CHAPTER 10
"You sound like you had a bad run in with this 'Taylor'. What is so special about him?" Panther inquired.
"Oh nothing, except he happens to be the warden of The Cage."
"You know the warden personally?"
"Sort of… He was a criminal back then. I made the mistake of saving his life because the bounty called for him to be alive, I'll spare you the details but let's just say he has an obsessive personality. And that stupid prison is where he shines his love light now... To him the inmates are like insects he can squash under his boot; and for some reason he takes the inmates I throw in there and treats them the worst."
"Sounds like he's still got a thing for you." Leon said, truly knowing the mind of a sadist.
"How touching." Panther said.
"But Billie runs with Wolf now."
"I run with Star Wolf, if that's what you mean Panther."
"I think we both know what I mean… So what do you say we gain some altitude and shoot out the road ahead of them; leaving them nowhere to run." His smooth voice filled her ears.
"You read my mind, but how?" Billie said with the intrigue visible in her twitchy ears.
"It's always like our very own Leon to keep a bomb or two lying around in his cargo bay…" Panther cued to Leon who said:
"You never know when you're going to need them." with a calm shrug of the shoulders.
Billie giggled a little bit at the way both of them could be so nonchalant in their work. Where others may tremble with a faint heart, they were different: Star Wolf understood that the only thing that mattered was, getting the job done as quickly and smoothly as possible. So what if they weren't flowery about it? And proclaiming they only take 'honest jobs' in order to appease their pitiful guilt like other mercenaries… Why be ashamed? Perhaps this truth is what drew them all together under their lycan master…
Everything in life is supply and demand… Many may look their noses down on the suppliers but hey; there wouldn't be a supply without considerable demand. Someone's gota do it. The three members of the underbelly of black-marketing flew on high over the city's skyline, leaving blue rings in the white cloud formations as they made their way to their boss's rescue.
Wolf sat in the back of the armored van, the sliding of metal scraped up from behind him. He turned his head to look at where the driver was, he was greeted by the lynx's icy stare: looming down at him from the passenger seat.
"So, how surprised were you when Billie took you down? Tell me: did you see anything strange?" He prodded.
"Humph." Wolf grunted turning back around.
"If you tell me what you saw, I'll be willing to make your stay in my prison just a bit more tolerable." His words slithered through the metal netting like so many venomous snakes.
"You can promise me anything you damn well please." Wolf rolled his eyes; all too familiar with the 'good cop' jargon.
"But words lose their charm when whispered from behind prison bars."
After that Wolf chose to remain silent, knowing at any moment his rescue was imminent.
"Be as stubborn as you like: we have ways of breaking people like you… I only wish I could have seen her in action."
Wolf made a wide toothy grin in the dim light at that statement as if to say; careful what you wish for. He could tell the sound of Wolfens anywhere.
"Hey what's…? WHAT THE HELL?" the driver exclaimed.
In the next blur of a moment all Wolf could hear was an explosion. His next sensation was getting tossed around like a rag-doll as the van swerved trying to break, but then it flipped scraping and sparking down the street to a stop.
"Target locked." Billie's voice chimed to the other two members of Star Wolf.
"He is definitely in the back of that van."
"You mean the one that just flipped?" Leon chuckled.
"Leon, fall back and kill anyone who tries to escape back down the road. Panther you and me are going to kill the spares." She said targeting the guards, the dim glow of her radar on shining in her eyes.
There had been another SUV of some sort following behind the van, and it was packed with guards seemingly armed to the teeth with military grade weaponry. Billie didn't want to kill a bunch of average Joes just doing their jobs… but kill or be killed and all of that. Indeed the threat of death made one's moral dilemmas fairly short lived.
"WHOAH." Panther called out as he narrowly avoided a large orange beam.
"Aw shit! He's got a BFG." Billie swore annoyed.
See this was the sort of thing you had to deal with… better to just be done with them.
"A what?" Panther snickered, locking on to him.
"A BIG FUCKING GUN! Take em' out."
"Right."
Both were silent as they looped up and down the road, trying to stay in as random a pattern as possible. When the short boar with a smile that lay behind two tusks took cover to reload the BFG; Panther saw opportunity. He had missed the first time; for such a stubby little fellow he was fast.
'There's no recoil from that damn thing cause' lasers don't have much mass…' Billie thought watching the Black Rose nose dive for the little pest.
And then there was a splatter of red on the road, Panther pulled back up with some smoking damage to his right wing but he was fine. Billie had not been resting on her laurels however; taking a few shots but dishing out more, her baby let loose some smooth fiery blasts seeming a constant due to all of her turrets. The other guards looked like some sort of canines from beneath those helmets… Canines with heavy machine guns.
"Armor piercing rounds?" Panther's stated adding an extra zing to anything she may have left behind in her flaming wake.
"Yeah; this has gone on long enough!"
