=Chapter 3: Accumulation=

~x~X~x~X~x~

The Great Fox flew out of the green portal above the arid desert planet below them, Katina. After the portal closed behind it, the Arwing hangar opened and two Arwings flew out. In one was Fox Mcloud, and in the other one were Krystal and Meta-X. They flew down to the planet surface. Krystal was a bit depressed at the thought of leaving Meta-X, even though she was certain it understood the reasons why. Prior to leaving the Great Fox, Fox promised Krystal that they would try to visit Meta-X whenever possible.

After landing, Krystal hopped out of her Arwing and opened the bomb compartment under her Arwing. Fox hopped out of his Arwing as Meta-X slid out of the bomb compartment. The Goo seemed to sense its surroundings and hugged Krystal's leg on impulse. Krystal looked up toward Fox as he met up with her, "And you swear upon the gods and goddesses that we will visit Meta-X again at some point?" Fox nodded, "I swear upon every single one that we will come back more than once. Maybe someday, it can come and properly study the Lylatian race. But right now, this is for the best. The Lylat system's unstable, what with Andross's remnants and the Cornerian Military being more active lately." Krystal's ears folded back and she looked toward Meta-X. The protean appeared to register that she wasn't happy about leaving it and whirred. Krystal held her hand out to Meta-X, who wrapped a pseudopod around her wrist. "I promise, I will visit eventually."

Meta-X briefly wondered if it should have protested staying behind, but as the two foxes returned to their Arwings, all Meta-X could do at the moment was broadcast binary, "I will miss you." It watched the two Arwings take off, and for the longest time of its life, just stared ahead, motionless beyond simple pulsating. The finality of the situation finally hit it, as far as it knew, this would be the last time it would see Krystal and Star Fox. It shriveled a bit, depressed now, before sensing its environment.

Almost immediately, Meta-X seemed to forget about Star Fox and go for the resources that it had sensed. It found a cobalt deposit not too far away and spread itself over it, hungrily converting the molecules into more Nanobots. As it did, it grew bigger, much bigger. After a long period of consuming, Meta-X had finally achieved a decent size for the more advanced exploring. It was at least the size of a Small Protean now, but by the standards of humans and Morra, that was pretty big. It just needed to find more resources that were on its list of things it could consume. It rolled away, leaving a cleaned hole in the ground as it made way for a stone arch up ahead. As it did, it dared to sacrifice a small portion of itself, a single piece that formed into a four-legged Drover, to aid it as a scout.

It had found at least three more deposits, one iridium, and two silicon deposits. In the process of using them, it had advanced to the stage that it now had maximum processing power for: the Mother Goo. As a Mother Goo now, Meta-X had only to gain a bit more mass, and finished consuming the iridium deposit. With enough mass now, it sacrificed a portion of itself to make a Small Protean of its own. If it was lucky, maybe it could find a renewable resource to exploit for mass, but the first thing it needed to do was get a proper layout of the land. The Small Protean split into four masses, each one gained four legs, and a large triangular head with a glowing, upside-down triangle for a face. The four Drovers joined the first one as Meta-X, through the Drovers, began exploring. Now that it had something with a camera, or something resembling it, Meta-X could finally perceive the environment visually. It looked through the leader Drover, finally seeing the location it had been dropped off on. The planet was a barren, desolate desert with mountains. It didn't like the look of the place, but it did like the opportunities. As it scanned, it saw even more deposits, including a uranium deposit off in the distance, a few miles away. Meta-X thought about the strategic value of going now, then scanned the environment near the Mother Goo. It was still rich in cobalt and silicon for the most part, so Meta-X decided that it would wait on the uranium deposit.

Instead, it had the Drovers patrol the large hill that it had started to think of as a temporary home. For once, Meta-X felt alive, if this excited pulsing could be called that, doing what it wanted to do, exploring new and strange life. The Drovers eventually reported seeing something off in the distance, not as far away as the uranium deposit, within "walking" distance. However, what was puzzling was the fact that the thing that Meta-X could see was not a natural construct. It became apparent that there was an outpost on the planet. It didn't look active, but for safety measures, Meta-X only sent two Drovers out to explore. In the meantime, it had gained more mass, enough for another set of Drovers, which it spawned in a moment's notice. While the two Drovers headed toward the outpost, Meta-X moved its Mother Goo up into a rocky alcove, where it made its hiding place for the event that it needed to hide, gaming a bit of extra mass in the process. Budgeting the mass into making a second Mother Goo, Meta-X was quite pleased that after a couple weeks of doing nothing, it was able to keep itself occupied and interested in current events. It burrowed into the hole it had made in the alcove and turned most of its attention to the two Drovers.

While the remaining seven stuck to guarding the Mother Goo, the two it had sent to explore that outpost were coming up to the outpost. Again, the lack of activity made it nervous, when it surveyed the walls of the outpost. It wasn't too big, maybe a quarter of a mile of surface area at most. There was a tower in the center, which Meta-X spotted when one of the Drovers climbed up the wall surrounding the entire base. There were vehicles, having fallen into disrepair from what Meta-X could only guess was a few years. And yet, the rest of the technology here was in a far better state. Meta-X could only guess that, if something hadn't happened and forced everyone to leave quickly, that whoever inhabited this outpost before hadn't taken many steps to keep the vehicles in good condition for whatever reason.

