"Why do I have to stay with Grandpa Peppy?"

Peter Hare looked sadly up at his mother, who was ruffling his hair. They were stood outside a large house and Peter had his small overnight bag on his back.

"I need to talk with some friends tonight. Their sons all went off to the flight academy too, many years ago. I need to talk to them so I know what the rules are for contacting you…" Lucy Hare, Peter's mother, was trying not to cry. She didn't want her only son to be going to the academy at all, but he'd been approved and there was nothing she could do about it. "Besides, Grandpa Peppy loved spacecraft, he flew them too, he's the Colonel, remember? He was in the fleet a very long time ago. Perhaps the two of you can talk mechanics all night." She wiped her eyes and gave Peter one last hug. "If anything happens, my cell phone number is in your bag, ok?"

"Yes Mommy"

"Good. Now, have a nice time with Grandpa Peppy tonight. Goodbye sweetie"

"Bye Mom"

Lucy headed back to the car and Peter opened the door. In all ten years of his life he had never been to his grandfather's house before and boy was he surprised. The front room was like a museum for old spacecraft. The shelves were full of slightly dusty plastic models Peppy had built over the years. The walls were adorned with technical blueprints and photographs, including one that caught Peter's keen blue eye.

It was a very old photo, for the rabbit in it was no older than thirty years old, he was in a very old looking uniform and was stood next to a Cornerian fighter. Which also happened to look very old, but powerful.

"Grandpa?"

"You called, sprout?"

Peter jumped; an old rabbit had suddenly appeared next to him. He looked very similar to the rabbit in the photograph.

"Hehe, good times, those days. I flew that ship for many years; Class AM425. Wonderful handling. Although back in my glory days I did more blowing up than flying. Those were the good days, before I retired"

"Did you fly this?" Peter picked up a small model from the bookshelf near him, which largely contained huge books about aircraft. Peppy's face was beaming when he saw which one it was.

"Ahh yes... That was one of my favourite ships; the Arwing"

"It has great G-diffusers, Grandpa. Or is that just the model? Some models are really bad quality, but this one is strikingly accurate looking. Even the controls in the cockpit are to perfect scale!" Peter began to do what he was famous for in his neighbourhood: babbling on about spaceships. As he went on and on, Peppy chuckled, impressed.

"I never told you about the time I was in a flight team, did I? My years were longer than anyone else's, you know. The team was called Star Fox." He walked over to his chair. Peter sat on the floor in front of him; he was interested already. "Originally we were a small group of friends. There was me, Pigma Dengar, and James McCloud. We did the occasional mission for the Cornerian forces, mainly when their troops were in over their heads. James was a brilliant pilot. Brave too, and very open and friendly to us - it was only natural that he was our leader. But someone on the team wasn't being so open"

"Pigma?" Peter opened his bag and began to nibble on a sandwich, clutching a bottle of apple juice tightly.

"That's right. Years before he was an assistant for a scientist called Andross. He was a madman who nearly destroyed the city with his experiments. After Andross was tried and exiled, Pigma trained himself as a pilot; that's where we met him. What we didn't know was that he was still contacting Andross, sending him top secret military plans and other information. One day, the General contacted us and sent us after Andross, who had been continuing his experiments on the planet Venom. Pigma claimed he knew what to do and had inside info on Andross, so rather stupidly we believed him. He led us in totally complicated routes, circles, and straight into fleets of robots. When we finally reached Andross, Pigma was acting funny. Then he disappeared - We knew at once that he had betrayed us and had no choice but to battle it out alone. I barely escaped with my life..."

"W-w-w-what happened to James?" Peter was fearing the worst, and had almost finished his juice. He always drank a lot when he was nervous.

"…He died. James was killed in the battle and the last thing he told me before he died was to escape and tell his son, Fox, what had happened. And that's just what I did; I made it out alive and flew back to Corneria. I had left there with my best friends and was coming back alone. Pigma was a traitor and James was dead. When I got back to Corneria, I went to Fox's school and told the desk people that his father had died and I needed to have him out of class. Poor kid, he had no idea what was going on. One minute he was worrying about how to spell 'Technological' and the next he learned that his father had died. We were wandering around the school when I told him, in case any of the staff overheard how it happened. The sight of him after I told him..." Peppy sniffed. This happened thirty years ago, but it still haunted him.

"What then?"

"Well, there was a funeral and memorials, people asking me lots of questions, I even appeared on TV. The next thing I knew, little Fox was knocking on my door with a bag on his back, saying he wanted to be trained to be a pilot like his father. Not just to make him proud, but to take revenge. I trained him personally, as well as enrolling him in the Cornerian flight academy. He was too old, but they took him when they heard that he was related to James. He met a funny kid called Falco in that academy, and his best friend Slippy came to some of our training sessions. When they were ready they set out to Venom, but I went with them. Last time I went to Venom I lost my two best friends. If all three of them died I dread to think what I would do. But we did it! James didn't die in vain!"

Time passed all too quickly for the two. Peter was enthralled by the stories his grandfather told and Peppy was a bit too lost in nostalgia to notice. Before long he was telling Peter about how Fox had handled the Saurian Crisis.

"...He met a nice girl there. Saved her life, y'know. He invited her to join the team and I got a chance to retire. Didn't stop me though." The old man grinned. "I saved the General a year later even though I was too old to be flying around the way I did. Boy was I reckless! And I haven't even gotten onto the part when I drove the Great Fox into an energy shield and nearly died again"

"Again?"

Peppy laughed. "It's a miracle I'm still here, really! Good gracious, look at the time! Here, get ready for bed and you might get the inner workings of the Great Fox for a bedtime story"

Peter hurriedly got ready for bed. As he crawled under the covers after Peppy had finished drawling on about the Great Fox - which sounded incredible to Peter, no matter how dated it was - he had a question for his grandfather.

"Grandpa, I've been accepted into the Cornerian Flight Academy. Will I do what you did?"

"That depends. You could train for years and be bored witless, but with some good friends by your side, plenty of skill and an occasional lack of common sense, you could be on for the wild ride... G'night sprout."