Music: "Imperfect Lock"
Through the long maze of white metallic hallways the boy ran; dazed, cold, and confused. He struggled to keep himself upright on his shaky legs but often stumbled, bumping against the walls before managing to pick himself back up. His hearing and vision were blurred all the while, and he could barely hold a single breath in either.
Even his eyes darted around frantically, glancing every which way without the slightest idea of where he was or where he was even running to. Pure fear and unknowing had overtaken the boy. All he knew was that he had to get out of this place, somehow.
But then, something caught his attention down the hall: A stairwell.
"Crap, crap, crap, crap," sputtered Slippy, rushing through the hangar's entry airlock where the human had run out. Just as he rounded the corner, he bashed right into Fox who was about to enter. The two of them fell hard on the floor, yet it was Slippy who leapt back up to his feet in what seemed like the blink of an eye.
"Agh, S-Slippy?" Fox grunted, holding his side where they'd collided.
"D-Did you see him?!" The frantic mechanic glanced down several different corridors. "Which way did he go?!"
The realization took a moment before it hit the vulpine like a rock, causing his whole face to drop. "Oh no... Don't tell me the human..."
"It's my fault!" Slippy shook his head in a mix of frustration and stress. "He just jumped up and ran out a few seconds ago! Now he's somewhere here in the lower levels!"
"Why the hell didn't you say anything?" Fox demanded.
"Here's why..." The mechanic held up his broken communicator rather sourly. "'Cause my fat ass smashed my comm."
Fox sighed hoarsely, "... Right, um, well did you see the human start in any particular direction?"
"I-I don't know, that's the thing!" Slippy admitted, "He could be anywhere down here!"
Despite his anxiety, the vulpine seemed more controlled. "Well, this guy can't have gone far at all. There's only a few main hallways."
Then the mechanic realized something, "... Wh-What about Peppy? Where is he?"
"Good question, but that gives me an idea..." Fox clicked on his headpiece's comm. "Hey, Pep, where are you?"
"... Gettin' back to the bridge, as a matter of fact," the hare's voice replied almost immediately. "My old legs couldn't keep up with you if it meant my life, but I figured we might need to run a bio-metric scan of the ship anyway... With an 'actual' pair of eyes to see what comes up."
Fox appeared somewhat relieved to hear this. "You read my mind, Pep. The human's out somewhere in the lower levels and we gotta find him, quick."
A beat of silence then arose, leaving him and Slippy waiting there in the chilly corridor.
"Right, let's see," Peppy finally came back. "Gimme just a sec, I'm startin' the bio-scan sequence... Now."
He watched the display closely as it revealed every hallway, room, and storage compartment on the Great Fox that were being scanned for traces of a life-form. Each of the team member's names as well as their locations soon popped up, accompanied by the ship's Com announcing:
"Bio-metric scan complete. Total number of four recognized persons and five bio-metric traces detected. Peppy Hare, location: Bridge control room. Fox McCloud, location: Hallway sub-level five. Slippy Toad, location: Hallway sub-level five. Falco Lombardi, location: Crew quarters, sub-level two..."
What felt like an entire tense minute went by, before a final result was read.
"Unidentified human life-form, location: Port-side stairwell, sub-level two."
"Huh?" Peppy balked, "How the heck did... How'd the human get up there so fast?"
"Yeah, he's about to wander right into the crew quarters..." A worried Fox promptly swung about face and took off running down a particular corridor. Without even looking back, he shouted, "C'mon Slippy!"
The mechanic didn't know what to do at first. He glanced back into the hangar bay, taking a few clumsy steps before turning and quickly picking up his pace.
"... Fox?! Fox, wait!"
A faint albeit mysteriously familiar noise started reaching the boy's ears now as he crept along the walls of these empty hallways, amid that low ambient hum of the mothership. It was a shrill of rock music, coming from a small player of some kind, yet there was something else emanating as well: A muffled sound of water running from a shower head.
Dull pain began to swell and throb within the boy's right shoulder. He clenched his teeth and clasped it tight, completely unaware that it'd been the result of Slippy's Hypo-Blue injection a mere minute ago. There was even a red puncture mark on the skin between his fingers.
Soon he stepped in front of an automated door, prompting it to spring open with a hydraulic hiss. He wasn't startled though, strangely enough; instead he took a wary look inside, since this was where those sounds had been coming from.
It appeared to be a private quarters of some sort. A large window pane resided on the far side, through which the high blue skies of the planet shown. On the floor near the bed lay a black tank-top and a pair of cargo pants, while on the bed itself there was a clean red pilot's suit and white over-jacket, complete with a blaster in its belt holster.
