CHAPTER 21

Wolf walked on aimlessly through the dark, going at a steady pace; not even sure of where he was going… not even really aware of anything, at all. He walked on through a patch of darkness that didn't seem to block out the light either, it was just a whole bunch of nothing. Lost in the same groggy feeling one always feels just before they fall asleep.

'How long have I been walking?' He thought; his thought patters moved in visible intervals around his head.

Not taking notice of how odd that seemed at all he walked onward. Then all of a sudden he caught a whiff of something; something light and airy. It was so familiar yet he couldn't place his claw on it. The scent… Then in one big flash of white all of his memories flooded back into him.

"Billie!" He said looking around frantically.

Only then did he realize he had no idea where he was… or if he was even…

"Am I dead?" He asked out loud.

Then a small white light appeared in front of him, he sniffed into the air following the sweet smell; charging towards the ever growing light. And all of a sudden he entered it, and popped out of an old stone door.

He looked around at the lush garden before him; there was a waterfall that fell straight out of the sky attached to nothing, going into an ever growing river that had an elegant mossy covered stone bridge crossing it. He walked onward over the cobblestones poking out from the grass, which felt soft and cool on his bare feet. That's when he looked at what he was wearing, a very lose fitting clean white shirt and pants. He looked down it after picking it away from his body with his bare clawed hand; he had no scars of any kind to speak of. No aches or pains at all; he felt fantastic.

"Hello?" He called walking forward down the path.

"Am I dead?" He thought to ask out loud again, looking for any kind of response.

He was only answered by a pleasant breeze blowing by as he stepped onto the bridge. He looked down at the water below and was taken back again; the face that looked up at him had no scar at all. Both of his eyes were perfectly intact, he put a hand up to it; he had 20/20 vision alright.

"Son of a bitch…" He mumbled, he realized now: he really was dead.

"This is heaven? THIS IS BORING!" He cried out to the sky.

Then with a heavy sigh he stared back down at the water, there were long snakelike fish swimming through, with colors cast into their scales that Wolf had never even seen before. He stopped to marvel at the creatures and then saw a white flower petal drift by. Then another and another; he looked up to the other side of the bridge and saw a massive group of bushes with dense purple leaves and gigantic white flowers handing down from their stems over the leaves like swans.

Then he heard a giggle come from the other side. Hoping there was someone else here he jogged down the bridge and made his way across the path, where he came to see lanterns and fireflies swarming around the fragrant white flowers. Were those what he had smelled before? Suddenly he became aware of how everything felt dim like he was in the twighlight hour. He looked up to see a sky of stars, stars that danced around like a Van Gogh painting leaving large trails behind them as they slowly drifted around with the wind.

"He's here!" Wolf looked over to a little black fox running towards him.

"Oh, we weren't expecting you so soon." She said running up to him and giving him a hug like someone would an old friend they hadn't seen in ages.

"What the hell is going on?" He asked when she broke away from him.

She looked up at him with big brown eyes; she had a lovely smile with a brown blaze running up her muzzle to her forehead. Wolf opened his eyes wide at the shape of this woman's face.

"You're Billie's mom…" He said looking down at her; she nodded.

She was wearing all white just like him; she turned around and called to someone else:

"Sam, Wolf is here!"

A solid white wolf larger than Wolf himself looked up with big blue eyes.

"Welcome. Welcome!" He said marching over.

"You're… not supposed to be here yet." He said pointing to Wolf.

"Uhhh…" Wolf said at a loss for words.

"Haha! Don't worry kiddo this aint' heaven." He said giving Wolf a slap on the back.

"Hell? That's where I thought I'd go…" Wolf mumbled to himself.

"Oh no nothing like that!" Said the little fox. "This is more of… A waiting room!" She said gesturing for Wolf to follow.

"What are we waitin' for?" Wolf asked as they walked along.

"Not we… just you." She said sitting in a stone gazebo.

"Me?"

"Yeah, the universe isn't as clean cut as most people think when it comes to dying." Said Sam sitting next to his wife.

Wolf sat down on the bench across from them trying to take this all in.

"A battle implies that you have a chance of winning…" Billie said rising into the air.

