Chapter 9
Cross awoke in a bed, his head hurt quite a bit, and his entire body felt numb, as he opened his eyes he instinctively squinted at the brightness, a blurry figure was before him, the only thing he could make of this figure was that it was a dark blue color, "He's waking up!" A voice similar to Cross' own yelled.
Cross blinked a few times as his vision cleared, the dark blue figure was none other than the fox he saw in the base on planet Coluxine, "Brother," Cross managed to say lightly as Fox and Krystal approached the bed.
"You had us worried." Fox told him.
"How long was I out?" Cross asked weakly.
"Three days." The leader of the team answered.
"Yeah, sorry about that," The blue vulpine apologized, "I guess I over did it." He rubbed the back of his head. The blue fox's attire was pretty plain, a white tee-shirt, a simple pair of blue-jeans, and a pair of white sneakers.
"The mission was a success, we blew up the base, Slippy's analyzing the information we gathered, and we're in orbit around Corneria," Fox informed, "Now we just need to figure out what to call you," He added, turning towards the blue vulpine, Fox looked at the white plus sign on his forehead, then at Cross, then back at the blue fox, "We'll call you...Ecks." He said.
The dark blue vulpine thought for a moment, "Ecks...I like it." He said with a smirk, exposing his right fang.
"So Ecks, what is your relation with Cross?" Krystal asked.
"We're twins." Ecks answered, still with that smirk on his face.
Fox and Krystal's jaws dropped in unison, "What?" They both yelled in surprise. It may have been a surprise at first, but when the two thought about it for a moment, Ecks looked exactly like Cross in every way, despite the fact that Ecks' fur was blue and Cross' was red and that Ecks had a white mess of hair that went from the top of the plus sign on his head and down to the back of his neck, while as Cross kept his head neatly buzzed.
"So does that mean you can do everything that Cross can?" Fox asked.
"Well...no actually, at birth we were normal, no special powers or anything like that, but at age seven, our father, Chaos, decided to--".
"He's not our father, Dad died eight years ago, that piece of shit Chaos is just using his body." Cross interrupted.
"As I was saying," Ecks looked at Cross for a moment, then turned back towards Fox and Krystal, "Chaos had his scientists experiment on us, his original intentions were to create the ultimate warriors to defend against anyone who tried to attack our home planet, soon after though, he began thinking that if he had that kind of power, he could rule the universe, and became corrupt with greed, the mark on my brother's head symbolizes that he was a failed project, I have no idea what his flaw is but Chaos chose to have him disposed of, which of course as you know didn't pan out the way Chaos intended."
"How did you--" Krystal started.
"I'm getting to that," Ecks cut the vixen off, "They experimented on us in separate ways, with Cross, they injected chemicals into his bloodstream that increased his strength and speed tenfold, they also gave him every single bit of knowledge about fighting, thus resulting in the spectacles you've witnessed," Ecks explained, "I on the other paw was injected with Cerinian DNA and they sped up the process of learning each ability known to Cerinian kind, which means I have every power that a Cerinian can possibly have, and a few others as well, which for some odd reason also increased my overall intelligence, the mark on my head symbolizes that I was the choice for them to continue experimentation, Cross had amnesia because of the crash, and recently recovered his memory at the sight of Chaos, but no matter how much we try, Cross and I will never remember what our home planet was called or what our original names were, or our father's name for that matter, or even our own mother."
A tear came to Krystal's eye, "That's horrible." She said as she was on the verge of tears. Fox was shocked, he knew that Cross wasn't an ordinary fox, but he never expected this.
A few silent minutes passed, "We need to check if Slippy's done analyzing the info we gave him." Fox said as he turned towards the exit of the medical bay of the Great Fox II.
Cross felt a sudden warmth behind his ears, "Since I already know you're reading my mind, what exactly happened at the base after I passed out?" He thought.
"I'll show you." The blue vulpine answered with telepathy, he closed his eyes and transfered everything that happened into Cross' mind as if it were happening to Cross right at that moment.
Cross saw everything through Ecks' eyes, he saw himself being dropped onto the ground, and then he saw Chaos, the black fox yelled in anger but was soon slammed through one of the blood red walls behind him, then he saw a bright light, after this, he was next to an Arwing outside of the base, where he saw Fox and the others, he then looked at the base and noticed two escape pods moving in the opposite direction into the sky, and then, complete darkness.
"Why did everything go black?" Cross asked through his mind.
"Zivia shot me with a stun blast from her rifle, she apologized when I woke up though." Ecks replied.
Cross tried to laugh, but immediately stopped due to the pain that his body in, "What did you do to me?" Cross asked with his mind.
Ecks decided to talk now, "I started to smash your body with my telekinesis, if I didn't stop when I did, you would've been crushed." The blue vulpine calmly said.
"It's a good thing you remembered me then." Cross replied.
"You need to get some rest, I'm going to go talk with the others." Ecks said as he stood up and walked out of the medical bay.
As Cross rested in the bed, he began to think about how happy he was that he was finally re-united with his brother of whom he hadn't seen for eight years, and soon drifted off into the depths of slumber.
11:30 A.M.
Although Ecks wasn't familiar with the ship, it didn't take him long to find the others as he simply followed the scent of blueberries to the bridge, Ecks put his paw on the scanner as he had seen Fox do earlier, and the door opened.
Fox, Krystal, Zivia, Falco and Hax were all on the bridge, "So what's our next move?" Ecks asked.
"We wait." Fox answered
"For what?"
"A call from the general."
"Why?"
