Star Fox: Epsilon
Chapter 4: Dust Over The Golden Dream
Our ships were in formation as we left The Great Fox in stand by mode, Epsilon's pilots didn't wait too long to appear on our screens. "The always unmistakable Star Fox team, Corneria is becoming more and more cheapskate even with high-profile missions." Epsilon wasn't particularly known for their humility, so it wasn't strange for me to hear that leopard's cocky words.
"Don't overestimate yourselves; you are just a rock in the shoe." I moved my ship forward, and they started to shoot their weapons at us, we evaded the attacks and split to let each one of us deal with a pilot. The leopard's face had disappeared from my screen; I had his ship just behind me, I dodged his shots and evaded his tackles.
"Help me get rid of this missile!" Slippy was in trouble, like pretty much every time, a guided missile was following his ship along with Epsilon's pilot, I waited for the right moment and flew at full speed to get closer to them, then I finally managed to aim directly at the missile and shot at it, it exploded far enough from Slippy to not make him any harm, and close enough to the pilot to destroy his ship and make it explode. "Thanks, Fox." I was still relieved by hearing Slippy through the console's comm.
"No problem, bud." The radar of my arwing was now displaying just three lights. "Three more left, team."
"You mean, two." I saw Falco hovering over the ship that was after him, he dropped an electric bomb that attached to the glass of the ship's front, he always brings the best toys for important missions, he stood there to see the ship electrocuting alongside its pilot, then he flew away from it and the ship exploded.
"How are you doing, Krystal?" She had become better at her piloting skills, but it is always hard for me not to feel worried while she is flying.
"I'm fine, thanks." I think she wanted to demonstrate something as she chased the pilot she had been dealing with and began to shoot all she had at the ship's back, she kept shooting the laser machine gun of her arwing with no stop and after she had destroyed the entire back part of the ship it exploded right in front of her then I flew next to the explosion to see if she was okay.
"Krystal!" I got very afraid, more than the usual, but she finally passed through the remaining smoke of the explosion. "Alright, I got this one." I turned to evade the shots of the remaining pilot, that cocky leopard was starting to stress me out, so I decided to apply an old maneuver that I learned from Peppy. I accelerated towards the ship's engines and leaned my arwing in a way that the right wing could hit them, I managed to bend both cylinders and the back camera of my ship displayed the explosion in my screen after I got to a safe distance.
"Good job Fox! I'll return to the ship." Slippy was the first one to fly back to The Great Fox, sometimes I think he secretly doesn't enjoy to fly that much.
"Come on, team, we better hurry to get in time to Dirartar." We followed Slippy on his way to the ship; I got to admit that those pilots put us in actual trouble, but my team has never ran away from a battle.
The Fox's gate closed and we got off of our arwings, everything seemed to be okay, but I saw Krystal rubbing her head as she landed her feet on the floor. "Are you okay, Krystal?" Falco was the first to get on her way.
"Just a little hit, I'll be fine." Krystal hurried her walking and headed towards the automatic door that led to the hallway then she got out from our sight. Slippy and Falco just glanced at me as if I had the obligation to do something, thing that I instantly felt, of course.
I went to the hallway and found Krystal leaning over the wall next to her room. I walked towards her slowly and noticed that she was covering half of her face with her hand. "Krystal, if you are hurt I can to go to the med bay and…" If only I had kept my mouth shut.
"Just go!" She put eyes that I had never seen before. "I told you about this, and you never listened, Fox, maybe next time I won't be so lucky and you'll finally get what I wanted you to see! But it'll be too late anyways." Those words of her caught my mind and my heart off guard, she just locked herself in her room after that, but I stood there, outside and sat down over the floor and lowered my head. The distance between us now looked like an ocean in my mind, the message was clearer, she was tired of this, danger then pain, but her choice was to go with us, she could've just stayed in Corneria, and with this thought I felt relieved and guilty at the same time, I discovered that she was willing to take any risk to be at my side, but she had reached the limit, everyone has limits, and it pained me to know I was the reason of her chosen pain. I put my hand on the door of her room, to kind of feel close to her, it may sound like madness, but that certainly comforted me a little.
