Star Fox: The War for Lylat

Chapter Eleven: Finishing Fortuna

The fight was on between Teams Star Fox and Star Wolf in the skies above the planet Fortuna, both teams were determined to be the victors. The bomb ticking down inside the Defense Post was on everyone's nerves, too. If the fight went past its prime, there was a chance that there would be no winners.

Fox's first instinct was to hunt down Wolf and blast him out of the sky. He looked around, surveying his surroundings. The entire battlefield was littered with ships that hadn't fled the base and were still defending it. 'Just great…' Fox thought. Then, between a couple of ships, he could see Wolf's Wolfen fly by. Fox hit the boost and was beginning to chase Wolf when trouble arose for another teammate.

"Fox, get this guy off me!" Slippy said, somewhat freaked out. His Arwing dashed by Fox, who caught a glimpse of the foe chasing Slippy… and it wasn't even a member of Star Wolf attacking him. It was just another one of the enemies defending the Defense Post.

'Speaking of great things…' Fox sighed, then shooting the foe out of the sky. It exploded in mid-air, with the remaining scrap metal falling onto the snowy mountains below. He could see the pilot of the ship parachuting down to the planet below. "Now to deal with that gray-haired thug…" Fox muttered, clearly referring to Wolf. But where was he? Wolf wasn't anywhere near where Fox had last seen him. "Dang it, I can't see him anywhere!" Fox growled, still searching.

"You're right," Wolf laughed over the radio to Fox, "You can't see me, but you'll be seeing your dad soon. How does that make you feel, Fox?" Wolf growled shooting multiple blasts at Fox. Now wasn't the time for caring about snide remarks his foe said. Rather, it was time to keep focused and fight. Thinking quickly, Fox did a barrel roll, deflecting the shots. With the speed of Wolf's ship, though, the blasts missed him completely, hitting various ships not involved in the fight against Star Wolf.

Falco saw this and decided to try and catch Wolf off-guard with a sneak attack. "Time to make that stinkin' greyhound howl as I shoot him outta the sky!" Falco laughed quietly, targeting Wolf. Unfortunately, Falco wasn't the only pilot to have this type of plan in mind. Leon was tailing Falco, trying to slam his Arwing or blast it out of the sky. Either way, he wanted revenge for what had occurred on the Great Fox earlier. "Shoot… he's right behind me, aint he?" Falco asked, as sarcastic as always, to Fox.

"Yep." Fox mumbled, deciding to search for different prey. Falco wasn't the kind of animal to ask for help, so it would be best for both parties to let Falco deal with Leon.

"Heh, time to do what I do best: Blast these scumbags outta the sky!" Falco grinned, launching multiple charged shots against Wolf. The shots damaged the left wings of Wolf's ship, and his Wolfen became unstable due to it. Surprised, Wolf flew away, looking to deal with other opponents. Falco then turned all of his attention to Leon.

Perhaps he could shake Leon off by doing a summersault technique. Deciding to give it a shot, Falco flew high into the sky and did a flip, expecting Leon to be caught off guard. But he wasn't. Leon also did a summersault, and the fight between them was back to where it started. Next Falco tried to combine dropping altitude with hitting the brakes. Unfortunately, there were ships still trying to defend the base, and he couldn't hit the brakes without getting rammed or shot by those ships. As such, Leon was still behind him.

"Tch… annoying bird! You should learn to show respect to the great Leon!" Leon snarled, shooting at Falco multiple times, but only 1 or 2 shots landed.

A message was sent to everyone from R.O.B. 64. "Danger. One minute to explosion."There was only a minute left until that bomb was going to blow. They had to take out Star Wolf, and fast!

Running out of ideas, Falco tried desperately to find a path of flight that Leon couldn't follow… but it was no use. "Bah! I can't shake this guy…" Falco muttered annoyed. Then he heard the sound of shots behind him. He looked and saw that Fox had shot Leon, and his Wolfen was plummeting down to the mountains. "What the-! N-no! This can't be happening!" Leon shouted, annoyed. He and his ship fell down to Fortuna and landed in the snow, which seemed to cushion the fall.

"Gee, I've been saved by Fox. How swell…" Falco said, annoyed. But still, he had been saved, so it was his duty to help out now. "Alright, time for a little payback!" Falco shouted, doing a U-Turn. Wolf was there, so he once again delivered multiple charge shots, this time to the other side of the Wolfen.

"What the heck!" Wolf shouted, annoyed. He tried to turn around and attack his shooter… but he couldn't. He was plummeting down to Fortuna, defeated. "I… can't… lose…!" Wolf cried at before he landed in the snow.

"30 seconds to explosion." R.O.B. said in another message. Peppy heard this, and started to fire more rapidly at the Wolfen he was chasing. After a couple of shots, that Wolfen also fell down to the planet below. Whoever that pilot was, he didn't seem too freaked out about losing…

"I got one of them down!" Peppy announced.

"Me too." Falco replied.

"I got one down as well. I guess that means there's only one more to go!" Fox announced, spotting that last Wolfen not too far away. It wasn't moving at all. Pigma was inside, laughing.

"Haha! With them down, that reward's as good as mine!" He laughed. Suddenly his ship was bombarded with blasts from all corners, and he started plummeting like his comrades. "My beautiful reward!" Pigma cried out.

That was the end of Star Wolf's attack above Fortuna. And with them out of the way, nothing was stopping Star Fox from dealing with the bomb inside of the Defense Post.

"I'll take care of the bomb now!" Fox said, flying down to the base and getting out of his Arwing. He had 15 seconds, but that was more than enough time. He found the bomb immediately in the center of structure. On the bomb was a keypad and room for a seven digit password. Fox thought quickly, and decided that whoever had planted the bomb most likely didn't expect it to be deactivated, and as such likely used a generic password. Fox typed "Andross" in as a password and hit enter. In less than a second, the screen for the password lit up green and had the message "Resume Detonation?" on it. Fox typed "No." and hit enter. The screen went black and He received a message from R.O.B. through his headset.

"Bomb has been disarmed. Mission Accomplished."