PART TEN: THE TRUTH
The ship slowly descended into the water. Fox was only slightly intimidated with its size; he had seen bigger. Like that Mothership battle on Katina, with Bill. What a mess that was.
Raindrops started to fall on the surface of Aquas. It was pretty cold, and the rain was already matting Fox's fur. He hoped that the darn ship would land soon, so he could get out of the rain.
It plopped down into the surf. A giant tidal wave of water washed over the ship... Gex barely grabbed Fox and lept over it before it consumed their ship. Gex landed gracefully, Fox in tow, on top of the Submarine-Ship. In one swift movement, Gex thrusted the cabin door open with his tail, but before letting Fox in, he spoke to him...
"Let me give you one piece of advice... be honest. He knows more than you can imagine."
Gex then gestured for Fox to enter. Fox did, and laid his eyes on the dfigure standing inside the door.
It was Mewtwo! Thunder clapped outside from the storm, eerily lighting up his face. Fox noticed that, like Gex, he was now wearing a pair of designer Sunglasses. It really made him appear... there was no other word for it... cooler.
"Welcome, Fox. At last. I thought this day would NEVER come... anyway. Please, follow me."
The three of them strode through the ship, the watertight door sealing behind them. Fox shook himself off a bit, to get the rain out of his fur.
"No, please... allow me."
Mewtwo pulled a flat-looking device from a storage room. Fox looked at it curiously. Suddenly, lasers erupted from one end of it and swept over Star Fox, removing the rain.
Fox nodded. "Pretty impressive."
Mewtwo just replaced the device and kept going. Finally, he opened a door, and inside was the bridge, where the ship was controlled from. Mewtwo hovered down into a cushy chair, and gestured for Fox to sit down in the other. A table sat between them, a single glass of water sitting on it.
Mewtwo spoke. "First of all, don't be fooled... Gex over there is MY boss, not vice versa. He just wanted me to talk to you becuase I'm "more familiar"... I suspect he's just lazy. But anyways. Fox, do you know why you're here?"
"What? Well, I just got sprung from prison by Gex there, and we've been running from the Cornerian..."
"Yes, I know that. But that isn't really why you're HERE. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain; but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life... that there's something WRONG with the universe. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Well, sort of, anyway."
Fox nodded. He knew what Mewtwo was talking about. How did he know that? Wait... he was psychic. Right.
"Do you know what I'm talking about?"
"Um... not really."
Mewtwo sighed. "Oh well. So much for the complete rip off of that famous movie scene. I'm talking about THE MATRIX, Fox. The MATRIX."
Fox's face twisted into a confused expression. "The Matrix? What's the Matrix?"
Mewtwo glared at him a bit. "Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. Now do you want to know WHAT it is?"
Fox nodded again.
"Alright. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back."
Mewtwo leaned closer, and opened up his hands. In each hand, he held a small, oval-shaped object. Pills, Fox thought.
"You take the red pill, the story ends, you'll wake up at home and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the blue pill, you stay in wonderland... and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
"Okay, WHY is there so much reference to "rabbit holes" and "wonderland" in this Fiction?! It's so corny!!"
Mewtwo sighed. Again. "Listen, Fox, once again you have succeeded in ruining my copyright-violating spree. Just pick a freaking pill."
Fox stared at the pills, thinking. Well, he didn't really have anything left here. What did he have to lose?
But his friends... Samus... Falco... Ganondorf... the rest of his team... no matter how outlawed he was, he still wanted to see them again. He didn't want to lose THEM. He'd wake up in his Great Fox and be with them all again.
He reached for the red pill.
"Remember... all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more."
Fox stopped for a second. Did he really want to just throw away this one oppertunity to rid himself of all his uncertainties? It was almost too much. Well... his friends COULD live without him... no. He didn't NEED them. He was his own animal. Time to stand up for that.
Fox grabbed the blue pill instead, and washed it down with a glass of water that was sitting on the table. Mewtwo sensed Gex nodding in approval. Right, this was going perfectly now. Smooth as silk.
Mewtwo hovered up. "All right. Wait here. We'll arrive shortly."
Fox wondered, "Where?"
