CHAPTER 3: To Make a Journey

"Hey, bud…"

There was a familiar voice, muffled for some odd reason. Where was it coming from? All Fox could see was darkness…

"I know you can hear me, come on."

The voice grew somewhat less muted. All Fox could remember was falling into that black pit. Now he could hear some kind of howling wind.

"Bro, wake up! It's not safe for us here!"

Fox's eyes slit open very slowly. Of course, his double-vision made everything blurry, and his other senses were trying to recover from the same numbness… He moaned and moved his head over to the side, "W… What in the… F-Falco?"

"Yeah, it's me. Now wake up, Sleeping Beauty. We gotta get moving and I can't carry you around that much longer."

Fox's sight still wasn't perfect by any means, but it became clear enough so that he could focus on Falco's face, staring worriedly down at his own. Swirling winds roared around the two, and nothing else could be distinguished in their relative location… They remained stationary over a thin layer of snow, and their bodies were well hidden by the surrounding flurries.

As Fox assessed these facts, his eyes shot open and all of his senses finally became active. He tried to sit up, but pain shot through his weakened body at that instant. He gripped his forehead in agony and grunted, squinting his eyes shut once more while he leaned on his hand.

"Ugh! What in the world?!"

Falco's boots crunched into the snow as he knelt down next to his comrade, placing a wing on his shoulder. He spoke softly, "I don't think you're gonna like what's going on…"

Fox brushed the piled-up snow off of his body and finally managed to sit up, looking at Falco with a panicked, yet inquisitive expression.

"Well, give it to me straight then."

Falco's wing pointed into the distance to a gigantic object. Only its silhouette could be seen through the snowstorm, but as the two slowly stood up and walked closer, Fox gasped in absolute shock while his pupils shrunk.

He stuttered almost inaudibly, "T… That's the…!"

"You're right. There she is."

Details on the object could now be fully made out as the two stood a much shorter distance away from it. Towering above them was the Great Fox. Its bridge was buried into the snow and only its afterburners jutted out from the thick mountains of ice built around it. Certain areas of the wings and hull belched out smoke while sparks crackled out of gaping holes made into its backside. It seemed as though it were impossible to remove the craft from the ground, and repairs were way out of the question.

Fox's gaze averted towards the ground in dismay. He cursed under his breath and clenched his fist, forcing himself to turn his head away from the wreckage site. This couldn't have been happening again… He and Falco had gone through too much just to see that this one souvenir, the vessel that had carried them through to victory countless times, remained intact and functional. The vulpine wanted to scream out in frustration, but all he could manage was a dejected frown with furrowed brows.

Falco, with his arms crossed and his gaze firmly focused on the ship, spoke up, "After our little unexpected voyage, everything took a turn for the worst. ROB was dislodged from the control panel and you had slammed your head against something. Once you got all bruised from being tossed all over the place, I found you and took you with me as we escaped from that heap of trouble. We somehow ended up here, and all of our communications are down… This definitely isn't Fichina, because otherwise we would have been found and brought back to some military base nearby."

"So… this is it?"

"We're stuck in some wasteland. For now, at least… All we can do is try and find some way out of here."

Fox exhaled heavily, "Well then let's get moving. Unfortunately, we have to leave the Great Fox here for right now, because it won't do any good risking the energy we have fumbling around in all those dangerous piles of scrap metal."

The two both loosened up and began to trudge through the hills against the direction of the flurries. They would have yet to figure out their exact location, but that wasn't their primary concern…

…

Sky was awake at night when the outside had darkened considerably. The sweet song of the pterolarks drifted across the landscape and danced into the lynx's ears. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, sitting up in his sleeping mat. A candle lit on his rock stand was the only source of light other than the soft glow filtering through the window in his hut.

Far away, a mysterious object, gigantic in size and brilliantly shining, floated over the calm village of Zelenoa. There was an apparent atmosphere surrounding the object, shrouding it in a white misty cloud as it augmented into a much larger size than the two suns combined during the daytime. This huge sphere was known as Div Sablast, meaning "giant ghost," because of its ghastly yet beautiful qualities. It also mysteriously disappeared from the night on every second sundown for reasons unknown.

The luminescence emanating from Div Sablast delicately brushed against the walls and surface of Sky's shed, concocting with the candle's flickering radiance to create a calming air which placated the senses and soothed the tiredness of the lynx's body.

Sky's eyes opened once again. His pupils glimmered in the candlelight like topaz jewels as they blinked a few times before focusing directly in front of him. Sky reached a hand up to brush his fingers gently through his lengthened locks of hair, which covered the top of his head and flowed seemingly like a stream of water around both of his ears. Smaller tufts of hair arose from the tips of his ears as they were perked and alert to any other possible sounds in his environment. The rest of his hair dropped in broad lavender streaks across his eyes and around the back of his head, almost touching his shoulders. His round and smoothly formed face was tranquil, showing an unwrinkled thin layer of snow white fur. His nose was smaller in comparison to the other features of his countenance, as were the thin whiskers that sprouted from both of its sides. His lips were slightly pursed in concentration as his mind entered a state of serenity to reflect the present setting.

Sky sat cross-legged in the center of his hut, taking extended deep breaths and slowing his body down in order to prepare it for rest. The call of the pterolarks seemed to up its volume until a familiar creature flew into the window and perched once again on Sky's cylindrical stand.

"Very late, it is. Why are you not asleep?" The bird cocked its head to the side while quietly inquiring in a Celestian squawk.

Without altering his position, the lynx calmly greeted the pterolark in return, "Hey, Kuna. My dad taught me meditation because it calms the mind, so I figured, why not do it before sleeping? It lets me have better dreams."

Kuna chimed positively while moving his head back and forth from content, "My, you know quite a lot for a ten-year-old. I guess the theory of rapidly maturing young is favorably correct."

"You didn't believe that?" Sky still refrained from averting his gaze.

"Of course I didn't. For such intelligent life forms, it normally requires a much larger amount of time to fully mature."

"You would know more than the rest of my siblings. For some reason, I'm the only one interested in learning… the only one who ever asks why. My classmates always looked at me like I was some lunatic whenever I tried to drag them into whatever I was doing or trying to figure out." Sky drew a heavy sigh and blinked his eyes slowly.

"Very much you have learned, without a doubt," Kuna nodded. "That you will continue to see from different perspectives, I hope."

As the bird began to fly out of the window, Sky turned towards him and gave a pleasant wave followed by a quiet verbal expression of gratitude. He shifted his position, pulling the covers of his sleeping mat over his body and leaning up to blow his candle out.

The sweet melody of the pterolark gradually came to a close as another Zelenoan nightfall ensued. Sky satisfyingly shut his eyes and fell asleep without any struggle.

…

Before long, a raging blizzard had emerged from the cold flurries. It felt as if icicles were piercing the roaring winds and slicing through the numb, exhausted bodies of the Star Fox team as they had journeyed for hours without stopping. Disregarding their excruciating pain, Fox and Falco focused their minds on the path ahead of them on their journey to find some form of shelter or refuge from the intensifying snowstorm.

So far, it seemed as though they weren't having much luck… Communications were still down, and it did not appear as though they would miraculously receive a signal any time soon.

But the two warriors held fast and carried the trek onward into the unknown.

…