Falco drifted through space, crammed into a small alcove in the cargo bay of Lylat Airlines Shuttle 76-8. The dim light of his phone's screen illuminated his new home, as he scoured through his list of contacts. He needed another favor.
The phone buzzed and whistled a few times before a connection to the recipient of his call was established. The figure on the other end sighed and said,
"What is it, birdbrain?" It was a feminine voice, one that sounded like it didn't like being bothered.
"I need some information." Falco stated.
"You're gonna have to work for that, feathers."
"Katt, could you just stop with the crap? I'm not in the mood." Falco whined.
"You're never in the mood unless the legs are opened." The feline snickered. "What do you need?"
"I need O'Donnell."
Katt sighed again and asked, "Why?"
"None of your business. Just tell me where he is." Falco huffed.
"Like I said, you're going to have to work for that. I'm not an information kiosk at a theme park. Though I certainly am a roller coaster in bed." Katt said seductively. Falco wasn't interested, but the only way to get her to talk was to mess with her head, and the only way to do that was be a better flirt than she was.
"I already knew that, babe."
"That's it? THAT'S what the great Falco Lombardi comes up with? You've lost your edge, honey." Katt replied. To be fair, he wasn't as good with the ladies as he once was. Even he could see that, and he was as proud and haughty as any other self proclaimed ladies man out there.
"Katt, I know you're gonna tell me. And I know you know where that bastard is." Falco said, now slightly embarrassed.
"Oh of course I know. He is my boyfriend's best friend, after all."
"I know what you're trying to do. And as much as I would love to come over there and stick my nose where it doesn't belong, I can't. So just tell me where Wolf is." Falco said.
"You're a naughty one, aren't you feathers?" Katt replied coyly.
"Just stop." Falco growled.
"Oh come on...Having one man isn't fun enough for me; you know that." Katt chuckled.
"All too much, asshole."
"Don't be sour, feathers. You know that will get you nowhere."
"Well excuse me for being upset that my ex cheated on me, and now I'm forced to talk to you because I need your help! And don't call me feathers, we're done with that shit now." Falco shouted, almost blowing his cover.
"Jeez, you'd think that with all the times you broke some girl's heart you'd be able to take it." Katt said.
"Hey, I was young and stupid, so shut it!"
"You still are stupid! Not young, but definitely stupid!" Katt yelled back.
"Katt! I don't care! Are you gonna tell me where that friggen' Wolf is or not?" Falco hissed.
"Like I said, I need something from you first. I don't give handouts, feathers." Katt said. Falco groaned and asked,
"Fine, what is it?"
"I'm sending you some coordinates. Meet me there in two days at 0300. Come alone." Katt's tone suddenly changed from playful to business-like, and with that she disconnected.
…...
Fox awoke to the smell of breakfast cooking, knowing well that Krystal had to be up and was making her own. It was a strange feeling, having her so close but yet so far away from him. He hadn't ever felt this way with her, unless she was trapped in a giant gemstone suspended thousands of feet in the air. What was even more troubling was his thoughts on the matter itself; he wasn't so sure he wanted things to be exactly as they were fifteen years ago. He wasn't the young man he once was. He was grown, and started to think that perhaps a relationship that worked perfectly when he was young wouldn't work now. There were two reasons for this. The first was his new character, which had developed slowly over the fifteen years of solitude he forced himself to live in. Whether he liked it or not, he was changed for good, and no amount of trying could bring him back. The second reason was the severed connection between the two of them. The chances of that connection being recreated exactly as it used to be were slim to none, and, while Fox did think the connection could be reestablished, he didn't see it being the same.
Without further delay, Fox slipped out the door of the guest room, barely remembering that he and Krystal hardly knew each other anymore, and that a shirt would probably be appreciated. Krystal was indeed cooking as he'd guessed; where she picked up this skill, he couldn't tell. When she was aboard the Great Fox, her cooking skills had always been... below par, to put it kindly. She'd never been afraid of trying, though. And evidently she had; the food smelled fine. Delicious, actually.
"Good morning." Fox mumbled, trying to shake the sleep out of his voice.
"I made breakfast. Help yourself." Krystal responded, detached to the situation as well. Fox wasn't particularly hungry, but decided to eat since Krystal might appreciate the gesture. He set himself up with a plate of the food and sat down at the table a few steps away from her.
"This looks good." Fox said.
"Thanks." Krystal responded, sitting down on the opposite side of the table, two chairs off to the right. It was clear that she was not at all comfortable, and was trying to stay as far away from him as possible in order to be considered distant yet amicable.
