm, he swiped the ring from the guard.
Wolf repeatedly dug his claw into the green button on the white fob as if he was playing a game. A sudden and loud pneumatic hissing noise came from it, causing Wolf's ears to fold back in a split second, before the cockpit doors propped open by itself. He chucked the bag in front of the seat.
"Before you get in…" The guard's rough tone announced. Wolf turned around with a beamy smile. "You do understand airspace restrictions, yes?" Wolf nodded, with most of the words going through one ear and out the other. "You are only allowed to fly directly to Corneria. Your pilot's license will be revoked again if we detect you in other planets."
"Yes, I understand," Wolf rightfully pledged. Jeez, stop talking…
"Okay, have a safe return. I will notify other forces to treat your Wolfen as a friendly." The guard turned away and walked down the stairs. Wolf jumped onto the seat and sank into hit, exhaling, propping his feet up onto the dashboard, absorbing the elegant silence.
Do I really want to go back…?
The seat, when reclined, felt quite familiar to something else that's too comfortable. He began to compulsively yawn, sometimes so loud that it echoed throughout the garage, simulating a concert hall. His eyes became easier to drift and close.
He sat up, trying to debate whether to ask for some advice or get yelled at again. "Guards!" He hollered, and the German shepherd guard who just made it to the bottom of the stairs traversed up again.
"Yes, Mister O'Donnell?" He stood firmly, feet tucked together.
"A shot in the dark, but are there any coffee shops that you would recommend?"
"Coffee shops…" The Shepard tapped his right foot and looked above. "Ack! It's on the tip of my tongue."
"Don't worry. Take your time."
The guard brought down his comm. "Hey Bill, what is that coffee shop on Fichina called? That one where we spent two hours talking 'bout how my mobile carrier tried to jack my money?"
Dead silence.
"Galaxia Coffee? It's a branch. Okay then." The guard hung up the phone and placed it in his side pocket.
"It's a Galaxia Coffee shop," the said shop is one of those incredibly popular brands that usually appear every three blocks in average city, commonly catered to young adults and teenagers to help with their cramming sessions.
"I don't mind. I just want any kind of coffee. Anything but the piss I drank here."
"Okay. I will uhm…" He grabbed a sticky note and pen from the inside pocket of his uniform and quickly scribbled the address on there. "Here you go." The guard handed him a pink slip and Wolf took a second to glance at it before sticking next to the main screen on his dashboard.
"Thank you, sir." Wolf stuffed the fob into the appropriately shaped hole on the dashboard, and with a click, a light whirr began to fill the ambience, causing Wolf to shake in anticipation.
The dashboard is a mishmash of digital displays and analogue gauges, but the former is put the use more. The lightshow of every display flickering coming to life put him in a state of euphoria, having never seen it for years.
The main screen, a green and black raster display, showed the ships' status in numbers, such as speed, altitude, or any applicable metric. The most important thing that is indicated is the green OK at the bottom left, which quantitatively describes the hull health.
Wolf gave the screen a tap and opened the navigation application. He typed in the coordinates that were written sloppily on the note and pressed enter. With Fichina closer than he expected—only a few million miles, Wolf was jumpy right in the seat of his beloved metal construct, knowing that it would be covered in no time at all.
A crackling sound came through the speaker grille on the dashboard.
"Mister O'Donnell. Are you all set to depart?" A different voice came through, littered with static.
"Yes," then he had a critical realization. "Am I able to come back here?"
"Sure, but only to your place."
Wolf sighed. "That's all I need."
"So, you all set to depart?"
"Considering everything's in working order… guess I am." Wolf sat up, fastened the harness with a couple of clicks and looked straight along the rail and into the vacuum of space. The rail began to raise itself by several feet and caused the Wolfen to levitate. The effects of adrenaline began to take effect as a voice over initiated a countdown and a set of red lights flashed on the side.
Three… Two… One…
The engine roar amplified, as well as the rumbling in the cockpit. He flicked some switches on the periphery.
Green light, loud buzzer, and The Wolfen was launched out at a ludicrous rate, temperatures fluctuating wildly depending on the Wolfen's heading and barometric pressure nonexistent. Wolf maintained the speed as his Wolfen slowly waltzed around the flying asteroids which seemed to be all going in a common direction but at different speeds.
Once out, the Wolfen rolled to the left and right to as Wolf checked if it was working properly before letting the autopilot redirect its course to the bright cyan planet, sitting amongst the mosaic of stars, powdery and wispy colors of nearby nebulae and the arm of the galaxy.
The ship suddenly accelerated to half of light speed, but with G-diffusers active, Wolf did not feel a thing as he had his seat reclined and feet propped on the dashboard.
