Krystal rested in pitch-darkness, almost completely cocooned in a mass of tentacles, willing her heart to stop pounding so painfully against her ribcage. The owner of the tentacles was a large, solid form pressed to her flank, anxiety radiating from it, but less so with each moment that passed, a mixture of potent emotions she couldn't identify growing in near-perfect counterpoint.

She focused on it, on the soft, smooth, warm feel of it, on the cradling way the tentacles held her, and the thudding in her chest finally began to subside. She moved her arm, and the tentacles shifted fluidly round it, letting her curl it about the creature's body, and its trembles started fading faster in direct response. She was increasingly drawn to it, and the emotions that were becoming more and more familiar.

"Thank you," she told it, softly. "For saving my life."

"Thank you for trusting me," it responded, a quiet, reverberant voice drifting through her head. "And I'm sorry I scared you so, but it took a moment to open the panel in my panic, and..."

"Time was of the essence." Krystal nodded, then chuckled drily. "But if it helped sell the lie, it was worth it. If whoever's in charge of those securibots thinks I'm dead, and you too dangerous to go near, it might not be an entirely hopeless situation." She didn't sound convinced.

"You feel...angry at yourself."

"I got careless." The blue vixen's tone was almost bitter. "Almost paid for it with my life, and now I'm in hiding, with nothing I can use to fight back or escape."

"Not true." A tentacle tip prodded her forehead. "You have your wits, your knowledge of the base, the information in this room...and me. If you'll have me."

Krystal took a fair while to form an answer, the emotions now clear to her, matching ones growing in her in spite of herself. "I think," she told it, finally, "it would be beyond stupid of me not to, not least since...we seem to understand each other. We both feel more than most, and..."

"Are both the last of our kind." The creature's tone was solemn.

Krystal embraced it more fully, and they held each other in silence for a time, before the vixen eased back, a resolve starting to set in.

"Is there a light in here?" she asked. "I'd like to see you."

"And I you."

She felt a tentacle slide from her, then heard a muted click, and a pale light swelled in the space they shared. She blinked and squinted, eyes adjusting slowly, a cramped, mostly blank, run down cube of gunmetal grey coalescing around them. Her brows rose on noticing the terminal and power cell mounted on the wall opposite the entrance panel.

The tentacles still loosely holding her shifted, drawing her focus, and when she saw their owner, her hand went to her muzzle as a loud gasp escaped it. The creature had an ovoid, slightly elongated body with six elegantly-tapering tentacles several feet in length extending from each side, and a rounded head set with large, iridescent eyes. Every inch of it's form was coated with incredibly fine scales that shone softly, with filaments of silver and gold chased along the tops of the limbs, around the eyes, and in vertical waves down the back.

"You're beautiful," Krystal breathed.

"You're hurt," it responded, concerned, a tentacle tip hovering above the short streak of a burn across her thigh, another brushing a trace of blood from the side of her muzzle. "I hurt you."

"I bit my lip," the blue vixen reassured. "It's nothing. And this..." She studied the burn, suddenly keenly aware of how much it smarted, then gingerly feathered it. "Could have been a lot worse." She caught gentle hold of the tentacle still lingering close by. "Tell me about yourself."

"Aeha. I'm a he. My race are...were...peaceful explorers. Our planet was lost when our sun went supernova. I was captured after my ship crashed, and brought here. I have no idea why, as I was kept locked in a room, until the day I woke to find it open, and the base empty. I've been alone here since. You?"

"Krystal. She. I was training to be a scout. When I returned from my first solo flight I found the shattered remains of my planet. I still don't know what happened. I'm now part of a group called Star Fox. We're working to track down something believed to have been hidden by the deceased former owner of this base and many others, Keyvas. Would you happen to know anything of him, by the way?"

"I'm afraid not." Aeha's mood shifted from apologetic to nervous but hopeful. "Would you be comfortable with me exploring you? Touch is extremely important to my culture."

Krystal hesitated, a shiver running through her, then took a steadying breath, petted a tentacle, and nodded firmly. "I would."

"Thank you. If there are any areas you'd rather I avoided..."

The vixen pointed under her tail. "I'd rather you didn't go beyond the surface there." Then indicated her vulva. "Or there. Otherwise, you're fine." She shifted to the terminal. "Hopefully this fills in some blanks."

While Aeha's tentacles began gently roaming over her form, Krystal's finger pressed the terminal's power button. It took a long time to fully activate, time enough for her to not only acclimate to the sensations of the limbs investigating her, but actually begin to enjoy them. It proved to be completely isolated from the base network, and stored just one file, that had a date for a title and contained a series of tersely-written, almost shorthand notes.

"Two months ago," she thought aloud, head cocking slightly to give a tentacle better access to the inside of one ear. "Notes indicate lengthy neglect by Keyvas, leading to unrest, which at this time had gotten bad enough for there to be talk of abandoning the base to..." She fell quiet, eyes flicking to the tentacle probing her navel, then its owner. "Keyvas' nightmare vault guard."

"Vault guard?" Aeha lifted himself on a trio of tentacles to look over the vixen's shoulder. "That's why I was captured?"

Krystal lightly gripped the tentacle that had stilled around one of her breasts, its tip just brushing the nipple. "It never would've occurred to them you were the pilot of the crashed ship they found. They must've thought you just a scavenging animal, if an alien one, told Keyvas, and he thought he could use you to protect something valuable kept in this base. But then he got careless, complacent, made a bad deal with bad people, went into hiding when it inevitably turned sour but still ended up with a blaster bolt to the head, and here we are."

"Do you think," Aeha posited, "those 'bad people' are controlling the securibots?"

Krystal shook her head. "No; they just wanted Keyvas dead. The bots do make me wonder something, though. My teammates are currently trying to access a base in another system that's guarded by numerous securibots just like these. We thought they'd been left by Keyvas, but now I wonder if someone else did, to protect something they couldn't open, until they'd found the key."

"A key they think could be here," Aeha finished; he brushed a tentacle thoughtfully over one of the fox's hip patterns. "Presumably hidden by Keyvas before he went into hiding."

Krystal nodded. "Exactly. It could all be a coincidence, but..." She read the file one last time, then turned off the terminal and revolved to face Aeha, sitting cross-legged and drawing him into her lap. "I'm assuming you've explored this base?"

He coiled two tentacles around her haunches, set the tip of a third to gently exploring her vulva, curled a fourth about her waist, and draped a fifth across her shoulders. "All of the top and middle floors, and half of the bottom one before the hatch door fell shut."

"How is it to navigate?"

"Difficult, but not impossible. There's at least one collapse, and some jammed doors, and stretches with no air pockets."

Krystal's tail twitched in time with her thoughts, drawing the interest of a tentacle. "Well, I got that hatch back open, so we have access, and if we can open more from down there, we could have something solid to work with. The broken elevators might be useful, too."

"Keep us moving, and slow them down. I presume our initial goal is simply to reconnoitre?"

"Yes. Once we know where they are and what they're doing, we can start to think about getting my staff back, and then..." A dark twist of a smile passed across her face.

"I fear I have no stomach for combat," Aeha confessed.

"I'll do all the fighting," Krystal assured him. She took a breath, briefly closing her eyes. "I'm ready to go. You?"

One of Aeha's tentacles lifted a small remote with a single button into view. "Just say the word."

Krystal took another breath, shifted to the entrance, and pressed the button on the wall to turn off the lights. "Go."