As soon as Fox came to, he threw up the water that was stuck in his body, coughing it out as fast as he could, replacing it with warm, fresh air. Fox coughed out as much of the water as he could, taking in huge breaths, nearly convulsing with his tired lungs. He tried to lean over to one side to force more water out, but was held back by restraints on his hands and legs, forcing him to stay on his back.
In the distance, he could see the same doctor that helped him out the last time he passed out, although Fox was still having trouble focusing on what was in front of him.
The brown cat noticed Fox hacking away and carefully undid the restraints on Fox's left arm, allowing Fox to turn to his side and cough out the remaining water out of his body. "I should have never allowed this," the doctor growled sternly. "You're lucky to be alive right now."
Still disoriented, Fox hazily looked up to the doctor, confused out of his mind that someone was actually trying to help him. "Wha… what's going on?"
"Sshh.." the doctor hushed, as he looked around the room the two were in. "Don't make too much noise. Nobody knows I'm here. Now listen carefully. If we're ever going to get out of here, listen to everything I say, got it?"
Still in a daze, Fox's ears perked up at the first sound of a potential escape. He didn't really trust the doctor, but he didn't really have much choice. The alternative was suffering for the rest of his life with Wolf. Fox slowly nodded his head, as he took in large breaths of air, taking in as much fresh breath as he could.
"First thing we got to do is let everyone know where we are. I can get into the control room and send out a signal where we are. Once people find out where we are, more help should be on the way. But I can't fend them off alone."
The doctor took out a needle with a clear liquid inside, and Fox instinctively moved back as far as he could, pulling on the restraints while trying to break free. "This won't harm you!" shouted the doctor. "It's a stimulant that will make you move a bit after all you've been through. It'll sting for a bit, but you'll have to trust me. Once you take this, lay low for a bit while the stimulant works through your body. Don't make too much noise, or else everyone will think that you're awake."
Fox slowly nodded his head, then turned his head away from the doctor as the doctor brought the needle over towards Fox's forearm. The liquid was injected into Fox's veins, and Fox winced as the stimulant started to seep into his body, and his left arm twitched in pain as Fox groaned again in agony, but compared to what he had experienced in the past, it was much more palatable and bearable. Once the needle was out of Fox's body, Fox closed his eyes and laid back on the stretcher, as his breaths were starting to become more tense as the stimulant started to take effect in his body.
The doctor brought over the restraints and reattached it over to Fox's hand, but left it looser than before. "I'm sorry I have to put this on again. But if I leave it off, the guards will get suspicious. I'll be back in a few minutes. You should start to regain some energy by the time I return.
As the doctor went out of the room the two were in, Fox's head followed the direction the doctor was going, silently pleading the doctor to let him go again. But as the doctor went out of view, Fox sighed and rested his head back on the stretcher, quietly waiting for the medicine to take effect in his body.
The doctor headed towards the main bridge of the ship they were in, closely guarded deep in the universe and far away from the prying eyes of the rest of the Lylat System. Wolf was carefully watching the radar on a digital screen in front of his swivel chair, typing away at the keyboard on the armrest once in a while. There were a couple other guards sitting nearby, but not paying attention to Wolf or anyone else, keeping to themselves.
The brown cat carefully stepped onto the bridge, doing his best not to get noticed by anyone. He went over towards an unused computer situated behind Wolf. There, the doctor was able to glance at what Wolf was studying – he was watching his fleet start to get close to the warp entrance at Meteo.
The doctor studied the controls at the computer he was at. There were a few symbols and terms that he wasn't familiar with, but there was a few switches that opened up the intercom if necessary, as well as the same radar that Wolf was looking at. He could see a few ships represented by a scattering of dots next to where Meteo was on the map, as well as a brighter circle, representing their own ship, far away from where the fleet was. The doctor knew exactly where he was now. All he had to do was send out the signal for help.
Wolf saw something out of the corner of his eye and swung his chair around to face the doctor. "What are you doing here?"
