Chapter 9: Remnant of the Old Empire
"Falco! Winston! Where have you been? Did you see Krystal and Amanda looking for you? Why are you running? Oh, and did you open a tomb?"
"We've been opening a tomb. We saw the girls after opening the tomb. We're running from what was inside the tomb. And yes, we opened a tomb."
"You seriously ran all this way because of... let me guess, a nasty-looking mummy?" Beltino said.
"Sir, if I may, Mr. Lombardi forgot to mention it came alive and tried to kill us." Winston said, nearly out of breath.
"And you left the girls back there with it?"
"Uh... maybe?"
"Come on; follow me." Fox said.
"Where are we going?"
Fox tossed both of them blasters.
"Mummy hunting."
"Well, now that we have some guns, I won't be so quick to run."
"Falco, you looked like a blue chicken in a marathon a few moments ago. Never repeat that imitation again."
"Very comical Mr. Mcloud. What did I look like running?" Winston asked.
"The usual."
"Not funny sir."
The apelike monster reached a gnarly hand out to grab Krystal, but she fell backwards out of its grasp and pulled out her blaster, firing several blasts at its face. At least she had the sense enough to bring a blaster. But she felt her hopes sink when the lasers merely reflected off of the ape's silver fur. He blinked a few times, taking a few steps backward, but he quickly sprang forwards again. Amanda grabbed Krystal's shoulder and yanked her back.
The beast landed on all fours, then renewed his attack, lunging forward again and again as the girls struggled to stay out of his reach; rolling, diving, and eventually running backwards. Amanda lit a flare and threw it behind her into the monster's face. He scrunched up his eyelids and swatted blindly at the air, trying to make the intense glow of the flare go away. Krystal and Amanda had enough time to get well ahead of the ape-like monster, but how could they know which way to go?
"KRYSTAL!? AMANDA!? WHERE ARE YOU!?"
"Fox, shouting in all caps isn't gonna help you. It just ticks people off."
"What?"
"Never mind... go on shouting."
"KRYSTAL! ARE YOU THERE?"
"Here, Fox!" came Krystal's distant voice, echoing through the ruins.
"AMANDA! YOU THERE, TOO?" Slippy shouted.
"I'm with Krystal!" came her reply.
"Mummy! Are you safe?" Winston jokingly called out after them.
"GAAAAAARGH!" a giant roar from behind made them all jump. They spun around, facing the ape.
"Split-up and surround him!" Fox yelled to everyone. They did as they were told, circling the monster, but always keeping on the move.
"Fox, it appears these blasters just reflect off of his fur!" Beltino shouted over the noise. "It's almost like steal mesh! The Old Empire seems to be very skilled in bio-engineering." But after observing some of the ape's brutish behaviors, he added, "Though they seem to be lacking in the cerebral aspect."
"What?" Slippy said, firing lasers into the ape's eyes.
"Meaning they're stupid." Beltino fired a few shots, probably to 'test the nervous system of its gluteus maximus' if he had been asked. The ape bellowed and slammed its fists into a pillar, collapsing part of the ruins. Fox was partially buried underneath the rubble, trapped. He hurriedly brushed away pieces of the rubble, but not fast enough; he wouldn't escape from the monster in time.
Beltino took charge of the situation.
"Slippy! Get into that room over there and work whatever technology it has! It's some form of a control room, I think." Slippy ducked beneath the ape's legs and ran into the room. "Falco," he continued, "Help me keep this beast away from Fox!"
Beltino fired laser blasts into the ape's eyes while Falco decided on a head-on charge.
Slippy entered room to find it was indeed a control room; the ruins were no work of a primitive race. Again he did what he was best at; pressing random buttons. Eventually the holographic displays of the computer came up, and Slippy yelled back to the brawlers, "I turned it on!"
"Great Slip!" Falco said as he flew head first past the doorway, the result of his head-on attack.
"I can't even get that far with my own computer." Winston said as he also flew by.
"Try shutting down the bio-defense systems!" Beltino said as he followed the other two in mid-air.
Yeah, right, like I know how to do that. Slippy thought as he looked dumbfounded at the glyphs and symbols. Time to press more random buttons, er... floating green hieroglyphs this time.
Beltino landed on-top of Falco and Winston at the end of his trajectory, and they all struggled to get up and back in the fight. But now the monster had turned towards Fox again, and was lumbering his way. Out of nowhere, Krystal leapt over the pile of rubble and slammed her energy deflector into the ape's face. He fell over from the force, though not affected by the laser field itself. He stood up, flung Krystal and Amanda (who was attempting to sneak up behind him) into the pile started with Beltino, Winston, and Falco, and again turned towards Fox. But at that moment the whole ruin began to shake.
