I woke up in my room, feeling more rested than I had in weeks. I vaguely remembered the night before, which had, to my knowledge, been filled with harmless banter and joking around between me Falco and Fox. I was in my room, sitting on the edge of my bed, trying to find the courage to disturb my inner calm by getting up and starting my day.
I put my feet off the edge of the mattress and stood, trying not to think too deeply about anything. The strain I'm my muscles threw off my peace slightly, but not completely. I glided smoothly to the door, still not thinking or showing any emotion. I loved this feeling, because it was the only time I never worried about anything. Everything important is pushed out of my mind, and anything unimportant is noticed with new beauty and meaning.
I realized with disappointment that to open the door, I had to raise my hand, which I knew would break the feeling. With this thought, the delicate pane of peace and calm shattered, leaving me feeling energized and almost bouncing with enthusiasm. I shrugged, and grabbed the doorknob, twisting it to open the door.
The whole ship seemed brighter as I walked through its halls this time. I made my way through these halls to check and see if breakfast was ready. As I entered the kitchen, I noticed it was as empty as my bladder was begging to be. With this revelation, I jogged down the hallways and left the ship, heading into the woods the same way we had a few days ago. When I had gotten a sufficient distance from the ship, I unzipped my pants, and answered the call of nature.
A good fifteen to twenty seconds, later, I was pulling my pants back up, zipping my jeans, and turning to head back to the ship. I was walking back, taking the time to look around and admire the beauty of the woods. It was amazingly quiet, considering I was walking through the woods, and it felt like there should have been at least a few animals about, chirping or making other various noises.
The air seemed to stiffen around me, and then i heard it. A sharp shushing noise, like someone was walking thought the woods, trying to go unnoticed. I immediately dropped into a low crouch and tried to detect what direction the sound was coming from. I strained my ears, trying to make out any noise, but the only thing I heard was the pounding in my ears from my blood.
I was about to give up, thinking maybe I had imagined it, when I heard it again, only closer. Now that I knew it was coming from my right, I listened as I slowly and quietly moved to get behind one of the huge trees. I could make out a faint whispering, which sounded almost like it was in hysterics. I realized, though, that it was just like a crazy hysteric. Not a scared hysteric.
At this point, I was curious. Who would be wandering the woods at this time in the morning? The only reasonable explanation I could come up with was that maybe they were lost and going crazy.
The noises were moving closer, only a few hundred feet away now. I took a step out from behind the tree and prepared to announce my presence, as not to startle the people. As I took the revealing step, one of the few branches on the floor of the woods snapped under my feet. I immediately froze and cursed my luck. Of course I step on the only thing that would startle the strangers when trying to do the opposite!
I looked up and realized that, while I had been overwhelmed by my noise, the shushing figure had shushed again, masking my noise perfectly. I quickly glanced around, trying to pinpoint where the people were and froze again. These people weren't lost, they were sneaking!
These were the two bastards that had beat the shit out of me at the bar!
I quickly backed up to hide behind the tree again, hoping they hadn't see me. I pressed up against the tree and listened.
"Shush! I told you, we need to be quiet!" shushed the panther, who was dressed in an all black catsuit (ironically). The lizard, who had on a regular black jumpsuit, was giggling and grinning like a maniac.
"Hee hee! I can't wait to see the look on their faces when we get in and out without them even knowing!" the lizard chortled quietly.
"Shut up!" the panther whispered forcefully, "The only way we'll make it in is if we don't make any noise! If you can't stop yourself, then I guess Panther will have to do it for you."
The lizard shut up.
I was kind of curious as to who this panther was, though. This panther was speaking highly of them, but it was confusing, because he was talking about someone supposedly not there as if he or she was... Oh well.
I waited as they moved closer, and quietly shuffled around the tree so they couldn't see me as they walked past. They went on in silence. Apparently this panther was feared enough to keep the crazy lizard silent, and the other panther as a loyal tattle-tale. I figured that they were both just underlings sent to do someone else's dirty work, though.
