Chapter III
"Damn it."
A defeated Fox McCloud stood sulking in his driveway, staring at the wrecked form of his prized LeDorean as the automated tow truck pulled away. The loud, cautionary beeping sound wasn't the only thing making his sensitive ears fall flat against his head.
Ice on the roadways during the winter had always been a common occurrence. Truth be told, one road worker not laying rock salt on one car-sized patch of frozen water had resulted in his steering and brakes to become useless for a few seconds, sending him into a tree on the side of the road. Sure, he was fine, and thankfully no one was around to see, but the car was completely trashed. The same car he drove as another way to remember his father, the war hero that founded the mercenary team Star Fox, now looked like its front end had just been subject to a trash compactor.
He could practically see James McCloud himself standing next to him, slapping a hand on his back, making a joke about it, but overall glad that he was okay. It may have been just a car to anyone else, but to Fox, this was a legacy. That car belonged to a hero that Fox thought he could never live up to, someone who'd still be flying among the stars today were it not for his untimely death. From all eight planets to Areas 3 and 6, Sectors Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Omega-
'Sector Beta...'
Fox quickly flicked his wrist and brought up his communicator as he walked into his house. After a few moments, the private frequency for Bill Grey responded, and the image of the bulldog Fox was friends with since back in his academy days appeared on the holographic display.
"Hey Fox, you caught me on my break, what's up?" Came the usual, laid-back west-coast-sounding voice.
"Hey Bill, I know this is a bit sudden, but do you remember when I single-handedly destroyed that entire battle cruiser that was about to blow up the Cornerian flagship out in Sector Beta?"
The mental recording of Fox saying "You owe me one!" over the comm played through Bill's head.
"Let me guess," the bulldog started with a smirk, "now's when you finally call in that favor?"
Fox closed the tall front door behind him. His ears flattened even more at having to say this out loud.
"Yeah, how well do you think you can get someone to fix a car for me?"
Silence.
"Bill?"
"Oh no… Don't tell me," the bulldog trailed off.
"Well, you see, what had happened was-" Fox started, until Bill cut him off.
"Is it totaled?"
Of course Bill would know that it's the car. It's the same vehicle that James would drop young Fox off for school every day, the same one that would be lent to him as his first daily-driver, and it would be the only road-based vehicle he'd ever drive for the decades that followed his father's death. Well, except for Falco's motorcycle that one time the bird had gone with him to a bar, gotten blackout-drunk, and the vulpine had to duct-tape his wings around him and drive the bird home, but that's a story for another time.
"...Pretty much…"
Another pause.
"How bad is it?"
"Bad," Fox muttered.
"C'mon, how bad is 'bad?'," Bill asked.
The vulpine pinched the bridge of his nose and turned on the communicator's camera.
"Like, it needs a new front end, bad."
Fox could've sworn he heard some fast typing from Bill's end of the call, like that of someone in an online argument.
"...That is pretty bad."
"So, is it even possible for someone to resurrect?"
Fox knew he was throwing all of his 10 millimeter sockets into one tool chest, but he knew Bill could pull some strings. He was the General, and this was his one favor, after all. A few more seconds of typing, and the bulldog responded.
"I'm not sure, depends if the 'someone' that I had in mind is busy or not."
Bill smirked as a notification on his end indicated that the recipient of his message had seen it.
The string pulling had begun.
-[TW]-
"You gonna come debrief or are you gonna sit on my fountain all day?"
The distinct voice in his ear woke Zach from his impromptu nap, before he realized what he was doing back at the Space Dynamics building. He'd reported his findings to his superiors, turned his gear back in, and had taken a much-needed shower before coming back to the same gigantic, imposing structure that housed the planet's (maybe even the galaxy's) most advanced research and development team. His repeat request with the receptionist from two days ago had led to his usual wait by the fountain, with the exception this time being that the CEO herself had decided to personally escort him.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry."
"Don't sweat it," she told him as he got up from the marble and stone construction. "We're not going to the lab today anyway."
"Oh?"
"No, today you get the privilege of being in my office, and that's without being someone who's about to be fired."
Zach let out a short chuckle, considering himself lucky that he was free from Phoenix' wrath, at least for the time being. The fennec started off, motioning for him to follow. Instead of heading towards the lab tunnel in the corner of the lobby, they approached an array of elevators located to the right of the entrance, along the sprawling polished stone wall.
After a faster than expected elevator ride, the shepherd found himself in a luxurious office on the top floor of the skyscraper, with gigantic floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Corneria City and the nearby shoreline. Fara dropped into her tall-backed office chair, before motioning to a small mechanical device set on her sturdy, sizable desk.
"Candy?"
