Arc V: Party Crashing

Part 3: Seeing Blue

Chapter 20

In his command room atop his secret base's main tower, Rafa reclined in his well-worn office chair. He glanced over his shoulder through the massive observation window on the back wall just in time to see the final rays of the sun before it vanished below the horizon. For the time being, he was alone in the room. He preferred it that way. With so much on his mind, he needed a bit of time to think. Despite the previous track record of his mercenary action duo, the sheer lack of correspondence from Fyvve and Doggo put him on edge. Three days had passed since they had left for Eladard, and as of yet, neither of them had made contact. Rafa had little doubt that they were still alive—he simply suspected that they had made zero progress on accessing Krystal's Macbeth-based bank account or in raiding her apartment.

"She probably cleared that place out the instant she turned on us. I don't know how she could have gotten there so quickly without help, though. Maybe there was help involved. Hmm…"

A moment later, Rafa's phone rang. He reached into his pocket and withdrew it with neither alarmed concern nor disinterested malaise. "Hello?"

"Boss, it's Doggo."

Rafa breathed a sigh of relief, albeit a brief one. "Please tell me you cracked her bank account."

"Yes, I did that," replied the action hacker. "However…"

"Don't say it, don't say it, don't say it…" Rafa thought to himself, gripping the side of his chair while waiting for the shiba inu to finish explaining himself.

He said it. "The balance was C0.00. Completely empty."

Rafa's previously simmering anger blossomed into a towering rage in a split second. "Damn that woman!"

"There's…uh…something else," Doggo continued, his suave, low voice becoming uncharacteristically nervous.

The East Fortunan leader bit his lip and tried to reply with a level voice. "What?"

"When Fyvve and I went to raid the apartment you told us to look into, we ran into the target."

"…And I assume that since this is the first time you've called me since you left for Eladard, you let her escape. How the hell did you let that happen?" Rafa demanded, clutching his phone with such force that he feared it would crumple in his hand.

"She was with a man," Doggo sheepishly replied. "He held us off while she got away."

In a cartoon setting, literal smoke would have begun rising out of Rafa's nostrils at this point. "What did this 'man' look like?"

"A red fox, around 5'8", medium build, orange fur, wore a scarf and a jacket."

Breathing in furious, heavy gasps, Rafa closed his eyes and demanded, "Please do not tell me that he got away. Do not tell me that he got away. Do not tell me that he got..."

"He got away."

"GAH! Fuck you, Fox!" Rafa screamed, hurling his phone at the ground with such force that it bounced off the tile floor and sent glass shards flying. The phone eventually clattered to a stop in the back corner of the room with the call still live. Of course, Doggo hung up seconds later. With the room silent and his own tirade echoing in his ears, Rafa held his head in his hands and wracked his brain for a way out of the mess he now found himself in.

After a minute of allowing his rage to subside enough for clear thinking to return, he rolled his chair over to the massive control suite that dominated the command room's right wall. He reached out and pressed a green phone icon. A second later, a military officer's voice echoed through a small intercom built into the control panel. "Extension, please."

"502."¹

"Transferring now. Please hold."

Seconds ticked by with no sound apart from communications static. In the time frame before Doggo's inopportune phone call, Rafa would have enjoyed the silence.² Now, though, he reviled it. He needed answers. He needed ideas. But most of all, he needed results.

"I know you're busy, amigo. Please pick up."

To his relief, his wish was granted. A deep, confident yet intellectual voice reached his ears, providing him with an immediate sense of relief. "Good evening, Commander. What is it?"

"Desmond, we've got a problem—a big problem."

"Oh yeah?"

"'Oh yeah' doesn't even begin to describe it. We just lost our reserve funds. We're not getting any more money unless Macbeth approves it—and they're going to be under a lot of pressure not to."

Desmond went silent. "Not good."

Trying to keep his composure, Rafa pleaded, "Desmond, I need a favor from you."

"Sure. What is it?"

"I need you to get in touch with the Red Group's administration and arrange pickup for the Landmaster prototype that they just finished. We also need copies of the blueprints for the tank and for the Arwing. Both weapons will be delivered to this base in just a few weeks' time, but we might not have the luxury of sitting around and waiting for them."

"Do you think someone knows about the weapons?"

Rafa nodded. "I have a suspicion that a certain blue bitch is leaking info to someone I used to know."

"She's really gone rogue?"

Quivering with rage, Rafa responded, "We don't need her, mi amigo. She was holding us back. With her gone, the gloves are coming off. No holds barred. We're going to win this war, Desmond. I don't care what it takes. First things first, though: set up the Landmaster pickup and go to Eladard. We might be short on money, but if we move quickly, it won't matter."

"Sounds good, Commander. I'll get right on it."

Sighing, Rafa ended his call with Desmond by pressing a red button on the massive control console in front of him. He stood up and walked towards his phone, nestled in the back corner of the room. Reaching down and dusting it off, he unlocked it and determined that it would still function. Then, he scrolled through a list of contacts, finally alighting on one near the end of the list.