He grabbed his phone and began playing a well-known orchestral song as he stared up towards to the vastness of space, playing connect-the-dots with the stars. The stars eventually faded to nothingness.
"Just one more mission… and I am home free…" The orange vulpine sat on the cockpit section of the Great Fox, leaning back and throwing his keys upwards and catching it. Fox began to whistle one of his childhood tunes.
Next to him, the ROB 64 turned to him, 'eyes' flashing red.
"Song found… Title… One on One…"
Fox nodded with pleasure. "Good job ROB. Glad Slippy put that feature in you." Fox found his mouth began to smack.
During one of the off days in terms of space combat, Slippy decided to devote the whole day to upgrade ROB, and that music recognition feature was one of them.
Fox continued to whistle the vocals of the song and spinning the keyring with his left index finger, clinging the keys and such. Soon, he got up to the back corner of the cockpit to fill his large vacuum insulated flask with purified water. With one large gulp of it, he could feel his alertness coming back, as well as the smack sounds of his mouth going away.
He sat on the sofa near it and laid down horizontally, enjoying the silence other than the ambient rumble of the Great Fox's propulsion.
"ROB, how long do we have until we get there?"
"Checking… 27 minutes."
"Give me a wind report."
"Clear skies. Light and variable winds."
That last sentence was what mattered the most to Fox. The many times he tried to navigate his Arwing in heavy wind and vertical shear proved to be a massive chore. Fortunately, after this tiny mission, his and the team's Arwings will be receiving an upgrade, including a wind correction feature to the G-diffusers.
"Hey ROB."
"Yes. Fox."
A gentle smile came across the vulpine's face. "Will you miss us when we part after this mission?"
ROB sat there motionless, eyes flashing as it was trying to answer. "Definitely."
"Aww ROB!" Fox complemented, imagine a blush filling the metallic face. A reminder came up in his head to ask Slippy to program a more natural sounding voice for ROB, as many times his monotone would get annoying rather than corny.
An immediate montage came to Fox of the time Falco made it say and repeat random words or letters making it sound ridiculous and sometimes jokes that were quite dark. Another golden moment was when Falco let ROB "rap," which caused sent the whole team guffawing.
Speaking of Falco, the Great Fox with only ROB and Fox was a pleasant change of pace for the vulpine. It's a relief to have the occasional arguing and mischief between Slippy and Falco to be replaced by pure silence, only with the gentle hum of Great Fox's propulsion.
The last time they argued was when adding the music recognition feature, which was covertly Fox's request.
"Hey ROB, give a mission briefing please."
"Mission briefing. Bring supplies to objective."
"Eh, close enough."
Hopefully nothing's going to jinx this final mission…
"You are entering Fichina's Climate Control Center airspace. Please state your purpose," the blaring static combined with the grainy female voice was loud enough to snap Wolf from his comatose state. Sitting upright with saliva dripping on the left side of his muzzle, he was already being assaulted by beeping noises telling him his destination was approaching rapidly in 30 miles.
"Uhm… This is Wolf O'Donnell," he replied at a press of a button, feeling the humiliation and realizing he could have met one of his fates if he didn't respond.
"Wolf O'Donnell… Ah, we have been expecting you. Looking for the coffee shop eh?" His dashboard beeped again, screen showing a large arrow. "We have assigned you hangar 4. You may land immediately. Also, parking is seven dollars per hour. We accept payments in all forms."
Wolf looked down and it was a pure expanse of white, with a few cracks running down here and there. In the distance, a clear, somewhat hazy blue sky with what appeared to be some infrastructure on the ground. Once he got close enough, he decreased his altitude just so that the structures below were resolved.
Roads were arranged in a square grid, and in each square were a mix of what seemed to be warehouses, but most of the real estate were large green pastures enclosed in glass structures; each of them seemed to have different things growing. At one point, he saw a truck driving slowly along the lonely road.
Just three miles out of the destination, the roads became a bit curvy and more convoluted as smaller buildings became visible. At a lower altitude he could see sparse tiny dots slowly inch their way on the black roads.
The doughnut shaped objective was finally in view. He concentrated on the arrow as he slowed down his Wolfen a tad bit. He flew over it to find a large piece of asphalt with large numbers painted on it. On the second smaller display, he brought up the camera that displayed the objects under the Wolfen, along with an X-shaped crosshair.
He landed the big "4" under the crosshairs, and with a slight tug of the lever on his right, the Wolfen began to descend like an elevator.
The system began beeping right as the magnets under the pad locked the Wolfen in place so it didn't touch the ground. Wolf put all the levers back to its original positions and turned off the G-diffusers.
