Rogue Fox Dark Dreams
Chapter IX
Awakening
~SyxxFox
Present Day…
Syxx woke quickly, instinctively, he tightened the grip of his glove around the rifle as his tail twitched, and waved about on his lap, impatiently. He looked around, quickly gathering himself. It was still quite dark, seeming like the early hours of the morning, when the air was cool, and there was a thin layer of frost that had built up on the outside of his helmet's visor. His legs were crossed one over the other as his back was pressed up against the trunk of a tree, while he layed out over a wide branch.
His ears twitched, as he listened closely to his surroundings. He could hear faint, but heavy footsteps below. He averted his gaze downward, slowly adjusting himself so he could see through the branches and to the forest floor. He could see figures moving slowly through the woods below him, and he casually adjusted once again, leaning his back to the large black cylinder that was strapped to him; the photon-bomb.
The fox could see through the tree branches as two other figures similar in body and shape to himself. He opened up the communicator on his Vortec, and spoke softly through the radio:
"Assessment." he said simply.
A female's voice replied. "Moderate activity. K?"
Another voice filled the coms, this one of a male. "They're coming in waves. But, still, definitely higher than we're used to seeing. Direction of travel has been the same. They're all heading away from the Hive."
The female's voice came back again. "I wonder if they're drawn to the ambient power of that WMD on your back, Syxx."
The male voice agreed. "Could be. Bots have been known to sense large power readings. That or the Hive is producing more than ever before. If you wanna' deliver that payload, we better get on it. If that Hive gets much bigger that one bomb that size might not be enough."
"What are ya' thinkin' Kurses?" Siarra asked.
"The sooner we deliver that bomb, the better. Been running things over in my head all night. Been working with the timing of their waves. If we leave soon, we can hit the Hive by this evening. Even with hang ups. Should be a pretty good sized window for us to hit."
"That means we'll have to plant the WMD and exfil during the night."
"We're gonna be exposed. Lots of night time activity. Lots of bugs. Might not be pretty. Hopefully the detonation will disrupt the hive-mind."
"Ya' copy that, dark-fox?" Siarra asked over the communicator.
Syxx growled softly. "We have no choice. If we have to bug-out at night we'll do it. We'll fight it out, and make our retreat to minimum safe distance and hopefully that will disrupt them enough for us to go dark."
Siarra agreed. "EZ will be our Hook Echos. Hopefully we can get there by morning."
"Eyes and ears." The husky spoke into the microphone of his helmet. "Got a few stragglers on the scope."
Syxx took a glance down through the branches of the trees. He could see a few figures stumbling through the forest below, making low grunting and growling noises as they marched through the forest floor. Syxx slowly shifted himself on the branch of the tree, making his way to stand on it. His armoured glove wrapped around another branch to help him balance. He quickly checked the weapon, turning the battle rifle on it's side to examine it for a moment.
"Got three on the scope." Kurses went on. "Ten meters North. Ten meters North-East. Zero meters. Either take them out quietly or let them pass."
"Your call, Syxx." Siarra added.
"Dispatch all hostiles." The black fox said simply.
"Copy."
Syxx positioned himself toward the end of the branch, looking down through the foliage as he walked across it, with perfect balance. He tracked the infected soldier, watching the man down through the branches before the fox jumped from the tree. He landed right on top of the tall hound, feeling and hearing bone crack and fragment beneath his might, and heavy armoured mass. It was the simple sound of a heavy thud and a knife into the back of the neck of the Aparoid infected soldier, as Syxx quickly neutralized the threat. The knife went right back into the sheath on his chest, blood and all, as he readied his weapon.
The two other Slayers had taken down their targets in just the same way, and the squad quickly and instinctively took a defensive formation of the area without speaking so much as a word to any of the others.
The husky with the wolf's tail quickly slung his weapon to the side of his armour. His thick gloves searched through the bodies swiftly, looking for any sorts of supplies before they went back to his rifle.
They all sat in their formation, using the cover of the forest for a short while, as they all waited and listened. It wasn't long before Syxx walked his way over to the vixen slowly. He pushed his silenced rifle forward with one paw, as the two soldiers traded off their weapons.
Syxx took the M27 Plasma rifle from the other fox and slipped it onto the rifle hanger. "Set the pace." the dark fox spoke lowly. "KR and I will take up the rear. Silenced kills only."
The vixen grinned behind her helmet as she took the weapon. "My pleasure." She inspected the weapon quickly and charged the first shot with a swift motion of her paw and heavy click.
Syxx took the knife out of its guard on his chest, and tossed it into his left paw. He drew his blaster with the other, holding and charged the sidearm. Kurses did the same. He too hung up his main weapon and swapped it out for the long and curved blade of the knife, holding the pistol in his right paw, with the knife in his left. He rested his right wrist over his left, pointing the weapon forward and the blade ready.
"Move out." said the black fox.