"I am your death!" She finished whipping her scythe behind her and shooting down like a bullet.

The two shadow blades clashed like thunder as the headmistress raised hers up in a block. Billie backed away, and the two menacing figures of the darkest fathoms continued to hack and slash at one another as they sailed through the air over the burning ruins of the once great prison. Panther and Leon looked up at the spectacle from the side of their boss's body. Watching the two figures zoom in and out of the rising veil of ebony smoke; making noises like one would expect from the type of storm they would evacuate entire cities to escape. Two great titans in their own right clashing over the result that might as well be the end of the world.

Leon looked down at the corpse of his once great ally; these Shadow Legion must have been a fantastic fighting force indeed. For even when rendered nearly powerless at the hands of such vile experimentation they could still suck the life out of another being with such relative ease.

"Do you think we should get in our ships and assist?" Panther asked as the fur on his tail stood on end; his blood chilling at the horrifying spectacle.

"We would only get in the way. Besides…" Leon said looking away from the corpse and up at what might very well be Billie's final battle.

"She's a Shadow Legion; don't treat her like she's made of glass." He finished joining Panther's side in watching on.

The battle raged on, neither one having been able to land a solid hit as of yet. Billie dropped down straight backwards into the cloud of smoke looking at the growing mass of the headmistress from above. The jackal then proceeded to tail her on through, only to lose sight of her in the burning heat. But Billie saw her; and with the blade of her weapon ablaze she took a deep slash right into her back. The headmistress writhed in pain as they shot out of the smoke and into the jungle below with a boom, crushing up the dirt and knocking over trees.

Billie pulled her scythe out and then dug it back into the squirming mass that now no longer resembled any kind of humanoid at all; but a large squirming mass of boiling tentacles. Tentacles and tendrils hit proceeded to lash out at Billie and push her far into the sky once again, trying to pierce her flesh, but not able to breach her mix of shadow lace and blood.

"What is it?!" The headmistress screeched coming up to Billie's level.

She then proceeded to tear and claw away at Billie's armor with her burning tentacles; boiling in a rage, they began to breach Billie's armor as they fell down through the air.

"What is it that allows you to keep going?!" Asked the screeching demon as they propelled down into the flames.

Billie squirming in her grip trying to break free as her shielding grew weaker and thinner.

"How do you still defy me?! With nothing left to lose! Tell me.." She howled as they ripped down into the smoke.

"TELL ME!"

Then they crashed into the center of the blaze; Billie's shadow laced armor took most of the impact but she still felt the impact to a painful degree. She laid there feeling her powers puttering out as the jackal above her began to take a humanoid shape once again and glare over her. Standing over the defeated Billie in the flames all around them, she loomed over Billie's black frame in the crater the impact had created amidst the flames.

"Now… I will once and for all, break you number three!" She hissed raising her large arms.

She brought down her sharp boiling tendril and Billie just closed her eyes in defeat.

'Wolf… I'm so sorry.' She thought waiting for her death.

She just couldn't win; try as she might. The 1,000 year old jackal simply had too much experience on her… she was infinitely more powerful. Billie had finally met her match it seemed. And the bitter irony was: that it too almost 100 years for her to realize that the mistress was her match.

She heard the mistress make contact; but felt nothing at all. The she heard the jackal scream in frustration; and make contact again… and again… Finally she flashed her eyes open to catch a glimpse of the horrid demon making another strike only to crash into a whitish sort of field around Billie that was only visible each time she struck.

"What is that?!" The jackal hissed in frustration striking repeatedly with boiling enraged appendages.

"Hey!" Billie heard a voice and they both looked to the right.

"Oh my God…" Billie said looking at the owner of the voice.

"Why don't you do us all a favor and drop dead." Said a spectral vision of a wiley fox in cheap sunglasses.

Then he pulled out a blaster and shot the jackals figure away in a barrage of white shots; the gross figure of the headmistress screamed and fell back into the flames after being struck with the barrage of shots.

"Billie get up." She heard another voice and felt metal on her skin lifting her to her feet.

"DEVIN!" She cried looking at the spectral cyborg.