Checking the temperature on the dashboard…
4 degrees… Fahrenheit. Hell, on some days in winter that's considered warmer than Corneria City. The station air pressure was 21.2 inHg, which is much lower than what he's used to.
A loud bang sounded as metal sheets protruded around the Wolfen and eventually closing it in.
"You may now exit. Have a great time here," the female voice broadcasted.
Wolf grabbed the large down coat from his bag and wore it before opening the cockpit. As he expected, a swath of freezing air instantly replaced the room-temperature cockpit, prickly to the nose and bitter to the tongue. Even with the down coat, it was much colder than the time Wolf was assigned a job there, even at the same temperature. One breath in and it was not enough to cure his instant lightheadedness.
Down the stairs, there's a pod that he called over, escorting him via underground rail to what seemed to be an extension of the Climate Control Center.
Once the doors opened, a rush of dry heated air immediately replaced the stabbing cold in the pod. As he stepped out into an open expanse, he was greeted with a large LED marquee with white text scrolling left to right.
"WELCOME TO FICHINA."
Arrows that were pasted to the ground guided Wolf to the checkpoint, where an empty maze was set up by those ribbon barriers. There were only two out of the eight desks in service.
"Mister O'Donnell. Welcome," a bulldog spoke as Wolf approached the kiosk. He took out his wallet and pulled out his ID card along with a family photo. Without taking a glance at it, he put the photo and put it behind all his other cards.
The bulldog took his ID and did some typing before handing it back.
"You were just out of custody, am I correct?" The bulldog gave a curious stare.
Wolf replied with a firm yet serious nod.
"Good," The bulldog resumed typing and returned his ID. "Approximately how long will you be here?"
"Hmm…" He looked towards the ceiling. "Maybe an hour or two."
"Have a nice time then. Welcome to Fichina." The gate in front of him opened and Wolf walked to the next section of the facility—after being harassed by a metal detector—which was strangely empty, unfinished and eerily quiet as his footsteps echoed without any damping. The facility is the cleanest place Wolf has ever laid his eyes upon, with the floor and ceiling practically displaying the image of a once fearless man. In the distance there were some parts for what looked like a conveyor belt.
Out the door in front of him, it's another empty hall containing rows of seats and concierge tables, all of which are brightened by natural sunlight. What awaited outside of the windows caught him by surprise.
Ice.
It's obvious since Fichina is known for it, but it's a large square with the ground made completely out of solid white ice, and it had a beautiful woven pattern that was more designed for masonry work. Wolf was perfectly able to walk on it without slipping. In the center, it was an ice statue of… Fox. Surrounding the large plaza, there were more ice sculptures in the distance.
Wolf felt the motivation to walk up and spit at it, after seeing all the fame Fox has and Wolf being on the opposite end of the spectrum. Instead, he stood there like a lifeless husk.
It was indeed a beautiful sight to see, except for the Fox statue, but the large place was rather deserted.
The cold bite came to Wolf quick, making it even colder as the air was extremely dry, easily wicking the sweat off Wolf's face and the rest of his body. Every exhale created a thick shroud of condensed vapor.
He only counted three people walking around the plaza.
Do I even dare…
He walked up to one of them. "Excuse me," he said gently. The person, who's wearing a face mask took a glance at him and walked off at double speed.
Wolf sighed, looking towards his boots.
He eyed his next victim and stalked it. "Excuse me!" He yelled. The stranger stopped and turned around.
"Yes, sir?" A bright masculine voice sounded.
"Do you know where the nearest Galaxia Coffee is?"
The stranger, without a word, pointed in the direction where Wolf was going to originally head, with what looked like single-story buildings littered in the distance. Before Wolf could ask another question, the person was already a couple of feet away from him.
Fatigued, famished, and with the world in front of him beginning to tilt, he made the attempt and walked towards the city limits. The building was ironically very rustic as they were built with earthy hues of brick and stone. The lampposts and signposts looked like something that belonged in the past century or two.
The first building he passed by was a bank, but instead of being explicitly stated, it just had a dollar sign on it.
There were a couple of people who walked by, but they were all on the other side of the road. The ice road itself, however, was completely desolate.
A few paces east and he found an information board, outlining the map of the "town" on one side with numbers on buildings and a directory of venues in a font that's almost impossible to read. Fortunately, with Galaxia Coffee being so popular, it's immediately recognizable by its insignia, which was listed one block north of where he was.
There's a flyer that was jammed in the corner.
"Coming soon! Fichina Ice Hotel! Expected to open during Christmastime!" There's a CAD render of the structure below the text, resembling a castle. The image next to it had a render of the room, which seemed to be in an ice-cavern style environment and the one next to it looked like an amusement park.