Then the boy's attention snapped back to the noises after enthusiastic singing arose from inside an adjacent bathroom. It was Falco's voice going along with the lyrics of that rock music, though the boy himself had no idea of who's voice he was hearing.
The door to there may have been closed, but something kept luring the silent human further into this bedroom until the main door lowered back down behind him. Now he stood in the middle of the room alone, trembling with every quick, frail breath. He couldn't help but stare down at those clothes on the floor, and then the suit on the bed.
Who's clothes were these? Where was he even at?
He didn't know what to do other than remain standing here. All felt void in his mind.
"... Hey, Falco, you there?" A sharp voice suddenly sounded off from under those cargo pants on the floor. The boy's light hazel eyes glanced down, seemingly unfazed as this new noise became lost amid the other sensations already swirling throughout his head.
"Falco, come in? Pick up, dammit!" It was the frantic voice of Fox, yet his words went unheard. Falco kept singing energetically to his music while the boy stood there, now fixated on this communicator he'd discovered beneath the clothes. He picked it up in his quivering hand and stared at it through a blank wonder.
"AGH! Falco, listen to me! There's a human on the ship! It's on the crew quarters floor right now! Try to head it off!"
That's when the sound of running water in the shower ceased. The boy glanced back up at the closed bathroom door and heard a curtain slide open, with some other commotion amid Falco jamming to that song.
His heart started pounding even faster. It was too late to run out, so he had to hide somewhere in here, quick.
What looked like a closet stood across on his right. Without even thinking, the boy snatched up the holstered blaster and disappeared into the darkness before shutting the closet door behind him.
It was just in the nick of time, though; the door to the bathroom swung open and Falco emerged still wet and dripping, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. He carried that music player in his hand and chimed to the song's ongoing melody, yet it came to an end soon after so he went ahead and set it down.
"Alrighty, let's see..." Falco dried his body off and started getting dressed in his pilot's attire while the boy huddled right there behind the closet door. Even though he couldn't see a thing, all he could do was remain dead-quiet and hope that he'd stay hidden.
"Wha-... Ok, where'd I put my blaster?"
Another sudden jab of pain shot down the boy's right arm. He strained on the breath he'd just taken as Falco looked all around the bed impatiently.
"For cryin' out-...! Ughhh... I coulda sworn it was right here?"
He got on his knees and began to rummage underneath, when something split the silence apart.
"... Falco, do you copy?!"
The boy's heart just about stopped. This sharp voice had sounded off from the communicator clutched tightly in his hand. Falco meanwhile glanced over at the closet door, confused.
"Huh...?" He wondered aloud, standing up and starting to approach. "The hell's my comm doin' in there...?"
The door to the closet whipped open, and that's when everything seemed to freeze in place. Falco and the revealed boy met eyes without any immediate reaction; they just stared blankly at each other for an uncomfortably long period of time. The boy sat huddled there, gripping the comm in one hand and the holstered blaster in the other.
"... What the..." Falco finally uttered in complete bafflement, but then the boy suddenly held the blaster up.
"... Falco, pick up!" Fox's loud voice came through one more time, to which the human pulled the trigger point-blank. A bright blue laser bolt blew out the holster's leather base and ripped straight into Falco's right shoulder with a smoky burst.
"GYAAAAHHH!" He yelled in pain and stumbled back, clasping his wounded shoulder while the frightened boy dropped both things in his hands and darted out of the closet past him. That bedroom door opened again automatically, and he dashed under it so swiftly that he struck his forehead on the bottom edge.
The boy almost fell to the floor holding his head, yet he managed to regain his footing despite the discombobulation. Beneath his thick hair now was a bleeding gash. A high-pitched ring pulsated throughout his ears as well, but then he heard an enraged voice erupt from behind him.
"Oh you little... You little BITCH!" Vengeance seared across Falco's face. He snatched up his blaster and sprinted out of the bedroom to spot the human scampering down the long hallway.
"I'm gonna KILL YOU!" He took off after him, grasping his wounded shoulder and struggling to hold his blaster up at the same time. A trail of dark-red blood streamed down his clean white flight-jacket and began dripping on the floor with every bound he took.
As the panicked boy swung around another corner, he staggered out into a larger hallway and frantically looked around. To his right was the stairwell that he'd come up, or was it? To the left, however, it appeared to join with an even broader hallway.
Quickly deciding, he took a bound back toward the stairwell, but that was when Fox emerged at the top. Slippy skidded to a halt beside him a moment after, and the two of them immediately locked their eyes on the human.
