Madness Season

By Degree: 35 degrees

To my Readers, Almost done with "by degree" this is the last of my official outline for "By Degree" but I have one more chapter planed, if all goes well I'll move onto other Starfox stories after this one is finished. Any other StarWolf short stories or one shots will probably be compiled here... I still have to decide how I want to format this. Written to SNES Starfox 2, Star Wolf (metal version) by xxmeycxx.

Thanks for reading,

Kasan Soulblade

"It's something to do with the Reptilian brain sir. Something... unevolved... innately unbalanced. Not as a whole, but just a select few. Mammals as a whole have outgrown and surpassed thier primal instincts... but Reptiles... We just don't know how they tick... You understand, sir, it's always in them and near the surface. This ugly, bitter, part that loves the pain, gets off on the agony. We couldn't think of any other way to deal with it"

Sargent Bill Grey to General Pepper; dispatch recieved after Star Wolf's capture when humaniarian protests arose when details about the detainment of prisoner Leon P. leaked. It was later revieled and confirmed to the public that Leon was set in a cold locker for hours at a time to keep him placid.

It fell before he did, sliding through limp, clawed fingers to strike at the steel floor. With a click and a clatter the com-link fell away. His breath, while it couldn't steam, clogged in his throat and set him to panting. The moisture of what the poets called "the breath of life" becoming a cloying mist that slowly but surely was asphyxiating him. Weary, of the last, he closed glassy eyes, the fight just didn't seem worthwhile anymore.

Life was gauged by measures so strict that to deviate by a dose or an ounce was to die. He'd taught her the doses, and the methods of dosing and she was apt, able, and willing. Once of his blood was not one who was encumbered with the tainted skein of "morals" that the Cornerians slapped over their instincts of self preservation. She held no regards for what the warm blooded dubbed "laws" and "civilization", seeing the foolery and hypocrisy under the pretty coating.

The war wore one, and time passed, time and distance, as the missions become more covert and the space front more heated. Resistance rose it's damned head, but he endured, and from time to time dared a visit or two.

They made a jest of it, from time to time. On one of those rare times when the fighting had been light and close and the security mutts that Corneria had inflicted on her were easy to dispose of... Hypocrites, he'd dubbed them, and she who shared his name, the name of Pawloski, had nodded her scaled head wisely. She was always watched, the grim dour dogs of Corneria may preach freedom but they never acted on it, were all bark and no bite. So he had said and so she agreed even as he immersed the bodies in acid and she watched on, untouched by what others would have thought as "violating" the "honored" dead.

The dead reeked, tainted the air and a questing tongue with their decomposings. Much better to just destroy the carrion as quickly as possible and air out the place after.

To avoid redundancy she had paced along her lab opening this window and that, the summer air was hot, tainted with the taste of pollutants, but a virtually unindustrialized oasis to the taste buds when compared to Venom.

He flicked his tongue out, taking in the taste and texture even as he folded his lanky frame on the three legged stool -lab variety, stainless steel, without the annoying cushion for the backside favored by Canines and Avians- as his own. His scales grew glossy and bright about his ankles and knees, almost silver and sheen, looking down at once of his feet he clicked his tongue amongst his fangs in a quiet chuckle. Pointing to a span of scales on his left ankle he indicated that she had missed a spot, to that she laughed a gurgling hiss.

"You are meticulous in execution... on matters of cleanliness of course." She noted archly, head tilted to the side.

"Of coursssse." He blinked, how own head tilted to the side. "How isss buissnesss?"

"Slow." She spoke in a clipped Cornerian accent despite how it irritated him, they would have to... talk about that some day soon. "I was pulled from bio-weapon research due to the scandal that my last name raised."

He blinked, rolled his head with a series of little jerky ticks that were slow in straightening but wonderful for that crick behind his skull fin.

"Since the bio-weapons fiasco I have been shuffled from every branch of the "bio" sciences, at last being put in organic fuel production and development."

No need to flick his tongue out to taste the air now. Her bitterness was so strong and acidic it seeped past his lipless mouth to tease his tongue all on its own. Neck slightly bent, the angle of his snout slightly askew, he considered her, and at last blinked.

"I of course, would happily offer my servicesss to one so disstressed..."

She shook he head, another Canine mannerism. Clearly Corneria was tainting her. When Venom took over Lylat he resolved to have her relocated as soon as possible. But that was in the future, for now, he would be content knowing that despite her unhappiness she was fine. It was an unhappiness she was inflecting on herself of course, and therefore it was ineffable to broach. There was some logic behind it he supposed, but perhaps torture had left his own reasoning... skewed. He never pried, never asked the obvious, the "why" she endured such small unhappiness's, why she almost always stilled his hand whenever he offered his... unique services to her problems.

"Father."

