Cowboy Star Fox
* * * * *
Pigma sat on the other side of the elaborate desk with
gold-gilded edges, with a carcinogenic cigarette in his hand.
Sunlight streamed in from the heavly mullioned window,
silhouetting the figure of the person sitting behind the desk in
a gold-gilted chair with velvet arm rests and back cushion.
"I wish you would quit that nasty habit," growled
the figure opposite Pigma. "As if being fat wasn't enough,
do you have to smoke those things?"
The fat porcine took another puff of his cigarette, before
removing the smouldering white stick from his mouth.
"As you said, I'm going to die from a heart attack anyway, so what's the problem?" he asked the figure on the other side of his desk.
"You do know they can also make you impotent, don't
you?" asked the figure on the other side of the desk.
"Of course, in your case that would probably be a good
thing. No sane woman alive would want to see you in the
nude." There was a silent pause, as the figure reached out
for a crystal glass and raised it to his furry muzzle.
Most people knew this person as General Ookami, the Leader of
the Gospel Army, but Pigma Dengar knew him by another name.
Ookami drained the glass of its clear, brown liquid and then
placed it back on the desk. A smile spread across his furry
muzzle.
"Pigma, this is about Fox, isn't it?" he asked the fat porcine.
"How'd you know?" asked Pigma in complete surprise.
Ookami laughed, as he rose from his seat and walked around the
desk towards Pigma. His voice had a thick, rich and cultured tone
to it, as if he had been well educated. It sounded very much like
the accent with which Krystal spoke in– a Cerinian accent.
"Look into my eyes, Pigma," said Ookami, as he placed his arms on either arm of Pigma's chair and leaned in close towards the porcine. The grey-furred wolf looked straight into Pigma with his eyes that were so dark brown, they were almost black.
Incidentally, the military uniform he wore was also black but
not of the same pitch black as his pupils. It was a
Neo-Napoleonic-style military uniform with red cuffs and a red
collar decorated with gold thread. A white cape that was purple
on the inner side was draped over the left shoulder and threaded
through the left tassel-decorated epaulette of his jacket. And in
the round collar that stuck up and seemed to cover his throat and
suffocate him, was a white cravat.
"You know that one of them is a fake, don't you?"
asked Ookami curiously. "Well, let me tell you this. One eye
sees the future, the other sees the past."
"Wolf, don't creep me out like that," protested
Pigma, as he tried his best to shrink away from the General.
Ookami, better known as Wolf O'Donnell, laughed as he backed
off.
"Pigma, let me tell you this," he said, as he walked back round to his side of his desk, "McCloud is no fool. No matter what you do, you will not be able to kill him." He reached up and undid the clasp of his epaulette and took the cape off, slinging it over the back of his chair. Wolf then sat back into his chair. "That honour is reserved for me and for me alone. Only I can kill Fox McCloud."
Wolf closed his eyes and smiled, as he placed his gloved hands
on his desk. It seemed as if he was meditating or in deep
thought.
"If you ever try to kill him, that will be the end of you, Pigma," he told the porcine. "Your actions will never amount to anything, Pigma, and nor will you. Don't forget that. Don't ever forget who is in charge. Now, please leave. I have much work to get on with."
"Sure," replied Pigma, as he rose up from his seat.
He took his cigarette and stubbed it against O'Donnell's desk and
left it there. "I'll show you," he grumbled under his
breath quietly, as he left O'Donnell's elaborate office.
"McCloud will die and I know just the person to get rid of
him."
* * * * *
Fara rounded the corner and stopped dead in her tracks.
Sitting next to Fox's hospital bed was none other than the
blue-furred vixen, Krystal.
"Oh, I see you're here, Krystal," said Fara, as she made her way into the hospital room. For a moment, she ignored the fact that it was Krystal sitting beside Fox, her Fox. "So, how is he?"
"He's stable now," replied Krystal abruptly. The
vixen had never liked the large-eared Fennec fox. Something about
Fara really bugged Krystal. She thought she heard Fara mumble
something unsettling, but she dismissed it. What she didn't need
at that moment was to get into some kind of cat fight with the
Fennec Fox. "Oh, flowers, how original," stated Krystal
sarcastically, as she watched Fara place them down on the bedside
table.
"I didn't see you bring anything better," retorted
Fara, as she looked around the room. It was almost as if the
vixen hadn't brought a single gift, but she knew that the flowers
in the nearby vase could only have been from Krystal as Katinan
Hospitals were far too cheap to decorate a patient's room with
flowers. "Slut," she murmured under her breath.
