Months Later
"Where the hell are you?"
The voice on the other end of the secured communicator channel sounded even more gravelly than usual.
"It's classified."
"Bullshit!"
"Remember SIRIUS?" he whispered.
The line went quiet. That was a rhetorical question of course. It was in fact the other man who had told him about it years ago, after finding out about it while working for Andross during the Lylat Wars. SIRIUS or the Strategic Innovation, Research, Intelligence and Utility Section; the top secret and slightly sinister organisation within the Cornerian defence forces, the cutting edge of intelligence gathering, and pushing the envelope of weapons technology. An organisation not strictly confined within the boundaries of law and morale, because it didn't officially exist.
"What are they doing to you?"
"All I can say is that I'm taking part in an advanced medical program." So he was lying to his own boss now? Although he supposed it was partially true, even though he was not the one being experimented on. He looked down on his left arm in its sling. He'd been so lucky, surviving that crash with only a dislocated shoulder. "I'll be fine."
"What the hell were you doing anyway? I know you're still infatuated by the chick, but sacrificing yourself? Really?"
"I just wanted to clip a wing and knock the ship off course, but I guess I overdid it." That was true. He really did love Krystal, but he valued his own life even more. Still, things hadn't worked out all that bad.
"Anything in it for us?" asked his boss as if reading his mind.
"Oh, yeah! This will be good." Making connections with the inner circles of the Cornerian defence forces could prove immensely important for them. "Speaking of her, what was that stunt on TV about, when you tried to hit her?"
"I dunno what got into me." The line was quiet for a moment. "Unless..."
"I've got to go. I'll contact you when I can."
"Be careful."
He ended the call with the last words echoing in his mind. That was an unusual remark by Wolf, who usually expected them to dive headfirst into the most dangerous situations without hesitation. But Sirius could be a powerful ally, or swallow Star Wolf whole. They had to be careful.
He stepped out of the shadows and over to the work stations, manned by a canine security guard in a black uniform. He studied one of the monitors, showing a female canine in scrubs tending to a cerulean blue vulpine in a bed. How lucky it was, that he'd woken up in the same room on the hospital ship as the Cerinian pilot, with the other two survivors from the escape pod in the room next door. That's when anonymous army personnel had swooped in and whisked them away, together with some medics, the only ones who knew there were Cerinians still alive in Lylat.
After an exhausting amount of convincing, including some bullshit about him knowing more than he actually did about Cerinian culture and biology from his relationship with Krystal, they'd agreed to let him in on the program. At least he thought so. He was convinced he was being constantly watched, but it was worth the gamble.
Corneria had defeated many threats with bravery, brute force and superior weapons. But they had never come across an enemy that could get under their skin and into their minds, manipulating them from within in the way the Protectors had. After the Cerinian Crisis, as it was now being called it, SIRIUS had decided that extreme measures needed to be taken, and he was in the thick of it.
"It's a shame we can let her know, you know, Krystal," said the security guard and turned towards him.
"It's absolutely imperative that she doesn't know," he replied.
Krystal had a right to know of course, but at the moment it was vital that she didn't know that some of her kind were still alive. They needed to learn more first. While not single handedly, she had defeated Kamuy, the one who had nearly defeated Corneria. If Krystal found out what they were doing to her people, who knows what she would be capable of? He had met Kursed. A shiver went down his spine.
That's why Wolf and Leon could not be allowed to know where he was or what he was doing either, just in case she met them and could scan them. Even General O'Hare didn't know the whole truth, informed on a need-to-know basis in the name of deniability. The facility itself was deep underground and far away. He had no idea where it was himself, except that it definitely was not on Corneria, but it must be far away enough so their subjects couldn't contact anyone telepathically.
The medical staff and scientists were brought here without knowing where they were being taken. They then worked with the 'patients' for several weeks, before debriefing and constant surveillance to make sure they made no inappropriate contacts with the media or Star Fox. They were not allowed to return for a second stint either, to prevent the Cerinians from building a relationship with anyone. They were high security prisoners really, but he preferred not to think about it that way. When the test program was done, maybe then she could know ... maybe.
"She said she lost her abilities though," continued the security guard.
He turned his gaze back to the three foxes, his own black facial fur and yellow eyes with slit pupils reflecting off the screen.
"So she says."
Krystal was meditating.
That is, she was doing combat practise with her staff. She swung, fended, stabbed, blocked, ducked and moved. She had her eyes closed, relying on her other senses. Her feet danced through the soft grass, but always led her back to the patch of warm dirt she used as a starting point. Her sensitive ears picked up every sound, from the rustling of the grass to calls from creatures large and small. She felt the breeze through her fur, and instinctively moved downwind, so that she could smell a potential attacker while concealing her own scent. She felt the warming rays of light, so she could keep them in her back, making her imagined opponent squint.
The training required balance, strength, speed and fluid movements. It helped her body recover and it eased her mind as well. When her conscience was busy focussing on the next move, visions would sometimes emerge from her sub-conscience. Whether they were dreams or memories, she did not always know. Right now she needed every image she could conjure up. After having had so many Cerinians so close, there was precious little she had learnt.