And finally Billie took aim at the SUV itself; it exploded leaving every guard around it a bloody, lifeless, charred heap. The smoke wafted up and away on the wind, someone was going to see that. Billie hadn't wanted to do that for that exact reason. So now it was time to move quickly before help came down the highway.
"Okay Panther I'm going in to grab him, cover me."
She scanned for heartbeats all around with her headgear … only seeing them arise from the flipped van.
"You got it."
Billie landed her ship to one side of the wrecked van. Her feet pounded the pavement, leading her to the back. With her duel blasters out ready for anything she came to a slow pace, sweat beading across her skin. Was he okay in there? Could they have shot him? She almost jumped when she heard some rumbling from the back, like people were fighting.
"Grr!... Gah!" some masculine voices were stifled…
Then she heard two body's fall; her ears perked up and she took aim at the door charging her blasters up to red, and truly hoping Wolf was not one of the one's who had fallen. Taking a step back Billie was greeted with a loud noise from within, and then the lock on the door filled with holes from the other side. A large boot kicked open the door and the owner stepped out.
"You're late." Wolf gruffed.
Stepping into the light, holding one of the guards ak 47s in each hand he made quite a dashing exit. Billie's eyes fell on both guards on the floor behind him and smiled.
"I was delayed…" she said in a penitent tone.
Then she shot her fully charged shots into the air and holstered her blasters. She pulled his e-patch out of her pocket and presented it to him in an over the top sarcastic pose.
"You should have brought a cigarette." He said taking it from her with one large index finger; but he was smiling so she let it slide off of her.
"Well, isn't this ironic?" A frigidly familiar tone arose from behind Wolf.
Taylor who had finally worked his way out of the flipped van; and he was pointing a rocket launcher right at Wolf's head.
"First Billie saves me the criminal, now she is saving her new criminal boss."
Billie just rolled her eyes: "Does that really constitute as ironic?"
"So you two have met… I thought he mighta' just been blowing smoke." Wolf said aiming right back at Taylor.
"Billie come over here, and I'm willing to forget this." Taylor's tone sounded almost, aggravated.
Wolf wanted to gauge her reaction, but he also wanted to keep a close eye on the cat. So he didn't look, just threw something out there to the trigger happy feline:
"Well, looks like we got us a standoff."
But then Billie took Wolf's gun out her belt and took aim for Taylor, making it clear where she stood.
"Face it Taylor, we never had anything between us other than your weird obsession with what I did to your captors that night. But like I said, I only needed you alive to collect the bounty." She shrugged.
"I'm with Star Wolf now; you don't even exist to me."
Wolf smirked at that. But, what did she mean by 'what she did to his captors?'
"You heard the lady." He said getting back in the moment.
"Why you little bi-" Taylor didn't get to finish as a laser blasted his arm off, and the gun with it.
"GAAAAH!" He howled in pain as blood spewed onto the road.
Billie and Wolf looked up, and she saw the face of her comrade on her red lens:
"This is exiting!" Leon said happy at his handy work on the lynx.
"Nice shot." Panther applauded.
As Wolf threw down the guns, he put the e-patch that he had been holding with one finger into his pocket and they turned to leave. However they turned at the shrill shriek of yelling behind them; the bloodied Taylor was charging at them with a crazed look in his eyes. Instantly, like a simple reflex Billie whipped completely around smashing her right boot over the side of his face. He fell backwards with a thump, and he was then without batting an eye the two turned back around and walked to Billie's ship.
"Think he'll live?" Wolf asked.
"As long as he has that stupid prison, it's all he lives for now. He has no real authority outside of it. Live or die he is no threat to us anymore."
"Do I have to get back in the cargo bay?" Wolf asked.
"Haha no, just sit down in the cockpit and…" she trailed off picking up his wrists.
The chain of his cuffs had been snapped down the middle; she could assume those shapely muscles weren't just for show… But had it hurt his wrists? Was hard to tell from beneath all of the leather.
"I can pick these." She said, and then pulled a large curved knife out of her left boot.
Wolf looked at her face, deep in concentration as she worked on his cuffs. His stare fell down at her hands: the long nimble fingers that he enjoyed watching expertly work pieces of metal got through the first cuff with relative ease. It fell to the road with a small clink, and as she worked on the second one he noticed the gray stripes on the backs of her hands. Wolf hadn't recalled seeing those before, but they were pretty dim maybe he had missed them.
"There." She concluded taking him out of the thought.
"Done." She smiled up at him.
"Thank you." He returned palming his freed wrists.
And he meant that; she had not only just made them an obscene amount of money, but had once and for all proven her absolute loyalty to the team.
"Just… following orders." She spoke in a soft tone.
They looked into each other's faces, not realizing they were slowly drifting closer… But then through her head gear they both heard the sound of someone clearing their throat awkwardly, and a bit too loud. The two quickly snapped their heads upward and saw the other members looking down on them from their hovering ships.
"Can we move on with this?" Leon snapped.
"Yes, this is a bit ill timed." Panther agreed.