"Billie focus; you have to finish her, now!" James said joining them; two of her dearest friends on each side.

The horrible boiling, melting demon screeched and hissed in the flames trying to pull herself back together. James took more shots at her to slow it down.

"Billie listen;" Devin said gripping her shoulder. "We can help you deal the final blow, we can give you enough energy to put into her to end her once and for all; but you have to strike at the exact right moment do you understand?" He said as James gripped her other shoulder.

"I do!" She nodded. "But you guys I have to-"

"There is no time." Devin said realistically.

"But I…" she said practically in tears as they each put their hands on her scythe's handle.

"Billie; it was a stupid argument over two decades ago; forget about it already!" James said giving her a thumbs up.

She looked at her friends smiling face as both specters grew brighter and brighter, like little suns.

"But Devin you… you gave up your life to save mine! How can I…"

"You were worth saving my dear." Devin said in his kind old tone that she remembered.

Billie gripped her scythe hard as they both vanished; and her weapon began to glow a great white. She gripped it tightly in her hands looking at her opponent melting on fire pulling herself towards Billie with a variety of grotesque noises.

"Time to take out the trash…" Billie said; her shadow armor gaining a second wind.

She rose up her foot and put it into what looked like the jackals face, rearing her backwards; then with a clear shot at her chest she sent her blade into it, propelling her upwards into the sky. With an incredible series of slashes that left deep white burns in the blackness of the headmistress they rose up into the sky through the smoke.

"What is that?" Panther called out in shock.

For all Leon and Panther could make out was a white light piercing the growing dark of the rising smoke chimney. In fact, the glow from their point of view almost looked like a pair of brightly lit wings of some magnificent creature flying upward.

Billie let the jackal fall a bit, then looking over her slashed up blackened limbless body she heard the voices of her friends:

"Who's broken now?" James said in a cocky tone.

"Let us be rid of it." Devin finished.

"Yes… let us be rid of it… NOW!" Billie cried swinging her scythe.

She fell right in front of the jackal and just before the body hit the ground she dealt what would be the final strike. The writhing torso of the broken Legion howled out a cry of pain that could be heard for miles, as the great white light ran through her body, it started to crack and break up until…

Poof. Billie watched from the flames around her as the Shadow Legion almost looked like she had turned to stone; and then exploded into a great mess of black ash.

"It's over…" Billie said letting it sink in.

Feeling lighter than air her body rose up into the sky over the smoke; out in the open air, she let the Cornerian wind sweep over her, peeling her veil of shadow lace away. Only her long black hair and her hands were still cloaked in the black energy as she floated on high over the sun begging to set on the horizon. Billie watched her white scythe shatter like a beautiful work of stain glass, as the colors of from the pastel sky danced around on it; the shattered pieces faded and she could hear the elated voices of her old friends on the breeze whipping by.

"I told you my sweet; you were made for better things…" Said Devin, his final goodbye to his apprentice. Then she felt his hands leave her shoulders; and he was gone.

Billie looked around for any sign of James; for a moment she thought she heard a light carefree laughter on the wind, just like she had heard that day on Fichina. She looked up and did a double take at the blue orange the sky was becoming. There was a figure that almost looked like an Arwing flying over while James's laugh rung through her ears. But as quickly as she saw it; it was gone again.

Her light sense of peace was cut short when she turned around to look at the four ships on the dirt path in the distance. With a heavy heart, and heavier tears she floated down towards the reality of the situation.

"Do you see Wolf?" Billie's mother said looking to him with her large brown eyes.

The soft, inviting expressions they made reminded him so much of Billie.

"I think he understands Diane." Sam said putting an arm over his wife's shoulders.

"So… this was all preordained before I was even born?" Wolf said taking everything in.

"Before Billie was even born!" Diane said clapping happily.

"They day we lost our little girl was horrible… But sometimes one must be sacrificed; for the good of the many." Sam said with a grim look.

"But our bodies died long ago; and we were aloud the knowledge that only the dead are let in on." He continued. Then Diane cut in:

"Yes, you see throughout the entire universe throughout all of time… There have been people like you, and Billie, and even Fox!" She said in her high tone.