I stood still behind the tree, making as little noise as possible until the only noise I could hear was the sound of my heart beating and my breath rasping through my nose. I peeked out from behind my tree to see if the panther and crazy lizard were gone, and didn't see anything.
I pushed off the tree and took off at an angle to the ship. I wanted to get there before the two wackos, so I was sprinting. I was off like a shot. I needed to get to the ship around the two, but not be seen, so I was going to use their sneaking to my advantage.
I felt the adrenaline rush as my blood sped up through my body. Why didn't I run every day? It felt good enough.
I pumped my legs like a demon from a holy man, quickly making my way back to the ship. I'm just glad I decided to take a piss so far away, otherwise the creeps would have gone unnoticed.
I sprinted for what seemed like an eternity, hopefully giving myself enough time to warn the team about the two wanna-be sneaks. I cleared the woods a good two-hundred to three-hundred yards away from the ship, and sprinted my way towards it. I reached the entrance ramp huffing and puffing more than the Big Bad Wolf, and muscles weaker than Jell-O. Now I remember why I don't run that often.
'Or maybe that's a reason TO run more often.' I thought to myself.
I shrugged and shuffled into the ship, leg muscles exhausted. There was either going to be someone close by that I could call, or I would have to keep jogging to the rooms and get them. I decided to try to keep jogging. If those two creeps wanted something from the ship, Fox would want to know what.
Fox McCloud was awoken from the calm and peaceful embrace of sleep rudely by the clanging sound of a fist on the door.
"Damn it," he cursed lightly to himself.
He pushed the covers off himself and sat up, putting his feet on the floor. He sat there a moment, staring at the floor sleepily.
Ever since the end of the Aparoid Invasion, he had been having trouble motivating himself to get up every morning, and it was only getting worse. Simply put, his life was dull, with no reason to live it. He woke up every morning and did the same thing. He ate, worked out, and trained. There was the occasional mission that he and the team would undertake, but these were always only one or two day things to break the [month] long waits.
The only reason he and Falco had started drinking was because there was nothing better to do.
There was another loud bang from the door, startling Fox. He had completely forgotten there was someone there.
"Coming," he called, forcing himself to get up and walk to the door.
He opened the door and found Kevin panting outside his door.
"What is it," Fox sighed heavily.
"Two... Two people. Trying to get... To get into the ship." Kevin panted heavily.
Fox's ears immediately perked up. Two people getting into the ship, breaking in, and were important enough that Kevin had deemed it necessary to Come report it? Interesting.
"What did they look like?" Fox asked, instantly awake.
"One was a lizard thing... And the other was a black... A black panther." Kevin said, a bit more quickly now that he was catching his breath.
"Damn it," Fox muttered, "Panther and Leon,"
"Who?" Kevin asked.
"They're members of Star Wolf, our rival team. They're probably here to sabotage the ship, or take something important." Fox said darkly.
"Alright then, let's go stop them," Kevin sighed wearily, preparing himself mentally for another run.
Fox and I arrived at the hanger very quickly. Fox was panting, but not as hard as I was.
I was bent over panting like a dog, my hands on my knees to hold me up. Fox was looking out around the corner, trying to spot the two intruders. We stood there like that a moment, the only sound was my breathing.
After I more-or-less caught my breath, Fox spotted them.
"There," he said, sweeping his hand out behind him to push me up against the wall.
I peeked over his shoulder, scanning the room. THERE. I spotted the two black clad figures slinking across the room to the ships. We I started moving forward, in attempt to stop them, but Fox held out his arm, stopping me.
"Let's just see what they do," he whispered quietly.
I leaned back against the wall, my head still turned to look at the intruders. They seemed to be messing with the inner workings of the ships, as if... Well, of course to sabotage.
We watched them pull out one or two parts from each ship, and for one in particular, replace a few parts.
