"WEEEEELcurm! To the RAYCE of the mil-LEN-ee-urm! This is gonna be the bestraceyou'veverseen RIGHT here on Port Town, Aaaaayrooooh Daaaaahve! From my post up here I can see thunderbolts, because the atmosphere in here is ee-LECTRIC! (That's despite the fact that there's nobody actually sitting in the stands.) SO, laaaaay-deez and gennulmen, get YOUR-selves ready for…"
From his spot on the starting line, the Captain could not stop cringing. The commentary was coming from a giant robot coloured grey and red, which was giving the report despite its head consisting of a box with two cameras fixed onto the front. The rain spilling off its metal did not seem to have dampened its enthusiasm, and it waved its gargantuan arms about madly as it rambled on in a well-synthesised human voice.
"…the challenger, fresh from being on the run and ready to take back his crown, CAP-TAIN FALCON!"
The Captain swore. He had had enough trouble maintaining anonymity last night, and now the robot's cries meant that the whole city knew of his existence. Part of Goroh's plan, no doubt. And what did it mean, "take back his crown"?
"And against him, the mayor of this city, a popular and upstanding figure, now returning to the F-Zero circuit for the first time in over a year – SAM-UR-AIII GOROH!"
"YOOOOH!"
The roar came from somewhere to the Captain's right. In the wing mirror he saw the mayor, no longer dressed in his sharp suit – instead, he wore a brown jacket, sunglasses and a t-shirt with Japanese writing on. Shaggy black hair spilled out from underneath the racing helmet, bearing a rising sun motif. Unleashed from their smart clothing, his wet muscles glistened in the floodlights; unleashed from the need to stay respectable, his face was stretched into a wide triumphant grin. He swung the katana he held, performed two backflips and clambered into his vehicle, a pink craft with a flaming yellow motif.
"This is more like it, eh, Dugarasu?" he said, his Japanese accent now more pronounced and less refined. "I feel so much more comfortable dressed like this!"
The Captain faced stubbornly forwards. "Show-off."
"There's a ma-HOO-sive crowd gathered just outside the stadium now! They can't see what the HELL is going on, but they're not gonna let that stop them! Way to put en-THU-siasm over rational THOUGHT, guys!"
The robot said this as if it was actually a good thing. The Captain disagreed. A crowd? Fuck.
"The start screens have dropped into position now. The drivers are crouched over their wheels…"
The communication screen flashed into life, and the samurai's wide grin flashed up.
"I've been waiting a long time for this, Dugarasu. Today is the day I kick your ass and make it cry like a little girl."
"That's more the Goroh I know and hate," said the Captain, smiling. "So," ("Three…") "what you done?" ("Two…") "Broken the track?" ("One…") "Hired snipers?"
ZOOM.
"And they're off!"
Goroh continued to talk, but the Captain was no longer paying attention. From the moment that his car passed the starting line, accelerating smoothly from stationary to upwards of 1000 kilometres per hour in under four seconds, everything else ceased to matter. For a brief moment, as the Blue Falcon (as it still was and always would be, paint job be damned) hummed smoothly underneath him, feeling like an extension of his own body, he could even forget his rage at Goroh and Wolf and everyone and everything. He was Captain Douglas Jay Falcon, and there was nothing but him, his car, his opponent – and the race.
"Sorry, Goroh, what was that? Can't hear you. Maybe you'd be able to speak more clearly if you wiped my dust out of your mouth."
As they descended the "steps" at the end of the first straight, it was true that the Captain had a slight lead. His ship's lighter weight allowed it to accelerate more quickly than the heavier Fire Stingray, but the Stingray's higher top speed would allow it to pull back in front – in theory. In practice, the Captain expected Goroh to make a fatal error.
"It's almost NECK AND NECK as the cars hit the SPEED BOOSTS that send them rrrr-ocketing towards the first bend in the track! The Bul-OO Falcon, sporting a flashy silver paint job, is JUST IN FRONT! But the FIII-YERRR STINGRAY…"
"I said that I looked over the entries for the race after the drop," repeated Goroh. "And I think I understand why you're so angry."
All the joy of the race seemed to filter out through the soles of the Captain's boots.
"So is this what it's about, Dugurasu? The girl Summer? You know, I had thought this was altruistic, righteous indignation over an oppressed people. Turns out it's just selfish lust."
"You shut up!" yelled Falcon at the monitor. "You've got no right to…"
The cars collided with a metallic crunch that sent the Falcon bouncing back and forward off the barriers, sparks flying, while the Stingray pulled far ahead. It was obvious that Goroh would ram his ship as soon as they drew level, and the Captain had hoped to capitalise on this. As it was, he had been distracted by the conversation and paid the price, the price being Goroh taking a massive lead, the car's shields dropping by almost half and the grin coming from the monitor growing by an inch. The Captain cursed inwardly. No more mistakes.