She increased the speed and force of her exercises. Bit by bit over the past few months, she had been getting used to her new hands.
Who was she? Was she Krystal or Kursed? Was she good or evil? So much destruction always happened around her, and The First had shown her involved in Cerinia's doom, or at least being present. But who could trust Kamuy, after she had shown what she was capable of. Still, that vision from the fight felt so real, so familiar. She remembered it vividly. Her face, her tiara and her clothes down to the bracers and sandals looked exactly like when she arrived in Lylat, as if she'd been teleported from Cerinia to Sauria. Maybe that's what that swirling vortex in her first memory was; a wormhole. She couldn't prove it, but she was convinced it was real.
Fox kept saying that Krystal had helped save Sauria once and the whole of Lylat twice, so she must be true of heart. But one thing had still bothered her. Who was kind and caring yet trained in combat? Fox had answers for that too. Many a soldier he said. Someone who wants to defend. Had she been in the Cerinian army equivalent, a Protector? Was Kamuy the traitor and Krystal the scapegoat?
She had to find out, and that meant finding more Cerinians or Cerinia itself.
Slippy and Beltino had been most helpful in going through the mining equipment as well as every little scrap of debris from destroyed Cerinian fighters, but they had found nothing. What little computer hardware the Cerinians had left behind, had been efficiently remote wiped.
Unless they found something, she had to rely on getting her memories back, but whatever resurfaced was mere fragments, meaningless without context. How had Kamuy managed to block her memories completely? Or was it even Kamuy? Had her own mind done it, to protect itself from the psionic anguish of millions of dying telepaths?
There were two visions that stood out. One was the girl in the woods watching the burnt village-the same one she'd seen after watching Fox's recording back on Kew-but it went on for longer. The figure in the hooded cloak had found her, and as he knelt down in front of her and stretched out an inviting hand, she could see his face clearly. It was an old wolf with brown fur and a yellow muzzle, a friendly but sad expression on his face. She knew it was Randorn, and allegedly he was her father. But he was a wolf and she was definitely not, so who was he really, and why did he feel so important?
The other vision was different. It was a planet moving ominously and shadowed through thick gases around its yellow star. In the background there was a fiercely burning red giant star, the cool glow of a white dwarf, and something else blinking rapidly, perhaps a pulsar and the source of the gamma radiation. But why was the image so clear, if she had been sent in a wormhole? She suspected that it was the last Kamuy had seen of Cerinia-their home-an image etched so vividly into The First's memories, that it had transplanted itself into Krystal's mind during the mental battle.
Her frustrations started taking over, so she stopped, blanked out her mind and concentrated on her senses; sounds, scents, touch. It helped her refocus on what kept her going-love! It wasn't just within her own heart, because even without reaching out with her sixth sense, she could feel the emotion radiating from someone nearby. His feelings were ever present in her mind, like soothing waves on a shore, until her winds of desire whipped up his sea into a storm of passion.
It gave her purpose and energy. She continued.
From his vantage point on top of the hill, Fox stood and gazed out over the rolling plains and woods below. Lylat Prime was sinking towards the horizon, the atmosphere scattering the light and painting the scenery in vivid colours. It reflected off the rivers down below, which cut through the lush and green grassy fields, where flocks of High Top and Thorn Tail dinosaurs were heading home after a day of grazing. It pained the clouds above in a vibrant crimson glow, a fiery backdrop for the silhouettes of a few straggling Cloud Runners.
By tapping the side of his head, he was playing with his new bionic right eye. He tried ultraviolet, infrared, and the powerful zoom, with which he could make out the faces of individual Saurians far beneath him. He could even see the peak of Ice Mountain on the horizon, far beyond ThornTail hollow. And yet, he covered the eye with his hand, because the vision seemed pixelated and the colours synthetic. It didn't show off the beauty of the planet like his left eye could.
He turned around and took in another wonder instead. The one kindest, strongest and most beautiful person he had ever met. Krystal had been practicing with her staff for over an hour, and had trampled down a large patch of grass on her impromptu training ground. She truly had been to hell and back. Fara was Phoenix by name, Krystal was it by nature. She was so out of his league, but he didn't mind anymore.
She was really getting used to her new hands, and was picking up the speed with her weapon. Those hands were a marvel of mechanics, hooked up to the tendons left in her arms, and thus using her own muscles. But they also had auxiliary power-giving her a bone crushing handshake-which charged directly from that magical staff of hers. Fox had had skin grafted over the titanium plates in his head, but Krystal had chosen not to have her new hands covered with anything, at least not yet.
"I know they're fake anyway," she had said. He found it very ironic that they had been repaired by Cerinian technology, knowledge from the very people who had been trying to destroy them. Yes, he thought of them as being repaired rather than healed, maybe even augmented, just as their ship had been. But technology couldn't repair their souls. They had to do that together.
He stopped his pondering and sat down on a boulder to just enjoy watching Krystal's graceful movements. She was wearing a loose tunic, a piece of clothing she had received as a gift from the Tribes of Sauria. They had been most delighted that she was back in Lylat, to the degree that Tricky had even forgiven Fox for breaking up with her in the first place. Well, almost. There was still one thing that the leader of the Earth Walker tribe demanded; that honeymoon.