Mewtwo read his mind. "At our destination. I'm sorry, Fox, I can't tell you any more. But I can tell you this: I can only SHOW you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it."
He hovered back to the front of the ship and pressed a few buttons. The entire ship instantly sank down into the water, converting into a large submerine! Fox stared out the small window in wonder, watching random fish and plants float by. Memories of HIS submarine expeditions on Aquas came floating back to him. It was such a polluted mess then... now, the Cornerian Pollution Control team had completely cleared the water of Andross's filth. It was crystal clear and teeming with interesting life... meaning Fox was kept 100% entertained until they reached their destination, which actually took much less time than Fox thought it would.
"We're here. Fox, come with me."
Fox followed Mewtwo and Gex back up to the door where they entered the ship. Fox found a glass tunnel awaiting him on the other side of the door this time. It was amazing to walk through this tunnel and see right up to the surface. Ten years ago, he wouldn't have been able to see three feet on every side of him.
Finally, the glass tunnel ended in a large steel door. It didn't appear to have any mechanism to open it whatsoever... no detectors or anything. Fox wondered how they were going to get in.
"Remember, Fox," Mewtwo spoke, "I can only SHOW you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it."
Fox assumed that he knock on the door, although he thought that would be futile; no sound would make it through something this reinforced. Fox reached for the door, and just as his paw came up to knock...
It opened.
And there stood Samus.
"Hello, Fox. You're right on time."
Despite her unenthusiastic greeting, her actions spoke more realistically as she embraced him tightly. Fox smiled to himself as he stroked her long blonde hair, wondering how the heck all his friends were involved in this... this... conspiracy! Posatively alarming... but what the heck.
Samus led them inside. This wasn't a ship; rather, an underwater hideaway... thing. It just consisted of one large, glass dome, containing only one door. Fox looked around at its surroundings, it contained a lot of strange equiptment, and a few chairs here and there.
Fox was led over to a specific chair near the middle of the room. Machines ran on all sides of him. It was making him pretty dizzy, until a figure stepped out from behind one of the machines. Falco.
"WHAT the HECK... okay, look. I can understand Mewtwo being involved with this Gecko, he's always been wierd. And I guess seeing Falco here isn't that strange either, I have no idea of what HE'S been up to for the past eight years. But Samus?! What's going on!?!?"
"Look," Falco said calmly (he also was wearing a pair of stylish sunglases), "We're almost finished with ya, all right? Okay, buddy, how about this... I swear to you that everything will be explained to you in a few minutes, all right? If we don't, you can hurt me."
"Promise?"
He sighed? "Come on, Fox. Trust us. Please?"
"Guh... okay. FINE. But if just one more familiar figure pops out at me in the next five minutes, I'm going to be really cheesed off..."
But, as it turns out, that was the end of the surprises for the next five minutes. As Samus attached some vital-monitering equiptment to Fox, he gestured to the room at her.
"Did you do all THIS?"
"Mmmm-hm. Well, to an extent, yeah. I designed part of it."
Fox found the use of the verb "design" odd, but he didn't comment.
"Okay, Fox, listen up," Gex said to him sharply, making him jump. "The pill you took was part of a trace program. It disrupts your input/output carriar signals so we can pinpoint your location."
"What the heck does that mean?"
"It means... oh, to hell with it. I'm not going to rip off a Matrix quote like the rest of you clowns," Falco said.
"Hey!" Samus protested, "I only did that ONCE so far! Okay... twice..."
"That's enough fooling around," Mewtwo cut in on all of them. "We have work to do."
"That's right," Gex said, gesturing at a computer console. "Get us online, Mewtwo."
"Shouldn't take long."
"You see, Fox," Gex said, turning to Fox, "Time is always against us. We'll have to work fast. If we take too long, we'll be traced down to this place."
Fox nodded. That made sense to him. He turned to Mewtwo's computer console, it was still connecting. He then turned around to see a mirror. It was shattered into pieces.
Before his eyes, it fixed itself.
"Did you...?" Fox said, not realising what was happening. Did Mewtwo repair that? And why? Fox had to know. He decided to touch it. Just to see.