"Th-There...! Look...!" Slippy panted, pointing anxiously while Fox instinctively set his hand on his blaster.
"Hey, hey hold it!" He shouted in a command, but the boy gasped in fear and nearly slipped on his socks from turning back so quickly. He dashed the other way, going toward that broader hallway down at the end.
Fox and Slippy warily began their pursuit, until Falco bolted out from that side corridor and cut right in front of them. He bumped up hard against the wall at the same time.
"... Falco!?" The vulpine uttered surprised, however his wingman didn't even notice him and Slippy due to his blinding rage.
"That's right, keep running!" He yelled, grabbing the edge of that next doorway and swinging around it. Now the boy was directly in his sights.
"HEY! You turn around and look at me, you FUCK!" He furiously held his blaster up and aimed right at the human's back, his bloody finger quivering as it slowly tugged on the trigger.
"... Wait, Falco! NO!" Fox sprinted over and grabbed the stock, yanking it down to the side just in time as Falco fired a shot. The laser bolt struck the metallic floor right next to the boy's feet, kicking up bright sparks and ricocheting around through piercing bursts of sound. The boy managed to take one last desperate bound before the bolt tore into the back of his upper left leg, making him swing upward and finally collapse flat on the floor.
Now he lay there, writhing slowly and letting out nothing but soft, painful moans in-between breaths.
"... Shit...!" Fox hissed through gritted teeth. He and an astonished Slippy began approaching the helpless human while Falco stayed back, leaning against the wall to bitterly clasp his wounded upper arm in pain. He slowly opened his bloodied wing-like hand, yet nearly the entire sleeve of his jacket had blood spread across it by now.
"What the HELL were you doing, Falco," yelled the vulpine. He knelt down beside the boy whose eyes were wide-open, darting back and forth between the pilots. A tiny pool of tears welled up in the corners before spilling over the edges and streaming down his cold cheeks.
"I said head the human off, not shoot him for crying out loud!"
"Head the... WHAT?" Falco fired back immediately, "You didn't say NOTHIN' about no human!"
"I hollered over your comm several times! You never answered, so I thought...! Look, just try to-..." Fox faced him, about to retort further, but fell shocked to notice that bloody wound on his fellow pilot's right arm. "... W-What happened to your shoulder?!"
Falco cocked his head angrily, making a gesture down to the boy. "This... This little bitch shot me with my own fuckin' blaster, that's what. All I did was open my closet 'cause I heard my comm goin' off in there, and then BAM! It happened!"
Neither Fox nor Slippy could believe what they were hearing, yet they didn't have much time to even think. Peppy's concerned voice abruptly sounded off from the comm on Fox's headpiece:
"Fox! What the heck's goin' on down there? ROB just reported a shot got fired in the main hallway of sub-level two!"
The vulpine exhaled deep and slow, needing several moments to collect himself. At last, he could see this human boy up close. He eyed his trembling body up and down, confounded by the strange yet casual clothing he wore; especially those thick, semi-wet winter socks on his feet. That gash across his forehead was still fresh, with the back of his upper left leg all bloodied now as well.
"C-C'mon, Fox, we gotta do something!" Slippy ushered, trying his best to remain calm. He kept glancing worriedly at the boy's condition and then up at Fox over what they should do.
"... Fox!?" Peppy spoke again, this time more anxious, "Talk to me! What's goin' on down there? Did ya find the human?!"
More agonizing beats of hesitation passed, until the vulpine blinked and finally replied, "Yeah... Yeah, we have the human now. We're bringing him up to the bridge, so we'll be there in a minute. Oh, and that med kit in there... It's unopened, right?"
"... Uh-huh...?" The hare confirmed, albeit quite unsurely, "Why d'ya ask that?"
"We're gonna need it right away," Fox came back rather darkly. "Look, there's no time to explain. Get it opened and clear off one of the tables."
"... Ok... But, you boys better haul ass back up here. We only got twelve minutes 'til we arrive at the stadium."
With that, the conversation ended. Fox immediately grabbed hold of one of the boy's shivering arms and began hoisting him up.
"C'mon, Slippy, help me out here. Get his other arm."
The mechanic nodded, doing so without a word and without hesitation. He helped Fox gently lift the boy up by his arms so they could support him over their shoulders.
Falco just watched from behind meanwhile, wincing in pain. He held his shoulder with the blaster still clasped tightly in his other bloodied hand. Soon enough, though, the bird began following his companions but purposely remained a ways back, glaring furiously at their captive.
