This chapter took a pretty long time to write. I have a lot more ideas for coming chapters, and also, school's been strangling every last bit of freedom I could possibly fathom... These are two reasons why it might take me a while to update in the future. The story is far from being complete, so fear not, fellow readers... I shall strive to continue onward. Again, reads and reviews are highly appreciated.

CHAPTER 10: Reawakening

A dense fog hissed across a craggy surface. Two silhouettes approached each other from opposite ends, one appearing to kneel on one knee a short distance away. The other rasped in a low, intimidating tone.

"Cadavera… Respond."

"Yes, my Lord. What are your wishes?" The other figure had a lighter tone, clearly that of a female… She remained static and inexpressive as though she were demonstrating unbreakable composure.

"Proceed with your discoveries."

The shadow of Cadavera hadn't inched out of place as though she were a completely inanimate object, "The boy… He is one of the lynx."

"That is false. Why do you assume such confidence to confront me with this nonsense?"

"My most sincere apologies, my Lord… 'Tis what I witnessed during the reconnaissance."

The shadow directly in front of Cadavera seemed to scoff from annoyance, "Bah… Even my most trustworthy eye is losing its vision. The senses of your leopard kind are usually flawless, as I was originally convinced. Very well… Let us assume this to be true for the time being. What further information is there? Speak up."

"There is a spiritual presence within him that exceeds the essence of Zaoduh."

"Explain to me how something as preposterous as that could be possible."

"It is Mudarduh, my Lord… The remaining soul of Celestia has exceeded the boundaries of his own strength by combining his own core with that of the lynx's body. There are apparently other specters within him as well."

"The power of Mudarduh's righteousness has, by far, paled in comparison to the darker quintessence of his counterpart."

"If I may, Your Excellence… Zaoduh has noticeably weakened."

The masculine voice raised its intensity, "This… This is improbable. Nothing more than ridiculous."

"It is the presence of the other ancestral ghosts that assist the lynx to further withdraw spacial power… Dobriduh, the embodiment of goodness, and Bijesanduh, the raging beast, as well as the elemental spirits."

"I see… I have no punishments in order since you successfully completed your task," the voice calmed itself once again. "Dismiss, Cadavera. In the most profound darkness of black matter we shall meet again to discuss your further assignment…"

Cadavera stood up and appeared to take a bow. The shadows dispersed and seemed to fade into the moaning cloud of gas.

…

"So… Siva and his men are still out there, eh?"

Falco rubbed his beak and muttered a question curiously while deeply thinking about Sky's story. Fox sat beside him, confused about how that could possibly be accomplished. The lynx nodded with a somewhat grave countenance.

"That is correct. The forces within me have detected traces of threateningly sinister matter somewhere on this planet…" The lynx sighed and closed his eyes again, leaning his head back slightly. Fox appeared to be engaging his full concentration as well.

Suddenly, he shot upright and widened his eyes, quickly blurting out another inquiry, "I-Is that why you left the Wind Kingdom? You could sense evil there?"

"Yes. I could feel a very faint hint… It disturbed me, almost repelling me away from the mountain itself as though it were a sleeping giant awaiting its eruption. I also had suspicions that I could have been under surveillance."

The pheasant raised both eyebrows again and almost stood up, "Who the hell would do that sort of thing?! You don't think it could be… No way!"

"It is a possibility that I cannot simply discard. Siva could know of my existence. However, I mustn't be so hasty as to target the source and attempt to confront it directly… I am not prepared enough for such a battle, should there be one, especially against someone as mighty as the mastermind behind the genocide of my species. I resided to building this shelter in order to secure my own protection."

Fox responded with another proposition almost immediately after Sky finished, "Well then what are we still doing here? That threat could very well still be imminent, and plus we need to find a way out of here also!"

Falco followed him up, "Yeah, definitely. How's about we put things this way: you help us escape Div Whatever-its-name-is, and in return, we'll try and help shield you from anything that could harm ya?"

The lynx thought pondered upon the offer for a few minutes while the two-man squadron withheld their anxiety and impatience. Finally, he responded, "I'll do it. At first I considered it as ineffective because of your current conditions, but I may have a solution to get you two back to the Lylat as soon as possible."

The vulpine and pheasant smiled and nodded their heads simultaneously from gratitude and looked at each other with newfound expressions of hope.

"Perhaps, if your technology has the aptitude, you can later relocate this planet and recover your ship from the wreckage site. I would imagine that to be quite expensive, no?"

"Damn right it is…" Falco chuckled nervously, "We'd have our asses toasted by General Peppy if we permanently lost that thing."

"Wait a second…" Fox blinked at Sky and swallowed, "You mean we're gonna have to leave the Great Fox here? What's your method of getting us outta this place?"

Sky sighed and opened his eyes once again, reaching over towards his food supply and withdrawing a pitaya, "It involves teleportation. It's very risky, but effective… I possess the capability, but it would consume a massive amount of my remaining body energy to perform such a task."

