Chapter V
Adrenaline soared through Eric's battered body. He didn't know how much more he could take, but he felt he could take quite a bit more.
He stood up straight, facing Sanskort and his long-range implement of destruction. Bending over, ready for the pull of the trigger, Eric paused to anticipate where Sanskort was going to fire. Eyes intent on Sanskort's gun and hand on his sword, Eric gazed intently at Sanskort as the two engaged in a staring contest to determine who would act first.
Sanskort flinched. Half his body seemed to shudder when his gangly finger pulled the trigger. Eric was saved by both the warning and the slow speed of the missle. Eric cought out of the corner of his eye as the rocket hit the top of a mountain and caused a small avalanche.
Eric saw his chance. He dashed at Sanskort, drawing his blade. Sanskort's bulbous eyes widened as he abandoned reloading the rocket launcher to roll out of the way of a clumsily-aimed swing. Spinning around, Eric's eyes caught something odd.
Sanskort was shapeshifting! But into what?
Eric paused to see the form Sanskort was using instead of his own. His bald, round head ridden with visible veins shrank and turned fleshy-colored. Dark, brown hair sprouted up as the gangly arms became stronger and more sure of themselves. Sanskort seemed to be getting slightly taller, his skin was going from a clammy blue-green to a pasty white. His fingers shortened, as did his neck. And, strangely, an object seemed to be coming out from the back of his combat vest. But when all was transformed, Eric saw himself staring at... himself...
Sanskort ripped off the now-ill-fitting combat vest as a flaming sword fell to the Great Fox hull. Before it could slide off, Sanskort put his foot down and flipped it into his hand. Eric gaped as he saw an exact replica in appearance of his sword. But was it the same in function? He was about to find out the hard way.
By now, the doppelganger-turned Eric was examining Murasma-clone with fascination. "But this would mean... impossible..." He looked at the sword, then at Eric. "This is more than I could have ever dreamed..." Part of a facade of bloodthirstiness seemed to drop as genuine wonder took place. Sanskort suddenly seemed to realize where he was, then turned back at Eric. "Tell you what; I'll do you a favor," Sanskort said, the angry tone back in his voice. "I'll help you out with what this sword has to offer," and with that leapt forward, plunging forward. Eric, in his weary state, only just manage to slide to the side, moving away from where Sanskort attacked.
Eric rolled off to the side several times before readying his sword and facing his assailant. Snapping the blade off, he heaved it at Sanskort with all of his might, missing Sanskort by several inches in the process.
Seeing his temporarily unarmed opponent, Sanskort charged with the Murasma copy. Eric ducked the first horizontal swing, but Sanskort had a surprise with the second one.
Sanskort paused for a brief moment before bringing it down with a crushing vertical slice. What made it unusual, though, was that the flame on the sword increased it's size drastically, increasing to the size of the average zanbatou. Eric's feet were singed by the blistering wall, the new size of Sanskort's edge made.
Pulling out of his roll, Eric held up the handle of his sword and caught Murasma on it's return flight, and closed with Sanskort in a brutal exchange of dracocite-on-dracocite.
Eric came off the worse in the struggle, and was forced back several paces. He was already close to the edge, and his back heel was standing on air. Sanskort approached with an odd expression between hatred and pity on his face. Shaking his head, he made for the final swing.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, the Great Fox suddenly lowered rapidly, getting close to the ground and throwing Sanskort off balance. Eric had already gone into a balance crouch in preparation for any more moves, and seeing Sanskort struggling for footing, he seized his chance. Grabbing Sanskort by the hand not holding the Murasma copy, he threw Sanskort (who, in Eric's body, was not that heavy) over his shoulder and off the Great Fox.
Over the back of his shoulder, Eric saw Sanskort roll along the ground; the tactic the Great Fox used had put the distance from the ground at non-lethal levels. They were rid of the shape changer, and Eric almost breathed a sigh of relief when a cry of help brought him back to Earth.
"Help me!"
"Shit!" Remembering what he had to do, he dashed for the side of the ship where Fox was knocked off. Reaching down, he grabbed Fox's hand and pulled him to safety, barely making it in time before a laser from a ship above blew a sizeable hole in the Great Fox armor. Looking up, the duo saw the Cerberus and three Wolfen II's.