"…dropped WAY-EEE behind! Brilliant move from Goroh there, and he is now rrr-eaping the rewards out in FIRST PLACE!"
Goroh's taunts continued to issue through the monitor, directed both at the Captain and his ex-girlfriend. The Captain bore them no heed. He was in a private zone of his own, where he and the Blue Falcon, now humanoid and looking a lot like Jody Summer had done, were on their guitars and rocking the fuck out. Slowly, the car began to drift from side to side.
"The Captain seems to have gone PLUM CRAZY! His car's weaving ALL OVER the pla… Hang on… Has he Captain activated boost power? He shouldn't be able to do that until the second lap! No, wait – he's not boosting, but somehow he seems to have upped his speed…"
He and the machine – they were now one. One goal, one voice, one mind, and two beings. The car snaked in first one direction, then the other, all the time building and building speed and, in the Captain's zone, playing a bitchin' guitar solo. There was a loud boom as the car broke the sound barrier.
"What the hell are you doing?" said the Samurai, as the Falcon whizzed past. "That's not allowed!"
"You just made that rule up!" said the Captain, trying out some experimental harmonics.
"And the… er… the Blue Falcon's quite a way out in front now… er… bzzt… Yes… Quite a way indeed…"
As the first number came to an overdriven close, the Captain came out of the zone a bit and allowed himself to enjoy the robot's stuttering. Clearly programmed to give a balanced account of the match just so long as the possibility remained that Goroh might win, it was now thoroughly unsure of what to say.
"… er… He must have cheated somehow! Yeah! The Captain's cheated his way into a massive lead, and Goroh is now… er… Oh dear…"
The sonic boom behind the Captain told him what the robot's new dilemma was – Goroh was boosting. In the first lap.
"What's that about things being 'not allowed'?" the Captain asked the monitor.
Goroh did not reply. His teeth were gritted as his car bore down upon the Captain's like a charging rhinoceros, albeit one going at almost double the speed of sound and wearing some very brightly coloured pyjamas. With a push of a button, the Captain sent his own car into a 360º spin just as Goroh caught up, resulting in the Fire Stingray being thrown backwards and almost off the course.
"And the crowd is cheering for… erm… well, that is to say…"
The robot's eyes dimmed and its head fell forwards as someone somewhere turned it off, evidently feeling that its awkward acknowledgement that Captain Falcon was not only winning but the crowd favourite was not what the city needed to hear at this moment. It was for this reason that the Captain gave a sigh of relief as he reached the shield-recharging pit zone, rather than his car being enveloped in restorative energy. Now they could race in peace (sort of).
He sped across the finish line with a healthy lead over Goroh. Now he could legally use boost power, but the ability was a double-edged sword. Boosting drained power directly from the shield gauge, and once the shields were gone a light tap was enough at these speeds to reduce the car to a lump of fizzing molten metal. Goroh's ship was bulkier than his, giving the samurai some added leeway; the Blue Falcon needed all the shield power it could spare, especially as a glance in the rear view mirror told him that his pursuer was now equipped with rocket launchers.
"Pretty sure that's also cheating, Goroh," said Falcon, whacking the boost.
"Save your preaching for someone who gives a shit!"
The rockets whistled, hummed and exploded around the Falcon. A couple did hit their intended target, but they only gave the Falcon additional propulsion.
"I don't even need to boost," said the Captain, smiling. "Your rockets have the same effect."
"Yeah? Well, let's see if this has a different effect!"
He pressed a button. Nothing happened. The Captain hit the track after the massive jump that marked the mid-point of the lap without being blasted out of the air, or the track collapsing beneath him, or any adverse effects at all.
"That's it?" joked the Captain. "You're losing your touch! Not to mention the race if you carry on… like… oh Hands."
A huge, hulking form had just loomed into view from behind a skyscraper. Bulky yet sleek, it hovered stationary over the giant robot in the centre of the track. The robot's head lifted and it came back to life, but with a different voice – a gravelly drawl, arrogant and menacing.
"Attention, citizens of Port Town," it said. "I am pleased to welcome you to Captain Douglas Jay Falcon's funeral, here on the Port Town Aero Dive track! I'm Wolf O'Donnell, and I'll be your host for this morning. Now, without further ado, let's get this show on the road!"
The Captain prepared for the track to drop out from underneath his car. He had expected something like that, and was ready with a countermeasure. He was not ready for a barrage of yellow laser death from the Great Fox's main cannon, which is a shame because that was what he got.
Goroh's crackly laugh echoed through the monitor. "Say hi to Jody for me!"
"You dumb fuck!" yelled the Captain over the commotion. "If one of these blasts hits the track, we'll both be with her before we know it!"