The garment was much more comfortable for her mending body than a regular flight suit, yet less revealing than the tribal gear she had worn the first time they met. He secretly wished that his bionic eye had x-ray vision, but he knew that was stuff of fiction. Then he had a rascally thought, and he tapped his temple to turn the infrared on. The body heat showed off her curves much better than the tunic.
Suddenly she Kursed as the staff slipped out of her hands, and flew in the general direction of Fox. An ice blast went off as it connected with a rock, and he had to throw himself to the ground. He looked up at the vixen, who still muttering expletives walked over to the staff and picked it up off the ground. He got back up and sat down on the boulder again, brushing snow flakes off his fluffy tail.
"I know they've got pressure points connected to my nerves and everything," she said and looked down at her hands. "I know when I'm gripping things, but it's like on and off. There's no real feeling."
She walked up to him with a sad face, and dropped her weapon in the grass.
"I miss the feeling of touching you." She put fingers made of metal and composites on his face. Then she smiled. "But I remember what it was like."
"You can always kiss me instead."
"As if I would kiss your can head," said the voice of Kursed. She sat down in his lap and prodded his bionic eye with a finger.
"Ouch! Knock it!"
So she did. Knocked the metal plate in his skull that is.
"Sounds a bit hollow, doesn't it?"
Her mood had been a rollercoaster since the fight with Kamuy, swinging between apathy, anger and elation, sometimes quicker than he could keep up with. But lately Krystal the teaser had returned, just with a Kursed edge. How complex she had become, and it just made him adore her even more. He smiled and thought to himself that there were plenty more places on his body, if she didn't want to kiss his face.
'Oh, you naughty Fox!'
He startled at the voice in his head. He could even sense that funny accent she'd had when they first met.
'What? You said you lost it?'
'Well, everyone is scared of it, so isn't it better that they think I did?'
Fox was quiet for a moment, while the consequences started to sink it.
"That explains why I could understand the self-destruct message, even though it was in Cerinian. And why I could sense what Wolf was up to. Actually, did you instigate that?"
She just shrugged and smiled shrewdly.
"You sly vixen," he continued. "You clever, wonderful woman!"
He shook his head, but she put her hands around it and pulled him closer, and he drowned in her eyes.
"You know, I didn't learn much more about Cerinia."
He could feel her breath on his face.
"We will find it. We'll find your home."
She buried her nose in his fur, nuzzled his neck, and whispered in his ear.
"I am home, you foolish Fox. Home is where we are."
"You really mean that?"
"Yeah!" She kissed his lips, but then she looked him in the eyes, and her expression became all serious. "Even though you hurt me, and I hurt you. Regardless of what you say, I know you still think about it."
"Forgiven but not forgotten?"
"That's such a cliché but yes, sometimes I wonder if we're such a good fit. We both know we're pretty strong willed, and I don't think it will always be easy. We'll have to fight for it."
"Well, we fight well together, and some things are worth fighting for. I guess we're just two orphan misfits trying to find love?"
"I'm serious, Fox! We can't afford any more misunderstandings. We have to talk to each other, help each other understand, no silly protecting, no pretending, no secrets."
"In that case, there's something I don't want to hide anymore."
She cocked an eyebrow and tilted her head. He couldn't feel her in his mind, yet she seemed to know he wasn't entirely serious, because if anything she looked curious. He gave her a gentle push, signalling that he wanted her to get off him, so she stood up. He got up from the boulder and reached into a pocket of his jacket. Her gaze followed his hand with interest. He pulled out a small box, and a smile tugged at a corner of her mouth. He dropped down on one knee, and she let out a little yelp. Then he opened the lid and on a ring of white gold there was a gemstone that glimmered with the same colour as her eyes, the last rays of the setting sun reflecting off the ring.
"Will you marry me?"
For a moment, the only sound she could make was a whine.
"Yes," she whispered and tears were beading in her eyes. "Yes, YES!" Then she turned around, faced the plains below and belted out at the top of her lungs, "Y-E-E-E-S!"
She turned back towards him, and stretched out her right arm. It felt surreal grasping that hard metal paw, but he slowly slid the ring up her right ring finger.
"It fits," she whispered, as tears of joy rolled down her cheeks.
"I wanted to do something right for once." Slippy had studied the blueprints for him, to make sure he got the right size, and the ring had special rubbery coating on the inside to make sure it would stay put on the smooth composites. "Including this!"
And he stood up, put his strong arms around her and kissed her passionately, her tears wetting the fur on his face.
"On one condition," she continued to Fox's confusion. "Promise me, no long engagement!"
"I can do that!" A smile spread from one of his ears to the other.
But what he wasn't prepared for was her putting a leg behind his, and the swift push that threw him flat on his back in the tall and soft grass. Before he could protest, she was all over him, smothering him with kisses.
The Lylat sun sunk further below the horizon, and while the flames in the clouds faded as day turned into night, the fires in their hearts burned brighter than ever.
The End
(For now)
