Chapter 16.
And I Thought I Knew You So Well...
Miyu stared at the hangar camera feed, blown up on the Great Fox's HUD, watching, feeling an emptiness in her core that twinged every time she swallowed.
Fox McCloud's Arwing sat in the middle of the hangar, cockpit open, the hangar's force field restored behind it. A few steps in front, cuffed to the front landing gear of his Arwing, sat Fox McCloud. He stared at the floor, consciously ignoring the activity around him.
A flicker of unease rippled through Miyu's stomach. Peppy's warning when she was captured echoed through her head, especially now that the pirates' leader sat in front of McCloud, helmet off, spinning a blaster pistol over a scaled green finger.
She didn't recognize him, but a glance at the hare told her everything. Peppy, she remembered the name, now, stared over the hologram table at the center of the bridge. He leaned forward into it, brow furrowed, mouth drawn into a flat line. But as Miyu glanced at Peppy, she noticed something else. At the center of his flight suit, right where his ribs stood, she saw him twitch. Nowhere else, just at the one spot over his heart, twitching in a rythm like someone sprinting down the stairs.
Miyu made the connection herself. She couldn't take her eyes away. She could see Peppy's heartbeat from here.
Just like that, Peppy deflated. One long, shaky breath through gritted teeth, ears lowering as his neck lowered, weighed down by his head, as he buried both palms into his eyes.
He recovered in the time it took for another heartbeat to pass. He spoke with a dry voice that vanished the moment he hit the second word: "Miyu, I need to know if there's anything you need to tell me."
Miyu bristled again. Her instincts felt an insinuation behind those words. Like Fox McCloud's capture could be linked to something she did.
"About McCoy, about this. Anything." Peppy swallowed. That, by itself, formed the smallest crack in Miyu's reaction.
Still, she wanted to push herself away from anything that even vaguely threatened to pull her deeper into the ugly feelings that started to return to her the moment Peppy asked. Miyu met Peppy's gaze, and saw his eyes. They swept over her face, searching, darting with little stops and starts that kept returning to her own eyes.
She met it with a firmness that surprised her, and a coldness that felt familiar. "No."
Peppy stared for just long enough to make Miyu wonder if he believed her. He turned away with a silence he only broke when the hologram of the battle lit up his face again. "Are the teams still standing off?"
The bird's voice answered. "Circling. Is it really him?"
Peppy answered with a stare that seemed to go beyond the hologram. "Yes."
Miyu expected a curse. Maybe some kind of promise about what he'd do to the pirates. The bird's response gave her a chill that prickled even below her skin.
"...Oh."
"Report." The lizard didn't speak as much as he breathed the words through a dry throat. He spun the blaster, never looking up at the prisoner, who made just as much effort to look back at him. One of the pirates, keeping her helmet on, stood by with her rifle shouldered.
"We got the force field back on. It took a while, but we cut into the walls and found the right cables. We're still working on cutting deeper into the ship, but we managed to reach one of the cells with the guy in it. Captain Leon."
One corner of Leon's lips twitched at the sound of the last words. He pulled out the magazine battery and spat on the contact points. He wiped them off with a cloth stained in a jagged zebra stripe pattern. "Who was the one that managed to jump on the Arwing?"
"Fletcher, sir."
That answer earned a harsh laugh the broke the first word. "Gho~od. Good. And the snitch?"
The pirate thumbed over her shoulder at a scruffy swift fox with a black eye and a fat lip that you could notice from across the hangar. He milled around by the pirate with the electric saw, squinting at the sparks, sometimes glancing over his shoulder at Fox.
"He says he knows all about the ship, and who else we could talk to." This last answer earned a new response. Leon turned his head upwards, slowly, slowly cocking it like a gun hammer, even with the little sudden jerk at the end.
The silence between them lasted, with the white noise of an electric saw grinding into the hull filling it in. A slow smile cracked the lizard's features like a root splitting concrete.
Instead of answering, the lizard stood with that same smile, and knocked on his helmet almost politely, tilting his head up at the ceiling. "Still listening, Star Fox?"
The helmet didn't answer, but the speaker crackled as knuckles met ceramic. Leon kept his eyes on the hangar camera, nestled into the overhead corner of the ceiling. "I have a proposition. It's pretty simple, and it works for all of us."
He walked towards the prisoner, a familiar face, an echo of a face he once saw years ago. He crouched to meet the sitting fox at eye-level, occasionally looking up to see the camera. "I'll let McCloud go if you fork over the freighter cargo. Seems fair, right?"
His voice rasped, adding an ugly dryness to the speakers' own crackling. "I mean, this is a limited-time offer. I know that the freighter captain didn't hesistate to scream for help, and that his friends in the Cornerian Navy are on their way. So Fox, here, has an expiration date."
Fox McCloud breathed shakily, and finally, lifted his eyes to meet Leon Powalski's. The fox kept eye contact, and for the first time, wore a fierce scowl. Leon's smile got bigger, this time showing gums with his teeth. "Or, well,"
Leon aimed his pistol at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. Almost everyone in the hangar jumped at the sound. The swift fox dropped his crossed arms and strode towards Leon with a speed that almost made it a jog.
