Chapter 4: Rally of Wings. A Generation Ago.

The Cornerian battle carrier, and its small freighter companion sped through space, along with a cluster of fighters buzzing about. They soon come to a stop, floating along in a dark area of space in-between-orbits of the middle Lylat System. Eladard a distant glint distinct against all the other stars.

The front hatches of the Cornerian carrier open up, inviting in the two standard Arwings, the two interceptor variants, and the strike fighter. Two by two, they entered and landed within the two hangar bays. Each box structure had enough room for two aircraft to land beside each other, but only one canal for launching fighters. In the metal floor was a squared rut, and street lining lights leading to the doorway as it slowly shut. Pressure and oxygen returned.

The battle-ravaged standard Arwing hisses as its canopy hatch screeches open, while Fay Spaniel stood outside, along with Falco. Krystal and Slippy step out of the Arwing, and drop down to the metal floor below. While on the other side Fay and Katt came running through a corridor to their left, that which lead to the next docking bay.

Krystal's Arwing had bent, battered wings, and a fuselage decorated with craters and blast marks. Falco's Arwing was too, blackened here and there by laser blasts and explosions, the fuselage cracked. The two interceptors, Miyu's in particular, though escaped any serious damage, was still left uneven with scuffs in its armored fuselage and wings.

"We barely got out of that." says Fay as she walks up and down with a computer pad cradled in her arms, tapping away at its touch screen.

"Those are variants of the Arwings." says Krystal.

"Really professor? Could you tell us more?" Says Miyu sarcastically. As she pats her hard on the shoulder.

"You guys still use these things?" Falco asks with a flick of his head. Miyu raises her eyebrows at Falco.

"Yeah, and your fancy new Arwings took more damage than ours did, Falco." Says Miyu.

"Guys, we have other things going on, we need to tell the General." Says Fay as she waves her hands up in down in frustration. She motions the others to follow her into the bridge.

Falco, Slippy, Krystal, Katt, Miyu and Fay walked into the bridge of the carrier, despite the odd-design of the ship, its bridge was very similar to the older Great Fox bridge, dimly lit, and lit colorfully by a collective of computer screens and control panels. It reminded Falco and Slippy of their first missions with Fox, and Krystal of when she first met the team.

"I guess Krystal never really met us yet." says the tan furred Lynx in a green spacehand uniform, quite similar to Krystal's blue jumpsuit, but green. Falco crosses his arm and straightens himself to enhance his height while he towers over everyone else. Slippy taps the toe of his boot against the floor and rubs the side of his head.

"Yeah, these two were on our team back around the time we started the new StarFox team." Says Slippy. "The StarFox team got its start with mercenary counter attacks against Venomian strike squadrons. Peppy, Falco and I. Than later Miyu and Fay linked up with us to defend against attacks directed at Corneria itself, but then we got word that James Mccloud's commission for the construction of the Great Fox was complete." Says Slippy.

"And then we went our separate ways..." Says Miyu, with a glaring, growling tone to her voice. "Fay and I were ex-military, but Fox still didn't like us wanting to have connections with the Cornerian military, this ship is owned by the fleet, but technically the Great Fox wasn't. Fox preferred to do things his own way...as he says... and then, you guys took all the credit when Fox took down Andross." Says Miyu. Fay had a sad look on her puppy-dog face.

"Miyu, it wasn't quite like that.." says Fay. "We left on our own terms." she says.

"So I heard." Says Miyu. "You guys broke up the team?" Miyu asks.

"It's not like that.." says Falco. "We're... just on hiatus since not much has been happening until now." says Falco.

"Where've you been Falco? You just took off." says Slippy.

"Hey, Slip. Ease off me a little, I was just taking a little vacation, I wanted to spend time with Katt and the others." says Falco. Katt's white eyeliner shone brightly as she slants her eyes at Falco.

"Well, I wanted to spend time with the StarFox team." says Katt.

