CHAPTER 3: Confrontations
As Fox and Slippy continued to cautiously explore this newfound territory they began to realize that it was pretty empty. Beyond the many strange and native creatures it seemed as if no one had led a long life on the planet's surface. In the back of Fox's mind he wondered if this was because of those strange, aggressive little creatures. They certainly made him want to get off the planet as soon as possible.
Slippy became interested in the door mechanisms they had encountered about five times now. The idea that gunfire was used to open a door (mostly the reason behind it) was beyond him. Besides these little structures he hadn't been able to see many technological remnants at all.
The two pilots had both taken notice of some rather eerie statues that seemed to dot certain parts of the area, mostly the ruins they passed through. Despite sitting in what seemed to be ancient surroundings, these statues appeared to remain quite in tact. They were stone, as Slippy was able to determine by simply scanning them, but they were finely carved and intricately designed.
They appeared to be watching..waiting..with shimmering eyes that appeared to view everything..
What gave Fox the worst chills, however, was the fact that many of these creations had their claw like hands held out as if for an offering. Their eyes shining over what appeared to be beaks set in their faces, they gave off the aura of EXPECTATION.
At times they came across strange scrawlings on the walls. When Slippy attempted to decipher them with the help of his hand held database, he found that of all he had, this particular language was not amongst them. Not knowing was one of Slippy's worst annoyances. He didn't like anything he couldn't learn about right away.
"Well, it's safe to say SOMEONE'S been here before, right?" he asked aloud, mostly to himself. Fox rested his gloved paw on the trunk of the tree that had grown and latched itself into the corner of their current room and location.
"Of course. Someone had to have carved those statues we saw. It couldn't have been those amoebas with teeth.. If it was I would be sorely surprised."
"I was sort of hoping we'd find some long lost civilization."
"We did. It's everywhere we've looked-just very faint."
"Well, no. I meant a civilization that left behind some sort of technology I might be able to form into crude communicative objects. If we could send out a signal somewhere we could get backup," the frog said sitting on one of the protruding roots of the tree.
"I'm not requesting backup unless it's absolutely necessary," Fox replied, stepping down from the tree to check out the rest of the stone and earthen room.
"...This isn't necessary???" Slippy asked after a moment's blank silence. Fox looked at him simply.
"We're going to get out of here just fine. And besides, what good would it do to bring more people down here to get attacked by those things. We don't know how many there might be. Heck, what if those are just babies? Ever think of what their mother might look like?" Slippy's already wide froggy eyes widened as much more as they possibly could at the thought.
"We're doomed."
"Hey, hey. I didn't say to go to the other extreme now," Fox chuckled. He had fun playing on his comrade's imagination, knowing that the frog would think up something ten times worse than he ever would at the mere suggestion.
"This is all my fault, too. If I hadn't landed.no-if I hadn't installed those thrusters!" Slippy wallowed, kicking the trunk of the tree in frustration with a webbed foot.
"Slippy.," Fox said lightly, tilting his head and trying to somewhat start consoling the frog. Before he could say anything more, however, his ears perked at a peculiar buzzing noise. He turned from where he had been standing under a stoney overhang set upon crude stone pillars and looked towards the sound.
It wasn't good. Buzzing usually wasn't.
As his eyes gazed upward he looked upon a couple small masses of round and black structures within the tree's branches and on the walls. At first glance he had figured they were strange fungi or barnacles. That's how they appeared in structure at any rate. He had been wrong on both guesses-they were bee hives. Or rather..wasp hives. And the wasps were very..very large.
"Get down, you idiot!" Fox declared, dashing out to crush Slippy down against one of the tree roots. Slippy gasped as his breath was forced from him by the accidental hit to the stomach. The wasp that had angrily dove at the frog hovered there a small distance away from them, it's long black abdomen swaying with its movement. These things were the biggest bugs Fox had personally ever seen. They were about the size of his own head, and all black aside from a small loop of yellow around the end of their bodies.
"Wh-at...isss.?" Slippy managed to get out. Fox didn't have to answer because, as the wasps continued to seemingly pour from the hives, he soon caught sight of the reason behind Fox's maneuvers.
Instinctively Fox rounded, still shielding his friend, and began to shoot at the wasps charging them. Once or twice he got bashed in the side by one of their body slams, but luckily their immense stingers did nothing but brush the tips of his fur. They weren't immune to his shot, and some tumbled down onto the ground writhing with one or two blasts.
