Star Fox: The War Within

by Irish Redd

A diplomatic failure has sent waves of dissent tearing through the system, with consequences that reach much further than anyone could possibly imagine. Trapped within this politcal crisis, Star Fox is tasked with a grave new job. Halt the march of war.

4. Chapter 4: Crisis

Chapter 4: Crisis

"What!" Fox exclaimed in disbelief, ears perked and every feature on his face expressing his shear and momentarily unconatined shock, "How could something like that possibly happen? Corneria and Katina're allies!"

"Relax Fox; he's just pullin' our leg," Falco responded, attempting to calm the vulpine down while appealing to the one behind the desk, as much for his friend's sake as his own confidence, "Right General? You're just screwin' with us here. There's…there's no way we're actually going to war with Katina."

"I'm…afraid not, boys," Pepper replied, a melancholy mood emanating from the hound and spreading to fill the office, "If we don't do something soon with this whole mess, it might just come down to it."

The hopefully doubting faces of the younger members of the team faded as they realized the seriousness and legitimacy of the General's response; a light-headedness clouding their thoughts as the consequences of his announcement set in.Peppy, however, never even got his hopes up that he was joking; the hare knew Pepper for far too long to not have learned his mannerisms by now, and picked up on his somberness immediately. As such, his mind had enough time to recover from the surprise that plagues any person's mentality when they learn of such a horrible thing as possible war, and was able to ask for an explanation while the others were still essentially reeling.

"Pepper," the hare began, coolly and evenly, "This couldn't have happened overnight; how did things get so bad between the two planets without basic diplomacy stepping in and heading them off?"

"Trust me Peppy," he responded, mirroring his colleague's casual manner in regards to names, "We've tried; we've tried every possible solution in the book and none of them have yielded any tangible form of success. Which…leads me to the ultimate reason why I asked you all to come; should you choose to accept it, I may have another contract for you."

Fox's disquiet meditation halted when he heard the word 'contract', and he lifted his eyes from their previous lost-in-thought stare that he held while contemplating the possibility of all out system warfare. His reason for doing so wasn't as materialistic as Falco's similar reaction though; to him, the idea of a contract meant that he and his team could contribute something to put a stop to the escalating diplomatic issues between his home world and Katina.

Turning to each of his teammates in turn, and acknowledging their apparent willingness to accept, he faced back to Pepper, shrugging, "Of course General; I can't guarantee we'll take it, but it never hurts to hear the details."

The older hound nodded and a smile tugged at his weary lips, "I knew I could count on you Fox." Then, rather abruptly, his demeanor became more business-like and official as he reached into a drawer in his desk, pulling out a manila folder and opening it to reveal several photographs and documents, "Let's get right to it then."

Pushing the folder and its contents to the front of the desk so that they were easily visible to the team sitting before it, Pepper revealed a miniature holographic projector, inlaid flush with the desk. As if on command, the emitter activated soon after it was uncovered, the two-dimensional picture it created wavering for a moment or two before it straightened itself out and formed into a map of the Lylat System. Without wasting any time, or even letting the shock of the previous announcement fade off the team's faces, the General dove right in to the explanation he had prepared.

"About a month ago," he began, speaking from behind the projection on his desk, "Several backwater stations, belonging to both Corneria and Katina, were attacked by fighters and small craft of the same make and insignia as those of the opposite planet." On the Lylatian map, several green and red icons appeared, dotting the system and sprouting a line or two of information as they materialized. "This didn't cause a lot of concern though; many of our lower level military ships, snub fighters, older corvettes and the like, are widely available on the open and black markets, and the insignias can easily be painted on. Same with Katina. This concept of military impersonation has been around for quite awhile since we began selling army vessels to the public, so it initially wasn't much of a problem. It was the events that followed that the real trouble began."

"A week passed, and no new attacks were made by those thought to be responsible for the initial raids," he continued, shrugging a little as he did, "We just assumed that was the end of it." The various red dots disappeared just as Pepper began the next sentence, replaced instead by a red 'x', just outside of the notorious Sector Y. "Then, a sparsely guarded Katinian supply convoy was surprised and attacked in open space en route to a research station near Sector Y. This time, in addition to the refitted military fighters from before, several larger 'Cornerian' ships were part of the assault force as well; mainly Frigates."

"Now, as you can imagine, the news of this attack caused a great deal of worry for us; it isn't easy to obtain a planetary military's warship, even for some of the larger pirate organizations. However, it wasn't their presence that was the strangest part; it was their make." Pepper finally utilized the folder and its contents at this point, pulling a glossy sheet of photograph paper from it and placing it at the front of the desk for the team to see, "All of the larger vessels were of a model consistent with the Cornerian standard of about a decade ago."

"So…what," Falco interrupted, a bit confused at the General's last statement and looking up from the blueprints and renders he was being shown, "Are you saying some pirates hijacked a bunch of military ships…and waited ten years to use 'em?"

"We're still unsure of how or why they were there," he responded to the avian's question, "Only that they were aggressive…and merciless. A sole freighter made it to the research station intact, and the holovids it took during the attack were quite clear; a group of Cornerian military craft assaulted and destroyed a non-belligerent Katinian convoy." Pepper paused for a moment as he appeared to be considering something, "So clear in fact…if I didn't know better, I would say the events taking place in the videos were actually legit."

Whatever was bothering him was quickly shaken from his head though, and he pressed on with the briefing, speaking as the projection of the Lylat System faded into one of a finely dressed panther, apparently an official of some sort, "Obviously, this event concerned the Katinian Chancellor, here, a great deal. He immediately demanded to know why the Cornerian Navy destroyed his convoy, and when we explained we had no part in the attack, he wasn't satisfied. He initiated a vast refit and expansion of the entire Katinian Military, and began sending armed escorts with all convoys. We tried to tell him he was over-reacting, that this could've been some well-coordinated pirate raid; but he didn't give the idea any thought." The projector reverted back to the map of Lylat, but this time zoomed in a moment later on a section of the Meteos asteroid belt.

"Then," he said, maintaining the authoritative voice but allowing the slightest trace of emotion seep in, "Another attack, of similar characteristics to the first in Sector Y, was reported around Bottz Station in Meteos; once again, only a single personal freighter escaped. The records from that ship painted essentially the same picture; Cornerian craft opening fire on a Katinian convoy without provocation."

"The Chancellor wasted no time after the second attack on his ships, ordering the immediate removal of all Cornerians living on Katina, and the recall of all Katinians living abroad; using the excuse that he was 'trying to protect his people'. Those Cornerians that didn't leave fast enough…were imprisoned. Efforts have been made for their release, but to no avail." The General then turned the projector off and leaned forward over the space that its picture used to occupy, pressing his fingers together in a steeple and leaning on his elbows, "But something didn't seem right about everything; he was moving much too quickly and aggressively for someone who had no prior knowledge of the attacks. Even the assaults themselves seemed to occur under suspicious circumstances. We reviewed the tapes recovered from the survivors of both attacks, and came to the conclusion that the Chancellor was staging these events."

"Hold on General," Fox stated, halting Pepper's explanation for a second, "That doesn't make any sense; why would the Chancellor do something like that? I…I don't get it."

Pepper nodded, as if expecting the question, "At first we thought the same thing; there was no logical reason as to why he would want to make us out to be aggressors. Nothing in the past would suggest hostilities either; we've always been each others' top allies. Then, after we reviewed some surveillance records, we noticed some…peculiar behavior from the Chancellor himself during the previous few months." He pulled a few documents, clipped together at the corner, from manila folder and set them aside, showing the relevance of the mostly text pages to the topic at hand, "At first they were all fairly innocent occurrences; he became a bit more reclusive, canceled a few public appearances; basic political things like that. Nothing that was really suspicious."

"Then, through some sources we have on the planet, it came to light that he had broke the old, post-Lylat War Selmoss Peace Pact by constructing a few additional warships past the limit set by the treaty. Once again, this wasn't too significant; we'd actually broken the arbitrary number a few years ago, but it represented a step up in suspicion. The problem came when many members of his cabinet, specifically those who held public stances against many of his newer ideas and legislation, went missing. Upon the most reluctant of interplanetary investigation, most were found dead, victims of apparent 'suicides'. We have our suspicions about the legitimacy of these findings as well, but I'll move on for the sake of time."

The team sat in a state of muted interest and disbelief as the General continued, bewildered and utterly riveted by what he was telling them, "Soon, the Chancellor began passing laws that gave him and his newly appointed cabinet more and more power. The citizenry was more or less oblivious to his increased influence over their lives, and didn't resist the changes at all. And that," Pepper sighed, "Brings us back to the first of the 'Cornerian' attacks."

"The details get a little foggy after that initial assault, as we lost contact with our agents on Katina around the same time as the first backwater attacks; their disappearance has only added to our concern that the Chancellery is becoming increasingly unstable. Honestly," he shrugged, "We're not sure what to expect at this point. One thing that we do know for sure though is that several hundred Cornerians are still being held against their will on Katina. The Chancellor has refused to release them, claiming they're spies, and in response, we've put up a trade embargo until their release. Katina desperately needs many of our natural resources for lack of their own, and has threatened hostility if we don't resume trade, which…is where we stand as of now."

The team sat in stunned silence as the General completed his briefing; nobody had even come close to expecting anything like the situation Pepper had just outlined when they first heard of issues between the two planets. Wave after wave of inward surprise and awe splashed over them as the hound explained the situation, with some even experiencing the beginnings of the emotion known as worry. Nobody liked the idea of war, and they all understood the heaviness of the possibility of it in their system.

Except for Falco. While he had experienced a lesser form of the emotions felt by the rest of the team, and they were all genuine, he had a different primary reason for paying attention, "So why're we here?"

Another smiled pulled at the General's mouth as he heard this, almost as if he was comforted by the familiarly blunt nature of the avian, "Well, only a few days ago, we tried to contact the Chancellor and set up a peace meeting of sorts, to try to take a step or two back in the rising hostilities between our governments. The problem is that since he cut off all outside communication lines to and from Katina, again saying that he was trying to protect his people, we were only able to make contact with the actual Chancellor's office."

"But…why is that bad?" Peppy questioned, scratching his chin in thought, "Isn't that what you would want if you're making a peace offering?"

"Not necessarily," The General replied, "Since he was the only one who heard our offer, he could easily turn it down and proclaim to the public that we never said it at all; which is exactly what he did. He didn't even mention it and kept up his propaganda campaign against us to the Katinian populace. As soon as we figured this out, we decided to try offering a lowering of tensions again, but this time, in a more…round-about fashion." Pepper grinned, his facial features showing his pride in what he was to say next, "We borrowed one of their com relay satellites and broadcast the same message as before, this time on every holovid in every home across Katina. With no choice but to accept or look like a war-monger, the Chancellor reluctantly agreed to a peace summit on Titania."

