Star Fox Assault: Star Wolf Edition

Disclaimers: Rated T for depictions of violence and mildly strong language. Star Fox and all names and characters (save for the Wolf Pack) are copyright Nintendo, Rare, and Namco.

Chapter 4:

Wolf, Leon, Panther, and Chino were in the docking bay, performing repairs on the Wolfens after the battle with Star Fox at the Sargasso zone, the cloaked Wolf Pack having been put on autopilot on a course to the Asteroid Belt under sub-light speed, both to give the team time to repair their ships, and prevent anyone from detecting their approach to the region via their warp signature.

"Next time I see that damned Fox I'm have him begging for mercy." growled Panther as he patched up the scar of a blaster impact streaked across the trademark red rose on the side of his Wolfen below the canopy, the same hit having also caused his primary com system to be knocked out, forcing him to use the backup system.

"Get in line." scoffed Leon as he and Chino worked on a battered lower-left wing that was almost blown off by a homing laser blast delivered by the self-same Vulpine "You know good and well that Wolf gets the privilege of nailing his fuzzy butt."

"Doesn't mean I can't beat the hell out of him in the meantime." countered Panther as he continued to restore his craft's decoration to its former glory. The rivalry between Fox McCloud and Wolf O'Donnel wasn't the only inter-team rivalry shared between Star Fox and Star Wolf. There was also an unspoken rivalry between Leon and Falco, and Pigma & Andrew seemed to be especially fond of targeting Peppy and Slippy respectively when they were still on the team during the war with Venom. Whenever Star Wolf would engage Star Fox during the war, each member would almost invariably square off with their counterpart from the other team, sometimes with help from one or more of the numerous Venomian fighters that were usually in the area. "Maybe I could just steal away that gorgeous femme fatale of his instead?" Panther mused, referring to the new member of the Star Fox team that he had flirted with following the Sargasso battle.

"If she doesn't shove a blaster down your throat first." retorted Wolf, to which Panther scoffed "There's not a woman in the whole Lylat system I can't seduce." This made Wolf and Leon roll their eyes before resuming their repairs. Panther may have been lethal behind the trigger of a blaster or at the controls of a fighter, but the moment he caught sight of a beautiful woman, regardless of species, he was helpless against their feminine charms.

A few hours later, the team had managed to restore their fighters to combat-ready condition, a task made easier by the fact that Fox had refrained from going all-out. The worst of the damage had been to the Wolfens' defense shields, with minor to moderate physical damage suffered by the fighters themselves. There was still some time yet until they reached the outer edge of the Asteroid Belt, and the team was taking this time to eat and rest, allowing themselves to unwind after Sargasso.

"Fox is getting too soft. He went way too easy on us back there. For all he knew, we could have decided to follow him and ambush him at a later time." Wolf thought to himself as he again lay on the bed in his quarters. "Still, his skills are as sharp as ever. He knew just how much damage the Wolfens could take before suffering critical system failures." He also started wondering what they wanted Pigma for "Maybe they found out I kicked his fat ass out and decided to get revenge on him for killing Fox's old man now that he's vulnerable? Who knows." he mused, recalling the story of how Pigma had betrayed the original Star Fox team prior to the war with Venom, when it consisted of Pigma Dengar, Peppy Hare, and Fox's father James McCloud, delivering the other two personally to Andross during an ill-fated preemptive strike against the maniacal ape by way of firing on his wing mates' fighters during a critical point in the mission, causing them to bail out deep in Venomian territory where they were easily captured.