"People like us?" Wolf asked trying to fit the pieces together.

"The restless…" Sam said. "Those who start life painfully, and have to struggle for everything. It is people like you who become the best in heart and mind. Throughout your struggles, you and Billie became the best that they could make you. And your task is far from done; for it is you… and the McCloud child, who still have to once again become the protectors of Lylat and all of her colonies." He said looking to Wolf with a serious gaze.

"Yes, you being caught up in all of your vice's; has ensured that those who threaten the balance and the order of things, are put down. That is why they decided to send you back…" Diane said holding her palms together and pointing them in Wolf's direction.

"They…?" Wolf said feeling uneasy.

"I told you dear; you aren't supposed to be here yet." She said with a wide grin.

Billie gracefully floated down before Panther and Leon, as her feet touched the dirt below her; her shadow lace faded, letting her loose hair fall to her back and revealing her bloodied hands.

"That was amazing!" Leon called over. "You took that scythe and slashed her to ribbons! So much cutting… And Panther thought she had you beat in the jungle, he was so worried."

"I never doubted you for a second!" He argued shooting Leon a look.

But Billie didn't hear anything, she walked past them with a crushed and defeated look on her tear stained face. Standing at Wolf's feet looking down over his white dead eyes, and the slightly agape mouth…

"It's not fair… everything is okay now… We can be a team now, without worrying about Taylor, or Dexter or any of it!" She said weeping fourth more tears.

"O'DONNELL! YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME LIKE THIS YOU BASTARD!" She screamed out into the soft twighlight glow.

The wind blew through her with a howl; she raised a hand to wipe her whipping hair out of her face. Her eyes clouded black, she was out of tears to give, they became black, her shadow lace wept for her when she could not. It wept for Wolf, like the ocean weeps for the moon; the ocean sighs on and on.

"I refuse…" She said gripping her bloody fists.

"Billie?" Panther asked worried about what she was going to do.

"I refuse to let you leave me you son of a bitch!" Billie barked.

She plopped down on Wolf's lap and tore open his plasma proofed vest; revealing his sweaty and cold chest underneath his black tee. She pushed his golden pendant aside and ripped his shirt open down the middle revealing bloodied fur; his skin full of small holes where his energy had been taken.

"Billie what are you doing?!" Panther yelled assuming she had gone mad.

"A Shadow Legion stole his life away… Maybe I can give it back." She said in a shaky voice as her black tears dripped down onto the white patch of his lean chest.

"Could that actually work?" Leon said sounding almost… hopeful.

"I would renounce my title as a Legion!" She said placing her palms on his chest and letting the lace sink into the wounds.

"IF IT WOULD BUY ME ONE MORE HOUR WITH HIM!"

Leon and Panther watched on in a stunned; open mouthed silence as the lace swarmed and hissed all around the body of Wolf.

"You get your ass back here O'Donnell!" She screamed in an amazing amount of physical and emotional pain.

Wolf looked up at the once calm stars, they were now becoming a dismal shade of deep blue; and dripping down like paint, splashing over everything.

"What's happening?" He asked to the strangely calm couple sitting across from him.

"Time for you to go kiddo…" Sam said as he and his wife stood up.

"Wha- OUCH!" Wolf yelped gripping at his chest.

"What the fuck was that?" Wolf said feeling pain beating in his chest.

An intense pain like nothing he had ever felt before.

"GAH!" He gripped at it again and fell to his knees.

"It's okay; don't fight it, just let it in." Diane said in a soothing way.

"GAAAH!" Wolf's vision began to blur in his left eye as the wind picked up and the sky above began to fall.

"Oh and by the way Wolf…" Diane shouted over the earsplitting noises all around.

"Tell Billie something for us!"

"What?!" He yelled feeling himself fading into the blue.

Billie screamed in pain as life left her body… as the agelessness left; every year she had lived or might ever live again. She now gladly gave them to Wolf. Whose body began to seize under hers as new life sprung forth by the energy she had carried within herself filled his heart and brain and forced them back into function. Billie gasped as a weird bubbelish sort of pop was heard by all, then Wolf's body arched back and sucked in a huge gasp of air beneath her.

