As usual, I have been busy as hell lately, anyways, new chapter! Woo-hoo!

After Falco left, Fox began by showing Kathryn some records of their past missions; everything from data files to visual and audio recordings taken from the arwing cameras.

He started with one of their earlier missions with the objective to defeat Andross and his henchmen. "Damn," said Kathryn, "that's gotta be pretty nerve-racking, putting your life on your arwing's shields." Fox nodded, "Yep, it can get pretty tense out there, but in my seven years of experience, I've learned one thing: never panic. You have to be able to remain calm, no matter how bad it gets. Otherwise, you can't rationally make decisions."

Kathryn's eyebrows rose, "Wow, you're pretty amazing. I could never keep calm with several laser blasts around me."

"Like I said," Fox continued, "it takes experience. I felt the same way on my first mission." The recording continued until Starfox battled Andross in the Venom system. Kathryn was surprised when she noticed that the first Andross was merely a decoy. "For a cold-hearted bastard, Andross sure was pretty strategic." She said, amazed. "He only sent a part of himself to fight in a supercomputer, but was still dangerous…genius. Terrible, but genius…"

"Yes," said Fox, "fighting inside of the base was a pain, since it was about to explode. But even after, Andross still lived. Just a small portion of his brain was destroyed, not all of it." Fox stared at the paused clip. "Afterwards, we continued to hunt him down, battling Starwolf before finally killing him once and for all." Kathryn gazed outside of a window at the sky, "…You truly held a strong grudge with him ever since your father…well, I'm sorry about what happened to your father."

Fox nodded in agreement. "It's alright, Andross is gone, and Venom is becoming weaker. Soon, all of the other systems will have control of those corrupted apes. I feel as though I have already avenged the death of my father."

Fox's father, James McCloud, had been a veteran pilot on the original Starfox, along with Peppy Hare and Pigma Dengar. Andross had been responsible for James' death by implanting a bomb into his arwing, which exploded and produced a black hole. James was pulled into the black hole and was never seen or heard from again. Since Fox's mother, Vixy McCloud, had died during Fox's childhood, Peppy had taken custody of Fox, and trained him to fly an arwing to join Starfox. Fox was full of thirst for revenge, and agreed to Peppy's proposition.

"Anyways," Fox said, "Enough with the recordings." He turned off the computer. He then took Kathryn into the basement of his house to a more elaborate computer with many monitors and a joystick and throttle. "This is an arwing combat simulator." Fox said. "We were issued these to get a feel for the arwing before actual combat. We had to pass a certain number of levels with a certain score." Kathryn analyzed the machine, "Wow!" she said in amazement. "I've never seen anything like this before!" Fox nodded, "It's commonly issued only to the military associates. But it won't be long before this stuff is available to the public."

"Wanna give it a shot?" Fox asked Kathryn. Kathryn nodded excitedly, and sat in the bulky chair. "I'll start you off on Difficulty Variation: 1, which is the easiest." The vulpine said while making the necessary adjustments on one of the smaller touch-screen monitors. "Arwing Combat Simulation activated. Welcome back, Captain McCloud." The device said in a female cybernetic voice as the large screen turned on with a Cornerian Army Insignia on it. "Please press the flashing green button when you are ready to begin Difficulty Variation: 1 simulation." A small button began to pulse a green light right below the main screen, with the word "Start" written on it. Kathryn pressed it, and immediately all the screens became radars, maps, and readouts, with the exception of the main screen, which showed a first-person view of an arwing.

"Warning-incoming fighters!" R.O.B.'s voice said as several enemy fighters began to appear on the radar as flashing red triangles with warning beeps that synchronized with the flashing. Kathryn placed her left hand on the throttle, and her right hand on the joystick. She immediately thrust the throttle forward, making the ship move faster.

"Lock onto the ships by holding down the trigger." said Fox. Kathryn did so, and when she released it, a heat-seeking missile was fired at the enemy fighter, which exploded afterwards. "Got him!" Kathryn said. She began to pull the trigger haphazardly as she steered all over the place, until she finally managed to take them out. Kathryn assumed that this would be the end of the simulation, but the arwing kept sailing forward until… "Stealth squad detected!" R.O.B. said as several ships began to appear out of nothing. These ships were larger than the first set of starfighters.

Kathryn jolted the joystick abruptly to the left, barely missing the first ship. "Use a bomb!" said Fox. "How!?" Kathryn shouted. "It's the thumb-button on the joystick!" Fox responded. The vixen pressed the button, and a metallic sphere with blinking lights discharged from the side of the vehicle. It created a large explosion upon impact with another ship, sending debris and shrapnel in every direction. Kathryn steered around the loose metal and shot another bomb out towards another one of the ships. After a few times of doing this, a single buzz sound met their ears instead of a bomb being discharged.

Fox looked at a monitor. "You're dry." He said. She used all of the bombs. "No matter, the blasters still work." She said, turning straight down towards the last ship. It was charging up it's cannon as the monitors beeped indicating a lock-on. Kathryn frantically steered around, but didn't get out of the sights. "What do I do?" she said to Fox. "You have to deflect it's attack!" he said. "What!?" Kathryn said just before the cannon fired. "DO A BARREL ROLL!" Fox said. Kathryn thrust the joystick sideways, and began to spin like a football, the attack was deflected, but it didn't destroy the ship.

Fox briefing pointed out a readout with a layout of the arwing on it; all of it was a steady blue, but some of the left side and front side were flashing red. "Your timing was off by half of a second," said Fox, "that blast took 50 shield units. 50 more and you're screwed!" Kathryn immediately held down the trigger, allowed the missile to power up, and just before the enemy was able to take another shot, Kathryn fired the missile, which was just enough to finish it off.

"Difficultly Variation 1 complete" the simulator said in it's generic voice again. "Rank: 7/10. Level pass." Fox looked impressed, "Wow," he said, "you did better than I did on my first try." Kathryn simply shrugged her shoulders, "I practice a lot with a flight simulator I have on my computer back at my place, so the controls are somewhat natural for me." She said. Kathryn glanced at her watch. "Oh, noon! I have to get to the mall soon!" Fox looked a little off-kilter, "What for?" he asked.

"Well, they're having a sale on clothes which goes on 'til 2 o'clock, and I've being seeing a lot that I really would like." "Well, I'll see you later, then" said Fox. Kathryn was about to leave, when she stopped at the door and looked back at Fox. "But…I know this might seem a little silly, but…you wanna come with me?" Fox glanced around the room and thought for about 5 seconds. "…Sure, why not? Beats sitting around and doing nothing." Kathryn's expression brightened. "Great! I can drive for you." Fox was putting shoes on when he responded, "No, I can drive for you." Kathryn laughed slightly. "Oh, it's fine, Fox. I'm a decent driver. Besides, it's my car." Fox smiled, "Alright." He said. They both got into the bright red minivan, and drove off to the mall in Corneria City.

CLIFFHANGER! Well, I hope to upload the next chapter pretty soon, but my computer is acting all funky. But I will do whatever it takes to upload it. See you next time! Keep holding on…