"Hrmm.." Falco groans.

"So you have experience in an Arwing too I see? I remember hearing about it when you joined the team several years back." says Fay toward Krystal.

"I was on the team for a bit, was trained on the mark 1 Arwing, and then the mark 2's when we fought against Oikonny's rebels, and then the Aparoids." says Krystal. "When I was off the team, I used a Bulldog commander type, and then a CloudRunner Arwing." she explains. "Now, Peppy just sends me around in the Mark 4 on survey missions."

Suddenly, they all hear a blaring repetitive beeping noise, Miyu walks over and taps an arrow-marked yellow button on the console, and a small screen flares up, displaying Rob64's face.

"Allied ship on approach, boarding request has been received!" says his flat robotic voice through the compressed audio speaker.

"To board us?" Fay asks.

"Negative, request for us to board them." says Rob64.

The five approach the bridge window to look on into space, a distant shining silvery white object closes in quickly from space, growing in their view. Miyu opens up an observation telescopic view, and puts it up on a view-screen, zooming in on the object, blurry at first before coming into focus, was a large silver-white ship, with four massive wings, an enormous dorsal fin, and an elongated front positioned bridge with an eye-visor like window that glows bright.

"It's another... Great Fox?" Falco gasps. Slippy's round face grows with a bright smile.

"Ha, didn't you hear? Peppy commissioned a new Great Fox, and I managed to find the old plan data for the first Great Fox, and we got to assemble a new one, this time with some modifications of my own. This time it is equipped with turrets on each side built similarly to the main guns. Full power turbo-batteries!" says Slippy with a cheerful tone. "I've even outfitted it with the prototype of a new shield system my Dad and I have been working on." says Slippy.

"and it couldn't be ready soon enough!" says a familiar voice on the other end, Beltino's face came on the screen, along with Peppy.

"Slippy just had to hit me with some cruel irony.." Says Peppy. "The very same shield system I crashed through with the old ship... Slippy reverse engineered the Aparoid technology, and also took some hints from Krystal's Cerenian staff, managing to find a way for the Great Fox Three to project this advanced shielding through the Cerenian's magical technology.. The armored hull is laced with a crystalline fiber Slippy created with crystal-dust Krystal managed to gather from those plants on Sauria." Peppy explains. Slippy smiles proudly.

"Let's see Peppy crash THIS baby!" he says. Falco scoffs, and gives Slippy a hefty pat on the shoulder.

"And they say seniors shouldn't drive.." Falco adds.

"Hey guys, the General is requesting that we return to Corneria, we better get going." says Fox, as his fierce, fox face appears on the screen as well. Krystal stammers at his face, her eyes grow wide as she feels herself burn up. Miyu glances on Krystal as she stood static like a statue.

The Great Fox III, and the Cornerian battle carrier fly side by side through space; their yellow and blue after-burners produce a trail as they sped toward Corneria, as Arwings flicked back and forth between them, a few Arwings flew into the rear entrance of the Great Fox III. The rear door flicks open with a faint, white glow of an airlock shield, one by one the Arwings slow their advance, following guide-lights that gleam out into the darkness of space, one by one passing through the airlock shield, and flying through a short downward tunnel that lead them to the vast, holding bay; filled with several spare Arwings held in holding cradles beside cat-walk bridges for the pilots to board their machines. The huge rectangular room angles to a large square doorway where the Arwings would launch from the hangar. Just wide enough for two or so Arwings to go through at once, through an Airlock shield.

About the hangar, were wheeled scaffolding structures for maintenance, loading carts with ammunition and spare parts, replacement wings ready to be clamped onto battle damaged aircraft, A row of five or six LandMasters tucked under small garage-like structures on one side, and the old Blue Marine held up by metal girder cradles. Up above were various lifter arms along a series of rails that webbed the ceiling, as well as a few Arwing variants. There were five standard Arwing Mark 4's. Two bomber variant Arwings; one equipped with a few grabber arms, and box-like structures mounted on the bottom of the fuselage. There was also a somewhat larger Arwing variant with eight blue shoulder structures instead of four, the outer ones being much larger than the first row. It also had a long cannon similar to that the LandMaster had. There was lastly a fairly large odd looking vehicle, a craft with two

round structures on each side, a carrier or lander type of machine with a reel-able crane structure.

