Prologue

It was a sunny day in the park, just another peaceful day in Corneria. Among the many enjoying the day were a pair of foxes, a father, and a son, enjoying a day in the park. The father was about six feet tall, with predominantly dark brown fur and a few bits of cream fur, including a bit over the middle of his head that made it look almost like a mohawk. He was dressed in casual clothes though a notable thing was the scarf and sunglasses he wore. His son seemed virtually identical to him save naturally being younger and with reddish-orange fur and a slight shade of tan.

The two were playing a catch game and having fun doing it. "Nice throw, Fox," the father said, referring to his son as 'Fox' after he caught a ball Fox had thrown which he almost missed. "With throws like that, you could have a future as a baseball player," he grinned.

"Thanks, Dad," Fox smiled. "But I don't wanna be that. When I grow up, I wanna be just like you!" he said with a big grin.

His father chuckled at that, before walking over and ruffling his head fur a little. "Its a bit early to say that," he chuckled, before smiling. "But if you do want to be that, then I'll be there for you every step of the way."

"Really? I can be part of your team?" Fox asked.

"Of course," his father smiled. "I'll welcome you in myself even."

"Promise?" Fox asked hopefully.

"I promise," his father said…but his voice sounded…distorted, and suddenly everything went wrong.

Fox looked up…but rather than his father's smiling face…he was looking at his father's skull. "I…pro…mise…" the thing that was his Father said, right as everything around them went up in flames…

XXXX

"Gah!" Fox shouted as he shot out of bed, gasping as he tried to steady his breath. Instead of the child that was in the dream, he was a young adult of about 19 years of age.

"Fox!" An elder's voice called to him from downstairs. Even with it being muffled by the walls, Fox's ears could still make out the high-pitched twang of someone he was familiar with. "Fox! Are you up? Breakfast's ready."

Fox sighed a bit but quickly got out of bed, revealing himself properly. He'd grown up compared to the version in his dreams, looking like the spitting image of his father save for the fur coloration. He'd matured quite a bit too, going from a kid to a young adult with a lean and athletic build, with some visible and well-toned muscles on his currently shirtless body. Going over to the side of his room, he grabbed a shirt and put it on before going out of the room and to the mess hall.

Down the flight of stairs, he went and found himself at an octagonal table with a green frog. Across the table was a blue bird with a bit of red color around his eyes, fiddling around the refrigerator. "Hey Fox, you alright? You look like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed." The frog asked concernedly. "I'm fine Slippy, nothing to get worked up about." Said Fox in a somewhat grumpy voice. "Oh yeah? Like other times in the academy when you just woke up in the middle of the night?" The bird sarcastically retorted as he grabbed a jar of peanut butter from the fridge and some sandwiches.

"And like I said those other times, I'm fine," Fox groused a bit.

Falco looked at him with a rather dull look, which made Fox glare before Falco shrugged. "Alright, if you're gonna keep saying that," he said before going back to what he was doing.

"Today's a big day Fox. We've been waiting for it for a long time now." Peppy reminded Fox. The hare sat down by the table with a coffee mug and an aviation magazine - Blue Skies - as his reading material. The cover of the magazine had a depiction of what looked like a starfighter craft with a swept-back wing design. The header on it caught Fox and Slippy's attention briefly.

THE FUTURE STAR PILOT: DRONES

"I know," Fox replied before grabbing a serving of toast and butter, "But it doesn't make it any easier," Fox replied, glancing to his shoulder slightly at the still spacious empty seat of the halo chair. "I wish he was here." He finished, almost croaking. Peppy's sensitive ears picked up the tone in Fox's voice and set down the magazine on the table to pat Fox's shoulder. "I'm sure he's very proud of you right now, Fox. Up there in the blue skies, I know he is smiling. So is your mother." Peppy kindly spoke, patting Fox's shoulder.

Fox didn't say anything, though the ghost of a smile that appeared on his face told Peppy enough that he smiled a little. However, Fox quickly shook his head and got serious. "So everything's ready?"

"Just need to go through the final tests, and they'll be up and running," Slippy said cheerfully.

"About time. I can't wait to get out there and show the world what I can do," Falco smirked a bit.

"Something you'll get plenty of chances to do, especially right now," Fox said, his voice hardening a bit.

Peppy nodded, a frown on his face. "The war's been at a stalemate for a while now. But there's no telling when that can change," he said gravely, remembering all too well what he'd seen years ago. And that was 5 years ago. More than enough time for new technologies to be developed.