The doctor froze for a moment, caught off guard by Wolf's awareness of everything around him. He stepped away from the computer and went towards Wolf at the center of the bridge. "I have to report on the condition of the prisoner," the doctor started.
"And?"
"It doesn't look good. He's in really bad shape after what happened to him. I'm going to need to keep him under close observation for the next day or so. And you can't do anything more to him until then."
Giving a stern glare at the doctor, Wolf got off his seat and slowly headed towards the doctor, as the cat's muscles tensed up from Wolf's snarl. "He's worth more to me alive, dammit! If he dies, then all the leverage we have built up will be for nothing!"
"If you wanted him to live, you shouldn't have subjected him to that kind of abuse."
"It had to be done, fool! Now we have access to the warp zone between Meteo and Katina. We don't have to go through the tough line of defense at Sector Y anymore. Now we can go directly from Katina to Corneria, weaving through both sides of the Cornerian defense. Unless, of course, the Cornerian government is willing to pay a price…"
The doctor didn't reply to the grandiose plan laid out by Wolf, instead diverting his attention to Fox's condition. "I've put something in the prisoner that'll make him more responsive to your needs. But I can't guarantee that the water left in his lungs will do damage to him or not."
"Just make sure he's responsive enough for me to interrogate him some more…" Wolf growled, heading back to his command chair. "I don't want to see any funny business from you. Once I'm done with this, I'll check on him myself whether or not he's in as grave condition as you believe."
Wolf dutifully returned to his command chair, and the doctor made sure to remain out of view, as everyone else was too preoccupied to notice anyone else around them. The cat could hear some people talking over the intercom, all while Wolf was carefully listening in, observing very quietly.
"We're heading into the warpgate now," said Panther over the intercom. "We'll likely be out of communications range while we're in the warp, but we'll let you know when we make it to Katina ok."
The doctor carefully glanced over at the computer he was at again, eying the controls and switches laid out in front of it. He gently tapped a few buttons on the console and targeted where the fleet's last location was, and the likely destination the fleet was heading to. After typing out the address of the emergency paramedics, the brown cat sent out a coded message, involving a small amount of dots that would be deciphered by the paramedic crew, or at least turned over to someone else who did.
The message itself was quite simple: "We are trapped in deep space. Send help immediately. Katina is under danger. Send fleet to stop crooks coming out of the warp. I will send our location soon. Stay vigilant."
With the coded message sent, the doctor then opened up the intercom line to the general public - though he did disconnect the mic. Nobody would be able to speak into it, but the signal itself would be enough to alert anyone who was nearby and would scatter all across the immediate area. With his work done, the doctor quietly started to slip out of the bridge, doing his best not to be noticed as he walked out…
Not more than a minute later, the last of the fleet started hearing the empty intercom message, and Leon, who was at the back of the fleet heading into the warp, immediately got onto the intercom himself in a panic. "What the hell are you doing? I thought you were going to stay out of the radio while we went in!"
Wolf swung his command chair around towards his two subordinates, who were just as baffled as Leon was. Knowing both of them didn't have access to the intercom, this left him with only one possibility.
"You fool…"
Wolf jumped out of the command chair and sprinted towards the computer the doctor was at, switching off all the controls that was turned on. But it was too late. Within a few moments, he could see a small formation of ships closing in to their location, closing imminently towards Wolf's ship.
"God fucking dammit. Where's that fucking bastard?"
The whole ship went under a red alert, waking up everyone onboard, including Fox, who was still in a daze after having the drugs injected into him. But as the alarms started to ring, he started to become more aware of his surroundings, and the metal restraints on his hands and legs. Fox pulled on the restraints, trying to get them off his body, but it hardly budged. His heartrate started to pump up as the alarm blared on in the background, all while numerous guards ran by the hallway in a panic. Fox grasped the restraints again, and noticed that while the restraints were very secure, the stretcher he was on could be broken off if necessary – meaning that he could break out by bending the stretcher in a way that would release him from his restraints – even if it meant that there would still be shackles left on his body.