"How'd you sleep?"
"Fine." She said, not looking up from her meal.
"Do you have any plans today?" Fox asked.
"Not any involving you. Unless it's business, we're nothing but acquaintances, Fox." Krystal snapped back.
"I already said I'm sorry. I know it's not enough to build up years of trust but the least you could do is tolerate me." Fox sighed.
"I am tolerating you. It's bad enough that I have to come work here with you, but now Falco's gone and I have nothing to fall back on." Krystal hissed.
"I didn't make you come; you did that with your own free will." Fox countered.
"No, you made me come alright." Krystal mumbled.
"What? Are you serious? I didn't force you to do-"
"Look at yourself, Fox! Just look in the damn mirror and you'll see why I had to help!"
"I have to do that every morning! Every goddamn morning I sit there and I blame myself for every little piece of bullshit that's every occurred, and when I try to think positive I can't because of how many times I've stomped my piece of shit name into the mud, over and over and over with my stupid choices..." Fox said, his eyes closed in order to fight back tears.
"Fox, I'm not going to babysit you through this like I would have fifteen years ago. You're on your own." Krystal stood up and walked away, leaving her plate of half-eaten food there for him to clean up. Fox sat there for a few moments, rubbing his temples with his fingers. No matter what he tried, a dull ache remained in his mind. He wasn't sure if it would ever come out.
…...
0300
Falco looked up from his watch, taking in the scene of the abandoned factory laid out before him. Almost every single window had been smashed, allowing him a multitude of options in the ways of entry. These windows were laid out in rows of ten, which stacked on top of each other five times. It was an odd design for a factory; why they had ever needed that many windows would remain a mystery to him. He could only guess that this factory did not always produce legal goods. It's location would support this hypothesis; Yuey, Titania. A city of black market merchants and drug lords, which had sprung up in the middle of the desert as a hideout for scum and villainy alike.
It seemed fitting that a Star Wolf member would want to meet him here, now that Sargasso was cleansed of it's "devilish presence" as the Cornerian government called it.
Falco looked around for Katt now. She'd always been slippery, but never too clever. Her tactics were all focused on raw skill, and little else. That meant that she'd always been in plain sight, but very well disguised. Falco looked each windowsill over with supreme caution, and, upon deciding that she was most likely not outside, began walking calmly over to the door. The cool desert air whipped across the empty lot in front of the factory, bringing with it a concoction of sand and dust. Falco pulled his scarf higher on his face, eager to escape the elements.
The interior of the factory was black, illuminated only by the faint light of Titania's two moons that filtered in through the hundreds of windows. The wind growled outside as the feint clopping of Falco's boots against the stone floor reverberated through the complex. Steel beams embroidered and supported the massive roof above him, and large pillars erupted from the stonework and clutched at the ceiling. Mangled machines cried for help with their unfinished products. The place had been abandoned mid-work day. Falco wondered what had happened, running his feathered hand over the rusted metal surface of what appeared to be the door of a car.
"Two years ago, this place was raided by bandits from the Southern Gergan Desert. Quite a show, feathers." Katt's coy voice called out from an unknown location.
"Are you sure they were from the desert? This looks a bit too sophisticated to be the work of savages." Falco said, not even flinching.
"Oh I'm sure. They came out of nowhere...sound familiar?" Katt teased.
"We're not kids, Katt. Come on out." Falco replied calmly.
"No." She pouted, her voice drawing closer.
"Oh come on..." Falco moaned.
"Say it." Katt said.
"I'm not going to say it, it's stupid."
"Say it and I'll come out." Katt laughed, almost maniacally.
Falco sighed and mumbled, "...Come out and play, Kitty Katt."
"What was that? I couldn't hear you!" She continued laughing, throwing her body across the steel beams above the now embarassed avian's head.
"I'm almost 40 years old Katt, I'm not saying that stupid shit again just so you can have your nostalgia trip." Falco pouted.
"Oh just say it and I'll come out." Katt wailed from the rafters.
"You're up in the steel beams holding up the ceiling, now come out." Falco called out to the blackened beams.
Katt's body flew downwards in a spiraling motion, and she landed, rolling forwards to catch her fall. She stood up inches away from Falco's face.
"You never let me have any fun with you." She whispered.
"That's because I'm not here for fun. Wolf. Where's he at?" Falco asked.
"Seriously, relax mister mercenary. I'll tell you, but like I said before, I want something from you." She said, her tone switching over as it had when he'd first contacted her. She circled around him like a buzzard eying it's prey.
