Origins: Falco
It had been a normal day aboard The Great Fox. The carrier ship floated lazily in between Cornerian and Meteo airspace, having successfully having finished up a gauntlet of escort missions, all of which involved backing up big-name freight companies against the uncertainties of the Meteo asteroid field. As was the usual the team sat around the center coffee table for a debriefing.
"As you know," Peppy began as a calendar appeared in the center hologram, "Ever since the Lylat Wars ended, we've been living off of escort missions almost exclusively, and.."
"Every friggin' debrief," Falco suddenly shouted, "Why you gotta bring up the escort missions thing? The fact we're just run-of-the-mill details now is an open wound, and you're puttin' salt in it."
"I'm not doing it to be an ass," snapped back Peppy, "I've been preparing you for this,"
The other three looked at the calendar, "They were mid-month, and the latter half of the Cornerian transition from fall to winter had nothing. Peppy wordlessly keyed through the next six months. Each new month's schedule brought dread, and a deeper void of nothing."
"What gives?" Falco demanded, "Some rich asshole's always shipping somethin'. Ain't that how commerce works?"
"Well," Peppy countered, "People's military contracts are coming due. And, considering there isn't a hostile threat anywhere near Lylatian airspace, they're all filtering into the stuff we've been doing. Security, escort, you name it."
"And for cheaper too," Fox added, "Buncha jarheads with no skills other than flying."
"So that said," Peppy began again, "We have some decisions to make. Change our prices to reflect current market value,"
"Which is about how much a fry cook at McDingo's makes," chided Falco.
"Continue as is, or disband," Peppy soldiered on without blinking.
"Well, I can't go back home," Slippy shook his head immediately, "I'd have to move back in with Dad eventually, and all he'd do is nag me to take an R&D job with the military. Plus I don't want Amanda to see I'm still a guy living with his old man."
"Amanda? The girl you met on Aquas a while back? It's been what, six months?" Fox asked.
"Yeah. But she's a teacher with an apartment. Even bumming it on The Great Fox would project I can hold down a place,"
"Yeah, you're right Fox. This is the longest Slip-up's ever kept a girl around. He can't afford to look like a loser," chided Falco.
"Hey!" Slippy shouted.
"Falco, that's enough. I'm in a similar boat to Slippy. Lucy just got a job and apartment too, and the last thing a young lady like her needs is dear old dad couchsurfing."
"Man oh man, where's this job factory at, I gotta get me one," Falco announced, sarcasm dripping from his every being.
"Because they're academics you idiot, and the reason why you can't get one is because you had to bum off me to pass Algebra in academy."
"We're gonna EMC square up if you keep making fun o' me," Falco squawked, talon balling into a fist.
"That isn't even Algebra," laughed Slippy, "And you got the equation wrong!"
"Why I oughta…"
Suddenly, the voice of ROB echoed over the speaker, "Incoming message from the Free-as-a-Bird security company."
"Oh, Katt decided to call? Maybe you can go bother her instead," Slippy mumbled.
"Slippy, shut up," Falco snapped, slamming his fist on the table, "Send 'er through ROB."
A scrolling text hologram replaced the calendar,
We have captured FaaB. Coordinates are enclosed, -Star Wolf.
Just as the quartet began to separately exclaim the implications of what they were reading, the hologram was again replaced with an aerial photo of Fichina, a tiny red x visible on it.
"What is that, northeastern quadrant?" Peppy thought aloud.
"Yeah, in the same neighborhood as the Climate Control Center," Slippy robotically yammered.
"The hell are they doing out there?" Fox asked.
"Well, Katt's whole thing has been taking shipping jobs, usually serving smaller villages in places like Fichina. Sometimes just runnin' stuff from the next major city, but sometimes busin' stuff from other planets."
"If they're in near the CCC," Slippy deduced, stroking his nearly non-existent chin in thought, "It means they probably hit them on the way back."
"Only time she'd put her guard down enough to be captured," Falco growled, "Whelp Fox, I'm going ASAP, whether or not you're with me."
"We all are," Fox said, his voice calm, "Why would you even…"
"Usually when I rush off you're the first one in line to call me an asshole." Falco shrugged, standing up and bolting for the hangar.
Just outside of Fichina orbit, a few minutes later.
"What in the...?" Fox balked.