He reached out his fingers. Instead of finding a hard surface like they should have, they found a gooey, silvery, cold substance. He immediately tugged his fingers free. The goop stuck to the edges of his fingers, even after he broke away from the mirror.
Then Gex spoke again. "Have you ever had a dream, Fox, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world, and the real world.
The goop was spreading across his hand, now. It seemingly encased his hand in a silvery glove.
Fox was stunned. "This can't be..."
"Be what?" Gex asked. "Be real?"
Samus spoke now. She was also staring at a computer moniter. "It's going into replication."
Gex turned to Mewtwo. "Mewtwo?"
"Still nothing," Mewtwo said.
The goop expanded up Fox's arm. "It's cold," Fox shivered. "It's cold!"
Gex now flipped open his phone. "Phantom, we're going to need a signal soon."
Samus spoke again. "We've got fibrillation."
Gex put down the phone again. "Mewtwo, location."
"Targeting almost there," Mewtwo muttered, obviously distracted with his duty.
"It's going into arrest," Samus called out to the group.
The goop made its way up Fox's neck, to his head. It was already creeping up to his mouth... Fox was shivering uncontrollably now. Why didn't they DO anything?
Finally, Mewtwo's screen flashed green. "Lock!" He yelled. "I've got him!"
Gex spoke into the phone again. "Now, Phantom! Now!"
Finally, the goop found Fox's mouth. It flooded down his throat, almost seeming to turn solid, choking him. Fox let out a petrifying scream, slamming his eyes shut. This was the end...
*-.~^~_-*-.~^~_-*-.~^~_-*-.~^~_-*-.~^~_-*-.~^~_-*-.~^~_-*-.~^~_-*-.~^~_-
...as he brought his hands up to his mouth. Suddenly, his eyes opened again. Wait, this couldn't be right... he was lying in a metal box. It almost seemed like a metal coffin. How did he get here? And what was this...? He brought his hands to his jaws, reached into his throat and pulled out... a long pipe. Choking, he sat up, pressing his hands against the top of the box...
The lid of the box just disappeared. What?! Fox was still blinking as he examined the box. It was made of stainless steel, with tubes poking out every which way... connected to his body! Fox couldn't believe his eyes. What had they done to him? These... things were hooked all over his body... not to mention he wasn't wearing any clothes anymore. And hey... where was he?
It was then he looked around.
And he saw... creatures. Humans, animals alike. All within these stainless steel boxes with semi-invisible lids. All unclothed. And all of them had the same tubes attached to their bodies. Not only that... there were millions of them.
No. Billions.
Endless walls contained endless rows of these boxes. Billions and billions of boxes. Fox's head was spinning completely out of control. It was just too crazy. He held his pounding head... suddenly realising that there was something strapped around his neck. How odd.
Wait... something approached him! A mechanical robot descended from above, grabbing the device that fit around his neck like a collar. Fox squirmed, unable to breathe. He was at its mercy.
Suddenly, it pulled out a gun and aimed it at Fox's neck. Yes, he thought. Let it end.
The gun fired.
And hit the collar-device. Fox screamed, thinking that it would be the last sound he would ever make, but instead of damaging HIM, the collar fell off. The gun now aimed at each of the tubes on his body, and shot them off, one by one. Fox let out a small yelp after each one; it appeared as though parts of his body were being shot off, though he didn't have any idea why he drew that conclusion.
Finally, he was completely disconnected from the box. Suddenly... TOO suddenly... the back of the box disappeared, and the box itself tilted back... causing Fox to slide backwards through the wall! Fox screamed as he slid down this passage... seemingly eternal... and finally being flung into a large sewer... thing. Fox struggled to keep his head on the surface, but he honestly couldn't find the strength. He gave up, and sank.
A light emmitted from out of the darkness above him. Before he knew it, a claw fell from the light, grabbing him and reeling him up out of the water. He drew in precious oxygen again.
The claw dragged him up into another room. He couldn't tell where he was, it was too blurry. However, he did notice blurry creatures removing him from the claw, and wrapping him in blankets. Before he knew it, he saw none other than...
Gex. Just before he lost conciousness, Gex spoke to him...