Suddenly, they see the small freight ship fly in as well through the large vehicle corridor, piloted by Rob64, landing beside the spare Arwings in a large rectangular patch with a large-ship logo at its center; the side sprang open like an animal's ear, and Rob64 hobbled out down a flight of steps.

Three Arwings lined up in the holding arms, and their hatches sprang open, out came Falco, Krystal, and Slippy. Katt remained on the battle carrier with Miyu and Fay as the two ships flew along.

Rob64 walked up a winding stairway to meet Falco, Krystal and Slippy before they began their way for the exit.

Falco, Krystal, and Slippy walk through the exit doors of the launch bay, and down a long highway-like corridor, making a few turns until they reached the large sliding doors that lead to the Great Fox bridge; they found it very similar to the original Great Fox after it was renovated, with silvery white metal wall paneling, and a terraced central platform with two rows of the various bridge control consoles, and a swiveling chair at each. Fox Mccloud sat at the center, Peppy to his right, at some controls as well, and Beltino Toad stood beside Fox.

Fox turned at the chair to see Slippy, and stood up in surprise, his confident face and eyebrows crinkled back as he took a step forward and rolled his hands forward.

"Slippy, is everything okay? What happened?" He asks. Slippy flipped his hands up.

"Hey Fox, I'm fine, Krystal, Falco, Miyu, Fay and Katt came to help." Slippy squeaks, Slippy's voice had a high-pitched croakiness to it, but he had a calm tone in his voice that was recognizeable to his good friends. "StarWolf attacked our base, and they kidnapped me." says Slippy.

"I know that part, Peppy told me, he was hurt too." says Fox with an already-intense tone in his snide, but gruff voice.

"Easy, Fox, let's just take it easy." says Peppy as he grasps Fox's shoulder. Fox glances to Peppy.

"You guys, I think it's pretty serious if StarWolf is out there again, I thought we had a deal with them, we need to confront them!" Says Fox. Falco's beak face smiles as he pounds his fist in his feathery palm.

"Alright I'm in." Falco blasts. Peppy and Krystal stagger.

"Hold on a minute now, you two!" says Peppy. "We need to see what General Pepper thinks we should do, there's more to this situation that we don't know."

"StarWolf is working for someone, I could sense it, don't you remember when we left Sargasso? We saw another ship, a large arrow-head shaped ship fly in just as we were leaving.." says Krystal.

Just then, an arrow-marked yellow icon flashes on a console screen, accompanied by a repetitive beeping, and Peppy turns and taps it like a button. A transmission screen shoots up, Miyu and Fay are pictured seated at the consoles of their own ship, Katt stood beside them as well.

"I didn't think StarWolf's Ruffian gang would be this well armed, I thought the roaches were scattered." says Miyu. "By the looks of it, they have at least one Betrayer ship. This could mean trouble." Miyu adds. Fox nods.

"Peppy wants us to report to General Pepper." says Fox, glancing to Peppy.

"I think they are being armed, and supplied.." Says Peppy. "They were after Slippy's shielding system, I don't think Ruffians have the resources to build something like that, I would think Wolf would realize that on his own, they can't possibly expect to get it to work by themselves." says Peppy.

Katt walks in, stepping in and opening up an icon screen for herself.

"Almost forgot but earlier we mentioned that, Falco and I bumped into StarWolf in New Venom City. Before Peppy interrupted us.." She says, making a long lipped face. "StarWolf were at a bar, and they mentioned something about Dash, they were up to something, apparently under the table." Says Katt.