The area around Fichina was blanketed with seemingly hundreds of Venomian fighters, and four Arwings ebbed just outside of their radars.
"H-how?" cried Slippy.
"Whelp, we know where all the MIA Venomians went," Fox sighed.
"Yep, when you've got a prison planet that went wholly unsupervised till Andross got there, you've probably got secret tunnels around the entire planet's surface..." Peppy began,
"And probably escape craft to match," Fox finished, "That's probably everybody who survived our assault on Venom,"
\ "And they're all probably pissed," Slippy shivered.
The team sat in silence for a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity then…
"Foxie, you're gonna hate me but whatever," Falco sighed, "Cut me a path to get on- planet."
"What?" Fox barked.
"Falco, I know Katt's your girlfriend but you can't…"
"I know what you're gonna say, old man. If it was just Star Wolf I'd see where you were comin' from. But this is basically the Battle of Venom. Why would somebody with this much manpower hire Star Wolf to kidnap a bunch of supply runners? To get to me, and I'll be damned if being linked to the old gang gets you bozos killed."
Slippy opened his mouth to say something, but a grunt of indignance was all they got as words failed him.
"Alright," Fox said, "You heard the man."
"Fox, you're sure?" asked Peppy, even the choppy camera betraying the worry on his aged face.
"Yeah. This wreaks of some Andross mind games, and it's why I went at it alone on Venom. Star Fox, move!"
And so, the legendary space farers entered the fray in a triangular formation. Slippy and Peppy served as the respective top and left rung of the formation like usual, but Fox and Falco, without so much as a spoken word, switch places, with Fox hanging on Falco's right, and Falco being in the middle of all of them. Falco sighed. As was typical with Venomian grunts, they tried to overwhelm with numbers to hide the fact that each squad only knew about one formation at best. And so, the cut down the middle of the onslaught was easy. Well, for most of them anyway. Slippy, as he did in nearly every combat scenario, took his lumps. But for the first time in his life, Falco couldn't find the energy to give him guff. His girl was in danger, and he had to stop it.
"Well guys, this is my stop, take care of yourselves,"
"You should..." Slippy's voice warbled as he took yet another hit, " You should be right on top of the coordinates Wolf gave us. Be careful Falco."
Falco cast a thumbs up into the group com, before beginning the trek to breach Fichina's atmosphere.
Fichina
Damn, Slippy's on the mark today, gotta remind myself I owe the dumbass a beer.
Falco saw it right away. Free-as-a-Bird's freight ship that had been hastily converted into a mobile command center a-la The Great Fox was touched down in the bitter snow, Venomian ships parked mere inches away.
"Heh, so you actually showed up alone ey Falco?"
A lone Wolfen came blurring out of the wintery fog at Falco's twelve o'clock, hammering him with lasers. Falco pulled just in time to avoid a head-on collision. Star Wolf's standard operating procedure was to stick to their selected combatant like flies on feces until the job was one, but only one of them was so brazen as to attack from the front with the devil-may-care bravado of a kamikaze.
"Wolf," Falco hissed, looping up and over his pursuer, "Where are the other losers?"
"Back at base," Wolf explained, "Managed to put together a little compound for me and my war buddies, with the upfront on this job."
"So your freakin' benefactor gave you a timeshare. Moneybags say anything else?"
" He wanted it to come down to just you an' me. Jumped at the chance, considering we're the best pilots in our respective units."
Falco's feathers stood on end, left with a sensation that briefly wondered if ice water flowed through his veins instead of blood. Wolf was never this calm.
The two jets circled each other in an uneasy waltz. When nothing from either pilot hit, Wolf's ship fell to the ground, transforming into a four-legged beast. Falco attempted to fire downward with his Arwing's mini-gun. But if Falco was pelted with lasers from Wolf's own minigun. Falco flipped open a panel on his joystick, tapping a button adorned with yellow and black caution. With a shocked grunt, Falco's shipped dropped too, transforming into a bipedal form. The two bolted at each other, pelting one another with lasers. This wasn't a dogfight, this was a brawl. And, by the looks of his shield, Falco was losing, badly.