Dodging a vicious assault of lasers, Eric and Fox dashed to the hangar entry in the back of the Great Fox. Grabbing their ships, they flew out to engage Star Wolf in aerial combat.
SWISH.
Scales had swung so close to Sarah that in ducking, her shoulder was nicked by Scales' blade. She evaded backwards, and hoisted her bow to find Scales had already closed the gap. The General reached for her with his hook hand, and this time, he didn't miss.
The iron claw made it's lesson immediately apparent as it clutched Sarah, cutting her deeply and threatening to dislocate ribs. Scales shook his hand back and forth with zealous fervor, Sarah howling out in pain.
Reaching for an arrow in the hip quiver, she managed to pierce Scales' wrist with it. The sudden shock caused him to drop Sarah as she limped away, but Scales would not be held at bay for much longer.
Scales pulled the arrow out of his wrist with a sickening sound not unlike the squelch you get from stepping in mud. Biting the tip of the arrow off, he rounded on Sarah, fury plastered on his face.
Another cataclysmic barrage of sword swings later, Scales had Sarah cornered into a veritable cubicle of computers. "Tao, ximud!" Scales yelled out in exasperation as Sarah barely dodged another swing. Sarah herself was getting so weary she couldn't even comprehend what Scales said, and hit the wall behind her when everything lost all hue to it, an invisible detachement of Sarah's eyes looking at the central computer in the room. And then, that's when she knew what to do…
Taking quick aim, she let loose an explosive arrow at the central computers. Scales, seeing Sarah raise her bow, brought his sword down hard. The arrow made contact with the main computer terminal. There was a bright flash of light, and all was black.
When Sarah came to shortly after, all she could feel was an incredible weight and a sharp pain in her legs. Scales had taken the full force of the explosion, and in a sad irony saving Sarah's life. Not without consequence, however. Scales' claw hand had pierced both legs and a blood pool was starting to accumulate.
Heaving ho, Sarah squirmed her way out of Scales' weight. Air flooded Sarah's lungs as the heavy sack of flesh pinning her to the floor slid off of her with a sound akin to hitting a ripe cantaloupe with a sledgehammer. Whatever happened when the arrow hit the computers, it mutilated Scales; so much skin had peeled off that Sarah could see Scales' spine and half the muscles through a hole the size of three watermelons. On top of that, Scales was going to need a new claw hand, assuming he survived. That alone was unlikely.
Sarah was about to hustle and leave when a glistening caught her eye. Turning to the left, she peered through the shades on the window and was taken aback by what she saw.
A huge tower materialized out of thin air. Several plane wrecks could be seen, suggesting that they had flown into the invisible tower, not realizing it was there. The top had the enclosed space similar to that of a bell tower on top, but the stairs up were on the exterior as opposed to the interior. An omniboding presence emanated from the tower that drew Sarah closer – and sparked unyielding loathing from Vixy. Checking the supply of arrows, Sarah walked out of the lab and towards the Tower of Ire.
Eric was more than happy to get in the protection of a vehicle. After all, he had gotten shot, slashed, and burned in the last few hours and his skin couldn't take it. At least now it'd be a lifeless hunk of metal taking the blows for him.
Fox, on the other hand, had his guard up. He knew the kind of threat that the Wolfen II's posed, and being two on four, the odds were stacked against them. Gritting his teeth, Fox tightened his grip on the flight stick and hit the booster.
One of the Wolfen II's came flying out of nowhere and started shooting on Eric's tail. He frantically mashed the button he presumed to be the one for the barrel roll when the brakes activated. He couldn't remember the cockpit button!
Eric, try that button… James started. Eric pushed several of the buttons in the direction that James seemed to be pointing until finally he managed to shake the Wolfen II. Unfortunately, the Silent Arrow was now in a nosedive.
Fox had problems of his own. The Great Fox had the Cerberus stalemated, but it wouldn't be long before the weapons of the Cerberus had the shields of the Great Fox beat, and a 1 on 2 fight is something no one looks forward to. Letting loose a bomb, he saw the impact damage significantly one of the Wolfen II's; Fox couldn't tell which.