The truth of this was visible on the samurai's face. As the yellow beams flashed around the track, managing to just about miss it every time, it contorted into an expression of extreme concentration.
"Kuso!" it yelled. "They know this might kill me. Why are they doing it?"
"You really are as thick as frozen spunk, aren't you? They don't give a damn what happens to you. None of them do. They just wanted someone greedy and easy to control to take charge of all the little jobs that needed doing, and you fit the bill perfectly."
They raced on in intense silence. (That is, silence relative to the engines' roar and the beams' "pew" sounds.) The beams continued to miss the track with unerring regularity.
"You're meant to be a crack shot with this thing," the robot said in Wolf's voice. "So why can't you hit it? It's not small, it's a fucking racetrack! Well don't bother aiming for the car; just shoot the whole thing out of the sky! Look, just… Just give it up, you're embarrassing yourself. Falco, get to the Arwing! Take him out at close quarters! No, McCloud, you can't do it; you've been trying and missing for – is this thing still on?"
The robot's head dropped, as did the laser barrage. Goroh heaved a sigh of relief, but the Captain kept one eye solidly on the track ahead and the other on the Great Fox. So, they had Falco as well now? Damn. Should have known that four Arwings weren't enough to bring down the Great Fox. Mind you, that just left Wolf fresh for the Captain to dig into.
"The race is back on again, Dugurasu!" yelled Goroh.
"The race was never off, Samurai-u. I'm going to take down Team Wolf-fox and beat you to the end both at the same time."
The sound of a mechanised voice roaring "Yeah! Final lap!" aggravated the Captain's aural canals as he once more passed over the finish line. Before him, the final lap stretched out in all its glory. Behind him, Goroh caned the boost through the recharge zone as he attempted to keep up. Above him, barely visible, a small grey object split off from the Great Fox and, after a quick barrel roll, dived down towards the track.
Goroh's face on the communication monitor was replaced by that of a blue bird of prey, one the Captain had last seen on board the Halberd. The only difference was the shining blue eyes.
"There's only room for one bird of prey in this city, Captain," squawked Falco's clone.
"So fuck off then!"
The lasers came down thick and fast, like a neon-blue hailstorm. Fortunately for the man at the focal point of the precipitation, the Arwing's weaponry was significantly weaker than the mother ship's, and the few lasers that impacted with the vehicle only did minimal damage to the shielding. The Arwing attempted to charge its lasers, firing large blue balls of death, but these were slow to create and easily dodged despite their minimal homing capabilities.
"That all you got?" sneered the Captain, manoeuvring the Falcon to block Goroh as he tried to pass.
"Hold still and let me shoot you!"
The robot's eyes lit up again. "Falco, stop pussyfooting around with lasers and Smart Bomb them to hell!"
Falco rolled his cyan eyes. "You can sure be a pain in the neck, Wolf."
The red projectile travelled slower than the lasers and exploded "harmlessly" behind Goroh. "Harmlessly" means that the shockwave propelled both racers towards their windscreens and opened a gaping hole in the track. Falco cursed and peppered the Falcon with more lasers as it left the top of the midway jump, firing another explosive as it hit the bottom. The second bomb impacted with the track just behind the Falcon, once again opening up a massive hole – the Stingray, on its way down from the jump, barely managed to land on the other side of the gap.
"Hey, Einstein!" yelled Goroh, sweating like a teenager on a first date. "I'm on your side!"
"Save your breath!" shouted the Captain through the laser storm. "I already told you: they don't care about you!"
"I have abandoned my principles and my ideals to help them!" wailed Goroh. "Have they no concept of gratitude?"
"League of Villains Extraordinaire, Goroh! The clue's in the name!"
The third bomb swooped in, missing the Falcon by metres. The new hole in the track was between him and Goroh, and the samurai was going too fast to stop. As the screaming from his monitor increased in intensity, the Captain gave a long, heavy sigh and tapped away at his wrist device. He just hoped the tractor beam could cope with the Fire Stingray's extra weight.
Despite Goroh's manic braking, his pink bus of a car slid smoothly through the hole and down towards the ground below. It only fell a kilometre or so before it was brought to a sudden stop and hung in mid-air. Then it was slowly drawn back inside the Falcon Flyer, while Goroh panted and looked around himself frenetically.
"Hooray," said the Captain, as another Smart Bomb whistled past. "I win by default. And now, Falco, it's bird season."
While the Arwing, now out of Smart Bombs, continued to whittle away at the Captain's shields with its lasers, the Flyer slowly rose behind it, like a shark's mouth slowly rising behind a swimmer in a bad film about sharks eating swimmers. All of a sudden, a multitude of shots rang out, and Falco found himself missing a wing and smouldering slightly.