"Why Titania?" Fox asked rapidly, attempting to slip the question in before he went on, "Couldn't you find anything more…hospitable for a conference that concerns the well being of the entire system?"

"Well it's the only logical place if you think about it," Pepper elaborated, gesturing with his hand and speaking in a 'matter of fact' tone, "It has to be a planet, as a space station would be too risky. It can't be a heavily populated world like Fortuna, Zoness or Macbeth because too many things could go wrong. It can't be Aquas due to lack of land and Venom is…well, that's obvious; since it certainly can't be Corneria or Katina for neutrality's sake, that leaves only Titania."

The vulpine nodded in comprehension at the simple logic used as the General went on, "The agreement is that each party will send one capital ship, without further warship or fighter escort, and that the captains of the ships will conduct the actual peace talks in an independent research facility on the surface."

Falco sighed and spoke again, this time with apparent exhaustion, "Again General, why are we here?"

If the General was disturbed on any level at the avian's lack of respect or reverence for a man of his stature, he didn't show it in the least. He merely faced Falco and responded directly to him, "It has been agreed upon by both sides that a neutral group is necessary. A team of people that owes no loyalty to either side, and gains nothing from disrupting the peace talks. Preferably armed so as to double as a security force." Pepper turned his head slightly, drawing the rest of the team into his field of vision, "Take a guess at who that is."

Understanding pulsed in each of their minds as the four seated in front of the General finally understood their role in the event he was describing; several questions still floated through their thoughts, but at least now they knew what their purpose was. He went on before any of them could speak in reply.

"In addition to the moral reward of helping to avert a major interplanetary crisis, and possibly saving the entire Lylat System…again; you will also be reimbursed monetarily. The exact amount is still undecided at this time, given the abruptness of the need for your services, but suffice to say; it'll be of a proper quantity."

"How much is 'a proper quantity'?" Falco asked, raising an eyebrow and speaking with a slightly suspicious tone.

"It'll be…enough," Pepper stated rigidly in response, moving on, "Also, if you're willing to accept the mission, we would like to ask you a…well, a favor I guess."

Fox leaned forward a bit in his chair, already knowing in his heart that they would end up taking the mission and curious as to what the hound could mean by his request, "Sure General, anything."

Pepper smiled as the vulpine agreed, drawing the conclusion himself that they were likely to take on the assignment, "Excellent; you always seem to come through for us, Fox."

The General immediately typed in a new series of commands to the keyboard on his desk, loading another program into the projector before pressing the 'execute' key. Soon, the visual device sprung once more to life, creating a shaded outline of a rotating three-dimensional image at eye level above the desktop. "Now, as you all know," he began, "Our 'R and D' department is well known for their innovations and advances in military technology. They're responsible for the creation and implementation of virtually every warship we have in operation. Recently though, they've been working on something…special."

The General waited a few moments for the suspense to build before continuing, looking at each of the seated mercenaries in turn. As he spoke, the click of a keystroke could be heard, followed closely by the de-shading of the projected object, revealing a ship that bore a resemblance to the Star Fox team's primary fighter, "We've been developing a couple new prototypes based on the standard Arwing design. They have completed all of their basic trails with better than expected results, and all they need now is a little field testing."

Fox's eyes lit up, as he knew exactly where the General was heading; it was how they had received the team's original Arwings back during the Lylat War. They had been given the Cornerian military's latest top-secret fighters for the entirety of their battles with Venom as an incentive to fight, in addition to the money. Since the end of the war though, the Cornerian Military had dropped any and all interest in the Arwing program, for some reason content with letting the Star Fox team own the only four operational ships known to exist.

Why, the vulpine had never been able to figure out, although he suspected it had something to do with financial backing, or lack thereof. To put it simply, the Arwing was expensive. One craft cost roughly the same as a fully loaded warship, and to a planetary navy, a warship was much more valuable than a single advanced fighter. Since the Cornerian government was nearly bankrupt after the Lylat War, the Star Fox team had accepted the Arwings, which were technically on loan during the conflict for testing, as payment in place of a good chunk of their reward cash.

"If you are willing, we'd like you to take each of the prototypes for a trial run or two," he went on, the image floating above the projector fading into a second fighter, which was also unique in design, despite the Arwing's obvious influence. "While I doubt you'll need them for this assignment, you can at least get in a test flight on the way down to the surface of Titania, and back up after the conference is over."

"We'd…," Fox stuttered, overcome with all that was being thrown his way, "We'd be honored, sir."

"So you'll take the contract then?" Pepper asked with a bit of audible eagerness, hoping that the last bit about the new fighters might've been enough to push the team over the edge and into accepting the job.

The merc captain leaned back in his chair and looked at his teammates, already knowing his own opinion on the matter. Turning to Slippy, he was glad to see the toad's enthusiastic attitude in favor of the mission, showcased by his vigorous nodding and grin. Peppy seemed to be positive as well, offering a subtle and silent 'thumbs-up' in response to Fox's unasked question of whether or not he wanted to accept. When the vulpine turned to Falco, he saw the avian with his arms crossed in a relaxed position; the avian returned Fox's questioning gaze with a stare of his own.

"Hey man," he smirked, "As long as we're gettin' paid 'enough'." The last word was obviously meant to highlight the hound's previous use of it, but nobody paid any particular attention to it.

The fox smiled and nodded, facing back towards Pepper and shrugging, "You bet, General; just show us where to sign."

"Great," he stated cheerfully in suppressed elation at the team's decision, offering a hand over the desk to the vulpine who took it and gave a firm shake, "I'm glad to hear it, Fox m'boy; I can't tell you how much better I feel about this conference now that we have a neutral party we know we can trust."

Then, abruptly, as if he had just remembered something, the General broke the shake and glanced at his watch, letting out a 'huh' as he realized the time. Reaching into a drawer, he pulled out a small disk and slid it across the top of the desk, stopping just short of the edge. He suddenly seemed eager to get the meeting over with, "The rest of the mission details, including all of the pertinent documents in the folder, are on this disk," he said, tapping the object with his index finger, "The meeting is set for fairly early, around eight, in the morning, so make sure you take the necessary precautions in order to arrive at the research station on Titania in time. I'd suggest leaving around five or so."

Fox was the first to notice this sudden change in tone caused apparently from knowledge of the current time, furrowing his eyebrows for a moment in concern before speaking, "Uh, General? Is there something wrong?"

"Hm?" he replied before waving his hand in dismissal of the possibility, and laughing a little as he explained, "Oh, no; I just have another appointment to get to soon; I still have to brief our ambassadors to the conference, actually. I apologize for the abruptness."

"Not a problem, Pepper," the hare responded, similarly dismissing the General with a gesture.

"Erm, but what about our repairs General?" Slippy asked, speaking for the first time during the briefing with a little uncertainty, "The Great Fox really needs some patching-up before we go out again."

"I have every available military mechanic on the job working around the clock," the hound answered simply, "The major and vital repairs should be done in time for the mission. Anything extra will have to wait until after your return."

"And the new fighters?" Falco added, already eagerly picturing himself behind the joystick of Corneria's next generation of high-performance warbirds.

"They'll be ready too; they're based off the Arwing's control set up, so you should be able to pilot them on a basic level right away without any special instruction. The rest is on the disk," he said, nodding his head to it on the desk and prompting Peppy to finally take the cue and retrieve it. Then, anticipating the next query before it was spoken, he continued, "While we work on your carrier, I've taken the liberty of setting aside a private squad room for your personal use at the barracks next door; I've already spoken to the staff master over there, so all you should have to do is check in. And I believe…" he said, smiling and mentally going over his presentation for anything he may've left out, "That about wraps it up. On behalf of the rest of the Cornerian government, I'd like to thank you for taking the contract."

"Oh c'mon sir," Fox replied, grinning and offering his hand again, "You don't have to say that official kinda stuff for us; we've heard it all before, right?"

"Hah, you've got a point Fox," Pepper laughed, pumping the vulpine's arm a few times before mimicking the motion with the rest of the team. When he finished he said his farewells and stood up with the team to leave, still flashing a grin, "If I can shed my rank for a moment here, it was good to see all you again; in today's bureaucracy, good friends are few and far betwee-"

Unknown to the team, from the moment they stepped foot inside the Headquarters building, their eardrums had been acclimating themselves to the humming of a massive power generator that seeped through the walls. Similar to the white noise onboard a ship, the barely audible sound had simply faded into the background soon after their arrival, and nobody on the team noticed it. At least, nobody was aware of it until the droning suddenly stopped.

Pepper noticed it at the same time they did, and cut himself off as the room fell into true silence, followed immediately by the fading of the overhead lights and the plunging of the windowless office into complete darkness.

"Um…w-what's going on?" Slippy asked, nervousness already starting to make its presence known in his voice. The backup lights flickered on a few moments later, but their dim illumination did little to allay the toad's worries.

The General stared at him with his species' lazy ears pulled back and his shoulders up a little in uncertainty, showing that he had as much of an idea of what was occurring as the team did. A beeping broke the hush of the room, and coupled with a tiny, flashing light, caught Pepper's attention. He bent over his desk in the dimness to investigate, and found that it was a small, handheld com unit; one commonly carried by most army officers for military and personal use.

"General Pepper here," he stated normally after picking it up and thumbing the answer pad on the side, any insecurity caused by the apparent power outage in his voice well masked.

"…calling him now! General!" came a frantic voice on the other side of the connection, the yelling startling him a bit, "Stay in your office, lock it and don't let anyone in."

"What?" he asked, his voice becoming sterner, "Who is this?"

"Private First Class Gordon sir," the voice responded, a little calmer this time but the anxiety still oozed through the com, "I-I'm a guard downstairs. Someone's attacking the lobb-" A blaster shot's unique audio trail could be heard whizzing close by the receiver on the speaker's end, followed by a brief interruption of the transmission as the guard lost his grip on the com unit.

He recovered and his voice broke through an instant later though, "One of them got through to the elevators. I repeat, lock the door and stay-" The sound abruptly cut out; seconds of silence highlighting that it was for good. During the transmission, the sounds of blaster and gunfire pinging off the walls and unidentified voices screaming in confusion and pain could be heard in the background.

Pepper paused for a beat as the com cut out, his mind struggling for a moment to assimilate what he heard and waiting to see if the guard would call again. When the line remained quiet, the General replaced the hand-com on the desktop and shuffled quickly over to the door; opening a panel on the side of it to reveal a compartment containing a mechanical lever. He placed a faded brown paw on the metal implement and was about to pull it, when a voice from inside the room stopped him.