They all started at a run through the woods. The vixen with the large bushy tail took the lead, raising the rifle as she needed to as she navigated the squad through the dense forest. Syxx and Kurses followed right behind, often doubling up on eachother, or falling behind as the terrain seemed fit to keep somewhat of a formation.
Kurses ran to catch up. "Swarm, on the scope. Fifty meters."
Siarra lifted the weapon. "Hostiles spotted."
Syxx tightened the grip of the knife. "Take them down quietly or don't engage them at all."
Just as Syxx finished his sentence, he could hear the silent snaps of the ACX firing.
X
The first breath of air was like cold frost, cutting through flesh which in turn was quickly thrown into a fit of dry coughing. Paws clawed at her own face. Each movement of her arms was heavy, like they hadn't been moved in days. Each motion was clumsy and uncoordinated. Something was covering her face, over her snout and mouth, suffocating her, her paws struggled to try to get it away from her, and to get this thing off of her face.
She could feel her eyelids opening and closing, but they could see nothing, just blurs of white and back, as she felt herself holding back screams, though her sore throat wouldn't let her scream if she tried. She was scared. Lack of any sense made her more than completely blind. The world was terrifying, and confusing. There was no recollection of anything at all in her head. No thoughts. No memories. Just fear.
She could see a blurred figure above her. She could hear a voice, but it was just muffles of speech. It was nothing that she could make out. Her struggle and thrashing grew more violent, before a second figure appeared above her. It was the same as the other. It was a black and white blur, out of focus and out of reach for her heavy arms. Her breathing started to grow faster as she panicked. Confused and alone she did all she could to break free, before the voices grew louder again. Yet still completely unintelligible to her. She grew tired again, quickly losing the energy to fight.. The blurs turned to black and her muscles all let go. Silence and darkness were home once again.
X
Pyro lounged about in the hospital room. When he wasn't sitting around reading through outdated magazines, he was rolling around the wheelchair, balancing it on the two back wheels and roaming the halls of the base, not even attempting to cover up the white star that was tattooed into the fur and flesh of his shoulder. Of course he was rather upset about how Syxx had left him here and gone off to do a mission alone. He couldn't be that angry though. Syxx had saved him after all, and spared him as an infected zombie, or worse.
At least he wasn't completely alone. He had Kyla. She wasn't much for talking these days. Since Syxx had left a few days ago, he spent the majority of his time beside her bed. The engineers had freed her from the metal encasement some time ago, and had moved her to a private room for monitoring. The vixen was in a white hospital bed, with all sorts of machines and wires hooked up to various parts of her body. An oxygen mask covered her face, and colourful wires ran from a band around her head. Clear tubes ran into points on her arms.
All in all he didn't get out of the settlement in too bad of shape. Both of his wrists had splints around them, one covered his entire left forearm while the other was simply wrapped around his wrist and thumb. That didn't stop him, from performing his wheelchair stunts though. What was the real hard part was all the broken ribs he had. Many of them were hairline fractured, making it hard to cough or even laugh without being in a great deal of pain, and forget lifting anything heavy. He had already spoken to the lab techs from SFX, and the specialists that had worked directly on the Slayer project had come to see him and aide in his recovery.
They had told him that since Slayers were genetically modified Lylatians, he would be looking at his recovery times cut in half as any normal being. Broken ribs that would take six weeks to heal, they expected to see him at a full recovery in two to three weeks. Same with all of the stretched tendons in his arms. In just a few weeks, he would be cleared for duty again by the lab techs. The Vortec was another story though, it had been drug through dirt, gravel, and tarmac, used as a wrecking ball for many miles. The techs were saying that it might just be a complete write-off, not even worthy of a rebuild, but more of a simple replacement. The problem was, that only two of those particular suits existed, and now one was destroyed while the other was out on mission.
Kyla's fate too was up for debate. The red vixen was still out. Her brain activity had returned to somewhat normal levels, even though she remained in her coma. There was no way to tell that when she were to awake again that she would ever be fit for duty again. Some of the specialists said that she had likely been one of the first of the infected, and that had been about a year ago now. No one had ever been infected for so long and attempted recovery, so it was impossible at this time to say what was going to happen. The long claws that many infected Lylatian's grew had mostly receded again, but her long fangs remained, sticking out over her lower lip from her top jaw.
This was the closest thing that Pyro had to a home right now though. He would sit beside her, read any automotive magazine that he had, as outdated as it might have been aloud to her. He talked with her a little bit, even though he knew that she couldn't talk back. There was a large part of him that he hoped that she could at least hear his voice. If it wasn't even comfort to her, at least it was some to him that maybe she could at least listen to voice of a friend.
Pyro rolled back and forth in his wheelchair, having the brake on, on one side, while he pivoted back and forth with the other wheel. In his other paw was a magazine. "...and check this out. These guys are trying to put this power-tek engine into this old King Stingray. Whaaaat? That would be the car to have. I'm kinda more of a truck-guy though. Ya know? Something with a big bumper on the front. Maybe some thirty-fives. I mean cars are cool, but they're kinda f-ckin' useless. Like this one time, back in high school, my buddy had two-seater, and there was three of us, so guess who gets to ride in trunk!"