"That describes you pretty well," said Krystal
spitefully.
Fara's large ears weren't there just for decoration purposes
and she heard every word that Krystal said.
"You take that back!" she shouted at Krystal, as she grabbed the blue-furred vixen by the collar of her jacket. "You take that back, you boyfriend stealing whore!"
"Hey, the only whore around here is you," retorted
Krystal angrily, and received a slap on the face in response.
"Let go of me, bitch!" Outraged by this, she slapped
Fara on the face.
"Bitch?" shrieked Fara in disbelief.
"And so I tell the guy to..." continued Bill, only
to trail off, as he stopped at the doorway. His eyes were wide in
disbelief. "Fara, Krystal, what the Hell do you two think
you're doing?" he practically screamed. They didn't listen.
"Stop that!" he cried, as he rushed towards them and
tried to separate the two of them. He grabbed Fara's wrist and
attempted to prevent the Fennec fox from clobbering Krystal in
the blue-furred face. "Hey, Slip, come in and give me a hand
here!" he shouted.
Krystal took this opportunity. She flung a punch straight at
Fara.
"Let go of me," cried Fara, as she pulled her wrist
away from Bill.
Bill saw a blue-furred fist head straight for his face, but
was unable to dodge it in time.
The two vixens looked down at Bill, lying prone on the tiled
floor. They then looked back up at each other and sparks of pure
hatred seemed to fly from between their eyes.
"This is your fault!" they screamed at each other simultaneously. "My fault?" The two then screamed at each other again, blaming the other for knocking the grey-furred dog unconscious. Fara and Krystal then went for each other's throats again, yelling insults at one and another.
Slippy stood at the door in complete disbelief. He had never
seen something like this since Fara and Katt last had a
cat-fight.
"I'll just go get a nurse," he said, as he backed out of Fox's room. The amphibian didn't get very far, however, before bumping into someone. He backed off and whirled round. "Oh, I'm sorry, Nurse..." He trailed off and looked for her name badge. "...Julia."
The nurse was a blonde-haired light brown-furred mouse and was
pretty short. In fact, she was as short as Slippy, if such a
thing was possible.
"That's okay," said Nurse Julia with a smile on her face, "but next time be more careful." There was suddenly a loud crash from within Fox's room. "What the Heck is going on in there?" cried Nurse Julia. "Would you excuse me for a moment?" She rushed straight past the frog.
What Julia saw within the room was beyond disbelief. She
rolled up her sleeves in a determined manner and stormed straight
towards Fara and Krystal. The mouse then reached up and grabbed
them both by the ears and pulled them away from Fox's bed and
straight out of the room like a mother pulling a naughty child
away from a forbidden cookie jar.
"What did you two think you were doing?" she cried angrily. "This, if you haven't noticed, is a hospital and it is proper conduct for people in a hospital to be quiet in respect of the patients."
The glare the Nurse gave the two vixens was the Universal
glare of a mother that was 'very disappointed' in her child and
this had the same effect on the two as it would have on any
child.
"I think that it would be best for you to leave now," stated Julia sternly. Her arms were crossed and there was a stern look on her face.
The look on the nurse's face was unmistakable to Krystal. She
had seen such a look on the face of her mother before.
"Very well," she agreed with a nod of her head. "I'll be leaving now."
A frown suddenly appeared on the nurse's head. For the first
time she recognised the jewelry the vixen wore on her head. It
was Cerinian in style.
"Wait a minute, aren't you from the Planet Cerinia?" the mouse asked Krystal.
"That's right," exclaimed Krystal in surprise, as
she turned round to face Julia. "How did you know?" She
couldn't quite understand it. No Lylatian knew about Cerinia so
how was it that this nurse knew about her home planet? "Were
you from Cerinia as well?"
Nurse Julia shook her head in reply.
"No, I'm from the Sekai Foundation, actually," replied Julia. "However, I did visit the planet once when I was younger. It was a very nice planet. Very nice climate too. It's such a shame what happened to it."
"Yes," replied Krystal, as she lowered her head. She
could still remember that awful day when she fled from the Planet
Cerinia. Everyone had died. Absolutely everyone was wiped out.
That included her friends and her family. Slowly, tears began to
form. "Would you excuse me?" she asked, before she
dashed off past the nurse.
Julia watched as Krystal ran down the corridor. The mouse
suspected the blue-furred vixen of something and she knew exactly
what it could have been. She made a mental note to keep any eye
on that girl and confirm her suspicions about the blue-furred
fox.