"Wait! Pepper," Fox said quickly, jumping from his seat in sudden remembrance of who was still waiting outside, "We have to get Krystal first."

"Who?" the confused General asked, turning from the door to the vulpine behind him but keeping his paw on the manual lock, "Who are you talking about?"

"The girl I…" the orange furred vulpine began to explicate, only to halt and recall that he had left the vixen and all things pertaining to her out of his debriefing of the Saurian mission; he had figured that it would only complicate things. "She's right outside in the hallway; please, we hav-"

"She's just outside here?" Pepper asked, pointing to the door and justifiably cutting the fox off as he realized someone's life could be at stake, not concerning himself with her background. If the guard's report was accurate, then the emergency powered elevators could be in use by one of the assailants, and that was a chance the General wasn't willing to take. Fox nodded in response to the question and the hound acted without hesitation, prying the door open manually before the merc could step forward to help and peering out into the corridor, wary of the guard's warnings.

He glanced at the empty bench, noting it as so and walking his vision down the hallway with parallel results: empty. 'Even Lisa's not at the desk,' he thought, seeing that the secretary was also missing from her place down the hall near the lift bank. Then, just as he gave up and retreated back into his office, he caught a glimpse of a black-clad figure step out from the lifts, a gun held out in front of him pointed at the receptionist's desk. Even in the dimness and distance of the passage, Pepper could see the figure turn towards him and raise the pistol in his direction, prompting a reflexive duck back into his room. He followed the action quickly by sliding the door shut and throwing the manual lock with a heavy thunk.

"Where is she?" Fox asked slightly worriedly, seeing the General pull his head from the hallway without a second person. The hound's silence didn't assuage his feelings any and he asked again, more frantically, "Pepper, where is she!"

"Nobody was out there," he replied, seeing the force of his announcement on the vulpine's face, and moved by the look of despair, "I'm sorry Fox, but I have to keep this door locked; someone armed was coming this way."

"No! We have to find her!" the vulpine practically shouted, making an impassioned dash for the door Pepper was standing next to. As he passed Peppy and Falco though, they quickly rose up and held him back, struggling to contain the fox's fury at the shoulders.

"Be reasonable Fox!" Peppy roared gruffly into his ear, "None of us are armed; you'll be killed if you go out there!"

Fox's response was an animalistic growl, a snarl in defiance of the hare's plea for common sense as he renewed his efforts and continued to try to liberate himself from his teammates' steadfast grasp. The metallic object strapped to his shin, underneath the jade clothing, suddenly weighed heavily on his mind.

"I'm…sorry," was all Pepper could say; his genuine apology barely heard above the ardent merc's desperate protests.

---

Krystal needed to stretch again.

Slowly standing up from the bench she had been sitting on for the last several hours, she pushed her arms out and up in a long yawn, and again took to pacing the corridor in an effort to remain attentive. As before, her thoughts turned for a moment towards the receptionist down the hallway and possibly conversing with the similarly-aged feline, but the prospect was again dismissed out of lack of confidence. Instead, she settled for merely extending her pacing route from the immediate area around the General's office to include the full length of the passage.

As the vixen approached her desk on the way to the other end of the hall, she could see out of her peripheral that the secretary was reading a magazine of some sort, aimlessly flipping through the worn pages and giving the impression that she was just as hungering for stimulation as Krystal was. She looked up as the blue-furred female passed, but the latter was careful to keep her focus straight ahead, so as not draw possible interaction between herself and the cat. Unfortunately for Krystal though, her desire to be left alone went unnoticed by the receptionist as she called out when the vixen was directly between the desk and the lift bank.

"Bored, huh?"

Krystal winced and halted mid-step, taking a silent breath as she turned to face the feline. She had never really conversed with any Lylatian outside Fox and his team, and the vixen was unsure of how to behave while engaging in a dialogue with a stranger; in all honesty, she was hoping to avoid such a situation until she had time to ask the vulpine about it in detail, "Erm...yes, a little bit."

"Yeah, me too," the feline replied with a smile in a tired voice, placing her chin onto her braced palm for effect, "It feels like I've been here forever; this secretary thing can be so boring sometimes."

"I'm uh," Krystal began, her mind slaving over what to say to keep the unfamiliar idea of conversation rolling, "I'm…sorry to hear that."

"Ah don't be," she responded casually, picking her head up again and dismissing the idea with a wave of her paw, "I mean, yeah; it can get pretty tedious, but I really love this job. I get to travel with the General everywhere he goes; have you ever been to the artificial beaches on Aquas?" The vixen's head shaking 'no' prompted her to continue, her tone changing to slight sympathy, "Oh, you don't know what you're missing. They're simply gorgeous."

Krystal nodded in a way that she hoped showed her interest in the chat, but her failure to come up with anything to say brought about a space of quietness between them. Suddenly, as if detecting it and hoping to avoid the awkward silence, the receptionist stuck out her hand, "I'm Lisa, by the way."

She stared at the outstretched hand for a beat, unsure of what the feline was doing, before grasping the meaning of the gesture as a greeting and taking it in her own, "Krystal."

"Sorry 'bout how long the meeting's taking," Lisa went on, tilting her brown and white-splotched furred head towards Pepper's office door, "The General's conferences're usually much shorter."

"It's not a problem," Krystal responded with a nervous half-smile, more on her toes mentally than a casual dialogue would normally call for. She sincerely wanted to appear as though she was a native of the planet and system to the feline, and as far as she could tell, she was doing a decent enough job. However, before she could come up with anything else to say, her stomach abruptly did the talking for her, rumbling just loud enough for Lisa to hear.

"Heh," she laughed, noticing Krystal's sheepish smile and semi-flattened ears, "Hungry?"

A combination of her body's signals and Lisa's comment led the vixen to realize that she hadn't eaten anything since her departure from Sauria that morning. Other things that occurred during the day understandably distracted her from what would otherwise be an instinctual impulse, but now that her attention was focused on her lack of nourishment, she suddenly felt famished, "I guess so."

"Here; c'mon back and have a seat," the feline said, gesturing to an empty seat behind her in the desk enclosure, "I know I got some stuff to eat around here somewhere."

The vixen watched for a moment as the secretary ducked out of view beneath the desktop before taking her offer and locating the gap between the two-tier circular counter and the glass wall, and edging through it. Assuming the designated seat, she glanced around the cubicle at the various office supplies and implements that populated the desk, her natural curiosity beginning to take over as she pondered what their use could possibly be. She considered asking Lisa about them, such was her level of inquisitiveness, or even perhaps reaching out and touching one of the devices, but before she could do either, the feline pulled herself out of a cabinet she was reaching in and tossed Krystal a round fruit.

"…Thanks," she said after juggling the apple for a moment, unaware of the pitch until the last second. Lisa saw her trouble with it and apologized before biting into her own fruit, followed closely by the vixen doing the same with a bit more hesitation. The flood of juices and flavors that attacked her mouth startled her a bit as she chewed, making her first experience with Lylatian food a surprisingly pleasant one.

"So," the secretary began, the word drawn out as she formulated a question in her head that she had been planning on asking since she first saw the vixen, "If you don't mind me asking of course; …why'd you get light blue?"

Krystal stopped chewing and looked at her with her head cocked in confusion, "Excuse me?"

"Your fur," she replied, nodding toward her, "When you got it dyed, why'd you choose that color? It's an interesting choice. I don't think I've ever seen it done quite like that before."

She glanced down at the sky blue hair covering her bare forearm, and back at the questioner; completely lacking in any knowledge of the cosmetic procedure the feline was asking about, "I'm not sure I know what you mean; I was born like this."

Lisa opened her mouth to clarify what she meant, but stopped and closed it as her mind suddenly dawned on something. Instead, she merely lifted her head a bit and winked, adding skeptically, "Oh, of course you were. My mistake."

Krystal tilted her head again in perplexity in the opposite direction, the feline's words and actions not alleviating her puzzled mindset in the least, "I'm afraid I still don't know what you…mean…"

The vixen's trailing off came about not due to anything happening in the current conversation, but rather, what was occurring in the environment outside of it. Namely, the fading of the consistent background noise of industrial corridor lights and what she assumed to be the machinery running the moving platforms the team and her had taken on the way up. Krystal's ears perked at the lack of sound and she looked up at the lights from which the faint buzzing used to come, and as if on cue, they cut out milliseconds after her attention shifted to them.

Lisa snapped her focus to mirror the vixen's and sounded off with a quiet but higher-than-usual pitched bleat of surprise. Backup generators came to life only moments later, marked by the low-power lights humming on and the elevator mechanics whirring back into operation, but that did little to allay the female's suspicions and worries.

"That's weird…" the feline said quietly with a hint of suspicious inflection.

"What's…happening?" Krystal asked, turning towards her and suddenly getting a strange sinking feeling in her gut.

"I'm not exactly sure," she replied hesitantly, tapping a key on her computer touch-board a few times and shrugging after getting no results from the black screen, "…I guess the power went out." She leaned back in her chair and sighed, observing the peculiar glow created by the backup lights and natural illumination blending in the hallway before spinning her chair to face the vixen, "You don't happen to have a com on you; do ya?"

Krystal thought for a moment, racking her mind for what she meant before coming upon the answer, 'She must mean those devices Fox was telling me about.' She subconsciously glanced at her forearm, where she remembered the vulpine and his team usually wore the communication-capable armbands, "No, sorry; I don't."

"Ah, that's alright," the feline replied, "I'll just head on downstairs for a second and see what's up; they got the elevators tied to the backup generators for a reason I guess."

Lisa stood up and Krystal followed suit to let her pass by, but they both stopped when they heard the coasting grind of a pair of elevator doors parting to reveal an occupant within. In the dimness of the lift car, Krystal could barely make out the lone figure, dressed as it was entirely in dark colored clothes, the exact hue impossible to determine in the shadow it was under. Ignoring its attire entirely though, she could sense something distinctly amiss about the being; something dangerous.

He stepped into the faint light of the corridor, where his gender could be made out, and smoothly raised his arm towards the two females, looking for a moment from their point of view like he was pointing at them. Krystal looked closer at his hand as he performed the motion though, and noticed that he wasn't picking them out at all; rather, he was holding an object of some sort, the shape of which made it appear as though he was jabbing at them with a long, cylindrical finger. The article, along with any other possible identifying features about the figure, was hidden by the dimness, but as he took another step forward, a backup light glinted off the metallic surface of the device. Time came to a halt.