To Wolf, if Fichina changed like this, then it would be quite hard to imagine what Corneria City would be like when he finally gets there.
He walked along the path he made in his head to a row of identical houses on both sides, all constructed of the same material as the shops. It's a quiet neighborhood, or maybe perhaps it was just dead silence; no cars, no commotion, not even any environmental noise, just Wolf's own breaths, heartbeat, stomach, and footsteps.
The front square "lawns" on each house looked all the same, so did the windows and the stony façade. All the front gates were closed, and the wooden front door on each house had two stickers on it. In front, it led to more short buildings before vanishing into a spectacular yellow and blue horizon.
…Wolf…
Continuing his walk, he looked towards the rough ice, pacing himself between each square, passing by elegant lampposts as the reflectivity of the white ice became minutely reduced.
…I gotta fight him… Wish me luck guys…
He came to a corner of a blank intersection with a fully working traffic light. What's the purpose of having it there if there's no one around? Looking left and right, there's absolutely nothing.
…Lightning Tornado…!
Wolf hung a right as per his mental GPS, and in the distance, up in the sky was an ocean blue planet, with white wisps and clumps of land… He will have to be there in several hours…
…Wolf! It's fucked! Pull out…!
"Commerce Street" was the name of the road, lined with various rectangular buildings with orange lights filled behind the windows.
Several paces over, it was finally there. The white silhouette insignia of a white coffee bean superimposed on a spiral galaxy. On the door, it said in large print: "WE ACCEPT CASH."
In a sudden, he burst through the glass doors and into the comforting warmth, eyes directly locked on the showcase of succulent muffins and bread.
"Welcome to the new Galaxia! How may I help you today?" A female poodle walked to the register. Wolf had his hands pasted to the glass, saliva cascading in his mouth.
"I'll have two of these!" Wolf pointed to the large blueberry muffin.
"Sure thing. Anything else?"
Wolf walked to the counter and checked the usual menu, which was the same as the ones in Corneria.
"Venti vanilla latte, hot," Wolf had a smile on him.
"Yup!" The cashier pressed some buttons which made beeping noises. "That will be 16.87."
Wolf immediately pulled out his wallet and hastily handed her a twenty.
She took the bill and gave him the rattily change. "Take a seat, I'll bring the food you once it's done."
He immediately grabbed a small table for two that's next to the window. Looking around, the interior emulated a picturesque medieval bar or an alchemist's dwelling judging by the candles mounted on the stone columns, the stone and wood ground, the wooden tables and so on.
The ambience, along with the heat made Wolf immediately sweat; it certainly did resemble a place Wolf knew and loved before he left it…
With the coat hung on the back of the chair, he was wearing his usual mercenary attire, which sent Wolf into more panic. He tried to take off the blue vest, then the lady with his food came from around the counter.
"Ah, you're Wolf O'Donnell!" The Lady remarked.
"Uh… Yes! Yes I am…" He nodded quickly, placing his hands on his thighs, putting on an embarrassing smirk.
"How's the post-prison life treating you?" She put the food down in front of Wolf, making him almost want to smash his muzzle into one of the muffins.
"It's fine."
"Good! Enjoy your meal, especially after tasting all of the prison trash." She walked away, leaving Wolf surprised. No matter, the food and the white creamy latte giving off the hot saccharine vanilla scent in front was all that he needed. He went to the front desk and grabbed a newspaper that was piling up the container.
When Wolf took a small sip of the coffee, he let out the most elated exhale. The creaminess, flavoring, and sweetness were in perfect harmony.
First it was the check of the weather, and it was more complicated than he thought as a simple heat wave forecast was described in two hundred words with advanced terms like ridge, CAPE, lapse rate, etc. It was forecasted to be rainy that night with a low of 24°C. Then, he grabbed a pencil to get to work on his favorite part of the newspaper: crossword.
With a combination of filling in words, drinking a sip, taking bites, and smooth jazz comforting his ears, his conscience became smooth sailing.
"Oh thank you Fox!"
Wolf gulped down the searing hot coffee hard.
What!?
Endnote:
- Galaxia Coffee is basically their version of Starbucks
- And yes, we introduce Fox here. Oh I wonder what will happen to them!
- To put things in perspective, the standard atmospheric pressure (1 atm) is 29.92 inHg (inches of mercury). At that pressure, it is equivalent to being 8572 feet above sea level on Corneria. (Yes I actually calculated it.)
- (-4°F) = -15.6°C. Without the Climate Control Center it would be much colder.
- Fun fact, I wrote this whilst listening to Sweden by C418. It gives that picturesque barren yet beautiful icy landscape of Fichina.