Pyro continued to read the magazine, putting it down on his lap, and unlocking the wheels on the chair. He balanced it on the two rear wheels, as he leaned back in the seat, with the magazine on his lap. Pyro turned his head to look at the vixen. He almost fell over backward in the chair as he saw two moonlike eyes staring back at him. His jaw dropped open as he let go of the wheelchair grips and let the two front wheels slam down onto the cold floor. His paws gripped back to the wheels of the chair as he rolled over to the edge of the bed.
"Kyla!" He almost shouted out as he got as close to the bed as he could. He could see the vixen's lips moving, but there were no words coming out.
"Hold on. Hold on. Hold on." He said quickly.
The raccoon lifted his arms up and pulled the oxygen mask off from over her head and off of her face. He watched her lips for a moment as he could hear her whisper. "Pyro."
The raccoon reached behind him, and grabbed his glass of water off of the table. He lifted the cup to the vixen's lips, letting her drink a little of water, and just enough for her to get her mouth wet. Nothing more.
He took a long sigh of relief. "Damn, I never thought I'd hear your voice again."
She looked dazed. Pyro could tell that the vixen was having a hard time swallowing, and was just able to maintain her breath without struggling or wheezing. After she had a small drink of water she was able to speak a little more clearly now. But still it wasn't much.
"Syxx." She said in the clearest voice she could.
"He's alright. He's gone for a little while, but he'll be back."
She nodded her head slowly at the raccoon, and very weakly. She swallowed hard and dryly once more, before her eyes closed again. She let out a long sigh as she rested back into the pillow behind her head. Her breathing calmed once more and just like that, the vixen was out again.
Pyro didn't leave her bedside for hours. He waited there with her, reading the few magazines that they had for him. Sometimes he would re-read them again. He had nowhere else to be. Nowhere else to go. He was technically on bed-rest, but, this was the closest thing that he would be able to get to it. And this is where he wanted to be.
"Why are you in a wheelchair?"
Pyro lifted his head from the magazine and let it down on his lap. He locked eyes with the fox, as he rolled closer to the edge of the bed again. Part of him was in disbelief that he could hear that familiar voice of hers again. The voice of a comrade and his friend filled the air around him, leaving him with a smile on his face.
Pyro let out another long sigh. "Well, Syxx tied me behind a truck and drug me fifteen miles using me like a wrecking ball."
Kyla cracked a smile, as he spoke. It slowly inched its way up her cheeks until he finished speaking, where she would laugh softly, turning into a little bit of a cough toward the end.
Pyro shared the laugh as he continued. "Ended up with a few stress fractures, a couple torn things. Lucky for me, I'm a Slayer, and the healing is well underway. I'm fine. I can still walk and run. But can't run the Vortec until I've regained my bone-mass. So just like you, I ain't fit for duty."
"You must have really done something to piss him off."
"Yeah. Turns out, that Syxx has a temper." Pyro shrugged.
Kyla laughed softly. "Oh?"
"Yeah. Who knew, right?"
They shared a laugh for a short moment.
"Where is he?" Kyla asked.
"He's on mission right now. But he'll be back."
The vixen looked around at the walls that surrounded her. Her eyes scanned the room inch by inch. "Where are we?"
"Ahh, that's the lucky part for you. We managed to get you to a hospital and get you recovered. No means short of a miracle."
Kyla lifted her paws to where she could see them. They had lots of bandages on them and especially over the fingers. She went to lick her lips, but was stopped by something in the way. She quickly lifted her paws both at the same time. She could feel long fangs from her top jaw, slightly curved and very sharp. The fangs extended from her top jaw and down over her bottom lip. "What… are these?!"
"Lucky fox! Not everyone comes back from Aparoidatation."
Kyla gave him somewhat of a puzzled look. She gathered her strength to sit up with her back against the rest of the bed. "Apariod?" She questioned. Her paws where both still on her long fangs, rubbing them. She closed her mouth, but even as she did, her fangs always peeked from her top lip over her bottom lip a half inch.
Pyro tilted his head off to one side a little bit. "Yeah. You were infected. You don't remember anything?"
The fox shook her head slowly. "So… we won the battle?"
Pyro stared at the Slayer. "The battle?"
"Yeah. The Cornerian Army coming to attack us on Sauria. Syxx's counter attack to their preemptive strike? But Aparoids? What are you talking about? That war ended years ago."
Pyro narrowed his eyes a little bit. One of his eyebrows quirked upward. "Kyla? What's the last thing you remember?"
"I uhm… I remember flying my ship. I remember Syxx on the wing and the Great Fox." She was silent for a while. "Then waking up here, in a hospital on Corneria."
Pyro's jaw dropped open slightly. He too was quiet for a moment as he searched and gathered the words to say. "Sauria… Corneria?" He took another long pause. "Corneria is… you don't know what's happened."