'That's…!' She recognized it immediately as being like the weapons the team had to relinquish at the security checkpoint in the lobby; the kind that shot the strange, mind-numbing bolts of light. However, she quickly concluded that this particular person was intent on more than just stunning.

Her instincts didn't wait for this decision and instantly kicked in when she saw what the object was, shocking her muscles with abrupt movement and sending her to the ground with Lisa in hand. Before they could make it though, two extremely suppressed ratchet sounds broke the silence, followed by the sickening thuds of the projectiles striking flesh. She felt a sprinkling of scarlet fluid on her exposed furred skin as she hit the floor, and although she knew that she herself hadn't been hit, she felt it would be best to lay still and act as though she was, drawing from a basic survival tactic she had learned so long ago. However, the figure had other plans.

She could hear him step forward, his boots signaling his approach, and see him through intentionally slit eyes leaning over the desktop, eyeing the two of them still on the ground. Spying the bloodied shoulder and torso of the feline, he turned to move on to his ultimate objective, the General's office, when he stopped and rotated back, noticing something odd about the other 'victim'. He peered closer over the counter and she knew, with a sudden increase in heart-rate, that he saw her watching him.

Without a word, he raised the silenced pistol again, pointing it straight at her heart, and tightened his grip around the trigger. Her mind raced, thinking of something, anything that would get her out of the situation she found herself in. 'This…this can't be happening…what-…uhhh…'

Krystal felt the collision of the metal slug through her vest, striking just below the collar bone and sending a jolt of pain through her entire body. The sharp recoil of the suppressed weapon echoed in her ears as sweet and relieving numbness swept the area of impact a few seconds later, time enough for the assailant to be satisfied with his performance and move onward to his main purpose for ascending the lifts. She breathed out as quiet as she could as he left, drawing no attention from the figure as such an action was expected when one was shot, and he continued on his way to the office at the end of the hall.

Krystal could feel the numbness branch out from the impact; spreading to every nerve ending and rendering her entire prone body without sensation. But worse then her body's physical breakdown was her mental state; her mind was storming with thought after unfinished thought, raging inside her in a typhoon of frantic contemplation. Was what going to happen to her? What was going to happen to Fox? She simply couldn't come to terms with the perceived fact that her life expectancy had been suddenly lowered to mere seconds. A shiver ran down her spine, and the air rushed out of her lungs, seemingly never to return.

And then, without effort, it rushed back in. '…Wh……what…?'

The tingling deadness faded from her nerves as sensation flooded back through her body; a wonderful but confusing feeling to the vixen who had all but given up on her fate. Her heart beat deep and stable; her vital signals showed no signs of having been damaged at all. At the same time, she also found that her mind had cleared itself and regaining her sharp instinctual awareness, telling her to stay down and make sure the dangerous one was well away before moving and making any noises he might hear. When she was satisfied about his lack of proximity, she finally opened her cerulean eyes and sat up, blinking a few times to regain visual focus and assessing her surroundings.

Her hand instinctively reached for the bloody wound she was sure that lay beneath her shoulder, just above her heart. Instead of wet, oily red liquid though, she felt nothing out of place at all; not even a hint of blood on either of her upper body garments. Even stranger to the vixen, she couldn't find a puncture in the black undershirt; she could feel the bruising underneath without touching it, but her shirt was entirely intact. It was as she was noticing this that Krystal felt a strange and definite weight inside her vest; a weight that, upon further investigation, she discovered to be a solid splotch of warm metal intertwined within the fabric, somehow blocked from continuing through the rest of the outfit. She peeled the steel off and stared at it for a moment, turning it over in her paw in mute wonder, before a weak groan snatched her attention from the flattened projectile to the feline on the ground next to her.

Lisa was still agonizingly conscious, griping her upper left arm with her right and almost biting her lip in two to keep from screaming from the pain. Another, larger blot of red caught Krystal's attention though, and she focused her vision a bit further south on her body, her eyes widening as she saw the blood stain midway down her torso, slightly off to one side. Before the azure vixen could do anything to help her though, she heard the faint whispers.

"K-krystal," Lisa struggled to speak through gritted teeth, her brain still astute as she noticed that at least one of them was relatively unscathed, "Do you have a w-weapon?"

The feeling of the staff on her back became more prominent when she was asked the question, prompting her to begin to reply affirmatively, but she stopped before getting the full 'yes' out. Despite the emergency situation they were in, she was still unsure if showing her personal defense tool was a good idea; she didn't know how someone with know knowledge of the implement would react. Before she could say anything else though, Lisa apparently picked up on her hesitation, and thrust something into her hand.

When Krystal looked down, she saw that the handle of a small black semi-automatic had been placed in her palm by the bloodied paw of the feline. "You have to stop that guy," she said, looking straight into her clouded cobalt eyes. Then, with a weak and strained grin, she added, referring to her wounds, "D-don't worry 'bout me; I…I don't think they're as bad as they look."

The vixen nodded and looked down at the unfamiliar weapon she had been given to use, reflecting briefly on the importance of what she had said. '…She's right; if this 'Pepper' is as important as Fox said he was…' She stopped in her mental tracks as the name crossed her thoughts, bringing back a series of realizations. 'Fox and his friends gave their weapons to that guard at the entrance; they're unarmed right now.'

Maybe it was her natural tendency to take the chivalrous road in dire situations, as highlighted by her involvement on Sauria; maybe it was her desire to not lose the closest thing she'd had to a friend in literally a decade, despite the fact the she knew him for only the briefest of times so far; maybe it was her personal need to repay the debt she felt she incurred when she was rescued from her crystal imprisonment on Dinosaur Planet. Or, perhaps, it was something a bit deeper than any of that. Whatever the case, Krystal suddenly felt a drive to try to do what many, given her circumstances, would call suicide.

"Fox…" she whispered, rising to a crouch and taking a peak around the gap between the desk and the windowed wall, peering around the cubicle to witness the figure running away from her down the hallway. Taking a final glance back at Lisa, she saw the feline had apparently fallen into unconsciousness; her breathing still came in a raspy series of in and exhales, but she was lying still otherwise. Krystal stared down at the pistol in her hands, squeezing the grip of it and simply holding it for a moment before slipping it into and interior pocket on her vest. The weapon was still much too alien to her, and she was nervous enough about using the technology to the point of opting for her staff.

Slipping off her sandals for added stealth, Krystal waited until he reached the office door and was busy with another device in his hand, this one emitting a small, constant blue flame, before taking off after him, careful to remain as hidden as possible in the dim light of the hall. Her bare feet made barely a sound as they padded down the corridor; any noise they did make was covered up by the noise of the figure's device eating away at the metal door of the General's room.

She couldn't stop her breathing from becoming heavier and her heart from beating faster as the first shot of adrenaline entered her system, triggered by her closing distance from the gunman. In motion with her carefully performed dashing down the hallway, she reached back and yanked her staff free from where it was being held against her back, underneath her vest and shirt. It slid to full length at a flick of her wrist, a noise that sounded just as the figure cut the power to his flaming tool and turned towards her, noticing something out of his peripheral.

Seeing her opportunity only a few yards from the man, Krystal leapt into the air, revolving her staff in a gradual vertical circle along the way and scraping the ceiling with the point, before slamming back down to the floor, bringing the head of the polearm to crush the wrist that had been raised against her, knocking the gun out of his grip and clattering to the ground. Reversing her momentum she twisted the staff in her hands and struck its reverse end into his chin, cracking his head back. He stumbled back a step as she took advantage of the position this left her in, taking a half-step in reverse and snapping off a swift full body spin to build force before sending the curved top of the staff into the assailant's temple with both hands, bringing him down in a heap.

The vixen stood panting quietly for a second, staring at the dispatched foe motionless on the ground, and recovering from her exertion. On cue, her weapon slid shorter and she replaced it on her back, underneath the vest and shirt, before she bent down and picked up the assailant's pistol from the floor, knowing to never leave an opportunity for an uncertain opponent. She examined the gun for a moment as she straightened back up, shivering slightly at the thought that the strange firearm had come very close to killing her very recently, and knowing that there was little to nothing she could've done to prevent it. The whole concept of such a powerful ranged weapon was still extremely frightening to Krystal, and it was only the uniqueness of the situation that allowed her to permit herself to pick one of the Lylatian creations up.

Facing the fallen gunman with his property still in hand, she backed up a few steps until she was even with the General's office door; her drive had pushed the assailant back along the passage a few meters, and she was unwilling to turn her back on his still body as she realigned herself. Her heart slowed and the adrenaline that had been pumping through her veins began to subside, leaving her more aware of the reason she had strived to stop the attacker in the first place. She eyed Pepper's door again, wanting to move towards it and link up with Fox and his team, but at the same time, she kept an element of her awareness on the subdued intruder; while she couldn't quite put her finger on it, something didn't seem right about him.

A soft, feeble moan of anguish echoed through the hallway, pricking the vixen's ears and catching her full concentration. Gradually at first, but committing fully after the whimper sounded again, she turned around to stare down the hallway towards the desk where the nearly silent cries for help emanated, quickly identifying them as belonging to the feline she had abandoned moments earlier. However, before Krystal could do anything to help either Fox or Lisa, another, even subtler sound stopped her dead in her mental tracks. '…That was a footfall', she thought, still facing away from the office's end of the hall and back towards the elevators and desk, '…No.'

The pistol that was held loosely in her grip at her side was suddenly snatched away, and she felt a heavy blow plow into her back, forcing her down on her knees in shock. She cringed and held her breath, expecting a lethal projectile to be launched by the black-clad stranger she thought she had knocked out at any moment. However, as the seconds ticked on and no shot was fired, she gradually opened her eyes, amazed to see the same surroundings she had seen when she closed them. Krystal could feel the assailant standing behind her, the barrel of the pistol inches from her cerulean hair, but for some reason, he hadn't fired.

"Stand up," a surprisingly civil sounding, though heavily accented voice commanded, "Turn around."

Krystal hesitated a moment, unsure and untrusting of the assassin, but, seeing no other alternatives for escape, she obeyed. She rose to her feet and rotated to gaze at the man, his face shrouded in black like his body, but his eyes still visible through two small holes. They were trained directly on her, cold and unwavering enough to further her unease and fear; they scanned her person almost as if he was studying her. Finally, his eyes returned to where his gun was aimed, at her face, and his barely understandable accented speech permeated the hallway again.

"You…you are different," he stated, as if he noticed something strangely out-of-place about the vixen. Then, with a sense of indifference and apology, he continued, "…But, I'm afraid that it makes no difference; His orders were very clear."