He sighed again, then pressed 'call.' The holding tone lasted longer than he hoped it would, suggesting that his contact did not exactly appreciate being called. Eventually, however, the contact picked up and answered with a disgruntled voice.

"Hello—what do you want this time?"

"Listen, Wolf," Rafa replied. "I've got a job opportunity for you."

"Go on."

"I've got an extremely valuable prototype tank that I need delivered to me in East Fortuna. Right now, it's in the Red Group's factory in Eladard. I'm sending my right hand man to extract the tank personally, but I'm all but convinced that Fox and his merry band of misfit twats are going to try to crash the party.³ So, what I need you to do is find a way to distract Fox so that my man can get away with the tank."

"Am I allowed to kill Fox?"

Rafa responded with an unnerving amount of jubilation in his voice. "Of course! I'm sure we'd both be much happier if you would do that."

"Great," replied Wolf, "I'm still recovering from my last encounter with him, but I should be good to go. When do you need me in Eladard?"

Rafa stepped back and looked out the window, watching as the sunlight vanished completely and plunged his command base into darkness. "I don't know yet. I'll keep you updated."

"Sounds good."

- § -

Ten days passed, with the majority of Foxfire Enterprises' time being spent preparing for their rapidly-approaching mission. Thanks to Rena's work spamming Red Group employees' social media pages with ads for their new catering company and its immaculate website that boasted over forty near-flawless reviews, the team—via Fay's irresistable interpersonal skills—had managed to land the gig as the catering providers for the Red Group's office party.

Meanwhile, Scarlet and Krystal prepared for the mission by…other means. Being out of practice, Scarlet spent most of her time going over the suggestive dance routines that she had pushed aside for nearly a decade, in addition to teaching them to Krystal. To do this, Scarlet set up a pole in the base's exercise room—a move that Fox frowned upon, but grudgingly approved under the condition that she would take it down after the mission had ended.

With the team's catering uniforms assembled, fake Red Group ID tags printed, Slippy's catering recipes perfected, accommodations scheduled, and Rena's drone tested, the group convened at the Cornerian International Airport near the private airline checkpoint.

As usual, Fox arrived before most of the others, apart from Slippy, at least. The amphibian sat in one of the many plastic chairs in the waiting area, located in front of a large, tinted window that allowed a faint view of the dim, sun-tinged horizon and the Cornerian skyline that punctuated it. Rena sat next to him, wearing a small, black hoodie with cut-off sleeves that gave it the appearance of a hooded tank top. Dark purple gauntlets covered her wrists and forearms⁴, while below the waist, she wore a pair of dangerously small black shorts, thigh-high striped purple socks, and black combat boots. Her cutoff hoodie featured a large circular design with a giant 'P' in the center—the logo for the Eladard-based progressive metal band Peripherals.⁵ As she tended to do, she sat with her gaze to the nearest window while listening to music through her large white headphones.

Temporarily lowering her headphones and allowing the faint sound of death metal to leak out, she groggily mumbled, "Good morning, Senpai."

"Good morning to you," Fox replied, taking a nearby seat that faced the private airline checkpoint, currently vacant in the early hours of the morning. Noticing a growing awkward silence in the waiting area as Rena repositioned her headphones, Fox looked at Slippy out of the corner of his eye and said, "Thanks for getting here early and setting a good example for everyone else."

"Eh, it's what I do," Slippy replied with a cavalier hand wave. "So, let me get this straight before everyone else shows up—what exactly do you want me to do during the mission? Miyu and Katt are going to be doing the catering and Scarlet's going to entertain the guests with Krystal, so where does that leave me? Do you want me to get into the Red Group's main facility with you and Rena's drone, or do you want me to stay at the party? Please say 'stay at the party.'"

Fox rolled his eyes, knowing full well why Slippy wished for him to say that. "Hey—if I had the choice, I'd rather stay at the party, too. I mean, damn—don't you dare tell either of them, but I might ask Katt to record their routine. We've got a job to do, though. Our fake IDs are only going to get us so far, so we'll need to find an alternate way to get into the more highly secured areas in the Red Group facility. That's why I need you to come with me. I wish I could have even more help, but everyone else is going to be tied up at the party."

"Well, at least with just us and the drone, it'll be easier to be stealthy," Slippy hinted.

"Sadly, Rena's yellow and pink drone paint scheme isn't very stealthy. It is very quiet, though."

The conversation came to a halt as Miyu and Katt walked through the terminal doors and rounded the corner into the waiting room. "Good morning, people," Miyu called out.

"I want to go back to sleep," Katt moaned.

Fox replied in jest, "I'm sure you'll have plenty of time for that on the flight. You might not want to sleep then, though—we'll probably be getting off the plane at 6:00 PM—yesterday.⁶"

Her tired mind unable to contemplate the idiosyncrasies of time zone changes, Katt grumbled, "What the hell?"

"Hey, it doesn't make sense to me, either," Fox replied before he lowered his voice. "Hey, Katt—can you come over here?"

