PART FOUR: NO REST FOR THE WEARY

Persephone, a bit rattled, led the trio out of the bathroom, down a hallway, up a flight of exquisite stairs, and through the restraunt's kitchen, filled with numerous chefs and waiters preparing and sweeping meals out into the restraunt itself. Persephone, however, led them past all this, and brought them to a set of double doors that separated the kitchen from a pantry. She closed these doors, inserted a key into them, turned it, and opened them again.

The pantry was gone. In its place was a massive Hall! Fox's gears turned in his head as he remembered Ganondorf talking about this place... how the Merovingian owned a Chateau in the mountains... how his properties were connected using coded doorways. They were in the Cornerian mountains.

And in this amazing Chateau! Its entrance hallway was absolutely stunning, filled with stone statues, sweeping stairways lined with numerous antique weaponry, and a large crystal chandelier in the middle of it all. Fox was once again awed. Just how much money HAD Wolf managed to get his paws on?!

Persephone led them through one of the doors on the main floor. This, after a hallway of sorts, brought them to a small bookshelf-lined room. Scattered throughout the room were cushy armchairs and sofas for sitting in. A plasma screen was on one wall, which was currently on. Two creatures were sitting watching this screen. At the sight of the trio, they jumped up.

"It's alright, boys, they're with me," Persephone said to the creatures. They relaxed a bit.

"These are my husband's werewolves," she said, gesturing towards the two creatures. "They do his dirty work. Here's Cain, and Abel's over there. They're very good... very loyal. Aren't you, boys?" She said, addressing them.

"Yes, mistress." They replied in unison.

Oh boy, Fox thought. Whipped.

"They come from a much older version of the Matrix... but like many other programs like them, they caused many more problems than they solved. My husband saved them because they happen to be notoriously difficult to terminate."

She took up her handbag and pulled out a blaster. Samus's Canon hand tensed up.

"How many people have Triple-Plasma settings on their guns?"

She fired a beam of it, in the opposite direction of the trio. The noise was deafening; books fell off the shelf behind the werewolves, and one of the chairs tipped over. The noise subsided... and one of the werewolves (the one called Abel) had a small piece burned out of his ear. He sank to the floor and howled in agony.

She then rounded on Cain, whos terrified eyes travelled from his writhing partner on the floor over to Persephone again. "You can either go and tell my husband what I have done, or you can stay there and die."

He charged out of the room in search of Wolf. Persephone slipped the blaster back into her handbag and headed towards one of the stray bookshelves. Samus's gun hand did not even slack a bit. Now she knew that the wolf kept a gun in her handbag. This was more serious than she thought.

Persephone stepped over poor Abel and made her way towards one bookshelf. She pulled out one specific book on the end of one of the middle rows. The shelf right next to it swung forwards with a resounding creak... a secret passage.

"Come, quickly."

They didn't need telling twice. With one last glance back at Abel (still on the floor) the trio followed Persephone through the passage behind the bookshelf.

There were stairs... down... down... that seemed to stretch for ages...

Numerous tunnels, branching off... left... right... left...

Fox's head spun. Had he not locked a clear view on the back of Persephone's head, he would have been lost completely. It was too darn confusing.

Finally, the group reached a large, long tunnel, shaped like a half-cylinder. Cut into the walls of this rounded passage were doors... no... cells. Prison cells. Fox now became aware of numerous tired groans, sighs, calls for aid. Nothing TOO desperate... the prisoners seemed on the brink of death.

"This way."

After walking down the passage for awhile, she finally reached one specific cell. She gestured for Fox to go inside it. He did so, slowly at first...

...But after swinging open the old-fashioned, rusty, grimy door, he found an almost empty chamber. Stone walls and a floor stretched for no more than three meters in each direction. However, lying in the middle of this cell was...

A disk. Fox recognised the code, as well. No mistake, this was what they were looking for. He picked it up and pocketed it.

He swept back out to the group. "We're finished here."

"All right... follow me."

Persephone led them back... back through the prison hallway... back through the secret passage... through the book-room (Abel had disappeared), until...

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They emerged into the Great Hall... just as Wolf, a group of Bodyguard programs, the Twins, and Cain stepped through the Restraunt-Chateau portal.