"What do you need?" Falco asked, his gaze lazily following the feline's path around his body.
"I need a man killed," She said, slipping him a vanilla colored envelope, "Your work at the General's Ball impressed us, but weakened us. Now, we need repayment; that either comes in the form of work or death in Star Wolf terms. Or, for you, the special third option of blowing your house and killing the two lovebirds inside while they sleep." Katt threatened.
Falco remained emotionless, his eyes still carefully following the stalking hunter surrounding him, choking him. She was very good at what she did, that was for certain. His hands fumbled with the folder and looked over it's contents in the dim light the room provided, as Katt's hands caressed his neck.
"Walter Gogan, huh?"
Walter was a hulk of a toad; a five-foot-seven amphibious skeleton carrying two hundred and thirty three pounds of unhealthy body. A researcher at the Cornerian Bio-Weapons Institute, he'd clawed his way through the ranks with his intelligence. With as high an IQ score as he had, that couldn't have been hard. Now he was Beltino Toad's right hand man.
What a coincidence.
"Why does Star Wolf want this guy dead?" Falco asked, still staring at the picture of the bulging frog.
"He's heading development on a weapon that is designed to wipe out our base without us even knowing what happened. All air will slowly become unbreathable within a 50 mile radius of our base, water will become undrinkable, disease will spread like wildfire. Within twelve hours of it's planting, we'll be wiped out completely." Katt replied.
"Killing him won't do anything; says here he's got at least 6 guys working on this with him."
"That's why you're going to take out the project with him, right feathers?" Katt asked in her signature tone.
Falco mulled over his options in his head. This mission wouldn't just benefit Star Wolf, it may just give Star Fox some more intelligence on Corneria's corrupt leadership. Right now, that looked like the real enemy. Helping Star Wolf couldn't hurt too much either, especially since Falco was trying to find him for diplomatic reasons rather than violent ones.
"If I do this, I want a personal meeting with Wolf scheduled the minute I finish the job." Falco demanded.
"Of course, feathers. That was the deal, correct?" Katt said, her fingers now pulling his chin down towards her eyes.
"Stop that," Falco said, squirming away, "I'll call you once it's done."
"Oh, I know you will..." Katt said, slowly retreating into the darkness of the factory once more, leaving Falco standing there with the opened envelope with the smiling toad staring at him.
…...
Fox walked through the heart of Corneria City, towards his friend's home just outside of the city's hub. He hadn't taken this walk in many years, but still remembered each nook and cranny along the sidewalk leading to it. The faded red Star Fox symbol that had been graffitied onto a wall in the alleyway connecting 21 and 23 Barrel Park, the large pothole in the road near Freddy's Coffee Shop on Main Street, the group of kids that always played hockey on Hubert Avenue. Today, the Star Fox symbol was nothing but a red smudge resembling a bloodstain, the pothole was closed as well as Freddy's Coffee Shop, and the kids had vanished, leaving Fox alone in the street, cold and disheartened.
Fox opened the worn iron gate to his friend's house and stepped inside, his hands stuffed into his pockets in order to keep warm. Once again, nobody was around but him. He liked it this way when he visited his friend... It was like it was when it was just them versus the world, and nothing could bring them down.
Fox stared down at the stone buried into the earth, it's inscriptions now partially clogged with grime and muck; a result of his own neglect.
James McCloud
Beloved Father and Husband
Fly with the Stars in the Afterlife
Fox got down on his two knees, the frozen ground digging into his skin. He stayed there for a long time, unsure of how his father's face would look right now. Would James still be proud of him? He would most likely look puzzled. Puzzled as to why Fox had been gone for so long, when what they had was so strong. Puzzled as to why he would choose to seek vengeance rather than to seek love and happiness. Not even Fox could explain that. Now, all chances of happiness seemed slim.
"Dad?" Fox asked the wind. It whistled back in response, but no more than that.
Fox let his head hang once more. Whatever he used to have seemed dead. He seemed dead. It was only a matter of time before some assassin of the government or Star Wolf put a bullet through his head, ending his wretched, cursed life. He wanted to sit there and wait for that moment of absolute freedom. He was a pawn, and nothing more, in this endless game of politics that choked Corneria each day and controlled it at night.
"Even pawns can capture Kings." A voice said from behind him. A familiar, warm voice. Fox lifted his head slowly and turned to greet it's owner...
The wind rustled the dying brown leaves on the tree a few steps away from him, with no person in sight.
…...