As one Drover stayed outside to patrol, Meta-X suddenly wondered if it should have sent more Drovers just in case. The other Drover carefully checked around inside for clues on what may have happened here. It stopped when it heard the familiar sound of the local spacecrafts in this system. The Drover looked around, turning to the sky to see a dreadnought that wasn't what it had registered as the Great Fox. The dreadnought was coming in for a landing and the Drover inside the outpost, realizing that it had no time to get out without being seen, scurried into the radio tower to hide, while the Drover outside the outpost tried to hide under some boulders.

Meta-X fidgeted in its hole when it sensed the fear from its Drovers. It wanted to get out there and defend its Drovers to its very last pulse, but it knew what they were scared of, and it was just as scared of going over there and risking its annihilation. It was forced to only watch events progress through its Drover that was in the outpost at the moment. What it saw wasn't too threatening at the moment aside from the dreadnought.

Two Lylatians wearing what appeared to be padded vests, metal boots, and helmets with visors walked out of the docking bay of the dreadnought once it landed. The Drover hiding in the tower entrance observed carefully, given that it could perceive sight and sound. The two were talking amongst each other, "This base has been abandoned for... what was it, two years?"

"Yeah, something like that. Supposedly this place was invaded by a parasitic life-form capable of possessing machinery and Lylatians."

"Well hot damn, no wonder this place gives me the creeps."

"You could say that again."

"Well hot da-"

"Figure of speech, look it up."

"Your call... dick."

"I'll ignore that and suggest you go check out that tower. If the equipment's intact, it means we can hopefully reduce the cost of reviving this outpost."

"Is that the correct term?"

"It's the first word that came to the author's mind."

"Say that again?"

"I said it's the first thing that came to my mind."

The Drover quickly dived out of the doorway as the Lylatian opened the door to the tower and walked in, a weapon of some sort drawn. The Lylatian pointed the weapon ahead of him, searching the room. He contacted the other Lylatian, "No dice on that 'intact equipment' goal. It's a miracle that the tower's still standing." The Drover attempted to intercept the communications with no luck, but guess on what the reply was, "Fine, I'm exaggerating a bit, but still. This is gonna cost us big time to get this outpost running again. ...Do you still want me to check the upper floors? ...Alright, but get your checkbook ready."

The Lylatian scanned the room again, this time turning on infrared vision to get a better look at the place. The generator may have been substantially damaged, this place wasn't getting any power. He looked around, then noticed one green spot outlined among the cold blue temperature readings in the room. Immediately, he pointed his gun and fired a charged blast in the direction of the creature. The creature, who the Lylatian had a hard time describing what it looked like beyond it being quadrupedal, panicked and made a break for the door, escaping as the Lylatian contacted his partner, "Tell the crew that there's something here! I think it might be an Aparoid!" The other Lylatian freaked out, "Shit! We've got an emergency! There's an Aparoid here! Shoot to kill!"

Bursts of plasma rained around the Drover as it made a beeline for the walls of the outpost, hoping to get out before it was destroyed. Drovers were the cheapest unit of the Goo to produce, which also meant that they were anything but the strongest unit. The Drover made its way to the wall and was about to start climbing when one laser cut through its head. It could survive given its unique physiology, but it hurt a lot and the Drover had lost the ability to properly see what was going on. It could still hear, and it heard a bunch of footsteps, followed by the sound of multiple guns being charged. The Drover realized that it was going to die, and it could sense Meta-X's utter hopelessness at being unable to help it. It then realized that someone had stopped the rest of them from firing.

"This isn't an Aparoid. I remember what they looked like and I know this isn't one." The soldier's voice sounded like salvation, if salvation was low-toned, and deep. One of the other soldiers pressed for answers, "And how do you know?" The Drover was starting to move mass into the hole in its head to restore its vision as the first one replied, "I was in the military at the time. I helped hold back the Aparoid forces while Star Fox and Star Wolf destroyed the Queen. I watched every Aparoid in existence die explosively when they succeeded. I know that this isn't an Aparoid because I watched their extinction happen." The Nanobots that were damaged were eventually repaired and the ones destroyed were recycled into new ones due to the free Nanobots that the Drover was able to spare. Its "eye" began glowing again as it got back onto its feet to turn and look at the soldiers. The one that had apparently defended it got in one knee and looked into the Drover's camera eye. There was a long period of staring, before the soldier, without even breaking eye contact, told the troops behind him, "This is a machine of some kind."

"How can you tell?"

"Look into the visor thingy. You can see programs running, like a facial recognizer. This thing's cataloging me."

"Why would it do that?"

"I can also see what looks like a map of the area. This thing's a scout. For what, I cannot imagine."

Meta-X realized that the soldiers weren't going to harm it and decided to send the other Drover in. The Drover crawled out from under the boulders it had taken refuge under and clambered up the wall of the outpost. It pinged on the first one's location and strolled toward it. Once above the first one, the second Drover slid down the wall to reunite with its brethren. The soldiers were surprised to see a second Drover and two of them both pointed weapons. They stopped briefly when one of the others noted, "Hey, they're the same model! If only we knew what model they were..." The Drovers glanced around, then tried beeping and clicking at the soldiers. The one who had defended the first Drover from death seemed to get that they were communicating with the Lylatians, "I think they're trying to tell us something. I'm not an expert in foreign languages or robotics, let alone foreign robotic languages." The Drovers started heading toward the tower, prompting the soldiers to follow. Meta-X had the Drovers search for any functional equipment. It had a message for the soldiers that the Drovers could use to communicate, given that they were currently only linked to Meta-X's Mother Goo to send back geographical data, not communicate with natives.