While Miyu took a seat next to Slippy, Katt shuffled over to Fox, who leaned forward to whisper into her ear. "Can you do me a favor? When Scarlet and Krystal are doing their dance at the party, would you mind…"

"Mind what?" a nearby voice called out.

Fox jolted back in his seat and looked up, only to see and Scarlet and Krystal standing at the lobby's entrance. The blue vixen wore her Kursed outfit, while Scarlet continued her streak of wearing normal clothing with a pair of black yoga pants and a dark blue athletic fit t-shirt.

"Aaa! Good morning, l…ladies!"

Scarlet giggled and nudged Kursed, whom Fox suspected had broken into a smile beneath her unfeeling mask.

Unfazed by the arrival of the two vixens, Katt asked Fox, "So, what did you want me to do, again?"

"Don't bother, Fox replied. "It wasn't anything important."

"Really? It didn't sound that way to me…"

"No, it doesn't matter," Fox insisted, before he changed the topic to prevent any further humiliation from his team's resident mind-reader. "Everyone, let's head to the plane!"

- § -

After manning the pilot's seat for the entirety of the flight from Corneria to Eladard, Fox felt grateful not to be driving. As the sun dipped below the horizon—obscured by Eladard's innumerable high-rise buildings—he sat in the second row of seats belonging to the oversized cargo van assigned to pick him and his team up from the airport and transport them to their arranged quarters. Scarlet and Krystal sat to his right and left on the cloth-covered bench, while Slippy, Katt, and Miyu followed the shuttle in Foxfire Enterprises'™ dedicated cargo van. Rena managed to claim the shuttle's shotgun seat.

The shuttle's driver—an imposing bull mastiff wearing an immaculate black suit and a tie—seemed not to be one for conversation, judging from his complete lack of speech after helping Fox and his team into the van. His own intimidating presence dissuaded Fox from speaking to him to begin with, which left him with turning to Scarlet for answers to the questions he held about Eladard and Scarlet's friend, who had been responsible for giving them clearance to enter Eladard to begin with.

Whispering into the vixen's ear, he asked, "What can we expect from your friend Felix?"

At this, Scarlet let out a quiet sigh and explained, "I think we can expect a nice, secure place to stay. However, there's one thing I have to admit about him." She paused before whispering, "He's my ex. He was the last guy I dated."

Fox gave her an uncomfortable expression, but she silenced him with a hand wave and added, "Now hold on—we had a mutual breakup a year ago. We're on good terms. There won't be any drama."

"Got it," said Fox. "He must really like you if he's willing to go through this much trouble to get us into Eladard."

Scarlet nodded. "You'd better believe it. Don't take this to the bank, but if I ever got married, it would probably be to him."⁷

"Sounds reasonable. Tie the knot with the billionaire businessman, sleep around a few times, and then divorce him and take half his fortune, claiming 'irreconcilable differences.⁸'"

Scarlet's jaw dropped. In a stunned outburst, she slapped Fox on the cheek and snapped, "You asshole! What makes you think I'm that kind of woman?"

Fox tapped his chin and looked towards the van's roof. "Let me count the reasons."

"Jerk," Scarlet huffed. "Well, I'll have you know that I don't play that way."

Smiling internally while at the same time feeling sorry for pushing Scarlet's metaphorical buttons so strongly, he chose to change the subject and discuss another development that struck him as curious. Glancing from side to side at both Scarlet and Krystal—who had temporarily removed her mask—he asked, "You two seem like you've gotten a lot friendlier with each other. Is there something I missed?"

Without missing a beat, Scarlet replied, "Having to learn our team dance routine forced us to work together, and I got to know her better because of that. We got off on the wrong foot back in Katina, that's all. She's not so bad."

Krystal said nothing in response, but looked around Fox at her and smiled appreciatively.

Forgetting that Krystal would pick up on it, Fox thought, "Those warm feelings are going to go out the window the instant they start trying to compete for me."

He felt Krystal give him a quick nudge in his right side a split second later. At the same time, he felt a subtle mental prompting from her. "We can talk about this later if you want."

"I would appreciate that," Fox thought back.

- § -

After meandering through the cramped, congested downtown streets for twenty minutes, the van's driver pulled the van onto a stone driveway largely obscured by a mass of ivy plants that covered a twenty-foot wall. The structure stood in stark contrast to the dark gray, metallic theme of the buildings that surrounded it. From a distance, it seemed like a random mass of plants amidst a modern city center, but when one moved closer, it started to look more like a residence—or more specifically, a manor.

The narrow stone driveway led to a pair of solid, heavy, wooden doors with a code box on the right side. The driver pulled up to said box and rolled down his right side window, pressing a series of buttons that caused the two doors ahead to swing open. Behind the doors, an opulent two story house stuck out from between swaths of small, manicured trees planted in gaps in the stone walkways that surrounded the house.

The house itself sported an ergonomic, modern design that eschewed a traditional sloped roof in favor of a flat-topped appearance, replete with corners that stuck out beyond the wall-sized windows that lined the right portion of the house's second floor. With the light on, Fox noticed an arrangement of expensive specialty furniture in the glass-walled room. As the van drove past the house, a slender vulpine figure walked into the room and observed the van through the glass wall.