Leon pulled it twice, three times, eight times. Every bolt burying itself in the ceiling with a dark crater the size of a fingertip. Spending the last bolt, he pulled the trigger again, and got a hollow click in response. He brought the pistol down to his scaled face and waved it over his cheek, pulling it away with a satisfied smile.
Fox McCloud took a deep breath, and, for once, put on a small smile. He sat straighter, ears forward. He faltered a little, but he set his jaw. His voice got firmer as he spoke, "Was that to try and scare me?"
"Nah." Leon let a mock-solemn tone seep into his voice, right as he grabbed Fox's head and slammed it into the metal of the landing gear. Fox blinked, stunned.
"That's for this." He pressed the barrel into Fox McCloud's eye.
Miyu's throat felt smaller.
Fox's scream reached a peak with a gasp for air. McCoy folded his arms, standing close enough to be within arm's reach of Fox as he watched. Peppy Hare saw it on the feed for less than half a second before he jammed a fist into the power button. His voice finally cracked, almost drowning out the sound of Fox McCloud losing an eye.
"STOP." Peppy's voice sounded hoarse. Every ounce of steadiness, gone. "LEON. STOP."
"You know what it takes to stop it, Hare." Leon spoke almost cheerfully. "I'm not responsible, here. I'm on a schedule."
Miyu saw as he cocked his head up at the camera. His scales glared dully in the light. He shrugged wide enough to be seen from the ceiling camera. "You give me the ship, I go away, and all this stops."
"See?" He pointed his fingers at his face, "I'm trying to be reasonable, here."
An ugly chill reached beneath Miyu's skin. A shiver that reminded her of freezing rain, but this time, the sharp stabs of cold reached her core. Her stomach, heart, gut, all of it, met with a cold that bit deeper than any ice could.
Fox McCloud's presence met her like a matching magnet. She wanted to avoid him. More than the rest of the crew. She felt better without him around, and she bet he did, too. She hated him, and she thought she wouldn't feel bad if he died.
That was different from what she felt as she watched him screaming.
"I'd like an answer soon. For his sake, you know?"
Peppy shut the audio off with a trembling finger. He sank into his chair before holding his head up with both paws, claws digging into his scalp.
"Who is that?" Fay Spaniel's voice wavered, even as no one answered her on the net.
"I don't see why we should stop fighting," A new voice chipped in with an awkward cough. The freighter's XO. "We have precious cargo, and it's worth considering that casualties aren't a good enough reason to stop."
Dead silence met him. No one spoke. The waveforms tagging each speaker's voice rippled flatly. Falco's rippled the least.
"Well, if no one's going to suggest it, I will-"
"No one cares what you think. You're done talking." Slippy's voice shook a little, but it ended with the XO's waveform disappearing from the HUD with a blink.
"He might negotiate with them." Fay suggested. No one answered her.
Peppy rubbed newly-reddened eyes, and he recovered some of his voice. "We're getting him back. We need to find a way."
Suggestions flooded Miyu's thoughts. Surrendering the cargo. Fighting back. A part of her hindbrain gingerly picked up the idea of agreeing with the XO, faltered as she saw Peppy's face, then put it down.
Another suggested siding with the pirates.
The thought grew uncomfortably loud as she remembered McCoy standing with them. The idea that he planned this, that he maybe even fed the pirates directions, surfaced in her thoughts.
It lingered in her head. When she stared at the window, she remembered everything the Star Fox team did to her, her crew, and herself. She remembered the bubbling rage she felt when she saw them act superior on the asteroid.
And now, she saw them suffer.
The idea dissolved.
"I could talk to McCoy." She spoke before even thinking what she'd say.
"You let her OUT?" The speakers shivered with Falco's voice. "Are you insane?"
"I can-" Miyu's voice got firmer as she rediscovered a reason to hate the bird.
"No. Fuck off into an engine torch, bitch." Miyu could hear Falco's beak clicking together from here. "I'm betting money you had something to do with this-"
"Falco," Peppy began, quietly,
"No. Don't 'Falco' me. I'm done with this. If you had a backbone, Peppy, you'd airlock her."
Miyu's fists clenched harder with every word. Her anger towards the Star Fox team found a new target, and she focused on it. Every ounce of cold feeling pooled together into a shivering, angry core inside her head that seized her arm and convinced her to drive a finger into the mute button. Falco's waveform blinked red, then stayed silent even though it formed a pixellated, raging bruise.
Miyu let the air out of her lungs with a quiet hiss. She turned towards Peppy, and spoke with the quietest voice she could muster. "I think I can help."
He felt wet. His body reacted with a uneven tilt, eyes screwed shut. Half his vision a sea of bubbling blue-black and the other with flares of white light.
Don't break. Don't break. Don't break.
He already knew he cried. He knew he let out a scream that emptied his lungs. Every ounce of toughness he put on flew out the window. Now he just felt like a collection of bodily functions that all decided to have their own runaway decisions.