Eric pulled up and saw all three Wolfen II's in his sights, and the opportunity was too great to miss. Letting loose all three bombs in reserve at strategic areas, bomb mushroom cloud flew. Victory seemed at hand, but…
"I missed?!?" Eric shrieked at the dashboard. Not entirely true; he did graze some of Pigma's shields, but Eric had made a critical mistake; he had forgotten to take into account the fact that Silent Arrow pre-packaged bombs can't be pre-detonated. Pigma was now taking out his fury on the inexperienced pilot.
Wolf and Andrew had Fox cornered in the middle of a handicap dogfight to make matters worse, leaving Eric to fend for himself. "This ends now, Fox." Wolf said. His voice was not even raised; rather, it was that of a hideously depressed person committing himself to one final project. And with that, he redoubled his efforts. Andrew, who could barely fly a plane, flew over to pick on Eric, letting Wolf have his grudge match with the flying fox of Corneria.
Time to put the Silent Arrow's maneuverability to good use. Playing a game of chicken with Andrew, Eric had it on top speed. Seconds before impact, Eric yanked the stick and went on it's side, grazing Andrew's ship. Rolling around again, he set forth the laser volley at Andrew's ship, hitting the shield's head-on. Each laser packed little punch, but the Silent Arrow had near rapid-fire capabilities. Andrew broke off feeling the burn.
"STOP BLOWING HOLES IN MY SHIP!" Andrew yelled, throwing a mini temper tantrum in the cockpit. Eric was too busy keeping his eyes on the sky and swerving randomly to dodge Pigma's laser shots to smirk. Fox was flying by and let loose a bomb into Andrew's engine rear. The back of the ship exploded as Andrew's ship careened into a gorge. Last thing from his ship before it exploded was "Uncle Andross! No!"
Eric silently thanked Fox as he pulled the Silent Arrow into a hover and stared Pigma down. A glance of fear crossed Pigma's face as Eric stared with a new determination.
"Who… What are you?" Pigma asked. A few seconds later, Pigma saw the old fire… the fire of that which he betrayed… "No… it can't be!"
Eric hit the button on his wristband and advanced slowly; Pigma seemed paralyzed. The facial features of James McCloud laced over Eric's face at the speed of the Silent Arrow's lumbering pace.
"No… you're dead!" Pigma gasped.
"I would have thought you'd have known this small fact after watching your leader pull it out of his nonexistent ass time and time again," Eric spat. He then let James take over.
Pigma glanced at Wolf's ship. "Your other master, Dengar," James said with a dangerous calm. "The one who always finds a way to reappear after every fatal defeat. Now, Pigma. You betrayed your team that day. Now…"
"…Justice has come!" Eric finished, more out of James' finishing speech than his own will. The transformed youth started charging a laser as Pigma fired every shot he had, each one glancing off of the shield thanks to the defensive maneuvers. Eric/James let go of the explosive charge shot and watched as Pigma's ship disappeared in the flames of a loud bang.
Pigma finished, he started looking up at the dual with Fox and Wolf, both were at their peak, ships looking like they weren't going to last another laser. Fox fired a charge shot at Wolf and the battered engine caught fire. Wolf noticed his ship's fatal damage and went on a collision course with Fox.
"There's no way you're surviving this time, Fox. If I die, you'll scream with me in the afterlife!" A split second later, half of Fox's ship was gone in a flash of fire. Fox's arm could be seen in the huge hole Wolf made in his crash to earth.
There was no time to lose. Powering up engines, Eric took a wild gamble and got underneath Fox's ArWing. Parking it in a hover, he opened the air shield and hopped on the small wing and stretched his hand for the falling Fox.
"Fox!"
"Father!"
Sarah was at the top of the tower. She glanced back at a moment at the hazardous stairway which nearly claimed her life thrice over, but she didn't have any time to dwell on it now. Inside the room at the top where the bell would be in a bell tower, there was nothing but a pit that went so far down Sarah couldn't see the bottom. Vixy's intangible fur was still riled from the very presence of this tower.
"There's something down there…" Vixy said as she forcibly took over Sarah's body.
