CHAPTER 21-DOWNFALL OF US ALL
"Ha! What in Gods name is that thing?" Spektor laughed as he took in Banjo's battle suit. While it was nowhere near the high tech death machine his was, it still managed to be around the same size, though lacking any built in weapons, save the jet packs on its back.
"Its the thing thats going to kick you off our planet, for good!" Banjo answered sharply.
From behind, the formation of the StarFox teams Arwings came into view, strafing the massive robot with laser fire as it merely bounced off of the exterior shield.
"Is that Banjo?" Fox asked looked toward the less intimidating looking mech.
"I think it is! He's going to get himself killed in that thing." Krystal said as they entered all-range mode.
"I don't know, Kazooie said he was a pretty competent pilot. I think he might surprise us."
"Well as long as he doesn't crash into anything, I think he's got the edge over you Falco." Slippy teased.
"Very funny."
Peppy sat on the bridge of the Great Fox parked behind the walls of showdown town. He had gotten out of the business of flying, but at times like this, he still had that adventurers yearn for excitement and action. He looked to the corner of the room where Slippy had laid a spare rocket launcher. He grinned like the young hare he used to be as he threw it onto his shoulder, grabbing as many rockets as he could carry and walked down the ramp to the battle taking place in Showdown Town.
"Looks like you guys need some bigger guns!" He said climbing up the wall where the others were fighting the invaders to a stalemate.
"What could an old timer like you possibly know about big guns?" Kazooie mocked.
"Watch and learn young blood!" Peppy said looking through the electronic eyepiece of the shoulder fired missile launcher. With a satisfying 'ping' it locked onto one of the ships the soldiers were using for cover. Fire roared from the back of the tube as the missile streaked straight up into the air about 200 feet. Once it reached that height, it plummeted towards its target, detonating into a towering ball of fire, throwing the hiding troops into the air and onto the ground.
"Not bad gramps, but you've still got a lot of killing to do if your going to catch me!" Trophy Thomas yelled over the zap of lazers.
"Yeah, what are you up to now, two?" Kazooie asked, hurling a fire egg at a soldier foolish enough to charge the walls.
"Your planet? Ultor owns this planet now." Mr. Spektor said in his normal calm demeanor.
"You cant own planets! It belongs to those living there!"
"Hm...I beg to differ!" He said as the hands of Combaticus formed into glowing blue plasma cannons.
Banjo's eyes widened as he saw the ball of blue energy racing toward him. He awkwardly stumbled out of the way as the laser blast crashed into a building behind him.
The honey bear grabbed a metal support beam from the rubble below him and hurled it at Combaticus. It merely deflected away on its shield as so much else had done that day.
"Why dont you stop hiding behind your shield and fight like a man!" Banjo demanded as the StarFox team regrouped for another pass.
"I'm a reasonable lion, I suppose I could lower the shield. But only if you call off your pesky mosquitoes."
"Fine."
"Falco, I need you guys to return to the Great Fox."
"And leave you alone with him? Banjo, he'll tear you apart!"
"I know what I'm doing, just trust me!" He said.
"Ok. Fox, Banjo wants us to head back to base. He's going to fight this thing alone."
"What?!" came over Falco's radio from each squad member in unison.
"He's got a plan, now lets go!" He ordered leading the way.
"Ok, they wont be bothering us anymore. Now lower your shield."
"Very well." Mr. Spektor said as the glowing blue aura faded into nothing.
"Now, what say we begin!" The lion roared deploying his sword and charging at Banjo. He was quick to dodge his slice as he picked up an 'I' beam from the ground and rocked the side of Combaticus' head with it, nearly toppling the metal beast.
Spektor countered with an uppercut, sending Banjo's giant metal frame dangerously close to his allies on the walls.
Banjo opened his eyes to see Combaticus heading straight down on top of him, plasma sword ready to cut him in two. He rolled swiftly out of the way as the mighty robot cut a huge rift in the dirt. He was quick to recover as Banjo grabbed a leg of his adversary and yanked it off balance, then spun around with him as if he were a shot-put before releasing him to crash through three buildings before resting on the remains of L.O.G.'s factory. Banjo followed up by grabbing a sharpened piece of twisted steel from the ground, and attempted to drive it straight through the robots chest, where the lion controlling it lay. Spektor caught the edge of the steel spear and held it feet from his protective metal shell as a battle of strength ensued. After much grunting and growling by both parties, Combaticus finally was able to throw off Banjo, readying his plasma sword once more.