Zach studied the small machine a little more, now realizing that the hunk of gears, plates, and buttons resting on the desk was nothing more than a candy dispenser. Different brands of candies that he'd tried before were laid out on little paper labels, with corresponding buttons beneath each carefully printed and placed picture. After deciding on a certain kind he liked, he pushed the button, feeling the sharp, mechanical click travel up through his finger, followed by a series of whirrs and snaps, signaling the movement of gears and other inner workings of the retro-themed machine.
A couple of fruit-flavored candies in small cellophane wrappers fell out of the machine, landing in a small metal cup mounted at the base.
Zach took the sweets and unwrapped one of them, before popping it in his mouth and pocketing the other. He then pulled up a chair near the large window, setting it down in front of the fennec and lowering himself into the sleek, metallic-colored seat.
"So how'd it go," Fara asked, ready to get things moving.
"Eh, could've been better," Zach replied after rolling the candy to one side of his mouth. The distinct grape flavor had completely blanketed his taste buds.
"How so," she pressed further, before starting to take part in the candy eating.
"Well, we got two of the perps, but another three got away."
Phoenix nodded slowly, prompting him to continue.
"The two that we got seemed pretty underprepared; one pig and one monkey."
A look that he couldn't quite pinpoint the meaning of slowly began to creep onto her face.
"The other three seemed a bit more experienced; a chameleon, a panther, and a-"
"A wolf," she finished for him. The look on her face turned to a worried frown, as if she were dreading the very individuals he'd seen last night.
"Yes, why?"
Without saying a word, Fara reached over to the candy dispenser, before flicking a small, unassuming switch on the side of it. What followed next transformed the office from a professional yet somewhat laid-back, "get-shit-done" environment, into an impenetrable fortress of "shit's-going-down."
Thick metallic shutters folded down over the windows, causing an audible clatter to sound from each glass pane as the flaps dropped into place before locking. The glass windows on the door and wall that went from the hallway to Fara's office tinted to a pitch black in a near instant, and the door frame sent a series of metal bars across the thick wooden door, preventing anyone or anything from getting in or out— all in a matter of seconds.
Without a word, she pulled a large packet from one of the drawers under her desk, letting it land on the desk with a deadened thump. A small boxed area with a couple of lines were printed in the center, waiting for curious (and fearful) eyes to pass over them.
"I'm gonna need you to sign this," Fara explained. Her tone had become much, much more serious.
"What's it gonna entail?"
Zach quickly realized his mistake as the fennec's eyebrows knit together ever so slightly, not taking no for an answer.
"You've already been exposed to classified information. If anything, you were supposed to have already signed this when you first arrived."
The shepherd quickly signed his name along the dotted line, signing over his rights under whatever was in the packet.
"Let me reiterate," she continued. "The gravity of what you've encountered goes far beyond what you could ever imagine; even higher than me. You are not to share any of this with anyone; not even your superiors at the precinct."
Fara's stern gaze never wavered, piercing his soul a million times over.
"Do you understand?"
Zach gulped.
"...I understand."
The smile that followed seemed almost too genuine.
"Good."
The fennec opened the flap on the end of the packet, before sliding its contents out onto the tabletop. On the top of the pile, the faces of several criminals were present on the front page, the five perps that Zach had encountered last night.
"Does the name Star Wolf ring a bell?"
"Vaguely," he replied.
"They were the rival team to Star Fox," she continued. "The yang to their yin."
Fara pulled a stack of sheets held together with binder clips from underneath the top page, and began reading off its contents.
"These guys were charged with espionage, murder, treason, terrorism, and just about every other infraction you can think of."
"What do you mean 'were?'"
"Don't worry, I'll get to that," she replied. "Their leader, Wolf O'Donnell, his wingman Leon Powalski, and former member Pigma Dengar are responsible for the death of James McCloud before the Lylat Wars."
The mention of the Lylat Wars caught Zach's pointy ears like velcro ripping against his fur, making him lean a little towards the woman on the other side of the desk. He quickly recalled the countless times in school when he and his classmates had studied the events set into motion by the banished mad scientist Andross, and concluded largely thanks to the help of Star Fox.
'Then there was the aparoid invasion.'
It happened around when he was in high school, when the fleet of robotic bugs rolled up into Lylat, as every new threat seemed to have a habit of doing. Everything changed in an instant; bombing drills were no longer drills, families even got separated during waves of the attacks. The aparoid virus had spread so severely before a cure was developed. Just about everyone had been quarantined to their homes, many boarding up their windows and refusing to make any contact with the outside world- fearful of being met with a gruesome end at the hands of a twisted mechanical bug, or one of the many infected who wandered the desolate streets.
"You still with me?"
Fara's voice pulled his wandering thoughts back into the present, still in the impenetrable fortress that was her office.
"Yeah. Just a bit scatterbrained right now."