"So he can tell us what the next mission is."
"Oh, okay." Ecks said while moving towards the window to look at the stars.
"Are you stupid?" Falco insulted.
"No, I was simply wondering why we weren't going after the Doombringers since they are clearly vulnerable, but it's obvious that you're clueless about simple battle strategies." Ecks retorted, causing chuckles from the rest of the group.
"At least I ain't short." The avian muttered.
Krystal noticed that Ecks was hovering a few inches from the floor, "How are you doing that?" The blue vixen asked.
"Doing what?" Ecks looked at her with a puzzled look.
"What you're doing! You're floating!" She exclaimed.
"Oh," Ecks realized as he looked down, "Yeah, about that, I don't have to concentrate when I do this, so it tends to happen a lot without me noticing," The dark blue vulpine explained, looking back into the stars, "Something's out there."
"What?" The rest of the group almost yelled, jumping out of their seats with their full attention on Ecks.
"Three unidentified aircrafts approaching." ROB confirmed Ecks' suspicions.
"They're not friendly," Ecks informed, "I can read their thoughts," The dark blue vulpine sighed, "I'll handle this."
"Wait, are you sure?" Fox asked.
"Yeah, they have cloaking devices so you guys won't be able to tell where they are, but I can." Ecks' body became outlined in a pure white aura, he closed his eyes, normally the iris of his eyes were silver, but they turned dark blue when he opened them, matching the color of his fur.
"We need information on the Doombringers so try to take one of them alive if possible," Fox told the dark blue vulpine who simply nodded his head.
"Be careful." Krystal said right before Ecks vanished and re-appeared outside of the Great Fox II.
Six large shots of purple plasma fired at Ecks seemingly from nowhere, but the shots stopped right in front of the blue vulpine, completely still, "I'll give you one chance to leave."Ecks warned through telepathy, they didn't heed his warning though, "Have it your way."Just then, three purple aircrafts became visible, and Ecks mixed the six shots of plasma into one, and fired it at one of the fighters at great speed, the fighter stood no chance of dodging it, and the aircraft exploded upon impact from the large blast of plasma.
Fox and the crew watched the spectacle unfold with awe, "These kid's are just full of surprises." Fox said, amazed at what he was witnessing.
Ecks turned his attention on the fighter to his left coming straight at him, the dark blue vulpine vanished, "erehw did eh og?" The soldier questioned in a different language as he stopped.
"Right here." Ecks whispered into the soldier's ear, the soldier reacted quickly and pulled out a blaster, but when he turned around no one was there, the soldier turned back around in his seat, facing the outside of his ship, however when he did this he saw the dark blue vulpine right in front of him, Ecks placed his paw on the aircraft's front, a white aura emanating from it, seconds later Ecks vanished, and the fighter exploded. The only fighter remaining took notice at his comrade's demise and tried to escape but Ecks appeared right in front of his fighter, he was too close to fire upon, as his plasma cannons couldn't move inward to attack, the enemy soldier could do nothing but wait for his death, Ecks put his paw on the aircraft's front as he did before, and the soldier closed his eyes, the fighter didn't explode, instead it vanished along with Ecks.
"What happened?" Fox asked himself.
"You guys need to come to the docking bay." Fox heard Ecks' voice in his head, he noticed the looks on the other members' faces and new that they heard the same thing, so they all headed to the docking bay.
A small pod was flying in space, two figures were in the small escape pod, one of the two was un-noticeable as it was engulfed in a black cloak, covering any facial features, while the other figure was an unconscious black vulpine, as he started to wake up, "Era uoy yako?" A female voice asked in a different language.
"Yes, now can we pease speak Lylatian?" The black fox asked, "I find that it's easier on the toungue."
"What do you plan to do about this, Chaos?" The cloaked figure questioned.
"It's only a minor setback, we will continue with our research as planned, even the great Fox McCloud can't stop us." Chaos said confidently as he reached up to pull the cloaked figure's hood back, revealing a bright blue furred vixen as the two foxes locked muzzles.
A few minutes passed until the group arrived at the docking bay of the Great Fox II where they saw one of the purple aircrafts that was outside of the ship, the soldiers was frozen in fear, "Nice job Ecks." Fox said with a smile.
"It might take a while before he talks, I guess I scared him pretty bad." Ecks shrugged.
Fox jumped onto the wing of the fighter and tried to pry open the cockpit, but to no avail, "Here, let me try." Ecks insisted.
The dark blue vulpine closed his eyes, seconds later the glass of the cockpit shattered and Fox grabbed the soldier who was still stricken with fear but as he did this he noticed that there was another animal in the aircraft, the passed out passenger was a light grey furred she-wolf and wasn't wearing a uniform, hell, she wasn't hardly wearing anything at all, her clothes were ripped and she had bruise marks all over her body, "Those sick bastards." Fox said as he pulled the helmet off of the soldier and removed any weapons he could find, the soldier was a black panther, "Let's find a nice little spot for our new guest," Fox said, slapping a pair of energy endused hand-cuffs onto the soldier and the passenger's wrists, the she-wolf didn't look like a threat, but Fox couldn't take any chances.
"We should wait a few days before we interrogate him," Ecks suggested, "Cross should get a chance to have some fun." The blue vulpine smirked, exposing his right fang.
Author's Note: Sorry this took so long to post, I've had a bit of a rough month and haven't gotten around to writing this at times, that's half the reason, the other half is because well, let's face it, I've just been downright lazy, but I'll try to get these chapters up quicker. Anyway please R&R, I hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading. Until the next update, later.