Don't break don't break don't break don't break don't break
Something in his head. A shrieking voice. It sounded familiar. Give up, give in, it'll make it all stop. The white hot nail of pain burrowing into his head would reach his brain if he didn't stop hecould make it stop
don'tbreakdon'tbreakdon'tbreakyouletpeopledownandbrokebeforedontdontdontbreak
He didn't care if people saw him crying he knows he soaked a spot in the floor. Ordering everyone to stand down would give himwhat he askedfor do it doit please please beggingyou
youbrokebeforedontletithappenagainpleasefoxpleasebebravebravebravebrvebavv
Fox felt a lightning streak of white across the rest of his vision as he felt an ice cold slap that somehow reached the bones of his face. The pain turned hot and wet as he felt his mouth fill with gravel. The pieces dribbled out of his mouth as he tasted copper and felt it flood his gums.
He heard Leon's voice again, flinching as he knew the face got closer. He felt a thumb on his eyelid, pulling it up and feeling the hot nail drive in a little deeper as the thumb dug into his skull.
"Huh. I missed the actual eye. Let's try again."
This time, Fox shrieked.
"Did you know what McCoy was planning?" An ugly tone reached Peppy's voice, and Miyu felt a twinge in her gut as she responded.
"I didn't know anything." She met his gaze coolly. Another half-lie. She moved on quickly to avoid her answer getting questioned. "But I know McCoy. He hates uh, you."
She caught herself before finishing, then blew right past it. "Maybe I could get in close enough to rescue him."
"How?" Peppy's answer froze her blood with the look he gave her.
Miyu took a deep breath. "We used to work together, he hates Star Fox, and maybe I could convince him I'd change sides."
"What makes you think he'd be convinced?"
In that moment, a gut instinct told her to hide the truth that McCoy warned her something would happen, and that he offered her a chance to be in on it. Every instinct she had lined up behind it. But instead of telling Peppy a lie, she told him a truth that could bury it:
"Because I hate Star Fox, too."
The second that followed felt longer than the shaky breath she took to break the silence. "I want to be done with this mission, and I want to get paid, then leave."
Also, I don't like your friend screaming in my ear. She suppressed any guilt she felt with that thought before she went on with another swallow. "That's not happening if Leon walks away, and I doubt he'll let Fox go if we give him what he wants."
She threw in that last statement on a hunch that the team really did hate Leon.
Peppy answered her question by standing up. "You'll need to make it convincing. I'll be a prisoner."
"Peppy..." Slippy spoke up, speakers crackling.
"I'm sorry, Slippy. Do you have a better idea?" Peppy never raised his voice above a whisper.
"Peppy, the freighter's leaving."
Peppy instantly moved towards the hologram and watched the freighter start to angle itself away from the fight. "We don't have time, then. Miyu. Get a vest."
Miyu snapped out of her stare towards the freighter's yellow wireframe box as it stuttered away on the hologram. Her mouth felt dry.
This is it. It's happening.
Her arms felt stiff as Peppy pushed a frayed vest into her paws, along with a holster that he unbuckled from his waist. She shrugged off her own jacket and put the vest over her flight suit, adjusting the straps and buckles as she felt the extra weight pull her shoulders down.
Peppy checked his blaster, looked at the contact points on the magazine battery, pushed it back in, and got an electronic chirp in response. Miyu's eyebrows shot up when he reached under the table and brought up a grenade.
"Don't look impressed. It's our last one." He pushed it into one of the pouches on her vest. "This vest also doesn't have a personal shield."
She blinked and felt a little nauseous at the new information. He looked up at her and murmured. "Remember, you volunteered."
Miyu nodded dumbly as Peppy put the pistol grip into her paw. "I'll get some plastic cuffs. Sit tight."
Miyu sat down, turning the pistol over in her paws. She pulled it across her lap and an image of her shooting McCoy with it flashed, uninvited, across her mind. For once, she didn't feel anything about the violence she expected to do. She didn't feel the nausea of apprehenstion, no cold dread, just a quiet feeling that reminded her of whatever she felt when she got ordered to take out the trash.
"One thing. This needs to be convincing. So you'll need to give me a kick, right...here," he pushed a finger into the side of a kneecap.
More dumb nodding. He looked up at her again. "Do it when they see us. And don't freak out when I drop. ROB,"
The robot's head sat at the edge of the table, lying on its side. "Acknowledged."
"When we reach the door, we need you to unlock it when we say so. When we get through, lock it behind us and don't unlock it until we say so. Understood?"
"Acknowledged." The robot's head lay still, and Miyu felt uncomfortable with the way the red visor looked at her. She shook it off.
He held out both wrists. Miyu followed through the motions, getting the cuffs on behind the hare. His expression turned hard: ears straight, eyes ahead. He spoke without turning towards her. "We're banking on you, Miss Lynx."
Her mouth turned dry. She answered with a nod, "We'll...We'll get him back."
He didn't reply. Instead, he stood straight, and walked out the door. Miyu followed him, gun drawn.
Miyu felt a moment of doubt, looking at the pistol in her paw, and at Peppy Hare's turned back.
Holstering her pistol, she followed him.
Reaching the door to the hangar didn't take long, but by the time they got there, Miyu felt burned out. Everything felt heavy. The fact that she wore armor plates didn't even add to that thought. Limbs responded sluggishly. Every step took the same effort as running through sand.
Standing by the door, Miyu reached for the intercom with a nod from Peppy. "Don't worry about me. Just focus on getting Fox out. There's about four or five of them left. So if we get the jump on them, we have an advantage."