Panther caught Billie as she was thrown backwards, Leon looked at Wolf's white eyes rolling and seizing up as his body coughed in its first breaths of air.

Wolf himself was lost in the blue but could hear Billie's shaky voice pleading, closer and closer. Then all of a sudden right over his face.

"Come back. Come back. Come back!"

His body settled down, and he felt the aches and pains of life all over him again. He blinked his dry eyes open; they watered a bit trying to make up for the scratchiness of death on him. Everything blurred in slowly; his vision and his physical sensation; he felt a hand on the side of his face.

Billie looked down at his violet eye blink up at her.

"Wolf?" She said in a small voice.

He tried to speak; but his mouth was so dry, he just coughed. She put his head on her lap to elevate it, and he watched Panther and Leon crowd over him as well. He moved his lips slowly trying to speak, but his voice was barley there. Billie knelt down to hear what he was saying.

"Trisha…" His voice made out softly.

"What?" Billie asked confused.

Wolf cleared his throat as his saliva began to moisten it; he was able to speak a bit louder as he said:

"That's your name… Trisha Parker, Scott…" Then he coughed more.

"My name…" Billie whispered… "Trisha…" She held her head remembering only now, her mother calling her in from the garden time and time again…

"She would call me Tish… when I was feeling sad…"

"OH. YOUR. GOD!" Leon said, his color changing going crazy.

"HE'S ALIVE!" Leon laughed manically.

"He's alive!" Billie wept.

"Damnit Leon shut the hell up…" Wolf said annoyed at the sound of his laughter.

"And he hasn't changed a bit…" Panther said with a grin.

"The hell he hasn't look." Billie said whipping her eyes.

They looked down at Wolf's damaged left eye; the white of it was now completely black. Black with his new life.

"Can you see out of it?" Billie asked.

"Nope." Wolf said flatly.

"So… is he, one of you now?" Panther asked looking at Billie.

"No…" Wolf said already knowing what happened.

"Me and Billie operate on the same wave length now…" He said clutching his chest and pulling himself up.

"Be careful." Leon said helping him. "You are still stiff with the rigamortis."

"I'm fine damnit!" Wolf said shooing his hand away.

But then he stumbled and fell backwards; all three members of his Star Wolf family placed their hands on him and pulled him to his feet. He accepted the help of his family with a gruff: "Humph".

"What did you see?" Panther asked. "How do you know what's going on?"

"It's not important…" He said in a gruff and dry voice.

"All you lunk-heads need to know is that little miss ageless there…" He said balancing himself and turning to Billie.

"Is going to age at the exact same rate as me now…"

"WHAT?" They all said together in shock.

"That's right…" He nodded. Then he put a hand up to her face and wiped away the black stains with a clawed thumb.

"But I can still…" She held up a hand and watched shadow lace come out, and then sink back down into herself.

"Yeah, you can… But the lace dies with you." He said, and then started to cough a bit.

"Oh Wolf!" She cried hugging him tightly; it almost knocked him over.

"I thought I lost you! I thought you were going to be another one on the list of crap immortals have to deal with!" She said loudly muffled by the fur on his chest.

"I aint' that easy to get rid of…" He said hugging her small trembling frame.

"Aww that's nice… Now give her a kiss." Panther said.

Wolf shot him a 'what the fuck' glare.

"Finally…" She said looking out at the flames beginning to die down. "The age of Shadow Legion is over…"

She separated from her love and walked slowly towards the flames, watching them die away, along with everything she had once hated and feared. Her three family members watched on as she dug her curved black knife out of her right combat boot and raise it up to her head. Grasping at her hair; she began to cut it through. Until she had black locks which only reached the back of her neck. They watched on as she held her hair; Shadow Legion were never allowed to cut their hair. But with this, she no longer was bound by her blood to linger on forever; she no longer had to watch everyone around her die.

She was free… free to age, to connect. To grow old if she wasn't killed along the way. As the sky became darker she rose up the clump of hair, along with everything that once burdened her and tossed it into the wind. Wolf walked up to her side, feeling his blood flowing steadily once again and they watched the strands float on and away into the flames.