"Damn," Fox muttered, "They're screwing with my ship. This must mean that Wolf is planning a race or battle or something."
"Who is Wolf?" I asked quietly.
"He's the leader of their team, Star Wolf. He's always trying to prove he's better than me at flying, even though I beat him every time." Fox whispered to me.
Alright, so they were henchmen. I was right. Kudos to me.
We watched and waited as the two black clad sneak-wannabes slunk out of the room, Leon giggling to himself quietly as Panther shushed him.
We waited a good five minutes after they left before we started talking.
"Alright, so they work for Wolf, who has some kind of inferiority complex, and wants to prove himself better than you, which he's not, so he's going to challenge you with a ship battle with ships that he's altered, and he thinks this is going to make him better than you?" I babbled tiredly, wanting to know if I was right.
"Hmm... Yup, that sounds about right," Fox said, turning back and walking back down the hallway.
"Wait. Where are you going? Aren't we going to fix the ships?" I asked, confused.
"Well, yeah," he said over his shoulder, "But I've got no idea how to do it. We gotta get Slippy."
Oh.
We arrived back at the hanger after retrieving Slippy from his room. He seemed kind of mellow about the whole thing, but when he got to the ships, he talked non-stop throughout the inspection. I don't even know what he was talking about most of the time, just tried to block out his high annoying voice. In the end, he finally deemed we needed a few more parts, of course, and he took out the extra part from, what I had learned, was Fox's ship. He wanted to inspect it to find out it was and what it did.
The whole process only took half an hour (by my reckoning. It's not like there was a clock). I was impressed, cuz even auto shops on earth, with their simple machines compared to this, couldn't ever find a problem, replace the parts, and inspect a faulty part in less than a day.
I watched Slippy test out to see if the ship would start right, sending Fox in and telling him to start it. The engine purred to life in a flash, then stayed on with a blue glow. I was curious, so I reached out to touch the engine (I assumed) which held the blue glow inside a clear window.
The window of course was smooth, since it was, or was like, glass, but it wasn't hot, or even warm. In fact, it didn't even seem to have a hot or coldness, just a kind of pinch when I touched it. Slippy saw my interest and smiled at me.
"Thats the engine," he said to me, "It's run off a plasma substance that gathers and stores energy from surrounding heat and life sources."
'Thats pretty cool,' I thought.
Slippy went over and got into a long discussion with Fox about how the ships got broken, what they took, and what it would have done to the ships performance and functions. During this time, I had no interest invested whatsoever, so my mind was wandering the deepest recesses of space, time, and matter.
Mostly matter though.
That engine concept interested me. The plasma gathering and storing energy for later use could be used for a hell of a lot of things. I was already coming up with gun designs and probably other impossible things to use it for, so I was busy. There was one idea that I could tell was ingenious, but was just out of my mental grasp. It was like that word you know, and have used, and it's on the tip of your tongue, but you just can't think of what it is.
I was interrupted from my deep pondering by a hand on my shoulder as Slippy tried to get my attention.
"Hey," he said to me as my eyes focused, "Were going for breakfast. Wanna come along?"
My stomach rumbled as it realized it had been cheated of food all morning so far.
"Sure," I said, looking around and realizing that Fox had already started to the kitchen. Slippy and I jogged to catch up.
We were in the control room after eating, on the call of General Peppy. He was a large rabbit, large meaning kinda chubby, and he had on a legit pair of glasses. Maybe humans weren't that far behind in visual technologies.
"Alright," he said to the group, his eyes lingering on me a moment through the monitor.
"There have been reports of attacks on civilized planets in the Gulake quadrant, on the Luther fringes of the known galaxy. They appear to be synchronized and intelligent attacks, and seem to be advancing from the depths of unknown space."
"I want you and your team to investigate these attacks," he said, looking at Fox, "I am sending the coordinates of the planets now."
There was a high pitched beep and Falco we to over and pressed something, causing a file, or whatever they call it, to pop up on the screen.