Miyu swallowed as she hit the intercom button. Five against one? Even with a grenade,
The crackle of the speakers interrupted her thoughts. She raised her voice, ignoring the shakiness she knew others would hear. "I want to talk to McCoy."
No answer but the faint crackling of the intercom. She took another breath, and kept her voice steady. "This is Miyu Lynx, I want to talk to McCoy."
The answer came with the sound of footsteps. "...Who's McCoy?"
Before Miyu could answer, someone else bolted to the intercom with bootsteps she could hear through the speakers. She heard murmurs and a shove, followed by curses, then silence.
"...y'know, you could've been a lot quicker with a response."
She knew the voice instantly, and her fur flattened. Her voice took on a tone that felt a little too comfortable to be in, and she found herself glancing at Peppy's face to see his expression. The next words actually felt honest.
"Yeah. And?"
The silence that followed lasted long enough for her fur to stand on end. Right as she wondered if he'd answer, he heard a harsh bark of laughter.
"You were always a bitch, Total. Finally decided on a winning team for once?"
Maybe the ribbing was friendly. She put that thought away. "I got a prisoner."
"The old feller? Now I really got questions about why you took so long." She heard more laughs, and something inside her woke up and flooded her with a familiar feeling, the one she felt when she lay in her bunk, ignoring everyone else on the ship. She let it take control as her voice took on a tone she always felt comfortable with.
"I mean, I could keep him. Fly this ship away with all of you on it. Split up your team so they can't even take the freighter without leaving you behind. We might even run into that Navy patrol."
"That's not a pl-"
"I don't care, McCoy." Somehow, the air felt colder when she said it. "You could let me in, let me join you, and we can win together. Or I can make sure no one wins."
She stepped towards the intercom with a new kind of cold, ugly anger that bubbled up through her chest. A kind of release that she only knew she wanted when she gave it a chance to escape. Years of pent-up feelings that she mostly recognized as a cold trickle of ice that filled her stomach whenever she felt doubt, or a lurking emptiness that trailed her thoughts every time she failed, and more. All of that poured into her words, and she whispered them with a calm only betrayed by an electric shiver in her fingertips. "I'm tired, McCoy. I don't care if I lose one more time. I'll do it just to make sure you can't win either."
"...Huh." The wheeze froze her in place. Leon.
"Don't shoot her when she gets in." His voice faded as he walked away, and she heard a loud groan from the other side of the intercom before it shut off.
Her sigh came out all at once, and she didn't feel different when it ended. She cycled through the intercom's options until she got a connection to the bridge. She nodded stiffly towards Peppy, and for a moment, she felt something else.
The hare stared at her, wide-eyed, mouth slightly open. He pursed his lips, and let out a slow breath with a shake of his head. Maybe he regretted letting her do this. Still, he gave the order. "ROB, do it."
"Acknowledged." Something in the door clanked into place at the same time the robot spoke.
Fur bristling as she pushed the pistol into Peppy's back, Miyu remembered his heads-up. "Your leg,"
"Right. Do it." He didn't even seem afraid. That made it worse.
Right as she hesitated, he spoke quickly. "Don't worry about me. I know what I can do. Just get it done."
She kicked, first halfheartedly until the hare glared at her, then she felt the leg give way as his shoulder connected with the floor.
His curse sent an echo down the hallway loud enough to make her ears flatten. He breathed sharply though his nose with a furious look up at her.
The gnawing, ugly feeling in her stomach got worse as she saw his eyes. Brow creased, teeth gritted, breathing shakily through a muzzle pointed straight at her. The anger hit her a little too close to home, and she decided to ignore it.
She kept her pistol pointed up as the door slid open, and McCoy met her in the middle of it, flanked by armored pirates. They didn't point their guns directly at her, but she kept her pistol at the ready.
"Huh. So you actually did it." He kicked the hare lightly. Peppy spat, hitting his boot.
That earned the hare a savage kick across the muzzle, and Miyu heard something clatter across the ground. A triangular chip, covered in pink spit, landed near her foot.
Peppy looked up with a snarl as one of his buck teeth looked split diagnonally. "Man, what pieces of shit. Get him up."
One of the pirates turned towards him, expression obscured by the helmet's visor. Right as Miyu wondered if he'd do what McCoy ordered, he shouldered his gun, hauled the hare up on one leg, and pushed him forwards, half-leading, half-shoving him away.
"So, where does that leave us?" McCoy's paw strayed towards a holstered pistol.
Miyu held her breath as he kept going. "Y'know, we could just shoot you here. Just to be safe."
The other pirate raised the gun almost on cue as Miyu pointed hers right back. McCoy laughed as he took his time to draw his. "Two of us, one of y-"
Miyu pulled out the grenade, and everyone froze as her thumb flicked up the arming latch. She felt the button under her thumb. All she needed to do was push it down, and it would arm until she flicked the latch down again.
Everything felt still. The whole scene frozen in place. Miyu stared at McCoy, never breaking eye contact. Her thumb almost pushing the button down.
"I'm tired, McCoy." She felt more in control of her voice now than she did all day. "I want to be done. Forever."
The button resisted a little, but she kept her thumb on it. "It could all end here for you too, unless you stop, walk away, and let...me...in."
The silence lasted long enough to feel like minutes. Instead, McCoy spread and lifted both arms in a gesture somewhere between mock surrender and an embrace. He smiled through a fat lip. He tilted his head towards the other pirate with a knowing grin. "Like I said. Stone cold bitch."