As they trudged their way down the corridor, the boy was so weak that he could hardly keep his head raised. Those wool socks on his limp feet dragged along the floor while his teary eyes rolled a bit back in his head. All he kept letting out were slow, frail breaths.
Fox adjusted the human's arm hanging around his shoulder, but he'd been thinking about something.
"... Hey, and Slip?"
"Y-Yeah?" The mechanic glanced at him, past the human's slender torso.
"I take back what I said. I think it's actually a good thing you used that Hypo-Blue..."
Peppy had pulled one of those metal-topped tables over to the clear area in the bridge and shoved off a few tools that'd been used earlier. He then hurried back and grabbed that first-aid kit on the wall, returning just in time to see Fox and Slippy hastily enter the bridge whilst still carrying the human boy over their shoulders.
"Pep, give us a hand," grunted the vulpine as they staggered up to the table.
"... Son of a...!" The hare gasped, his eyes widening sharply in response. He couldn't have imagined the true extent of what all had happened until it stood here in front of him. Indeed, with his own two eyes, Peppy now saw the leg and head wounds on this strange human.
He rushed over still, helping Fox and Slippy slide the boy's limp arms off of them. Then they carefully hoisted him up onto the table so he lay on his backside.
As Fox began straightening out the boy's limbs, Slippy's distraught gaze couldn't seem to break away from watching his face. There was just the strangest feeling he got from looking into the tear-filled eyes of this human, whether he knew what it was or not. He certainly couldn't forget that haunting chill he'd felt back in the hangar, when the boy's eyes first turned and stared directly into his.
Nonetheless, the vulpine slowly pulled the boy's pants leg up in order to get a better look at this charred and bloodied laser wound on the back of his thigh, yet it caused a sharp pain to shoot up his whole body. The boy almost choked on his breath, struggling to let a little cry escape while Fox just shook his head.
"It's bad..." He let out a worried sigh. Then he motioned over to Peppy. "Get some compression wraps around his thigh, quick."
Nodding, the hare took a dense roll of medical wrap from the opened kit. In the corners of his eyes, he noticed that Falco was finally trudging in as well, grasping his wounded shoulder tight.
"... Mind tellin' me what in holy tarnation happened down there?!" Peppy nearly hollered from his utter confusion, "Ya look like you've just been through a damn war zone!"
Practically the entire right sleeve of Falco's white flight-jacket was stained with blood. He even let go, revealing the wound so Peppy could see it in full.
"It was this little... Fuckin' STOWAWAY!" Falco suddenly snapped and lumbered up to angrily shove Fox and Slippy aside. He grabbed the dazed boy right around his throat, choking him hard until his mouth opened.
"... You're just LUCKY to still have a HEAD right now, YA HEAR...!?" He leaned close and whispered murderously, glaring into the human's cold, frightened eyes which had darted over to meet his own. He couldn't even move beneath this strangling grip on his neck.
"Falco!" A shocked but stern Peppy came right up to him. "Let... GO...!"
The bird didn't budge.
"... Hey, hey! Back off, that's an order," commanded Fox. He stepped over and grabbed his wingman's uninjured left arm. "Get a patch on that shoulder, now."
Finally, Falco hissed something harsh under his breath and released the boy, still with that vengeful distaste on his face. He shut his eyes and let out a deep breath through his nostrils as if to calm himself, but the damage had been done.
The others, especially Slippy, watched warily as he yanked out a medical cloth from the first-aid kit. Falco then trudged over to one of the other tables and sat up on the edge, wincing in tugging his flight-jacket off. He pressed the cloth firmly against that charred, half-bleeding wound on the front of his shoulder and growled against the searing pain of it all:
"Nghhh...! F-Fuck this shit...!"
Fox carefully lifted the boy's left leg again, albeit just enough for Peppy to slide the thick compression wrap underneath and bundle it around his bloodied thigh several times. Slippy had placed a smaller cloth across that gash on his forehead, meanwhile. He held it there gently, but the boy's panicked eyes kept darting between these anthropomorphic animal pilots, even as Fox squeezed his hands tightly on both sides of his leg to put pressure on the wound.
Then, amid all of this, a very sudden announcement came from ROB 64 over at the mainframe dashboard.
"Incoming request for immediate contact."
"... Contact?" Peppy glanced up, taken back. "Who's sendin' the request, ROB?"
The robot checked, clarifying, "The request is from the MSAA: The Midair Stadium Arrival Authority. Repeat, the request is labeled as urgent. Accept contact request and transmit over the bridge intercom?"
