Disclaimer: Star Fox is owned by Nintendo (and Rare in the case of one character), so please support the official releases. Yes, even the plot hole filled maze that is Star Fox Command. The following is just a piece of not-for-profit fiction for all fans of the games and the characters.

Author's Note: As the title gives away, this is obviously based on a particularly wretched ending of Command. How does a good girl go so bad? Then again, how would you feel if you were turned into a side character in what was meant to be your game, then fighting alongside someone who for so long is incapable of expressing their feelings, and finally finding love only to have your relationship thrown to the wolves as a sacrifice for longer gameplay? Maybe you'd be a little Kursed too?


Prologue

Present Time - Quango System


It wasn't that the shadows were getting longer. The rocky and icy hills that rose from the barren landscape were fading as the pale white dwarf star was dipping under the horizon, closely followed by two small crescent moons. A blistering wind still managed to whip up shards of ice crystals through the thin atmosphere. It was a good place for a secret lair. Who would want to come here?

A man in space suit slowly advanced amongst the rocks, gun held out in front of him.

"Let's wrap up before the moons go down and the nightlife comes out," said the man into his helmet microphone.

"Gotta find it, else Tank will just kill us instead," came the reply.

He crept over a crest and scanned through the infrared scope on his gun.

"Found it! Looks like fighter. Probably single seater. It's in the crater by the north-west canyon."

"Roger that. I'm just a click to your right then. I'll be right there."

The ship glowed in his scope.

"The engines are still hot. The pilot can't be far away."

"Ok, I'm coming up to the crater now."

"I can't see any movements anywhere. Can you?"

There was a thud and a grunt in his earpiece.

"Rift?"

Silence apart from the wind.

"Rift? Come in. Not funny, man!"

He trained his gun in the direction the man called Rift should be, peering through the scope.

Behind you!

He spun around. What the heck was that? It wasn't his earpiece and the air was too thin to carry a voice that clear.

Wrong way.

Heart pounding he turned left, right and back again, looking for a heat signature in the scope, but there was nothing.

Here!

He spun around again and a hooded figure stood before him, holding a staff with both hands. He pulled the trigger but too late, and the shot just blasted into a boulder as the staff whacked the gun out of his hands. Then the figure raised its own blaster, and with a single shot catapulted the man backwards into the crater.

The figure turned and ran, zigzagging, covering behind rocks and outcrops on its way towards the domed building on the horizon.

A short time later a while a silhouette scaled the dome in the last light of the moons. For a while it just stood there looking down, turning slowly, studying. Then it raised a staff over its head, pointy end up and drove it down butt end first. In a flash of light the figure vanished.


The two guards by either side of the hangar door spun around when they heard the crash. They saw a chunk of the domed roof caving in and after it a dark figure falling feet first. Like a ninja it landed in a crouching position amongst the debris on both feet and a hand, staff still in the other hand. The wind rushing out through the hole in the roof stirred up dust and caused a deafening noise, which confused the guards for the moment, but then they fired their machine guns towards the figure. Or rather where the figure had been. It had already jumped out the way with a backwards somersault, dropped the staff and pulled out two guns. Plasma blasts flashed through the hangar in separate directions, each hitting a guard true in the chest.

The third guard wasn't as brave. He ducked behind a shuttle and started fumbling with his helmet, trying to get it on before the air got too thin to breathe. Hyperventilating he checked that his blaster gun was fully charged and armed. Slowly he crept between the ships, turning his gun back and forth, checking the infrared scope. Where are you, he thought.

No, where are you?

He spun around. What was that? Who was that? It wasn't the comms system, so where did the voice come from. He checked all around him, but the scope showed nothing, just the cold ships and equipment in the hangar.

Ah, there you are.

He flung his back against a shuttle.

Look up!

He did so and the figure was on the shuttle roof, but he only saw a glimpse before the staff swung around and knocked him out cold, sending his helmet bouncing along the floor.

The figure searched the guard's body, found what it was looking for, ran over to a smaller door and presented the guard's security card in front of the panel. The door hissed open and the figure started running down the dimly lit steel and concrete corridors of the bunker, choosing the way through the twists and turns with little hesitation. A generator was humming somewhere in this cold and glum place. Before the intersection of two corridors, the figure suddenly stopped. It turned its head left and right, as if listening, waiting.

Then it leaped out into the middle of the intersecting corridors, right between two waiting guards.

Hi guys!