But his thoughts were interrupted when the alarms abruptly stopped, and Wolf shouted some commands over the ship's speakers. "The imposter has been found. Stay on alert until further notice."
Not far from the bridge, the doctor was held against a wall by three of the guards, while Wolf stood nearby as he glared down at the brown cat menacingly.
"Now you will know what the true price of betrayal is…" Wolf took out a large, jagged knife, sharp enough that some of the light reflected back at the cat. Wolf stuck the knife directly into the cat's chest, as the doctor shouted in utter agony. Wolf dug deep into the chest as he reached in and tore out the doctor's heart out of his body, leaving it dripping down from his hand onto the cold hard floor, as the doctor could do nothing but look at his heart in terror. The doctor's eyes then rolled back, as the doctor slumped over, while blood continued to pour out of his chest.
"Leave him for now," Wolf grunted at the guards still holding the doctor against the wall. "If anyone comes after us, we'll have to send someone out there to defend ourselves."
With the commotion temporarily alleviated, one of the guards entered the same room that Fox was in – the same dog that mocked Fox when he wouldn't eat the prison loaf. He said nothing, but held a rifle in his arms as he stood watch over Fox. Fox carefully grasped the restraints on his hands in a way that he could get ready to pull out the supports of the stretcher in one tug, leaving Fox to take out the restraints on his legs afterwards. But as the guard kept a close eye on Fox without making direct eye contact, Fox made sure that he didn't make too much noise for the guard to notice.
A minute later, with the guard still staring at Fox, the ship started shaking around violently, as the lights above the two flickered, as the room briefly went dark. As the alarms started blaring again in the hallway, the ship shook around again, and the guard stumbled and fell to the ground. The lights flickered again, and the guard lost track of his rifle as he lost his balance. A moment later, there was a wire wrapped around his neck, as Fox knelt behind the guard dog grasping the wire as tightly as he could. The guard gasped as he tried to breathe, but the wire made it impossible for him to get some breath.
"How do you like that now, bitch?" Fox scowled, increasing his grip on the wire around the guard's neck. "How do you feel being the one tortured for a change?"
The guard tried tearing off the wire around his neck but could not do so. He writhed on the floor as he struggled to breathe, as Fox's grip on his neck only strengthened. The guard cried out for help as loudly as he could, but could only mutter a raspy call, barely being audible to anyone, even Fox who was nearby.
Soon the strength started to leave out of the guard's body, as he laid down nearby Fox as he struggled to breathe, while the rest of the ship was running around in a commotion. Fox could feel the guard's heartbeat pulsate through his body, as he juttered around on the floor, doing everything he could to break free. But Fox would not loosen his grip at all – in fact, each whimper the guard made only made his grip tighter.
The guard's mouth lay open and agape, as he could do nothing more than lay still, with his back leaning against Fox. The guard's eyes glossed over and rolled upwards, as his whole body became limp, and his arms fell down towards the ground. All the guard could do now was lay there as his neck was still wrapped and coiled up by Fox, and his heartbeats juttered as air became a scarce supply inside his body. Soon, even his heartbeats started to get faint.
Fox felt the warmth start to leave from the guard's body, and it was at that point that Fox snapped out of his blind rage and started to release the grip out of the guard's neck. By this time, however, the guard was well and truly dead. Fox could only look down at the guard in horror, glancing at his shaking hands, raw from gripping the wire so tightly. "God dammit…"
He had killed people before, but not quite like this – it was always in the comfort of his Arwing, or at the hands of a rifle. He could always pull a trigger and extinguish the life, swat it out of the way, and promptly forget about it. He had been trained in the Cornerian Academy about these situations before his first mission, and he had gotten used to it. It had also been always in the heat of the battle when he shot someone with a rifle or an Arwing's lasers, with a battle raging on in the background preventing him from reflecting on his actions.