A blank Peppy turned to the others, unsure of what to do. Here they were with Falco wounded, along with a strange human boy who was not only wounded, but barely conscious too.
"Midair Stadium...?" He even repeated the name aloud, as though he'd completely forgotten its implication.
Fox on the other hand was determined not to let everything here descend into chaos. He stood up, letting go of the pressure he'd been holding on the boy's thigh wound and nodded to ROB 64 whilst quickly making his way over.
"Do it. Accept the request," he commanded after a brief sigh, coming to a stop in front of the mainframe console next to the robot.
"Accepting request," affirmed ROB 64, tapping a function on the screen. "Connection established. Standby for broadcast."
Silence fell across the whole bridge another time while the Star Fox team waited, until at last, the intercom speakers crackled a few times and a voice soon emerged through the static.
"KCCHHZZZ... Gr-... -ox... Come in... Great Fox, do you copy? Great Fox, confirm transmission."
Fox leaned over the primary communication panel and spoke, "Roger, we got your connection linked. The Midair Stadium Arrival Authority?"
"Affirmative. We have you on radar." The voice responded after a moment, "Great Fox, you must stop your present heading. I repeat, you must stop your present heading immediately."
This surprising command made the vulpine's face tense up somewhat. He glanced back over at his companions, with the boy still writhing a bit as he lie there on the table. He even let out another soft, painful whimper.
"Great Fox, do you confirm?" The voice inquired more astutely. Fox turned his attention back and blinked rather unsurely.
"... Copy... We confirm. Stop our present heading..." He couldn't help but let out a shaky breath, yet gave ROB 64 the order nevertheless. "Cut all thrusters, ROB. Bring the ship to a stationary hover."
"Decreasing all thrusters to stationary." The robot did so, reaching across to another panel on the mainframe and adjusting several modules. That deep ambient hum which had drifted through the air this whole time quieted down now from the mothership's rear reactor engines lowering to idle.
Likewise, the huge Cornerian craft started slowing not long after, until it eventually came to a weightless stop there in the sky.
The voice then acknowledged over the intercom, "Great Fox, we've marked your location. You will wait in your current position. I repeat, wait in your current position. Further instructions will be relayed."
"E-Excuse me," Fox asked, quite insisting. "Why do we have to wait? We've already had clearance granted earlier, and we're really on a tight schedule to reach the stadium."
More tense moments prevailed, until some much needed clarification came.
"That's just it. Communications with Midair Stadium were lost about twenty minutes ago. Protocol is for no craft to enter or leave the airspace until we figure out what happened. We're sorry."
Flabbergasted at what he was hearing, the vulpine just let out a scoff. He gazed out the front bridge window where the high skies of the planet filled the whole view. In the far distance, quite a bit below the Great Fox's present altitude, he could even spot that little structural shape of the stadium itself; floating there above all the cloud layers.
"... Well, this is certainly somethin' new..." Peppy thought to comment dubiously, but not long after, their attention shifted back when another announcement came from the Midair Stadium Arrival Authorities.
"Great Fox, do you copy?"
"... Affirmative," answered Fox, his thoughts all churning rather darkly.
"New instructions have just been relayed. Any airborne craft currently in the vicinity are to be redirected to our departure depot, three-hundred kilometers southwest of your current position. Standby for guided escort from our security shuttles. They're enroute up to your position now, and will request contact when necessary."
Fox couldn't help but strain his face again, giving his companions a more confused glance back.
"Great Fox, do you confirm?"
"C-Copy that. We confirm."
"Alright, and again, we apologize for any inconveniences. We're simply following protocol until we know why communications with the stadium are still down. Over and out."
"Over and out..."
Uneasy silence overcame the bridge yet another time. There didn't seem to be any less looming fear though. If anything, it was much more prevalent.
"... The hell was that all about," grumbled Falco, still sitting on the edge of that table and holding the medical cloth tightly against his bloodied shoulder. Fox on the other hand kept staring coldly out the front window, down at the distant stadium.
"... Something's wrong, guys," he finally uttered, shaking his head slowly. "None of this is making any sense at all. None of it."
The timing... The fact that Midair Stadium had apparently lost all communications... Could this have somehow been related to that energy anomaly from earlier? Unfortunately, there was just no way to know.
Soon Fox's eyes fell upon three small objects with blinking red, blue, and yellow lights moving in the air far below. Those were the security shuttles, flying their way up towards the huge Cornerian mothership from the front, although ROB 64 had been tracking them on the radar.
"Three small craft: MSAA security shuttles approaching the Great Fox from off the port side bow. Distance of fourteen kilometers and closing."
