Rogue Fox Dark Dreams
Chapter XI
Photon Exposure
~SyxxFox

"We can't wait much longer."

"We'll give him another five. If he's not out, we'll move to minimum safe distance." A female's voice replied to the male's through the radio.

"Copy that."

"Besides he's never been late before. Why would he be late…?"

She was stopped mid sentence. Her ears perked up and she focused her gaze to the wall of energy as it was broken. She lifted her firearm quickly, placing her finger in the crescent of the trigger. An armoured man with a black tail was airborne as he jumped through the forcefield. The radio was filled with static, cutting off some of what Syxx said:

"... Air burst explosion! Seek shelter!"

The husky with the wolf's tail sprung up from his shelter on the ground, throwing the leaves and sticks he was using for cover, off his body. "What's going on?"

Siarra jumped down from her place on a tree branch. She watched the black fox spin and slide on his landing in the dirt, only to raise his rifle to his shoulder before he came to a full stop. He opened fire toward the wall. The battle rifle snapped away in his grip, as the suppressor withheld the sound of the gun. His finger was fast on the trigger. Syxx double tapped the trigger, making it sound like a fully automatic rifle. The solidified plasma bolts slashed through Aparoid Walkers as they marched through the wall in waves. The two other Slayers immediately went in, to support. But as the Walkers passed through the wall, dozens at a time, it was too much.

Siarra honed in on each target, firing her Blaster into the legions of Androids. "Brought the whole party, huh Syxx?"

His voice was calm and collected. "Disengage on my mark." Syxx fired into the crowd of Walkers before the herds of Dragoons came in from behind. He holstered the battle rifle and armed two plasma frags, tossing them into the growing crowd. "Mark."

"Falling back." Kurses simply said.

They all turned tail and ran at once into the thick woods. Aparoid bombers passed by low overhead and dropped bombs into the forest. The Slayers caught themselves dodging plasma bolts and bombs that were landing nearly at their feet. The screams of infected Lylatians echoed through the woods, as they filled in the sound between bomb drops and gun fire.

"Syxx." Siarra's voice came over the radio. "Divert route of travel north seventy degrees to make LZ."

"Negative. Minimum safe distance five hundred meteres."

Kurses fired his heavy rifle into the trees, "For that yield we should be safe here. I did the math!" stopping for just enough of a short second, to get the Infected off their backs.

"Change of plan. The Hive was bigger than mapped out. Bomb is planted two-hundred meters above ground level. Air blast in two minutes and seven seconds." Syxx replied.

"That's not enough time!" Siarra blurted out.

Syxx's answer was swift. "Let's hope these suits are what they're cracked up to be then."

The husky sighed. "Either of you ever been in a photonic blast before?"

"Only the aftermath."

An explosion of green and white shook the ground. The husky's boots left the ground as he was tossed forward, and rolled through the forest floor, knocking over small trees and crashing through rotted logs. Siarra picked up the Slayer at once, helping him back to his feet,while the black fox took cover behind a tree, firing into the forest from which they'd come.

"Low spot in the terrain ahead!" Siarra barked out.

The forest opened up in a meadow that ran through the forest with a narrow but deep and slow flowing river at the lowest part. The Slayers broke through the cover of the woods and hit the dirt, just below the top of the highest point of the river bank. Entire squadrons of Aparoid fighters screamed overhead. An overwhelming amount of firepower and enemies closed in on the Slayers. An oppressive show of force to kill three soldiers. The horizon darked with air support, and the forest roared with a staggering force.

The husky blurted out. "We're never gonna make that dash, Syxx!"

Syxx took cover, going prone on the ground. "This position is our only chance. We have to hold this bank until detonation."

They all fired into the woods, cutting down the bots a dozen at a time as they met a wall of plasma. Alien bird-like creatures swooped down at them and Kurses returned fire, shooting his rifle into the air and taking whatever hits he could to suspend and Aparoid air support.

"T-minus thirty seconds to detonation." Syxx recited.

They fired into the crowd, when Kurses was knocked down. A hit green bolt of plasma struck him in the shoulder, sending him stumbling backward. He could smell burning fur even through his armour. His shoulder felt like it was on fire. The nanobots quickly went to work on the armour, and would have it repaired in minutes, but his injury would remain. What would take any other soldier out of the fight, was a mear glancing blow for the Slayer. He uttered softly into the microphone inside of his helmet: "Taking fire."