"I thought we could trust Dash.." says Falco. Fox grits his teeth, rather nervous all of the sudden. He remembers talking to Dash, it doesn't seem like anything he'd do.

"Maybe... maybe we could just see what the General has to say.." Fox says with a stutter.

"I don't know if I'd want to risk ruining our relations with Venom if this turns out to be the case, maybe we are thinking of this out of context... And if not, maybe we can talk to Dash, maybe he's being manipulated by Wolf...Dash is just a kid... Maybe he doesn't know how to stand up to criminals.." says Fox. Peppy raises his eyebrows with glee and nods.

"Oh right Fox, ya really are clever, just like your Father!" says Peppy with joy.

"...Yeah..." Fox says quietly, with a soft sigh. "Just like Dad.." he mumbles. Krystal glances to Fox as she can sense a lot of anxiety spurring about in his mind.

"It is settled then." She says, breaking the two-second silence with closure. "We can return to Corneria and talk to the general. StarWolf is manipulating Dash through intimidation to get resources from him..."

"I guess that makes sense!" says Falco. "The way they talked about the guy, Wolf didn't seem to have any faith in the poor little guy. Figure, those guys goin' to push him around to get what they want, never thought we'd get into politics, aye Fox?"

"Yeah, I guess so." says Fox with a clearly fake chuckle, Falco gave Fox a slight raise in his eyebrows, but turned away with a cross of his arms.

"Understood." says Miyu through the comlink after a short silence, broken only by the humming of a ship's engine, and the puttering beeps of computer consoles. Her gruff voice patching through before being followed by Fay's squeaky, yipping voice.

"I have sent General Pepper a transmission and just got one back. He wants us to proceed straight to Corneria Base, both ships are clear for landing." says Fay. Miyu and Fay's icon screens vanish into static.

The ships sped on passed Eladard; a planet with a violet sky, and a broad set of rings. Then, passed Fortuna; a heavily forested tropical vineworld planet. Then Fichina, the small ice world, finally passing a few more space colony structures they drew in closer to Corneria just beyond the Lylat System's asteroid belt.

Rob64, Peppy, Slippy, Beltino, and Falco remained at the Great Fox helm on the bridge, exchanging occasional conversation with Miyu, Fay and Katt on the other side. Fox walked down the bridge corridor. The metal hallway lined with metallic paneling and arched floor-to-ceiling support beams, maintenance door-panels, pipes, wires, and flickering trails of light within circuit lines, lit by light panels in the ceiling and along where the floor meets the angular paneled walls.

Fox made a turn down a fork in the corridors, and passed through a sliding door into the team's rec room; made up of a polygon oval room with a television projector in a round corner, with some old video game console hooked up to it, a couple of couches facing each other with a coffee table in the middle. Slippy was obsessed with making it identical to the Great Fox they had before, Slippy even found old photographs of the team members and friends, printed them out and framed them here and there on the metal walls, using a near-indestructible adhesive. Fox glances at a picture, displaying a younger picture of himself in a cadet uniform being tussled playfully by Bill Gray.

Beside it, was a somewhat faded image; a slightly lower resolution digital image of James Mccloud; sunglasses over his face, with a smirk, beside a younger, slimmer, smoother Peppy, and Pigma; looking significantly less disgusting than he did last time Fox saw him, even how he looked before becoming a behemoth Aparoid monster.

Fox slouched down on the couch and curled his tail, grasping his hands together, just then, Slippy and Krystal walk on through, a word or two of their conversation slipped in just as the door flung open, Slippy's squeaky voice, and Krystal being rather quiet with low, soft words.

"Oh, hey Fox." Slippy says.

"Slippy!" says Fox as he perks his shoulders up, sitting up, his back against the couch's. Slippy sat beside Fox on the couch, and Krystal walked around, her blackish blue cape whirling just over her gently rolling tail before she sat down on the other couch across from Fox and Slippy.