"Hey!" Sarah protested. Taking Beamstriker, Vixy shot an arrow at the edge of the pit, then grabbed the rear of the arrow. Out the back emerged what looked like a bright, yellow, glowing stick, only it bent like a rope. "What the hell is this?"
"Rope arrow," Vixy said using Sarah's mouth. It was yet another feeling Sarah would have to get used to anytime soon. Slinging Beamstriker over her back again, Vixy clutched the energy rope and jumped down, the rope acting as a bungee, slowing her fall and growing much larger as they fell.
As the plummeted in this unknown abyss, the yellowish orange flame on Beamstriker's blades started to recede into the pointed edges. Vixy didn't notice this and when the flames totally disappeared, they stopped going down.
"This is a heck of a pit," Sarah commented lamely, back in control and clinging the rope arrow for dear life.
"I still can't see any light or anything," Vixy started when suddenly the energy rope snapped. Almost three seconds of free-fall and then…
The universe stopped…
Surrounded by a green mist, Sarah floated in and then came to a dead stop. Climbing to her feet, she was shocked to discover that there wasn't a tangible floor. Testing the boundaries of reality by jumping up and down, there didn't seem to be any hazard of standing there except that there wasn't a way to escape.
"Damn. Not who I was expecting." The big booming voice nearly knocked her off of her feet. Sarah turned around to see a small ape wearing a lab coat, face mostly hidden by a baseball cap for the Venomian Verve Pipes. "You wouldn't be interested in helping me find the one I'm seeking, would you? Goes by the name of McCloud?" At the mention of the family name, Sarah and Vixy stiffened. "Who are you?" Sarah managed to stutter.
"I'm no one important," the ape said in the magnified voice. "But I'm looking for someone who is. You can't not know him. So do you know where he is?"
"Show your face." Vixy commanded through Sarah's body.
"You don't want that." He said with a commanding formality.
"What makes you think I don't?" Vixy said, Sarah's voice ice.
"If I show my face, you may not see… what you think you would see. What you would want to see. Capiche?"
How can people speak French if this is outer space and there is no France? Sarah wondered inwardly. "I don't trust the masked. Show yourself." Vixy commanded.
"Fine. But remember. I offered a peaceful alternative. You won't like this." He ripped his lab coat off and presented a gruesome sight.
Underneath the coat, there was every single appendage imaginable. Spike-lined tentacles, heads with coals of fire in their mouths, arms with eight long, spindly fingers… it was enough to make someone lose their lunch. Even Sarah and Vixy, experiencing what they did in the last few days, gave a dry heave.
"You see what my experiments have wraught me?!?" He cried out. "The radiation given off by the equipment I've been using recently has mutated me. Twisted my body. Killing me. A painful death and I've never relieved my need to have revenge on the cause.
"But I couldn't do it alone. And then, as luck would call it, another organization made it's appearance and is supplying Venom with very powerful weaponry and a cure for me, in exchange for our allegiance. And when Lylat is mine, they will cure me… of this…" He made a gesture to his deformed torso."And before the cure," He went on, "I have to use this power to destroy the final threat to a cement rule… Fox McCloud." The final slot clicked in Vixy's brain.
"Andross!"
But he didn't look like Andross at all. Minus the coat and cap, all of his physical features were marred to the point of non-realization.
And as you can expect, coming face to face with your killer isn't a therapeutic experience. In the back of her mind, Sarah could feel Vixy's mind take a stumble. She would be doing this one, fighting her beliefs superimposed on her by her parents and this mutated being, alone.
"You want to know exactly who is pulling me out of this… immense barricade to success?" Andross said. Sarah had to cartwheel in mid sentence, as Andross' pause was used to fling a fireball out of one of the heads on his torso's mouth. "I believe that they have already attacked you to attempt to put you out of the picture. They call themselves The End, led by a man named Mordrer."
"Is that a fact?" Sarah asked, hoisting her bow. Before she could move, Andross bit a hole in his regular arm with one of the heads on his torso and splashed the dull emerald-colored blood on Sarah. Seconds later, it caught fire, forcing Sarah to miss by several feet as she beat at the fire to put it out. "You're… unreal… A creature of fiction…" Sarah gasped.