The only problem was that they were so damned numerous and they were coming in faster than he could shoot. Just when he thought he would have to go ballistic, risking wounds or not, a couple of the wasps exploded right in front of his face. It wasn't terribly pleasant, mind you, as the insect juices happened to spatter over his clothes and body just a tad. Blinking at this disgustedly he looked out to see what had caused it.
The wasps were reeling and turning their attentions from the two pilots as some other form made for their hives. They retaliated furiously on the attacker and began to barrage it with body slams and stings. Hearing the clanging of their failings, Fox got a good glimpse of this other figure. It looked to be a robot of some sorts.. Something humanoid and clad in broad shining armor.
He watched, absently helping Slippy gain his bearings, as the newcomer raised the arm blaster they possessed and set fire to the surrounding hives. They shrunk back like shriveled grapes with the heat. Once this had been done, their savior turned and bounded with eerie agility (especially for what looked like a great amount of heavy metal bearing down on them) to begin taking out the remaining insects.
As numerous as they still were, the newcomer was a brilliant shot, and quick with efficiency. Fox composed himself and helped out, Slippy hanging back behind him, and began to take out the remaining bugs as well. Once the room was littered with bug corpses and leftovers, he held his blaster ready.
With the danger no longer an issue, the armored one turned with a clank of footsteps to face the two. Fox gave the once over with a flicker of his eyes as his tail flicked behind him.
"You're a fine shot, but.," he sputtered, still spattered with bug remnants. "Awfully messy about it."
"You're messy.," replied Samus. "And a bit of an awful shot. You always go for the hive first with War Wasps."
"Well, excuse me. It's not like I'm native to this insane planet," he replied, still holding his gun at ready if this figure decided to get hostile-as had everything else lately.
"I didn't think so," she replied. "What with the lacking tactics and all."
"Hey, I'm fine in most territories. But you can't stick me on hot coals and expect me to dance the first time," Fox replied, ears twitching. He didn't very much care for being told he was lacking anything.
"There's nothing wrong with not knowing what's not common knowledge," Samus replied, holding up her one hand. "No need to be testy with me, furball." Fox narrowed his eyes.
"And what business do you have here?" he asked.
"I'm bailing you out of an otherwise nasty situation. You stay here much longer just wandering around and you'll be no more than a carcass by daybreak."
"Carcass?" Slippy finally spoke, then tugged at Fox's vest, whispering, "Fox, I don't wanna be a carcass.!" Fox nudged hid elbow back to make Slippy let go without taking his eyes off the Hunter.
"What if we don't need bailing, eh? We were just on the way back to our ships, actually," Fox said calmly with a nod.
"Oh, you need bailing, and I need money."
"I'm not paying you to do something I can do myself," Fox said flatly, his ears flattening with the tone.
"You can take the stealth cloaking off your ship?" she asked.
"Stealth..? I don't have. You didn't cloak my ship!"
"Sure, I did. It's no good to leave your vehicle in strange territories where everyone can see or steal it.. But if you don't want to be proper, I can always just leave it as is." Fox bit his tongue inside his mouth, glancing back at Slippy. The frog shook his head and shrugged, wordlessly saying he didn't have a way to find cloaked-or otherwise invisible-ships. The Starfox leader weighed his options here.
Option one: he could deny everything to this walking metal heap and attempt to find the ship on his own. It was invisible, not gone. He remembered where he parked, right? By the rock.. Yeah, that helped.
Option two: he could BUY the assistance of this increasingly rude and frustrating person, get off the planet and back to his ship with little or no trouble besides lightening his own pockets.
He didn't like empty pockets.
Grr.
"I don't have anything on me right now," he said finally. "I'd have to pay you at the base." Truthfully, Fox never left home without at least some cash to his disposal, but IT didn't have to know that. By this point all the pilot knew about this person was they were a bit arrogant and giving him a lot of trouble. The muffling of the voice in the suit and the structure of the armor gave no hint to him that he was conversing with a female. If he had known he might have tried to turn on the charm... if he didn't already feel somewhat agitated. Regardless, Samus seemed to be considering his offer.
"Alright. I'll take you back to your ship..and then I'll follow you to your base."
"Are you sure.?" Slippy spoke up again. "It's really far ou-owww, Fox!" Fox waved a hand at him signaling for him to just keep his mouth shut. He made a couple more quick gestures for 'We'll get off this planet and then lead them out somewhere and lose them'. Slippy seemed to understand so Fox turned back to Samus.
"Sounds great. Now let's get off this insane rock."