Farther along the driveway, a second house came into view. It looked smaller than the first one, but not by a significant margin. It shared the same architectural style as the first one, with a wood-sided lower level that contained two garage doors and an upper level composed largely of glass. The distance between the two houses was bridged by a lush plant and flower garden that surrounded an outdoor swimming pool.

The shuttle came to a stop in front of the second building, and the driver beckoned for Fox, Scarlet, Krystal, and Rena to climb out. As soon as all four set foot on the stone driveway, Miyu brought the team's van to a halt behind Felix's shuttle. As the van's engine shut off, Fox's ears swiveled in the direction of the first house.

A quiet set of footsteps clapped down the driveway towards him; and seconds later, a thin vulpine appeared, wearing a professional-looking business suit and tie along with a pair of thin, rectangular glasses that rested on the bridge of his nose. Fox turned to greet him, but Scarlet beat him to it and lunged towards the sharp-dressed vulpine.

"Hi, Felix!" she shouted, jogging towards him and giving him a gentle hug that elicited a blush from him.

Feeling a bit embarrassed, the vulpine took a step back and replied, "Hello to you too, Scarlet. It's been a long time since you were here." He looked at the rest of the group in front of him asked, "This is the rest of the team, right?"

"That's right," said Scarlet, pointing towards Fox. "Felix, this is Fox. He leads this group."

"A pleasure to meet you," Fox replied, moving towards him and shaking his hand.

Felix gave him a courteous head nod. "I'm glad it worked out for you to stay here. I had an alternative energy executive scheduled to visit this week, but he bailed out at the last minute. His loss is your gain, I suppose. The guest house here is all yours. It has four bedrooms, although the couch in the living room pulls out if two of you really can't stand to share the same room.

Fox cringed internally. With so many teammates, trying to split up the more fractious members into shared living quarters would not be painless. For the time being, however, he pushed it to the back of his mind and returned to the present. "Thanks again, Felix. We owe you for this one."

The lanky fox shook his head. "You don't owe me anything. I'm just doing what I can to make it up to Scarlet."

The red vixen blushed.

"Speaking of you," Felix continued while looking at his bodacious ex-girlfriend, "What's with the normal clothes?"

Scarlet responded with a great deal of uncertainty in her voice. "Oh, that. I don't really want to talk about it right now. Can we discuss that in private a bit later?"

"Sure," said Felix. He dug through his pockets, and after a second, he pulled out a set of keys. Starting with Fox, he handed one of them to each of his visitors, explaining, "Here are the keys to the house. Please don't try to copy them. Just give them back when you leave. Also, if you look at your keys, you'll see a button on the back. That's for the front gate in case you want to run out and pick something up. Please take care of them, okay?"

"Thanks," Scarlet spoke up. "I need to pick up some…uh, cosmetics."

"If you need to do that, there's a drug store a half mile up the road, that way." Felix pointed beyond the guest house. Turning his attention to Fox, he added, "Oh, and Fox, I'd like to meet with you sometime soon. I'll let you get settled in tonight, but if you have time, I'd like to set something up for tomorrow."

Fox shrugged, not knowing what to expect from Felix's so-called 'meeting.' "I think I can do that. Again, thanks for helping us out."

Crossing his arms, Felix replied, "Not a problem. Have a nice stay, team."

"Uh…thanks, Mr. Felix!" Slippy croaked, digging out his key and heading for the closest entry door on the side of the guest house while carrying his luggage with his free hand. Miyu followed suit, with Katt and Krystal tailing both of them inside. Preparing to enter the house himself, Fox turned towards the door and stopped when Scarlet made no attempt to follow him.

Without words, he gave her a curious stare, which prompted an answer from her. "Go on in, Fox. I need to talk with Felix for a little while. Don't worry—it won't be too long."

Although he wondered about the nature of Scarlet and Felix's meeting, Fox obeyed her and walked into the house from the first level's side door. Closing it behind him upon entering, he stepped into a small entryway that forked off into three directions. To the right were two of the house's bedrooms, up ahead was a set of stairs that led to the second floor, and to the left was a sizeable living room, replete with comfortable furniture. Slippy and Rena lounged on the couch, watching an anime show on the large flatscreen mounted to the wall. Miyu sat at a small table in the back of the room and occasionally glanced at the TV. However, she kept the majority of her mind focused on her phone screen, which displayed a humorous internet video which she watched with small earbuds protruding from her ears. Meanwhile, Katt stood near the kitchen, in the back part of the living room. She held her phone in front of her while engaging in a text conversation with her boyfriend in Titania.

Fox sighed and came to a standstill in the center of the room. Despite the Red Group office party being slated to start in less than twenty-four hours, none of his team members looked even slightly concerned. As far as he could tell, each of them managed to focus on the moment at hand, without worrying about the details of a future they had little control over. He understood. After all, the long flight from Corneria City to Eladard would have been bad enough in a passenger plane, let alone the team's cargo behemoth. That, and the house Felix had allowed them to lodge in was borderline opulent. Even during his team's most successful streaks, he never considered taking the proceeds and using them to add unnecessary luxury to his life.