"Welcome to the real world."
The ship slowly descended into the water. Fox was only slightly intimidated with its size; he had seen bigger. Like that Mothership battle on Katina, with Bill. What a mess that was.
Raindrops started to fall on the surface of Aquas. It was pretty cold, and the rain was already matting Fox's fur. He hoped that the darn ship would land soon, so he could get out of the rain.
It plopped down into the surf. A giant tidal wave of water washed over the ship... Gex barely grabbed Fox and lept over it before it consumed their ship. Gex landed gracefully, Fox in tow, on top of the Submarine-Ship. In one swift movement, Gex thrusted the cabin door open with his tail, but before letting Fox in, he spoke to him...
"Let me give you one piece of advice... be honest. He knows more than you can imagine."
Gex then gestured for Fox to enter. Fox did, and laid his eyes on the dfigure standing inside the door.
It was Mewtwo! Thunder clapped outside from the storm, eerily lighting up his face. Fox noticed that, like Gex, he was now wearing a pair of designer Sunglasses. It really made him appear... there was no other word for it... cooler.
"Welcome, Fox. At last. I thought this day would NEVER come... anyway. Please, follow me."
The three of them strode through the ship, the watertight door sealing behind them. Fox shook himself off a bit, to get the rain out of his fur.
"No, please... allow me."
Mewtwo pulled a flat-looking device from a storage room. Fox looked at it curiously. Suddenly, lasers erupted from one end of it and swept over Star Fox, removing the rain.
Fox nodded. "Pretty impressive."
Mewtwo just replaced the device and kept going. Finally, he opened a door, and inside was the bridge, where the ship was controlled from. Mewtwo hovered down into a cushy chair, and gestured for Fox to sit down in the other. A table sat between them, a single glass of water sitting on it.
Mewtwo spoke. "First of all, don't be fooled... Gex over there is MY boss, not vice versa. He just wanted me to talk to you becuase I'm "more familiar"... I suspect he's just lazy. But anyways. Fox, do you know why you're here?"
"What? Well, I just got sprung from prison by Gex there, and we've been running from the Cornerian..."
"Yes, I know that. But that isn't really why you're HERE. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain; but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life... that there's something WRONG with the universe. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Well, sort of, anyway."
Fox nodded. He knew what Mewtwo was talking about. How did he know that? Wait... he was psychic. Right.
"Do you know what I'm talking about?"
"Um... not really."
Mewtwo sighed. "Oh well. So much for the complete rip off of that famous movie scene. I'm talking about THE MATRIX, Fox. The MATRIX."
Fox's face twisted into a confused expression. "The Matrix? What's the Matrix?"
Mewtwo glared at him a bit. "Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. Now do you want to know WHAT it is?"
Fox nodded again.
"Alright. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back."
Mewtwo leaned closer, and opened up his hands. In each hand, he held a small, oval-shaped object. Pills, Fox thought.
"You take the red pill, the story ends, you'll wake up at home and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the blue pill, you stay in wonderland... and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
"Okay, WHY is there so much reference to "rabbit holes" and "wonderland" in this Fiction?! It's so corny!!"
Mewtwo sighed. Again. "Listen, Fox, once again you have succeeded in ruining my copyright-violating spree. Just pick a freaking pill."
Fox stared at the pills, thinking. Well, he didn't really have anything left here. What did he have to lose?
But his friends... Samus... Falco... Ganondorf... the rest of his team... no matter how outlawed he was, he still wanted to see them again. He didn't want to lose THEM. He'd wake up in his Great Fox and be with them all again.
He reached for the red pill.
"Remember... all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more."
Fox stopped for a second. Did he really want to just throw away this one oppertunity to rid himself of all his uncertainties? It was almost too much. Well... his friends COULD live without him... no. He didn't NEED them. He was his own animal. Time to stand up for that.
Fox grabbed the blue pill instead, and washed it down with a glass of water that was sitting on the table. Mewtwo sensed Gex nodding in approval. Right, this was going perfectly now. Smooth as silk.
Mewtwo hovered up. "All right. Wait here. We'll arrive shortly."
Fox wondered, "Where?"