"Well, things are about to change," Fox replied, having a much more determined tone than before. As they finished breakfast and went out to the hangars where their ships sat underneath the protective tarps. Like children unwrapping their Christmas presents, they opened the tarps revealing their starfighters, the Arwings. Triangular-shaped geometric fighter crafts with angular wings and bubble glass cockpits. "Your father would rather you fly. Better than letting a machine do the work." Peppy tossed down the magazine he read at the breakfast table on a tool shed.

"That's another thing we'd both agree on," Fox smirked a bit. "Machines are great, but they're not gonna be replacing real people anytime soon."

"That makes three of us," Falco said. "No way am I gonna let some bucket of bolts outdo me,"

Slippy, however, did not share their sentiment as the mechanic read away at the magazine's pages, seemingly interested in the development. "Whoa! Grunder Industries making these drones? They're the ones I bought more than half our kits and parts from!" Slippy exclaimed eagerly.

"So they at least got the materials," Fox shrugged. "Doesn't change anything."

"Yeah, they may have the best materials, but there's no way they can make a bucket of bolts fly half as good as me. They'd need a brain in a jar or something to even get close," Falco added.

"I guess you have a point there," Slippy mused. "Anyway, we can start the final tests before we take these babies out for their first test flight."

"That's what we like to hear," Fox and Falco smirked a bit.

Slippy went to work, combing through each craft for mechanical defects and malfunctioning components. When Fox sat down in his cockpit, he fired up the HUD elements and examined the data synchronicity of the altimeter, horizon display, targeting, and weapon system. All were functional. Eventually, they would taxi their Arwings to the runway, a paved airstrip on the desert of Fox's home planet of Papetoon. On the distant horizon, there were ravines and canyons, perfect flight practice areas to see how well they maneuver. With them finishing their walking the elephant, Fox fired up his engines and rolled down his flaps for take off. His Arwings levitated off the ground briefly before accelerating like a bullet on a magnetic rail, he yanked the control stick back down, pitching the Arwing nose up, and flew off.

"Okay boys, remember this is just a test flight, so don't go overboard," Peppy said over the comms. "Just fly your way through the canyon in one piece and we'll know the Arwings are working in tip-top shape."

"We know, Peppy," Fox said, chuckling a little at the concern before he soon aimed his Arwing towards the nearby canyons.

"Don't think you're leaving me behind," came Falco's voice as a second Arwing took to the air.

"Do you think letting Falco take off at the same time was a good idea?" Slippy nervously asked, seeing Falco taking off at great speed to catch up with Fox. The frog and the hare would eventually take off and follow Fox and Falco as the leading personalities flew into the nearby mountainous ravines. "There it is boys! The Great Chasm. Slippy, plot our obstacle course into the navigation system." Fox spoke over the comms as he circled above the chasm's mouth. "You got it! Programming flight path now!" Slippy replied. The frog quickly danced his fingers across a keyboard and computer map inputting the flight data. On their HUDs now appeared a series of hologram rings to fly through, Fox dove into the chasm first, weaving through the narrow turns, accelerating to speed through the checkpoints, but slowed down when he was around a sharp turn.

However, in that deceleration, Falco came up from behind him and quickly passed him. "Too slow there, Fox," Falco laughed a bit.

"Not so fast, Falco!" Fox gunned for the next turn and checkpoint, furiously chasing down Falco who was leading the flight. The blue pheasant gasped upon seeing a treacherously curved rock formation and hit the brake, he pulled his Arwing into an accelerated overshot into the air, making a full tilt before coming back down, now behind Fox again. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Falco!" Fox mocked, causing Falco much irritation. "Will you two knock it off? We're supposed to be on a training exercise." Peppy chimed in.

"Relax Peppy, we know. We're just putting the Arwings through a good test," Falco waved off.

"Just keep your competitiveness in check," Peppy sighed. "We don't want to need to replace those Arwings before they've even seen live combat."

"Yeah, we already used up a lot of our funds getting them ready in the first place," Slippy agreed.

"Alright, we'll tone it down," Fox sighed a bit.

"Uh guys," Slippy interrupted, causing Fox's ears to perk and twitch in reaction. "What is it, Slippy?" The vulpine curiously inquired. "I got unknown bogies inbound at bearing 038. They're too fast to be civilians, no transponders either. Could be bandits." Slippy replied. He nauseatingly looked at the radar screen of his Arwing, a squadron of roughly 12 unknowns was heading toward their location.

Fox and Falco looked at the signals and smirked a bit. "Well then, looks like we might just get the weapons test done too," Falco said.

