When Azure and Kearney reached the aft of the Great Fox, Fox was waiting with his Arwing ready.

"Get in!" he belted out at the two then looked around, "Wait. Where's Conor?"

Then they heard the clacking of sharp boots on laminate. From behind them a voice yelled out, "Hey! You leaving without me? Wait up!"

It was Conor, he had a black cloak over his clothing, and on his back two SMGs were belted on.

"I had to pick up my guns before heading over here, figured we could use the ranged firepower."

Fox waved at him to hurry up, "Get in already! Did you stop for dinner too, this shouldn't take this long. We have to go, now!"

Conor, Azure, and Kearney climbed into the back of the Arwing, and buckled themselves in. Fox gunned the engines and they shot out of the Great Fox.

Kearney looked around and saw the whole battle. The Great Fox was flying in the distance behind them, as graceful and majestic as it could be while being pummeled by the gunners in the Zeus ships. There were fires breaking out in the distance where shots that missed went to. The tops of trees were blown off and leaving smoking caps, the massive wildlife that easily reached hundreds of feet in the air were sometimes lying on their sides, and even launched into the air by explosions at their bases.

Fox deftly piloted the Arwing through all the lasers flashing past their faces, and under the farthest Zeus, thankfully there were no cannons under the Zeus or they would be a sitting duck.

"We need to try to take these ships down quick, otherwise the Great Fox won't last long and we'd either need to retreat or get stranded in the middle of nowhere."

The Arwing flashed past the middle of the Zeus and a small red circle dropped out of the front cannons. It slowly drifted upwards towards the bottom of the Zeus, and Fox sped to the other end of the Zeus' underside.

The red circle bumped against the belly of the Zeus, and a blast erupted from the circle, extending outwards and decimating a hole in the Zeus.

Kearney felt his hair rise on end as the shock wave from the explosive red circle extended past the Arwing, shaking it on its end. "Was that a smart bomb?" He asked Fox.

Fox nodded, "Yep, we don't have many of them anymore because they came from my universe. We need to build the few that we have ourselves, and that was a very dangerous task without the tools we require. In fact, we had to convert the Great Fox, Arwing, and Wolfen fuel intake into a more commonly found source. The Brothers don't have much to use, so whatever we use on the Great Fox, will only be found on the Great Fox."

The Arwing went below the massive hole in the Zeus and gently floated up. Fox turned around in his seat to look at the three humans.

"You three go inside, I'll cover your escape from out here. Get back to this point once you've disabled the engines. Our job isn't to capture this ship, so feel free to damage it as much as possible."

A hatch opened in the Arwing's roof.

Conor nodded to Fox and jumped on top of the Arwing and then leapt into the inside of the Zeus. Azure followed suit, and it was Kearney's turn last.

He climbed up and stood on top of a flying space ship. This has been an interesting day, he thought to himself. The wind rustled his hair, and he made the mistake of looking down.

They were far above the treetops of the ancient forest, and as the trees rushed beneath him, Kearney got cold feet.

"Jump, rookie!" Conor yelled at him.

"Come on, Kearney, you can make it." Azure shouted above the rushing wind.

She held out her hand, and Kearney took a step forward and reached out his hand. The Zeus' hull was now floating upwards, and was easily seven feet higher than the Arwing.

Kearney took another step, crouched, and jumped as high as he could into the thin air, his feet miles above the ground. The Zeus ship's bottom got closer as Kearney left the relative safety of the Arwing.

The seven feet separating Kearney from death closed down to five, then three, and finally down to inches.

His palms hit the hard, cool metal of the Zeus and slipped for a bit, Kearney scrambled on his hands and elbows to find any sort of purchase on the slick floor.

Then Kearney felt two sets of arms and hands grab him around his armpits and hoist him up.

It was Azure and Conor. They hauled him into the cool air of the Zeus and lay down by his side, absolutely exhausted by the effort. They stayed on the ground for a moment, recovering, then Conor stood up.

"We've got to get moving. They will have sent people down here for repairs, and I don't want them to know we're here just yet."

Kearney and Azure got up and brushed themselves off, then pulled out their weapons; Kearney's blaster and sword, Azure's katana, and Conor's dual SMGs.

"Let's head straight to the Engine room," Conor said, "do some real damage to this ship. If the schematics Fox showed me are correct, we need to go that way." He pointed to the right hand hallway, then started walking, SMGs held at the ready.

Azure shrugged to Kearney, "let's go."

When they started walking, a rather urgent question came over Kearney.

"So what exactly are we fighting here?"

Conor turned around, shock apparent on his face.

"You haven't even been told what we've been up against?"

Kearney shrugged, "It's been a very busy day, and my first one here awake."

Conor peered around the closest corner and let out a long low whistle, "Speak of the devil, Kearney. Here's one of those bastards now." He waved to Kearney to move up, "Take a good look at this son of a bitch; we call our enemies 'the swarm'."

Kearney peered around the corner, greeting his eyes was one of the most disgusting creatures he had ever seen.