Mewtwo read his mind. "At our destination. I'm sorry, Fox, I can't tell you any more. But I can tell you this: I can only SHOW you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it."
He hovered back to the front of the ship and pressed a few buttons. The entire ship instantly sank down into the water, converting into a large submerine! Fox stared out the small window in wonder, watching random fish and plants float by. Memories of HIS submarine expeditions on Aquas came floating back to him. It was such a polluted mess then... now, the Cornerian Pollution Control team had completely cleared the water of Andross's filth. It was crystal clear and teeming with interesting life... meaning Fox was kept 100% entertained until they reached their destination, which actually took much less time than Fox thought it would.
"We're here. Fox, come with me."
Fox followed Mewtwo and Gex back up to the door where they entered the ship. Fox found a glass tunnel awaiting him on the other side of the door this time. It was amazing to walk through this tunnel and see right up to the surface. Ten years ago, he wouldn't have been able to see three feet on every side of him.
Finally, the glass tunnel ended in a large steel door. It didn't appear to have any mechanism to open it whatsoever... no detectors or anything. Fox wondered how they were going to get in.
"Remember, Fox," Mewtwo spoke, "I can only SHOW you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it."
Fox assumed that he knock on the door, although he thought that would be futile; no sound would make it through something this reinforced. Fox reached for the door, and just as his paw came up to knock...
It opened.
And there stood Samus.
"Hello, Fox. You're right on time."
Despite her unenthusiastic greeting, her actions spoke more realistically as she embraced him tightly. Fox smiled to himself as he stroked her long blonde hair, wondering how the heck all his friends were involved in this... this... conspiracy! Posatively alarming... but what the heck.
Samus led them inside. This wasn't a ship; rather, an underwater hideaway... thing. It just consisted of one large, glass dome, containing only one door. Fox looked around at its surroundings, it contained a lot of strange equiptment, and a few chairs here and there.
Fox was led over to a specific chair near the middle of the room. Machines ran on all sides of him. It was making him pretty dizzy, until a figure stepped out from behind one of the machines. Falco.
"WHAT the HECK... okay, look. I can understand Mewtwo being involved with this Gecko, he's always been wierd. And I guess seeing Falco here isn't that strange either, I have no idea of what HE'S been up to for the past eight years. But Samus?! What's going on!?!?"
"Look," Falco said calmly (he also was wearing a pair of stylish sunglases), "We're almost finished with ya, all right? Okay, buddy, how about this... I swear to you that everything will be explained to you in a few minutes, all right? If we don't, you can hurt me."
"Promise?"
He sighed? "Come on, Fox. Trust us. Please?"
"Guh... okay. FINE. But if just one more familiar figure pops out at me in the next five minutes, I'm going to be really cheesed off..."
But, as it turns out, that was the end of the surprises for the next five minutes. As Samus attached some vital-monitering equiptment to Fox, he gestured to the room at her.
"Did you do all THIS?"
"Mmmm-hm. Well, to an extent, yeah. I designed part of it."
Fox found the use of the verb "design" odd, but he didn't comment.
"Okay, Fox, listen up," Gex said to him sharply, making him jump. "The pill you took was part of a trace program. It disrupts your input/output carriar signals so we can pinpoint your location."
"What the heck does that mean?"
"It means... oh, to hell with it. I'm not going to rip off a Matrix quote like the rest of you clowns," Falco said.
"Hey!" Samus protested, "I only did that ONCE so far! Okay... twice..."
"That's enough fooling around," Mewtwo cut in on all of them. "We have work to do."
"That's right," Gex said, gesturing at a computer console. "Get us online, Mewtwo."
"Shouldn't take long."
"You see, Fox," Gex said, turning to Fox, "Time is always against us. We'll have to work fast. If we take too long, we'll be traced down to this place."
Fox nodded. That made sense to him. He turned to Mewtwo's computer console, it was still connecting. He then turned around to see a mirror. It was shattered into pieces.
Before his eyes, it fixed itself.
"Did you...?" Fox said, not realising what was happening. Did Mewtwo repair that? And why? Fox had to know. He decided to touch it. Just to see.