"Maybe," Fox agreed. "Still, arm weapons, but don't fire until we confirm if they're friend or foe," Fox said.

"Yeah yeah, I may be trigger happy, but I'm not THAT trigger happy," Falco snorted.

"Be careful boys. We don't know who we're dealing with," Peppy cautioned, before turning to Slippy. "Are our own Arwings ready?"

"Yep. I may have put more focus on Fox and Falco's but our Arwings are good to go too," Slippy nodded.

"Good. We're joining them," Peppy said as he and Slippy quickly moved to said Arwings and boarded them as they soon took to the air, going after their teammates.

Back with Fox and Falco, they were soon approaching the bogies, and as they got closer, the bogies started to come into view, revealing a set of ships that were identical, with the most notable thing being their wedge-shaped wings. The ship model commonly used by the Venomian army.

"What the-?!" Falco couldn't help but say. "What are Venomians doing all the way here?!"

Fox however snarled at the sight. "Doesn't matter. They're somewhere they don't belong, and we're not about to let them fly this far away from Venom so easily!"

"All wings, engage!" Peppy shouted over the comms, only to cough out. Age was catching up to him. They switched on their Arwing's laser cannons and began to swarm the Venomians fighter crafts. Fox gunned for the lead Invader-1 craft, firing his cannon in quick burst at the craft's hull, tearing it apart before seeing it blow up in a blazing fireball. "One down!" Fox exclaimed, adrenaline running high in his veins.

"What!? Cornerians? Here? How did intel drop the ball like that?" One of the Invader pilots panicked, trying to bank left and right to avoid Falco's laser shots. "I don't know but I don't care! Just keep him busy!" His wingman replied. The second Invader quickly swung down to chase Falco in the rear, trying to shoot him down. The barrage of laser beams missed as Falco swung left and right with his Arwing. He sped up, forcing them to chase him down, then hit the brake, letting the pursuer overshoot while he did a Kulbit loop.

Falco dropped down the rear of the Venomian Invader craft and revved up his engine, he fired his laser cannons at the Invader's rear, blowing the enemy craft to smithereens. "Scratch one! How many you're on, Fox?" Falco smirked. "I'm on two, there's still three more on my tail." Fox urgently replied while glancing over his shoulders. He can see that there were three Invaders tailing him, each one firing their weapons wildly at him to down his shield and eventually kill him.

"Okay if you three want a chase, then I'll give you a chase!" Fox growled, before turning his Arwing and flying into the canyon. The three ships chased after him. They dived head-first into the canyon, chasing him down in the narrow desert ravine. While Fox weaved the bullet through the narrow passes, the Invaders struggled as they sped up and slowed down irregularly trying to hunt him down while dodging the rocky formations. It didn't take long for the first Invader to slam into the rocky formation, scoring another kill for Fox. "That's three kills," Fox commented.

Despite the death of their comrade the Venomians didn't seem the least bit deterred and continued to pursue him…to which Fox simply continued to weave in and out of the canyon, dodging shots from them as well as navigating the canyon. One particular set of shots narrowly missed his Arwing, causing the shots to hit a section of the canyon, resulting in some rocks falling off. Instead of slowing down, Fox hit the accelerator, flying under the rocks and evading them, leaving one of the Venomian ships to be unable to stop and crash right into the rocks, exploding while the last one was able to clear the rocks…but in the ensuing dust cloud, they lost track of Fox…for all of 5 seconds as Fox had used the time to get into a good position and opened fire, hitting the ship dead on, destroying it.

"That's the last of them," Fox said.

"Heh, good to know you're still in top shape," Falco chuckled a bit.

"Fox, the rest of their craft are bugging out, looks like they had enough." Slippy informed them, Fox and Falco saw enemy Invader crafts began to head for atmosphere and left Papetoon. It would seem that the unexpected losses shook them. For the time being, it would seem that his home planet was safe. "We did it! We beat them back!" Peppy cheered ecstaticly over the radio. "But if they're here, then where else could they be?" Fox asked.

His radio soon picked up a transmission, civilians, it was a general alert emergency broadcast across the Lylat System and it came from Corneria FM. Slippy then patched the broadcast into their Arwings, allowing them to listen in on the broadcast. "This is a general alert! Corneria is under attack by Andross' forces from Venom! We repeat, Corneria is under attack! A portal opened in the sky above the GHQ and invasion forces are pouring in! We advise all civilians to evacuate at once!"

The moment they received that message, all members of Star Fox had their eyes wide in alarm. Fox quickly regained his wits and acted. "Everyone go back. We're going to Corneria immediately!" he said.