Disclaimer: I-do-not-own-Star-Fox.
Note: This chapter is the first post-Assault chapter, to say, this takes place after Assault. This chapter has more talking than action and yes, it's shorter than some of the other chapters. So, sorry to those who are waiting for the battle action; you are going to have to wait a while more.
Let the chapter begin!
(this chapter starts right after Fox says "My friends...thank you." at the end of Assault)
The Catastrophe of War
Chapter 6
A pause followed Fox's statement. A long one...or so it seemed to Fox.
"...Um..." Falco was the first to brake the of three minute pause. "'Thank you'...for what?"
"Yeah, Fox. That just came out of no where. What are you thanking us for and why in such a lame way?" added Slippy to his Arwing communicator where Fox's head was glaring at him.
"Hey hey!" shouted Fox at his communication screen where Peppy's, Falco's, and Slippy's heads were looking at him as if he had brain damage. "It was the best I could think of, to say 'thank you' to you guys! It's hot in this Arwing after that escape from the aparoid home planet! The heat was just getting to my head so I have a slight headache and I'm not thinking clearly!"
"Sure Fox." muttered Peppy, tapping Fox's head on his screen. "I'm sorry but that was the lamest thing you ever said; yet...'your welcome' for helping you."
"Thanks Peppy." growled Fox resentfully.
The Star Fox team had just escaped the exploding aparoid home planet and were slowly gliding toward the endless blackness of space with bits and pieces of the planet flying past them. With the aparoid queen killed, all the apariods all over Lylat would be destroyed, but destroying the queen was HARD.
After Beltino finished to self-destruct program, the team planned the confrontation aparoid queen. The finished process of killing the queen seemed so simple, and Fox believed that it would be a 'walk in the park', compared to previously fought battles. However, in the real battle, the queen did some unexpected attacks, and the team's plan was completely useless. Because of this, everyone's attacks were unorthodox, and proved to be reckless, and life threating; they barely managed to weaken the queen to use the program.
After Fox injected the program into the queen, she suppressed it, and transformed again, closer to the planet's hollow core. This final form put up a pretty good fight, so good in fact that Fox was nearly killed, but Slippy missed an incoming piece of metal that was going to hit his ship, and the missed shot was the final shot to destroy the queen. Fox laughed at the heroic mistake and ordered the team to evacuate the planet at 'maximum velocity'. They had no problems leaving, and when they just got out of the planet's gravitational pull, it exploded, resulting in the debris floating near them now.
When they first started slowing down from the high speed escape, the team was horrified about the amount of casualties in the Lylat System, one of them being Peppy. When the hare crashed the now destroyed Great Fox into the energy shield that protected the hole to the center of the planet, the whole team assumed he was dead, or got infected by the aparoids. But, that was not the case.
Before the Great Fox exploded, Peppy managed to get to an escape pod and fled from the Great Fox in time, with ROB on board as well. The team didn't know about this, because that had to go into the planet's core immediately after Peppy used the Great Fox to destroy the shield. When they escaped the planet, they found Peppy floating out in space waiting for them. The entire team was very happy that he was alive, especially Fox, because Peppy was the closest thing Fox had to his father; and Slippy broke down into happy tears when he heard Peppy's voice on the communicators. This brightened their moods, but...that was not lasting long.
"...Crap...I'm low on fuel." said Fox as he glanced at his fuel meter.
"So am I." croaked Slippy.
"Same here." said Falco, with a grunt as he hammered the control panel of his battered Arwing.
"...I'm OUT of fuel." said Peppy wearily.
"ROB! What is the closest planet that we can land on for refueling?" asked Fox as he stopped his boosters, and the rest of the team followed suit, and came to a halt.
"Scanning...Sauria is the closest planet." came ROB's monotone voice.
"By how far?" asked Slippy.
"2 Astronomical Units."
"So...when will we be there?" asked Falco.
"Zero hours, zero minutes, and zero seconds, with current rate of speed" replied ROB.
Peppy glanced backwards at ROB.
"Now why do you say that?" asked the hare.
"No fuel for this pod." replied ROB.
"Ahhh! I should have known that!" screamed Peppy.
"We can tow the pod!" suggested Slippy.
"But, we don't have much fuel ourselves, and towing will double the amount of fuel needed...I doubt we will get past an A.U. before we run out of fuel." said Fox gloomily.
"So what will we do then? We can't just float out here forever!" said Falco with a hint of fear in his voice.
