Dual Sides

Chapter 3 - Eye to Eye

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"We're arriving at the point of meeting," Slippy told them as the monitor inside the bridge showed a path pointing to a square of a grid. "All right, guys! We have thirty minutes before approaching the coordinates! Prepare yourselves till then!"

"Who are we going to meet with anyway, pup?" Wolf, who was looking at the console in front of him, asked Fox, who was seated at the captain's chair. "You said it was from System Asgardi, but do you know exactly who those Asgardians are?"

"Not a cinch," he replied as he stood up from the chair and stretched out his arms. "Aww… My body's aching… Hey Wolf, let's spare for a while in the training room! Thirty minutes is boring and long, even in warp speed!" He jumped off and walked towards the lupine, who was rather stoic. "Hey, what's the stiff mood?"

"Huh? It's nothing, pup. I'm just adjusting a bit to the environment," he reasoned out while standing up as well. "Hmph, now you're the one who's challenging! All right, I'll show you what I've been doing for a while!" He then joined Fox as they headed to that area. They were discussing their bets before they left the bridge.

Leon was looking around when he saw Falco reading an entry in a console. He was doing some research at the universal web. He neared him and asked with a small hint of insult, "What are you doing, Falco? Brushing up in your Communications subject, I see…" He peered closer and saw the heading - Asgardi Travel Agency.

"Keep out, lizard breath!" the bird squawked as if he was shooing some fly. "Can't you see that I'm trying to gather some information for our current destination?" The chameleon laughed hard from his statement.

"Ah, so the best place to look for information in the web is a tour agency site," Peppy remarked sarcastically, making Leon laugh harder. "You know Falco, if you used the keywords System Asgardi information, and disregarding tour, you'll stumble into a site with abundant information, but I guess it won't match that travel agency." The bird was about to kick his face, but Slippy subdued him.

"Hmm," Krystal suddenly wondered. "Where is Panther? I haven't seen him for a while. Where do you think he is?"

"Ahh, that pretty-boy?" the chameleon answered back while giving short chuckles from the earlier event. "He said he'll be using the bathroom for a while. I think he's staying too long, if you ask me…"

Meanwhile, at one of the private rooms occupied by one Star Wolf member named Panther Caroso, a certain feline was resting inside a chrome bathtub filled with bubbly water. He was wearing a blue cap. There were also items like a toy boat floating on the soapy water.

"Duckie," Panther asked the inanimate bath object, "what is the best thing to do now? Hmm… I'm near her… If only I could speak the proper words…" He squeezed the toy, making it quack. "Yes, yes… I know, Duckie, but I'm afraid… If I spilled the wrong stuff, she might get angry at me forever!" He pinched it a couple more times, making it squeak. "Rats, Duckie, you're not a good adviser… Huh? You mean it's already time? Well, I guess so…" He placed the duck and the boat on the side of the tub and removed the plug of the drain of the basin.

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"All right, let's do some double checking," Lobo insisted as he inserted a small cartridge with a disk in it to a device on his belt. "Nanotech Data, check! How about you guys?"

"Hey, you know me," Hanna smiled back as she pocketed her PDA. "May I ask? Do we even have to do this? I mean, of all the missions, why this one? We could've done this checking before, when we were hunting a crook."

Alieu blushed for a while. "Um, maybe Lobo is trying to be protective?" she attempted to defend him. "Well, maybe… I guess." Then, a thought flew into her head. "He's doing this because of me… Um… I won't fail him!"

"Why the red look?" Raven suddenly asked her. He noticed her turning red. "Are you sick or anything?" She shook her head, making her even redder. "What? Whatever!" He then grabbed his laser lance and proclaimed, "Hey, can I continue the checking? Uber-duper weapon, check!"

"Si," Verdigo nodded as he placed large two ring-like devices on his belt. "There's nothing to be checked, right…?" Everybody looked at each other and then to him. They agreed. "That was quick…"

"Totally," Lobo shrugged as he glanced at the monitor on his console. "Great… Ten minutes more…"

Raven took out a copy of his favorite magazine. He chose that one to read, for it had a caption - Around the Universe Edition. "Hmm… Let's see… Terra's fighting techniques… Hmm… Nope… Nope… Midgard Arts… Nope… Sol… Nope…" He flipped through the pages and found nothing of what he was looking for. "What's this? No Lylat? Don't tell me there are no combat techniques, not even one, found in Lylat!"

