So far, the mission was going as usual. Swarms of Venomian fighters leapt out at team Star Fox from behind the myriad asteroids, only to be quickly reduced to wreckage. It was nothing the team hadn't seen before, and nothing they couldn't handle. Still, though, they had another objective besides shooting down enemy ships so that the Great Fox could pass safely through the belt, and when he wasn't busy charging recklessly into the enemy ranks, Slippy was constantly running scans on the larger asteroids the team approached.

Fox banked hard, his arwing lurched out of the way of enemy fire, and just as quick he retaliated with three shots of his own. After so many battles, it was like a dance, and sometimes Fox could even let his mind wander as he fought. What could Dessler have meant by "warped?" And beyond that, what even was that bird? It couldn't have been an enemy craft; it scanned as biological, and according to Dessler, it even had feathers. Was it even possible for Andross to be behind this? Or was this all just a fool's errand, chasing ghosts as Falco said?

Enemy fire collided with the arwing, shaking Fox out of his reverie. Right, fool's errand or not, there was a mission to get back to. Fox pressed a button on his console, and comms went live to the rest of the team. "Slippy, keep running scans on the asteroids. We'll take care of the bogeys."

The comm screen flashed with static and Falco's image came on. "I've got a bad feeling about this, Fox. I'm telling you, this mission isn't worth it; we just need to take out Andross, and then it's only a matter of taking out the trash!"

Fox quickly opened comms again, and said, "You heard General Pepper, Falco. Even without Andross, if there's some kind of warp weapon around here it's gonna be dangerous, perhaps for the entire Cornerian army."

"And what if there is some kind of weapon out there? Some kind of weapon that can eliminate any one ship from the battlefield- or even the entire star system- with a single shot? What if we find it and end up ten light-years out of the Lylat system?"

Fox paused for a moment. He was worried about this too, but this kind of self-endangerment was all part of the job. Right as Fox was reaching for the button to open comms, Slippy's face came up on the screen. "Uh, hey guys? You're gonna wanna see this."

Data from Slippy's latest scan of the asteroids came on screen. Fox read over the information carefully; the center of the asteroid contained a dense mass which the scanner read as biological, and it was radiating a lot of energy of an unknown type. There were no holes or fissures in the rock which would allow it to be pushed in manually; According to Slippy, either the asteroid formed around it or it was injected in by some device capable of sealing the rock behind it. "I think this is what Dessler found, you guys," said Slippy.

Fox opened comms and replied, "Looks like this is it. We'll have to get at that biological material in the center to figure out what's going on here, but if there aren't any fissures..." Fox's voice trailed off, only to be quickly interrupted by Slippy's shout of, "Then we're just gonna have to make one!"

Slippy closed in and opened fire on the asteroid. Oh Slippy, thought Fox, just as reckless as ever. But at least he had a point; as of now, the team was on the clock, so they might as well rush the search with what they've got so far. Fox opened fire on the asteroid as well, followed soon after by the rest of the team. After only a few seconds of sustained laser fire, the asteroid cracked, then split, then crumbled, and a white orb, speckled with orange spots, shot off into space. Fox barely caught a glimpse of it, but it looked like... an egg? Slippy's image flashed onto the comm screen. "Did you guys see that? That thing that flew out of the asteroid was the source of the weird readings!"

The orb sailed off until it became a speck in the distance. It was traveling faster than the arwings were capable of in cramped space like the asteroid field. Comms went live yet again and Fox said, "If that's the source of the readings, I think we've lost our mark."

Falco took this opportunity to launch back into his rant. "I told you this was a fool's errand! Now our only lead is too far off even for line of sight, and our mark's lost. We-"

Peppy opened up comms, the static as his signal went live interrupting Falco. "I wouldn't say that just yet. Look, over where it was headed!"

The team turned their attention in the direction that the mysterious orb sailed off in. An enormous white bird was approaching their crafts. Its body was as big as one of their arwings, and its wings were downright huge. It looked just like the bird that Dessler Coba had described in the transmission. Fox was the first to speak up over comms. "Well, it looks like I was wrong. We need to capture this thing somehow, run some tests on it and see if it has anything to do with Dessler's disappearance."

Falco cut in after this. "If that transmission is anything to go by, this bird is dangerous! I say we capture it once it's a cadaver!"

With that, Falco opened fire on the bird. Fox was exasperated at first, but he took a moment to consider what falco said. The last thing that happened on that transmission before the static began was Dessler flying in closer to that bird, and Fox could've sworn he heard Dessler say something about it holding onto his craft. It was entirely possible that this bird was the danger here, and even if it wasn't, chances were it would maintain enough of its strange energy as a corpse that its role in the disappearance could probably be discovered in a lab. Satisfied, Fox approached the bird and prepared to open fire, but Falco cut in again as he moved. "Don't bother, Fox. You're always the one who rushes in to take on the big, dangerous enemies solo. I'm not going to let you steal the glory here too!"

Annoyed, Fox looked down directly at Falco's face on the comm screen as he replied. "Oh come on, Falco, is now really the best time to-"

"Fox, watch out!" Slippy's warning interrupted Fox as he spoke, and he looked up, to see what the warning was about.

The first thing Fox saw was that the mysterious bird was flying straight into his arwing. The second thing he saw was that everything outside of his cockpit-the bird, the asteroids, even the wings of his own craft-was trailing off vivid, solid afterimages. The third thing he saw was that all the afterimages filling his field of view were beginning to twist and distort, as though reality itself was being warped out of shape around him. Then, his vision went white. Fox heard General Pepper's voice coming in over comms, "Come in, Arwings! Fox, where are you? We need you to protect Corneria!"

The next thing Fox new, he was somewhere else entirely.