He glanced to his right, back towards the main entry area. At the same time, that familiar unsettling sensation of his brain being tickled caused his ears to perk up. Already knowing what to expect, he walked out of the living room and into the entry area. As he expected, Krystal stood at the bottom of the flight of stairs leading up to the second floor. She still wore her Kursed bodysuit, but not the accompanying mask. The vixen let out a melancholy sigh as Fox locked eyes with her.

"Did you want to talk?" Fox asked, keeping his voice low to prevent the others from hearing him.

"I would appreciate that," Krystal replied. "Can we take this upstairs?"

Fox nodded in assent. "Sure."

Without any additional words, Fox followed his blue teammate up the stairs to the second floor while carrying his small yet heavy bag of extra clothes and toiletries. The top of the stairs ended with a wall, with two identical corridors opening up to the left and to the right. Krystal walked to the right, leading Fox towards a large bedroom. She had evidently spent at least a moment inside the room prior to this, as the lights on the overhead ceiling fan were on and Krystal's large luggage bag sat on the floor next to the bed. Pure white sheets covered the bed, with matching white pillows that gave off a clinical, inoffensive air.

Crouching to unzip her luggage, Krystal pulled out a single garment and said, "Give me a moment to slip into something more comfortable." While Fox crossed his arms, she walked into the nearby bathroom and turned on the lights. She stepped out of Fox's sight, but did not close the door behind her. The sounds of zippers being undone reached Fox's ears. He glanced towards the opened door and realized that he could actually see her in the large bathroom mirror if he stepped two feet closer to the bed. At that moment, a realization dawned on him.

"There's no way she's not going out of her way to flirt with me."

However, he refrained from taking the opportunity to watch her change out of her bodysuit and into a light blue satin slip, in which she emerged from the bathroom. She approached her luggage before winking at Fox and shoving both her bodysuit and underwear into the bag. While the tips of Fox's ears turned red, she turned, took a seat on the bed, and beckoned for Fox to sit next to her.

He obliged, although Krystal's mannerisms put him on edge—not in a bad way, however. The instant he took a seat, the blue vixen's tail wagged against his and sent a jolt down his spine. In the forefront of his mind, he wondered if she had plans for something other than a mere "talk." However, the fact that she had not closed and locked the bedroom door seemingly eliminated the possibility of what he considered to be her true motivation. The door hung open, but not widely enough for anyone to peer inside.

Feeling more and more awkward by the second, Fox broke the silence. "So, you wanted to talk?"

"Yes," Krystal sighed. "You're concerned about me and Scarlet 'competing' for you, no?"

Fox blushed, scratching the back of his head. "Uh, yeah. Look—she's dangerous. I mean, she's not a bad person, but she really has the hots for me, and I don't want you to be caught in the middle of things."

The blue vixen responded with a gracious, gentle smile. She all but leaned against his shoulder and murmured, "Trust me, Fox—I can handle her. We're on good terms. Don't tell her that I told you this, but I had a talk with her about this exact thing."

Fox's eyes widened in surprise. "Really? You're telling me that she was able to finish that conversation without storming off? I'm stunned."

"Well, it wasn't easy, I'm afraid. We did come to an agreement, though."

"What kind of agreement?"

Krystal shook her head. "Sorry. That's between me and her for now. I hope you understand."

"I'm not sure I do," Fox replied.

"Too bad. I assured her that I wouldn't gossip about her dealings with anyone else. I don't want to break her trust. I'm sure you can understandthat, with your trust issues and whatnot.

Fox sighed. "I guess I can't argue with that." He glanced directly at Krystal, first at her eyes and then at her subtle yet mildly provocative attire. "I take it you're going to bed early?"

"I am," Krystal nodded. "The flight over here knocked me out. I want to be at my best tomorrow. I usually need more sleep than most people, anyway. Being a telepath takes a lot of energy."

Fox could sympathize. In fact, he had previously wondered what kind of mental "churn" scanning the thoughts of others would create. He looked at the blue vixen again and saw traces of exhaustion in her facial features. "Okay. I'll leave you to yourself, then. Have a good night, Krystal."

Standing up, Fox walked towards the bedroom door. However, before he could exit the room, Krystal called out, "Fox?"

The vulpine turned around. "Yes, Krystal?"

Her voice uneasy, Krystal all but whispered, "You can come back in when you're ready to sleep. I'll leave the door unlocked."

Fox swallowed. His eyes dilated. Was that an offer? Out of reflex, his hand shot straight to the back of his head. Damn, it gets annoying to keep writing that cliché emote. "Ooh Krystal, I wuv u so much, but I'm so bashful and my heart is so broken and I don't have the balls to tell you how I really feel." You know what? It's manly Fox time.⁹

A faint grin worked its way onto Fox's lips. "I'll see you in a few hours, then."

Krystal smiled back.