Kazooie had all but stopped fighting as she watched the person she cared most about in the world fight a giant robot to save all of their lives.
'Banjo...I swear if you die I'm going to kill you!' She thought.
"I must admit, you are better than I expected, but your inferior technology will be the downfall of you all!" He said grabbing the arm of Banjo's mech and subsequently cutting it off.
'Crap! Thats ok...Thats why I've got another...' He thought stumbling backward as Spektor threw the robotic severed arm to the ground.
Fox and the rest of his team ran down the ramp of the Great Fox with various weapons as the headed towards the wall to reinforce Covo and Banjo's friends position, but were quite surprised when they saw who was amongst the soldiers.
"Peppy? You're fighting?" Slippy said in honest shock.
"I couldn't just sit around while you young guys had all the fun!" He said firing another rocket into a crowd of oncoming soldiers.
"Falco! We could use a sniper, get in position!" Covo ordered as she noticed what the bird was carrying.
As luck would have it, the best position to snipe from was the one right next to Kazooie.
"Fancy meeting you here."
"Now is not the time buzzard." She said throwing grenade eggs.
"No need for barbs, I'm just glad your ok." He said sarcastically, setting up the bipod to his high powered laser rifle.
He was soon taking down targets left and right as he continued to talk to his former lover.
"You told Banjo you love him yet?" He said as he released a laser into an unfortunate soldiers head.
"No, I haven't had time."she said lobbing a fire egg into a group of hiding soldiers.
"Haven't had time, or haven't had the guts?"
She glared at him then went back to her fight.
"Shut up bird brain, I'll tell him as soon we save our planet!"
"I'm usually not a pessimist but Banjo's robot seems to be losing." He said firing another laser from his weapon.
"Well, this is hardly a fair fight now. Tell you what, to make things a little more even, I'll cut off my own arm." He said, severing the arm which was currently a plasma cannon.
"There. Fair and square now, yes?"
"You still have a sword." He panted.
"True enough. Ahh, here we are..." He said grabbing a thick piece of metal support beam. Using his plasma sword, he shaped and sharpened it into a recognizable object.
He threw it to Banjo, who caught it and swung it around a few times.
"What are they doing?" Krystal asked, noticing the giant robots were no longer fighting, and merely facing each other, one having just removed its own arm.
"Me not know...must be part of Bear plan..." Mumbo said noticing this as well.
"Pfft, some plan. If I were in that robot, that guy would be toast in five minutes at the most." Trophy Thomas said as anyone in earshot rolled their eyes.
"Now, shall we begin?"
"Lets do it."
"Of course you realize this is a death match?"
"Yeah. I know."
"Good." And with that, Spektor engaged his rocket boots and dropped his shoulder straight into the chest of Banjo's robot, coming dangerously close to crushing him as he tumbled over the rubble of the remains of Showdown Town.
Thinking quickly, Banjo raised his sword above himself and blocked the follow-up strike he knew was sure to come.
He bought enough time to get to his feet and slash at Combaticus, only to be blocked again and again by Spektor's mastery of sword play, even in a giant robotic exoskeleton.
Combaticus struck another blow, flinging Banjo and his mech onto its back, and causing its massive sword to go flipping away from him.
Spektor calmly walked up to his defeated opponent and held his sword so close to Banjo's body he could feel the heat radiating from it.
"Banjo! No!" Kazooie shouted toward the distance as she witnessed her honey bears fall.
"You really thought you could best my swordplay? How on earth did you plan to win?" He laughed amused.
Spektor saw a smile creep onto the bears face as he tried to think of why someone who was about to die would have a reason to smile.
"Cheating!" He had knocked Banjo back toward where Spektor had removed his plasma cannon, which had been overcharging since he had removed it. All it would take is an electric jolt to fire it, which is exactly what Banjo had.
He quickly grabbed the arm and jammed the severed end into his own mechs tangle of wires were its arm used to be. The electricity surged through it and released the blue ball of superheated light right into the chest of Spektors robot.
