Chapter VII - We're Finally Landing
Krystal awoke with a tired groan.
The vixen's eyes opened slightly, her vision blurry and fatigued. A dull ache throbbed through her head, only to subside after a few painful minutes of motionlessness.
She had been lying down under a tall palm tree on a small patch of grass, both of which were surrounded by a coastline that seemed to stretch an infinitely long distance. Once the steady ringing in her ears finally began to subside, the sound of gentle waves lazily rolling up onto the sandy beach ahead of her floated into her ears.
'Where am I?' Her thoughts echoed. Being a telepath, her dreams tended to be much more lucid, but willing her environment to change like she normally could yielded no tangible result.
Her memory of what happened quickly returned to her, causing her to panic. The sound of Fox's panicked yell cut short from her comm, watching his arwing slam into the ground, racing towards the truck that had fired upon her love, until she was met with a deafening BOOM and-
Silence.
Suddenly, a voice behind her broke through the silence, causing her to jump slightly.
"Hey, you. You're finally awake."
She turned around, and saw a vixen standing under the tree, looking down at her. Her fur was a bright orange like Fox's, but she had small accents of bluish-purple peeking through and running down her arms that suspiciously had a similar hue to her own.
Krystal backpedaled on the grass, narrowing her eyes at Madison with a questioning gaze.
"You're not-"
"I am." Madison said, cutting her off. "I'm a Cerinian."
As if to confirm her words, the environment morphed into the icy wasteland that she had crashed on. Yet, as cold as it looked, Krystal still felt the warm rays of the sun from the beach, shielding her from the cold like a protective ball of warmth. The azure vixen heard an explosion above her, startling her and causing her to duck down slightly. Moments later, an arwing, what she presumed as Fox's, crashed into the snow nose-first like a dart sticking into a dartboard.
Before she could run towards the crash, Madison put a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't worry," she said. "He's alive. Although, he did break his leg and lost a lot of blood Wolf shooting him in the shoulder."
Hearing this calmed Krystal's nerved a little bit, but she then felt pure anger after hearing that last part. Madison quickly took note of this and decided to tell her the rest. Before she could, however, the loud hum of a G-Diffuser working in overdrive could be heard from above, followed by another explosion.
Another arwing hit the ground, this time sliding forward on its top side until it came to a motionless, lifeless stop. Krystal knew that this was her hitting the ground, and the headache and ringing when she first woke up came as no surprise.
Then, the damned truck firing at them that she wanted to melt with laser fire so badly came to a stop.
Krystal watched as the canopy to Fox's arwing slowly opened, the metal frame groaning as the bent and broken pieces rubbed together unnaturally. A few seconds later the vulpine in question fell out, pulled himself up and began limping away from the crash.
The vixen, eyes fixated on the vulpine, also failed to notice the second set of footprints following her captain. The loud PING-y noise of a blaster rang out, and Krystal felt a pang of fear add another twist to the knot in her stomach.
Fox stopped, hand pressed into his shoulder, blood leaking out and staining his clothes. Wolf stepped up and delivered a swift kick of his boot to the vulpine's back, sending him into the snow with a painful grunt. Krystal had to look away when the lupine kicked her love in the side, earning a loud crack and another pained groan. A loud explosion came from the base in the distance, but she ignored it. She just couldn't look away.
When Wolf drew his blaster, she could make out his words perfectly.
"Say hello to James for me."
At that point, Krystal had had enough. She began to move towards the imaginary Wolf, even if she knew it was just a replay of prior events. But, before she got any further, she found Madison's hand on her shoulder once again. The orange vixen's visage carried a knowing smile, one that almost seemed creepy given the situation.
"Watch."
Krystal cocked an eyebrow, but listened and looked ahead.
A large, W-shaped fighter jet screamed across the sky, swooping in and delivering a swift, lead-filled volley of justice to the villainous lupine. Krystal breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that Fox's adversary had died, though she still worried about the vulpine himself. The same fighter quickly landed near the dead Wolf and the dying Fox as the low rumble of the Great Fox II making an orbital re-entry gradually became louder as the dreadnought neared the surface.
She crouched to her knees, contemplating the whole situation.
'Bloody hell, that was close.'
"You really care about him, don't you?" Madison asked.
'This must be how Fox feels, having people not only be able to finish sentences for him, but also thoughts,' Krystal wondered. She took a deep breath, and looked ahead to the wreckage to see another vulpine with opposite fur coloring as Madison, as well as Madison herself jump out. She let another deep breath pass in and out of her lungs as she watched Troy hold a gauze pad to the wound while Fox gave him a weak thumbs-up.
The azure vixen gave an affirming reply, her gaze unmoving. As she watched the Great Fox II make its touchdown and their backup team carry Fox inside, a new question crossed her mind.
"How did you escape Cerinia? I thought I was the last survivor." Krystal said to the vixen next to her.
"Well," Madison started as the background began fading back to the warm and comforting beach. "I managed to sneak aboard one of Andross' fighters and take off from the place before it blew to smithereens."
The destruction of Cerinia was still a touchy subject for Krystal, though she pushed past the melancholy memories. Madison gave her a knowing look, and spoke.
"Would you like to see Fox now?"
Krystal nodded, and everything slowly faded to black as the mental link was broken.
/
This time, she woke up for real. She tried to move her head, but was met with a sharp pain as she felt the effects of her concussion. When the pain dulled, she turned her body over in her bed in the Great Fox's medical bay. Next to her was Fox with a cast running up his left leg, several pads on his exposed chest monitoring his heart rate, an IV tube running up from his arm to a bag hung on the head of the bed, a plethora of dried bloody bandages covering his right shoulder, and an oxygen mask covering his muzzle. His breathing was heavy and labored, as if it were tiring for him just to supply his lungs and what little blood he had left with oxygen.