The two assessed what they had just heard from Sky, watching as he peeled the skin off of his fruit and proceeded to steadily eat its innards. Once he finished, he drew a deep breath and clapped both of his hands together.

"I need you to envision in your own minds your desired location. As we enter the spiritual void, I shall convert the image into our destination, which would be existent at the end of a dimensional hiatus. Oh, and I need you both to breathe at the same speed," he added.

"The spiritual what?!" Falco almost exclaimed.

"Just trust him… It's our only chance of escaping," Fox motioned calmly for his teammate to close his eyes. "Think of the Cornerian Military Headquarters. Now watch me…"

Falco forced himself to relax and briefly observed his teammate, then closed his eyes as they both inhaled and exhaled in unison. They both imagined an external view of the illustrious command center that contained the office of General Peppy on their home planet in the Lylat.

The lynx proceeded to fully synchronize their breathing rate with his own while he amplified an immense amount of power inside of him. His body emitted an incredible blinding aura, illuminating the room and causing a strong draft to swirl inside the tent, but by then they had already traversed deep into another dimension.

The gust, which was set ablaze with flashes of brilliant blue color, had increased its strength from blowing the candlelight out to almost uprooting the external structuring of the shelter as well as causing its thickened walls to flap violently in the tremendous uproar. The three bodies, however, remained completely stationary inside, unaffected by their surroundings as they radiated into a shining outline while anesthetized to a widespread numbness.

Within seconds, they had faded into the swirling lights, and the shelter had all but entirely fallen apart. There was nothing left except for a few scraps of carpet and clothing scattered across the soft snowy landscape.

…

A loud and obnoxious knocking noise was heard at the door of General Peppy's office. The famed military leader was abruptly awoken from an unintended slumber as he was hunched over in his chair at his own desk. Mountains of papers were piled in various heaps on the smooth surface of his working area, which was lit only by a tiny fluorescent lamp that hung overhead. There was much work to be done and many hours to be spent completing it, yet the general's lack of rest had unfortunately gotten the best of him.

The exhausted hare searched the room frantically for whatever had interrupted his sleep. A muffled voice broke through the locked entrance, "General! Sir, you have to come outside the building! Something unreal just happened!"

Peppy uttered a faint grunt and narrowed his blurry eyes at the control panel on his desk as he flipped a switch to unlock the door. He mumbled in a low, smoky tone that was ripe with tiredness, "Calm yourself. I'll see to it…"

As soon as the metallic entrance slid open, a uniformed canine soldier almost stumbled inside with a somewhat flustered look as he tried to regain his breath. The grumbling old hare got to his feet and exited his work area, being escorted quickly by the frantic and excited soldier who was babbling out details at a speed which made everything almost impossible to interpret. Peppy rubbed the sleep out of his eyes while navigating through a complex maze of hallways to the elevator, and there were only a few words he could catch along the way.

"… the two… I think they were… and… randomly appeared… few minutes… big crowd!"

"Mhmm, okay… I'll deal with things," the general droned in response. The soldier took deep breaths to ease out of his panic.

As the two entered the main lobby of the Cornerian military headquarters building, they noticed that outside the door there was a huddle of men gathered. Peppy's eyes blinked open a bit more, and some of his weariness was replaced by a slight sense of alarm and suspicion. The two walked cautiously outside of the building from its grand entrance, the other men creating a wide path for the hare and assisting canine to walk through. All forms of commotion had been hushed instantly at the sight of their leader.

The other men had formed a semi-circle around a three-man group on the sidewalk next to the building. However, as Peppy approached the center of the circle, he noticed that it wasn't just any average group… Two dazed faces, those of a vulpine and pheasant which were very familiar and immediately recognizable, tried to make sense of their current environment as though they had just experienced a powerful trance. Behind them, another figure was lying sprawled on the ground on his front side, motionless except for the fact that his back was rising and setting with shallow breathing.

The general was thoroughly shocked and surprised to see Fox McCloud and Falco Lombardi standing in front of him.

The vulpine's vision finally came to, "Whoa… General Peppy, is that you?"

Falco's senses were regained immediately after his teammate's, "Yo, Fox! It really worked! That spirit realm thingy was pretty trippy though."

…

General Peppy, now fully awake and in deep thought, sat at his desk inside his headquarters building office once again while Fox and Falco lounged one of two small couches that were positioned close to the general's work area. In the other couch, the white-furred figure that was collapsed on the sidewalk beside the two earlier outside was stretched out on his back with his head resting comfortably on a leather cushion as he was still unconscious. An audible snore could occasionally be heard from his end.

The befuddled hare took in a breath of air and exhaled, "Alright… I have a lot of questions for you two, and there are many explanations that I must hear in return."

"Yes, Sir," Fox nodded firmly. Falco mimicked the vulpine in the same manner.

"Right then… First and foremost, why did you appear at the front door of our headquarters so spontaneously? You haven't shown yourself in person here in almost a decade since the end of the Aparoid invasion."