The pirate lowered his gun and Miyu let hers down to her side, but she kept one paw on her grenade as she flipped the latch back into place and tucked it into her vest. She kept a paw there as she eyed the pirate.
"Well, you're just in time. I think we can finally get these goons to back off, now that we have two of their buddies, plus the ship." Miyu's ears flattened as McCoy smoothly swapped to a tone that almost felt friendly. She felt the anger return, but buried it behind the most deadpan expression she could muster, even if it left one end of her lips curled in disgust.
Another scream caught her attention, and the anger drained away. She saw Fox McCloud, kicking, screaming as the chameleon leaned in a little closer.
She bristled as she watched. Fox leaned forward, his sobbing interrupted only by a gasp for air.
Miyu felt something ugly creep into her soul as she saw Fox's face. One eye socket screwed shut with a wet trail running past his cheek, down to his flight suit. He shook with each breath.
She swallowed, instantly wanting to stop being part of this. An invisible force pulled her towards the nearest fighter, and she struggled to fight it. Miyu wanted to leave. To bury the memory of Fox's screaming, and her part in everything related to this mission. She wanted it all to go away.
"Well, McCloud. I think they heard that. Would you have anything to tell them?"
Fox wheezed something. She strained to hear it.
Leon leaned forward. "Anything for your friends in the audience? Hm."
"...N." Miyu almost mistook the sound for a breath.
"Hm? Come on, speak up. Just raise your voice." Leon waved the pistol in his face, earning another flinch.
"...No..."
Leon's smile almost showed every tooth he had. "Saying that won't make me stop-"
"...surrender."
That caught Leon's attention. His smile shrank down to a bar of mostly-concealed teeth. It caught McCoy's attention, too. Peppy turned towards him, sitting in place after the nearest pirate shoved him to the ground.
"...No...s-s-surrender."
The last word took effort. Three tries before he got the whole word out. Fox's teeth gritted. She could see the tears rolling down his face. And then, right then, Fox McCloud spat.
The pink spatter landed right in Leon's eye. The lizard flinched, wiping his face with a scrabbling hand before he closed his lips completely and wore an unreadable look for a full second.
His gun lashed out immediately. Every ounce of his previous expression disappeared. Leon Powalski's face contorted into an open-mouthed, silent scream of wordless rage, driven into Fox McCloud's face with every blow from his pistol.
"Hey, HEY!"
Miyu tore her eyes away from the fox as she saw Peppy pull his fists apart, and one loop of the plastic cuffs broke. The pirate shouted, but not before Peppy tackled him at the knees.
Leon didn't even see the violence unfold. As McCoy drew his pistol again, he locked eyes with Miyu right as the real threat probably dawned on him.
He fell to the ground, landing on his tail with a bewildered look as two fingertip-sized craters smouldered in his chest. Miyu hit the ground running before he even fell. She heard the thunderclap-roar of slug-throwing pistols, and the hiss of blaster bolts landing against walls. Something nicked her shoulder, and a spread of needle-thin burning fire crackled across her skin.
Miyu cursed as she found a nearby pallet of crates, frantically searching for anyone who might shoot her. She slammed into a crate, her head connecting with a corner right before she slid down into a crouch. The air whistled and she saw a piece of the plastic corner fray instantly from a shot she couldn't even see.
To one side, she brought up her pistol as her entire body reacted to the sight of a pirate crawling on the ground. Wait. Not crawling. Wrestling. Peppy Hare wrenched one of the pirate's arms into a shape with an extra angle between the elbow and the wrist.
At that moment, in one fluid motion, Peppy pulled a grenade out of one of the pirate's vest pouches. It took less than a blink before she saw it fly, a little oval blur, right at another crate. For a split second, one pirate jerked upright so their helmet stood clear of the crate.
The air turned hot as a cloud instantly materialized at their feet, the heat flattening her fur and sending a thunderclap she could feel in her eardrums. She peered over, and watched as one pirate staggered out of the cloud, armor chipped and pockmarked in a dozen places.
The moment the pirate drunkenly brought their rifle to bear against Peppy was the same moment where Miyu squeezed the trigger and emptied half the pistol at the pirate. The pirate didn't react right away, instead falling flat on their face with a bang after a few more steps.
Miyu instantly heard more gunfire as the air above her head turned hot. She felt something bite her ear with a prickle of sparks on skin. She flinched downwards and remembered her own grenade. Leaning out, she saw Leon sprawled on the floor, clutching a shin. She watched as he scrabbled for his pistol, and for a second, the idea sprung up in her head that she should run up to him and kick it out of his reach.
Hearing the gunfire mostly echoing at the other side of the hangar, she whispered a curse and crouched into a run, heading straight towards the lizard.
By the time she reached him, she stomped on his wrist and wrenched the pistol out of his grip. He hissed, swiping at her legs with a knife he pulled from his vest. Right as it bit into her leg, she pulled the trigger and sent two bolts into Leon's gut. His breath huffed out with a wheezing groan as Miyu suddenly felt something punch her in the stomach.