"We have it," Falco said affirmatively.
"Good," Peppy said, "Report to me your findings. Good luck, Star Fox."
"Thank you, Commander," Fox said, saluting.
The screen went blank, and the team, except me and Krystal, went to work. Fox went to some kind of control unit, Falco and Slippy both went to computers. The ship hummed momentarily, then went quiet.
"That was it turing on, right?" I asked nervously. I hadn't thought about if Panther and Leon had gotten to this ships engine.
"Yup," Falco confirmed.
I felt slight relief. No engine trouble. Good.
I waited a moment, only hearing the soft click of buttons being pushed and joy sticks being maneuvered. The silence started getting awkward, so I glanced over at Krystal, trying to get her attention without noise. She didn't notice me. She was staring at something, so I followed her gaze.
I saw Fox.
It suddenly clicked in my head. She liked him. And now that I think about it, he likes her.
The way he would get a dreamy expression when I would talk about the team on earth, but never mentioned Krystal. He didn't want anybody to know he liked her. Seeing as they aren't dating or a couple, he probably doesn't know she likes him.
That's interesting.
But not useful to me in any way.
I shrugged and walked out of the room, heading down the hallways to my room. I entered, and saw something beautiful. There was something shining in my eye! I basically jumped to the shiny object, not even caring to put my feet on the ground. I fell streight to my knees and grabbed the object.
It was my crystal! I had finally found it! I picked it up and kissed it.
I was back in business!
I put it around my neck and tucked it under my shirt, feeling happier than I had since being on this planet. I more or less floated over to my pack and finally bothered unpacking.
I pulled out a couple'a pairs of clothes and carried them over to one of the scattered boxes. I flipped it over and put my clothes on it, and started making furniture of the surrounding boxes. I grabbed one and flipped it over and covered the puke-spot near the wall, planning on using it as a table-night stand thing. I grabbed three more boxes and stacked them on the other side of the room beside each other, planning on using them as a place to out my clothes.
I grabbed my clothes and sorted them on the boxes. One pile shirts, the other pants, then socks and underwear. I had also grabbed my full-body Under Armor, and some knives, so I set those aside.
I grabbed a couple of necessary items for the mission, like my knives, and put on a new set of clothes, including my under armor underneath. I tucked a couple of knives in various places, like my sock, pocket, and the back waistline of my pants. It was kinda dumb, but whatever. Better some knives to fight with than nothing.
I left my room and went back to the control room. Slippy was tinkering with something, and Fox and Falco were playing some kind of game. Krystal was nowhere to be seen.
I went over to Fox and Falco and watched what they were doing. It looked like a game kind of like rock-paper-scissors. They did the three taps before showing, then made hand gestures to see who won. It looked like they had gun, wall, and rock. Whatever.
"So... How do you play?" I asked.
"Ok, so you have a mirror, a laser, and a rock. The mirror beats laser, the laser beats rock, and the rock beats mirror." Fox said.
Makes sense.
"Could I play?" I asked.
"Sure. Why not?" said Falco.
"Cool," I muttered.
We played a few rounds when Fox got up.
"We should be arriving soon," he said as he stood.
Falco got up too, and walked towards his monitor.
I just stayed sitting on the floor, watching patiently. I realized that there was a slight pinching on my chest, and it itched like crazy. I scratched, but that only worked for a little while before it came back. I looked down my shirt, but there was no rash or redness. I gave up scratching, thinking maybe I was developing some kind of allergy to something in space, or something.
"We are now leaving Faarlite," Falco said to Fox.
I watched Fox and Falco pushing buttons and flipping switches and stuff, but it wasn't all that interesting. I was starting to scratch at a spot on my jeans when I felt the ship shudder slightly.
"Umm... We seem to be taking fire," Slippy said, looking at his screen, "The rear shield is at 98 percent."
Well crap on a cracker.