"What do you expect from a weapon-driven system?" Hanna suddenly gouged him with those words. "I myself won't use close combat in a battlefield where big weapons rule… I mean, what's the use of close-ranged attacks when you can attack from afar?"

"But what about Asgardi?" Alieu asked to clarify herself. "Isn't our system Nanotechnology-driven, if not weapon-driven too? Why are there still people who prefer close-ranged combat? Why does the UAF have Lone Star, their elite force who excels in that department - grounded close-ranged attacks, or well, at least most of us?" Lobo smiled for a while, knowing that he was an expert in armaments than melee.

"Point… taken," the white rabbit agreed after checking out her sentiments. "Hmm… I guess it is subjective…" She took a while to glance back at her console, and realized that it was already a minute before the meeting. "Okay, thanks to our discussion, we were almost ready to meet our friends… Time really flies when you're having fun…"

As their ship landed on the appointed meting - a small planetoid, they stood up and readied.

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"Looks like this big rock is breathable," Falco joked as he jumped down from the opening of Great Fox. "Hey look! There's the people were about to bring inside Lylat!" He pointed a dark-grey wolf, a female human, a black bird, a white rabbit, and a black panther.

As everybody from Star Fox and Star Wolf stepped down from the ship, they walked towards the Asgardians. Lone Star approached them as well.

"Greetings," Fox acquainted them with a polite gesture. "I am Fox McCloud, leader of the team Star Fox, a mercenary force. Along with me are the crew of the team - Falco Lombardi, the blue bird who is also second-in-command, Peppy Hare, the veteran member of our group, Slippy Toad, the head of our Research and Development section, and Krystal, our new crewmember… Along with us is…" He shouldered Wolf, who was beside him.

"Oh, um," he coughed out, trying to be formal. "I'm Wolf O'Donnell, leader of Star Wolf, another mercenary force who was ordered to accompany Star Fox. My teammates are Leon Powalski, the chameleon, and Panther Caroso, the panther." He suddenly shook his head, knowing that he shouldn't have introduced them like that.

"Mr. O'Donnell, it's all right, I had my time when it was my first time introducing myself too!" the Asgardian wolf humbly excused for him. The Lylatian wolf could've been mad because of that sentence. However, he felt that it was a joke. "Anyway, I'm Lobo Kanid, leader of Lone Star, an elite force of United Asgardi Federation, or UAF, excelling in ground combat. The white rabbit is Hanna Ansfei, our lab rat. The falcon-raven is Raven Samuel. The two are currently fighting for the second-in-command position. The human girl is Alieu Mostad, a new member, as well as the panther named Verdigo de Madrigal..." He then scratched his head and laughed, "See, I told you that I screwed so bad…" Wolf grinned for a moment.

"Hey, looks like we're going to get along quite fine!" Falco broke out the formality of the meeting completely. "See Fox, I told you it's a bad idea to look formal!" The vulpine just sighed.

Before they could interact, a white beam suddenly flashed from the space. It was unnoticeable, except for Hanna. "Huh?" she gasped as she looked at Krystal. "Watch out!" Her palms glowed as she enveloped herself with some sort of light. The vixen was suddenly covered with a veil of energy. As the beam hit her, the shield attempted to suppress it. However, it broke and she was knocked down. Panther quickly attended to the fallen vixen.

Fox, who didn't saw the whole thing, thought that Hanna did something to Krystal. "Hey, what was that for?" he asked as he readied his blaster. "You… you aren't allies!"

"Wait," Lobo stopped him as he grabbed his pistol. "It's not her fault! She even protected your friend! If she didn't use Guard Veil, your vixen might be dead! Aleiu, use Repair to recover her! Guys, ready yourselves!"

"Um, okay!" the human clumsily but adamantly replied. She focused as white light covered her. The digital light vanished, and some green symbols covered Krystal. Her injuries were slowly recovering. The Lylatians were completely surprised.

"What the heck was that?" Wolf asked with a feeling of nervousness. "What… was that magic?"

"Ladies and gentlemen," Raven explained something to them briefly, "meet Nanotechnology or Nanotech for short." He then pointed out a ship releasing robotic drones to the ground. They were heading towards them. "Now, you call yourselves mercs, right? Well, what are you waiting for? Let's bust them out!"

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