"I think I did something!" Slippy yelled, running from the room. The giant golemech statues light up with green led lights, and stepped out of their alcoves. Then they went berserk, smashing walls, statues, each other, anything they could find. Some even began running down the hallway, non-stop.
Now was the time to move or be squashed. Fox activated a grenade and rolled it a few feet down the rubble in front of him. This better work, he thought. At the last second, before the grenade went off, he used his laser deflector, shielding himself from most of the blast force, which was enough to clear him of the rubble.
The monster let out one last bellow of rage before it was trampled by a mob of golemechs. The destruction of the giant defense statues caused the ruins to crack and break apart.
"EVERYONE, RUN!" The Starfox team dashed through the remainder of the ruins, followed by a calm BAC 000 n. They mad it safely back to their ships and climbed in when a giant tremor shook the whole ruin.
"It's breaking apart!" Beltino said when they were all seated. The tremor climaxed at a giant wrenching when the ruins apparently split in two. The artificial gravity shut down, and the ships floated back into the air.
"Take off, take off, take off!" Winston shook Falco from behind as he hurriedly started the process.
"They're coming down the hallway!" Amanda warned. Sure enough, a track team of golemechs were running towards them, a difficult thing without gravity.
As they flew away, they looked back at the now completely demolished complex. It was littered with fragments of stone, bricks, and giant golemech statues attempting to run down the hallway, but, as they were floating in space, they only seemed to be running in place in no particular direction, as if they were doing their rendition of the robot dance.
"A pity, I would have liked to examine the ruins myself." Beltino mused. "It was nice being an archeologist for a day."
"Quite a peaceful and relaxing job, isn't it?"
"Yes, it did bring me a few days closer to retirement. I hope I won't have to do this too often."
After the team finished coping with the recent events (e.g. hot chocolate, a Hallbark© movie, Mario games, and screaming incoherently), they once again found themselves in the rec. room of the Great Fox, doing what they normally did. Beltino walked into the doorway and motioned for Fox to follow him. Fox put down the soda-pack he was attempting to open and went out after him. He followed Beltino into the lab room, where he had several holograms displayed and BAC 000 n's chest compartment opened to his circuitry.
"Fox, I need to share with you my findings. I've uncovered a lot."
"Ok. Start in."
"I was fishing around in this android's memory and eventually found he has been lying to us."
"About his name being Bacon? 'Cause I would be-"
"No, no; about Andross erasing his findings from the pig's memory. I found a file he created called, 'The Anomaly.'"
"What was in it?"
"He thinks it was a project started by the Old Venomian Empire... and that it caused their disappearance from the universe. He didn't know whether they just left, or were destroyed." Beltino pulled up an image of a giant relief carved into a wall. "This was the last relief they carved in the ruins. Take a look."
The carving displayed the Lylat system in great detail, though it was damaged in several places. Beltino pointed to three temples around the system.
"One on Venom, one on the 9th planet, and one on Zoness. Each temple is mostly a giant hallway. They form a circle with Sectors X, Y, and Z. But look at these machines; it's as if they are actually making the Sectors."
"So they are the ones who made them? Then how come they used the English alphabet?"
"Lylat has always used this alphabet, as far back as we remember. We inherited it from them."
"And all the hieroglyphs on the walls?"
"Oh... hieroglyphs are actually a more efficient way of communication than letters are, but they probably used them both; you can't invent new words with hieroglyphs without lots of trouble. But that's not the point!" He pointed towards the relief again. "Here we see ships flying through all three hallways, and they seem to be warping to another dimension. But, unfortunately, what they have carved of that dimension has been eroded, damaged." He turned to Fox. "But we have found the key! Andross has restarted their project Anomaly and created his own dimension, too. He built the Orbital Gateway in Sector Y under the guise of a commercial warp, and two warps of his own during the Lylat Wars at his military bases in Sectors X and Z. He has hidden away for years, amassing his army, and finally revealed himself. We must destroy his Anomaly, or it may cause a cataclysmic event that wipes out all of the Lylat System."
"But how can we destroy this project? We can't simply blow away the Sectors like we would dandelions."
"Right. We have to take back the warps from his army and take the battle to his dimension." Beltino punched his fist into the missing section of the relief.
"Great. Sounds like fun." Fox rubbed his head. "I wonder if everything's going alright for Wolf."
A/N: Wow. Nine chapters in and 'Anomaly' is finally mentioned. That took a while.