"Err… Well, uh…" Fox sighed nervously, "You see, we teleported here."

Peppy leaned back in his chair, rubbing his chin skeptically for half a minute before finally deciding to accept what was just told to him, "Right… How did this happen?"

This time, it was Falco who replied, "We were cruising towards Aquas a few days earlier when we got swallowed whole by this huge space cloud. When we got out of it, we ended up making a crash landing on this really icy planet in some different galaxy."

Fox swallowed as he finished their story, "We had to make a little trip through a blizzard to seek shelter after the Great Fox was almost completely destroyed. We not only found a place to keep warm, but we also found someone with a really interesting background who graciously took us in."

The general, still attempting to make sense of their explanations, pointed a finger towards the slumbering figure on the other couch, "Now tell me who this is. Why did you haul him here unauthorized? We Cornerians haven't seen his kind here before and we don't know what his plans are or what he's capable of doing."

Fox finally smiled as he answered, "That's Sky. He's a lynx from the planet we mentioned earlier. He's got a pretty long life story, but we heard some pretty fascinating things from him…"

"That's no excuse for picking up strays and bringing them onto government grounds."

"But wait!" The vulpine held up a hand and interrupted, "Sky's the one who helped us through the blizzard and also the one who teleported us here."

As soon as he finished, the lynx mumbled something inaudible and leaned his head up as he was at last regaining consciousness. He sat his tired body up and rubbed his temples while he moaned out and tried to open his eyes.

Sky had yet to make sense of his surroundings as he felt from his chest down to his feet to make sure he was still in one piece, only remembering that he had passed through the spirit realm again. He felt his hands against his belt and noticed that something was missing, immediately causing his topaz pupils to shrink in a miniature panic attack.

The lynx stuttered out loud in his own Celestian tongue, asking where Aegis's Tail had disappeared to. Then he took a glance around the room to find an aged uniformed hare staring at him blankly from behind a cluttered and dimly lit desk. The room that he was in had a few windows in the back wall, but they were masked over with blinds so that only cracks of light could seep into the area onto the smoothly polished floor. Near the main desk on a different piece of furniture, he recognized Fox and Falco as they were looking at him with excited expressions that also seemed to be filled with relief.

Realizing that the three couldn't understand his question, he switched over and then asked, "What happened to my sword?"

The general glanced over at the other two with a surprised look, "He speaks our language?"

Fox nodded positively, but before he could respond, Sky had already caught on. He added, "Oh, m-my apologies, sir. I can telepathically synchronize with other minds in order to gain the ability to speak their tongue…"

Peppy nodded very slowly, still quite discombobulated, "I guess I can understand that. Now, as for your weapon… It's been confiscated and put away safely in a different room."

Sky sighed and averted his gaze to the ground, dissatisfied and a bit anxious. He then looked back up at the general, "Sir… Uh, who are you? A-And where exactly am I?"

"My name is General Peppy. It's a pleasure to meet you… Sky." The hare put on an amiable smile and waved his hand in greeting, "Welcome to Corneria, heart of the Lylat System."

"Thank you, General," Sky smiled in return and looked towards Fox and Falco, who decided to continue their lengthened report.

Falco lowered his tone, worried about what Peppy's impending reaction would be to his next bit of information, "Alright, so when we teleported here, there was something we were forced to leave behind…"

Unfortunately, the general had already comprehended what the pheasant was attempting to inform him of. He almost shot up from his chair, "The Great Fox! It's still wherever you had crashed it? And you said it was destroyed?!"

"Yeah… We're gonna have to go back and hunt for it later."

Peppy leaned back in his chair and gripped his forehead, running it down his face as he let out an exasperated sigh of frustration while staring up at the ceiling. He tried relaxing his own nerves as much as he could and added more calmly, "Well… I suppose it's possible. It would depend solely how far away this new planet of yours is. Anyway, I think I've got the basic idea of what happened… Is there anything else you have to tell me?"

Fox was quick to jump on the situation, "Yes, Sir. There's a pretty big threat out there that could possibly reach the Lylat…"

"Another threat?"

"You see, Sky is the last survivor of his race. He witnessed the genocide of his people at the hands of an evil foe…"

Sky, who had been listening closely to the conversation, lowered his tufted ears and frowned at the mentioning of that horrific incident, but he reluctantly joined in with a lowered, serious tone, "Yes, General… The vortex which sent the Great Fox in a violent death spiral was caused by black matter, an energy harnessed by the one who killed my people. There is no explanation yet for how it was able to reach as far as the Lylat, but… I am quite possibly still being pursued by his men currently, given the fact that I was supposed to be dead along with my brothers and sisters."

Peppy leaned in, furrowing his brows, "You mean to say that you came with Fox and Falco in order to seek refuge against this threat? Just how powerful of an enemy is he?"

Sky blinked at the ground and then fixed the general with an expression much graver than before, "He has the potential to obliterate every object within the vicinity of the Lylat. Should we be unprepared for such a menace, there would be absolutely nothing left."