Now Peppy had gone over too, joining Fox and the robot there at the mainframe dashboard. They both watched those little vessels closely as they kept drawing nearer, but then came sudden, sharper pain-filled whimpers from the human boy. He'd started writhing quite a bit on the table, with his breaths becoming more desperate.
Slippy was there, though, trying his best to hold pressure on both that cloth over his forehead as well as that compression wrap around the bloody thigh wound. Still, nothing seemed to help.
"... Fox!" He cried, "I-I think the Hypo-Blue's wearing off! He's feeling a lot more of the pain!"
"Just... Just keep pressure on it..."
"But I... I can't hold both! I need your help, please! Falco isn't doing squat!"
For once, the bird didn't say anything back. He just gave the mechanic a piercing glare instead.
Fox eventually shut his eyes and exhaled, knowing it was best if he did help Slippy out with the boy. Right as he turned to go back, however, a new announcement came from ROB 64:
"Unidentified craft detected, approaching from the Great Fox's rear starboard quadrant. Distance of sixty kilometers and closing."
"... What?" Fox hurried over to the radar and checked for himself, but fell shocked to see a giant fourth shape now toward the bottom of the display. Not only that, it was closing the distance very rapidly, much quicker than those three small security shuttles were from the front.
"ROB, double check if you can get an ID on that fourth ship?"
The robot tapped several modules on the radar display, but to no avail. "Negative. Unable to retrieve any tracing data."
"It has a trace signal jammer...! But, that ship's gotta be... Five times as big as ours...!" With his maw partially agape, Fox glanced back up and looked out the front window to see that those security shuttles were getting very close. They'd even drawn close enough now to where their flashing siren lights reflected off of their large black windows, but it was strange how no contact request had come from them yet.
Suddenly, one of the alarms started blaring on the mainframe. Three blinking trails had manifested upon the radar display and were closing in on the center fast. No doubt they'd originated from that much larger ship, which was also rapidly approaching from behind.
"Warning," ROB 64 alerted. "Three missiles detected, 180 degrees on the Great Fox's stern. Distance: Five kilometers and closing."
Before the words had even finished being said, Fox and Peppy both crowded around the radar display to see for themselves.
"... The FUCK? MISSILES?" Falco yelled from his place back on the table.
"Are they locked on us," demanded Fox, but their robot had more to say.
"Negative. No target-lock detected. Distance: Three kilometers and closing."
"But-...!" A bewildered Peppy started, "They're comin' from that ship behind us! Where else would they be-..."
He froze mid-sentence after his gaze had drifted back out, falling darkly upon those three security shuttles approaching from the bow.
"Distance: One kilometer and closing."
Fox's gaze quickly did so too. Both he and Peppy could do nothing except stare at them with utter dread, while that alarm kept beeping faster and faster.
Then, in what seemed like a flash, three missiles screamed straight over the bridge from behind and slammed into each one of those shuttles no more than several hundred meters in front of the Great Fox. Fiery mid-air explosions blasted them to smithereens, shaking the bridge's windows as thousands of flaming fragments fell below sight.
But no one even had a moment to take in what just happened. A new and frighteningly powerful rumble was swelling in the background. Even the walls and floor of the bridge began rattling more and more beneath everyone's feet, until it got so loud that it forced the team to cover their ears.
Now they glanced up and saw it: The gargantuan structure of this unknown ship beginning to pass overhead.
First came a long and massive frontal cannon attached to the dark metallic hull. The main bulk alone was unbelievably broad, lined with numerous smaller cannons plus other firepower. It kept widening until massive, purple bat-like wings in an x-formation revealed themselves, easily dwarfing the Great Fox by five times. What finally followed, though, was the near-deafening roar of its multiple rear jet engines.
With their hands still covering their ears, Fox and his team just watched; completely dumbfounded as this humongous craft kept descending in a direction toward the distant stadium. Yet, it wasn't long then before the dreaded realization hit the speechless vulpine like a brick wall, sending a strong chill straight down his spine.
That's... That's the HALBERD...! But that's... Meta Knight's Battleship...! What is he... DOING...!?
Music: "Instrument of Your Liberation"
* Midair Stadium *
Something had abruptly drowned out all the anxious clamor drifting through the arena. Something elusive and foreboding was causing people everywhere across the crowds to hush in fear and look up, around the entire open-roof. It'd been a very distant and dampened rumble of three rapid explosions.