Krystal was assaulted with a sudden rush of emotion and confusion as her eyes widened in shock, triggered by his recognition of her being foreign. 'How does he know…' she thought as the pistol barrel readjusted itself to point at her forehead, forcing any thoughts other than those for survival out of her mind. Before she could even consider reacting though, a sharp, metallic din penetrated the corridor, freezing her in place as she expected everything to go black in an instant.

However, it wasn't the gun's discharge that reverberated down the hallway; it was a large panel of door slag, kicked from the thin strip of untorched metal that the assailant had failed to cut through before being interrupted by the vixen's initial strike. Time slowed as Krystal observed the ensuing events, a strange force freezing her bare feet in place as she observed, refusing to allow her to move to do anything to aid.

An orange blur erupted from the hole left in the office door, ducking and jumping at the same time to clear the jagged opening. Upon landing outside in the hall, a meter from the startled and distracted assassin, he sprung into a jump reverse-kick, driving the intruder back against the glass. The black-clad figure's finger reflexively tightened on the trigger of his pistol, still aimed down the corridor, and it fired, puncturing the windows further on and shattering a full pane. The sudden gust and whistle of high-altitude wind did little to stop the vulpine's onslaught though.

Fox charged and got a left hook in before blocking an attempt to push him away, intercepting the assailant's foot with his knee and responding with a right straight-arm to the chest. As his arm extended, Krystal noticed an object in the merc's grasp, one that she didn't remember seeing on his belt earlier on. It was a sleek, night-black combat knife, held in a reverse grip to keep the blade pointing downward and leaving him armed yet unhindered for hand-to-hand combat, the kind he was currently engaged in.

The assassin grunted with the blow and brought his arms back in front, making an effort to pistol whip the vulpine while doing so and gain some distance in order to utilize the gun's more conventional use. But Fox had the momentum, and stopped the horizontal strike cold with by stabbing it mid-swing with the dagger, the knife gliding effortlessly through the flesh between the two forearm bones near the wrist and embedding itself firmly, eliciting a cry of shocking pain from the unknown man as the gun fell from his grip.

Unfocused by the blinding sting of the stiletto still lodged in his arm, the unidentified foe fell victim to a blur of precise footwork, the rusty-hued fox slipping his boot behind the assailant's heel and drawing it up, knocking him off-balance. Even as he began to fall, Fox utilized the sideways stance his foot maneuvers left him in and stepped into a full-momentum right elbow to face, pinning it between orange fur and stable glass. He held it there for a moment, as if judging the vitality of the now motionless aggressor, before disengaging and letting the unconscious body crumple to the floor.

He stared at the black-covered form, regaining his breath for a second or two, before bending down on one knee and checking the man's vital signs, ensuring that he was down for good. Satisfied, he then moved on to his dagger, gripping the handle of the blade and wrenching it loose with the sickening sound of the flesh being cut further by it's exit. Wiping the bloodied blade off on his vest, he then pulled up his right pant leg and replaced the night-hued dagger in its sheath behind his shin, resetting the cloth and assuming his full height again.

Breathing deep but doing his best to hide it, he swallowed as he turned away from the still body, eyeing the pistol and making sure it was a good distance from the assailant's outstretched hand, and focused on the vixen standing a couple meters away from him. He was about to speak, but her cold, empty stare stopped him before he could form the words; it wasn't so much a gape at him, but rather a gaze through him, as though she was in deep thought about something. Such a look surprised the fox, as it ran counter to the reaction of most of those he knew who experienced such a close brush with death.

"Krystal?" he asked, any thoughts about her strange behavior melting away upon the sight of her mentally distant visage, relief at her safety evident on his voice as he took a step towards her, "You alright?"

"Yeah," she answered immediately, taking a full breath in and out, "I think so…" Shaking her head and clearing her mind, her clouded eyes returned to a slightly fatigued version of their usual cerulean radiance. Then, instead of her previous gaze off into space, she turned her focus directly onto the fox, emotion spilling into her voice, "Fox…you saved-"

A faint and barely audible moan of agony interrupted her, so quiet that Fox didn't even catch it the first time, only hearing it after mirroring Krystal's ear perking and picking up on the distant sound. She spun around as the vulpine looked past her, both of them seeing the startling sight at the same time and drawing a sharp inhale as they did.

Lisa was propping herself against a foundation beam on the window side of the hallway down by the elevators, supporting her heavily injured body with whatever strength she could manage to summon. She was clutching a spot on her torso, the region of the shirt surrounding it soaked in the vile and telltale shade of crimson, matched only by the stream of blood flowing freely from her shoulder, unchecked as she seemed now to not even notice the second wound. The drops of blood falling from her fingertips to the floor from the stream were visible even in the dim backup light of the corridor.

---

"Man; first day back and already I'm bein' left outta the fights," Falco commented, stepping through the door's wreckage and into the hallway, "Next time Fox, you play babysitter, alright?"

The lack of a verbal response and the sound of retreating footsteps prompted the avian to turn away from the body he was looking at and stare down the hallway, seeing the pair of foxes running towards what looked like the receptionist from before; though hard to tell in the dim light from his position, she appeared to be pretty badly hurt. Pepper came up beside him, along with the rest of the Star Fox team from the office, and gazed down at the unmoving body, visibly shaken to a degree but his experience as a General preventing anything even closely resembling worry or panic.

"Hey Pepper," Falco said, nudging him and pointing down the hallway where Fox and Krystal were sitting the feline down on the ground, "I think something's wrong with your secretary; she ain't lookin' so hot."

The General followed the avian's gesture; his age-wearied eyes widening as they fell on Lisa, followed closely by the distant sound of a wincingly painful fit of coughs. The harsh and painful retches were all the elder hound needed to take off running towards her, thumbing the portable com he was called on before and shouting for medical assistance from someone downstairs. Falco watched him go, genuinely surprised by Pepper's burst of athleticism, before turning back to the assailant's body along with Peppy and Slippy.

It wasn't that they didn't care about the severely injured feline; far from it in fact. But, they all knew that there was little they would be able to do to help; without medical supplies, they would be of no use to the other three already there. Their efforts would simply be better spent elsewhere, such as searching the body of the assassin and attempting to uncover his identity.

Falco knelt down on one knee near the body, running a hand over the black jacket until he located the off-center zipper, and tugged it open. At the same time, Slippy curiously reached for the assailant's similarly colored face hood, and pulled it off, revealing the young but decidedly hardened face of a male hare, roughly in his early twenties. The avian took note of the revelation of the species, noticing with a slight smile that he must've had to fold his ears uncomfortably low to keep it unknown, but was ultimately more interested in the contents underneath the intruder's jacket, as anything of potential use would most likely be found there.

Immediately beneath the outer most layer of clothes was a dull, personal armor vest; a few half-ruptures and tears indicating that the man had been hit and left unscathed at least a few times. 'Probably back in the lobby, Falco thought, not remembering hearing any gunplay in the hallway, 'No surprises yet.' Upon peeling back the outer coat further, the avian discovered an undershirt beneath the vest; the left short sleeve of which failed to hide a shield shaped tattoo bearing the symbol of a tall mountain, with a bright beam shining down from its peak.

"Katinian Special Forces," Falco murmured, reading the text under the emblem, inscribed roughly and still visible in the skin amongst the since re-grown fur. He searched through the rest of the pockets without finding anything else of major significance, other than a few clips of ammunition. The discovery of said items was enough to warrant a want to examine the unconscious assailant's firearm, which was delivered to him after a request to Slippy to retrieve it. Upon receiving the silenced pistol from the toad, Falco turned it over in his hands, eyeing every nook and cranny of the weapon until he found what he was looking for.

"Made and registered on Katina; Planetary Army Weapon," he said aloud, reading from a tiny line of engraved words on the bottom of the gun's grip. He turned to Peppy and offered him the gun, pointing out the suspiciously obvious words as he did so and speaking with more than a hint of sarcasm, "Gee, that's convenient."

"Indeed," Peppy replied casually, sharing Falco's skepticism and nodding with agreement, "Same with the army tattoo."

"There's no way this guy's Katinian," Slippy stated abruptly, catching on to what they were saying and expressing what was so apparent to his companions.

Falco stopped and looked at him out of the corner of his eye, exhaling in slight annoyance before continuing, "Right; so...anyone else got a feeling that somethin's not right here?"

---

"I need a medical team up here now!"

Pepper's words surprised the foxes, causing them to look up at the unexpected presence of the General, moments after their own arrival at Lisa's injured form. Fox made an effort to say something from his position, kneeling next to the feline and having already assessed her wounds, but despite his mouth opening, nothing came out. He simply couldn't find the words to express the severity of her apparent medical condition.

"Roger General," another voice called back over the com in the hound's hand, "A med team's already in route; they should be there in a matter of seconds."

Her breathing came quick and shallow, but unlabored, giving the assembled group a shred of reassurance that at the very least, nothing immediately vital had been pierced by the would-be assassin's bullets. The bleeding, however, was still a problem, as her shirt's fabric refused to soak up any more of the free-flowing blood, causing it to stream past it and into a small pool forming on the floor, matting her fur with the life-fluid along the way. Pepper knelt down next to her, in an effort to comfort the feline, and placed his hand on her uninjured shoulder.

"Don't worry Lisa," he said as she lazily and weakly rolled her head to look at the General, "You're going to be okay."

She struggled to press her muzzle into a smirk, managing only the barest form of such an expression but encouraged by the hound smiling in return at her efforts. "Gen-General," she stuttered, finding it difficult to form and release the words, "You're…you're…you-"

She interrupted herself with another, painfully agonizing series of coughs, unable to restrain herself any further and flooding the hallway with the wince-inducing resonance. The fit lasted longer than the first time; every gag and heave pulling on Krystal's heartstrings as the feline's posture seemed to degrade at each dry retch. The idea that they had just been making friends with each other only a minute earlier was not lost on the vixen as she watched the secretary struggle to breathe.

"Hold on," the General strained, tightening his grip on her shoulder into a comforting squeeze as she doubled over from the pain, "The med team should be here in no ti-"

As if on cue, one of the elevators along the nearby bank pinged and parted its doors, a squad of medical personal bursting forth and quickly locating and surrounding Lisa, respectfully nudging the General and foxes aside as they assessed the feline's status. A lead medic rattled off a series of observations and conclusions, capping his revelations with a call for a stretcher, which was promptly delivered from the lift seconds later. Falco and the others joined the rest of the assembled group moments later, watching the feline get gingerly yet hastily strapped to the hand-stretcher and carried off.