"The Arwing might not make it!" he moaned, curving away from the track.
With a light tap of the boost button, the Captain sailed over the finish line for the third time. As he did so, despite all that had just occurred, the rush came back to him – that rush he used to get after zooming over the finish line at the end of a hard-fought Grand Prix, just ahead of everyone else, nabbing the trophy from under Goroh's or Black Shadow's nose. He thought that he heard cheering in his peripheral auditory range – maybe the crowd outside had found monitors displaying the race? He wanted to get out of his ship, to raise his hands to his invisible crowd, to bathe in a shower of champagne and gratefully accept the trophy from a fit race babe… But no. Even as these thoughts passed through his head, the Great Fox began its descent towards the track, reminding him that he had other things to take care of first. Besides, there was a total lack of champagne, trophies or fit race babes. Shame.
The Falcon Flyer soared overhead, grabbing his car in the tractor beam and hoisting it up into the ship, where it pushed the Stingray to one side. Piloting the Falcon out of the tractor area, leaping from the cockpit and jumping over to the Flyer's controls, the Captain saw the Stingray's pilot sitting in the corner, picking his nose.
"You saved me," said Goroh without emotion. "I tried to kill you, and you saved me. Do you have any idea of how humiliating that is?"
"Then go commit seppuku," said the Captain, turning the Flyer around and zooming towards the side of the grounds.
The damaged Arwing docked with the Great Fox, now in hot pursuit of the Flyer.
"I'm sorry, Captain," said the samurai. "For everything. Once again, another stupid plan to defeat you fails miserably. I thought…"
"I don't care why, and your apology's too late. You can't bring her, or any of them, back."
"I can…"
"I'm dropping you off here," said the Captain, hovering over the road. "You want to do something for me? Go down the Metroid and tell the blonde kid to make the best Red Gyarados substitute he's ever made in all his life. 'Cause when I get back, I'm gonna drink it up."
The samurai smiled, a wraith of a smile that could have been blown away by a slight gust. He clambered back into the Stingray, which dropped out of the Flyer and down onto the road. The Captain's face remained grim as he observed the Great Fox bearing down on him, its laser cannons glowing ominously yellow.
"Wolf O'Donnell, it's time you and I had a little chat."
o o o
Wolf O'Donnell, the bipedal lupine with the intimidating spiky armour, equally intimidating cybernetic eye-patch, even more intimidating hand-held laser cannon (with bayonet) and almost as intimidating tuft of white hair, was pacing his room in the Great Fox, whimpering like a puppy.
He picked up his cigarette and puffed on it twice. Then he put it down in the ashtray and paced around the shiny room. Then he picked it back up and drew on it while pacing. Then he flung the cigarette in the bin with a howl and sat in his chair, drumming agitatedly with his fingers on the arms. Then he fumbled with his cigarette packet, eventually withdrawing one precious ash stick, dropping it, scrambling around on the floor to find it, dragging it out from under a desk, taking three tries to get a flame from his lighter, burning his thumb, dropping both lighter and cigarette, retrieving them both from under the same desk and finally lighting up. Then the process, or at least one very similar to it, began again.
It was not that he was afraid of the Captain boarding his vessel, oh no! Even if he did get past the Great Fox's cannons and the two Project Z clones on board, he had to deal with him, Wolf. A feared bounty hunter, rival of Fox McCloud and now member of the LOVE High Council, Wolf was one of the most battle-hardened fighters the galaxy had ever seen. He was a lethal fighter, both at close range and from a distance. He had no reason to be afraid of… Ah, who was he kidding? He was petrified.
The Captain may have been scary, but it was not this that terrified Wolf so much as that Wolf was afraid of most things. After betraying his old comrades, Team Starwolf, and having them executed shortly after joining the LOVE, Wolf had suffered from chronic and damaging paranoia. Visits to a psychiatrist had not helped, and the paranoia had spiralled out of control and become irrational fears of just about everything. Spiders, knives, malevolent-looking plants, mice with a nasty glint in their eyes – you name it, it could make Wolf jump and bite at his claws. Even worse was his tendency to scream like a little girl when something truly terrifying hove into view. Fortunately, as the governor of Port Town, he was usually spared anything properly frightening, right up until Goroh's phone call to him yesterday afternoon telling him of the location of Captain Douglas Jay Falcon. The resulting girly scream had echoed throughout his hidden mansion.
He took a big gasp of nicotine and activated the bridge communication channel. "Fox, has the guy been taken care of yet?" No answer – just the sound of the radio playing in the background. "Fox, where the hell are you? Fox? Fox!"
"Fox here."