"AUGH!" He said the moment he saw Persephone leading them around with his own eyes. "Good god, Persephone, how could you do this to me, you BETRAY me, you..."

She cut him off. "Enough of this! I don't have the patience or time to quote more Matrix. You have stopped caring for me at all as of late... you ONLY care for your power! I've had just about enough!"

She stormed out of the Hall to the Restraunt, leaving Wolf standing there, miffed.

"Very well... very well... let us find out where this goes... you two," he said, gesturing towards the Twins.

Their heads rose in unison.

"Get the disk."

Fox stepped backwards. Gex realised Fox was planning to get away, with the disk.

However, before he could, the Twins seemed to... almost turn to a white, phantomy state. They passed through the floor, and disappeared from view.

"That's a nice trick," Samus remarked.

Suddenly, a pair of forms appeared from behind Fox! One of them reached forward, quickly pick-pocketed the disk, and the two of them dashed backwards through another door that lead to the Chateau's Garage hallway.

Fox started to step backwards to persue, but first glaned forwards at Gex.

There wasn't much choice left for him. Gex asserted himself, and nodded back towards Fox, who, although quite worried, finally raced back through the Chateau's Garage Hallway to persue the Twins. Samus stepped out beside Gex, who strode forward with her to face the rediculously difficult challenge ahead of them. A row of heavily-armed bodyguard programs, to be exact.

"Kill them," Wolf said simply.

And kill them they did. This was accomplished by the ten or so guards, plus Cain, pulling out blasters and firing them at will.

The two of them flipped backwards. The double staircase extended towards the second level of the Great Hall, where they were currently flying. Blaster shots whizzed by them left and right, but none made contact. The two landed on the second floor unscathed, and ducked behind the rail for cover as the guards blew the last of their ammunition.

Over seven hundred shots fired... and all of them missed.

"O-KAY, so you have SOME skill..." Wolf snarled at them.

They stood up, and gestured their hands forward. A challenge.

"Well? You shouldn't need GUNS to take them down!" Wolf said to his gaurds. "Kill them!"

The guards didn't need telling twice. They flipped up to the second floor, while some of them raced up the two staircases. The first two to reach each Samus and Gex fell victim to their concealed laser weapons... one shot to each one's head, dispatching them instantly. The other nine stalled a bit. Did they have anything left in those?

Apparently not. The two threw the lasers as hard as they could at their opposition, followed by them charging. Gex hopped over a group of them, rebounded off the wall with his tail, while grabbing one of the antique swords lining the walls. The rest of the guards suddenly realised this as well, and made for the walls to grab something to fight with.

Samus shoulder-bashed her first enemy, and fired off a round of missiles at another pair, knocking them back. She charged her cannon and blased Cain off the second floor down to the first, where he lay. However, her gun wasn't strong enough to despatch of him completely... she only paused a moment to ponder this. She was shaken out of her temporary lack of concentration by a dagger spinning right past her head. She turned and launched herself at her attacker, who immediately fell to her Meteor Smash... literally. He was launched halfway into the flooring, where he stuck, unconcious.

Gex was engaging in a sword duel with another pair of gaurds, quickly knocking one's weapon into the other, and launching his own weapon into the chest of his adversary. Both were down. Gex turned to flip over another guard who attacked from behind, and he tail-whipped him as he landed, bringing him down. He glanced over at Samus, who was charging the last standing guard, and he joined her, approaching quickly from the other side. The poor guard could only stand and watch as the two attacked from either side, finally sandwiching him in attacks until he was brought to the floor.

Wolf folded his arms and cursed. "Dammit, woman, you will besee the end of me... Cain! For god's sake, end this already..."

Gex and Samus then turned to Cain, who was getting up off the floor. Persephone was right, there was no way they'd be able to actually defeat Cain... they didn't bring strong enough weapons.

But they were going to try anyway. Squaring his shoulders, Gex lept off the second floor to the first, followed milliseconds after by Samus.