"Excuse me, Nurse Julia, will Fox be all right?"
asked Slippy, as he approached the mouse.
"He'll be fne, Mr. Toad," replied Julia with a nod
of her head and a large smile on her face. "Don't you worry
about him. I expect that he'll be his old self again in no
time."
As Falco lay there in bed, he began to wonder how the Star
Fox Team would cope. It stank being kept in over night. Sure, it
was just to make sure that the poison had been completely cleared
from his body and that there were no complications, but he hated
it. The avian would rather have been chasing down a badguy and
Katina was full of them. He knew that Katina was a favourite area
of operations for the Lylat Syndicate.
The avian began to wonder how Fox and Peppy were doing. They
were poisoned after him, so they shouldn't have ended up worse
off. Still, Peppy was old and that was a drawback for the hare.
"Hey there, Falco," purred a sultry voice that Falco
recognised all too well.
"Katt?" exclaimed Falco in complete surprise, as he
turned to face the feline. "What are you doing here?"
The pink-furred feline sighed and shook her head, as she made
her way towards the avian's bed. Every time they met it was the
same old routine, especially whenever Falco was near the other
guys.
"Is that anyway to greet a girl?" she asked Falco. "I just thought that I'd come to pay you a visit now. There's no harm in that, now is there, sugar bean?"
She pulled up a chair and sat down right beside Falco.
"So, did ya' hear about the bounty I managed to snag me last week?" asked Katt, as she leaned in close to the avian. "It was a real big 'un for sure. Five hundred thousand Zenny." To Katt, catching criminals was like a competition between her and Falco and somehow, she always managed to land larger rewards than Falco. "You know," began Katt, as she slowly traced circles on Falco's chest, "I could split my recent reward with you, sugar."
"No thanks, Katt," replied Falco spitefully.
"Knowing you, there'd be strings attached."
Katt couldn't understand it. Why was Falco so spiteful towards
her? He had been like this for so long that she couldn't imagine
him in any other way. But she wanted him to be different.
"Falco, I like you," she told him. "Why can't you see that? Why are you so cold to me, Falco?" She shook her head in disbelief, her head lowering. "I love you, sugar, but why can't you love me back?"
There was suddenly a loud explosion that rocked the hospital.
An alarm suddenly went off and it was deafeningly loud.
"Oh my, what was that?" exclaimed Katt, as she rose
from her seat. "I reckon I'd better get going and see what
all that commotion was about." But Falco didn't hear, as the
alarm drowned out her words. "Now you stay put, Falco. I'll
be right back, I promise." Falco protested against her
actions but she didn't listen and couldn't have listened, as by
the time he had opened his beak she was already gone.
She was already half-way down the corridor when she saw the
smoke. It was thick and black and it drifted through the corridor
like a dark serpent. Water sprayed down from the ceiling, from
the activated sprinklers. It drenched everything. Through the
spray, Katt could see a familiar looking amphibian not too far
away.
"Hey, Slippy!" she shouted over the din of the alarm, but still couldn't be heard. "Slippy!" she screamed.
"Hey, Miss, you'd better get out of here!" shouted a
Nurse, as she brushed past Katt. She grabbed Katt and started
dragging her away. "Miss!" she screamed, but it was no
use. She could hardly be heard oer the alarm.
"Let go of me!" protested Katt, but she couldn't be
heard over the racket. "Let go of me!"
Bill looked up at the smoke that billowed out of the
hospital building and the fires that raged within. Half in and
half out of the car, he just looked up at the smoking wreckage of
the hospital room in complete disbelief.
"That was Fox's room, wasn't it?" he asked Fara, as he looked upwards. And he heard the sound of the sirens screaming mournfully from the building. And Bill felt nothing but despair.
It was an incapacitating sorrow and it made him as solid as a
stone statue. All life seemed to flow out of his body, as he saw
the flames rage within the hospital. His eyes turned lifeless and
lost their glistening sheen. Bill was silent in fear. The
canine's mind was silent and it was as still as he was.
How bitter despair tastes. It is like a foul poison that
leaves a nasty taste in the mouth and strangles all life out of
the body. So it was with Bill. So it was with Fara. So it was
with all those that looked on. What was it that drove people to
bomb innocent lives into oblivion? What was the reason for
attacking a hospital full of people that couldn't possibly defend
themselves? And who would sell such parts of explosives to such
people?
"Damn those Gospel bastards," growled Bill all of a
sudden. He slammed the door shut and quickly ran towards the
hospital unbidden. Fox needed saving. The hospital staff needed
saving. More importantly, the patients needed saving.