"So does this mean we get to call you Trisha?" Wolf asked tearing off the remains of his tattered shirt from under his vest.

"No…" Billie said running a hand through her short hair. "Come on Wolf look at me? Trisha? My name is Billie! All that way! Radical Billie Shade; tough as nails!" She laughed feeling peace over take her.

Wolf grabbed her face and kissed her; making a beautiful silhouette over the flames.

"Oh pleaaaase…" Leon said rolling his eyes.

"Wait for it." Panther said as they watched from the background.

Wolf separated from her; looking into her eyes he asked a serious question, in a tone that implied he was being sarcastic:

"How would you feel about bein' called Billie O'Donnell then?"

"Called it!" Panther said holding out his hand.

"Son of a bitch…" Leon said flatly handing panther a stack of Lylat credits.

Billie stood there in stunned silence trying to gauge Wolf's seriousness… She just smiled.

Two months later…

Billie looked at a hollow projector from where she was sitting in her black sleeveless turtle neck and her white jeans; she had decided to wear the same heels she had worn on the New Lullix mission… that seemed forever ago now, she used a finger to smooth a strand of her graduating bob out of her face. Sitting in wait in the small courthouse room as the news went on.

"And all reports are saying that with the mysterious death of infamous crime boss Dexter Tyson; who had no blood heirs or any kind of will and final testament. That the crime rate throughout sector's X, Y, and Z has diminished immensely. It seems no one is interested in picking up where the crime boss left off; and as for the whereabouts of his billions of Lylat credits officers assume that those who worked under him, took it before they began to flee from the police. More on this as it develops."

She clicked it off as it went to commercial and sighed. Then Wolf came marching in, sporting a plain black patch over his left eye.

"You told me you were going to wear something nice…" Billie said getting up and zipping up his blue vest over his tee shirt.

"You told me you didn't want to make a big deal out of this."

"I don't…" She said dismissively. "And sorry your new e-patch hasn't arrived yet… I had them reinforce the frame. And I ordered something cool from that Slippy guy." She said pushing him up to a glass waiting box with a rather bored looking notary standing over some paper work.

"I hate that frog…" Wolf gruffed.

"He's a toad; and he makes good tech." She giggled.

"Humph."

The bored looking ram began to speak as they stood next to each other.

"Need each of you to sign here; in the names that you will be taking."

Wolf picked up the stylus and scribbled his signature onto the e-pad. Then he handed it to Billie who scribbled down 'Billie O'Donnell' quickly.

"Congratulations you're now married, kiss the bride." Said the ram with no detectible enthusiasm, then he clapped three times and took away the pad with the contract on it.

Wolf dug around in his pocket for a minute; then he pulled out the pendant his mother had left him on a new silver snake patterned chain and clipped it around Billie's neck. Billie looked down at it holding it in her hands. Wolf kissed her when she looked back up.

"Let's get out of here before someone realizes we are Star Wolf." He whispered grabbing her hand.

She giggled and followed him out of the Fichinian courthouse. They ran out to their motorcycle as Billie slung her coat on.

"We're actually married!" She said hugging him on back.

"Let's make it official…" He growled revving the engine up.

"Oh my…" She said through laughter holding on as he cut off a truck and they dashed on through the snow.

Happy endings kick ass! Lol but this isn't the end, not really; Star Wolf has more to do! And for those of you who thought Wolf was dead forever; as if. Thats fucking Wolf O'Donnell! My favorite Star Fox character! As if you couldn't tell. Now you all know how I love being Critiqued; so let em rip. The whole story, the good the bad and the sexay! I want to hear it all, and your favorite quotes mine is: "this is heaven? THIS IS BORING!" Wolf can't go to heaven... at least not what most people think heaven is he would be too bored. He's got work to do man!

Next story will be delayed while I get the one shot story of how Billie and Wolf met when he was a child live. It's called Perfect Strangers. But other than that the next installment is my take on Command... which had great gameplay and bad story telling; so how far will it be from the game, we'll see. I am definalty gonna put in more Arwing and Wolfen action though. I really went all on ground combat for this story which I didn't realize until like... chapter 19. So any questions any at all; let me know via review!