Syxx's voice was calm too. "Hold them back." He targeted a Dragoon; a large beast of an Aparoid. Where a normal plasma weapon would have no effect, the hardened plasma bolts slashed through the helmet of the armour, one by one. The heavy battle rifle was enough to dismantle the monster as it broke free of the treeline and soon enough, it fell into a pile of rubble on the ground.

Syxx's calm voice broke through the gun fire. "Ten seconds. Fall back. Fall back."

The super-soldiers all shifted from their positions, to the lowest part of narrow riverway, sticking themselves with a short and sharp bank, right in front of them, and a low and longer hill beyond that. Their boots all stood at the very edge of the water as they moved into position to fire onto the hill side, where they had just come down from. It was already flooded with bots. The Slayers were completely outgunned, and outnumbered, thousands to one.

"Three. Two. One. EMP." Syxx spoke calmly. "HUD Reset."

All of their HUDs went dark at once. But it didn't stop them from firing. Aparoids stumbled as the wave of electrons passed invisibly through the air in a wall of bright blue. The bots all collapsed at the same time. They struggled to regain their footing from the electric wave that just scrambled them all.

"Incoming!" The vixen quickly chirped out.

The ground around them started to rumble, as the creatures simply fell from the sky. They screamed as they crashed through their own ranks, decimating their own kind. Hundreds of the bots fell from the sky all at once, crashing into each other before making the tumble, in some cases, thousands of feet downwards. The warriors barely flinched, as a large airborne Aparoid came barreling down toward them with the many others that fell from the sky at once. The bot made the ground shake as it bounced, throwing up dirt and debris into a cloud of dust and smoke, as the body went rolling past them. It was like a fighter just crashed right beside them.

"Burst in three seconds." Syxx spoke into the communicator.

The Slayers fired off the last of their shots, going right until their weapons overheated. They all dropped their heads at once as they could see trees in the dense forest fall flat. They covered their heads with their arms and hands, getting flat as they could and as close to the ground as possible, using what they could from the bank for cover.

The shock around them was enough to rattle their teeth. The temperature gauges on their armour raised quickly as a hailstorm of debris passed over their heads. The sound of wind, and fragmenting branches filled the air around them. Debris bounced off the Slayer's armour, as just a few moments past, they found themselves being quickly buried by burning tree limbs and Aparoid bodies. It was like being in the middle of a hurricane.

After a few long minutes the winds died down. The warriors kept their heads down until the air became completely silent. There wasn't a sound except for the settling grass blades and floating embers, that lit the ground around them. Soon to follow was the crackling and popping sound of fires, as wood and bodies burned. The air was thick. It was filled with dust, smoke and ash, smelling burnt and metallic. The sunny evening was quickly turned to black as the Slayers struggled to see just a few feet in front of them. It was almost instantly night.

Syxx rolled, kicking off all the debris from his body. He growled as he made his way to his knees. His ears rang and he felt dizzy. He felt like he was about to fall over and the fox could taste blood and even see some spots on the inside of the glass visor. He raised the rifle and scanned the area, quickly finding out that the scope of the rifle was shattered, making it impossible to even use the optics.

He coughed heavily, and released his helmet lock, just quickly enough to tip up the helmet and spit out a wad of blood and saliva before locking the helmet back to his armour. He did it all before taking a breath. The temperature of the air was slowly rising and was already enough to burn flesh and fur. Almost like being in an oven.

The black fox went into a short fit of coughing before he could speak. "Status?"

He surveyed the zone as best he could, keeping watch through the thick smoke. Even thermals were working poorly due to all the radiation and fires. He glanced over his shoulder to see Siarra pushing the corpse of a Dragoon off of the husky-wolf's body.

Siarra coughed and choked, doing as Syxx did to lift up her helmet for a moment and spit. "I'm good. K?"

The other warrior helped push the Aparoid from his body. "Operational. Barely." The man searched his body and the ground around himself. "Weapons didn't make it."

Siarra rolled the large knife into her paw just after tossing the damaged rifle onto the belt of her armour. "My Mapaw's core is cracked. My weapons are fried."

The husky searched his gloves through the debris around him and shook his head. "Yeah, well, mine are gone. Syxx?"