"Hey," the avian called to the head unformed med officer as he arrived, gesturing behind him at the unconscious intruder, "Make sure y'all send up another team for the…the uh…ya know; the assassin guy."

"Will do, sir," he replied from the elevator, getting on the com immediately to relay his very message.

A uniformed army officer who had accompanied the medical team saluted to and addressed Pepper, moments after the lift doors closed, "General, the guard captain downstairs wants you to stay put until they can secure the lobby; a squad of guards are coming up as we speak for extra security." Then, turning to Fox, he continued, "Mr. McCloud; you and your team are to be detained for questioning. I apologize for the inconvenience, but-"

"Sergeant," the hound interrupted, holding his hand up, "I know the Star Fox team had no part in this; right now they're under my direct orders and are currently on an assignment of high planetary importance. They have legal immunity to the furthest extent that my command jurisdiction allows."

"But, sir," the officer replied, clearly a little confused as to the General's statement, "The security plan states that all present at the scene must be held for investigative purposes."

"I'll take full responsibility for whatever comes from this," Pepper said, starting to sound a little frustrated, "Now Sergeant, please go with them and make sure they don't suffer any delays on the way out of the building."

"Y-yes sir," he stuttered, surprised at the abrupt command and resulting security breach. Even so, he still managed to snap off a salute before turning back to the team, "We'll leave as soon as the security team arrives."

---

Krystal was in a shear and unmitigated state of silent shock. Not only had she witnessed the possibly fatal wounding of someone she had only very recently met by a weapon she still couldn't comprehend, but she had been attacked by the assassin and had survived solely due to the vest that she had received from the Fox only hours before. In addition, she had been only a split-second away from certain death when the vulpine had bolted almost literally from nowhere and saved her life. The entire experience left so many questions unanswered; so many things unknown and clouded in confusion.

'And he looks no worse for the wear…,' she thought as the elevator car descended, its effects on the body completely pushed aside by her state of mind, 'None of them do.' She was peeking at the mercenary's visage out of the corner of her vision, noting his stone-faced calm and the completely confident air he exuded, '…I wonder what he's thinking right now…'

Fox knew something was wrong with the vixen; he could see it in her cerulean eyes through their reflection on the mirror-like elevator door frame. She was looking off at something else in the lift car, but his position gave him a perfect view of her troubled façade and the emotions flowing beneath the outer shell. It had been a trying encounter for him as well, but he knew that given their occupation, he and the rest of his team could handle whatever poignant side-effects came with such a situation; it was Krystal he was concerned about.

'I hope she's holding out okay," he thought, taking a final glance at her as the lift arrived at the bottom floor. He remembered seeing spattered blood on the lower part of her vest, along with what looked like a heavy tear in the same garment near her shoulder, and made a note to ask her about them later on. 'No telling what she's thinkin' right now…'

Regardless of their mental condition, the entire occupancy of the elevator car let out a collective gasp, either verbal or thought, as they exited the lift and entered a completely changed lobby from the one they left earlier that day. The once brilliantly reflective marble walls were scorched with harsh black blaster marks and marred by projectile-induced chipping; fragments of the polished granite joined drained ammunition cartridges in littering the floor with debris. The main power was still out, and the sun was beginning to set through the massive windows outside, leaving the waning natural light as the only supplement to the dim backup lighting in the two-story lobby.

The security sergeant led them on a twisting trail through the battle-zone of an atrium, avoiding the scurrying medical teams and investigators as the group made their way to the exit. As they proceeded along their path, the team couldn't help but observe the living components of their environment; the stories of each and every inhabitant permanently and often tragically altered by what happened that evening. Being the most susceptible, Krystal fell to emotional vacuum caused by each individual situation, barely able to hold her facial expression at only slightly affected as each scene came into focus.

A uniformed guard/soldier and a counterpart assailant both lay on their stomachs several meters apart near the elevator hallway, their weapons still clutched tightly in their outstretched hands and pointed at each other. Patches of blood a short distance behind the soldier painted the image of the fatally injured guard staggering forward, refusing to go down with taking an attacker with him, and drenching the ground beneath him with every lurching step before finally succumbing to the life-draining wounds.

Their trail to the doors led them by another of the black-clothed assassins, this one sprawled out faced up on the floor as he fell, two small and precise holes in his chest trickling a thin stream of dark fluid. A medical team slid to a halt next to the body as the team passed, an army nurse performing a quick check of his vitals before rising back up and rushing off to another, potentially savable victim.

A wounded soldier was talking to an investigator a few meters away from the assassin's body, his arm in a heavily blood-stained sling. His gaze keep shifting from the detective to the massive lobby fountain nearby, where a less-fortunate guard lay motionless, half his body still submerged in the water as the med teams skipped over him, more concerned with saving the living first. The tears welling in the first security officer's eyes as he continued to converse with the investigator made it heartbreakingly obvious that the two were close.

As the group finally reached the exit, they were forced to navigate through one more instance of grizzly violence, made even more disturbing by the fact that one of the victims was one with whom they had shared casual conversation with when they first arrived in the Headquarters building. At the security checkpoint just inside the entrance, amid the wreckage of the shattered weapons detectors lay a pair of black-clad assailants on their stomachs, their automatic weapons on the floor next to them where they dropped upon losing the ability to grip them. Each sat in a stagnant pool of deep scarlet blood, seeping out from under them and overlooked as a pair emergency personnel tore through to door with a stretcher, carrying a severely wounded guard between the members of the Star Fox team.

Fox heard the noise of the stretcher-bearers coming through, and turned to watch them pass by, taking his field of vision and placing it towards the other side of the roped-off checkpoint in the process. Just as he did though, and right before the lead bearer interrupted his gaze, he saw something that would make even his battle-hardened, mercenary mind flinch. He could've sworn he saw the collie soldier from before, the one that had lead them to the elevators after taking their firearms, sitting down on the marble floor opposite of them and in a posture that suggested rest or recovery. After the stretcher and its attendants passed, he stepped forward, intending to greet the collie and inquire about what happened.

As he did so though; he froze.

Fox's emerald irises locked with the seated guard's, the latter's forever unblinking stare in return sending a shiver down the vulpine's spine. Upon a closer and unobstructed inspection, the collie's seated position looked more as if he had been forced down; hunched over slightly and his arms at his sides, his pistol still gripped in one paw. A virtual delta of crimson stream-stains was visible underneath a sheet someone had wisely placed over his torso; given his being the first guard the gunmen saw, and his proximity to their automatic weaponry, his wounds were probably violent enough that a passing medic decided to spare the rest of those who came across the corpse the sight.

The hesitation lasted only for a moment, and then it was gone; the collie was no different than the rest of those deceased scattered throughout the lobby. The stutter-step Fox took as he called their escorting sergeant over to unlock the weapon's rack was the only evidence that he had taken note of the dead guard's identity at all. He accepted the four pistols from the officer and turned back to distribute them to each of their owners, sneaking a final glance at the collie before taking up the tail end of the procession as they finally exited the Headquarters building.

A gust of warm, late evening air greeted them as they emerged, accompanied by the sound of screeching sirens and the sight of flashing lights as more emergency personal arrived. The accompanying sergeant pointed out the barracks building, connected to the same sparse courtyard as the structure they just left, and bid the team farewell, stressing that he needed to return to the scene of the attack. Thanking him, they proceeded along the designated path, sidestepping the occasional yellow-tape barrier or investigative team; regardless of their own personal thoughts and experiences within the HQ, they were all glad to simply leave the disturbing scene behind.

The Barracks lobby was comparatively eerily silent, the team's footfalls echoing off the plainer walls as they entered and sought out the staff officer located behind a hotel-style check-in desk. Almost to the point of being curt, the sergeant on duty was quick, official, and obviously pre-notified of their arrival, requiring only a flash of Fox's ID card before handing over a set of magnetic keys, and pointing them down an adjoining hallway.

Following the directional signs and markers along the sprawling corridors of the barracks, the team found their designated room fairly easily, passing the occasional soldier along the way and drawing a few looks from them. Upon arriving, Fox waved the small, cylindrical key in front of the wall-mounted scanner, the scrutinizing beam of light turning from red to green and followed by a pneumatic hiss as the door slid open.

Casually sniffing the air as the team filed into the rectangular room, the vulpine detected a good deal of sterilizing and sanitizing agents, indicating that the space had been cleaned very recently. 'Pepper wasn't kidding when he said he was in a hurry,' he thought to himself as he analyzed the rest of the room visually, taking in all the details of the area where they would sleep that night. The squad room was large enough to fit a pair of bunk-beds, along with the unit sergeant's single cot, giving the sleeping quarters a convenient maximum capacity of five.

It was just as he and the rest of the team were dawning on the possible argument of who would receive the single bed that his stomach gave an audible snarl, snapping all of their collective thoughts onto a single and vital need that they had been deprived of for what seemed like an eternity.

Fox couldn't help the sheepish grin that spread across his muzzle, feeling worse by the moment as he saw that the rest of the team had yet to lose the melancholy expressions retained from their experience in the Headquarters Lobby. Even the normally smirking and wisecracking Falco was ensnared by the downhearted and gloomy attitude; it was the natural reaction of one who had to witness what they did. However, among the downcast eyes and forlorn looks, he managed to make out a spark of interest in the idea of eating a meal.

"So; anyone up for dinner?" he asked, trying to sound upbeat but failing to gain any sort of increase in attitude.

Falco shrugged; his casualness and lack of commentary unsettling the vulpine as much as his calm and normal facial expression was, "Sure."

With the slightly awkward feeling of having come to their temporary sleeping quarters for no real reason, the team took Fox up on his suggestion and filed back out of the room. They set a pace down the hall, following signs and the occasional pointer from a passing solider as they navigated the virtual maze of corridors. As they proceeded however, the two foxes slowed down a bit upon a few subtle gestures from the vulpine, allowing a gap to form between them and the other three. As soon as the space was wide enough for unobserved interaction, Fox turned to the vixen and slowed his walking speed even further, drawing an interested look from her as she followed suit.

"Krystal," he began, running a quick diagnostic over what he wanted to say before continuing, "I…didn't want to say anything back there, but, well…are you alright? You looked a little shook up back at the General's office."

The vixen's response went unspoken for a period of time after hearing the question; there were simply too many contributing factors to her agonizingly real experience in the Cornerian Army Headquarters to even attempt to explain her personal state in regards to feelings and emotions. The overlying sense of being alien in a largely unknown and often frightening world; the assassin striking Lisa down with a strange and unfamiliar weapon; being shot with the same device and surviving due to stranger technology with merely a bruise; the mental list was almost endless.