She staggered with a yell that finished with a high-pitched scream as she drew her breath in. Miyu avoided thinking about what the obvious conclusion was. She reached Fox McCloud with a stagger as she kneeled by the landing gear, her hindbrain screaming at her to crouch into a smaller target. She pulled at Fox's cuffs, growled, and fired into the plastic with her blaster. Fox hissed as she singed some of his fur, right before he staggered up.
He blinked his one green eye at her. Miyu met it with an instant wave of nausea as she saw his other eye. He fell forward, pulling at her vest. "Move. We have to m-move. Now. Go!"
He sounded hoarse, legs shaking before they hit a stride. Miyu felt another punch, this time on her spine, like someone took a molten sledgehammer and slammed it into her back. She fell forward without finishing her curse, and found herself dragged to her knees behind another crate. Fox McCloud breathed heavily right next to her, back against the crate. Without warning, he reached for her vest, pulled out the grenade, and stood before flinging it at something on the other side. She heard the explosion, then silence.
She heard a weak cry from one of the other crates. "Miss Lynx? Miss Lynx?"
Miyu relaxed at the sound of Peppy Hare's voice. Her legs ached as she staggered up, steadying herself on the crate. She saw one of Hare's arms hanging limp at the shoulder, still holding on to a blaster rifle as its barrel scraped the floor. But he stood, almost, propping himself up against a wall with a paw. "Leon. Did you make sure you got Leon?"
"Yeah, I-" Miyu turned towards the spot where she left him, and felt a sensation like swallowed ice as she no longer saw him there.
"Hang on, what the hell-" Falco's brow shot up as the squad of red triangles on his HUD split up, with one half flying towards the Great Fox and the rest towards the freighter.
"Falco..." Peppy's voice crackled over the net. "They're down. We got Fox. We have the ship again-"
He didn't even need another word. Falco hit the throttle and hared after the fighter with a black rose on its fuselage, ignoring the white dog as she yelled at him to wait.
Falco painted a target on the black fighter as he saw it spit out two missiles. He felt his skin crawl as the missiles arced, not towards him...
...but instead into the freighter.
The freighter's engine cones lit up with a flare, two of them sheared off from the missile strike. The strike craft turned away and sped off. Falco felt something cold in his gut as the HUD reported its distance with a number that slowly climbed upwards.
He heard a curse over the net as his HUD blatted emergency warnings as the Great Fox took fire from other fighters. One of them made a strange, low arc, at a fair distance below the Great Fox's hangar before abruptly stopping, turning, and speeding away. Another fighter took shots at the Great Fox's flank before two Arwings chased it off. Every pirate sped away at top speed in different directions.
Falco watched the freighter listing before turning to face the Arwings and sinking into his seat. Passing both wings over his face, he whispered a curse that ended in a yell.
Falco Lombardi sat there, silently, as the rest of the Star Fox team, plus Fay, gathered to land in the hangar. Letting his head bang against the headrest, he murmured something up at the ceiling of his canopy that no one else would hear.
Miyu Lynx woke up without even knowing she fell asleep.
She groggily blinked the sleep from her eyes as she sat up in her bunk. Turning to the side, she stared at her reflection in the mirror. The dark circles around her eyes seemed deeper, and when she turned, she felt the dull sting of skin tearing on her back.
She reached for a bottle of painkillers, an automatic motion where she didn't even remember the last time she took them. Maybe yesterday. Maybe an hour ago. She didn't care, she just wanted to put in the bare minimum effort to make the pain go away.
A knock came at the door. Miyu flicked her ears at the sound, swung her legs off the bed, and made sure her shirt hid her bandages.
She tried to avoid looking disappointed when the white dog answered her. She seemed to talk at a space right above Miyu's shoulder. "We're needed in the galley. Come on."
The dog spun on one foot and already reached the end of the hallway before Miyu grabbed a jacket and followed her. When Miyu wondered why one of her legs involuntarily moved faster than the other, she tested it against a step, and a tight pain across her ankle answered why.
Miyu hid her limp as she got around the corner, only to come to an abrupt stop when she saw who else sat in the room, forming a semicircle with some sitting on galley chairs bolted to the ground, and others sitting on folding chairs with noticeable patches of rust that ate away at their edges.
Most looked haggard. The frog leaned forwards, resting his elbows on his knees as he passed a gloved hand over his face, rubbing his eyes. Falco leaned against the wall, wings folded, staring at the floor. Fay looked noticeably better, but still out of place: she wore a luxuriously soft-looking, cream-colored shirt with dark jeans and shoes that matched her fur. Even then, she looked uncomfortable, and every time she made eye contact with anyone, she looked away just as quickly.
Peppy folded both paws over his lap, with one arm noticeably wrapped in thick bandages. He raised his eyes to Miyu's before anyone else did.
Fox McCloud stood first the moment Miyu walked in, and now everyone turned to face her. He wore a set of aviator sunglasses, and one of the spaces behind one of the lenses looked noticeably packed with gauze and bandages. Other, smaller bandages crowded his fingers, arms, and muzzle. Miyu flattened her ears immedately, a little self-conscious from all the attention, then quietly found a seat.