After a while, Krystal managed to get up, slowly closing the gap between the two medical beds and sat down next to Fox. She leaned on the head of the bed and placed her hand over his, intertwining their fingers.
Trying to reach out to him with her telepathy, Krystal closed her eyes and focused her mind.
'Fox, are you there?'
Nothing.
'Fox, can you hear me?'
No response.
'...Fox?'
The silence Krystal was met with would have been enough to make her cry, worrying that she might never see her beloved captain alive again. She'd never hear his kind yet commanding voice, feel his powerful yet caring embrace, or see his ears flatten against his head when he blushed. However, she refused to be broken, and she pressed on.
Krystal sat at Fox's bedside for hours, waiting for the moment he would wake up. Sleep did not come easy, especially when the rest of her teammates walked in and did their hardest to convince her to get her rest. Eventually, she gave in and laid back in her bed, but not before scooting hers closer to Fox's. Still holding Fox's limp hand, she pulled the covers over her and tried to get what little sleep she could.
Madison walked in to see how they were doing, and smiled as she saw the pair of hands reaching across from each medical bed, sticking out from underneath the covers.
/
Four days had passed. Krystal had been able to get up and move around, yet she still sat at Fox's bedside from time to time.
Fox still did not wake.
Krystal was sitting on the side of the bed adjacent to her captain, watching him intently for any eye or hand movement. The bandages covering his shoulder had been replaced with fresh ones, the IV tube had been removed, as well as the oxygen mask, since Fox finally regained enough strength (and blood) to breathe on his own.
Krystal's eyes began to droop the longer she watched the sleeping mercenary, frowning slightly due to the lack of any result. She placed her hand in Fox's, looking down and closing her eyes as small thoughts indicating the worst had happened entered the corners of her mind. Just as Krystal had felt the worst she'd ever felt since the destruction of Cerinia, feeling what it was like to lose someone she cared about all over again, what she had been wishing and waiting for all along had happened, causing her to clench Fox's hand.
Fox's hand twitched slightly.
He slowly squeezed her hand back, groaning as his eyes opened slightly.
"Krystal?" Came the vulpine's weak and tired voice.
Krystal let out a few tears of joy and relief as she gave him a sad smile. The blue vixen leaned down to hug her captain, gently wrapping her arms around his neck so as not to touch his wound. Fox's left hand wrapped around her, gently rubbing her back as she nuzzled into his neck.
"I missed you," the blue vixen mumbled softly.
"I'd never leave you all alone, not after what happened to you," Fox said, breathing in the familiar scent that was his beautiful teammate.
Krystal pulled away and smiled through her tears, then leaned down and kissed him on the pinstripe of white fur that ran up the middle of his forehead. The two stayed that way for what could've been, or what Fox wanted to be an eternity, before the azure vixen held his hand, petting his cheek with the other.
"Do you remember what I asked you right before we left Corneria?" Fox asked, leaning into her touch.
"Mhm."
"Do you remember how you responded?"
"Ready as I'll ever be," Krystal responded, reciting the event from memory.
"I hope you're ready for many more to come," Fox replied.
"I'm ready as long as you're with me," Krystal said, smiling slightly.
"I'll always be with you. Always," Fox said as Krystal leaned in to kiss him again.
/
One month later
650 Miles above Corneria, OSZ
"We'll see you guys around, don't going dying out there, alright?" Troy asked, video feeds of him and Madison taking up the screen of the Great Fox's computer.
"Well, now we've got at least one less threat to deal with. Thanks again for your help, guys. We probably wouldn't have come back alive if it weren't for you two," Fox said with a smile.
"Anytime. Now if you'll excuse us, we've got some downtime to take advantage of," Madison added.
"I'll let you two get to it. See you around!"
The comm closed, and the Wyvern split away from the Great Fox, small flames lapping at the edges of the fighter craft as it went through a high speed orbital reentry.
The Great Fox gently floated back into the orbit of the giant blue and green ball that was Corneria, the quiet hum of the engines slowly dying down as they decelerated. Fox sat in the captain's chair, a cast on either leg and a wheelchair folded up on the floor next to him. As they neared the planet, a video feed of an orbital personnel popped up on the giant holographic screen.
"Welcome back, Star Fox. You are cleared for hangar four in the airfield."
"Understood, we'll be bringing the Great Fox in for a landing," Fox replied in his professional, commanding tone.
"I'll send the memo along. Why not the Arwings, might I ask?"
Fox smirked at the A/STC crewman.
"Flying's pretty uncomfortable when you've broken a few bones, yes?"
The shepherd let out a small chuckle.
"Yeah, I'd assume so."
THE END
- A/STC: Air/Space Traffic Control
- 1,200 Miles is the outer edge of the OSZ, or Orbital Stasis Zone - the area above Corneria where orbital flight is the easiest and most stable. Once you pass under 400 miles, you begin reentry. For comparison, the International Space Station orbits at roughly 254 miles above earth's surface. 1,200 miles being the outer edge of LEO, and 400 miles being the outer edge of the atmosphere.
Aaaaaand... That's a wrap!
Thank you all for reading through this mediocre story of mine. I want to give a big thank you to Troy Groomes for letting me use his OC's, as well as the authors in this community who served as the inspiration for this fic. Drop a fave if you enjoyed it, a review if you have something to say, and I'll be back once the sequel's somewhere near completion. Speaking of which, slap that next chapter button 'cause the preview's primed and ready!