Something Blue
A Star Fox Adventures Fanfic
7: Critical Mass
"Wake up, Fox," Tricky said, crying into his ear. Fox blinked, and whimpered. Pain lanced over his chest and muzzle.
He groaned. His eyes fluttered open, and focused on the young EarthWalker.
"You're awake, hooray!" the prince cheered.
Fox nodded, and reached up to rub his nose. "What happened?" he asked, feeling slightly ill.
"You passed out when the lightning hit you," Tricky explained, which was pretty much what Fox had already worked out for himself.
In the back of his mind, he realized he knew how to use the staff to cause earthquakes--minor ones, but enough to move rocks, and maybe even stun monsters.
He blinked, as he looked at the back of his paw, it was all blue now, as was the whole of his arm. Sitting up he sighed, looking at the other arm.
"Your face has changed too," the prince said.
Fox nodded, and leaned forward, looking at his own refection in the water. His muzzle was longer, more elegant looking, with blue fur scattering over his cheeks and around his eyes. Even the color of his nose pad had changed, becoming lighter.
There was something else, a weight on his chest that felt wrong. Sitting upright, he looked down at himself. His shirt was pushed out, over a pair of... of what looked like breasts!
He'd had his paws on enough women to know what they should feel like, and as he grabbed himself, that was exactly what he felt. More than that, he felt both sides of it, they were real, and they were his.
That wasn't all though, he realized with a gulp. Not only had something been added, but something else was missing. With Tricky staring on, he reached down and felt himself, and felt his fingers brush against something that should never have been there.
"Oh God, I'm a girl," Fox said with a whimper.
"What?" Tricky asked, not quite understanding the importance of that statement.
Fox gulped and pulled her paw away, looking down at it. "I've been turned into a vixen," she said with a whimper.
The prince turned his head, and frowned, "Are you sure? You don't look like a girl."
"Not your kind of girl, my kind." Fox looked back down at her chest again and sighed, feeling like she wanted to cry. She sat down, dropping her feet into the water and placed her head in her paws.
"Fox?" the prince asked, nuzzling up to her side.
She sighed and looked at Tricky, "I'm sorry, I'm just... I don't know. It's just, this feels so wrong," she shook her head.
The prince nodded and licked her paw. "What do we do?"
She looked down at the small dinosaur and pulled herself to her feet. "If we don't save your world, no one will. We've got to do it, we just have to." Brushing her hair from her face, she looked down at her reflection in the water.
The hair, the face, the changes all now looked right on her new body. It was the old red and tan fur that looked wrong on her. The shape of her arms and legs, the hips, which he once thought were just fat, all look correct on her transformed body.
With a leap, she jumped across the pool. "I think I know how to get past the monster now," she said, walking back towards the portal.
"Oh?" Tricky said, not really aware of the war going on in Fox's head. His youth hid how much was tied up in a person's sexual identity; he didn't understand how the sudden loss of her gender was affecting Fox, or how strong a face she was putting on.
Reaching the portal, she scooped up the prince, and held him in her arms as they were teleported back to the cave. When the world reformed, she put the prince down, and walked over to the cave-in.
The sound of the monster's attack had faded away, though the creature was still probably out there, waiting for them.
Flipping the staff around in her paws, she smiled. "Let's see how well this works," she said, and crashed the headpiece into the ground.
With a rumble, a wave of power blasted out of the staff, crashing into the pile of stones. They rippled, shifted, then fell forward, clearing the way.
"That worked perfectly," she said, gingerly picking her way over the loose stones. Outside she could see the hole the monster had come through. It was covered over with fresh dirt, but she doubted it had moved on.
A doubt which was proven a moment later as it once more burst from the ground. Its claws lunged towards them, a blast of fire streaking from one.
She rolled to the side, away from the blast. Then jumping to her feet, she smashed the headpiece of the staff to the ground at the monster's feet. A wave of power rolled over the ground, and crashed into the monster, throwing it back into its hole. It slumped to the side, its eyes glazing over, stunned.
Running around the body, she spun the staff around and buried the end into a large soft spot on the back of its head. With three blasts of fire the creature seemed to explode into smoke.
"Good job, Fox!" Tricky called he ran out of the cave.
She nodded, tucking the staff away. "Thanks, but it leaves us with our original problem; how do we get up the wall?" She paused, and rubbed her chin. "I could try a ground quake, see if I can knock some rocks loose, something we can climb up with.
"How about this?" Tricky said, nosing his way over where the creature had died.
Fox walked over and bent down to look at what he had discovered. Sitting in the middle of the hole was a strange looking plant seed. It was large, two paws wide, and curved like a crescent moon. Picking it up, she balanced it in her paws; it was heavy, and vibrating like it was trying to move in its own.
