What a Way to Start an Alliance!
"General Pepper's on the line, Fox." Slippy informed his vulpine team leader.
Fox, who had been lost in thought for the past hour while he sat as still as a stone statue in his commando chair, came around upon hearing his mechanic's froggy croak. The rust-colored fox stretched, stifled a small yawn of boredom, and sat up, pressing a large green button on one of the arms of his seat.
"I need everyone on the bridge ASAP." he spoke aloud, an uncomfortable shiver going down his spine the way someone's heart would sink in confusion and fear upon seeing himself, as his voice reverberated off the vacant steel walls of the Great Fox.
Fox rose to his feet and smoothed out his uniform before giving his amphibian companion the okay to patch the general through. A few clicks and a flash of white between the Starfox emblem on the main screen to the Cornerian militia insignia, and the old blood hound appeared on the screen from what Fox guessed was his office. He was dressed in his usual highly decorated red military uniform.
"Good to see you again, General," he greeted politely as Falco and Krystal entered onto the bridge from the turbo-lift and joined him and Slippy, "What can we do for you?"
"Pack your bags, Starfox," Pepper began in his usual chipper grunt, "I have a new assignment for you."
"All right, I like the sound of that!" Falco piped up excitedly, earning a laugh from his teammates.
"Where are we headed, General?" Fox inquired with a small chuckle growling in his throat still.
"You're going to a nearby planet called Animus. If you've been following the news any, you'll know that they've recently come out of a massive civil war and wish to form a permanent alliance with Corneria after years of no communication."
"I haven't paid much mind to the media after the ordeal with the Aparoids, but I've heard bits and pieces about Animus. It's a canines-only planet if I remember correctly, right?"
"That's right. The population's ancestors colonized the planet way-back-when as a canine sanctuary."
"What for?" It was Krystal's turn to chime in.
"There are many theories going around, none of them proven fact, but no one really knows why, and there isn't anyone alive from that time to tell us." the blood hound answered, "Some people think it was a cult thing, others think they were banished in some government conspiracy, there're just too many to count. In any case, before we completely get off topic, yesterday Animus was attacked by a rogue squadron of some kind. The people there couldn't give us a very good description of the assailants, so I need you to investigate."
"I hope you'll excuse me, General. I'm not one to look a gift-horse in the mouth," Fox carefully excused himself, "but why send Starfox? This seems like a job better suited to Corneria's investigative agents. Better yet, what stake do we have in this? Corneria doesn't have a base on Animus."
General Pepper dipped his head with weary impatience. "Yes, I know, Fox, but you may think differently when I tell you that from what little information that could be given to us, the lead ships were incredibly fast and there was brief mention of a flower-like picture across the side of one.
"That sounds familiar." Fox commented as he tried to think of something.
"Do you think they mean Panther's Wolfen?" Krystal suggested.
"What makes you say that?"
"Well, he had an awfully ostentatious rose painted on the nose of his ship."
"You sure?"
"How could I not be? The creep wouldn't leave me alone; I practically memorized his Wolfen. I could tell if he was coming just by the hum of his engines."
"Yeah, but what would Star Wolf have to do with any of this? It doesn't seem like their style to pull something off like this on their own."
"Exactly," the General pointed out, "Which is why I need you to work with Animus' defense team, the Order of Kreos, to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible. Star Wolf must be working for someone targeting this planet. The Order might have some possibilities."
"The Order of Kreos?" Falco remarked, "Sounds like a cult."
"Yes, I'm not quite sure what the deal is with their naming system. You'll just have to ask them yourselves."
"We'll get on our way then, General." Fox intervened, slightly impatient to get going with this new job. He was thankful to get a nice break after the Aparoid war to rest up and recuperate, but truth be told, he was starting to feel bored to tears and cramped in the confines of his ship.
"I'm forwarding the details of the assignment to you now. Included are the coordinates of the Order's base of operations. I'll warn you that their technology is outdated compared to what we have, and the Animusans seem to purposefully lead a fairly primitive lifestyle, so expect to rough it out down there." he concluded, "Keep in contact and good luck, Pepper out."
With that, his aged muzzle was gone from the screen, and the famous Starfox insignia replaced it. There was a brief moment of silence as if they were all reflecting on what just happened, and Fox clapped his hands together in finality of the decision.
"All right, guys, you heard the man. Let's get ready for this."
Everyone took to their respective seats on the bridge, Slippy still sitting in his.
"I've got the coordinates to Animus, Fox, patching them through to ROB." the green frog reported.
"Good, set a course and engage when you're all set."
A small jolt and a long surge of backward force let the whole team know ROB had fired up the engines and sent them on their way.
"Course set for Planet Animus. Estimated time for arrival: Four hours, fifteen minutes, seven seconds." the droid droned through the speaker system.
They all shared snickers at his words. It just always sounded so silly how he brought the ETA to seconds.
"Canines-only, huh," Falco began once everything was smooth sailing again, "So does that mean you and Krystal are the only ones allowed down there?"