The vulpine checked his rifle. His ears flinched hearing a small whining sound through the smoke. He lifted the rifle and double tapped the trigger, sending a quick burst into the shadow in the smoke, followed by the sound of collapsing metal parts. "Optics are fried. Weapon is operational." He reached to his holster and tossed the black blaster at his side through the air, where Kurses caught it, and checked the weapon.

"Alright." Siarra stood up. "We got some ground to cover. Let's take it slow until we clear the blast radius."

Syxx slid the scope from the rifle off the mounting rail and just tossed it away. There was just a flat surface for him to look down on now, with no sights, and it was at the wrong level for him to see down the barrel properly. Anything beyond close range was a guessing game when it came to aiming. The ACX rifle was severely limited without the scope, something he'd be sure to make Slippy aware of. "Watch your step for any bugs that might not be dead."

"Stepping on a wounded Zed is worse than stepping on a landmine. Let's hope it's mostly Bots."

"Siarra." Syxx turned to her as he stood up. The large-tailed fox looked at him, and was in time to catch the ACX rifle as Syxx tossed it to her. The black fox reverted to just his knife. "Get us to the EZ."

"Roger that." Siarra replied. "Taking point."

Kurses took up the rear of the squad, leaving Syxx in the middle, unarmed except for a knife. "Nice and slow, squad."

"Rally up." Siarra started moving forward through the thick smoke and glowing ash particles in the air that rained around them.

They walked right through fires, letting the armour absorb the heat without a problem. They moved a little faster than walking speed, unable to see through the darkness and thick smoke even with their optics. Every so often Syxx would hear the sharp snaps of the other fox firing the silenced battle rifle. The zone was littered with bodies and wreckage as they made their way through the flattened forests.

"So is this your plan?"

Syxx stopped for a moment. He turned around and looked at the husky. Both of them stared at each other for a short moment through their different armoured helmets. Syxx turned his back to him and started marching again. "You got a better one?"

Kurses laughed a little bit. "I got better plans than working with the Cornerian Army."

"K and myself are headed to Wesetna after this. Doing some odd jobs. We're gonna make some money." Said Siarra.

"Odd jobs?" Syxx asked.

"We're gonna steal from people." The husky-wolf simply said. "We sure could use a third."

"I'm not leaving Pyro."

Siarra looked over her shoulder for a brief moment. "What the hell do they have on you, Syxx? Corneria is gone. And no Slayer is sad to see it go. Hell, man, half of us are disavowed military and the other half are criminals."

Syxx thought for a moment. "Which one of you was the criminal?"

"We both are."

Siarra nodded in agreement. "Right. So since you asked a question like that, I'm gonna say, you were military, eh Syxxy? What'd you do? F-ck up a hostage situation? Get a bunch of your own guys killed? I mean we're all Slayers for a reason."

Kurses chimed in. "We didn't care for the Cornerian Army then, are we sure as hell don't now."

"Just think it over." Said the vixen. "You really want to be back working for the Cornerian Military?"

Syxx remained silent as he walked through the bodies.

Siarra sighed softly. "What happened to the 'bad-ass' Syxx?" She looked over her shoulder at the other fox as they marched through the darkness and all the debris of the forest, like she expected an answer, but he was just silent. The vixen turned back ahead. "You don't talk much anymore do ya'?"

Syxx let them hang in silence for a short while. The air just filled with the sound of their own footsteps through the ash, and the sound of a light but steady wind before he spoke. "I've got other plans."

"Care to elaborate?" The husky asked.

"How do I find Sargasso?"

The vixen froze in her steps. The husky stopped walking at the exact same moment. The two Slayers shared a look even through the armour as they froze. Syxx stopped as well. He looked at the vixen, and then over his shoulder at Kurses.

The husky let out a dry huff of a laugh. "We can get you there."

"On one condition, fox." The vixen said. She turned to him fully. She lifted the heavy rifle with her arm, and rested it down on her shoulder, with the barrel pointed to the sky. "What does the Army have on you?"

Syxx stared down the vixen before taking a look over his shoulder at the husky. It was clear they weren't going anywhere until he told them. He simply blurted out. "I'm Fox McCloud."

Kurses was nearly sent into a fit of laughter. "And I'm O'Donnell's half brother!"

The fox knew they wouldn't believe him. The truth was too strange to believe.

X

"General. You're gonna wanna' take a look at this."