Spektor however was not about to be killed in such a manner, for as soon as he had seen Banjo grab his cannon, he initiated the ejection sequence, his escape pod rocketing out of the head of the robot and into orbit, just before the plasma tore through were Spektor had been only seconds before.
Cheers were heard throughout Showdown Town as Combaticus fell in defeat at the feet of Banjo's mech. He raised the only remaining fist in the air in victory as he watched the escape pod leave the sky.
But all was not well, as Slippy would soon inform him.
"Banjo, I'm reading high radiation levels coming from your position, is everything ok?" The toad asked on the field radio as Ultor's forces began retreating.
"Everything's fine, Spektor just left with his tail between his legs!" He said happily.
"You may have won the battle, but I'll win the war!" Mr Spektor said, pressing a large red button with a mushroom cloud depicted on it as he rocketed through space toward his flagship.
"I just got a huge radiation spike! Banjo, that other suit is a bomb! With those levels of radiation it appears to be...over twenty kilotons..." Slippy said dropping the handset as the others gathered around him.
"Twenty kilo-whats? What does that mean?" Banjo radioed back.
"That means unless we can get one hundred miles away in under forty seconds, we'll all be radioactive vapor..." Slippy radioed back.
Banjo stared down at the damaged remains of Spektors battle suit. He thought of how he raised his little sister...her first steps, her first words, all the scraped knees and colds he cared for while he was just a cub himself. He thought of the night he met Kazooie, and the all the adventures the two of them had gone on. He thought of all the friends he had made in Showdown Town, and all the innocent residents that didn't deserve to have their homes and lives leveled in a nuclear blast. It was then, he came to his solution.
"Mumbo, does this cockpit go underwater?" He asked over the radio.
"Yes, just pull lever on bottom left."
"Then it should be fine to go into space right?" He asked.
"Technically Mumbo guess it could-" He was cut off by Kazooie snatching the radio away from the shaman.
"Banjo I know what you are thinking about doing, don't you dare!"
"Kaz, I'm the only one who can get this thing away from here in time! Don't make this any harder than it has to be!" He said as glass panels sealed themselves around his cockpit, and he grabbed Combaticus by the arm and engaged the rockets, taking off after Spektor.
"Dammit Banjo! Everything we've ever done will be for nothing if you do this!"
"Shut up Kazooie, you know that's not true! I'm doing this because I'm not going to let you, or any of my friends get hurt! So you and Tooty can go back to living a peaceful life and not have to worry about this kind of thing happening again!"
There was silence as the Breegull looked up and followed the trail of smoke with her teary emerald eyes.
"I guess you arent coming back huh?" She asked through sobs, the mood around the wall going from celebratory to solemn in a moments notice.
"No..." He said, fighting back tears of his own.
"I...I love you Banjo..."
His heart froze when he heard those words. He had waited so long to hear them, that he was completely unprepared to respond. He went with the simplest answer as the stars of space filled his canopy, his tears now floating in front of him instead of down his cheek.
"I love you too Kazooie."
That was the last transmission Banjo would send back to his planet as he focused on the task at hand. He saw the largest ship in the space fleet ready to accept a small escape pod directly in front of him. He kicked on the afterburners as he streaked within blast range of Combaticus' self destruct nuke.
"Hey! I think you forgot something on my planet!" He shouted as Spektor turned his pod around to his horror to see the injured mech carrying the crippled form of his own straight towards him.
Banjo closed his eyes as he neared the Oblivion.
'Any second now...' Banjo said, as calm as he had ever been, his thoughts centered on one Breegull, bringing his last smile to his lips as he sailed closer.
A blinding flash of light was seen by all eyes in the Ultor attack fleet, followed by the sight of the Oblivion, ripping in two pieces. Ultor had been defeated.
From the wall, all eyes were on the sky as what appeared to be a daytime star appeared, then fizzeled out into blue just as it had come.
Kazooie could do nothing but stare at the sky in disbelief and utter shock. This was soon replaced by overwhelming sadness as the covered her face with her wings and dashed off of the wall, tears streaming down her face. Her honey bear, was gone.
This isnt over yet!