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Fox was chasing the Twins through a seemingly endless hallway of doors. Simply one pair of double doors, followed by another small room with ANOTHER pair of double doors. This pattern repeated thirty or so times, which DID slow Fox down considerably... the Twins could simply drift through these doors by going phantom-y... Fox had to bash each set of doors open himself. Finally, he got sick and tired of this, after about twenty or so rooms, and he just floated up and flew through the remaining ones, catching up to the Twins.

They glanced over their shoulders at once to see him flying towards them, getting ready to strike them down. They phantasmed through him, reappeared, and they each pulled out a small Beam Dagger. They moved forward to attack Fox. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a full-size Beam Sword of his own, which he spun out of raw code.

"Hm... this job DOES have its advantages, doesn't it?"

He struck, swinging the Beam Sword through the two of them. They phantasmed through it, and struck out with their own weapons. Fox ducked both of these, and tried to leg-sweep his opponents as he slashed once again. They hopped over his leg, phantasmed through his sword, and then one jumped forward to swing the other Twin over his head to attack. Fox just barely sidestepped this, and he swung out thrice with his sword... all three of which they phantasmed through. Okay, this was getting irritating.

Fox raised his hand, and the two Beam Daggers flew out of their hands and into Fox's. He dropped his own sword and quickly brought a dagger up to each Twin's neck.

"Look, this is getting boring. Give me the disk."

They just grinned at him and disappeared again. Fox cursed... WHY didn't he just end it there when he had the chance...

The two flew slowly through a wall in the Chateau's Garage Hallway. He bashed through a nearby door to find himself in a parking lot of some kind... though he could tell that the door he had just passed through was a portal, meaning he was back in the Cornerian city... probably in the Restraunt's parking lot. The Twins emerged right beside him, and they made for one of the transport shuttles in the lot. Fox spun himself a blaster and shot the shuttle just as they approached it... it exploded. In their phantom forms, they still were blown back, and fell into unconciousness, reappearing again.

Fox swept forward and retrieved the disk, and turned to head back to the Chateau. However, the door to the Chateau was swinging shut... Fox rushed to keep it from closing... but it was too late. The door clicked... and locked itself shut, closing the portal. Fox tried to bash it open anyway.

It led to a stairwell. Curses, he thought.

Fox brought out his phone, and called Phantom.

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Phantom answered the call.

"Hey, Phantom... look, I'm real sorry, I..."

"You let the portal close. Right, I know. I'm not going to be able to get them out of that Chateau... the code is all sketchy, I can't get a patch on any of their communications devices. You'll have to fly out and pick them up."

"What? I can't lug them out here myself! I'll need a ship! Where am I going to get a ship at this..."

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Fox stopped short, a smile spreading across his muzzle.

"Never mind," he told Phantom.

"Yeah, before you go, there's one more thing... we've got some kind of unknown long, serpant-like robot thingy floating around out here. I'm afraid it's going to eat me at any moment. Couldja hurry up and get them outta there?"

"Well, can't you just blast it?"

"Naw, all our power is routed to keeping you guys in there! Engaging a weapon would sever the connection and kill everyone connected to a digital environment... and hey, everyone else is training, too, so... well, you'd all die."

"All right, I'll make this quick."

Fox shut his phone, stepped forward, and raised his paw. He concentrated.

A series of raw code lines flew together... they spun and rotated and well, didn't make sense at first, but Fox, whose brow was furrowed with determination, forced the code into the shape of... a ship. And not just any ship, either...

It finished, a fully functional craft. Fox hopped in, and flew off towards the Cornerian Mountains.

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It would have to be a team effort... subduing a Werewolf to the point of unconciousness would not be easy. Gex lead in the attack, springing up and bringing his tail down onto Cain, who simply knocked it aside and hit Gex to the floor. However, this left him open for attack, as Samus implanted a number of Missile shots into his cranium. He staggered back, as Gex rose to his feet, and jumped forward with yet another Tail Attack, finally knocking the Werewolf to its knees. Gex flipped around behind it, snatched his forepaws, and tied them up behind him with his tail. He struggled to break the hold, but failed to notice Samus charging from the front...

WHAM!