Yet how sad it is that, in a world where speech is possible,
people have to kill in order to get anyone to notice them.
Perhaps action speaks louder than words and nothing is more
potent than 'boom'.
By Wolf O'Donnell
Author's Note: Star Fox and all related characters (including me) are copyrighted by Nintendo. Scales, Dinosaur Planet and all related characters are copyrighted by Rare. The Gospel Army, Dr. Jerome Kano, the Sekai Foundation and all related characters and places are copyrighted by me. Upon reading any word in this file, you hereby agree to forfeit all your rights to sue me and that I cannot be held liable for any psychological or physical damage caused by the fact that this fanfic contains swearing, graphic scenes of death and violence and the use of British-English Spelling and Grammar.
Episode 7: Ballad of Fallen Angels
"As you said, I'm going to die from a heart attack anyway, so what's the problem?" he asked the figure on the other side of his desk.
"Pigma, this is about Fox, isn't it?" he asked the fat porcine.
"Look into my eyes, Pigma," said Ookami, as he placed his arms on either arm of Pigma's chair and leaned in close towards the porcine. The grey-furred wolf looked straight into Pigma with his eyes that were so dark brown, they were almost black.
"Pigma, let me tell you this," he said, as he walked back round to his side of his desk, "McCloud is no fool. No matter what you do, you will not be able to kill him." He reached up and undid the clasp of his epaulette and took the cape off, slinging it over the back of his chair. Wolf then sat back into his chair. "That honour is reserved for me and for me alone. Only I can kill Fox McCloud."
"If you ever try to kill him, that will be the end of you, Pigma," he told the porcine. "Your actions will never amount to anything, Pigma, and nor will you. Don't forget that. Don't ever forget who is in charge. Now, please leave. I have much work to get on with."
"Oh, I see you're here, Krystal," said Fara, as she made her way into the hospital room. For a moment, she ignored the fact that it was Krystal sitting beside Fox, her Fox. "So, how is he?"
"You take that back!" she shouted at Krystal, as she grabbed the blue-furred vixen by the collar of her jacket. "You take that back, you boyfriend stealing whore!"
"This is your fault!" they screamed at each other simultaneously. "My fault?" The two then screamed at each other again, blaming the other for knocking the grey-furred dog unconscious. Fara and Krystal then went for each other's throats again, yelling insults at one and another.
"I'll just go get a nurse," he said, as he backed out of Fox's room. The amphibian didn't get very far, however, before bumping into someone. He backed off and whirled round. "Oh, I'm sorry, Nurse..." He trailed off and looked for her name badge. "...Julia."
"That's okay," said Nurse Julia with a smile on her face, "but next time be more careful." There was suddenly a loud crash from within Fox's room. "What the Heck is going on in there?" cried Nurse Julia. "Would you excuse me for a moment?" She rushed straight past the frog.
"What did you two think you were doing?" she cried angrily. "This, if you haven't noticed, is a hospital and it is proper conduct for people in a hospital to be quiet in respect of the patients."
"I think that it would be best for you to leave now," stated Julia sternly. Her arms were crossed and there was a stern look on her face.
"Very well," she agreed with a nod of her head. "I'll be leaving now."
"Wait a minute, aren't you from the Planet Cerinia?" the mouse asked Krystal.
"No, I'm from the Sekai Foundation, actually," replied Julia. "However, I did visit the planet once when I was younger. It was a very nice planet. Very nice climate too. It's such a shame what happened to it."
"Is that anyway to greet a girl?" she asked Falco. "I just thought that I'd come to pay you a visit now. There's no harm in that, now is there, sugar bean?"
"So, did ya' hear about the bounty I managed to snag me last week?" asked Katt, as she leaned in close to the avian. "It was a real big 'un for sure. Five hundred thousand Zenny." To Katt, catching criminals was like a competition between her and Falco and somehow, she always managed to land larger rewards than Falco. "You know," began Katt, as she slowly traced circles on Falco's chest, "I could split my recent reward with you, sugar."
"Falco, I like you," she told him. "Why can't you see that? Why are you so cold to me, Falco?" She shook her head in disbelief, her head lowering. "I love you, sugar, but why can't you love me back?"
"Hey, Slippy!" she shouted over the din of the alarm, but still couldn't be heard. "Slippy!" she screamed.
"That was Fox's room, wasn't it?" he asked Fara, as he looked upwards. And he heard the sound of the sirens screaming mournfully from the building. And Bill felt nothing but despair.
To be continued...