"Fox...you okay?" Slippy asks.

"What do you mean?" Fox asks. "I'm fine, just a little tense I guess, with this whole thing going on.." says Fox.

"Krystal says its something else, and her sixth sense doesn't lie.." says Slippy.

"Krystal.." Fox grunts, looking up at her, to see her pretty face staring back at him, still and focused. Even now she peered into his mind, he was helpless to shield against it.

"Okay... it just bothers me, whenever Peppy mentions Dad.." Says Fox. Slippy's smile vanishes as he looks up at Fox.

"Fox.." he says softly.

"It's no big deal you guys, Peppy's been doing this forever, it hasn't stopped me before." says Fox, with an upward tone, believing that his confidence would put the team at ease, just like usual.

"It is a big deal, Fox.. it hurts you." says Krystal. "Fox, I noticed this numerous times, every mention of your father does something to you, you don't have to let it. Talk to Peppy, Fox, he will understand. I know he will." says Krystal. "I have.." she adds. Fox grits his fist.

"It's different with you, Krystal." says Fox. "He.. expects me to be just like his battle-buddy. Everybody does..." Fox's voice begins to crack, and croak. Krystal and Slippy look on him with trembling eyes.

"Fox... I have never seen you as the Son of James Mccloud...I've only seen you as Fox Mccloud.." says Krystal.

"Fox... I've known you since your Dad was around.." Says Slippy. "You'll always be my study-buddy., even if I went into Advanced Mechanical Engineering and you went into blast gunnery and aircraft tactics back in the Academy... Heh heh.." says Slippy. Fox sulks for a moment.

Suddenly, there was another bleep at Slippy's hip, and they heard Peppy's voice.

"Hey Slippy I could use your help over here, I can't for the life of me understand this thing-!" Peppy's old pitch voice comes in through his comlink. "Falco done something and I'm not sure how to set it back." he complains through a scratchy speaker.

"I didn't do nothin'!" They faintly, but clearly hear Falco complaining as well. Slippy arched his head back and groaned.

"Aughh... Gotta go, I'll be back." Slippy grunts as he stood up and walked through the sliding door into the hallway. They could hear Slippy complaining to himself just before the door slid shut with a hiss and a metallic clank.

"Poor Slippy.." Says Krystal. Fox chuckles a bit before the room fell silent, and awkward.

"Don't get me wrong... Peppy has been there for me for a long time, he looked out for me ever since Dad died." says Fox. Krystal stares on at Fox, almost as though she was staring through him like he were a window.

"Than he will understand...let him know that he needs to see you as Fox, not just the son of James Mccloud, but Fox.." says Krystal.

"I know what you're trying to do, Krystal." says Fox as he rubs the bridge of his snout with his fingers. "Trust me, Fox... I ..." Krystal trails off.

"Fox, I hurt you. I ran off to StarWolf, and it hurt you. Peppy knows it, and still he has been soft on me when we've been investing my homeworld of Cerenia. Fox, I am sorry, I am so Sorry!.." Krystal raises her voice, her shrill crying voice bouncing off the walls as Fox's green eyes held open wide.

"Krystal... I was never mad at you... I could never be." says Fox.

"Fox, when I met you and the others. I had no one and nothing, the man who raised me on Sauria had been dead for a while by that point, I just wanted to find out what happened to our culture, he never told me until the last conversation I had before he was killed by Scales' men." says Krystal.

Fox stood up, and walked over, while Krystal looked up at him trembling. Fox sat down beside her and took her hand in his; a drape on the back of her hand and palm was held in place by a ring on her middle finger, a small gemstone lay in the middle of it. Fox touched Krystal's tiny feminine fingers and Krystal sat there and shook.