But even as the alarms blared on in the background, he was completely alone with the guard, and felt the life leave from the guard's body. Fox figured that, given his own brushes with death recently, this death in particular shook him to the core. He spent God knows how long trying not to get killed by Wolf and his cronies, begging for mercy. Yet, as the guard did exactly the same, Fox didn't extend that same courtesy and watched him die. Fox felt like he was going to vomit, even as he kept saying to himself in his head, "I had to do it, I had to do it…"
His mind snapped back to the real world as the door leading to the hallway swung open, and another thug ran inside, stunned that Fox was out of his confines. Without giving a second thought, Fox grabbed a scalpel nearby and darted it directly at the thug, puncturing him in the chest. As the thug screamed in agony as the scalpel dug into his body, Fox ran towards the thug and grabbed the pistol from him, and whipped the thug in the head with the pistol, sending him to the floor as blood continued to drip out of his chest.
Fox paid no more attention to the thug, as he ran out to the hallway, realizing that he was still in only his boxers. "I'm going to be easily spotted with this," he grumbled. Two guards started running towards him from one side, and Fox opened fire with the pistol, hitting both of them and knocking them down to the ground. He ran over towards the stricken guards and knelt down to grab a grenade from one of them and took the pin away, chucking it at another group of soldiers running towards him. The grenade exploded as a couple of the guards flew back towards the wall with cuts all over their bodies, while another two guards were completely disoriented, holding their ears as the explosion rang boldly inside their heads.
As he approached a fork in the hallway, he saw in one direction a closed door, and in another direction another dead body laying unceremoniously against the wall. Fox immediately recognized the body, noticing the blood stained lab coat and the whiskers all across the cat's face. The doctor that gave Fox the opportunity to escape was now dead. Fox clenched his fist as the doctor lay motionless on the floor. "Dammit…"
Out in the distance, Fox heard someone yelling at the top of their lungs in a distinctive Irish accent. "Get out there and take the sons of bitches down, for God's sake!"
Immediately recognizing Wolf's voice, Fox ran towards the closed door, which led directly towards the bridge. The ship shook around again, causing Fox to lose his balance and run into the wall. As Fox was struggling to pick himself up, he could hear Wolf cursing at himself again. "Do I have to do everything myself? Fucking idiots, the lot of them!"
Fox got back up to his feet and ran towards the door to the bridge, expecting to smash through the door. But as he got close, the door swung open, as Wolf stood in front of him, stunned at Fox's presence. Before Wolf could utter out in confusion, Fox struck Wolf in the face with the pistol, and fired a couple of shots at Wolf's chest, sending him flying back towards the ground. One of the thugs ran up behind Fox and grappled Fox from behind, making Fox lose his pistol. But Fox managed to elbow the guard in the stomach, releasing his grip as Wolf stumbled towards Fox in seething anger.
Wolf took out his own pistol, but the ship shook violently once more, this one more violent than all the others. Everyone in the room fell down as they lost their balance, which caused Wolf to lose his own pistol. Fox got back up to his feet and charged towards Wolf, managing to pin him against one of the computers. Fox started to punch Wolf directly in the face, causing drops of blood to drip out of Wolf's mouth all over the computers. Fox then managed to grasp both of his hands across Wolf's neck, choking Wolf with all his might.
"You're going to pay for what you did to me, asshole…"
Wolf grimaced as he struggled to breathe, grappling with Fox's arms in an attempt to break free from his grasp, but Fox's hands were wrapped around his neck like a vice grip. He caught a glimpse of Fox's face as he struggled to break free, seeing a face he hadn't seen from Fox before. His eyes were blood red in rage, thirsty for revenge and lusting for vengeance. For the first time in years, Wolf was scared at what laid in front of him – not just his adversary, but a caged animal, trapped and beaten indefinitely, now suddenly escaped and willing to kill anything in its path.