Her lack of a reply stretched on as the visual images that were retained from the nightmarish walk through the lobby flashed by inside her head; refusing to dislodge their vivid memories from her mind. The empty faces and blank stares coursed through her conscious and thwarted any attempt at an answer she could form with their disturbing nature.

Eventually, Krystal's silence got to Fox, and he turned to her in mid-step, placing his hand on her right shoulder in a gesture he hoped was comforting as he found a way to ignore his previously timid nature around the vixen for the moment, "I'm sorry Krystal; you don't-"

She winced and let out a gentle yelp as the pressure of Fox's hand met the fresh bruising below the shoulder bone, sending needles of stunning pain through her nervous system. The vulpine quickly withdrew his paw in surprise, and noticed for the first time up close the tear in her dark grey vest, the dimensions of it indicating that it could only be caused by one thing.

"Krystal?" he beseeched her as they stopped, alone in the hallway as she recovered from the jarring residual pain. His voice was saturated with worry and concern, but it wasn't in fear of her being seriously injured; he fully trusted the bullet-resistant vest he gave her to have done its job. His level of anxiety came instead for her mental and corporal well-being, "You…you were shot? Are you okay?"

The vixen continued to clutch her shoulder tightly as the throbbing slowly died down, teeth gritted and breathing heightened by the sudden shock of reawakened pain. It had been only a dull ache since the left the Headquarters building, and she had almost forgotten about it until Fox unintentionally reawakened the injury with a surprisingly light touch. "Yeah…I…I think so," she responded, cautiously releasing her grip on her shoulder, "But…it still hurts."

Fox already knew everything she said; he wouldn't have been so strangely calm if he didn't know that the vest worked and that her soreness stemmed from bruising caused by the bullet's impact. It was her lack of knowledge that he was attempting to solve. "That'll die down in awhile; it should only be bruising on your shoulder and collar bone there," he said, thinking while he was speaking about the heavy weight of what he was going to say next.

"But…listen," he continued, taking a slight step forward to get the pair moving again at the leisurely pace to the mess hall, "Everything you saw back there…everything that happened, is something that very, very rarely occurs. I've never seen an attack like that in my entire life living here; usually, this is a very safe city."

Krystal dipped her sight slightly as she considered what the vulpine was saying; his words were reassuring, but their purpose was still unclear. It seemed like a strange thing to say to her. "Fox…why are you telling me this?"

"…I just don't want you to get the wrong idea about my world," he explained with a serious tone, but with a smiling face, "I mean; you've been on Corneria less than a day, and you've already been shot at; under those conditions, it'd be easy to write the planet off as a violent place. And it really isn't." He went on, changing his inflection to a softer shade, "If you are going to stay with us, I just want you to know that. What you saw in that building was the worst I've seen in awhile, but it was a unique situation; one that's opposite of the norm around here. …If I can get the chance later, I'd like to show you what I mean."

A strange sense of understanding and comprehension spread over the frayed nerves of the vixen as they passed through a set of double doors, followed by a subdued form of an emotion she hadn't remembered feeling since she was a tiny child; anticipation. Whatever it was that Fox was alluding to by his last sentence sparked her interest for some reason she had yet to recognize, and it helped to pull her out of her previous mental isolation with her thoughts. Before she could respond though, she realized that they had entered what appeared to be the cafeteria they were attempting to find, and certain other senses distracted her.

Namely, smell. The tip of her muzzle twitched as her nose was assaulted by a virtual cocktail of alternatively enticing and repellent scents, wafting from behind a serving counter on one wall of the large room. Moving with her vulpine companion to the row of buffet style food trays, at the end of which was the rest of the team, the cerulean vixen noticed for the first time that she was starving; she couldn't remember eating since her departure from Sauria, and that was only from the small stock of provisions onboard her personal shuttle.

As such, the fairly mundane assortment of cooking product lined up before her was a feast fit for the highest official to the famished female. However, as she reached to retrieve the first portion of her meal from a bin of fruit, she came to a strange but halting realization; she hadn't the slightest idea of what any of the displayed victuals were. Just as apprehension was about to set in though, her reflexive turn in Fox's direction for help revealed the solution to her problem; the others' platters.

"Hey man," Falco asked, sliding his full tray over to the vulpine, "What took you guys so long? Take the scenic route or somethin'?"

"Hah," Fox laughed, grabbing another bit of food to adorn his plate with, "I dunno; maybe you just walk too fast. But what's takin' you guys so long? I'd expect you to be chowin' down already."

Krystal observed the different meal sets on each of their trays as they conversed; each was decked out with diverse servings of food, and she was uncertain as to which she should emulate. Then, concluding that, being of identical species, Fox's taste pallet would probably be closer to her own than the avian's, she quickly identified and retrieved dishes of the same sort as those on his plate for her own. Now semi-confident with her choice of 'cuisine', she followed the pair of mercs down the row to the end, where they hooked up with Peppy and Slippy and set off finding a table in the mostly empty mess hall, populated by a few soldiers who were content to keep to themselves.

The dinner was a relatively tame ordeal, with most of the team's dialogue revolving around what had been revealed to them in Pepper's briefing, and the attack on his office. They all shared a feeling of surprise and concern at the unexpected concept of a war between Corneria and Katina; the last major interplanetary conflict had been the system-encompassing Lylat War, and that had taken place a mere four years ago, recent enough to leave many regions of the system still under the umbrella of reconstruction. Another prolonged clash of similar size would be devastating.

Among the influx of novel and occasionally startling tastes and flavors from her food tray, Krystal managed also to pick up a few things from listening to the conversation going on around her; such as a rough outline of the mission the team had been assigned. She hadn't realized it until now, but she had been essentially coasting on a mental level since leaving the HQ; she was simply following Fox and his crew, ignorant of whatever duty they had obtained. The vixen was basically tagging along.

However, with the addition of a few discrete questions she managed to slip to Fox while the conversation was turned elsewhere, she came to grasp the full meaning of the team's assignment and goal; her lack of technical knowledge did little to diminish the impact of the war's possibilities. She was no stranger to the concept of armed conflict; but such strife on a planetary scale was enough to boggle her relatively primitive mind.

"Now, remember Fox," Peppy said between forkfuls of salad, pointing the empty utensil after consuming its load to help make a point, "This meeting's going to be about diplomacy; as the neutral party, we won't have to talk much, but it's still going to require a certain level of…well, discipline."

"So…what're you saying Peppy?" the vulpine asked with a sly grin, chewing on a hunk of tough cafeteria beef, "That I'm undisciplined?" This was followed by a snort of a laugh from Falco; their sated appetites eliminating more than simple hunger as the melancholy air that had hung over the team began to lift.

"You know what I mean Fox," he smiled, maintaining his serious tone, "We've never really done a contract like this before, and I just want to make sure you understand what's at stake here."

"Relax Gramps," Falco replied for the merc captain, "I'm sure we can handle sitting still for an hour or two."

"I'm not so sure about that Falco…" Peppy trailed off, drawing a look from the avian and a mirthful grin from Fox and Slippy; the comment even managing to pull a slight smile to the vixen's muzzle.

Before Falco could respond though, a loud, gruff voice broke through the faint conversational atmosphere of the cafeteria, catching the attention of all those within. "Alright you grunts," the chef shouted, ringing a bell a few times for emphasis, "Ten o'clock; time ta hightail it outta here; we're closing." Amongst the mutterings of annoyance and disappointment from the soldiers as they got up to leave, the chef also made another announcement, directed at Fox and his team, "You too mercs; don't think you're gettin' any special treatment here."

"Of course not, sir," Fox replied, irritated that the staff officer had addressed him like that, but shrugging it off; he was used to the back-handed treatment those of his trade often received, "We were just leaving, actually."

He grunted in response before turning to retreat back into the kitchen, his message delivered and a good deal of cleaning work ahead of him. Fox sighed as he pushed back his chair and stood up, facing the rest of the team only to observe them doing the same, clearing their remaining food to a nearby garbage can as they did so. After filing their way through the empty, randomly scattered tables, they reached the exit of the cafeteria, moments before the bright, overhead lights were killed with an echoing resonation.

---

"Have I mentioned how much I hate waking up early?"

"Yes Falco," Peppy replied tiredly as he stepped through the door into their dorm-room; drained from both the day's events and the avian's overall behavior, "A great many times, if I remember correctly."

"Alright," he continued, smiling slightly but still completely honest in his statement, "Just so long as I've made it clear."

The hare chuckled the statement off and made his weary way over to the large, single bed in the middle of the room, sitting on the edge of it with a relieved sigh of contentment. Peppy's claim evident to the rest of the team, Falco didn't even attempt to put up an argument for the bigger cot, settling instead for the bottom of the right double-bunk, with Slippy tailing close behind and leaving the two foxes with the left side.

'Somehow, I knew it would end up like this,' Fox couldn't help but think, turning to the vixen beside him and gesturing to the remaining beds, hoping he wouldn't trip up on the invariably awkward speech regarding the sleeping arrangements with his female friend, "It uh, looks like we're bunk-mates for tonight; which one do you want?"

"Oh," she responded with a hint of surprise, looking towards the unfamiliar bed style with an analyzing eye, "…I…don't really know. …I'll just take whatever one you want me to."

"Al-right," he replied, running over every possible social custom he could remember and desperately trying to recall which the proper one to choose in his situation was. "Is the top okay then?"

"Yeah," Krystal answered with a firm nod, apparently just as relieved to solve the matter, "That's okay with me."

With the last obstacle cleared, the team made the various preparations for the pre-mission sleep, the younger trio of males taking special care to adjust their routine to suit the presence of the cerulean female. Krystal, being rather unsure in return, observed and attempted to mirror their actions, stripping off her grey vest/jacket and footwear, and depositing them at the base of the double-bunk she was sharing with Fox. The lack of further disrobing before climbing into the heavy sheets of the cots confused the vixen a little, but she merely mentally shrugged it off as another strange custom of the Lylatians. She never suspected that she was the cause of it.

Watching Slippy struggle his way up to the top bed on his side of the room, garnering an unexpected boost in the form of Falco yanking him up by the collar, Krystal followed suit and climbed into her own upper cot, using the bottom bunk as leverage for absence of a ladder. The slightly uncomfortable stiffness of the bed was plush as a pillow to the vixen; her own set-up for sleep that she had become used to in her shuttle was a wooden board compared to the military-issue mattress now supporting her weight.

"Alright guys," Fox announced from below her, sitting on the bottom bunk and holding his wrist comp in his paws, "I'm settin' the alarm for four-thirty; we have to make sure we're up and out-"

"Whoa whoa whoa," Falco interrupted, looking up from fiddling with a tiny, handheld gaming device he produced from his pocket, "Four-thirty? …You're joking, right?"