The guards already had their blaster rifles trained, but just as they both pulled their triggers, the figure moved again and the guards only took each other out in a barrage of plasma blasts. The figure dropped down from the ceiling, inspected the smoking bodies and shook its head. Then it turned around and presented the security guard to the panel of one more door.


The massive man simply referred to as Tank tossed the empty glass to the barely clad girl who sat on the floor by his throne, if you can call a big metal chair a throne. He was built like tank, with biceps the size of most mens' thighs, and a big bald head. He was clad in oversized army boots, camouflage pants and a vest that showed tattoos down his chest as well as all over his arms.

"Go get another one!" he said and picked up his plate of food. The girl obeyed and slipped away through a door in the back wall.

There was a hiss when the main doors to his chambers slid open.

"What took you to bloody long? Who'd you find? Or kill?"

A figure slowly walked in, hips swaying slightly. It dropped its hooded cloak and breathing mask on the floor.

What the...? A chick? he thought.

She stepped close enough to the light so he could see her properly. Black leather boots and pants. A rather small black leather top that didn't hide her curves. Not bad! She looked young too and quite pretty too apart from a scar on her face and a chip in an ear, but hey, that just added character. Certainly better than the tramp that hadn't returned to his feet with that drink yet. Her hair was a violent shade of violet and her vidid green eyes glared at him. How the hell did she get past his guards?

"Are you here for my entertainment?" he said, put his plate down and belched.

"This place could certainly do with some livening up," said the young woman with a face of disapproval and looked around the room at the grayscale and sparse decor. There were an array of security monitors around the place, some desks, various weapons hung on the bare concrete walls, a table with cards scattered on it and toppled over chairs. A large bed was visible through the doorway to a back room.

"But no, I'm here for business."

"So what are you selling? Or rather, how much are you?"

She chuckled.

"No, none of that! You're worth money. Barely enough to come to this ass end of the world to drag yours out, but with a bonus if you're alive. A girl's gotta live, you know."

What? A bloody bounty hunter? That little damsel?

"You're funny! Sure you're not an entertainer? Do you dance?"

Faster than his size would give him credit for he'd pulled out a gun and fired a few shots. Wisps of smoke rose from the floor around the woman's feet where the blasts had hit, but she hadn't even moved, still glaring at him. He aimed higher and pulled the trigger again, but this time she had already leapt out of the way and the blast ricocheted dangerously around the room.

"Why does a big, strong guy like you need guns against a little girl like me?"

He started getting annoyed now. He stood up, took off is vest and threw it aside, showing off all his muscles and masculinity.

That's it! Go ahead and underestimate me. You always do.

He walked up to her, standing two heads taller and stared down at her.

"You bloody dance!"

Again, with surprising speed his left fist struck out and hit thin air. What the...? He followed through with his right, but still nothing, apart from an annoying peck in his stomach, where she'd landed a blow ducking past him. He spun around, fists flying, but finding no target. She weaved, ducked and leaped as if she knew each move he was making.

"Stand still!" he roared and lunged forward with arms stretched out to grab her, but she slid through his legs, kicking upwards as he crashed headfirst into a wall. Now he was seriously angry. He turned around but this time she came at him first, barrelling two feet first and kicked him the chest, so he crashed back into the wall. It didn't floor him but was just hard enough to hurt his ego.

"Enough of this!"

"Fine by me," said the woman and raised a blaster. "You've been Kursed!"

The last thing he saw was a flash of light.


How had it come to this?

The hunter named Kursed was dragging her heavy and unconscious bounty back to the ship, with a strength and stamina much greater than her slender figure would suggest. It was taking a while and her psionic sense, which served her so well in fights, was on high alert, searching for the predators that were out there in the dark of the night. She cursed having landed her ship so far away from the base, but at least her weapons were armed and ready to strike.

It was in these moments, when the endorphins receded after the hunt, that the unwelcome memories kept creeping back. They were the memories of a girl with another life in a distant system many years ago. That girl had been kind and curious. She had fallen in love, but had been betrayed. She had tried to be a heroine, but had been called a traitor. That girl had been naive and weak.

But in this system, where it was hard for a man to make a living, and so much harder for a woman, there was something infinitely more important than love. It was called survival. So she had had to become Kursed, who was so strong because Kursed didn't love, didn't feel and didn't care. Kursed could survive because she was skilled and feared.

Damn you, memories! Go away. I don't need you.