"I don't know. The thought hadn't occurred to me." Fox asked, seeing if his vixen counterpart had a better answer.
Unfortunately, the indigo vulpine woman was just as clueless as he was, and she shrugged her shoulders at him, an apathetically helpless look in her aqua eyes.
"Now approaching Planet Animus. Setting a standard orbital course." reported ROB after what seemed like an eternity of waiting around on the bridge.
There wasn't much else to do since any other activity was overdone from having been wandering adrift in space for months. The team did go over the details of the assignment Pepper sent to them, but it wasn't like that was much of a time-cruncher. They were slim details at best because of the whole haven't-been-heard-from-in-years thing, so the briefing was coincidentally brief.
"Okay then," Fox began, "I think after what Falco brought up, Krystal and I will go down first. We'll meet with this Order of Kreos and sort things out. The rest of you wait here until I figure out what the deal is."
"Sounds good, I guess." Falco agreed slightly disappointed while Slippy simply nodded his compliance.
"Right, ROB, prep up two Arwings. Let's get going, Krystal."
The two foxes took their leave from the bridge, made the long trek to the hangar bay, and in minutes were out in the vacuum of space aboard their respective ships.
"It looks so pretty." Krystal admired the world before them, "I wouldn't have guessed they were just in a war."
"Yeah," Fox agreed.
"I've just transferred the coordinates General Pepper sent to us to your Arwings' navigational systems." Slippy's squeak buzzed through the Arwing intercom.
"Got it, thanks." Fox quickly thanked him, "Let's land a small ways away from the site, Krystal. I'd feel a little more comfortable keeping a good distance from us and them for now."
"All right then,"
With Fox leading the way, the two made their wary descent to the planet's surface.
"Oh, Fox, it's beautiful!" Krystal beamed.
They had landed in a nice grassy mountain valley skirting a dense forest nearby. Small birds with strangely-colored feather plumes flew by with chattering chirps and tweets into the lush trees. The sun was high in the clear blue sky, and the wind blew so softly that it felt like a cool blanket caressing the skin ever so gently. It truly was a paradise.
Fox couldn't help but smile warmly as she marveled at the beauty of this new planet. He couldn't remember the last time she grinned that wide, but he wished he could see it again and again. It was too adorable for words!
She caught him in the act and blushed self-consciously. "What?" she asked innocently.
But Fox only shook his head and laughed. "Aw, it's nothing. Let's get going. They should be in that forest."
She followed behind him across the clearing and through the trees with a smile of embarrassment on her small muzzle until they got to the dark core of the woods. Her grin faded to a wary frown as they traversed the dark. Someone was there, and he had friends everywhere around them, but she couldn't for the life of her find out exactly where they all were.
"Fox, I don't like this. I can sense presences all over this forest. They're following us."
"Maybe it's those 'mysterious' attackers." Fox speculated hopefully, "Can you tell from where they're coming?"
"Well, no" she admitted, "but-
In that instant, four lithe and obscured forms came down on them from the trees. They were fast and strong, and in a matter of minutes both foxes were writhing on the ground under their attackers' powerful grips.
"You were right, Zephyr," said one of them in a husky voice, "They came back."
"Yeah, but this time we were ready for them. Let's see you try something on us now, suckers!" taunted a younger cocky voice.
"What are you talking about?" Fox asked genuinely confused as he struggled in vain one more time.
"Urgh, stop your squirming!" cried the young male, and a strong fist clashed against the back of Fox's head hard, forcing him uncomfortably into unconsciousness.
Everything was blurry and spinning around like some psychedelic trance as the rust-hued fox desperately clung to reality and fought his hardest to regain his senses. He felt limp and didn't want to move for a little while longer, but somehow his surroundings looked different in some way. It was much brighter here like it was out in the clearing, and even the air felt crisper.
"Their ships are far more advanced than ours." said the familiar husky voice.
"I don't know; something just doesn't feel right." a soft feminine tone argued.
"How so, Aranthi?" asked a gruff voice.
Fox was finally able to clear his vision and see what was going on. He sat slumped up against the wall of a small wooden shack. Krystal was beside him, her shoulder pressed against his, out cold with her head sunk low and her muzzle tucked into her chest. The back of his head pounded with dull pain that turned incredibly sharp when he wearily pressed a finger against the tender area. It was most likely bruised.
He groaned as quietly as possible and looked up, cringing at the bright sun. Three wolves were conversing, two men and one woman. They were all wearing clothes that could only be explained as something of a cross between caveman and street bum, obviously made of animal skins but thrown together in a ragged style usually expected to be worn on a hobo.
The husky voice belonged to a tall and brawny a male red-brown wolf with flared, spiky hair and white muzzle, neck, and belly. His burning yellow eyes seemed to hold back a well-trained but fierce temper as he listened to the she-wolf explain herself.
Next to him was a much leaner black wolf with orange eyes and red markings over them. His ears were elongated and slender with black horns in the space in between them atop his head, and his thick tail was onyx-colored and scaly with red markings down it.