- § -

For the time being, Fox left Krystal to her sleep. After he turned off the bedroom light and closed her door, he descended the stairs to the guest house's first floor and rejoined the rest of his team. All four of them continued the exact same activities they had been partaking in before. However, mere seconds after he entered the living room, Katt pocketed her phone and motioned towards Fox.

"Heya, Fox."

Fox crossed the living room floor, walking behind the couch as to avoid blocking the anime show on the TV screen and incurring the wrath of the furious yellow banshee sitting next to Slippy. "Yes, Katt?"

"I had a question for you," said Katt, placing a hand on her hip. "Do you have any need for a pilot?"

Glancing off to the side for a moment, Fox replied, "Not right now. It might be good in the future, though. Why do you ask?"

Katt sighed. "My BF isn't getting along too well with the higher-ups in the PMC he works for. He says—in his words—they're a bunch of 'douche canoes' who don't pay him enough."

Fox failed to keep his eyes from rolling. "No one gets paid enough. I don't get paid enough."

"I don't get paid enough, either," Katt concurred.

"Correct! Everyone gets a raise the instant this mercenary operation has a positive assets-to-debt ratio. Don't hold your breath.¹⁰"

"Crap," Katt grumbled. "Well, I guess I should tell Falco that you're not interested."

"Hey, I didn't say I wasn't," Fox protested, pointing a finger at her. "I just said I'm not in a good position to hire someone to fill a position that doesn't exist right now. I'm more than capable of flying the Great Fox around. I really don't mind it. Now, if we had some other air vehicles, then I'd think about it some more."

"Gotcha. Thanks for letting me know, anyway, Fox."

"Hey, no problem, Katt," Fox replied.

At that moment, the house's front door opened, and Scarlet walked in. The red vixen carried a plastic bag with a pharmacy's logo on it. The instant that she stepped into the foyer inside the door, she called out, "Fox—can you help me with something?"

Fox responded by crossing the living room floor again. For once, he suspected that her request for help was innocent in nature.

He was wrong.

Stopping in front of Scarlet, he crossed his arms. For a moment, his brain shorted out. Even without a slinky catsuit, her raw beauty caused his breath to catch in his throat to the point where he forced his internal voice of reason to scream at his primal nature and declare that Scarlet's attractiveness was nothing but a deadly trap. After the most awkward three seconds of the past week—which were not lost on Scarlet—Fox asked, "What did you need help with?"

Scarlet smirked, although uncertainty laced her features. "I need to dye my fur blue for the party tomorrow. Since we're going to be spending most of the day setting everything up, I kind of need to take care of it now."

"…And why do you need my help with that?"

"Because I can't reach everywhere to get an even application with the dye."

Fox's eyes dilated. "Oh…Couldn't you just ask Krystal to help?"

"I could," Scarlet shrugged. "I don't see her anywhere around here, though. She seemed pretty tired when we unloaded the van. Plus…" her smirk became more devious. "…It's way more fun if you do it. Pretty please?"

Fox's brain flailed about, looking for a way out of Scarlet's request. After a moment of furious brainstorming, he came up with an escape solution. "You know, Krystal would be angry with both of us if she found out—and since she can read minds, you know she would."

Still grinning, Scarlet shook her head. "Good thing I talked with her about this earlier. She didn't feel comfortable with putting her hands all over me, so she said it would be okay for you to do it instead."

"I thought you were trying to turn over a new leaf," Fox muttered, crossing his arms in disapproval.

"I didn't say I was trying to reinvent myself as Sister Cynthia.¹¹ I'm just taking the kink-o-meter down a few notches."

"It's not sounding that way to me," Fox retorted.

"Oh, shut your mouth." Scarlet rolled her eyes and tapped her foot on the floor. "Seriously, I need help applying the fur dye, and you're the person I'm the most comfortable with. Please?"

A giant sigh escaped Fox's mouth. "Fine…"

- § -

Forty-five minutes later…

Fox stood in front of the mirror in the guest house's large upstairs bathroom. Blue dye covered his medical gloves, which Scarlet provided him with in order to prevent him from having stained fingers for the next three days. Scarlet herself stood in front of him, naked from head to toe and covered in sapphire blue fur dye and white fur paint. Packets and containers of used-up dye sat on the countertop, along with a veritable pile of paper towels. A drop cloth covered the floor under Scarlet's feet to prevent any splatters from damaging the expensive tile floor. On the countertop, a plugged-in hair dryer cooled down after having been used to speed-dry Scarlet's dyes.

Scarlet ran her fingers through her newly-dyed hair and glanced at herself in the mirror. "Wow. You know, this isn't as bad as I thought it would be. You did a great job, Fox. You ever do this before?" She turned and looked over her shoulder at him.

Fox rapidly shifted his eyes away from Scarlet's shapely hindquarters and looked her in the eyes. He blushed. "Actually, no."

The blue-dyed vixen turned to face him and replied, "We'll, you're a natural, then. Next time I need my fur dyed, I'll be sure to call you. I'd be happy to pay you for it."

Fox grimaced. "Eh…thanks, but no thanks."

Scarlet's expression soured. Her ears drooped slightly. "Sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

"No, no, no—don't take it personally. I just…don't really want to do it again."