"Anyway, the thing that worries me the most about these bastards is that they've been dead for the past several years."
Zach shifted uncomfortably.
"I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that it also has something to do with that experiment in the lab the other day?"
"You'd assume correctly."
Fara sighed as she pulled more of the contents from the packet, sifted through them, and shoved them back in. The sticker on the front that Zach signed had been placed over the opening, intending that he swear to never tell a soul about what he'd seen.
"Little known fact, they actually aided us during the Aparoid invasion," she said as he grabbed another piece of candy from her dispenser.
"Huh?"
"Yeah," Fara replied. "Though, the government really didn't want the public seeing them in a better light than they deserved, so it's been kept under wraps ever since."
"Never thought a bunch of thugs like them would put aside their differences and fight for a greater good."
"Even then, they were a bunch of highly wanted criminals. At the end of the day, they were to receive the death penalty if they were ever caught. Only reason the top brass didn't want people knowing is because they'd have the public taking pity on them when they were still, after all, murderers, cheats, thieves, traitors, even kidnappers."
After swallowing one of the soft, chewy candies that she'd procured from the machine on her desk, Fara finally leaned back up, staring right at the only other individual in the room.
"Only reason I'm telling you this is because I thought you'd want to know what you'd uncovered before I have to take you off the case."
Zach just blinked.
'What did she just say?'
He'd taken a job to work with the most advanced research team in the entire galaxy, spent a night fueled on Beryllium Blast and nearly getting a bullet through his brain, only to be taken off the case when it was just picking up.
His eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly, something that Fara immediately picked up on before he could open his mouth to respond.
"Look, Amana. This goes further up the chain of everything that you or I could ever imagine. My R&D team will likely be contracted to work on some key components, but other than that this is beyond the control of either of us."
'What…'
Fara flipped the switch on her candy dispenser back to its original position, causing the multitude of procedures that turned her office into an impenetrable fortress to revert within a few seconds; as if nothing ever happened.
"This is the first time I've admitted this to someone like you, but I'm sorry, Zach. I truly am."
The door unlocked, leaving a forlorn Zach to let his eyes drift away from Fara.
"Thanks for your time. You're free to go," she finished as she spun around to her computer and began scrolling.
'Well… Shit,' he thought.
Zach's runaway train of thought began to tear both him and itself apart, beating his brain to a pulp as he silently got up from his seat.
…
As Fara scrolled through the already-opened email client on her computer, something caught her eye.
It was a message from someone she remembered working with during the Lylat Wars, someone she owed a good amount of debt to for leading one of the CDF's highest-ranked squadrons to multiple victories, and for helping test aircraft other than her precious Arwings.
Bill.
And he needed a favor.
…
"Actually, there might be something you can do."
Fara's words stopped Zach in his tracks as he still had his hand on the door handle, before he turned to look at her. He initially thought she was toying with him, until she asked her next question.
"I know you've been driving that rustbucket of yours. Can you fix an older car?"
The shepherd's ears pricked towards the fennec in the faux leather seat, now getting the inkling feeling that he wouldn't be totally out of luck after all.
"That's rather out of the blue."
Fara rolled her eyes.
"Which car," he asked.
She scrolled her fingers across the trackpad of her laptop, before removing the device from her desk to show him. The image on the screen made him twinge a little; something like what had happened to the car in question would need a new chassis and some body panels, but he knew plenty of junkyards he could root through.
"...Sure."
"Ever the eager one," she replied.
-[TW]-
Fox let out a small grunt as he dropped the firewood into the center of the metal fire ring, where he then leaned down and began arranging the dead tree pieces. He had wanted to get out of the house for a bit, while Krystal was completely spoiled by the coziness of the heater. So, sitting out by the fire in the open backyard with a clear view of the landscape behind them ended up being a good compromise.
He'd done it plenty of times during the survival courses in the academy- starting with the kindling in the center, then stacking the smaller sticks parallel around it; each group perpendicular to the last. Finally, the bigger logs were stacked upward in a similar manner, creating what could've been described as less than subpar for a game of Jenga, but very conducive for a good campfire.
Lastly, the vulpine took a vintage lighter from the inside pocket of his jacket, one that he'd kept with him for years. He ran his thumb over the engraving that took up most of one side of the casing, indicating the original owner to whoever was reading it.
J. McCloud
Fox could feel every nook and cranny of the etching into the brass that he'd continued to polish, making sure that the pristine condition of his dad's old lighter was as good as when it left the factory, all those years ago.
He flicked the lighter's lid open, before giving the small flint wheel near the mouth a quick turn. The flame sprung to life from the metal housing, emitting a soft hiss with its warm glow. Fox continued to stare at the flame for a short while, the sound of his own breathing barely audible against the butane being ejected and the leaves fluttering around him.