It was an incredible feat, and one that, had Wolf been taking part in the Olympics, would have won him the high jump if not the pole vault. It was accompanied by what might have set the Guinness Nintendo Record for the longest and highest squeal of terror if such a thing existed. The cause of these astonishing demonstrations of what the human/ anthropomorphic animal frame could be made to achieve were caused by the sudden appearance of Captain Falcon in the doorway, with two blasters and a small hexagonal device stuffed into his belt.
In his hand he held a bipedal vulpine, dressed in smart if somewhat crumpled armour with glimmering blue eyes. The fox cowered away from the Captain's free hand with terror, terror that only abated when the free hand grabbed the fox's neck and squeezed it. There was a horrible cracking sound, and the former pilot of the Great Fox was floating away in purple mist.
"And now he's not," said the Captain, his eyes fixed on the shivering lupine. "Falco's dead too. Stupid bastards thought attacking me two on one would give them a better chance. I proved them wrong."
Wolf attempted to pull himself together. He was aware that any attempt at seeming like the fearless bounty hunter he made himself out to be was probably futile, but he was determined to make the best of a bad situation. He straightened himself up, crossed his arms and smirked, at the same time slowly pacing backwards from the Captain.
"The great Captain Douglas Jay 'Show Me Yo' Moves' Falcon has returned home at last," he said, trying to control the pitch of his voice. "Got to say, I'm surprised that you came back. Even if you weren't signing your death warrant by appearing here, surely all the voices of the fallen must haunt your dreams…"
The Captain snarled and fired both blasters. Wolf's hand flew to a device on his back, creating a pink ring of energy around him that reflected the beams back at the Captain. The racer barely had time to drop to the floor before the lasers reached him, giving Wolf time to dash towards the back of the room.
"So, want to play rough, eh?" he sneered, pressing a red button as he left. "Well, catch me if you can!"
"What's the matter, Wolf?" yelled the Captain after him. "Scared?"
He prepared to run after his fleeing foe, but was prevented by the sudden descending of what looked like a massive white mask from the ceiling, which fell to earth with a metallic "thunk".
"Yes, definitely scared."
A single Falcon Punch smashed the distraction into its component parts. Squeezing his way through the metallic innards of the mask and the door behind, the Captain found himself in a massive hangar. The sheer scale of the Great Fox was hard to appreciate until one got right up next to it or inside it – the ship was immense, as might well be expected for a carrier that had to carry a space-faring team of mercenaries and all their equipment/vehicles through space for months at a time. And inside this hangar, where Arwings, tanks and submarines were stored when not in use, the search for Wolf might have been long and difficult, were it not for the massive giveaway clue.
"Wolf, I can see your smoke."
"Fuck!"
Wolf leapt onto the tank he was hiding behind and assumed the driving position. As the Captain ran over to the vehicle, all red decoration and sharp angles, lights started turning on and engines starting humming, echoing around the cavernous expanse of the hangar. Wolf slowly aimed the tank's cannon at the charging pilot to the grinding of gears, and pressed "Fire".
The laser was immense. Many times more powerful than the Arwing's blasts, it emerged as a beam of pure power that struck the Captain square in the chest, threw him across the hangar and pinned him to the wall, hissing and yelling in pain. When it subsided, the Captain fell to the ground, sizzling slightly. Wolf immediately capitalised on the advantage and followed it up with several more blasts, about half of which hit the fallen man and played rag-doll physics with his body. After the cannon stopped firing, the only sound left in the hangar was the quick shallow breathing of Wolf.
Ever cautious, he slowly climbed out of the tank, and spent several moments watching the body for signs of life. Daring at last to give a short laugh, Wolf unhooked his blaster from his belt and, running over to the Captain, peppered his body and the area around it with shots. The Captain's fallen form gave no response, apart from smelling a bit charred when Wolf got close. Poking the fallen man with the gun's bayonet, Wolf was finally convinced enough of the man's death to give a victory howl.
"How the mighty have fallen!" shouted Wolf to the corpse. "Captain Falcon, member of the dreaded League of Legends, lying dead on the floor like the rest of my crew! Poor Douglas, come back home hoping to be a hero, to avenge his murdered girlfriend, only to be blasted to death by a cowardly bounty hunter! How pathetic! Port Town doesn't need a saviour like you!"
"Silence, devil."
Wolf looked into the man's furious face with horror, his scream stuck in his throat. Then he ran back to his tank, checking behind him in case Falcon was following. He was not – he simply got up, his fists burning, and stood stock still, his eyes following the retreating lupine.
"You don't belong in this city. You've stolen upwards of a million innocent lives in your greedy quest for power. Well, I've got news for you, Wolf – it all ends today, right here, right now. Because I am Captain Douglas Jay 'Show Me Yo' Moves' Falcon, and now, Wolf…"
Wolf had found his voice, and yelped frantically as he retook the controls of the tank.
"…I'm going to show you my moves."