Fox started first. He took a few steps, wincing, until he reached the center of the semicircle. He looked down for a few seconds before turning his gaze towards the rest of the room. He scratched the back of his head, and paused before speaking. "I better start with the truth,"
Flicking her ears, she listened as Fox kept going, "I don't know what our pay situation is going to be like. We got the freighter linked up to us so we can pull it towards our destination, and at this point, we're close enough to Navy patrol routes to not need to worry anymore. But still. They got us."
Miyu noticed some gaps in Fox's teeth, near the back. Plus one canine looked chipped down to a stump. He settled his gaze on her, and at first, she bristled, flattening her ears before she met the gaze sent at her through the sunglasses.
"But we're all still here." She blinked as Fox's muzzle turned into the smallest curl of a smile.
An audible sigh of relief exhaled from Peppy Hare. Falco said nothing, but watched Fox McCloud. Slippy sat straight and put his cap back on his head.
"At the end of the day, that's more important than anything. We'll get the cargo to the destination, and we'll find a way through. Beltino's been good to us, and I doubt he'll leave us out to dry, even now." Miyu caught a hopeful nod from the white dog as she leaned in.
"But on top of that, there's something I'd like to do. Fay, could you step up here, please?"
Fay froze in place, eyes darting around as she placed a paw over her chest. She stood up in a slow motion, dusted off her jeans, and stepped up towards Fox. "Go ahead and hold out your paw, please."
The white dog did as she was asked, but with a slow, uncertain motion of her arm. She halted and stopped as though she changed her mind about how she'd do it a couple times. Folding her arms, Miyu watched as she blinked away some of the sleep that gummed her eyelids. Fox put one of his own paws under her outstretched one, reached into his jacket with the other, and pressed something small and metal into her paw.
She drew it towards herself uncertainly, holding up the small pin by its nose and tail. "You kept the pirates at bay long enough to buy time for us. You went toe-to-toe with some of Star Wolf's own raiders, and you held your own. I talked to the team, and we decided to recognize that. I want to invite you to the Star Fox team. I think we could use someone like you."
Miyu snorted softly, but not softly enough to avoid a sidelong glance from Peppy. She turned away to keep watching, and scowled as the white dog brought a paw to her mouth, looked back at Fox, and let her paw fall away with an open mouth in its place.
"I never...I never thought about it. Captain McCloud." She spun the pin in her paws, studying it. The look in her eyes told a different story.
"Could I...have some time to think about this? I wasn't planning on anything like this to happen at all." Her answer earned a small scoff from Falco. If the dog heard it, she didn't show it.
"Of course. But we do mean it when we say you really helped us out. On behalf of the team, thank you." Peppy smiled at the dog, clapping first, followed by Slippy's own applause, plus Fox's. Falco only joined in after shaking his head.
Miyu resisted clapping, keeping her arms folded as she glanced at the clock. As Fay walked past without giving her a look, Miyu already felt ready to go back to her bunk and fall asleep-
"Miyu, could you stand up here?"
Miyu froze, feeling everyone's eyes on her. She looked around, and she saw Fox's face pointed directly at her. Something felt wrong about this. Peppy motioned his paw upwards, and after a few seconds, Miyu stood stiffly, and took a step towards Fox.
She took a deep breath, facing him with her ears straight and her best deadpan expression. If he was gonna give her a pin and ask her to join-
"Miyu Lynx, the last time we met, we were on opposite sides of the fight-"
There it is. She flicked her ears and let her lips curl into the start of a scowl.
"You tried to kill me before."
Only after you tried to kill me.
"I think it's safe to say that we probably won't get along."
No shit.
"And on top of all of that,"
Here it comes. One more slap across the face. Another reminder that I'm-
"You saved my life."
Miyu found her ears unflattening. Her tail bristled without her knowing it until now. With a blink, she narrowed her eyes.
Fox reached for his own pin: a tarnished, slightly bent one on his jacket. He took it off and held it up in front of her. "This belonged to my dad. The first member of Star Fox. I'd like you to have it."
He held it in front of her, palm facing up, with the pin right in the middle. Glancing down at the pin, she looked back up at Fox McCloud. For a second, she almost thought she could see behind the sunglasses.
She reached out slowly, gingerly, to pick up the pin. The point felt bent. The winged fox's pinions looked flat against the body. It shone unevenly in many places.
Miyu looked up, uncertain. Fox took a deep breath. "That pin means a lot to me. What you did took a heroic amount of effort, skill, and absolutely incredible personal risk. I don't have any medals, but then again, what you did is something I can't really repay, even if I had some. It's not as big a reward as saving a life, and I feel bad for asking, but now I can't really think of anything else to say. We need people like you. I know you walked away before, but...Miyu Lynx, would you like to join us?"
For a second, Miyu heard nothing else. She just stared at the pin, and then back at the fox. She said words that she immediately hated herself for saying.
"Can...can I think about this?"
Fox took a moment to nod, and she turned away, catching a glimpse of everyone else's faces. Peppy leaned forward, clapping first, then standing. Slippy nodded uncertainly when she looked at him, then followed Peppy's lead and clapped while standing as Fox joined in. Fay, for once, looked her in the eyes and started to clap slowly before getting up. Falco's seat stood empty.
As she sat back down, Fox continued his speech, thanking everyone on the team, talking about what they would do next, and she heard none of it.
All she focused on sat in the palm of her paw, with shining wings.
