XXXVII. Noble Sacrifices?
The vulpine quickly got to sleep after checking on Krystal, the constant fighting was wearing him down and he was glad the war was almost over with. The vulpine's only rest before the final battle wasn't a good one.
Fox tossed and turned in his bed he was dreaming what he had dreamt a month before. The dream then meant nothing to him and he couldn't recognize anything but now he could. Somehow Aparoids were swarming the Great Fox and it was crashing as soon as it hit he heard a huge explosion and jumped up.
Another loud rumble shook the ship. "Team get up to the bridge asap." Peppy ordered over the intercom "Ugh..What time is it.." He groaned to himself as he looked over to the clock it wasn't even 3 A.M. yet. He went to his closet to pick out his regular battle clothes and headed to the bridge to see what was happening.
Fox walked up to the bridge to meet up with the team and to find out what was the urgent emergency. "What is it?" He asked groggily "Well we're warping and General Pepper's assistant told us that we are to attack immediately after the warp." Fox sighed, he was happy to get this over with but wasn't very happy with not getting but 2 hours of sleep beforehand.
"Wow it-it's.." Fox stuttered "Beautiful.." Krystal finished as they gazed upon the Aparoid's homeworld. It looked like a peaceful mysterious planet and the glow matched the aparoids in a way but it still seemed impossible that they'd come from a place like this. "Wait a minute.. It's size and mass are disproportionate." Peppy stated. Fox was confused on what he meant for a moment before realizing what possible might be wrong. "The Aparoids are on the other side then?" He asked "Yep." Peppy answered.
Aparoids suddenly swarmed the fleet and the Great Fox as well "You all know what that means, everyone to your Arwings!" Fox ordered only to be stopped by Peppy. "Hold on, I'm setting up radar..It seems like they all came from a tunnel that goes deep into the core of the planet." "Yeah but we won't last without taking them out up here first.." Slippy added. "True but if we don't go down there they'll just keep coming." Peppy continued thinking of a plan.
"I've got it..We'll have the rest of the Cornerian Fleet take out the Aparoids in the air and you four will try and get that energy shield open to get to the queen." "Wait Peppy, there's a shield?!" Fox asked slightly annoyed that the job would be harder than he had hoped, it always was.
"What exactly do we do to take out the shield?" Fox asked "There's eight hatchers down on that platform I'm sure that'll do it." "Great.." Falco added. "Alright let's just go get this over with, Krystal you're with me on foot Falco, Slippy you're in the sky." Fox ordered and the others headed towards the hangar. "Peppy make sure the escape pods are ready to be launched, I have an odd feeling they might be needed today." Peppy chuckled and replied "I already set that up last night." Fox then headed to meet up with the others and take off to end the war.
Fox landed with Krystal on the platforms high above the planet's surface, the Aparoids swarmed them instantly and they headed off to get their work done quickly. "The faster we get this over with the faster we get a vacation so hurry up Foxie!" Falco added to hopefully make them faster.
They quickly headed through the buildings taking out the hatchers as fast as possible. Their radar helping them out along the way showing each one that was in range. Fox went through the next building and found he had to take out two floors, upstairs and down.
He decided that he didn't have the time to go down the ramp and jumped down only to misjudge the height and hurt himself. He ignored the pain and shot the hatcher but this time there was no effect. They were shielded by something. "Fox they're shielded there's got to be a generator somewhere find it!" Peppy helped out and Fox saw it, the generator wasn't that hard to see, in fact he had destroyed them already but not even noticed.
The vulpine finished downstairs and headed up meeting a group of Aparoids and turrets on his way. He found the generators and took down the next hatcher, only three more remained and then they'd head straight to the queen.
The mission so far wasn't too hard, it was only time consuming but here time wasn't on their side. Every minute they took another ship from the Cornerian fleet was destroyed and their numbers were quickly being reduced to almost nothing. "Looks like we're the last hope, we've already lost half of the fleet." Peppy said dreadfully. The reality hit the team that they weren't even dealing with a quarter of the Aparoids that damaged the fleet.
"Don't worry we only have two more." Krystal said assuring them that they could do this. Krystal needed to take down one more and Fox was nearing his last hatcher to kill, hopefully after that he would never hear of another Aparoid hatcher again.
"Got another!" Krystal yelled victoriously, Fox stopped in his tracks. "How did yo--" He was interrupted by a group attacking him. Everyone could hear the screech of the fallen Aparoids from Fox's end. He smiled and said "Okay I got the last one down" "Sensing a new target: A hatcher." R.O.B. said in his robotic tone. The vulpine's hopes that it was almost over were shattered "What?!" He asked sounding as annoyed as possible. "They're under the base Fox get to it!"
Fox fell on his back for a second and yelled out anything that came to his mind, furious with the world around him. He snapped back to reality and headed to his Arwing, meeting Krystal along the way.
"Fox why are you so slow today?" She asked him noticing he fell behind her repeatedly. "I don't know, I guess i'm just tired." He barely made it to his Arwing without falling over, his ankles were killing him. He flew in under the base and took out the hatchers quickly with Krystal, Falco and Slippy's help.
They flew over the tunnel heading toward's the core of the planet and waited for orders from their leader. Before he could issue them to fly in some sort of energy shield popped up and blocked the way again. "What the?" Fox yelled out "Oh you gotta be kidding me!" Falco blasted at the shield and yelled at it. "The energy is forming a shield, laser fire's gonna be useless!" Slippy said then out of nowhere a fiery mass came towards them.
"Out of the way everybody!" Peppy ordered. The Great Fox was covered in Aparoids and a few hatchers. "Peppy no!" Fox yelled Before he even knew what the hare was attempting. The image he had the previous night and alot earlier came true in front of him. The Great Fox broke through the energy shield giving them an opening but sacrificing itself for the cause.
Fox tried to take a deep breath and tell himself Peppy would launch the escape pods but they never shot. "What are you guys doing that shield will be right back!" Peppy yelled to the team but they were lost in their emotions of the situations, Slippy was crying uncontrollably at Peppy's sacrifice.
Fox knew this was where he needed to lead them and rally his squad. He did just that. "Come on guys, we need to take advantage of the hole Peppy's given us." He ordered them to go and they followed the order.
As they entered into the Queen's lair they were blinded by a bright light and they knew that light was the last thing that Peppy would ever see. Fox tried to assure himself Peppy had launched the escape pods but it was doubtful. Even if he had the explosion would kill him instantly at a short range.
The team flew towards what they thought would be the final battle, not knowing what lied in their path...
-Author's Note: First off I know this chapter pretty much sucks (Very bad descriptions, way too fast, small ,etc)But my goal right now is to get Assault done with, it's been way too long and it's sucked out the enjoyment of writing( lawl). but I wanted to get something out seeing I haven't written much over Christmas. Hopefully it's enough to enjoy for now. I'll keep an update note on my profile page and try to keep in touch with whoever likes to read this. Thanks for reading and sorry for the long wait.-
-P.S.: Christmas special was posted for all that haven't seen.-