He reached out his fingers. Instead of finding a hard surface like they should have, they found a gooey, silvery, cold substance. He immediately tugged his fingers free. The goop stuck to the edges of his fingers, even after he broke away from the mirror.
Then Gex spoke again. "Have you ever had a dream, Fox, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world, and the real world.
The goop was spreading across his hand, now. It seemingly encased his hand in a silvery glove.
Fox was stunned. "This can't be..."
"Be what?" Gex asked. "Be real?"
Samus spoke now. She was also staring at a computer moniter. "It's going into replication."
Gex turned to Mewtwo. "Mewtwo?"
"Still nothing," Mewtwo said.
The goop expanded up Fox's arm. "It's cold," Fox shivered. "It's cold!"
Gex now flipped open his phone. "Phantom, we're going to need a signal soon."
Samus spoke again. "We've got fibrillation."
Gex put down the phone again. "Mewtwo, location."
"Targeting almost there," Mewtwo muttered, obviously distracted with his duty.
"It's going into arrest," Samus called out to the group.
The goop made its way up Fox's neck, to his head. It was already creeping up to his mouth... Fox was shivering uncontrollably now. Why didn't they DO anything?
Finally, Mewtwo's screen flashed green. "Lock!" He yelled. "I've got him!"
Gex spoke into the phone again. "Now, Phantom! Now!"
Finally, the goop found Fox's mouth. It flooded down his throat, almost seeming to turn solid, choking him. Fox let out a petrifying scream, slamming his eyes shut. This was the end...
*-.~^~_-*-.~^~_-*-.~^~_-*-.~^~_-*-.~^~_-*-.~^~_-*-.~^~_-*-.~^~_-*-.~^~_-
...as he brought his hands up to his mouth. Suddenly, his eyes opened again. Wait, this couldn't be right... he was lying in a metal box. It almost seemed like a metal coffin. How did he get here? And what was this...? He brought his hands to his jaws, reached into his throat and pulled out... a long pipe. Choking, he sat up, pressing his hands against the top of the box...
The lid of the box just disappeared. What?! Fox was still blinking as he examined the box. It was made of stainless steel, with tubes poking out every which way... connected to his body! Fox couldn't believe his eyes. What had they done to him? These... things were hooked all over his body... not to mention he wasn't wearing any clothes anymore. And hey... where was he?
It was then he looked around.
And he saw... creatures. Humans, animals alike. All within these stainless steel boxes with semi-invisible lids. All unclothed. And all of them had the same tubes attached to their bodies. Not only that... there were millions of them.
No. Billions.
Endless walls contained endless rows of these boxes. Billions and billions of boxes. Fox's head was spinning completely out of control. It was just too crazy. He held his pounding head... suddenly realising that there was something strapped around his neck. How odd.
Wait... something approached him! A mechanical robot descended from above, grabbing the device that fit around his neck like a collar. Fox squirmed, unable to breathe. He was at its mercy.
Suddenly, it pulled out a gun and aimed it at Fox's neck. Yes, he thought. Let it end.
The gun fired.
And hit the collar-device. Fox screamed, thinking that it would be the last sound he would ever make, but instead of damaging HIM, the collar fell off. The gun now aimed at each of the tubes on his body, and shot them off, one by one. Fox let out a small yelp after each one; it appeared as though parts of his body were being shot off, though he didn't have any idea why he drew that conclusion.
Finally, he was completely disconnected from the box. Suddenly... TOO suddenly... the back of the box disappeared, and the box itself tilted back... causing Fox to slide backwards through the wall! Fox screamed as he slid down this passage... seemingly eternal... and finally being flung into a large sewer... thing. Fox struggled to keep his head on the surface, but he honestly couldn't find the strength. He gave up, and sank.
A light emmitted from out of the darkness above him. Before he knew it, a claw fell from the light, grabbing him and reeling him up out of the water. He drew in precious oxygen again.
The claw dragged him up into another room. He couldn't tell where he was, it was too blurry. However, he did notice blurry creatures removing him from the claw, and wrapping him in blankets. Before he knew it, he saw none other than...
Gex. Just before he lost conciousness, Gex spoke to him...
"Welcome to the real world."