Scarlet's voice became uncharacteristically quiet, as if she had to force herself to come to grips with a painful reality that she did not want to accept. "I understand."

The air inside the bathroom became tense, as well as silent. Fox eyed the doorknob and thought about leaving the room, but knowing that Scarlet's dye still needed another fifteen minutes to dry out enough for her to put her clothes back on, he forced himself to stay put. As much as he wanted to escape the discomfort of his situation, he did not want to abandon his friend, who had no issue with him staying with her.

Silence prevailed for a moment, before Scarlet broke it with her quiet voice. "I feel like I need to let something out."

Fox tensed up. "What is it?"

Moving towards the shower/bathtub combination at the back of the room, Scarlet looked away from Fox and said, "I don't understand why you want to push me away—especially so you can go after someone who literally tried to have you killed. You don't need to have your memory jogged, do you?" She turned her head and glared at Fox with anger in her eyes.

Fox's pulse quickened. Scarlet's rage was a dangerous thing. He seldom saw it, but when she lost her temper, heads rolled, metaphorically speaking. He needed to defuse the situation, and quickly. Making matters more difficult was the realization that she had a point.

"Yes, I know Krystal was a spy working for East Fortuna, and yes—I know she tried to have me killed. She is also genuinely sorry for everything and wants to make things right. Also, I'm not even trying to start anything with her. Don't overreact." Considering that he planned to return to Krystal's bedroom and literally sleep with her, his last statement came out laced with insincerity.

Scarlet huffed. "Hmph. I see the way you act when she's around. You try to hide it, but those stupid little butterflies flap their stupid little wings in your stomach whenever she looks at you—I can tell."

Fox clenched his teeth. He had no way out of explaining that one. As much as he feared incurring Scarlet's wrath and possibly endangering the upcoming job, he chose to roll the dice and make the most honest observation he could. "Scarlet, there's something about you that I don't understand."

The blue-painted vixen stood still, awaiting the completion of his observation.

"For all the years I've known you, you have never once been in a long-term, committed relationship. Not one time. Why, all of a sudden, are you upset that I'm not interested in something you've never shown any interest in before?"

Scarlet's head dropped. Her ears fell in sorrow, and her proud, tall posture morphed into a cowering slouch. Her tail fell between her legs. A quiet sniffle left her nose before she gathered the resolve to answer Fox. "I just want to know that you value me."

Fox rarely held sympathy for his scandalous friend, but in this case, a sense of pity overwhelmed him. "That's what this is about? You just want me to tell you that you're loved? Scarlet, of course I value you. I wouldn't have anything to do with you if I didn't." Despite feeling uncertain about what he had in mind, he approached Scarlet and gently placed his hands on her shoulders. Turning her around to face him, he leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

Scarlet's tense muscles loosened themselves. However, before Fox had any chance to react, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her lips against his. Her tongue caressed his snout, begging for him to open up and allow her access; but he shut her out. Fox returned her aggressive gesture with a quick peck on the lips, then broke away and backed out of her embrace.

Contrary to what Fox intended, Scarlet's mood changed from disappointed to outright dejected. She said nothing, but her body language in and of itself communicated what Fox needed to know. As much as he wanted to avoid further damaging Scarlet's already obliterated ego, he decided to drop a second "truth bomb" on her. She seemed more willing than most to accept hard truths—a trait that he found refreshing in a world where thick skin seemed nonexistent.

"Scarlet, I'm not the one for you. You should have realized that by now."

The vixen looked at him out of the tops of her eyes since her head was angled towards the floor.

Fox continued, "I need a structured life. I need to know where my money is coming from next, I need someone I can count on to be there for me, and I need a consistent place to come home to. You're the complete opposite. You're impulsive. You live for whatever sounds best right now. That's fine, but I can't live that way. You and me—we'd never have a chance together."

"But don't opposites attract?" Scarlet pleaded.

He shook his head. "Maybe in the movies. This is real life, Scarlet. Real talk: you need to get over me being your first lover and me supposedly being 'better' than every other guy you've met since then. Personally, I don't think you've looked very hard. You need to find someone who shares your interests better than I do. There's definitely someone out there for you."

"They don't love me like you do, though. All they can think about is how I'll be in bed. Fox, when we hooked up all those years ago, I felt loved. That's a fact."

Fox curled the corner of his mouth. "This is a discussion you should probably save for a therapist, but I think I know why you feel that way."

"Why?" Scarlet demanded, her voice anxious from the fear of what she thought Fox might say.

"I think you're afraid of emotional intimacy. You're looking for love in all the wrong places because you're afraid of what actual love is about. You're afraid that if people saw the real you, they wouldn't like it. You feel like you can trust me more than most people, so you're not as afraid to make yourself vulnerable."

Scarlet became dead silent. After three tense seconds, she spoke. "Damn it."

Fox opened his hand and extended his arm towards her. "Don't be sad. Maybe you should try talking to Hartmann?"