Billie looked back in a fluster, but Wolf was already climbing into her cockpit. With a strange sort of sigh she climbed up to join him. Wolf sat in her seat, even though she was much smaller than he the seat in her vessel was much larger than his. It was very plush and comfortable; his was basically just leather on metal. And just when he thought he could get no more comfortable Billie's cushy tail end pressed down on his lap.
He knew it was coming and yet he hadn't expected it, Wolf just tried to keep his arms down as he felt his face grow hot. She adjusted herself in his lap whilst the canopy closed around them. Her soft rear moved around on him in a little semi circle as she readjusted her tail, trying to get comfortable. With a flick of the bushy white extremity, a warm scent flushed around his face.
He looked down at the curve of her back as she preformed the retina scan that was required to start her baby's engine. When the ship started to rise she arched her back up and her weight grew heavy on him. She pressed into his torso while they came into the correct altitude, and then she perked back up as they moved over the green below. He looked out of the glass at the clouds whizzing by trying to focus on something else, since he was now feeling a light pleasant heat gather in his abdomen. He did not want it to go any farther down.
"So Wolf, when we get back to your Wolfen, what's our next move?" she questioned him.
He cleared his throat:
"Head away from Corneria as quickly as possible. We probably…" he trailed off as she leaned back into him a little bit then inched her lap forward to his thighs.
"So how are things in that tight, little space?" Panther laughed at them over chat.
"Damnit Panther!" both Billie and Wolf yelled simultaneously.
"Okay, I'll talk to you guys when we get back to his ship…" Leon said sounding grossed out and then clicked off chat.
"Yeah you should too Panther." Billie snarled in annoyance turning all chat lines off.
"How about some silence?" she said nervously to the owner of the thighs she was sitting on.
She thought they had been calling her out. This whole time unknowing to what she had been subjecting Wolf to, she was just readjusting herself trying to forget she was in his lap. She bit her lip as she felt her temperature rising.
The blessing and the curse of being a lupine was the incredible sense of smell; and in this confined little space Wolf was getting a nose full of her airy pheromones, and she was getting a good whiff of his rich scent: and she liked it. It was earthy and full of substance like the smell of soil after it rains, it really suited him. The two remained in their silent suffering all the way to the Red Fang.
The three ships finally landed where this had all begun earlier. Billie didn't even wait for the cockpit to open all the way before she got up. Wolf let go of a breath, not even realizing he had been holding it. He stood up and leaped down to the grass, letting the fresh air fill his nostrils and clear his head for a moment. Then he walked up to his own vehicle, and with his back to all three of them changed out his patch replacing it with his e-patch.
"I don't think that could have gone any better." Leon said from his ship.
The reptile leaned back with his feet propped out of the Rainbow Delta, feeling accomplished: the memory of genocide fresh in his brain.
"Yes, bravo Billie, bravo." Panther said to her, for everyone to hear.
Wolf fiddled around and found the money under his seat.
"Yes, excellent job." He looked down to her with his returned 20/20 vision.
"Oh thanks you guys." She said as the breeze blew through her.
Wolf nodded then sat down, sizing up the bills in his hand: just trying to guess how much was in this stack alone.
"We should get off of Corneria as soon as possible." He said booting up his ship becoming all business once again.
"Uhm, Wolf…" she asked it softly, nearly a whisper.
Billie was still not entirely sure she should tell him what had happened when she met team Star Fox unexpectedly. Or even exactly how much she should tell him. All of a sudden the warm breeze made her feel cold. She felt like she had been lying to those closest to her; even though she didn't really lie, she just didn't tell. And hell, this caught her as a surprise just as much as it would to them, maybe more so…
"What is it?" he called into her long pause.
"Well, it's only a matter of time until word gets out I'm in Star Wolf and I…" she knew exactly what she wanted to say but the words simply refused to come up:
Like she would drown if she opened her mouth to speak.
'Billie what's-" at that moment they all heard a chain of explosions.
All four of them looked to where it had come from; the direction of Corneria city. And more still came through. Even though they were far away, you could still hear them perfectly well… Whatever it was must have been huge. Quickly Billie ran back into her ship, and all the members closed their cockpits and revved up their engines.
"What the fuck was that?" Leon said being the first into chat.
"I don't know, but we have to find out." Wolf said turning towards it and taking off.
The others followed his example but Panther asked hesitantly:
"Is that wise?"
"Yes, if we show up to save the city they won't care one damn bit about the little swap and bust we just pulled."
Not to mention Wolf couldn't exactly leave a bunch of random innocent civilians be without at least trying to help… even though he would never admit to helping them once he was through. Unless of course there was a promise of bounty being revoked from his head: then he would let all the world know.
"Dare to dream boss." Billie teased, aware of his mental workings.
"Oh goodie more excitement!" Leon's voice was not for the faint of heart when he was exited.
Team Star Wolf soared in the direction of Corneria city with all speed, every member having separate suspicions about the unknown attacker.