As part of Pigma's reward for bringing what were believed at the time to be the greatest threats to the growing Oikonny Empire to their knees, Pigma was allowed to join the mercenary team Andross had developed as a counter to Star Fox had Pigma failed in his mission, the team Wolf now had sole control over. The development of Star Wolf was a wise move on Andross' behalf, especially when Peppy Hare escaped from Andross and made it back to Corneria, rebuilding the Star Fox team and warning the Cornerian government of the impending invasion, but like all the gorilla's plans and schemes during the war, this one too ultimately proved futile in the end. At one point, Andross became so desperate as to give the team several highly-experimental prototype fighters using a neural input control system that would send thought patterns relating to operation of the craft directly to the onboard computers, theoretically reducing response time and making the fighter and pilot more lethal than if they were using traditional control systems. The only downside is that the pilots had to be surgically fitted with a series of cybernetic implants, which Andross had done after their second encounter with Star Fox at Bolse Defense Outpost, a space station in orbit around Venom. That battle was especially fierce, with both teams giving it everything they had, the members of Star Wolf being knocked unconscious when their disabled Wolfens were struck by the shockwave of the exploding space station, their life support systems functioning on emergency reserves only. The next time Wolf woke up, he and the others had been fitted with the cyber-implants. If it weren't for the fact that the new fighters the implants were for could give Star Wolf a chance to finish off Star Fox once and for all, Wolf would have killed Andross where he stood. When Wolf's team met their rivals on the battlefield again in the skies of Venom, in was one of the most intense dogfights either team had experienced in the entire war.

Despite the lengths Andross had gone to give Star Wolf an overwhelming edge technologically, Star Fox still prevailed, but it was a narrow victory, the Arwings having been pushed to their limits trying to cope with the sophisticated craft, Peppy and Slippy being forced to break off and return to the Great Fox when their defense shields and G-diffusers suffered near-critical damage, Slippy even losing a wing to a volley of blaster fire from Andrew's fighter. Eventually it came down to the skill of the individual pilots, and Fox and Falco were simply better, regardless of cybernetic enhancements or technology. The last thing Wolf remembered of that battle was spinning out of control as his crippled fighter plummeted towards the surface of Venom. When he recovered, Fox's Arwing was gone and Falco's was flying high cover over the entrance to Andross' underground base which he and his team had been tasked with defending, picking off Venomian fighters that strayed into the area from surrounding combat zones. Normally Wolf would have come out of the wreckage of the fighter with his blaster blazing trying to take out the lone Arwing, even at the cost of his own life, but his cybernetic connections to the hulking wreck and a broken leg forced him to stay put and 'play possum' instead. A while later, he saw what looked like two Arwings fly out of the opening, followed by a geyser of fire as the base exploded, the sight looking like an erupting volcano, the shockwave disconnecting his connection to the fighter and allowing him to make his escape from the twisted mass of metal that used to be a fighter.

Once Wolf had pried himself out of the wreckage of his fighter and ascertained that Star Fox and all the Cornerian forces in the area had cleared out, Wolf began to look for survivors of his team. By some miracle, everyone had managed to survive the battle, albeit with varying degrees of injury. Pigma had lost both his eyes and had to have artificial implants to replace them, Leon's throat was crushed and the reconstructive surgery wreaked havoc on his vocal cords leaving him with the scratchy, cackling voice he had now, which actually made him even more sinister in a way. Andrew got off the luckiest, only having a concussion, bruised ribs, and a broken arm. Wolf suspected Andrew's injuries weren't as bad as they could have been because of extra safety features Andross had put into his nephew's fighter, but he was never able to prove it. The only good thing that came out of that ordeal was the optic implant over Wolf's left eye which replaced the simple eye patch he had previously been wearing. The only part of the cybernetic devices that were stuck into his body that still worked after the battle, the implant gave him the ability to see in different spectrums and in low light, and had paid off more times than Wolf could remember in the years since the war, and like Leon's voice, also made him seem more intimidating.

As these memories and thoughts passed through Wolf's mind, he reached up and touched the implant, the cool, hard metal a stark contrast to the warm, soft fur and skin surrounding it. Through the device, he could see the differences in the heat radiated by different parts of his paw as it passed through its field of view, something a normal person wouldn't be able to do unless they had a mechanical heat-sensing device or were some kind of reptile that naturally had that ability. After a while, Wolf drifted off to sleep, the fatigue of the last couple days finally overcoming him as his good eye closed, the pale blue glow from the implant dimming as it powered down.