Krystal, I'm sorry too.. I kicked you off the team for a stupid reason, and that hurt you too." says Fox. Krystal places her hand over her mouth to hide her gasping. "I need to tell you something... Krystal, I was worried something would happen to you, I was afraid I could lose you. There's no one else in the Lylat System who was anything like you. The endless battles were turning you into something though... that innocent, gentle person I met on Sauria... she was disappearing." says Fox. "I guess it was selfish of me to think I needed to protect you from that.." says Fox.

Suddenly, Rob64's voice comes through both their comlinks with some slight static.

"All hands to Great Fox bridge, all hands, to Great Fox bridge. Beginning Approach to Corneria."

Krystal and Fox stood up in a hurry and ran for the door. Both caught in a whirl of anxiety of what had happened, but they were like drones, instinctive in response to their military calls.

Meanwhile, at the bridge, Falco sat at the communications seat, a desk of controls, buttons, switches, levers, and dials surrounded him, while to his left on the slightly higher platform, Slippy and Rob64 tapped away at the controls, Peppy sat at the captain's chair at the center.

Falco maintained a conversation on the main screen, where Miyu, Fay, and Katt icons remained in a live video feed.

"So, I thought Peppy retired." Says Miyu.

"No, I'm too old to retire." Says Peppy.

"Well...okay then." Miyu replies with a confused giggle.

"I guess it's like me.." says Falco. "I keep leavin' they keep beggin' me to come back." Falco flaunts with a wave of his feathery hand, draping his eyes shut as he spoke, leaning back in the chair.

"Who did the 'begging' this time?" Katt asks.

"It was totally Falco." says Slippy, as he pulls a few levers and turns a dial as though he were part of the machine.

"Whuh—Hey Slippy!" Falco scolds, while Miyu, Fay and Katt laugh a bit on the other end of the comlink, audible through the speakers.

"Falco, wanting to be with your pals is nothing to be ashamed of." says Fay, in the sweetest voice she could make.

"Alright, rich girl, if you liked the team why did you guys leave?" Falco asks. Miyu and Fay both give him a visible glare.

"That's...a loaded question at the very least.." Miyu grunts. "We were still ex-military, and we asked Fox if we could at least have a joint operation with General Pepper, but Fox wanted to maintain the StarFox team as a private military organization, he didn't like all the paperwork invading his privacy...somehow... also He liked having a bill to go with our employment rather than a paycheck." says Miyu.

"The Cornerian Military is a mess, do you really want that to happen to the team?" Falco asks.

"Technically Fay and I still do the joint thing, hasn't been a problem for us." says Miyu.

"Hey Katt, what are you, exactly?" Fay asks. Katt laughs for a moment.

"Haha.. I dunno I just steal a ship and start shooting bad guys. Nobody's done a thing about it so I assume it isn't a problem." says Katt. Fay perks her lips and tilts her head, letting her right poofy ear dangle.

"That's actually pretty badass, I think I might be jealous.." says Fay, Miyu turns her eyes to Fay at the word 'jealous'.

"I thought I was the only badass feline in your life." says Miyu. Fay leans back and laugh.

"Ehh you are Miyu, what's got you worried?" Fay squeaks.

Katt smiles.

"Miyu, you are a badass. You two have your own ship, and you SAVED StarFox team. How often does any para-military ever do the saving in that relationship?" Katt asks.

"Hey I don't need saving, I'm badass!.." Falco complains.

"Yeah, yeah, Falco.." Katt says with a groan.

"Falco you ain't exactly independent.. Then again none of us are." says Peppy.

"Oh yeah, Falco needs the team, he just won't admit it." says Slippy. Falco crosses his arms and bows his head. Whatever, I just don't want to leave ya guys hangin'." says Falco.

"Yyyup..." Says Slippy with strong sarcasm.

Suddenly, General Pepper's face sprang up over all others, displayed to both ships' crews. A sulky old dog face with saggy eyes beneath a pair of sunglasses.

"This is General Pepper of the Cornerian Army. We are ready to receive landings at Corneria base immediately!"