As Fox and Slippy continued to cautiously explore this newfound territory they began to realize that it was pretty empty. Beyond the many strange and native creatures it seemed as if no one had led a long life on the planet's surface. In the back of Fox's mind he wondered if this was because of those strange, aggressive little creatures. They certainly made him want to get off the planet as soon as possible.
Slippy became interested in the door mechanisms they had encountered about five times now. The idea that gunfire was used to open a door (mostly the reason behind it) was beyond him. Besides these little structures he hadn't been able to see many technological remnants at all.
The two pilots had both taken notice of some rather eerie statues that seemed to dot certain parts of the area, mostly the ruins they passed through. Despite sitting in what seemed to be ancient surroundings, these statues appeared to remain quite in tact. They were stone, as Slippy was able to determine by simply scanning them, but they were finely carved and intricately designed.
They appeared to be watching..waiting..with shimmering eyes that appeared to view everything..
What gave Fox the worst chills, however, was the fact that many of these creations had their claw like hands held out as if for an offering. Their eyes shining over what appeared to be beaks set in their faces, they gave off the aura of EXPECTATION.
At times they came across strange scrawlings on the walls. When Slippy attempted to decipher them with the help of his hand held database, he found that of all he had, this particular language was not amongst them. Not knowing was one of Slippy's worst annoyances. He didn't like anything he couldn't learn about right away.
"Well, it's safe to say SOMEONE'S been here before, right?" he asked aloud, mostly to himself. Fox rested his gloved paw on the trunk of the tree that had grown and latched itself into the corner of their current room and location.
"Of course. Someone had to have carved those statues we saw. It couldn't have been those amoebas with teeth.. If it was I would be sorely surprised."
"I was sort of hoping we'd find some long lost civilization."
"We did. It's everywhere we've looked-just very faint."
"Well, no. I meant a civilization that left behind some sort of technology I might be able to form into crude communicative objects. If we could send out a signal somewhere we could get backup," the frog said sitting on one of the protruding roots of the tree.
"I'm not requesting backup unless it's absolutely necessary," Fox replied, stepping down from the tree to check out the rest of the stone and earthen room.
"...This isn't necessary???" Slippy asked after a moment's blank silence. Fox looked at him simply.
"We're going to get out of here just fine. And besides, what good would it do to bring more people down here to get attacked by those things. We don't know how many there might be. Heck, what if those are just babies? Ever think of what their mother might look like?" Slippy's already wide froggy eyes widened as much more as they possibly could at the thought.
"We're doomed."
"Hey, hey. I didn't say to go to the other extreme now," Fox chuckled. He had fun playing on his comrade's imagination, knowing that the frog would think up something ten times worse than he ever would at the mere suggestion.
"This is all my fault, too. If I hadn't landed.no-if I hadn't installed those thrusters!" Slippy wallowed, kicking the trunk of the tree in frustration with a webbed foot.
"Slippy.," Fox said lightly, tilting his head and trying to somewhat start consoling the frog. Before he could say anything more, however, his ears perked at a peculiar buzzing noise. He turned from where he had been standing under a stoney overhang set upon crude stone pillars and looked towards the sound.
It wasn't good. Buzzing usually wasn't.
As his eyes gazed upward he looked upon a couple small masses of round and black structures within the tree's branches and on the walls. At first glance he had figured they were strange fungi or barnacles. That's how they appeared in structure at any rate. He had been wrong on both guesses-they were bee hives. Or rather..wasp hives. And the wasps were very..very large.
"Get down, you idiot!" Fox declared, dashing out to crush Slippy down against one of the tree roots. Slippy gasped as his breath was forced from him by the accidental hit to the stomach. The wasp that had angrily dove at the frog hovered there a small distance away from them, it's long black abdomen swaying with its movement. These things were the biggest bugs Fox had personally ever seen. They were about the size of his own head, and all black aside from a small loop of yellow around the end of their bodies.
"Wh-at...isss.?" Slippy managed to get out. Fox didn't have to answer because, as the wasps continued to seemingly pour from the hives, he soon caught sight of the reason behind Fox's maneuvers.
Instinctively Fox rounded, still shielding his friend, and began to shoot at the wasps charging them. Once or twice he got bashed in the side by one of their body slams, but luckily their immense stingers did nothing but brush the tips of his fur. They weren't immune to his shot, and some tumbled down onto the ground writhing with one or two blasts.