Epilogue
Miyu sat at edge of the hangar. Walking to the force field took a little more conscious effort now, since she had to avoid blaster craters in the floor. She already landed on her limp, and she wasn't in a hurry to walk back through it again.
She could see the stars from here. Staring into the void, at the glittering space beyond, helped her quiet some of the loudest thoughts in her mind. The alone time mattered a lot to her, for no other reason than it gave her space to think.
"Somehow, I'm not surprised I'd find you here." Miyu flicked her ears at the sound of Peppy's voice. Looking over her shoulder, she acknowledged the hare's presence with a look, then turned back to face the sea of stars.
The hare huffed, letting his wheeze end with a grunt as he got to one knee, followed by the other, before leaning back to sit by the force field. Miyu winced at the sound before turning away.
Peppy must've noticed that, then laughed so softly Miyu almost mistook it for another sigh. The old hare scratched behind his ears. "This kind of work's hell on my knees, y'know?"
Wincing again, Miyu opened her mouth to speak until Peppy fanned a paw at her with a smile that displayed his chipped buck teeth. "Easy, easy, I'm just messin' with you. We did what we had to. Now we have a few prisoners with bounties we can hopefully look up. And knowing Beltino, I think we can still expect to get paid,"
Turning to the void, he added, "You picked a nice spot."
Turning away, she didn't answer. Licking his lips, Peppy glanced at some of the higher stars. "Fox does something similar."
Miyu tilted her head forward with a long inhale of breath and flattened ears. For several heartbeats, Peppy said nothing before turning back towards the stars and murmuring, "That pin means a lot. Even if it probably doesn't mean all that much to you-"
"Look, I-" Miyu started to speak before she caught the look on Peppy's face. He looked singed in a few spots, with a few pencil-neat scars along his cheeks from some kind of injury she could only guess at. Reddish-brown eyes stared back at her, colored like leaves about to hit fall. He didn't search her features this time. He just watched her, quietly, waiting for her answer without even a ghost of a smile.
Sighing, she finished, "-I don't know. I...just don't know."
"Don't know about what?" The answer got under her skin, even if it sounded almost sincere.
She sat straighter with a scowl starting to form on her muzzle, right before she saw his face, and let her impatience fade. A little. She turned back towards the stars with a scoff so quiet it sounded like a weak cough. "I...don't belong here. I don't belong..."
Her words ended there. She spent every second after that finding something to follow it up with. Searching her mind, and maybe a little deeper than that, she couldn't come up with any words to follow. Shutting her muzzle, Miyu just turned away.
Peppy nodded slowly, leaving the silence in place before he dotted it with a thoughtful hum. "Maybe you're right about that. I'm not in your shoes, I can't tell you if you do. But if you decide to leave, I would like that pin back. It's...got a special meaning to us."
Miyu flicked her ears as she tried to remember where she put it. Peppy interrupted that thought. "That said...would you join us for dinner?"
The question caught her off-guard. Every other feeling churning inside her dissolved as she watched Peppy Hare stand up.
Scratching an ear, he smiled. "Fox's cooked some baked potatoes, and he's probably pulling them out now. You're welcome to one."
Miyu opened her mouth to speak, and again, couldn't find the words. The cold chill she felt during the entire mission, the one that ruled her thoughts, that guided her unease, that pushed her farthest away from everyone, seemed to slow. Not gone, but something started to melt it.
It lasted less than a second before her words brought it back. "Do you even want me there?"
"Wouldn't offer if I didn't." Peppy slid both paws into his pockets. "You can do what you like, but for what it's worth:"
He smiled wide, this time. "Thank you. Miyu. You have a good night."
Peppy turned away, taking care to avoid snagging a boot on any of the craters. Again, Miyu still felt the cold, ugly feeling pulling her away, but something new joined it, overshadowing it.
That cold feeling dogged her for most of her life. She struggled to find any time where it didn't pull at her thoughts. It ranged from an ugly pressure she could feel in her chest, a knee-jerk reflex that she relied on whenever she panicked, to a dull roar that blew her thoughts towards things that let her keep her distance. This time, a new feeling surfaced. Something hollow, near her memories. A space that reminded her of a doorway about to close. A hunger for something to fill that emptiness in before it got set in stone.
And with that, Miyu stood.
And with that, the second story's done! Up next, I'll probably throw in a chapter or two before I work on number three. I appreciate the patience y'all have shown me, and thank you for all the time y'all spent reading the words I put here.
Now, for reviews:
Nail Strafer: You have a point about this arc feeling like the first arc again, I'll need to come up with something better for the next one. I also didn't mean for y'all to think the big guy is the one with the smoker's voice: the one who unbuckles himself to stand is the guy with that voice. The big guy is just the one in power armor, and he gets smoked. I'll go back and make that clearer.
NadaYNadie: I appreciate your kind words about the action scenes I write. I'm an action movie guy at heart, and I want to make sure that any action I write stays interesting. They can get pretty dull in books, and I want to make sure I write things that keep the readers interested.
Elarix: It always feels good to know that folks like the action, and that they like the drama between the characters. I lean towards the idea that drama between characters, especially when they're at odds with each other, makes their personalities more distinct. And thanks for pointing out that sentence in the last chapter. I'll go ahead and update that.
Thanks again, y'all! You'll see some more pretty soon.