Peppy slowly walked through the command center of military installation; The Katina Post. It was a large room with screens many meters wide at the front of the room. The command center was filled with dozens of personnel, who all sat at their own holographic projectors or glass screens that rested before the larger display instruments of the center.

Peppy paced around the raised back of the room, making slow circles. He had been awaiting this moment for a few days now. Metal Asset Apex was running late and he didn't like it one bit. It was never like a warrior of such stature to run behind schedule. He froze in place and looked down the aisles in front of the larger display, to the controller that had addressed him.

"Put it on screen, son."

"Yes Sir." The massive screen at the front of the command center lit up. The entire population of the room went silent. "This is data sent to us by the orbiter. An EMP was detected on the far side of Katina, less than a minute ago. Video feed is live."

The screen flickered a few times. It showed a view of the planet from space. A large black spot had been in the center of landmass, and it had disappeared. There was now a bright white glowing spot in the same place, with a plume of smoke and dust erupting from around the epicenter of the bright white. Peppy crossed his arms as he watched the event unfold from the other side of the planet.

Another controller raised his voice. "General Hare, Sir. Blast signature matches that of a Rapture class photon device directly on the location of the Aparolid Hive."

Peppy replied quickly. "Have we restored comms to the zone?"

"Negative Sir. Too much electromagnetic interference at this time."

The door slid open to the command center, as the entire StarFalco team made their way into the room, with the door quickly sliding shut behind them.

Falco was the first to speak. "What's going on?"

Peppy turned his back to them and looked back at the large monitor. "He did it." The hare took a long breath and placed his paws behind his back, holding them together. "Mr. Lombardi, ready your team. Head into the zone and see if you can retrieve Fox. No unnecessary risks. Slippy, make sure you are monitoring for radiation in the area. If you can't find him within an hour, return to base."

"Sir!" another controller stood up. "Wesetna's city outlines are reporting Aparoid contact within a hundred kilometers of the city!"

Another man spoke up. "General! Patrols are confirming overwhelming Aparoid forces approaching the base!"

"Put it on screen."

The globe spun, and the screen now focused down on the other side of the planet. It mapped out the hundreds of kilometers around the base. Red squares marked the position of Apariod legions approaching the base from all sides, from the air and the ground.

"Sir, reports of forces engaging the bots less than ten kilometers from the green zone! Scanners indicate hundreds of thousands strong."

Peppy was speechless for a moment as everyone looked to him. "They must have been preparing for this attack for months. Hiding in the forest."

Falco was about to run out of the room. "We're on it Peppy! We'll get Fox back here as fast as we can!"

"No!" Peppy barked out to the entire team, meeting eyes with Slippy, Kat, Krystal and Falco. "Your mission is to defend this station."

Krystal's jaw dropped open a little bit, as she stood there in shock. "What about Fox?!"

Peppy turned his back to them looking back at the screen. "Fox isn't a priority right now."

Falco sighed. "Peppy… as much as the guy bugs me, we can't just leave him out there. We have to go get him. We have to bring him back."

Slippy agreed. "Peppy we can't leave Fox."

Peppy turned back to the team and started to march toward them, with a stern expression. "I need every member of this base in defensive formation. This is the Aparoids last push to get us off this planet. I need this team right now. That's an order Falco."

Falco shut his beak. It was clear he was holding back what he wanted to say, but there was nothing else that he could do right now. He just dipped his head. "Yeah Peppy. We got it."

"Good." Peppy said with that stern expression still about his face. "Makenzi. Sound the alarm. All personnel to battle stations. Scramble all fighters. Jones, order perimeter forces to tactically retreat to defensive positions. Get gunships for ground forces in the area off the ground immediately. Bradly, contact the orbital defence platforms and get Magrails online for tasking."

The entire room erupted. "Yes Sir!"

The lights in the command room dimmed, and red lights around the edges of the room flashed. A voice came over the speakers of the entire base. "All Personnel to battle stations. This is not a drill. Flight personnel to airstrips. All combat capable forces to defensive positions. This is not a drill."

Peppy picked up a communicator that was on a chair next to him. He cleared his throat before speaking. "Katina Post. This is General Peppy Hare. Overwhelming Aparoid Forces are approaching the base from all sides. All non-combat personnel are to take up arms and defend themselves if necessary. This is not a drill."

Falco pulled his team from the room hurrying them along.