Another blast came towards the Captain, but this time he calmly pressed a button on the hexagonal device he had taken from Fox and was briefly surrounded by a field of blue energy. Like Wolf's pink shield before, it sent the laser straight back at its source, shattering the tank's cannon and producing another ear-pacing wail from Wolf, who was trying to drive and set up another cigarette at the same time. Then the Captain charged again.
"Why don't you show me yours, Wolf?"
Finally puffing away once more, Wolf sent the tank flying up into the air, where it hovered briefly above the Captain before smashing down heavily. It was a shot in the dark, and indeed Wolf saw the Captain double-jump smoothly up onto the cockpit, whence he stared at Wolf through the glass screen.
"Go ahead, Wolf. Do a barrel roll. See where it gets you."
The tank did a quick 360-degree roll which the Captain jumped smoothly over. As it re-emerged from its acrobatics right side up, the Captain hung in the air for a moment, before yelling "Falcon Kick!" and going into a flaming dive that ended with a slight explosion coming from the outside of the tank.
"Useless!" laughed Wolf, a bit of his cockiness returning. "The Landmaster has shields even the Master Hand couldn't break!"
"I tell you what, Wolf," said the Captain, staring back as calmly as he could. "I'm a bit of an expert when it comes to vehicles. I can sum one up in less time than it takes you to fire a blaster shot. And while this is a beautiful vehicle, it has one glaring weakness."
Wolf looked perturbed, but after quickly checking his displays and seeing nothing amiss snarled and went into another somersault, which the Captain jumped away from.
"I'll leave you to think about what it is."
Wolf applied the speed boosters and attempted to ram the Captain, who evaded the charge. The Landmaster turned to follow and boosted again, this time almost catching the Captain beneath its tyre treads – it took an evasive dodge-roll to avoid the quickly moving tank.
"Damn thing's going foggy!" growled Wolf.
The tank turned again, and from within the cockpit the Captain could hear Wolf's hacking cough. The next charge bypassed the Captain completely, swerving to one side and crashing into a wall as he looked on. Wolf's cough was getting worse but fainter. The Captain hopped up onto the crashed tank and looked in through the screen, where he saw… not much.
"Rrrrh! Whht hvve yuu dnne?"
"Can't really hear you in there, Wolf. You're going to have to pop your head out if you want to speak to me. Oh, and if you want to avoid choking to death after I broke the ventilation."
"Crrse yuu!"
The Captain sat cross-legged on the tank, looking without emotion at the smoggy interior and listening to Wolf gasping for breath. It was not long before the grey furry head popped out, coughing and panting, activities that were made substantially harder after the Captain grabbed his throat.
"Well looky here."
"Careful, Captain," wheezed Wolf. "You don't want to get…"
The blaster whipped upwards, was wrestled easily out of Wolf's limp hand and ended up rudely tossed into the depths of the hangar. The rest of Wolf's limp body was tugged out of the ship, the Captain grabbing both of the animal's arms so that he could use neither the reflector shield on his back, nor his sharp claws.
"…hurt, were you going to say?"
Wolf's face rapidly cycled through shock and pain via pant-wetting fear to an attempt at a smile, spoilt somewhat by repeatedly coughing black spit into the Captain's face.
"Not at all!" he croaked. "Please, let me finish! I was gonna say, 'You don't wanna get me wrong!' I'm not such a bad guy really! I mean, take the whole Cylinder Wave thing for instance."
The Captain drew back one fist. Wolf now had free use of one of his paws, but he was too terrified to realise this.
"Whoa whoa whoa, let's chill here! Hear me out! I mean, the Cylinder Wave thing was awful, wasn't it? So many innocent lives lost! I thought so too! That's why I said…"
Flames sprang up around the fist. Sweat sprang up around the tuft.
"…why I said to Ganondorf, yeah, to Ganondorf, that it's a bad idea! And to Bowser, and to Goroh – no, first to Goroh! I mean, it was all his idea in the first place! He said…"
"Falcon…"
"…he said to Ganondorf who said to Bowser and then they all told me and then I'm like 'hey no way!' honestly man we're cool we're brothers I feel your pain DON'T KILL ME IT WAS ALL GOROH I SWEAR"
"PAWNCH!"
o o o
Vision clouded by a thick mist. Ears ringing. Unpleasant sweet taste in the mouth. Entire body screaming out in pain. But still…
"I… I'm… alive?"
Voice sounds strange, hoarse, distant. Hurts to force words out. Slow opening of eyes, rebelling every step of the way. In the mist, a shady figure looms, its eyes and hands burning with fierce flame. As the fog clears, its form becomes more definite, an effigy of rage against the boundaries of vision.
"Captain? You let me live! Thank…"
A voice like thunder against sensitive, battered ears: "If I'm not much mistaken, I've broken both your legs."