"Well, the trip to Titania from here is about two hours," Peppy answered from the single bed between the two previous speakers, "Add in the jaunt from here to the Spaceport, take-off times, and unforeseen delays…four-thirty seems about right if we're shooting for an eight o'clock meeting."

"Alright…" the avian replied, "…But if I don't wake up in time, you have my permission to carry me to the ship." He flashed a grin as he turned back to his game, muttering to himself as he did so, "…I didn't even know there was a four-thirty in the morning…"

Fox smiled and shook his head as he finished programming the alarm on his armband, placing it on the floor next to his vest and shoes on the ground. Swinging his feet back to the bed, he crawled into the covers of the cot, feeling the warm fabric embrace his exposed fur and slide over his worn pants and shirt. Cradling his head with interlaced hands on his pillow, he stared up at the bottom of the bunk above him, listening to the faint squeaks and creaks as its occupant readjusted herself, undoubtedly feeling the same awkwardness of sleeping with full clothes on as he did. As he lay there though, he couldn't help but think back to the first time he saw her, trapped in the crystal on Sauria, suspended in a soft and delicate, yet entirely unintentional, sleep. A smile spread across his face as Peppy grabbed the light switch near the hare's bed, plunging the room into near complete darkness, and the vulpine unwittingly allowed what he was thinking towards the vixen to come to his mouth.

"Good night," he began gently, his eyes widening in shock as soon as the words left his muzzle; he hadn't said something like that in ages. Thinking quickly, he attempted to recover, "Er, guys."

A quiet string of titters from across the room blew any hope he had that Falco hadn't caught what he said, followed by the avian's voice emanating from in front of his bright but tiny video screen, "Heh, 'night Foxie."

Peppy grunted a similar response, and the already dozing Slippy didn't reply at all, leaving only the female above him to have yet to answer. The seconds stretched to minutes, and still she didn't respond, leading the vulpine to conclude that she had fallen asleep as soon as she hit the mattress. 'Eh, I don't blame her,' he thought to himself as he rolled onto his side and closed his eyes, 'Trying to adjust to such a new world…it must be exhausting.' His breathing slowed and regulated itself into a constant inhale and exhale, and his eyelids began to weld themselves shut for the night. 'Well…good night, Krystal…'

A meter or so above the male fox, the subject of his thoughts lay and stared at the ceiling, watching the panels grow sharper and clearer as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She had heard Fox's comment, but it never registered on her mind; the jet black of the room amplified the uneasiness and reservations that had clawed at her subconscious since they left the Headquarters building tenfold, shining a mental spotlight on them as they took center stage in her thought patterns, and shoved everything else aside.

Perhaps it was due to her inexperience to the horrible sights she had witnessed that day; Fox's life as a mercenary had conditioned his mind to ignore such troubling things, but Krystal's was comparatively vulnerable. Her eyes began to strain as she continued to stare into the metal ceiling above her, quickly losing the stamina to remain awake as a weariness she didn't realize she possessed made itself known. The physical exhaustion did little to slow the racing psyche though, and even when she eventually gave in and lets her eyelids fall close, it didn't slow her brain any.

Swirls of color danced behind her shut eyes, fading in and out in a series of strangely organized shifts, coalescing into blotches of tinted nothingness. The spots began to take on definite shape, linking together into larger and larger smudges until an image was formed; one that was immediately familiar, and had emblazoned itself into her memory. Rising far above every other scene she recalled from the events earlier that evening, this was the one setting that caused her the most worry and fright.

And then, the scene in her mind that had formed from nothing began to play out.

"You…" the image echoed, the glinting pistol directed straight at her, "…You are different…"

The vixen stared at the image up the barrel of his weapon, watching with pre-scripted horror as his finger tightened around the trigger, and his eyes flashed through the holes in the mask. Only this time, there was no savior; Fox was nowhere to be seen. His cue came and went, and the gunman continued with what he had intended to do. The pistol flashed without sound.

Krystal's eyes sprang open.

A gasp escaped her muzzle as she sat up in the top bunk, her heart thumping inside her chest and her panting breaths accelerated to match. Her cerulean fur was drenched from head to tail in sweat; she could feel a drop of the salty fluid form at the tip of her nose as she sat there, before falling onto the covers beneath. Without giving it a second thought, she swung her feet out to hang over the edge of the upper bed, and began removing her modern shirt and leg-wear, letting them drift to the floor for fear of the noise she'd make descending the double-cot, and leaving her clad only in the old garbs she had worn and had kept underneath the clothes given to her by Fox.

Satisfied with the cooling the shedding of insulation brought about, Krystal regained control of her respiratory functions and lay back down, pulling the sheets over her form and letting her head fall onto the soft pillow. A flood of mental activity flooded her mind as she did so though; the thoughts and concerns from before further exemplified by the dream she had just had, and refusing to allow her a moment of peaceful rest.

Virtually every viral notion and thought that emerged was connected to the scene that had so disturbed the vixen, and most ended up at the same question; 'How did he know…' The query refused to let her mind go, gripping it in an iron hold that began to border on torture for her, forcing her to mentally revisit the sickeningly graphic nature of the rest of the situation at the Headquarters building.

She needed to escape the image; she needed to find a way to lose whatever it was that was tormenting her with the onslaught of reflections and contemplation. As she attempted to search for that mental passage out though, Krystal remembered; she was alone. The vixen was in a completely unfamiliar and frightening world, surrounded by thousands of strangers, with no way to return to the relieving solitude and isolation of her shuttle and home for the past decade; no way to go back on everything that had happened.

"Krystal…you alright?"

Fox's voice played with the same echoing quality as the image in what she now realized was a dream, but instead of fear and extreme anxiety, it produced an entirely different emotion altogether. Calm. Something compelled her to take a peak over the edge of the upper bunk down to the lower one, her sensitive eyes cutting through the darkness enough to make out the facial features of the being occupying it.

The male vulpine's sleep embraced face stared back up at her, a virtual beacon of light blazing off his visage and into Krystal's troubled mind, guiding her towards stability. The sight of him lying there, completely at peace, sparked a surprising wave of deep and relieving comfort within her; dispelling the anxiety that had attacked her mind and soothing her frayed nerves. His presence beneath her made her realize that she had been wrong; she was not alone, and, at least for the time being, she had no need to worry of being so.

Taking in the image of his slumbering visage for one last moment, she returned herself to the pillow of her own bunk, a new comprehension coming to mind as she did so. While the vixen had still yet to truly know the McCloud that had saved her life twice in the last forty-eight hours, or decide if he and his team really were secure to live with; she was quite sure of one thing.

Despite living in utter loneliness for almost half of her life, she suddenly found that she never again wished to return to it.

---

Alright, I'm not gonna lie; I'm a little shocked and disappointed at how long it took me to get this chapter up. But, I believe that the extra time spent on it has really taught me a few very important things, and I've used the time to revise my thoughts and ideas for this story. And, I've come to a few realizations:

-Trimming down a chapter is just as important as beefing it up sometimes

-Some things are better left untyped

-I should never overestimate my ability to type 'x' amount of chapters in 'y' amount of time.

So, with these new understandings in mind, and with a little advice from a good friend, I've decided that, in an effort move the story along ('cuz at this rate, I'll never finish 'er before college), I'm gonna have to cut some of the chapters I already have written and shorten the remaining ones up a bit. What does this mean for the handful of people reading this? Condensed chapters and consequently (hopefully) shortened post intervals.

Right, shuttin' up now; on to the important stuff.

---

Review Replies:

Antigravity 5-1-0:

Thanks for the kind words there AG; in my opinion, honesty is the ultimate show of respect which, as I'm sure you know by now, I have heaps of for you. On to the review…

The spelling errors were inexcusable lapses in attention from me; I was kinda pushing to get that chapter out the door (kinda like this one), and I must've missed 'em. Hopefully, there weren't too many. And in regards to the bunched words, I've noticed that this site tends to do that (omitting spaces) with a lot of text-based entries; it happens all the time with profiles and stuff. However, with that in mind, I've made sure to check over this particular chapter specifically for them.

Ah, I feel stupid; I should've caught that part about Krystal. Looking back on it, you're absolutely right; it's kinda an awkward sentence, and one that doesn't quite fit in with the overall atmosphere I've been trying to create. Thanks for pointin' that out; y muchos gracias por la revision mi hermano; muchas gracias.

Redbay:

I'm extremely glad you feel that way Redbay; to hear that I'm improving even in the slightest way is a huge boost in morale, and the (in my opinion) over-generous compliments are an honor to receive.

And as for the blushing deal; the way I mean it when I say that Fox or whoever blushes isn't that their fur changes color; it's the skin underneath, which shows through a little bit. I dunno; it's kinda hard to explain; I'll see if I can think of an example by the next chapter.

So thanks for the review man. And remember, the offer from my profile still stands; if you ever post a story, I'll be the first to review it and give whatever insight a lowly fic author can.

Death:

hay redd i finshed your last two stroy man that took forever but was a good read i reading this one now and are looking forware to the next if you can make the last to you did you can finsh this one
keep up the good work
Death out

Ahem…if I may be so bold as to offer my attempt at a translation:

"Hello Redd; I completed reading your previous two chapters, and it took an eternity to assimilate. However, it was quite a thumping read; so much so that I'm inspired to take a crack at your current publication, and am looking forward to the next entry. If you're able to create the previous two entries, I'm quite sure that you will have the ability to finish this fanfiction.

Continue the exemplary work

Death out"

Nah, I'm just screwin' with ya man; I can understand what you mean fine. Thanks a whole bunch for the review Death.

SF Ghost:

Hey, you're right: I CAN smell it! It smells like…Dentene Ice…huh. Minty.

As always, you amaze me with your review; if I may be so bold as to review it, I've got to say that you consistently have the most elegantly crafted analysis of anyone I've met. If they're any preview to the stuff we can expect in your sequel to G Wing, then I'm willing to bet it'll be a blockbuster.

My 'own style'? I don't know about that; I'm pretty sure I'm not exactly good enough to have my 'own style'. Don't get me wrong though; I'm absolutely flattered by the compliments. You have easily succeeded again in brightening up the day I received that review on. Many thanks for it SF Ghost.

---

Once again, I'd like to thank you, the reader, for taking the time to read my work; there're a lot of better stories on this site you could be reading, and the fact that you even considered mine is something I consider quite an honor. As always, that review button on the bottom left there is open to all; any feedback's worthy feedback in my opinion.

Take it easy guys.

-Irish Redd

Next Chapter: Meteos