That blonde-haired boy still lie there on the edge of the crater in the smash platform, panting with his blue eyes wide-open, yet even Mario and his companions couldn't help but gaze upward in response to this strange sensation rising in the air. The Toad referee and the paramedic team started to do so as well, not paying any attention to their device monitoring the boy's condition.
A muffled yet powerful rumbling welled again from somewhere high above, only now it became more prevalent with each passing moment. The stark edge of a thick shadow soon began creeping its way down over the entire western side of the sun-drenched arena.
Sure enough, that utterly giant and looming bow of the battleship Halberd revealed itself, followed by the rest of its dark bulk as it slowly drifted forward, over the retracted roof. The rumbling grew so intense that it made those huge display boards rattle on the metallic framework. People could actually feel the raw force of the sound vibrating within their chests, yet nobody even knew what to make of it, given everything else that'd happened in the past half-hour or so.
Mario for one just felt the most peculiar shiver crawl under his skin when the shadow's edge enveloped him and the others here on the smash platform. Only Kirby seemed to be contemplating anything, for he knew best who's battleship this was after all. These circumstances were very off, however.
He remembered of course that his mentor was one of the contenders who'd be arriving late to the stadium, but like this? His large eyes stared up at the Halberd's vast underside nonetheless as it soon overshadowed the arena entirely, blocking out every bit of the sunlight.
Then the rumbling abruptly tapered off back to silence. The battleship had fully slowed to a stop, and was now hovering in place of the clear sky.
Murmurs and uncertain clamor spread once more throughout the densely crowded seating levels, even as two huge bay doors on the Halberd's dark underbelly began sliding apart with a sharp hydraulic hiss. They clanged and creaked to a stop once open, yet that foreboding stillness prevailed yet again beneath this great shadow now blanketing the stadium. No one knew what would happen next.
Mario squinted, trying to see what might be inside that opened loading bay high above. That's when he caught sight of what looked like movement at the very edge.
Somebody was struggling up there, and a frantic voice started wailing at the same time:
"... N-No... No, wait! You can't do this! You can't... Do this...!"
Those haunting words echoed around the entire arena, quickly reaching everyone's ears.
"WAAAAAGGHHHH!" All of a sudden, that tiny figure got shoved out over the edge and uttered a furious yell while plummeting hundreds of meters, past the framework of the retracted roof. With hundreds of thousands watching, people all over the crowds collectively cried out in horror.
"What the-?!" A stupefied Captain Falcon blurted out.
Lucina gasped loudly, covering her mouth in shock while the others just stared up, equally bewildered. Even Mario's eyes widened sharply in response, but only Kirby recognized who it really was. It was Meta Knight himself, with neither his precious mask nor his cloak on. He was also tightly bound in ropes.
Without any hesitation, a determined Kirby dashed out in front of the group.
"Poyo!" He shouted, inhaling a huge amount of air and inflating himself larger than anytime before. Then the Dreamlander leapt high and started ascending further and further.
"... Oh Gods...!" Ike uttered, realizing just then what Kirby was actually attempting. He was going to try and catch his fellow Star Warrior mid-fall.
Meta Knight kept plunging straight down towards certain death, yet Kirby had swiftly risen a good thirty meters and managed to position himself right underneath his path. All eyes were upon them now as the distance rapidly closed, until that final agonizing moment came.
Waves of anxious cries erupted as Meta Knight slammed right onto Kirby's inflated cushion-like body, which sent them both hurtling back down to the smash platform.
WHAM! They impacted with a hard thud. Meta Knight bounced and ricocheted off the pink puffball, tumbling across the AstroTurf before rolling to a rough stop.
"... AGHHH... GRAHHH!" His eyes were clamped shut, though he kept hollering fearfully and writhed in his tight bonds. Kirby rubbed his head yet quickly got back up, frantically beckoning to Mario and some of the others as they hurried over; completely at a loss of thoughts.
"Poyo!" He tried tugging on those ropes binding his fellow Star Warrior, but they wouldn't give. Thinking quick and quiet like always, Link unsheathed his Master Sword and cut along the ropes carefully until Meta Knight's yellow eyes snapped open. He grunted furiously and thrashed about, ripping himself free from the rest of those bonds.
Everyone took a step back as he leaped to his feet, glancing all around with panicked rage.
"Nghhh... Wh-Wha-? Kirby...!? M-Mario...?!" Then his eyes darted up to the opened loading bay in his battleship's hull, looming right there past the open-roof.
"They... Th-They hijacked my ship...! They said they're going to... They're going to convert the-" Before Meta Knight could even take his next breath, another deep metallic whirring rang out from above. Several of the Halberd's cannons on its underside began rotating, slowly pitching downward until they pointed right inside the stadium.