"Really?" Slight laugh, forced, fake, painful. "Well, I deserved it, didn't I? After the awful, awful things I've done. Still, I know that now. I've learned my lesson, and you've had your revenge. Sweet, sweet revenge." Sweet like the taste of blood. "And I'm so grateful to you for not killing me. So, so grateful. Now, if you could just give me a hand to get up…"
"How much fuel does this ship have left? Do you know?"
Brain hurts enough without trying to remember figures. Like a throbbing orb of pain inside the confines of the skull. Throbbing everywhere else too. Especially the chest…
"Because I don't think it's that much. Ganondorf took care of the Fox after you captured it until the clone was made, and he can't refuel it 'cause he knows jack shit about technology. And I bet you he didn't get the clone to top it up.
"Now, we're on autopilot, hovering more than thirty thousand feet above sea level. Not the most fuel-consuming activity, true, but it's still using fuel, right until the tank runs dry. And what will happen then?"
Realisation dawns, like a huge hairy spider crawling up the bed.
"Oh yeah – the ship will plummet thirty thousand feet, killing everyone on board. Just you, then. Hang on – doesn't this situation sound familiar?"
A slow, painful moan. Chest really stings.
"Of course, I might be wrong. Maybe there's enough fuel left in the tank for you to slowly, painfully drag yourself all the way to the control deck, and then try to land the ship you've never flown before. That would probably have the same result, to be honest. Or you might die of dehydration or blood loss before either of those happens."
Trying to speak now. Mouth doesn't want to move, throat doesn't want to utter.
"Not that it matters to me. Jody Summer, Pico, Mighty Gazelle, even Black Shadow – all those racers and spectators – their cruel fates are avenged. You will die, alone and suffering. My work here is done."
The figure slowly turns and starts to walk away. The body has to pull together now.
"W-wait! You help me, and I'll help you. I can tell you all about the LOVE, their plans, about Project Z, about where the heroes are, all the things about the Cylinder Wave incident no-one talks about…"
Still walking away.
"No, please, come back! How about the SubSpace Key? That's what brought you here, isn't it? The possibility of surviving the final confrontation? I know where it is! If you leave me to die, you'll never find it!"
Without turning around: "Yes, I wanted that originally. But leaving you to perish is more fun. Ciao."
There must be something else. Lying back, turning to the sky, trying to force a feverish brain to process ideas, and the only one that comes out: "Have mercy on me! Pleeeeease!"
The figure stops. Its face turns. The eyes cold, grey, no flicker of humanity or compassion, staring into the soul.
"Jody, forgive me for what I am about to do. I may well live to regret it."
Hope.
o o o
That evening, the Captain and Saki sat in the Metroid, the Captain gulping down a Red Gyarados imitation and Saki glaring at his yellow beverage. The atmosphere was almost the same as the night before – the differences were that most looked at the Captain with a hint of awe, and that the one man who did not, the same musical alcoholic, had a friend. His arm was stretched around a burly Japanese fellow, who sipped his sake with a melancholy expression, and he was telling his new acquaintance in song form about how he had been a doctor, then a racer, and now a dropout.
"Almost like the real thing," said the Captain with an approving nod. "You're getting better, Saki."
"How could you?" yelled Saki suddenly, slamming his glass down and making the clientele jump en masse. "How could you let that piece of shit go? Why didn't you finish him when you had the chance? That son of a bitch!"
"That is one of the side effects of being a wolf," said the Captain calmly. "And you may want to keep the volume down. Officially, Port Town is still LOVE-run."
"If it had been me," hissed Saki menacingly, "I'd have taken his blaster-bayonet, slit his throat and rubbed his face in the blood."
"Wolf has lung cancer."
The malice vanished from the boy's face, replaced by a look of out-and-out astonishment.
"Is that so surprising?" said the Captain. "He's been a chain smoker for Hands know how long. When I dropped him off at the hospital, he complained of chest pain, they did an x-ray and found some nice juicy tumours on his lungs. 50% chance of survival, but either way he's going to be in a hell of a lot of pain and undergo some nasty chemo." He smiled slightly. "He's going to be completely bald."
The Captain leaned back and fiddled idly with the golden key while Saki sat with his mouth gormlessly open.
"Oh," the boy said at last. "Huh."
"At first, I had another plan," said the Captain. "I was going to strip him naked, hang him up by his dick from a lamp-post in the town square and let every person who lost a loved one in the Cylinder Wave incident punch him. Starting with me." His fists flared up briefly.
"So why didn't you?"
"He's screwed himself over more than I ever could. He's smoked himself almost to death, he bumped off his only friends, he's lost his mayor and possibly only ally… Stupid animal. Plus…"
"Plus?"
"I'd have to touch a furry's dick. Like, ew."