The monitor started to freak out, then the face of a wolf appeared. He had grey and white fur, and as far as I could tell, looked kinda punkey. He smirked at us contemptuously.
"So you're here to investigate these attacks too? Well I'm sorry Fox, but I just can't let you do that." he growled at us.
"Oh please, Wolf," Falco said dismissively, "We could beat you in a ship fight anywhere, any day."
"Oh really now? Well then, if you aren't too scared to come out and play, then let's settle this once and for all, Fox." he said smirking at us again.
Fox sighed and turned off the monitor.
"Damnit," he said, "Well. It looks like we're going to be taking the Arwings to the surface."
Cool! I'm gunna fly!
Fox led us to the hanger, where Krystal was, messing with something in the back of one of the ships.
"Alright, everyone, grab an Arwing and let's go." he hopped up onto one of the ships and sat inside it, pulling the windshield down.
Falco Slippy and Krystal all did the same, leaving one Arwing left. I walked over and clambered in, pulling the windshield closed. It hissed as the ship sealed itself, and I looked at the control panel. Or joy sticks and six buttons. It looked really easy to work.
I heard the other ships hum to life beside me, and looked for the power button. I pressed the big red one on my right. The ship flickered to life. The screen that was in the dashboard thing turned on and showed Fox, Falco, Slippy and Krystal, all in different corners.
They were all wearing little headsets and talking to each other, obviously some kind of launching procedure. Fox went through the team, asking them if they could hear, and other simple things. When he got to me, he asked if I could hear, and waited for my response.
"Yup," I said affirmingly.
"You're going to need to put in your headset if you want to talk to us," Fox said, sighing.
I looked at the dashboard and saw the headset, and put it on.
"Yup, I can hear," I said.
"Good, then let's get going,"
Fox had told me how to operate the Arwing over the monitor, and I'll have to admit, aliens are smart. Their controls are really freaking easy to use.
We had left the Great Fox, and we were currently scanning the skies for the Star Wolf team. There was not a trace.
"Huh," Falco puffed, "That's not much like Wolf. To drop a challenge and just leave it."
"Yeah," Fox muttered, "That's what worries me. That he didn't leave."
"So, lemme get this straight," I said, "He normally follows up on his challenges, and he doesn't appear to be here, so... Ambush?"
I saw a laser flash past my Arwing's windshield. Yup. Ambush.
"Alright! Everyone, scatter!" Fox called, "We'll all split up and outmaneuver them till we've got the advantage!"
Everyone immediately split up. I curled up and right, doing a flip, then realized there was nobody on my tail. That meant... Yup, only four members on the Star Wolf team.
I sat back and watched as the team spun and twirled around everything the Star Wolf team threw at them. It all seemed so random though... They all seemed to be doing their own thing. I watched tensely. At any moment, one of the team could be shot down.
Pfft! Who am I kidding? The Star Fox team getting shot down? Right.
I relaxed and enjoyed the show. I still didn't see any correlation in their actions though. Well, not until the Star Wolf team ended up in a circle, back to back with one of our guns pointed at them.
That was freaking awesome.
"Alright, Fox..." I heard Wolf's voice crackle over the system, "You win... This time."
The Star Wolf team simultaneously flew off towards the planet below us.
"Alright guys, good job," Fox said, "Now let's get down there and figure this out.
We flew off towards the planet.
This planet was nothing like the one I had first seen. The one we had gone on to restock was green and had lush forests and full of other people and animals. This one was very different. And I'm guessing it wasn't natural.
The land was a barren, charred wasteland. There were a few odd lumps on the ground, but it was mostly just charred dirt and ash. It was as if the whole planet had been burned.
We flew overhead for a few minutes, just scanning the surface for any life. There was nothing to find. It seemed that everything had been killed.
"Well this is a downer," I said after the eternity of awed silence.
Only Fox responded.
"Well, the only thing that's clear is that these invaders are very powerful, and are not afraid to slaughter hundreds of innocents to get what they want. The only problem is finding them."