Wolf stopped trying to break free from Fox's grasp and reached over towards one of the computer screens with his hand. He used the knuckles on his hands to break the computer glass, then took one of the shards and stabbed it at Fox's arm. As Fox growled in pain and temporarily released his hands from his neck, Wolf swung at Fox a second time, this time causing a gash in Fox's midsection. Wolf then kicked Fox down to the floor, separating the two from their struggle.
The ship then shook around violently again, causing Wolf to stumble towards the ground, falling onto his hand as the glass shard dug into his hand. Even as the shard dripped with blood from both Fox and Wolf, Wolf ran towards Fox as Fox got up to his feet, and the two charged towards each other, while Wolf attempted to stab Fox with the glass shard again. Fox held Wolf's arms back, grappling with each other until the door leading towards the hallway exploded open, startling the two as Wolf lost track of the glass shard.
"What the hell -" Wolf uttered, as gunshots came firing out of the opening made by the explosion. Wolf got hit in the arm, which caught him off guard as he had shot wounds all over his body by now. Wolf stumbled behind one of the computer consoles, as Fox chased after Wolf in a frenzy. While Fox ran after Wolf, a few soldiers ran out onto the bridge of the ship – one of them being Falco Lombardi.
"Alright! Hands up! Show me where that punk-ass bitch Wolf is and I'll let you go!"
The guards nearby Falco raised their hands as prompted, but Wolf noticed his name being called and kept his head ducked down behind the console, planning a way to escape from the bridge. "Screw this," uttered Wolf under his breath. "I gotta get out of here before I get my ass handed to me again…"
Fox then found Wolf and jumped at him, wrestling with him as he tried punching Wolf as many times as he could. Wolf managed to get Fox off his back and ran towards one of the doors near the back of the bridge, but Falco saw Wolf limp towards the exit as fast as he could, so Falco drew out his rifle and fired a warning shot at Wolf, grazing his arm.
"Alright, Wolfo, you're going away with me and there's nothing you can do to convince me otherwise!"
Wolf slowly turned towards Falco, with his back against the wall. Without taking his eyes off Falco, he managed to grab a fire extinguisher and set it off nearby each other, clouding their vision so that Wolf could jump away from Falco's line of sight and head back towards the side of the ship.
Even though he couldn't see much past the fumes of the extinguisher, Falco noticed a man in only his boxers running near the other side of the bridge towards where Wolf had disappeared into. "What the…?" Falco looked on in confusion as the man chased after Wolf, and Falco decided to run after the man in the boxers, trying to figure out who it was.
As Falco followed the boxers man into a small hallway, the smoke from the extinguisher was farther away, and the hallway soon led towards an escape pod, where the door leading to the pod closed rapidly in front of the boxers man, as he pounded away at the door in fury. Falco got a closer look at the boxers man, stunned at how thin the man had become.
"Fox! What are you –" It didn't take Falco long to see the escape pod jettison out of the ship and blast into space, far away from the commotion happening around them.
Fox continued to pound away at the escape pod door, furiously pounding small dents into the thick steel. "Dammit! Get after him! Kill that bastard!"
"Fox! Let him go! He's too far away from us now!" The escape pod was now far away from sight, and likely hidden on any radar. "Those escape pods are too fast for us to chase down! Let's just –"
"You don't understand, dammit! You're letting him get away! He's gotta get –" Fox stopped as he glanced back at Falco, as Fox was shaking and out of breath, sweating from head to toe. "…Falco?"
"We're here, Fox. Let's get out of here."
Without a moment of hesitation, Fox dove towards Falco and hugged him tightly as he buried his face into Falco's chest. "I can't believe it! You made it! You finally found me…" Fox stuttered into a bunch of indecipherable words, crying tears of joy as Falco, stunned in shock, didn't know what to say to Fox. He simply wrapped his hand around Fox's head and slowly guided him back to his mothership, perfectly content to keep him close by…