He hissed, a warning, and to that wordless rebuke she went quiet. Old lessons pounded into her skull through, scales and skin leaving a meshwork of scars when some Pro Cornerian radical had overheard and acted long ago... That experience hung between them and had left scars on them both. Unsaid, unsayable, it had become the dictate of both their lives. Never say that, never breathe it, never think it. One word was damning, not only because of the sentiment it aroused in him -such a deadly, precious, feeling. It broke controls sacred, releasing the beast and saint out all at once and the wars they waged were apocalyptic- but the consequences of if others heard it. Such a dire consequence went beyond thinking, rose the beast, the Monster, without invitation.

It was the Monster that stared through his eyes, looked down at her and set the black slit that was the center of his eyes to a sick shaking, a vile gleaming. his breath hissed through his fangs and the tensions of his muscles eased all at once making each motion liquid malice. He unwound then, stood, looking down at her from those hellish eyes.

"Excise that word from your vocabulary, Camillie."

Rebuked, she nodded. Not enough, too doggish. As clipped as any Cornerian yapper he said the last, leaning over the table that separated them until their snouts were all but touching.

"Or I'll do it for you."

She shivered, and the taint of her terror filled his mouth.

Sucking down the draft he snapped his jaws shut and turned on his heel. Have to leave, his reason hissed, scraping on the dry detachment that was his thoughts. Have to leave now. Now, before she could show any other Cornerian weaknesses to him, for in his present mood he wouldn't endure them.

Much to their mutual sorrow.

She'd be fine. Like him she sported degrees in non-traditional medicine, the degree was scrawled on their very scales.

She'd be fine.

Confident he left, confident he'd flown. Even during the worse of the war he dosed than flown. Confident, knowing that like he, she would do whatever needed to be done. Assured by her cool head and cooler blood he had been confident she'd be alright.

He never through of consequences of a blockade, having been on the "winning side" from the start. Then come the StarFoxs, the wings of their Ar-Wings dipped in the color of stars. Then came Fichina, a final victory, a final ruin.... After it came the snout aching impact as his needs met the blockade. Materials stopped coming in, he scrambled to find substitutes, gambling his very life for one more day.

Drip, drip.

A bead of fire caressed him.

From snout tip to jaw it drizzled down like lava on pallid, frosting, scales....

Liquid poured in a syringe, thrown down the black abyss of the throat, clasped in capsules, he gambled with his life on an elixir of continued life. And in some ways he failed, becoming frailer by trials end. Desperation made him thread out medicine and means until the very end. Then the pressure had eased, the blockade had broken no by anticipated victory but by inglorious defeat.

At wars end he had been freed of obligation so he had spent a few precious days restocking than he had faded away, living up to his inborn ability as a Chameleon to disappear. Leon had slipped a span of space made choppy by antagonism and animosity with the ease of shedding one's skin... And at long last he had returned to Corneria, returned to her home.

To find it invaded, desecrated by the warm blooded mutts he had grown to despise.

Not satisfied with the answer of "I don't know" he had shown them -the whole family of interlopers- his displeasure and gone hunting.

The paper trail was a awkward one, No artful evasions and sly maneuverings, merely screens of quantity. He endured however, being pressed by a drive a desperation poorly associated with the calm, collected facade he held up for the world to see.

One article, paste and clipped and stored, about a nameless Lizard found dead from drug overdose held his answer. Time of death, two months before war's end. The cops statistic heavy stance and anticipated anti-drug speech had been the irrelevant content, and at speech's end the case had been closed. Only he wondered, knowing what he knew, and after satiating his curiosity approached the Laz's.

Their lack of sympathy or care had been most... disquieting... and he had acted appropriately due to the circumstances of his grief.

Perhaps a bit excessively, but appropriately.

He'd burned them alive, trapping them in their house while it burned. He'd been marked as an arsonist, a murderous one, and bore another black mark on Corneria's exceedingly long list of his sins.

"No stimulus... no response... heartbeats slow, can barely feel it despite..."

Words and meaning faded in and out, in a place behind the blackness of his vision where the dark breathed. He lay amongst the still dark, unfeeling, untouched.

Than, a cruel blade sheared through the black, it's edge a voice. That voice held no passion, no inflection. "Immerse him."

"Sir, that'll kill..."

"Do it! Damn your tailless, lack wit, hide! I gave a order and I will be obeyed!"

Idly, upon leaving he had wondered how it felt to die by fire. Professional curiosity mind, how long did it take for the nerves to over stimulate and shut down. When the epidermis pealed off, was it pain or the realization of what was lacked that drew the screams from those salvaged from a fire. And, semantics, time, how long did it take for the smoke to clog airways and take the focus off of the fact you were boiling in your own blood?

His questions were answered, in the rudest way possible. He screamed, a soundless reptile screech, black claws scrabbling at the dark, damning those who caused him such pain to in the least, share a fraction of the agony with him.

The end, when it came, answered one of his questions. Death by fire, pain born of flame, did not stop fast enough.