A voice sounded off of the communicators in Fox's, Slippy's, and Falco's Arwings, and Peppy's Great Fox escape pod. "You guys...You jump to the worst conclusion way too often..."
All four of them looked out of their cockpit windows. A very slow moving Arwing was approaching them, with a blue vixen inside waving at them.
"Krystal!" gasped Peppy. "I-I thought that you were not here!"
Krystal frowned, stopped waving, and turned on her communication screen to look at Peppy.
"And why would you think that?" she asked crossly.
"You've been silent for so long, we assumed that you flew off some where to do something." said Slippy, who had turned on his communicator before Krystal. "Well...that was what I was thinking."
"Eh, thats about what I was thinking too." said Falco as he placed his feet on the control panel of the Arwing.
Fox stayed silent. He also realized that he completely forgot about Krystal after the others started stating that what he said was 'lame'. He quickly dismissed the thought to the back of his mind before Krystal could sense it.
"Nope, I didn't leave you guys to go off some place." said Krystal as she tilted her Arwing to go over them. "I was using as little fuel as possible to catch up to the rest of you."
"For what reason did you use so little fuel?" asked Fox as he looked upwards, where he saw the bottom of Krystal's Arwing fly over him.
"So I can tow your Arwings and that pod." replied Krystal as she tilted her Arwing down to get on the same level as the others.
"But, we are all low on fuel, and Peppy is out of it! How are you going to tow us 2 A.U.?" said Fox as he tried to fire his boosters to go next to Krystal, but, his fuel tank was completely dry now, and the Arwing only groaned.
Before Krystal could respond, Falco spoke up. "Also, aren't you low on fuel Krystal? Even after you flew so slow to catch up to us?" He lifted his feet off of the control panel to look at Krystal in his communication screen more clearly.
"No, I am not low on fuel."
"How?" said Fox, Slippy, Falco, and Peppy simultaneously.
"I wasn't controlling my Arwing when we were escaping the Aparoid home planet. I shot a grapple line from the Arwing and latched it onto Fox's left wing. He basically towed me out. When the planet exploded, I let go of Fox, and I started to slow down to only 2 MPH. Because I did that, I have enough fuel to tow all four of you to Sauria."
"For some reason I think you're lying." muttered Falco; he said it in a low voice so Krystal wouldn't hear it, but, he thought it when he said it.
"Oh? Why do you think that Falco?" asked Krystal as she looked at him with questioning eyes.
Falco jumped at her question; he didn't expect her to read his statement. He quickly made an answer. "Well, if you were way behind us, how did you know that we need to go to Sauria? As far as I can tell, you were out of the range of our communicators."
"Falco, Falco..." muttered Krystal while she shook her head. "I scanned the area around here to find the nearest planet, BEFORE we went to capture the aparoid base."
"Wow." was all Fox could say, and Falco didn't respond to her.
"So...ah, you have enough fuel...to tow us all...all the way to Sauria?" asked a bewildered Slippy.
"I think I already answered that question."
With that gruff remark, Krystal hit a blue button in the cockpit, and a small hole just above the main engine on the back of her Arwing opened. Out of this hole four steel wires flew out of it. One wire attached itself to the nose of Fox's Arwing, another to Slippy's, one to Falco's Arwing, and the last one to the antenna on Peppy's pod.
Krystal started to fire the engines, but Slippy found something alarming. He noticed that with four wires spread out as they were, the stress on the inside of Krystal's Arwing will tear it apart from the inside.
"Krystal! If you start boosting with the wires like this, it will rip the Arwing apart from the inside!" he exclaimed as he shot some spit onto his screen when he was yelling.
"As I said before, you jump to the worst conclusion." came the vixen's reply.
The left G-Diffuser engines flared up, and started boosting. Krystal's Arwing went into a counterclockwise barrel roll. This made the wires twirl together, and at the hole at the back of the Arwing, the wires formed what was like a single wire. The four other ships were pulled closer together as their wires combined.
"That better Slippy?" asked Krystal into her screen as she stopped spinning.
Slippy was speechless for a couple seconds then managed to reply, "Er, yeah, thats better. The stress should be reduced now..."
"Meh...I could have thought of that too." muttered Falco as he folded his arms and closed his eyes for a nap.
"Yeah...then why did I feel fear come off of you Falco in waves when you guys were saying that you had no fuel?" asked Krystal as she started boosting forward, with the Arwings and pod following her.