She lept up and delivered a spinning kick to Cain's face! Cain fell backwards, and slid a few meters on the floor. Wolf's eyebrow raised and he stared at Cain in exsaspiration. He sat up almost immediately, growling, and started morphing into his Werewolf form! Samus and Gex stepped back a bit at what they were beholding.

It wasn't quite a wolf that stood before them... it was much more hideous. This werewolf had long, shaggy grey hair, reeeally sharp jaws, and his eyes shone bright red. Gex and Samus couldn't help but step backwards even more. Even with the both of them, it didn't seem possible that they would be able to win.

"Fox? I'm really sorry to bust your bubble, but we could really use some..."

SMASH!!

An F-Thirty had just rammed through the front doors of the Chateau!

Fox, of course, was flying the machine. He witnessed the event while slowing it down with his mind, he could see the doors and part of the wall submitting to the F-Thirty's solid-structured form and hurtling inwards upon the unsuspecting occupants of the hall. One door caught the onlooking Wolf in the back of the head and he fell forwards, knocked out by the blow. The other skidded towards Samus and Gex, who cleared it with a pair of jumps. Cain, however, was not so lucky. Fox flew the ship straight towards him and struck him head-on! Cain flew upwards, back over the balcony's rail and crashed to a halt against a marble statue against the far wall.

Slowing and landing the ship, Fox opened the cockpit. "...Should I crack a generic door-breaking-down joke? Or should we just GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE?!"

They didn't need telling twice. Samus and Gex dashed into the F-Thirty, and Fox flew back out through the new doorway he'd created just seconds earlier. Wolf was just waking up from the blow he had suffered earlier, and looked after the ship vanishing into the mountains in rage. He'd repay them for what they took from him...

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"...Aaaand it's uploaded!"

"Good work! Get a start on that, Zephyr, see if you can get it decoded."

Gex smiled as Zephyr took the uploaded information and began to hack it, searching for the digit.

"Shouldn't take more than a week of work... provided you give me my periodical snack breaks."

"If by periodical you mean every two minutes, then no."

"Rrg..."

Samus's eyes suddenly flickered open in her seat.

"Got her out," Phantom said. "You can disconnect her now."

The beam into her head disappeared. She sat up and glanced over at Fox.

"So waddya think it is?" Fox had just woken up, and was still lying in his chair. He gestured out the front window of the Pheonix at the snake-robot.

"We're still not sure. As soon as we get Gex back out of there as well we can get our scanning and weapon systems back online, and deal with it properly."

"Wow,,, it takes THAT MUCH energy to broadcast a Matrix hack signal?"

"It does. However, if we're able to defeat the Gluggs we'll be able to study their technology and learn how to bypass that problem."

Fox got up from his chair and turned from the rest of the room.

"What is it, Fox?" Gex's eyes had sprung open, and he was sitting up.

"Well, I mean, look at all this work... all this just for one single letter or number. It seems like such a useless prize... plus, there's still forty-nine of those we have to search for, get out, AND decode like this!"

"...But just THINK of the reward! Every creature in the universe freed from eternal slavery; plus, infinite life! Once we defeat the Gluggs then ALL of us could get a hold of that formula and become immortal... heck, operators like Phantom and Zephyr who've chosen a Matrix-free life in exchange for this could strengthen themselves enough to be able to use our current mind manipulation technology..."

"Most of us ARE already, thanks to them..."

"By studying their technology we could make huge advancements ourselves... our ship's power level being one good example... if we could just subdue them or eliminate them, we could become just as intelligent as they are!"

"I suppose... this all sounds really nice and everything, but... just the amount of work. Ugh, I miss our smash tournaments..."

"You might not need to worry about that, Fox!"

"...What?"

Gex and Fox turned from their conversation to Phantom, who had spoken up.

"There's another individual smash tournament comming up in the Matrix! It's advertised in the Cornerian database... it looks like all your old friends are entering!"

"Whoa! Thank the lord, none of them were thrown in the slammer..." Fox sighed. "Wish I could enter..."

"Well, hey, you could!"

"How? I'm an outlaw there now, remember? I couldn't enter a tournament..."

"All we need is another identity for you. New name, new voice, change your residual self image... maybe a different fur colour... how 'bout white? I've always liked that... maybe more of a dirty grey..."