Of course, that also meant he could hear the footsteps coming from behind him.
Fox's ears swivelled around to face the vixen who'd somewhat reluctantly agreed to join him outside, just as he'd lit the kindling down in the base of the fire ring.
Well, wrapped up in a clump of blankets that she'd dragged out there, but a win was a win in his book. His eyes travelled up to meet hers, where he spotted a look that still read her desire to stay inside.
As the two continued to stare at each other, the fire continued to grow in both size and heat, partially because of how dry the wood was, but more so how much air was flowing in and around the kindling. Fox looked down at the fire as it continued to grow, then back at Krystal.
"So… Are we gonna…" Fox motioned toward the blankets she was carrying, then to the ground surrounding the fire ring.
The azure vixen let out a soft sigh before laying out the largest of the blankets onto the grass near the fire, and Fox moved to help her spread it out. Not soon after, the two of them were laid out on the soft, pillowy comforter, with Krystal still wrapped up in the other blanket next to the vulpine.
"I still think we could've stayed inside," she mumbled as Fox moved next to her.
"Aw, c'mon, it's not that bad," he returned.
"Says the one who gets an actual winter coat."
"Har har."
"Though, I will say," she continued, "the weather is much better for snuggling."
Fox smiled and put an arm around her, feeling the tufts of fur on her cheek rub against him; her fur softer than the puffy comforter atop the grass they were laying on. Krystal leaned into him, throwing the edge of the blanket over the man who brought her into a new life, all those years ago.
The orange vulpine pulled the blanket the rest of the way over them, before Krystal snuggled up to his side, putting her head on his shoulder. By now, the fire had grown to a much bigger size, and was radiating its light and heat toward the foxes on the grass.
"Happy you didn't stay inside now?"
Krystal rolled over so she was facing the star-lit sky.
"If we had stayed inside I would've snuggled you anyway," she giggled.
"Just like how we'd do in our old room?"
Back on the Great Fox, snuggling led into more raunchy activities several notable times.
"Exactly like in our old room," she replied. "Except this time, without worrying about waking the others up," the vixen finished with a seductive whisper to his ear.
Fox let out a relaxed sigh, running his arms around the vixen's back and waist as he pulled her tightly against him. As Krystal returned the favor, she felt her husband's metallic wedding band press ever so slightly into her fur through the shirt she was wearing. Of course, she had one of her own as well, one that Fox had been no cheapskate on; lined with exotic gemstones around the same black tungsten carbide ring that her mate wore.
"I wonder how the others are doing," Fox said softly as they both stared into the starry night.
"I'm sure they're doing just fine," Krystal replied. "Falco's shooting down every enemy he can glance at, Slippy's always tuning the arwings, only now Katt is there to keep them in line."
"I probably wouldn't last a week aboard the same ship with someone who'll raid my snack stash like Katt does," he mused aloud.
"You have me for that anyway."
"...Is that where all the chocolate goes every time I buy more?"
"...Maybe," the vixen replied as she burrowed deeper into the crook of her husband's neck. "At any rate, you'll just have to buy more," she giggled.
As the nightly temperatures continued their gradual change from summer to autumn, the blanket around the two vulpines by the fire tightened as the two of them held each other under the starry night sky, watching the floating forms of gas and light that they flew among not too long ago.
Their closest friends still did just that, with Falco Lombardi manning the head of the team, Slippy Toad continuing what he did best as the weapons, electronics, and mechanic specialist, only now with Katt Monroe in tow, one of only two people in existence who could keep the typically hot-headed avian in line.
At some point, Fox wouldn't be too surprised if he were called back into the fray, even if it was the last thing he wanted to do deep down. He'd already cheated death too many times, and it was already a hard enough decision for him to hang up his wings.
For now though, things were just fine as they were. He'd been sitting on a sizable chunk of change to retire comfortably, settled down with the woman he loved, even the thought of continuing the McCloud line came up once or twice. Sure, they'd done it a few times, though that ball was kept out of the goal by a rubber goalie every time.
He felt Krystal move in his arms, getting to a more comfortable position as she continued to watch the starry sky. As the warm fire nearby continued to burn, Fox turned to look back up at the sky himself.
He'd probably end up having to carry his vixen back inside, but that was never an issue.
Back inside, where the heater was keeping the temperature just toasty…
And they could sit on the couch with some hot chocolate…
…Or snuggle up in bed like they'd usually do…
Yeah. Everything was just fine.
- A little annoyed at myself, but here's where I'm gonna have to phase Zach out of the story. Looking back, I definitely leaned in a little too much on him, maybe I'll bring him back later somehow. Sorry if this creates any confusion. Thank you Nail in particular for the suggestion.
- The LeDorean approaches...