Suddenly, a red energy enveloped Wolf's craft, increasing the speed at which death enclosed on him. With lightning-quick reflexes, Falco activated the retro rockets on his mech. With this, , the world seemed to slow around him, the shriek of metal on shield barrier confirming he was safe, albeit just barely. In mid-air, Falco pivoted the mech, firing both main lasers and minigun at Wolf. In seemingly no time at all, Wolf's mech went from pristine to full of laser welts and sparking blue electricity.
"Damn, I hope my benefactor gets what he wants outta this because I'm outta here. All units, retreat!" Wolf demanded.
Wolf's mech folded back into a jet in midair and took off for space. The Venom fighters that had been docked ambled into the air one by one, following Wolf out. Falco immediately docked his Arwing, running for the Free-as-a-Bird freight ship. When he burst through the bay door, the four crew members, the enormous croc Bowsor, the gnarled rat Mauser, the blue feline, and Falco's romantic rival Kool, their robot pilot Tull, and Katt Monroe herself sat towards the middle of the ship, looking relieved.
"Katt! Are you alright!"
Everyone wheeled around, Katt running into a hug with Falco to the cheers of the others, "Yeah tiger, we're fine. We were on a run to a little village on Fichina, and on the way back those monkeys showed up."
"They didn't try to hurt you or nothin'?"
"Naw man," drawled Mauser, "We just got hit up by one or two of the buggers, and then the radar started goin' apeshit with 'em, so we decided to stay put."
"No other info? Wolf didn't monologue at all?" Falco asked.
"Not a line jackass," Kool hissed, fangs bared, "When did you become an interrogator? You and your life partner didn't sign up for the army after all did ya?"
"Shut up fleabag. I get that you're pissed cause I was the only one with any balls in this situation, but one more wise-ass crack and we're gonna..."
As if on cue Fox, Falco and Slippy burst through the door Falco had come in.
"Guys, is everything okay down here?" Peppy asked.
"Yeah. Wolf just hassled 'em."
"Why would Wolf have two hundred men just to hassle a gang of supply runners?" Slippy interlocking his fingers and tapping them nervously.
"The more we learn about this, the more I think you were right Falco, whoever was funding this op just wanted to get to you."
"And you'd be right." A posh voice echoed through the air.
Two white hands materialized into being.
"It's you," Fox asked, "Master Hand right? And I'm assuming the other one is Crazy?"
"How did you...?" Master Hand wondered.
"Saw the name scribbled all over the file Falcon found on my father," explained Fox, cockily crossing his arms.
"All that aside, you were correct. I hired Wolf to-"
"Woah, hold the holophone," bellowed Falco, "Fox, how in the absolute hell do you know two magic hands?"
"Remember that tournament I told you about?" inquired the captain, grinning.
A grin formed on Falco's face as he slowly realized, "You inviting me to that Hand?"
"Yes," Master Hand shouted, bursts of golden fireworks emanating from his fingers, "This entire scenario was a test to see if you could handle yourself in a dogfight like Fox could."
"So you paid Wolf? How can we trust you if we-?"
"Because you just won an all-expenses-paid vacation!" Crazy boomed, "Da-duh-duh-duh! Da-duh-duh-duh-duh! DUH-DUH DUH!"
"Crazy's foolishness aside," continued Master Hand, his form drooping in exhaustion, "We're turning it into a spectator sport for those involved! There's a lot of money and trade to be explored in a multi-dimensional entertainment extravaganza like this?"
Fox raised an eyebrow, "Entertainment? You mean you aren't assessing our combat skills like last time, trying to beat us all?"
"Oh no no no," Master Hand curled into a fist, shaking back and forth to indicate a 'no,' "We are long since past that, and believe our fighters should be compensated with money. One million in your home currency per fight won."
"Well, I guess I picked a hell of a year to join!" Falco nodded, "I'm in!"
"Excellent! Fox, Falco, you're with us. The rest of you, you'll receive instructions in due time."
Both Hands snapped their fingers, a portal opening to an opulent mansion. The Hands made sweeping gestures forward, going inside the portal.
"You said they were giant," Falco whispered.
"What?" hissed Fox.
"You said they were giant hands, but yet they fit in the ship just fine," continued the blue bird, whispering harsher now.
"Well, they're magical creatures, Falco, maybe they can adjust their size and…"
"Will you two stop bickering like a couple and go!" Katt snapped.
"I was just gonna say…" murmured Peppy.
Scratching the back of their heads in synched-up embarrassment, the two stepped through the portal.