The drunken man had resumed his customary position on the floor. The samurai bent down and patted his head.
"So, you g-going back to Hyrule soon?" asked Saki. "I'd like it if you could s-stay around for a bit."
"I've got five days before I've got to meet the others. I'll stay here for a bit, make sure Goroh sets up the monument to the Cylinder victims right, maybe visit my fortress." He gave the Japanese man a meaningful look, then turned back to Saki and smiled. "This place has good memories as well as bad ones. Some day, when this is all over, I'll come back here properly. We'll drink and laugh about all this." He took the boy's glass from slender unwashed fingers. "In the meantime, you need to come off the booze and pull yourself together. I may need your help some time soon."
"D'you th-think it will ever be over?" said Saki glumly. "I s-sometimes get the feeling the LOVE will n-never go away, that we'll be enslaved by them for ever. Wolf may be out for the count, but s-someone else will just appear in his place, and then…"
The Captain leaned across and put a powerful hand on the boy's bony shoulder.
"Saki, I'm Captain Douglas Jay 'Show Me Yo' Moves' Falcon. I've won the F-Zero Grand Prix more times than anyone in the race's long history, as well as being one of the most successful bounty hunters ever on the side. My Falcon Punch makes grown men crap themselves in fear, and women swoon at my feet. I am an enigma, a powerhouse and one of the only people capable of downing a Red Gyarados in the world. And I am about to infiltrate the LOVE's most important stronghold, and I'm bringing my fists with me."
"S-so…"
The Captain upended his glass into his mouth, finished it and slammed it down on the table so hard that it made a sizeable dent in the metal. The glass did not have a chance.
"So YES!"
o o o
Well, Jody, you finally have your memorial. It's not much – just a small obelisk with some wreaths. And a little statue of the vehicles. And, after I threatened to beat Goroh to a pulp, your name's in gold writing. Like I said, it's not – wait, forgot the ten vases of flowers. Like I said, it's not much, but it's something.
I hope you feel that I've avenged you, Jody. I realise I didn't do as much as I could. The fact that I let that dick/lamp-post/punching idea slip by bothers me occasionally. But then, you weren't really a vengeful person. I like to think you'd approve of what I did. (At least, you weren't vengeful apart from to me when I stared at other girls' boobs. Yeah, then you were vengeful.)
Yesterday I took my last look around Port Town. I went back to your apartment – somebody else lives there now, but I sat outside the door for a bit and thought of all the good times. Okay, you nagged me a lot, and you got pissed off when I did stupid things like forget your birthday or flirt with others girls or pinch your ass in public. But there were so many more good things to think about. Do you remember the time when you got trapped in that exploding building, and we had to escape in the Falcon? I was like "Argh!" and you were like "Argh!" and then I was like "Yeah!" and you were like "Yeah!" and that other guy who liked you was like "Yeah!" and you were like "No" and he was like "Aww." Good memories, Jody, good memories. This city's full of 'em.
Well, Jody, it's time for me to move on now. From the city, and from you. I've found another girl, and she likes me, and I like her, and unlike you she's not dead. I hope you don't mind.
You know, I've never believed in heaven, or a god, or anything before. But I like to think that one day we'll meet again, and we'll sit down by the fire and swap stories of the good times we had and what happened after we parted ways. Wouldn't that be nice? You're going to have to wait, though. Douglas Falcon has a lot of things to attend to in this world before he moves onto the next one.
Well, see you around, Jody. Hope death's treating you well. I'll be thinking of you.
Man, that exploding building thing was classic.
2
1 And the Master Hand did create for itself a place beyond the reach of any mortal man, and sealed it with a great gate. And it did call this gate the Gate of Souls, for it was an impressive sounding name. 2 And it did call the place behind the gate the Final Destination, for that was also an impressive sounding name. 3 And it saw that all was well, and then it rested.
4 And it did so happen that one day, a hero did enter the Gate of Souls. And he was bold, and daring, and he had a pure heart and would not bow to any tyrant. 5 And the Master Hand did say unto him, "How the fuck did you get in here?" 6 And the hero did not reply directly, but did instead challenge the Master Hand to a battle. And the Master Hand accepted.
7 And the battle was long and tiring, and both participants battled hard, but in the end the hero was victorious. 8 And as the Master Hand lay there, exhausted, it did say, "How can this be? I am effectively the god of this world! Or as near as damnit." 9 And it did say unto the hero, "You have fought well. Please accept this replica of yourself as a trophy of your victory." And it presented the hero with a life-size replica on a golden stand. 10 And then it did wipe the hero's memory of this event and placed him far away, so that he would not tell anyone of what he had seen.
11 And this did happen many times over the years with various different heroes. And it did piss the Master Hand off so much you have no idea.