"Didn't those ships look a little different from theirs? We shouldn't just jump to conclusions and assume these are the ones." she explained.
"Even so," the black wolf spoke calmly, "we need to at least question them as to why they're here to begin with. We rarely ever get visitors here, and the last ones weren't all that friendly."
Fox peered harder and saw the she wolf talking to them. She was small compared to the two brutish looking men but she held herself with high regard and power. From the waist down she was black, but from the waist up a pretty shade of violet colored her soft looking pelt. Red rings clasped around her shoulders, wrists, and ankles, and red slashes underlined her eyes and cut across the top of her muzzle. She had a pretty patch of white fur on her chest that suggested her belly was white too. Black horns adorned her head of wispy, shoulder-length onyx hair too, and not one but two scaly tails with indigo splotches trailed lazily behind her. She glanced at him briefly when Krystal began to stir, and her yellow eyes glinted with some sort of guarded reaction.
"Um," she trailed off softly with uncertainty.
The two looked over at the two vulpine captives and approached them, hoisting them up and leading them outside. Fox wasn't ready for that, and he staggered for a moment or two before grounding himself finally, helping Krystal come around afterwards.
"Why are you two here?" he asked with powerful and almost accusing scrutiny.
Fox was slightly unnerved by the leer of those orange eyes, but he answered, "We were sent here to find the Order of Kreos."
He thought for a moment he saw a flicker of confusion in the black wolf's eyes as he spoke. "Why?"
"None of your business why." the vulpine man answered back becoming exacerbated as his senses fully returned, "Why did you attack us?"
"I'm the one asking the questions here!"
"Well, you're not getting any answers out of me until I find out what's going on!"
He sighed in defeat. "Fine, we attacked you because yesterday my community was assaulted by a large strike force led by ships a lot like the ones you have on the outskirts of our territory. I thought maybe you were the ones responsible, so I had my men bring you here."
"So you're from the Order?"
"That's right."
"That makes even less sense! Why would you attack someone you were expecting!?"
"Expecting? We weren't expecting anyone!"
"That's a load of bull! General Pepper must have sent you notification of some sort saying that Starfox was coming here to work with you!"
"I contacted your general earlier today, but I've got nothing back from him. How do I know you didn't make that up just now? I know your technology is much more up to date than ours."
Krystal finally spoke up. "Please, you must believe us. We're only here to help."
"Unfortunately, I can't just take your word for it. Until we hear back from Corneria, you'll be kept here as our prisoners."
"Where do you come off!?" Fox had it and came after the black wolf, only to be brought down by his red-brown companion.
"You'd best rethink your strategy, fox-man." he growled low in his throat and pressed his throat firmly on Fox's throat and watched him squirm underneath.
"Fox!" Krystal shrieked.
"Pyrin, please!" the black-and-purple she-wolf pleaded.
By now several other wolves had gathered a ways away and were watching the five curiously, tails wagging with the energy of the event.
Suddenly, from out of the crowd bolted a pair of teenage wolves. One was a mix of tans and browns with a silver bang falling over one of his bright green eyes and a pair of brown and gold-dappled wings. The other was all gray with tan hands, green rings around his wrists and cool green eyes.
"Dusk, wait!" the winged one called out.
The two boys ran all the way up to them and didn't speak for several moments as they caught their breaths.
"We…we just got a message from Corneria. Our communications satellite went down again, and when we finally got it up and running again…there it was." the gray one panted out.
"And?" Dusk asked impatiently.
"Starfox is on their way."
Fox would have laughed an I-told-you-so laugh had he not been at the mercy of the lupine brute.
"Pyrin! Let him go!" Dusk barked shocked, "Didn't you hear them!?"
Pyrin quickly stepped away, and Krystal helped Fox up.
"Why, what's wrong?" the gray wolf asked oblivious.
"Oh no, don't tell me," the winged one said dreadfully, "They're Starfox!?"
Fox scowled, instantly recognizing his voice as the assailant that struck across the head, and his bruise seemed to throb angrily in bitter recognition of its creator.
"Yes, Zephyr," Dusk sighed in embarrassment and shame, "Go take them to Druid, and have her tend to them."
The she-wolf beside him bit her lip embarrassingly while Fox and Krystal were led away by Zephyr to a small site of run-down housing that could be seen a ways off.
"Surprise?" the grey lupine boy tried to lighten the mood, but he only got a sharp look from Pyrin and ended up following his winged friend.
"What a way to start off an alliance!" the black-and-purple she-wolf said finally and comfortingly squeezed Dusk's shoulder.
"Aranthi, sometimes I wonder how we survive in this world day after day." he sighed, took her by the hand and led her back to site, Pyrin following behind them.
Author's Note: Well, hopefully you could follow all of that. I tried not to make it sound confusing when bringing in all those characters at once (haven't done that in previous fanfictions before), so I can only pray I did a good job with that. Enough nit-picking at myself though; that's your job to point stuff out to me! Drop me a review and tell me what you think! :3