A few hours later, Wolf roused himself from his sleep, his implant silently powering back up as the lupine reached full consciousness, his normal eye opening a few moments later, looking around as he came to his senses, craning his neck to glance at the clock on a shelf next to his bed, grumbling a bit as he shuffled into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, shaking his head to clear some of the grogginess out of it before standing and heading to the simple bathroom connected to his quarters to clean up. After a while, Wolf was walking the corridors of the Wolf Pack, en-route to the mess hall, clad in his normal black leather attire, the ensemble covering nearly his entire body from the neck down, leaving only his head and tail exposed. As if his physical stature and his cybernetic implant weren't enough, he also had a set of shoulder pads adorned with short spikes on top to complete the overall 'bad-ass' image he generated. Upon reaching the mess hall, he saw that Leon and Panther were already there, making idle conversation over coffee, both of them looking up as Wolf arrived.

"Morning, sleeping beauty" said Leon, smirking a bit at his own joke as Wolf joined them at the table, taking a seat across from the two as he smirked in return "What's our status?"

"We're approximately half an hour outside the Asteroid Belt perimeter, holding position over Meteo World under cloak. The Wolfens have been refueled and rearmed and are ready to launch." replied Panther.

"Any signs of any other ships or patrol craft in the area?" asked Wolf.

"We were detecting some Venomian patrols working the area on long-range sensors, but they've dropped off sharply over the last few hours and as of the last 20 minutes or so seem to have disappeared altogether." Leon, answered.

Wolf to furrowed his brow "That's damn peculiar. Are there any other signs of activity in the area?"

"We were getting some intermittent sensor contacts from within the Asteroid Belt about the time the patrols disappeared, but were unable to confirm their identity due to interference from the asteroids, as well as some strange electromagnetic activity none of us could make any sense of." added Panther.

Wolf nodded slowly, mulling this information over in his mind and weighing his options. He then looked back to his comrades. "I still plan to make the base here our new headquarters if at all possible. We can make a quick scouting run, and if we run into hostile opposition, we'll either destroy them or pull back to organize a full assault depending on their strength." The other two nodded in agreement with Wolf's plan, and the three got up and headed to the bridge where Chino was standing watch, using the sensors to monitor the surrounding areas for any signs of possible hostile contact. "Got anything Chino?" asked Wolf as he stepped onto the bridge, the gorilla turning to face him.

"Just some unintelligible and intermittent sensor contacts within the Asteroid Belt, and that electromagnetic interference is still as strong as ever, if not more so now boss." said Chino, using the term he and all the Ruffians under Star Wolf's command at the Sargasso hideout used to refer to all three members of the team.

Wolf nodded, looking out the window ahead "Set course for the Asteroid belt perimeter at half speed, and prepare to launch the Wolfens upon arrival. If the sensors can't tell us anything, we'll just have to take a look with our own eyes." With this, Wolf and the others took up their stations on the bridge as the Wolf Pack left its position over the lifeless, bombed-out shell of the former amusement park turned military base known as Meteo World, en-route to the expansive swath of space rubble stretching across the horizon that made up the Asteroid Belt.

End chapter 4.

Original A/N, circa 2005: Finally got chapter four done! Sorry for the lack of updates, been busy with real life and haven't had time to dedicate to the fic. Also sorry about the lack of action in this chapter, but even a tough guy like Wolf has to deal with downtime more often than not and I decided to take this time to give a partial recap of Star Wolf's history for those who aren't quite as familiar with them, though the next chapter will have plenty of action as Star Wolf has their first encounter with the Aparoids. Oh, and in case you're wondering where I got the 'second Arwing' Wolf saw coming out of Andross' underground base, play Star Fox 64 all the way through to the last level on the hard route. ;) As always, please read and review!

New A/N: Just when you thought this story was dead, it rises from the abyss! Sorry for the lack of updates on this, been dealing with all nature of RL issues, not the least of which include my Game Cube dying and denying me access to the game which was my main reference material. I just recently got a Wii though, so I plan to bring this story out of hiatus and complete it. In preparation, I went through and revised what I had with the existing chapters (nothing major, mostly fixed grammar and paragraph structure to clean things up). I'm already working on chapter six, and will post it once I get a chance to complete it between college and other responsibilities.