"Is that a fact?" Andross said in a mockingly high voice. "I am tired of the peace that is Corneria. Do you know what I dream of?" He added, a dangerous calm touching his voice. When Sarah failed to answer, Andross continued. "It is a world where I don't have to be looking over my shoulder for someone who is trying to overthrow my experiments. I don't want Lylat control; that's just an unfortunate side effect of the ability to research what I want when I want."
"That's not true," Sarah started. "You've killed too many people to not be wanted by Lylat. Why were so many deaths necessary?"
"They weren't. That's another unfortunate side effect; they would see what I have in mind and they would try to stop me." He added more effect by crossing four pairs of arms and spitting some more blood out of the previous self-inflicted wound. "Something I don't understand though," He went on, as Sarah nocked an arrow, "Is how did you discover this? There's no way to disable the hologram."
"Your friends must have lied. All it took was an explosion in the computer labs to allow us to see it."
Andross paused, then rounded on Sarah again. "But it was a personal power source," he thought. "The only way… No…" It hit Andross. Fury bubbled over his consciousness. This wasn't possible. No. It was. He was blinded and did not notice it… and he was about to take it all out on the creature that had so carelessly blundered into his lair.
"NO!" He grabbed Sarah by the neck and she immediately felt her body temperature rising. What was it… hot… sweaty… weak… a heat effect… It was blocking out her vision…
Her consciousness was ebbing… her arms floundered as she kicked around… extreme heat started as her clothes caught fire… and suddenly, the pressure stopped.
Sarah's first instinct was to hit the ground and the time-honored tradition of putting out fires: stop, drop, and roll. Skin charred to a robust red, she paused for a moment to look at what caused Andross to drop her from his pyrokinetic grip.
One of the blades on Beamstriker had pierced through one of Andross' heads. Walking gingerly towards the bow, she pulled it out of Andross' forehead.
"You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?" a voice boomed out after Sarah had turned around, limping towards an exit. Out of instinct, Sarah nocked an arrow, turned, and fired all in one motion. Andross caught it with one of his hands. "I told you. I can't let you live." A moment later, the arrow exploded, taking out a majority of Andross's heads and the arm he was using. As the lower half of Andross' mutated body fell to its knees, the green mist that surrounded them turned into a dangerous red. In this swirling sensory overload, Sarah could hear Vixy's mind get back to its feet.
"We've got to ge-" No sooner had Vixy gotten that far into her sentence when a blinding white light was all that they saw.
"Fox!"
"Father!"
Eric had the slimmest of grips on Fox's arm. And due to the sweat coating each person's fur, the grip would not last long. Mashing the remote control for the jet in his pocket, Eric struggled to bring the ship down. But the hold that Eric and Fox had on each other was weakening.
100 feet to the ground. That fall would kill a man. It was down to holding onto hands, not arms.
80 feet to the ground. Fingers were all they had to hold on to. Eric nudged the ship into a nosedive.
40 feet.
At thirty feet, the combination of the acceleration and the somewhat poor upper body strength of James proved too much. Fox slipped and started to plummet what one could only hope was a nonlethal fall.
When the dust settled, Sarah found herself standing on the rubble of the giant tower that she had just climbed on top of. Stumbling around, she wasn't quite sure what the hell she had just experienced… pain? Relief? She didn't know. But she was back in something that looked like reality, choking on Venom's atmosphere… and there didn't seem to be any gunfire going on anymore… Did they win? Suddenly, a loud "OOMPH!" could be heard behind her. Turning around, Fox McCloud was rolling down a hill with both legs bent at odd angles, as he was screaming in agony. A small, sleek ship could be accelerating downward as it was starting to land at the flat plateau at the top of the ship.
Sarah dashed to Fox's side as Eric tripped over his own two feet in his hurry to get out of the ship. He was already back in human form as he rushed to Fox's side. Eric looked up at Sarah and at the numerous ship crashes, vehicle explosions and fallen bodies that littered Venomian surface. Victory calls could be heard in the far distance, but a nagging thought still tugged at Sarah.
They called this "winning". Victory or not, due to the casualties… hundreds of good, hard-working furs… and Krystal…
They had still lost.