Escape the Darkness...

Chapter 3

The sun rose over the hills and splashed light on the luscious plains of Thorntail Hollow. The thorntails were sleeping lazily in the sun's warmth. The royal family of Earthwalkers had pent the night in the hollow and, presently, King Tricky awoke. He walked into the stream and let the cool water wake his senses. Feeling refreshed, Tricky thought that he would pay a visit to the Warpstone today. However, the hollow suddenly began to get darker. Alarmed at the sudden change, Tricky looked up at the sky and was taken aback. An enormous shadow had engulfed the sun and was beginning to spread across the sky. Looking back around the hollow, Tricky realized the thorntails were no longer sleeping, but they seemed to be frozen in time. Horrified, Tricky turned his attention back toward the sky, which was now completely black. Tricky could just make out a large shape moving ominously through the darkness, but before he could discern what it was, everything went dark and Tricky slowly slipped into unconsciousness.

It was not long after their departure that Team StarFox was free of Corneria's airspace. The Great Fox II slowly drifted further away from the blue planet as it's passengers argued inside.

"I think the best course of action is to head toward Fortuna," explained Fox, "Then we can set a course to Sauria before heading to the Aparoid homeworld."

The StarFox team had preparing the Great Fox II for hyperspace. Presently, they were trying to decide on a flight path.

"Why Fortuna?" argued Falco, "There are plenty of better locations!"

"Oh really?" replied Fox. "Name two that haven't gone to waste or been destroyed by us." Fox held up his hand and started counting off on his fingers. "Fichina…abandoned after the climate control generator went on the fritz; Zoness…all that's left that base is a toxic waste dump; Macbeth…well, we blew that one to pieces years ago…"

"Okay, okay!" Falco cut him off, "I get it. We'll stop at Fortuna."

Satisfied, Fox began to walk back over to his chair to enter the coordinates into the ships navigational system. However, he had barely taken two steps when Krystal gasped in pain and threw her hands up to her forehead. Fox abandoned his current destination and ran to her side.

"Krystal! Are you alright?" he asked, frantically.

Krystal lowered her hands. "Yes, thank you. I'm alright. But someone, somewhere is not."

"What do you mean?" asked Fox

"I just sensed a massive disturbance," replied Krystal, her eyes wide with fear. "Thousands of voices just all cried out to me at once! Then silence. I didn't hear anything."

Worried, Fox asked "Can you pinpoint where it came from?"

"That's what scares me the most," Krystal answered. She had begun to tremble at this point. "The call was so short, and so widespread, that it was impossible for me to locate the origin. But I can be certain of one thing: Someone is in trouble."

Fox held Krystal in his arms to help calm her. "Don't worry" he said calmly, "We won't abandon those in need." Then he turned to the rest of the crew with renewed determination. "Alright, first Wolf and his team disappear and now this," said Fox. "We've no time to waste. We've got to get moving now! Slippy, set a course for Fortuna!"

"I'm on it!" cried Slippy, triumphantly. He began to run to the navigational control unit, and then proceeded to trip over his own feet and fall clumsily on his face.

Stifling a chuckle, Fox said his crew, "Let's roll!"

Back on Corneria, a meeting of the Lylatian Board of Defense was in session. Peppy Hare sat at the head of the table. To his left sat Bill Grey, representative from Katina and a close friend of Fox. On Peppy's other side was Katt Monroe, head of the reconstruction efforts on Zoness. Sitting next to Bill, was Beltino Toad, who was the Cornerian Research director, and also Slippy's father. Finally seated next to Katt was Peppy's daughter, Lucy Hare, who had been appointed Technical Advisor to the CAF. The Board had assembled to discuss the strange disappearance of Team StarWolf.

"If you ask me," Bill was saying, "I think the galaxy is a lot better off without StarWolf running amok."

"Our personal feelings for StarWolf aside," replied Peppy, "We still need to discover the cause of their disappearance so we can take preventative measures against another similar occurrence."

"I'm with the General on this one," said Katt, "We just finished building the new CAF Outpost on Zoness, and I'll be damned if I let anything happen to all our hard work."

"Well said, Katt. Thank you," said Peppy, relieved to have some support. "I believe that the best course of action at this point would be to…."

Just then, a Cornerian guard burst into the room. He saluted and said, "Sorry to interrupt, General Peppy, sir, but we just received word that the Great Fox II has been hijacked and from the main hangar."

"What!?" exclaimed Peppy. Great, he thought, now, on top of everything else, I have to tell Fox that his brand new flagship has been stolen. "How did this happen?" he demanded.

"We don't know, sir," replied the guard, "Someone must slipped in while the sentries were investigating a disturbance."

Peppy sat down and rubbed his tired eyes. The last thing he needed right now was more stress. "Have you contacted Fox and informed him yet?"

"We've tried, sir," answered the guard, "No one at HQ can seem to get a hold of Fox McCloud or anyone else on his team."

Realization hit the General so fast that he couldn't help but chuckle quietly. "Just like his dad," he said to himself. Then he got and walked across the room to the large window facing the CAF HQ.

"Just be careful, okay" said Peppy.

"Jump to Hyperspace in T-20 seconds"

The robotic voice rang out over the intercom system of the ship. Fox and Slippy returned to the bridge after making sure that everything was tightly secured in its place. They took their respective seats; Slippy on the far right next to Falco, and Fox in the middle between Falco and Krystal, who was still getting used to the sensation of entering hyperspace. She grabbed Fox's hand as he sat down.

"5...4...3...2...1..."

Then the Great Fox II gave a mighty lurch forward and shot toward Fortuna at light speed. The quest to find Wolf, his team, and the cause of the disappearances had begun.