It was around four and a half feet tall and bloated; it was black and purple, with no hair covering it and only a loin cloth to keep this book decent enough for Nintendo. It was focused on a panel at the wall with a short, spiked club next to it.

"Urrgh, that thing is hideous." Kearney whispered.

Azure nodded. "Yeah, but that isn't the worst part. Don't let any of the swarm touch you, if they do your skin will become clammy and the swarm will take your form. It changes itself into a stronger version of you, with everything you can do it doing better.

While Kearney and Azure discussed the swarm, Conor snuck up on the aforementioned swarm. He put aside one of his SMGs and reached down to his calves, from one he pulled out a curved knife. As quietly as possible, Conor approached the swarm from behind.

"That's horrible" Kearney said as Azure finished her explanation. "Is there really no way to tell them apart?"

"Nope, no way other than that they don't have the subject's memories."

At that point a screech echoed through the hall the swarm was in. Kearney and Azure rushed in to see two Conor's staring each other down, each mimicked the other perfectly, from the knife and gun in their hands to the stance.

Azure pointed her katana at the Conor on the left.

"Remember what I told you, Kearney?"

Kearney readied his sword and gun, pointing them at both Conors. "Yeah, they copy everything about you except for your memories."

Then it came to him.

"I have to ask them a question only Conor would know?"

Azure nodded, then eyeballed the two Conors, "This is a test isn't it? A way of teaching Kearney?"
Both Conors nodded and smirked.

"Maybe." They said at the exact same time.

Kearney was unsettled by that and had to think for a moment, then he remembered what Fox had told Azure earlier.

"Why were you set to guard duty on the Great Fox?"

The Conor on the right swore and pulled his knife around to slash at Kearney.

Out of the corner of his eye Kearney saw the blade and ducked, the curved knife cut through the air above his head, barely missing him. Expecting resistance, the Conor to the right stumbled forward and was easily taken down by Azure's swift blade.

The Conor who attacked screeched as the Katana bit into his back, he fell to the ground and writhed around as his lifeblood left his body. Then he grew still, and blood seeped out of his wound, the blood was velvet black. It looked as if the shadows themselves were melting out of his back. When the blood stopped flowing he turned black, and back into the ugly swarm, then he melted into thin air.

The other Conor walked over, "That guy didn't deserve my good looks, thanks for choosing right, that would've been awkward otherwise. Most swarm will try to attack if they don't know the question, but how did you know I was on the Great Fox?"

Kearney shrugged, "Fox told us."

Conor re-sheathed his blade and picked up his SMG, "Well let's keep moving to the engines, maybe we can take out a few others on the way there. Also, one other thing you might want to know, they match your weapons too. So if you have a really special weapon, don't get touched, those weapons retain all of the original's traits."

Kearney looked down at his hip sheath, holding the slightly blued steel blade. It didn't appeal to him to have his own sword be killing him.

As they walked Kearney asked Conor about his firearms, "I've only seen medieval weapons, how do you have guns?"

Conor looked around a corner, then walked on.

"My friends and I were going out shooting the day the box found me. I was carrying the case our guns were in when the box took me. The brothers don't have the technology to make more guns, but we have the resources to make bullets. Considering I was the only one who can fire these proficiently, so I was allowed to keep them. They remind me of my past life, and focus my energies towards the battle at hand."

They got to the end of another hallway and peered around the corner, another swarm was standing at its consol. Conor nodded to Kearney and whispered to him, "You take out this one, get a first kill under your belt."

Kearney steeled himself and snuck around the corner. Each step he took sounded like a hammer blow. His mouth grew dry as he got closer and he licked his lips. The swarm grunted and turned around at the last second, feeling some sixth sense that an enemy was nearby. The only thing it saw was a single flash of steel as Kearney's blade cut straight through it.

Its head rolled on the ground like a soccer ball before dissolving. Kearney looked up from the behead swarm at Conor and Azure.

"How was tha-?"

From behind him came another swarm screech, and when he turned around a second swarm was at the end of the hallway running away.

Conor and Azure ran out from their cover and sprinted after it, Kearney hot on their heels.

"We can't let him sound the alarm!" Azure yelled.

They made up ground swiftly on the short swarm as it tried to run away. When they got close, the swarm stopped and reached for a switch on the wall.

"Oh no you don't!" Conor said while bringing up his SMGs. The firearms spit their bullets, and two holes appeared in the swarm's head.

It clutched the switch on the wall and tried to stay on its feet. As it lost its strength it slowly sunk to the ground, pulling the switch down with it.

Klaxons blared in the Zeus, alerting the swarm to their presence.

Kearney swore, "This isn't good."

Azure looked around warily.

"Maybe we should hurry to the engine room, it doesn't matter if they see us now."

The swarm beside them let out a gurgle as it dissolved.

Conor looked down the halls warily, as if he expected the swarm to already be after them.

"Yeah, we need to hurry."

He started jogging down the hall and hung a left.

Azure looked at Kearney and shrugged, they were starting to run after Conor when they heard him yell and sprint back into the hall. He turned the corner and rushed back to Azure and Kearney.

He sprinted straight at them and tackled them to the ground.