"What is it?"
"A MoonSeed," he replied with a nod.
She lifted her eyebrows, "I see, and what does it do?"
"It's a vine, you plant it against the wall, and it will grow.".
A very female laugh escaped from Fox's lips. "We don't have time to let it grow, Tricky, we have to get up over that now."
The youth laughed and nodded. "If I flame it, Fox, it will grow really fast."
She nodded, carrying the seed over to the rock wall. "How fast?" she asked, burying one end of the seed into the loose soil of the ground.
"Watch," he said, and trotted over. Lining himself up, he dropped his head, wiggled his tail, and blew a gout of flame out onto the seed.
The seed shook, and almost exploded upwards, a thick vine rushing up the wall. Large leaves flared out along the length of the vine, digging into the stone of the cliff as the tip crested the top of the wall.
"Wow," Fox said, amazed, looking up at the vine as she rubbed the back of her neck.
Tricky grinned and pranced back over to Fox, a smirk on his face. "See? Now we can get up."
She nodded, "So I see." Then she reached down and picked up the prince, letting him climb into her backpack. He wiggled in and curled up; they had done this enough times by now that he knew just where to sit, without causing Fox any problems.
Grabbing the vines firmly in her paws, she gave them a strong tug, and found them very stably dug into the wall. Thinking about it for a second, she kicked off her boots and handed them to Tricky to hold. She was going to need her feet and toes for this climb.
She lifted herself upwards, shoved her foot into the vines, she gripped them with her toes, then pulled herself upwards again. The vines were deeply embedded into the stone and easily held her weight. It turned out to be easy going, dense enough that she had plenty of handholds. They thinned out the last few feet, and she had to scramble to get over the top edge of the cliff. Once she pulled herself up, she lay on the ground, panting. "That was a very good idea," she told Tricky.
The Prince handed her boots to her and clambered out of her pack and onto the ground, looking very pleased with himself. At that point there was only one way for them to go, and that was deeper into the mountain.
"Come on," she said after putting on the boots, and stood up. They walked down the slope, moving in silence. Fox had to take short, dropping steps which made her new breasts bounce under her shirt, and it hurt.
Fox sighed as they reached the bottom, rubbing her chest with a paw. "Wait here for a minute Tricky, I have to do something."
The dinosaur nodded and curled up on the ground, not minding being left alone for a short time. Fox pulled out a small ball for the prince, and placed it down in front of his paws. His eyes lit up and he let out a happy squeal, and started to throw it around.
She laughed, and started back up the hill, looking for someplace fairly private. Not that the young EarthWaker would understand what she would be doing, or why it had to be private.
When she was out of view, she shrugged out of her vest and pack, setting them on the ground at her feet. A moment later she pulled off her shirt, and shivered as her new fur and flesh were exposed to the chilled air. The fur was blue, naturally, and everything looked correct for a female, and perfectly real.
A sigh escaped her lips as she examined herself. She wasn't large, only slightly more than a paw full. They were the kind of breasts that would have barely attracted her attention as a guy, and now they were hers.
Flipping her shirt around, she ran the tip of her knife around the waist, cutting though the fabric with ease. When she was done she was left with a gray strip, six inches wide. She sliced down the width of the fabric, breaking the circle.
She held the cloth in her paws, and pressed up against her chest, pulling it back around behind herself. The two ends of the fabric just barely overlapped, but not enough to tie together. Taking off the bandana she wore around her neck, she tied one end to the end of the cloth. Wrapping it back around herself, she tied the other end of the bandana to the other end of the fabric.
She adjusted the material, making sure it held herself firmly. Taking a few jumps, she was satisfied that it made a serviceable bra.
Fox turned, picking up her things, and started back down the slop, pulling her shirt back on as she went. It was a much more comfortable trip now that she was restrained, though her shirt left her midriff bare. A mix of blue fur showed over her belly button, and red under it.
She pulled her vest back onto her shoulders, and followed that with her backpack as she walked up to Tricky. "Ready to go?" she asked him.
He looked up and nodded, the red and yellow ball held tightly in his mouth. "Yep," he said, his voice muffled by the toy.
The vixen laughed and took the ball from him, wiping the slobber off on the remains of her pants, then put it pack onto his pack. "I guess we go this way," she said, pointing though the mountain pass.
He nodded, and ran forward, just as eager as ever to continue the adventure.
Fox wished she could be as sure of success as he was.
This story is copyright 2005-2008 by Victoria-Ann Cutter, hardcopy reprints limited to one a person, all other rights reserved. This story may not be distributed for a fee except by permission of the author, and this copyright notice may not be removed. Star Fox and Star Fox Adventures and all related characters and settings are owned by Nintendo and are used without permission.