Mario stood there with the others, numb to his very core, but then darkly noticed something. The cannons weren't aiming at the smash platform, rather they'd clearly aimed at an area a bit higher behind. His eyes drifted back to follow their approximate path, and that's when his heart just about stopped.
It looked like the cannons were aimed directly at the royal balcony.
Mario barely managed to catch Peach's frightened glance down to him, when a shocking noise suddenly tore through the air. Five missiles fired in unison from those cannons, streaking down across the vastness of the arena before impacting right along the seating sections that surrounded the royal audience's balcony.
Blinding explosions rocked the whole stadium with rapid, ear-shattering bangs. Countless people near the blasts got hurled back or knocked out of their seats from the sheer force. Concrete and metallic shrapnel of all sizes shot out in every direction, striking and mangling many other victims, including those in the fringes of the royal audience. Numerous banners and flags hanging nearby got ripped to shreds.
Dark smoke blotched out that entire area around the balcony, but a gruesome sight revealed itself in the immediate wake. Literally, the hundreds of attendees in those seating sections had just been blown apart right there.
Bloodcurdling shrieks of pain and terror rang out everywhere. Then came the panic, as everyone now realized what was happening. This was an attack.
"... FATHER!" screamed Lucina, utterly horrified and desperately trying to see up into that giant smoky shroud. Mario and the others all but choked on their air at the same time, unable to fathom what their eyes had just witnessed. A sick and stomach-wrenching feeling tore within them.
What happened to Peach, Daisy, Zelda, and everyone else up there? It'd gone so fast, no one had more than a second to think.
All at once, upwards of two-hundred thousand people across the stadium scrambled to get up from their seats when those cannons started rotating again. They ran and practically clambered over one another in brutal stampedes along the aisles, crying out fearfully while struggling to reach the exits. Yet, there was nowhere to go after that. No immediate way back down to the ground was possible.
More missiles roared through the air all of a sudden, with the cannons each aiming at random places around the arena's interior.
Tears of a paralyzing shock welled up in Meta Knight's eyes. His mouth had dropped wide-open, as well as Mario's and the others' standing there with him. All they could do was watch helplessly from the smash platform, in sheer horror as violent blast upon violent blast erupted all across seating sections far above them.
Missile after missile kept launching. Flames and black smoke plumed up wherever they impacted. Another streaked right into one of the main press boxes, blasting it apart through a bright storm of splintered glass and swirling fire. Fractured concrete and twisted metal spewed out across the air, descending amid a deafening flurry of fearful screams and the jolting quakes of more explosions.
One of the cannons then pivoted straight down, firing directly into the metal framework of those huge hanging display boards.
BOOM! The supports all blew apart, prompting Mario and the others to numbly glance up right as those massive screens started tumbling down towards where they all stood.
"... WATCH OUT," yelled Captain Falcon. He leapt forward with Marth, Roy, and Ike mere moments before one of the screens smashed onto the platform's joint with the walkway ramp. It shattered completely in two, falling below to tear a huge hole straight through the layers of safety nets with no resistance whatsoever.
Stadium staff and camera crews across on those sideline platforms retreated inside when another display board slammed directly above the exit hall's large opening. The archway collapsed immediately, obscuring all those other hundreds of shocked smashers back behind a barrage of concrete debris, dust, and warped support beams.
Then the gigantic mass of the other screens came crashing down right after. They struck the platform's north end, jerking the whole structure before cleaving it off its hydraulic mounts entirely.
Mario looked over just in time to see his little wooden trophy get utterly pulverized by the impact, yet Kirby's trophy had also been lost sometime during that jolt. What followed, though, was the loud and spine-chilling rip through the rest of all those safety nets.
Everyone here on the fractured smash platform: Mario, Luigi, Kirby, Meta Knight, Pikachu, Red, Captain Falcon, Little Mac, Link, Lucina, Marth, Roy, Ike, the Toad referee, the paramedics, as well as that boy were now stranded with no way off. The walkway ramp was no more, and meager strings of the once-thick safety nets remained underneath.
What they also realized was that something sounded very different all of a sudden, like a most dreadful absence of noise.
Those cannons had ceased firing! But why?
The group glanced up again fearfully, in time to see what looked like a peculiar and dense purplish mist starting to cascade out from the Halberd's cargo bay. Only the tearful, trembling eyes of Meta Knight blinked, however, for he had seen this substance before. He knew what it was, so a pair of frail words were all that left his mouth:
"Oh mercy..."