Falco nodded solemnly in agreement, whilst the rest of us just gazed over the charred horizon. A few more Arwings flew in line beside us. A few more spots appeared in our screens.
"What kind of monsters would do this?" Wolf asked, his voice shaking slightly, wether in anger, fear, or sadness, I couldn't tell.
The two rival teams sat in silence, gazing over the horrendous scene before them.
Finally, Fox broke the silence.
"We need to search for survivors. There might still be somebody alive," his voice was cold and hard, "Everyone split up, that'll ensure we get everywhere."
"Alright," Wolf said wearily, "Panther, you go sunward. Leon, you go thirty degrees left of that. I'll take thirty right,"
"Yes, sir," they said, flying off.
Fox split us up into different directions, his voice stone cold and hard as iron. We split off our focal point, flying slowly over the land below, looking desperately for any signs of life. I didn't have high hopes of finding anyone. It just wasn't going to happen.
The silence only deepened the despair, making me sag in my seat. I scanned in silence, turning off the chat monster as the signals got worse and worse. There just wasn't any hope.
Suddenly, about eleven o'clock of me, there was movement. I did a double take, then quickly switched on my radio.
"Hey, guys! I found something!" I yelled excitedly to the screen.
for a moment they just looked at me funny, then I realized I had forgotten to put in the ear piece. I grinned at my own stupidity, then grabbed the headset.
"I've got some movement. You all might want to see it," I said more professionally.
"Great. Send us your coordinates," Fox said, his hard mask falling away.
"Uhmm," I waited for instruction.
"Oh," Fox said, hitting his forehead with the palm of his hand, "Ok, you..."
He lead me through the complex method of sending the coordinates. As soon as I had hit send, I set off, turning off my radio from the exited chatter.
I flew closer to the figure, thinking that maybe I could help them in some way. They might be in shock! I reviewed how to treat for shock in my head. Were you supposed to raise the arms or legs? 'Ah, whatever.' I thought, 'It's probably different for aliens anyways.'
I landed a good hundred feet away from the lone figure, standing still facing away from me, and made my way toward them.
"Hey," I called out, picking up my pace to a jog, "Are you OK?"
As I approached, I slowed down. There must be something wrong. I started to close the twenty foot gap between us when shit hit the fan.
I was taking cautious steps, not wanting to startle the person, when the ground gave out below me. At the first split second, I thought it might just be a one or two foot hole beneath an ash layering. As the rest of my body fell through the layer, seeing what was in the pit below, I realized what was happening.
We weren't alone on this planet.
The team reached the coordinates quickly. We had been talking excitedly the whole way. Maybe the survivor could tell us up what had happened! We might even be able to get an advantage on this new enemy.
The first sign of what was wrong was the empty Arwing near the pit. Our happiness slowly paled as we got out of our Arwings and looked around. There was nobody to be seen. We widened our search from the Arwing, nearing the pit.
As I reached the pit, I looked down, and felt the blood rush out of my face.
There were tracks, and the takeoff marks of ships, but that's not what alarmed me. The thing that alarmed me was the small pool of fresh blood at the bottom.
It wasn't enough to have killed someone from blood loss, but it was enough to show something had happened.
Suddenly the nagging sensation in my stomach became a coil of fear. No Kevin, pit with blood, no bodies.
Kevin had been kidnapped.
Thank you all for waiting! I feel like I've been battling writers block throughout this chapter, so if it seems to have sucky transitions, or is kind of dull at spots, I'm sorry. It's mildly stressful to keep up with this. Also, I have the end of the year coming up, so the IPad I've been writing this on is being taken away (seeing as it's school owned). This means I might not be writing for a while. I'm actually starting to get into the good part of the story too. Darn. Anyways, thank you for reading, and if you can spare the time, please review! even if I'm probably not going to see it for a while.
Thanks,
DisturbedFire out.