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Chapter 4: Remorse

The sun was barely visible over the mountains of Aquas. The sky was beautiful at this time of day, for the sunset caused it to be a deep red with pink and orange clouds over the shining blue ocean. But neither sky nor the sunset could show the terrible thing that had just occurred.

Four ships landed in front of the base of the mountains, on the land near the ocean's edge. One of the cockpits opened up, and Krystal jumped out. She immediately ran over to the lead ship, as Wolf jumped out.

"How can you possibly think that destroying Slippy would help?" Krystal yelled at Wolf. She had her hands up in the air, as if she was about to bring them down in an attack.

Wolf just stared at her.

"Well?" Krystal practically screamed, exasperated. Wolf still remained silent. Krystal turned to Panther, who was watching her while standing next to Leon. "And you! Why did you have to let the PQ-7 hit Slippy's ship? He was not the target you were supposed to aim for!"

"Believe me, Panther never meant harm to the frog, only Fox and his friend," Panther tried to explain.

Krystal knew that Panther was telling the truth, but she still remained angry, "Slippy is Fox's friend! And he used to be my friend too, you know!"

Now it was Panther's turn to be silent.

Krystal just couldn't let go of the fact that Slippy had died. Earlier she had gone to see what happened as soon as Slippy had been hit. The mess was horrible. What hadn't been totally obliterated by the PQ-7 or had been burned to a crisp by the planet's atmosphere was completely and totally drenched in water and blood. Slippy's ship had crashed into the ocean of Aquas, and even though the force of impact wasn't that hard, Slippy had been dead before his ship hit the water. Krystal didn't let team Star Wolf know, but she had wept over the remains of Slippy's ship, and silently promised to make it up to him one day, she just didn't know how yet.

Now she wanted to know why Slippy's fate had been so violently sealed.

"Do any of you have anything to say?" Krystal was close to tears.

"I didn't want this to happen," The whisper came from Wolf, who was looking at the ground with an unreadable expression on his face.

Krystal turned around, "What?"

"I said that I didn't want this to happen. We had not planned on Slippy Toad to come fight; we knew he had already settled down on Aquas, that's why we made our hideout in this system. He didn't really pose any threat. We believed that he wouldn't really care about us and therefore would be harmless."

Krystal couldn't think of anything to say.

"I'm sorry for what I did, and I hope you'll forgive all of us," Wolf said, and both Leon and Panther nodded.

After a moment's silence, Krystal finally spoke, "Alright, I forgive you, and I accept your apology, but I will never forget what you did."

Wolf nodded, "I expected nothing more. Let's camp here; it's too dangerous to go back to the hideout on the asteroid. I bet Fox will come back with a Cornerian fleet to help him out."

"Fine, but first I'm going to find Amanda and tell her what has happened to her husband," Krystal walked away.

Leon muttered to Panther, "You still think she's on our side, and not Fox's?"

"Only time will tell. But Panther knows Krystal will be loyal to us as long as we treat her with respect."

And that was the last thing said for the rest of the night.

Author's Note: Sorry for the short chapter, but I thought you guys needed to know what was happening down on Aquas.