"...You could do that?!"

"Well, yeah, of course! Your self-image in the Matrix is just the mental projection of your digital self. Using our technology..." he patted his moniter in satisfaction, "...we're able to alter that projection into anything you wish. You could turn into any form whatsoever."

"Wow! That's something else... but shouldn't you guys be beating me down for wanting to enter some regular tournament back at home? ...Hey what's the prize in this tournament, anyway?"

"Well, it's on a request basis... but it's being hosted by Leon, a lone exiled program who USED to work with Wolf but went solo, organising and collecting and such. I'm sure he's got his share of bounty... you could probably sway him into putting a... disk up for grabs, perhaps?"

"You think he'd let go of one that easily?"

"Well, he'd... take a bet, I'm sure. But for a disk, you'd have to bet something pretty precious for if you lost the tournament. Plus, I don't know what the stipulations are. You might be fighting in a four-foot layer of coleslaw, for all I know..."

"Don't worry about what we're going to wager on my victory. I've thought of just the thing..."

"Hey! Fox! Gex! Get up here!" Zephyr was calling them from the top deck. The two of them scrambled up the ladder onto the upper deck of the Pheonix.

Fox had never been up here before, and it was quite a sight. This was where most of the manual weapons were controlled. A large glass dome was lined with manual laser canons all around the edges, and a raised pillar in the center. On it was a desk and a series of moniters, assumedly for scanning and tracking. Fox and Gex climbed the short ladder up to Zephyr, who was looking at the scanner.

"You see that snake? That's definitely a Glugg machine. It appears to be a newer form of scouting device..."

"Damn. They know were we are. We can't linger here any more." Gex grabbed the ship's communicator from the desk. "The snake's a scout. We're probably going to have company any second. Get the ship's engines going, let's get OUT of here..."

"We're in a mothership, aren't we? This thing is LOADED with weapons! Can't we take that snake out?"

"Oh, we can take the snake out with no problem. Trouble is, it's already found us here."

"Speaking of which..." Fox scratched his brow, "Where are we right now?"

"Well, since the entire System was destroyed, it's hard to say. We're probably around the area where Aquas used to be located."

"Haven't you ever travelled outside the System's boundaries?"

Gex waved his hand. "I'll explain this part later, Fox. We've got to run, remember? ZEPH! Take that snake out, he's lookin' at us funny."

"THANK you! Thought you'd never ask..."

With a wide grin, Zephyr lept off the platform and fell on the deck (on all fours, of course, like the cat she was). She strode over to the canon facing the snake, and let loose.

TSEWW! TSEWW!

BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM!

The snake was vanquished with a quick shot to the head and tail respectively. It exploded in sequence, the firey outbursts moving from its ends to meet in the middle. The remains floated outwards from the force of the explosion.

"Come on! Someone will have heard that, even if they hadn't found us before..."

Gex's expression went from shock to wonder. "You're scary when you're happy..."

Zephyr just grinned and slid down the ladder back to the main deck.

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The Pheonix had made it away from any more conflict. Surprisingly enough, they hadn't come across any more Glugg activity, which was, as Gex said, a rare occasion. They had made it to Sector X, and most of the crew turned in for what they called on the Pheonix "night", which was really whenever they wanted it to be. During a spare 8 or 9 hours the crew would turn off all the ship's lights and switch on the auto defences, and get some well-deserved rest.

Fox went back up to the second deck and looked out through the dome into the starstudded space that surrounded them. Looking around, he saw that the X-shaped nebula still existed. That and a few fragments of rock... that was all he could see.

"It is pretty beautiful, isn't it?"

Zephyr had ascended the ladder to stand beside Fox. "Can't sleep?"

Fox shook his head. "Still can't. Haven't since... I got back. I figure, I've slept for the last thousand years, now I'm making up for it..."

Zephyr nodded. The two sat down on a metal bench at the base of the radar platform. "I guess I've never been like that. Phantom and myself escaped the Gluggs before they... you know... enslaved everyone. We fought the Gluggs together on so many occasions, we freed all sorts of people... we became immortal, but I guess Phantom told you that story."

"Well, fleetingly, really... but yeah."