The only problem was that they were so damned numerous and they were coming in faster than he could shoot. Just when he thought he would have to go ballistic, risking wounds or not, a couple of the wasps exploded right in front of his face. It wasn't terribly pleasant, mind you, as the insect juices happened to spatter over his clothes and body just a tad. Blinking at this disgustedly he looked out to see what had caused it.
The wasps were reeling and turning their attentions from the two pilots as some other form made for their hives. They retaliated furiously on the attacker and began to barrage it with body slams and stings. Hearing the clanging of their failings, Fox got a good glimpse of this other figure. It looked to be a robot of some sorts.. Something humanoid and clad in broad shining armor.
He watched, absently helping Slippy gain his bearings, as the newcomer raised the arm blaster they possessed and set fire to the surrounding hives. They shrunk back like shriveled grapes with the heat. Once this had been done, their savior turned and bounded with eerie agility (especially for what looked like a great amount of heavy metal bearing down on them) to begin taking out the remaining insects.
As numerous as they still were, the newcomer was a brilliant shot, and quick with efficiency. Fox composed himself and helped out, Slippy hanging back behind him, and began to take out the remaining bugs as well. Once the room was littered with bug corpses and leftovers, he held his blaster ready.
With the danger no longer an issue, the armored one turned with a clank of footsteps to face the two. Fox gave the once over with a flicker of his eyes as his tail flicked behind him.
"You're a fine shot, but.," he sputtered, still spattered with bug remnants. "Awfully messy about it."
"You're messy.," replied Samus. "And a bit of an awful shot. You always go for the hive first with War Wasps."
"Well, excuse me. It's not like I'm native to this insane planet," he replied, still holding his gun at ready if this figure decided to get hostile-as had everything else lately.
"I didn't think so," she replied. "What with the lacking tactics and all."
"Hey, I'm fine in most territories. But you can't stick me on hot coals and expect me to dance the first time," Fox replied, ears twitching. He didn't very much care for being told he was lacking anything.
"There's nothing wrong with not knowing what's not common knowledge," Samus replied, holding up her one hand. "No need to be testy with me, furball." Fox narrowed his eyes.
"And what business do you have here?" he asked.
"I'm bailing you out of an otherwise nasty situation. You stay here much longer just wandering around and you'll be no more than a carcass by daybreak."
"Carcass?" Slippy finally spoke, then tugged at Fox's vest, whispering, "Fox, I don't wanna be a carcass.!" Fox nudged hid elbow back to make Slippy let go without taking his eyes off the Hunter.
"What if we don't need bailing, eh? We were just on the way back to our ships, actually," Fox said calmly with a nod.
"Oh, you need bailing, and I need money."
"I'm not paying you to do something I can do myself," Fox said flatly, his ears flattening with the tone.
"You can take the stealth cloaking off your ship?" she asked.
"Stealth..? I don't have. You didn't cloak my ship!"
"Sure, I did. It's no good to leave your vehicle in strange territories where everyone can see or steal it.. But if you don't want to be proper, I can always just leave it as is." Fox bit his tongue inside his mouth, glancing back at Slippy. The frog shook his head and shrugged, wordlessly saying he didn't have a way to find cloaked-or otherwise invisible-ships. The Starfox leader weighed his options here.
Option one: he could deny everything to this walking metal heap and attempt to find the ship on his own. It was invisible, not gone. He remembered where he parked, right? By the rock.. Yeah, that helped.
Option two: he could BUY the assistance of this increasingly rude and frustrating person, get off the planet and back to his ship with little or no trouble besides lightening his own pockets.
He didn't like empty pockets.
Grr.
"I don't have anything on me right now," he said finally. "I'd have to pay you at the base." Truthfully, Fox never left home without at least some cash to his disposal, but IT didn't have to know that. By this point all the pilot knew about this person was they were a bit arrogant and giving him a lot of trouble. The muffling of the voice in the suit and the structure of the armor gave no hint to him that he was conversing with a female. If he had known he might have tried to turn on the charm... if he didn't already feel somewhat agitated. Regardless, Samus seemed to be considering his offer.
"Alright. I'll take you back to your ship..and then I'll follow you to your base."
"Are you sure.?" Slippy spoke up again. "It's really far ou-owww, Fox!" Fox waved a hand at him signaling for him to just keep his mouth shut. He made a couple more quick gestures for 'We'll get off this planet and then lead them out somewhere and lose them'. Slippy seemed to understand so Fox turned back to Samus.
"Sounds great. Now let's get off this insane rock."