- § -

Meanwhile…

A repeated vibrating noise awakened Hartmann from his sleep. With a furious groan, he sat up in his hotel bed and looked around. Sheila remained sound asleep in the queen bed next to his, while traces of moonlight traced their way through the tiny gap in the thick curtains hanging over the room's large back window. He turned his attention to the nightstand to his right. In the center of it, his phone continued vibrating. With each pulse, it moved ever so slightly closer to the edge.

Not wanting to have to get out of bed to pick his phone off the ground, Hartmann snatched it up and glanced at the screen. He recognized the number so quickly that he did not even need to study it to know who had called. As quietly as possible—yet with intense excitement—he answered the call and whispered, "Lucas!"

"Yes, I'm still alive," the jackal replied.

"Talk to me, buddy. I was worried about you."

"I appreciate your concern," Lucas exhaled. "We have a lot to look into."

Hartmann's ears stood on end. "Tell me about it. Who were those people in the helicopters?"

"I have no idea. They had no markings on anything—no marks on their clothes or on their helicopters. Clearly, they didn't want to be identified. I strongly doubt they're working with East Fortuna, though."

"How can you tell?" asked Hartmann.

"They came looking for the same things that we were after. If they were with East Fortuna, they would have known better than to waste their time by coming out there."

"Then who do you think they were working for?"

Lucas paused. "I have no idea, and that terrifies me. There was something else about them that was also terrifying."

Hartmann said nothing, awaiting Lucas to answer the unspoken question himself.

"…It was their leader. She told me her name—Agatha. She's a Cerinian, and the most powerful telepath I've ever seen. What's worse, everything about her body looks completely synthetic. For all I know, she might have been torn apart in a lab and rebuilt as a killing machine."

Hartmann took a quick breath. "Lucas, do you remember those old files we dug up from the intel taken from Sunset Island years back? The reports of bioweapons and genetic engineering?"

The jackal's voice took on a disturbed tone. "Yes…"

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Those people were working for Andross?"

"Exactly."

"He really is out there," Lucas muttered.

Hartmann nodded. "We're getting closer. I might have a lead on where to look next. One of those two helicopters was a Red Group design. I'm sure of it. As you know, the Red Group will sell their designs to anyone willing to pay up. If you can somehow find anything about the attack helicopter that escorted the big one to the Fichina base, we'll be one step closer to the prize."

"Looks like a trip to Eladard is in order. When can we meet up?"

Hartmann looked around the room, while Sheila grumbled in her sleep. "Not for a little while. I'm in Zoness right now with Sheila. We're going to visit the International Archives tomorrow to see if we can pull up anything on the Ortega family that we don't already know. You go ahead to Eladard. We'll catch up later."

Shock laced Lucas's words. "Wait, what? 'We?' 'Sheila?' You didn't take her with you, did you?"

"Yes, I did," Hartmann replied with a smirk.

He could practically see Lucas facepalming through the phone. "You are going to regret that, I can assure you."

"I don't think so, buddy. I forgot what I've been missing for the last few years. Huskies give the best cuddles."

A giant groan emanated from Lucas's end of the call. "I'll head to Eladard. Talk to you later."

FOOTNOTES:

1 This number has no significance whatsoever. You've been had!

2 Words are very unnecessary—they can only do harm. Sorry. It couldn't be helped.

3 If only he knew that it was a literal party.

4 If it was not obvious enough, Rena was originally created as a reference to Renamon from Digimon. However, as I thought up her character, I became annoyed by the furry community's sexualization of a character that I never saw as being sexually attractive. So, to subvert this, I made her vehemently asexual.

5 Periphery. Rena is a "true metal" fan and hates just about any kind of music with mainstream popularity. Her love for Peripherals is blunted somewhat by their unexpected ascendance as progressive metal frontrunners.

6 This was calculated by running a flight time estimator from Beijing to Panama—roughly analogous to the longitudinal position of Corneria City and Eladard on the Sierra Foxtrot planet Lylat.

7 This statement is not a mistake. It's no accident she did not state that Fox would be her first choice for marriage. Her attraction to him is mostly emotional and sexual, and she would prefer not to be roped into a traditional marriage with him. Also, it can be inferred that since her first choice for a husband is her ex, she has very little interest in marriage, period.

8 Uh oh, r/redpill is trying to escape the quarantine.

9 I don't mean any offense to my fellow Star Fox fanfiction writers, specifically Fox X Krystal shippers, but Fox's blubbering, stuttering, limp-wristed dating shenanigans in fanfiction writing have been getting old for a long time. Time to put a fork in it. This same sentiment (along with a similar statement) was echoed by Doggo Sanchez the Action Hacker in the Sierra Foxtrot Adventures short "Action Hacker."

10 Ever wonder why Fox is so cynical in this story? It's simple: his old team including his wife was killed by his closest friend's betrayal, his company is struggling to turn a profit during wartime (when business should be booming), and he has to put up with several dysfunctional employees that he can't easily get rid of.

11 I can't remember if I mentioned it at any point in this story, but Scarlet's given name is Cynthia. This isn't a reference to anything. Sure says something about her when she prefers for people to address her by her stripper name instead of her actual name, huh?