Falco didn't answer.
"Uh huh...thats what I thought." scoffed Krystal. "ROB! With the current speed, when will we reach Sauria?"
"Calculating...we will reach Sauria in 7 hours, 39 minutes, and 37 seconds with current rate of speed." answered ROB.
"Man...thats one hell of a wait..." muttered Fox as he took off his vest to cool himself off.
"Yep, and that's why I'm going to take a nap!" said Slippy while he bounced around in his Arwing to get into a comfortable position for his nap.
"Yeah, I'm going to hit the sac too." yawned Peppy. "ROB, power down all systems except the indicator that we have reached Sauria, and enemy alert system."
"Affirmative. Powering down. Leaving alert systems for arrival at Sauria and incoming enemies active." said ROB, and all of the lights on his body turned off.
"Well, talk to y'all when I wake up...if I do." chuckled Peppy, and he gathered a blanket and curled up in his chair. Within a few minutes, steady snoring could be heard coming from the pod.
Fox yawned. He really wanted to talk with Krystal, but his body was sore, and he needed to rest. He rolled up his vest into a ball, put it behind his head, layed his head on it, and fell asleep within a couple seconds.
A few hours pass.
"...A nacc ro kxo keec ke hojihhosk xam...A nacc ro xaj wiato ad kxaj wucup0...udt A nacc ujjajk xam ke huwo nuh ed ucc caladw roadwj..."
Krystal's voice woke Fox up. He was having a nice dream about him and Krystal on Sauria with a son, and he didn't want that dream to fade, but Krystal kept repeating that sentence so Fox opened his eyes.
His communication screen was still on. Rubbing his eyes, Fox looked at the other team members.
Falco was flipped over on his chair, with a little drool coming out of his open beak. It looked like Slippy had fallen to the floor of his cockpit, because Fox could barely see the top of his head. Peppy was still in the same position as he was when he fell asleep, and ROB was standing motionless against the wall. But when he looked at Krystal, he instantly became horrified.
She was still sitting on her chair and had her legs crossed over it. She had her paws laid over her knees, and was staring straight out in front of her...with glowing blood red eyes, as if she was possessed by a red Krazoa spirit.
Fox frantically turned off the connections to the other team members. When he had the connections off, he tapped Krystal's head on his screen and the picture of her enlarged, and a message on the bottom of the screen showed: 'Connection with Krystal active. Connection with Falco, Slippy, and Peppy not active'.
"Krystal!" Fox yelled to his communicator.
The red pupils in her eyes looked down at her screen, stared at the image of Fox in it, then her eyes turned back to turquoise.
"Fox? Why are you yelling?" she asked calmly.
"You were saying something in Saurian in a very eerie voice and your eyes were glowing red!" shouted Fox while putting his paws on either side of the communication screen.
"What?" said Krystal with a confused tilt of her head. Fox repeated what he said.
"Fox, I have no idea what your talking about." said Krystal with a shake of her head. "I've been meditating thats all."
Fox was about to argue when she cut across him.
"I'm telling you, there is nothing to worry about. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to my meditation." and she turned off her end of the communication connection.
Fox punched his cockpit window, in the direction of Krystal's Arwing. Why didn't she believe him? It was extremely odd that she didn't remember what she was saying...
"What was she saying?" Fox thought aloud.
He turned around and picked up his vest. He unrolled it and opened the right hand pocket then took out his old translator when he was on Sauria for the first time. He turned on the translator and pushed the 'Options' icon on his communication screen. He tapped the 'Recored Statements' option and pushed on Krystal's icon.
A line on the screen showed that the recording was 7 seconds long. Fox pushed play, and tapped his translator to make it record. Krystal's sentence started playing.
"...A nacc ro kxo keec ke hojihhosk xam...A nacc ro xaj wiato ad kxaj wucup0...udt A nacc ujjajk xam ke huwo nuh ed ucc caladw roadwj..."
The translator beeped, and replayed the message in Cornerian.
"...I will be the tool to resurrect him...I will be his guide in this galaxy...and I will assist him to rage war on all living beings..."
Note: Yes, I can bet you didn't like the fact I left you hanging on a cliff (HAHA! I got revenge on you -VG-All-Star-!) but this chapter has a good hint on what is going to happen later.
Yet again, more reviews are wanted. Also, thank you SF Ghost for that review (it helped a lot) and thanks to Dwight House for creating the Saurian Translator (you can guess it's purpose...)