"Way back in the day, we headed a team of rebels that used stelth and our own advanced technology to deliver as many blows to the Gluggs as we could muster. We were... almost considered heroes, you might say. Once we became operators on this ship, we became much less physically involved. Much less... useful, it's seemed. ...Lord!" She laughed. "I must sound like an old lady right now..."

"Well you are over one thousand years old..."

"Aaah, but I'm still young, Fox. I've loved every bit of life that I can get, I've never grown tired of it... just... I wish things could be like they were. I wish sometimes that I didn't choose to take that formula, that I could connect to the Matrix, that I could again fight alongside other rebels and free everyone and deliver a blow to the jerks that killed everyone I love..."

"Hey, come on! Someday we WILL beat them! We'll be able to make your mind stronger so it can handle being manipulated again, so you can connect to whatever you want!"

"That's just it, Fox. I never thought we'd do it, before, I thought we wouldn't be able to pull it off. But now, we have you... we have hope..." her eyelids fluttered. "You know, all of a sudden, I'm quite tired..." She slowly slid sideways, towards Fox.

"Now that you mention it... I wasn't when we got up here, but I'm actually getting there..." Fox slid downwards as well. Zephyr's head came to rest on Fox's chest, and he laid back, holding her close as the two cuddled and drifted invoulentarily into sleep.

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TOOWTOOOWWWWTOOWW.

The lights in the Pheonix flickered slowly on. Gex had just woken up, sleepyeyed, and flicked on the lights. Heck, if he was awake after that little sleep, everyone else would suffer with him. He decided to ascend the ladder that led up to the second deck, just to have a look around, make sure there wasn't any man-eating slugs out the window.

His head poked up above the deck's floor. He looked up; the stars were nice and pretty... then again, they ALWAYS were. He also observed the large X-shaped nebula off in the distance; one of the few things that survived the Glugg's tyranny. He groaned. Well, might as well wake everyone else up.

Wait a second... what was that noise?

Gex clambered up the ladder and onto the deck. He walked around to the other side of the dome, where the platform was obstructing his view, and found...

...Star Fox. He must've fallen asleep here, poor fella... this was all happening to him way too fast. Ah well, he supposed he would just let HIM sleep, he certainly earned it. With a yawn, Gex went back to the ladder and descended it.

And as he did, Zephyr lept down from the platform she had been hiding on. "He's gone!"

"Excellent..." Fox's eyes sprung open from his false slumber and he got up. "That might've been awkward. Well, we should probably get some breakfast... you go first, I'll wait a bit, hm?"

"Of course... see you later, Foxy."

She descended the ladder back downstairs. Fox couldn't help staring at her beauty which he'd really only just...

...What the HELL was he doing!? The impact of what he had just done had finally whalloped Fox in the head. How did that happen? He fell asleep with another girl! For god's sake, he was in love with SAMUS, not Zephyr! But... ... Fox's brain was spinning in his head like an oversized top. He didn't really know HOW he felt. He never really got terribly far off the ground with Samus... but now... maybe if he...

"Fox! We're going to head back towards Venom airspace! We're going to head back into the Matrix."

Fox made a childish groan. "Alreadyyy?"

" 'Fraid so. Well, I wouldn't worry yet, anyway."

"Why's that?"

Gex turned out to be the bearer of unhappy news as he climbed the ladder to join Fox. "That was a quick awakening, by the way... just a moment ago I saw you asleep."

"Oh! Yeah, I'm still kinda zonked..." Fox was relieved he didn't see Zephyr leaving. "So, why should I be not worrying?"

"Well, it'll take a while to get within broadcast distance. The Gluggs have formed their base near where Venom used to be, which is kinda fitting because that planet has always seemed to be pretty darn evil. Anyways, the closer we get to the planet, the more ability we have to hack it. So that means we can either get you in and out quicker if we're closer, or we can send in more people at once. Though when we're closer in we're more vulnerable to attack, so that balences out... hey, you want some toast?"

"Yeah, sure, I'm kinda hungry."

Fox followed Gex out of the dome, while casting one more questioning, pained look at the large bench where he and Zephyr spent the night together.